Archive of Our Own ^beta

[ethos2017's section]

It's not an easy process to materialize something out of nothing.

Revival brings a hollowness to Evbo's life, his sense of self gouged out and gutted for every new corpse he reanimates and blesses back to life. He feels the energy which had driven him so high before, all of that ambition he'd harnessed into a determination for a better life, everything that he used as spite to get to the top be watered down over time, diluted and sanitized to the point of parody.

Evbo can no longer recall the stringiness of raw chicken, of the plastic rubbery texture it possessed under his tongue, of how the meat stuck in between his teeth and lies within the crevices of his gums even now. His memory deteriorates with the expansion of his civilization, as his mind dissolves into a mess of scrambled code and contention, everything that was once his own now his civilization's too. 

A child whose toys are suddenly made to be shared, is the metaphor Evbo will pick for this deevolution of himself. He is meant to share his mind, his care, his responsibility to a population of people who would have threatened him to do tricks for their amusement now, he's meant to pretend like that in the happiest of his dreams, there is not just him and his friend within an empty meadow. 

His friend is the only thing he's allowed to have to himself anymore. They won't be a thing he's made to share, if he has any say. He doesn't care if they're Champion or that he was the one to appoint them as such, he'd be damned if this society took even one more thing from him. 

And without any token protest, his friend seems to be keen on the idea of sticking together as well, seeing as they don't dare scold him for when he spectates a block too close, whenever he watches them over a day too long– they don't care. At the very most, all they ask from him are frivolous favors, silly things like a brother's revival, or a shiny golden apple, or a day with him only by their side.

Evbo could never deny their prayers in the face of this loyalty.

However, he thinks that this comes to a close first. 

"Him? You want to revive him?" he blurts out incredulously, feeling his face morph into that of an expression of confusion. It's justified though, he knows it is, because–

"You don't need to act so shocked," his friend replies, tip-toeing around the issue of which they made. "Honestly, I thought that you would suggest bringing back Seawatt first, given your history with him."

"My history?" Evbo prompts hesitatingly, apprehensive of what exactly they're talking about with that last bit.

A nod. "You were the one who spent the most time with him, out of the two of us, and you were the one who watched him die. I thought that you'd be the most eager to get him alive again."

It drains Evbo to even think of Seawatt as breathing again. "Really?" he asks tiredly, his mood weighed down by the reminder of his time with Seawatt on the Fighter layer. Socked feet drop from the air, as he shifts on their couch to a more comfortable position, onto his side, facing them. "Weren't you like being held hostage by him in his basement or whatevbo?"

His friend turns over to him, meeting his eyes with a judgemental stare. "One, stop trying to make that a thing, it's a bad pun and makes you sound corny; two, in what world would those interactions make me excited to bring him back?"

"This one apparently," Evbo points out, fingers going to fidget with the baggy fabric of their shirt, his own shirt currently in the wash. "Since, y'know, you're asking me to do just that?"

A fond roll of the eyes, accompanied with a sigh that borders on a chuckle. "Fair, fair," they concede with a tinge of bitterness to their tone at being corrected. "But can you do it for me?"

He bites the inside of his cheek, looking back to the cushions of the couch, rather than their pleading stare. He considers it, his mind a blurry haze of cons and pros to Seawatt's revival. 

"I don't know," Evbo eventually breathes out, his fingers going to grip his arms tight, a reminder that Seawatt's not here, that he isn't alive, that he hasn't yet given in. "Why do you even want him to be back? Don't you remember what he did to us?"

What about what he did to me? Evbo's thoughts whine. Don't you care, my friend? Why don't you care about what I went through?

They blink at the latter part of his response, eyes softening with an understanding. Their hand comes to cup his face, curling over the surface of the couch to touch his skin, claws dragging over his frown which is bordering on a pout. 

"I do, Evbo. Believe me, I do. But that's why I want him back, don't you see?" his friend coos, tone a sweet thing that makes his annoyance dissolve at the sound of it. Still, he shakes his head, because the logic he sees is half-formed and requires explanation. 

"No, I don't see," Evbo admits, hands digging into the skin on his arms, nails scratching at himself. "What do you mean?"

[m1ss1ngt3xtur3's section below]

*

[dyslexic_gremlin's section below]

Evbo took a deep, centering breath. While he had eventually agreed to honor his friend’s request, the anticipation that clawed at him left his hands shaky.

He had been through this process countless times before, over and over again, sometimes with barely a break to breathe in between. He had pushed, twisted himself to complete every request as it weighed on him and striped him away.

This time, however, it seemed to be the hardest he’d done by far.

Which was ridiculous, all things considered. Such an objectively trivial task to a god shouldn’t shake him to his foundation. It shouldn’t leave his mind scattered and his heart hammering. But, it did.

And, despite it all, he had to push through. Not for him, no matter what his friend tried to push. Definitely not for Seawatt (he didn’t think about how some small part of him longed to see the man again). But, for his friend. The person whom Evbo would rewrite the entire world for, if he had just asked.

Refocusing on the task at hand, Evbo shuffled his feet to reposition his center of gravity, and took another deep breath in.

As air filled his lungs, stands of energy gathered around his hands.

He called out to the ambient specks of energy that floated all around him; from the earth beneath his feet, from the stars that burned countless miles away, from the moon that shared their orbit, from the sun that breathed life into them, and from the vacuum of space that filled everything in between.

It floated between his outstretched fingers as it naturally condensed. The energy pushed and pulled itself, pulsating as each bit slid against the other, locking into place.

It was beautiful— frighteningly so in how, if Evbo had lacked his control just slightly, he would lose himself to time itself just watching it. The pale colours of it invisible to the naked eye, but creating an ever changing dance to him.

Suddenly, Evbo cupped his hands. He gathered the energy in the palms of his hands before clamping them together, smothering the sight and blocking any more attempts to hypnotize him.

The wispy stands of energy were pleasantly warm against his skin, but Evbo still shivered at the feeling.

(It was unsettling. The fact that such a process could be so beautiful, yet carried such strain with it.)

Without allowing himself to dwell on the matter, he squeezes the energy in between his hands. The resistance that meets him is negligible, but he knows that more is yet to come. It’s a slow process, pressing the multitudes of particles together.

It would be even slower, had Evbo left it to the natural process. But, the act of revival was anything but. 

Once the space between his hands shrunk from the size of a softball to that of a tennis ball, it was time for the next step.

Evbo closed his eyes and, ever so carefully, reached his senses deep within himself. At the center of his being, burning brightly and ever pulsating was his own energy core. With slow, practiced movements, he began to strip a piece of it off. 

His energy, as he found, was a seemingly untapped well, no matter how often he went through such a process. An after effect of his ascension.

With one final tug (that spreads a sharp, drilling pain throughout his entire being before dissipating a moment later), a pale green strand of energy soon floats in the space in front of him.

Expressing the same amount of care as he did with the previous steps, Evbo intermingles the new piece with the tightly compact ball settling in his hands.

Through his closed hands, he can feel as the different energies greet each other, mixing together at a faster pace than natural with Evbo’s encouragement.

Evbo’s energy was a needed conduit, adding in the spark that was needed to bring life— the spark that was needed to bring back life that had previously been lost. Thinking back to his original attempts to do so without it made him shudder.

As he continues to compress the multitudes of energies within his hands, he twists around the remaining clump of energy he had pulled from Seawatt’s corpse.

Its edges were frayed, the body of it transparent and the colour dull.

Faced with the last remaining trace of the man he was reviving, Evbo thought back to his conversation with his dear friend.

“This is the chance to get the closure you need, Evbo,” his friend had explained calmly, as if Evbo was a fragile ice sculpture of himself. “A chance for me to get closure. This is something that we both know needs to happen.”

Evbo opened his mouth to retort, ignoring the fact that some part of him agreed, whole-heartedly. Before he had the chance, his friend continued.

“Evbo,” he said, voice weary and heavy, but no less comforting, you can’t keep letting this eat you alive.”

Seawatt’s remaining energy twirled lazily in the space in front of Evbo. He wasn’t sure if he should be shocked over the fact that his friend had picked up on some of his deepest feelings— after all, he was Evbo’s closest friend ( his only friend).

After another moment that he took to collect himself, Evbo pulled the dulled purple energy into the collective that he held.

It was fragile work, reviving someone, and he couldn’t let himself get distracted now.

Carefully, Evbo began to painstakingly interweave each stand of energy with each other. He prodded and tied ends, wrapped stands, and knotted bundles, taking care that each different point didn’t reject the other.

Along with being the spark of life it desperately needed, his own essence acted as the glue that kept it all together. A piece of him that he would never get back, holding together the life force of countless others as they got their second chance at life.

All his hard work was worth it, as a new energy center soon emerged. It radiated new life, but carried a distinct purple colour and ripples that almost ended in sharp points.

This is for my friend's request, Evbo reminds himself as he hesitates a moment before the revival process completes. Not for me, not for Seawatt. For him.

Evbo exhales, and with a flash of light, Seawatt is once again in front of him, chain boots glinting in the light.

[ethos2017 section below]

The coughing fit that Seawatt descends into is something which breaks the quiet tension that has built up. Evbo takes a step back from the player who's retching and gasping for air, his headache flaring at all the noise, and he tries to ignore the pain which lingers. 

He almost doubts that this is Seawatt, that this is the man who had toyed with civilization's memories, that this is the man who held his friend hostage over the void for months on end, that this is the man who has been the star of God's nightmares ever since his ascension.

He would think that he somehow mistook another Fighter for Seawatt, that this was just some doppelgänger that he managed to mix up with the real Seawatt, if not for the way the player looks up at him, a glower which could burn ever present, a grimace on the cusp of every expression he takes. No, for this is Seawatt, this is him, that damn traitor.

"Get up," he murmurs, overshadowed by the sound of Seawatt struggling to keep himself alive. He resists the urge to give him a good kick. "Get up," he repeats, firmer this time, and at last, Seawatt appears to be trying to do that.

At least he knows how to listen. At least he's better than a feral street dog.

He wonders what exactly his friend was on when they told him to revive Seawatt. Closure. What closure is he meant to gleam from this? What closure will he be granted by reviving the man who ruined his life and destroyed his home?

But he guesses that's not the point of this. This is for his friend, after all. His opinion on this is irrelevant.

Evbo's palms itch, filthy with energy, and he wipes them onto the denim of his jeans as he watches Seawatt crumple under the force of his own weight once, twice, until he manages to stand on shaky legs. 

His head rises slowly, his movements mechanical, like a puppet upon strings, like how he looked in his last moments. Evbo doesn't wince at the smattering of blood which hints from beneath his midnight black hair, the aftermath of death which lingers within the tear-streaked mascara, nor does he flinch at the curling his bloodied and split lips take to twist into a snarl. 

"Even in death I can't escape you," Seawatt mutters under his breath, a roll of his eyes and a tight set to his mouth revealing how grateful he is for this revival.

Evbo wishes he could snuff out that defiance as easily as it came, that he could put him back down as one would to an unruly dog. But he didn't put all that effort into bringing him back for nothing. 

"Wow," he retorts, something fake, something sarcastic, something insolent and all around unfitting of a benevolent God stuck in his tone. "Ungrateful much? I thought you didn't want to die, since you, y'know, tried to bargain for your life with the Villain?"

"Nobody wants to die, Evbo. Though I can't be surprised that you would lie down and take death like a common mutt," Seawatt remarks, wickedness carving out a grin on his face. "Noobs were always the most weak-willed, my parents did always say."

At his side, a hand curls into a fist. "I'm not a Noob anymore, Seawatt."

"Please," Seawatt laughs, "Don't try and make me play into your little fantasies. You were made for the bottom, Evbo. Nothing will change that."

Under the force of Evbo's knuckles, his nose breaks easily, with a sickening crack of which God delights in. The skin of his hand is splattered with blood, and he brushes that off on his pants like last time. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he watches Seawatt cup his face, breathing in heavily. He wonders if he has ever felt something like this before. He wonders if he'll be the one who gets to break Seawatt in.

God ignores the way his heart jumps at the possibility.

"Don't try to talk down to me. I told you. Things have changed since you died, traitor. I changed. My friend changed. Civilization, as a whole, has changed."

"For the worse, I presume," Seawatt chokes out, a hand still pressed against his face to shield the evidence of his injury, his eyes still narrowed in rebellion.

Evbo grits his teeth, wondering if he couldn't just revive Seawatt again if he goes too far. "I guess in your eyes, then yeah, I guess it did."

Where the hell is his friend, he asks himself. He thought that they were going to at least show up for Seawatt's revival, considering the fact that they were the one to request this. God thought that his Champion wasn't that much of a coward. 

Maybe he assumed wrong, Evbo contemplates, whilst he ignores Seawatt sneaking another glance at him, his desperate breaths heavy within the silence. Maybe his Champion isn't as loyal as he hoped.

[ethos2017's section below]

[m1ss1ngt3xtur3's section below]