"We're coming home!" Jack declared excitedly.
Niki perked up.

She shook it off when an arrow sliced through the surface of the water.
She quickly returned to the hard ball that sat at the bottom of the small lake.

She circled it protectively as their family fought above them.

Good.
They were coming home.
That's good.

●●●●

Techno grunted as he curled over himself once more to puke.
The rain was clearly about to start up again.

Techno waved the younger off with a huff.
"Go back inside, it'll start raining again soon," Techno informed standing up and taking in deep breaths.

Hesitantly Ranboo left the older to hide back inside the cave.
They had no clue where the sudden sickness came from. One moment he's just fine chilling with Ranboo the next he's heaving and rushing out of the cave to puke.

He stepped back inside the cave when the rain started back up.
Good timing.

He sat down across the teen. He pried his shirt off chucking it off towards the entrance and then chugged a bottle of water.
The taste didn't leave him alone though.

He let out a soft unsatisfied huff as he took another bottle of water out, gurgled some of it, moved so it'd be out in the rain instead, and spit it out.
"Maybe you should-" The Enderian began.
"Don't suggest I take a nap, kid. It ain't gonna happen," Techno scolded returning to his spot.

"I wasn't! I was going to... Suggest you eat some soup or something," Ranboo quickly rerouted it and Techno chuckled softly.
"Sure, the only problem is it's raining again," Techno replied.
Ranboo's eyes sparkled and Techno raised an eyebrow.

"I don't like that look. Ran, it will hurt you," Techno quickly shot whatever the idea was down.
Ranboo huffed.
"I know the rain will," He rolled his eyes and shifted a bit.

"Say, Techno?"
"Yes?"

Ranboo pointed to the dark scar on Techno's abdomen.
"Where'd you get that?" He asked.
Techno bit his bottom lip anxiously, thinking of how he was supposed to explain to the 14-year-old what happened.

"I uh- I got myself into a bit of trouble. Bad trouble. They uh... They ended up attacking me and leaving me for dead..." Techno explained delicately.
"Oh?" Ranboo cocked his head.

"Yeah... Wilbur ended up finding me and helping me," Techno explained carefully.
"Aww, how'd he know you'd be there?" Ranboo asked perking up.
"He didn't, he stumbled across me and rushed to my aid," Techno replied.

"Wow, maybe it was twin instinct?" Ranboo teased.
Techno chuckled with a soft smile, a smile Ranboo had personally yet to see.
"Yeah, maybe....." Techno agreed softly his fingers tracing the sword scar.

●●●●

Tommy and Jack slipped under an overhead landing. Jack slipped out from under the patagium with a soft sigh.
Tommy let out a soft grumble.
"No way I'm doing that the whole time," Tommy declared with a glare at the older.
"We can't just wait it out," Jack huffed.

Tommy bit the inside of his cheek.
He had no mon- wait!
"Jack do you have any gold?" Tommy asked.
Jack scoffed and pulled out almost an entire stack worth of gold.
"Of course, I'm from the Nether, remember?" Jack teased, back to shivering.

Tommy smiled.
"Great, here's what we're gonna do. We're going to go as fast as we can over to that store. Once there we are going to take refuge inside where I'm going to see if I can find you some kind of raincoat!" Tommy declared pointing to the store.
Jack nodded.

So, as quickly as they could, they booked it to the store and slipped in.
The jingle of the bell above the store alerted the bored clerk of their entrance.

Though he had never been self-conscious before, Jack found himself tugging at the toga (more accurately a Chiton but who's being accurate here considering we called what the piglins wear a loincloth) to cover up more of himself as the woman stared the duo down.

2 boys wearing dresses from the looks of it.
Of course, she was going to stare!
Didn't make it any less awkward...

Tommy waved at her politely before turning to Jack.
"You don't know what a raincoat is, right?" Tommy asked.
Jack gave him a look of calculation as if trying to put the dots together.
Then, he pointing his thumb towards the glass door behind him, "it has something to do with the spicy liquid falling from the overworld roof right?"

Tommy blinked at him.
"Roof?"
The 2 stared at each other innocently confused.
"Yeah... The blue roof the spicy liquid is falling from?" Jack replied.

Tommy blinked, thinking back to the Nether.
The Nether didn't actually have a sky, did it? It was just red and it stopped as if the entire thing was underground.

"You didn't have a sky back home, did you?" Tommy asked.
"Sky?"
"Was it called the 'Nether Roof'?" Tommy asked carefully.
Jack's eyes sparkled and he nodded.
"Yeah! The highest you can go is the bedrock above! Supposedly it's just neverending black above that, but no one knows for sure," Jack shrugged happily.

"Oh. Well, we can go up for forever, if you have the proper tools, and we stop at 5y below before hitting bedrock," Tommy explained.
Jack cocked his head.
They had another block in common besides obsidian and gold!

"We call our 'up' 'sky'. And the stuff falling from it is water, like what Niki has to breathe? And it's called 'rain'," Tommy explained.
The woman gave them an odd look.
"So Niki can be out and about in this?" Jack asked.
Tommy nodded happily, "that she can!"

Tommy took Jack's hand in his own and lead him further into the store, no longer taking up the doorway.

●●●●

Fundy raked his hands through his hair, carefully unknotting it.
He looked up when a certain green boi landed heavily beside him only to be launched back into the air and fall back down again.
It happened 2 more times before he was low enough where he could stop himself by sitting down.

The rain melted his odd slimy skin as it blobbed off him.
He never seemed to mind it though.
Instead, he ran a hand through it, scooped the extra into a ball, and dropped it lazily onto the grass with little care.

"Charlie," Fundy greeted carefully fixing his long shoulder-length hair.
The boy in question peered through the brush to watch as the group as they tore angrily through the people who had used them, taking them from their homes, their families, and shoving them towards a hole so far beneath the surface it was hard to breathe.
The men who had taken them and showed them off like prizes they won to a woman locked up in her own right hovering over a giant hole.

The woman stared blankly at them. They could tell she had cried many a tear in her lifetime and they didn't give her enough water for her to cry much anymore.

They had locked them away.

She had broken them free. She led them to each other and ushered them to the exit.

"Aren't you coming too?" They had asked frantically once it was ear the guards noticed their absence.

"I cannot," she had replied solemnly.
They began to leave but the boy whose body had been taken over by stars quickly stopped and turned to her, "wait wait, why not?!"

She stared at him sadly for a second not saying anything as the guards drew ever nearer.

"If I go too, they'll kill my galaxy."

Fundy startled out of his thoughts as pressure sat on the back of his hand, he hadn't even realized he had placed it on the ground beside him.
Instinctively he almost swatted it off. But knowing what it could be, he resisted the urge, having already done it a few times he knew for a fact it was hilarious but wouldn't be too fun for his friend, and he looked down to check.

Sure enough, a 5-inch tall boy stared up at him with blue-covered red eyes.
"Dude! I was totally just about to yeet you on accident, again! I thought you learned your lesson last time not to sit on my hand when I'm deep in thought!" Fundy scolded the small being who just snickered watching carefully as his angry expression and tone got betrayed by the happy little wags of his tail and perk of his ear.

"Brooding, be was brooding," Charlie corrected as he studied the group.
"Should we help?" Charlie asked.
"If they need us," Fundy replied.

Fundy cupped the small boy, who was actually 20 which is funny as h*ll, and lifted him up away from the ground.
The boy sat content though.

Wanting to ruin that, he held him out to Charlie.
"Want him?" Fundy offered.
Charlie's eyes glistened joyfully and he bounced backward, ready to take the small being who kept insisting he would surely drown in the layer of slime that covered his body into his hands.
"Of course!" Charlie replied holding his hands below Fundy's so he could drop him into them.

"No! No no no no no no no! I'll drown! He'll suffocate me! Noooo!" The 5-inch tall boy screamed rushing away from the boy who was covered in 1-inch thick slime.
Said slime boy frowned at the insistence the boy who let everyone else hold him had to him holding him.

Quickly he moved back to swipe his hands off, the slime falling to the ground below. Then, when his hands had barely any protection left he held them back out to Fundy.
At this time though the small man had taken refuge in the fluffy collar of Fundy's shirt.
Eager to get him away from him Fundy scooped him up with one hand, much to his discomfort, and dropped him carefully into Charlie's hands.

"Rude!" The boy proclaimed.
"Oh get over it, Sneeg," Fundy scoffed.
Charlie held the man with enough care that eventually Sneeg eased up and carefully sat down, grumbling about the 'icky gooey stuff' he was getting on him.
"You're such an *ss," Fundy declared eyes half-lidded in boredom as he watched the fight in the rain.

Sneeg scoffed and was about to say something when he yelped, earning the attention of the other 2.

In front of them with eyes that seemed to glow even in the darkness of the forest brush stood the boy Fundy had helped.
He was slightly transparent and 1 eye was covered with brown hair. He stood bending over the three, half inside a tree as he grinned, watching them, amused.

G*d he was f*cking huge!

No wonder the 5 inch tall being screeched, this guy dwarfed even the larger boys. (Though how he could sense him they had no idea.)
He stepped out and stood up.
F*cking g*d, he can get bigger!

Then he squatted until he was their height, legs held together and leaning forwards as to not sit on the wet grass even in the rain.

"What are you?" He asked, his voice echoing, amusement evident through his soft chuckle.
"What are you?" The Slimecican defensively shot back.
"I'm a Phantom! And my name is Wilbur Soot! And my twin's name is TechnoBlade but he isn't here, he's with our younger brother in a cave off...West of here I think. Dad would know," the tall man informed cheerfully.

"And who's your dad?" Fundy asked.
Wilbur smiled.
"The man who took a man straight in the air to watch his terror."

"Oh."

●●●●

"Ranboo! Ranboo, on you chaotic sh*t!" Techno scolded as Ranboo lit a fire close to the cave's entrance.
"I got this!" Ranboo assured fixing one of Phil's stands over the open flame with care before placing a bowl on top of it.

Techno rushed over, taking the wooden bowl off.
"You can't-" Techno sighed and replaced it with a metal pot with a glass lid, "it's wood, it'll catch fire. Try this instead."

Ranboo beamed and began his work with the older watching cautiously as he worked.

●●●●

"It's warmer in here," Jack commented eyes scanning the store as they walked through it.
"Indeed," Tommy replied picking out certain things like packaged food, a red box with a white cross in the center, a knife, 2 "umbrellas", and a raincoat.

"That should be all we need... Well, except maybe defense but we can't afford that right now," Tommy informed cheerily.
Jack nodded.
"Ok, let's buy this stuff then use the washroom," Tommy instructed heading towards the front.

"Washroom?" Jack asked.
Tommy paused.
"Uh... Toilet? Bathroom? The Jon?" Tommy offered.
"Does it have water involved?" Jack asked.

There were a few moments of pause before Tommy moved and grabbed a bottle of blueish liquid.
"Hand Sanitizer. Should not hurt you unless you have a cut," Tommy informed moving forward, Jack only a few paces behind.

●●●●

Wilbur giggled happily at all the bodies lying around them.
He was already on a long tangent that only Fundy was able to pick up.

It was just the Phantom, the Slimcician, the Renardian, and the Inchling in a field full of bodies while rain pelted against their faces and backs.

A moment later the "dad" swooped in. His dark wings sparkled in spots reminding them of a night sky filled with stars.

"If I go too, they'll kill my galaxy."

Wait.....

He shook himself out and grumbled softly.
"Is that everyone dear?" The man asked sweetly.
Wilbur nodded and Phil smiled.

The caws of over a dozen crows overtook the sky.
The man sighed.
They swooped down, swarming him.
"Yes yes, I've seen the boys- what? What do you mean they're missing one?! Why am I supposed to care?" He talked to the crows easily.

"Dadza?" Wilbur asked.
The man swatted the crows away and they all darted away to sit in a messy single file line.
He spun around to stare at Wil.

"I'm not taking them in as my fledglings Wil," The man declared.
Wilbur blinked at him confused.
The man chuckled at his own joke and walked to the water.

Wilbur chuckled softly rocking on his toes.
The man stuck his hand in the water and glanced over the boys.
There was a few moments of awkward silence before the man sighed.

"Wil, dear, take a joke," he deadpanned.
Wilbur snickered and rubbed the back of his neck as a young lady popped out of the water to assess the situation.

"Does water hurt you, dear?" He asked suddenly.
Wilbur raised an eyebrow. The girl dropped back below the water.
The man stood up and walked over, his large black wing shifting before hovering over the 3 men.

"Oh! Us!" Fundy realized.
"Yes, yes you boys," the man chuckled.
"Uh.... I'm fine," Fundy answered.
"It knocks me off balance but other than that I'm chill," The Inchling declared before sneezing and shivering.
Fundy took Sneeg from Charlie's hands and slipped him into the soft puffy collar of his shirt.
He was cold against his skin but Fundy wouldn't complain about it.

He'd let him take his warmth for a bit while he was clearly sick. Sneeg snuggled under the fabric, cuddling into him.
"Uhm.... It makes me all globby and goopy and dried out and it makes me very springy. However, it doesn't hurt me," Charlie assured.

The bird gave a look of suspicion, notingly keeping his wing above the three protectively.

"What are your names?" He asked.
"What's yours?" Charlie asked.
"Phil Watson," Phil replied.
"Watson?" Fundy asked.
"Yes?" Phil replied.
"Cool," Fundy hummed.

"Uh... Thank you?" Phil chuckled.
"It is a cool last name, I wish I had it!" Wilbur hummed. (You do have it Wil. So does your twin and a particular red sweatered gremlin.)
The girl emerged from the water from behind with a giant hard ball. Maybe a rock?

"Dad? He won't re-emerge!" The girl cut in.
"Try not holding him, dear," Phil advised.

The girl gently placed the lumpy ball on the ground.
"What is that?" The Inchling asked.
"That's our second-youngest!" Wilbur replied happily.

"Ahem, you never told us who you three were," Phil cut in.
"Oh! Right sorry!" Fundy quickly apologized.

"Charlie Slimecicle! I'm a Slimecican, I'm 20!" Charlie declared puffing up his chest, reminiscent of a child when being referred to as 'practically all grown up'.
"Oh wow!" Phil praised, similar to a parent or a daycare worker.
Charlie nodded eagerly.

"I'm Fundy. I'm a Renegardian. Do I have to say how old I am?" Fundy asked glancing at Charlie.
Charlie nodded eagerly and Fundy sighed.
"I'm 18, will be 19 in a month," Fundy huffed.

"And the now asleep 5-inch tall being is Sneeg Snag! He's an Inchling and he's 23!" Charlie informed.
"There's also Smajor who's 21 but he's nocturnal so you probably won't see him," Fundy noted.
"Oh?! And what is he?" Wilbur asked.
"Uh.... I think it's called a Starborne or something?" Fundy answered, playing with a chunk of white hair amongst all the red.

"Never heard of it," Phil hummed, "though, I also hadn't heard of an "Avian" before my youngest slammed into my life either."
"Oh! Tommy?" Charlie asked.

. . . .

"What?" The girl asked carefully.
"The boy with blond hair, blue eyes, red patagium, cool book, cut on his cheek, that one?" Charlie continued.
"He's hurt?!" She freaked.

The ball began to crack.

"Wha- it was just a scratch-" Charlie responded hesitantly stepping away from the group.
The rain surprised him, it hadn't been this bad when they started talking...

●●●●

Jack shivered, pulling the raincoat tighter around himself. Tommy sneezed and crinkled his nose.
"If I get a f*ckin' cold I'm blaming y-" Tommy joking accused.
Calloused hands met cold cheeks. Tommy melted slightly by the warm, hot even, contact Jack was initiating.

"What are you doing?" Tommy asked leaning into the touch, hoping to absorb his heat.
"You said you're cold?" Jack replied.
Tommy couldn't help the soft snicker that escaped him as rain pelted and burned the exposed hands.

Tommy covered the warm hands with his cold hands, trying to protect them from the unrelenting rain.
"Come on Jack, let's keep moving."

-----------
Notes:

Blazeborns have multiple blaze rods that hover around them as both a defense and an offense. Every 5 years they shed these rods, which creates dull blaze rods that normal people can hold.
Blazeborns drop these rods when in contact with water or very extreme shifts in the environment, like transferring dimensions.

Tommy likes Jack's dull blaze rods because they're just warm enough that they can warm him from the chills.
-it's also why he likes cuddles but don't tell him I told you that-