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Builderman knew this was probably a very, very bad idea.
But he also knew he had to try. For himself, for Shedletsky, for Taph.
For 1x1x1x1.
He didn’t care what they said. That was still his kid. Ever since Shed walked into his little outside-of-HQ house with that bundle, that was his kid. 1x was his kid, no matter what, and if he couldn’t talk some sense into them, no one could.
He had spent ages trying to locate her, with her being completely off his radar for the longest time, and he had then been constantly multiple steps behind her once she was back on his radar. She would blip in and out of being trackable, like she was either being hidden from him or was purposefully dipping into being hidden.
But he was not one to be driven away so easily, and he had found it.
He pulled himself into the area through his admin panel, humming as he simply began walking, unbothered by the way that others turned to momentarily stare at the leader of it all casually walking amongst them with determination in his step. He couldn’t afford the time to stop, lest his target realize he was here and run off again, disappearing off his radar for who knows how long before he got this opportunity again. He couldn’t let that happen.
Part of him regretted not revealing his plan to the others, but in his defense, he was the leader of this whole place. He knew that if he revealed his plan, he’d be showing up here with an entire squad armed to the teeth, looking like he was ready to go to war. This was not war, this was an attempt at peace. He didn’t want to hurt it, just to offer a hand back out, to say that it was forgiven for being angry, for lashing out. It would be alright if it just came home. They could all work to get to the root of the problem, and talk it all out. It would be…alright again.
Everything would be alright again.
Builder’s attention was caught by the sound of people fleeing from a specific area, frantically speaking to each other as they held loved ones tight and ran as fast as they could. Builder stared for a long moment as the sight went past, taking note of the situation. No one was hurt, just scared. Scared and desperate to get away. Builder stood calmly as everyone rushed around him, eventually then continuing forward through the crowd, fighting against the flow that seemed to part around him.
He stepped through an archway into a park as the crowd finally fully left, appreciating the scattered patches of flowers dotted lining the pathway. He made a mental note to get Shed some flowers on the way home. He wasn’t always a fan of being sappy like that, but he did occasionally like to get little gifts.
There’d be a much bigger gift for everyone once this was through.
He followed the trampled footprints from where the crowd had ran, tracing them backwards until he began to catch the distant sounds of screaming, of destruction. Not screaming from someone being attacked, no, but out of anger. Someone screaming their throat raw to drive off everyone else around. Someone screaming trying to prove themself terrifying without raising a blade.
He stepped further up the pathway until he trailed over to what looked like a concert stage, and there she was.
1x was not covered in any blood, nor was the stage. This was not an attempt at a massacre, or even a single kill. This was merely an attempt to strike fear, and it worked. It certainly worked, if the way people ran was any indication. Builder slowly stepped up onto the stage and cleared his throat, trying to get 1x to turn around to face him.
“Let me guess,” it laughed, “You’re some little hero, aren’t you? Come here to defeat the big scary monster. I’ll grant you the mercy of a head start before I chase you down.”
“Yer really bad at bluffin’, Parrot,” Builder blinked.
1x’s head raised as he spoke, and they snapped around to face him, reddened gaze focusing in. Builder could see a million different emotions in the beats of silence when no one spoke save for the wind whistling through the trees.
“...What are you doing here, old fool?” they demanded.
“Bringin’ m’ kid home,” he plainly replied, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Venomshank was pointed at him, and he could hear the sword whispering apologies to him, apologizing on behalf of 1x, apologizing for ever choosing her as a wielder, apologizing for the chaos caused and the terror wrought. Builder was firm, however, in the thought that this was merely one more bluff in a long line.
For all her terror, for all her chaos and destruction, 1x had not once taken another life.
“I am not your child.”
It was a statement he had been prepared to hear, as he heard it when 1x initially betrayed the HQ. He remembered it clear as day, as she stood above him as he tried to drive Venomshank’s toxins from his own system. They had spat it at him like a curse, and then turned to head upstairs to attempt to kill Shed. He’d then heard it again when they came running back down after Taph had somehow successfully convinced them to not kill Shed.
It was a phrase he was prepared to hear, and a phrase he did not believe. No matter how many times he heard those words, he did not believe them.
“I recall when y’ were just a lil thing,” Builder adjusted his hat and looked out into the park, “Do ya remember th’ first time we took ya t’ th’ park Luke had made?”
The weather god wasn’t perfect at building, no one was, but he was certainly pretty good at it. The park was much like this one, but much closer to the HQ. Much smaller, but also so much more homely. Like a little neighborhood park would be.
“Don’t speak to me about–”
“He was proud of how much you loved it. I still remember havin’ t’ pull ya outta the duck pond after y’ tried to catch one of ‘em!” he laughed, not caring about the way he could see her grip tighten on the swords she had. She would not strike him, that he was confident in. “‘N I still remember you got so sad that we couldn’t take one of ‘em home. Y’ remember what yer birthday present was that year?”
Silence whistled through the trees. 1x did not respond. Builder carried on anyway, like they’d said that they had forgotten and wanted a reminder.
“A hand-made plushie of a duck. Yer own lil duckie. Reese put so much effort in t’ makin’ it look just like th' ducks at th’ pond. You carried that thing ‘til it was ragged, ‘n then when it finally got repaired y’ gave it over t’ Epit–”
There was a sudden rush, and a sudden strike through his chest, blossoming in sharp green pain.
Venomshank.
The only thing letting him breathe still was the fact that despite everything, he was a god.
He slowly pulled his gaze away from the sword, ignoring the way it screamed in its own unique form of agony that can only come from a weapon being used to kill someone it adored.
1x had dropped her Daemonshank, her own precious self-made sword, and had used both hands to drive Venomshank almost to the hilt. Her face was…undescribable. The face of someone who just did something irreversible without knowing if they wanted to or not.
Builder slowly raised his hands, gently placing them on 1x’s talons, still gripped around Venomshank’s handle.
“It’s still wearin’ th’ cloak made outta th’ cloak y’ gave ‘er when y’ found ‘er.”
He…didn’t know why he continued with the story. He didn’t know why he just kept going like nothing had happened, like it hadn’t struck him in such a way where he was already beginning to count his minutes.
He couldn’t tell if it was out of panic or further anger when 1x ripped Venomshank back out, leaving Builder to collapse forward onto the stage which he had earlier observed was not stained with blood, now watching as crimson seeped between the wooden boards.
1x mumbled something he did not catch. He picked his head up ever so slightly to acknowledge her.
“Wuzzit, Parrot…?”
1x suddenly hissed like something straight out of The Void, and they did not repeat what they had said before they picked up their Daemonshank and took off running with it and Venomshank, leaving Builder to bleed out.
He watched them go without begging for them to come back, even as something in him was struck with the terrifyingly mortal thought of “I don’t want to die alone”. Perhaps this was how it was always going to end, from the moment he refused to command Shed to kill that little bundle.
He slowly raised his Admin Panel. He could have attempted to heal himself, but that would take far too much time by his calculations. Maybe he’d still be alive when that timer ran, but he certainly wouldn’t have the strength to be maintaining the panel.
No, there was something that would take much less time and would be far more important.
He pulled up the communication feature, already seeing so many frantic messages from Shed, asking where he went, then seemingly figuring it out and begging him to come home, to not do it alone. Demanding desperately for him to turn his tracker on.
Oh, his poor Falcon.
His hands shook as he typed out his own responses. Apologies, for starters. “I’m sorry about this”, always so formal no matter what. Then it was time to begin what little damage control he could muster with his final few moments. “Don’t bring Taph, bring Dusekkar” Taph didn’t need to see this. Dusekk would be useful to have here, either to try to pull him back if he could, or to be a shoulder for Shed to cry on if not.
He flicked his location on, squinting his eyes in annoyance as the panel began to fizzle. He still needed to do more.
More frantic messages came flowing in, yelling at him to not speak “like that”. It almost made him want to laugh at how Shed always knew what he was thinking.
“I love you” he resigned himself to typing as a final message, staring as things continued to pour in. Frantic desperate screaming over text. Frantic screams for him to stop scaring Shed, that Shed was on his way.
Builder struggled to maintain the panel, waiting for one specific message. Just barely holding as the sight fizzled.
And there it was.
“I love you too, Finch.”
Upon seeing that, Builder let out a breath as the panel collapsed in on itself, fizzling into thin air and glitching code. About ten seconds later, he concluded that if he had attempted to heal himself, now would have been the time he would have been able to start typing in the command. He had been correct, it would have been far too late.
Part of him wished that he had sent more messages. Asking Shed to not blame 1x, to take care of Taph, to lean on the other Admins when ruling, to make sure to keep his silly attitude through it all no matter what.
But he knew he only had a limited time, and he was just glad he got out what he did when he did.
He used what was most likely the last of his strength to flip himself over. He wanted to die with the sun on his face, if perhaps just to pretend it was the warm kiss of a loving “good morning” and the heat of breakfast pancakes fresh out of the pan while still sitting in bed, with his coffee prepared just how he wanted it to be, how he never had to ask for it to be because he knew it would always be made just right.
Maybe if he closed his eyes he could still hear that voice.
He was slowly coming to awareness.
For a moment, he had thought that Dusekk had done it, and he’d soon be grasped in frantic loving arms and yelled at to never pull something like that again.
Instead, he blinked open his eyes on the floor of a barely serviceable shack, three people staring over him. The one who was seconds away from poking him skittered back, surprise evident in their face.
“He’s awake, guys!” they glanced up and over.
“Yeah, we can see that, Noob,” one of the others rubbed at his face, and Builder was nearly instantly able to recognize Elliot, the son of the owner of the biggest pizza company in the entirety of Robloxia, and he recalled a news article about a terrible road accident last Christmas.
Builder slowly sat up, taking in a breath and assessing the situation. The shack was habitable, but clearly terrible to live in. Eugh.
“Right,” he started, “fill me in, if y’ would please.”
Surprise and shock at being alive could come later, for now he needed a rundown of where he was.
The member of the three who hadn’t spoken yet, a taller, heavily scarred man, cleared his throat and nodded his head.
“I’m willing to bet you just seemingly died?” he asked, and Builder nodded in confirmation, “So did all three of us. It seems we’ve been taken here after our deaths, and uh…”
“We’re in a repeating death game,” Elliot finished with a huff and an annoyed hand-wave, “And we don’t even have a good kitchen to try to eat away the horrors with good food.”
Builder blinked, staring.
“...Y’ can’t be serious,” he looked between them all, “what do y’ mean repeating death game?”
“I-It’s been every day for months,” the first one to speak originally, Noob, breathed out, “we get sent into a map, we die, w-we appear back here…”
“And again and again and again,” Elliot groaned, “We can’t even reason with the guy who’s killing us or the guy keeping us here.”
Builder stared again, then adjusting his hat, pausing when his fingers graced the small metallic pins he kept on it. He took in a breath as he traced the shape of a sword, closing his eyes. After a long, long moment, he let out the breath he was holding.
“We’re gettin’ outta here,” he firmly stated and stood up fully, dusting himself off.
“If you have any ideas,” the last one who hadn’t been named yet looked to the only window of the shack, “we’d love to hear it.”
“O-Oh!” Noob also stood up, “We should uh…do introductions.”
“Builderman,” Builder nodded, “Though I’m pretty sure y’all already knew that one.”
“Elliot,” Elliot nodded back, “Though I’d honestly be a bit surprised if you didn’t also know me.”
“Noob!” Noob chirped.
“Guest 1337. Just…call me G,” the last guy looked back to Builder.
“Right,” Builder began to walk around the shack to assess it, “I can work with this team. We’ll do just fine.”
He would figure out his own thoughts on this later. Now was the time for action.