Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Xelqua sat at his desk staring at nothing. There was nothing to stare at. He was in the void. It was cold but calm. The perfect place for thinking. This task felt near impossible, he had to make another life game, order from the higher ups. Each game wass getting crazier which meant harder to plan and harder to code. No one else could be trusted with such an important task so he was alone but that was okay. The other watchers had a bigger ego than him. Pains to deal with. Xelqua preferred the distance.

He had been working on this game for months now and had little to show for it. Most of his ideas were too out there. Would work for a joke game that was hosted as quick meals but not a real game.Piles of scraped code laid around glitching the surrounding area. He just hoped it would make it seem like he's making progress and get the others to get off his back. The last thing he wanted was to be bothered by another watcher. Too bad he never got what he wanted. Another one of his kind appeared and they didn’t seem happy about it but when were watchers happy? Trick question, they never are.

A voice rang throughout the void towards the blond coding a game. He was taking months for what used to take weeks.“You almost finished that game Xelqua? We’re getting hungry” The booming echoing voice came from a watcher who loomed over the blonde man. They assigned him to make a new game months ago. The lack of outcome was beginning to irritate them. They couldn’t go forever without a meal and the games were the biggest meals the watchers got most of the time. They didn’t have time to wait around for Xelqua to finish his new ‘perfect’ game.

“Getting there but this isn’t an overnight task. Not if you want an outcome like last time.” Xelqua knew this point would get the others off their back. WIld life was a feast for suffering. The ideal outcome with an entertaining performance before. He had done a perfect job and they wanted an even better outcome this time some patience would be needed. They could wait no matter how much they hated it. The other watchers weren’t children,they're all powerful beings they just act like toddlers. If they wanted a game faster they could send someone to help him but no, this was a task only a total traitor could be trusted to perform correctly. He only made well performing games because they were fun to play. Sure all his friends suffered around him but that didn’t matter too much. A mans got to scratch his evil itch somehow. Xelqua or Grian as he was known as to the players just chose to scratch his in an entertaining manner.

“You’ve had months and you don’t even have a gimmick yet!” The other watcher barked back. “You better hurry up Xelqua” It was close, practically breathing down Xelqua’s neck with breath warm with frustration. It was gross and caused goosebumps to jump from Xelquas skin.

Xelqua slammed his hands down on desk and stood up to face the other one. He was so fed up with this. His games had to be crazy, mind bogglingly insane and that took time to create. The impact rattled the desk and shook some important vials. His dark voided eyes went wide. Shoot! Those contain the old versions of the players. If he didn’t do something fast they’d appear in the void. “Don’t expect much of a meal now” the blonde watchers hands moved at a breakneck pace. He’d reuse 3rd life. It was the first file he found. It was going to have to be good enough.He stared at the broken character vials before teleporting himself to the game. There were three broken from each past game except limited life. He hit the table weirdly perfectly. He could play the 3rd player from limited life.

“Damn it Xelqua! You’ll pay for this!” The watcher yelled into the empty void. All that was left was a lonely desk. The game designer had fled to his emergency game, ready to play his old part as the 3rd bad boy. The game was going to be a meal just not one that met the ever growing expectations placed by the watchers. Nothing would ever be enough in their many, many, many eyes. Grian could design the most exceptional game and all he’d get in return would be more trauma and a threat to bring the same level or more of negativity in the players the next time. He was sick of it. It was all so pointless. If nothing he did was ever enough how could he truly be expected to care about the games he makes. He's just tormenting his friends again and again. Not this time. The watcher promises himself. This time it’ll be different. I won’t give those bloody eyes what they want. I’ll do everything in my power to make them happy. He doesn’t know that that’s not in his control. He's just a game designer, he's not in control of it.

The ground formed around him. Everything was exactly as he remembered it just before everything went down. The others glanced around perplexed at the circumstances. The three from this game seemed the most confused. The mourning widow seeing his husband but it wasn’t quite the man he knew. The hand of the king seeing his king serving a queen as her hand. Then there was the one that hurt Grian the most. His lover was standing there staring at bees flying around. Scar didn’t care about being teleported to a reset version of his world with a bunch of people he didn’t know or at least that wasn’t his top priority.

The words that came from the watchers felt rusty, like they never should have had to be repeated. “Welcome to third life!” This drew everyone's immediate attention. The ones from this game weren’t from the start. They had been documented towards the end. After 3rd life though the watchers went with documenting the players in the middle of the game as to keep them preserved at a point they are settled into the game but not quite insane. The three 3rd life players were certainly insane “You have 3 life. On your first life you’re friendly, on your second, yellow life you're still friendly but you’re in hot water. When you die you're on your red life. You then become hostile and your goal changes. Your new goal is to be the last one standing. Good luck” No one moved.Martyn looked frustrated, Scott and Scar looked confused and glanced at each other. The others knew this wasn’t where they belonged. All the more negativity for the watchers!

Chapter Text

After the game had begun the pink haired queen slipped from the circle of players with her right hand man. Unfortunately she didn’t notice the third set of footsteps that were following the two of them. They both wandered deep into the dark oak forest to gather up some resources to rebuild the fairy fortress in this new world.

“We need to get geared up again. I don’t trust these people. They looked wrong.” Ren, the queen's knight and hand, snarled. By looking wrong he meant they fact they weren’t quite the same He threw his fist back then forwards into a tree crushing the log into pieces . The tree crashed down and Ren began to collect what he needed from the fragmented tree.

The woman kneeled down and collected some of the wood herself. Lizzy grabbed just enough to make herself and Ren a crafting table and two wooden pickaxes. She handed him one before asking her question. “True and the rules are different but simpler. Ren? Are you going to stay with me? You have no more obligation to.” She didn’t look at Ren when she asked the question. There was a chance he would get up and leave. He was no longer bound to her. The life she gave didn’t matter in his game.

Ren took his gift and nodded. He got on a knee as he often did for theatics and lifted his head in a way his queen could see his eyes even with his shades on. His blue eyes shimmered with his usual passion. He cared about what he did. “My queen.” He began in his deeper, more intense and sometimes even Scottish voice. “I will stay by thy side until a blade is plunged into thy heart on me final life.” He bared his teeth with a nice and dangerous smile. He was a loyal knight with no plan to change that in any way.

The man following them froze. That's not how it was supposed to go. Rens meant to be the king and who even was this pink haired girl? Who did she think she was stealing his man? Ren was his. Martyn crept a little closer, he wanted to understand what they were talking about. What was she talking about? Giving lives wasn’t something you could do, otherwise Grian could’ve paid his debt to Scar before becoming hysterical and deciding to stay with him. This wouldn’t slide with martyn, it couldn’t. He would be back for that woman. The moment I turn red. The blonde was already forming his perfect plan to get his man back.

Ren put a hand up about as high as his chest, flat but open a single to pause. His wolf hybrid ears twitched and turned towards martyn. He couldn’t see who was approaching but he certainly could hear them. Lizzy stopped herself from speaking and looked around. No one around should be aiming to harm them yet. The tab list showed everyone green and they hadn’t been told about any boogie men. There was still always a risk of a ruler breaker. Ren quickly took a stick and two planks and mangled them into something sort of resembling a sword. “We can hear you” He sneered out into the seemingly empty woods.

“And see you!” Lizzy added, she was lying through her teeth. See scanned the tree line that seemed to never end. She found an area that seemed a little too covered in shadow and looked as mensingly as she could. Pink hair and fairy wings didn’t make anyone look particularly scary but Ren looked scary enough for the both of them. He wasn’t particularly good at taming his wild hair; he liked to keep it long and with messy, often dirty, layers. The attention of the wolf ears that always managed to remain taller than his hair made him extra terrifying from a distance. He wasn’t someone you had to be afraid of though, at least if he was on your team. Honestly he was just an overdramatic theater kid.

The figure stepped out from behind a tree and it was very easy to see now bright yellow hair and clothes that had clearly never been washed with anything darker than them. He had already upgraded to a stone sword. He stalked forward slowly. His eyes filled with a seemingly impossible amount of insane induced rage. Ren held his blade out but by the rules of the game could not attack. Martyn stared at Lizzy for a long moment. It was tense. The faint breeze filled all three of their ears. The queen swallowed hard. She was praying that this game really didn’t have a boogie man or she very well could die. Why wasn’t she running? You should be smart enough to run.

Marty finally made his move, he plunged his sword into the dirt in the same moment as getting on a knee similarly to the way Ren did. It was swift and smooth, even the dirt stayed near perfectly still. “I have none the faintest ideas of who you may be, but if you are a queen to Ren, you’re a goddess to me” The man kept his head bowed and position stiff.

Lizzy and Ren looked back and forth to the man then at each other. Was this a trick or could dude just be off the rails mad? He reminds them of Martyn but a thousand times more intense. Ren finally shrugged, he was pushing this decision onto Lizzy. She sighed and pushed the hair out of her face.

“You want to help us build a fairy fort?” She finally chose to say. She probably didn’t need to be so particular with her words but his man felt insane and she didn’t want to trigger him. “and no need to stay on a knee”

Martyn pushed off his knee and stood up. He grabbed the sword he planted into the ground with a strong fist and pulled it up just as flawlessly as he stabbed it in. “Martyn LittleWood at your service” for the first time he smiled. Lizzie and Ren glanced at each other. This was Martyn just not their Martyn. Weird. How could something like this even happen?

The thick tension was cut short by some yelling. From what any of them could tell it wasn’t distressed in any way, just cocky and annoying. “Something bad boys” Ren muttered. He was the only one who could make out anything.

“Whatever, lets just ignore it, ren we haven't even got stone tools yet,” Lizzy took a step and beckoned her hand to follow. She paused and turned back to the yellow blonde man. “Could you watch the forest? It's important we base here and I don't want those ‘bad boys’ stealing it.”

“Will do, want me to clear a few trees while you're gone? If not I'll probably just start up a farm” Martyn was retiring his headband as he spoke. The smooth fluid moments caused Ren to stare a little.
The queens voice was warm as she responded “If you could collect some saplings that would be fantastic”

Martyn nodded and pulled out his axe. Lizzie and Ren wandered around to go find some sort of cave system.

As expected the so called ‘bad boys’ showed up.

“Martyn!? Scram this is our turf” The man with hair that resembled bread spoke. He was Grian that was for sure but not the desert wandering debted Grian he knew. This one wore a sweater and sunglasses and was following around JImmy and Joel, again not the ones he knew.

Martyn swung his axe over his shoulder and glared at them “No it's not, the queen claimed it.” He guessed they would have no clue who the queen was but there weren't many girls on the server.

The blonde one scoffed. “And who's this queen? I'd like to challenge her.” The canary spoke proudly and almost mockingly, as if someone would ever lose a fight to him. He had coal stained yellow wings. Even someone unaware of the curse that followed him could tell that a canary wasn’t exactly the strongest in any field except singing. He wasn’t challenging Lizzy to a singing contest was he? That would be the oddest battle Martyn had ever seen.

“Were she is is nothing for you to worry about”

This time Joel spoke, but– you get it at this point– this one had an ego that raddited off of him. They must like to speak in threes “You sure about that? It would be a 3 vs 1”

Martyn rolled his eyes “no it wouldn’t. We’re all green names.”

“The rule is never followed, it's more of a suggestion” Grian spoke calmly, too calmly. Almost as if he understood this world from a 4th dimensional perspective

“What if I'm the boogie!” The speaking in threes seemed more like a possibility as the yellow bird squawked out a reply. The other two just nodded along, one with a smug smirk and the other with an uncomfortable one.

Martyn squinted his eyes in confusion “what the hell are you talking about?” He grabbed his commentator and whispered to Ren because he couldn’t remember Lizzy's exact gamertag. ‘Dude when you get the chance come back, these dudes are wack’

“Called for help huh?” Joel mocked with a low laugh. His green streak of hair bouncing more than the others. He pushed his sunglasses up to match Grian. Watchers, how much of an egotistical maniac can you be. Martyn could feel it dripping off him and he hadn’t been speaking for more than a few minutes. How could this joel be this different from his. The one Martyn remembered was just downright insane.

“I don't need help but anyone would get a kick out of you befoons. Especially my man Ren”

The three raised collectively three eyebrows at the man. Two of them having identical questions and the third pretending to look like he's got the same one. Who was Ren? He wasn’t a player in limited life so they simply had no way of remembering who he was. Expect grian. He knew everything.

They kept bricking, as expected. The bad boys attempted to argue why the forest should belong to them but Martyn was winning, he was here first. That's all it took in these lands. After way too much childish squabbling the queen and her rather fluffy knight returned, now decked out in shiny iron armor.

With a nasty glare one spoke up“So these are the boys trying to steal MY land?” Lizzy asked as she pushed some bubblegum pink hair over her shoulder. She would not stand for this. She was going to rebuild her home and no ‘bad boys’ would stop her. Especially not these buffoons.

Grian stared with his forever soulless eyes. The canary had a less than positive reaction, his wing fluffed up with annoyance and the final bad boy froze, but not out of anger or anything like that. His jaw threatened to fall agape at the sight. He bowed his head in order to hopefully hide the red dusting on his face. Gods was this woman beautiful, not to mention powerful. Was that his knees being weak? He’s a bad boy, he shouldn’t be bowing to anyone and especially not feeling like his hearts going to fly away because of a woman.

“I’ll make you a deal boys.” The queen sneered at them “We share the forest but you stay as far as possible to my home” She glared at two of the three. The third was the man with a glowing green streak of hair bowing his head in respect. She couldn’t say why but he brought a smile to her lips, a sweet genuine smile. Who would have guessed that. Ren and Martyn certainly hadn’t. Both with eyes as wide as golf balls as they went from looking at their queen to the man she was smiling at. Ren's glasses almost slid off his face because of how shocked he was.

Chapter Text

A couple of weeks had passed since the game started and the queen had not gotten to see the bad boys again, she wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. She certainly heard them though, they were a loud trio for sure.

Lizzy was starting to hope they would pop on by. Ren was making sure she didn’t leave the fort. She was one of the last green names and the others were being hunted. The large group of reds currently were looking for Scott’s head. The bad boys were probably in that group, two of them were red and the other yellow. Her team was the nearly the best off color wise, two yellow and a green. Martyn lost a life when Scar was chasing Lizzy down. Ren had a run in with a creepy skeleton duo while mining.

The fort was getting lonely, she was at home a lot and her guards, while she almost always had one around it was still growing dull, commotion seemed to be everywhere but the fort, which was good. She attempted to negotiate some alliances, but in this world, Cleo was more confused and wanted nothing to do with the queen. So Lizzie stayed with her castle, tending to the gardens, the animals and the small fairies flying about.

That was how it went and it began to grow familiar until one night, the moon had just risen to its highest point in its largest state. It was bright and beautiful. Suddenly the firefly sized fairy resting on Lizzy's hand darted off far into the night. That was odd, Ren and Martyn did tend to carelessly scare them off but both had gone into the woods for the night, the full moon and Ren didn’t mix well. She didn’t want to know why Martyn tagged along, he was always staring at the knight with hazy love stricken eyes.

A distant sound was coming from the carefully planted bushes. They made sure no mobs could weave their way into the fort, that didn’t mean players couldn’t of course.

“You’re not slick there. I hear you” the queen sighed.

“Sorry, low health, can I heal up?” The voice asked, she knew the voice belonged to a red name. They weren’t here for her head right? The one night her knights sneak away into the night. Gods, she should be able to handle herself by now. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

“Of course not” Lizzy stammered out, she truly was not built for pvp. “Y-you know better than to! I am the scary and very very powerful queen and no one, but a fool would cross me!”

The disheveled, red name moved into her line of sight. He seemed more battered than his average state. Most red names were, but he looked really hurt like the mobs of the night, and something else had come for him. There was still something human in him, though most of the red names were lost to insanity with me a moment of joining the near dead but this one seemed different. Probably an act the queen dismissed. There was no way they were something special about this man. Sure he was very pretty but that’s that. He’s still red. She is still green and all of her protection is gone until morning. Joel, once closer to the queen, bowed his head and lowered to one knee.

“You know for a bad boy you’re pretty respectful” She smiled and even offered him her mushroom stew she spent so long brewing. For healing of course.

Joel takes the stew and pushes his sunglasses down to hopefully cover his reddening face now that he wasn’t bleeding from his wounds his body is okay with sending way too much of it to his face. He chooses not to respond to the compliment because he deemed it an insult. As a bad boy he’s so respectful but he’s not going to be rude to the person currently sheltering him. Where could Ren and Martyn be? They should be protecting one of the last green names.

“Why don’t you make yourself useful for the night” The pink haired fairy proclaimed. Her guards were out doing whatever a wolf hybrid and his best friend do on a full moon and she was one of only three green names alive. Scott and Gem were the others. Scott was actively getting his head chased after and Gem was scary enough as green most wouldn’t dare lay a finger her and the couple who had perished

Joel looked puzzled. What could a green name need? Especially from a red name like himself. “Depends” bad boys give short nonchalant answers.

“If you take the place of my knights tonight I’ll let you live or- or I’ll take your head!” The beautiful queen proclaimed. She wouldn’t kill him, she probably couldn’t, her pvp wasn’t the best. She had a reason for getting herself knights and it wasn’t that she had the power to end the entire server.

“Be your knight?” Joel looked her up and down. Gods, what would the bad boys think? His babes wouldn’t like that. He pulled out his communicator and started typing a message, ‘I’ll be home right after sunrise babes’ He put the device back in his pocket. He was actually agreeing to this. Protecting a green name this late into the game could end in his death so easily. “Just for the night?”

“Just for the night, after the sun rises ren will be back to himself and ready to protect me” Lizzy definitely overshared, Joel seemed a bit confused every time Ren was mentioned. He didn’t look very comfortable, like he couldn’t read the man or something. They seemed awkward but differently than most people. Ren seemed to know Joel, the same way Lizzy knew him, some crazy wizard who lived up in the mountains who was not welcome in the fairy fort, but Joel didn’t seem to know Ren at all and his knowledge of Lizzy started and stopped at her voice.

The night pressed on, the moon slowly returning into its darkness, Joel being very overkill in everything he did. Doing rounds of the fort and insisting she hid when a certain death message popped up. Lizzy was one of only 2 green names left. He placed a fake sign saying the fairy fort was currently empty. Joel and Lizzy now were cooped up in her mushroom hut, Joel's idea. It had gotten pretty late, far past midnight Lizzy was sitting on her bed leaning against the wall and Joel was sitting on the floor. They were just chatting about mostly nothing when her guards' whereabouts were brought up.

“What about Martyn? Where did the fish get himself? I get it's a full moon so Rens gone but Martyn? I don't get it” Joel was just asking questions to keep himself awake at this point. He couldn't sleep tonight, he had to protect lizzy throughout the night, she was providing him shelter for the night, the bad boys shack wasn’t exactly the safest.

“Oh he wanted to ‘help’ Ren. That’s all I know and all I want to know.” She flashed a smile. Dear god it was a frightening site how close those two got so quickly. Lizzy was fine with her guards being close but finding them kissing behind a tear was not what she wanted to be seeing. “Also what do you mean fish? He's just an elf”

“He is? Oh my bad. You know…” Joel guested with his hands. People kinda figured out that some of them came from the same games but other people came from different ones. Most people didn’t enjoy talking about it. Joel just felt lucky he got to keep his bad boys. What would he even do without them?

“Yeah, I get it, I’m still getting used to you not being a wizard.” Lizzie smiled, this version of Joel was a lot more likeable, much less scary and even more handsome. Being the brawn of his group gave him some extra points in Lizzy's eyes.

“I was a wizard? That's pretty cool! N-not as much as being a bad boy though!” Joel ran his fingers through his hair, sparkles practically came from his fingertips. He looked pretty good in leather, especially in the darkness of the night. He leaned against the bed, head near Lizzy's leg.

Lizzie shrugged. “Being a bad boy is much cooler if you ask me. You weren’t the best wizard, unhinged and fearless. Honestly, I've always had a thing for red names, bad boys.” Lizzy was twirling a chunk of hair around two fingers, she was tired and starting to spill feelings. She wasn’t in love or anything but she might have had a crush on a certain bad boy. Truly she could go to bed but she would feel bad leaving Joel all alone during the night. Sleeping during the day was a smarter move anyway, a lot of players did that, plus Ren and Martyn could protect her easier during the day. This was all logical and not an excuse to hang with the red name.

The door to the hut opened. A roughed up looking martyn looked between the two. “Well this is awkward”

“Martyn? You're supposed to still be out with Ren?” The Queen stiffened up and shifted away from Joel. Her wings folded back up behind her back. Joel didn’t notice how beautiful they looked

“Hes still out but didn’t want me there for the end so i headed back, sorry for interrupting… whatever this is” Martyn turned on his heel and briskly walked away. Lizzy groaned and buried her hands in her face. Joel leaned forward and set a hand on her knee.

“After what they were probably doing he’d be a hypocrite to judge you at all.” Joel smiled, his voice was getting raspy due to how tired he was getting.

Lizzy looked down at him and smiled, he was right after all. “I guess but I would never assume what those two were doing. It was probably wholesome friend stuff, or that's at least what I like to think.” Her wings fluttered a bit. For a bad boy Joel was really quite sweet, he seemed to always have the right words to make the fairies in her stomach fly all around. Joel smiled and rolled his eyes. Everyone on the server could see right through the paper thin facade of a professional relationship the two tried to put up. Martyn was constantly accidentally calling Ren, my king and each time Ren's tail waged a little bit more than the last.

“Whatever you say Queen Lizzy.” He shook his head and stood up. The sun was beginning to rise, he needed to return to the bridge. The boys would be waiting for him to get back. “Now that your guard is back I should head home.” He rubbed the back of his neck, he wasn’t in a rush to leave but his babes were at home and waiting for him to return safely. He didn’t even explain why he didn’t come home last night so they were probably worried sick about him. Then again such a lovely woman was right here in front of him. “Stay alive.”

“Take your own advice, red name. Thanks for protecting me though” she flashed him a big smile as her wings started to flutter.

Joel awkwardly chuckled , his face starting to get red again“You protected me first, but I really should be going, the boys are probably worried about me. He took a step towards the door, trying to slowly get away but first Lizzy had one more question.

“Does this mean we are allies now?” Watchers if they became allies maybe this would be easier to explain to guards if they were but also allies always would be a good thing. Protection and extra resources always could be used. The bad boys weren’t exactly rich though, Joel was the only one with diamond armor and that was the only because he was red and they went around panhandling.

“Sure, the bad boys don't have many and who's scarier than the fairy fort” Joel responded with a stronger voice than he had been, he was tired but he was still strong and felt the need to prove that. He did inch towards the door a bit more, as much as he would love to stay he needed to get home before grain went insane and decided Joel was kidnapped and needed to get him back. He carefully opened the door and started walking away out of the fairy fort and into the sunrise.

“So what was that all about?” Martyn leaned against the mushroom hut and smirked.

“Nothing!” Lizzy huffed and glared at him. “He needed a place to heal up for the night and I needed a temporary guard. That's all.” she flipped her hair over her shoulder as watched as the bad boy left. “That's all” her eyes were glued to the man. It was hard to look at anything else.

“Whatever you say your majesty” Martyn rolled his pearly blue eyes. Lizzy wasn’t a good liar or good under pressure nor was she really attempting to hide anything.

“He’d make a great fairy king don’t you think Martyn?”