Chapter Text
231. (credit to SugarStone6043)
“This isn’t what it looks like!”
“It looks like you’re trying to hide Tommy’s body,” said Punz, staring at the aforementioned body that Dream happened to be dragging by the ankles. Dream winced.
“Okay, so maybe it is what it looks like, but I have a good reason for this—”
“Did you kill Tommy?” Sapnap demanded, having been five steps behind Punz and thus seen the scene next.
“N—”
“Did he attack you?” asked George, stepping out from behind Sapnap and scanning the area with a critical eye. “I thought New L’Manberg was trying to negotiate.”
“He didn’t attack me,” said Dream, exasperated.
“So you attacked him?”
“No, I didn’t—” Dream took a deep breath. “Look. I know what this looks like. But I didn’t kill Tommy.”
All three of his friends looked doubtfully at the corpse, which clearly sported a terminal case of Arrow To The Face. “You’re trying to hide his body,” George said. “Why would you be trying to hide his body if you didn’t kill him?”
“Tommy got killed by a skeleton. I’m just doing him a favor—”
“You’re doing Tommy a favor? You were literally demanding his exile yesterday—”
“—a skeleton? C’mon man, nobody’s going to buy that—”
“—how is that a ‘favor’—”
“Will you let me explain?!”
His friends fell silent and stared at him, waiting. Dream made to press a hand over his face, realized he couldn’t do that while holding Tommy’s ankles, and settled for projecting an aura of Great Disappointment instead. “Look. I didn’t kill Tommy, okay? There was a—”
“What the fuck is happening here?”
Dream, through sheer heroic force of will, managed to withhold a groan. He turned his head to look at the four L’Manbergians who had just arrived at the scene, sighed, and said, “I told you to meet me here for negotiations, didn’t I?”
“T-Tommy?” Tubbo whispered.
“You—” Quackity went white as he registered what he was looking at. And then he lunged for Dream. “YOU BASTARD!”
“I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING!” Dream shouted, dropping Tommy’s legs in favor of ducking away from Quackity’s attack. Quackity didn’t seem to hear him, too busy attempting to turn him into a human shish kebab. Dream’s friends moved forward to intervene, only to find themselves accosted by the other L’Manbergians. Fundy was screaming incoherently, slashing wildly at George, who backed up under the onslaught. Philza, meanwhile, was defending Fundy’s back from Punz and Sapnap, his mouth set in a grim line and his eyes unreadable beneath the brim of his hat. Tubbo avoided the battle altogether, ducking around the fighters and making a beeline towards Tommy’s body. Once he reached it, he just—folded, falling to his knees right in the middle of the battlefield.
“DON’T KILL THEM!” Dream shouted over the sound of clashing blades. “THERE’S A PERFECTLY GOOD EXPLANATION AND I CAN EXPLAIN IF YOU ALL STOP TRYING TO MURDER US FOR ONE SECOND—”
“Die,” Quackity snarled, following up a missed swipe of his axe with a fist to the throat. Dream choked and reflexively punched him upside the head, sending the other man careening backward. Quackity swayed on his feet for two terrifying moments, then tipped backwards and collapsed, unconscious.
“Quackity!” Fundy called, alarm clear in his voice. He made to sprint across the clearing, only to find his way blocked by George. “Get out of my w—"
“Tommy?”
All eyes snapped to Philza, who had frozen mid-combat with Punz and Sapnap—the former’s sword locked against his own, and the latter’s axe buried in Philza’s shield. The avian, though, wasn't looking at either of them; instead, his stare was fixed on a point past Punz’s shoulder.
Tommy—or something that looked like Tommy—stood at the edge of the clearing. Trails of dull red blood trickled down his face. His eyes were pale, pure white, devoid of iris or pupil. The most telling hint of his inhuman nature, though, was the fact that he was floating several inches off the ground.
The ghost looked at the unconscious Quackity, looked at the various L’Manbergians currently being restrained by Dream’s allies, then looked at Dream. “You had one job,” was all he said.
Dream looked Tommy dead in the eye. Slowly, with all the serenity of a man well past the end of his rope, he lifted his unoccupied hand and raised a single middle finger in Tommy’s direction.
232.
It took Technoblade two days to notice that something strange was going on with his window.
In his defense, he wasn’t usually one to spend time staring pensively out into a wintery landscape. Also in his defense, he didn’t go near that particular window often, given that it was placed in the back of his house and also angled to catch sunlight for only one hour of the day. Pretty useless, as far as windows went.
Which was why for two days, he didn’t notice that its curtains had been mysteriously pulled back, nor that there was…something on the other side.
It was while he was rifling through one of his cabinets that Chat started whispering about the window. Technoblade initially ignored it, well-used to Chat’s various “Made you look!” pranks, but when more voices began picking it up, he huffed and turned to glare at the window.
“Look, Chat,” he deadpanned, gesturing to the glass. “Window. Trees. There’s nothing…there…”
Now that he was staring at the window, he could tell that there was indeed something very wrong with it. At first, he thought the windowpane was dirty—which, alright, it wasn’t like Technoblade ever cleaned his windows, but that was because the rain and snowmelt did that for him. Upon closer inspection, though, it wasn’t dirty—it was just showing a scene of the forest outside at night.
Technoblade glanced at the other window in the kitchen, then the clock hanging above the sink. Both declared that the sun was still high in the sky.
“What?” he muttered, shuffling closer to the strange window. Yup, still nighttime—but everything was eerily still. Not even the slightest breeze ruffled the branches. The trees cast unnaturally dark shadows that stretched far beyond where they should’ve ended.
But it wasn’t the shadows that caught Technoblade’s eye. No, it was a patch of unusually white snow. Yes, Chat, he knew that snow was supposed to be white—but it seemed a little too bright. And now that he was staring at it, he couldn’t help but feel it looked a bit like…an eye? Something vaguely eye-shaped?
Wait. No. That was an actual eye. And the thing he’d initially mistaken for a weird shadow was actually the face of a strangely elongated, humanoid picture peering up at him from just outside his window.
No, Chat, Technoblade did not scream. That screech was a war cry meant to strike fear into the hearts of his enemies, and the boot he put through the window right afterward was a calculated attack.
Or, well, he would have put his boot through the window…if there had actually been a window. Because apparently, someone had removed that window and replaced it with a very, very realistic wall painting.
Technoblade ended up with a bruised toe, a dented wall, and a very amused Chat.
“Who the fuck just leaves dirt all over the floor?”
George shrugged, though the slight wrinkle in his nose suggested he was just as appalled as Sapnap felt. The two of them stood staring down at the previously-clean Community House floor, which was now covered with a thin, uneven layer of dirt. Sapnap scuffed at it with the sole of his shoe—and slipped when he failed to encounter the expected dirt. He hit the floor with a loud “Oof!”, followed by a infuriated “What the fuck?”
“Huh,” said George, noting how Sapnap’s white shirt remained distinctly un-dirt-ied. “Huh.”
Sapnap twisted so he could poke at the floor. His face twisted into an expression of sheer offense. “…It’s fucking painted?”
The distinct click of a communicator camera caught his attention. He looked up to see George lowering the device with a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. “You look stupid,” was all the man offered as an explanation. “Good blackmail material.”
Sapnap screeched and lunged for him. George ducked away and sprinted for the hills, cackling madly all the way.
Sam pressed his card against the reader, waited for the loud beep, and flipped the lever. His work on Pandora’s Vault was coming along pretty nicely. On his to-do list for today was testing the new keycard system; it also conveniently allowed him to make sure that all the doors would open and close properly.
The one in front of him slid open with a smooth shhhhk. Sam hummed appreciatively, checked it off twice on his clipboard, and stepped into the next room. He was supposed to turn around and make sure the door had closed automatically behind him, but as he looked up from his checklist, he found himself only capable of gaping at the room.
Where there had previously been blank walls and a single door, there were now four doors arrayed on every wall. Sam blinked rapidly and pinched himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. Unfortunately, what he was seeing appeared to be very real.
“What the?” Sam muttered, then made a beeline for where he knew the next door should’ve been. When he reached out to grasp the lever, the only thing that met his fingers was the cool, smooth surface of polished blackstone.
“What,” Sam repeated, drawing back to examine the “door” more carefully. What he had perceived to be the door was, in fact, an excruciatingly detailed, realistic painting of the door and its accompanying lever. A quick examination of the “doors” to the left and right of what should have been the door revealed that they, too, were painted.
Someone had come into this room and painted twenty exact replicas of the door. Not only that, they had moved the actual door.
Now, Sam could’ve just broken down the wall to get to the next room. But even with all the security concerns this incident brought up, he had to admire the prankster for their creativity. It wouldn’t be very good sportsmanship if he just ruined their hard work. And besides, it wasn’t like Dream had set a deadline for when the prison had to be completed. He could afford to waste a few minutes.
It took Sam seven minutes to find the actual door. Mostly because the prankster had replaced it with a trapdoor in the corner, dug out a corridor with a ladder that would lead to the next hallway, and painted the wood to resemble blackstone.
Sam wasted an extra minute just staring at the trapdoor in disbelief. Then he scribbled a note about upping security measures on his clipboard, shook his head, and moved on to the next room.
Schlatt stumbled into the Community House—and nearly tripped over several diamonds.
“Woah woah woah—” he yelped, scrambling back to the doorway and staring at the shiny gems scattered across the floor. “What the—?”
He squatted down and attempted to pick up the one closest to him. His hand closed around empty air.
Schlatt blinked hard, stared, then poked at the diamond next to it. It, too, was very flat. Because it wasn’t a diamond at all. Some motherfucker had painted a fuckton of extremely realistic diamonds scattered on the floor of the Community House.
“Huh,” Schlatt muttered. Cautiously, he pushed himself to his feet and—after glancing around one more time—made for his original destination: the door at the other end of the Community House. He was only about perhaps three feet away when he stepped on something hard, which shot out from under his foot and sent him sprawling to the ground.
“What the fuck,” he yelped, jackknifing upright and glaring suspiciously at the diamond. It bounced off the far wall with a cheerful clink and rolled back to a stop near his foot.
Slowly, Schlatt reached out and picked it up. It felt…lighter than it should? He held it up to the sunlight, and…yeah, he really should’ve expected that. It was a perfectly normal rock, sanded down and painted in iridescent shades to resemble a diamond.
Now Schlatt had seen evil. Had been called evil, at certain points of his life. But he had never quite seen evil like this. It took a certain kind of creativity and a certain level of sadism to come up with this level of petty, targetless chaos.
“Damn,” he muttered with begrudging admiration, then tossed the rock back onto the floor for some other poor sod to trip on. If he had to suffer, then everyone else would too.
Quackity stared at the Prime Path, trying to decide if he wanted to investigate.
On one hand, he really should be getting home. On the other hand, he was pretty sure that the giant-fuck-off-glowing-green chasm currently running across that particular section of the Path was not supposed to be there. The lanterns that usually illuminated the area were extinguished, leaving the sickly glow emanating from the depths of the crack as the only source of light.
“What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck,” Quackity muttered, edging closer to get a better look. The jagged crack seemed to lengthen as he got closer, stretching unnaturally in ways that did not comply with the normal rules of perspective. No matter how much he squinted and tilted his head this way and that, he couldn’t make sense of it.
Now, a saner man would have called it a day and left it well enough alone. But a saner man would also have never even come to the Dream SMP in the first place. Which was why Quackity decided it would be a wonderful idea to step onto the Prime Path in the hopes of getting an even closer look—only for his foot to land on empty air.
For one heartstopping moment, Quackity thought that the crack might extend further than he’d realized. He threw out his arms and tried to wrench himself backwards, hoping against hope that he might manage to cling to the edge—
His foot met a solid surface, sank down another inch, and then glitter promptly exploded into the air around him.
Quackity crouched there for a solid twenty seconds, attempting to make sense of what had just occurred. Someone had seen fit to place what had looked like the entrance to some eldritch dimension in the middle of a commonly-used walkway. And it only looked like a chasm, because now that Quackity was up close and personal with the thing, it was apparent that it was just a very realistic illusion that involved glow-in-the-dark paint. A chunk of the Prime Path’s top layer had been cleared to further the illusion, and the bottom of the shallow pit had been lined with pressure plates that sprayed glitter of all things all over whatever unfortunate soul had been foolish enough to wander into the trap.
Quackity looked down at himself. The thick coat of glitter now covering his clothes sparkled green in the dim light. It was going to get everywhere.
“Fuck you,” he told the path.
It, predictably, did not reply. Without a suitable target to wreak vengeance upon, Quackity had no choice but to extricate himself from the trap and trudge off, leaving a trail of glitter in his wake.
“Dream. My friend. My fellow looper. My least favorite person on the server. I support your artistic journey, but this crosses the fuckin’ line.”
“I was just helping you redecorate your ugly house, Tommy. You should be thankful—”
“You repainted my entire room! I woke up and thought I was on my fuckin’ CEILING for a second! And you glued all my furniture to the actual ceiling—”
“You’re always bragging about how tall you are, you should be able to reach it.”
“I WILL MURDER YOU.”
“Hey, that’s not very pogchamp of y—OW NOT THE FACE, NOT THE FACE!”
Philza paused at the threshold of the Community House and took a moment to question reality.
Multicolored plastic blocks littered the floor. He recognized them as the “Lego” toys that he’d seen on servers before this one—a toy of some kind that helped children learn the basics of blocks and inventory use. They were also notoriously painful to step on.
Now Philza had his boots on, which eliminated that issue. Still, he was rather struck by the oddity of the situation. He knelt down to pick up one of the legos—and discovered that what he had mistaken for legos was in fact many life-sized paintings of legos scattered about the floor. Even worse, he could see the occasional real lego mixed in with the painted ones. The cherry on top of the whole mess was the area that had appeared to be lego-free: a somewhat janky, very thin four-way path between the doors that would’ve forced any who braved it to walk heel-to-toe. Except on closer inspection, Philza realized that there were indeed legos on the path—just legos that had been painted to blend very well into the floor.
Philza slowly rose to his feet and backed out of the Community House. He didn’t know what was happening here, and he didn’t want to. In fact, if this was the kind of shit people on the Mainland were getting up to, it was probably better if he just…avoided the entire area for the time being.
Yeah, no. Back to the tundra it was. He didn’t need his Chat following him here and getting any ideas.
233.
"I have," said Tommy, "just realized something of monumental importance."
Dream raised an eyebrow at him from the other side of the cell.
"I don't have a mouth."
"…You're just realizing that?"
"I dont have a mouth, Dream, how the fuck am I supposed to drink milk like this?"
Dream shrugged. "You could stay as a blob for the rest of this loop—"
"Fuck no." Tommy squinted at him. "…this happened to you a few loops ago, didn't it?"
"Yes. And somehow, despite creating the blobbifying potion and knowing what it does, you still drank it." Dream deadpanned. He raised his hands and began slow clapping. "Congratulations, you win Biggest Idiot of the Year."
Tommy glowered at him. "You drank a water resistance last time! How was I supposed to know messing up a fire resistance could also affect ghosts like this?!"
"This is what we get for trying a new breakout method," Dream muttered. He dragged a hand down his face, then gestured towards the entrance of the cell. "Should I just…?"
"Fuck no. We can still make this work—”
"You can't break me out like this."
"I can try," Tommy snipped. He paused for a moment, then straightened. "Wait wait wait, you fixed it when it happened to you! I saw you! You un-blobbed yourself!"
"Hm," Dream grunted.
Tommy nudged him in the leg. "C'mon, big D, we can still fix this. Tell me how you did it and I'll get you out—"
"Did you bring a milk bucket or a milk capsule?"
Tommy blinked at the non sequitur. "Uh, capsule?"
Dream shook his head. "You need a bucket. Blobs use osmosis."
"They fucking what."
"Osmosis," Dream repeated. He still looked exhausted, but the spark of humor in his eyes was unmistakable. "It's why they don't have mouths. They just drink through their skin."
Tommy stared at Dream. Stared at the floor.
"Oh Prime," he whispered. "Am I—am I drinking the obsidian juice?"
Dream shrugged. "I mean, it isn't a passive action. You should be able to tell if you're doing it."
Tommy made a face. "Right, dickhead, I'll just know how to slurp dirt through my skin like a—earthworm."
“Earthworms drink using their skin?”
“Of fucking course they do, you—ARGH! That’s not important right now!” Tommy hopped up on Dream’s leg and proceeded to jump up and down on his knee in a very ineffective imitation of stomping. “Get me a bucket of milk!”
“Ah, yes,” Dream drawled, slowly turning his head to scan the cell. “Any second now, a milk bucket will magically appear in this impenetrable prison that is specifically built to keep people weak with Elder Guardian magic.”
Tommy glowered. It was hard to convey with body language alone, but he managed.
Dream reached down and lightly patted him on the head with a patronizing finger. “You know,” he mused, “it’s hard to forget that you’re an ancient gremlin of chaos and destruction when you look so…harmless.”
“I’ll show you chaos and destruction if you don’t get me some milk right. Fucking. Now.”
“Don’t worry, I’m sure Sam will get you some.” Dream smirked. “…Eventually.”
Tommy attempted to stomp on Dream’s hand to convey his displeasure. Seeing as he currently weighed almost nothing, it was very ineffective.
234. (inspired by Cookiewithminth)
“No!” Puffy cried, frantically trying to push Sam and Eret away as the two of them held her back. “No, Foolish—”
“Puffy, you could’ve stopped this if you stayed with the Eggpire.” Antfrost sneered. “This is all your fault.”
“No it’s not.” Foolish’s throat bobbed against the sword pressed to it as he swallowed. With what little cheer he had left, he smiled. It was wobbly and offset by the fear in his eyes, but it was the effort that counted. ”It’s okay, Puffy. Don’t listen to them, it’s not—”
“Hey,” Hannah’s voice interrupted the proceedings, drawing all eyes to her. She was staring at a point past Puffy’s shoulder with her brows furrowed. “What is that?”
All eyes turned to what had caught Hannah’s attention. A hand was sticking through the curtain of lava, apparently unharmed. It retracted a moment later, only to be replaced by a head, followed by a torso, and then there was another person caught in the trap.
“…T-Tommy?” Fundy stammered, taking a cautious step closer to the teenager. The caution was warranted; Tommy had a potion bottle clutched in one hand, and the cloud of potion particles surrounding him was so thick that it was impossible to tell what color the particles were. His eyes were bright with the telltale signs of potion overdose.
“Woaaah,” he muttered, swaying on his feet. He squinted blearily at the scene around him, then hiccuped and took another swig from his bottle. “Whas goin’ on here? Zis a party?”
“Tommy!” Bad cried, spreading his arms wide and smiling brightly when Tommy turned his unfocused gaze on him. “Yes, it is a party!”
Tommy nodded. “Pog.” He frowned. “Wait, why wasn’t I invited?”
“Tommy, you can’t be here,” Sam said. He released Puffy to approach Tommy and perhaps convince him to leave the trap, only for Ponk to step into his path. “Ponk. Get out of my way.”
“Nuh-uh,” said Ponk, waving his sword in Sam’s face. “Don’t try to get in the way of another sacrifice, Sammy.”
“Sag-rih-fise?” Tommy asked. “Tha’ sounds kinda bad.”
“No, no, it’s just a game!” Bad said, still smiling that terrible smile. “A fun game! Why don’t you come over here and play, Tommy? You’ll have a lot of fun!”
“Okay,” Tommy agreed. He shuffled towards the Eggpire; Ponk flanked him, speaking over Sam’s calls to Tommy and smacking away Eret’s desperate attempt to grab the teenager’s arm. Puffy made a low, wounded noise of horror as Tommy made a beeline for Antfrost—and Foolish, who was still kneeling at the cat hybrid’s feet. Antfrost smirked and lifted his sword from Foolish’s throat, ready to bring it down across Tommy’s instead. Foolish shifted, clearly preparing to intervene—
It happened quickly. One second, Antfrost’s blade was arcing through the air and Foolish was launching himself upwards, trying to knock Antfrost off balance. In the next, Foolish was sprawled several feet away and Tommy had Antfrost pinned to the floor. The teenager took the moment of the stunned silence to slam a fist into the man’s chin and knock him clean out. He scrambled away a moment later, slipping out of range of Ponk’s sword before it could take his head off.
The rest of the Eggpire recovered fairly quickly, lunging at him with their own weapons. Puffy shook herself out of her stupor long enough to hurry forward and gather a stunned Foolish into her arms and half-carry, half-drag him back to the relative safety of the crowd. The god was shaking from the aftermath of the adrenaline rush only a near-death experience could produce. Golden ichor dripped from the shallow cut across his neck and soaked into his collar; Eret silently tore some fabric from the hem of his dress and pressed it over the wound, gaze occasionally darting back to the scene in front of them.
Tommy was somehow, impossibly, holding his own against Bad, Hannah, and Ponk while high on magic. Or maybe he wasn’t high on magic; the switch from rambling drunkard to vicious warrior had certainly been quick enough to suggest that he’d been faking it. Unfortunately, holding his own didn’t mean he was winning; the three remaining conscious members of the Eggpire had regrouped and were now driving him backward, towards the Egg. The parasite’s shell gleamed red as it retracted the obsidian that had protected it from Sam’s initial TNT trap. To the onlookers’ horror, a slit opened up in its shell and cracked apart, revealing a gaping maw lined with razor-sharp thorns. Barbed vines rose up from the Egg’s base, lashing out and clamping down around Tommy’s sword arm. The teenager let out a shout, then cursed when one of the vines twisted, forcing him to drop his weapon.
In one neat movement, Bad slashed Tommy’s stomach open and shoved him straight into the tear. Everyone in the room had a chance to see Tommy’s eyes widen right before the maw clamped shut around him.
“NO!” Puffy shrieked, but it was already too late. The Egg’s surface had smoothed over, leaving no trace of Tommy.
“At least he’ll be of some use,” Bad huffed. He straightened and flicked his sword in a bid to hide how he was still catching his breath. “His blood will nourish the Egg—”
“He was a kid,” Sam growled, trembling with white-hot fury.
“He was a threat to the Egg,” Bad corrected. “Just like the rest of you are. Now—”
BOOM!
Everyone within a five-foot radius of the Egg was thrown forward by the force of the explosion. The rest stumbled back, lifting their arms to protect themselves from the rush of hot air. When the smoke had somewhat cleared, they looked up to see a terrifying sight.
The Egg looked like it had been torn open from the inside out. Its chunks writhed and twined together and refused like some sort of thick, flesh-like clay. Mouths full of sharp thorns split across its shell and issued forth a horrible screech of rage and agony, forcing several people to their knees. Tongues of white-hot fire blazed around it, their tips shimmering blue as they crawled up the surface of the Egg. They left charred eggshell wherever they touched, though the Egg seemed to be repairing itself just as quickly as it was damaged.
A delighted cackle was all the warning the Eggpire received before Tommy burst from the flames with his sword swinging. The large gash in his shirt—courtesy of Bad’s attempt to cut him open—revealed unrecognizable Enchantments painted across his unmarred skin. More symbols burned on his arms and across his cheeks; the flames and smoke seemed to roll over him, almost as though they were repelled by some invisible force. He drove Bad back, keeping up a flurry of attacks so quick that the man could do little more than defend himself. His allies, though, soon came to his aid—but even then, Tommy was fighting harder, fighting better. It was as though he’d been holding back—which Sam now realized had been so he could explode the Egg from the inside out.
Ponk’s sword was suddenly wrenched from his hand by an unseen force. He spun around with a cry of alarm, but was too slow to dodge the follow-up punch that knocked him out. Antfrost, who had only just begun to stir, was unceremoniously treated to an unknown splash potion that appeared out of thin air and broke open beside him. He instantly froze, paralyzed where he lay.
“THERE’S ANOTHER ONE!” Bad screeched, frantically parrying Tommy’s attempts to decapitate him. “THEY’RE INVISI—ACK!”
Hannah growled and threw up an arm. A barrage of crimson vines struck the spot where the invisible interloper had been moments before, then exploded in all directions. Several buried themselves in the ground. A couple slashed at Tommy, who was forced to jump away from Bad to avoid them. The remaining ones lunged for the defenseless Players huddled in the corner of the room—and were slashed to ribbons before they could touch the ground.
“There!” Hannah snapped, clenching her outstretched hand into a fist. New vines—some thorny, some the signature red of the Egg’s infected flora—converged on the space where the unknown player had been moments before. A few met their mark—and were also shredded in a show of expert swordsmanship. Bad, who had been frantically looking back and forth in a futile attempt to spot Tommy amidst the clearing smoke, gave up with a growl and sprang for the invisible fighter.
Or, well, the no-longer-invisible fighter. The potion was wearing off, and now they could see the faint, shimmering outline of a person bringing their blade up to meet Bad’s. As they continued to exchange blows, the color leached back into their figure, growing more opaque until—
Sam felt Puffy go rigid beside him. He didn’t blame her, because somehow, impossibly, that was Dream. Dream, the manipulator, the villain, the one who had hurt Tommy more than Tommy could ever possibly describe—was now fighting alongside him to protect the very people who had locked him in a prison a month ago.
But this fight—this fight was strange. Sam knew how Dream fought—had sparred with him regularly, even, before everything went to hell—and this wasn’t how Dream fought. No, Dream’s usual form was all speed and precision. It was why he was able to hold his own so well against Technoblade’s efficiently brutal berserker style; he darted around strikes like lightning, here one moment and there in the other, so that he wore out his opponent without ever taking a hit.
This, though—this wasn’t quick or sharp or erratic. Instead, Dream’s movements flowed like water, bending around attacks and rising up to mirror his enemy’s. When Bad swung his axe, Dream turned it aside with a strike of his palm to the flat of the blade—then proceeded to effortlessly twist the weapon from Bad’s hands and swipe it into an upstroke similar to what Bad had attempted to do to him mere seconds ago. He was turning Bad and Hannah’s moves against them.
“Holy shit,” someone muttered from behind them. Sam couldn’t help but wonder where this level of proficiency had been in that horrible final confrontation in the depths of Dream’s base. He could clearly hold his own against multiple opponents—and this was after a month spent rotting in a cell. If Dream had fought like this to escape, they might not have been able to put him in prison at all.
The battle came to a lull as the three fighters disengaged to circle each other. Dream was breathing hard and his scratched armor had taken a hit or two, but he seemed otherwise fine. Bad was much worse for wear, having lost his blazer sometime during the commotion. His shirt was stained with demon’s blood.
Hannah, though, was definitely flagging. She had overtaxed her phytokinesis, if the blood trickling from her nose and her trembling hands were any indication. In one last act of desperation, she lunged and slashed clumsily at Dream, but the man stepped back and out of range. Her next step had her overbalancing—and one kick to the head later, she, too, was slumped unconscious on the ground.
Bad took a moment to calculate, spun on his heel, and sprinted for the Egg. Dream gave chase—and Sam was prevented from seeing what happened next when Tommy appeared in front of them with the sparkling sound of shattering ender pearls. Bits of his hair and shirt were aflame, but he hardly seemed to notice. “Back up, back up!” he hissed, jostling Sam—and by extension, the rest of the crowd—back with one arm. With his other hand, he began frantically laying down stone.
Sam was too stunned to ask any questions; he just watched as the haphazard wall thickened and grew into a half-dome, obscuring the rest of the room and forming a protective shield around the crowd. When it was complete, Tommy turned on his heel and disappeared with another ender pearl, only to return with Hannah slung over his shoulder and Antfrost dragging behind him by the back of his shirt. He unceremoniously dropped them next to the horrified banqueters, pearled away, then returned with a similarly conked-out Ponk and…Bad.
“They actually got him,” Sam heard Puffy whisper. He turned to look at her, only to see her staring at the demon with something between awe and grief in her eyes. “They—Dream actually got him.”
Tommy tossed the remaining members of the Eggpire next to their incapacitated allies, then turned and looked towards the wall. “WE’RE CLEAR!” he hollered.
For a moment, there was nothing. And then the world burned.
With a concussive BOOM, a white-hot inferno bloomed on the other side of the wall, climbing high enough to clear the lip of the half-dome. Even with the stone between them and the flames, the wave of heat that rolled over them had sweat dripping down Sam’s brow. The shockwave followed only moments later, a powerful tremor that shook the earth and sent loose stones slamming into the far wall. Sam stumbled as the red vines beneath his feet twitched, shriveled, and disintegrated into ashy powder; the subsequent snow of blackened ash revealed that the vines previously sprouting from the cave ceiling had suffered a similar fate.
A second later, all three knocked-out members of the Eggpire jolted awake with a scream. Antfrost, who was still under the effects of that strange paralysis potion, just twitched violently. The red drained from his half-open eyes, leaving bloodshot blue behind.
“Shit,” Hannah groaned, pressing a hand to her head as she struggled to her knees. Ponk, meanwhile, had crawled to the edge of the half-dome, pulled the bottom of his mask up to his nose, and started dry-heaving. Bad lay sprawled where he’d awoken, staring blankly at the ceiling. None of them reacted when the crowd collectively flinched away.
“Pog,” Sam heard Tommy mutter beside him. “Rescue plan, phase one complete.” Before Sam could ask what that was about, though, the teen popped up from his crouch and tore straight through the center of their protective half-dome with a pickaxe. “C’mon, c’mon!” he shouted, waving the group forward. “It’s safe now, the Egg’s dead!”
Sam glanced back at the others in the hopes that one of them would know what was happening. The only one who met his gaze was Puffy, and she could only offer him a bewildered shrug. Without any better options, Sam had no choice but to follow Tommy.
The once-splendid banquet hall now resembled a battlefield. Shards of what had once been the table were now strewn across the floor. Scorch marks stretched across the walls in bold, haphazard streaks. The corner where the Egg had once resided was now completely reduced to scorched rubble and thick clouds of smoke, along with the charred remains of what resembled an extremely overcooked egg.
Dream had some sort of smoking, tubular contraption hoisted over his shoulder. He lowered it as the banquet attendees stumbled out from behind the wall. The smoke from the weapon cleared just enough to reveal the almost manic grin spread across his sooty face.
“It worked?” Tommy asked, patting out the flames in his hair as he stumbled towards the madman. Sam broke from his stupor a little too late, and his attempt to grab Tommy before he could approach Dream missed by a mile.
“Perfectly,” Dream confirmed. He lifted a hand. “High five?” Tommy scoffed and offered a fist instead, which Dream rolled his eyes at but obligingly bumped.
“Tommy, Dream, what…” Foolish began, sounding as lost as Sam felt. “What just happened?”
“We saved your asses!” Tommy grinned widely and slung an arm around Dream’s shoulder, disregarding the man’s yelp and frantic attempts to pat out the tiny fires that were now spreading from Tommy’s shirt to Dream’s jumpsuit. “You’re welcome!”
“But—you—” Sam looked between the two of them, taking in the easy (impossible) camaraderie. “You were—working together?”
“Yup!”
“But—Dream is…evil.”
“I’m just misunderstood!” Dream protested at the same moment that Tommy said, “He got better!”
They looked at each other for a moment.
“You were not misunderstood,” Tommy informed Dream. “Take that back before I take your third vertebrae, you fucker—”
“You can’t just threaten to disassemble someone’s spine, Tommy—OW! I take it back, I take it back, stop pinching me!”
“SO YEAH,” Tommy said over Dream’s yelp. “We’re working together because Dream’s not so evil anymore! Still a massive bitch, but he lost the god complex somewhere around the start of the time loops—yeah, those are involved—so he’s served his jail time, gotten a redemption arc, all that.” Tommy did jazz hands. “Pretty pog if you ask me—”
“Nobody asked.”
“—I will remove your fourth vertebrae too, bitch—”
“Time loops?” Puffy interjected weakly.
Tommy nodded and grinned wider, as though imploring them to ignore the sheer amount of bullshittery that was currently occurring. “Yup. It’s why we’re extra pog now.”
“And why we have a rocket launcher,” Dream added.
“And why we have a rocket launcher!” Tommy agreed, then pointed at Sam. “Sam invented it, we upgraded it—and we put some fuckin’ epic upgrades, Sam, if you want to look at it later.”
Sam opened his mouth…and shut it again. He scrambled for words to express the sheer amount of confusion he was feeling, discovered that the English lexicon lacked the capacity to do so, and ended up making an inarticulate noise that resembled the world’s most garbled keyboard smash.
“It’ll make more sense later,” Tommy told him sympathetically. “Just, uh, refrain from trying to jail Dream for now? I kinda need him for something.”
Puffy, once again, proved her bravery as the de facto spokesman for their little gathering. “…Something?”
“We’re going to commit crimes against the laws of reality,” said Tommy.
“He needs help baking some brownies,” Dream said at the same time.
There was an awkward pause.
“…And I need some help baking some brownies,” said Tommy. “They’ll just be very reality-breaking brownies.”
“I thought we were doing the reality-breaking after the brownies?”
“We can multitask! I am so good at multitasking. The greatest at it, in fact—”
An ominous rumble cut through Tommy’s rapidly-escalating monologue. The teenager squinted up at the ceiling, then turned to his apparently-no-longer-worst-enemy.
“Dream, did the rocket launcher happen to…cause structural damage?”
“I’m pretty sure it did? It was a pretty big explosion, and we’re underground.” Dream’s eyes widened. “…Wait, is Quackity’s group still hiding in the walls?”
“Ah shit,” said Tommy. He pulled away from Dream and sprinted away into the smoke, only to hurtle back out of it with a yelp of “WAIT FUCK I FORGOT!” snatch the rocket launcher, shove two potion bottles into Dream’s now empty hands, and charge off again with the rocket launcher in tow.
The silence left in his wake was broken by yet another rumble and several showers of dust from the cavern ceiling. Dream looked down at the potions, looked up at his befuddled audience, and sighed heavily.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” he said. “I am going to splash all of us with this Fire Resistance. And then I’m going to drink this potion, which will turn me into a dragon. You all are going to calmly huddle together so I can cover you from any falling rocks, and we are all going to calmly walk through the lava trap together and get out through the exit. Capiche?”
The only response he received was some more vaguely traumatized staring.
“Great! Let’s go!”
Apparently, announcing that you were going to turn into a dragon did not, in fact, keep people from screaming their heads off when you went through with it. Needless to say, phase two of the rescue plan was anything but calm.
235. seeing red, pt. 5 ( see previous parts of this loop here )
TW: Body Horror
Dream chanted, his voice rising and falling in tandem with the beat of his pounding heart. This was it. The final vow towards priesthood. The final promise to Lady Prime before he could gain Her protection—and the first step in his plan to save Tommy.
The last syllable of the vow slipped between his teeth and rang hard against the shadowy walls of the Church. It sounded like a gong, a bell, a death knell. Dream remained still. His hands, clasped in front of him, ached with how tightly he gripped them. A bead of sweat trickled down from his hairline and past his closed eyes.
The Church windows rattled violently. A cold breeze swept between the pews. The rushing of the Church’s waterfall faded away, as did the sound of the crickets chirping outside. The cold tile beneath Dream’s knees no longer seemed cold. The dull ache in his throat dissolved.
His thoughts turned, unbidden, to his past. Memories flashed before him—memories of the loops. Memories of Pandora’s Vault. Memories of Tommy, laughing and weeping and screaming and smiling. He watched it all play out as though through a pane of glass, as though he was seeing his own life through someone else’s eyes. He was a passive observer, reading a story still being written. A story that was one among many, a story that should have been so insignificant, yet a story that had captured the attention of something Other.
Beneath that all-seeing gaze, he felt small. He felt warm. He felt—
𝕴 𝖘𝖊𝖊 𝖙𝖍𝖆𝖙 𝕴 𝖌𝖗𝖆𝖓𝖙𝖊𝖉 𝖙𝖍𝖎𝖘 𝖋𝖆𝖛𝖔𝖗 𝖙𝖔 𝖞𝖔𝖚𝖗 𝖈𝖔𝖒𝖕𝖆𝖓𝖎𝖔𝖓, 𝖔𝖓𝖈𝖊. 𝕱𝖔𝖗 𝖍𝖎𝖘 𝖆𝖒𝖚𝖘𝖊𝖒𝖊𝖓𝖙, 𝖓𝖔 𝖑𝖊𝖘𝖘.
𝕳𝖎𝖘 𝖉𝖊𝖛𝖔𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓 𝖒𝖚𝖘𝖙 𝖇𝖊 𝖌𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖙. 𝕬𝖘 𝖎𝖘 𝖞𝖔𝖚𝖗𝖘, 𝖊𝖛𝖊𝖓 𝖎𝖋 𝖎𝖙 𝖎𝖘 𝖓𝖔𝖙 𝖙𝖔 𝖒𝖊.
𝖁𝖊𝖗𝖞 𝖜𝖊𝖑𝖑. 𝕴 𝖌𝖗𝖆𝖓𝖙 𝖙𝖍𝖎𝖘 𝖕𝖗𝖔𝖙𝖊𝖈𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓. 𝕽𝖎𝖘𝖊 𝖆𝖘 𝖒𝖞 𝖕𝖗𝖎𝖊𝖘𝖙, 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝖚𝖘𝖊 𝖙𝖍𝖎𝖘 𝖕𝖔𝖜𝖊𝖗 𝖆𝖘 𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖘𝖊𝖊 𝖋𝖎𝖙.
𝕴 𝖘𝖊𝖊 𝖞𝖔𝖚𝖗 𝖘𝖔𝖗𝖗𝖔𝖜, 𝖙𝖎𝖗𝖊𝖉 𝖙𝖗𝖆𝖛𝖊𝖑𝖊𝖗. 𝕴 𝖈𝖆𝖓𝖓𝖔𝖙 𝖎𝖓𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖋𝖊𝖗𝖊. 𝕴 𝖆𝖒 𝖆 𝖌𝖔𝖉 𝖔𝖋 𝖙𝖍𝖎𝖘 𝖜𝖔𝖗𝖑𝖉 𝖆𝖑𝖔𝖓𝖊, 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝕿𝖎𝖒𝖊 𝖎𝖘 𝖇𝖊𝖞𝖔𝖓𝖉 𝖒𝖞 𝖉𝖔𝖒𝖆𝖎𝖓.
𝕾𝖆𝖛𝖊 𝖞𝖔𝖚𝖗 𝖋𝖆𝖒𝖎𝖑𝖞. 𝕬𝖓𝖉 𝖜𝖍𝖊𝖓 𝖍𝖊 𝖎𝖘 𝖗𝖊𝖙𝖚𝖗𝖓𝖊𝖉 𝖙𝖔 𝖞𝖔𝖚, 𝖗𝖊𝖒𝖔𝖛𝖊 𝖙𝖍𝖆𝖙 𝖕𝖆𝖗𝖆𝖘𝖎𝖙𝖊 𝖋𝖗𝖔𝖒 𝖙𝖍𝖎𝖘 𝖜𝖔𝖗𝖑𝖉.
—safe.
Dream took a deep breath and opened his eyes. His skin tingled with static. His body felt—fizzy, like someone had bottled pure sunlight, violently shaken it, and poured it out over his head.
He pried his clasped, trembling hands apart and held them up. In the moonlight, they looked just like they always had—scarred and callused from years of sparring, fingernails chipped due to negligence—but he somehow knew that they had changed.
Slowly, Dream pushed himself to his feet. His legs felt strange, as though they’d forgotten how to walk. He took a step—then another, laboriously making his way up the aisle of the church and out into the night at a shuffling pace.
There was a Crimson flower growing three feet from the edge of the Holy Lands. Dream crouched beside it, reached out, and tore it from the earth. Several snaps echoed through the night as its roots were separated from the larger system residing beneath the earth; the plant reacted accordingly, its roots reaching out in search of a new host. They tentatively probed at his wrist, only to recoil from his skin.
Dream’s eyes narrowed. He tightened his grip on the flower, cleared his throat, and murmured the words of the blessing.
The flower spasmed in his hand, writhing like a snake. Its petals curled in on themselves, blackened, and disintegrated. Its stem and leaves followed a moment later, leaving only ashy residue behind.
A near-manic grin spread across Dream’s face. He turned his hand this way and that, running his fingers across the unmarred skin where the roots had tried to infect him. “It worked,” he whispered. “It fucking worked. Thank Prime.”
A soft breeze swept through the thin fabric of his shirt, raising gooseflesh along his arms. He shivered, wiped the remains of the flower off his hand, and turned to the Path.
The first half of the plan was complete. Now all he had to do was make plans with the Syndicate—and then he would finally, finally get Tommy to safety.
“So that’s why there was a note—?”
Ranboo’s mouth snapped shut as four sets of eyes turned to him. He shrank in on himself, furiously avoiding their gazes.
“Note?” Technoblade asked, an implicit encouragement to continue speaking.
“Um. Tu—I mean, I found a note on my door the other day,” Ranboo began haltingly. His fingers tapped out a nervous pattern on the Syndicate table. “It, um, told u—me to stay away from Tommy…”
“That was me,” Dream admitted. “I didn’t want the Crimson to trick anyone into becoming infected.”
“O-oh,” said Ranboo. He didn’t look at Dream as he spoke—a sort of pattern that Dream had noticed ever since he stepped into the full Syndicate meeting.
When Dream addressed Ranboo directly, he’d look anywhere but Dream. On the other hand, when Dream wasn’t looking at him, Ranboo would stare intently at him. Dream was uncomfortably aware of it—not because it was hostile, but because of how terrified Ranboo seemed. The kid twitched with every too-fast movement he made and flinched every time he spoke, and the other Syndicate members had started looking between the two of them with increasing concern (or on Niki’s part, suspicion).
“So did you?” Niki asked. “Stay away from Tommy, I mean.”
“Ah. Um. I…went looking for him,” Ranboo admitted. “But I. Um. Couldn’t find him.”
“Probably for the best,” Philza muttered. He looked to Dream. “Now that Ranboo’s on the same page—what’s the plan?”
Dream pressed his hands to the table and stared down at the parchment, trying not to notice the way Ranboo pressed himself back into his chair. “Tommy is—extremely infected. I don’t think holy water is going to work—which means that I’ll have to put a blessing on him directly.” He took a deep breath. “Problem with that is I need to be touching him for it to work, and he’ll be trying to get away. The other members of the Eggpire might also be trying to kill me at the same time, so—”
“You need us to run interference,” Technoblade deadpanned.
“Yes.”
“How long will it take?” That was Philza, who had leaned forward to prop both elbows on the table and was now studying Dream with startling intensity. When Dream hesitated a moment too long, he clarified, “The blessing. How long is it?”
“…About five minutes, but I’ll have to start over if I get interrupted.”
“Hmm.” Philza frowned. “How many of them are there again?”
“Bad and Antfrost at the very least. I’m…not sure about Punz, Ponk, or Hannah yet. But Bad and Ant will definitely be there—”
“Two against four shouldn’t be too—”
“—but the Egg might be able to move.”
“…Move?”
“The vines,” Dream clarified, realizing that none of them had seen the Egg at this stage of development yet. “The big red ones. They can, uh, attack people.”
Philza blinked slowly, then lifted a hand to rub at his temple. “…Well, fuck that.”
“Potions could help,” said Niki. “Weakness to slow them down.” She turned to Dream. “Do potions work on the Egg?”
Dream opened his mouth to answer, and abruptly realized that he had no idea. “I don’t know,” he admitted. The words felt strange in his mouth; it had been so long since he genuinely hadn’t known the answer to a question.
The slight narrowing of Niki’s eyes was the only indication of her dissatisfaction with Dream’s answer. “…Okay. Would giving Tommy Weakness interfere with your…blessing?”
She said the last word like it was a foreign concept. Dream didn’t blame her; conflating such a benevolent word to someone she'd perceived as an enemy must be strange. “No,” he said.
“Then we should put them all under Weakness,” said Niki. “The—Eggpire, I mean. If we could knock Tommy out too, it would make everything easier.”
“Good plan,” Technoblade agreed. “All in favor of a potion ambush?”
Everyone in the room, save for Ranboo, raised their hands. Ranboo, for his part, was staring down at something beneath the table.
“Ranboo?”
Ranboo startled violently. “Bwuh? Erm—sorry, what?”
“…How do you feel about ambushing the Eggpire with splash Weakness?”
“Oh. Um. That sounds like a…good idea?” Ranboo’s eyes darted back down to whatever he was hiding under the table. Dream subtly craned his head to get a look at what it was—and caught a glimpse of a communicator. Interesting.
“We'll need to brew a lot of potions, then,” Technoblade muttered. “I have a couple somewhere in my chests, but probably not enough to knock out five people. Not all Splash, either. Hm.”
Philza sat up. “I can help with that,” he said. “Got a whole bunch of blaze powder on my last Nether run and—”
Ranboo abruptly shot up from his seat, drawing all eyes to him. “E-excuse me,” he stammered, then all but sprinted out of the room. Technoblade sent an inquisitive glance towards Philza and Niki, but they both shrugged. The planning session resumed without much fanfare, and after a few minutes, Ranboo hurried back into the room, looking distinctly more haggard. He returned to his seat, and thereafter began sending nervous glances towards the door every few minutes.
“—but we can’t just free the Eggpire, we need to destroy the Egg too,” Dream was saying just as the door slammed open. The Syndicate leapt to their feet and drew their weapons—all of them except for Ranboo, who slumped deeper into his seat with a sigh of resignation. Before Dream even turned around, he knew who he would see.
“I’m helping,” said Tubbo, decked out in full netherite and glaring death and fury at Technoblade. “He’s my best friend. You can’t stop me.”
Technoblade’s eyes narrowed. “How did you get here?”
“Ranboo’s my husband, dumbass. And Tommy’s my best friend. I’m helping.”
Technoblade turned to look at Ranboo, who cringed into his chair but did not deny Tubbo’s words. “Really, Ranboo? You married the government?”
“He’s ex-government?” Ranboo offered weakly. “And he’ll help?”
Dream cleared his throat. “Tubbo—”
“I’m helping,” Tubbo snarled, “even if that means I have to work with bastards like you. I don’t know what you want with Tommy. I don’t trust you. And I definitely don’t trust you to be the one planning this entire thing.”
“Okay,” said Dream, because he’d been trying to kill Tubbo by this point in loop zero and the mistrust was definitely warranted. “I wasn’t asking about that. I just wanted to know if you, uh, had any nukes.”
He received a narrow-eyed stare. “…How do you know about that?” Tubbo asked, which was as good a confirmation as any.
“Oh, good,” said Dream. “We need to destroy the Egg, but regular TNT won’t cut it—”
“How. Do you know about that.” This time, it wasn’t a question.
Well then. Time to see how well his lie held up in front of the entire Syndicate. Dream took a deep breath and looked Tubbo in the eye. “I can see the future.”
“Bullshit,” was Tubbo’s instant response.
“I can. I have dreams—”
“Yeah? Where’s your proof?”
Dream swallowed. “…Have you found Michael yet?”
He found himself backed into the Syndicate table a moment later, hands raised in the air and the blunt side of an axe wedged under his chin. “How do you know about him,” Tubbo snarled, ignoring the shouts of alarm or Ranboo’s stuttered protests.
“I told you,” Dream said, careful to keep his breaths even and his voice level. “I’ve become a prophet of Prime. Divine revelations are part of the package.”
“Never took you to be religious,” Tubbo said. “Where’d your god complex go?”
“Lady Prime corrected me.” Dream allowed a note of genuine guilt to seep into his voice. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for—”
He choked as the axehead pressed harder into his throat. “I don’t want your fucking apologies,” Tubbo hissed, quiet enough that Dream could barely hear him over the blood pounding in his ears. “What I want is for Tommy to be safe. And if at any point I think you’re going to try something, I’ll kill you.”
Got it, Dream mouthed, holding up a thumbs-up as extra confirmation. Tubbo stared at him for three long, dragging seconds—and then he pulled back.
Dream coughed, massaging his throat in an effort to ease the bruise he could already feel forming there. He took a fortifying breath, then another, and when he felt somewhat composed again, he straightened and turned back to the Syndicate.
Ranboo was half out of his chair, eyes wide and hand held awkwardly near his chest as though he’d drawn back from reaching out. Technoblade, meanwhile, had halfway rounded the table—though his sword was pointed at the floor. When he met Dream’s gaze, he snorted and dropped the weapon back into his inventory. “I didn’t save you from Tommy just to watch you get murdered, Dream. Do better.”
Dream was surprised by the weak laugh that managed to get from him. As the Syndicate retook their seats, he stepped to the side so that Tubbo could join him on their side of the table. “As I was saying,” he began, “we need to destroy the Egg, but regular explosives won’t work. Good news is, Tubbo has, uh, missiles. Throwing one at the Egg would probably destroy it, permanently—”
Tubbo interrupted him. “What happens to the people it’s brainwashed, then?”
“How much do you know about…everything?”
“Ranboo’s already told me,” Tubbo said impatiently. “What I want to know is what killing the Egg will do to Tommy.”
“If the ritual works, nothing. It won’t affect him. If the exorcism doesn’t work—it should kill the Crimson inside him.”
In truth, Dream had no idea how destroying the Egg would affect Tommy. They’d never encountered a case like this—and the uncertainty of it was frightening. The safest thing to do was to exorcize it first—because what if destroying the Egg didn’t save Tommy? What if it could somehow turn Tommy into its next physical host? What if—
Dream was pulled from his spiraling thoughts by Tubbo’s voice. “Fine. How exactly do you plan on using my nukes?”
Dream took a moment to regather himself. “…I know the Egg’s coordinates. If you can input them ahead of time and set up a delayed launch—rig it to happen an hour and a half, maybe two, after you hit the button—it’ll give us some time to gather the Eggpire in one place, knock them out, and kill the Egg before they wake up. Otherwise, if they wake up before we’ve killed it—”
“—and try to fight us off,” Philza finished. He leveled a stern look at Dream. “You realize that that leaves us with a pretty narrow window of time to work with?”
Dream shook his head. “As long as we get out of blast radius before the nuke launches, we’ll be fine. We can keep dosing them with Weakness, and if we take them to Church Prime, it’ll weaken the Egg’s influence. Putting them in holy water might offset some of the shock when the Egg dies, too…” He shook his head. “Back to my plan—we’ll have to split the work. Ranboo—I know combat isn’t your strong suit, so focus on defending yourself and keeping track of how much time we have before launch.”
“Okay,” said Ranboo, somehow managing to sound both nervous and relieved at the same time.
“Tubbo…” Dream looked at Tubbo, who met his gaze with a narrow-eyed stare. “The Egg might try to take me out with its vines once it figures out what I’m doing, and I can’t do the ritual and focus on dodging at the same time. I need you to protect me and Tommy—and if the Weaknesses don’t work against Tommy, I need you to help me keep him still.”
For several tense seconds, Tubbo didn’t respond. Finally, he gave one sharp, jerky nod. Dream felt his shoulders relax as he turned back to the Syndicate.
“Technoblade, Philza, Niki—I think it’s best if you focus on taking down the eggheads—and defending me and Tubbo, if it comes down to it. There’s…there’s a chance the Weakness won’t work on Tommy. He’s not…fully human at the moment, and if potions don’t work on the Egg then there’s a chance that it’ll still be able to—to. To move him.”
The expressions of the three Syndicate members shuttered as he spoke those last words, but one after another, they nodded in agreement. “Sounds like a plan to me,” Technoblade said. “Anyone have any problems with what Dream just outlined?”
Nobody spoke.
“Alright.” Technoblade sat forward, a gleam in his eye. “If nobody’s got anythin’ to add, it’s my turn to monologue. Let’s talk logistics.”
Tommy didn’t know what day it was.
To be fair, he didn’t really know a lot of things these days. Drifting was far preferable to being aware of the world around him; the red haze clouding his senses dulled the horror of his situation into a vague sense of dread.
It…wasn’t so bad, after a while. He could almost forget what was happening, could almost pretend that he was just slipping in and out of sleep. It got easier as the pain dulled to an uncomfortable itch and the red veins spidering across his arms faded into unblemished skin.
Time passed in blinks. Now and then, he’d drop unexpectedly into a moment—a flash of overcast skies and rain against his skin, or the sound of Antfrost’s voice curled around a sneer—but when his body remained still and silent, he’d sink back into the nothingness. The cycle continued for what felt like years; he floated, absent and incorporeal, wrapped in a twisted sort of comfort.
But then, that comfort was torn from him. Something called for his attention—he could feel his body moving, running—it pulled at his sore muscles, and the pain dragged him closer to awareness and then—
Tommy slammed back into reality just in time to see Technoblade locking blades with Punz. He tried to lift his head, but his whole body felt heavy—and not in the way it usually did. The Crimson was trying to move, he could tell, but it seemed…slower.
The reason why became clear the moment his mouth opened. The taste of Weakness flooded his throat, overpowering even the metallic tang that had resided there since the Crimson took root. Given the amount of broken glass at his feet, it had been at least three—enough that should have rendered Tommy dangerously close to death. But even as the potion particles wafted from his skin, he could feel the Crimson recovering, adapting, pushing through the effect and forcing him to move. It wasn’t a full recovery by any means—his speed had nearly been cut down to half—but for the amount of Weakness he was currently under, he shouldn’t have been able to stand.
A shout had his head turning without his input—and that was Dream, sprinting towards him with a sword in hand. All around them, people were fighting—the Syndicate against the Eggpire, from what he could see. It was impossible to tell the time of day by the clouded sky overhead, but the landmarks in his limited field of vision placed them at a patch of unoccupied land somewhere above the Egg’s chamber. Crimson vines spiderwebbed across the ground, twitching and at times shifting to trip up the Syndicate members.
Tommy’s attention returned to Dream just in time to see him draw his sword back to swing. A wave of relief swept through him at the ease of the action—it seemed the injury their last encounter had left Dream with was fully healed. Even so, Tommy found himself unwillingly moving to meet Dream’s attack. He lifted his sword to parry the blow—but Dream’s hilt locked against his and twisted, wrenching the weapon from Tommy’s hands. The blade went skittering into the grass; Dream kicked it away before the vines nearby could make a grab for it, crouched, and lunged straight for Tommy. The Crimson—clearly not expecting this move—faltered, leaving just enough time for Dream to wrap him in a bear hug and bring them both down to their knees.
Tommy writhed in his grip, trying to break free. Dream tightened an arm around his shoulders and pinned him to his chest. His other hand came up to press against the back of Tommy’s head, effectively preventing him from pulling away or bashing his head against Dream’s.
“Sorry, sorry,” Dream muttered into his ear, a drone of meaningless platitudes that did nothing to ease the terror fluttering in his chest. “I’m sorry I took so long—it’s almost over, I promise.”
And then he took a deep breath and began chanting.
Tommy recognized the words instantly. They were the words of a blessing of Prime, meant to purify holy objects. Tommy himself had once used it to turn a jug of punch into a sweeter equivalent of holy water. But—no, what Dream was reciting wasn’t the purification ritual—it was a mishmash of two separate blessings: one for purification and one for protection. The entire thing itself had been further modified to purify a living being— burning out the corruption while leaving the vessel intact.
Tommy could feel the Crimson dying within him, shriveling beneath the power of the holy words—and it was not happy about that. He began struggling with frenetic panic, bucking against Dream’s hold and clawing at whatever he could reach. Still, the words of the modified blessing flowed off Dream’s tongue, smooth and with an ease that spoke of countless sleepless nights spent reciting it to the shadows.
Tommy’s jaw unclenched without his permission. He coiled in on himself, then launched upward in an attempt to tear Dream’s throat out with his teeth. Dream jerked back just in time to avoid any serious damage, but Tommy still managed to clip his skin and draw blood. The syllables of the chant jerked upward in a yelp of pain before Dream dragged them back into line, even as he wrenched Tommy to the side and wrestled him to the ground. Tommy’s cheek ground uncomfortably against the dirt as the Crimson thrashed, trying to break free. His arms were pinned, but his legs were still free—and the Crimson took advantage of that, kicking back wildly and using the leverage to strain against Dream’s grip.
Suddenly, there was another set of hands holding down his legs. Tommy’s eyes rolled wildly, and he only just managed to catch a glimpse of a panicked-looking Tubbo. “Tommy—if you can hear us, it’s okay! We’re going to kill it, okay? We’re going to kill the Egg and you’ll be fine—just stop struggling—”
I’m trying! Tommy wanted to scream. I’m here, Tubbo, I’m trying so hard—
“Let go!” were the words that came out of his mouth instead. “Get—off—you’re hurting me!”
Tears were gathering in Tubbo’s eyes, but he didn’t let go. The Crimson tried again.
“Please, Tubbo—Dream’s hurting me, it—it hurts—”
Tommy had never hated the Egg more than he did at that moment. Dream’s chant did not stutter, but his grip on Tommy’s arms tightened. Tommy knew he couldn’t stop chanting, not without being forced to restart the whole process, and if Tubbo turned on Dream—
“Not Tommy,” Tubbo muttered, almost to himself.
Tommy’s heart jumped even as his mouth pleaded, “It is me, Tubbo, please, I’m not lying—”
“Stop using his voice,” Tubbo snarled. He pressed down harder when Tommy tried to kick him. “Stop pretending to be him.”
Somewhere to their left, Niki’s voice rose in a shout of warning. “The vines!”
“On it!” Philza shouted back, much louder and much closer. Boots flashed by in Tommy’s peripheral vision. Chunks of the Egg’s vines landed in the grass around him, and somewhere in the distance, Bad’s distorted voice rose in a scream of rage. It was soon cut off with the sound of a shattering bottle.
“Last one down,” Technoblade grunted. His footsteps reverberated through the dirt pressed against Tommy’s ear as he approached. “Ranboo, what’s our time?”
“Twenty minutes—!” Tommy heard Ranboo wheeze out. The last syllable jerked up in a panicked yelp. “Woah—”
“Got your back, mate. Go help Niki carry Antfrost, we need to start getting them out of—”
The rest of Philza’s words were lost to Tommy when every muscle in his body spasmed. A scream forced its way out of his throat, equal parts pained and enraged.
“YOU WILL REGRET THIS!” the Crimson howled. Vines lashed at them, only to be cut down by Technoblade and Philza. “I WILL NOT BE STOPPED BY THE MERE WORDS OF A FORGOTTEN GOD—AGH!”
Dream was speeding up, his voice now laced with frenetic panic. He was getting close to the end—Tommy could feel it in the way every cell within him burned. It hurt—hurt worse than sinking into lava or bleeding out or drowning in the depths of the sea—but it was a cleansing pain, a healing pain, the pain of a bone resetting and a wound being cleaned. It was working. The Crimson’s thrashing was growing weaker, and as its control over his body faded, he could feel strength returning to him. He balled his hands into fists to keep them from clawing at himself—and he could control them. His body was moving under his power, and though each new movement caused a fresh wave of pain, he couldn’t help moving more, testing the limits of his newfound control—
And then, suddenly, his screams were cut short.
Tommy found himself unable to speak. His vocal cords did not respond to him. He blinked furiously, straining every muscle in his body—but his voice was no longer his own.
Slowly, his head turned, up and up and up until he was looking straight at Dream. The other looper stared back, eyes wide even as his mouth opened to deliver the last words of the chant.
Tommy felt his lips stretch into a nightmarish smile.
“If…he is not…mine,” it rasped, “he…cannot…be…yours.”
Something squeezed in Tommy’s chest. He tried to inhale—tried to speak, to do something—but all he could feel was the sudden, terrible cold, a prickling numbness that bloomed behind his ribs and splintered outward through his body. Roaring filled his ears as trembling inkspots splattered across his vision, crowding out the light and drowning out what remained of his consciousness.
The last thing he saw was Dream’s horrified face.