Chapter Text
When Sharp wakes up, the first thing he notices is that wherever he is, he’s not on Strength. For a moment, he thinks he’s back in the arena he grew up in— suspended in the brief moments of respite he used to get before a match, when his trainer would come to give him a word of advice and a bit of food as fuel before he would inevitably paint the colosseum floors red with his opponent’s blood. It’s a dream he’s had some hundreds of times, and will have hundreds more; so it’s not surprising at first.
But… that’s not right, either.
He sits up to survey the room better.
It’s gaudy, decorated in expensive frames dripping with gold and precious gems. Sharp wonders fleetingly how easy it would be to steal some of the material— surely whoever had kidnapped him here or teleported him here had thought of a failsafe against greedy players stealing their shit, but a greedy Sharpness wasn’t exactly the sort of thing many people could prevent against. He is kinda poor right now… and he’s sure Twirps would appreciate the extra mats…
Sharp makes to get up, but he hisses when the cold air touches his upper body— which is wearing only a thin silken nightgown, lacking any of his protective gear. It’s unusual, but not the weirdest outfit an admin has made him wear, and he’s far too tired to question it anymore. He grumbles in defeat, flopping backwards onto the bed and letting himself sink into the pillows as he pulls the blanket up over his chin.
That’s another odd thing— the bed he’s on is spacious and plush. It’s not the kind of mattress Sharp’s used to sleeping on, which is barely softer than the wooden frame of the beds themselves and only made bearable with another body next to you.
Speaking of another body… Sharp worries his bottom lip between his teeth.
He had fallen asleep next to Jude last night, an occurrence that as Jude put it, still happened way too often for ‘people who were supposed to hate each other.’
(And yet, Jude still let him in every time he needed to leave Flow’s company or when Twirps wasn’t online. Surely that meant something about whether or not Jude hated him still?)
…The point was, he and Jude had fallen asleep next to each other, Jude latched onto Sharp’s back like he was some weird sort of shrimp-rabbit hybrid. If Sharp had been tp’ed here and given new clothes by an admin’s doing, surely he would have been given notice, like an information screen or something. And if he hadn’t— if someone had just straight up kidnapped him into this weird place, then surely Jude would have noticed. So whatever this place was— wherever he’d been taken— he wouldn’t have to wait long for an answer as to where he was or how to leave, so logically, a little voice inside his head that sounds suspiciously like his ex-teammate mutters, he should really get up and survey the room.
…It’s still too cold to do that, though, Sharp reasons to himself as he burrows under the covers again, shutting his eyes and letting himself go back to bed.
Except he doesn’t, because then there’s a knock on the giant door and suddenly, a small army of people dressed in maid and butler outfits come flooding in holding trays. Sharp sits there, bewildered as a maid marches up to him and waves a duster in his face.
“Good morning, your Grace,” she says, sounding both peeved and deeply tired at the same time. It’s a recognizable cadence to Sharp, and he almost freezes in place at the tone. “It’s about high time you woke up. There are only three days left until you leave for the Academy, after all, and today your fiancé is coming to visit.”
Uh. What? There’s… there’s no way he heard that right. Right?
“My… huh? Wh… what?” Sharp stares at the maid in front of him with increasing incredulity. His hand twitches underneath the sheet with the need to hold onto Excalibur or Caliburn, but of course— his precious twin swords aren’t here. Really, just where is he? “Huh?”
The woman raises an eyebrow. “Are you still asleep, your Grace? Does His Highness ring a bell to you? The Second Imperial Prince, Jude Losasso?”
He’s barely able to stifle his instinctive response of, that bitch? to instead survey his surroundings for some way to escape this room, because clearly, everyone here is insane. Sharp looks to his left— there’s a bunch of butlers huddled in the corner over some clothing racks, and to his right, there’s a few maids drawing apart the windows to let in the streaming sunlight, and the maid in front of him is still staring at him expectantly, as if he’s supposed to just play along with all of this without even knowing what’s happening.
“What’s… um. What’s my name?” Sharp looks up at her instead of fleeing immediately, goosebumps starting to prickle on his arms. Did he get bodyswapped or something? It wouldn’t be the first time Tai screwed up a command and ended up being partly responsible for trapping some dozens of people into an alternate dimension. Well… actually, on second thought, Sharp can’t really blame Tai for that one. He can blame Noob, though.
The lady in front of him is starting to look very impatient now. Sharpness can’t really blame her. “Your name is Sharpness Conexion, my lady. Now, are you ready to get dressed or not? The prince will be here any moment now.”
…Lady??????
Thirty minutes later, Sharp has figured out… exactly nothing from what he’s already been told by the head maid. His fiancé— because he has one of those, apparently— shares the same name with Jude, but that’s the only thing he knows. Surely, though, if he can talk to this Jude, maybe there’ll be similarities between him and his Jude?
That’ll probably be easier said than done though, if talking to this other(??? if they’re even different at all and this isn’t some weird prank) Jude means having to sit through getting pulled into a big, bulky red ballgown more than once. He has nothing against wearing dresses, but this is way too annoying to fight in. He’s cutting off at least half of the fabric as soon as no one’s watching him, if only so he can run around instead of having to carefully tiptoe through the halls so he doesn’t trip flat on his face. It’d be funny if it wasn’t so embarrassing… Strength’s swordmaster, reduced to a tightrope walker.
“My lady! My lady, the prince is here!” Another maid rushes into the busy dining room as Sharp’s busy shoveling mouthfuls of food into his mouth, flushing when she notices his eyes on her. “I mean— um. I’ll ask His Highness to wait, just—”
“No,” Sharp shakes his head, swallowing and standing up from the table, frowning when his skirt knocks against the other chairs as he attempts to get out. He’s gonna cut that as soon as he gets his hands on Excalibur again, he swears. It won’t take much, anyway, just a spare e-chest lying around somewhere in this mansion should do it… “Where is Jude? I’ll talk to him.”
The maid gapes at him, and Sharp blinks at her before she regains her composure. Does he have crumbs on his face or something…? “I— oh, of course, you two must be close, given all the rumors… I–I mean—! I’m sorry, my lady, please, follow me…”
“Okay,” Sharp agrees. He doesn’t really see the fuss, but the maid herself seems a little antsy, and she practically bolts away when he reaches a big room with white curtains, holding the door open for him before immediately closing it after her and running away. Sharp blinks at the empty hallway behind him for a second before he turns his attention back onto the room— and immediately, his eyes zero in on… Jude.
Or— wait. Is that supposed to be the Prince?
But— they look the exact same to him, still? Big bunny ears, weirdly intense pink eyes that widen in surprise when Jude looks at him, and— oh.
“Sharpness?” Jude practically shoots up and out of his seat once he spots Sharp, his mechanical left eye whirring in its socket as he rushes over practically right next to Sharp— stopping just before his hands can grip Sharp by his shoulders, frowning at him like he’s not sure what to think. Sharp glances down at his hands, noting the robotic joints barely covered by the silk glove Jude wears, and then back up at the face he knows so well.
This is definitely the Jude he knows.
“I mean— uh. You are… Sharp, right?”
Sharpness blinks, not really registering Jude’s words so much as he’s taking in the outfit the other man is wearing. He’s never seen Jude without his big hoodie before, even when he crawls into Jude’s bed at night. It’s interesting, for sure… he wonders if he’d be able to spot a tail? “Who else would I be?”
Jude lets out a big sigh at that, rabbit ears lowering with the exhale. “No, I mean— ah, fuck it. We— you were in my base yesterday, weren’t you?”
“...Yeah?” Oh, does he think Sharp’s not from Strength? Well, Sharp supposes he doesn’t exactly have any identifying features to pick out from a random person, so it’s understandable. “We fell asleep together. Flow tried to trap me in our base again, so I went over to yours and Parker let me in cause he felt bad. Is that good enough?”
“Yeah, yeah. That’s… yeah. I get it.” Jude shakes his head, the tension draining out of his frame. “Let’s sit down or something. Do you know where we are?”
“No idea,” Sharpness admits as he follows Jude back to the couches where Jude was originally sitting, flopping down on the seat opposite him. “Do you? I thought it could be, like… a sandy base or something Tai pasted in for fun, but there’s no way he’d get so many people in on it.”
“Yeah, I thought of that too,” Jude frowns. He purses his lips, “But… I have a feeling it’s something different.”
Sharp waits for Jude to explain. He doesn’t, so Sharp nudges him a bit: “What is it then? Is it like… oh, are they building a civilization or something?” He twists around the room, looking for a hidden camera system or the subtle distortions of air that would signify an admin hidden in spectator, only to find nothing. When he looks back at Jude, the bunny is staring back at him with a weirdly intense stare on his face. “Jude?”
“Huh? Oh, sorry… fuck, no, it’s not that, no. It’s… fuck my chud life. Sharp, you know what a dating game is?”
“Like… a wedding?”
“...Okay. No. So—” Jude sighs. “It’s just… imagine a game, right.”
“Uh-huh,” Sharp answers tentatively, a bit curious as to where Jude’s going with this. He looks unusually uncomfortable with the explanation, so Sharpness figures it’s probably something embarrassing he might be able to use against Jude later, when they’re back on Strength and out of this weird situation. “I’m imagining?”
Jude snorts lightly, “Right. Okay. So… you’re like, I dunno, a lonely little gooner— before you say anything, I know that’s not true, this is a hypothetical— and you wanna pretend that you have game. Yeah? So like, there’s some game types that are made for people like that.”
Sharp nods, before his brain catches up to him and he frowns. “Wait, Jude, are you saying that—”
“That we’re in one of those kinds of games? Uh, probably, yeah,” Jude mutters.
“How do you know that, though? Did you trap us here? Was this one of your failed traps?” Sharp frowns, standing up from the couch to tower over Jude properly. Actually, he’s pretty sure he’s taller than Jude even while they’re both standing, what with the heels he’s wearing and all. He reaches out and tugs on the rabbit’s ear, sticking his tongue out when Jude bats him away unceremoniously. “Jude, I swear if you trapped us here—”
“I didn’t do shit! I woke up in some weird fucking palace room like three hours ago, got told we were engaged and that I had to travel all the way over to this place in an uncomfortable ass carriage thing instead of flying like a normal person, and now I’m more sure than ever that we somehow got stuck inside a fucking dating game!” Jude groans as he drops his head into his hands. “And I have no fucking clue what to do, cause this is the kinda bullshit that only happens in— like– fucking isekai animes, or whatever..”
There’s silence for a moment, before Sharp hesitantly asks, “Well, you could tell me what you think’s going on?”
“...Yeah, okay. That’s probably a good place to start, anyway.”