Chapter Text
Tommy was cold.
This wasn’t exactly unusual; the cargo holds of smugglers ships are not often kept to the preferred temperature of a human being. But knowing that didn’t make it any less cold.
It also didn’t make it any less likely that this particular cold human would loudly complain about it to the lizard-like alien he was sure was waiting outside the door.
Tommy Innit, biggest man with many wives and definitely not a scared 16 and half year-old child who’s far from home and desperate to get back,
was not going to sit down and die just because it was a little chilly.
“When I get out of here, I’m going to fuck you up! You hear me dickhead!?” He slammed on the metallic wall of the holding bay and was more than a little satisfied to hear a whimper from the other side.
Tommy lent back against the frigid stack of mysterious boxes he hadn’t been able to open and closed his eyes.
If he was going to be stuck in here for a while he might as well catch up on some rest.
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Somewhere in the realm of 30 minutes later the human boy was rudely awoken by the reinforced steel alloy door of his temporary prison being forcefully removed (read: ripped off its hinges) by the biggest pig he had ever seen in his life.
Tommy, being a big man who fears nothing, definitely did not yelp like a trod-on fox and dive for the cover of the boxes, he also did not curl into a ball and repeatedly chant “this is a nightmare” over and over until he was lifted up by the scruff of his favourite (100% not stolen) jumper by said enormous pig.
And even if he did? what of it? He could just deny it later because the only person who could have possibly seen it was a massive pig, who could probably barely speak common let alone English.
He thrashed around in the giant’s grip, trying to get away and, possibly, take a chunk of their arm with him.
“Philza? You might want to have a look at this” the pig grunted over their shoulder, in clear and fluent common.
“Ah, fuck” thought Tommy, who immediately doubled his escape efforts.
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Less than a minute later another, albeit shorter, figure filled the space where the door once stood, massive jet-black wings on his back, feathers all over his face and arms and, to top it all off, the ugliest white and lime green striped bucket hat he had ever seen in his life, the absolute absurdity of which made tommy stop flopping around like a salmon on a line and just stare at it.
A moment passes, two, three.
Then, like a popping bubble, the tense silence is broken by Tommy, laughing his ass off at the ridiculousness of the situation.
He had recognised the name as soon as he’d heard it, you didn’t live on smugglers ships without becoming borderline intimately familiar with the name “Philza Minecraft”, feared captain of the “Angel”, the most terrifying elitrian pirate on any ship and rumoured husband of the goddess of death and void herself, and here he was looking like a feathery homeless man in a hat tommy was sure he had seen in a fishing supply shop at some point. He couldn’t help himself! If some one had told him he’d end up seeing Philza motherfucking Minecraft without being chopped to bits or shot on sight, let alone in that hideous hat, he would have spat in your face and called you stupid.
“Techno what is that and why is it making that noise?” the elitrian cocked his head to one side, ear (?) feathers flaring out.
Tommy blanched, the laughter stopping immediately.
Of fucking course, the being that so rudely snatched him off the floor is the infamous “Technoblade”, Philza’s right hand (claw?) man.
He should have realised sooner. This guy is a piglin brute, one of the most terrifying creatures in the quadrant and a “deathworlder” like him, so his usual intimidation tactics of forcible bone removal threats and biting would be worthless (never mind that he was two and a half feet off the ground and swinging at arms-length and techno didn’t even seem to be breaking a sweat).
Upon this, frankly terrifying, realisation tommy did the only rational thing he or anyone in this situation, could think of. Play dead.
Tommy suddenly went limp in Techno’s grip, closing his eyes and slowing his breathing as much as his panic would allow.
“It’s a human Phil, and it’s a pretty young one at that” Techno replied, trying to make holding a potentially rabid child far-away from him look casual.
“It looks dead” remarked Phil with a wink.
It only took techno a second to catch on.
“Yeah, it’s definitely dead now, must have died of shock after seeing your ugly hat old man.” He gently wiggled Tommy who, to give him credit only snorted a tiny bit at the insult to the elitrian’s hat and dignity.
“These guys are idiots” tommy thought, trying not to let a grin slip onto his face.
“Oh well, we can’t just leave it here, what if we want to use this ship at some point?” Phil sighed dramatically “I guess we’ll just have to take it with us…”
“Yes Phil, that’s a great idea, we need more stinking corpses on our perfectly nice ship” Techno stated without a hint of sarcasm.
“Exactly” replied Phil with the smuggest look an elitrian can give.
“Ah, fuck. Well, it’s better than out the airlock.” thought Tommy.
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The journey off the (now probably deceased) smuggler’s vessel was not by any means fun for tommy,
Still swinging “lifelessly” from the hooved hand of an almost 8-foot-tall pig creature as they pick their way through the now ruined ship.
The two infamous criminals kept up a light banter the entre way to the station where the “Angel” was docked.
As the “Angel’s” doors sild open a tall, brown feathered elitrian barrelled out, crashing into Techno and causing Tommy to spin wildly, stretching out the collar of his jumper even more.
“You took fucking ages! I thought something went wrong and came to find you,” the very pissed off bird man gestured to the still spinning tommy, who by this point was feeling quite ill.
“But youre just picking up strays, again!”
“What do you mean Will?” Philza said with very deliberate shut-the-fuck-up-and-follow-my-lead look that Wilbur promptly ignored.
“That is a human Phil! Look at it! We are not letting that thing on the ship! Techno back me up!” Wilbur threw his arms out in exasperation.
Tommy started plotting a daring escape involving explosions and many women.
The piglin snorted, “let it go Will, its dead” Techno tried to copy Phil’s earlier wink, key word, tried.
“What kind of stupid games are you playing?! I can see it breathing from here!” Wilbur screamed.
Tommy immediately started wriggling again trying to slip out of Techno’s grip and run away to the tune of Michael Bay-style explosions, he was willing to sacrifice his precious jumper in his bid for freedom.
He did not get far.
Techno readjusted his grip and tucked the squirming human under one arm, pinning him against the cold body armour the piglin was wearing.
Tommy was understandably pissed and started kicking and screaming bloody murder.
Techno shot Wilbur an unimpressed look “Now look what you’ve done.”
“Look what IVE done?! You two tried to bring a deathworlder onto mums ship! Do you know how much damage they can cause!?” the brunet elitrian was practically shrieking.
“I take offence to that” techno replied coldly.
“Boys!” Phil shouted over the din,
“none of that. This chick was locked in the cold storage, were going to take it off this ship and find out where it came from, it got scared and started playing dead, so I was going to put it in the spare room to calm down before we try and communicate with it.”
“they knew the whole time?! But my acting was so good” tommy huffed internally.
“Philza Minecraft have you finally gone senile?! You saw an unattended human chick and decided to pick it up! They’re class A contraband! We will be executed publicly by imperium if they even suspect us of having it on board! We don’t even know if its intelligent enough to communicate!”
Phil was lost for words and looking for a reply when techno chimed in,
“I heard it muttering to itself earlier, back when I found it, it ran behind some boxes and started making repetitive noises over and over, it could be its native language.”
“They havent realised I can understand them!” Tommy had an idea, a great idea, the best idea anyone ever had. He was going to pretend not to understand common and just hope that they hadn’t picked up on him listening, that way he could find out what they wanted from him and get far away from this walking domestic argument of a pirate crew as he can.
Wilbur gave up on trying to reason with either of them, his father was a stubborn old crow and techno was just as bad if not worse.
“Fine, I won’t get in the way of you bringing that thing on board, but if it comes near me in putting as many bolts in it as it needs to stay dead” Wilbur threatened, hand drifting to the gun on his hip, his pupils contracting to slits and his wings rattling with anger as he stalked back into the depths of the “Angel”.
Philza patted techno on the shoulder before following his irate son into the ship, his long claws clicking against the tiled floor, his wings and tail feathers swishing behind him.
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