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Technoblade snorts at how recklessly he tossed his equipment onto the ground. Hypixel offered shabby weapons to their fighters, but the sword was personally owned. He bends down to pick them up from the ground, careful of the sharp iron blade.
“I’m not getting any better in here,” TapL grumbles, pulling his legs up to his chest and hugging them. He cranes his head upwards to the sky, so blue and speckled with white clouds, the sun just past its highest point. He was curled up on a dirty bench, the two standing in a smaller sand arena dug out within a scrapyard. It was a practice one, mocking the main arenas.
He flicks a piece of fluff off of the blade as he stands back up, raising an eyebrow down at his friend. “And how do you want me to help?” Techno’s usual sarcasm drips in his voice. He holds out the sword to the other, an invitation to stand back up.
TapL groans and reaches out a hand, letting Techno do the work to drag him back to his feet. The pigman grunts but chuckles when TapL stumbles a bit after him, sword hilt in one hand, his own hoof in the other.
Techno points back to the line of dummies in the center of the arena and a wooden sword resting against the wall. “Another few rounds?”
TapL rolls his shoulders, fixing the little sprout atop his head. His friend swoops down once more to grab his leather chestplate, nick marks and stains all over its sides. He takes it and shoves it over his head.
“I guess,” TapL shrugs, leaning his iron sword down against the wall to replace the wooden one he picks up. “Then Skeppy’s?”
“Yeah, yeah, if you get the roundhouse kick down and don’t flail around when you finish for balance.”
Technoblade laughs at the slight push he gets for that, and adjusts the golden crown sat proudly on his head. “Let’s see what you got left in ya’, dude.”
The dummy recoils with a hit and the arena is ever silent besides dull thumps and short breaths.
Hypixel isn’t as great as a place as everyone ramps it up to be.
TapL shoves his hands into his hoodie’s pockets, minding his step around potholes filled with mysterious liquids and the mice that scampered around. Technoblade’s broad, muscular figure did enough to keep any street rats away if his crown didn’t do the job, but he still checked down alleys as they walked to be sure.
“Ever wondered what’s outside, Techno?”
“Eh, probably doesn’t have coffee. Or doesn’t allow dogs,” Techno jokes, brushing off his white button down of sand. His pink fur had been coarsely combed through before the pair left the training grounds and TapL could still see sand and dirt gripping onto his fur.
TapL skips over a crack in the sidewalk and swerves in front of his friend to avoid a passerby, and the two make a left to slip into a propped-open door.
The sign on the door had a little demon’s tail, the barb a heart. Diamond Corner was its name. It’s not a done-up bar, or a pub, or even a restaurant.
As TapL greets the two white dogs that skid across the tile floor to reach him, Techno navigates to the refrigerated wall to find drinks. Skeppy snorts from behind the counter, newspaper held in his hands and legs crossed underneath him on his stool.
It’s a convenience store.
“Bad’s not in today? Not even Spifey?” TapL sighs, tapping his fingers against the side of his face while he frowned.
Skeppy shook his head and waved Techno off as the pigman came over with a bottle of water and a glowstone powder drink. “Nah, Bad’s seeing friends outside and Spifey’s somewhere with Vurb, couldn’t tell ya’ where though.”
“Outside!” TapL exclaims before noticing Technoblade behind him. He smiles sheepishly and thanks him for the water, cracking it open. The pigman ruffles his hair before walking behind the corner, his back disappearing into the back of the store with Rat and Floof attacking his heels.
Skeppy nods before laughing, covering his mouth as he did. The ore golem folds up his newspaper, tossing it onto the corner to lean forward on it. “What, as Techno been keeping you under a rock? Never been?”
When he sees TapL shake his head furiously, Skeppy snickers and licks his lips. He casts a look over his shoulder to the backroom door. Rocco looks up at him and the dog tilts his head, but there’s otherwise no movement.
He looks back, wringing his fingers together. “I know a way outta here, never been, but Bad uses it. Doesn’t mean it’s entirely legal, though.”
TapL tilts towards him, eyes widen and ears open. “I’m up for a little-“ he pauses to giggle. “Illegal activity.”
“You gotta promise me you’ll be safe though, okay? Guards patrol the city limits and Techno will have my head if yours is put up on display,” Skeppy bargains, wiping his thumb across his bottom lip. “It’s not for the faint of heart. You good enough, Harv?”
“I’m the best,” TapL dares with a cheeky smile that rises his cheeks. His little leaf on his sprout twitches. “I’ll come back and tell you all about it.”
“You promise?”
TapL nods. “Hell yeah.”
It’s a little one by one that forced TapL to crawl through in the heavyset oak, stone, and brick walls that surround Hypixel. His sword drags against the side and his armor scratches up on the bottom.
The sky outside of the walls is just as dark blue, with just as much stars and the same moon.
It’s a surreal feeling, being out of the city he was raised in. The city he’s called home for nineteen years. The city he’s made a living and a life out of.
When he runs, he doesn’t look back.
When he runs, it feels.. different.
Something webs in the air, shivers, fragments and crystallizes and is not right. He doesn’t- he doesn’t feel the same. It’s not a feeling he shies from, though he does try to reset his steps a few times (okay, maybe more than a few), but eventually he gives up.
There’s a static in his veins that shakes him to his core. It quivers like a taut string of a bow, ready to be plucked and released. It trembles ever so carefully, like tripwire, ready to set off a chain explosion.
It thrills him.
The nether scorches his feet and oceans drench his clothes. His hair is stiff and smells of salt. His sword wears down on zombies and spiders and creepers and his shield is busted by blazes and wither skeletons. Snow peaks cast shadows over his little boat that zips across the ice sheets and lava pools become a salvation.
His compass breaks at some point, but he just tosses the broken pieces into a nearby lava hole and keeps on going. It doesn’t even click in his mind why he has the compass.
He only visits the End a select few times, fitted with a diamond axe and iron chestplate thrown over his head. Dragon’s breath burns his skin more than Hypixelian alcohol splashes or netherfire does, but he perseveres and shoots down the crystals that bob up and down threateningly on their towers of obsidian.
The endermen don’t mind him too much and the rare ones that do are easily taken care of. He uses their eyes to teleport around.
When she perches, he launches one near her head and brings his axe down as he falls onto the endstone.
The egg sits, waiting patiently.
Dear Techno!
I left to go explore. I’ll be back later :L
I’ll miss you! Love you dude
TapL
PS- I fed Floof already so don’t feed her again!
He misses him.
The void is cold and something tugs incessantly at his lifeline. It sends ice through his blood, freezing red and almost turning purple. His teeth chatter.
TapL could swear he saw eyes appear in the pitch black at some point, and fingers curl around his wrist. They’re gone by the time he weakly pulls his arm away.
The world he spawns in is new to him. There’s no trees on the small island and he’s still shivering. He needs to go home.
His compass is gone.
After one look in his inventory, there’s not even a trace of the enchanted compass. Something in his chest swells and it’s not a happy feeling. A lump sits in the back of his throat and it makes his eyes water, a warning.
There’s no way home to the Diamond Corner. Back to Bad and Vurb and Spifey and Finn and Skeppy and the dogs. Back to the cramped backroom that was probably a fire hazard from all the beds stacked up on top of each other.
There’s no way back to the musty training grounds. Back to the sandy pits of hell on earth that were disgusting and covered in blood speckles and full of bad memories. Back to the busted up dummies and the worn wooden swords and the freaky bench.
There’s no way back to Technoblade.
There’s no way back home.
“Hey, um- oh, this is awkward- are you lost?”
It has to be an angel, with golden wings and purple eyes and a royal vest. It has to be an angel, to guide him home. His crown reminds him on Techno and TapL presses his lips together at the reminder.
But it’s not an angel, and behind this man are three other people.
A man of blue and pink, a mechanical helmet held against his hip and a look of concern spread across his face.
A man whose body mists slowly, fizzing out into the air. Black is adorned with stars and his eyes are barely pronounced against what was maybe his face, wide circles of endless void.
A blond man with a gold chain around his neck and pearly blue eyes, and he almost looks familiar. He is familiar.
And TapL sniffles and shifts his weight between his legs and stares down at his shoes. “Yeah.”
“Do you remember your way back to your own server?” The angel man asks, unsure of the situation. Blue and pink guy opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, but ultimately doesn’t when the void man moves his head in his direction.
TapL shakes his head. “I lost my compass. I wanted to go outside.”
Blondie puts a hand on the angel’s shoulder and does his best not to smile and instead frown. “We’ll help you, right, Couri?” And the blond man probably is a charmspeaker, because the angel nods.
This isn’t like Hypixel.
Hypixel is unforgiving and mean and cold. It’s a “everybody for himself” mentality and only after you’re established do you find friends out of foes. Still, if TapL ever went up against a friend, against a brother, he’d have to raise arms against them.
Hypixel is cruel and rude and filthy. The food served in the fighter cafeterias barely passes as food and the main arenas have corpses rotting in the corners. The rentals apartments barely get two star reviews, if the renters survive to leave a half-assed and pissy review.
This isn’t Hypixel, where his friends are and where his friends are still going to be because Skeppy never leaves and Spifey’s too skittish to leave and Techno is comfortable enough to ever want anything else.
And he’s not any of them, and he’s stupid and young and unsatisfied.
So he ran. And now he’s here.
Punz helps him to set a spawn bed and Fein gives him a newer iron sword. Couri lets him run for other reasons now.
The sky is still blue and full of clouds and the sun is a little past its highest point. He knows somewhere, Hypixel is under that same sun, that same sky, and he hopes that Techno isn’t searching the worlds for him.
Because it’s actually—truly—nice outside today. The air is freer, running.
This is what he left for. He doesn’t regret it (that much.)
To H. TapL,
I hope you are having fun
Sincerely, Technoblade