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Although Parrot had always been a stubborn mule when it came to what he believed in and what he fought for, he’d never been opposed to getting help– Parrot valued the bonds he created immensely, no matter how fleeting.
This fact remained true throughout Parrots friendship with Wifies, and it still does. His stubbornness combined with Wifies’ unconditional aid, albeit begrudging at times, made them a force to be reckoned with… despite neither of them being particularly skilled at PVP. Well, they were always more brains than brawn…
Through trials and tribulations, the two of them remained friends. No matter what, the two were working together: at some point, they’d become a unit. Parrot and Wifies. Everybody knew how, no matter where Parrot is, Wifies was with him, and wherever Wifies went, Parrot went with him.
Through chunk bans and indentured labor, through escape rooms and bank heists, they were inseparable.
Until now.
Wifies, Parrot’s best friend , is dead, and he knew it. He just never accepted it, never quite wanted to admit that he was gone forever.
At first, Parrot had felt immense relief that soothed the ache in his bones and filled the hole that had been left by Wifies’ absence… but seeing the man standing before him right now reminded him of that memory at their lodge in the snowy mountains, the snap of the fishing rod, and the death message that had appeared in chat, the grim reaper announcing his acquisition of yet another player— taking Wifies away from him forever, just like he’d done with Dean.
He remembered how the invisible player known as The Director pried Jumper away from BAT, shot Nufuli in front of him, Leo and Derap, and tried hunting him down so many times…
The voice spoke in seemingly monotone as Wifies— no, The Director— patronized Parrot. Talking about how he had felt so helpless watching Parrot in his pursuits, and how Parrot was somehow the reason why he’d done this— as if Parrot was the fruit of temptation that had caused The Director to sin.
“You can’t kill me,” Parrot steeled his voice against the man standing before him. A skinwalker, using Wifies’ face against him. Using their friendship, his memories, against him.
At last, that monotone voice that was simultaneously so familiar, yet so distant, revealed some emotion. With a tone that had what could be described as glee , The Director spoke. “I know. But I’ll kill all your friends,” “Wifies” said, with a smile. An actual, genuine smile, as if he didn’t just say something that dismantled Parrot entirely, causing ice to flow through his veins— and not as a result of the snow that fell around them. Proof, even more so, that the person standing in front of him cannot be Wifies— not when Parrot had always had to look and try so hard to get even the slightest hint of a smile to reveal itself on Wifies’ usually stoic face. “Now follow me, or you know what happens,” The Director said, finishing his sentence with a threat, leaving no room for any questions or arguments. He simply turned around and started walking— as if he knew that Parrot would follow him, which he did.
Parrot, lump in his throat as rage seethed in his gut, couldn’t stop the words from leaking out as he followed The Director, in all his fancy trims, towards whatever destination he had planned for Parrot.
“…You’re not him. You aren’t Wifies,” he spat out, vitriol in his words. “You can’t replace him. Bro, I mean you literally said it yourself: you’re a player who doesn’t exist,” he scoffed. “All you are is a pale imitation desperately trying to seek something you can’t have. You’re no different from the Invis Mafia,” he finished, eyebrows furrowing as his eyes, hidden behind the shadow of his mask, bore holes into The Director’s signature netherite helmet.
Parrot watched as a myriad of emotions subtly danced across The Director’s face when he turned around, his eyes slightly furrowing, his chapped, dry lips pressing into a thin line, a remnant of a former identity— before all traces of emotions were wiped, face relaxing with nothing but passivity remaining on The Director’s face.
“Parrot, I know ,” Wifies simply said, looking Parrot dead in the eyes, gaze seemingly trying to remove the mask that always remained upon his face, uncontrollable bitterness seeping into his words. “‘Wifies’ died when that ender pearl stasis activated. I had to reforge myself, start anew , in order to have the power to bend the world to my will— to bend the world into one where you will always be safe.
“Parrot, I know the death of ‘Wifies’ wasn’t the most ideal, but it had to happen. You think you know what hopelessness feels like, but I’ve lived it, Parrot.”
An unpleasant silence pursued the two figures as Wifies turned around, resuming their trek through the snow, leaving footprints in the unblemished landscape.
Eventually, they approached a massive obsidian construction, its size and scope somewhat reminiscent of Proton… only, rather than having friends alongside him to help him break out, he was alone, isolated from the world outside of Wifies and the fully invisible guards he’d caught a glimpse of while entering.
All that was left was Parrot, standing on a column above lava, with nothing but a spyglass and the few items he smuggled in on his person. There was nothing to see, and even less to do, the only escape from never ending monotony being for the short periods of time when the Director would enter, pushing a button to dispense ever smaller portions of food.
Time slowly trickled away at a snail’s pace, and so Parrot, without much else to do, began to plan.
Logically, there were more layers than just this one in the prison. Wifies, more than anyone else, knew of Parrot’s stubborn persistence and how he’d never stop trying until he found a solution: after all, they’d escaped Proton, one of the most high-tech, guarded prisons on Minecraft, together.
But surely, whatever was outside of this depressing obsidian structure had to be something more for Parrot to work with; anything else to give him just a little more hope.
He’d executed the plan one day when the Director had arrived to give him his meager rations: then, he rodded the Director into the lava and wind charged onto the flying machine that the latter had constructed, allowing him to ascend the spiral staircase to what would presumably be freedom.
But when he reached the top, a second layer to the prison was unveiled.
Surrounding him was a massive circular obsidian wall, with the prison itself being separated into slices of overworld biomes— at a glance, there were well over ten biomes within the prison, ranging from cherry groves to deserts to the tropical ocean.
Although this new, outer layer of prison felt even more hopeless than the column he was standing upon, it didn’t matter. Despite the impossibility of the task in front of him, no matter what he would have to go through, Parrot promised himself that one day he would—
“Whatever you’re thinking, Parrot, it’s impossible.” A voice— Wifies’ voice— asked from behind him, interrupting the torrent of Parrots thoughts, causing the latter to whip his head around to look at the source of the voice.
Wifies, in those god forsaken director trims— minus his helmet— stood behind him at the end of the staircase, seemingly untouched by the lava pit he literally fell into with now unsettling amethyst eyes tracking his every movement.
“…You… you lived that?” Parrot asked half heartedly, given that it made sense how the Director could easily make his way out— the Director has shown, after all, how willing he was to flaunt his riches and throw them away, a fact made clear by the zombie “trap” he had set up for Parrot, Leo and Derap when they had been pursuing him. Surely he had an elytra and rockets on his person, or a fire resistance potion— hell, Parrot wouldn’t even be surprised if he just popped notch apples like candy, leisurely swimming out of the lava.
“I know how you are, Parrot,” the Director simply replied. “If you have even a sliver of hope, you’ll keep fighting until you have nothing left. You will spend weeks planning that, Parrot. You’re gonna think there’s a way— you’re going to search for an escape that doesn’t exist .”
Parrot didn’t want to listen to the Director’s yap too much— the last time he said something didn’t exist, it was the Wifies Parrot knew. And just as Parrot was confident that there was some part of the Wifies he knew remaining, Parrot was confident that there was an exit somewhere. He just had to take the time to find it.
The Director standing in front of him didn’t stop his tangent there, though.
“One day you’ll snap out of it, and realize that you’ve tried everything you could possibly try.
“Then, we can finally begin.”
Parrot’s stomach twisted. “…Begin with what?” He asked, Was the point of this prison nothing but to break his spirits, make him a shallow husk of who he once was, malleable and pliant to the Director’s wishes? To change the Parrot that was with Wifies in favor of a Parrot who so distinctly wasn’t him ?
“Begin building a world, Parrot— just us. A world where you don’t have to worry about dying— where I don’t have to worry about you dying ever again,” the Director spoke, with so much fervor in his voice that it shook Parrot as he averted his gaze, refusing to look at the figure in front of him, instead gazing at the prison’s construction that had a strange amount of circles that didn’t look naturally generated— but then again, there was nothing natural about this prison. “It won’t take any luck, it won’t take any brains. It won’t take anything. You just have to stay here, and you’ll survive— that’s all it is.
“Come on, smile Parrot— you’re safe,” the Director said, a relieved, lighthearted grin on his face. Not Wifies. This person cannot be Wifies , Parrot thought, horror rapidly spreading throughout his body.
“Wifies,” Parrot spoke, trying to think of something— anything— he could say to get him to change his mind. To get him to let him go, to let them go back to simpler times. But Parrot’s mind, usually racing with thoughts, couldn’t seem to be coherent.
“Now, give me your items,” Wifies said, a statement without room for questions or disobedience.
Parrot hated this. Hated how much Wifies had changed, hated how he didn’t realize Wifies’ changes until it was too late, hated how he could’ve prevented all of this from happening— six months ago, the two of them were inseparable. And now? Parrot could barely recognize the person his best friend had become. It was like he’d become a completely different person.
Parrot didn’t have a choice. Wifies did his item check, completely filling Parrot’s inventory with boats to ensure that he didn’t have anything remaining on his person.
Even so, Parrot wanted to try and smuggle one item past the check— the spyglass that had symbolized the beginning of their friendship all that time ago, and had become the defining piece of their companionship. Through their journeys together, Parrot had always kept it on his person— as for why? The amethyst that resided within the item had reminded him of Wifies. Parrot kept it so that even when they were apart, he had… at least something to remember Wifies by.
As for now, Parrot supposed he wanted to keep it to test the Director, to see if the Wifies he knew was still in there, somewhere.
“There’s still a boat left over,” the Director spoke, voice cold. “The spyglass, Parrot. Drop it.”
…And Parrot got his answer.
“Wifies, why would I ever want your stupid spyglass?” Parrot scoffed, walking to the edge and throwing the spyglass out the side, the clang of metal hitting rock signaling its landing. “Is that good?” Parrot asked, irritation boiling over into anger, as he resumed the boat check.
Breaking the shulker boxes he was putting Parrot’s stuff in, the Director nodded. “Yeah. And don’t worry— I’ll start from scratch, just like you. So let’s head down,” he said, removing all of his remaining armor pieces leisurely, presumably placing the pieces somewhere in his inventory.
Sprinting ahead of the Director down the spiral staircase inside of the tower they were just standing on the top of, Parrot knew one thing— he wasn’t about to let the Director get away with what he had done, and if he thought that Parrot was going to cooperate with him in the slightest, he was sorely mistaken.
Parrot was going to kill Wifies.
Once he got to the stretch of staircase that led to the outer prison, Parrot utilized one of the numerous boats within his inventory to go directly off the side, gathering the materials necessary to make a wooden sword as his very first action.
Hearing the Director’s approach and wooden sword ready in his hotbar, Parrot spoke aloud, question hopefully serving as a diversion and distraction. “So, what’s the plan?”
“Whatever you’d like it to be,” the Director replied, in a way that Parrot could even describe as wistfully. “All we have to do is… well, this is our world. We don’t… we don’t have to do anything.”
Parrot walked behind the Director, before quickly switching to his wooden sword to attack him, critting him out as he prepared to land finishing blow, for the hit that would display the message that had crushed him six months prior, trying to avoid looking at Wifies in the eyes as he turned around to face Parrot—
—The message never came. Instead, a totem sound played as it popped into a shower of green sparks, taking marred flesh and reforming it until it appeared that he was untouched… and then the Director disappeared.
“What?” Parrot said, the exclamation slipping out without him realizing it, as he stared at the particles that were quickly disappearing as they fell to the ground.
Parrot had failed. The Director had some kind of ender pearl stasis mechanic that teleported him away whenever his totem popped; he was prepared for this very situation.
As Parrot stood there, hands shaking as he almost realized what used to be his worst nightmare with them, he remembered something.
The spyglass he had thrown over the edge of the tower. If he didn’t hurry, it was going to despawn. Sprinting back up the stairs of the first prison, and thankfully, found it before it disappeared, fingers running over the scratched and dented metal, now well worn from use.
Parrot wasn’t even supposed to have this spyglass, and if Director realized that he’d kept it? Parrot didn’t know how he would respond. After everything that he’d done to Parrot, there was no reason for him to return to get this spyglass.
Parrot himself didn’t quite understand why he wanted to get it back either. Maybe it was because of its sentimental value, or maybe he had just gotten used to the familiar weight on his person, and didn’t want to lose it— or maybe it was because the spyglass reminded Parrot of amethyst eyes, unbreakable trust, and companions who would always be next to each other, no matter what happened.
Of the person Wifies used to be.
Regardless, Parrot knew he needed to plan his escape. The Director called this prison Paragon— or, perfection. But it was a far cry from the other prisons Parrot had been trapped in before; the walls were simple, and with the amount of resources Parrot could access, going to the nether and attempting an escape there was also a possibility.
Stopping by a nearby village built with odd blocks, Parrot decided to start a… “normal” minecraft playthrough, gathering food, making tools and getting the resources he needed to escape. Running to the highest mountain in the prison, Parrot made all of his planks into slabs before starting the process of bridging out.
Parrot had made decent progress, but out of nowhere, a potion— slow falling— was splashed on him, and two invisible guards appeared, hitting him off his makeshift bridge and breaking it.
Where did they even come from? How did they know I was trying to escape? Parrot asked himself, knowing that he wasn’t getting an answer. Even with the added pressure of the presence of the two guards, Parrot knew he was close— he couldn’t give up this early, not when he knew that the guards wouldn’t, couldn’t , kill him.
“Come on…” Parrot muttered, rebuilding the broken part of his bridge. “Please…”
Parrot was close to the edge of the wall— he could see it out of his peripheral vision. Looking up to scan his surroundings, Parrot groaned. “No dude,” he exclaimed, frustrated as the guards once again swooped in with their feather falling, using their fists to push Parrot off his bridge. Parrot spam placed blocks, trying desperately to remain on the thin platform he had built, but it was no use.
It seemed like the guards were always present, monitoring Parrot’s every move. Knowing the fact made a shiver run down the back of his neck: no matter what he did, he would be watched by the two guards, who would actively try to foil his plans.
His escape was becoming a lot more difficult.
Even the nether wasn’t a perfect option: a massive obsidian wall with mining fatigue stood in the same coords in the overworld, forcing Parrot back to the drawing board.
Parrot had decided to explore the prison and what he had to work with.
Despite his distaste for the area, Parrot had to admit that Paragon looked incredibly impressive— complete with massive caverns, caves, gorgeous scenery. Wifies was right— he’d constructed a miniature version of the world within Paragon.
But the beauty couldn’t hide the ugly truth. In the end, Paragon was a prison, one designed to keep Parrot caged.
Eventually, Parrot found a cherry grove, and in it, a small, quaint house made out of cherry wood that stood in a valley. Since the only other player Parrot knew was here was Wifies (the guards didn’t count; after all, Parrot was certain that they wouldn’t be building anything inside the prison. Their only job was to monitor Parrot and prevent him from escaping after all), Parrot realized that this must be Wifies’ house.
Through the pattering of rain hitting the ground and surface of the lake, Parrot called out, trying to see if he was home. “Hello? Hello…”
Since Wifies wasn’t home, Parrot made a decisive decision, and began to gather the materials to make a flint and steel.
Parrot would make Wifies regret building his house out of a flammable block.
As the rain fell around Parrot, drenching him in water, he stood across the shore, watching the small house in the darkness burn down, the rain doing little to quell the raging flames. It was cathartic, but also brought back unpleasant memories of a similar house, made of spruce rather than cherry, on a mountain rather than in a valley. It brought back memories of a friendship forged through fire, reinforced by trust.
That was the house where Wifies had died.
Parrot decided that burning this one would be a memorial to him.
Parrot remembered the resigned, desperate words spoken in that house of spruce.
“How can I put you in a situation where I know there’s no winning?” Wifies had pleaded, as the sound of Ashswag’s leisurely whistling drew ever closer.
Wifies didn’t have a helmet on. He held the bottle of invisibility out in hushed hand, and Parrot desperately wanted to snatch it out of it— to Parrot, losing Wifies meant that he’d let Ash win, even if he eventually managed to take down the Mafia with Wemmbu, Egg, Spoke and Mapicc. Parrot didn’t want to think of the possibility of Wifies’ getting his pearl stasis getting pulled and witnessing the death of his best friend, being able to do nothing about it.
Wifies looked at Parrot, amethyst eyes resolute but pained, the whistling becoming clearer.
“He’s coming back, Parrot. I need—“ Wifies choked up, words seemingly clogging his throat. “I need you to win.”
And with that, Wifies had thrown the invisibility potion at his feet.
And now Parrot stood, continuing to stare at that cherry house, the structure beginning to fall apart.
The question Wifies had asked back then felt like a mockery now. He must’ve known he would become the Director back then. He must’ve formulated this plan to keep Parrot contained by then.
Parrot wasn’t winning. Not in the slightest.
With that, Parrot began to climb up and away from the burning house.
Although Parrot didn’t want to prolong his stay in this prison, he realized that he needed a base of operations if he wanted to survive. So that’s what he did: he made a small house big enough for a bed, a chest, and a couple other things, but not much else. It didn’t need to be comfortable or very pretty— after all, if Parrot’s plans went well, he wouldn’t need to stay here much longer.
The location he picked wasn’t concealed in the slightest; on an outcropping of bare rock overlooking the ocean biome with all its multicolored corals, with the jungle behind him.
Once construction of his house was finished, Parrot headed to the jungle biome to go fishing.
Standing at the edge of the water and staring at his fishing line, Parrot jolted when he heard a familiar voice next to him.
“I hear you met my guards,” the Director spoke, and Parrot whipped his head around to see him in iron armor and a golden helmet, and it didn’t seem like he had boots.
The Director stood there, fishing line also in the water, as if he was always there.
“What are you doing? Controlling them, keeping them in this prison so they keep watching me?” Parrot burst out, unable to contain his words.
Even with Parrot’s outburst, the Director wasn’t phased at all. “Well, everyone has a price,” he spoke, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“Dude. There’s so many other places you can fish,” Parrot retorted, trying to distance himself from the Director, disdain thinly veiled.
Parrot didn’t know why or how the Director was here, nor what he wanted from him. But if the Director was always watching him… Parrot could create a diversion by having it seem like he was doing one escape route, but actually be doing another.
It would ensure that the guards were busy elsewhere, giving him the opportunity to get out— and when he first executed it, the plan seemed to work perfectly. Both guards had pursued him in the nether, and nobody was nearby when his stasis was flicked by the sensor.
But of course, the Director was always two steps ahead. Diverting the guards was easy, but when Parrot went to the wall to build up? The Director was standing there, watching him in silence until Parrot noticed his presence.
“I told you, Parrot,” the Director spoke, craning his neck upwards to look at Parrot upon his tower of acacia planks. “This place is inescapable. I mean, I’m sure you’ve figured this out by now, but it’s not the walls that are keeping you in.
“It’s yourself.
“It’s as I said before: you’re going to try everything in the world that you can think of. But no matter what you try, no matter how hard— nothing is going to work.” He smiled at that, a chilling sight to behold, with the Director completely believing in his absolute upper hand over Parrot.
“Now come on, get down from there before you hurt yourself.” Wifies concluded, words ringing in Parrot’s ears and leaving a bad taste on his tongue as he eventually got down from his tower and swam away.
The Director clearly didn’t take Parrot seriously if he thought Parrot was going to fall off a tower built flush to a wall. Not when he knew firsthand how Parrot had escaped certain death time and time again, back when the invis mafia still existed.
Even with all of the qualms he had with the Director, Parrot realized something. If directly breaking out wouldn’t work, then he still had another course of action. Jumping the Director directly wouldn’t work— clearly he had mechanisms to get him stasis’d out whenever he got close to death, but befriending the Director, lowering his guard, and killing him then? It certainly felt like a more plausible solution.
(One where he could retain hope of seeing Wifies again, and pry back the walls that made him the director.)
Parrot spent the next couple of weeks getting closer to Wifies— rebuilding the cherry house that he’d burnt down, grinding out gear until they had full diamond, playing games together— yet somehow, every time that the Director tried testing him, either by being AFK or by other methods, Parrot failed.
Trust was not something easily gained, and it could shatter easily. Parrot had ruined all progress he’d made with the Director, over and over and over again.
One day while exploring some of Paragon, he found something that shouldn’t have been there— a square shaped hole in the obsidian wall, with a vast jungle that could be seen through it, obscuring the horizon that lay behind it.
Parrot was entranced by the sight ahead of him. Oh, how Parrot yearned to step outside and continue his escapades with BAT, wherever they were out there— Leo had successfully saved Derapchu and Jumper, that much was clear from the lack of any death messages ge, but Parrot hadn’t heard anything from them after parting ways with Leo.
Maybe they were looking for him , a part of Parrot whispered. They’ll come to help break me out soon , he encouraged himself. No matter how small a sliver of hope it was, it was hope nonetheless.
Or… maybe some part of Wifies appealed to reason, opening this hole so the two of them could go out and explore the world like they once had.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Wifies’ voice cut through Parrot’s thoughts, the tone of his voice shattering Parrot’s optimism as he observed the netherite boots Wifies had on. White Flow trims— the Director’s signature ones. “The outside world.”
Parrot was an actual fool. He had trusted and trusted and trusted in Wifies, only to let it be shattered once more (Parrot tried not to think of his failed assassination attempts and the lack of faith in Wifies he’d blatantly shown over the past few weeks. The only difference was Wifies’ hypotheses were proven right; Parrot, on the other hand, was completely wrong in his conjecture).
“I’m surprised you didn’t try and leave, the Director continued, looking at Parrot with a lazily raised eyebrow.
“I mean, why would I? It’s like… better in here,” Parrot replied, cringing as even he heard the blatant reluctance in his voice.
As he turned around, the Director had already somehow silently walked to the edge of the wall, staring off into the distance.
“Even still,” he remarked, seemingly amused as he didn’t look back at Parrot.
“Can I… go over there?” Parrot asked, feet itching to step on the obsidian, one step closer to his freedom— which he knew was unobtainable at the moment, with the Director standing there like a predator waiting for their prey.
“Yeah,” the Director huffed, sounding akin to a laugh as he crouched over the edge. “For all you know, there could be another wall out there.”
After a moment of silence and just taking a look at his goal, so clearly ahead of him, Parrot caught what Wifies was staring at.
“Do you see those dandelions?” The Director asked, the small cluster of yellow blossoms a stark contrast to the pure green of the jungle.
“Yeah,” Parrot replied, looking down at them with him.
“Do you ever wonder, Parrot, how I knew about Mr. Cube?” The Director asked, referring to how the book he had Mr. Cube give to Parrot.
“About— the dandelion that was planted in his cell?” Parrot answered with his own question, a sinking feeling in his gut that he wouldn’t like the answer the Director gave him.
“Exactly,” The Director smiled, looking oh-so-pleased with himself. “It was Jumper, Parrot.”
And with that, Parrot’s heart shattered.
Jumper had been working for the Director. Only, instead of it being to conceal his identity from Parrot, it was to aid him in building his image of a person who knew the future and could manipulate it to his whims.
“I told her that if she dared go against what I had planned—“ the Director continued, crossing his arms as he casually leaned against the inner walls, as he dropped bombshell after bombshell— “I would reveal the identity of each and every one of her spies.
“I told you this earlier with the guards— that everyone has a price? Well, even more powerfully, everyone has something they care about.
“And if you can control that, you can control the person.”
Parrot wanted to know what could control Wifies. Because despite his goals seeming to be keeping Parrot safe, he was undeniably the biggest threat to Parrot, and Wifies was well aware that no matter the circumstance, Parrot still had a sense of self-preservation. He wouldn’t go around killing himself— sacrificing himself was a whole other matter.
“Wifies, what is wrong…” Parrots murmur died down in his throat as Wifies walked back to Paragon, continuing his speech.
“That’s why the guards work here 24/7 at every command. The guards are the fabric of this place, Parrot— without them, this prison wouldn’t function.
“And there’s no force that could make them stray from their orders. Because I have what they care about.”
A chill ran down Parrot’s spine. The Director had mentioned the leverage he had over Jumper— who was to say that he didn’t have leverage over every person Parrot cared about? Who was to say that Parrot himself wasn’t being used as leverage against someone— against BAT?
“Well. I guess we don’t need this anymore, do we?” The Director asked, taking obsidian and starting to fill in the hole.
Watching the outside world and his freedom vanish block by block, Parrot hollowly replied. “…yeah.”
After finishing the first and most outer layer, the Director threw some obsidian down in front of Parrot.
“Here,” he said, looking Parrot directly in his eyes. “You can fill the rest if you’d like.”
Sick to his stomach, Parrot obliged. And by the time he was finished, the Director already was long gone.
And with it, Parrot finally had a plan.
It was simple. Wifies said that the guards were the backbone of the prison, but they also were its greatest flaw— unlike Wifies, Parrot was confident that he could outsmart at least one of them.
If he managed to get one of them to fall for a trap and kill them… well, they surely had elytras in their inventory at all times. Looting their corpse, Parrot could simply fly out afterwards.
After all, all the people Parrot knew closely worked with the Director had tried killing him before. Parrot didn’t have any qualms when it came to returning the favor.
Parrot’s entire attempt would revolve around staging a fake escape to lure a guard into a trap— dripstone was the easiest, so he picked a random tree close to the edge of the wall to set it up.
After going through misery trying to get an invis potion and milk through killing wandering traders, Parrot finally finished the trap, and it didn’t take long for one of the guards to take the bait and fall for it— literally.
With a massive shower of green sparks, Parrot heard a familiar voice, eyes widening as he blocked up the hole he dug to see…
Jumper.
“Yo—“ she exclaimed, starting to talk in tandem with Parrot’s startled “what?”
“Yo Parrot,” she said, usual confidence underscored by nervousness as Parrot stared at his friend, wearing the Director’s trims and actively working to keep him trapped.
Parrot had hoped this was a random player he didn’t know, or one of the assassins who had tried to kill him— but this was Jumper . The only member of BAT who believed him and helped him prove his innocence when the other members thought he had to be the director. The person he’d at least been aware of, and teamed with on multiple occasions, since… almost the start of his time on the server.
“You’re the guard?” Parrot asked hopelessly, as Jumper physically backed herself into a corner, pain clearly on her face.
“Yes, I’m the guard. It’s me, Derapchu and Leo, but like please don’t leave , okay—” she pleaded as Parrot slowly processed the information given to him.
The ones keeping him trapped now were the ones who had been the salve to his loneliness, the few players who took him under their metaphorical wing, and accepted him, helping him through trials and tribulations.
The Director was a cruel, cruel man. It reminded Parrot of what Spoke had done, all that time ago, leading Parrot and Wifies into a friendship, only to tear them apart at the end by chunk banning Wifies into so that Parrot could learn the server’s so-called “greatest secret” that didn’t exist.
Only the Director’s iteration was so much worse.
Seeing the one he cared about so much orchestrate his own death to make the following events happen?
It hurt.
And it felt like that was the Director’s intent.
Physically, he protected Parrot. But in the end, he didn’t care for his well being.
“I— we’ve—“ Jumper corrected herself, stammering over her words. “We’ve been watching you. You… Wifies—“ Jumper spoke, before eyeing how Parrot hand drank his milk and started mining, changing the course of her words.
“Wait, stop, stop— do not leave,” she moved in front of Parrot and shoved him, getting away from the tunnel he was mining. “Wifies has— Wifies is—”
“Jumper, you have an elytra, right?” Parrot interrupted, frustration growing with Jumper’s distress.
“Yeah, I do,” she admitted, but refused to move. “I can’t let you leave. You’re going to just try and fly out with it.”
“Yeah,” Parrot spoke. “That’s the point!!”
“Parrot, if- if you leave, all of my spies' identities are getting leaked. You can’t leave ,” she spoke, tripping over her own words.
“So you’re just going to stay in this prison forever,” Parrot replied, voice monotone.
Jumper didn’t have a reply to that. She sighed, staring down at her boots— netherite with flow trims, and silence filled the small underground cavern. Even though Parrot was desperate, he knew that he couldn’t kill Jumper.
And that meant that the Director had won again.
“I’m sorry,” Jumper said, tentatively. “It’s not ideal for us either.”
“So what are you going to do after this?” Parrot asked. “Go back to being a guard?” he sighed. It was a small comfort, at least, knowing that the guards weren’t just nameless, faceless players, he supposed— no matter how much it hurt knowing who they really were.
“Yea—” Jumper started, before the sound of metal hitting stone was heard. Wifies had dropped down next to them, netherite pickaxe in hand.
“I see you’ve finally met the guards,” he remarked. “Well. properly. Jumper, you can leave. Your job here is done,” he commanded, eyes unmoving from Parrot as she scrambled to the hole he’d dropped from, donning her elytra and flying up, disappearing with a bang of fireworks.
The toll of the elder guardian reapplying mining fatigue rang out, the Director said one last thing.
“Come with me.”
“So what now?” Parrot asked, hesitant after the events that had just transpired.
“You’ll follow me,” the Director simply answered, like it was obvious. He wasn’t bothered in the slightest about Parrot finding out the identity of his guards; he almost looked pleased at the fact. Confident, like everything had gone according to plan once more.
“Wifies, we can still leave,” Parrot appealed. “Like you realize that, right? We can just climb over these walls and go back to spawn, or even just somewhere far away from spawn.”
It would be so easy to just go back to the past. Parrot had waited these months, partially to make the Director drop their guard, but mostly because he still wanted to have some faith in Wifies.
“Parrot, do you think im stupid?” The Director retorted, face contorting. “I gave up on you months ago— it’s way too late for starting over.
“Do you not understand what I’m saying to you?” The Director continued, purple eyes boring into Parrot. “You want to get out of here; you have no intention of staying in this prison. I’ve tried to convince you many times, but you wouldn’t budge— you just don’t listen ,” he said, exasperated. “You put yourself in danger for causes that only exist in your head. And I know that whatever I tell you, you won’t change your mind.”
Listening to the rhetoric Wifies was sprouting, Parrot felt like a bucket of ice water was poured onto his head. Parrot had tried everything , but nothing worked. Sure, it certainly felt like some part of Wifies was still in there, but he was too far gone.
As the Director began leading Parrot, he prompted a question.
“Do you know, to the extent, Parrot, that I’ve been keeping an eye on you— that I’ve been tracking your inventory?” the Director asked, back facing Parrot as he began rattling off the items in Parrot’s inventory. Glancing at his inventory, Parrot watched in horror as the Director correctly got item after item.
Parrot knew Wifies was smart. But this wasn’t intelligence— this was borderline obsession . But even with this… he had missed one crucial, integral item.
“Drop your items, Parrot. And I’ll know if you kept everything.”
Parrot threw down all his items, until Wifies was satisfied, and Parrot’s inventory was empty, except for a single, old, battered spyglass.
The Director led Parrot into the prison he had started in, pausing as he reached the platform directly across from the column Parrot had stood on.
“This is the final clean start, Parrot,” The Director spoke, voice impassive as he initiated the flying machine, the cacophony of sticky pistons and redstone filling in the otherwise exceedingly uncomfortable silence between them.
Approaching the lower layer to the middle column Parrot originally was on, he felt the hunger start to get to him as he stepped off of the flying machine.
“Wifies,” Parrot spoke, bile rising in his throat as he used the name. “I can’t even sprint anymore.”
The Director didn’t seem to care in the slightest. “Get off the block,” he commanded, and Parrot obliged— it’s not like there was anything he could do to resist now, not when he was naked with only a spyglass in his inventory. “Look Parrot—“ Wifies started, starting to take off the straps that kept his armor on. “All my armor… and my totem,” as the Director finished speaking, he dropped his items— which were now invaluable on the server after the invis mafia war— into the lava below without a second glance, The Director’s violet eyes meeting Parrots. “So, you know I’m serious.”
Parrot resisted the urge to laugh. Did the Director seriously think that Parrot thought he was a joke? As if the past weeks— months, at this point— of torment had just been a “silly little prank!!” pulled by him to play with Parrot? Parrot wanted to ask the man in front of him for a clear answer. Was his anguish a joke to the Director— no, Wifies ? Because he clearly didn’t take him seriously in the slightest.
Following the Director down the spiral staircase, Parrot stared at the familiar purple headband that flowed down a familiar gray hoodie, on a familiar figure, doing completely unfamiliar actions.
Fingers brushing over the spyglass he carried on his person, somehow still accompanying him through all of Paragon, Parrot paused on the steps for a moment, with Wifies’ figure disappearing down the revolving stairs.
Parrot soon followed after again, revealing a large, circular desolate room made of a white stone material and illuminated by shroom lights, with two pressure plates across from themselves.
“Wifies, what is this?” Parrot asked, eyes wide and brows furrowing as he observed the scene before him, slowly making his way down the stairs.
The crackle and snap of the ring of fire above him was the Director’s only response, choosing to simply waiting for him on the small elevated platform in the center of the massive dome.
“Step on a pressure plate,” the Director said, with eerie calmness. “It won’t kill you.”
Despite Parrot hardly trusting any of the Director’s words, this was a proclamation Parrot knew he could somewhat trust, if the encounter in the tundra biome before Paragon wasn’t riddled with falsehoods.
Noticing Parrots pause in movement, the Director repeated himself, more forcefully this time. “You will step on a pressure plate.”
Moving to the pressure plate further away from where the Director was standing, Parrot stepped on, with the Director soon following on the pressure plate across. The sounds of redstone machinations shifting beneath their feet was amplified by the empty space, and the situation reminded Parrot of a distant memory— of similar pressure plates, only when the players had stepped on those, a massive door was blown open, inviting the two of them to an exhilarating adventure.
This felt like the opposite: two pressure plates to keep him restrained, stuck with the one before him, who was so clearly his friend, and his greatest enemy, at the same time.
“You left me without a choice, Parrot,” the Director spoke, eyes boring holes into Parrot. The irony of the statement wasn’t lost on Parrot— this choice was wholly the Directors’ to make. “From this point on, if either of us steps off.. if you try to break a block… the entire chamber blows up with us in it. I told you this prison was perfect, Parrot, I gave you a chance to live ‘freely.’
“But you wouldn’t take it.”
Parrot’s gaze, which had dropped to his feet, slowly turned up to look at the Director incredulously, the plethora of emotions on his face juxtaposing the man across from him. Freedom? The Director thought that being isolated in a box without the ability to talk to anybody but their captor freedom? Parrot’s fingers briefly brushed over the spyglass sitting in his inventory again.
There was a way out of this situation. An easy solution he had at his disposal.
“You really have nothing on you?” Parrot asked. Despite witnessing the Director throw out all his items without a care in the world, Parrot still wanted to double check.
“I told you I’d start over. On the same footing as you; no items, no nothing,” the Director replied.
“Wifies,” Parrot said, pausing for a moment, before taking out the spyglass and using it to examine the Director’s expression, which had finally warped from an impassive and cold one to one of shock, like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water on his head.
“—You hold onto this,” Parrot spoke, throwing the spyglass over to Wifies. The two of them had just escaped the cave that Spoke had rigged with a massive amount of TNT, and soon they would be using the disc they found inside to find the next part of this scavenger hunt.
Wifies picked it up, a hint of confusion on his face. “Spyglass?” He asked, looking at the item in his hand before glancing at Parrot, awaiting an answer.
“This is my prized spyglass,” Parrot announced. “Like, this thing…” Parrot let out a small laugh. “You don’t understand. This thing means so much to me, bro. So if something happens to you, that spyglass is gone.”
Wifies paused for a moment, mind processing the information presented and outputting his response. “I mean, I-I appreciate it.”
Later on, when the scavenger hunt had reached its conclusion after hours upon hours of escape rooms, riddles, and close encounters, Wifies had stood in front of a red line— the border to a chunk ban.
“It’s all yours,” Wifies smiled, throwing the spyglass to Parrot, who caught it. Without giving Parrot a chance to clear the lump that had formed in his throat, Wifies stepped back into the chunk ban, leaving the game and allowing Parrot to learn the secret the two of them had been searching for together.
“Where did you get that,” Wifies asked flatly, hastily, panic seeping into his voice as his speaking pace began to pick up. “I tracked your entire inventory, Parrot— where…? How did you get that?”
The terror was evident in Wifies’ words, the sentences seemingly forcing themselves out.
Parrot hesitated, taking a deep breath, gaze unwavering. “Remember when I threw it off the top of the prison?” He asked Wifies, pausing. Without a response, Parrot continued. “I went back to pick it up. After I tried to kill you. I don’t know why I kept it…” Parrot remarked, fingers running over the scratches, dents and imperfections on the spyglass after months of traveling with it in tow. The poor spyglass had travelled more blocks than a good 95% of players on the Unstable SMP, had a front row seat in witnessing the rise and fall of a regime, aided in multiple prison escapes, and helped him get away from quite a lot of assassins— all of this and more.
In a way, it was symbolic of everything that Parrot and Wifies were. Ah. Parrot smiled, one full of melancholy. “…Maybe because it… it reminded me of who you used to be,” Parrot hypothesized, choking on his words.
“I told you before,” Wifies spoke, voice almost pleading now— at this point, it was unclear if he was trying to convince Parrot, or himself. “I killed that version of me, Parrot— I had to . Guards, please ,” Wifies face contorted further, despair lining his features.
“You know what I’ve realized?” Parrot rhetorically asked, ignoring what Wifies had said. “I’m not smarter than you. I’m not,” he paused. “This prison— the only reason it’s perfect is because of that exact reason.
“…But, do you know the one difference between us?” Parrot asked, pushing back his emotions. “It’s that I never lost hope in you.
“Every single day for the past three weeks that I was inside of this prison, I thought that at some point, maybe you’d snap out of it, and you’d realize that what you did was wrong, and you’d let us both out,” Parrot rambled.
“I don’t wanna do this,” Parrot said, voice dropping. “I really don’t. I don’t. You kept on saying that you killed your past self to become who you are today, but both of us know. You will deny it, but—“
Parrot had come to a realization, during the games they played together, when the banter had flowed freely. When Wifies took off that outer shell that was the Director, when he forgot his goals of domination and control for security, and remembered to just have fun with his friends…
Parrot didn’t see the cold, ruthless manipulator who was the Director.
Parrot saw his best friend.
“—Both of us know that there’s some version of you deep down that wishes you hadn’t done this. That wishes you hadn’t faked your death, and that wishes you didn’t manipulate my friends and kill them and do all these things to me,” he continued, tear ducts burning as they threatened to let the waterworks out, remembering Nufuli.
“Who wishes that they could go back,” to adventures. To fun. To bringing down massive teams of players because everything they stood for was against what we believed in. “You know that. You’re staring at me right now because you know that.”
Wifies remained silent, listening to Parrot’s speech, unmoving outside of the slight rise and fall of his chest from breathing.
“Wifies. When I leave this place— when I get out of this prison? Just know that even after all you did, I’m not going to remember you as the player who did all of these horrible things.
“When people ask me about who Wifies was, I’m going to remember you as the Wifies that I used to know,” Parrot continued, reminiscing.
“The Wifies who cared about other people and was kind to everyone,
“The Wifies that gave me the spyglass.”
Wifies, across from him, finally opened his mouth to say his piece. “Please Parrot. Please give that to me before you hurt yourself,” the words sounding like acid, like the cold persona of the Director whose ‘protection’ entailed entrapment.
Not like the Wifies he knew.
“It’s all yours,” Parrot smiled bitterly, dropping the spyglass onto his pressure plate and stepping away, behind Wifies, whose gaze fixated on the spyglass in front of him, rather than the player who slowly ascended the stairs uncontested.
Parrot didn’t look back, and neither did Wifies.
The spyglass in front of Wifies was like a ticking time bomb. In less than five minutes— three minutes and fifty seconds, specifically, if Wifies’ was correct— the spyglass would despawn and the whole room would explode.
Wifies could either stay where he was, drawing out the time he had to live for just a little while longer, with his life ending while staring at the disappearing spyglass that had given him purpose all that time ago. He could run for the staircase, which wouldn’t be too difficult considering his proximity, and pursue Parrot, forcing him to continue staying with Wifies within Paragon— or Wifies could make a mad dash to try and grab the spyglass, triggering the bomb and exploding, holding it in his hands.
No matter what he chose, his death was guaranteed, and Wifies knew that.
As much as he didn’t want to admit it directly, a lot of Parrot’s words rang true. There was a part of him that wished desperately to return to escape rooms and server hijinks, but he knew he could never go back once he had committed to becoming the Director.
He’d long since resigned himself to becoming the antagonist of Parrot’s story.
As the seconds ticked by, Wifies remembered how it had all begun.
Two pressure plates, to a cave with a disc that needed a special texture pack.
Looking for lights, and watching as the lanterns rose up into the sky while looking for the people who had helped Parrot break Wifies out.
Establishing the End Civilization with Parrot, and witnessing the sheer scale and majesty of Horace’s build— a civilization by the two of them. Meeting Dean there, and him somehow becoming a permanent fixture to their duo, creating a trio.
The words that Wifies had said to Parrot when he was getting hunted by Clownpierce— when Parrot was running away to isolate himself, and Wifies had told him that the two of them would always be better than Parrot on his own.
Parrot’s acknowledgement on that icy mountaintop, the snow falling down around them— Thank you for being my friend— and Wifies’ reply. Anytime.
Less than one minute remained on the bomb.
Wifies ran for the spyglass.
As explosions rang out around him, consuming him whole, he clung to the battered piece of metal, treating it as if it was the servers’ greatest secret.
Wifies was blown up by ParrotX2
Wifies left the game
Parrot paused his actions and looked at the message in chat that appeared as he was preparing to build out of Paragon.
Goodbye, Wifies.