Chapter Text
Sometimes, it was easy to forget their first meeting. They were both children, young and innocent and undeserving of the pain they would go through.
Techno was a piglin hybrid, bred and born to fight. His teeth were nearly as sharp as a knife. He sharpened his nails on the stone walls of the arena every day. It was easier to remind people not to mess with him if he looked like the weapon they wanted him to be.
“For the first fight of the night!”
Quackity was a duck hybrid with small yellow wings on his back. Tiny feathers peeked out around his shoulders. The same small feathers shone around his ears. His eyes were bright with hope and excitement.
Techno looked at his opponent and saw a child. The same child every other hybrid in the arena wanted to surpass— the same hybrid that Techno had suffocated so many years ago.
The child he’d never had the chance to be.
Techno smiled, his canines stark against his dark pink skin. Quackity smiled back, hesitant and cheerful.
“Quackity against Technoblade!”
His opponent moved forward carefully, his eyes watched him cautiously. Smart, Techno thought. Don’t underestimate me.
Despite his young age, he’d managed to win nearly every fight he’d been sent into. Whether it was against adults who went easy on him, or kids his age like Quackity. He couldn’t afford to lose.
If he lost, he’d be scrapped like every other fighter here. Some grew too old, or were too badly injured and… they disappeared. Gone without a trace, and when someone new moved into their room, they were forgotten.
“You’re new here, aren’t you?” Techno murmured. His words wouldn’t be picked up by the crowd. He talked with his opponents almost every fight. It was just too much fun! Some people just wanted to lose immediately (they looked so exhausted) and it was easier to simply indulge them.
Quackity laughed, uneasily glancing around the arena. “Yeah, is it obvious?”
The opportunity was as obvious as the kid was. Techno leaned down low as he ran ahead, ducking under Quackity’s arm. You looked away, Techno thought. That’s your mistake.
Within seconds, Techno had his foot pressed down between Quackity’s wings. His wings flapped angrily as he tried to get up, stirring up dirt into the air.
“It’s very obvious,” he jeered. A smirk pulled at his lips as he looked up to the stands of empty faces and soulless applause.
“Technoblade is the winner!”
Hours later,— as all the gladiators ate dinner— Quackity sat down beside him. He was all smiles and no regrets.
He was young, and he was happy.
“You’re strong,” Quackity murmured. Techno frowned. No, I’m not, he wanted to argue. I’m so weak.
The blood of his other opponents stained his nails a dark red. A stronger person would be able to escape this hell. A stronger person wouldn’t have spent the first seven years of their life here.
Quackity’s eyebrows pinched in annoyance. “You are! You beat me without hurting me! You managed to beat Abby!”
A snort escaped his lips as he laughed. Abby was older than both of them combined, but she was much slower. And sure, as a creeper hybrid, she had the potential to be lethal, but she refused to use that power.
She was hesitant to hurt people.
(She was going to disappear the moment someone cruel fought her. They’d scratch a line down her face, and watch the gunpowder seep into the air.
They’d watch the arena blow apart without a shred of mercy.)
“Abby isn’t that tough. You’re just scared of her because she’s a creeper!” He laughed as Quackity scrambled for an answer.
“No, I'm not! She’s tall and intimidating and she hisses at people!” Quackity’s cheeks puffed up in indignation, the feathers on his cheek rising in the air. His wings fluttered angrily behind him.
“Like a creeper?”
“Shut up!”
Techno laughed, smiling at the inexperienced kid who’d approached him. The only person who’d ever approached him. Why are you here? He wanted to ask. What do you want from me?
He almost did.
Quackity smiled back at him. It was one of those huge ones that showed off all of his teeth. Techno couldn’t help the laughter that escaped his lips.
The kid was mimicking him!
They smiled and laughed together for the rest of the day. It was a nice reprieve from the constant struggle of being a child in an arena.
Techno didn’t expect to talk to him for at least a week. The next set of duels would be announced then.
Despite his expectations, the duck hybrid walked up to him in the middle of his solo training. His eyes were bright with fascination and excitement.
“Can you teach me to fight?”
Normally, one did not teach their competitors to fight. One day, you would fight them in the arena and they would know all your techniques. And yet, Quackity’s eyes stared up at him, begging.
Techno sighed.
Just this once.
“Alright.” Quackity laughed, his wings lifting into the air in his excitement. “I’ll teach you! Just this once!”
“Yes! Training!” His friend cheered. Techno laughed alongside him, bright and cheerful.
It was easy being around Quackity. Easier to smile, easier to breathe, easier to laugh.
“Okay, okay.” Techno held Quackity’s hand carefully, nudging his hand into a fist. “A fist is the most effective attack… if you hit someone’s throat it’ll stun them. Depending on the type, some of us even have points that decapitate us!”
“Ooh!” Quackity cheered. He lifted his hands into the air. Techno smiled, his mood lifting by the second. “Do you have any of those points?”
Techno laughed. His cheeks hurt from smiling, but he couldn’t help it! The concept of him admitting his weaknesses to Quackity! “I don’t have any! None!”
The scars across his arms said otherwise, but only the Ender Brothers had seen it. They’d watched his neck snap backward, watched him scream—
Well… did the collar count as a weakness? Everyone had one. Quackity had one!
Quackity frowned as he looked up at him, suddenly serious. “Techno… I know I’m a kid to you… I know I’m weak… I know I’m just a kid.” He opened his mouth to speak, but didn’t quite know what to say. Quackity was right, of course. “But I need to get better. Techno, I need to get better or they’ll chop off my wings.”
“What?”
“They will!” Quackity cried, his wings hovering close to his chest. “Gabriel told me so! Her mom lost and they cut off her wings!”
Huh. “They’d do that?” He whispered. They’d never been cruel to him before. They’d never hurt him beyond what was necessary in the arena.
But… the hybrids loved their wings. They took care of them and no one hurt them in fights. Everyone saw the way they caressed them and kept them beautiful and shiny.
Who would do that to them?
“They’d do that,” Techno repeated, the realization sitting heavy in his stomach. They would hurt Quackity,— tear the wings off his back— hurt him.
Quackity tugged on his hand, stressed eyes hidden behind a large smile. “Come on! Teach me some more!”
Techno smiled, something small and hesitant. “How about I teach you how to throw a punch?”
“Alright!”
Weeks passed like that. An easy friendship began to form between them. It was fostered by Quackity’s persistence in finding him, and the other hybrids always revealing where he was. Those traitors.
It was nice.
Quackity got better at fighting every day, and after days of constant training, he finally managed to win his first fight.
They cheered and celebrated, and life was good.
“The sign-ups for the duo fights have opened up,” Techno murmured. It was another early morning in Blitz. In the arena, the world went fast. Everyone in here knew that. That’s why everyone was awake at sunrise. That’s why everyone was silent during meals. ( That’s why they hate us.) “We could sign up as a duo.”
“You want to team up with me?” Quackity gasped, his happiness a burst of light in an empty world. Others watched from afar. Their eyes picked at his skin. He wanted to go to his room and hide. But there was no Quackity in his room.
Techno smiled, looking away from his friend. Quackity was just… he was so much. He was a sun when the rest of the hybrids were stars. It was impossible to look at him for long. It was impossible to forget that everyone else was looking, too.
“Of course.” He smiled, remembering how they’d trained for hours every day. Quackity pushed past his limits every day. “You’ve worked so hard, you deserve to prove it to everyone else.”
“Prove what?” Techno winced as his hands anxiously rubbed at his ear. It would be easy to prove the reality of living in Blitz— of the constant shifts, of blood and death— but for the first time in his short eight years of life, Techno wanted to be kind.
“That you’ve improved.”
Quackity laughed. “Alright! Alright! Let’s sign up!”
They stared at the sign-up sheet. There were just two things to fill out, but it already felt like too much. This was why he always waited till the last minute to sign up.
“So…” Quackity squinted at the paper, his wings adjusting behind him. Techno smiled as he stared at his wings. This sign-up was terrible, but at least Quackity was here with him. “We need stage names and a team name?”
“Yup, and I’m already Technoblade, so we just need yours and the team.” Techno yawned. They would probably train some more after this, he decided. They needed to wake up some more before breakfast. Before the constant battle of attention and stares.
“Hm,” Quackity sighed. “I don’t know. Do you have any ideas?”
“Well, there’s your wings… we could do something with your name…”
“The Duck?” The two of them laughed at the idea. “No, no… Death… hm, also no…”
As Quackity murmured ideas for names, Techno’s eyes stayed on his friend’s yellow feathers. It reminded him of something Abby had told him once, years ago.
“An angel’s gonna come down and save us, Techno,” she murmured. Her hands were soft and gentle on his shoulders, even as gunpowder escaped her lips with every breath. “We’re going to be alright, I swear.”
An angel…
She was one of the few hybrids who’d been free before coming to Blitz. She didn’t always want to talk about it, about those open fields and easy smiles, but sometimes she did. Sometimes, she spoke of power, of control over a server. How someone could kill everyone in the arena with a snap.
How someone could save them all in a moment.
Of angels, their winged saviors.
“Why not… the angel?” Techno suggested, half-aware. Thoughts of angels and saviors circled through his mind. Quackity considered the name for a moment, before shaking his head.
“I like the angel…” He sighed. “I don’t know… it’s missing something!”
Angels could save and destroy in equal measure. Angels would damn them as easily as they would kill their keepers.
“The angel of death?”
Quackity smiled, his eyes lighting up with excitement. “Yes! Yes! I love that!”
“Okay, okay! What’s next?” Techno sighed. A team name, of course. Those were the hardest to make. Instead of crafting it to himself, now he had to make room for a second person.
While Quackity overthought it (as usual), Techno remembered old Piglin phrases he’d been taught by the only other Piglin hybrid in Blitz. She’d been kind, but old. Patient, but cruel.
But, still, she’d taught him how to speak his native language, and for that he would be eternally grateful.
A growl escaped from his throat, a soft hiss humming softly behind it. The sound came from the back of his throat. Techno smiled, knowing only he would be able to speak the tongue.
“What was that?” Quackity stared at him, confused and innocently happy.
The first phrase she’d ever taught him. Something meant for those you appreciated and adored more than anyone else. Family, blood, or otherwise.
“I love you,” he murmured in Piglin.
“It… it could be our team name. It means blood.”
Quackity laughed, nodding and writing it on the page. “Blood… hm… alright!”
Techno smiled, Quackity’s incessant happiness finally getting to him. It was hard to not be happy around him. “The Angel of Death and Technoblade… off to conquer the world!”
They won their first two fights. They were against a pair of ram hybrids, and an ocelot hybrid who was teamed with a wolf. The rams had tried to use their horns as weapons. Personally, he thought if they’d used their sharper teeth and nails right, they could have won.
But they didn’t, and the two of them moved on.
The ocelot hybrid managed to get the jump on Quackity early on; she tore at his back (purposefully avoiding his wings) until blood coated his legs. Until Techno was able to grab her leg and pull her off.
The wolf was easy to wrestle into submission, but it was harder to watch Quackity struggle and be unable to help. Finally, after close to a minute of fighting, Quackity dug his teeth into her thigh.
When she drew away,— hissing in pain— he tackled her to the ground. He pushed her into the dirt until her face was pressed onto the arena’s floor. Until she shook and hissed with anger.
And they’d won, a clear and overpowering victory.
And then they’d lost.
The Ender Brothers were only a few years older than them, but they’d trained harder and for much longer. They were better than them.
They teleported and dragged Quackity away from him. They didn’t hurt them, only holding him up with the threat. They did not touch his wings.
There was no winning against the Ender Brothers. Not now, when they were weak and dependent and young.
Years passed, and they trained and trained. They got better. They challenged the Ender Brothers year after year, until on their fifteenth year in the arena, they won.
After that, Techno began to slowly win more and more fights. And as he won, more fighters came to Blitz. And… even more left. Abby disappeared, as they’d all expected. The younger ones tried their best, but even they wound up disappearing.
Sometimes, Techno was scared one day he’d wake up and Quackity would be gone.
(That was why he convinced Quackity to move into his room.)
The older fighters hated being there. They clawed at their collars, complained about the lack of medical facilities, and wanted out. But Techno knew more than anyone else that there was no escaping Blitz.
You could only get the collar removed with a key, and to get the key you needed to get invited off of the server. That was his goal. To someday be good enough to get off this hellhole. To be invited away and hear the click of freedom.
To never have to come back.
And somewhere along the way, he’d changed that goal.
We’re going to get out of here, he would tell Quackity late at night. When people disappeared, sometimes people didn’t notice. But other times, they noticed. And they sobbed and cried and mourned.
Quackity cried the night after Abby disappeared. He mourned a friend, and together they mourned the loss of a shred of his innocence.
They’re going to kill me, Quackity whispered. They’re going to take me away and I’ll never see you again.
Soothing away his tears with a Piglin whisper of I love you I love you I love you was hard enough, but there was no one else around to comfort him.
It’ll be okay, he soothed. I have a plan to get out of here. And in that moment, in his vulnerability, the curtains of ignorance fell.
My escape plan became our escape plan.
Even still, it was hard to choose to leave his best friend. It was hard to see the opportunity to leave and take it, knowing Quackity would still be here, still be battling for his life every day. Except now, he would be alone.
But the plan came first, even to his emotions.
It was the middle of the day. Techno had come to their room for a break from… everything and found it. A letter on his bed. One of those crisp, professional-looking envelopes the older fighters talked about.
His heart dropped to the pit of his stomach.
An Invitation for Technoblade, it said. To Minecraft Monday, an event that will be ongoing for the next year or so! We would be ecstatic to see you join us! You will be a part of two-member teams working to win a prize of five thousand dollars every week! Please respond if you would like to join us.
Yes, yes, yes! Techno wanted to scream, he wanted to run, he wanted to tell Quackity.
Quackity! His partner in crime, and surely he—
Quackity’s bed was perfectly made. There was no invitation for Quackity. His eyes stung with unshed tears.
He wanted to stay.
He wanted to leave.
He had to follow the plan.
“You should go.” Quackity smiled, one of his classic grins. His hands shook as he held the letter. “It’s such a great opportunity, and—”
“Send me a letter every day, alright?” Techno demanded. It was already difficult to leave, it would be impossible without a promise of something. “I’ll send you one, too. So that we can stay in touch.”
His friend laughed, his infectious joy cracking a smile out of Techno. “Of course!”
Quackity’s arms wrapped around him in a tight embrace. Don’t forget me, his hands demanded as they dug into Techno’s shoulders. Softly, quietly, his wings joined in the hug, cradling him in their soft, feathery grip.
He smiled, a familiar guttural growl escaping his lips. It was almost subconscious, now. “I love you.”
Quackity laughed, his chest shaking as he put his weight on Techno. His silly bird bones. Despite how much he ate, Quackity barely weighed a thing. “Me too, Techno. Me too.”
This was no farewell, only a… see you later.
It would be so long away from his friend, but if he won enough he’d be able to get Quackity out, too. Five thousand dollars a fight… he would have to make it work, somehow.
He would make it work, for Quackity.