Chapter Text
They all look at Ranboo with differemt expressions. Before anyone says anything, Techno is practically dragging Ranboo off into the attic, earning a yelp.
Once they're up there Techno's looking directly at him. "What do you know?"
"Pardon?"
"What do you know about me? About The Blood God?" He didn't sound angry or anything like that, just serious.
"Nothing!" He said it quickly before correcting. "Or, n-not a lot. Just what was said to me more recently." And things that came out of nowhere in his mind, but Techno didn't need to know that.
Techno just stares at him before sighing. "Well, regardless, I'll try and lessen that issue. Don't need you uncomfortable around me if I'm gonna be helping you."
Ranboo sighs a bit, relaxing a teeny bit just at that. The two head back down and casual chat starts up again.
They actually are like that for a while. It gets to near sunset when Phil realizes the enderhybrid had been randomly eyeing him, ears twitching, for the whole time.
"Something on your mind, Ranboo?" His tone and voice showed Phil wasn't upset. In fact, he seemed amused.
"Uhh..." He glances around, debating on saying anything at all. Ultimately his curiousity was greater than his fear. "You... You have a similar but more subtle and calm energy to Techno's..."
He smiles a bit. "And what's your thoughts on why?" Ranboo seemed like a smart kid to Phil, so lets see if he has this already.
"I... It's just a feeling but..." He takes a deep breath. "Do... Do you have a connection to a specific deity?”
Phil nods at that, small smile increasing a bit. "Yep. It's not the same type of relation, but it's there."
That gets a bit of a tail flick and a nod from Ranboo before he looks off, thinking. He knows another, similar energy. One much stronger than Phil's but less chaotic and disorganized than Techno's. And that's worrisome. "That may be a problem...."
"What?"
"Uhh... Well... Y-you two aren't the only ones I've sensed that energy from..."
The hesitance was all Tommy needed to know who. "Let me guess, Dream?"
Ranboo nods, tail spiralling a bit. "It's... Almost as strong as Techno's, but more calm and controlled."
The small smile Phil had fades. "That's concerning. Hold on." He makes his way up the stairs and then comes back down with an old book. "Your intuition seems really strong and accurate, maybe you could figure out which deity it is?”
Ranboo takes the book, opening it. He kinda wishes he had different circumstances to getting this, as the title of "Deities and Celestials" had his attention. As did how it looked to be around 300 years old. He opens it and starts flipping through. He paused at one page, the one for dreamons, before shaking his head and continuing. He's looking for a deity, not a celestial.
He does eventually stop on what felt like the best pick. "Ex'Dee, god of order and dreams..." He mumbled his reading, but it was heard.
"Yeah, that's really bad." Phil says, worry on his face. Tommy shifts a bit, trying to think of how to shift the topic a bit.
"Hey, does that book have Drista in it?"
Ranboo tilts his head, ears twitching a bit. He starts flipping through the book again. "Yep. Right here." The page didn't have much on the goddess, jist that she was young and new.
Tommy did a celebratory movement before continuing. “Bet she’d love to know that!”
Ranboo chuckled a bit before Tommy grabbed his hand. "C'mon, let's go find out!"
"Wait, you have a connection to a deity?"
"Well, yeah! Pretty sure we're friends!" If nothing else, Tommy counts as a follower of hers, so there's that. The blond drags him outside, just in case. Drista's unpridictable, so best to be in the open. "Drista? Hey, you gonna show up? I gotta tell you something!"
There's silence before Tommy adds on. "I'll make Techno get you some dogs if you hang out with us!"
There's a beat before the energy shifts. "Really now?" A young voice rings through before the goddess appears. "If you can manage that I'll gladly take it."
The goddess' chosen form was that of a young teen girl, around 14, wearing a lime green hoodie and a black skirt. She had her hair long and blonde, and was wearing a mask similar to Dream's, but with eyelashes. "Hello."
Ranboo couldn't help but stare a bit as he returns the "hello". Tommy chooses to keep talking a bit, him and the goddess talking for a bit before the point's said. "Oh, Ranboo found you in an old book!"
She looks over at the enderhybrid. "Really? Anything interesting?" It was clear she wanted Ranboo to answer, as she stared him down a bit, head tilted.
"N-not really?" He says, only uncomfortable on not knowing anything about her.
"Hey, she's cool!” Tommy says, beaming. “She likes to cause problems, sure, but she’s not dangerous.” He puffs out his chest. “She gave me and Techno a piece of bedrock, you know?”
"And I gave Punz a shulker box." She says, wanting all of those known to the world. She never looked away from Ranboo. "I could give you something too if you want."
"I... Would rather not owe you anything..."
She hums, looking him over. She then manifests two cats. "It's just a gift, that's all."
A gift? Why would a goddess he just met give him a gift? He doesn't think about that too long before the cats are rubbing against his legs and he's overwhelmed by how cute they are, scooping them up. He guesses they can keep them then. He looks back to Drista, who hasn't stopped practically staring at him the whole time.
She hums as she realizes Ranboo knows she's staring. "So, you're only half enderman, right?" Ranboo nodded in response to the goddess' question, leading her to continue. "Do you know what your other half is?"
Ranboo kinda looks off. "N-no. I... I've never really known, I don't think? My memory's bad either way..."
She nods, moving her mask so her face can be somewhat seen. Beyond the galaxy in her eyes, it looks like a normal, human face. She had a warm smile as she spoke again. "It's dreamon. Your other half is dreamon." She said it positively, but the comments seemed tonegatively short-circuit Ranboo. But why? “Dreamon?”
"They're like... Angels? Demons? Reapers? Whatever you'd categorize helper celestials with sentience.” Drista says, still clearly happy. She’s either telling the truth, or something close enough that it’s equally nice and fun for her. The longer Ranboo spends with her, the more clear it is to him that she’s likely a fun-loving deity.
And that got confirmed as she decides to summon some silverfish that choose to ignore Ranboo and head strait to Tommy, who yelps and runs to climb a tree.
"Hey, careful!" Ranboo says, prepping to squish the bugs. "Tommy's only on one life!"
Drista moves her mask back on her face after rolling her eyes. "I know that! Trust me, I'd never purposely badly hurt or kill him."
Ranboo hums, a small quiet warble leaving him. He's sure she's being honest, but the swarm of silverfish has him nervous anyway.
"Alright, alright." She says as she crosses her arms and makes the silverfish disappear. As well as the tree Tommy hid away into, causing him to land in snow with an "oof". Drista giggled a bit.
Ah. Goddess of chaos. Reversal of Ex'Dee. Got it.
Tommy gets up and starts petting one of the cats, which jumped down from Ranboo's arms and went up to him. Ranboo's tail flicked and a chirp left him. He was enjoying this moment, really.
"Well, I think I've been here long enough." Drista says. "Later, Tommy, Ranboo." And with that she's gone. Cats staying, so they really are a gift. "Tommy, do you think you could bring the cats into the base? I wanna check out something."
He nods as he's handed the other cat. He goes over to the base as Ranboo goes back to the cabin.
"Welcome back! Is Tommy still playing outside?"
Ranboo nodded, not feeling like he could explain the actual situation right now. "Could... Could I look through the book again? The one with the deities?"
Phil tilted his head a bit. "Well, of course. It's back in its spot in the bookshelf."
He nods, tail flicking, before heading up to the attic. It took a bit of searching to find the book again, and so now he just needed to flip to the page on dreamons. Once at it, he read it in full. It wasn't super informative, but still.
"Dreamons. Supposedly the followers of deities of dreams, a dreamon tends to be mischievous at best and cruel at worst. While there forms seem to vary they always have barbed or pronged horns, long tails, and a monochromatic body with bright eyes of a different color than the rest of them. They are able to manipulate dreams and cause nightmares, among other things. A specialized person or group, trained as Dreamon Hunters, are the only ones who can guarantee catch, exorcising, or killing of these celestial beings."
A group of people... Trained to kill dreamons. Overworlders were that against them... Great.
He puts the book back and goes back down, hoping his nervousness is hidden. He gives a quick wave before leaving and heading to the base.
"Everything alright?" Tommy asks, a bit worried on Ranboo's absence.
He stares off a bit before sighing. "I... Guess? It's just the fact both halves of mine are things disliked by most overworlders..."
Tommy hums, leaning against Ranboo the second the enderhybrid was sitting down. "Well, I don't think it matters."
A small chirp leaves as he hugs the blond. Tommy keeps humming in thought.
"I think Tubbo brought up dreamons before..."
Great. That means Tommy's best friend from growing up is possibly a dreamon hunter. "Well, hopefully I'll have a positive impact on him, then."
Tommy just nods, leaning into Ranboo's hug and making a light sound. They just cuddle like that until it starts to get late and Ranboo's forcing Tommy to lay down for the night.
Once the blond's out, Ranboo's heading out. Just for a night walk, honestly. And he did just that, only to end up once again sensing Dream once he got so close. The masked man seemed to be in the cabin this time.
He ignored his survival instincts this time and went over to the cabin, finding an open window. He just needed to stay quiet.
"I would prefer if we did it sooner..." Dream's voice, only slightly disappointed to tone.
"Well, you may be ready for something that big, but we have to prep if we're helping destroy a country completely." Techno. He's just as hard to read as ever.
Wait, destroy a country?
"Well, I have pretty much everything needed-" Dream got cut off on that. "I want to put in my own flair. There's a good chance people'll die."
That has Ranboo's tail stiffening. He has enough. He needs to back up and hide in the trees for a bit.
He watches in the distance as Dream leaves the cabin and looks off to the cliff again. And then looks towards the forest for a bit before turning and walking off.
Ranboo almost rushed, trying to think of what to do as he gets his thoughts together entering his base.
"Everything alright?" Was asked as Tommy looked over. He was still clearly tired if the light bags under his eyes meant anything, but he was up.
Ranboo sighs. "No. I-I heard part of a conversation between Techno and Dream..."
Tommy sits up at that, earning a cat in the lap. He was paying full attention.
"I..." He takes a deep breath, tail spiralling. "I think they're gonna... Destroy L'Manburg..."
"What?!?" Tommy shoots up. "A-are you sure?"
"N-no!" He lies, trying to calm down Tommy. "It's just a guess from my limited knowledge, I could be way off."
Tommy let out a breath. "Don't scare me like that dude." Ranboo warbled. It usually wasn't a big deal to him to lie about that stuff. "Well... M-maybe I should ask?"
Tommy hums a bit before nodding. "Y-yeah. Go ahead and talk about it. I'll go mining." He puts the cat down and pulls out a pickaxe. It may be a while for both of them. "Be safe, Tommy." The blond puffs out his chest. "Of course! Careful's one of my middle names!"
Ranboo watches as Tommy goes into the mine connected to their base and then turns and leaves. He knows this is gonna be painful, but maybe he can convince them not to?
He simply knocks on the door, tail curved a bit as he waits.
"Oh, hello mate!" Phil says as he answers and then he notices the tail curve. "What's on your mind?"
"I... Overheard Techno and Dream talking a bit earlier..."
That caused a small droop in Phil’s wings. “It’s… we gotta do what we gotta do…”
So it is L'Manburg...
"Do... Do you have to?"
"Ranboo, you don't know what they did..."
"Something bad enough to destroy homes and potentially kill innocents along with the actual people who caused problems?"
Phil glares a bit. "Maybe they did."
"And... A-and you're choosing to work with Dream?"
"It's not like I want to, mate!" Phil was surprised Ranboo would assume that, for whatever reason. "I've just promised to help Techno whenever he needs it."
"But think about who it is you're helping!" Ranboo was letting some rage get him too. "He wants this! You're giving a madman what he wants!"
"Techno's made his choice-"
"Make him change his mind! You can do that, right?"
"Ranboo..."
"There's people living there..."
"Ranboo..."
"And if Dream's ok with it then it can't be good!"
"RANBOO!"
"Wh-what?"
Phil looks the enderhybrid as close to in the eyes as he can. "The decision's been made."
Ranboo just stares him down before looking away. "I... See..."
The elytrian sighs, letting his wings relax. "I'm sorry, mate. Really I am."
Ranboo turns off sighing. "I'm not the one you need to apologize and explain things to." And with that he heads back to his base.
He was expecting to give Tommy bad news, but the news just got worse as he approached the base.
Above where the door hid was a sign.
On the sign was a simple symbol.
One that filled Ranboo with dread on seeing.
":)"