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Cleo dies the same way she spawned in this season: in a state of complete and utter annoyance.
It's supposed to be easy. Step four out of their reasonable, six-step plan.
They corner Grian near his base, her and Martyn. All they have to do is ask him the list of questions Cleo had so kindly written down, ranging from why the fuck are we in a time loop? to can you help us break out of the time loop to if, hypothetically, you could let us speak to the Watchers, would you? We need to yell in their faces for a bit.
Martyn, however, veers off-track almost immediately.
He lunges at Gem – where’d she come from? Cleo hadn’t noticed her there – and the clearing is a flurry of yells and clashing swords. Cleo sighs and unsheathes her own, parrying a strike against Martyn.
It’s a blur of colour across her vision, red against green against grey; a cacophony of metal against wood. Cleo lunges, maybe a little too far–
Gem gets a hit, Grian another–
there’s a sword between her ribs–
Martyn’s sharp gasp above her–
a thud–
The world spins, then gets yanked out from under them. The nausea from the out-of-body experience almost makes them throw up. They would have, if they weren’t, you know, in spectator mode. Because they’d died. They stifle a sigh and turn their attention back to Martyn.
He’s still fighting, which is stupid at best and will get him killed at worst. Judging by the stupid smirk on his face, he knows exactly what he’s doing. Idiot.
Martyn laughs long and loud, swings his sword in a wide arc. He’s not even– look, Cleo knows what Martyn looks like when he’s putting in effort, and this is decidedly not it. This is him fooling around, which is not the plan.
Get out of there, she yells at him. Unfortunately for both of them, he cannot hear her. Stop being stupid. Get out get out get out. Maybe if she thinks hard enough in his general direction, he’ll get the message.
Martyn’s movements stutter, eventually. He drops his sword slightly. Cleo knows him better than most, and he’s on low health, if that’s anything to go by.
He slips away under the cover of trees. Cleo follows, for lack of a better thing to do. Really, there’s not much she can do, other than watch. Watch, as he comes across a clearing, as he pulls out tripwires and pressure plates from his inventory, as he–
Oh, come on, Cleo mutters, as Martyn starts to build up an unnecessarily complicated array of traps scattered around the area. They’re not even hidden! He’s just putting TNT in visible sight! What are you doing, Martyn? No. Stop. That one isn't even connected to anything.
He does not stop. In fact, he starts to… build a platform three blocks off the ground? It’s seven blocks long, and has a wall in the middle.
Martyn fucking Littlewood are you doing a triple neo above your death traps??
“I know you’re watching, Cleo,” Martyn murmurs, looking in the complete opposite direction of where she’s currently floating. “This one’s for you.”
He takes a running leap–
(Cleo takes in a sharp breath, eyes fixed on him and him only, don’t die don’t fuck up don’t be stupid)
–and lands the neo, though he very nearly falls off the platform. Cleo lets out a startled laugh. Well.
Martyn bows with a flourish, still facing the wrong way, then hops off the platform.
Okay, Cleo says. You've gotten your fun. Can you go to Grian now and get information instead of fooling around?
“Wow,” Martyn says, loudly. “It looks like Joel and Scar are fighting! I should check that out!”
MARTYN.
He lets out a cackle and practically sprints towards the two. There’s a wild glint in his eyes, one Cleo hasn’t seen in loops. It’s less feral than the usual Red, but it’s also less contained. More… explosive.
Joel is sprinting after Scar, sword in hand. Scar already has a gash on one arm.
“–get back here–”
“–no can do!–”
Martyn hesitates, hand hovering over his hotbar, switching from sword to bow to TNT, before settling on the latter. He places a single block of it down, waiting until Scar’s directly in line of sight before he lights it up and jumps back.
The explosion sends both Martyn and Scar stumbling back. Scar, who has apparently forgotten about his pursuer, turns his attention to Martyn.
“Martyn,” he starts.
“Scar!” Martyn says, cheerfully. “I didn’t see you there.”
“Uh-huh.”
Scar reaches for his own sword. Martyn bolts.
Cleo sighs, exasperated, as Martyn gets chased around by Scar, who in turn is being chased by Joel, who does not seem to notice Scar’s preoccupation. What am I even watching.
Martyn loops back around to the clearing, scrambling up the platform. Scar stutters to a stop at the sight of the piles of explosives scattered around the area.
"Martyn," Scar says, "I'm not gonna fall for that–"
Joel barrels into Scar, sending both of them tumbling to the ground. It's a miracle Scar didn't get impaled. "HAH, I finally got you– wait what is that? Martyn??"
"Oh, I forgot you were chasing me!" Scar chuckles.
Cleo thinks Joel might actually strangle him for that. He does reach for his sword, but Martyn coughs loudly, and everyone's eyes fall on him.
Scar squints. "Did you lead us here just to show off– wait, are you gonna do a triple neo?" At Martyn's nod, he adds, "Joel, hang on, can you kill me later? I wanna watch this before I die."
Joel hesitates. It's either Martyn's puppy dog eyes or Scar's pleading tone that makes him relent with a groan and a "Fine, but this better be worth it."
"Welcome, one and all, to the greatest performance the life series has ever seen!" Martyn takes a grand bow. "A triple neo, done by yours truly!!" There is a wide grin on his face, and Cleo can't help smiling as well.
Scar claps. Joel also claps, with much less enthusiasm.
Martyn moves all the way back, takes a running start, jumps–
and falls right off the edge, onto a pressure plate.
"Oops," he says.
The resulting explosion is so large that Cleo's vision is obscured by smoke for a solid ten seconds. Two death messages pop up in chat, moments after the other:
InTheLittleWood was blown up by InTheLittleWood
GoodTimeWithScar was blown up by InTheLittleWood
Through the smoke, Cleo sees Joel limping out of the aftermath. He doesn't get far, though, because he falls down a five-block cliff:
Smallishbeans hit the ground too hard
Martyn pops up beside her, now in ghostly spectator form. There's still a little soot in his hair.
“You’re so fucking stupid,” Cleo says, by way of greeting.
“Wow,” Martyn says. “I die, and this is the first thing you say to me?”
“You literally failed a triple neo and blew yourself up.”
“I got Joel with it, didn’t I?”
“He died of fall damage,” Cleo states flatly.
“Touche.”
Martyn huffs. He stares at the ridiculously large crater in the ground, at the others picking their way to the bottom to snatch up whatever resources they can find. From up here, they’re just blobs of pixels. It’s cute.
“So,” Cleo starts, and turns to stare right at him. “Plan forty-seven.”
They can practically hear the wince in his voice. “Um, yeah, about that–”
“What were you thinking?”
“Look, Gem was coming at us, okay? I was just trying to protect us–”
“She was just standing there–”
“She looked like she was going to murder us!”
“But it didn’t matter, did it? None of it fucking mattered, because you went and provoked them anyway, and now we’re both dead.”
There’s a beat of silence, during which Cleo chances a glance back down and notes that there’s only four people left.
“I’m just… tired, alright?” Martyn’s tone is clipped. “We’ve been trying to break the loop for so long. I wanted to have some fun. It’s– we know the loop isn’t going to break anytime soon. Why would anything matter?”
As much as Cleo loathes to admit it, he’s right.
“I just want to get out, Martyn,” they say, eventually. “I’m tired. I just want to get this over and done with. You’re not the only one stuck in here, you know.”
“I know! I know. You’re not–” Martyn lets out an aggravated sigh. “Can we just– take a break? From all the constant planning and worrying? I– it’s not–” He cuts himself off.
"Okay!" Cleo says. "Okay. Yeah. We need a break. You need a break, definitely, considering the stunt you pulled down there–"
"In my defense," Martyn cuts in, "it was cool! I did it the first time!"
"No one was watching that," Cleo says, dryly.
"Uh, no, you were."
"I was forced to," Cleo lies.
Martyn blinks, slowly and comically. "Right. Sure. Just like you were forced to follow me around in spectator every time you died before me."
"Mhm. Yeah. Totally."
A sudden tug in their gut draws their attention to the server below them. It looks like someone's won, though from this height Cleo can't quite make out who. It's not like it'll matter in a few moments, anyway, when she and Martyn will get sent back to the start of the server.
"Well," Martyn says. "See you on the other side?"
"Yeah," Cleo says. "See you on the other side."