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"I'm sorry, I tried to stop Sam but–he killed Ranboo," Technoblade said, wishing that Phil, who was much better with people, was there to deliver the news instead. But Ranboo had given him the photo, so he'd see this through to the end.
Tubbo's eyes got big and round and shiny.
"O-oh," he said.
Technoblade fiddled with Ranboo's axe.
"Do you need a moment?" he asked.
That's what he was supposed to do with people who were grieving, right?
Phil usually sent him out of the room, anyway, when there was someone crying or otherwise upset in the room.
"Yes, please," Tubbo said, wiping discreetly at his eyes as he turned away.
Technoblade walked what he thought was a respectable distance away, knee-deep in snow, but it was not far enough to prevent eavesdropping.
Sniffling, Tubbo pulled out his communicator.
"Hello?" he said into it. "I'd like to make an inquiry on my husband's life insurance policy."
A pause.
"Ranboo Underscore-Beloved. No, hyphenated. Yeah. I'm Tubbo. His husband?"
Tubbo sighed.
"Tuberculosis Underscore-Beloved, then? Yes, that's me, thank you. Well, you see–" He became audibly choked up. "I've just heard news that my dearest husband has been murdered. Yes, as soon as possible. You'll send me the paperwork? Okay. Thank you."
Tubbo hung up.
Technoblade figured he had been standing far away for long enough and trudged back.
"So, about your… pet?" he prompted.
"Son."
"Same thing."
Tubbo opened his mouth. He hesitated.
"Okay, yeah, sorta. What about him?"
"Do we want to go get him?"
"What, you know where he is?"
"No, but there's that note in Michael's room, right? From Eret?"
Tubbo squinted at him.
"Didn't you just show up?"
Technoblade cleared his throat.
"I might have taken a look around before you got here," he admitted, because he believed in honesty (sometimes).
Tubbo threw his hands up.
"You know what? Fine. Let's go visit Eret."
"Sam said he was taking Michael somewhere safe! I had him in a stone cave!" Eret said. At Tubbo's glare, he hurried to add on, "A very nice stone cave. With carpets. And windows… okay, no windows, I admit."
He laughed.
Tubbo did not laugh.
Technoblade eyed Eret's throne. That didn't seem like something someone who wasn't a tyrant would sit on, but everytime he killed whoever was on it at the time, they always seemed to crawl back like a (mushroom-loving) cockroach.
Not like he could explode the place; that would be homophobic. He may be a murdering terrorist but he knew where the line was.
"Just tell me where the kid is," Tubbo said, brandishing his hoe.
Eret inclined their head.
Everyone paused expectantly.
"Okay," they admitted. "I don't know where Sam lives."
Tubbo screamed in frustration and attempted to decapitate Eret with the hoe. It didn't do much.
Technoblade frowned and rifled through his pockets. Sixty-seven golden apples rolled across the floor. He tossed aside several stacks of diamond he probably wouldn't need, but made extra sure to keep his stack and a half of crafting tables.
"Aha! Hey, Tubbo, Dream gave me some information about people on the server." He pulled out a crumpled post it note and tried to flatten it on the edge of Eret's throne. "This one's got the location of Sam's big base."
Tubbo tried to read it upside down.
"Those aren't real coordinates, bossman."
Eret leaned over to read them too.
"Oh, no, I totally know where that is," she said. "Here. I have a boat."
"Great," Technoblade said, figuring taking a boat out to specific coordinates would not be hard.
Technoblade was wrong.
"I'm driving the boat," Tubbo insisted.
"I know where we're going, though," Eret pointed out, patiently.
"Okay, anyone who hasn't killed me can drive the boat. Does that sound reasonable?"
Technoblade nodded.
Eret, now hunched and dripping with guilt, let Tubbo step into the boat first and grab hold of the oars.
Technoblade tried to step in but there was barely enough room for one of his feet, and the oak planks groaned dangerously under his weight.
"You know what," he said, calling up his trident. "I'll just swim alongside."
"Aw, wait, I want to trident instead," Tubbo said, dropping the oars and reaching for Technoblade's trident. Technoblade hopped backwards off the dock to keep him from getting it.
The island was beautifully terraformed, which Technoblade could appreciate, but funnily enough, Tubbo did not seem to care. He seemed more concerned with charging up to Awesamedude and demanding,
"Where the fuck is my child, and for that matter, why the fuck did you murder my husband?"
Sam held his hands up.
"He's somewhere safe."
"Show us," Eret growled.
Without any violence at all, Sam did.
Technoblade tried to not feel disappointed. He'd really been hoping to get a couple good whacks in with his sword, on behalf of Ranboo.
"This is the daycare," Sam said, pushing a heavy iron door open.
Everything was decorated in bright primary colors, and there were bookshelves full of boring and very age-appropriate picture books. Technoblade would get Michael into the Art of War soon enough.
Sitting and peacefully playing with blocks was a half-rotted zombie piglin and a large spider.
"Michael!" Tubbo cried in joy. He ran for him but tripped into the white baby gate. He scrabbled at it.
"Lift up on the handle," Sam said.
Tubbo yanked on it, unsuccessfully.
He tried to throw a leg over it, but was too short.
"Sorry, pull back and lift–you see that red bit, just pull–" Sam tried.
With a grunt of rage, Tubbo yanked the whole baby gate out of its spot in the wall and rushed to Michael.
"Don't you have baby proofing in your house?" Sam asked, lifting the now-warped baby gate up with a mournful expression.
Tubbo hefted Michael into his arms.
"Of course we do. We have him locked in a very secure room. I mean, sometimes he falls down the trap door, but he knows how to climb up the ladder, so it's okay."
Eret and Sam exchanged a meaningful look. They tried to loop Technoblade in on the look, too, but he thought that if a baby was stupid enough to die, then it probably wouldn't make a very good adult. Like Tommy. That kid was coddled way too much as a baby, now look at him: he didn't understand the consequences of sticking a fork in an electrical outlet, or trying to build a permanent home for him and his friends that involved a government.
Huh.
Technoblade stared at his netherite boots.
Maybe this was why, when Wilbur was born, Philza had handed him one of his shiniest swords and told him there was a very tyrannical government as far north as he could possibly walk. Maybe this was why, when he'd returned from his wild goose chase, Philza had greeted him with a toddler on his hip and, with frazzled feathers, handed him his heaviest axe next and said, "Oh, sorry, mate. It must have been south."
He leaned down to peer at Michael in Tubbo's arms and patted him on the head, promising in his head to care for him.
Michael squeaked as his spine was compressed.
The spider crawled up Tubbo's leg, who half-suppressed a shudder, and tried to leap onto Technoblade. Technoblade went to stomp it.
"Wait!" Tubbo said. "Is this… Shroud?"
Sam nodded.
"Why do you have Shroud?" Eret demanded.
"I wanted to keep him safe too, you know, so I brought him here. It came with the added bonus of offering leverage over Tommy but, well… he hasn't noticed."
"He hasn't noticed? Doesn't he have Shroud in a prominent glass box in his house?" Eret asked.
"I replaced this Shroud with a spider pinata to buy some time," Sam explained. He shrugged.
"Do you think he ever feeds Shroud, then?" Tubbo asked, sounding concerned. He let Shroud crawl into his arms next to Michael even though the sensation of his bristly legs caused him to pull a face. "Wait, hang on–to get control over us? You're sounding a lot like Dream right now! We ought to put you in the fucking prison."
Technoblade laughed. "Heh. Wouldn't that be crazy?" he said.
"Absolutely wild," Eret agreed, and they left Awesamedude on his island with the promise that if he ever involuntarily enrolled another child (or overly large spider) into daycare, Tubbo would come for his kneecaps.
Eret bid adieu at the docks, and Tubbo marched straight for Tommy's. He'd surrounded his house with yellow-and-black striped walls barely taller than Technoblade. They were flimsy concrete, too, so in the places where they cut across the prime path, someone had already cut stairs through them.
It was as easy as that.
Tommy's insurmountable walls, and all they had to do was step up and over.
Tommy stood in his overgrown, weed-riddled yard and watched them come closer without so much as a wave.
He clutched one arm, stood hunched, and peered at them through that white lock of hair like he was doing some bad cosplay of Wilbur.
"Nice walls, idiot," Technoblade said.
"Oh, nice walls, mimimimi," Tommy mimicked, and stuck his tongue out.
"Hey, Tommy… I don't suppose you've noticed anything different about Shroud, lately?" Tubbo asked.
Tommy scowled.
"Course I have, but if it was Dream, well, I figured it'd be more boring for him if I didn't freak out." He eyed Shroud, held securely next to Michael. "I see you had him, though. Why?"
"Sam kidnapped Michael along with Shroud, apparently," Tubbo said, bending down to release the spider. It scurried through the grass and into Tommy's arm. He cradled it very gently.
"Hello," he cooed. "You'll like your piñata friend, yes, you will."
"You're not getting rid of that?" Technoblade asked.
"No," Tommy said, loftily. "I've grown very attached."
Technoblade grimaced. People on this server and their weird pets. At least his emotional support polar bear was certified and totally legal. The dogs were essentially war weapons and tax write-offs, they didn't count as pets. And the foxes were… well, he'd figure out what they were, alright? They definitely weren't pets.
At least he hadn't exploded anything or had half his items stolen when he talked to Tommy. All that was left was getting Michael back to the Arctic Commune where he'd be safe. The hard part was over.
The hard part was not, it turned out, over.
"Oh my God!" Tubbo shrieked. "He's sinking! He's gonna drown!"
"He's undead, he'll be fine," Technoblade said, staring at the wreckage of ice and leftover boat planks. He'd have to make another boat. That would take at least three seconds of effort, which was the worst.
"There's a Drowned!" Tubbo covered his eyes to avoid seeing his son be impaled. Luckily for him, the Drowned swam past Michael. Unluckily for him, the Drowned lobbed its trident at his chest.
Technoblade knocked the trident aside and shot the Drowned through the head.
Michael drifted gently to the gravel seabed and seemed content to play among the seagrass.
"What if he gets eaten by a shark?" Tubbo asked. "I've already lost Ranboo, I don't want to lose Michael too!"
"Hang on, I'm thinking of a plan," Technoblade said. "You're panicking isn't helping."
"Oh, I'll hoe you," Tubbo threatened. "I'm allowed to freak out."
"You know, you're right. A shark might eat him. But he's pretty, uh, rancid, so it'd probably prefer something fresh." Technoblade shoved Tubbo into the frigid water. "Pretend to be a wounded seal, or something."
"What the fuck does a wounded seal act like?" Tubbo demanded, teeth already beginning to chatter as he floundered about on the surface above his unperturbed son.
"That. You're doing a great job. I'm going to go find a fishing pole."
Technoblade stepped into the nearby spruce forest to kill a grown Shroud. With string and wood, he crafted a crude fishing pole and returned to Tubbo still flailing around.
"Okay, the sharks are gone, you can probably get out now," Technoblade said, trying to work out the best way to lift Michael to safety. Would it be rude to hook his empty socket?
"Do I look like I can get out?" Tubbo complained. His chattering teeth and wheezing made him sound like a very angry rodent.
"Ah, right," Technoblade said, and lifted Tubbo back onto the ice.
He hooked Michael by the eye socket and fished him out of the water next. He let Tubbo hold him, not interested in getting his cape wet.
"Almost there," he reassured, as icicles formed on Tubbo's face.
A dead friend stood at the window.
Technoblade stopped dead.
"Tubbo," he hissed, pointing at where the ghostly spectre of Ranboo peered back at them. He could see the horrible, gaping wound he witnessed kill his student. The blood it dripped floated upwards before dissipating into nothingness.
"Oh, shit," Tubbo whispered, coming to a standstill. He stared at Ranboo. "You don't think this is going to affect my life insurance payout, do you?"