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Empire is the Strongest Team on Lifesteal, and the Stupidest

Summary:

Minute is blind, but he’s gotten used to it, but so has his team.

A little bit of miscommunication and forgetfulness later, Minute wonders if this is really the strongest team on the Lifesteal Smp.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

This upcoming session, Empire had something big planned, the death star. Something as huge as that needs lots and lots of planning. Sending out the meeting location coords to the rest of his teammates, Mapicc gathers all his shulkers and puts on his elytra. Starting his flight towards where the rest of his team would be.

Landing gracefully, Mapicc tucks his elytra under his arm and starts messaging the rest of his team, asking for an ETA. Mid message, a firework nearby grabs Mapicc’s attention. Looking up, he sees a blur of orange and feathers, and hears a rustle of leaves and a very loud thud.

“OW!” Mapicc winces, Jepex, in very Jepex fashion, had landed himself in a tree.

“Dude, how many years have you been playing minecraft again?” Mapicc doesn’t bother getting up to help. Jepex being far too familiar with this type of self sabotage.

“Shut up Mapicc! You have a weirdly freaky good balance. Elytras are hard to use!” Wrestling with a mix of branches and wings, Jepex still finds it in him to complain and yap. Mapicc just rolls his eyes and continues messaging the rest of the Empire.

Not long after each other, Spoke and Chief land without trouble.

“Okay, serious question guys. Are elytras hard to use? Jepex landed face first into a spruce tree just now. I’ll show you guys the recording later.” Mapicc being Mapicc, had to prove himself correct.

Shooting a glare towards his teammate in red, Jepex starts to defend himself. “I swear those are difficult to use! Mapicc just has crazy balance!”

“Personally, the elytras aren’t too bad, as long as the server isn't lagging they're pretty nice.” Chief scratches his head and continues, “I know what you mean about Mapicc’s balance though, it’s kinda crazy.”

“Yeah, Mapicc you’re kind of a circus freak. I swear I’ve never seen you lose your balance.” Spoke laughs as he points at Mapicc.

Mapicc shoves Spoke’s arm away to move the finger in his face and glares. “Am not, you’re all just stupid and trip on air. Especially you Jepex.” Mapicc says, whipping around in place to face Jepex.

Flabbergasted, Jepex just sputters while everyone else laughs together.

“You’re all so mean to me, Minute would never be this mean to me.” Jepex says, crossing his arms.

“Well Minute isn’t here to save your sorry ass from this!” Spoke says, lunging at Jepex, tackling him to the ground.

“ACK! MAN DOWN! MAN!! DOWN!!!” Jepex shouts dramatically from the forest floor where Spoke is wrestling him around.

Mapicc laughs as he ties his hair up, jumping into the fray.

“Minute isn’t here to save you this time, Mr Jepex Minecraft.”

From the side, Chief laughs but stays away from the tussle, not wanting to get his white toga dirtied with grass and mud. But he pauses mid laugh, a thought crossing his mind.

“Speaking of Minute, where is he?”

A beat, then the three on the floor are scrambling to untangle themselves from one another. Minute is ordinarily a very punctual guy. He usually arrives on time, if not early to any sort of meeting. So, where is he?

“Minute never messaged me back, bro.” Mapicc says, looking up from his communicator, eyebrows pinched together.

“Bro, has Minute ever been late before? I don’t think I’ve ever gotten to a meeting before him.” Spoke puts a hand on his forehead, trying to remember a time Minute hadn’t been punctual.

“Um, okay, does anyone know where Minute is? He's still not responding to messages.” Chief tries his best to calm the situation.

Jepex frantically looks around, as if Minute is going to show up at any second. Pressing tab, he looks to make sure Minute is even online. It was a pretty active day on the server with most of the active members online.

Suddenly, Jepex turns to the group with a panicked look.

“Guys, what if Minute’s been taken hostage, or- or- I mean, Mane and Flame are on, I bet they took Minute hostage. No way Minute is late to a meeting, right?”

The rest of The Empire look at one another.

Logically, the only people who can take Minute in a fight are Flame and Mane, and both are online. In a 2v1, they would have no problem taking Minute hostage.

“Guys, we gotta go save Minute! Get your shit, we gotta find him.” Mapicc takes charge. He motions for everyone to follow him, putting on his elytra, he rockets off towards spawn, an echo of fireworks follow close after.

 

The Empire lands at spawn and do what they do best, be loud.

“MINUTE! ARE YOU HERE?”

“MINUTE!!”

“MISTER MINUTETECH WHERE ARE YOU!”

“MINUTE PLEASE BE HERE!”

When silence follows after their calls for Minute, they start running around the land, looking for any trace of their teammate. Searching high and low, but there was no sign of Minute.

“What do we do now, where could he be?”

“Bro, Minute, where the fuck is he.”

“Nah bro, where would Mane and Flame take him?”

“No one knows where their base is, we could go look for them?”

“Bruh, where would we even find them? It’s not like they just hang around spawn all the time.”

PrinceZam has been slain by FlameFrags

“Oh. Let’s go find Zam.”

 

The Empire landed at spawn in record time, in a rush to find their missing teammate.

“Yo, Zam! Have you seen Minute at all today?”

Mapicc greets his yellow headed friend.

“Hey man, what’s up? Minute? I haven’t seen him today. Why do you ask?”

“We think he’s been captured by Mane and Flame and we’re looking for him. Do you have any idea where they are?”

“Mane and Flame? Why would they have Minute?” Zam smiles, confused by the question he’s just been asked.

Jepex starts, “Well, Minute isn’t responding to our messages…”

“And he was late to our meeting! He’s never late!” Spoke butts in, rushing out his words.

“Yeah, and Mane and Flame are on so obviously they're up to something.”

“And also-”

“Wait wait wait. Pause, run that by me one more time? Minute hasn’t responded to your messages..?” Zam questions.

“Yeah, and he didn’t show up to our meeting too!”

“Uh-huh… you.. messaged Minute- what did you message him? Coords?” Zam asks, cryptically.

“Yeah, I did, so what?” Mapicc asks impatiently.

Zam gives Mapicc and the rest of The Empire an incredulous look.

“You gave the blind guy coords… Are you guys stupid??” Zam rolls his eyes with a scoff. “Nevermind, don’t answer that. I already know the answer.” Zam walks away, muttering under his breath. Something about idiots and shared brain cells.

“Wait, guys. Minute is blind.” Jepex states the obvious.

Mapicc punches Jepex in the shoulder as hard as he can. “You fucking idiot, Minute is blind, not kidnapped. You’re so stupid I swear.”

“OW! Hey! I’m not the one who gave coords to the blind guy.” Jepex says in defense, rubbing his newly sore shoulder.

“Okay Mr. “Mane-And-Flame-Have-Minute-Hostage” Jepex. What made you think he was kidnapped anyways, huh?” Spoke speaks up, secretly just relieved that Minute was safe but raising his voice at Jepex for the fun of it.

Chief relaxes like all the tension had been zapped from his shoulders. He takes a seat on the grass, happy to let the chaotic trio duke it out. As the three continue arguing in the background, Chief raises his communicator to ask Minute where he is, only to stop mid message and smack himself on the forehead.

How Chief nearly made the same mistake that the Empire did no less than a minute ago, he has no idea, but he’s glad he caught himself before hitting ‘send.’ No one else would’ve known, but it’d still have been embarrassing.

Looking over at the rest of his teammates, Chief sees a familiar picture.

Mapicc playfully beating up Jepex while Spoke tries his best to be as annoying as possible. This time around, Spoke was flinging grass at Mapicc and Jepex, not dangerous or laced with any sort of effects but certainly inconvenient. Minute won’t be enjoying the laundry for that later.

“Yo guys, wanna actually go find Minute now? We still have that meeting to finish.” As much as Chief loves seeing his teammates roughhouse, the events of the day made him anxious to see Minute back in their ranks.

“Yeah, let's go find him, he’s probably back at the base grinding gear.” Mapicc says from atop of Jepex’s back.

“Get off Mapicc! You’re heavy as fuck. I wanna go find Minute, let me get up.” Jepex kicks his feet around as Spoke continues to throw grass in his face and into his hood.

“Oh, you did not just call Mapicc fat, bro. Mape, bro, you just gonna take that?” From his place on the ground, Spoke looks around for more grass to pluck, having run out at the place on the floor he was seated.

Rolling his eyes, Mapicc gets up from Jepex’s back and pulls out his elytra and fireworks. “I am not fat, just get up Jepex, let's go back for Minute and finish this stupid meeting or whatever. Anyone need fireworks?”

When no one speaks up, Mapicc starts walking in the direction of the nether portal at spawn. “Alright then, let's go.”

Chief stands up and walks beside Mapicc. Spoke simply gets up, without bothering to brush the grass of his person. With a shake of his head, Jepex gets to his feet and does his best to shake the grass out of his hair, clothes, shoes, and more before giving up and just walking behind the group.

Arriving at the portal, The Empire all stop for a second.

“Meet you guys at the base?” Although phrased like a question, it felt more like an order when Mapicc had already equipped his elytra, ready to go.

Hums of agreement are heard from Chief, who was readying his rockets, and Spoke, who was relaxed and unphased as ever.

“Wait,” Jepex scratches his head. “Can I get some rockets?” Jepex asks, but only receives deadpanned looks from his team.

 

Back at the base, Minute was in their villager hall grinding out gear. Grumbling to himself when he can’t find the misplaced arrows. Someone must’ve forgotten to put them back.

His grumbling is interrupted when his ears perk up, he hears the beat of wings and ring of fireworks being launched.

When he hears the familiar hoard of footsteps running right at him, he prepares himself to give another lecture on the importance of organization, especially in the trading hall.

That is until he’s knocked to the ground by the weight of a very familiar person.

“Minute!” Spoke tackles Minute to the ground, a familiar greeting Minute had gotten used to over the months. “We thought you were kidnapped because Jepex is an idiot.”

An incredulous look makes its way onto Minute’s face.

“Wha- Kidnapped? Why would I be kidnapped? Mapicc?” Minute, from the ground underneath Spoke, turns to his left, searching for Mapicc, who usually stood on his non-dominant side.

“Jepex.” Mapicc shoots a glare, “He was being stupid and had us all convinced that Mane and Flame was holding you hostage.”

“Hey! I was just saying the worst case scenario! You all are the idiots that thought he actually was really kidnapped or something..”

Although Minute can’t see, it doesn't stop him from trying his best to give a deadpanned look to his team.

Minute feels someone lift Spoke off of him and he sits up, posturing to get up.

“What even got you all so worked up? This can’t be coming from nowhere.” he asks while standing up, putting his right hand on his hip.

Minute feels a sudden shift, as if everyone had faced in one direction, but he didn't feel the eyes on him. They were looking at something on his left, or he should say someone. And there was only one person he would let stand directly on his left.

He turns to his left to see if he can catch Mapicc’s gaze but he’s faced away from Minute.

“So.. What happened?” A moment passes without answer and Mapicc stays faced away from Minute.

“We..Might’veforgottenthatyoucan’tsee.”

A rush of words escaped from Chief’s lips.

Minute blinks. “Say that one more time? Didn’t quite catch that.”

Chief nervously shuffles in place, sending a wary glance in Mapicc’s direction. And Mapicc was sending a glare in return, not wanting Minute to be aware of his blunder, and Chief not wanting to get on Mapicc’s nerves.

Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, Jepex does not have that same desire.

“Mapicc forgot you can’t see and messaged you coords-” Before Jepex could finish exposing Mapicc, he gets tackled by him in an effort to keep him quiet.

“Keep your mouth SHUT Jepex!” “aCK-”

While Mapicc and Jepex roll around on the ground, Mapicc trying to keep his hands clamped over Jepex’s mouth, and Jepex doing his best to free himself from Mapicc’s grasp.

In the background, Spoke and Chief are giggling and cheering while Minute does his best to move chests, shulkers, and the like out of the way of the quarreling duo.

“So, I’m guessing it has something to do with Mapicc and coords?” Minute directs his question towards the bystander of the impromptu tussle on the ground.

“Yeah bro, Mapicc sent you a message with the coords for our next meeting. When you didn’t show up, these two dumbasses,” Spoke motions to the two still going at it on the ground, “Flipped their shit and man hunted you down.”

Down on the floor, Mapicc gets up off of Jepex and turns to look at Minute. As if feeling his gaze, Minute returns the look and smiles.

“Forgot I can’t read, huh?”

Mapicc bristles, “W-Well, you just fight so well and you just move so well, I just- I forgot..” He admits, ducking his head down with an embarrassed flush.

Minute laughs, “Never thought I’d see the day where you all forget I can barely see.” He lifts a hand to Mapicc’s head and rests his hand there.

“I remember when you’d all helicopter around me, now you guys don’t even think about it. I’m flattered.” Minute says, addressing the group.

Jepex jumps up from where he was seated on the ground and pushes himself under Minute’s other arm. After Jepex, Spoke jumps into the group of people shouting, “Group hug!” Dragging Chief in with him.

The sudden pressure of people catches everyone off balance, knocking them all to the ground.

Minute barks out a surprised laugh, followed by the laughter of his teammates.

“Okay guys, stop trolling. We have a meeting to finish up.”

“Finish? We never even started it.”

“Well, we could’ve if someone didn’t freak out for no reason.”

“Hey! I-”

“Alriiight, break it up. Meeting time.”

Notes:

-Having Empire all tackle each other constantly was inspired by the way they just start critting each other out in game. I think it’s so cute and the tackling was a way I could put it onto paper.
-I also wrote Jepex being tackled by Mapicc a bunch because their dynamic is kinda just that in my head, with Spoke as an instigator and Chief 50/50 on whether he enjoys watching them fighting or worries. (I’m still getting a handle on Chief’s personality.)
-I wrote the latter part of this fic while being very Mapicc biased and I think that showed oops
-I wrote Mapicc always standing on Minute’s left side because it's his non-dominant side and Mapicc always wants to cover it for Minute. And Minute lets him stand there because he knows Mapicc is strong enough to protect his less guarded side and trusts him there as well. He only lets Mapicc stand there.

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