Archive of Our Own

It's unbearable.

He could deal with sounds of blood and gore, that much was fine to him, but the sound of skulls cracking as they're pulverized into nothing, of the mace making contact with the ground, tolling like a bell got to be too much the more it sounded across the room. He's not sure what he's holding himself up with, perhaps it's the armor clinging to his skin like a vice, but he knows his legs couldn't have supported him this far. The closer it draws, the further he sinks, a deep hole carving itself in his stomach just to suck every ounce of pride out of him. 

Spoke feels sick.
The bell doesn't wait for him to acknowledge that. 

His gaze turns up and to his left, and out of his peripheral, he notes the split second where Clown doesn't have a mace in his hand-- and in that moment of faux safety, Spoke wonders what it would be like to die here as a traitor. Would it be peaceful? He wouldn't need to worry about anything anymore, he would be fine, if he stood his ground, sat, and waited for his fate, perhaps everything would be as it should. His legs don't want to move for a reason; paralyzing fear or otherwise, he was meant to die here.

The bell tolls.
Spoke ponders what would happen after his death. 

All resistance to the Mafia would be squashed, he's sure. Maybe they'd put up a good fight, but it's not worth it. Perhaps here, Ash would get a chuckle out of seeing his name-tag. Perhaps, his only legacy would be as a subpar joke. The thought has some relaxing quality to it--
--until the bell tolls again.
Despite his best efforts to cloud his senses with anything else, his gaze remains fixated on the masked man above them all and the ear-to-ear grin adorning his mask; so he'll just imagine himself looking at Ash. He imagines the almost satisfied look on his face, either from bloodshed or simply being able to squash out a coward. Or perhaps it's a shameful scorn? Being unable to keep good men with him, he has to wipe out an (albeit slim) portion of his army to rid himself of a traitor that couldn't even reveal themselves.

The bell tolls once more. He can swear Ash murmurs something, but he's too blinded by his own internal monologue and the sound of the mace hitting the ground to care. He screws his eyes shut, as if afraid of what the world could possibly show him, heart racing in his chest. Spoke, I don't want to die here, a voice shouts. Spoke, I really don't want to die here.

Once more, it tolls.

There's a shockwave that causes Spoke's footing to falter, making him fumble awkwardly to the side. It's not enough for him to tip over, but even the slightest bit of movement results in a deadly glare from Ash.
One of his hands extends itself, as if it were already holding that fishing rod. "Don't move," he commands, voice slicing through the ringing in his ear with ease, "Or I'll make your execution worse than you could ever imagine." 

Spoke's legs bolt themselves to the floor. He can't help but sneak a glance to his side, however, since he's not yet heard nor felt the impact of a wind burst against the ground; Clown's mace looks to be buried solidly inside it. All his dread seems to be buried for the briefest of moments as the jester struggles to lift it.
"Stupid thing's stuck," he mutters. Ash chuckles from behind him, walking closer.
"We have all day. Use your sword if need be," the man orders, shrugging his shoulders. "unless, this one wants to fess up right here and now."
"Didn’t you want me to just use the mace, or are you–urgh, are you suddenly changing your mind," Clown retorts, grunting with each continued attempt to pull the weapon out from the earth’s hold. "I'd much–rather–GAH, it's like I'm trying to hold Thor's hammer!"

“Mjolnir,” Ash corrects with a surprising amount of offense behind the name, “now do you want help with that, or am I going to be forced to take the reins on this?”
The man extends an arm out to his side and within his hand–building itself from nothingness– appears that rod. He brings it closer to himself, his other hand caressing the line, twirling it around idly as he waits. Spoke wants to be mesmerized by the shimmer, as at least that might keep his mind just a little more occupied, but what with how Ash moves it to and fro he feels it might be a hassle to concentrate on it.

“It’s not worth it to keep distracting yourself.”
Jamato’s standing by his side. Spoke notes that he’s not necessarily speaking as much as Spoke’s imagining him talking. It’s been a while since he heard his voice, after all(too long. It’s been too long).
“You know what’s about to happen here. You can’t possibly delay the inevitable, you know.”

Inevitable? Spoke laughs back, a gauntlet shifting to his chest with a chorus of clinking metal. Jamato, I’m not stupid enough to die here.

“Says the sitting duck,” he retorts.

A thousand different excuses spring up in the place of a proper reply, all flying from his mouth. His head dips, gaze now drilling a hole in a deepslate tile directly in front of him in some bitter shame. Look, Jamato, I’m just scared, okay?

“Everyone knows.”

–And I don’t want to be scared. I want to get out of here, I can’t just die here. I have to…

“You’re shaking, Spoke. You’re terrible at hiding your fears. And that’s really the opposite of what the Invis Mafia needs out of their soldiers, isn’t it?”

I’m not even a real soldier. Metal-clad fingers feel along his hoodie until eventually they gently clasp themselves around Spoke’s neck. 

“But right now, you might as well be one.” Jamato gestures to Ash impatiently tapping the ground with the tip of his fishing rod. “Even if you fess up, I doubt he’ll want to keep a coward among his ranks any longer.
That’s what you are to him, to basically everyone else. You’re a coward, Spoke.”

Please stop, he thinks. The metal around his neck is much less comforting than just his bare hand. For a moment he closes his eyes and at once, the sensation becomes that of a fishing line tightly wrapped around his throat. He can almost sense Ash’s eyes trying to peel back the thin layer of invisibility keeping him from instant death.

“And you know what? Cowards don’t deserve the right to live. So get this in your head, Spoke:

You deserve what’s coming.”

As if on cue Clown finally frees his mace from the ground, spinning it triumphantly a few times before he passes a glance to Ash– the man in question releases a hefty sigh. “Just when I was thinking I’d have to take matters into my own hands.”

Whatever short conversation snippets they have begin to fade into a low hum that clouds his senses. It’s distracting, and his hand drops– he’s unsure what else he can do. He doesn’t deserve to face what Jamato called ‘the inevitable’-- because he’s better, he doesn’t deserve to die, he deserves to live and keep living, and yet–
“--look at him,” Clown says, pitifully. “Poor thing’s all clammed up. You make me feel bad for them sometimes.”

–yet–

“Pitying these things is your first mistake.” Ash walks a bit closer to the jester. “But this one’s case is especially interesting– you have to wonder, is it just stupid, has it made up its mind, or is it just some glutton for punishment?”

–yet…

Even after hearing Clown’s footsteps, he cannot bring himself to move.
Even after he sees Clown equip a wind burst, he cannot bring himself to move.
Even after Ash thrusts his hand forward as a command, and Clown leaps into the air, he cannot move.

“Too late,” Clown shouts in the air with a mighty laugh
and yet
the mace collides yet again with the bare ground
as his target staggers to its knees.

After the sudden crash of the mace landing intertwined with netherite colliding on the ground, there is a deep wave of silence. No party can truly comprehend the sight that fell before them– that, slowly, after perhaps verifying it had control of its limbs, bowing. It’s a rather sad bow, the thing’s head resting on the ground instead of just above it out of some exhaustion. Ash looks the sight up and down, solidifying his expression(and thankfully no other party could see him do so) and, eventually, speaking.

“You know what I hate more than anything?”

“Annoying idiots that make me waste my durability,” Clown mumbles to himself, yanking his mace out much more quickly.

“Lift your head up,” Ash commands. “lift your head up so I can get a proper reply out of you.”
Spoke slowly lifts his head up to meet Ash’s eyes before shaking his head.

“I hate slow decision-makers. I hate, more than anything else in the world, things who dare decide to waste my time by pondering every meaningless detail. Do you know how inefficient that way of thinking is in the Mafia? I’m sure you’ve been beating yourself over the head with it, so I’ll go ahead and save you the lecture. But this– this waiting until the last second, and then finally, when your back’s against the wall, caving in? You know what that is, that’s pathetic. Though I’m not sure what grace I expected from you, still holding onto empathy.”

The rod grazes Spoke’s neck. “Identify yourself. Maybe if I play favorites you might walk out of this intact.”

Spoke flinches when the rod flicks again, this time, embedding a hook cleanly through his shirt. It causes him to jolt back, unknowingly fixing his posture, though what little progress it makes is immediately hampered by his attempts to cover his chest. In being hooked, Ash leaves a thin lesion across it, and with how much it stings Spoke can’t exactly tell if it was intentional or not.
“Do I look like a dog owner or something?” Ash spits. “Identify yourself. I don’t have any problem killing you before I learn your name.”

Spoke’s hands drop to fumble through his inventory– passing through item after item, desperately searching for George Junior– and he does so just as he feels himself being tugged over, breaths heavy and quick.
The act of bringing George Junior out seems to do enough, as Ash falls into silence yet again–the fact he can’t tell what being the most agonizing part. Is it disbelief, anger, genuine shock?

Whatever it is, it lasts only a moment before the rod flicks once more– and the hook is released from him. Spoke’s chest aches.
“Pick yourself up,” he orders. “Go on. I’ve got a punishment in mind,

Fishbucket.”

Ash is a man who takes pride in the simplest of actions. In Spoke's eyes, he's untouchable, surrounded by the thick bubble that is his ego. There's an aura around him that it creates, where everything else is squished to be as insignificant and small as possible to make him as large and important as possible. And Ash revels in the rush that must give him, he's sure, how it adds to his ego, drips off his tongue while he threatens others to add some devilish sharpness to his words.

Spoke doesn't think he's wanted anything more in his life. Why, if he acted like that in front of Parrot, if he had the confidence to be so pompous...perhaps he did? Maybe now in comparison, his performance felt lackluster.

The worst part about all this thought is that it only comes to him now, as he watches Ash make a show out of handing him his next mission.

He turns his back, raises his cape over his shoulder, and makes a note of how one hand goes in barren, only to return with a book that's tossed into Spoke's hands(of which he caught immediately, obviously. Ash apparently just loved throwing assignments at people--literally, which he wasn't particularly good at catching before. He's grown, however. He's changed. He's a better catcher.)

"There," he says, finally turning around to meet Fishbucket in the eye, "there's your punishment. And if you do a good enough job with it, maybe it's your path to redemption. Flip it open." He makes a motion with his hand.
Executions aren't particularly the worst, just somewhat annoying, so when Spoke reads out his mission he's almost relieved that it isn't something worse, like an infiltration. Ash talks while he browses through the barren list of specifics.

 "I want to make sure you kill every last speck of empathy that dared to sit inside your sorry little heart. Show me you're worth keeping as a soldier, and tap into that heartlessness I know you have inside. It just needs a little push.”
As if to emphasize his words he playfully pokes Fishbucket where his heart would be. "And when that push is over with...you'll be a perfect Diamond Trim. I'm sure of it."
A dark look while his hand swiftly retracts is enough to tell Spoke he ought to go quickly. So as he picks up speed to elytra off to the coordinates of his target, he recites the details in his head.

Her name is Rose. She's not a player I think I've ever come across.

It's about now he breaks into a sprint.

I don't think I've heard her name until now. What's she doing, having business with Ash?

He could have shot himself up by now.

Is she young? There's something about the name that ticks me off. Or how she's described.

Why is he still running?

She's a nobody. I don't get why she'd have business with the Mafia.

Why does his vision have to blur so suddenly-- is it raining?

I don't get why she'd have business with me.

With you?

He blames the water in his eyes for making him trip and nearly fall before he takes it as an opportunity to finally fly away. His elytra doesn't need to shake off any raindrops, there's nothing else falling onto his face or pitter-pattering against his armor, so why are his cheeks...

His thoughts trail off and drop themselves onto the ground far below, onto a speck he might call the top of a tree.

He can't afford to concentrate on the rain. He has to eliminate Rose.

The wind shooting past him is enough to let him sink into thought as he flies, the act of propelling himself forward becoming a mindless action. Spoke watches as forest turns to plain turns to lake turns to desert turns to forest, and so on, over and over as far as the eye can see. He knew Rose was far out as soon as he saw the amount of zeroes in her supposed coordinates, but this? Has he ever flown out this far before?

It doesn't matter, he thinks to himself, watching the thought fall far below him. Ash thinks–no, knows–he'll do this. So he has to, right? If Ash wants it, then for now, he just needs to play along and follow what he wants. He's already on thin ice, so it's not like he has any other choice.

A bit of strength leaves his arms for a moment; Spoke nearly drops some of his rockets because of it. It's not like you have another choice. The way his mind echoes it, he's not entirely sure if it's his own voice repeating it, Ash's, or Jamato's.

That sentence shouldn't bother him as much as it does. Spoke bites his tongue, ashamed, though it's not as if anyone can see him like this. He hasn't noticed anyone else watching him from afar, or tailing him, but--as if to supplement that--he can still feel Ash's ever-present gaze weighing on his shoulders.

It's not like you have another choice.

He doesn't know how young this girl is. He doesn't know why that would be an issue in his mind. Ash probably wouldn't care, which makes it all the worse that Spoke suddenly does--

--and why does this bite at him, the thought that Rose, whoever that is, might be young?

His eyes sting, no doubt from a little more rain. An arm reaches up to wipe away the raindrops, and through the blurriness, he spots the unmistakable sign of players in a shabby oak hut.
Part of him is relieved and the other half couldn't dread this sight any more. Is this it, then? Is this where he encounters Rose? Is this where he takes a life?
Of course it is. It's not like you have another choice. No matter how much he wants to fly away as far as his elytra could take him, he can't. So he glides down, perching on a nearby tree allowing him to look at through their window, and he spots her:

Rose.

A kid. That's a kid.

A dread unlike anything he's ever felt settles deep in his stomach.

Good God, that's a kid. He wants me to kill a kid, I– I can't do that. He can't make me do that.

And it builds.

That can't be Rose. It can't be. Maybe I've got the wrong target, and I'm just...

And it builds, when he realizes the coordinates in the book must be to this house.

Maybe that's just her sibling or something. Maybe she's somewhere else on vacation. I can't kill a kid. I can't kill a kid, I'm better than that.

And it builds, and builds, and builds with every step he takes.

It builds with the invisibility potion he splashes onto him, it builds with every droplet he can still feel on his skin, it builds as he presses a palm to the outer wall of the house, removes his armor, and listens in,

and it nearly bursts from his throat as he hears a second voice.

"I got lots of iron today, it's, uh, it's smelting, right now," they say, idling around a crackling furnace. "And it's almost done. I wanna make..."

"I think first we should make some armor," Rose advises, "and then we can save the rest for, like, shields and stuff when we go mining, and then…"

"Let's make a giant castle with all our iron!" The first voice excitedly says.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah! We can make it near that river. No, no, we can have the river as a moat!"

"Let's give it a lava moat, and we can put an obsidian bridge on it, and-- and-- and it'll be the coolest thing ever."

"Yeah, yeah!”

There's a smile on Rose's face as she talks, and an even bigger grin on who he assumes to be her younger brother. Ash never mentioned a younger brother. This was unfair. That was all this was, unfair. But it's not as if he has a choice; Rose was already marked for death, his hand just has to be that which executes her. 

And he doesn't need to think about what happens in-between. He doesn't need to think about anything that happens between him seeing her again and reporting back from some reminder of whatever vague action he committed. Nothing he needs to concentrate on happened. All he needs to remember is that Rose is a dead girl.

Rose is a dead girl that stares at him from outside her home's window and questions if someone's there. He has to crouch and pray she hasn't learned what invisibility particles look like.

Rose is a dead girl who shrugs off her paranoia, telling her younger brother that she's going to cut a few trees, and to make sure no creepers blow up the house, if you can help it. He opts to fulfill this promise by not being at the house at all, going back in the mines to get more iron, and when I come back I’m telling on you unless you say you’re super-duper sorry.

Rose is a dead girl who thinks briefly about something she read in a book her parents had, about if a tree falls in a forest and nobody's around to hear it, did it really fall? And as Spoke digs out her grave she wonders out loud if any skeleton under the shade of a tree can hear her, or hear a tree fall. Spoke is careful to mine and place only when there's some sound to drown it out; either she pretends she doesn't hear anything or she doesn't hear anything period.

Rose is a dead girl who Spoke follows home, watches her deposit what she's gathered in a double chest hastily built on top of their first, who takes another glance into the contents of that chest and frowns, dissatisfied. She looks below her, says something aloud that Spoke can't hear outside, and then makes for the door.

Spoke is the grim reaper leading a dead girl to her grave. He doesn't want to think about what he specifically asked for that made her follow him, but whatever he did ask for turned out to be enough. Her hands are small enough to fit into his. She's too young to die.

She's too young to die, Spoke repeats in his mind over and over as if his thoughts could change the reality he acts through. I don't want to kill her. I can fake her death, right?

If the dead girl could speak with dripstone through her throat, he's sure she'd wish for the same.

Rose is a dead girl with one eye pierced through and the other laid just barren enough among the dripstone to keep it intact, widened, as she stares back up through the tiny opening she fell through. Her hair covers the rest of her face, shadowing it from Spoke's view. As a result, the only thing he can make out in the darkness is that singular eye, and the smell of roses mixed with the metallic, stinging smell of blood.

Rose is a dead girl who never got to hear her killer apologize before she died. Spoke thinks that's the thing he hates the most about this ordeal.

Rose is still warm when Spoke carefully digs down to her, dips her finger in the blood on her face, and stamps his mission book with it as proof. He watches a sanguine droplet run down the pages, staining them, before the rest of the blood that refused to collects what remains of itself to drip back onto her. 

He didn't notice it go limp. He's not sure if he ever wanted to.

Her body's sunk too heavily onto the dripstone for him to give her a proper burial. In lieu of that, the holes he dug are filled back up. He stills there for a little while, staring down at the ground she fell through, and if he stares hard enough into the darkness her eye pierces through it. Spoke breathes in for her, closes his eyes, stares up, and pretends her hand is there to slot neatly into his. 

If he sinks into the darkness hard enough, he can pretend he still feels her pulse.

Down here he can hear her brother calling out her name. It sticks out in his mind, interrupting any serene moment with cold air where her arm should be, where Spoke should be able to feel her pulse, where he should be able to see Rose, Rose, Rose. Rose, where did you go?

Rose, I can't see you. I can't hear you. Rose, where did you go? He did what he came here to do, and the more he does stay here, the worse off he thinks he'll be. He sucks in another breath, less out of a desire to calm down and more just to fill his lungs, before patching up the entrance, tossing something down as a pathetic offering to the dead, and flying off.

Rose? Rose, I'm scared. I take it back, I won’t tell, just don’t leave me alone. The monsters are scary. Rose?

Rose is a dead girl who made sure to leave Spoke with the parting gift of a final piece of dripstone piercing his heart.

There’s a certain depth to the shame that twists his heart until it snaps, compressing his chest until whatever remains of it wishes to rise out of his throat, something between horror and outright disgust that extends its roots far deeper into Spoke’s body. Only when he is back up in the air, doused once again with invisibility, that he can note how every nerve in his body has been replaced with those roots, how it feels so foreign, how it causes him to shudder and sweat beneath the armor like he’s on the verge of passing out.

Had he been alone, Spoke thinks he might have the slimmest of chances as to quelling this sensation himself, and in an attempt to distract himself from the reality he’s closing distance between himself and Ashswag he looks to his right; there, he blinks, and Jamato once again spares him an uncaring glance.

“The invisibility’s barely helping with how you look,” he says, gesturing to Spoke as he swiftly faces forward. Unfortunately for him, the movement’s just barely visible in his peripheral vision, and worse yet, his eyes remain fixated on it. “Anyone who looks at you can tell you’re just pathetic-looking beneath that armor. Especially Ash.”

Spoke’s lips remain shut. It feels like second nature to stiffen himself up in response to such a comment, and do nothing more, eyes finally working up the courage to stare straight ahead.

“Spoke,” Jamato hisses, “you don’t think it’s a little rude to not look at someone who's talking to you?
I said, don’t you think it’s a little rude to not look at me?”

The most he gives that could be considered a reply is a deep breath. It alleviates some of the sickening feeling plaguing every inch of his body, or at least shoves it far enough to where he won’t be able to concentrate on it for a little bit. On instinct, however, as a familiar sight appears in the distance, the breath is held;
and, yet again, that mixture of guilt and disgust and now anticipation crawls along him to absorb every inch of him. He passes a glance to his right, and where he expects to lay his eyes on Jamato, there is empty space gently molding into what should be his figure. 

So he is alone when it is time to face him.

He only has five minutes of invisibility left. He’ll need to remember to splash himself while Ash is talking…or, if luck will grant him that, before the encounter altogether. He reminds himself of his timer as he lands in some area within the perfect greenery of Ash’s garden, dusting a stray leaf that had fallen from some bush off of his elytra before properly taking a glance around his surroundings.

As much as he’d like to use any other word first, the garden is beautiful. Spoke slows his steps, breathes in the smell of flowers, and watches how leaves rustle in unison when the wind blows, and at the very least in this moment there is no other word to describe such sincerity. It’s only when he looks a little closer when absentmindedly stroking the petals of a flower that some detail sticks out in his mind; how perfectly this flower is placed with its neighbors, how no matter what angle he observes it, it still looks picturesque, perfect, the image in one’s mind when they picture a flower. Spoke wonders if this garden is truly maintained by Ash himself, and if so, what amount of love did he pour into it?
Spoke looks to the other flowers in this row, identical in form, identical in positioning– and looks to another section of the garden some feet away, where the same sight greets him.

Then there is another word to describe this garden; artificial.
Of course Ash wouldn’t be the sort of man to create a garden out of love, no, Spoke rises with the sound of something being snipped and, in that moment, rises from the idea this garden is meant to be beautiful. It’s a symbol of status, of power, of wealth, of the sort of man Ash wants people to think he is. If he is God, then he must have a Garden of Eden, right?

Something’s snipped again. A voice rises with the echo of their instrument, speaking in a drawn-out, sing-song tone, “Come out, come out, wherever you are…”
Ash’s commands, no matter who or what exactly it’s for, are impossible to turn a deaf ear to. So Fishbucket, assuming the command is meant for him, opts to march onwards. Whatever carefree feeling he had in the few moments he spent able to “relax”(or at least partake in the closest thing to relaxing he could) flies away with a gust of wind, leaving the soldier barren as he comes across his leader, kneeling beside a bed of roses.

Another snip. “Found you,” he whispers, head still eyeing the roses’ stems. He retracts his head some, at first just to correct a strand of hair interfering with his vision, and then to look up at Fishbucket.

“I was willing to give you a few more minutes to yourself, you know,” Ash stands and runs a hand through his hair, in doing so setting that loose strand straight, “but it’s good that you decided to come early. You’re much more obedient already…at this rate, you might actually become a Diamond Trim.”

Fishbucket’s gaze wavers to the roses the man happened to be dethorning just beforehand. Maybe in his mind, it’s just coincidence, or some sick joke to really drive in the irony about meeting in a garden after killing a girl named after a flower(it’s so obviously the latter, he knows that, but some part of him wants to pretend that Ash is just ignorant instead); but from this angle, just in his peripheral, he sees her again.
Nestled beneath the vines she lays suspended, the few thorns that remain piercing her skin, her blood dying the roses themselves. It’s a beautiful scene, almost, and part of him wishes that’s how he’d chosen her to die instead. At least, when her brother finally found her, he’d be able to gaze at a sight that he could fool himself into thinking was just his sister sleeping. He would move closer, scoop her up the best his strength would allow him to, and wait for Rose to wake up in her bed.

A burial would be easier if she was found dead there, right? It would be bittersweet, not brutal, and–

Fishbucket jolts out of his trance as Ash snaps his fingers in front of his vision; there’s an annoyed look in his eye as he checks to make sure his soldier’s fully out of that state, and even then when he receives his desired confirmation he makes no intention of hiding it. “I was thinking I might actually be able to have a nice moment with you,” he frowns, holding out a hand expectantly. “Don’t make me repeat myself again, will you? The book.”

Rose’s death certificate is placed quickly into Ash’s hand, and seemingly just as quickly flipped through. He seems to smile when he notes the bloody fingerprint, like this specific job was assigned out of pure sadistic glee and not absolute necessity(truth be told, Spoke wouldn’t put it past him. Fishbucket, on the other hand, doesn’t think intent makes any difference in them.)
“You made her bleed quite a bit, didn’t you?” Ash says, showing Fishbucket his work. “I was thinking you’d do something fast and easy, just get it done and report back…I underestimated you. What’d you do it with? Why don’t you show me?”

A spare piece of dripstone– long, crooked, and jagged at its ends– is removed from the soldier’s inventory and handed to his boss. Ash takes a moment to inspect it; looking it over and matching it to some unknown criteria that only he’s aware of, before nodding affirmatively. “You really are a killer through and through, aren’t you, Fishbucket?”
As Ash speaks, he walks elsewhere, expecting the man in question to follow; by this point, there’s no possibility that he doesn’t. “There’s something in you I haven’t been able to see in anyone else.

It’s true determination. That’s what I can’t find in anyone else– I’ve been looking, but every other soldier–hell, every other person…no, thing I have to share air with, that I’ve seen, they’re all weak enough to let themselves be tethered to something. Morals, family, friends, whatever, any weak external factor that limits someone’s willingness to get things done, that stupid little voice in people’s minds that tells them, what if you’re doing something wrong? But you?”
Ash stops in his tracks, turning to face Fishbucket from the opposite side of an anvil. The dripstone he was handed sits on its surface, patiently.
“My god, you really don’t have anything holding you down, do you?” He laughs, “Just look at you! You don’t show any sign of guilt for what you’ve done, no remorse, no second thoughts, nothing. You’re heartless in a way only I am. And that’s why I want you to remember this moment, Fishbucket.”

His hands move to quickly etch something into the dripstone. “Because back then, when you watched her fall, you were born again into a devil. You’ve let every trace of whoever you were before die with her. You accepted your cold-hearted nature with open arms. I want you to keep this with you as long as you live…this souvenir of the day you reincarnated into the villain you’re supposed to be. Go on,” Ash commands, hands returning to their position behind his back, “take my gift for you, brother.”

Regrettably, Spoke stills in this moment. His hand hovers over his gift, expectantly, fingers outstretched to grab ahold of it, but for a fraction of a second, he can’t bring himself to. Maybe it’s a combination of everything up until this point–
–the blood on his hands–
–Ash’s praise–
–the minute of invisibility he has left–
–or something else biting at him, but regardless, he stutters. It’s unlikely Ash managed to miss it, as much as he’d love for that to be the case, and out of fear of his gaze narrowing in disapproval he grabs ahold of it. Spoke takes a moment to solidify his grip around the weapon, turning it over to read whatever inscription is now upon it– and, again, pauses. Perhaps this one was intended.

There, in lettering that seems all-too familiar, are two words:

‘your blade’.

“Like it?” Ash asks, the words floating in the air; but no matter how hard he wills himself to, Spoke–Fishbucket– whoever he is in the current moment, the soldier, the interloper, the one that shouldn’t be holding this blade, he cannot bring himself to answer. He simply stares down at his implement, running his thumb along its rough surface. How much longer does he have?

“I want you to cherish this, keep it close to you at all times, view it like a third arm. You can’t deny what your nature commands you to do now, Fishbucket,” and Ash is pacing around him, circling him like a vulture waiting on prey to die, and the interloper holds his breath; oh, god, what if he’s aware of the few seconds he has until death? “From now on, I want you to think of yourself as not a human, not whatever else you could be, not just an arm for this Mafia– of course, you are one– but a devil.”

The interloper can’t help but take glance after glance at his armor, biting his tongue every second he doesn’t hurriedly reach for an invisibility potion; but he’d have to back off, cut off Ash, what if something worse awaits him? He should have splashed himself when he had a chance, and Ash stops in tandem with the interloper taking a step back, staring down, noting the way the ‘o’ of ‘your blade’ has begun to fill from a trail of red trickling down from Fishbucket’s hand and of course he’s got a gaze like a hawk, how much longer do I have left?

“Where are you going?” His words cut into the air, running a shiver up the interloper’s spine, maybe it’s just ten seconds, get the stupid potion out, come on, we’re this close, just do it, stop stuttering. “You don’t have anywhere else to be. Is that really how you take gifts, you show up, grab it, leave?”
Grab the stupid potion.
“I can’t say I don’t like the heartlessness, it’s at least a step in the right direction.” As if to taunt him he steps closer while the interloper fumbles around in his pockets, ignoring the searing pain on his hand, ignoring the weight on his shoulder, come on, he has potions, where did he put them, where did he put them? “But you’re not to a level where you can just ignore me. Nobody is.”

Ash, surprisingly, trails off his sentence then; and the interloper exhales, thinks about his breath floating into the air, and only then does he look back at the man in front of him.

“Especially not you, Spoke,” he breathes. “Of all goddamned people.”

In an instant the grasp on his shoulder solidifies, even past the armor guarding it, it still digs into his figure– Spoke has to choose between wincing from the pain of Ash trying to keep him still and widening his eyes in total fear, and yet he cannot choose in time before he snarls back again.
“You wanted to play dress-up, huh? Or was this just an honest effort? Come on, give me a good answer,” and as he speaks Ash makes a show of drawing out not his rod but rather a sword, “before I decide to gut you like a pig.” 

“We can talk about this,” he stammers out, finally appearing with a potion a second too late. A clawed hand attempts to dig its way through the glass in lieu of being able to dig into the skin of his palm. “I mean, the– the stasis chambers, isn’t that enough?”

“You think I’d want to kill someone like you that easily?” Ash laughs, and with a rough force Spoke is pulled forward–with him almost unable to catch himself he trips, and in a brief spike of panic he regains his footing. “Do you think, do you honestly think, that you deserve that quick of a death? Oh, no. You deserve to go right back into the Hell you belong in.

That’s why…”

Ash trails off again, and sheathes his sword once more, not exchanging it for anything else. His palm remains bare– and at that, it’s offered to the man in front of him. “That’s why I’m giving you a choice.”

Spoke stares at the gesture, then back at him, trying to catch his heart beating in his chest. “Did you grow soft or something? What’s–”

“Let me explain,” Ash says, his voice now utterly absent of any prior malice it might have held. “Two options: you continue where you left off, because I liked you, or you die right here and now.”
“I ran out of…I broke one of the rules,” Spoke replies. “No, I broke– I’m breaking every rule right now, right? And you’re sparing me?”

“Sparing?” 

“Isn’t that what this is?”

“I don’t spare,” Ash replies with a shake of the head. “I don’t give out mercy. Don’t think because your life’s being extended, pulled along by the Three Fates, you’re not being punished for what you’ve done. This isn’t being expunged from your record.”

Spoke swallows his pride. “Right. I just thought that…it sounded…”

“I asked you something, Spoke. You’re lucky to be addressed by that name. Go ahead and give me an answer before I go off and change my mind, will you?”

The man in question can only think with the little time he’s allotted; seconds stretch themselves out as he stares into the space between him and his executioner. Whether he likes that definition of his actions or not, Ash is giving him mercy– or at least, across from the possibility of him dying a slow, drawn-out, painful death, that’s what it most resembles.
Either way, his friends are dead. Everyone he’s met, everyone he’s even looked at, will have to face this same ultimatum of join or die, and knowing at least some of them, they’ll take the easier way out. Spoke, however?

Jamato– or the being he liked to call Jamato– was right. He’s afraid, and the fact it shows so clearly in everything he does fills him with nothing but dread. He’s too ashamed to die, too embarrassed to die, too fearful to die. At least, if he lives, it’ll be less painful than the thought of whatever Ash wants to do to him instead. If he lives, there’s a hope of escape;

Right. Because this is a game, and Spoke is just playing along, and eventually he’ll break out, tell his friends to organize, and this tyrant will be taken down. Eventually, right?

“Join,” something speaks to him, some unholy fusion of a dictator and an old friend’s voice, and he isn’t in any position to deny them.
So the hand is taken; Ash grips Spoke’s own, trapping it in that grasp, a grin spreading onto his face. If he steadies himself long enough, he can blink, and for a fraction of a second look upon his hand shaking with the Devil’s.

“Good…good,” he reinforces his words with a final shake as if to solidify their deal. “I want you to splash yourself with invisibility and get right back to your soldier role. I’m gonna assign you something…but before that. Before that, for your last words alive as Spoke, I want you to say something for me.”

“As long as you don’t…do…” Spoke trails off before he can properly define his exceptions. “...whatever you want, sir.”

“See, even better.” Their hands disconnect, Ash’s returning to their position behind his back, Spoke’s returning to his sides like a soldier, a goddamn soldier. “Getting right back into the swing of things, aren’t you, like you’re meant for this. Whatever…
I want you to tell me you’re devoting the rest of your pathetic life to me, alright? Exact wording. Explicit permission for me to do whatever I want with you. I could maim you, gut you, split you in two, flip them inside-out, and sew those halves back together upside-down, and you won’t be able to do a thing, except remember this moment. This moment, and the fear in your heart, and the words you spoke to me, pledging your life to me. Go on.”

Spoke’s tongue catches in his throat, at least, for a brief second. He thanks this second, because at least he doesn’t need to stutter over his words in front of Ash; he can just pause, acclimate himself to the task, kneel, bow his head, and without hesitation:

“I devote the rest of my pathetic life to you, Ashswag.”

In place of a reply, a mission is thrown down to him, landing onto the floor with a ‘thump’.
“Make an actual stasis chamber, for one,” Ash finally says after sparing a few moments to admire his work, voice laced with a thick layer of satisfaction. “And then, get back to work. Now.”

So he shall.

Rose doesn’t have a grave yet.

Becky knows she’s missing, but maybe she’s just a little farther away, cutting trees, and maybe she’s with someone who needs her a little bit longer. As such, it’d be rude for Becky to make a grave for someone who isn’t dead. And it’s morbid, too, too morbid for someone his age. He doesn’t like to think about death, anyway, this just happens to sit at the back of his head while he makes the chests a little neater.

Death means scary things, mobs, like skeletons and zombies that smell like rot, and rotten flesh he has to eat if he spends too long in the mines and forgets his way back up, it means bubbling lava and smoldering hot magma blocks, it means that thing his eldest sibling spoke about…what was it? The nether? Something like that; a place of lava and red rock and floating white creatures and Endermen and no places for any graves and–

–he’s still hung up on Rose’s grave. She just disappears one day, that’s not like her, Rose doesn’t leave without leaving a note or telling him, and even then, it’s not for that long. Having one bed stay empty and readily made was one thing, but seeing Rose’s, unoccupied, still messy from the morning, it was weird. It was that word she learned from Rose, uncanny.
Of course, it was made today– messily, because Becky’s never been good at cleaning, that’s an older kid thing. Older kids chopped wood and made houses, and younger kids watched and helped when asked. And older kids organized the chests, but Rose wasn’t here to do that. Becky pushes aside a spare sapling inside the chest and looks back on a tiny sheet of paper his sister wrote to herself the day she vanished, saying to organize this later!!; later never came.

Why did later never come?

Maybe, just maybe, as he sticks his hand in just a little deeper, tipping over to reach something really deep inside, later comes when Rose comes home. When she opens the door, maybe they’ll hug, and chat about where she’s been, and maybe she’s on a mining trip to get diamonds! Becky shoves his previous organizing work out of the way to clear a path for his sister’s eventual gift. They’ll get so many, he thinks, they’ll make a house out of diamonds, and they can show it off to the other players, and they’ll all be so jealous!
Luckily for him, there’s a knock at the door too–

–a knock? Rose doesn’t knock. Rose knows to come in.

Sure enough, when he lifts herself up to look at whoever’s on the other end, she’s not there. An…invisible figure stares back at her, clad in cold-looking dark armor he’s never seen before. What is that? How did they get it? Is that Rose? It could be, but he can’t be sure unless they give their name.

Even if it’s unwise to open the door for strangers, he still does…and when it’s open, they don’t speak.
A long moment of quiet passes between them. Becky can’t seem to will himself to speak anything for a bit, millions of thoughts swirling in his head, none of them bothering to find solid ground long enough for him to vocalize them.

“Do you know where Rose is?” The figure says, suddenly, and it’s at that moment Becky realizes the figure isn’t focusing on him, but rather, the house behind him.

“Y–” Becky pauses. Would it be better to lie? They could help him. But you can’t trust strangers.
Maybe this one’s nice. “No.”

“No?” They echo, to which he nods. “Is she gone?”

“She, uhm…” Becky looks around nervously. “Rose said I shouldn’t talk to strangers. So can I, uhm, close the…”

“I’m not a stranger.”

The figure takes a step past him, into the house. “Could you let me in? I can prove I know her. We’re friends. I saw her, Becky, I swear I did.” It’s forceful, and when Becky goes silent, too afraid to protest, they take another step in. How much could an iron sword do to this armor? Not much. It’s sharp and detailed with some elegant, weird gold trim, and an eye-looking thing in the center that looks like it’ll blink at her the more he looks. Who is this? Is Rose really friends with this person?

Whatever the case is, the door closes. “Rose has been gone for a little bit, and it’s…it’s scary, I’m scared. Do you really know her?”

The figure's helmet moves in a way that suggests nodding. “I spoke with her yesterday. She gave me this note,” and in one of their heavy-looking gauntlets a note is procured, “and told me to come back later.”

Becky reaches into the figure’s palm, awing for a moment at how his entire fist would comfortably fit into their hand, before finally taking the paper; his thumb feels along the paper’s texture, and in a sense the act is comforting knowing Rose touched this same paper. He looks at the figure, curiously, though what with there being nothing to read, there’s not exactly much room for him to see any confirmation in their expression for him to actually start reading the note. In place of that, they gesture with their open palm before it falls to their side, as a friendly go on.

Becky,
If you’re reading this, I don’t think I’m gonna come back from where I’m going alive. Someone needs me, desperately, and I don’t want you to get involved, so I have to go alone. 

She doesn’t write like this. She’s never written like this before.

This journey’s dangerous, so I want you to stay at our base. Please don’t go looking for me, okay? Just stay at home. I can’t come back home, I’m sorry.

This wasn’t her handwriting, either.

If you can do anything, make me a grave. If I come back, I can laugh with you about it. If not, you’re prepared. I don’t want to leave you hanging. You’re going to do great on your own, okay?

Love, Rose

The more Becky stared at the words the more he began to regret the decision he made to open the door at all. Who is this person, what do they want with her, and what did they do to his sister? The more he wants to ask, the more he fears what might happen if he does– this person looks like a warrior, a big, scary warrior, so surely they’d be much better in combat. He’d die if he tried to protest. Is he doomed no matter what?

“First…first it was…” he mumbles under his breath, taking a passing look at him and his siblings’ beds. “...then Rose, and…now…”

“Now what?” The figure asks, tilting their head. “What does the note say, Becky?”

Quickly it’s folded up. It’d be better to play along and act naive, and maybe when this person’s back is turned, he can make a run for it, he can hide, or he can find Rose, or…
“She…” Finding Rose, though, seems impossible. Why would a fake note need to be made telling him not to look, if she’s not–

“She’s…she’s asking me to…” Why would someone need to write in her place to tell Becky to make a grave for Rose? “...to make…”
Why would that need to be, if Rose wasn’t already dead?

The note’s crumpled up in his tiny fist, and his head hangs low, trying to hide the fact tears well up in his eyes and soon stream down his face. It’s painfully obvious that he’s crying, still stumbling through a summary of that note, body shakily rising and heaving with uneven breaths; soon instead of words he just sobs incoherently, not caring for volume.
The world’s never felt more lonely to him.

Now, Becky’s playing alone.

His crying fit ends with the sound of the door opening yet again, and were he to lift his head he’d see the figure looking to him. All he hears, however, is an unenthused command; “Get up.”
There’s nothing more he wants to do but cry his eyes out, but if he tries any more he’s sure his head would start hurting. Somehow that weighs in his mind more than the idea of dying, because as he ruminates upon it now, he will die, won’t he? If he stays for too long, he’ll die. If he follows, he’ll die. If he runs away, he’ll die, but maybe that might be on his own terms.

“Please…gimme a little longer,” he begs, and while trying to force out the ‘o’ of longer the figure opts to walk beside him and place a heavy hand on his shoulder. It weighs him down, physically and mentally, and only now does his posture stiffen.
“The longer we delay this the more it’s going to hurt,” they murmur in some poor attempt to soothe him.

Becky’s not sure who the figure’s saying that to. If he thinks too long about it, though, his head will start hurting. Rose would think the best option is to go, right?

In his teary-eyed state, it’s a little hard to manage the idea of making anything more than just two planks of wood fashioned into a cross. Even that sounds difficult to make, now that he thinks on it; and it’s here the figure kneels down to him, just outside him and Rose’s home, and hands him a tiny little knife. “I don’t want you to do anything too hard,” they say, “so I’ll get something for the grave itself, and you can put her name into it.”

“Okay,” Becky nods, “can I get flowers, too?”

The figure seems to pause, and perhaps behind that weird veil they keep up, their eyes widen. “Flowers?”

“Is it stupid?” His eyes sting with the promise of tears. “I’m sorry, I thought she might have–”

“--No,” the figure interrupts. “No, you can get some. Don’t go too far. I’ll put the grave right here.”

With a final nod he waits for the figure to leave, marching off elsewhere to get stone–it feels wrong to use stone they already have, and it feels so much more wrong for someone foreign to go through their stuff. Only two others, not counting him, are allowed– and both are missing.
It’s when he’s rummaging through fields of wild flowers, looking down to see anything remotely in his sister’s tastes, that he pauses.
He never gave the figure his name, did he?
He didn’t give the figure anything about him, he never introduced himself, and sure, he said Rose’s name, but they already knew Rose. So why were they calling him ‘Becky’? Maybe Rose talked about him when she vanished, maybe that’s why, maybe it was in the note that they didn’t read. They’re not supposed to have read that note.
How did they know they were going to make Rose a grave when he couldn’t even get that thought out?

A wild rose’s thorn pricks his finger. Ignoring the pain for a moment, ignoring how a tear runs down his cheek when he closes his fist around it, he plucks it out, making sure there’s enough of a stem to bury it and make it look pretty. This will do.

Luckily for him, the stone’s waiting for Becky when he finally returns in time with the sun’s setting, cautiously peeking past a tree before kneeling in front of the bare stone. It’s only scary because he can’t see where the figure is– maybe getting more flowers, or maybe just behind him. Most likely, it’s the latter, so he might as well speak out loud.

“I never told you my name,” he says, cursing his lopsided engravings. “I didn’t tell you anything. But you…you still called me Becky.
Maybe Rose talked about me. Probably. But you…you knew what the note said, even if you didn’t read it. I didn’t tell you what it was for, and you still knew, somehow. I don’t get it. I don’t get you.”

His voice stills for a moment while he sucks in a breath. “You wrote it, right? Why’d you write it? Why’d you have to write something so…so…” and once again he struggles to find his words, voice quieting down, “...horrible?

Is she dead? We thought our big brother was dead. No, he’s dead. He’s dead, and you have something to do with him, too, right? I’m next, right? I just want my brother and sister back, I want my family back, I want to live with them again. What did you do with him, what did you do with Spoke? What did you do with Rose? What did you do to my si–”

dripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdrip

Fishbucket has to finish the rest of the engraving by himself. 

His hands work to clean out the sketchy, uneven mess left by the person before him– to straighten out lines and remove any ugly portions, to watch as crimson fills each letter and falls out to wet the empty ground below it. The birds have stopped chirping, the wind has stopped blowing to rustle the leaves of the foliage around him, the house beside him is still and silent and will remain that way until something finds its way past the door. His mind wanders to the idea of going in one last time, doing something to make the house look presentable to anyone that comes in. He doesn’t want to seem like he’s a monster.

The blood on Rose’s gravestone says otherwise. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go.

Once again, that mission book is stamped– smeared, more like, and a few stray droplets of blood stick to the netherite of his gauntlets, just as a reminder that there’s still more blood he can’t wipe away. And it still leaks from his head, it stains the ground, it pools around him, outlining his unmoving body, drawing more and more attention to what he desperately wants to ignore, and–

–her name, written in her brother’s blood, illuminated by the golden glow of a setting sun, draws Fishbucket’s eyes away. For just a moment, the last sliver of dignity inside him reaches out to the sight, half out of shame and half out of pity; he has to be able to do something to make this mess look nicer.
The most he can bring himself to do is splash himself with invisibility one more time, covering what remains of his little brother in the remainder. He curses himself for that being the one act of mercy he can give to him before he turns heel.

Ash is expecting him, he reminds himself. He has no time for family.

What went on in Judas’ mind when he decided to betray his master, when he accepted his fate of outing his comrade? Did he regret anything in the act itself?
Perhaps there was some timeline where he did not– where, in shame for his thoughts of rebellion and betrayal, he turned away from those who offered him that very opportunity. In shame, he hid his face and ran back to his master, and despite his rejection, he couldn’t find the strength to confess that sin. So that sin, the sin of dissenting, stays with him forever, poisons his every thought, until he finally gains the strength to admit it.

Unlike that Judas, Spoke will never gain that strength. Not as a Gold Trim, at least.
When he looks upon those he used to call allies– or those who consider him an ally– there is a deep pit in his stomach, something that had the misfortune of forming as he started to consider where his loyalties lied.
Mapicc, Planet, and for a short time, Minute; it was them against the ‘tyrant’ over this server, the seemingly unmovable, unstoppable force known as Ash, and yet, by his– by the person who used to be named Spoke’s cowardice, by his inability to take any action, their plan now had a rip through it.

How, after all, do you kill the god who gave you a second chance? How, after all, are you supposed to kill this supposed tyrant, when that tyrant shows you pity?
“How are you supposed to kill someone in the name of ending their depravity, when they’re just as horrible as you?”

In lieu of any real person by his side on his way down, there, once again, is Jamato. “How much longer are you going to lead them on like this? It’s childlike.”

By now, however, Fishbucket has forgone his tongue. He has lost the right, if he had ever had it, to speak, no less acknowledge this voice. It might serve him well to simply cut it off whenever he might get the chance, just to save him the hassle of never worrying about a potential slip-up.

"Or are you just afraid of picking a side, because you can't predict which side Fortune's gonna favor?" Jamato speeds up his walking pace.

They're descending down a dozen or so flights of stairs, currently-- light grey walls shifting into the deeper grey-black of deepslate shifting into the occasional block of obsidian. The deeper they descend, the darker it seems to get, the subtle glow of Fishbucket's armor being his one and only guide as obsidian becomes indistinguishable from amethyst, deepslate, or bedrock.
And at once, there is light; there is a cavern at the end-- a deep, wide strip of the underground lined with obsidian and sea lanterns, with the floor and walls chipped at by years' worth of scars, burns, marks of battles he will never know of.

And in this cavern, waiting for him, lie his judge, his jury, and the man clad in diamond trim he must execute.

"Could it be?" Ash's head raises from a book he's writing in, staring down at Fishbucket accusatorily. It only turns into an approving nod once he identifies himself. "Ah, good, it is. Wasn't sure for a second. Anyone just walks down here nowadays, completely uninvited." As if for emphasis he turns to his right, and standing there are two other Gold Trims. One attempts to signal him over. Fishbucket instead faces his opponent.

"Spoke," they whisper-shout the best they can without being caught for it, "Spoke, where were you?"

"Don't think I'm deaf," Ash interrupts, his fishing rod cutting through the air-- making both Gold Trims jolt for a second. “Whispering is one thing, but having the gall to do it in front of me? Oh, that’s just rich from you, isn’t it? Enough. We’re here to watch a good fight, aren’t we?”
Right, yes. A fight.

To become a Diamond Trim, you must kill someone who is one already. Fishbucket thinks he’s made peace with this condition, with the thought that when dust settles, one of them would be dead. But when he looks upon his opponent–this stoic, composed figure, the true pinnacle of what an Invis Mafia member should be, what he should be, that deep fear he felt, pulsing in time with the tolling of a mace upon the ground, fills his being once again.
For once, Fishbucket believes he will die here; but no. No, he can’t, and he grips his weapon a bit tighter. Something propels him to go a bit farther, take a step closer, have that tolling be not indicative of his doom, but rather his heartbeat.

What is it, then, as Ash continues on with his speech explaining this fight? Is it self-preservation? Is it hope he will be able to escape this hell? Or, worse yet–

“Enough talk. Let this bout begin.”

–as his grip solidifies around his sword’s hilt, as his shield is readied, and as the Diamond Trim leaps forwards to skewer him only to be deflected by it, he senses it. Something deeper than his sword wants to go, something dark in the back of his mind that’s nothing more than a product of Ash’s taunting. As he swings at the Diamond Trim’s chest, it grows–
–his weapon seeming lighter, each swing easier and easier to make, his body moving on its own to take and evade blows, with every clang of metal against metal, it grows.

“There it is,” Ash narrates, arms crossed against his chest. “You two see it, don’t you? The way he’s fighting– FIshbucket, I mean.”

The Diamond Trim shifts to go on the defensive, shield raising to block and push Fishbucket away whenever he gets close, to clash whenever his sword swings to get another hit, and still, that sensation grows.

“It’s wilder,” he marvels, “more desperate. More entertaining. This is what I want out of my soldiers, this, this– this abandon of all morals, all reason, anything that binds you to the person you used to be.” A sickening, ear-to-ear grin appears on his face as he speaks, as Fishbucket grows more and more desperate to hit, to tear, to satiate this feeling. Perhaps it is that, deep within the Diamond Trim’s heart, he, too, feels the same.
Ash thrusts his arms out as if he’s presenting a show, laughing in time with Fishbucket nailing a hit onto his enemy.
“Come on, both of you,” he shouts, “get wilder! Use that mace of yours, why don’t you, Diamond Trim?! I want to see you two kill each other! I want blood shed on the very ground you two stand on!”

Obeying his command, the shield is swapped out in the midst of a clash, and as Fishbucket raises his weapon it collides with a mighty clang against the surface of the mace;
Fishbucket stills, his feet failing to find their footing, and for a second as he blinks he can see Clown’s fist gripping its handle, raising it, rising above him–

–but Spoke is no longer here.
Spoke is no longer here to still in place and accept such a sudden, simple death, instead there is a soldier meant to survive and wear that which his enemy dons in front of him. He can hear Ash cheer for his Diamond Trim, a sound that drills despair deep into his soul, and yet there’s something else that compliments it, near overwrites it.

Yes, as he leaps back to avoid another mace blow, as he claws his way out of a cobweb, as he burns and burns back and holds his breath, there is that feeling of anticipation shared amongst the crowd, amongst the participants. A rushing, godlike feeling, as if nothing matters but the present moment and its buildup to the satisfying arrival of the inevitable. Someone will die, someone is supposed to die here, and nobody can wait to see who.

And that is why Fishbucket feels an obligation to live, to fight onwards, to take every blow given and strike back harder, to watch as the Diamond Trim stumbles back, grits his teeth, and leaps once more into the air. That must be him. This, the man before him, whose form falters and desperately attempts to collect itself, whose mace is yet again swapped for a shield, whose weakness he can smell, this is the final remains of who Fishbucket used to be.
There is a man beneath that thin layer of invisibility, a mortal man, who sees his reflection in Fishbucket’s sword and fears. There is a man beneath that thin layer of invisibility, a pathetic man, who clings onto shattered remnants of his shield, and when those crumble in his grasp, he submits his head.

There was a man behind that thin layer of invisibility known as MinuteTech; and when his body falls to the floor without a head to hold it up, he ceases to be.

“MINUTE!” A voice shouts, one of the Gold Trims dashing to the scene, only stopped in movement by a fishing hook taking them by the back of their collar. “No, no, no, Minute, you–” at a loss for words, looking to the other Gold Trim for anything (and receiving nothing), they instead look to Fishbucket.

“Spoke, Spoke, I know that’s you, right?!” They discard their armor, throwing their helmet to the ground, and removing their invisibility. Fishbucket stands before Mapicc, then, sword still drawn. “Is this some joke? You- you just killed Minute, Spoke, you haven’t talked to us at all, you haven’t shown yourself to us, how much longer are you gonna stay like this?!”
No response.
“Spoke, just talk to me, I don’t care if I’m being stupid, our– this was doomed, we knew something was gonna go down the moment we stepped in here, Ash knew something was up, why won’t you say anything?!”

Not a word. The air stills in the arena, the only sound being blood running from Minute’s body.
“Just talk to me! Talk to me, say something, tell me I’m being stupid right now! Anything, Spoke!”
Eventually, Mapicc silences himself, accepting his fall to the floor as he’s pulled by the fishing rod. Footsteps echo across the arena, as if a tolling bell, and with a snap the hook is removed from Mapicc’s back. Ash chuckles all the while before making himself a comfortable spot between Fishbucket and his former ally, staring down at him.

“Finished with your melodrama?” He taunts, tilting his head. “Because, wow– the climactic fight was one thing, but this pathetic little display of yours, finally breaking character, wow. Top-tier entertainment, I’ve gotta say.”

“You–” he tries to laugh but it’s caught in a breath, making it just a half-hearted chuckle, “--you’re not even surprised. Your…your soldier, your traitor of a soldier, that’s Spoke! The Spoke, that’s his identity. Not even a single reaction, or has it just not hit you yet?”

All amusement drains from Ash’s face. “Do you think I’d seriously grant him this opportunity if I didn’t know who he was?”

“What?”

“Oh, you were never told? He really abandoned your cute little resistance force, didn’t he? He’s loyal that way, look at him.” He half-gestures to his soldier, circling the two as would a vulture waiting for its prey to die. “And you’re calling out for that man named Spoke, but do you think he exists anymore? Do you really think I let him? No, no, I crushed him. He’s dead already, born anew, into the soldier, the devil before you. Isn’t my work lovely? Soak it in for a moment.”
Mapicc does indeed stare, eyes darting from one aspect of the stationary soldier to another, watching as his sword sheaths; and then widening in shock, then fear, then disgust, and finally pure and utter despair.

“There it is,” Ash grins, “you feel that rush, don’t you, Fishbucket? Of crushing someone’s hope and reveling in it.
I think your promotion can come a bit later,” he turns heel, stepping over Minute’s body, “do me a favor, and take care of these ants for me, yeah?”

1-8-1-4-6-3-0. 1-8-1-4-6-3-1. 1-8-1-4-6-3-2. 1-8-1-4-6-3-3…

“He’s the perfect soldier. Not a thought of rebellion, not a thought of going against me, of doing anything he’s not assigned to, he’s my finest work, really.”

1-8-1-4-6-3-8. 1-8-1-4-6-3-9. 1-8-1-4-6-4-0. 1-8-1-4-6-4-1…

“I’d go so far as to call him the closest thing I can get to looking in a mirror. He’s got my heartlessness, my drive, my passion,” Ash continues on, bragging, and the soldier at his side keeps his head down, arms behind his back, waiting for any command. He waits for permission to take any longer breath, he waits for permission to move, he waits for permission to look at who his superior is speaking to. And the seconds tick evermore.
At the very least, he may dream.

1-8-1-4-7-3-5. 1-8-1-4-7-3-6. 1-8-1-4-7-3-7. 1-8-1-4-7-3-8…

His mind wanders to the what-ifs of his life, that which awaits him, the setting sun after blistering, unrelenting heat, the gentle moonlight and the songs of crickets buzzing.

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Suddenly, one day, he shall wake in a dream and find it reality.
Suddenly, one day, he shall break free; suddenly, one day, as the sun sets over the Garden of Cain, he shall embrace it with open arms, running desperately to it, taking a breath, and–
–at once his dream is over, and the flames of hell lick his face; so he is, as he always was, as he forever will be.

1-8-1-6-1-4-0. 1-8-1-6-1-4-1. 1-8-1-6-1-4-2. 1-8-1-6-1-4-3…