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Quackity shouldn't be here.
It's ruins of buildings huddled together like refugees in the streets of L'Manberg. None of the builds on the server have elegance or sophistication to them. Instead, they dare to mirror their creators. They are useful, realistic, basic, and overzealous. They lean and breathe on one another, sagging and smothering. They heave and cough as the hollow earth beneath them shudders.
All of L'Manberg sounds sick.
Is that what happens when a country is built on rotten foundation? Does it seize with sickness, does it fall like shallow breathing? Does it infect every aspect of the ground above until it can swallow it whole?
Fuck politics, Quackity thinks he should go into poetry. He entertains it briefly. Himself with a stupid beret and a feather in his hat, waxing lyrical to whoever would listen. Probably Karl. Even though he’s smiling, he can’t help but turn a nervous face upwards.
Wheezing, shuddering, the purple-tinted tower seems like they’re about to leap to life, bottle in hand, and insult his cardio routine.
Which he took great pride in, by the way.
But no, it's the apartment building Wilbur and Tommy had hidden on top of during the Festival. The one that sheltered their shadows as he pretended not to notice. Of course he saw them. It was impossible not to at the angle he was staring, his shades hiding his pupils trailing their every movement.
He'd expected them to step in when Technoblade was pressured. He'd heard stories of "The Blade", a nickname Tommy gave him. Instead he'd been blown back into the beams of the stage and given a crack in his back that hadn't stopped aching since. Despite orders, he didn't believe Techno would actually hurt a known defector to his side.
Then Quackity had seen his eyes.
He would have shuddered, but there was no one to play the bit off of. No way to make it funny. So he held it inside until he couldn't, or until it would be a wacky one-off.
No, he wasn't scared of Technoblade.
Anyway.
He doesn't have a suit that fits or isn't in tatters from a fucking explosion. No, Quackity lifts the first suit in the bunker he can find.
The bunker was a joke-type deal, the one mentioned only in passing as an extreme situation. It was a narrow section encased in basalt, avoiding the tunnel to Pogtopia.
Now Quackity finds himself wondering why Schlatt didn't go to it. Maybe he was in such a pathetic state he couldn't remember it. The alternative holds more dimensions than he's willing to give the dead president.
Wait, that's both of them.
"It's not looking so good for Tubbo, is it?"
His voice carries the cadence of a joke, but there's no one to bounce it off of. Instead, it falls flat.
Quackity gets dressed in silence.
Wearing a dead man's clothes to his own funeral. There's an irony there. Or a good song title.
He thinks of how he'd left his guitar behind in Manberg when he'd joined Pogtopia. How he'd assumed it was safe, that the impact of war would hit harder than material possessions.
Then Wilbur had it go all to shit and he was out of a musical instrument.
It would be a while before he was going to sing again.
Schlatt's spare suits hang in a row.
Quackity picks up a red tie. It should be enough. It’s Schlatt’s funeral and he feels free. It’s Schlatt’s funeral and he feels sick. Both thoughts can exist at the same time.
Just like how the bunker feels both cramped and empty. Heavy and light. It's a modern miracle that Schlatt can still fuck up atmosphere from beyond the grave.
Quackity hadn't planned on getting drunk before Schlatt's funeral. He didn't even know where the good shit was—but he'd found it in the cabinets of the bunker. He takes two bottles and puts them on the counter.
He'll drink on the way over. Right now, there's more important business he has to attend to sober.
He takes the tie and shifts it in his hands. A personal token, an item favored by the player he wanted to masquerade as. He would have preferred a Schlatt Coin, but he doubted any of those still existed.
Using blood magic while drunk was how lots of idiots wound up a solitary death message and a crater with no explanation. His magic isn’t exactly a server secret. The methods, however, are. He’s smart enough to keep trade secrets to himself; if this world wants his power, they need to reward him first.
Eret had inquired many a time on his exact procedures, but Quackity was swift to turn the conversations to other matters. The King had plenty of matters to attend to besides their favorite pastime. He’s a man of many faces, after all. If it’s a goof, well, who feels threatened at a joke? Mixing jokes with politics and subterfuge was one of his most prized skills.
Meanwhile, BadBoyHalo hadn't been able to shut up about how cool it was. Even parroting imitations of the man's most insufferable quirks back to him weren't enough to discourage him. He'd even offered Quackity a secret in exchange: he wasn't a demon.
Quackity laughed and cursed Bad out with his own tongue.
No, the one person who came the closest to knowing was Sapnap. Sapnap, who stayed around after cabinet meetings to pick up George as the two berated each other. Sapnap, who had a similar craving for blood that he knew all too well. Sapnap, who was a warrior first and as hungry for power and attention as Quackity was.
It was Sapnap to whom Quackity admitted he needed the blood of the player he was going to imitate, and Sapnap who responded by giving him the gruesome fruits of his conflicts—bottles of all kinds of blood. It was Sapnap who promised not to tell, even though they both knew his big mouth would open eventually.
That was before Quackity caught himself. Before he took one good long look pointed out by a man who always smelled of cheap aftershave and booze, who was never right until he was.
Everyone assumed Schlatt was an idiot, and he was. But the bastard was perceptive.
"Sap-Nap? Dream's guard dog? You're gonna tell him all of your secrets?"
Just because Sapnap understood blood didn't make him trustworthy. He was Dream's friend first.
The same with George. George, always tired in the moments of greatest danger. George, whose sleepiness and luck went hand in hand to save him everywhere he went.
Quackity hadn't put the pieces together yet. He was operating as a Vice President with less than a fourth of the information and not a clue what Schlatt kept in his book. However, even he understood that Dream, seemingly unrelated to the entire conflict, was pivotal.
There was another, scarier fact to consider.
He'd been having nightmares.
If someone was in control of the sleeping state of the server, wouldn't it be. . . ?
:)
There's something else in the back of the bunker, underneath a table. Quackity notices it when one of his cuff-links drops to the floor, only to rest against it.
At the moment he didn't care where the book had gone.
It was a case. Initials written on it in Standard Galactic.
∴ ነ
"No fucking way."
Quackity had never learned how to read or write, that was for hardcore mages and they kept their secrets tighter than he kept his ass. But he knew Schlatt could read, and the person who taught him was—
If he had to guess who—
He opened the case.
A guitar.
"Wilbur."
Then it hits: he can sing. He can sing and play and make a mockery of Schlatt's funeral with Wilbur's guitar. He can't think of anything more funny. Quackity did love a good joke.
He's going to make this funeral the biggest joke of them all.
When he's done the Schlatt mask is one of his worst. Even the Dream mask—cracked, flawed, and only let him be a poor imitation of the man himself (or whatever Dream was)—is of better quality than this aberration.
Quackity takes a moment to catch his reflection in the mirror. Schlatt's face is distorted, looking back with Quackity's signature smile adorning it.
He tightened the knot around his neck like he was pulling taunt a noose.
He was going to get white girl wasted.
"Eat your heart out, old man."
He had a funeral to crash.