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“Nacho! Nacho… Help me— Katie! Katie…”
Nausea overtakes him so suddenly that he doubles over. His stomach twists as though something inside him is being ripped away, and every breath comes shorter than the last.
Rain falls against his armor, running down his face in cold streams, but he barely feels it anymore.
The pain is unbearable.
As he feels the raindrops, the scientist's thoughts scatter to him.
It’s no use calling him, it’s a waste. Multi is hopeless and pathetic, like he’d never thought he’d ever be, uselessly thinking about someone who can’t do anything to help him.
He isn’t here. He doesn’t even know what Multi’s plan is, nor how to get here in the first place. The last mission they shared ended with him barely able to stand while Multi got him back onto his feet, refusing to let him fall behind, leaving the temple behind after succeeding.
This time, Multi is alone.
Calling for him as if he would come to save him makes no sense.
But still. Still.
“Quackity.”
His own voice surprises him. It leaves his throat like a rasp before another violent cough tears through his chest, blood splattering.
—
A strange peace settles over him.
Multi is not dead, because you cannot kill what has already died.
But he is not alive, either, not really.
That part of him had been fading for a long time now, long before today, long before the laboratory, long before he had learned to keep moving simply because stopping had never been an option.
His body feels impossibly light, almost weightless, as though gravity itself has changed.
He hears something through the haze.
“Multi. Multi. Multi!”
Someone is calling his name.
He blinks against the blur clouding his vision, shapes slowly turn into a familiar face leaning over him.
Quackity.
For a brief, irrational moment, Multi thinks he must still be unconscious.
The avian’s feathers, usually a bright yellow, have faded into something almost white, soft enough to remind him of snow.
His face is twisted with worry, brows furrowed as his gaze looks frantically over Multi’s body, checking for wounds that no longer seem to exist. His hands hover his body before finally cradling Multi’s cheeks.
Everything is quiet, in the distance he swears he hears enderman noises, but everything else feels muted.
Not fully empty, just peaceful.
It is such an unfamiliar feeling being forced upon him that Multi simply stares.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Quackity mutters, his voice carrying equal parts irritation and relief as Multi’s finally seems to show consciousness.
Only then does Multi notice their surroundings.
Behind Quackity stretch obsidian pillars, impossibly tall, reaching into a sky filled with stars. There are dozens of them, surrounding them. In the distance, he catches floating islands suspended in an endless void.
It feels less like standing inside a night sky.
“What?” His throat is rough, though painless.
As he pushes himself upright, another figure catches his attention. A small child stands a few steps behind Quackity, peeking curiously around his wings. Something about him, the messy hair or the thick eyebrows, strikes Multi as strangely familiar.
“What’s going on?” The scientist asks.
“That’s what I’m asking!” Quackity blurts out immediately. “You shouldn’t be here. Why are you here?”
The child notices the tension in his voice and quietly wraps both arms around Quackity’s side. Without taking his eyes off Multi, the avian absently ruffles the kid’s hair, the gesture so practiced that it seems instinctive.
“Where are we?” Multi asks, struggling to piece together the last thing he remembers. “I thought you—”
The bench. His mission.
The certainty in his voice when he had insisted there would always be somewhere for Quackity to come home to.
“This is The End dimension,” Quackity says, offering him a hand. “People usually just call it ‘limbo’.”
The words take a moment to register.
“What?”
His gaze drops to his own hands. No blood. No injuries. No heartbeat pounding against his chest. He cannot even tell whether he’s breathing anymore.
“No…” His voice is barely audible. “No, that’s—”
He looks back at Quackity, searching desperately for some sign that this is another one of his terrible jokes. Instead, Quackity only looks more confused.
“God, that’s what I’m asking!” he snaps, stepping protectively in front of the child. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
Multi knows he should answer, try and remember more.
But the only question that matters to him slips out.
“What are you doing here?”
Quackity stares at him for a long moment before letting out an exhausted sigh, rubbing both hands over his face. “Seriously?” he mutters. “I asked you first—whatever.”
He drops his gaze, kicking absentmindedly at the floor that looks like yellow cobblestone.
“My plan failed.”
Something twists inside Multi’s chest.
Rain had always meant something.
He had never fully understood why, never managed to explain the certainty that settled over him whenever the skies opened, but he had learned not to ignore it. Every storm seemed to carry bad news before anyone had spoken a word.
He closes his eyes, trying to untangle the last fragments of memory. Everything after seeing his clone is trying to slip away every time he reaches for it. When he opens his eyes again, Quackity is still standing there, waiting with the same tired expression.
“Well,” Multi says at last, “my plan failed too.”
Silence follows.
The island floats in an endless sea of stars, so many of them that darkness barely exists. There is no wind here, only an impossible stillness interrupted by distant enderman noises echoing from somewhere beyond the obsidian towers.
Quackity lets out a snort.
It catches Multi completely off guard.
Another snort follows, turning into a giggle and, within seconds, the avian is bent over laughing, shoulders shaking as he tries to muffle it.
“Oh my God,” he wheezes. “Seriously?”
Multi raises an eyebrow at his, nostalgically familiar, unseriousness.
“You…” Quackity points at him between laughs. “You actually got killed.”
“I’m aware, Quackity.”
“And I blew myself up.”
“Apparently?”
Quackity completely loses it, the laughter grows louder, borderline hysterical. It feels like it echoes through the island.
Multi watches him for several seconds before the absurdity catches up to him, and he starts laughing too.
It’s ridiculous.
Because after months of unfinished plans, escapades, near-death experiences and promises they had fully intended to keep, this was where they ended up.
Together. In The End.
He feels so light and their laughs slowly fade.
A tiny fake cough interrupts them.
Both men look downward.
The child standing between them smiles timidly before giving Multi a shy little wave.
Now that he’s looking properly, the resemblance he’d noticed earlier becomes clearer.
Messy dark hair held back by a red bandana and pronounced eyebrows that look so much like Roier’s.
Round brown eyes shining behind thick nerdy glasses, carrying Quackity’s warmth.
Two tiny horns in his forehead, while a reptilian tail lazily sways behind him. His oversized shirt with red and white stripes hangs loosely over his small frame.
He’s adorable.
“Oh.” Quackity’s expression softens so naturally that Multi almost doesn’t recognize him. He crouches beside the child, gently cupping his cheeks between both hands before squishing them just enough to earn a giggle.
“This is Pepito,” he says, full of pride. “My son.”
The words settle heavily in Multi’s stomach.
He’d suspected as much.
Maxo had spoken endlessly about the eggs in the tapes, he vaguely remembers the way he said everything started treating them as their own children, children everyone seemed willing to throw themselves into danger for.
Knowing something and seeing it are two entirely different things.
He slowly lowers himself to Pepito’s eye level, careful not to invade the child’s space.
“Nice to meet you, Pepito.” The kid’s eyes brighten.
Without saying another word, he hurriedly searches through his pocket until he finds some crayons and a soft pink sign. His tongue pokes out in concentration as he scribbles.
nice to meet you too!
Next to the messy handwriting, there’s a poorly drawn rabbit wearing a smile.
Pink.
His own smile falters before he can stop it, he thinks about his own son.
Quackity notices, but he doesn’t comment on it as he gently pats Pepito’s shoulder.
“Okay, Pepito.” His voice changes completely, becoming softer than Multi has ever heard it. “¿Puedes esperarnos adentro? Apa va a hablar un momento y entramos, ¿va?”
The kid nods immediately, wearing a polite little smile. Before leaving, however, he looks back toward Multi and gives him one final enthusiastic wave.
Multi returns it without thinking.
The child beams before sprinting toward a wooden cabin, disappearing inside only after nearly tripping over his own dragon tail.
Quackity watches the cabin door close before he lets out a deep breath.
“So,” The avian says quietly as he stands beside him again, “what exactly happened?”
This time, Quackity doesn’t interrupt.
He simply listens as Multi recounts everything he remembers. The way the day started, the day before, past adventures that they were never able to catch on, Katie and Nacho.
His decision. The clone. The rain.
Every sentence comes slower than the last as memories blur together, so much disappearing of it that his mind refuses to fill. By the time he reaches the end, he cannot even describe how he’d died.
He only fully remembers the feeling of the rain on his skin, everything else feels blurry.
Throughout the story, Quackity says nothing, but Multi watches his expression harden. It goes from confusion, to disbelief finally ending in palpable anger.
“He promised me.”
The words come through clenched teeth.
“We made a blood pact.” His wings tense up behind him. “It’s impossible.”
He begins pacing towards his cabin.
“It doesn’t matter if he was your clone. If they were working together, they should’ve suffered the consequences. That’s how blood pacts work.” He drags both hands through his hair, frustration mounting with every word. “Unless…”
He freezes and looks back toward Multi, genuine confusion replacing the anger.
“The only explanation would be if you were the clone.” He shakes his head almost immediately. “Then maybe I’d have needed to specify which one I meant.”
His fingernails catch against his lip, anxiously tearing skin without him noticing.
“But that’s…”
“It doesn’t make sense,” Multi finishes quietly.
For a long moment, neither of them speaks.
Then the scientist reaches out, resting a hand against Quackity’s shoulder. “It’s okay.”
Quackity bitterly laughs once, because he cannot believe Multi just said that.
“No,” he says, his voice cracking. “It’s not. It’s not okay. You have people waiting for you.”
Every word hits harder than the last.
“You have Katie and you have Nacho. You have an entire life you were supposed to go back to, you have a family.”
His shoulders tremble, he hides himself with his own arms.
“You were supposed to be the one who got out, the one that would change everything even if I didn’t make it.” The avian covers his face. “And I promised—”
Multi doesn’t hesitate, he steps closer. “You are my family too.”
The words are spoken quietly, intimate between them. They make Quackity look up and his eyelashes clump together, damp with tears.
“But you have more,” he says weakly. “And I promised I’d make sure you’d be protected.”
Multi smiles tiredly, small and bittersweet.
“Then I guess we both broke our promises.”
“I guess.” Quackity wipes his face with the sleeve of his old hoodie, taking a slow breath until his voice steadies again. He avoids Multi’s eyes, choosing instead to stare out into the endless nightsky. “My brother appeared. Apparently, he snitched on me.”
“Brother?” Multi echoes.
Philza and Maximus had mentioned another Quackity months ago, but never with that much explanation. At the time, he’d assumed Quackity was eventually going to talk about it.
“Yeah.” Quackity waves a dismissive hand. “Long story.” He lets out a humorless laugh before shrugging. “Point is, I was supposed to get close enough to Cucurucho to blow both of us up.”
Multi stares. “What?”
“What?” The avian sounds offended upon being interrupted.
“You skipped over the part where your plan was to blow yourself up.”
“I mean…” Quackity rubs the back of his neck. “I kind of told you, back in the reactor.”
“You absolutely did not.”
“I implied it.”
The scientist frowns.
“I heavily implied it.”
“You said there was a chance you wouldn’t make it,” Multi replies flatly. “That is not the same thing as saying, ‘By the way, I’m planning to turn myself into a bomb.’”
Quackity opens his mouth to argue, pauses for a second, then points at him.
“Okay, fair.”
Multi groans, dragging a hand down his face.
“Still,” Quackity continues, refusing to sound guilty for more than a few seconds, “there really wasn’t another option.”
“There had to be.”
“There wasn’t.”
“Clearly there was, because that one didn’t work.”
Quackity snorts despite himself, but the smile fades almost immediately.
“My brother got there first,” he says more quietly. “I still managed to blow the place up, just not enough.”
Multi exhales through his nose, pinching the bridge of it as if the gesture might somehow undo the headache that’s already brewing.
“So let me get this straight.” He begins counting on his fingers. “You blew yourself up, Cucurucho survived, your brother betrayed you and my clone probably replaced me…”
“Our deaths kinda suck.”
“You said limbo.”
“I did.”
“So we’re not dead.”
Quackity tilts his head from side to side. “It’s not much better. And we are not alive either.”
He says it so casually that Multi almost laughs again.
Instead, he looks around properly for the first time.
The island stretches farther than he’d realized, connected to others by narrow bridges suspended over nothingness. Obsidian towers disappearing into stars that never seems to end. There is no sun and no moon either. No sense of time passing. The silence isn’t absolute anymore, either.
It doesn’t feel like death.
“You’ve been here a while,” Multi realizes.
Quackity nods. “I think so.”
“You think?”
“I don’t know how time works here.” He shrugs. “You said you saw Cucurucho the day after we talked, right?”
“Yeah.”
Quackity thoughtfully says. “Then for you it’s probably been that one day.”
“And for you?”
“I wanna say…” He squints dramatically toward the sky as if expecting a calendar to appear, counting something with his hands. “A week? Maybe longer.”
Multi blinks.
“You’ve been here alone for a week?”
“Not alone.” Quackity motions toward the cabin where Pepito disappeared.
Something sits heavy on Multi’s chest.
A week.
While he’d been desperately searching for answers, believing Quackity was gone to do his mission, the avian had already built himself a routine in limbo.
“I hate this,” Quackity mutters as they finally reach the cabin’s front lawn. “It’s so unfair. It feels like everything was for nothing.”
“I know.”
“I was so close.” Quackity throws both hands into the air in exasperation. “I just wanted to rest. To be the one to kill him. That’s all I asked for.”
He puts a hand on the avian’s back, silently realizing that he’s not wearing his labcoat.
It’s barely there, but his reflection on the door’s window shows himself. But it’s a version that has been long gone, white dreads, bright blue eyes and healthy looking skin.
It’s as nostalgic as it is wrong.
They lapse into another comfortable silence.
After a while, Multi’s expression grows serious again.
“He probably took my place.” He repeats what he mentioned before, Quackity turns towards him. “My clone.”
The words taste bitter.
“I don’t know if Katie will notice. Or Nacho. I don’t know what he’s going to do.” His fingers curl tightly. “I don’t even know if they’re safe.”
“My brother loves taking my place too,” Quackity says with a grimace.
He falls quiet for a moment before bumping Multi lightly with his shoulder, like he himself had before.
“But we’re fixing it.”
Multi frowns. “What?”
“We’re going back.”
He says it with such certainty that Multi almost misses the sentence entirely.
“What do you mean, ‘going back?’”
“I mean exactly that.” Quackity looks at him as though the answer should be obvious. “We’re getting out.”
“This is limbo.”
“So?”
“So.” Multi gestures vaguely at the infinite sky around them. “People don’t usually leave limbo.”
“People also don’t usually come back from the dead.” Quackity shrugs. “You already did it once.”
Multi opens his mouth and then promptly closes it.
“We’re not completely dead,” Quackity continues. “Not really. Camp Fatal proved people can communicate across dimensions, right? If they figured that out, then there’s another way. We just have to find it.”
The conviction in his voice is unwavering.
It’s the same certainty he’d carried before, hopeful and carefree. The same confidence that had made Multi trust him, months ago, without having an actual reason to do so.
Only this time, it isn’t directed toward bringing down the Federation. This time, it’s directed toward getting both of them home.
“We’re leaving,” Quackity repeats as he pushes himself back onto his feet. “Eventually. And when we do, I’m personally kicking my brother’s ass.”
“You’ll leave? Here? This ‘life’?” Multi can’t help but ask.
“They treated me like a puppet until the very end.” The avian regrets. “This life will stay, and now that I know it exists, I have to do something. I have to try and fix it, then I’ll rest in limbo.”
Multi had thought he’d never see this Quackity again. It was almost cruel that limbo, of all places, had given him back the part of himself the living world never could.
From behind, Quackity almost doesn’t look like the man he’d watched disappear on that bench. His wings look healthier, but still the color has slowly turned white, giving them an almost ethereal glow beneath the starlight. His hands bear no scars, his pinkie back, and neither of them wears armor anymore, only the clothes they’d originally arrived in. Their footsteps make almost no sound against the ground, and every so often Multi catches sight of their feet, faintly translucent where they meet the endstone.
The entire place feels suspended outside reality.
Peaceful in a way that almost makes him afraid to believe it.
As they make their way inside the house, Multi immediately feels like it’s pretty lived-in. It’s cozy, the kitchen has one pot that’s heating up, ready to serve.
Then the back door of the cabin swings open.
“Volví,” a familiar voice announces his arrival. “No mames, esa elytra que Richas quería…”
Something about that voice makes the world tilt beneath his translucent feet.
For the first time since arriving, the world around him feels genuinely unreal.
A brunette steps through the doorway carrying a bundle of wood planks beneath one arm, probably for the fireplace, only to pause the moment he notices the scientist standing beside Quackity.
“…¿Eh?” He tilts his head. “¿Y este quién es?”
Quackity barely looks up.
“Ah, es Multi. Del que te hablé.” He says it so casually that it takes Multi a second to process the words.
The man looks at him again. There’s no fear nor suspicion. Not recognition, just curiosity.
It shouldn’t be strange.
Limbo is probably full of people who are not alive.
Meeting strangers should be expected.
The strange part is that Multi knows exactly who is standing in front of him.
“Roier?”
“That’s me.” The prince smiles with effortless warmth.
Pepito appears, running to the brunette to hug him, and the man picks him up instantly. He studies Multi for a second longer before scratching the back of his neck.
“I don’t think we’ve met.” His past friend says as he holds the kid with one arm. “Unless you’ve met my brother.”
An awkward silence settles and Quackity suddenly becomes very interested in adjusting one of his sleeves when Multi glances at him for answers.
“Long story,” the avian mutters.
Multi slowly nods.
That explains nothing.
Roier simply shrugs, accepting the lack of explanation without complaint, and walks past them into the kitchen, checking the steaming pots.
Quackity watches them for a long moment before finally looking back at Multi.
His smile is gentler as he finally closes the entrance door, encasing them in this home.
“It’s okay,” he says.
Then, with the certainty of someone who has already accepted eternity and still decided to fight it, he adds.
“We have all the time in the world.”
Multi had spent months believing time was always running out. Every conversation had been interrupted by another mission, another emergency, another goodbye neither of them wanted to acknowledge. He had grown used to measuring his life in countdowns.
Here, for the first time in what felt like forever, nothing really demanded his attention.
Just Quackity, closing the cabin door behind them as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
It should have terrified him, everything about this should be blaring alarms in his head.
Instead, he finds himself hoping Quackity is right.
“Okay.” He agrees, getting three smiles in return.
Multi realizes that if there is a road leading back to the living, Quackity will walk every step of the way.
And somehow, he already knows he’ll follow.