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“Dad,” the word had slipped out so fast that Cellbit didn’t even catch it himself. and by the sounds of it, neither had the rest of the team. He paused for a second, looking at the crow that sat comfortably on the ground in front of him. Phil was sleeping peacefully in the shitty little hut he and the rest made the day before, their last ditch effort of some sort of “civilization” after repeatedly being knocked down again and again by the other teams.
It even had Phil losing his sense of moral for a bit, but it quickly lifted when they regrouped, laughing and admitting their darker secrets.
Earlier today, Cellbit was the only one awake, attempting to make progress for his team while he let their team leader sleep. But going alone, dying and respawning and repeating, it does something to someone. But he guessed that’s just what to expect when it came to Purgatory. But it wasn’t something Cellbit wanted to deal with.
Defeated, he climbed back under the blanket he had, and slowly dozed back off. Baghera, Jaiden, and Charlie had woken up a little bit afterwards, Baghera being awake for the last couple of minutes Cellbit was still awake, hearing him losing himself more and more. They managed to talk him back into getting up and making some progress for the day, which he reluctantly agreed to.
They had all split up, Jaiden and Charlie choosing to mine resources, Baghera deciding to make a xp farm so they could level up quicker, Foolish had just woken up as well, deciding to go adventuring out to try and collect more things, and Cellbit… Cellbit wanted to go fishing. Just to do something, just to clear his head. And it was quiet while he tried to make a fishing pole, in a poor way truth be told. But he stopped when he suddenly heard a distant caw of a crow. He heard the others react to the same thing over their communicators.
“A crow’s here!” Baghera yelled.
“It has a stupid little face.” Foolish commented, letting out a small giggle.
“How’d it get down in the caves?” Jaiden asked.
Cellbit just watched as it circled around him. Hunger struck his stomach. How willing was he to eat a small crow that held almost no meat? How willing was he to eat a small defenseless bird? But was it a sign of death? That him and his team's time was running out? A sign of being the alleged cursed team? It didn’t sit right in his stomach as he watched it begin to make a beeline towards their hut. He decided he should check on Phil, worried that crows would try and disturb him. Phil had mentioned the day before that if he didn’t wake up, Cellbit was in charge. He’d take control. What kind of a “leader” would he be if he let their captain be potentially poked to death by a couple of crows? Eaten while they struggled to live?
Before he could reach the door of the hut, he heard Phil’s voice. Above him.
“Don’t!” with a quick laugh followed behind it. “I just wanted to see how my team was doing.” Cellbit quickly turned around, for some reason expecting to see Phil floating down to him with a paraglider, but stared in awe as he realized the voice came from the small crow. It perched by the hut’s window, shaking its body as small feathers fell to the ground. Cellbit couldn’t react at first, mouth hanging open as he heard the rest of the team having the same reactions. Except Charlie, who seemed to be familiar with this situation.
“Dude, don’t check the statistics please, Phil.” followed by a laugh and quickly echoed by Phil. Cellbit slowly opened the hut’s door. Phil still laid in the center of the room, his black wings folded over himself as he heard him still sleeping.
“Cool trick, huh? it’s magic~” The crow said, waving its wings around as if wiggling its non-existent fingers. “While I'm sleeping I can use my crows to talk to you guys! Just don’t fuck with my body or it’ll fuck shit up. So, how are things going?” Not wanting to question anything else today, Cellbit went along with the situation.
“Well, today we can’t win! But we’re trying to just collect resources at the moment..” He said, slightly embarrassed at his failed leadership while the old crow slept. He wanted to do a good job for him while he was asleep. He needed Phil to see that he could trust him. Why did he need that exactly?
“It’s like day one all over again! Collecting iron and coal and just trying to get by!” Jaiden had chimed in, the rest agreeing with her, their little bit of cheer remaining in that sentence. Which Phil seemed to agree with as well, the crow dancing. The little crow eventually hopped onto Cellbit’s shoulder, staring at him and letting out a small laugh as he continued talking to them. He had a small red ribbon wrapped on one of his legs, and his neck feathers were puffed up. Everyone began to chat like normal, as if Phil was awake helping them.
He offered Baghera words of encouragement and questioned if she needed help designing her farm, he assisted Jaiden and Charlie, struggling to convince Slime to leave the caves otherwise he’d starve, but most of the time, he joked around with them, attempting to loosen up.
“We were actually talking about what our game plan should be, what do you think we should do?” Cellbit suddenly asked. He needed words of encouragement. He needed something to convince him to work harder, to keep pushing harder and harder so he can see his son again. So all of them can see their kids again. He needed this. The little crow accompanying him stared at him for a second. Cellbit had made him a small straw hat to keep the sun out of his small eyes. Phil was the wisest person anyone knew. They held him to such high regards because that’s just who he was! The best of the best, the best person to lead, to take them to some sort of victory.
It startled him when he heard the crow start cackling, “Honestly, try not to worry so much. We won’t win this if I’m being real, and I don’t want you guys stressing about it all. We lose, we lose, I just want us to have fun.” The others cheered and continued to joke with each other, deciding that yeah, it didn’t matter! It would be okay, they could just do this forever and let the others kill each other.
But, Cellbit just stared at the crow. He… couldn’t process that. It’s okay to lose? It’s fine if they don’t win? But, didn’t they need this? The cursed team needed to win, was that not them? Was he overthinking everything? Growing up on that battlefield, they had to win. Otherwise they’d be torn apart, just a bunch of corpses. Was he truly losing himself in this purgatory? Was he truly gone at this point? What was he meant to do? What could he do? He felt the slap of a wing against his cheek, startling him and causing him to fall out of his wooden boat into the water. The crow flew up in the air, landing perfectly on the edge of the boat with a laugh.
Calm down. That’s what Phil was trying to tell him. Ever the leader, calm. It’s okay. We don’t have to win this. We shouldn’t worry so much, just survive. Cellbit reached out, scratching at the crow’s neck, causing his feathers to puff up. Cellbit smiled, standing back up, and listened to Phil explain through the crow how to properly make a fishing rod.
A couple more hours passed, and Phil had properly lifted everyone’s spirits. Cellbit was feeling a lot better, and the team was joking with each other a lot, a new appreciation for each other that, while they still loved each other, the two days so far in Purgatory have made them closer. The crow’s had begun to nod off, Cellbit letting his sleep on top of his head as he remained fishing, the crow attempting to offer a tired word of advice that if Cellbit got too bored of fishing, he could stop and shouldn’t feel pressured to carry on. He laughed and scratched at the crows head, telling him not to worry and joked that once he finally started getting fish, Phil started to tell him to stop.
Finally, Phil announced he was going to bed, the team saying their goodnight's to their crow companions, giving them little treats and trinkets. Cellbit’s crow started to get ready to take off, but Cellbit stopped him, grabbing hold of him and scratching at its head to calm him.
“Wait, wait! I need to ask a question!” He placed the crow on the ground as it nodded along, staring at Cellbit. The others were talking over Cellbit as they received praises from Phil getting giddy and thanking the old crow. And there it was. “Dad.” The word had honestly slipped out, he didn’t expect himself to be saying it, he was just thankful none of the other team caught him, worried they might just laugh. But the crow still just stared at him, waiting for his question. Did Phil hear him say it? Why was he staring at him like that? Like it was fine? Was it fine? Swallowing the last of his worries down, Cellbit spoke again, “Should I put Sharpness I on my axe? Or…?” The crow let out a collection of clicks and coo's, shaking its head,
“No, no, I wouldn’t. Doesn’t do much if I’m honest. So I’d just save it if I were you.” The crow flapped its wings but stayed grounded, almost asking as if that was all Cellbit needed. He nodded, the crow finally letting out a caw as four others were heard, the other crows flying towards the center of their base. They suddenly heard a laugh, a woman’s voice. Cellbit peaked his head out of their base and stared as he saw the woman. She wore a black dress, a large hat on her head with a veil that completely covered her head. The crows surrounded her, the one that was with Cellbit landing on her hand as he nuzzled up against her hand. She stared at him, purple eyes smiling at him.
“You want to say goodnight to Kristin as well?” Kristin? Cellbit walked closer, giving a gentle wave to her as she laughed, waving back. The communicators were filled with hello's and good night's from the team. Cellbit just stared in awe.
“The line between my world and this one is a lot smaller, so it’s easier to talk with you all.” She said, giggling to herself which the crow seemed to enjoy hearing. A friend? A companion? The one in control of Phil's crows? He thought to himself, a million questions running through his mind.
“She’s my wife, my wife, my pretty, pretty wife.” The crow said, nuzzling himself in her hand as she kissed his beak. Ah. Wife. Phil’s married?? Does Missa know??? “I’ll see you tomorrow! Keep your chins up! You’re all doing a great job!” And with one final goodbye with the team, the crows swarmed Kristin then scattered, Kristin now gone and the crows returning to normal as they flew away.
Cellbit stared at the sky as the crows further distanced themselves. Phil was magic in some way. It impressed him further. Curious, Cellbit walked back to the house and opened the door. Phil still laid sleeping, a light snore escaping him as he rolled over, his wings twitching in an uncomfortable looking way. Cellbit could see where the wings looked fucked, a clear stab wound from yesterday’s betrayal to Phil by Etoiles. Cellbit was sure that it hurt more than the actual stabbing. The clear betrayal from his friend. Muting himself on the communicator so the others couldn't hear him, Cellbit sat next to Phil as he slept, preening through Phil’s feathers as gently as he could. He noticed that the further up he preened, Phil twitched more, so he stuck to preening at the bottom.
“I know I called you Dad earlier. Sorry if I overstepped in some way.” He mumbled, placing the preened feathers in a pile off to the side as he continued. “But, it was weird for me too if I’m honest. It felt like I was back on the battlefield. Not that you even know about that.” Cellbit didn’t know why he was admitting this to his sleeping friend. He wasn’t even too sure why he was preening his feathers, what drove him to do this? “But…” A lump was stuck in Cellbit’s throat. He wanted to say this, felt like he needed to. “It felt nice calling you that. I hope you don’t mind. I know you already have Chayanne, Tallulah, and Wilbur,” Cellbit couldn’t even believe he was actually real, “but I really hope you don’t mind. It felt really nice to call someone that.” He finished, picking up the feathers and throwing them outside. He wasn’t too sure if Phil was the type to keep them, so he held on to one, putting it in his pocket. A little memento for himself.
Phil was probably one of the greater enigmas Cellbit didn’t know how to solve. He confused him, how quickly he cared and trusted Cellbit. But, it was nice.