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It starts the way all things do.
It's raining.
They were out late, much later than they should've been, chipping away chunks of stone and deepslate from the crater; all while Pangi bent iron rods and redstone into a skeleton for the cannon. Pangi knows he's never been the most consistent when it comes to his goals, okay? He knows that he's easily distracted and off-railed, but this thing—his baby, his creation—has been months in the making. A persistent thought in the back of his mind, a reminder of what he has the potential to be. The truth is that the "reason why not to blow shit up" has always been about the people.
He's dangerous. Everyone is, or has the potential to be—but he's sharpened his own blade to a point, and wielded it defensively. The truth is that he's always had the means and the wants to destroy, but he's made a point of using that blade to protect. He's always had the ability to turn it around, dig it into the throats of the people who hide behind it—but they love him. They love him and believe in him, believe him, and he's trying so hard not to lose that.
They would not love him if they knew what he was, what he has always been. They would not love him if they understood him.
They all retreat into a cave that sprouts out of the crater to take shelter from the rain. It'll pass soon surely, but the dampness of his hair, and the chill it sends through him, is a reminder—the day Zam "came back," or, the day they talked about home—the cold of the ice castle on his skin; the shared itch for something more; the way Ros and Aimsey looked at them when they mentioned the killing, and the violence, and the—
They would not love him if they understood him.
The orbital strike is to get rid of the corruption. If he believes it, then it's true.
Drops of water drip through cracks in the rocky ceiling, and Lukey slumps back against the wall. Aimsey checks their comms, presumably waiting for a message from Water—she flew back to spawn to grab some glowstone, and Pangi imagines she's waiting out the storm before she takes back to the skies.
"I'm gonna fly up to the surface to wait for Water," Aimsey says, "If she gets here, I'd like her to know where we are."
Lukey nods, "Sure,"
Pangi says nothing for whatever reason, and as Aimsey brushes past him, he grabs hold of them.
Aimsey stumbles backwards, confusion knit between their brows, and his mouth opens and closes like a fish.
The scarred skin of their arm had touched, just briefly, the scales littering his own forearm. His "clean," side, the one mostly untouched. The side with his blue eye, the side that is still... him. There is nobody else with the scarring that they have, the two of them—different types respectively, but the closest thing to shared that either of them will ever get.
Honestly, he's not sure why he did that. He's not sure why he felt the need to hold on when he's the one letting go. It's stupid.
"What's up, Pangi?" they question, after he doesn't say anything at all.
"Stay safe," he mumbles, embarrassed, and knowing that there's nothing he can say that would cover it.
Aimsey smiles, "Always do, beautiful!"
They head for the entrance, the exit, but turn around to face Lukey before flying up.
"Oh! Tell Pangi about the cure that you want to mix with the fog, don't forget," they say, and then disappear, as if that means anything.
He looks to Lukey, who's still sat against the wall, fidgeting with something in his hands.
"The what that you want to mix with the fog?"
He blinks. "Right. Think of it as assurance. We're blowing up the server to get rid of the corruption, yeah?"
Pangi swallows his guilt, "Right."
And for absolutely no other reason.
"I was thinking, what if we combined the cure with the blast, or, we mix it into the gunpowder, because that absolutely guarantees we remove it from the root, right?"
"Sure, I guess,"
Lukey grins, "No harm no foul. If we're gonna do it, then we gotta do it right, Pangi."
Selfishly, he wants to deny the idea. It's impossible to say why, because it's a good thing, it would be the closest thing to justification that they'll ever get. He doesn't know why, can't explain why, can't be bothered to think about it for too long, so he does what he always does; and agrees.
"Okay, yeah, that sounds good. We are running out of time though, Lukey, I'm not gonna lie."
"The world doesn't end until we say it does," he answers, cocky.
It's true, but the itch will stay, too, the longer it goes on. He can't explain this. He could never explain this. The cannon is to get rid of the corruption. He can wait a few days longer. He's waited this long already.
He nods, and tries not to look him in the eyes, "That's fair,"
"Why, do you want it to happen sooner rather than later?" Lukey asks.
He says nothing, kicks a loose stone with his foot, and waits for Lukey to continue.
"I've never been opposed to your more violent tendencies, you can be honest," he says, "Don't tone yourself down for me, I'm all for it."
He isn't. He isn't. He says he is, but he isn't. There is a ribbon of misunderstanding that runs through them, and Pangi will never be the one to address it. It's not about revenge, or about title, or even about curing an illness, it's—
"Do you want me to go back?" Pangi asks, all in one breath.
"Go back?"
"You're not stupid, man. You know what I'm talking about."
"No, I—yeah, I totally do," Lukey says, "I know you want to."
"I do,"
He shrugs, "Then you should. Easy that."
"Whatever, that's not what I meant. Do you, y'know, want me to?"
Lukey stares at the ground, quiet for only a moment—he's never quiet long enough for Pangi to think of something to say. He always falls short.
"I would never ask you to stay," he says, quietly, "I would never want to make you do that."
You couldn't, he doesn't say, and is immediately overcome with guilt.
The worst thing is that he knows there's a part of him that means it; the lonely part, the one that cries to be understood, intrinsically. The part that does not want to explain why it's burning, but wants to be accepted for the fire it is. You cannot make a flame into a person, into water, into anything other than what it is. You cannot shape a flame in a cardboard box. You cannot build a future in a wooden house and expect it not to burn down. It will ravage, turn cities to ash, and still be hungry.
Hunger is a violent, violent thing.
Hunger is an itch.
"I know," Pangi says, "I'm sorry, I—I really am, man."
"Don't be sorry," Lukey says, "Don't be sorry that you have something to get back to, that's not a bad thing, Pangi."
"It feels like a bad thing," he whispers, "I don't know. It feels like a bad thing."
"You didn't choose to come here. You should get to choose to leave."
It's true. They're sitting in a crater for the world-ending machine which blueprints' Pangi has kept in his pocket for half a year, and it's the only thing that's true.
It's not lying if you believe it, and it's not lying if nobody ever asks; so the machine is to get rid of the corruption, and it's for revenge, and it's about reputation.
It's about telling people what they want to hear.
Fuck, it's about feeling some degree of familiarity. It's about destroying for the sake of destruction. It's about missing something, it's always about missing something—it's about home. It feels like a bad thing. It's always been about home, in one way or another.
It is a bad thing. It has to be, Zam said so, too; to miss a home that's hurt him. To choose it over people who love him fully, wholly, without knowing who he truly is. To chase its echo through the short-lived violence; to inspire said short-lived violence just to hear a fraction of that echo.
They can love him, but they will never chase that echo. Not the way that he does.
He's lonely. People love him, but he's lonely. He knows how stupid that is. He has everything he's ever wanted here, really and honestly; people who will choose him, a consistent flow of fun and laughter, a few minor conflicts to keep things interesting. Somehow, still, he's not happy. The flame burns, and he doesn't have everything that he needs.
A part of him will always belong elsewhere—he will always belong elsewhere. There's a sickness in him, an ache, that'll make him feel out of place for as long as he stays here. There's no getting rid of it. There's no cure for it, here. He's tried. He'll sit in the peace, in the calm and quiet, and still beg to anything that hears him to give him something.
He's safe here. All things considered, he's so fucking safe here. He can keep his four hearts, maybe work it up to five, and survive. If he leaves, he will die. He knows. He's fully aware of the cycle he'll be walking back into. Still, he thinks that dying would feel better than whatever this is. Losing the feeling in his limbs while he bleeds out on a blade that's been sharpened like his own; letting his blood seep back into the earth that grew him, that knows him—it's something familiar, at the very least. He'll die there, but it'll give him some sense of purpose, some sort of goal. He won't have to sit idly and wait for his time to come, romanticizing the monotony of peace—he'll finally have something to chase and be chased by.
He's been hurt here. He's been hurt here, and he'll be hurt home too, but at least the hurt there is familiar. He won't suffer with absolutely nothing to show for it. That's the thing. This realm has hurt him, has eaten into the fabric of who he is and torn him asunder; but it's different. Here, he survives for the sake of surviving, takes the hits and has nothing to offer after it. Home, there is an incentive, a reason. There, he survives because he has to; here, he survives because it's what he knows.
It's what they all know.
It's what they all would've known, if they were here.
He thinks of the blood on his hands, somehow unsatisfying without any of his own to dilute it, and burns for the sake of burning. He thinks of the explanation he's had to offer every single person who's wanted to know him, and thinks about how that explanation will never be enough.
Pangi chokes back his words.
He can't say any of that, of course.
Instead, he says, "You're right, yeah. Maybe it is a good thing."
Lukey smiles, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes. He's going to blow up this world, leave behind its shell, and never come back.
He will turn the blade back onto himself, onto the people who hide behind it, and go home. He will scratch that itch, and revel in the blood it leaves behind.