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Karkat has decided to call this Operation: Guinea Pony.

Karkat sure is terrible at naming things.

But that doesn't matter. What matters is that Karkat has returned from sneaking in Nepeta's cave to use the alchemiter and he has six plasticky-looking pastel headset things. And a purple robot pony. Well, sort of pony. There's definitely some crab in there too.

He has no idea what he is going to do with this thing.

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Robot pony kind of thing.

Huh.

Shephard's gonna be working out what the deal is with that for a while, don't mind him.

Oh man, is Shephard the last person Karkat wants to see while on a mission for a pastel-colored magical pony?

Yes. Pretty much. Except maybe Nepeta.

He grunts a sullen acknowledgement and drops his alchemical loot on the bar.

"New toy?" is all Shephard says. Hey, around here that thing could be anything. Including its own entity, a god in disguise, or just an old-fashioned stuffed-to-the-gills-with-explosives mockery of all things childlike. You have to be careful.

"JUST AN ACCIDENT OF THE ALCHEMY PROCESS," he says, gritting his teeth. "I WILL PROBABLY JUST BREAK IT BACK DOWN INTO GRIST BUT I WANT TO FUCK AROUND WITH IT AND MAKE SURE IT DOESN'T HAVE ANY USEFUL FUNCTION."

"Sure, makes sense," says Shephard. "Waste not, want not. Fucker might come in handy someday."

"IF RECENT EVENTS HAVE TAUGHT ME ANYTHING IT'S THAT YOU CAN'T HAVE TOO MANY BATSHIT INSANE ROBOTS AROUND," he agrees.

As so often, it's pretty much impossible to tell if this is sincere or not. "YOU DON'T THINK YOU'LL MISS THEM WHEN YOU FINALLY GET TO THE LAST ONE BUT YOU REALLY DO."

Edited 2011-09-20 18:49 (UTC)

"Sounds like Ms. Vance to me," Shephard says. "Woman's as attached to her robots as most folks are to their dogs. 'course, only one of 'em's a pain in the ass, the other's a big ol' fucker of a bodyguard and he ain't near as crazy as the little shitter. Same difference in the end, though."

"WAIT IS THIS THE CANTANKEROUS HUMAN FEMALE WITH AN ENORMOUS APE LARVA GESTATING INSIDE OF HER?"

"Two larvae," Shephard corrects, "but yeah, that's my commander, all right."

"HOLY SHIT, I DIDN'T KNOW YOU KNOW EACH OTHER. MAN, SHE CANNOT FUCKING STAND ME EVEN A LITTLE BIT." Karkat sounds pretty ambivalent about it.

"She's prickly as fuck these days. Got maybe a month'n a half before those twins of hers git born," Shephard says. "It's a real fuckin' touchy time for her with a whole lot of people, so it ain't just you. Reckon she'll ease up some soon enough."

"I THINK SHE HAS A PROBLEM WITH ALIENS. OR AT LEAST ALIENS WHO DON'T DO ALL THE WORK ON THEIR SIDE TO PASS FOR A HUMAN EMOTIONAL PROFILE. WHICH IF SHE COMES FROM YOUR WORLD MAKES A LOT MORE FUCKING SENSE."

"MULTICULTURALISM IS A DIFFICULT AND MYSTERIOUS EMOTION."

"She gets on okay with Vortigaunts," says Shephard. "Only kind of alien we got back home that ain't out to shit down our necks. She don't understand 'em too well, but fuck, I don't neither so I ain't gon' give her shit about that."

He leans back in his seat and scratches the back of his neck, thinking.

"I tell you what, she gave me a shitload of shit back when we first met on account of me bein' a Marine'n on account of what my unit did back at Black Mesa when the oogieboogies got loose. She don't give me half as much shit now. She unbends, some. It just takes her a real long fuckin' time, that's all."

"... 'course that just sounds like me makin' excuses but shit, it's the real deal, I swear to fuckin' God."

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That's certainly some sort of crab-pony... thing. Yes.

[blrrrgh lj is being a jerk about notifications.]

Karkat sits down at the bar with his creations; most of them stay put on the bar surface, but the robot pony begins a stiff-legged and sideways crawl. "OH GODDAMMIT, I THOUGHT I SWITCHED THAT THING OFF."

[That's fine. Work hates free time. Idle hands, so on and so forth.]

Ako blocks the robots progress with a coil bound notebook.

"Is it supposed to do that?"

The robot, blocked, comes to a halt, hesitates, and then begins to scuttle back the way it came. "IT IS NOT SUPPOSED TO DO ANYTHING, IT IS NOT SUPPOSED TO EXIST," Karkat grumbles. He reaches over and switches it off with a button behind the neck.

"It's doing a very good job of existing for something that isn't supposed to," says Ako mildly, "Did you turn some of those sickles into these?"

And why? Pastels do not really seem like Karkat.

"I GUESS," he says; he hadn't really looked at it like that. "I MEAN, I DID GO AHEAD AND BREAK DOWN THE SHIT ONES FOR GRIST, AND I MADE THESE AT ABOUT THE SAME TIME. THEY'RE COMMUNICATORS THIS RIDICULOUS MAGIC PONY GIRL AND HER FRIENDS ARE GOING TO TEST FOR ME."

He gestures at the robot. "AND THIS IS WHAT I GOT ON MY FIRST ATTEMPT ALCHEMIZING THEM. THERE'S TWO WAYS TO COMBINE OBJECT, ONE WAY I GOT THESE THINGS AND THE OTHER WAY I GOT... THAT."

The crabhorse wakes up again and begins to wander around.

Ako tries to hit the sleep button this time.

"Magic pony girl? Was she purple?"

She hit something, anyway; it rolls up in a ball.

"Yeah that's her."

That gets Ako to snatch her hands back. Part crab is a poor thing to leave your hand around with sudden movements.

"I tried to warn her about some of the holidays but I don't know how much got through," says Ako, "She seemed pretty, I don't know, wrapped up in the way she expected things to be I guess."

He grunts noncomittally. "YEAH I DON'T KNOW, SHE IS EITHER SPONGEMELTINGLY NAIVE OR SHE REALLY DOES FROM SOME KIND OF PARADISE PLANET WHERE EVERYTHING IS HAPPY SHITTY MOONBEAMS AND SHIMMERING DUSK GLEAMS ON FRAGRANT MEADOWS. BUT THAT IS KIND OF HOW HUMANS MAKE ME FEEL TOO SO, SHRUG."

"WHAT ABOUT HOLIDAYS?"

That's kind of strange and depressing. So about par so far with Karkat.

"Some of them will dress you up or change your shape," she says, "I think the next one should be Halloween. I've stayed human for that one so far, but different people have different things happen."

"SOUNDS PRETTY AWFUL! AND COMPLETELY FUCKING RIDICULOUS, BUT EARTH SEEMS TO BE FULL OF ALL KINDS OF MYTHICAL HORSESHIT. ARE SHAPE-CHANGING HOLIDAYS A NORMAL FEATURE OF EARTH HUMAN CALENDARS?"