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Exactly six days, twenty one hours, and ten minutes and fifty four seconds after Techno gets out of Pandora, the alarms go off again.
Phil’s attention perks instantly– his flock is out, at the moment, scattered across the smp and busy keeping their wandering, watchful eyes on other members. A lot of them have been in Las Nevadas, as far as he’s aware– chattering about with Foolish more than anyone, as Quackity seems to be rather difficult to be found, lately, and foolish is really the next best thing. But there’s a few that stick around on purpose, ones that have been around far too long to be normal crows– not that any of his crows are normal.
The ones that are still here make a few croaks of confusion, too. Dream’s not out, they chitter together. Still there, pog, still there.
“Not really a pog moment,” Phil mumbles. “But if he isn’t then why are the alarms going?”
Go live, the few crows titter, They’ll know, go live, call ‘em home.
Phil rustles his wings, wincing at the sting, and taps his foot on the floor, twice. There’s an echoing roll of magic that makes the world shudder, and he hears, all across the world, wings rustle in acknowledgement, and begin to take flight. He’ll stall, for a bit, as the murder flies home, and as he waits for Techno to wake up, too– there’s no way he didn’t hear.
(For some reason these alarms are louder, more– something, he can’t quite figure out what. The prison alarms had been constant, a drill of never ending noise, pounding over and over into your head. He's out, he’s out, he’s out, beware, it seemed to say, a reminder, the warning it was supposed to be. It never left you alone. This was something else entirely, Phil realized, a slow, droning sort of thing, more song-like than alarm-like than anything. It sounded mourning. It sounded sad.)
“Phil,” Techno grunts, and stumbles in through the front door, half-dressed, half-shifted. “Wha’s goin’ on, Phil?”
“Dunno, mate,” Phil answers, and makes his way closer to help Techno with his cloak clasp. “Crows are on their way, though, so we might have some answers then. Is chat up yet?”
“They’re up when I am,” Techno says, “but I'm choosing to ignore ‘em, at the moment. They might start clouding soon.”
“Aw, no,” Phil groans. “I don't want your chat fog in my house, Techno.”
Snickering, Techno waves a hand, and manages to shift down to his most human state. “I'll be outside then,” he says. “Foggin’ up the front lawn with my millionaires.”
“Techno.”
“It's the house or the lawn, Phil!”
“Just stop ignoring chat!”
“Nah.”
“Techno!”
The wailing continues throughout, long, low, and haunting, dark spots of crows flooding the skyline. It is horrifying, how inhuman it sounds– not machine, either, Phil realizes. He doesn’t know how the alarm was made, but he wonders why it wasn’t the one used for when Dream supposedly escaped. This one’s a lot more chilling, he thinks. A lot more serious, too.
Not Dream, the crows begin to cry, once they’re close enough. Not Dream, not Dream.
“No, yeah. figured that much,” Phil grumbles. “Entirely different alarm, isn’t it?”
That’s not an alarm, Dadza, they echo off of each other, a cacophony and chorus of the same line, as always and often. That’s not an alarm, that’s something else. Someone else.
“...Something else?” Phil murmurs.
And the world rattles, suddenly, and the sky shudders, illuminating with impossible light–
(Somewhere nearby, unseen by Phil or Techno, the world itself rends apart, ripping like torn silk, like paper down the center, a hole in space, pitch black for the first few seconds of its existence– and then, in the next moment, it rippled like liquid, dotted with distant stars in shades of blue and green. It shifted, eternal, and shook like the surface of the ocean, hypnotizing and taunting, an endless pull.
And something steps out, shaking its head, a low rumble in its throat, curling itself around a beachside mountain and settling. The rend stitches itself back together behind the beast, it’s tail flicking behind it in irritation.
Somewhere far off, someone arches away from an obsidian wall, spine ramrod straight. “Oh dear,” they giggle in some sort of broken despair, despite their injuries, despite every rip and tear in their own skin, the sunken look to their eyes, the broken bones that would never heal. “Oh, dear, that’s not quite good at all.”
And then they slump back down, and stop moving completely.)
He’s here, one of the crows nods– the one crow that never left, the one She had left him, a sole communication source. Where the champions have met, where they discussed, where the key to it all was hidden. He's here, best to go find him before someone else does.
“Who's here?” Phil asks, and the crow made a little noise as the rest of the crows echoed their question. “The champions, what do you mean?”
Before anyone answers, though, Techno calls from outside, trident in hand. “We should go,” he says, when Phil steps outside. “Before someone else finds it.”
“Find what? What’s going on?”
“You’ve got advancements off, don’t you?” Techno huffs. “Doesn’t matter– we’re the closest, according to how rough that quake was, and I have a feeling I know where it ended up. Be prepared for a fight.”
“The fuck is going on, Techno?”
“Viewer retention, Philza, please,” his oldest friend says, hoisting a trident over his shoulder. “And grab a torch, too, it’s kinda dark out. I'd rather be able to see the dragon before it fries us.”
“The what.”
“Check your logs, old man.”
Phil does, a little out of his own head, because there’s no way that can be true, right– how could a dragon have gotten here.
███████████████ has made the advancement [Home for the Hoard].
Oh dear, Phil thinks, a little faintly. Oh, dear, oh dear. That really should not be possible, he decides, grabbing and lighting a torch. Techno has already pulled himself away with riptide, pearled off into the starless night, and Phil treks slowly after him, feet sinking slightly in the snow. The crows do not follow, not this time, hovering hesitant over the cabins, over the foxes and at the railings. Not even Her crow follows him, and it makes his chest ache, but he knows it’d be dangerous– a dragon is never a good sign, and not one that comes through the server like– like that.
It's a rare advancement. It’s so rare it isn’t written, it’s not usually shown on an advancement map at all. It’s not supposed to exist, because dragons shouldn’t be cognizant enough to do what is required– and advancements aren’t meant to be done by any sort of mob, in that case. In what Phil remembers, it’s a hybrid advancement, made for those who tear their way through servers they aren’t supposed to be in, in order to get to something they’ve claimed, something they’re protective of– in full dragon form.
Phil doesn’t know anyone in this server that would be under the protection of a dragon hybrid, he doesn’t think. He's not even sure he knows any dragon hybrids at all, especially not ones that have the ability to fully shift. So maybe– maybe it’s a mistake, except–
When he makes his way with Techno towards what his friend explains is the mountain he and Dream first met on this server– where the champions have met, where they discussed, where the key to it all was hidden– sure fucking enough.
Hello, Philza, angel of death, a voice rumbles inside his head, and he meets the violet eyes of a massive enderdragon. I hope you’ll be of help. I’d hate to ruin your Wife’s day.
See, Techno’s not stupid.
He’s an idiot, sometimes, and he’ll admit that but only to maybe two people, and their names are himself and Philza Minecraft. Maybe Niki, because she seems to whittle things out of him easy, lately. But he’s not stupid, and he doesn’t have a deathwish.
So when he sees that advancement (and he does know about it, because a couple years back in Hypixel he’d seen it once, when a young kid had gotten banned from the server, but had left something in a chest behind. There’d been a huge coverup– and the kid hadn’t known better, he was young– but there’d been a shift in the rules that had items automatically sent home from chests when someone had gotten banned.)– when he sees that advancement, he knows to prepare himself for a fight, just in case. If they could get the dragon whatever it wanted back, without issue, they wouldn’t have to fight it at all.
Looking up at the thing, though, he has the sudden, defeated feeling that it’s not going to be as easy as he’d hoped.
“Hullo,” he says, because he’s an anarchist and a warrior, but he’s not without his manners– the fog that was chat has long since disbanded, going silent the second they’d seen the great thing resting on the mountain he’d met Dream upon. He wonders, distantly, if there’s any sort of significance in that. “Uh… Welcome to the smp, I guess.”
Hello, Champion of blood, the dragon huffs, and it feels like an echo chamber of his head. The voice is familiar in a way he can’t place, but the sternness of it leaves him too sort of… flustered to do anything about trying to think too hard about it. I see you and the angel have found each other again.
“Yes, well. Old friends, you know how it is.”
Yes, comes the amused reply. I do, actually.
“...so,” Techno whistles, observing the way the snow melted into steam and fog beneath the great body of the beast. “Is there– is there anything we should call you? Don’t wanna just. call you Mr. Dragon for however long we speak, or. Whatever.”
“Techno,” Phil hisses, because the old man is probably very rationally worried about dying to a dragon, because Techno is being kind of a smartass.
In the interest of time, the dragon huffs, ignoring Phil completely– it leans closer, stretching its neck out with a horrible noise, slow and without worry and bares its teeth in some mocking, horrible grin. You may call me Atropos.
Techno makes a small shift in his stance, hesitance in his form, and itches to reach for his sword. it’s a death wish if he does. “A fate, then. Child of Themis, cutter of the strings– why are you here. What purpose brings you?”
Atropos stretches and turns to stare Techno down, something haunted and suddenly furious in its eyes. I am here, the dragon simmers, for my son.
Phil sucks in a hissing noise through his teeth, at that. Dragons are notoriously lonely creatures, as attached as they come to be– hybrid or no, it’s rare for them to have family. For a son of a dragon to be here, of all places– if it’s the truth, well...
“...Ah,” Techno replies. “Yeah, that uh. That’s not great news for us, huh?”
It depends on how much harm has been done. It depends on who has done the harming. Champion of blood, self-proclaimed Protesilaus– why do you carry guilt? Will you be the first to fall here, as well?
“Oh,” Techno says. Phil turns away, and he can’t tell if he’s just avoiding the sudden heat flaring from the dragon’s nostrils, a lavender smoke in the air, or if he’s been laughed at because of how high his voice had suddenly gone in the face of, you know, a very pissed off dragon. “Um. Well. Probably not?”
I'm sure. Atropos tilts its head, its horns catching on the sliver of moonlight that had made its way down from the coating of clouds. You don’t even know what you’re being quite accused of, Protesilaus. Nor does Zephyrus, or any of the other members of this server.
Techno realizes a bit belatedly that Atropos is right, and besides him, he can tell, Phil does too.
You don’t even know who my son is, the dragon laughs, and it is a bitter, horrifying thing, a raspy sort of burn that leaves heat singing at Techno’s nerves. And he is used to heat, he’s netherborn, he knows what burning feels like– this is something entirely different. This is wrath, protection, a wildfire of constant retribution, waiting to be unleashed.
None of them know who has hurt who, and at this point– everyone has hurt everyone. There’s no saving them from whatever fate befalls them. The only one who could do anything to prevent what is to occur would be the son himself, and uh– that’s not looking great for Techno, who doesn’t have a lot of friends.
Maybe it’s Ranboo? It'd be nice if it was Ranboo.
And so, Atropos says, its tail flicking up and down, not unlike an annoyed cat, We shall wait for the rest of the server. And we shall, in time, pass judgement, on my Perseus’ word.
...it is not Ranboo, Techno thinks in abject disappointment, and takes a slow, deep breath. And then, the three of them wait.
His son will come last. The dragon knows.
The boy sleeps comfortably, unaware of the wailings of the world as it tore itself apart, unknowing of the notification that was currently plaguing so much of the rest of the server. The youngest four would be left alone, he had decided that before coming in. There is enough hurt they will have to work through either way– they will sleep, for now. And eventually, when truths need to be revealed, they will have to come. But his son will come last.
He had not told him he was on his way, of course, why would he. He’s not going to risk anything by giving a warning– his son would never, no, but he doesn’t want to fight with the boy– he knows things.
The presence of Erebus in this world was overwhelming and poisonous. It tainted every rock he saw, the very mountain he stood upon– the presence besides the blood champion had not gone unnoticed, and he wondered, for a bit, how long it had gone unchecked.
Phil, the dragon rumbles gently, and the elytran falters at the suddenness of it. You seem to be getting old.
"That's not funny," he bites out, and the annoyance is clear in heavy waves.
This has nothing on your age, the great beast placates, but instead on your duties. Tell me, Angel of Death- do you not see the ghost that stands so clearly beside the Champion of blood?
“..No,” the not-mortal says, and the self-appointed Atropos feels the truth in his words, sees the confusion in his stance. “No, there’s– I don’t see anyone.”
Hm, the dragon hums, and locks eyes with the pale, blue-clad ghost. Perhaps, then, it is worse than I thought.
Hidden by Erebus’ whims, then. Or by some other dark magic, but the dragon is well acquainted with the taste of pure shadow, and it has layered this world in waves. Not a single person is uninfected, save, perhaps, the children. Not as if the shadows has ever hesitated with children before, but… still.
He has bones to pick, with specific members of the server. The keeper of Pandora, daedalus, regarding the Icarus he had let slip from his sight. Midas, with his taste for more, endless and destructive, who had turned his touch on himself and others. The aforementioned Protesilaus and Zephyrus– one whom claimed pressure of the armies around him. One who had blown the winds just ever so harshly.
Judgement was not his to make, Atropos acquiesced quietly. He would speak with them all, discern their reasoning, discern the level of infection. And they would eventually have to parse out their issues altogether. But his mother didn’t know he was here, and he couldn’t act in her stead without permission– Themis forgive him, should he be rash, but he would understand. She would.
So he sits, watching the Angel of Death, and the Champion of blood. Watches them squirm, unsure. Waits with them expectantly as the dawn approaches, and as the members of the server who heard the endless cries of the world itself dying begin to trek themselves towards the source.
His son will come last, and then, they will go home.
There is something about Pandora’s vault that feels, inherently, poisoned.
Sam could claim it is the prisoner himself– something about the man in the solitary cell feels like death itself, an unsettling aura around him every time they have been face to face. If he thinks on it– which he does not like to do– Sam has felt that presence around the prisoner for a while. Since before Sam called him a prisoner, since before the prison even existed. It doesn’t feel natural, it doesn’t feel real.
He does not dwell on it, and doesn’t dwell on the way it feels like poison leaks from his blackstone walls, doesn’t like the shiver that runs up his spine like a snake. He does not dwell on the way Ponk will not look at him, will not come near him, and he does not dwell on that, nor the keycard sitting at the bottom of a chest, messy with Ponk’s blood, unusable, unfixable.
(He can’t dwell on the fact itself. He knows it happened, it is glaring and obvious that it happened, he knows, because he sees the missing space, but never sees a replacement– the only one capable of making a halfway decent prosthetic is Ponk, and for that, he would need redstone, and the only one capable of redstoning a decent prosthetic is Sam and– but he can’t dwell on the fact that he took the arm, because he does not remember. He knows it happened, he cannot deny it, but trying to pull the memory, angry and gnarled and horrible as it would be if he could, results in nothing but toxic green smoke in his mind, endlessness, and a nasty sort of feeling that feels like he is falling and being pulled up at the same time, strings about his limbs.)
He does not dwell on any of it, but Pandora’s vault feels poisoned, like hope left first, and trapped the monsters behind.
Quackity used to come figuratively knocking at the entrance of the monster’s den so often that this morning, it should feel no different. Except this time, Sam has been stone-cold staring at his communicator for what felt like hours, awoken some time ago by the wailing of something in the world– staring so, so blankly at the advancement that shouldn’t feel real.
Particles of galactic titter and laugh. It feels like they’re mocking him. some of it is blurred, static. That same green smoke, that same specific fog and feeling. Pulling and falling. Taut strings. What is he not allowed to have or see, he wonders–
Quackity startles him, for once, slamming a hand on the desk in front of him, gold flakes and dust staining his fingers, gold tooth in his snarl.
“We gonna go hunt down a dragon, warden?” the casino owner asks, and Sam swallows whatever retort he might have had, once, and stands from his seat, pulling his sword from his inventory.
“I suppose,” he says, and his voice sounds distant to himself, “we have little other choice.”
Because if they do not go, there is a threat, there. Sam doesn’t know if the prisoner has connections to the dragon. Sam doesn’t know what the dragon is here for at all. There can be no chances, no loose ends. The server is not safe.
It has not been safe for a long, long time.
Sam wonders if there are any monsters in Pandora at all, anymore– save, of course, for the prisoner, and himself.
Quackity leads. Sam follows, and hates himself for it. Hates himself for leaving his post, when he knows the prisoner is still inside, but he is the only one who knows, except for Techno, and Phil, who have not come for their dues yet, but they will. He knows, in time, they will. He hates himself for listening to Quackity in the first place– they must’ve made a deal, he knows, Quackity wouldn’t be allowed in if he hadn’t made some sort of deal, but he can’t fucking remember any deals, any bargains, anything at all. Sam isn’t one to have memory problems, but lately it feels as if the whole server suffers from it, as if amnesia were some sort of sickness, a common cold, a stomach flu.
The wailing continues, low, haunting, the cries of something hurt, something eternally hurting, and beneath it all Sam swears to whatever god is left that he hears–
“Fuck,” Quackity says. “What the hell is that sound.”
“Probably the dragon,” Sam answers, but it tastes like a lie. “Whatever it’s missing is probably important– and might’ve been gone for a while. It makes sense for it to mourn, I guess. This server has a history of losing some pretty important stuff.”
Quackity says nothing. Sniffs, shakes his head, itches at his ears and keeps moving. Sam’s own ear twitches, too, hears, in the far distance, something tear, something fall, and then, suddenly, a sudden unexplainable emptiness, like some type of vacuum. And there is, of course– a sort of shuddering roar.
“In the tundra,” Sam offers. “I'm assuming nearby Philza and Technoblade.”
“Well, if they got to it first,” Quackity huffs, “we would see the fucking notification of it dying, wouldn’t we?”
“I don't know if it works like that.”
“It has a name, Sam. Came into the server with some kind of name. It is a hybrid, and a notification would pop up if it died to one of their hands, like every other fucking player does when they are killed by something.”
Quackity says all of this like a parent infuriated by a child they did not want, with limited patience and biting anger that leaves the air freezing– or maybe, Sam thinks, the air is just naturally cold. Quackity’s breath is visible, he notes to himself, from the words he spews through gritted teeth to the angry sigh he makes when he turns. Except, he thinks– they’re not exactly in the cold part of the smp yet. And steam, he thinks, from the mouth, is not usually so dark, and usually does not curl like a snake around the head, like it has a mind of its own, like it–
The thought process is gone. Static and smog.
It isn't long before his boots crunch into the beginnings of snow, and, soon enough, into the deep parts of it as well. Sam is not made for the cold, but he will do well enough without any sort of protection.
Some little part of him is still in the prison, at the front desk, watching and waiting endlessly, surrounded by dark, dark stone and energetic red dust that stains his hands, his clothing, his blade handle. Some little part of him is so far, far away from all of this, trapped in his self-built box with a prisoner who had hurt– a prisoner who’d been a monster, who, once, had been a man, who’d been a boy–
(He and Bad weren’t that much older than them, but it was old enough– and that kid that Sam had known was gone, wasn’t he? That boy he’d cared so much about, his brother, his son–
The wailing he heard earlier is not a dragon and could never be. The wailing he heard earlier is reminiscent of a mistake he can’t remember making, but one he knows he can’t go back on– it sounds like begging, like crying, like Sam, please, and please, no, and it sounds like someone in pain, like someone dying.
It sounds like Dream, and he hates it, he hates it, he hates himself.)
Some part of him thinks none of this is real, even with the way the ice melts through his boots and the way the snowflakes make his ears twitch and fucks up his mask.
The feeling disintegrates when he crests the hill, because, sure enough.
“...Oh,” Quackity says beside him, and the pick he’s been carrying so confidently slips from his grasp and crashes into the snow with nothing but a pathetic sort of thump, sinking down. He sounds small, like he used to. Like he hasn’t sounded in a very long time.
And, looking upon this great, massive beast that is rested in such a way upon this mountain before them– with it’s dark scales, armored, untouched, unmarred; its long, heavy tail, rested carefully upon the land, the snow steaming up from where it met it; the double set of horns upon its head, shining ever so slightly lavender in the light of the moon, or perhaps that is the soon to be rising sun; the red markings, unlike any he’d ever seen, framing the piercing royal violet of its eyes– looking upon this thing that is remarkably larger than any dragon he’s seen before, this living creature that makes the two silhouettes look like nothing more than grass next to a tree–
Sam agrees.
Quackity can hear Techno’s annoying ass drawl from fucking miles away, and it bugs the hell out of him.
There aren’t a lot of people that knew Techno was in jail for three months. no one really was looking for the pig, exactly, and the people that were either assumed he was asleep or just didn’t bother to check too hard– the ones that did know were witness to the fact of how he escaped, or they were the ones that helped him escape. But because there aren’t a lot of people that know, there aren’t enough people to understand just how much Techno bugs Quackity.
(He is tired of being afraid. He is afraid of losing everything, afraid of feeling weak, he has felt weak for so fucking long and the thing that was and was not Schlatt gave him a chance to use his fear like a weapon. And he is powerful. And it tastes like tar in his throat.)
So seeing someone he fucking despises, casually leaning on his sword in front of a massive fuckoff dragon next to the man who got him out of jail, chattering some bullshit about stories no one even fucking really knows, well. It’s a hell of a way to piss Quackity off, that’s for sure, and it feels like something personal. Even if Techno didn’t know that Quackity was there yet.
"Technoblade," Quackity asks, frustration boiling in his throat, "are you having a casual conversation with a fucking dragon?"
It doesn’t help that Technoblade turns to him with absolutely no problem whatsoever, like it’s not even a bother to address him. He has to suppress the shiver that is so natural to feel, when staring Technoblade down– full brute form or not, the warrior is something to feared, and Quackity has worked very, very hard not to show that fear. The scar on his face itches furiously, and something in the way Techno shifts his stance makes him think he is failing in hiding any emotion at all with his smile.
"Well, in my defense," Techno drawls, and if Quackity didn’t know better, he’d think he sounded amused, "it's a very well-spoken dragon. And it knows more about Greek myths than any other person on this server, which automatically makes it better than the rest of you."
"It's very likely the server is going to die to this dragon."
"Well, you might," the brute shifter snorts. "Technoblade-"
"-never dies, I get it, fuck off," Quackity snarls, and Techno just grins in return, no doubt smugly satisfied– there’s a puff of lavender tinted smoke from behind him that blows his cape and hair forward, and Quackity’s throat goes dry at the sharp and horrible reminder that, oh, right.
The dragon is here, he remembers. And it’s seemingly amused by the little exchange– either at Quackity’s expense, or at the idea that anyone is making it out of here alive, including the infamously un-mortal Technoblade.
Well, well, Midas, something says, and beside him, Sam startles– the dragon’s eyes flare, slightly, and Quackity realizes the voice is from… it. Techno glances back, as well, and Quackity knows this is no longer a private conversation. And Daedalus, as well.
“Huh,” Techno murmurs. “Would’ve gone with a different name on that.”
In due time, Champion, the dragon flicks his tail, something self-satisfied in the voice echoing in their heads. But the keeper of Pandora fulfills the role of inventor and lonely father quite well– after all, he built the labyrinth to house the monster he would not claim, didn’t he?
“What the shit,” Quackity whispers, chilled to the core, and not because of the snow.
And Midas, the dragon continues, gaze turning towards him. Endlessly hungry, aren’t you– how far you have strayed from the hospitable nature that once granted you your gift. Is it a curse yet, lonely king? Do you miss those you have lost to the newfound power?
“Where the hell do you get off asking me shit like that? Who the fuck are you?”
My name is Atropos, for now– and Quackity sees why the hell Techno likes this fucker, because for gods' sake, the amount of references to the whole Greek mythology are giving him one of the worst migraines he’s ever had. Quackity isn’t really well versed in the stuff, and he doesn’t want to be, but fuck, it feels like he’s about to get a forceful lesson in this shit– And there’s an infestation on your server, and I am here both to rectify it and to save someone important from it.
“We aren’t the important ones, I'm guessing?” Sam asks, rather quietly, and the dragon huffs that smokey laugh once more.
No, that would be my son.
“Oh,” Sam says. Quackity feels the same way he sounds. “What, um. What kind of infestation? Do you mean the Egg?”
Ah, your egg – no, that isn’t the main problem, but it was part of the main event, however, not the root. Your main threat stems from something primordial, something untouchable. We can come to that later on, though. I think, perhaps, I'd like to rather focus on a rather different glaring issue we all have in common.
“And that would be?”
The hope that escaped its box, Atropos rumbles. You can tell me first, keeper of Pandora, holder of monsters– what does being possessed feel like?
And Quackity watches as Sam jerks in place, slumping forward while somehow bending up.
(The scar itches. That taste of tar is in his throat again. It feels like shears in his hands and blood down his arms, and the cold, cold feeling of being turned away by those he loved, forgotten, cast aside. It feels like puppets on strings, attachments, and vividly, so vividly, he swears to god he is back in that bunker, watching the monster they all hated get dragged down by neon green strings. The spider does not sit in the center of the web– it waits at the edge, to catch the flies in the middle. There was so much smoke, that day, but he remembers it so clear– why, why–)
“Oh, gods,” Quackity says, and hears his own voice a million miles away. “Oh gods, was it–”
Wash your hands in the river, Midas, Atropos tells him. It does not sound like a comfort. But not everything is absolved so easily.
“Explain,” Techno demands, and there is a sharp silence that follows his word, until he lowers his gaze back to the snow. “Please.”
We have so many people to wait for, Champion of blood, the dragon sighs. It sounds tired. So, so many people to confront, and only then, when they are all gathered, will I be able to truly explain.
The sun is rising. The snow is not melting, has not budged. Quackity is not in clothing that suits the cold. Most of the server will not be up for a while, and there is so much to think about, suddenly, so much that makes him want to tear at walls and scream and rip and beg for forgiveness, for understanding, for time to go back, for change. So, so much to think about.
Atropos levels him with an unflinching gaze.
Quackity falls to his knees in the snow, and sits on his heels, and waits.
They talk, the four beings and the beast, in the time it takes for so many souls to awaken and arrive.
The ghost observes, a silent player. Once, they might have screamed, and kicked, and begged to be heard, to be seen– once they would have fought for a place in the conversation. But that time has long passed. They have not had a say in a long time. They have not had a body in much, much longer. It used to bug them, being silent. Their voice was something they’d trusted, something they’d relied on. Not always, though. And not anymore.
They've taken to following Techno around. Childhood friends, or something of the sort– Techno might not classify it that way, not anymore, and it’s not a well known fact. There’s also the forest that Phil’s wife has incidentally created, and the ghost loves it there– it’s not a natural forest, not when it’s from the heart of Death herself, and they have fun among the branches and canopies, with the ravens and the will o’ wisps.
Sometimes they pretend it’s better days. Sometimes they pretend there are people laughing behind them as they’re chased.
For now, though, they’re content to observe. They’re privy to a lot of conversations they shouldn’t be, and it’s advantageous, being the type of ghost that no one else could see or interact with. But this is nice in a different way. Atropos knows they’re here. Atropos understands.
Right now, though, Sam and Atropos are having a conversation that sounds like an argument. It’s about the vault, about Pandora, and the ghost observes, a chill upon their non-existent skin.
The keeper has to leave the building, Atropos says, and even though it is looking upon Sam, the ghost feels the gaze upon themself as well. Daedalus, you’ve harmed your son, you gave him wings and watched him burn, and once he started his descent you took the hand that was offered and became Minos himself.
“I didn’t know,” Sam demands. Techno is nodding in quiet agreement, and it is only through intuition that the ghost thinks it’s through the secondary name the dragon has granted the warden. “None of us knew– and you even said, it wasn’t me–”
Yes, Atropos huffs. and no. There is excuse. It does not forgive you. Midas was not absolved of his issues just for the curse he bore– not all of what he did was someone else’s work. There was direction, and instead of stings that tugged, you were wound, like cranks and gears of a child’s toy. You are not the greatest, but you are not all bad.
And the ghost agrees– it was not entirely upon any of them. There is smoke like poison that fog and clouds them all, ties them to a rope and laughs as it asks them to hang. The effect lingers, even when they assume it is washed away. Sam let Quackity in to the vault, but does not remember doing so. Sam brought his Icarus to the vault, and does not remember the confrontation. But what Sam does remember, the ghost knows, is taking the potatoes, never making them enough, trapping Theseus in the cell with the thing he hated most, the thing that had done nothing but hurt, and never gave a second chance. Sam was not taken, then. There was nothing upon the cross brace of the marionette he had become, then.
“You can’t possibly know that,” the creeper hybrid whispers. “You cannot know if I am bad or good.”
I know you, keeper, the dragon says, and though there was annoyance and anger in the tone, there was something else there, too. Warm like understanding.
"...But I've never seen a dragon, before you," Sam puts weakly into the air, and blinks when it begins to laugh.
No, I suppose I misspoke. but I knew you once, perhaps, and I have known you from far before.
"Before what?"
Do not fret, keeper- and the ghost could not understand why he would not say Warden- remembering something from so long ago would mean nothing, now.
Sam falls silent. Quackity and Phil have already had their turns. Techno waits in silence with them, for his turn, but the ghost knows it will take a long, long time, for Techno’s time to come. The rest of the server– minus the youngest, of course, because they have been hurt enough, and Atropos’ son is among them– is on it’s way.
Wilbur crests the hill, and Puffy and Punz are not far behind. If the ghost strains to watch further beyond, towards the man-made trail trekked by Quackity and Sam from before, they can see more of them coming– Foolish, Jack, Niki, Hannah, Ponk. And further behind them, as far away as the ghost could see– Karl. Ant. Bad. Sapnap. George.
Some have left, already, the spirit hears, and turns back towards where Atropos watches over the horizon as well. They know what this is, and they are permitted their exit. Those who feel they have something to face will come to face me. Those who do not have gone. There are a lot of things that need to be fixed, but what is happening here cannot be. Are you prepared for that?
The earth beneath their feet rumbles, and far below, the bedrock has fallen away into the nothingness as the void awakens, and begins to creep upwards. They are nowhere near the spawn, but they will be gone before any of it reaches them.
The ghost nods.
(They are silent, but not complacent. They want things to go back to normal, but it won’t, and they know that. But things are not unmendable. Nothing here is broken forever except for the ground they walk upon– and even then, it will live on in all of them, through memories and ideas and stories they will tell to each other for so much longer, after they all have healed.
This was home, once. The ghost hopes they can all find home in each other someday.)
Very well, then. Atropos turns back towards the figures who stand stock still at the sight of the dragon, like those who had come before them, and focuses on Wilbur. Hello, Orpheus. Come. I do not befit myself the title of Hades, but I think, for you, I can serve the same purpose.
It takes the better part of the day to sort through everyone’s issues.
The sun is reaching the highest point in the sky when Atropos clears them all, of it, whatever it may be– some people are on the floor, on their knees, praying to gods and asking how they fuck do they fix it, how do they learn to grow?
Phil doesn’t know how to answer. Neither does Atropos, apparently– either that or the dragon simply doesn’t see it as its place to help them figure it out. They are all cleared of something, smoke from their mouths, poison leaking from their veins– Bad, and Punz, and a few others are back to themselves, the Egg out of their systems, and whatever was tainting the rest is gone, now, too. But now it becomes a question of, who, exactly, is the son– and what the hell had been happening?
When everyone is mostly over– whatever it is, they need to be over, they brush themselves off, and shake themselves to clear their heads. There are reunions, apologies, stammered explanations.
(Bad and Techno are gentlemen enough to shake hands over what had happened with the egg, and Wilbur makes his apologies to the better half of the server as well, never really straying too much from Phil’s side. Sam sobs into Ponk’s embrace, and they hold him close, the beginnings of forgiveness in the doctor’s form. Quackity has already had his conversation with the warden, but now, he sits near Karl and Sapnap, and has been steadily, slowly, telling them every single thing he knows he should not have done. Phil watches as the blazeborn learns of what had happened, in Pandora– he sees the tight restraint in his fists, because it’s not entirely his fiance’s fault, but it must hurt to learn about your once best friend suffering by the hand of someone you loved.)
And then Wilbur blinks, and his brow furrows, and he manages to send everyone into quiet, simply by asking:
“Where’s Tommy?”
Phil glances around, and, yeah. He’s not really sure how any of them missed it, but a few people aren’t around– most notably, however, Tommy, Tubbo, and Ranboo. He’s sure there are many, many apologies to be made to the three of them, but they simply are nowhere to be seen within the vicinity.
Besides them all, Atropos snorts. You’d needn’t worry about him. The children– and it is such a disservice, to be calling them that– have been sleeping, up to this point. The server is near its end, however, and the discussions we’ve had shall be ending soon as well.
“I'd like to speak to them,” Techno says. “I think a lot of us would, we’ve all made some… pretty bad mistakes, concerning them.”
Oh, they’re on their way, Atropos hums. And you will have your chance to make your apologies to them. but not here. and not for quite some time. There is so much healing to be done outside of this place.
“Hold on,” Sapnap suddenly shouts. “Hold the phone– what do you mean, the server is near its end? This server’s supposed to last until the next update, at the very least, it shouldn’t–”
Listen, Prometheus, to the world around you, the dragon murmurs. Can’t you hear it scream?
And it’s true. The sound that Phil had previously thought were alarms are so far beyond that, and he isn’t sure how he could’ve ever misinterpreted it. It is the sound of a world dying, pained and lonely, falling to pieces, but it makes no sense. It makes no sense at all, because servers only die when they are given up on– servers only die when there is nothing left to hold them there. And the server is so often in the people. but the people were corrupted, by something–
“What was it?” Phil asks, and when Atropos sends him a sort of questioning look, as questioning as a look can be, from a dragon, the elytran shifts in place. “What was the thing that was corrupting us all? What led us here, what possessed us?”
Ah, the dragon says. I thought, perhaps, you would never ask. It's a difficult thing to explain, but, in so many words, I can call it this– the embodiment of evil itself. Erebus– or as i, and so many others often call it, simply, Darkness, in its purest and most unfiltered form.
“Why did it...”
Why, I cannot say, for certain. but it will go through realms like nothing, close to a wildfire tearing through a forest. It eats, and eats, and leaves so little behind. It simply longs for power, and does it by consuming everything good, possessing people and destroying their bonds, their attachments, creating discord in loved ones and rotting their bonds.
“How do you know so much about it?” George asks, shifting in place to lean further on Sapnap.
I have traveled many, many realms, the dragon nods. And encountered it more times than I could count. Often, it begs for me to join it, to be a sword at its side, to be a Champion in its name, and there are circumstances in which I am inclined to agree. But we had an agreement. And it broke the terms, by coming here. And then it took your admin, and from there, it began to ruin your world.
“Our… our admin– oh, gods,” George suddenly gasps. “What happened to–”
“DAD!”
Phil turns as someone barrels up the mountain and through the crowd, knocking Ant right over. The snow is melted, behind them, and Phil spots Tommy and Ranboo– carrying Michael– trailing behind, breathing heavy, huffing–
“Slow down, Tubbo,” Tommy says, and Phil blinks rapidly trying to process it.
And sure enough, when he turns back, Tubbo has thrown his arms around the dragon’s snout, pressing his head against the scaled bridge of its nose, laughing like there is nothing odd about it at all. Atropos rumbles, pleased, and lifts its head ever so slightly– Tubbo is picked up just enough so that the tips of his feet barely brush against the ground beneath him, and he laughs even more at the smoke that is snorted beneath him.
“I missed you,” Tubbo says once he’s back on the ground, quiet and subdued, and he still hasn’t let go, bunched up so small against the dragon’s head. Phil feels like he shouldn’t have heard it at all.
(There is a conversation there that no one else is privy to. It is one long overdue, but not one that would ever be long enough- Tubbo feels the world has paused all around him, just in this moment. He never lost contact with his father, not really, but there's something drastically different about not being allowed to see him for so long- the world was trapped. No one in, no one out, for a long, long time.
His dad makes a quiet noise for only him, a huff of gentle contentment, a rumbling sort of purr, as well, from the back of his throat, and Tubbo smells lavender, smells chorus fruit.
Hatchling, the dragon murmurs, are you alright?
And Tubbo tells him, I am now, and means it.)
In retrospect, Phil supposes it makes sense. There had been jokes about finding Tubbo on the side of the road, and so many people on the server had genuinely believed Tubbo was one of the kids he’d adopted, but the truth was Tubbo had never honestly been his. He was a good kid, but he’d never really accepted any fatherly gesture Phil had tried to show him early on– outright refused a lot of the things Phil had offered at all.
And later on, after Phil had arrived, in the server, there had been murmurs. Tommy, when he’d been with Techno, had muttered some nasty thing about Tubbo taking after his father after all, and Wilbur had later explained, once he’d been revived, that Tommy had meant that a majority of the server had believed Schlatt was Tubbo’s father. The theory had supposedly come from the horns atop Tubbo’s head, and it had spread like wildfire– but that was it, Phil realized. There was nothing backing the idea except for that.
But now, though, it’s clear where the horns had actually come from– and as the smoke clears, he can see some sort of magic lifted off and away from Tubbo, leaving his ears pointed, his neck littered with scales, and a tail that draped itself from the back of Tubbo’s shirt, wrapped carefully around the boy’s left ankle to keep it close to him.
Atropos pulls away, just enough, and inspects his son carefully before snorting again and blowing Tubbo’s hair from his face. The boy makes a little whine of a noise, before he turns back and gestures towards Tommy and Ranboo. “C’mon,” he says. “‘s not gonna hurt you. Dad, this is Tommy, my best friend, and Ranboo, my husband, and Michael, my son.”
The two taller boys edge their way through the crowd, and nervously come to a stop just before the great beast, but Atropos merely laughs and lifts one of his wings.
Let them listen, first, Tubbo, the dragon says, and Tubbo makes a little grunt of a noise before he slips beneath the wing and disappears in it, completely out of sight. They all need to hear this next part.
Techno is very, very pale besides Phil– and Phil does not blame him, not at all, because they both realize now exactly what Techno has done to face the dragon’s wrath. and it is a miracle, Phil supposes, that Techno is still standing at all. But the brute shifter steps forward, just a little, and wrings his hands together. “You… mentioned a ghost, earlier,” he says, and it is a very near thing that he does not flinch back when the dragon’s gaze turns to him again. “Is– with the server dying, you mentioned the admin was the first to be taken– is it…?”
I suppose, Atropos says, after a long silence, and nods. It cannot be helped.
He lowers his head down, cracking his jaw. sharp teeth are revealed, and a few people shudder, and then there are scattered yelps when something starts to light from the back of the dragon’s throat, bright like flame– but it spills out more like water, like lava, magenta and amethyst tones. It steams, but none of the snow melts, or shifts, and it is warm, as it travels past Phil, but it does not burn the air like lava would. It circles, slow, to a spot just to Techno’s left side, and then begins to wrap around something unseen.
And soon enough, not unseen at all.
Hello, Icarus, Atropos says. He sounds sad, and there is something tired about the way he says it. The time for false names is past, though. I'm sorry for what has happened here, Dream.
The ghost of Dream shifts nervously, and Phil tries so hard to take him in, because–
Dream looks young. Dream looks so much younger than Phil remembers, and Phil does not remember him well, has never seen the boy’s face– in all their interaction, his mask was firmly secure. The closest he’s been to ever seeing his face had been back at Techno’s duel with him, but from far up in the stands, it was near impossible to see anything before Techno had graciously covered him up and they had ushered themselves out of the arena.
But this looks wrong, even despite his ghostly pallor. His eyes are green, but not bright, or inhuman, just a simple dull, faded sort of color, half-dead grass in a morning fog. His freckles are dark against his greyed skin, and his hair is a dirty white, streaked with dirt and twigs and leaves, inter tangled in all of it. He looks far freer than he ever did when Phil had met him on various occasions, his posture slouched, his arms swinging gently at his sides, and a small, kind smile upon his face.
But there are dark, dark veins running up from his palms, along his forearms, wrapped around his neck, and barely breaching past the bottom of his jaw, past his earlobes. For all his carefree stance, he looks… nervous. Unsure. Out of place.
“...’lo,” he says, and it is quiet and jarring against the sudden wail of the server collapsing further.
There is a slow, unsure, beat of silence, and then George and Sapnap are screaming his name, bursting into tears once more as they rush to collapse him into the snow.
“I will explain, since he’s… preoccupied,” a voice says, and when Phil looks away from the heartwarming scene, the dragon is gone– replaced, instead, by a hybrid man in a deep red coat.
(And Phil will very much get to that later– the wings are still wide enough to be encompassing Tubbo, even though the two of them are around the same height and size, but there is something ethereal and untouchable about him, that violet, starry aura that twists around him like a fog, and now Phil understands why.
Fucking hell. Remind him never to fuck with the captain again.)
“Dream was pretty much targeted the second he stepped foot into this world,” Jordan explains, and flexes his wings just a bit. “Or, I think, ever farther so. It was in his mask, and over a very, very slow period of time, it was switching itself into his body– I think the final swap happened in a moment of distress.”
“Pogtopia,” the ghost of Dream murmurs nearby, tucked safely between George and Sapnap. “The book. Dealings. Couldn’t decide, and then…”
“Ah,” Jordan nods. “Yes, that would probably do it– from that point forward, the Dream you all knew was no longer himself. Dream was in the mask. and the darkness was in his body. And when the mask shattered…”
“Poof,” Dream says quietly, carding a careful, translucent hand through Sapnap’s hair. “Unseen.”
“The darkness made sure his ghost was unable to be found,” Jordan says. “Hid him away, so that the world could never heal. In a way, it won. This server is going to die, and there is nothing to be done of it.”
“...So what now?” someone asks.
Jordan sighs, and smiles. His wings fold against his back once more– Tubbo waves, to Ranboo and Michael and Tommy, and they make their way over to Jordan's side as well. The boy doesn’t untuck himself from his father’s side for a second, his burned cheek pressed up against him, eyes closing once more as a hand begins to run through his hair.
“I have no say in what happens next,” the captain admits. Phil's heart feels like it’s falling through his chest. “A few of your servermates left right as I arrived, pre-warned of the server’s destruction, unburdened by the darkness’ reach. You could seek them out, if you so choose, and find refuge with them. Some of you, I know, have home servers to return to. Scott is probably willing to house some people, Noxite I think has some barracks on theirs, for tournament preparation. But I am not in charge of how you heal. I am not in charge of what you become. I was only here to defeat and purge the darkness. The rest is on your hands.”
Phil looks around. There is an unease settled across nearly everyone that is there– guilt, and pain, and anger and frustration in all of them. But no one says a word otherwise, no one dares to try and claim he’s being unfair. Because he’s not. It’s all in justness, all in line with what has to be. Techno keeps glancing over to Dream and his friends– Wilbur is looking woefully towards Tommy, who will not meet his gaze. Quackity stands awkwardly beside Sam, who is still semi-hanging onto Ponk, and Karl is flickering his eyes between the duck shifter and Sapnap. Puffy and Niki and Jack are all in a line together, and Foolish is just behind Puffy, halfway between awestruck and defeated.
Phil turns back to Jordan, who shrugs at him. “Whatever you feel is best for you,” the captain tells them all. “And maybe someday I can invite you back to a server of mine to talk it out, heal together. If you need to get violent, we have specific days of the week, for that– we can make it work. Nothing is unfixable, believe me on that. But you all need a lot of time apart.”
A portal rends itself open behind him– endless, voided, dotted with the same teal and blue stars Phil sees in his dreams, sometimes, when he goes to meet his wife. Dream disappears from his spot between Sapnap and George, who make little outcries in surprise, and the ghost reappears next to Jordan, awkwardly shifting in place.
“The kids– god, that feels gross to say– are coming with me,” the captain tells them, as Tommy and Ranboo disappear into the portal. “And so is Dream, but only because he needs a body before I can get him therapy for the whole being possessed for years on end thing. I'll reach out when I think it’s time for everyone to talk.”
Dream waves, a little awkwardly, towards Sapnap and George, who wave a little sadly back– and then the ghost nods towards Bad, and Ant, and then turns and makes his way through the portal as well. Tubbo had not unattached himself from Jordan's side, still.
“How long will that take?” Phil asks, a little faintly, and Jordan shrugs again.
“Not really sure,” the dragon hybrid tells him, and peels his son away from his side, ushering him into the portal. “But expect frequent visits from me before that, anyways, some of you– Techno,” the captain grins, and Phil sees the brute shifter full-body shudder at the sharpness of the teeth in that smile, menacing. “We have a lot I need to ask you about.”
And then he is gone, into the starry void, and the portal stitches itself back up nigh instantly. They are left in silence, the group of them, lost for words, lost for a lot of things. No one seems to move, even as the world screams, and begins to tear itself further apart, its admin completely and utterly gone. They all simply sit there, in the snow, their poisons purged from them, the hearts free of puppet strings but not of shards of guilt.
The world pauses. It is all silent.
And for the first time in a long, long time– and for the last time in what would be an even longer while– the server is all together once more.
The earth shakes. The moment is broken.
Phil has no idea what is going to happen next.