Chapter Text
Antfrost and Puffy watched together as the tall demon they called their friend frantically paced up and down the room with equal amounts of guilt and sympathy. They listened as he tried to calm his shaking breathing as he muttered under his breath about how their current situation was all his fault.
“What do I do?” Bad whimpered through the tears in his white eyes. “Oh my goodness, this is all my fault! I-If I hadn’t found that stupid egg, then I- he w-wouldn’t of-… Skeppy…”
Unable to bear the guilt and crushing feeling of loss, Bad curled in on himself and began to bawl his eyes out. His legs gave out under him, sending him crashing to the floor in an emotional heap. He subconsciously wrapped his tail around one of his legs tightly.
Gone.
His best friend, his heart, was gone, trapped with that red stain on the server under all that obsidian. Every part of the demon was screaming at him to go back and open a way out for Skeppy, but he didn’t for fear of falling under the Egg’s influence once more. What good would saving him do if he wasn’t himself when they saw each other again?
‘If we ever see each other again…’ He thought to himself bitterly.
A gentle hand on his shoulder snapped him out of his emotional breakdown. He turned to see Puffy by his side with Ant hovering close behind her, both having tears in their eyes.
“Bad,” The sheep hybrid began gently, maternal side on full display, “you’re not the only one at fault here… Ant and I, we’re just as guilty as you are… We all drove him to the decision he made…”
“We’ll help him, Bad…” Ant reassured him. “We just… have to think of something…”
Bad sniffled before leaning against Puffy, soaking up the comfort she was providing. It didn’t matter how much they tried to convince him otherwise, he was sure it was his fault. He and Skeppy shared a special bond with each other that no one else on the server had. Many years ago, Bad had made a decision that was on equal levels, if not a tad more, of importance with his choice to raise Sapnap as his son. Bad had given Skeppy something important. There was no one else he trusted more with it than the diamond hybrid.
If Skeppy was going to sacrifice himself for anyone on the server, it was most likely gonna be for him.
“‘Geppy…” The demon whimpered pathetically as he was struck with a sudden exhaustion. He forgot how much of a crash there was from such an intense emotional high.
He faintly heard Ant make mention of how late it had gotten before feeling him and Puffy struggle to get him on his clawed feet. He didn’t make it easy with how limp he had gone. After a few minutes of persuading him, Bad finally rose to his feet and allowed his friends to lead him upstairs to put him to bed. Rather than head to his own room, he instead directed them to Skeppy’s where he collapsed onto his friend’s bed without a second thought. Although it wasn’t big enough for his full height as a demon, he remedied it by shrinking down before Ant and Puffy could even think about trying to convince him to go to his room. In this form, Bad had shrunk about 4 feet. His appearance had become more “adorable” as Skeppy and Sapnap told him on separate occasions.
Bad hardly acknowledged the stares he felt from his friends as he buried his face into the pillow and inhaled Skeppy’s scent. It calmed him enough to register them telling him that they were about to head out. Feeling panic rising once again, he quickly shot up to a sitting position.
“No!” He cried desperately. When they looked back at him in surprise, the demon ducked his head in a pathetic attempt to hide. “Please, I… I-I don’t want to be alone… Without someone else here, this place is… it’s lonely…”
Ant and Puffy exchanged a look briefly before nodding silently. Neither could really blame him. It took them a minute to get their hands on some beds to use for themselves before they all settled in for the night in Skeppy’s room. Bad curled up in his best friend’s blankets to take in the scent once more. It both helped and worsened the ache in his heart from the loss of someone he held so dear to him. With one last sniffle, he was lulled to sleep, following the others into a deep slumber.
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[Skeppy has joined the game]
Rising to his feet, Skeppy stretched before a wide grin broke out across his face under his headbox. He looked behind him and grinned wider at the sight, almost resembling the Cheshire Cat.
There stood the Egg imprisoned in the obsidian he had placed all around it to block out its effects. Admittedly, he should’ve listened to his friends when they were trying to stop him from uncovering it, but he was just so curious to see what was causing him so much trouble. Even fucking Ponk seemed to be fond of it. He didn’t exactly understand why, but he really should have remembered that curiosity killed the cat. How was he supposed to know how fast Bad, Ant, and Puffy would become influenced again the second he took a single piece of obsidian off of it?
“Welp,” the diamond hybrid chuckled to himself, “I think they’ve had enough now. Hopefully this’ll give them the reality check they so desperately needed.”
With that, Skeppy pushed his hands into the pockets of his hoodie and proceeded to walk around the trapped Egg. He was never inside the obsidian with it. He had actually been hiding behind it after covering it again and waited for his friends to come back before leaving the server to make it look like he was. He thought giving them a good scare would help them get their priorities straight. Skeppy had seen it as the best option at the time and had been hoping to laugh off what he saw as his best troll yet with his best friend, but his grin immediately fell as he felt a warmth inside his chest come flooding in. Placing a hand over it, he looked down at himself and instantly felt a pang of regret shoot through him.
Bad was calling out to him in his sleep. He could feel it. It wasn’t like when either of them woke up in the middle of the night to the other reaching out for them during a nightmare. No, this was much worse.
“Bad…”
Skeppy knew how much Bad cared for him. He knew the demon loved him deeply and how much trust he was given despite trolling him so much. However, he never expected how heartbroken his little deception would leave his best friend. Skeppy never meant to hurt him this badly. He just wanted him back.
Sighing, the diamond hybrid picked up the pace to a jog as he headed for the exit. He briefly turned back to the Egg once last time to flip it the bird before finally leaving. He needed to get home ASAP.
Bad needed him right now.
He was beginning to go over how he was gonna try to lessen how pissed his friends were inevitably gonna be from how much he scared them when he finally got above ground, not noticing how late it was. He was so deep in his thoughts, he didn’t notice that someone had moved into his path until he ran into them. With a flinch, he snapped back to reality as he stepped back and went to apologize when he saw who it was.
“Oh, hey Dream.” Skeppy greeted the masked man with a polite wave. “What’re you doing out so late? Aren’t you tired at all?”
“I don’t sleep.” Dream answered plainly.
Both men stood in an awkward silence for a few seconds before Skeppy cleared his throat.
“Well uh, guess I’ll be going now. I need to get home like now.”
Skeppy attempted to step around Dream, but was surprised when he followed him to prevent it. He tried to go the other way only to be cut off again. Glancing up at the masked face in front of him, he began to step back from him to get some distance. The diamond man felt a wave of uneasiness wash over him as the blonde followed. The silence was getting to be too much for him. Even from behind the mask, he could feel the other’s eyes sizing him up.
“What are you-”
“You asked what I was doing out here, right?” Dream suddenly asked.
Skeppy didn’t like the way he said that, forever grateful for his headbox hiding how nervous he was getting.
“Y-Yeah?”
Of course his voice would give it away.
“I’m gathering leverage, Skeppy. Everyone one the server has an attachment to something. It took awhile, but I figured out one of these ‘attachments’ for a certain someone.”
Skeppy felt his eyes widen in horror. He didn’t mean…
“There’s only one thing he cares the most about, Skeppy… And it’s standing ri-”
Dream didn’t get to finish before Skeppy punched him in the face with a diamond shielded hand. While he tried to regain his bearings from the sudden attack, the diamond hybrid took the chance and booked it around him as fast as he could go. It wasn’t long until he could hear the man give chase. He wasn’t as close to his mansion as he’d like to be and he wasn’t entirely sure if he would even make it, but dammit, he was going to try. If not for himself, for Bad.
Under the sleeves of his hoodie, Skeppy willed the diamond sections on his arms to expand to cover them completely. He further concentrated to force diamond shards to appear from above his wrists all the way up to his elbows before quickly spinning around to face Dream with strong swings of his arms, firing all of the shards at him. He didn’t wait to watch the other shield himself from his attack and kept running.
If Dream wanted to play manhunt with him, Skeppy refused to make it easy. Even if his chances of winning against him in a fight were slim, he wouldn’t go down without one. He had one goal in mind, and he was gonna try his damn hardest to see it through to the end.
Skeppy’s feet pounded against the ground as he heard Dream calling out to him. He felt a shiver shoot down his spine at the twisted delight he could hear in each “C’mere, Skeppy!” and “Oh Skeppy!” The bastard was enjoying the chase, taunting him as if he were nothing but a simple game to beat. He didn’t entirely know what Dream meant by “leverage” in regards to him, but he knew he didn’t want to find out.
The diamond hybrid nearly screamed when his pursuer suddenly appeared in front of him, having thrown an Ender Pearl in the split second he had lost focus. As the masked man spun around with his signature axe raised over his head, Skeppy barely had enough time to come to a sudden stop and raise his still diamond arms to block the attack, but he managed. His teeth bit down onto his lower lip as he fought back a pained cry when the Netherite axe made contact with his arms. Fighting back tears, he dug his feet into the ground and pushed back against the weapon. He was thankful that it wasn’t a pickaxe, but it didn’t make the pain any less agonizing.
“Why?!” Skeppy questioned, still not believing what was happening to him. “Why me?! Bad and I have so many other things to choose from, so why me?!”
“Like I said, you are the one thing that he cares for the most on the entire server. And the evidence is in you. I know what he gave you, Skeppy.”
Skeppy’s eyes widened. The force he was using to push back against the axe weakened slightly, causing him to stumble a few steps back. Bad had given him many things, but there was only one thing he had been given that was worth bringing up and they had promised to not tell anyone. The only other person besides them - and now Dream apparently - who knew about it was Sapnap, and they had sworn him to secrecy about it.
“H-How do you…?”
“He was a fool to give it up to someone like you. A fool to give up on such a power.”
The diamond hybrid gritted his teeth in anger before quickly stepping to the side and digging a new diamond shard into a space between the man’s armor to stab his arm in retaliation. Taking his chance, Skeppy ran in a new direction to get away, still feeling rage coursing through his veins.
BadBoyHalo was a lot of things, but he was no fool. Skeppy had what he was given because he was loved, trusted. Sure he was reckless, but the fact he was trusted enough with it meant more to him than he had ever told the demon. He wanted to tell him now more than ever. He wanted to see him.
Skeppy’s eyes lit up as his mansion came into view in the distance. Ignoring the mobs around him and the calls from behind, he booked it. Skeppy was almost home, almost with Bad.
His elation rapidly began to fade alongside his stamina. His lungs were screaming for air and his legs were begging for a break. Skeppy ignored it the best he could, knowing that stopping for even one second would lead to a fate almost worse than death. Ignoring that was hard enough as it is, but trying to keep the pain in his arms in the back of his mind was even harder. He keened from the throbbing ache as his vision began to spin from the growing fatigue. Thinking fast, the hybrid willed more shards to appear and repeated his earlier action, spinning around with strong swings of his arms to fire them at Dream. In the time he had spun around, he had caught the gleam of an Ender Pearl flying overhead with the clear intention of cutting him off once again. As the masked man scrambled to shield himself, Skeppy took the opportunity to catch as much of his breath as possible before he once again took off running in another direction.
‘Pride be damned!’ He thought breathlessly. He knew what he had to do.
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A warmth exploded in Bad’s chest, immediately jolting him awake. He scrambled out of bed as he reverted back to his normal size, tripping from getting tangled up in the covers and falling to the ground with a loud thud in the process.
“SKEPPY!!”
The demon didn’t give his half still asleep friends much of a chance to ask what he was doing before he finally got himself untangled and shot through the door, nearly ripping it off its hinges from how hard he slammed it open. Grabbing a nearby torch off the wall, he ran down the stairs frantically, barely noticing Ant and Puffy desperately trying to keep up with him.
“Bad, what’s going on?! Where are you going?!” Puffy called out as the demon booked it out the front door.
“SKEPPY’S CALLING OUT FOR ME!! HE’S TERRIFIED!!”
“What does that mean?!” Ant questioned. “Bad wait up!”
Bad couldn’t wait nor would he. Skeppy needed him. He could feel it. Something was wrong, and he wasn’t convinced it had anything to do with the Egg. It was something much worse.
Skeppy hardly ever willingly called out for him when he was scared. More often than not, he only knew something was scaring him from being reached subconsciously. Even then, when he showed up to help his diamond, his pride wouldn’t allow him to readily admit to being scared. It was always slightly endearing to the demon.
But this wasn’t done subconsciously.
This was on purpose.
And Bad had never felt so much fear from Skeppy before.
He knew something was wrong. He could feel it.
So Bad kept running. If he focused hard enough, he could pinpoint where it had come from. He followed where his mind was telling him to go, desperately hoping he would be able to make it in time. He could faintly hear Ant and Puffy calling out to him vocally, asking him to slow down and explain what he had meant, but he ignored them. His clawed feet scratched at the ground beneath them as he ran. His lungs were screaming for air, but he ignored it. As he neared where he felt Skeppy had last called out to him from, he gradually slowed his pace until finally…
He collapsed to his knees as he felt the prick of tears beginning to form, dropping the torch mindlessly. Reaching out, Bad picked up Skeppy’s signature headbox and cradled it close to his chest as he began to cry. It was damaged, cracked across the face with a few pieces falling off when he picked it up. His best friend’s entire inventory was strewn across the ground messily, as if he was forced to drop everything he owned. He could faintly make out a path of the shards of diamond he recognized as Skeppy’s offensive ability if he squinted enough through his tears. Bad didn’t care enough to know where they started, though.
What he cared about was that he was too late.
He knew Skeppy wasn’t killed. If he had been, he would’ve died with him before he even got there. But that fact brought him very little comfort. Bad knew someone had taken Skeppy, and the worst part was he didn’t know by who.
Ant and Puffy finally caught up with the demon, both immensely out of breath. They took one quick look at what Bad was holding before looking at him in horror. He shook his head as a shudder escaped his lips.
“Someone… Someone took him…”
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“… And you’re sure he’s not just trolling you?” Sam asked for what felt like the millionth time.
Bad groaned irritably as he wrapped up packing some supplies. They had just informed Sam of what had happened the night before, but while the demon knew he would certainly help him look for Skeppy, he never anticipated the Creeper hybrid, Ant, and Puffy to suddenly try to convince themselves that he’s overreacting. He knew they didn’t want to think about Skep being in serious danger, especially now that he’s unarmed, but he didn’t feel like dealing with the muffinheads being in denial at the moment.
“Oh my goodness, Sam, yes, I know he’s not trolling me this time!” He growled. He turned to shoot his friends a glare. “Now if you’re done being muffinheads, you can either leave or get ready to go searching! Because whether or not any of you help me, I’m going to go look for him and bring him home!”
“It’s not that we don’t want to help you, Bad!” Ant spoke up quickly. “It’s just, how did you even know he was in trouble in the first place?”
Bad’s irritable look softened to one of despair and longing. Slowly, he lifted a hand up to his chest and rested it there.
“Skeppy… He literally has my soul. I gave it to him and bound it with his years ago. We created a special bond and since then, we’re able to call out to each other through them. Even if I don’t have my soul inside of me anymore, we can still feel it…”
The demon paused and fixed the trio with a very serious look.
“And Skeppy doesn’t like to admit it when his subconscious calls out to me when he’s scared. He only calls out to me in those situations when he feels like he can’t face whatever he’s against alone. And last night, I could feel that he was more scared than he’s ever been before. Skeppy can’t fake that. He needs me, and even now, I can still feel him calling to me. But… he’s too far to sense where he is now… And that’s why I need your help. I can’t do this alone, the server’s too big.”
Sam turned to leave. “I’ll go tell the others and see if they can also-”
“No.”
The Creeper hybrid paused where he stood before looking at him in disbelief with Ant and Puffy joining him.
“Do not tell anyone else.” Bad instructed. “I don’t know who took him or if anyone else was involved. I doubt anyone we’re close with would do something so… terrible, but right now, I don’t want to take too much of a risk. Last thing I want is this jerk getting wind of the search and doing something to Skeppy. So please, keep this between us. Please.”
“What if they ask why we’re looking for him?” Puffy inquired. She didn’t like the idea of keeping this a secret.
“Do what you can to avoid giving away too much information.”
The trio looked at each other hesitantly. They really did want to find Skeppy, but they didn’t really understand not getting others involved. Sure it made sense not to tip off whoever did this, but surely there were some people they could trust… right?
Hesitantly, they looked back at Bad and nodded silently. It wasn’t gonna be easy to keep this a secret, but for a chance to get Skeppy back safely, they’ll try.