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Chapter Text

If you were to ever sit Technoblade down, give him a cup of tea, and ask him to explain as to how he got teleported within a random forest with exactly 99 other people, he would spill the tea (literally. Onto the ground. He doesn’t like tea.) and tell you he doesn’t have a singular clue. 

There are only three things he’s sure of, at the current moment. 

Number one; he was vehemently farming potatoes, as any mildly insane person would do for the sake of spite and victory, and now he is not farming potatoes. Now he is in the forest. With people. 

Not ideal.

The timeline between the change of these two different environments was that of about one second. Techno does not have an explanation for this other than some vague guess that the gods just kinda hate him. That or he’s been kidnapped. Which is just plain inconvenient. 

Number two on the things Techno is sure of; he still has his weapons. Through close observation of the general panic around him, and through checking his own lack of items, it’s clear everyone’s inventory has been wiped clean for reasons unknown. 

However, Technoblade is always one step ahead, and ready to kill a man, so he has several knives hidden on his person. For the sake of not losing those weapons and not causing even more mass panic, he chooses to keep them hidden. One must wait for the opportune moment, and all that. Sun Tzu.

Number three on things he is sure of:

Everyone is definitely keeping a distance from him. 

And they’re not even subtle about it. 

Techno doesn’t take offense at the extreme caution, nor does he really care. If anything, he sorta understands their hesitance. Being half-piglin makes him an intimidating sort, with his height, and his tusks, and his overall ability to crack someone’s head open like a walnut with his bare hands. He’s a Big Guy. One with too many scars and a resting murder face. He’s been told that he’s generally threatening looking, even when just standing still. He’s taken that as a compliment.

As he makes his way through the forest, he goes with nothing more than a bored, almost annoyed look on his face, but judging by the way everyone scurries to get out of his way, you’d think he’d be marching with a thirst for blood burning in his eyes instead. Groups scatter and break up to move out of his range, individual people hide behind the trees when he comes near, and Techno would be slightly upset about the isolation… if it weren’t for the fact that this is a great way to avoid social interaction. (For the entire time he’s been here, he hasn’t said a single word to anyone. That’s a win in his book, because he doesn’t want to say a word to anyone.)

Plus, with everyone running off, no one will get in his way while he tries to figure things out. Which makes the whole process more efficient, he’ll say. 

Except… he’s not really figuring anything out. He’s just as clueless as everyone else, and unfortunately, just as helpless. Him and several others have tried at getting some trees down for the comfort of basic tools, but after repeating attempts with literally no effect on the wood, it’s easy to see that they’re not getting anywhere with that. It’s the same with the dirt. And the leaves. And really, anything in the world around them. 

They can’t influence anything. They can’t break anything, or build anything, or do anything. Honestly, it pushes at Techno’s paranoia juuust a bit. They’re all locked into some sort of passive mode for some reason, and with every minute they stay within it, Techno feels more tempted to pull his knife for the sake of seeing if player death is still active. 

But he keeps walking. More people rush out of his way as he heads on, and they’re all eerily silent. Techno wrongly assumes that they all end their conversations when they hear him coming. He doesn’t yet realize that he hasn’t actually heard anyone exchange any audible words since the moment they were all dumped here. 

He glances up over the branches and stands on his toes for a moment to peer at the sky ahead. As he stares up towards the distant clouds, he sees a slight shimmer behind it. An almost glowing sort of wall, stretched across, reaching around the forest. 

Oh, good. 

A world border. 

That’s not ominous at all. 

He has no time to be bothered by the sight or what it implies, because there’s then a rustling of leaves behind him, and that catches his attention pretty quick, since no one he’s seen so far has been able to scale a tree. 

Technoblade turns around with a searching eye, thinking he’ll see some unyielding person stuck within the branches, but instead, there’s someone with curly, brown hair floating beside them.

…what.

The floating person looks just as upset as Techno about this unpredicted surprise. He’s frowning down at him with a sense of bafflement, like Technoblade has personally turned the sky neon pink and he needs to know the reason why he would do such a thing. He’s dressed up in some sort of weird lab coat get-up, and there’s no symbols, no words, no striking colors on his clothes to really give any hint as to who he might be. 

There’s controls hovering at his fingertips, though, transparent blue buttons with words whizzing past on a nearby screen, and with a slow dawning realization, Techno realizes this is the person to blame for his current problems. This has to be the admin of the server they’ve been unexpectedly put in. 

(It’s strange, though. People can’t be put in servers without giving permission. Admins don’t usually have that many controls at hand. And those eyes feel a little too daunting, too bright, staring down at him.)

Techno opens his mouth with the intent to yell out at the floating person, but his throat offers nothing, and all that comes out is a silent push of air. He sucks in a breath with surprise, trying again, but with no result. His voice is nowhere to be found. He can’t speak. He can’t make a sound. 

He holds his hand to his throat, eyes wide. He can’t speak. 

“Hey!” The supposed admin yells out, waving his finger all around at the people curiously peeking out from the trees. There’s an amused laugh bubbling out with his words, with that bafflement still kept vivid in his expression. “What the fuck-?” He laughs again. “Why are you all fucking avoiding him?”

The man then points down directly at Techno, who looks up from his situation of not being able to talk, and gives an unimpressed raise of his eyebrows. Is it not self-explanatory as to why he’s being avoided? Techno is at least a foot taller than everyone here. He’s got a menacing air around him like he’s some sort of final boss. Makes people skittish. 

“I can see you all running-” The admin laughs a little more, like he can’t believe the behavior he’s seeing. “-it’s like he has a fucking force field around him. Come on, make friends!” 

He claps, and the controls zip away, leaving his hands free. He points out one of the people unfortunately within the danger zone, hiding behind the trees. “You. Come here.” 

The player flinches away, hiding further behind the tree. Then they peek out, eyes wide, and the admin nods, calling them again. 

“Yes, you. Come here, come here.” 

He coaxes the person over until they leave their hiding spot, and then he points at Techno’s side. “Stand next to him, go on. He’s not so bad.” 

The person makes a face as if they were just told to go hit a sleeping bear with a bat. The admin scoffs at their frantic shake of the head. 

“He’s not going to kill you.” He reassures. The player shakes their head even harder. “I haven’t even turned on PVP.” They shake their head with even more force. Techno wonders if someone can get a concussion from just shaking their head right off their shoulders.  

Technoblade turns his head to the side, looking directly at the other player in a moment of curiosity. The movement makes them look away from the admin, and for a split second, they both share a gaze, and there’s a chance at communication. 

Then the player’s face pales, and they stumble back and run away, the Admin giving a frustrated scream. 

“He only looked at you!” 

Someone cackles over his words, high-pitched and loud. Techno snaps his head up to the Admin again, and- oh. 

There’s two floating people now. That’s great. 

This one is smaller, though. Still wearing a lab coat, still with curly hair, albeit his hair is a bit lighter, more blond. (more golden , some instinct of his whispers. He swats it away with annoyance.) He also seems much more lively, because while Admin #1 is frowning at his failed attempt at getting the people to Socialize, supposed Admin #2 is wheezing over his controls with a near manic grin. 

“I like you, I like you-” He’s saying past his laughs, quickly scrolling through his screens before finding something through all the data. “-TECH-NO-BLADE!” He declares, like an announcer at a roaring arena. Out of habit, Techno lifts his chin high. 

“Technoblade?!” Admin #1 repeats incredulously. “That’s his name?!”

“You’ve heard weirder fucking names, Wil.” The tinier admin brushes him off, and he moves down in front of Techno so suddenly that Techno has to take a step back. He stares up at the kid with a frown, trying to make sense of the controls at his hands. “I’m going to give you a sword, Tech-no-blade. I think you deserve a sword.” 

“Tommy, no.” Wil deadpans. 

Tommy’s lips curl into a nasty scowl. He twists back to glare at Wil, his amusement gone within seconds. It kinda puts Techno on edge with how quickly his mood switched off. “Why not?!” 

“Because we just fucking started!” 

“But it’s Tech-no-blade!” Tommy juts an arm out to Techno, as if needing to direct proper attention to him and his incredible anti-social abilities. 

“Technoblade, Technoblade. It’s one word.” Wilbur corrects lightly. He waves a hand, flying up higher, past the branches. “And you can give him a weapon later into the game. Patience.” 

Tommy huffs aggressively. He turns back to Techno, his eyes too blue, seeming to crackle like lightning. Technoblade takes a wary step backwards. “Fine.” He taps away at his screen. “You can have a gapple instead.” 

Instantly, a shiny golden apple appears just beside Tommy’s head. He holds a hand out, and it falls directly into his palm so that he can then throw it over to Techno. Techno catches it with ease. 

“Good luck, Tech-no-blade.” Tommy gives his farewell, and he flies up to join Wilbur high in the sky, his controls and glowing screens still hovering all around him. 

Technoblade squeezes the apple in his palm, trying to call out at Tommy’s back. He’s reminded of the fact he cannot talk. His jaw clicks shut, and he takes a second to inspect the apple closely, seeing the shine of gold (gold! his instincts cheer. He swats them off yet again), the shimmer of an enchantment. It’s a good apple. It’s a rare one, too. Techno would consider himself lucky if he were in a fight with this. Thing is, he’s not in a fight. 

…or, he thinks so. Now he’s not so sure. Maybe this is going to turn out worse than he hoped. 

He looks up again, with everyone else, who’s now stepping out from their hiding spots in the forest. Eyes all stare up into the sky, at the two figures floating high above, who had given no answers, and frankly, produced only more questions. Techno’s made the assumption that they’re admins, but if they’re admins, then what exactly are they doing? Why aren’t they taking proper care of the people within their server? Why is speech of all things turned off?

And why was he just given a golden apple? 

Some players nearby begin to eye his item with interest, so Techno quickly tucks away the fruit into his inventory with a baring of his teeth and moves forward to try and get a better view of their admins in the sky. Maybe he’d be able to get their attention again if he tried hard enough, considering they went through the effort to find his name and use it. 

Technobalde doesn’t make it much farther than a few steps before the first admin’s voice echoes out, loud and clear across the entire chunk of land. Everyone stops in place, even him, and they all look up and listen as Wil begins his little speech. 

“Congratulations to all the lucky players in this forest-- you have been chosen!” Techno cranes his head back, and past the leaves, he can see Wilbur high, high up, looking so tiny from where he’s looking down at all of them. Tommy is near him, seeming distracted with other things. “Through a complicated and thorough process that definitely wasn’t just taking people at random from their worlds, you’ve all been brought together for the sole purpose of an experiment. A social experiment. An experience, I like to call it!” 

Wilbur sounds thrilled at telling all of them this. Technoblade wishes he would fly back down so he can put his knife to good use. He didn’t sign up to be a random lab rat. 

“I can hear your thoughts already. You did not sign up for an experience. You want to go home. You are calling me several vulgar names and are angry at the fact you’ve been kidnapped- I mean, relocated for the sake of science.” Wilbur hums. “There is a reason I turned off speech before you got here. The screaming always gets so annoying, so this one will be a silent round. You’ll figure out your ways of communication, I’m sure.” 

Techno definitely has a form of communication he’d like to share. It involves his middle finger. 

“Here is how this is going to go. I am going to give you all a mission, a goal. You are all going to follow it! You will carry out your roles as best to your abilities, and if not, then-” Wil laughs. “Here, we’ll give an example. Tommy, make an example.” He waves to his brother, catching his attention. 

Tommy snaps out from his focus on his screens, and Technoblade can’t make out their faces from down on the ground, but he swears the kid lights up like the sun. His hands reach out and do something with his controls, and all of a sudden, there is a player up there with them, high in the sky, almost touching the clouds. 

But they don’t have flying enabled. 

Silently, everyone watches as the player begins to plummet, limbs flailing, wind pulling at their clothes, and all the while, Tommy waves down at them with a light, amused laugh. They silently fall, fall, fall, and the sound of them landing is heard through the whole forest. The death message pops up right after. 

Player has fallen to their death.

Techno doesn’t flinch at it, but he closes his eyes with a sinking feeling of dread. Death always hurts, no matter if respawn is ensured right after. He can’t imagine how the impact would’ve felt. And he can’t handle the fact that such a death can be easily given through the whim of some overpowered admin. How haven’t they been reported for this sort of behavior yet? From their language, it implies this isn’t the first time they’ve done this. 

“There. Yeah, that’s the example.” Wilbur nods at Tommy, rather pleased, and Tommy beams with such pride that Wilbur just has to go and noogie him. Tommy screams and teleports a distance away, Wilbur laughing and picking up where he left off. “That’s what’ll happen to you if you don’t participate! Or it’s along the lines of what could happen. I could also put you into a cage of bedrock. Let you sit in the dark for a couple of days. Should we make an example of that?” 

Wilbur lifts his hands, his controls coming to life at his fingertips, and below him, all the players frantically shake their heads, holding their hands up high and waving them quickly to get the message across that no, no, the first example was fine, no one wants to be put into a box of bedrock. 

“Y’know what? I’ll hold off on it, since you’re all so adamant.” Wilbur smiles down at them. Then he lifts his chin up, moving across the sky. “Another thing! That guy-” He points at the general area of where a player just fell to their death. “-is dead! That is something you should avoid. Because if you die here, you do not respawn. In fact, I think you get stuck?” 

A moment of silence passes. No one is capable of screaming, but Techno can feel the wave of dread lift into the air. The tension suddenly grows thick. Suffocating. 

“Hey, maybe you go back to your world before, maybe your soul is broken up and lost to the void, who knows, I’ve never actually checked-- but the point is, do not die. Try not to die. We need players to play a game, and if all the players are dead, then the game is already over!” Wilbur huffs. “And we’ve just begun.” 

Something shuffles from behind Techno. He tears his eyes away from the admin up above to move away and glare at whoever’s passing. Now, more than ever, he wants people to stay away. 

The person who had been trying to sneak through stumbles away with Techno’s gaze, acting as if they’ve been hit with burning fire. Technoblade huffs and leaves them, going further through the forest. Maybe their ability to build will be given back any second now. Maybe PVP will be turned on with it. If so, Techno oughta move off away from the general mass, gather some quick resources while the worst of it passes. 

He’s dealt with deathmatches before, too many times to count. He likes to say his odds are good in them. 

The sound of Wilbur’s laugh echoes out all around him, sounding muffled, as if he’s holding his hands over his lips. “Ah, I can see you all scrambling around- you’re already grouping up, see! Friends!” He claps his hands together excitedly. “FRIENDS, this is what I’m talking about!” 

“Get over your loneliness and get to the rules!” Tommy snaps, and Wilbur glares at him with the force of a thousand suns. Tommy is already looking back at his screens with a face of disinterest. 

“Okay, stop moving. Stop doing things. I’m going to give you the prompt now. Do this well, give me good results, and you might all get to go back home.” Wilbur says. The world comes to a halt. Everyone’s heads tilt up, looking to their god, waiting for their orders. 

Wilbur’s lips stretch into a wide grin. He loves this little part of the experiment. When the desperation has just sunk in, when the panic is driving everyone around, when people will listen and do anything for the chance of escape. When they will do anything for him. 

“You are now a society!” Wilbur declares, loud and high, hands raised to the sky. “You must make a kingdom with these three things. One, a large castle. Two, a throne, sitting within that castle. And three, a king.” He clasps his palms together, bringing his hands closer and pressing his knuckles underneath his chin. “I don’t care who’s the king, and I don’t care how you build, the point is just that you build it-- together. I want this done by tomorrow's sunrise, and if one of you sit out on helping, I’m bringing out that bedrock cage!” 

Again, movement breaks out. The players scatter, trying to break trees, trying to explore across their forest. Wil can see someone sprinting across the land, only seconds away from running face-first into the world border. He can see someone kicking earnestly at a tree, waving others over to come help. 

“You will now get back your ability to build. Enjoy.” Wilbur looks at Tommy, and Tommy slaps at some button, changing a setting within the world. Instantly, trees begin to fall, leaves are ripped apart, and the dirt ground is undone. 

Destruction begins in a state of frantic panic, and Wilbur observes it all with such a joy that he can’t stop giggling. The sun is bright over his head, and he knows that the day is going to get on well. 

But then Tommy sighs. He lays back mid-air, his screens shifting and adjusting with him. 

“Now it’s the boring part.” The teen complains, Wilbur looking away from his experiment with a slight scoff. “Now we have to wait.”

“This is the best part, what do you mean?” Wil asks. “We get to see them develop. This is where the behavior patterns kick in.” He waves a hand to the side, and instantly, screens pop up, charts and numbers and words whizzing past. Tommy groans loudly. 

“Nooo.” He cries, Wilbur ignoring his sounds of woe. “They’re all just going to be mining for a bunch of hours.” He twists around, still laying sideways, but with his body now facing down. “Or they could just make a dirt castle.” 

“They better not.” Wilbur mutters. 

“You didn’t specify, didn’t you-?”

“No dirt castles!” Wilbur yells out, the words echoing out across the entire forest. The people keep moving, but they jump at his voice, letting him know he’s been heard. That one person who was determinately building away with dirt blocks now quickly mines away the evidence. “There, I specified.” 

“Uhg. You’re no fun.” 

Wilbur glances over at his little brother, seeing him cradle a screen close to his face, watching the messages zip by. “Aren’t you excited for the results?” Wilbur asks. “You begged me to let you help with this one, and now you’re complaining!”

“Yeah, because it’s always so boring at the start!” Tommy whines, sitting up and letting his screen lay in his lap. “I like the fun bits, when everyone starts to kill each other at the end.” 

“Well, we haven’t gotten to that part yet.” Wilbur clicks his tongue. “You have to be patient. And think of the other possibilities! This is going to be a kingdom. There’s going to be a king. And with kings, there’s always an uprising…” 

Tommy’s eyes sparkle with interest. “Rebellion.” He whispers. He straightens up, acting as if he’s standing again. “I bet Tech-no-blade would love a good ol’ rebellion.” 

“Technoblade.” Wilbur offhandedly corrects. He wonders for a moment over that player, intrigued by their capabilities. He was certainly more dangerous than others, being a piglin hybrid and all. If Wilbur put him into an executor type of role…hm. Could be beneficial. “Did you actually give him anything when I left?” 

“I gave him a gapple.” Tommy shrugs, staring at Wilbur as if daring to argue against him on it. 

“That’s alright, I suppose. He doesn’t really have much use for it right now.” Wilbur accepts that easily. He turns back to his data at hand. “Keep an eye on him, if you want. I know he’s already your favorite.”

“I don’t pick favorites.” Tommy denies, but he quickly goes to find Techno’s location anyway, his expression filled with glee. “He’s just fucking cool. Did you see how tall he was?”

“He is…bigger than most participants.” Wilbur notes. Do they ever get hybrids into these experiments? He knows he’s seen a few, but they’ve never quite caught his eye. Then again, they’ve never been that big.

Maybe one day, they should do a round with the players consisting of only hybrids. See how that one turns out. 

“He’s a fucking giant.” Tommy narrows down Techno’s coords, and with a simple tap of a button, his body goes invisible, no longer visible to a player’s eye. To Wilbur, though, he’s seen just fine. Just a bit more transparent than usual. “I’m gonna go spy.” He announces brightly. 

“Observe.” Wilbur rewords.

“Overlook, stare at, spy, it’s the same thing.” Tommy mutters. Wilbur snorts. “We can’t interact yet, right?”

“Not until the castle is built and they have that king.” 

“Okay, okay.” Tommy nods, and some of his screens shut off. “I will be back with a report.” 

“You do that.” Wilbur smiles, and he watches Tommy teleport off, his heart warm at the fact that Tommy is even making an effort for a report. Granted, the report will be scuffed, and will lack far too many details to be truly useful, but it’s a start, and Wil always appreciates the help and company. 

Turning his attention back to the quickly dwindling forest underneath him, Wilbur glances over player names and inventories, watching how they mine, how they build, how they plan. He watches their behavior with a grin, and waits happily for the moment where he gets to see everything turn rotten. 

Technoblade doesn’t really feel the word ‘teamwork’ right now. 

Honestly, the word feels like it’s gone on vacation. It packed up, left, and didn’t even glance back. Now all Technoblade is stuck with are the words such as ‘social isolation’ and ‘anxiety.’ Not so fun. 

He understands there are consequences to not pulling his weight. The admins made that very clear with talk of a bedrock box. Techno’s making his efforts, he’s digging his pathways, he’s collecting his stone. But it’s all just kinda… sitting in his inventory, because he can’t get close enough to anyone to actually give it. 

Everyone scuttles away from him like he’s running at them with a knife, and hey, maybe Techno will start doing that, if only to relieve the stress on his shoulders. They’ll take his stone when they’re dead, won’t they? Can’t run off if your body is in the process of despawning. 

Technoblade sighs, rubbing at his temples to chase off a coming headache. There’s a reason he’s not a people person. There is a reason he decided to spend the grand majority of his time alone in an outrageously vast potato farm.

(The reason is that he has far too many thoughts of manslaughter when he has to be around several people at once. It’s a kinda worrying habit. He supposes it’s some after effect of the traumas from the Arena.)

He looks over to the main group, keeping his distance, but still watching how they function. Everyone’s started using wooden signs as a form of communication. It seems they’re really depending on that for the main plans of the castle they have to build. Signs are stuck everywhere, in the ground, on the chests, on the trees that are still standing, conversations and writing carved into them. There’s someone going around and cutting down all the unneeded ones, but it’s still an awful lot. 

Techno doesn’t bother to read any. He’s not trying to communicate. He moves his attention on the chests generously placed around, watching as people come by to drop in and take items at will. He zeroes in on a specific one that looks as if it hasn’t been touched, and after a while of making sure the coast is clear, he goes for it. 

No one gets in his way as he heads over to the chest, but no one begins panicking and evacuating the area either. The lid of the chest opens with a slight squeak, and Techno looks inside to just find a bit of dirt. Perfect. He’s dumping all his hard work here, and with luck, someone can find it and use it later. 

He transfers his entire inventory of cobble into the chest, emptying out his pockets, but taking care to not misplace the golden apple he has in his possession. He still hasn’t used it, but it’s a good item, and he’s holding it close until the time presents itself. 

As the chest fills up and Techno runs out of cobble, a new item pops up among all the rock. It’s golden and shiny, just like the apple from before, and Technoblade can’t help it-- he just grabs it and puts it into his inventory the second it’s in sight. 

Then he pauses. Realizes that there’s no reason for a new item to show up in the chest, because no one is approaching this chest, and certainly no one is putting things in while he is. 

He looks over the new item in his inventory. Stares.

It’s a golden carrot. 

(Gold.)

Technoblade closes the lid of the chest and takes a sudden look around, but there’s nothing to see, except for the bustling of people trying to put together a castle and the rush of miners coming back with their supply of cobble. 

(Silently, Tommy floats in front of Techno with a smile, taking in every inch of his expression, every second of his reaction. He takes a couple of vague notes on his keyboard. Wilbur won’t care for them, but the effort is what counts.) 

Technoblade doesn’t dare take out the apple and the carrot, lest he catches attention around him and have it become bad attention, but he does stand still, letting the cogs in his head turn. He glances up to the sky, where Wilbur stands alone, observing them all, and with a few more moments of thought, he decides to turn around and head back to mining. 

The castle still needs to be built, anyway.

Chapter Text

The day passes. 

The sun goes down, the walls of a castle go up. The moon rises, and the players make a mighty throne out of iron blocks. Apples are passed around as the main food source at first, with all the trees that had been chopped down, but then wheat begins to be grown as well, in little farms around the castle walls. Bread is baked and shared amongst the forced community of ‘royal subjects’, and everyone is fed. 

(Although, one player has his diet consist entirely of golden carrots for the rest of the night. No one notices, for he eats them all in the mines, anyway.) 

Monsters begin to spawn in, plentiful at first, dangerous to the few who hadn’t been prepared. (A total of four subjects die, their names going gray in Wilbur’s log. Wilbur feels nothing for them but slight satisfaction at getting the ball rolling.) Then those same monsters are brutally murdered with iron swords, and warded off with an intense amount of torches. So many torches, in fact, that Wilbur is vaguely impressed that they haven’t yet set fire to the forest. With the sheer amount of torches they stick around the castle, monsters no longer become an issue. 

(Wil makes a note in his recordings about that certain tidbit. It’s a note made in pride, like a father seeing his children finally not be disappointingly stupid for once.)

Signs still are used for communication. They’re carved and written and placed anywhere that the players are, and as they finish up the throne, they share wooden words on one pressing question. 

Who should sit upon it?

Some votes are taken. Some arguments break out. No one really fights, though, for the fear of not respawning or not being able to return home upon death still makes them hesitant. (Wil makes a note to be more vague on the respawn mechanism next time.) 

When the sky begins to lighten, they’re scared into making a choice. One player jumps onto the throne with a persistence, and thus gets named king, with a whole generous little crowning ceremony and such. Then the castle keeps getting worked on, with a little less stress, since everything is mostly in place, and there’s finally someone to be put on the throne. 

Wilbur watches on with a content sort of mood, glad with the progress of a castle, glad with the throne, glad with their king. Out of curiosity, he decides to check on his brother. He shifts into an observer mode, invisible to a player's eye, and then he teleports to Tommy’s location. 

He is not surprised at all when he gets sent down on the ground to see the player named Technoblade. 

Who isn’t even working, strangely enough. He’s just sitting up against the trunk of a tree, arms crossed over his chest as he snoozes away in the early morning. Tommy, unseen to everyone but Wil, sits criss cross beside him, watching him sleep. He’s got a keyboard underneath his left hand, as if ready to take notes. Wilbur couldn’t imagine what he could possibly take notes on for someone sleeping, but to his surprise, there are quite a lot of bullet points on the page. 

(...his brother has really gotten a favorite. Wilbur isn’t sure if he should be upset at the slight interference with the experiment, or if he should try getting this player wrapped up in a giant gift box, bows and all. Choices, choices.)

“What are you doing?” Wilbur demands, his voice unheard to all except Tommy. Techno continues snoozing on. 

Tommy snaps his head around with wide eyes, breaking out into a grin. “Wil!”

“Tommy.” Wilbur says back fondly, heart instantly filled with warmth. “What are you doing?” He asks again, more curious and less cold. 

“I’ve taken notes!” Tommy declares, quickly stumbling up on his feet, sending his report over to Wil to read. “Take a look at ‘em.” 

Wilbur takes one skim over it, and that’s all he needs to see to know that it is solely about the player Technoblade. He purses his lips together. “Have you been-” He gestures at the sleeping player. “Following him around for the entire time?” 

“Yeah.” Tommy shrugs a shoulder. “He’s the only interesting one.” 

Wilbur resists the urge to roll his eyes. “Didn’t you see when they chose a king earlier? That was quite interesting.” 

“They chose a king?” Tommy leans to the side, looking past Wil with a frown. He doesn’t seem so impressed. He points over his shoulder with a sense of smug pride. “Well, Tech-no-blade over here had this epic fucking battle in the mines- he had to fight off like three skeletons at once. I took the notes on it, it’s on page three.” 

Wilbur doesn’t look at the notes. He makes a quick check on Techno’s stats instead. Perfectly healthy. “He wasn’t injured?” He asks slowly. 

“Oh, he was.” Tommy nods, leaning back and forth from his heels to his toes. “He tore an arrow out of his own arm. It was so cool.” 

Then, he must’ve healed somehow. Wil doesn’t think it was through consistent food consumption, for he never saw Techno getting passed bread or apples. He looks at his brother with his awestruck light in his eyes, and he knows that the little shit has been interacting.

“And then you gave him a healing potion, didn’t you?” Wilbur opens up Tommy’s notes again, taking a look closer. Techno never stayed all that close to the castle or its abundance of torches, so he had to fight off the mobs often. Judging by Tommy’s consistent writing of ‘fucking epic sword skills’ he can deduce that the player didn’t have much problem with it. He works well with a sword, as Wilbur thought.  

“No!” Tommy denies. He shuffles in place, looking away. “I just gave him carrots.” 

“Carrots?” Wilbur looks away from the notes for a second, raising his eyebrows. “Oh. Golden carrots.” He settles on, in just a few seconds. He turns back to the notes. 

“No!” Tommy yells. “...yeah.” He admits. “He ran out of food. And he won’t eat the gapple I gave him.” 

“He’s smart for that. He’ll need it.” Wilbur closes the notes, closes the screens, closes all the controls. The sun has started to truly rise, and the morning has settled over their heads. It’s showtime. 

With a shift of the settings, Wil turns both him and Tommy visible, giving a shock to anyone nearby at seeing the admins suddenly standing right on the edge of their kingdom. Already, some people sprint over to warn to be ready. Wilbur ignores them. He walks forward to stare directly down at the player named Technoblade. 

“Hey.” He calls, crouching down for a second to pick up a small rock. He throws it at Technoblade’s face. It bounces off his forehead and lands back into the dirt. 

“Wilbur!” Tommy squawks, pulling at his brother’s arm. Technoblade opens his eyes without even a jump. It’s just one moment he’s sleeping, and one moment he is awake, aware. Wilbur is honestly intrigued over it. 

“You.” Wilbur crosses his arms, trying to channel that disappointed fatherly look that Phil’s perfected towards them. “You aren’t being very helpful to your kingdom.” 

Techno narrows his eyes up at Wil. For his credit, he’s not even intimidated. He just seems kinda drowsy. And annoyed. He mouths something as a response, then seems to remember he can’t speak, and gestures vaguely to his throat. 

“Oh, I can give you your voice.” Tommy says, and he’s immediately halfway through the process of doing so before Wilbur smacks his hands and stops him. “Ow! Wil!”

“We have speech turned off for a reason.” Wil scolds. 

“But it’s Tech-no-blade.” Tommy mumbles quietly, and Wilbur really can’t decide if he’s annoyed or endeared. On one hand, it’s so cute for his brother to find a participant he’s so enthusiastic about, he’s usually never this invested in things. On the other, his goddamn experiment.

“Maybe later.” He says, and Tommy seems very happy with that. Technoblade stands up at where he had been resting, and- oh, shit, he really is tall. 

Wilbur has to crane his head back to look up at him when actually standing on the ground, and from this perspective, Technoblade doesn’t feel like a subject, he feels like a threat. An actual, tangible threat, someone who could reach out and grab him. 

Wil does not like that. The vibes are not quite good. 

He kicks off the ground and begins flying a few feet up, making Techno have to look up at him. Tommy joins him at his side, which makes Wilbur feel a little more better. All is restored now. The vibes are good. 

“You need friends.” Wilbur declares. He very earnestly ignores the way Tommy rises up at his side, practically vibrating with energy, far too eager to fill the role. “The entire time I’ve seen you, you have kept the avoidance force field. I do not approve.” 

Technoblade doesn’t look like he really cares. He holds up a hand, shaping it with his thumb and his fingers pointed out together, then he opens and closes it over and over, mouthing something along with it. 

Blah, blah, blah.

Tommy smothers a snort. Wilbur debates on how upset his brother would be if he put his cherished Tech-no-blade into a box made of bedrock for the next few hours. 

He decides Tommy would be too insufferable with his sulking.

Moving his gaze over to one of the other players nearby, Wilbur calls one over, just like before. This time, they seem perfectly willing to be around Technoblade, although they still hold a wary air. 

This time, however, Technoblade stares down the stranger like they’re his sworn mortal enemy who insulted his mother. They begin to sweat profusely. Tommy quietly takes notes again, fingers tapping at his keyboard. Wilbur begins speaking. 

“You, you’re going to lead him to the castle. You can introduce him to the others-” Wilbur then suddenly gets cut off by Techno lifting up his leg and loudly stomping his foot down. The ground cracks under his foot. The person beside him gives a silent scream, mouth open, then they run for dear life, Tommy laughing hysterically at their back. 

“Excuse me?!” Wilbur screams, watching the person run off, then glaring down at Techno. “Hello?!” He yells. “What the fuck was that?!”

Technoblade has gone back to looking bored. He yawns, very wide, for a very long minute, then he shrugs up at Wil, who presses his lips into a thin line to maintain composure. Don’t put the subject in a bedrock box. Don’t put the subject in a bedrock box. It will make Tommy far too whiny. 

“You are making it very hard to give you friends.” Wilbur grits through his teeth. Techno crosses his arms in an x. 

“He doesn’t want friends.” Tommy translates. Wilbur pauses and blinks at that new information. He looks at Tommy, who nods at Techno with a confident air. “They’re all bitches, blade, huh?”

Technoblade scrunches his nose. That’s not quite agreement, but there’s a hint of amusement in his eyes. 

Wilbur has a moment of consideration.

“You don’t… care for allies?” Wil words carefully, waving a hand out. 

Techno visibly thinks for a moment. Then he nods confidently.  

“Interesting.” Wilbur says, holding a hand to his chin. “Innnteresting.” This opens up doors.

With the more time that passes in an experiment, Wil always has the issue of all the subjects forming attachments to each other. This one doesn’t see a point in any attachment. 

…that could make for something fun later. 

“Anyhow! It’s reviewing time. We need to see how everyone’s done.” Wilbur claps his hands together, turning towards the direction of the castle. Tommy lifts his head with light interest. 

“Everyone congregate inside the castle! If I don’t see you in there in five minutes, I’m dropping you out of the sky!” Wil announces, his voice carrying across the entire world. Instantly, people drop what they’re doing and begin sprinting over to the castle. The miners who are still deep within stone begin mining away for dear life to return to the surface.

Technoblade starts walking. He leaves the admins where they are, floating mid-air, and very earnestly pretends to not notice Tommy giving an enthusiastic wave as he leaves. Wilbur’s voice murmurs behind him, some conversation among brothers. Part of Techno craves to be able to respond, to yell or to listen, to have some sort of power, but he’s aware that it’s not smart to fumble the cards he already has. 

Tommy seems to- favor him. For what reason, Techno doesn’t really know, but it’s useful. It gives him an edge above everyone else, less of a chance for consequences. That’s why he took the risk of having a nap, because he knew the kid was hovering somewhere nearby, and he wouldn’t let Wilbur get all grumpy at Techno having some shut-eye. 

If things were to go sideways for this experiment, Tommy could continue to help him out, and prevent his brother from giving Technoblade a rather uncomfortable death. All Techno needs to do is not lose his temper, and keep doing whatever it is that Tommy likes. 

Simple. Probably. Techno’s never been one to actually ensure that people keep liking him, but a man can try. 

The castle isn’t a particularly impressive thing as Technoblade makes his way towards it, but it is a feat for something that only had one night to be built. Its walls are tall and sturdy, watch towers are put up at the very corners, small windows dug out near the very top. Wheat farms are scattered all across the bottom of the walls, tall golden stalks standing still, waiting to be harvested. Techno’s tempted to grab some as he passes. He refrains, if only because he still has golden carrots in his inventory. 

The front door is a massive, heavy thing made of wood. There’s makeshift banners hung up on the sides of it, bright red all across. People rush inside with Techno to be there on time, and Techno struggles with getting through, trying to move out to the side as arms and shoulders push against him. 

The throne sits golden at the very front of the room, all big and mighty and royal-looking, the iron from before having been swapped out for something more valuable. More banners line the inside of the walls, a strip of carpet leads from the door to the throne. There’s no roof above their heads, the planners of the castle wanting the sky and the admins to be kept in view, so the sun sits bright over all of them. 

Techno holds a hand over his eyes as he sifts through the crowd, quietly ending up by the back, leaning against the wall. He takes a quick minute to plan out all possible escape routes, just in case. Within literally ten seconds, he realizes there are no other exit routes other than the single giant door he just stumbled through with everyone else. He scans across the rest of the room, and he realizes further that there’s no actual way to access the watchtowers. Which is…

Who built this damn castle?! With so many people getting forced here, you’d think a couple of them would be good builders. Then again, maybe he shouldn’t be expecting good design for a castle that was made within one night. One made without proper communication, at that. But still.

Wilbur appears over them all, hovering by where the roof would be if there was one. Tommy is right beside him, watching intensely at some screens, no longer interested in the makeshift kingdom. He glances down for a second, making direct eye contact with Techno, but then he looks back up, and he types something into his keyboard. 

“Is that everyone? Is everyone here?” Wilbur asks, looking over the crowd. He notices the way everyone keeps the carpet pathway to the throne clear, and he gives an amused sort of smirk. “Where’s the king?” He asks. 

Someone runs out from the front of the crowd, quickly going to the throne. They don’t sit, but rather they stand in front of the chair, looking up at the two admins with a wide wave of their arm. 

“There he is!” Wilbur exclaims joyfully. “Time’s up, then, it’s been long enough. Close the doors.” Wilbur points over to the front door, and Technoblade gives a double take. His heart compresses with dread as he sees the massive wooden doors slide into place with a barricade slamming down on them. Wilbur seems impossibly happy at the sight. 

Now they’re all trapped in here. Maybe most of the people don’t see that as troubling, since they were asked to make a sturdy castle in the first place, but Technoblade thinks this is a bad set up. Especially with the trigger-happy admins. 

Something’s going to go wrong.

He looks into his inventory, rearranging his tools. If all else fails, he can just dig through the damn walls. Everyone else will do it with him if the situation becomes dire enough. 

Maybe he’s being pessimistic, though. Maybe Wilbur’s satisfied with what they’ve done, and the danger has passed. The threat from before could’ve been a bluff. Techno could be overthinking, as he always does.

“Tommy.” Technoblade hears, as he shifts his pickaxe over beside his sword. “Kill everyone who isn’t here.” 

Technoblade’s hands pause. 

He doesn’t look up, but he knows the look on Tommy’s face already. It’s something joyful, excited. Technoblade closes his inventory with a resigned sort of fear, and he watches as the death messages pop up in his vision, one after another. 

Player has suffocated. 

Player has suffocated. 

Player has suffocated. 

And on they go. There were still quite a few people in the mines. A total of eleven players die from a sudden suffocation, and a more tense type of silence sticks to the crowd of survivors.  

“Is that done?” Wilbur asks, when the messages have faded away and meaningful glances have already been passed around. “Alright, then, one more thing, before we go acknowledging our chosen king.” He pulls up his controls, bright and glowing underneath his fingertips. “I think a reset is in order.” 

A commotion breaks out, for as much as a commotion can break out with all the people being mute. Feet shuffle around, hands snap up at the admin to try and get his attention, palms clap together nervously. Technoblade stares at Wilbur with a heavy dread in his heart, and he pulls up his inventory again. It’s a useless effort. 

In a blink, all his items are wiped. Along with everyone else’s. 

“You have built your castle!” Wilbur begins, ignoring the people’s panic and upset reactions at losing all they’ve gathered together. “You’ve chosen your king, and so, this is the proper beginning of your kingdom.” He floats down, flying in front of the king with his hands clasped at his back. “Starting today, you take orders from him! Starting today, you build your civilization, your farms and your homes, with his permission! He is your chosen king, your supreme ruler!” 

The people are still upset over their empty inventories. They’re not even looking at Wil. Wilbur sees the back of heads, sees backs turned to him, and he grinds his teeth at not being listened to. With a quick command, he kills a random person at the front of the crowd, suffocating them just like how Tommy did to the others who didn’t make it inside. 

It’s different to see a person suffocate in person rather than just seeing their death message pop up. The player claws at their throat for a second, eyes wide, mouth open, trying desperately to take in a breath. They can’t make any noise as they choke, but everyone can practically hear the struggling gasp, the desperate attempt at a scream. 

Then they fall to the floor, fizzling out into nothing, their body registering as dead and despawning from the world. 

Player has suffocated.

The crowd goes oddly still with the death. They stare at the spot the person fell, then they stare up at Wilbur, who smiles politely with their collected attention. 

“And since…this is your ruler,” Wilbur goes on, as if nothing happened. He turns to the king with an outstretched arm. “You all are to pledge your loyalty. Right here, right now. As a kingdom should.” 

A moment passes, nearly filled with disbelief. 

Then the people choose survival, as they always do. (They listen to Wilbur’s commands, as they always do.)

The king sits down in his throne as if he was born for it, his chin high and his chest puffed. The people all sink down on one knee, their heads tilted down with respect. In all perspectives, it truly looks like a picture out of medieval times. A kingdom bowing down before their king. 

Wilbur scans over every person in the crowd, a content smile on his face, happy to see this kingdom be born. His gaze drifts towards the back, and he stops. He flies a little higher, to see a little better. 

“Technoblade.” He calls, speaking calmly, yet sounding far too loud. 

Tommy snaps his head up, eyes wide. Something like shock flickers over his face, before being then filled with a giddy awe. He closes his screens, staring down attentively. 

Wilbur only keeps his attention on the one player. “Why aren’t you bowing?” He asks. 

Technoblade is tense in where he stands, with his heart beating harsh against his ribcage and his skin feeling impossibly cold against the warmth of the sun. He’s moved from his spot by the very back, right against the wall. Now he stands before the barricaded door, shoes dirty against the pristine carpet, the throne sitting straight ahead in his view. His hands are empty at his sides, but they itch to dig into the hidden pocket that’s sewed into his right boot. 

He waits for the chance. He swallows back the horrible, spiteful anger that’s trying to climb up his throat, and he waits. He stares up at Wilbur, using all his effort to keep a blank face. 

“He can’t really respond, can he?” Tommy asks aloud. Wilbur’s eyes don’t leave Techno.  “Give him a sign.” He goes to summon one himself to hand over, but Wil stops him. 

“No.” Wilbur refuses. He gestures for Technoblade to come closer. “No, Technoblade, why don’t you just come here? Come on. I think you’re just one for the limelight.” 

Technoblade gives something of a nod, and he begins to walk forward on the path, steps feeling too heavy. He can feel the weight of eyes on him as he goes, heads tentatively raising up, attention all collecting onto his shoulders alone. He really can’t tell if most of the people around him are scared for him or scared of him. He doesn’t really think it matters. 

“Are you just dramatic, is that it?” Wilbur continues asking, as Techno reaches to the front of the crowd, the front of the throne. The king looks at him with a nervous grimace. “Well, I don’t mind a bit of drama. You know, you’d do well as a knight.” 

“Wha- huh?” Tommy seems to understand what Wil is planning. He opens his mouth like he means to argue, but Wilbur gives him a warning look that stops him in his tracks. Tommy freezes, falters, then he huffs and turns away, crossing his arms. He seems pissed off. Wilbur simply moves on and looks back at Techno. 

“How about that, Technoblade? I think I’ve decided, since you can’t seem to find a spot amongst the people, you will be the king’s knight.” Wilbur points at the king. “So announce your loyalty. Go on.” 

Technoblade stares at Wilbur for a moment more, then he lowers his gaze down onto the king. The player shakes in his seat underneath his eyes, looking a lot less confident than he did just a few minutes ago. 

Techno begins to walk up to the throne, his steps slow and sure, and as he does, he begins to notice the little details. There’s engraving into the arms of the throne, intricate work of people who wanted the throne to look nice. The king has a poorly made crown of thin branches, probably a gift from someone who wanted to play along. The knife that he always keeps in the pocket sewn into his right boot still has that uneven groove in its handle from a rough fight years back. 

Some people open their mouths to scream. The king before him is surely one of them. Since everyone in this place has their voices shut off, though, there’s only silence as Technoblade begins to brutally murder the king in his own throne. 

“What the fuck.” Wilbur says, as Technoblade lifts his dagger up again and drives it down with an unwavering, single-minded determination. The body underneath him struggles and kicks, grabbing at his wrist, trying to get up and escape. Technoblade shoves him back down. “WHAT THE FUCK?!”

Tommy starts to scream, almost like a sort of translator for the rest of the crowd. Techno ignores him, and Wil, and keeps driving his knife into the king’s throat until he stops moving. “Oh shit!” Tommy shrieks. “Oh SHIT-! SHIT, SHIT-!”

“WHAT THE FUCK?!” Wilbur screams again, almost shaking with rage, aaand Techno’s done now. 

King’s dead. 

He steps back, and the body fizzles away, blood soaked into the seat of the throne, blood splattered onto the front of his shirt. He looks up at Wilbur, and he can’t hold back the smug smile on his face. 

There. Put Techno in a game, see what happens.

Chapter Text

Wilbur glares down at Techno with such an anger that his eyes practically burn. 

Techno feels a harsh chill run down his spine with it. He can feel the victorious smile on his face faltering. 

Wilbur then turns onto Tommy, flying up so quickly that he practically teleports to be in front of his little brother, leaning in a tad too close. “Tommy.” He grits out through his teeth, a scolding, a warning, and a demand all at once. 

“I didn’t do anything!” Tommy holds his hands up in surrender, kicking his feet as he flies back to make a bit of distance. “It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me!” 

Below, the people are scrambling to run away from Techno, trying to open up the door. They’re struggling quite a bit with the barricade, too many hands overlapping, the panic making teamwork hard to achieve. Techno just kinda watches, since he knows there’s not anywhere else to go. He checks his inventory, and finds comfort in seeing that his golden carrots and apple have been returned to him. He wonders offhandedly when that happened. 

“Then where did he get a fucking KNIFE?!” Wilbur yells, his words seeming to echo in everyone’s ears. It leaves Techno’s skull throbbing with a near headache. He holds a bloody hand to his temple, staining blood on the side of his face. 

“I DON’T KNOW!” Tommy screams. “You cleared their inventories, I didn’t fucking give it to him!” 

Wilbur holds his hands to his head, looking down at the crowd all pressed to the door, scratching and digging at the wood. Techno’s standing calmly by the throne, cleaning his dagger off with his shirt. He looks so insufferably bored now, like the fun part has passed and gone. 

That’s not fucking fair. It’s not fair that he gets to act bored when Wilbur is supposed to be the one watching all this shit go down. Technoblade isn’t the fucking creator of this experiment, he is! He’s the one who watches, he’s the one who makes this, who does this fucker think he is?

Goddamnit, there is no point in continuing this like how Wil wanted. The kingdom’s been thrown into chaos, cracked apart before it even got a chance to stand. It’s ruined. It’s fucking ruined. 

Wilbur’s experiment is ruined and it’s because of-

“You.” Wilbur drops down, staying only a few feet up so that Techno has to look up at him. “You are going to fucking explain yourself.” He lifts his chin up. “Tommy.”

Tommy looks down at him with wide eyes. 

“His voice.” 

Tommy lags for a moment with the order, then he fumbles over himself to carry it out, practically buzzing with the idea. “Fuck, yes.” He whispers under his breath, skimming over player names in lighting speed so that he can find Technoblade’s. 

After a short moment, Tommy changes some settings. The lock on Techno’s voice is lifted. There is no particular tell to the change, not that Techno can feel. He swallows and runs his tongue over his teeth, and Wilbur stares down at him with such focus that it makes his feet feel rooted to the floor. He tries to stay calm. 

“Talk.” Wilbur demands. “Why did you-” He jerks his arm out to the bloodied, empty throne and makes a strangled noise, very upset. “Why!” He jerks his arm out again. 

Alright. Technoblade shifts his jaw for a moment, thinking upon what to say. It’s got to be a good response. Something real, something well thought out, something with defense and valuable perspective, something with insight over his general irritation at getting thrown into a random world. It’s got to be convincing, persuasive, so that Wilbur can take it in and consider it deeply and not murder him on the spot. 

“Spite.” Technoblade says, after that entire thought process. 

Ah. 

That was not a good response. That was just straight up impulse. 

Tommy bursts out in laughter high above. At least someone’s happy. 

“Spite.” Wilbur repeats, his face still frozen with anger. He seems kinda stuck in shock. Techno would laugh if he weren’t sure that he’s about to fall out of the sky in the next minute. “You murdered a man in his own throne, out of spite.”

“Mostly spite.” Technoblade confirms, rolling with it, since probably he’s about to die anyway. “Like, about…ninety to ninety-five percent spite. I wanted to spite you.” He gives a vague shrug. “I also just- don’t really like kings. Kinda got a grudge against them. For reasons.” 

“You don’t…really like kings.” Wilbur repeats again, much more quietly, his hands held to his mouth. He drops his head, rubbing his face into his palms, trying to get rid of the ability to see by pressing his fingers upon his eyelids. 

Technoblade purses his lips at the reaction, looking up at Tommy. Tommy smiles down at him, perfectly content. It’s not as reassuring as it should be. 

“Oh, this is all fucked.” Wilbur murmurs. He lifts his head towards the sky. “This is all FUCKED!” He screams. “AND YOU’RE ALL STILL STUCK IN HERE!!?” He screams louder, turning to all the people at the front door, still struggling to find a way through. 

Tommy floats down near Techno, ignoring Wilbur’s slight mental breakdown in favor of finally being able to have an actual conversation with the man, the legend, the Blade.

“So. About those sword skills.” 

“I would actually like a sword right about now.” Technoblade says, eyeing Wilbur and the way he’s kicking through the air with a pained yell. “Like right now. Right at this second.” 

“You’re fucking awesome with a sword.” Tommy doesn’t give him the sword. He does not seem worried by his brother’s intense fury. He’s gaining that sparkle in his eyes again where he’s just kinda in awe of Technoblade. “Where’d you learn how to use a sword? Can you teach-” 

“That’s it!” Wilbur yells out. “It’s all- That’s fucking it! The king is dead, the throne is all stained now, and- oh god, this fucking castle- this fucking castle! It’s- it’s terrible! It’s just horribly made!” Wilbur holds his head in his hands, looking all around, his lip curled in a furious scowl. 

His gaze falls onto Techno, and right in that moment, Technoblade is so sure that he’s about to die. He can already feel the wind on his face and the weightlessness in his limbs. Welp, it was a good run. At least he stabbed someone. 

But then suddenly- Wilbur stops. The anger in him bleeds away. 

Tommy snaps his head up with wide, wide eyes, like he didn’t expect for Wilbur’s fury to fizzle out so quickly. Both him and Techno watch as Wilbur breathes out all the air from his lungs and goes eerily calm, the energy from before just evaporating into nothing. Then he breathes in, and there’s something- wrong. 

Technoblade tilts his head up to the sky, feeling far too small, and he swears that just for a second, a split fraction of a second, he sees the clouds and the sun crack apart. It glitches, like a faulty, broken server on its last legs. 

Then it’s gone, and the world is as stable as it can be. 

“You know what?” Wil asks, his voice soft. There’s something off around the edges of his words. It makes Techno’s ears hurt and his head throb. “Punishment is in order. We need a punishment here. To restore balance. And to lower my goddamn blood pressure.” 

He comes a bit closer to Technoblade, his eyes never leaving him. Techno has a passing urge to run and hide out of sight. 

“Technoblade!” Wilbur calls with a new smile, clapping his hands together. “You want to keep that little knife of yours, along with your life?” 

Technoblade blinks, then he quickly nods. He does like living. That is a thing he’s pretty attached to. The knife is pretty cool too. 

“Then kill five- no, ten people here.” Wilbur says breezily, giving a lazy gesture to the now very panicked people by the door. “Just have at it.” He flies back up to the top of the castle wall by the throne, and he sits at the very top, calling Tommy over. 

Tommy instantly leaves Techno’s side to join his brother, and he sits down with his feet kicking out over the edge, too excited, too energetic, like he’s ready to watch a show.

“...Oh.” Technoblade squeezes his hand around the handle of his knife, staring back at the terrified people, then looking up at the two admins with a slight frown. “Is…Is that it?” 

“Is that too hard for you?” Wilbur deadpans, summoning up a screen beside him. “I could do it myself and include you in the casualties.” He seems very done. Very at his limit. There’s no more amusement to be found in his expression anymore, he’s just seeking some kind of relief now. 

Technoblade is kinda responsible for that, so he oughta just- stab people. Appease the corrupt admin, who, by the way, is still in control of this locked server. Still in control on whether Techno will get murdered painfully in the next ten minutes. Still in control of every aspect around them. 

But. Decidedly not in control of if he has a successful experiment. There’s some sweet victory to be had in sabotaging that part. Technoblade has some sense of agency there, he’s just going to say that. 

He turns away from the throne and away from the admins. He looks at the players. 

They all know what he’s going to do, and some of them are beginning to plead with clasped hands and mouthed out words. Scratch marks are beginning to be made into the door from the sheer desperation. One or two people suddenly die from the force of the crowd pushing so insistently against the door. Their death messages pop up as them being squished, and their names are the first deaths. 

Technoblade wonders if he should hesitate. If he should try bargaining for something different, a more merciful sort of punishment. Surely, someone with morals and decent humanity would try that, instead of immediately going with murder, because murder is bad, and traumatizing, and most people don’t do that. 

Techno doesn’t have morals, though, so he’s just going to with the murder without any more complaint.  

But the thing is, as he runs at the crowd, he doesn’t even really register it as killing a life. The fact is that after being thrown in this server, after being forced to gather up this new sense of helplessness, after learning and adjusting to the fact that eyes are constantly on him, watching him, seeing what he’ll do--

Oh, doesn’t that bring back memories? Doesn’t that back a hunger for survival, a relentless instinct that makes this entire thing nothing more than a simple task?

Techno’s killed people before. He’s killed more people than most would be comfortable with. His time in an arena was a thing in the past that he likes to bury, but it doesn’t change the fact that it happened. And it doesn’t change the fact he reveled in it, when it did happen. He’s drawn blood so many times that there’s no guilt to be found in making life fade from someone’s eyes. There’s no hesitation in grabbing someone by the neck, innocent as they are, and there’s no regret at just- squeezing until something crunches.  

All he gains from it now is a quiet sort of satisfaction. It’s a stress-reliever for him as much it is for Wil. 

(And here Techno thought he left this bloodlust behind and replaced it with the task of farming a worrying amount of potatoes. Starving ambition waits for nothing, he supposes.)

The body in his hands goes limp and fizzles apart in his palms, and as the death message flickers in his vision, he reaches out for the next player in the crowd. They all shrink away from his grip with silent cries, but Techno still snatches onto someone’s arm, pulling them out so strongly that something pops, and they go rolling across the ground. Techno tries to get them before they can stand, but then someone slams into his side in an effort to push him over. 

He takes the push with ease, his feet stumbling for a second before finding their place again. Then he grabs the attacker by the front of their shirt and swings them right over his shoulder, letting them land hard. 

“HOLY SHIT!” Tommy’s voice rings out, filled with so much shock and awe that Techno’s nearly tempted to drag up a sense of pride. 

He doesn’t spare a look at the admins, though. He doesn’t let himself. Instead he gives his energy on kicking his attacker across the jaw and sending them back into the floor. He goes after his original target, still down on the ground, holding their arm, and he slams his foot into their skull with such force that their body just bleeds away with a loud crack of bone. 

Their death message pops up. Tommy screams out again. 

More people have decided to try their hand at overpowering Techno for the sake of survival. They all come at him at once, and Technoblade picks off the first one with a well-timed duck and a jab of his dagger into their heart. He pushes the disintegrating body into someone as a distraction, then digs his weapon into someone’s side, twisting it and finding a sort of discomfort at how silent his opponent is when getting killed. He’s so used to cries of pain, panicked screams, furious yelling. 

Here, they are entirely quiet, even as Technoblade cuts open their stomach. It’s kinda unsettling. 

The only sound to be heard is the shuffle of the player’s feet against the ground, the thump of bodies falling down, and the bubbling laugh of Tommy from where he sits on the top of the wall. He keeps yelling out whenever Techno makes a particularly brutal kill, and as another player’s death message is sent out, he calls Technoblade’s name. 

Techno turns his head, expecting to be told something, but Tommy isn’t beckoning him over, nor giving an order. He’s clapping his hands above his head and giving strong attempts at whistling. 

He’s cheering. 

He’s enjoying this. 

And maybe with that, Technoblade is too. It’s hard to tell, though. He can’t really take the time to process his feelings when there’s a person jumping on his back trying to strangle him. 

He yanks the attacker off by the hair and sends them to the ground. They try kicking his feet out from under him, and Technoblade repays the effort by breaking one of their legs. 

At that, Wilbur makes a noise of mocking pain, and he begins shouting out too. It’s not as loud as Tommy, so Techno almost misses it, but his voice is unmistakable when Technoblade begins wrestling with the next player trying to stop him. 

“Go for the eyes!” Wilbur yells out, and Tommy gives a cry of excitement, agreeing wholeheartedly. “Get their fucking eyes, Technoblade!” 

Technoblade likes to think he has a strong will to refuse that sort of request, especially since it’s from the people who put him in this situation, but it’s been too long since he’s been in the rush of a fight. It's been too long since he’s heard the cheering cries of an audience telling him what to do. 

It has been too long since he last had blood. 

Horrible pride swells through his heart, swallowing up any last bits of hesitance or restraint he might’ve had. He takes his dagger with revived fury, and he digs the edge of it into someone’s eyeball. Both the admins explode with joy, cheering as if this is the best show they’ve had in years. 

Technoblade forgets to keep count in his murder spree, but he’s already picked off more than enough. As he hunts after someone who pulled at his hair in an effort to distract him, the players who are left finally find a way out. They claw through the ground, through the dirt underneath the castle walls, and with desperate hands all working together, they make a hole for escape. 

It’s not fast enough for the player Techno’s chasing, though. Techno’s already on them and digging his blade into their back as most of the people quickly crawl out, yanking and pulling at the crops on the other side, running with a silent horror into the scattered trees. 

Technoblade notices them beginning to leave, and he goes to chase after them, throwing his dagger out and having it land into the back of someone’s knee before they’re able to reach the opening. He kills them off as quickly as he can, but there’s no one left after that. Techno’s left within an empty castle, the floors far bloodier than they were just an hour prior. 

He pants for breath, wiping his hands at his bloody shirt in an effort to clean them. It doesn’t really do much. He’s covered with blood. His hands, his arms, his shirt, geez. His face, too. Techno wasn’t exactly worrying about being clean with the kills, he was just trying to get them to stop breathing. 

The sound of enthusiastic clapping reaches his ears then. He turns around and takes a step back, finding both of the admins now floating in front of him. Tommy looks ecstatic, nearly shaking with joy, his eyes brighter than the blue sky overhead. 

“You know, I think that was a bit more than ten players, Technoblade.” Wilbur says his name like a teasing remark. The anger in his gaze has simmered down. His mood is now considerably lifted, and with that, Techno feels relieved.

He gives a shrug of his shoulders, but Wilbur raises his eyebrows expectantly, and Technoblade remembers he can actually speak now. He coughs with a red-stained hand held to his lips. “You didn’t seem to be complaining.” He points out. 

Wilbur shrugs back, clasping his hands behind his back, tilting his head thoughtfully to the side. “Yes. Well. At the end of all of this, don’t you think they’re all eventually bound for-?”

“THAT WAS SO FUCKING AWESOME!” Tommy cuts him off then, clearly having waited long enough for Wilbur to have his piece. The young admin lets himself fall down from the sky, his coat flapping out behind him as his feet hit the ground and he makes his way to stand right in front of Techno. He pulls up all his confusing screens and controls again, and then he types away with a fierce sort of determination. “You were so cool, you were killing them left and right like nothing, like-” And he makes a weird choking noise, pausing from his typing to mimic getting stabbed in the throat.

Technoblade struggles to not give a smile. The praise is endearing, especially with how honest it seems to be, but Techno isn’t one to forget that he’s still in this place against his will. 

Still, though. The appreciation is nice. 

He really does miss the cheer of the crowd. Was the only good thing about that arena. 

“You’re getting a sword for that. I’m giving you a sword.” Tommy declares, and then he stops for a moment, turning to Wilbur with a challenging look. He points out a threatening finger to the admin still floating in the air. “I’m giving him a sword!”

Wilbur only laughs, gaining a grin on his face. It’s so fond. “Alright.” He relents. “It’s only fair. I think he’s earned it.” 

“Yes, he fuckin’ has.” Tommy mutters, and he finally presses at something, summoning a gleaming, golden sword in hand. 

Technoblade pauses at the sight of it. It shimmers with the promise of enchantments, shines like it’s been polished with care, and Techno quickly tucks his knife back into his boot, already wanting the weapon in his hands. The rush from the battle and the pride from the praise swirl together into a fuzzy feeling in his mind, and he can’t help but match the bright smile Tommy gives him as he proudly holds up the sword. 

“That’s mine?” He asks, and Tommy nods, looking as elated as Techno feels. For a moment, Technoblade wants to grab his stupid little face and shake him gently as a tease, just to see his dramatic reaction. 

Then he processes that urge a little more, and his mood goes sour at the idea of being so easily casual with admins who are literally holding him captive in an experiment of some sort. What is he thinking? 

Just get the sword. 

“I’m assuming I get to use this freely?” Techno asks, keeping his eyes firmly on the weapon before him. Tommy’s screens all flicker away as he holds the sword out, and Technoblade reaches towards it, going to take it-

“No, not freely.” Wilbur’s hand reaches in, and he pushes Tommy backwards, pushing the sword out of reach. 

Techno resists the knee-jerk instinct to snap his teeth together in a threat, wanting what is rightfully his. He instead slowly lowers his hands and focuses on the fact that Wilbur’s now joined them on the ground. 

“Don’t give it to him yet.” Wil says to Tommy, standing at his side with his shoulders held back.

“Wilbur.” Tommy whines, holding the sword to his chest with devastated pout. Wilbur only holds a finger up, a signal to wait, then he turns back at Techno with a thoughtful little glint in his eyes. 

Technoblade doesn’t like that look. He doesn’t like the fact that look is falling to him and him only, with no one else to offer any distraction. 

He’s the only one in this bloody castle. That realization makes him feel a bit trapped. 

“You know, I still think you would make a great knight.” Wilbur says, and Tommy’s pout goes horribly bitter, his face scrunching up into something outright annoyed. “You’re clearly a warrior. You know how to fight, you know your way around a blade.” 

“Tech-no-blade.” Tommy murmurs under his breath. Wilbur’s lips twitch up with amusement, and he goes on. 

“You have this- air, around you-” Wilbur gestures vaguely to Techno’s general direction. “-you seem capable of keeping someone from imminent harm.”  

“Sure…” Technoblade somewhat agrees. “Except, uh- The king is dead.” I killed him, he doesn’t say, but they all hear it. Can’t be a knight if there’s no one to serve, can’t be a knight if he’s the one killing the person he’s meant to serve. Kinda defeats the purpose.

“I know. Doesn’t change the fact you could easily fend off enemies.” Wilbur doesn’t seem worried. “He’ll be replaced in time, someone new is bound to be crowned, and the kingdom will try to pick itself back up again, but you wouldn’t fit in that mess, would you? Especially since you’ve obviously placed yourself against any kingdoms.” 

With the kingdom, against the kingdom, Techno doesn’t really have a strong preference. He was just sure that being a knight in Wilbur’s definition wouldn’t end well.

“So I can’t be a knight.” Technoblade says simply. Wilbur shakes his head. “No one’s going to knight me, just sayin’. Good luck getting them close enough.” 

Wil’s eyes crinkle with amusement. “We just need someone outside the kingdom, then. Someone other than these players.” 

Tommy looks up with a revived curiosity, his bitterness quickly faded. 

“You have… more people?” Techno asks, a sliver of unease running through his chest. Are there other “kingdoms” past the world border here? Other players all thrown together into a world, forced to play a role at the risk of punishment otherwise?

“I have one person in mind.” Wilbur hums, and he leans back on his heels, looking a little eager. “You said you have a grudge against kings, yes?”

Technoblade doesn’t like this conversation. He didn’t ever like it in the first place, but now he’s extra not liking it. “Yes.” 

“Then, what about a prince?” Wilbur circles around Tommy, slapping his hands down onto the teen’s shoulder and making him jolt with the sudden action. Tommy twists his head to look at him with shocked disbelief. “You’re not going to be able to scare this one off, believe me, you can try.” Wilbur laughs. 

Technoblade wholeheartedly believes that, and he feels a fast growing sense of dread in his chest. He’s seen the way that kid looks at him. Techno doesn’t intimidate him one bit, and why would he? He’s an admin. He could kill Technoblade with a push of the button, so any possible threats made towards him would just be- words.  

“What do you say, Tommy?” Wilbur asks, leaning over Tommy’s shoulder with a wide grin. “Try your hand at being a player? I know you said you wanted to help observe-”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” A laugh bubbles out from Tommy’s throat, and he swats his hands at Wil’s, forcing his brother to let go so he can turn around and look right at him. “I get to interact? With-?” His eyes flick towards Techno, and his mood grows brighter, almost buzzing with nervousness. “But you said-”

“The experiment is all fucked up now.” Wilbur waves off, placing his hands back onto Tommy’s shoulders. “It’s not going to go how I want, so we’ll play it a little differently. With Technoblade being an essential piece.” His eyes land back on Techno, making the player stop and freeze in his current mental plans to try and form an escape attempt.

So far, he’s concluded that it’s literally impossible. How do you get away from an admin that can just teleport you to them? Trick question, you can’t.

It’s beginning to look like Technoblade’s about to swear an knightly oath to a hyperactive teen. 

“Can I opt out of this?” Technoblade asks, raising up a hand. He doesn’t actually expect an agreement to that request, but a guy’s gotta try. 

Tommy scoffs, highly offended and upset as he turns back around. Wilbur looks like he’s holding back a laugh. “What, what, Technoblade, you don’t want to be my knight?”

“I mean…” 

Tommy makes an even further offended noise. Wil snorts. Tommy glares at him, then glances down at the weapon in his hands. He holds it up high. “Well, what about this, then?! Don’t you want this sword?”

Technoblade locks onto the glimmer of gold against the sun, and he’s honestly thrown off by the yearning pull coming from his chest. He bites at the inside of his cheek and fights the urge to go wrestle a teenager for a golden sword. Not worth it. Especially with his brother right beside him, who would probably lock Techno in a box made of bedrock upon being given the chance. 

Techno doesn’t need that sword. He can go down in the mines, search for some ore, and make his own. It won’t be as golden, or as enchanted, but it’ll be practical enough. 

“I’ll even give you armor with it!” Tommy pulls up his screens, summoning up a chestplate. It’s enchanted to hell and back, but it’s not made of diamond.

It’s gold. 

“Knights wear armor, right?” Tommy asks quietly to Wil, who nods with a small smile. “Yeah! You’ll get armor.”

Technoblade huffs, crossing his arms over his chest. He does not need that sword. Nor the armor. He doesn’t need it. Doesn’t even want it. He’s got this thing called self-control, it’s amazing. He definitely has so much of it. Just- heaping amounts. 

“You know- Tommy, if you’re going to be a prince, you need to lose the lab coat.” Wilbur says then, and Tommy looks down at his outfit, making a small frown. “Here, I’ll just-” Wilbur summons up his controls, and Tommy’s coat glitches away, shifting into more proper looking clothes, something a prince would wear. 

Technoblade isn’t standing all that close, but he can see a woven design into the fabric. He can see a shimmering accent of a yellow that’s just bright enough to convince his mind that it’s gold. His instincts push for a chance to get closer, to inspect it a little better, and he realizes then-

They’ve done this on purpose. 

Maybe Wil didn’t at first, but Tommy surely did. The golden apple, the golden carrots, the golden sword- he did it on purpose!

It’s not hard to notice Technoblade as a hybrid. He knows that it’s basic knowledge across the realms that piglins are fond of their gold. But that doesn’t mean he can just be won over with it.

“Ta-da!” Wilbur taps at one final button, and a golden circlet crown appears on Tommy’s head, gleaming with the added touch of precious gems. “Perfect.” He smiles, closing his screens, and he’s not giving a single glance to Techno, but Technoblade swears that smile is smug. 

He’s going to fucking strangle that admin. Damn the consequences. 

Tommy beams with the given crown, and he lifts his head up, holding a golden sword in one hand and a golden chestplate in the other, his yellow shirt reflecting too brightly against the shine of the sun. His face is nothing but naive, innocent joy.  

Technoblade finds the urge to squeeze the kid by the face again. Or maybe not even that, maybe he could just- hold him. He’s a child of golden hair, and while he’s a little annoying and loud, and it’s been a while since Techno’s found anything valuable. He hasn’t had the time with farming, and- oh, for fuck’s sake. 

“Give me the sword.” Technoblade holds his hand out, ignoring the slight shake that plagues it. 

Tommy shifts his body away, and something in Techno’s chest jumps with fear. Is he leaving? Is he going? 

No, he’s just turning to hold the sword close. Uhhg.

“No, I need it!” Tommy yells. 

“For what?!” Technoblade yells right back. 

“To knight you!” Tommy holds out the chestplate. “You can have this, though. It’ll cover the- uh-” He looks pointedly at the blood stains still soaked into Techno’s shirt. 

Techno looks down. He really doubts a chestplate is going to hide all that. His hands are still red. 

Wilbur takes the chestplate from Tommy’s hand, crossing the short distance to give it over to Techno for him. He’s got this knowing sort of look in his eyes as he holds it out, and Technoblade takes the armor a little more aggressively than needed. Maybe this’ll calm his instincts, if he puts it on. 

“How do I knight someone, by the way?” Tommy asks Wil, as Techno adjusts the armor over his shoulders and very determinedly ignores the greed in the back of his head that encourages him to go grab the golden child and book it. 

“There’s usually an oath of some sort. And you have to tap the sword on his shoulders.” Wilbur taps at his own shoulders, and Tommy looks very excited at this prospect. 

“I don’t know any oaths.” He says, not seeming too worried about it. “We’re gonna have to improvise, Tech-no-blade.” 

“Can I opt out of this?” Technoblade asks again, fiddling a bit more than needed with the strap of his chestplate, grazing his fingertips over the edges of the armor. “I’d really like to opt out of this.” 

“Why?!” Tommy cries out. Technoblade gives a jerky wave out towards the sword. 

“You’re going to cut my head off with that thing.” 

“I’m not fucking swinging it at you, Wilbur said it’s a tap. A tap! Are you scared of a tap of a blade, Blade?”

“I like living.” Technoblade deadpans. 

“Well, then you better let the child knight you.” Wilbur deadpans right back, his smile feeling far too threatening for how polite it appears. Technoblade smiles back, but he does it with far too much teeth. 

“Let’s do this, let’s do this.” Tommy bounces on his toes, holding the sword tightly and lifting the blade up. The gold of it glints brightly against the sunlight, and Techno’s feet move before he’s even processing it. He forces himself to come to an awkward stop a few steps in, but Tommy hardly cares, and he meets him halfway. 

Then comes the next problem. 

Tommy looks up at Technoblade with a scrunched nose, then he looks down at his sword with a frown. He looks back up at Techno. 

“You’re too tall.” He says, and makes a gesture for Technoblade to come down to his level. 

“You can fly.” Technoblade reminds. 

Tommy huffs. “Well, maybe I’m tired of flying, have you ever thought of that, Tech-no-blade?” 

Technoblade craves for the dagger in his boot again. It doesn’t even matter that Wilbur’s standing a short distance away, seeing their every move, if he’s quick enough, he could have Tommy down and that sword within his hands in seconds. 

Techno thinks over it, imagines it, and then finds that the idea of harming Tommy at all gives him a bad taste in his mouth. It makes his chest grow tight with discomfort, with a start to anger, and he’s washed with pure confusion as to when this particular attachment started. 

He remembers the apple and carrots again. His throat grows tight. Tommy grins up at him like he’s done nothing wrong at all, and Technoblade is rather upset with the fact that he wants to keep that grin. He wants to keep it close. 

He wants it badly enough that he can’t help what he does next. 

Technoblade slowly lowers himself towards the ground, kneeling in front of Tommy so that he’s more at his eye-level and Tommy’s actually able to get the sword over his shoulder. The flat side of the blade rests lightly beside Techno’s neck, and Technoblade resists the urge to tilt his head and rest his temple against the golden shine of it. 

“What do I say?” Tommy asks, but he’s not aiming the question towards Wilbur. He’s looking down at Techno. 

Technoblade raises his eyebrows. “You’re meant to declare me a knight.” 

“Yeah, but-” Tommy huffs. “What does that mean? What do I say?”

Techno is not doing this. He wants the gold, sure, he wants to swing the kid over his shoulder and head out, yeah, but he is not walking him through the ordeal of playing out this little game. That is not something he’s doing. Not at all. No way.

Unless…

“You have to swear to not order me to do anything dishonorable, to keep me protected within your power, and to not betray me.” Maybe he will help a little, if it means he gets to set the rules in place. Techno’s going after self-preservation here. 

Tommy grips the handle of the sword a little tighter. “Okay.” He says, and he smiles like Techno’s given him all the riches in the world. “I swear I won’t tell you to do anything dishonorable. I swear I’ll keep you from dying. And I swear I won’t ever leave you behind.” Tommy taps the blade of the sword on Techno’s shoulders, and it gives a little clink against the armor. Then he pulls the sword away, and holds it out with an expectant look. “Now your turn.” 

Technoblade takes the sword without hesitation, holding it tightly in his hands, but he hesitates at giving any sort of oath. “Uh.” 

Tommy waits, entirely patient for once. What a miracle. Technoblade sees the expression on his face, the eager light in his eyes, and he knows Tommy would probably be willing to stand here for a while for Techno to give his part. 

For a split second, Techno’s honestly tempted to simply refuse. But he can feel the presence of a gaze burning into the back of his head, and he remembers that Wilbur probably still has a very intense grudge over fucking up this entire experiment. This is like Techno’s only way to not get murdered in the next ten minutes. 

With one long sigh, Technoblade stabs his sword down into the ground at Tommy’s feet. Tommy jumps a bit at the action, but then he goes still at the sound of Techno’s voice. 

“I swear to…” Technoblade trails off, biting down on his tongue for a moment. “I swear to not kill you, to not let others kill you, and to kill anyone who tries to kill you.” He says, as dryly as one possibly can. 

That’s basically a knight’s job, isn’t it? Techno isn’t going to be putting effort into this part, Wilbur can silently promise death all he wants, he did not sign up for this. 

Tommy still lights up at the dead words as if he’s given a whole heart-felt, meaningful, elaborate speech. He clasps his hands together, lifts his chin with a giddy smile towards Wil, and Wilbur smiles back.

Chapter Text

Even with the newly appointed job of being an apparent knight, caught in a game of pretend royalty for a madman of an admin-- Techno still makes a good effort to try and leave Tommy behind anyway. 

The moment Wilbur is out of sight, teleporting off to who knows where and leaving them to their own devices, he books it to the trees, because while he’s apparently got a job to do, he also has self-preservation, and the sheer existence of Tommy in general just…sends so many warning sirens. They’re mixed signals, twisted with curiosity and a slight greed Techno had thought he had a better hold about, but they are warning signals regardless. He listens to them more than he will ever listen to some sworn oath made on a whim. 

Now, the kid does have the ability to teleport and fly, though, so technically, Technoblade isn’t actually able to leave him in the dust. He’s really running for the spite of it, waiting for Tommy’s face to pop up in front of him with a complaint about his lack of devotion to knightly duties. However, with how Tommy immediately fails to keep up with his pace, screaming in the distance about how Techno is ‘going too fast’, the possibility of achieving freedom from the little runt feels within reach. 

He does not waste the opportunity. Techno ignores the itching urge in the back of his head telling him to turn back, to turn around and keep Tommy in view, and he stays at a steady pace. That’s probably nothing. He’s just being cautious about the admins, specifically the one who kept staring at him like he hung the stars in the sky and who is surely making some sort of effort to bribe Techno’s favor into his palm. It’s natural to not want to turn his back on the enemy. Such action invites defeat on his heels, and all that. Sun Tzu. 

Techno only jogs along for about a minute or so into the forest, the trees thick and plentiful around him, the sun staying as a constant, perfectly still warmth overhead. There’s a scarce few signs here and there that tell of the other players having been this way, discarded tools, stacked chests, but for the most part, the area looks relatively untouched. Technoblade slows into a walk as he looks around, then he comes to a complete stop to take the entirety of it in, wondering where he’s meant to go from here. He should try and look for all the other people, right? They won’t exactly be trusting him though, not with the bloodbath from earlier…

“Techno!” Tommy screams out, his voice echoing into Techno’s ears so vividly that it makes him flinch. He takes an instant step forward, meaning to run further off, out of reach, but there’s something in the kid’s tone that makes him falter. 

It’s too frantic. Too scared. 

“Technoblade, help me!”

Techno’s head swivels at hearing Tommy’s shriek ring out into the sky, high and terrified in a way that’s too real, and within the second, his feet move to take him back the way he came.

Logically, Tommy should be fine. He knows that well, the kid is an admin, after all. He could very well control the whole world around them with the swipe on the controls. But with how Tommy’s screaming, maybe something has changed. Something went wrong. What the hell could’ve gone wrong? Techno wracks his mind for the answer, wondering how anything in this server could result in Tommy ever being able to get hurt. 

Wilbur. He did make him a player, didn’t he? Techno’s heart sinks at the realization that such an action could actually have been a betrayal. What’s to say he didn’t take away Tommy’s admin control with that proclamation, as some sort of revenge? What if he truly and honestly made Tommy as mortal as the rest of them, just for Techno’s new role in the game, just to rub it in? He wouldn’t put it past him. As an admin, Wilbur seems- unstable. Irresponsible, with the power in his hands. Tommy was presumably on the same level as him, but there were still moments where he seemed to test Wil’s patience.

Was Tommy’s increasing favor towards Technoblade the last straw?

Technoblade runs faster as Tommy calls his name again, thinking about what could happen to an admin who’s been brought down to their level, rendered as defenseless as they are, as easy to hurt as any other. He thinks about what he’d do, if he were any of the other players, finding one of the two people responsible for putting them in this fucked up world, and realizing that they can’t fly out of reach anymore. 

“Help me, help me!” Tommy screams out, making a cry of pain that has Techno gripping his sword tight and baring his teeth to the air. “Technoblade!”

“Tommy!” He yells back, hoping that his approach will scare off whoever has cornered the kid, and will stop them from causing any further damage than they’ve already done. “Tommy, hold on!” He follows Tommy’s voice like a moth to a flame, bursting through the trees with his weapon already raised. He finds him curled up on the ground, his golden crown thrown to the side, arms over his head, his body looking too tiny there upon the blood-stained dirt. 

…the blood-stained dirt.

Techno breathes in, panic suddenly gripping him by the throat. He rushes towards Tommy, hoping that whatever wound is there, it’s nothing fatal, but as he takes the first step, there’s a shift of movement within the corner of his eye. 

He changes direction in a blink, following after it with a snarl through his teeth, having to get rid of the threat. In an instant, he’s catching up to the back of someone trying to run away, their steps clumsy at the sound of Techno’s fury, and they stumble and fall when Techno’s sword drives straight through their spine. There’s no scream, no pained cry at his attack, not with Tommy, Wilbur and Techno being the sole individuals capable of making any noise, but the sound of the body thumping on the floor is good enough for Techno. He spares a single moment to ensure they won’t be getting back up, then he turns on his heel and goes back to Tommy, the kid having not moved an inch. 

“Tommy.” Technoblade calls, coming close and digging his sword into the dirt as he kneels down at the kid’s side. Tommy gives a small noise at Techno grabbing him by the shoulder, and Technoblade’s stomach does a weird flip. “Tommy, what happened?!”

Tommy shifts one of his arms and cracks an eye open at Techno’s question, his words coming out wobbly. “Techno.” He breathes out, then he lifts his head up a little, face scrunched up in distress with tears pooling in his eyes. “Techno- I don’t know, it went so fast, I was just trying to catch up to you-” 

“Where did they get you?” Technoblade asks, and he then scolds himself for not immediately just checking for injuries, for wasting time with asking Tommy at all. He pulls at Tommy’s limbs, stretching them out from where they were held close to his body, patting them down for any sign of a wound, searching for a tear of fabric amongst the spray of dirt. He tries to fix what rumpled fabric he can, tugging lightly in an effort to smooth them out before moving on. 

“My leg.” Tommy says, right as Technoblade turns his ankle, finding a clean cut across the back of his calf, blood soaking into the ground underneath. It’s not awful, compared to the sort of injuries Techno’s seen, but the sight of it makes his stomach turn, and he clenches his jaw with the sudden rage of wishing he dragged out the attacker’s death just a bit more. 

Techno inspects the wound closer, trying to be as gentle as possible with it, and miraculously, Tommy makes no complaint, no noise of pain. He doesn’t even flinch. He only stares at Techno as he pokes around his leg, then he lifts his head in question when Technoblade turns back to him. 

“What do we do?” He asks, a worried, scared tone squeezed into his throat, a tear flowing free down his cheek. “Is every person here going to try killing-?” 

“Eat.” Technoblade cuts him off, and Tommy’s eyes go wide when a golden apple, the singular golden apple from Techno’s inventory, is put into his hand, and then pushed into the direction of his mouth. 

“Wha- wait-” Tommy sputters, leaning away and turning his head, suddenly more baffled than afraid. “That’s your gapple. You need that!”

Techno huffs, resisting Tommy’s push of his hand. The apple doesn’t budge in where it’s held in between them. “You’re hurt. This will heal it. Eat it.” He shoves the apple a touch closer to Tommy’s face, and Tommy quickly slaps his other hand over it, trying earnestly to push it back down. It again doesn't move an inch, Tommy’s arms struggling against Techno’s singular hand. 

“Don’t you think you could put it to better use?!” Tommy exclaims, and Techno’s gaze narrows into something of impatience as he tries to consider that question. Sure, there could be a better use for the golden apple. Techno could be caught in a far worse fight later down the road, and he might need the healing in order to win the battle. It would arguably be more useful there than here, one single slash on Tommy’s skin. 

However, even with the sound reasoning, Technoblade can’t find it in himself to allow it. Tommy’s hurt now, the blood in the dirt still sitting damp, and for every second Techno can smell the blood in the air, his nerves feel shot, his very veins trying to shake out through his flesh. 

“Do you still have the carrots I gave you?” Tommy asks, tilting his head back as the shiny golden skin of the apple goes brushing near his chin. 

Techno pauses at the reminder. He does. He has a good handful of them, and whilst they’re not much compared to a golden apple, they could still heal. He relents with the apple and pulls back, swapping for the carrots. Now Tommy takes it from his hand without protest, the crack of a bite down against them ringing against his teeth. 

“See?” He says with an open mouth, chewing without care for manners. “No need for the gapple.” He seems proud of himself for the solution, but Techno isn’t paying much attention to his expression. He instead keeps his eyes down at Tommy’s wound, finding that with each bite taken, it seals up bit by bit. He pushes carrots at the kid until the worst of it is entirely healed, only a faint scab to show for it. 

Tommy stands to his feet in a flourish after that, earnest to show his great health, and when Techno takes a few steps back, the kid’s walk to follow comes a bit impaired, a clear sign of a limp. Technoblade clicks his tongue at the sight. The pain would’ve faded within a minute if he just took the apple…but for now, they’ll have to deal with the pain fading off on its own. Golden carrots will have to do. 

“It would’ve healed entirely if you ate the apple.” He can’t help but say anyway, arms crossed over his chest as he looks down at Tommy.

“Wilbur said you would need it.” Tommy defends. “I don’t want to eat it if it means you won’t have it later when you need it.”  

Alright. That sounds fair. Wilbur is currently the mastermind of the survival game they’re playing, if he thinks Technoblade will have to use it later, then Techno should keep it in his back pocket for when the occasion arises. 

With a glance to their surroundings and another glance to Tommy to be sure that he’s not hurt anywhere else, they go on their way, together, as Wilbur likely intended with this warning put in place. 

Before they go far, though, Tommy pauses in his steps.

“Oh, wait.” He pats at his head, looking over his shoulder with a frown. “My crown!” 

Any other time, Technoblade would’ve rather they leave it. It’s a reminder of whatever game they’re being forced to play, a reminder of Wilbur pulling at their strings, why would he want it in sight? But something deeper in him shares the disappointment on Tommy’s face at the idea of losing it, and he’s walking back to the spot where they were without another word. He picks up the crown from where it was discarded on the floor, probably having been knocked off when Tommy was attacked, and he comes back to the kid to return it to him. 

Tommy holds his palms up expectantly for Techno to drop it in his hands, but Techno foregos that gesture and just puts it right on his head, adjusting it slightly so it doesn’t sit crooked, then, in an action that’s so quick he doesn’t quite process it-- he brushes Tommy’s hair behind his ear, and finally lowers his hands. Tommy doesn’t make any great reaction to the action. There’s a simple quirk of a smile to his lips. 

“Let’s keep moving.” Technoblade tells him, going forward as if he’s going to walk past and not wait for Tommy to catch up. Tommy quickly spins around to follow, and is met with a pleasant surprise to see Techno stopped in front of Tommy, his arm held out. He hesitates at the offer for a fraction of a second, then he clings on with a sort of smug victory written across his face. 

They walk into the trees like that, Techno allowing Tommy to stay holding onto him, Tommy taking care to not put too much strain onto his leg. The sound of their shuffling footsteps is awkward against the dragging silence, and when it becomes too much, Tommy growing bored in this eternity of 27 seconds without conversation, he lifts his head to Techno and breaks the quiet. 

“What’s the plan, then?” He questions, feeling a little like a ruler asking his general for battle tips. It makes him draw back his shoulders, trying to stand taller. He feels regal. “What shall we do?” He drawls, almost singing the words. 

“Well.” Techno huffs, keeping his gaze straight ahead. “I was goin’ to try and find other players to make some sort of alliance with them, figure out paths of survival, but if they’re going to act like that to you, I’m not sure where to go from there.” He looks up at the high branches blocking out bits of the sun, seeming thoughtful. “Best bet is to explore, I think, and figure out where they’re settling out, at the very least. Then we won’t be surprised when we do run into company, and we can make a base where no one else has been-” 

His words come to a stop when Tommy’s foot makes a sudden stumble. Tommy tugs at Techno’s arm to upright himself, and as if that was a rope to a bell, Technoblade comes to a stop. He looks down at Tommy. 

“Can you walk?” 

Tommy stares back up at him with wide eyes. He then immediately looks away and gives an exaggerated scoff, waving a hand and rolling his head back. “Psh, yeah. Of course. Duh. I ate carrots, remember?” 

Hm. Convincing. Technoblade doesn’t give any answer to that response except for three quick steps to the side, his arm torn from Tommy’s grasp, forcing the boy to have to steady himself. Tommy does so, but not without a wobble in his balance, surprise flashing across his face as he raises his healed leg up, then places it down in a slow, careful manner.

“Can you?” Techno asks again, and Tommy purses his lips like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar, guilt right out in the open. 

“Yes!” Tommy insists, stubborn with it. Then a beat of silence, and- “The leg is just- aching.” He mutters. 

“Hm?” Techno pretends to not hear. Tommy rolls his eyes and makes a show of crossing his arms, looking to the side, sighing with the biggest breath in the world. 

“The leg is kinda aching.” 

“What was that?” Technoblade turns his head, lifting a hand behind his ear. 

Tommy’s eye twitches. “My fucking leg is hurting!” He yells, throwing his arms up. “I got stabbed, I am in pain! Lingering, annoying pain!”

“I wonder if this would’ve happened if a certain someone just ate the golden apple like he was told to.” Technoblade wonders outloud, and Tommy’s facial expression twists up into something all angry and sour. It gives Techno a bit of joy to his soul. He allows the moment of being content, then considers the situation a bit more seriously. 

He doubts Tommy has much of a pain tolerance if healing pains are getting at him like this. How much longer will a limp stick to him? Can they afford to be moving that slowly until it eases out? Technoblade doesn’t want to stay a sitting duck. 

“I can carry you.” He offers out of the blue, finding this to be the most easy answer. 

Tommy blinks. He points a finger at himself, like Techno would be talking to anyone else. “You can carry me?” He repeats, something of awe in the tone. 

“I’m carrying you.” Technoblade decides, giving Tommy no input about this. The kid wasn’t caring about their opinion when he had the admin powers, he can get a taste of how it feels to be on the other side. That, and Techno doesn’t want to go back and forth with a teenager with an ego.

Taking the three steps forward to come close again, Techno heaves Tommy up off his feet in one single motion, manhandling him to lay draped over his shoulder, his stomach pressed to the metal of Techno’s armor on his upper sleeve. Tommy gives no resistance to the whole thing, sporting a too-wide grin when he gets held in place in a position that’s surely mildly uncomfortable to his middle section. 

“Holy shit, I’m so tall now.” He blurts out rather than make a complaint, and Techno looks at him with a bewildered confusion. 

“You’ve been in the sky.” Techno reminds.  

“That’s different!” Tommy insists, readjusting his hands to hold onto the top of Techno’s chestplate. He lifts his head up high, beaming with joy. “This is much cooler.” 

Technoblade doesn’t know how to take that. He chooses to not respond to it at all, and continues going on his way, marching through the forest with his focus set on finding any little sign of the other players within the world. They can’t have gone far. In the panic, they may have scattered, but there is a world border. The land here is limited. Techno will find someone eventually, if he just keeps moving along. 

“So. Tech-no-blade. My guy.” Tommy begins, after an impressive minute of silence that was probably only possible from the grand experience of being able to lay on Techno’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes. “You have sword skills.”

“I’m not giving you sword lessons.” Technoblade says immediately. 

“What the fuck?!” Tommy shifts up, Technoblade bracing himself for the kid to try kicking and squirming to be put down. Tommy does no such thing. He just proceeds to wave his hands around, all dramatics. “Why not?! You totally could!”

“In case you haven’t noticed, we are in closed space with at least fifty other players in what I presume is probably goin’ to end up becoming a deathmatch with every person for themselves in a great, mighty battle to last person standing.” Technoblade explains, Tommy drooping further and further with each word. “When am I goin’ to have time to hand you my singular sword and teach you how to not cut off your own leg by accident?”

“We can make me a sword.” 

“I don’t feel inclined to trust you with a sword, first off.”

“No, no, I’m incredible with a sword, Techno. I’m the fucking best. People, they- they tremble in terror at the sight of me when I’ve got a big ole sword in hand-”

“Well, then I guess I’ve got nothing to teach you.” 

“No!” Tommy shrieks, hitting a fist at Techno’s shoulder, his voice so piercing that it makes Techno wince. “You’re gonna teach me something with a sword, you hear me!? You are!” He cries, the pitch of his words going a touch too high to be blamed on raised emotion. Technoblade has to blink through it, his vision fuzzy for a second as he shakes his head. 

“Uh-huh.” He replies lightly, for lack of being able to think up any other response. 

“You will.” Tommy hums, suddenly just so very pleasant and pleased, confident in the fact that Technoblade will one day teach him something. The shift leaves Techno reeling, his vision and head feeling fine now and making him wonder if that was his imagination. Tommy continues chattering on before he can think too deeply about it. “Do you only know how to fight with a sword? Because technically, you’re a knight, right, my knight, and knights probably have range with being able to kill people in like seventy different ways, and you could totally strangle someone, I bet, but what if instead of that you had this battle axe that you could chop off people’s heads with-”

“I’m going to stick with the sword.”

“But Technoblade, imagine it, imagine it with me, use your head and imagine this imagination of this BATTLE AXE-”

“Sticking with a sword.”

Tommy makes a long, despairing groan at the stubborn response, going limp over Techno’s shoulder with his crown somehow not falling off despite his head swinging with Technoblade’s every step. “God, you’re so boring, Techno. You have no inspiration. Innovation. Other words about thinking. This- This is why I’m the genius. The brains.”

“Hm, yeah, that’s definitely it.” Technoblade distractedly replies, spotting something in the distance that’s different from plain trees. He walks a touch faster, and comes out into a small clearing, seeing scattered evidence of players’ existence, but the players themselves being absent. 

There’s chests placed around, a crafting table here, a half-cut tree there, but no person in sight. When Techno approaches one of the chests and lifts the lid to look inside, he finds a ridiculous amount of dirt, some ladders, and a few torches. 

Tommy leans himself forward to frown down at the items, scrunching his nose in disapproval. “Well, that’s not very useful.” 

Techno grunts in agreement. He closes the chest and takes another look around. Is this place just abandoned? As he walks further along the open area, he notices that the dirt underneath him feels soft, his boots just barely sinking into the ground. He looks down at it in interest, coming to a stop. 

“There’s something strange about this.” He murmurs, pushing at the ground with his foot, confused, and Tommy kicks his legs up behind him, huffing out a sigh.

“Yeah, there’s no one here. I bet you they’re all on the other side of the map, and we’re here like idiots, all alone!” 

Technoblade hears a soft shuffling sound, and snaps his head up for the presence of a threat. He finds no movement in sight. 

“Or, maybe, they heard us coming, and they all just ran off from the terrible threat of approaching the fearsome Technoblade!” Tommy lifts his fists up to the sky, cheering for Techno’s reputation. “RAHHH, TECHNOBLADE!”

“I wouldn’t be surprised with the latter.” Technoblade hums, a bit honored by the enthusiasm, and he brushes a knuckle along the end of his jawline, knowing full-well that there’s still a smear of dried blood sitting on his skin there. 

There’s another bit of shuffling noises. Techno turns to the trees and scans through them, but there’s nothing. He makes a thin frown. 

“Ooh, what if- Wilbur turned everyone invisible, and they’re all around us right now, but we have no clue, because they’re invisible! And you can’t see a person if-”

“Shh.” 

Tommy blinks. “...did you just shush me?” He asks, in a whisper, but sounding vaguely offended. 

“Shhhh.” Techno repeats, wandering in a small circle, feeling the dirt underneath him. The shuffling noise returns, sounding more like a scraping of something. “I think-” 

The sound gets faster, louder and louder-

“-there’s something underneath us.” He says, just as he realizes the noise is the sound of digging, just as the ground from under him goes falling in, and he’s left to the mercy of gravity. 

Chapter Text

Techno’s arm locks around Tommy in an instant, his other hand keeping his sword close to his chest with Tommy screaming all the while, his hands grabbing frantically at Techno’s armor as they fall. They both go sliding down into a hole, seeing a blur of the face responsible for their fate, before then falling deeper, through a pit that must’ve been pre-made specifically for someone to go falling through just like this. 

Tommy shrieks as Techno slams his feet and his elbow against the walls, trying to slow their descent, but in an instant, they’ve landed, and Technoblade hits the ground with Tommy rolling off from his grip. His sword stays near his hand, thankfully, and he swipes it back up before he’s even gathered himself, still disoriented by the fall. 

He lifts his head with a groan, bracing a hand to the dirt underneath him so he can sit up. “Tommy?”

“-what the fuck, what the fuck! They made a hole!? They got us through a hole?! They got you through a fucking pit in the dirt!? I thought we were going to fall to our deaths, and that was it, the end of the game, because of a literal fucking hole-!”

“Tommy.” Techno grits out, stopping Tommy’s rambling. He glances up to see how far they fell, and to his luck, it’s not a terribly great distance. They’re below the surface, for sure, but he can see the top over his head, the sky not looking so far. At least, not until it’s covered up by someone’s hand placing dirt back over the hole, remaking their little trap. 

Trap. Technoblade snaps himself to attention, and crawls over to Tommy to grab him by the collar, dragging him closer and taking their surroundings in. They’re in a hole, obviously, but it looks more like a cramped cave the way that the place is hollowed out. There are torches placed in the corners, the place decently lit, but there isn’t much more, other than the figures of other players standing from a distance at the other end of the man-made dirt cave. 

Their postures are wary and hesitant, but their eyes are alert as they look over at Techno, at the ex-admin held underneath his arm. One of them waves, a little friendly sort of gesture. Tommy lifts his hand and waves back with a grin. Technoblade makes a warning-sounding sort of huff at them, Tommy’s grin getting even wider. 

“Oy, what if they’re friendlies?” Tommy asks, now over the fact he went tumbling down someone’s pit trap and instead set on the idea of making a connection. “Hello, there! Friend, not foe! Ignore Technoblade, that’s just how his face looks like, it’s a condition called resting bitch face disease, it’s entirely untreatable, I’m afraid, it’s tragic-” His introduction goes muffled at Techno’s hand slapping over his mouth.

“Is this a trap?” Technoblade asks, trying to speak over Tommy, who’s making an earnest attempt to speak through Techno’s palm. “Because if this is a trap, you’re either goin’ to release us, or this place is going to become one hell of a mass grave.” 

The players shuffle anxiously at Techno’s threat, all of them passing back and forth meaningful glances, nudging at each other, a few having shovels in their hands. Upon closer look, all of them have a shovel in their hands. A few of them even have two shovels, one in each hand. What…what’s the deal with that?

After some silent conversation that Technoblade doesn’t really get, one of the shovel-wielding players get shoved out from the group, forced towards Technoblade. They look back at their allies with a pleading look, and with the repeated action of insistent pointing, the poor soul comes warily towards Techno, cradling the shovel in their hand like it’s a precious shield. 

“Hrm-mhm-mph.” Tommy says against Techno’s hand, and Technoblade raises his eyebrows in confusion, from both Tommy’s attempt at a sentence, and the person trying to approach him. Once they seem to get at a distance they deem close enough, they place down a sign, quickly writing out a message on the wood, then backing away. 

This is not a trap. The sign says, Tommy’s words going quiet in his mouth as he reads the rest of the sign, his eyes gleaming a vivid blue against the torchlight. This is a recruitment!

“...A what.” Technoblade deadpans, not noticing the way Tommy’s gone deadly still against his arm. “A recruitment? Into what?”

Another sign gets placed down. 

Tommy’s eyes fall shut as he makes a tiny snicker. 

The mole kingdom! The sign says. We hide from the dangers of the world above, taking to the dirt for safety, finding home within the tunnels we carve with our trusty shovels…! And Technoblade quits reading. He stares off past the sign and wonders if these people have already lost their sanity from the stress of it all. Probably. Normal players who haven’t been traumatized by an admin running wild don’t go creating a mole kingdom, he would like to think. 

“You want to recruit me.” He says dryly, looking up at the mole kingdom citizen with the least impressed expression one could ever wear. 

For your fighting abilities! So you can protect us! The next sign insists. 

“I mean, that’s fair.” Techno would’ve thought they’d be more focused on staying away from him rather than trying to lure him in to be on their side, but hey, everyone’s got their strategies. “What do I get in return, though? What benefits are we talking about here, do I get food, weapons, more armor-?”

Tommy makes an angry noise, trying to lick at Techno’s palm to get him to move, but Techno’s murdered people, saliva on his hand isn’t much of a difference from wet blood, so he hardly reacts. Tommy upgrades to trying to bite him. Technoblade supposes that it's slightly more effective. 

“-peace and quiet, a shovel, a badge with a mole mascot on it- what’s the offer on the table? Can you even afford me?” Techno goes on, using his sword to sorta wave around at the people, emphasizing the point with the gleam of the gold on his blade. 

“They can’t!” Tommy yells, finally prying Techno’s hand off with both hands, raising a finger up like he must call all the attention to himself. “They can’t. They live in the dirt, Techno, they cannot. I can, though. I’m so rich.”

Technoblade levels him with a long stare. “What exactly are you giving me other than a vague occasional emotional support?”

Tommy puffs his cheeks at that question, looking as if he’s biting his tongue, then in a flash, he plucks the crown off his head and shoves it towards Techno. “This! You can have it.” It clinks against his armor. 

Technoblade looks down at the crown. Looks back at Tommy. Has a great, strong feeling of a crucial detail being missing. Slowly, he takes it, then puts it back on the kid’s head. “You… keep that on. For now.” 

He goes to stand up after that, the mole people skittering back at his movement with their eyes glued to the weapon in his hands. Techno ignores their fear and takes a solid few seconds to make sure none of his limbs are broken. Arm, legs- yup, he’s still intact. Although, he could still fight decently well if any of his bones were broken anyway. 

Tommy comes up on his feet after him, brushing the dirt off his knees and taking a step back so that he’s left standing behind Techno. The action of it makes Technoblade want to move further in front of him, to block Tommy from everyone’s view entirely. He doesn’t follow the impulse. 

“Alright,” Technoblade says, glancing down at the sign in front of him again before giving a shrug. “I’m not being convinced here. This recruitment is goin’ terribly for you guys.” 

The moles’ eyes go wide, shaking their heads and holding their hands up. There’s only two options here, and they know it. Either Technoblade is with them, and against them, and with how he stands now, that bright-eyed admin hiding behind him with a smug little grin on his face, it doesn’t feel like their chances of survival are high. 

However, they have another card to play. With the help of several hands, they leave through the doorway and come back with a heavy looking oak chest, the thing thumping loudly on the ground when they drop it beside Techno’s feet. They pull back the lid with pride, practically beaming at their improved chances, and Technoblade pauses upon seeing the pile of valuables sitting inside. 

Emeralds, iron, gold, diamonds-- they have a decent supply, all organized neatly together in the chest, their hard work proudly on display. Tommy leans around Technoblade with a face that seems- irritated.  

“Where the fuck did you get that.” He says, Techno sharing the sentiment, although not with as much cold shock in the tone. He’s mildly impressed, actually. They haven’t been on this world for very long, gathering all this in that short amount of time is a feat in itself.

Someone places down a sign with a grin. We mined it! It says. We’re miners, too! And there’s more where that came from!

“Huh.” Techno leans forward to inspect the ores closer, his gaze passing over the gleam of the diamonds, his hand reaching in to pick up a piece of gold. It feels solid enough in his palm. He really doubts they could fake having actual ores, but if they did, he’d probably notice. If not with the other ores, then with the gold, at least. He’s got a knack for knowing gold. 

“I feel bribed.” He tells them, holding the ore up to the light, finding a satisfaction in the way the torchlight glimmers off it. “Successfully bribed.” 

“Technoblade!” Tommy snaps, the mole people shuffling around in a tense joy, one of them running closer to put another sign. Technoblade looks at the words with amusement, then falters at reading the last word. 

If you agree, there’s just one more thing. 

Revenge.

Techno drops the gold back into the chest. It lands with a thunk that makes the people flinch. 

“Revenge against who?” He asks, but he knows the answer. Everyone’s attention shifts, looking towards Tommy, and in the sudden rise of danger, Tommy moves behind Technoblade, grabbing onto the back of his armor with a small, scared noise that makes Techno’s heart jump weirdly in his chest. 

His grip on his sword goes involuntarily tight. 

“Techno?” Tommy chokes out, and Technoblade tries to think, swallowing back the strange panic that’s now trying to claw up his throat. He takes into account the small area they’re in, the cave only having one way out, blocked by the small group of people who he could probably cut down within two, three minutes tops if he catches them off-guard-

No. He tries to think. This could still work, couldn’t it? Allies would be honestly useful, right now, Technoblade doesn’t see a point in trying to work it out alone when they could have at least some people behind them, taking the weight of trying to survive. He doesn’t have to go killing them all. They could try talking it out, explaining the situation at hand. 

But one of them is already reaching an arm out, taking a step too close, and at the sound of Tommy making a sharp inhale, Technoblade just moves without thinking. 

He cuts his sword just above their wrist, entirely slicing off their hand. 

Their mouth opens wide as they stumble back, probably trying their best to scream in horror, but with most voices still turned off in this world, there’s just an awkward silence as the discarded hand goes landing on the floor, blood splattering beside Techno’s boots. 

He stares down at the result of his action, not having expected it. Why did he do that? He was out here considering teamwork and everything, what was the point of that? 

Hm. Old habits die hard, he supposes. Probably a reflex thing. Oh, well. He chooses to roll with the punches, making a barely-there shrug to himself. If you stab one, you got to stab them all. 

And stab them he does, cutting through the group of them an awful lot quicker than he was expecting to. There was a reason they wanted Techno as one of their fighters-- they’re horrible at combat. Techno doesn’t even get another sword in his direction for his attack, only raised shovels and pleading hands, all of which fall to the ground in due time, joining the stains of red amongst the dirt. By the time all is said and done, Techno hasn’t even lost his breath, and he’s a bit lost in the momentum, his head still swiveling around for the next person. 

“That was so fucking cool.” Tommy calls out, laughing a little in awe, and Technoblade turns around to find the kid sitting beside the wall, legs crossed, body leaned forward with his head held in his palms, as if he was casually just watching a play. “And a lot shorter than I thought.” He purses his lips in almost a pout, and Technoblade makes a beeline towards him. 

Tommy’s eyes widen a bit as Technoblade stalks across the room, and he sits up with his shoulders hitting the wall at the same time as Techno’s blood-stained hand comes reaching up to hover over his arm. It doesn’t grab him, doesn’t even touch him, but it’s a near thing. 

“Did anyone hurt you?” Techno asks, arm kept up in an urge to try checking for any obvious injuries. He refrains, if only because he’ll dirty Tommy’s shirt, and because Tommy’s probably fine. Probably. Maybe.

Techno’s hand inches closer, fingertips brushing at Tommy’s sleeve. It’d be good to be sure…

“No.” Tommy answers, his expression blank, almost kinda bewildered by the concept of one of the mole people having been able to somehow hurt him. “They didn’t even touch me.” Good. That’s good. Techno’s hand doesn’t move, and he stays kneeling down at Tommy’s level, making a long stare like he’s waiting for Tommy to admit that he’s actually bleeding out from somewhere. “I’m fine.”

Technoblade huffs. He waits a second, two seconds, then makes himself pull away, standing up and holding a hand out for Tommy to come up on his feet as well. Tommy takes it, and doesn’t say anything of the red that comes away on his palm. 

They take in the now empty room, the only things left with them being the shovels scattered on the floor, and the abandoned chest full of ores. Tommy walks up to the chest with a clear interest in his step, looking inside with a giddy grin pointed at Techno.  

 “What do we do with these now?” He asks, Techno following to look at the ores again, to take in the number of them. He leans a bit over Tommy’s shoulder, eyebrows furrowing in thought. “We could make me a sword…?” Tommy trails off, his tone hopeful, eyes sparkling with joy. 

“Armor.” Technoblade decides. 

Tommy lags, standing up straight with a soured face. “Huh?” He sputters for a second, waving a hand up and down at Techno. “You- what- You already have armor!”

Technoblade levels Tommy with a slightly amused look. “Armor for you.” 

“Me?!” Tommy shrieks, and he doesn’t seem very happy about it. Techno doesn’t particularly care. He’s made up his mind. He’s making armor. It’ll give him peace of mind, if they end up in another situation like that, which, looking at their odds, it probably will. 

“I don’t need armor! Give me a sword!” Tommy insists, stepping closer to Techno like he can intimidate the man into his bidding. Technoblade looks down at him, leaning his head forward, eyes narrowing into a serious stare. 

“How would you rate your abilities with a sword? Honestly. Dead honest. No lying.”

Tommy freezes. He looks like a deer caught in headlights, and Techno swears he can see the little gears turning in his head, trying to fumble up a good lie. “Well- I- I’m not bad-”

“No lying.” Techno reminds. 

“I’m not! It’s- I mean, it’s been a while.”

Techno raises his eyebrows. Tommy averts his gaze, turning his head to the side with a twisted frown. 

“...i’ve never actually…” He mumbles the next words. “Really fought with a sword.” 

Technoblade thinks something’s wrong with his heart. It keeps getting this weird pressure that feels oddly similar to worry. “...Really?”

“I never needed to! But now I want to! You could teach me!” Tommy throws his arms up, gesturing at Techno and all his great warrior abilities. Technoblade disregards Tommy’s ambitions and moves past him, taking the ore in the chest and pouring it all into his inventory. 

“Armor first. Sword…nah.” He says, quickly swiping up the diamonds, then going for the gold. He finds a gentle joy in being able to take it all without any sort of protest from anyone. 

Tommy makes a frustrated little noise, a mix between a scoff and a gasp, his foot thumping against the ground in what Techno is going to assume is a stomp. He has no doubts the kid is winding up a killer argument, with incredible thought points such as “but I want to” and “it’d be cool.” Thankfully, Techno has this amazing strategy to counter this reaction, called walking away very fast.

“Hey!” Tommy yells as he runs to follow, his anger postponed at Technoblade’s sudden attempt at escape. “Where are you going?!”

“Looking for a way out.” Technoblade answers simply, sparing a glance behind him and allowing himself to slow down as he goes through the doorway by the end of the room, finding it to be an entrance into a long, narrow tunnel. To his great luck, there’s more things out here, like furnaces with food, and chests with cobblestone, and a crafting table. 

Techno loots the cobble, stores the food, and uses the crafting table to use up their current supply of diamonds. Tommy’s grudge at the moment is lost in the curiosity of the tunnel, his head turning back and forth to look at the endless line of torches on the wall. He seems mildly surprised, and a touch confused. 

“Did they make all this?” He asks, stepping around Techno to try and look further down the tunnel. 

“Probably.” Techno resists the urge to pull Tommy back by the collar so he won’t wander off too far. He’s right there. He’s not running off. “They said they were miners. I bet the tunnels go down at some point, into some sort of- cave system.” 

“Huh.” Tommy says, looking considerate and enlightened. Then he turns to Techno, who has a brand new diamond chestplate in his hands, and his mood turns downright grumpy. 

“Don’t complain.” Technoblade orders, pushing the armor onto Tommy, securing it for him and finding a deep, internal relief once it automatically adjusts to the kid’s size. He makes a matching pair of leggings and boots not a minute later, Tommy’s facial expression turning impossibly more disgruntled with each piece added. 

Technoblade steps back to admire his work. He’s made a helmet, as well, and he’s half-tempted to stick on Tommy’s head, do away with the crown, but the idea of doing that makes him upset for reasons he won’t bother to think about. He chooses to just keep the helmet in his inventory for the time being. This oughta be good enough. 

“This is stupid.” Tommy mutters, glaring at the floor, his precious limbs now gleaming in a protective casing of diamond. Technoblade hums. 

“I could make you a shield, as well.” He says thoughtfully. 

Tommy’s glare lifts up at him. If the kid could set things on fire with just his gaze, Techno would be ashes. “I don’t need a shield.”

“I’m making a shield.” Technoblade says. Tommy stews in anger, practically shaking in it. It’s a little endearing.

Technoblade hides his smile in the action of leaning over the crafting table, making two shields and having Tommy keep one within his inventory, with the promise that he’ll use it if he ever needs it. Tommy reluctantly agrees, but not without a poking question of asking why he would need a shield when Technoblade can just go fighting them all off. Techno only rolls his eyes at the question, not denying the fact that we will, in fact, fight them all off before they get a hand on Tommy. 

“Come on. Let’s see where this goes.” He directs Tommy’s attention to their journey ahead, picking a direction of the tunnel and following it. He walks slowly, mindful of Tommy’s still adjusting leg, and for every torch they pass, Technoblade takes it from the wall, collecting it for himself and storing it away into his inventory for future use. This has the added consequence of making the path at their backs go without light, to which Techno doesn’t find a problem in. But as they continue on with the shadows growing at their heels, it seemingly does pose an issue for Tommy. 

“It’s dark.” The kid says, the glances over his shoulder growing longer and longer as the dark stretches out behind them. “What if mobs spawn?” He looks up at Techno, and while his tone is on the side of sounding frightful, his eyes seem more eager than anything. 

“Then I’ll kill them.” Technoblade answers, and that’s what Tommy’s looking for. At the confident response, Tommy smiles, satisfied, and he allows them to settle into a rare silence, his arm coming up to grab at Techno’s sleeve. He ends up hooking his fingers into the edges of Techno’s armor instead, and Technoblade lets him stay clinging on. If it appeases him and keeps from a lengthy, loud conversation, then he will let it be. That, and the sensation of Tommy’s hand tugging at his armor, the constant reminder of his presence, gives a soothing relief to his funny-feeling chest. 

They keep moving for a long while, the tunnel feeling endless, but eventually leading off into an open cave that’s lit up brightly and picked clean. Technoblade steps into it with a short sigh, finding comfort at having something other than flat, smooth dirt under his feet, and finding disappointment at the fact they are still below ground. If they follow the cave, it’s bound to lead up somewhere, but Technoblade thinks this is an alright spot to stop. 

“Alright.” He says to Tommy, and he takes a spot up against the stone wall, sitting back with his sword placed over his lap. “This’ll do.” 

“What are you doing?” Tommy stares at him questioningly, making a clear nod to the rest of the cave ahead. “You’re sitting down? The cave is still going-”

“I’m takin’ a rest.” Technoblade cuts him off, and Tommy raises his eyebrows in a sort of disbelief. “We’ve been moving for a while, it’s probably sundown outside by now. I want to get some sleep in.” Better to do it now, where they’re decently hidden, rather than up on the surface, in the open. Up there, Technoblade doesn’t think he’ll find any time to have a breather. Between Wilbur surely lurking around in the server somewhere, and the other players probably having it out for Tommy- yeah. He’s going to need a nap. 

Technoblade pats down at the stone next to him, Tommy sitting down with him, his armor glinting against the torchlight around the upper parts of the cave. 

“You should probably try sleeping a bit, too.” Technoblade suggests.

“I don’t sleep.” Tommy replies. 

“...Alright.” Sounds fake, but okay. “You can keep watch, then.” Tommy lights up at that suggestion, spine straightening with a genius idea forming upon his brain. 

“Can I have your sword?!”

“No.” Technoblade immediately shoots that idea down, like the kill-joy he is. 

“Uhg.” Tommy groans, shifting in his sitting spot, his diamond leggings clinking in the movement of pulling his knees up to his chest. Technoblade closes his eyes and ignores his clear discontent, because he’s terrible and mean. His hand stays on the handle of his sword, destroying any consideration Tommy might’ve had at trying to sneak the weapon away from his lap. He knows Techno sleeps light, and wakes up in a blink. There’s no chance at securing victory here. 

All that there is for Tommy now is the ordeal of waiting. Which, if you know Tommy, is pretty much the equivalent of torture, which is so unfair? Tommy does not deserve this. He was under the impression this was going to be fun, that he was going to get a knight, an adventure, and maybe a bit something more. Wilbur had promised it, in the gleam of his eye and the silent text chat they’d been exchanging ever since they parted ways. 

Tommy waits on that chat as Technoblade rests, the hidden screen at his fingertips, his hands sending a message to Wilbur about how the experiment is hitting a wall, and Tommy will probably die within the next minute if he doesn’t get some sort of enrichment right at this moment. Wilbur’s reply comes in the form of three blinking dots, his typing taking what feels like an eternity, and eventually coming out as-

Lol

Tommy hates him. Hates him. Wishes he was dead. Wishes he blew up in a million tiny pieces-

“Oh, is he sleeping?” 

Tommy feels the sort of- shift, in his ears and throat, the subtle change to observation mode, allowing Wil’s words to be entirely unheard by anyone within the cave, except for Tommy. He turns on the ground to see Wilbur floating behind him, his gaze focused at Technoblade and his sleeping face. 

“Yeah.” Tommy responds, feeling a little defensive at Wilbur’s almost judgemental tone. “What of it?”

“I mean, I hadn’t thought he’d-” Wilbur leans back in the air, turning his head towards Tommy, and his words cut off mid-sentence with a snort. He slaps a hand over his mouth. Tommy’s lips press into a tight frown. 

“Don’t.” Tommy threatens.

“Awww…” Wilbur starts, staring down at Tommy’s new look. 

“Fucking don’t.” Tommy hisses, eyes gleaming a too-bright blue. 

“Look at you! All armored up!” Wil goes on, not at all caring. “You’re ready for battle, are you now?” His tone is nothing but patronizing, and Tommy seethes at the sound of it. 

“Shut the fuck up!” He snaps. “He insisted on it! I said I wanted a sword, we had plenty for a fucking sword, but noooo-! He said armor. He was set on armor.” 

“The consequences of your actions.” Wilbur drawls, Tommy rolling his eyes, but not denying it. “It’s working out too well now, isn’t it?”

“This is dumb.” Tommy whines. “I knew he’d be inclined to protect me, but I was expecting cool fights and shit, not him giving me a shield and wasting diamonds for a chestplate and boots.”

“Don’t forget the leggings. And the helmet.” Wilbur pulls up a few screens, humming in clear mirth. “That’s still sitting in his inventory. Bet he’s waiting to just yank it on your head at the first sign of danger.” 

“Wilbur…!” Tommy groans. 

“Hey, you wanted a knight.” Wilbur holds his hands up, floating a touch higher into the air, his screens flickering out. 

“You offered it!”

“You wanted it.” Wilbur repeats, and Tommy huffs. His anger simmers down. He looks back at Techno, at his undisturbed expression of sleep, and there’s a greedy determination flowing in the blue of his eyes. It looks unnerving, on his young face. “And since you wanted it, you’ll get it. As long as you’re patient about it, and go through the motions.”

“I’m always patient.” Tommy declares, and Wilbur laughs at that outright lie.

“Sure you are.”

Tommy moves on from the topic of complaining, now curious about what comes next. “Are you going to do anything with the rest of the players?”

“Well, there’s certainly potential with them. They’ve actually been busy at work.” Wilbur pulls back his screens, and in an instant, he’s surrounded by notes and data he’s compiled for the past hour. “Most of them are back in a kingdom now.”

“Like the mole kingdom?” Tommy asks dryly. Wilbur’s lips curl up into a grin at that. 

“Of a sorts. There’s a group who’s chosen to build a base on the ground, and a group who’s chosen to build a base up in the sky. Currently, tensions are high, because the ground kingdom is refusing to give any more supplies to the sky kingdom, claiming that building up too high is only going to test my patience. They also keep going on about the topic of vantage points, and whether being up high is worth the risk of fall damage-”

“Okay, cool, don’t care.” Tommy turns himself back towards Technoblade, entirely more interested in watching the player here breathe. Wilbur scrunches his nose in a second of annoyance, but moves over it. 

“I’m going to go start a war.” He tells Tommy, closing his screens. “That oughta give our little champion something to do when he finds a way back up to the surface.” 

“My champion.” Tommy corrects, a smugness in the words. Wil tilts his head, then smiles. 

“Of course. Your knight.” Wilbur says it like a tease, but Tommy looks up at him with an honest satisfaction, and Wilbur lets his smile turn into a grin. 

This failure of an experiment is turning out to be fun. 

Chapter Text

There’s something so oddly intriguing in how Wilbur’s subjects seem to turn to betrayal so very quickly at even the slightest hint of victory for their own hands. 

He supposes it’s the matter of survival, for them. The stakes raised, control torn out from under their feet. Everything is uncertain and unknown, in his world, and when they cannot depend on the expected, what do they turn to? Him. The one who put them there. 

They turn to his false promises and they follow eagerly, desperately, scratching for freedom like animals turned wild. It’s so easy. It’s so fucking easy, and Wilbur wonders when he’s ever going to get bored of it, of giving the slight nudge and then watching the entirety of their self-made communities go up in flames. 

All he did was imply he had favorites. He wasn’t even specific about it. Just that one group seemed to be going better than all the others, and surely, if they wanted to, they could reign supreme. 

Immediately, he saw their little plots forming. Plans laid out, an idea coming into their heads. If they were the ruling group, the people who called the shots, then things would be in order! Then this terrible situation will go how they want it, and then they can appease the admin above as to how they think is the best way. They’ll be given a reward, just like Technoblade, with Tommy granting him a comfortable chance of survival. 

Unfortunately, Wilbur is far more difficult to impress, compared to Tommy. These subjects don’t realize that he’s more amused than anything at their antics, at the war blooming underneath him, groups tearing at each other’s throat in hopes of being seen as the strongest, the ones with potential. He looks at them all and sees just another inevitable result of when an experiment goes a little to the left. He makes his notes for the next round, in the future. 

The sun starts to dip as the fighting goes on, and while there’s enough burning flames to give a somewhat decent lighting, Wilbur doesn’t want to add mobs into the mix right now. He sets the sun back, and then puts out a few fires for the sake of preserving enough subjects for later on, ignoring the hopeful looks directed his way, unimportant players thinking that he’s become fond of them. 

He really couldn't care less. He goes back to the sky above, turning his state to something invisible. He goes to check on if Tommy’s sent him any more pressing messages, if his knight has finally woken up, and-

Oh.

Oh!

Tommy’s sent something, alright, along with question on if it’ll turn out how he hopes it will, if he’s fiddled with the right numbers. Wilbur can’t offer good answer, because Tommy’s messing with something unprecedented right now, but gods, he cannot help but beam at the fact Tommy’s testing things out in general. Screw whatever hopes Wilbur started this experiment with-- this is all Tommy’s experiment now. This is his alone, and now Wilbur is going to happily play assistant, recording results as needed, controlling variables as needed. 

He turns his attention back to the subjects fighting below. Quite a number have died off already, but maybe he should try slowing that. There’s something fun he could try, with the whole of them, and it’ll probably help Tommy’s goal along. 

Wilbur grins, sending the idea along to Tommy. 

He agrees. 

The injured players on the ground raise their hands in utter relief as Wilbur starts to distribute the healing potions. Wouldn’t do well to have them all kill each other off, now. He’s going to need them. 

---

Techno’s never been one to sleep all that deeply during high-stress scenarios (which, honestly, seem to happen too often throughout his life) so finding himself stirring at the slightest noise of clinking armor nearby isn’t much of a surprise to him. He’s woken up to less noise before. He’s woken up to nothing except the foreboding feeling of danger, enemies coming within a mile radius of him. His mind just knows when it's time for the action, and he acts accordingly, kicking himself into gear, bracing against what’s to come, going into his preparations.

This time, though, there’s an uncomfortable sliver of panic alongside opening his eyes. A heavy weight digging into the space of his chest, beside his lungs. He looks at the cave around him, filled with the dim lighting of scattered torches, and beside the neat recollection of his less-than-ideal situation flowing through his head, he notices-

-that Tommy is wandering by the farther side of the cave. 

That’s fine. Logically, that’s perfectly sound. Tommy does not seem like someone who can cope with boredom, so, obviously, he will wander. Techno can expect that, and he should be able to deal with that, with only a touch of slight annoyance. 

However. 

Instead of just a slight annoyance, there is a sudden strike of fear, right in the center of Techno’s heart, at seeing the kid so far from his side. His breath goes sharp and stuttery within an instant, as if something’s stabbed him right in the gut, and his body moves on instinct, his feet carrying him along before he can even think.

Tommy’s back faces him as he makes his way over, and the kid only starts to turn his head at the very last second, with a little curious expression at the fast-approaching footsteps. He gives a high-pitched scream of surprise when Techno’s hand grabs tight around his arm, practically yanking him away from where he was trying to see down the rest of the cave. 

“Fucking hell-!” Tommy swears, stumbling in step, his diamond armor clinking together, glinting bright, his eyes looking up with an almost similar blue glow. The gold of his crown shines alongside it, like a reminding thing. Techno’s other hand reaches out and grabs Tommy by the other arm, the kid looking down at the gesture with wide eyes. “What, what-?”

“Where do you think you’re going?” Techno cuts him off, and Tommy stops. Blinks at the way they’re now standing face to face, as if now thrown into a tense confrontation. He then looks utterly baffled, almost appalled by the question, or rather, the tone of it, a snarling sound nestled underneath the words. 

“I was just- I was just looking around.” Tommy answers, his shock settling into a fast intrigue. There’s no hint of fear, even with the way both his arms are held still. Even with the unexpected anger, he just stares up at Techno like he’s trying to see something properly. He attempts to pull back, just for a moment. “I’m keeping watch-”

“By leaving the cave?” Techno pulls him back, Tommy’s eyes flicking down towards the tightening grip on his arms. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?” Techno asks, tail flicking hard behind him. His words echo harshly around them, ringing against the stone, and he knows there’s a rough, growling edge on his voice that shouldn’t be there, but it’s not the biggest thing on his list of concerns right now. 

“I wasn’t leaving or anything!” Tommy defends, unflinching to the threat of a pissed off piglin staring him down. “I wasn’t that far, really!”

“Really? You were-” Techno fully means to argue, a deep burning panic still present in the space behind his lungs. “You-” He falters as the feeling of panic starts to now just fade out, Tommy’s arms in his hands feeling like a solid, stable weight. The gold of his crown glints in the torchlight. 

He’s here, some thought in the back of his mind says with relief, utter relief, and Techno notices now that his grip is holding too tight, probably enough to bruise the armor into the kid’s skin. He tries to ease his hold up. It does little effect.

He’s here, it says again. He’s safe, he thinks, wondering faintly when the kid’s safety became such an impacting thing to his emotional state. He can’t have gotten attached that quickly. He shouldn't care so much. He was just being reasonable. Tommy was walking off without any care, probably into certain death-

Techno looks back at where he was resting just a second prior. The wall is hardly five steps away. Tommy really wasn’t that far. If anything, he was actually lingering pretty close. 

Well. That doesn’t justify this reaction. 

With some greater effort, Techno takes his hands away, and Tommy doesn’t give any indication of having been squeezed too hard, only staring up at Techno as if in patient wait for something important. Technoblade doesn’t give it, instead just swiftly moving on from that whole odd outburst and chalking it up to the probable stress of being currently trapped in a deathmatch arena. 

“Just-” Techno clears his throat, pinching the bridge of his nose, rubbing his thumb across his eyebrow in some effort to clear the buzzing noise of his head. “Do not wander off. For the sake of your own self-preservation-”

“I was just looking around.” Tommy shrugs a shoulder, not sounding as if he’s taking that warning to heart. Techno’s hands feel grabby again for a second, wanting to pick up the kid and shove him into a fortified bunker, keeping the door locked until everyone outside is laying dead. Techno does not do that though, because building a well fortified bunker would take too much time. And also it’s- probably overkill. Maybe.

“How long did I sleep?” Techno asks, moving back towards the stone wall to pick up his sword. The weight of the weapon is deeply comforting in his palm, and returning to Tommy’s side in a quick stride is even more so.

“A while?” Tommy shrugs both shoulders now, face going unsure. At Techno’s judgemental look, he throws his hands up. “I don’t have a clock! We’re literally in a cave! I can’t see the sun.”

“Fair, I guess.” Techno reasons. “Either way, I’m probably not going back to sleep.” He makes a passing glance over his shoulder as he looks down both directions of the cave, feeling still slightly on edge. He turns his attention back onto Tommy, and that makes it a little better. 

“So are we heading out? Because I wanna see if there’s any mobs down that way.” Tommy asks, some hint of excitement creeping up through his voice. He turns his shoulder and makes a move to head down the path, and Technoblade scruffs him by the back of his armor before his shoe even hits the stone. 

“What did I just say?” 

Tommy squawks at getting yanked away from his destination, and his hands reach back at Techno’s arm to try and pry him off.

“I’m not wandering.” Tommy huffs, trying to pull himself out of Techno’s hold, pushing his feet against the floor, and getting absolutely nowhere. He actually struggles a little for a solid minute, Techno just letting him try while also considering how they should go about the next few hours. 

The matter of Wilbur is an unpredictable factor, but the rest of the players might not be. If they’re going to keep having a lethal grudge against Tommy, as the moles did, then Techno could just do away with them. Strike them down as he did at the castle, as he did in that carved out room earlier. He wonders…

 If he and Tommy ended up being the only ones left, would Wilbur get bored of them? Would he just let them go, at that point? Return Techno back to his farm, send Tommy along with him? Techno doesn’t have any particular place for Tommy to stay, but his company wouldn’t hurt, and Techno could probably build him a room easily enough-

“For fuck’s sake, fine!” Tommy yells out, Techno tuning back into current events. Tommy leans heavy against Techno’s grasp, practically daring for the man to let go and let him faceplant into the stone ground. His feet are sliding against the floor, making him slowly lean even lower, and Techno feels a smidge of a pity at how the kid’s head is hanging so defeated. 

“Fine?” Techno repeats. 

“I’ll stay next to you.” Tommy says, half-heartedly throwing a hand up, flapping his fingers to Techno’s direction, the agreement said more like a mocking remark. “I won’t wander.”

“Fine.” Techno says once more, and then he lets go. Tommy hits the ground in a loud shriek and thump. Techno ignores the muttering, vicious swears being thrown up at him, and he just waits for the kid to stand up before moving forward, Tommy following along on his heels as agreed upon.

His presence right now is… strange. It’s a nice thing. Techno’s never been a people person, and usually, having someone at his back makes him more inclined to put a sword through them, but this- this is different. This is new. This-?

He glances down at Tommy, and the kid looks back at him with a questioning face. Techno turns his gaze back to the cave ahead, and feels Tommy grab onto his arm, hooking his fingers into the edge of his armor, just like he did earlier when they were going through the tunnels. 

This feels right.

They follow through the winding path of the cave with the rock slowly starting to tip up, moving them along towards the surface, with torches still set up on the walls here and there. Tommy's footsteps stay out of beat with Techno’s for the most part, but after a little while, Techno realizes Tommy is trying to match his pace, their footsteps almost sounding like one single set. 

He glances back at the kid again and sees only the top of his head, his golden curls in view with Tommy’s eyes staring at Techno’s boots, so that he can get the pace right. There’s a sense of fondness at witnessing such a thing. It fits oddly in his heart. It almost feels like too much.

Techno suddenly comes to a halt, and Tommy immediately slams into him, swearing out in surprise. He looks up at Technoblade with a sour frown, hand coming up to touch at his nose in where he hit it against Techno’s arm. 

“What? Why’d you stop?” 

“Why’re you following my steps?” Techno asks in reply.

Tommy frowns even harder, nose scrunching up. “You said to follow you.” 

“I said to not wander.” 

“Same fucking thing.” Tommy mutters, hand falling away from his face, shoulders shrugging up with little care. 

Technoblade tilts his head a little and looks at Tommy a bit more, not sure what he’s trying to find. There’s something about him. There’s some itch in his head telling him to not look away. Tommy looks around the cave for a couple seconds, then turns back to Techno with a sort of confusion. 

“What?” He asks again, more persistent. “Why do you keep staring-”

An arrow whistles past his head then, Tommy flinching in surprise, Techno tensing and turning his eyes to the threat with an instant harsh sneer put across his teeth. There’s the figure of a skeleton, up ahead, reloading its bow, threatening focus centered on them both. 

Techno closes the gap before it can even pull the string all the way back. His sword tears through its spine and his hand lands on its skull, pressing it to the stone wall behind it, cracking it to pieces underneath his palm. Its bones clatter to the ground along with shards of its head, and Techno takes the bow from the floor with full intention of snapping it in half, still seeing that arrow coming too close to Tommy’s head. Just a little more, and- and-

“Shit, you didn’t even let it try!” Tommy exclaims, almost laughing with it, and Techno falters with the weapon he’s holding. He blinks in Tommy’s direction, gathering his breath, pulling air through his teeth. 

He stashes the bow away. He may not have arrows on him, but if he were to come across even just a few, then he would still have the advantage of long-range. 

“Come on.” Techno says, stalking over to Tommy, grabbing him by the arm as before, but now just pulling him along. “We’re getting out of here. Now.”

Tommy makes little complaint from there, more interested in how Techno had killed the skeleton so quickly and efficiently, going on and on about the skull breaking apart, asking if he’s done that before in other fights. How hard is it to do, is it like cracking a peanut, the usual sort of rambling. Techno mostly tunes the noise out, more focused on keeping them moving, on wanting to face the worst already so that it can be done and he and Tommy can be done with this. 

When they do finally get to the surface though, something is strange. 

The sky still sits bright, the sun high, entirely unmoving. Techno stares up at the lack of clouds, the blue above their heads almost seeming too vivid, and he thinks on how long it’s been since morning. 

“Tommy.” He says, the kid not even glancing to the sky above, not even noticing the strangeness of day lingering for so long. He’s still talking about the concept of popping someone’s eyeball out. “How long was I asleep?” 

Tommy slows to a stop in his rambling and shugs, making an uncommitted noise. “Like. An hour?” 

“An hour?” Techno repeats, looking at the position of the sun again, hand held up to shield the worst of it from his eyes. Tommy follows his focus, and catches on. 

“Oh. He froze it.” At Techno’s questioning look, Tommy answers, in that same casual little tone. “Wilbur. He probably paused the day, so that it would stay bright.” 

“He can pause day?” Techno asks, but then he considers it a bit more, and supposes that’s probably within the control of an admin, in certain worlds. Not that he’s ever been in a world with an admin having that much power, but- This isn’t a regular sort of world. It’s not even one he joined willingly. All rules are out the window, with a situation this strange. 

“He says it makes it easier to see shit. Subjects don’t tend to put down proper lighting, and then that causes mobs to spawn in, and then people start fucking dying-” Tommy goes on, sounding as if he’s repeating a rant he’s heard time and time again. “And then there’s less numbers, and ohhh, how can we get proper results without proper numbers n shit, Tommy-?”

“How many times has this happened?” Techno cuts him off. Tommy looks at him with a completely blank face. 

“Hm? He pauses day all the time-”

“No. How many times has he done this? Put people in here against his will- done all of- this.” 

Techno gestures out to the forest, to the world around them. He feels like he would’ve heard of something like this, if it were happening often. Some warning from higher command, talking about an admin going rouge, messing with controls, messing with worlds. 

Usually, such a problem shouldn’t exist, though. Admins crumble easy under the weight of their own power if they try to do too much with it. It takes too much from them if they go overboard.

But then again, with Wil…

Why is all of this so odd? And Techno- is missing a detail. 

Wait.

“You were with him, at the start.” Techno remembers now, and Tommy’s eyes go a little wide as Techno wonders why that fact feels so fuzzy in his memory. It almost drifts from him like smoke when he tries to think about it, tries to focus. “When you gave me that apple. You had screens. Controls.”

“I can’t use them to help now, if that’s what you’re gonna ask.” Tommy says quickly, a blur of words, a slight chuckle at his lips. “I’m- I can get hurt now. I got hurt earlier, when you saved me. My leg-” He goes to gesture down at it, lifting his foot up like it’s suddenly become hard to walk. 

“Yeah, that did happen. You got attacked.” Techno agrees, pushing aside the sudden need to check on that leg, to check if Tommy has healed well. Worry bleeds through his veins, and it’s unfamiliar, yet strong. 

He takes a step closer, Tommy shuffling a half-step back. 

“The second I left, you were attacked. But you- you were working with him, before that. You were used to this.” 

He takes another step. Tommy copies it, moving back. 

“You’re too calm.” 

“Techno.” Tommy says, a wavering smile crossing his face. Techno swears he can hear a trace of panic in his voice. 

“Tommy.” Techno repeats. He moves forward again, and Tommy hits a tree, glancing behind him with surprise as he bumps his head against the trunk, and then looking up at Techno with his shoulders rising up, his back sliding down against the wood. “Are you still working with him now?”

The sky flickers dark for a split second.

“What the fuck?” Tommy hisses out through his teeth, staring up at Techno like something’s gone horribly wrong. “What the- fuck? Why’re you- You-” Some flicker of anger passes over his face, and then it crumples into something upset, broken, his breathing picking up with an instant threat of a sob in his throat. “You saw me! You saw me get hurt! Why would I work with him when he left me to get hurt like that?!”

“That’s your explanation to give. This is your experiment we’re trapped in.” Techno insists, trying to keep steady, but still feeling a sense of doubt sinking into his skin. 

“They’re his experiments. He just fucking makes me take notes.” Tommy spits out, his despair turning too sharp for a second, sounding more like a vivid annoyance. He reaches out, hands grabbing onto Techno’s arm, his golden armor sitting over bloodstained sleeves. “Techno, you’re not- you’re not gonna leave me, are you? This isn’t my fault.” 

Technoblade feels an instant recoil at the thought of even trying to turn his back on Tommy. His fingers twitch in an urge of returning the kid’s gesture, wanting to hold onto his arms again, and never let go. 

“I don’t know what he’s gonna do. He- I messed up his experiment, he was pissed, you saw it. I don’t know what he’s gonna do.” Tommy pleads, and there’s tears in his eyes, fear blooming from his voice. The gut-stab panic before starts to return, Techno feeling it twist hard in his chest, some obvious, painful signal of this being wrong, of the kid’s tears being wrong. Fix it. Fix it! “Technoblade, believe me! Why would I plan anything against you?! I’ve been trying to help you, I gave you that apple because it could help!”

“Help against what?” Technoblade demands, baring his teeth. 

“Against whatever fight is gonna happen! That’s always how it goes! Wilbur always does this, it always ends up with the subjects at each other’s throats-”

“Subjects.” Techno echoes. The way he says it. It’s like a habit. “Why do you say it like that?” Like they’re nothing more than numbers, nothing more than things to study-

“Would you fucking focus?!” Tommy snaps, more frustrated than anything. “Stop-” Tommy sputters for a second, and then bursts into tears, dropping to the floor with his hands to his face. The sense of wrong in Techno’s chest fills up his lungs, squeezes him by the throat. He can’t breathe. 

He can’t-

“You’re supposed to protect me! Are you going to leave me to die?! Are you going to-?” Tommy cuts off in another sob, shoulders shuddering with the force of it. Techno can’t- “Technoblade, tell me! Are you- Are-”

Tommy’s next words are muffed against Techno’s arms closing tight, holding him in a surprise of a hug, his knees pressed to the ground in joining Tommy on the floor. 

Tommy grabs onto him after a moment of processing hesitation, and then he immediately stops crying, only giving a slight sniffle as evidence of his lasting grief.

“I’m not leaving.” Techno tells him, Tommy tucking his chin over his shoulder, Techno moving his hand to rest over the space of the kid’s back. Every breath is felt under his palm, and even as suspiciously even and steady as they might be, Techno supposes they’re still his breaths to protect. Being some knight and all. Here’s his insufferable prince. Here’s something golden indeed. “You’re not leaving me.” 

He pulls back to look Tommy in the face, hands coming up to cup the kid’s chin. There is a content satisfaction in the blue of his eyes. It’s too unusual. It’s off, and Techno knows it. This whole thing is off, but it’s uncomfortable to try and consider it too hard. 

He lets himself indulge for a simple minute, instead, and presses his thumbs to Tommy’s cheeks, wondering where his tearmarks are, since he was weeping his heart out just a second ago. His emotions are just too fickle. It’s so likely a trick, but Techno can’t help but also wonder if it's a tactic of a different sort. Something of survival. He wants it to be. Wants this to turn out as something other than a trap.

“How long have you been here?” Technoblade asks. Tommy’s brows furrow together ever so slightly. Techno rephrases. “How did you get here, Tommy?”

“Wilbur.” Tommy says. He doesn’t go on. Is he hesitant to? Does he cling to Techno because Techno’s the only who’s outright acted against Wil, throughout so many so-called experiments? Techno tries to think of how to word his questions right, how to figure this out, and yet his thoughts seem to muddle together, and Tommy’s crown shines so bright in the daytime.

Tommy turns his crowned head up, at the sky, and Techno can’t help but follow his gaze, seeing the sun flicker into the moon, everything around them falling dark. There’s someone high above, their figure dark against the light of the moon. 

Wilbur’s voice echoes out against their ears. 

“Precious, loyal subjects!” He calls out, almost singing with such a chipper tone flowing through his words. His voice calls above them all, everyone looking up to the skies, to his flying figure, his arms held open wide, the moon seeming to be his singular spotlight at his back. “Look at how your squabbles have turned out. Look at your failure in teamwork. It’s a sad sight.” He sighs. “I think the root cause of such chaos is that you all have such little motivation! There is no reward, no drive! You fight like animals, scrapping for survival and for my favor.” He laughs a little, pressing his fingers to his chest. “I’ll offer my favor. But finding each other’s downfall won’t win you it.”

A dread sinks down at the rising implication in Wil’s words. Trouble is coming. Techno pulls Tommy up off the ground and takes him by the hand, making them head out into the forest, into the trees. He’s not sure where he’s going, but staying still doesn’t seem like a wise choice. 

“Somewhere, in this world, roams Technoblade. The player you saw murder the king earlier. The one who attacked the whole of you without hesitation.” Techno hears, continuing at his pace, scoffing lightly at the fact Wil’s now bringing the spotlight onto his head. Of course. “Aim all your weapons and anger at him, now, because he's the sole keeper of your objective.” 

Techno stops in his steps. 

What?

A warning siren starts to ring in Techno’s ears as Tommy’s other hand reaches up to grab at the back of his bloodstained palm, cradling it close.

“Stop your little war, join hands, and kill the golden child sticking at his heels.” Wilbur orders, ever so casually, every so simple, and Techno tastes regret in his teeth for daring to suspect Tommy for even a second. “That’s the mission I give you all! Overcome Technoblade’s defence, bring his treasure’s head to me, and I’ll give everyone mercy!” 

Techno’s hand curls tighter around Tommy’s fingers. His sword shakes in his grip.

“Surely, he can’t fight you all off!” Wilbur’s voice insists. “Right?” 

Debatable, Techno thinks, alongside the thought on if it would really be all that hard to kill an admin. If he were to just be quick enough about it- one good stab into the heart, that’s all it ever takes-

“Techno?” Tommy asks, uncharacteristically quiet. Techno looks down to meet his eyes, and wants to hold him close again, hold him in his hands, and maybe squeeze so tight that nothing could ever make him let go. 

Tommy looks scared.

“He’s just one person. And the kid doesn’t have much fighting experience, so it’s just one body standing in your way to freedom.” Wilbur continues talking, Techno tearing his attention away to the forest around them, considering going back to that cave, the place being somewhere easier to defend, rather than being out here in the open. “So let the hunt begin! And for time’s sake, I’ll give a good hint, too.” 

The moon explodes out into the sun once more, the sky going too bright, almost blinding, Techno flinching as he covers his eyes from the initial flash of it. He squints through the light, and feels a slight- tug, in his head. Like a string now tied to him, being pulled by one single person. 

Tommy gives a shuddery, terrified inhale at Wil’s next words.

“They’re in the forest.”