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Jude was planning his next YouTube video, living inside other Strength members’ bases and trapping them from the inside. Once he figured out their usual paths and habits, he’d design a trap tailored perfectly to them.
After LeekLeek, his next target was Tai.
Jude carefully tunneled into the ceiling of Tai’s base, carving out a small hidey-hole where he could peer down and watch without being seen. Then he waited.
A few hours later, Tai finally logged onto the server.
As Jude watched him he had to endure Tai’s terrible singing as he went about mindless tasks in his base. Truly painful but it was worth it.
Just as Jude was certain where he was going to place his trap he heard Tai call out his name. He had been spotted. Lowkey Tai spotted him kinda fast, or well, faster than Jude expected. It wasn’t such a big deal because Jude had already got what he wanted.
“JUDE???” Tai said as he looked up into the peep hole that was made in his base.
Jude began to cackle as he began to mine away into the mountain and eventually into a cave system. Still, it wasn’t a total loss. Jude had already gathered enough information.
He wondered if he should just try to kill him.
“But his teammate is on…” Jude mumbled to himself.
Jude pulled out his communicator to see what he should do and who all was online.
What if… What if he messaged Sharpness?
It was ridiculous. They were constantly at each other’s throats but Sharp was terrifying in pvp, and Jude… well Jude not so much. At least not the brute force and sword skills kinda way. It would be a long shot.
Though Sharpness has fallen into so many of Jude’s traps, Jude hoped he wouldn’t be salty about it, at least while they fought. They both could benefit from killing the two. He knew the odds of him actually saying yes were slim but deep down Jude hoped he would say yes.
“You whisper to conexion: wanna help me kill tai and maybe noob as well?”
“Conexion whispered to you: oh lord”
“Conexion whispered to you: but sure”
Jude’s heartbeat quickened. He blamed adrenaline. It was just a fight. Just content. Definitely not the fact that Sharpness had said yes.
—
Eventually, they met back at Jude’s base to brew Turtle Master potions.
Sharpness stopped a few blocks outside the entrance. He didn’t move.
Jude leaned in the doorway, arms crossed. “You coming in?”
Sharp’s head tilted slightly as he scanned the entrance, the floor, the ceiling like he expected to be dropped into a fall trap at any moment.
“…You first.”
Jude snorted. “Oh my god. Relax.”
“No,” Sharp said flatly. “Your base is a death sentence.”
That wasn’t entirely wrong.
“Okay, yes. There are traps. Obviously. It’s my base.”
Sharp’s grip tightened slightly on his weapon.
“But,” Jude added, lifting his hands in mock surrender and his tone shifting just a little more serious, “I’m not pulling anything if you’re actually helping me. Deal’s a deal.”
Sharp studied him for a long moment.
“You’re exactly the type to say that and still press a button.”
Jude grinned. “Wow. And here I am inviting you into my home.”
After another second of hesitation, Sharp stepped forward carefully. Every step was deliberate. He avoided suspicious floor patterns, didn’t touch anything on the walls, and kept glancing at the ceiling like dripstone might drop at any moment.
Jude watched him with obvious amusement.
“You’re so dramatic.”
“You build traps for content,” Sharp shot back.
“Fair.”
They headed deeper inside and began brewing Turtle Master potions, the soft bubbling filling the tense silence. Between loading blaze powder and awkward pauses, they talked through their plan to kill Tai.
It almost felt like teamwork.
Eventually, they finished brewing everything they needed. Jude grabbed his potions and started up the staircase toward the exit. Halfway up, he slowed.
The stone button embedded in the wall caught his eye. One press would trigger a hidden fall trap beneath the stairs. Jude’s base was filled with traps at every corner. It would be so easy. Sharp would come up behind him, and maybe Jude would just “accidentally” brush against it. Jude’s eyes lingered on it, and a smirk tugged at his mouth.
It would be easy.
Instead, he continued up the stairs and stepped outside, waiting.
A moment later, Sharpness made his way up, still wary, still watching everything.
Jude burst into laughter. “I could’ve just trapped you right there, just so you know.”
Sharp rolled his eyes. “That’s cap. You are such a liar.”
“Whatever you say,” Jude replied lightly.
He didn’t mention how long he’d stared at the button.
It wouldn’t have worked anyway.
About an hour later, when Jude went back down to check on the mechanism, just out of curiosity, he found broken blocks and 0 armor stands.
Someone had griefed it. The trap wasn’t even functional.
If he had pressed it…
Nothing would have happened.
Jude just stared at the ruined trap for a long moment.
And for once, he was very glad he hadn’t tried.
If he had tried not only would he have not been able to kill Sharpness but any chance of teaming with him would have gone out the window.
—
They made their way to Tai’s base and began digging through the outer wall, careful but fast. As they approached the base a second name tag flickered into view.
ItsN00B.
Jude swore under his breath. This wasn’t the 2v1 they were hoping for. This was shaping up to be a full 2v2. There was no time to rethink the plan.
They broke through the ceiling.
Jude and Sharp dropped in at the same time, immediately critting Tai and Noob before they could fully react. They pushed the fight outside, where it turned into a flurry of chaos, armor and weapons clanging against each other, wind charges blasting players upward, and cobwebs thrown down to trap the other's movement.
Eventually, they split naturally into 1v1s.
Jude against Tai.
Sharpness against Noob.
For someone who always downplayed his PvP skills, Jude was holding his own. He timed his hits well, landed solid crits, forced Tai to burn through healing faster than expected.
Then Tai suddenly broke away.
He bolted toward Sharpness.
“He’s running to you, Sharpness! I think he’s trying to 2v1 you!” Jude shouted over the chaos.
Almost immediately, Noob wind charged away from Sharp and straight toward Jude. They had swapped targets.
Sharpness pivoted smoothly.
Jude adjusted just as fast.
No confusion. No overlap. It was seamless.
Underestimation or maybe just bad luck caught Tai off guard. His health dropped dangerously low, and panic set in. He tried to run.
Jude wasn’t far behind.
Tai wind charged upward, desperate for height advantage.
Jude followed without hesitation, mace already in hand.
One clean blow.
_Tai was slain.
For a split second, everything felt still.
“Oh my god…” Sharpness breathed. “Jude! That was amazing! You’re the goat!”
“Focus on finishing off Noob,” Jude shot back, already scooping up the golden apples scattered across the ground. “I’m raiding his stuff before he comes back. Just don’t die.”
He paused briefly. “Fuck… I think Noob took Tai’s strength…”
But even as he said it, something else lingered in his mind. It wasn’t just the win. It was how they had moved.
Noob eventually disengaged, choosing survival over revenge, and Sharp regrouped with Jude.
They looted quickly and efficiently, no arguing, no arguing about items. Just silent understanding.
Afterward, there was a quiet moment. Not celebratory. Just… comfortable.
Jude broke it first. “We didn’t even plan that swap.”
Sharp frowned slightly. “My body just kinda moved on its own.”
“So did mine.”
Another small silence.
Then Jude glanced over at him.
“Y’know… we kinda make a good team. I’m really good at surviving, and you’re really good at dropping people. What if… we teamed up for real?”
There was something unguarded in his tone. Genuine.
Sharp let out a small chuckle. “Yeah. It’d be impossible for us to lose any fight.”
They made their way back to spawn together, Tai's loot in tow.
But as they approached, two name tags stood near the center.
Spongs and Jaden_MAN.
Jude slowed. Sharp did too.
Spongs was Sharpness’s actual teammate.
And Jaden and Sharp weren’t exactly on great terms.
“Wait,” Sharp muttered, tension creeping back into his voice. “Is Spongs betraying me?”
Jude’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Dude… Spongs is like a double agent.”
Sharp moved toward them, trying to figure out what was going on.
Jude slipped away into his base to store the loot. Once he was alone, the quiet felt heavier. He stared at the items in his inventory. Then at the wall. This could be an opportunity.
“Spongs has to go,” he muttered to himself. "Sharp and I could make such a better team…” He paused, fingers tightening slightly on his shield.
“If I can make them fight… I could have Sharpness all to myself.” The thought came with a sharp, possessive wave that caught him off guard. They’d only been allied, if you could even call it that, for less than a few hours. And yet the idea of Sharp fighting alongside someone else… It didn’t sit right. Jude didn’t fully understand why but he knew one thing.
He didn’t want to share.
—
The map was laced with traps.
Not random ones. Not sloppy ones.
Calculated.
Hidden beneath grass blocks seemingly in the middle of nowhere but actually strategically placed where people travel a lot. Pistons waited patiently beneath the plots of fields, ready to retract entire sections of ground at a single moment. It was a network of quiet threats woven into the server's world itself.
And JudeLow knew every one of them.
He had to. They were his insurance. His leverage. His signature.
Sharpness walked half a step behind him, hands loose at his sides but posture alert, shoulders squared like he expected something to leap out of the trees at any moment. Probably all instincts he picked up as a fighter since he didn't have a base himself.
They were mid-argument, something trivial and competitive. Kill count, materials, who had cleared the trial chamber faster.
It didn’t matter.
What mattered was the ground three steps ahead.
Buried beneath grass and dirt was a circuit wired to retract a 3x2 section of the floor. A twenty-block drop waited beneath it, crafting table-lined walls with piston funnels, signs along with armor stands, and no escape unless you knew exactly where to dig.
Sharpness stepped forward. His body directly over the pit.
Jude saw it before it happened.
Of course he did. He had placed it. Measured it. Tested it until the timing was perfect.
A week ago, he wouldn’t have hesitated. He would’ve pulled it and leaned over the edge and called something smug down into the pit while Sharpness raged below. It would’ve been funny.
Sharpness’s foot came down.
The mechanism beneath them stayed silent.
No pistons.
No drop.
They kept walking.
Jude didn’t glance down. Didn’t break stride. His expression stayed easy, neutral, and unreadable. Sharpness continued talking, unaware of how close he’d been to falling into darkness, unaware that the only reason he hadn’t was the person walking beside him.
They passed fully over the trigger.
Seven blocks.
Eight.
And out of range.
The redstone never pulsed.
Sharpness finally glanced at him. “You’re quiet.”
Jude smirked automatically. “Miss me talking already?”
Sharpness scoffed and eye rolled.
He didn’t notice Jude’s gaze flick briefly to the patch of grass behind them. Didn’t notice the subtle tightening of his jaw. Didn’t realize that for the first time since joining the server, one of JudeLow’s traps had been deliberately spared.
That was the real anomaly.
Jude didn’t spare people. He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t soften.
But he had.
And the weight of that realization pressed heavier against his ribs than any loss ever had.
They walked on like nothing had happened, like the earth beneath them hadn’t been waiting to swallow one of them whole, like Jude hadn’t just made a choice that quietly shifted something fundamental between them.
He could outsmart Sharpness. He could trap him. He could drop him into a pit without warning.
He just didn’t want to.
And that frightened him far more than a trap ever could.
—
The clash of steel echoed through the trees, sharp and unmistakable. Sharpness hadn’t meant to turn toward it. He told himself that as he adjusted his grip on his weapon and shifted direction anyway. He had been heading elsewhere. It wasn’t his problem. It wasn’t his fight.
Then he heard Jude’s laugh.
Not the smooth, conversational one he used to needle people. This one was brighter. Wilder. The kind that only surfaced mid-fight.
Sharpness moved without fully deciding to.
The clearing opened ahead of him, and he stopped just inside the treeline. Tai stood opposite Jude, armor scuffed but stance aggressive, movements sharper than usual. Tai lunged forward with open impatience, swinging hard, overcommitting, forcing the fight.
Revenge.
Sharpness didn’t need to hear anything to understand it. Tai had been slain the other day, dropped from the sky, crushed cleanly, humiliated in front of everyone. Of course he’d come back looking for blood and his loot.
Jude moved differently than he had in their first fight. Controlled. Almost amused. He stepped back in measured steps, baiting Tai forward, letting him think he was gaining ground. Tai pressed harder, clearly convinced that this time he had the upper hand.
Sharpness assessed automatically. He could step in now and end it in one clean strike. Not to steal the kill. That wasn’t it. He didn’t want the kill.
He wanted…
His jaw tightened.
To protect?
The thought felt foreign. Irritating. Protect Jude? Since when? Jude didn’t need protecting. Jude was the one who engineered disasters and smiled while people walked into them.
Steel clashed again. Tai’s hits were aggressive, fueled by frustration. Jude’s health dipped slightly.
Sharpness stepped forward.
Then pistons moved beneath the earth with a violent mechanical crack, and the ground vanished under Tai mid-swing. One second he was lunging forward, blinded by momentum, the next he was swallowed whole. A startled shout cut off abruptly as he dropped into the pit below.
Silence fell over the clearing.
Then Jude laughed.
Bright, unhinged, and victorious.
He stepped lightly to the edge of the hole and peered down, hands resting on his knees. “You really thought I wouldn’t prep for that?” he called, voice echoing faintly against the walls. The death message flashed in chat a moment later.
_Tai was slain.
Jude brushed aside a patch of grass nearby and slipped into a hidden tunnel with a ladder leading to the crit out chamber, seamlessly concealed. Of course there was a retrieval route. Tai hadn’t walked into an accident. He’d walked into something built specifically for anyone unlucky enough to be here with Jude in this part of the map.
Sharpness stepped out from the trees and approached the edge of the pit, staring down at the drop. The precision of it. The impossibility of escape. The way the trap blended perfectly into the clearing.
And then something colder settled in his chest.
The exact stretch of ground.
A day ago.
He had walked here. Right over this patch during their argument, something trivial and competitive, something neither of them actually cared about. He remembered stepping forward, Jude unusually quiet beside him.
The pistons hadn’t retracted. The earth hadn’t opened. He hadn’t fallen.
Sharpness’s mind recalculated with uncomfortable clarity. Jude memorized his traps, didn’t forget placements and didn’t miscalculate spacing.
Which meant the trap had been active.
Ready.
And Jude had chosen not to trigger it.
Footsteps sounded behind him. Jude emerged from the side tunnel with Tai’s new loot gathered neatly in his arms, brushing dirt from his sleeves like this was routine. He paused when he noticed Sharpness standing there.
“Oh,” Jude said lightly, that familiar smirk sliding back into place. “Were you watching?”
Sharpness didn’t answer immediately. He just looked at him, really looked at him, as though trying to reconcile the strategist with the decision he now understood.
Jude tilted his head slightly. “Relax. You weren’t the target.”
Sharpness’s gaze flicked once to the ground, then back up. His voice, when it came, was quieter than usual.
“I know.”
Something flickered across Jude’s expression, subtle, nearly imperceptible because that wasn’t the reaction he’d prepared for. No accusation. No anger. No mocking remark about how easy it would’ve been.
Just understanding. Just awareness.
Sharpness looked away first, but the realization wouldn’t loosen its grip. He had almost stepped forward to protect Jude from Tai’s revenge.
And Jude had already chosen not to drop him into the pit the day before.
They were rivals. Competitors. Constantly pushing, constantly testing.
So why did it feel like something fundamental had shifted between them?
Like the ground beneath their feet had moved.
And this time,
It hadn’t been a trap.