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A grim and haunting chord strikes the air as Tango lands, his cloak flaring crimson as the sun slinks out of sight and true night begins to fall. The grass sinks heavily beneath his feet, striding towards the half-assembled machine in the mountain.
“Mister Fan.” Tango sticks his nose in the air, trying to maintain a haughty and indifferent tone even as a smile pulls at the corners of his carefully-built smirk. “I trust you are aware that you are currently trespassing on protected grounds?”
“Hm?” Cub sits back from the edge of the wiring he’s been leaning over, adjusting his glasses to brush some of the redstone dust off the edges. He gives a wave with the torch he’s holding. “Oh, sup Tango. Didn’t see you there.”
And the smirk immediately fades into a wheeze of laughter as Tango doubles over, bracing against his knees. “Dangnabbit, Cub! I was all in character, too!”
“Aw, sorry, man,” Cub answers, chuckling himself. “I’m sure it was very scary and vampiric.” He pulls himself to his feet with a grunt, shaking out legs that had begun to lose feeling. “But, you know how you get when you’re building something that you’ve built before, but only like a few times so you’re still trying to remember how it worked?”
Tango nods. “No, I getcha, I’ve been jumpscared enough.” He looks over the machine, the layers of observers and comparators aligning themselves in his mind to reverse-engineer their functioning. “This one of your lodestone station teleportification thingies?”
“Yup. Figured if I get it set up here at the base of the ramp, then whatever waiting room people wanna build will be nearby.” Cub taps the top of the lodestone. “And, if you’ve still gotta die to end the run, I can just wait for the death message in chat, pop back to my base, and bam, I’m here. Could even have someone else break this lodestone if I’m too far from one of mine to get home quickly.”
“Cub. I’m not even done with the mountain yet, let alone the game. You don’t have to build this now.”
In response, Cub simply gestures at the short queue of armor stands already formed at the base of the ramp–including Scar’s, shoved off to the side after yet another slight to Tango’s whimsy. A beat, and Tango chuckles in tacit agreement.
They could fly, but a stroll up the ramp makes it easier to hear each other, so Tango turns as they walk. “So, you think you’ve got a shot at number one this time?”
“Now who’s getting ahead of himself?” Cub snorts and shrugs.
“I mean, I’ll try! Etho’s made his whole base into parkour, so he’s getting practice in daily. He’s gonna be hard to beat. And I’m being very careful about spoilers, so no one accuses you of any favoritism.”
“True, true, but!” Tango grins wider, fangs glinting in the moonlight. “You made that Labyrinth last season, both parkour and a maze. You’re thinking like me, now. And making the jumps doesn’t matter if you don’t know where you’re going.”
The grin is returned, and Cub’s glasses glint just as bright. “You might be onto something.”
“Don’t I know it.”