Chapter Text
Tango was utterly and completely bored, and he had never been so happy about it. As much as he loved bringing new projects and wild ideas to life, the unfortunate thing was that after a while, it really started to feel like work . Decked Out had become one of those projects, and he was glad to have finally completed it. Even with the added fun of having Impulse or Zed to help him, he thought if he ever had to lay another line of redstone he might just cry.
Okay, he wasn’t quitting redstone forever, but at least for today. Tango stretched and gazed sleepily up at the sky through a canopy of swaying pink tree fronds. He’d technically come out here to work on the landscape around his base, but why not nap for a few minutes? Or an hour. Or two. It wasn’t like he had anything urgent to do. He sighed and leaned back against the trunk, closing his eyes and soaking in the warmth of the sun dappling his face.
Ding!
“Wha….”
He pried open his eyes and groggily fumbled for his communicator. Figures. What with how nice it was outside and how long it had been since he’d actually slept, this had better be important.
<ImpulseSV> tango
<TangoTek> hm?
<ImpulseSV> having trouble with decked out
Tango gave the second most dramatic sigh of his life and smacked his palm into his forehead. Of course it was Decked Out. What else could it be?
<ImpulseSV> voice?
Tango winced. If it needed a voice call, it had to be more than a quick fix. He flipped on the voice setting and did his best to rearrange his brain into something resembling wakefulness.
“Hey man, what’s up?”
“Hey, Tango, buddy, I’m - well, I’m in Decked Out…”
“Yes, you did mention that.” Tango rallied the rest of his brainpower and started paying his full attention. Impulse normally had a slightly stressed tone to his voice, but today he seemed a bit more tense than usual. It was making Tango nervous.
“Well, I went in, and that worked fine, but now the doors won’t open for me to exit?”
“That...definitely qualifies as a problem.” Tango was already up and flying to his storage room to grab some redstone supplies.
“Yeah, it’s a lot less fun in here when the game won’t end.” Impulse laughed nervously. Tango cringed as he remembered just how many ravagers and evokers he and Zed had put in earlier. No wonder Impulse sounded jumpy.
“I’ll be right there, just stay hidden and don’t let the ravagers eat your face!” Tango rummaged through his ender chest and pulled out his redstone box. “Anything else you can tell me, like how you broke it, where you broke it…?”
“I never said I broke it,” Impulse mumbled indignantly. “But, yeah, there is something else. Stay away from-” He suddenly drew in a sharp breath and then went quiet.
“...Impulse? You okay?” Tango heard fabric rustle in the background, and then his friend’s somewhat-shaky voice came back on the speaker.
“Um, yeah, I’m fine, just come quickly.”
“Will do.”
Tango took off from his base, taking a moment to tell Zed to meet him there. If he had to work on Decked Out for yet another day, he would rather not do it alone. Looks like redstone can have me again for the moment. The nap would have to wait.
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“Tango!” Zedaph was already beaming at him from the entrance when Tango swooped in for a landing. He spiraled around the giant ravager head a couple times and skidded to a halt in front of Zed.
“What’s happening?” Zed waved away the dust of Tango’s landing and slung his arm around his shoulders. “Heard Decked Out got decked again?”
“How did you get here before me, your base is way over at - you know what, I don’t want to know.” Tango laughed. “For all I know you’ve got a magical space-time-shiftinator or something in that cave of yours.”
Zed chuckled. “I think you mean a nether portal, my friend. And I was in the shopping district already, you know, just having a look around. Not much to do today, plenty of time to help you out.”
“Again.” Tango felt slightly bad about how much Zed and Impulse had helped him with this project, but hey, they had offered. Besides, they’d been nagging him to tell them about it so often that it only made sense to include them in the process.
“Oh, the things I do for you,” Zed sighed mournfully. Tango rolled his eyes and brushed Zed’s arm away with a grin. Most of the server had Tango pinned as the dramatic one of the trio, but when Zed got going, man, did he ever get going.
“Well I wouldn’t say this one is entirely for me,” Tango pointed out. “Impulse is in there with about five ravagers being all chomp-y and ravage-y.”
“Yeah, what a silly thing for him to do. Oh wait, that’s where we’re going.”
Tango started down the stairs, already trying to picture what the problem might be. “Well, I was planning on just fixing the redstone without going in, but that could take a while. You’re right, we should probably rescue Impy first.”
“Well, good thing I brought this then!” Zed tossed an invisibility potion in the air and caught it. “Straight out of the new brewing system.”
Tango internally kicked himself for forgetting his own potion, but outwardly, he just smirked.
“Coward potion,” he teased, elbowing Zed in the ribs.
“Person who likes to live potion!” Zed protested, dodging away.
“I’ve got armour on, I’ll live.” Tango shrugged. “Plus I think I know the dungeon well enough to avoid them.”
“Well, I know the dungeon pretty well too…” Zed paused to chug his potion. “...And I know myself well enough to know that I’ll forget I know it!” He promptly disappeared into a cloud of faint particles.
“Gah...I’m not even going to try to understand that,” Tango sighed. “Let’s just go bust him out and get to work.”
Tango bypassed the key system and passed through the prep chamber. Careful to avoid the wither skeletons on either side, he triggered the pressure plates to open the entrance. The heavy door slid open just fine. Huh, that’s weird…. He couldn’t think of a way it could be broken from one side and not the other. He passed through the door, barely seeing Zed’s invisibility particles hovering by his side. Once the door closed behind him, he turned around and stepped on the pressure plate to open it again.
The door opened instantly.
“Do you think he just got lost?” Tango nearly jumped out of his skin at Zed’s disembodied voice.
“Don’t do that to me man, this place is stressful enough!” He put a hand against the wall and tried to bring his heart rate back to normal. “I don’t know, this door thing is weird...you’re probably right though. I did kind of design this place to be confusing.”
“I think you did a good enough job.”
“Not so good that we shouldn’t be able to find him.” Tango took a few steps into the gloom of the dungeon and glanced around. “Impulse?”
“I’m here..!” A faint voice echoed from the narrow halls.
“Follow that!” The invisible Zedaph took off in the direction of the sound. Tango followed more slowly, wary of ravagers and their ability to see - and maul - him.
“Impulse!” Impulse didn’t reply, but Zedaph did.
“He’s in the happy fun room!” he called back. The invisibility particles darted around the corner, and Tango followed them into the dungeon’s torture chamber.
He heard Impulse a second before he saw him, but it was still a second too late.
“No, Tango! Don’t come in here-”
Tango glimpsed him through the bars of a cage in the corner, frantically waving at him to run. He only had time to absorb the desperate look on his face before he heard the heavy thud of stone against stone.
Tango whirled around to see doors sealed tight behind him, doors that shouldn’t even be in this room. He reached for his pick to break through them, but a cold, smooth voice froze him where he stood.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” the voice drawled. “Unless you like to hear the sound of pain.”
Tango slowly turned around to face the room.
“I’m sorry,” Impulse whispered, before he was cut off in a sharp breath by the blade being held against his throat. Tango’s eyes travelled up the blade, through the bars of the cage, and up the arm of the man who held it.
“So nice to finally meet you, Tango . I’ve heard so very much about you.” Unnatural, neon-blue eyes burned into his own.
“Who are you,” he whispered, but the back of his throat felt like it was filled with dry ash. He already knew who this was.
Aside from the eyes and the jet-black hair, Tango was looking at himself.