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Tubbo had come back to the realm only to say goodbye, and of course while he was here he intended to take one last good look around the place. The spawn was a little emptier than he remembered. Badboyhalo’s Cathedral was looking ominous, but actually looked completed. In the distance he could see his tavern among the Blue Faction area. And Yellow Castle was… Yellow Castle was…
It was fucking gone is what it was.
He approached the ruins both bewildered and a little angry that he had missed something this big while he was away. Once he got closer he was able to see how much of a mess had been made.
Tubbo’s initial observations told him that someone had paved over the giant crater with grass, and built a non functional bouncy house in the shape of a castle in the center. It felt like it was taunting everyone with the memory of what was once there. Further observations revealed that this had been a man-made explosion, not an act of God, as the area held the fairly obvious and tell-tale signs of being blown up with copious amounts of tnt. Despite being shown a giant meteor down in the crater that had once been a ball room, he knew a tnt explosion when he saw it.
Was it odd that he was feeling oddly nostalgic from seeing a beloved center of the community be blown up? He peered around from where the throne’s bedrock still was, with a mockery of a throne hastily built around it. It felt so bizarre to be standing in this spot but he had no clue why. Nothing was coming to mind, but it felt strangely familiar, like he had lived through something like this before, something he couldn’t recall. It was probably nothing, but either way he didn’t have time to solve the mystery right now.
Still, this was definitely not what he had been expecting.
Apparently, if you go away for a few weeks and come back you get to be hit with the news that there are terrorists running around the realm. Not exactly the welcome home and send off he had been looking for. Honestly! What was the world coming to? Were there always these sleeper cell terrorists laying in wait among them? And no he wasn’t talking about Badboyhalo, because despite all Bad had done and would do in the future, he wasn’t the one who blew up Yellow Castle. Was he? Not yet at least. Tubbo supposed there was still time if Bad wanted to.
Luckily, Bekyamon had offered up the answer to who had blown up the castle right away. Apparently, and later verified by Ros herself, it was Ros who had done the blowing up. Not something he would have put money on happening if he was a gambling man. But gambling was a sin, and there was enough sinning happening around the realm to justify not contributing to his own moral decay. She had admitted it flat out to him once Bekyamon had given her away. No apologies, or shame. Just a stupid throw away line about a meteor, and then when he pushed the issue, she confronted him, asking if he thought she was the issue.
Obviously, yes. But it was more that she had some kind of major issues going on. The confession, or rather the quiet lack of protest at the initial accusation was itself almost as shocking as the discovery. Which made him realize that this was clearly a cry for attention, maybe even a cry for help. Maybe it should have clued him in that things weren’t totally ok with her when she flat out asked him if he preferred the Kingdom as it was or the crater it had become. That wasn’t a question normal, mentally sound people asked.
Unfortunately, no one else was sticking around to give him the details, so he had to work with who was available. Which was Ros herself. So he just asked her straight up. Why had she done it? And allegedly he was the first person to actually ask her that, which she not only pointed out, but mentioned she was grateful for finally being asked. Red flags all around. But he wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity to get her manifesto straight from the source, so he locked in and sat with her on the throne platform to hear her out. It seemed like the least he could do in this situation.
The whole story was a lot to take in and process all at once. There were several things Ros said to him after he asked her why she committed a terrorist act that didn’t really make sense to him, and it took him a while to sort through it all in his head. Then again, wasn’t all terrorism just senseless acts of violence? He supposed he had gotten what he had asked for.
To be fair to Ros, at first he thought what she was saying was reasonable, but 5 million blocks of glass? A drowned Cathedral? And he thought Green’s war crimes were extreme. Ros didn’t just have her wires crossed, they had been rigged to blow. She just put the tnt in entirely the wrong place. Maybe she was color blind?
What he wasn’t understanding was how she had gotten to this point. Out of everyone in yellow he had never pinned her for the terrorist type. Sneeg, maybe. Zam, absolutely. Foolish, if someone talked him into it and did all the work. Tina on a bad day, surely. Tango, eehhh.. Under the right circumstances. Fit, no question.
But Ros? There was no way. His bestie? She had clearly been radicalized. Something somewhere had gone completely amiss. Wasn’t she supposed to be the Architect of Yellow? The Grand Royal, very important person in charge of being… you know… the one that builds things? He supposed that a little demolition was inevitable, but this was going a bit far. Was he crazy for thinking that? From what she was saying there weren't even plans to build something bigger and better, which he could have totally understood. But this wasn’t controlled demolition. This had been chaos. He was trying to wrap his head around things, and couldn’t think of a single reason why her blowing up the castle made sense.
How had Yellow let things get this far? You’re telling him that no one stepped in to stop her? Supreme Leader seemed to be in the middle of things though, but they had clearly not been helping. Classic Aimsey. Enabling others to do war crimes. He was certain that through all the actions that had led to this point that Aimsey was right next to Ros, cheering her on the whole time. They even tried to tell him that it had been Baghera Jones who had blown up the castle. You know, the person who hadn’t been seen for literal months at this point. Which was insane, Supreme Leader had once been a voice of reason, but ever since their little trip to the Null they had been a totally different person. And apparently that meant that Ros just got to run around blowing things up as much as she pleased.
Tubbo couldn’t believe it, he was lost. None of it added up, and so he was having trouble even understanding how it all happened no matter what she tried to say to explain herself.
It basically all boiled down to what others, which he interpreted to mean Green Faction, had done to Yellow while he had been gone. He hadn’t expected his faction to be angels, of course. Not with Bad and Pangi around. So of course there had been a little bit of griefing. A little pranking. Even so… her examples seemed a little tame to him. Especially given who she was pointing fingers at.
Sheep and sand didn’t really feel like the basis to go on a rampage against your own stuff. Her explanation about holes, and towers of blocks was pretty flimsy to him as well. He thought something terrible had been done against Yellow, but there wasn’t a single thing listed that was at the level that would have even come close for him to do what she had done. Maybe he was just a little more resilient, but damn. Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill.
The other flaw he found with her logic was that she thought she was just targeting Bad with her actions. For some reason he had taken the heat as her one and only target, but Tubbo didn’t think that he was the only one who griefed the castle. He couldn’t have been. But clearly, given her explanation, Bad was who she blamed. Whatever. Bad was a convenient fall guy anyway.
So she had gotten her revenge. Extreme as it was. Clearly it had been cleaned up already, and she was quick to tell him that Pangi had been the one to clear the water from the Cathedral. Something she was upset about, because she had wanted only Bad to suffer. Well… Green faction clearly wasn’t going to let that slide. Ros might have thought that Bad should face the consequences for his actions, but green obviously had contradictory plans. Call them enablers. Call them loyal. Knowing Pangi there was no shot that he was going to let Bad take that on solo. It just wasn’t possible. Clearly she hadn’t been thinking rationally, because she should have known better. Pangi was, as he said in their talk, God’s strongest soldier. And maybe her own faction had been a little lacking on the unity bit, but Green did not have that issue.
Now he wasn’t what you would call an expert on the Yellow Faction. But did Ros think that if the tables were turned that Yellow would let Foolish take the heat on the scale? He didn’t think so. From what he had seen they were rather protective of the guy, even though he was the one getting himself killed more often than not. He had even offered his life up to Red months ago, bro just didn’t care. Yellow had always been more invested in their leader’s well being than he was himself. So of course they wouldn’t have let him clean up a water grief alone, right? Or maybe they would. Apparently anything was possible on the realm.
Maybe Ros wasn’t just a terrorist who blew up castles. Maybe she was completely unhinged and had been plotting the downfall of Yellow this whole time.
Speaking of unhinged. Why would she think that getting involved in a prank war with BADBOYHALO of all people was a good idea? The very thought of doing that made a chill go down his spine, like he instinctively knew that could only go wrong. It was like one of those internal subconscious natural instincts that make you jump at shadows. Bad was creative, he had numerous supplies, he had time, and he had the tenacity. It was just a doomed venture from the start. Not that she shouldn’t have retaliated against the little pranks that had been done, but Bad wasn’t the person to escalate with. Out of all the citizens of the realm, she picked the worst one to target. When he had asked her what level of hell she was in and she mentioned Bad’s name, he did have to agree, that was the worst level of hell. Literally anyone would have been better. Maybe she hadn’t noticed, but Bad didn’t understand what ‘too far’ was. And there she was, going too far against the ‘going too far’ master.
Tubbo had to admit, that took guts. Or maybe that was just a lack of survival instinct. Hard to tell. Either way, he thought she had gotten off rather easy. The Keepers just got rid of all the glass, and Pangi cleaned up the water before Bad could deal with it and have a reason to take it out on her. It really was baffling that she wasn’t grateful that things had been sorted before it got out of hand.
Then again… he supposed she had taken it to the ‘out of hand’ sector on her own. Maybe blowing up the castle had been her way of out Badding Bad. Maybe that was the real thing she had been after. She wanted to prove that she on her own could take on the boogie man. Stupid, but maybe he admired it just a bit. Or maybe she was right. Maybe Bad had driven her to insanity, and caused her to be her own downfall. That did seem like something he would do. But seriously, had no one been around to back her up?
While he was on the subject, when did Green become this big united front, and Yellow sputter and die? Did Ros blow them all up too? Throwing out the faction with the castle seemed extreme even for a terrorist.
Ros and Aimsey had tried to tell him that she had been alone. But he didn’t believe that. Or rather, if he did, he wrote it off as being her fault. Why would Yellow want to show up when their castle was gone? Even before then, it seemed like Ros had been kinda intense about a little bit of sheep and sand. Why would anyone want to come around when things at home were so tense? Personally, he wouldn’t have been jumping to participate either. Maybe Ros should have considered that she was the problem here. Not that she was the only problem, but she was at least part of the problem. And the sad part was, he didn’t think she had realized it.
And if she was the reason why Yellow was failing, how long until she blew up her relationship with Aimsey as well? If he ever returned to the Kingdom he half expected to come back to Aimsey’s house and all of Blue Faction to be gone as well. Ros had spared them for the moment, but were they just one bad breakup away from the whole neighborhood going up in smoke? He could see it.
It was totally possible he was being a bit too hard on her. After all, he hadn't exactly been around or kept up with his own royal duties. As one of the only other faction royals, he could sympathize with her a bit. It wasn’t easy being in such a position. Well… she wasn’t a full time royal, but if the claims were true that the King had abandoned the realm then she was currently Queen, right? That was how they claimed that all worked. Well from a Princess to a part-time Queen, you had to convince your faction to work for you. You had to live in their hearts. You had to be inspiring, and motivational. And on a higher level you had to understand their wants, and needs. He had understood that Green craved chaos. She clearly didn’t understand what Yellow wanted. Yellow liked to claim that Ros was their most valuable member, and the heart of their Kingdom, but where was the follow up? There was no proof and no pudding for it to be in.
And maybe that was a failing of their faction. What was Yellow even about at this point? What were they striving for? To have the most people with Nirvana? Ridiculous. They weren’t exactly around, doing anything with it, were they? They had these hardened soldiers ready for the long haul, but there hadn’t been a war. The battles were disappointing, as few as they had been as well. For all their numbers and yapping, they amounted to a whole lot of nothing in the end. And the End was coming so if they were going to pull out this grand reveal they had better do it sooner rather than later.
Or maybe he had hit it on the nose. Maybe they didn’t love her as much as she loved them. That would certainly explain why they hadn’t been around or why they just let her blow up the castle on her own. Maybe she was in one of those ‘toxic relationships’ where she poured everything she had into her faction, and it never gave her anything in return. When he had first said that in their conversation it had mostly been to get a reaction, to get her to prove him wrong. Instead she had hung her head. His words had hit her harder than he had intended it seemed. Even if it wasn’t the truth, it was obviously the thought that was haunting her. Guilty conscious? Or a wounded heart?
It seemed like she was holding onto a lot of hurt. And on that note, it sounded to him like she needed to let some of this stuff go. Bringing up stuff from months before? Things he couldn’t even remember, they had become so insignificant. Not really helping her case here. Why was she focusing on stuff from the start of the realm. Had she really been letting it all fester inside of her all this time? Well… that was unhealthy. No wonder she was so tightly wound. She needed to chill out, and just move on. But even now that she had blown up her castle it still didn’t seem like she felt she was over it. Ros was still hanging on to what had happened.
What happened to all the therapists in the realm? He thought there were at least three at one time, and Ros clearly and desperately needed someone to help her sort through a lot of crap. Again, from the Princess to the Queen, she really needed to talk it out. Because whether she liked it or not the end was coming, and no one was going to be able to deal with all this drama when they were facing total destruction. Just saying.
Which is why he told her to build the Yellow base again. They were some of the strongest in the realm, and if they were going to stand any kind of chance, Yellow would need to be involved. He thought it would be the least she could do. Because sorry, leaving it all up to Supreme Leader and Badboyhalo really wasn’t going to inspire the confidence needed to survive what was coming.
Either way, he was done with them now. He was becoming a Keeper, and hopefully Ros would leave Yellow and join the Red Faction.
He hadn’t known her true colors until now, but now that he did it was clear if anyone belonged on Red it was her. Actually, her and Bad would be a terrifying duo. Those two on Red together? He was glad to be shipping off. Either way she was going to need to make some changes. Be them of her own making or ones forced upon her, Ros just couldn’t keep this up. Who could? If she tried she was going to continue to self-destruct and alienate the few people she had left. He had been honest with her. She needed a fresh start. If there was ever a time to let go of the past it was now. The dust had settled and she could be free if she could find it in her heart to be brave and walk away.
He sincerely hoped she would.
Or.. Or… Hear him out. Maybe next time she should blow up the Green Castle instead of her own. But what did he know? He wasn’t even a Princess anymore, and she was a Queen.
In truth he had always liked Ros. They had never really had any problems, and she had always been kind to him. It was a bit of bad luck that he ended up in the faction opposed to her. Maybe that made him evil in her eyes, and maybe she would totally ignore all the advice he gave her. Ros would just keep being a terrorist and perhaps that’s what everything had led to. In the grand scheme of things this was probably what everyone deserved anyway.
Welp… Not his problem now