The world flashed white in front of Phil, the complete opposite of when he had died. He blinked the white dots away, trying to form his surroundings.

Slowly, it came to him. He was in a stone box, with two torches on either side - to keep mobs from spawning, he assumed - and surrounded by straw. His wings were laid open delicately, his feather lying comfortably on the straw beneath him. Phil's heart warmed at the sight of his body being so well taken care of after he had died.

Time to break out. Phil thought, reaching for his pickaxe. Then, he realized that he didn't have it on him.

Wonderful.

Phil spent the next minute of his life punching through stone with his fists, and then another minute of his life punching through another piece of stone with his fists so that he could actually stand up. Dusting himself off, the avian blinked at the strong light.

He spotted his tools almost instantly, hung up on the wall neatly. Sighing in relief, he took them off the walls and placed his sword at his hip. Phil also saw his armor, but decided to not carry those around with him.

The ground shook beneath his feet, but Phil caught his balance. The shaking stopped and Phil sprinted out of the room, suspecting that something was wrong.

He had been placed in the arena. Phil ran past the doors in the hallways, acknowledging that Grian had fixed the needle pit, covering it up. He raced up the staircase, out the doors and into the battlefield.

Phil immediately noticed the dust rising from the Eaglestar's base. Coughing, he shielded his face and kept going.

Through the yellow mist, Phil distinctly saw a body fly up, into the air. Shouts and screams penetrated his eardrums, and Phil snapped open his wings, dashing up into the sky.

A crash shook the ground beneath him, causing his vision to shift at the sudden movements. His wings faltered for a second, but Phil regained his balance quickly. Looks like I'm not used to the mortal world yet. He thought, moving up at a steady pace.

His arms reached out just as the body fell. Phil caught GoodTimeWithScar, limp, before he crashed into the ground.

Phil gently lowered himself onto the floor, letting the body fall from his arms. He stared for a single moment at Scar's still body, not understanding why there was no grief inside of him, then the screams reached him.

"Scar!" Grian's british voice, stretched to higher an octave, reached him. The builder raced forwards and skidded to his knees in front of Scar's body. "Scar! No! I-" The avian-god, the avian-bended over, overcome with grief.

"We checked! We checked and double-checked that there was no one in the building! How could you have-" Grian choked, turning towards Wilbur, but the latter was staring at Phil.

"We... we did check." Wilbur murmured, almost zombie-like.

A high-pitched scream brought both the father and son's attention to Grian. The avian was waving his arms frantically as Scar's body slowly dissipated, blending into the dust swirling around them. "Scar! Scar!" He looked around frantically. "Why-why is he disappearing!? Scar!"

A faint reply came. "Grian?"

The avian was pale as he looked towards where the voice came from. He stood up on wobbly legs as a figure rose in the debris of the mountain. "S-Scar?"

The terraformer appeared, pushing away stone and dirt before standing up straight, looking directly at Grian. "Grian!"

The two ran at each other, and Grian wrapped his arms and his wings around Scar. "Oh, Scar, I'm so so sorry, we were sure that there was no one in the building before we blew it up... please, it was just a prank!"

"It's ok, Grian." Scar muttered, patting the hysterical avian's back. "I was in the secret basement... none of you would have known."

"What the fuck just happened here?" A new, monotone voice asked.

"Techno!" Wilbur cried, turning towards his brother. "You-you're here!"

Techno, however, wasn't paying attention to Wilbur at all. Instead, he looked to his father. "You-you're not dead?"

Phil opened his mouth to speak, but Techno continued, turning to Wilbur. "You told me he was dead! You-did you do that to lure me back?!"

"Techno-I-" Wilbur stuttered, surprised with the sudden accusation.

"Did you?!"

Phil stepped in, placing a hand on each of his sons' shoulders. Oh, how he missed human contact. "No, Techno, he didn't." Phil said, surprised at his calm voice. "I died. I was dead. But... I came back."

"I'm glad." Grian breathed, letting go of a choked Scar. Phil turned, meeting his fellow avian, who had a bright smile on his face, and relief in his eyes. "I'm so happy that you're back, Phil."

Silence lingered a moment more, and then Wilbur and Grian leaped in for a group hug, the latter dragging Techno with him. They piled on, crying, laughing, as they hugged the figure who meant a friend, a father, a mentor to them.

"I've missed you, Dadza." Wilbur mumbled into Phil's feathers, hugging the wing tight.

"I would have killed Dream over and over again just to avenge you." Techno whispered, clutching his own cape tightly.

Grian didn't say anything, but Phil felt the avian's warm feathers brush his own, cold ones, almost warming his death-touched wings back to normal.

Just almost.

"Father, why are your feathers...?" Wilbur held up one of Phil's feathers, letting it catch the light. Phil smiled sadly as he saw the blackish tint reflecting off the gray, turning the feathers a shade darker.

"The effects of death, I suppose." He said softly, taking the feather away from Wilbur and examining it carefully. "All must pay a price, and I suppose this was mine."

"Yeah, while we're on that topic, how exactly did you come back?" Techno asked, holding his cape tighter towards him. A movement of self-defense, to hide weaknesses, Phil remembered. It was still hard to recall some memories of his past life, especially those from the original Dream SMP.

He opened his mouth, but Grian held up his hands. "Wait. Tommy should hear about this."

Wilbur chuckled. "I bet he'll throw a tantrum once he knows we've been through this and didn't wake him up. Just watch. Those will be his exact words."

~~~

Phil marveled at how accurate Wilbur's prediction was.

"And you didn't WAKE ME UP?" Tommy shouted, throwing his hands up in the air. "You were going to blow up the mountain and didn't WAKE ME UP? WHY? WHY COULDN'T I JOIN YOU IN COMMITTING ARSON?"

"It's not arson, Tommy." Grian said patiently.

"Then, then... THE CRIME OF BLOWING EVERYTHING UP, THEN!"

"You know, your vocab really needs a touch-up." Techno said nonchalantly.

"WELL HOW AM I SUPPOSE TO KNOW WHAT IT'S CALLED?" Tommy raged, stomping around.

"I think it is arson." Wilbur said quietly.

"Wait, actually?" Phil asked. "Blowing things up is actually identified as arson?"

"Arson is a federal crime to damage or destroy, "by means of fire or an explosive," any property..." Wilbur read off his phone. "I didn't know that."

"Me neither." Grian said thoughtfully.

"AHA! WHO NEEDS A BRUSH-UP ON VOCAB NOW, TECHNO? CERTAINLY NOT ME!" Tommy yelled, wagging his finger at his brother.

"We should call Sapnap to confirm." Techno drawled in his usual manner, not paying attention to Tommy's taunts.

"Let's get back on track here." Phil said, clapping his hands but secretly glowing with warm affection on the inside.

"Yeah, right, um..." Grian mumbled. "So you died."

"And I came back." Phil said. "I came back."

"How?" Wilbur asked, leaning forwards with interest. "How were you able to die and then come back?"

"Maybe he didn't die at all." Techno suggested. "Maybe you were just on the border between life and death." With that statement, he shot a deadly glare at Wilbur, who shrunk.

Grian placed a hand on Techno's shoulder, calming him down. "It's impossible. I checked the body myself. We all did. Phil was dead, there was no question about it."

"Yes, I was." Phil added, wanting to stop his sons from fighting any further. "Listen up, cause it's a long story.

~~~

"Interesting." Wilbur tapped his chin. "So you met death, who told you that you could come back, and you took ten steps and did."

Phil nodded. "That sums it up pretty well."

"And, you learned that we hermits can die infinitely, and will respawn at the last place we spent the night." Grian said thoughtfully. "So that's why Scar didn't die."

"And we have three lives each." Tommy said. "Now what?"

"We kill Dream for revenge, obviously." Techno said, hand going to his sword.

"No!" Grian stepped in front of Techno. The pink-haired man looked surprised, and Grian took a step back. "No. I'm sorry, Techno, but we can't. Killing Dream won't do anything. Killing Dream would only make everything worse, and throw us into war again."

"You threw yourselves into war when you and Wilbur blew up Scar's mountain." Techno retorted, resuming his position in leaning against the wall.

"I had no intention to blow the mountain up to start war again." Grian said. "I simply wanted revenge for Phil. I didn't mean to kill Scar in the process."

"What he says is true." Wilbur cut in. "Both of us made sure that there was absolutely no one in the building before we set off the TNT. I guess we missed a spot."

"That would be an understatement." Phil said, chuckling.

"So..." Tommy trailed off, thinking about what they could do.

"I'll go to Scar and Dream for a formal apology." Grian said, holding his head high. "I'd like to. I blew up Scar's mountain, and Dream... well, he's the leader on their side."

"You, Grian?" Techno blinked, taken back by the avian's boldness. "Go up... against Dream?"

"I'm not going up against him, Techno." Grian said. "I'm going to apologize. And I'll go alone."

"See, that's what you should learn." Wilbur muttered to Tommy. "To be polite and learn to fucking apologize."

"No swearing, Wilbur." Grian said, almost joking, but his face was too serious to actually be. "I'm going to go visit Dream." He took a deep breath.

"Wish me luck."

WC: 1639

A/N: i didn't know that blowing things up counted as arson... i thought it was only fire-

ok so i'm starting to write the next 'part' of the story... and that's basically a part of oneshot-like interactions between the dsmp and hc people, and i don't have many ideas, so you guys are gonna need to help me. i have some ideas, but not enough. fluff and angst both work, ty!

'edited' on Jan 23rd 2022