Chapter Text
The last thing they all remembered was an unusual End Portal sucking them in. However, this End portal was like no other, since it was randomly on the surface near the base, not in a stronghold. Flame had seen it first, but had a bad feeling about it and didn’t go close. However, Spoke, who wasn’t exactly paying attention to Flame’s reaction, went towards the portal, peeking over the frame at the mass of blues and greens and golds that were warping inside.
Parrot called out to Spoke, reminding him it was almost time to go to the Northern Council, but Spoke wasn’t listening. He was too transfixed on the portal—and then it began to suck him in. He toppled head-first over the portal frame, the force of the portal’s pull being tremendously strong. Flame snatched Spoke’s arm just in time, before he fully fell in, but Flame too was being pulled into the portal. Flame yelled for Parrot or Wemmbu to come help—since Wemmbu had just come out of the base and was currently staring at the scene with an eyebrow raised—and they both came over. They both tried helping Flame get Spoke out of the portal, but, again, since the pulling force was so powerful, it was all futile.
All four of them were sucked into the portal, leaving the others behind.
The first thing Parrot woke up to was a bright sun. Regaining consciousness, he opened his eyes to a clear blue sky and a blinding sun. He shielded his eyes with his hand, blinking a few times so he could see where he was. He then realized he was on a beach, as he felt sand beneath him and heard the sea lapping softly at the shore. Parrot sat up and rubbed his eyes once, before seeing that Flame, Wemmbu, and Spoke were on the beach with him as well. This is probably where that portal sent them to.
Parrot attempted to stretch his wings, realizing they were pretty stiff and sore from the fall through the portal. Luckily, though, nothing was broken, so that was a plus. Looking around at his surroundings once more, Parrot saw that Flame was stirring awake.
Flame groaned as he sat up, arms and legs aching from the fall. He looked around at his surroundings before spotting Parrot. “Dude, where are we?” Flame asked.
Parrot looked around one time more before sighing. “I don’t know.” He said. “This must be where the portal took us. Yet…this is no dimension I’ve ever heard of.” Parrot took a few steps forward before his foot hit something. He looked down and saw…a glass circle? Parrot crouched down to inspect the strange object. It didn’t look like an Ender Pearl or Eye of Ender, which was already odd, but then again, he and the others seemed to be in some different place. The glass orb seemed as big as Parrot’s palm, and it was encased in a gold, ornate design. The engraving inside the orb was some sort of winged symbol, and the orb itself seemed to have a light teal color.
Flame noticed Parrot looking at the strange object. “What’s that?” He asked.
“I’m…not sure. This isn’t any item we’ve seen before.” Parrot responded. For some reason, there was a small pull within his mind, an almost unseeable urge to touch the odd orb. Before he could touch it, however, Flame spoke up.
“I think I found another one of those weird things.” He said, walking over to Parrot. Parrot looked over to see Flame holding another strange orb—‘So we can safely hold them. That’s good’ Parrot thought—-and noticed that the color and symbol on the inside was different. Flame’s orb was a red color, and had a fire-like symbol within it.
“I think you can hold yours, Parrot.” Flame said. Parrot nodded and picked up his orb, feeling a slight rush of…wind(?) envelop him before vanishing half a second later. He stood up and held his orb next to Flame’s.
“They have the same casing, but…have different symbols.” He observed. Then, a thought came to him. “Wait a minute…” He said, before looking over to Spoke and Wemmbu, who were still unconscious on the sand. Almost immediately proving his theory to be true, there was an orb next to both of them as well. Spoke’s seemed to be a deep blue color with a wave symbol within it, and Wemmbu’s was a purple color with a stylized whirlpool-like symbol within it.
Parrot narrowed his eyes slightly, thinking. Why was it that they were pulled into this world, and given…these odd orbs? What even were these orbs? Were they a trap or a gift? And for what reason, why were they given them? Snapping Parrot out of his thoughts was Wemmbu waking up. He sat upwards in a single motion like he was being risen from the dead and blinked a few times.
“Where are we?” He asked, looking over at Flame and Parrot.
Flame shrugged and Parrot shook his head. “We don’t know.” Said Parrot. “This is probably where that portal took us to.”
Wemmbu raised a brow. “Uh huh.” He said, then stood up, stretching his arms and yawning slightly. His eyes then caught a violet glint on the ground, and he looked over to what it was. He reached down to pick it up, and Parrot just barely caught a tiny flash of lightning around the orb as Wemmbu held it.
“And…what’s this?” Wemmbu asked, looking back at Parrot, who shook his head.
“Again, we don’t know. Me and Flame both have one too,” He responded, showing his teal orb to Wemmbu. “And Spoke seems to have one as well.” Parrot nodded to Spoke on the ground, and the deep blue orb resting on the sand beside him.
Wemmbu inspected his orb, holding it up to the sun to see the symbol on the inside clearer. “Is mine purple because I’m purple…” He muttered, lowering the orb from the sun. He sighed and turned back to Parrot and Flame. “When Spoke wakes up I’m banning him, bro. He’s the one that dragged us into here.”
“I agree.” Flame said, shrugging a bit.
Parrot rolled his eyes slightly. “That’s probably not the best idea, guys. We don’t even know if banning works here. For all we know, it could be something completely different” He said, looking back at the two. “Besides, it’s us that are in this world, and we need to stick together so we can leave and fight LAW.”
“Yeah, well, how are we supposed to do that?” Wemmbu asked. “I don’t think Zam, Minute, and the others are gonna be able to hold their own against Lettuce and his army. Especially Egg, bro.”
Parrot sighed. “You’re right…But didn’t we have our own army, though?”
“Yeah. But it was tremendously weaker than Lettuce’s army. He has hundreds of people, and we had just about a few dozen.” Flame explained.
“Well that’s just great.” Wemmbu said sarcastically. “We’re all stuck here while the server’s smallest army goes up against LAW. We’re cooked, bro.”
“Let’s not think about that right now, alright?” Parrot intervened. “We’ll find a way home, and we’ll do it quickly.”
“If only Spoke didn’t touch the weird portal.” Flame said. “We’d be fighting Lettuce by now.” He looked at Parrot. “What if this is another one of his exploits, huh?”
Before Parrot could shut down that assumption, a voice “spoke” up from behind Flame.
“Nah, this isn’t one of those.” Spoke chimed in. He had awoken as the other three were arguing, and finally decided to enter the conversation.
Wemmbu rolled his eyes. “Well, look who decided to wake up.” He said to Spoke.
“Great to see that you’re alive, too, Wemmbu.” Spoke countered. “Also, I don’t appreciate you and Flame blaming me. This isn’t entirely my fault.”
“Uh, yeah, it is.” Wemmbu argued. “You were the one who fell into the portal, making Flame, me, and Parrot have to try and drag you out—which failed and made us all fall into the portal and end up here.”
Spoke scoffed. “Rude. I didn’t fall into the portal, it sucked me into it! There was a force that pulled me, dude!”
Parrot tried to intervene. “Guys, can we not—”
“Spoke, you were the one to go to the portal, even after you saw me steer away from it.” Flame interrupted. “The blame is pretty much on you.”
“Okay, wow, that’s just unfair.” Spoke said, crossing his arms.
“Unfair?” Wemmbu countered, free hand summoning his mace.
Parrot saw the mace and jumped in to try and stop him. “Wemmbu! Stop—”
“You wanna know what’s unfair, Spoke?” Wemmbu said, completely ignoring Parrot. “The fact that we’re here because of you, the fact that all our allies are going to fight Lettuce alone, and the fact that Lettuce is going to become King now that we aren’t in Unstable anymore to stop him!”
“It’s not my fault, Wemmbu!” Spoke protested.
“Alright.” Wemmbu said with finality. “You’re getting banned. We’ll go home and fight Lettuce without you.” He pulled out a firework rocket, shoving the violet orb into his pocket (which Parrot noticed was glowing slightly and crackling with electric energy), and pulled the end of the rocket, shooting up into the air. Spoke instantly summoned his shield, taking a few steps back. Wemmbu then shot down, aiming his mace straight for Spoke.
However, as Wemmbu was flying downwards, Parrot noticed something wrong with the air—purple lightning was crackling all around Wemmbu—and the avian needed to act fast before something he couldn’t explain happened. “Get back!” Parrot shouted, grabbing Flame’s arm and running backwards—right before Wemmbu maced Spoke’s shield and a huge electric shock exploded from the impact, making all of them fly backwards.
.
.
.
Parrot coughed as he opened his eyes, sand having been caught in his mouth. He sat up, hearing Flame groan as he sat up as well. “Are you okay?” Parrot asked, standing up and helping Flame up.
“Yeah.” Flame replied. “What the hell was that, though? How did Wemmbu do that??”
Parrot sighed. “I don’t know…But it has got to do something with the orb. His orb was violet, and the lightning-explosion that happened was violet as well.” He explained, pieces of his theory falling into place. “The orb must’ve somehow “activated” when Wemmbu got ready to attack, because I noticed electric sparks coming off it when he was getting his firework.”
Flame pulled out his fiery-red orb from his pocket. “So, what you’re saying is these orbs give…powers??”
“I believe so.” Parrot agreed. He then looked back at the area where Wemmbu had collided with Spoke, and the sand there was scorched black from the lightning. “We should go check on them.”
Parrot and Flame jogged over to the scorched sand, seeing Spoke laying motionless by the bottom of the cliff and Wemmbu was on the ground halfway in the shore water, his mace being scattered over a few feet away. Parrot went over to Spoke while Flame went to Wemmbu.
“Spoke, are you good?” Parrot asked, kneeling down. Unfortunately, though, the explosion had flown Spoke backwards into the cliff wall and struck him in the head, knocking him unconscious and white Voidling blood trailing down his face from his skull. Parrot hissed in a sharp breath as he looked at the injury, but then he opened his side pack for a healing potion. He opened the cork and carefully helped Spoke drink it, the healing taking affect almost immediately. Spoke’s eyes opened up, and the white blood disappeared, along with the wound on his skull.
“Parrot, what was that?” Spoke asked.
“It was some kind of empowered attack.” Parrot explained. “Not an enchantment or potion effect, though. My theory is that it’s from the orb Wemmbu got when we all landed here.” He helped Spoke stand up.
Spoke leaned slightly on Parrot as he stood up. “What orb?”
“We all got one.” Parrot continued, reaching to his belt and showing Spoke his teal one. “This one was next to me when I woke up. Flame had a red one, Wemmbu had a purple one, and you got a blue one.” He pointed to the ground over where Spoke had woken up from the portal fall, where a blue orb glinted in the sun laid on the ground.
Parrot didn’t need to help Spoke anymore, since the healing potion had taken full effect and healed Spoke all the way, and they both walked over to Flame and Wemmbu, which Flame was trying to explain what Parrot had told him to Wemmbu.
“So you’re saying this thing gave me…power?” Wemmbu asked, holding his orb as he tried drying off his cape from the water.
“Yes.” Flame confirmed, exasperated. “I’ve said this like three times, and I’m just repeating Parrot’s theory.”
“Speaking of Parrot,” Wemmbu said, looking at Parrot and Spoke approaching. He raised a brow at the avian. “You knew about this?”
“It’s just a theory, Wemmbu. I could be wrong, but it’s the only logical thing I can think of.” Parrot explained. “That also means we all have some sort of new “power”, since we’ve each been given an orb.”
Flame and Parrot took out their orbs, Spoke as well—after going over and grabbing it from the sand—and all four of them held them in their hands.
“There’s gotta be a reason we have these.” Flame said. “I mean, why do I have one that has a fire symbol, and my whole thing—and name—is fire-related?”
Wemmbu shrugged. “Mine’s purple, and I’m literally purple.”
Spoke looked at his orb. “Well, mine’s blue with, like, a water or a wave symbol. How does that correlate?”
“I don’t know, honestly.” Parrot said. “Mine is teal with some sort of winged symbol. Is it because I’m an avian?”
“Probably.” Flame replied.
“You all get ones that actually correlate while I just get a blue one.” Spoke deadpanned. “Boring.”
“Maybe it has a meaning or something.” Parrot offered. Spoke just sighed.
“Well,” Wemmbu said. “We should stop standing around and explore this place. We need to find out how to leave.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Flame agreed. “Where do we start—”
He was interrupted by someone speaking up from behind them. “Excuse me, who are you guys?”
The quartet turned around to see two people—actually, one and a half, since one seemed to be small and…floating? The actual person was a boy with a long, golden blond braid and some foreign traveler’s outfit in the colors of white, gold, brown, and yellow. The floating person (?) was a short girl with white short hair and a rose-gold halo above her head, and a fluffy outfit with whites and the same rose-gold color. She also had a dark blue-fading-to-light-blue scarf with constellations on it.
The boy seemed to have spoken, and he waved to the four people in front of him. “Uh, hello!” He greeted. “I’ve never seen you guys anywhere, where are you from?”
Parrot glanced back at the other three before stepping forward and speaking. “We’re from Unstable.”
“Unstable?” The floating girl repeated, putting a hand up to her chin. “We’ve never heard of that place…”
The boy shook his head too. “No, we haven’t.” He paused for a second. “Can we get your names?”
Parrot nodded. “Yeah. I’m Parrot,” He motioned to Spoke. “This is Spoke,” Then motioned to Wemmbu. “Wemmbu,” And lastly to Flame. “And Flame.”
The boy nodded. “I see. Good to meet you four! I’m the Traveler, and this is my companion Paimon.” The floating girl, Paimon, waved her hands excitedly.
“Hehe, yep! Paimon’s Paimon!” She said.
‘She’s gonna give me a headache.’ Both Flame and Wemmbu thought. Parrot, however, just nodded.
“Good to meet you, too, Traveler and Paimon.” He said. “Mind if we ask…where exactly are we?”
Paimon spoke up first. “This is Mondstadt! One of the eight nations of Teyvat!”
“I see.” Parrot replied. So he and the others were definitely in a different world, Teyvat was not somewhere he’s heard about on Unstable, let alone it having nations within it. If Mondstadt was a nation, there must be a leader, right? Maybe if he could talk to the leader, he could get himself and the others back home. Parrot asked the question. “Is there the leader of Mondstadt we could talk to, actually?”
Traveler shook his head. “There isn’t exactly a leader, per se. Mondstadt is the nation of Freedom, and there is no direct ruler of it. However, the Knights of Favonius’ Acting Grandmaster could be the “leader” you could talk to. She helps protect Mondstadt, along with the other members of the Knights.”
Parrot nodded. “That will do. Can you take us there?”
Paimon perked up. “Sure thing!” She pointed to a path behind her and Traveler, leading up a small hill. “We go along this path and we’ll get to Mondstadt City! Paimon likes their sticky roast! It’s so good…”
Wemmbu raised a brow. “Uh huh.” He then leaned close to Parrot. “Is this a good idea? For all we know it could be a trap.”
Parrot turned back to the three. “I don’t they look like ones who’d trap us. Besides, if we can go talk to this Acting Grandmaster, we could get a lead on how to leave and get back to Unstable.”
Wemmbu looked uncertain, Flame too, but Spoke seemed alright with the idea. Parrot sighed. “Just trust me. If this goes wrong, we book it out of here. I…don’t know where we’ll go, but we have to stick together, alright?”
Spoke shrugged. “Seems fine.”
Flame crossed his arms. “I guess.”
Wemmbu sighed. “Whatever. Let’s go.”
Parrot nodded. “Alright.” He turned back to Traveler and Paimon. “Lead the way.”