Colosseum - Spectator Thread

[Gamzee Makara]

Karkat had been daydreaming for the most part, despite the roar and bustling of the packed Coliseum. It just so happens that his most recent reverie, one involving a Faygo Jetpack and a confuddled Harley human, was broken by the booming voice of an announcer heralding that Adam Gaite would be moving on to the semi-finals. Fan-fucking-tastic. Rubbing the exhaustion out of his eyes, the cherry-blooded troll looked down. No wonder he was so uncomfortable; there was a fucking clown on his shoulder. He sighed. Gamzee had passed out.

Groaning in slight annoyance and worry, the Knight of Blood hoists his best friend up to a somewhat standing position. Sort of. Kind of. To be honest, he was struggling just not to drop the guy. Half dragging, half walking an unconscious High-Blood, Karkat makes his way through the shuffling and sitting spectators. At Jade’s unspoken behest, the shouty alien tried his best to not be too much of a grouch.

“Movin’ through, pal.” He announced.

“Sorry,” The beleaguered friend said.

“Excuse me,” He murmured.

“I said excuse me, asshole!” He hissed under his breath.

-----

And now here he is. Karkat is standing in the middle of a crowd, minding his own business. Hands in the pockets of his smokey colored jeans, he looked like an emotionally distressed grey-skinned teenager. To be fair though, he has a somewhat good reason to be. Before he exited the stone arena, the short troll had ushered his friend into the medic bay. The healers were more than a little confused. Exclamations that his fight was hours ago was the most common reaction that the duo received. the conscious troll’s supposed that the medical staff assumed he would have bled out by now. Nah. Takes a little more than blood loss to keep down the clown.

A man clad in shiny knight’s attire clangs on by. His armoured shoulder jostles into the short teen. Karkat grits his teeth and keeps moving, holding back the insult already forming in his short tempered mouth. With a slew of swears and curses, the boy keeps moving counter-clockwise to the coliseum. He was supposed to hang out with Jade at the carnival, but she disappeared when he spaced out. He vaguely recalls her having to conduct some sort of ‘business meeting’. That’s probably not what it was, but yeah. That’s all Karkat can remember, even if it didn’t happen.

-----

Karkat lost track of how long he was walking; could’ve been for half an hour, could’ve been for a couple of hours. He doesn’t even know if he’s completely circled the arena yet. During his walkabout, however, the whispers of the masses reached his normally deaf ears. A dog-morph and his elven companion were gossiping about the results of one of the fights.

“Didja see that Quarterfinals match?”

“Nah, but I heard that there was a Defender of Darkshire who had made it pretty far in the tournament. Was that him?”

“Yeah, it was Strazio. Strazio Rockwell.”

The lone Low-Blood stumbles over a rock. His breath catches in his throat. That’s the bastard that beat the shit out of Gamzee.

“No shit? How’d it turn out?”

Karkat speedwalks nonchalantly, trying to get a little closer so he can hear above the dull din of the carnival.

“Not good for him. You’ll never guess who stopped his win streak.”

“Who?”

“Shang fuckin’ Tsung.”

“Really? Well damn. Talk about a grudge match for the century. Two Defenders? Jeez. That sucks. Did he like, you know, survive?”

“Hell to the no! That Shang was brutal! He executed Rockwell without a second thought. I think he’s the coldest entry in his block.”

The Cherry-Blood stops in his tracks.

Good riddance.


-----

Something is barking. This is not a natural type of animal call, no. It sounds… Omnipotent. The troll recognized that horrifying bark anywhere

Becquerel.

God-Mutt. Mutt-God.

That white silhouette was one of many banes of Karkat’s existence. He swears up and down that Bec’s calls sound like an atomic bomb going off, but no one else can hear it. Choking down any internal protests, the Cherry-Blood easily locks on to the source of that monstrous sound, despite the raging sounds of entertainment around him. Against his better judgement, he heads towards Becquerel and, hopefully, Jade.

Snowy, fluffy ears sprouting from a hood. That’s her alright, no doubt. No mix-ups this time.

“Jade!” he shouts, making his presence known. “Hey! Sorry about that, I-”

He steps forth, able to see Jade and her hellhound and-

The crowd parts for a moment.

Oh.

Who’s this flowery fuck?

“Who’s this flowery-”

He catches himself. Filter Karkat, filter.

There is a very...offensively green young man standing besides his friend. His very much younger friend. This guy was like, in his twenties. Mid-twenties maybe? Karkat can’t tell, the human time system is weird as fuck. At one point he had the calculations down and memorized, but that time has long passed.

They were standing awfully close.

But that shouldn’t bother him at all, no. Jade is a very responsible human girl, and he supposes that she is of age for the human social parameters to make her own responsible decisions in situations like this. In fact, he supposes that it doesn’t bother him at all that his good human friend was standing close to a strangely green yet handsome and no doubt mysteriously alluring young human man.

No. Doesn’t bother him at all.

Karkat clears his throat.

“Er...Hey Jade,” The teen troll begins through somewhat gritted teeth. “What’s up? Where have you been off to? Sorry about leaving you back at the coliseum and what not, er, well I suppose that it was you that left Gamzee and I but yeah you get the idea. You ah, you going to introduce me to the flowery f-fffriend of yours?”

Great. Now he was rambling. Great. Perfect. Fan-fucking-tastic.