Chapter Text
Philza Craft is good at his job.
He fires straight. He knows his way around this city. And, most important of all, he’s a hybrid.
This would typically be a cause for concern among any police department in the greater SMP. A hybrid amongst their perfect-record cops, teeth squeaky clean and eyes black as coal? No. It’d be a tragedy for something to happen due to a half-breed’s negligence, as clumsy and as foolish as they are known to be.
But Phil is good at his job, and he has something that virtually no one else ever has. Wings.
They’re a well-kept secret. Who in their right mind exposes that a hybrid — and an avian, at that, perhaps the last of his kind — is working for them? Not Captain Sam, for certain. Though he’ll never let Phil forget it. Damn near rips the feathers off his bones every morning inspecting his wings. Phil will never forget the touch of gloves against his flight feathers, only there to ensure that he’s still useful. But those burdens on his back ensure him a job in a world full of people who only want to see him dead, so he bears it. Perhaps he misses the sky. Perhaps he misses the stars. But Phil knows will find no money amongst the clouds, and so he stays where he is.
Which, presently, happens to be the southern side of SMP. Snowy, cold, dangerous. A hellhole full of hybrid and human mob presence both, a dirty cop’s wet dream. That’s not the most of what makes it dangerous, though. It’s the fact that police presence in the south is virtually nonexistent. Despite troubling up-and-coming corruption, no one wants to interact with hybrids. When they’re committing crimes, sure. But not when they’ve become so powerful that they can often slip away from prosecution. Not then. There’s power in secrets.
So there are virtually no cops in the south most of the time. Except for Phil. Poor, stupid, newbie Phil. Too optimistic for his own good, shoved into the most dangerous crime inlet of the SMP. Idiot new-kid Phil who, as far as anyone knows, is just a human.
As far as anyone other than Sam and a few select allies, that is. So Phil gets a job fighting against the crime that most would probably expect him to join .
Well — why not both?
Infiltrate the ranks of the most dangerous crime families in all of the SMP with nothing on his back but a pair of wings and a bag full of cash. Should be easy, shouldn’t it? After all— Philza Craft is damn good at his job.
He skirts across a rooftop, quick and silent as a whisper. High above the city, he sees streetlamps flickering, cigarettes lit in open windows, the clatter of a party in someone’s basement. There’s a package clutched between his arms, held to his chest just as his wings are covered by the heavy jacket on his back. It makes the sound of rustling paper with every movement.
Phil has been given a one-time opportunity to weasel his way into position. A drop site has been set up and arrangements made, a fellow spy giving him an in with another mole giving him an in, finally, with someone who might have ties deep enough with the mob to get him a position quite literally anywhere. He has one job — drop off the money, talk and look pretty, and don’t fuck it up.
The last slivers of night have begun to trickle upward upon the horizon, making way for pinks and purples and oranges to swell and grow into a sunrise. The stars are dim this night and the last, covered in a thick, choking cloud of smog. For now, though, in the early of the morning when no cars are out and no factories are yet chugging into work-hours, it’s almost beautiful.
He throws himself over a ledge and down onto an awaiting fire escape, the thin and worn surface of the soles of his shoes taking the brunt of the landing in silence. He flies up the stairs, bending his body towards his knees as the drop-off spot comes into view. There should only be one man here, and if there are any more than Phil has been instructed to run.
But there — just at the edge of the roof, one leg planted on the ledge, is a man. Or something that in the darkness can appear to be a man. Phil’s sure they’re probably a hybrid, but he steps up onto the roof with lazy strides, one hand on his package and the other in his pocket, a pocketknife the only defense Sam had thought necessary.
Then the man turns.
He’s still so deep in the darkness that Phil can hardly make any details out. But he casts a long shadow. A broad shadow, thick and muscular and larger than any person should be able to make. And his voice. When he speaks, it’s like he cuts the air in two with his teeth, tearing apart the deep, empty blue of a passing midnight above them.
“You know,” he says, and Phil struggles not to flinch at the power in the man’s tone. “Most drop sights are no-contact. The smuggler drops off their package. Someone else is sent out to grab it — unless it’s a setup.”
His wings shift uneasily along the lining of his coat. The man across from him takes another step forward, and his heavy, sturdy boots clip against the ground noisily. Deliberately.
“You’d think any good runner would’a known that, hm? Anyone with any sort of experience, right?” Asks the man in shadows, no grin to be found in the ink-black surface of his face, yet obvious in his voice. Phil takes a step away, clutching his package closer to his chest. He does not falter, though. He knows better than to show fear to a charging bull.
“And you should know that I know how to run,” Phil retorts, grinning awkwardly. Nothing like excess confidence to smooth over a rickety conversation. “Which I will. Along with all of your cash.”
The man lets out a snort. Then, tilting his head, a real laugh. He steps forward, further into the light, and is revealed.
Long tusks poke up from thin, scarred lips, eyes as dark as rubies seeming to light up the entire roof blood red. His hair is long, an ash-grey pink that flows down his back in one heavy braid, falling toward actual hooves settled on the ground. In one hand held lazily to his side is a pistol. It flicks up in an instant to point directly at Phil.
“I know who you are,” says Technoblade , father of The Syndicate and the most notorious crime boss in all of the damned south. He clicks the safety of his pistol off and lifts it till it’s mere inches from Phil’s forehead. “And I know what you’ve come here to do.”
For a long time the rooftop is silent, nothing more than the musical whistling of wind brushing through their coats and the occasional sound of tires against concrete. Phil does not tremble or shake, even as Technoblade prods between his eyes with the gun, pushing his head back an inch and staring him straight in the eyes.
“So why don’t you pull the trigger, mate?” Asks Phil, pleased to find that his voice is as strong as ever. This wasn’t the plan. The plan was to sweet-talk his way into a position of trust with literally anyone. It was never to be caught red-handed by one of the most dangerous bosses in all of SMP, much less just the south.
But here he stands. Trembling just slightly on a random rooftop as a cold wind blows through his feathers, a package in his hands and a gun to his head. The man in front of him is nearly two feet taller than him and twice as muscular. If Technoblade truly wanted Phil dead, he would’ve been the moment he stepped off the fire escape.
“Because,” replies Technoblade, moving his free hand from his pocket to gesture at Phil’s side, the coat flapping off his back in the wind. “I know your secret.”
Technoblade must sense Phil’s sudden hesitation because he laughs. “You thought the only avian north of the graveyard would’ve slipped outta this city's notice?” The pistol moves closer, the barrel thin and glinting silver in the moonlight. Phil swallows down both anger and fear, keeping his face as impassive as he can. “I’ll admit that it took me longer to figure it out than I expected, but even Sam can’t hide his most precious playing cards for long.”
“What do you want, then?” Phil asks, because he isn’t a fan of being played with when his life is on the line. Technoblade had better kill him or do whatever else he came for.
“Alright, you’re a man of action, I get it. But slow down, will you?”
“There’s a gun to my head, mate,” he deadpans right back. “Your gun, to be specific.”
Another one of those rumbling chuckles, the same as all the last. It shakes the earth and Atlas on his knees. “Well. I’d like for us to go somewhere more private, Philza Craft. If you’d follow me?”
Phil sighs, teeth grit. “As if I have a choice.”
Technoblade politely asks him to turn around and then moves his gun to rest on the back of Phil’s skull. Then he pushes forward, escorting them both to the edge of the building once again, to the fire escape that Phil had initially climbed up on. They both walk down, his footsteps silent and Technoblade’s heavy, deliberate. His hooves click against the metal and his mass makes it creak in the way only an older part of SMP should, not this relatively unrusted and clean piece of equipment. Phil keeps a hand ghosting over the railing should he trip, because his legs have begun to shake for reasons other than simply fear.
It isn’t that he’s afraid of Technoblade, or death, or what awaits him once he climbs off this fire escape. No, instead he’s afraid of what Technoblade’s knowledge implies. How did he know about Phil’s wings, and who told him? Does anyone else know?
His feet make a soft splash in the melted snow on the concrete below him. Technoblade’s gun shifts from the back of his head down to the small of his back, prodding at his wings. Phil hisses, whipping around before he can stop his instincts.
“The fuck do you think you’re doing?”
The man raises an eyebrow, expression impassive, unreadable. “Just checkin’ that you’ve really got them. Turn around.”
Phil obeys as the gun returns to his skull, the cool metal freezing in the cold, southern air. “You could’ve just asked to see them.”
“Sure.”
He’s led into the alley he’d come out of initially, walking steadily toward a dead end. It comes to Phil that he has absolutely no clue where Technoblade intends to take him. There were no cars back out on the open street, and the only way out of this alley is over a high chain-link fence or up the fire escape they’d only just walked down.
He’s about to turn around and ask when the pistol on his skull moves away and over. Phil catches his reflection in a puddle just in time to see the gun ram itself into his head -- before it all goes dark.
He crumples, the last noise in his ears a soft laugh shredding the night.
—-
Cold.
That’s the first thing Phil feels when he awakens. All-encompassing cold. Dripping down his face and down his sides and all over his skin, saturating his clothes. He’s soaking wet, his head pounding. His first impulse is to jerk away, spluttering as water slithers down his back and through his wings, his feathers itchy and soiled by freezing water.
“What— the fuck?” He gasps, feeling more water trickle into his lips. He coughs, trying to breathe. His attempt to struggle out of the way is quickly cut off by the presence of handcuffs around his wrists, looped to the back of a desk chair.
When he’s coughed enough to regain some of his senses, Phil scans the room he’s in. It’s an office, the desk right in front of him completely cleaned off save for a small leather briefcase. The blinds outside are drawn, but the sky is dark and very little light is let into the room otherwise. There’s a lamp in the corner and a candle on a small end-table, but neither penetrates the harsh shadows cast around the room. There, slowly closing a large door behind him, is Technoblade.
“Had to wake you up somehow,” He mutters, clicking the lock on the door shut and prodding away a large metal bucket with his hoove. Phil watches with grit teeth, shaking terribly, as Technoblade pulls another chair up from its spot along a wall and settles heavily into it. He sighs, resting one hand on the briefcase on the table, the other adjusting the heavy fur collar of his coat. “We’ve got work to talk about.”
“You knocked me out in the first place!”
Well I sorta had to,” Technoblade responds, rolling his eyes. “Wouldn’t want a pig worming its way into my home.”
“I’m— Mate, you’re one to be talking about pigs,” Phil hisses right back, straining forward on his cuffs. Gods, his head fucking hurts. But Technoblade just laughs, dry and deadpan and loud.
“Yknow, that’s what everyone always says about me! Hey, Technoblade, why don’t you go work with your own kind?” He shrugs. “Why don’t you go put up a blind pig for us if you’re not gonna be a cop? Bruh. As if I need to go down to some speakeasy down north to find a drink.”
Then, as if he remembers something, he reaches across the desk, completely disregarding Phil as the avian is forced to move away. Technoblade hums as he rummages around in one of the drawers. This close, Phil can get a better look at the man. His arms are tan and muscular, the covering of hair on them a soft pink, slightly darker than the braid down his back. He’s heavily scarred, too. Shackle’s cutting into wrists, knives cutting into forearms, bullets grazing his skin. It’s all there. His hands are long and thick, the ends of his fingers a thick, black, keratin-like substance rather than hooves like those on his legs. When Phil looks back up, Technoblade has raised an eyebrow at him, holding up a bottle of what appears to be scotch.
“I don’t drink,” Phil sneers, shying away from the glass and the shot glasses on the table. But Technoblade pours two glasses anyways, not stopping till they’re full right up to the rim.
“Officer, this is 100% scotch,” he deadpans. “ One hundred percent. None of that watered-down stuff they’ve probably got you busting all the time.” Technoblade raises his glass and peers into it, his lips quirking up into a smile. Then he downs it all in one quick swig, ducking his head and breathing through the heat of the drink. “You sure you don’t want — I dunno, a little less than enough to kill a horse?”
Phil mulls over the question for a moment. Then, remembering that he is in fact a cop and supposed to hate this man with all his guts and also maybe want to shoot him, he snarls, a low, angry chuckle falling from his lips. “My hands are cuffed, you prick. I couldn’t drink it even if I was dirty.”
“Then I’ll uncuff you,” Technoblade responds as if it’s as simple as that. “Yer’ a hybrid anyways. I’m surprised you haven’t been bought already.”
“That’s pretty damn presumptuous of you, isn’t it? Especially since you’re a hybrid yourself?”
Technoblade gasps exaggeratedly, running a thick, very much obviously not human hand through his hair. “No! Philza, I wasn’t ready to tell you yet! What gave it away?”
They stare at each other for a long moment. Phil refuses to laugh. Technoblade’s grin only widens.
Phil only accepts the offered alcohol because he wants Technoblade to shut up. That’s all.
“Alright. Down to business,” Technoblade says, once he’s sat back down after unlocking one of Phil’s cuffs, leaving him able to take a drink but not escape. His teeth chatter noisily against the glass of his shot glass, but they still soon after he downs the contents. The burn warms his throat just enough that he can focus. It’s a good thing, too, because Technoblade has gained a new, serious look to his jagged red eyes. “I know what you’ve been sent out to do. Infiltrate the mob, feed info to all your buddies, etc etc. Whatever. Boring.”
“It would’ve been a little less boring if you’d let me do it for more than five minutes.”
Technoblade snorts. “And then what? Watch you try to ruin things for me? Bruh. That would’ve been even more boring. I’m not letting a good pair’a wings go to waste.”
The words strike Phil wrong. It feels too much like how Sam — and everyone else he’s ever had the displeasure of working under — speaks about his wings. He sneers, a bitter chuckle falling out of his mouth as he sips on another shot of alcohol.
“Fuck you, mate. If I’m just a pair of wings then I’d rather you just shot me here.”
When he looks back up, Technoblade looks slightly surprised. Impressed, even. But he just folds his hands around his shot glass and nods, serious once again. “That’s fine. I don’t intend to offer you a job just outta desire for a bunch of feathers. You’ve got talent.”
It’s Phil’s turn to raise his eyebrows in incredulity. “A job. And talent. Go on.”
“Don’t let your ego inflate too badly,” Technoblade retorts. “You’re still just a cop. Practically betrayin’ your own race. But— anyways. I’ve seen what you can do. You had — or have had — potential. I’ve been watching you, Philza Craft.”
He raises one shoulder in a shrug and gestures lamely towards himself with the other. “Alright. I’m good with a gun. I can run around for you — on land or off. But that doesn’t mean I’m anything interesting. To a human, maybe, but not to a hybrid. I’m sure you’ve got enough people to do your dirty work that I’d blend right in.”
“Maybe,” Technoblade replies with a shrug of his own. He’s set his alcohol down now, his odd fingers tapping against the briefcase on the table. “But I know what you really are. And I know that The Angel of Death isn’t an unearned name.”
Everything turns to ice.
Phil’s breathing catches, a familiar tremor appearing in his lips as he slowly ducks his head, unable to face the nickname or the man who remembers it.
“How— How do you know that name?” he asks, voice harsh even despite its stutter. He doesn’t dare meet Technoblade’s eyes as his past is mentioned. Doesn’t dare to see the desire or the hate or the interest that must be showing within those red scleras. Doesn’t even breathe.
A soft laugh. “I practically grew up on it. Hybrids don’t have many job options. In my particular choice, that name was a staple. Whispers of dark things. Old things. A man with wings who fought in a way long since forgotten.” In Phil’s periphery, he sees Technoblade shrug. “Word got around. I went searching.”
“You went searching,” Phil whispers venomously.
“Sure did. And I actually found him, once. He wasn’t fighting that night though. Just sorta hung about the shadows of the ring. Watched it all go down. That is until the end.”
“Now, I know that the traditional weapon of those rings — if there’s a weapon at all — is a knife. But this ring is rickety. Old. Too many people there and too many people who know about it. There’s a bust that night, and about a hundred-thousand goddamn cops come flooding in.” Technoblade’s next laugh is bitter. “I got caught up in the running, but I didn’t escape before I saw it. The Angel of Death, holding a goddamn sword.”
“And- yknow, I’m about to laugh, because these cops are coming at this man with guns. And here’s this winged legend holding a sword — and one he’d yanked out of a cane at that. I’ve got half a mind to step in and try to help, because this guy is swamped in police. Drowning in people he’s gotta get through to run, and I was more naive then than ever back then.”
“Get to the point,” Phil snaps. He remembers this story. It’s the same as a hundred thousand other nights. It’s a story that doesn’t matter. It’s a story about a man that hasn’t existed in years.
“I watch this man swordfight his way out of a gunfight with forms that — since I researched a bit, later on — I know wouldn’t have been taught to anyone in this century. Or the last, probably. He doesn’t even have a gun. Just waves this skinny little blade around and takes around half a dozen pigs before he works his way out and flies away.”
The story is punctuated by a small laugh. Phil looks back up, glaring, and sees something far worse than hatred or desire in Technoblade’s eyes. He sees admiration.
“That was…” He pauses. “A very long time ago, mate.”
“Not that long. Only fifty or so years by now. Which makes you well over seventy at the very least.”
Phil drops his empty shot glass on the table and continues to sneer up at the man before him. The story is done, the chill in his bones dissipating. He still can’t rip the feeling of old blood away from his skin, a million deaths clinging to his ribs and crawling deep into his lungs. “What about it?” he says with disbelief. “So you and I are old now? You’re— 62? 63, maybe?”
“113,” Technoblade replies, shutting Phil up quickly. This draws a laugh from the other man, and he apologizes as he chuckles. “God— you shoulda seen the look on your face. Yes, Philza. I’m well into the start of my hundreds. I’m the same as you, I think. You know what they say about me, don’t you?”
“That you’re the blood god?” Phil tries.
“The other thing,” Technoblade tells him dismissively, waving a hand.
“That… Technoblade never dies?”
This time, the piglin hybrid nods, a smile creeping up his lips and curling his fangs until they manage to look even longer. “Technoblade never dies. And it’s true, too. Over a century of messing around and I’m still kicking. I won’t ask, but I’m assuming you’re much older than I am. Not that it even matters — It’s just background. Context. Context for a job offer.”
“A—” Phil barks out a crude laugh. “A job offer? That’s all this is? Digging up years of my past to try to get me to join your mob?”
Technoblade doesn’t do anything other than nod, thick jaw still wrapped up in a grin. And Phil, despite the instincts inside of him screaming for him to immediately say no, is intrigued. It’s been a long time since he had any passion for his work. He’s always fighting, yes, but for what side? For the people who hate him? Discriminate against him and his kind, wiping out entire species variants of hybrids? It’s been a long time since Phil thought he was doing the right thing. And, maybe, despite the fact that this is crime, he could have a chance.
“I’ll bite,” He responds, slowly admitting to his own interest. “What’ve you got?”
All humor in Technoblade’s expression disappears, turning instead to satisfaction and professionalism. “You were meant to be a mole for the police. How about you become mine instead?”
Before Phil can protest, the other man barrels on. “Now— that doesn’t mean you’re gonna go around shootin’ cops all the time. I’ll give you the unassuming sorta jobs you want so that no one thinks I’m trusting you too fast. You go back to your little Captain and you tell him what I feed you. We’ve got other cops paid off in your department—”
“Are you fucking kidding—”
“Which is awfully obvious, really,” Technoblade finishes hastily. “In return, I’ll pay you at least 30% more than Sam has ever paid anyone. That along with room and board, should you need it. My place has more than enough room. This, along with safety should you ever be faced with anyone aligned or allied with The Syndicate while you’re posing as a member of the force. So long as you ensure the safety of them and us in return,” he explains.
“My contract with Sam is only on for a month. Two— should things go well.”
Technoblade shrugs. “I’ll match that. And, if you’re still interested in some underhanded dealings after that — then I’ll be here. Or I’ll be watching.”
Phil snickers at this. “Aye. Well, now that you’ve told me you intend to watch me, it might be a bit harder.”
Technoblade’s lips quirk back up into a smile. “Good.”
Phil trades him a nod in turn. “Sure.” Then he sucks in a breath, considering the offer and all of the thousands of questions running around his head. “How much intel am I allowed to have? I still am a… pig, after all,” he says, grimacing at the crude term. “Am I going to be unconscious every time I’m escorted to your base of operations?”
“No- no that was mostly for show.” Technoblade laughs at Phil’s heavy, huffy snort. “You have no clue whether this is my true home court anyways. Plus: I think I can trust you.”
“Oh?” Phil has to laugh. Out of everything he’s been told today — this might be the most ridiculous. The idea that Technoblade himself not only wants a cop’s intel but trusts him enough to take it? It’s almost impossible to believe. But he’s played along this far — what’s a little farther? “How is that?”
A soft, knowing smirk appears on Technoblade’s lips, as if he knows something more than Phil. “I just do.”
He takes a moment to think. It’s a lucrative — though dangerous — offer. Sam’s had been just as dangerous as well, though. Phil can either be a spy for the cops, a spy for the cops turned spy for this gang, or he could do two at once.
But, underneath all of Phil’s deliberation, there’s a line of excitement. It’s been a very long time since his life had any sense of importance within it, and he twist the wedding band on his ring finger thoughtfully, obsidian black metal shining. Being a cop does feel like a betrayal, no matter what he’ll tell anyone else. His wings upon his back still shake with the cold water clinging to them, but there’s an undercurrent of intrigue within their feathers as well.
He sticks out a hand. The finality of this movement crackles in his bones, and yet he’s sure. This is his own decision. Not one made on promises of feathers and wings and immortality. Phil has to lean forward against his own shackles to shake on it, and his hand is dwarfed immediately by Technoblade’s own claws, but he does it.
“It seems it’ll be a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Craft.”
Phil lets out a short laugh, nodding as Technoblade walks behind him and fully unlocks the handcuffs. He rubs his wrists and tries to ignore the light scarring from old bonds that both Technoblade and he have in common.
“Just call me Phil, mate. No need for honorifics.”
—-
The Syndicate has been holed up in an ancient and cleared-out factory down by the very edge of the entire SMP. Everything is shadowed by the mountains high above them, anchored in so much snow that they look like massive white stairways up into the heavens. It’s a place Phil has only seen in passing once or twice, but he’s sure would never be someone’s expectation for the quarters of an elite sect of crime .
Well, Phil isn’t someone . He’s a hybrid, and he’s well versed with how absolutely delightful the housing market is for someone like him.
He’s given an hour to shower and get presentable before Technoblade introduces him to a few key… allies, of his. His clothes are gone by the time he reemerges from the surprisingly clean showers allotted for his moment of peace, replaced by a simple backless button-down and slacks, alongside a long black coat, the trim worn. It has two large slits in the back, and so Phil takes on the hassle of shuffling his weary bones through them. He’s gotten so used to hiding his wings that the process is arduous and slow.
There’s a knock at the door of the empty room. Phil looks up — just through stretching his wings and shaking the last of the water from them — to see a tall figure slouching in the doorway. They have two circular black lenses balanced on their nose, completely shrouding their eyes. A mask conceals their mouth, though Phil can see the half black, half white scales creeping up their neck, their jaw, their hands as they wring them anxiously.
They look young. Incredibly so, despite their height and the items used to cloud their features. Their hair is floppy and messy in a way most adults would never be caught dead in, their trousers hemmed far too many inches past their ankles. But Phil just stares, settling his wings against his back with his head half-cocked.
“Mate?” He says, after a long moment of awkward silence.
“R- Ranboo!” Blurts the kid suddenly, wrenching a hand out of his own grip, holding it out to Phil. He does a short shuffle with his legs until he’s within hand-shake distance, and so Phil puts his own hand out and clasps it in the others.
“Phil,” he replies in turn, nodding warmly. He might as well start making allies while he’s here, no matter how little real loyalty he feels toward them. “It’s— uhm. Nice to meet you?”
“Yeah! Ah— nice to meet you too! He— He, being— uhm— Technoblade, wants to see you. He sent me to take you to ‘im?”
“Lead the way, Ranboo,” Phil replies, and he gets the distinct image that the kid is smiling beneath their mask.
The halls of the abandoned factory are long and winding. Ranboo scuttles through the halls as if he has them memorized — and he likely does — but Phil has to acquaint himself with the route. There’s a chip the size of an apple in the floor as they turn down a left hall. They go through a door that still has a for-sale sign on it. There are tiny hallmarks of the way through the veritable maze, and Phil is quick to memorize as many as he can.
There aren’t many other people there despite the rising sun in the sky. Occasionally they pass a door with a light on beneath it or with the sound of conversation emanating from within, but there’s hardly anyone around until Phil makes it to what he assumes is the main area.
It’s a large, two-storied room with dozens of crates, tables, and old equipment lying about in an organized mess. People mill about — chatting, moving things about, loading crates onto trucks and loading crates from trucks out of trucks. They all only have one thing in common. Each of them is noticeably a hybrid.
There’s no hiding it. Feathers and tails and fur and skin just a tone inhuman, all of the people seem to be proudly flaunting their status as hybrids. It makes Phil want to smother his wings on his back, rather than join in. It’s been so long since he was able to show any sort of pride in his wings — save for when being directed in battle. It’s an odd sight, now, as Ranboo and he cross the walkway to the other side of the room.
The noise disappears the moment the door is shut. Phil suddenly realizes his hands are shaking again. Ranboo turns, tilting his head ever so slightly as hidden eyes stare down at Phil. Their height difference is remarkable.
“I- I get it,” stutters out the boy, sheepishly rubbing at the back of his neck. “It can be overwhelming sometimes, right?”
Something in Phil’s chest stirs. No child should ever understand his anxiety. But such is the way of the world, and so he nods, despite the anger within him that rises.
They continue on through another long few hallways until they finally reach their apparent destination. A new office room. A fireplace roars along the wall as they step inside, the flame flickering, one of the only lights in the room. A large desk stands alone in the middle, the seat occupied by a young boy who is decidedly not Technoblade. No — the man stands at the window, peering outside with squinted eyes. There are several different people in the room, and they all turn to Phil right as he steps inside.
“Hello, big man,” says the child in the chair. It swivels, and he turns, slamming his hands down onto the table with a bang. Floppy blond hair falls in front of ringed and shadowed eyes, light stripes of black and white fur extending from his cheeks to the raccoon ears poking out of his hair. “Where is my fucking money!”
Phil startles. Ranboo turns around and busies himself with the door. Technoblade, to Phil’s surprise, just sighs, turning around and rolling his eyes.
“Wrong person, Tommy ,” hisses another person, a woman who sends Phil an apologetic shrug. She almost doesn’t appear to be a hybrid at all upon first look. But then she smiles, her teeth all sharpened into fangs, her crinkled eyes a multicolored swirl that never seems to stop shifting. And then there’s the bright pink hair — but Phil supposes he’s seen odder wigs on humans before. “Hi,” she says softly, nodding. “I’m Nikki. And this is Puffy.” She points to the woman beside her, with bright white hair and horns curling out from beneath that curly mass.
“Phil,” he replies in earnest, shaking his head right back.
There are several other people there who Phil is introduced to. Tubbo, a young ram hybrid that Technoblade describes as part of the package deal that were Tommy — who turns out to be a raccoon hybrid — and Ranboo — who is something that none of them really know the origins of. Then there’s Eret, standing in the corner and glancing at Phil with milky white eyes. At first he thinks they’re blind — but no, walking closer reveals that their eyes are entirely white, a soft white glow emanating from their pupils. They’re drifting an inch or two above the ground, levitating only slightly but certainly enough to be noticeable.
It’s been a long time since Phil saw any real magic from this world. It’s died off in favor of technology — guns rather than enchantments, people in dark alleyways rather than skeletons or zombies. In some ways, he’s the only piece left of a dying world. The only person left to remember a time of dragons and magic and things far greater than petty gang spats. But here, in a haven for hybrids, he finds people that this world has tried to kill for centuries.
And, as he has begun to find, he likes it.