Chapter Text
Parrot didn't know why he was here.
Back in Paragon, a prison of broken memories and friendships. A perfect world, yet a dystopia all the same. A painful reminder of the friend he used to have and the friend he'd forced himself to move on from. The old version of himself that he shunned to protect himself and everyone else.
He didn't know why he'd come back to the place where he'd finally let go of his best friend. No matter how much he knew the real Wifies was still alive, and no matter how much he wanted to help save him, he just hadn't been able to, and this was when he realized. This was where he was forced to give up and do the one thing he hadn't wanted to do. The place where he'd last seen the one who corrupted his best friend.
All he knew was he lost someone.
He had stood here once, where a pressure plate was, looking into Wifies' darkened eyes, the eyes that used to hold so much light and faith now hardened by evil and control. Why had Wifies let it happen if he knew it would hurt Parrot so much? How could he let himself be so selfish? Parrot knew before he’d died there was still a piece of him left that regretted everything.
When Wifies had revealed to parrot that he was the Director, he’d explained that the moment the Director was born was when they were building their civilization in the End. Parrot could still hardly believe it had happened so long ago, but looking back, it made a lot of things make more sense. The real reason why he’d burned the Farlands compass had escaped from Parrot for so long until then.
He wasn't supposed to be here. He had duties to take care of as the king of Unstable, but he'd just needed to come here. He’d decided not to wear a lot of his royal outfit since it was mainly just for formal events, and he didn’t want his past clashing with the present. He couldn't stop thinking about what had happened here. That happened some days, but this was the most insistent it had ever gotten.
He'd told Theo he'd be away for about half a day and begged him to do just this one favor for him. Theo had reluctantly agreed to hold down the fort while he was gone. He seemed incompetent when it came to king duties, but Parrot knew he'd be fine. Parrot had seen him in ways the others hadn’t.
Parrot couldn’t stop thinking about this place because he didn’t know why Wifies died. It dawned on him a few days ago that this entire time, he’d just believed Wifies hadn’t moved, waiting for the spyglass Parrot had dropped on the pressure plate to despawn. Once it had, he’d died. But Parrot realized that might not have been true. When he got the death message, it hadn’t been five minutes since Parrot had dropped the spyglass.
Which meant Wifies might’ve run for the spyglass instead.
But Parrot knew this wasn’t a new revelation. He’d realized this the moment the message had been shown in the chat. He just couldn't bear to believe it because it would mean he’d brought the real Wifies back, only to kill him all over again.
Now he was standing on the edge of the gaping crater in front of him, the last place he’d seen Wifies. He shut off the train of thought harshly as a stray tear rolled down his cheek. If he thought about it for too long, he’d go insane. He needed to move on from that thought somehow.
He took a deep breath, the sound echoing softly around the circular chamber. Then another sound echoed, barely audible: pebbles falling to the ground as if someone had slightly lost their footing.
Parrot sighed, swallowing and clearing his throat. “You can come out, Spoke.”
A few moments passed before Spoke appeared a few yards to his right, holding a small bottle of milk. “Hey, man,” he said guiltily, his voice echoing around the room. He put the milk in his inventory and rubbed his arm. “I came to give you that command block like you mentioned earlier.” He was his usual enthusiastic self, like always, but he still seemed a bit off. Parrot figured it was because Spoke had been watching him for a little while now, and he was trying to be nonchalant.
Parrot sighed, smiling knowingly. “I know you heard me when I said tomorrow,” he replied pointedly.
“Yeah, but I figured why wait?” Spoke said cheerfully, a bit of his usual façade reappearing. He didn’t tend to keep the act up around Parrot since they were friends now, and Spoke had told Parrot about pretty much everything that had happened to him over the last year. “Wouldn’t want this thing to end up in the wrong hands, now would you?”
“It already is,” Parrot said, arching an eyebrow.
Spoke sighed. “Yeah… I deserve that,” he said. "So... what is this place? And why are you here? Don't you have things to do? Y’know, cause like, you're the king?"
"I'm having Theo hold down the fort for now," Parrot said. "I should only be gone for a few hours."
Spoke narrowed his eyes. "You dodged my question," he said accusatorially.
"Ah, and wouldn't the greatest liar on the server be a pro at spotting that one out," Parrot smirked at him.
"Weeellllll... you've got a point there," Spoke said.
"Do you remember... the Director?" Parrot asked hesitantly.
"Oh, yeah!" Spoke said. "That's me! Man, I haven't heard someone call me that in ages!"
Parrot chuckled and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, whatever," he said. Then his tone dimmed, and his smile wavered, replaced by grief. "This is where he died," he said in a level voice.
"Oh," Spoke said. There was a beat of silence as Parrot stared at the spot he'd last seen his friend and Spoke seemed to realize this was no joking matter. He took in their surroundings.
"Wasn't... the Director a bad guy?" Spoke said. "I mean, I overheard you and the rest of BAT talking about him like he was a threat."
"He was," Parrot said. "But it's a long story. We should probably head back anyhow; get that command block somewhere safe." Parrot turned around and Spoke followed suit, seeing the obvious social cue that this wasn't a matter of discussion.
"You know, after what you did to me and Wifies all those years ago... I never imagined we'd become friends." Parrot said, glancing at Spoke. “Well, really after everything you’ve done.”
Spoke laughed nervously, trying to keep his demeanor light, but Parrot could tell that hit him hard. He’d recently gone through a lot, having to escape the reputation that he made for himself, as well as literally escape a prison in the Nether.
“Yeah…” Spoke said. “Who would've thought? I mean, however fun all of that was… I do still feel kinda bad.”
“We've all done things we regret,” Parrot said sympathetically. “Speaking of which, where have you been keeping that command block?”
“Oh, it's just in my E-chest right now,” Spoke said casually. “It had been there for a long time before I was taken to Purgatory, too, and then a few weeks ago I found it in Jamato's house on the edge of the Farlands.”
Spoke proceeded to put down his Ender chest and take the command block out, as if for demonstration and proof. Parrot tried to protest, but his words were drowned out by Spoke’s gushing. You’d think the thing was his child based on how much he fawned over it.
“Doesn’t it just look amazing?” He said. “I only took it out because, well, proof that I really do have it, but also because I don’t think anyone but me or Jamato has actually seen one of these things.”
And he was right. Parrot hadn’t ever seen one of these things before, and now that he was looking at it for the first time, he felt like he couldn’t look away. On each side, beautifully odd brick-orange textured in a somewhat gridlike pattern painted its exterior while a pentagonal shape carved softly through it in a vanilla color. In the pentagon were nine differently colored lights that flashed slowly and softly, as if it weren’t the very thing that could bring the server to its knees. As if it weren’t something to be feared, but rather welcomed with a friendly demeanor.
“…I’ll admit,” Parrot managed to say. “That thing is spectacular.”
“Yeah, but you have to be careful where you hold it,” Spoke said. “Apparently whoever invented this thing thought it was a smart idea to put buttons on every single side; meanwhile, every button does something unique, and there are even more options when you press combinations of buttons, so I can’t even set this thing down. I really don’t know how we’re going to contai-” his voice cut off suddenly as the block pitched forward.
He tried to lean forward, tried to catch it, but it was too late. His fingertips brushed the corners and the block tumbled from his grasp.
Time slowed down in front of Parrot as Spoke leapt forward desperately in an attempt to reclaim it but Parrot grabbed his arm, pulling him backwards. The block hit the ground with a soft, anticlimactic thud as Parrot pulled Spoke back towards where Parrot’s pressure plate once stood.
The two of them ducked, waiting for something to happen. Nothing did.
Or so they thought.
“Spoke,” Parrot breathed into the silence, his tone saying everything, anger bleeding into his voice despite his best attempts.
Spoke was silent for a solid few moments. He tried to look at Parrot, his face apologetic, but Parrot was still looking into the distance. “I… I swear- I didn’t-”
“Did anything happen?” Parrot cut him short, his tone flat and urgent.
“I… I don’t think so,” Spoke said. “But some buttons were definitely pressed… I don’t know which ones a-and I don’t know what they did.”
“So, we’re standing in the middle of a pretty small and destroyed room with a loose cannon a few feet away from us,” Parrot said, finally looking over at Spoke.
“…Yes,” Spoke said. “That pretty much sums it up.”
Parrot slowly stood up. “But- Parrot, I swear, I didn’t- I didn’t mean- that wasn’t-” Spoke swallowed and took a deep breath. “I know that was my fault. I’m so sorry. I just- I swear something happened… I don’t know, I thought I had a good grasp! I was handling it very carefully…”
Spoke continued to ramble on, and Parrot was listening at first, but then his eye caught something.
Something shining. And… golden. Or brass? Some kind of warmly colored metal.
Parrot walked towards where he’d seen it out of the corner of his eye.
“And you know very well that I’m aware of what that thing could do to the server,” Spoke kept saying. “But I’m sorry that happened- I’ll try to make it up to you if it turns out that something really did happen-”
“Spoke, wait,” Parrot said quietly, and Spoke shut up. Parrot narrowed his eyes at a spot in the crater where his pressure plate might’ve once stood.
Was the air… glowing? Or something?
Parrot’s heart started to beat faster. Memories of what had happened here flashed in front of his eyes. Memories of someone he’d buried far, far below layers of guilt and fear, fear of losing someone else, fear of hurting someone else, fear of being the reason.
Then he saw it. The metal. The shine from afar that had caught his eye.
A spyglass.
But not just any spyglass; his spyglass. The one that Wifies had given to him. The one that had survived the Mafia, countless impossible battles, outnumbered fights, several prisons, friendships formed and broken, allies lost, and hope shattered and rebuilt over and over and over again.
“Something’s happening,” Parrot said, trying to keep his voice level. Spoke followed his line of sight, and he saw the spyglass, too.
And then they saw the faint outline of a figure clutching it, kneeling in the crater.
And Parrot’s heart stopped.
This couldn’t be possible. It could simply never happen. Wifies had died that day.
But nothing was impossible for a command block.
Spoke and Parrot stood shocked as Wifies – yes, he was really there – knelt in the crater, his shoulders shaking with sobs as he clung to the spyglass for dear life. He looked completely untouched, as if the explosion had never happened; his clothes were still in pristine condition and he didn’t have a single scar or burn mark on him.
“What the f…” Spoke trailed off.
Wifies’ head snapped up when he heard Spoke’s voice. He saw Spoke…
And then he saw Parrot.
When their eyes locked, Parrot saw how heart-wrenchingly different he looked. The light in his eyes was back. His face was covered in sorrow and grief and guilt.
“How is this possible,” Parrot whispered.
“Parrot,” he breathed, standing up shakily. “You… you look… and how…” he looked over at Spoke. Spoke glanced at Parrot, but Parrot couldn’t look away from the spyglass in Wifies’ arms.
He’d run for it.
He’d died running for it. He’d died trying to reclaim the one thing that was left of his old friendship with Parrot, trying to hold on to that one thing that was left of their relationship before the Director had ruined it all.
Wifies turned in a circle, looking around at his surroundings and seeing the ruined chamber and the giant crater that he was standing in. Then he looked back up at Parrot.
“What’s going on?”