Chapter Text
Ranboo stepped forward at Tubbo, glad that his armours spontaneous disappearances made the gesture non-threatening.
"Come on Tubbo." He coaxed. "We've done this before. We all need to touch the book to get back."
"I'm keeping it from him!" Tubbo said, gesturing at Wilbur exasperatedly. "If he still had it he wouldn't let any of us touch it until we created an empire in this new server! At least now we can use it while he's asleep!"
"Come on now." Wilbur said, holding a hand up to his chest in offence. "I'm a changed man! And besides, I wouldn't create an empire, just a country will do." He gestured to the extremely tall buildings that surrounded them. "Obviously this server is very metropolitan and advanced, I don't think even I could create an empire with such competition."
By now Ranboo knew of Wilbur's strange, somehow both self-aggrandizing and self-deprecating sense of humour. But maybe it was an after-resurrection addition because Tubbo's face twisted and his husband stepped forward as if he was about to physically fight the man.
The sound of wings beating filled the alleyway before Tubbo could respond to that statement however, and in a dialect of common Ranboo had never heard before, a stranger called out. "Hello citizens! Are you lost?"
They had a drawling tone and as Ranboo turned to take in their greeter, he found himself looking at two people instead, one with short blond hair and large, bright red wings and the other shorter, held in the speakers grasp with black feathers and the head of a bird but no wings. Father and child maybe? (Or Father and chick as some avians liked to call it?)
"I'm Hawks." The speaker said. The dialect of common he was speaking in was unfamiliar to Ranboo, very different to the one the majority of their server spoke, different even to Niki, Fundy and even Quackity's varied pronunciations. Each syllable was exact and enunciated and it had a more choppy feel than the more slurred dialects Ranboo was used to, and it contained Hawks' pronouns in the word 'I' as well, which Ranboo thought was very useful for introductions "And this is my intern, Tsukuyomi. We just wanted to check up on you in case of accidental quirk usage. May I ask how you got here?"
Well he seemed nice. Ranboo had no idea how he could "use" a character quirk but maybe it was server lingo, like canon or chat. Not really the intended use of the word but the widely accepted one.
"Sure!" Tubbo chirped cheerfully, continuing the conversation in the dialect Hawks had begun it in, and in the same level of familiarity, (that was another thing Ranboo noticed was interesting about the dialect, differing levels of formality) reopening his inventory to take out the portkey, sending Wilbur a warning look. "My friend Jack gave me an enchanted book, it has Jump written on it in Galactic, see?" He held the book out for inspection. Hawks bent over it, very clearly not wanting to touch it. "So people who handle it Jump to another place. The prefix here however." He tapped the cover of the book. "Means it activates when three people touch it. Me and Ranboo figured that out when our son Michael tried to use it as a teething ring. But Wilbur here." He shot a glare in Wilbur's direction, Wilbur held his hands up innocently. "Didn't know, so tried to grab it off us as we were trying to study it."
Ranboo couldn't help but think study was a generous word, it was more like they were talking over it. But then again Tubbo was a politician so using generous words was literally in the job description. He'd certainly used them while trading their outpost. Ranboo shook his head of the thought, now wasn't the time.
"So this... Enchantment quirk attached to the book created the portal you travelled here by?" Hawks confirmed.
"Yes." Ranboo confirmed, tilting his head slightly in surprise as he heard the dialect's word for yes, (hai was very close to hi). He smiled at the two of them. "Sorry if that's inconvenient for you." He said, purposely using the more respectful word alternatives that came to mind, Tubbo could afford to be more familiar because of his importance in their community being a former president and all, but Ranboo felt it was better for himself to err on the side of caution. "We should be able to touch it again to get back, but Wilbur is - Wilbur is… a bit of a prankster. He might, well he might take the opportunity to have a sort of- a sort of vacation if we let him grab it off of us." Ranboo said, stumbling over his words slightly. It wouldn't do to make the three of them out to be an immediate threat to Hawks' server.
"I'm a prankster, am I?" Wilbur asked, raising an eyebrow, purposefully using the more brusque personal pronoun 'ore' where Tubbo had used 'boku' and Ranboo had used 'watashi'. "And here I thought I tried so hard to be more than just that."
"You're definitely more than just a prankster." Tubbo agreed, lowering his head slightly in the way that always belaid actual anger in the teen. Ranboo twisted his hands together nervously, silently begging them not to bring up old grudges. Wilbur visibly rolled his eyes, holding his arrogant posture, but didn't press the nerve more, perhaps genuinely thinking the server was too advanced to start anything.
"Right, right, calm down." Hawks waved his arms in a shushing motion, his wings moved forward to insert themselves between Ranboo's friends, and then swooped open again in a movement that forced the two further apart. "As long as we establish it wasn't your quirks that caused this y'all can go on your way. You want some directions to a shelter for the night? What are your quirks by the way? I know his-" he gestured a wing at Tubbo. "But what about you two?"
"I died and came back to life." Wilbur offered calmly, in the way one might talk about the weather. "And I have blue blood, I'd say that was pretty quirky of me."
Hawks seemed slightly taken aback, his wing flaring slightly, and his chick's (?) eyes widened somewhat. "Alright then, resurrection quirk, that's pretty rare. What about you?" He looked at Ranboo expectantly. Ranboo averted his eyes from the contact.
"Well I can do this." He offered, and kneeled to get to work at the ground, levering his claws into the stone below him. They slid in like butter as they were built to, six fingers, wide and flat nails and finger tips, minimal palms for a longer and wider finger splay. Ranboo used all of this as he sliced in a careful square, easing the resulting cube upwards, the Player magic that gave him an inventory shrunk the block and reduced the weight so he could hold it easily with one hand, unlike his non-Player Enderman brethren who had to use two. "Silk Touch hands!" He presented the block to Hawks, who looked suitably impressed. "I can mine a block of any material."
"Any material?" Hawks asked, a wary glint suddenly in his eyes. He must've been worried about Ranboo falling out of the world.
"Well not bedrock." Ranboo allowed. "But I have to have some weaknesses."
Hawks hummed. "Ok, and it's called Silk Touch Hands?"
"Yes." Ranboo nodded.
"Nice." Hawks nodded. "Well you probably already know but my Quirk are these Fierce Wings." He shook them for emphasis. "And Tsukuyomi's is his Dark Shadow."
A head popped out of Tsukuyomi's cloak, like a living shadow and Ranboo noticed he hadn't been casting one against the ground. It appeared that a quirk was just something that set you apart slightly from the crowd, Ranboo hoped they hadn't classified Tubbo's scar as one, there were so many more interesting things about the boy "Hello!" The sentient shadow (conjoined twin?) chirped, literally chirped, a trilling noise that was commonly used as a greeting between avians.
"Hello." Wilbur trilled back, seemingly automatically. He grimaced as all eyes turned to him. "My father has wings." He explained. "He's immortal unless killed. So he's had a lot of time to lean into the bird instincts and he used a lot of them when I was young."
"Oh, cool." Hawks said, looking mildly intrigued. "What's his quirk called?"
"Angel of Death." Wilbur lied easily, or well, maybe not lied as Ranboo had heard Philza was called that on occasion, and he had no idea how the naming conventions worked for these 'Quirks'. "A little morbid I know, but he didn't choose it."
"Eh, I get that." Hawks shrugged. "Can't help what the doctor chooses."
Oh, it was a medical thing! That made sense, Hawk's wings, Tsukuyomi's twin, Ranboo's Enderman given hands, Wilbur's blood and then probably Tubbo's horns! Physical differences between people wrapped up in a name! Ranboo could see the dawning realisation on both Wilbur and Tubbo's face.
"Those doctors sure can be annoying!" Tubbo chipped in.
'Bit eugenics-y' Wilbur mouthed at him. Ranboo shrugged, it had the potential to be, but it could just be for medical purposes, fixing a broken nose on Fundy would be different than fixing it on Wilbur after all, and it would be better to know that beforehand, especially if the server was big enough that you didn't recognize a person just by their name. But if that was the case it was still a bit worrying that Hawks was asking about that straight from the get go, what if they were like, say, Tommy or Niki or Ponk, who didn't have anything visibly or internally different about them, what would happen then?
"Let's get you to the shelter." Hawks decided.
—
Hawks made sure to set a slight distance in front of the three as he led them to the police-watched shelter, it was slightly further away than the regular shelter and he had to take a weird route to avoid all the signs for the closer one, but he had a bad feeling about the trio, so he thought it would be better safe than sorry. Tokoyami gave him a questioning look, obviously wondering why they were going so out of their way, Hawks leant down slightly so his mouth was covered by the arch of his wing, muttering so he couldn't be heard by the people behind.
"Here's a teaching moment for you. Think about their Quirk's, the immortal could be a distraction, silk touch could get in and out, and horns could store it. It's basically a perfect robbery, especially since they traveled a distance to get here, if they got back home quick enough nobody would suspect they could have done it in the time frame. Of course they could be innocent, but if they are, their stay at the shelter won't be any different than a normal one so there's no downside to being cautious."
Tokoyami's beak opened slightly in surprise, and then he nodded minutely in acceptance, turning his head slightly to give the trio a second glance, this time more assessing in his gaze. Hawks smiled, and reached out a hand to absentmindedly prean one of the stray feathers from his intern's mantel, smoothing it so it was slick with the others. By the feel of it Hawk assumed that the boy didn't produce oil so instead substituted it with some kind of hair/feather gel, he hoped it was feather gel, feather oil would be healthier, even if it was artificially produced, but it was still better than using the sticky stuff meant for hair.
"What brand do you use on this by the way? You could get it for free if you decide to sponsor it when you're older."
Tokoyami blinked at the sudden swerve but answered nevertheless "Oh a little bit of this and that, I've been trying to find a new one as my favourite recently got discontinued."
"Oh I hate it when that happens." Hawks said sympathetically, big brands usually quit producing after a couple of years as feather specific care wasn't as profitable as hair care, and small brands often collapsed without proper support and advertisement, which was why Hawks was often very on the ball with promoting stuff he liked. "You do use feather stuff, right? Not hair gel?"
Tokoyami's mantle pressed down slightly in disgust. "Of course, I know oil is still technically better, I just don't like the texture of it. But I would never use hair gel."
Hawks hummed and nodded, sneaking a glance back. As long as they pretended nothing was wrong, the potential thieves would probably want to go along with such a notorious hero rather than drawing attention to themselves by declining his help. When they got the shelter, he'd just have to alert the people in charge to his suspicions and they'd be watched like, well, a hawk.
He'd heard Eraserhead was on duty there tonight as well, so his intern would even be able to talk to his teacher.