Chapter Text
Strike, strike, jump, roll, parry. Deep slate block, gapple, water bucket, parry, duck, strike.
The sky is an eerie black, warm wind blowing over the plains and drowning out the sound of his own heartbeat. The star-speckled scythe wooshes through the air in a perfect circle, hits the uneven mass of sickly-green code data with a burst of static — snow in the TV screen, ringing in his ears, the smell of ozone and lightning and burnt copper. The creature warbles — a sign it’s taking damage from this. How much exactly the warrior doesn’t know, but it doesn’t matter.
It could be hurt. Therefore, it could be slain.
Étoiles has done this song and dance before — at the dinner, just the day before, and less than half an hour ago in the desert. First one hadn’t even been a challenge, honestly, especially with Philza (the GOAT! His brother in arms!!) and Fit backing him up against Not-Chayanne and Not-Tallulah. The second one had been… weird, the code monsters seemingly forgoing any pretence of fairness and spawning a motherfucking whale right on top of him, as well as a ridiculously buff mosquito mob that just wouldn’t take damage and kept hot on his heel at abnormal speed. He’d even popped a death totem for this! A totem, the ultimate disgrace for a warrior! Now all he had to do was crawl into a hole and die there out of shame, etc, etc.
There was no doubt in the frenchman’s mind: the entities wanted him dead . Which filled him with joyous, violent delight, because it meant they were scared. Getting desperate. And oh, how hilarious of a fact this was.
His comlink buzzes, and he stops for a second, humming a happy tune while the two binary monsters hack at his health bar relentlessly, bloody cuts bursting open on his body. Etoiles is unphased, shelving away the pain as superfluous information as he taps away at the screen.
Ph1lza: r u winning king?
Etoiles: yeaaaaaaah man
Etoiles: loser codes cant even block they dont have the meta
Etoiles: brb need to kill :DDD
The two binary entities close in on him, again and again, not deterred in the slightest by the strings of code he’s ripping and cutting away from them at inhuman speed. “Come on you shit code!” he taunts, smiling so wide his cheeks hurt as he bites into another gapple. “Même pas mal, même pas mal ! Rhooo les nullos. Hit me, hit me!”
Not-Dapper warbles, its own scythe glinting ominously as it floats closer (copycat, copycat!). A strike hits the man’s shield, then another. Then Not-Tallulah’s at his side and Not-Dapper aims for it and—
“Oh,” he understands, too little too late.
The hit strikes the second code first, going through strings of data like a hot knife through butter — but the damage taken is nothing compared to the absolute truckload that slams into Étoiles, the warrior letting out a startled yell when the magic clinging to the foe’s blade bypasses his armor entirely, sending him soaring through the air and opening a large gash across his torso.
His world in a dark sky, gravity has lost its grip. “Ah merde,” he croaks out, actually surprised that they’re using the AOE glitch against him. Oh that’s brilliant, he marvels, amazing! Exploiting a bug he had found because they’re struggling to hurt him in any way that matters without it. That’s hilarious. But it also hurts, hurts, hurts, and he can’t stop smiling, because he feels alive, alive, alive! He cackles, delirious from the flood of adrenaline and cortisol, as his dying body describes a perfect curve above a grassy hill. Then gravity takes hold again, and pulls him down to hit the ground in a dull thomp. The impact sends a wave of white-hot pain through his midsection, so strong he almost blacks out.
There’s a high-pitched ringing that drills through his eardrums, and he can taste metal in his mouth. Grassy, bitter metal. He blinks the dark spots out of his eyes, and the world is green, green like the grass tickling his nose, like the glitching numbers slowly hovering towards him. Green, like the blood pouring out of the wound like a little river, soaking the grass and dirt under him. His vision dims, as well as the signals firing through his abused nerves. But it’s okay, he thinks, as both creatures loom over him and wait for the countdown to end, wait for him to die and respawn with no more lives to spare.
His comlink buzzes with panicked messages from his friends. It’s okay. He’s no stranger to dying, as rare an occurrence as it’s been since he first crashed on Quesadilla Island. That’s fine. Plus, he’s not done just yet, as the bone totem buzzing ominously in his offhand is here to prove.
Four, three, two, one.
The skull pops. There’s a sound of wood splintering that weirdly reminds Étoiles of a screaming creature, a smell like ozone and decay filling up his nostrils. His body’s pulled upward like a puppet on strings, bone and flesh mending, skin knitting itself together before two disgruntled codes. And through the uncomfortable sensation of thousands of fire ants crawling underneath his skin, through the wave of nausea that comes with death totem revival, Etoiles flashes them a mocking grin. “Heheeeh. Got you again.”
Then the cursed magic runs out. His body falls, sore and bruised and barely functional, but heart still beating nerves still firing, he feels, he feels, he
breathes.
Lives.
He lands in the grass, knees almost buckling under his own weight, but he woops excitedly and breaks into a mad sprint, gaining just enough time and distance to summon a splash potion from his inventory and shatter it, the rest of the damage quickly reversing itself.
Hohohooooo, this shit was hard. Even the dungeon he’d had to complete to restore his lost life hadn’t pushed him like this, forcing him to actually pop totems (a disgrace, a disgrace I say!) and throw potion after potion at the ground, gapples disappearing down his gullet faster than he could breathe between each bite.
He fucking loves it. “This is what it means to be alive!” the green-skinned man sings, avoiding another one-shot hit by rolling away. “This is what I’ve been waiting for, oooooh, thank you, thank you!” The codes don’t answer to his elated shouts, still relentlessly coming at him as the moon bathes the plains in pale, spectral light. He bites into yet another gapple, golden specks appearing in his pupils as its magic floods his body. Would my blood turn to gold if I ate enough of those? he wonders in passing.
(This night is void of stars, like every code attack-induced darkness. But they still shine on the warrior's dark green skin, white and silver star-shaped dots on his face and arms, like freckles. People didn’t call him Étoiles for no reason, after all.)
Strike, strike, jump, roll, shield. Deep slate block, gapple, water bucket, parry, duck, strike. Again, and again, and one of the codes is downed, oh, oh, finally. Etoiles ends its pale imitation of a life with a well-placed stab, and stares up at Not-Tallulah — the second entity flying circles around him, seemingly no longer willing to come close now that its partner is gone. Étoiles gives it a feral grin, gums and teeth stained with green, and reaffirms his grip on his favourite weapon.
Not-Tallulah seems to freeze for a second. Then, as the warrior takes out yet another strength potion, it starts floating backwards. Slow, then at breakneck speed, until it disappears in the distance as the sky decides that oh, maybe time to be day again, sure.
Étoiles barks out a resounding hey! and takes off after it, not satisfied, not yet, come back come back, finish, end it! but it’s fast, too fast for his wingless self to keep up with. Green blood drips into his eyes, and he wipes it with a scoff. “Mauvais perdant !” he taunts, his blade bloodless but thrumming with power and leaked data. “Vas-y reviens, on en a pas fini !” But the code doesn’t come back, disappearing into the aether as daylight floods the world once more.
Étoiles huffs, pouting like a child whose favourite toy had just been taken away — oh, well. At least he’s won. Again! He does a little dance, a crouch and twirl before frantically typing in the global chat, fingers shaking with leftover thrills and the aftershocks of the revival who are really, really sticking around this time, weird.
Etoiles: L + ratio
BadBoyHalo: did u win?
Etoiles: obvs
Etoiles: lezgoooooo
Etoiles: EZ but not really!! was hard but still won
Ph1lza: pop off :> think its over for tonight?
Etoiles: i think so yes
Etoiles: i come back and get my pomme :D
Ph1lza: yesyes :>
“Good news little one,” the crowfather announces cheerily, the corners of his eyes crinkling up in amusement as he looks up from his comm to address Pomme. “Your dad won.”
The french egg responds with little quick crouches and the slow twirl of red butterfly wings. Bomp . [was there any doubt honestly :D]
“I suppose not,” he chuckles. “Étoiles is actually cracked. I don’t think anything other than slash kill could put this man down.”
Bomp. [LMAO DONT GIVE EM IDEAS UNCLE PHIL] Bomp. [also sweets. sweets could probably do it]
“Guess I know what to dress up as next Halloween then.”
“Heheeeey!”
There’s the sound of magic and air displacement, and in warps the man of the hour, looking scruffy and a bit out of breath. The avian catches a whiff of blood-sweat-metal-cut-grass, and frowns in concern at the more hidden void-rot. The smell of recent death.
He keeps a firm hand on his instincts, the one screaming at him to fuss, clean, heal flock. Preen, safe? Hurt? Because Phil’s pretty sure Étoiles didn’t actually die during his confrontation (but he checks the global log just to be sure), that it’s just death-totem-smell. Instead he smiles, and the familiarity of Etoiles’ victorious expression, the almost fevered light in his eyes… it’s bittersweet. “Congrats man,” he greets as Pomme rushes to bump her little head against his father’s knees, trilling proudly. “You got ‘em this time?”
“The second one ran away, but I killed the first!” the frenchman woops, ruffling his daughter’s hair and kneeling before her in a slightly stilted motion. Philza wouldn’t blame him for being sore after that though — the presidential dinner alone had been hell on his old bones, and today’s attack had seemed ridiculously hard, too much for most mortals to handle. “Ouiiiii Pomme,” Étoiles nods and laughs at his egg’s various queries. “J’les ai fumés, c’était exceptionnel. Ils ont utilisé le bug aussi, le sweeping edge, truc de malade !”
Bomp. [vraiment ? :O] Étoiles nods. Bomp. [mais ils ont aucune race les codes en fait hdjfjdsjg]
Phil can’t understand that since their translator’s useless for writing, but the warrior bursts into giggles at Pomme’s words. “Ah ouais ! Ah ouais, tout ça ? T’as raison Pomme, t’as dit les termes, t’es incroyable.”
High-pitched crows brush at the edge of Philza’s hearing range from outside, a concert of Étoiles, Étoiles and ELOTES and MY PRESIDENT and other expressions of fond enthusiasm. He lets out a hum. “My crows are very impressed,” he relates to the green-skinned man, who tilts his head in curiosity. “They saw the whole thing apparently. I think you might have won their vote for the election thing.”
And that seems to make Etoiles even more giddy than he already is. “Let’s gooooo,” he picks Pomme up and throws her in the air before catching her, drawing chirps of childish delight from the youngest egg. “I told them, I told them I’d kill the code, and I-I-I killed two now, even better!”
Pomme trills and wiggles in Étoiles' strong but gentle grip, giving her pa a friendly headbutt. To everyone’s surprise, it makes Etoiles falter for a second, a weirdly vacant expression settling on his features for a brief second. His body leans to the side, one of his knees buckle, and Philza is suddenly in emergency mode and his foot has moved forward and he’s ready to run—
Then Étoiles shakes it off, and puts his egg back on the floor with a breathy chuckle. “H-Heh. T’es bien ma fille, toi.”
Bomp. Tallulah bumps her head against Phil’s leg, asking for his attention. The avian lets out a wheeze — what was that, what the hell was that — waiting for her to finish writing. “Hey mate. You sure you’re good? That was a long-ass fight, must’ve drained all your gold again.”
Étoiles places down a diamond block (showoff) and sits atop it, assuring Philza everything is fine Philza, I just had the best fight of my life and I can die happy now! The older man dismisses the frenchman’s usual morbid humor, which would usually have Phil in stitches. He notices the slight slur in his speech, and looking closer at that unusual angle, he can spot a hint of bruises under the man’s eyes that would usually be hidden by his ninja turtle-like mask. Plus, he smells… off, somehow, even outside the blood and void-rot of death totem revival.
A nudge on his thigh. Tallulah is looking up at him, pointing at her filled-up sign. [I think something’s off with tio Etoiles…] Phil purses his lips, watching the younger man chatting up with his kid — right, okay. Not just him being his usual, paranoid self then. “Yeah. Can you tell what, specifically?”
Bomp. [no, sorry :( ] “That’s okay, Lulah, that’s okay,” he coos, brushing a black wing against his daughter affectionately. Egg, egg, baby, hatchling, hi, lovely, yesyes.
He can’t quite pinpoint what changed from earlier, but there’s a smell of too much something wafting from the green-skinned man. His perma-smile seems slightly strained as well, his eyes too shiny, hands shaken by a subtle tremor — hands he’s busying by moving them around as he talks animatedly, or opening and closing chests over and over like a particularly hesitant robber. (Or a Tooth Fairy, given his tendency to put stuff in other peoples’ chests instead of taking stuff out of them.) “Look, king,” the avian probes, careful, careful. Étoiles is a flighty fellow, known to have a problem with admitting when something was wrong. (How had Baghera called it again… ‘pull a Rayou’, something like that.) “Are you sure you’re okay?”
Étoiles looks up at him, and shrugs. He places a block on the ground, then destroys it idly. “Eeeeeh, kinda tired. Haven’t slept in like two days, but—” a few random french noises, he’s struggling a little bit. “Eh-eeeh that happens to me, it’s okay.”
The older man feels his wings quiver. No, bad, no? Safe, friend, yes yes? “Wh— Jesus Christ, man. Why?”
A broad grin, a bearing of white teeth. “I dunno if you’ve noticed, dude,” Étoiles hums, still pacing back and forth, placing blocks and jumping on them before destroying them. (There’s a familiar bomp at his right. [papa étoiles is in dapper rp] Pomme chimes in, and Phil can’t help but snort at that.) “But I-I-I’m not the most healthy guy, hein ! I got ninety-nine problems, and diabète is only one of them.”
Bomp. [Chronic illness?] Bomp. [Like me and my asthma?] Tallulah asks, and Étoiles makes a dingdingding sound like he’s the host in some game show. “Exactly! So sometimes I don’t sleep, because I feel too bad. But it’s okay, because I can explore and farm dungeons, so I’m happy. Look look, I’m happy, see?” And then he beams up at them, and the worst thing is, Philza can’t find a single trace of deception there. Only vaguely fuzzy elation, remnants of the fight still evidently thrumming inside his body.
Bomp. [sometimes he says that god nerfed him by giving him terrible health] Philza reads on Pomme’s cherry red sign, and it’s obviously an attempt at lighting up his mood but his breath catches in his throat instead. Because he can’t, he can’t, no. Étoiles was a legitimate friend now, a brother in arms (flock, flock) and flashes of dulled-over eyes and emaciated features and sickly coughs creep in from deep in his memory, and he. He.
Can’t. Not again. He pushes it all down, because he’s dramatising an obvious joke and yes Étoiles might be a sickly person but he’s. Not. Dying. And he tells it so to his stupid birdbrain, birdbrain who won’t stop pushing him to walk forward and cover, shelter, safe, yesyes.
“There is no god, Pomme,” Etoiles scoffs in mock-irritation, bringing Philza back to reality. “Only demons, like BadBoy, and also the one Cellbit hides in his basement.”
Bomp. [THE WHAT] Bomp, Tallulah answers. [It’s true, I saw it. Be careful where you crouch in his castle, I still get nightmares :’) ]
[O_O my dads are all crazy ALED]
“What do you plan on doing now, then?” the crow hybrid asks, gently petting Tallulah’s brown curls as she and Pomme take out their flutes for a little duet. “I think they really want you dead, and you’re the only one left with one life. They might not stop attacking you until election day.”
Étoiles gasps, and oh fuck that was the wrong thing to say. “Oooooh my dream! Yes! Let them come at me, I’ll destroy them all!” he proclaims before erupting in mad cackles, jumping on top of his host’s chests and running around like a bored egg during a serious lore meeting. Philza can’t help but chuckle at his antics. “Alright, alright. Dungeons, then.”
“Dungeons!!!” the other parrots back, stopping to crouch in front of Pomme with a wide smile. “Tu veux venir fumer des donjons avec moi légende ?”
Pomme crouches a few times — Goddess helps her, she really takes after her dad — but Tallulah nudges at her worriedly. Bomp. [I don’t know, it could be too dangerous today] Bomp. [I know you’re one of the strongest eggs around] Bomp. [but if they’re willing to cheat to kill tio Etoiles…]
Phil grimaces. “She’s got a point mate. Like— don’t get me wrong Pomme,” he turns to the little egg, who looks up at him. “You’ve got crazy good reflexes, better than most people on this island. But skills don’t matter if the enemy’s fucking cheating.”
“Yeah, I don’t know what was up with that mosquito mob,” Étoiles admits, a rare frown making its way across his face. “It was just, impossible to kill it, or escape it.”
Pomme clicks unhappily. [but they attacked you twice already, isn’t it over now?] “I don’t think the codes care about quota like that,” Phil groans, ear feathers twitching in irritation. “Might be smart to hunker down for a bit, at least until we’re sure those fuckers won’t drop on you as soon as you get isolated again.”
[Me and dad were going to go to the museum] Tallulah writes quickly, [you could come with us and see all the new art :) ] “Yeah, you can tag along,” Philza smiles, resisting the urge to swaddle, preen, egg, egg because Pomme’s great and good and sweet, but she’s not his — so he runs his claws through Tallulah’s loose curls instead, tidying them up into a simple braid. “We can have a chill playdate. Would that be alright?” he looks back up at Étoiles, who has started reorganising his backpacks. Man, he’s really hyper today. “You go out and clean out those dungeons, get Pomme on your way back?”
Étoiles hums, quickly shoving his stuff back into his inventory. “What do you want, Pomme?”
The little egg purses her lips, a serious expression on her youthful face. Then she nods. [i like doing dungeons with you :( but theyre right i think] [we can do it another day when things arent as crazy]
Philza blinks, taken aback by the display of maturity from the youngest egg on the island. He’d expected her to fight about this. But it makes sense, he realises, once he remembers that Pomme has never known a time without the binary entities hellbent on ending their lives. The french egg was cute, yes, and lovely and sweet, with her little dress and butterfly wings. But she’d been marked for death the very second she’d appeared on the island, and she was very, very aware of that fact.
(One time while on an adventure, Philza had caught a look of abject horror on her face when a zombie had come a little too close to Chayanne. Because while she still had two lives to spare, a luxury none of her siblings was blessed with.)
The old bird feels a pang of sympathy, mourning the girl’s robbed innocence. Fuck this island, man, not letting kids be kids.
“Okay okay, thank you Philza,” Étoiles gives Pomme a parting fistbump before fishing out his warpstone. “I bring back some dark metal for you, whatever you want, because you’re my GOAT! À tout’ Pomme.”
Then he flashes them a peace sign before violet sparks burst from the stone, and the smell of warp-void-ozone briefly fills up the bunker as he disappears. Phil takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly. Then turns back to his young charges and smirks. “Right! Then if you’re both good to go,” he takes out his own warpstone, his inky feathers reflecting its violet glow, “We can warp to spawn and go see the cool art?”
[Yes please!]
[yaaaay :D]