Chapter Text
The God of Undying was reborn in light.
The light bloomed, like a budding flower, shoots of light unfurling, and when the Totem broke, a piece of his body and soul tying him to this plane, he appeared into the dead world to reclaim his flesh long gone.
Technoblade bound the Dreamon tight in chains, watching as the God of Undying appeared. He took a step back, his lips curled, showing tusks. It was a natural defense mechanism--something born from anxiety already running high, blood pounding in his veins from the nerves wound tight in his gut.
He shouldn’t even be here, but he’d already agreed to it. In the beginning, he’d already come here to save his brother and save his brother alone. No matter what happened, piglins were loyal to their kin, and even if they weren’t related by blood, they’d spilled enough between each other that a single, shining spark of hope promised to him was enough for him to try.
Technoblade wasn’t a very complicated man--at least, in his own mind. At the end of the day, all he wanted was an escape from the world he’d been born into--the world where he didn’t have anybody to call his own. Some part of him was still the little halfling who followed Wilbur home, and believed he could be welcome back into this world.
If anything Puffy said could be true--if everything could be undone, if he could finally take Wilbur back home, repay what was done for him--then he would gamble for that.
The light grew, blinding, and the piglin couldn’t make anything out anymore, beyond the green eyes of the silhouetted creature. He shut his own eyes, and gripped the Dreamon tighter--not willing to lose him in the blur of heat and sound.
It was silent, and that was the most unnerving part. It was completely silent, save for the sound of flipping book pages, and a small crackle of fire--something being used up, the book dissolving into ash.
There was a sigh--an exhale, a breath that swept over him, rustling his hair. Something unwinding in his gut, and then when he opened his eyes again, he forced himself to grip the chains tighter.
The God of Undying was just a man again--a strange man, made of wood and gemstones, like he’d used everything up in just being born, in reclaiming the power forgotten and stored in the book. That wasn’t it, though. That wasn’t the part that made Technoblade nearly jump out of his skin.
“PHIL!” He cried, to the living man, to the man walking back over the rubble, a little dizzied, a little confused, a little disoriented.
And, across the way, Wilbur finally started to cry.
Doomsday came and went, and it fell in Spring.
There was a massive crater left behind--something that went so deep, in places it found the mantle of the Earth. Miles of wreckage, an entire city buried in rubble. Magic could bring back the dead, but it couldn’t undo the scar left behind on the Earth.
More than that, the poisoning of the Earth was even worse. Plants wouldn’t grow again--not in a place touched by nuclear radiation, not for a while. The crater was covered in glass, deemed too dangerous for human life, and left as a memorial for what once was--a dream that went just a little too close to the sky, and plummeted to the Earth, for burning up in the sun.
They were starting over, now. The Watsons were. Wilbur moved back into Phil’s little farm in the North, in a spare bedroom, low in the basement. Tommy almost followed, hesitantly, but he didn’t. Instead, he followed Tubbo--a little bit away, still in the snow, still struggling on where he stood with the rest of them.
It was still in the snow, but a distance away, that Quackity decided to go ahead and follow that dream, and start a new place of his own--something Fundy was welcome to follow, something the rest of their little rebel group was welcome to follow, if they wanted to. His partner didn’t have any objections to that, since it’s what he wanted to do in the first place, anyway.
New people came, and new people went. A girl named Hannah appeared, surrounded by roses. She settled herself in the forest, a little bit away from the crater of the former city. She set herself up to rebuild the plants that died, and nearby, she set herself up as a member of the Badlands, to open a flower shop.
The strangest thing started to happen, though.
The only roses that grew were red.