"I think we just got robbed," Ghostbur said thoughtfully. "That's a bit of a rocky start to this vacation, but we can still have fun!" He grinned, then jumped up and down when an idea occurred to him.

"Let's write an itinerary!" He exclaimed gleefully. "Let me see, I'll get some wood first. Also, you know how Dream blew up all of our stuff?"

"Yeah?" Tommy said glumly.

"I've still got my tools!" Ghostbur said, showing Tommy the diamond tools still in his possession.

Tommy perked up a little. "Sweet!" He tried his best to muster a smile, for Ghostbur's sake, and Ghostbur responded enthusiastically.

"Yeah!"

Tommy looked around distractedly, and then squinted when he noticed a ruined portal in the distance. "I see a ruined portal over there, I'm going to go look at it!" He shouted towards Ghostbur, who had wandered off to harvest materials.

The chest in the ruined portal didn't offer much, just a little armor and some glistening melon, but Tommy had spotted a village nearby. He resolved to check it out later and returned to Ghostbur.

"Hey, Ghostbur, pass me the obsidian." Tommy said, keeping his tone neutral.

"But I kind of want to keep it." Ghostbur argued, sounding a little saddened.

"No, Ghostbur, seriously, pass me the obsidian." Tommy repeated firmly.

"But-"

"Ghostbur, please."

There was a pause.

"Okay," Ghostbur said cheerily, and dropped the obsidian to Tommy. Tommy lit a fire, and the obsidian immediately burned and disappeared.

"Oh." Ghostbur said, looking sadly at where the obsidian had been moments before.

"We don't want any of his pity things, okay?" Tommy said to Ghostbur.

"Okay, I guess." Ghostbur replied thoughtfully.

They both split off to gather more wood, while Ghostbur shouted encouragement and cheery things Tommy's way, like, "lads on tour," and, "we're on vacation!".

When Tommy returned to the dirt hut to sit underneath the overhang of dirt that protected them from rain, he sighed.

Ghostbur appeared in the doorway and patted Tommy's hair. It was a strange sensation. Ghostbur's hands were cold and they slipped through Tommy's hair, completely dead and void of warmth. Tommy shivered, but Ghostbur didn't seem to notice the reaction he had caused.

"You remember I built almost the entirety of L'Manberg, all with my own hands?" Ghostbur asked encouragingly.

"Yeah." Tommy didn't want any reminders of L'Manberg at the moment.

"We'll do it again! I'll build us a little nation right here." Ghostbur smiled. Tommy looked up at Ghostbur and tried for a smile.

"Yeah! That's the spirit! I'll build us a little nation, and it's going to be really fun!" Ghostbur said enthusiastically. "Let's build!"

Tommy straightened abruptly, knocking against Ghostbur once more. The sensation startled Tommy, the cool, complete deadness of Ghostbur. He looked up at Ghostbur and felt his heart squeeze in his chest at the reminder of the real Wilbur.

"I'm going to go get some food." He announced. "I saw a village a-ways away, so I'm going to go see what I can get there."

After wandering around the village and harvesting the crops and haybales sitting around, Tommy returned to find Ghostbur cheerily digging up clay from the riverbed.

"For terracotta! And then we can dye it blue and build ourselves a little house."

"Not a house," Tommy found himself correcting without thinking. When Ghostbur looked at him questioningly, Tommy explained himself.

"It's not a house we're building. You're right. This is a vacation. And we're going back. So we're only building a campsite, because we're not staying here for a long time."

Ghostbur blinked. "Sure."

Later on, Tommy found himself alone in a dark cave, mining iron with stone tools. He sighed. For months he'd been on the server, and he'd had to start afresh.

Things were not looking up for him.

***

Back in L'Manberg, Tubbo rubbed his forehead with his hands, feeling exhausted from the argument he'd fought with Fundy and Quackity after Tommy had left. Not only had watching Tommy leave hurt Tubbo more than he'd ever admit, he had to battle the disappointment of his cabinet members.

"Look at this!" Quackity said, frustrated beyond explanation. "We are nothing! We have nothing. This nation is nothing. But you are the president, you are something, Tubbo. Now we're being bossed around by a guy who you once again negotiated with. We are nothing!"

"What do you suggest, Big Q?" Tubbo shrieked, his patience snapping.

"What do I suggest?" Quackity looked terribly indignant. "I suggest the plan we had. The plan, that I might remind you, we'd all agreed on until you changed it last minute!"

"So we go against him with this Sharpness I sword, huh?" Tubbo threw his sword to the ground, and it clattered to the ground with a clang, the rain spluttering down around him and soaking his suit through to the skin.

"It wouldn't have been just us!" Quackity threw his hands up in his air. "We would've gotten more people on our side!"

"Our goal was to get these walls taken down. This was the only solution that would do it after what Tommy did!" Tubbo argued, feeling worse and worse by the minute. He stared at the horizon.

"Tubbo," Quackity's voice calmed a little, but Tubbo had no wish to look back at him. "You realize that the little bit of power, the little bit of dignity, of respect we had left, you just gave it away. We had something. We were going to go against him. But now we have nothing. There is no real government anymore, because you've just basically relinquished your position to Dream, letting him pull all the strings and control what goes on here. We could've done something. We could've done more. But now there's nothing."

For a moment, the only sound around them was the pattering rain on the ground, seeping into Tubbo's hair and dripping down into his eyes. Tubbo did not cry. But if he had, no one would've known.

"Let's talk in the van." Fundy said, sounding dejected.

The three of them all filed down to the van and sat around the table. Their clothes dripped water onto the floor, but no one paid it any mind. Instead, Tubbo's gaze was fixed firmly past Quackity's shoulder and outside the gray windowpanes that shut out the rain from the inside, but did nothing to quench the storm swelling inside of him.

"Why did you switch up at the last moment?" Quackity sighed. "Why?"

Tubbo swallowed, tilting his chin up slightly as he forced himself to make eye contact with Quackity. "It was for the best. Tommy thinks too emotionally. This was the logical thing to do. Now we don't have a target on our backs."

Quackity exhaled into his hands, covering his face. "You don't understand. First it's Tommy. Next it's going to be Fundy and me and then it's going to be you. We don't have anything anymore. We have nothing."

Tubbo fixated his gaze on the red potion brewing inside of the brewing stand, silently observing the way the light inside the van glinted off of the glass and almost unnoticeable particles drifted off from it.

"What is next for us, Tubbo?" Quackity challenged softly. Tubbo's guts twisted inside of his stomach, and he set his jaw firmly.

"I don't know." Tubbo answered calmly. He leaned his weight on the table, feeling exhausted. The rain beating down around them, which should have been calming, instead formed a sort of mocking ambiance.

"Look, Quackity, I remember you said once that we shouldn't focus on what happened, on what occurred in the past, but rather what is happening right now. Yes, Tubbo made a mistake, but I do have something that may or may not help. It is... a written L'Manberg hit list. I wrote down everything that has fucked L'Manberg over and my idea is that if we just take care of the people on this list..."

"Can I see that book, Fundy?" Tubbo's gaze sharpened on Fundy, and Fundy handed it to Tubbo over the table.

"L'Manberg's official hit list," Tubbo read from the first page.

On the list was Jschlatt, Wilbur, Technoblade, and Dream. Out of all of them, only two were alive, and they were their two major targets.

"Once we get rid of those two drastic dangers to our nation, we'd be okay." Fundy reasoned.

"You're right, Fundy." Quackity said. "Let's forget the past. It was a big mistake, yes, but at the end of the day, we have to look forward."

"I think that later, you'll thank me." Tubbo said dully. "I don't think you see it yet. Give it time."

"I don't want to talk about that." Quackity interjected. "Thank you for the hit list, Fundy. We need to get ourselves back on track."

He looked up at both of them. "Follow me."