Chapter Text
The first thing Tubbo heard was a loud crashing sound, followed by multiple voices shouting over each other. Then, the sound of clicking against cheap floor tiles. Tubbo wasn’t quite sure how to react; he’d never been in the biology wing of the science centre before. If they researched animals and stuff, hearing loud crashes while walking down the corridor could just be a normal occurrence, right? ...Right?
But as Tubbo turned to look in the direction of the sound, he saw something bound from around the hallway corner and crash into a fake potted plant.
He didn’t get a good look at it; he registered black and white, a tall, thin creature with glowing purple eyes, before his attention was filled by the long claws and sharp teeth. The creature screeched as it saw him, the sound like tormented radio static.
Tubbo didn’t think, really. He ran to the closest door separating two hallway sections, and slammed it shut behind him.
Before he’d had even a moment to gather his thoughts, the banging and scratching started. He could hear those wicked claws digging into the cheap plywood, the door shuddering and cracking every time the beast threw itself against it.
Tubbo just kept the door handle up and pushed for dear life to keep it shut. Please hold please hold please hold-
Then, with a loud crunch, the wood gave away. Tubbo screamed as a clawed hand thrust through a new hole in the door, tearing at the edges of the gap and blindly slashing the air, blindly slashing at him . Tubbo cried out as those claws raked across his cheek. He let go of the handle - he just needed to get away, get away - and the entire door came crashing down, nothing between him and the beast. It loomed over him, nearly tall enough for its head to hit the doorframe, growling with its teeth bared, ready to pounce.
“Now!” Tubbo hears someone shout, and with the accompaniment of an electric crackle, the beast cried out and doubled over. People were grabbing at it - Tubbo made out a dark green security guard uniform and three lab coats - tackling the creature and wrangling it to the ground.
Tubbo, again without thinking, seized a flailing arm and pressed it against the floor with his entire weight. Balling it’s hands into fists, the beast snarled. Tubbo shrieked in pain as it sunk its teeth into his arm, but did not let go.
“Get on with it!” the security guard shouted, pinning the creature to the floor with his body weight. All of a sudden there was a knee pressing against the temple of the creature, and a syringe stabbed into its neck. It screeched and shrieked, but as the seconds ticked by, its thrashing reduced to squirming, squirming reduced to twitching, and finally, the creature went completely limp.
Breathing heavily, Tubbo let go, and allowed himself to slump on the floor. Now he was able to get a proper look at the creature. It was humanoid, for sure, but certainly inhuman; it was much too tall and lanky, its feet strangely cat-like. It seemed to be a near perfect split of black and white when it came to the left and right sides of its body, colours that interestingly flipped sides in its mane- or rather hair? From that mane two horns stood out, and long pointy ears framed the face. Tubbo noticed a thin tail that ended in a tuft of evenly split black-and-white hair. For whatever reason, the creature was wearing what looked like a hospital gown.
Tubbo inspected its face. It was its most human-like feature: thin lips, a small nose, little freckles dotting its cheeks. Its eyes, now half fluttered shut and with a dull gaze into nothingness, were different colours, one red, one green. Tubbo furrowed his brow. He was sure the creature had purple eyes just moments ago.
“Phew”, someone sighed loudly. Tubbo glanced up, it was a woman in a lab coat, dirt-blond hair in two long pigtails.
“Glad that’s over. Come on- we need to get it back to the lab- Uhhh wait a minute.” The woman looked at Tubbo, visibly confused. “Who the heck are you ?”
“...You are not from the biology department”, said one of the other scientists, a tall, older man with piercingly green eyes and mostly greyed curly hair. Tubbo was pretty sure he’d been the one with the syringe.
“Yeah, I’m from, uh, energy technologies. I’m interning here, for the summer”, Tubbo started explaining. Was he blathering? He was blathering. And woozy as the adrenaline rush began to pass.
“Oh my gosh you’re bleeding”, The woman interrupted him. “Sit, sit- I’ll fix you right up- You fellas can get the asset back to the lab, right?”
“I-I think so”, said the last of the scientists, a broad-shouldered man with no discernable neck. “D-d-d-doctor D-draven? If I take the legs?”
Him and the old guy unceremoniously took the still-limp creature, and began to carry it away. As they dragged it off the floor, Tubbo thought he heard a noise coming from it, something between a groan and a whimper. He looked after the creature as it went, head lolling to the side, tail trailing across the floor tiles. He couldn't help but feel a little bad for it, being manhandled like that.
The woman had grabbed one of those first-aid kits that were mounted on the wall, and ushered Tubbo to one of the ugly couches strewn along the corridor.
“Sit, sit- Oh. Oh deary me. It- it didn't do that , did it?” The woman asked, gesturing to Tubbo’s face.
“Hmm?” It took Tubbo a moment to realize she was looking at the burn scars. He shook his head. “Nah, those- they’re old. Right now I just got slashed.”
“Oh, okay.” The woman began to dab rubbing alcohol along Tubbo’s wounded cheek, cleaning up the blood Tubbo felt trickling down his face.
“So, you’re from energy technologies?” the security guard piped up, putting away what looked to be a tazer. The guard was wearing some kind of light gas mask, and Tubbo remembered seeing him around the science centre. He glanced at his nametag: Sam.
“You’re not supposed to be in the biology wing. Your keys shouldn’t even work here”, Sam continued.
Tubbo shrugged. “The freight lift accepts the keys from all departments. I use it to get to the parking lot all the time- It’s so much quicker than going around the main building.”
“And what business do you have here?”
“Our breakroom ran out of coffee.” Tubbo squinted as the woman put a big band-aid on his face. “The Bio department break room is closest to the EnTe one. Thought I’d borrow a package. So, I was just fulfilling my duties as a summer undergrad, if you think about it.”
“You really shouldn't be here”, Sam said, clearly irritated. “The research done in this wing is highly classified.”
“Yeah, figured you lot were doing something weird”, Tubbo answered, hissing between his teeth as the woman began to clean the gashes on his arm. They were deeper than the ones on his face.
“What was that thing, anyway?” he continued.
“It's highly classified .” Sam shook his head. “All the security protocols and systems, and they don't sync the freight lift with the electronic keys? Unbelievable.”
After a moment of silence, the woman finished up wrapping Tubbo’s arm in gauze, and cheerfully declared: “We’re done!”
“You guys okay in there?” Tubbo asked, giving a quick glance to his bandages. “That thing bit me.”
“Oh, don't you worry about it in the slightest”, the woman said. She continued in a lower, conspiratorial voice: “Honestly, it’d be best if you forgot all about this. Like Sam over there said, this is all highly classified. Very hush-hush. Okay?”
“I’ll escort you out”, Sam said. It was clear from his tone this was not something to be argued with.
“Okay then! Thanks for your help! Bye-bye now!” The woman said with a wave, and began to walk off deeper into the biology wing. Sam all but took Tubbo by the arm to drag him out, and walked him all the way out the door to the main building.
“Don't use the freight lift again”, he said coolly, and shut the door to the biology department wing in Tubbo’s face.
Tubbo looked at the door for a second. Then, he wandered off to the nearest ugly couch, and sat down. He blinked down at his arm, the white gauze the only evidence left of all that had just transpired.
What was that thing?
~~~
Tubbo pulled the door shut behind himself. As he put his bicycle helmet away, he called out: “Hi, I’m home!”
Three voices answered their own hellos. Everyone was home, then.
Tubbo left his bag in the hallway. He could smell something good in the kitchen, and hear Wilbur humming some tune to himself as he cooked. Tubbo was just in time for dinner, by the looks of it.
“Hey mate”, Phil said, when he heard Tubbo enter the living room. Phil was reading the newspaper, and Tommy was slouching on the couch. “How was work today- Oh my god, what happened to your face?”
“It’s just-” Tubbo began, but he was interrupted.
“Did they try to- wait, are you actually hurt?” Tommy asked, sass dipping into concern mid-sentence.
“It’s just a small cut. I fell”, Tubbo lied.
“Okay good- Did they try to surgically remove the ugly?” Tommy asked, concern fluidly turning back to sass.
“Oh piss off.”
Tubbo slumped on the sofa next to Tommy.
“You fell?” Phil asked, brow furrowing.
Tubbo shrugged. “They have these metal tables, the corners are kinda sharp. I tripped and it, like, scratched along?”
“You got that from a table?” Phil asked with audible doubt. “The arm too?”
“I tried to grab the edge as I fell.”
Phil pursed his lips, giving Tubbo a look. Then, he sighed, and returned to his newspaper. “Alright then.”
“Hey, don’t worry about it. A little scratch isn’t gonna make you that much uglier”, Tommy piped up.
“Did you have a bad day at work or something?” Tubbo asked, mildly annoyed.
“Every day is a bad day in food service.” Tommy grumbled.
Tommy had gotten a job in a hot dog van (which only sold hot dogs and never a little bit of weed, should anyone ask), and Tubbo didn’t envy him. Having to drive around on a hot summer day next to a grill did not sound like fun.
“How come you get to have a tory job, sitting around in an airconditioned office and not lifting heavy things?”
“If you wanted a ‘tory’ job, you know what you could do Tommy?” Phil deadpanned.
“Not this again-”
“You could finally pick a university to go to. Or a trade school, they have a bunch of programs-”
“You're like a mother hen! Cluck cluck, get a job, cluck cluck, go to college-”
“Mother hen- I literally raised you!”
“-And I don't know what I wanna do”, Tommy whined. “I want to be free! Live life to the fullest!”
“You could do the whole college party circuit”, Tubbo said. “Who knows, maybe you’ll find some girls with, y’know, suitable standards.”
“What do you mean, ‘suitable’?”
“I mean, ‘low’.”
Tommy stuck his tongue out and blew a raspberry. “Wilbur, how come you don't have Phil on your back all the time, it’s not fair.”
“Mmm. Because I do in fact know what I want to be doing?” Wilbur said serenely from the kitchen.
“Tommy, don’t start”, Phil warned quietly. “You know why.”
It was like the temperature had dropped a notch. Tubbo grimaced internally, and decided he did not want to be in the same room as Phil and Tommy anymore.
“Wilbur, do you need help setting the table?”
“Yes please, thank you Tubbo!”
Dinner was potatoes and fried cod. Dinner was usually potatoes in some form. Phil being the co-owner and chief executive officer of a small potato company meant a steady personal supply of spuds. Tubbo wondered if he could persuade Technoblade to branch out to farming something else, cows, or pigs, maybe. Probably not.
Tommy complained, Phil and Wilbur chatted, and Tubbo’s mind wandered. He thought of the creature. He’d never seen anything like it- he’d heard of tall, thin, black creatures called endermen, every now and again Technoblade claimed to have seen one. But, Technoblade said a lot of things, like that he and Phil used to do secret military stuff in Antarctica, or that he used to be a successful gladiator in an underground prize fighting ring. Besides, the creature in the science centre had been half white.
What was it? An animal, or maybe a mob? An alien? Did they make it in the lab or just find it somewhere? What was it, what was it; That singular question burned his mind like a hot coal.
Highly classified , they’d said. Tubbo smiled to himself a little. Well, if he’d been able to infiltrate the super secret biology wing with as little effort as using the right elevator, just how well could the research database be guarded?