Chapter Text
The Copper King awoke in the cold desert with no memories and a demon looming over him.
He should have run. He didn’t. He was groggy, still half-asleep and cold. So cold. He closed his eyes, turned around, and wished for the warmth to come back.
The demon moved away from him. The warm glow of a light source fell on Pixl’s eyelids. He opened his eyes; the demon had not gone too far. He had dug a shallow hole and summoned lava; boiling, bubbling, deadly lava. Warm lava.
Pixl did not look away as he crawled through the sand, to the lava. He did not need to sit on the edge; staying within a few yards drove away the cold just as well. He shivered and held his hands as close to the source of warmth as he was comfortable with. The demon said nothing, and neither did Pixl. He did feel the demon’s stare on his back, and that strange feeling wouldn’t go away; that something was deeply, terribly, irreversibly wrong. He didn’t know what the feeling referred to, and could only guess.
His stomach rumbled and he opened his inventory. It wasn’t the greatest; a couple of golden carrots, half a stack of rotten flesh. Diamond tools. A shield, but no armor. A spare cactus, a couple of sticks. Most of the slots were empty.
Finally, Pixl returned the stare, munching on one of the carrots. The demon was just as wrong as the feeling, but it hadn’t done anything. It provided him with warmth and silence; and now with three stacks of golden carrots, which Pixl cautiously accepted.
This was important. He knew it was important; the demon who kept him company was important. It frustrated him, not knowing what that importance was.
It frustrated him, not knowing what happened to himself.
“What am I doing in the desert?”
The demon sat close; if Pixl wasn’t going to figure it out himself, he might as well ask. For a second, he thought the demon wasn’t going to answer, and maybe he even hoped his companion would stay quiet.
The demon told an impressive story, of empires and their rulers; of betrayal and the role he played. Pixl hadn’t done anything wrong, though the others would have him believe so. He acted correctly with the information he’d been given; that he didn’t know the full picture only meant they withheld important information from him. They banished him to the desert, where he tried to rebuild. Once they got wind of what he attempted to do, they destroyed his work and set him back greatly. Stripped of his memories, doomed to wander the desert forever, not knowing anything.
Pixl listened, opening his mind to the story, but still cautious. He did not trust the demon. He thanked him for the story, the carrots, the warmth, and returned to sleep.
He wandered the desert the next few weeks, without even a hint of a memory to keep him company. He came across a destroyed desert city. A name popped up: Pixandria. This was once his. But the villagers had long turned into husks, and only ruin remained of his grand structures. Destroyed, just as the demon told him.
Every night, the demon watched over him. Every night, he brought another gift. He mostly brought warmth and water, providing him with food and new netherite tools when they almost broke. The more he popped up, the more Pixl started to trust the demon did not want to harm him.
At night, as he slept, memories came back as nightmares. He could never see what he’d done wrong, but he could hear unfamiliar voices chastising him; he heard them scold him. The only Elf ruler had ordered him to go to the desert as repentance. He could not expect any sympathy, not even from those who might have been his allies.
The demon told more stories; of these great empires with great flaws. Of the kings and queens and emperors and their greed, pride, and selfishness. Of how they were all to blame but chose to put it on the one person who was the least informed.
I can help you, the demon told him. I can make you powerful. Help you make them pay.
Pixl had never thought himself to be a vengeful person, but he could not stand dishonesty. His memories hadn’t all returned yet, but the picture they painted of the other rulers was less than flattering. The stories of the demon, exaggerated as they may be, contained a kernel of truth. He didn’t have to go into the desert, but he’d done so to appease this group of rulers.
It was time they realized their mistake.
The demon showered him with more gifts; special copper gear, somehow stronger than the netherite. Weapons of great power, which he needed to practice a little with. A strong mindset that shouldn’t falter.
He barely realized the demon was poisoning his mind with these fake memories and stories. He barely registered it when the demon started to address him as ‘my champion’. He barely realized the weapons not only made him stronger, but also made him fall under the demon’s influence more easily. His mind filtered out the corruption growing around him; all he saw was a sea of gold and yellow when patches of red corruption poked out from under the sand.
After six months with the demon, Pixl emerged from the desert. The other rulers couldn’t believe their eyes. The twelfth ruler, their good friend the Copper King, finally returned from the self-imposed exile that left his home in ruins. After months of radio silence, he had returned with an old enemy walking behind him.
Pixl was uncharacteristically vengeful, demanded they take him seriously and retract the banishment. Their confusion and denial was all Pixl needed to confirm what he had known all along, and he attacked.
Death felt right; it must have meant something to him before they stripped him of his memories. Death felt right and he continued his rampage against the rulers that had wronged him. He showed no mercy, even as some did not fight and begged him to stop. They were all equally guilty in his eyes and he struck them down, too.
The Copper King’s crown was buried in the sand, somewhere near the ruins of Pixandria. Instead, the war helmet of the Copper Champion rested upon his head.