Act 5 Act 1 is the first part of Act 5. It is titled MOB1US DOUBL3 R34CH4ROUND
. This act explores the trolls, the intricacies of their culture, and the events that took place before, during, and after their session of Sgrub, leading into their interactions with the kids, explored in Act 5 Act 2.
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We zoom in on a new planet, which is named Alternia, the planet where the trolls live.- As a new adventure called Hivebent begins, we are introduced to a young troll standing in his respiteblock: Karkat Vantas. His interests are strikingly similar to those of John Egbert. He examines his respiteblock, which includes a Recuperacoon filled with Sopor slime and several movie posters from troll romantic comedies.
- Karkat captchalogues his Sickle into his Sylladex with the Encryption Modus, leaving behind a card vault. He picks up the card vault again with the Encryption Modus, which creates a heavier card vault that falls and punches a hole in the floor. Karkat's Lusus grumbles from below.
- Karkat picks up a thick black programming manual entitled "~ATH: A HANDBOOK FOR THE IMMINENTLY DECEASED".
- Karkat goes outside and finds himself confronted with much the same situation John encounters when he goes out, namely the architectural blandness of the neighbourhood. He notes that his species is encouraged to become architecturally adept from a young age. We are also acquainted with Karkat's disdain for poetry.
- Karkat goes back inside and looks at a magazine (Game Grub) and a DVD (The Thresh Prince of Bel-Air) lying on his computer desk before noticing an incoming chat message from terminallyCapricious. This seems to upset him.
- TC annoys Karkat and blathers about miracles. He claims to be Karkat's "BeSt MoThErFuCkIn FrIeNd". He also mentions that twinArmageddons is planning something that seems to be a pretty big deal.
- terminallyCapricious is introduced as Gamzee Makara. His respiteblock is filled with bike horns, pie tins, juggling pins, posters depicting clowns of a grim persuasion, a Recuperacoon, several bottles of faygo, and a unicycle.
- Gamzee captchalogues a bottle of Faygo and his husktop computer with his Miracle Fetch Modus. No one knows how it works, but it sure as hell is trippy. He tries riding his unicycle once more, only to fall off into a pile of horns.
- Gamzee picks up a juggling club (his Strife Specibus being clubkind). He leaves his respiteblock for the beach outside. Soon after leaving the hive, Gamzee receives a message from gallowsCalibrator. In trying to retrieve his husktop, the Miracle Modus ejects his bottle of Faygo far out to sea. Instead, he just reaches over and grabs his husktop out of his modus.
- Gamzee answers GC. She asks if he wants to play “G4M3Z3Z” with him, but he suggests they can play later because he's waiting for his lusus to return from the sea. He suggests GC asks Karkat to play, but she expects a lot of bitching and moaning from him. Gamzee spaces out. He asks GC if she's ever seen the ocean, but quickly rephrases and asks if she's smelled it.
- Karkat fiddles with ~ATH. twinArmageddons has sent him a file that makes the user's computer explode upon usage due to paradoxical coding that executes when two universes are simultaneously created and ended. Karkat talks with TA over Trollian about the game TA wants him to play. TA explains that he adapted it using technology apocalypseArisen found in some ruins. The game will be divided into teams, and GC originally was to be Karkat's team leader. They get into an immature fight and agree to delete the chat from their logs.
- gallowsCalibrator is introduced as Terezi Pyrope. Her interests include colorful dragon plushies called "Scalemates" and brutal Alternian law. Her vision was destroyed in some kind of extreme Live Action Role Playing accident. She is the leader of the Red team, which includes Karkat and four others. Terezi begins LARPing, playing out a heavily one-sided Alternian courtblock drama with her Scalemates.
- Terezi picks up her walking cane, as her Strife Specibus is canekind. She begins recruiting members for the Red Team. Karkat claims he is now the leader of the Red Team, leading to an argument.
- In the near future, Karkat, revealed as the Knight of Blood, has arrived in the Land of Pulse and Haze with his hive coated in Terezi's doodles and missing a wall. He has alchemized the Homes Smell Ya Later and other unseen items. He talks to Terezi again, becoming enraged about the fact that his Load Gaper is in a very inconvenient location.
- In the near past at the trolls' blue Frog Temple, apocalypseArisen decapitates the frog statue and throws its head into the surrounding lagoon out of boredom.
- The Faygo bottle launched by Gamzee washes up on a shore. A sharp-dressed troll with an Aquarius ring finds it, much to his disgust.
- Prior to entering The Medium, Karkat engages his Lusus in Grief, the troll equivalent of Strife.
- twinArmageddons is almost introduced, but he doesn't want to be introduced just yet. Then he changes his mind and is introduced as Sollux Captor. Sollux is a computer expert and harvests mind honey to feed his lusus. He has a penchant for bifurcation in all aspects of his life. He uses his psychic ability to throw shuriken, accidentally slicing open one of his beehouse mainframes.
- AA continues her aimless destruction of the Frog Temple, then reveals to Sollux that Sgrub won't actually save their planet. Karkat activates the Mobius Double Reacharound Virus, calling Sollux's bluff. The curse of the virus (if curses are a real thing) causes both Karkat's and Gamzee's Lusus to perish.
- Sollux laments sending Karkat the virus code and deletes the ones he has left on his computer. He comes across a virus he copied from an obscure server in the past that will subsequently lead to the creation of a "time-travelling indestructible demon".
- Sollux's lusus begins making a ruckus up on the roof of his hive. AA has appeared just outside of it.
- The view switches to GrimAuxiliatrix, who lives in the desert adjacent to another frog temple in a block that is almost identical to Jade's house. GA is riding her lusus, a giant virgin Mother Grub.
- adiosToreador is introduced as Tavros Nitram. He is a paraplegic due to an injury sustained in a round of serious roleplaying. He begins playing Fiduspawn with his lusus. After the game, he picks up his jousting lance, as he uses the lancekind Strife Specibus. Tavros hopes to one day be recruited by the dreaded imperial Cavalreapers. His block is decorated with a poster of his idol, Pupa Pan.
- In the future, GA severs Tavros' legs by chainsaw, believing it is in his best interests. Tavros is subsequently fitted with robolegs by a guy who likes to build robots.
- Back in the present, Tavros is pestered by arachnidsGrip, then engages in a long chat with Gamzee, culminating in an awful rap-off.
- We return to Terezi as she heads outside amid falling meteors to find her unhatched lusus. Her lusus's egg rests upon a giant scale, egg acting as a counterweight to the skull of a Mother Grub poised over a black button. Terezi reveals that when she slept her unhatched dragon lusus spoke to her, teaching her how to see without vision. Terezi's Lusus hatches, initiating the doomsday clock. The Lusus is immediately killed by a meteor, much to Terezi's dismay.
- apocalypseArisen is introduced as Aradia Megido. Her Lusus is already dead, and she resides in some familiar ruins. She claims to have tricked Sollux into helping her create Sgrub. Aradia uses her Ouija Fetch Modus to retrieve a familiar Crosbytop, then converses with GA, discussing the imminent apocalypse. She then has a conversation with Sollux shown previously and appears atop his hive, telekinetically levitating Sollux's lusus. She initiates a conversation with AG.
- Aradia talks to Sollux again, telling him to look out the window. She then places him in a deep sleep. When he wakes, he ingests some mind honey, causing him to lose control of his psychic powers. Sollux destroys the top floors of his block, presumably killing his Bicyclops in the process.
- arsenicCatnip is introduced as Nepeta Leijon. She is interested in hunting and not-so-extreme roleplaying. The cave she lives in is littered with pelts of great beasts and there are tons of doodles on the walls. Nepeta has a playful conversation with Karkat, who is seeking members for the Red Team. She is eager to join, however she must ask someone else's permission.
- centaursTesticle tells Nepeta that she can't be on the same team as Tavros, which mildly angers her. She relays this to Tavros as he accidentally crushes Tinkerbull under his wheelchair.
- In a flashback, we see how Tavros lost the use of his legs while participating in a Flarp role-playing session. AG concocts an unwinnable scenario for Tavros, using her mind-controlling powers to manipulate him into thinking he can fly, just like his beloved Pupa Pan. She forces him to leap from a cliff, paralyzing him.
- Back in the present, AG and Karkat aggressively troll each other. Karkat taunts her about her jealousy towards Terezi, and AG manipulates Karkat with her mind powers.
- The view switches over to CT, only to jump over briefly to cuttlefishCuller before proceeding to Aradia at the remains of her rural hive. She begins playing Sgrub with Nepeta as her server player. Aradia Tier One prototypes with the frog statue head, enters The Medium, and Tier Two prototyes with herself. Aradia has been dead this whole time. We are all completely blown away by this stunning revelation. Aradia tells Nepeta that she died after ignoring the advice of a friend and making bad choices. She asks Nepeta to keep this a secret.
- arachnidsGrip is introduced as Vriska Serket. Her block is full of shattered magic 8-balls, dice, and drawings. She admires a drawing of her Flarp character, which is actually just herself in a fancy costume.
- After stepping on a die, Vriska picks up her Fluorite Octet - her Strife Specibus is dicekind. Vriska heads to her computer and is trolled by GA. She ignores this but someone else pesters her, someone with no chumhandle who uses exclusively white text. White Text Guy declares he has exploited Vriska, but she seems completely unfazed by this. She switches back to GA, and they discuss the deaths of the lusus.
- Vriska goes to check on her lusus, passing a completed Doomsday Device that she built for a member of the nautical aristocracy with the help of another troll with technological prowess. Her lusus is still alive and well, although Vriska isn't convinced this is a good thing because of the difficulties she faces keeping it fed.
- centaursTesticle is introduced as Equius Zahhak. He lives in the same neighborhood as Vriska. Equius aspires to one day join the ranks of the Archeradicators, despite his lack of bowmanship. His room is filled with robots and bows, both broken and whole [due to his (½)bowkind and fistkind Strife Specibus]. Equius finds his Lusus, Aurthour, drinks some of its milk, getting aggravated, breaks a bow accidentally, and then chats with Gamzee.
- Equius trolls Vriska, mentioning the delivery of a present meant for Aradia to Vriska's hive. Aradia's present, a robotic double of her, will instead be delivered by Equius himself in a plan to gain leadership of the Blue team. It becomes clear that Equius has a totally creepy crush on Aradia.
- Convinced that one of his robots is judging him, Equius makes an example of it, defenestrating the offending 'bot with a single punch. The robot explodes in mid-air and its head falls onto the Catenative Doomsday Dice Cascader, initiating the device. The piece of junk breaks, as do two of the chains supporting it. It collides with the rock pillar that supports Equius' block and detonates. The resultant rubble crushes Vriska's lusus. Part of the pillar collapses, ripping Equius' house in two and sending Aurthour plummeting to his doom.
- Moments before the detonation, Vriska pesters Terezi, mentioning a truce to prevent more backstabbing. Vriska states that she has called off the truce now that they are on opposing teams in this game of Sgrub.
- A flashback ensues from before Terezi lost her sight and while Aradia was still alive. They discuss making Vriska pay for what she did to Tavros. They mention Vriska's 'friend' who oversaw this entire situation. The voices of the dead urge Aradia to take revenge on Vriska. Giving in to their wishes, Aradia summons ghosts to haunt her. The White Text Guy interjects, asking Vriska what she plans to do about the spectral assault.
- Vriska takes the bait. She mind-controls Sollux, forcing him to consume copious amounts of mind honey and then fly to Aradia's hive where he unleashes a psychic blast that annihilates her and her hive.
- The first guardian of Alternia, Doc Scratch, is introduced. He cannot be commanded like other characters throughout Homestuck. Like other first guardians, Doc Scratch is omnipotent, unlike others he claims to be near omniscience and employed by Lord English.
- Terezi contacts Doc Scratch and tips him off about Vriska. Terezi then consults Vriska in an effort to find any reason not to kill her. Terezi counter-manipulates her into consulting her "little advantage", the magic cue ball. Terezi informs Doc about the cue ball, which infuriates him. He causes the ball to explode, destroying Vriska's eye (as well as her eightfold vision) and severing her left arm.
- Returning to the present, Vriska and Equius find their Custodians gravely injured from the rock avalanche. Equius's Lusus, Aurthour, is dead, and Vriska's Lusus, the giant Alternian spider, is dying. Vriska decides to euthanise her custodian, rolling her dice to determine what method she will use. The dice select the technique 'Guillotine de la Marquise'. The guillotine appears and decapitates the dying Lusus.
- The fall of the guillotine triggers an unintended side-effect, as the remainder of the mesa, where Equius' hive resides, crumbles and falls. However, Equius's hive is transported into The Medium just before it collides with the valley floor.
- Vriska gets pissed off and bothers Aradia about foiling her plan to use Equius' present. She is infuriated with Aradia for being so passive in this and previous arguments. The ratty Ms Serket curses the dead girl out big time.
- Equius materialises in the Land of Caves and Silence. He immediately contacts Aradia, talking to her about about his present and his shadow leadership of the Blue Team. Equius then takes off, breezing past the first two gates in a glorious demonstration of his strength. Equius arrives at Aradia's hive and delivers the 'bot he lovingly created. Aradia enters the device, only to discover that it alters her emotions so she instantly falls in love with Equius. To Equius' horror she rips out her heart unit, wails on him, screams at him, and finally... kisses him.
- Confused, Nepeta watches as Aradia and Equius get tongue friendly, then she updates her shipping wall to accommodate this change in relationships. Meanwhile, Karkat recruits Vriska to his team. He is shown to be in an alliance with Jack Noir. Karkat is bleeding from a stab wound inflicted by Jack, although Karkat doesn't seem to be too troubled by the knifing.
- Karkat's blood colour is revealed to be a bright candy red, the same hue as human blood. This is not the same shade of red as the lowest color on the trolls' hierarchy, but the result of a unique mutation. Jack gains Karkat's trust by showing that his blood color is the same as that of the wounded troll.
- Jack reveals the Black Queen's weakness: she cannot bear any prototyping that causes her to assume the physical attributes of the hated amphibian Aradia used for her prototyping. As a result, the Queen locks away her Ring of Orbs Twelvefold, leaving her vulnerable to attack. Jack and the Red Team initiate Operation Regisurp, a plan to de-throne and exile the queen. Upon its completion, the queen is resigned to live out the last of her days in the Alternian desert. There, she runs into Doc Scratch, who has other plans for the deposed monarch...
- A brief overview of the trolls' session is provided. The two troll teams are actually one due to the Mobius Double Reacharound Virus. As we are told that we can't be either CC or CA just yet, we skip ahead some pages to be GA.
- grimAuxiliatrix is introduced as Kanaya Maryam. Kanaya goes about her day, picking up her chainsaw, which turns into lipstick. She also has a wardrobifier similar to Jade's. She is pestered by CC, revealing that CC is CA's moirail and that CC is a very excitable and friendly troll despite her noble status.
- After this conversation, Kanaya checks on her lusus, discovering that it has perished. Using her lipstick/chainsaw, Kanaya eviscerates her lusus' carcass, removing a strange globe called a Matriorb which she stashes in her Chastity Fetch Modus. CA then pesters her, talking about a "fuckin gizmo to bloww up the wworld or something". He also begs Kanaya to auspisticize between him and Vriska.
- Kanaya heads back up to her room and consults with one of her sources, which we the audience recognise as Rose's walkthrough.
- Tavros enters the medium, taking his place as the Page of Breath in the Land of Sand and Zephyr. Time passes - Vriska finishes extending Tavros' hive as far as the first gate, but to Tavros' dismay, she uses stairs, making it physically impossible for Tavros to get to the first gate. When Tavros complains she responds by shaking his wheelchair with the cursor.
- As Vriska torments Tavros, Kanaya intervenes by fussing with Vriska's plumbing and bopping Vriska's chair with it. Vriska pleads ignorance but Kanaya knows otherwise thanks to Tavros. Kanaya threatens to dump the toilet over Vriska's head. Vriska capitulates, saying she'll change the stairs to ramps.
- Vriska is struck with an idea. Running down to one of her treasure strongholds, she acquires a snazzy pair of Rocket Boots. Vriska notes the Captchalogue code of the rocket boots and sends it to Tavros. He then alchemizes it with his wheelchair to create a Rocket Car which he uses to fly up to his first gate.
- Tavros uses his bestial communion abilities to control an army of imps and ogres. His obedient menagerie follows him into a ruin that is topped with lizard statues, where he tries to solve one of the many puzzles of this land. Vriska, announcing that puzzles are boring, convinces Tavros to skip them and just fly his rocket car into the "seventh" gate right away. Tavros does so, but the gate is actally his second gate, leading him straight to Vriska's hive, where he crashes through the wall.
- In the Land of Maps and Treasure, Vriska, the Thief of Light, is sleeping. She wakes upon Tavros' noisy arrival. We see she is dressed in a gown, replete with fairy wings, masquerading as the troll equivalent of Wendy/Tinkerbell, complementing Tavros's Pupa Pan. Her aim is both mockery and, perhaps, seduction...
- Vriska throws Special Stardust in the recumbent Tavros' face, then drags him up and forces him to have happy thoughts via a forced kiss. Frustrated, Vriska attempts to manipulate Tavros into having feelings for her. However, she realizes she does not want to tamper with Tavros' emotions and gives up.
- Kanaya manages to avert some kind of crisis of her own and returns to acting as the server in Vriska's session. Poor timing causes her to catch Vriska kissing Tavros. Kanaya is shown to have made Vriska's new outfit. Seeing Vriska kiss Tavros crushes her heart.
- The narrator explains that human relationships are very different from troll relationships, because humans only have one concept of romantic relationships, depicted by the symbol "<3", trolls instead have four known as quadrants. The four quadrants each have their own symbol: the flushed quadrant, "<3"; caliginous quadrant, <3<; pale quadrant, <>; and ashen quadrant, c3<. Humans, like John, can not grasp the totality of the phenomenon. However, because humans can grasp the concept of destiny, we can understand how each troll believes that only one other troll is destined to fill each quadrant, or, in the case of an auspistice, two.
- caligulasAquarium is introduced as Eridan Ampora. His lusus is a large mountable seahorse. He wields Ahab's Crosshairs. Eridan slays a Lusus in the shape of a whale from his mount.
- cuttlefishCuller is introduced as Feferi Peixes. She collects the whale Eridan killed and feeds it to her Lusus, a gartantuan sea monster.
- Both trolls return to their hives, where their interests are detailed. Eridan's block is littered with loot plundered from past Flarp sessions. The rather obvious fact that he hates land dwellers is reiterated, as is his wish to obtain a doomsday device from somebody. Eridan enjoys Military History and Legendary Conquerors. He also likes magic, though he knows it's fake. He's not stupid.
- In her hive, Feferi keeps two aquatic hoofbeasts that look rather familiar, as well as lots of Cuttlefish. Her blood is even nobler than that of the trolls' empress, so Feferi is the royal heir. Her plans for the throne are to reunite the land- and sea-dwelling trolls. She loves to capture cuttlefish, though because of their wilful nature and the ease with which they escape their cages, it pretty much amounts to an elaborate roleplaying game.
- Eridan and Feferi do something ridiculous. After that, Eridan trolls Feferi, and they argue. Both attempt to get a drink. Eridan doesn't want to drink Gamzee Makara's drink, but his fridge is filled with shitty wands. As soon as Feferi tries to open her drink it just gets released into the water.
- Both unequip their weapons. Eridan tries to contact Vriska. Unfortunately, she is engaged in the messy euthanization of her Lusus. The Kismesissitude of Vriska and Eridan is then detailed. Previously allies in Flarp, Vriska would capture the troll victims of Eridan's conquests as food for her Lusus, while Eridan would feed the slain custodians to Feferi's Lusus.
- The powers of Feferi's Lusus are revealed. If Gl'Bgolyb's voice were raised above a whisper, the troll race would slowly die - first, the "more psychically susceptible" lesser bloods. If it were to shout, all trolls on Alternia would die. If it were to get VERY upset, it would release The Vast GLUB, a shockwave that would kill all trolls in the galaxy.
- Later, Feferi, the Witch of Life, has been transported along with her hive to the Land of Dew and Glass. Feferi contacts Eridan and says she wants to end their moirallegiance. Eridan is crushed by this. Feferi proceeds through her first gate.
- On Gamzee's planet, Karkat attempts to contact Sollux, only to find him dead in a pool of blood in his house, killed by Gl'Bgolyb's Vast Glub. Sollux's kernelsprite floating beside him implies that he did manage to enter the Medium. Karkat's lament is very similar to something from Bro's "too ironic" comic. Jack kinda comforts Karkat while Gamzee just spaces out in his own inimitable way.
- Eridan tries to contact them both, but Karkat is too upset to reply so Gamzee does so. Meanwhile Jack tries to beat some sense back into Karkat, in his own inimitable way.
- The trio watch as Feferi kisses the dead Sollux, awakening his dream self. This disgusts Karkat, Jack and Spades Slick, who is watching the scene from the same terminal seen at the end of the intermission. Gamzee really doesn't give a shit.
- Once more the fourth wall is shattered as AH (now disguised as a troll) engages in some entertaining self loathing, then repeats his complete overview of troll romance (as if it wasn't confusing the first time). We return to Spades Slick, who moves the story right along.
- We switch to Dream Sollux on Derse, revealing that he has a dream self on both Prospit and Derse. After being irritated by an exiled Clubs Deuce, Dream Sollux flies from Derse to his planet, the Land of Brains and Fire, where he has assumed the role of Mage of Doom. In his hive, Feferi sees him as she fends off some attacking brains and promptly flips the fuck out.
- Somewhere on Vriska's planet, Tavros and Vriska travel to collect treasure and complete more pointless side quests. Vriska finds a chest of Boonbucks, and Tavros is extremely impressed.
- The '8th exile', finding Vriska completely useless (since she doesn't respond to her commands), switches over to Terezi, the Seer of Mind in the Land of Thought and Flow, addressing her as "Seer", just like Rose's exile addressed her (and in the same calligraphic font). The exile tells Terezi it is time for her to exile Jack Noir.
- On Nepeta's planet, the aptly-named LOLCAT, Nepeta kills an ogre with ease. She then sees Equius, tackles him adorably, and asks him what happened to Aradia. Equius has no idea where she is - she simply disappeared. They notice that something enormous and tentacled has been prototyped by someone.
- Equius replies to Karkat's memo about Team Adorabloodthirsty, which connects to all players in the trolls' session throughout time. The memo is seen by the other trolls in the future as a complete waste of time. 34 minutes before Equius's time, Sollux, replying to the same memo, suddenly hears a horrible psychic noise and begins to bleed to death. He says he has to hurry to get Feferi in the game before succumbing to his wounds.
- Terezi and the 8th exile discuss the group's plan to exile the Black Queen. In second update to Karkat's memo, he tries to set up the attack on the queen. Vriska and other members continually interrupt, with future Vriska asserting that she took down the queen mostly by herself.
- Exiled Hearts Boxcars stands in front of a command screen. He tells Tavros to "Kiss the Girl" in a quite belligerent tone. Unfortunately Tavros cannot kiss the girl - he can't even get up.
- The 8th exile commands Vriska and Terezi to retrieve the Queen's ring from the royal vault and destroy it. We see that the exile is the Black Queen/Snowman, and she is operating from a command station located at Kanaya's former home and shaped like her lusus's head.
- Kanaya has just entered the Medium and sitting on the rim of the volcano by her hive, looking for a way to stoke it. She chats with a 599 hours in the future Karkat in a memo, discussing their fate and relationships. Scrolling to the top of the chat client's timeline reveals it ending in flickering bright lights.
- While chatting with Karkat and revealing that she knows his blood color, Terezi uses her rocket wings to fly up to Skaia.
- A big flash animation summarizes several events, both in the past and present.
- Vriska uses her psychic abilities to exact revenge on Terezi, combining the psychic powers of both Tavros and Terezi's Lusus to persuade her to walk outside and stare at the sun, destroying her sight.
- In the near present, the trolls continue on their quests. Karkat, Jack and Terezi adventure together, easily destroying powerful monsters. Gamzee explores LOTAM, Sollux and Feferi travel through LOBAF, and Nepeta and Equius battle on LOLCAT. Kanaya prepares to fight a huge monster on LOCAS, while Eridan attacks Sollux on his world, both using energy attacks of equal caliber.
- As Tavros and Vriska adventure on LOMAT, Vriska zooms ahead of Tavros and is ambushed by Aradia, who appears from nowhere using time-powered music boxes, her version of Dave's Timetables. Utilising her powerful robotic form Aradia attacks and kills Vriska. Vriska's dream self awakens, just in time to get smacked in the face by Dream Terezi.
- The exiled Diamonds Droog commands Aradia to skip to the end. Aradia responds by telling DD to cease bossing her around. Future Aradia then opens up a private memo for her alternate selves across her timeline to follow.
- Future Aradia recounts the events of her past in the memo. According to her, many doomed alternate futureselves were routed to the past to face the Black King, in an effort to neutralize the Vast Glub powers the Black King assumed from Gl'Bgolyb.
- Aradia reflects that without Glbgoylb's prototyping the battle would be easier. Although Karkat theorizes the fault belongs to the virus he ran, Aradia believes it's to test to see whether they are ready for the Ultimate Reward. While the anachronistic Aradiabots psychically restrain the king, the other trolls, having scaled every echeladder and alchemized the best weaponry they can wield (and deadliest Fraymotifs, whatever those are), attack him.
- Utilising their psionic powers, Aradia and Sollux turn the King's meteors against him, and with an extremely lucky roll of Vriska's dice, they win, proving for all time their worth. The trolls nearly receive their reward but are interrupted by The Rift, also known as a scratch. The Rift is revealed to be a consequence of actions taken by the Kids.
- We zoom to where Future Aradia types the memo. Her video log displays the same green lightning that manifests around Becquerel and Doc Scratch. Aradia explains that though the Kids would experience the direct effects of the Rift it would be the trolls who would face the consequences.
- Despite being unable to claim their reward and thus win their session, the purpose of the game is fulfilled - the trolls' session creates Earth's universe. The trolls' reward would have been entry to that universe, but they had to retreat from the "demon" being forced into the vicinity of that entryway by the kids creating the scratch.
- The curtain closes on Act 1 of Act 5.