Chapter Text
It was fruitless, wasn't it? They watched as their only allies perished, torn to shreds by the monsters that kept them here. They'd all begged for mercy, for someone to stop this cruel game, but not even God heard their pleas.
What was real, he didn't know, reality warping and tearing at the seams, and the moment he thinks he's gained his freedom it's torn from his trembling grasp. The spotlight never fades even when it burns his face.
He wanted to be free, so he begged for it, begged for release and peace and even that wouldn't be granted.
"The audience has chosen for you to die!"
Darkness, agonizing pain, and then nothing. They float in a void of nothingness, senses gone, and they wonder if this is what death is meant to be like.
That is, until their vision is filled with nothing but blinding, violet light, and their back meets solid ground.
———
Grian had been having a rather good day. A successful one, he personally thought. He'd spent the morning with Pearl before they both made their way to Decked Out. Tango had greeted them at the door and they waited for Scar to finish his run.
A failed run, but the man never lost any of his excitement as he walked out from the locker room, and let Grian go next. That pattern continued on, with hermits trading off in the dungeons while the rest hung out in the lobby.
Grian was in the middle of his third run when his communicator went off thrice in rapid succession. Then a few times more, though scattered. He sighed, tucking away in the upper tunnel of the tnt room so he could safely check his communicator.
"Huh...?"
The rapid three notifications were attributed by three joining messages, from three unfamiliar names. Then, messages of surprise and various questions. When Grian checks the member list all three names are gray in sleep.
His comm pings again, this time with a message towards him.
[XisumaVoid]: Grian, can you meet me at your mega base? Server's showing they spawned in at your rift.
Something at the back of his mind tugs for his attention, and he hadn't really even noticed it, too focused on the dungeon.
[Grian]: on my way
[Tango]: I'll refund your frozen shard
After making a jump for it and letting the local ravager send him to the locker room, Grian is quick to grab his things, running past his friends before flying off towards his base.
Xisuma waits by the opening of the cavern, messing with something on his comm until Grian lands beside him, and then he looks from it and turns to the man.
"What's it looking like?" Grian asked, peeking down. He frowns at the sight of three people sprawled out on the ground in front of the rift.
"I can't figure out what server they came from," Xisuma sighs, "There's no trace of any other server in their code, but.. you should probably take a Look."
Grian stiffens before nodding, opening his Eyes. He almost stumbles over, but he feels Xisuma put a steadying hand on his arm as he closes his eyes.
It reeked of Watcher magic, and not from Grian, leaving a bitter taste on his tongue. Taking a closer Look into the codes of the people down below revealed traces of Watcher magic all over them, and the code was clearly messed with.
Grian closes his Eyes and looks at Xisuma. "There's Watcher magic all over them. I'm positive They have something to do with our new arrivals. They're Players, though."
Xisuma goes quiet for a moment, and Grian looks back down the cavern.
"Do you think they might be in the same boat as you and those who keep getting pulled into games?" The admin eventually asks.
There's a long bout of silence, and Grian's comm buzzes with a few incoming messages that he doesn't check.
"Yeah, I think so. We should be careful, though." And with that, Grian flew down. At his landing, one of the three stir, the one wearing a blue and white windbreaker jacket.
Grian is quick to kneel beside them, tucking his wings in to reduce how intimidating he might look, but when the person sits up abruptly, he jumps back with a squawk.
———
Sneeg isn't entirely sure what woke him from what was meant to be an endless slumber, but then there's feeling in his body and he can move. His first instinct is to jump up and run for the exit, or maybe for Ranboo and Charlie, but the moment he sits up his hit with an earth-shattering headache. He groans and clutches at his head.
Something, he thinks it's a hand, touches his shoulder and he grabs it, turning towards the owner with a glare. It falters, though, when he sees just who touched him. He was right in the assumption that it was a hand, but now he sees it belongs to a man with… wings? His grip loosens, and the man backs up, shaking out his hand, and that wince might've stirred some sympathy in Sneeg if he knew who this was– and where he was.
"Who are you? Where am-"
He's interrupted by a groan, and honestly, he could cry when he sees the source. To his left lay Charlie and Ranboo, the former sitting up.
"Charlie!" He gasps and crawls over, grabbing his friend's shoulders.
"Sneeg, oh my fucking God," Charlie surges forward and pulls Sneeg into a tight hug. Sneeg clutches him like a lifeline, squeezing his eyes shut to quell his tears.
"I thought– Ran and I saw you getting mauled, dude! I thought you were dead!" Charlie let out a disbelieving laugh.
"I thought I was, too," he chuckled, giving his back a few strong pats before pulling back. Charlie sported an apprehensive expression.
"I was also killed, too, y'know. Same TV monster. Think this is the afterlife?"
Sneeg winces. "Maybe, but that means.." He looks at the unconscious form of Ranboo. Charlie follows his gaze, and his face falls.
"Oh, God." He chokes out and pulls the teen so his head lays on his lap. "You were supposed to get out… I thought you got out…"
Sneeg's throat burns like fire, but they're both snapped out of their stupor when someone clears their throat. Both men's heads snap up and over to where that weird bird man stood with someone in a helmet.
"Personally, I would hate to hear my server's become the afterlife, but I can assure you it's not," the person in the helmet says, "I'm Xisuma, but you can call me X. You're on my server, Hermitcraft-"
"And in my base," The bird man pipes in with a nervous grin. "You popped in through my rift," he motions behind Sneeg and Charlie, towards the source of the light. "I'm Grian."
Sneeg's eyes just about pop out of his skull when he sees the light source. It looked like a giant portal, or maybe something that once was one, because when Sneeg reaches out his hand meets a solid. He knocks on it a few times, the sound reverberating throughout the space, which he's just come to realize is a giant cavern.
"What the fuck…" Charlie mutters, and Sneeg pretends he didn't startle when the bird man– Grian– walks up and knocks on the portal himself.
"Closed again," Grian hums, going weirdly quiet a moment before suddenly turning towards Sneeg. "Let's get you guys out of here and somewhere more comfortable, then you can introduce yourselves and we can figure out what happened and where to go from there."
"Scar has offered Scarland and is on his way to help," X says, looking at some screen on his wrist– now that he notices it he sees that Grian has one too– before walking over himself.
"Are any of you injured?" He asks, kneeling beside the trio. Sneeg and Charlie seem to suddenly remember what they had been experiencing before this and quickly check themselves over. Nothing. Though when Sneeg peeks down his shirt he sees his chest and stomach are covered in scars akin to claw marks.
"I'm fine," Sneeg hums, before squinting at X. "How do we know we can trust you not to hurt us?"
"You can't," X shrugs, and Sneeg frowns, "but I can assure you that as long as you are in my server we will keep you as safe as possible."
Before either of them can answer, a new voice joins the group.
"Well hello there! I heard we had an extraction?" A man absolutely riddled in scars seems to glide in on a pair of bat-like gray wings. His landing is clumsy, but he keeps his bright grin nonetheless. X mentioned someone named Scar coming, so if this is the guy then Sneeg can see where he got the namesake.
"Great," Grian says from somewhere behind Sneeg. "I'll carry the unconscious guy just to make sure he doesn't get jostled too much." And then the guy just comes up and picks up Ranboo like he weighs nothing. Sneeg was positive Ranboo was at least a foot taller than him, but maybe he really did just weigh nothing.
After a little stumbling and picking up and rocket firing, Sneeg was in the air, held by X, flying out of a crevice in the ceiling to an outside world he never would have expected.