Chapter Text
Ranboo is dead.
At least he’s supposed to be.
He remembers dying. He remembers staring into the eyes of his Sensei and seeing them reflect all of the emotions in his own eyes.
He remembers when the sword had pierced through his chest, and watched as a little light had left their eyes. He heard the familiar sound of clashing netherite, a sound he had fondly associated with his family in all but blood.
And, he remembers, handing the last precious thing he had as he bleed out onto the lap of his Sensei. Telling him to save Michael and wishing he had the extra moments to introduce them to each other instead. Ranboo wishes they could see his son as they grew, as they learned all the things he learned, both good and bad, and had been there every step of the way.
He knows he wasn’t the best parent. He knows that, as he closed his eyes for the last time, that he wouldn’t be there for them. And that he would leave his partner with a child, and a painted target.
But he wouldn’t be alone. None of his family would be alone. Because for all the of the bad blood between them, Ranboo knew that they wouldn’t ever harm his child. He would be protected by them all. And with this knowledge, he could rest easy.
He was ready to meet The Lady, to be another rose in her garden.
So what, in the ever loving fuck, was he doing here?
He looked around, perplexed as to how he had been able to wake up in what he is pretty sure is neither Heaven nor Hell, or the ever dreaded Limbo. But he supposes he couldn’t judge too quickly, it’s not like he knew what was actually going on— other than his supposed death, but that’s up for debate.
“RANBOO—!”
He takes a breath.
Could he have accidentally teleported onto another server? It was a rare occurrence, and always happened during his Enderwalk, but the possibility was there.
He honestly thought that wasn’t even possible until he woke up from shoving a player down and into the Void in the middle of a Bed-wars game. Dream had a very interesting voice call that day at least, so less manipulation tactics for anyone unfortunate enough to have his attention.
“Techno lets go—!”
A foul oder finally registered through his mind as Ranboo took stalk of his surroundings. Bags of trash surrounded him as he sat up from an old, beat up pillow with some very suspiciously colored stains.
Reminiscing on how Tommy would react to this (while also internally teasing him for being part raccoon—) Ranboo belatedly took note of one very important change.
What the hell happened to my height?
As they looked at their— admittedly chubbier —legs, and back around to the alley, he came to a horrible conclusion.
He died, He’s now in another server with absolutely no idea on the mechanics of the world, and someone stole his height.
This is for making that cake last week isn’t it?
A staticky grumble reverberates out of his chest and Ranboo pauses. After a moment of consideration, he starts to click and whistle— finding the noises to be oddly more natural sounding than before. The only reason there difference seems to be that his pitch is only slightly higher than usual.
Like a baby’s. Oh Dragons above…
He tries to speak actual words, throat closing up before it could even make a sound. Ranboo always had trouble speaking human languages, because his biology had changed more than just his appearance. Extra vocal cords, along with something all Endermen had, a Pearl around all that mess.
He remembers nights with Techno sitting down besides him and Steve, and giving him some vocal exercises to ease the strain on his voice.
But now? Now he can’t do much besides a barley there whisper.
Did my Pearl change? He brought his hands up to his neck, feeling around it and noticing belatedly that he gained gills for smoke filtration, like all other Enderians— he didn’t have that before.
Ranboo also didn’t have chubby cheeks.
Cupping them against small paws, he stretches them out. Squeaking when he realized that, he did so indeed, have a baby face. Once again.
Oh no.
He’s an orphan.
Thats never a good sign.
One, because of his so called main character energy, this could only mean that the worst is yet to come. Awesome. Fantastic.
Two, his Sensei earned his title one way or another. And it could possibly be related to the morbid (yet admittedly hilarious) jokes on their strong dislike of orphans
No, he doesn’t know why.
He sobers up at the likely possibility that they’ll never meet Techno or any of the others again. Eyes watering before they forcefully shove the idea right off a cliff and wait with bated breath as he blinked away the burning liquid. Mercifully, the tears never left his eyes and the dual-colored boy didn’t have to worry about burning himself so soon.
He does a once over, warily searching for any more life changing revelations. Although, other than his height— and possible de-aging, he couldn’t feel anything else out of the norm.
Huffing, Ranboo boxes that off for another time— looking past the trash and out onto the streets a few meters away.
People walk through the street, some looking completely normal while others look almost as alien as themselves. Mutations of all sorts pass by right in front of them, even mutations with seemingly inanimate objects.
He stands on wobbly legs, both black with patches of white on his left leg— knees bending backwards like a cat’s. He stumbles a bit before he corrects himself, letting his paws adjust to the significantly smaller body.
With unsteady breath, Ranboo walks forward— towards the light and onto the street ahead with as much grace as a newborn foal. His long ears flick as they listen to all the new sounds around them.
They brace themselves against the wall and step onto the light.
The players walk around him, sparring him a glance before some scrunch much up their nose at him and walk away. Others give him petty looks, rarer are the ones with sympathy in their eyes.
(They usually had mutations as well.)
He makes sure to take note of it, but never makes eye contact.
“Can I look you in the eye—?”
”I prefer not to, actually.”
The buildings tower over him, looking as if they were built to touch the clouds. Although, from the sound of constant footsteps, Ranboo could easily conclude why such architecture was needed.
”Why do you keep building cobblestone towers?”
”What do you mean? Everybody needs one!”
Pieces of technology speed by him, odd rumbling noises coming from the inside of it along with the familiar sound of pistons. The noise reminds him of Tubbo, and he has to stop himself from looking around for the Ram Hybrid.
(He also keeps an eye out for secret doors or hidden farms and weapons. No matter how much he loved his partner, he knew better than to leave him with any type of technology without explicit supervision.)
And, as it was a habit for him since before he could remember, he looks up at the sky. At the familiar bright blue, with splattered white clouds drifting by.
The urge to call for help from his kind is always the strongest when he does this, no matter how well his circumstances are.
(He was never in a good place.)
Maybe because they were travelers by nature, the greatest distance they ever went was what their queen called home. How the stars became a home for a great race. At least that what all the stories told.
But as soon as that familiar urge came, it was soon doused out.
Someone screamed(squealed?) and pointed at the sky.
More people took notice, some started to take out little boxes and point them upwards. The streets where filled with talks and murmurs as Ranboo stood stock still, looking at the spectacle and not being able to register any of the foreign language being spout all around him.
Because up above a few hundred meters in the sky, were two guys duking it out midair.
What confused him more was the fact that while one of them had wings, the other dude was just floating. Like, “I’m the new admin, please stop freaking out every time you look my way.”
Well, maybe except that last part.
Ranboo looks around the crowd, searching for a look of horror/disbelief just to gauge who here was sane since he hears a severe lacking amount of screams and/or running.
Although, to his own mounting confusion, they look only in awe at the winged man.
He sees children point and jump, presumably excited. Some more people take out a small rectangular box and point it at the battle that no one is fleeing from.
Maybe they’re all mental.
Two young children shout a little louder than the rest. One with long fingers and the other with big red bat wings, and surely Ranboo must have accidentally eaten some blue before dying because this made absolutely no sense.
One of them turn to him with a big open smile on their unmarked face and point at the sky, saying words in a language he didn’t understand.
Ranboo gave a questioning trill and slumped their shoulders while tilting their head. They conveyed all the nonverbal messages that they didn’t understand, hoping the little guys would know what he was getting at.
The boy’s bat friend scoffed (Ranboo might be offended) and said something clearly unfriendly (okay, yeah, he’s offended), the little guy stuck out his tongue and turned back to him.
Ignoring the spluttering child (thank you main character energy), the boy pointed one long finger at the sky and spoke.
”Hawks.”
I feel like I’m learning Village speak again. Ranboo, tilted his head again.
The winged boy snorted before he pointed at his own wings. He then copied his friend and pointed upwards.
”Hawks!”
Slowly, he looked back at the fight. He watched as feathers descended upon one of the opponents, as they flew from the back of a blond. He watched the man turn away from his fight, obviously winning, and wave at the crowd below— a cool grin adorning his face.
“H̶̨̧͍̥̦̠̲͛̈́̅̾̆̃͆̒͝ā̴̩͚̬̖̮͌̈̆̀̅͌͊ẉ̵̨̼̻̯̯̟̗̱̿͊͊͑͛̔͜͝k̸̻̗͓̮̮̤̙̑̉ş̷͋̔͒͋̽̂̈́̊̈́̊̅̚͝?̶̧̭͗̋”̷̡̡̢̟͍̜̳̗͈̫̘̲͖͕͒̈́̐̓́͑̒̾̂̂̚͠ͅ
The boy clapped in acknowledgement, before grinning widely and saying the one word he hadn’t expected.
(The one thing he couldn’t go back to trying to be.)
“Hero!”
Ranboo, in true Ranboo fashion, squeaked and teleported in surprise.
Right into another dumpster.
Was it Racoon Day? I’m sensing a theme.
Grumbling, he was hit with a wave of exhaustion. The half completed task of lifting himself up and out of the dumpster was thwarted the second his arms crumpled under the weight of his body. Trying again almost gave him the pain equivalent to fighting off hordes of dog armies and Withers at the same time.
Oh, wait.
H—How about I just close my eyes for a second—
No! Wait! I need explanations! I can’t just—
“Meow.”
Ranboo, as if being caught having a snowball fight with the local crows, lifts his head and stares into yellow eyes.
A black cat watches him with the face of a judge, flicking their tail as they stare into each other’s souls.
They blep.
He returns it without hesitation.
Seeming, as he has passed the Vibe Check, the cat stretches out and lays on his chest.
Ranboo chuffs, quickly silencing himself when the noise earned him a sharp glare from his sleepy companion. They opt to just listen to its steady heartbeat, and a few minutes later a warm purr.
He knows the law of cats well, having a multitude of them before it was hard not to quickly realize that his life was no longer in just his palms. His strings were being played and chewed on by these furry demons and it seems like this one wasn’t any different.
Sighing, Ranboo opted to just lay there. Just to let the demon have its nap. He thinks he can handle the smell of garbage for a little longer (even if every time he sinks into the bags he holds back a shudder.) and the breeze helps with the majority of the smell anyway.
He settles, flicking his ear for every noise and passing conversation.
Lets see if he can learn a few more words today.
“̵̲̒Ḣ̵̠̠̬̺̮̟̠͎͉̬̺̫͆͜͝ḙ̶̲̜̻͚̳͎͎̪͍̟̖̠̣̂̃̓̈́̈̏̀̕ͅr̴̡̥̩͉̐̽͑͑̔̔́̾̃̾̅̀͘̕͝ȏ̷̰͇̖̥͎͎͖̝͉̥͌…̷̹̖̺̼̻̟͚͙̱͚̭̽̽͊̿̆̄́͆̆͒͐̽”̷̣̜̼̙̯͇̜̱̟̻͎̱͓̙̈ͅ