Chapter Text
After three years, Technoblade had gotten used to the silence.
The world didn’t thrum with noise the way it used to when things were normal, electricity and humanity coming together like a pulsing heartbeat. Now, the loudest sounds belonged to the undead, to the crackling of fire as the world burned.
The silence was no longer eerie to Technoblade as he picked his way through the carcass of the long-since abandoned town. He picked a few stragglers off on the outskirts, hordeless undead wandering, lonely, through the streets. Other than that, this town seemed quiet enough.
He was on a scouting mission, traveling between safe cities on his usual semi-annual trip. Not much was left in towns like these, so he had few expectations of seeing anything of interest. Either people found their way to a sanctuary city or they died. After three years, not many stragglers were left, save for the few violent groups who never could settle peacefully into sanctuary cities.
So the noise caught him off guard.
It should have been a zombie. Gods, that would have been easier.
Instead, Technoblade picked up on the buzz of voices, shouting louder than they should have been in a town like this.
Technoblade didn’t hesitate, changing his direction to move swiftly towards the sound of conflict.
He turned the corner to find himself on what used to be Main Street. He was also in the middle of what appeared to be a mugging.
Four men stood proud, their clothes ragged but their weapons sharp. A kid was on the ground between them, struggling to back up on one hand as four crossbows pinned him in their sights. He couldn’t have been more than fourteen. He was covered in blood.
Rage settled like a familiar companion in Technoblade’s chest.
“Hey!” The bark was violent and ferocious. Fury thrummed through him like a heartbeat as he unsheathed his axe in one smooth motion.
In an instant, all eyes were on him.
The kid took the opportunity for what it was, scrambling back from his would-be murderers.
There were four men to begin with. Two were dead before they could raise their crossbows. Technoblade spilled their blood as easily as any zombie horde, painting the streets red. He stalked towards the last two, knocking a crossbow bolt out of the air with a swing of his axe and relishing in the look of terror in their eyes.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the kid stagger to his feet and dive for one of his attackers. The kid caught him from behind, his skinny arms wrapping around his throat and pulling with all his might. The man wheezed, staggering backwards as the kid squeezed the life out of him. Technoblade ended it with a blade through the man’s thick chest. The kid let go as the man toppled, falling over himself to get away as blood poured onto him.
The last one, Technoblade dispatched with a knife to the throat.
Then all was silent.
All that could be heard was the gurgle of blood as the last man died choking and the wheeze of the kid’s heaving breath.
In an instant, the kid was moving, snatching a crossbow off of the nearest body, lifting it, and firing.
Technoblade caught the bolt just inches from his face.
For a moment, the kid just stared at him, his chest rising and falling in silent panic.
“It’s okay,” Technoblade said, raising his bloodstained hands. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”
The kid tried to scramble back, but he staggered halfway through his movement. His face was a mess of blood; Technoblade wasn’t sure how much of it belonged to him. “Don’t come any closer!”
“Hey,” Technoblade said, lowering himself to one knee in what he hoped was a disarming move. “It’s okay, kid. Just calm down.”
“How—” The kid coughed, his bloodstained hand rising to clutch at his chest. “Who—”
“My name is Technoblade.” He kept his voice even and his tone calm. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”
The kid’s eyes darted to the bodies. “You killed them.”
Slowly, with his every movement projected, Technoblade shouldered his axe. “Yep.”
The kid’s eyes were wild as they followed his axe to its place on his back. “Why did you do that?”
Technoblade shrugged. “They were gonna kill you.”
“So?”
Technoblade didn’t know how to begin to unpack that question. “So… I stopped them.”
“Why?” The kid was shaking. Technoblade couldn’t exactly blame him— less than a minute ago, he’d been seconds away from getting shot in the head.
Technoblade shrugged again. He hoped a simple answer would offer comfort. “Four against one. Didn’t seem fair.”
The kid’s brow narrowed sharply. “You’re an outlier if you give a shit about what’s fair.”
Technoblade was caught off guard by the kid’s cutting judgment, but he recovered quickly enough to say, “Maybe so, but I do.”
“Why?” The kid repeated, heavy with suspicion.
Technoblade fought the urge to roll his eyes. Just how many questions did this kid have? He decided to ask one of his own:
“Why were they gunning for you?”
The kid’s shoulders hunched even further and his dirty hand latched onto the strap of his backpack. It was slung over only one shoulder, but the kid was clutching it like Technoblade had tried to take it from him. “They wanted my stuff.”
During the few months he’d spent with Phil and the others in the city, Technoblade had almost forgotten the cutthroat nature of survivor groups. It was kill-or-be-killed out here and there were few lows survivors wouldn’t stoop to in order to gain supplies. Even kids weren’t off limits. Technoblade burned with fury at the thought.
He stood slowly, though he made no move towards the kid. “Are you okay?”
The kid shrugged, his gaze shifting as he shuffled backwards. Then his eyes widened as he clocked something over Technoblade’s shoulder.
A groan came from behind. Technoblade didn’t think before he lifted his crossbow and fired. His bolt landed at the same time as the kid’s did, two arrows straight to the creature’s neck. The zombie fell with a wet thud.
Technoblade looked back at the kid. “Nice shot.”
The kid blinked. “You too.”
Technoblade tilted his head, his eyes narrowed as the kid gingerly lowered his crossbow. The blood on his shirt was a violent red, despite the dark fabric. He was holding himself stiffly, his whole body clenched in pain.
“You’re hurt.” It wasn’t a question.
The kid gritted his teeth, his hand coming up to cover his injured shoulder. As he shifted, Technoblade caught sight of a small crossbow bolt lodged in the back of his shoulder.
“That’s how they got me,” the kid said, a little sullenly. “Crossbow to the fuckin’ back.”
Technoblade winced in sympathy. “Is it deep?”
The kid shook his head. “It didn’t hit anything important.”
“Who are you with, kid?” Technoblade gestured at the bodies surrounding them. “Hope it wasn’t these assholes.”
The boy let out a little huff of laughter, shaking his head. “Nah. It’s just me.”
Technoblade blinked. “Sorry?”
The kid squinted up at him against the glaring sun. Despite the blood that covered him, he looked heartbreakingly young. “What?”
“You’re out here alone?”
“I just said that.”
That couldn’t be possible. Alarm was seeping through Technoblade’s veins now as he asked, “Did you get separated from your group? Can I help you get back to them?”
The kid shifted, looking slightly uncomfortable now. His grip on the crossbow shifted, his fingers squeezing beside the trigger, though it stayed lowered at his side. “I don’t have a group.”
“What happened to them?” It must have been something awful for this kid to have been the only survivor. Immediately, Technoblade imagined a sweeping horde, overtaking a group and eating them alive.
But the kid just shook his head, his eyes dead. “I never had one.”
What the fuck?
“Look,” the kid said, eyeing Technoblade with his usual amount of suspicion. “Thanks for, like, killing them and everything—” He gestured at the men on the ground. “But I’m gonna keep moving—”
The ground rumbled beneath their feet and Technoblade snapped his head up at the same time as the kid did.
There was a horde approaching from the west. It had been heading their way for days now, the outline of it casting a consistent shadow across the Plains, but the shuffle and hiss of it was close enough now to reach the edges of his hearing. It was moving like a sluggish tidal wave across the Plains, on its way to consume everything in its path. Including them.
Technoblade tilted his head, listening for the subtle shifts in sound that told him exactly how far the horde was and how much time they had until they were slowly consumed.
“We’ve gotta clear out.”
The kid nodded. His head was tilted too, listening with a tense jaw. Despite his obvious distrust of Technoblade, he seemed to have enough self-preservation skills to understand that if they didn’t start moving right now, their fate would be quick and all-consuming.
Technoblade watched him carefully, still struggling to straighten with the bolt lodged in his shoulder.
“Can you wait to treat that till we’re safe?”
“Don’t really have a choice, do I?” the kid said wryly, wincing as he reached to feel his injured shoulder. He scrunched up his nose at the pain, but nodded all the same. “I’ve had worse.”
Technoblade didn’t really want to think about how that was likely true.
With that, the kid slung his bag fully over his good shoulder, staggering under the new weight.
“Let me carry that,” Technoblade said, reaching automatically for the kid’s bag.
The kid jerked away, instinct begging for distance between them. His face contorted with pain as he jolted his wound, but he gripped his bag harder, his face set in determination. “I’ve got it.”
“We’ve gotta move fast, kid—”
“I won’t slow you down,” the kid insisted, glaring up at Technoblade. But despite his harsh look, he shifted anxiously on his feet. “Let’s just get out of here, so we can go our separate ways.”
For a moment, Technoblade considered exactly how he had ended up in this situation. A horde quickly approaching, a shrimpy, group-less kid injured and depending on him, and the same kid clinging to his bag like Technoblade was threatening to rip it from him. (Though, to be fair, the last people who had tried to take his belongings from him had pointed a crossbow at him.)
Technoblade would rather just carry the kid, to be perfectly honest— it would be faster— but he doubted the kid would let him get within arm’s reach of him with the glare he was currently sporting.
He needed to stop engaging with people, Technoblade decided. His life would be so much easier if it was just him and the zombies at the end of his axe.
He sighed heavily. “Fine,” he said, turning in the direction they needed to head, where Carl was waiting for him. “Let’s go.”
They started for the edge of town together. Technoblade made a conscious effort to slow down a bit, all too aware of the kid hurrying to keep up with him in his peripheral vision.
He’d met a few stragglers out on their own in his travels, but never as young as this kid. It was jarring to see a child alone in a world like this, all sharp-edged and untrusting. It reminded Technoblade of Wilbur back when he and Phil had first picked up him and Tommy in the early days of the virus. It unsettled him to see that in this child too.
“Ranboo.”
The kid’s voice came as a surprise, quiet from behind as Technoblade picked his way through the cluttered streets.
Technoblade glanced back at him, but the kid’s gaze remained fixed on scanning their surroundings.
“What?”
“Ranboo,” the kid repeated, lifting his chin slightly. He looked anxious, but not for any of the right reasons. “That’s my name.”
Technoblade tested the name out on his tongue. “Ranboo.” He nodded. “All right. Let’s get out of here, huh?”