Chapter Text
Philza, for all the crap that he’s had to judge in all his years as king, has never dealt with a case that has made him this mad.
Okay, sure, there were the petty things that were only brought to him because people suck at conflict resolution, and those irritated him to no end. Or there were the murder cases that turned out to be brutally morbid, and those grossed him out and made him mad on the behalf of the victims and their families.
But never in his life has he been so downright furious at any single case as he was about this one.
Firstly, this was personal for him. His own son had nearly suffered the same, if not a similar, fate as these children. To think that Wilbur, his Wilbur, could have been there, in a place that horrid, when he was just eight years old, made Philza burn with rage.
Secondly, knowing that those people killed Tommy’s parents, and stole the other kids from their parents just to get test subjects- it just ticked him off in every way. Technoblade’s parents ticked him off too, but that was neither here nor there. They were dead now anyway.
Thirdly, the more dirt the guards uncovered from the location they busted, the more Philza wanted to snap someone’s neck, puke, cry, or all three in that order.
This batch of evidence really took the cake on the twisted-beyond-belief scale.
For context, Philza had taken it upon himself to gather at least one family member from each family whose kids were missing. He also asked Technoblade and Tommy if they would like to testify their accounts as well, to which Techno gave a hesitant yes and Tommy gave a definite no.
It had been a week since the rescue took place. Philza hadn’t even been down in the dungeon to tell his prisoners anything- because he wasn’t going to give them anything. Not a peep. He was going to leave those monsters to sit and fester in their dread. They deserved as much.
Now, here Phil was, surrounded by the parents of the children who were taken, his wife, his son, the four villagers, Technoblade, the butler (Sam), his right hand man (Karl), and some of the guards (mainly just Dream, Sapnap, and George). All of the rescued children (minus Techno) were being supervised by a nanny in Tommy’s room.
“Alright!” Phil addressed. “Now that everyone has arrived, I would like to begin. To start us off, I would like to formally apologize to everybody in this room. Eight years ago, after the attempted kidnapping of my beloved son, I promised the kingdom that I would bring an end to the problem that is trafficking, especially with children. Now I see that I have not only failed to uphold my promise yet, but you all directly suffered because of it. I’m sorry I assumed that I was through while the lot of you parents were grappling with the reality that your children were missing.”
The parents in the room shared glances with each other before looking Phil straight in the eye. “You’re forgiven,” one woman said. “No matter who you are, no man can do everything. We appreciate that you have taken responsibility for not taking action, but what’s important is that we have our children back now and we can focus on helping them heal.”
Everyone else nodded in agreement, muttering their two cents that came from the wisdom in her words.
“That brings us to our next topic of discussion,” Kristin piped up. “We know your children have told you what they feel comfortable sharing about their experiences, and now we’re asking for your testimonies so we can carry this case further.”
“Why is everyone else here?” One of the dads asked, eyeing the others that clearly weren’t parents of the affected.
Wilbur spoke up. “Sam and Karl,” he pointed to the two butlers, “are here to both record the things that are said, but also to fetch whatever we need should we need it. Eret, Fundy, Niki, and Quackity,” he pointed to each in turn, “are here because they helped with informing us of the situation, were there for the investigation, and helped with the rescue. They play a giant role in this and their testimonies are crucial here. The guards-“ he pointed to the Dream Team, “are here not only as protection, but also because they were there for the rescue too, and have helped with gathering all the remaining incriminating evidence for us to wrap up this case. And Technoblade-“
“I can speak for myself, thank you,” Techno cut him off.
“Is a teenager,” one lady said. “I understand why the prince is here, he was clearly involved in the rescue, but I fail to see why you have brought yet another kid in here.”
Technoblade arched an eyebrow and stood up, unfurling his wings and puffing them up, letting their presence fill the space. “I too was one of the victims of this organization,” he declared, squinting at the woman who was now recoiling in her chair. “I had been there longer than any of your children. I believe I have the right to speak my truth here. Is that understood?”
All but one of the fathers nodded minutely. “But why aren’t your parents here giving the account in your place?” The one asked worriedly. “You shouldn’t have to relive it.”
Techno turned his piercing gaze to this man, his eyes flashing red in warning. He and Phil spoke at the exact same time.
“My parents are dead to me.”
“His parents are dead.”
Everyone froze. “What? Why?”
Techno huffed and sat down. “You will know my story later.”
So they went. Each parent came forward, describing and repeating the same vague descriptions that their children gave them. Most of the early teenagers and late single-digit kids hadn’t given their parents much simply because they were still in shock and still trying to recover. The younger kids lacked the words to really explain what had happened and they ended up in tears every time they tried to explain. All in all, not much was given.
Then it was Technoblade’s turn. One reason he was explaining the story in a room full of people who had lost their children for a period of time was that they deserved to know a first-hand account from someone who had been stuck in the same situation as their children. They deserved to know what had happened so that they could help their kids move forward.
That didn’t make it any easier in Techno to trauma dump in front of a bunch of strangers.
“To start us off, from what I’ve found out from the royal family, there were children who died and were left in various places throughout the kingdom. They didn’t last as long as others in that wretched place and then the doctors didn’t care enough to not dump them off somewhere random.”
A bunch of the men gasped, all of the women slapped a hand over their heart.
“So, how about we start from the beginning?” Techno decided. “My beginning.
“My parents were a part of a well known family, the Vipers. I’m sure you know of them. The whitecoats- scientists- offered them two thousand dollars in exchange for me. They were told of exactly what would happen to me, yet still, they gave me up. I was six years old at the time, and I still remember, clear as day, Dad counting his money while Mom snarled at me, telling me to never show my face again.”
Most of the parents scrunched their noses in disgust, and one even whispered, “at six years old?”
“I was brought to that place™ where they slammed me into a white cell. It was empty at the start, but the longer I stayed there, the more people joined me.
“There were four things that rotated on our schedule. Knowledge was where they’d hook a kid up to a machine and cram their heads full of information until they passed out. Training was where they would push us all out on a field and teach us to fight before forcing us to fight each other. Enhancements or Changes was where they would strap us to a table and inject us with random crap and see how it affected us.”
One of the mothers let out a choked noise.
“And then there was Discipline. They would put us all onto a field or in a room and they would just hurt us. Most of the time, it was only punching or kicking or biting, but other times they’d actually pull out weapons- guns, knives, pipes, bats, etc.
“And you couldn’t be weak. You couldn’t run, couldn’t hide, couldn’t even cry. They would only find you more repulsive, and would worsen your punishment.
“You had to be good. If you weren’t good, punishments were only getting harsher, and if you were really bad, there was a good chance you wouldn’t live to the next day.”
Someone let out a pained yelp, some people were crying. The entirety of the castle staff that was in the room stood stock still and stared at Techno in horror, but Techno was too caught up in his story to notice.
“The scientists didn’t care how old the ‘bad’ children were. If they didn’t adhere to rules, they wouldn’t make it.
“Tha was why they moved me into the youngest kids’ room. The 6-7 year olds. For every newbie, it was my job to teach them the rules, the way things worked. All the while, I was treated worst of all.
“For one thing, they had jacked up my appearance the most. Made me into some sort of monster-“
“But-“ a woman with curly blond hair cut in. “You don’t look like a monster. Sure, there are the tusks, and the eyes, and the hair, and the wings, but you look like a genuinely nice boy.”
Techno stared at her for a moment before deigning to prove her wrong. He closed his eyes and tensed up his muscles, feeling his body grow. His face elongated into a snout, his skin tinting into a pink color. His ears downturned and his tusks became more prominent. Hooves replaced his hands and feet, and his clothes stretched, tearing around the shoulder areas, and he felt his eyes sting for a moment before he opened them, revealing a deeper, more threatening red than before.
The room was silent, with everybody, royal family included, staring at him with shock and horror. “They did that to you?” Wilbur whispered.
“Yes,” Techno replied, his voice deeper, more gravely. “The kids couldn’t even look at me. They ran screaming. That was four years ago.
“The kids have gotten used to it since then. But of course, they didn’t just change my appearance. They changed a lot of things, gave me, as the name suggests, ‘Enhancements’.”
“What kind of enhancements?” Someone asked.
“Don’t worry about it. Stuff that makes me more dangerous. They were trying to make me a super soldier of sorts.
“But because of the abilities they gave me, I was considered a threat. They had shock collars on all of us like we were their pets, but they had mine up to a more extreme voltage. Everytime they put me back in our room, they would chain me to the wall in shackles. Wilbur can confirm.”
All heads snapped to stare at Wilbur, who nodded. “Yeah. I managed to snag the keys, and I was the one who got him out of the shackles.”
Most of the parents looked sick. Techno took this pause in the discussion to revert back to his more human form. His body shrunk back to its other state, his ears sharpened and upturned again, his skin turned a more pale shade, and his hair returned, now having fallen out of its braid. His clothes hung loosely off of his body, sagging because of the ways they had been stretched.
Phil turned to Karl and Sam, where Karl was scribbling something down furiously. “Could you get the thing for me?” Phil asked Sam. Sam nodded and hurried out.
“Living conditions were horrible,” Techno continued. “Another part of me being a piglin hybrid thing is the fact that I can no longer handle cold temperatures. Like, they will literally kill me. With how little fat I have on my bones from their sparse feeding habits, I couldn’t handle the cold for very long anyway. But since piglins rely on more blazing-environments, I cannot stay in a room under about thirty degrees Fahrenheit for like three days or I will literally die. Not to mention, we didn’t even have a mat to sleep on! It was more of a thin blanket. It was probably supposed to be white, like everything in that stupid room, but it was so stained with crap that it was more of a blackish color. And the food! It can’t even be called food, it was barely edible slop! I swear, it makes prison food look like five star gourmet!
“Either way, most recent crap to happen, obviously the wings, but also the last Discipline resulted in a stab wound in my hand, a gun shot in my shoulder, several bruises up and down my side, a concussion, a broken collarbone, and a broken index finger. Hurt like crazy for a long while. And yeah, that’s all I have to share.”
The others stood stock still, absorbing all of the information given. Holy crap. Their kids went through something similar.
At that moment, Sam appeared, holding a dirty garment with a pair of tongs. He plopped the garment on the table and announced, “this serves as evidence. Does anyone know what this is?”
“Looks like what my kid showed up wearing last week,” a man with a goatee called.
“Exactly. This one is Techno’s. What do you see?”
“Lots of blood.”
“Exactly.”
Phil turned to Techno. “How about you go check on the kids and change into some more fitting clothes? I’m sure you don’t want to be here for the rest of this.”
Techno nodded numbly. “Yeah. Okay.” He turned away and walked out of the room. Phil turned back to his guests. “Eret, Fundy, Quackity, Niki, can you explain your involvement, your stories, and the things you saw while on the rescue mission?”
They nodded, and launched into their tale, their parts. Fundy described interviewing folks, Q described staking out suspicious areas, Eret described how they found the clue that led the rescue party to the location the kids were kept at, and Niki described what he mission was like. Wilbur too chimed in, describing what the 6-7 year olds’ room looked like, what the kids looked like. Kristin detailed what was found in each missing kid’s file, and Phil added all of the things that are common knowledge that Techno doesn’t know of, putting into perspective just how much of his childhood had been stolen. The butlers mentioned the things that they noticed and even the guards pitched in with the evidence they had found, presenting a bunch of lab reports written by the scientists.
The things that those reports contained were horrific. Absolutely disgusting. We aren’t going to go into detail on that one.
All in all, the bigger picture here was looking pretty grim. Clearly, these children had gone through so much, and that broke every heart in the room. They didn’t deserve this. Why them?
“We say all that to give you an idea on how to go forward with helping your child heal.” Phil announced. “Kristin and I are arranging for a welfare fund to help you find support, but I feel like there is one option I would like to present to you. To give you closure.”
Every head in the room (minus Wilbur and Kristin) looked at him with curiosity and wariness. “What is it?” A woman with stormy gray eyes asked.
“Currently, I have each and every criminal guilty in this case that was in that building sitting and rotting in my dungeon,” he informed them. “They will be put to death, but I am presenting you with the option to take your anger out on them. Get your revenge on the people who hurt your children.”
The civilians stared at him in shock. “Really? But that isn’t exactly moral for a king to do.”
Phil shrugged. “As a father, I get it. And also, they stopped being my subjects as soon as they kidnapped the first kid. They can rot. I’m giving you a chance I would take any day.”
Every parent there agreed as soon as he finished speaking, and that was that. The lot of them followed Phil down to the dungeon as Kristin and Wilbur went to go check on the kids.
The guards at the entrance to the dungeon bowed and dragged the perpetrators out into the open, keeping their hands tied up behind their backs.
“Wait,” Dream suggested. “You know how Techno described the ‘Discipline sessions’? Why don’t we line them up like that and force them to experience the same thing?”
Phil grinned menacingly. “I like the way you think. Guards, line them up and bring us some weapons. Whatever you can find.”
The guards obeyed, and each of the participating civilians looked on with varying levels of excitement as they were presented with a weapon each. The prisoners trembled in fear, their eyes welling up with tears.
Niki was wayyyy too excited. She grinned creepily, holding her index finger to her lips in the universal ‘shh’ motion. “Don’t scream,” she cooed.
They didn’t listen.