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Chapter Text

Phil wrapped himself tightly in his dark trench coat as the rain pelted down on the lower streets of Manberg. He had been on the walk home from his seventeen hour shift at the hospital, which exponentially lengthened with each doctor they lost due to the new restrictions placed on medicine every few months by the Regime. 

Med school dropout numbers were rising by the day, and the number of patients coming in through the emergency room, promised appointments, beggings and wailings at the reception desk for the chance to even get a glimpse of the doctor were rising too. 

It wasn’t as if Phil didn’t want to help the people that came to him-- he did-- but the restrictions placed by the government made it almost impossible for him to do his job without being investigated and arrested for some sort of crime. They weren’t real crimes, of course, they were phantom crimes made up by sweaty old men in tight suits that didn’t practice medicine, didn’t know a single damn thing about human anatomy. 

Phil was trapped in a throng of people, all stopped in the middle of the walkway to watch the massive screen display on the ZER;O Corp tower. Neon lights bounced off the screen and onto the puddles forming on the ground around him as a man in a pristine white suit and sleek haircut with cultivated lamb chops popped up on the screen, only his shoulders and face visible to the people below.

“People of Manberg! Our great city flourishes, even seventy years after the Dark Times! This is thanks to the efforts of my predecessors, and my very own efforts. I have kept you all safe all these years from the outside world, and even the evil deeds of those who wish to undermine our security. The Overlords have been stealing our doctors! Scientists! The asp may whisper in your ear and persuade you into turning your back on what’s holy, but do not be deceived, people of Manberg! Do not take the dangling fruit from the tree! Anyone caught engaging with the Overlords, anyone guilty of medical malpractice shall be put to death!” 

The screen went black on Manberg’s Emperor Schlatt before returning to a perfume ad. Phil snorted under his breath, careful to hide his reaction from the watchful gaze of the Manner Guard, those who protected the sanctity and purity of the public. To be caught making any sort of negative gesture or response from the direct word of Emperor Schlatt would be an act of treason, further exacerbated by Phil’s title as a doctor. It didn’t matter how revered he was in his field, that he revolutionized modern medicine and engineered the solution to one of the leading causes of the Dark Times-- there would be no mercy for the undermining of the Regime. 

Phil weaved through the crowd, now finally moving back to their homes before the nine PM curfew, and headed for a bar he used to frequent before he got even busier than he used to be. The schedule of a doctor had already been tough without the loss of med students, residents, and even long time colleagues. 

The bar was situated on the lower levels of Manberg. Buildings rose from the ground up, but the walkways were built on multiple levels, like massive ramps, while vehicle traffic took place way up on the top. The more money one made, the higher they lived in Manberg. 

The bar Phil liked was so low a level, it was practically a basement. The entrance was in the ground with a mini staircase that led into it. Inside it was decorated with dark wood, cobwebs, and vintage signs from before the Dark Times. It was easy to scavenge for things like that in the lower levels since it was treated like trash in the upper levels, shot down through the air like gods gifting their undesirables to the poor mortals. 

The owner of the bar was a short man with uncontrollable dark hair that was always covered by a hat. Quackity was one of the leaders of the early prohibition movement that eventually won against Emepror Schlatt’s restrictions, though Phil wondered who really won in the situation. It was clear in the aftermath that Schlatt knew distractions were key to keeping a population under control, and what better way to do that than alcohol?

Still, on the surface it counted as a win for any resistors, and it counted as a win for the Overlords, the biggest crime organization whose power rivaled that of the Regime’s.

“Philza! You’re back!” Quackity exclaimed, coming around the bar to push Phil into a stool. Phil laughed and allowed himself to be led by Quackity. He didn’t even have to give him his drink order-- Quackity had already started it the moment Phil walked through the door. 

The bar was quite empty-- just a few meanderers sitting around some tables, watching sports and eating chips and dip. The bartop was clear, save for Phil and one other person. He had brown hair and glasses, but his face was otherwise obscured by the collar of his brown trenchcoat and the fact that he kept his head down.

“What’s the news these days, Big Q?” asked Phil after taking a swig of his drink. 

“I don’t know anything you don’t,” said Quackity. “They’ve really been coming after you guys.”

“Tell me about it,” Phil rolled his eyes. “We’ve had to turn away almost three hundred people today alone. That’s almost sixty percent of our patients. They’re dying out there.”

Quackity began making himself a drink. “It’s only going to get worse. I hear there’s talks of closing off the hospitals to the lower levels.”

Phil snorted freely. “That’s redundant. Insurance prices are already keeping the lower levels out of hospitals.”

“Excuse me,” Phil’s seat neighbor said, lifting his head up. “Are you a doctor, perchance?”

Phil stretched out his hand to the young man. “Dr. Philza Craft.”

The man paused for a second, staring at Phil with a surprised expression. Then slowly, he took Phil’s hand. “Dr. Craft. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“From the bar?” Phil joked. 

“Philza, this is Wilbur Soot. He’s…”

“A patron of Big Q’s. Very nice to meet you. I work with a lot of medical practitioners,” Wilbur informed him, shaking his hand profusely. He had a strong grip for someone of his stature, though Phil wagered Wilbur purposefully wore such a baggy coat for the express purpose of hiding his physique. 

Wilbur was a smartly dressed man, not the sort of person to frequent a bar like Quackity’s. He supposed Phil wasn’t the normal type of patron either, but he and Quackity had been friends for a few years as well; it was only natural he’d bring his business to a friend.

Wilbur, well, he’d never seen Wilbur before. 

“What do you do?”

“Oh, I’m a patron of all sorts of people. I’m very well-connected,” said Wilbur. “I’d love to get more connected with you, though. I mean, you’re the best doctor in all of Manberg.”

“Aw, mate, you’re making me blush.”

Wilbur turned to Quackity. “Could we arrange the private room to talk?”

Quackity rolled his eyes but still stuck his hand under the bar and tossed Wilbur a set of silver keys. Wilbur gestured for Phil to follow him, though Phil couldn’t guess what he was really getting into. He really only came here for a drink and to catch up with Quackity. 

Still, Phil was a doctor; a naturally curious mind. 

He downed his drink and followed Wilbur past the bar and into the hallway where the bathrooms were. They took a sharp left to where the manager’s office was and entered. Quackity’s office was small and compact, nothing compared to his office in the new casino he had begun financing a couple of years ago. 

Phil had been in this office of Quackity’s before, sometimes just to chat, other times it was to treat patients that couldn’t be seen receiving treatment in a proper hospital. It wasn’t much, but it was the best Phil could do in his situation. He was shackled to two rocks; the oath he took to save lives, and his overwhelming desire to not be arrested and executed. 

He never noticed there was a wooden door next to the old metal file cabinet with a heavy lock on it. Yet that was where Wilbur’s key fit, opening up to a small room with no windows, walls and floors made of concrete, and only a small wooden door with two metal fold out chairs as furniture. 

“You must know Big Q very well to have access to these sorts of rooms. I’ve known him for five years and never knew about this.”

“Yeah, well, Quackity and I have a very…special relationship.”

Phil examined Wilbur. He didn’t look like the type Quackity would go for. He remembered Quackity’s ex-fiancees very well. There were a lot of them, but they were all interesting people in their own rights. They also all happened to be inner members of the Regime, which ended up being the leading cause of death in their relationships, but perhaps that was what made Wilbur different for Quackity. 

Wilbur seemed to realize what his words connoted, and he quickly corrected his wording. “I told you I’m a patron. Not just of the bar, but a lot of Big Q’s business dealings.”

“I see. So the prohibition protests…”

“My idea, actually. Anyway, come have a seat.” Wilbur patted the wooden table, which sounded more like plastic pretending to be wood and sat down on his own uncomfortable fold out chair. Compared to the plainness of the room, Wilbur looked like a king. In the dim fluorescent lights, he could see Wilbur was no ordinary man. His clothes whispered wealth and his face wasn’t just smart, but clever too. 

He wouldn’t be an easy man to deal with. 

“Can I tell you a secret, Dr. Craft? Can I call you Phil?”

“Go right ahead, mate.” Phil made himself comfortable across from Wilbur. 

“I’m very upset with the Regime, and from listening to your conversation with Big Q, I know you’re not very happy either.”

“It’s only natural, Wilbur. I’m a doctor and my life is constantly in jeopardy.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way, though. You can run away. Quit. You’re smart. One of the smartest men in Manberg.”

“Doctors swear an oath to save lives. I won’t abandon it so easily because of these restrictions. I’ll help who I’m allowed to help, even if it’s just one person.”

Wilbur leaned back in his chair, his fingers tangled within each other, tapping on his knees. “What if you could help more people and keep your life?”

“Of course I’d do it,” Phil answered without hesitation. 

“I can offer you protection, Phil. The Overlords have started a program--”

“No. I’m not getting involved with a fucking crime organization.” Phil slammed his palms down on the table, getting up out of his chair with such force that the chair fell over. “You lot kill as much as you pretend you’re saving lives.”

“Phil, it’s a good deal. People are being turned away from the hospitals-- a majority of the population. Our program gives them people from which they can seek treatment. It’s funded by the Overlords, so it’s free. You get paid, you get protection--”

“Where does the money come from, Wilbur? I bet your boss wouldn’t tell you that.”

“I don’t have a boss,” Wilbur scoffed, digging through his pockets. He produced a black eye mask with white covering the eye holes. It was decorated in lavish golden branches, the color of the Overlords. This specific mask, though, was worn by only one of three people.

The Overlords were a large criminal organization, yes, but it was run by the three ‘Overlords.’ 

Theseus. 

Protesilaus.

Orpheus. 

Phil pressed his back against the wall, suddenly aware of how small this room was, and how dangerous the man in front of him could be. “Which one are you?”

Wilbur placed the mask over his eyes, the smile never leaving his lips. “Morals, Execution, and Ideals. These were the pillars we split when we started the Overlords.” He stalked towards Phil, creeping a hand up his arm and to his shoulder. Phil refused to move, not even allowing breath to escape from his nostrils. “My brothers get boxed in sometimes, but me? I have visions. I envision what the world would be like. I thought of the program myself, and Protesilaus rounded up all of the doctors. Theseus made them comfortable, oversaw the intricacies of the operation. So, which one am I, Phil?”

“Orpheus.” The one with the silver tongue. 

“Ding ding ding!” he said in a sing-songy voice, stepping back. It was as if his whole persona changed once he put the mask on. “Forgive me, Phil. I’ve been much too forward, it’s just that you are actually someone we’ve had our eye on for a while.”

“I’m telling you now, I have no interest.”

“Phil, look at the bigger picture. You think you can win against the Regime by following their laws.”

“Do you really think you’re the lesser of two evils, Wilbur?” asked Phil. 

“We’re not the ones passing laws to ruin people’s lives in the name of security.”

“No, you’re destroying human rights in the name of anarchy.”

“We’re changing. Help us change, Phil. At least think about it.” He slipped a card in between Phil’s index and middle fingers and sauntered out of the room, leaving the keys in the lock and the door wide open. The business card was simple black with gold lettering, just his title and a string of numbers.

A comm link. 

Phil thought about throwing it away, forgetting the exchange ever happened, but Orpheus’ power was already beginning its work in his mind, infiltrating his thoughts and engendering a guess and a second guess. 

The Regime vs. the Overlords. Neither were subtle in their namings, but Orpheus made an unfortunate point, which was that in this moment in history, there was a slight advantage to the legitimacy of being the government. Despite the Overlords overwhelming power, it wasn’t the same as the Regime. 

And he’d have the freedom to take care of patients of all kinds. He’d have the supplies, the support, and the protection. 

He dropped off a couple of dollar bills at the bar and bid his goodbyes to Quackity. Wilbur had left the scene by the time Phil finally made his way out of the private room. 

When he left the bar, it seemed as though the temperature outside dropped a considerable amount. There was something about the wind biting at his cheeks that made Phil take a third glance at Orpheus’ card. 

Orpheus wasn’t the one to show him around the facilities. 

It was a sixteen year old blonde boy in a slick black riding suit with red accenting the sides from the leg all the way up to the underarms. His mask was the same black as Orpheus’ with the same accents but in red, so he was clearly either Theseus or Protesilaus, but from what he heard of Protesilaus, there was no possible way it could be him.

Phil felt a bit strange not being in a mask when everyone he met from the Overlords clearly valued privacy and identity. 

“You must be Big Man Phil. Doc Craft. Harbinger of Doom--”

“Phil is fine, thanks.”

Theseus handed him an earpiece and a watch and instructed him with how to wear them. The watch was an incredible piece of technology, something ordinary people could dream of observing. He owned one once, in his two year stint as a military doctor, though his memory escaped him when it came to the intricacies. 

The facility was a large warehouse refurbished to house at least three hundred in-patients, and a makeshift corridor of rooms for the ‘laboratory’ area. They had all sorts of machines set up in there. Phil was surprised to see many former colleagues walking around with clipboards in new, finely pressed white lab coats, laminated ID cards clipped to the front pocket of the coat where they kept their black and blue pens. 

Theseus seemed to know his way around well, and he knew every doctor by their first name, though they would all roll their eyes when he referred to them as such and not by their titles. Despite his position of power, he was quite casual. Perhaps it had something to do with his age, and maturity and power didn’t mix well in his mind. 

“Where will I be working?” asked Phil. He assumed since he was a new recruit, he’d be out on the floor in the area designated for trauma patients. 

“Ah! I should’ve shown you that first. Sorry, Big P.” They walked past the corridor of labs and into a real room with metal walls and no windows. It had a desk and an office chair, one of good quality, and a computer. “This is the Big Man office!”

“Ah. Are we meeting the director here?”

“What?” Theseus asked with a cock of his head. “No. You’re the director. You’re Big Man Phil.”

Phil almost dropped his briefcase. “I’m what?” He didn’t think when he agreed to visit and scope the place out he’d be placed as the head of the operation. It was just a little ludicrous. He hardly knew anything about the operation, and there were people who escaped the regular hospitals who had resumes just as impressive as his (well, nothing was quite as impressive as his resume, he supposed). 

“I like that,” said Theseus. “You’re humble. Like me. You’re a lot like me, Phil, isn’t that cool?”

“Very cool.”

“We’ll be working together because I keep the place going, right? But you’re the science guy.”

Phil tried to further hide his surprise. He didn’t want to seem like he was second-guessing their decision, and he was ultimately very flattered with the decision to place him as head of the operation, however undeserving he felt of the position. 

He stepped further into the room, setting his briefcase down gently on the desk. 

“Orpheus is placing a lot of trust in you,” Theseus said, his tone taking a sharp tone from the jovial youth he had previously. “He doesn’t give out his identity to just anyone, okay? And, um, that comm gives you direct access to us and vice versa. In case we need anything specific from you. Like, special treatment.”

“For the three of you?”

Theseus nodded. “Orpheus trusts you, so I trust you. Protesilaus is still on the fence.” 

“Bringing me in wasn’t…Discussed with him?” 

“No, it was! He was just… Overruled. Two thirds vote and all that.” 

Theseus left him alone in the office after that. 

Phil couldn’t look away from the watch.

It was three in the morning when he heard a loud siren. Phil cracked an eye open, thinking it was just an emergency vehicle outside his window. He’d been living in the lower levels of Manberg since joining the Overlords. That was where their protection lied-- his mid-level apartment had been raided two days after he made the switch. 

It also warranted a personal announcement from Emperor Schlatt, and the promise of strengthening the numbers of the Manner Guard. Phil knew it was meant to frighten the people and frighten any doctors thinking of leaving the hospitals, but it was quite effective. 

Theseus had personally come to his new apartment to affirm their support of Phil, and he had stayed for quite a while just to chat. He hadn’t seen Wilbur-- Orpheus-- since the night he was recruited. Most communication went through Theseus, though Orpheus did comm him once about a general physical for himself. It was slightly insulting that someone of his experience level was being commed about physicals-- he wasn’t a general practitioner-- but he supposed it just came with the territory of being the director of the whole operation and being the only one with a direct line to the bonafide Overlords. 

The siren Phil heard came from his watch. It was loud but not obnoxious, just persistent more than anything. It took a couple of button jammings to turn it off, but he saw it brought a notification. It was a distress signal attached to a location. 

It wasn’t far from where Phil was.

From the code, he could tell it was one of the Overlords, but he didn’t know which one. Phil just threw on an all-black outfit, his trench coat, and his medical bag and flew out the door. Best case scenario, someone just needed to be picked up from a bar, and worst case scenario someone was in need of surgery, which would be very difficult with the tools he had on hand. 

Phil climbed railings and ran through walkways to find the alleyway from which the ping originated. It smelled of rotten food and dog shit, and Phil would’ve moved on had he not noticed a spot of pink at the end of the alleyway. 

“Hello?” he whisper-shouted. “Did you send out a signal?” 

His patient answered with a groan, so Phil naturally approached. His patient tilted his head up, strands of matted pink hair pressed against his face. He wore the Overlord black mask with a white accent to match his all black rider’s suit.

So this was the great Protesilaus. 

“You’re not one of my brothers.” 

Phil didn’t physically react to the news. That was probably a secret, their relationship, but it did explain why Theseus was so young. Phil crouched by his side and opened his bag to take out the tools he’d need to examine him. 

“I’m Dr. Craft. You can call me Phil.” 

“Oh,” said Protesilaus, “I forgot Theseus added you to the list of emergency contacts.” 

“Good thing he did. Two blaster shots to the abdomen. I’m surprised you’re still talking.” 

He heard shouting from above. Heavy footsteps and the sound of blaster shots. That wasn’t a good sign. 

“We have to get out of here. Help me up.” Phil helped Protesilaus put his arm around his shoulder, scooping him up and helping him hobble to the corner of the alleyway. Phil made sure no one suspicious was around before exiting, keeping close to the walls of the buildings. 

“Where to?” 

“There’s a safehouse--” Protesilaus coughed out a bit of blood, “--not far from here where Theseus will probably be waitin’. It’s already imputed on my watch.” Phil readjusted Protesilaus and pulled him along. He entered the ever-waking crowd of the lower levels of Manberg to lose themselves in anonymity, but Phil didn’t consider the sharpshooters surveying above, specifically looking for pink hair and a black and white mask. 

Phil had endured military training despite coming in as a doctor. It was important for doctors on the field to be able to take care of themselves and be able to maneuver around a battle without being killed in the crossfire. His training did not include lessons on killing, but it did include the sharpening of the senses. So when a blast shot past them, Phil was quick to pull Protesilaus to the side, narrowly avoiding the hit. 

Both Protesilaus stared wide-eyed at the burn marks on the metal street as the crowd parted around the shot before the mass hysteria began. 

“We need to go,” Protesilaus urged as people started pushing past them, the law and order of the streets lost in the fear of a sniper in the area. Phil picked up the pace and spotted a large neon sign of a biker bar that some Manner Guard frequented on their off hours. 

There was a bit of a drop off between the parking ramp and the walkway on which they stood, but it was the quickest way down. Especially since Phil could spot two enemy operatives attempting to push past the throngs of people to get to them. 

“Okay, brace yourself, Protesilaus.” 

“Just do it,” Protesilaus said through gritted teeth, his grip tightening around Phil’s shoulder as he used his other arm to secure himself around Phil’s waist. Phil managed to land on his feet, but he did have to hold in a shriek from the sheer impact. Protesilaus got off lucky as he lifted his feet in the air and put all his weight on Phil. 

There were about four or five motorcycles, and Phil decided to take the one with two helmets on it. Phil bent down to hotwire, but Protesilaus hit his shoulder. “In your watch should be a chip. It can disarm any security protocol on these things.” The angry shouts from the walkway platform came closer and closer. Phil pulled out a chip and tapped it against the screen of the motorcycle. The screen turned red before powering back to black and then bright blue.

They were in. 

The rest of the bike glowed the same shade of blue, and Phil secured Protesilaus with a helmet before hopping on and revving up the engine.

Their enemies were beginning to close in on them, mere feet away when Phil hit the gas, shooting them up the ramp and onto the road. The roads in the city could be differentiated from walkways by the fact that they were further detached from the tall skyscrapers that made the city, and they were much rounder than the walkways, which were shaped like a zig-zag constantly spiraling downward. They also were lit up by a beam of neon lights built into the road. 

Phil accelerated to top speed as fast as possible while Protesilaus hung onto him for dear life. Phil wished they at least took the time to put up the Overlord’s hair, as it was now flying all over the place even under the helmet. 

Behind them, two of their pursuers followed on bikes. Phil took a sharp turn up the steep road, but it did nothing to put off their enemies. “We’re goin’ the wrong way!” Protesilaus shouted over the wind. “We need to be goin’ down!” 

Phil clenched his teeth as he looked for a way down. The only way down would be turning around, and that was not a viable solution. Protesilaus unstrapped the gun on his belt and began to blast at the enemy.

Finally, Phil spotted an idea, though it was not a very good one. 

“Doc, what’s the hold up? Get us to the lower levels!” Phil could understand Protesilaus’ concerns with how high up in the levels they were getting. Anymore and they would be in prime range for the Manner Guard and the Regime to annihilate them. 

Their only way out was to be a little creative. 

Protesilaus managed to get a winning shot in on one of the pursuers before Phil jerked the bike to the side despite the lack of road on the side and gunned it. Protesilaus couldn’t even let out a shout of protest before they drove clean off the road, free falling down down down the depths of Manberg. 

They landed on a lower road with a thud, the metal of the motorcycle making a sickening crunch as they continued forth down the spiral. 

“Where’s the safehouse?” Phil asked, trying to look over his shoulder at Protesilaus and keeping his eyes on the road. There was a fair amount of traffic impeding their journey. Phil did his best to weave through them, but it was hard when some of them were large steel prison trucks. 

What’s more, a friend of their enemy managed to sidle right up to their side, ramming into them hard. Protesilaus stuck his leg out in an attempt to put some distance between the two of them. One hand was holding on to Phil while the other aimed for the other driver’s head, but their opponent had a lucky hit and managed to swipe the gun out of Protesilaus’ hand. 

“Don’t overwork yourself!” Phil advised, worried about Protesilaus’ wounds more than losing the baggage trying to ram them off the road. He could always outrun their pursuers, but if Protesilaus’ wounds turn fatal, he wouldn’t know how to face Orpheus and Theseus, especially now that he knew they were brothers. 

Phil swerved into the enemy’s front while Protesilaus got a good punch to the face on the driver. With their vehicles purposefully so close, Protesilaus took the opportunity to grab the driver by his clothes and launch him off his motorcycle and into oncoming traffic. 

Phil watched in horror as one of the heavy-duty prison buses drove straight over the body. But it was there and then it was gone, Phil was driving so fast.

With their objectors gone from their path, Protesilaus was free to strap off his watch and shove it towards Phil, who followed it seamlessly to the safehouse. 

He came to a screeching halt in front of a tall, dilapidated structure in the outer reaches of Manberg. He bet the top of the building was much prettier than the bottom, but most buildings in the outer stretches paled in comparison to the heart of the city, even if it was in the clouds. 

Phil dismounted and helped Techno off too. Theseus raced out of the safehouse the moment he caught wind of their arrival. 

“Tech-- Protesilaus! Phil, how bad is it?” 

“Do you have an area where I can examine him better, Theseus? I couldn’t really tell you the damage.” 

“Yeah, yeah.” Theseus led them into the safehouse, which looked more like the lounge of a run-down hotel. Behind the beat up receptionist desk was a hallway full of doors. One of them opened up to a stale-scented room with a cot and a wooden chair. Theseus helped Phil set Protesilaus down and then stood by the door, keeping vigilant watch over his brother. 

It was just as suspected, two blaster shots to the abdomen. They weren’t fatal. Seemed like the assailant was a bad shot. Phil just had to clean the wound and wrap it. He offered painkillers to Protesilaus, but he refused. The whole affair lasted no more than thirty minutes, and by the time he was done, Theseus was crouched on the floor hugging his knees. 

“Come on, Theseus, get up. You invite weakness when you hold yourself like that,” Protesilaus barked. 

“Fuck off, dickhead! You looked really hurt!” 

“He’s fine,” Phil promised. “He just needs to rest easy for a week or two.” 

“Thanks, Phil, for showing up to his distress signal. You answered before either Orpheus or I could and… Well, thanks,” Theseus said, clutching Phil’s hand like he was some sort of messiah. Phil patted Theseus’ hand in return. Sometimes Phil forgot Theseus’ status because he was just so true to his age, although he supposed it was because he’d never really seen Theseus in full Overlord action. 

Orpheus did mention before that they embraced three different pillars. 

Ideals, Morals, and Execution.

Was Theseus’ job just to keep everyone in check? Admittedly, it did strengthen his opinion of the other two to know that they didn’t involve their little brother in darker matters, but the fact remained they still involved themselves in those businesses. 

“Hey, Doc, um, yeah. Thanks from me too,” Protesilaus 

Phil smiled softly at him. “No problem.” 

It seemed Protesilaus’ cold demeanor towards Phil melted after that. At first, Phil was under the impression that the most of the Overlords he would be seeing would be Theseus, but that was fact-checked once he started seeing Protesilaus almost every other day. 

It seemed saving someone’s life makes one look favorably upon their savior. Protesilaus was a very bright young man, and Phil meant it when he said young because Protesilaus couldn’t be more than twenty. He knew Wilbur was in his early twenties, but he always figured Protesilaus was the oldest of the three considering he was ‘execution.’ 

Protesilaus was very interested in Phil’s previous research involving the vaccine to a special strain of a certain virus that brought the world into what was referred to as the Dark Times. Phil was happy to tell him about it. He was happy to tell anyone about it considering it was one of his greatest achievements.

Phil wouldn’t consider himself a talker, really, he much preferred listening to others, but speaking about his work led to anecdotes and tangents about his time rising up in the medical field, in the military, and at the numerous hospitals he’d worked at. 

Theseus still came by often, and he superseded Phil as the talker, much to Protesilaus’ annoyance. Apart, they bore no real resemblance as brothers. They didn’t look the same or act the same-- they even had different accents. But put together, it was clear they were family from the way they carried themselves around one another and the intimacy of their words and actions. 

That was why Phil was surprised when he found himself sinking into the dynamic. 

“Phil!” Theseus called for the umpteenth time that week. He had a very specific way of calling Phil when he wanted to be an absolute menace to absolutely anyone. He came clamoring up to Phil, who was standing on a catwalk overseeing the doctors at work, scribbling down on his keyboard and adjustments they would need to make to better fit the size of their space. 

Theseus was a very tactile individual once he was well-acquainted with an individual, but the way he clinged to Phil was the way he clinged to Techno at times. He always grabbed Phil’s arm and tugged on it like a child demanding attention from his father. The most he’d touch one of his colleagues were pats on the arms and shoulders and perhaps light, playful punches. 

“What, mate. I’m a little busy.” 

“Can you settle an argument between me and Orpheus? But you have to take my side.” 

“That doesn’t seem like settling anything. That sounds like favoritism.” 

“Well I am your favorite, right?” Theseus attempted to what looked like batting his eyelashes through his mask, but the white covering his eyes hid any sort of minute expressions he was trying to make. Phil could only tell because Theseus was pursing his lips and tilting his head low. “Right?” 

“I don’t have a favorite. I love you all equally,” Phil joked. 

“How is that fucking fair? Orpheus hasn’t even come to see you since you started working with us and I know you think he’s a wanker.” 

“Who’s a wanker?” From behind Theseus, Orpheus waved them down just a couple feet down the catwalk. His outfit was different from when he saw him last; he wore a black and gold riding suit with the same trench coat covering it up, but the mask was the same. Phil returned with his own casual wave, patting Theseus’ back in an attempt to signal for him to let go.

Theseus did not. 

“Phil said you’re in the wrong, Orpheus. Take that, bitch!” 

Orpheus snorted. “You probably didn’t even tell him what we were discussing.”

“He did not,” Phil butted in. “But I’m sure you two can come to a compromise.” 

“There’s no compromising with a child, Phil. I would’ve thought a doctor would know that.” 

“I’m not a pediatrician.” Phil was starting to think Orpheus didn’t really know much about doctors at all despite having this ‘wonderful’ idea to make an underground medical program. “What’s it about, then? If you don’t mind me asking.” 

“I want to interrogate this guy my way, but Orpheus says it’s dumb. But we’ve been doing it his way for the past two days and nothing’s happened, and if we leave it to Protesilaus, he might accidentally kill him before we get information out.” 

“Well, what’s your way?” asked Phil. It was probably something light-hearted like tickling him ‘til he croaked.

“I said, ‘let’s get a goat and have it lick his feet until he talks!’ And Wilbu--Orph-- ah, fuck it. And Wilbur said ‘mememe I’m Wilbur and I think that’s a bad idea because it’s hard to source goats these days.’” 

“It is!” 

Despite the hidden terror of the child planting in his organs, Phil sent a playfully remorseful look towards Theseus. “Sorry, mate, but I can’t imagine it’s easy sourcing goats in this economy.” 

“Doesn’t mean it’s impossible,” he pouted.

“I mean, have you considered feeding him scorpions until he talks?” 

This was a joke. He meant it as a joke. 

“That could be pretty good,” Orpheus said with a clap of his hands. “I like the way you think, Phil. See, I knew you were the perfect guy for us.”

It was just a joke. 

But Phil soon found his word meant a lot more to them once it left his mouth.

Phil was shoveling food down his throat. He was eating leftovers from last night’s meal in the cafeteria they fashioned for all of the underground programs. It was more than just doctors; they had teams from all types of fields under their protection and living the way Phil did, though Phil suspected his living conditions were slightly better off than everyone else’s. 

He was at his desk, typing up a proposal to give to Orpheus since Orpheus made it very clear all ideas went through him. If Protesilaus was the body and Theseus was the heart, then Orpheus declared himself the mind. 

Enter the devil himself. Orpheus waltzed in without so much of a knock. He settled himself in the old sofa he managed to scrounge up and shove into the corner of his office since one of the Overlords was always bothering him someway and he wanted them to at least be comfortable when pestering him. 

Phil secretly enjoyed their pesterings. It kept him up at night, sometimes, just how much he enjoyed their pesterings. 

“Phil,” said Orpheus. “I have somewhere to show you.” 

Phil took Orpheus’ tone very seriously, and he followed him out. Orpheus led him to a scraper, getting in the elevator before shutting the door behind them. The numbers ticked up until they reached the top floor, and then they continued up the building by a dank and dim stairwell. Orpheus opened up a heavy steel door and widened it so Phil could step out first. 

Phil hadn’t been so high up in Manberg in a while; he almost forgot what the high life felt like. 

“This city is ours,” said Orpheus from behind Phil, not bothering to stand next to Phil, and conversely, Phil did not turn to meet Orpheus’ look. He continued to survey the city from high up above, astonished at how thin the air was up here. Despite how little there was of it, it was still much fresher than what they all breathed in the lower levels. “The Regime is a puppet government at this point, Phil. We control most resources nowadays.” 

“That’s good for you. I hope it’s good for the people.” 

“It’s good for us, ” Orpheus corrected. He grabbed onto Phil’s shoulder, spinning him around to finally face the Overlord.

His mask was off.

It was just Wilbur. 

“Phil, you’re important to us. Irreplaceable.” 

“Everyone’s replaceable.” 

“Not you.”

Phil smiled, covering Wilbur’s hand with his opposite arm. “Well, that’s always nice to hear, I suppose.”

“Phil. Protesilaus, Theseus, and I have voted, and we don’t feel like you’re safe enough where you are.” 

Phil chuckled. “You don’t feel I’m safe enough… In your safehouses?” 

Wilbur nodded. “We want you to move in with the three of us.” 

“What brought this on, mate?” He thought he was placed somewhere perfect. He never really saw Manner Guards in the area, there was a bunker two floors down and he was placed in a building with a bunch of doctors with similar circumstances. If it wasn’t safe for Phil, who was it safe for? “Are we moving everyone?” 

“No, no. Just you, Phil.” 

It wasn’t as though he had any real objections to the move, but it felt like a very strange move. He only worried that the line between employer and employee was beginning to become muddled by their close relationship, and it would only be exacerbated with living in such proximity.

“It’s a lot to ask, but Theseus panics a lot thinking about your safety. I think it would really assuage his worries if he knew where you were.” 

“He knows where I am, though. It’s how he finds me so quickly.” 

“I’m not really asking, Phil. Protesilaus has already sent for your things as we speak.” 

“Wha--?” 

Orpheus didn’t let Phil get a word in edgewise. He guided Phil to the edge of the roof, leaning against the railing to look down at the bright lights through the misty sky. “Phil. You’ve worked diligently. I know it’s because you believe in our cause.”

“I still don’t like your methods. The scorpion thing--” 

“Phil, if we didn’t find out that man had maps of safehouses uploaded to his watch, there would be a whole lot of dead doctors. Someone like you. I’ve told you this. We do what we do because we have to. Rebellion is not an easy thing-- people like me and people like Technoblade have to get our hands dirty so people like you and Tommy can bring hope to the world.” 

He’d never heard Wilbur slip up when referring to Protesilaus and Theseus. Perhaps it was because the mask was off and he wasn’t speaking as Orpheus, but rather as Wilbur. Perhaps this was a cry for help. Wilbur was so young, and the Overlords wasn’t a young organization when it came to militias. Movements usually lasted two years if they were lucky before they broke up due to disunity. The Overlords had been around for seven years at this point. 

Wilbur hesitated, glancing at Phil to gauge his reaction before continuing. “I know you don’t like our methods, but I am desperate for control of this world. It’s almost impossible to get out of bed each morning, Phil. I feel like a misnomer-- I should be named Sisyphus rather than Orpheus. But I didn’t choose the names; Techno did.” 

All three of them were named after Greek tragedies. 

“Okay,” Phil agreed. “I’ll move in with you boys. I’ll do my best to do right by you three. You can take control, Wil. I believe in you. You said it already: this city is yours.” 

“Ours,” Wilbur corrected with a grin.

Protesilaus approached him while he was out in what they had set up as an ICU. He thought he wouldn’t see them so often in the warehouse since he began living with them, but it really only bolstered their surveillance of him here. 

“Phil, we need to reassign you.” 

“Reassign me?” Phil repeated with an astonishingly harsh tone. He didn’t think he’d have the guts in the face of the executor, but here he was. “If you want to criticize my performance, we can do that privately--”

“It’s not like that, Phil. It’s a… Promotion. I’ve discussed it with the other two, and we think you’re finally ready for this assignment.”

Phil didn’t think there was a final layer he had yet to peel through when it came to the onion of the Overlord brothers, but it turned out there were still some mild feelings between them. They were gone now, of course, but it was still quite odd. Have him live with them but not let the director know of this top-secret assignment? 

Well, Phil was a curious mind. And he promised to give them his all.

Turned out this assignment was perfectly suited for Phil.

It was a research role in strains and vaccines. Phil wouldn’t say he was suspicious, but he did find it quite odd how connected all of this research felt to his old work under the Regime. Protesilaus escorted him to his station, where a young female scientist brought over a petri dish to put under his microscope. 

“You’re the only one in this room familiar with this. Would you consider this healthy?” the scientist asked.

Phil closed his right eye and peered through the microscope. It was a bacteria he was very familiar with, though it looked a bit odd. The version he had worked with previously was green and orange, but this one was red and white. While his work was all about weakening bacteria, he could only give his objective diagnosis. “Yeah, it’s a pretty healthy bacteria.” 

The scientist thanked him with a bowed head before heading back to her station. 

“You’re savin’ lives, Phil,” Protesilaus said. Phil didn’t even have to turn around for Protesilaus to know what was going on inside his head. 

“Why’re you messing around with bacteria, Protesilaus? Don’t play with things you don’t understand. That’s how the Regime started losing its support in the first place.” 

Well, that was how they lost Phil’s support, anyway. 

“We’re not. We have a team of scientists and doctors. We have you. Thank you for doin’ your duty.” 

Phil finally turned to Protesilaus. “I want to know what you’re going to do with that thing. I know what kind of  damage it can do in the wrong hands--” 

“Do you think we’re the wrong hands, Phil? I brought you here because you said you’d do right by us.” 

“If you’re going to do what I think you’re going to do, then I’m not doing right by you. I’ll be damning your conscience for good, Protesilaus. I’m warning you.” Phil stormed out of the lab room, but his hand was caught by Theseus as soon as he made it out through the door. 

“Phil? Why do you look so upset? Did you see our project? Wasn’t it cool?” 

“Theseus,” Phil muttered. He was so innocent. He clearly didn’t understand what his brothers were doing. “It’s not cool. If they release that bacteria on anyone they could ruin the city.” 

Theseus shrugged. “It’ll only be on the upper-levels, Phil. Promise!” 

Phil yanked his hand out of Theseus’ grip, taking a massive step back. His exit was blocked by a third arrival.

Orpheus. 

“If you boys release that bacteria, I’ll walk. I’ll leave and tell the public--” 

“But you won’t leave,” Orpheus snapped, moving around Phil so he stood side by side with Theseus. Protesilaus came out from the lab to complete the trinity. “The city is ours. You included. You gave me permission already, Phil. You said I could take control.” 

Phil spluttered for a moment, looking for words of condemnation without making himself look like a hypocrite. He forgot the origins of Wilbur’s tragedy; a musician with a sweet voice, so convincing he managed to make a deal with the Lord of the Undead himself. 

“I knew it,” Phil whispered instead. “Why did I let you fool me?” 

“It’s what must be done,” Protesilaus shrugged. “And you love us too much to let us down.”

Chapter Text

Heavy boots hit the floor at a rapid pace. A woman walked down the pristine white halls, her mid-length brown hair swaying back and forth with every step she took. She stopped in front of a sliding door and waited for the sensors to approve her presence and let her in. 

Once it did, it opened up to a small laboratory with two desks covered in paper clutter and small devices used in their studies. A single individual sat in the lab with his right eye pressed against a microscope, staring quite intently at the organism he was studying. The woman came up behind him and pressed a kiss against his cheek, startling him out of his reverie. 

“Kristin!” he gasped. “You should’ve said something!” 

“You didn’t hear the door, Phil?” she giggled, taking a seat in the neighboring stool. Her elbow rested on the desk as she held the side of her face in her hand.

“I guess I was just a little… preoccupied. I’m on the verge of a breakthrough.” 

“Can your breakthrough wait? The last thing I want to do is stop you from saving the world, but it is our anniversary…” Kristin’s fingers danced up Phil’s arm, flattening down as she massaged his shoulder. Phil leaned into her touch, sighing as he began to put away the slides he was looking at. 

“Yes. Yes, of course it can wait. I-- Let’s go have dinner. Tasty’s, right?” 

Tasty’s was a chain of bars all around the city, and it happened to be the very spot Kristin and Phil first met, despite them sharing the same occupation. It had been back when Phil was finishing up his time as a military doctor and Kristin had been given a promotion at the hospital she’d been working at. They both went to a Tasty’s to celebrate their own achievements, and love bloomed in the dim, flickering lights of the bar.

“Yes, Tasty’s sounds good! I say we hit the Neo-Botanical Gardens after. They have a beautiful light show near midnight.” 

Phil shoved his lab coat off and hung it up on the wall near the door. Kristin smiled when she saw the ragged button up covered by a creased vest. Despite his salary that assured Phil would live the rest of his days in comfort and then some, he always dressed like a sleep-deprived medical student. It assured Kristin of Phil’s values. She came over and grabbed his hair tie, pulling it out of its form and releasing Phil’s hair. He playfully swatted her hand away, smoothing his blonde locks down. 

“You look handsome.” 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He intertwined his fingers with hers and left the lab, shutting the lights off on his way out. His gaze lingered on the microscope, equations and images fluttering through his mind as Kristin’s grip tightened on his hand, anchoring him back to reality. 

“You gonna get a burger?” she asked. “It’s Thursday, which means they have six dollar margaritas. You better keep the tab open,” Kristin joked. They both waved to the security guard on the way out. The entrance of the institute had a car waiting for them, and Phil looked at his fiance, who was already looking at him with mirth in her eyes. “No driving for us tonight. At all.” 

Phil laughed as he herded Kristin into the car and input the address into the tablet on the back, sending the directions up front to the driver. There was a grey barrier wall that separated the driver and the passengers to maintain safety for both parties. 

They zoomed through the upper levels of the city, spiraling down until they reached the highest Tasty’s in the city-- the other bars were all below what the public on the top levels considered the ‘Safety Belt’-- and dismounted. Phil almost missed his step, but thankfully Kristin caught him in her arms. 

The bar was lit from within, raucous laughter emanating from inside and in the parking ramp. There was a circle of Manner Guard members standing by their bikes with cans of beer in hand. Phil put his arm around Kristin and hurried their pace into the bar. Inside, it was a full house. All the bar stools were occupied and almost every table had a patron sitting in it, drinking a beer and watching the screens. Some sports game was being televised. 

Phil fought his way through the crowd to the bar, ordering two margaritas and a beer. Kristin went through her drinks fast. It took a while, but they were finally served to him, and he looked around the room for the table Kristin decided on as he juggled the three drinks in his grip. It was a miracle he didn’t spill and managed to make it to the table in the corner. 

Kristin had her eye on the screens, watching as the star player made a dazzling kick into the field goal. The whole bar erupted into cheers and hoots, and some drunkard offered to pay for another round for the whole bar. 

Kristin started cheering too. 

“This is nice, don’t you think?” Phil shouted over the celebration of the public. 

Kristin gulped down her first margarita in seconds. “Oh yeah!” she agreed, slapping her hand down over Phil’s. “Hey, I’ve been thinking of a spring wedding. What do you think?” 

Phil paused his whole body. There hadn’t been much talk of the wedding between the two of them since they got engaged a year ago to the day. He had been so busy with his research and she’d been run ragged by the hospital, so wedding planning just felt like a chore to the two of them. “Spring this year?” he asked.

“Yeah. Early spring. I know it’s super soon, but I just feel like… If we don’t do it soon, we’ll never get around to it.” 

Phil smiled softly, tracing patterns on the back of Kristin’s hand. He traced a heart. “I like that. How about March? The sooner the better.” 

Kristin beamed. “Yes! Exactly!” She took a swig of her second margarita, slamming it onto the table and cracking the glass with the force. “I’ll need another one of these.” 

Phil had barely taken a sip of his beer. “Your wish is my command, My Lady.” He trudged back up to the bar and ordered two more margaritas and some nachos to snack on so Kristin didn’t fill herself up with nothing but alcohol. Phil had now mastered the balancing act and returned to his fiance with a clean plate of nachos and two more margaritas. 

“How big do you think the wedding should be? Family, obviously,” Kristin continued as she munched on a nacho chip. “But do we want co-workers? If we invite co-workers, there will be some… inner members of the Regime, and I don’t know…” 

“You don’t want the Manner Guard cramping on your party?” Phil filled in. Kristin had always been on the eccentric side, never agreeing too much with the status quo. Phil couldn’t say he agreed with every policy the Regime passed, but he could understand that a government made certain decisions in order to protect their citizens in the best way possible. 

“We can keep it small,” Phil said. The ceremony honestly didn’t matter too much to him-- what mattered was the symbolism behind the marriage; they’d be tied together legally and spiritually. “My mother has been pestering me about meeting your folks too.” 

“Oh right, we should do it before she…” Kristin trailed off, not wanting to finish the sentence. Before his mother passes away from her illness. She had been a young girl living in the times before the Dark Times, and she had somehow survived through sheer grit and determination. But it seemed lately those that managed to survive the Dark Times were experiencing a new illness as a consequence of surviving the first round over seventy years ago. 

“She’s been doing well. I spoke with her the other day-- her nurses are hopeful.” 

“And you’re hopeful too? You said you were close to a breakthrough.”

Phil leaned back in his chair, cracking his neck back and forth. “I--ahh. Well, yes. I feel like I’m close-- everything’s lining up except for one thing. I feel like there’s a variable still missing in the equation-- that there’s an angle that I haven’t figured out and it’s blocking the whole thing.”

“Sounds frustrating.” 

“You have no idea. And I’m doing all of this with a time limit because if I don’t figure it out, my mother--” Kristin leaned forward and snapped up Phil’s hands, rubbing circles over his skin in an effort to calm him down. She was always so good at calming him down when his mind began to spiral with what-ifs and if-thens. When he first met her, he had been a paranoid discharged military doctor that always marked exits and always had escape plans-- he always thought someone was out to get him.

She soothed those worries and then some. 

“Hey. Philza Craft, you’re the most talented doctor and researcher in Manberg. You’re doing things some people can only dream of doing, and you’re doing amazing. So you have a bit of a block-- no one said science was easy. That’s why we’re here, though, right? Because the chase is the most exciting part.” 

As always, Kristin made sense. 

She pushed his beer back into his hands and ordered him to drink up. He obliged, taking a swig and slamming it back down to match her energy. Phil’s gaze drifted over to the screens, watching the star player of the sports game run circles around the arena in a victory lap. His hands were raised over his head in celebratory applause. 

“He’s really spectacular. Total annihilation,” Kristin remarked. 

Phil was curious about that wording. He hadn’t been keeping an eye on the match, but he knew Kristin had a passive interest in sports and always was watching from the periphery, even if it appeared as though her attention was elsewhere. “What do you mean by that?” 

“I mean he blitzed his way to the goal. Took no prisoners, just went full force and achieved his goal. Total annihilation.” 

Phil pondered on the terminology for a few moments, just not in the context of sports. When his mind wandered, it always went back to that pristine laboratory, the single microscope that made its home on the table, the slide of bacteria that doomed the population almost a century ago-- doomed his mother. 

Total annihilation-- he had been researching a vaccine, a cure, for this illness for a few years, sometimes with private patronage, and most recently with a grant by the Regime-- but he had been playing it safe with his research. The reason why it had been taking so long to come up with anything was for the simple fact that the disease was based in a bacteria that clung to blood cells and other vital parts of the system. Reverse engineering did not work because it wasn’t a virus, and attempts to detach the bacteria with new technology were met with resistance. No one was willing to do what had to be done-- total annihilation.

Even Phil had been resistant-- but now things were locking into place the more he sipped his beer and watched this trivial sports game. So they knocked out some blood cells; they’d be killing the bacteria too. They could replicate the blood cells another way and completely refresh the system. 

“I have to go,” Phil said suddenly. 

Kristin stilled. “Go where? The light show isn’t for another two hours--” 

“I have to go back to the lab. I-- I figured something out. I have to go.” He got up, feeling around his pockets for a wad of cash which he laid down on the table to pay for their drinks and nachos and rushed out the door. 

“Phil, wait!” Kristin screeched after him, trying to push her way past the throngs of people, but she was blocked by a barrier of men booing at the other team that just scored. He hailed a car as soon as he saw one and hopped in, inputting the address of the institute he worked at. 

He arrived shortly, and he was a mess as he scanned his thumb in the after hours entrance. The halls were dark, the fluorescent lights only flickering on as he passed through. He entered his lap and twisted his lab coat on, scattering all his slides out on his table. 

He chose 3C to look at, zooming in all the way and taking notes as he looked at the specimen in a new light. 

This was it.

This was the solution. 

Phil sat on the cold cot with his elbows digging into his thighs, wringing his hands together as he waited for one of the Overlords to come to him.

When his reactions did not turn amenable to them, they had guards tie his hands together and take him down to what Theseus called a ‘holding cell’ so he could calm down. 

But Phil wouldn’t calm down. How could he? 

They were holding in their greedy hands a weapon of biological disaster, and they hardly understood it. Phil hoped they didn’t understand. If they didn’t understand, he could still explain it to them, still convince them how wrong they were to be doing this-- but Phil knew in the back of his mind that they knew exactly what they were doing, and they just didn’t care.

Total annihilation. 

And he had let them take him away without another word instead of leaving because everyone knew one thing to be true: Dr. Philza Craft could not leave the Overlords alone. 

Perhaps had he not gotten so attached to the three of them, he could’ve been more objective. If he had kept things professional, he would not be in a holding cell ‘calming down’ but rather fist fighting one of them, though he would probably lose in that regard. Maybe if he took on Theseus.

Heavy maybe. 

There was nothing else in the cell except for the cot and a steel chair in the corner. The cell was blocked by a weak UV-ray that illuminated purple; it would not burn or cause radiation if in close proximity, but touching it would be a death sentence. 

He heard a slam of a door and some heels hitting the tile before he looked up to see Orpheus. He wore a dark suit and expensive shoes, golden accented accessories to match his black and gold mask. “Have you calmed down yet, Phil?” 

“I could ask the same thing, Wil.” Orpheus appeared startled at the sound of his real name, but he covered his tracks well and continued on as if that didn’t happen.

“How do you figure, Doctor?” 

“You three wouldn’t listen to me before. We were in a public space and I was infringing on your authority, right? But now it’s just the two of us, Wilbur. You recruited me for my expertise, so why don’t you hear me out? All three of you.”

“Our minds have been made up, Phil.” 

“Your minds have been made up before they heard an expert’s opinion. That’s not smart business, Wilbur. If you release a new bacteria to the public, you damn the whole city. You damn yourself.” 

“It’s just the upper levels,” Orpheus argued.

“It’s not. Bacteria spreads. I’m sure your researchers have told you this.”

Orpheus huffed, crossing his arms tightly against his chest, and Phil could tell he was right. The researchers did one thing right, at least. But from the way he was reacting, it seemed like something the Overlords willfully ignored. 

Releasing a new bacteria to the public would be disastrous. It had been bad enough before the Dark Times, when the whole world had been covered by cities and towns and everyone lived everywhere, but outside the city was a wasteland. Manberg was one of two hundred civilizations, and the nearest one was over three hundred miles away. Unleashing a new biological threat on Manberg would be condemning everyone with no escape. 

“We have ways to control it. We’re not that stupid.” 

“I don’t think you’re stupid. I think you’re young. I think you’re angry, and I think you’re--” I think you’ve tasted power and now you’re insatiable. He closed his mouth to stop the last part from coming out. It wasn’t good to vilify Orpheus in this part of the negotiations-- it would only make him more unpredictable. “I think you really want to change the world, and you’re rushing things.” 

The Overlord was silent and unmoving. The only sound in the room was Phil’s fingers tapping on his knuckles, waiting for a response. Then, Orpheus fell to his knees in front of Phil’s cell and hid his face behind his hands. “Oh Phil,” he cried, “I do. I do. It hurts how much I want things to change. It’s painful.” 

Phil got up from the cot and crouched down in front of the UV-ray, keeping a careful distance away. “I know,” he cooed, “I know you do. But this isn’t the way. We’ll find a way.” 

“We?” Orpheus parroted, his fingers slotted to the side to make way for his right eye. “You’ll stay? You’ll help?”

“I’ll help you the right way.” 

Orpheus shuffled to his feet and hit the button on the wall to deactivate the UV-shield. Phil didn’t come out even as the shield retracted into the floor. Orpheus was by Phil’s side in seconds, one arm around his shoulders and the other resting on Phil’s forearm, leading him out of the room. 

There were guards lined up in the hallway outside of the holding cell room, all saluting Orpheus as he passed by, but he did not acknowledge any of them. 

They got into an elevator. It was a two minute trip up, though it seemed like the elevator was shooting past the other floors. When it opened, they were greeted with an expensive looking foyer to a penthouse. It was different from the Overlord’s penthouse where they had moved him a couple of weeks prior. This one wasn’t as nice, but it was still quite lavish in the general sense. It had an archaic wealth theme running through the decor and color scheme. 

Orpheus brought Phil through an archway and into the living room, where Protesilaus and Quackity were sitting on opposite ends of the room, avoiding eye contact in every way possible. 

“He’s calmed down?” asked Protesilaus.

“We made a compromise,” Phil said before Orpheus could speak. He knew whatever went down in the holding cell would be completely obliterated by Protesilaus’ oppressive nature. Anything said by Orpheus was in danger of being nullified by Protesilaus. “We’ll find a way to achieve your goals and protect Manberg. I’ll-- I’ll come up with something new.” 

Quackity stood up, smoothing his pants out. He appeared tired, but he was dressed much nicer than when Phil last saw him. Months ago. 

“Hey, Philza. How’s life with the Overlords?” 

Phil went in for a quick handshake, patting their union of hands with his other one. “It’s been fine. We’re doing good work.” 

“What compromise?” Protesilaus cut in, staring daggers at Orpheus. Orpheus slithered over to his brother and dropped a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“Like Phil said. He’ll stay on board. He’ll help us.” 

A mollified Protesilaus nodded along, and Phil finally felt comfortable enough to take a seat on the sofa next to Quackity. “What are you doing here, Big Q? Business?” 

“That’s right. I got a call from these motherfuckers earlier, asking me to find someone, so I did. Now I want my slot machines upgraded, you hear?” Quackity directed the last part over at the Overlords, slapping the arm of the sofa for emphasis as he sat back down and got more comfortable. “Your guy’s back there, by the way.” He pointed at a closed door on the other side of the room. 

Orpheus picked himself up and headed over to the door, turning the knob as Protesilaus began to explain. “I remember you tellin’ me about your time in the labs and figurin’ out the cure to the Dark Times-- I remember the people you mentioned. I figured it might help to have some old friends around.” 

Orpheus opened the door and pulled someone out.

A tall man with green hair and a messy academia look to him. He had a metal mask covering over the bottom half of his face that filtered the air and a silver ring band on his hand. 

Phil stood up in shock when he saw him come out, the man falling to his feet with how rough Orpheus treated him.

Phil was very familiar with this man.

Dr. Awesam ‘Sam’ Dude.

His former lab partner.

Sam had entered the lab the next morning, surprised to see the lights still on and Philza still sitting in the same spot where he left him the night before, looking even more haggard than before, if that was even possible. He knocked on the only visible wooden part of the table Phil was working on to get his attention, as the rest of the space was covered in pages and pages of notes and drawings and diagrams. 

Phil looked up. His eyes were bloodshot and unfocused. 

“Phil, did you ever go home? Did you ever go out with Kristin--?” 

“Yes, yes. I did. I came back,” Phil explained hurriedly. He grabbed Sam’s arms and pulled him onto the stool Phil was previously sitting on, now standing over the shoulder. “Look at what I’ve managed to do.” 

Sam winked and looked into the microscope, shocked at the progress Phil managed to make in one night. It was more progress made in more than decades of research for their specific area of study. It was astounding. Sam leaned back, just blinking and blinking to process what he just saw. “T-this is real?” 

“It is,” Phil confirmed giddily. 

“You did all of this just last night?” 

“I’ve had the idea for a while, but I’d been too busy thinking about the risks. But the real risk is that we haven’t taken any, and now so many people have been dying because of it. Total annihilation.” 

“It’s brilliant, Phil, but what about the blood? Do you have an idea on how to…” 

“There’s still a lot of work to be done, obviously, but I’m sure with more research we can have a paper published by the end of this year and have the treatment approved even earlier.” 

“I’ll give you one thing, Craft, you’re ambitious,” Sam joked, knocking him on the shoulder as he slid off the stool. He rifled through the notes Phil had been jotting down throughout the night, most of it written in shorthand and completely illegible to someone not used to the way doctors write, but Phil and Sam had worked together on and off for many years and were more than familiar with the way the other wrote. “Blood cell replication?” 

“That’s right. It’ll be an instantaneous effect-- so the moment the cells are killed, they’ll be replaced with the new ones.” 

“That’ll be a tough clinical trial. The doctors administering the drug would have to be very skilled. Their timing would have to be impeccable-- and if this became a general treatment, then every doctor would have to perform the same way or it could turn into malpractice.” 

“It’s only as hard as you make it out to be. Our job is to figure out the easiest way to make this hard thing,” Phil explained. “If we never try to create the impossible, then the world will just stand still, Sam, like it has been all this time.” 

“Okay. You’re right, Phil. Now, can you go home?” 

Phil stared blankly. “What?” 

“You’ve been here all night. I’m sure Kristin’s mad as hell at you-- I mean, it was your anniversary.” 

“Right.” Ah, he had done it again, hadn’t he? He’d been so in the zone that he had disregarded last night.He should call Kristin. Better yet-- he should go home and explain himself. Kristin probably wouldn’t be there, though. Knowing her, she’d already be at work, doing her own thing. Perhaps he’d visit her in her wing. 

“She’s at home. Waiting for you,” Sam said, almost as if he were reading his thoughts. “No need to wander around here. Trust me, nothing’s going to change while you’re gone, man.” 

“But you’ll call me if you find something new?” 

Sam’s eyes crinkled, evidence of a smile. “Sure. Sure. Whatever.”

Phil shrugged his lab coat off and hung it on the wall, stumbling out of the lab and grabbing a car out front. The whole way home he was in a daze, his vision blurry from lack of sleep, but his mind was still on overdrive, still running calculations and making diagrams-- it was like he still had the microscope in front of him, his brain filling in the visual blanks. 

He hardly realized when he was in front of their home, a tall apartment building in the upper levels of Manberg. He got out and headed up to their apartment. One body part was always moving at any time. If it wasn’t his foot tapping, it was his pinky wagging or his lips pursing and releasing. 

He wasn’t nervous about Kristin’s reaction-- he was a researcher, and this wasn’t the first time he’d gotten so engrossed in his work he disregarded plans they had-- and she had done it too. They had a mutual understanding, one that could only be had when two partners shared a profession and a deep understanding of one’s work-- that sometimes it really was that important. 

When he walked through the door, Kristin was typing away on a tablet at the kitchen table, focused so intensely that the tip of her nose was just a hair away from smushing up against the screen. When she heard footsteps, she returned to normal posture. 

“Phil! You’re back!” 

He managed a smile. “Yeah. Sorry about that. I-- something came over me. I think… I think I did it.” 

Kristin didn’t move, staring at him blankly, as if expecting him to elaborate. Before he could speak, understanding seemed to wash over her. “Y-you--? You did it? Like, you did IT?” 

Phil nodded, little laughs from sleep exhaustion and relief coming out. “Yeah. It’s all thanks to you, too. You gave me the idea with the total annihilation thing--” 

Kristin giggled. “You mean sports talk cured the Dark Times?” 

Phil approached her, ready to put his arms around her to hug her from behind and take her entire being in, but Kristin quickly jerked away, clicking her tablet off before accepting his hug. “What was that?” he asked.

“N-nothing. It’s just… Confidential.” 

“You can’t even share with me?” 

“NDA.” 

Phil chuckled. “Okay.” He practically pushed all his weight onto her, he could hardly stand upright. Kristin glanced at her tablet before helping Phil to their bedroom and tucking him into bed. 

“We’re not built like we were in med school, huh? All-nighters just aren’t the same,” she joked as she pressed a kiss to his temple. 

He grumbled something, perhaps it was clever and witty or perhaps it was gibberish from sleep deprivation, but the scene disappeared before him as his eyelids fell over his eyes, closing the show.

“Sam,” Phil gasped under his breath. He looked back and forth between Wilbur, Technoblade, and Quackity, the disbelief finally catching up to him. He hadn’t seen Sam since they parted ways-- Phil doing lectures at hospitals and universities around the city while Sam joined another research team. 

Really, he hadn’t seen Sam since before that even. It was when Phil’s mother died, and Kristin-- well, when Kristin had gone. 

“Hello, Philza. It’s good to see you again.” 

“Yeah.” 

“This isn’t where I really expected to see you.” 

Phil smirked. “I could say the same.” 

“Phil is our head researcher now. You two can have your pick of whoever you want to work on this,” Wilbur explained, “but we need it done in a year’s time.” 

“A year?” Phil and Sam replied in unison. 

“Wi-- I mean, Orpheus, it doesn’t work like that,” Phil explained. “I mean, research takes years, and then there are clinical trials and--” 

“Don’t care how you do it, Phil, ‘cause we trust you, but you have to slim that process down,” Techno interrupted. The look on his face told Phil not to argue with him, especially in front of outsiders like Sam and Quackity, so Phil decided to play it smart. He’d approach the subject when it was just the two of them, the same as he did with Wilbur.

All three of these boys had egos the size of skyscrapers, and there was no negotiating much less arguing with them when in front of who they considered underlings. Wilbur only listened to Phil because Phil suspected he was no longer an underling to them. He didn’t quite know what he was yet, but he was sure to find out soon enough. 

“Alright,” he acquiesced. Uh, Sam and I will begin work tomorrow, if that’s alright. I’d like to-- I’d like to rest now.” 

“Of course, Phil,” Wilbur said. “Protesilaus and I will take you back. We’re done for the day anyway, aren’t we?” 

Techno nodded in agreement. They bid their goodbyes to both Sam and Quackity and headed out. There was transportation waiting for them to take them back to the apartment the three Overlords lived in-- and now one doctor. 

Theseus was waiting for them at home. He was playing a game on a tablet, his legs swinging back and forth from the stool he sat on. His attention was taken only by their arrival, but he didn’t move to greet them, just called them into the kitchen where he had been for the past few hours. 

“Phil! You’re back! I really thought we lost you for a moment there.” 

Phil’s lips attempted to smile, but it was a thin line at best. “I thought so too.” 

Techno was quick to get behind the counter and start pulling out pots and pans. Techno was adamant about cooking amongst themselves. There were hardly any servants in this part of the compound. Mostly messengers. Technoblade had a complex about employees in the home, present company notwithstanding, and it infected most parts of their daily lives. Cooking, cleaning, bathing, shopping was all done by the three of them. They lived pretty standard lives despite their enormous power and influence. 

It was less of a compulsion to do things himself despite this enormous power and more of  a paranoia that someone would double cross or betray them through personal means. This was something Phil could understand from his perspective. Techno and the other two had been in this game for a while-- since they were children. One could only assume they’d had their fair share of experiences of being taken advantage of by caretakers and business partners on account of their youth. 

Not even Phil had been trusted to cook for them yet. 

“What’re you making?” asked Wilbur. “Because if it’s Spanish omelette again, you’re off cooking duty for the week.” 

“Then my master plan is workin’,” Techno joked, squirting oil over the pan. Phil watched as Techno moved around the kitchen in a fluid manner-- he was quite skilled for someone who didn’t need to have this skill. It was less of a homemaking style of cooking and more of a professional chef in a Michelin restaurant. “It’s just chicken and fried rice. Phil looks like he could use a simple meal.” 

Wilbur snorted. “I’ve never seen you cook something ‘simple.’” 

“Yeah, ‘cause you don’t remember it since you were hammered. Who do you think cooks your sober noodles? ‘Cause it’s not Tommy.” 

“Yeah, it’s definitely not me. I’d let you rot and die beneath my foot,” Tommy added with a laugh. Phil shook his head at his antics, already feeling himself fall back into their rhythm, as if the afternoon never even happened. As if he hadn’t learned just how dark their veins could run. 

They were just boys right now-- but earlier, they had tossed around the fate of the city like it was a ball. 

Phil slid into the seat next to Tommy, watching as Techno prepared water to cook the rice in and Wilbur, without even a request from Techno, started beating and drying the chicken. 

“It’s a nice song, isn’t it?” Wilbur said, glancing up at Phil as he worked. 

“Song?” 

“There’s always music playing in the small things, just as much as the big ones. Do you like this song, Phil?” 

“I do,” he replied. It was an easy song to listen to, going off of Wilbur’s metaphors, but he knew there was another side to the song. One he couldn’t get used to-- maybe if Phil were younger or less weathered, perhaps he would’ve been on their side from the beginning. But Phil was older and he had ethics and morals and a code. Right now he was teetering on the edge of that very code for these boys. 

The next few weeks at the lab had been busy. Once the direction of their research had been secured, Phil and Sam had recruited the rest of the lab to work on perfecting what Phil had found. The hours were long, but it was worth it if it meant curing so many people.

If it meant curing his mother. 

Phil and his mother had a bumpy relationship. She had been a single mother after his father died in the events that led to the Dark Times, and she spent a lot of time away from home to provide for Phil. She was a ghost in their one room apartment, leaving early and arriving late, always stumbling past the couch he called a bed and into the bedroom. It meant growing up he had no relationship with her at all, but it also meant he could go to university and study hard. His aspirations to become a doctor started very early. Thinking back on it now, he considered it had something to do with losing his own father to disease. 

After Phil moved out and began working, they slowly began to connect in a way that was impossible before. Phil’s mother was someone he respected immensely, and she was someone that could not understand the complexities of a child’s mind, thus only being able to fully understand Phil once he became an adult-- or what she would consider a ‘real person.’ 

Phil’s mother loved him-- she always loved him; she wouldn’t have made her sacrifices had she not loved her beloved son-- but she had not liked him until adulthood. Phil had a hard time coming to terms with that when she first started asking him to lunch and asking after him, but he eventually let it go. He promised himself he’d like his children and love them if he ever had them. 

They had been in a good place-- a great place-- when she first went to the doctor and found signs of the plague from the Dark Times she thought she had survived. Now she was in hospice and barely present, and Phil would not be a filial son if he could not find a cure; a cure for his mother who allowed him to become a doctor. 

So he was there in the lab everyday, conducting the research and making sure everything ran as smoothly as possible. Researchers and interns on the team would talk about him behind his back, calling him ‘drill sergeant’ and ‘killjoy,’ but Sam assured him that he was doing what he thought was right, and Phil had a right to run his lab the way he needed it to run. 

Kristin, despite having her own duties that were just as important, still found time to discuss Phil’s work with him and make suggestions where he requested. In between, they managed to find time to talk about their wedding. 

“You still want a spring wedding?” asked Phil as he stirred the pasta back and forth to keep it from getting stuck to the pot when he drained the water. 

Kristin came up from behind him with the salt and poured it in. He had a bad habit of under-seasoning his food. “I do. It won’t interfere with your stuff will it? I don’t want to be pushy or anything, but--” 

“No, no. I mean, spring is good, and I can’t wait to begin the rest of our lives together.” 

“Corny,” Kristin smiled as she pulled him in for a chaste kiss. “I also think spring is good because of your mom. You know, I know you’re working hard on your research, but we should be prepared--” 

“My mom’s improving. The treatment they have her on is pretty good. I reviewed the files myself and her doctor is a personal recommendation of mine. She’ll make it through spring with no trouble.” 

Kristin released his neck, falling back so she was leaning on the counter. She looked troubled, as if she had news she didn’t want to share with him. “Phil, you know better than anyone else how this thing works. Usually they’ll seem like they’re getting better, and then the patient--”

Phil cut her off immediately. He couldn’t have that sort of negativity have life breathed into it, giving it a reality. “She really is improving. I am the expert in the subject, okay? So can you…? Can you--”

“Okay, okay. Forget I said anything,” Kristin said. She didn’t know how to follow it up, didn’t know how to continue the conversation, and Phil didn’t quite know either. Could they even return to the subject of their wedding without the topic being soured by his mother’s condition? 

The pasta water began to boil.

“How’s your work? I feel like you don’t talk about it anymore. I hope I don’t talk about mine too much where you feel you can’t talk about yours,” he says absent-mindedly. He took his eyes off the pasta for a moment to watch her respond.

She had a strange look on her face. Phil trusted Kristin with more than his life-- he trusted her with his legacy, with his mind, and he was under the impression she felt the same-- but the way she pursed her lips and averted her gaze at the mere mention of her work had Phil suspicious.

He didn’t like this feeling, especially when it was about Kristin. 

“It’s alright. It’s just wrapped up tightly.”

“Oh, okay.”

“More administrative work than research. It’s boring. You’d really find it boring.”

“Nothing you do can bore me,” Phil joked. 

“It’s boring,” she repeated. 

“Right.” So boring it had an NDA, if he remembered correctly. He wondered how much he should push. The last thing he wanted to do was encroach on her boundaries, but they were life partners. If she was lying about her work, that affected him, didn’t it? “You’d tell me if something was wrong, right?”

“Of course!” she promised. “Phil, everything’s alright. I promise I have things under control.”

The pasta water boiled over.

Phil should’ve been paying attention.

“Just like old times, huh?” Sam said sarcastically. It was their first time in the Overlord lab together. It was the same one where Phil discovered just how dark the Overlords ran, but it had been cleared out. It was as clean as a new lab. All of the equipment had been wiped down and the files were orderly. It was almost as if a completed and successful research campaign had not taken place in the very room just a day ago. 

“I guess.”

“Do you have some people in mind for this project? I understand you’ve been director of this program for a while now.”

In truth, a few names did come up when he started thinking about this project. He spent a lot of time on the floor with his fellow doctors to build good relations with him, and he had a fair idea of their backgrounds and specialties. He tried to organize them on the floor based on their old niches, but sometimes things didn’t work out as planned. 

There was Dr. Jenesis, an oncologist who had a fair amount of experience in research and clinical trials, and Dr. Nokomis, a general practitioner who was a quick learner. It was her flexibility as a general practitioner that made her such a good candidate. The third name was Dr McChill, a biochemist with just as much experience in medicine as Phil and Sam. 

Their team would need to be bigger with as tight of a deadline as they had, but it was a good start. 

Then there was the elephant of the room dressed as a boy in a riding suit. “Phil! Phil! Can I see a bacteria? The other doctors never let me peek.” 

Phil sighed, massaging the space between his eyebrows as he sent a stern glance over to Tommy. He’d been trailing after Phil all day. He could hardly get a moment of peace before the boy opened his mouth to make some unsolicited comment. “Mate, I don’t have anything for you to look at. Don’t you have things to be doing right now?”

“Protesilaus told me to watch you. I wanted to hang out anyway. Hey, aren’t you gonna introduce me to your friend?”

“Dr. Sam Dude, this is Theseus. Theseus, this is Dr. Sam Dude. Happy?”

“Nice to meet you Dr. Sam Dude. I’m your boss. Pretty much. I’m Phil’s boss too.”

“You’re not,” Phil denied even though it was kind of true. Tommy, no doubt, was going to force them into a series of two word rebuttals when Sam cleared his throat. 

“Do you have an interest in medicine, Theseus?” 

Tommy’s face twisted into something disgusted and confused. “Medicine? No. Isn’t that a lot of work? I don’t want to look like Phil when I’m in my thirties.” 

Phil pursed his lips and patted Tommy on the shoulder, squeezing extra hard. Tommy noticeably winced, twisting out of Phil’s grip with a scowl on his face. 

“Medicine is a respectable profession, Theseus. You should know, considering the type of program you’re running right now,” Sam said, floating over towards the metal closet filled with supplies and equipment. Just small things that didn’t need to be put in the storage room next door. 

He took out a box of cleaning wipes and started wiping down the tables despite their near-perfect appearance. Sam had always been tedious like that; if the job wasn’t done himself, he always felt unsure of its success. 

“Well, not really anymore. I mean, you guys are fucked-- up in the upper levels,” said Tommy, jumping up on one of the tables to sit. Sam paused his work, sending a blank stare at the Overlord before continuing to scrub the table he was working on.

Phil pushed Tommy off the table. “If you’re not going to do anything helpful, stay out of the way.” 

“Phil, don’t you think you’re being a little mean?” asked Tommy, fluttering his eyelashes as if he were a young, coy girl. “I’m just doing my job.” 

“Is your job getting in my way? Dr. Dude and I are trying to solve your problems.” 

“Well, they’re not really my problems, are they now? I mean, I was okay with gassing the city. It’s your problem.” 

“Theseus.” 

“What?” Tommy squawked. “It’s your moral code that’s got you in this situation. We’re all your victims, Philza Craft.” He sighed, placing a dramatic hand over his forehead. Phil grabbed Tommy once more and steered him out of the room. “Wait! You can’t kick me out! Protesilaus will throw a fit--” 

“He can tell me all about this fit himself,” Phil said with a smile, slamming the door on Tommy’s face, finishing him off with an enthusiastic wave through the narrow window of the door. Phil turned back to Sam, who just finished scrubbing down the spot Tommy had made a chair. 

“Where were we? Sorry about him. He can be hyperactive.” 

“He’s young,” Sam noted. “A bit strange that he’s the leader of the largest opposition to the Regime. Are they all this young?” 

“You know what they say-- the youth are our future,” Phil replied, wishing to change the subject. The topic of the Overlords’ age was a bit touchy for him, just as touchy as it was for the subjects themselves. It would be so easy for their authority to be undermined and credibility to be lost should their ages ever become public. Those masks were their shields. 

“There was a time when I thought about myself like that,” said Sam. “You did too, huh? The difference is you went ahead and did it, though.” 

“I don’t know. I didn’t really, did I? I spent so long perfecting it that the death toll… The people that died, waiting for it… My…” he trailed off, his lips closing and opening, but not a sound leaving his throat. He wanted to keep talking. He wanted to explain that he wasn’t as incredible as everyone made him out to be. 

It wouldn’t come out.

“But think of all the people you helped when it was finished. And safe. And even when we completed the cure, you kept going. Even after Kristin… left.” 

Phil didn’t respond. He grabbed the clipboard attached to the wall and began rifling through the closet, checkmarking on the page when he saw the items were in order.

“Phil. Do you know if she’s--” 

“No.” 

“I’m sorry, Phil.” 

They went back to their duties, which were just excuses to avoid looking at each other. The past was a landmine in a gorgeous field. He knew being around Sam would pull up these unwanted memories. The reason they had split apart after everything was because of their closeness at that time in his life. It would’ve been impossible for Phil to have moved on from everything that happened had he stayed where he was, unmoving in a rapidly changing world. 

When they finished for the day, they both agreed to follow up with the doctors mentioned for their team, and to scout interest from others. Sam would be in charge of getting the lab up and running while Phil worked out some of the finer details.

Tommy was waiting outside in the hallway when they locked the door. Phil was surprised Tommy had that kind of patience, but he supposed Tommy feared Techno more than he disdained boredom. He was leaning on the wall, head slumped as if he were sleeping. Phil lightly tapped Tommy’s leg with his foot to rouse him, causing the Overlord to startle.

“Phil!” he exclaimed as soon as he was aware of his surroundings. “You can’t scare a man like that.” 

Phil looked around. “What man?” 

“I’ll fucking demote you!” 

Phil finally chuckled, the tension subsiding when Tommy smiled too. Sam, once again, cleared his throat to bid the two of them goodbye, and they headed their separate ways. 

Tommy dragged Phil all the way back to the penthouse, hand gripping the sleeves of Phil’s lab coat the entire way. Phil let himself be dragged, too tired and stressed to be combatant about a non issue.

All day he had been skirting around the real issue Sam, besides talk of the past-- Phil had no idea what to do to placate the Overlords. They wanted to annihilate their oppressors, totally. Beyond an inkling of survival. 

This was Phil’s area of expertise. 

But with years behind him now, Phil knew it wasn’t the right path to take. It wasn’t the correct one. 

“It’s my turn to make dinner tonight, Phil, and I don’t know what to cook.” 

Phil blinked a few times to process Tommy’s words. He had been so lost in his head that he missed Tommy’s entire monologue. It had been years since he’d done that sort of thing-- lose himself in thoughts of work. Theory and experiments, numbers and projections. It was different from the work he had been doing. He missed it.

“Dinner?” he repeated.

“Yeah. Do you know any good recipes? Something greasy? I think I need to feel comforted after the cold way you treated me today. Are you embarrassed of me, Philza Craft, that you can’t even talk to me in front of your doctor friends?” Tommy sighed pitifully, though he was not able to maintain his serious demeanor before guffawing like a bird and hugging Phil’s arm. 

“Only when you’re being a gremlin during work hours, mate. As for dinner, I know a recipe I used to make in med school… And then a little bit after.”

“What is it?” 

“Noodles. Oh, right out of med school and then after my time in the military, I was dirt poor, and my wife, well she and I can only cook two things between the two of us, so we’d always have these noodles and we’d make a game about how many random spices we could throw in before it loses the right flavor. She started the game because she complained I never put any flavor at all in it--” Phil stopped himself when he realized he had been rambling, and that Tommy was looking at him like he was looking at a stranger. 

“You have a wife?” 

“Uh… Had. I had one.” 

“Oh. Is she…y’know…” Tommy mimed his throat being slit, and Phil resisted the urge to slap him over the back of his head. Someone needed to teach this kid self-awareness. 

“No. No, she just left. A while ago.” 

In lieu of a comforting response, Tommy just whistled loudly. Luckily, they were in the elevator heading up to the penthouse and he could avoid the rest of the conversation. These fears seemed to be unfounded, as Tommy changed the subject back to the food.

“Can you help me cook, then? I’m no good at doing things alone the first time around.” 

Phil raised an eyebrow. “That’ll be okay with your brothers?” 

“Who cares what they think? I said I wanted your help.” 

Phil couldn’t really argue with that. Besides, this wasn’t his first dinner with Tommy on the rotation as the cook. Tommy had many talents, but domestic chores was not one of them. Perhaps a little guidance could go a long way. 

Wilbur and Technoblade were standing in the kitchen when they arrived, arms folded across their chests and weaponized glares loaded at each other. Techno was practically ripping the sleeves off his shirt by how hard he was gripping them. 

“Are we ready for my beautiful and awesome dinner?” Tommy called as soon as he turned the corner, undeterred by the tension mounting in the room. “Phil’s helping me cook!” 

Techno’s scrutinizing gaze turned to Phil. “You are?” 

“I am. Toms asked for help.” 

Phil had a healthy amount of curiosity-- that was important in the field of research medicine-- but that curiosity seemed to curb itself when it came to whatever was happening in the kitchen before Phil and Tommy walked in. 

Techno’s face softened a bit, his mouth evening out to a line and his eyebrows coming back down to a neutral position, though Wilbur’s face remained red and his eyes sheening with pre-tears. “What are you guys making?” 

“Noodles! Phil made them for his wi--” 

Phil slapped a hand over Tommy’s mouth, removing it only when he felt a tongue press against his palm. “Something from my med school days is all. Nothing fancy.”

Phil and Tommy got started while the other two went their separate ways, preferring to be called down for dinner than stand in each  others’ presence any longer. Not that Phil minded-- he couldn’t imagine trying to teach Tommy a recipe with their weighted words and double entendres. It was always a war on the mind when those two were at odds. 

Since it was a quick recipe, they were done in thirty minutes. It would’ve been faster had Phil not been instructing while cooking and trying to keep Tommy’s attention. 

Finally, the four of them were seated for a nice meal, and Phil never wanted to leave somewhere faster. The mood could only be described as morose. Techno was quiet but kept a pleasant look on his face, Wilbur was quiet but made sure everyone knew he was in a foul mood, and Tommy was, well, the more he spoke, the more his older brothers furrowed their brows. 

Phil could only sit and watch as Wilbur finally blew up. 

“Tommy, shut the fuck up before I cut out your tongue!” he threatened, sticking his fork in Tommy’s direction for added effect. 

“What the fuck? I didn’t even do anything.” 

“Your mouth?” Wilbur said, miming lips with his hand, “is still moving!” 

“Lay off him, Wilbur.” 

“Do not tell me what to do, Technoblade.” 

“Then don’t tell me what to do!” Tommy exclaimed. 

“Shut up!” Wilbur slammed his fist into the glass table, shattering the corner off. Phil pushed himself back when he heard the shatter, and immediately moved into doctor mode when he saw the blood. 

“Holy shit! The table! You broke our table!” Tommy gasped, but it soon turned into a laugh. 

“Tommy, shut up!” Techno ordered. Tommy didn’t find it as funny anymore.

In the bathroom down the hall was a first-aid kit loaded with all sorts of bandages, gauze, threads, and chemicals to clean wounds. The three of them were always prepared to come back with an injury, but this was probably the first time one of them had such a big injury from just being at home. 

Phil grabbed it before returning to the scene of the crime. “Techno, Tommy. Clean up the glass. Wil, come behind the counter with me.” Wilbur was catatonic, just staring at the pile of glass on the floor rather than do as Phil said. He pulled Wilbur by the back of his shirt collar and away from the mess. 

Tugging on his wrist, Phil managed to get a view of the wound. There were little flecks of glass embedded in his skin, blood running down his arm and staining his shirt. 

“Was my cooking really that bad?” Phil joked as he poured alcohol over the wound. It wasn’t that deep, and he wouldn’t even need stitches, though the side of his hand would be out of commission for a couple of days.

Wilbur was still vacant. 

Phil grabbed Wilbur’s chin and cheeks with his index finger and thumb. He moved his face around: left, right, up, and down. 

“Wilbur? What’s bothering you? What did you and Techno talk about that’s got you so worked up?” 

“You,” Wilbur whispered back.

“Me?” 

“I made our deal behind his back. Behind Tommy’s back. He didn’t…” 

Ah. Had it been Protesilaus that had confronted Phil in the cell rather than Orpheus, Phil wouldn’t have been so lucky. It seemed Techno had his heart on the bacteria plan. 

“So why’d you take it out on the table? Why’d you take it out on Tommy?” 

“Because I could.” Wilbur’s voice was ghostlike, barely any breath behind it, almost as if it were a crime to even say it. “It was my decision. My judgment.” 

“Wil…”

Suddenly, Wilbur grabbed hold of the sides of Phil’s arms, tugging on his shirt, fingers curling into the fabric with desperation. “Phil, it’s me. I’m the one with the visions. I-I-- this was all my idea in the first place. Who cares if I decide to change it? It was mine.”

Wilbur rested his forehead against Phil’s chest, still holding onto Phil like a castaway would to a life preserver when lost out at sea.  He took deep breaths, trying to match the beat of Phil’s heart. 

“I’ll talk to him, yeah? You are brothers. You shouldn’t fight like this.” Especially when they had such a large organization riding on them all getting along. 

Wilbur nodded, still focusing on his breath. He didn’t move for the longest time, but finally his arms fell to his sides and he picked himself up. Phil didn’t comment on the way his eyes rimmed red. He just packed up the first aid kit and returned to the dining room, which had been cleaned up by Techno and Tommy. They had returned to their seats and continued to eat in stilted silence. 

“Sorry about Wilbur,” said Techno. “Sometimes he gets a little too passionate.” 

“Why don’t we talk about that, yeah?” Phil suggested, returning to his own seat and finishing off his plate. It seemed like Wilbur left indefinitely to calm down for good. Phil would give him the space. “You’re unhappy with the compromise Wilbur and I made.” 

“He told you?” Techno said, rolling his eyes. “I just wish he came back to Tommy and I so we could put it to a vote. No offense, Phil, but we’ve poured millions into the research we’ve already done. We had a schedule.” 

“Technoblade, may I be blunt with you?” 

“Sure.” 

“It was a stupid idea.” 

“You’ve made your feelin’s quite clear on the subject, Phil, but that doesn’t change the fact that--” 

“Technoblade. Listen to me.” Techno complied. “You wanted my help. Even now, you still want it. That’s why you’re playing along. Wilbur made a good call. You are in over your head, and you know what? You were right. I do love you. I love you all too much to let you down, to let you ruin your futures. So we’ll do this the right way, and you’ll apologize to Wilbur for putting him down like that. Do you understand?” 

Both Tommy and Techno (rightly) were quite stupified by Phil’s rant, but Phil had no regrets. There was not a word he’d take back. These boys have been leaders since they were very young-- who had ever told them no and lived to tell the tale? They thought they could get away with biological genocide because everyone was much too frightened of them. Well, Phil cared too much about them to say yes to them. 

“Phil?” Tommy prompted.

“Yes?” 

“That was so fucking awesome. Can you tell Techno off again?” 

“Shut up, Tommy,” Techno barked.

“Don’t talk to your brother like that,” Phil reprimanded, but then remembered he had finished his rant. It was one thing to tell Techno he was doing bad business, but this was a family affair.

Yet, to Phil’s surprise, Techno bowed his head and mumbled out an apology to Tommy. Now it was Phil’s turn to be stupefied. Even when Techno stalked off to find Wilbur, his shock did not leave his body. 

Technoblade had originally been the one most wary of Phil. It was he who had voted against Phil’s entrance to the inner circle and he had been quite defensive when it was Phil who picked him up from the alley close to death. Of course, it was those extremes that allowed Techno to warm up to him so quickly. 

When you’re in, you’re in. 

It had been early in the morning, rather than a comm in the middle of the night, telling Philza that his mother had died in her sleep. They didn't find her until the help walked in to open her curtains-- she had been silent before she had been eternally silenced, letting the pain seep away until it took her with it. 

It was the same day they were beginning their clinical trials for their cure. 

Kristin had already left for work hours before the sun even came up, something that had become her new normal, so it was just Phil standing with an arm inside his blazer as a nurse calmly informed him over comms that it had been, “very peaceful. Very calm. No pain.” 

Not that they knew, anyway. This wasn’t said, but Phil was a doctor. If a tree fell in a forest and no one heard it, did it even make a sound? If his mother had been in pain when she was dying, and no one was there to hold her hand, tell her it was okay, who was to say she was not in pain? 

After the nurse hung up, Phil commed Kristin once, twice, three times before he gave up and commed Sam instead to tell him that Phil wouldn’t be there for the first day of clinical trials. 

Then he went to the home. 

It was an exquisite building in the upper levels-- only the best care for his mother-- with an army of nurses and caretakers constantly running around, placating a bunch of wealthy, elderly people dying of the thing that had haunted them since their youth. 

“Excuse me,” Philza said as he reached the front desk. “My mother. Last name Craft?” 

The man at the desk shuffles through a file cabinet before pulling out a thick pale yellow folder. Leafing through it for a moment, he pulls out a piece of paper and hands a pen to Phil. “Sign here. It’s an authorization to remove her body and prepare it for Final Resting.” 

Phil’s eyes flitted over the garbled paragraphs of legal jargon and signed. It was all so exhausting.

“May I see her?” he asked. 

“What’s to see?” the receptionist chuckled. When Phil didn’t laugh, the chuckle turned into a cough. “Yes. Go on right ahead. Third door on the right and then you know the way, right?” 

“Thank you.” 

Phil stuck his hands in his pockets as he walked down the hall, but he just as quickly took them out. Quite honestly, he didn’t know what to do with himself, and it seemed to be manifesting in hand gestures. He had tried to cry before arriving-- just to let it out once and be done with it, but he found that his eyes were limpid and dry. All he felt was a distant emptiness.

There were two nurses and a caretaker by the door of his mother’s room. They had masks on and one of them held a pale red bucket full of cleaning supplies. 

“Excuse me,” he said. “I’m Philza Craft, the patient’s son? I’d like to see her.”

“Of course, sweetheart. We can hold off if you want a few moments alone with her.” Phil nodded, much obliged, and stepped past them to enter the room. It was a white room with pink drapes made of a thin, felt material. Her bed, and by extension, herself, was covered by a thin blue sheet. Phil stopped by the window first. He looked down at the dozens of levels below him. 

She had been up here, above it all. She had every privilege to be cured, and yet… Just like everyone else with this plague, no matter the level they lived on, she too ended up dead. 

“I’m sorry I wasn’t fast enough, Mum. I really thought… I really thought it’d be ready in time. I really thought you’d still be here… For the spring. A spring wedding.”

He had been adamant about her survival. More than anything, he felt foolish. Phil was a doctor. Being smart was a necessity in his field. Being the best in his field meant that he was more than smart-- yet he had been blinded by his hope. 

Phil’s mother was still on the cot. He didn’t want to lift the sheet. He didn’t want to see her without a lively color. But if this was the last time he got to see her face before they cremate her, then he needed to man up. He needed to face it. 

His fingers edged along the sheet, slowly pulling it back, revealing her calm, wrinkled features. She had dark spots on her face and down her neck that were treated pustules. The rest of her body must have been much worse. 

Philza looked, but he had nothing more to say. Failure usually was silent. He knew his colleagues didn’t think this was a failure-- there were still millions who needed the cure, the antibiotics he created, but the one person Phil really wanted to give it to could no longer receive it. That was a failure.

Phil didn’t linger. He put the sheet back up and headed out, thanking the nurses that had taken care of her and gave them his blessing for them to remove her body. She’d be cremated and sent to Phil’s apartment, where he could decide what to do with her. He could put her on his mantle, or he could shove her in a storage locker, or he could throw those ashes down, down, down til they sprinkle onto the earth of the lower levels. 

He didn’t know yet. 

Phil tried comming Kristin again, but she was impossible to reach during her working hours. Her role didn’t have the same sort of flexibility as Phil’s, which he respected. She got a new role a few months ago that changed how she operated and what she did, and Phil wasn’t really allowed to ask about it due to the multiple NDAs she apparently signed. 

What does one do on the day his mother dies? He had said his goodbyes and he had no next of kin to inform. His schedule was cleared due to the circumstances. The meeting with his lawyer about the will was scheduled for tomorrow, and he already knew how the conversation would go. His mother didn’t have much, but what she did have was left to Phil, naturally. Her assets included a nice set of jewelry, a couple thousand credits, and a family recipe book that had belonged to Phil’s great-grandmother. 

The nearest taxi took him to the nearest bar. He wasn’t a day drinker, but he felt like today could be a respite from this conformed behavior. It wasn’t the way to celebrate his mother’s life, the woman who pushed him to work hard and never stop til he got what he wanted, but he’d never really grieved before, and it was the only way he felt he could. 

Yet somehow, this was not even the worst part of the day. 

Phil got through two shots of rum before paying his bill and deciding to head home. He didn’t like the way the bar lights flickered, making the corners of the room look like lingering ghosts. He didn’t like that he felt his mother squeezing on his shoulder, telling him to stop messing around. 

He didn’t expect Kristin to be home when he got back, but he did at least expect a call back. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have breaks, and Kristin had had time before to comm him. She would’ve mentioned it if there was something serious at work, wouldn’t she? Not that she had said much at all about her work. Well, she couldn’t. 

NDA. 

Not that they would’ve known. 

And she knew Phil was trustworthy. He had lips like a prison. 

Phil decided it was worth it to try a third time. 

He let it ring next to his ear, and this time it was short, just two until there was the sound of static. Then it started beeping, the way a comm would when it was disconnected. Phil couldn’t even leave a message. 

Something was wrong. Something was so very, very wrong. More wrong than one’s mother passing in the morning. More wrong than day-drinking on a work day. 

Phil practically flew out of his taxi, limbs spastic as he clawed his key into his door. It opened abruptly. He looked around wildly, more surprised at how normal everything looked despite the drastic changes he faced already. The couches were in the same position in the living room, and the coffee pot still had the leftovers he had made but had to abandon due to the news. In their bedroom, all her clothes were still taking up most of the closet, and the binder on Kristin’s side of the room still sat on the nightstand. 

Kristin usually used her tablet for everything, but every other night or so, Kristin would curl up in bed and scribble and tape things inside the binder. She never let him look. 

Now he was opening it. 

Phil’s heart clogged his throat. 

Pictures and pictures of flowers, churches and venues, color palettes, white dresses and calligraphy fonts… It was a wedding binder. 

Their spring wedding. 

Phil slammed it shut and tried to comm her again. 

“Pick up, Kristin, pick up!” His voice shook. He didn’t want it to shake when he spoke with her, so he took deep breaths. His mother couldn’t make it to the wedding, but they were still going to have one. This was his wife. He knew it from the beginning, this woman was going to be his wife.

More beeps. More static. 

“Kristin!” 

One of the most important parts of practicing medicine was keeping a level head. You wouldn’t want an anxious surgeon cutting your jugular and you wouldn’t want an insecure diagnostician taking back his findings every few months. Doctors were succinct and precise, something Phil was failing at currently. 

It had been a month since he made the deal with the Overlords. A new idea to topple the Regime, and within the year. Phil had eleven months left, and neither he nor his team had any idea on how to top biological warfare. They had brainstorming sessions, confined to the four walls of their lab. Said walls were covered with sticky notes and loosely taped papers full of notes and ideas. Someone brought string one day and so they started connecting them all over the place. It was a mess, which was exactly what Protesilaus said when he came to check in on them one day.

It had all become a little too much for Phil; this was no way for inspiration to strike. Of course, his main point of inspiration had disappeared, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t had successes since his breakthrough. 

He just needed to be away from the lab. 

Phil shrugged off his lab coat and placed it on one of the hooks by the door. “I’ll be back,” he told the closest person to him, which happened to be one of his new recruits, Dr. McChill. 

“Anything I can get you?” queried the new doctor. 

Phil shook his head. “Unless you can get me an epiphany.” 

There were guards stationed outside the door; Protesilaus’ call. It seemed despite their dinner table talk, he was still pushing to regain some of the control he felt he lost in the whole deal. Perhaps he was used to being the de facto leader despite parading around as a three-way tie, seeing as Theseus didn’t act this way at all. 

Phil gave the guards a curt nod, pointing down the hall towards the bathroom and hoping they didn’t follow him since there was no damn way he was just stopping at the bathroom. The bathroom looked like another lab: white tiled floors and shiny white paneled walls, sleek metal fixtures. He needed something dark and gritty, like the bar he was hoping to find somewhere soon. 

He hadn’t seen Quackity in a while, but Phil now knew how deep Quackity was in the Overlords’ pockets, so perhaps it wasn’t the best idea. 

He decided, perhaps against his better judgment, to head to a bar in the upper levels. There were a couple of motorcycles parked. Phil lifted his sleeve and pressed his watch up against the lock on the bike, smiling when the colors changed to one satisfactory to Phil. 

He mounted and rode off before anyone could even think he was leaving the premises. Sure, he’d get an earful from one of the Overlords. But that was only if they found out, and freedom tasted better when it wasn’t plagued by worries of recapture. 

The roads were pretty clear despite it being close to rush hour. Phil missed how busy things could be even though it used to be a pain to deal with. Perhaps a passing semi could provide the answers he was looking for. 

Phil wasn’t looking for any particular bar, just something that supplied alcohol. On his way up the ramps, he noticed a big fluorescent sign that read Tasty’s, and it brought Phil back to those six dollar margaritas and loud sports games. He didn’t know if he wanted to fully go back, but it had been so long since he’d been to a Tasty’s. 

Phil exited the freeway and pulled into the parking lot. His hair was a mess from the wind whipping it around under the helmet-- the curse of long hair-- but he smoothed it out before entering the bar. 

Phil had been to a lot of different Tasty’s. He never really had a favorite because they all looked pretty much the same on the inside, so he made himself at home at the bar, ordering a Long Island Iced Tea. It was that kind of day. 

The bartender got to work, and Phil observed the bar, finger tapping on the wood as he waited. The screens had their volumes lowered and brightness dimmed since there was a lull in attention of the bargoers, and the tables were a bit messy, which wasn’t out of the ordinary for a Tasty’s. It was sort of the grimy charm of it. 

“Oh, a message from the Emperor,” the bartender said aloud to no one in particular, but since there were only three people in the bar, present company excluded, Phil could only assume it was him. The bartender raised the volume of the screens. 

Emperor Schlatt stood in front of a podium, harsh light illuminating his grim visage. He clutched that podium like his life depended on it, veins popping from his fingers down his wrist. 

“...ur battle with the Overlords has been long, these past seven years. They haven’t been able to overcome us, and so they have come after you in different ways! Stealing our teachers, our journalists, and most recently, our doctors! Even our very best, Dr. Philza Craft, was kidnapped by these terrorists. Dr. Craft, the man who finally eradicated the plague that commenced the Dark Times! Well, I’ve had enough, and I’m sure you have too. So this is a message to the Overlords: for every day you continue to keep Dr. Craft hostage, we will execute your people in our care. Starting with this one!”

The screen cut to a video feed-- Phil didn’t know if it was live or not-- of a dark haired woman with deep bags and vacant eyes. There was something familiar about her, but it was only when she looked up at the camera, a damning glare sending shivers down his spine, that Philza knew exactly where he knew her from. 

“Clocks ticking, Overlords.”

Kristin.

Chapter Text

“Clock’s ticking, Overlords.” 

Technoblade sat back in his chair with his arms crossed as Tommy paced the room, waving his hands wildly. Wilbur was on the other side of the room, fingers tapping on the surface of the table. His face was thoughtful despite the tension in the room.

They had gathered in the meeting room initially just to discuss the developments of their interests, but it had been cut short when they were informed of a broadcast made by the Emperor. It was safe to say the message was not taken well. 

“How fucking dare--! I’m gonna kill that bastard! Threaten us? Threaten us? We could nuke his ratty ass whenever we want! Fuck, you guys, say something!” 

“This is tough,” was all Techno said. 

“We need to get her out,” said Tommy in a firm tone. “We don’t leave our people behind! Especially not someone as loyal as Kristin has been all these years.” 

“And their terms are Phil.” Techno wasn’t so much as talking to his brothers as much as he was processing the entire situation. Things had been going well. Too well. Of course the Regime would bite back. This was unexpected. When Kristin had been taken all those years ago, they had expected a bargain then. But they hadn’t heard anything in over five years, so they had assumed she’d been killed. Nothing to even suggest Kristin was still in their clutches. No leaked information or data. No body parts.

Now there was. Now it was for Phil’s return. 

“They’re not talking to us,” Wilbur said without looking up from his hand. There was a rhythm to his drumming, as if he was trying to compose a song while he sat with them. 

Techno furrowed his brows as he stood up and headed to the door. Outside, he instructed a guard to report back on Phil’s whereabouts. The news he received in return did nothing but foul his mood. 

“He’s gone. He’s been gone even before the broadcast.” 

“Dammit!” Tommy screeched. “What if he turns himself in? Now that he knows she’s alive, he’d probably do anything for her, the simp.” 

“Probably,” agreed Techno. “We might have to go on the offensive.” His head inclined ever so slightly in Wilbur’s direction, waiting for his word. Ever since their dinner fight, his brother had been withdrawn from Techno specifically. It was something Techno had been trying to rectify, but Wilbur was hard to reach when he got like this. When his ego overwhelmed the soul. Fine, he would feed it. 

Wilbur just hummed noncommittally. 

“Dammit, Wil, say something useful! This is Phil we’re talking about! He’s probably turning himself in as we speak!” 

“What say you, Protesilaus?” Wilbur said with a glint in his eye. 

“What say you, Orpheus?” Techno returned with the same energy. In a battle of wills, Techno would never lose. Not even to his brother’s ego. 

“Offensive. Consequences shouldn’t be too much of a problem if we’re successful on all other fronts.” 

“I agree. I’ll mobilize the troops.”

“Anyone gonna ask me what I think?” Tommy huffed.

Techno and Wilbur looked at each other, discordant thoughts finally aligning. 

“No.” 

Phil never cared for any of the government buildings. He didn’t appreciate the sterile architecture, the vapid colors, or the extreme amount of guards littered throughout the compounds. Even the public entrance to the Corrections Building was surrounded by a legion of guards with sharp, electrified spears. 

He put his hands up immediately when two of them advanced on him. 

“My name is Dr. Philza Craft. I’m--” he didn't even get to finish his improved speech when they shoved two metal bracelets on his wrists, connected by a thin chain. He was practically shoved inside the building and led down a series of winding hallways. No windows. The Corrections Building was known for its low escape rate. Less than one percent of people imprisoned inside ever leave, much less escape. 

Phil hoped he could beat the odds. 

He did find it odd he was being carted away like a criminal rather than the political refugee he thought he was playing. His brows furrowed. It was possible Schlatt knew his capture was a farce and Phil went of his own volition. That was actually more likely than not. Clearly he wanted him for something, so the game wasn’t over yet. 

“I want to speak to your superior,” he told the guards. “And I think they will want to speak to me.” 

“Shut up!” the guard barked, unlocking a thick cell door and throwing him in. Phil stumbled onto the ground. He rubbed his sore palms together as the door crashed shut behind him, locking him in. This was not going how he thought it would. 

Truly, he didn’t have many expectations for how the following events would happen. Phil just knew he needed to see Kristin, safe. Damn the Overlords. He’d been missing her for years. Her safety was his priority at the moment. And if what the Emperor said was true, then perhaps the Overlords would come for her. She was one of their people. 

Phil didn’t know how he was going to fix anything from inside a cell. All he could do was wait for word to get around that he was locked in a cell, and wait for the Regime to play their hand. 

It came six hours later. The door creaked open and three guards entered, grabbing him by the arms. Three meant they thought he was a flight risk of some sort. That, or they thought he was dangerous. That was a little silly, though. 

They took him to a small, minimalist room. Nothing but two metal chairs and a table. No windows. Not even a two-way. Phil looked around. No cameras either. They either didn’t care about what occurred in this room or this was their plausible deniability room. Phil looked down at his reddening palms again. This could get violent. 

Phil took a seat in one of the chairs and waited, tapping his fingers on the slick steel of the table. He hummed a tune to go with the beat, suddenly thinking of Wilbur and his music of the mundane. Would they see this as an act of betrayal? He didn’t mean to leave them. Well, he had certainly meant to go to the bar, but he hadn’t meant for all this. He hadn’t been thinking clearly. All he saw was his wife with her purple bags and stringy black hair, chunks missing. She was practically a ghost. His ghost. How could he leave her to haunt?

A young ginger man poked his head into the room. He had the face of a fox, sly and mysterious, but he acted like he didn’t know it. He tried to make his eyes wider and unassuming, his lips controlled and level, and his brows lilted like he was always surprised. It might’ve worked on someone else, but not Phil. 

“Hello, Dr. Craft! I’m Agent Dy. I’m just going to ask some questions.” 

Phil gestured for Agent Dy to sit. “I came here willingly. Were the cuffs really necessary, though?” 

“Just for show, I promise.” 

“So do they come off at any time?” 

Agent Dy pulled out a key and unlocked Phil’s cuffs. When he was free, he rubbed his sore wrists. 

“You’re a doctor, so I know you’re a logical guy. You’re able to look at things objectively, and make sound decisions. You probably don’t care for flowery words.”

Phil shrugged. He knew the way these people worked. They told you what they thought you wanted to hear; most times they’d be right about what that was. It was profiling. He thought Phil would care for blunt dissection, and he was right despite how rhetorical his speech was to get to this point of agreement. He was a fox. 

“I told the guards I was here for a deal.” 

“I heard. I just have some questions first.” 

Phil tapped on the table again, this time more out of annoyance than boredom. They were trying to stall him to get away with murdering his wife. His efforts were probably being wasted here. 

“I’m not saying a word ‘til I know Kristin Rosales is safe.” 

“That’s right!” Agent Dy snapped his fingers as if he made some sort of connection for the first time. “She’s your ex-fiance, isn’t she?” 

“We never broke it off. She’s still-- I want to see her.” 

“Did you know she’d been working for the Overlords?” 

“No, of course not!” 

“But she’d been leaking information to them. Information related to your previous research. The cure.” Agent Dy pulled out a small leather notebook and pen, clicking on the bulb. Extraneous ink stained the page as he played catch-up with the information he was receiving.

“I don’t know anything about that.” 

“How’d you come to be in the Overlord’s employment?” 

He’d somehow gotten to asking his questions anyway, Phil remarked internally. What a sneaky bastard. He could be honest, or he could continue this farce about capture even though they both knew the truth. All it was was a gamble: did the Regime need him more than they needed him incarcerated? 

Phil didn’t like chance. He liked to make his own odds. 

“How I got there isn’t really of any importance. What is important is that I know what they’re planning. I’ll tell you on the condition that Kristin Rosales is released from your custody. Charges dropped.” 

“All due respect, doc, but she’s a charged criminal. No amount of intel is worth a pardon.” 

“Even if it’s a matter of public health and safety?” 

Agent Dy clicked the pen against his notebook, like a tick, as he considered Phil’s words. “How about this: I’ll let you speak to her. You can exchange pleasantries.” 

“That’s not exactly worth much.” 

“I didn’t want to get mean, doc, but your options are limited. You’ve been arrested too, you know. You’re not just fighting for your ex’s immunity but your own, too. So I can guarantee you’ll be alright. Free of any charges. And as a freebie, you can speak to Prisoner Rosales.” 

“I’d rather her freedom over mine.” 

“Yeah, but the Emperor would rather yours over hers, so the decision’s been made. Take it or leave it.” Agent Dy shut his notebook and patted the table casually as he got up from his seat. “I’ll leave you to mull it over.” 

Phil glared at Agent Dy’s retreating form until he was alone again in the room. He had been out-maneuvered. It wasn’t like it was hard. Phil wasn’t a strategist, he was a doctor. This wasn’t within his purview. Espionage and negotiations and genocide… How did his life get like this? How did Kristin become entangled in something so large?

They had Kristin waiting in a room similar to the one in which Phil was interrogated. She looked worse in person, which back in the good old days would’ve gotten him a slap on the shoulder for saying. Now, she’d probably have to agree. His heart ached looking at the bruises that ran up along her arms, uncovered by the shortsleeve beige jumpsuit they outfitted all the prisoners in. Phil had been spared from the outfit change. He was still dressed in the jeans and long-sleeve shirt he had worn to the bar. 

Kristin didn’t look happy to see him at all, which only made the whole thing worse. Phil had dreamed of this day for so long. The day Kristin came back to him and they had that spring wedding and everything was almost right with the world. Reality shattered his fantasy. 

“What are you doing here?” she asked in a sharp tone. Her wrists and hands were enveloped by metal bracelets that were cuffed to the table. Even if she wanted to approach him, she couldn’t. More than that, this room had cameras in them. 

“I’m here for you. I’m working for a way to get you out.”

“Are you a fool?” 

“They were going to kill you, Kris. I had to step in.” 

“That doesn’t matter! You- you’re--” 

He slid into the seat across from her, covering her cuffed hands with his free ones. “Hey, hey. I chose to do this. You’re too important to me. More important than, I mean, not… The Overlord’s mission means nothing compared to you.” 

“Phil!” she protested.

“No, I mean it. Listen, the Overlords and I… We’ve come to an agreement, and I care for those boys tremendously, but I won’t compromise the life of someone I care about for their ideals. There’s always more than one solution. I made them change their plans once, I can do it again. Oh, Kristin, I’ve really--” 

“Phil, stop talking. You don’t know who’s listening.” 

“It’s fine,” Phil dismissed, “They know everything already.” 

Kristin stilled, keeping Phil locked in her gaze. He could feel her anger rising with each passing second. He said something wrong. 

“What do you mean?” 

“It was the only way I could talk to you. I’m going to get you out, too, I promise. I didn’t have enough leverage this time, but the Emperor obviously wants something from me, so--” 

“You… You gave them intel?” 

“I had to. They were going to kill you--” 

“Then let them kill me! Phil, I’ve been here for years. Death would’ve been a mercy! How could you--” She bit her tongue. Her hands shook within the cuffs, as if she were trying to pull them out. His hands glided up to the bare skin of her arms, rubbing soft circles with his thumbs. 

“I don’t want you to die. It’s not worth all that.” 

“It is. The Regime was bad when I was free. I can’t imagine how it’s been. Isn’t that why you ended up with them?” 

“I…” It was. He had worked for them because of the dangerously restrictive laws placed against doctors. He couldn’t treat people the way he needed to without his patients possibly being arrested and Phil himself being investigated for ‘malpractice.’ The Regime had been doing the same thing with teachers, constricting the education sector to a set learning plan. Anything that strayed from a Regime approved agenda was considered dangerous and dissident. Teachers taken away at a moment’s notice, sometimes in front of their wide eyed pupils. 

It was bad, but it had only been unbearable because Kristin wasn’t there. He was so sure of this. 

“The Overlords have a plan. Tell me, is it ready yet?” 

Kristin’s anger had dissipated at the thought of the Overlords.

“Kristin, how… involved were you with them? Agent Dy said you were just an informant.” 

“That’s… That’s right. I told them things about the Regime. About… your work. About the cure. I wanted to tell you. I wanted to introduce you to them, but you were so wrapped up in your work and your mother… How is she, by the way? Is she well?” 

“She… she didn’t make it,” Phil said quietly as he absorbed the rest of the information. Kristin had given the boys information about his work. They knew her and knew she knew him… Wilbur, that day in the bar, when Phil had introduced himself, how much of that recognition came from his reputation and how much of it came from his ex-fiance? When he told them about his wife, were they just humoring him the entire time? 

“I’m sorry, Phil. Oh, god, I didn’t know. What… Oh, darling.” 

“Kristin. It’s fine. It’s been… It’s been years.” He’d mourned two women that day. His mother, who he had been preparing to grieve, and his soon-to-be-wife, who had vanished without a trace. The real torment were the scenarios he’d come up with right before bed as he tried to imagine what had happened to her. Now he knew. 

“Still… I’m sorry.” 

“Did the Overlords know about us?” 

“I knew those boys well. Of course they knew about you.” 

Did that mean they had known where Kristin had been the entire time? His head hurt. 

There was a knock on the door. A warning. Their time was up. Phil wasn’t ready. He didn’t want to leave her yet, now that he’d seen her. More than that, she knew something. She knew something Phil did not, and the researcher in him wanted to know every little detail. He didn’t like to be in the dark about this. 

The door opened, and a head poked in. Familiar blonde curls covered the masked face of the individual, no doubt wearing an ill-fitting guard uniform. 

“Who here ordered an escape!” Theseus crowed. Kristin gasped, her limpid eyes beginning to water. 

“Theseus!” her voice was filled with a hope Phil had never heard from her before. The reaction he had hoped to garner from her when he had first walked in had been given to someone else. 

“Theseus, there are cameras. You can’t--” Phil tried to explain hastily, but Theseus shook his head like Phil was a naughty child. 

“We got it all covered. Lady Muerte, I got you a gift!” Theseus shuffled all the way into the room, juggling a small key in between his gloved hands. He unlocked her hands, and she shakily removed them from the cuffs. They were red and swollen and shaking from misuse, but grateful all the same when she pulled him into a tight hug. Phil watched them with a degree of separation, by the door. 

“We need to go,” he said with the ghost of any sort of tone. Kristin glanced at him and nodded. Theseus directed them out. It seemed like Overlord intel included maps of the Corrections Building. 

Every hallway looked the same to Phil. He didn’t know how Theseus knew which direction to point them in. It turned out that his disbelief in the boy was healthy, because after five minutes of running they ended up in a dead end. Just white walls crowding them. 

“Theseus! What now?” 

Theseus held his finger up at Phil, a lax smile the only discernible feature on his masked face. He was waiting for something. He began to push both Phil and Kristin back down the hall but stopped them from going any further. 

“We’re going to be seen,” Kristin hissed. 

“Ye of little faith! Just wait!” 

Two seconds later, an explosion sounded from where they had just stood. The hallway filled with heavy dust. Phil involuntarily breathed it in as he fought to keep his vision. The end of the hallway had been a victim to the open floor plan model. Waiting outside in a hovering platform were Protesilaus and Orpheus. 

“Time to go!” 

Theseus tugged on Kristin and Phil’s wrists, but both were suddenly hesitant to leave. Probably for different reasons. 

“I can’t,” Kristin said in a wet voice. Phil didn’t know how to feel hearing her close to tears. When he had first entered the room to see her, he probably would’ve shattered onto his knees. “Phil, Phil told them things. They know… I don’t know what they know, but…”

“Phil,” Protesilaus called from the platform. “Is this true?” 

“I can stop them from the inside,” Kristin said, grabbing onto Theseus’ wrist like her life depended on it. Maybe not her life. She wasn’t making any sense anymore. Too much dust fogged her mind. 

“I told them what I needed to so I could see Kristin.” 

“Which was?” Protesilaus snapped. 

“Our new project. I told them about the research.” 

“Phil, you fool!” Wilbur screeched. “And what the hell did you think to get out of that?” 

He could hear them in the distance. The heavy sound of steel toed boots hitting the tiled floors as they made their way to the commotion. 

“I thought I would see my wife,” he told them, punctuating the last word. “I thought we would find another way. Now I’m not so sure.” 

“What are you talking about, big man? Come on, you blabbed, but we can just restart,” Theseus coaxed, pulling on the doctor’s wrists. Phil didn’t budge. 

“You knew who Kristin was to me this entire time. You knew where she was. You never told me.”

“You never asked,” said Orpheus. 

“Goddammit, Wil! How would I think to ask? My fiance up and disappears one day and I somehow have to connect it back to you?” 

“Names, Phil,” Kristin hissed. “Take Phil. I’ll stay.” 

“No one has to stay! We don’t leave our people behind,” said Theseus. 

“Then why has Kristin been rotting in here all this time!” 

“You don’t understand,” said Kristin. “This is bigger than me.” 

“It’s not. Because I didn’t keep working for the Overlords because I believed in them.” He turned to the boys. “I kept working for the Overlords because I believed in you. There’s a difference. I believed in you boys. What you wanted for the world. Even with your nonsensical plan to infect the city, I stood by you three. And you just, just…” He tapered off. 

“It’s the best bet,” Kristin said quietly. 

“What?” 

“The bacteria. It’s the best bet. We restart. We build the world anew.” 

“Kristin!” Phil gasped, taking a shaky step back. Theseus’ grip had loosened around his arm. 

Who were these people? They were not… The boys, he understood. He knew they had a twisted streak. He had been working on fixing that. They didn’t grow up right; he understood that. 

Kristin. Sweet, lovely Kristin. Brilliant Kristin. She wasn’t like this. She wasn’t supposed to be like this. Had she always been like this? 

“We have to go,” Protesilaus said. He could hear the guards too. 

“Not without Phil!” Theseus argued, trying to reassert his grip on Phil’s shirt sleeve, but the older man twisted away. This wasn’t right anymore. None of it. He didn’t know anything anymore except for his morals. All this time he had suppressed them in the name of love and loyalty, but it had not been reciprocated. It could not be reciprocated. 

“He won’t come,” Kristin told them definitively. Her eyes were soft as she said it, as if to beg him to prove her wrong, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t understand how she could look at him like that and do the things she had done to him. She knew it too. 

Theseus didn’t let go. He kept looking at Phil, waiting for him to prove her wrong. The wait was futile, and it ended with Protesilaus coming off his platform to drag his youngest brother away. Then it was just Phil. 

The first year of medical school was the hardest. A lot of recent graduates would disagree and tell starry-eyed undergrads that it was the third year, but that was recency bias. With distance, Phil could say with complete certainty that it was the first. That was when it was all still new. The world was still bright. The drive to save people, no matter the cost, still took precedence over money and politics. It was pure.

For that reason, the system had to break it down. It had to carve it out with sterile scalpels and slice it up, make it small, make it easier to pull from the heart and leave an empty space. 

Nothing pure could remain. 

When Phil had graduated and left for the military, he thought he had won. He thought he had escaped and kept his sanity, kept his heart whole. Even when his mother died, even when Kristin was gone, even though his world had fallen apart, he still had his heart. He had that much. 

Now, though, Phil wasn’t so sure that had ever been true. 

Phil had returned to his old apartment. The one he lived in before he joined the Overlords. It was kept in pretty much the same conditions, though Phil noticed about a dozen things missing, just from a glance. His best bet was that his apartment had been ransacked, but the intruders at least had the decency to clean up. Could’ve been the Regime or the Overlords. The Overlords and Philza had officially severed ties. The Regime took his warnings seriously. He had told them what was most important, and he was released. They told him the hospital would be expecting him in two days time, which seemed like a mercy but Phil knew it was surveillance. To put it simply, he was their bitch now. 

But if it saved people…

If it saved people, it had to be worth it. This was how he got his heart back. The Overlords, Kristin… They were intent on killing people. People who had no stake in the fight. This was their idea of justice and freedom, but it didn’t free the right people. Bacteria wasn’t selective on who it infected. Kristin knew this. The boys knew it, too, for he told them as much. 

The Regime could handle this one. They could be heroes for once. For this one little thing, they could do that much. 

That was what he thought. 

A week back in the hospital, Phil found three men in dark, sharp suits and covered eyes in his office. He had just gotten back from doing rounds, a line of interns waddling behind him with clipboards clutched close to their chests. 

“Can I help you?” he asked casually as he stepped sideways into the room. Despite his important title, his office never reflected his status. It was a cramped room with one window. Just enough space for a small half-bookshelf, a desk, and an uncomfortable futon pressed tightly against the wall opposite of the desk. 

“Yes. The Emperor has a request for you, Dr. Craft.” Phil whistled as he threw down his papers onto his desk. Request was the polite way of saying command. 

“I’m in no position to deny our fearless leader.” 

One of the agents nodded approvingly at his compliance. “It’s about the level five threat you identified last week for us.” 

A knock sounded from the door. Agent Dy leaned on the doorframe with a styrofoam cup cradled close to his chest. He was dressed just the same as the other agents, but his visage held a levity the others could not muster. 

“Hey doc! You been caught up yet?” He took a large gulp of his cafeteria coffee and then crumpled the cup into a flat circle. He launched it toward the trashbin but did nothing when it ricocheted off the edge and made a home under Phil’s futon. 

“Your colleagues were warming up.” 

“They’re probably making it more severe than it really is. That thing we talked about last week-- that bacteria-- we were wondering if you had some sort of immunization or treatment for it.” 

“I’m not sure. From what I’ve seen, it’s an evolved form of what ailed us during the Dark Times. Theoretically, the current vaccines could hold up, but I reckon the mortality rate would spike if a large number of people became infected.”

“Is there a way to improve upon the current vaccine?” 

“Of course, but it depends on a number of factors. Time, money, sample size--” 

“Money and sample size is no issue. Time might be,” Agent Dy grinned. “We’ll just need around three thousand.” 

Phil leaned back in his seat, trying to keep his facial features controlled. Three thousand? In the face of the total population of Manberg, three thousand was nothing. It was by no means a normal sample size for a trial run, but Phil wasn’t foolish enough to think the Regime cared for scientific trials. 

“And…” Phil pursed his lips as he tried to find the most political verbiage. “And who would be receiving these vaccines?” 

“Anyone who can pay, as will be decreed by the Emperor.”

“Can you pay?” 

Agent Dy’s smile faltered. “Well, that doesn’t really matter, does it?” 

“Doesn’t it?” Phil countered. “The Regime has the resources to stop the threat point blank. The Overlords lost their only upperhand the moment I told you their plan. We both know that now that I’m out of the picture, they’ll return to their original idea. They’re going to go nuclear. They’re going to--” 

“Yes,” Agent Dy interrupted. “They will.” 

“The Regime really won’t do a thing?” 

“The Overlords are… popular with the people,” Agent Dy explained with a sigh. His face scrunched up as he tried to find the words to explain what came next, and Phil felt satisfied watching him flounder. It didn’t last long since that satisfaction relied on a future atrocity. 

“Where do I begin?” 

Phil adjusted the black bandana over his lower face. It chafed against his nose and warmed the limited air, but it was a necessary evil for what he had planned. First and foremost, Philza had a responsibility to the people of Manberg. He was a doctor. He saved people. He took an oath. That meant something to some people.

Once he had managed to get more information about the attack from Dy, Phil knew he had to act independently. He was probably the only one who could. 

At the corrections facility, he couldn’t go with them. They had broken his trust. That didn’t mean they had broken his love. That was an impossible feat. Love was like energy: always there, neither created nor destroyed. If he were to save them, he would need to stop them. 

It was like this: Phil knew that every disease had a patient zero, and more often than not, they weren’t human. He also knew that with this specific bacteria, it spread faster through rodents, who were common sights in the lower levels. Easier to infect. Negligence would pass the bacteria up the rings to the upper levels, eventually infecting everyone; however, the Overlords couldn’t know that three thousand ‘lucky’ people in the upper levels would pass through this trial unscathed, and the Overlords’ name would go down in infamy as the group that brought back the Dark Times. It wouldn’t matter what they were trying to do because they were risking too much. 

No sense among the four of them. How could they not know how terribly this would backfire? 

It was up to Phil. 

He rattled the thin rucksack on his back. From his front pocket he pulled out a small pair of binoculars and zoomed them all the way in to get the best view of what was happening on that rooftop fifty meters away. 

The three Overlords were there with a cage full of rats. Supervising in the shadows was Phil’s ex-fiance. She looked much improved since he last saw her, but some things weren’t so easily fixable. There was hardly any light in her eyes. 

Phil knew they’d be here because Wilbur’s ego couldn’t stand not witnessing the plan come to fruition, Technoblade’s controlling tendencies couldn’t stand any unintended consequences, and Tommy’s excitability couldn’t stand not being at the scene of the action. And Kristin needed to watch to ensure her loyalty hadn’t been for nothing. 

Phil unloaded the rucksack and began to assemble his sniper rifle. During his time in the military, he received specialized field training when one of the training officers noticed he was a particularly good shot; so good, the training officer tried to get him to quit as a medic and enlist in the special forces. Phil had to decline on a moral stance; he didn’t approve of killing. 

Now, Phil would put those skills to use again. He loaded the gun up with the darts and started positioning his gun for the shot. He’d have to be quick and accurate. His first hit would need to be Protesilaus, for he would be the only one quick enough to retaliate upon realizing they were being fired upon. This was not to say that the other two didn’t have their own set of skills, but Technoblade would and could ruin his plans. 

It seemed the boys were bickering about something or other. Phil could practically hear Tommy from his own rooftop, which was an impressive feat. Phil shut one eye as his scope lined up with Technoblade’s neck. Technoblade was still as the other two fought with their hands, making it easy for Phil to settle on a target. 

His finger wrapped around the trigger and pulled back. He didn’t wait for the satisfaction of watching it hit, he’d have to be confident in his own abilities this time. He moved to Tommy next. He was no Technoblade, but Tommy was still incredibly physically talented. The problem with Tommy was that he moved too much. Picking a concrete target would be next to impossible; he’d have to predict where he thought Tommy would move next. 

Luckily for Phil, Tommy was a loyal boy. The moment he noticed the dart in his brother’s neck, he was by his side pulling it out. It was at that moment that Phil took his shot. Wilbur stared straight into the barrel of Phil’s gun fifty feet away as he made the third shot. 

Kristin crept out of the shadows, desperately tugging on all three boys as they dropped to their knees. Wilbur swatted her hand away, instead lethargically pointing to the cage. Kristin nodded resolutely as Phil lined up his fourth and final shot. 

Phil tapped his fingers against his knees as he waited at Wilbur’s bedside. It took him a while to decide by whose side he should be when they awakened, but he figured Wilbur was most suitable. He was their Ideals. It was with him that all of this started in the first place. 

The man’s eyes were crusty as they fluttered open, but otherwise he was calm. He was even calm when he tugged on his wrists and ankles and found he could not move. Phil hoped his intentions to keep them loose were noticed and appreciated. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt anyone. 

“Philza,” Wilbur said even before he looked over at him. When their eyes met, Phil felt a rush of affection for him once more. He knew they were still salvageable. He knew because Wilbur had pleaded with him that they were. He had wanted to try it Phil’s way. If things hadn’t gone south with Kristin, Phil would still be in that lab working away at Wilbur’s ideal world. 

“You’ll be groggy for the next two hours. Side effect of the tranquilizer.” 

“Where are my brothers?” 

Phil hummed. “In their own rooms.” 

“Where are we? I don’t… I don’t know this place.” 

Phil smiled at the thought of Technoblade waking up in his room alone, unfamiliar, and panicking. All of his control lost with his limbs tied down to a bed, brain still muddled from the tranquilizer. Phil shouldn’t find it so funny, but he did. He should probably check on him next, then. 

“It’s my own place. My mother’s… My mother’s old house. Over the years, I’ve done some renovations.” When he had first started getting his paychecks as a doctor, he’d been astonished by the amount of zeroes. He’d lived his whole life on a budget that he’d been almost uncomfortable with the amount of money he had come into, but he knew one thing he wanted to do was ensure that when his mother was cured from her illness, she’d have a beautiful and big house to return to. That dream never came true. Now the house would have other uses. 

“Why…” Wilbur trailed off. Just thinking about speaking must be painful for him, and that’s all Wilbur ever did. 

“‘I shall do by my patients as I would be done by,’” Phil quoted. “Do you know where that’s from?” 

“Hippocratic oath,” Wilbur replied. 

“I took that oath. I keep my promises.” 

“What happened to the promise you made me?” 

“I’m keeping it, Wilbur. I’m keeping it.” 

Wilbur tugged on his wrists, teeth grinding together from pure anger. “This isn’t keeping it! You’re stopping me! You’re stopping us!” 

“I promised you we’d do things the right way. I already told you releasing the virus was wrong. You didn’t listen. You have no idea what kind of damage you were about to unleash, not only on the population, but yourselves.” 

“Why are you telling me this? Why not Technoblade?” 

“It’s your idea. It’s always your idea, Wil. Techno may be the executioner, but you… You would’ve been the reason.” 

Wilbur averted his gaze, hiding the guilt in his eyes. At least he had the decency to feel remorseful. That was good. That meant he’d come around. It meant the other two would eventually come around too. Kristin… That was another story. Another headache. 

Phil continued, “Not so long ago, you kept me captive. You treated me like family.” 

“We didn’t--” 

“--I’m not blaming you. It’s a fact. And I do by you as you have done to me. You’ll get your wish, Wilbur, the right way. My way. And I’ll know you’re safe, and that freedom is ethical.” 

“You--! You’re delusional!” Wilbur declared, his gasp a ghostly reverberation. “How long have you been like this?” 

Phil smiled, shaking his head fondly. There was no transformation. There was a hibernation. His heart had been induced into unconsciousness by depression and nihilism. His job increasingly burdened by laws and sanctions placed by ignorant lawmakers. His wife gone. Those boys roused his need to help people again. Beyond the motions of hospital rounds and medical research. They gifted him a higher purpose, and he believed in it so much because he believed in them. He believed in change and he believed in bettering people’s lives because they wished for it. But they were young. They thought they understood the costs, and they thought they made peace with it, but that wasn’t true. They thought to win the war for freedom, one would have to sacrifice for it. Phil knew better. Phil knew other ways. He would show them. He would show them true freedom.

Phil pulled out a syringe filled with orange liquid, flicking it twice as he leaned over to Wilbur, pricking his neck again. The man’s eyelids fluttered quickly, panicking, until the heaviness slowed them down until his eyes were all the way shut and his breathing evened out.