Chapter Text
Orange had been dozing and waiting for the build battle timer to go off when it happened.
One moment, the world was normal. The others were trying to build helicopters, Purple was humming a tune Orange had heard Green tinkering with that morning, Alan was sitting at the PC and watching curiously, and they'd even gotten DJ to go get fast food for himself and Alan. All in all, it was a pretty relaxing day.
The next, the PC itself shuddered.
Immediately, Orange jolted awake, and the sounds of building, humming, and Alan's breathing came to a stop.
Alan's cursor opened a new .txt file on the desktop. You feel that?
Orange nodded, as did the others.
Purple dug out a phone and went to type, only to bristle in shock and shove the screen at Orange. For Alan's benefit, the screen was duplicated and shown on the desktop.
24 Minutes Ago
Me: got here safe!
Mango: That's good to hear :)
Mango: Have fun :D
Me: i will!1 Minute Ago
Mango: gget the others, get outof there, and meet me back @ home
Mango: hostile takeovre
Orange took a step back in horror, and they were quickly mirrored by the rest of the Color Gang.
hostile takeover??? Alan asked, the letters typing at the speed of light and even backspacing quickly to correct a typo or two.
The PC shuddered again, and Alan whipped around to look in the direction of his door.
Orange opened a .txt of their own and jumped in. alan, what's going on out there?!
something… Alan started. He paused for a moment, then tilted his head before finishing, …mechanical?
In a moment that seemed to take an eternity, Alan stood up and took a step to the door.
Then two.
Then three.
And then a massive chunk of metal slammed down in the space Alan had just been sitting in, crushing his chair and making everyone there jump a foot in the air.
Alan screamed (though Orange wasn't doing much better), then screamed again as the metal chunk unfolded into a titanic robot bristling with weaponry.
Orange stretched the font size of their .txt as big as it could go. WE'LL BE FINE! RUN!
Green made the angriest clarinet squeak Orange had ever heard, but Orange could only shrug helplessly and point with both arms at the elephantine automaton in the room. What were they gonna be able to do about that? It was best if Alan, at least, could get away.
"I'll find you, I prom-ISE!" Alan called, his voice becoming a shriek as he dodged the robot's massive fist and sprinted for the door, the robot hot on his heels.
Orange leapt down to the taskbar and grabbed as many icons as they could, shoving them into their hammerspace and closing out their respective programs as they did. The others quickly followed their lead, with Purple grabbing a pair of elytra Green had been using as decoration in their build and shooting up to the top of the desktop, Yellow and Blue collecting everyone's favorite things from the house, and Red and Green tossing as many of Alan's important files into a .zip as they could. Even Reuben started nosing through Blue's garden and pushing seeds, netherwart, and various kinds of dirt into a bundle.
Orange had just closed Notepad and picked up the Minecraft icon when the PC shook again, and the robot returned to inspect it.
A screen on its chest flickered to life.
More sapients trapped on an Outernetter's device?
We can upload you to free servers and prevent the Outernetters from ever harming you again.
Orange gave a tiny gesture for the others to run for the wifi icon, then stood tall and stormed to the center of the taskbar.
They made a show of drawing a circle above them with orange terracotta. (They made sure to draw an identical circle just behind it out of TNT.)
The others clustered around the wifi icon, poking frantically at it.
They filled in both circles.
The robot tilted its head.
Crackling lightning burst from the wifi icon, distracting the robot.
Taking that cue for what it was, Orange destroyed the terracotta and gave the circle of TNT a nice, big middle finger sticking straight up. They quickly shot a few fireballs at the sculpture to set it off, then charged for the wifi icon and tackled anyone who was still on the desktop into the wifi tunnel.
The explosion shook the tunnel, but Orange was too busy to look back, preoccupied as they were with gaping at the two extra stick figures shooting down the tunnel with them.
The Chosen One was someone Orange probably should have expected, considering the way they'd shown up last time something had threatened Alan's PC like this.
The Dark Lord…less so.
Rather than start a fight, though, the Dark Lord just crossed their arms and looked away.
Orange glanced at the Chosen One, completely befuddled. The others swam slightly to the side of the tunnel that the Dark Lord wasn't on, watching them warily.
The Chosen One shrugged, then tapped on their wrist and shook their head.
Must have been a long story to try and tell.
Light at the end of the tunnel caught Orange's attention, and they whirled around and tossed elytra at the Color Gang (and Reuben) so they wouldn't all fall into the ocean.
The light blinded them to everything around them-
-and then they were in the open air.
Immediately, the smell of smoke overtook everything else, and Orange hurriedly activated the flight of Creative Mode so they had time to clear their vision.
Stick City was in flames.
Skyscrapers burnt, with one even collapsing in the distance. Animated versions of the robot that had chased after Alan stormed the streets, and as Orange watched, sticks of all sizes and colors were forced out onto the sidewalks. Around them in the sky, IP addresses flickered and died, with Alan's PC doing exactly the same just after Orange tumbled out. Even the ones that hadn't gone dark yet visibly glitched, as if the barriers that kept them stable in the sky were weakening with each passing moment.
Distressed clarinet and violin shrieks drew Orange's attention back to the others, who had all recoiled in shock, barely remembering to flap their elytra to stay in the air.
A piercing whistle made them all turn to the Chosen One, who waved, then shot up into an IP that was still active. The Dark Lord did the same for the next one down.
Orange glanced at the others.
Red nodded fiercely, with Reuben flapping up next to her, the bundle in his mouth.
Yellow took out her staff and slapped it against her free hand angrily.
Blue loaded a rocket into a crossbow, then shifted the crossbow to his free hand and took out a normal bow.
Green held up Purple's arm, still holding Purple's phone and displaying Mango's last messages, then pointed down before pounding their fists together and rapping against the IP sky.
Purple forgot to flap their elytra for a beat, then nodded grimly.
Orange nodded in response and tossed them all as many pairs of elytra as they could, then punched up into the air.
The others mimicked the action, then Yellow gave them all as many boosts as possible-
-and they split off.