Gristrift

Blood coated the machines, which were strewn, broken, throughout the room. A rusty, over-sweet smell wafted into John's nose. The other clones stood staring at a Tavros in states of shock. Tavros was screaming and thrashing. Blood spurted and seeped from the ragged holes where his legs used to be.

"See? I told you! I knew you would get yourself into something like this! Now you're going to bleed out over the nice carpet," said a girl with long hair and an eye patch. She wore a scowl and one one of her arms appeared to be made of metal. Was this Vriska, the girl Dave had said took on a denizen?

"Out of the way!" said a younger version of Horuss. He held a pair of robotic legs, a spool, and a needle in one arm and at least ten towels int he other. John could feel the vibrations from when his feet hit the ground.

Tavros was no longer thrashing. He lay on his back breathing weakly, arms splayed. His skin looked unnaturally pale. Younger Horuss reached into the gore beneath his waist with the needle and thread, presumably sewing shut the veins that continued to pump blood onto the floor. Using his fingers, he pinched off the dangling trails of flesh with surgical precision and incredible strength. He then shoved the metal legs onto Tavros's bloody stumps. The legs instantly shifted to conform to Tavros's contours. Tavros was unconscious and taking in only small, shuddering breaths.

"Why didn't you just let Tavros deal with his own damn injuries?" asked Vriska.

"He would surely have died," said younger Horuss.

"Oooooooor, he would have gotten stronger and learned to become a badass." The "or" became an annoyed song in her mouth.

"Vriska, you did not have this attitude when it was your own eye."

"That was different. I was already strong. Now Tavros is even weaker. He couldn't even deal with a little ogre." She paced as she talked, leaving bloody footprints on the few clear patches of carpet. The other clones also had injuries, so not all of the blood belonged to Tavros. Nobody else looked in need of immediate help.

"What the hell happened in here?" asked John, stepping out into the room now that the emergency seemed to be mostly over. Doctor Meowgon Spengler started to squirm, but John held him tight. Young Horuss was running back to his room, smashing any machines that got in his way. The towels hadn't even come close to soaking up the blood.

The boy who was rude to John on the first day spoke up. "A fucking ogre wearing a breathing mask broke in. It attacked everybody and we all worked together to fend it off like sane, reasonable people until somebody with a bunch of goddamn spiderwebs where her fucking brain should be started directing it towards Tavros and acting like he should just squeeze a gun out of his fucking ass and fend it off. Wow, wonderful plan, why didn't I think of it myself? Is it because I'm smart enough to manage to tie my fucking shoes at least eight days out of ten? Is it because basic silverware functions fail to baffle me? The world will never fucking know. The ogre ran off after it chewed up Tavros, possibly because even it was sick of the cloud that rains diarrhea wherever spiderbitch looks."

"Jealous much?" asked Vriska. She turned to John. "Karkat got things mostly right, except for the part where I saved the day by scaring the ogre away from eating Tavros fully even though he still had time to grow a spine and fend it off. The things you do for love, right?" She blew a kiss towards Tavros, who was getting an IV injected in his arm by younger Horuss. How had a boy who looked fourteen gained so much medical knowledge? "You understand me, right, John?"

"Not really," he said, edging sideways away from her as she strode closer. Dave entered the room behind him.

"Oh, you will," said Vriska, "especially since I am easily the most powerful person here and you'll want to stay on my good side. Do you know what my awesome villain superpower is?"

John shook his head.

"I can rig outcomes. The larger the outcome, the more it takes to rig, which is why I didn't quite get the hang of that giant, scary Denizen. Nobody would have put nearly the dent in him that I did, though. So if you want success in your ventures, you'd better be really, really nice to me. It should be easy because I'm naturally so cool."

"Wow, people really say 'I'm so cool'?" asked John. "You actually sound kind of lame. Like Dave is cool and he never has to say it."

That's all I wrote. Here is (roughly, since as you may recall, this story's failing is that I did not plan he details) how the rest of the story would have went.

Backstory: Sammy Skaia discovered the rift and opened it. Jack Noir came out. Skaia looked into the properties of several new substances. Zillium granted immense, almost godlike superpowers. The others granted lesser powers - notably, those of Grist were all crime-related. His first two human volunteers were Calliope and Caliborn, who both got the Zillium treatment. The next set were the ancestors. Right after they were given Zillium, Jack Noir came back in the guise of an Earth politician and shut the place down while using his odd biology to give everybody the curse of chitin. Sammy Skaia was killed and Condelle was saved by the ring she wore from the rift. Calliope hid and stole food from her new operation while Caliborn escaped into the rift and became the feared Shadow. Condelle wanted power only for herself and therefore cloned the ancestors and gave he babies Grist instead of Zillium so she would always be more powerful. The rift can be pointed to different places on its planet and she pointed it to a grist-exclusive area.

Part one would have vaguely followed the plot of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone not in that everything in HPSPS would have happened but in that major events would have happened at the same points in the story. It was an experiment in structure. John and frinds would need the help of Eridan to get to the suspect (Clubs Deuce, who was set loose each time Condelle let the imps loose in order to frame him. In response, he tried to frame Diamonds Droog, but John sees through this. Condelle did it to weed out the weak). At the end, John would have found the ring, which had the power to reverse the chitin and allow the ancestors (who are frozen in place due to their chitin) to move again.

Part two would have mainly featured the ancestors. Condelle would have had to choose between her longstanding relationship with Mindfang and leading the life she's always led and her crush on the Signless and the path to becoming a better person.

Part three would be about fighting Jack Noir, who has made them out to be monstrous abominations against nature. The rift would explode at the end.

Part four would be about fighting Lord English with the help of Calliope and Team Sleuth and then getting Zillium for everybody. White rocks around the edge of the rift would be the key to creating a bullet able to kill him.

Answers to plot threads:

The "blue barf" from chapter two is spilled grist. Kanaya brought it up there in case Condelle ever failed and she needed grist.

Terezi manipulated others into hating Rose because Rose saw her doing something life-alteringly secret. Look at how I didn't even plan what it was.

Eridan gets redeemed.

The Shadow is Lord English.

Behind the door is the Midnight Crew, trapped (except for on occasion Clubs Deuce) so they can't cause trouble like their leader.

The excess oil is put there by Condelle as a clue to help lead anybody smart enough to look right to Clubs Deuce.

I did not plan where the ring would be.

Horuss would get a pet Aurthour.

At some point, John would fall down the stairs.