In which we prepare for war.

      Or, people's true colors show, and nobody's a saint.

1

Chalk scratches across a green board. 

Names stack up in different places. 

Different sides, friends, and enemies. 

Lined up like soldiers on a chessboard. 

Wilbur stood in front. 

White names on the chalkboard, Fundy had a hard time picturing their faces in his head. 

Real people. 

White names on the chalkboard. 

"It's Techno." Wilbur dropped the chalk onto the ledge of the board. It clattered. "I know it's Techno." 

"That's the most probable answer." Fundy stroked his chin. His soul was still little damaged, little hurt. He found his way back to the people that would hurt him the least. 

But he still felt the bruises underneath his skin. 

"And the most destructive." 

"Have you guys ever considered...." Quackity stepped up to the chalkboard. A singular, white name scribbled out. 

Hard to believe it was a real person. 

Up here, they were not people. 

They were words and strokes and enemies. 

"Tommy?" 

Thoughts and thoughts and thoughts and agreements, but somewhere, somewhere, you must remember. 

There was a real boy, hands callousing into a pickaxe, mining for them, building the railways, and working until his legs give out all for them, all for you.

All for you and nothing for me, I hope you see. 

Believe I'm real. 

2 

Red and black crosses spread across like deadly poppies, the type to put you to sleep and never wake up. 

Dream littered them in his wake, hands and fluttery words and gold and money and join me, I'm safer. 

A kiss on George's lips, and red and black crosses on his tongue, it was perfect trickery and oblivious not quite love. 

George closed his eyes and hoped it would all go away. 

Sapnap shook Dream's hand and trusted. 

Because he didn't know what else to do. 

He pulled Karl closer. 

3

"I've decided what we should do." 

Bad leaned against their planning table, looking at Ant and Sam, who stared back with the same intensity. Skeppy cradled his stomach, glancing nervously at Bad. 

"Dream said that Pogtopia has a traitor in their midst." 

Ant nodded gruffly. 

"But here's the benefit." 

Bad grinned, pushing a red chess piece across the table. 

"At the end of the day, WE can side with whoever we want!" 

Skeppy glanced at Ant and Sam. Were they hearing this? This didn't sound like Bad. His voice was raspy, trickery. Bad was loyal. 

What changed him? 

"And we fan the flames of war." 

Bad had fire licking in his eyes. 

"It looks like President Schlatt has the sides stacked against him." Ant smiled. "So I think it would be in our best interest to side with Schlatt." 

Sam's eyes flashed, but he did not say anything. He looked to Bad, hoping. But Bad pushed over two chess pieces with his one.

"I wholeheartedly agree." 

War changed him. 

4

"Karl?" 

Karl's brown eyes met Tubbo's. 

"TUBBO!" Karl rushed towards him, tackling him in a hug. "You're alive! Oh thank god." 

"Karl..." Tubbo pushed him away, frightened. "Why do you have a Manburg flag on your shield?" 

"I-" Guilt was on his face before it was gone again. He looked down, his expression changing. "I am loyal to my state. And you are my enemy. We can't talk anymore." 

"Karl-" 

"Goodbye, Tubbo." 

And Karl turned on his heel and left, and Tubbo just realized that he had never seen Karl with armor before. 

The netherite hung off his shoulder awkwardly. 

His sword glinted in the sunlight. 

Tubbo wondered if it would dare to draw blood. 

5

"I'll see you on the other side of the war," that's what he had said, but now Eret wanted to be on the same side, because different sides were all too familiar and all too uncomfortable and sickening to him. 

But still Eret sat high on his throne because he couldn't afford to looe it. 

He had told Karl, he had told Niki that he'd be by her side, he wanted to be, it's just that he couldn't get off the throne. 

The gold and the stone welcomed him, and he punished himself because once again, greed, greed, greed was on his mind, why couldn't he just pick. 

People. 

And they still don't trust me, he remembered. 

He remembered when they trusted him. 

And now they don't. 

And he remembered brotherhood. 

And he remembered being alone. 

"Hello, Eret." 

Eret looked up from his throne at Dream's figure approaching. 

"Hello, Dream." 

"So, as king of the Dream SMP, what do you think gives you power?" 

Eret's eyebrow raised from beneath his sunglasses. His stomach still flipped at Dream's voice, he couldn't help being scared. 

Power radiated from him.  

"Is it the crown?" 

The heavy crown with the cheap rhinestones glittered on his head, and Eret's head felt weighed down by it. 

"Is it the fact that you're king?" 

Dream radiated power, and all Eret had was a cheap crown and a castle he sat high in, a castle worth nothing but lies and trickery and a singular promise, a promise he could keep to them and not to his brothers. 

Eret cleared his throat. 

"Those who have given power, hold on to it." 

Eret looked up to Dream, at his white mask. 

"Respect." 

"Respect." Dream flipped the word in his mouth, almost amused. 

"So if respect is the only thing between you and a knife in the back, respect is nothing." 

Eret's eyes narrowed under his sunglasses. 

"Right?" 

"What are you saying Dream?" 

"I'm saying that you don't get power from being the king." Dream looked down at him, right in the eye. "I give you power." 

Eret shifted uncomfortably on his seat. 

"And your job is to stay neutral, and sit there, and look pretty." Dream looked down at his sword, but Eret knew he didn't need it. 

"So remember where your power comes from." 

Dream stepped forward. 

"Not from a pretty little crown," 

He was looming over Eret now. 

"But from an axe and a shield." 

And Eret felt trapped, just like how he supposed the people he had shut into that room, he had betrayed so long ago. 

No exit. 

6

Tommy covered the little life, the tree, and his and Tubbo's hearts in obsidian. 

He placed a daffodil next to it. 

To keep it company. 

And then he shut it off from the unforgiving sun that wouldn't hesitate to destroy it with blaze and fire and hate and war. 

He shut it off from the world that would give it no love, no matter how much life it gave. 

7 

"Niki!" 

"Eret!" 

Niki enclosed him in a tight hug, and Eret never felt more sure of his decision, and never felt more not like a king, and that was alright. 

"Niki, Dream threatened my kingship, Dream threatened my kingship but I don't need this anymore." Eret took off his crown. "I don't need this." 

"I need my friends." 

"Oh, Eret, I'm so sorry." Niki hugged him again, patting his back. "Your castle... you worked so hard on that." 

"It's fine, I don't need it, I don't need it anymore." 

"Eret?" 

A deep voice tapped his shoulder. It was Punz. Eret forced the crown on his head quickly. 

"Dream wants to speak to you. In the throneroom." 

Punz hefted a netherite axe over his shoulder. 

"Now." 

And Eret was back in the throneroom, suffocating. 

"I'm gonna need you to take off that crown, Eret." 

And Eret's stomach dropped, and his world flipped upside down. 

"Wait, what's happening?" George looked like he had just gotten out of bed. 

"Eret's betrayed us, Georgie. And he's siding with Pogtopia." Dream mussed George hair back so that it wasn't as messy. 

"Why?" George's voice came out small and confused. Betrayal. "Why Eret?" 

"Even after I told to stay neutral! He betrayed us. He didn't listen to me. This is why you should listen to me, George." 

George's eyes furrowed. "Are you just going to stand there, Eret, you betrayed us!" 

"Take off the crown, Eret." Dream drew his axe, Punz behind him. "We're not asking you." 

"I-" 

And after all the bravado, all the work, all the clever lines that he had done when he betrayed L'Manburg, Eret had nothing to say. 

"I can't." 

"Then leave." 

"I will." 

And Eret walked himself out. 

But he couldn't help but turn back and regret and take a shaky breath. 

Because it wasn't his castle anymore. 

And he couldn't help the greed. 

And he saw Dream place another crown on George's head, smiling at him softly. 

And Callahan removed the flamingos. 

And that was when, and only when, 

Eret, the traitor and the king, 

Shed a tear. 

Alone again, alone. 

Dream and George's happy laughter taunted out of the castle. 

8 

"Tommy." 

Wilbur was sitting in the old room underneath Tommy's house when he saw him, his coat spread out across the crimson red wood. 

"Why don't you play a disc for us?" 

"Right now?" 

Tommy didn't question why Wilbur was at his house, he had done it plenty of times and it was no use trying to get him to budge. 

"I have to be careful, Wilbur. A lot of people want these discs."

"They don't really matter, Tommy." Wilbur picked at the ground. "Just go play them. Play your favorite one. Mellohi, wasn't it?" 

Because it was Tubbo's favorite. 

And even though they did matter, to him, Tommy apprehensively got them out of the pocket of his shirt and walked over to the jukebox. 

"Do you remember when you said we didn't need L'Manburg, and this could be our base?" 

Tommy wiped off the jukebox carefully. "Yeah." 

Because all we needed was each other. 

"And I said no." 

"How do I know you're not the traitor?" 

Tommy whipped around, clutching his disc to his chest, trembling with conviction. 

"Oh I might be," Wilbur said with a smile. "You just don't know." 

Wilbur knew that Tommy didn't actually think he was the traitor. 

The jukebox began the haunting waltz. 

Tommy took a seat. 

"I just want you to know Tommy," Wilbur leaned in closer. "That if this doesn't go well, I'm blowing L'Manburg to smithereens." 

He grinned even wider. 

"I'm blowing it all up." 

Wilbur relished in the fear slowly forming on Tommy's face, an innocence that only he could have, like he was hearing this for the first time. 

Tommy swallowed nervously and did not say anything. 

"But it will go well, Tommy. You know why?" 

Tommy's voice was a whisper. "Why will it go well?" 

"Because Schlatt has absolutely no one on his side." 

And Wilbur flipped the pocket knife in his hand. "And absolutely no one's fucking doing it for love." 

"And love's the most powerful thing, isn't it Tommy?" 

"Why are you telling me this?" Tommy fidgeted with his fingers. 

"I'm just saying." Wilbur embedded the knife into the wood of the table. 

"At the end of the day, I would say that we'll always have each other, but we don't." 

Tommy looked down at his thumbs.

"Because if it all goes wrong, you're probably going to hate me." 

The silence was deafening in the room. 

"Oh." was all that Tommy could choke out. 

"Let's go find Techno now." 

Tommy grabbed his disc and looked back at his home again. 

And then he hurried after Wilbur.

9

"Just down here..." 

Tubbo looked back at Tommy as a shadow passed by his face, people jostling him. He raised his shield up instinctively. 

"I have a secret base I want to show you guys." 

Tubbo met Tommy's eyes. 

I know. Me too. 

So Tubbo held his hand as they plunged into the cold water, feeling the current pull them down, down, down into oblivion until they landed with a splash in a puddle of water in a stone room, sputtering and spitting out water. 

Sounds of chests opened next to him, and Tommy wiped the water from his eyes. 

"Woahh..." Fundy jostled against Quackity, snatching a piece of steak from the chest. No one saw his hands shaking. "Don't mind if I do." 

People shoved and pushed each other to see what was inside the chests. Wilbur, just like Fundy, Tommy, and Tubbo, stayed back respectively. Tubbo eyed Eret, who for some reason they had let join them based on Niki's trust. He looked away again. 

A little too close. 

For comfort. 

"Oh, you guys are just looking at my normal stuff." Techno grinned. 

At least he was in his element. 

"Come down here." 

Fundy jumped in headfirst. He leaned against the wall, feeling his body start to tense up and freeze.

"H-HOLYY SH-HITT!" 

The team poured into the room with gasps of excitement. Tommy put one foot on the blackstone, and then flinched, feeling his breathing getting heavier as he looked around the room. He squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them again as he followed Tubbo down the ladder. 

"Holy fucking god-" 

"I am ready for revolution, boys!" Techno spread out his arms in front of him, smiling proudly. 

People screamed in joy around Tommy, grabbing materials out of chests rapidly. Tubbo jogged by with a stack of emeralds weighing him down. 

Tommy opened a chest with some bread and paused as he started to float away. 

His ears rang as he looked down at the chest in front of him, the walls closing in and his breathing quickening, faster, faster than his heartbeat. 

"RUN!" 

"E-Eret?" 

"It was never meant to be." 

"Should we kill them, Eret?" 

"Tommy?" 

A steady arm on his shoulder jolted him back to his body. He forced a smile on his face as he grabbed a piece of bread. 

"Look at this Tubbo! So much food!" He bit off a chunk of bread, chewing it with his mouth open. "Fucking awesome, right?" 

"Can we leave soon?" Tubbo whispered, pulling his arm. Tubbo looked away. 

"Yeah, Big Man." The tension mounding behind his head, from the back of his skull, was becoming unbearable, but he smiled at Tubbo, standing up. "Let's go now." 

"TIME FOR WAR FELLAS!" 

10

And then they were here. 

Racing down the cobblestone pathway to home, they were laughing and they had their shields out, heavy armor clanking. 

10 had come too fast for Tommy, but at least he was in the fresh air. The 10 always had come too fast for Tommy, it wasn't enough time for nearly anything. 

And Quackity looked over, at the number of the warriors and the netherite and the weapons drawn and raised. 

Was it right that the ax and shield kept it going? 

Was it love? 

Was it the children that shed the blood for him? 

Tubbo looked at Tommy's determined face. 

And he thought, all over again, all over again. 

History repeats itself. 

And Tommy was racing ahead, grinning, smiling. 

They were going to win, they were going to take it back, it seemed almost there and so close you could grab it, within his reach. 

Maybe it all was going to be alright. 

Love conquers war. 

It would be over quickly. 

And then the first arrow hit. 

And it wasn't.