Chapter Text
Not a moment went by where Yellow didn’t update the others on where they were. Always talking about every inconvenience and minor detail, Yellow was by far the chattiest one when reporting back to their group, so the complete radio silence on their end was deeply unsettling.
It had been hours since the four last heard from Yellow, and they were getting desperate. Knowing he was there with them, Second tried to get in contact with Chosen, only for him to leave them on delivered. Second felt beyond distressed—Chosen didn’t mention anything about what he needed Yellow for, and there were a million things they both could be up to. Some time ago, Blue brought up that Chosen’s attitude seemed off, like something unexpected might’ve come up, and they suspected something related to the Showdown incident happened. The others, not knowing any better, agreed and took that as fact. Apart from that however, there wasn’t much else to go on.
The group sat on the couch, all lost in their own worlds trying to figure out why Yellow could be taking so long. Blue’s leg bounced anxiously as they leaned back into the cushion, while Red curled into a ball in one corner of the sofa. Second was barely on the couch, sitting on the edge of their seat, and Green hunched forward, their head in their hands, elbows digging into their thighs.
The silence was unbearable. At some point in Yellow’s absence, Blue attempted to distract the others: offering games, starting conversations—they even suggested they resume sparring. But their efforts proved useless, and they resorted to other solutions. Red tried to open the portal in hopes that they could investigate for themselves, but quickly found that it was much harder to do so from the desktop’s side, and gave up after an hour. No one else had any smart ideas—the one person that would have the good suggestions wasn’t there—and so they sat around, the feeling of uselessness lingering like a bad taste in their mouth.
Half-awake, Red lifted their head, their voice a low whisper as they spoke to Blue. “How long has it been?”
Blue was visibly zoned out until Red brought that up, pulling out their phone to check the time. “...Six hours.”
Red opened their mouth to comment, but sighed and closed it, knowing they didn’t have anything helpful to say.
It wasn’t like they could ask Alan for advice; judging from how his office chair was empty and the entire room was dark, he was probably out for dinner. With every minute that passed, Blue got more and more uncomfortable with how on-edge everyone acted, habitually glancing at the desktop clock every minute or so to keep themselves distracted. Though nothing could lead them away from the fact that Yellow had still been gone for way too long.
Blue huffed. Too much to process.
Without another word, they stood up and stretched, holding themselves for reassurance and walking away from the couch. Green immediately picked up on the footsteps and whipped their head around to see Blue leaving, getting up and obstructing their path. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I’m going to bed,” Blue croaked. “It’s getting late and Yellow still isn’t here.”
“They’ll show up, just wait. They’ll be here any second now.”
“You can tell yourself that, but we all know that won’t happen.”
Blue turned, the bags under their eyes emphasizing their exhaustion.
“It’s been way too long, Green. It’s been six—almost seven hours now. Let’s be honest—is Yellow really coming back any time soon?”
Green’s eyebrows furrowed, and they began to walk back to the couch. “M—Maybe their phone died and they can’t text us.”
“Yellow never leaves their phone uncharged,” Red chimed in.
“And they aren’t stupid,” Second muttered, looking up from their phone for the first time in an hour, “they wouldn’t normally take this long to do technical stuff. If they’ve been done with their business, they’d be here.”
Recognizing that another debate was about to start, Blue took an audible deep breath. They stood beside Green, holding their shoulder with one hand. “I’m just saying we should give this a rest for now. We can keep waiting in the morning. It’s late, we should all go to bed—”
“Who’s we ?” Green scoffed. “I, for one, am concerned about my friend’s safety, so I’m staying here.”
Second side-eyed Green, putting their phone away. “We’re also worried, Green. Yellow is our friend, too. It’s just that some of us have been sitting here for most of the day, and so they’re going to sleep. It’s not that hard to understand.”
“I can’t believe this.”
Green marched up to where Second slouched on the sofa, pointing a finger at their chest.
“If you were half as worried as I was, you wouldn’t be letting Blue off like this. They should be with us, because what if Yellow comes back and wonders where they went?”
“Are you forgetting we all need to sleep? At least Blue isn’t this gungho about doing nothing the whole time,” Second retorted. “They know when to call it a night. You’re too stubborn to see that Yellow might not come back until hours later. Don’t be mad at Blue just because they care about themselves—be mad at Chosen for leaving us in the dark like this.”
“And I am ! I am angry at Chosen for putting Yellow in danger, for not saying jack since they left, but it’s up to us to make sure they get home safe! And Blue leaving us here is proof that they don’t care enough about Yellow to wait for them!”
As the two gradually began to get irritated with each other, Blue and Red exchanged a look before distancing themselves from the fight. Fed up with Green’s attitude, Second pushed Green away and stood up from their spot on the couch, further shoving them back to make space between the both of them.
“I don’t know why you’re so upset at Blue. It’s not their fault Yellow was kidnapped!”
“But they of all people should be worried about sudden disappearances! First it was with Purple, and then leaving for nether wart—you’re so two-faced! You care when Yellow leaves, but not when Blue does?!”
Second stormed toward Green, fists unknowingly balled. “Because unlike Yellow, Blue had their reasons for leaving! The only reason why I wasn’t worried about Blue disappearing that one time was because they were looking for something! Chosen was the one dragging Yellow away! And cut Blue some slack—they’ve been doing everything they could to keep us from losing our minds, and what have you done? Because last I checked, you weren’t the one desperately trying to get a hold of Chosen for answers—you didn’t even acknowledge why Yellow was gone for so long! You were the one that said Yellow ‘had everything under control’, and where are they now?!
“I don’t get why you’re so upset with Blue leaving when we’re all tired of waiting around!” Second continued to berate them. “We all want to stop and get sleep, but you’re the one insisting that we should wait for Yellow to come to us ! You’re the only one forcing us to do nothing and wait in silence when we could’ve found them by now! Blue has every right to leave, because it’s you that’s blowing everything out of proportion! You’re the one with the problem!”
“I’m just trying to do the right thing and wait! Is that so wrong of me, to care for my friends?!”
“Fighting with me is not caring for your friends! God—everything is all about you , isn’t it?! It’s all about what you do, what you choose, when you haven’t contributed anything at all ! Clearly, because the idea of you doing things yourself is so out of left field! If you really cared, you would be actively finding solutions! You would be doing everything in your power to find Yellow, not bicker with me about whether or not they’ll show up in one piece! For all we know, they could be rotting at the bottom of the ocean and we wouldn’t even realize it, because you were too busy making us do nothing !”
The four stared at each other in silence; Green and Second shot daggers into each other’s eyes, and Blue and Red were trying to stay as far from the conflict as possible. This situation was eating their group alive, and without Yellow to provide reasonable solutions and rational advice, anger was getting the best of everybody. That was what Blue was afraid of; without someone to keep everyone else in check, their group would fall apart in a matter of seconds, and that fear was quickly becoming a reality. No matter how hard they tried to keep everyone happy, it just wouldn’t work.
Blue took a deep, shaky breath. They mumbled something to Red and headed for the sticksfight house, while Red stayed behind and waited on the sidelines in case the dispute escalated further.
Realizing their fists had been clenched this entire time, Second loosened their grip. “So just... Just shut up and let Blue go to bed. We have better things to do, like actually finding Yellow. There’s no point in arguing about this, please.”
Green finally looked away from Second, seeing that Blue was climbing onto the web browser window and leaving to sleep. They huffed, crossing their arms and reluctantly sitting on an arm rest. Seeing as the situation was handled, Second sat back where they were and let out an exasperated sigh, going back on their phone to check if Chosen responded.
Then out of nowhere, Green scoffed. “Prick.”
Second whipped their head around and quickly closed a fist, grabbing Green by the shoulder and raising it up to their face. “Say that again you piece of—!”
Right as Red was about to intervene and split them apart, there was a faint creaking sound coming from Alan’s door, and the three watched as Alan came back to his office. He closed the door behind him and walked up to the monitor, maximizing the Adobe Animate window and picking the text tool. The others quickly climbed up the window and watched Alan type.
“ yellow still isnt back? ”
Second turned to Green, trying not to linger on their infuriated expression, and shook their head in response to Alan’s prompt. Alan then deleted the text and typed in something different.
“ i have to put my daughter to bed. you guys gonna be ok? ”
They all looked amongst each other, and then finally nodded in unison.
“ just dont forget to rest okay? im sure theyll come back soon ”
Upon reading Alan’s message, Second motioned a thank you to him, waving goodbye for the night and leaping down onto the desktop. Green and Red followed shortly, though as Second and Red turned the corner to go to the website, Green split to stay at the couch.
Before Green sat down, Second headed over and spoke to them. “Green?”
There wasn’t a verbal answer, but Green nodded their head up in acknowledgement.
“I’m sorry for yelling at you. I’m just really exhausted, and Yellow—”
“I know,” Green mumbled, laying on the couch and propping their feet up on the arm rest, “I know, just—just go to sleep already.”
Green noticed Second about to open their mouth to say something else, but after giving them a look that said they needed some time alone, Second closed it and followed Blue and Red back to the sticksfight tab. They leapt onto the browser window, trudged up the stairs, and found themselves sitting at the small box table in one corner of the second floor.
What they said was a little out of line. Yes, Green was being completely unrealistic, but implying they were self-centered was over the top, even for them. Though the truth was, as much as Second hated to admit it, Yellow wasn’t going to come back until later. Part of Second mulled over what Green had said before, perhaps out of hope that they’d be wrong; they didn’t really believe Yellow could’ve gotten seriously injured, even if it was probably what happened. Besides, maybe they would come back, and maybe they should’ve just stayed with Green.
God, it was too late at night for this.
Resting their head on the table, they pulled out their phone and began to scroll through social media again. It was all the same, stick celebrities and advertisements. Compared to all the adventures the five of them had gone on, everything seemed so bland. They faced new and different threats every journey they'd gone on, but nothing ever happened while at home. They'd never faced a threat this personal; at least when they were out, they knew they could recover somehow. Second felt tempted to look back on those memories through a photo gallery, dream about being in a fun situation again to forget all about what was going on now. But even thinking about Yellow potentially being dead was too painful. Too terrifying. It was probably better to just get rest while they could and leave it all for tomorrow.
Second cushioned their head with their arms after setting their phone face down on the table’s surface. A headache was coming on, but that didn’t matter. They needed to have a clear mind for tomorrow so the four of them, as well as Alan if need be, could think of ways to find Yellow.
Please be okay.
The last thing Second wanted to wake up to was the sound of muffled arguing downstairs. Eyes fluttering open, they did a quick stretch and felt for their phone on the table. Feeling for the on button, Second held the screen close to their face to check what time it was, rubbing their eyes for the numbers on their lock screen to look more clear. Upon seeing how late at night it was, Second groaned; it was past midnight, why were people still up this late?
They blinked the drowsiness from their eyes and took the time to really wake themselves up. Using the table to stand, Second twisted and turned their body in different ways, their body making cracking sounds as the stiffness in their bones eased up, and they stretched out their limbs as far as they could manage. Once all their joints were warmed up and their muscles were as awake as they were, Second pocketed their phone and trudged toward the first floor, ready to investigate the ruckus.
Even when Second was outside the sticksfight house, the conversation was still muffled and unintelligible. Although they couldn’t quite make out anything spoken, the tone of those speaking was rather upset, and so Second took a minute to mentally prepare themselves for the difficult discussion they’d engage in. They took a step forward and leapt off the tab, the voices instantly becoming more recognizable once they were out on the desktop, and they immediately froze.
There was one person that he could discern from anywhere, and so Second ran over as fast as they could.
It didn’t take long to get to where everyone else was. All huddled around the signature beige couch, Second could pick up on the conversation more easily now.
“This is ridiculous!” Green shouted, seemingly to someone on the sofa. “You’ve killed tons of malware spiders using only your powers, and yet you couldn’t do something as simple as that?!”
Second, now agitated, bounced around while trying to see what was going on from behind everybody. They peered from in between Blue and Red to see what was happening, growing more and more anxious when they still couldn’t make out what was going on. They held back all the questions that began to form in their mind—what was going on, if Yellow came back, if Yellow was safe —and tried to wait, but their impatient shuffling alerted Blue, who turned around to see Second acting jumpy.
All it took to understand was one exasperated expression, and Second stepped forward.
“No amount of Virabots can compare to the carnage those two could do,” the stranger yelled in a whisper. “One was already bad enough to do this —I couldn’t do anything—!”
“Okay, but what about Yellow?!” Green argued back. “They were with you when it happened, right? You expect me to believe they just couldn’t stand up for themselves?!”
“I told them to leave because I knew I wouldn’t be able to protect them, that’s the whole reason why we’re—”
“What is going on here?!” Second finally shouted. Everyone turned to see them standing there, arms crossed and glancing between the others with a kind of anger that no one could quite identify. Realizing why they weren’t moving, Blue and Green parted from each other, and Second walked through.
They grumbled and shook their head, making the mistake of closing their eyes. “Seriously, it’s way too late. You’re gonna wake Alan up with how loud you guys—”
Seeing Chosen with a gash across their face made Second pause. They leaned forward, trying to get a better view of the scratch, going to rest their hand on Chosen’s shoulder when they felt something else there. Backing away, that’s when Second realized that the grey body sitting beside them and laying their head on his shoulder looked way too familiar. Their body tensed and their expression changed from concerned to horrified in a heartbeat, and Second could feel the weight of the situation start to sink in.
Without a word, Second knelt to the ground to see Yellow’s face. Their eyes were closed, but it was obvious that they were made to look like they were asleep by somebody—likely Chosen to make discovering their body less terrifying. They reached a hand out to Yellow’s cheek, cupping it and hoping that there would be any kind of movement; a twitch of the cheek, the slightest mouth movement, their eyes flickering. Time froze as they waited for something, anything , only for nothing to change.
Second stood back up straight, their hand still on Yellow’s cheek. Looking up and down their body, they noticed the huge bite mark that was so crudely bandaged, and their hand left Yellow’s face to unravel it. They felt Chosen’s body turn away slightly as they revealed the injury in its entirety, as if he was deliberately looking away to avoid seeing the others’ reaction to the damage. Red gasped, going quiet as Blue began bawling and sputtering nonsense. Green’s breath grew heavy with rage and Second just stared at it, confliction and despair clear through their expression.
And they looked back at Chosen, who was still trying to avoid anything that would’ve triggered more guilt, and Second mumbled weakly to him.
“Chosen...?”
Knowing he couldn’t resist for long, Chosen turned back around, seeing Second’s gaze cast to the floor. “I’m so sorry,” Chosen whispered back to them, “I did everything I could to keep Yellow safe, but it—it wasn’t enough—”
" Bullshit! ”
Second turned to see Green, with balled fists and a furious look, march forward to confront Chosen. They pushed Second aside, and Chosen held out an arm before Green got in his face about what he said. “ Now you say you did everything when we all know you didn’t! Because if you did, then Yellow would be here instead of you!”
A painful chord stirred in Chosen’s stomach, and they gently set Yellow aside to stand up and defend themselves. “I never planned on being ambushed! If I knew we were going to be attacked, I would’ve—”
“What, you would’ve tried harder?! You’re just proving me right—you were holding back!”
“I thought that Yellow would be capable enough to fight on their own, that if they were aware that something would boil over and willingly pushed me out of the way that they could fend for themselves—”
“Are you saying they couldn’t?”
“I’m saying they didn’t !”
The desktop fell quiet as Green took in Chosen’s words. Visibly enraged, it took all of Green’s willpower not to grab them by the hem and start screaming, though it was extremely difficult. Foolishly, Chosen made a move, shoving Green away to make space.
“I gave them a chance to run when I realized they weren’t doing anything! I told them to go, leave me behind before those things hurt them, but they stood there and watched me hold them off instead! They had every right to run away, but they chose not to and it got them killed !”
They immediately covered their mouth, and the desktop fell silent. The others all stared at him, wide-eyed and appalled by his choice of words. Glancing around, seeing how Blue held back tears, how Green’s anger softened by how taken aback they were, how Second still had their head hung like life had been drained out of them—it made Chosen seriously reconsider what he was saying.
“They had every right to let me get mauled to death but they—they wanted me to live. They lost their life trying to help me and I regret letting them, knowing you would be so upset about this. You were right, all of you were right—Yellow died because of me.”
Even if it was still partially their fault , Chosen wanted to say, but he knew better than to blame Yellow for his own incompetence.
Still, no one said anything, even after Chosen admitted to getting Yellow killed. They stepped back, reclaimed their spot on the couch as they waited for someone— anyone —to at the very least give their thoughts, some kind of hope brewing when they saw Second finally lift their head. He didn’t know what to expect when they finally came back to reality, but whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t seeing them beyond distraught. Ignoring everyone else, Second stepped forward, didn’t even bother to look at Chosen when they scooped Yellow up in their arms and held them like a sleeping princess.
Only when Yellow was safe in their arms did Second dare to look at Chosen, and their eye contact said it all.
“I’m just trying to figure out what led up to this,” Red finally spoke up, having been silent since Chosen got there. “First you grab Yellow, then you go missing for a few hours, and then you two show up like this? Who—how did it all—?”
“I got into a fight.” Sitting on the edge of his seat, Chosen looked down at his hands to avoid looking Red—or anyone for that matter—into the eyes, and recounted everything he could remember.
“I didn’t just message Second for no reason—I needed Yellow to fix something for me, a computer that I broke when I had to deal with strangers breaking into somewhere they weren’t... supposed to be. I knew that I couldn’t just show up unannounced, so I told Second that I needed to see them as soon as possible. I said that it was bad, that it was as bad as when you guys got into that fight with Dark, because that was the only way that they’d come, no questions asked.”
Green scoffed. “So you just lied to us for no reason? Who do you think you—”
“Just hear me out, okay? Please.”
They shifted uncomfortably, and Chosen opened his mouth again.
“I never would've expected someone—no, something —to be waiting for me there. I thought it would be simple, in and out in around an hour, but then these two creatures picked a fight with me. They were like animals . They clawed and bit at whatever they could. I got this scratch, and Yellow lost their life. I tried to get it off of them, I really tried, but I was... I was knocked out cold. Then when I woke up, I realized that Yellow was gone, and I knew I had to come to you guys straight away.”
“I was trying to get a hold of you for so long,” Second croaked. “A text would’ve been nice—is that what took you seven hours to get to me..?”
Timidly, Chosen’s gaze flicked to the others, meeting their expectant and troubled expressions, and a burden made his heart start pounding in his chest. They were going to bring Yellow back; compared to holding a dead body in their arms, checking their phone was the least of their concerns.
“Not exactly,” he mumbled, and Chosen closed his eyes to envision what happened.
“I admit that I took a while to get back to you. I shouldn’t have left you all to wonder and I shouldn’t have been so secretive about where I was. But I wasn’t going to leave Yellow there—I wanted to get them back home, back to you four where I knew they would be safe. Remember that hole in the sky, the one you guys fell out of when you followed me to the cliff?”
They all collectively nodded.
“The hole was still there when I woke up. I tried to carry Yellow and go up, go back through the tunnel I came from, but something went wrong when I was flying up there. Right as I touched the broken part of the paneling, the flames sputtered, and they almost went out on me. I thought maybe I was just imagining it, that maybe I was just exhausted and so my powers wouldn’t work as well. But when I got to Alan’s monitor and I saw that the portal was gone, I couldn’t burn through it like I used to. It was harder— much harder. That’s the part that took me so long.”
Even though Chosen had a perfectly good reason, Green was still unsatisfied. “That’s still no excuse! You could've asked us for help or, y’know, informed us —”
“Green,” Red whispered sternly. “Give them a break.”
They set a hand on Green's shoulder, signaling them to hold off for a moment and let Chosen resume explaining, but Green pulled away, visibly offended. “And why are you defending them?! Aren’t you upset that they got Yellow killed?!”
With the way Red turned away quietly, Chosen didn’t need to hear an explanation.
“I—I was scared to ask for your help. If I told you Yellow was hurt, I would’ve never heard the end of it.”
“And you think you’re in the clear now?” Green hissed.
“I never had the right to keep closure from you. I should’ve told you, told Second , everything that happened when it happened. I let my fear get the best of me and I—I made everything worse by doing so. I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry.”
“Congratulations, you admitted you killed our friend. Do you want a medal?”
“Okay, that’s enough!” Red stood in front of Green, seemingly shielding Chosen from them. “We’re all upset that Yellow died, but you shouldn’t be taking it out on Chosen! He said he’s sorry, and we all want to bring Yellow back, so why can’t we just work this out without trying to fight?!”
“Because I don’t know if it’s possible.”
Red whipped around to see Chosen, head in his hands and a concerningly blank expression. “...what?”
“Even if there was a way, I wouldn’t know it. Those things drained the life out of them. I don’t know how that works, so there’s no way that I could do anything.”
Silence. There had to be a way—Red wasn’t just going to accept that Yellow could be gone indefinitely. If no one knew anything about these assailants that Chosen spoke of, then they all needed to be on the lookout for any new information. How would they start that, though? Chosen was the only one that had an encounter with them, so if he saw firsthand, then maybe—
“Unless you try to find out for yourself.”
Everyone turned to Green, who essentially told Chosen to get themselves killed for research purposes. Chosen wanted to object, but they weren’t really in a position to do so, so they kept their mouth shut. Red, fortunately, looked worried and said something for him.
“But what if Chosen dies out there? If what he said was true and his powers are fading, who’s to say they won’t be dealing with something way stronger than they are?”
Green crossed their arms and huffed. “If Chosen really cared, he wouldn’t mind sticking his neck out.”
Chosen tensed. Was that literally or figuratively?
Hoping they would have input, Chosen, Red and Green all turned to Blue and Second for something. They both exchanged a glance; neither had anything to say, but it felt like they agreed with Green’s sentiment to have Chosen figure it out on his own. Red saw this and grumbled to themselves, putting their hands on their hips as a way to show their disappointment. They couldn’t even get a word out before Green snapped at them again.
“If you’re so worried about Chosen, why don’t you go with him? Surely you wouldn’t mind, trying to justify them killing Yellow and all.”
Red’s eyes widened. “Are you trying to get me killed?”
The way they said it led him to believe that Red didn’t really care.
“Whatever you choose to do, just make sure no one else gets hurt,” Blue sniffled. “I don’t want anyone else to die, please.”
Chosen watched as Red helped Blue dry their tears, pulling them into a group huddle and whispering to each other. He couldn’t make out what they were saying, but he got the occasional glance and did his best not to break down right then and there.
All of this could’ve been avoided if he just spoke up sooner. But in classic fashion, Chosen made a mistake and blew it way out of proportion, and now he has to face the consequences. That was always how it was; with Alan and with Dark, with anyone they might’ve been just barely close to—they always found a way to bring those they cared about into trouble, and they always got the blame for it. For once Chosen wanted it to be someone else’s fault so that they wouldn’t have to deal with the idea that they made everything worse, so that maybe they wouldn’t be put down at every step.
This is all my fault.
After some discussion and everyone nodding in mutual agreement, the circle disbanded, and Red began to approach Chosen with a sour expression. Chosen looked up and saw them offering a hand, and he hesitantly took it. Once Chosen was off the couch, Red relayed what the others had said.
“So we all talked it out, and we decided that you... should go back. But I wasn’t going to let you go alone, so until we get somewhere, I’ll be staying by you for as long as I can. They were against it at first—safety reasons and everything with Yellow, you understand—but I worked something out.”
Chosen’s eyebrows furrowed. He didn’t want to share his skepticism, but he didn’t need to, as Red caught on that he was suspicious about something.
“If you’re worried about how we’ll get down, they’re letting me borrow Yellow’s staff for the entire time I’m out.”
They blinked. “A... staff?”
“It’s a long story.”
Despite being out of the loop for that part, Chosen went along with it, nodding and gesturing for Red to follow them to the portal. Part of him felt guilty for taking someone else; they all watched Red walk out with him, much like they all watched him whisk Yellow away without explanation. But unlike before, they walked out on their own volition, so no one could argue that he wrongfully got someone killed. Still though—Chosen felt off about this. What would happen if he got into another fight with those things and he also got Red killed?
When they both got to where the portal was, Red said their goodbyes to the others, watching them wave back and carry Yellow back to the sticksfight window. They huffed and turned to Chosen, a determined look on their face. “Where are we going when we get there?”
Realistically, there were few places that those creatures would have run off to. It was between the city, where they could disguise themselves and hide amongst the people, and the forest, where it was secluded but easy to spot them. Judging from how they behaved when they first met, it seemed like they were caught off guard, like they didn’t expect to be there and meet him. Two monsters resembling people, traveling without a plan or anywhere safe to go to.
If there was no other place they could’ve gone...
Chosen put a hand on the edge of the opening, looking through the bright white tunnel ahead of them.
“I have an idea.”