No one's gonna fix me when I'm broke

[knightime]

Characters: Dave Strider, Shadow!Dave, and everyone else who wants to play
Setting: Some hallway on Floor 1
Format: Either
Summary: Dave finally catches on that the other Dave wandering around isn't an alternate timeline Dave, but his shadow. He confronts it in all the wrong ways. Cue boss fight.
Warnings: Obligatory shadows warning. Probably death. Probably nothing nice.

[It took a little hopping around, but Dave finally found where his shadow was. He was fairly pissed, considering they probably had spoken to plenty of his friends or acquaintances by now. He gripped the sword in his hand tightly. Just gotta kill it right? Then this could all go away.]

Man, what the fuck is your problem?

I don't know what you're talking about.

[Dave leaps at his shadow, sword at the ready, but fighting yourself proves to be difficult when they're just as fast and strong as you are.]

You sure as hell know. It would be nice if you didn't blather about inane bullshit.

But it isn't inane. You were too scared to talk about it, remember?

Oh hell no. Nothing you said was true. It's all a load of shit. You're a load of shit.

[There's some loud crashing and if you have the misfortune of being on the first floor of the dorm level, you might be seeing a lot more than you really want to see.

The figure was still the same size as Dave. But it was now surrounded by burning corpses, too damaged for anyone to identify. The shadow itself had peeling skin everywhere and a large gaping hole where the heart would be located. Floating over the hole are clock hands, slowly ticking off the seconds like an actual clock would. You probably don't have much time to stare though. You better either run or do something about it.

There's another crashing sound as Dave is sent into the nearest wall.]

Comments

[plushaeusrumpified]

[Yeah. Keeping an eye on Dave never stopped being a thing he was doing. If anything, it only picked up ever since Bro's encounter with Shadow Dave. Everything heard had made him sick, but there was just nothing he could do. He'd had to accept the fact that the people in charge of this place were untouchable. It was a hard pill to swallow and he was still having a hard time with it.

But then Dave went looking for his Shadow like the flighty bastard he was. And he said Bro was flighty. Bullshit. He'd lost track of him and that was worrisome.

Finally though. Finally he found him.

At least, just in time to see him thrown into the nearest wall by... What even the actual fuck?]

Fuck- Dave!

[knightime]

Fuckkkk. [Dave doesn't have time to react to Bro, quickly scrambling his feet before and leaping out of the way. Thank god for that, since the shadow slammed one of the burning corpses right where he just was.

Oh shit.

Dave just swallowed and stared at the figure. He wanted to throw up just staring at it, but he had to take it down.

This sounds like the worst idea.]

It's cool, Bro. I got thi-[No. No he doesn't. He can't even approach it.]

[plushaeusrumpified]

[Bro literally has no fucking idea what's going on. He just knows the thing is after Dave and that's all that matters to him. His Katana is unsheathed at once and he grips it in both hands, ready to strike.]

You wanna tell me what the fuck this thing is?

[knightime]

[Dave's grip just tightens on his sword. He didn't want Bro to see this. Hell. He doesn't want to look at it.]

Everything I repressed coming back at full force? Funny, right?

[plushaeusrumpified]

[Suddenly it made sense. Everything that... other Dave had told him. This was... that? It didn't make much sense, but. That didn't matter so much.]

Yeah, real fucking hilarious.

[He moved, attempting to get closer to Dave.]

When we kick this thing's ass, you and I need to have a chat.

[knightime]

[Dave meant to reply, but his Shadow obviously has its attention on him. Dave uses his sword to deflect a large clock hand. That would have went straight through him holy shit.]

Chat. Right. Okay.

[He's fucking terrified. And honestly, wouldn't you be terrified considering this thing was technically him? In some messed up kind of way, this had been sitting in him the entire time.]

[worldend_dominator]

[Rosa stares in mute horror at the strange beast that suddenly appeared in the room. There is no way that it is not hostile, and here she is, completely unarmed.]

[knightime]

[Oh heyyyyy. Please don't go attacking other people.

Dave's shadow starts approaching Rosa, but turns its attention back to Dave when he shouts.] Running sounds like a pretty fucking good idea right now. No shame in running from an army of burning bodies.

[worldend_dominator]

A-and you?

[Rosa would run, but her body is still frozen in terror.]

[knightime]

Uh... [He's about to say something really stupid.] I'm going to attack the scary version of me. Not one of my better ideas, but I don't think I have a choice.

[Oh my god. Please move. Please.]

[worldend_dominator]

[Rosa does begin moving, but not away from the shadow. Instead, she is stepping toward it. There is nothing altruistic about her intentions--she just knows that judging by appearance, the boy must be too young and weak to keep the monster at bay for long. And when it finally defeated him, it would come after her.]

[She would work with him, but only long enough to ensure that she could get a good distance on the beast when it came time to run.]

[knightime]

[What are you doing? He kind of just launches himself at her to tackle her out of the way when the monster tries to swing one of the burning bodies at her.]

Okay, let's not approach the crazy motherfucker with the flaming bodies. I think we both learned a valuable lesson today.

[grislytragedian]

Jesus Christ!

[Can't a kid walk back up to his dorm in peace without having to deal with flaming corpses? Jeez, it's like this is SO MUCH to ask for! Anyway, what kind of monster i-- oh hey there goes Dave.]

[Right into a wall.]

[Ouch.]

Holy shit, Dave!

[He moves without thinking, unstrapping his hammer-scythe from his back as he skirts around the flaming bodies to check on his alternate-timeline-best-bro-4-lyfe. Please don't be dead, dude, it's like he only just met you. There are still so many shenanigans left undone.]

[knightime]

[You're expecting too much from this tower, man.]

I think I've filled my thrown into shit quota for the year. Jesus shit, that hurt like a bitch.

[It takes Dave only a second to actually regain a grasp of the situation before he's quickly getting up and shoving John to move.]

Dude, creepy peeling skin version of me surrounded by burning bodies. Standing here is not the best idea you've had. [How do you defeat this thing anyways? Why isn't there a manual for this shit?]

[grislytragedian]

Right, yeah. Sorry. [He totally left himself open there, didn't he? Good job, John. He turns back around to face the monster, raising his hammer in front of him and clearly taking a fighting stance. He's not entirely sure how to approach fighting this thing either, because he can count the number of flaming monsters he's fought on zero hands.]

[Somehow, rushing it seems like a really stupid idea.]

What the hell even happened up here, where did this thing come from?

[knightime]

[Dave has no idea, too. Look at how many ideas he has. None, whatsoever. It's like going against the boss for the first time and you don't have a strategy guide to help.]

That thing was my shadow. Keywords is was. Now, it's just kind of...I guess a mix of things I haven't been talking about. Hah. [That was the most terrified laugh he's ever made.] I may have forgotten the part where you're supposed to just accept it or some shit. Too late now.

[grislytragedian]

Okay, right. You are the second person now who's mentioned this shadow thing now and I still don't get what any of that means but whatever.

[John...John why don't you pay attention to the network when you need to? You're missing all the important deets.]

Anything this menacing just needs to be taken out, that's all. Problem solved. Need some help with that?

[knightime]

Something about repressed bullshit blahblahblah. Basically they're going around blabbering any stuff you were trying to hide.

Awesome, right? I love whoever thought this was a great idea. [Dave forgot, so he's not any better.]

Yeah..I. I'm probably going to get my ass handed to me on a silver platter at this point.

[floreatnoctem]

Dave-

[She'd been looking for him nearby when she heard him- and was too late to stop the denial. She wasn't, however, too late to summon Medea as the other Dave changed, putting up a Tetrakarn around Dave to keep him from any sudden physical attacks and settling herself in beside him, having Medea scan the shadow for potential weaknesses.]

You shouldn't have said that.

[knightime]

[Dave was already trying to scramble to his feet. Ow, that kind of sucked like hard core.]

Yeah, I kind of forgot about it until I said it. You'd think something like that would stick a lot more, but I guess not. [He's putting on a brave face, but fuck if he's kind of scared. He doesn't know how to fight this thing.]

finally tags this...

[restitchtime]

[Rose wasn't specifically looking for Dave - she was somewhere between keeping an eye out for her own shadow and making sure that there weren't any sudden berserker monstrosities bearing down on innocent people. the noise easily catches her attention and she dashes to its origin quickly enough to watch Dave eat wall.

she's at his side fairly quickly, grabbing him roughly by the shoulders to haul him up on his feet. no one ever said she was gentle when she was worried about someone. her voice is testy as hell.]

Really, asshole?

[she's angrier that he was stupid enough to deny it without backup than anything else.]

I am slowwwwwww

[knightime]

[S'ok. He would have scrambled to his feet as quickly as possible anyways. She just made the process faster, even if he staggered a bit to gain his bearings.]

I forgot the part about denying them or whatever. [Dave forgets things 2012.] Kind of can't change that now. I don't know if going back in time would make it worst or better.

it's cooooooooool

[restitchtime]

I've got a pretty bad feeling this is one of those temporal inevitably deals. [she goes still for a moment, checking the timeline - yeah, there's no dodging this bullet]

Guess we'll just have to buckle down and slog through the river of bullshit you unleashed. Good thing we've got a little experience in that or I'd say we're pretty fucked.

[knightime]

[Dave doesn't really want to start a bunch of timelines that would get screwed up, considering how volatile the passed few days were in general.]

Maybe if we throw water at it, it'll melt. [He's being half serious. He really wishes it would be that easy.]

[restitchtime]

We're fresh out of fire hoses, douchebag. [she stares at the shadow, biting her lip. she wants to try and get those clock hands off and see what happens, but honestly she has no idea what's going to work]

Think it's time to rush it and figure out what actually hurts through trial and error. You ready?