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"Yo, this man.." Techno sighs, leaning back and resting his head against the cold wall. Peering up at the camera, the pinkette rolls his eyes. "Quackity, you really have no sense of style. If you're tryin' to intimidate me, you could like, splatter some blood 'round."
"You shut up, shut the fuck up." Quackity hisses over the intercom. "You're not here for some fucking- fucking whatever you're doing, Techno, you're here for information. You're here for telling me everything, and your little friend Philza isn't gonna save you."
Alarm bells go off in Techno's head. What? What was- Actually, come to think of it, where was he? But more to the point, what do you mean by Philza isn't going to save him? It wasn't like he was worried about himself, he was worried about his blonde friend.
"Oh, so it was true." Quackity pauses, some shuffling, and a door creaks open. Technoblade struggles in his binds, turns his head to peek through the thin blade of light that shines through the room.
It's then blocked by a familiar silhouette, and Philza grunts, feathers flying as he's shoved in roughly. The light then shuts off as the door closes with a thud. "Well, this is going to be fun."
Ah. Okay, okay, so this was actually a bit more serious than Technoblade thought. Phil lays collapsed on the floor, struggling to get up. He's tied to a chair, as is Techno, but his arms are more free than his friend's.
He's shaking.
Technoblade's mind fills with rage, and he stares up at the camera with an icy glare. "What did you do?"
Quackity laughs, and suddenly, Techno wants to punch the blue-clad man in his smug face. "Just gave him a lingering potion of harming. Also, weakness. Just so he can't help you."
Phil struggles onto his side, cheek shmushed against the cold stone ground. "You okay, Tech?"
The pinkette's heart is warmed slightly. Even in this situation, Phil's still worried about him, not himself. "Yeah, I'm okay," He says softly. "More worried about you, though."
"Don't worry," Phliza smirks. "I gave him an earful on the way here. I got a coupl' a hits on him, though."
"The fucker bit me," Quackity snarls. "Like I was some sort of snack."
"I also," Phil wriggled so he was facing the camera. Quackity could see his shit-eating grin. "Cursed at you in eons' knowledge worth of swears."
Technoblade chuckles. Having been on the end of most of those, he could practically guarantee Quackity didn't know what half of them meant, but would feel offended nonetheless.
Grinning, Phil spits at the camera. "I could sell you to my wife for one of those, like, corn chip things."
"You- You have a wife?" Quackity sounds mildly surprised. So he hadn't done his research. Okay, Techno could work with that. "Who is she?"
"Oh, Her name's Kristin," Phil says casually, as if he was talking to a friend, as if he isn't kidnapped. "But you'd probably know Her as Death."
Quackity laughs. "Okay, now you're fucking with me, fucker. I've waited long enough. You'd better be fucking ready, assholes."
Even with the amount of experience Techno's had with being kidnapped, his heartrate still picks up and he still feels his shoulders tense as the intercom crackles quietly out, and loud footsteps on wooden planks.
Judging from the temperature, they were somewhere underground. And from the hate posters hung up around him, which by the way, pog, he got to stare at power while being tortured, this was some sort of fan club.
But there was also some sort of chair in the right hand corner, a tall chair, one which was partially hidden with a waterfall of water.
"Butcher Army," Phil whispers to him. "Ranboo'll know."
And then Quackity kicks the door open, the metal shuddering. The man has a giant grin on his disfigured face. His necklace of poker chips dangles. With him, he brings a lantern, and Techno blinks as his eyes adjust to the change.
On his hand, he sports a couple of bite marks, and Techno hides a proud smile at that. Quackity notices his gaze, and growls. "You fucking bitch."
Technoblade rolls his eyes. "Look, can you just get on with it already? Take one of us to the torture chamber or whatever your low budget plan has?" He drawls.
"Oh," Quackity pauses. "You seem to be under some sort of fucking dream. This is the torture chamber. You're both being interrogated."
"Seems a little hard to torture both of us at the same time," Phil tosses out, smiling. "So-"
"No, Philza." Quackity's eyes held a glint in them, and he silenced the older by kicking him. Techno tenses. "I didn't say it was only physical. You see, Philza, this is the torture chamber. Which means that Techno can watch."
Dread settles in like a cold bucket of snow being dumped on Techno's head. Somewhere, something growls. Quackity grins at the expression on the piglin hybrid's face. "Plus, this whole thing is partially a bait."
"The one thing I managed to get out of Dream is that he needed a certain someone's help to translate the revive book." Quackity paces around the room, absentmindedly righting Phil's chair upwards. "If you look in the corner of the room, you'll see the third chair."
And yes, Techno had, but now that there was light, he realised that there were already blood stains on the chair.
Purple blood.
"Ranboo." Phil realises, and his eyes narrow. "You fucker, leave Ranboo out of this."
Quackity laughs. "One thing about Ranboo that I noticed is that he's stupidly loyal. Which means that if I left a note to him that if he gives himself up, I'd let you go."
"Oh." Techno breathes. Quackity smiles, and then advances onto Phil. "Wait, no-"
His mouth moves before he can stop it, and Quackity's smile widens, as he leans on the back of Phil's chair, roughly shoving him in the head. Technoblade tenses. "Oh. Ohh. Technoblade. You really do- You do have an attachment other than that stupid horse!"
"Hey," Phil coughs, but gives a weak smile. "Don't diss Carl."
Quackity places his hands around Phil's neck and dangles off of it, leaning back. Phil winces, but conserves his breath with a roll of his eyes.
Techno had got to say, this was probably.. the weirdest torture session he'd ever been in, he decided, as Quackity dropped to the ground, rolling his body as he went. "Dude, what? What are you doin'?"
Rolling his eyes, Quackity pulls harder, and Phil chokes. "You should really stop talking, you know."
Technoblade can see Phil running out of air, but his friend's fists clench. Techno wants to say something, wants to tell Quackity to stop, because he hates seeing Philza like this, but unfortunately, this wasn't the first time this scenario had happened.
He didn't want to give Quackity the satisfaction of saying anything. But to see Phil's spirit going out of his eyes, becoming deflated, it hurt him to see.
Quackity frowns, releasing Phil, who coughs for breath, wheezing. "Is this not enough? No, of course it fucking isn't, of course, you're fucking Technoblade."
Technoblade ignores the idiot, and gazes in concern at his friend, as the colour returns back to his face and his head lolls to his chest, before coughing, meeting the piglin's eyes. "I'll be okay, mate."
Running through his inventory, Quackity mumbles to himself, loud enough that only Phil could hear. Now, Quackity doesn't know Philza well enough, but Technoblade could see that his friend tensed up, slightly curving his pinky finger.
"Fucking hell.." Quackity grins, pulling something out of his inventory. Phil grimaces. "Technoblade, Technoblade, you know how Phil loves his wings?"
Techno's eyes widen slightly, and that's all Quackity needs. Technoblade struggles against his bindings, and Quackity laughs. "Oh, this is going to be amazing."
"You- Don't." Techno's voice drops to a low, gravelly growl, but Quackity isn't perturbed, creeping closer to his friend. "I'm warnin' you, Quackity, stop."
"Oh yes, I'm so scared," Quackity mocks, before snorting. "Technoblade, in case you haven't fucking noticed, you're fucking tied up, you can't do shit Technoblade, you can't do shit."
They'll heal, Phil mouths to Techno, who isn't... really placated by that. Sure, they will, but Phil loves flying. His wings are his joy, his pride, and for Quackity to tarnish them like that, burn them, pluck out the feathers, that would break him.
Technoblade really hopes Ranboo hurries up.
Quackity starts by plucking out the feathers, starting with the flight feathers. He's rough, and it doesn't help that Phil lets out a scream at one of them, a black-green feather with a white rose on it.
The blue-clad man seems to be particularly encouraged by that, and instead looks for patterned feathers. Phil is panting, growling with every feather pulled out, and his hair is stuck to his face with sweat.
"Stop it." Technoblade growls. Quackity smiles, plucking out a feather with a crown on it, and the feather in Techno's hair flashes. "Get away from him, stop."
Phil's agonised screams fill the air, and as Quackity places his fingers on the feather's stumps, Techno struggles. "Quackity, stop, you've done enough, please-!"
Quackity laughs, pausing. And for the very least, that gives Phil a break for about a minute. "The great Technoblade. Reduced to begging for his friend."
"Shut." Philza croaks. "The fuck.. Up."
Raising his eyebrows, their torturer frowns. "Phil, Phil, don't you understand? You're the ones who aren't at power here. Phil, do you want your wings to get burnt?"
Technoblade prays for his friend to stay quiet, but, as the author loves hurting him, Phil caws. "Try your worst."
Quackity smiles. "Well, okay. Only because you said so."
He starts with the bottom of the wings. By now, all of the 'special' feathers in Phil's coat of wings had been tossed to the floor. But Quackity starts burning the feathers in Phil's wings. They catch on fire one by one, burning through the nerves.
"Stop, Quackity, stop." Technoblade's teeth grind against each other. Phil's screams to put it out, to stop, ring in his ears, hurt his heart. "Stop, please."
Techno bites his lip, golden ichor spilling out. Quackity laughs above Phil's screams, and Techno struggles as hard as he can, and Quackity only laughs harder.
He can see that in Phil's eyes, Phil's begging him to get Quackity to stop, but to not say anything, but Technoblade struggles against the urge to protect protect protect his friend his Phil-
"Okay," Technoblade gasps out, gritting his teeth. His head falls to his chest as he finally tears his eyes away from Philza's limp, bleeding wings. Blood spills from Techno's hands onto the ground, having dug his nails in so far.
He growls. He gave up. He shouldn't be giving up, but for Phil- Quackity would leave him alone. Quackity would leave Phil alone. That was all that mattered. That was all-
Quackity's smug face filled his vision. "Okay what, Technoblade?"
"Okay," Techno groans. "You win."
"Thank you." Quackity smiles. "Now, what do I need to know? Hm. We'll start with Ranboo, shall we? He's, again, stupidly loyal."
The first time he'd said that felt like days ago.
"I need to know how to get him to do what I say, for starters. Like, come on, he's not gonna do anything until I let you guys go, which, honestly," Quackity hesitates. "I'm kind of enjoying having you here, so-"
It was so quiet in the room, Technoblade could hear the key turning in the door. Quackity, could, too, apparently, as he smiles, letting go of Techno's chin and turning to the door.
Ranboo opens it, stepping through the doorway. For the first time, Techno realised how tall the ceiling was, and for what seemed like the millionth time, looked at the third chair, and then at Ranboo.
"Oh hello, Ranboo!" Quackity smiles, and Techno can see Ranboo's tail flicking as he steels himself. "Nice of you to arrive."
Ranboo's eyes flick to the chair in the corner, and a shudder runs down his body. "Let them g-go, Quackity."
Techno's at least proud of how there was barely a stutter in his voice.
"Not even a hello? Or a worried glance to your friends?" Quackity hums. "I'd thought you'd be more worried, considering you've been in this place yourself."
Phil weakly lifts his head up and hisses.
Tail flicking, Ranboo hums. "Yes. I have." A deep breath. Techno can see his hands shaking. "I'm here. You can let them go now."
"Now hold on one second here, Ranboo, you don't get to-" Quackity starts, but stops when Ranboo steps forward with a growl, ender particles appearing around him for a split second. "Whoa. Using force."
"Let them go, or I will use force." Ranboo threatens, wrapping his hand around his sword handle, and Technoblade is so proud of Ranboo, because Prime, he really does change when someone is in danger. "I am not above taking your last life, Quackity."
Quackity laughs nervously, flicking his own blade out and pressing it against Phil's throat. "You wouldn't hurt me. I could kill-"
The room's temperature drops. "Quackity, I do not care what you think you need me for, but I didn't come to help you." Ranboo growls, and honestly, Techno is impressed.
"I'll help you or whatever, but you let them go first. They have nothing to do with any-" Ranboo swept a hand across the room, pointing at the corner chair. "Of this."
"De lo contrario, Ranboo." Quackity interrupts, pressing the blade further against Phil's throat. "De lo contrario. They have everything to do with this. Leverage, for example. Or, well, fun."
"If I come with you, let them go."
"Well, it's not ideal, but it'll do." Quackity hums. "Drop your fucking weapons and armour, drop it now!"
Ranboo squeezed his eyes shut, and drops his sword.
"And your armour."
Clink.
Techno wants to scream.
"Good, good." Quackity smiles, and takes the weapon away from Phil's throat. "Now, I-"
Ranboo moves so fast that Techno almost can't catch the way he digs into his cape and throws a slowness potion across the room, and it splashes on Quackity and Phil. Quick as a flash, Ranboo scoops up his sword, sprinting across the room to Techno to untie him.
"You okay?" They both ask each other at the same time.
Technoblade grins. "I'm proud. Nice job, kid." He ruffles Ranboo's hair. "But we're definitely talkin' bout this later."