Chapter Text
Phil woke up abruptly in the cold, which wouldn’t be a bother, if not for the fact that he was lying down on the cold stone floor. He got up and stretched, rubbing his back a little while he searched his surroundings.
This...wasn’t his home.
Multiple wooden chests surrounded him, taking up the entire room, and a tiny smoker stood by, warming up a section of the house. When he turned around, there stood on top of the back door was a picture of Wilbur. Phil slowly began putting the pieces together; this is what appears to be an exact replica of his house on the server.
“Okay...this is weird,” Phil mumbled to himself as scenarios began filling his brain in rapid succession. Had he been kidnapped? Or perhaps he’s just dreaming all of this. Yeah, this is just a weird dream. Phil took a mental note to take a break from streaming Minecraft as he opened the door. He was hit with an unsympathetic draft, the snow smacking his face and sending chills down his spine. Nevertheless, he pulled through, trudging through the wind, enough for him to end up in the middle of a bridge.
This feels all too real to be a dream, thought Phil, who was trying to warm himself—his own hoodie was no good compared to this snowstorm he found himself in. By his left stood an identical house he was at, the only difference is the bear that strolled below the bridge connecting the two. The hoard of wolves that were cooped up beside the houses constantly barked, and by the distance he could see another house, obscured by the snow that was blowing across.
“Phil?”
Phil turned to see a tall figure coming out of the other house. One part of his skin was like the night sky: cool, dark, and mysterious with star-like freckles on his cheeks. The other side was as pale as daylight, with the scars on his face running down his cheek like cracked porcelain, all of which symmetrically ended in the middle of his complexion. It did not take a genius to figure out that this creature was other-worldly, but the way he held himself told Phil otherwise. However, such stature did not convince Phil well enough to trust him, and so his breathing became uneven, and he started to slowly back away from the creature.
“S-stay back,” he warned, though anyone could see that those threats were empty-handed.
The creature tilted his head, and drew out a nervous, unworldly chirp. “Phil I’m not gonna hurt you.”
Phil’s eyes widened, recognizing his voice. “Ranboo?”
But Ranboo isn’t half enderman, the Ranboo he knows is 100% percent human. No, this must be a dream, but why does everything feel so real? Where is he? How did he get here?
Phil suddenly became lightheaded, and saw everything turn to black. The last thing he saw before passing out was Ranboo rushing over him to catch him while he fell.
-
“Phil are you even listening?”
The Angel of Death jolted awake. Multiple screens appeared before him, not really knowing what each of them does. He frowned, realizing the extra weight that sat upon his ears. His hands reach up to inspect the metallic device, wondering how they even got on his head in the first place.
“Phil!” the voice inside the device began to yell.
“Wake up old man!”
“Philza Minecraft!”
Strange, the Angel thought. Those voices reminded him of his crows that speak to him. Well, not exactly. He gave them those voices, imagined it all in his head. It gets quite lonely when you’re traveling alone—you pick up weird habits like that. But the voices now seem...real? Curious, the Angel put the device on his ears again.
“Hello?” He said, clearing his throat.
“Why is your voice like that?” One of the voices asked, his concern hiding behind his aggressive tone. As soon as the boy said something, a green circle could be seen flashing on one of the icons on the screen. Beside it was a tag named “Tommyinnit.” The Angel took note of that as he didn’t respond to the boy’s question.
“Did we seriously wake you up from a nap?” Another voice said, his tag being called “Wilbur Soot.”
The third voice huffed, the tag beside his icon named “Technoblade.” “Typical old man behavior,” he quipped.
“Well I don’t blame him, this session was nearly two hours,” Wilbur then yawned, “I swear if you don’t edit this I’m not going to send you my footage.”
“Of course I’m going to edit this, what kind of man do you take me for?” Techno replied.
“I can’t wait to watch this in 2050,” Tommy said, sarcasm fueling every word.
“I can’t wait for the title to be ‘Bullying Tommyinnit makes Minecraft Quadruple Times Funnier’' Wilbur shot back.
“Shut up Wil.”
As the three bickered about as the Angel began to analyze his surroundings. Behind him was a green cloth-like material that encircled him. He lifted up the cloth for it to reveal a fairly large bed.
This wasn’t his home.
“Where am I?” He spoke to the voices, stern and demanding like always, hoping they will give him an answer.
The voices died down on their bickering.
“Well I assume you’re in your bed.” Tommy said, stating the obvious.
The Angel frowned. “I’m serious, where am I, and who are you?”
The atmosphere started to thicken by the sound of his voice. The three couldn’t see his face, but they could feel his cold-hearted stare that pierced through the screens.
Wilbur was the first to speak up. “P-Phil,” he said, “did you hit your head or something?”
“Are you sure you’re alright big man?” Tommy asked, his confident persona wavering.
The Angel sighed. “Look, all I know is that I was at my base and I just suddenly woke up here.”
“Are you—are you serious?” Wilbur asked.
“This isn’t a funny bit,” Techno said, his voice growing strained.
“I am being serious, I—” the Angel was going to say something else, but was interrupted by the sound of a door opening. He turned around and saw a woman staring back at him.
“Phil?”
-
Philza woke up to the sound of chirping. He felt the sunlight beating down on him—which was strange, cause he was pretty sure that he was in the arctic a few moments ago—as he felt the blades of grass surrounding him.
“Dadza!”
Philza jumped as he saw a being rise up from a river. It was Ghostbur...but wasn’t? He had green eyes, with a blue robe that draped around his body. Philza sighed as he got up from his spot, walking over to the river as Ghostbur stared at his wings.
“Hello,” Philza greeted the man, taking a look at his surroundings. This doesn’t look like anywhere he’s been. Perhaps they were somewhere far from the mainland?
Ghostbur tilted his head. “Since when were you an Avian?”
“A what?”
Ghostbur pointed at his wings, to which Philza folded them towards himself. “You have wings like Tommy now.”
Philza furrowed his brow. “Tommy doesn’t have wings Ghostbur.”
“Who’s Ghostbur?”
Philza was about to say something when the sky began to darken, and suddenly rain began to trickle out. Ghostbur gasped as he got out of the river, revealing his skeletal tail. Philza raised his brow as Ghostbur ran along the grass.
“I thought the rain burns you,” Philza slowly said.
“The sun is the thing that burns me,” Ghostbur corrected him.
“Wil!” A voice in the water shouted. Philza looked in the water and saw Niki, who had fins instead of ears and coral in her hair. She got up from the river, revealing her blue fish-like tail, and slithered towards Ghostbur. “It’s raining again!”
Ghostbur giggled. “It’s raining!” .
Philza stood in the pouring rain, trying to process everything. He wasn’t in the arctic, Ghostbur is back and doesn’t burn in the rain, Niki has a fucking tail, and apparently Tommy has wings now. And yet, there was this large empty space that was missing in this world.
“Niki, where is Techno?”
Niki let out a small trill, her eyes staring at him in confusion, “Who?”
Philza began to panic. “Niki...Niki, you know Techno.”
“Oh, Techno’s not here right now,” Ghostbur said.
“What do you mean, is he dead?” Philza went up to him, his panic turning into hysteria.
“No…” Ghostbur calmly said, frowning. “He probably will be here once the Pube is done,” Ghostbur explained.
“The what?!”
“Are you okay?” Niki asked, slithering closer to Philza. He could see by the side of her neck two slits, imitating gills.
“No, I’m not. You’re not supposed to have a tail, I’m supposed to be in the arctic, Tommy shouldn’t have wings, Techno is supposed to be here and my son isn’t supposed to be dead!”
Everyone was silent as the rain continued to pour down. Philza shook his head as he silently cursed to himself, ashamed to have brought that last part up. He blinked away his tears as Ghostbur began to speak, breaking the silence.
“Dadza...I was always like this…” he said, his voice tinged with hurt and confusion.
Philza wanted to fly away here, to get away from the overwhelming hurt that he caused. If not for his damaged wing, he would’ve taken off by now. Instead, he kept standing where he was, out of place like a sore thumb.
This definitely wasn’t his home.
-
Mr. Minecraft started out his day alone, to say the least. It was a nice change—the quiet as opposed to the constant bickering he heard daily, especially between Tommy and Wilbur. Nevertheless, he got up and stretched, reaching out for his staff, and instead felt a metallic stick by his side. He inspected the staff, which turned out to be a cane. It had a handle on top so that he could latch it on his clothing. He supposed it was an upgrade, but that meant he couldn’t reach out and hit his boys from a distance anymore. He slowly got up and saw that where he was wasn’t in his compacted and comfy birdhouse, but instead a spacious—and quite empty—base.
Okay, so this wasn’t his home.
Dadza searched around to try to find where he was, but all he could find in the chests were stacks and stacks of materials (that he may or may not have stolen, what could he say, he’s very much broke at the moment). He stumbled across a door that led to a portal, and he did what a sane person does and crossed through the portal. He appeared on what seems to be the roof of the nether, where several portals laid about in the vast deserted land. He kept walking upon the roof, mulling over the possibilities of adventuring into one of those portals, but for now, he had to find out where everyone was, and how he got here.
Eventually, he found an opening in the roof, to which he looked down and saw nothing but void. He was reminded of the void back at home, and how this very same void brought him fear and excitement. As much as he loved the people at home, and how much he loved building the Pube, his heart yearned for adventure. That’s what surfing the void brought him: his call to adventure. That, and he felt some strange connection to the void as well. Dadza shook his head, another mystery for another day, he thought. He then jumped into the opening, spreading his wings as he got further down into the void.
The void, he realized, was more than that. There was a grand quartz castle that took most of the void, a big cloud supporting the whole thing. A giant purple crystal floated alongside it. There were also big dark spires that sprouted at the bottom of the void, creating a sense of apprehension in his body. Still, he was still in awe of the whole thing, how could someone create something like this? Dadza landed upon the cloud, finally getting to get a sense of how big the castle was. He noticed that there was a bench on the right side of the castle, with a lava fountain accompanying it. He was interrupted by his wandering by two netheriod creatures who were rushing towards him. Their faces were obscured by the masks they wore, the one on the left had a smiley face carved on their mask while the right had a shocked face carved on it.
He chuckled at how goofy their masks were, and greeted the two. “Hello, my name is Philza Minecraft, but most people called me Dadza or Mr. Minecraft. Am I intruding on something?”
The two looked at each other, whispering to each other in a language he didn’t understand. They quickly brought him into the castle, much to his surprise.
“H-hey!” He said, but he didn’t do much to fight back.
Dadza was brought into the throne room, and before him was a giant being that looked down upon him like he was miniscule. She wore a red gown, a netherite chestplate placed over it. Surrounding her were hundreds of blaze rods that spun around her like planets. Her hair burned auburn, with a golden crown placed on her head. The edges of her red gown spewed out eternal flames, which Mr. Minecraft himself couldn’t even figure out how her dress hadn't burned yet.
He did an awkward bow, taking off his hat in formality.
“Greetings, Angel of Death.”
He raised his brows. “T-that’s a pretty heavy title to call me,” he said, letting out an awkward laugh. What a macabre name to call someone, he thought as he gave a small shutter.
She took a long look at him. Although she didn’t have any irises, it felt like she was staring into his very soul. “Oh, you’re not from here,” she bluntly stated.
“Y-yes, well I come from the overworld—”
“No that’s not what I meant, you’re not from this world.”
He was taken aback, “How do you—what do you mean?”
She lowered her hand, offering him to stand upon it. He hesitantly got on it, surprised that he wasn’t burning by the touch.
“Well first of all, the Angel doesn’t have bird legs for feet, and he certainly doesn’t have a bug’s wings,” she said.
He grew flustered as she inspected him more, gripping the edge of his hat. He cleared his throat once she was completely done looking at him. “Who are you exactly?”
“I am the Blaze Empress.” She said, holding a dignified grace in every phrase. “And you must be Death’s Angel Philza Minecraft, yes?”
“You can just call me Mr. Minecraft,” Dadza chuckled. His pastoral life didn’t agree with such formalities like this.
She frowned, placing her other hand on her chin. “It seems that we ran into a bit of a predicament.”
“What do you mean?”
The Blaze Empress brought him down to the castle floor now, her face deeply troubled. “Someone seems to have been tampering with the nature of teleportation. They’re the ones that made you travel to this world.”
Dadza was taken aback, his heart sank when the realization hit him. “So Wilbur and Tommy—”
“Whoever you speak of I do not know, and perhaps do not exist within this world.” She put it candidly, her words cutting him like a dull sword.
Dadza took a second to recollect himself. If he was here, that would mean—
“So, your Philza, he must be back in my world, right?”
The Empress hummed, “perhaps, I honestly haven’t seen someone tamper with the power of teleportation since…” she trailed off, looking forlornly in the distance. “Nevermind that, what matters is getting the Angel back, and getting you and the others home.”
He grew startled upon hearing that statement. “Others?”