Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

~Peace. Real peace. No fire, or explosions. Just this beautiful view and calming music.~ The Chosen One thought to himself as he sat on the grass watching the sun set in Minecraft.
~I could stay here forever.~ Chosen continued. ~I just wish Dark were here beside me.~

As if summoned, The Dark Lord dropped down right next to Chosen, carrying a heap of gold swords.

“Well that was fun,” Dark proclaimed, tossing his keep away “but I'm bored. Ready to hit the road, Cho?”

Chosen has been down for whatever Dark wanted ever since the two escaped the PC, after all destroying those websites was a lot of fun, but this time he wasn't too eager to leave this game. Chosen was truly happy here, and he's not ready to just walk away from it. And Dark did say he had fun. We'll both be happy here.

“Actually, Dark,” Chosen starts “I was thinking… maybe we could stay here.”

“Stay here? Why?”

“There's just so much to do and see, I honestly don't understand how you could have gotten bored. This place is so peaceful and lively. And… truthfully… this is the happiest I've ever been.” Chosen replies

Dark could hardly understand a word his brother was saying. ~What do you mean you weren't happy all this time? We're you just lying to me when you said you were having fun destroying those websites?!~

Chosen can see the drastic change in his brother's face. “Look, Dark… it's not that… it's just…” Chosen struggles to put the words together. “Alan used me to destroy his ads for so long… It was fun venting out my anger but… I like creating things too.” He finally manages to say.

“*sigh* Alright, I'll play your silly game with you.” Dark gives in, playfully punching Chosen's shoulder. He punches back, the two start playfully wrestling.

The two brothers sit beside each other and watch the rest of the sunset. Soft ambient music plays and the sounds of friendly mobs roaming the fields echo through the land. This place truly seems like paradise. What could possibly go wrong.

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“AAAAAAAA!!!” Chosen yelled as a creeper sends him flying through the air.

Turns out Minecraft isn't always as peaceful as he thought, at least when it turns night.

Chosen peeled himself off the ground and brushed himself off. “I swear, if I ever see one of those exploding green things again- !” His statement was cut off by a ‘tksssss’ sound from behind. Chosen whipped around, eyes blazing, and cut the leafy monster clean in half.

With his heart still pounding he decides to find his brother and take shelter for the night, hoping that these monsters will go away once the sun comes up.

“Dark!” Chosen yells. “Dark! I think we should head inside. Dark- there you are.” He finds Dark around the side of the house… happily beating a skeleton with a zombie head… ~At least he's having fun.~

“Dark, come on,” Chosen implores, “these monsters aren't gonna stop. Maybe we should go inside and hope they go away in the morning.”

“What why? This is fun!” Dark eagerly states. Chosen can see his translucent UI above his head, a heart ½ left. ~He's not paying attention to his health. Does he not know he has health? Wait what happens if we lose it all? I don't wanna find out.~

Chosen tries to explain how damage works in Minecraft to the best of his ability while dragging him inside. Dark doesn't believe he can die but also doesn't want Chosen to worry. Chosen scrolls though his inventory looking for some food for Dark, who's standing in the open doorway.

There's a strange noise coming from something behind him. Dark looks down and picks up the small creature.

Chosen finds some raw mutton and is about to give it to his brother who instead shows him his creature first.

“Hey, Cho, look at this ugly thing!” Dark announces proudly holding up an enormous spider.

“WHAT THE HELL!? WHAT IS THAT!?”

“I don't know but I love it! I'm keeping it!” Dark proclaims, letting the spider go to wander the house.

“*sigh* I guess as long as it doesn't attack us it can stay.” Chosen concedes, handing Dark the food. “Here, this'll help you get your health back.”

Dark takes one bite of the uncooked food and spits it right out. “It's cold!” He snarls. Chosen doesn't even get the chance to reply before Dark's hands ignite, immediately turning the red meat brown and smoking. He takes another bite of the food. “Much better.”

“Huh, I didn't know you could cook food here.” Chosen says, fascinated by Dark's discovery. He grabs another piece of mutton, lights it up and shoves it into his pacman mouth. ‘mmmmmm’

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Later, the brothers are lounging around on their beds. There's too many monsters around to sleep and they're not particularly tired anyway. Dark is playing around with his hotbar, fascinated by how neatly stacked and stowed away his loot is.

“So, are you gonna name it?” Chosen asks, gesturing to the giant spider staring at them from the upper corner of the room.

“Hmmmm. Ted.” Dark declares.

Chosen scoffs. “Ted? Where did that come from?”

“Idk”

The two share a laugh. “Ted the spider it is.”

The two hear noises from outside, clacking and grunts of pain. They look outside and find the sun is up and most of the monsters on fire. The two run outside, eager to start the day.

Chapter Text

-Potions-

After an exciting day of killing everything that moves in the Nether, Dark came home to rest, this time with a heap of some new item.

“Whatcha got there?” Chosen asks, flipping through new recipes in the crafting guide book.

“A ton of this new stuff this new monster drops. There's this new structure in the Nether with spawners for these flaming metal things, as well as a black skeleton that's immune to fire. Idk what to do with all this but it's mine.” Dark explained. As he walked off a couple of the orange rods he was carrying falls out of the pile.

Chosen picks up the rods and sees if there's anything in the crafting guide, and sure enough there are.

“Blaze powder and a brewing stand?” Chosen mumbles to himself as he crafts. He takes the brewing stand to Dark, thinking he might have a use for it with the hundreds of rods he's collected. “Hey, Dark, those rods of yours made this thing.” He sets it down for the two to investigate.

They open the block's menu and match items to the obvious silhouettes. Now they just need to figure out what goes in the top slot. The brothers begin cramming just about everything in the house into the stand until something finally works; netherwart.

“What even is that?” Chosen asks.

“Something from that new structure I must have accidentally picked up. I destroyed a lot of it.” Dark answers.

With a bubbling sound the brew is done and the water bottles are now awkward potions. Dark grabs a bottle, investigates it, then chugs it.

“Dude, don't just drink that!”

“Bleh, this tastes awful.” Dark snarls, tossing the rest of the potion behind him.

After making sure Dark was okay, Chosen goes back to shoving everything into the stand until something works; sugar.

The result is two potions of swiftness. Dark takes one and once again chugs it. This time however he immediately feels jittery and overwhelmed with energy. In a blur he dashes outside, breaking the door off its hinges, attempting to satiate this sudden burst of energy.

While Dark has zoomies outside, Chosen continues to experiment with the last bottle. The strangest and most specific item works on the stand; a fermented spider eye, one of the new crafts Chosen happened to be playing around with because it was in the guide book.

Dark comes rushing back in, still on a sugar high. “WHOOO THAT SHIT FEELS GOOD!!!” He announces.

Chosen chuckles and shows Dark the final result of their experimentation; a potion of slowness.

“Ooooo, there's negative effects too.” Dark marvels, no doubt already thinking of a thousand ways to use (and abuse) these potions. “How'd you make that?”

“A fermented spider eye of all things.” Chosen answers. “Which is a regular eye, sugar, and a brown mushroom.”

Dark walks back to the brewing stand and continues playing with the new toy, while Chosen searches the chests for anything that might be an ingredient.

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-Village-

As Chosen flew through the air he finally was begging to find some land that was untouched by his and Dark's initial destruction. As he was admiring the landscape he stumbled on a little town. Oak and cobble houses tied together with gravel roads, animal pens light posts and farm plots spotted around, and these strange new creatures he had never seen before.

Chosen lands in the structure and begins exploring. The creatures; brown, green eyed, big nosed, and each draped in different clothing; seem to not pay him any mind. Strange little meowing things scurry under Chosen's feet as he walks through the little village.

The evening sun begins to set and the creatures begin to huddle near the well in the center of the village and soon after they disperse just as silently as they gathered. ~Weird.~ Chosen thought.

Monsters were beginning to spawn and just as Chosen was about to find them he hears something else killing the zombies and skeletons. Looking around he finds a mossy golem made of iron just ripping through the monsters like it's nothing.

Chosen walks over to the golem and inspects it. “Well aren't you a handy guy. We could honestly use some mob control over at our base.” He muses, giving it a pat on the back. It did not like that.

“AAAA I'M SORRY!!!” Chosen yells as the golem sends him flying straight up into the air, taking about half of his health. Chosen steadies himself and flies back home.

“Ok note to self; don't even touch a golem.”

Chapter Text

~A year has passed since we first came here and so much has changed. New structures, new biomes, new mechanics. Dark has been having fun discovering how the game works. A while back he learned how to make monsters spawn in a specific place and now he has a “farm”, as he calls it, for when he gets bored of the Nether. He's also taken an interest in potions and automation. Just last month he fixed up the house with special lights and made the door open on its own (and we finally added some windows). Meanwhile I've just been exploring the world, collecting interesting things from all around, interacting with the locals, it seems like every time I think I've found it all one of us finds something new. Hell, last week I found two new creatures in the caves; some small flying thing and one of the village people but throwing potions (that thing is really annoying). I wonder- ~

Chosen's thoughts are interrupted by a peculiar sight in the cave he was in. Torches, and patches in the stone, as though someone was here before and mined the ores. ~Was Dark here? Those Nether portals do spit him out in strange places sometimes. But why would he leave a torch?~

Chosen follows the trail of light until he hears noises, footsteps. Not clanky or squishy footsteps like the normal cave inhabitants. These sounded like the ones the locals make. Around the corner is an opening to a big cave that sounds like the direction of the noise. He puts out his fire and cautiously peeks around. In the middle of the cave he sees three creatures that look like zombies but… brown? And they're moving weirdly, their arms are at their sides, swinging at each other occasionally, their heads are moving frantically and the creatures are bobbing and jumping and running in a way Chosen has never seen before.

One of the creatures spots him and the three begin running after him. Chosen tries to camouflage in the darkness but it doesn't work. By now the creatures are too close to outrun so he ignites his hand and gets ready to fight.

Once the fire appears the creatures stop dead in their tracks and seemingly examine it and Chosen. ~Are these things intelligent?~ The creatures continue their strange movement, almost like they're communicating with each other. Chosen finally gets the courage to speak up.

“Uh, h-hi?” He says sheepishly.

The creatures are taken aback by Chosen's words. They look around at each other, then one of them pulls out a sign and places it.

Chosen cautiously approaches the sign to read it. 'You can talk?'

“Um, yeah, I can talk.” Chosen replies.

One of the creatures breaks the sign and replaces it. 'What are you?'

Chosen isn't sure how to respond to that. “Er- a stickfigure. … My name is Chosen.”

The creatures start jumping in place as one of them breaks and replaces the sign again. 'What's a stickfigure doing in Minecraft?'

“I'm just playing the game. Having fun.”

'You're a player like us!' One of the creatures, er "players", writes.

“”Players”? Interesting. I didn't know there was anything else here beside me and my brother.” Chosen says.

'You have a brother? Is he a stickfigure too?' The question earns a punch from one of the other players.

Chosen laughs at the silly question and answers it anyway. The four continue their conversation in the cave, occasionally fending off a monster or two.

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Meanwhile, at Chosen and Dark's base, Dark emerges from his monster farm, tired and with an inventory full of flesh and bones and eyes. The sun is setting and he's ready to go to bed. He's about to head inside when he hears the sound of four footsteps running full speed towards him.

“Dark!” Chosen calls after his brother. The three players in tow.

“Chosen? What's going-?” Dark stops his question when he sees the off-colored zombie creatures. “What is that?”

“These are players,” Chosen proudly announces, “I found them in the caves.”

The players rapidly crouch up and down, a symbol of greeting among their kind.

“They invited us to see their base. I wanted them to meet you and see our base first though.” Chosen explained.

The players roamed around the property, taking in the cottage-like house with a spider inside, the (frankly quite ugly) mob farm, the crop fields and animal pens, and the stack of trees going up to the build limit off in the distance.

“I'm a bit tired, Cho, maybe tomorrow?”

“Aww but we were planning on having some food and sit around a fire pit. Doesn't that sound nice? We can sleep in tomorrow if you'd like.” Chosen implores.

Dark grumbles.

“I'll carry you back home afterwards.”

“*sigh* I'll hold you to it.” Dark concedes.

________________________________________________

At the players base, or rather their city because that's the only way to describe this place. Houses reaching seemingly 50 blocks tall, long stretches of various buildings, a huge marketplace filled with more players with a stand for just about every resource. The ground is paved with various stones, mixed and matched to create a unique texture, illuminated by several fancy street lamps. Leaves and vines and flowers decorating the paths and buildings. And in the center of it all four fountain statues surrounding a pyramid of pure iron topped with a… diamond block encased in glass? Whatever it is it’s shining a beam of light straight up into the sky and going near it makes everyone feel healthier. This place is incredible, and Chosen can hardly wait to get back home to implement these features into his own base.

The players lead the sticks to the outskirts of their city where their fire pit is. Turned-over logs surrounding a 3x3 of cobble with a piece of netherack in the center. Simple but ambient. There's a furnace and a small crop field off to the side with plants Chosen had never seen before.

One of the players toss some food at the sticks and begins writing on a sign. 'How long have you two been here?'

Chosen is too busy examining the new food to notice the message. A baked potato it's called, ~so those crops over there must be raw potatoes then.~ He takes a bite of the food and immediately shoves the rest into his mouth. It's not as good as a perfectly cooked pork chop but it's a welcomed addition to his diet.

Dark answers the question, “Um about a year at this point, I think? We haven't been keeping precise track but it's definitely been a long time.”

'Do you not leave the game?'

“Nope, we haven't left since we found this place.” Dark says while playing with his potato.

One of the players runs up to the group and throws a bunch of shiny things at them. The other players pass the items around. With a swing of their arm they equip what Chosen can now recognize as the armor he found a while back. He knew he could make armor out of ores but never felt the need to do it, ~although with all the new monsters it probably wouldn't be a bad idea.~

"Why is your armor glowing?" Chosen asked.

'It's enchanted.' One of the players writes on a sign.

"Cool"

Another player walks up and hands out milk buckets to drink and some more food options.

“Thanks.” Chosen says.

The player jumps around and accidentally walks into the fire. In a panic he places some water that spreads into the fire pit and extinguishes the flame, earning him some punches from his comrades.

“It's alright guys.” Chosen says, lighting his hand and placing some fire back on the netherack. With his hand still burning he grabs his milk, which quickly cooks and becomes a bucket of cheese. “What the-?” Chosen turned over the bucket to get the cheese out and investigates it. He takes a bite and his eyes light up, ~this is the best fucking thing I've ever tasted,~ he almost devours the whole thing but has an idea first. Taking his baked potato, some of the pork he was given, and the cheese, he takes pieces of each dish and mixes them all together. The final product tasted like pure heaven.

The players were keenly watching the stickfigure, trying to figure out how to do that. When Chosen finally notices his audience he offers to make his custom dish for them too, and of course he makes one for Dark.

He tossed the loaded potato to the players and hands a fourth to Dark. “Want one?” He asks.

“I’m good.” He replies.

“Suite yourself.” Chosen says, happily feasting on the potato.

________________________________________________

By the end of the night Chosen had fallen into a food coma and had to be carried home.

“Hey, Ted, sorry we're late.” Dark half-heartedly says to his pet spider.

He throws his brother onto his bed and crawls into his own. The two sleep the entire day away.

By the time Dark woke up, Chosen had made a sort of kitchen where he was experimenting with all kinds of foods and writing down the recipes for the ones that tasted good.

~You've eaten bricks multiple times before, I don't trust that all those recipes are really good.~ Dark thinks to himself. "Having fun?" He asked when he made it to the counter.

“Ah, you're finally awake. Here, I made you something.” Chosen gleefully says, handing out a plate with something yellow rolled up on it. “It's an omelette, it's cooked eggs with carrots, potatoes, and pork rolled up in it.”

Dark is hesitant but takes a bite anyway. “Oh wow, this is actually really good.”

Chosen's face lights up, he excitedly grabs his recipe book and shows Dark all his creations. “I've found a ton of new foods for us to try!” He exclaims.

“Alright, alright, calm down. Are you showing me this because you want a taste tester?”

“Mmm… Wouldn't hurt to have a second opinion on my cooking.” Chosen says slyly.

“Fine. Just don't put me in a food coma.” Dark says as he takes a seat at the makeshift table.

"No promises."

Chapter Text

-Cooking Catastrophe-

Chosen was very excited to share his perfected recipes with his brother later, who should be home soon. He works fast to make sure it'd be ready when Dark gets home but as he watches the clock tick by he realizes that wasn't happening. Chosen figured his fire powers would cook the meat faster, but he forgot to account for something; his house was made of wood.

It wasn't long before he noticed the burning hole in the wall. He tried to pat out the flames but there was too much. With his panic growing by the second he tries to ice over the embers but accidentally creates more fire, the curse of having two powers on the same output. He tries using water buckets and bottles but it doesn't help enough. Soon enough Chosen is surrounded by the burning remains of his home.

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Dark emerges from his mob farm to find Chosen defeated in what's left of their house. The cobblestone roof and floor as well as their furniture is all that remains, fire and ice and water scattered around the floor where the walls used to be.

“You know, I always thought I'd be the one to burn down this house.” Dark says. “What did you even do?”

“I was trying to cook us dinner.” Chosen says distraught. “I wanted it to be done before you got home but the meat just wasn't cooking fast enough.”

Dark kneels down to Chosen and puts his hand on his shoulder. “Eh, I was getting tired of that old house anyway. We deserve something bigger and better.” His words aren't doing anything to cheer his brother up. “Maybe we should take a break from this game. Maybe you can think of some new house designs. You definitely need some time away if you're so upset about losing a house.”

“This wasn't just a house. This was the first real thing I built, my first creation. This place kept us safe and secure over the years. This was our home.” Chosen takes a second to calm down. “I suppose it was due for an upgrade…” He says, finally getting up and heading to the chest room.

“You already have plans for a remodel?” Dark asks.

“I've been thinking of ways to upgrade our base for a while actually.” Chosen answers, grabbing some stone blocks and heading back over to Dark. “Thanks for helping me cheer up.” He says, hugging his brother.

“Yep. Any time.” Dark says, returning the hug with some pats. He picks up his bed and heads away from the base to nap in peace while Chosen builds.

________________________________________________

Dark is woken up by a zombie attacking him in the woods. He quickly kills it and heads over to the base, which he doesn't even recognize anymore. The new house is a lot bigger than the old one and now made of bricks with stone variants. The animals now have a brick barn and the crop fields have been greatly extended. Even Dark's mob farm has been spruced up. The only thing that remains untouched is the statue of the brothers. Leaves and vines decorating the buildings with cobblestone roads lined with light posts and custom bench blocks and flowers.

Chosen comes out of the house and happily shows Dark around the new base, saving the house for last.

“So, what do you think?” Chosen eagerly asks, finally getting to the house.

“I was not expecting all this in just a day.” Dark answers.

Chosen's kitchen is now twice as big and so is the dining room. There's seating at each large window and the bedroom is now big enough for the two to properly decorate their own side. Their chest room is almost twice as big as the old one and much more efficiently designed, easily capable of holding several years worth of resources.

Chosen smacks his forehead. “I still haven't made dinner for us. You're probably starving by now.”

“Eh, I can eat. Try not to burn down the house this time.” Dark teases.

________________________________________________

-The Wither-

“Hey, Cho.” One of the players called out while Chosen walked through the marketplace. Apparently some players can talk, albeit very crackly and just barely understandable.

“Hey.” Chosen says to the player. “Found anything new lately?”

“No. I don't think there'll be another update for a while.” The player says. “But I still got plenty of diamonds for you if you still have blaze rods.”

Dark has been practically gatekeeping the Nether lately so getting resources from there is hard for players, well harder than it should be, so Chosen is the only one they can trade with to get anything from there.

“How much will a stack get me?” Chosen asks.

“How about 8 diamonds?” The player barters.

“Sure.” Chosen says. “By the way, I found a bunch of these in Dark's junk chest. I can't find a crafting recipe for it. Is it just decoration?” He asks, showing the player a black skeleton head.

“That's a wither skull, you use it to summon the Wither and get a Nether Star. You said you have a bunch of those? Dude, you can make so many beacons! I'm sure the Wither won't be a problem for you guys with all your cool powers.” The player excitedly explains. “You can get a lot more diamonds trading those. How about 32 for 3 skulls?”

“Damn they're that valuable!?” Chosen says pulling 3 skulls out of the partial stack. “How do you summon a Wither with these?”

________________________________________________

Back at the sticks’ base, Chosen rummages through Dark's chests for soul sand.

“What are you doing in my chests?” Dark asks as Chosen finds what he needs.

“You wanna fight something?” Chosen asks, already running outside.

“YES!” Dark exclaims and follows his brother.

Chosen goes a decent distance from the base to start building the boss. As he puts the last head on the soul sand structure he pulls out his sword and lights it up. Dark readies an energy ball without any questions. Immediately the structure turns into a three-headed skeletal enemy, flashing white and blue. Dark is all too eager to kill something and throws his energy ball at it followed by more explosive fire, completely ignoring the charging health bar at the top of their vision.

Once the bar fills up the boss explodes, sending the brothers flying backwards and leaving a decent crater in the ground. It hisses and launches exploding heads at the two. Their enhanced resistance usually keeps their health high without much effort but this thing is much stronger then Chosen anticipated. ~Damn I wish I made us some armor first.~

Dark doesn't care about damage. He rapidly hurls fireballs at the thing and keeps its attention while Chosen attacks it with his flaming sword.

The boss spins a bit, pondering who to attack first, then flies up. The two sticks follow it. Chosen switches to using lasers, holding the boss’s aggro while Dark charges a large energy ball.

The ball quickly finishes off the Wither and it drops a purple star. The two fly back to the destroyed ground to pick it up.

“Was that it?” Dark asks. “I thought this would be a challenge.” He says smugly, ignoring the 8 hearts he's missing. “Where are you going?” He asks as Chosen runs inside with the star.

After some troubleshooting, Chosen turns the star into a beacon. Using the thousands of gold accumulated from Dark's piglin rampages, he goes to a blank spot in the center road, recreates the pyramid in the player base and tops it with the beacon.

“Pretty cool right?” Chosen asks atop the golden pyramid.

“What does it even do?” Dark asks.

Chosen opens the block's menu and is met with five status effects to choose from. Dark flies up to get a closer look.

They all seem pretty useless to them but decided on resistance. Chosen feeds it a gold ingot and it lights up.

Chosen can tell Dark isn't all that impressed. He pulls out the rest of the wither skulls and asks “You wanna fight that thing again?” Dark's face beams before eagerly flying off the pyramid and back to the battlefield with Chosen in tow.

Chapter Text

-Redstone-

As Chosen flew through the skies he couldn't help but admire his own work. Their base looks incredible, well organized and expanded, paths stretching throughout connecting everything, from the farms to the barn to the statue of Chosen and Dark with their house in the center. Flora and makeshift benches line the sides of the road with lamps speckled throughout. ~Wait, why do the lamps look different? Did Dark upgrade them?~

Chosen landed at the house. When he walked through the door he felt something at his feet, the block immediately popped and turned into string.

~Since when can you place string?~ Chosen thought to himself.

Not a second later the floor beneath him gave way and Chosen plummeted into the lava bath below.

“GAAHH” Chosen yelped as he pushed his head through the lava to breathe again. The lava didn't really burn but it was still annoying to trudge through.

When he looked up Chosen could see his mischievous little brother watching him through the entryway trap. “DARK!!!” Chosen yelled, flying up the shaft in a burst of fire. “What is this!?” He demands.

Dark laughs. It's not often that Dark laughs, and of course Chosen is happy that he's happy, ~but dear, Creation, his laugh is terrifying.~ “Just playing around with those new redstone items you showed me the other day.”

~Oh, right, I guess I did give him the idea to do this, didn't I.~ There were some new pages in the crafting guide book that all had to do with redstone, something Chosen knew Dark was passionate about. His face lit up in a way Cho’s never seen before as he flipped through the pages, you could almost see the creative ideas forming in his head.

“Well as long as you're having fun, but maybe save the traps for the monsters.” Chosen says. “By the way, are those new lamps out there your handiwork?”

“Why yes,” Dark stated proudly, “they have daylight sensors that automatically turn the lamps on when the sun goes down.”

“Wow, that's really cool.” Chosen said.

“Yep, and that's not all I have in mind.” Dark proclaims as he pulls out several pieces of stitched together paper, neatly folded in his inventory, each containing schematics for a redstone contraption that Chosen isn't smart enough to understand.

“Sounds like you'll be busy for a while.” Chosen says, walking over to the chest room. “Just try not to get anyone hurt, alright.” As if scripted, the second Chosen says that he steps on another piece of string. He manages one quick glare towards Dark before falling down into another lava bath.

________________________________________________

-Herobrine-

~“You have taken it too far this time.”~ A disembodied voice rings into Dark's head. He whips around to attack it but finds nothing. He looks around the cave but finds nothing but the bloodied enderman corpses he made. ~“I have tolerated the presence of you roundlings long enough, forced myself to stand by, letting my strength build as you slaughter my creatures for sport. No more. This ends right now. Get OUT OF MY GAME!”~

Dark continues to frantically find the source of the voice, throwing fire willy-nilly to light up the tunnels but once again finding nothing but his trail of monster corpses, rotting in puddles of their own blood.

“Show yourself, COWARD!!!” He screeches. Dark listens to his own voice echo throughout the caverns for a bit before the voice laughs at him menacingly.

~“Coward? I'm the coward? Says the creature who hides away, ashamed by what he is in his code, taking your anger out on the innocent rather than facing it.”~

Dark continues to hurl fire everywhere until the entire cave looks like the bowels of Hell.

~“I suppose it's a lot easier to seem brave when you can hide behind powers like yours. What would you be without them? What would you do if you couldn't kill someone in a single punch? Would you still not fear consequence? Or death? Or worse?!”~

Dark lets out an explosion of fire accompanied by his war cry. “WHO ARE YOU!?! SHOW YOURSELF!!!”

A clawed hand grabs Dark's arm. He goes to attack it and finds the now flaming white-eyed enderman corpses up and reaching out for him. Looking back into the tunnels he sees a bunch of white eyes attached to his other kills, all shambling towards him on fire. Dark tries to kill them again but they just keep getting back up. He starts hallucinating, seeing a white-eyed player flicker in and out of his vision as he fights. He suddenly feels weak, his powers and muscles disobey him and the mob corpses pin him down.

The player hallucination stands in front of Dark. It bends down to meet his eyes and says ~“I am Herobrine. And you are mine.”~

The figure disappears and the chaos immediately stops. The fire dies down and the mob corpses go back to exactly how they were. Dark’s body gets up and walks out of the cave without being told to. He tries telling it to stop, to change direction, anything, but it won't obey. He screams, a mix of rage and fear, and the voice comes back.

“Don't waste your breath.” It says, the voice now mixed with Dark's and far more real than it used to be. “I am in control now and there's nothing you can do about it.”

________________________________________________

Back at the sticks' base, Chosen lounges at home listening to a music disk. ‘Dark’ comes home and walks right up to Chosen with a strange look on his face.

“We're leaving. Now.” ‘Dark’ says, grabbing Chosen.

“What!? Why? Is something going on? Dark?” Chosen asks, baffled by his brother's sudden change in behavior.

‘Dark’ doesn't answer and just keeps walking, dragging Chosen behind him, unable to release himself from his grip. Dark usually is a bit stronger than Chosen but not this strong.

“Open a portal and let's leave.” ‘Dark’ demands, throwing Chosen in front of him.

“What, no! Why do we need to leave? What's going on? What's gotten into you?”

‘Dark’ regrabs Chosen's wrist and nearly breaks it. “Make a portal now!” He demands again.

Chosen can now see ‘Dark’s’ eyes clearly, pure white and rectangular. ~That's not Dark.~ “Ok! Ok! I'll do it.” He says, forming a white orb in his hand. Chosen turns around and it seems like he's going to open a portal but quickly snaps around and lands a clean punch on his ‘brother’ that sends him flying backwards. Chosen blasts forward to where the imposter landed and menacingly hovers over him. “Who are you and what have you done to Dark!?” ‘Dark’ levitates well above Chosen, raises his arms and creates a massive energy ball. Chosen shoots a laser and blows it up before he can throw it and destroy the base. ~Alright whoever this is clearly doesn't fully understand Dark's powers. Amateur.~ The explosion sends ‘Dark’ crashing back down to the ground. Before he can eat dirt Chosen throws a hard punch, bathed in golden light, that sends a shockwave through Dark and launches him forward, and the creature in his body even farther. The two tumble and roll across the stone paths as Chosen follows. The creature, now revealed to be a white-eyed player, quickly gets up and teleports away once it realizes it lost its vessel, leaving Chosen very confused.

“Dark, are you alive?” Chosen asks his unconscious brother, who gives a faint harsh groan. Chosen picks him up and brings him back inside the house.

________________________________________________

“So are you going to tell me how exactly The Great and Powerful Dark Lord managed to get possessed.” Chosen slyly asks as he applies a healing potion to where Dark got super-punched.

“Shut the fuck up. I don't wanna hear it after the day I just had.”

“Oh don't be like that, you're fine now” Chosen reassures. Dark just grumbles in response. “Get some rest, Dark.” He says, putting another health potion on Dark's nightstand and blocking up the windows, leaving him alone in darkness.

Chapter Text

-Pets-

Chosen decided to take a stroll through the meadows and forests sounding the base, not to look for anything in particular, just enjoying the serenity of Minecraft. Day quickly turned into night and the sounds of sheep and pigs turned into zombies and skeletons, and something else. A growl? Before Chosen could investigate a skeleton jumps out of the forest, trying to attack something small. It dies not a moment later and reveals its attacker to be a little wolf, who looks around then stares up at Chosen.

“Hey, little guy.” Chosen says. “You want some food?” He offers the wolf some steak. He looks like he wants it but doesn't take it. Chosen looks at the bones the skeleton dropped. ~Well he was attacking it, maybe he likes bones?~ He offers the bones to the wolf and immediately hearts fly around his head as he puts on adorable puppy eyes. Chosen's heart melts as he grabs the dog for a hug. The dog responds by booping Chosen's face with his square nose and wagging his tail. He puts the dog down and he starts running circles around his new owner.

“Come on, buddy.” Chosen calls as he starts jogging back home with his new pet in tow.

________________________________________________

“Hey, Dark, I got a new dog!” Chosen announces as soon as he opens the door.

Dark stops eating his steak to examine the dog from his seat. “That's a dog?” He finally asks.

“Yes!” Chosen proclaims.

Dark's pet, Ted, comes out to see what all the commotion is. Chosen's dog immediately goes into a bow-like stance, his front legs flat on the floor with his wagging butt in the air. Ted is startled by the sudden movement but plays along and raises his front legs, waving and tapping them around. The dog jumps up and runs around the spider and the two start playfully chasing each other.

“Aww they like each other.” Chosen says, starry-eyed.

“That is pretty cute.” Dark says with a chuckle. “You got a name for him?”

Chosen thinks long and hard but ultimately comes back with a no.

“Welp, let me know when you think of one.” Dark says going back to his steak.

________________________________________________

Later, Chosen and his dog are happily playing outside. He taught the dog some tricks, like fetch and stay. He even took the dog flying for a bit, though he didn't really like that. Everything was perfect until the dog stumbled on Dark's Nether portal. Curious, the dog jumped in.

After a full day of searching for his dog, Chosen finally decides to check the Nether. He quickly finds the stick he was playing with and knows for sure he's here. Shortly after beginning his search, Chosen hears whimpering. He immediately flies in the direction of the sound and finds his beloved dog on fire. Chosen quickly tries to place water for him but it just evaporates. He tries to grab the dog and take him home but he falls over dead before Chosen can even try.

Chosen stares at the puff of smoke that was once his pet, tears streaming down his face. He collapses into himself on the floor and sobs. Chosen cries for what feels like forever before his brother shows up and takes him home.

________________________________________________

“It's alright, Cho, we can find another dog.” Dark tries to reassure.

“I didn't even get to name him…” Chosen says through sniffles.

Dark sits with Chosen on his bed, trying his best to comfort his brother. Ted comes over and mourns with them.

“Hey, at least we still got you, right, Ted.” Dark says, rubbing the spider's flat head.

“Well yeah, we don't exactly take him outside. It's a little hard for something to happen to him when nothing happens here.” Chosen says, still somewhat crying.

“Well he did survive the house fire so there's that.” Dark says. “And I would love to take him out more but he looks just like the other spiders.”

Chosen gets an idea, he remembers finding an item called a name tag a while back. He grabs it from his chests and writes Ted's name on it using his anvil as a table.

“There we go.” Chosen says, showing off the pixely ‘Ted’ above the pet spider, who does a little happy spin and climbs up Chosen for a hug.

“Well isn't that adorable.” Dark says. “I'll leave you two alone.” He jokes.

Ted rubs up against Chosen, his way of asking to play. Chosen creates a faint laser for him to chase around the room, so faint and weak that Chosen can still see through it. The two spend the rest of the day enjoying each other's company.

________________________________________________

-Redecorating-

New flowers. Carpets. Colored glass and terracotta. ~Yeah, it's time to redecorate this place.~

The red tones of bricks did add a slight pop of color to the otherwise grey base but Chosen was getting sick of the same colors, and right on que he finds more colored blocks that won't burn.

Chosen looks at the statue of him and Dark. The ugly netherack texture makes his eyes burn, or he has the desire to destroy it, either way it needs to be replaced. Chosen tears down Dark's part of the statue and rebuilds it with red terracotta. Much better.

Chosen flies around the base to see what else needs to be upgraded. The barn looks like it needs some sprucing up. He replaces the walls with regular terracotta and adds some of the new flowers around. Sunflowers especially fit the farm vibe in this corner of the base. He also adds some grass and haystacks around the fields.

“Alright, what next?” Chosen mumbles to himself as he hyperfixates on decorating everything.

________________________________________________

Dark came back from the Nether, tired as he usually is after wrecking havoc, hoping to take a nice nap. He immediately got whiplash from the wave of color painted on their base. Flowers and leaves draped on and around every building, most of which have had their walls replaced with terracotta of some color. Various decorative pieces are scattered around the sides of the roads. Even the beacon is colorful, with green rugs draped over parts of it and flowers all around the base and Chosen somehow turned the light beam red.

~Speaking of Chosen, why does he look like he wants to add more?~ Dark thinks as he watches his brother hover above. “Uh, Cho, what's all this?” He calls out.

“Ah, Dark, you're back. What do you think?” Chosen eagerly asks.

“It's…a lot.”

“Have you seen the statue yet? You look so much better now that you're not made of netherack.” Chosen states, gesturing to the statue.

“Uh, I guess. What's wrong with netherack?”

“It's ugly. I don't know how you can look at it for so long.” Chosen answers.

“It's just a block.”

“Yeah, an ugly block.”

Dark doesn't have the energy to argue over this. “Whatever, I'm gonna go to bed. Please don't overdo it with the decorations.”

“Yeah yeah I won't.” Chosen says dismissively.

Chosen in fact did not keep his promises and most of what he did after talking to Dark was torn down. But the base does look nicer now.

Chapter Text

-Trading Hall-

Chosen loves watching the locals, or villagers as they're actually called. He recreated their village and brought a few here to their base, and the recreation looks pretty accurate, well, except for the lack of flammable blocks. He enjoys watching them roam around free and mingle amongst themselves, he sometimes tries to talk to them and they offer trades like the players do. They're walled in to keep them safe from zombies and those iron golems sometimes spawn for extra protection. ~I wonder how the players keep their villagers? One of them did mention having some.~

With that thought, Chosen jumps up in a burst of fire and flies to the players’ town.

________________________________________________

Over at the players’ marketplace, Chosen tries to remember which of the many players was the one with the villagers. He constantly changes his stock but thankfully he is one of the ones who can talk so he should be able to identify him by his voice, which he soon hears.

“Hey, Chosen, whatsup?” The player greets.

“Hey.” Chosen greets back. “You're the player with villagers right?”

“Ah so you heard?” The player says, a hint of slyness in his crunchy voice. “You looking for some rare goods?”

“Well now that you mention it I do need to stock up on redstone for Dark,” Chosen suddenly remembers, “but I was mostly curious about the villagers themselves.”

“Hmmm, I guess I can show you.” The player says, picking up his loot from his market tent so they don't get stolen. “Follow me.”

As the two walk the player strikes up a conversation with Chosen.

“Do you have villagers at your base?” He asks.

“Yeah, I recreated their village for them and keep them safe from the mobs.” Chosen answers.

“So you have villagers but don't keep them in a trading hall? That's weird.” He says.

“Trading hall? What's that, like keeping a bunch of villagers that trade with you inside one big house or something?” Chosen questions.

“Kinda like that but a lot more confined for our convenience.” The player says walking through the doorway to a large wooden building.

“C-confined-?” Chosen stammers as he now reluctantly follows the player.

What Chosen sees on the other side of the door makes him almost wish he never asked to see the villagers. Rows upon rows of 1-by-2 prison cells filled to the brim with imprisoned villagers, forced to do business with players with no sun, no food, and no freedom. Off to the side Chosen can hear the grunts of pain from a villager as a player attacks them for not doing their job to the player’s liking.

“Pretty cool right?” The player that led Chosen into this Hellhole nonchalantly asks. “Took forever to get these bastards to cooperate but it was all worth it.”

“How could you do this..?” Chosen softly and shakily asks.

“What? Make an amazing trading hall? They're just NPCs. It's not like they have feelings or get hungry or anything. This is what they're designed to do.”

~…It's just a stickfigure, it doesn't have feelings… Why would it get hungry, it's just a drawing?… Do your job, you useless stick! Just do what you're made to do! …~

“Chosen?” The player asks as the stickfigure stares off into space.

Chosen turns his head to meet the player, eyes burning bright red.

________________________________________________

It all happened so fast.
One second Chosen was listening to the player talk about how villagers have no feelings, the next he's surrounded by his golden fire engulfing what used to be the trading hall and the item drops of several different players. He listens to the panicked ‘hmm’s of the villagers he freed as they flee the fire.

Strangely, Chosen feels nothing. No satisfaction in killing the villagers’ wardens and freeing them, no remorse for killing several allies, nothing but the fire inside him dying down.

Chosen takes off back to his base, ready to forget about all this.

________________________________________________

Chosen lands at his base, making a pitstop at his mini village to appreciate his free villagers and give them some extra food. He's now wishing he had grabbed the ones he freed but doesn't have the energy to expand the village to make room for them right now anyway, or to constantly run them all back and forth in the first place.

Chosen walks into his bedroom, he crashes on his bed and blacks out.

When Chosen woke up he hears Dark looking for food in the kitchen. He gets up and his stomach reminds him that he's hungry too.

“You didn't make dinner?” Dark asks before looking up at his brother. “You ok, Cho?”

“I committed arson and killed a bunch of players and I don't know how I feel about it.” Chosen says, ambling over to the dining table and taking a seat.

“You committed arson earlier? Damn.” Dark says, giving Chosen a playful punch and sitting down in the other seat. “Was there a reason or just needed to get it out of you?”

“Players imprison their villagers, locking them away without anything except for when they want to trade with them! They attack them for the littlest things and don't think they have emotions or feelings or anything!” Chosen sputters out, trying to not sink into old memories but failing. He hides his face in his arms on the table and cries. “I just- Something came over me… I couldn't- I couldn't watch them suffer…”

Dark doesn't know how to respond. Chosen hasn't had a reaction to anything in this game like this. Sure he's cried before but he's normally back to being happy after a few hours. Dark thinks for a moment for something that could help cheer Chosen up.

A few minutes later Ted comes walking up to Chosen with a red rug draped over his head and a plate of cookies on his back.

Chosen chuckles at the goofy sight and takes a cookie. “Thanks, Ted.” He reaches for another one but Ted walks away towards the open door. “Hey.” Chosen follows the spider outside around the house and finds Dark building some redstone contraption in the small bit of free space between the base and the forest.

The spider walks up to his master, who gives him head rubs. “Good boy.” Dark says to his pet before addressing Chosen. “Come here. Sit.” He says gesturing to the red and black checkered blanket draped over the grass. Chosen obliges and Dark sits next to him. Ted wedges his way in-between the brothers. Dark flicks a lever and a redstone line lights up, a second later a firework shoots out of the ground and explodes in the air with a burst of red and orange colors, then another with yellow and blue, and another with red black and white.

“Feel better now?” Dark asks.

“Yeah,” Chosen answers, “thank you.”

________________________________________________

-Ocean Monument-

“Admit it, Chosen, we're lost!” Dark shouts over the rushing wind to his brother as they fly over the vast and seemingly endless ocean below.

“No we're not!” Chosen shouts back, practically plastering his map onto his face trying to read it.

“Chosen, we've been flying for hours and haven't seen so much as an island, let alone our base!” Dark protests. “Give me that map!!” He shouts, reaching for the map with still burning hands.

“Dude, you're gonna burn it!” Chosen argues. Dark tries to grab it anyway. They wrestle mid air and the two quickly fly off course, crashing into the ocean.

“Damnit, Chosen, now look at what you've done!” Dark curses.

“ME!?! You crashed into me! Why does it matter if you're the one reading the map!?” Chosen argues back.

“Because you clearly can't read it!” Dark snaps, snatching the map from Chosen. “What the fuck, there's no ocean anywhere on this! How the fuck did you lead us out into the middle of the fucking ocean!!!”

“It's not my fault there's no compass on that map.”

“GAAAAAAAAA!!!!” Dark explodes, sending water everywhere and Chosen skipping like a stone across the water for a few dozen blocks. “COULD THIS GET ANY WORSE!!!”

The sticks hear thunder roll as the sky darkens and rain starts falling. As amazing as Minecraft is it does have its faults, the worst of them by far being how the slightest bit of rain can completely stop the two from using their fire, making it impossible to fly.

“Oh fuck off, Chosen!” Dark curses.

“What!?” Chosen asks, making his way back closer to Dark.

“Don't ‘what’ me! You can control the weather! You did this!” Dark accuses.

“You know how weird the weather is in this game, I can't control it like this!” Chosen argues.

Dark looks like he's about to explode again but instead lunges at Chosen, who easily dodged the initial attack but gets pulled underwater by his leg anyway.

The two wrestle underwater and almost drown each other. They quickly tire and make a small platform to rest on. They lay on their backs for a while and catch their breaths.

Chosen offers Dark some chicken and looks up at the rain. “It doesn't seem to be letting up any time soon. I think we might as well try swimming to land.” Dark lets out an exasperated groan.

“Hey, swimming isn't so bad.” Chosen tries to reassure.

“Easy to say when you can swim like a torpedo.” Dark protests.

“Well I might have enough wood for a boat but that would still take some time.” Chosen suggests, rummaging through his inventory. Dark dramatically groans again and flops backwards, hitting his head against the cobblestone platform.

________________________________________________

Several days cycles passed, the ocean just keeps going on and the rain won't stop.

“Are we there yet?” Dark groans in the back seat of the boat.

“No. Still no land.” Chosen answers. “You want some food?”

“Yeah.”

Chosen takes a break from rowing to eat with Dark, the two enjoy their food in silence. Something attacks their boat, throwing the brothers off of it right as they try to have a conversation. Once their eyes adjust they can see an enormous turquoise structure shimmering in the water with pale blue lamp blocks speckled around the walls. There's also a dozen or so giant green pufferfish with lasers staring right at the sticks. Before they can even think of fighting, a hallucination of a grey monster pufferfish takes over their vision for a moment. The two scramble to get back on their boat, just in time to escape the dozens of lasers aimed at them.

“Did you see that?!” Chosen exclaims.

“Yeah! What the hell was that!” Dark screeches, trying not to sound scared as he steadies his breathing “Damn. There's gotta be like 20 of those things and even more in that temple.” He assess.

“Those blocks are beautiful.” Chosen adds starry-eyed. One of the pufferfish monsters shoots a laser at Chosen, who quickly fires one right back.

“There's approximately a hundred laser fish down there that can cause hallucinations and you're focused on how pretty the structure is?” Dark scolds. “Well, you wanna try to conquer this thing?” He asks, eager to finally kill something. Chosen nods and readies his lasers.

The two dive down and begin fighting.

They don't even get through the entryway before they run out of breath. Chosen tries to swim up but Dark grabs his leg and hands him a blue potion. Dark drinks an identical potion and continues their crusade. Chosen trusting his brother drinks his and immediately he can breathe again. He quickly swims forward to catch up to Dark, who's staring at the entrance of a labyrinth.

“I'll go right, you go left.” Dark half suggests as he starts swimming to the right.

Chosen makes his way through the labyrinth, killing any monsters that attack him while trying to admire the structure. He finally gives in and starts mining it away, wall by wall. His potion eventually runs out but him removing parts of the ceiling were creating air pockets, it slowed things down having to retreat every minute but I'll be worth it once he brings part of this thing home with him. ~Although Dark is probably waiting for me on the boat so I should wrap this up.~

Chosen swam back up to the surface after hollowing out the structure. The rain has finally stopped.

“There you are. I was starting to think you died or something.” Dark teases.

“Nah just mining those blocks to take them home. Better that trying to pick up the whole thing.” Chosen says climbing into the boat. He notices dark holding something hanging off into the water. “Uh, what's that?”

“Dinner!” Dark proudly announces, holding up three grey pufferfish monsters by their tails, each easily twice the size of the green ones.

“Okay I guess we're having sushi tonight.” Chosen says, lighting his fire and begining to head home.

“Yeah if we ever get home.” Dark jokes, following his brother.

Chapter Text

“Mom, where are we?” The young stickfigure asked.

“I don't know, but stay close to me.” Said the pink woman.

The two stickfigures walked through Minecraft’s forests, suitcases in tow, the child clutching a plush doll. They flinched and jumped at each noise the surrounding fauna made.

After what felt like forever the two hear a voice up ahead, undoubtedly another stick. They stop dead in their tracks but that only seemed to alert the stranger of their presence. The pink stick steps in front of her son as the stranger approaches. Seconds later he makes himself known, black and intimidating and with red eyes that pierce the tree's shade. He looks just as surprised to see the family as they are.

“Hello.” The stranger says. “I didn't know there were other stickfigures here. Sorry if I startled you.”

“Who are you?” The pink woman asks defensively.

“My name is Chosen. And you are?”

The woman was hesitant to answer. “Orchid.” she finally said.

“What about you, kid?” Chosen asks, kneeling down to be shorter than the kid.

“Purple.” He says. “Are you the Chosen? The one that shows up in like every popular YouTubers’ Minecraft videos?”

“Uummm, I don't know what this ‘YouTube’ is but I do interact with other Minecrafters.” Chosen says confused.

“Mom, it's him!” Purple says excited. “We can trust him, he can keep us safe.”

“Sweety, just because you've seen this man on the internet doesn't mean you truly know him.” Orchid quietly says to her son.

“Is there something you're running from? Because I can protect you guys if needed. My base is very secure and I don't mind sharing my food and resources.” Chosen reassures, eager to share his paradise with others.

“Mom, please!” The boy asks, giving his mom puppy eyes.

“*sigh* Fine.” Orchid concedes and starts heading over to where Purple already ran off to. “If anything happens to that kid I will snap your neck.” She coldly says to Chosen.

Chosen is taken aback by Orchid’s sudden dark tone but understands where she's coming from, after all he feels the same way about this world and his brother, both he would happily defend until he can't move his body.

________________________________________________

The three walk through the forests and into the base. Roads of various grey textures wrapped around the structures, tying together a barn, crop field, numerous automated farms, a mini village and a golden pyramid creating a beacon of light, with a house at the center and a flaming statue of the two stickfigures overlooking the base, the black one raising a sword and the red one raising a fireball. Leaves, flowers and lamps decorated the sides of the road with banners and torches adorning the buildings.

“Did you build all this?” Orchid asked.

“Pretty much.” Chosen answered. “Anything that's automated is my brother's design but even then I added my own touch to it so it ties into the rest of the base.”

“Woooow.” Purple said with stars in his eyes.

Chosen leads the family to his house. “Feel free to make yourself at home. Are you guys hungry?” He asks.

“Yeah.” Purple says. “What do you have?”

“A lot.” Chosen says, handing the two his recipe book to look through. “Let me know if something looks good.” He goes to the kitchen to prepare some ingredients.

Orchid is taking in her surroundings. The excessive use of stones to build the house didn't do well to give it a warm welcoming feel. Purple also takes note of the house’s design.

“I thought your house was made of wood?” Purple asks.

“Oh, it, uh, was made of wood but it burned down. We don't use wood in our builds anymore ‘cause of how strong our fire is.” Chosen answers, showing a small flame in his hand before putting it under the stovetop.

“Y-you have powers?” Orchid sheepishly asks.

“Yeah, quite a few, actually.” Chosen answers. “So does my brother, Dark, but his are all fire based.”

“This looks good.” Purple states, showing his mom one of the recipes, completely unbothered by the revelation. “What are you gonna have?”

“Oh, um, that's fine.” She says.

“Two of this please, Mr. Chosen.” Purple politely asks.

Chosen chuckles. “You don't have to be so formal, kid. You can just call me Chosen, or Cho.” He reassures, walking back to the kitchen to make their food.

While Chosen is away the family hears something skurry below them.
“AAAAAAAAA!!!” They both yell.

Chosen drops everything he's doing and runs to them to see what's wrong. Orchid is tightly holding her son, taking shelter on top of the makeshift table, while Dark's pet spider curiously looks at the family.

Chosen grabs his chest, relieved that it wasn't a serious issue, and calmly picks up the spider. “Ted, you scared them.” He playfully scolded.

“Is that your pet!?” Orchid nearly screeches.

“Dark's pet, but yeah. This is Ted.” Chosen says proudly holding up the spider, making sure his name tag is obvious. “He doesn't attack us so he's basically a weird looking dog.”

The two begin to relax and Purple even tries to pet Ted, holding his hand out like you would for a dog. Ted bumps his flat face against Purple's hand.

“See, he's peaceful.” Chosen reassures. “I should get back to cooking before the food burns. Ted, don't get into any more mischief.”

“Are there not dogs or cats or normal pets in this place?” Orchid asks.

“There are but…” Chosen paused, thinking about the wolf he tamed a while back and how quickly it died. “It didn't work out…” There's a brief awkward silence before he goes back to the kitchen.

_______________________________________________

Chosen comes back from the kitchen with two plates of food; cheese crusted chicken with potato wedges and cooked carrots on the side. Purple immediately digs in.

Half way through their meal the door slams open, making everyone jump. A bright red stick storms into the house, his face seething with rage.

“Well hello to you too, Dark-” Chosen begins to say, holding a third and fourth plate of the chicken meal.

“Shut. The fuck. Up.” Dark demands, glaring daggers at Chosen as he walks into their bedroom, once again slamming the door.

Chosen is stunned by his brother's sudden attitude. “I am so sorry about that. I'll go talk to him.”

The two argue loudly from their room. Chosen is trying to keep calm but Dark's temper isn't allowing that. Their argument is cut short by Chosen being flung out and across the room, crashing into the corner of the entryway, blood gushing from his nose.

“Fine, be like that!.” He yells back, blocking up the door with obsidian. He makes his way over to the cauldron to clean himself up. The blood isn't stopping. “Hey, can one of you look in that chest at the end of the counter and grab a health potion?”

“Uh, sure?” Orchid answers. She finds the chest, grabs the health potion and investigates it, curious about how well it works and what its limits might be.

She hands Chosen the bottle and he downs the whole thing immediately. “Thank you.” He says, whipping the rest of the blood and cleaning out the cauldron. “I'm so sorry about him,” Chosen starts while shoving an oversized sponge into the cauldron, “he's been very moody lately for some reason. I've been trying to get him to talk but he'd rather punch me I guess.” ~I oughta change that beacon power to regen at this rate.~

Orchid's eyes fill with empathy. “I get it, my husband is like that; always angry at something and always tries to fix it with violence. He doesn't like talking, even if it's to give him a solution to his problem.” She looks over at her son, happily playing with his plush doll. “He tried to raise Purple with that mentality but I wouldn't let him… he didn't like that either.”

“Is he what you're running from?” Chosen asks. Orchid just nods. “Well, if he ever comes here and tries to hurt you, I'll snap his neck.” He says playfully.

Orchid smirks. “Promise?”

“You guys will be safe here, I promise.”

________________________________________________

“You really don't have to, you know.” Orchid says.

“Please, it's the least I can do.” Chosen reassures as he quickly builds a starter house for the family. “Besides it's either this or sleeping in the same house as The Moody Lord over there. Or would you rather sleep in the barn with the animals?”

“Alright.” Orchid concedes. “But you really don't have to go out of your way for us. I'm sure we can handle ourselves.”

“Really, it's no problem at all.” Chosen says, landing in front of the two. “Besides, this game can be a little rough at the beginning, believe me.”

The two walk into the house, Orchid quietly pulls Chosen aside to talk while Purple explores the building. Some furnaces and makeshift furniture making up the kitchen, some seats by a large window overlooking the forest, some double chests in convenient locations and a bedroom with two beds for them.

“Thank you.” Orchid says.

“No problem.” Just as Chosen says that there's a problem. Deep orange fire erupts from every window in Chosen's house, accompanied by Dark's enraged yelling. “Uuhh, y-you guys head to bed. I need to take care of that.” Chosen says with worry written all over his face. The two head to their room and hope that everything is going to be ok.

The two snuggle together in the same bed and watch YouTube videos from Purple's phone, hoping to get a better understanding of Chosen and Dark. The players don't see much of Dark unless they're in the Nether, and even then they're trying to avoid him. Meanwhile Chosen is a super star. More than happy to help the players out in any way he can; building, resource gathering, mob control, you name it. And he was not joking when he said he has a lot of powers. Using eye lasers to cut blocks in ways that players can't, making ice out of nothing for Nether highways, he can even control the weather, bringing rain and lightning, as well as flying and cooking items with fire. ~Yet here he is, being silly and playing a video game. I suppose we should be grateful, we really don't need someone this powerful in the Outernet.~ The two eventually fall asleep in each other's arms.

________________________________________________

Nine months later.
Purple and Orchid couldn't be happier. They're finally away from the ailments of their old life. No more bills, no more work or school, no more Navy. Chosen was more than happy to help them learn the game, and Dark isn't as bad as his first impression was. He even offered to help Purple explore the Nether and collect quartz, his favorite material. While exploring this time he stumbled on two stickfigures. He freaked out and ran off but they heard his footsteps and followed him through the portal.

Chapter Text

-Christmas-

“Purple, it's morning.” Orchid softly says to her son, trying carefully to not scare him.

“Mmmm, five more minutes.” Purple groggily says, rolling over in his bed.

“Alright, I guess we'll start opening presents without you.” Orchid slyly says as she turns around.

Purple is suddenly wide awake, tossing his poor little plush doll as he flies out of bed. “It's Christmas? Already?”

“According to my phone it's the 25th.” Orchid says, showing the date with her phone. “Come on, I got some surprises for you.”

The two walk outside and are immediately met with a cold breeze and blankets of snow covering most of the base as snowflakes gently fall from the sky.

Purple excitedly jumps into the snow and makes a pixely snow angel. Looking up he can see Chosen adding ice to the rain in the sky to make it snow. Purple waves at him and he waves back.

“That's not all.” Orchid says, gesturing for her son to follow. She leads Purple behind the house to a small clearing with a red and black picnic blanket and a snow-covered pine tree decked out with torn up pieces of wool as the ornaments and small jarred embers dangling from the leaves with a block of glowstone at the top cut into the shape of a star and a chest underneath. Dark flicks a lever and fireworks with red green and yellow colors shoot out from the ground.

Chosen flies down to the group. “So, what do you think?”

“I- This is amazing! You guys did all this for us?” Purple says starry-eyed.

“It was all your mom's idea.” Chosen says.

“We don't really celebrate Christmas but it seemed fun so, what the hell, why not.” Dark adds.

“Go on, Purple, the gifts are all yours.” Orchid says, walking over to the lone chest under the tree.

Purple sits down to open it and starts pulling out his presents, the first being a little orange fox figurine, its redstone components kept safe behind carefully moulded glass.

“That one's from me. There's a button on the back.” Dark says.

Purple finds and presses the button and the figurine springs to life, doing a little robotic dance. “That's so cool, but what made you think of this?”

“I told them about that game you like, the one with those robot animals.” Orchid clarifies.

“Moooom!” Purple says, embarrassed by having his latest hyperfixation exposed.

“What? You like it don't you? There's nothing to be ashamed of.” Orchid assures.

“Yeah. He does look a lot cuter than the one from the game.” Purple admits. He digs through the chest to find the rest of the gifts and finds a king's costume with a crown made of real gold and emeralds. Purple puts on the crown and orange cape and examines his new iron sword.

“Chosen, is that a real sword?” Orchid scolds.

“Yeah, and the crown is real gold.” Chosen proclaims. “Took a while to melt and form it to look right.”

“Not as long as that robot casing did, I'm sure.” Dark adds.

“Alright, you two, it's not a contest.” Orchid says. “Purple, please be careful with that.”

“I will.” Purple half promises, putting down the sword and digging for the last gift; a gold trophy, 1st place arena champion 2014 Royal Navy Blue.

“Mom… is this Dad's trophy?” Purple sheepishly asks.

“Yep. I took it before we left. It's yours now.” Orchid says proudly. “Think of it as the remnant of his memory, you can keep it, throw it out, destroy it, whatever you want. He hurt you a lot more than he hurt me so I think you should be the one to decide if he has any place in our new life.”

Purple stares at the trophy, thinking of everything his dad has done. Some good, mostly bad, mostly pain in the name of this very sport the trophy is for. His stare turns into a glare. He stands up, not taking his eyes off the plaque, letting his strength build. Purple raises the trophy above his head and smashes it on the ground, breaking the cup off the stem and chipping the base. “Who's weak now, Dad?” Purple mumbles to himself as he stares at the broken metal. Orchid walks over and gives her son a side hug.

Chosen and Dark are wondering if they should leave, or if they should have left earlier when Orchid started talking about personal family stuff.

“Hey, are you guys hungry? I made chocolate chip pancakes.” Chosen asks awkwardly.

“That sounds good.” Orchid says. Purple happily nods and is about to head to the main house for breakfast until he remembers something.

“Oh, shoot, I almost forgot.” Purple yells out as he runs into his house. He soon runs back out and presents to his mom a bouquet of pink Minecraft orchids. “I know it's not much but I hope you like it.”

“Oh, Purple, they're beautiful.” Orchid says, giving her son a big hug. “I thought orchids in this game were all blue?”

“They are but Dark helped me dye them.” Purple answers.

“Alright, now that everyone has their gifts let's eat already, I'm starving.” Dark says, heading over to his house.

“Dark, let them be.” Chosen scolds.

The Pinks share a chuckle before following the brothers into their house for breakfast.

________________________________________________

-Villager Kingdom-

“Whatdya think?” Purple asks, showing his mom a rough sketch of their new house, or rather mini castle.

“Uh that looks like it'll cost a lot of materials, sweety. Maybe we should tone it down a bit.” Orchid says, trying not to kill her son's imagination.

“Ooo is that going to be your new house?” Chosen asks as he walks past the pink sticks.

“With some tweaks maybe? It's Purple's design.” Orchid answers.

“Oh wow, you've got quite the vision there, kid.” Chosen marvels. “But yeah it could use a few details here and there. Where are you planning on putting it?”

“Oh we really don't need to waste your-”

“Waste!? On something that'll improve the base. Don't worry about it. Let your imagination run free. It's your new home after all, it should be exactly what you want.” Chosen reassures, as he picks up the sketch and holds it up to various blank spots in the base. “How about here?” He says, finally landing on a spot.

“With those things?” Orchid asks, referring to the villagers roaming around their mini village.

“Yeah. I've recently rescued a bunch and haven't had the time to properly expand their village, this is a good opportunity to spruce it up. The base floor of this castle is a perfect overflow home for them all while you guys have the rest of the floors for whatever you want. Think about it; Queen Orchid and Prince Purple of the villagers. Thoughts?”

Orchid thinks for a bit while Purple is already eager to put his idea into motion.

“It's an idea.” Orchid says.

“Mom, please.” Purple says putting on puppy eyes.

“Oh how can I say no to this. Are you sure materials won't be a problem? I'd hate to hurt your economy.” Orchid concedes.

“Don't worry about it.” Chosen assures, waiving his hand. “Whatever you want to build this thing out of I'll supply it, I'll even help if needed.”

“You're too kind.”

________________________________________________

The blocks that the Pinks picked out were mostly cobblestone with some texture mixes, quartz accents and birch floors with pink and purple flowers and banners as decoration. While the two worked on their house, Chosen tore down the old village and remade it to match the castle.

“Need some help?” Chosen asks the family who seem to be struggling to finish the top floor and roof.

“Yeah could you help us get down, it's a lot higher than I thought this would be.” Orchid asks, death-gripping the closest block.

“I meant with the house, but yeah I can place some water at the bottom for you guys to jump into while I finish up the roof.” Chosen says.

“JUMP!? From here!?” Orchid shrieks, already turning pale at the thought of jumping off a 5-story building.

“Yeah, if you land in water you don't take fall damage.” Chosen nonchalantly says. He dives down and places a water block that quickly spreads into a 15-block diamond.

Purple doesn't wait for an ‘ok’ and jumps as soon as he sees the water. He harmlessly lands, barely even touching the ground underneath. “That was awesome!”

Chosen flies up to Orchid, who looks sickly pale and is having trouble breathing.

“Are you okay?” Chosen asks. Orchid just shakes her head. “Do you want me to carry you down?”

“Yes, please.” Orchid says, her voice cracking.

Chosen carefully brings Orchid back to the ground, helping her regain her balance as she tries to stand.

“Mom, are you ok?” Purple asks.

“I'm fine, I just need to lay down.” Orchid says, her voice shaky.

“You two go rest, I can finish up the house.” Chosen implores.

The Pinks head off to their starter house and Chosen goes back to building.

________________________________________________

Chosen goes and gets the family once he's done building, making sure to get their opinion before adding anymore unplanned details.

“This looks amazing! Thank you, Chosen.” Purple says, marveling at his new house.

“No problem. I made sure to leave the interiors plain so you guys can decorate it however you want.” Chosen says, leading them into the castle. “I did decorate the first floor a bit though but you can always add your own touch, it's your house after all. And the rest of the village too, feel free to decorate that all you want too, it's your little kingdom.”

“Thank you, Chosen.” Orchid says, still trying to take it all in. Purple is already running up the spiral staircase up to the next floor then the next, thinking of where to put everything as he goes.

“Well I'll leave you two to decorate your new home. Let me know if you need anything.” Chosen says, waiving bye to the family.

By the end of the day they were officially moved into the castle, just in time to watch the sun set from their bedroom at the top of the castle’s spire. They watched in silence for a while, taking in the orangy sky, the ambient music, and the lights from the base below.

“Thanks for finding this place, Mom.” Purple finally says.

“Of course, Sweetie.” Orchid says, giving her son a kiss on the cheek. “Only the best for my little prince.”

Chapter Text

-Illness-

Orchid couldn't stop coughing. These flair ups were getting worse. Normally she has at least one health potion on her but she hasn't stocked up yet. She shambles to her brewing stand, her vision going in and out as she continues to cough, now accompanied by blood. After a nasty coughing fit, Orchid was on the ground, the room barely discernable through foggy and splotchy vision.

After some time, Orchid sees a line of color against the grey walls. It comes closer then dashes back out a moment later. Orchid blacks out for a bit and when she comes back there's a shadow looming over her. It picks her up and the last thing she sees are a pair of bright red eyes piercing the darkness.

________________________________________________

When Orchid wakes up she sees Chosen at her bedside, holding a potion bottle and looking like he just watched someone die. His worried face quickly turns to relief as Orchid stirs. She's still coughing though, but not painfully this time, more like when your drink forgets which pipe it's supposed to go down.

“Hey, hey, take it easy.” Chosen implores as he reaches for another potion.

“I- *cough* ‘m fine, I don't need another.” Orchid tries to say.

Purple comes rushing into the room at the sound of his mom's voice. He runs to her bed and tackle-hugs her.

“MOM!!! Mom, what happened?! Are you ok?!” Purple yells as he embraces his mom, tears streaming down his face.

“I'm fine now, Sweety.” Orchid tries to reassure.

“*sniff* What happened? Why were you on the floor? Why were you coughing up blood? Mom, what's going on?” Purple asks.

Orchid takes a moment to think about what to say. She gives Chosen a look and he understands the assignment.

“I'll leave you two alone.” He says, making sure the brewing stand was stocked with fresh health potions before leaving. Chosen doesn't mean to overhear their conversation but with his hearing it's a little hard not to.

________________________________________________

“Mom?” The young stick asks again for answers.

“You remember how I would frequently visit my doctor, right, back in the city?” Orchid starts.

“Yeah. He was like a bright green color, like apples. He said he'd help you get better. He did help you, didn't he?” Purple recalls.

“He tried, he really did, but my…affliction…stumped every doctor I saw. No one knew what was wrong with me, just that it would kill me soon. Dr. Lime estimated I'd have only three months left back in December. That's why I was so determined to bring you somewhere safe, away from your father. I couldn't bare the thought of leaving you with him. I know I should have taken you away from him sooner but I honestly thought he would change eventually. … I'm sorry, Purple, you shouldn't have to be in the middle of all this. No child should have to go through any of this.” Orchid explains, giving her son a gentle hug near the end.

Purple hugs him mom tightly, afraid that he'll lose her if he lets go. “Why didn't you tell me?” He asks through tears.

“I didn't want you to worry. I was going to tell you eventually but those potions kept me alive all this time so I thought I wouldn't have to.” Orchid explains.

“You've been drinking those potions to stay healthy? All this time?” Purple asks.

“Yeah. They work, for a while at least. It's been five months and I'm still here.” Orchid says, trying to brighten up the mood.

“But why didn't it work this time?”

“It did, I just didn't take it in time. Between that and this just being a bad day… Eh, getting sick sucks, don't ever get sick, kid.” Orchid says, hoping to cheer up Purple at least a little. His grim expression doesn't change. She has been letting her son act younger than he really is, letting him relive some of the childhood he lost, but often forgets that he is still very mature for his age and is well aware of how serious this is. “I'm going to be okay, Purple. I promise, I'm not going anywhere.” Orchid reassures. “I'm not going anywhere.”

________________________________________________

-The End-

The Ender Dragon greeted its uninvited guests with an ear-piercing roar. The four stickfigures ready their weapons and prepare for combat as they run off the obsidian platform. The pink sticks draw back their bows while the brothers take aim with their fire.

“You guys ready?” Chosen asks. The other three nod in unison and they all fire.

The dragon shrugs off their attacks as it flies around the island, continually being healed by the crystals atop the giant obsidian pillars.

“Well this is going well.” Dark sarcastically says.

“Maybe we have to take out those healing pillars first?” Purple asks.

“Purple, that's solid obsidian, it'll take forever to tear down.” Chosen says. Dark chucks a sizable energy ball at the nearest pillar to test that, it only leaves a dent. “See.”

“Maybe we can lure it away from the island? You and Dark get us up to its back and we'll tie reigns around it while you two distract it. Once we lead it away then we can kill it.” Orchid suggests.

“Sounds good!” Dark says as he grabs the kid. Chosen picks up Orchid and follows Dark up to the dragon. They get the Pinks on to the dragon's back and fly over to its face, buzzing around it like fiery flies.

Orchid takes out two leads, handing the ends of them to Purple to tie down to the dragon before jumping off and swinging around its neck a couple times to secure its hold. She takes the second lead and lassos it around the dragon's head and into its mouth, then swings again to tie down its muzzle. The dragon lets out a muffed roar in protest but is still forced to obey its reigns.

“*whistle* That was impressive, for a regular stick.” Dark sorta complements.

“Who you calln’ regular, I'm not called The Elusive Queen back in the arena for nothin. No one's as nimble as me in combat.” Orchid proudly proclaims as she tightens her grip on the dragon.

“Aren't you the same woman who couldn't jump off her house into water a few months back?” Chosen asks.

“Oh hush up!” Orchid demands as she leads the dragon away from the island. As they fly further away the crystals begin humming and shooting out their healing beams randomly. Orchid turns to look back at the event. The beams eventually all land on the center pedestal where a large black egg is perched. ~Is that an the dragon's egg? Is the dragon just trying to protect it? Is she a-~

“Mom!” Purple interrupts Orchid's thoughts, warning her about the upcoming structure they're rapidly approaching.

Orchid's grip on the dragon falters and it bucks the family off its back. They crash into the mast of a floating purple ship.

The dragon thrashes around as the brothers hurl fire at it. It sharply turns around, smacking Chosen out of the air doing so. Dark takes off after the dragon, not even bothering to check on the family. Chosen regains himself and pursues.

“Hey! What about us!” Orchid yells at the two, who are already hundreds of blocks away. She lets out an exasperated growl.

“Maybe there's a way to get this thing moving. It is a ship after all.” Purple suggests, as he rummages around the fore of the ship.

“I don't think so, I don't see any redstone-” Orchid starts but is cut off by Purple finding a lever and pulling it, making the ship move forward. “Well I'll be.”

_______________________________________________

The ship is a little bit faster than the dragon so they should be able to catch up to it before it reaches the island. While they wait to catch up Purple explores the ship, making his way down into the cargo. There he finds two chests and a brewing stand with health potions already in it. ~How convenient.~ Above the loot is an item frame with some kind of cape-like attachment in it. Purple takes it and it reveals itself to be an elytra. He puts it on and experimentally flaps his new wings.

“Mom, look what I found!” Purple calls as he runs back up to the deck.

“That looks nice on you.” Orchid says.

“They're wings! I can use them to fly!”

“Oh? Are you sure?” Orchid questions.

Purple flaps his wings, testing his control over them. “Mhm.” He confidently says.

The main island is in sight now and Orchid can clearly see the egg she saw earlier, and how desperate the dragon looks to defend it.

“Do you think you can get us over there faster?” Orchid asks.

“Probably.”

“Well then, go spread your wings, Purple.” She says, turning off the ship and taking his hand.

Purple's face beams. He opens his elytra and bounds off the haul, gripping his mother tight as he effortlessly glides through the air.

_______________________________________________

Chosen and Dark are almost done fighting the dragon. She doesn't have much health left but is still fighting tooth and nail. Once she's officially over the island Chosen freezes her wing and she crashes down next to the bedrock pedestal where her egg resides. She flails around as she tries to fly with her weighted wing. Chosen grabs her tattered reigns and pins her down while Dark charges an energy ball. The dragon looks up at her egg and lets out a sad groan.

“Wait!” Orchid calls out to the brothers as she and Purple land on the island. “Don't kill her!”

“What? Why?” Dark asks, annoyed.

“She's a mother.” Orchid says, walking up to the dragon. “That's your egg isn't it? You're just trying to protect it.” The dragon groans in affirmation.

Chosen lets go of the reigns and flies off the dragon. Her head drops down to Orchid, who carefully undoes the bindings on her muzzle, giving her a nose rub once she's done.

“I'm sorry, we didn't know. We won't hurt you anymore.” Orchid promises.

The dragon sits up, shaking the rest of the leads off her. She breaths on the ice to get rid of it, then roars, letting the End know she's still there, prompting the crystals to begin healing her again.

From behind, her egg starts to crack. A little baby Ender Dragon pops out, talking to his mother in baby coos and flying around her face.

Orchid's heart melts at the sight. Purple wants to pet and hold the baby dragon but knows that not a good idea. Dark is still holding his energy ball, confused about how they went from killing the dragon to attending her baby shower so fast. Chosen has to practically wrestle the ball out of Dark's hand.

“Sorry for all the trouble, ma'am. We'll be leaving now, if that's ok.” Chosen says.

The dragon steps aside and lets them enter the portal that opened in the center pedestal.

_______________________________________________

The group spawn back in the overworld at their respective beds and regroup back at the center of the base.

“Well that was a waist of time.” Dark says, very annoyed.

“Not really. We made a new friend and I got these cool wings.” Purple says

“Speak for yourself. We didn't get anything.”

“Come on, Dark. How about we go fight a Wither? Will that make you feel better?” Chosen suggests as he walks off with Dark, who just grumbles in response.

_______________________________________________

Orchid couldn't help but return to the End. Using Purple's elytra, she properly explored the Outer End islands, finding even more elytras and harvesting the exclusive plants and blocks. But most importantly she wanted to check on the dragon, who responds to the name Jean, and her baby, bringing them some food and telling them her stories. They've become good friends and Orchid might even convince her to visit the overworld one day.

Chapter Text

As the green and blue stickfigures were about to head home from their daring Nether adventure they heard footsteps below them. When they investigated the noise they found another stickfigure, a purple one about their age. With their curiosity getting the better of them, they followed the stick through another portal.

On the other side of the portal lay a gorgeous town, with buildings of all sizes, banners and torches flowing in the wind, a statue and a castle on either side and well lit roads tying it all together.

Not long after crossing over into this land, an explosion came from the portal behind.

“You shouldn't have come here.” The figure behind them hissed.

Deep orange flames soon surrounded the young stickfigures and a being, shrouded by the intense fire, loomed above them. Chaos ensues.

________________________________________________

Purple ran to his mom and Chosen to tell them about his encounter with the strangers in the Nether. Before he can elaborate on his panicked explanation the group hears three distinct yells from where Purple came from. Chosen runs after the noise, Orchid and Purple follow.

The three arrive at the portal and see Dark and two unknown sticks running around a fire arena like headless chickens. ~Seriously, Dark, you can snipe a chicken from the top of a mountain but can't catch two sticks?~ Chosen shoots a precise laser between his brother and the strangers, quickly stopping the chase and grabbing their attention.

“HEY!” Chosen shouts. “What the hell is going on here!?”

The three are quick to blame each other and start arguing, trying to convince their audience that their side of the story is the correct one.

“ENOUGH! You two,” Chosen snaps, directing his attention to the strangers, “who are you and where did you come from?”

“We were exploring and just messing around and we saw them *pointing to Purple* and we just wanted to introduce ourselves.” The light blue stickfigure said.

“We've never seen another stickfigure outside our group so we were curious.” The light green stick added.

“We didn't mean to cause any trouble.”

“It's alright. Dark, why did you try to kill them?” Chosen asked.

“WHA- You said to protect that kid at all costs. I saw people following him so I did what I thought I needed to do to protect him!” Dark said defensively.

Chosen pinches the bridge of his nose. “This isn't what I meant- You don't have to kill people who are in the mere vicinity of Purple to protect him!- *sigh* Whatever, no one got hurt right?”

The two strangers shake their heads.

“Good.” Chosen says, walking up to the two. Getting a better look at them he can see that they're just children, not much older than Purple. He walks past them to relight the portal behind. “Come on, let me escort you two back to your home.” Chosen insists.

It's a short walk between the portals but enough for a small conversation.

“You kinda look like our friend.” The green stick commented. “Well, other than your color, that is.”

“Is that so?” Chosen inquires.

“Yeah.” The blue stick confirms. “You two look like you could have the same animator.”

“Ha! Well I hope for his sake that's not the case.” Chosen muses. “My animator was a psychopath who enjoyed watching me struggle, and that's the least of it. I can't begin to imagine what he would have done to Dark had we not escaped when we did. And I sure hope he never made another stick to torture afterwards.” He added, his face darkening with each word.

The young sticks are speechless.

“I… I'm so sorry.” The blue one finally says.

“Eh, it's in the past now.” Chosen reassures, pushing the memories far back in his mind.

The three arrive at the portal.

“This one your's?” Chosen confirms.

The two nod and head in, Chosen follows just to make sure.

_______________________________________________

A pit immediately forms in Chosen's stomach. ~This isn't Minecraft,~ he fearfully thinks to himself. This place looks different but the feelings are all the same, the place where he was imprisoned and tormented for years on end. The two sticks excitedly jump off the tab their portal resides and begin calling out to their friends. Three warm colored sticks answer their calls and huddle into a group hug. One of the sticks does in fact look just like Chosen but a different color. The pit in his stomach keeps growing as his mind races to think of an explanation for this that doesn't involve his animator. Then a sound he came to dread rings in his ears; the door on the other side of the screen opening, he is coming.

Alan sits at his desk and watches the cluster of colors excitedly hop around his desktop, then he sees it, the black stickfigure he had drawn far too many times, staring back at him. He pulls up a notepad and starts typing to his stickfigures.

'Um, guys, do you know that stickfigure over there?' Alan types.

Orange jumps up to answer Alan, as he's the only one who can directly talk to him, but pauses once he sees the stick he’s referring to, still standing at their Nether portal.

Orange walks over to him and encourages him to join the group. The black stick is hesitant but does so anyway.

“Hi. I'm Orange and these are my friends.” The young stick introduces. “What's your name?”

“I- Um-” Chosen stutters, instinctively glancing back up at the animator, keenly watching his every move. “Chosen,” he finally says, “you can call me Chosen.”

“Cool name.” Orange says before running back to the notepad to answer Alan's question.

'His name is Chosen and he seems cool.'
Orange says.

Green and Blue also tell him about how they found him after going through the Nether portal and that he brought them back to the PC. Orange relays the information back to Alan before jumping back down.

“Is that… your animator?” Chosen asks.

“Who, Alan?” Orange asks, gesturing to the overly detailed deity that resides on the other side of the screen with large square eyes that reflect the monitor he controls. Chosen gradually tenses up the more he looks at him. “He's my animator but he treats us all the same even though he didn't really make the others.” Orange continues.

“He does?”

“Yeah! He likes to play fight with us, toss us up with his cursor, he even has me help him animate.” Orange explains gleefully.

Chosen's face goes pale and his mind races. ~He makes them fight, throws them around and forces this kid to do his work! I can't believe he's done this again. GAH, of course he's done this again, he's a psychopath! These kids don't even know what he's doing is wrong. I gotta get them out of here!~

The cursor moves over to Orange and picks him up. Chosen reacts. He fires a laser at the cursor, knocking the kid out of its grip, grabs Orange and flies back through the portal. The rest of the group yell and follow them.

Chosen flies faster than he's ever flown before. His golden fire burning bright and the Nether whizzing by in a blur, it's a miracle he didn't crash into anything.

Once at the base Chosen finally lets Orange go. The kid scurries away and grips his wrist. “What the heck!? Why did you do that!?”

Chosen finally thinks about what happened and his actions. “I'm… sorry. I just needed to get you away from him. I… couldn't watch him hurt you.”

“Hurt me!? Alan!? He's like my dad! You're the one who hurt me!” Orange snaps.

Chosen finally notices the partially cauterized gash on the kid's wrist, not unlike wounds Dark would sometimes come away with after he and Chosen fight.

“I… I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. I have some health potions if you want.”

“No, it's fine. Blue has potions back home.” Orange responds, still a little angry.

“What do you mean Alan is ‘like your dad’?” Chosen asks. “You said he throws you around and makes you fight your friends and makes you do his work-”

“WHAT! I never said that!.” Orange clarifies. “I said he lets me help him work and he sometimes joins our friendly fights. And we like being picked up, it's the only way he can really interact with us.”

“I-” Chosen begins but is cut off by Orange.

“Did you seriously drag me out here against my will just because you misunderstood what I was saying about Alan? Who do you think you are? Child services!? What could have possibly led you to rip me away from my friends and my home!?” Orange blurts out.

Chosen feels like he's about to cry. The next thing he knows he's spilling his guts to this kid he just met, telling him about everything Alan ever did to him before he escaped with Dark. How he was tossed around, forced to fight for his life, and how Alan made him work tirelessly.

Every bit of anger in Orange’s golden eyes turned to remorse, regret for his previous words, and a bit of empathy. He knows all too well that Alan is no saint. But he also knows that Alan has changed.

He goes to the ground with Chosen and gives him a side hug, and Chosen melts right into his little brother.

“Um, Cho?” A deep voice comes from behind.

Chosen perks up and wipes his tears. “Oh, hey Dark.”

“What's going on here? Who's this?” Dark asks.

“Oh, um, this is-” Chosen begins.

“Your new brother, apparently.” Orange happily finishes.

A second later four sticks jump through the portal, yelling their unsynchronized war cries and quickly halting once they see there's no danger. Orange chuckles at his friends’ antics.

“Who the fuck are these guys!?” Dark shrieks.

______________________________________________

The two groups spend the day getting to know each other and having fun in Minecraft, playing around and eating food, Dark even put on a little firework show to watch. And, after some convincing, Orange got his brothers to come to the PC and meet the new Alan, who immediately and wholeheartedly apologized. There is just one thing that didn't make sense about his apology; who is Victim?

Chapter Text

-Chefs-

“Oh, that smells good.” Blue marvels as he walks into Chosen's house. “What is it?”

“Steak. With loaded mashed potatoes on the side.” Chosen says, stirring a potato mixture in a large bowl. “A little simple but there's only so many ingredients in Minecraft. Plus I can learn what you guys like with feedback so it works.”

“You’re cooking for all of us?”

“Yep, all eight of you plus myself. Probably gonna need to expand this kitchen eventually.” Chosen says.

“You really don't have to, we have our own food at home.” Blue says.

“Nah, don't worry about it. Besides, I like cooking.” Chosen assures.

“If you insist.” Blue concedes. He goes to watch Chosen work, intrigued by his craft. “Where did you even find food like that? All we have at home is crops and cooked meat.”

“I made it with basic ingredients.” Chosen answers. “I just take two or more things and make them work together until it tastes good. I have a cook book over in the item frame over there if you want to look through it.”

With that Blue takes the book of the nearby item frame and reads through it, his eyes growing and shining with each page. “This all looks amazing! You came up with all of these?”

“Yep!”

“That's so cool!” Blue says starry-eyed.

Chosen stops for a moment to watch through the window as his two younger brothers play outside, the other two warm colors cheering on their play fight. Chosen chuckles at their antics before diving deep into thought.

“Are you alright?” Blue asks cautiously.

“Yeah, just thinking about how far I've come. And how much this family has grown over the years. If you had told me during my time with Alan that I'd one day be living in paradise with two brothers, possibly a third out there, and six friends I'd have called you delusional. Yet here I am, here we are. I- thank you, all of you, for just being here.” Chosen says, giving Blue a gentle hug. He's not used to opening up like this but after talking to Orange it's been a lot easier. He's still not fully comfortable talking about what Alan did to him but at least he's not repressing it.

“No problem, Cho.” Blue says. “You might wanna flip the steaks before they burn.”

“Oh, shoot! Thanks.” Chosen says as he takes the steaks off the stove and onto plates.

“Yep. Is there anything else I can help you with?” He asks.

“Not really, I'm pretty much done. Unless you can figure out some kind of gravy to make the steak less dry.” Chosen answers.

Blue thinks for a minute then begins looking through the ingredients chest. He finally pulls out some brown mushrooms and milk buckets. He chops up the mushrooms and puts them on the now freed up stove. While they cook he shakes and whips up the milk to make it thicker and creamier. Once the mushrooms are cooked and juicy he combines the two to make cream of mushroom. Blue shows the mixture to Chosen for a taste test.

“That's actually pretty good. I never thought to combine mushrooms and milk before.” Chosen says.

“Maybe I can be your suechef now.” Blue beams.

“Hmmm I'll think about it.” Chosen says slyly.

________________________________________________

-Build Battle-

It's been long enough and the color gang still don't have proper houses in the base, so they decided to change that. They picked out their block pallets and got to work.

Blue chose prismarine and leaves for the outside and all kinds of flora for the interior.

Orange picked his usual oak, cobble, and brick blocks.

Green went with a more modern look, using quartz and stained glass with sandstone accents and oak floors.

Yellow picked a more simplistic pallet with white concrete, polished andesite, and acacia wood.

Red, taking inspiration from the animal barn, chose a warm brick mix with spruce floors.

________________________________________________

“Well, I think I'm done.” Yellow said, walking out of his new house.

“What, already?” Green questions, still figuring out the interior of his house.

“Yeah, what's taking you guys so long?”

“I'm almost done.” Red says from the roof of his house.

“Oh hell no! Yellow, what is this!?” Green shrieks.

“It's my house.”

“It's a giant block of concrete! I am not connecting my house to that!”

“It's not all concrete, I have andesite floors and redstone stuff for the interior.” Yellow remarks, opening the door for Green to see.

“Oh Creation, it's even worse inside. Yellow, did you even try?”

“Wha- Of course I tried! What the hell!? It's my house! You're not gonna be living here so deal with it!” Yellow snaps.

“It's going to be a part of the overall build. It'll completely ruin the aesthetic if it stays this ugly.” Green explains.

“Well at least it matches Yellow.” Red snarks.

“RED!!!”

“Oh you have no room to talk, mister, you built a literal barn.” Green scolds.

“Yeah, and the animals already love it.” Red says, gesturing to the random pig that happened to be there. “Besides, you don't have to connect it to your house so what's the big deal?” He mocks.

“Whatever, at least it looks better than Yellow’s. Seriously, at least add a splash of color to this.” Green demands.

“You know what, you're right, and your nose bleed will make the perfect splash of color.” Yellow threatens, grabbing Green by the collar.

“HEY! THAT'S ENOUGH!” Orange intervenes, grabbing the two.

“He started it.” Yellow whines.

“I don't care who started it, I'm finishing it!” Orange snaps. He puts them back down after they calm down.

“Seriously, make your house look better.” Green says.

Yellow lunges at him and the two start wrestling and throwing punches. Their fight moves slightly over towards Red and he joins in for fun, leaving Orange and Blue to separate the traffic lights by themselves.

Meanwhile, Dark sits perched on the spire of the Pink’s castle, sipping some hot chocolate and happily watching the colorful chaos below. Chosen flies up to him and notices the gang.

“Uh, should we-?” Chosen starts.

“Nah.” Dark cuts off. “We got regen on the beacon, they'll be fine.” He says, taking another sip of his drink.

Chapter Text

-Redstone Rollercoaster-

“What are you two nerds up to?” Chosen asks as he and Orange walk up to Dark and Yellow working on some redstone contraption.

“Hey, we're not nerds!” Dark states, shooting Chosen a glare.

“Get used to it.” Yellow says, rolling his eyes. “We're making a rollercoaster.”

“Oh cool.”

“Oh no.”

“What? What's so ‘oh no’ about that?” Chosen asks.

“Is this one also gonna drop us into lava at the end?” Orange sarcastically asks.

“That…was a slight miscalculation…” Yellow says.

“Don't worry, I'll make sure this thing works properly.” Dark assures as he goes back to fiddling with redstone components.

“Look, it wasn't the coaster itself that I miscalculated, it was Minecraft’s physics. How was I supposed to know that ramps don't work?!” Yellow tries to defend.

“Well I did make some modifications so maybe it would work here, not that I'd add a freefall section into this thing that would allow for a lava bath like this idiot did in the first place.” Dark says, standing up with a remote control lever in his hand.

“Hey! Whatever, I promise you guys this will be much better than the coaster I made in the PC. And nothing will go wrong this time.”

Yellow's reassurance is immediately shot down by Dark flipping his remote lever, causing the minecart to shoot forward like a bullet and breaking through the tracks it was supposed to climb.

The rest of the color gang scream and yell as the minecart crashes into whatever they were doing off in the distance. Before Yellow could apologize on behalf of his partner, Dark shoves the lever into his chest and takes off just in time to avoid the wrath of a bunch of colorful children.

_______________________________________________

-The Witch-

Blue was in search of, well, honestly whatever looked interesting to him. The gang hadn't taken much time since finding this place to actually look around and discover things for themselves. Chosen and Dark provided for their materialistic needs but not for their adventuristic needs, and Blue was curious if the brothers had missed something in their time playing the game.

Blue soon found himself in a strange looking oak forest. Where the trees are far apart with an overgrowth of vines, the air is thick and humid and there seems to be more water than land. There are these pretty blue flowers that match his color almost perfectly though.

While collecting the lovely flowers, Blue stumbled upon a lone wooden hut in the middle of a swampy lake. With his curiosity getting the better of him, he goes in to investigate.

There's not much inside, though that should go without saying considering it's about the size of a village house. There's at least a cauldron with a potion in it that looks useful. And a cat that Red would absolutely be fawning over right now if he hadn't gone the exact opposite direction for his own adventure.

As Blue turns to leave he's met with a pale villager draped in dark purple blocking the doorway. He doesn't even get to introduce himself before the mob drinks a ghostly white potion and disappears. Blue looks around for the weird villager but can't find her anywhere, not even invisibility particles. As he's searching he suddenly feels weak and drops to the ground, a strange cackle ringing through his head as he goes down. Blue tries to get up but is unable to move. His vision goes blurry and then dark as the cackle continues, gradually mixing with his own voice.

________________________________________________

“Hey, have you guys seen Blue anywhere?” Orange asks his friends, who all look at each other confused.

“No, not really. He took off after breakfast, something about wanting to explore. I'm sure he's fine.” Green says.

“I don't know, he hasn't answered my texts for a while now. Last I heard he was entering some kind of swampy oak biome.” Orange explains.

“*sigh* And now you want to initiate a search party for him because he's having too much fun on his adventure without you, is that right?” Green says sarcastically.

“Is it wrong to be worried about our sibling?” Orange scolds. “I’m not saying we all barge in on his adventure, just one of us takes a quick pop over to wherever he is to make sure he is fine and not being trampled by a horde or something.”

“You're so paranoid.” Green groans as he equips his elytra that Orchid handed out to the gang their first night. He sets off a firework and flies off in the direction that Blue went earlier.

________________________________________________

“Green? Blue? Are you guys back yet?” Orange calls, poking his head into their respective conjoined house. His worry is boiling over. ~They should have been back by now! What's going on!?~
“Yellow! Have you seen Green or Blue!?”

“They're not back yet?” Yellow asks confused. “That's weird. I'll go look for them.” He says, ducking into his house to grab his elytra.

“Wait, I'm going with you.” Orange demands.

“I really don't trust you to fly properly with how panicked you are. How about you stay here in case they're traveling on foot. I'll take Purple with me and I'll text you as soon as we find something.” Yellow says, trying to soothe Orange’s panic.

Orange calms down enough to think clearly. “Alright. Please be careful.”

________________________________________________

It's been almost an hour since Blue first went missing. Orange's panic has gotten so bad he's starting to hallucinate. Visions of a spruce hut in the middle of a murky lake keep plaguing him as he paces back and forth between two grass blocks to the point where they're now grass paths. Yellow hasn't given an update since finding that swampy oak biome that Blue had previously mentioned, and Orange’s attempts to contact Green and Purple have been futile.

“Are you alright?” Chosen asks, concern written all over his face.

“NO! BLUE WENT MISSING AND THEN GREEN WENT OUT TO LOOK FOR HIM THEN DIDN'T COME BACK THEN YELLOW AND PURPLE WENT LOOKING FOR THEM AND NOW THEY'RE MISSING TOO AND AAAAAAAAAAAA!!!” Orange rapidly spits out, finally releasing all the built up tension.

“Feel better now?”

“A little…”

“Good. Now take a breath and calm down. I'm sure they're fine.” Chosen says, his words not doing much to calm his little brother's frantic breathing.

“Why can't they just say that? Why can't they just text me back? I swear if this is a prank- This isn't funny!”

“Ok ok, just- do you know where they went ish?”

“Somewhere over there. I keep losing contact with them once they find this swamp kind of biome.” Orange explains.

“Alright, we'll fly over there and see what's going on. Ok, does that sound good?” Chosen asks calmly. Orange just nods before wrapping his arms tightly around his big brother.

________________________________________________

The two fly for not even ten minutes before finding the swamp, and the very hut that kept popping up in Orange’s vision.

“There! Chosen, go down!” Orange instructs.

The two land in the water and Chosen immediately recognizes that familiar feeling of potion effects at his feet. He bends down to get a closer look and can just faintly see different colors swirling together in the gross water, as if the overwhelming smell of brewed netherwart wasn't enough to give away that dozens of potions have been poured, or rather broken judging by the glass shards glistening on the lily pads.

“Looks like someone was fighting with potions h-”

Orange is too busy investigating the hut to acknowledge his brother. There's an open trap door that leads to what looks like a workshop below and a cauldron with a lone ghostly white bottled potion in it with the tag ‘potion of spectating’.

“What does this do?” Orange asks himself.

“Why don't you drink it and find out?”

“Blue-!?” Orange whips around to meet the familiar voice. Standing in the doorway is indeed Blue, but something is very off about him. His eyes are a striking shade of hot magenta and is wearing that kind of ‘I’m a supervillain’ smile that looks horrible on Blue's normally calm and compassionate face. Strangest of all, ‘Blue’ is holding a piece of black dye that seems to be struggling and thrashing in her hand in an almost pissed off way. She puts the dye in her pocket and takes out a lavender colored potion as she corners Orange in the hut.

“I was wondering when you'd get here.” ‘Blue’ says before suddenly throwing the potion at Orange, who miraculously dodges it. The two pull out their diamond swords and start clashing, with Orange throwing an occasional punch and kick and ‘Blue’ tossing a potion wherever she can.

Their fight doesn't last long though, soon enough Orange manages to knock this witch on her ass.
“What have you done with my friends!?” He demands.

“Wouldn't you rather see them yourself?” ‘Blue’ slyly says, catching Orange off guard with a potion, a horrible concoction of weakness and slowness. He stumbles back while she gets on her feet, once again backing Orange into a corner.
“I must say, I had my doubts about you roundlings. You creatures look so scrawny and frail yet are stronger than most mobs in this game. This is a much better body than my own. Although, with those lightning-fast reflexes and that strength of yours I'm beginning to think you'll be better suited for my plans. Still though, I can't have you walking around like this. Even weakened you can still ruin my progress so far. Enjoy your time with your friends, because you won't be seeing them for a long time once I'm ready for you.”

‘Blue’ pulls out another lavender colored potion and brings it to Orange’s mouth. He tries to fight her off but is too weak from the previous potion.

Without any warning the roof is completely blown off. Bits of scattered blocks rain down around a red hollow head, looming in the air on a stream of fire with a ball of fiery energy in his hand. ‘Blue’ immediately tosses Orange aside and sets her sights on this superpowered body.

If Orange was almost impossible to hit then Dark absolutely was impossible. In a flash of red and orange he dashes down into the hut and kicks the witch far out of her own home before even getting the chance to throw her potion.

“You alright?” Dark asks, helping Orange to his feet.

“I…need…help…” Orange says slowly.

“Yeah, I can see that. Are you drunk?” Dark asks, pulling out a milk but and splashing Orange with it without waiting for an answer.

“Thank you!” Orange says, relieved to finally be free of that potion’s effects. “Alright, that's not Blue but that is his body. I don't know what that thing did with the others but I think she turned Chosen into a piece of dye so maybe she did that to the others as well. There's some kind of workshop below here, do you think you can make some kind of antidote for them while I hold her off?” Orange quickly explains.

“Uh, are you sure you don't want me to fight ‘Blue’ over there? You looked like you got your ass handed to you just now.” Dark questions.

“I don't know a thing about potions and it really looks like we're going to need them to get out of this mess. I'm fine now, I promise.” Orange explains.

“If you say so.” Dark concedes.
Jumping down into the workshop he can see rows upon rows of brewing stands and displayed potions of all impossible sorts. Each chest is filled with ingredients that Dark could swear never made a potion before. It isn't long before he finds a book and quill, a recipe book just like the one Chosen has for his cooking. He soon finds the transmutation potion and its antidote and begins brewing.

Meanwhile on the surface, Orange and ‘Blue’ are going for round two, fighting even harder than before, desperately trying to take control of the situation. As the fight goes on, the witch begins to look more agitated and panicked, missing her potion throws without Orange having to dodge them and throwing them less and less as though she's running out. All the while Orange is light on his feet, dancing through sword swipes and the occasional potion, keeping on the lily pads while ‘Blue’ trudges through the water.

‘Blue’ eventually ducks under the water, making Orange lose his sight of her. By the time he finds her again she's already back at the house. Orange quickly jumps along the lily pads, trying to make it to her in time but is too late.

Dark finishes the potion and emerges to the surface right as ‘Blue’ makes it back to her hut. Desperate to keep the sticks from sabotaging her plans she lunges at Dark, who creates an energy ball that explodes immediately.

Dark's hand is pretty burnt by the explosion, his fire isn't supposed to explode in his hand like that, but it's nothing compared to Blue, or rather what's left of him. The once warm brown walls are now painted a deep crimson, with bits of bloody bone and light blue flesh speckled throughout. The burnt metallic smell mixing with leftover smoke polluted the still humid air. At Dark's feet, where Blue once was, is a small pile of items; some tools, food (including netherwart), cobble, flowers, and a colorful arrangement of dyes that seem to be looking around confused. Dark drops the potion he made on them and they immediately turn into a group of stickfigures, who don't take long to take in their surroundings. Yellow looks like he's about to throw up and Purple shields his eyes with Green’s chest.

“Dark, what have you done?” Chosen asks, horrified.

“I saved you guys, you're welcome.” Dark says with a little bow at the end. “Come on, let's get out of here.”

“Yes. Please.” Yellow says, still doing everything he can to keep his breakfast down.

The group leave the hut and Orange joins up with them to make sure they're okay before heading off. Green doubles back to grab the little black cat that hid under the water and gives it to Purple for some extra comfort.

________________________________________________

Back at the base the group are met with Blue, the real Blue, and Red talking to each other about their adventures. The rest of the color gang run up to their friends while Purple and the older hollow heads just stare at Blue as if he were a ghost. Purple eventually runs full speed to join the group hug, tossing his new cat aside.

“Blue! You're alive! Thank Creation you're alive! How? How are you here? I-” Purple says through tears.

“Woah it's ok, Purple. I'm ok.” Blue assures. “My gut still feels like it's on fire,” he says, staring straight at Dark, “but I'm fine. You don't stay dead when playing Minecraft.”

“W-what? You can't die?”

“No, you can die, but as long as you have a bed you'll just wake up in it a while later. You do lose your items though.” Green explains.

“Speaking of, do you guys have my stuff?” Blue asks.

“I think so, Chosen might have picked up some stuff too.” Yellow says.

“Wait, did you guys not explain respawning to Purple when he came here?” Orange asks his brothers.

“YOU CAN RESPAWN!?” Chosen shrieks, still wearing that same horrified expression he's had on for the past 20 minutes.

“Well whatdya know.” Dark says nonchalantly.

“I THOUGHT YOU WERE REALLY DEAD, WHAT THE FUCK!”

“Dude, calm down, he's fine.” Dark poorly reassures Chosen. “Hey, Blue, you wanna check out some of that witch's potions?” He says, holding up the potions book he stole from the hut.

“Oooo yes please.” Blue says, bouncing over to Dark.

Chapter Text

-PvP-

The sound of clashing metal echoes through the base as the sticks spar with each other. Groups of two engaged in a one-on-one test of strength; Green and Chosen, Red and Purple, Blue and Yellow, and lastly Orange and Dark.

The fight between the younger hollow heads heats up pretty quickly with their swords clashing more rapidly with each passing second. Ducks, dodges, and the occasional punch and kick thrown in-between sword swings as the two grunt and yell at each other. Dark is eventually knocked down and Orange keeps him there as a notion of victory.

“You are not as good with the sword as Cho is.” Orange says, pointing his blade down at Dark, who raises his hands in defeat.

“Alright, alright, you win.” Dark says before suddenly sending out plumes of flames at Orange's face. “SIKE!”

Orange screams as the searing flames reach him. Dark takes advantage of the distraction he made and throws a volley of punches, sending Orange to the ground.

“I don't need a sword, kid.” Dark says, flashing his shark-tooth grin.

“Hey, you guys agreed to not use any powers!” Orange complains, still patting the flames off his skin, revealing burn scars that slowly and uneventfully heal themselves.

“Chosen agreed to that. I didn't agree to shit.” Dark says smugly. “And just because you don't wanna use your powers doesn't mean we should nerf ourselves for you.”

“...what..?”

“Look, I don't know if Alan was making you hide your powers or if you just wanna keep it from your friends or something but that's not our problem. Here you fight with all you got, because a real threat won't be generous enough to bring itself down to your friends’ level that you, for some reason, want to stay at.” Dark continues.

Orange stares blankly at his brother. “... I don't have powers.” He says, still very confused. “I'm not hiding anything. What could possibly make you think I have powers?”

“You're a hollow head. You were made by Alan, just like Chosen and me, of course you have powers.” Dark explains.

“Wha- no? That doesn't mean I have powers. Alan wasn't even intending for me to come to life, let alone be some superstick like you guys.” Orange tries to explain.

“Kid, your reflexes are like lightning, you can handle a punch from me, you can throw a damn good punch yourself, and I literally saw you heal your burns after our fight. Don't lie to me.” Dark says, getting annoyed.

“I'm not-” Orange tries to explain, looking at his perfectly healed arm, which definitely had a burn on it a minute ago. “... Ok so maybe I am a bit stronger than the others but that still doesn't mean I have crazy powers like you two. I can't fly or shoot lasers out of my eyes or anything like that!”

“Sure, kid, whatever you want to tell yourself.” Dark says, picking up their swords and handing one to Orange. “Round two?”

Orange takes his sword and readies himself. “Whatever gets you to shut up about this.”

________________________________________________

-Noteblocks-

“Hey, Green.” Chosen greets as he walks up to Green and his little build. “What's all this?”

“Just some noteblock instruments. I'm trying to rig it so that I can play them all myself and still sound good.” Green explains.

“Why not just have your friends play with you?” Chosen asks.

“Because they're really not as good as I am. They're ok but just aren't at my level.” Green says.

Chosen investigates the noteblocks as he listens to Green, taping them and noting how different the notes sound when on a different block. “Can I play a bit? I don't think I ever played around with noteblocks.” He asks, already making himself comfortable.

“I-” Green wants to say no and kick Chosen off but knows better than to do that. As much of a softie as Cho is, he's genuinely terrifying when angered. Plus with how strong he is, a flying kick probably wouldn't do much anyway. “I guess.” Green concedes.

With a smile on his face, Chosen begins playing a rudimentary tune, starting off a bit slow but picking up speed once he gets the hang of it. He soon starts bobbing his head to the beat and is just in general vibing.

Green can't help but join in to make the music sound better. He held himself back for a few minutes but eventually set up some more noteblocks so he can show Chosen how it's done.

One by one most of the color gang was lured out of their houses and joined in on the fun. Chosen's tunes became obsolete in the symphony but Green gave him a black wool guitar to play instead.

Chosen's excitement overflows onto his performance. Running and jumping around, flaring fire as he plays with the young sticks cheering him on.

With a passionate strum Chosen strikes himself with a bolt of lightning, giving his guitar an electric blue aura and changing its melody. The group stop for a moment to test the new tune and soon pick back up with a new electric song.

“ITS THE MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING NIGHT!!!” Dark yells from above, already holding a large energy ball, ready to destroy the mini concert below.

Chosen flies up to talk Dark out of destroying their set up and part of the base along with it. “Waitwaitwait, Dark, please don't throw that! I'm sorry, we didn't mean to wake you up. We're just having some fun, why don't you join us.”

“I want to sleep! And I can't over this insufferable racket!” Dark snaps, taking aim at the sticks below. Chosen tries to wrestle the energy ball out of Dark's hand and ends up getting hit by it instead, sending him flying backwards into the distant forest well beyond the base.

The color gang immediately tear down their noteblocks and retreat into their house out of fear, passing by a sleep-deprived Orange who, judging by the look on his face, had the same idea as Dark, just without the murderous intent. He follows his friends back inside and peacefully falls asleep while the others huddle together and hope that Dark doesn't come in to destroy the rest of the noteblocks.

Chapter Text

May 16th, 2016

The new transportation project has been going well. We should be starting the testing and troubleshooting phase soon, I'm just waiting to hear back from the project manager on that. I specifically asked to be the first to test the machine, with Mr. Smith in case there's anything hostile waiting on the other side. While I have done some research on this game I just want to be as safe as possible, you can never be too careful. Once thi

The dark grey stickfigure’s typing halted when a pair of delicate white hands covered his eyes. “Mitsi, please, I'll take a break once I send this.”

“You said that 10 documents and five e-mails ago.” The dainty woman protested. “Vic, please take a break. I know how much you want to get that transportation machine working but overworking yourself isn't going to help.”

“*sigh* I know.” Vic said, massaging his eyes. “I just- This will revolutionize fast travel for all stickkind. Being able to get to any website or application in seconds-”

“Vic, I know, you already gave the whole company this speech.” Mitsi interrupted. “And you know that's not an excuse to burn yourself out.”

“I just… want to get this done.”

“Because you want to try to find your brother?” Mitsi asks, pulling up the YouTube tab that Vic tried to hide behind his e-mails, featuring the mysterious black stickfigure in Minecraft.

“We don't know if he's actually my brother… but yeah, I do want to find him.” Vic admits.

“Well then he better have a good explanation of where he came from if he's not your long lost twin brother because he looks exactly like ya, aside from your blue eyes and scars. Heck, if I didn't know any better I'd think he was you.”

“Yeah that's another reason why I need to find him. No doubt other sticks have seen these videos, I don't need them confusing the two of us.” Vic says.

“You will find him, Vic, I'm sure of it.” Mitsi reassures. “And I'm sure once you are able to find him you'd rather be a functional stickfigure and not a zombie running on 50 shots of expresso.” Vic chuckles. “Speaking of, there's coffee and donuts in the break room.” She muses, pulling Vic out of his chair and towards the door.

Vic stops Mitsi and pulls her into a hug and kiss. “Thanks, Hunny. I'm sorry if I've been a bit irritable about all this.”

“No worries, Hubby.” Mitsi reassures. “Besides I'm your wife, it's my job to keep your head on straight.”

The two share another kiss then head off to the break room.

_______________________________________________

“Hey, hey, guess who I am.” The light grey stick called to his coworker, holding up a blue-frosted donut to his face. “I need that report now. Get this done now. Where's my emotional support wife and work husband?” The stick says, mocking Vic. The two double over laughing, one of them abruptly stops.

“U-um, Gray,” the bright yellow stick tries to get his friend’s attention, “it's the boss.”

“Yeah I'm mocking the boss.” Gray says, putting the donut back up to his face, oblivious to Vic and Mitsi behind him.

“Ahem.” Vic loudly coughs.

Gray immediately eats the evidence and meets his boss. “Oh, hi, sir.” He says with his mouth full.

“Oh don't mind me, I'm just getting some breakfast with my emotional support wife.” Vic sarcastically says, walking over to the coffee pot.

“Aw, c’mon, Vic, it was a little funny.” Mitsi says, grabbing a strawberry donut.

Vic grumbles. After sitting down with his coffee he notices the time. “Where's Smith?” He asks. “He's usually here getting a second cup by now.”

“Uh, I think he's still with Jim and Scott.” Citrine answers.

“Still working with them on the transporter huh?” Mitsi asks. “You're rubbing off on him, Vic, he's as much of a workaholic as you are.”

“Actually I think they're almost done. Scott seems so sure that the prototype will be operational as soon as this afternoon.” Citrine says.

“Really?” Vic inquires.

Gray nods, still trying to chew the entire donut he shoved into his mouth.

“Well then, maybe I should check on them.” Vic says walking out of the break room. Mitsi grabs another donut and follows him.

_______________________________________________

Over in the testing lab, several different stickfigures are finishing up the prototype transporter, with a couple of dark blue sticks at the control panel and Mr. Smith overseeing them.

“Okay, that should do it.” A black, orange-headed stick proclaims from behind the machine.

“Am I clear to start it up?” A midnight blue stick asks.

“Not yet, Scott.” Another stick shouts. Once everyone is a good distance from the machine he calls back. “Alright, you're good to go!”

The two dark blue sticks type away at the control panel. Once they're done the forest cyan stick pulls a lever down and the machine whirls to life.

Vic and Mitsi arrive just in time to see it. Their two-year long project is finally operational. Vic finishes the last of his coffee and walks up to Smith.

“Hi, work husband.” Mitsi jokingly blurts out. Vic’s face turns hot red.

“What?” Smith asks.

“Just some dumb joke Gray told in the break room.” Vic says annoyed.

“Ookaayy…” Smith says confused. “Well, um, you're just in time to test out the transporter, sir.

“Um, Mr. Grey, are you sure you want to go into a video game first? You know those things are basically designed to kill players right? I don't think stickfigures respawn like players do.” The forest cyan stick asks.

“We'll be fine, Jim, thanks. I've done my research on this particular game and we'll have my head of security with us.” Vic reassures.

“Also, sir, if something were to prevent us from bringing you back here at least on a website you can take the train back to the city, you won't be able to do that in a game.” Jim persists.

“If other stickfigures can make their way into this game then I can find a way out.” Vic insists.

“Alright.” Jim concedes while Scott enters the destination.

Mitsi holds Vic's hand. “Are you ready?” She asks him.

He nods, gazing into her shining pink eyes before heading through the portal. Mitsi and Smith quickly follow.

_______________________________________________

Vic spawns into Minecraft and is immediately met with a gorgeous view of the landscape. Forests blanketing the land below, winding rivers cutting through the green, snow-covered mountains in the far distance, it was unlike anything he'd ever seen. He steps closer and quickly realizes he's on the edge of a cliff, inches away from plummeting hundreds of feet towards his death. He steps back but bumps into Mitsi. The two lovers grab each other and steady themselves.

“Woah, that was close.” Vic says looking down.

Then along comes their third wheel.

The three go tumbling down the cliff, taking some damage hitting blocks on the way down. After a bit of free falling they land in a waterfall. They get over their shock and swim down to solid ground.

“You two alright?” Smith asks, popping his shoulder back into place.

“I'm fine.” Vic says helping Mitsi to her feet.

“I think I left my stomach up there but I'm ok.” Mitsi says.

Smith takes in the seemingly endless array of trees. “So, what now?” He asks.

“Look for any sign of that black stickfigure, I'm sure if we just pick a direction and go we'll find something.” Vic answers.

The three pick a direction and start walking.

_______________________________________________

After what felt like only 20 minutes the sun starts to go down and it gets dark.

“Have we been here that long already?” Smith asks.

“Time works differently in this game.” Vic explains. “One day is barely half an hour. But it's still not even 11 o'clock in our world”

Smith nods. “Makes sense. Jim did say this place was made for ‘players’ and it probably would be boring for them to have to wait a whole day for something. What are players exactly? Was that in your research, Vic?”

Vic slows down a bit, his face darkening. “Fundamentally the same as cursors. Digital avatars for the deity on the other side of the screen so that they may interact with us. The creatures here may wear friendly faces but don't be fooled, they're still the same monsters.”

“Vic, you alright?” Mitsi asks, catching up with the boys.

“Yeah, I'm fine, Mits.” Vic tries to reassure.

Mitsi puts an 8-bit white flower on her husband's ear.

Vic chuckles. “Where did you get this?”

“Off the ground. There's all kinds of flowers here, I've been collecting them!” Mitsi says showing off her collection. “And petting every animal I see, they're just so cute and friendly.”

Vic chuckles again as he watches his wife frolic off to find another animal to befriend.

“So is there anything special about nighttime, or is it just dark?” Smith asks.

“Well-” Vic starts before getting cut off.

“ITSNOTFRIENDLYITSNOTFRIENDLY!” Mitsi yells as she runs back to the group, being chased by an enormous spider.

She quickly jumps into Vic's arms and Smith readies his toolbar. He creates a staff and bats the spider away. Just as they thought the threat was gone an arrow whizzes by, followed by unfriendly grunts and hissing. The group makes a run for it.

Smith holds the monsters back while Vic runs as fast as he can to get his wife to safety. He finds a small cave and hides in it.

“Are you ok?” Vic asks.

“I'm fine.” Mitsi answers.

“Good. Good…” He says, panting heavily. He slouches against Mitsi.

She takes out the donut she grabbed earlier and hands it to Vic. He eats it and the UI above his head lights up, showing his hunger bar go up.

“What's that?” Mitsi asks.

“That's… Basically your health status. *pointing to the hearts* That's your overall health and that *pointing to the food* is essentially your stamina.” Vic explains, still very tired.

“Do you need food to get your stamina back?” Mitsi asks.

“Yeah.”

“Well, good thing I grabbed an extra donut. Maybe this'll teach ya to eat actual food for breakfast and not just coffee.” Mitsi jokes. The couple laugh.

Smith finds and joins the two in their cave. “Alright, we should be safe now.” His words are immediately followed by a 'tksssss'.

The three snap around to look at the threat just as an arrow pierces its head and drops dead. The one who shot the arrow, a stickfigure, shrouded in darkness, readies another arrow and fires, immediately killing another silent monster behind them. Their savior runs up to them, the light from outside just faintly revealing his color to be blue. “Are you guys ok?” He asks. The three nod. “That's good. Do you guys have a base I can help you get back to?”

“Uh, no. We're actually looking for someone.” Vic says.

“Well why don't I take you to our base for the night. It's well lit and we have plenty of food.” The blue stickfigure suggests.

“That sounds nice. You need a rest, Vic.” Mitsi says. Vic's too tired to argue.

“By the way, my name is Blue. My brother, Yellow, should be around here somewhere also fighting mobs.” Blue says.

“A pleasure to meet you, Blue.” Smith says. “My name is Mr. Smith, and these are my bosses, Vic and Mitsi Grey.”

“Nice to meet you all.” Blue says as he starts heading off to his base.

_______________________________________________

“So where are you guys from?” Blue asks, trying to make conversation.

“A lovely little village in the Outernet.” Mitsi says.

“Outernet?” Blue inquires.

“It's this place where all animations go when they're uploaded to the Internet.” Vic explains.

“Oh so that's where Purple came from.” Blue mumbles to himself. “Sounds like a cool place.” He says for everyone to hear.

“Are you not from the Outernet?” Mitsi asks.

“Nope. Never left the PC until about a year ago when a Nether portal just randomly spawned.”

It isn't long before the group arrives at the base. The buildings tower above the trees and the street lights flood the roads. The grey stickfigures all marvel at the blocky town laid before them. A small group of sticks mingle below a statue, one of them being the black stick Vic is looking for.

“Feel free to look around. Over there is the guest house and if you need anything just let someone know.” Blue says before walking over to the mingling sticks.

_______________________________________________

“-those monsters didn't even see it coming!” Red declared, wrapping up his story as Blue arrives. “Oh, hey, Blue.”

“Hey.” Blue greeted. “Um, Chosen, I found a group of sticks and one of them looks just like you. I mean there are very obvious differences like eye color, but I think he might be that fourth stickfigure Alan mentioned making a while back.”

“Really?” Chosen asks. He gets up and Blue points out the group of grey sticks he brought home.

Chosen makes his way over. “Um, hello?”

The three turn to face the greeting. The hollow head of the group does in fact look just like Chosen. It's like looking in a mirror, a faded banged up mirror, but still a mirror.

The two are practically staring at each other in disbelief. Meanwhile the pale woman off to the side was absolutely ecstatic to see the two together.

“Alright, Mits, let's give those two some space.” The tall stick says, ushering Mitsi away.

The two are now well aware of the audience they've accumulated.

“You wanna chat somewhere private?” Chosen asks.

“Yeah. I don't like being watched like this.” The grey stick says.

“Yeah me neither. I'm Chosen by the way.”

“Vic. It's nice to meet you.”

________________________________________________

Chosen leads them to a greenhouse garden, filled with all kinds of flora and crops Dark genetically modified to look nicer. The two sit down on a bench and begin properly introducing themselves and their parties.

“I wasn't expecting to find so many stickfigures here.” Vic comments. “I really thought I would just find you and Dark.”

“It was just us for a few years before Orchid and Purple came. Then Purple accidentally led Orange's friends to the base last year, and the rest is history.” Chosen explains.

“Where did you find Orange? Did he and his friends find their own way into Minecraft?” Vic asks.

“Kinda. Two of his friends had just found a way into the game but Orange himself and the rest of the group were in Alan's PC.” Chosen answers.

“A-alan’s PC?” Vic asks fearfully.

Chosen had forgotten that Alan never properly apologized to Vic, though he was mentioned still. “Yeah, he never actually hurt Orange or his friends. He even apologized to us, even you, though I think he was assuming you were already a part of our group and was hoping we'd relay his message to you. At least, I'm assuming you are Victim.”

The sound of Vic's real name makes his blood run cold. ~What do you mean? He's changed? That sick monster has changed!? How!? That's not possible! This has to be a trick! There's no way- He can't- It's too good to be true- I shouldn't have let my guard down- I-~
Vic's racing thoughts were cut off by Chosen putting his arm around him, he realizes he's shaking.

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring back bad memories.” Chosen says. “Do you want to talk?” Vic shakes his head.

They sit in silence for a moment while Vic calms down.

“I'm not going back to him.” Vic says.

“I'm not gonna make you. I didn't want to go back either at first.” Chosen says.

“What made you change your mind?”

“I offered to bring Orange’s friends home, not realizing their portal led directly into Alan's PC.” Chosen explains. “Yeah, that was quite the day. But it all worked out at least.” He thinks for a moment. “Have you talked to anyone about Alan?”

“I tried…” Vic explains. “Mitsi knows I was abused but I never told her anything beyond that. I don't wanna traumatize her. I tried talking to other therapists but every time I tell them more details they just…give me this look…like I'm some sort of anomaly. I've stopped trying to talk about it long ago, I'm more focused on the future. Besides, bottling it all up has worked out so why change that?”

“Until someone brings up the slightest reminder of your past, then it all comes flooding back.” Chosen says. “I thought bottling everything up would work too, but once I sat down and talked with my brothers I felt a lot better. It doesn't erase the memories or heal the pain but it helps a lot knowing that there are people that will listen and are there for me. You're not alone, Vic, you're not the only one Alan hurt. You can't traumatize us anymore than we already are, well except for Orange but he'll still be there for you. We're all here for you.”

Vic melts further into Chosen and, slowly but surely, begins telling his story. Every detail that has been burned into his memory. Every loss, every death, all the torture he endured if he did survive, how he was crammed into a tiny box if Alan had to leave mid fight. Throughout it all Chosen keenly listened. No judgement, no interruptions, just listening ears and a shoulder to cry on.

When Vic was done talking he looked up at Chosen, his face showed no false remorse or horror, just genuine understanding and empathy.

“Feel a bit better?” Chosen asks.

“Yeah.” Vic answers, still wiping his tears. He felt lighter and freer with the weight of his past finally lifted.

The twins sat there admiring the beauty of the greenhouse's plants as the sun slowly rose, casting rays through the vines and leaves, burning away the hostile mobs and creating friendly animals in their place.

________________________________________________

Vic, Mitsi, and Smith eventually had to head back to the Outernet, but still promised to visit often and even convinced Chosen to step out of Minecraft occasionally. Vic even got all his brothers phones so they could easily communicate with each other. With the whole family reunited with all their friends it really doesn't seem like things could get any better than this.

Chapter Text

“So, what do you usually do around here?” Vic asked as he and Chosen strolled through the thick forest.

“Whatever we want.” Chosen beams. “That's the best part about Minecraft, there's something for everyone. Dark likes to spend time in the Nether and his mob farm killing whatever monsters spawn, he and Blue have been experimenting with potions as well. I like to create new cooking recipes and build random stuff away from the base in my free time. I've been playing around with single block pallets and they usually turn out pretty good.”

“Sounds fun.” Vic said. “I used to use these animation tools that I stole from the PC and craft with Mitsi before our company took off. We don't have much time for hobbies anymore but she still pulls me away for a break every now and then.”

“Oof, sounds exhausting, not being able to just do what you want when you want.” Chosen remarks.

“It's a lot of work, yes, but I wouldn't trade this life for anything. I love my job, and my peers. I am actually free to do whatever I want. Mitsi and I can pass the company onto someone so we can just relax in our little village if we wanted to, but we like keeping busy and helping people. Plus, I still have plenty of ideas for Rocket, as well as Mitsi and Smith as well I'm sure.” Vic explains.

“Alright, as long as you're happy.”

“I am.”

The two continue their walk, enjoying the music playing from who knows where and the sounds of animals roaming around. Vic brushes his hand along the tree trunks as he walks, expecting for there to be some kind of texture, like perhaps each pixel color to be a different elevation, but it's completely flat. He feels some low-hanging leaves and it's the same thing, not even a gap between the individual leaves painted on the solid block. Even the ground they're walking on feels fake, like playground rubber but somehow faker. Sure it's soft on their feet like ground in the Outernet, just as the tree feels sturdy in both worlds, but there's no actual grass brushing against Vic's feet and ankles. This whole world feels 2-dimensional.

“I know you said you don't have time for activities but what do other sticks do in the Outernet?” Chosen asks.

“Um, well, there's a lot of things to do. There're shops, parks, theaters, arcades, restaurants, and I'm sure more that I can't think of off the top of my head.” Vic answers.

“Wow! That's a lot! I might have to go there some day and try all that.” Chosen marvels, pondering for a few seconds. Vic is about to say something but Chosen cuts him off. “Actually, why don't we go now?” He asks, lighting up his hand with a ball of white light that he presses into the ground.

Vic's eyes go wide as the light expands into a pulsing and warping vortex-like portal. “You can open portals?”

“Yeah. It'll take us to the Outernet.” Chosen answers.

“Huh, so that's how you got here then.” Vic mumbles.

“Yep. So, whatdya say? We try all there is to do in the Outernet. Get to know each other a bit more. Doesn't that sound fun?” Chosen asks, ready to dive into his portal at any moment.

Vic chuckles a little at his younger twin’s excitement. “Sure, why not. But we really won't be able to do everything in one day.”

Chosen barely hears the last part of Vic's answer as he jumps into the portal. Vic cautiously approaches and falls into the portal close behind.

As Chosen pops out the other end of the portal he's immediately blinded by the light difference. Even without a sun in sight this place is much brighter than Minecraft. It takes his eyes a moment to adjust but once they did he was met with a bright green landscape. The grass tickles and licks at Chosen's feet as it ripples in the gentle breeze with dots of white and yellow wildflowers speckled throughout the meadow. Small yellow creatures danced and fluttered around each other as the wind helps carry them from flower to flower. Chosen can see the dark green tops of trees in the distance and a line of wooden poles. Vic soon pops out of the portal and joins Chosen in admiring the landscape.

“Lovely isn't it?” Vic asks. Chosen just nods in response, trying not to break the spell this place has put on him. “Whenever you're ready we can head over to the city. It should be…that way- no over there? Um…”

“You can't remember where the city is?” Chosen half teases.

“No I do, I just don't recognize this place so I'm not quite sure where we are in relation to the city.” Vic explains.

With that, Chosen grabs Vic and takes off upwards on a plume of flame. Normally when he flies he has to be careful not to go too high or else the landscape will disappear from his vision, but no matter how high he flew, the scene just expanded and refused to leave Chosen's sight. The meadow they were in now looks tiny. The light green blanket is only a fraction of this world, dots of three village-like structures are speckled throughout on other patches of serene meadows, far away from each other and any other proof of civilization. Each village has their own landmark; one is alongside a river, another is almost completely surrounded by golden fields, and the third that Chosen can see is on hilly land near a mountain range. A border of dark green trees separate the mostly empty fields from the rest of civilization, save for some kind of road snaking around. The buildings start out small, just a few simple neighborhoods on the outskirts, then a proper town, then finally towering chrome buildings that just keep growing the deeper you go into the structure.

“Wow.” Chosen gasps as he takes in the sight. “Is that the city?” He asks Vic, who's digging his nails into Chosen's arm. “Vic?”

“Put. Me. Down.” Vic says fearfully.

“Why? If that's the city over there then I can just fly us over and-”

“P-please. I don't like being up high like this.” Vic implores.

“Alright.” Chosen says as he heads back down. “I didn't know you were afraid of heights.” He says after landing.

“I'm not afraid of being up high, I'm afraid of falling from great heights.” Vic explains. “There's a difference.”

“As if I was going to drop you.” Chosen remarks. “Whatever, there's a bunch of tall, shiny buildings over there. Is that the city?”

“Yes, that's the city.” Vic confirms as Chosen runs past him, encouraging his twin to keep up.

______________________________________________

As the two walked through the forests, Chosen couldn't help but stop and admire the flora. It's almost overwhelming how lush and detailed it is. The bark on the trees is so rugged and raised and the leaves are so soft and small. Chosen's brain can barely handle all the details. The forest also housed animals; some rabbit-like creatures with long swirly tails that scurried up the trees as the sticks walked by, a very thin horse-like creature that locked its gorgeous eyes with Chosen for a moment before prancing away, and small flying things that seem to be the source of the forest’s music.

Chosen looks over at Vic, who's rapidly flicking his fingers on a glowing thin metal slab. “What's that?” He asks, breaking Vic out of his trance.

“Hm? Oh just letting Smith know where we are. I don't want him and Mitsi worrying about us.” Vic explains.

“Ok, but what is that?” Chosen insists.

“Oh. My phone.” Vic answers, showing off the silver slab with a blue rudimentary rocket on the lower back and a black lens in the upper corner. “People use these to communicate with each other privately or over long distances. You can also take notes or set alarms or just watch videos on YouTube.”

“Oh wow, that's useful!” Chosen says, inspecting the phone in Vic's hand. He experimentally taps its now black face, causing it to light up with a picture of Vic, Mitsi, and Smith partially covered by a bunch of numbers with the word ‘May’ in-between.

“You guys don't have phones do you?” Vic asks, putting his phone back in his pocket.

“Now that I think about it, I do remember Orange and some of his friends having those things, I just never asked about them. I don't know about Purple and Orchid but Dark and I definitely don't have phones.” Chosen explains.

“Well, maybe I could get one for each of you. That way we can talk whenever we want.” Vic suggests.

“Yeah!” Chosen beams, his eyes shining so bright they might shoot out a laser.

_____________________________________________

As the forest starts to thin out and the town ahead grows closer so do the sounds of more stickfigures milling about. The town looks very similar to the bases in Minecraft, though a lot more detailed and compact. Buildings of varying height and color pairing well with the people of similar description. Tables and chairs are set up outside some buildings while others have window displays showing a myriad of trinkets. Chosen is practically frolicking from building to building, way overstimulated by the sights.

“Alright, Cho, calm down. Don't burn all your energy before even seeing the actual city.” Vic says.

“This place is so cool! I don't even know where to begin! What should we do first?” Chosen blurts out.

“Well I was thinking we could get an early dinner somewhere and I'll look up what's going on around town while we're waiting for our food. Though I don't see any festival posters around, usually I'd have seen one by now if there were an event.” Vic says.

Chosen flaps his arms around, unable to contain his excitement over the thought of trying new food and seeing what else this place has to offer. One building does catch his eye as they walk, a soft pink segment in a row of darker and draber colors. It has a pastel pink and white striped awning with bubbly letters of the same colors spelling ‘Ice Cream’ arching over a drawing of an ice cream cone painted on the window.

“You want some ice cream?” Vic asks.

“I don't really know what that is but it looks good.” Chosen says.

Vic chuckles. “It's a dessert. Come on, I think you'll love it.” He says heading over to the building, gesturing for Chosen to follow.

“I thought you said we were going to have dinner first?” Chosen asks.

“Eh, no law against having dessert before dinner.” Vic muses.

A wave of fresh cold air washes over the twins as they enter the building. The inside is just as soft and welcoming as the outside. Pink and white padded booths line both walls with white tables in the middle of the checkered floor. Paintings of ice cream cones in various sizes decorate the walls and a display case takes up about half of the entire left side. In the display case are a bunch of different colors, some with chunks of similar colors in it, some without, some with two colors swirled together, all with a pleasant tint of white and partially hollowed out.

“Hi there, what can I get y'all?” A friendly lavender stick wearing a striped hat asks from behind the display.

“I think he's still deciding.” Vic says gesturing to Chosen, who's face is practically plastered to the display glass, eyes darting between the flavors with childlike wonder.

“We have sample scoops of ya wanna try somthin before buyin.” The lavender stick suggests.

“I don't even know where to begin, this all looks so good.” Chosen marvels.

“What do you recommend?” Vic asks.

“Well I'm quite the chocoholic so I always get double chocolate but our swirled flavors have been very popular lately.” Lavender says.

“I'll try the chocolate one.” Chosen says.

Lavender grabs the tiniest spoon imaginable and scrapes the side of the chocolate ice cream, making sure to get one of the chunks before handing it to Chosen. He tries the sample and immediately falls in love, chomping down on the rest of the spoon.

“Uh, I think he likes it.” Vic says, earning an enthusiastic nod from Chosen.

“Ain't the weirdest thing I've seen.” Lavender mumbles to herself. “Will that be all?”

“No, I'll have a vanilla cone, please.” Vic adds.

“Alright,” Lavender hums as she scoops the ice cream into paper-wrapped cones and placing them into thick wire stands on a counter. “There you are, have a lovely day.”

“Thank you.” Vic says as he places a green piece of paper in place of the ice cream.

The two sit down at a booth and continue eating, with Chosen taking large bites out of his ice cream.

“Mmmm, I need to figure out how to make this in Minecraft. It's so good!” Chosen says.

“It's mostly just frozen milk and sugar, plus the flavor. I'm sure you can figure it out.” Vic says. After a moment of thinking in silence he finally asks, “How long have you been in that game?”

Chosen stops mid bite to think. “Um, I don't know actually. It's definitely been a few years. What's today?”

“It's 2016, May 16th.” Vic answers.

“So it's been like four and a half years.” Chosen concludes

“And you've never left? Even though you could have at any time.”

“Yeah, none of us are trapped there. Dark and I do leave to visit Orange and his friends in the PC sometimes. But other than that, what reason do we have to leave? Up until today all I could ever want is in Minecraft. Family, friends, food, activities, security. Of course this place is amazing too, though a little overwhelming.” Chosen says, biting into the waffle cone and taking some paper with it.

“We can always leave and come back another day if you want.” Vic suggests.

“Nah, I'm having fun. And I still want to do more here.” Chosen insists before finishing off his treat, leaving nothing behind.

“Well since you're done do you wanna get going?” Vic asks. Chosen nods and the two get up to continue their adventure.

The sky is starting to turn darker and the people are thinning out, leaving Chosen more room to bounce between buildings, looking through their windows to see what they have. Eventually he starts to get tired and sticks with Vic more. The two walk side by side for a while, making conversation about whatever pops into their heads. They were so engrossed in their conversation that they hardly realized the music playing not far from them, upbeat and jazzy music played on instruments that Chosen didn't even know existed. Once he noticed it, he led him and Vic to the source, finding a small crowd around three sticks, each with their own unique instrument. The twins joined the crowd and listened to them play until they stopped. By then it had officially turned night and the street lights had turned on. The two started walking again, their stomachs rumbling and looking for a place to eat.

_____________________________________________

By the time they got to the city the sky had turned pitch black, but that only made the place look more magical. Hundreds of colorful glowing signs reflecting off the tall glass buildings and the bright lights from the stores lining the sidewalks removed the need for typical street lamps. Chosen couldn't help himself, he had to see this place from all angles. Vic could see the flickers in his twin's hands and tried to keep him on the ground but ended up getting pulled into the sky with him. Chosen took off to better admire the scenery, flying low enough to still see all the details but still out of sight from what few sticks are out. Vic had never realized how incredible the city looks from this perspective. The lights below almost blended and twinkled like a colorful nebula, and at this height they're above the light pollution and can actually see and admire the stars above.

Chosen suddenly dips down and almost trips on his own feet as he lands, causing Vic to have to catch him.

“You alright?”

“Yeah,.. just tired. Guess I'm not used to staying up this long.” Chosen says, breathing hard. “Probably shouldn't have done that but I just had to see this from above.” He adds as Vic leads him to a nearby bench. Vic looks around for something but Chosen doesn't find out what because sleep soon overtakes him once he sits down.

_____________________________________________

Chosen was back in his Minecraft house when he woke up. He felt pretty groggy, probably from oversleeping, but nothing a little activity won't fix. He gets out of bed and finds Orange sitting at the dining table finishing up some food.

“Oh, you're up.” Orange greets. “Did you have fun yesterday?”

All the fun memories from the Outernet suddenly rush back into Chosen's tired mind. All the food he ate, the music he heard, the sights he saw, all compiling into a wonderful reel that caused the smile on his face to grow with each passing second.

“Yeah. I had a great time. It was definitely more than I could handle but I still had fun.” Chosen says.

“I bet. You looked like you were dead when Vic brought you back.” Orange remarks.

“Yeah, I probably should have said something sooner but I just wanted to see everything the Outernet has to offer. The food was amazing, the music was incredible, and the sights were breathtaking.” Chosen says.

“Well the others are anxiously waiting for you to tell them all about the Outernet so why don't you save the stories for them.” Orange says as he heads out the door. “By the way, Dark's in a bit of a mood today, for some reason.”

“Good to know.” Chosen says, rolling his eyes at his brother's antics as he walks out of his house, replaying everything he remembers from yesterday and getting ready to tell the color gang every little detail about his adventure.

Chapter Text

Chosen sat on the color gang's couch, anxiously watching the screen of the phone Vic had gotten him and Dark recently, hoping that the messages he sent his older twin had actually reached him.

Hey vic apparently our birthday is coming up

Of course. How could I forget?

Everyone is planning a party in the pc i was hoping you could come
Alan is trying to make it up to us and i think hed like to apologize to you in person this time

Were all here in the pc are you coming
Vic

Chosen continued to stare at the screen. ~Was it broken? Are my messages not reaching him?~ He was still new to this technology. Dark's redstone contraptions seemed like child's play compared to this tiny metal slab. All these advanced functions all crammed into this little thing without so much as a wire connecting it to anything. Well, it did come with a wire, supposedly to keep it powered, but everyone just uses a redstone block to keep their phones going. It's worked for Purple and Orchid, and now the color gang, for the past three years.

“Cho?” Orange called, breaking through Chosen's thoughts. “Everything's ready if you are.”

Chosen looked up from the screen and past Orange, tables and decorations set up around all the sticks with Alan's cursor ominously looming above everything. He looked back at his phone, hoping for some kind of last second message.

“He's not coming, is he?” Orange asks sympathetically. Chosen just shakes his head in response. “Maybe he's just busy?”

“On his birthday? Surely Mitsi and Smith wouldn't even let him work at all.” Chosen reasons.

“Maybe he just wants to celebrate with his friends? You two have only known each other for not even a year. Or maybe he just already had something planned for him?” Orange suggests.

“Then why can't he just say that? Unless he's ignoring me or this thing is broken and he's not getting my messages?” Chosen asks.

Orange leans over to briefly inspect the phone. “Looks ok to me.” He confirms. “Look, there's no point in dwelling on this and ruining your own party. We can go talk to Vic later, but for now, just enjoy your day.”

“*sigh* Alright.” Chosen concedes, putting his phone on the couch and walking over to the group with his little brother.

_____________________________________________

Meanwhile at Rocket, Vic stares down at his own phone, contemplating a correct response to his twin's request. The casual party music and the combined voices of his mingling workers did well to drown out Vic's thoughts, and the clashing of the non-partygoers in the other room as they spar with each other.

“Vicy, what’r ya doin on yur phone?” Mitsi says, walking up to Vic and flopping down next to him.

“Mitsi, how much of that punch have you had already?” Vic asks.

“Don't chnge the subjct.” Mitsi demands, poking her husband before making a lazy attempt at snatching his phone, which Vic easily avoids.

“I'm just trying to think of something to say to Chosen. He invited me over to the PC for our birthday, adding that our animator wants to properly apologize to me. I just- I don't wanna reopen that wound that's taken so long to heal. I do want to spend our birthday together, just not with him. I've spent the last 10 years trying to erase that part of my life. I've been trying to think of something to say that doesn't make me come off as an asshole or selfish or whatever but I just can't find the right words.” Vic explains.

Mitsi successfully grabs Vic's phone and starts typing. She hits send and hands the phone back to Vic with a satisfied expression. “Done. Shuda said somthin n hour ago.” Mitsi says as she gets up. Vic reads the message she sent, even misspelled and conjoined the message was much better than anything he was coming up with. Even when drunk, his wife had such a way with words. Mitsi pulls Vic off his seat and pulls him towards the crowd. “Com on, Hubby, dn't worry bout Cho, jst have sme fun.”

Vic concedes and puts his phone away, letting Mitsi drag him onto the colorful dance floor.

_____________________________________________

Back at the PC, Chosen had forgotten all about Vic and enjoyed his humble party. Alan apparently did most of the decorations, genuinely taking the time to make sure it's actually what Chosen would want. Most of the PC was decorated to look like Minecraft, the floor was replaced with grass, lights and streamers hung from blocky trees and oak slab tables held all the food and desserts Blue made. Red spawned a bunch of animals and even some villagers to make the place feel more alive and Yellow set up some fireworks.

Chosen was heading to the house that Orange has made for him when he remembered his phone on the couch and made a quick detour to grab it. Vic had finally replied to his messages at some point during the party.

Im sorry, i realy dont wamt to be in that pc, but id stillove to spend some timebwith you today. Maybe you could swjng by rocket later?

Chosen could feel the smile growing on his face and his tiredness draining from him. He ran over to Dark's PC house only to find that he's already asleep. Not wanting to disturb his slumber Chosen heads off to the Outernet by himself.

For some reason, in the PC Chosen can't make a portal anywhere, only on the internet icon. He opens his portal and hops into the tunnel it leads to. The other side of the portal leads to a view he hadn't seen since he and Dark first escaped all those years ago. Deep blue waters stretch across the landscape behind and a curved cliffside ahead, with a lone shack at the edge of the cliff, green forests covering the familiar scenery and the shining city off in the distance.

After admiring the sight, Chosen decided it's time to go find Rocket. Even though he's never actually seen it, he has seen the logo. And if it's anything like the people who work there it'll be grey and dull-looking. ~Seriously, there isn't a single pop of color in Vic's circle, other than that sketch guy, and even then he's very dull for a cave painting.~

Chosen continued flying until he found a large grey building on the edge of some industrial region. Examining the building, he found that same rudimentary rocket logo that was on Vic's phone. Chosen walks up to the main entrance and a second later the doors open for him with a buzz. He walks in and finds that the inside isn't as unwelcoming as the outside. There are fake plants along each wall and warm yellow lights mixing with the natural light coming from the windows, making for a lovely contrast to the grey concrete walls and pillars. What few sticks were around were bright and colorful and casually greeted him. There aren't as many sticks as Chosen thought there'd be, maybe they're all wherever that party music is coming from? Not long after Chosen arrives he finds Vic.

“Chosen?” Vic asks surprised. “What are you doing here? I mean, who let you in?”

“The door just opened for me.” Chosen says nonchalantly. “And you said in your message earlier that you'd love for me to come here later.”

“Oh right. I guess I wasn't expecting you to just walk right in.” Vic says. “Definitely going to talk to Gine about that.” He mumbles to himself. “Anyway, the party is this way if you wanna join in on the fun.” Chosen silently cheers and follows Vic down the hall towards the music.

As they walk they pass by another room with a glowing glass box bigger than Chosen's house in the center of the even larger room. Inside are two stickfigures clashing, a dark blue one throwing all kinds of electric attacks at a small pixely stick, who's slashing and punching the electric stick at breakneck speed. Chosen recognized one of the sticks, the pixely one Ballista, from Vic's top security team, as well as Hazard, who's both somehow the thickest and thinnest stickfigure in existence, maning the control panel. All over the room are more stickfigures of every shape and size imaginable, some even have extra limbs like wings and tails. Some are paired in groups of two or three, some lightly sparing and some just playing with their powers out of boredom.

Chosen found himself breaking off from Vic's lead and walking into the room. Vic soon notices and follows him. “I thought the sticks here didn't have powers.” Chosen says.

“The vast majority don't, and those who do tend to hide them. It's often hard for supers to find a good job that lets them use their powers, and a place this big needs a lot of security, so we gave these guys a chance. This is their training ground. That box they're fighting in is essentially a computer simulation that can withstand a blast from the strongest known level of power, allowing them to explore their powers without causing any damage. The control panel can configure a stickfigure's stats as well as add objects into the room and even clone whatever is in there.” Vic explains.

“Wow.” Chosen marvels. The door hisses open and the two sticks exit the box, allowing for more fighters to enter. Chosen walks towards the door but an icy blue stick pushes him out of the way with a scoff.

“This place isn't for weak sticks, pall. Beat it!” The icy stick says after examining Chosen and comparing him to Vic.

“I would appreciate it if you wouldn't talk to my brother like that, Cryo.” Vic says with a bite.

“I'm just making sure he doesn't hurt himself, sir.” Cryo says innocently. “With all due respect, you wouldn't last too long against any of us, so what makes your brother here think he's any different?”

“Well, I have powers like you guys.” Chosen says, showing off a flame in his hand. “I'm way too strong to fight my friends and it's been years since I went all out fighting. I just thought it'd be fun.”

Cryo is shocked to find that someone related to his powerless boss could have powers and claim to be too strong. “You know what, fuck it. You want a fight, pall, I'll give you one hell of a fight!” He says with another scoff before heading into the box.

Vic contemplates warning Cryo about what he just got himself into but he keeps quiet and watches as his powerful twin kicks his icy ass.

Their fight wasn't much at first. Chosen still feels like he needs to nerf himself after almost ending the fight instantly with one full-powered punch. Apparently, despite claiming to be powerful, Cryo's body is just as weak as the average stick. He still got up and demanded to keep fighting despite the already growing bruise and what was definitely a broken rib. Cryo initiated first, throwing ice spikes and freezing spells at Chosen, who countered with his usual fireballs. Chosen began to loosen up as his opponent showed more strength, speeding up his attacks and trying new strategies, like freezing the floor, forcing Chosen to have to stay in the air to keep steady. Cryo eventually managed to hit Chosen with a freezing spell, pinning him in place against the wall. Chosen responded by firing lasers to keep Cryo away while he built up his fire and broke free from the ice. Once he did, Chosen threw the fire that engulfed him at his opponent, who is showing fear for the first time. Cryo quickly regains himself and continues the fight, intentionally missing his shots at Chosen to rig the walls in ice spikes, making the arena more dangerous in his favor. Once Chosen gets too close to Cryo, he creates a sword of ice to push his opponent away, only for Chosen to do the same thing. Cryo’s smug mask has fully broken, he is genuinely starting to fear for his life now. There's no known power level that gives animations more than two distinct powers. He contemplates forfeiting to save his own life but his ego gets in the way of that and continues fighting. Cryo tries to take cheap shots at Chosen to help balance the scales but he's too fast. His punches are hitting harder and his fire is melting away all the ice. Chosen has fully loosened up and is fighting with everything he's got. He creates a large ball of light in his hand, one last finisher move, and punches it into the floor, creating a much larger shockwave than he'd bargained for. It knocks out Cryo with ease but also rattles the whole building and takes out the box’s power. The glowing white walls become clear as glass, and in that moment Chosen can see the horrified faces of every stick in the room, including his own twin, before the power comes back and obscures the fighters’ vision. Chosen looks over at Cryo, who's backed against the wall cowering defensively with ice growing out of his skin as makeshift armor. The door opens and he scrambles out.

____________________________________________

“I didn't mean to scare them.” Chosen says as he and Vic continue their original plans, making their way to the party.

“Honestly, Cryo is a dickhead. It's about time someone showed him what's what.” Vic reassures.

“And the others? They all looked scared of me, even you.”

“Most supers only have one power. Sometimes they have variants or multiple outputs but…it's nothing like what you can do. That shockwave thing you did, I've never seen anything like that. I'm sure they were just shocked is all.” Vic says.

“I shouldn't have done that. I know better than to use that power outside of emergencies, I just…” Chosen tries to explain.

“It's like a dog with zoomies. Their environment doesn't allow them to expel enough energy and be themselves, and eventually all that energy just explodes out suddenly and volatility.” Vic explains.

“I guess… I was really hoping those guys would be able to handle me, but I guess I'm just…” Chosen trails off, struggling to find the right words.

“A whale in a koi pond?” Vic suggests.

Chosen chuckles. “Yeah, I guess so.”

The twins finally reach the party room and are immediately greeted by Mitsi, who's face is almost as pink as her eyes.

“Cho-cho!” Mitsi says as she hugs Chosen. “You made it!”

“Hey, Mitsi. Are you okay?” Chosen asks.

“She's fine, just drunk.” Vic explains.

“I'm not drunk >:(“ Mitsi protests.

“Yes you are.” Smith says, handing her a bottle of water.

“I'm not thirsty eithe- HEY! Mitsi tries to protest but Smith scoops her up like a bride and walks off with her.

“Come on, let's go to the couch.” Smith insists as Mitsi daintily slaps his face before giving him a little kiss.

Chosen watches the two as Vic walks over to the snacks. “You're just going to let him walk off with your wife like that?”

“As if I haven't also given Smith drunk kisses.” Vic says with a chuckle. “They're fine, I trust him to take care of her.” He says, handing Chosen a slice of cake with a red candle on it, matching the blue candle on Vic's cake. Vic grabs a lighter and lights the two candles before leading his twin over to a free table. “Happy birthday.” He says before blowing out his candle.

“Happy birthday.” Chosen says with a smile. He tries to blow out his candle but instead blows a thin stream of fire at it, relighting Vic's candle. The two share a laugh before digging into their dessert.

Chapter Text

“Hey, guys.” Chosen greets as the color gang pour out of the Nether portal one by one.

“Hey, Cho, do you have any idea what this is?” Orange asks, gesturing to a golden block with a question mark etched into it in Yellow's hands.

“Hmmm. I'm not sure. Haven't seen something like that.” Chosen says as he inspects the block.

“Looks like a mystery box.” Dark says. “Not sure how it got here though. Try smacking your head into it, Cho.” He says, taking the box from Yellow and raising it above their heads.

Chosen shrugs and blasts off straight into the block. With a dizzying effect it shatters into various valuable ores that the young sticks scramble to pick up first.

“That was cool!” Green says.

“Is that it?” Red asks.

“Maybe we can craft more?” Orange suggests.

After a bit of troubleshooting, Orange comes back with a dozen more lucky blocks and hands them out to his cheering friends, who break theirs one at a time.

Red's spawns a bunch of tamed wolves that he immediately goes to hug, Blue's spawns a wishing well, Chosen's spawns an armored zombie that they now have to deal with.

Instead of helping with the fight, Yellow inspects his block and decides he needs to get to the bottom of this thing. His toolbox is back in the PC so he steps back into the Nether and heads home.

The sticks keep playing with the lucky blocks, having too much fun to realize Yellow's absence. Green's block spawns some TNT that Chosen quickly throws water on, Orange’s spawns a full set of enchanted diamond armor, and Dark's spawns a Wither that he is all too happy about killing. Orange hands out the extra blocks so they can keep having fun. Chosen got caught in a lava trap, Red gets a bunch of tamed cats, potions rained for almost a full minute before it was replaced with creepers. During all this they never realized that Yellow had snuck off until he returned.

“Hey, guys, look what I found!” Yellow proudly announces, riding a flying gold horse, raining gold ingots on everyone before landing.

“Woah, Yellow? What is that?” Blue asks, marveling at the golden orb of light in Yellow's hand.

“I cracked open a lucky block and found this inside! It can do anything! Watch!” Yellow explains before walking over to Red and, with a wave of the orb, spawns a pair of pixely wings on his back. Red's excitement overflows as he grabs the nearest wolf and takes off with it, whooping and hollering as he flies.

“WOAH!” The color gang exclaim in unison. Yellow walks back to the others and gives them each a custom item. Blue gets a netherwart wand that he immediately abuses for his addiction, Green gets a pair of grapple gauntlets, and Orange gets a crafting helmet. Yellow has to think for a second about what to give the other hollow heads, not much he can give them that they can't already replicate with their powers, but soon settles on a lightning wand for Dark. Before Yellow can even think of making something for Chosen, Dark has already initiated a lightning battle with his brother.

Yellow looks around at the sticks, all having the time of their lives with their custom items, but something's missing. ~Oh, right, Purple isn't here. He and his mom went out. I should probably leave something for them.~ Before Yellow can act on that thought, the orb pulses and snaps to his forehead.

________________________________________________

It took a bit for the others to realize something's wrong with Yellow. He's just standing in the middle of the path, back bent and arms slack. They all head over to Yellow to see if he's ok only for him to start attacking everyone. He quickly goes from spawning zombies to creepers to several Withers that overwhelmed even Dark. Blue slips away from the chaos to try to slap some sense into his twin.

“Yellow! What the hell!? What's gotten into you!?” Blue yells. ‘Yellow’ just blankly stares at him before grabbing his neck and lifting him into the air. “Y-yell-ow-?” Blue chokes. The orb on Yellow's head pulses and shoots a beam of light at Blue, a moment later he goes slack and ‘Yellow’ drops his body. ‘Blue’ quickly gets back up and spawns various weapons for himself. The rest of the group finish off the mobs just in time to helplessly watch this go down.

_______________________________________________

One by one the lucky orb claims a new stick. The hollow heads tried to get a hold of ‘Yellow’, who's now given himself pixely wings of his own, while Green and Red tried to take down ‘Blue’. Red wasn't paying much attention to the fight above them, he was more focused on helping Green fight ‘Blue’, but he got knocked out and the next thing he hears is Green yelling at their assailant. By the time Red got up he was already too late. He tried to fly off but ‘Green’ just flew after him. He tried to get Orange to help him but ‘Yellow' had gotten to him first, and now his brothers are out for revenge. Red screams for either Chosen or Dark to help him as ‘Green’ catches up to and grabs him but his cries go unanswered, at least directly. After a lot of wrestling in the air, a stray laser clips ‘Green’s’ wing and he falls back to the ground, giving Red just enough time to escape.

_______________________________________________

Red just narrowly avoids getting caught by ‘Blue' as he lands, hitting the ground running as fast as he can. As tiring as it is compared to flying, it is faster and the trees provide good cover, letting him hide while Chosen and Dark deal with his possessed friends, hoping that this nightmare will be resolved soon. Red eventually trips and he stays on the ground for a while, crying as the weight of the situation properly sets in. He cocoons himself in his wings as his fear and anxiety take over.

After a while, Red hears footsteps coming his way. He tries to run but is grabbed by the other red stickfigure. Red pulls out his sword and starts swinging rapidly only for Dark to casually grab it mid swing.

“Hey! Don't attack me, kid, I'm trying to help you!” Dark shouts through Red's panic.

“How do I know it's really you!? How do I know you're not one of them!?” Red asks, his wings instinctively puffed up in defense and still pointing his sword at Dark.

“Does it look like I have a giant ball of light on my face?! Kid, knock it off, I'm too powerful to be taken control of like your friends.” Dark snaps.

Red steadies his breathing and his wings fall flat on his back. He finally throws his sword to the ground and grabs Dark for a relieved hug.

“Kid, that was not an invitation to touch me.”

“Where are the others? Y-you and Chosen got that orb thing off them right?” Red asks hopefully.

Dark does a poor job of hiding his grim expression behind his normally menacing face. “Not yet… Chosen and I split up a bit ago. Wanted me to go look for you. He said he could handle your friends, but-” Dark cuts himself off seeing that Red looks like he's about to cry again. “I'm sure he's fine. Trust me, he can handle possession like it's nothing. They're all going to be hurting afterwards but they'll be fine. He's fine…”

Red can see through Dark's tough exterior. He knows he's just as scared as Red is, Dark just refuses to admit it.

“Kid… Red, don't start crying.” Dark doesn't know if he should continue to give him hope or to just tell him the hard truth. That Chosen is the only one with that purification power that can fix everyone and he could very well have been taken over by now. Dark peers through the trees and sees ‘Blue' and ‘Orange’ walking around, hunting for the remaining sticks, while ‘Green' flies around doing the same with ‘Yellow' overlooking the three. ~No sign of Chosen, that's good. He could still be fine.~

“DARK!!!” A familiar voice cuts through the heavy silence.

“Is that Chosen?” Red asks, noticing the genuine relief on Dark's face.

“Stay right here. I'm going to get Chosen and we'll fix everything. I promise, everything will be fine.” Dark reassures before taking off.

Through the tree tops, Red can see that ‘Green' immediately spotted Dark. He begins to pursue him but stops. He looks over at ‘Yellow' then turns around to continue looking for Red.

_____________________________________________

“Chosen!” Dark calls out. “Chosen, where are you?!” He continues. A moment later his calls are answered by Chosen tackle-hugging Dark from behind.

“Dark! I was starting to think you weren't coming. What took you so long?” Chosen asks, tears dripping from his cheeks onto Dark's shoulder.

“It's okay, bro, I'm here.” Dark assures, wiping a tear off his brother's cheek. The tear faintly stings his hand, which is now tinted black. Dark looks over at Chosen's face and his blood runs cold. His brother's transparent face is stained with smudged black tears and normally bright, ruby eyes now shine a blindingly bright yellow with an orb of light the same color perched on his forehead.

“Is something wrong, brother?” ‘Chosen’ asks, dropping his old act.

Dark grabs ‘Chosen’ and throws him over his head and onto the ground hard enough to break the grass blocks. He forces his shaky hands to ignite in anticipation of battle.

‘Chosen' pulls himself off the ground, moving in an unnatural way while doing so. “Well that's no way to treat your best friend. Or is this just how psychos like you show your love?” He says.

Dark lunges at ‘Chosen' with every bit of his built up fury. “SHUT UP!!! YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING!!! YOU'RE NOT CHOSEN!!!”

“How do you know that? How do you know he's not still here? And what makes you think I don't have access to his mind?”

Dark's rapidly growing anger finally boils over. He starts punching ‘Chosen' as hard as he can, taking some pleasure in watching blood flow from his mouth and nose. ‘Chosen' just laughs at Dark, fueling his anger even more. Eventually, he catches Dark's punch and stares right into his eyes as the orb on ‘Chosen's’ head pulses. Dark sees what's about to happen just in time to jump to the side, throwing ‘Chosen' through the forest in the same motion.

Dark has about one second to breathe before ‘Chosen' bursts up through the trees on fiery wings. His eyes flair red and he cuts through the forest with twin lasers, just barely missing Dark. ‘Chosen' lands in the middle of his destruction and encourages Dark to fight him.

Fire, lasers and lightning fly through the air as the two fight. Dark is giving his all, pouring any and all hatred he's ever internalized and all his knowledge on Chosen's weaknesses into taking this thing down. Making sure to not maintain eye contact with him for too long so that he doesn't get the opportunity to possess Dark. On the other hand, ‘Chosen' almost seems to be having fun, in a rather sadistic way. He's barely using Chosen's powers, or the lucky block powers for that matter. And he's occasionally laughing, enjoying watching smoke pour out of Dark's ears as the fight goes on.

Dark finally has enough of this and manages to charge an explosive fireball just large enough to deal some real damage to his foe. ‘Chosen' is sent flying backwards, leaving a trail of broken dirt and a small crater where he landed.

Dark stands in the middle of the battlefield for a moment, enjoying the brief calm during the storm, heavily breathing in the smoke-infected air.

“Dark…” Chosen's shaky voice chokes out. “D-dark, help…me…” He continues, crying from the pain.

~Don't listen to it. It's a trap. It's just another one of its tricks. Kill him. Don't help it. Don't go near it. Kill him! That's not Chosen. Kill him! Don't go near it. Kill him!!! The Dark Lord, do not help that thing! KILL HIM!!!~

Dark ignores his raging thoughts. Just in case it really is Chosen calling for help. Just in case he is still in there, reaching out in a moment of weakness. He can't let these thoughts take over. He can't kill Chosen. Dark walks over to his brother, whose face hidden in his arms as he cries. He gets down to his level just for ‘Chosen' to pounce, tossing away his act like a live grenade and pinning Dark to the ground, making him stare face to face with that damned orb.

“You are very hard to read. I can't tell if you love your brother or hate him just as much as he hates you. Because you fight like you hate him but you care enough to help him when called. So which is it?” ‘Chosen' says.

“I don't ha- W-what?”

“Oh, you didn't know? Your brother hates you. Why else do you think he keeps sending you away to the Nether, away from your own home? Why he's been keeping you prisoner here when he can open a portal to your world where you belong.” ‘Chosen' explains slyly.

“N-no- NO! He doesn't hate me! You don't know anything! Wh- He would have- He doesn't-” Dark stutters, trying to reassure himself.

A sinister smile creeps onto Chosen's face as the orb glows brighter and rapidly pulses. “Are you sure? Maybe you should talk to him yourself.”

Dark thrashes and claws as he fights off the beam of light burning into his head. He tries to push ‘Chosen' off of him but his strength is failing and his vision is going blurry as Dark feels himself disconnecting from his body. In one last desperate attempt to escape, he unleashes a blazing inferno from his mouth.

Dark can hear the agonizing screams of his brother as his senses suddenly come back online. He gets up and immediately takes advantage of ‘Chosen's' disorientation, launching a flurry of charged punches, kicks and fireballs. Once ‘Chosen' regains himself, he charges at Dark and sends their fight through the forest and across the base, passing by the 4v1 of Red taking on his possessed friends with the help of some randomly spawning lucky blocks.

When the two finally land, Dark manages to pin ‘Chosen' down, with his knee pressing into his chest, one hand pushing his head back, keeping that orb out of sight, and the other around ‘Chosen's' neck.

The more ‘Chosen' keeps struggling and clawing at Dark’s arm the more pressure he applies, digging his claws into his brother's face and eye and easily leaving nasty marks around his neck while putting all his body weight on his brother's chest. That horrible smile that ‘Chosen' wore this entire time has finally fallen along with the first genuine tears from all the pain.

Dark doesn't even realize how much time has passed like this until his knee suddenly drops with a harsh snap. He looks down and sees blood splattered up his leg and all over Chosen's chest with bone fragments sticking out from where his ribcage caved in. The lights on Chosen's face fade away as his eye rolls back and his breathing stops. Dark stands up and finally realizes the damage he's caused to his brother. How much he mangled his body.

~What have I done?! He'll respawn, right? Like Blue did? He'll be okay. Please be okay. Please forgive me, Cho. Please don't hate me.~

Dark hears noises behind him, the lucky gang spawning weapons and preparing to fight.

~I've had enough of this.~ Dark thinks as he creates a fireball and immediately throws it at ‘Yellow', knocking the orb right off his head. Instead of engaging in the fight, the others start panicking and chasing after the orb like a bunch of bees trying to protect their queen. They don't get very far before the orb pathfinds to the Nether portal and sends out a shockwave as it leaves, knocking out only the color gang. They soon all get up and cheer in relief before running over to Dark to hug and thank him for saving everyone.

“That's it? THAT'S FUCKING IT?! THAT'S ALL I HAD TO DO TO FIX YOU LITTLE SHITS?!” Dark snaps.

“It's alright, Dark, it's all over. You can calm down now.” Orange says.

“Calm down!? After what I just went through!? I was ready to slaughter all of you just to end this nightmare when all I had to do this whole time was slap this lemon-flavored fucker upside the head!”

“Dark, please, everything is fine now. We're okay.” Green calmly says.

“Even Chosen.” Blue adds. “I think he's respawned by now. And I'm sure he's gonna want you to be there with him. He seemed pretty shaken last I saw.”

With that, Dark pushes the young sticks away and runs to his house. Sure enough, there's Chosen, sitting on his bed clutching his chest and rubbing the eye Dark gouged. He tenses up once he notices Dark and the two stare for a moment before Chosen jumps out of bed and tackle-hugs his brother.

“Cho, I- I'm sorry. I didn't-”

“It's ok. You don't need to apologize. You did what you had to do.” Chosen assures.

“But I- I k-” Dark stammers, choking on the lump in his throat.

“Dark,” Chosen says as he slightly pulls away from the hug, letting him and Dark see eye to eye. Letting Dark see all the dark grey scars around Chosen's body. “I'm fine now. Everything is okay.” Chosen pulls Dark back in for another hug. “Everything will be okay.”