Archive of Our Own ^beta

From the time he found it, Saparata knew his soulmate’s mark wasn’t good news. It was a single curved line, two dots on either side. A smile from one way, a frown from the other. It wasn’t both at the same time from any perspective. 

At a glance, it seemed cute. Two sides of a coin, opposites attract, yin and yang– sure. Not really. From the start, Saps assumed it was more of a constant struggle if he was being honest, because…c’mon, they can’t both be happy at the same time if this was any indication. It wasn’t the most dreamy scenario. 

Every time Saparata tries to envision his soulmate, he doesn’t picture hearts and glitter. In fact, he envisions sleeping on the couch because his soulmate can’t stand him. It’s a precautionary thing, since it doesn’t really sound like he’s gonna be one half of a power couple.

And to make matters worse, the mark was on his left forearm, so he couldn't really disregard it and pretend it wasn’t real. 

He just accepts it and tries to let it slip his mind. Soulmates were a feature, not a fate-defining thing. Not everyone stuck with their soulmates, not everyone found them– but this time around, the chances were geography-based (from what the mods had said) so you had a high chance of them being on the same island as you. 

That meant they were almost certainly on Pandora with him. It still wasn’t a huge concern. Saparata met a ton of people on that first day. Did he ask any of them about a mark? No, he was too busy surviving. He was gathering supplies for the future.

Saps didn’t intend to go hunting for his soulmate. He wasn't concerned with that. He’s a grown man with himself to feed and keep alive. All he wanted to do was to spend his time peacefully. The symbol on his left forearm was the last thing he was going to pursue. 

(If he spies someone else with it, then that’s just fate. He won’t say he believes in it, but he won’t deny it. He’s a simple person– not actively seeking, but rather crossing that bridge when he comes to it.)

He wanders down the shore of the island he’d landed on. Turns out he’d been dropped in an island archipelago, but he’d been dropped on what passerbys were calling the ‘main island’ at this point. It was lush, pretty, full of everything he could possibly need and more.

It’s plentiful enough that before you know it, he’s in the mines, digging up so many diamonds in one trip it’s a new record. He joins a little group of people– some guy named Fluixon he seems to hit it off pretty well with, despite his personality– and clears out a cave for its riches.

“Look at how many diamonds he’s got!” Flux brags on his behalf when Ish stops by. Saps holds up diamonds in both hands, sparkling in the dimly lit cave. Flux gestures to them as if he mined them himself. He can see the grin on his face from the corner of his vision.

“You guys have it so well over here.” Ish comments vaguely. He’s gone not long after. It leaves him vaguely wondering about the other island, but not long enough to distract him from the fact he was loaded up with diamonds.

Someone named HvyRotation– a big muscular guy, who was walking around shirtless for some reason– tosses him even more diamonds as an apology for nearly hitting him into lava. They can pass around such a valuable resource and laugh about it like that. Saparata feels downright filthy and greedy.

(He spies the mark on Rotation’s spine and wonders if it’s that or the physique his shirt is missing for.) 

By the time they wrap up their trip, Saps has a full set of armor, tools, and leftover diamonds. Flux and his crew of about 5 others have the same. The sun starts to dip in the sky at the same time they all emerge from the cave, covered in dust and debris but so much richer.

They divvy up and pack up materials when twilight falls and the sun kisses the horizon. Saps drifts off to the side after he gets his armor suited up and tools sorted. Fluixon approaches him while the rest of his crew gather a few extra resources. 

“That was a wonderful expedition,” He says, wiping his face. “I’m glad you could join us.” 

“Sure thing, dude, that was awesome.” Saps agrees. “I don’t think I’ve ever got so much from one trip.”

“I’m impressed we got that much without looting.” Flux says. He reaches up to scratch his face and looks at the dirt building up beneath his nail. He groans and tries to rub the dirt off his fingers. He says something about it under his breath.

Saps reaches up to his own face and wipes off a layer of dust. He frowns. “I’m gonna go wash my face off, this is gross.”

“God, me too. I hate how debris feels on my skin.” Fluixon shakes his head. 

Sapa and Flux make their way to a stream breaking through the landscape to wash the cave dirt away. Flux crouches down on his right and starts to wash his face off.

Saps cups his hands and rinses away the dirt. He catches Flux from the corner of his eye, poised between himself and the sun. The lengthy shadows that are cast highlight the depth of his face; Saps notices the crooked nose, slightly raised cheekbones, and thin lips. He looks back at the water for a second. 

Flux turns back to glance at his team, who are picking up saplings and sticks from a tree they’re tearing down. Thomas, a quiet but clever type, stands in the glow of a furnace while he burns the logs for charcoal. 

Flux dabs his face off with his sleeve and walks over to him. Saps leans back. All in all, Flux was pretty nice. He had a snarky personality and asserted himself as their ‘leader’ early on. Saps noticed his focus on teamwork. It was commendable, he seems to fit his role. He just seemed to think he was a little better than everyone else in the room while he did it.

Given the time and conditions, Saps is pretty sure an egomaniac would reveal himself in Flux. It was a little bit charming. 

Speaking of him, Fluixon was striding back over to his side. He puts one hand behind his back and examines his nails idly.

“We’re setting up tents to stay the night in. You’re quite welcome to join us if you want. We’ll take care of you.” He offers, refusing to look up as he speaks. It was an obviously subtle attempt at recruitment. “It’s no trouble, really.” 

“You sure?” Saps bites the bait. “I mean, I do need a place to crash, but I kinda leeched diamonds off of you guys.” 

“Don’t worry about it.” Flux glances up with a tiny smile. “Having someone different around is a breath of fresh air.” 

From the corner of his eye, he can spy the rest of his group trying to pitch a tent. He briefly wonders how their group operates under him. 

“Alright, sure, I’ll stay with you guys for the night. You gotta pinkie promise you aren’t gonna mug me, though, okay?” Saparata cracks a grin, holding up his left pinkie childishly.

Fluixon matches his expression and raises his own hand. Saparata quietly makes the observation that it was a metal prosthetic, and it looked advanced. He hooks his pinkie around the cool steel.

“I promise. If I break it, you can personally sue me and Luminara.” Flux laughs.

Saps tilts his head. “Luminara? Isn’t that one of the nations springing up?”

Fluixon nods. “It is. You’re talking to the Vice President of Luminara. Most of my crew are cabinet members, as well.”

“Woah, so I’m like, in good with Luminara’s government, then.” Saps snickers. 

Flux shines him a diplomatic smile. “Consider yourself a friend of Luminara.” 

“Just Luminara?” He pouts, unable to wipe the stupid grin off his face. “Not you specifically?”

“Luminara’s by proxy to our friendship. It might be unethical to be a little biased, but…honestly, who’s keeping score?” Flux shrugs. “Anyway, we have three tents. Originally, I was just going to sleep alone in mine, but I can fit in with Thomas and Snowbird if you’d like to take it.” 

“Is there enough room in there for three guys?” Saps looks at the pegs in the grass. Rotation and Snowbird were trying to decipher the framing for the cover. Thomas was shouting directions while Gotoga was unfolding the cover. 

Flux follows his gaze. His face scrunches. “How many people does it take to pitch a tent?” 

“It might take all six at this rate.” 

Fluixon sighs. “Stay here, I’ll sort them out. Just have your sleeping situation decided when I’m back.” 

Saps shoots him a thumbs up and he goes to wrangle their tents up.

He decides to just share Fluixon’s tent with him. There was plenty of room, and he didn’t really care. He felt like he could trust Flux wasn’t going to rob him in his sleep for some reason. 

(Honestly, he had what was his safest rest there that he had in a while.)

The next day, he’s the last to wake up. 

He sees Flux hovering outside of the tent in the morning, still fitting his jacket over his arms. He probably just got up too. The empty space beside him is still warm. He rubs his eyes and sits up with a good sense of mental clarity.

He rolls his shoulders and hears his shoulder crack. 

“Saparata?” Fluixon asks.

“I’m up.” Saps yawns. 

“You hungry?” 

“A little.” He nods.

Fluixon feeds him that morning, and when he’s done eating, he lets out a weary sigh.

“We should probably go meet our team soon. Do you need somewhere to stay? Luminara would gladly accommodate someone like you.” He invites Saps.

Saps gives him an apologetic shake of the head. “I’ve already got plans, sorry. Thanks for the offer, though.” 

Flux nods. “If you ever change your mind, shoot me a message.” 

“Same for you, man. You need something, just hit me up.” Saps grins at him. 

Saps puts him on a priority list on his communicator. He heads off with a smile and wave, and lands in Tricolour. Jophiel smiles at him and she gives him a tour of the districts. Seraphim is in tow, the Second Lady of Tricolour and an acting bodyguard for the queen. 

(And sheesh, what a character. Seraphim throws a fit over the enchantment table by dropkicking a flower pot into the ocean, then tossing up a pumpkin and batting it like a baseball with her sword.) 

Jophiel smoothes out her dress and looks at him admiring the building sector of the nation. “You could stay in Tricolour, if you like.” 

He turns. “Huh? Oh– oh, no, I’ve got plans already. Sorry, Jophiel.” 

She nods. “I suspected as such. Tricolour will always open its hearts to you, Saparata; remember that.” 

He thanks her and he goes on his way, ending up in the Cass Coalition. The city was a mess in terms of design– the leader, Cass, was a firm and well-organized person, though. 

“These foundations are here for a reason!” Someone shouts.

Saparata turns to see Cass and the freshly-appointed build inspector for the Coalition standing in front of a pair of citizens. Cass is stifling a laugh.

“What is this mess!?” The build inspector shouts. “It’s an architectural disgrace!” 

“But it’s my house--”

“It’s a heap of dirt!” 

Cass bursts out laughing. She doubles over, then manages to reach out and pat the build inspector on the shoulder. He huffs and crosses his arms.

“Okay, you made your point, hon.” She cracks a smile. “Keep saving the city with your building foundations.” 

Saparata spies their matching soulmarks on their necks. 

Cass finally seems to notice him and turns to face him. “Hey! Welcome to the Cass Coalition! How’s it going?” 

Nations were springing up all around the archipelago now. Saparata’s mapped out all the major nations on the Northern island; Luminara, Aperion, the Cass Coalition, the Commonwealth, and Tricolour. 

Later that day, Jophiel tells him that Fluixon specifically vouched that he could be a neutral mediator at the first nation-wide meeting. With nothing better to do, he agrees. All the big players from the island had gathered there. The topic of discussion was the other island.

Someone passed propaganda made by the poor island around the table. Saparata sees the way Fluixon’s gaze darkens when he views it. He was representing all of Luminara; 3below had skipped out on the meeting and sent Flux in his place. His jaw sets and he starts thinking. Saps can see the gears turning in his head.

But by the end of the meeting, Fluixon blows any chance he had at making himself credible by proposing such an awful plan, he’s demoted from his position.

Out of the kindness of his heart, Saparata takes him in. 

Saparata finds himself a smaller island in the southern region of Pandora’s waters. It’s nice and secluded, and Saps can stay out of anything unnecessary. It’s the perfect spot for his plan– a vacation home.

He has Flux help him build his vacation home– he uses the excuse that manual labour is punishment. He brings his friends. Snowbird, Gotoga, Hvyrotation, and Thomas all come along.

They take a break before the start on the roof. Saparata and Fluixon sit on the staircase together and talk. The topic of conversation naturally drifts to the topic of soulmates and their corresponding marks.

Then Flux says something that really sparks his interest.

“You…don’t have one?” 

It wasn’t impossible– it was about as rare as having two different eye colors. Saps hasn’t met anyone without a mark before, though, so he tilts his head curiously.

“I used to.” Flux amends his statement before Saps can get excited. “It was on my left arm.” 

He holds out the silver limb. Saps lifts his eyebrows and watches the ball joints turn. Now that he looks, the faintest of crimson glow comes from the space between joins. Redstone. It was impressive.

“What was it?” Saps asks impulsively. 

Flux laughs. “I can hardly remember. My arm was severed when I was very, very young. It was a freak accident with a polar bear.” 

“You fought a polar bear?” Saps sits up straighter. “That’s so badass! I can’t imagine you fighting a polar bear, dude! And you were little, that’s sick!”

There’s a poorly disguised smug expression on Fluixon’s face. 

“It was brutal, I assure you. My father was taking me on a hunting trip to avoid a meeting,” He sighs wistfully. “Not that I remember it now, but the way the story goes, I got courageous while he was sharpening his sword.” 

“Oh, yeah, you probably wouldn’t remember something like that. Did you, like, go into shock?” Saps rests his palm on the stair, leaning back to try and scan for any scars he could find on Flux. His clothes were so layered, there was no chance, but the curiosity wasn’t going anywhere.

“I hit my head off of the ice when it attacked me.” Fluixon supplies. “I was unconscious. Dad killed the bear, took me back, and then had it turned into a rug. That thing was in my room for the longest time.” 

The longer he talked about it, the less likely it seemed. Saparata starts to wonder if he’s gullible. He wouldn’t put it past Flux to have this grand lie plotted out to mess with any unfortunate person who asks. For all Saps’ knows, it could be natural.  

Flux seems to notice his skepticism. “Do you want to see the scars?”

“Huh?” Saparata perks up. “Yeah, actually, if you’re cool with it.” 

“I don’t usually show people.” Flux says, undoing the button of his sleeve. He begins to roll it up to the base of the metal limb. He meticulously detaches it and pulls it away from the wool cover. Saparata glances inside the arm and sees an observer face. Complex technology.

Then he pulls off the cover. Saps half-expects Flux to start laughing at him as he reveals an unharmed nub. He’s proven so, so wrong. There’s a gnarled, grossly scarred mass just past his elbow. It’s long-healed, but deep lines cross over like spiderwebs. Pale lines extend up towards his bicep. It’s almost gross.

But at the same time, it’s so, so cool

Saparata stares, jaw slacking. Flux bends what’s left of his elbow and the mass of scar tissue shifts. 

“What happened to it?” Saps asks. “Wait, is that wrong to ask?”

“I don’t mind telling you.” Flux shrugs. “When it attacked, it caught my arm in its jaws. Tore up the forearm.” Flux cracks a smile. “I think it ate my hand.” 

“Dude.” Saparata says. “That’s actually insane.” 

“It’s an average part of my dark, twisted childhood.” Flux smiles with a sarcastic drawl. He pulls the cover back over his arm. “Anyway, I’m pretty sure whatever my mark was got lost along the way. We’ll never know who my soulmate is. Maybe I wasn’t meant to have one in the first place.”

“Be pretty neat if you still ended up finding out who they are. Who knows? Maybe you’ll know it when you see it on someone else.” Saps says. Everyone always has a surreal moment when they see their mark on someone else. It depends on the person as to how they react, but it’s a similar feeling for everyone. 

“Maybe I will.” Flux huffs out a laugh. He fusses with the cover and his nub distractedly. “How about yours?”

“I’m not looking for mine.” Saps holds his arm out and shows Flux the strange symbol on his arm. “It’s not a huge concern. If I find them, that’s cool, but it’s no big deal right now.”

Fluixon goes quiet as he studies Saparata’s arm for a beat. Then another. He looks away quickly to keep fidgeting with his own arm. He fastens the prosthetic in place and rolls every finger joint before he replies.

“It looks familiar.” He says, busy focusing on buttoning his sleeve again. He curses under his breath as he fights with it. 

Saps reaches over and buttons it for him quickly. Flux lifts his eyebrows but gives him an appreciative nod. 

“I swear I’ve seen that mark before.” Flux continues. He notices the expression Saps takes on. “I know you don’t care to look, but it’s interesting to me. It’ll keep me busy if nothing else.”

“Like you need to stay busy.” Saps shakes his head. 

“It’s a puzzle. I like those.” Flux shrugs. “As a benefit, you find your soulmate. You have someone to live out your days with.” 

“You know, maybe once things settle, you could spend more time here. I need to build a farm or two and need someone smart to automate them.” Saps offers. “Soulmate or not.” 

Flux tilts his head. “I think you’re knowledgeable enough, Saps. I have to regain 3below and Luminara’s favour.” 

“The world’s not gonna turn upside-down if you take some time off, man.” 

Flux gives him a wry, tired smile. It’s almost knowing, like a cruel irony Saps doesn’t quite get– but it doesn’t last long enough for it to be anything more than odd yet forgettable, Flux is already moving onto his next words. 

“Haven’t you heard the phrase no rest for the wicked?” 

“Pfft,” Saps snorts. “Alright, edgelord.” 

“I mean it! The moment I settle–”

Flux stops when their comms buzz quietly. That only happens when someone on their priority list dies– they both share world leaders on their lists. A cool sense of dread begins to eat its way up Saparata’s spine as they both quietly check it.

Jophiel_ was slain by Seraphim_Here

“...Something terrible would happen.” Fluixon finishes, words coming out arid. In shock, really. He sounds like he’s still processing. Saparata knows he is.

He spoke to Jophiel recently. He saw Seraphim, diligently standing at her side, ready to defend the queen at any cost. Now Jophiel was dead and Seraphim was a traitor.

He slowly looks up at Flux, who’s still looking at his screen quietly. His jaw is clenched. He only looks up when his crew come over, all worriedly chattering about Jophiel’s death. 

“You have to call a meeting.” Fluixon says eventually.

Everyone looks at him. Saps glances at his house. 

“The meeting hall’s not done-”

“We can finish it. This is serious. It’s a matter of national security.” Flux says, standing up. “I’ll ask 3below if I can attend. You should go.” 

Saparata gets up, still in a slight state of shock, but he nods anyway. He’s running off to other nations in a sort of haze, asking leaders to come with him and bring their best guards.

“Rig the only redstone line to be flawed over Aperion. They have assigned seating, so it’ll be this one right here.” Fluixon taps on a seat as he looks up through a hole in the ceiling. He looks at a plaque on the table. “We can frame Aperion as a little payback.”

“Do you want us to do Sap’s chair, too?” Snowbird asks from another unfinished ceiling gap.

Fluixon pauses, humming in thought. He weighs the pros and cons for a moment, looking at the table with a creased brow. 

“Yes,” he decides. “Make that and Aperion the only two with faulty wiring.” 

He sits down in the chair with a plaque on the back that reads Luminara. He props his boots up on the table and crosses his legs as he looks above him, arms crossed. 

“You know, Saparata’s a great guy.” He laments aloud. He doesn’t sound too distraught, but he frowns anyway. “I feel bad to do this to him. Shame this has to happen.” 

“You seem to get along with him pretty well.” Thomas chimes, delicately laying the redstone lines above the ceiling. 

“We saw him showing you his mark.” NewKids chimes, hanging out of the ceiling, upside-down. He holds one finger up and imitates a nerd face. “That totally didn’t mean anything.”

Flux lifts his hand up and knocks on the metal of his prosthetic with it. “Missing it. Try again.” 

“Doesn’t mean you didn’t have it before!” NewKids snickers, before swinging himself back up. Fluixon just rolls his eyes. (He has a point.) 

He looks at the seat at the head of the table. It’s Saparata’s seat, bigger than the rest, and it kind of reflects his personality. Flux might’ve proposed the idea of a larger chair– he was the mediator, it was his island, they had to listen to him when it was getting out of hand, it made sense. 

Saps would be back sooner than he’d like. The trap was coming along quickly, but there wasn’t time to check and make sure it was effective. They set the dripstone, sealed anything they left open, and fled the scene.

They lose Seraphim as the cost of pulling off the most audacious stunt yet, but Fluixon suspected that she never expected to make it out in the first place.

“What the fuck just happened!?”

Saparata jumps out of his seat when he sees the stalactites drop. One after another, bodies drop. Some slump over the table, some fall to the floor, the rest–

He hears something above him crack and watches dripstone fall into his seat. It crumbles as it hits the mangrove. His heart all but stops beating when he sees it.

“I-I didn’t do that…!” He manages. He stands there, in total shock, head darting around frantically. He can vaguely register a few people still standing. He locks eyes with someone. Slowly, his eyes drift up to the open ceiling gaps. 

Blood was pooling on the floor, constant red coming up around them. He hears shouting, sees someone running away. There’s a few perimeter guards– the ones now-dead leaders brought to keep them safe– giving chase. 

He starts to back away slowly as attention turns to that. Once he turns on his heel, he’s sprinting and stumbling down the hillside. His arms are out and rock falls down the hillside beneath his feet. It’s sheer determination that keeps him from tumbling down the hill. 

His feet hit the sand heavy as he hears footsteps behind him– or maybe that’s his heart pounding in his ears. He doesn’t have any active thoughts. He’s running on fight or flight. It’s autopilot, that has to be how he’s still functioning. He boats away.

He looks behind him. There are people on the shore, getting ready to push boats off and give chase. 

Where does he go? He just fled a crime scene. He has people chasing him– oh god, they think he did it, he’s going to be hunted down. He can’t go anywhere without someone on his ass. He doesn't even know who’s going to let him plead his case.

Leaders were dead. They died in his meeting hall, on his island, at his meeting. His roof was the one with the trap in it. Nobody was going to believe him. He had dodged a dripstone aimed to kill him like he knew it was coming. He ran from the scene. Guilt was written all over him.

He didn’t have anyone to listen. There was nobody he ha–

…Wait.

He had someone to run to.

“Luminara would gladly accommodate someone like you.” 

He lets out a breath and makes a hard turn in the direction of Luminara, hoping to find the only person he felt like trusting.

Part of him is glad Fluixon was put on leave– it meant he was far from the trap and safe. His thought drifts to 3below. He can’t remember if he lived or not. It was all a blur, and blood had gone everywhere, so he couldn’t tell who had lived or died by that alone. His thoughts were too muddled. 

Flux is level-headed. He’ll have an idea of what to do– surely he will. Saparata hopes he will

“That’s crazy!” 

Fluixon is a terrible actor. He repeated that phrase for the fifth time in a row, unable to tamp down on the giddiness in his voice. Legacy is probably too confused or in shock to notice anyway. All in all, he’s done well enough. He kept himself from cheering when the death messages first flew in.

He and Legacy stand in Luminara, listening to the chatter and bustle over the development. He checks his comm with shaking hands. It’s out of sheer excitement, but if you were to ask him, he would say anxiety. He can’t blow his cover. 

<NewKids> GOT EM BOSS

<NewKids> lost seraphim tho :(

<Fluixon> i saw. anyone see you?

<NewKids> nahh they were too focused on saps escape so i got away 

Flux stops in his tracks. His face drops.

<Fluixon> escape? 

<Fluixon> are you telling me he got away? 

<NewKids> yea he went towards the southern island when i saw him. there were a lotta boats after him

Fluixon curses under his breath. Saparata fled? He sets his jaw and slowly vanishes in the crowd. He sinks away and sends a message out to everyone of his crew. 

<Fluixon> meeting room. everyone. mandatory.

And then he walks onto the docks, glances around, and slides into a boat. He makes it out to the coords of the hidden bunker, takes the boat, and slyly goes under.

Unsurprisingly, makes it to their bunker first. It doesn’t take long before Thomas is there, and then everyone else slowly filing in, until Snowbird clambers down the ladder and drops into his seat.

“I want somebody to explain what happened. I don’t care who.” Fluixon frowns.

“O-kay!” NewKids says, dragging the O out and clapping. He springs up to his feet and starts talking with his hands. “The trap basically worked like we wanted it to, just with a few little errors. Nothin’ big.” 

“What ‘errors’ are we talking about?” Hvyrotation asks, feet propped up on the meeting table. 

“Uh, so, 3below survived. So did Zekor, Jamminhead, and Dynamic.” NewKids scratches his neck. “Aaand Saps ran. They went after him and all, but…he’s like, gone.” 

Fluixon breathes out and rubs his forehead. “This is terrible.”

“Nobody’s got any word on where he went, either.” Thomas adds on. I’ve been listening in on conversations.” 

“Do we know where he might have gone?” Flux asks, looking around, grasping for straws.

Snowbird looks around the room and then back at him. “We were kinda hoping you would know…Since, y’know, you and Saps are good friends and all.”  

“I…I’m really not sure.” Flux murmurs. “He could go anywhere, really. The southern island has plenty of factions that don’t know entirely what’s going on. He could run there, he could run to the western point of this island…”

He crosses his arms and leans back in his seat.

“There’s a manhunt for him, so he’s gonna be found sooner or later.” Snowbird shrugs.

Fluixon frowns. “And what’s he going to tell people? He knows we built the roof, it’s a matter of time before he figures it out and sells his story to everyone.”

He sighs and checks his comm– it’s been doing that with non-stop chatter from the remaining leaders and everyone else trying to organize what they can to replace the old ones. He prepares for walls of useless jargon and plans to enter new leadership.

<saparata> dude

<saparata> you arent gonna believe this

<saparata> its a really long story but i need your help

Fluixon looks at his screen for a long moment, before he ultimately curses under his breath.

“Things cannot get worse from here.”

<Fluixon> i heard what happened.

<Fluixon> you didn’t have anything to do with it, did you? 

Saparata is hidden in an abandoned strip mine along the coastline of Luminara, hands still shaking and heart pounding. He’s still processing everything, still in shock, and he doesn’t know anything other than he’s being used as a scapegoat.

<saparata> no dude im innocent

<saparata> someone is framing me

<Fluixon> okay. 

<Fluixon> what do you want me to do? 

Saps chews his lip.

<saparata> help me prove im innocent 

It was a shot in the dark. He could put Fluixon in danger for colluding with him. Whatever he was doing was all risk with negligible reward. There wasn’t any assurance anyone would believe him, because he was set-up, and it was set-up all too flawlessly.

Here’s what Saparata has figured out on his own, in his state between shock, fear, and a little anger:

1. His roof was ragged with a trap.
2. Seraphim had pulled that trap, meaning she knew it was there.
3. Every seat– including his own– had dripstone. His had a repeater tick delay based on the timing. 
4. He’s being framed for the perfect crime.
5. There’s probably a larger conspiracy going on.

It’s not much, and it’s fairly vague, but Saparata has scraped together as much information as he can from what he knows. Fluixon still hasn’t replied to him. He’s stuck in a cold sweat and sitting on the cool, stone floor with sand in his shoes and anxiety so bad he’s nauseous. 

He’d just watched a grand total of six people– six very important diplomats from across Pandora’s northern island– all die. Assassinated. Executed. Their lives? All gone in the blink of an eye. It was terrifying.

He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to even out his breathing. In and out, over and over, just until he can think straight. There’s nothing else to comfort him here other than pattern and the small chance Flux will message him back. 

He starts to move his fingers, one by one, focusing on that. He cracks the knuckles, he bends them back, stretches them out, makes a fist– he fights to ground himself in the moment, because his thoughts are flying by too fast for him to think.

He moves to his wrist, rolling it back and forth. It aches with the motion of rowing as fast as he could to escape the scene. Maybe he can attiribute some of his nausea to seasickness, even, because the faint sound of the waves crashing onto the shore a few hundred feet away are awful. They’re covering the sound of any potential footsteps. He won’t know if anyone finds him–

He’s getting paranoid. Deep breaths.

He looks at his hands again and spots the dark line of his soulmate’s mark. It was stupid. It was like salt on a wound. Saparata has never cared about soulmates before, but now, he can’t ever care, because he’s been framed as a murderer and that’s how everyone is going to see him until he’s proven innocent. 

There’s no shot at him being proven innocent at this rate. Nobody’s gonna hear him out. He’s gonna be labelled as this for the rest of his days. 

He kind of feels bad for his soulmate now, too. They’ll never get to live out that idyllic fairytale of finding your soulmate– not that he expected it to be a fairytale, based on how he decided to interpret it. Maybe this was what it meant. He was the frowny face, while his soulmate was the smiley one. That pretty much sucked, too, because Saps liked to think of himself as the smiley face. He sorta built himself on that.

Maybe his soulmate wasn’t all that evil, though, and believed he was innocent. They could have this innate sense telling him, and hopefully, they’d come into his life magically and help him out of this predicament, help him prove his innocence, and live happily ever after with him.

…Like that’s ever gonna happen.

Saparata’s frustrated by the idea of his soulmate– whether he’s ever gonna be able to find them, or if they’ll even like him, all of that pisses him off to think of right now. It frustrates him enough that he gets a pickaxe and digs into the wall where he sees some coal, digs it out, and crushes it down under his heel into a powder.

He takes that powder and smears it over his soulmate’s mark. He’s gonna deface it. He’s gonna rewrite the rules here. 

He smothers it over and transforms it into a smiley face. No more possibility of interpreting it as a frown– he draws right through that second pair of eyes. It’s like he’s erasing his soulmate away. They don't count– they may as well not have a mark anymore, because Saparata doesn’t want them. 

He wipes off the excess coal power onto the walls and gets on his feet. His legs shake, he’s still scared for his life, but he needs to be on his feet now. He’s not sitting here idly– he’s just waiting. Biding his time. 

He opens his comm to message Flux again when he finds he’s already gotten a reply.

<Fluixon> okay. i can harbor you for a few days. thomas + others know, too.

<Fluixon> you’ll have to be careful, though. 

<Fluixon> come to these coords. the Y-level *is* correct, it’s underwater.

What the hell did he mean by underwater? It’s probably safer that way, all in all, but…it was really extra. Really, really extra. The coords Flux sent are really low under sea level. 

<saparata> thank you so much dude

<Fluixon> don’t mention it. 

<saparata> seriously. cannot thank you enough.

<Fluixon> thank me by getting here without getting caught. 

Message heard. Saparata creeps to the entrance of the strip mine and looks around. He chose a pretty barren spot on the island, but he’s still cautious. He doesn’t see anybody, thankfully. 

He takes his first step out, looks around, and runs to the shoreline before he crawls back into his boat. The coords Flux gave him were pretty risky. They were in view of Lumimara if you had good eyes. The bridge was looming in his vision. 

He’s never felt like there were more eyes on him without anyone around. Maybe Flux was really rubbing off on him, because he’s never been more paranoid.

Regardless, he takes his boat, reaches the spot, and goes under without a trace. 

Saps expects a cool hub-like structure on the bottom of the sea. Even a cobblestone box. Some type of building he can refuge in. That’s not what he finds.

It’s just a trapdoor on the gravelly seafloor. 

He flips it open before he runs out of air and goes through. His foot meets a ladder, so he follows it down. The lighting is eerie. Redstone torches? Admirable. The atmosphere definitely benefits from it. 

He lets out a breath as he reaches the bottom of the ladder, turning to find another meeting table. His heart lurches at first. It’s like a fucked-up prank, but he holds himself long enough to look up and see Fluixon leaning against it with his arms crossed.

“Dude,” Saps croaks. “What the fuck is this?”

“Safety bunker. I built it in the event the first island does invade. It’s stockpiled with enough food to last a week or so.” Flux says, tilting his head. “I think you’ll be needing it more than I will, however.”

Saparata moves closer. “This is crazy! Dude, all them just keeled over in front of me, and then a dripstone fell where I was sitting–”

“One fell where you were?” He asks, brow creased. The corner of his lip curls up in disgust. 

Saps raises his hands and starts gesturing wildly. “Yes! Whoever did it is out for me! Maybe it was Seraphim, because someone said they saw her, but there’s no way it was just her- I don’t know, I– I dunno– I– I’m freaking out!” 

“Okay, okay, calm down,” Fluixon lifts his hands and tries to calm him down. “Tell me what happened from the beginning.” 

Saparata tries to take a breath, but it comes in and out shakily, and he doesn’t have anything about this filed away in his brain cleanly. He’s just running on panicked fumes right now. 

“I was asking about Jophiel’s assassination. I mentioned the fact there could be a connection between her and Wolfram’s death, and–” He winces, remembering the sound and the sights and the smell of iron in the air. “They died.”

Fluixon stays quiet for a moment, chewing the inside of his cheek, brow furrowed in thought. He won’t look Saparata in the eyes yet. It’s killing him. He doesn‘t know what Flux’s thinking, if he even believes him, if he might sell him out–

“Do you believe me?” He blurts.

Flux lifts his eyebrows and looks at him. “Believe what?”

“That I didn’t do it. You saw me build that place– you helped me! You would know that I didn’t do it!” Saps sputters out. 

Fluixon stays quiet for a second. He looks at him for a moment, eyes scanning over his fidgeting and shaky figure. He eventually nods.

“Yes,” he says. “I don’t think you had anything more to do with it other than taking the blame.” 

“Thank you!” Saps breathes, closing the gap between them. He grabs Flux by the shoulders and holds onto the exaggerated collar of his coat. “You’re my only hope at proving I didn’t do it!”

“That’s still dangerous for me to outright state,” Flux pushes him back to arm’s length. “I can help you from behind the curtain, but I can’t explicitly support you without it being risky. They’ll suspect me of collusion.” 

“But you can help me prove my innocence? You, and you mentioned Thomas, and the others?”

“We can do our best, but there’s no guarantee we can do anything. At most, we shift blame to Seraphim for building the dripstone trap. The faulty redstone probably means it was only one person, and she would’ve been on time constraints between the time we left and the meeting.” Flux says diplomatically.

Saps stares at him, turmoil still brewing in his head. He feels like he’s going to collapse if he gets any more high-strung. He sits on the table edge beside Flux, hands in his lap uselessly as he stares blankly at the wall. He gapes for something to say, mouth opening and closing like a fish.

“Are you alright?” Flux taps his forearm with his left hand. He’s motioning to the coal smudged over his arm. The smiley face is gone by now, it’s just a dark blob.

“Oh,” Saparata manages. “That’s– that’s nothing. I just…kinda freaked out while I was hiding.”

“Are you sure? It looks particularly nasty.”

“It’s coal,” Saps offers, getting it wet and wiping it away. “I tried covering up my soulmate thing.”

“Can I ask why?” 

“I…” He searches for a reason. “I don’t want the reminder.”

“Of?” Flux raises his eyebrow.

“Are you gonna keep asking me questions?” Saparata snaps back, making a face. Flux leans away and sits up straighter.

“Sorry. Thought maybe it’d distract you.” He murmurs. 

Saps lifts his eyebrows. “Oh. Oh, okay, my bad. Sorry. I’m…I’m just freaking out so bad right now.” 

He reaches up and runs his hands over his face. Flux reaches over and pats his shoulder awkwardly, face pressed into a neutral expression. 

“I want to tell you it’ll be okay, but…I don’t necessarily want to lie to you.” He tries. Saparata snorts at him.

“You should consider being a therapist, this is working miracles.” He laughs dryly. He looks at Flux between his fingers. His palms rest coolly on his burning face. 

“I tend to have that effect on others.” Flux replies easily. He pushes off of the table. “I may have something to help.” 

He vanishes into the room behind Saps, leaving him alone with his thoughts and his breaths and the beating of his own heart again; all of that isn‘t overwhelming anymore. He’s better. The world isn’t ending anymore.

Maybe Flux really does have that effect. Huh. That’s neat.

Speaking of, he comes back with a bandage and pulls Saparata’s arm toward himself. He wipes the rest of the coal off and places the bandage over his soulmate-mark. It hides it in full. The bandaid is a few shades too dark for Saparata’s pale arm, but he doesn’t have to see the mark anymore.

“Dude, my soulmate’s gotta be the most unlucky person to have me.” He huffs, examining the patch. It was probably from Hyvrotation’s stash of stuff. 

“What makes you say that?” Fluixon tilts his head again.

“Look at me. I’d want a refund if my soulmate was the guy they thought killed their leaders.” Saparata shakes his head.

Flux pauses for a moment. “I wouldn’t.” 

Saps looks up and furrows his brow at him. He takes it as a sign to elaborate.

“I think it’s a little interesting. Even if you didn’t do it, you’ve survived the public scrutiny so far. You’re probably going to make it out unscathed, knowing you. It says a lot about you.” Flux admits, looking off to the side.

Saparata looks at him for a second, expression blank, words refusing to form. He feels like there’s cotton in his mouth. He blinks, then breaks into a snicker.

“That’s so corny.” He says. “You’re so sappy sometimes, you know?”

“Oh, look at that, Saparata is calling me sappy.” 

“Hey! Wait, that’s actually kinda clever…” Saps murmurs, then waves it away. “But you so are! Nobody gives such a heartfelt speech like that but you.” 

“Should I be flattered that you found it heartfelt?” Flux asks.

Saps shrugs. “You could be.” 

“So vague…could it be you’re holding out on some information?” Flux asks, voice taking a playful tilt for the first time since they spoke. It reassures Saps more than he thought it should.

He manages to crack a smile. “Maybe I am.” 

“Is it possible for me to pry that from you at all?” Flux smiles back.

“Nah.” Saps shakes his head.

“If you say so.” Flux nods. His comm buzzes and he checks it. His eyebrows lift. “Thomas says he’s secured you some gear. We’ve agreed to send you to Island One when the border drops, I…I know someone over there who could help you.” 

“Is he coming down here?”

Flux shakes his head. “Unfortunately, we’re trying to minimize traffic to this place to keep it hidden. We’re going to have to go to him first.” 

Saparata drops his shoulders. Flux notices.

“...You should take a day. Stay here, rest, and we can meet with Thomas tomorrow. You look like death.” He says. “I can stay with you if you want.” 

Saparata nods. “Yeah, yeah that’d be nice. I’d probably feel a little better having someone else here. Especially you, I mean…yeah. I don’t have anyone else.”  

Fluixon smiles at him warmly for once. “I’m glad to be here, in that case.” 

After Saparata manages to close his eyes and rest for the first time in far too long, Flux sends a message to Thomas.

<Fluixon> what do we have in place?

<Thomas5200> one bribed judge, three commonwealth guards, and our super convincing story

<Fluixon> wonderful

<Fluixon> saps trusts me completely

<Thomas5200> oh this is gonna be so easy 

“It’s risky,” Fluixon reminds him, waiting at the ladder. “You aren’t a very subtle figure, so we’ll have to move quickly.” 

“Got it, yeah,” Saparata nods. “In and out, you and me. Easy.” 

Flux gives him a thumbs up. “Thomas is waiting along the shore for us, he’s going to flag us down.”

He starts up the ladder to the seafloor. Saps follows closely behind. It’s refreshing to have some form of support. He’s been too busy as  a neutral, lonely party of one to get anyone else during his tenure on the rich island. 

The trapdoor opens, they make their way to the surface, and it's barely any time in a boat before Fluixon finds Thomas along the shore. 

They wash onto the sand and Thomas leads them into the shade of a cluster of trees. There’s a chest waiting there. 

“Okay, since you probably left all your gear back on the island, I rounded up some substitutes.” He says, handing Saparata a pair of iron boots. 

“Oh, yeah, I left all my stuff there.” Saparata frowns as he fits the boots on. “Man…” 

“We can get it back later down the line.” Flux says, crossing his arms. He peers around cautiously. “Better to hurry, the longer we wait, the more likely it is someone will spot you.” 

Thomas helps him fit on a diamond chest plate. “Yeah, the Commonwealth's got a bunch of guys patrolling the island.” 

Saparata feels him buckle it in place and rolls his shoulders. “The border drops tomorrow, right?” 

“Yes. I’ve been in touch with Cynikka. When you get to island one, tell her that I sent you, and Infernus will treat you kindly.” Flux nods.

“Why can’t you come with me?” 

“Citizens from the poor island will be coming over here, as well. I’ll be watching to make sure they don’t cause havoc in Luminara.” He frowns. 

“You’ll be fine, don’t worry.” Thomas assures him as he hands over a helmet. Fluixon steps aside and peers down the shoreline. 

“Do you know how to get to Infernus?” Saps asks. 

“Apparently it’s like, in a volcano. Sounds pretty badass.” Thomas explains. 

Fluixon steps back over. “There’s Commonwealth guards nearby. We should wrap this up.” 

“What?!” Saparata yelps. Flux hushes him. 

“Just get out of sight.” He hisses, pushing him back into some bushes. Thomas quirks an eyebrow up at it.

“That’s so obvious-looking.” He gestures at Saps. “He sticks out so bad.” 

“It’s the Commonwealth we’re dealing with here, I think it’ll work.” Flux sneers. “I tell Sitzkrieg gullible is written on his forehead and he keeps checking his reflection for the rest of the day.” 

Thomas shrugs. “If you say so.” 

The Commonwealth guards approach them, and it takes less than five minutes for everything to fall apart. Without saying a word to Flux or Thomas, they grab Saparata out of the bushes and haul him out. 

“What the--?” Saparata garbles.

“You’re comin’ with us.” One of them says.

It happens too fast for Saparata to comprehend. He’s just kicking and flailing to get out of everyone’s grip. Thomas watches them wrestle him into a boat. Flux looks at the scene silently, eyes narrowed, shoulders squared, with lips pressed into a thin line. 

“I– I didn’t do it!” Saps wails, thrashing the Commonwealth guards off of him. “I didn’t! Flux, tell them I didn’t have anything to do with it!”

The guards don’t really give him much mind, continuing to restrain Saps. Fluixon takes a sharp inhale and avoids Saparata’s eyes.

“...Give him a trial.” He says. “Tell Sitzkrieg or Zekor or whoever that Luminara demands one.” 

Why can’t he get himself to look at Saparata? He’s orchestrating this. Everything has been a puzzle piece in his bigger picture. He shouldn’t be hesitating or breaking character now of all times, but something eats away at him. 

He pinches his expression in agony.

“Flux, dude--!” Saparata still cries. “Fluixon! Hey!” 

“I’m sorry.” He says, wincing. Thomas flicks his head to him. Did he sound too genuine? He sees Saparata’s figure slack in his peripheral vision. 

Regrets are for later.

Trial goes something like this:

Saparata is dumped onto the shore of Mykonos, dragged up into the courthouse, and put in front of a judge. It’s a set-up, naturally, because once the guards told Zekor they had him, a trial was hastily thrown together.

Saparata doesn’t even get to testify. They have Flux do it in his place. He watches Flux take the stand and fix his coat before he addresses everyone.

He shoots Saparata one final look before he starts talking.

“I’ll explain, in detail, what happened in the hours leading up to the death of our beloved leaders.” He announces. All eyes are on him. Saps crosses his fingers. He’s putting his life in the hands of Fluixon and his testimony– he trusts him with it entirely, too.

Fluixon looks over the assembly. It was a bench trial– the only person he has to convince is the judge. He clears his throat. “Saparata and Seraphim both plotted to assassinate the leaders of Island Two in a carefully orchestrated trap set within the roof of Saparata’s meeting hall.” 

…What the hell?

“Upon hearing the news of my demotion, Saparata requested my men from Luminara and I help him build this trap, without revealing it would be for an assassination, and instead telling us it would be for ‘overhead redstone lamps’ when the lever was turned on.” Fluixon says coolly.

Saparata feels his heart sink. His only hope in being proven innocent was lying, in front of a hundred people, with such a confident demeanor that anything he said sounded totally believable.

“That’s– What the hell?!” He shouts, looking around in disbelief. “I thought you believed me!” 

Flux can’t look at him. He continues to tell his carefully-crafted lies. “We built the trap, unaware of the true purpose, at the very time Jophiel was killed. Thomas, Snowbird, Hyvrotation, Gotoga, and myself all completed his roof as he rounded up what would be his victims.” 

It’s cold. What Fluixon was doing was betrayal. In front of his very eyes, hearing it first hand, Saparata was witnessing betrayal by the only person he thought he could trust. He felt sick. He wanted to wake up from this nightmare already.

Fluixon told him he believed him. He said he trusted him, said he was going to do his best to prove he was innocent, and…he lied. He was actively lying. He was tearing his life down in front of him.

He wants to crawl into the floor and rot. 

“You can’t be serious.” He mumbles.

“Saparata, how much of this is true?” Judge Timebomb turns to ask him. 

He holds his hands out incredulously. “None of it! He’s lying to all of you!”

“Your honor, my associate would never lie, seeing as his nose would grow.” Thomas chimes in, looking at Timebomb. He snickers to himself. Flux shoots him a glare, then rolls his head in Saps direction– still unable to meet his gaze.

“I’m telling nothing but the truth, Saps,” Fluixon says. “These are the consequences of your actions. Face them.” 

“What actions? For all I know, you could’ve--” It hits him in the face at that moment.

Fluixon.

It was all his plan. He did it. How didn’t he understand earlier? He goes rigid where he stands, palms clammy, heart racing, eyes darting around the room. 

“I never intended for my words at the meeting to be taken to this degree,” Flux shakes his head. “I wanted the islands to unite peacefully, but Saparata has attempted to fearmonger us all into it. This is no way to unite our island.” 

Saparata stays silent. He’s pissed off. It’s taking everything in him to keep himself from lunging over and smashing Fluixon’s head into the sandstone until he looks worse than the trap left his victims. 

“I think I’ve got enough evidence,” Timebomb says suddenly. He wipes his face. “I, Judge Timebomb, find Saparata…guilty on all counts!” 

This can’t be happening. This was too soon. Everything was going too fast to be considered fair. He was still processing when he’s seized by the arms and dragged out of the courthouse. 

He’s staring at Fluixon, the blurry figure of his long coat and high collar through the crowd, stumbling along with every step. It’s incomprehensible what he’s done. He can’t process. Fluixon was his friend. He sold him out on a lie. 

He betrayed him the moment the lever was pulled. 

He blindly moves forward. The judge shouts something, some proceedings, and then:

“Saparata is to be taken to the Gauntlet and executed!”

Executed? Saparata is supposed to be executed for this? No, no that’s not…that’s not how that works. He didn’t do it, why’s he the one who’s getting punished for it? Flux should be the one getting executed. 

Saparata refuses to be executed for something he didn’t do. 

He squirms out of the guards’ hold and goes off on a sprint down the wall. He jumps down– it hurts, but there’s too much adrenaline from being betrayed and the fact they want him dead to even phase him. He just goes off, full-tilt sprint, along the unfinished wall, hopping down from section to section. 

His foot slips on one landing and he rolls off, landing with a groan onto the hillside, but he gets back on his feet and continues sprinting. 

“Is he actually running?” One of the guards escorting him asks distantly. He’s halfway down the hill, does it look like he’s running?

“You’re letting a terrorist get away!” Fluixon’s voice rings out from above. He sounds furious. He should be. Saparata glances back to see if he can find him, but there’s guards right on his ass. He leaps further down the hillside towards the docks. 

He stumbles his way into the water, immediately going down along the bottom. A hand reaches and grabs his ankle, tugging him back. He kicks at it until he’s free and surges forward again. He crawls back up and steals a boat to escape. 

He turns and holds up both middle fingers before he starts to row away again.

“Unbelievable!” Fluixon hisses, storming across the sandstone platform. He chews at his thumb as he paces. “How many people were there? How many let him get away?!” 

“We didn’t expect him to run.” Sitzkrieg says, rubbing his brow beneath his helmet.

Flux makes a sound caught between a scoff and laughter. “You plan to execute him and expect him to cooperate? To just…go along with it? You have to be joking.” 

He curses under his breath. He looks at Thomas, who shakes his head. Flux lets out a long, drawn out sigh, and then clears his throat.

“Look, thanks to that, we have the man behind six assassinations now just roaming free. What now? What do we do with the knowledge he’s not getting any sort of repercussions because of your inadequate–”

“Watch your mouth.” Sitzkrieg warns. “You had a hand in this, too.” 

“Unwittingly.” Flux hisses back. “He used me as a tool for his plot. Why do you think I’m so angry about his escape? I look like a blindly led idiot, no thanks to him!” 

He rakes his hands back into his hair. 

“We’ll send out people to look for him.” Sitzkrieg says.

“I expect his head.” Fluixon spits, then turns on his heel and storms away. He snaps, and Thomas trots away behind him.

This is betrayal.

It’s colder than ice, it’s sharper than a knife, it’s more nauseating than poison. It wasn’t bloody, or much of a scene, but it was bitter all the same. It’s every nerve in his body going numb and yet feeling everything all at once. It’s his heart slowing and simultaneously pounding out from his chest like he’d go into cardiac arrest. It’s the room spinning, spinning, spinning–

The floor is unforgiving when he hits it. 

He didn’t know where else to crawl to, so Saparata is back in the place where his eternal damnation was forged. 

His knees will bruise, he’s scraped his arm, and please, god, can someone take away this feeling? 

The adrenaline in his veins starts to cool, going from red-hot and anxious and fleeting to terrified and scared and hopeless. Skies were grey, threatening with thunderheads, but it was silent. No wind, no rain, no waves crashing.

Breathing. Saparata hears his own breathing.

He trembles. He has to claw himself off of the floor, pulling himself up on the bloodstained table and gasping like it takes the life from him. The last thing he ate was a golden apple in that bunker, the dark and cold and damp crypt it was.

Saparata sees outlines. The blood pooled and dried on the floor, lines where victims were dragged, where they laid dead before, where they had been speared through in perfect synchrocity. He sees ghosts in it. Closed casket funerals, bloody, severed figures standing around him, the echo of voices.

The resonant sound of screams. Dripstone falling. The ceiling shifting. A piston extending. The subtle click of a lever. A question about a conspiracy.

He chokes on the memory– it tastes like acid. He turns and bile gushes out of his mouth, burning with the most sour taste. The reflex of his tear ducts causes his vision to blur. His eyes burn. His lips quiver. 

His heart aches. 

“Shit--” He sobs, crumbling again. One hand covers his disgusting mouth and the other clings to the tabletop, trying to find anything possible to ground himself on. Wood grain, maybe, but the planks are smooth. He couldn’t find a splinter on them if he tried. 

Saparata doesn’t collapse easily. He’s one of the strongest people he knows– not an exaggeration, either, hopefully. He thinks he has a strong will and a tough resolve. He’s thick-skinned, and it’s kept him safe, like scales and armor.

Fluixon found his Achilles heel and broke him from the inside out. He betrayed him for what? To prove a point? To make a statement? He made an example of six diplomats and then cast Saparata to the terrified, retaliating mob.

There’s a gross irony in the contrast between their meeting and present day. He’d offered nothing but help, collaborating to a little mutual-exchange network, promising to be there for each other if the need arose.

…When he puts it that way, it sounds like they’d thrown in wedding vows on that last one. 

Saparata doesn’t even want to think of Fluixon. Anything he’d admired before was just a symbol of nothing but sabotage. The ink-black curls he used to find charming were just gross tendrils now, his narrow aubergine eyes were more poisonous than nightshade or hemlock, his thin lips were caging a silver tongue. 

It was gross to think about now.

He crawls his way back to his feet in a daze. There was a scaffold up to the roof where it’d been investigated. He moves towards it. A morbid curiosity guides him forward.

He hasn’t seen the construction that led him here. It’s about time he tears into the guts of it, gets a gauge of it, sees the stamp that approved his death row ticket.

He climbs up and sees the lay of redstone, pistons, and the lever. Flicked forward, totally untouched from where Seraphim had pulled it. 

She was a martyr like he was. The only difference between him and the disgraced former First Lady of Tricolour was the fact she had been let in on the plan. They were both lambs Fluixon had thrown out, but she had been willing, she had bared her teeth as a wolf, and Saparata was blindly cast without a clue.

He reaches forward and grabs it, pulling it into off position. The pistons all retract with a unified noise. He activates it on, and then off, and then repeatedly until he hears nothing but the shuffling of pistons moving. The redstone lines flash. The pattern looks like S.O.S. being spelled out.

(Maybe, on a subconscious level, it was. But he didn’t even know morse code that well. He could tell you Alpha Bravo Charlie, sure, but dots and dashes were a little deeper down the rabbit hole.)

He pulls the lever one last time before he snaps it off of the redstone lines. It goes dead without so much as a sound. Saparata goes around to the redstone, kicking and swatting and brushing it away until he’s spitting on it and making it a paste on the sandstone. None of it works anymore. The pistons are next, and he can’t seem to figure out how to deface them other than kicking the extended pieces and breaking them.

They’re all lying out and splintered. He picks the head of one up and throws it. It tumbles across the roof’s inside. He looks for more to throw and break. He’s already broken it all, though, and he’s hot and out of breath from it now.

He lifts his hands up to wipe his face. They sting as they slide down. He takes them away from his face to look, and–

He’s got small cuts all over. The rust-coloured lines are faint, but they’re streaked down his hands. His fingers twitch. He’s bleeding. Crimson beads at the surface of his skin. 

He swallows and moves towards the scaffolding again and makes his way down shakily. He looks at the bloody stains in the ridges of his handprints wherever he touches. He drifts towards an old chest he used to keep his valuables in before the meeting.

It’s still there, hidden under the root of a tree, and seemingly untouched.

He digs it out, dirt building beneath his nails, getting into his open wounds, making him hiss in pain. He heaves it out anyway, ignoring the pain, and throwing it open.

Everything is still inside– spare armor, axe, sword, and a stash of golden apples.

He grabs an apple and takes a few bites out of it. Within moments, his hands heal up, and he regains some of his energy. The smell of iron is still heavy, and his face feels sticky, and his mind is still buzzing. 

He takes his armor and puts it on quickly. 

Tomorrow, the border falls, and he’s fleeing to the poor island. There’s nothing left for him on this island.

Saparata steels himself on the outskirts of Luminara. 

The border was down. He only had one thing left to do– escape. His best ticket out was the bridge. It ran far into the ocean, and only a few builders were at work on it because of the promise of a new world to explore. It was his best chance.

He sneaks his way through Luminara in the dead of night and hides at the base of the bridge until dawn. Only a handful of builders arrive that morning as the shifts exchange– more leave than enter. It was the perfect time. 

He fixes his helmet on his head and sneaks up into the guts of the bridge. For the most part, he remains evasive– nobody sees him, and he avoids a few close calls. It isn’t until he gets to the end where most of the builders are at work.

He sees Hvyrotation and frowns. Of course he’d see one of Fluixon’s evil henchmen when he tries to escape. No matter what, he would see little, subtle reminders.

He takes off running along the top of the bridge. It takes no time for them to notice, to shout, and to start chasing him with stone bricks and pickaxes like they’re torches and pitchforks.

He turns as he leaps off of the end of the bridge. “To island one!” 

And he lands hard into the water, climbs into a nearby boat, and makes his way to the dry lands of the poor island. It was the polar opposite of the rich island– the looming figure looked desolate, sad, and a hollow shell of life itself. The silhouette of a hulking tree on an island all its own stands in the center.

He boats along the edge to try and find a place hidden away, one that no other rich islander would try to enter from. He needed to gain his footing on this island before he had any encounters.

“Hey, you there,” a voice calls out. 

Saparata stops his boat to find the source. He sees a man standing above him on the nearby cliffs. 

“You a rich islander?” The man asks, scratching his mustache. 

“Uh, yeah…” Saparata looks up from where he towers on the basalt flats above. He cautiously leans back in his boat. “Is…Is that a problem?”

“Depends,” He shrugs. “It’s not…for a stack of diamonds.” 

Saparata lifts an eyebrow. “How many for you to, uh, let me hang over your shoulder for a bit? I need somewhere to go.”

“How many ya got?” 

“...Two stacks.” Saps offers. 

The man kicks the ladder down and it rolls out, hanging like an open invitation. His boots seem well-worn. Saps can see the underside of them from here. There’s dried blood crusted on the rubber. 

He looks at the ladder. Saps didn’t know a thing about Yggdrasil; factions and landscape were a blank slate. He only knew about the netherite and the propaganda that had paranoid him so awfully. There’s a lingering thought in the back of his mind, the idea that maybe it wasn’t foolish to consider, that it could be true–

“You comin’ up here or what?” The man asks.

Saparata glances up like a deer in headlights. He’s got no choice now. The silhouette of the man was looming large over him, blocking out the sun with his broad shoulders and all.

He pushes his boat closer and reaches out, grabbing into the ladder and crawling his way up. He makes it up and the man pats him on the back, then holds his hand out expectantly.

Saparata takes the diamonds out. “Thanks for the help…”

“Turntapp.” The man says. He takes the diamonds. “From the Covenant. I lead ‘em.” 

“Saparata. I was framed for murder.” Saps introduces himself with a watery smile. He sees Turntapp flick an eyebrow up.

“Really? That’s a story I’d like to hear.” He laughs, hand slipping to Saparata’s back. He pats him between the shoulderblades (it’s more of a shove) and Saps takes it as a hint to start walking. 

Saps snorts. “It’s a lot.” 

“We got time.” Turntapp nudges. 

“Alright, if you say so.” Saparata shrugs. “So, back on the rich island…”

It takes just about the entire hike across the dry and lifeless flats of the island for Saparata to recount everything. He starts from the top, drops in every little detail, and a few colourful insults aimed towards the Luminara council members and former VP. 

The trap makes him pause, just for a second, and he can feel Turntapp’s eyes weigh heavy on him. He’s the first person he’s pleaded the story in whole to. He’s already paid off this guy, but what if that doesn’t mean a thing? The poor island could be full of backstabbing traitors (if the rich island could, then anything was possible) who would take his diamonds and throw him back to the open maws of his homeland. 

“Heavy subject?” Turntapp asks. 

“Yeah, but…it’s okay, I can’t exactly skip over it.” Saparata frowns. The shattered plains of the island’s southeast were arid. Dry earth was cracking beneath his feet. Only dust blows by, carrying sand that gets in his eyes and man, is that annoying.

By the end of his little story, Turntapp’s got his eyes set on him with an unreadable expression. There’s curiosity, Saps can read that much, but that’s not all. There’s more than that under the surface. It doesn’t do anything to ease the pit in his stomach.

Then Turntapp laughs, shaking his head, and gives him a look of disbelief and awe.

“You’re a survivor, then, ain’t you?” He grins. “You’re tougher than I’d take a rich islander for. Up until now, I thought you’d all be wealthy pricks scared to get their pretty faces dirty. You ain’t scared, though.”

“I’ve been through too much to afford to be scared, dude.” Saparata laughs dryly. He’s trying to match the mood, but…it’s too much to do that and take in the new environment. He’s got sweat running down the sides of his face. 

He looks like a pale ghost in the landscape here. 

Turntapp’s hardened by the land– his skin was dry, rough, pretty decently tanned, and it set in his expression. His face was a permanent frown. Fluixon did too, but his expression was closer to a pout, like an unhappy child who’s one more no from a tantrum. He was soft in comparison to the set scowl below this man’s thick mustache. His brows were always creased, eyes scrutinizing, and rigid enough to spring into a fight at the drop of a hat.

“See that up there?” Turntapp shakes his shoulder, then gestures ahead of them.

Looming above, just barely in view, was a massive bastion. It stood on a mesa overlooking tendril-like waterways. Twin statues stood on either side of a walkway leading up to the central part. The black figures looked ominous, threatening, and certainly sent a message to Saparata.

“Wow…” He breathes.

“That’s the Covenant. Gonna warn you before we get in there, my people don’t take too kindly to any rich islanders. They might eat you alive if you don’t keep your head up.” Turntapp says. 

Saparata creases his brow. “Seriously?” 

“Pretty sure they passed out some type of flyer trying to rally up against you guys from day one. It’s kinda died down, but I can tell they haven’t let it go just yet.” 

The propaganda. Fluixon might have been right. Saparata was walking into the jaws of the very thing he said wasn’t real.

“Oh, another thing…” Turntapp grabs him by the arm suddenly and lifts it up, then taps the mark on his forearm. “Cover this up. Nobody wants to see your soulmate thing in here. We all took an oath to not pursue it here, ‘cause it’s nothing but a distraction.” 

Saparata would gladly do that. 

“Do you have anything I can use?” He asks. 

Turntapp nods. He pats down his pockets before rummaging through and pulling out bandage wraps. He starts to wind it around Saps’ arm a little too tight for comfort. It was the type of wrapping that could stop bleeding, but it felt like it was taking away blood flow altogether. 

Nevertheless, Saps flexes his fingers once Turntapp rips it off and secures it in place. 

“The way I see it, you got a few places to go,” He says as he keeps marching to the Covenant. “Most of them are all in the Requiem alliance.”

“Those are…?”

“You got us, the Covenant. We got the island’s best military with the Peacekeepers. They’re under Zynn.” Turntapp explains. “You got Nevermore, who’s kinda in a rough spot right now. Their leader just jumped ‘n kicked his own bucket. Pretty sure he realized he was in a cult. Last, Al Qarasina pirates. They’re across the boiling water. Don’t worry, we got a bridge now. Al Qarasina’s mostly normal except for a hit the mafia collected on one of ‘em.” Turntapp says. He gives Saps an expectant look. 

Saparata isn’t really sure how to reply. 

“Is there another option?” He asks, brow furrowed.

*Westhelm.” Turntapp says. “Huge nation, probably safe enough, you’d just need to talk to their emperor, and he’s…pretty unhinged. They’ve got assassination attempts on that guy pretty much daily now.” 

“Uh…alright…Westhelm it is? They seem the most normal.” Saparata garbles. None of them seem safe, but it’s something, at least.

Turntapp nods. “Westhelm it is.”

Saparata walks into the Westhelm in awe. The buildings were huge, with towering aqueducts tracing the mountains up and down. Turntapp leads him to the Capital of Westhelm.

There’s whispers, rumours, the word on the street spread that he was a wanted man overseas, but nobody really gave it heed. It seemed like a stretch that some huge international criminal was this skinny guy; the one with bruises on his arms and some derpy moles on his face that made him look like he was always wearing a lopsided smile. 

He looked harmless, so he takes that as a virtue. It makes it easy to walk into Westhelm, approach one of the many people at the distribution lines, and look blankly at her.

“Hi,” She chimes, droning at a paper in front of her and writing away on some sort of form or application. She doesn’t seem concerned about him. “Name?”

“Saps,” he croaks. “I, uh, want to talk to your glorious emperor Schpood.” 

She glances up, eyebrow raised. “...You want to see Emperor Schpood?” 

“Yes…I, uh, I think it’s urgent.” Saparata croaks. He doesn’t sound anywhere near confident, and he probably looks like some psycho rich islander with the gall to ask for an audience with the leader of the world’s biggest nation. 

The receptionist stares at her for a long moment. He glances back at Turntapp. He shrugs.

“Can you, ah, elaborate on what you mean by urgent for me?” The receptionist pries. 

“Uh, okay. I’m being hunted down because I was falsely accused of assassinating six leaders on the rich island? I want a meeting to clear that up.” Saparata scratches his chin as he explains. Some heads turn when they hear what he says, but it’s more or less brushed off.

“...Alright, so I’m gonna check with Westhelm’s second-in-command if that’s alright with you, ‘kay?” She says. He nods. She walks off for a moment and he drums his fingertips on the desk window. 

He isn’t standing there long before a well-armored, important-looking guy shows up at the window along with her.

“Ohh, I’ve heard of this guy,” He says, head tilted. “Saparata, right? Man, Luminara’s been sending us nothing but shit slandering you.”

He lifts his eyebrows and blinks. “Let me guess. Fluixon?” 

The guy at the window whistles. “Yeah, okay, you’re gonna wanna come with me. I’m Spyder, by the way. I’ll take you to–”

“Oh, no, no, no,” Someone else says, pushing into the window. It’s like a clown car, now. It’s causing a scene, there’s a crowd gaping at whatever Saps has managed to stir up.

The new person commands attention, strangely enough. He’s got the same features you see on old statues in Rome, if they were disproportioned. His hooked nose, high and sunken cheekbones, and thinning salt-and-pepper hair were all toeing the line between serious and comedic.

“This guy’s just trying to get into Westhelm.” He says, pointing at Saps. “Look at him! The Commonwealth probably sent him, I assure you! They’d do anything to one-up me these days.” 

“No, Schpood, you know those letters Luminara sent? They were about him. This is the guy who supposedly did that big trap.” Spyder says. 

“You think I read those letters?” Schpood scoffs. 

“Well, okay, basic rundown: This guy held a meeting in his house, but he sprung a trap, and that killed six people. Plus, the Queen of Tricolour had been dropped right before that.” Spyder explains, and he keeps explaining the rich island politics, but Saps tunes it out because he knows exactly what’s going on. 

“Okay, so he’s the guy known for assassinating leaders, and you wanna bring him into Westhelm?” Schpood creases his brow. 

“I didn’t kill them!” Saparata sputters. “I was framed! Flux, the guy you mentioned earlier, he rigged the trap up in my house!” 

“Why was he in your…you know what? Just– just go, Saps, find somewhere else.” Schpood shakes his head. “You coming to me, asking for a meeting, after what happened last time…Even if it wasn’t do to you with you–”

“Listen! I just need to explain and it’ll all make sense! I’m innocent!”

“Saps, I’m sorry, but that’s a terrible idea. Find somewhere else.” Schpood tells him. Spyder gives him an apologetic look. Turntapp frowns as Schpood leaves.

Saparata stands there defeated. Turntapp takes him by the shoulder and guides him away. Saparata pouts as he trails behind him, arms crossed. He follows Turntapp all the way out of Westhelm and to the shores of the inner lake within the island. 

The monstrous acacia– the “Tree of Life” they called it, and then named the island for it– could be seen from just about anywhere. The top leaves could be seen from inside Westhelm, and the roots seemed to hold the lonely island it was trapped on like fingers. 

When he looks at it, Saparata can’t comprehend it. It was initially the only tree on the island and surrounded by boiling water. The more he sees about this island, the harder it is to believe they started out with bread lines.

They pass through an empty area. It was curious as to why waterfront land would be ignored. He leans down to look at it. A bubble of boiling mud explodes in front of his face and he learns his lesson. Turntapp snorts and wipes the glob of mud off of his face. From there, they pass through Nevermore, along the edge. Still mid-coup, still in turmoil.

They approach Al Qarasina, and it was impressive. A massive boat had been constructed and moored in the open waters of the island. Alongside that, a huge tapestry of a skull and crossbones inland over their base. It hung over the pirates’ territory. 

Gravel crunches beneath Saparata’s feet as he walks, looking around in awe. It sat on a low point on the island, ocean lapping at the edge of their claim. He follows Turntapp carefully. 

“Turntapp!” A pirate calls out to him. “Turntapp, my friend, what brings you to Al Qarasina?” 

“I need a place to keep him.” Turntapp says, gesturing to Saparata. He stands up straight and nods a little awkwardly. He felt like the new guy at prison on this island. 

“Is that Saparata?” Another pirate asks. 

“Yeah. From the rich island.” Turntapp answers for him, deciding to do all the talking here. “Covenant would have him dead in a day if I keep him there, but how I see it, this guy would be pretty good to use as a way to unify the island up.”

Saparata goes rigid. Uniting the island…? It’s the same rhetoric that he’d heard on Pandora, the same resounding sentiment on an island that has already united. It’s exactly what Fluixon had gone on and on about. That’s what led Saparata to this point. 

He takes a tiny step to the side from Turntapp.

“Aren’t we all under an alliance under the Blue Cross? Maybe not Infernus and the Mafia, but their grievances are not our own.” The pirate shakes his head. He picks at something between his teeth with his thumbnail.

“Alliance is a poor word for the state of this island. Can you look after him or not?” Turntapp asks.

Saparata feels like a dog, or maybe merchandise, being held and traded. It’s dehumanizing, but he hasn’t exactly felt human since he was in the bunker with Flux. 

“Oh, of course, we can take Saparata,” the pirate nods. He beckons him over. “Drop your stuff, and then come closer boy.”

“Why– I’m not gonna drop my stuff.” He says, moving back towards Turntapp. 

“You’ve got a…reputation, Saparata,” The pirate grins at him. “We’re taking precautions.” 

The grin he gets is far too toothy to be considered trustworthy. He shoots a glance at Turntapp. Instead of looking back, the Covenant’s leader is studying the ground, testing it and tapping with his boot. He looks grim.

Saparata swallows hard. He starts to unbuckle the straps of his chestplate, when the leader of the Covenant stops him. He pulls him back. 

“Saparata,” He hisses in his ear. “We have to get out of here. Now.” 

“We- Huh?” Saps falls off-balance as Turntapp drags him along backwards. He tumbles and falls onto his knees. His feet knock into the ground behind and some gravel falls out from underneath them into a pit. 

“It’s a trap, boy, can’t you tell?” The Covenant’s leader barks at him, hauling him up. “Stand up!” 

Saparata scrambles up, legs shaking, and trips over his own feet a few times as he goes. Turntapp drags him by his wrist. His grip’s so tight around him that he’s certain there’s due to be bruising later. The pirates shout after them, but Saps isn’t listening. 

“I should’ve known, damn it,” Turntapp curses as he pulls Saps along. It’s less of a guiding gesture and more like he’s on a leash. “‘Course they’d take up a bounty.” 

“Bounty?!” Saps chokes. “Wait, who’s got a bounty on me?” 

Turntapp barks an irritated laugh. “Better question would be how many have got a bounty on you.”

“Oh my god,” Saps croaks. “Wait, so who’s got the highest bounty?” 

“You really interested in who your highest bidder is?” Turntapp raises his brow. Saps nods. “Pretty sure it’s Aperion.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah, but Luminara’s a good close second.” 

Saparata curses. “Not even surprised. Surprised he’s not got the most, he wants my head pretty bad.” 

“You’re talking about that Flux guy, aren’t you,” Turntapp says. He shakes his head and tightens his grip on Saps’ wrist. “Don’t think about him. He’s rich island scum, you hear? I don’t want you mentionin’ him if you don’t have to. He ain’t good for you.”

Saps falls quiet. Realistically, yeah, that’s a wiser course of action. Fluixon was the sole reason he couldn’t live on the rich island now. He was the reason Saparata wasn’t safe anywhere. He backstabbed him and the cut was still bleeding. Fluixon ruined his life at the flick of a lever.

He was behind all of it. Why shouldn’t he just stop thinking of him entirely?

Saparata doesn’t know. He just can’t. 

Turntapp drops his wrist now that they’re far from Al Qarasina. “Look, Saparata, I’m keepin’ you with me from now on. You’ve got a target on your back. You’re safest with me.” 

He’s a few paces ahead of Saps. He won’t look back at him. He’s got his sights set forward, boots stamping into the dead earth with every step. Saps is just aimlessly following behind while grasping his wrist in pain.

Is he really safe with Turntapp? After that close call? He’s the head of the Covenant, but the Covenant can’t stand the people from his island, so what was the point? 

The way Saparata sees it, he isn’t safe anywhere.

As he and Turntapp approach the rise of a mountain, he sees the snow line. They aren’t far from it at all. It’s within his reach. Turntapp doesn’t seem to notice, or even really care, that he’s falling behind. Saps slows down to a near stop.

Turntapp is a little ahead of him. He keeps getting farther, walking off and stuck in his own head. Saparata takes off and makes a dash up the mountain. He vanishes into the snowcaps before Turntapp notices the lack of footsteps behind him. 

Once he was up there, he ran. He ran and ran until he couldn’t go any further on shaking legs and then farther. Saparata ran until he couldn’t see the lights of Westhelm or Infernus or any stray houses. 

Saparata runs until he can’t run anywhere else. 

He ends up in the barren, empty wastes of the northern part of the island. There’s nobody there to hear him trudge through the snow, to hear the shake in his voice, to know anything except for the fact that he’s gone.

He reaches a flat spot, high in the mountain, and he falls to his knees and screams. 

“Fuck!” He wails, sinking into the top layer of snow. 

Everything beneath him was ice, hard and sharp, stabbing into his veins. He wraps his hand over the bruise on his wrist and squeezes it until it hurts again. It’s cold, and he was already going numb, but the agony was still there.

“I can’t do this anymore!” He shouts to the wind. “I’m tired! I want this to end!” 

He chokes on a sob. He doubles over and cracks.

“What did I do? Wh– Why did this happen to me?!” He screams, voice breaking.

He digs into the snow in front of him and starts to throw it. It stings– the snow packs easily. It resists him. It’s not a gentle power on top. It’s sharp crystals. It’s already cold enough, but it hurts so much that he feels like his hands are being cut into. 

They’re just a freezing red, though. 

He crawls forward and continues to sling snow around in a tantrum. The blinding white isn’t so harsh as the sun falls down, but he can’t see any finer details through his tears. Another sob rips from his throat as he falls forward.

He’s the image of desperation. 

Cold, pathetic, and disgusting desperation. He was the textbook definition of pathetic– maybe worse. He was the lowest of the low. He’s doubled over on the ground. He’s all alone.

Everybody wanted him dead.

Why shouldn’t he give them what they wanted? He doesn’t have anything left. It’d all been ripped away in the blink of an eye. 

He can’t just lie here. Hypothermia could set in, but not fast enough. It’d take too long to dehydrate. He needs something immediate, something fast. He needs something soon.

He looks up. The sun’s just started to settle lower. It was almost dark. Saparata doesn’t have anything to his name but his gear and some wood. He fell from grace. 

…Maybe he could fall. If he falls from high enough, then that’s it. His problems– everyone’s problems– would be solved. It’d be easy.

He sits up and sniffles.

He decides to build a tower. There’s nothing else to do. There’s nothing to do in the first place. His life is ruined, so he builds up and up. It goes by in a blur. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, moving in a dream-like state, until suddenly there’s four walls and a roof high above his head.

He made his tower. He’s in a trance. His armor is gone, his gear is missing, and he’s got nothing to his name other than a guilty label. There’s nothing left to do now except–

“Saparata.”

Saps turns sharply.

Someone found him? He’s isolated in the tundra. He ran off and hid. He didn't leave a trace to lead anyone to this place– it’s so far out anyways, and it’s not supposed to be found. 

(Maybe it was. A tall tower, a sign on the wall, torches like a beacon in the frozen wasteland: all evidence. If he didn’t want to be found, why leave an impression?)

He lets out a breath and takes a step back. It curls in the air, cold, sharp, a fog in the stillness.

Cold punctures every part of him. It makes his cheeks sting, his nose run, his fingers refuse to feel. His lips have dried and begun to crack already. Saparata is a warm-blooded being, but the snow is turning his heart to ice.

And then, in his self-imposed isolation, stands Flux. In the doorway of his tower, holding a lantern like a gravekeep– like the grim reaper, even– with a withering expression.

He hasn’t seen him since the Commonwealth. He’s been wasting away in the meantime, breaking down to his wit’s end. It’s Fluixon’s fault, all of it, and now he’s here to either end or worsen his misery. He stands tall. His shadows are sharp, angular, claws and teeth and spikes and pricks and horns–

The lantern creaks. Its golden light makes shadows all the more consuming, a deep darkness cast wherever it doesn’t touch. It’s reminiscent of the depths of the ocean in monochromatic shades. The candle inside flickers. Its light can’t seem to meet Fluixon’s eyes. 

“What are you doing here?” Saparata manages. 

Flux doesn’t have an answer. “Can I come in?”

“...Yeah. Whatever. Thanks for asking.” Saparata snorts, stepping back into the cramped space. No bed and no utilities, just a ladder and two. Four tall walls, trapping him in a box with Fluixon at the exit.

Fluixon looks up. “Quite the tower you’ve built. Are you starting some sort of…pop-up nation? A refuge for fellow persecuted peoples?” 

No, no, it’s far from that. It’s a grave. Saparata won’t tell him, but that’s exactly what it is. It’s his tomb, his mausoleum, his headstone. Graveyards are cliché– especially in this death-obsessed generation, scattered across the islands, but Saps can’t steer clear. He made one for himself.

He doesn’t verbalize it, but the dead silence says enough.

“I see.” Flux nods. “Well, fortunately or not, I am not a harbinger of death.”

Saps swallows. “So the reason you’re here is…?”

“I’m the bearer of bad news.” Fluixon says.

As if he wasn’t already sick enough, catching a cold out here, his heart lurches to his stomach. Now what? Saps has resigned himself. It can’t possibly get worse than it has, and if it can, then the ladder is right behind him. 

He watches Flux unbutton his sleeve and roll it up along his metal arm. It must be freezing, metal with no flesh and blood. Snow is caking the joints. They’re frozen in place around the creaking handle of the lantern.

He watches Flux flip his arm over, then use his thumb to wipe snow from a spot on his forearm. There’s something branded into the metal. Saparata squints and steps closer.

“I think this should look familiar,” Flux moves closer. “soulmate.” 

Saps stomach drops when he sees the exact mark on his arm now burnt into the prosthetic. Same place, same size. 

“You can’t be serious.” Saps breathes. “Please don’t be you.” 

Fluixon tilts his head. “That’s not a very nice reaction, is it?”

“You– Flux, y– I don’t–” Saparata garbles, bringing his own arm out of his clothes. He looks at the mark on his arm below the bruises, rapidly glancing between it and the one Fluixon’s branded himself with. 

Fluixon tilts his head, voice turning sharp. “Where’d you get that bruise? I know it isn’t coal this time.” 

“None of your fucking business.” Saparata snaps, eyes narrowing. “Why do you have that on your arm?” 

“I had this branding done specially for you,” Flux cooes. “I was hoping you’d like it.”

No. No, he hates it. There’s nothing to like about it. Flux was posing as his soulmate, he was tormenting him, he was here for nothing more than to mock him. He had to be. It can’t be real. Saparata puts one hand on the ladder behind him. He needs an exit from the nightmare Fluixon put him in.

If he just goes to the top…

“Didn’t I tell you that I’d seen this mark before? That I’d find who else it belonged to?” Fluixon asks, snapping him out of his thoughts.

“You…You’ve gotta be lying. You’re faking it and lying to– to mess with me, or something…” Saps manages, voice small. 

Flux laughs. “I knew you’d say that. That’s why…” He pulls out an envelope and tosses it at Saps. “I want you to look inside this.” 

Saparata opens it cautiously and finds two things: a letter and a photograph. The photo is of a pouting young boy, sitting on a throne with the old Aculon king, Elanuelo. He can’t be older than three or four. He squints at the left arm that was reaching for the crown on Elanuelo’s head. 

There, small but perfectly clear, was the exact same mark Saparata had.  

“It’s not been tampered with,” Fluixon says before Saps can even consider it. “I wouldn’t go to those lengths.” 

Saparata isn’t entirely sure of that. He looks in the envelope and finds black feathers. There’s a small note inside.

This picture is of you and your father, and I pray every day you turn out to be a better man than him. 

– OutlyingCrow

Saparata gapes at the letter. All of the unspoken implications, all of the information, and the confirmation of the worst news. Disregarding the notion that Fluixon was related to the Aculon Empire, his soulmark was…real.

Fluixon and Saparata were soulmates. 

It was the most unfortunate truth. Saparata had found his soulmate, the person who was supposed to have his best interests, the person who was supposedly the one person he would be able to always rely on. He found out they were his worst enemy. 

He was right to think that it’d be a shitty situation with his soulmate, but this? This was the timeline where Saparata gets the worst luck, the short end of the stick, where he’s fucked over by life itself and then laughed at over it. This is the server where mods are probably spitting on him in private.

He drops the letter. 

Suddenly, the walls of the tower are positively claustrophobic. It’s all bright white, a sort of brightness where he finds himself drowning in reverse. The air’s too heavy for him to breathe down here, but if he goes up to the surface– if he climbs that ladder– he can go get fresh air and be out of the white box.

He turns around and starts climbing. His back is turned to Flux in a rare moment of voluntary vulnerability, but nothing happens. Even when he partially expects some sort of knife to backstab him literally and not just metaphorically anymore, nothing happens. 

He just climbs up the ladder. 

He comes out at the top of his tower and looks out at the ink-black darkness. The tundra on this island was uninhabitable. Nobody was able to live out here. It was snow, ice, and rock. There were no trees, no fuel, no food, no shelter. It was oppressive, it was empty, it was perfect.

It would’ve been, had Fluixon not found him. Somehow. He doesn’t really care how at this point, he just knows he’s here. 

His head is full of static noise. 

The world is against him. Six leaders died, he was framed, he watched it happen in real time as his best friend– his soulmate, actually– lied to have him executed. An entire island wants him dead. 

What does he have left? Certainly not innocence. He may as well own up to it now. Pretend he was shouldering the burden for six lives, take a step off of the tower, take that guilt with him. Simple. Easy. 

It was really tall up here. 

The snow was falling slowly. The flakes were small, soft, and light. He could only see the ones in the bubble of light his tower emitted. It was like a little snowglobe that he was in. His world was shaken up and now all of the little snowy pieces were floating down to the ground again. 

He takes a step towards the ledge and looks down. 

Fluixon’s footprints are long gone by now, if he even left any. Maybe he just appeared here. Maybe this wasn’t even the real Flux. The real Flux was back on island two, hiding in his bunker, or walking around Luminara. He could go there now and find Fluixon in another meeting, fussing at Aperion, or maybe the Commonwealth. 

He’s anywhere but here, and Saparata made up this figure of him to finally convince himself. He was dreaming and this was sleepwalking, and things were going to be alright as long as he didn’t wake up on the other side. It’s all just the gentle guiding hand that takes him and leads him to rest, all in his head, all to make it less scary. (That letter was physically there. He couldn’t have imagined that photo, either.) 

He takes a deep breath.

There’s some faint noise behind him, but as far as he’s concerned, it could be the wind picking up. The snow was getting thick on that mountainside, so there was a chance it was preparing to come crashing down in an avalanche behind his tower. 

He takes another step towards the ledge. He looks down. The ground’s awfully far off. He made a grand tower that nobody would ever see. It’s a shame, because he made such a lovely monument to himself. 

He takes one last look around.

He feels too calm for this.

He doesn’t feel the weight of any actions.

He isn’t scared.

He moves to take a step–

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” Fluixon barks.

Flux grabs him by the wrist and pulls him back harshly. He stumbles and collides into him. His arms wrap around Saparata. His figure’s warm, encasing, taking him away from the ledge and trying to coddle some sense into him. 

He takes his hand (just one, just the warm one) and puts it on Saps’ cheek, eyes sharp and scanning his blank expression rapidly. He tilts his head, side to side, before he takes him into a hug again. He carefully walks them away from the edge of the tower. Saps starts to thaw from his cold and unfeeling state there, tunnel vision leaving, body slacking. 

Saps pushes him away once he leaves his trance. 

Flux drops his arms. His hands are idle for a moment, fingers curling around air, before he crosses his arms. He sets his eyes into hostile, narrow lines and scowls at Saparata.

“Have you lost your mind?” Fluixon hisses. “What on earth was that?”

“I’m doing the right thing!” Saparata spits out. “All of island two wants me dead! You’re getting what you set me up for!”

“And what? You did all that work to run away from it, you got out unscathed, and now you’re going to kill yourself when it gets too tough? Is that the plan?” Flux hisses. 

“Uh, yeah!” Saps gestures. “What the hell else am I gonna do?”

“Fight back, maybe?” Fluixon raises his arms. “Did we consider that?”

Saps laughs and holds his arms out incredulously. “Does it look like this was my first choice?” (It always was.) 

Fluixon moves closer to him, circling, and he stops at the ledge. He looks down for a moment. 

“My god, Saps, this height would kill you twice over.” Flux mumbles. He glances back up with an unreadable expression. “You were really going to do it, too, weren’t you?”

“Why does it matter to you?” He snaps at Flux. “Last I checked, you thought I was a good person to pin your crimes on! I took all the blame for you, against my will, and here we are! I’m taking your secret to the grave! That’s what you wanted at the Commonwealth, isn’t it?” 

“Plans change.” Flux shrugs. 

“Bullshit.” Saparata hisses.

“What can I say? Maybe I got a change of heart when I figured out you and I were meant to be.” Fluixon laments, rolling his eyes exaggeratedly. He gestures to his arm, and then to Saps’. “I wanted to see you despite everything that’s happened between us.”  

“Everything that happened between us was because of you! You ruined my life!” Saparata reaches out and grabs him by the collar. Flux grabs his arm quickly. 

“So what if I did? I got what I wanted– the island’s united. It may be against us, but the end can justify the means.” Fluixon says. He glances to his side. 

Their feet are inches away from the edge. All it takes is one shove, one ill-timed push, one moment with guards down, and…

“So you’re done? No more plots, nothing left to do, huh?” Saparata asks, grip tightening.  

“For the most part…” Fluixon hums. “I have what I want, anyway.”

“So the world will keep spinning if you fall.” Saparata says. He shakes Flux to the side. His knee locks up and he moves back. Flux tears Saparata’s arms away, expression violent and afraid. Like he couldn’t plan a way out, like he couldn’t foresee this, like he doesn’t want to be here anymore. 

“What’s gotten into you?” He asks, legs shaking. It may be the cold. It may be fear. It may just be both.

“I don’t know, maybe I’ll frame you for some life-ruining crimes, see what your verdict is after. Sound good?” Saps shrugs. What’s he got to lose?

Then there’s a beat of silence. There’s wind, and there’s snow, and there’s darkness, but right now, it’s just them. It’s cruel. Flux looks at him like he’s no longer human, like he’s delved into something worse and become a terrible vermin. He’s calculating, he’s processing, he’s taking this mechanically and trying to solve it like it’s something that can be dissected and solved and deconstructed neatly.

This isn’t something he can just uniformly break down and understand. It’s messy, they’re messy, and everything about this was awful.

“The altitude has gotten to your head.” Fluixon murmurs. “The lack of oxygen’s got to be ruining you.”

“You ruined me!” The words leave his mouth before Saparata registers them. “You’re the reason I can’t show my face, you’re why I can’t trust anybody now, you’re why I want to jump off of this tower!”

Fluixon just looks at him blankly. It turns to disgust after a beat.

“You’re so disgustingly naïve.” He finally says. “You’re giving up. You built a grand tower to jump off of without even once considering revenge? You go into the shadows and hide because you think you have to? Where’s your ambition?” 

Saps creases his brow. “Are you fucking coaching me?”

“I’m telling you that there’s more you can do.” Fluixon shakes his head, taking a step back to the ladder. “I can’t look at you in this pathetic state. It’s…depressing, honestly. My soulmate is a quitter.” 

Something inside Saparata ignites. 

“I’m not a quitter.” He says. Fluixon stops from where he was about to descend the ladder.

“Oh?” He asks, turning with an eyebrow raised. “Forgive me, but five minutes ago, I seem to recall you about to walk off? Die of…what, fall damage? How I see it, you had given up and quit.”

He’s trying to rile Saps up. It’s obvious. Fluixon is rarely so obvious with his stunts. This time, whatever he was doing, it was far from subtle.

“Here I was, under the impression you were ready to resign yourself to splattering on the ground. My dear soulmate, just after finding out, would end his own life. I feel like I got the short end of the stick here, even if it gets me off scot-free.” Flux continues. “Granted, while my back is turned, I can’t guarantee what’ll happen. Just know I’ll be very disappointed if you reach the ground before me.” 

Unfortunately, he’s got a point. Saparata wishes he didn’t. He wishes he was never here in the first place, honestly. This is the shittiest soulmate match in history. He has to get rid of him.

“...I’m giving you a headstart.” Saparata says after a moment of deliberation. 

“To the ground?” Flux asks, sneering. “I’m not racing gravity, sorry.” 

Saparata shakes his head and holds up a finger. “One day. You get a day before I start to rally against you. I’ll get anybody. I’ll prove I’m innocent, I’ll hunt you down, and I’ll make sure you get what’s coming.” 

He almost thinks Fluixon smiles at that.

*Oh dear,” He hums, head turning away. “Guess I’d better make use of that, then. I’ll spend my last hours running Luminara.” 

He vanishes down the ladder. A few minutes later, he’s tracking through the snow and away from the tower. 

Saparata squares his shoulders. He’s got his work cut out for him, now. It may be the dumbest thing ever– he just let Fluixon bait him into living out of spite. He talked him down.

It worked so well, he isn’t sure if he should thank or hate Flux for it.

Saparata comes crawling back to Turntapp by dawn the next day. He takes the Covenant’s protection under their leader. It keeps him safer than he had been in a while.

Turntapp takes him to a trial– the words had him terrified, but it wasn’t for him. It was for the volcano’s nation for their involvement in the slaughter of the Lingulini Mafia. They arrive at the courthouse, and one mishap from someone trying to catch the bounty on Saps’ head later, he’s sitting with Turntapp inside the building. It looked like everyone on the island had come to witness.

“Outside or nothing!” Infernus shouts. Saparata can hear their cries echoing off of the meeting hall, drowning in the chatter of every other nation set to put them on trial. 

The ferocious Lady of the Lava and the wicked Queen of Infernus awaits outside. She stands with guards all around her. Saparata tries to catch a glimpse from the window, but she’s too well-guarded. All he hears is their demands.

“We’re worried that Infernus will leave if we can’t prove the perimeter is secure.” Someone addresses the impatient crowd. It receives nothing but booes.

“If I have to stand here for five more minutes, I’m gonna rip my hair out!” The last surviving member of the Lingulini Mafia declares. 

Everyone was mumbling amongst themselves. Saparata looks at Turntapp. Turntapp scowls.

“This is going about as well as I’d expect.” He grunts.

“Man, I should’ve done this when they took me to trial.” Saps tries to laugh.

Turntapp doesn’t reply. People from every island were congregated. Rich islanders refuse to look Saps in the eye. Zekor, for whatever reason, just throws pebbles at him from across the room. Saparata shoots him a nasty look and mouths ‘innocent’ and points at himself. Zekor shakes his head and tosses another pebble from the palm of his hand. 

Turntapp crosses his arms.

Saparata hears a noise. He looks up.

Suddenly, he’s back in the vacation home. There’s six leaders, bodies slumped in their seats, blood pooling at their heads. There’s screaming, and shouting, and his blood runs cold.

He steps back and tries to warn Turntapp, but it’s too late.

The dripstone falls and he’s dead before he hits the ground. 

Saparata does the only thing he knows to do– he runs. Most of the courthouse does. They lose Infernus, the Covenant dissolves, and he ends up in Westhelm. 

He finds Schpood in the middle of a meeting. Schpood hates meetings, so seeing the wicked grin twisted over his face in that context was…suspicious.

“Saps!” He greets. “Have a seat!”

Saparata gestures behind him as he catches his breath. “Turntapp just–”

“Yes, yes, I saw, he’s dead.” Schpood waves it away. His evil grin returns and he clasps his hands together. “I’m getting word that, If I’m hearing this right…” He laughs. “The Commonwealth has been readying for battle!” 

“The Commonwealth?” Saps sputters.

“Yes! It’s brilliant!” Schpood cackles. “On top of this, Sitzkrieg’s inviting me there for a ‘meeting’ this evening! It’s the most obvious thing!”

“...But you can’t attack them first, because of the defense pact we have.” Saparata frowns. 

Schpood pouts. “Exactly! It’s really getting on my nerves, Saps.”

Spyder leans forward and puts his elbows on the table. “I can go.” 

“Wh-” Schpood sets his jaw. “And send my second to go get slaughtered like a lamb? Is that your suggestion?”

“Send me. I’ll go, if they kill me, then we’ll have the right to obliterate them.” Spyder says. 

Saparata watches him throw himself to the wolves. He watches Schpood send him off with all of Westhelm as their witness, and he watches Spyder nod.

“You’re a hero, Spyder.” 

“Glory to Westhelm.” He says, and then he leaves.

And then hours later, he’s dead.

Westhelm erupts into battle cries. They run to the water and make their best efforts to storm the Commonwealth quickly. Saparata tags along to witness it. Maybe this is what Fluixon was afraid of from the beginning. It seems more justified on Westhelm’s end, though. 

They reach the Commonwealth. It’s a ghost town.

Spyder’s head is on a pike outside of the Mykonos courthouse. 

Saparata can’t look into the dead eyes. He hears Schpood curse under his breath.

“Raid them for whatever they left behind and return to Westhelm.” He announces, voice cold. “Burn the rest.” 

He looks at Spyder’s head one last time with a grim look. Saparata hovers at his side. He sees Schpood’s fist clench at his side.

“It’s a real shame, Saps,” Schpood tells him. “He really was a hero.” 

Then he leaves to raid whatever he can find to raid. Saparata looks at the courthouse as smoke rises around him. He lets out a sigh, then traces back to the route he took to escape. He perches on the wall and watches the citizens destroy the ghost town of the Commonwealth.

Fluixon becomes President of Luminara by sheer intimidation. 

Literally. He intimidates Legacy out of the competition, wins in a landslide, and takes over the helm. Luminara doesn’t love him, but he’s popular enough that they don’t hate him. He just starts the “Rock and stone!” chant at his inauguration speech and that keeps them satiated. 

Then he holds a funeral for 3below, barely manages to avoid joking that he’s 6-feet-below now, and it goes well for the most part. He’s winning over the hearts of his citizens, one by one, and none of them realize he’s behind the murder of everyone from Jophiel to his predecessor.

Luminarans don’t know, but apparently every other nation did, and they didn’t get the memo.

“Are you seriously crashing a funeral?” He scoffs at Cass, who’s got her sword at his throat. “Outrageous.” 

A few Luminaran citizens are trying to get between the two, and that’s causing a whole fuss. Gotoga and Hyvrotation finally push him behind them and won’t let anyone near. 

“Wait, isn’t it kill on sight?” Someone asks. 

“Hey, you’re not killing our president again!” A citizen shouts back.

“He deserves a trial!” 

Flux looks at the chaos around him. He taps Thomas on the shoulder and leans in to whisper to him. “Luminara Mountain Mine.” 

“Are we doing that now?” Thomas whispers back.

Flux nods. “Tell Cynikka.”

Thomas gives him a nod back. 

Fluixon flees the scene, pulls the trap, and kills another few people. He loses Hvyrotation. He makes it to Yggdrasil and finds himself in Infernus that evening.

He crosses the bridge and steps into the castle. Waiting at the center, Peacekeepers flanking her and Commonwealth citizens watching from the sidelines, is Cynikka.

Fluixon approaches her with his hand held out. “Your highness?”

“Mr. President…oh, wait, you just escaped a coup.” She drawls, shaking his hand. Flux snorts.

“I seem to recall you refusing to go to trial as well?” He lifts up an eyebrow.

“Yeah. You caught me.” Cynikka smiles bitterly. “It must run in the family.” 

“It must indeed.” 

Saparata does not enjoy the next day. War is declared on Infernus for giving asylum to both the Commonwealth and Conspiracy. Schpood rallies his citizens in the colosseum. Saparata is asked to tell his own story.

He breezes through it. Pandora and Yggdrasil unite their forces on two sides of a war. He sees Cass, Gabory, and Legacy. It’s tense, but he manages a smile.

“Sucks what he did to you, man.” Cass pats his back and shakes her head. 

“Yeah,” He agrees weakly. “It does.”

What sucks worse is the fact he has to make good on his promise. Today is the day he headhunts Fluixon. 

Today is the day Fluixon takes evasive maneuvers. 

He watches from the top of the Ashen Bastion as the front lines begin to arrive at the foot of the volcano. New Dawn cuts them down as their first defences  whittling down numbers as best they can. It’s efficient. Such a small force would prove to be one of their deadliest weapons.

Arrows fly from the castle. 

“You’ve got an escape route, don’t you?” Cynikka asks, coming to his side.

“Is the Pope Catholic?” 

She gives him a weary sigh. 

“I don’t expect this to end well.” 

“Speak for yourself. I’ll be dying on my own terms today.” He snorts. He lifts his bow and draws an arrow back, aiming and letting it soar. 

Cynikka gives him a once-over. “This has something to do with Saparata, doesn’t it?”

“It always has something to do with him. Do you want a fun fact to take to your grave?” He rolls his sleeve up and shows her the branding in his prosthetic. “He’s my soulmate. Isn’t that cute?”

“Aww,” Cynikka clasps her hands together. “You two are a match made in Hell.” 

She departs to leave the range of arrows. Attackers scale the volcano quickly. Flux retreats into the castle. It rattles with the explosion of a trap Gotoga laid. The castle swings on its chains. 

Gotoga dies shortly after his trap goes off. Sitzkrieg follows. Cynikka follows. Eventually, they all meet their untimely demise, except for Flux and Thomas. He avoids Saparata for the entirety of the fight.

Swords all stab at him and chase him from the Ashen Bastion. He jumps into the volcano below, choking down a gapple and praying it won’t kill him. People cheer as he falls. He falls a very, very long way down. 

He reaches a hand up from the surface, body burning worse than hell– it boils against his skin, all the pain in the world, but his body refuses to take any damage. His skin stays perfectly unburnt, but he feels like he’s being ripped apart at the seams.

He crawls out of the lava as he’s burning alive. His head pounds, but he emerges from it and stands on his feet. He doesn’t know how, but Thomas is beside him shortly after.

He makes it through his escape tunnel without a single witness. 

“Block it up behind.” He hisses, running through the hot and dry tunnel. Thomas does without question.

Saparata looks over the ruins of the castle. Fluixon was alive. He simply refused to die, it would seem. He drops his sword in a last-ditch effort and takes out his communicator. 

He glances at the last messages sent between themselves.

<saparata> seriously. cannot thank you enough.

<Fluixon> thank me by getting here without getting caught.

He sneers.

<saparata> come to the colo

There’s less than a minute delay before he gets a response. 

<Fluixon> i’ll be there

He looks back at the ruins of Infernus one last time, then makes his way to Westhelm.

He walks into the colosseum to see a familiar face already waiting. The air is tense, heavy, and oppressive. Tears prick at the corners of his eyes at the sight alone.

Fluixon stands there so casually– like the first day they’d met up, when he had stumbled across him on the beach, or when he waited outside the mineshaft, or when he was waiting his turn to speak at a meeting. He didn’t look like he was in a war. 

He looked like he could turn and look at Saps with a smile and a laugh, and they could just go somewhere away together, and it’d all be okay. 

He doesn’t. Thomas nudges him and he takes a quick glance. He finally knows Saps is here. 

“Wow…” Saparata croaks. “You actually showed up.”

His axe is too heavy to be holding right now; or maybe that was his heart weighing in his chest.

Fluixon dips his head with a humourless laugh, and looks at him with glittering eyes. “Can’t say no to a friend, can I?” 

That word…stung. He stumbles out a little laugh in disbelief at it.

“Friend?” It’s sour on his tongue. He’s exhausted. He sounds exhausted. He looks up at Fluixon and gestures around the colosseum. “Flux, look at all this. All these people are dying right now, because of you.”

Flux smiles at him. He looks proud of himself. In spite of everything, all the loss, all the pettiness, all of the tragedy, he wears such a grossly content smile.

“Believe what you want, Saps,” He shrugs. “none of this would’ve happened if you had died, like you were supposed to.” 

Ashes drift in the air between them. 

“No, Flux,” Saps grits out. “This is your fault. Not mine.” 

He wishes it wasn’t. 

Fluixon’s smile finally turns melancholic. He stands there silently for a moment, looking Saps up and down, before he finally turns his head. He draws his sword.

“I am sorry that it had to be this way.” He admits, stepping forward. He spares a glance back at Thomas, who flinches at the look in his eyes.

Flux comes down to his level and stands across from him. He raises his sword. Saps lifts up his axe. 

“Your move.” Fluixon says. Saparata moves forward with his axe wound back. He doesn’t hesitate for a second, and that’s exactly what Flux was hoping for. He takes a step back to dodge.

There are three things Fluixon realized when he stepped into the colosseum.

One: He is going to die here.

He was doomed from the very beginning. No matter what the outcome was, Fluixon would be dead at the end. If he’s bent the rules thus far, they’ll do the same– he won’t be expunged if he wins this duel. He’ll either be slain by his soulmate or executed shortly after the opposite. 

Saparata was always the better fighter, anyways. (He really wouldn’t have it any other way.)

Two: Saparata deserved better.

Hindsight is 20/20. He can’t think of anything without a painful feeling in his chest. He regrets, and he regrets vividly. If he was given the chance, he would go back to the start and undo everything. He would throw away his role in Luminara and beg to stay with Saparata on that island. They would’ve lived together happily. 

It’s too late now, though, and Flux can do nothing but double down on his false ideologies as if he believes in them anymore. He doesn’t have a choice. He is, and will always be, the bad guy in Saparata’s story.

Three: He was in love with Saparata. 

It was redundant to say he loves his soulmate. He’d always been under the impression that since he no longer had the mark, though, that he was forced to walk the earth as a poor soul who would be condemned to loneliness. Without the indication, he would never know, and he would never be satisfied.

Fluixon doesn’t understand until far too late that the physical manifestation of something does not make up its entirety. Saparata was his soulmate. He always was. It makes it all the more miserable to know that he could do all of this to his soulmate and still love him. 

A subsequent realization comes from this: Saparata does not and will not ever love him back. Instead, he will hate him in his entirety. 

He will swing his axe and break Flux’s shield, tears in his eyes, and chase him down like the only thing keeping him from breaking down is the sheer determination to kill Fluixon.

Flux won’t make it easy for him. He enjoys the game.

Thomas watches from the colosseum seats. He’d begged Flux to let him trap the place, to give him a final fighting chance, to pull off one last grand stunt before it’s all over. He said he “could bring everyone else to their knees” or something.

Fluixon does not tell him that he’s ready to die.

He swings his sword like he expects to see another day. The blade of the axe chops into his armor. It cuts through and graces his flesh. Blood pours onto the colosseum floor. It sprays from his wounds in gory splatters. 

He grits his teeth.

Every cut is a white-hot pain. It burns, and then it oozes, and there’s another one before he can register the last. He runs off of the fumes of his own adrenaline. He feels heavy and sluggish. His head moves faster than his body can.

Regardless, he lifts his sword up and sweeps the edge into a joint in Saparata’s armor. It digs into the crack and Saps curses as it grazes his shoulder. Flux pulls his sword back and swings again, aiming at his chestplate.

Saparata raises his shield. A loud wooden sound signals the marriage of it and the blade of Fluixon’s sword. He frowns and tugs out the embedded edge. 

Saparata pushes him back. He takes the chance to gain distance and rip into a golden apple, desperate for whatever energy he can get back from it. It offers him survivability, at the very least. Saparata is on him in an instant after, swinging wildly with his axe like a madman. 

The blade connects heavily into his back and he falls forward. He rolls onto his back the second he lands, jabbing his sword wildly in an attempt to keep Saparata away. He kicks and his heel drives into Saps’ knee, causing it to buckle. 

Fluixon takes it as his chance to spring up and swing back. He turns his sword to the flat part of his blade and hits it into the side of his chestplate. 

Blood streams down both of their armor sets. It stands out more vividly on Saps’ pale skin and plain armor– over the lapis trim, it was harder to make out. He can trace the path they’ve danced across the colosseum floor. 

(Maybe, in a kinder lifetime, it really was a dance.

In this one, though, it wasn’t possible. It could’ve been, but that was a long, long time ago. They circle each other like wounded animals, or maybe the very definition of star-crossed lovers.

Flux was never any good at dancing, anyway.)

He takes a step back as Saparata heaves himself back up unsteadily. Fluixon grins and stands straight as he slowly paces backwards. 

“How’s our hero holding up?” He taunts, breathless. 

Saparata shakes his head and moves in again, swinging his blade. “Shut up.” 

Flux bats it away with his own. “What, nothing to say to your soulmate?”

It’s a cruel thing to do, even by his own standards. It’s what Saparata has come to expect from Flux. He’s dug himself a hole by now. It’s his grave, and he must lie in it.

“I’ll miss you.” He coos, letting Saps deliver a particularly nasty hit to the gap between his chestplate and pants. 

“You won’t be able to miss me,” Saparata spits. “You’ll be dead.” 

Flux laughs– or at least, he tries. He coughs as blood and bile seem to bubble up in his throat. He spits up a rust-tinted glob and wipes his mouth. 

He still smiles bitterly as he lifts his shield up, only for it to splinter into uselessness. It splits in half at the blade of Saparata’s axe. It comes down and buries itself into the guts of Fluixon’s prosthetic. He hears a crackle, watches redstone dust fall from it, and watches the fingers go limp. What’s left of the shield slides out of the hand uselessly.

He fakes a pout. “That’s quite rude. I needed that.” 

“You won’t in a few minutes.” Saparata breathes. Everything he says is bitter, full of venom, boiling with hatred. 

Flux, down an arm, steps to the side as Saparata aims to deliver a finishing blow as he raises his axe overhead. It cuts into the hard sandstone ground. He grunts and digs it out before taking another sharp swing. It goes into the back of Fluixon’s knee.

He feels something snap and he goes down. He drops his sword in favor of screaming in agony. Blood gushes down the back of his leg. Saparata stands over him.

He hisses and inhales sharply before he looks up, hand fluttering around his decommissioned knee. He flutters his eyelashes at Saps and catches his breath.

“Well,” he manages, wheezing. “I think we’ll call it a draw.” 

Saparata looks down at him. He holds his axe firmly. 

“It didn’t have to be like this, you know.” Saparata gives him sad eyes. 

“Maybe it didn’t.” Flux agrees. “Come down here.” 

Saps grimaces. “...Why would I do that?” 

“Because you likely severed tendons in my knee, Saps, I can’t go to you.” Flux rolls his eyes. “Come down and look me in the eyes.” 

Saparata drops his axe and kicks his sword away from his reach before he approaches. He kneels down at Fluixon’s level. Flux reaches up and takes his helmet off, tossing it aside and pushing sweatsoaked hair away from his eyes.

He leans forward and puts his forehead on Saps’ chest. He’s acutely aware of the rapid shallowing of his breathing. He’s losing blood at an annoying rate, but he’s out of gapples, so that’s just a shame.

“I’m sorry.” He says. 

“No, you’re not.” Saparata replies. “You’re just coping with the loss.” 

Flux huffs. “Can’t even humor me a little when I’m dying, can you?”

“Do you really think you deserve it?” 

“You wouldn’t be on the ground with me if you thought I didn’t.” 

Saparata falls quiet. Fluixon is getting tired. His heart has dropped from thundering in his chest to a slow pattern. He can taste iron on his tongue. 

He knows it’s over. 

“I wish you weren’t my soulmate.” Saparata finally mumbles. “It’d make this a lot easier.” 

“It’s not supposed to be easy.” Flux says, lifting his head up again. “Just hurry up and put me out of my misery.” 

Saparata looks at the axe behind him. After a moment, he stands up to grab it. There’s a distance between him and Fluixon again.

Flux realizes how cold it is. It’s not like the cold Saparata’s tower had been. All of the lava in the volcano couldn’t warm this kind of chill. It’s death, the cruel thing it is. His brain is compensating for the pain in his body by just ignoring the nerves. The blood was leaving him and leaving him cold and losing feel.

He can still feel his face decently enough, but his fingertips were comfortably numb.

He’s holding himself up by sheer willpower now, knelt with all the weight on his better leg. The other is dead on the ground. Saparata is in front of him with his axe in a limp and lazy grip.

“Do you have anything else to say?” He asks.

Fluixon swallows down the blood in his mouth. “I love you.” 

Saparata hesitates before he delivers the final strike. He shouldn’t feel bad, not after everything that happened, but something weighs heavy. He didn’t want things to be like this. 

On the other hand, Fluixon wanted to be dead, and he always got what he wanted.

Ashes fall like confetti. Tattered, smoldering banners fall back to earth and land at Saparata’s feet. He can hear the beginnings of cheering, ringing out all around him, but the limp body in front of him didn’t bring him any semblance of joy. 

There was no reason for Saparata to celebrate when he just lost a friend.

The following days happen in a different world– a smaller, much more ruined world. There’s not as many people around anymore. It’s lonely. It’s sad. 

As happy as everyone was to see the end, there wasn’t anything left to do for Saparata then. He rebuilds his vacation home with some help. The cleanup process is rough, full of gagging and bad memories, but it gets done. 

Graveyards spring up all over the islands. Big names got bigger headstones. Jophiel had her statue erected. Spyder gets an entire mausoleum built in the capital of Westhelm. What remains of Infernus are deemed Cynikka’s grave. The last of Mykonos puts up a plaque in Sitzkrieg’s name. 

Luminara refuses to honor Fluixon. Everyone does. They deny him any semblance of a resting place. 

Saparata is wearing his armor. It’s chipped, a little dented, and cleaned of all the blood. The lapis trim is growing on him a little. He wears it to Thomas’ trial, and he has it on when he makes the long journey home. 

Somebody asks him why he wears it.

“It’s less damaged than mine.” He lies. He isn’t completely sure why he does.

He stands at the base of the staircase that leads to his house. The shore is empty in comparison. It lacked something. The tall grass growing up through the sand just looked messy, but he didn’t want to put a fence up. 

He tries putting a chair out. It looks sad with just one. He would put a second one up, but there’s nobody else to sit in it. He puts the chair back inside. 

He builds a headstone instead. 

It’s short, and it’s small, but it looks right. Flux would’ve likely wanted something more grand had it been in Luminara, but Saps didn’t have much to work with. Flux had never cared about appearances as much when they were together, anyway. (Just to be safe, he puts some dripstone on it.)

Saparata glances at the mark on his arm. It’s dull, like an old tattoo. He’s grown fond of it recently. He doesn’t really hate it now. He runs his thumb over it and lets his sleeve fall over it again. He’ll believe that fate won this one.

He kneels down and places a sign on the headstone.

Fluixon

Goodbye, friend.

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