Chapter Text
Sapnap’s day starts off with his shitty apartment flooding ankle-deep in unidentifiable monsterly fluids, which sucks.
It’s not as dangerous as that one time the whole building came alive and tried to eat its residents, but it’s definitely messier, which is arguably worse.
This is the kind of thing most people usually take as a sign from the universe that they should go over to a friend’s place and sulk for the rest of the day. Anyone who’s survived more than a week in this clusterfuck of a city knows to trust their instincts on that—which usually means getting the hell out of dodge.
Unfortunately, Sapnap has kind of garbage instincts.
Oh, they’re fantastic at keeping him alive, sure. He’s coming up on his one-year anniversary of being here, and he’ll definitely be celebrating that at one of those dubiously legal and definitely non-human bars, but the fact that he’s still here, squelching through monster goop and all…
Sapnap wrinkles his nose as he sidesteps the still-twitching corpse in the lobby. Some idiot with an organ graft from the End, probably, which explains the goop seeping into everything. Shouldn’t the drawbacks of End tissue be common knowledge by know? Specifically the fact that it implodes at the first hint of water?
Most apartment complexes these days have sprinklers installed on the doorstep for the explicit purpose of enforcing their dumb Huma-only policies.
Sapnap, with his Netherborn lungs, counts himself lucky. He looks Huma, is legally Huma, and can hold his breath when the sprinkler douses him. So his landlord’s none the wiser.
Probably.
Eh, if he was going to be evicted for that, it would’ve already happened. Work comes first, and if Sapnap’s lucky, he’ll be too worn out to even notice if they’ve cleaned up the mess by the time he comes back.
He pats the left side of his face, checking that his eyepatch is in place like it should be, and walks out into the thoroughfare of SMP City.
Immediately, the world drops out from under him. Sapnap whirls around, reaching out for the wall that should be right there, but the thin clouds slip through his fingers without so much as a whisper of substance.
The wind forces his good eye shut. He forces it open again, squinting, all too aware of the warmth smoldering in his chest. His vision blurs weirdly in a way that could’ve been from wind pressure or because he’s been out for longer than he thinks. After a few seconds of blinking furiously, it clears.
Oh. That’s not the sky.
That’s the void.
Those are two very different things. One is up, and the other is… well. All around the city, truthfully; it swallows the ocean and heaven alike into the dragon’s maw, marking out the abyssal boundary of where the other worlds bleed into this one.
It’s part of what makes commute in and out of the place troublesome, because too-big vehicles that get too close end up attacked by the aforementioned dragon—not that anyone’s every seen the whole breadth of the thing, just an errant wing or tail that swings up to demolish a plane or ship, black scales iridescent against the darkness.
The fact that Sapnap is standing on a platform in the middle of this beast’s territory is, as they say, Not Good.
Leaning over the edge, Sapnap sees no support holding up the square of rock he’s somehow ended up on. It’s just floating over the misty emptiness. Looking up yields nothing of note either; he must be pretty low in the void if he can only see the wispy fog instead of the surface.
Something silver flashes at the edge of his vision, and Sapnap ducks out of the way of a shattered blade. His cheek flares, and he slaps a hand against it, wincing.
The metal tumbles into the void. Sapnap pulls his hand away, and blinks at the smear of blood left behind.
“GREETINGS,” bellows out from somewhere overhead. A long scythe of a blade lowers from the fog, and Sapnap backs up to the edge of his floating rock as its tip comes to a gentle rest over his throat.
“Why am I here?” Sapnap demands. He slouches backward, sticking his hands into his pockets like the perfect image of a begrudged student. If it’s to hide the trembling of his arms, that’s a secret between him and the phone in his pocket. “Who are you?”
“I AM UNKNOWN, COLLECTOR OF DIVINE INSTRUMENTS, PROSTHESIS MADE BY THE GREATER POWERS,” the voice booms. “I AM HERE TO COLLECT YOURS.”
“Uh, divine what now?” Sapnap says. He presses his thumb against the cool screen of his phone, making sure it’s facing towards himself so the light doesn’t bleed out. “I don’t know what those are. You’ve got the wrong person.”
The scythe jerks upward, nicking open his chin, trailing up his face.
And comes to rest directly over his eyepatch.
Sapnap stills.
“THE ALL-SEEING EYES OF THE GODS.”
“What about them?”
“YOU HAVE THEM. OR SO I THOUGHT,” the voice adds, and the scythe withdraws a little. “I DID THINK YOU FELL FOR THAT TRAP TOO EASILY FOR A TRUE WIELDER… IT WAS EITHER YOU OR YOUR SYNDICATE FRIEND, THEY SAID, AND THE FANG HUNTER IS MORE TROUBLE THAN I’D LIKE.”
Syndicate friend. Fang hunter. Dream. Sapnap's heart plummets to his heels, but he tries to keep an even keel. “Who’s they?” he asks over the sound of his phone unlocking. As subtly as possible, he drags his thumb across the screen.
“AH, NOW THAT WOULD BE TELLING, WOULDN’T IT?” A low cackle rolls through the fog like thunder, ruby light flashing faintly in the distance. “OF COURSE, IF YOU GIVE ME WHAT I WANT, I WILL GLADLY TELL.”
“You… want to take the Eyes,” Sapnap says, slowly.
“I DO.” A metallic click echoes overhead, and two more scythes descend, grinding against each other in a thin shriek of metal on metal. “BUT IF YOU ARE NOT THE ONE WHO WIELDS THEM…”
Inhale, feel the air warm in his throat, embers into flame. “What’re you gonna do,” Sapnap says, “kill me?”
“AND WASTE SUCH A RESOURCE? NO, NO. YOU ARE BEST KEPT HERE,” Unknown says, amused. Another blade comes low, and clinks against the phone in his pocket. Sapnap freezes. “GO ON. ASK YOUR FRIEND TO SAVE YOU. CALL THEM HERE. THESE THINGS ARE ALWAYS EASIER TO NEGOTIATE FACE TO FACE.”
Well now he doesn’t want to do it.
Sapnap snorts, and a tongue of flame washes over the back of his teeth. “I’m not going to be your good little hostage,” he spits.
“BUT YOU ALREADY ARE,” says Unknown, and the scythes all turn to slam into the rock.
Ruptures tear across the surface of the stone, and Sapnap swears as he quickly shuffles onto the biggest piece. The edge crumbles away; far below, the fog shifts. A dull purple glow starts to brighten in the abyss, a tell-tale sign of the dragon waking, and Sapnap throws himself at the scythe in preparation to climb up the weapon-limb if he must—
His vision sings.
Suddenly, the world takes on a blue tint. Everything jumps into high-definition, and the fog might as well not exist, and Sapnap can see the arching crimson light of a fucking Blood Breed looming above him, Unknown is a Blood Breed, Sapnap doesn’t stand a chance even if he can read out the letters of their true name from the red aura surrounding them—he looks away, and notices for the first time the golden threads spanning the width of the void, glittering with magic.
In the back of his mind, he registers that he’s looking at the spell that stopped the Great Collapse, the one that saved the worlds from folding in on each other into utter destruction.
The rest of his mind is a little busy screaming, though.
A displeased snarl rips through the air as another set of scythes cleave down towards him, and Sapnap exhales a spout of flame that slows them down only barely enough to dodge.
“OH,” says Unknown, “OH, OH! IS THAT AN EYE? YOU DO HAVE ONE! I DIDN’T KNOW YOU COULD HIDE THE GODS’ GIFT LIKE THAT—YOU MUST LET ME HAVE IT, HUMA, IT IS WASTED IN YOUR SOCKET!”
Sapnap shouts, “You can take it over my dead body!” and throws himself at the ground when a blade tries to cut him in half at the hip.
“GLADLY!” Unknown dives, now, their nebulous aura now a very clear and vivid blood-red glare into Sapnap’s vision, ruby light spinning down their bony weapon-limbs like latticework.
Sapnap doesn’t flinch, and even swings his head upward to let the Eye watch and watch and watch—thinking this is what I go through for you with only half the bitterness he really feels—which is the only reason he notices the other one.
Two Blood Breeds in a single day. Fan-fucking-tastic.
A blade pins him through the shoulder in a burst of hot-eyed pain, but the rest all miss as a thin red string wraps around Unknown’s limbs and yanks them upward, into the low-hanging mist.
Sapnap blinks. He can still see them, thrashing against a thread that yanks Unknown around like a plaything before throwing them aside. It’s connected to the second Blood Breed, which is descending towards him now.
Okay, okay, it’s fine, he has a little time. A Blood Breed’s weakness is their true name, so if he can just extract that, he might be able to… burn it, or something.
Sapnap takes a deep breath, gives his vision the middle finger just so the other end of the Eye can see it, and then focuses hard on that deep red aura.
For the most part, it’s just a storm of crimson, red and red and ruby and blood, but Sapnap keeps looking and his one working eye whirs like a machine as it narrows, cutting through the noise, piercing down until he can see the heart and the core and… at the very end, a thin string of letters in a language he shouldn’t know.
The All-Seeing Eye of the Gods pours it all into his head: red red crimson-winged elder ⍊𝙹╎ᓵᒷ↸╎⍊ᒷ ᓵ∷ᔑℸ ̣ ╎リᒷ ⍑||!¡╎ ̇/ᒷꖌ ℸ ̣ ᒷᓵ⍑リ𝙹ʖꖎᔑ↸ᒷred blood red red war red—
“Tech—” he begins, and promptly chokes as a hand slaps over his mouth.
“Shush,” says the Blood Breed, calm as anything, quite suddenly right beside him. “Yeah, I got there in time, of course I did. Hey, you’re Sapnap, right?”
Sapnap tries to melt him on pure force of will alone.
“I’m gonna let go of you now. Maybe don’t be rude and expose me in front of an idiot like that, alright?” The Blood Breed exaggeratedly steps back, and Sapnap immediately flings himself to the opposite side of the very tiny floating rock they’re standing on. “Great, cool, nice talk. Not awkward at all.”
“What do you want?” Sapnap demands, bristling.
“You don’t recognize me?”
Sapnap pauses. He gives the Blood Breed another once-over, taking in the plush red cape and royal garb. Looks at the name again. Nothing rings a bell. “Should I?”
“Eh. Guess not. We’re a little short on time anyway, so introductions can wait, I guess.” As if on cue, the void begins to rumble. The dragon must be inches from rushing out.
Sapnap waves his hand through what he’s sure is a gear of light blue energy rotating in front of his face, trying to tell his friend to let it go. He doesn’t want him to watch him die.
The Blood Breed interrupts him with a hand on his wrist. “Hey. Do you trust me?”
“Hell no.”
“Smart,” the Blood Breed says, and shoves him off the edge.