Chapter Text
XD was dying.
It had been slow at first. Insignificantly small pieces of him were being ripped out and, as his being as a whole was infinite, he’d barely noticed.
But for months, years maybe, his divinity had been slowly depleting, until one day he realized that his connection to Limbo had been almost completely severed. A whole chunk of him was about to no longer exist. And it was a small fraction of an infinite, but it was one he could no longer ignore regardless.
From there, it kept getting worse. The human, Dream, the one that was stealing away his being piece by piece, was getting greedier. More impatient. More foolish.
He thought that because he could handle one small taste of godhood he’d be able to bear the weight of the universe on his shoulders. And he failed to understand what the price of his failure would be.
He didn’t understand that XD was existence itself. He was the past, the present, and every possible future. He was potential, and act, and memory. He was time and space. Beginning and end. He was all but the nothingness that wasn’t in the absence of his being. He was the first and he was the one who wrangled together something orderly from the chaos of nonexistence.
A mere human, limited as they were by their own mortal minds, could not understand the grandiosity of his purpose. His failure was assured because Dream couldn’t be at his core anything more than what he was, human. And because of his lack of understanding, everything would be erased. Everything that was, everything that is, and everything that could ever be would cease to exist at once.
XD needed to stop this act of hubris.
But here was his conundrum: if he was to stop the act himself he’d be rescinding a part of his divinity as he was all the happenings that ever were and would be. To stop something from happening was to rip out a part of his being. It was to put into question his own divinity. And was that worth it to prevent complete erasure?
Incapable of deciding on his own, he set out to consult Foolish, the most devoted of his children. He was the only one of his creations who willingly chose to have his divinity almost completely stripped from him. He was the family expert when it came to human matters, so, out of any god, he was the most likely to understand.
Foolish was arranging some furniture in his pyramid when XD appeared. What a mundane activity unbecoming of one of his children. He discarded the thought as soon as it appeared. Whatever Foolish did, didn’t concern him anyway.
They needn’t talk for Foolish to understand his plight.
The demigod looked back and his eyes lit up with all the knowledge he would need.
“Hm… you know, you could use your chosen one to carry out your bidding” Foolish pointed out after a moment of reflection.
XD couldn’t believe he hadn’t come up with such a simple solution himself. Then again, he was so detached from human affairs that he’d almost forgotten about his prodigal son, the child of the stars that wandered so far into the depths of humanity that he became unrecognizable from one of their own.
His chosen one’s divinity was so non-existent that whatever Dream had already taken from XD far outclassed it. But it didn’t have to stay like that. He could fix him. He could give him a spark. Help him rally together all the mortals he’d need to wage a war against a budding god. Yes, he could bring forth the unity and order they’d need with ease!
Foolish sucked in a breath, shaking his head, and XD stilled. “What is it? You seem… uncertain”.
His son was looking up at him as if the answer to his question should have been an obvious one. It made the chasm between their two existences more apparent than ever. It was so easy for Foolish to understand his mind, and yet he, Foolish’s very own creator, could never hope to breach into his son’s.
“Nobody is gonna rally beside Tommy right now. They’ve all been wounded far too deeply by the events you refused to stop” He gave XD a meaningful stare that the god refused to interpret as an accusation. It wasn’t like he could help it. His divinity depended on his neutrality. It was how it was always meant to be. “There is no understanding between them. No empathy. No care. They’re divided, scattered, lost. We need to fix that from the roots”.
XD frowned. “What are you suggesting?”.
“I’m thinking of revisiting some memories. Some points in time. We’ll show them the path to unity and all the little cracks that made it shatter. Hopefully, that will bring them together one final time” Foolish explained. He was staring into nothingness as he spoke, probably scouring the past for all the fragments they’d need. “Bring here the ones I mention, I’ll think of the rest” He ordered in the end, finally looking at his father once more.
XD, despite not being one for actions, decided to acquiesce to that request.
---
He found them all easily.
He plucked one of his lost lambs from Limbo, consuming the last bit of connection he had to that place and severing the bond entirely. He stole one from Death and one from the Blood God, although neither of his children noticed. He took one from the Overseers and the rest from Earth.
There were plenty with no affiliations to any god. Living their lives in a meaningless scramble for a purpose and failing to ever grasp one. He couldn’t sympathize with those lost in the madness of humanity, as said concept was so far removed from his experience that he’d never understand it. Much like Foolish’s mind. Or Tommy’s. But he could imagine it being a dreadful existence.
The last one he gathered was his very own chosen one.
He was sitting on the floor of a small dark room deep underground. He was clutching a disc in his hands, staring at it with wide eyes. He was trembling and so pale his skin shined in the darkness even with the small amount of golden light that XD emitted.
He was so silent and unresponsive that it made XD wonder if he was dead for a moment.
What an inconvenience that would have been.
Thankfully, he remembered that Tommy’s soul wasn’t in Limbo, otherwise he would have found it when searching it all for Ranboo’s. So he just shrugged and sent the human off to Foolish’s pyramid.
His son would know better how to fix him.
With every piece of the puzzle gathered together, he headed back to the pyramid himself.
He was impressed by what Foolish had managed to accomplish there. He’d managed to isolate the place from time and space. Seal it away in a bubble. This served two purposes as XD understood it: the first was to limit the humans’ possibility to flee the unpleasantness that was about to hit them, and the second one was to slow down XD’s death.
They couldn’t stop it, as XD was all of existence.
He could never exist completely within that bubble. And, if he did, the universe would end up being erased regardless as it would be like removing its very being from it. So that wasn’t an option.
However, he could store part of his being there, therefore keeping it safe from Dream’s greedy hands. He could preserve a flame away from the roaring inferno outside. And he chose to keep the Link stored there. The link between death and life. The Inbetween.
Dream would still be able to reach the rest of him eventually. That was an inevitability unless their plan of bringing about a new era of unity through XD’s chosen one came to fruition. But it would slow down his progress significantly to allow them all the time they could need to enact their little forced trip down memory lane.
With that in mind, XD opened up his arms, focusing all the light in the room on himself. “Welcome one, welcome all to-”. Before he could finish a bloody axe whizzed past his head, interrupting him.
Searching the crowd, it was obvious that the culprit was the very angry-looking duck hybrid staring daggers at him. Quackity if he remembered correctly. He was one of the few humans there he never had any kind of interaction with whatsoever. Not as himself, nor through any of his fully divine children. Foolish must have known him, however, otherwise his presence wouldn’t have been requested. That was the only thing that kept XD from smiting him then and there for the offense.
And it was obvious that the animosity was reciprocated, as the only reason why the little duck hadn’t lunged at him yet was that Sapnap was holding him back with all his strength.
As he couldn’t move, Quackity started spitting out a series of questions in a very aggressive tone. “Who are you? Where are we? What do you want?”. With that amount of disrespect, XD wasn’t surprised he had no divine patronage.
Technoblade took one step forward as well, sword raised threateningly. Nobody dared try to stop him. “I don’t make a habit out of agreeing with Quackity, but you better speak or I’ll finish what he started”. Philza stood by his side, like a shadow, silently expressing his agreement.
It was almost pitiful how such little things thought they could be a threat to him. An annoyance, for sure. But their words and weapons were as much of a danger to him as a pleasant summer breeze was to them.
Actually, could humans die from that? He didn’t know.
Foolish finally stepped away from the corner he’d picked to watch all of that ridiculous interaction go down. XD could see how the corner of his son’s mouth quirked up in amusement, what a simple being he could be sometimes…
He was completely relaxed, even as everyone’s attention and weapons turned toward him.
“Foolish…?” Eret questioned in confusion. “Do you know what’s going on, my friend?”.
Foolish nodded. “This here is XD” he started explaining, jutting a thumb in his father’s direction as a way to showcase who he was talking about. Not that XD believed that was needed. He was the only unknown in the room. “He is the creator of this universe” he concluded in a neutral tone, as unimpressed as he always tended to be with XD.
Gasps and various other sounds of awe could be heard throughout the crowd. Technoblade lowered his sword, hand automatically reaching up for the Blood God’s medallion in repentance. Similarly, Philza Minecraft tugged on his veil, closing it up as a sign of respect toward his goddess. The only one who remained unimpressed was the little duck, who even muttered under his breath: “Well, that’s just disappointing”.
Foolish either didn’t hear the comment or ignored it, because he failed to issue a correction. “He is dying and we need his chosen one to save him or your whole universe will be erased from existence completely, with all of you in it” he continued. His eyes were searching the crowd for the next part of his presentation. XD figured so, at least, because they stopped on Tommy’s still-huddled and unresponsive figure. The only difference from when he'd found him was that Wilbur Soot and Tubbo Underscore were there next to him now, trying to get him out of whatever mental state he was locked in.
Gasps of horror resonated through the crowd.
Of course, nothing scared humans more than death. Perhaps they wouldn’t even need to remind them of the past for them all to get on board! Maybe that was just a silly worry from Foolish. His human side must have given him some needless paranoia.
“Well, who’s the chosen one?” Jack Manifold asked impatiently.
That one was a curious case as well. He’d been touched by every god out there, but none had chosen him as their champion. Still, the small traces of blessing he had permitted him some incredible feats in the past. Such as escaping Limbo without any assistance from Dream, something not even Tommy had managed.
So that one he could understand. He wasn’t a champion, but he could see some potential in him. He could see why Foolish wanted him there. He still didn’t get that about the duck.
Foolish started walking, and the crowd parted for him. It was admirable how much respect he managed to garner in such a short time. Or perhaps his already living among humans gave him an advantage on that front. Perhaps they had some respect for each other from the get-go that XD was simply ignorant of.
Maybe, if they truly did, they really wouldn’t need their elaborate scheme.
Foolish stopped in front of Tommy. Or, well, in front of Wilbur and Tubbo who simply refused to let him through. Tubbo was squinting his eyes at him suspiciously, while Wilbur’s gaze was challenging. Foolish ignored them both. “Tommy Innit, child of the stars, you’re the chosen one”.
Murmurs of discontent erupted from the crowd.
“I’d rather die than help that guy!” Jack Manifold yelled, before turning around and marching up to the wall in search of an exit that didn’t exist.
Niki Nihachu stormed off after him, expressing her silent agreement that way.
“That’s just a bad choice mate” Philza Minecraft spoke up. He seemed to want to reason with XD. As if the status of chosen was something he could simply change his mind about on a whim.
He could theoretically create a new one, sure. He could handpick another star fragment, and then plant it under the light of a dying sun. From then on, he would just have to wait a few eons for them to grow to an appropriate age, amass a decent following that could fight for them, and hope that the damage Dream had done by that point was still reversible.
Feasible, but not a strategy he’d consider as anything but a last resort.
“We’re doomed” Technoblade simply stated before letting himself fall to the floor in a sitting position.
In XD’s personal opinion, they were all being far too dramatic.
Tommy finally reacted. He looked up, eyes scanning the crowd beyond his two human shields and Foolish and then finally locking onto XD’s face. Or where a face would have been if he chose to appear more human-like like his children tended to prefer. Right now, there were just two golden halos crossing over a white canvas there, but he still effortlessly managed to give the impression of him staring back.
“I’m a what now…?” Tommy questioned, voice weak and shaky.
“You’re XD’s chosen one. It’s pretty much the same as being a minor god’s champion, except with more power. And we need that power to stop Dream from killing XD and destroying the universe” Foolish explained.
Tommy shook his head. “Foolish… I’m not strong or powerful. I barely hold myself together most of the time. You should ask someone else. Go ask Technoblade, he’s strong! I’m… I can’t” he looked off to an empty spot slightly to the right of Wilbur, then he frowned, as if he was listening attentively to words never spoken. “Tubbo, no, I can’t”.
“I didn’t say anything” Tubbo pointed out.
“Not you, him” he pointed back to the empty air, then blushed. “Forgot you guys can’t see him”.
“Great! He’s mental as well!” Jack Manifold scoffed, throwing his hands up in the air.
“Can we not make disparaging comments about mental health issues?” Captain Puffy, yet another of the people who had barely ever been touched by the presence of a god, piped up in an exasperated tone.
Fed up with all their useless human babble, XD muted them all and teleported them in a random order to the chairs Foolish had graciously arranged for them. In the first row, he ended up having Technoblade, Philza, Fundy, Quackity, Sapnap, Karl, and George. In the second one, he had Sam, Puffy, Jack, Niki, and Eret. And, in the last one, he had Ranboo, Tubbo, Wilbur, and Tommy. Why the number changed in each row XD didn’t know, but he was convinced it had something to do with his son’s pyramid obsession.
He and Foolish decided to instead float in the back where they could easily monitor both the screen all the fragments of the past would be shown on, and the audience gathered there.
“Since you humans clearly can’t play together we’ll go through with Foolish’s plan” he basked for a moment in the absolute silence he got as a response. He knew he would have to allow them to talk things out as they watched, so that was one of the last moments of tranquility he’d have for a while… Finally, after he was truly satisfied, he snapped his fingers and the screen lit up in bright gold. “Enjoy the show”.