Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter List:

Chapter One: Let You In/So I Don't Feel, Wilbur Centric (Egg Arc/Resurrection)

Chapter Two: The Maiden, the Monarch and the (former) Madman, Wilbur, Eret and Niki Centric (Canon Divergent Pre to Post Festival) 

Chapter Three: Cut the String, Schlatt and Wilbur Centric (Election Divergence) 

Chapter Four: The World Crumbles Beneath My Feet, Niki Centric (Festival, Canon Divergent) 

Chapter Text

The first thing Wilbur could feel was agony. Lightning racing up and down his veins, lava in his bloodstream, a hailstorm in his head. Being dead, those breif three months, had been a sweet reprieve from the agony of life and made its return felt tenfold. He couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t speak. Could only feel pain and taste the blood coating his mouth. He felt grounded in the worst way, tethered to a world he didn’t want to be in after months of dream-like free floating. His senses were starting to return, cool stone under his hands as he writhed and clawed at the ground. Harsh winds pushing against the tears on his cheeks. Shouting and crying and calls and mutters from the outskirts of his awareness. He tried to cling desperately to the edges of the void as it slipped away. He didn’t want to go back. He didn’t want to feel anymore. He’d gone for a reason, why couldn’t they listen to him? Why couldn’t they respect his wishes? 

Instead they forced him back into an aching body with a fractured mind, back into a life of agony and tyranny and greif. He just wanted all of it to stop. 

You want it to stop?

A voice called to him. Well, not a voice exactly. It didn’t speak in words, only feelings but he could understand perfectly. It was a thousand voices in one, unified and friendly. Some parts felt familiar, like people he recognized, some like perfect strangers, all of them open and welcoming. 

We can make it stop. 

His interest was piqued. They could make it stop? Make the agony go away? Make his senses flee and oblivion rush back up to greet him? That sounded wonderful. He would love that. But what would they want from him in return? Everyone always wants something. 

We don’t want much. Only for you to accept us.

Accept them? They didn’t sound so bad. Familiar and strange. Welcoming and warm. Helpful and strong. He could accept them and he said so. Or said as much as he could in this psychic conversation he was having as he breached life and death once more.

Just let us in, and the pain will go away. 

So he did. 

And there was no more pain. Only Crimson.

Chapter Text

(after the end of the other story, post detonation)

Everybody knows that smoke lingers. It coats the tongue and clings to clothes and clogs the air until you choke on it. At least it provided an alibi for the grief thick in his throat. He could cough and sputter through it all he liked without drawing attention to the tears in his eyes. Tommy and Tubbo are glued to his side even in sleep as if trying to protect him, though from what he wasn’t sure. The swords they had stolen from Eret’s castle glimmered at their side, a macabre mockery of the gift they were meant to have been, the engraved blades sitting on the hip of those they weren’t made for. Techno was keeping guard at the entrance, a constant-silent sentinel,despite the fact that there was no-one out there left to fear. No one but broken bodies and lingering ghosts to watch out for. 

GeorgeNotFound went up in flames

Quackity blew up

Sapnap burned to a crisp while fighting Technoblade 

Punz burned to death 

HBomb was blown up by Tommyinnit using TNT

Karl_Jacobs was blown up by Tommyinnit using TNT

Ponk was slain by Tubbo

BadBoyHalo went up in flames

ItsFundy was slain by Tommyinnit

JSchlatt was slain by Wilbur Soot

Wilbur had left his sword behind, soaking in the cooling blood of an old friend. Tommy had taken a jagged piece of ram horn and a bloody fox tail, morbid mementos of their former friends turned foes. He’d smiled as he picked it up, tossing it up and down with satisfaction. Tubbo had giggled at the display, a cheerful sound out of place in the new graveyard they’d made. Techno had said nothing even then, just stood wiping the gore off his blade. 

Now he sat staring up at the cavernous ceiling above him. Torches glowed along the walls, up, up up, marking the treacherous pathways of the Pogtopia base. They’d returned there post carnage, no one to stop them, no one to fear. Tommy and Tubbo were curled towards him in their sleep, looking their age for once, no mania in their eyes or blood on their hands. His heart ached when he looked at them. It was his fault they were like this. Without him, they would never have been touched by war, burdened by responsibility they were not ready for, stained by blood he put on their hands. He couldn’t change the past, and he couldn’t fix them now. Not when he had a job to do, someone to find, amends to make. He stood, quietly as possible, and retracted himself from the grasp of the child soldiers he’d ruined. He collected a few things, nothing large or heavy, except for the stolen swords that were laid near the two boys' sleeping bodies. He rubbed his finger over the name engraved in the sword, over the ET to the WS.

“So you’re leaving, huh.” Technoblade's gruff baritone broke the silence of the cave, quiet in the grand scheme but seemingly deafening in the oppressive quiet that lingered before. 

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“Wilbur?” A broken voice shattered the silence he had grown so used to in the past few days. Wilbur scrambled to his feet, the rubble biting into his hands as he stumbled upright. He whirled around and his heart flew into his throat as Eret came into view. They were paler and thinner than they had been previously, with the sickly green tint on his skin from whatever potion the boys had given them not quite washed away yet, though it was masked a bit by a layer of soot and dust coating every inch of them. Her clothes were ripped and torn and his glasses were gone, their sockets glowing a dull yet piercing white without a barrier. Throughout the months they spent together Wilbur had seen Eret without their glasses many times, but this time was different. There was no smile on their lips, no softness on their face, just wide eyes and a mile of space between them, with the word they uttered  hovering in the air between them. 

“Eret?” 

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(post reconciliation, they found niki and settled in the mountains) 

Life together was nice, for the lack of a better word. The air up in the mountains was chilly but the sunshine was enough to warm them most of the time, and if it wasn’t- well there was always blankets and body heat. The gardens grew nicely, wheat and pumpkins and carrots and flowers of a myriad of colors (but not potatoes, never potatoes ) and a family of rabbits had taken to curling up in the sun there. 

The cottage, though small, was clearly imbued with pieces of them. Stained glass windows, purple, pink and blue, let the light in and the smell of cookies and fresh baked bread lingered in the air near constantly. Sunglasses were littered on tables and two guitars were laid against the wall. Soft sweaters beside a bloody uniform beside a mended king's cloak beside an abandoned suit in the closet together. The ender chest in the corner and another one hidden in the walls. The armor hidden in a closet. The twin swords tucked away under the bed. 

A life is lived here, and it’s plain to see. 

The sound of shattering glass was the first thing to reach the trios ears, just as dawn broke, still curled in bed. Eret and Wilbur were on their feet first, war instincts still intact, though Niki wasn’t far behind. They scrambled for anything, armor or the swords under the bed, but not before arrows came whizzing through the shattered windows, two at a time. 

An arrow hit Niki’s shoulder with a thwack. 

An arrow embedded itself in Erets gut. 

Nihachu was shot by Tubbo

The_Eret was shot by Tommyinnit using Definitely Not Penis

From where they stood on a hill, looking down at the formerly peaceful cabin, three screams went out in the sky and pierced the air. Soon as they came two of the cries were cut off leaving one left, a desperate keening noise dropping off into sobs. Until that one stopped too.

Wilbur Soot didn’t want to live in the same world as Tommyinnit 

Chapter Text

Wilbur’s world was crumbling around him. Tommy was yelling (not unusual, though the panic in his voice was), Fundy was smiling (had his teeth always been so sharp?), Niki was crying (that wasn’t right, Niki shouldn’t cry), and his string was tug, tug, tugging on his finger (he didn’t know it could still do that). It was pulling him towards the stage, trying to tug him back to where he came. The string, thin and worn and shimmering red, still wrapped tightly around his pinky, a constant presence since he was a boy. A link, a tether. Once between two broken kids in an equally broken world, now linking two leaders, two liars, two men, grown and hollowed out. 

Schlatt sneered from the podium, staring out at the crowd but talking, he knew, right to him, words hitting their target with ease. A perfect bullseye in the heart. And as the speech droned on, words turned to a low buzz in his ears. His string was tug, tug, tugging at him. A glimmer of a blade in the new presidents hands ( scissors his addled mind whispered ) and a deafening snap filled his mind. To others a near silent snip, but to Wilbur it was a torrent of sound. The sound of a click and a string falling limp crescendoed in his ears. When the noise quiet, thats when the pain began. His ears pounded and his chest ached and something snapped right near his heart. A scream tore its way out his throat, and the crowds attention turned, expecting anger, not the excruciating pain they found instead. Tommy was yelling beside him, frantic and worried, Fundy wasn’t smiling anymore, Niki’s angry tears were making way for fear and his string was laying limp from his finger. The noise grew deafening, the blood rushing in his ears and as the pain hit its final note, like the puppet whose strings had been cut, Wilbur Soot collapsed. And the wind laughed. 

Chapter Text

The festival was ready, Schlatt stood at the mic, mouth open, words at the ready. Niki felt her hands tense by her sides, almost involuntary at the site of the horned man. She wished she could, yell and scream and rage at him, but it would do no good. She looks at Tubbo on the stage, stuffed in a suit like a doll, but somehow looking proud. She wondered how he could stomach it. He makes eye contact with her for a second before focusing back on Schlatt. Schlatt started talking, yapping on and on like the self-possessed prick he was, but nearly as soon as he started he was cut off. A low rumbling filled the air, and the world shook. Niki tumbled out of her chair, and based on the yells and cries around her so did the others. Stumbling to her feet, Niki looked up. The only people still standing tall were Schlatt and Technoblade. Schlatt was… smiling? His eyes glinted with satisfaction as his eyes were fixed on a point in the distance. Niki whirled around, seeing Technoblade do the same out of her peripheral. A sharp gasp shot out of her mouth at the site. A large plume of smoke had gone off in the distance, right where Pogtopia was. She could see the minute Techno made the connection as he started running towards the woods. Niki, feeling panic curl up in her chest, stumbled back around, towards the crowd, towards the stage, toward Schlatt. Some of the others had stood, some still stumbling to their feet. Tubbo stood, arm gripped by the smirking Schlatt on the stage, a look of horror far beyond his years etched on his face. Schlatt started to laugh, a low chuckle building in his chest slowly turning into a near cackle. Niki stared at him for a second more, before turning and running the way of Technoblade, panic pushing her forward as Schlatt started to speak behind her, words echoing through the field. 

“I did say I wanted to start this festival off with a bang.” 

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Niki couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t remember the last time she ran so fast, was it playing tag with the boys or at the site of the burning flag? She couldn’t recall. The thick, cloying smoke in the air certainly didn’t help. The further into the woods she got, the worse it became. The little sun the trees let into the forest floor was bloated out by the gray haze in the air. It coated her tongue, left a film on her eyes, rooted in her lungs but she knew she couldn’t stop. All she could see of Techno was the occasional glint of his crown in the rare bit of sunlight winding its way through the smoke. She desperately clung to these rare sightings of the famed warrior, without him leading the way, she surely would have been lost in the veritable maze she found herself in. Blinking the smoke out of her eyes, she stumbled to a stop at a familiar dirt wall. She had never been there before, always under too many watchful eyes to sneak away, but Wilbur's descriptions and Tubbo's stories had painted a clear picture for her. Even if she hadn’t known, it would have been made clear by the sight in front of her. Technoblade, feverishly scooping away dirt from the wall, bit but bit. Something in Nikis got clenched at the site. Technoblade, the immortal, the unbeatable, had never looked so panicked. The most emotion she’d ever seen from him was a slight smile of victory or a glitter of fondness when looking at his brothers. This scene was such an abrupt shift it ached. Beads of sweat dripped down his brow, his teeth gritted, body tense as he cleared out Pogtopia’s doorway. As the last scoop of dirt was cleared away, they wasted no time, stepping in through the doorway in near synchronicity. It was clear the minute they walked in, what had happened. Rubble and dirt and scattered items were everywhere, intermingled with gunpowder and stray bits of blown up TNT. Someone rigged this place to blow, and blow up it had. The stairs were almost unnavigable, but luckily she had Techno there to steady her. The further down they went, the worse it got, large patches of stone missing, blown over torches lighting littered items ablaze and smoke invading every crack. Their voices were quickly growing strained from the smoke and their calls for their missing friends. Niki's throat ached from the screaming, but her heart hurt worse at the thought of Tommy and Wilbur's fates. Were they dead, a quick death as their world exploded? Had they survived the blast, but bled out, alone in a smokey tomb? Or were they trapped somewhere here, silent as they faded, hearing their calls but unable to respond? At least the smoke provided an alibi for the tears streaming down her face, not that it mattered, for the only person here to judge her was Technoblade and he barely seemed to have registered her presence, hyper focused on looking for a glimpse of blond hair or a tattered trench coat.