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Everything goes wrong. Of course it does.
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Cytian is seething with anger when they walk into Earth’s base- more like stride in, each step painfully audible. Their earwings are flared out, each feather ruffled and unstraightened; they really neeed to repreen them, later. They don’t have time for that, right now.
“Earth!” Cy calls out, glancing around the stone walls for their teammate, before hearing a muffled response over in the brewery. They make their way over, windcharge jumps a little wobbly; their hands are still shaking. Cy doesn’t think they could even manage to hold their sword without dropping it, right now. “Hello,” they greet him offhandedly, the familiar shape of Earthluz coming into view, “you good?” The first words that leave them are only slightly strained, but moreso uneasy. The last hour had been spent typing over broken comms, chat muddled in their panic. Hello? Communicate. Are you okay? Are you okay? Hello? Earth? Short messages, sent back and forth. Cy clings to every word.
Earth doesn’t look the worst. From what they heard, he’s come out of this fight, this 2v1, practically unscathed, but not winning. “Yeah,” he responds absentmindedly, eyes narrowed, hands busy with restocking the chests. They hand him a few stacks of recently smelted glass, and he thanks them quietly.
Cy looks over their inventory. They have pathetically little supplies on them, no potions, no bandages. They grimace, throwing out 3 stacks of armadillo scutes into some corner. That won’t serve them any good. “God- Earth.” Cytian sighs, sliding down the wall. They’re exhausted, horribly drained even though they barely did anything except panic and worry and throw potions over the fight. “I don’t know what to say.” Earth chews at his tongue. “I don’t know what to do.”
This was supposed to go perfectly. This was supposed to go right, they were meant to come out victorious, and Cy was going to spin him around and laugh, wings fluttering in joy, and rant about righteousness and purity and sinning. Now, they’re just sitting helplessly on the cold stone of the dimly lit brewery, staring directly at him, speechless. Earth looks back. Cy sets a paw over where their heart is, feeling it beat ever so slightly under their fur. They recall standing over the patch of gravel, both hands filled with potions, balancing a shovel over their shoulder. They remember receiving the message, splashing potions over the armored dogs- thinking, sinking, dread sitting heavy in them- did they mess it up? What’s happening? The pit, the grave wasn’t even close to Earth’s base, they have no idea what’s happening, they don’t know. And it was terrifying. Their heart had pounded so-so-so loud in their ears, their hands shaking in the silence. They had pressed the button and watched every dog- what must’ve been twenty, thirty, forty, teleport away. All this time they spent with him.
He deserved this win. He really did. They remember being curious, sending him a message, questioning, and he had invited them into this operation. A week ago, they had been eager, testing out his plan, finding workarounds with him. This should have worked. This should have gone perfectly, and they’re so, so pissed that it didn’t. Cytian drops their head into their hands, letting out some muffled sentence of hate. Maybe they should have known better.
Whatever. It’s not about them.
Cytian watches him numbly as he finishes up with stocking the autobrewer, as he paces back and forth, at a loss for words. At a loss for what to do. So they gesture him over, waiting until he’s standing just in front of them before tugging at his arm, pulling him onto the floor beside them. One of their wings extends around his back, wrapping loosely around his shoulder as they scan him. His clothes are slightly torn from whatever sword slashes did manage to hit him, but Cy’s pretty sure that both Zyx and Doubleside are worse off. After all, they’re the ones that have to nurse several dogbites, deep and harsh. Cytian huffs a laugh; they deserve it, they think. “Are you sure you’re good?” One of their paws rests loosely over a gash on his shoulder, and he startles. “I said yes,” he gives them a slight smile, “here.” He uncorks a health potion and lets it drip over whatever few wounds that were left over from the totem pop, wincing when the cuts stitch themselves back up. Cytian nods slowly, earwings rustling. “I’ll stitch up your blazer later,” they mutter, and he grins wider.
And they do really need to talk about this. Cy isn’t sure if they should wait until Earth brings it up, but they need to discuss. They sit in silence, next to each other, as the autobrewer continues doing its thing, discussing pointless things. “I’m gonna make a turtle farm,” they say, and he nods. “My dog army is going to double in size. Maybe triple.” They’d like to help him with that. Cy flicks him with their finger once or twice, and he snorts, idly fixing his hat every once in a while. They wonder if they should give him a pin for it, that’d be nice. Properly declare their alliance, even if everyone knows. They’ve shouted his name enough for this fact to be spread, all the hey, that’s my teammate! “And you put the gravel back. Thanks.” Cy laughs, “You were destroying them, I got bored.”
“Goddamn losers.” They start, eventually, after yet another period of silence. Earthluz hums in mild agreement. “Holy shit, man. Holy shit.” Cy tugs at one of the straps across their chest, tail flicking over on their right side. “It was a fucker move. Pathetic,” they spit, and Earth continues for them. “‘It’s time,’ if we knew... If we knew just how low they could go...”
Cytian falls silent, watching as Earth pulls out his sword, running a clotch up the blade, wiping bloodstains off. “Fucking...” They don’t know what else to say, except swear after swear. They think they want to hurt someone, maybe beat up an armor stand until it was nothing but a pile of smoldering sticks. Everything aches; their head still hurts. Earlier that day, Zyx had maced them twice, nearly popped them, and their head had spun for an entire hour afterwards. They didn’t mention it to Earth, anyway, except for dming him that either Double or Zyx works- but I want to see Zyx dead. Zyx never deserved that mace. They should have known better, they should have known that just because he had wings and a halo doesn’t mean he was good. A faker, a liar, a cheat and a fraud. Cytian wants to see people like him burn in hell. He doesn’t deserve the weapon he holds so comfortably.
“Fuck.” Earth repeats, scrolling through his communicator. His lips tug into a tight frown, “and they killed all my dogs.” Cytian winces. “Yeah... yeah. I know. I know.” They pause, “I’m sorry. They slaughtered all your aboveground dogs. They didn’t have to, but when did that ever matter?” They tried to stop them; so did Creeper, but they should have known that their words only fell on deaf ears. They shouldn’t even try to reason with them, stuck on a throne so high they don’t hear anything else. “Double nearly went and killed all the ones in your base as well.” Earth turns to look at them, fire in his white pupils. “What?” The anger in his tone is unmistakeable, so Cy just continues, tired. “Didn’t. He didn’t. Got convinced out of it.” Maybe Zyx saw it as doing them a favor. That’s too far, they remember overhearing, easy words coming from his mouth, too far, Doubleside. We’re not that awful. Cytian wanted to scream, yes, yes you are. You are. You are. Hurting innocent players like me, like him, like Creeper. They’ve always told him to get a hold on his teammate, but he never listened. Where did that leave them?
A hole in the ground. Direct center of the wonderfully paved pathways, a crater with smoldering stone and crumbling dirt. Purplestix, ears pinned back and fire in his eyes, lava in his hands. They had to watch Creeper desperately run after Purplestix, begging him to not set fire to the town center. Cytian sighs, runs a hand through their hair. How did it all spiral so fast? Get a hold of your teammate. This can’t stand anymore.
“I’m sorry,” they mumble again, “maybe if I was any more threatening, they’d listen. I should be a better fighter.” A better teammate, for you. Earthluz shrugs them off. “I would’ve called off this entire operation if it wasn’t for you. You did good.” They sigh. “... Yeah. You as well.”
Cytian pauses, reconsiders. They really ought to tell him how good he was. “I mean it. Did you know how terrifying you were, like that?” They give him a half-smirk, nudging his shoulder. “You and your army, snapping jaws and glistening teeth. Oh man, I would’ve ran to the farlands if I saw that.” Another lightning bolt of concentrated pain drills into the side of their head, and they purposely still the feathers on their head. Did Blackout really hit them that hard? Earth scoffs, glances to the side. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Thanks.” He rolls his eyes.
He tugs himself up after a moment, climbing the ladders to his netherwart farm. Cytian follows, stretching their limbs. They should really go to bed. “Bitches,” they hear him mumble, and respond likewise: “Pussies.” Cy giggles. “Immortal duo? Wrong. Bitch and pussy duo.” Earth does a doubletake, fingers halting, netherwart still in his grasp. They hear him stifle a snicker. “Who’s the pussy?” Cytian pretends to consider. “Zyx’s the pussy. But I guess he can also be a bitch. He can be a lot of things.” Earth honest-to-god laughs, and Cytian has never been happier to hear it. “No, no, listen.” He says, breathless, “they really have no honor.” “No dignity! So, we’re the real winners. We’ll take our losses like real men.” Cy gestures vaguely, “there’s this fun thing, y’know? There’s this fun thing they did in Rome, called ‘decimation,’ where you, like,” they clasp their hands together, wings fluttering passionately. “Gamble. For death. 1 in 10 people draws the short straw, and they’re beat to death. But I’m sure we can do that with just two people, too. Cause they both ditched a fight.” “Like cowards.” “Like rats! They’re no better than rats!”
The netherwart is replanted after Earth stops giggling with them. They introduce the concept of Adrasteia to him, a light smile on their face, tail swaying back and forth excitedly. They exchange idle banter, talking about how many potions they could brew within the next few days. Cytian promises to grind resources for him, previous explosions forgotten. Cy says, all casual, we’re gonna get them. Together. One way or another.
-
“Earthluz win.” “Earthluz win,” he confirms in their vague direction, not turning around. Cytian thinks that’s a human display of trust, which is honestly very sweet of him. They sip at a bottle of water, grabbed from a shelf at their base, throat way too dry. “Do you like coffee? I think we can figure out how to make coffee.” They’ve only ever had coffee off-world, but if it’s possible in Hypixel, it’s surely possible here as well. They’d love to run a bar one of these days. Cytian yawns; the air is a little stifled, a little too warm. There is a faint trickle of rain outside of Earthluz’s base, but they’re both dry inside, and Cy isn’t eager to go out. Not again, at least. “I don’t know, Cytian. Do you think it’s possible?” Cytian considers. “We probably have cocoa beans on hand, but those aren’t the same as coffee beans. I guess that means we could make hot chocolate if we tried really hard.”
Earth blinks tiredly. “Maybe. Maybe one day.” Cy settles down next to him, tucking their legs under them, looking at him. They’ve had their conversation, they’re dealing with the aftermath. Cy’s been running back and forth around town, but now that the puddles have started seeping into the earth, they’re not keen on staying out anymore. Why do that when there’s a perfectly warm base right here? They should tell him what a wonderful job he’s done with his base, perfectly balanced in practicality and being livable.
They let out a soft “ah,” remembering why they were here in the first place. They offer a bowl towards him, one hand half-raised and wings hung lower, relaxed now that the two people they’ve been thinking about are offline. The previous tension strung in their shoulders is gone, and they give him a smile. Cy had run out a bit earlier, murmuring some halfhearted excuse about collecting more food- which isn’t wrong, to be honest. It’s just not from the villagers. From gathering ingredients from their own house and making him a small bowl of stir-fried vegetables, there’s a lot they could do for him. Cytian nearly burnt their own hands starting a fire and precariously balancing a cauldron over it, waiting for the metal to warm up before dumping in chipped carrots, potatoes, and chicken into the makeshift pan. They’re glad that their faltering hands could at least cook a decent meal.
Earth grins at them and accepts, poking at it with a wooden fork. “S’not poisoned.” Cytian grumbles, pulling their legs up. “Don’t know how much you’ve eaten today, so. Have a snack.” They add amusement into their tone, “if I killed you, I’d have no teammate left. That’d suck.” Earth scoffs. “It sure would suck.”
They do wonder when the last time he ate was. It’s whatever, because then they start thinking about dragging him a few thousand blocks out. Even if they don’t find anything, it’s good to talk to him somewhere far away.
“Hey,” they say to him eventually, and Earth makes some noise to acknowledge them. Cytian grins. “Pack your stuff up. We’re taking a trip.” They can’t wait to explain logistics and technicalities to someone like him.