Chapter Text
“Wait-!”
Avery’s fingers moved over the keys, trying to stop himself from falling, but it didn’t work. It couldn’t work. How could he have believed him? Believed Derek had made another plan that could have gotten them both out of there? That he would be okay?
He couldn’t look away from the screen, everything that mattered, everything that was going on in his entire life was taking place right there, right in front of him, in this damn game. It didn’t matter how long he had been there, how much his legs were cramping up, how hungry he was feeling. He had to try, to save Derek, to end up back in that cathedral, in front of the King.
But now he was falling. Away from Derek. Away from the King who was consuming his friend’s mind right now.
Why had he done that? Why would Derek do that? Sacrifice himself, for what? For Avery? He barely knew him, had barely spent any time with him, and here he was sacrificing himself for someone who was probably on the other side of the world, someone who he would likely never have met.
But then, Avery wanted to do the exact same thing. Derek had given him a way out. He had distracted him enough so he could get away, like Derek wanted him to, and what had Avery done? Gone right back to try and save him. Because he was stubborn, maybe to a fault. He wanted to try and save someone who was probably on the other side of the world, someone who he would likely never have met. Right.
His whole field of view was getting blurry, his head was spinning, his ears ringing. It was like everything was in slow motion, but also happening too damn fast. Derek stood above him, watching him fall, one last message appearing in the chat. Avery would hardly ready it, his vision getting to blurry, but his tears were refusing to fall. He couldn’t even care about the fireworks going off outside.
Avery still tried, despite everything, to go back, to save him, to do anything.
He could hardly feel his fingers press against the keys, and he felt like he was falling, his heart sinking, like he had really been pushed off the edge, like he wasn’t just sitting in his chair in his room, looking at some game.
Derek turned away, walking back towards the King. Avery wanted to shout, to tell him not to go, to stay for just a bit longer. They could figure this out. He couldn’t be falling, even as he felt the air rush past his face. They could still figure this out. They had to-
The platform kept getting smaller and smaller, retreating from his vision. Finally tears started to fall, or no, he was falling. He could barely see either of them anymore, bt he could swear he heard Derek talking to the King. The world was getting to bright. Avery wasn’t even sure he was looking at his screen anymore.
Light filled his eye, and even as he tried to close them, it wouldn’t shut the yellow light out.
And he was falling.
But he couldn’t care. Because Derek was stuck up there, sacrificing himself to the King so the world – so Avery – could survive.
Avery couldn’t just leave him there.
-
He was surprised he didn’t die when he landed. It hurt too. Avery tried instinctively to move his fingers against the keys, pull up a water bucket or a honey block as he noticed how close he was to the ground, but it didn’t work. He wasn’t in his chair, he wasn’t at his computer.
And then he became very aware of this when he slammed into the ground. He couldn’t move, and everything hurt.
After a few minutes, doing his best to gather himself, Avery moved. And what the hell- he felt very different. At first, he thought it was pain, but after taking a few breaths, it just felt wrong.
Nothing felt broken, and as he dragged a hand across his face to assess any damage, he became very concerned at the texture. Sticky. Wet.
Oh god, it’s blood- But as he brought his hand way to look at it, a much bigger concern became apparent.
That wasn’t his hand. He wasn’t green. This wasn’t-
“What the hell?” Avery shouted, getting up way too fast, looking down at himself. Sure his clothes were similar, shorts and the flower patterned shirt he liked wearing, but they were different colors. But his body was completely different. Green, slightly see-trough, and not entirely solid. That’s what he had felt before, slightly firm yet sticky or slimy-
He looked like how he did in the game.
How did that make sense?
“Okay, okay, this is fine. Nothing to be... hmm,” Avery said to himself, trying to cam himself down. At least his voice still sounded relatively the same. He had been playing the game before, it didn’t matter if that was all that mattered to him at the moment, that he had spent 15 hours in front of his computer trying to find a way to Derek and trying to find a way to stop the King. It didn’t matter that was the only thing that consumed him, that it was the most important thing to him right now. That all of this was became of a damn game. So why the hell did he look like how he did in the game now? Why was he controlling it like he wold his normal body?
Avery tried to remember everything that happened. He got to Derek, they argued, Derek pushed him off the edge, he had been crying, there was a bright light-
Yellow light.
He had been falling and the light had been yellow.
The King must have done something. This had to be his doing, still trying to get His vessel as He was being trapped in Derek’s mind. He must have transported Avery somehow. And is this was the from that the King saw when he was stuck in the game, then sure, Avery would look like a slime for now.
He kicked his legs out, testing them and taking a few steps. It seemed to work the same. Not any different from his normal body. It was even the same height and build as his normal body. Nothing entirely different.
Avery remembered when he had been deciding on his skin when he had been making his channel and was suddenly very thankful he had chosen something relatively normal. He imagined being put into a body with weird looking wings or a single eye in the center of his face like other skins he had seen.
Does that mean Derek would have a full set of armor if he had been drawn in like this too? Avery thought that would be pretty cool to see.
But for now he could deal with this body. It wasn’t the worst change that had happened to his body in his whole life that was for sure. He looked down his shirt and saw a thin line of darker green on his chest.
The next problem that would take longer to deal with was where he was. Where the King had put him.
Red sand covered everything as far as he could see. A weird looking sun hung in the sky, and ominous dark clouds were on the far side of one of the dunes.
This had to be another one of the King’s realms. Okay. He could do this. He had been through these plenty of time before. All he had to do was make his way through it, find a gate, and get back to Derek.
Yes, that had been the goal and it still was. He wouldn’t leave Derek to suffer like that at the hands of the King. He’d make his way back to him, and especially if he was stuck here in the King’s realm, he could probably do more than he just just sitting at his computer.
Avery brushed himself off, knowing he would be unable to get all of this red sand off of him, hating the feeling of it sticking to his slime.
“So weird...” he said to himself.
There was nothing else where he had landed. He almost felt the instinc to reach for his keyboard and pull open his inventory.
Avery sighed.
What’s in your inventory?
He felt so stupid for having fallen for that. Of course Derek would try to distract him use his naivety against him, make him think he had suddenly come up with another plan. It had worked with the fake pile of gold on top of the tree, and it had worked again at the very end. But Derek his have another plan, just not one that involved Avery.
He still felt around, finding a few things in his pockets, a few strands of thread, some red dust. And as he reached into them, he realized he had a sword attached to his belt.
“Let’s go!” he cheered softly to himself, pulling it out of its sheath. It was just a wooden word, but he felt better with something than nothing. Especially in this place which was probably controlled by the King. He swished the sword around a few times, testing out its weight, and even though he had no idea about sword fighting in real life, he was pretty sure he could use it well enough to defend himself. All his time and experience in skywars had to pay off at some point, right?
But now he had no idea where to go. Was there a gate out of this realm? Avery looked around, but was unable to see anything. The red sand covered everything, but some of his line of sight was covered y dunes. He figured e could walk up one, get a better view of his surroundings.
Everything about this place was so weird and alien. If Avery wasn’t concerned about the King finding him or whatever was happening to Derek right now, he would loved to have gone exploring. He would loved to have explored any of the other realms as well all connected by those gates.
But that was for the future, if they had time. He had to find Derek first, get him back, save him from the King. He could do that. Probably.
One thing at a time first, find somewhere to head, some way to help solve the puzzle thatthis place was, find his way to the gate.
The sky started to change above him, a blue sun peaking ut from the horizon. Huh. Multiple suns. That was pretty cool.
As Avery made his way up the dunes, trying to get a better view, he finally saw something that wasn’t red sand. It was decently far away, but Avery was pretty sure those were mountains in the distance. He glanced around, trying to see anything else. There seemed to be more structures in the distance, but couldn’t make out what they were. They were even further away than the mountains were.
“I’ll find you Derek, I did it once, I can do it again,” Avery said into the air. He tucked the sword back in its sheath and nodded to himself. Those mountains seemed like a good place as any to go.