Chapter Text
[ The screen sparks to life with a burst of static, as our intro music starts to play. Large text appears in time with the music ]
10 PLAYERS
2 TEAMS
WITH ONE
LIFE EACH
AIMING TO KILL
EACH OTHER
WELCOME TO…
Minecraft
SECRET
RIVALS
[ Character portraits appear as their names flash across the screen, accompanied by a funny tagline ]
ANATHRA: “Did you guys 🔔ing go back to the prehistoric era?”
MARM: “Who has subtitles on? 🔔 Nerd!”
DOOVID: “You remind me of my dad before he smoked weed”
MILKMAN: “I’m afraid, I’m doing the parkour in fear”
VIKING: “I’m pretty sure Grandma’s are like zero percent bone”
FOOL: “🔔 his artistic vision we gotta go to hell!”
LEON: “Okay we’re going deeper into the giant scary forest”
RUBYCO: “Dog? more like Pog”
VINTAGE: “We’re all one team, the human team!”
AVID: “Why are we working together, aren’t we gonna all kill each other?”
[ And then, Static. Suddenly two unrelated video clips play, before cutting away to the correct camera, and the episode begins as the static fades away. ]
The footage begins on the view of Anathra and several others standing in a somewhat fancy room made of cincinnacite, yellow glass, and nether brick.
“Hello everyone, ” Anathra says, turning to the camera revealing his icy cold eyes as his visor is resting on his head. Everything around him is slightly tinted grey, other than him, and it seems he is giving this message on the video's pause screen, as no one else is moving.
“Welcome to Minecraft Secret Rivals! For the people in the audience who aren’t aware (or haven’t watched the original), here's a quick explanation of how it works.
Basically, we will have two teams of 5, and the two teams need to fight to the death right? But there's a twist: Each member of every team only gets to know one other member, meaning if anything happens to anyone along the line like someone dying or if someones lying about who your teammate is, it will be harder to figure out who is actually on your team.
And this is hardcore, so no one can quite just respawn! Also, death messages are off, and so is the chat. So the only ways we have to communicate is to talk to people in person, and if someone dies while no one else is around, there's a chance it could take a while for people to figure out.
Our goals are simple: You have to kill the enemy team, and then defeat the enderdragon to win. Is that helpful? I hope it’s informative enough, dear reader viewer!”
“Now!” He claps his hands and the grey filter disappears, and instead the footage is tinted slightly blue. His companions are talking and laughing, as they presumably were before he tugged on the strings to pause it for your sake.
“So! I am joined by these 9 lovely folks! First we have Vintage! Introduce yourself!”
The camera pans to a medium height person, with long pink hair full of cherry leaves. Looking closer, one can notice that there's a slight wood pattern to their skin, and that parts of her hair are actually branches.
“Ah! I wasn’t prepared- um Hi! I’m Vintage Applesauce, she/they, and I’m a Hamadryad that's linked to a cherry tree! I have never done a death game before, so I’m really excited and also really scared! Here's hoping it won’t go too badly!”
“Thank you Vintage! Now Leon, Who are you?” Anathra asked.
A tall endermen turned in Anathra’s direction, tilting his head at him quizzingly but still managing to avoid eye contact.
“What do you mean who I am?“ Said Leon, in a teasing tone of voice.
“You know I mean introduce yourself!”
“Oh alright. Well hello, I’m Leon, he/him and I’m an Enderman that's also a penguin! You uh, can’t really tell I’m a penguin physically though, but it is still a fact! You know how it uh, how it goes. Ahem- Anyways yeah I’m looking forward to this!” He smiled, enderman tail swishing behind him.
“I even brought my own snacks!” Leon said brightly, showing the camera a satchel full of chorus fruit.
“Next, SadMilkman!”
Milkman waved at the camera as he smiled brightly, brushed off his coat with his hands, and then readjusted his scarf.
“Hello! I’m SadMilkman but most people just call me Milkman-"
“Milkums.” Said someone from the left corner of the room, promptly interrupting him.
“Shut up, Avid!” He shouted back, “Um, I also use he/him! I’m really just some guy honestly- I mean I’m either human or something doing a really good job of pretending to be human and I think that might fluctuate depending on what's funniest!” He said, giving Anathra a thumbs up.
“Viking it's your turn!”
A man with a split color scheme of yellow and blue with large phantom wings broke off from his conversation with a shorter member of the group that had purple eyes and a monkey tail, and turned to both Anathra and the camera.
“Hello! I am VikingPilot or just Viking if you don’t feel like full naming me, he/him, aaaaand I'm- uh well, I’m not a hybrid at all, actually! I’m a perfectly normal human guy!” Viking said, cat tail swishing behind him.
The monkey behind him giggled into his hands.
“He just doesn’t wanna admit that he's a catboy.”
“I’M NOT A CAT BOY I’M- Aaauguh! Okay, fine I do have cat hybrid features, but I also have These,” he said, gesturing to his phantom wings, “So who heckin knows! I’m like a Chimera of a cat and a phantom or something. And uhh yeah! This isn’t quite my first tango with a death game, so I am excited to do more death!”
“And now here we have Marmalade!”
Marmalade, a woman with a long burgundy dress and brown hair full of light blue flowers, giggled and waved.
“Hi! I’m Marmalade, most people just call me Marm, though. She/her, and I’m a witch! Death games aren't typically my forte, but this sounded exciting, so I’m here!”
“Okay, next we have Fool!”
Milkman elbowed a tall man that nearly appeared to be a statue whos cracks were fixed with gold, causing the “statue” to elbow him back. He only took a step or two closer to the camera, before stopping and putting his hands in his pockets.
“Hello, I am TheFoolishFam, but you can just call me Fool. I use he/him, and I’m…”
He winked with his grey eye, unfurling a spiny golden wing with no membrane from behind his back, “Well, I’m an enigma!”
Anathra nodded and directed the camera a different way.
“Rubyco?”
The orange haired allay in the three color hoodie was in some sort of a cat slap-fight with Vintage, so xey hadn’t noticed Anathra approaching xem.
“Ah- uh hi! I’m Ruby or Rubyco! Any pronouns, and I’m german- thats uh not my species though, um- and I’m an allay! I’m happy to be here and I really hope that I don’t die first because that’d be EMBARRASSING!”
“And that just leaves us with Avid, Doovid, and myself! Which one of you gentlemen want to go first?”
“Me!” Avid piped up excitedly, waving his hand in the air.
“Okay, I guess Avid goes.”
The monkey with purple eyes did a couple small hops towards the camera, and was swaying and humming to some kind of tune that no one else could hear. He was smiling from ear to ear, his tail curled around his leg but occasionally flicking over and brushing Anathra’s.
“Hehe, Hello! I’m Avid, I use he/him, and I’m a monkey! I am also a musician in my free time, kind of as a hobby? It's fun! I’ve been in a hardcore series before, but I’m still super excited to be here and! Doovid, it's your turn now,” Avid says as he shoves a brown eyed monkey towards Anathra, tail spinning him around so the man was facing the camera.
“Ahhh! Rude! Um well, hello there! As Avid said, I’m Doovid, and I am also a Monkey, and I also use he/him! I- Well I also do music stuff sometimes? I’ve never been in a death game before though, that's um new to me, but I’m really interested in getting to see how this all plays out!” He nodded.
Anathra clapped his hands together again, and turned to face the camera yet again. The blue tint on the film got stronger with him looking directly at-
Looking directly past the illusion of his reality.
“Great, and that's everyone except me! So, hello, I am Anathra, he/him, and I’m an android! I’m hosting this game as a challenge for both my friends and a challenge for me! I had my visor off just for this section so I could properly speak to all of you guys,” he said, gesturing at the camera.
The camera that wasn’t there. There was no camera. Past this reality, and past this illusion, and all the way out to the page that it was written on. All the way out to-
“But, before we leave this spawn house I’m going to put it back on so I can be fully immersed in our game! Say goodbye to my pretty eyes, chat!” He winked at the camera smugly.
Not at the camera but at…..
At someone far past it.
…
That's you, by the way.
Hi there. Are you having a good day? I hope you are.
And… goodbye!
Anathra shut his eyes, and lowered the visor onto his face. The blue filter on the film leaves as soon as the visor suddenly lights up far brighter than it was glowing earlier for just one moment, before dimming back down. He took a deep breath as he let himself settle into his role the fact that the game was properly starting, and then opened the white and blue doors of the room.
“Let the game begin!”
He held the door open for everyone as they all ran out, excitedly beginning to gather early items.
[ A static noise can be heard for just a moment, before our perspective shifts from Anathra’s side to Leon’s ]
“You know, it’d be really funny if Anathra and Trog were just straight up lying about the twist and there were just no teams at all.” Leon said laughing, as his enderman claws dug into the wood of the tree in front of him.
“Maybe we’re actually just all on our own teams. One person teams!” Said Rubyco from over hir shoulder while breaking down a different tree for resources.
“Yeah wait, hold on. Why are we working together, aren’t we all gonna kill each other?” Avid asked
Anathra nodded.
“Well, the games only really just started, and we won’t be getting team assignments until day two! We don’t need to worry about that for now!” He said huffily.
“Yeah!”, said Doovid. “We’re all just one big happy family- for now!”
Vintage snorted.
“We’re all one team,” she said. “The human team!”
Leon paused and turned around to glance in Vintage's general direction while still avoiding eye contact.
“Vintage- only like one of us in this group here is human, and his human status is QUESTIONABLE AT BEST!”
“Hey!” Shouted Milkman from somewhere out of the camera’s view.
[ Pause. The film skips ahead for a moment. Unpause. ]
“The teams- we don’t need to know the teams, I already know what the teams are gonna be!” Leon said, glancing at Vintage.
“It's going to be You, Fool, Me, Doovid, aaaand Marmalade!”
Vintage giggled and continued putting resources in her inventory.
“What if you're right and now you’ve spoiled the whole game by accident?” They said jokingly.
Leon laughed. “Maybe then Trog will just have to give up and they’ll cancel the game all together.”
Fast footsteps began approaching as Ruby ran up to Leon and elbowed him in the arm.
“Or maybe you were right earlier and Trog is just lying about there being teams at all!”
Anathra turned to them from where he was cutting down another tree, with a semi puzzled look on his face.
“Do we genuinely think Trog would ruin the game like that?” He said, putting away his axe.
[ Pause. Trog is the assigner of the teams and the co runner of this game! You are now aware of who Trog is. Back to the program! Unpause. ]
Leon shook his head. “I don’t know, I don’t think they would, but also it depends! I mean- Who's Trog?”
Rubyco punched his shoulder. “Hey! Don’t be mean to someone who’s listening!”
[ Pause. Thank you Ruby! I always appreciate that you actually remember to consider that! Time to move forward again! Unpause. ]
Ruby shielded it’s eyes as they looked into the sun behind the large forest nearby.
“Wow, that's a giant scary forest!”
Anathra nodded.
“That really is a giant scary forest! Should we go deeper?” He asked, taking a couple steps towards the edge.
“Do we have to?” Leon asked, tail twitching nervously.
“Well, I think we should! Let's go on an adventure!” Ruby said, jumping over a couple large roots and continuing on hir way.
Leon shrugged. “Okay, we’re going deeper into the giant scary forest.” He replied, following Ruby and Anathra into the dense trees ahead.
[ Pause. Let's fast forward, and change perspectives (Static.) again! Unpause. ]
Marmalade was wandering around near the edge of a less giant scary forest nearby spawn when she spotted them. The buildings looked incredibly weathered and somewhat mossy, their stone walls practically crumbling. One of the ruined buildings had a skull patterned banner on it.
“Guys look! Are those ruins?”
Fool, Milkman, Vintage, and Doovid, who were all exploring with her, rushed to find out.
“Oh wow, they do look like some kind of ruins! I wonder if there's any cool loot.” Fool said snarkily, catching up to Marm’s pace quickly, as he began rummaging through the chests in the nearby
Marmalade wandered over to the side of some large crumbled structure. It was hard to tell what it was from the outside, but a chest was near the edge of one of the walls, and if there was loot she wanted at least some before Fool stole it all.
Opening the chest, she found… a book?
[ Static. ]
Doovid looked up at Marm curiously.
“Woah, a book? I didn’t know that you can read, ‘cause I sure can’t.”
Milkman laughed from where he was also looking through a chest across the way.
“That's objectively not true, Doovid! You had to have read the invites to accept them to be here today!” He said, pointing at him as if to accuse him of some crime.
Doovid turned around to laugh in his direction, grabbing some nearby sugarcane with his tail and putting it in his inventory.
“I guess you got me there!”
[ Static ]
Vintage ran around the corner towards Doovid and Marm excitedly.
“Guys, look what I found!” They said, as they held up a skeleton head.
Fool glanced over from where he was still rummaging around, and then glanced back to the chest.
“You’ll never guess what I also just found!” He replied, holding up another skull.
“Wait, that means there's maybe more to find! We should all get one!” Milkman said, running to go search through more of the chests to see if there was any more.
Marmalade pointed to a banner mounted to the top of one of the ruins, with a skull pattern on it that she had spotted earlier.
“If we all get skulls,” She said, “We should get that banner on our shields and be the Skull Gang!”
“Like from Pokemon?” Doovid asked.
Marm laughed. “Yeah! But does anyone else have name suggestions for our little group?”
Milkman raised his hand as he ran over with a skull now firmly placed on his head.
“We could be Team Boneheads!” He said, as he promptly knocked on his new “helmet” with his fist.
“Ha! That makes us sound stupid, but it's funny and I support your crimes!” Fool said, as he showed off a second skull banner and two more skulls, tossing them to Doovid and Marm.
“Catch!”
[ Pause. Let's fast forward just a little bit here! Static. Unpause. ]
Doovid and Vintage made their way to the top of the structure and gazed down into the large gap in the middle, revealing walkways all around the sides of the ruin.
Doovid pointed to the bottom.
“Are those spawners down there?” He asked nervously.
Vintage squinted, arm over her face to shield her eyes from the sun, and nodded.
“Yep those are spawners, and those ones at the bottom aren't the only ones in there. There's some on the walkways down too, do you see them?”
Doovid nodded nervously.
“Yeah I am certified not dealing with this today!” He said, as he jumped down and decided to explore elsewhere.
For just a moment, he thought he heard the sound of a crossbow being loaded. He whipped around, tail swerving out of the way of a potential attacker, only for nothing to be there.
Vintage glanced at him with her eyebrow raised. Doovid took a couple seconds to regulate his breathing, placing his left hand on his chest and trying to get any of his tension to go away. His fist was still balled up.
Just breath, Doovid. He thought, trying to catch his breath.
Nothing’s happened yet. Nothing is here, and nothing is hurting me. It’s just my brain playing tricks on me again. Breath, Doovid.
“Sorry. I… I thought I heard something.”
[ Pause. Let’s see what the others are up to! Unpause. ]
The rest of the group were working together to build a house! It was raining, but the roof was built fast enough for it to not be too bothersome.
“So you know how humanoids have less bones as they grow up? What if that kept going and then their bones just like, dissolved as they got older.”
Avid looked at Viking absolutely bewildered.
“What??? Where did that COME from?!” He said, as he was adding to the walls.
“Pff- I don’t know- I- ! Intrusive thoughts, man!” He said, as he was adding a mine entrance.
Leon glanced over to him.
“Wait, but if that's the case then how many bones would a grandma have?” Leon asked curiously.
Viking put his hand on his chin as he thought for a second.
“I’m pretty sure Grandma’s are like, zero percent bone.” Viking responded.
[ Static ]
For some reason, they had the “windows” be half slab openings, without realising that skeletons could still shoot through the gaps. That got fixed pretty quick as soon as they realized though.
By “realized”, I mean that Anathra got shot in the side.
[ Static. ]
It was Avid and Leon’s turn to be on mining duty, so off they went.
Avid’s singing could be heard from the entrance of the mines even as Anathra was heading down just to get some iron for gear for himself.
“They said to reach for the clouds, but now I’m up here cold looking down!” He sang, continuing to hum the rest of the song as he mined.
Anathra laughed, as Leon paused his strip-mining to make a furnace.
“Hey Anathra, do we think we can change the intro to just be Avid singing?” He asked, putting his materials in a chest next to his crafting table and popping an iron ore into the furnace to smelt it.
Anathra smiled softly as he got out his pickaxe.
“Haha, maybe! I mean it is only episode one so theoretically we could change the intro if so desired.” He replied mischievously,
“Hey!” Avid shouted from further away. “Don’t be complimenting me when I can barely hear it!”
Anathra and Leon only laughed in response.
[ Pause. Let's skip ahead and move over to the Boneheads again. Unpause. ]
“Wait, where did Doovid go?” Asked Milkman, looking around their little group, his skeleton skull still on his head. They were headed past the ruins to see if there was anything else of interest nearby.
“Oh,” Vintage said. “Doovid headed to spawn a little bit ago. He got spooked by something back at the ruins earlier so he wanted to go back.”
Fool was ahead of the others. scanning the horizon when he noticed something odd.
“Hold on,” Fool said, pointing to some terrain in the distance. “What is that?”
The terrain resembled the aftermath of a volcano, or like it belonged somewhere in the wastelands of the Nether.
Milkman climbed up to the ledge where Fool was standing so he could have a better view of what he meant.
“Oh, that looks like Hell!” Milkman said brightly.
[ Static ]
Ruby ran over to Doovid upon seeing him approach the edge of spawn.
“Doovid, Hi!” She said, waving his hand at him before stopping near him. I don’t know where the others that were with you went but uh, Could you get them and tell them we have a base now?” She asked, somewhat out of breath from jogging over there.
“Oh we have a base now? Cool! And sure, I’ll go find ‘em!”
[ Pause. Time skip! Unpause. ]
Everyone had finally made it back to the base! The Bonehead’s crew that were out exploring earlier were showing off their loot, and getting ready to go mining.
Anathra came up from the mines to see people with skulls on their heads chanting “Bone” over and over again, and was incredibly confused.
“Did you guys 🔔ing go back to the prehistoric era?” He asked, bewildered.
[ Static ]
“Vintage, psst- Vintage!” Fool said, coming up to her in the mines.
Vintage turned around to look at him.
“Yeah, Fool?” They asked.
Fool pulled out a stone sword, and narrowed his eyes.
“If I’m on your team, I am going to come up to you, show you this sword, and nod.” He said gesturing to its blade and then promptly sheathing it.
Vintage raised her eyebrows.
“Um, okay. And then I’ll kill you.”
Fool just snorted a laugh and shrugged, heading down further into the mines.
“Oh dang.” Vintage said, noticing she had an unwanted overlay enabled on her communicator.
“I forgot I had subtitles on. I should turn those off.”
[ Static ]
Marmalade was heading down into the mine when she heard what Vintage said, and laughed.
“Who has subtitles on? 🔔in’ nerd!”
[ Static ]
Avid and Viking were having a chill mining session. The keyword here is were. Milkman had somehow quietly snuck up behind Avid in order to scare him.
“Bone!” He shouted, holding up two bones in his hands.
“AAH!” Avid yelled, jumping back, thinking Milkman was a skeleton. Upon realising it was a player that had scared him, he responded in the most Avid way possible: Stringing together a cursed sentence none of them had ever heard before.
“AAAHH! NO I DON’T WANNA BE BONED!” He screamed, running through the mines as fast as he could.
Milkman paused, and Viking absolutely lost it, laughing so hard but keeping pace with Avid since he was supposed to be helping him.
“Wait a second-” Milkman said, clearly distraught by the horrible words Avid just conjured.
But Avid kept running. But who is Milkman if he doesn’t commit to a bit, so he started running too.
“Bone! Bone! BONE!” He said, chasing after Avid.
Avid looked behind him while running for his life.
“NO NO NO NO NO, VIKING DIG FASTER, DIG FASTER!”
[ Static ]
Leon sat on the floor cross legged, while munching on some of his chorus fruit. He managed to get it down without teleporting, thanks to his enderman genes.
“So when do we think our teams will be assigned?” He asked in between bites of his snack.
Ruby checked their clock from over where they were helping organise the chests.
“It shouldn’t be too much longer!” Ae said, checking their clock.
“It looks like it's only a couple minutes till!” Xe said.
[ Static ]
Doovid and Leon were discussing the Bonehead’s discovery of the ruins when it happened.
A sound like the bell of a clocktower rang through their ears. It was loud, daunting. No one dared ask for whom it tolled. The text appeared at the same time as it had rung.
The pink and red text only added to the feeling of dread.
“Team Selection Time!”
“Good luck. You will be teleported shortly.”
[ Static consumed the video feed, until the film cleared up, and the outro began.
It seems our episode has come to a close! Teams are to be chosen next, and then our game will truly begin. ]