Chapter Text
“When everything goes to trash, it’s nice to know the raccoons will never judge you.”
Tyler groaned dramatically, tipping his head back and everything before giving the guy who said the cheesy line a glare. “Could you, like, not?”
Brock stuck his tongue out, Marcel and Scott giggling. “Just trying to be optimistic here.”
“You’re being annoying.”
“So is Nogla!”
Nogla looked up from the book he had been reading out loud, and with a fake accent on top of it. “Yeah but I’m doing it quietly.”
“No you’re not, you just don’t listen so there’s no point in telling you to knock it off,” Anthony remarked, checking his reigns and rolling his eyes.
Nogla went off on a tangent and Tyler sighed, checking automatically behind him to make sure he had everybody.
Delirious, falling asleep in the saddle. Evan, paying no attention to anything, as usual. Brian reading the map, hood pulled low over his face. Brock and Anthony arguing with Nogla. Marcel staring straight ahead, eye twitching. Scotty giving Marcel a sympathetic look.
Tyler, leading the pack.
Leading them towards their doom.
Always their doom.
…
“I’m telling you, we’re being followed,” Scotty hissed, tying his horse up.
“And I’m telling you to stop being paranoid,” Marcel swatted at him, Scotty ducking smoothly and retaliated with a swift kick to the ankle that had Marcel cursing in two separate languages.
“He’s right,” Brian spoke up, head down as he checked out of the corner of his good eye. The prosthetic gleamed red till he snapped his hood down.
Tyler glanced that way immediately and Scotty made an affronted noise.
“Why does Brian get taken seriously?!”
“Because I have the magic eyeball,” Brian said smugly, pointing not-so-subtly to his face.
“Yes, please,” Anthony socked Brian in the shoulder. “Announce it to the world that we’re wanted in three Kingdoms and have death warrants in the other two.”
“Like you just did?” Nogla offered, and he danced away with a chortle as Anthony took a swing at him next.
“Evan.” Tyler ignored them, talking out of the side of his mouth. “Blond guy, just walked past the bar. Wearing green with a stupid hat. He an avian?”
Evan looked over his saddle, pretending to fix the latch on one of his bags. “Yeah. Big guy too from the looks of it.”
“How do you know that?” Delirious poked his head up, curious as ever.
“He’s leaning back on his heels,” Tyler explained. “Evan does it to.”
“Wings are heavy,” Evan said, fixing his cloak now that he was thinking about it. “We have to have great posture or our wings drag on the ground or we throw our necks out.”
“All this talk of wings and magic,” Brock grumped, patting down his horse’s side. “Why don’t we just announce that Scotty’s a mer while we’re at it?”
“Brock!”
“Or that Marcel’s a mage?”
“Brock!”
“Oh, what about the fact that—”
Delirious leapt at him, covering his mouth. “Would you shush!?”
Brock shoved him off. “Ya’ll are the ones discussing family secrets in the middle of a village. It’s like you want us to get kicked out.”
“Please don’t,” Scotty groaned. “I don’t want a repeat of the Citadel Cities again.”
“Oh that was fun,” Nogla giggled, and Marcel whacked him up the head.
The group headed into the store, Tyler tossing one last worried glance backwards.
The guy in green was nowhere to be found.
…
The figure leaned against the wall, hat pulled low to hide his face. He watched the boys go into the store, a smile pulling at his lips.
They were young, but they were doing a pretty decent job of hiding their magic. Of the nine, he counted five hybrids, two humans, and two mages. The humans seemed to have no aversion to being with a group of ‘outlaws,’ and he figured they were probably outlaws themselves that had sought out familiar company.
He adjusted his hat and melted back into the shadows.
…
“Is that weirdo still out there?” Brock whispered to Brian, the two looking over the general store’s stock of canned food to see if there was anything Nogla and Anthony wouldn’t eat so they could have some to themselves.
Brian tilted his head so the hood covered half of his face.
The bad half.
“I can't—” he blinked, a confused frown pulling at his brow. “I can’t tell.”
“What’d you mean?”
“I got a read on the guy when Tyler pointed him out. I should be able to find him again—he couldn’t have gone far. But—” Brian rubbed at spot of skin that was fused with the metal. “It’s like he wasn’t ever there to begin with.”
“Think your eye’s on the fritz?”
Brian shook his head. “I don’t know.”
…
Brian nearly jumped a mile in the air when Tyler appeared next to him and set a hand on his shoulder to prevent that very action.
For such a big guy with an obnoxious hybrid, Tyler could be deadly silent on his feet when he wanted to be.
“We’re splitting up,” Tyler whispered, Evan coming around the corner. “I don’t trust that guy and we can’t afford any trouble. Go to the changing rooms, switch your cloak, and Evan’s going to shift so you have eyes. Rendezvous at that big tree outside of town the way we came in.”
Brian nodded, waiting an appropriate amount of time after Tyler had left to head to the back of the store near the bins of clothes. Half a second later, and a completely different person with a pet owl was leaving the store.
Brian just barely caught sight of Delirious and Scotty slipping away down the opposite street and what he was pretty sure was Nogla and Anthony heading into the bar.
Poor Anthony, Brian chuckled to himself, melting into the crowds.
Evan nipped at his ear and Brian cursed, but ducked his head. Evan may have been on the shoulder of his bad side, but that didn’t mean accidents couldn’t happen.
Which was exactly what happened three seconds later.
Brian felt a tug on his cloak, turned halfway to see what it had caught on, and the wagon rolled off, the corner of Brian’s cloak caught in the wheels.
Brian had a half of second to feel the horror wash through every fiber of his being before someone screamed, pointing at his face.
He took off running, shoving past anyone that got in the way. Not that were many—most were more than happy to get out of the way of a monster.
…
Evan shrieked as Brian bolted, taking to the skies and going as high as he could while keeping Brian within sight.
Brian was full-on panicking, trying to find a way out of town while simultaneously hiding his face.
It wasn’t working. He took two wrong turns, nearly tripping both times, and though Evan tried to warn him, came up onto a dead-end.
By then a crowd of men with torches and weapons had gathered, town guards trying to control the situation while trying to apprehend Brian at the same time.
Brian had no way out.
The redstone cyborg had his back up against a wall, chest heaving and eye wide as he watched the angry crowd advance. He was in no shape to fight his way out of this.
Ignoring any warning Tyler had given him about ‘laying low,’ Evan dived.
…
Brian shrieked when hands appeared out of nowhere and locked around his shoulders.
“Shut up!”
Evan.
Evan was yelling in his face, Evan’s massive wings were beating the air, they were airborne.
Brian usually hated it when Evan tried to carry him. For starters, no matter what Evan said, Brian was too heavy for Evan’s birdie bones to properly hold. For seconds, Evan like to pretend he was going to drop his charges.
Right now, though, Brian couldn’t have been happier to see the owl hybrid.
“Stop—squirming so much,” Evan said through gritted teeth, trying to gain height as the townspeople yelled at them. “I’m not going to drop you.”
“That’s what you said last time!” Brian shot back, hands locked tightly around Evan’s wrists, the avian having let go of Brian’s shoulders in lieu of hanging onto the cyborg with a circus grip.
“I’m not stupid!” Evan said, trying to aim for their rendezvous point while up in the air, wings pounding furiously to try and hold a whole other person.
He got them out of town, floundering the whole way and Brian calling him every name he could think of in his native tongue, spewing absolute nonsense Evan honestly didn't have the time or the breath to mock.
He was almost there, so close, to finding a spot to set down when he felt it.
Something, something so cold and bitter it outmatched any dread Evan had ever felt before, locked around his limbs.
He went stiff, wings going dead still in the air as he plummeted.
He had one half-second of consciousness to whip Brian around mid-air so he’d land on one of his wings.
The hit the ground, and Evan felt, rather than heard, the sickening pop in one of his wings.
…
Brian came back to his body painfully. Everything throbbed, from his shoulders and knees to his neck and hands. It was the longest time before he could actually get his eye open, and his heart nearly stopped when his prosthetic offered no support.
He tried to raise his hands to feel the cool metal, to try and figure out what was wrong, but biting twine holding his arms behind his back stopped him.
“Ah ah—” a hand on his shoulder, around his elbows, helping him sit up against a tree, the ground rough beneath him. “Easy, mate. You took quite a tumble.”
The guy from the square. He didn’t have his hat anymore, and he offered a simple smile as Brian squinted at him. “You doing okay?”
Brian didn’t bother gracing that with an answer.
The man’s face twisted in confusion and what could be described as hurt of all things, and he reached a hand up to Brian’s face. “What happened to you, mate?”
Brian tried to move his head to keep the guy from touching him, but the man merely gripped his chin in a hold merely tight enough to keep him still. Brian gritted his teeth as the guy tilted his head to get a better look at his prosthetic. The guy whistled low, easing back on his heels. “How’d you manage that?”
Brian wanted to spit on him, but thought better of it, considering his current situation. “What’s it—what’s it look like happened? Got the side of me face blown off.”
The guy flinched, letting him go. He didn’t back off though, and Brian seriously considered kicking out and hitting the guy right in the groin. He knew he wouldn’t get anywhere with that, but the satisfaction derived was almost worth it.
“Capitol soldiers?”
Brian rolled his eye. “Third Kingdom, L’Manburg district. Some nutjob blew up the Capitol building and I happened to be one of the casualties. Almost, anyway.”
“How’d you fix it?”
Brian grinned sardonically. “I’m a little genius.”
The man’s eyebrow quirked. “You performed an extensive, complex, redstone surgery—on your own face?”
Brian gave him a look. “No a horse did it.”
Realization flickered on the man’s face. “Your friend’s a redstone mage, isn’t he?”
Brian kept his face carefully blank, but that only gave him away more.
“Those are pretty rare, mate.” The guy stood, and Brian’s heart jumped when he saw Evan’s limp body splayed out a few feet away. “You might wanna tell him to be more careful.”
Brian sneered at his back, a desperate attempt to gain any sense of control over his emotions, as the man knelt to check Evan’s bindings that, thankfully, were only around his wrists and not his wings.
“Your friend took quite a tumble,” the man continued chatting, as if this was Tuesday brunch and not a hostage situation. “He’s not used to carrying passengers, is he?”
“Considering we almost made it, I’d say he did pretty well,” Brian shot back.
The man chuckled. “Half and inch to the right, and he would have shattered his main wing bone. He would have never flown again.”
Brian paled considerably, heart skipping a few beats.
Evan lived to fly. Tyler often spent hours finding trails and out-of-the-way places so the avian could spread his wings and get some exercise. He went stir-crazy without it.
“He’s fine, mate.” The guy adjusted the bandaged wing. “Just a mild dislocation. As long as he stays off it for the next two or three weeks he’ll be just fine.”
Brian noted how the sentence implied that the both of them wouldn’t be with this guy for those weeks. “What do you want with us?”
“I don’t want nothing with this guy.” The man carefully fixed the wing’s position. “I don’t used the injured as bargaining chips.”
Brian’s stomach turned at the implication. “So what do you want with me then?”
The man glanced up at him, adjusting his weight so he could sit on his heels. “Out of the nine in your group, which was your leader?”
Brian immediately knew. “You shot us out of the sky.”
“I didn’t shoot anything,” the man said calmly. “Just used a little magic to get the two of you on the ground.”
“You could’ve killed him!”
“He’s an experienced avian,” the man said easily. “I knew he would be fine.”
Brian locked his jaw shut, refusing to argue with the enemy. It only made the situation worse and he had no desire to tick this guy off when he was so close to Evan’s prone body.
“Your leader?”
Brian averted his gaze, pressing his lips together stubbornly and drawing his knees up to his chest.
“I just want to talk with him,” the man tried, and he sounded way too kind for a guy that shot Evan out of the sky without a second thought.
Brian glared as best he could with just the one eye.
“The mer?”
Brian didn’t move, though his heart jack-rabbited in his chest.
“What about the moose hybrid?”
Brian’s eye twitched. How did he know??
“Getting warmer—it’s one of the hybrids, isn’t it?”
Brian worked his jaw, keeping his mouth shut.
“Well it’s not this guy,” the man said, patting Evan’s shoulder. “Not the moose, and I’m guessing not the panda either from your face. So that leaves the piglin.”
Brian blinked in shock.
Tyler hadn’t shifted in years.
How??
The man chuckled, getting to his feet. “I have my ways, mate. It’s best if you don’t know yet.”
Yet.
Brian didn’t like the sound of that.
…
Delirious ran his fingertips over the ground, humming. “They went this way.”
“Got a read on ‘em, Marcel?” Tyler asked.
Marcel nodded, rolling a ball of blue light in his palm. A strand of red and another of gold roiled and twisted within, the threads of Brian’s and Evan’s souls that they had let Marcel have in case they were ever compromised or lost. “Delirious is right—Evan’s this way.”
“Keep moving.”
…
Their captor obviously didn’t have plans to stay here long. He rummaged around their makeshift campsite, putting together everything he had taken apart when caring for Evan.
Brian tried to work his way over to the unconscious hybrid, getting pretty much nowhere with his ankles and wrists tied together, and the guy was ready to go far too soon.
“Let’s go, mate,” he said, slashing the ties around Brian’s ankles with a deft swing of a dagger and hauling him to his feet. “We got places to be.”
“What about Vanoss?” Brian protested, digging in his shaking legs to try and buy himself any time.
Marcel has to be able to track us—he has to be able to—
“I don’t use the injured as bargaining chips,” the man repeated himself from earlier and tugged harder on Brian’s arm.
“Yeah that doesn’t include me, now what—”
Brian’s protest was cut off as the man yanked. His sore shoulder exploded in pain and he bit the inside of his cheek till he tasted blood to keep from audibly crying out.
He wouldn’t give this guy the satisfaction.
“Let’s go, mate.” The man said again, and his tone was eerily calm in a way that had the hairs on Brian’s arms standing up. “We don’t have a lot of time.”
Brian shot Evan one last glance before stumbling after his captor.
…
“Got him!”
“Over here!”
Tyler nearly fell flat on his face when he found Nogla and Anthony kneeling next to an unconscious Evan. Evan was holding way too still for that to be healthy in any way. Only the slight rise and fall of his chest kept Tyler from killing everything for a two-mile radius.
“Oh thank the Ancients,” Brock breathed out before breaking into a run himself.
“What’s wrong with his wing?” Tyler asked, dropping to his knees beside his friends.
“Don’t know,” Anthony said. “He complained when we touched it so that can’t be good.”
“You found him!”
Scotty, Marcel, and Delirious scrambling up behind them, Delirious’s mask shoved half-haphazardly to the side and Marcel breathing heavily from both the run and the strain of searching with his magic.
“Move!” Scotty snapped, shoving Nogla out of the way before feeling for Evan’s pulse, critical gaze washing over Evan for anything that could be an injury.
“Is he okay?” Brock asked worriedly.
“Heartbeat steady,” Scotty mumbled before prying open one of Evan’s eyes, then the other, to check for a concussion. “He hit his head at some point.” He ran his hands over Evan’s joints and chest, feeling for inflammation. He let a hiss through his teeth when he got to Evan’s wings. “So the good news or bad news?”
“There’s good news?” Delirious asked.
“He dislocated his wing,” Scotty said.
“How is that the good news?” Nogla said frustratedly.
“The guy that set it knew what he was doing,” Scotty finished, shooting Nogla a glare. “He’ll fly again.”
“Then what’s the bad news?” Tyler prodded.
“Evan was shot out of the sky.”
Marcel and Anthony blanched and Nogla and Brock hissed inward through their teeth. Tyler took a deep breath. “How do you know?”
“He’s got bruising on his left side from where he hit the ground—he hit his head on the left side too,” Scotty said, pointing out the cleaned gash on Evan’s head. “There’s no other injuries, so it wasn’t a fight.”
“What about his wrists?” Delirious asked, leaning forward and bending Evan’s hands so they could see the dark marks wrapped like some sick bracelets on Evan’s pale skin.
“Those—those are handprints—” Brock breathed out.
Scotty frowned, maneuvering the joints to get a better look, then his face fell. “He was carrying Brian.”
Tyler sat back on his heels. “So then where is Brian?”
Evan chose that moment to grace the world with his presence, wheezing out a harsh cough that had Delirious and Marcel jumping back in surprise and Scotty yelping.
“Could you guys—” he heaved a pained breath, letting it out through his nose, “—stop manhandling me while I’m unconscious? Do you know how weird that is?”
Brock laughed weakly as Nogla chuckled, gingerly ruffling Evan’s hair. “You gave us a scare there.”
Evan let his head fall back against the dirt, a sly grin pulling half-heartedly at his lips. “You can’t—get rid of me that—easily.”
“We wish,” Scotty said, shaking Evan’s foot.
“Where’s Brian, Evan?” Tyler asked, knowing it was dangerous to press to this soon but the distinct lack of ‘redstone cyborg’ was starting to eat at him.
Evan groaned, coughing again. “I don’t know—” he blinked rapidly, confused at the dark sky. “Wasn’t it, like, two o’clock ten minutes ago?”
“Evan, what’s the last thing you remember?” Scotty asked, pulling out some bandages to wrap his head.
“Uh—green guy, stupid hat. Split up, he followed us. Brian—” Evan squeezed his eyes shut. “Brian got his hood yanked off and got scared—took off—running.” He breathed out, and Tyler patted his shoulder encouragingly. “Got cornered. I grabbed him, tried to fly away.” Evan went stiff. “The guy followed—shot me down.”
“With what?” Marcel asked.
Evan shook his head. “I don’t know. It was as if the life drained from my body and I couldn’t hold either of us up anymore.”
“You did fine,” Nogla said confidently, trying to smooth everything over.
“Where’s Brian?” Tyler tried again.
Evan blinked his eyes open, giving Tyler a confused look. “He’s not here?”
Tyler groaned.
…
The Angel of Death sighed, watching the teen on the floor. The closet was the only extra space they had that the kids hopefully wouldn’t get into, but it left his captive all bunched up with his knees to his chin.
“He’ll be fine,” his Lady reassured, spreading a blanket over the teen’s shoulders. “He’s been through worse.”
“I know.”
The Lady hummed. “He’ll survive.”
The Angel sighed in response. “If I can’t get their leader to listen—”
“Then you’ll let him go and find someone else to do the job,” the Lady said.
“I have looked. I need these guys. Their bond, their magic, their tenacity. They’ve kept themselves alive years past what anyone else would have.”
“They sound smart. They’ll see reason.”
“And if they don’t?”
The Lady made a noncommittal noise. “You are the Angel of Death. You’ll figure it out.”
The Angel wasn’t so sure.
…
Brian felt his consciousness settle into his body slowly. Painfully.
He lifted his head, feeling his neck creak in protest. Opening his one eye was hard, and he had half a second of panic before remembering his other eye was offline.
He was in the dark. He breathed out, feeling his ribs pull against the tight muscles that had been forced to hold his body upright. Light in front of him—a thin stripe of soft, yellow light that made his eye hurt.
Brian strained his arms, groaning against his dry throat when he felt the rope hold him in place. He was really hoping that would be gone by now.
He scuffed his feet out, trying to figure out how big his new prison was. His boots hit the opposite wall a lot sooner than he had hoped, and he swayed his shoulders back and forth. They brushed walls within inches of shifting.
He set his head back, breathing in slowly through his nose, trying to stay calm. He was in a closet of sorts, but there was nothing in it.
He was a prisoner.
Again.
He squeezed his eyes shut against the cloud of anxiety that threatened to invade his brain. He would be fine. This was nothing. This was just a dark, quiet closet.
Calm and quiet.
He’d be fine.
…
Brian opened his eye when the doorknob moved. He eased up, frowning as he heard voices.
“Hold still!”
“You’re heavy!”
“Am not!”
“Are too!”
“Guys—we’re not even supposed to be in there!”
“Well I wanna know!”
A snort. “Wait till Mum finds you.”
“She’s not gonna know.”
“Just open it! You’re stepping on my face!”
“Are not!”
The doorknob creaked, then something clicked and it swung outwards. The voices shrieked, and there was a dramatic thump as something hit the ground. Brian flinched as the bright light flooded his aching head, and squinted at the five small figures standing in the doorway.
Children.
There were children staring at him.
“Uh—” Brian said, not exactly sure where he was supposed to go from here.
“Hi!” One of the kids, the one in an oversized green shirt, waved wildly.
“What’re you doing in our house?” Another said, little piglin tusks peeking out from a lip under a slightly squished nose. Murky red eyes stared judgmentally, as if wondering how Brian had the gall to be in his house.
Piglin. A piglin. Like Tyler.
“I uh—”
“Your face is all messed up,” the little curly-headed boy with white glasses said, hiding behind the boy with a white bandana holding back thick black hair.
Brian blinked. “Yeah, but—”
“Are you a prisoner?” the first boy said, starting to scale up Brian’s bent knees. “Is that why you’re all tied up in our closet?”
“We don’t have a dungeon to put you in,” the fifth boy said, pulling a wing—a wing; a whole, feathered wing—around to play with nervous fingers.
“I—”
“What’s your name!” The first boy lost his balance and rocked forward, landing in a little heap on Brian’s chest with a oof.
“Dream—” the piglin child warned, putting a hand on the avian’s shoulder to keep him from sneaking forward. “He might be dangerous.”
“He’s not dangerous!” the boy, Dream, announced, patting a hand on the good side of Brian’s face. “He’s tied up! What’s he gonna do?”
Inwardly, Brian grudgingly realized there was, in fact, nothing he could do to stop this little terror from doing whatever he wanted to him.
“Who are you guys?” Brian finally got a sentence out, ignoring how Dream was now poking at the metal that was fused with his face. “Why—where’s the guy with the wings?”
“Dadza?” the avian boy said, frowning.
Dadza?
“Dad’s not here,” the piglin said warily, watching Brian with murky-red eyes that held too much caution for a little child. “Mum is and she’ll beat you up if you try anything.”
“I’m not gonna try anything,” Brian said, scooting up farther to try and distract Dream from touching his face. “I just wanna know where the guy that kidnapped me is.”
“Dadza’s out and about,” Bandana Kid said, pointer finger in his mouth. “He does that a lot.”
Glasses nodded, and Brian wondered what his chances were against a middle-aged woman and five toddlers.
“Boys?”
Dream stiffened, and the other boys looked out the door and down.
“What’re you doing up there?”
“Uh—” the avian said, shooting Dream a look. “Nothing?”
“That doesn’t convince me—”
“It was Dream’s idea!” Glasses snitched immediately, and Brian had to suppress a snort.
Footsteps on the stairs, and a woman was standing in the doorway. The look on her face when she saw one of what was clearly her children on Brian’s lap was calm, blank.
Terrifying.
“Boys, go downstairs and play in the living room,” she said, gently pushing at the back of Glasses’s head.
The boys left silently in a single-file line, the woman’s sharp gaze never leaving Brian’s face. She waited until they could no longer hear the boys before sighing heavily and kneeling down to his level.
“I know this isn’t exactly pleasant for you—”
Brian snorted.
The woman ticked up an eyebrow, and Brian swallowed before deciding it was probably best if he stayed quiet.
“But I want to try and make this stay as comfortable as possible.”
Brian didn’t believe her, and he let his face show it.
“I’m Kristin Minecraft,” the woman said, offering a small smile. “The man that took you is my husband, Philza. He’s out speaking with your group now.”
“Why am I here?” Brian asked, though he already knew. He just needed to hear it.
“You’re here so they actually take the time to listen to what he has to say,” Kristin said patiently. “We have no intention of hurting any of you. You’re just here to make sure your friends ensure that same sentiment is returned.”
Brian glared, but he had nothing else to say. Kristin’s smile was soft, motherly. It made Brian’s heart pang, thinking about his own mum.
“You’ve all been running a long time, haven’t you?” Kristin said, sitting down, legs pulled up neatly.
Saying out loud made Brian feel a whole lot tired than he had been a few seconds ago.
It had been a long time. Having his face blown out, crawling on his hands and knees till he was found by another kid like him who had helped him get away. He had gotten lucky in finding Marcel. They had been lucky Scotty was as smart as he was, that Brian knew his way around redstone, that Marcel could integrate the redstone with Brian’s body. Finding Brock and Tyler and all the others, on the run and running and running and running—
He laid his head back on the wall, avoiding eye contact. “Yeah,” he said softly. “It has been a long time.”
“Can you tell me your name?”
A simple question, and Brian guessed it didn’t matter anymore.
“Brian,” he said, exhausted, letting go. He jumped when Kristin leaned forward, but she merely pushed him forward onto his knees to untie his hands.
“Let’s get something for you to eat,” she said, ruffling his hair with a kind hand. “And I’ll explain more.”
Brian took a deep breath, and took the hand she offered.
…
“They’re leading us on a goose chase,” Marcel said out of the blue, stopping the party dead in their tracks of the trail.
Tyler felt another weight settle in his stomach, mixing with the dread that had been stewing there all day. “Who’s ‘they’?”
“Probably the guy that shot us down,” Evan offered, chin propped up on a very irritated Delirious’s shoulder.
“The trail has us going one direction, but Brian’s stopped moving,” Marcel said, reigning up his horse as the animal startled a little bit at some animal in the woods.
Tyler breathed. “Anthony, Brock, Evan, Nogla—with me. We’ll follow the goose trail. Marcel, Scotty, Delirious—go find Brian.”
“Thank you!” Delirious shoved a distorted Evan off his horse and kicked the animal to canter down the trail, not even waiting for Marcel or Scotty.
Tyler nodded to his comrades before taking off in the other direction, the pounding of the hoofbeats of his friends’ horses pounding in time with his heart.
…
There was a man, standing in the middle of nowhere. A horse was grazing nearby, tied to a tree, but the man appeared alone.
He was watching the stars, hands clasped behind his back.
Tyler had to breathe in a quick gasp when he saw the wings.
Easily as big as Evan’s, if not bigger, lazily held out to catch the stray breeze. Black and inky and nightmare fuel.
“I see my little diversion worked,” the man said, hearing them arrive. He turned, and there was a smile on his face that made Tyler want to wipe it off. “A pleasure to meet you, Wildcat.”
Tyler narrowed his eyes. He went by both names, ‘Tyler’ with his friends and ‘Wildcat’ with the authorities. There was no reason why someone who had obviously been stalking him and his friends wouldn’t know his outlaw name.
It still set him on edge.
“I see the mer, mage, and assassin went after your friend,” the man said, keeping his easy stance as Tyler and their rest dismounted their horses, ignoring how their stances were ready for a kill.
“Not to worry,” the man smiled, and it was cunning. “There’s a surprise waiting for them.”
I sent them into a trap, Tyler thought distantly, pulling his sword. “I’ve got a surprise for you myself, old man,” he bit out instead, swinging the blade with a deft assuredness. “You’re going to die tonight.”
The man merely shook his head. “I didn’t come here to die. I came here to talk.”
“Well we don’t feel like talking very much!” Nogla rushed around Tyler, sword coming around and up with vicious intent.
The man sidestepped with fluid ease, kicking Nogla’s knee out and sending a ruthless sidekick to his ribs. Nogla dropped to all fours, wheezing.
Tyler saw piglin-red.
…
The noodles weren’t bad, Brian had to admit.
Mrs. Minecraft was nice, he decided. She was pleasant, sweet, offering him dinner and cookies when clearly the family wasn’t all that well off. The table and furniture were worn, the boys were wearing handmade clothes, and the kitchen cupboards were pretty sparse.
The noodles were simple—butter and garlic with salt and pepper with cheese on top, but it tasted better than Marcel’s cooking.
Not that Brian would have even dared think those words in front of his friend.
The fire crackled, the kids playing at some rough-and-tumble wrestling game that had Brian subtly placing bets while Mrs. Minecraft washed dishes. She swayed to some song she sang, soft and lilting in an old language that Brian wasn’t sure even came from the Five Kingdoms.
He stared wistfully at the door, but played with the fork in the empty pewter bowl instead.
Mrs. Minecraft set a glass of water in front of him and patted his shoulder before sending a mild scold to the rough-housers in the living room.
How could such a nice woman be married to such a—
Brian couldn’t finish thought.
The man hadn’t been mean. He had gotten them on the ground, sure, and tied them up, but he had bandaged Evan’s wing and drippled enough potion down his throat to make sure there was no internal bleeding. He had offered to fix Brian’s eye. He had loosened the knots on his wrists when he realized Brian’s fingers were turning purple. Brian had woken up in that closet with a blanket around his shoulders.
He cleared his throat, trying to get the woman’s attention. She looked up, a questioning smile on her face.
“What does your husband want with us?” Brian asked tentatively, not wanting to push. He wanted to know, but he didn't want to push his chances for having nice captors for once.
Her face turned distant, and her gaze flickered to the boys playing in front of the fire. There was sorrow there, and fear. Mourning, for children still alive?
Brian suddenly felt very—uncomfortable? Afraid? He didn’t know and that made him more nervous.
“C’mon boys,” the woman said, drying her hands on her apron and throwing the towel over her shoulder. “Bedtime.”
Sapnap, or Bandana kid, threw his head back immediately and whined. Dream kicked him off his stomach without a second’s hesitation and skipped up to his mother, arms raised for her to pick him up.
The avian, Wilbur, made a complainy sound and latched onto the piglin, Techno, who only grunted and toddled off for the stairs, ignoring his new backpack.
George was passed out on the floor.
“Brian, sweetheart—” Mrs. Minecraft said behind her, Dream in one arm and Sapnap crawling up her leg to her other, “can you grab George for me?”
Brian blanched, staring at the kid with something akin to fear.
Mrs. Minecraft chuckled, hefting and already-dozing Sapnap farther up onto her hip as she took her first step on the stair. “He sleeps like the dead. He won’t bite.”
With that, she headed up the stairs after Techno and Wilbur.
Leaving her child, alone, with an outlaw. Brian could use that kid to escape—run off and use him as a hostage.
Brian knew he never could. He had been a child himself when he had been hurt and left alone. He knew what fear felt like to a little kid, and he knew he could never inflict that kind of terror to a child. He swallowed, glaring at the sleeping kid like this was his fault. It practically was.
Huffing, Brian knelt and carefully pulled the kid into his arms. He was cold, and Brian had half a second of panic of thinking the kid was dead before realizing it was an abnormal cold.
“Brian, sweetheart—”
Brian jolted back into his body and headed for the stairs, the kid curling tighter to his chest. A little puff of air blew out past parted lips and Brian’s heart melted.
“In here,” Mrs. Minecraft called, and Brian stepped into the room that was across from his makeshift prison.
It was obviously the boys’ room. There were toys and towels and clothes everywhere, and two beds pressed up against the corners of the room with a bookshelf filled with more homemade toys in between.
Techno and Wilbur were already snuggled in the bed on the right, and Dream was clinging to his mother and whining while Sapnap snored flat on his face in the pillow.
Kristin chuckled, seeing the apprehensive look on Brian’s face as held the child like he would a ticking bomb. “You don’t have to be so tense,” Mrs. Minecraft teased, easing Dream back into the bed and booping his nose.
“Why is he so cold?” Brian asked, bringing the child to her when she held her arms out.
“He’s a baby ice mage,” Mrs. Minecraft explained, cooing softly as George curled into her and pressing a kiss to his temple before tucking him in in between his brothers. “He’s got good control when he’s awake, but when he’s asleep he can’t stop it.”
“How does he sleep?” Brian asked, wringing his arms to get the frigid feeling out. It felt like he had been holding an ice bucket.
“Sapnap’s a blaze,” Mrs. Minecraft said, tucking the blankets up as Dream grabbed onto George and stuffed his face into George’s neck. “His magic, plus Dream’s human heat, counters out George’s magic and they can sleep.”
Brian nodded, watching the kids slumber on.
A hybrid and a mage and a human, asleep together, completely safe. No fear, no worry about what could possibly snatch them in the night. The human treating the mage and hybrid like his equals, not worried that they could ‘snap’ at any moment and kill him, like all the village leaders and Capitol officials preached.
They were safe in a world where they shouldn’t have been. Protected in a society that wanted them dead or as slaves.
They were getting normalcy.
“Why are you doing this?” Brian asked, arms hugged around his chest.
Mrs. Minecraft sighed, and Brian felt the weight of it. “Let’s go downstairs. I have some things to tell you.”
…
Tyler didn’t dare move. Not with Brock on his knees, a crossbow pointed at the back of his head, held by a steady hand that had proved it would have no remorse for murder.
“I thought you would value the life of your missing comrade a little more,” the avian said, just as sweaty and bloody and tired as they were. The fight had been brutal, but Tyler had still lost.
The avian was still the winner. He still had the power.
“Where’s Terroriser?” Tyler grit out, forcing himself to keep his tone somewhat even.
“He’s fine, and you’re lucky I understand your anger,” the avian said, nudging Brock when the moose hybrid tried to ease a little farther away.
“You’re holding one of our own hostage!” Nogla snapped, holding a hand to his broken ribs, barely holding himself up.
“If you all would take a second to listen—” the avian snapped right back, wings flapping a little. Anthony immediately gave up going after the knife that was just out of reach. “I would tell you why.”
“Well then,” Tyler sat back on his heels, coughing and flinching at the blood in his mouth. “Go for it.”
To his surprise, the man dropped his crossbow to his side and gave Brock a push away from him. “I need you to help me.”
“And why would we ever help you?” Anthony bit out, daring to sit up, wiping his bloody nose.
“I have a plan,” the man folded his wings, easing his stance into something less predatory. “And I need you to help me carry it out.”
“And what would this plan be?” Evan said snidely, keeping carefully out of reach of the other avian, having no desire to repeat earlier.
A crazed grin stretched the man’s lips. Backed by the moon, wings at his back, clothes ripped and covered in blood, he looked insane.
“I want you to help me take over the world.”
…
Brian held his head in hands, trying to process what Mrs. Minecraft had told him.
“Your husband is the Angel of Death?” he said carefully, slowly, as if saying the words again would make it any easier to believe. “From those old legends?”
“Mhm,” Mrs. Minecraft said, stirring the pot of hot chocolate.
“And that little ice mage is that missing prince from the First Kingdom?”
“Yup.”
“And you’re going to take over the Kingdoms?”
“Well you skipped a bit,” Mrs. Minecraft said, testing the chocolate against her lips. “We’ve got to get our hands on the Second Kingdom’s prince first. And Phil needs to arrange for the assassination of the other three Kingdom’s officials and royals, and then we have to find suitable replacements, but after that it’ll be a nice easy sweep.”
Brian blinked. “You’re taking over the Five Kingdoms by picking off the rulers and stealing their children.”
Mrs. Minecraft smiled and nodded brightly. “Sounds about right.”
“Okay—” Brian squeezed his eyes shut against the headache. “Where does that put me and my friends?”
Mrs. Minecraft’s smile turned cunning. “Someone has to lead our armies.”
…
Tyler thought he had been hit on the head one too many times. “You need generals.” A repeat of a statement, not a question.
“I have the manpower. I have the resources. What I need is people crazy enough and brave enough to follow me to the Nether and back. I need undying loyalty for a cause that could change the fate of the world, ” the Angel of Death said, hand holding his crossbow pointing at the dirt. He still had the crazy smile on his face, like he had just discovered the secret of the universe.
“What you need are idiots,” Nogla clarified, rolling his eyes.
The Angel held his hands out to the side, as if welcoming the accusations. “I was stupid enough to come up with this idea.”
“You need people stupid enough to follow you,” Anthony added on, nodding his head as if he understood perfectly.
“The world has suffered enough,” the Angel said, suddenly very serious and grim. “My people, our people,” he gestured to Evan, “are gone because of the Kingdoms and their rulers. Mages born with magic they had no control over are forced to hide. Hybrids are hunted and sold and slaughtered for the magic in their blood. Aren’t you sick of it?”
Tyler was sick of it. He was sick of being hunted and treated like an animal for something he had had no choice in. He was sick of looking over his shoulder and watching his friends’ backs every second of every day. ‘
He was sick of worrying about life and death when he never should have had to worry in the first place.
“I am,” he said, slowly easing up to his feet, trying not to give the guy to go Round Two on all of them. “You said you needed someone to follow you to the Nether and back?”
The piglin blood had never felt so good.
…
Brian hitched in a breath, hands tightening around his cup. He very carefully didn’t move, didn’t give any other acknowledgement that he had felt Marcel’s magic brush against his own.
They were outside.
Kristin hummed as she washed the hot chocolate dishes. “Do you think your friends know that I know they’re there?”
Brian’s heart froze in his chest.
Delirious was through the door and rushing past him before Brian could open his mouth to speak. Mrs. Minecraft ducked to the side, even though there was no way she could have heard him.
She barely tapped the side of Delirious’s head—one looking from the outside may have thought she was brushing his temple.
Delirious dropped like a rock to the kitchen floor, long sword clattering down from his limp grasp.
Marcel’s magic ripped through the room, Scotty’s Song numbing Brian’s brain—
Mrs. Minecraft snapped her fingers.
Brian whipped in his chair to see Scotty grabbing at his throat, no sound coming out. Marcel was slumping against the wall, eyes wide open as his body refused to listen to him.
“No wait—!” Brian got to his own feet, holding hands out to try and stop what was clearing going to be a one-sided slaughter. “Let her explain!”
Mrs. Minecraft smiled sweetly, holding up the freshly-washed pot. “More cocoa?”
…
Dawn was coming over the hills when the Angel, or Phil, as he had introduced himself, led Tyler and his friends back to his house.
“The rest of my team is okay?” Tyler asked, noting how little potion it had taken to get Nogla and Evan back on their feet. Anthony had practically only had enough to wet his lips, and he wasn’t limping anymore.
“My wife was babysitting the hostage,” Phil laughed a little. “She’s probably won him, and the others you sent after him,” a side-eye that made Tyler feel more guilty than he should have, “with cookies and cocoa by now. That’s if the kids haven’t gotten to them.”
“You have kids.” Nogla sounded annoyed at the thought, as if the idea of being beat by a dad was unthinkable.
“I have five,” Phil chuckled, having seen the look on Nogla’s face. “Four are adopted. The one is mine.”
“You have a problem,” Evan muttered, and Phil’s full-on guffawed.
“You have no idea, mate. No idea.”
…
Brian started at the knocking at the door, inwardly cursing whoever it was. He had finally gotten the little blaze to sleep for his afternoon nap, having rocked him for over an hour.
Marcel actually muttered a few curses of his own, both arms full of the baby avian and the ice mage as they rested on his shoulders.
“Who could that possibly be?” Scotty snipped, folding the pile of laundry with a critical eye, the human boy’s head asleep on his thigh.
Mrs. Minecraft brushed through the living room, wiping her hands on her towel. The only kid awake and playing quietly with his toys, the piglin, was staring at the door with a quizzical eye.
Brian felt himself pulling the blaze closer, feeling the burn of the child’s magic against his chest.
“Hello, love.”
Brian’s stomach curdled involuntarily at the sound of his captor’s voice, even though he knew he was cuddling the guy’s kid.
“You convinced the rest of them?” A light laugh, and feet on the wooden floor.
Brian felt his ears turn red as Tyler fixed him with a look. Scotty was all red, towel frozen half-folded in his hands. Nogla snorted, loudly, and Marcel made a harsh shushing sound, nodding towards the sleeping kids.
Mrs. Minecraft chuckled, moving around the new group, and headed back towards the kitchen, the piglin baby running up to his father to be scooped up. “There’s cookies in the kitchen.”
“Did Housewife Scotty make those too?” Evan said cheekily. “And he got a load of laundry done? I’m impressed—”
The towel caught him square in the face.
…
Tyler watched, body more relaxed than it had been in days. His team was scattered all over the living room floor, second-hand blankets spread over to provide some feeling of warmth.
The Angel’s kids were snuggled up to whoever they had taken a liking too, having latched on like baby koalas and refusing to let go.
The ice mage was squished between Delirious and Evan, Evan sleeping on his stomach so his wings could act as more blankets for the baby and Anthony on his other side.
The human kid, whom Tyler figured was secretly a golden retriever hybrid, was flat on his back on Brock’s chest, snoring little-kid snores. Brock had looked like someone had handed him the keys to the Kingdom when the kid had crawled on him to sleep, and had looked at the kid with something akin to wonder on his face before falling asleep an hour later.
The blaze was curled up under Scotty’s legs, his whole body glowing softly with Nether magic, and the fluffy avian was curled up in a little ball of feathers next to Brian.
Tyler frowned, not seeing the piglin.
He nearly jumped a mile when said piglin tugged at his shirt sleeve.
“Heeyyy, little guy,” Tyler said, unsure. He looked up, wondering where Mrs. Minecraft and the Angel were. Now that he thought about it—where were this kid’s parents??
Did that man literally kidnap Brian just to hire a couple babysitters?
“You’re a piglin,” the kid said, blinking.
“Yeah, and so are you,” Tyler said, squatting down to be eye-level with the kid.
The kid played with his hands, and Tyler noted his slightly stubby fingers with the little hoof-like fingernails. His smushed little nose, and slightly floppy ears.
He really was a cute kid.
For now.
Tyler knew all too well what happened when piglins grew up.
“Can you shift?” the kid asked quietly. He got even quieter. “I wanna see.”
Tyler shrugged, seeing no harm.
The piglin blood was quieter this time, sensing the presence of a child of its own kind. The kid’s eyes were wide, and he reached a tentative hand forward to gently tug at Tyler’s tusks.
“I’m gonna have these?” he asked, awed.
Tyler chuckled, picking the kid up and letting himself shift back, plopping down on the last open spot on the couch. “Yeah, buddy. I’ll bet yours will be even cooler.”
The kid’s eyes got even comically wider, and he yawned, showing off his own little baby piglin teeth.
“I can’t wait,” he whispered before falling face-first forward onto Tyler’s chest and falling asleep instantly. Tyler chuckled, rubbing the kid’s back and laying his head back on the couch.
For the first time since he could remember, he could rest.
…
The Angel of Death watched from the stairs, shielding himself from sight.
This had been the team’s last test. The final evaluation if the Angel could trust them with something this big. The children were unharmed, at ease, fully trusting. His kids, who trusted no one and screamed at the slightest touch from a stranger.
He smiled as his children slept soundly on, surrounded by the Kingdom’s most feared warriors.
They had passed his test.
The Angel would have his generals.