Archive of Our Own ^beta

He dies. Puts up a good fight, of course, but he dies.

Summons enough Withers to knock L’manburg back to bedrock twice, but he loses that fight.

It was a joke. The Warden, you know? And with Sam all…out of sorts, this was as close as he’d get.

He didn’t run. Technoblade doesn’t run from danger. (Not now. Maybe some long-distant day, before he was able to crush everything he disliked under his fist, but not now). He goes down fighting. A warrior's death. (Or a fool’s one).

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He wakes up in the afterlife. A permanent one.

Dream is gone, and without the book, Technoblade will never be revived. Not until he wrenches himself back to life.

It isn’t hell, though. It’s a world with a border. There are books that explain what, exactly, he can do.

He reads them. He isn’t stupid.

The set-up’s nice enough, aside from the isolation. But there is a god, somewhere. A ruler. And Techno keeps his promises. (No one wants this from him. It does not matter.)

And so he gets to crafting. To shattering the border keeping him in.

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It’s a wither. Of course it’s a wither.

You’re not even supposed to be able to get Wither Skeleton skulls, but he found an egg.

And so he launches the Wither at the wall. Complains for the loss of his house. He does not truly miss it.

He does not slay the Wither. Simply stops paying attention to it.

He does not care if it breaks the dead free of their prisons, or sends them to the place after death. He does not care for others. (Or some, some others. But he does not care for The People. Not Society. Not Those Who You Have Never Met That Will Be Affected By Your Actions. Not most of the people he’s met.)

And so he goes upward. There is no gravity in this space, The Hall of the Dead. And so he learns to push himself through it.

(He hears screams. Huffs. Continues on, up and far away from the monster he set free. As always.)

And he reaches the Plane of the Gods.

There is gravity here. More as you go upward. To help rank the gods. XD is here, and Prime. Foolish has long departed. Does not wish to return.

And Techno knows none of this. He takes a nearby god by the throat, and Clam explains to him how it works.

It is not a Kingdom. So Technoblade decides to take down the leader. The one at the top. And maybe those close to the top. And anyone he wants to along the way. (Are these not The People, too? The ones you were supposed to free?)

He does not hurt Clam, except by dropping him without caring of harm. This is better treatment than most of them will receive. (More than he has granted most people, since he discovered his prowess in combat.)

They are gods, though. They have more power than mortals can dream of. And it will be taken.

And that is not too terrible, is it? (We shall see.)

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The god at the top is called Parent.

Usually gods are called by more worthy-seeming titles, but Life-Giver means more to gods than it does to mortals. (It was not the god to spark life, but there are precious few reminders of the First One.)

It is not-strictly speaking-a good parent. Gods tend not to be good parents.

It has created an afterlife that does not drive it’s inhabitants to madness, even if this means shutting down parts of their brain, within the walls. Technoblade has been freed.

(Technoblade has enough missing without the walls effecting him.)

And the Dream SMP may be a miserable failure of pain and suffering, but there are other worlds. Parent is not kind to the other gods. Not cruel, but not kind.

Very few would expect Parent to launch themself down the Plane, out of the place they worked so hard to get to. (They cannot go further up. They can barely stay where they are, some days. But they are higher than anyone else.) Parent comes to the defense of their power. (You can suck the souls out of gods, if you do it right.) Beating Gods up takes some of their power. Parent has come before they think that Technoblade is ready.

It does Parent no good. Technoblade rips into them with the Experience gained from taking on the gods around him. (Some were not resisting. He did not have to beat hardly any of them as hard as he did. But he is gaining power. Parent help us all.) Technoblade makes the weapons he had from the power he gained, axes and swords and Withers, and spectral wolf-dogs to rip them to shreds. (It would be beautiful, if it did not mean the end. Oh, First One help me, it is beautiful still.)

And as all that makes up Parent is subsumed into Technoblade, or cast away, (a few flakes will end up in other beings. May he never learn of this. There are no gods I can call on now. The First One is long gone. Parent is scattered. And I have never done anything with an impact. He is God now. Understand this, or you will suffer.) and Technoblade assendes. Rides the currents of power to the top. (Higher than Parent was.)

And a new age dawns. One with The Blade as ruler.

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He brings justice, the Blade. Brings righteousness.

He tears all earthly structures of power apart, upon his spot, perched at the top of the mount he has climbed. Sends his wolf-dogs after any congregation of more than three people who try to make a government, who try to make a leader with less than full consensus. (Humans have never been made for consensus.) He kills them, if the dogs do not scare them enough. There were many attacks before a statement of the government-death was communicated.

He remembers his time on the Dream SMP. Splits it right open.

He offers Philza a place by his side. Philza cannot climb so high, so Technoblade wrenches with his power, and takes some from the other gods. (It hurts. I hurt. Time has passed.)

Philza does not stay long. He flits from world to world. Enjoys the scraps of paradise that were left untouched by the Wither. Kills it. It is a task. Philza does tasks.

He sends Niki elsewhere. Gives her a bit of luck. She takes it, clutches it to her chest, and never looks back. Techno does not look for her.

Ranboo is pressed back together, and saved from his fate. He spends his existence at the bottom rung of the ladder of godhood. He has friends. (Technoblade casts his gaze down from above.)

Dream, he leaves in peace.

Tommy as well. Until he finds him trying to make a government again. (To lead, to help.)

So many are killed, or hurt, or scattered because of Technoblade’s will.

And he sends Tommy running. But Tommy does not stop.

And he learns that Tommy cannot stop. That Tommy is pursued. (By Dream.)

So he sends Dream far away, and picks up Tommy. Sends him to a world with no one else in it.

And then he finds Wilbur, and places him in the world with Tommy. Wilbur was almost out of Technoblade’s reach.

He still almost cares for Tommy. And this is a threat gone. (They are not good for each other. None of them are.)

Quackity. Quackity he makes a hell for. A righteous hell. It is Technoblade’s world. Everything is righteous here. He lets all of Quackity’s nightmares unfurl, and never lets them escape. (He would not think it was fair the other way around.)

(He does not know of the other ones Dream hurt, will hurt. He does not care.)

He plucks his pets free of the Earth, and immortalizes them. This is unprecedented. (Are pets supposed to be turned to stars? I don’t remember.) It’s okay. (I wouldn’t want to be made into stars.)

He delivers retribution as is fit. He is an inscrutable god. (Is this not cruelty?)

He rules as justly as a god. We exist at his behest.

More people are hurt then before. This is righteous.

The Blade is righteousness. The Blade defines our world.

(Remember the time before. Please, whoever you are, if you can see this, remember the before.)

And all is as it should be. Because Technoblade is righteous.