Chapter Text
For how many hours have they been fighting?
One?
Ten?
Did an hour pass at all?...
Time has become a mush of barely recognizable blurs of images and noises. And a never ending wave of pain that seemed to consume everything.
The king managed to hit Second coming on the head so hard that the stickfigure was sure he had a concussion, and with that, the King had in hands both cubes.
Both powers were now his...
It was over... It was all over...
He won... Somehow... After everything they had done, he won.
The stickfigures all focused on King at once when it happened, an desperate and rather pathetic attempt to take that power away from him, to disarm him again.
But it was all useless, the King was too powerful, there were too many brutes, too many threats. It was all in vain.
Second Coming ran on top of debris of a broken castle ignoring the pain on the bottom of his feet from the still blistering hot stone, readying a punch when a bolt of lightning hit him.
He was used to pain, he truly was. Fighting usually caused some pain, falling also caused some pain... Not being able to save his friends caused pain.
But that bolt of lightning, was one of the most agonizing pains he had ever experienced. It felt like fire on the inside, molten lava pouring down his throat and melting him from the inside out.
He screamed, his eyes blurred. He could barely recognize when Blue ran to him.
"Second!" — He heard his friend shout before there was another strike and Blue hit the floor a few feet away with a groan and an awful crack of his bones.
Before Orange could focus his eyes again, he noticed the abrupt shift of his view, from looking at his friend on the floor, to seeing the hot bricks below him.
He had fell on his side, lungs burning trying to get a single good deep breath out of the acrid, sulfuric smell of the Nether.
The fight seemed endless and hopeless... The slicing of a sword and the Warden was down. Tumbling to the floor like a tower falling down.
Oh how much Second's heart shattered at the view, he had brought the poor creature to die at the hands of a monster.
Second managed to get to his knees in shaky legs, coughing up some of the blood that had accumulated in his mouth.
He looked around for a sword, but there was none he could take. The weapons were all destroyed, even from the brutes that were already down. An enchantment, perhaps, the King thought about everything.
Second spotted Yellow still fighting, holding on to that blue staff like it was the only thing holding together, the only hope.
His poor, poor friend. There was blood going down Yellow's bruised face, cuts slicing his skin in many ways.
Second wanted to help him, but all he could do was pathetically crawl a few inches forward before his vision doubled again from the exhaustion. He could only watch in horror as the brutes surrounded him..
Red wasn't better either, fighting with a fishing pole and his bare hands, his knuckles were bruised and bloodied, almost as much as his face.
Fighting an all powerful being with a hook and bare strength, it was bravery perhaps... Recklessness most likely.
It was like breathing without lungs, it was impossible, it was painful.
He held his own for a few more minutes of torture, before one of the brutes hit the back of his head with the blunt side of his axe, and Red fell to the ground unconscious.
Second cried out for him, reaching his hand as if he could touch him from far away.
While Blue and Red were unconscious, Green was still up. Fist to fist against Purple. It wasn't a fair fight.
Second never once doubted Green's strength, his friend was a fighter by heart and soul, and he could and had done serious damage.
But Purple didn't play fair, he didn't follow rules. Green was strong but Purple was fast and ruthless. Cursed be that fucking Elytra.
While his friend held his own, Second could tell how exhausted he was. His punches didn't hold as much weight, didn't hit as fast, and his chest moving up and down faster and faster as he panted for air.
Second didn't want to admit defeat, he didn't want to admit to anyone or himself that he had given up.
*Giving up wasn't an option* He told himself, as if he could power through his own exhaustion and get up.
He wanted to fight, or die trying.
But one thing he knew, the King wasn't killing them. He would have done so if he was, this wasn't an execution. This was a *torture*.
The King wanted to see them suffer, want to see them fight and fail. He didn't want them to die, no. He was playing with them, like a predator running a prey to exhaustion just for the thrill.
"Don't give up..." — Second said out loud, although he didn't recognize his own voice, hoarse, wheezing. — "Don't give up..."
He slowly crawler forward, before he put a leg down on the floor to try getting back up.
"Don't give up.."
He wheezed again, his lungs tight as he coughed, his vision doubling again.
"Don't... Don't..." — He tried again, but the words weren't coming out.
Was it possible to feel betrayed by your own body, he wondered.
Second could see the King, then Purple, then two Kings and two Purples.
Then three, then four. Then the ground met his face again and everything went dark.
"Second!" — Green's voice echoed in his mind as he lost consciousness. He wanted to tell me everything was going to be ok, but he didn't know if he believed that anymore.
Green fought through burning lungs, trying his very best to keep the brutes from touching his unconscious friends scattered around him.
He tried, he tried so very hard. But the last thing he remembered was feeling Purple's feet hitting his back and tumbling him to the floor, then his weight on top of him, crushing his already painful chest and stopping him from getting up.
"Lock them all up!" — The King yelled at the brutes. "Make sure they are as far away from each other as possible. They are nothing but trouble together!"
Green squirmed on the floor, gasping for air, the pressure holding him belly down was crushing, he couldn't breathe, his vision was getting hazy.
Be from the lack of oxygen or the tears going down his face, he wasn't certain. When the oxygen finally came back to him, he was met with the tip of Purple's boot on his face, and things went dark way too fast.
"Except that one."— The King barked as three brutes lifted Second's unconscious body from the floor. — "That one has potential... Bring him to my castle!"
"My king?" — Purple asked uncertain, looking down at the unconscious figure. — "He had been nothing but trouble this time, what possible worth can he have at this point?"
Purple jumped when his King looked back at him, angrily shouting. — "This not for you to know! Now do as I tell you!"
He was uncertain, but nodded nonetheless. Whatever his King had in mind, it would sure be important.
"You heard your majesty!" — Purple yelled at the piglins, all quickly rushing to pick up the bodies. — "Lock them all up! Make sure they cannot escape again or your hide is the next one on the chopping block!"
The brutes scattered in five groups, not equal in members since, truth be told, they cannot count.
The King flew past them in the direction of his castle, and Purple hesitated for just a moment.
"Wait." — Purple lifted an hand to pause one of the groups, two brutes holding on to Green's unconscious body. — "I'm going with you. Let's get this over with..."