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The mind remembers, even when the code forgets.
Guilt isn’t the reason Jumper is shaking. She never used to get shaky after fights, sure - but that’s because a fight was all they were, maybe a death if she didn’t perform well, adrenaline rush and blood pumping in her ears and that was it . But now - they were different. Season 5 might be over, but her mind hasn’t caught on, the phantom threat of eternity still slumbering in the back of her mind, ready to wake the moment someone’s blade crashes against her armour.
If you die here, it is the end , it says, and though she tells herself the thought is wrong, that the permanence of death at the end of Season 5 ended with a shulker full of books named Peaceful Ending , that she has seen death and walked through it into a new world, pristine, free from the baggage of the old season - the thought still won’t leave.
She’s scared of death. She’s scared of herself, too. (It’s still not guilt. She doesn’t feel guilty).
And now her knuckles are rapping at the table, a rat-at-tat-tat that sounds like rubble falling around her as she runs from another laser-eye strike (or an explosion far more recent) , and her ears are ringing even though the damage is long gone, along with her old body - chunk-bans are an effective method of murder , Ash’s voice echoes in her brain, Squiddo’s laugh speaking wordless agreement - and the ringing is back and it won’t stop and how she wishes for silence -
She stands, draws her hands away from the table and clutches them to her chest. Her knuckles ache. They’re probably bruised, but she doesn’t look. She’d caught a glance of the dust under her nails earlier, and the sight had almost sent her spiralling.
Deep breaths , another, far more familiar voice says, and she chokes on the next inhale. The gapples she’d eaten had healed most of her injuries, leaving only a slight stiffness in their wake, but her face throbs.
She doesn't want to think about him. She spins on her heels and walks into the kitchen - this base is small, nothing extravagant or pretty like her Season 5 base. It is bare stone and rough-hewn planks, no pink concrete or amethyst in sight. She doesn’t want to be found.
The motion of making the hot chocolate is familiar - powder in the cupboard to her left, milk in a saucepan on the stove, two mugs on the counter as she waits, hands stuck in her pockets to avoid tapping out that restless rhythm on the stone counter. She tests the milk, pours it out, then stops.
Two mugs.
Two.
She shakes her head rapidly, in her ears a faint ringing, explosion roar - ghosts of a world that no longer exists.
Ghosts of a friendship, after today. Because, as her trembling hands pours both mugs down the drain and her legs carry her listlessly back to the table, all she can think of is his laugh.
Minute had been her one constant through her first season of Lifesteal. They were new - Zam’s voice giggles naive in her memories - and they thought Lifesteal could be something more. Something good, something where the weak didn’t have to perish and the strong didn’t have to be monsters. And they had fought against it too - fought the narrative that tried its best to turn them into villains - fought for the chance at a peaceful ending, something Lifesteal had never seen.
But you can’t change the nature of the game. A peaceful ending was hopeless in a world built on death.
When she and Minute had faced each other earlier today, Jumper would have liked to think she saw something hurt, something damaged in his eyes. Something to tell her that this new him was… a front. A way of protecting himself from being hurt again the same way he was last time, with a betrayal from those he called brothers, a drawn-out war that led to him dying at the hands of the one he looked up to the most.
Jumper doesn’t want to admit it to herself, but she doesn’t think this is a front. His evil empire, teamed with those who had hurt them again and again - Spoke, world-destroyer, mania in his gleaming eyes and a love of destruction in his laugh, and Mapic, the man she’d twice-killed, who’d spent half of Season 5 hunting her down, the orchestrator of Minute’s eventual death.
With teammates such as those, she thinks Minute is serious about this villainy thing.
She won’t lie to herself and pretend that it doesn't hurt.
Minute had never wanted to hurt Jumper.
From the very start of their tentative alliance, to his final moments on that stony shore, gasping for breaths that wouldn't come, he’d never wanted to cause her pain. But he had - she would never have become a double agent if it wasn’t for his words, would never have lost the best team she’d ever had as the Abyss fell into the cold void, leaving her alone on fragile bedrock, surrounded by people who saw her as an enemy - and then he’d failed to protect her from a vengeful Mapicc, a disguise and a sword stab in the back when she was expecting a friend. Then his fruitless ideals of peace had led her and the server further into death and decay, though he hadn’t realised it at the time - Lifesteal works in cycles, Clown said, so many times, and he was right.
Lifesteal and peace were anathema to each other, coexistence impossible.
And Minute, in his endless reaching for that impossible idea, had hurt Jumper, because he’d made her believe it too and then he’d left, he and Pentar had died and left her alone with no one but Ash and Squiddo and -
And then Jumper had died too, caught in Ash’s suicide-mission and they had lost and the season had ended with dust and rubble and Clown’s triumphant laughter and Minute had realised how wrong he’d been.
Zam had been right. There were no heroes on Lifesteal.
And now it’s a new season. Minute has a new team, one he jokingly nicknamed the evil empire but will never call them that aloud.
PB&J is long gone, lost-code, never returning. Because, well - what was PB&J but another way of railing against the inevitable? Against the very nature of Lifesteal itself, a way to put on a mask of smiles and laugh through the horror. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, they’d giggle before murdering their enemies, wiping blood off their blades and shrugging because - these were the bad guys and we’re the good guys and it’s all just a game, anyway. It doesn’t matter what we do, because in the eyes of the story we’re the heroes .
Except they weren’t. There was no fixing what was broken and Lifesteal was broken to the core, cracked and shattered and hopeless. They’d tried so hard to be heroes, tried so hard to play the game, that somewhere along the way they’d forgotten what being a hero meant.
Somewhere along the way, they had lost themselves.
But that was it, wasn’t it? They never stopped playing pretend because the moment they stopped the game, acknowledged how deeply, deeply fucked the server was - they’d realise how far they’d fallen.
And that was it. PB&J had formed to fight the world itself and of course they’d failed. They’d ended the season with their own deaths and with that end had been a new beginning, a new world, new players, a new Minute. And his new self had led to a new team and new players had led to new alliances to new wars and that had led to -
Today.
TODAY. INT. A RUBBLE STREWN CAVE - DAY
MINUTETECH and JUMPERWHO stand opposite each other. They are both covered in dust. Faint sounds of BATTLE filter through from above. Jumper looks fragile. Minute looks tired and amused.
MINUTE
(glancing upwards)
So. We should fight.
JUMPER
I guess.
MINUTE
It’s kinda - what’s expected, isn’t it? My team, your team - you know, I don’t even know why we’re fighting.
(laughing)
I don't want to fight. This is - stupid .
JUMPER
Why not?
(pause)
Isn’t this - what you wanted? You wanted to be the villain, this time.
MINUTE
(laughing)
Nah. I wanted to be free from obligations. Being a hero was - always putting others' needs above your own. I want to - do what I want.
JUMPER
Even if it hurts others?
MINUTE
(shugs)
Depends .
JUMPER
(voice breaking)
On what? I don't understand. I don't understand how you can -
Unsaid: I don’t understand how you can leave us behind
MINUTE
I don't understand how you still haven't changed.
JUMPER
This is who I am.
(MINUTE shakes his head)
JUMPER (CONT.)
You’ve changed so much. Like - what even is this fight about? It’s so - meaningless.
MINUTE
Not to my team.
JUMPER
They’re villains.
MINUTE
So am I, Jumper.
This is the first time Minute has said Jumper’s name today. They both realise it. Minute looks briefly sad. Jumper tries not to react, but flinches.
JUMPER
(quietly)
You didn’t use to be.
MINUTE
(sighs)
Who we are isn't permanent. People can change - we must change, stasis is - stasis is death, Jumper.
JUMPER
Well - yeah, but - we don’t have to change for the worse . We’re supposed to - learn from our mistakes and become better people, isn’t that what life is all about?
MINUTE
But you haven’t learned.
(he frowns, pauses)
You think that -
JUMPER (OVERLAPPING)
I haven’t given up.
They both fall silent. The CAVE no longer echoes with the sounds of BATTLE - either their teammates have moved away, or the fight has ended. Jumper briefly checks her communicator, but doesn’t react to what she sees.
JUMPER
I haven’t given up.
(laughs shakily)
I don’t think I ever will.
MINUTE
Then you’ll lose. Again and again and again, just like last season.
JUMPER
But I won’t lose myself.
MINUTE
Is that what you think I’ve done? Lost myself?
JUMPER doesn’t answer.
MINUTE (CONT.)
Because I haven’t. I have changed, yes I have changed - but I’m happier like this. In a world like this one, you can’t go - running around after other people’s happiness all the time. That way runs insanity -
(laughing, shaking his head)
- look at Zam - two whole seasons he tried to be a hero, and where did it lead him? Death, betrayal - and now look at him. He’s worse than me. And you know the worst of it - the reason Zam is the way he is, Eclipse Federation - they thought they were the heroes too, did you know that? Did Vitalasy tell you - everything he did in Season 4, he did to protect other servers from the Wormhole glitch. And by doing that, he destroyed his own world, he destroyed his friendship with Zam - and he turned Zam into the - the weapon of destruction he is today.
Minute pauses. Jumper’s hand moves to the PURPLE RIBBON in her hair, before withdrawing QUICKLY.
MINUTE (CONT.)
That’s what heroism on Lifesteal is, Jumper.
JUMPER
You’re wrong. You’re - you’re trying to get inside my head, like Zam did, you’re -
MINUTE (INTERRUPTING)
When have I ever tried to hurt you?
JUMPER stutters, incomprehensible.
MINUTE
I’ve never wanted to hurt you.
For a brief moment, the light hitting Minute makes it look like he’s GLOWING . Jumper looks like she is close to tears, but smiles despite it.
JUMPER
Still trying to play the hero. Batman.
(laughing)
I thought you’d given up.
MINUTE
(laughing)
Yeah. Sure.
They both go silent.
JUMPER
So what now?
MINUTE
I don’t know. My team is going to be wondering where I am.
JUMPER
So is mine.
MINUTE
I wasn’t lying when I said I didn’t want a fight.
JUMPER
You chased me down here.
MINUTE
I wanted to talk to you. You’ve been avoiding me.
JUMPER
It wasn’t on purpose.
MINUTE
(disbelieving)
Sure.
JUMPER
They’re going to expect you to kill me.
MINUTE shrugs
MINUTE
I don’t care.
JUMPER
I do.
JUMPER laughs. She is crying.
JUMPER (CONT.)
I’m sorry.
The following occurs in less than a second: Jumper places a lever on the wall next to her. Minute steps backwards (it will not save him). Jumper flicks the lever. There is an EXPLOSION. Minute dies LAUGHING.
When the DUST clears, Jumper is alone in the cave. There is a new DEATH MESSAGE on her communicator she refuses to look at. There is DUST on her face, and a small cut on her forehead where a piece of rubble hit her. It will bruise later. She stares at the new crater, and something METALLIC catches her eye. It is a POCKET WATCH, made of a metal she last remembers seeing in the AETHER, a long, long time ago.
Jumper turns and leaves the CAVE.
And now, not so long later: Jumper sits at the table of her hidden away base, two mugs in the sink, and tries not to think. She is alone. Her team logged off many hours ago, with the fight over.
They don't understand. They weren’t there at the end of Season 5, they didn’t see what she became and it's a new season now, everything is new, it’s all in the past. Why is she so obsessed with what happened back then, anyway?
Jumper doesn’t know how to explain it. Minute said she refuses to change, but she feels as though she is a different person. The girl who joined Lifesteal a year ago feels so distant, as if they aren’t made of the same code.
Maybe her code corrupted during her time here. Maybe the death and the destruction and the decay of all that was good in her friends’ souls affected her too. But corrupted code usually leaves some physical marker, and she is - the same. The same eyes, the same hair, and the ringing in her ears, the explosion-sounds are just in her head. The explosion from earlier might have caused it, even.
Season 5 didn’t change her.
Sometimes she wishes it has.
In another, larger, base, made for four people instead of one, Minute’s teammates have just finished teasing him for being caught by Jumper’s trap. He laughs it off, unbothered. Maybe there’s hope for her, after all.