John, when reaching through the white house, zaps into the body of one character of the mod's choice, possessing their body, the effects being permanent.
“But you say thislittle house thing is intangible?” you ask Vriska, still mildly confused aboutwhat the deal with that tantrum was about.
Vriska looks at you, annoyed. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’swhat intangible means!”
You decide to ignore that jab at your intelligence for thesake of keeping the team together. United, you can do anything. “What happensif I try?” you ask instead.
Vriska glances down at the juju warily. “I dunno if I woulddo that if I were you.”
You shrug, kneeling down next to it. “I’m not too worried.This is just my dream hologram self, or some nonsense. How many times hasMeenah stabbed me with her fork?”
“Not enough blue stooge,” Meenah mutters under her breath,the Breeze carrying her voice to your ears. “Not enough by a nautical mile.”
“And I always wake up fine” you say, again electing toignore that comment.
“It’s not just about you, John,” Vriska says cautiously. “Thisis a very powerful juju. You’d be messing with some forces we don’t fullyunderstand.”
“Sounds like a dare to me,” Aradia chimes in cheerily.
“Oh my god,” Vriska says, facepalming. “Alright, whatever. I’llbe fucked if suddenly I’m gonna be the lone voice of prudence and soundjudgement in our badass pirate club.” She looks up at you over the top of herhand. “If you really wanna plunge your fist through some sort of hole inreality, then be my guest!”
You reach down into the juju, bracing with your other handon the floor. You feel something sharp prick you almost immediately after youpush it through. Pulling your hand out reveals that you’re not bleeding, so,this time more cautiously, you move your arm back in. Blue lightning arcs up tomeet you, wrapping around your arm.
“Whoa”, you say, dazedly. You feel… numb, like not all ofyour nerves are reporting back properly. “This is making me feel weird.”
You hear Vriska say something, but you can’t make out what.It’s like she’s speaking to you through four walls while you’re underwater.
Suddenly, the lightning grabs your arm and pulls. You yellout, trying to resist, trying to pullback, but whatever force is driving it is much stronger than you are. Vriskasays something else, this time even less audible. Then you hear a pop.
You open your eyes. You’re staring up at a golden ceiling.Okay. So you’re back on the ship. All things considered, waking up is a pretty favorableoutcome. You wouldn’t want to end up trapped in some nether realm for alleternity. That would suck.
“What nether realm?” you hear Jade say, groggily.
Wait. You didn’t say that out loud.
“Uh, yes you did, you dumb-dumb.”
Okay, you DEFINITELY didn’t say that last bit out loud.Something weird is going on here.
Then a hand comes up and rubs at your eye, and you launchyourself into the air.
“Who’s there?” you say, on alert. Or rather… Jade says that?You could have sworn…
Jade screams, and you cover your ears, shutting your eyestightly. “Help!” she yells. “Someone’s moving my body!”
“Me too!” you yell, but again your ears tell you Jade saidthose words. “And I sound like you! What’s going on?”
Jade’s screams stop. You take a deep breath, even though younever told your body to do that. You’re incredibly unnerved by this.
“John,” Jade says,slowly and clearly. “I’m going to put myleft hand on my head. Okay?”
“Okay,” you respond, unsure where she’s going with this.Again, Jade’s voice replies for you. What could be causing that?
Your left arm raises up and puts itself onto your head. Youdidn’t tell it to do that. This feels so weird.
“No, but I did,” Jadesays, control returning to her voice.
Okay, you’re stating to panic a bit. “How do you know what I’mthinking?” you shout, confused. “And how did you move my arm? And why do I sound like you!”
“You’re in my body!” she exclaims, now much more animated.
Your brain just kind of stops.
Your body claps its hands together excitedly. “This is amazing! John, we have so muchscience to do here! Can we both use our powers? What happens if we try to dodifferent things at once? What…”
“Slow down!” you interrupt her. You need to wrap your headaround this.
So you’re in Jade’s body? And you’re both sharing that body?
“Uh, duh, obviouslythat’s what’s happening.”
“Okay, whatever it is you’re doing there, please stop.”
She does, at least to an extent. You can’t hear her voiceanymore, but you can sort of… feel her. A mass of bubbly excitementsurrounding your thoughts, omnipresent.
Suddenly, a thought occurs to you. “Wait,” you say. “How doyou know I’m in your body? You could be in mine!”
The presence in your mind shifts to being mildlyexasperated. “Well, for one,” she says, “we’re both talking in my voice. Andfor another, try looking down.”
You didn’t notice before, but as Jade was speaking just then,you could feel your lips move, your tongue undulate, and your vocal cordsvibrate. This is so weird. But you doas she says, and immediately notice the breasts. The space symbol as well, butmostly the breasts. You feel Jade’s amusement at that fact.
You immediately try to cup them in your hands, but they slipright out of your grasp. Jade starts laughing.
Sharing a body with someone else is hard. You don’t like the same foods despite sharing a tongue, someal times often devolve into a comic slap-fight with your body-mate over whatto eat. You have different interests, so while you want to sit down and want amovie, Jade wants to go out and garden. You’ve come to the compromise ofalchemizing a computer and a monocle together so you can do bothsimultaneously, but Jade still tires of your perfectly normal cinematic preferences every now and then.
It’s also incredibly awkward. You can’t count the number oftimes you’ve fallen over because you both tried to walk the body in twodifferent directions. You and Jade have different preferred sleeping positions,so it’s difficult to get to sleep at night. It’s impossible to get any alonetime, despite how much both of you want it sometimes. And you still have noidea how to wash your hair, much to Jade’s delight.
It’s also, uh… awkward.You were very quiet the first time you used the toilet together – you’ve mostlygotten over that, but it’s still disconcerting having someone else there whileyou do it. It also turns out that Jade is, uh… very sexually active. She getsherself – and by extension, you – off at least three times a day; and she’s good at it, too. Most of the time, youcan’t tell who it is that’s moaning.
You draw the line when she tries to finger your ass, though.You don’t think you can deal with thatjust yet. Or maybe ever.
Despite how good those sessions make you both feel, youhaven’t yet worked up the nerve to take the reins during those sessions,despite Jade goading you on. Perhaps one day.
Still, despite the drawbacks, the annoyances, and theoccasional fights, you’re both happy – Jade even moreso than when you were separated,which you still find amazingly odd.
It turns out you can both still use your powers. Jade canshrink the body down and grow it again, phase through walls, teleport the body,teleport other things… seriously, her powers are amazing. You too can stilluse yours, turning you both into wind, blowing things around, making miniaturetornadoes. You wish you had powers as cool as hers, but Jade insists yours arethe coolest – and you can feel she means it every time. Maybe it’s just somesort of superpower-envy.
What’s even more amazing, though, is when you can each usethe other’s powers as well. As such,you’ve been spending a lot of time training, leaning to use both of yourabilities in sync. During your regular dungeon crawling, you’ve slowly learntwhen to let Jade take the reins, and she too has learnt when to leave you incontrol. You’re good at different things; together you become more than eitherof you ever were alone.
It’s also great because now you don’t have to walk to thefridge when you want ice cream - you can just teleport it straight into yourlap. Score.
When the troll empress tries to corrupt your body-mate, youfight back.
You both feel a force barreling inwards, trying to take overJade’s mind – but what the Condesce doesn’t know is that there’s two of you inhere. You push back against her will, trying to keep your body-mate safe – How dare she‽ – and partly succeed. You shoveback just enough so that you can both communicate with each other. You don’ttalk, not even telepathically – you’ve long since learned to interpret herthoughts directly, as has she for your own. Data and ideas are exchanged fasterthan you possibly could through speech alone, and just as the Condesce is onthe precipice of seizing Jade, you both decide what to do.
Jade grasps your hands around your neck, digs in, andtwists. You hear a snap.
By the time you both revive, the Condesce is dead. It turnsout fancy psychic powers can’t save you from a sniper shot to the brain. Whowould’ve thought. You both thank Roxy (who seems very confused by the whole “we’reboth thanking you” thing), and teleport you all – Jane, Jake, Roxy, and yourbody – to the others, to preparing to fight the Jacks.
“So where’s John?” is the first thing out of Dave’s mouth.
You’re both confused for a moment, before Jade laughs andsays “We’re in the same body now!”
Pretty much everyone tilts their head at you, silently askingfor clarification. Roxy just makes an “O” face, finally realizing what yourdeal is, and Rose just smiles. “Well, this should be… interesting,” she says,a smirk slowly forming.
Neither of you ask her what she means by that.
As it turns out, “divide and conquer” is an incrediblyviable strategy. Instead of fighting everyone at the same time, it’s mucheasier for almost everyone to fight one baddie at a time while one person keepsthe others occupied. They didn’t stand a chance.
Jade wasn’t entirely unaffected by having to kill effigiesof Becquerel, though. It’s hard to hug someone you share a body with, but youdamn well tried, and even if it wasn’t very effective she nonethelessappreciated the gesture.
As everyone starts forming up on the victory platform thing,Jade looks the body up at Skaia. There’s a brilliant flash of magenta light,then a wave of dust sweeps out and over you. You shield your eyes, and afterthe wave passes and you both look up again, there’s a universe there.
“Well?” Karkat says, impatient. “What are we standing aroundfor? Remember what happened last time we fucked around instead of opening thatdamn door?”
“He has a point”,you both think simultaneously. And so, with a slightly trembling hand, you bothgrasp the knob and twist.
You don’t know what exactly awaits you on the other side.Will there be a bustling civilization, reminiscent of the home you once had?Will there be a blank slate, and you’ll have to rebuild society from squareone? Will you even have physical forms at all?
But no matter what awaits you both, there is one thing you’resure of.
And that’s that whatever’s out there, whatever challengesyou may face, you’ll face them together. Two minds in one body, united inpurpose, singular in desire. You have Jade, and Jade has you.
And that, you think, as a blinding light sweeps over youboth, is enough.
