#nah I got respawning powers | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

votederpycausemufins · 3 years

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as i'm currently obsessed with your shared space au, I was wondering how doc would react to sam's less moral actions? because despite doc's intimidating feeling, he is a hermit and cares greatly about others.

When Doc and Sam first realized the situation they were in, it didn’t go well. Sam immediately thought the worst and panicked. Doc did his best to help the warden, but it still took a while. Sam was convinced that this was because of someone named Dream, or some plot to help the guy. The thing to finally convince the man was when Doc gave his name and it was something Sam recognized.

“Alright, now that you’re finally calm, can you actually answer some things for me?”

Sam looked around. There wasn’t anyone around of course. No one could get in unless he let them, save for maybe Ghostbur, but he wasn’t likely to visit. “I’ve got a few questions of my own.”

“Yeah, I expected that. I probably can’t answer a lot of them though. I’ve got no clue why I’m here or how, and obviously you don’t either since you were freaking out. This also definitely is your world and body because you’ve got all your limbs and this definitely isn’t a place I’ve built, though the redstone looks good.”

“Uh, thanks. This is Pandora’s Vault.”

Doc would have nodded if he could. “Sounds like a name Joe would pick. Based on your panic before, you're keeping someone named Dream here?”

“Yeah. In the highest security cell.”

“Ah, you’ve got more cells here? Good use of space. If you ever want me to, we can look at the redstone and I can see if I can help with any upgrades. Of course, might not be the best idea with him already locked up.”

“I can still get some notes from you. Right now we’ve got a box of obsidian and crying obsidian covered in lava. Netherite blocks make up a gate for visitors as well as the main door. Respawn bed that the prisoner can’t get to that doubles as an emergency escape. We’ve also got an elder guardian for mining fatigue.”

Doc thought it over. It seemed pretty good, but it seemed like there were a few issues. “You said the respawn point is an emergency exit?”

“Yeah. There’s redstone around the bed so as soon as he respawns, he’s away from the bed so it can’t be broken and thrown back in the cell. There’s also some dispensers for potions to be thrown down, so if someone needs an emergency exit, they stand in the drop puddle and they get sent back out of the cell.”

“Alright, so even if he tried using the exit, it would put him back in the cell.” Doc said, mentally rubbing his chin in thought, then noticed Sam was doing the same. “Are you doing that or am I?”

“Uh, I think you.”

“Good to know. Sorry about that. Could be useful later, but I know someone else messing with your limbs is not the most fun.”

“You nearly died to a god, didn’t you? Stole half your body?”

Doc chuckled. “Nah man. Basically we had a bit of a fight of sorts and I won. He got a bit upset and just sort of made my right arm disappear. Not like I hadn’t already made my own prosthetics. And he wasn’t the worst I’ve met.”

“Notch?” Sam asked, and he could feel the way Doc reacted to the name.

“Yeah. Him. Some people wonder if it was all that worshiping that got to his head, but I’m pretty sure he was always like that and just hid it well. I’m guessing that’s part of how you know me.”

Sam nodded. “I may have found out about all that when figuring out how to build this prison.”

“Based on how you’re acting, I can see why. This Dream guy sounds like a mess. And if you’re admin won’t deal with him…”

“That’s the thing.” Sam cut in. “He sort of is the admin. A sort of shit one at that since he can’t get himself out without anything in place to stop his admin powers. He just doesn’t seem to have them or something.”

“Ah. And obviously you can’t kill him since he could just respawn.” Doc said, but then there was an uncomfortable silence. “You have respawn mechanics. You just said you’re using them with this whole setup.”

“It’s a bit different here. It’s some sort of bastardized form of the way respawning works in minigame worlds. We’ve all got three lives theoretically, but when we lose them depends on how they’re lost. And then we don’t get thrown into a spectator like reality. You’re either dead dead, or an actual ghost.”

“Yeah, I can really see why this guy is a problem now. Can kill him because it would destabilize the world then? Or he’s told you it would?”

There was silence for a few moments. Doc could tell there was something else, but he wasn’t pushing. Just when the hybrid thought that there wouldn’t be an answer, Sam spoke again. “We’ve had a few people die so far. There’s one person here named Tommy, and he was really close to someone who died. Dream really fucked with Tommy but the bastard finally got his comeuppance. Tommy nearly took all of his lives, but one thing he can manage to do as admin is revive people who were killed.”

Doc took a moment to process all that. “So, you’re keeping him alive because this guy misses someone who died?”

“Well Tommy was the one to get screwed over by this guy the most. We all let him decide what would happen and he wanted Dream alive.”

“Not sure if that’s crazy or brave.”

“Might be both.” Sam replied. “Might just be the kid has some hope. And you don’t get much of that around here.”

Doc paused. Sam didn’t seem all that old, but he was calling this other person a kid. Sure, sometimes the hermits joked about Mumbo being ‘the kid’ but he was a lot younger than the ones who actually did that. “How old is Tommy?”

“Sixteen.”

If Doc had been in his own body, he knew he would be hissing. “Sam. What’s a minor doing in a world like this?”

“He joined and can’t really get out. It wasn’t this bad when everything started. The respawn hadn’t been messed with back then.”

Doc accepted the answer, but wasn’t happy about it. “So, this kid is letting some horrible guy stay alive because he can maybe revive people?”

“There’s… no maybe about it anymore.”

“Did he revive the guy you wanted?” There wasn’t an answer from Sam. “Have other people died here other than this one guy people want alive?” Sam nodded. “So he revived one of those people?” Hesitantly, Sam shook his head, but then nodded.

“What’s the name of the person he revived?” Doc asked, but Sam wouldn’t answer. “Sam, who did he revive? The only people I know about here are-” Doc paused. Right now, he only knew three people here. Dream obviously couldn’t revive himself. And Doc is pretty sure he would be able to tell if he was in a body that got revived. “Tommy died. Didn’t he?”

“Yeah…” Sam replied, voice barely over a whisper. Doc only heard what the warden had said because they were sharing a body. He could also tell there was more to it. Compared to everything Doc had heard from Sam, or felt from the guy, there had to be something else that made him feel so bad about it.

“You don’t have to answer this, but it looks like Tommy’s death really got to you. You said he’s a minor, so maybe it’s that, but it seems like more. Like you two are close. Maybe related.”

“No. Not related.” Sam replied. “It’s my fault he died. He wanted some closure and it ended with his death. I could have done something, but…”

Doc knew the feeling. He preferred worlds like Hermitcraft because he knew people would respawn. They would come back. “I’m sure there was nothing you could actually do.”

“No. There was. But if I did that, well, Dream wouldn’t be locked up anymore.”

Doc mentally frowned. Something was definitely up now. Dream could only revive people. And obviously he revived Tommy. But what could he have possibly done to prevent the kid’s death that would involve him getting out? Doc tried to think of what it could be, and then it was like he could see what happened. “Dream killed him.”

“What did you just-”

“You could have stopped it and instead the kid got killed. Look, I don’t care if you guys want your admin to revive someone or not. If the one person who wants him alive is going to die unless you do something about this admin, you don’t take the option to let him out. You kill him instead. If this kid really wants Dream alive, he’s some sort of saint.”

“Well-”

“But at this point, I don’t care. This is too far. If we could have killed Notch instead of locking him up, we would have. You need to do the same or this might just happen again.”

“There are procedures-”

“You’re in charge of this goddamn place. You choose the procedures and rules. Just get rid of him.”

“Not unless Tommy wants it.”

“He’s a kid. A kid with a heart of gold, but still a kid. If he gets angry, fine, but you need to get rid of this guy. Especially since he’s an admin. If you lose him, someone’s going to show up to fix whatever the hell he caused and probably revive people anyway.”

“That’s not how this works.”

Doc took control of their one hand and slammed it down on the desk. It was hard enough that there was a crack, both from the desk and from their hand. “You’re going to get more people killed like this! And they might not be revived like Tommy was! Are you really okay with that?!”

Sam didn’t answer. He just took control again to check his hand over. It was going to need some healing. And he’d have to do that himself.

#hc x dsmp #shared space au #docm77 #awesamdude

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onecanonlife · 3 years

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careful son (you got dreamer's plans)

Wilbur gasps back to life with mud between his fingers and rain in his eyes.

Wilbur was dead. Now, he is not. He can't say that he's particularly happy about it.

Unfortunately, the server is still as tumultuous as ever, even with Dream locked away, so it seems that his involvement in things isn't a matter of if, but when.

(Alternatively: the prodigal son returns, and a broken family finally begins to heal. If, that is, the egg doesn't get them all killed first.)

Chapter Word Count: 7,295

Chapter Warnings: swearing, injury, blood, aftermath of (temporary) character death, mild disassociation, slight s.uicidal ideation, references to past abuse

Chapter Summary: The emotional fallout is intense, but they don’t have time to stop and deal with it. Wilbur doesn’t particularly like where they decide to hole up, but beggars can’t be choosers.

(masterlist w/ ao3 links)

(first chapter) (previous chapter) (next chapter)

Chapter Twelve: nowhere to run

The sun is too bright in his eyes. Too bright, and wrong, somehow, that it should be shining like this. Should still be shining, after the loss they’ve just suffered, after watching his brother crumple to dust in front of him. But the sun hardly cares for things like that, so they all stumble out of the hole in the ground that serves as the entrance to the spider spawner and beyond, and the daylight surrounds them, unforgiving.

“Where do we go, what do we do,” Tubbo is chanting, and Ranboo is muttering under his breath, a continuous litany of, “I can’t believe he’s gone, I can’t believe that happened—” His own lips feel glued shut, his throat devoid of sound. His skin buzzes.

(the two images interpose: Techno hanging from the vine, head at an unnatural angle, Techno wavering on his feet, blood pouring from his throat, and there is a flash of light and there is ash all at once, as if the first caused the second, as if instead of healing him, shoving his soul back into a body clinging to life, the totem burned him up from the inside out, and unlike the phoenix there was no rebirth)

“We can’t stay here,” Puffy says. Her eyes are wide, and her hands are shaking, but her voice has the same determined cant to it as it always does. “We need somewhere to hole up.”

“And where is that supposed to be?” Sapnap demands. His breathing is unsteady. “Where the fuck are we supposed to go after that? Where isn’t the thing gonna be able to reach? With, with Dream being, being, what even was that? Why was he—how was he—?” He breaks off, sparks crackling at his fingertips, and his face is a mask of distress, of questions

(was he always like that and did I not see or did something happen to him did something make him like that is that my friend or is there something inside of him something behind his eyes that is not him at all and if that is the case how did I not notice how did I not notice how did I not save him)

that Wilbur feels he recognizes. Or would, if he let himself. If he let himself care.

His eyes drift over to Phil. Phil, who stands silently, blood dripping from his wings, a thousand old injuries reopened by thrashing thorns. Who stands with Tommy in his arms, Tommy, who is curled up as tightly as he can reasonably manage, his face tucked into Phil’s shirt. Trembling. Quiet.

(he will die and I will kill him, the Egg says, and I have already begun, and you cannot protect him, you do not have the strength, except by what I can grant you)

“Church Prime,” Puffy says. “It’s the only place that might be safe.”

“Who’s to say it would be?” Sapnap snaps. “You saw it in there! The vines have never moved like that before, and Prime knows what else it can do now. And maybe the Egg wouldn’t be able to get in, but who’s to say that would stop—” He cuts off again, face contorting.

His leg is beginning to hurt, now. All of him is, actually, now that his adrenaline is wearing thin, now that the horror is sinking in, but it’s concentrated in his leg in particular, and he looks down to see that his left pant leg is all but shredded, blood dripping down in steady streams and splattering on the grass by his feet. The vines got him worse than he thought, then, and he bites his lip against the sting.

He’s had worse, though. He’s had so much worse. This is practically nothing, and Puffy and Sapnap are still arguing, and Tubbo and Ranboo are huddled together, eyeing the vines around them with deep suspicion, unmoving as they are just yet, and Phil is silent, and he’s going to stay silent, because Wilbur recognizes all too well the strain in his eyes, the way he’s holding onto Tommy with a death grip.

(he’s watched two of his sons die, now, and Techno will be back, will still have two lives left, but that does not heal the hurt, does not assuage the pain of seeing your brother, your son, your family die in front of your eyes before you can lift a finger to stop it, and Phil’s eyes shine with a grief almost beyond what Wilbur can understand. except he understands all too well, in the end)

He’s had worse, and someone needs to step up.

(the old mantle settles across his shoulders, and if he closes his eyes it’s like nothing’s changed at all, and the sun sets on the city he is determined to give everything for, still standing, walls still strong)

“Boxed in like a fish,” he croaks, and Puffy and Sapnap turn to him as one. “That’s what we’ll be, if we go to Church Prime. Whether it protects us in the moment of not won’t matter once we run out of supplies. We need somewhere better situated. Somewhere we can defend, that might withstand a siege, if it comes to it.”

Puffy makes a frustrated gesture. “I’m open to suggestions,” she says. “The prison, maybe, if we have to? We could probably keep people out as easily as—ah, shit, Sam.” She pulls her communicator out and taps out a quick message, and then frowns. “It’s telling me it can’t go through. Why isn’t it going through? Sam had all three lives, he should be—”

“Admins can read private messages,” Phil murmurs. “Wouldn’t surprise me if Dream could fuck with the whole system, whatever the fuck he is.”

Wilbur reads between the lines. Techno, for the moment, is unreachable. He processes the information and moves on, refusing to let it get to him, refusing to let himself be overpowered by

(Techno’s unreachable Techno’s unreachable Techno’s respawned and he’s on his own and they can’t talk to him can’t get to him quickly and what if something went wrong what if something happened)

emotions.

“Sam will make his way to us,” he says. “I’m vetoing the prison. Like hell are we staying in there. Other thoughts?”

“What gives you vetoing power?” Sapnap asks.

“Somebody needs to make a decision,” he says, and it is with strength he doesn’t feel, confidence he is only pretending at, a force of command that comes from some unknown place, since he feels as though he is miles away from himself, “and I don’t see you coming up with anything. Either help or stop complaining.”

Sapnap’s face reddens, and he opens his mouth, to argue, no doubt, but then Ranboo breaks in with, “Foolish, maybe?” and hunches his shoulders when attention turns to him. “Sorry, it’s just, I’m pretty sure Foolish isn’t, um, a big fan of the Egg or anything, so maybe he could help?”

Wilbur has no idea who the fuck Foolish is.

“Nah, he’s too far out,” Tubbo says. “It’ll take ages to get to his place. And we need somewhere close, but not too close, so we still have a good place to fight back from, right, Wilbur? If we leave now, the Egg’ll just take over the whole SMP with nothing to stop it.”

“My thoughts exactly, Tubbo,” he says, and again, it is just like the old days, and they are standing atop the L’Manberg walls, and Tubbo has just said something particularly clever, and warmth and pride curl in him before he remembers where they are, what they’re doing. They need to decide, and soon. They’re just hanging around near the entrance, and sooner or later, someone’s going to come after them, whether they let them go at first or not. “Is there anyone else who has a good position, location-wise and resource-wise?”

“Wait,” Puffy says. “Eret’s castle.”

“Eret’s castle doesn’t have doors,” Sapnap says.

“No, but I stopped by earlier to see if they wanted to join us,” Puffy says. “They weren’t there, but the grounds were completely free of vines. And sure, there aren’t any doors, but between all of us, I’m sure we could make some. Eret’s got plenty of supplies, last I checked.”

Eret. The name evokes a wealth of associations, most of them unpleasant. His first instinct is to reject this idea like the last, to avoid placing their lives in the hands of one who has already betrayed him, who led them all into a death trap, who almost ended their revolution in one fell swoop. But Puffy has a point. Eret’s castle ticks all the right boxes: it’s defendable, well-supplied, and if there are no vines to clear, all the better. They’ll have to build doors, but between the lot of them, that’s easily manageable.

(a wealth of associations and many unpleasant but there is Eret offering them supplies offering their fragile rebellion help and they tried so dearly to redeem themself and he could not have seen that then wrapped in his own shadows as he was but perhaps he can see it now perhaps he can better appreciate it, give a little more benefit of the doubt, and if he is given a second chance after everything after committing the worst crime of all then who is he to deny them absolution?)

(another memory, more blurry: he is scared but stalwart as they go through the motions, and he does not want to die, is terrified of that endless void, but he knows that the server needs a leader and his living self must be that leader, and Eret is here, and Eret agrees, and Eret acts out their part, and Eret is trying so hard, and he cannot see their eyes behind their glasses but he imagines that if he could, he would see a fool’s hope in them)

“Eret, then,” he says. “We go to Eret.”

And no one disagrees. It’s strange. They have no reason to listen to him, really. They have far more reasons not to listen to him, more reasons to think that following his lead will end in disaster than otherwise. But Puffy nods, and Sapnap backs down, and Tubbo and Ranboo both look to him for direction like it’s the war and he’s in charge of child soldiers once again. Phil looks to him, too, but his expression is inscrutable, and only a slight tightness around his eyes shows that he’s in any pain at all.

So they go to Eret. Staggering through the grass, tripping over vines that still don’t move, thank Prime, and then along the Prime Path, and his leg hurts worse with every step, pain jolting up into his hip, it seems, and it’s not long before he’s walking with a limp. But they’re all hurt in some way, so he hides it as best he can. He can deal with it when they’re safely behind stone walls.

And then, Tommy says, “Put me down, I can walk.”

Wilbur glances over. Tommy’s face is still buried in Phil’s shirt.

“You sure, mate?” Phil asks softly.

“Yes, I’m fucking sure,” Tommy snaps, louder now, turning his face outward, pushing against Phil’s chest. His cheeks are flushed, his breaths coming short and fast, and he’s trying to pass it off as anger, and maybe part of it is. But Wilbur knows him better than to think that that’s all. Knows him better than to think that he would have let Phil carry him in the first place if he was alright.

“Okay, then,” Phil says, and swings Tommy down. Tommy wavers for a step, but slaps away Phil’s hand when he extends it, muttering a sharp, “Fuck off.”

And then they keep going. Tommy doesn’t say anything else. Wilbur keeps glancing at him, but he’s refusing to meet anyone’s gaze, even Tubbo’s. And—that’s another thing that’s going to have to wait. He wants nothing more than to stop now and make sure that Tommy’s going to be okay, but they don’t have time, and the general in him will not call for a halt until the retreat is over, until he is sure the enemy is not biting at their heels.

(retreating from Dream once again, and it is familiar and not, the same and not, and history runs in a circle, echoes and rhymes)

Eret’s courtyard is indeed free of vines, just as Puffy promised. Wilbur half-expects them to be nowhere in sight, based on what Puffy said, but they are standing right there, next to a skeletal horse they’re frantically saddling, and they’re checking their communicator every now and again, with the jerky motions of someone who doesn’t particularly want to but can’t make themself stop.

Then, suddenly, they look up at the sky. Wilbur follows their gaze to the flock of crows wheeling overhead, a dark mass of beating wings, each bird barely distinguishable from the others. All of them completely, eerily silent.

Eret stands there a moment. Just staring. Wilbur can’t tell what the look on their face is, but their shoulders are tense. And then, they look back down, and realize that the lot of them are there, stumbling in under the gate, and they visibly startle.

“Hey, Eret,” Puffy says, before they can get a word in. “Can we crash? And build some gates?”

“What,” Eret says. “What is—Puffy, what is going on? How did Dream manage to kill Sam and Technoblade? Is he—” They run a hand through their hair, and then start striding forward, their cape flaring out behind them. They haven’t said anything about him yet, haven’t reacted to his presence. “He’s out, isn’t he? I was going to come and see, but he’s out?”

“He’s out,” Puffy agrees. “We were kind of hoping you’d help us out on this one.”

“Of course,” they say quickly. “Of course, anything you—anything you need.” They’re rattled, clearly, more than Wilbur has ever seen them, perhaps. “I just—how did this happen? I thought the prison was secure, I thought—are you all okay?”

“Aside from the obvious?” Puffy says. “Yeah, we’re great. You haven’t been around much lately, I don’t know how much you know about the Egg and all of that, but that’s an issue too, along with Dream. And some other stuff that I’ve got no idea about, that we really just kind of need to all sit down and talk about.”

“The Egg? I’ve—I’ve heard of it, I think. I’ve been elsewhere for a while.” Their lips twist into a smile that isn’t quite a smile. “Doing a bit of soul-searching, you might say. Found more questions than answers, unfortunately. Alright. I can get you all whatever you need, you can absolutely stay here if that’s what you’d like, but what was that about gates?”

Right. This is taking too long.

Wilbur still feels a bit outside of his body as he steps forward, but that’s alright. He’s limping, but the pain is distant, and he can let his brain work on autopilot, let his mouth move on its own without regarding the consequences, without thinking too much about

(this is Eret and you know them and they betrayed you and you hurt them and now you’re back and here is a test here is a true test it shouldn’t matter how they react to you you shouldn’t care for their opinion but you do you know you do though you pretend you don’t pretend they’re nothing but a traitor to you but you are a traitor to yourself and you know that between the two of you you are the worse and here you both are and you only need one more and everyone will be back together again like the old days like the old days those good old days)

what happens next.

“Right, then,” he says, straightening his spine and stepping up to be visible just behind Puffy, to the side and a few feet back. Eret’s head whips toward him. “To summarize: the Egg is bad, Dream is also bad, they’re now working together, also with Bad, Techno is gone, we’re all in rough shape, a mind-controlling potentially demonic entity is likely to try to take over the server, and also, I’m here, despite my best efforts. Does that paint enough of a picture for you, or should I elaborate further?”

Eret stares at him. He stares back, doesn’t let himself fidget. He’s putting the general on display, and it has never felt more like a disguise, like yet another mask,

(and didn’t he tell Tommy he wasn’t going to do this anymore?)

but a familiar one, one that’s almost comfortable. He can force himself into the general’s shoes and worry about tactics and battles and numbers and strategy, and tuck the rest of himself away for when there’s time for it. Can think of this as just another alliance to be made, a debriefing to be held rather than

(Eret traitor friend ally enemy the place in your heart is curdled and sour and you do not know if you are capable of starting anew)

and his losses are statistics and cold facts rather than

(Techno’s eyes golden and glittering and then they go dim and pale red pale and staring the light in your brother’s eyes gone out and it is not the first time you have watched a brother die in front of you but Technoblade never dies is never supposed to die never to go to dust never and you cannot make sense of it cannot make sense of the world turned on its head)

“Wilbur?” Eret asks, after a very long moment, and he doesn’t understand why their voice breaks in the way that it does. “You’re—it’s you? Not Ghostbur?”

He spreads his arms, lifting an eyebrow.

“Do I look like Ghostbur to you?” he asks.

“No,” Eret answers right away. “No, that you do not. Um, has this been a thing, or…?” They trail off, and Wilbur can’t figure out exactly what their feelings are, but it’s too late to back down, even if he wanted to.

“For a bit,” he says. “Not for too long. Can we move on? We’ve got bigger issues to deal with at the moment.”

He means multiple things, with that. He means, there’s bigger things to worry about than why I’m here. He means, there’s bigger things to worry about than our history, and as so long as we’re on the same side for the moment, it can’t matter right now. He doesn’t know if Eret catches all of that, but whether they do or not, they nod, seeming to steady themself.

“Of course,” they say. “I—for the record, it is good to see you, Wilbur.” There is genuine relief in their voice, a tone that says they’re actually glad he’s here, more than glad, even, and he really doesn’t have time to unpack that at the moment. They need a plan, and fast, and they need some goddamn gates. And medical attention, probably. The cut on Puffy’s head looks nasty, and Phil’s wings are still dripping blood, and it’s difficult for Wilbur to look at them for too long,

(grief rises up guilt rises up crushing choking your father is grounded and it is your fault)

but it concerns him, how little Phil appears to care for their current state. So there’s that to handle, and it’s almost too much, almost. Almost too much for someone who has spent the majority of the time since he’s been brought back to life cringing away from meeting people, all the confidence he once displayed gone, shrinking, left in the void or in Pogtopia or on the podium from which he announced his own defeat, perhaps. But even still, he remembers how to be the general. He can hide in the general, present the general on the outside, be useful even while he thinks he might be on the verge of collapse, internally. He has been a general, and so he shall be again.

What comes first, then?

He pulls out his comm, scrolling through the messages. There are quite a few in the general chat from just after Sam’s death message, people from all over the server demanding to know what’s going on. His eyes drift over Techno’s, then, and he winces, but keeps reading. There are even more messages after that, capitalization usage increasing dramatically, and his eyes trace over familiar names, a pang in his heart. Niki. Fundy. Quackity. Several from Eret as well. Some from names he doesn’t recognize, like this Foolish person, and someone named Hannah.

But then, they all cut off. There have been none in the past half hour. Since they escaped from the Egg.

Out of curiosity, he taps out a few words: dream and egg have teamed, regrouping at eret’s. Upon hitting send, the screen goes fuzzy, giving him an error message he’s never seen before. So comms truly are down, then, and it’s probably just as well; Dream likely knows where they are, but if he doesn’t, there’s no reason to give him the information.

(and do these old allies old friends deserve to learn of your return from cold words on a screen do you not have the courage to face them yourself face your son your son you have not seen your son)

(the last time he spoke to Fundy, he disowned him. he doesn’t know if he still has a son)

(if he does not, he has no one to blame for himself, and perhaps that is why he is too cowardly to check)

“Right, then,” he says, looking back up. “Gates are the first priority. They might not do much against whatever the fuck that thing is, but it’s better than nothing. Eret, I assume you’d know the best way to go about it?”

Eret’s lips quirk into a slight smile, one that is, perhaps, slightly sardonic.

“It is my castle,” they agree. “The more hands I have, the quicker it will go, but I can get it done.”

“Anyone who’s not bleeding profusely, help them with that, then,” he says. “Anyone who is bleeding profusely—I assume you’ve got pots somewhere, Eret?” Eret nods, gesturing toward the inside. “Anyone who is bleeding profusely gets a pot. Once we’ve got that all covered, we’ll reconvene, come up with a plan for where to go from here. Everyone got that?”

He gets a few nods, and no one dissents, so he’ll take that as a yes. His gaze travels to the kids then, standing clumped together, and Tommy’s eyes are still shadowed, and Tubbo is shifting his weight between his feet, and Ranboo looks lost, awkward, and he wishes he didn’t have to ask anything more of them. But that’s not how wars work, and this has certainly turned into a war.

(child soldiers once again, and how history echoes)

“Tubbo, Ranboo, I want you on the gates as well,” he says, and tries to soften his tone at least a little bit, even if that’s all he can do. “And then afterward—Tubbo, I need you to go through with all of us exactly what you know about—what did you call them? Dreamons?”

Tubbo looks slightly miserable, but he nods. “Right,” he says. “I can try to ward the gates if you want. With, um, anti-demon stuff. I don’t know if it’ll work. I guess last time we didn’t manage to do much of anything at all.”

“Anti-what,” Eret says, but Wilbur shakes his head.

“We don’t have time for that. Tubbo will explain later. We—”

“The fuck am I supposed to do, then?” Tommy breaks in, crossing his arms. “You haven’t given me a job.” He glares, but it is so very obvious that it’s all a front, all a show, and Tommy’s expression dares him to challenge him, but Wilbur thinks that if he does, he just might break something in him. Tommy has always been so much more fragile than he presents himself as, so much more fragile than he likes to believe he is.

(despite it all, despite it all, he is only sixteen, only a child, a child grown old before his time but a child nonetheless, and now a child who watched his brother die for him, an estranged brother perhaps but still a brother, and Tommy has always cared so much and so deeply, no matter how much he pretends otherwise)

He hasn’t given Tommy a job, and he doesn’t really intend to, because Tommy, of all people, needs to sit the fuck down and rest for a moment. They all deserve a break, but in this moment, Tommy is the one who needs it most, and also the one least likely to accept as much.

If the general gives the order, Tommy will follow it, he knows that much,

(because he made his brother into a soldier he made his brother into a soldier and soldiers follow orders)

even if he’ll be angry at him for it, but Tommy angry with him is a sacrifice he’s willing to make. And perhaps directing his anger at him will help. Perhaps it would be better for Tommy to be angry with someone within reach rather than someone out of it.

(because Tommy is hurting, and the cause of that hurt is not here, and so perhaps if Wilbur offers himself he’ll feel better, will feel more in control, because Tommy needs control, because his abuser is out, is wandering free, and his abuser has killed their brother and told him that it is his fault)

But then, Phil breaks his silence.

“I’d like him to stick with me,” he says, with a smile that is obviously strained. “I’m not going to be able to reach everything myself.” He makes a vague gesture toward his wings, still dripping blood, and there is so much of it already drying on his feathers, sticky, tacky, almost blending in with the darkness of the feathers

(but stark against the grey-white of exposed bone)

“Why the actual shit—” Tommy starts.

“Good idea, Phil,” he cuts him off. “Tommy, help him with the wings, would you?”

“Why do I have to—”

“You too, Wil,” Phil says, and his mood sours immediately. “You think I don’t see that leg? C’mon, Eret, show us to the pots.”

When faced with that, he has no choice but to agree, really.

(he wouldn’t have ignored it. he wouldn’t have. He knows better than to leave a wound untreated in wartime. Even if something whispers at him that he deserves the pain, even if the bite of it brings him closer to reality. But his better sense knows: pain is not the penance that is asked of him, not a recompense that will do anyone any good)

**********

They meet again half an hour later in Eret’s throne room. Half an hour later, and his leg is bandaged and tender and no longer an open wound, and Tommy is frowning and refusing to meet anyone’s eyes, and the state of Phil’s wings is still bothersome, because he didn’t let either of them touch them beyond what was necessary,

(and he recollects countless nights spent running his fingers through soft, silken feathers as his father told him how to preen them, told him that it was a sign of trust, an activity that only family, only flock is allowed, and now Phil will no longer let them near him, will no longer even take care of them himself and it makes him sick to his stomach to think of what has been lost)

but they are no longer bleeding, and that has to be what matters.

The throne room is not the best location for this, he thinks. It feels awkward. But it’s a room big enough to fit everyone, which is the point, big enough to fit Puffy, presence looming and forehead now bandaged, to fit Sapnap, fidgety as he is, like a caged, snarling animal, all restless energy. Big enough for Tubbo, for Tommy, for Ranboo, for Phil, for Eret and for himself, and big enough that there is an obvious gap at Phil’s right side where someone else should be standing.

Eret eyes her throne, glances at everyone else in the room, and then seats herself at its base. It’s a pithy gesture, meaningless, but Wilbur has more important things to do than to call her out on it, even though the existence of the throne itself grates against him.

“Let’s call this meeting to order, then,” he says, and Eret frowns. Perhaps she doesn’t like that he’s calling the shots in her own

(ill-gotten, dearly kept)

castle, but tough. He’s brought out the general for all of their sakes, so the general is what they’re all going to get.

(it’s a mask again and masks crack but he can keep it up for long enough he can he can they need a leader so he will lead he will lead them)

(you were so good at compartmentalizing, once, go good at shoving it all away in boxes in dark shadowy corners never to be opened to gather dust and cobwebs and faded recollections but the boxes cracked and the demon’s escaped and Pandora was too weak to stop them and it all ended in a bang and he cannot tell if hope remains but that isn’t the point because the box is opened and once opened it is not so easily closed and you are putting on a show a lie and lies come back around again they always do and you should know better than to pretend at strength you do not have you will lead them to ruin again ruin and gunpowder smoke and what gives you the right)

“Yeah, alright,” Puffy says. “Can we start by talking about—whatever that was? What were you talking about, dreamons? What’s a dreamon?”

“That sounds like a made up word,” Tommy mutters.

“I wish it were made up,” Tubbo says, and he winces when all eyes turn to him. But a moment later, he straightens, setting his shoulders squarely, holding his head up high. “I’ll tell you all what I know. Even if that turns out to be not as much as I thought.” He pauses, clearly struggling for words.

“Start from the beginning,” he suggests, and Tubbo nods at him gratefully.

“Okay, right, the beginning,” he says. “In the very beginning, me and Fundy were messing around, and we found some old books. We went through them for a laugh, and we learned about these things called dreamons.”

“Wait, that’s what they’re actually called?” Tommy interjects. “Like, properly?”

Tubbo shrugs. “It’s what the books said,” he says. “We weren’t about to argue over names. Even if it did seem like a weird coincidence. But yeah, that’s what they’re called.” His voice falls into an odd cadence here, recitative, like he’s telling a story, and Wilbur crosses his arms, gripping at his elbows. “They come from the darkness of the void, lurking around the edges of a server’s code. Once they get in, their only goal is to cause chaos and destruction. They corrupt everything they touch, and they can possess people and turn them into their puppets. They have unknowable powers, because they’re a sickness, a rot, like an infection in the code of the server itself. It’s really, really difficult to get rid of them, but it can be done if you have the right tools. Or—” He blinks, stuttering a bit, his voice landing more naturally. “We thought so, anyway.”

“What does this have to do with Dream?” Sapnap asks, stopping his pacing, looking to Tubbo with an expression in his eyes that hurts to look at, a bit, wobbly and desperate and pinched, like he already knows the answer but hopes that he’s wrong, hopes as much as he is able, even though he knows it will be fruitless.

Wilbur has put the pieces together. As best he can, anyway. And Sapnap’s not a stupid man. He can see where this is leading.

“Dream got possessed.” Tubbo sighs, gaze drifting toward the floor. “It was a whole thing. Honestly, we were surprised nobody else noticed. But we—we performed an exorcism. And it was really scary, to be honest. But it worked. We could see it leave, all oozy and black and gross, and Dream was better afterward! He was! So we thought we got it out.”

“But it tricked you?” he asks.

“I don’t understand how it could have,” Tubbo replies. “It’s not—it’s not like the kind of possession that you see in a TV show, where the demon can pretend to be the person or something like that. It’s obvious. It’s too—it’s too wrong to blend in, if that makes sense. It made his voice go all funny and deep, and the way it moved—” He shudders, and then continues, miserably, “The way it moved, there’s no way you could mistake something like that for a human. That’s why we were so sure it worked. Because afterward, he seemed back to normal.”

Something about this doesn’t make sense.

“Tubbo,” he says, wheels spinning in his mind, “when was this?”

Tubbo blinks. “Manberg days,” he says. “Um, that’s why we never told you about it, I suppose.”

He barely bats an eye at the reference. It doesn’t make sense. Because he has sensed that wrongness, as Tubbo puts it, has been sensing it from the moment he set foot in that prison cell for the first time. On some level, he knew that something was deeply wrong, even if a demonic presence was the last thing he would have guessed. But if the whole thing happened during—during that time, and the signs of possession were as obvious as Tubbo says, he would have noticed, wouldn’t he? He had plenty of interactions with Dream during that time.

(unless his own shadows stretched long, stretched far enough to cover Dream’s, to cover the thing piloting him)

But no—his shadows were of his own making, not supernatural. If anything, his mindset should have made him more receptive to suspicious wrongness, not less. So what—

(Dream smiles, and you know what it’s like, to have something whispering in your head, he says, once you let something in, there’s no going back)

“Maybe the first bit was a fakeout,” Phil suggests, arms folded, head tilted. He’s perplexed, which is worrying; it’s rare to come across a being that Phil knows nothing about. “It made itself obvious to lure you in so it could slip under the radar. Faked leaving to put your guard down, maybe.”

It’s plausible. But somehow

(and Dream stands atop the Egg and he says, he says, I tried to fight at first, but it turns out it was right all along, and he says it he says it like it’s separate from him like there is not something else something other speaking from his mouth after all and he tried to fight it he tried to fight it and what does that mean)

“They’re the same,” he breathes, and doesn’t know what he means, not quite yet, “they’re the same, and the Egg controls people, and he was talking about fighting something, about giving in—”

He runs a hand through his hair. Shakes his head.

“Wil?” Phil asks.

“Oi, Wilbur,” Tommy says, almost at the same time. But he needs to—he needs to focus as the pieces click into place, faster than he can process, and he has a conclusion but not the words yet—

He holds up a hand.

“Tubbo,” he says, “you said it can corrupt things. What did you mean by that?”

“I dunno, really,” he says. “It talked about it in the books some, but it was all weird metaphorical language. Couldn’t really makes sense of it. We were more focused on the bits that told us how to get rid of them.”

(he says, you know what the void is like, and Tubbo says that they come from the void, and)

That’s alright. He’s not sure he needs a hard answer to that, because he thinks that if one were to describe the feeling of the corruption, it would be

(it is dark and it is peaceful and there is static at the edges eating away at what makes him himself eating at his soul at his sense of self and it is what he wants, to be nothing, and he does not imagine what it would feel like if it were not what he desired, if he tried to resist it, resist the void all-consuming, all-devouring, resist the void that takes all things into itself and is never satiated)

something familiar.

“Alright,” he says, and steeples his fingers together. “Let me paint a picture for you. Someone gets possessed. You exorcise the thing. But these things can corrupt, you say. So maybe you get rid of the thing itself. Maybe Dream’s pretty much back to normal. But maybe it leaves little bits of itself behind. Maybe he’s not possessed, but maybe that doesn’t matter so much anymore. Maybe it changed him regardless. Maybe it’s still changing him, even though it’s no longer there. Maybe a corruption took root, and there wasn’t any going back from it.” He tilts his head, closes his eyes. “Suppose that the Egg is the same type of thing. Something that forced its way through the cracks of the server, something that’s been smart about it, biding its time. The things that Dream was saying reminded me a lot of what the Egg was doing, you know? Manipulating people, making them into things they aren’t, or into their worst selves.”

He strings the words together as he goes. He’s not sure he’s getting his point across. He used to be so much better at this.

“Wait, so you’re saying you think he isn’t possessed?” Sapnap asks.

“I’m saying we don’t really know,” he answers. “Not unless we get it from him. But Tubbo’s the expert here, and if he says Dream’s not acting like he’s possessed, I believe him. But even if he’s not possessed outright, that doesn’t mean there’s no—influence, perhaps.” He keeps his eyes shut; the darkness on the back of his eyelids is a natural one, but he can almost pretend that it isn’t. That it is darker, deeper.

(void)

“He was right that I know what it’s like,” he says. “I’ve felt the Egg in my head. And I was in the void for—a long time. It felt like forever. I know what it feels like, and there’s some of it in him, I think. Him and the Egg both. They’re the same kind of wrong, the same kind of unbelonging. I’ve never been possessed by a demon before, but if it’s made up of void stuff, that’s the sort of thing that stays with you. Whispering.”

He opens his eyes. Everyone is staring at him, varying expressions of horror on their faces.

He goes back over his words. In retrospect, he can see how they probably came off sounding.

“Wil,” Phil says softly.

“I’m fine,” he says, not at all convincingly, he’s sure.

(once he starts thinking of the void of the peace and of the rest it’s hard to stop even though his desires are now tinged with red and he knows better than to listen but he cannot help himself)

“This is all speculation, anyway,” he continues. “Might not matter at all, in the end, what the particulars are. We just need a way to stop them. Can dreamons be killed, Tubbo?”

Tubbo takes a moment before replying. “I don’t think so,” he says. “Fundy might remember better. But I think the only thing in what we read was the exorcism.”

“Which doesn’t help us much if Dream’s not actually possessed,” Puffy says. “Unless it might work on the Egg? If the Egg’s a—a dreamon too?”

“Worth a shot if we can get to it again,” he says, “but I don’t like risking so much on a maybe.”

“The less we mess with forces beyond our understanding, the better,” Eret says suddenly. She frowns, pushing her sunglasses further up her face. “As I said earlier, I’ve been away a good bit recently, so I haven’t been tracking the Egg’s progress as much as perhaps I should have. But I did notice an increase in activity—well. It was shortly after we tried to resurrect you, Wilbur.” She inclines her head toward him. “I fear that in our efforts, we might have interfered with something we shouldn’t have interfered with. Weakened a barrier of some kind, between our existence and—something else.”

She speaks with a strange kind of gravity. But her words make an unfortunate kind of sense.

He doesn’t look at Phil.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Tommy states. “What the fuck does that even mean?”

“I’m with Tommy on this one. What are you talking about?” Sapnap adds.

“We’re getting off track,” he says, snapping his fingers. “We’re going about this wrong. We don’t have enough information, and we don’t have enough power. Those are our problems. How do we solve them?”

“The obvious would be to get the word out,” Puffy says. “Comms are down, but we can go by word of mouth if we have to. Kinda risky, with the amount of vines on this server, but the nether portal’s right across the way. No vines in the nether, I think.”

“I have lots of old books myself,” Phil chimes in, eyes skyward. “Might be something in there to help that I’ve read and forgotten about. And I’ve got another source of info I’ve barely begun to go through. Old shit I found. It might be worth a shot.” He looks back down. “We need to go get Techno anyway.” He says the last in a tone that brooks no argument, and Wilbur doesn’t try, even if it’s perhaps not the most tactically sound option.

(he wants Techno back too, wants to lay eyes on him, hold his wrist in his hand and count his heartbeats, each one a reassurance, because he knows what it is for a brother to die and come back but that has never made it easier)

“It’s better than nothing,” he says. “Alright, I’ve got a plan, then. Some of us go to the tundra, get Technoblade, and go through whatever books Phil has. Some stay here and fortify the defenses as best we can using what Tubbo can remember that he thinks might work, and a couple of us go around through the nether and tell as many people as possible what’s going on. Gather allies, resources anything else we might need.”

It’s not much of a plan. But based on just how outclassed they are, just how little they know, just how much exhaustion shows in their faces, it might be the best plan they’re going to get for now. To throw themselves back into a battle so soon would be folly.

It never sits well with him to bank so much on a hope, though, a mere possibility that things will go their way.

(but certainties were ripped out from under him the moment Dream killed the unkillable, the moment he saw his brother crumple to ash before his eyes)

“Great,” Puffy says, grimacing. “What could possibly go wrong with that?”

The silence that greets that statement serves perfectly well as a response.

He closes his eyes again. The darkness is no comfort.

#mcyt #dsmp #dream smp #dsmp fic #wilbur soot #tommyinnit #philza #tubbo #eret #ranboo #captain puffy #sapnap #alivebur #/rp #cat writes fic #long post #c!wilbur angst tag

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mcytrabbithole · 4 years

Text

The Crash (Prologue Pt.2)

The second part of the prologue for my new fic! This is a fic about what would happen if the members of the Dream SMP and Hermitcraft got thrown into a new situation together.

If you want to read the first part of the prologue, you can read it here

Tags: @shineisalive ,

Warnings: Suffocation, vomiting, sudden muteness, SMP members feeling some pain

Word Count: 2473

It was a...normal day on the Dream SMP. At least as far as their normal days could go, which was to say that it was the most chaotic thing possible. Todays chaos involved the fact that things had finally boiled over for the seventeenth time. Now it was time for another showdown, this time the showdown was going on right past the fear sign that was outside of Pogtopia.

This was it, another battle for Pogtopia, another battle towards gaining their freedom. At least, it was looking like it was going to be another. The whole server was there, some watching, some ready for a fight. Niki and Eret were watching, because Niki didn’t have enough armor and Eret just couldn’t bring himself to fight. Seeing the people who are your home fight for the right to go back to the place they once called home isn’t something that many people would want to see.

Through out the day, as time led up to the battle, things had been...odd. Not just normal SMP odd either, odd like things had been going weird odd. Dream had noticed this as he always did, because as the admin, or the ‘god’ as he was jokingly referred to, he had to know what was up with his server. So if that meant sometimes he had to watch the chaos a little bit before he understood what was going on, then so be it.

Tommy had lost his pickaxe twice, even though he and Techno both knew it had been in his bag, and it reappeared in a chest that was by the potato farm. They hadn’t even been near the potato farm. Well, Techno had been but Tommy hadn’t been down there so they didn’t know how it had ended up there. Dream knew Tommy had had the pickaxe in his bag, he had seen him with it, so he knew that that had to have been a glitch. No biggie, one glitch isn’t a problem.

Then Dream had had the weirdest glitch he had seen in a while pop up.

Nihachu has burnt to death

The_Eret has burnt to death

The_Eret: Me and Niki weren’t even near one another and I wasn’t near any lava so I don’t know what just happened

Nihachu: I was just working on fixing some holes in a wall and then I just died? Dream could you take a look and see what happened?

Dream: Yeah, did you guys lose anything?

The_Eret: Nah, it says I burnt to death but all my stuff is where it was when I died

Nihachu: Same here.

Dream: I’ll take a look at it

Dream sighs as he reads over the messages a few more time, he didn’t really use his admin powers for much besides getting people their stuff back and giving people the supplies they needed. He double checks to make sure that he’s alone, which he was considering he was by himself in his house, and then he takes off his mask, allowing himself to see the code and take a look at it.

He didn’t take his mask off a lot for many reasons, but it was mainly so that he wouldn’t have to focus on the code that he could see thanks to being an admin. For some admins it was a case of needing something so they could see the code, for others it was a case of needing something so that they couldn’t see the code.

As he looks over the code to try and figure out what was wrong, he frowns. Everything looked right, but something just felt...wrong. It was like that itch at the back of your throat that you get even when you feel healthy as can be. Maybe he just hadn’t looked at the code in a while, maybe it was just the nerves that came with every battle that he fought in. Just because he’s a good fighter doesn’t mean that he doesn’t get nervous before a fight. Especially one like the one that was going to go down outside of Pogtopia, because that fight meant a fight against his friends.

He checks the time, the frown remaining on his face as he realizes how little time he has left until the fight. Dream takes a deep breath, taking one last look at the code before he puts his mask back on. Dream begins to make his way over to Pogtopia, trying to ignore that feeling at the back of his throat. It was just nerves, just his connection to the server being a bit stronger because of what was about to happen.

When he arrived, he saw that the sides were slowly beginning to form. Seeing Fundy, George, his team, fight against him wasn’t something he wanted, but he was willing to put aside his feelings. Dream looks over to where Wilbur, Tommy, and Techno were standing; they were quietly talking about something. Dream acted like he was middle ground, standing in between the two groups that had begun to form.

He couldn’t help but listen to the Pogtopia side of things, being an admin allowed for these moments. Allowed for him to listen in, figure out what people were saying and feeling without having to let himself get close. Some might call it rude, but he knew he needed to hear how the people he was going to fight alongside were feeling, even if he couldn’t reveal that he was fighting alongside them yet.

“Wilbur, are you sure you can handle going up against him? He’s still your son, even if he’s a traitor.” For once, Tommy wasn’t yelling and screaming. He was worried, worried for his friend. Wilbur sighed, taking a deep breath,” I can handle this, Tommy.” Though Dream could tell, Wilbur hated doing this. Going up against his son, it was something Wilbur never pictured happening. “Wilbur,” Techno spoke, using that same voice, but they could tell he was serious,” Am I allowed to hurt him? Cause I don’t wanna accidentally stab your kid if you’re not cool with me stabbing your kid.”

“Techno,” Wilbur looked at Techno, he sounded tired, looked tired,” If you absolutely have to, then stab...and if there is no other option, go for the kill. He’ll just respawn and be a bit pissed at you, or me...probably me.” Techno nods, he was always glad to go into another fight, but he also didn’t want to be the one that killed the people that they didn’t wanna kill.

Dream decides to stop listening to the conversation and just take a second to look around. He wouldn’t listen to the Manburg side, not even what Fundy had to say right now. Dream could see that those who were watching were the ones who couldn’t fight, though if they end up needing them, he’s more than willing to drop the gear that Niki needs or that Eret may need.

Finally, after quite sometime, the sides have spoken quietly to each other and now the real talks could begin. Dream stayed where he was, in the middle, but he was fully prepared to make a break for it and run for the Pogtopia side if he had to. The talks began calmly enough, with Wilbur saying,” Are you lot quite sure that you want to do this?” And Schlatt actually laughed, being far too arrogant for a man who didn’t wear armor,” Oh we’re quite sure, Wilbur.”

Dream sighed, looking between the two sides. He figured taking a shot at one last civil conversation was worth it. “Before you guys decide to go all out and murder one another,” He glances between the two groups,” One last chance to change sides, one last chance to talk things out peacefully, like adults.” He takes a deep breath and freezes at the sudden tightness he feels in his throat.

Both groups had been paying attention to Dream, so when he suddenly stopped talking, they all noticed. Dream tries to take another breath, but he can’t, and suddenly he’s gripping at his throat hoping to god that he’ll be able to breathe again. He’s gasping for breath, and people are trying to figure out what’s going on.

“Dream?” George says his friends name, concern for his friend running through him just as it did for everyone else, besides Schlatt. “He’s just faking it to buy time.” Schlatt says this easily enough, but everybody looks at him like he’s just snorted a bunch of blaze powder. Dream could swear that he was starting to see spots, unaware of the fact that he had started to shake. Fundy almost took a step, but he was sure that Dream would be fine.

Then it hit Dream again, and he hit the ground, landing on his hands and knees. “Dream!” George, Sap, and Bad went running towards their friend. Schlatt puts an arm out to stop George,” Don’t.” George just gives Schlatt a look,” He’s my friend and I’m going to check on him.” Then he pushes past Schlatt and heads over to Dream.

Dream was gasping for breath, trying to get in any air at all, but it just wouldn’t happen. “Dream, can you hear us?” Bad asks this, carefully crouching down next to his friend. “Does anybody have any water?” Sap looks towards both groups, war bedamned, his friend is in pain and he doesn’t want to see him in pain. Niki digs around in her pockets, finding a glass bottle,” I’ll get some water from the river!” She went running towards the river, Dream was a good guy and he needed the help.

Dream manages a nod, he could hear them, but things were getting faint. “Can we take the hood off of your head?” Bad was doing his best, so he figured yes or no questions were the best ones to ask right now. Dream nods again, getting the hood off might help. Bad carefully pulls the hood off of Dream’s head, and it helps for a moment, but then the pain comes back a thousand times stronger, causing him to let out another gasp. He could feel the lack of oxygen getting to him, could feel the bile in the back of his throat from how much the pain made him want to vomit.

“Dream, I think we’ll need to take the mask off of your face.” Bad says this carefully, knowing that Dream hated taking his mask off around people. Dream manages to think about it for a moment, then manages to shakily lift one of his hands, moving his mask just enough for his nose and mouth to be uncovered. That did help, allowing him enough air to breathe for longer than a moment.

Then suddenly, the pain stopped, and he was breathing again, though right after this, he does vomit. Bad rubs his back as Niki comes running up with a bottle of water, which she hands to George, cause she still doesn’t want much to do with Sapnap. George thanks Niki for the water as she heads back over to the sidelines where she and Eret had been.

Once Dream had stopped vomiting, George handed him the bottle of water and Dream practically downed it. Once he had finished the water, he went to thank George for it...and couldn’t speak. He frowns, trying to speak, but nothing comes out. Dream couldn’t talk, he couldn’t talk, oh this could not be happening. George frowns,” Are you having trouble talking?” Dream nods, sitting up as best as he can.

“What on earth is happening?” Wilbur seemed confused, concerned for Dream, but confused. “I think he can’t speak anymore.” Sap frowns, this was weird. Dream never felt any level of bad, so for him to have something like that happen...what on earth was going on?

Dream tries to speak again, but nothing comes out... and the pain comes back, except now it was in his chest. He doubles over, hitting the ground on his back this time. “Shit!” Sapnap and George both looked like they had no idea how to help and Bad was so freaked out that he didn’t even bother to say language.

Wilbur decides he’s going to take a step forward and see if he can help...and then the pain hits him straight in the chest and he hits the ground. “Wilbur!” Tommy is at his friends side in an instant, Niki running over to see what was going on. On instinct, Fundy reacts,” Dad!” He takes off towards them, Schlatt tries to stop him, placing an arm out and saying,” Don’t. Let him suffer.” Fundy responds to that by whacking Schlatt upside the head and ducking under his arm. Unfortunatley the pain to hit him a moment later and send him to the ground not too far from the midline of what had been the land between the two groups.

Schlatt frowns,” What kind of display of weakness is this?” Was this some sort of weird trick? Surely this was the only reason Dream and Wilbur would both be doing this. They had to be playing some sort of trick on him, that was the only thing that made sense.

Tubbo saw Tommy hit the ground and he almost went to him, almost went to his friends, but he didn’t want to risk it. Then he sees Eret hit the ground and he runs over to see if he could possibly help him. Right now, Eret was technically neutral so surely helping him wouldn’t be a bad thing. As he reaches Eret, the pain hits him and he ends up on the ground near Eret.

Then it starts to hit them all one by one, eventually everyone had hit the ground from pain...the only one left standing was Schlatt. “Ha! Look at all of you acting so weak! What kind of weird trick is this?! You think you’ll get pity from me just because you’re all in a little pai-” Before he can finish his rant, which was probably something about how strong he is, the pain finally hits him and he hits the ground.

As the pain hits them, they all shut their eyes, hoping that the pain would stop. That’s when they felt the change, the shift, the feeling of their code suddenly being moved somewhere else. Dream felt it the most, felt the way the server changed, he could practically feel it in the very beginnings of his code.

Suddenly, the pain stops, and when they opened their eyes, things were very different. Some were in an open field, others were separated from one another...but no matter where they had ended up, they weren’t alone. All they knew was this was not the SMP that they knew, at least, not entirely...and the people they saw were definitely people that weren’t in the SMP.

#dream smp #dreamwastaken #wilbur soot #tommyinnit #technoblade #nihachu #fundy #jschlatt #sapnap #badboyhalo #georgenotfound #tubbo #mcyt #mcytrabbithole #rabbit writes #the crash

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umbry-fic · 3 years

Text

A Palette Full of You (2)

Summary: Glimpses into Colette and Lloyd's lives as they grow up together, learn who they are, and fall in love with each other.

(Written for Colloyd Week 2021)

Fandom: Tales of Symphonia Characters: Lloyd Irving, Colette Brunel Relationships: Colette Brunel & Lloyd Irving, Colette Brunel/Lloyd Irving Rating: G Chapter: 2 of 6 Word Count: 4212 Mirror Link: AO3 Original Post Date: 10/06/2021

Chapter Title: Save the Children!

Chapter Summary: Lloyd and Colette take a break from studying and decide to play a video game. Colette starts to ruminate a little on how she's different from the rest of her classmates...

(Colloyd Week Day 2: Sidequest)

Notes+Warnings: Chapter 2 of my multi-chapter Colloyd week fic! Colette and Lloyd play a bunch of Kameo: Elements of Power. Lloyd is bisexual. This chapter might have a bit of internalised acephobia so beware.

Chapter list Full fic Previous chapter Next chapter

~~~

12-years-old

"There! Over there!" Colette shouted, dropping the Xbox controller onto her lap and gesturing frantically towards a corner of the television screen. In her frantic excitement, she completely forgot that Lloyd was sitting right next to her on the sofa, her elbow banging straight into Lloyd's arm.

Lloyd, startled, pitched to the side and pushed the joystick on his Xbox controller in the same direction.

Major Ruin, who Lloyd had been controlling to charge up a Bolder Rush, executed the move at this exact moment as Lloyd let go of the right trigger.

And so Major Ruin careened right off the edge of the platform, as per the directions Lloyd had just inputted into the game. The tragic end to a glorious adventure. Kameo would never rescue her father from her sister’s evil clutches, for she had fallen to her death from a high height... by complete accident. Or maybe it would be better to class this as incompetence?

Oops.

"Oh, no," they both muttered at the same time, staring with their mouths open in horror. Colette reached out uselessly towards the TV, as if she could reach into the game and stop Major Ruin’s fall.

As if.

The armadillo look-alike Earth elemental (except a lot spikier) continued to fall while flailing their stubby limbs uselessly, eventually hitting the ground with the familiar and resonant "thud", accompanied with the dreaded snapping sound that had populated much of their playtime in the Snow-top Village. The thin and winding ice paths throughout that area had led to many a death from fall damage as they had tried to get their hands on the elemental fruits hidden away among various corners. Now that they were in the Ancient Tower, with its dark, foreboding, narrow stone corridors lit only by the sparest of torches sitting in sconces, where there was only one path forward and they were caged in by walls, Colette thought their falling episodes would be over. It was a bit claustrophobic, really.

It appeared that was not the case. Fall damage was eternal, and it would haunt them always, following them everywhere and showing its face at the most inopportune of moments.

Major Ruin morphed back into Kameo's petite, winged form, collapsing to the ground with a pained groan. Lloyd's side of the screen faded to black before he respawned at the last checkpoint, erasing a full 20 minutes of progress. The Kameo that Colette controlled was now completely alone in the chamber, performing her idle animations as Colette’s controller went untouched. Lloyd dropped his Xbox controller into his lap as well, leaning back against the sofa as he let out a groan of his own.

There was no sound apart from the whirring coming from the Xbox under the TV, the game music, and the "whup-whup" of the blades of the ancient standing fan in the corner of the living room, struggling in its job to blow "cool" air at them and combat the viciously hot weather.

Lloyd had every right to be frustrated with her; she had a tendency to kill him in-game. It wasn't murder, just manslaughter: knocking him off the cliff, setting both of them on fire, or startling him in general. It wasn't just in Kameo. Her clumsiness and butterfingers translated to every genre. No matter the game - Mario, Minecraft, Maplestory - she always found some way to cause a game over.

But he'd never directed any frustration or anger towards her. These are just silly games, he said every time. Much easier to laugh over the mirthful consequences together than get mad. Whenever they had the time to play video games together, the air was filled with nothing but laughter, a few frustrated grumbles from when they were struggling at a particular level, and the occasional rib from Lloyd’s end when she messed up. That's what made it incredibly fun. What the two of them had termed "game-time" never failed to put a smile on their faces.

And it was an effective destresser! It was a great relief to be able to channel all the stress from studying for PSLE into beating up trolls in Kameo. That appeared to be Lloyd's favourite part of the game - racking up combos with his favourite character Pummel Weed. Though she had to say her favourite part of the game so far was watching the cutscenes that played after rescuing the baby elementals from the prisons created by the nefarious shadow trolls. The wacky transformation from adorable blob to full-fledged elemental, complete with the blob sprouting arms and growing claws or shells, was… interesting to witness.

"Sorry," she sheepishly said, still feeling the need to apologise as she patted his hand. "Didn't mean to startle you. It's just that I found the last child!"

"Oh, really? Where?” Lloyd asked eagerly, attention turning back to the TV. “I couldn't see anything. It's all so dark."

"Over there." More calmly this time, Colette pointed out the child encased in a translucent ice crystal, tucked away in a corner of the platform hidden in shadow. She’d forgotten the name of this species, and could only describe them as cuttlefish that had taken human form. What were they were doing so far from the Mountain Falls? Weren't they native to that location? "We need to free them quickly! This is the last child."

“The last - you’ve been keeping count?!” Lloyd asked, voice rising in volume and shock written clearly across his face.

“Yeah! The mother said there were three, and we’ve rescued two. She must have been really worried, or she wouldn’t have begged us to save her children. I want to reunite them as soon as possible!”

"Alright. Ice, huh? It'd be similar to the other crystals we got rid of in the snow area. So just turn into Ash!" Lloyd suggested.

"Oh, you're right! Thanks for the reminder!" Colette opened the transformation wheel with a quick press of a button and proceeded to fumble with the joystick for a full minute while Lloyd slowly crawled his way back up the tower. She kept pushing too far to the right and overshooting Ash's dragon head on the wheel to land on Thermite, before overcorrecting to the left and landing on 40 Below. Frustration slowly piled up until she groaned, burying her head in her lap. This was embarrassing. She couldn't even navigate a simple menu like this, even after months of playing this game. Butterfingers, once again.

"Lloyd, can you open the main menu? I'll just pick Ash from there."

"Nah, we don't need to open Wotnot. Let's give Ortho a break for now," Lloyd replied. She knew that wasn't the real reason. Lloyd just didn’t want to hear from the eccentric wizard trapped within the paperback book that doubled as the main menu. "Here, let me help. But you need to get up first!" She straightened up, still sulking as he smiled at her, looking like he was holding back laughter at her predicament.

Lloyd stretched out his hand and placed his index finger over her thumb, gently guiding her thumb on the joystick so that the selection square landed right on Ash's head. Colette watched as Kameo hunched over and transformed into the red, clawed, scaly dragon that was the fire elemental Ash, tail slowly swaying from side-to-side as his wings flapped.

"You're so good at this..." she muttered, glancing down at her controller where Lloyd's hand was still placed over hers. They were only 12, but his hands were already slightly bigger than hers. He'd gotten his growth spurt in the earlier part of this year and shot up in height; now half a head taller than her. It was a slightly startling change after being the same height for the six years they'd known each other. He would likely only grow taller as time went on. As for herself... Maybe she'd gain another 5 centimetres by the time she was 18, if she was lucky. Given the actual state of her luck, she'd probably stagnate at her current height. Tallness was just not in the cards for her.

Not that she minded. The added height made him rather comfortable to lie on. If he gained just a few more centimetres, his shoulder would be the perfect height to rest her head on… That would make movie nights all the more comfortable.

Plus, the height change was just that. A physical change. Inside, Lloyd was still the same person - the boy who loved playing with Noishe but hated doing his homework, and would do everything in the world to avoid it. He hadn't changed. Not a single bit.

"Don’t sweat it. There are so many things you’re good at too! If it weren’t for your keen eye, I would’ve missed the kid entirely… So don’t be too bothered!” Lloyd gave her hand one squeeze before removing his hand, returning to his quest of returning to Colette's location. "Now, melt the ice!”

Colette did exactly that, leading the lumbering Ash over to the entrapped child and unleashing his fire breath. She watched with bated breath as the ice slowly melted, causing more of the child to be exposed to the air. They had previously used this exact same technique to unearth elemental fruits in the icy caverns filled with those icky bugs that exploded when defeated and obscured the screen with blue juice. It had been exciting then, to stumble upon secrets because of their penchant for exploration. But watching the child slowly be freed, watching their tentacles slowly start to move as they came into contact with warm air, was an entirely different experience, one that filled her with joy.

When was the last time the two of them completed a side objective like this, one that had direct effects on a citizen of this magical world? Casting her mind back informed her that that would be the starting town, when they returned to water the farmer’s crops with Deep Blue.

Now that the last child had been fully freed, all the children went running back to their worried mother, who proceeded to pull them into a giant group hug. Colette dropped her controller, clapping her hands together at such a sweet sight. Lloyd did laugh, then, a chuckle that she could feel rumble through her as well from where their shoulders touched. "What are you so excited about?" he asked.

"We did it! We saved all the children!" she exclaimed, watching the mother pull out one of the large elemental fruit in thanks. "Doesn't that make you happy? That we were able to help someone... That's what makes these side objectives fulfilling, right?"

"Yeah, I guess. It's just like you to get like this over a video game,” Lloyd replied, watching Kameo hoist the elemental fruit into the air, where it magically shrunk in size to fit in her bag. Colette wondered how Kameo’s bag even worked - how did it store Wotnot and dozens of elemental fruits? It was like a black hole. Just like Noishe's stomach.

“Though..." Lloyd frowned, staring up at the clock that hung on the wall, whose hands indicated that it was 2 pm. "Time’s up. We should get back to revising before Mom gets home from the vet with Noishe."

"Oh, you're right..." That was a downer. Time had flown so fast; their 20 minutes were up already!

The moment had come to return to the dining table and the assessment books that sat open on it. Studying was never fun, but it just had to be math today, and the chapter just had to be nets. Her most hated subject, combined with the topic she hated most. It was a headache all around.

But Lloyd was surprisingly good at nets, and he'd been a great help the whole day. Even if he still hated math with a passion and always got stuck on algebra questions, where it was her turn to assist him. That was why studying together was effective! They could fill in the gaps for each other, and motivate each other to keep going. Just three months left to go until it was all over! They could do this, and they would get through it. Together, just as they would every predicament that came to pass in the future.

"Um, and before you go home today, could you help me with something else?"

"What is it?" Colette asked, reaching for the TV remote on the coffee table. Lloyd was staring at the carpet, his hand absent-mindedly pulling at the hem of his singlet, separating the fabric from sweaty skin.

“Ellum’s birthday present,” Lloyd muttered, his voice getting softer with each word he spoke, until she could barely make out the words. “His birthday is in two weeks, and I…”

Ohhh.

They had a habit of telling each other almost everything, for any secret was always safe with the other. So she knew why Lloyd was clamming up. Ellum was his current crush, after all.

“Say no more. Of course I’ll help you! We can do whatever you want!” she replied with enthusiasm. She'd be happy to help.

"Thank you," Lloyd replied, meeting her gaze again with a tiny smile lighting up his face. "Now, let's get back to studying."

They made the short walk to the dining table, taking their seats across from each other. Lloyd's face was already starting to twist into a grimace, resigning himself to another few hours of torture at the hands of the twisted people who made their livelihood setting math questions.

Clearing away the Kit Kat wrappers on her assessment book, she glanced down at a question about nets she'd been working on before the break. Yet not a single word on the page was being absorbed. They were all running away from her.

The downside of Lloyd confiding in her for all of his crushes was that it was a stark reminder that she hadn't had her first one yet. And then, inevitably, her mind would drift further to all the little ways she stood out from her classmates.

It was like everyone around her had changed drastically overnight at some unknown point in time. The jokesters of the class had just started making dirty jokes one day, prompting scandalised glares from the rest of the class but also prompting snickers. She herself didn't get the joke half the time, just laughed to go along with everyone else.

Then there was the shift in daily conversation. Instead of discussing their favourite Pokémon, more often than not the other girls would now discuss in hushed voices while giggling which celebrity was the most attractive. She herself would sit quietly, trying to melt into the wall as she observed without interjecting, half fascinated and half horrified. Weren't they all too young for this?

Things got even more awkward when she was forcibly pulled into the conversation when someone directed a question at her. She had no idea what to say whenever someone showed her a picture of a celebrity and asked her to rate them. The only thing she ever managed to stutter out was that their eyes were a nice colour, and so was their hair. That... was how you judged a person on how attractive they were, right? Everyone else, though, seemed to think she was weird. But how was she supposed to be feeling? No one had ever taught her. It felt like everyone was keeping a secret from her on how these things were supposed to work, then making fun of her for not getting it.

She only got more confused every time something like that happened. All she wanted to do was go back to talking about her favourite cartoons, but that didn't seem to be an option. Lloyd wasn't in the same class as her, so she couldn't even sit with him and ignore everyone else. The only time she could meet up with him during school hours was at recess. She didn't know what Lloyd talked about with the rest of his friends. Maybe the same stuff. But she didn't really care, because, with him, she could just be herself. There was no need for tiring pretence.

All she could do when the girls were in a mood to discuss celebrities again was sit a little outside of their circle, counting down the seconds remaining for class to start while she tried to look as occupied as possible. She couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief every time the topic of conversation turned back to something a little easier to understand, like video games.

But surely, someday, she would understand.

She was waiting. For that day. For her to finally catch up to everyone else in the race she hadn’t even known she’d entered until everyone had left her in the dust, still standing with her mouth agape at the starting line. To finally be like everyone else, to be able to fit in seamlessly. But there was no use getting down about it!

She just had to meet The One. Then everything would change, everything would fix itself. That's what happened in all the stories, the shows, the movies, after all.

Because everyone, in the end, learned to feel the same way, right?

~~~

19-years-old

"Right! I think that’s enough for now.” Colette’s voice shattered the serenity of her room from where she was sitting on the bed with her laptop balanced in her lap, cutting through the sleepy fog that was starting to fill Lloyd’s head. The peaceful Ghibli tunes that had been filling the room cut off abruptly as she shut her laptop screen, reaching a hand up to undo her messy hair bun.

Lloyd yawned, rubbing his eyes and hoping that would make his eyelids feel less heavy. Pushing himself up from his belly-down position on the bed, he caught one last glance of the back of Colette's neck before her hair covered it again. Doing prep for uni was not the most exciting way to pass the afternoon, and it certainly wasn't normal fare for a date. But it had to be done, so they might as well do it together, as they did all things.

Though he'd gotten distracted and started scrolling through YouTube about an hour ago.

"Are you going to change out of pyjamas?” Lloyd asked, stretching, his shirt hiking up slightly. He’d taken the lift down the three floors that separated his apartment and hers in the old HDB block that they’d stayed in all their lives, rang the doorbell while staring at the Chinese New Year decorations that were still hung up despite the month now being April, and waited for Colette to open the door… Only to be met with the sight of Colette in her favourite doggie pyjamas, the baby blue button-up ones that covered every inch of her skin. She'd shrugged and said it was cold from the non-stop rain, but he knew the real reason was the lazy post-A-levels haze, that affected him as well. These days, sleeping in until noon was the norm. Or sleeping in until one of his parents came into his bedroom to knock him awake.

“Yeah,” she replied, grabbing a towel and a few articles of clothing from the open wardrobe and heading towards the doorway.

“Alright.”

Lloyd closed his laptop slowly, not wanting a repeat of the time in Secondary 3 he’d shattered the screen because Zelos had sneaked up on him and caught him unawares. He rolled off the bed, making the small trip of barely a few steps to the study table, passing the various objects Colette had up on the walls - the Disney posters she’d gotten ages ago, and the random stickers she’d amassed over the years from school club sales and donations - and the bay window filled to the brim with cute and huggable soft toys, a familiar Siberian Husky that showed the signs of being well-loved sitting atop the pile.

Lying on the study table was Colette’s Nintendo Switch, plugged into a socket to charge. Right next to it was a jar holding paintbrushes of all sizes, all of them as clean of paint as possible, for he knew Colette took extremely good care of her art supplies. The sketchbook no one was allowed to peek into was sticking out of the table’s drawer, half-used pads of foolscap and sheets of paper with pencils rolling in them visible within. Files that he’d nearly kicked, containing lecture notes and worksheets, were shoved into messy piles under the table, unneeded after the conclusion of examinations but having no convenient place to be stored. The tiny shelf sitting on the table still had her Junior College badge housed on one of the layers, silver in colour and reflecting the light from the windows, despite her having no use for it ever since they had graduated in November. (Perhaps she liked looking at it? She was something of a magpie sometimes.) He could spot a familiar conch shell, placed among other knick-knacks, mostly birthday presents.

Picking up the handheld (with its lime green and cyan JoyCons firmly attached), he unplugged the charger and watched the screen light up - and frowned at what it showed him.

"Hey, Colette!" he yelled, cupping his hands around his mouth. He hoped he could catch her before she entered the bathroom. Uncle Frank was working in the master bedroom no more than five metres away and had been nothing less than incredibly nice, as he always was, providing tons of refreshments and snacks. Lloyd would like to prevent a shouting relay if possible.

If Colette had been walking, she shouldn't have reached the bathroom yet...

The fast pitter-patter of bare feet against the floor informed him that he was right. "What is it, Lloyd?" Colette's head poked its way into the doorframe, her golden hair reaching down towards the floor, her blue eyes wide and questioning.

"You left Animal Crossing on," he answered, waving the Switch in the air.

Her eyes lit up in understanding. "Oh. You know what to do, right?"

Control the playable character and put her to sleep, then save the game. He'd done it before.

"Yeah, but, I was thinking... I haven't taken a walk on your island since last year. How about I take another tour while you're in the bathroom? If you're okay with it, of course."

"Oh, sure! I trust you." Colette smiled sweetly, turning to leave before pausing and turning back. "But remember -"

"- remember not to step on the flowers." Lloyd finished her sentence easily, stating that fact very seriously. He knew about Colette's concerns about her precious flowers, which she’d spent hours arranging around her little island until they were in just the right spot - fields of rainbows to welcome any guests and guide them around. He hadn't known that the stems of the flowers could break from being trampled multiple times when he first explored her quaint world - the fictional flowers were just as fragile as their real-life counterparts. He’d kept that in mind ever since, adding it to the many rules to follow to ensure no harm came to all the hard work Colette had put in to make her island perfect.

"Yep. Um…” Colette wrung her hands together, bowing her head so her hair formed a veil over her face.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, taking a step towards her.

“No, nothing’s wrong!” Colette hurriedly replied, lifting her head again. She screwed her eyes shut, hands clenching into fists. “I - uh, just wanted to say… I love you!”

The last three words came out in a shout, so quick that he almost didn’t catch them.

Lloyd froze, trying to process what he’d just heard - and before he could reply, Colette was already gone, having fled down the corridor and out of sight.

He slowly shut his mouth, which he hadn’t even realised was open.

This was the first time she’d said those coveted three words since they'd started dating. Her voice had been dripping with uncertainty, her posture betraying her shyness, but no matter how contradictory, she’d said it with sincerity, with all her heart. And even though he didn't need to hear them from her to know she loved him, for it was actions that counted, and certainly didn't need to hear them from her for him to love her, it still made him smile, his whole soul filled with a light warmth.

They’d travelled such a long way from all the checkpoints in life that they'd passed together. They still had a long way to go, but they’d do it together. As they always had.

"I love you too, silly," he said into empty space, knowing Colette couldn't hear him but wanting to say it anyway.

Lloyd unlocked the Switch screen, staring down at Colette's intricate creation. Flowers filled the screen, black, grey, white, purple, that he found familiar but couldn't put a name to. Oh, well. He would just tour the island and check out any new changes while he walked to the living room and waited for Colette to come back. Maybe he'd visit the town centre as well.

The most vital question to be answered was... Had Colette gotten those froggy chairs that she wanted for the townspeople?

~~~

Next chapter

#fanfiction #multi chapter #lloyd irving #colette brunel #colloyd #colloydweek2021 #day 2: sidequest #tales of symphonia

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newtafterdark · 4 years

Text

Taste of Metal - Chapter 7: Between Pancakes and Digital Islands

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26157634/chapters/65487961

Summary: What if the overwhelming VR experience Gordon went through, had a deeper purpose than just being a simple simulation & a freelance debug job for him?

But most importantly- what if Gordon Freeman listens to Metal & used to be in a band? aka. the “Metalhead Gordon AU”

- - -

Gordon slowly came back to consciousness after several hours of dreamless sleep, searching for his glasses around him with barely opened eyes.

He felt his sore muscles protest, screaming at him to just lay still on the futon beside Tommy, Darnold and Sunkist… and honestly, that sounded very inviting.

His hand finally found his glasses and he put them on with a slightly shaky hand.

Yeah, at this point there was no denying that his body was slowly catching up with the stress, now that he was no longer in imminent danger.

He propped himself slowly up with his intact arm, letting himself wake up at a casual pace as he looked around the room, checking on his new roommates.

Tommy, Darnold and Sunkist were still out cold, cosy among kicked-off blankets and pillows, Tommy snoring away softly as he laid there, limbs spread out like a starfish and Sunkist curled up at his side.

Darold was laying half on top of Tommy, one arm resting gently on the man’s chest, his breathing calm and even.

Gordon tilted his head at them, smiling. The domesticity of the whole situation was a relief to his nerves. That, and Tommy and Darnold just looked absolutely adorable like this. Gordon shook his head, chuckling at himself and slowly got up to his feet.

“Yo, you up!”

Gordon, to his own surprise, didn’t jump at the noise of Benrey’s voice. What did catch him by surprise though, was where the voice was coming from-

“Yeah, Gordon's up… and you… uh… you’re okay up there?”

Benrey was sitting on top of Gordon’s storage closet, looking up from something in his hands.

“Yeah. Cool cosy watch spot. Got a pillow up here and everything--”

Squinting up with his still tired eyes, Gordon finally made out the thing Benrey was now showing to him.

“Is that my Nintendo Switch?”

“Whuh? Nah, that’s mine.”

“Benrey… just don’t delete my save files, okay?”

“...It’s really not yours, bro. Here, looksie-”

With that, he bent down, showing Gordon… an extremely scratched-up Switch with several glittery Lisa-Frank stickers on the back. Huh.

“Oh... Sorry, man. I really thought-”

Benrey just waved him off and leaned back up, his back resting against the wall above the closet.

“All good. Wanna have my friend code?”

Gordon thought it over. While he still felt a smidge of unease around Benrey… well, it couldn’t hurt trying to bond over video games with the guy while they were all living in Gordon’s apartment for the time being.

“Yeah, sure! Just want to check on everyone and get some breakfast ready before I do anything else. You… uh, stay cosy up… there?”

“Will do, Gordo.”, Benrey assured him, giving him a mock salute.

Gordon let out a snort at the sight and slowly made his way to the kitchen to check on the remaining members of the Science Team… and Tommy’s dad.

“Hello, Gordon!”

Gordon yawned and gave the trio at his small kitchen table an apologetic smile.

“Mornin’. Sorry, am still exhausted as fuck… you all good though? Sleep-wise and all that?”

“Better than any night at Black Mesa… but Let me tell you- you sound like a damn foghorn when you snore!”, Bubby teased with a smirk, his feet resting on the table and his arms behind his head.

Gordon turned red at that.

“It’s n-not that bad!”

“Oh, it absolutely was, my good bitch!”, Coomer assured him with a smile- “But in a way we could all appreciate!”

“It was almost… like a small concert, Mr Freeman. Between you, Tommy and... Benrey.”, G-Man added, smirking a bit before he took a sip from the mug in his hand.

Gordon blinked at the sight of the mug, his thought process derailed from thinking about his snore habits back to what he wanted to do the kitchen in the first place-

“Oh shit! Breakfast! Do I even-”

“I took it upon myself to refill your kitchen with… appropriate nutrients. If you… stand by wanting to house everyone for a while, I assumed it would make the first few days easier on you.” said G-Man, setting his mug down.

“Y-Yeah… it- it absolutely does! Thanks, man!”, Gordon let out a flustered chuckle.

“I do want to... let you know though that I will not remain here. While I… appreciate your eager hospitality… I have... business to take care of. Regarding the state of Black Mesa… and what my employers were able to assess since our departure from the facility yesterday. I… do not like being “out of the loop”, so to speak. ”

G-Man reached down the side of his chair and pulled his suitcase up, setting it on the table and opening it, facing it away from everyone but himself. He pulled out a few papers and handed them to Gordon.

“While I am gone… for the time being… do give this to Tommy. He will know what to do with it.”

Gordon looked down and scanned the pages, Bubby and Coomer leaning over curiously to catch a glance as well.-

“...”Approval for ”Pocket-Dimension Expansion of Limited Space”? What-”

But when Gordon looked up, G-Man was gone.

“What a show-off.”, Bubby huffed and crossed his arms.

“Now Bubby, everyone should be allowed to show off their powers now and then!”, Coomer reminded the man, then stood up- “Now, do you need any assistance with preparing a hearty breakfast, Gordon?”

“Huh?... Oh! Oh yeah!”

Setting the papers on the table, for now, Gordon moved over to the fridge to assess what they had to work with-

“Man… okay, Wow. G-Man didn’t fuck around… Yeah, we can go all out with a proper big breakfast, if you guys want!”

Bubby made his way over to look over Gordon’s shoulder and let out a huff-

“I don’t even know what half of all this junk is, but I guess we have enough to come up with something edible.”

Gordon rolled his eyes at that, reaching inside the fridge to grab a carton of milk and handing it over to Bubby.

“Less doubting our cooking abilities, more helping me decide what we want to make, jackass.”, He said with a grin, sticking out a tongue at Bubby, then letting out a laugh.

Coomer beamed instantly at Gordon’s playful retort, while Bubby was standing frozen in place for a second in shock but eventually allowed himself a chuckle.

- - -

Several minutes later, the trio was joined by Benrey… who admitted outright that the smell from the kitchen had been too good to ignore.

Gordon puffed up his chest a bit in pride, while he was in the process of frying pancakes… then smirked as an idea came to mind.

“Hey, Benrey?”

“Yo?”, the guard looked over in slight confusion.

“Wanna see a gamer strat?”

“Whu-”

Gordon lifted the pan from the stovetop, his grip on its handle firm- and made a short forward-backwards movement, angled slightly up- which made the pancake flip in the air before it landed perfectly in Gordon’s pan once more.

…

There was absolute silence in the kitchen for a moment.

…

“YOOOOOOOOOOOO~!!!”

“WHAT THE FUCK?!”

“I didn’t know you were trained in advanced cooking techniques, Gordon!”

Gordon looked over his shoulder with a bright smile.

“I taught myself a bunch of them actually! Mostly from watching friends and family and then trying them on my own until I got them right! In a way… I guess I trained myself for this moment.“, Gordon mused, humming slightly as he adjusted where he was resting his still sensitive stump against his body.

Before any of the others got a word in, he went on-

“... and for previous moments like this. Ain’t the first time I only had one working hand to work with! I broke this arm so many times in the past, at this point I am almost used to barely using it....”

Gordon finished setting the last pancake on the stack, set the pan down and turned around.

“Still… I am already thankful that you want to make me a prosthetic, Dr Coomer.”

The older scientist pulled Gordon into a gentle side hug.

“Again, it’s the least I can do, Gordon. Bubby also offered his assistance! Not to mention Benrey!”

Gordon blinked and looked over to the two people in question.

“R-Really?”

“Look, we were dumb shits who didn’t know the bastards would pull this bullshit on your physical body. Doesn’t make it better… but you know. Already said my two cents about it last night… but yes, the least I can do is help build a hand that is even better than your original one.”, Bubby said over cutting strawberries and bananas into slices.

Gordon accepted that with a grateful nod before he felt a slight pull on his t-shirt sleeve. Looking down, he was faced with Benrey, hands still holding his Switch and looking anywhere but at Gordon.

“You good, Benrey?” The man before him remained silent, but then lifted his Switch up for Gordon to see.

“Look, please? While I try to pick the right words? ”

“Y-Yeah…? Sure, man…”, Gordon said as he gently took the console from Benrey, leaning it against his stump so he wouldn’t drop it and using his intact hand to move the joystick and push buttons.

It turned out Benrey was playing “Animal Crossing: New Horizons”. Gordon had the game himself but hadn’t had the time to play it properly between the recurring jobs from Black Mesa and other freelance programming work.

He looked at the scratched screen, the game already running and the player character, Benrey’s little villager, standing in what appeared to be a huge field of blue windflowers… and trees that had star pieces handing on them. Of course, Benrey would be the type to mod his game.

While Gordon moved the character through the flowers, occasionally stopping at a few furniture items Benrey had placed- he had a full rainbow squad of monster statues lining the left beach- Benrey began to talk.

“The… uh… the selling you out to the boots thing was a dumb strat. Dummy brain didn’t think anything would happen IRL. Thought it would be a funny moment in the game, ‘cause it would just respawn… but then it didn’t. A-And then Coolatta Senior found you after we got out and-”

Slowly, the blue windflowers made way for pink tulips… only to be followed up by orange roses. A sea of them stretching over the island… this must have taken Benrey hours to create...

“- you know I like being an ass. it’s FUN! But only when… w-when we can laugh about it? And we can’t laugh about this… so… shit’s fucked. You don’t gotta be all like “I don’t hold that shit against you”. I know you already said that but… uh… I’m still sorry. Was real shitty of me… so I’m gonna help the doc’s with your new hand.”

Finally, Gordon reached the end of the island, where he found two big star pieces sitting in the sand… with a sign behind them, reading- [> Restart?].

He looked up, brows slightly furrowed. After a moment of silence, he set the console gently down on the table.

Benrey looked increasingly nervous, until-

“Benrey.”

“y-yeah, what’s up, br- HURGH!”

Gordon had pulled the slightly smaller man into the tightest hug he could muster and Benrey positively melted into the touch, wrapping his arms around Gordon carefully in return. He got an assuring squeeze and found the confidence to give a slight squeeze back, relieved Sweet Voice spilling freely out of his mouth, earning him a few chuckles from Coomer and Bubby in the background.

Gordon eventually pulled back, his hand remaining on Benrey’s shoulder, said man instantly hiccuping out a bright pink orb at how the taller man was looking at him.

Benrey had never been good at reading human expressions… but whatever Gordon’s face was doing, it made him feel warm and safe inside.

“Alright, you one-of-a-kind cryptic bastard-”

Gordon took a step back and extended his hand towards Benrey.

“Gordon Martini Freeman. Human. Graduated MIT with a doctorate in Theoretical Physics and currently a Freelance Programmer.”

Benrey didn’t even hesitate a millisecond as he grabbed Gordon’s hand-

“Benrey Lover. Xenian. Black Mesa Security Guard and now...uh... full-time gamer?”

Gordon smiled brightly at him.

“Nice to meet you, Benrey.”

Benrey nodded, a hint of what could be described as their first proper smile on their lips.

“Samesies, Gordon.”

#metalhead gordon au #hlvrai #gordon feetman #hlvrai gordon #benrey #tommy coolatta #hlvrai darnold #hlvrai coomer #hlvrai bubby #hlvrai gman #hlvrai sunkist #metalhead gordon #fanfic #fanfics

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random-crappypasta-qoutes · 3 years

Text

This will probably be my longest post ever lol. Well, get ready for this behemoth of a story called Happy Tree Friends: The Funeral.

nscript

(the movie begins in the hospital showing Lumpy as a doctor, he comes across Buzz Lightyear, who has broken his arm off)

Lumpy: Hello, do you need fixing up?

Buzz Lightyear: Don't talk to me!

(Lumpy comes over to a bruised and bloodied Cuddles' hospital bed)

Lumpy: So, you were beaten up by Scoutmaster Lumpus?

Cuddles: (coughing up blood) Y-yes....

Lumpy: Hmmmmmmmm…..don't worry, I can make you better! (rubs two defibrillator paddles together) CLEAR! (electrocutes Cuddles, which burns him until his heart explodes)

(everyone shrieks)

Lumpy: Whoops, sorry....

Toothy: He's not the only one you know, Russell died of lung cancer, Flaky had of a heart attack from entering a chick farm, Cub was shot by a black guy because Pop wasn't there to protect him, Mime was shot by Cleveland Brown, and Splendid puked his organs out after swallowing the Kryptonut.

Nutty: Oh, why would we lose them too?!

Petunia: This is just terrible!

(later, at the funeral)

(The Intermezzo of Cavalleria Rusticana starts playing as the remaining Happy Tree Friends mourn for Cuddles, Russell, Flaky, Cub, Mime, and Splendid)

Reverend Lovejoy: Here lies Cuddles the bunny, Russell the pirate otter, Flaky the porcupine, Cub the baby bear, Mime the mime deer, and Splendid the super squirrel. We shall never forget the times we had with them.

PhantomStrider: (blows a horn) YAY!!!! 6 OF THE HAPPY TREE FRIENDS ARE DEAD!!!!

Happy Tree Friends Hater #1: LET'S CELEBRATE!!!!

PhantomStrider: (starts playing the Chicken Song by J.Geco)

Flippy: You evil disrespectors! I swear I'll cut you in your sleep!

Reverend Lovejoy: Question, how did Cuddles die?

Sniffles: Lumpy shocked him to death after he got beaten by Scoutmaster Lumpus.

Reverend Lovejoy: Oh, okay.

Diesel: Alright people, LET'S TEAR THIS PLACE DOWN!!!

PhantomStrider: I’m full of surprises, they ought to say of me, I bring some razzle dazzle to the yard, I’m full of surprises, as you can plainly, I don’t find being surprising all that hard. Some would probably say, I’m only up to my old tricks, but I’d say I’m a problem solver, looking for a nice quick fix. I’m full of surprises, they ought to say of me, I bring some razzle dazzle to the rail, I’m full of surprises, as you can plainly see, I’m trusting my surprises to prevail, I hope this time being surprising doesn’t fail! They used to call me devious, because I had a pit of previous, but please you must believious, I’m not that bad… Well maybe just a tad.

Crowd of Characters: (applause)

Russell Ferguson: That's what that pirate otter gets for stealing my name!

PhantomStrider: Come here, Happy Tree Friends haters!

Happy Tree Friends Haters: Coming!

PhantomStrider: Are you a real villain?

Hater #1: Well, uhhh….technically not

PhantomStrider: Have you ever caught a good guy like a real superhero?

Hater #1: Nah!

(Hater #2 shakes his head)

PhantomStrider: Have you ever tried a disguise?

Hater #1: Nah, nah....

PhantomStrider: Alright! I can see that I will have to teach you how to be villains!

Happy Tree Friends Haters: Hey! We are number one! Hey! We are number one!

PhantomStrider: Now listen closely. Here’s a little lesson in trickery. This is going down in history, If you wanna be a villain number one, You’ll have to chase a superhero on the run. Just follow my moves and sneak around be careful not to make a sound. (Happy Tree Friends Hater #1 steps on a branch) No! Don’t touch that! Ha, ha, ha! Now look at this net I just found. When I say “Go!”, be ready to throw! Go! Throw it at him, not me! Ugh! Let’s try something else. Now watch and learn, here’s the deal, you’ll slip and slide on these banana peel, (Happy Tree Friends haters slip on the Banana peels) What are you doing?! We are number one Hey! Hey!

Crowd of Characters: (applause)

Handy: Hmph!

Lumpy: I kinda like it!

PhantomStrider: And for you guys, I have something to say to you.

Giggles: Oh, great.....

PhantomStrider: A man has fallen into the river in LEGO City! Start the new rescue helicopter.

Crowd of Characters: HEY!!

PhantomStrider: Build the helicopter, and off to the rescue. Prepare the lifeline, lower the stretcher, and make the rescue. The new emergency collection from LEGO City!

Pop: My son is dead and you're telling us songs and quotes that make no sense?!

Flippy: (flips out) THAT IS IT!!!! WE WILL KILL YOU!!!!

(Silence breaks for 10 seconds)

PhantomStrider, the Happy Tree Friends Haters, and Crowd of Characters: (booing and throwing things at them)

Duck: Dingus!

Oliver: You shut up!

Smudger: Preachy!

Lammy: We’re not being preachy.

Yong Bao: (throws a jar of macaroni and cheese at Disco Bear)

Happy Tree Friends Hater #1: I thought they touched on a vital issue.

PhantomStrider: I beg to differ, hi-yah! (throws a rock)

Flippy: Okay! Okay! Uncle! We give up! Can we please call this a truce?

(Meanwhile…)

Frankie: (recording) Theo, this is not safe at all.

Theo: Shut up, Frankie! Just keep filming, Okay. I’m Theo, and I am The Greatest American Hero, my special power is being somehow memorable after a very short run on TV.

(Merlin, Hurricane and Lexi set off)

Theo: (singing) Believe it or not, I’m walking on air, I never thought I would be so free…

(Hurricane, Lexi and Merlin let go of Theo)

Theo: (still singing) Flyin’ away on a wing and a pray’r, who could it be? (could it be) believe it or not, it’s just… (crashes into a tree and falls into the lake at PhantomStrider’s concert, everyone stops booing and starts laughing at Theo)

Reverend Lovejoy: In many ways Cuddles, Russell, Flaky, Cub, Mime, and Splendid were supporting characters in our lives, they didn't grab out our attention with memorable catchphrases or comical accents.

Nutty: Awwwwwwwwwwww..........

PhantomStrider and Haters: (Singing) These guys are not use at all; Thinks they’re very clever. Says that they can manage us; that’s the best joke ever! When they order us about, with the greatest folly, we just kill them! Pop Goes Old Dummies! (PhantomStrider and the haters laugh and then run up to the Happy Tree Friends with spears, torches, pitchforks, katanas, battering rams, axes, pistols, chainsaws, whips, bazookas, tasers, pepper spray, medieval flails, maces, shis, staffs, nunchucks, rolling pins, shurikens, broken glass bottles, and plasma cannons making battle cries and kill them)

(later, they all respawn back in a different timeline)

Cuddles: Well, of course we'd all be back. It's Happy Tree Friends, for goodness sake! Next time I'll stay away from Scoutmaster Lumpus. Hmmm....that's funny, I feel hungry for some cat all of a sudden. (sees a cat on the floor, pupils dialate) Come here, after-death snack! (iris closes up on the cat as Cuddles eats it offscreen)

(after-credits scene, July 19, 2069…)

Hater #1: Uuuuuuuuuuh, PhantomStrider? I don't think we should be here again.

PhantomStrider: Come on, the Happy Tree Friends are all dead now.

Hater #2: But you know they can respawn, right?

PhantomStrider: I know, but they'll respawn in a different timeline, so there's nothing here to be afraid of.

(a hand grabs PhantomStrider and throws him off a bridge)

PhantomStrider: (screams)

(the Happy Tree Friends haters watch PhantomStrider fall to his death, now more scared than before, they turn around and see Jack Skellington heading towards them)

Jack Skellington: GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT!

(cuts to static)

(after-credits scene second part, Cuddles is fast asleep with Giggles in their bed together, when their room is intruded by PhantomStrider's ghost, just as PhantomStrider raises his arm to attack them, Cuddles wakes up and finds that the room is empty. Assuming PhantomStrider's ghost to be a dream, Cuddles goes back to sleep, oblivious to the presence of PhantomStrider's shirt on the floor)

This is... *inhales* *exhales*

What does PhantomStrider has to do with Happy Tree Friends!?!

You do know the characters don't talk right?

WTF!?!

How is this supposed to be scary?

#crappypasta #qoute #happy tree friends #what is this #crossover

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aita-blorbos · 9 months

Note

AITA for making a deal with a malevolent deity?

The deal was basically that, if he (???M??) got killed, he'd be able to kinda "respawn" in my (29NB) body. The reason I agreed to the deal in the first place is because doing so would get me out of (or fulfill? I'm not actually sure) a deal I made with his brother (???M), and anyway he's kind of a troublemaker so I figured the deal would be a good way to keep an eye on him.

Now, I knew he'd get into trouble since he now had a backup if he died, but apparently LATER THAT NIGHT he went and tried to possess another guy and apparently his babysitter (???F) straight-up vaporized him for it (which is super fucked up, but besides the point). So basically since I made the deal, he's been possessing me and taking advantage of my powers.

Honestly, I don't care that much about the possession, but he took control before I could tell my boyfriend (23M) about the deal and won't even let me have a conversation with him, so I'm kinda worried and honestly feeling really guilty because I know he misses me :( Am I the asshole?

#aita #am i the asshole #unreality

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meet-the-clown · 3 years

Text

prompt: how they meet pierre

word count: 2,245

“Alright, that’s it. Out.” Dell puts the brakes on, hard enough it sends Scout sliding out of his seat and into the dash. The hazy structure of the main base is only barely visible in the distance, but they’ve gone through the old broken down barbed wire fence and passed the stack of rocks that marks the start of the Respawn Zone, so it’s close enough.

“What? Come on, man. It’s still way out dere! I don’t wanna walk all d’way out dere!” Scout’s already hooking a hand around the strap of the backpack shoved between his feet, though, and when Dell gives him a pointed look, he kicks open the passenger door, too. “Dis ain’t fair. I didn’t even do nothin’.”

“Boy, I have had you in this truck for the past three days straight, and the last two of them without even stoppin’ for the night. It’s about time you get yourself on outta here, make those legs’a yers useful, and hike yourself the rest of the way,” says Dell. “It ain’t too far out there. Shouldn’t take more than a good half hour.”

Scout sucks on his front teeth and squints at the hazy shape in the distance. “Bet I can make it dere in fifteen.”

“Doubt it,” he says, because there’s nothing that motivates Scout into doing something quicker than a challenge.

“Nah, I totally can make it in fifteen. I bet I’ll get dere before you. I mean, seriously, you drive like someone’s granny. Out here in da middle’a da desert and ya never even make it up past fiddy.”

“We were on a curving cliff, for one, and for another, you don’t get no say in how I drive,” says Dell. “Last I checked, you don’t even got a license.”

“I kill people for a livin’,” grumbles Scout. He shrugs his bag over his shoulder, adjusting the straps of it. “I should totally be able t’drive without a license.”

“Well ya can’t. And if ya keep standing out here all day runnin’ yer mouth, there ain’t no way that yer gonna be able to get all the way to the base before I do.” Dell puts the truck back into gear. He’s hardly gotten it pushed into second before Scout takes off, hot-trotting across the dusty expanse of red sand.

Dell hasn’t been out to Stovepipe Wells since the first team up and vanished. It looks like Mann Co hasn’t been using it for anything since then, either. There are remnants of the last match scattered around; scorch marks on the grounds, big twists of metal that’s been blown apart. An old water tower has been knocked into a sharp angle about three miles to the east, one leg twisted out under it.

The base itself doesn’t look to be much better. Medic’s van is already parked up front, though it looks like he’s gotten himself distracted by an old, half-rotted coyote that manage to get itself trapped under a gnarly bit of metal. He pulls around to one of the side doors, pulling the pack of blueprints and paperwork out of the dashboard.

“Alright,” he breathes out, pushing open his own door. “Might as well get this done and over with.”

* * *

The inside of Stovepipe Well is even worse than the outside. Classic came long before Miss Pauling was in charge of the mercs, and it looks pretty much like whoever came before her just let them run wild. From what Dell knows of the group – arguably, mostly information that Francois has managed to sweet talk out of Miss Pauling’s briefcase – they didn’t really follow any of the sanctions that come with the job now, or the basic moral code that most people use to function.

It takes a special sort to function in their line of work, Dell won’t argue on that front, but the first team Mann Co employed had the bad tendency of taking things about twenty steps too far. The inside of the base is trashed, wires pulled out of the wall, furniture have blown up. There’s a hole melted in the doorway of what Dell thinks must have been used as the med-bay once upon a time; a room that unfortunately directly attaches to the only place suitable for his own workshop.

Dell likes Ludwig well enough, but the man is loud and distracting.

He steps over the hole in the floor and into the room. There are similar holes pit marking the rest of the room from whatever concoction must have been spilled. Classic must have left Stovepipe in a hurry; long-festered experiments are still strewn out on the various tables shoved into the room, and there’s a corpse that’s mostly nothing but bones half peeking out from under a bloodied sheet.

It’s been here long enough that the stink’s completely gone.

It’s going to need a lot of cleaning, but Dell would bet a pretty penny that Scout will end up doing most of the work for the doc.

“Let’s hope the shop ain’t in worse shape.” Dell sits his tool box down on a counter with a heavy thump. Something rattles. He eyes the counter, half expecting the whole thing to just give in.

There’s another rattle.

It’s not coming from the counter.

“Better just be a coupl’a rats,” grumbles Dell. “I’m not lookin’ to have any live experiments running around.”

No sound for a long few moments, and then the harsh puff of a whistle.

Not rats, then. Dell would have much preferred the rats. Scout’s good at killing rats, and Jane’s good at moving the bigger critters. But they don’t whistle.

Dell squints, giving the room another once over. There’s an even longer stretch of silence before it comes again. Is that coming from the fridge?

“Drats. Couldn’t just be a quick clean up.” Grumbling to himself, Dell walks over to the fridge and makes to pull the door open. It’s stuck. There’s something thick and gray at the bottom of it, pooled under Dell’s boots and sealing the door shut.

He takes a step backward, has to pull his leg so hard it makes his knee pop just to get his boot picked back up.

Grumbling even louder, Dell rubs at his knee, grabs his tool box, and heads for the workshop.

Something to be dealt with later.

* * *

The workshop might be in even worse condition than the rest of the base. Dell spends about twenty minutes trying to clear off a single counter, and then decides he just doesn’t have the patience for it today. The ride out here has left his back a mess, and his patience is just about run out. There’s no power, no lights, no air, just a bunch of broken mechanics.

Ludwig hasn’t shown up yet, and Dell needs to get something completed before going to bed or it’s going to drive him up the wall.

The smallest, easiest task seems to be that fridge. He grabs a half gallon of hexane out from under a pile of trash, and his wrench on the off chance whatever’s in that fridge needs to a swift disposal.

This time, Dell takes care not to step in the slime. He presses the top of the bottle to the slip of seal between fridge and freezer, just dousing the whole side of it. The foul but familiar scent fills the air, burning the back of Dell’s throat. It hisses, the rubber and slime both melting off of the door.

Dell counts to thirty and then gives the handle a good, solid yank. This time, it pops open with a wet, schlick. Unlike the room, the fridge has kept the scent of rot and decay sealed inside. With the power off, it’s hot, and wet, and everything from the beakers to the old glass trays have just sort of festered.

The head sitting on the otherwise empty top shelf, however, has not rotted.

It blinks at him.

Dell jerks backwards, fingers curling tighter around the wrench. The head is gaunt and pale, with bands of dark discoloration around the neck, right above where it’s been sliced off and burned shut. He has the biggest urge to check if the corpse on the other side of the room might be missing a part, but isn’t dumb enough to look away from a blinking head.

“What in the - “ Dell squints. The head looks very familiar. “Exactly how alive are you?”

The head stares at him for a moment. His lips are cracked and scabbed over. A tongue darts out and licks at them. “Debatable.” The voice is a hoarse, creaking sort of rasp. “Qui êtes vous?” And then, voice crackling even more, “ ‘ho?”

“Well, shit,” says Dell. A talking head in the fridge.

Somehow, this feels like a disaster jammed inside three other disasters.

He should have just gone and fixed the power, instead.

* * *

It takes about fifteen minutes for Dell to wrangle in Ludwig, and Scout comes along like the doe-eyed thing he’s been the last three weeks, and then they all sort of just stand in front of the open fridge like a couple of teenagers gawking over a dead cow.

“Zat is absolutely a head,” says Ludwig, cheerfully.

“Fucking gross,” says Scout. He sucks on his teeth. “Is it alive?”

“Oui,” rasps the head. He looks about twenty shades of unimpressed with all of them. Everything about him looks faded, the color drained out of his hair and his skin and his eyes, all grayed out and fuzzy.

“Aw, man, it’s French. Gross,” says Scout. He knocks his elbow into Ludwig’s side. “You wanna take it back and toss it? Bet if I catch it with my bat we could make it hit the fence line.”

“You will not,” says Dell, firmly.

Ludwig reaches in and picks up the head. He holds it uncomfortably close to his own face. “Hallo, mein kleiner körperloser Freund! I am ze Medic. Und who are you?”

Another long, slow blink. Another flick of the tongue over his lips. “A spy. Décomissionné...I think.”

“Ohoho, and very thirsty I would imagine! Come, schatz, let me get you a drink!” Ludwig sweeps off to the other side of the room, head in toe.

Scout says, “so, uh, dis is weird, right? I mean, even for us?”

“Yes, scoot,” says Dell, dryly. “This sure ain’t normal.”

He shifts from foot to foot. “What now?”

“I suppose...now I go call Miss Pauling.”

* * *

“I’m sorry. Can you, ah, run that by me one more time?” Miss Pauling’s voice crackles. The mobile phone hook-up is in Medic’s van, for a reason that Dell has never fully been able to understand. He can practically hear her tilting her head.

“There’s a talking head in the fridge of the med-bay. Haven’t gotten much outta him yet, but he says he’s - “

“A spy, yes, no, I actually got that part. It’s more the talking head bit I was stuck on. You are, ah, being serious, right?”

“Aren’t I always?”

“Right, right, no, you are. Alright, this is – really not something I was expecting. Alright. I have papers, I’ll get them to you by tonight.”

Dell ventures, “papers that explain why there’s a talking head in the fridge?”

“God, no. I have no idea how that’s possible. No one’s used this base in years. By all rights, it should have starved. But I guess it doesn’t actually have a stomach? Not important, right, the papers. I believe they should explain who the head is, or was, or at least what body it belonged too. Whatever term you want to go with.”

There’s the sound of something suspiciously like a gun shot, and then a wet thump of a body hitting the ground.

She continues, “I can’t say much over the phone, but considering that our Spy is accounted for, and the others are all very much dead, I know that personally, mind you, there’s really only one spy it could be. If it even is a spy and not, well, a literal spy.”

Dell rubs at the bridge of his nose. “And who would that be?”

“Pierre Dubois. The last spy hired on with the, ah, original team of mercs hired by Mann Co, before the factions were split.” Another gun shot. Another wet thunk. “He went missing about six months before the rest of the team was decommissioned.”

“Missing.”

“Missing. As in, no one, including their handler, could locate him. We’ve looked since then a few times, but haven’t been able to pick up a trace. Engineer, picking up the trail is literally one of my jobs. The best we could come up with was that between his skills, company assets, and help from the old handler, he went ghost.”

Sometimes, Dell really hates his job.

He says, “but now yer thinking it’s less that he went ghost and more that he’s been sitting here like someone’s leftovers.”

“Exactly,” says Miss Pauling. “So, papers. I’ll have them to you by tonight. I’ve – really got to get this taken care of first. Just make sure that Scout doesn’t turn this into a mess.”

No promises on that one. He did leave Scout and Medic together, without any adult supervision. Lord knows they both need it.

Dell says, instead, “I’ll certainly try.”

A heavy sigh. “Thank you, Engineer.”

And then the line goes dead.

#My writing #fridge'verse #tf2 #tf2 writing

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a-table-of-fics · 3 years

Text

Cull to Adventure, Chapter 5, Draft 1

[[As Tumblr increased the size limits for posts, I can finally put this chapter draft all together.]]

Marie was already in a sour mood, having woken up far earlier than preferred. But it got worse as she realized she might as well have slept in; hardly anyone was around today. The heat wave, combined with the fact that all games were postponed until the respawn points have power again, meant that no one was around. Marie knew she couldn’t move too far from where the Outpost was without drawing unwanted attention, but it was a bit demoralizing. She was glad she had the parasol for the scant shade it provided in the midday sun, but she still tugged at her kimono every so often.

Well, if she wanted to find her cousin and the stolen Zapfish, she would have to do it herself. She didn’t want a second celebrity disappearance to cause more chaos, but she didn’t have much choice. Agent 2 would have to complete the rescue mission alone.

As she looked in the Outpost for her Charger, she debated whether Gramps should be alerted at this point. She decided against it, still; he was probably stressed enough about his mission with Agent 3, and she didn’t want him throwing himself in danger trying to find Callie. That was her job, darn it!

She opened a drawer and found her charger waiting, but…where was her uniform? The armored hoodie, the short, the boots, even the headset were all missing. She rustled around; maybe a bit of disorganized Callie rubbed off on her…but no, they were gone! Someone was in here! They took the Splattershot and one of the Ink Tanks, too!

A flash of panic came over Marie; someone had come in, and the outpost was breached! But… wait, why wasn’t her charger taken? Or any other supplies? Just the Agent getup and weapons—Oh.

Oh no.

She ran out of the shack, stumbling over her kimono a few times as she went for the manhole to Inkopolis. She had to get to Ammo Knights, and fast. It was lucky there wasn’t really anyone in the Square; while Marie took care to make sure she wasn’t immediately recognized by the adoring public, she didn’t care as much in the rush she was in.

The doors to the Ammo Knights store burst open the moment she unlocked them. Sheldon barely had time to look up in shock before the idol was in the back, frantically booting the computer up. Several monitors came up, each showing different angles of a new part of Octarian territory. None of the cameras could see anything, but when Marie put the headset on and heard panting and slight whimpering, her suspicions were confirmed.

Cull had gone into Octo Canyon alone.

Marie took a deep breath, turned the mic on, and coughed politely.

“Eh—” started Cull’s yelp, before he remembered where he was and clammed up.

“Oh good, you remembered the headset,” Marie said, keeping her voice level. “Okay, I think we can get you through this, but… I’m not sure where you are…”

“C-came in a-and made it to ch-checkpoint…”

Marie checked. The simulated sunny beach area in Octopolia did have a trail of green, including some inflated sponges. And it led right to a smaller respawner, directly in front of a massive road of pink ink. From where the camera was situated, Marie could see a Balloon Fish, but there were a few things behind it that were too blurry to see.

“They got some- some kinda robot b-bombs!”

“Octopods?” Marie asked. “Shouldn’t be a big deal, right? They just run at you.”

“…B-but that one at the start was so fast…C-can I really take more than one in a f-fight…?”

Marie leaned back in her chair, noting where the blurs were.

“You don’t have to, ex-Agent 4! If you can take that Balloon Fish, the Octopods should all pop with it!”

“B-but if I go up there, w-won’t they pop it and…?”

“Nah, they’ll run up to try to blast you. The Balloon Fish’ll be fine!”

Bad time for a joke, Marie realized, as she saw something shake in the respawner.

“Look, look,” she said, frantically trying to clear Cull’s head of some of the anxiety. “All you gotta do is keep your distance! Pop that balloon before the Octopods get to you.”

Cull finally surfaced, out of the respawner, and swallowed. He looked at the expanse of Octarian pink before him; it was going to take a lot of ink to even get to the Octo-bombs. He started firing, and Marie saw that his attention was divided between his path-making and the upcoming encounter.

“Hey, eyes on the prize, kid, not the road!”

Well, now the kid’s movement was slower, but at least he seemed more alert.

A thought came to Marie.

“…Ignore that when you start driving, ok?”

The Octopods started to rush in, but it was too late. Cull had already hit the Balloon Fish, taking the bombs and their weird red balloons with them. Octarians had the strangest ways of holding Power Eggs.

“Nice.”

That just left a layout of crates in a flattened “u” shape against the wall, a wall which had two Balloon Fish attached to it. As Cull looked up and around, Marie took a moment to swap through the cameras, finding a launchpad at the top, and the next camera showed a checkpoint. Thankfully, nothing between there and their current position Cull would have to worry about.

“All right, so just pop those balloons and swim up there. Nothing to worry about.”

Cull looked, hesitantly, but nodded. The Balloon Fish made short work of those boxes and covered the wall in green. But… he hesitated, rubbing the back of his head. Marie could hear sheepish mutters of “uh” and “oh boy” over her headset. She was about to ask what the holdup was, maybe throw in a joke about enjoying his handiwork, but all that came out was “wh” before she realized the problem – he was a slow swimmer when it wasn’t a vertical slope.

And she had seen the kid climb, too. This looked like a tougher thing to scale, sure, but his grip back then was impressive, and she was sure he could have figured something out. At the very least, it would probably be better than him struggling to swim up like he would have to now.

“Okay kid,” she said, attempting to hide her haste in correcting this, “I don’t usually recommend this, but you might want to try a running jump here.”

“O-okay…”

Marie watched as the ex-Agent stepped back, steeled himself, and sprinted to the wall. He jumped, and Marie thought he was going to slam into the wall, his squidforming was so close. However, it wasn’t close enough to conceal the fact his tentacles were… well, half-gone. He disappeared in the ink in a flash, but Marie could still tell, especially as he splashed and struggled to get the vertical movement.

Marie couldn’t do much more than watch; explaining how to swim to a fellow Inkling would just be dumb, and she wasn’t good at motivational platitudes. Still, she could try to encourage.

“Almost halfway there. Just keep breathing.”

“Just got past the second Balloon Fish; you’re almost there!”

Cull finally slipped over the edge onto wooden floor again. He couldn’t even kidform, and Marie could hear him panting and fully view his squid form.

His fins were much more disk-shaped than most, making his silhouette look less like an arrow and more like a mushroom with a point on top where his mantle ended. His skin had a spotted texture, as if someone had lightly sprayed him with darker green paint. More prominent, however, were his eight arms, all irregular stumps of what was expected, clearly from an injury long ago. His two tentacles, while about as long as most Inklings’, were notably thinner, and showed the same signs of being cut off at the end.

And Marie had sent him headfirst into danger. Worse yet, he refused to leave.

Cull wasn’t panting for too long; he soon kidformed, and was silent on his walk to the launchpad. Marie wasn’t sure what to say; she may like snarking, but humiliating someone was something else entirely.

A few quick key presses, and Marie could watch him land on the next section, where there didn’t seem to be much going on. There was a single sponge floating in the middle of a gap in the road, but not much else to see other than a few pillars. As Cull tentatively clambered down in case there was something, Marie switched to the next available camera. She could see Cull fill the sponge with ink to make a bridge in the distance, but more importantly, there were patrolling Octarians moving in a synchronous circle on some grates that were jutting out of one of the pillars.

“Octotroopers above you,” Marie called out, as Cull walked forward. She could see him step back onto the sponge, looking up and spotting the enemies. He tentatively moved forward, but never so much that he committed to a plan before stepping back. Thankfully, neither Octo seemed to have seen him, their gaze focused squarely on what was in front of them rather than what was below.

“C’mon,” Marie said, after about fifteen seconds of this, “You gotta do something if you wanna get outta here!”

“Uhm…”

“Oh for— just go! Take ‘em out and find a way up!”

Well, at least he was moving forward. The bad news was, the Octarians saw him, and began firing shots through the grate. At least the ex-Agent 4 was aware of this, and trying to zig-zag a little bit. He made it under the grate, with only a few spatters of pink on him for it. When he shot straight up and splatted one of the Octotroopers, however, his reflexive ducking was not enough to stop himself from being coated in green ink.

Despite herself, Marie had to stifle a snicker. Maybe it was just a needed release from stress, but there was something adorable about that pratfall. It reminded her of something that happened when she herself was younger, when she played one-on-one with Callie. The exact same thing happened to her, except she completely missed Callie…

“Y-you there?”

Marie took a breath, composing herself. Cull didn’t need the idea that she was laughing at him, nor did he need to hear her worrying about the other Squid Sister.

“Yeah, um… look for a way up the pillar. Looks like the grating goes to another floor… Just watch for that Octoslob and you’ll be fine…”

But Cull wasn’t looking up now. His attention was caught by something out of range of the cameras. He fired ink offscreen, slowly and carefully. Marie didn’t hear any return fire or Octarian shouts from his microphone, but all the same, this was concerning.

“Uh, I said ‘up’ the pillar…”

“Th-there was a lot of pink ink over here…J-just want to be sure…”

“I understand that,” Marie said, quietly kicking herself for not thinking of the possibility of an ambush, “but they’d have a hard time chasing you up. You might be better off—”

She heard the sound of wood breaking, and hoped to the Crane that Cull was alone; she’d be hard pressed to help him if she couldn’t see.

“Huh…Is that…?” he said, after a pregnant pause.

“Hmm? What was that?”

“N-nevermind, I must be mistaken…”

Marie heard some paper rustling, and then some grunting and splashing before Cull emerged from behind the pillar, now on the second floor. He took a few breaths, leaning against the column, before finally heading to the wall.

After making a break through a few more Octarians and some kind of wall-cleaning robot, he made it to a dead end. Behind a bunch of crates destroyed by a nearby Balloon Fish, there was nothing but a sheer drop to the facilities miles below. To his left, he could just see a large wooden wall, with the launchpad there. He groaned.

All Marie could say was “Sorry, kid, but you gotta make it through this.”

Cull stepped back to look, but he didn’t know if he could make another climb like that so soon. Instead, he looked to the re-inflated Balloon Fish, and then at the wall; not even at the launchpad!

Marie was at a loss for words when she saw the kid start clambering onto the enormous ink bomb, and rather quickly at that. Sure, Cull slipped once or twice, but he never once lost his grip. Within fifteen seconds, he was wobbling on top of it, looking almost like an eight-year-old bouncing on a waterbed. He sat down and started rocking, as if he was trying to get comfortable.

“Okay, look,” Marie finally said, “I get it may be tiring, but that’s no excuse for lazing around and…”

She stopped when he stood up, the Balloon Fish rolling back so far that Marie stood up, shocked at how far over the ledge Cull was. Cull, for his part, had an expression like he swallowed a sunfish whole, but kept his eyes to the wall he had to climb. He took one step forward, waiting for the Fish to roll enough…

And then he jumped. His hands reached out, and he was able to grab onto the ledge. By all accounts, he shouldn’t have been able to keep his grip, but it was dawning on Marie that he was a whip-lash squid.

He hoisted himself up, finding another piece of Sardinium, then looked over the edge to see about that launchpad. It was a simple swing down, and Cull was on his rapid way to the next area.

Marie was there to witness each remaining step. The ambush from above, where Cull leapt screaming into his first Splashdown. The attack immediately after, where he managed to actually take one or two of the Troopers before they even landed. Cull getting splatted again by the remaining Octarians, though he didn’t gasp as frantically when he respawned this time. He was able to finish off the other Octotroopers and make it to some more sponge-scaling situations and an easy battle.

After a bridge made from sponges filled with Balloon Fish ink, Marie’s eyes widened. Up ahead, a bulbous flying thing she knew all too well, and she was about to cry out a warning, but stopped herself. She was already dealing with a bit of a nervous wreck; no sense in giving him a heart attack in all three of his.

Instead, she said, as plainly as she could, “An Octobomber. Gross.”

“What—” Cull started, before yelping. He just saw a Splat Bomb land by him, and it wasn’t his.

Marie sighed as he respawned. Even if she didn’t want to scare the kid, that warning may have been less than helpful.

“Sorry, squid,” she said, apologetically. “Didn’t want to scare you…”

Cull walked back over to where he was, far more slowly this time. Shooting gobs of purple at him was one thing, but now they were hurling bombs at him!

“Ugh… how close is the Zapfish?”

Marie blinked. She hadn’t even been looking for the Zapfish; she was just making sure this kid got out alive.

“Um…”

She could see Cull looking around, mostly up and at the corners of platforms. She assumed he was looking for the camera, but he was nowhere close. At least it kept him safe while she re-calibrated the ZapSeek program that Sheldon wrote.

“Let’s see… the Zapfish is… uh…”

“Ye—?” was all Marie heard in response, before the computer suddenly went black. Her eyes widened, and she frantically mashed the power button, but all she heard was the equally frantic clicking of the button.

Sheldon opened the door behind her, frantically pulling out a set of keys. He dashed to a caged area behind the computer, where he kept the generator.

“Sorry, sorry,” he said, trying each key in turn as fast as he could, “Without Zapfish, we gotta rely on this generator, and as you know, this is an old thing, and the fact is, it’ll take a bit to refuel it and start it up again, not to mention the computer booting time—”

“Sheldon!” Marie said, sharply. “Just tell me what I can do to help get it back! There’s a kid lost in Octopia here!”

“Right, right,” Sheldon’s capped silhouette nodded. “Sorry. So, I need you to take the rip cord here and wait to give it a good yank! There’s a coupla things I gotta keep in place over here while you do that…”

Marie walked over, but saw multiple cords that looked pull-worthy.

“Um…”

“You got the rip cord?”

“No…”

“All right, hold on…”

The sound of Sheldon pouring whatever the generator needed slowed to a halt, and he patiently walked over, instantly finding the correct cord and handing it to her.

“I’ll let you know when to pull. It might take a few tries for it to start, but keep at it.”

Marie nodded, not understanding when she heard a variety of switches being flicked, as well as some clatters.

“All right, you ready?”

She pulled the rip cord. A rumble, but nothing else.

“Okay, try again.”

It took a few more pulls, but the generator eventually roared to life.

“Now, lemme take care of getting you started, and I’ll be out of here…”

Marie didn’t dispute that. She was a lot of things, but she was no computer squid. She waited for the slow booting, the password entry, the appropriate programs written by Sheldon…

It felt like hours, but everything Marie was used to was back up. Sheldon saluted, then went back to working on his weapons.

Right, so she could flip through the cameras again, and find Cull who was… still standing at that checkpoint. Her audio wasn’t working, but she could tell he was just calling out, trying to get a response.

It took a minute for Marie to find the volume and fix it, but she was greeted with a quiet, almost fearful “…hello?...Yes?...Is the Z-Zapfish close…?”

“Yeah, hang on,” Marie said, putting on a practiced smile. “It was just a technical thing, sorry.”

“O-okay…”

“Just keep moving forward, m’kay? That Octoslob might have bombs, but he’s pretty slow, so just keep on your guard, okay?”

Cull gulped, but still started taking steps forward. It was slow and halting, with him looking around as if he was expecting the Octobomber to have flown to where he was.

Marie wasn’t going to spur him too far forward; the camera systems for other areas were still loading, and she didn’t want Cull dying down there, especially if it would be from something super avoidable.

Suddenly, after some tentative advancement, Cull ducked into the ink. Marie switched from the loading screen back to him the moment she heard a splash. He was nearing the Octobomber.

“Remember, kid: those Splat Bombs have timers on ‘em. Keep moving, and don’t let ‘em catch you! That’s a rule of the battlefield!”

Cull wasn’t moving.

“Come on, this is no time for hide and splat! You gotta move forward! Once you get to the Zapfish, you can get out of there!”

“But…” Cull whispered, still not so much as swimming an inch, “I-I don’t know…”

“Look, kid,” Marie sighed. “If you want to find your way home, you need to get past this guy. I already told you; keep moving and you’ll be a harder target for him!”

After a second (presumably waiting for the fat flying octopus to look away, which Marie had to admit would be a decent strategy), Cull emerged and started running, firing wildly as he did so. The Octobomber flinched as ink hit them, and they spun around, quickly lobbing a bomb at the Inkling intruder. Cull kept running forward, barely out of the blast’s range. He kept shooting, somehow missing half his shots as he did so.

It gave the Octobomber enough time to fire another bomb. Marie would have congratulated Cull on his plan of circling to avoid the explosives, but she was too busy gasping as he inattentively moved towards the edge.

“Kid, watch it—”

“Yeah, just keep movin’! Works great!”

He cheered as he splatted the enemy, but the cheer was short lived as he fell off the ledge.

Marie didn’t see his ghost swim up. She waited, desperately scanning every pixel, rotating every camera, but she saw nothing.

She started breathing again when she saw his hands inch onto solid ground, followed by the rest of him.

“Oh, thank Cod,” Marie said, more under her breath than anything. “Right, so….”

The hacks into the next area of security cameras finally loaded. Marie wasn’t sure what the delay was. Something about cache? She’d have to ask Sheldon later, but for now she looked into the next set of cameras, and…

“Hey, good news!” she said. “You’re almost to the Zapfish and outta there!”

“Uh, y-yeah…” Cull said, sounding like Marie did when she first learned how to fake smiles. “Uh, al-almost might be a strong word…”

“What are you talking abou—oh.”

A quick pan of one of the cams showed the problem. A series of dry sponges formed a line from the floor Cull was on to the floating island the Zapfish was on. Even if he used the Balloon Fish lined across the sides to fill them up, this would be a struggle for him to swim up what most Inklings could with just a bit of effort.

“Er… yeah, this might be tough…” Marie trailed off. “I’m sure you can make it up there, though…”

“Nnn…”

She saw him standing there, craning his neck to see the sun-shaped wall far above him. She couldn’t see his expression, but she could tell he wasn’t exactly readying up for the climb. Heck, he was walking back to a ledge (thankfully, a part with a railing this time). He looked around a little, but he didn’t see anywhere else he could try to go.

The blue skies made from blue monitor light surrounded him on all sides, illuminating a sparkling blue sea under him. Looking out on the wooden platform into the distant waters like this was filling him with nostalgia, back when he could only be halfway between squid and kid at most. He remembered having to brush his tentacles off his eyes a lot, to see a cloudless sky like this, with rocky beaches and wooden docks. The false sun was still a good one, adding to the illusion pretty well. Even if the air was still the stale air you’d find in caves, it didn’t matter; the atmosphere was so much like that of a beach, giving a very surreal vibe of familiarity along with the floating platforms, debris, and screens. This was inspiring.

“You okay, kid?”

“Hmm? O-oh, yeah, j-just needed a moment…”

He pulled himself away from the view, having calmed himself a bit. He took a breath, and looked at the challenge before him.

He fired at the first sponge until it was dripping with ink. He took a breath, and climbed up to the top of it. It was easier to just climb up the one, and he still had a dry, shrunken sponge in front of him.

He stepped onto the dry sponge, and was about to fire to inflate it as well, but he realized he’d have to do still more climbing with the other pair up ahead. He wasn’t sure if he’d be up to that; even that one small swim took effort. He still wanted to get the Zapfish in something resembling a timely manner, so he looked either way. It’d be a tricky thing, but he’d done crazier tagging a spot on Moray Towers the one time.

Standing on the tinier platform, he looked at the Balloon Fish on either side, and popped one.

Marie’s jaw dropped. She just saw Cull get flung like a ragdoll as the sponge exploded out to its full size under him. He flailed and hollered, but not as intensely as she thought it warranted. Heck, it almost seemed planned, as he landed flat on his back on top of the next set of filled sponges. He grunted, but he quickly got up and leapt at the final wall between himself and the Zapfish’s platform. A couple of grunts and kicks against the wall, and he could move from dangling by his fingers to actually getting onto the platform.

From there, Marie could view him freeing and petting the Zapfish. He sat down as the platform moved to the exit, the Zapfish on his lap. It was kind of adorable, honestly.

#cull goes to octo canyon #cull to adventure #splatoon #splatoon 2 #splatoon 2 fic #chapter 5 #draft 1 #cull to adventure full chapter

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mostlysignssomeportents · 5 years

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Adblocking: How about nah?

For more than a decade, consumer rights groups (including EFF) worked with technologists and companies to try to standardize Do Not Track, a flag that browsers could send to online companies signaling that their users did not want their browsing activity tracked. Despite long hours and backing from the FTC, foot-dragging from the browser vendors and outright hostility from the big online media companies mean that setting Do Not Track in your browser does virtually nothing to protect your privacy.

Do Not Track grew out of widespread public concern over invasive "behavioral advertising" that relied on tracking to target ads; despite a generation of promises from the ad industry that consumers would welcome more relevant advertising, the consistent result has been that users are freaked out by "relevant" ads because they understand that relevancy is synonymous with privacy invasion. Nothing is so creepy as ads for a product you looked into earlier following you from site to site, then from app to app, as you are tracked and retargeted by a desperate vendor's algorithm.

Internet users didn't take this situation lying down. They wanted to use the Web, but not be tracked, and so they started to install ad-blockers. A lot of ad-blockers, and more every year.

Ad-blockers don't just stop users from seeing ads and being tracked (and indeed, some ad-blockers actually track users!). They can also stop the publishers and marketers who rely on tracking and ad-clicks from earning money. Predictably, industry responded with ad-blocker-blockers, which prevented users from seeing their sites unless they turned off their ad-blocker.

You'll never guess what happened next.

Actually, it's obvious what happened next: users started to install ad-blocker-blocker-blockers.

The Biggest Boycott in History

The rise and rise of ad-blockers (and ad-blocker-blocker-blockers) is without parallel: 26% of Internet users are now blocking ads, and the figure is rising. It’s been called the biggest boycott in human history.

It's also something we've seen before, in the earliest days of the Web, when pop-up ads ruled the world (wide web), and users went to war against them.

In 1994, Hotwired (the defunct online adjunct to Wired magazine) displayed the first banner ad in Internet history. Forty-four percent of the people who saw that ad clicked on it. At the time, it felt like advertising had taken a great leap, attaining a conversion rate that bested print, TV, direct mail, or display advertising by orders of magnitude.

But it turned out that the click-rate on that Hotwired ad had more to do with novelty than any enduring persuasive properties of banner ads. Even as Web companies were raising millions based on the fabulous performance of early ads, the efficacy of those ads was falling off a cliff, with clickthrough rates plummeting to low single digits.

This created a desperate situation, where publishers needed to do something -- anything -- to goose their clickthrough rates.

Enter the Pop-Up Ad

That's when Ethan Zuckerman—then an employee at Tripod—invented the pop-up ad (he has since apologized). These ads spawned in new windows and were much harder to ignore—for a while. Human beings' response to stimulus tends to regress to the mean (the refrigerator hum gets quieter over time because you adapt to it, not because the decibel level decreases) and so pop-up ads evolved into ever-more virulent forms—pop-under ads, pop-ups with fake "close" boxes, pop-up ads that respawned, pop-up ads that ran away from your mouse when you tried to close them...

At the height of the pop-up wars, it seemed like there was no end in sight: the future of the Web would be one where humans adapted to pop-ups, then pop-ups found new, obnoxious ways to command humans' attention, which would wane, until pop-ups got even more obnoxious.

But that's not how it happened. Instead, browser vendors (beginning with Opera) started to ship on-by-default pop-up blockers. What's more, users—who hated pop-up ads—started to choose browsers that blocked pop-ups, marginalizing holdouts like Microsoft's Internet Explorer, until they, too, added pop-up blockers.

Chances are, those blockers are in your browser today. But here's a funny thing: if you turn them off, you won't see a million pop-up ads that have been lurking unseen for all these years.

Because once pop-up ads became invisible by default to an ever-larger swathe of Internet users, advertisers stopped demanding that publishers serve pop-up ads. The point of pop-ups was to get people's attention, but something that is never seen in the first place can't possibly do that.

How About Nah?

The Internet is full of take-it-or-leave-it offers: click-through and click-wrap agreements that you can either click "I agree" on or walk away from.

As the online world has grown more concentrated, with more and more power in fewer and fewer hands, it's become increasingly difficult for Web publishers to resist advertisers' insistence on obnoxious tracking ads.

But Internet users have never been willing to accept take-it-or-leave-it as the last word in technological self-determination. Adblockers are the new pop-up blockers, a way for users to do what publishers can't or won't do: demand a better deal from advertisers. When you visit a site, the deal on offer is, "Let us and everyone we do business with track you in every way possible or get lost" and users who install adblockers push back. An adblocker is a way of replying to advertisers and publishers with a loud-and-clear "How about nah?"

Adversarial Interoperability

Adversarial interoperability occurs when someone figures out how to plug a new product or service into an existing product or service, against the wishes of the company behind that existing product or service.

Adblocking is one of the most successful examples of adversarial interoperability in modern history, along with third-party printer ink. When you visit a website, the server sends your browser a bunch of material, including the code to fetch and render ads. Adblockers throw away the ad parts and show you the rest, while ad-blocker-blocker-blockers do the same, and then engage in an elaborate technological game of cat-and-mouse in a bid to fool the server into thinking that you are seeing the ads, while still suppressing them.

Browsers have always been playgrounds for adversarial interoperability, from the pop-up wars to the browser wars. Thanks to open standards and a mutual disarmament rule for software patents among browser vendors, it's very hard to use the law to punish toolsmiths who make adblocking technologies (not that that's stopped people from attempting it).

Adversarial interoperability is often a way for scrappy new upstarts to challenge the established players—like the company that got sued by IBM's printer division for making its own toner cartridges and grew so big it now owns that printer division (!).

But adversarial interoperability is also a way for the public to assert its rights and push back against unfair practices. Take-it-or-leave it deals are one thing when the market is competitive and you can shop around for someone with better terms of service, but in highly concentrated markets where everyone has the same rotten deal on offer, adversarial interoperability lets users make a counteroffer: "How about nah?"

But for How Long?

Concentration in the tech industry—including the “vertical integration” of browsers, advertising networks, and video content under one corporate umbrella—has compromised the Internet's openness. In 2017, the World Wide Web Consortium published its first-ever "standard" that could not be fully implemented without permission from the giant tech and media companies (who have since refused that permission to anyone who rocks the boat). In publishing that standard, the W3C explicitly rejected a proposal to protect adversarial interoperability by extracting legally binding nonaggression promises from the companies that make up the consortium.

The standard the W3C published—Encrypted Media Extensions (EME), for restricting playback of video—comes with many dangers for would-be adversarial interoperators, notably the risk of being sued under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which bans tampering with “access controls” on copyrighted works and holds out both criminal and civil liability for toolsmiths who traffic in programs that let you change the rules embodied by EME.

One driving force behind the adoption of EME was the ever-tighter integration between major browser vendors like Google, video distributors, and advertising networks. This created a lopsided power-dynamic that ultimately ended up in the standardization of a means of undoing the configurable Web—where the user is king. EME is the first crack in the wall that protected browsers from those who would thwart adversarial operability and take "how about nah?" off the table, leaving us with the kind of take-it-or-leave-it Web that the marketing industry has been striving for since the first pop-up ad.

(Crossposted from EFF Deeplinks)

https://boingboing.net/2019/07/25/largest-boycott-in-history.html

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alteredphoenix · 5 years

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First Impressions Chapter 50: The Stables Incident (WIP)(Heroes of the Storm)

A/N: So, some context in a nutshell: First Impressions is an out-of-order anthology series that has Sylvanas as the MC in a more Looney Tunes-style Nexus, a central hub where all universes converge and diverge at a singular point due to the Powers That Be that may or may not have summoned them here for purposes that are unknown to them. Except anyone that is brought to the Nexus is infected with a condition called the transition, aka the in-universe term for Out of Character; even the native-born Nexians are not exempt from this, and those that are pulled from their timeline never age, and if they should die they are very shortly brought back aka respawn.

I haven’t touched First Impressions in a long while, mainly because of work, doing WoW fics, and a lot of family drama IRL from 2018 onwards that nearly made me quit writing altogether. But I have felt the itch to get back at it again, even though Heroes of the Storm got its e-sports sector gutted and is running in a slow, lumbering maintenance mode. I’m not really sure if HotS still maintans some semblance of popularity as it did in the past year; I’ve been out of the loop for a while, although I’m sure the minor leagues and community-driven events are still ongoing.

Regardless, I’m posting this preview for archival purposes. I’m also posting it because this marks the start of the legendary Stables Incident, an event in which Sylvanas is accused of slaughtering innocent farm animals (at a place where people store their mounts for matches) out of nowhere. This chapter, however, shows what really happened (spoiler alert: Sylvanas didn’t do it, it was actually an accident, Hammer pressed the button on her tank by mistake during a squabble and, as a result, caused an intergalactic news circus over it).

I’m also posting this because: I love writing smartass-give-no-fucks!Sylvanas, and there must be more of it in the fandom.

“TURN DOWN FOR WHAT!”

The music kicked up in a roar so loud it threw Sylvanas off the bench onto the ground as though an invisible hand scooped up her from underneath and bowled her over. She awoke with a painful groan, twisting round onto her stomach to sit up on her elbows. Her ears twitched and swiveled, searching for the source of the music.

“TURN DOWN FOR WHAT!”

They flattened down against the sides of her head, shaking more from the vibrations that were causing the ground to quake, the bench to jump, and the squirrels and birds on their respective tree branches to bounce off in chattering, chirping squeaks and squawks than the force driving a jackhammer into her brain. Sylvanas looked behind her, in the direction of the auto body shop with its garage doors opened all the way.

A large, single-barreled cannon was poking its head out, connected to a red plated chassis on massive treads.

Sylvanas snarled, pushed to her feet, and stormed toward the garage.

“TURN DOWN FOR WHAT!”

“HAMMER!” Sylvanas yelled, but she could only hear the word in her head; it was like walking into a nightclub on full blast while the mother of all earthquakes, the Even Bigger One (bigger than San Andreas!), was bringing about The End Of The World As They Knew It. The tools on the walls racks and on the benches were rattling. The overhead fluorescent lights and spotlights were flickering and swinging back and forth. Darkness, even the fuel tanks way in the back were shaking in their cages! And Hammer…

Hammer was standing up out of the manhole, swaying and bumping and grinding like a turkey on antihistamines.

“HAMMER!” Sylvanas yelled again, feeling her throat work to outdo the noise. But Hammer still kept on dancing, oblivious to the world. The Banshee Queen glanced around the area. She saw a boombox from the Twenty-First Renaissance Era (which looked like a pyramidal A-track player) on a workbench...but no, nothing was coming out of it. She’d seen and heard it play before; whatever was running at the time would sound like it was being phoned in from a tin can in another municipal district from across an ocean. Then her eyes flicked behind the tank where, some distance away, were the ‘administrative’ offices that were reserved for quiet paperwork, faxing, phone calls, Internet, and maybe a few Jet Briggs’ beer and Easy Green joints were drunk and rolled in private enlightenment (that definition seemed to wax and wane over the years, apparently, but it usually ranged from a blissful stoner’s high to confusion and then to an agoraphobic fear of unseen, probably imaginative eldritch horrors that ranged between pink elephants, hyperrealistic eyes on the walls, and crab people with the heads of famous celebrities dead, alive, and not yet born crawling all over the place). Her eyes went to the ceiling where the speakers were located...but they shook as well, and offered no indication to her addled ears that the music was coming from them.

That left only one other place. “HAMMER, TURN THAT DOWN!”

“TURN DOWN FOR WHAT!” were the words Sylvanas could read from Hammer’s lips. “WHAT! WHAT! Doo doo-doo doo doo! Nuh-nuh-nuh! Doo doo-doo doo doo, doo-doo-doo--”

“TURN DOWN FOR WHAT!”

Sylvanas clenched her fists, her body shaking in time with the music. She mimicked taking a breath, reared back, and, calling upon the dark magic inside her, focused the font of power to nestle in her lungs and up her throat. Then she leaned forward and screamed. “HAAAAAMEEEERRRRR! TURN THAT THING OFF!”

The last syllable finally knocked Hammer out of her dance-induced stupor, blowing her back (and, Sylvanas thought morosely, not ass over tea kettle off the tank) from the amplified force. She caught herself, looked around, and saw the Banshee Queen glaring death and mayhem below her. “AW SNAP! SORRY, SORRY! EH, UH, G-GIVE ME ONE SEC! HOLD ON! WHERE’S THAT DAMN...AHA!” She doubled over, rooting around for the stereo, and when she found it turned it off.

Sylvanas had never found complete, total silence to be such an aether-given blessing until today. Like nirvana for mind, body, and soul. The quintessential out-of-body experience where one became attuned to nature and all that is not industrial.

Until I leave and she starts up again, she concluded. “You’re welcome,” Sylvanas drawled sardonically.

“Girl, I’m so sorry! I didn’t even know you were down there!” said Hammer. “Y-You weren’t waitin’ long, were ya?”

“I was waiting for an hour.”

Hammer clapped her hands to her cheeks. “Holy shit! Damn, girl, I’m really sorry--”

“Yeah, you should be. I actually just got here.”

“Eh? What? Really?”

“Yes, really!” Sylvanas said. “I was having a nice, simple rest on the bench outside and your stupid music woke me up! I swear to Darkness, woman, are you trying to move the Anchors out of position? Do you want to get us all killed?”

“N-Nah, girl, not at all! It’s just”--and Hammer flailed--”It’s such a nice day out, ya know? And it’s Sunday, which means all the auto shops are closed. An’ that also means I can work to mah heart’s content! No disruptions! No phone calls! No Kaijo suddenly tearing through the fabric of the space-time continuum! I can actually get stuff on time now, and at my own pace!”

“So I guess if I brought a motorcycle in, I’ll be expecting it by next spring as a belated Winter Veil present.”

“What? No! Girl, I ain’t that slow!”

“A tortoise, a snail, and a sloth could compete against you and they’d still win the race.”

“Hell no they wouldn’t! I have a tank, they don’t. I would just run ‘em over!”

Sylvanas rolled her eyes. “You are such a humanitarian it makes my heart bleed.”

“Well that’s what they’d get for messin’ with a siege tank!”

“You do realize there’s a noise ordnance of seventy-five feet, right?”

Hammer grinned wolfishly. “Ain’t no such thing as a noise ordnance if there’s no one around to complain about it.”

“Except for me,” said Sylvanas.

“Are ya really gonna tell on me?”

“No, but I’ll have ten reasons to tell you where to go if you do that again.”

“Ten reasons?” Hammer quirked a brow.. “What are they?”

“I punch you in the face with my left fist and then punch you with my right fist. If I add onto that, I’ll have ninety-nine reasons and a headbutt to make you quiet. Let’s also not forget I can just kick when you’re down, and by that point I’ll have lost count.”

“That’s a helluva lot of reasons to have...and money! Lots of money to pay for medical bills!”

“I can think of ways to accrue the cash and avoid jail time. You think this lackadaisical government can stop me?”

“Well,” Hammer said, digging a pinkie finger into her ear, “they are a little slow on the uptake. They ain’t exactly unnatural like we are. They’re more...what’s the word...normal.”

“You’re far from normal,” Sylvanas muttered.

“Eh? What?” Hammer asked.

“I said, what the hell are you working on that’s made you put the music on full blast?” Sylvanas lied smoothly. “What about it is so important you haven’t had the cops called on you yet?”

Hammer laughed uproariously. “This? This! My good friend! Is the latest in Jeetilopolis technological warfare!”

Sylvanas appraised it with a slow, long sweep of her eyes. “A single shot cannon?”

“Not just any single shot cannon! It’s a single shot cannon bought straight from the auction block all the way in Jeetilopolis! I spent just about my entire checking account on getting this thing, and spent almost the entirety of my savings on shipping and handling!”

“You can’t be that stupid.”

“What people think is stupid is actually smart! Besides, how’s a woman gonna get by in life if she can’t dip a little?”

“Hammer, spending every copper, silver, and gold on a cannon that is more than likely going to be faulty is not dipping a little. That’s jumping headfirst out of a plane without a parachute and hoping you time your angle just right so you can land in a lake that’ll be deep enough to sustain your impact and not kill you on the spot.”

“And when I hit rock bottom, will it be filled with gold?”

“Whatever it is, I won’t be joining you to find out.”

Hammer made an annoyed sound by blowing her lips. “Aw, c’mon! It’ll be fun!”

“Maybe for you, but I have no intentions of going into bankruptcy.”

“That ain’t gonna happen! You know why?”

“No,” Sylvanas drawled dryly. “Tell me why.”

“Because there was one other thing I got while I was in Jeetilopolis. One little thing that’ll give this baby here one helluva big wallop that’ll scare the bejeesus out o’ people! You wanna know what that is?”

“Not really.”

“Guess!”

Sylvanas sighed. “Do I have to--”

“Yeah! Come on! Take a guess!”

“Fine. Let me think.” Sylvanas feigned contemplation, making a show of looking away and tapping her chin. Then she snapped her fingers. “I got it. A brain.”

“Nuh-uh! Already have one,” said Hammer, and rapped her fists on her helmet for emphasis.

“Two brains.”

“No!”

“Three.”

“Now what am I supposed ta do with that many brains, eh? Play tsukkome and bokke with one while the other plays the straight man...brain...thing? Actually, on second thought,” Hammer added, thoughtfully, “I could probably palaver with them and get some pretty neat ideas for the tank. Yeah.” She nodded approval. “Yeah, that ain’t such a bad idea! But, uh, that ain’t what’s in this thing! It’s somethin’ better than a brain!”

“And that would be…?”

“Aether,” Hammer breathed. “I got me some gods be damned aether in a bottle for fifteen thousand gold! That’s cheap!”

Sylvanas gave her a blank stare, then nodded complete and total understanding. “Okay. So you get blitzed off the life-energy of the universe. It all makes sense now.”

“Did you just call me stupid?”

“No.” Sylvanas shook her head slowly, and drawled dryly, “No. Why would I ever say that?”

“’Cause this ain’t just the life energy of the universe!” Hammer slapped a hand down hard on the base of the manhole. “This is the answer to all my problems! This baby right here can store so much oomph in here...why, I think I might have just become a god!”

“Aether-based weaponry is banned from the League.”

Hammer grinned wickedly. “Not if they don’t find out! All’s I have to do is get the energy output tuned to its usual optimized settings and those old bats and goats in the Houses will be none the wiser! Ahahahahahaha! I’m a genius, Sylvanas!” she cried, throwing her arms up in the air. “A bonafide, grade-A genius!”

“Joy to the world, God is good,” Sylvanas grumbled, shaking her head.

“Hey, I’m thinkin’ of taking the tank out for a test firin’ out in the Shadowskirts in a bit; don’t want the authorities to catch wind of this! You wanna check ‘er out before I go?”

Sylvanas shrugged. “Why not. Not like I have anything better to do.”

#heroes of the storm #first impressions #sylvanas windrunner #fanfiction #preview #mywriting

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