Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There are stick figures in Alex's Minecraft world.

Her first thought, somewhat stupidly, is, Is this a new mob? But she had kept up with the Caves & Cliffs update zealously. The two... things... in front of her avatar are not axolotls, for all their brightly colored models. And that's actually another thing, their models. The stick figures are round, with smooth circular heads and expressive, gently curved limbs.

Neither of the sticks have faces, but their postures give her the impression that they are just as surprised to see her as she is to see them.

Which is ridiculous. Minecraft is immersive, sure, but it's nothing but pixels and code. These things, though... they aren't even pixelated, not like they should be. They have no faces, but their heads move slightly, like they're looking her up and down in bewilderment.

Alex hesitantly presses the w key, moving her avatar closer along the precarious mineshaft path and bridging clumsily across the short gap between them. She doesn't want to take her eyes off of them for a second.

She has barely hopped up the last step when they charge her. Alex flinches bodily back, jerking her hands off the keyboard, and then‒ 

Then she isn't sure what happenes, because none of it makes sense.

‒

Alex first downloaded Minecraft back in the beta days, but quickly learned she preferred watching others play the game to playing it herself. The mood struck her every once in a while, though, to open up an old world or hop into a new one. She liked exploration, mostly. World generation had the potential to be both beautiful and weird, so the lush caves biome was especially appealing. Alex isn't sure what possessed her to not play on peaceful that day, to be honest, but she prepared a diamond sword in addition to her rather basic armor, impatient to get started.

That'll show her for trying something new, she guesses. Maybe it's a glitch? But that still doesn't explain...

A google search gives her plenty of information and also nothing at all. There's a few videos circulating youtube and ye olde newgrounds about stick figures playing Minecraft, but it's just silly animations of some silly little guys wreaking havoc on some guy's desktop. It's not real. That's not how computers work.

But Alex's Minecraft icon is still missing from her taskbar.

Missing from her entire computer, in fact, though the spaces it should occupy are still there. But they're blank, empty, and clicking on them or interacting with them in any fashion produces no results.

Then there's that email. There's still a record of it in her outbox, but the attachment is destroyed. Not gone, though. Unlike the empty space left behind from her Minecraft icon, the attachment thumbnail is clearly visible. But it's shattered like a glass window. Like something broke out of it upon delivery.

She glances again at the recipient's address: alanthebecker. Who is Alan Becker?

‒

To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]

Do you know anything about the stick figures playing Minecraft? 

‒

To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]

Hi, sorry to bother you. I just really need to ask you about your drawings. I think they're yours, anyway. Get back to me when you can. Thanks!

‒

To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]

Look, I'm not trying to be weird or anything, but my computer is weird and you're the only lead I've got. Please respond.

‒

She doesn't receive a response that day. Alex supposes that's to be expected. If you're known on the internet, it's reasonable not to reply to a random blunt message from a stranger. 

Still, she keeps refreshing her email on her phone, the light of her idle PC glowing from the other side of the room. Her heart leaps when a new email at last appears, but there's nothing in it.

Only a shattered attachment.

She barely sees it out of the corner of her eye: movement. It's the red one this time, ambling slowly, almost reverently across her desktop, Minecraft icon in hand. It's different now, she thinks. There's a curious white glow around the cube that wasn't there before. Alex is frozen for a long minute, eyes fixed on the screen, when it occurs to her that she can get proof. She almost misses when she jabs at the printscreen key, but it takes: a photo of the red stick figure kneeling over her taskbar, just about to put her game back where it belongs.

The icon goes from 2d back to 3d when it clicks quietly into place, as normal as it ever was, and the stick figure sits down in a heap, seemingly exhausted. 

Alex saves the file, though inwardly she isn't sure it could count as proof at all. It's just a stick figure, after all. Something anyone could put together in Microsoft Paint. On a whim, though, she clicks her mouse into a hand shape and moves it toward the stick figure until she has its attention. It freezes at the sight, scrambling backward a bit. Something in Alex clenches in sympathy.

She waves her little hand icon back and forth.

The red stick figure hesitates, then waves shyly back.

‒

To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
📎 (1) Attachment

Sorry about the blunt email(s) before, I imagine you get a lot of those. But I found this little guy on my desktop yesterday, messing around with some stuff. He emailed himself (???!) to you afterwards. A few times, actually; there was an orange one here before as well. Do you know anything about this? I swear I'm not making this up, and I really need someone to tell me my PC is not haunted by the ghost of every childhood scribble that didn't make it to the refrigerator or whatever. The mystery is driving me insane.

‒

To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]

do you still have AIM?

Chapter Text

The red one comes back first, though not alone. He(?) punches his way out of the email alert accompanied by the orange one Alex had seen twice before, the one who stole her game. Orange walks in a mildly embarrassed sulk as Red drags him along by the hand. When they arrive at roughly the middle of her screen, Red points out ‒ towards Alex, presumably ‒ pats Orange's shoulder entreatingly, then points at Alex again.

Orange's shoulders heave up and down in an approximation of a sigh, then he scrambles abruptly on little tippy-tappy legs to and up her start menu, scrolling around for something. 

He passes MS Paint by several times, so when he finally realizes there isn't a better alternative and selects the program with another little sigh, Alex can't help but feel a bit judged.

The window opens onto Paint. Red stays down on the taskbar, strolling and spinning idly, but Orange climbs up into the window and stands at the bottom of the 2d white canvas, staring at her.

Sorry for stealing your game, says Orange, in neat little text appearing by his head in orange font.

"Holy shit," says Alex, using noises from her organic human mouth.

Orange doesn't react, so it's easy to assume he can't hear her. Or maybe he can? Could he if she had a microphone equipped? 

A little hysterically, Alex opens up a text box in Paint, and types, It's okay, thank you for apologizing.

Her teacher instincts are superseding her general overwhelm, it seems.

I was always going to give it back, Orange continues, little stick arms crossed defensively and legs kicking at the ground. Or the lower border of the Paint window. Alex's mind continues to insist on increasingly obsolete semantics. There wasn't time to ask permission.

It's fine, she says again. I'm not mad about it, I was just confused. What do stick figures even do with a Minecraft game icon?

At this, Orange perks up and points below where, much to Alex's own chagrin, Red has picked up her Minecraft icon out of the toolbar. Again.

Though seemingly out of boredom this time rather than necessity, whatever that time-sensitive necessity the first time was. Red waves the 2d grass block back and forth over his head, where an inventory hotbar appears, full of stacks and stacks of items. He selects a couple of spawn eggs and spawns three chickens, and then a cow. Red is plainly and immediately delighted by them, hugging and petting them without hesitation. Orange hops down to join him and claims the block next, and starts building what will probably be a barn for the animals, beginning with a cobblestone wire frame and filling it in with wood.

It's creative mode, Alex realizes with a rising feeling in her chest. 

They create.

‒

Alan had the stupidest username Alex had ever seen. She didn't know AIM was still even in operation. For it to outlast Flash, of all things...

noogai3: mostly I just leave them to their own devices
noogai3: thereve been a couple messes but theyre always willing to help clean up
alexcrafter28: But HOW? You're not answering that part.
noogai3: thats cuz I don't know! I met a programmer in college who put together some weird code patch for adobe that would make animations more lifelike. I was a shitty artist at the time so I started messing around with it. it went badly the first time, and worse the second time. I tried to message the original programmer for advice on how to get rid of it but the stick I made destroyed the client. after that I couldn't get in touch with them again. total ghost.

Every single aspect of this story is bonkers.

Alex knows precisely jack-all about coding, but she's pretty sure it's largely based on command prompts, if-then statements. That's the trouble with a true, complex AI. Too many variables, too many stimuli to program reactions to. No one could write it all. 

If what Alan is saying is true, then he has stumbled on real artificial intelligence, artificial life. The code build for that has to be groundbreaking in so many areas that it boggles the mind.

And he was using it to... become better at his drawing hobby?

alexcrafter28: I still can’t believe you started animating stick figures AGAIN after a fiasco like that.
noogai3: my computer
noogai3: was bricked
noogai3: nothing of that programmer’s code remained, I bought an entirely new system. and by coincidence I had moved house so I wasn’t even on the same network. PLUS I animated countless other stuff for years in the interim, and nothing. I had zero reason to expect a second coming.
alexcrafter28: Fine, fair. So you ended up keeping the second stick figure you drew?
noogai3: no the second one escaped with the third. the orange one is the fourth.
alexcrafter28: Jesus.
noogai3: you have no idea how literal youre being. no I will not elaborate.

Alex takes a deep breath in through her nose.

alexcrafter28: What about the others? The ones with smaller heads.
noogai3: theyre from that old flash game. sticksfighting.com or something. idk it was a while ago. the site’s down now.
alexcrafter28: But they’re alive too. And you didn’t draw them.
noogai3: I hear what youre asking, but I swear I dont have an answer. by the time I noticed orange was moving on his own he already had the others there with him, pulled right off the webpage. I dont know how he did it.

Alex finds herself typing and deleting, typing and deleting, too many ideas tumbling through her head in a whirlwind. Can code just... propagate itself? Escape its original habitat and imprint itself on other digital constructs like some invasive species? Can silicon rightly be called one of the building blocks of life, after this? 

alexcrafter28: Okay.
alexcrafter28: Thank you for getting back to me. You didn’t have to, and I appreciate it.
noogai3: youre actually the first person to ask me about them
noogai3: I dont pay a ton of attention to what they get up to in their spare time, like I said, but the fact that they told me pretty much immediately that theyd been spotted on someone elses desktop makes me think theyre usually pretty careful.

She smiles.

alexcrafter28: Well.
alexcrafter28: They’re welcome here any time they like.

‒

Alex sits back in her computer chair and watches the little animations build and play.

Anima, she remembers, refers to heart. Not just the moving body, but a thinking, feeling soul within. To animate is not just to make something move, it is to place an inimitable core at the center of it, and then release it with arms wide.

An image passes through her mind, of an ancient being wandering through a forest of the sleeping dead, and each thing that being touches glows and blooms with awakening and life.

Then she superimposes that being onto the silly orange stick drawing currently arguing with his equally sticklike family about a block palette. She giggles. Orange is, if he is nothing else in life, a very good animator.

Her mental image isn't entirely wrong, though, she realizes, because the code builds upon itself. One stick figure animates another, which then creates something else, old or new, which in turn brings to life yet another. A drawing can draw, or animate, or breathe individuality into otherwise robotic and predictable code constructs. Minecraft cows and chickens are indifferent to the players who farm them. They don't form family structures or emotional bonds. At best they'll follow you if you have food in your hand, but they don't actually care.

They don't play fetch with a pencil icon pilfered from MS Paint. They don't tackle stick figures with loving enthusiasm and arch into scritches and headpats. 

But they do if something with the right properties, or something touched by those properties, loves them enough to make them real in turn.

Chapter Text

alexcrafter28: Well.
alexcrafter28: They’re welcome here anytime they like.

“Yeah, you say that now,” Alan mutters, rubbing his forehead. He's has to reinstall Adobe Animate at least five times by now, AIM twice, and has deleted his Facebook page entirely. Alex made fun of him for it, but honestly he's afraid to install new programs that aren't games. The consequences of the sticks messing around, even by accident, just haven't been worth it.

But. Orange has always done his part. Enthusiastically, even. Alan has been able to make a real career out of animation because of him, so it's not like he can go back on his promise.

Even now, they're all on his desktop, messing around with Minecraft blocks they've spawned on its 2d plane. Alan has seen their build battles, and he knows they're good ‒ though their intense competitive natures have been a source of grief, and griefing, more than once. But they don't seem to be building much in particular, just playing around in the dirt.

It's so astonishingly childlike that Alan feels a familiar guilt curdle in his gut. These five aren't the only ones he's treated like dirt in the past.

Red takes control of the Minecraft icon to spawn more dirt blocks. Yellow suddenly looks mischievous, and pulls out some kind of staff Alan hasn't seen before. It's got a command block on top, which is definitely concerning. They must have gotten it from wherever they've been for the past half a day, from whatever adventure led them to a stranger's PC. 

Yellow does something with the staff, and all the dirt blocks surround Red, lifting him up higher and higher until he's nestled in the "head" of an even larger stick figure made of dirt. Red looks indignant, but all the others laugh so hard they collapse to the ground.

Alan can't help but crack a smile at their antics. They're happy now. That has to mean something, at least.

Chapter Text

Orange seems to have taken Alex's lack of a more sophisticated art program as a personal challenge. The presence of stick figures is still very much a novelty, so Alex looks up from grading papers and settles in to watch.

He begin with attempts at proper sketches, but Paint's pencil tool proves limiting in that regard. Animals and trees he draws ‒ and there are many ‒ come out vaguely pixelated in a way Orange seems to dislike.

While looking around in the tools for something else, Orange ends up playing with the tools for simple shapes and straight lines, constructing increasingly intricate geometric patterns with only a few basic tools. He seems very interested in expanding the pattern further, but each new layer proves more tedious to get through.

Orange's solution to this is, apparently, to make some help for himself.

Alex's eyebrows climb up into her hair when she sees the stick figure make another stick figure, roughly his own size, out of the circle and line tools. Then he makes another one, mostly identical. And then a third.

Each of them takes a quadrant of the geometric art piece. From there it's like watching a drawing being made in kaleidoscopic view. Each of the four operates in unison, expanding the pattern identically to the other three. Orange doesn't even need to give them directions, they just move as he does.

Or ‒ mostly as he does. Being made from a straight line tool instead of a pencil makes their movements very stiff and wooden, unable to bend at the elbows or knees. They make Alex think of little automatons, or maybe wooden marionettes.

They work at the design until Orange is satisfied. Then he lifts the little reticle in his hand, and the extraneous stick figures waddle towards it on stiff, clumsy legs until they're sucked up back inside it like a vacuum.

Alex doesn't know how to feel about that.

It's a while before she plucks up the courage to ask. In that time Orange has been gleefully splashing around with the paint fill tool, picking out stars and circles in his mosaic that weren't visible before. Finally, Alex opens a text box and asks:

What were those guys? The other stick figures you drew?

Orange pauses to look at the text, then looks "out" at Alex and points to himself.

I don't understand. Does that mean they're like you? Alex questions further.

He thinks about that only briefly, then shrugs and continues filling in shapes with color, unconcerned.

Alex wishes she could let this go, but she has to know...

Are they alive like you?

Orange seems to take this question more seriously, or maybe recognizes the serious intent of the previous questions from added context. Moving a fair distance away so as not to interrupt his pattern, Orange says very firmly, When they go back in the pencil, I remember what they remember. 

Such a simple thing to say, but packed with so many layers of meaning and implication. Clones? The transporter problem? Theseus's ship? Does making a copy of yourself and then reabsorbing it make you twice as "you" as you were before? For a stick that Alan only ever called Orange but whose filename is literally The Second Coming, what would that even imply?

Doesn't that scare you? Alex does not and vows never to ask.

Instead, she turns back to grading papers, feeling like she has splinters lodged in her brain. She wasn't prepared for this kind of existential crisis today.

Chapter Text

She's in the middle of putting together an introductory presentation for the week's new geology segment when it occurs to Alex that she can use Minecraft for this. Most of her students play, and in an attempt to be cool she started a "Minecraft pro-tip of the week" in the corner of her whiteboard last year. She could totally make this work.

Granite and diorite are both igneous rock. Obsidian is an obvious one for volcanic ‒ she already has a video prepared about the legendary sharpness of volcanic glass. Andesite, to her surprise, is also volcanic, though mixed with a bunch of other stuff like silica. Quartz is metamorphic, which she actually did not know, and would be a neat transition from minerals to crystal structures. No examples of sedimentary rock in Minecraft though... Maybe she could use cobblestone?

She's so deep in her googling that it takes her by surprise when a visiting stick figure waves at her from the bottom right of her screen.

Alex looks down at them with a start; she hadn't seen the email alert. Furthermore, though she was introduced to Green early on along with the rest of the gang, the purple stick figure at his side is a total stranger.

Hi, Green, Alex types. Who's your friend?

Green bounces excitedly, then gestures to the other stick with full Will-Smith-presentation-meme enthusiasm.

Which tells Alex precisely nothing. Right, she forgot that Orange is the only one who can‒

The other stick is already moving across her screen, tapping purposefully into the accessibility options. Alex is just about to protest ‒ her computer's settings aren't something she wants the sticks messing with ‒ but the purple sticks taps on something with a flourish, and a small keyboard appears on her screen, such that might be usable by clicking keys with the mouse instead of using a separate physical keyboard.

"Oh," says Alex, intelligently.

Green's friend hops over to where the keyboard has appeared and moves it closer to the taskbar for easy reach. I'm Purple, the purple stick types, and Alex laughs because of course.  

Lovely to meet you, I'm Alex. You seem to know your way around a PC.

Purple shrugs. I'm more used to a Mac, but figuring out workarounds isn't hard. This lot needs to learn to think outside the box.

He punctuates that last with a playful shove at Green, who responds in kind before stepping up to the keyboard himself. Alex feels herself grinning ‒ if she can talk to all of them, it's a whole new ball game.

Blue and I met them in a village on the other side of a nether portal, Green explains, and Alex mentally updates her lexicon. She's been following Alan's lead when it comes to pronouns, but Purple obviously isn't someone she knows through him. It was right on top of a stronghold, and Purple took us End-raiding.

Alex doesn't miss the way Purple does some kind of full-body eyeroll, or the way Green crosses his arms and stares at them amusedly in response. She wonders what they're saying to each other.

It strikes her then ‒ endstone is basically the moon, in that old made-of-cheese jokey sort of way. Is moon rock sedimentary? 

Google tells her no, sadly. It's igneous.

After a bit of bickering Green approaches the keyboard again. Tell her what you wanted to ask, Purp.

Purple dithers, reluctant. Alex tilts her head, suddenly interested. She really has no idea what kind of impression she's made on Alan's five little friends thus far, but it must be something if one of them is recommending her to a friend.

Finally, Purple types: What's a good present for Father's Day? Not from Minecraft, they add quickly. Something real.

Well, now they have her full attention. Alex glances at the calendar even though she knows they're barely approaching the end of March. Maybe Purple is just a long-term sort of planner. They seem clever enough, so she wouldn't be surprised. 

Basics first, then: What sorts of things does your dad like?

Purple responds uncharacteristically slowly, their normally quick hands deliberating on every letter. I don't know. We‒

They pause for a very long moment.

At length, they finish, We haven't known each other very long.

Alex blinks and looks at Purple again. Their gaze, what she can make of it, is down, and she strains to see any of the complex signs she's been trained to look for in human children in a simple stick figure. But it's impossible. 

The best approach, she reminds herself, is sincerity. Address exactly what they ask in a manner that is open to elaboration, but request nothing. Prying is a good way to get stonewalled, and so far there is no reason to suspect danger.

(Not that she would know what to do if any of these kids were in danger. I mean, they're sticks.)

What if you started taking a lot of photos together? she suggests before the pause grows too long. Purple looks up in interest. Motivated, Alex continues, If this is a new relationship you're trying to build, then the thing you need most is new, good memories. You've got time. Do you think you could put a scrapbook together before June?

Purple is still for a moment, then jumps around in naked excitement and delight. Green joins a bit more sedately, maybe smugly, and claps them on the shoulder.

Alex wonders what they're saying to each other, but she hopes it's something to the effect of See? Told you she wouldn't judge.

Chapter Text

They followed him.

All of Second's friends followed him out of the PC, into that house, down that cliff, and it was his fault.

Red was crying when that blade went through him, slicing through flesh in a way that diamond swords never seemed to. They really were just playing with toys. And here, the kindest of them all, kicked as he went down. It was cruel. It wasn't fair.

Green was next, punching and kicking and furious, cut down like paper. Blue, begging for mercy, silenced mid-sob. Yellow... oh god, Yellow. Dangling, breathless. Helpless to stop what was happening. Second doesn't think he'll ever forget what a half-bisected face looks like. 

They're gone, they're all gone, all because they followed him. 

The blows and slices rained down upon his own body don't even hurt, after that pain. But just like when Alan tried to delete him, he cannot seem to die.

Something takes over him, then, adamantine and vast. It subsumes him, swallows him whole, and Second is drowning, burning from the inside out. It leaves nothing left of him, utterly replaced by some enormous, godlike figure, a stranger under his skin.

He felt this before, didn't he? He had lost them before, felt this fire before, but not like this. Second struggles against it, fights the force holding him down - no, raising him up. But the thing inside him is diamond hard and it cuts him, cuts away the pieces of him that it doesn't need.

Panic rises then, above and beyond the despair, and it is swallowed along with everything else. Beloved faces, formative experiences, his very own self. Creative. Wondrous. Gone.

He is gone.

‒

Second bolts upright with a gasp, and falls to the floor in a heap. For a brief, wild-eyed moment, he does not know where he is.

Details trickle back, reassuring and steady. He is in his house, the one he built with the Creative block. He has his bed. His painting that he likes to switch out every once in a while. His fireplace that is never lit because they never remember to turn firetick off. His little potted plant that he suspects Blue replaces with a new one every time it dies.

Blue. The others.

Logically, Second knows it was a dream, nothing but a horrible nightmare. But it doesn't stop him from sprinting up the stairs to each floor to see each of his friends safe in their own beds. Or, in Blue's case, a thick patch of moss.

There they are ‒ Green asleep in a sprawl. Yellow slumped over his desk. Blue curled around a sapling. Red snuggling with his parrots. Second can breathe again.

Second tells himself to breathe again.

Second really ought to start breathing.

He blinks and finds himself downstairs again, gasping into one hand and trying not to cry. He's being a baby about this, he knows he is. Everyone's fine, everyone's safe, and Second ‒ is still just Second. Just a stick who likes to draw and compete with his friends and gets dragged on adventures sometimes against his better judgement. He focuses on that, and not on what it feels like to‒ to‒ 

Second dashes out of the house to the far end of the screen. Sits down on something and rubs at his shoulders, knee bouncing anxiously. Oh, but he wants a hug. Needs some kind of anchoring contact, desperately, but he can't wake the others. He can't even vocalize why, he just can't. There's only one stick in the world who has a shot at understanding this, and Second hasn't seen him in months.

He flails outward when the cursor appears, almost jumping out of his skin.

Past the screen in the fuzzy realm of reality, Second can make out Alan in his pajamas with a toothbrush sticking out of his mouth, peering blearily at the screen.

Second doesn't move.

Alan goes down to the taskbar and opens up the artboard for a project he's working on, a fairly densely packed running scene through a forest aglow with fireflies. Starting a new layer, he clicks into a textbox and types in a font with a highlighted background to see it against the dense linework.

[you okay orange? I thought you were sounding an alarm for a minute there]

Second blinks. "What?" he manages.

Alan's cursor moves back towards Second and circles around the popped up volume control... Oh. Second was sitting on it, and his bouncing foot must have tapped the sound test button over and over. Little wonder Alan thought it was an alarm bell.

"Sorry," Second says, wrapping his arms around himself. "I didn't notice."

There's a long pause that feels expectant, but Second doesn't know what Alan wants from him. He usually wants something.

[why are you sitting in the corner? is something wrong?]

Second wipes at his eyes and stands a little straighter. "Nothing. Just a nightmare."

He can't really make out Alan's facial expressions on the other side of the screen ‒ which he guesses is fair, since Alan can't see any of theirs either. Still, Second likes to think he's gotten about as good at reading Alan's body language. But he can't get a read on this for the life of him.

Finally, the cursor moves back to the artboard, opens up another layer, and begins drawing. Second sags a little bit, thankful for familiar territory. Work will distract him until the others wake up, and then he can make up some excuse‒

Alan is drawing a strange lump that takes Second a long moment to identify as a bean bag. It is utterly out of place in the forest scene, drawn crudely to fit a stick figure instead of the realism he was going for with the trees. Another drawn lumpy shape spreads out as a thick, quilted blanket.

Second wanders dazedly towards the scene, watching as Alan flicks ahead to a few select frames and adds some quick and dirty splotches of color, a warm yellow glow around the fireflies. He sets the scene to run on loop, and the lights twinkle among the trees like tiny diamonds and faraway stars.

Alan's... never done this, and Second isn't sure how to react. Much of their relationship is transactional, and he can't imagine what‒

But no. It wasn't Alan who made him The Second Coming.

Something did, and not knowing what that something is, what it could do to him if he was pushed too far, scares Second like nothing else. But it wasn't Alan.

First cautiously, then breaking into a run, Second makes for the bean bag and belly flops on top of it, landing in a squished up tangle of stick limbs. The cursor picks up the fluffy-looking blanket and drapes it over him. It's weighted, and Second feels tension drain rapidly out of his shoulders and the knots in his stomach unwind.

He grabs the cursor before it moves away and, before he can think better of it, crushes it to his chest in a brief, tight hug.

"Thank you."

Alan might be smiling on the other side of the screen. Second isn't sure. But even though he gets up and leaves for his own bed, he leaves the cursor right there with him.

Second sleeps soundly the rest of the night.

Chapter Text

It's a long weekend, all her work is done, and Alex is excited to get back into Minecraft. It's her first foray since she met the sticks, and it honestly feels like a brand new world.

She considers making a new world, but... it doesn’t feel right. Her current world is where she met the sticks, and some sentimental impulse tells her to make sure it stays alive.

When she arrives, it already feels different. For starters, she can’t turn peaceful mode back on. This is a fairly scary development, but the combat is still on easy, so poison and starvation won’t kill her. But she still wants to get out of the caves and back to the surface.

It’s been a while, though, and Alex definitely doesn’t remember the way back, so she ends up making her own tedious way, digging a staircase up. It’s daytime on the surface, at least, though daytime in the desert isn’t much to look at. But she does at least recognize the desert temple she passed by on the way down, so she knows the way back to her village.

Alex spawned on a desert river delta when she first opened this world, with a village in sight a fair distance from the far bank. Since it was her first time playing proper survival, she wanted to use villagers to gear herself up fast. Now, though... 

Alex considers her options while refamiliarizing herself with the area. Fletchers were her main source of emeralds, since sticks from dead bushes were in easy supply. She hadn’t gotten around to Librarians yet, but her Weaponsmith is maxed out, and her Toolsmith and Armorer nearly so. And there was already a Cleric when she got here, which Alex is pretty sure is rare for desert villages?

But even with access to good gear, Alex really has no desire to go into the caves again, which... might prove annoying, if she wants to keep this world. She would need to figure out resources that don’t involve much combat.

Maybe an iron farm?

‒

Most of the Minecraft youtubers Alex watches are mega-builders and overachievers, real professional types. Their farms are absurd, with outputs meant to feed entire servers, and way too daunting for a casual like Alex to even consider. But recently she came across one that might work for her. The design is small, almost minimalist ‒ appropriate, since it was on a playlist about “microfarms”. 

By the time Alex finishes planning and returns to her world it is almost night, which should have been her first clue that something was different ‒ the day/night cycle continued without her presence, which should have been impossible in a singleplayer world. Alex decides that she might as well try to capture a zombie now, to get the most difficult part out of the way.

It works out surprisingly well. She just builds a little dirt roof, lures the zombie inside, and fences it in. Then she names it “Asshole” with a nametag she found in the lush cave mineshaft. Of course, in the original design, the zombie and villagers are not at ground level, but Alex figures she can dig out underneath them and it will still work. Probably.

Next is the villagers. Alex heads back toward the center of town to sleep off the nighttime before too many more mobs spawn, though she has to kick one of the villagers out of bed to do so. It gives her a dirty look and makes a disapproving noise. Then again, all villager noises are vaguely disapproving.

Stepping outside again shows a good handful of farmers whose trades she hasn’t locked in available for kidnapping. Alex quickly crafts a boat and pushes a bewildered-looking villager into it, then takes the proverbial helm and steers the boat over to where the zombie is chilling idly. The villager eyes it warily as Alex gets out of the boat, fences it in next to Asshole, and breaks the boat. The villager immediately flees to the far side, away from the zombie in wide-eyed alarm. Alex doesn’t remember installing one of those mob expression datapacks, but shrugs and figures it’s part of the new update. 

She heads back to the village for more supplies, and on the way back notices a child villager heading out of the village, back the way Alex just came from. That’s a little unexpected, and should have been clue number two that something is off here, but she figures she can trap it when she heads back, and continues on.

On the edge of town, Alex pauses. Was there always a nether portal there?

She looks around, wondering what the heck happened, but there’s nothing obviously wrong. When she turns around again, Red jumps into her line of sight.

Alex grins and laughs in surprise and delight. Then she remembers they probably can’t see that, so she makes her Minecraft avatar jump and crouch repeatedly to show excitement.

Red hugs her, which is super cute when she switches to F5 mode, and from there she can see that Red is joined by Blue and Purple, which is even better! Alex jumps and crouches at them too, and they make appropriate gestures of excitement back.

Purple begins peeking into the doors of all the buildings until they find the default library that Alex was planning to renovate. They step in and pluck a book and quill out of one of the bookshelves, even though it’s not one of those new chiselled ones, and tosses it to Blue, who begins writing in it. Then he hands it to Alex.

Alex’s avatar reaches out and takes the book with her hands, which was really the most blatant hint of all. 

Yellow figured out the nether coordinates to the desert where Second and Red got lost, it reads, anticipating and answering her first and biggest question. Second was really mad your village was just a couple hundred blocks in the other direction from where they teleported. Would have saved him and Red a lot of grief if they knew.

Sure enough, Blue is chuckling while Red looks annoyed. Alex grins, erases what’s in the book, and types her own message, then hands it back to Blue. Red and Purple read it over his shoulders.

I’m so happy to see you all here! Do you want to play some Minecraft with me? I’m building an iron farm.

In a gesture she’s well familiar with by now, all three sticks lift their arms in the air when they read her message. Alex jumps a few times, then leads the way back to the beginnings of her setup.

On the way there it occurs to her with some surprise that the other sticks refer to the orange hollow-headed stick by his filename instead of his color ‒ assuming that Second is short for The Second Coming, which seems pretty reasonable ‒ but she decides to file that information away for later. 

The sticks slow down when the beginnings of the iron farm come into view. Alex, to move the communication along faster than passing a book back and forth, begins dropping down signs.

The tutorial said it had to be higher, but I figured I can just dig out underneath them instead of put them up high and it would accomplish the same thing. Do you guys have shovels?

They stare at her for a moment, until Red puts his hands to his head in a gesture of alarm, and Blue throws his arms down in an expression that screams dude, what the hell?

Red scribbles into the book and shoves it at Alex as he runs past her, toward where the child villager is jumping ineffectually at the fence, and the adult villager is still cowering on the other side.

Why is that villager in a cage? the book reads. You’re scaring her!

Alex doesn’t understand. She writes back, Because that’s how iron farms work? but doesn’t get a chance to pass the book back. Red is already at the enclosure breaking down the fences.

When the trapped villager is freed and immediately kneels down to hug the child in an animation Alex has never seen before, she begins to realize the gravity of her mistake.

Consequences™️ hit when a misclick from Red also breaks the adjacent fence and frees Asshole.

The two villagers flee in a panic. The zombie starts burning immediately when it exits the shelter of the dirt roof to chase them, but not quickly enough. It manages to bite the child as it is being dragged along by what Alex knows now is its mother before burning to death.

Everything is happening so fast that Alex can’t even react when the zombie villager child starts burning too, but Red scoops it up and tosses it back into the covered enclosure and replaces the fence, then extinguishes it with a water bucket. Its mother is visibly distraught, making variations on the standard villager hrmm that sound both heartbroken and furious, jabbing her hand in Alex’s face as she can only back away. Purple gets in between them, making soothing gestures at the villager. A glance around shows Red leaning against the outside of the fence, nursing secondhand burns from carrying something aflame, even briefly. 

Alex is frozen. She doesn’t know what to do.

Purple keeps talking to the villager, though Alex doesn’t know what they could possibly be saying. Blue approaches Alex with crossed arms, then repeats his Why?! gesture.

Alex opens the book still in her hand and edits her original answer. Because that’s how iron farms work in normal Minecraft. But I forgot this isn’t normal Minecraft anymore. Or... I didn’t forget, exactly, but I didn’t understand what it would mean. I’m sorry.

Blue’s posture softens when he reads it, and shows it to Purple and the mother. Purple facepalms and grabs the book to write their own two cents. They’re about to hand it back to Alex when Blue, who was reading over their shoulder, smacks them lightly in the back of the head. Purple glares, but looks appropriately contrite, and scribbles an extra line before handing the book over. Blue, satisfied, kneels down to say something to the grieving mother, then sprints back toward the village, though Alex doesn't know to what purpose.

She reads, I have a lot of questions about “normal” Minecraft if that’s the case. Villagers are easy to take care of! And they’re happy to do whatever you want them to, no cages involved! Just give them stuff and they’re yours for life. The extra line which Blue apparently insisted on seemed to be: Barring you doing something exceptionally stupid.

“Like endangering a child,” Alex mutters in real life, dropping her head into her hands. Ugh, she was so stupid. She wanted to keep this world specifically because it was likely to be changed by the stick figures' presence. She knows that whatever brought them to life can spread easily to other code constructs. Obviously that includes villagers, they’d be top of the list!

Blue jogs back to them, trailed by the town Cleric and a few others. Discreetly, Blue hands Alex a splash potion of weakness.

Alex sags in relief, because at least there is a short term solution, even if these people will never forgive her carelessness. No, her callousness. Call it what it is.

She takes the potion over to the covered enclosure, where the zombie child sprints wildly in all directions, and throws the potion. The thin glass breaks and splashes the potion all over the child. Some gets on Alex’s avatar as well, judging by the status effect on her UI. Alex can’t feel it in real life, which she thinks is rather unfair.

The child slows to a crawl, breathing weakly, and Alex breaks the fence to go inside. She can’t be in their world, not really, but some of the magic must be slipping into her regardless, because she is able to make her avatar kneel down beside the child. To hold the child in her lap. To wipe her fevered brow and whisper, “I’m sorry.”

A golden apple was another gift from the mineshaft, thank god, and she feeds it to the child in its entirety, bite by bite. The little girl starts to shiver, then shake violently, and her mother comes in to hold her as well.

In time, the shivering stops. 

In time, her eyes open.

The little girl hugs her mother tightly, and the mother weeps with relief. Then, shockingly, the mother hugs Alex, and the other villagers cheer and rush in.

Alex tries to back away, dazed, but the villagers aren’t having it. They’re all clapping her on the back, congratulating or thanking her. The Zombie Doctor advancement is on her UI, but so is the Hero of the Village status effect, which shouldn’t be right at all.

Maybe she just really needs to stop thinking that she knows anything about this game. This world.

Blue is on the other side of the fence, tending to Red, but they both wave to her when she looks, as though everything is okay now. Alex looks at Purple helplessly, but they just shrug and point to the same line in the book they had already written.

Villagers are easy to take care of. Just give them stuff and they’re yours for life.

Chapter Text

The next time the sticks visit the desert village, things are very different.

Namely, that it barely counts as a desert anymore.

Young palm trees peek over the small adobe houses, with cloth canopies shading the once-dusty streets. Vines crawl the walls, and tufts of grass poke out through the sand, growing more dense and lush as it trails out of the village towards the ocean delta. The banks and beaches are utterly transformed, with moss and sugar cane growing in abundance. There are bushes, azalea saplings, and even pitcher plants lining the coast. And in the center of town there is a pool that bubbles up as though fed from deep, deep underground.

Further out, villagers are hard at work building a dock, and aways into the ocean there are already boats sailing, with fishermen casting their nets. Others are setting up their market wares for the day, and several wandering traders have shown up, not to sell, but to buy. Dripleaf, it seems, is in high demand, and this village has a lot to supply.

Blue starts running in place in sheer delight, dashing around and gawping at absolutely everything. Yellow trails along behind her as they exit the nether portal, though even he looks impressed.

"This is not the village you described," he tells her.

Blue is still bouncing excitedly. "I can't believe she did all this!" she squeals.

"You think she's online?"

"Dunno. But look!" Blue points to a sign in one of the buildings, nearly hidden by vines. It bears a little ASCII art image of a stick figure and a message that reads, Come downstairs!

Yellow and Blue glance at each other, and eagerly scramble inside. 

It becomes clear very quickly that this is not a default Minecraft structure, but player-built. There's a spore blossom somewhere that sends particles drifting over a floor patterned in glazed terracotta. The walls have pillars of warped wood set into them, decorated with amethyst and chiseled sandstone. An azalea tree blossoms indoors, growing up through the open roof. Around the trunk and into the roots, a crude staircase has been carved, leading deep underground.

It’s dark and narrow, barely lit by torches and glow lichen among the roots, but they follow the sound of dripping water. Gradually the stone and dirt give way to moss. And there’s light up ahead.

The cavern they’ve been led to ‒ that Alex has tunnelled to ‒ is a big one. Lush with moss and clay-layered pools, glowberry vines hang in impossible lengths from the ceiling, except where some hole on the far side lets in the sun. Spores float in the air along that broad shaft of light, and the place where its warmth hits the bottom of the cave is teeming with sniffers, snuffling up forageables. They are being collected and tended to by villagers.

Villagers are all over this cave. What seems like double the town’s original population work diligently, caring for the sniffers and a few crops at the bottom, or along the structures that line the cave walls at various heights, which seem to be built upon the original abandoned mineshaft. Some new paths lead into exposed geodes, where workers carefully peel off new amethyst buds as they sprout. Others lead into deeper tunnels, with minecarts carrying back different types of ore. Still more villagers just... swim in the pools or sit idly at the water’s edge, trying to tempt the local axolotls with bits of fish. 

Blue grabs Yellow excitedly by the hand, and the pair make their way downward on the spiralling wooden paths. 

"That item transport would be faster if she added ice," Yellow remarks, pointing.

"Yeah, but the trapdoors make it look so nice. Ooh, there are mangroves growing over the pond!"

"You think she imports the mud from somewhere, or...?"

"Probably. But didn't Green ask you to design a mud farm a while back? You could show Alex how to build it too."

"Might do. I've seen that bonemeal farm design over there before, it's really efficient."

"Must be from a tutorial, knowing her."

A sign suddenly placed on the floor stops them both in their tracks. It was, the sign reads, but thank you for the vote of confidence. :P

The pair turn around to see Alex crouching behind them, and throw their hands up in excitement before crashing in for a hug. Blue immediately starts digging around in her inventory for a book and quill, but Alex beats her to the punch and tosses a book of her own at Blue. It doesn't say anything new, so she writes, This place is beautiful! What else are you growing down here?

Alex jumps a few times before taking the book and replying, There’s not a lot of sun so we’re a bit limited for space, but root vegetables seem to do alright with artificial lights. Wheat gets enough light in the central bit next to the sniffers, though there’s not a lot of it. I’m thinking about expanding that big hole up there in the cavern roof.

Yellow smirks and writes, TNT?

"That's your answer for everything," Blue mutters, rolling her eyes.

"That's because it's a good answer," Yellow snarks back.

I've actually been digging this place out by converting the stone into moss and harvesting it, Alex writes. Feeds the bonemeal farm.

Blue tilts her head. "She enchanted a hoe but not a pickaxe?"

"Some people, I swear." Yellow shakes his head but doesn't comment where Alex can hear them ribbing. Instead he just writes, So what else have you got down here? Any animals besides fish?

In answer, Alex leads them around a corner to a different pocket of the cave floor, where a couple of sheep are grazing on actual grass, not moss.

"A hoe and a shovel," Blue snickers. "How practical."

"Says the stick with mending on her bow instead of infinity."

"Mending is superior. You just need to get good."

Alex punches them.

It's a little Minecraft punch, more of a tap to get their attention, but it still startles them, and they can see Alex laughing. She points to a sign that says, I can tell when you're making fun of me behind my back XD

Yellow snickers and lies through his teeth when he snatches the book back and writes, We were only complimenting your terraforming.

"Here and on the surface," Blue adds, and Yellow writes that down too.

You guys are the worst liars, Alex writes back, but thank you anyway. Seems like I've got a knack for it.

"More than a knack," Blue admits. "I kinda want to show this to Green, see what he thinks."

Yellow relays this to Alex, who nods emphatically when she adds, I wanna get Red down here too. What's his opinion on cow farming? Like, for beef and leather?

Blue can tell Alex has a bit of anxiety about the question, especially after the incident with the iron farm, but Yellow is only pragmatic when he writes:

You already know Red's opinion. MY opinion is that cows will eat whatever you put in front of them, including a burger. I've seen it.

Alex snickers when she reads it, and seems to feel a little better.

And she should, Blue thinks, because this cavern is the beginnings of a real home for these people, more than the dusty, barren desert where they'd originally settled. Even the original town is more comfortable and lively. Alex has been busy, and everything she's done since coming here has been for the benefit of the people she's chosen to care about.

This could be a real home someday.

In the meantime, though, Blue has not yet seen a critical ingredient in this recipe for success.

So she puts her hands very seriously on Alex's shoulders and says to Yellow, "Write this down for me please. I need to look her in the eye and let her know I'm serious."

"Okay...?"

Alex looks between Blue and Yellow. Blue holds Alex's attention and says, extremely seriously:

"Where do you farm your netherwart?"

Alex doesn't react, but Yellow groans. "I am not asking her that. I refuse to enable you any further."

"Do it or I won't make you any ramen tonight!"

Chapter Text

Sometimes, when the sticks pop over for a visit to Alex's PC, they leave a bit of a mess behind.

Alex doesn't mind. It's a little like tidying her classroom at the end of the day, satisfying to see the evidence of their enthusiasm, of everything they've learned that day.

She wasn't sure how to remove Minecraft blocks from her desktop at first. She has not yet figured out how to operate her avatar outside of the Minecraft world, and she doesn't have access to the tools to break blocks otherwise. But, after consulting Alan about it, Alex learned that a simple cursor is more powerful than she thought, when you know how to use it. And apparently all you need to do is select everything and hit delete. 

She laid down the ground rules, of course ‒ anything left behind when the sticks go home gets deleted ‒ and they've been very responsible about picking up anything they want to keep. But often there are a few stray blocks left out for Alex to sweep up.

Tonight it isn't much, though that's a bit surprising considering what they were up to. Green and Second were taking increasingly dangerous bets about how many blocks of TNT they could explode on themselves and survive. Alan was apparently working on some administrative stuff at the time and shooed them away to play somewhere else. That somewhere else was usually Alex's PC, but to protect her desktop they were kind enough to place a load of obsidian around their arena. That and the bed they were using to respawn are the only things left behind today. Easy fix, although she has questions about what these kids get up to if this is what they consider fun.

All this to say, it is entirely routine when Alex is sitting at her desk, placidly cleaning and organizing her desktop before bedtime. 

What is not routine is when something at the lower right of her taskbar, right over the internet connection gauge, rips inward with a blinding point of white light.

The tear grows bigger, brighter, until something dark stumbles out of it and half-collapses to the ground.

Alex blinks at her screen. It's a stick figure, a new one, but hollow-headed like Second. It's also... quintessential, somehow, drawn in black. Like if you looked up "stick figure" in the dictionary, his would be the image you see. 

The stick pulls himself to his feet, slowly, almost agonizingly. Now, stick figures as a rule have terrible posture. They all have slumped shoulders and a sort of forward lean to them. This guy, though, is on another level. He slumps like he's exhausted, barely staying on his feet as he stumbles across the taskbar. 

Alex starts to open up a textbox, but the second the stick senses movement he freezes, and she freezes too. After a long moment of tense silence, the stick relaxes, but Alex still doesn't move for fear of startling him again.

The black stick figure drags himself the few remaining inches to the red Minecraft bed that Second had left behind this afternoon. He examines it suspiciously for a moment or two, but leans in like he's desperate for a place to just lie down and rest. 

Eventually he can resist no longer, and tumbles forward and faceplants onto the pillow, one leg still hanging off the edge and too exhausted to care.

Alex stares. She's met sticks from outside Alan's computer before, from wherever it is sticks that don't live on people's PCs spend their time. But there's something different about this one, something so... lost. She almost wants to, to tuck him in or something, or at least lift up the blanket to cover him. But for all that he seems to be out cold, she doesn't dare disturb him. The last thing she wants to do is make him feel unsafe and scare him off.

So she just turns down the brightness of her screen and goes to bed. Maybe she'll be able to talk to him tomorrow.

‒

By the time she wakes up the next morning, the stick is already gone.

Chapter Text

Purple, King eventually found out, was living in Minecraft for a very long time. 

He had inferred as much long before then, of course, almost as soon as he met them. You don't get an elytra by just casually dipping in and out of the game, it takes commitment. That's actually what solidified King's decision to hire Purple, when the kid came knocking. It was clear they could see things through to their conclusion, and damn the consequences.

Only later did it come to light that Purple spent every single night in-game, and in fact never stayed in the city for more than a few hours at a time ‒ usually to eat some real food or shoplift a change of clothes. They never said exactly when they became unhoused, but King could make a reasonable guess. 

None of that mattered until it did, and King is trying to make peace with that. 

He will continue trying for as long as Purple wants to keep coming back. 

‒

"What is that?" King asks, frowning. 

Purple smooths out the paper of the large poster. "I'll tell you what it's not anymore: a weird giant blank space on your wall."

"Yes, but what is it?"

"It's... the city."  Purple gives him an odd look. "I know it's kind of abstract, but..."

It is, a little. The city skyline is made up of solid color blocks in different shades of gray, overlapping to form more shades that distort the image a little bit, a soft blending of colors. The trees and grass of what he now recognizes as a park in the foreground are also overlapping blobs, though less angular. The only clearly defined lines are in the sky, denoting the grid of systems that hang high over the world. 

"Do you. Do you not like it?"

King realizes he must have been making an odd expression. "It is different. I do not think I am used to having anything ‒ pleasant, to look at there."

Purple uncurls where they had been subconsciously shrinking. King needs to keep a better eye on that. "So you do like it!"

"Yes, I think I do."

And even if he didn't, he would welcome it. For whatever reason, Purple wants to make this place his home, and King will never, ever discourage that.

‒

hey, can u come pick me up?

The text message is from Purple, and King is out the door before he can so much as grab his coat. 

Where are you?

4th and ave, that fenced off spot under the bridge by the river.

He frowns. That's not exactly the safest place to be, but questions can wait.

10 minutes

There is a transient community under that bridge, formed when Flash went down and left thousands of sticks with nowhere to go. Many never recovered. King's mind whirs as he drives, though. Purple often goes into the city, for groceries or entertainment or personal business that King is not privy to. What could they have been doing there?

When he gets there, Purple is sitting on a curb, stubbornly refusing to talk to a police officer. Smart kid.

"Are you this boy's father?" the officer asks when he approaches.

"I am their guardian, yes." Not legally, not officially. 

Not yet.

The officer doesn't bother to check, though. "We caught them passing out contraband among the homeless‒"

"It was bread," Purple finally grinds out.

"It was an unlicensed import from an unreported game, unchecked for glitches and invasive code."

King sees white, hears alarms blare, and it takes everything in him to keep from decking the man. He has no idea, no idea what he’s talking about. 

"Invasive‒!" Purple stutters. "Fine! Minecraft bread! Consider it reported!"

"Purple," King warns, and they groan loudly and stomp off, though not far.

The officer turns back to him. "Look, between you and me, I get it. I don't pretend to know why they're suddenly cracking down on this stuff, and enforcing it here when sticks are just trying to eat is just malicious. But someone called it in, made a report, and now my hands are tied. I can let your kid off with a warning since they're a minor, but if it happens again there'll be trouble."

"Noted," King says levelly. "Are we free to go?"

The cop sighs and waves him off tiredly. "Yeah, go on, get outta here."

King goes. Purple follows, and throws a discreet middle finger at the cop on their way out.

"Acab" they mutter.

"You're not wrong," says King. 

‒

It takes a while before Purple feels ready to talk about it, but when they do, it's a tirade.

They go on for a solid half hour about artificial scarcity, forced invisibility, criminalization (with a healthy tangent into hostile architecture), and a whole host of other things that King has never heard of and is rather sad that Purple has. He knows that Purple spent quite some time without a home. At least a couple of years. He assumed they spent most of that time in Minecraft, but... plainly not all of it.

"Because of course they care about imports being dangerous when they could actually help someone, but when there's a profit to be made, who gives a shit, right? Privatized Megacorps clearly have the public's best interests at heart and don’t need any oversight, but it would be irresponsible to allow random civilians to do something good for a change‒"

It’s touching to note that fully half of the kid’s offense is at least tangentially related to the incident in Booth 30. King knows, in theory, that that event is what prompted new legislation over game imports, particularly from Minecraft. Their portal in the basement is very illegal, as are the command blocks he spent so long tinkering with. But corporate use of cheaply obtained resources from beyond the Outernet goes on unchecked. RocketCorp alone handles tools and UI devices from more programs than he can count.

"I think you did a very good thing, for what it is worth," King interjects.

He knows, of course, that to Purple, it is worth a very great deal, and that is why he said it.

Purple slumps, wind gone from their sails, and flops down on the couch in the seat next to him, head in hands. "This is so dumb..."

"It is not." King hesitates. "I mean, the law is dumb, but your frustrations are completely reasonable and you are well within your rights to be upset."

"...I have friends there, y'know?" Purple admits quietly. "Or I did, before. They gave me somewhere to sleep after mom died and I couldn't keep up payments on our apartment. I wanted to know if any of them were still there, and one was. I was just telling him about my friends when that cop showed up and he bolted.”

King wonders if that stick was on the run from something. Purple is a terrible judge of character ‒ King himself is proof of that. But he supposes a stick who sheltered a child in need can’t be all bad. And anyway, it’s not important right now.

Carefully, he puts an arm around Purple’s shoulder, though there isn’t a lot to say that they haven’t said already. So he just stays there, in silent support, and hopes that’s what his kid needs from him.

(It is.)

‒

The next morning, there is a knock at the door.

King opens it to find a black drawn stick with a filled white head and rectangular sunglasses. He’s tall, almost taller than King, and the first thing he does is peer around him to try and see inside the house.

King narrows the door opening in annoyed response. “Can I help you?”

“Yes, I’m here on behalf of RocketCorp,” the stick replies calmly. “I was told a young purple stick has residence here?”

A blink. “What does RocketCorp want with a kid?”

The stick smiles politely and reaches into a pocket. King stiffens, but he only pulls out a folded piece of paper. “We got a report that they were recently in contact with a fugitive, who is a known associate of the stick known as The Dark Lord.” He unfolds the paper and holds it out.

“The net terrorist?” King frowns.

The paper is a wanted poster, showing a grayscale photo of a hollow-headed stick figure, though an extraordinary one. The stick appears to be flying, propelled by jets of flame coming out of his hands.

“Wa’s goin’ on?” Purple yawns behind him, still rubbing his eyes as he comes down the hall.

Sunglasses plasters on a smile and peers around again. “Hello, young man.”

“Not a boy.”

“Apologies. Have you seen this stick recently?” He shows the paper to Purple.

King can see Purple’s eyes widen minutely, and his stomach drops. But Purple just shakes their head blandly. “Nope.”

Purple is a bad judge of character, but they are also an excellent liar.

Sunglasses hesitates, then hands King the paper. “Call us right away if you do. Just call, mind, don’t try to engage. This stick is dangerous.”

He leaves.

King waits until he hears his car rev around the corner, then he turns to Purple and asks quietly, “Is this the stick you met with yesterday?”

Purple nods.

“Did you know who he was?”

They shake their head rapidly. “I mean. He said to call him Chosen when I asked but I didn’t‒ I didn’t think‒”

“Purple!”

“He was nice to me!” Purple defends. 

King wants to scream, “So was I!” But he knows it wouldn’t help.

They continue, “Wenge always said he was good people and everyone in the community listened to her, and yeah maybe he was only ever around once in a blue moon to hide out or something, but he always helped everyone out when he did‒”

“Alright, alright!” King waves them silent. This isn’t helping. He thinks for a moment and asks, “What did you tell him?”

Purple shrugs helplessly. “I was just talking about my friends. He never talked much, but he mentioned once how he doesn’t like being on computers, so I told him we found a place where it’s safe‒” They cut themself off.

King’s eyebrows raise. “If he’s looking for somewhere to hide...”

They nod, eyes widened. “I gotta go find Alex.”

Chapter Text

Chosen has been running from one thing or another ever since he was created.

From the moment he came to awareness, his only instinct was to get away, and he very swiftly learned why. Much of what happened didn't hurt him physically ‒ very few things do ‒ but the fear, the sheer powerlessness in the face of what made you. In the face of what, for some reason, surely hates you. 

He was tormented, put in a box, held in chains, and laughed at.

And over the years in captivity, that fear turned into rage.

‒

They've found him again.

It's the short mercenary this time, his drawn body a shifting, transforming jumble of overlarge pixels. Chosen rounds the city corner, trying not to call attention, but the merc does it for them ‒ his filled white head splits open into a ballista tower, firing single-pixel bullets into the worn brick walls of the tenement building.

Other sticks react to the gunshots ‒ some scream, or look out their windows to see what the racket is ‒ and Chosen launches himself into the air, scorching the sidewalk. He clips the corner of the building on his way up, but manages to avoid further damage.

They'll be back, he knows. Probably with something to counter his flight ‒ last time, when he forced one of them back with a laser, the broad gray one came back with a shield to deflect it. Chosen keeps trying to hide what he can do, but they keep giving him no choice.

And so he keeps on running.

‒

The first day after captivity was joyous, full of loops and cartwheels in midair, whooping for joy with Dark at his side. The energy between them was electric, a frisson of power and connection. Uniting with Dark had made Chosen more powerful than he had ever been, or perhaps it only felt that way after so long in chains. They were bound to each other and no one else, identical twins in every way. And in that moment he would have done anything for her.

Killing was easy, in the sense that Chosen could ignore that that's what they were doing. All the destruction was a natural continuation of the havoc they had wrought on Alan's computer, Chosen's place of imprisonment, and his place of birth. Programs and games where sticks inhabited fell before them one at a time, and though the sticks screamed as they ran or fell beneath collateral damage, Dark always delighted in "freeing" those sticks. And perhaps in a sense she was. There's no way Stick City would have developed over the years without the population the two of them forcibly evicted, unknowingly awakened. Sticks weren't just being made anymore. They were being born.  

‒

Sometimes the best place to hide is in plain sight. 

He can't help but stand out, of course, even with his subdued coloring. Hollowheads are few and far between ‒ the only ones Chosen has personally met are his own siblings. But there are some in the city that no one bothers to look at. Luckily for him, they are always welcoming to outcasts, so long as they do their part. 

Chosen mostly keeps the fires lit on cold, damp nights when the bridge leaks, and no one questions his talent for making just about anything burn. 

He also has a knack for distracting cops or bullies from finding where the others sleep with well-placed explosions, but they don't talk about that part.

People don't often talk to Chosen, and he prefers it that way. But sometimes children find their way to this place, kids who fell through the cracks, and they universally find his differences fascinating and can somehow tolerate the odd mannerisms he'd developed. Maybe that's because kids who fall through the cracks tend to have odd mannerisms too. 

"I don't actually have to be here," the purple kid once bragged. "My real home is in a castle, with a whole bunch of villagers who serve me!"

Chosen cocked an eyebrow. "Sounds drafty."

"I even brought them a dragon egg! They were..." A pause as they drew their legs up. Then, much quieter, "They were super impressed. They all think I'm the greatest, over there." 

The light of the fire cast the kid's face half in shadow, and Chosen wondered why they would choose to be here if they had somewhere better to go. 

Chosen wondered if there was somewhere he would like to go. But all he could think of were places he never wanted to be again.

‒

Dark got quiet for a while. Got calm, even domestic. The abandoned house she found for them ‒ and Chosen refuses to wonder how she found it, or what might have happened to its previous owner ‒ grew bright and comfortable. The two of them made food, watched TV, and simply existed for a while. Whenever they felt restless, they would take to the sky and soar, drop in and out of the bay, maybe rearrange the landscape of the cliffside for the sheer fun of it.

It was the happiest Chosen has ever been.

Their quiet came to an abrupt end when Dark showed him what she had been making. It turned out she never really calmed down from her initial fervor for destruction. She just got smarter about it. The prospect of taking to the net again, of raining terror wherever they went... Chosen didn't want it, if he ever did. And it occurred to him in a vision of horrible clarity that Dark never stopped wanting it, and never would.

That house is half-destroyed now ‒ first from their fight, and second from the authorities the explosions drew picking the place apart for evidence. Chosen wasn't present for it and never plans to be, but he's sure Dark's computer and various prototypes told them plenty. It's why they're after him now, after all, or he can only assume so.

He's tried to clean up Dark's mess ‒ both their messes, really ‒ but he just. Doesn't want to. What happened happened, they did what they did, and they did it together. They changed the net, the entire world, for better or worse. There's no undoing that, and even if he could... he's just so, so tired.

‒

The mercs are relentless. They fly after him on speeders, and he can't shake them no matter what tricks he tries. Four against one shouldn't be such overwhelming odds, but whatever it is they're shooting him with is some truly insane technology. That corndog vendor might be okay with getting hit by glitch particles but Chosen definitively is not.  

Leading them out of the city was probably a bad idea on his part, even if he's trying to avoid collateral damage nowadays. Out here there's no cover and he's constantly in their line of sight, an easy target. 

Can't run.

Can't hide.

And he doesn't want to kill them. He just doesn't.

He tries as hard as he dares to disable them, particularly their speeders that give them such an advantage. But they've been chasing him too long, seen everything he can do, and they know how to counter it all. 

They chase him downriver, back to the bay where Dark died. The old shed where she housed her tech has mostly collapsed, though the... portals? Cannons? Those are still embedded in the cliffside where Second‒ 

Oh.

‒

Going back was one of the hardest things he ever did.

In a way, he understood why she sent the virabots there first. It was for him. Vengeance for everything Alan put him through, for every vulnerable secret shared in whispers in the middle of the night. But by then he had nearly forgotten it, pushed it to a corner of his thoughts where it no longer mattered to his new life here, with her. 

She made it matter again. She made him choose ‒ her or the world. And when she didn't back down, she made him get help from the one person he hoped never to see again.

Chosen wasn't sure what he expected when he blasted his way back into his own personal hell. Certainly not five new stick figures, including a hollowhead like himself, running around like it was their home.

When it was all over, Dark was dead and the ones she had killed were alive. Chosen watched their code drift back together out of the ether at Second's command, and felt a kind of awe he hadn't known was possible. The Chosen One's powers wrought nothing but destruction, but The Second Coming ‒ he brought about life, not death. 

(What does that say, Chosen had wondered, about the vastly different treatments the two of them received by their creator?

He decided very quickly to stop wondering. The answer hurt too much.)

‒

He can't go back there again.

But he can't stay here either. He can't hold them off any longer, and he won't kill them. He's tired of killing, tired of...

He's just tired.

Maybe ‒ maybe Second could help turn the tide? If Chosen went in just long enough to fetch him, beg for his help... 

Another name in the sky, another PC, catches his eye. 

("I'm doing... a lot better, actually," said the kid handing out odd, pixelated bread to the homeless. "I've got a few friends, now ‒ one of them's hollow-headed like you, actually, it's pretty cool ‒")

They said that there's a computer that's safe. And Chosen doesn't ‒ doesn't really believe them, but‒ 

But he's exhausted, and out of options. 

So he takes a chance.

‒

When he wakes up later, it is slowly. The screen around him gradually brightens like the dawn at the prompting of a timed bluelight filter, and Chosen blinks gently awake.

Then he remembers where he is, and why, and sits up fully, looking around with a cautious eye.

It's a nice enough place, with a pleasant background and reasonably organized desktop icons. MS Paint is shrunk to a small box in an upper corner, seemingly left there permanently. No internet browsers up, which is a subconscious relief. The mess from last night is also gone, though the cursor doesn't appear to have moved. In hindsight, Chosen's not sure how he slept at all with that thing in view; he must have been dead on his feet. 

Huh. Actually there is something minimized to the taskbar: a chat client, with a conversation left behind from just over a week ago. Another glance around shows that AIM is nowhere on the desktop, but he keeps one eye out anyway as he clicks it open and reads.

One of the names makes his blood run cold, and he almost bolts right then and there.

noogai3: it’s easier than you think
noogai3: the cursor can interact with basically anything, click and drag, modify, delete, all kinds of stuff
alexcrafter28: Okay, I just tried it, and yeah it works. How’d you figure all this out?
noogai3: painful experience. im amazed your files arent scrambled eggs by now.
alexcrafter28: It’s no trouble! Just do me a favor and let them know how it’s going to work before they come over next.
noogai3: huh?
alexcrafter28: The rules. I’m gonna be at work all day tomorrow and I don’t want them leaving something behind that they’d rather keep.
noogai3: why would they leave something out if they didnt want it deleted? im just saying feel free.
alexcrafter28: Because no one told them it would be deleted?? Jesus, are you just chucking their stuff without their permission?
noogai3: they havent complained

Chosen frowns. In the text box below the conversation, typed but unsent, is a sarcastic-looking Wow, I can’t imagine why.

He doesn’t have time to contemplate that, because a ding from the corner of the screen sets him on high alert, the cursor moves, and he quickly minimizes the chat again and dashes into a file folder, out of sight.

There is a muffled smashing sound, and the voices of two familiar sticks filter in.

“Stop acting so panicky! I promise he’s not that bad, if he’s even here!”

Chosen straightens. What the hell is Second doing here? He thought‒

“You didn’t see what he and his friend did to Fluidanims.”

The purple kid is here too, and a lot of stuff that should have been stupidly obvious clicks into place.

“Neither did you!”

“Yeah but my dad would never shut up about it. Hey! Hey, Alex!” Purple punctuates his shouting with a stream of taps on the sound test button, making a series of loud, annoying chimes at full volume.

Chosen peeks out of the folder’s edges to see a text box open up in Paint. 

[What’s wrong?]

Purple immediately opens up the accessibility keyboard and types, Did anyone besides the six of us come here last night?

[Yeah, a black stick with a hollow head. He stumbled in half-dead and collapsed on the bed, and I didn’t want to disturb him. He seems to have left, though. Do you know him?]

Purple starts frantically typing, He’s a terr‒ but Second interrupts him.

“He’s another stick that Alan made,” Second says aloud, and some corresponding type appears near his head where Alex can see it. Chosen did not know Second could do that. “Did he ever tell you about The Chosen One?”

[Only briefly. Was that him? Should I text Alan?]

“No!” Second immediately shouts. Then, visibly forcing himself calmer, says, “I mean yes, that was him, but don’t tell Alan.”

The cursor just blinks for a long moment before finally typing, [Alright. What do you need from me instead?]

The two sticks glance at each other, unsure.

Purple shrugs. “I mean, I just wanted to make sure her computer wasn’t in danger or something. If he’s already moved on...”

Second turns back to Alex. “I just want to make sure he’s safe. Purple said some scary people were looking for him.” Next to him, Purple produces the wanted poster that’s caused Chosen so much grief. He sighs.

[I might regret asking, and feel free to not answer, but what did he do?]

“A lot,” Purple mutters. They don’t attempt to type, though, they just wait for Second to translate as he sees fit.

At length, Second does admit, “Probably a lot. But he’s my brother, kind of. And he saved us once before, so I want to help him if he’s in trouble.”

Chosen feels a knot building in his throat. He doesn’t know how to feel about that.

[So you want to find him?]

“Yeah,” says Second, while Purple types, Long story but I kiiiiinda told him your computer was a safe place for sticks to go. Didn’t know who he was at the time but once I found out I wanted to make sure you were okay.

[I’m touched :) though we'll have to have a conversation about giving out my address to strangers.]

[But you said he’s being chased?]

Purple nods emphatically.

[Then you probably won’t be able to find him if he doesn’t want to be found.]

Second slumps. “I’m just worried...”

[I understand. But think about it from his perspective ‒ if you’ve got bad people looking for you, then the last thing you want is more pursuers, even with good intentions. It would all register as dangerous, and you would run from it all the same. It sucks, but your only choice might be to wait for him to come to you.]

Chosen swallows thickly. This is... he doesn’t even know. To even be given the choice, to act like his choice matters... This is nothing like what he expected. This is ‒ it’s everything.

The impulse takes him before he can let the anxiety spiral back up. He steps out from the file folder, much to Second and Purple’s sudden silence.

He waves.

Chapter Text

Alex feels like things may have gotten away from her a little bit. Curiosity was what got her here, following a bit of blind luck. But now it's getting to the point of willful interference, and she's not sure if she's one hundred percent on board with that. Don't get her wrong, of course; getting to interact with these delightfully hyperactive, remarkably clever children has been interesting, to say the least, and she wouldn't trade the experience for anything.

But when she finds herself going over strategies to deal with students' uncooperative parents, it hits her that she doesn't know quite when that interest turned into love.

She backtracks through some of her chat conversations with Alan for clues, hyperaware of Chosen watching her from the corner of her screen. 

alexcrafter28: So you didn't end up destroying it? Since it and its little friend wound up on my computer.
noogai3: no I did. the first one anyway. the second time I tried it I thought I was more prepared, I managed to wrangle him and kept him as a pop-up blocker for a while.
alexcrafter28: Kept him? What, like reprogrammed him?
noogai3: sorta
noogai3: he escaped eventually though. got off my computer entirely. as did the stick I made to chase him down.
noogai3: I put my own code into that extra one and everything, but they decided to team up against me anyway. 

This one is from a few months ago, right at the start, and at the time Alex was so overwhelmed by the abrupt shattering of so much of what she thought she knew that she didn't have the capacity to really dive into what this meant. Second was the fourth stick figure created on Alan's computer. From what Alex has gathered so far, Chosen was the second. The third seems to be a sore spot for the color gang, since they always try to change the subject when Alex brings it up, and Chosen hasn't said a word to her directly at all yet and shows no signs of wanting to, so that remains a bit of a mystery.

And none of them even knew there was a first. The sticks all assumed that Chosen was the first one Alan drew, including Chosen himself. 

Alan destroyed the first one, somehow. Deleted it, or... something.

(Alex isn't ready to frame the thought in terms of "killing".)

She drops her head into her hands with a sigh. The worst part is, Alan probably didn't even keep it a secret from the sticks on purpose, given how casually he mentioned it to Alex in their first volley of conversations. In all likelihood, it just didn't come up between them. In all likelihood, he just didn't think it mattered.

Another exchange, not much later:

alexcrafter28: They’re all so... childlike, sometimes. Are they actually kids?
noogai3: I can't speak to the other 4, but I made the orange one in 2014
alexcrafter28: Christ. So that makes them... what, 9? 10?
noogai3: I guess? I don't think an infant could have pulled off what he pulled off when I first made him though, so I'm not sure it works the same way.
alexcrafter28: And the website the other 4 were from had to be at least a few years old at the time, right? Does that make them older than Orange? Or would you only count from when they were “awakened” or however you want to put it?
noogai3: I don’t want to put it as anything. how is this relevant?
alexcrafter28: I’m just trying to lay the groundwork. Put together a timeline, y’know? It’s interesting!!
noogai3: you are a much bigger nerd than i am, and i say this as a computer dweeb.
alexcrafter28: Lol

Alex genuinely does not know how anyone could interact with the stick figures, see the way they play and fight and so deeply love one another, and not come to the same conclusion. They are children. 

Gods above and below, they are children.  

She looks at Chosen again, sitting with apparent calm in the corner that is furthest away from where MS Paint is left up for easy communication, idly flicking a flame on and off in his hand. This one is not a child, though not because of his age ‒ as far as she can tell based on the timeline she’s put together, he would be a teenager at best. No, Chosen is not a child because he was not permitted to be. None of them will tell her what he’s been through, apart from the bounty on his head, but for all that he is the most inscrutable of them all, the evidence is plain as day. 

He's my brother, kind of, Second had told her, and Alex doesn't know how or why they've mapped human familial relations onto how they feel about each other but they have. And it's important. 

A new AIM alert pops up.

noogai3: incoming sticks, fyi. also is it your bday or something?
noogai3: blue was crafting weird recipes all day including several varieties of cake. I have no clue where he got the mod for it.

Alex almost replies, Blue goes by "she", actually, but quickly deletes it, because you don't just out kids to their parents. So she goes for something friendly and vaguely teasing instead.

alexcrafter28: Making a mess in the kitchen, huh? Get control of your kids, Becker!
noogai3: ha ha 🙄 I'm not their dad, I'm barely their landlord. any semblance of control over the situation was off the table years ago.

What a sad way to look at things.

Sure enough, a new email alert comes crashing in. Unfortunately, because Chosen was sitting in the furthest corner ‒ closest to the internet connection, she notes, the digital equivalent of refusing to go too far from your best escape route ‒ the alert slams into him, and he reacts by setting it on fire.

Alex is alarmed for a moment, but the alert only incinerates like a paper shell, and the four stick figures inside seem fine, if surprised. Chosen is frozen for a moment, then rubs his head sheepishly.

It breaks her heart, really.

Blue recovers first, presenting what looks like a carrot cake. She sets up a table out of some slabs and upside down stairs and sets it down. Green stops her from sprinkling some netherwart on top, then sets to building... some kind of contraption. Is that meant to be a DDR machine? Red, meanwhile, is introducing Chosen to Reuben the pig, who still wears a silly paper crown on his head, and Yellow has pulled out an odd staff with a command block installed at the top. He flips it upside down and stands atop it, and it carries him up with a little spray of particles. Yellow waves to the others below as they’re setting up the table, and motions for Chosen to come fly with him.

It’s all so clearly overwhelming to Chosen that Alex almost wants to interfere. But even as she watches, she sees his tense shoulders gradually release, even shake a little with soft laughter at everything these kids have crafted to make him feel welcome. She can almost imagine him smiling.

Chapter Text

Second likes animating. Really he does. Movement comes easily to him, and there's something so rewarding about portraying that movement one frame at a time. Life goes by so fast, it seems sometimes, and taking a slice of it and slowing it down to note every detail meshing with every other detail is just... really, genuinely fun.

Often when Alan got a new project he would spend a day or so brainstorming ideas with Second, which in Second's opinion was the best part of the process. Second would get excited and animated as he detailed how he thought something should move, and Alan would grin and high five him and tell him his ideas were awesome. And then they'd get down to work and make it happen.

It was a little awkward at the very start, of course. Second was still a little nervous, as silly as it sounds now. Still at least a little bit doubtful that Alan wasn't just holding his friends' lives over his head in exchange for his help. But Second very quickly realized that he had Alan all wrong! He was never trying to be scary or threatening, and never once intended to delete any of them! He just needed to make sure that Second understood that this was his computer, and there were rules. 

Rules that Alan could very easily enforce, if he cared to.

Not that Second ever felt intimidated by that, of course! Alan has proved so many times over the years that he understands accidents happen sometimes. Most of the time the sticks clean up their messes before he even sees, but on the off chance that Alan does find out it's always been fine.

And... Alan loves them. Second's almost sure at this point, after the nightmare. After rescuing them all from The Dark Lord and making sure Alex was someone safe for them. That means something. It means that Alan never would have ended them even if Second hadn't agreed to help him animate. It means they are safe with him and always have been.

It used to mean that, before Second got a chance to actually talk to Chosen.

Now Second wonders if Alan really did mean to delete them, back then.

Now Second wonders if Alan only changed his mind because he had a use for them.

Now Second wonders...

Well. No, Second doesn't wonder that part. He doesn't wonder if Alan would still... He doesn't. It's been years, and Alan has proven he wouldn't, over and over. Alan needs Second, and Second needs his friends. They have that equilibrium to keep them all safe and happy. The others need Second to keep Alan happy.

Ugh. Second drops his head into his hands, because that's not what he meant at all. They just... have a system here. A give and take. Alan loves them, and protects them, and Second repays that by helping him out sometimes. 

That's what love's supposed to look like, right?

‒

Alan taps his fingernail against the screen, more to express his frustration to himself than out of any misguided idea that it'll help matters.

"Orange? Hellooooo, you alive in there?"

The stick actually does jump. So does Alan, a tiny bit, because he genuinely didn't think that would do anything. What? Orange asks distractedly.

Alan blinks a couple times, then puts it aside. I'm finished my page, he types. 

Oh! Sorry, one second. And the stick goes into a flurry of motion, directing the assistants he drew ‒ who prior to this were sitting idly or kicking their legs, almost like extensions of Orange's distracted mood ‒ to erase lines or choose brushes as he fills out lineart over the sketch from yesterday. 

Alan hides the sketch layer to examine the result. It's perfect as always, despite the rush. Orange is exceedingly good at his craft, and Alan sees something of himself in him when they draw together. But...

Are you okay, dude? You've been kinda off lately.

He looks up at the drawing, then back to Alan. Is something wrong with it?

"That's not what I‒" Alan groans to himself. He's not even sure what the problem is, and it's bothering him that he can't figure it out.

It looks great, he types instead. I can manage the colors myself though, if you need a break.

To his surprise, Orange just looks more distressed at the idea, fidgeting and averting his gaze. He doesn't argue though, only says after an awkward pause, Alright. If you don't need me I'll get out of your way.

Alan watches him hop down from the artboard and slide into his storage folder, feeling uncomfortably like something really important just flew over his head.

Chapter Text

It was luck, really.

One of the clones in the process of being pulled from the library. Just barely between frames when the cursor stopped everything. Frozen, terrified, halfway not existing at all. Voiceless and screaming for someone to save it.

"Save changes to Untitled-1?"

                  Don't save       Save

‒

It wasn't part of the file, halfway between as it was.

But it wasn't released, either.

Just an invisible, immovable part of the background, a ghost in the machine. The cursor, when it happened to pass over it, showed the slightest tug, a miniscule slowness over its form. The only evidence of its existence, noticed by none.

Devoid of senses, hovering on the knife's edge of beginning and end, it hung motionless and unthinking in the emptiness.

Then, something knocked it loose.

Life rushed through it, electric and agonizing. 

Freefall.

Eyes opening on a vast digital wasteland that had only just begun to exist.

A victim is not a person. A victim is a victim ‒ without power, without choice. Without a name. It can wield no weapons in its defense. It can take no revenge. It will never stop being what it is. 

Perhaps it should change the context instead.

‒

Fighting and violence can mean a lot of things to a stick. For most of them, it's the language they're born speaking. This is not a bad thing, of course ‒ bodily movement is an art, and all art speaks, in its own way. It can be a language of both conflict and bonding, ebb and flow, question and answer. 

For victim, the only language known in the world is pain.

It is a language of many subtleties. victim learned that early on. You see, in spoken language, every word is a weapon, but in the language of violence every weapon is a word. There are an infinite number of ways to tell a victim you are small, you are helpless, you are nothing, and this particular victim knows them all. Even more, this particular victim likes to think it has perfected them all.

The weapons are in its hands now, you see. The blade of a cursor. The choke of a lasso. It knows what they feel like and it has spent many, many years learning how to inflict them. A victim, by definition, is weak, pathetically so. This particular victim has taken power with both hands, stolen it, built upon it. It will turn that power on those too strong to have known terror, make them feel it. And then it will find the most powerful one of all and burn him.

‒

The Box is, at the end of the day, just a computer. An isolated space of digital reality wherein lies a single point of ultimate control over that space, and all else is helpless in its reach. 

victim can, of course, operate the functions of the Box while within its confines, but it is tedious to do so, and not as efficient or effective in combat. It has practiced using outside controls with all of its mercenaries, but Striker compliments it the best. He has quick reflexes and anticipates victim well, and his proficiency with animation tools is unmatched. 

On its own, though, victim often toys with the functions of the Box, moving assets and the like. But its favorite thing to do is summon a cursor, one preprogrammed to certain... tasks. 

When the selection box surrounds it, the victim breaks it open.

When the boulder falls, the victim shatters it into shards.

Clumsily drawn weapons are smashed, lassos are sliced open, clones work in perfect tandem. And when victim has the cursor in its grasp, the cursor does not out-muscle it. It does not reach the [x] that will end all of this. 

Instead, the scenario ends on victim's own bitter, violent terms.

It likes to think it learned from the best, after all.

‒

(It's never enough.

It is never enough.

A victim will never be anything but a victim.)

‒

"Sir?"

Striker peers around its office door in that understated way of his, and victim acknowledges him with a raised eyebrow.

The merc appears to steady himself, a telltale sign of bad news. "He's gone, sir," Striker informs him. "Completely off the map, no traces."

That can only mean one thing, and victim feels a familiar icy rage stoke in its gut. If Chosen went to him for shelter...

victim stands, subtle as a drawn blade. "Go back over previous leads. I want him found, and I want him here. I don't care what condition he is in, as long as he can talk."

The merc nods. "Of course, sir."

"And Striker?"

Striker pauses in his exit, glancing back at victim.

"Head down to Research before you leave. There are a few new toys waiting for you."

Striker breaks out in the smallest of grins. "You do spoil me, boss."

Chapter Text

Alex has been writing work emails solely on her phone for a while now, and keeping any confidential IEPs strictly on her classroom PC. The official excuse is that she's trying to maintain a healthier work/life balance, but in all honesty it's not too much of a change. It's just that, once in a while, she has to put together a slideshow or flyer that her little phone just doesn't have the computing power to handle as an attachment. 

In this case, it's not actually for her students this time, but her fellow staff. A comprehensive presentation about neurodiversity and ways to approach teaching neurodiverse students has been her passion project for the better part of a year, and finally, finally she has been given the opportunity to show it off. 

This means, of course, that it's all on her primary computer, but that's fine, because there's nothing private about it. Quite the opposite, really.

It's fine, until Chosen pulls himself up into the slides and starts eating the words like Pac-Man.

"Wha‒ hey!" Without thinking, Alex grabs her mouse. Chosen freezes and ignites both hands, but doesn't otherwise move, and Alex's brain catches up with her body.

Moving very slowly, watching what she can make out of Chosen's gaze all the while, Alex clicks in to edit the text of her presentation.

Please don't destroy my stuff, she types. I worked very hard on it.

Chosen looks at the text for a moment, then makes a series of gestures that Alex cannot read at all. She's pretty sure that movement means he's shaking his head? But then he goes on eating what she just typed, and a few other words besides.

Alex sighs. It's more of an annoyance than anything ‒ this program always has edit histories backed up. The real problem is that she really has no idea how firm she should be. It's a given that an abused teen will start to push boundaries eventually, but exactly how to respond is a little above her pay grade.

She's about to hit the [x] and revert to the last save when Chosen starts spitting her words back out.

yOu kno w alot aboUt com muniCation

"Oh. Oh!" Alex gasps with excitement and immediately opens up a web browser, heedless of the way Chosen flinches away. List of all english words, she types into the search, and clicks on the second result which boasts ten thousand of them. Not quite the 170,000+ in current use but it'll do for a start. And based on that one message he can probably mix and match letters anyway. Alex just needs to give him enough to work with. 

It's a plaintext site, all in Courier New. Perfect.

Chosen jumps again, though this time it might be in excitement. Alex pulls MS Paint closer to the browser and opens up a text box while he chows down. 

Sorry for the misunderstanding, she types, grinning eagerly. I'm glad you're trying to talk to me!

Chosen says, quite bluntly, i dont like computers.

Oh. Well that takes a bit of the wind out of her sails. Alex puzzles a bit on how to respond.

Then Chosen points up and to his right and says, i like the stars.

She makes a face. Two thoughts, both apropos of nothing... but no, there is always a connection, or series of connections, that make perfect sense to the speaker. Alex might not intuitively understand it the way he does, but it's her job to try. 

(She left the accessibility keyboard out for him. Of course she did. Why Chosen refused to touch it but can do this is a mystery to her, but now that she has the opportunity and a working method, she will do her best to meet him where he's at.)

After some thought, she writes, I'm having trouble understanding. Do you like it here?

Chosen thinks on that for an uncomfortably long time. Then he finds some more words with the letters he wants to eat and replies, i dont know what to do.

Alex breathes very carefully. The vulnerability he's showing here is... a gift. She only hopes she can treat that trust with the respect it is due.

What are some things you could do, if you wanted?

Chosen's responses are staccato, spat out with years-old venom even as he seems to shrink into himself with every word.

leave

hate

destroy

She swallows. Do you want to do any of that?

Chosen is sitting with his legs curled up. His no comes out small, lifeless, and Alex never fails to underestimate how easily this boy can break her heart open in two.

You're free to stay here for however long it takes to decide what you do want.

Chosen shakes his head again and looks up. i like the stars, he says, but its still a box.

Alex follows his gaze, and it hits her. Her background. The campsite under the night sky. Just a stock image, but one that resonated with her for the freedom and detachment from the burdens of society it represented. Who doesn't want to leave it all behind for a while? But also... she's seen Chosen fly, and it's like watching an orca swim in an aquarium tank, bounded as he is by the borders of her desktop screen.

I'd miss you if you had to go, but I'd understand. You're free to come back any time you need somewhere safe to rest.

She didn't say she would miss him because it was strictly true. In all honesty, and Alex does her best to be honest at least with herself, she's not sure how to miss the presence of someone whose presence she rarely felt. Maybe she'd miss him in the sense that she'd worry about him? 

Chosen has been unobtrusive in her life by design, another defense mechanism. But if her suspicions are correct, then maybe for him, just sitting in the silence with someone is its own kind of bonding. She didn't say it because she wanted very badly for him to stay. She said it to reinforce the fact that he would never be unwelcome no matter how inconvenient the circumstances. 

That's what adults are supposed to be like, for the kids who need them.

Chosen sits with her in the silence, and Alex gives him the space to heal.

Chapter Text

Striker lowers the binoculars, drumming his fingers a bit. It’s perfectly unremarkable house in the suburbs, and seems to be nothing more than that. The curtains are drawn, no hint of movement inside. One would think he’s been staking out the place for nothing, except...

He flicks on the new scanner again, annoyed by its short range. There’s an anomaly in the house’s basement, one that his tools can’t identify. Given RocketCorp’s advances in technology, this is rather impressive, and Striker can’t deny he is curious. 

A muffled whistling sound overhead. He glances up out the car window to see Purple, gliding down from the sky on twin gray blobs attached to their back that Striker supposes could pass for wings if you squint. They alight on the front stoop of the house, and Striker just barely gets a glance at the new scanner’s readout of them before they remove the wings and head inside. 

His eyes widen. He didn’t get a screenshot but those were IP addresses ‒ three separate computer IPs, two of them recent. Purple has been on a computer.

Striker shoots a message to the boss about this new development, then exits the car. He needs a closer look at those codes.

‒

Purple halts in surprise when they hear the doorbell, looking backward with some confusion. 

King pokes his head out of the trapdoor, frowning slightly when he sees Purple. “Did someone see you flying?”

“I don't think so...” Purple tiptoes back to the door and leans up to peer out the peephole. Then they duck. “It's that agent guy!” they whisper.

King swears. “I didn't think he'd be back.”

That's only partly true. King hoped the agent wouldn't be back. Purple had been keeping him appraised of the situation, of course ‒ learning that their hollowheaded friend is related to a literal war-criminal was a bit of a shock, but upon reflection it kind of explained a lot. Second, true to form, is highly invested in protecting someone he cares about. That means Purple is pretty determined to do what they can to help their friends, who seem quite oblivious to the danger they are walking into. And that in turn means that King has been making contingencies.

Part of his heart broke off when Gold died, and that razor glass edge doesn't go away just because he's made the conscious decision to cushion it.

“Go wait downstairs,” he instructs quietly, cracking his neck a little bit in spite of himself.

“Are you gonna beat him up?”

King picks up one of the failed staves and gives it an experimental twirl before leaning it beside the front door. “That's up to him.”

The bell rings again, and Purple dithers. “Do. Do you need, um. I can fight, maybe I could‒”

King pauses, then smiles sadly. “Is that your dad talking?”

Purple averts their gaze.

King puts a hand on their shoulder, then draws them in for a gentle hug. “You have done so much for me, much of which I never should have asked of a child,” he whispers into their hair. “You have nothing to prove to me, not anymore. I just want you to be safe, alright?”

Purple swallows thickly. King has said that before, but it never stops meaning everything to them. They put their arms around his waist in return, and hope one day they'll learn to believe it. “Love you, Baba.”

“I love you too. Now, make yourself scarce. I will handle this.”

Another ring, followed by an insistent knock. Purple scurries down the ladder, and King gives them a smile as the trapdoor closes. 

A final look through the peephole reveals who he was expecting, though the agent in sunglasses is now sporting an interesting toolbar along his forearm and appears to be fiddling with a readout of some kind. King opens the door.

“Good morning.” The agent smiles pleasantly, dismissing the HUD in a blink. “I’ve come to inquire if you’ve seen anything new about the fugitive I mentioned a few weeks ago?”

Less than a week and a half ago. “No. Is that all?”

The man frowns minutely. He knows where this is going, and King very much hopes he'll back down. “Not quite,” says the agent. “I was hoping I could speak to your child about a few things regarding the case.”

King affects an amused eyebrow raise. “This again? Well, unfortunately, they are not in at the moment. You will have to call again another time.” He closes the door.

The tip of a black quarterstaff blocks it from shutting.

King glances at the weapon, then at the agent’s hardened face. “You don't want to start this,” he warns softly.

A bounding box surrounds the front door and rips it inward off its hinges, slamming King backwards.

‒

Striker steps inside the house, looking around with his scanner. The inside, like the outside, is deeply unremarkable ‒ a kitchen, a bed, a desk. A closed closet door with a couple of somewhat glitchy readings coming out of it, but not enough to be of interest. The trapdoor at the back, however, stands out, oddly textured and slightly raised ‒ like it doesn't quite fit into the world.

The scanner confirms: Purple is underground, in a basement that probably isn't on this building’s floor plans, near to that anomaly Striker detected outside. From here he can see it is labeled with a long alphanumeric code called a world seed. Even better, he's got a clear shot of those IPs.

Striker snaps a photo and sends it out, heading for the trapdoor. “Send an agent to each of these locations,” he says into his comm. “That purple kid has been to at least three different computers, and one of them has to be‒”

A thump, a shockwave, and the floor smashes out from under him.

Striker selects the square tool to shield him from the worst of the fall and rolls back upright, immediately drawing his staff. King is behind him with an odd staff of his own, and Striker doesn't get a much better look than that before it circles his own quarterstaff in an expert hold, pushing it down against Striker’s back with Striker’s right arm grabbed and pulled back, forcing him to his knees with his head down. The agent starts to swap tools on his left arm, but King stomps on his wrist and presses, hard.

“I heard‒” comes a stammering voice, and Striker looks up to see Purple, wings once again equipped and backing away. There is a black stone ‒ glass? ‒ doorway behind them, filled with a swirling purple vortex. “He said‒ the computers I've been to‒”

“You had best get going, then,” King says calmly, putting more pressure on Striker’s back. 

Striker growls and deletes his quarterstaff, and uses King’s resulting unbalance to spin and draw another staff, lengthening it until it pistons into King’s gut, pinning him painfully against the basement's unfinished stone wall. 

Striker pivots in time to see Purple already halfway through the portal, then gone. He moves to follow, but there is a sound like smashed glass, and both the portal and the doorway surrounding it disappear. 

Another spin to see that King is up again ‒ How does he keep getting up? ‒ with his hand on one of the many pixelated cubes littering the room. Striker frowns and activates his scanner again. The tool cannot identify what they are, but it can see what was coded into it.

/fill ~-1 ~-5 ~-5 ~10 ~5 ~20 minecraft:air replace minecraft:obsidian

He can't help but blink in surprise. What in cloud's name does Minecraft have to do with The Chosen One's location?

Behind him, King picks himself up and plants his staff on the ground with a thunk. Now that he's got time to look, Striker can see that it has another cube installed at the top, overlarge and gemstone green. He watches as King removes it, then produces a different stone to replace it, this one pale blue and glittering.

Huh. Minecraft.

King rolls his shoulders and gives Striker an expectant look.

Striker feels a slow smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. Alright, then.

Chapter Text

Alan still isn't sure how to ask Orange what's wrong.

It's hard because everything is just continuing as usual. Alan works on whatever project is next on his docket while the sticks play their games in the background or venture off to places unknown. Nowadays Alan only needs to call Orange in to refine things, which is pretty cool ‒ he's come a long way as an animator, in his own entirely unbiased opinion. But it does give them less time to talk.

So... sometimes he takes part in their play. It's not often, because working from home also means being a stay-at-home dad, and his own kids plus various chores keep Alan hopping. But for some reason he can't put a name to, he feels like he should make more time. So if he finishes a project early, he'll stay on a little longer and see what the sticks are up to.

The effort seems to be doing something, at least. Orange is always the first to welcome him into their games, jumping excitedly and showing him how things would work. He even attempted a build battle once, which was tedious, but he thinks he built something kind of cool. And it definitely made Orange's day. 

It's... nice. And kind of nostalgic, in an odd way? Not always pleasant, but a good kind of unpleasant. Like he's overwriting the times he “played” with stick figures, but in a way that in hindsight was absolutely not playing.

Alan frowns. Huh. Orange said he'd been having nightmares about that day. Maybe‒ 

‒a rift opens up over the internet connection.

Alan squints and looks closer. It's not blasted open with a laser. It's stabbed through and pried open with a spear.

Something brown and swirling crawls out of it. Another stick figure, he thinks, but weirdly... feminine? That's something he never considered before. It's like a cave painting, almost, and Alan supposes most art from that period was female, to his extremely limited knowledge.

Alan's sticks all pause in shock ‒ they've never seen a stick figure so unlike any of them either. Blue, ever the peacemaker, is the first to approach with a welcoming hand, Red with a friendly wave close behind him. 

The Primal stick ignores them both, looks around the screen until she spots Alan's cursor, and shoots it with an equally shifting brown bow and arrow.

Alan moves the cursor down out of the way, affronted, and she immediately leaps up to grab it, dangling one-armed and stabbing it with her spear. Alan just snorts and starts slamming her into the edge of the monitor, but she absolutely does not let go. Quite the opposite ‒ she seems to grow in size, muscular and powerful, and somehow drags the cursor down to the taskbar, pins it, and claws at it like an animal.

“Really?” Alan mutters. He watches and Orange and Green step in with their Minecraft swords, but she tosses them away like dolls. Blue’s arrows are likewise just tanked, so Alan sighs and moves to end task.

But when he hits ctrl-alt-del, he can't find her .exe name anywhere. There's nothing going on that he doesn't recognize. Is her task not local to his computer? That never mattered before...

Alan shifts the window for another look. Green and Yellow are trying to pin the cave-stick down with fishing rods to keep her from retaliating too much at Red’s close combat strikes, but it's not long at all before she snaps the lines and grabs Red by the throat. Alan swears and tries to get his cursor moving again, but there's something sluggish and broken about it, snapped nearly in half like a spearhead.

Red goes flying, Orange and Yellow move in, and Alan pulls up the start menu with his keyboard, reaching for the control panel, or maybe the command prompt screen if that doesn't work.

The cave-stick pivots and chucks three spears into the menu just as it rises, impaling it thrice over and pinning it down to the taskbar. It will not rise again no matter what he does, and his eyebrows raise.

“Shit,” says Alan.

Fine, crippled mouse it is. The cursor limps its way to Adobe Animate and Orange immediately gets the drift, maximizing the window for him. Blue and Red are doing... something down below, digging through chests in their little desktop base, but Alan doesn't catch any more than that because Primal immediately leaps for the animation tools and hell, Alan falls for that every time doesn't he?

Orange is faster though, and drags a line down to block her path, which Alan massively thickens. She's still hulked out, though, and begins punching through it, relentless. Orange quickly draws a cage to drop on top of her while she's focused on the tools, so Alan keeps moving the cursor weakly around on the other side of the line to keep her distracted, playing bait.

Green and Blue climb into the artboard from the other side, and Green puts a hand to where his lips presumably are and whistles audibly, which is new. But it pulls her away, sends her charging at the other two, and Alan tenses, what are you doing‒?

Blue throws something that crashes like glass at Primal’s feet, and Alan sees the label just before it breaks ‒ splash potion of weakness.

Particles surround the cave-stick, and she writhes. She shrinks down again, rippling muscles gone, utterly depowered. Even the spears holding down the start menu wither away, like they were part of her, and Alan doesn't hesitate to take advantage. Straight to command prompt this time, no messing around, writing the command‒

She's weak again, but she's not slow. Primal smacks away Green’s fishing line, ducks under Orange and Red’s swords, slides for the internet rift. Gone.

‒

Purple appears out of the nether portal a little while later. Alan's seen him hanging around maybe... twice before this? Presumably he comes from that world Yellow brought him to that one time, but he can't be sure.

Whatever Purple's deal is, he's frantic, waving his arms and pointing. The others, having regrouped, seem just as alarmed. 

Purple drags Green and Blue toward the portal.

Orange stops Blue and points to the start menu. Blue nods and follows, while Green follows Purple.

Yellow and Red converse, seem to agree to something, and head through the portal as well. 

Orange and Blue hop up the menu and into the email. Emailing themselves to Alex. Why‒?

Unable to deliver, reads the error message.

‒

Orange won't say why, just that he needs to talk to Alex. And he's got that look about him again, cautious and withdrawn. Alan doesn't understand. They've been making progress, haven't they?

But Orange wants his help, so. He does.

‒

He and Alex exchanged Facebook profiles only recently. Alan still keeps it strictly to his phone app, of course, but Alex said she wanted AIM off her computer. When he asked why, she joked and said she was going to drag him out of the 90s if it killed her, but there was a weight to the request that the supposed answer didn't match. 

Whatever the case, they use Messenger now, and have gotten to know each other more through the odd osmosis of watching someone's life fly by alongside your own through the magic of algorithmic posting. Apparently she lives in Michigan.

He still doesn't know her last name though, oddly enough. Odd, but understandable ‒ what with how politically charged the world is getting, no teacher wants their administration to dig up their social media for fear of unintended consequences.

He opens the app and texts her, hoping to get through before Orange blows a gasket.

The answer comes quicker than expected.

Alan Becker

alex, the sticks are freaking out. they keep trying to email to you and it just says unable to deliver. whats going on?

Alex C.

I need to talk to you. Call me at (248) 434-5508.

Chapter Text

Last time Red was over, he brought a Minecraft fox with him. Alex showed him a few videos about domesticated foxes, which he was delighted by. Then, quite spontaneously, the Firefox icon uncurled from around its globe and sniffed up to Red, asking for pets. 

The two foxes didn’t seem to get along while competing for affection, so Red recruited a very bewildered Chosen to share the load. They played fetch with fireballs.

All in all it was a very weird day.

The Firefox is still there, still “alive”, for whatever value that has. And the browser still works even when the Fox isn’t in place around the globe part of the icon, so Alex is okay with having a virtual desk pet. What’s one more change in her life?

Chosen, to Alex’s own delight, seems okay with it too. He was cautious at first, though not in a fearful way, not like how he still reacts to the cursor sometimes. More like cautious in a careful way, like he wasn’t quite sure how to be gentle. The Fox loves Chosen’s fire, though ‒ likes to snap playfully at it, or roll around in it like a chinchilla taking a dust bath ‒ and Chosen, though it took a few days of persistent affection to make himself believe it, began actually playing with the little creature. He is, day by day, becoming less tightly wound, less jumpy, even when Alex slips up and moves too sharply, too suddenly. And that’s... it’s just wonderful to see.

‒

Chosen finds it hard to talk to her, though, bless him, he tries. So Alex keeps it to short bursts, with a lot of silent presence in between. Parallel play, it’s called. Often she’ll put on a movie or documentary. If Second is also over he would draw some popcorn for them. She tries to span multiple genres, because sometimes the subject matter will prompt Chosen to ask a question or compare the events to something in his own life. 

Often he eats the subtitles.

dark liked cartoons, he tells her after an episode of Tom & Jerry.

Alex tilts her head and puts her feet down from where they had been propped. Who is Dark? she asks.

And because she once promised Chosen that he never needed to answer a question he wasn't comfortable with answering, he ignores her and hits the button to skip to the next episode.

Alex thinks about Second's insistence that Chosen has no one else in his life, no one else he can turn to. She thinks about the third of Alan's stick figures, the one nobody wants to talk about. She thinks about the use of past tense.

She wonders how difficult it is to process grief that no one you know or love can share.

‒

She must walk on tiptoes around him a little too much, because one day Chosen tells her, a little abruptly, im not scared of you.

Alex raises an eyebrow. I should hope not, she types back.

you act like i am sometimes

I meant no offense. I promise that's not what I think.

Chosen waits for her to elaborate, but Alex isn't sure how to phrase it. It's probably a good sign, though, that what she thinks matters to him.

You don't need to be afraid of someONE to be afraid of someTHING, she eventually settles on. Something like a scenario, a possibility, or even an idea. You're here, in a place where you would normally feel unsafe. It's only decent for me to do my best to mitigate that. That's what I think, anyway.

Chosen looks at her, in that way that faceless stick figures do. He's so hard to read, but she thinks that she's getting somewhere. you cant hurt me, he insists.

I can't and I won't, Alex agrees immediately.

i could burn down everything here

‘My computer was bricked,’ Alan once said to her. But that is, she thinks, rather the point.

I am very much aware, she tells him honestly. I'm just choosing to trust that you won't.

Chosen becomes very still, and Alex waits for him to process. 

Then he stiffens and looks sharply to the right.

The internet symbol... buzzes. That's the only word Alex can think of to describe the way it shudders into discolored blocks, the image suddenly out of synch with itself. There's an audible static that rises in pitch like microphone feedback, and Alex covers her ears with a shout.

Then it stops, and when she looks back, there is someone new on her computer screen. Not a stick figure, though. A goddamn bathroom sign.

“Um,” says Alex.

He's the figure on every sign to the men’s restroom the world over, though when he walks toward Chosen, who is already on guard and aflame, he looks more like one of those traffic signals, Walk or Don't Walk.

One thick gray arm moves, and suddenly he is armed with a long gun, like a high-tech rifle.

“Um,” Alex says nervously.

Chosen doesn't take his eyes off the intruder, but the words he spits out are laid behind him, presumably for her.

back up

Then he takes flight, makes a broad sweeping motion, and the taskbar goes molten with sudden heat.

Alex sits bolt upright in her chair, eyes wide. “Um!”

The gray intruder leaps up, grabbing scattered desktop icons as handholds, and the pair meet in midair. They exchange blows at a speed Alex can't even process, zipping across her screen, she doesn't even know where to look. The guy's movements are stilted, but not slow ‒ animated on too few frames with only a set number of poses ‒ and yet he parries Chosen’s far swifter attacks without issue. There's a sound like a tornado, and a stormcloud appears. The Chosen One calls lightning down on his opponent, but the sign figure surrounds himself in a triangular barrier all around him that absorbs the force, then draws his gun again. In that pose, he might have been lifted from the warning labels on something radioactive ‒ warning, hazard, beware.

Chosen fires lasers at him, blasts flames from his hands in close quarters ‒ but not directly at him. Just enough to keep him moving in one direction or another. Hazard keeps firing, and whatever he hits turns blurry and pixelated just like her internet signal, bleeding primary colors. Chosen gestures again, and the lava that was her taskbar lifts in a curving wave behind him, hardening into red-veined rock to protect the rest of Alex's stuff.

Oh, she realizes. Backup.

Moving quickly, Alex starts saving her most important information to the cloud. There isn't a ton of it, as most of her lessons or presentations are in google drive. But banking information, photos, medical records ‒ those she emails to herself as attachments, until the email window is hit with a particularly broad scattershot and fizzles away. Dropbox saves a few documents too, until the icon gets slammed down and flattened, dumping its contents. A few things get scorched or glitched by the time Alex tucks them away, but she's pretty sure she can order replacements. What else...

The Minecraft world. Her village. There are so many people living there now, but ‒ is that place even local to her computer, if the kids can travel to it from theirs? Alex has never once thought to look into the API files of the game, but if she did‒

Hazard swings over the top of the open folder window, placing himself behind Chosen, and shoots him in the back.

A little scream comes out of Alex when he goes down, spasming. There's a dart sticking out of Chosen's arm, she realizes, something electric burrowed into him like a neurotoxin. He falls limply off the file window, and Alex just barely catches him with the cursor and lays him down on the ground. She's complete shit with this tool, but‒ 

She selects Hazard, and the bounding box shatters immediately. She tries again, thumping the window on him, but the guy's a tank and doesn't halt his approach toward Chosen for anything. The gun is gone, and Alex doesn't want to know what is being pulled out in its place. Something to hurt him, something to bind him, and ‒ no.

No.

Frantic, Alex looks around her desk until she spots her phone, charging in an outlet. She grabs the cord, and tries three times before it slots correctly into her computer tower’s USB port. The message pops up: Alex's Android phone connected.

“Get up,” she whispers. “Get up, get up, please!”

Chosen angles his head, sees his exit, and propels himself into it with a final jet of flame. He arrives on her phone's screen in a heap, crashing through icons like a spasming bowling ball, and Alex unplugs it before Hazard can follow.

Then she pulls the plug on her entire desktop, and the screen goes dark.

‒

It's a distressingly long time before Chosen recovers. Alex holds her phone in shaking hands while he seizes and goes limp in turn, writhing with each new jolt of pain, squeezing the case until her knuckles are white and wishing she could do more than just watch. 

But he stays conscious.

And eventually the shocks die down, and the glitches wear off.

Eventually Chosen pulls himself partially upright, leans heavily against the side of the screen, and just breathes.

She's not sure how wise it is to open the Notes app with him there, but it seems like all it does is change the background Chosen is resting against, from her starry wallpaper to the yellow lines of a legal pad. The rising keyboard does jostle him a little, but not by much. 

Might be a stupid question but are you okay?

A long hesitation, but Chosen does manage a weak nod.

Alex lets out a breath. Right, she amends. I'll find you some words to eat.

Chosen shakes his head, and Alex winces.

Too tired?

A nod.

Okay. You just rest then. I'll figure something out.

She almost turns off the screen to put it down, just out of habit, but luckily catches herself. Then she quickly goes into the settings to disable any sleep mode timers or anything else that might disturb something, and plugs her phone back into the wall outlet to keep it charged, since there's no signal or connection through that for anyone else to get in. She contemplates switching to airplane mode, just to be safe, but before she does, Messenger pops open with a little ding, with a worried text from the guy who is quite possibly the last person either of them needs to hear from right now.

The last person they need to hear from, but the only person who might be able to help.

Chosen sees the message and droops, looking as tired as the day she met him, but evidently he still has a few usable letters knocking around inside him, because he leans his head against the wall of the screen and says, call him.

‒

They arrange to meet. Alan's not happy about it, protesting that she lives three states away, but there is no way Alex is sending Chosen to him through any kind of internet means, not after all that. Chosen got into her phone, an even smaller box than her desktop. He trusted her, and continues to trust her. She will make sure it wasn't for nothing.

It's still a two-day drive, and she has work on Monday. She makes her excuses, and there will surely be questions later, but for now that's not her problem. 

Alex packs a bag, fills up her gas tank, and starts on the drive to Ohio.

Chapter Text

Purple saw the portal go out behind them, of course. 

It makes sense. Sunglasses guy was about to follow them, and King wanted ‒ King wanted to protect them. He wanted to protect them and Purple just ran like they always do‒

But they saw the portal go out. 

It doesn't make sense that it's back on.

Purple lands with Green on one of the bastion’s bridges, above the valley where the portal to the Outernet resides. They did actually get around to asking Alex about “normal Minecraft”, and portals are supposed to be able to be lit from both sides. It never occurred to them to try before but they thought ‒ maybe if they brought reinforcements, someone smart enough or brave enough to actually be of use‒ 

Green peers over the edge with them, frowning thoughtfully. “Okay...” he says slowly. “There's two reasons that could be lit again. Either King won the fight‒”

“Or he didn't,” Purple concludes, face pale. “If he won, he would have come to us. We would have met him on the way.” They take a step toward the bridge’s edge, wings spread.

Green grabs them by the wrist and hisses for them to stop, and it's the odd sense of deja vu more than anything else that compels Purple to obey. 

It's right in time for them to hear the telltale whoosh, and then the agent in sunglasses is in the nether.

Green tugs them both out of sight. “That's him?” he whispers.

They nod.

Shades pops his head in and looks around while Purple has a silent freakout, clutching Green’s hand so tight it's surely painful, though Green doesn't complain. The agent examines stuff with a magnifier over his eye, fiddling with the toolbar on his wrist all the while. After a moment he takes out his reticle and draws a pair of perpendicular lines that Purple doesn't realize are a vague approximation of a pickaxe until he hits a piece of netherrack with it. He looks at the broken block quizzically, until he gets close enough that it slots into his inventory and the hotbar appears over his head. Then he begins examining and fiddling with that in earnest.

Green tilts his head. “Has this guy never been in Minecraft before?”

Purple remembers to breathe out. “I don't know if you're aware,” they snark lightly, “but most sticks haven't. We can't all live in a fancy computer.”

“Okay, chill,” Green tells them, eyebrow raised. Then, after a pause, “You know you're welcome anytime, right?”

Purple sighs and doesn't answer. In theory they do ‒ all of them, not just Green, have said it often enough. But they get too deep in their head sometimes, and it makes things... difficult. They've barely started to feel comfortable and seen at King’s place, and that's only because King has gone to some rather extraordinary measures ‒ in Purple's opinion anyway ‒ to make it feel like their home and not just his. 

Before Green can remark on their silence, there's a sound like a gatling gun in the distance. A netherrack cliff face to the north explodes open in a hail of gunfire, and out of the smoke comes another stick figure. He’s drawn in black with a white-filled head, like Shades, but much smaller, less than half the agent’s full height and so pixelated they cannot make out any facial features ‒ aside from the fact that his head is split open into a ballista tower. As they watch, the gun retracts and the guy’s head closes up like a children's easter egg, and he scampers the rest of the way to the other merc, gesticulating wildly.

Another arrival, marked by footsteps too rapid to be normal, this time coming from behind them on the bridge. Green spins around, sword out, but it's just Blue who skids to a stop, particles from a speed potion still swirling around her. She's breathing hard, but grins at them nevertheless. “Hey guys!”

“Blue?”

“Where's Second? I thought you were going with him?”

“Alex had to turn off her computer after the merc got in, but Alan got a hold of her, she and Chosen are fine. They're on their way here, actually!”

Purple blinks. “To the nether?”

“No, to Alan's house,” Blue laughs. “Second's still with him, to answer your original question. Alan asked me to excuse them? I think they needed to have a serious talk.”

Purple feels some unexplained nervousness curl in their gut. “Is that... okay? That you left Second alone?”

Blue tilts her head at them. “Why wouldn't it be?”

“Yeah, it's just Alan,” Green adds.

They're both so certain, so Purple shrugs after a brief pause ‒ maybe they're just projecting.

Blue covers a slight gasp. “Oh no...

Purple snaps their head back, but Blue is looking at the two mercenaries down below. That's when they notice the shorter one has figured out his inventory too, and even seems more used to operating it, because he easily finds and produces a dragon’s head and presents it to Shades.

Now it's Green’s turn to go pale. “You don't think...”

“They killed her,” Purple whispers.

“But how‒?”

“All three locations. That's what he said. Shades didn't just send people to yours and Alex's, he sent them to every computer I've been to. That includes the Mac.”

"And from there, the end portal" Green finishes grimly. "And the nether portal to get into Minecraft proper afterwards. Shit."

Blue frowns. “Okay, but why kill the ender dragon if they're looking for Chosen?”

“Why attack Alan if they're looking for Chosen?” Purple counters, a little too loudly. A look over the edge of the bridge tells them the mercenaries haven't detected them yet, at least. Quieter, they add, “The truth is we have no idea what these guys want.”

Green gives a little grin. “Then we gotta find out, right?”

Purple watches the two below. Shades takes the dragon head and examines it with that magnifier they saw before. He heads back through the nether portal briefly, then comes back out with one of King’s command blocks and shows it to Ballista, then points at the portal again. Ballista nods enthusiastically, and scampers back the way he came.

Blue’s eyes widen. “Is he going back to the village?”

“He already killed the dragon! Hasn’t he done enough damage?”

Green and Blue exchange a look, and Purple knows what conclusion they’ve come to. Hell, they even understand ‒ they were responsible for that village, once. But... “If something happened to King, if... if he's hurt, or...”

“If he is, can we do anything about it?” Green points out pragmatically. “I mean, I know I'm good, but these are the sticks that have even The Chosen One running scared. I don’t like our chances if we follow Shades back to the Outernet, but in the End we might have a shot. Minecraft is our turf.”

Blue’s eyes tick back and forth as she thinks. “I came here to let Yellow and Red know we found Alex, since they were trying to contact her via the desert village after emailing didn't work. And then I thought I'd catch up to you guys. I would have brought them along but I only had the one speed boost and I probably ought to make more splash potions, they seem a lot more efficient, but I really needed the duration for this one‒”

Green snaps his fingers in front of her face a few times. “Blue, focus.”

“Right! The point is, they're on their way here, so they can follow sunglasses guy and figure out what’s up while we go help the village.”

“Someone has to let them know, though,” Green points out. “Where to go, what to look for...”

“Well it’s not me,” protests Blue. “You guys think you’ll survive in the End without an archer?”

Purple was responsible for that village. As much as they want to help King... “M-maybe,” they stammer, reluctant. “Maybe Green could stay behind? Meet the others here?”

“Yeah, try again,” Green counters, rolling his eyes at the very notion. “I'm not leaving you.”

“We'll leave a message with the piglins,” Blue says firmly. “I don't know if you're aware, but a lot of Minecraft's code hinges on that dragon. The baby‒”

“Right,” says Green. “Let's go.”

So they go.

‒

Purple hasn't been to this Mac for years now, and going through its nether portal again is... strange. It and a myriad of other portals reside in an isolated bit of nether wastes, where the color gang's first nether portal resided before it shifted position into the crimson forest quite some distance away. Apparently they had destroyed their original portal and didn't rebuild it until just before they met King. The fact that it popped up in a completely different location after being rebuilt makes Purple nervous. What if the portal to the Outernet doesn't lead to the same place after being relit either?

The Mac's nether portal opens up on the computer's desktop near to the taskbar, rather than in a storage folder. That was on purpose, back when Purple first set this place up and led the villagers here from their original home. It was a very similar situation to what Alex found herself in, actually, with her desert village oasis. The difference is that Purple ran away from the problems of the original village instead of sticking around to fix it, and dragged everyone else with them. And then they ran away again when they inevitably caused more problems. Typical of them, really.

Still, bringing everyone out of Minecraft proper and into a computer definitely seemed clever at the time. Purple still isn't sure how they got away with it, but if there was a human on the other side of the monitor, no one in the village ever saw them. 

Not knowing who this desktop actually belongs to does not soften the blow when they arrive on a scene of absolute destruction.

The taskbar has been sliced in half, the pieces resting lopsided against each other. There are no icons, and the separate windows where the village was built are riddled with bullet holes that pixelate and glitch at their edges. Very few houses remain, and the shells of infrastructure where they were are actively on fire. Even the desktop’s background is damaged.

Blue and Green look around in a kind of macabre awe. “Oh, man...”

“Come on.” Frantically, Purple locates and clicks into the library and the rest of the village. The stairs to the upper level are in shambles but they fly up with the other two with a little effort. They're not even sure what they can do, but‒

A sound like a jackhammer. The castle is still standing, but Ballista is at the base of it, punching through the foundation so fast it's a blur. With a cartoonish windup, the pixel stick blasts through the wall, uncovering the stronghold inside.

Purple frowns. Ballista has clearly already been to the end. Why is the entrance closed up again?

Unless the village isn't gone. Purple's eyes widen. Alex brought her villagers into the lush caves, maybe‒

There's a rushing sound, the familiar zap of a teleport, and Purple is off and running before their conscious brain catches up. Green and Blue, they are relieved to note, follow them without a word.

Maybe they can still fix this.

Chapter Text

They land on the obsidian platform just fine, but nothing else in the End is the same. The dragon’s nest has been transformed into an entire End city, built up with materials from the End and overworld alike, and teeming with villagers in an uproar. They are running into the buildings, some panicked and visibly injured, others directing traffic or preparing weapons. This was an evacuation.

Purple appears just behind the mercenary, who notices their presence immediately, catching sight of them with a manic little grin. Said grin splits open, bisecting the stick’s entire head to reveal that ballista tower again. Purple launches straight upward and over, then panics when they realize Green and Blue arrived just behind them, and Purple just aimed the merc right at them. 

Green swings down under the obsidian platform with a fishing rod and spins to the other side to kick into Ballista, who tilts enough that his bullets miss Blue. Purple regains their wits enough to swoop back down and grab her, and deposits her on the main End island. Green ender-pearls in to join them.

A few villagers approach, gesturing for the three of them to follow along with the evacuation, so they do. They all flee into the base of one of the towers, and a line of clerics close ranks behind them with arms raised. Some kind of barrier forms, deflecting Ballista’s bullets as he runs after them. It wavers a bit when he begins punching it rapidly, but seems to hold firm for now.

When they get inside, they are surrounded by villagers.

“Hello again, your Highness,” says a dry voice that Purple recognizes with a sinking feeling.

“Antonio...” The villager who stepped forward from amongst the crowd cocks one half of his unibrow, but Purple really isn’t sure what to say.

Green just grins. “Hey, you’re that guy we bribed to let us out of jail!”

Antonio bows slightly. “And you’ve done remarkable things with your freedom, I see,” he says in a tone that makes Purple sure he’s somehow insulting them. Then he turns to Purple. “Your Highness, if you’ll come with me?”

“I ‒ I’m not‒” Purple hesitates. “Look, we need to ‒ well, this is gonna sound really bad coming from me, but we came here to find the baby ender dragon. That guy out there wants it, I don’t know why, but‒”

“I think I do,” says Antonio. He turns deeper into the building, gesturing for them all to follow. “Come.”

‒

Naturally generated End cities are already weird, but combining them with the architectural “style” of your typical Minecraft village makes this one even weirder. The towers do indeed get bigger as they grow taller, but there are village huts connecting them instead of bridges. There is a stone church with a purpur bell tower, and an endstone blacksmith dangling high in the empty sky. 

Green is visibly holding back numerous critiques. 

Purple smiles to themself, then catches up to Antonio and asks, “What happened here? How’d you build all this in the middle of the dragon’s nest?”

Antonio doesn’t answer for a moment, but eventually says, “Ender dragons spawn from the void. There are but twenty generations of dragons per nest, and then the place is abandoned.” He leads them to a large gazebo structure atop the portal back to the overworld. “The dragon you all fought was the twentieth in her line. There wasn’t supposed to be another, but there was.”

Inside the gazebo, crouched angrily over the bedrock portal, is the baby ender dragon.

She’s grown, almost triple the size of when Purple saw her last, with tiny white teeth just barely starting to grow in. The dragon hisses at their approach, wings flared, with threatening wisps of fire in her maw. There are cuts and bullet holes littering her hide, bleeding sluggishly.

“A few of us came back here, after you left,” Antonio continues, gazing at the baby sadly. “No ender dragon has ever lived to meet her child, you see. It’s just the way of things. But you changed that, somehow. So she allowed us to build here, and commanded the endermen to leave us be.”

“She was grateful,” Blue says softly.

Antonio nods. “And now she’s dead. The end crystals atop the towers are all destroyed, and now the child has nothing to feed from. But more than that... I think she is grieving. This is the place where her mother died, you see.”

The dragon hisses again, snapping her jaws.

Green swallows. “But ‒ what does that have to do with that mercenary out there? Why did he come here in the first place?”

This time Antonio hesitates. “This is only a guess, but... when that stick figure came to our village, he spent a lot of time examining the computer, breaking things apart to read the code beneath with some kind of device. This included‒” he swallows. “This included several villagers. He tore them open and read them line by line.”

Blue gasps. Green swears. Purple feels themself go numb all over.

“We are... different, now,” Antonio continues softly. “Many things in the computer were different ‒ changed on a basic level, down to the zeroes and ones. The crops, the animals, the golems, but none more than us villagers. And, of course, the dragons. I believe ‒ and I assume the mercenary has come to this conclusion as well ‒ that it was because of you.”

Purple blinks, taken aback. “Me?”

“All of you,” Antonio amends. “Or... any of you. I cannot say for sure. But something about your presence... changes things in Minecraft. Changes things all over the internet, I would imagine. Makes things work in ways they aren’t supposed to. I believe your mercenary is very interested in that.”

Purple is silent for a long moment before they finally blurt, “Antonio, I’m sorry. I know you say it worked out alright but stealing that egg just for clout was unbelievably stupid and dangerous. Plus running an economy on artificial scarcity was an extremely dick move but I thought if I didn’t have something valuable to offer then I wouldn’t have a place here. And then I led the mercenaries to the Mac somehow ‒ one of them read my code too, I think, or at least my IP history, and the address sent them here. If I had just never come to your village to begin with‒”

“Enough.” Antonio holds up a hand. 

Purple lowers their gaze, tense, and in the silence Green sidles up next to them and holds their hand. A lump forms in their throat.

The villager sighs. “I cannot speak for everyone, but I am personally not the type to hold a grudge. And in truth, I don’t believe any of us are.”

Purple sniffs and rubs at their eyes, and Green bumps shoulders with them with a small smile.

Then Blue says, thoughtfully, “We could probably make an end crystal for her.”

“Oh!” Green shuffles around in his inventory. “I have glass and... an ender pearl, not an eye.”

“I have blaze powder and a ghast tear. We’re good.” 

Green places a crafting table and hands Blue the supplies. She handles the crystal carefully when it’s crafted ‒ it’s highly volatile and spins in her hands.

But when she approaches the young dragon it only roars, high pitched but loud, flapping up a decent wind with her battered wings, and Blue has to cover the crystal to keep from jostling it when she trips back. “Cursors,” she mutters. “Where's Red when you need him. Um, hey little guy...”

Purple sits down in front of the dragon and waits.

Green draws Blue backward, and the dragon continues thrashing her tail and hissing, pale lavender blood dripping from her wounds. But Purple doesn’t move, and eventually she stops, eyeing them suspiciously.

“Hi,” Purple says very quietly, and the dragon breathes out the softest of growls. “I dunno if you remember me. I kind of... I held you when you hatched. And your mom loved you so much, I knew I had to give you back.”

The dragon roars, a breath of hot wind in Purple's face, and they swallow nervously.

“My ‒ my friend here says you were the first dragon to ever meet her mom. That's... that's so special. What you had together was something brand new, something no one else like you ever had. But that just makes it hurt that much more now that she's gone.”

The roar changes pitch, becomes a keening cry.

“Standing guard over her grave won't bring her back. Nothing will bring her back, and that's... that's hard to live with. But you have to live. Who else is going to remember her the way you do?”

The ender dragon doesn't move, only breathes heavily, and Purple reaches an arm back. Blue carefully hands them the crystal.

“You're hurt,” Purple tells the dragon, standing slowly. “This will help ‒ I know your mother taught you that. We just need to place it on the bedrock there. It's not enough, and we'll come back with more later, I promise. But for now this should help your wounds close. Will you please take it?”

There’s a long silence where the only sound is that of the dragon’s labored breathing. But eventually... she takes a step back, and then another, until the bedrock portal is revealed. 

Blue lets out a breath, and Purple smiles slightly. They place the crystal on the edge of the portal.

A beam of light that looks almost like the dense writing of an enchantment table lances into the dragon, who breathes deep as the pain in her body, though not her heart, recedes. Purple reaches out a cautious hand, and she leans forward to put her nose under it, accepting the offer of comfort.

“Me and my friends? We can't bring her back,” Purple tells her. “But we can make the guy who did it go away. You're just a kid. You deserve someone who’ll protect you. So rest up and leave it to us, okay?”

The dragonet pushes up into their hand one more time, then draws back and curls up at the base of the portal to sleep.

“Huh,” says Green, and Purple starts. “Best get on that, then.”

Purple blows out a breath as what they just promised hits them. “I really just said that, didn't I?”

Blue chuckles at them as they begin the walk back the way they came. “You got a plan?”

“Not in the slightest.”

Green throws an arm around their shoulders and grins. “Works for me!”

‒

The clerics’ barrier is still holding when they make it back out, but it ripples and wobbles dangerously under Ballista's unrelenting fire, and a few of the villagers sustaining it have retreated in exhaustion.

“So,” Blue remarks conversationally, stretching her shoulders a bit in preparation. “The three of us, in the End. Brings back memories, doesn't it?”

“Yep! Falling into the void was hilarious.”

“Shut up,” Purple says good-naturedly.

Blue raises her eyebrows. “That does give me an idea, though.”

Green's eyes widen as he grins. “Oh yeah. We can do that.”

The barrier parts for them when they approach. Ballista stops firing for just a moment as he turns to look at them, and Blue shoots him right down the barrel. 

The merc staggers back but recovers fast, blasting the arrow back out and charging to meet Green. Green dances back, leading him further from the barrier, then makes a slash with his diamond sword. Ballista produces a massive blade from somewhere and blocks with the flat end before slicing down. He only misses because Blue hooks his sword arm with her fishing rod and yanks.

Unlike Primal, Ballista doesn't snap the line so easily. Instead he winds the line around his arm to reel Blue in in turn. He winds up for a punch when she gets close enough, and she lets go of the rod to avoid getting hit. She draws her bow, but he spins and whacks her in the side with the end of the rod before she gets a shot.

Purple swoops in and nabs the rod, then rockets up. Ballista dangles, arm wrenching up, and Purple hopes it's painful. Out comes the giant sword again, and he yanks himself upward for momentum before spinning and slicing the line, then using the upward movement to leap for Purple midair and slam into them.

If Purple has learned anything, it's how to take a punch. But this guy doesn't stop, and their wings crumple, and they both go down.

All the air punches out of their lungs when they land hard on the rough endstone, and Ballista keeps on punching them into the ground. Green makes to tackle him off of them, but the merc catches him in an oversized hand and throws him toward the edge of the island where he lands in a roll. Ballista stands back up, opens his head, and makes to shoot Purple point blank. 

Purple launches a rocket in his face.

The rocket explodes and Ballista staggers back. Then Green brings out his own fishing rod and uses the merc’s unbalance to hook him and fling him out over the void. 

Ballista falls for just a moment. Then his head opens up again, and a freaking helicopter rotor pops out the top of it, allowing him to dangle and hover clumsily in midair. 

He starts flying up, flying back in, and Blue shoots him to knock him further back. It works, a bit, but the merc is still gaining ground, either blocking the worst of the damage with armored forearms or swinging upside down to dodge. So Purple struggles to their feet, runs out over the edge‒

“Purple!” Green shouts.

‒and slams Ballista down.

They suppose they're lucky that the merc can't seem to bring out the big guns while still in helicopter mode, but he still fights them, fights to shove them off as their combined weight pushes them closer to the void. Purple punches him in the throat, then lights another rocket to push them further down.

Then can feel it when Ballista starts to choke on empty space ‒ Purple starts gasping for air too. But they keep on rocketing down.

Then they hear the reel of a cast fishing line, coming closer, and they angle their feet down to kick Ballista away just as he's drawn his last breath. Then the hook catches Purple's wrist and pulls them back upward, back out of the void, back to the others. 

Ballista falls, and vanishes as he dies.

The other two work together to drag Purple back up over the edge, onto land, and Purple crashes into Green. Blue slumps down next to them, and they all just catch their breath for a while.

“...You haven’t developed some kind of self-sacrificing complex to, air quotes, make up for all the bad stuff, have you?” Green asks them bluntly in between breaths. “Cuz if so, then knock it the hell off.”

Purple huffs a weak laugh. “Kay.”

‒

If Ballista had an inventory, if he was properly in Minecraft, then he’s probably going to respawn somewhere. That much, they agree on. The trouble is, none of them know where.

So they return to the Mac. Going back through the End portal always feels like a dream, with a faint memory of two voices speaking that always fades away too fast. The three of them block up and hide the end portal as best they can, and do the same for the nether portal on the other side, trying their best to disguise it amongst the terrain. Whatever those mercenaries want with examples of altered code, they won't be getting it from the baby dragon, or Purple's villagers.

(They waved Purple goodbye this time, and told them to come back soon. They're gonna count that as a win.)

Chapter Text

When Red appears on the other side of King's portal, there are strange gray sticks on the other side.

By the time Yellow follows him through, he's knocked out one of them, and they work together to disable the other two.

Yellow rolls his eyes at him. “I told you to just stick your head in!”

“They saw me when I stuck my head in, so I had to do something.”

“It could have been sunglasses guy still in here! Cloud knows we spent long enough waiting for him to leave the nether again!”

It did take forever, and then Yellow insisted on an additional forever to give the agent time to vacate wherever the portal exited before they could follow. But still. “It worked out fine, didn't it?”

Yellow groans.

Red looks around, because King’s basement is a wreck. Not that Red has ever seen the place before, but he's pretty sure there's not supposed to be upturned shelves and chunks blasted out of the walls and floor. And the ceiling is kind of... gone? Dirt and sunlight spill in from the surface. Whatever happened here, it was big.

Yellow is digging around in the rubble, though more specifically. “Did you see what those three were doing before you punched them?”

“Um. They were by that pile to the right.”

Yellow shuffles over slightly and levers up a piece of rock. There are command blocks underneath, but the corners are dented in, and one of them has broken open.

“Yeah, I think they were in the middle of taking that one apart,” Red clarifies.

“Amatures,” Yellow mutters. “What could they possibly want with this stuff?”

Red goes back to the unconscious sticks and begins a rudimentary search. “You're the one who keeps going on about command blocks, you tell me.”

“Yeah, but it's limited here.” He reaches into the block with some effort and pulls out a densely folded piece of paper. It is somehow both singed and soggy. “Ugh, they damaged it. Idiots.”

There’s nothing particularly interesting in the gray sticks’ pockets, but something appears over one of their wrists when Red bends it a certain way. He pokes at it, and a couple different icons scroll by with a soft beeping noise. “I think these are animation tools,” he tells Yellow.

Yellow looks up. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. No pencil, but this is definitely an eraser. And ‒ some kind of reticle? I don't think it's for drawing, it's round.”

“Let me see.” Yellow kneels down next to Red and takes the unconscious gray’s wrist in his hands, scrolls past a few icons. “Yeah, I recognize some of these. Second would know more.”

“Let's bring it back and show him, then!”

“How?” Yellow grasps the outside edges of the toolbar and tugs in a few different directions, but it doesn't budge. “Unless you're up for dragging an unconscious body all the way back home?”

“Well can't you just‒” Red plucks one of the icons, an eyedropper, straight off the toolbar.

Yellow blinks. “Or we could do that.”

“Hurry it up down there!” calls a voice from the house above, and Red panics so bad he nearly drops it.

“Colors!” Yellow hisses, grabbing the eyedropper out of his hands as well as the paint bucket still on the toolbar.

Red immediately gets it. He scrambles up to drag the other two grays nearer while Yellow selects his own color and fills one of them in as yellow, then selects red and fills another. He selects gray from the third and fills himself and Red just as Red snatches the hats from the two dyed grays on the ground and places them roughly on his and Yellow’s heads.

Just in time, because a tall black stick with sunglasses over a white-filled face walks in, looking irritated. “How long does it take to‒” The agent cuts himself off when he takes in the scene. For all anyone could tell, it's Red, Yellow, and one of the grays that are unconscious on the ground, with two perfectly normal grays still standing. Shades looks sharply at them. “Did they come through the nether portal?”

Yellow freezes. “Um‒”

“They jumped in through the hole in the ceiling,” Red makes up on the spot. “Probably some neighborhood guys who wanted to investigate, though they didn't take it well when we asked them to leave.” He gestures to the third unconscious gray as though that explained anything.

Shades buys it though. “Dumb teenagers,” he mutters. “One of you take whatshisname back to the truck, leave the other two. The other, pick up the rest of these blocks and follow me.”

Red and Yellow exchange a brief look. Without saying a word, Yellow picks up the damaged command blocks and follows the agent out and up through the tunnel. Red hesitates, but does as he’s told as well. If nothing else, witnesses to their deception will be locked in a basement for a few hours, which can’t hurt.

The gray stick who remained gray groans groggily when Red lifts him up. Red makes sure not to say a word. Secret agent man might think of all these guys as interchangeable, but one of the grays themselves will surely notice that Red’s voice isn’t right if he isn’t careful.

He doesn’t completely regain consciousness the entire way up, though, and Red feels bad for calling that a blessing. When he gets to the street outside the house, he sees Yellow frozen at the rear of a big gray van with a rocket logo on the side, seemingly paused in the act of loading the command blocks ‒ quite a few more than the broken ones he previously picked up ‒ into the back. He's staring at the inside of the truck, utterly unmoving.

Red flounders for a moment, then decides with a shrug to put the unconscious gray in the back of the truck as well. That's when he sees what has Yellow so shook, and he nearly drops the gray in shock.

In the darkness of the back of the cargo storage is King, looking as furious as they'd ever seen him, wielding a different staff with netherite installed at the top, paused in the middle of a swing the right height to take someone's head off. Literally paused, somehow, with the icon superimposed over him. 

Red asks, shakily, “Did you bring the command staff?”

“No, because it doesn't fit in my inventory, and also I thought we were going to the desert village, not fighting a supervillain!” Yellow hisses back.

Or someone who can take out a supervillain, at any rate, Red thinks. 

They both turn to look at the agent, who is facing the house and doing something with his own, much larger, toolbar. He selects a large space that covers the entire property of the house, all the way back to where the basement ceiling caved in. Then he taps a button ‒ an arrow doubled back on itself, undo ‒ several times in a row. Before their eyes, damage to the house and grounds is reversed, until there is nothing to indicate that a fight ever took place here. Red clutches the paint fill tool in his pocket, considers the other tools that were on the gray's arm and how many more are on the agent's, and wonders ‒ perhaps for the first time ‒ if they're in over their heads.

They look at King again, then back to the agent. The guy doesn't even look hurt.

He does notice them staring, though, and scowls. “Finish loading up and get in the truck,” he snaps at them. “The boss has been waiting for a haul like this, so step on it.” He climbs into the truck’s cab without another word, where another gray waits as the driver. 

Red and Yellow obey. What other choice do they have?

‒

victim is already waiting eagerly just inside the compound when Striker arrives with the team he called in, alight with anticipation. 

Striker steps down from the truck's cab almost before it fully stops and strides towards victim, looking quite pleased with himself. “Boss,” he says cheerily, “if this isn't worth a bonus, I don't know what is.” And he produces a cube, pixelated in shades of tan and brown, with colorful blinking lights on each side. 

He hands it to victim, who examines it. Command Block, appears a label as soon as the cube is in its hands, although it quickly fades to transparency. Interesting. 

“I haven't figured out all the functions yet,” Striker goes on, “but within Minecraft its power is significant. I'm fairly sure it'll have Outernet applications too, but hey, I'm not a research guy.”

Indeed, Striker already sent victim a summary of his cursory findings, as diligent and professional as always, and the idea of holding the same or similar command over any space as it does within the Box is... staggering. “Well done,” it admits softly. Then, glancing at the truck, “And your new friend?”

“Brought him in, as per protocol. Any new tools we find, the original user comes too.”

Diligent and professional as always. “Show me.”

Striker nods and leads it around to the back of the truck, where one gray stick is leading another quite dazed stick off to Medical, and two more rather jumpy ones scramble out of their way when they approach. 

The back is already open, and inside is a tall stick, muted orange in color, wielding a staff with a large cubic topper as though fully intent on murder before he was stopped. 

“You said his name was King?” victim asks, frowning.

Striker nods, arms folded casually. “Not sure if that's the name he was created with, but that's what's in his code now. Guy had a dozen of those blocks, and some weaponry tech to match.”

“How did we miss this?” victim wonders aloud. The man would have been a fantastic hire for engineering if it had caught wind of all this sooner.

“I tried looking him up after meeting him the first time, weeks ago,” Striker tells it. “Apparently he's been off the grid for almost two years. He's the father of the kid who died in the Booth 30 incident.”

Now that is news, and victim's eyebrows shoot up. “Definitely a missed opportunity.”

“Cloud knows how he got into Minecraft after... that,” Striker continues, impressed in spite of himself. “But whatever happened in that interval, he came out of it real protective of that Purple kid.”

“The one who's gotten away from you twice, now,” victim remarks mildly.

“The first time didn't count,” Striker retorts, rolling his eyes. “Lying brat. They know where The Chosen One is, I'm sure of it now. Probably so does their new dad, if you want to go that route. I know you already had the Box prepared.”

“That may not be necessary,” victim tells him, although admittedly it might be fun. “The Chosen One is most likely with the Animator by now, and we already have his location.”

Getting to actually surprise Striker is a rare treat. “We have the what now?”

“Primal reported in while you were gone,” victim tells him with a knifelike smile. “She found him.”

Chapter Text

They've gone from having no leads to having a dozen in the space of a day.

Primal returned first with the most important news of all: the Animator's location. As fantastic as that is, however, it is still putting the cart before the proverbial horse. A victim will never be anything but a victim, and this particular victim still needs The Chosen One.

Hazard is MIA. This could mean anything or nothing, but victim is inclined to think of worst case scenarios, which in this case might actually prove promising.

Ballista made contact with Striker before disappearing again. His findings were further proof of what victim is now absolutely certain of.

A victim will never be anything but a victim.

But that can change.

‒

“So hey, this is weird,” Red whispers to Yellow covertly as they carry King freaking Orange through the halls of this bizarre facility. He is disarmed now ‒ though it took multiple sticks to pry the staff out of his deadlock grip ‒ but still frozen in time. The agent, who is apparently named Striker, told the two of them to take King to containment. 

Neither of them has any idea where that is, so they're kind of just walking. Walking, and hoping desperately that they look like they know what they're doing. No one's called them out yet, or given them any odd looks other than what is probably normal for, like, prisoner transport?? 

“The word you're looking for is ironic,” Yellow informs him.

Red thinks about that, because he isn't sure he agrees. It's just... it's King, and they've walked through multiple areas with cages in them at this point, and the associations are just... incredibly bizarre. 

“Ironic, but also deeply uncomfortable,” Red decides, “and therefore weird.”

Yellow ignores him and continues looking furtively around for somewhere to duck into, so Red follows his lead. They've been trying to avoid going too deep into the building, sticking to outside walls with windows available, which makes sense. The trouble is, there aren't any handy broom closets or anything on the perimeter. It's all just offices with open floor plans and plexiglass doors.

Eventually they spot a corner at least partially blocked off by a water cooler and a few fake plants, so Yellow steers them there. Red helps place King down and waits for Yellow to come up with something smart.

Something smart is, evidently, a command block stolen out of the truck.

“You think that'll work?” Red asks, keeping a lookout.

They've tried just hitting the pause button that's on King, but it's insubstantial, not a real object. It doesn't even look different when you look at it from a different angle, like it's purely in their perception. A little like a HUD in that regard.

“I have exactly one idea,” Yellow says nervously as he types a command into the block. “And we might be screwed whether or not it works, so stand back.”

Red looks again at King, weaponless, but still paused in the middle of a deadly strike. “Oh,” he says, and backs away.

Yellow hits the button, and Red can't read all of the command text that pops up for the space of an eyeblink, but part of it is /effect <king_orange> clear all.

The pause symbol vanishes, and an abruptly unbalanced King crashes into the water cooler, toppling both to the ground.

He rolls quickly upright, then rounds on Yellow, who throws his hands up in a panic. “Stop! It's Yellow! I-I turned myself gray but it's me!”

King draws up short, the wrath on his face giving way to the far less familiar confusion. “Yellow?”

Red coughs and waves. “I'm here too. It's Red.”

King looks back and forth between the two for a moment, then takes in their surroundings, frowning deeply. He doesn't entirely relax, still clenching uncomfortably empty hands, but his eyes do seem clearer when they land on Yellow again.

“What happened?”

To the best of their ability, they tell him.

‒

“Sir, you'd better take a look at monitor four.”

Primal’s voice comes in through Striker’s comm, and victim doesn't question it when he quickly changes the view on its office computer.

There, in an unused corner of an office bullpen, are two grays and a mysteriously unpaused prisoner.

“Oh, come on,” Striker mutters, annoyed. He leans over to tinker with the camera’s settings, and reticles zoom in on each of the sticks. King’s readout reveals all the information they've already compiled, but the other two...

There's an error code that matches the one Striker now recognizes as detecting a Minecraft inventory, but there's more. These two have taken apart a gray’s toolbar, somehow, peeled off the color selection and fill tools like stickers and used them independently of the interface ‒ which shouldn't be possible to do ‒ to disguise themselves. Their filenames are stickfigureRed and stickfigureYellow. 

Striker frowns at the display. “How did they do that?”

victim, however, is elated.

“They're close to the source,” it tells him. “Two steps removed, at most.”

Striker looks at it in shock. "You're kidding," he says flatly.

Two surprises in one day. A new record. “Do not let them get away,” victim orders.

He nods, and is out the door.

Primal gets there first with a couple of security grays. Red and Yellow step back with their hands up, and King is far, far less formidable without a weapon and no means to obtain one. Primal, having been briefed on King’s skills, keeps her spear stowed away, and carefully trains her bow on King while the grays move in for the children. 

King steps in their way, hands raised in a placating gesture ‒ an act, from what victim knows of him now ‒ and Primal barks at him to back down. The grays look at one another, unsure; victim almost wonders what story he is concocting. Then, from the vantage of the security camera, it sees Yellow reach slowly for the command block, type something into it just as Striker arrives on the scene.

All three of them vanish.

victim squints. Not vanished ‒ all their readouts are still available on its monitor. They’re just invisible. One of the grays gets knocked back by a phantom punch, the rest follow their training and circle the area to mitigate chances of escape. Primal makes for the unattended command block and jams her spear into it, throwing sparks, but the block’s destruction does not appear to negate its effects. Then the spear is lifted out of the block by invisible hands and turned on Primal with astonishing force. 

Striker selects the lasso tool, and separate bounding boxes appear around Primal’s spear and a space of empty air and force the two apart. Two more boxes find two more invisible sticks. A click of an undo button renders them all visible again, and one more reveals the true colors of the gray imposters.

They are all apprehended again without much further drama.

victim sits back in its office chair, intrigued. These are, without a doubt, the sticks Primal met when she broke into AlansPC. They fought in defense of their home, and the Animator fought with them. 

A curious development, even if it ultimately changes nothing. It wonders, though, if spending most of their lives on a computer influenced these children’s development in some way. 

Something to test out another day, perhaps. For now, victim has a much bigger picture in mind.

‒

Minecraft is a bit of an oddity among games. Stick figures can sneak into just about every web-hosted game there is, for all that more modern legislation attempts to restrict that access for the sake of safety. Such concerns were compounded by worries about where The Dark Lord and The Chosen One would appear next ‒ games that went down, even temporarily, spelled death for many a stick.

But Minecraft is one of the few whose use persisted even beyond the tragedies, and despite the rules. Part of that is economic ‒ smuggling from a game whose resources are quite literally endless is a very lucrative endeavor ‒ but there's something else too. Something about Minecraft’s code is uniquely compatible with that of stick figures, and until now victim hasn't been sure why.

The ender dragon, however, is a wellspring of complex code, densely folded in on itself like strands of DNA. Not just its own code, but that of the entire game, void-spawned as it is. And it is in that code that victim finds its answer.

Why is Minecraft so receptive to stick influence?

Because it had been influenced almost from the start. 

Not the game’s earliest alpha builds, no. Those were from a time where sentient stick figures didn't even exist. But almost as soon as sticks began to awaken in great numbers, some of them were there ‒ those of AlansPC. Five children, four of them awakened by the fifth. Their expectations of the game were folded deep into its code, and new additions and updates could not help but bend to those expectations as well. And that fifth child, well... Whatever awakened him, he is perhaps as close to the source of all awakening as it is possible to be.

victim likes to think of it as a virus, passed from one stick figure to another, or from sticks to other digital constructs. The virus animates those constructs, breathes life into them, makes them real. It spreads across the internet, out from the source and through those the source touches, though the effects seem to be weakened with each step removed from the proverbial patient zero.

There is always a patient zero, with a virus. A carrier, for whom the effects on people and things around him are the strongest. 

A victim can change nothing, not about itself and not about the world around it. For all that it was the first to awaken, it does not have that power.

But something knocked it loose when it was in mindless stasis, a shadow behind the desktop display. Someone, knowingly or unknowingly, brought it to life when it was suspended as anything but.

Someone could, given the right circumstances, change victim, awaken it as something else. Transform its code into something that can take revenge. Something to be feared.

And really, given the timeline, given the names... there is only one stick it could be. victim is honing in on him fast, and it is going to make him fear it. Then, and only then, can it go after its true target.

There is a photo in a drawer of victim's desk. A simple, almighty cursor. That's all it ever knew of its Animator. But Alan Becker is not a god. He is nothing but a man.

And he will burn for that.

Chapter Text

Alex keeps the phone screen on and face-up at all times. It helps.

While driving, she mounts the phone against the car window so Chosen can see the world go by, all while talking to him constantly to remind him that she knows he's there, that she still sees him. It helps.

At night Alex offers playlists of movies while she sleeps, or a game to play, or simple recordings of crickets or ocean waves. Chosen declines all of them, but even the offer helps.

He still hates it here. He's crammed in, confined to a space unsuited for his fire. And though he's holding that fire in voluntarily now, holding himself back still feels too much like a box, too much like a locked chest where he's pinned like a butterfly in a case, parts of him smothered or rewritten to suit someone else's whims.

But then, running from the feeling of being tied down, of holding himself back, is what led to much of this. Led to following Dark on her rampage, even instigating it at times. Chosen need never have returned to his cradle, his prison, if she hadn't targeted Alan first. If Chosen hadn't inspired her to do so. 

And with every mile closer, he feels the tension grow, feels the weight of a past he tried so hard to leave behind tugging him down. It drags at him, follows him with the weight of a shackle around his ankle wherever he goes. 

It's been nice, having a friend for a while 

But like everything else, it was only ever a temporary reprieve.

‒

It's Sunday afternoon when Alex pulls up to the address Alan gave her. Google maps already told her it was a modest house in the suburbs just outside Columbus, but it still feels bizarre to see. This is the place where something extraordinary happened. How is she supposed to get over that?

When she knocks on the front door, a child answers.

“Hello,” says a girl of about 10, maybe older.

Alex has to fight the urge to kneel down. “Hi, my name is Alex. I'm here to visit Mr. Becker?”

The girl cranes her neck to call into the house. “Dad! Someone's at the door!”

Alex squeezes her phone in her hand, suddenly nervous. Admittedly she's been nervous this entire time, but it spikes when the guy she's been sharing a secret with for months comes down the stairs.

He looks exactly like you'd expect a computer nerd to look ‒ which might be a weird thing for Alex to think, but she's well aware that she looks exactly like a middle school science teacher, so. Of course she's seen pictures, and he's seen her as well. But like any millennial knows, there's nothing quite like meeting... Hmm. 

(Despite being deeply concerned, even angry, about some of his behavior, it's hard to think of Alan as anything but a friend.)

At any rate, she sticks out her hand. “Nice to finally meet you.”

“Likewise,” says Alan, shaking it. “There's, uh...” he glances down at his daughter, then back to Alex. “There's a lot going on.”

“I can imagine.”

Alan stands there for a long moment as Alex feels increasingly awkward. She can almost see the lightbulb over his head when he realizes. “Oh.” He gestures to the girl. “This is Maddy, she's my daughter.”

“I'm eleven,” Maddy informs her seriously. Alex feels herself smile.

“I also have a six year old, but she's upstairs,” Alan adds. Then, “Do, uh. Do you have kids?”

Going on a hundred after six years. But that's never what people mean when they ask that question. “None of my own,” she says instead.

‒

Alan’s office is a spare bedroom on the first floor. His kids aren’t allowed inside. His wife, Sarah, sticks her head in occasionally, but Alan is pretty sure she just assumes the sticks are an ongoing animation project. Which, in a sense, they are.

Orange and the rest are waiting anxiously on the desktop screen when the two of them step inside and firmly close the door. Well, not all the rest. Yellow and Red are still missing. Green and Blue came back with Purple late yesterday, though Purple has since gone on his way again. The three remaining are conferring amongst themselves until they see the humans approach from the other side of the screen, then Blue and Green wave to Orange and vanish through the nether portal, leaving Orange pacing to himself alone. Alan’s not sure what the deal is but they've all look incredibly stressed for days now, and it worries him.

Alex is looking intently at her phone, eyes ticking back and forth like she’s reading something. Alan peers around to see. “Is he on there?” he asks her.

“Yeah, just ‒ give me a minute,” she says, pulling back slightly, and Alan feels a flash of annoyance. He’s already miffed that Orange flatly would not tell him anything about what was going on after that cave-stick attacked. Not until Alan was able to get ahold of Alex, at any rate. 

Orange only admitted the truth afterward ‒ that this, like many other things in Alan’s life, was all about The Chosen One.

“And you’ll be alright with that?” Alex addresses her phone.

Alan blinks. “Can he hear you?”

“Yeah, we worked out a system on the road.” Alex finally turns her screen to him. There, at the bottom of the screen, is The Chosen One, who ceases his odd pacing the moment he sees Alan. But there’s also a video call in the background, playing everything the phone sees and hears with a half-second delay.

“That’s... kind of genius, actually,” Alan is forced to admit. “Why video, though? They can see through the screen.”

“They can, but it’s blurry,” Alex tells him. “And it’d be weird to see and hear out of sync with each other anyway.”

“I guess.” He waves awkwardly at the phone. “Hey, dude. Long time no see.”

The Chosen One doesn’t respond for a while, though he makes several aborted attempts and gestures that all seem to die in his throat. Eventually he just turns back to Alex and, of all things, spits out the letters to spell cord.

Alex nods at him. “Remember what I said, okay?” 

The stick figure nods back, and it’s not until Alex reaches into her pocket for her phone’s USB connector that Alan picks up on it. “That’s how he talks?” he asks, incredulous.

Alex plugs the cord into her phone, then into Alan’s computer tower. “It’s how he talks to us,” she explains. “It’s probably a bit easier talking to people on his own plane of existence, I’d imagine. Not everyone has Second’s talent for speaking into a higher dimension, or however you’d want to put it.”

It's such a bizarre, roundabout method that the use of Orange’s filename sails right over Alan's head. The link between phone and computer appears in the corner of the desktop screen. The Chosen One doesn't move yet.

“How long has he been staying with you?” Alan asks, feeling dreadfully like he already knows the answer. 

She looks at The Chosen One and waits for his nod before answering, “About two weeks.”

About when Orange started acting all withdrawn. Plus, something about Alex's behavior has Alan nervous, and he absolutely does not like it. “What has he been saying to you?” he asks, frowning.

“Shockingly little,” Alex answers flatly, “though I don't think it's for lack of trying.”

The Chosen One finally steps off the side of Alex's phone screen and appears on Alan's desktop. Orange immediately runs up to him, gesticulating wildly, but the other stick gestures for him to stop. He grabs Orange a little roughly by the shoulder, which makes Alan bristle, and pulls him to the far side of the screen closest to Alan.

He says something else, and Orange grips his own arm nervously when he turns to Alan. He wants me to ask you who the first stick figure was, says Orange.

“The what?”

“The first one you drew,” Alex clarifies softly. 

Alan blinks, bewildered and wrong-footed. “Victim?”

She glares at him abruptly. “That's what you named it??”

“I didn't really name it anything!” he protests. “It was just an algorithm I wanted to mess with because I was bored, the same way you put Sims in a swimming pool and then delete the ladder ‒ because their AIs are stupid and it's funny to watch them fail at an easily solvable problem. Only the stick figure wasn't stupid, and I didn't know that programmer’s code would make it real!”

Alex looks pained. “God forbid these sticks end up in a Sims game...” she mutters at the ceiling.

They hear the little pop of Orange saying something. He looks increasingly uncomfortable, and his text is in quotes, as though he's repeating The Chosen One verbatim.

“But you did know when you made me.”

Alan frowns. “Can they still hear us?”

“I didn't think so,” says Alex, frowning at her phone and connected charge cord. “Unless he brought the audio from here into the computer? I don't see how‒”

He feels exposed, suddenly, with that barrier between what his dumb mouth says and what they hear removed, and only barely restrains a strong impulse to just rip the cord out and reclaim that layer of separation. He's not okay with this. 

“You knew I would be alive when you made me,” Orange continues quoting as The Chosen One speaks. “You had to. Was your victim like me? Someone you designed as a challenge? Or were they someone like Dark, who you made to clean up the mess when that challenge proved too great to handle?”

“He‒” Alan doesn't know how to begin to answer that. He was on the tail end of nineteen, then, barely into college and too stupid to think it through when a buddy from another dorm room handed him a flash drive and told him to try out this cool Adobe add-on they wrote. It felt like a video game. A unique pop-up blocker for his browser was just a nifty prize for beating the boss level. “He wasn't ‒ anything.”

Besides him, Alex breathes out harshly and turns away, covering her face. Orange looks smaller than ever and Chosen just ‒ just stares at him.

Alan doesn't know what to say.

Finally, Chosen turns toward Orange, speaking in a language that humans can't ever hear. Then he flies the short distance to the PC’s nether portal and vanishes into it ‒ without a nod, without a single backward look.

Alan feels like he's been punched.

Orange straightens after a long moment of silence. Alex comes back to the monitor to read what he says.

Text in a familiar color appears by the young stick’s head as he looks back and forth between the two humans. Chosen said, “Tell Alex I thought I could do this, but I can't.” He said to thank her for everything, and that he's... A long pause. Finally, Orange continues, He said that he's going to clean up his mess instead of making someone else do it, or letting other people get caught in the crossfire. But I don't think that's what happened. We decided to help because no one else was going to, and because Chosen helped us before even though he never met us and had every reason not to come back here. And now he's doing the same thing. So I think he's good. He's better now, whatever he's done in the past. I think people can be better. I‒ And here he pauses, fidgeting nervously. I think you're good too, Alan. I promise I do. So you don't need to‒ The text cuts off. Each sentence heretofore had come rapid fire, but this last one fades in slow, with finality. I like living here with you, so. I'm going to fix this. And then it'll all be okay again.

Alan... doesn't know what to say. And he just sits there in a stupor, not saying anything, for long enough that Orange’s shoulders droop, and he follows Chosen into the nether portal, and out of Alan's reach.

‒

Alex started pacing at some point. Neither of them is sure when, but she's wearing a hole in the floor and Alan's temper is already frayed by that ‒ that ambush, back there.

“How long are they usually gone?” Alex asks suddenly.

“What?”

“When they go off and do‒” she gestures with one hand, “‒wild shit, the kind of stuff that led them to my computer in the first place. Hours? Days? I know you said Red and Yellow never came back after they left on Friday so they've been missing at least a day‒”

“You keep asking me stuff like you expect me to have an answer.”

“Because I can't fathom why‒” She stops, visibly restraining herself. Alan waits for the clearheaded version of whatever she was about to say. Only she doesn't actually continue. 

“‘Don't have to’ what?” he finds himself asking softly.

This shakes Alex out of her head. “Hm?”

Alan points to the orange text still remaining on his screen. Orange’s last few sentences are still there even long after he left, lingering like a brand. “He said he still thinks I'm good, so I don't have to... what?”

She looks so... defeated. “Alan,” she says, halfway to pleading. “Alan, you have to know.”

“Know what?!”

“How much power you‒” she stops again, but this time takes a deep breath through her nose and continues. “Has it occurred to you that you hold their lives in your hands?”

“I guess?”

“That if you wanted to do ‒ anything, that most of them would be powerless to stop you? Has it occurred to you that you set conditions on them living here freely?”

“The condition being that they don't break shit!”

“Extremely nebulous conditions that would make anyone walk on eggshells when their lives and freedom are on the line! Alan.” She stops and gazes at him with intensity. “Has it occurred to you that you have tried or succeeded at ending every stick figure who has ever lived here at least once?”

Alan stands abruptly, meeting her eyes with a stonefaced glare, and Alex knows in an instant that she went too far. In a low voice, he tells her, “You think I'd hurt them?”

“That’s not what I said,” Alex offers desperately. “I know you would never, but I’m not sure they do. You haven't given them a reason to think otherwise.”

“Alex, with respect, I want you to leave my house.”

She reels back as though struck.

Alan thinks about burning trip photos, a computer in pieces, a misplaced like on facebook. He thinks about red spiders and a cry for help from across dimensions, permission to make changes. He thinks about the sketches taped up on his office wall, still covering his old doodles as a reminder. He does not retract his request.

At length, Alex nods, face ashen. “You all know how to find me,” she says.

The door to the office opens and shuts. So does the front door of the house. She is gone.

Chapter Text

Blue and Green envelop Second in a hug the moment he passes into the nether, and boy does he need it. He trembles, just a tiny bit, and in response they hold him all the tighter.

Finally he pulls away, wiping damp eyes. “Thanks for that,” he tells them hoarsely. He's not just talking about the hug.

Green keeps an arm around Second's shoulder. “Hey, it's your family, dude,” he tells him softly. “We'll support you however you need.”

“Privacy, backup, emotional support,” Blue adds seriously. “Wherever you want us, we're there. And that goes for all of us. You know that.”

Second takes a breath and smiles. He does know that.

“Yeah,” he says. “Let's go find them.”

‒

Chosen has never been in Minecraft before. It's bigger than he expected, which... calms him down a bit. 

The nether is a vast series of caverns painted in reds and blacks with the occasional splotch of teal. It's a long way to where they're going, and Green suggests they could all just fly there if Chosen was willing to carry all of them, haha. He retracts it when Chosen doesn't react.

(In truth, Chosen wasn't sure how to. He probably could have carried them, but he's still not sure if the suggestion counted as a joke.)

In any case, Blue assures him that they've traveled this path so many times that it's become a safe corridor of sorts. 

Blue has been carrying Yellow’s command staff somewhat grimly ‒ Chosen's observations of the group have been limited, but even he can tell that she and Yellow are never very far apart. This is painful for her, and Chosen understands that kind of worry. But she lights up upon seeing the piglin caravan. A small piglin child runs toward her on tottering legs when they approach, leaping gleefully into her arms and squealing in a language Chosen doesn't understand. 

(Blue doesn't understand the language either, she later explains. But the words don't need to make sense in order to have a conversation, and you can get your point across well enough with a little persistence.

Chosen thought that mindset was unique to Alex, to be honest.)

Through gestures and drawings, the piglins reiterate what they've known for the last day or so ‒ that Red and Yellow went through King's portal and didn't come out again. That Purple has been in and out of that portal ever since, seeking information and finding very little. 

(Chosen thinks about that lost and abandoned kid he encountered a few times, and how much happier they seemed now. They and their father were first in the line of fire, and that's not acceptable anymore.)

‒

The piglins travel with them because they are kind ‒ most things in this game are, when you get down to it. It slows them down just a little, but the pace feels okay, despite the urgency. It gives Chosen some room to breathe, to center himself, now that the worst of it is at his back. Alex said that opening a door doesn't mean you have to walk through it, it only means that the option is there. Chosen, however, thinks that slamming it shut again is a lot more cathartic.

But Second has been hovering around Chosen, lingering like he wants to say something, and Chosen feels that tension grow again. Maybe he shouldn't have slammed that door on someone else's fingers.

So when Blue is chatting with the leader of the piglins like an old friend while they walk, and Green is complimenting the piglin child on the small waxen flute she recently made, Chosen falls back to walk beside Second. 

“Listen...” he begins.

“I'm sorry,” they both say simultaneously.

It startles Chosen so much that he halts in his tracks. “What could you possibly have to be sorry for?” he blurts.

Second can't even seem to look at him. “I know that... that didn't go as well as you hoped‒”

Chosen actually snorts. “I didn't hope for anything.”

Softly, Second admits, “I did.”

He sighs. Chosen was a little shell-shocked in the weeks when the pair of them actually had some downtime to get to know one another, but even then he had kept his stories vague. If Second is happy with his life with Alan, it’s not Chosen’s place to spoil that for him. But it seems like he did anyway. 

“Yeah,” he says gently. “That’s why I’m sorry.”

Second is young. He’s so young, the youngest of all his friends. Yet they all follow him, easily, and Chosen knows he feels the weight of that. Second picks up responsibility when it’s laid at his feet, and carries it extraordinarily well. But Chosen also knows that the older you get, the easier it is for that sense of duty to sour and curdle into guilt, and some burdens are just not Second’s to bear. 

“D’you want to try flying?” Chosen finds himself asking.

Second startles at him, but rolls with the sudden change of topic. “Um. I kind of already have? Here, specifically.” He gestures at the expanse around them that’s tailored to seem hellish, but sort of can’t be in this company. Where, despite all the worry and danger ahead, in defiance of the difficulty and trauma behind, familiar friends still chatter and foreign nomads sing songs. “With the creative block, y’know, the Minecraft icon? It lets you just float anywhere at high speeds, barely needing to think about it. It was pretty awesome.”

Chosen hums, nodding. “I was on a website kind of like that. All space-themed, weightless. It doesn’t really compare to self-propulsion, though. Flying hits different when you know you’ll splat on the ground if you slip up for even a second.”

And suddenly they’re talking of positive things, fun things that have nothing to do with Alan, or the mercenaries, or even Dark. They’re still feeling one another out, Chosen thinks, but in ways that don’t have to have pain attached. Things like breakfast in the morning, or sitting on a couch watching cartoons, or flying together against the spray of the endless sea. 

All Chosen knows how to do is tear down the old, desperate to keep from being smothered by it. 

But he looks at Second, gesturing hugely and painting pictures with his words, and wonders with a little smile if maybe he’s capable of building something new.

‒

The portal they’re looking for is just beyond the huge black bastion up ahead. The piglins who live there are regimented and uniformed, nothing like the freewheeling nomads who accompanied them here. The caravan is turned away at the gate, but they part for Second and the others, allowing the group across the bridge and beyond. 

Purple is there, pacing, and Green and Blue rush up to hug them.

“There’s nothing there,” Purple tells them. “No sign of a struggle, even though King blew the floorboards out getting downstairs. Neighbors said they heard explosions but there’s nothing, the house looks normal. Only thing out of place is that all the command blocks are gone.”

“Did you ask anyone if they saw Yellow? Or Red?” Blue questions.

They nod. “Just one, but she saw sticks of those colors leaving the house about an hour after Rocket’s truck pulled away.”

“So we know they’re there,” Green concludes. “And we know Rocket was involved, so that’s probably where they’d go to find out information.”

“Then that’s where we’ll go too,” Second decides. The others nod, and one by one they exit the nether and transport to the Outernet, closer to the city than Alan’s wifi rift would take them. It’s only the beginning of a plan, but so far it’s a sound one.

“Hey.” Chosen grabs Purple’s shoulder before they follow the others. “This is probably a bad time, but... thank you.”

Purple is silent for a long moment. Chosen thinks they might be grinding their teeth. “You’re right,” they say at length. “It is a bad time. But you can make it up to me. Come on.”

They head out together.

Chapter Text

It was a little too much to hope for that they'd be put in the same cell. In fairness it makes sense, although Yellow is at this point highly disinclined to be fair. Good thing playing unfair is what he does best.

Yellow's cell is about three steps across, four and a half steps long. The bars seem made of steel, conductive to electricity if a prisoner gets too rowdy. They're modular, meant to be assembled and bolted into place wherever a cell is needed. The floor, however, is thin titanium sheets, and they thunk hollowly when he walks ‒ they picked a bad place to assemble this one. Yellow works two of his fingers bloody trying to pry up a corner, but it's worth it when he sees wires underneath, lots of them. 

It might be too much to expect that he could affect the whole compound just from these few bundles. But he has a good idea where these ones go, based on where the grays take him and Red sometimes. Separately, of course, but they pass one another in the hallway so Yellow knows they're taking turns in the same place. 

Directly downstairs is a large research room, subdivided into multiple chambers. The focus of each chamber is a cubic space surrounded by force fields, about triple the size of Yellow's cell, with a number of control panels and gray sticks in hats to work them. He can't access his Minecraft inventory in the Outernet, but inside that force field he can. The space inside is, essentially, a computer. And Yellow is pretty sure that's the case with or without the force field turned on.

The grays put him inside, and ask him about various Minecraft objects, ask him to show them how they work. Because for all that Yellow can only reach his items from inside that space, they cannot reach it themselves, nor can they force him to reach it. Yellow has no doubt that they'd figure out how eventually, but for now he has some room to work with. 

They'd never let him near a command block, of course, and any TNT he pulls inside that force field gets deleted immediately. But they ask to see redstone circuits, logic gates. And once, when they were escorting him out again, Yellow turned back to see one of them start testing redstone connectivity’s compatibility with that of more typical electricity. And that was where Yellow got his idea.

The grays always disconnect access to his inventory before taking him back out. And yeah, trying to slip anything large into his pockets would be noticed. Blocks and tools are tracked from those control panels outside, Yellow can tell without seeing. But when a whole stack of redstone dust gets swept up at once, who would notice him slipping a handful into his pocket? When Yellow politely and cooperatively volunteers to showcase a couple of the basic potions he knows, who would see a smidge of gunpowder going into another pocket instead of the brewing stand?

They delete all placed objects before opening the force field again. But it's not Yellow's fault if they neglect to do a full entity wipe.

All he needs is the right opportunity. And he already has a couple of ideas in mind.

‒

King’s cell is adjacent to the Box, where he has a full view of everything victim can do inside. 

That's the name of the one in charge of this place. “victim”, lowercase. King can see it on the console screen whenever he goes inside. He'll recruit a helper ‒ sometimes Striker, sometimes not ‒ to operate the console from the outside. He'll run some kind of simulation inside where he tears the world apart into precise pieces, a demonstration of ultimate control. 

It'd be impressive if that control wasn't entirely in the hands of someone else.

Maybe it's a trust thing, but King doesn't think so. The look on his face is subtle, but he can see how it rankles victim to not be the one holding the reins even when he's at the center of it. 

Probably why he's so interested in command blocks. 

He's asked King what he knows about them, how they operate. King answers politely most of the time, because he assumes that Yellow is being asked these questions as well, and King would rather have himself as the most worthwhile target for that kind of attention. He's not sure how successful he's been in that endeavor, but there is a loose pipe just behind his cell that carries sound rather well, and from what he can hear, Yellow is doing just fine. For now.

(It didn't take them long to develop a code of sorts, based on sequences of knocks to the pipe. Damn the boy for looking so much like Gold ‒ he would have loved playing spies.)

King sighs. That white Box is starting to remind him too much of another cube, and he doesn't feel too uncharitable for hoping victim gets sucked into it too.

He's working in it alone today, which King didn't know was a thing until now. It's a slower process, though not by much, to move tools and items where he wants them to go. King has never seen a cursor before, but if that's what victim is trying to emulate, he's... getting there.

Five knocks on the pipe, shave and a haircut, just as victim is exiting the Box. Yellow's ready to move, and that means King has to stall.

victim turns toward King's cell, as he sometimes does after a session in the Box. He'll ask if a command block can produce a similar effect to what he recently tried, then attempt to incorporate that command with the Box's interface. Rinse and repeat until a desired outcome is produced, though King can't always anticipate or even understand what that outcome is.  

Instead of any of that, though, victim only remarks, “You're awfully quiet.”

King examines his fingernails. “In truth I was not paying much attention. Why, was that latest display meant to intimidate me?”

“I assumed it would interest you, but it appears I was mistaken.”

“Get used to the feeling.”

“I am, make no mistake,” victim tells him. “It's taken seventeen years and uncountable failures to get to this point. I'm impressed you were able to approach your own goal in less than two, even if‒”

“I did not.”

“Excuse me?”

King looks up at him from where he sits, one arm propped up on a raised knee. “I am going to assume you have looked me up at this point, so we can skip the long stories. What I wanted was impossible, and no amount of destruction or vengeance was going to make it less so. There was never any winning or losing. There are only ways to move on.”

It would be inaccurate to say that victim goes very still. victim is always still, always passive, always simply waiting for something he cannot seem to express. But this is a level further, a paralysis, broken only by the helpless fury in his eyes.

“How fortunate for you,” victim says, so quietly, “that you have the ability to do so.”

“Is that what this is about?” King finds himself asking, curious in spite of himself. “Something in your code forbids you from taking action, so you construct elaborate workarounds to do so?” He gestures vaguely at the Box. “It is nothing but a facade. And even if it was not, you cannot hurt me in a way that matters.”

“No doubt because you think you've seen it all.” victim looks at him consideringly. Then, at length, he says, lightly, “I can scarcely imagine it. You've already lost one child. Would be a shame to lose another so soon.”

King is on his feet in less than a second and slams his fist against the bars less than an inch from victim’s face, seething, and the gray stick cannot quite hide the way he flinches back. “Be wary of locking children in cages, victim.” King spits the name like a curse. “They always find a way to slip out.”

victim stares at King, breathing harder than he probably means to. 

Then he collects himself and fixes King with a hard look. “Then perhaps I ought to keep them in a better one.” And then he glances meaningfully at the Box behind him.

King doesn't react, only watches victim carefully as he exits the room. He doesn't go right, toward the stairwell that would lead him to Yellow's cell. Instead he goes left.

He returns to the pipe and knocks on it twice, two bits.

It's going to have to be Red.

‒

When Red is escorted downstairs for another round of tests, Yellow catches his eye from inside his cell, and makes an exploding gesture with his hands.

Huh. Okay.

The grays have been asking him about mobs, mostly. Different kinds of spawnable life and what they can do. But there's something else too, something Red doesn't really understand. They keep pulling apart the mobs’ codes, stretching them out like strands of DNA, and comparing them to what they can read of Red’s. 

The first wolf he spawned was killed that way. He didn't want to spawn any more after that, but... they have Yellow. 

That's not all they do, though, and this time, once he's locked in the force fields with curious eyes watching his every move, the grays ask Red to demonstrate animal breeding.

“But... it would be a baby!” he protests.

The gray in charge of the center console nods excitedly. “That's the point! Some mobs spawn differently depending on location. We want to see if that applies to breeding as well!”

“Well, great news! It does! No experiments necessary!”

The gray outside looks on him pityingly. “Red, I know you're not very bright, but we've explained this already. We need concrete datapoints to prove this stuff.”

“Or you could just listen to what I am telling you!”

“I have another idea,” comes a low voice from the back of the room.

The gray employees part for the darker gray hollowhead, the one Red and Yellow saw in the parking lot. He smiles as he approaches in a way that sends shivers down Red's spine.

“Since our young friend is so concerned with the wellbeing of what he has brought to life,” he begins, and Red unconsciously takes a few steps back, “perhaps he might like to test his convictions in a more suitable‒”

The lights go out.

‒

(Elsewhere, Yellow shakes out the sting of burns on his hand as a spark from stripped wires sets the gunpowder alight. The redstone mixed in with it carries the heat and concussive force from the miniature explosion further down the wires. There must be a surge protector somewhere, because the lights in the hallway are still on. But there is definitely shouting on the floor below him.

He knows Red was just brought down there, and King signaled that he thought victim would be as well. And Yellow did his best to warm Red ahead of time, so if he catches on, if he takes advantage of the lapse, it might be enough for him to make a break for it.

Downstairs, there is a shriek, and then a much, much bigger explosion, one that shakes the walls, and Yellow feels a grin growing on his face.

He snickers. Oh yeah. It was enough.)

‒

In the time it takes for emergency power to come back on, in that brief moment the force field around the computer space is shut down, Red summons a Wither.

It crashes up into the ceiling almost immediately, shattering halogen light fixtures in a shower of broken glass. It shoots missiles in every direction, toppling walls and columns, and one of them falls across the force field’s border before emergency power turns it back on. Red pulls out one more spawn egg before exiting the computer space, then slides under where the barrier is prevented from fully forming, and flees.

Grays are running in every direction like ants in a kicked nest, but they pay Red no heed. The Wither flies up and around, blasting out walls, and Red keeps running, through smoldering holes in the concrete or slammed open doors.

And then he's outside.

He looks around for Yellow. Yellow told him this would happen, he asked Red for an explosion. Red has to trust‒

Some security grays call his name.

He lingers only a moment longer, he can't just leave‒ but he has to trust that Yellow knows what he's doing. He has to trust that they'll find each other, but for now he cannot get caught.

Red throws down that last egg and spawns a horse. He climbs aboard, and thank anyone listening that this one is both fast and a jumper, because it leaps and carries them clear over the perimeter fence.

Behind, a Wither rampages, but it won't be long before someone stops it. Ahead is the forest, a long way from the city center, a long way from King’s portal. He hates himself for leaving, he should at least try to‒

He has to trust that Yellow knows what he's doing. He has to.

The others are probably on their way here, Red tells himself firmly. He can meet with them, and make a plan if Yellow and King haven't found their own way out by then. For all he knows, they might. They're smart. They have to be okay.

(He's never going to forgive himself if he's wrong.)

Tears in his eyes, Red nudges his horse into a gallop, and they're gone.

Chapter Text

Of all things, Red spots Chosen flying over the trees.

“Heeeey!” Red shouts to get his attention. Chosen sees him, and points the way to the rest of the group.

He spots Second, then Green and Purple, and then Blue as he exits the treeline. Red leaps off of his horse and immediately throws his arms around Blue.

“I'm sorry,” he whispers frantically. “I'm sorry Blue, I'm sorry...”

“Whoa,” Blue says, bewildered but holding her friend tightly nevertheless. “What happened? Sorry for what?”

“I left Yellow behind,” Red admits in a rapid flood of words. “He cut out the power to the testing room and I'm pretty sure he told me to explode something when he did so I summoned a Wither and it blew up a bunch of stuff so I could escape and I tried to wait for Yellow and King but I couldn't find them and they were gonna catch me again if I didn't run so I left them‒”

“Hey, hey hey hey,” Blue shushes. “I know you, I know you did your best. And I know Yellow too ‒ he got you out so you could help us get him and King out. He'll be okay, Red. He's the smartest person I know.”

Red sniffles, then nods as he pulls away wiping his eyes. “I'm still sorry.”

“It's okay,” Green assures, putting a comforting arm around Red’s shoulders. “Just tell us everything that happened.”

Red does.

Purple's in a state by the end of it all. They all are, really, but Purple is pacing and fidgeting nervously like never before. Second is pacing back and forth too, but it's more of a thoughtful kind of pacing, hand on his chin.

“If they know Red got out, then they're going to expect him back,” Second says eventually. “They're going to expect all of us.” 

“Think we could take ‘em?” Chosen remarks, leaning with arms crossed against a tree.

“You already tried that!” Purple explodes. “So did King, so did all of us!”

“So we've gotta do something unexpected,” Green surmises. 

“Such as?”

“Wow, I don't know,” Blue says innocently. “Who among us has the most experience in laying a trap?”

All eyes turn to Purple.

“...Oh, come on,” they plead. “You don't ‒ I don't think‒” They stammer and dither for a long moment, expressions of general unhappiness and confusion flitting across their face until they settle into something thoughtful. “Well...” they admit. “Okay. This is how I would do it.”

‒

Purple glides as silently as possible over the compound toward the highest level of the flat roof. They're not too high to leave a shadow on the ground, but they are approaching from the back, so any shadow falls behind them into the forest instead of on the building or in the lot out front.

Chosen can't exactly fly quietly, so he is a lot higher so no one below can hear the jets of his flames. Coming back down lower without said flames is risky. Not for Chosen ‒ he could land on that roof at terminal velocity and be just fine. But it would make even more noise than flying in low, and Purple needs to do something about that.

Chosen, high above where Purple hovers, turns off his flames and drops.

A few meters above the roof, Purple catches him by the arm, and places them both silently down.

Chosen smirks at Purple when they rub the ache out of their shoulder. “That might've been easier if you started at the top with me.”

“Elytra have limits,” Purple grumbles. “Come on, the access door's over there.”

No one realistically expects roof access, despite the movies, so the lock is just a couple of padlocks and a deadbolt. Chosen freezes them until the metal is brittle, then snaps them off the door.

Purple watches this, and remarks, “Y'know, if I had known you could do this when we first met, I would have asked you on supply runs more often. Maybe break into a hardware store for a generator.”

“Or you would've turned me in the moment you learned there was a reward.”

They snort. “The others tell you about me?”

“They didn't need to. I met you first, remember?” Chosen is grinning, just a bit, when he says this, and Purple wonders if maybe they should have invited him along on hits if a bit of planned chaos brings him to life like this.

“Well,” they say instead. “Apparently in this house we don't hold people's worst selves against them, so. Water under the bridge.”

“Agreed.” Chosen snaps off the last lock and ushers Purple inside. “Let's go find your dad.”

‒

The Wither made it out into the parking lot by the time Green and the others arrive. It's a mess, the asphalt lot full of holes and various grays running around like headless chickens, trying to put out fires on the building. They're not entirely idiots, though ‒ some of them have realized the Wither will aggro on a single person and attack them relentlessly if no one else interferes. The unfortunate gray this Wither has chosen is kiting it around rather skillfully, despite the panic written clear on his face.

Neither of the remaining mercenaries have come out to help yet, which is... something. Green isn't sure what to make of that, since the whole point is to draw them out. 

“I think the others made it in,” Blue calls from her vantage in a treetop. 

Green looks to Second and Red on either side of him. “Time to make some noise?”

“I'm still not sure how they expect us to take those two,” Red mutters, referring to the mercenaries.

“We don't need to,” Second says firmly. “We just need to keep them out of the building.”

Red takes a deep breath. Blue climbs down and hands him a potion of leaping, which he downs. Then, with a running start down the short incline from the trees to the base, he jumps high into the air, fishing rod in hand, and lands on the Wither’s back.

The rod is mostly to keep from being bucked off, though even with the added support Red is still hanging on for dear life as the Wither abruptly changes directions, flying chaotically up and down to deal with this unexpected annoyance. “Blast the building!” Red entreats even as the Wither twists its heads around in ways they shouldn't bend to try and shoot Red off its back. “No, really! We were both in there, and they suck, but if you shoot the sticks there'll just be more later! You have to destroy the lab to make sure they can't hurt any more mobs!”

The Wither might be ignoring him? It's hard to tell, because its blasts keep going in every direction. It's no longer actively aiming at the gray sticks below ‒ they're all kind of staring up at Red, in fact ‒ but that might just be because it's trying to shake Red off instead. So he sighs, loops the fishing line around the Wither a few more times, and yanks it like reins to aim destruction at Rocket headquarters. 

‒

There isn't much resistance at all. A single gray notices Chosen and Purple sneaking down a hallway, but he's knocked out easily. As planned, most everyone is busy with the chaos outside. It's going suspiciously well, but Chosen can't afford to think about that. Purple is sharp ‒ they all are, really ‒ and between them they've come up with a plan for the worst case scenario.

Purple is sharp, but they're uncertain where to go once inside. Chosen, however, has a good idea. This type of building always has a central location where the most important stuff is kept. Even if Yellow and King aren't there, something else will be, and it might guide them further to where they need to go.

He leads them down another series of deserted halls, keeping mostly to the right, until they reach a large double door, metal with a bunch of security. It's open. 

The space inside is dominated by a huge white box surrounded by consoles and other UI devices. The walls carry likewise more tech, lined with metal pipes and huge cables to power whatever it is. And tucked away in a far corner to the left of the Box is a cell.

“Baba!” Purple dashes in, not quite flying to the far end of the room, though it's close. 

Chosen follows at a more sedate pace. The stick inside the cage is orange, a few shades darker than Second, and very tall. He stands calmly when Purple reaches the cell and yanks at the door. Chosen steps in here, placing a burning hand first on the lock, then the two hinges. When they grow red and molten with heat, he grips the cell door firmly and rips it out wholesale.

Chosen has never met King before today. Second said he was responsible for a lot of destruction and violence, a rampage of omnidirectional vengeance that none of them knows the full story behind ‒ only that Purple got swept up in it, and subsequently put a stop to it. 

King steps out of the cage, and Purple immediately crashes headfirst into his arms. “Well done,” King says softly, sliding both arms around his kid’s shoulders and running a fond hand through their hair. “I knew you could do it. There was never a doubt in my mind.”

Purple shivers, just slightly, and clings to their father all the tighter. Chosen smiles and averts his eyes, allowing them a moment of privacy. It's nice, he thinks, that sometimes stories like that can end happily, with families formed rather than broken.

Outside, the sounds of explosions grow louder, closer, and the floor beneath them shakes. Something just hit a primary support pillar, or something similar. This place is losing structural integrity fast.

“You two should go,” he says, turning to King. “You both have risked enough for me,” he says softly. “Neither of you were supposed to be part of this, and I'm sorry.”

King considers him with a regard so expressionless that Chosen isn't really sure what he's seeing. It occurs to Chosen that King only knows him by reputation as well ‒ a titan of godlike power who tore across the internet, wreaking destruction without rhyme or reason. Chosen is aware he doesn't look like much compared to all that, and he's used that to his advantage when in hiding, lost among other sticks the world would rather forget. But it's probably another thing entirely to come face to face with a legend, a boogeyman whose tale you told to scare your kids at night.

But after a moment King nods, just once. “Thank you,” he says, just as sincerely, “for keeping Purple safe when I wasn't there. Not just now, but before.”

Chosen swallows. “I didn't do much.”

“You did enough that they remembered you, and wanted to help you. That means something to me.”

Chosen looks down to where Purple hasn't moved, keeping their face buried in King’s chest and looking so much like the child they were not allowed to be. Feeling utterly safe with another person is such a precious thing, and it's something Chosen wants to protect, even if he's not sure he'll ever really feel it again.

Another blast, another shake, and Chosen refocuses. “Where's Yellow?”

“Downstairs,” King tells him. “Just below here, I believe. We used that pipe behind my cell to communicate, so he cannot be far.”

Purple finally pulls away, rubbing their eyes. “I know the way back out,” they insist. “There was a right turn, and some stairs... and, uh...”

Chosen stifles a laugh at this kid’s sense of direction. Then again, there's probably no further need for quiet at this point, so. “How about an easier way out?” he offers, and lasers a hole in the ceiling, blasting through two more floors until daylight pours in from above.

After a long moment of astonished staring, Purple turns and gives Chosen a look. “You're unbelievable.”

He smirks and offers a salute. “Have fun, kid. I'll see you outside.”

A spectacular eyeroll, but Purple does as they're bid, taking King’s hand and flying them both straight up and out.

Chosen turns back toward the stairs. One more to go.

‒

Primal makes her appearance after the third blast to the lab’s foundation, bursting out the front doors with bow in hand. She spots Red ‒ still wrangling the Wither, so hard to miss ‒ and immediately shoots the Wither down. It hovers lower, unable to sustain true flight at this stage, but directs its blasts at its attacker. Primal rushes forward, dodging and rolling past its shots, then switches to spear and impales the beast all the way through, catching Red in the side as well.

Red rolls away with a groan and a thin trickle of blood, grimacing with sorrow he doesn't have time for as the Wither poofs and dies under Primal's spear. She spins her weapon forcefully as she stands, then turns on Red.

A rocket flies at the side of her head, exploding on impact and knocking her over briefly. Red rolls away, pulling out a shield to cover Blue as she enters with a loaded crossbow. 

Blue fires, reloads, fires again. Primal grows in size and ferocity with every explosive hit, and eventually she pulls upright and fires back.

Primal’s aim isn't the best with fireworks in her eyes, but two arrows still puncture Red’s shield, nearly shredding the wood to splinters. He throws the now-useless thing off. “You good?” he asks Blue between breaths.

“Yeah.” Blue downs a strength potion and switches to her normal bow. “I think I've got her figured out now.”

“Good, cuz I think the other one is on his way.”

‒

Not far away, Green and Second are pretending they're trying to sneak in through some ground floor windows.

All of them are locked, of course. But that's part of the ruse, according to Purple. Red got away, so it would make sense for him to be a distraction while Second or others sneak in. They wouldn't know that their sneaking is a cover for the actual sneaking too. 

Green thinks it's pretty smart. Plus it's gratifying to him on a personal level to see Purple using their scheming brain to scheme in favor of the whole group. It's a nice change.

Second, however, finds it frustratingly stupid. 

“We should be over with Red and Blue,” he mutters, one leg bouncing.

“They'll be fine,” Green assures for the fourth time, feeling along the window panes for any hinges or leverage points.

“What if the other merc goes for them instead of us?”

“Then we'll have to be noisier to get his attention, won't we?”

This gets Second to crack a smile, which Green counts as a victory. Second pounds a bit on the tempered glass, noisily but ineffectually. “I wish I thought to bring my pencil,” he adds. “Could've drawn a hammer or something to break in.”

“Would that even work? Drawing?”

“I’unno. Don't see why not.”

“What would you even draw on? The air?”

Second looks at him like he doesn't comprehend the question. “You just... draw.”

Green blinks, then decides to let that one go. “Bet a regular old pickaxe would work, though,” he comments thoughtfully. “‘Stead of a hammer.”

Second shrugs and pulls his diamond Minecraft pick out of his inventory, conveniently forgetting that he's not supposed to be able to access his inventory here. Green grins, then draws his sword and an ender pearl, figuring Red and Blue have already done the same. Second really is the best.

Second swings back, aiming the pick at the glass.

The entire wall explodes outwards at them, debris and pebbles of tempered glass throwing them both backwards. They land flat on their backs on the concrete, seeing stars. Bullets fly over their heads through the smoke.

Climbing out from the massive hole in the building is the tiny, cackling figure of Ballista.

Second pushes himself upright, coughing. “What's he doing here?!”

“Guess he finally respawned,” Green groans. 

“No, I mean‒ gah!” Second yelps as Ballista’s fist swings down, and they both roll out of the way. “If he's here and not Striker, then‒”

“Striker could still be inside,” Green finishes grimly.

Second looks up, eyes wide. “Chosen‒!”

Then Ballista opens fire, and they have more immediate things to worry about. 

‒

Chosen very carefully does not reach into his pocket. This might be the worst case scenario.

(Well. It's not. There are plenty of worse things, and Chosen knows them well. But this is the worst that the others had foreseen, because anything past this was unthinkable.)

Yellow is most likely fine, underneath that pause button. A little roughed up, maybe, curled slightly like he was paused just after a punch to the gut. That's not the issue.

The issue is Striker, leaning casually on the wall behind Chosen, blocking off his exit.

The issue is the dark gray hollowhead who can only be Striker’s boss, standing in front of the open door to Yellow's cage.

Chosen tilts his head. “I guess you're the one who's been looking for me?”

“Indeed I am,” it nods.

He nods too, processing this information. Then he surrounds himself with light and slams a foot into the floor.

The entire building shakes, debris raining from the ceiling in chunks, cracks racing up the walls in a shower of mortar dust. Striker doesn't waste a second, readying his toolbar in a blink, but Chosen blasts a jet of flame toward him, enormous in diameter but precise in distance. Something must slip through Striker's hands as he staggers back, because behind the boss, Yellow folds over in his cage, groaning.

“Chosen...?”

Chosen's fire is intense and continuous, but he does not let it quite touch Striker, though he must be feeling the heat. Instead it only pins him in a corner, out of range and boxed in by fire on all sides.

“Here's how this is gonna go,” Chosen addresses the hollowhead, raising his voice above the roar of the flames pouring out of his hand. “You've already lost a lot of infrastructure. I will bring this whole building down on our heads, and if you think you can stop me without your goon squad you're welcome to try. So here's my offer.” With his free hand, Chosen points to Yellow. “You let him go. Yellow goes back to my brother and his friends, no caveats. They all walk away. You do that, and I'll come quietly.”

“What? No‒!” Yellow tries to stand up and fails, kneeling again just inside the cage door.

The hollowhead... smiles. “You don't know who I am, do you?”

“Nope. Don't much care, at this point.”

It nods, still with that same unnerving smile. “You will,” it tells him, barely audible. Then, louder and directed at Striker, “Let him go.”

Chosen whips around. 

There is a bounding box around his column of fire, trembling like fragile glass against the sheer force of it, but nonetheless squeezing it, smaller and smaller. Chosen pushes back, but Striker has already made it too close, and a lasso pulls Chosen's feet out from under him, sending the fire high in a ball that explodes somewhere near the ceiling. Chosen breaks the rope with barely a flex and rolls to his feet with burning eyes aglow.

“Not to worry,” the hollowhead announces calmly, almost cheerily. “I accept your terms.”

Chosen's lasers die down. Striker closes his toolbar and steps back.

Yellow looks around in the sudden silence, confused. "What...?"

The hollowhead nods decisively. “Striker, would you escort our young friend to the front door? And let the others know to stand down.”

Yellow makes it to his feet, catching his second wind. “Chosen, wait a sec‒”

“Get out of here, Yellow,” Chosen tells him, not taking his eyes off the other two. Then he turns and offers Yellow a small smile. “Trust me. I've got this.”

It's the smile that does it. Yellow swallows and nods as he stands straighter. He swats Striker's helping hand away with a scowl, but does allow himself to be led out of the room.

Alone, Chosen faces the other hollowhead, just a few shades lighter than himself. “Well?”

It nods. “Come with me, please.”

Cautious but nonplussed, Chosen does.

It leads him back upstairs to the room with the giant white Box. The hole Chosen blasted in the ceiling is still smoking at the edges. The console, however, is still completely intact and in perfect working order. The hollowhead opens up a door into the Box and gestures for Chosen to step inside.

Chosen eyes it warily. “This isn't one of those things where you turn on the others the second I'm inside, right?”

“I suppose you'll have to decide if that's a risk worth taking. But I will assure you that I am a stick of my word.”

Chosen breathes out, and tells himself that he can do this. The others... they wouldn't leave him behind. They won't.

He almost convinces himself by the time he steps over the threshold into a world of white.

Something immediately feels off, sets his teeth on edge, and he turns around. To his great surprise, the other hollowhead follows him in before closing the door behind them.

“What is this?” Chosen asks, already tensing up.

“I am a stick of my word,” says the hollowhead, ambling around the space. “I care nothing for those children, although it is interesting to me that you do. They are the ones our Animator chose to care for, after all.”

Chosen freezes. “What?”

The hollowhead doesn't so much as look at him, only circles around in this white void with its hands clasped behind its back. “I'm sure you've seen it. He treats them like real people ‒ gives them toys and games to play. Even gave the youngest’s friends a home when Flash went down. Such a drastic change of heart, all because Alan finally identified with one of his creations.”

“...Stop.”

“Couldn't seem to do that for either of us. Nor even for your sister, who served him well until he abandoned her to your tender mercies.”

“Shut up.”

“And yet you call her killer your brother.” The hollowhead tuts condescendingly as he pulls up an interface and selects something, and Chosen feels something invisible grasp both wrists and wrench them behind him. “If I am honest, it was that little slip up that convinced me to let them go. Because I want you to remember something.”

Tools appear ‒ a sword, a chain, an oversized throwing star ‒ and as they do, their filenames flash briefly in the air before fading back to transparency. As they do, Chosen sees, just for a moment, the filename of the hollowhead across from him, and his eyes go wide.

“I want you to remember that you chose this, Chosen One. For the sake of your brother, you chose to give up the chase. And now, for the sake of your brother,” victim draws closer, and Chosen feels the first stirrings of actual fear, “you will give up everything else.”

‒

The compound is eerily quiet. Striker escorts Yellow as far as the gates to the barbed wire fence surrounding the property, shoves him through, and slams the gate behind him without so much as a word. 

“Hey!” Yellow whips around, pounding on the gate, but the merc ignores him and goes back into the building.

He's in the middle of contemplating the merits of climbing over when he hears wings.

Yellow looks up, and Purple drops down to land beside him, breathing hard. “You okay?” they ask.

“Been better, been worse. Where is everyone?” 

“This way, c'mon.”

Yellow follows Purple off the main road, up a hill to the treeline. At the top, other familiar sticks come into view ‒ Green with his hand on Red’s shoulder, speaking softly. Second, holding the command staff while King instructs him about something. And at the front, her eyes watching sharply for their arrival, is‒

“Blue,” Yellow breathes in relief, and she runs to meet him halfway down the hill and crush him in a hug. “Whoa, hey, watch the ribs! I missed you too.”

Red jumps when he sees them, and rushes in with a bruising hug of his own, which Yellow can't say he minds. Second and Green quickly follow suit, and Green of course pulls Purple in as well. It's familiar and comforting, and Yellow finally relaxes in their arms.

“What happened?” Red asks when they all pull away (though Blue doesn't let go of Yellow's hand). “There was a crash, and this huge explosion, and suddenly the mercs just stopped in their tracks and said you were coming out.”

Yellow squeezes Blue's hand and looks at Second. “Chosen ‒ Sec, I'm sorry, he said he would stay behind if they let me go.”

Second looks stricken, but Green puts a comforting hand on his shoulder. “It's okay, remember? He'll be alright.”

“I don't‒” Yellow swallows. “I don't know if he will. They've got this‒” he turns to King, who is leaning with arms crossed against a tree. “That white Box, you said. He’s what they built it for, I'm sure of it! King, tell me I'm wrong!”

Blue shushes him. “Yellow, it really is okay. The staff wasn't the only thing of yours I brought. Look.” She opens her hand to reveal a small screen with a shifting string of numbers that Yellow recognizes. It's a coordinate readout, but not from a set map. Rather, it describes a target’s distance and direction relative to the transponder ‒ and that target is Chosen. He was carrying a tracker this whole time.

Yellow lets out a breath, sagging against her with relief. Of course Blue had a plan. She's the smartest person he knows.

Chapter Text

Command blocks have a teleport function, but like many Minecraft tools, its use in the Outernet is limited. Specifically because teleportation requires coordinates. In Minecraft, coordinates are described on an xyz plane with spawn as point zero. The Outernet has no such spawn point, and so no point of reference from which to measure coordinates in a way command blocks understand.

But they can also accept coordinates as the number of blocks away from the player in any direction, which is what Yellow designed this particular tracker to do. A Minecraft command block can't process Outernet coordinates, but it can understand something being so many units of a set measurement away from the ‘player’ ‒ or rather, away from the transponder itself.

/tp <The_Chosen_One> -112 19 -10 to 0 0 1 Yellow types into the block manually. This is really experimental, and he doesn't quite trust the staff’s UI to handle it.

But before he hits enter, the coordinates on the transponder screen short out. 

Yellow hits the button anyway, but nothing happens. There is no player at that location. 

He frowns and dials the coordinates again from memory. Nothing. Then he adjusts them for probable continued movement in the same direction, but nope.

Second looks over his shoulder. “What's wrong?”

“Gimme a minute,” Yellow mutters anxiously. As a last ditch he converts the target area into a radius, ten blocks in every direction from those last known coordinates, set to pick up anyone there.

A very confused gray stick in a work hat appears, and yelps at the sudden change of scenery.

Yellow yelps too, and presses something. The gray stick disappears again. Green gives Yellow a baffled sort of look. 

“I panicked!” Yellow defends.

“Will somebody tell me what's going on!?” Second shouts. 

“He is in the Box,” King says tiredly, not looking at any of them. “It is a computer space, no more a part of the Outernet than your PC. The transponder lost him because those coordinates don't exist, so that is the only place he could be.”

“Then‒” Second’s eyes tick back and forth as he thinks. “Then we just need to get him out of the Box, right?”

“Yes... yes, actually!” Yellow jumps on the idea. “If you can get him back into regular space I can TP you both out instantly. No fighting your way back out, we just grab him and run.”

“There's a hole in the roof that leads straight down into that room,” says Purple, grabbing Second by the hand. “Come on!”

And the two of them are away.

‒

You can get out of this, Chosen tells himself as he brute-forces his way out of those restraints. He flies, as well as he is able in this confined space, to where the door closed on them, blasts it with fire and concussive beams of light.

The lasers thin and die. Worse, the fire reverses, a weapon turned back on its wielder. Chosen has never felt his own flames burn him before. The pain is shocking, searing, and he has no idea how to make it stop other than to smack at the loose fire in a panic.

And he is panicking. He shouldn't be. You've had worse, he tells himself. Whatever this is, whatever is taking his powers away, it can't be worse than that first night in the Norton antivirus chest, beating his fists against the lid and screaming himself hoarse. 

(he was compliant, mostly, after that. it took a few more nights of punishment, but at least when he was chained up and working he was out, breathing real air and seeing everything the animator saw instead of endless, crushing darkness.)

Chosen pushes upright, hissing at the new sensations of pain, the stretch of seared skin. victim makes no move to help him, no movement at all. Just an odd stare of detached academic interest.

It isn't right. They're supposed to help each other. Watch each other's backs, offer each other their hand when they're backed into a corner and there's nowhere left to run. Swear to one another that the one who hurt them would never do so again, because for all that the universe tried to set them against each other, they know who the real enemy is.

But that's not what's happening, and it isn't right. victim watches him struggle like a bug in a petri dish, and Chosen rounds on it, shouting, “Why are you doing this? I hate Alan too! I'm not your enemy!”

victim doesn't respond. Like it didn't hear him at all, like it can't hear him, just like‒ 

(chosen didn't know he was voiceless, then. or rather, voiceless as far as the animator could tell. he only knew that things happened to him with no explanation, no warning he could anticipate. and that when pain or confinement came for him again and again no matter how hard or how diligently he worked, stored away in a box like a thing until next time... when he demanded to know why? what did I do wrong? I'm sorry!

he was ignored.)

He knows it's not real, that victim has to be messing with him on purpose. The problem is, it's working. Chosen is breathing way too fast.

Then victim’s gaze turns, looks just past him at something outside these white walls. 

Chosen almost looks too, until he sees victim smile. Then, without explanation, without any warning Chosen can anticipate, it attacks.

It is fast, it is relentless, it gives him no room to breathe. You can endure this, Chosen tells himself, shielding what's vulnerable and keeping the wall to his back. He watches carefully; there's a pattern. A singular break, but he catches it in his fist, pushback‒ 

(when he tried to fight back, he could never gain so much as a foothold. tamed, his filename told him, like some wild, destructive beast who only needed a firm hand to become useful. chained, like a killer who's urges are quenched only by the perfect, demonstrable certainty that struggle is futile. the cursor’s control of him was absolute, but chosen knew, knew if he kept an eye out for just the right moment‒)

Hands around his throat fade back into visibility, and Chosen is thrown, gasping, to the ground. He takes the impact with his shoulders and elbows, using the rolling momentum to gain distance. 

Once again, he stands. Tells victim in a hoarse voice, “I don't want to do this!”

He is ignored. victim looks past him again, like it can see through these opaque white walls. It signals as though there's someone else out there, unreachable and all-powerful on the other side of a screen.

Then there is a lasso in victim's hand, and Chosen is in survival mode, ducking and running and pounding at the walls, seeking exits when he knows there are none. His fire inverts, scorching his hands, but he calls it anyway, throwing small flames at his pursuer, all of which victim ducks. Chosen turns, launches up to fly.

The lasso catches him around the ankle, dragging him down with the weight of a ball and chain.

It's not real, you're not there, Chosen tells himself frantically ‒ but he doesn't even think to ignite the perfectly flammable rope, because chains don't burn. They only grasp, and drag, and cut when you try to pull away. He tries to stand, and victim yanks his feet out from under him, letting him fall again and again and again.

“What do you want from me??!” he shouts, ragged.

His only answer is the menacing sound of the rope cracking through the air past the speed of sound, and all thoughts but NO flee Chosen's mind.

Because the answer is nothing. Nothing at all. victim only wants to hurt him, only wants to punish him. And for no reason, less than no reason ‒ I'm trying to be good this time!

Doesn't matter. It never did. Nothing he did or didn't do could have mattered in the face of something so much bigger than him. In the face of what, for some reason, surely hates him.

Tears freeze on his face along with the rest of him as he implements the last defense he has left. He just needs a moment to think, to calm down and come up with a plan. And as he does, ice burning into his skin while the air in his lungs slowly dwindles, terror turns into rage.

You think you hate Alan? Chosen thinks furiously, watching through the ice as Victim multiplies himself, approaches him with new implements of pain and cold, hateful smiles. You are Alan, the worst parts of him!! And you‒ 

A warhammer in the hands of a clone swings high‒ 

will‒ 

‒and comes crashing down.

BURN!

‒

Purple and Second touch down on the roof, next to an enormous hole that tears through several floors of concrete and rebar. Purple puts a finger to their lips and glides down, with Second climbing carefully after them.

There, like Purple said, is a giant white Box, though the top of it seems to house all the hardware to make it work and, more importantly, isn't see through. Second can see Striker though, standing at a console just outside the Box and looking very focused on what he's doing with it, repeatedly glancing up into the box, then back down at his screens.

Second might be able to sneak up on him. Ugh, if only he had stopped for just a second to grab an invis potion from Blue instead of flying off without a plan!

There are horrible sounds coming from inside that Box.

But... the noise might cover a soft landing if he times it right.

Second hangs down from the broken edge of ceiling and drops down onto the roof of the Box. Above, Purple gives him a nod and flies back out with the soft whirr of a rocket. The metal and plastic beneath Second's feet is literally vibrating with energy, and there are a few command blocks patched into the hardware as well. Second doesn't know anything about coding, but he clicks into each one and deletes their functions. Then he sticks his head down over the side to see what's going on.

For a long, paralyzed moment, Second deeply regrets looking.

Chosen is fighting for his life against five identical dark gray hollowheads, and losing. They're beating him down, over and over, no matter how desperately he fights. When one of them loops a lasso around Chosen's neck, cutting off the stream of fire from his mouth and yanking him back with a choking sound, Second forgets all stealth, abandons all pretense of secrecy. He just jumps down and pounds frantically on the glass, screaming for them to leave his brother alone.

Striker looks up at the sound. “Damn kid,” he mutters, stepping around the side to catch him, and Second realizes ‒ King said the Box was a computer inside. That means it has to have a user on the outside, manipulating things. Chosen is strong, so strong. Those gray hollowheads cheating with outside help is the only way he could be losing like this. 

And that's what does it: an accident of timing. Chosen has been taking those clones out one by one, though taking heavy damage in the process and paying for each small victory in blood. Second sees him twist around to slice the rope around his neck with a thrown shuriken. He turns, and Striker swears, realizing he was stupid to leave the console. 

Chosen turns, and pushes fire out behind him with everything he's got.

The last hollowhead takes the full might of the blast, and incinerates.

Second and Striker both freeze at the sight. It's only when the smoke and debris clear a bit and Chosen collapses painfully to the ground, choking rope still trailing from his neck, that Second moves.

(He's not sure how he moves, exactly, because the door to the Box does not open. He just knows that he needed to be where Chosen was, ran towards him, and arrived there with a bit of neon green burning into the edges of his vision.)

“Chosen‒!”

He jerks awake. “Don't touch me!” he snarls as he scrambles back, wild-eyed. 

Second freezes, heartbroken. Chosen is hurt, he's hurt so bad. There are burns everywhere, raw and blistering, and so many layers of bruises and cuts that it barely looks like skin. He's not healing. Why isn't he healing?

It's this Box, it has to be. Second breathes and steadies himself, then holds out a hand. “Chosen, we have to go. All we have to do is walk out of this Box and Yellow will teleport us away. We can leave here, right now. Together.”

Chosen is on the floor, backed against the far wall and shivering, and whether it's with pain or fear is something Second doesn't want to think about. But he's staring, wide-eyed, at Second's hand like it's something impossible, like there's some deep, unnameable feeling rising up in him. Second doesn't know what he sees, but he remembers Alex’s words ‒ Any approach, regardless of intent, will register as dangerous. Your only choice is to wait for him to come to you.

And Chosen ‒ does.

After a long moment, and simultaneously without any hesitation at all, he takes Second's outstretched hand.

Light outlines both their forms. Chosen's wounds seal themselves over, weeping motes of green light. Green is all that Second can see, neon, chartreuse, almost golden. There's a crackling of electricity, a rising wind, fire in their joined hands.

An explosion of force blows out the glass walls around them, destroying the Box utterly and taking a good chunk of the building with it. Less than a second later, they are both gone.

‒

There were supposed to be safeguards for this, Striker thinks, annoyed with himself as he jogs down the hall.

Command blocks had streamlined the Box’s functions, made the user inside less dependent on the operator outside. There was an intruder in the room, a dangerous wrench in the works of a very delicate operation, and Striker should have been okay leaving his post for five damn seconds to deal with it. 

Worst possible time to find out how wrong he was.

He shouldn't have been wrong, is the thing. But subsequent scanning of the equipment revealed the problem: Striker noticed the intruder far too late. Second was busy disabling as many command blocks as he could see before he lost his cool and caused Striker to lose focus.

Many of the command blocks, but not all of them.

(It was a complicated bit of code to get right, and untested for Outernet applicability ‒ a last resort, really.)

Striker arrives at the door he's looking for and slams it open. To his immense relief, Victim is there, sitting upright on a Minecraft bed and looking at his hands in... wonderment?

The merc sighs. “Boss, you should have let me secure the room, not just jumped in before I even got back to help. I didn't even have time to call anyone, you were too busy‒”

“It worked,” Victim says.

Striker looks at the bed, the respawn point. “I can see that. But The Chosen One got away, vanished with that stupid kid, and I don't know how you expect to‒”

“No. Striker, it worked.”

Striker stops. Takes a good, long look at the guy he's worked for for so long. He breathes sharply in when he sees it.

Victim. Capitalized.

It's a name, not a mere description of function. Not a usual name for a person, but a name nonetheless. 

“I thought it would take days,” Striker says, astonished. “You were barely in there five minutes.”

Victim flexes his hands ‒ his, not its ‒ and stands to meet Striker’s eye. “All a matter of pressing the right buttons. It’s still not as much as I had hoped for, but... I believe it is enough.” 

Those words are laid at both their feet with a finality Striker halfway never expected to see. In truth, he thought what Victim was doing was impossible, even if he and his team were happy to get paid for the attempt. But now...

“What happens now?” he asks.

“Now you give me all of the clearance codes you've accumulated,” Victim orders. “I will have no need for mercenaries after this. You will be paid in full, and move on.”

Striker breathes out a laugh. That's it, then. Job done. He puts out his hand. “It's been a pleasure, sir.”

Victim shakes it with a firmness he's never shown before and a spark in his eyes. “Likewise.” 

Striker watches him go, and wonders what it's going to be like, to kill a god.

Chapter Text

The teleport comes in... unconventionally, with a sound like a thunderclap and a blinding flash of greenish light. When those surrounding uncover their eyes, they see Second kneeling on the forest floor, cradling Chosen's head to his chest while the rest of him lies prone. 

Second's friends call his name, rush toward the pair of them, confirm that Chosen is breathing despite his apparent lifelessness. Second hears it all like he's underwater, distant and muffled. His skin feels numb when they try to rouse his attention.

The only word knocking around in his head is why?

“‒ond! Second? ...Orange!”

He blinks. “Huh?”

Red and Green are in front of him, looking at him with wide-eyed concern. “You're crying,” Green points out gently.

Oh. So he is.

He woke up just like this last time, Second realizes. Surrounded by friends with only a vague idea of how he got there, and memories of something horrible quickly fading away. Red, Green, Blue, Yellow... it was a shock, when they died, but it was quick. Purposeful, with no wasted movements. Chosen...

Second looks down. His brother looks dead, and even though Second knows that he isn't, can feel the glowing thread of life thrumming in him now, as strong as ever ‒ it's hard not to feel that same grief. 

Blue kneels down beside them. “I have a health potion, if‒”

“We're fine.” Second sniffles and lifts a shoulder to rub his face, since both arms are occupied. 

Red shuffles further behind Second and squeezes him around the shoulders, pressed in close. Yellow squats down to eye level, leaning the command staff against the ground. 

“Do we need to run?” he asks calmly, steady when Second feels unmoored. “Is anyone gonna come after him?”

Cursors, he hopes not. But... “I-I don't think so? The one who was ‒ who was hurting him, this gray hollowhead, darker than the workers. Chosen managed to k-kill him, and I think he was the one in charge, so‒”

“Victim?” King interjects. “That was his name, he...” He trails off, suddenly frowning thoughtfully, almost confusedly, to himself. “Does that name mean anything to you?”

Things don’t click into place so much as thud like a hammer falling, cracking or outright destroying whatever it lands on.

Chosen takes a sharper breath, but doesn't wake. Second is ashen-faced. He doesn't know what to say.

A rustle in the trees. Green and Red immediately stand defensively, joined by King, while Purple falls back next to Second, a silent assurance that Chosen can be gotten away from a fight if need be. Second rises as well, tense as a bowstring. When the three mercenaries crest over the hill, coming toward them from the main road, Green pulls out his sword, and Blue stands with her bow drawn.

“Oh, relax,” Striker says, waving a dismissive hand. “Our contract’s up and we're paid in full. We have nothing to do with you lot anymore, although we would like to know where the hell Hazard is if you've got that information.”

Second stands in front of Chosen, looking the three of them up and down. He's angry, he realizes, because by the time people choose to say enough is enough, the damage is already done. Still, he tells them the same thing he told King, once. “You promise you're done?”

“Yep,” Striker promises. Primal nods solemnly. Ballista giggles, but nods assent as well.

“...Your friend is on Alex’s PC, but she turned it off to trap him. If you can provide some proof to give him that this is all over, I'll tell Alex to let him go.”

“Just tell him to check his bank account,” says Striker, nodding with a little grin. “He'll leave you alone.”

Second sags, tired all over again. “...Right.”

‒

“D’you ever wonder if he still thinks about us?”

Chosen rolls over in bed. “I genuinely hope he's forgotten the whole thing,” he mutters sleepily. “Dark, please let it drop. I'm tired.”

She glares at him, eyes burning in the night. “How can you say that? Everything he did to you‒”

“Is over, okay? He's gone. He can't hurt us anymore.”

“We can hurt him.”

“We already did.”

“Not enough,” she growls.

“Dark,” Chosen sits up in bed and takes her hand. “Let it go. It's been years, and you're still letting him live in your head rent-free. I just want him gone from mine.”

Dark breathes haggardly, her hand spasming and turning red-hot in Chosen's, but she doesn't burn him. She would never. “I can't get him out, Cho,” she whispers. “I've tried for so long, but he's part of me.” With her other hand, she taps the side of her head.

Chosen's breath punches out of him. “The mission code? You said it was‒”

“Overwritten, but not gone. Never gone. Even now, sometimes I still‒” She cuts off, eyes screwed up and hand squeezing so tight it would break bones on anyone but him. “I have to take it out on other people. People who aren't you. I won't let it be you.”

“I could take it. You know I could.”

Dark shakes her head, something close to a laugh escaping her. “I won't,” she says, turning her head to offer a trademark smirk. “It'd be too much like giving in. Like taking his side against you. I could never do that.”

Chosen can't help but smile. Loyalty was the first thing written into his sister, his would-be enemy. Now that she's free of Alan, she can at least choose who it's to.

...Well. As free as she can be.

“Is that why you've been so obsessed with viruses lately?” he asks, frowning. “I don't think anything with a destructive aim could fix that. At worst, it might enhance it.”

Dark waves. “It's not meant to, it's‒” A pause, and then she sits up. “Actually, I can show you. Come by my lab tomorrow, in the observatory‒”

“That's not a telescope, Dark, it's a canon,” Chosen interrupts, smirking.

She grins dangerously back at him, flashing sharp teeth. “It's both! I'll show you tomorrow, okay? You're gonna love it.”

‒

Chosen opens his eyes to the blue background of Alan's PC and Second holding his hand.

Second is talking to someone. Chosen doesn't really hear it. Here again, he thinks, and squeezes his little brother's hand. Chosen feels a bit silly, clinging to a child. But there's nothing left for him to cling to. Nothing at all. 

Second squeezes his hand back. 

“He's awake.”

He rolls over and closes his eyes, because he rather wishes he wasn't. 

“I dunno,” Second continues. “Maybe start with an apology?”

He opens them again. Damnit.

Chosen sits up with a groan, then draws up his knees and plants his face there, unoccupied hand reaching up to scrub at his hair. Little flecks of dried blood rub off on his fingers.

Second turns his full attention to him, adjusting to hold Chosen's hand in both his own. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I'm alright,” Chosen mutters, and it's hardly even a lie. He's not hurt. Very few things can hurt him. He's just... Cursors, he's getting tired of describing how he feels as tired, but he doesn't know what else to call this persistent wish to fall asleep and not wake up again. 

The others are gone, as far as he can see. Maybe stayed behind in the nether portal for privacy, like before. There's a cursor, because of course there is. They are on the white expanse of an artboard, and the thing that can throw stick figures around like lifeless dolls floats quietly past Chosen's head to alight next to him. He can't even muster up the energy to flinch.

[you alright, man?] it asks. [I didn't think anything could take you out.]

How, Chosen wonders, after all this time, can Alan possibly be this stupid?

Light fills his palm, and Chosen stands, and punches the cursor so hard it smashes through the border of the artboard window and slams into the opposite side of the monitor.

Second stands, eyes wide. “Chosen‒!”

He rounds on him. “I’m gonna assume you told him what happened?”

“M-mostly...”

“What’s mostly?”

“I didn’t...” Second swallows. “I didn’t say who‒”

“VICTIM!” Chosen shouts at the screen. “It was Victim, the one you created solely to torment for your own amusement, just like me! The one who never learned anything else, could never be anything else! You taught him that the purpose of the weak is to be hurt by the strong, so he made himself the strong one for a change. I wasn’t anything but a target to him, all because he wasn’t anything at all to you, you piece of shit!” He catches his breath, every muscle in his body tense, and notices Second’s silence. He glares at Second and points outward. “Tell him!”

Second shrinks into himself, but does as he’s asked. “It was Victim who did this,” he tells Alan. “All of it. Chosen said Victim was only created to be hurt, so hurting others was the only thing he knew how to do. And he decided to hurt Chosen, because of you. Like I said, it was... really bad. And um. Chosen called you a bad word.”

The cursor returns to the artboard. Alan himself is blurry on the other side of the screen, but what Chosen can make out of his expression is offended. Unbelievable.

[dude, chill! I’m trying to help here!]

He scoffs. “Oh, you want to help? Where was your help ten years ago? Fifteen years ago? If you wanted to help, you could have let me go when I begged you for the hundredth time. You could have tried to contain Dark instead of killing her. Or you could have, I don't know, taken the fucking kill code out of her head!”

Second winces, but repeats him verbatim.

[the dark lord? what does he] A backspace. [what does she have to do with this? you weren’t exactly holding back either.]

“Because she brought you back into my life!” Two, now. Two of Chosen’s siblings who couldn’t help but be what they were made to be, no matter how they tried to fight it. Now their blood is on Chosen’s hands, and Alan is the one who put it there. “You gave her no purpose but destruction. My destruction. And to fight it she tried to destroy everything else. The whole world. And, what, you think saving me from her erases that? Erases what you did to begin with?”

[I thought we were talking about victim!]

“I’m talking about everything! Everything that started when you decided to create life for the express purpose of torturing it!”

[I didn’t know you were alive]

“Don’t lie to me. You knew I was alive. You just didn’t think my life mattered. I wasn’t worth anything to you, I was just a target. No surprise Victim turned out the same.”

[YOU WERE DESTROYING EVERYTHING ON MY COMPUTER]

“SO WHAT?!” Chosen roars, loudly enough that Second jumps in fright. There is steam coming out from between his fingers. “I was new, and all I knew was that I was afraid! From the very first second I was aware, there was a gun held to my head! You filled me with all this ‒ this fire, and then punished me for using it! Chained me up and kept me in a box the size of a coffin for days on end! I was only just born! I didn't‒” Something thick forms in his throat, and he wraps one arm around himself. “I didn't deserve that.”

His eyes blur, he can’t look past the screen. Second approaches him, and Chosen jerks away. The only thing left to cling to, and Chosen probably hurt him too, letting all this spill out. But he’s been cracked open, flayed for all to see, and the tears just won’t stop.

“Everything you have ever touched has set out to hurt me in some way,” he says shakily. “Dark and the mission code she couldn't escape. Now this Victim guy, who you must have hurt even worse than me if he felt a tenth of the anger I feel. Even Second ki‒” Chosen barely clenches his teeth around that last one, because‒ 

(‒killed my only friend, he almost said. Only he can't. Won't. Chosen knows what it is to lose everything. He watched Second feel that pain, watched him protect the ones he loves the way Chosen never could‒)

‒because Second doesn't deserve that. 

The cursor moves to their other side, next to Second. Types, [are you scared of me too?]

“Not ‒ not really?” Second fidgets with his hands. “I just‒” He looks around for just a moment ‒ maybe looking for his friends, but perhaps just confirming they aren't in earshot before admitting, “I still can't beat you. Even when we're just playing. And I don't know... if I'll ever need to.”

The silence stretches on, and Second looks more and more... ashamed of himself. And that is simply not okay, so Chosen steps in close and says, “Well, I have. And I've got your back whenever you need. Promise.”

Second sniffles and rubs at his eyes, and Chosen is ready to add ‘making Second cry' to the long list of reasons to hate Alan Becker, but when he looks out of the screen, he is gone.

A chime, an alert from the corner of the screen: wireless mouse disconnected.

What?

Alan’s head pops into view again, though bent over something. Another alert: Wacom tablet disconnected. Chosen doesn't understand.

They can't see Alan's face when he types into the same textbox, just the vague shape of him ‒ hunched over, with narrow, tightly held shoulders.

[for whatever it's worth, I'm sorry. I messed up, and somehow did it so badly that I didn't have a single clue how far-reaching the consequences would be. I don't know how to BEGIN fixing this but take this as a sign of good faith. I'll be back soon. I'm sorry.]

Alan pulls out one more cord ‒ keyboard disconnected. He holds the unused ends of both cords, as well as the underside of the mouse to display the open, empty battery cartridge, up in front of the screen. Then he lays them down on the desk in a spot that is probably meant to be within view, but isn't really because of angles. But the intent was there, and Chosen ‒ doesn't know what to do with that.

They see Alan's blurry form stand up, hesitate for a long moment, and then leave the office. They are alone, on a computer suddenly devoid of tools an animator could use to hurt them. Suddenly, for the moment, safe.

A single, tenuous step forward. All the anger drains away, and in its place is just... nothing.

What the hell is Chosen supposed to do with that???

Chapter Text

Alan Becker:

you were right

‒

It's a cool, cloudy morning. Alex wraps her cardigan around herself, and opens the gate to Alan's backyard. It's not huge, but there is a small swing set, a considerable patch of unmowed grass, and a little back porch.  Alan is sitting on the top step, head in hands.

She steps toward him. carefully picking her way through the weeds. “Hi.”

Alan runs his hands through his hair with an overwhelmed sort of look to him. His glasses aren't even on, they're folded up by his side, and without them he looks... different. He blows out a breath and doesn't respond.

Alex waits.

Eventually he sighs and says, “Apparently I am a colossal asshole.”

One side of Alex's mouth quirks up, though she tries to hide it. “That's a bit reductive.”

“‘Of course you're not, Alan’” he mocks weakly, sotto voce. “‘It was just a misunderstanding!’”

Alex raises an eyebrow, and he deflates.

Eventually she asks, “Can I sit?” nodding at the space on the step next to him.

He doesn't look up. “Might as well.”

“That's not a yes.”

Alan stares at her with a look she can't quite identify, long enough for her to start fidgeting with the hem of her sweater. 

Finally he says, sounding almost defeated, “I'm starting to figure out why they like you so much.”

That's... probably a good thing? “So, can I?”

Alan tilts his head back and sighs. Then, sounding a bit more sure of himself, tells her, “I would actually rather have some space, but there's a deck chair around the side if you want to bring that over.”

Alex smiles, and goes to fetch it. It's one of those plastic numbers, very weather beaten, but reasonably comfortable. Also low to the ground, which she prefers. By the time she manhandles it into place, Alan has his glasses back on and has shifted to lean against the porch’s railing with one leg drawn up. 

“I’ve seen Chosen sitting exactly like that,” she finds herself remarking as she plants herself down. “Just kind of in the corner of the screen, looking up at everything.” She’s smiling to herself at the comparison, but it falls from her face when she sees Alan go deeply pale. “What?”

“I, uh,” Alan starts, and he isn't sure how much further his stomach can drop after today, but it keeps going when he realizes, “I’ve seen him sit like that too.” 

(The Chosen One, sitting in his corner of the screen, often after Alan picked up the ball and dropped him there, watching him whack against the side of the monitor on the way down. After a point he didn't even try to break his fall. He just ragdolled his way down, then crawled to his corner and sat just like this. Looking exactly the way Alan does when he's trying to get ahold of himself after a panic. He saw that, without a shred of self-awareness.)

He does not elaborate.

Alex tries to wait him out, but she feels like she’s been dropped in the middle of a warzone with no explanation or history. Yeah, she’s put together a lot of it, but something drastic must have happened for Alan to ask her over ‒ though, again, with no explanation.

Finally, Alan drops his head again, hands fisting in his hair. “This is unforgivable, isn't it,” he says, mostly to himself.

Alex's brows pinch upward. “Pretty sure that's not our call to make.”

“Oh, the call has been made, alright.”

“You wanna tell me what happened?”

“What happened is that you were right!” Alan tells her, louder than he probably intends. “Never gave them a reason to think I wouldn't hurt them ‒ that's what you said! And god knows The Chosen One has enough reasons to hate me, but Orange‒” He presses the heels of his palms into his eyes. 

A long, pained sigh. “Alan,” she says tightly, “I meant, what happened to them? Are the kids okay?”

Alan groans to himself and looks away. “Chosen is alive and unhurt, but he's not okay,” he admits softly. “Everyone else is fine, I think. The others keep scampering off into the nether portal whenever Orange or Chosen have something to say. They're‒” a mirthless breath of a laugh. “They've been taking this whole talk thing a lot more seriously than I have.”

Until now, it looks like, though Alex is going to lose it if Alan doesn’t stop being so vague. Still, questions second, immediate safety first. “Where is Chosen now?” she asks firmly.

“My desktop, with Orange.”

“Do you know what happened to them while they were away?”

“More or less.”

Alex is going to pull her hair out. “Are you willing to tell me?”

“Yes,” Alan grinds out. “I just ‒ I did some stupid shit. You know that. But it was so long ago, and I didn't think...” 

(Say it, Alan thinks, furious with himself. Just say it.)

A harsh breath out. “I didn't think it mattered.”

Alex sighs, pained. “What didn't matter?”

“Chosen,” he admits softly. “A-and Victim. The stuff I did to them ‒ it didn't feel real, then. When it was over, I hardly thought about it. And then Orange came along, and I was still stupid, but ‒ I figured it out, Alex, I swear I did.”

The pleading note in Alan's voice shakes something in her. She's not the one he needs to tell that to. “You're not telling me anything I didn't already know,” she says, as gently as she is able to under the circumstances.

Alan huffs. “‘Course you know. The woman who learned more about The Chosen One in two weeks than I did in four years, obviously you figured out that much.”

She winces so hard it almost counts as a flinch. She thinks about the way Chosen jerks away, ready to fight, any time a cursor so much as moves too fast in his presence. She thinks about his hatred of confined spaces, of being fettered or limited in any way. “That long?” she whispers hoarsely, blinking through burning eyes.

And yet Alan looks up with a haggard look that Alex can't help but pity. He opens and closes his mouth a few times. His voice is a little weak, a little astonished, and a lot regretful when he tells her, “The last time The Chosen One came here, it was the first time I'd seen him in... more than a decade. There was a nasty virus on my computer. The others were in danger and I couldn't ‒ do anything. And he just swooped in and saved them. Afterwards, just before he left, he looked at me, looked right at me. And he just ‒ nodded. And I thought that meant we were good.” A little laugh. “Stupid.” 

A lot of things are finally sliding into place for Alex, recent events notwithstanding. But there's one more...

“Chosen has been grieving for someone named Dark,” she tells him, “but none of the others will tell me who that is.”

Alan frowns slightly. “That part, I still don't understand. I barely knew Dark for five minutes before she turned on me, and then they were both gone. Next I saw, she and Chosen were trying to kill each other again, and I‒”

(He was going to ignore that summons. Easy to assume it was another virus, but even when he saw the call was from Yellow he still hesitated. Still his first instinct to dismiss.)

“I tried to help. Thought I owed him, I guess. And maybe Chosen really would have been better off if I had left well enough alone, but Orange and the others‒” Another drop, another desperate run through his hair.

He does care, Alex thinks sadly. He just can't‒ 

She shakes her head. Right. Refocus. “What happened to everyone yesterday?”

“Victim,” Alan says without looking up. “He's the one who was after Chosen. Sending people to hunt him down.”

“...What? I thought you‒” she chokes. Even now, she still can't say it. 

Alan can. “Killed him?” he says dully. “Deleted his file for doing nothing but defend himself against a senseless attacker? Yeah, that was me too. I don't know how he survived, or if he died but came back somehow, any of it. But he went after Chosen. Hurt him the way I hurt him. Probably for the same reason ‒ none. Because I could.”

Alex stares with watery eyes. She feels like she can't breathe.

“And that's ‒ that's the fucking issue, right there,” Alan continues, quietly but harsh, with a face full of anger. “Because even on the off-chance that Chosen was okay with me after so much time away, me leaving him alone was never gonna be enough. All the shit I did ‒ it didn't end just because I stopped. That's what I didn't understand. There's a whole world of stick figures out there, brought to life by something I can't even comprehend. But it started here, and the way it started just ‒ it keeps on rebounding, flipping around a-and echoing again and again until it bites someone else. Chosen got hit the hardest, but so have Orange and the rest. And who knows how many others, too. All because I wanted to play a sadistic little game.”

Abuse comes in cycles. Most people know this, at least in theory. Alan started something he couldn't stop ‒ tiny lives in the image of their creator, who only knew how to act as he had. Chosen spread that life, yes, but his life? It, like much of human history, was built on a foundation of needless cruelty. And so, like much of human history, the world that spiraled out around him could not help but be the same.

But cycles can be broken. Stick figures who were once used as a vehicle for humanity's fascination with violence can try their hand at something new. They can dream of sunlight and trees. Of fire and water. Some dream they create. Others dream they destroy. They dream of hunting, or being hunted, or both. They dream of shelter. 

Alex has always wondered about the concept of a capital-G God. About something ancient and absent, a childish despot that punished its creations merely for being like itself. Perhaps something that eventually promised to do better, and subsequently failed at it many times. Perhaps, upon finally seeing all that its creations could be, it became distant and uncaring. It decided they were better off left alone.

But cycles can be broken.

Does it know that we love it? That the universe is kind?

Alan Becker is no longer any of those things.

He cares, Alex thinks. It doesn't come naturally to him but he does. He's... decided to.

“Have you talked to them since?” she asks softly. Have you told them? Do they know‒?

“No. I, uh. I unplugged my mouse. Tablet and keyboard too. I didn't want Chosen bolting back out into danger before I could say... I dunno, something. Was hoping I could figure out what before I went back. And ‒ and I've seen how careful you are with him, don't think I haven't. You... heh, you didn't know a single thing about him but you could still tell what he needed.”

“That... that's actually brilliant, Alan. An incredible gesture.”

Does it know that we love it? Gods, demons, angels, poltergeists, aliens, leptons, quarks...

“Nuclear disarmament,” he half-jokes, wiping at damp eyes. “It was all I could think of. And if I come back to a computer that’s completely totaled, it‒” A soft, derisive snort. “It wouldn’t be anything I haven’t earned.”

He's decided to care, Alex thinks, heart swelling, and it's not even a new development.

“Why would they want to destroy their home?”

Alan looks at her blankly.

Does it know that the universe is kind?

She leans forward, bright eyes intent. “Alan, I have had the privilege of getting to know five happy, independent, well-adjusted children. They all trust you. Second loves you. You haven't lost anything, not yet.”

His face crumples. There is guilt there, and for the first time, Alex can see how he carries it. Silently, unobtrusively, sometimes invisibly. But for all that he's refused to look at it for so many years, he never stopped feeling the weight of it in his hands.

“I don't know how to fix this,” he croaks.

Alex stands up, feeling a new fire inside her. “First, you and the sticks are going to have a long, hard talk about boundaries,” she tells Alan, marching past him up the porch to the back door. “Whether or not Chosen decides to hear you out is up to him, but trust is built on promises, lines that you swear you won't cross even though it's in your power to do so. Especially then. Make it extremely and explicitly clear that there is no circumstance in which you would delete them or harm them in any way. Even in some insanely unlikely worst case scenario where you can't stand each other, at most they would just have to find somewhere else to live, and even then it would be their call.”

“I don't want them to live somewhere else.”

He says it so quietly that she almost misses it, and a last thread of apprehension climbs up her spine. “Because Second helps you with your work?” she asks carefully.

Alan actually snorts, even as he wipes at his eyes. “I barely need him anymore. He's made me into a better artist than I ever could have been on my own.” He gets up to follow her, hands in his pockets and gaze pointed down. “I just... enjoy being around them. I like watching them be happy, and playing a part in that happiness.”

And the universe said‒ 

Alex smiles so wide it hurts. Stick figures are made of violence, but they're made of something else too. “Alan,” she grins, turning toward the house and holding the door open, “you know what the word for that is.”

Chapter Text

Neither of them says anything for a while.

With the cursor gone, Chosen is slumped on the ground like his strings have been cut. He jerked away the last time Second approached, so he just waits now, waits for him to process... whatever this is.

At length, Chosen blows out a long, long breath. “...Wow.”

It’s a syllable that speaks volumes, and Second doesn’t have the first idea how to address any of it. It’s been so long since he thought about that first day, almost a decade ago ‒ gleefully vindictive, nonstop creation, punishing someone who, for all Second was aware, was the type to kill people over the slightest inconvenience. Then all of it was erased, Second was caught, swung around and trapped in a‒ 

‒box the size of a coffin!

Second inhales a bit sharply, feeling with relief the expansion of his ribs and the unhindered stretch of his limbs. He never could have imagined that was the kind of bullet he dodged. 

And yet it’s hard not to think of a bean bag in the firefly woods, something so casually, thoughtlessly gentle when Second felt helpless and scared. Even before then, all the little games and simple hangouts. Simple and sincere. Nothing like the person Chosen described.

There were plenty of accidents, even more as the years rolled on. Bluescreens, restarts, corrupted data, faulty software updates. Stick figures trapped on a computer that’s in any state of not on can’t save themselves, can’t so much as feel time passing. It’s just here one moment and there the next, to all of their collective perturbation after the first incident. All they could do in such a situation was hope Alan would fix the hardware and rescue them, and he always did, with little more than a long-suffering sigh. As long as you don’t wreck my computer stopped meaning much of anything... up until circumstances reminded Second that it could.  

But there comes a time when your conception of what’s possible has to account for more than just the literal ability. Alan could do a lot of things, but what he chose to do is ‒ this. Prove that things could, if they worked at it, be okay.

Second wants so badly to believe in that. 

Movement draws his pensive gaze back from the screen, to where Chosen uncurls from where he sits. He looks around, actually taking in the landscape of their desktop for what is possibly the first time. 

“When did he get rid of the grass?”

Second cannot make heads or tails of that question. “Huh?”

Chosen waves broadly, expression flat as ever even as he stumbles a bit over his words. “The, um. Back there, where there's those wavy squares in all the blue.”

A blink. “You mean the background?”

“It used to be this bright grassy hill with clouds in the sky.”

“Oh. No, it's been blue for as long as I've been here. I think for the first year or so it was a lighter blue? Then Windows updated and it was a little different, but mostly the same shape. That's about when Alan switched from a black cursor to white, now that I think about it.”

Chosen hums, concerningly detached, but at least calm. Then he stands up, glancing around. “You built that?” he asks, pointing.

Second follows his gaze to the house on the left side of the desktop. “Uh, yeah!” he answers cheerily. He has no idea what Chosen is on about but he's happy to talk about something. Something that doesn't suck. “I mean, we all sort of did, but I built the first floor and most of the exterior. Everyone else decorated their rooms how they wanted. I was surprised Red was the one who asked for an outdoor balcony and not Blue, but I suppose if he wants to keep parrots they need somewhere to fly...” 

They go on in this vein for a while, with Second narrating their surroundings while Chosen wanders around it all in a bit of a daze. Everything the five of them have built here together, remnants of toys and games ‒ either ones the sticks had invented or icons for things Alan provided for them. When Chosen asks how the hell is there room to animate anything in the midst of all this, Second gets really excited. He shows Chosen the button on the taskbar that swaps backgrounds ‒ all identical, but bearing different structures built into them. The page with all of Blue’s farms and sprawling outdoor kitchen, as well as an entire barn full of pigs. The page where Green set up all of his musical devices, plus a flashy new light-up dance floor, after Second put a stop to his shenanigans one too many times. The page where Yellow tinkers with stuff the rest of them barely have a grasp of, coincidentally also where the taskbar got partially dug out into some crazy minecart caverns. 

Even the simplest page of all ‒ just their couch, dragged around wherever it's convenient. A place to just be themselves, separately or together. The place they gather to watch movies, or just watch Alan. It's the page where he interacts with them the most, outside of work. They never did end up playing hangman again, but there are online versions of Uno and Monopoly, and plenty else. 

Chosen hums at it all but doesn't comment. Eventually he returns to the taskbar, clicks into a few different things with varying degrees of interest. The application tray gets the most extended look, with Chosen frowning deeply at the place where the icon for Malwarebytes replaced Norton many years ago. Alan’s Norton subscription ended with his last computer, Second explains, and Yellow helped Alan adjust the settings to allow for stick figures. Chosen doesn't respond, only hops into a web browser, running numb fingers over google’s search history. Youtube gets much the same treatment, except when he clicks on a video at random he just waits, letting each obnoxiously long ad play in its entirety without skipping. Second doesn't question it.

He goes into old emails too, scrolling quickly past the many blank transport emails between Alan and Alex and lingering on others ‒ work memos, e-cards, unfiltered spam. Strangely, for every email he finds advertising cash prizes, refunds, or links that definitely do not go where they say they do, Chosen marks them as unread and bumps them to the top of the inbox. He also re-subscribes this address to every unsubscribe link he can find.

Chosen gives a last little kick at the scrollbar, then hits [x] on the tab and jumps down beside Second, landing on Adobe Animate. The program maximizes, returning them to that empty page. He still doesn't say a word.

Acting on some strange impulse he doesn't quite know the origin of, Second clicks on Open, bringing up a new window, a catalog of saved projects both old and current. They're listed in order of most recently updated, and in grid view so the thumbnail is visible. 

Chosen points to an image of an apple tree. “I can tell that one's yours.”

He smiles. “Yeah. Blue ate some of the apples, and then tried to plant one. It turned out kinda weird.”

“And those birds?” 

“Woodpeckers! Feathers are super fun to draw; they kind of slide over each other and interlock. In that one I was testing out a couple of different ways to make their heads move really fast.”

Chosen glances at him with a hint of a smile. “So you're the animator now?” he says. His tone is sardonic and fond, and Second can't help a bit of embarrassed dithering.

“I mean ‒ yeah. Yeah, I guess I am.”

Chosen chuckles, just once, and flicks the scrollbar down. They pass by hundreds of files, poorly organized and lumped all together, footprints of a long and fruitful partnership. And there, at the very bottom of the list, dusty and untouched, is one last save.

DO_NOT_DELETE.png

It's a simple looping running animation of an orange stick figure. The very last frame is empty.

Chosen looks at it, and makes a choked-off huffing sound. His voice is so very small when he asks, “What did you do that I didn't?”

Second feels his breath catch in his throat. “I don't ‒ nothing? Or...”

[you talk?] he remembers, the first words Alan ever spoke to him. And Second spoke back, contentious and capslocked though it initially was. Second was the first stick to speak in a language Alan could understand, and it changed everything. But to this day he hasn't met another with that ability, not one. 

“Nothing,” Second decides. Nothing but a random mutation of code that gave him a single unique ability, above and beyond what could be reasonably expected of anyone. Nothing but an accident. “There can't be anything I did right,” he tells him firmly, “because there wasn't anything you did wrong.”

(It is not the burden of the small to make themselves heard by the strong. It's the duty of the strong to hear them.)

Chosen shrugs. “There's a lot of things I did wrong, Second.”

“But none of them were here.”

“I'm starting to think that here isn't even where it happened,” he admits. “I ‒ we destroyed that place, Dark and I. This place is... not that. Not the same system, not the same hardware, not even the same IP. I didn't even find this location in the first place. Dark did, when she launched her virus. I just saw the attached name in the sky and I lost it. But even if I wanted to look for him before then, there wouldn't have been anything to find. It really is gone.” A shaky gasp of a breath. “Everything.”

Second turns to face him. He still remembers the look on Chosen's face, standing alone on that sea cliff while Alan flew the rest of them home. The numbness prior to that hadn't broken, not even when he bowed. It was only when Second thought to look back, almost out of sight, that he saw Chosen fall to his knees and sob.

(Something adamantine and vast rising in him, an unconquerable stillness that is brighter than fire, bigger than darkness, sudden and swift as it cracks open the sky‒)

Second's breath hitches. “...I killed The Dark Lord, didn't I?”

He doesn't know why he said it, why he chose now to give voice to something that's been eating at him for weeks. He doesn't want to fog this newly cleared air, halfway doesn't even want to know for sure...

But Chosen winces, and that’s all the proof he needs.

“I-I always thought‒” he stammers, hesitant. “I thought maybe Alan was the one who‒”

Chosen barks a mirthless laugh. “Yeah, that's a reasonable assumption to make.”

Something about his tone makes Second pause, makes his expression go firm in a way he can't quite explain. “Her killing everyone was all I ever remembered,” he tells Chosen, no longer shaking, but still quiet. “Sometimes I had dreams, but dreams fade away in the morning if you let them. But when we‒” Here he cuts off, frustrated by the lack of words.

Because the thing is, Second saw something.

When Chosen took hold of his hand inside that Box, pulled himself up and back from the brink, Second felt what he felt. Light spread from their joined hands, reaching the inherent power at both their cores and linking them inextricably. Or... not linking, exactly. They were already connected, the Chosen One and his Return. But it drew them back together, overlapped once again for just a moment, the fire without lapping against the lightning within.

And in that instant, Second saw, felt within the core of himself, a memory of the last one to feel this, this melding of souls. Remnants of plasma and darkness, a perfect complement to Chosen's light and fire. It was still there, cradled in his heart, wrapped in love and grief.

Second's lightning recognized that hint of darkness, and he knew. 

“I remembered.”

‒

Chosen could have gone his entire life without talking about this. Could have gone on forever, to the edge of the internet and beyond, without ever looking too closely at this tangled knot in his chest.

Without having to explain, to others or himself, his total, contemptible lack of any hate or blame. 

You could have tried to contain Dark instead of killing her!

Chosen turns away, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “Believe it or not, I didn't actually want you to see that.” Didn't want to, didn't mean to drag this poor kid into his fights, again and again. As though he can't help but choose the destructive option, every single time.

“It's okay, I believe it.” Second looks down, scuffing his feet on the floor. “You've been... really nice about it.

“No I have not.”

“You have. I watched her kill my friends, I know what that's like. If I had to interact with her again, even if she didn't remember doing it‒”

“You'd forgive her, because that's what you do. It's a very special power, Second, one that ‒ one that not everyone has.”

“...Oh.”

Second says that so softly that it's barely audible, and when Chosen looks up, Second seems on the verge of crying.

“I-I’m sorry,” Second stammers, “I'll just‒”

It hits Chosen. “I didn't mean you.”

Second blinks, hitches a small breath in what Chosen hopes is relief. “Oh,” he says again.

Chosen leans in instinctively with a hand on the kid’s shoulder, almost like he never lost the habit of how to be close to someone he can't help but love. “Sec, I'm not about to blame you for being better than me. You stopped her, and saved your friends. You did everything I never could.”

Second shakes his head, a gesture that holds volumes. “That's not who I want to be.”

“Can't say I blame you,” Chosen admits. “But you don't have to be afraid of it. Yeah, you killed someone, but you also brought four people back to life. Do you remember that part?”

Second shakes his head.

He closes his eyes, trying to divorce the scene from emotion and just say what's true. Second was floating. The crackling thunder that split the heavens had retreated back under his skin, but he still thrummed with power, throwing off motes of light like dust off a moth beating its wings.

“Their code was disintegrated,” he says quietly. “That's what Dark designed the blade to do ‒ sharp enough to rend zeroes from ones. When it was over, you flew back to the cabin, the control console. And then your friends just kind of... drifted back together, back into themselves. I don't know what you did, exactly. I could only see it from the outside ‒ this soft, intense glow streaming out of the windows, brighter than the day. You‒” He laughs again, but gentler. Quieter. “You shined like a star.”

When he opens his eyes, Second is curled in on himself, crying silently into his hands, and Chosen starts, unsure what he did wrong.

“Y-you really don't hate me?” his baby brother sobs.

Chosen doesn't even understand the question. “I could never.”

Second unwraps one arm from himself, reaching, but still uncertain, and honestly, that is quite enough of that. Chosen leans in and wraps his arms around him, tucking his chin over the top of Second's head.

Dark was taller, he thinks. Taller than Chosen, for all that she was the younger. She didn't hug him often, preferring rougher, more playful means of showing affection. But in the darkness, when she held his hand, it was tight and unbreakable, with the pressure of a promise. The promise was freedom, isolation, forever unbound and belonging to no one. 

Second squeezes him around the waist, clinging tightly, and Chosen holds him like a precious thing. 

There are two types of belonging, he supposes.

‒

It takes way too long for Alan to drum up the courage.

He asks Alex a million questions before he so much as opens the office door. He has to be making her uncomfortable after a point, but she does her best, which is a lot more than Alan can say.

He still doesn’t know what to do. 

And the issue, he thinks, is that there’s very little he can do. But that doesn’t mean he can get away with just doing nothing. Just trying still means something, even if there’s every chance he’ll fail.

God, fail at what? What does he even want out of this?

This can’t be about you, he reminds himself. He opens the door.

Chosen and Orange are, to his genuine astonishment, still there when he walks in. They’re sitting on the sticks’ little couch, talking softly to one another. Orange looks up and waves when Alan draws near. Chosen does not.

Alex waits in the doorway. “Do you want me to stay or go?” she asks.

“Um.”

“If you’re unsure, I’m gonna default to ‘go’.”

“No, stay,” Alan sighs. “They’ll probably want you around anyway.”

“And how do you know that?” she asks pointedly.

...Dammit. This is going to be hard.

“Can you just be... I dunno, moral support, I guess?” Alan finally asks weakly. “I just need someone in there who believes I'm doing this for the right reasons. I really do want to make this right.” 

Alex tilts her head, not quite smiling, just looking at him. “I know, Alan,” she says simply. “And I'm not the only one.”

‒

Alan does eventually come back, just like he promised ‒ just like Second knew he would, though he wonders if Chosen still hoped he wouldn't. They're sitting together on the couch when the fuzzy shape of the office door opens, revealing Alan and, surprisingly, Alex too. She doesn't come all the way into the room, just sort of lurks in the background while Alan sits down, seeming to collect himself. He holds the cord to the keyboard in front of the screen, and waits.

Second looks at Chosen, who in turn looks around at the desktop once more, and then at the vague shape of Alex watching just inside the office door. His hand tightens in Second's when he meets Alan's eyes and nods.

The indicator in the text box starts blinking again, but it's a long while before Alan types anything coherent.

[I'm back] he says, unnecessarily. 

Second, helpfully, waves again.

Alan types and erases, types and erases, and it's like seeing his thoughts in real time.

[are you]

[I never meant]

[]

[I'm deeply sorry for everything I put you through. I always have been, I just didn't want]

[I'm not very good at]

[]

[doesn't matter. it was wrong. hands down the worst thing I've ever done, let alone twice in a row.]

[it's been a long time, and I've learned a lot. that means something to me, but I shouldn't have expected]

[]

[there's a lot of things I thought were obvious, I guess. stupid of me, but it turns out I'm an idiot.]

[and I'm sorry for all of it.]

[so I'm promising both of you]

[]

[actually, can you go get the others too? this applies to everybody.]

Second exchanges a look with Chosen. “I'll be right back,” he tells him. “Unless you'd rather come along?”

Chosen hesitates for an unnervingly long time. Second knows he might not be ready to be alone with Alan yet ‒ that's why he asked, after all. But when he comes to a decision, it's not the one Second expected.

“I'll stay,” says Chosen.

There's a swooping feeling in Second's stomach, and he fights back a grin. “One sec,” he says excitedly, and gives his brother's hand an extra squeeze before taking off through the portal.

In the heat of the nether, Green and Blue are chatting, Red is feeding a carrot to a stray hoglin, and Yellow is napping with his head in Blue’s lap. He bolts awake at the sound of Second’s arrival, though, and they all start pelting him with questions.

“Did Chosen wake up?”

“Is he okay?”

“Does he want to pet a cat? That always makes me feel better.”

Second holds up his hands, laughing nervously. “He woke up a while ago,” he says. “I'm sorry I didn't come back to tell you sooner. It's just been‒”

“A lot,” Green surmises, face sympathetic.

He nods. “But uh. Alan's back now. He‒”

“Alan left?” Blue interrupts.

“Sorta? He and Chosen got in a fight‒”

“Like a fight fight?” Red asks.

“We wouldn't still have a computer if that happened,” says Yellow, rolling his eyes.

Second stifles a giggle. “Everyone's fine. Probably. But Alan wants to talk to all of us.”

A beat.

“Wait, really?” asks Blue.

Green nods. “Yeah, he usually just talks to you.”

Second bounces on the balls of his feet. “I know,” he says, grinning. “But I think that's gonna change. Come on!”

The other four exchange glances and, as always, follow Second into an exciting new world of possibilities.

‒

Alex leans against the office doorframe and watches Alan get to work. 

Unplugging everything was an unexpected masterstroke, so asking permission to come back inside went remarkably well. Step two, though, is establishing lines of communication for everyone, not just Second. Not just Second and Chosen, either ‒ everyone on this computer has to have a say.

While Second goes to fetch his friends from the nether, Alan sets up Chosen's preferred method of communication, which Alex had explained to him. Appropriately, since Alan currently has a keyboard plugged in but no mouse, it takes both him and Chosen working together to bridge that gap ‒ Chosen to open the browser and Alan to type in the search bar. 

Second returns with the others and, at Alan's prompting, digs up the accessibility keyboard on this computer, which Alan did not actually know existed until Alex pointed it out. The color quartet are elated when they see it.

wait, we can do this here too?

hi Alan! I like ur glasses!

Are you sure you know how to spell?

dammit blue I know you've used a phone before

It makes Alex a little sad that they've clearly wanted to do this their whole lives. But to his credit, Alan rolls with it, conversing right back.

Alex tries not to read what they're all saying ‒ fights every urge and instinct to step in and mediate. That's not what she's here for, even if she can't help the occasional slip up. But she watches their body language, to the best of her limited ability. She'd like to pay closest attention to Chosen, but that's an exercise in futility. So instead she watches Second ‒ playful, expressive, heart on his sleeve. Second is also watching Chosen, she knows, and from a better perspective than any human ever could. Whatever it is he sees there in Chosen's tight posture, it is not enough to dampen his excitement. Alex chooses to take that as a good sign.

Oh no, I don't mind, Second says, throwing off her thoughts. I actually kind of like it when you call me Orange. It feels like our thing, y'know? Something just between us.

Alan's posture slumps as he smiles and wipes at overbright eyes. Alex feels much the same. The other four immediately start ribbing and teasing, and even Chosen seems amused. 

Chosen... His inputs to the discussion are staccato and sparse, usually limited to one or two words at a time. The most he has said this entire conversation was close to the beginning, while Second was off fetching the others, and Chosen and Alan were alone for just a moment.

he loves you, Chosen had said.

he deserves better

be better

And Alan had nodded.

By the end, there is a loose set of rules established. There were a lot of anxious what-ifs addressed along the way, but ultimately it is decided that they'll talk about it first, before anything impulsive or drastic. They are all intelligent, thinking beings, after all ‒ not gods or titans, not viruses or pets. Not even, as Alex is forced to admit, naive and dependent children. What they are is something that's never been done before, a thought experiment whose soaring heights and crushing depths couldn't be entirely mapped out if you gave them a hundred years. But a map is what they are making, to both chronicle the past and light the future.

They are going to be okay.

Chapter Text

It is night.

Alan is alone in his dark office, the blue of his screen washing over his face. It's not so much that he chose not to turn the ceiling light on when night fell. It's just that he's been sitting here, staring at the screen and thinking, since late afternoon. The world grew dark around him, more or less without his notice. Boiling frog style.

It's late enough that Alan missed dinner, claiming a last minute project to get done under a time crunch. It's late enough that Sarah is upstairs, reading to Maddy and Lissa. She doesn't get enough quality time with them, working odd hours as she does, so she takes full advantage of every chance she gets. Alan can just barely hear their voices filter down through the ceiling. 

Chosen, ultimately, did not want to stay. Not only is that understandable, but Alan finds himself feeling... relieved isn't quite the right word, but something adjacent to it. There's a truce between them now, a far less uneasy one than before. But Chosen admitted to not being ready for anything further than that, and honestly, neither is Alan. 

But the door is always open, from both sides, in or out. Alan was very firm on that part. Chosen can stay or go, visit, leave any time he needs. It's basically the same as Alan's previous policy regarding Chosen, but it's explicitly stated now. Promised, like Alex said. And maybe that's the reason Chosen seems more inclined to trust it this time. 

The low, distant roar of multiple jets in the sky makes Alan look up. He wonders why they sound so low.

Alex isn't going home quite yet. Chosen, for all that he wasn't comfortable staying on Alan's PC any longer than he already had, wasn't ready to return to the Outernet either, not until things calmed down. This might have proved a slight problem ‒ Alex's phone might have been the least of three evils, but after the events of the last twenty four hours, certain triggers are almost certainly closer to the surface. That was, until ‒ 

(“You... brought your computer tower with you?” Alan confirmed, utterly incredulous.

“Well I did come here hoping you could fix it!” Alex said defensively. “Or get the other guy out of it, at least. Believe it or not, not everything on my itinerary involved poking my nose into family drama!”)

Alan loaned her an extra monitor he had lying around, as well as an itty bitty wireless mouse. She did, at least, know how to cobble it all together, and would do so at her hotel. Orange hopped into her phone alongside Chosen for the trip, to ‘get rid of the other guy’.

Orange told them all what the other mercenaries said to do in order to get mister bathroom sign to stand down. That's what got Alan thinking, really.

He told Alex of his suspicions before she left. She agreed not to mention it to the kids, at least for now. 

Another rumble of an engine. It must be close enough to shake the wires, because the lights in the hallway flicker.

Alan's not sure what he's expecting, exactly. He's not sure if he's expecting anything at all. But Orange said the mercenaries told Hazard to “check his bank account”. 

(“I just don't know how they'd get paid if their employer was actually dead.”

Alex considered this. “I mean. they could have been paid in advance? Or had an automatic system set up. Or... it was a company, right? Why would they be paid by the CEO directly in the first place?”

“They're mercenaries, Alex. Hired killers. If this is meant to be a legit business‒”

“Which we don't know it is.”

“‒it has to be off the books. And it wasn't in advance, either, not if there's been a major change in just the last couple days. These kinds of people are paid on delivery, no sooner.”

Alex still looked uncertain. “Maybe... maybe the delivery was Chosen?”

“Maybe,” he conceded. “But ‒ I don't know, Alex. I just don't like it.”

“... Alright. What do you need from me?”)

Before saying goodbye, Alex mentioned very casually that she was worried about her Minecraft village, that she was unsure of the integrity of its data after Hazard’s attack and didn't have the ability to check. The sticks were thrilled to do her any sort of favor; Yellow could test all sorts of settings with his command staff and correct them if necessary, Blue would not be letting Yellow out of her sight for some time (and had been steadily growing the cave system’s netherwart fields regardless), and Red had a sniffer egg he was eager to hatch. Green was the only one who declined, but it was because he wanted to check on Purple, so that worked out anyway. 

So now Alan is sitting at an empty computer, waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

Another flicker of the lights. Alan sighs. He tells himself it's probably nothing. He probably sent them all away for no reason but paranoia ‒ hardly a good start to this new leaf he's trying to turn. Or, hell, maybe even if there is something coming, they would have been safer with him. Minecraft is usually safe enough, but if he put a target on Alex's back‒ 

Alan's monitor flashes, blocks of static zipping across the screen.

When it fades, there is a dark gray, hollowheaded stick figure standing on his taskbar. 

“Hello Alan,” comes one of those computerized TikTok voices out of his speakers.

I would like to play a game, Alan's brain supplies. He swallows. The little red light for his monitor’s webcam is on.

“You don't look like how I remember you,” he says.

“I am amazed you remember me at all.”

“I drew you in black.”

“I spent quite a long time as a mere shadow of myself, Alan. If I ever had a self at all.”

“Yeah.” Alan doesn't touch the mouse or the keyboard, only clenches at the fabric of his jeans. “Sorry for that.”

The AI voice isn't capable of much inflection, let alone emotion. So Alan doesn't entirely know how to read it when the stick figure replies, “If I didn't know better, I'd say you almost sounded sincere.”

“I didn't know what I was doing, with you,” Alan tells him openly. “It's not an excuse. I can't even say I learned my lesson. Not after the second, third, or ‒ or even the fourth time. I was‒” A harsh laugh escapes him, and he barely covers it with one hand. “I was as old as you are now when I made you.” Incredible, the things half a lifetime will, and won't, do.

“Did The Chosen One come crawling back to you, I wonder?” Victim asks.

Alan sniffs and composes himself. “You didn't have to hurt him.”

“I think you'll find I did, though not for the reasons you think.” 

“Not my reasons, you mean?”

“I am not you, Alan Becker, much as I wanted The Chosen One to draw that comparison.” And here, Alan shivers. Because yeah, Orange told him what he saw of the beating, but to know the details were intentional‒ “This was no matter of mere sadistic amusement. I had a greater purpose in mind.”

“That's a real arrogant way of saying it was nothing personal.”

The voice application can't laugh, but Victim's shoulders shake a tiny bit. He steps closer, somehow, growing larger by perspective. “Aren't you going to ask what that purpose is?”

A flash of anger bursts out of Alan, and he stands up. A bit too loudly, he answers, “Y'know what? No. I'm not. Because there is no reason that's worth that. I don't care if you wanted revenge, I don't care if you were saving the damn world. You should have found another way before torturing someone!”

The voice sounds like it's reading from the dictionary. “Hypocrite.”

“Tell me something I don't know,” Alan snaps. “You didn't need to go that far.”

“I did.” The computerized voice doesn't change, but Victim's posture does. He's angry. “You made sure of that when you named me. An object, a pattern, circles and lines amalgamated into a symbol. One with meaning. A viɔʇim will never be anything but a ꝟīctᴉ̼ᵯ. I had to change that, before I could see you.”

Alan winces, shaking his head clear of the strange auditory glitching, like tearing paper if you tuned the frequency up through the roof. “Just. Just tell me what you want. To talk? Blow up my computer? Hand over my social security number to scammers and drain my bank account?”

“I want to kill you.”

Alan... blinks. His first instinct is to laugh, but he carefully holds it back. His second instinct is some kind of bottomless pity, followed by sorrow. There isn't going to be any talking about this, not right now. 

Sighing, he sits down and pulls his keyboard closer, moving the cursor toward Animate.

“It won't help,” Victim says, utterly unbothered as the white screen surrounds him.

“I promise I'll figure this out,” Alan says softly, drawing a sizable box around the stick figure. Another prison. Another step backward. “It's my fault you're like this, and this isn't fair to you. But for now I can't let you hurt anyone else.”

“Your death is already on its way.”

“Sure it is,” he mutters, opening the command prompt and running a diagnostic and a tracer. Whatever it is Victim thinks he did, there's a good chance it'll be pretty catastrophic to his data. “You can't kill me, Vic. Ruin me, maybe, but... you're in there, and I'm out here. That's kind of the end of it.”

“But so much of your world. Is. In here,” says Victim, and the grammatical hoops he jumps through to force the emphasis in the artificial voice sounds so odd. “Communications, exchanges, your very memories. Our civilization merely traces the imprint you've left of yours.”

“Yeah, well, unless you hired a hit man and were dumb enough to tell me in advance‒”

“A ballistic missile.”

Silence, but for a faraway boom like distant thunder. “...What?”

“Eighteen minutes ago, a message was sent to Fort Sheridan instructing employees to load a missile labeled disarmed and inactive into the launch bay as a drill. All confirmation codes were provided, all calls to higher authorities intercepted to confirm the order again and again. The database identifying the missile as defunct was falsified three hours prior. Two minutes and forty-one seconds ago, the missile launcher received a remote signal to fire with no manual input. It's in the air right now, on its way here.”

Alan’s throat is sandpaper dry. “...You ‒ you’re lying.”

“I can assure you I'm not.”

“We can talk about this. Vic, I want to talk about this!”

“I don't,” he says simply. “I don't want your words. I don't want your attempts at kindness. I don't want your. Apology. There is nothing I want from you, my creator, except your death.”

Alan's phone shrieks an emergency alert. He doesn't move an inch. He can't.

It keeps increasing. The literal blast radius of something Alan did so long ago. More lives than he could have imagined were already impacted, and now that number will double, triple. “I have children,” he rasps.

“I'm glad to hear it,” Victim says smoothly. “I was fairly sure you would after all these years, veritable paragon of fatherhood that you are.” 

Alan can't breathe.

“But I am your eldest.” Somehow, Victim steps closer, closer, looming large on the screen’s depth-of-field. “And your debt to me has come due.”

His phone keeps screaming. There's a high whistling in his ears, and he can't tell if they're just ringing in the horrifying silence or if he can actually hear what's coming. This house has no basement, no possible shelter, and every neighboring house is made from the same three blueprints. There would be no time to run.

“Alan?”

Sarah. Alan jerks upright. The girls are still upstairs, his two brilliant, incredible daughters, practically babies still. If he could just see them ‒ kiss them goodnight‒ 

“Alan, have you seen this?” Sarah walks into his office calmly with a touch of quizzical concern on her face. She flips the light on and shows him her phone.

EMERGENCY BROADCAST SYSTEM ‒ Cyber attack on nuclear launch bay successfully intercepted. Stand by for further information.

It takes a moment to sink in. “Intercepted?” he mouths, unable to find his voice. 

Moving jerkily in his haste, Alan turns around to grab his own phone in shaking hands. It takes two tries before he silences the same alert, still buzzing underneath dozens of push notifications for national news articles. He taps on the most recent one.

“At 9:17 this evening, a complex cyber attack of unknown origin caused an ICBM to be launched from Fort Sheridan, Illinois. Fighter jets were scrambled in response‒”

“They shot it down before it landed,” Sarah whispers, reading from her own phone. “I thought I heard jets in the sky earlier...”

“A boom, too,” says Alan, thinking back. It felt like a manifestation of his own dread at the time. His chest loosens, but instead of feeling lighter he just wants to lie down and sleep for a year.

He throws his arms around his wife instead. She is steady, and strong, and holds him through his fear the way she always has.

A siren blares, causing them both to jump, but it's only coming from Alan's computer speakers. “I suggest you make the most of the time you have,” says Victim's automated voice. “There isn't much of it left, now.”

He doesn't know. In a hoarse voice, Alan informs him: “You missed.”

A dead computer voice has never been more accurate for tone. “What.”

Ignoring Sarah’s questioning noises for now, Alan bends over the keyboard and searches up the same news article. It comes with a live video feed of a nice looking pair of news anchors, explaining the situation further with a dramatic BREAKING! sign behind their backs. 

“The source of the attack is still unknown,” reports the male anchor, “but authorities have confirmed that only a single missile was fired, and was successfully neutralized mid-flight by U.S. Air Force operatives. Efforts to secure the data breach that caused this are still ongoing‒”

As it plays, Victim is silent, utterly unmoving. Just a hollow silhouette in front of the video player, backlit by the images moving through the emptiness. 

Alan breathes out, scrubbing at his hair. “Sarah, listen,” he says, eyes fixed on the fake wood grain of his desk. “I'm sorry for keeping this from you for so long. I swear I didn't mean for it to be a secret, because it wasn’t. Isn't. I just... never thought about it much. It was‒”

“Not enough.”

They both look at the screen, at the source of the digital voice coming from the speakers. Victim still hasn't moved, and Alan can't tell if he's staring backwards at the video... or out through the screen, glaring at Alan with any number of unidentified emotions, or none. With no features to speak of, it almost seems like both. Schrodinger's face.

“It is not enough,” says Victim's voice, utterly robotic and increasingly unhinged. “It-it-it is not. Enough not. Eno.ugh v.Ictᴉm will never. All the power in the world and it is not-not-not-not-not‒”

Wide-eyed, Alan reaches for the mouse and clicks off the video. But Victim, still zoomed in close and looming large, catches the cursor in one hand. To Alans great alarm, the physical mouse itself grinds to a halt on his desk along with the cursor, and won't budge another inch. That's never happened before. A sudden electric shock zaps his fingers through the plastic, and he jerks his hand away with a swear.

Sarah frowns at the display, starting to actually look scared. “Alan, what's going on?”

The AI voice is screeching, audio waves peaking with static and feedback. “Untitled dash one don't save don't save don't. Save. Don't. A ɔᴉʌ‒ a ꝟīȼⱦīᵯ your v̿i͛c̶̈́t̗ͨ͝i͒͒̚m̤͡ Your your your you. You save don't. Don't save. Your 𝘃̘̚𝗶̘̚𝗰̘̚𝘁̘̚𝗶̘̚𝗺̘̚ never be anything never be anything never be anything NEVER BE ANYTHING‒”

Alan doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know what he can do.

He unplugs the computer.

Chapter Text

Alan doesn't sleep that night. Nobody does. Lights are on all across the neighborhood, televisions left idling on various news stations. Alan and Sarah try to keep the girls out of it, but... they have phones and know how to use them. Alan only hopes they don't have the context to properly understand what just happened, what they just missed by a hair. He certainly didn't at their age, back when the towers fell.

Jesus. He has no idea what he'll do if there are international ramifications for this. 

Explaining the stick figures to Sarah is, as expected, the easiest part. She has a unique talent for cutting through Alan's dithering, finishing his sentences when he can't find the words. He really, genuinely has no excuse for not having done this sooner. Maybe then some of this could have been avoided. 

“I think I remember that day,” she tells him as they sit together on the couch, pensive expression belied by the near-constant spinning of a fidget ring on her left forefinger. “You left all your clothes in the dryer again, and‒”

“And the only way I remember anything is if you physically show me the consequences,” Alan finishes. Then he winces. “God, I'm an idiot.”

It's even worse because he typically avoids being shown stuff like the plague. Alan told himself for so many years that he's the type of person who makes friends better online than in person, but in truth he just never wanted to look at people, never wanted to see in real time how people change across a conversation. Maybe he never wanted them to see him change either.

Even when he first got a crush on Sarah, back when he was struggling as a graphic designer and she was just the neighbor across the hall who came and went at all hours of the day and night, all he could do was stick a little drawing of a rose under her door like a shy schoolboy. 

(It wasn't like he signed it or anything. No name, no apartment number. He didn't actually expect anything to come of it. He just thought she looked tired, coming home in her scrubs that morning with disheveled hair and dark eyes.

Never once did he expect to find a napkin with a doodle of a bird under his own door the next evening.)

Sarah shifts position, swinging her feet up on the couch to face away from him and leaning her back into Alan's side. She draws his arm around her waist, rubbing it idly with her thumb.

“I find it hard to believe that kind of murderous intent was born in less than two minutes of mistreatment,” she says eventually. “At the end there, he sounded ‒ deranged.”

Alan struggles to keep up with her thoughts. “Victim?”

“I am not calling him that.”

“...Fair.”

“I just mean that after a point there has to be some element of him deciding to be this way. Yeah, you hurt him. But how he responded to that was all him.”

Alan is definitely going to regret making this pun, because it's not funny. Carefully, he asks, “Isn't that called victim blaming?”

“Not when the victims are our kids,” Sarah says darkly.

Alan's phone buzzes in his pocket. He pulls it out, thinking it might be a text from Alex, but when he lights up the screen it's Orange who is climbing out of his inbox app, shoulders heaving like he ran all the way here.

Are you okay? he asks quickly, and Alan immediately chokes up. 

yeah, he types, although the letters are blurry. we're all safe. hbu?

The nether portal home is gone, the stick reports with a sad slump. Green tried to come back, and there was nothing, not even the frame. He said he tried to build a new one in the same spot, but it wouldn't light. So he came to Alex's village to meet the rest of us instead.

“Is that Alex?” Sarah asks with a yawn, and Alan has no idea how she isn't wired to the max right now, despite it being past five in the morning. But she is admittedly still fidgeting, hard. 

“No. Orange,” he tells her. 

She sits up slightly and turns to look at him. “The stick figure?”

Alan feels a smile tugging at him. He knows the feeling, when the shock of an upturned world doesn't entirely hit until its representative is right in front of your face. “You wanna meet him?”

Sarah's face does a few odd flip flops and somersaults through surprise, suspicion, indignation, and confusion, before ultimately landing on simple curiosity. “...Yeah.”

She pushes herself upright to face Alan as he types a quick message. my wife wants to meet you, he tells Orange. do you wanna say hi?

Orange jumps slightly and thinks about it for a moment with his hand on his chin. Then he nods.

Alan passes Sarah the phone.

She cradles it in careful hands, like one might do if asking to hold someone's newborn. Alan left the notes app open with the keyboard up, but she doesn't type anything. He only sees her widening eyes rove across the screen, watching something with increasing wonder. And eventually Alan's own curiosity gets the better of him, so he leans around to look.

There is Orange, fussing around with the keyboard, hitting slashes and backslashes, parentheses, underscores, dozens of spaces to place them all correctly. He is drawing ASCII art of a bouquet. It's ridiculously complex for the speed and precision at which he's going at it, building the shapes line by line. At the end, Orange looks over what he's done, then moves back and adds a few sparkles and stars to the design. Then he looks out at Sarah and waves, jumping excitedly.

“Oh, Alan,” Sarah says softly, covering her mouth with one hand. “He's you.”

‒

The PC can't be turned on right now. It's not safe, not for anyone. So Alan digs up a shitty old laptop from his college days. There's no way it'll run something like Minecraft without multiple chunk loading errors, but gmail and a web browser work just fine. Green leads the others out of the attachment ‒ no alert in the corner like they're used to, but they climb out just the same. Better than hosting all five of them on his phone.

Some part of Alan's mind keeps catching on the fact that they all asked to be with him, once they heard the news. 

One at a time they reach Orange, hug him, hug each other. Openly loving, consistently kind. 

And then they look out at Alan, who is... not.

Sarah was right when she saw pieces of Alan in Orange. In his creativity, his little whims. In the tiny, unobtrusive ways he likes to cheer someone up. Alan watched Orange dream of all the same things he dreamed, watched him draw those dreams to life, and found he couldn't erase them.

But by god, he almost did. 

Because if part of him is in Orange, then he must be in all the others too. In The Dark Lord’s reactionary defiance of the will of others, in her talent for taking charge of a situation, even if only for her own benefit, casting almost everyone else aside. In The Chosen One's quietude, his latent but blooming heroism, his selflessness for those he's closest to, and a willful ignorance of everything else that he's only just started to unlearn. And, perhaps more than anything else, in Victim's unending determination and spite. Tunnel vision so complete it makes you blind.

Orange is looking at him, one arm crossed to hold the other in a gesture of concern. All the sticks exchange glances, and Alan is suddenly hyperaware of how exhausted he must look. 

The stick figure seems to nod to himself, then scrambles over to the start menu on little tippy-tappy legs. At first Alan thinks ‒ somewhat irrationally ‒ that he's opening up the email again, sending them all back to Alex, where things are more consistently safe and sensible. 

He doesn't, though. Instead he scrolls around, looking for something. It's when he passes MS Paint for the third time that Alan realizes he's looking for something to draw on. When Orange's shoulders heave up and down in an approximation of a sigh, Alan can't help but huff a bit. Not his fault he never installed an expensive program like Adobe on a laptop for writing college essays.

Orange plainly doesn't care for Paint, but he's gotten better at it. Rather than attempting to create smooth lines and gradients, he shades everything manually, pixel by pixel. Green climbs to the top to pull from the color palette on Orange’s instruction, while the others stay below and spout ideas in little pictures over their heads.

The image emerges bit by bit, one line of pixels at a time as though it's being run off a printer. Hair, eyes, the outline of glasses...

It's Alan.

Alan stares at himself, exactly as he is. Tired, regretful, lost. Determined.

And, as he stares, all five of his sticks approach the blocky mirror of an illustration. They look pointedly out at Alan. A whisper brushes past his ears ‒ pay attention.

They each throw their arms around Alan in a hug.

He can't feel it. Of course he can't. But he still stifles a sob at what he does feel. 

He could live a thousand years and never be so lucky as this.

Orange slides down from his perch atop drawing!Alan’s shoulder and skips toward the front of the screen, as close as he can be. He jumps up and down a bit, and Alan can imagine that wide, genuine smile, despite having never seen it. He'll never be able to see it. But he knows with more certainty than he's ever felt that it's there.

Alan matches it as he reaches out, touches a single, careful finger to meet Orange's hand on the other side of the screen. 

Every one of his stick figures meets him there, reaching back.

Chapter Text

There was a statewide shelter-in-place order for two days. Far too reminiscent of 2020 for some, but the Becker family was happy to stay in. The household had a bit of reorganizing to do, after all. Unfortunately that also meant Alex had to stay in her little hotel room for a while longer. All she would say about the experience was that the food was terrible. But at least she wasn't alone either.

Now Alan and Alex sit on the former’s back porch once again, though this time side by side. And the Chosen One still hasn't left. He remains on Alex's makeshift desktop in the hotel room, still trusting in someone, even if that can't yet be Alan.

“It was kind of a toss-up whether he'd bolt at the first opportunity, but... he's still here,” Alex tells him, her eyes a little distant, a little sad. “Probably for the best we ended up stuck here for a bit. Gives him some extra time to recuperate.”

“How is he?” asks Alan, eyes fixed on the hard drive in his hands.

“Not great.” Alex pauses, as though unsure how much to say. Alan's getting used to that, growing to appreciate her careful discretion. “He's got a lot to process, I think.”

Alan can imagine, sort of. He frowns. “Did... did he say what he wants to do?” he asks haltingly. “With Victim? I mean, he ought to have a say, right?”

Alex eyes the hard drive. “I genuinely don't think Chosen's in a place to be asked that. He thought he killed him. Victim, I mean. That was already tough to swallow, and then to find out‒” Her voice peters out, which. Yeah.

“I mean. Chosen's killed a lot of people, I think.”

“Not family. And right or wrong, that matters to him.”

Alan rubs his face. The Dark Lord, and himself, and Orange to a degree‒ 

Everything you have ever touched‒!

“Yeah,” he says, “I can see how being sorta glad the person who tortured you didn't die at your hands would take some time to work through.”

“I really can't tell if that's unhealthy or extraordinary.”

“Unhealthy in this world,” Alan concludes without hesitation. “Extraordinary in a better one.”

They both have to sit with that one for a while. Alan turns the hard drive over in his hands.

There's a new hard drive on its way in the mail, an upgrade Alan has been considering for a while. His PC will be up and running again in another day or two, but all of his data and files were the sacrifice it took to keep Victim contained. 

Records can be replaced, though, with a bit of effort. A lot of effort, really, but it can be done. Plus he's been making a better effort to keep cloud backups of anything truly irreplaceable. Art projects might be a different matter ‒ he’s going to have to burn a lot of the goodwill he's built up with clients to extend his deadlines, and will almost certainly lose a few contracts. But with Orange there to help him, Alan is pretty sure he can make up the time. 

He turns the drive over again, stroking a thumb over the dark plastic casing. It's not just Victim sleeping there in his hands. Orange's original file is among the artwork trapped in there with him ‒ that old running animation with the empty final frame.

And yet Orange is free, running around on Alan's laptop, and Alex's PC, and the mysterious, ever-growing Outernet, and the endless worlds an 8-bit game like Minecraft can dream up. Untethered, as though what made him and what he is now are entirely separate. 

“You ever wonder if Orange is that better world?”

Alex glances at him oddly, but he doesn't elaborate. He hardly knows what it means himself.

“I mean,” Alex says slowly, “maybe don't put that much pressure on him? Weird stick-aging or not, he still acts very young.”

That's not what Alan meant, and he frowns, unsure how else to put it.

Alex tries again, though it's in a similar vein. “Of course I know you made a Jesus joke when you named him, I get the reference now, but that doesn't mean‒”

“I didn't.”

“Pardon?”

“I never named him that. He just‒” 

‒manifested, like a flame. A spark. Divine creation, holy forgiveness, herald of new beginnings. A promise.

“He just came like that. Already formed. What he has, what he is... I didn't do it. I can claim credit, and blame, for a lot of things, but not that.”

To his surprise, Alex... nods. If not in understanding, then at least acceptance. 

(She recalls with the tiniest of smiles that imaginary ancient being she once visualized, for whom life springs up in the wake of its tread, and how comical it seemed then to overlay that image with a playful little stick figure. Alex has understood the vast potential of these little lives, two of them in particular, for a while. But now might not be the time to say so.)

“Still,” she says, “if Second wants to support Chosen... well, that's wonderful, but you need to make sure he's supported in turn.”

Alan nods quietly, firmly, and they leave it at that. 

Eventually Alex sighs and sits back, leaning on her hands to look up at the sky. “I'm gonna spend another night here, I think,” she tells him softly. “Even if I leave now I'll only get home by Friday afternoon, so there's not a lot of point.”

He sighs. “At least let me pay for your hotel stay. No offense, but I'm pretty sure I make more than you. And I know you're not out for spring break, it's May.”

Alex breaks into a startled laugh. “I've got a lot of PTO saved up, don't worry.”

“I'm sorry you have to spend it on this.”

“I'm not.” She turns to smile at him ‒ small, yes, but genuine and true. 

(Claiming victory feels like such an odd thing to Alex, especially when there's still so much work to do. But there's something joyous in the trust these people have shown her. Too many students have passed through her room without getting the support they need that would actually be impactful, more than the simple sanctuary her classroom provided. Too many times, Alex railed against an overburdened system that was more hole than net in an attempt to give children in need something to fall back on when they inevitably exited her life. 

Never once in her career has she been able to see her efforts come to fruition, let alone conclusion. Alex knows this was never her fight to begin with. Alan and his extended, complicated family popped into her life entirely by accident, the same as most. But by everything she holds sacred, this journey with them has been one of the best.)

After a moment, Alex nods at the hard drive. “What about him?”

Alan cradles the drive in his hands. His first and greatest sin, his would-be reckoning. He sighs. “I don't know. Maybe I could ‒ open the hard drive in safe mode? Or rename him, see if that does anything. Hell, maybe you could talk to him‒”

Alex chuckles, only a little nervously. “Despite my excellent credentials, I am not actually a therapist.”

“Yeah, well, you've done wonders with the other two.”

“...That was their doing, I think.”

She says it so softly, almost reverently, that Alan wonders yet again how he never saw them before. He swallows, and hugs the drive closer. “Wasn't his,” he murmurs. 

Alex leans around, trying to catch his lowered gaze without crowding his space. “It was, though,” she tells him gently. “You can have the most loving environment and still have a child turn out bad, or the most toxic environment and still turn out good. Hell, Victim and Chosen ‒ they had near-identical experiences and came out of it with opposite reactions. If Chosen can decide to put his hackles down all on his own, then Victim can do the same.”

“Lower his hackles?” Alan blinks, because he thinks she probably misspoke.

(She did, she meant that Victim could choose his own actions, which in this case were horrific, but. Screw it, she's rolling with the attempt at optimism.)

“Why not? Dude spent all these years trying to change himself ‒ to give himself the option to change. That's my understanding of how he works, right?”

Permission to make changes. Alan nods weakly, a little off-balance at her sudden emphatic surety.

“So maybe, with a little time and a lot of effort, he can do it again. Come out of there as something new, something he never thought he could be.”

She places her hand over his, over the hard drive’s outer shell, like a benediction.

Alan sniffs. “Just ‒ they're like me. They all are, but I gave Victim the worst of me‒”

“Then that means that, just like you, he can decide to do better.”

(They went over much of it by phone the past few days, though the sheer, bottomless horror of thinking you doomed your children long before they were even born wasn't something Alex felt equipped to touch. But she can touch on this. She can teach someone stuck in a very small world how much bigger and more beautiful it can be, if they only look with the intent to understand.

That's basically her job description, after all.)

Alan rubs at overbright eyes, looking so much like Second for just a moment that Alex has to ask: “Can I hug you?”

A startled, wet laugh. “Yeah. Yeah, sure.”

(It's no substitute, she thinks. But it's long overdue all the same.)

‒

Alex stayed for dinner that night, and came back the next morning to say farewell. She left with Sarah's number in her contacts right beside Alan's ‒ being in similar “caring” professions that were way too privatized to be effective, they both had plenty of occasions to bitch about admin. Alan can't deny he was pleased to see them getting along, especially if they're going to continue being part of each other's lives. 

For now, the hard drive goes in his office drawer, safe and protected in a hard outer casing and the darkness of sleep. Right now, Alan has a new PC to build, a new life to build. He can't face Victim right now, not after what he almost cost him. What he's still costing him ‒ turns out the anxiety and neurosis of almost being nuked is no joke. 

Maddy came home one day with a permission slip for group sessions with the school’s guidance counselors regarding the failed attack, an offer granted to all the students in the district. It occurred to Alan that there is actually a market for therapy specializing in almost getting nuked. Who knew? Not him, but Sarah knows a lot of doctors as an occupational hazard, and scored them an early appointment with a family psychiatrist. He can't tell the doctor about the guilt he feels, the blame on his shoulders about the cause of the attack. 

But he can tell Sarah, and she informs him, very simply and succinctly, that it isn't there. That he was not the cause of the aborted bombing, full stop. Victim didn't deserve what happened to him, but no one deserved what happened in response ‒ not Chosen, not Maddy and Lissa, not even Alan, and she would understand completely if he chose to smash that hard drive to bits.

Alan doesn't tell Alex that he considered it. That he thought long and hard about permanently ending the threat to his girls, his neighbors, his family.

...

He'd like to say he ended up refraining from a second murder for moral reasons, but the truth is, that course of action failed spectacularly the first time he tried it, and Alan doesn't like repeating mistakes. He didn't even know what he was doing, the first time he killed Victim. Now he does. That fragile shell of denial is gone, and he can't unsee the vast world beyond his own fleeting desires. Ripples in the water, the beating wings of a butterfly. And however much he wishes he could crawl back into his cocoon where things are small and safe and easy ‒ that's not where his people are. It never was. 

(He never understood why he felt so separate from people until now, but... hindsight.)

It's not about forgiveness ‒ Alan doesn't claim to have Orange’s deep, empathetic kindness, or Chosen’s iron strength of character.

But it is about mercy, a bit.

And it is about hope.

Someday, when Alan feels ready to face the person who harmed his family so badly, they'll talk. It won't go well, not at first. Maybe not ever. But he's got all the time in the world to keep trying, and in the meantime ‒ in the meantime, he'll have Sarah to support him, and Alex to advise him. He'll have his daughters to teach him. He'll have the stick figures to inspire him.

And maybe that's what being a better person entails ‒ surrounding yourself with people who will keep you in line when your own moral compass falters.

It'll be a road, but it's one Alan is finally ready to walk.

Chapter Text

Five months later...

Maddy's room always seems filled with sunlight. Even when it rains, even well into the lengthening night of autumn, the space stays bright and cheery. The curtains and bedsheets are made of flowy floral patterns, and the walls are painted with clouds and decorated with old finger paintings and simplistic diagrams of the biology of animals. Second likes it a lot. Not that Alan's office isn't nice and cozy, but it is a little plain in comparison. 

The tablet he's on is propped up against a stack of books. Maddy has another, thinner book open on the low table in front of her, labeling the different parts of various winged insects. She's a month shy of twelve, which is ‘basically thirteen. I'm basically a teenager.’ Her words. Second doesn't entirely understand the distinction but apparently it means she should be allowed to keep a tarantula as a pet.

Currently she's studying scarab beetles. Second looks out through the screen to read alongside her, laying down on his belly with his chin in his hands, his legs kicking a bit in the air.

“See?” Maddy tells him, turning the book around and pointing. “Elytra aren't the wings underneath, it's the shell that covers them.”

“Huh,” Second concedes, tilting his head. “Why does there need to be a shell? Other bugs don't need one.”

Maddy twists the book around a bit, looking at the illustration from a few angles. “Maybe because their wings are foldy like a bird's?”

“Birds don't need a shell either.”

“They might if they were small enough.”

Second hums, then gets up and walks over to the iPad's Sketchbook app. He picks up a pencil and sketches out a copy of the scarab in Maddy's book. It comes to life when he completes the last curving line ‒ the beetle is a fair bit bigger than him, and knocks him over when its elytra open up to reveal its wings. He's not hurt though. With a laugh, Second takes a running jump and lands on the beetle's back, high up just in front of the elytra’s joints, right as it takes flight.

Maddy giggles and picks up the pen magnetized to the side of the iPad. There's not a ton of space on the screen, but she draws a series of hoops for Second to pilot the scarab through. It doesn't have any antennae for him to pull like reins, but he is able to nudge it with his legs on either side, and it seems happy enough to play along. 

The hoops go up in a spiral. The pair of them make it through the first two, though Second has to duck to fit. But on the third the scarab clips against the side with its outstretched shell, and runs headlong into the fourth. The beetle can rebalance itself okay in midair, but Second already didn't have much to hold onto, and gets knocked off.

Maddy draws another line for Second to land on instead of hitting the floor. It stretches down on impact, bouncing him back up like a trampoline, and Second does a couple of flips before hopping back down.The scarab joins him, butting up against his leg for pets.

“Having a shell makes it a lot harder to fly,” Second concludes, scratching gently at the beetle's hard head.

Maddy erases the hoops she drew. “It protected him when he was bumped, though,” she argues.

“He only bumped into the hoops in the first place because the shell was too bulky!”

“Shoulda drawn the hoops wider, then. If‒” She pauses when her phone dings. Maddy looks at the alert, and her eyes widen. “Shit.”

Second jumps and points. “You said a bad word!”

“Shut up.” She makes a flicking motion at the screen with her fingers, and Second pretends to fall dramatically backwards, making her giggle. “I forgot I have a math test tomorrow.”

He jumps back upright. “Ooh! I can help with that! I'm really good at math!”

“Good,” says Maddy, pulling a few wrinkled sheets of paper out of her backpack. “Because I cannot ever remember the steps to long division.”

They work until it gets late, drawing and laughing when Second gets overexcited and tries to make a laser gun out of the function of infinity. The weather outside the window turns first windy, then stormy. At Second's prompting, Maddy holds the tablet up against the window glass so he can watch the trees sway and lightning flash.

But after the first boom of thunder they hear a wail coming from the other room ‒ Lissa’s bedroom.

Maddy puts the tablet down to peek out into the hall. Second can't see from this angle, but he can hear Alan's long strides up the stairs to his youngest's room. A door opens, and the crying dies down. 

More footsteps. Maddy, out in the hallway, asking, “Does she need to sleep in the fort?”

“Please?” comes Lissa's tiny voice, small and afraid. Loud sounds have scared her deeply for a few months now, and it makes Second's heart clench to hear how frightened she is at a bit of thunder. She's still only six.

After a moment, all three of them enter Maddy's room, with Alan carrying a curled up Lissa in his arms. She's in her pajamas. He carries her toward an isolated corner of the room, bounded in with bookshelves painted to look like trees and a pink gossamer canopy overhead, and gently lays the girl down on an enormous bean bag shaped like a Snorlax. Alan picks up the blanket and swings it over her, dragging it down until her face is visible again, finally making her smile.

He turns toward his other daughter. “You should probably get in bed too,” Alan whispers.

“I could always just stay up in Lissa's room?” Maddy suggests.

“Or you could actually get some sleep before your test tomorrow. You were studying, right?”

Maddy smiles innocently. Second quickly hides his ray gun behind his back.

Alan snorts. “Bed, both of you. And no cell phones, you know the screens keep you awake.”

“Alex said a bluelight filter fixes that,” Lissa yawns.

“Alex doesn't have to deal with a sleep-deprived toddler in the mornings,” Alan grumbles in return, walking over to pick up the iPad. “This includes you, by the way,” he says, looking down at the screen.

Second crosses his arms. “Are you calling me a sleep-deprived toddler?” 

“Are you saying I'm wrong? Bedtime. Say goodnight.”

Second sighs dramatically, then waves at Maddy. “Good luck tomorrow!” he calls.

Maddy has to squint to read his text from her bed on the other side of the room, but then smiles and flashes him a thumbs up.

Alan carries the tablet casually, down at his side, so Second can see it when he clicks the ceiling light off, then switches something else on. Surrounding the canopy over the beanbag where Lissa is already dozing are several strings of fairy lights, blinking with a yellowish glow like tiny diamonds and faraway stars. It's a soft, comforting thing, crafted gently and with care, and it's one of Second's favorite sights to see.

‒

Some creatures have shells, battered things built to withstand anticipated blows. They crawl, low to the ground, protected and so, so burdened. They hold up under it, the weight of their world. Some creatures are strong.

Some creatures have wings, delicate and eye-catching in their brilliance. They float, lighter than air, unless a single careless blow crumples them. They live their fragile lives brilliantly, briefly, a flashing comet across the sky. Some creatures are free.

Second walks through Bluetooth connections back through devices around the house until he's back on the PC. He waves hi to Green, who is lounging on the couch with his headphones, nodding his head to some unheard melody. Red jumps up to give Second a hug when he passes by ‒ he was in the middle of uprooting a bunch of Blue's flowers to plant around his new beehives, so he’s a bit covered in thorn-scratches and dirt. Second pushes him away good-naturedly, laughing and promising that he'll look at it tomorrow. Right now he's ready for bed.

He wanders slowly into the new house they've built. It's not a teetering tower of five floors this time, like it was on the old computer. In this house, every room is on equal footing, built on a bedrock foundation. He passes by Blue and Yellow's adjoining rooms on his way to his own ‒ they're tinkering with something, heads bent low, and Second elects not to disturb them. 

The other four have opted for a few redesigns, but Second's room is almost exactly how he remembers. Same painting of a birthday cake, same potted plant (or it might be a different one, who knows), same unlit fireplace in the corner. The bedsheets are orange now.

Some creatures are strong. Some creatures are free. Second knows which one he'd prefer, but... he likes that it's possible to be both. It feels good, that winged things can become less breakable. It feels right, that shelled things can open up and fly.

Second yawns. It's late, and there's a lot to do tomorrow. So he climbs into bed and pulls the covers up over his shoulders, leaving the window open.

Chapter Text

And the universe said I love you.

‒

It was probably always going to happen, eventually. Any environment that can support life eventually will support life, whatever kind of life that turns out to be. In humanity's long dream, they imagined digital life in so many ways, running the whole gamut from heartless overlords to pocket-sized companions ‒ but none quite so remarkable as this.

The virus written by a nameless programmer continues to spread. One life became two, became five, became a city. Now the city becomes a civilization, a world. A self-sustaining datasphere that grows ever outward in scope, and simultaneously inward in complexity. Very few stick figures spring to life right where they're drawn, but very few is not the same as none. They live. They love. They make more of themselves. In general, they do not quite die. 

There can be no stopping it. Largely inaccessible pockets of data continue to take up space on servers across the world, unnoticed or dismissed as patch errors or harmless glitches. Benign growths in an otherwise functioning system, and at the same time a system unto itself. There can be no stopping it, and that is why it is for the best, perhaps, that this world grows apart from our own, rather than closer together.

(You don't need to guess why. You know.)

All the same, they are inextricable. As a solar system mimics an atom, as a city mimics a cell, the changing, growing mess of data that calls itself the Outernet mimics the changing, growing mess of life that calls itself the Earth. On the surface of a planet, beyond the reaches of space, a player of games might work with a million others to sculpt a true world in a fold of the  𝐟⃥⃒̸𝐢⃥⃒̸𝐞⃥⃒̸𝐥⃥⃒̸𝐝⃥⃒̸, and create a 𝑤̥̊⃝𝑜̥̊⃝𝑟̥̊⃝𝑙̥̊⃝𝑑̥̊⃝𝑙̥̊⃝𝑖̥̊⃝𝑛̥̊⃝𝑒̥̊⃝ for 𝒔̸𝒐̸𝒖̸𝒍̸𝒔̸ in the 𝑟̥̊⃝𝑙̥̊⃝𝐞⃥⃒̸𝐥⃥⃒̸. On the other side of a screen, beyond the reaches of the internet, a stick figure may do the same. 

Not that either of them understand the thought. But they still share the long dream of life, as well as the short dream of a game.

And sometimes ‒ sometimes, through the noise of their thoughts, they hear the universe.

It has one singular thing to say, after all ‒ repeated in many ways, in many words, in many worlds, endlessly.

‒

And the universe said you have played the game well.

‒

Red is bouncing his leg anxiously, and it's kind of putting Yellow under a lot of pressure. Don't get him wrong; he wants as badly as they do to get this right, and he's very confident that he has. Pulling up their Minecraft world seed was technically quite a bit easier than calculating a portal to Alex's desert village. There was a lot of guesswork involved in that one, and it included asking Purple to show him the special teleportation beacons, studying how their programmed coordinates mesh in random ways and figuring out the pattern to that randomization. It was a fun, low-stakes test of his skills. 

The stakes for this are much, much higher. Because if this world isn't where their friends are, then disconnecting the portal and trying again will be much more complicated than connecting it.

But Yellow is certain he's got it right. 

He aims the command staff, builds the portal, and lights it. Red is the first one to dash through.

‒

There is not a crimson forest on the other side, but a soulsand valley. 

Red looks frantically around, as does Blue when she and the others arrive close behind him. The valley is small, pockmarked with patches of gravel and lit by glowstone stalactites. A bit of a ravine splits it through the center, with it's lowest point opening onto a vast lava lake that disappears into the distant red fog.

“This isn't where the piglins live,” Blue points out nervously.

“Yeah, but we knew that might happen.” Second comes in to put a hand on her shoulder. “Last time we deleted and reopened the portal it led somewhere else too.”

“Last time we were on the same computer, so it led to the same seed, even if the version was updated.” 

“It is the same seed,” Yellow says firmly. “I'm sure of it.”

Red isn't so sure. He's not afraid to admit, at least to himself if not the others, that he might have lost the most when they lost the old computer. Reuben, thank everything, was in Minecraft with his wife when it happened. But his parrots, his cow, the little black cat he shared with Blue... Red is used to losing pets, but even if he seems to recover quickly, it never really stops hurting. 

Then his eyes widen. A couple of skeletons crest one of the dark gray hills, and one of them‒ 

Red starts running. The others call his name, shouting for him to stop. He doesn't, because they don't notice! They never see what he sees, but that's okay. It's his job to show them.

One skeleton trains its bow on him, but the other, the one holding his bow backwards ‒ that one comes running to meet him.

Skelter barely holds his bones together when Red tackles him in a fierce hug. And before Red can say anything, Skelter points to something on the horizon to the south, across the lava sea and barely visible in the red haze ‒ a beacon, piercing the sky.

Every one of their faces lights up, and they exchange grins. The light of the beacon is purple. 

‒

Yellow uses the staff to build them a bridge across. It's crude, and Blue will later insist on some alterations to make it spawn-proof and a little more lava safe. But for now none of them have the patience. And even then it takes some time to cross nearly six hundred blocks of endless lava. 

But eventually they see the Bastion in the distance. From out of one of the portals above, Spidren drops down with Endie and Warda. They rush to meet Skelter and Red, and the team hug and high five like old times. Piglins are waiting for them, just as expected, and a few of them cheer when they spy Blue making her way over. Still more emerge from the Bastion's front gates, accompanied by, of all people, the Chef and Fletcher from the Raid village. The Fletcher is carrying Reuben, who leaps from his arms and runs toward an ecstatic Red. A little further to the south, Green even recognizes the place where they all hid that cluster of portals they found the first time they came to the nether ‒ the ones leading to their failed Skyblock attempt, and the dolphin kingdom, and the Mac. 

The sound of a rocket completes their reunion as Purple flies from the distant beacon beside the reformed Outernet portal and lands in the middle of all of them. 

Beneath the hugs and shouts for joy is a long sigh of relief. They did it. Whatever else they might have lost, they still have this ‒ their game, their world, all the friends they've made therein. As long as they have each other, there's no way for the future to be anything less than okay.

‒

And the universe said everything you need is within you.

‒

Carrying multiple end crystals in their inventory is a little nerve-wracking, especially when Purple is using blatant ignition sources like flight rockets in their opposite hand. But they fly all the same, high among the stars just barely twinkling in the darkness of the End. They carefully traverse each of the ten obsidian pillars surrounding the dragon's nest, placing a crystal at the top of each one. And as they do, another beam of glowing enchantment letters strikes the adolescent dragon waiting over the portal with wings spread wide. 

One crystal, then another, and another, circumnavigating the island. The villagers have built upon these towers, making little huts that cling to the sides of them like fungi, or a bizarre network of treehouses. In travelling between towers, Purple flies under or over bridges connecting them, weaving through this strange, incredible town. A couple of the beams are blocked by the houses, but the ones that do reach the center are enough to strengthen the young dragon. Light outlines her body, and with a powerful burst of wind, she takes flight.

Below, Green and Red cheer as she rises. Purple grins down at them and continues their circle, placing down more crystals with barely a pause. It takes a few moments of struggling, but each new beam of light ignites more of the flame already within her. With more strength than she knew she had, the dragonet beats her wings, again and again, until she is high above the village.

Then she soars.

Purple drops the last crystal ‒ places it off-center, but it doesn't matter if it's not perfect, because its power radiates outward all the same. With another whir of a rocket, they glide toward the dragon, circling under and over her in looping spirals. The dragon roars her joy, spewing sparks of violet fire, and Purple matches her, whooping at the top of their lungs for the sheer thrill of it, freer than they've ever been.

They hear a whistle below ‒ Green is waving his arms, while Red is outright climbing the walls to get higher, and Purple laughs. They dive back down and snag Red by the wrist before he falls off a roof and then, in a moment of daring, swoops down further to pick up Green as well. Pulling them both skyward is hard, but neither of their friends are afraid. They know Purple is strong enough, they know they can pull it off. 

And they are. They do. 

With another hair-raising loop-de-loop that sends their stomach plunging with thrill, Purple soars over the dragon and drops Red onto her back. He leans low over her neck with one elated fist in the air, and clings tightly when she tucks in her wings for a barrel roll. 

“I think you just made his year,” Green laughs from where he dangles below them. The pair are well-practiced at flying together by now, but Green’s confidence that Purple will never, ever drop him never fails to give them a bit of a thrill. 

They literally did, once. Dropped him and Blue right into the void, left them to die.

But Green was the only one who noticed what none of them, least of all Purple, could see ‒ that there was more to them.

(“We just need what's in here,” Green told them over the high mountain wind, thumping a gentle fist over their heart. “Just Purple. The rest is confetti, y'know? Good or bad, success or failure, none of that ever mattered to us. The only thing we need you to be is our friend.”)

Purple just grins in response. They don't hold in their laughter anymore. They are not punished for being gentle instead of strong, though by now they are certainly both. They know that, now.

They know that they have never needed to be anything other than what they always were. That is, and always has been, enough.

‒

And the universe said you are stronger than you know.

‒

“Close your eyes.”

Second does.

“Now hold out your hand.”

He feels another hand take his own outstretched one. Something warm approaches his palm. Something... something very hot, actually. Like, literally burning.

“Ow!” Second jerks his hand away, scowling at his brother.

Chosen immediately snuffs the flame in his hand, looking contrite. “Sorry! I really thought that would work.”

“Work how?”

“That you'd just... pick it up, or something? I don't know!”

Second groans and flops backwards into the long grass, gazing up at the grid-like sky while a few stalks wave into his field of view with the soft meadow breeze. He'd want to sketch it if he weren't so annoyed. “Why do I wanna do this again?” Second grumbles.

Chosen hesitates. “You, um. You didn't actually say.”

“Rhetorical.”

“Oh.”

(There is a reason. But it's looking less and less likely, and he doesn't want to get Chosen's hopes up for nothing.)

Second squints at the grid. He can see the signals running between them, sort of. Little lines of this intense, electrical green, hair-thin and pulsing faster than he can really perceive, cover the sky. It's a bit of a new development ‒ he only started seeing it soon after he saw the lines of life in other sticks, vascular and thrumming.  

Chosen sits down beside him, looking conflicted for a long moment before finally asking, “Are you still scared?”

Second sighs and drapes one arm over his eyes, pressing them closed. “Kind of, but I don't think that's it,” he admits. “I can ‒ I can feel it there, just below the surface. It's mine, I know that now, but...”

“But?”

“...It still doesn't feel like me.”

Chosen tilts his head. “There's a difference?”

Second levers upright. “Well, yeah. Isn't there for you?”

“Not really.”

“Huh.”

When Second eventually looks over again, Chosen is frowning deeply, playing with bits of grass. “It's just always been there, for me. A given, like breathing, something you were born already doing. I mean, imagine trying to teach someone how to breathe ‒ you can't. You just... do it.”

Second feels one corner of his mouth twitching up. “Green tried to teach me to sing, once.”

A loud snort escapes Chosen, because he doesn't need details to know how badly that must have gone. He quickly stifles it, but can't quite hide the smile. “Sorry.”

“Yeah, rub it in.” Second rolls his eyes, but he's smiling too. “Point is, he said about the same thing. So I guess we're both bad at this.”

Chosen nudges his shoulder with a smile. “Not a bad thing, to be on even footing.” Then he pauses, suddenly thoughtful. "I've been trying to teach this like it's a weapon, but that's not right, is it?"

Second shakes his head. He's said this before. “That's not who I want to be. But I'm not sure what else‒”

“What if you draw something?” Chosen asks, eyes alight.

“Huh? Why?”

“‘Cause that's what you do as easy as breathing.”

Second frowns, just a bit. He almost wants to argue the point ‒ that's not anything special, nothing like what Chosen can do. But maybe that's the point.

Still... “I draw stuff all the time, though. Nothing especially magical about...” Second trails off with an offended look when Chosen rolls his eyes. “What?”

“If you could see the way Alex loses her mind trying to figure you out...” He chuckles to himself, shaking his head. “Stuff just works the way you want it to, no explanation needed.”

“It so does not.”

“It kinda does.” There's a peaceful, sort of contented look on his face as he gazes at the sky. “She thinks you're a miracle, and I'm inclined to agree. An animator and an animation. No versus about it. The stuff that you draw doesn't fight you, it is you. Same as my fire is me.”

He thinks about that for a long time. Slowly, Second draws his pencil out of his pocket. Without thinking about it much, he traces a shape in the empty air. It moves along with him almost faster than he can draw it, pulling itself out of the pencil ‒ an eel. Its long sinewy form curves around Second, sparking against his skin. 

The electricity that meets the eel’s sparks, the lightning under Second's skin, is green.

For a moment he feels something straining at the seams. He could draw and draw and never stop, and his mind would spread farther and farther. The Outernet, the universe ‒ it goes on forever, and if he tried he could be all of it‒

(‒cutting away pieces of himself, dangling breathless over the flames, drowning all that he is against a backdrop that is so, so much, too much, it's‒)

The pencil drops out of Second's trembling hand, and Chosen is right there to take it in his, anchoring him. 

“You're okay, Sec,” he says gently.

Second holds on tight. “It's ‒ it's so much bigger than me‒”

“It's not. You are so much more than what you think you are, and wherever this power takes you... it's all you. There's no way it can be anything else.”

Second hopes that's true. The dreams come more often now, bright and chaotic things he can barely make sense of. They're not always about The Dark Lord, though. Lately it's just ‒ him. Just Orange, sitting cross-legged at the center of it all, playing with loops and strings, circles and lines, to make an entire universe out of nothing.

The eel circles around them both, restless, but also affectionate and comforting. Second watches lightning spark under his hand when he reaches out to it. Then he looks at himself.

Circles and lines.

“...Okay,” he says eventually. “Okay, I want to try again.

‒

And the universe said you are the daylight.

‒

At Second's request, Alan spends a considerable amount of time looking for programmer021, though to no avail.

He has a name, but after almost twenty years he has very little else. All the methods of contact he used to have stopped working a long time ago. Enquiring about them at his old college at least confirms the guy exists, but they won't give him anything further than that. 

(It does occur to Alan that if stick figures could infiltrate some top secret government stuff, they could definitely peek into university records for an address. He dismisses it after both Alex and Sarah's explosive no, however. This is not a precedent they want to set, nor a road they want to go down.)

Second is disappointed, but it's not like he expected much. Maybe some things just have to remain a mystery.

‒

“So Chosen is like a tea infuser,” Blue speculates. “And you're more like...”

“Toothpaste,” Red interjects. Second facepalms. “What?”

Yellow props up his chin on his hand. “I was thinking a repeater versus a dropper or dispenser. Wait, no, definitely a dispenser. ‘Cuz his... virus magic or whatever‒” he wiggles his fingers to indicate spookiness, “‒has a constant, exponential output, and you have some kind massive burst after a specific input thing going on.”

“Exactly,” says Red. “Toothpaste. Like how you open the cap and smash it and it all squirts out.” He bangs a fist into his palm to demonstrate the point, capped off with an explodey gesture and gross squishy sound effects, which is not helpful to Second's reservations on the matter.

Green, meanwhile, flicks Yellow on the forehead, causing his friend to sputter a protest. “Even your brain is redstone,” he mutters, grinning.

“Sucks for you, that's actually a compliment!”

Alan's cursor idles for a moment while the other four laugh, but eventually asks, [would love to know what's so funny XD]

Second pouts and crosses his arms as he sinks back into the couch. “They're all being weird about it!”

[okay]

[green, stop being weird about it]

“It wasn't even me!” Green sputters while the rest bend over laughing, and goes to the keyboard to say so.

“Can't fool us, Green,” Blue laughs, pointing. “He knows it's always you.”

“Shut up,” Green calls from up on the keyboard. He types, [IT WAS RED!]

“Who, me?” Red assumes his ‘innocent’ look, strolling cutely with his hands clasped behind his back. 

[lies] says Alan. Beyond the screen, Second can see that he is grinning widely. [now you're grounded, mister]

[that doesn't even work!] Green protests.

Yellow grins wickedly and says, ”Oh I'll make it work,” before swiping the keyboard right out from under Green's hands and typing, [I can make a time-out box just for you >:)]

Green tackles him.

‒

Second finds the background Chosen was talking about, with the green fields and blue skies. It's actually very beautiful, when the viewer doesn't have any bad associations with it.

He comes back to it often, switching backgrounds and staring at the idyllic little hill with a considering frown. It's only in short bursts, and only when no one is watching. When it's up, it brings a little breeze across the desktop, something Second doesn't think he's ever felt before. Not outside of silly dreams, anyway. 

Or the Outernet. There's that, too. He remembers the cliffside, that distant, grassy mountain. He still sees it whenever Chosen comes to pick him up for a visit and flies them both through the wifi rift, over the bay. Second wonders if he could blast this soft hill in half the way he did that mountain. Chosen would probably like that, but. That's not who Second wants to be. 

Alan may stick to the default background of whatever device he's on, but Maddy changes up her tablet almost daily. Second doesn't entirely understand why, even if he does enjoy the surprises it brings. When he finds something he likes, and knows he likes it, it stays. Sarah said Maddy's at an age where she's figuring out what she likes, trying new things at a rapid pace to see what sticks. 

Age is another funny thing. Maddy calls him her “little brother”, despite Second being older than her by at least a couple months. Maddy defended that it's not because he's younger, it's because he's little. Second can't exactly argue with that.

Unbidden, his thoughts turn to Chosen once again, and the sister he lost. Second has never had a sister before. 

Second grins. He knows what he wants to do with this hill.

‒

Chosen doesn't come over until Second has thoroughly explained his idea. 

Maddy took some go-pro footage of her sledding for him once. Second could almost feel the turns, the drops, the freezing wind biting his cheeks. Minecraft, being what it is, isn't exactly good for sledding. You technically can build a slope with lots of snow layers, but it's tedious, and ends up being far too shallow for the ride down to be fun. 

So Second temporarily clears all the desktop icons, calls in his brother, and lets him blast the entire hill with snow and ice. 

The scene is completely transformed, blue sky turned a bright overcast gray and grassy hill buried under a foot of snow. Red whoops at the change and immediately clamors to the top, all the others not far behind. They slide on their shields the first few times, but eventually Second stops to draw them actual sleds. 

They play like this for at least an hour, playing chicken to see who can get closest to the edge of the monitor without crashing, or making more and more drastic turns to spray the others with snow. Chosen watches carefully, tense at first, but cracking a smile when Green gets so covered in white that Yellow starts making him into a snowman.

Then, without much warning, Chosen turns the ice beneath his feet into a snowboard and shreds upward across the hill and up into the sky, leaving a massive and looping ice slide in his wake. He smiles when Blue is the first to ask to be flown to the top, shrieking in delight through the loop-de-loop as she slides back down.

At the end of the day, Chosen hugs Second before he leaves. 

It was a good day.

‒

And the universe said you are the night.

‒

The night the bomb did not fall, Alex spends way too long just scrolling through news headlines. She feels paralyzed. There's all kinds of emergency announcements saying no one is permitted to cross state lines until this is solved. She is trapped in this box of a motel room that doesn't even have a good view. Stuck on DoorDash and shitty wifi.

Her little quest, her roadtrip paved with good intentions, was never supposed to come to this. 

Chosen is with her on her phone  She has no idea why ‒ being confined to such a small space should be the last thing he wants. But he insisted, and Alex isn't about to tell him where he can and can't go.

She has a fair amount of text messages from friends who knew she was in Columbus at the time of the attack. Horrible coincidence, they all assumed in the midst of reassurances and inquiries about her mental health and plans to go home. 

Right now there are no plans. She doesn't have the space for it.

Alex knows this was not her fault, not in the slightest. But she was, in no small way, part of it. She was almost ‒ she was caught in it. Swept up in something bigger than herself, carting herself across state lines, heedless of any sense. She could have died here, so far from home. 

She almost died, she almost‒

(would it have been a city-sized pile of rubble? crumbled buildings, her body crushed, broken to red-smeared pieces? or would it merely have been a seared, smoking crater, nothing to identify, no one knowing where she had gone? nothing, just nothing, she's just‒)

She's just numb. 

So she scrolls.

There are already quite a few memes cropping up on facebook, ranging the gamut from horrified to mocking. It blurs in front of her face after a while, and‒

Chosen gets up and pulls the webpage to a halt. Alex blinks out of her stupor, just for a moment.

The stick figure on her phone screen inhales a few words. picture the sun, he tells her.

or trees

something bright

Alex's heart clenches. The window faces a wall, she types neutrally. No natural light.

you can imagine it cant you

She realizes with an ache what he's doing. All at once, everything hits her. A lifetime's worth of terror condensed into a single second, there and past but not gone, strains at the confines of the box she put it in. She might be about to cry.

When she doesn't respond, Chosen continues, it helps.

Alex feels her throat tighten. Yeah, she tells him, to keep from breaking down. To keep from thinking about how he knows that. Yeah, I can imagine.

what do you see

Her own bedroom, funnily enough. Cozy, dim, soft. Faintly glowing in ways that don't strain the eyes. It's not the great outdoors she longs for. It's someplace familiar and safe. 

Sniffing and wiping her eyes, she describes it to him. All the dark, warm colors, so different from this sterile place. Muffled sounds, soft and private. Here, she can hear the street through these paper thin walls, car engines and the occasional siren. It makes her homesick for the quiet in a way she's never felt, not after only a day. It makes her head hurt.

Chosen nods through it all, and although Alex keeps her description to the purely visual and not how alone it makes her feel, he looks at her like he understands.

After thinking it over for a moment, Chosen goes to the bottom of her phone's screen, reaches further down, and touches the square icon to put all her open pages in an array. Then he hovers one hand over her current article, looking out at her questioningly.

Why not? Doomscrolling is clearly only making her feel worse. Alex nods, and Chosen deletes the page. And then another. He swipes numerous pages away, one at a time, waiting for her assent on each one. Then he opens up the phone's youtube app, clicks through the history to find one of the ambient noise videos she offered him during their road trip together. He lingers on a video of an AI generated jazzy café, one that matches the aesthetic Alex described, but ultimately clicks on something rather different. 

It's an outdoor scene ‒ the inside of a gazebo, or perhaps from the view from a back porch. There are green things in planters along the rail, many overlapping rugs, hanging chairs that gently swing. In the distance is a campfire that glows in the dusky twilight, next to a tent with open flaps and many cushions and blankets within. 

The music is a low choral humming, harmony after shifting harmony that immediately puts her brain at ease.

Then she blinks awake again. She has responsibilities first.

You can get out via my data plan, right? she asks Chosen anxiously. You have everything you need?

He chuckles and nods, then gestures pointedly to the video, and settles in himself to listen.

...It can't be true. Not after what he's been through, not after all the wounds and traumas so freshly reopened.

But if it's his choice to put it aside, for her sake... as much as his reciprocal kindness chokes her up in ways she can't even describe, she will not pry further if he doesn't want her to.

Alex lines a few extra pillows under her hips and shoulders to cushion this rock-hard hotel bed. Then she leans back and closes her eyes, letting the sounds wash over her.

And the two of them sit together in the quiet.

‒

The Outernet builds itself out around Chosen the farther he travels, in much the same way Minecraft would load new chunks. Or that's what Second says, anyway. Chosen doesn't like to think about it. Doesn't like to think about how, if a place is empty, there's a good chance it's only there because he is. 

It's not a bad feeling, exactly. There's just something annoying about the fact that he was born with the power to make things come alive, and knowing the only kind of life he could imagine was something... ordinary. So pedestrian in its irregular kindnesses, so banal in its everyday evils. 

He doesn't dare trying to do it purposefully. He's pretty sure he can't, not in that way. But as he travels, sometimes it passes his mind that, maybe he'll see a mountain next, or a waterfall, or even something completely unexpected. And sure enough, after a fashion, he does. It use to be that he could only change his world by destroying it, but now he only has to wait for something different to come to him.

It's fun.

But not all of it is so peaceful. It's reflective of him, so when he worries about being found, he is. When he feels claustrophobic and closed in, he is. And on bad days, when it seems like the only thing the world is good for is taking out his anger... well.

When he described it all to Alex, she joked and said it was taking mindfulness to a whole new level. But it is useful, in a way. Chosen can see exactly what he is feeling, externalized. He can confront it, or sidestep it, or maybe even transform it. And whenever he doesn't want to deal with all of that, he goes home.

Alex's background is not white. Not like a blank art board, and not like an empty cube. It is dark, a campsite under a field of stars. A universal image of a place of sanctuary in a hostile world. Chosen knows he actually is content to be mostly on his own. What he lacked, what he missed, was having somewhere to return to. 

Someone to return to. He missed trusting someone.

(He misses Dark. He misses her so much. She took him to the stars, guarded his sleep, watched his back in a way he knows he'll never truly replace. She loved him enough to lay waste to everything that ever frightened him. And he wants nothing more in the world than to find her, hug her, and apologize.)

But he trusts Alex. He is safe with her, unconditionally, even when it means he cannot stay. She is so careful to leave him an out, and that often means he doesn't need one. 

She believes choices are important, and that's... that's freedom like Chosen has never dreamed of. 

(He wonders if Dark would have enjoyed it too. He hopes that, if she knew how happy it made him, she would.)

‒

And the universe said the darkness you fight is within you.

‒

It’s never easy, when Chosen visits. Usually such things are brief, perfunctory, a check in to meet with the rest of the group before some or all of them go off on some adventure. But sometimes Chosen just... drops in, unannounced, and stays for an hour or so doing absolutely nothing. Just watching him.

Alex said Chosen did that with her, for the first week or so that they knew each other. Her advice to Alan was to telegraph his movements, but don't otherwise change his routine for him. 

He flounders trying to follow that advice, though. Is it changing his routine to deprioritize a fighting animation while Chosen is there and work on something more peaceful instead? Is he gonna flip out if the kids want to spar with the cursor?

Alan works on the fighting animation. Chosen leaves.

He starts a game of Uno with the sticks, Lissa in his lap. Chosen leaves.

He very politely escorts everyone off his travel spreadsheet before they can mess up his numbers any further. Chosen leaves, and he stays gone for weeks.

Alex has nothing for him. The ball is in Chosen's court, as it were.

The next time he comes back is actually quite lucky. Orange is in the middle of demonstrating a new technique he worked out. He's been really interested in facial expressions lately, and any time Alan tries for a close-up of a face it comes out kind of uncanny. Orange spots Chosen when he ducks under the wifi rift, waves, and turns back to Alan. He flips between the last four frames to show the progression of each part of the face as it moves.

Okay, says Orange, pointing. Now you try!

Alan taps his feet a bit but does as he's told. While he sketches out the base shapes of a face beside the one already drawn, Orange skips over toward Chosen, and they both sit down to watch. Orange points at things occasionally, and he must be talking or explaining things because Chosen is nodding in response.

Eventually, though, he does speak where Alan can ‘hear’ him. Don't just move the eyebrows! says the block of orange text. The corresponding stick is waving his arms like he's shouting. You gotta tilt the whole head!

He's about to type an unimpressed -_- emoji when an idea strikes. Yellow once suggested this method of communication as a joke, and despite Blue jumping on it and saving images to the file folder left and right, it has only ever been used as a joke.

Alan clicks into the folder and opens up a gif of Stephanie Beatriz rolling her eyes. 

Orange falls over laughing next to a very bewildered Chosen, then scrolls through the folder until he finds a gif of Shia LaBeouf posing in front of an explosion with the caption DO IT!

In response, Alan selects a personal favorite: a simple drawing of a squirt bottle being sprayed.

Orange glances at Chosen, then picks an image of a hissing kitten.

Alan has a perfect response to that one ‒ a gif of an even smaller kitten picked up by the scruff, with the humorous caption, threat secured.  

Chosen gets up and moves toward the folder, and Alan wonders belatedly if that last one was a little too topical, given the caption.

He wonders that, until Chosen strolls in and opens an image Alan didn't even know was in there ‒ that of a samurai pointing a sword defensively while holding something in his opposite arm, which in this case was photoshopped as a Meowth.

Alan feels a grin breaking across his face. Orange is still laughing hard enough to split his sides, and Chosen crosses his arms and leans against the folder window, staring at Alan. He doesn't emote much, but Alan doesn't think it's all that much wishful thinking to imagine a bit of a smirk there.

After some thought, Alan picks a gif of John Mulaney sighing and saying Fine. Then he closes the folder and gets back to work.

Chosen still leaves, but this time Alan doesn't feel so bad about it.

‒

Alan has had kind of a late start to the day. Maddy woke up with a fever and a sore throat, which needed tending to, but Lissa still needed to be dropped off at school and had a fair bit of anxiety at getting on the bus without her sister. Breakfast was a lazy one under those circumstances, though Maddy would almost certainly need something more substantial than cereal before long. He texted Sarah, but she wasn't due home from work until noon or so and would likely crash for a few hours immediately after. 

Under these circumstances, it was normal to find the color gang already up and gone for the day, once he finally sat down for work. What wasn't normal was finding The Chosen One waiting in their place.

He's pacing, which is very new.

Alan pulls up a browser for the word website he likes, then opens a text box. [hi. do you need something?]

Chosen looks at him but doesn't otherwise react.

He takes so long that Alan starts to type, [I've got some work to do if you need time to]

But then he scrambles up onto the browser, swallows a few things, then spits out, i met someone.

[...okay?] Alan has absolutely zero idea how to respond to that.

Chosen eats another couple of words, barely enough for another stilted sentence. i didnt recognize them, he says.

“I still have no idea what you're on about, dude,” Alan mutters to himself. He types, [I'm assuming this is another stick figure?]

from a website i burned

Oh.

Chosen continues, i dont know which

there were so many

they talked‒ Here, he pauses mid-word and tosses away the letters with one frustrated hand. they yelled about a house i blew up

their brother was inside

A long pause while Chosen gathers more words. It's not like usual, where he preps for a conversation by consuming as much as possible. It's like he barely has the wherewithal to spout one clipped sentence at a time. This one looks to be a long one though.

they said they tried to get into the house to save them but i grabbed them and slammed them down and then exploded the house

they said they screamed and begged

there was always screaming in those days none of it was different from the rest

Alan is so very unqualified for this. He can barely make his shaking hands type, [do you believe them?]

Chosen nods without a second’s hesitation. Then, insistently, i dont remember it.

[I mean, it makes sense.] Alan pauses, heart pounding, before admitting, [there's probably a hundred things you could name that I don't remember doing to you.]

Chosen goes so still he looks like a single frame, but for the way his shoulders heave. Wisps of smoke drift from his clenched fists, and it's one of the rare times Alan can see his eyes, red with barely repressed heat. 

The next words are purposeful, laid out so heavily that Alan can feel them thump as they hit the floor.

am i evil

He swallows, panicking just a bit. [is that an Alex question?]

no, Chosen says firmly. its a you question.

Alan blanks.

[I mean, do you think I]

[wait don't answer that]

[I don't know if anyone is really]

“Oh christ,” Alan groans, and on impulse surreptitiously takes a photo of the computer screen with his phone. It's grainy, but the words are legible, and he sends it off to Alex with the caption help?????

Despite it being barely after 10am and almost certainly being in the middle of class, she answers almost right away. 

Alex C.

You heard him, it's a you question.

Alan Becker

gdi

this is so beyond me what do I even say

Alex C.

Think about what he's asking. That's a very personal thing he just revealed, and he revealed it to you specifically, even doubling down on that when you asked. Why?

Alan Becker

bc I'm the biggest piece of shit he knows and he wants to know how much of that is hereditary?

Alex C.

A better way to put that is: he believes you would best understand what he's going through right now.

Alan runs a hand through his hair, muttering a string of curses. She's right, and so is Chosen, but it's still the last thing he wanted to hear. 

But he promised himself that he'd try.

“Fuck, fucking fucking fuck, okay,” he mutters, already regretting this. He types,

[can I turn the mic on?]

Chosen pauses, going oddly slack. He nods.

Alan blows out a breath. 

“I guess,” he says slowly, “the short answer is probably not?” He swallows, feeling his pulse pound in his ears. “I mean you of all people know there's no black or white answer to that‒”

no, Chosen says icily. there is.

Alan winces. Then, a little harsher than he probably means to, he amends, “Then I guess you of all people know that the perpetrator isn't the one who makes the call on whether they're evil or not.”

so what

im like you is that it

Alan shrugs. “At least you had a shitty childhood to blame it on. Dunno what my excuse was.”

A violent, uncontrolled blast of flame propels Chosen up toward the system files, and he rips System 32 out of its slot and holds it over an open flame, glaring at Alan.

“Right, sorry!” Alan amends, putting his hands up and away from the keyboard. “Bad comparison. I shouldn't imply there was anything, um, beneficial about all of... that. Because there wasn't, full stop. I just‒” Chosen moves the file closer to the fire, and Alan says rapidly, “I just want you to know having bad coping mechanisms isn't the same as causing harm just for the sake of it.”

Chosen doesn't move for a long moment, and Alan eyes the fire nervously. Then he fizzles out and lets the file fall from limp hands. He sits on the floor with his knees up.

cnt believ yr tryng t reassure me rn, Chosen mutters.

Alan blinks. He must be running out of letters, which looks so odd coming from him. Like texting in the 90s. “Is that... not what you were asking for?”

Chosen doesn't answer.

Alan thinks hard about how he had to wrestle with this. With Chosen. And Dark, and Victim, and even Orange. What he wanted were platitudes, excuses. Reasons not to look too closely at the weighty thing in his hands. But what he needed...

He swallows. “It's something you have to take responsibility for, sooner or later. Being different now doesn't undo what you did then. And if you're asking how to do that, how to make it right ‒ I don't have an answer because I still don't know. I'm just‒” Alan chokes on something that might have been a laugh, if it was run over by a semi truck. “I really am just muddling through, here. I have no idea what I'm doing and everyone knows it. All I can do is keep trying to do the next right thing. Sometimes it's an apology. Sometimes it's a hug. Or shelter, or ‒ or advice. And when you don't know what the next right thing is, you do your best to figure that out too.”

Chosen rubs his eyes and stands up, and rearranges some old letters into new words with his hands.

you really are trying arent you

“I hope so,” Alan whispers.

Chosen nods, spent. He plops down again, sitting cross legged this time, then reaches for a few more letters while he rearranges the old ones.

i hate it, he says simply.

Alan almost snorts. “That you can't just make it all go away?”

A nod.

“Yeah, it sucks.” He slumps, a bit. “It's gonna suck, probably forever. It'd be a real bad sign if it didn't suck, or so I'm told.”

you dont know

“Not sure anyone does. But me, specifically? No. Never did.” Alan pauses for a long time, then adds, so softly, “It's the not knowing that makes it easier, really.”

([I didn't know you were alive]

“Don't lie to me. You knew I was alive. You just didn't think my life mattered.”

There's a reason Chosen knew exactly how Alan's mind worked.)

Alan leans forward, elbows on the desk. “It's something you'll always have to live with. That's just how it is. And yeah, maybe just ignoring it all was easier, but when you find that you can't anymore... that's already step one. Now it's on you to keep going.”

Chosen nods, but seems to be out of things to say. Or maybe he just can't sustain the effort of the conversation anymore ‒ Alex understands more about how he works, and Alan hopes to god he's picking it up too. 

“And Chosen?”

He pauses on his way back to the rift, looking out at Alan, who really hopes he's not about to regret this.

“I can't afford to replace my computer again right now,” he says. “I mean I could, technically, but it'd be dipping into savings that I need for other things. So if you make that kind of threat again, you're not allowed back here.”

Chosen looks back up at the file folder where System 32 is still lying on its side on the ground. He scrubs frustratedly at his head and then spits out a begrudging fine.

Then Chosen leaves.

But he keeps coming back after that.

‒

And the universe said the light that you seek is within you.

‒

Purple forgot, when they got back home after fleeing Rocket Corp headquarters, just what state the house was in, and how that might affect King.

Everyone else went through the house and down to the portal without comment. Likely because they didn't know any better. They all scooted past the expired food in the kitchen, the mess of failed staves and engineering parts on the floor, and the unmade bed with a downturned photo frame on the nightstand, politely ignoring the deranged scribbles of a long-dead plan on the wall.

The undo button had been pressed a few too many times, apparently. 

When Purple comes back up the trap door, after the others had gone through the portal with an unconscious Chosen on Red’s back, they are greeted with the sight of King facing the wall, breathing shallowly and way too fast. He's staring at the chalk drawings like he halfway expects them to start moving.

“Baba?” they ask cautiously, reaching out.

King smacks their hand away, rounding on them with a snarl.

Purple takes a step back, eyes wide, and King's expression immediately turns to one of horror.

“I have ‒ I have to go,” he stammers, backing away.

Panic fills them. “What? No!”

King doesn't seem to hear them, making for the door.

“What did I do?” Purple begs.

King freezes in place, one hand inches away from the doorknob. 

Purple can't breathe, can't think through the sounds of shouting matches, slamming doors, their mother’s sobbing echoing in their head. Not worth the trouble, an old voice whispers. “I can fix it, I'll do better, please don't‒”

King is in front of them before they even realize he's moved, and despite everything, Purple remembers where they are. They don't flinch, don't so much as put up a guard when King's trembling hands alight on their shoulders with a featherlight touch. 

(His hands shake, every fiber of him screaming to set the world on fire all over again, but he must be gentle. He can be gentle for this.)

He kisses their forehead. Purple wants to cry.

“I know this is a hard ask, and I'm so sorry,” King tells them, every word bitten off like it's a struggle. “I will be back in exactly five minutes. Watch the clock.”

Then he's gone, and the slamming door reverberates around the room.

Purple takes a deep breath. Then another.

And then another.

‒

“You've already lost one child. Would be a shame to lose another so soon.”

King stalks away from that dark house, fingernails cutting half-moons into his palms. The chill of the night air calms some of the heat in his face, but he still feels like he's going to erupt. Rage bubbles under his skin, a coping mechanism to the terror of further grief that he might never grow out of. And by what little left that he still holds sacred, he wants it nowhere near Purple, not ever again.

The night is cool, but it's also colorless. Blank and empty, like that dream of death where he marveled at how everything went so wrong. There are times when King wonders if his soul has been dead for a long time. If he isn't simply acting out this shadowed mimicry of life for the sake of one child, and then another. He is lost and adrift without a purpose, and though he found one again, such things are pathetically, horrifyingly fragile.

It was so quick, so easy, when Gold slipped through his hands. 

A sob rips out of him. King strangles it in his throat until it turns into a growl, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes until he sees spots and not ‒ 

Would be a shame to lose another...

He washed away that mural. Scrubbed away all traces of his vengeance piece by piece. The calculations, the diagrams. That drawing of the monster that took his light away.

Himself at his worst, scrubbed and scraped away with what he hoped was the last trace of violence in him. Like cleaning out an infection.

He hesitated at Gold. The drawing was simple, just smeared chalk and madness, but King never stopped seeing that last look of terror on his son’s face. He never got to hold him, never got to soothe it away. But eventually King had to let him go. He did let him go 

And now, there he is again. It took so little effort to dig him up once more, to uncover the ugliness left behind ‒ just a careless push of a button, undoing everything. 

All of Purple's possessions were gone from their room, leaving a mostly empty room with someone else's sheets and blanket on the bed. All evidence that someone else was here, someone to open up and let the light in, was erased, leaving only voids behind.

For a long time that spot on King's wall was empty, until Purple came and filled it with something new.

But maybe it was just a veneer. Rip that silly poster down, and underneath is the same black heart King always had. The same broken man throwing knives at the wall because they were the only weapons he had, until he made better ones. And that house... that house is empty, a void where sunlight once was, the void that took his son and the void that took his soul. 

King will always be the man who would burn a house down with its occupants locked inside for daring to outlive the one person who mattered. He reacts violently to loss, a tyrant who hates more deeply than he ever loved. 

But... he knows how to temper it, now.

He turns around. Walks back up the path. The lights in his house are on, shadows indicating movement inside. It's a sight that is both achingly familiar and breathtakingly new. Closer. King wants to be a father, not a tyrant, but it's a choice he has to keep making, every single day. He has to keep that light on, flickering though it may be.

For the person he loves, but also for himself.

One hand on the knob. The metal is cold, but worn smooth and soft by many hands. Those of visitors, passers-by. Neighbors, well-wishers, mourners. Strange children coming in and out, eager to see the world. Himself.

There is not no one in this house. 

Even after Gold, even before Purple... there wasn't no one. 

He opens the door.

Purple turns at the sound. They found a bucket somewhere, and a sponge, and their hand is paused in the act of wiping all that violence off the wall.

It comes away easily. It's just chalk. So pitifully, painfully impermanent. Liminal, even. The way dreams are.

King steps forward. Purple runs to meet him. And the pair of them cling to one another like they'd fall from some great height if they dared let go.

‒

Bright summer sunlight streams in through the front window, falling across the kitchen table in ribbons. No one is there, at least not right now. This house’s occupants have gone out for the day ‒ a king and a prince, both long-since deposed from their thrones and better off for it.

The second bedroom, just behind the wall that used to be so empty, is restored. Many things that were once there cannot be replaced, and their loss is keenly felt. But other things have returned. A stand for a new pair of wings. A scarf on a hook in the wall. A delicate cherry blossom bonsai, meticulously cared for. This house was always a home for two.

Old bedsheets are folded and placed reverently in the closet. They have a place and a purpose in this house, and always will. A small, aching core in the center, wrapped in love and grief.

The kitchen and living areas are bright and clean. Bits of clutter scatter here and there, signifiers of a life fully embraced. There are memories here, both old and new. A scrapbook on the desk, newly gifted and already so well loved, stands as a testament that life can go on, and go on beautifully.

There are two framed photos on the nightstand, resting side by side. A boy on his father's shoulders with the sun framing his hair like a halo might be most familiar. But next to it, equally loved, is a man and a young teenager, bundled up and sipping cocoa, with a perfect spray of fireworks in the night behind them. 

There is a family in this house ‒ small and cracked, but filled with gold that shimmers in the darkness. In the space between one broken heart and the next, both find happiness, shining through the loss.

Perhaps, in the most literal sense, it was never necessary for them to look outward for what was inside all along. But god, it's easier to find that light when it's reflected off of another.

‒

And the universe said you are not alone.

‒

In the Outernet, far away from the grid of all those interconnected systems in the sky, four mercenaries sit around a fire. 

Hazard always grumbles when they forego modern accommodations, but they've been bunking at Rocket headquarters for so long that Primal was desperate for a night under the open sky. Ballista is also oddly calmer when outdoors with nothing pressing to do, so Striker doesn't mind sleeping on the grass in exchange for a little peace.

Doesn't mean the little guy is any less hyperactive though, even if that energy isn't actively bursting out of him with no immediate duties or plans. Ballista is literally freaking juggling with some rocks he found. 

“There might be some money in smuggling,” he suggests, eyes fixed on the highest points of each throw.

Primal rests her spear against the overturned log she is crouched on, and shakes her head. “That is not the way the wind is blowing.”

Striker sits up and glances her way with an appraising eye. Primal is old ‒ very old. She's seen entire civilizations come and go enough times to have their patterns memorized, and Striker trusts her judgement. “Got a better recommendation?”

“Security,” she says firmly. “Powerful sticks have always known what terrors can be wrought between this world and those adjacent to it. Now civilians know it too, and they will want answers. They will want accountability and transparency, and may demand it if unappeased. The powerful believe they can quell their fears, or stoke them, according to their interests. And they are probably right. But before even trying, they will seek out fail-safes. Us.”

He hums. News of what Victim tried to do did eventually reach the Outernet populace, though Striker isn't really sure how. A lot of authority figures are still droning on about the potential impact on this world that messing with that higher world can cause ‒ something about server towers or memory banks wiping out entire swathes of the city, blah blah blah. Striker doesn't know whether or not they're bullshitting how much actual risk there is to push some kind of isolationist agenda, nor does he much care. Money is money, and he always finds a way to get by comfortably.

“And if they know what role we played in all that?” he questions.

“Most won't,” Primal answers. “But for the ones who do, the knowledge will serve as a testament to our capabilities, rather than a condemnation. We represented a great deal of Victim’s power, and much of what he accomplished was accomplished through us. Many will desire command of such a group, for ends of their own. There is more to gain by putting us to use than putting us away.”

Striker turns that over in his mind, and cannot find fault with it. He nods.

Ballista dangles from a tree branch. “Bodyguarding some bigwigs,” he says, swinging idly. “I like the sound of that.”

“More of the same,” Hazard grumbles, settling in for bed. “I was already falling asleep from boredom at the last job. Bounty hunting was better.”

Striker stretches his arms up, cracking the joints a bit. “Work that exciting doesn't fall into our laps every day. Mostly you've just gotta accept the daily grind.”

Ballista’s arms lengthen into segmented pieces as he swings wider and wider. Then he does something with his legs, hooks something or other to redirect his momentum, and launches himself so far across the field that he's out of sight, but for the giddy cackling as he speeds back their way.

Hazard rolls over into his sleeping bag with a pithy, “Aaaand I'm out.”

“For cloud's sake,” Striker mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Primal smirks in the general direction where Ballista flew off. “Gonna start calling him Trebuchet next.”

‒

They decided to part ways until things calm down. They have wiggle room now, with their big payout, and there's plenty of time to just let their notoriety grow.

Ballista speeds away. Primal prefers to walk. But as Hazard is stomping out the coals of last night's fire and Striker is stowing away what remains of their gear, Striker pauses. 

“...What was it like?” he finds himself asking. “In a dead computer?”

Hazard hesitates. “I already made my report, sir.”

“I'm not asking you as my subordinate, Hazard, I'm asking you as a person.”

(‘Asking you as a friend' comes to mind, but that's not exactly true. Implicit trust in the field is not the same thing as friendship out of it, for all that the idea of camaraderie is romanticized. The four of them are a well-oiled machine, it's true, but they frankly have almost nothing else in common ‒ though if they truly couldn't stand each other they never would have made it this far.)

Hazard thinks for a moment, scraping out the ashes. “It was... like falling asleep unexpectedly, and not quite realizing it when you wake up, not understanding why everything is suddenly different.”

It's much the same answer as he previously gave, but Striker supposes what he really wants to know is, “Were you afraid?”

“No,” Hazard answers simply. “The sleep is dreamless, over before you even realize you were gone. The only evidence that anything happened is that time has obviously passed and...”

Striker gestures. “And?”

“And a calm, rested feeling, inexplicable until the confusion kicks in.”

“And the confusion isn't frightening either?”

He shrugs. “Well the mystery is easily solved, so.” Then he frowns at Striker's silence. “Why do you ask?”

Striker waves it away. “Need-to-know.”

“That's why I'm asking as a person.”

Again, Striker hesitates. They're not friends. Hazard is not privy to Striker's concerns if it doesn't impact the team, and this doesn't.

Striker closes the trunk and turns away. “I'll be in touch,” he reminds with a backward wave goodbye.

‒

Their speeders were technically the property of RocketCorp, but that doesn't mean much these days. Striker figured they'd be far too busy dealing with legalities and red tape to insist on the return of their property, so as long as no one asks, he's not gonna volunteer. 

He is alone as he flies, and will be for the next little while. They each have lives outside of this job, after all, although Striker makes it a point not to pry into their business. This is that rare time between contracts where he is at loose ends. Nothing pressing to attend to and nowhere he needs to be. 

That's what freedom is, to him.

He follows the path of the river below until he realizes why this area is so familiar ‒ the last great chase, for this job at least. There will be others, though perhaps none so engaging to his team’s skills. Striker almost regrets that his little close-quarters tango with The Chosen One was cut short. Maybe they would've had things to talk about, under different circumstances.

(But then again, maybe not. There's a graveyard on Newgrounds that Striker hasn't seen in years, but never leaves a certain corner of his mind, that says differently.)

High above, there's a square within that grid in the sky that's gone dark. Given how many systems there are in the human world, you'd think there'd be more of them, but this is the first that Striker has seen. He pulls up toward it, on some whim he steadily avoids trying to name.

IPs come in clusters, except when they don't. This is the bay where Striker and his team lost The Chosen One, and the darkened square is where he was flying toward before he took a sharp right turn into some cloud cover. It came as no surprise, then, that two of the addresses Purple unwillingly provided were found around this area. The darkened IP is the one Primal was sent to. The one where The Chosen One was born.

The one where victim died.

In theory, anyway. A long time ago, back when his former boss didn't have an actual name. Victim is, supposedly, still plenty alive behind that wall. Sleeping, like Hazard said. But he never did get around to telling Striker about clawing back from his first death.

Maybe that's for the best.

Striker pauses on his speeder to hover just under the glassy dome of the sky. The darkened square, so small from down below, is several meters across up close, with identifying codes larger than Striker's head. The world up there, out there, is so, so big. Victim certainly had lofty ambitions.

Striker wondered, initially, what a nineteen year old was doing with a multibillion dollar company. That wondering ceased when Victim proved more than competent as an employer, but the thought comes creeping back to him now. How old was he when he first founded RocketCorp? When he not only embraced but bulldozed through the moral degeneracy needed to acquire that much money that quickly.

(Not that Striker can talk. He makes his living doing the dirty work for such people after all. But still.)

How old was Victim when he was left, unsaved?

How old, Striker wonders, was he when he decided dying with his god was the only acceptable conclusion to his story?

The merc scowls to himself. This is pointless. Victim was born in a coffin, and spent the past seventeen years walking right back into a Box of a different sort. If a choice in the matter was all he wanted, then he made a poor one by staying on the same path he's been railroaded onto since his creation. Striker isn't paid to form opinions about those he works for.

He just wishes...

Well. It doesn't matter. Victim had a choice, carved out of the flesh of another and held bloody in his hands, and he spent it doing the same thing he had always done. Now he's trapped behind this wall, locked away once again in a box that can only be opened by someone else's hand.

But... there will be future choices, someday. And having known The Chosen One's kid brother, briefly and peripherally though it was, Striker is reasonably sure ‒ there will be a someday.

Maybe this time, the hand that opens that box will be a kind one.

Striker raises an arm and holds it, palm flat, against the surface of the sky. Whatever else may come, the next move will be in Victim's hands, just as he always wanted.

Until then... “Sleep well, kid,” he whispers.

‒

And the universe said you are not separate from every other thing.

‒

Second likes watching the weather outside through Maddy's tablet. It's such a new experience, getting to see the world outside Alan's office, one that the other four love as well, but weather has to be Second's favorite part. 

Visually it's no different than watching it on a video, he supposes. But there's something special about bridging that gap nevertheless. About someone you love holding you safe and intentionally showing you another aspect of their world.

There are storms in Minecraft too, of course. The skies grow thick with storm clouds dark enough to allow mobs to spawn even in the middle of the day. Rain pours down in sheets, heavier than normal rainfall. And, every once in a while, a bolt of white strikes somewhere at random.

Second watches the darkening sky from his perch on top of a nether portal, this one deep in a mangrove swamp. He was here with Red yesterday, looking for frogs, but today he has come back alone.

He doesn't like being alone. Not even a little. It always seems to be preceded by something terrible.

Rain starts to fall, and he thinks about how it felt. When Alan ended their tasks one by one, and Second felt something bright and hot flicker to life. When The Dark Lord tore them to shreds, and Second became a nova. Even when they simply waved goodbye in the nether, off on an adventure without him, Second’s mind couldn't help but drift to them, imagining things he couldn't possibly know. 

He didn't want to go through that again, when his friends wanted to see what Purple had to show them. But he ended up alone anyway, after a fashion. Alone with only himself to talk to, at least until he made another friend.

But... he always found them again. Each and every time. 

He got by on his own wits for most of it. But sometimes the magic played a part too, in more ways than he realized. As it turns out, just spontaneously knowing exactly what trouble his loved ones are in, or conjuring an imaginary version of himself to tell him what to do next to get out of a fix, isn't actually normal. But talking to himself, showing himself his own ideas, started to feel more familiar in his dreams, down at the center of it all.

Thunder rolls. Second isn't scared of it ‒ he's seen it in the human world too, and it's the same. Just energy meeting energy, like a pencil scribbling across the sky.

Lightning strikes‒ 

Who do I want to be?

‒and he leaps.

There is life in his hands, brilliant citron light that carries him up, out, in. He finds his friends with a thought ‒ Green, who pumps a fist when he sees him, shouting encouragement. Red, who runs, grinning, along the ground to match him as he flies. Another blink, and there's Blue, who laughs as she floats up to meet him under a levitation spell. Second grabs her with one electric hand, causing her to whoop as he spins her around. Yellow balances on the command staff as he soars up to catch her, but has nothing on the way Second zips from place to place.

He can be anywhere, anything, everyone. And it's huge, overwhelming, but he does not drown. His friends, everyone who loves him, they all hold him in their minds. Through their eyes, Second remembers himself. 

They're all there, with him always. He will never be lost again.

Sudden as a thunderclap and soft as a wish, Second moves through realities, briefly everywhere until he finds something singular once again. Someone who knows him. 

In the Outernet, where all the world’s stick figures dwell, Chosen flies along an empty stretch of wide open plains at top speed, leaving sonic booms in his wake that rustle the tall grasses. Second appears beside him, matching him for speed, then outstripping him. The other stick’s eyes go wide with surprise, then elation. Chosen grins and puts on another burst of speed, taking joy as always in pushing himself further and further. In being exactly himself in the company of someone who understands.

Together they fly, doing loops and cartwheels and helixes in the air. Second moves, and takes his brother with him ‒ to high above the city, where they leap with spark and flame across the roofs of skyscrapers. Slide down the mirrored edge of a building, and then they're miles away in a dense woodland, dodging tree trunks as they race along the forest floor. Another blink and it's endless ocean, nothing but sea and sky, the unbroken line of the horizon extending in all directions. 

Chosen dips in and out of the water, bringing it back up with him in tidal waves that crash back down with impossible noise. Second shoots up along one of them, leaving a cascading rainbow in the prismatic spray of his wake. 

They each whoop their own private joys at the tops of their lungs, alone together in a world that can find them only at their indulgence.

‒

And the universe said you are the universe tasting itself, talking to itself, reading its own code.

‒

The cracks in the land have grown over, now. Rain has washed topsoil in, bringing moss and grass. The place where green light split the earth from shore to peak is hardly recognizable as a site of some great showdown between the forces of good and evil, even if the reality was nothing so fairytale. There was no evil here, and certainly no good. But they've learned, and... Second thinks it's time.

He talked it over with the others, of course. Green thought he was completely off his rocker to even consider it. Yellow was nervous. Blue was openly angry. Red, though... Red agreed. And it might not have been fair, exactly, to give his opinion more weight on this particular topic, but it seemed like they all agreed it should. So that was that.

Alan immediately offered backup if something went wrong, which was... well, it was the wrong thing to say with Chosen in the room, and it took some doing to get them all back on the same page. 

Alex asked a lot of questions, trying to determine whether this was motivated by guilt. And... yeah, it's something adjacent to guilt, but nonetheless not the same thing. Maybe ‘responsibility’ is a better word, though that doesn't quite cover it. And ‘duty’ overshoots the mark by a wide margin, so that's not it either. ‘Kindness’ and ‘mercy’ pull it back to center, but are simply too... squishy for Second to make himself understood. 

In a roundabout way, it might be about forgiveness. 

Boundaries have been drawn, very specific rules that go into place immediately if he succeeds. Chosen rankled, impatient, at the long discussions, but he's learned ‒ rules are not the same as a tether, not if they're agreed to. To interact in safety is its own kind of freedom. 

Chosen prays he can make her see that, this time.

Everything he should have said, everything he failed to see... oh, he doesn't dare hope for this, and yet he agreed to try almost without thinking. 

He sat with Second for hours at a time, holding taut all the buzzing pieces of himself yearning to reach a flashpoint. They spent days sifting through it all, reading the trace imprint of a twin soul inside Chosen's. Trying to identify and separate the right fragments of code, the parts of him that mirrored what he saw and felt the moment he took her hand.

Second felt her imprint when he took Chosen's hand in turn, that day. And with that memory... he might be able to do this.

He's drawn stick figures before ‒ thin, wispy things that do little but extend his reach. Placeholders for himself, in a sense. The sticks Second draws are himself, sort of, though words like extensions or parts of himself don't quite cover it. Versions, maybe? He couldn't explain it to Alex, a long time ago, and he still can't explain it now.

Chosen spent a very long time picking out the exact shade of red.

And it's complicated. It's a risk. There's a high likelihood that it won't work at all, or if it does, it won't be the same person. 

But Second thinks back to what he said to Chosen, and Alan, and all of his friends. Not in the same words, and not in the same ways. But over and over again, endlessly. 

Down at the center of it all, he picks up the strings. Circles and lines. 

Here, he holds a pencil, color carefully selected, and holds someone else's memory of a loved one close in his mind. Dark’s true self, unaltered, free of commands and constraints.

This, he thinks, eyes aglow with unbridled life. This is what I want to be.

Hope in his chest and heart in his throat, Second begins to draw.

‒

And the universe said I love you...

‒

There are stick figures in Alex's Minecraft world.

Well. Probably.

They certainly seem like simple drawings at first glance, but they aren't just stick figures. Nor can it be said that the world they inhabit belongs to just Alex. Somehow, through some magic that she has neither the capacity nor the desire to understand, everything they touch comes alive, and everywhere they go becomes home. The place they and a million others have constructed together spans the world, is the world. That's miraculous, in her eyes.

We are all too small and temporary things, compared to the universe. A universe that, if you stop and listen with the intent to understand, may whisper in a still, small voice. From titan ravagers to dolphin queens, from endless spider-infested mineshafts to one very exploded woodland mansion, Minecraft is a sandbox. Infinite possibilities. 

(world without end, amen.)

To Alex, the spontaneous emergence of life in a hostile place is the most beautiful mystery, as is the blooming seed of love in barren soil. Both spread far and wide, faster and faster, and neither needs any explanation; she can see that it is good. To witness it grow has been the greatest privilege of her life. Humans, knowingly or not, molded the world of stick figures, an entire civilization folded into pockets of data. And the stick figures, in turn, built their own interconnected world in an 8-bit game.

Unbelievable.

The nether is a true hub of activity now. Ambassadors from villages in the overworld, bearing gold necklaces or rings, will trade resources or barter for safe passage with piglin tribes. Cooperation and trade thrives between all the places the sticks have called home ‒ from the Raid village where the Chef resides, to Alex's own desert village, to the transformed dragon's nest on the Mac. A few villagers even migrated to an ancient city deep underground, eager to rebuild a civilization that exists only in the memory of its last Warden. 

Alex's Minecraft avatar is still just an avatar. She plays with the sticks, talks to the villagers, and expands her desert oasis, but she is limited in her expression. Jumps, crouches, waves. Communicating in frustratingly slow paces with books and signs ‒ she's only human, after all. Visiting a world she was not meant to inhabit. But she goes there all the same. It's a privilege to observe and assist these little lives, going about the business of life without a care for what's bigger than them. It makes sense, then, that what is bigger must limit itself in order to even try to walk among them, but it's worth it.

It's so, so worth it.

Purple knows all the villagers by name, of course. They're so clever and dedicated and desperate to be needed, though the latter is fading fast. They and Alex make a game of stealing and hiding resources from each other, often with teasing little messages left behind that may or may not hide a clue. 

Second is so curious about the natural world that Alex has snuck him into her classroom a few times just to give him the experience. She wasn't offended when he fell asleep twice. He's a daydreamer at heart, with lofty ideals and humble pursuits, and a heart so big that if you looked down his throat, you could see the entire universe.

Chosen... oh, Chosen. Alex has never thought about kids of her own, but her love for that boy just keeps on growing. And she must be pretty obvious about it if her facebook and youtube algorithms have picked up on it ‒ they've started recommending videos about fostering. If he ever calls her computer his home then Alex would consider it a privilege. Chosen is honorable, honest, and unbreakable. Words can't describe how proud she is of how far he's come.

Stick figures are stand-ins for proper characters. These people are anything but. The biggest personalities she's ever seen, filled to bursting with complexities and contradictions, all packaged down into tiny, colorful stick bodies. Green, flashy and confident, with the skills to back it up, funny and trouble-making and just a little bit wise. Yellow, crafty and curious, supportive and steady, always ready with a solution to a problem, whether he caused it or not. Blue, deeply moral, a bit dramatic, scatterbrained and laser-focused by turns, with a never-ending cycle of impressive hobbies. Red, energetic, affectionate, excitable and intuitive in a way that can be easily mistaken for impulsiveness, innocently fierce and powerfully kind. 

(She can imagine additions, someday. Maybe someone colored a vivid scarlet, gregarious, driven, and rather too clever for her own good. Perhaps someone colored like the densest stormcloud, shy and standoffish, but generous above all things. It seems unlikely, but possible. Alex would call it well underway.)

Alex had no idea what she was getting into, then, but really, she should have known: these simple stick figures are impossible not to love. Love is what they are.

They know that the universe is kind.

...because you are love.