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It started with Ink and Chip.
The second he'd been free to, Phil had taken off as far and as fast as he could go, moving before people had even realized that they could. He knew, vaguely, how community servers worked, had heard rumors and horror stories even as he tended to spend most of his time in his singular self-made server. Espionage, internal politicking, leverage and threats and the like. Fun for some, but Phil was already hard gears towards simple 'survival' so the fact that he had two tails almost the moment he started moving had the hairs on the back of his neck rising.
He lost them around the volcano in Iceland, spent a few days holed up underground but... well, it seemed as though Arlus had been making moves in the background in that amount of time. Well-connected and clearly looking to stake a claim over the land Phil's attempted escape towards.
They'd ambushed him the second he'd hit the surface.
"Get the fuck offa me!" Phil exclaimed, struggling against the hands holding him down- five people, not including Arlus himself. He'd managed to down two spare ones, but the group apparently had food enough they were back on their feet far faster than Phil had hoped. Someone was already binding his hands, his wings, their faces mostly obscured with heavy winter gear as Phil's face burned where it was pressed against the snow.
"Sorry 'mate'." Arlus sighed, sounding exasperated, like the entire ordeal was a hassle for him. "Already started setting down roots here, can't have you mooching off the Transatlantic."
"I've been here since day one!" Phil protested, knowing that even if he hadn't laid down his own roots like the methods of this particular server entailed, being the first to do anything still held weight in the minds of most players. It was part of the reason he was so known, even as he didn't often interact with the wider player base. His wings were already beginning to ache where they were tied, but he did his best to flex them a bit. "I've been mining all over this crater, it's just as much mine as yours, Arlus."
It was enough to give the people still holding him a pause, though Arlus himself seemed entirely unmoved.
"If you didn't lay down roots, didn't claim chunks, then you don't have to claim at all Philza. 'S just how this place works." He crouched down low to get a better look at Phil's face, The sword he summoned from his inventory was a simple iron thing, but Phil knew it'd do the job with him being all trussed up and shit. He fought a flinch, the alarm bells in his mind ringing wildly at the sight of a blade so close. "Now, you gonna join and distribute what you stole? Or am I going to have to find your bed down there and take everything on you the hard way?"
Phil narrowed his eyes, the urge to just spit at sitting very tempting in the forefront of his brain, but he refrained. He hadn't set a bed down, hadn't found the wool for it, which meant that in the best case he'd wake up at spawn alone, right back where he started in the first place. Worse case was that there would be other people there with him, better armored and anticipating anyone unlucky enough to kick it without an anchor laid down. Fit came to mind in that moment, his warnings and stories about what community servers could be like, and Phil pressed his lips further together, brain scrambling to come up with something, anything to get him out of this fucking mess.
And then a plane had fallen out of the sky.
The next little bit was a bit of a blur- all scattered snow flurried and whirling limbs, the flashing metal of weapons. The plan sat looming partially over Phil's prone and abandoned form, but he couldn't make much use of this distraction before the ropes criss-crossing painfully over his wings were yanked and he was very quickly tossed over a broad shoulder.
He barely caught sight of them, or the scattered forms of Arlus and his crew struggling to regain their bearings- and then he was dumped into the airplane perched nearby. The compartment slammed closed over his head, latched tightly shut, and then it was a long, long trip to who-knew where. He was laid out awkwardly across a seat meant for someone upright, blinking as he attempted to take stock of the situations. In one group's hands and then falling directly into another, though it might've been more accurate to say 'lifted' into another group. He still had all his shit, was still whole despite the discomfort of the ropes, but he still couldn't quite wiggle himself free. Having things in his inventory could only do so much when his hands were bound and cramped against the floor, leaving no room to summon any one thing to hand.
In the mostly-silent and separate back compartment, with hours passing as slowly as molasses, Phil had plenty of time to worry about what exactly was going to happen to him the moment they touched down. Because while he'd heard stories and also rumors, he'd never really asked for any follow up details. He knew, logically, that Fit's time in 2B2T was a unique case, that the catastrophic actions they did to fellow players were of a variety most would consider extreme. Killing, kidnapping, extortion, drawing a player so close to death, over and over again, that even when their body knitted itself back together their mind couldn't quite do the same.
He didn't know if that effort would be considered worth it if someone was already going out of their way to kidnap someone, let alone kidnap someone for their first set of kidnappers. Or maybe the end result, whatever that was to whomever was doing this, was worth any amount of effort. He wasn't really famous but he was hardly unknown, even taking up residence in a personal server for as long as possible. He was far older than most, he knew that, but even if the assumption there was that his experience would give him some advantage over the others scattered across this server now.
Which was fuckin' bullshit, but he supposed that he'd have to tell whoever was on the other side of this stupid-long flight, assuming he'd ever get the chance.
He fell asleep at some point, when the hazy blue sky above him, already dimmed with the tinted glass of the cockpit window, dimmed to a dark black, dotted with an infinite array of stars, and wondered, distantly, how often he'd be able to see them after they arrived.
"So... you gonna tell me what the fuck is happening?" Phil said, grunted really, his weight firmly stretched over his kidnapper's shoulder. His stomach hurt a bit, and breathing was a little difficult, hands and wings still bound, but his mouth was free, so he figured he was allowed to ask questions.
He'd woken up abruptly, to turbulence and a rough, skiddy landing, and needling wind and miles and miles of ice in all directions. One of the poles, if he really had to guess- he'd escaped to Iceland and even that place had some spotting of regular stone-and-dirt land to break up the horizon. They'd landed on top of a peak, apparently housing the only thing not made of ice and snow, but cut and bricked stone, leading into the glacier below.
Which they were moving towards, how very ominous.
His kidnapper was silent, or if they did speak, was drowned out by the whistling winds echoing down the dark cavern they were picking their way through. Iced covered stone lined the floor, but it was apparently still slick enough to warrant caution. Phil was feeling a little dubious about being carried over, but it wasn't like he had much of a choice outside of wiggling enough to bring them both purposefully down, and he doubted he'd get very far after that.
"Nothing to say, mate?" He shouted, doing his best to keep still. A fall wouldn't kill him, not by a long shot, but it'd hurt like a bitch for sure. He wasn't sure if asking at all would end him being tossed down any ways, didn't know if pressing the point would make any of whatever this was worse, but after so long left to go stir-crazy he felt more inclined to bite off his own tongue than to keep quiet. "Figured I could at least get a name or some shit outta this? Something I can curse out as soon as I can get a full fuckin' breath?"
A voice then, but Phil could feel it more than hear, the motion of it vibrating through the person's back and shoulders. Behind him, the cavernous hall opened up to tall ceilings high above them, stalactites glinting distantly in the lights the torches cast. Still all fucking ice. He could see his breath coming out in bursts as he huffed for breath, and the second he noticed a lack of frost over the flooring, he attempted to shift, both in an effort to test this guy's limits and also to get any kind of comfort. There were wood additions to the cut stone, thresholds and frames for windows set in stone walls, like it was once open to the elements rather than buried under the mountain of snow and ice.
The person shrugged through one of the thresholds and promptly kicked the door shut behind them, cutting off the sound of the wind very abruptly. Instantly he could hear the distant murmurs of people talking beyond the door, and the heavy breathing over the person carrying him.
"Okay, can we-" He tried again, only to cut himself off with a little 'woah' as he was rather unceremoniously dropped onto a rough wooden chair, kicked out a few feet away from a table. His arms and wings were pinched rather uncomfortably between his body and the chair, and he immediately hunched forward to take some stress off both of them. "Jesus. Can't you be at least a little fucking gentle?"
"S'rry." A muffled voice came from behind the muff and mask, his kidnapper straightening up with a groan. Phil took him in with the room- he was tall, wide, almost enough to encompass the door. The room was simple and small, a table with two chairs and two doors on opposite ends. They'd come from one, and the person tugged the bottom half of their face free as they turned to the other door, pushing it open. More light, more cut stone and dark wood accents and warm firelight. There were people too, milling about, a few turning to look at the person standing in the now partially ajar door. "Tea, please- ah, for you?"
Safe to say that this was not what Phil'd been expecting.
"Uh. Tea'll be fine." He said, at a bit of a loss. It probably wasn't the best idea to complain about whatever provisions he was given to the person who'd whisked him away out of no where. He could deal with a single cup of tea if it meant the conversation or interrogation, or whatever was happening went a little smoother. "Can we- can we talk about what the fuck is happening?"
"Mm-hmm." The other hummed in distracted agreement, a little too casual for Phil's particular comfort as they let the door fall closed and continued unwrapping their many layers off like some kind of winter mummy. "One second-"
He huffed when he finally got his face fully free, and in that same moment Phil froze a little disbelieving because - "Techno?"
"Ah-yup." Techno agreed, still stomping his boots off as he let his loose scarf hang off his neck with a sigh. "That's better. Alright, Phil, sorry I had to do this to you, but I figured it was better to keep Arlus off our trail. Just a little prank, you know how it is."
"Right..." Phil said, feeling some minor sense of relief- he and Techno knew each other, of course, had partners and run in similar circles when it came to some competitions and the like. And he'd known that Techno was one of the players on this specific server, but he also knew that didn't necessarily mean anything if Techno didn't feel it did. He pursed his lips, again trying to flex his wings out a bit, but they'd been bound in rope for hours and hours, numb and raw and everything in between and he couldn't help the pained hiss that escaped him the second he aborted the motion. "Fuck me-"
"Woah, woah, just gimme a sec here Phil." Techno said, and now he held a note of urgency in his voice. Phil's eyes caught the flash of metal suddenly appearing in Techno's hand and he flinched, gritting his teeth as the chair beneath him squeaked across the stone floor, hitting the back wall with a dull thud. Techno paused, blinking blankly before he seemed to realize... something. He glanced at the sword in his hand and immediately shunted it back into his inventory, and he raised his hands again, this time empty as he took another slow step towards Phil. It wasn't great, there was nothing about this situation that Phil liked, but he'd... he was clearly trying. "Easy there. Sorry if I scared you, Phil. It turns out that kidnapping a guy in the middle of a different kidnapping operation is a little difficult. Can you believe that? Next there's going to be stuff like double griefing and double orphans. A total lack of societal structure Phil. The entire server is going to collapse."
The spiel was rambly, ridiculous, and very nearly distracting enough that if it'd been anyone else, Phil might not have noticed his strong but deft fingers working over the knotted rope across his wrists. He still laughed, despite himself, watching as Techno worked slowly and methodically to get the ties loose.
He rubbed at his wrists the second they came free and Techno leaned back, allowing him space to work on his own wings, taking care of the ruffled and displaced feathers. There was a knock on the door and then Techno had two mugs, and he passed one to Phil across the table, finally settling himself down in the chair opposite.
"I'd say it's nice to see you, mate." Phil started after too long a silence. Techno seemed content to keep it, but everything about the situation felt like it was nagging in the back of Phil's mind, just waiting to spill out. "But uh. Weird shit's been going down. Don't know how much you know."
"I don't know that'd I'd go so far as to call a kidnapping attempt 'weird'." Techno drawled over the rim of his steaming mug. "Ameture, maybe. Ill-advised-"
"What do you want from me?" Phil said, trying to bite down another laugh, because even if Techno was funny, even if he seemed nice now, even if he'd been nice for the short time Phil'd known him, this place and its rules were different. Phil could feel the difference in his bones, and entire server built less on first dibs than cooperative and competitive coersion, and Techno was nice, but- "'M not really looking to play lapdog here."
"Works for me, I already have a couple of real ones." Techno said eagerly, patting his leg absentmindedly, like he was used to having a weight there.
"I'm pretty shit at fighting." He said, squinting now. This was starting to feel almost two easy. "And runnin' errands and shit. And strategy."
"Sure man." Techno said, like he didn't believe Phil. "I'm pretty good at those things myself, so I don't think you'll have much to worry about."
"Why the fuck even keep me around, then?" Phil asked, exasperated. "Sounds to me like you have it all well in hand, you dick. You definitely don't need my help with anything I can think of."
"Well, and here's the thing Phil." Techno leaned in across the table conspiratorially, pressing his fingers into the wood grain. "Alright, well. Two things. One, I think you're short-changing yourself. And two, running an entire faction empire isn't exactly an easy task here Phil. People have wants. and needs. " He shuddered for dramatic effect, and Phil couldn't help but giggle at him wildly, even as he shook his head to convey his disapproval. "Stop shakin' you're head Phil. Look, I'm not asking for rocket science here, whatever that is, right? I'm asking a person I... uh. Respect, at least a little, to partner up with me."
"But why?" Phil asked again, because this was all going very differently than every scenario he'd imagined on the plane ride here. he' half expected torture to start with, definitely a forced spawn at least. If this just had been about resources then maybe Phil might've understood, but this.... this sounded more like a faction leader searching for a partner, and for the life of him Phil couldn't even fathom why this was being laid out across his plate. "I can't have been your first choice, I bet there's tons of people here who'd kill to team with you mate. People who'd be better at this shit than me."
"Phil, Phil I know you're old and forgetful, but what did I literally just say about 'short-changing yourself'." Techno said in another too-loud whisper, and Phil felt the corner of his mouth curve up. "Just think about it this way, alright? It's less I'm looking for a leader who can get all the shit done in one go. I don't want that guy Phil, that means there'll be nothing left for me to do. That and this plan- let's just say it's gotta a lot of moving parts. So, what I need here is someone I'm sure I can trust. And my gut's telling me that you're the guy for that."
He was looking at Phil with an earnest expression, the cup of Phil's untouched tea still steaming between them, his own still cupped in his palms. Then he withdrew into himself after a moment, expression sobering for a bit.
"Just an offer, alright? You can think about it if you want, just uh... consider the rescue a favor from an old friend, alright?"
...'Friend'. When was the last time Phil'd heard that? Stretched out in the solemn silence of a world built entirely for him, by him. It was a kind of solitude the suited him, a silence he'd built himself around. He hadn't even realized how much his chest would ache at the word 'friend'. He considered Techno again, the base, the people past the door behind those broad shoulders, and thought of 'trust.' Horror stories and worse rumors, he'd heard about community servers, but he'd also heard of alliances too.
He reached over the table and took his offered mug in hand, taking a small sip and letting the feeling of warmth trickle through his chest. Then he looked up at Techno's face, those hopeful eyes, and he laughed again, only a little self deprecating and entirely helpless.
"Alright, mate." He said, watching Techno perk up entirely, snout and tusks wrinkling with the force of his smile. "What did you have in mind?"