4x Showdown

 The eerie flow of teal streams streaking across the sky overhead gave an almost stormy feel to Eridan’s arrival on lotaf. He welcomed the dramatic aura with an approving hum, having already used up the adrenaline rush his previous strife with the humans gave him. His nerves had since settled back into a calm, focused, drive again; still pushing him towards the brink of a meltdown, but at least he could think straight.  Clutching the bloodied corpse in his arms, he closed his frenzied eyes and took a deep breath. He could do this. Everything had become clear these past few days, and nothing the game could throw at him could stop him now.

His search for Terezi's hive covered slopes, caves, and forests - accompanied by random hope explosions when he came across the occasion suspicious game relic. He was ready to ping Terezi herself to ask for the location when he suddenly spotted a familiar looking doll hanging from a tree. He grinned, and followed the trail of condemned plushies until he reached what he was looking for.

Terezi's treehive loomed above him, seeming taunting him and his journey as he approached the base and peered up. He couldn't hear anything, and he knew Karkat wouldn't pick up if he messaged him, so he did the only thing he could think of.

Eridan threw the body over his shoulder and gathered light in his hand, announcing his presence by blowing up a limb right outside of Terezi's respiteblock window.

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Long bouts of Smash Hatchmate, interrupted only by snack breaks and furious, surreptitious Trollian chats, tended to slip into mindless distractions and wasted hours. Somewhere around best 13 our of 25, Karkat had stopped counting wins or paying much attention to anything besides button mashing and internally repeating old conversations until his head pounded between his eyes.  So the noise of breaking and falling wood from outside startled him badly enough his character flipped right off the fucking stage.

"What the fuck was that?" Dropping the now useless controller he padded over to the window, sticking his head out and frowning around until stopping, very suddenly, at the sight of Eridan.  "What the hell?"

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