Work Text:
It had started off simple: Ro took a few items from the NPPP base, and Spoke took a few villagers from the Team Awesome base in retaliation. Nothing too serious from either of them, just a little prank fight between the two.
However, just like all things that Spoke and Ro do, it persists and it escalates. And it escalates fast .
“Ro, this is literally so stupid. What do you even gain from this?” Mapic asked, placing down another obsidian block as he did so. He really didn’t want to be here right now. But Ro had gotten annoying about this, and Mapic didn’t want to deal with another 100 messages begging him “please” every minute anymore.
“It isn’t!” Ro argued as he placed down another few obsidian structures around the NPPP base. “I’m getting back at Spoke for stealing our villagers. Plus, this is really funny.”
Admittedly, making inappropriate obsidian structures around the NPPP base was pretty hilarious. And Mapic knew he and Ro were going to be dying laughing later as they watched the flood of messages from Parrot and Spoke come in, demanding to know who exactly did this to their beloved base. That didn’t make this situation any less stupid, though.
“Dude, you’re literally the one who started this by stealing their stuff. Spoke was just getting back at you,” Mapic chastised. “You could’ve just, y’know, not done this?”
Ro considered this for a moment, pausing to bring one of his hands up to his chin in a thinking pose. “True, I guess. But you have to agree that this idea was way too funny to pass up. Besides, we’re way too deep into this now. Let’s just finish up and leave!”
Mapic contemplated arguing some more with Ro, but then he realized he’d just be wasting his own time. He sighed loud enough for Ro to definitely hear him before getting back to placing his obsidian blocks sulkingly.
Whether Ro was just too focused on placing his own obsidian to notice Mapic’s obvious displeasure or was just ignoring it, Mapic couldn’t tell. But they finished up their obsidian structures soon enough, and they flew off to their own base afterwards, anticipating the NPPP’s reaction in the next few hours.
Of course, the flood of messages from both Spoke and Parrot was, indeed, hilarious. Mapic and Ro gave each other a weak high-five as they lay on their base’s floor, dying of laughter.
“Is the coast clear?” Parrot asked cautiously as he and Spoke entered through Team Awesome’s Nether portal. He knew both Ro and Mapic were somewhere off at Spawn doing… whatever it is they do, but it never hurts to be cautious when it comes to them.
“Yep!” Spoke answered confidently, bounding out of the portal and running towards the base’s barrels. “Okay! Let’s make this quick, Parrot. They could be back at any second… And I don’t want to see what happens to us if they catch us.”
Parrot nodded in response, taking his axe out and beginning to break open some barrels. Usually, he wouldn’t agree to something like this, often just dismissing Spoke and telling him that he’d be fine on his own instead. But Team Awesome had gone too far this time. Something had to be done. So, he agreed to Spoke’s little plan to break all of Team Awesome’s barrels, just this once.
The two worked in silence, only looking up occasionally to look over their shoulders to see if either Mapic or Ro had arrived. Thankfully, neither of them ever showed up in the time that Parrot and Spoke worked, much to the two’s relief.
Once they were both done destroying all of the barrels, Parrot and Spoke stood up and took a look at the scene. Before them, there were hundreds upon hundreds of potions, spare armor sets, blocks, ingots, and more scattered across the base’s floor.
Parrot cringed slightly at the sight. He knew it was going to be hell for Mapic and Ro to clean up. But that was the point. It was hell (and humiliating!) for Spoke and him to clean up all of the obsidian… structures around their base. They should know what it feels like as well.
“Woop! We did it!” Spoke cheered, breaking Parrot out of his thoughts. “Okay. Let’s get out of here now, though. Before Mapic and Ro see us…” He quickly followed up, running back into the Nether portal as fast as he could. Parrot followed suit, not wanting to stay here any longer than he had already.
The two returned to their base soon enough and decided that they should probably stay put for the next few hours for their own safety.
It was a little terrifying that neither of them had seen any messages from Ro or Mapic in the chat after some hours had passed. They both agreed that a few hours should probably turn into a few days now.
Ro was on his own for this one. Mapic was still busy organizing their stuff back into barrels again, and he also didn’t feel like having his game crash from the sheer amount of ender pearls Ro was about to dupe. So, it was just Roshambo and his stack of ender pearls against the world right now.
He waited patiently for Spoke to arrive at their meeting spot—some random location thousands of blocks away from Spawn that he had flown to on a whim, letting his thoughts wander as he stood around.
Honestly, he was starting to think Mapic might’ve been right when he said that he should have just stopped the pranks after Spoke had taken their villagers. Spoke had gotten his revenge on Ro, and that should’ve been that.
But they were too deep in this prank war now. Ro couldn’t back out. Plus, Mapic had taken his words back after seeing all of their items on their base floor, telling Ro that he could “go ahead and do what he needs to do.” And do he would.
Suddenly, Ro notices a familiar, rainbow-bandanaed figure flying towards him and sighs with relief. Took him long enough!
He puts on the best smile that he can and waves at him, wanting to make sure he eliminates any feelings of distrust Spoke may have with him right now. He told Spoke that they’d be meeting today to finally make a truce, and he needs Spoke to believe that.
“Hey, dude! What’s up?” He asks as Spoke lands in front of him. He just has to be nice to Spoke for the next 10 seconds, then he’s allowed to go completely insane with his ender pearls. He can do this.
“Not much. What about you?” Spoke answers passively, clearly somewhat anxious.
“Honestly, not much either. I’ve just been, y’know, busy cleaning up ,” He responds passive-aggressively. He didn't mean to have the last part slip out; it just did by accident. He can see the way Spoke winces a little when he says it, though.
He clears his throat, attempting to play it off like he didn’t even notice what he said, “Anyways, we both know that we’re here right now to negotiate a truce on our prank war, and I just wanted to say…”
“There is no truce.”
That was his cue! He grabbed the ender pears out of his inventory and dropped them onto the floor. Soon enough, it seemed like there were hundreds upon thousands of them spawning every second.
Spoke didn’t even have enough time to run before he completely froze in place, letting out the beginning of a scream before completely vanishing into thin air. He had crashed, hard .
Immediately, Ro stopped the duping glitch and took out a flint and steel, slowly burning all of the pearls that he had duped to get rid of the lag. Once his vision had gone back to normal, he promptly took off towards his base. He did not want to experience Spoke’s wrath once the crash wore off.
The prank war rages on.
The next few days between the two were relatively peaceful, surprisingly: no pranks, no deaths, no crashes, nothing. They didn’t even say anything when they saw each other at Spawn, just ignoring the other as they walked past.
It was starting to get a little worrying, honestly. The two were never this calm about anything. Parrot even sent a quick message to Mapic asking how Ro was doing and if he seemed to be off recently, to which Mapic responded, “definitely really off.”
It seemed as though the offness was about to end today, however.
Both Mapic and Ro were hanging around Spawn, fooling around as usual. When suddenly, Spoke appeared before them, grinning and holding a book in his hand.
“Hey guys! Hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Spoke chimed in. Both Ro and Mapic stiffened a little upon noticing Spoke—especially Ro.
“Oh, hey, Spoke,” Mapic replied awkwardly after a moment. “Also, nah, you’re all good. What’s up?”
“Mmm, not much! Just saw you guys walking around Spawn and thought I’d drop in to say hi,” Spoke answered cheerily. He then steered his attention towards Ro. “How are you doing on this fine day, Ro-sham-bo?” Spoke questioned, emphasizing each syllable of Ro’s name.
With all of the attention on him now, Ro knew he had to respond. “Oh, uh, I’m doing good! I’ve been really busy doing… stuff… on the server.” By stuff, he really just meant watching his surroundings anxiously for any signs of a voidling lurking around.
“I’m sure you have been, Ro!” Spoke exclaimed. Suddenly, his face grew serious. “Look, Ro, we both know we’ve been avoiding it. So I think that it’s about time that we address the elephant in the room. Y’know, the prank war?”
Ro winced a little at the mention of it. “Oh, yeah, that . I guess we should address it,” Ro said after a few moments. “Look, Spoke, I’m really sorry. My last prank was definitely not cool and I totally get if you’re mad. I hope that we can stay friends moving forward, and that we can be cool with each other,” He apologized genuinely.
Spoke blinked in surprise, clearly not expecting Ro to be so sincere about this, before shifting his demeanor again. “Nah, Ro, we’re chill! I just think that we need to put a formal end to this. So, I brought a little contract with me for you to sign. A truce, you could say.” He held out the book he’d been holding, smiling as he did so.
“Oh, yeah! Of course I’ll sign it,” Ro agreed happily, taking his hand out for Spoke to give him the book.
However, as soon as he touched it, he heard Spoke shout out, “GET PRANKED!” before the world turned black.
Mapic stood there in stunned silence, attempting to fully process the situation before grabbing his communicator to let Parrot know that his teammate had just gotten bookbanned by Spoke.
One quick ParrotX2 arrival and a cleared inventory later, both Ro and Spoke stood face-to-face with one another with their teammates by their sides, apologizing to each other.
“I’m sorry, Ro. I shouldn’t have bookbanned you,” Spoke apologized remorsefully. “I won’t prank you anymore, I promise. This has gone way too far.”
“It’s okay,” Ro responded sincerely. “I’m also sorry for what I’ve done. I won’t prank you anymore either.”
“Deal?” Spoke asked, putting his hand out.
“Deal!” Ro grinned, taking Spoke’s hand and shaking it. The two laughed before running off together like nothing had ever even happened, probably looking for someone to be a victim of their next few pranks. If they couldn’t prank each other, then they’d prank someone together.
“Do you think I’ll have to clear someone’s inventory again by next week?” Parrot asked Mapic jokingly, the two of them still standing there together after Ro and Spoke had run off.
“Eh, I’ll give them three days,” Mapic shot back.