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"Run Theseus, run" the taunt echoed through the street behind him, soft in all the ways a blade trailing over skin might be, calm enough to mirror the smile that had split Wilbur’s face before he pressed the button that had destroyed half of the city and set in motion this horror that came after.
It nearly made him freeze on the spot, the way he still recognized Techno’s voice, noticed the familiar way Phil always tilted his head in a glance over his shoulder, and the manic glare that both his brothers shared. Carnage was a patchwork of his family, a mural to all the warm mannerisms he’d become so used to over the last months, a homage to the weapons Tommy had forgotten his loved ones truly were.
He gritted his teeth, pattering feet on wet asphalt the only sound he let himself focus on, not daring to turn around again as he tried to shake the image of his grin on that face.
He should have never gotten close to the Syndicate in the first place, had accepted the comfort of Niki’s hugs and Wilbur’s music, Phil’s cooking and the way Techno actually listened to him too quickly. And now it had all come back to bite him, of course.
Wither roses bloomed in his wake as he ran, muscles already tiring while Carnage laughed hauntingly, easily avoiding the flowers that lay still and silent and already beginning to wilt away. They meant nothing, and if he had control over what was happening he might think to use his power more sparingly, but he was grasping for any last hope in desperation.
Still Tommy scrambled further, the path of flowers now adorning the pavement of Manburg’s Main Street his weak, useless, only defence. He didn’t need to turn to imagine the Blood God’s grin as he stalked his prey, but he refused to give up even in the face of certain defeat. If he went down he’d do it with a fight. If we went down he’d make sure it wasn’t entertaining for his enemy.
He knew how much the villain enjoyed the hunt. Carnage had often complained about how annoyingly easy it was to defeat most heroes, how he much preferred those who put up a fight. So Tommy had half a mind to just give up out of pure spite, a last hurrah to laugh in the face of death, but a freezing fear kept him going. His brother’s final words were playing over and over in his head, 'death is by far the best thing you can hope for if I get my hands on you' more promise than threat and the only thing still keeping him running.
Tommy had always had an interesting relationship with death, a strenuous dance of back and forth, of fear against hope against apathy. But even if he’d long learned to grasp for something better, something more than to die a soldier to the Agency, he knew that there were things far worse than death lingering in the shadows at his enemy’s hands.
He was shaking, now, attempting to ignore the memory of Tubbo asking, nearly begging him to not go through with his plan, to not antagonize Manburg’s most infamous villains. His roommate had hidden tears behind anger as he tried to hold Tommy back and of course he’d been right, he was always right and Tubbo had long been the more careful of the two of them. It was nearly ironic, with how explosive his powers could be.
Of course Tommy had been reckless, hadn’t listened, had ignored the fear shimmering through the accusation "Why do you keep risking your life? To prove a point?" and instead had opted to leave in anger. How bitter, now, the plea behind the last words he’d ever hear his friend speak rang through his chest when he inevitably slowed, familiar footsteps drawing near. He’d never answered Tubbo’s question, but he knew that it was true.
He veered off into an alleyway, intent on at the very least keeping his defeat private and innocents out of danger. If anyone in the city was innocent any more.
Tommy stilled, for a moment, his breathing so helpless, choking him in fear and desperation but he held it in anyways, completely silent like he’d always been taught. Perfect little pawn.
He nearly broke at the memory, instincts being the only thing stopping him from giving away his location, and he hated it as much as it may just save his life. Light footsteps passed by the alley’s entrance, nearly indistinguishable if Tommy hadn’t learned exactly what pattern to look out for, knew his brother hunter nearly better than he knew himself.
For a second, there was calm. It wouldn’t last long, that much was obvious, shadows already beginning to whisper at his every movement and he knew Carnage would know his location any minute now, if the chat didn’t get to him first.
The villain would surely turn them against him, force him to embrace the oh so familiar insanity like an old friend while he forgot every person he’d ever loved, and Tommy knew he could do nothing to fight it.
It was a calm humming behind him that made him swivel instinctively, perfectly on balance even in terror. The person that had dropped into his alley from above was not Carnage. He wasn’t sure whether this was enough to breathe a sigh of relief.
Instead, he recognized the villain behind him, the blackened Manburg uniform that was Nemesis, her costume’s silver ornaments catching the light. He couldn’t see her face, seemingly always covered by darkness in a way that wasn’t just incomprehensible, it was disorientating, tempting him towards the void just enough that his heartbeat quickened unwillingly.
Nemesis was smiling coldly, how he knew that he wasn’t sure, but the shadows conveyed something that was unmistakably a grin. She didn’t look quite real, with how truly frozen the villain was, no movement portraying her intentions, no sound proving her as real other than that eerie, warning hum.
Something changed, the dread that had been lingering in the air shifting to a different tone, paralyzing. There was something off about the sounds around them, though he couldn’t have said what had he been held at gunpoint, which, considering who was currently stood in front of him, and who he was sure was very near by now, he might as well be. There was a quiet taste of iron on his lips, one he was sure he would carry with him through the rest of his lifespan, however short.
Nemesis moved now, starting towards Tommy who stumbled against the side wall of the alley in an effort to at least have his back covered if he was about to fight both Nemesis and Carnage. Instead, she brushed right past him, seeming to wait between him and the entrance to Main Street, where he could now once more hear his hunter approaching.
When Carnage came into view Tommy readied himself. For what, he didn’t know, both fighting and running would be futile, but he still refused to simply give in. To his surprise however, it looked like Nemesis was stopping Carnage, some sort of wordless conversation between them that he couldn’t understand, until the woman’s voice rang out for the first time:
"He’s your brother."
The villain shook his head.
The shadows whispered.
Traitor.
A familiar burning that told of Carnage’s knives ripped a scream from his throat as Tommy fell. Techno had shown him how to make the poison that coated the blade, once, a warm hand on his shoulder as he measured ingredients precisely.
The same man stood over him now, axe in hand, eyes burning red and shadows curling around his legs, whispering curses. Tommy hummed to drown out their words, knowing full well the insanity that came from blood lust and battle. He didn’t know where Nemesis was anymore, shoved aside by Carnage in a way he desperately recognized as careful, but he thought he could hear her humming join his own. It might have just been the fear playing tricks on him, but Tommy dared to hope.
"Oh how the mighty have fallen. Already giving up, little hero?"
It was cruel, how much his heart twinged at the words, the anger spurred at the mention of his past title instantly extinguished by the way he still felt the shadow of Techno’s hugs, yearned for safety in the arms of Carnage, if only for a second.
Tommy didn’t know who he was anymore, flinching away as the villain stepped closer, readying for fight despite the debilitating pain radiating from his shoulder.
He was a hero in the Syndicate’s eyes; disgraced, even a villain in those of the Agency.
He’d been a child soldier, he’d been alone. He’d had the Syndicate. He’d had safety.
And he’d given it all away again.
He was Techno’s brother much less than his enemy now, yet he couldn’t shake the familiarity in Carnage’s movements and the ivory of his mask.
He’d been Wilbur’s ally in the fight against the Manburg government, but hadn’t been able to save him as he inadvertently betrayed both his brothers, causing oh so much pain.
He’d cared about Niki, and Tubbo, and his family yet he had hurt them all, in the end.
And still, in all his knowledge, the certainty that he deserved this as his end, the relief at the choice of death over torture, when Carnage raised his axe Tommy couldn’t help but whisper "Please don’t do this." feeling so much more like a child than he’d had throughout the last years.
The words came out quiet, pleading, and for a moment he thought he saw regret in Carnage’s eyes, quickly replaced by the dreadful disgust he had for those of his victims that didn’t even try to fight back.
White knuckles tightened around polished wood as the axe finally fell, Tommy’s mind racing as he considered his final words, knew he’d never wanted them to be a plea, didn’t remember what he’d last said to Tubbo, or Phil, or Niki, only that it had been in anger.
At the very least, there was some poetic irony in the way his last word to Wilbur would now mirror those to Techno; one, a plea for his brother to survive, the other a final attempt to save his own life.
A black gloved hand grasped desperately for the axe, failing to catch it as it fell, and only now did Nemesis’ humming stop.
The blade caught the light, song turned silence, a story came to its tragic end.
Wither roses enveloped Tommy’s body as netherite met flesh, a final, taunting goodbye for neither Techno nor Niki to hold their dying brother close. The flowers ensured a quiet solitude in his final breaths, safely laying him to rest.
He was morbidly beautiful, in death, crowned by already falling petals of deepest, blackest crimson stained ruby with blood.
And Tommy looked up, hot tears on his forehead where Niki was leaning over him, thorns piercing his hands as he grasped tightly onto roses like they might bring his saviour.
He met the villain’s silvery eyes, watching in dazed fascination as her skin burned blackened ember, melting off of her like dripping ink and mingling with the silent tears that stilled when her eyes withered away fully, reforming themselves over and over again in still agony while more roses bloomed where her skin met his.
From the outside, the whole scene whispered of morbid beauty. Dim light let shadows dance across the form of a young boy laid to rest in blackened roses, barely visible through petals and blood.
Above him, the woman nicknamed death’s harbinger on her knees, for anyone other than Tommy still displaying a dark vortex instead of a face. Crying as her skin eternally withered away, stitching itself back together in an endless loop while it bled blackened fire. The shadows that made up her mask swirled in a futile attempt to flee from the burning, making her face appear more deadly than human, a charred photograph of her tears.
The small spark where her hand met the boy’s forehead was nearly fully covered by the sea of flowers growing and blooming and wilting between them. Flowers that every child learned to touch once and never again, burning agony a frightening deterrent.
Niki refused to break the contact between them even as her arm came away black, fingers flaking off fully, blood mingling with ash as the thorns pricked her raw whenever her hand was more than skeleton and fear.
All the while, the perfect gash adorning the child’s throat pulled together, stitching itself up agonisingly slowly while the healer sobbed above what was no longer a corpse, torture in her gaze barely even visible as her eyes burned in withering for longer, got taken over more quickly each time they blinked silver.
It was only when the cut was fully closed that Nemesis pulled away, collapsing against the opposite wall, no longer moving. The charred fingers of her pale hand did not reform. Her healing spark had already faded into nothingness.
Carnage was nowhere to be seen, no there to save his friend, not there to finish off his brother. But a taste of iron lingered in the air.
Tommy’s breath shuddered painfully. He wasn’t sure whether what awaited him now would be a nightmare, or a moment of hope. He didn’t dare imagine the latter.