Chapter Text
It's the middle of the night. Somewhere, a little girl falls out of the back of a truck.
It doesn't stop for her. It's doesn't even look back. But when she looks up, she does see a blonde head of hair staring at her.
She imagines it's with contempt, just to make herself feel better.
In reality, she knows that it's with pride. Perhaps relief. The boy was brash for the short while they knew each other. Attached at the hip with another boy who looked similar to him, but spoke in a distinctly different accent. They looked panicked, intensely upset for the girl.
They were resourceful, that much she gave them. Fashioned a lock pick out a stray piece of rusted steel, a crowbar out of another. Threw the door open.
Now, the girl sobbed in pain, hated them for treating her so brusquely. Years later, she would learn to pray for them every night before bed.
One day, she would wake up and put on the news. That day, she would find out some prayers really do come true.
♪
Techno doesn't really know where he found the first video from ChannelNutpig. It was on his YouTube feed, he guesses, and the thumbnail was just a black screen
It inspired intrigue.
It ended up being two teenagers, just talking at a camera with a horrible microphone.
Some of the audio cuts out, and in the first video it really seemed like it was innocent bad equipment, but by the seventh; it was very obviously deliberate.
He suspects, because he can't suspect anything sinister (not with the contents of the videos) it's just the embarassing moments that end up being outtakes.
(Techno doesn't know how he got to the seventh video in a row. There was just something...interesting about them. Something that pulled you in. Y'know. Despite the fact they spent 50% of all videos fighting. )
They introduce themselves as Red and Blue. Red is crash, loud, and swears way too much. Blue contrasts him completely. He's more quiet, with a sharper kind of humour— sarcastic, dark. Most of it flies right over Red's head.
(Privately, Techno likes Red more. Techno would say that he's like the typical little brother technoblade never had, but Techno likes to think of himself as not the kind of person who develops parasocial relationships.
Techno works late. He's an archivist, if you can believe it.
He can't.
He hadn't suspected that his degree in English Literature would get him here. Secretly, despite his very public aversion to it, he had always expected to end up in teaching.
But here he was, in a dusty little archive. He liked the solitude, don't get him wrong, but there was some part of him— the one that had grown up surrounded by people at all times, he imagines— that misses the loud and boisterous.
Apparently though, as he was quick to discover, everyone in his life had taken his job opportunity to be a perfect fit for him. That, and a perfect reason to leave him alone.
Techno shook his head, trying to shake off the sleep that settled itself on his eyelids and took a sip of his coffee. He'd deliberately gotten black coffee, heart-attack amounts of espresso, even though he liked it sweet.
He dug out his headphones from his back and turned on the latest video, turning off his phone to just listen. Say anything about these kids, they told amazing stories.
Horror stories. (That, or gossip which made no sense, but he tried not to dwell on that.) Techno hadn't expected himself to be a fan of them. He'd clawed his way tooth and nail through college on the back of Ancient Greek myths and Shakespeare plays. Creative Writing, though, he had never been a fan of.
Techno believed in what was real and concrete. Writing, what was real and concrete, that is. Fantasizing, in his experience, never got you anywhere. Techno had been interested in journalism for a while. There was a distinct lack of unbiased opinions in the media, and Techno was nothing if not unbiased.
But then there was the interview-taking bit of that course that slapped his dream down into oblivion.
You see, public speaking wasn't a Techno thing. His throat closed up as he looked at all those beady little eyes staring at him from the audience, watching him, judging him. He could tell they couldn't care less if he failed.
That was debilitating, somehow.
Techno stayed far away from that. On second thought, maybe an Archive was the right place for him. It was better sitting through the rain than looking for silver linings anyway.
The video started, and Techno realised it had been loading thus far. Goddamn archive and it's internet connection (lack thereof, to be specific).
There was a sinking feeling in his stomach.
There was something wrong in that video. Nothing immediately striking, but there was something wrong. He had a gut-feeling.
If you were someone who knew Techno personally, that sentence would send a chill down your spine. You're not, so let's elaborate. Techno has had gut feelings since he was a child.
Not good ones, which was depressing, because they were borderline prophetic. Never wrong. Techno's parents swore that they were why he was so good at tests.
Techno knew better.
He picked up his phone and turned it back on, pulling up the video. It was a black screen. Only four seconds in total, and a series of beeps half way through.
Morse code, Techno realised quickly. Had these kids decides to do one of those ARG things? No, but that didn't line up with the feeling.
Whenever Techno told his college acquaintances about his premonitions, they were quick to dismiss them as superstition. One went so far as to call them his Techie Sense, which earned him a death glare and an inexplicable string of bad luck.
Technoblade sighed and leaned back in his spinny chair, the back hitting the shelf behind him. He looked up at the ceiling, at the shelves that extended up, up, up, into oblivion.
"Y'know if there ever was a time for givin' me your ingenious advice, it would be now," Techno said to the air.
The air responded. It pulled up a Morse code translator. Techno rolled his eyes.
... --- .-. .-. -.--
His brows furrowed. That was strange. A whole video just to say—
A notification popped up on his computer. An email?
Techno jumped up and fumbled for his laptop, throwing it open and pulling down his glasses from his head. It's from someone called @redandbluemakespurpled
Techno clicks on it. Of course he does. Strange e-mail choice, but who else could it be?
Well, a thousand people trying to play pranks. Maybe a million different kinds of cyber fraud. But that's just the pessimism talking.
Something in the air shifts, and Techno knows it all too well. This tension, this is them trying to tell him something. And Techno is far too bored to not give in.
He clicks on it.
♪
Techno, to a certain level, knows that this is really, intensely dumb. But something about the email, something about the desperation, about the adamancy to not let it slip through— it rubs Techno the wrong way.
Hello Techno Blade,
That is a badass name. You are so cool. Do you really have a 1000-0 win rate in bedwars?
Blue says I just immediately lost all my mysterious cool email points. He says he's writing all mysterious cool emails now. Fuck him.
Anyway, we need your help.
You're a good person, I think. You also know lots of shit. I could never know that much shit, king. Also you have a really cool names. Your parents were very punk-rock and not lame like most old people are.
I know you're bored. Who the fuck is satisfied with being an archivist, anyway? Is that an insult? I hope it's not or you'll hate me.
Don't hate me, please.
Also, please help us.
Lots of adoration and cries for help,
Red
It's really hard not to have a parasocial relationship with a kid like that, okay? It really could be anyone, Techno knows.
It could be a thousand different scam artists, it could be someone who knows Techno, or someone who thinks he knows him. Because Techno can think of very little other things that are more Red than questioning a man on his Bedwars win streak in an email that's a cry for help in every other way.
He emerges from the staircase that leads down into the archive, and the few workers who are still scattered around the museum look at him with poorly concealed apprehension. His heart twists.
Techno is intimidating, he knows. It's hard not to know when you're freshly fourteen and mothers are already hiding their kids from you like you're going to rip them apart with your teeth.
It probably didn't help that Techno bared his teeth at them in annoyance, but he's not keeping count any more.
The front desk lady looks up at him, and he appreciates her because there's less fear in her eyes than there is boredom. The amazing Ms. Krasinski. "Hello Mr. Blade," She drones, and if Techno were less sleep-deprived and worried, he would attempt a smile.
Today he just turns in his ID card and asks for a key to the upstairs vault. He doesn't have an excuse, initially, but she doesn't ask for one. She grabs his hand as he's about to leave, though, "I'm sorry, kid, the archives are a real shit show, ain't they?"
Techno does smile then. His boots echo on the marble floors of the Museum of National History, and his eyes wander to old paintings and showcases with L'manburg uniforms. His mouth twists into somewhere between a scowl and a frown as he notices the size of the uniforms.
Techno knew, objectively, that President Soot made children fight in the war. It wasn't any less blood-curdling the 27468th time you were reminded of that detail, turns out.
Techno towered over the vault guards, and they looked at him with abject fear in their eyes. The security guard to the left was a fat, pudgy sort of man with cheese all over his scruffy moustache. The man looked over nervously at a painting, featuring a man in the middle of a battle.
His braided pink hair floated behind him, his red velvet cape flying with the wind. You could only see his back, and the withers in front of him— nasty extinct creatures who were once tamed as weapons of war. Creatures who once razed L'manburg to the ground, at the command of their summoner.
The painting says The Blood God— and Techno doesn't have to squint to read that, he just knows. He knows because he's been compared to the Blood God of legend too many times to not know what the painting says.
Techno hands over the permision from Ms. Krasinski from the front desk to the guard. He doesn't fail to notice the way the guy's hands shake as he throws open the double doors.
Ms. Krasinski wrote down on the slip: Archive materials misplaced to the vault because Techno had a bad case of mutism when he had to talk to people he actually likes, apparently. He hopes this doesn't get Ms. Krasinski in trouble. She's a nice lady, one of the very few who doesn't judge a book by it's cover.
Because he's not here for just any file.
The vault is carpeted, and there are weirdly no working cameras inside. The air laughed at him. "Shove off, I'm tryin' to stay in blissful ignorance," Techno responded.
He does grab a file, in the end. It's not supposed to be here, it's archival material, and Techno likes things neat and tidy. He also grabs what the showcase claims is a Cipher Cube.
Uncovered from the rubble of the L'manburg crater. Once thought to be a plaything of President Soot's child, the Cipher Cube is thought to be a language-learning device for young children. It has helped archeologists decode the Old Language's signs and books.
"So it's an Alphabet block?" Techno snickers, and slips it into his satchel, file still on full display.
The security guards don't question him. All it takes, really, is one glare. He's been told by his family that, in the right lighting, his eyes look almost red.
Once out of the premises, Techno wonders what Red and Blue could possibly need something like this for.
A moment later, he gets a text.
It's not an email at all. It's a goddamn discord notification.
Did yuo get the email 2? Asks BeeBoy#7987
"Bruh," Says Techno.