As Tuesday mornings went, it was very much one of the Tuesday mornings ever. A peace had settled itself over the server, waiting to be broken by some kind of creeper cannon or world eater or vex magic or… Keralis or whatever in a few hours’ time, once the sun was fully up.
A handful of Hermits were already awake and busy, either from being early risers or from having worked through the night. Tango found himself among the latter group, sipping his coffee as he started planning out in his mind how he wanted his final outer tower to look. He quite liked the eye effect he’d included on the second tower, but he was loath to repeat it. On the other hand, maybe something with ice spilling out of the tower would look cool—
He was startled out of his planning by a hiss from behind.
Running on blind instinct, he turned, his coffee slipping out of his hands and spilling on the ground, and he threw his hands out towards the creeper, as if to push it away. Surprisingly, this actually did have an effect, as bolts of ice shot out of his fingertips, coalescing into a prison around the creeper, successfully containing its explosion.
Tango stared, dumbfounded, at the shattered lump of ice in front of him, heart pounding so hard that he could feel it wrack his every movement. Numbly, he looked at his hand, turning it over as if staring at it would magically make some answers appear. Carefully, he repeated the movement, and ice shot out of his hand once more, forming a lump on the ground a few meters away. He stared at his hand, a hysterical laugh escaping him. Of course he had ice powers! It made perfect sense!
He made a few more motions, getting a handle on how to control his powers, and soon the ground around him was covered in snow and ice. It was at about this point that he realised this was the sort of thing Zed was talking about when he mentioned further developments. He pulled his comm out of his pocket, sent Zed a quick message, and set about iceificating the region even more.
A few minutes passed, and then Zed came flying in, only to crash right into a snow drift, head bent awkwardly at just the right angle to see Tango shooting a bolt of ice down the slope of the mountain. Tango turned, and gave a start at the sight of sudden unexpected Zedaph.
“Hi!” Zed greeted from where he was crumpled on the ground. “You were not kidding when you said there’d been developments!”
———
“Where’s the tea?” Zed asked, rummaging through Tango’s cupboards. The two had moved inside, away from all the snow and ice and stuff that Tango had thrown everywhere.
“Starter base,” Tango told him. “I haven’t had time to move everything over yet.”
“Hm.” Zed frowned, closing the cupboard and sitting at the table across from Tango. “Give me your hand?” He asked. Tango did as he was told, offering his hand to Zedaph. Gently, Zed rested his palm on Tango’s only to pull away with a hiss of pain.
“You alright?”
“Yeah,” Zed assured, shaking feeling away. “Just… your hands are freezing.”
“Well, to be fair, I have been shooting ice out of them. That is a thing I’ve been doing.”
“True,” Zed laughed. “So, we’re definitely thinking it’s story magic at this point?”
“I mean, probably?” Tango shrugged. “I’ve never seen story magic go this far before, but, you know.”
“What about Ren? Doesn’t he get really affected by story magic?”
“I guess?” Tango laughed. “Man, he’s always got something going on, huh?”
“Yeah.” Zed chuckled. “Apparently, he’s declared himself king of the server!”
“...Really?” Tango asked, his voice suddenly calm and dangerous. Zed shot him a look, unnerved.
“...Yeah?” Zed didn’t know exactly what was suddenly filling him with that sense of trepidation, but he was suddenly struck with how wrong everything was. Tango was wearing blue, for starters, and not in a stealing-someone’s-jacket kind of way. There was no tea in the cupboards, either, although that was easier to explain than the rest. Worst of all, Tango was actually sitting up straight, like this was some formal dinner party. Something was very wrong indeed.
“That’s… interesting, to say the least.” Tango chuckled darkly. Zed found himself filled with the urge to leave now before things got worse.
“I—I don’t really—how?”
“I didn’t know we could just go proclaiming ourselves king!” Tango’s voice turned smooth, sharp, almost maniacal.
“Well—”
“Maybe I should be king!” he stood up, his posture even more wrong than before.
“I mean—”
“WHY SHOULDN’T I BE KING!?” Tango bellowed. Zed scuttled back, desperate to get away from him, a sharp fear coursing through his veins and stabbing through his heartbeat. Tango prowled closer, his smile pointed and dangerous. “Why… shouldn’t… I… be… king?”
“Tango, please…” Zed whispered. “You’re scaring me.”
“Think about it!” Tango’s normal tone of voice returned, but there was something more clearly off about it now, like a rim of frost around the edges. He roughly pulled Zed to his feet. The moment he was upright, Zed broke Tango’s grip on his arm with a glare (although Tango seemed to miss it). “You’d support me as king, right?”
“Well, yes, normally—” Zed stammered out.
“Normally?”
“Well, uh, you’re—Tango, are you feeling alright?”
“Perfectly fine!” Tango grinned. “Why?”
“You’re not acting—Something’s—Something’s wrong.”
“Hmm, no.” Tango shrugged, looking over one of his hands as if it would reveal all the magic answers. “I don’t think so.”
Thankfully, Tango making a point of acting out checking himself over allowed Zed an opportunity to escape, and he darted past Tango, making a beeline for the door. Escape was just within reach, when he felt something close around his leg, trapping him and causing him to stumble. Zed let out a cry, trying to pull himself free from the ice Tango had encased around his leg.
“Aw, Zed,” Tango crossed the kitchen with slow, deliberate strides. His eyes were closed. Why were his eyes closed? “You really thought you could run?”
“Tango…” Zed gasped, voice barely above a whisper, “Tango, this isn’t you.”
“No.” Tango grinned, grabbing Zed’s chin and forcing him to look as he opened his eyes, revealing that they had turned a solid ice-blue. “No, this is me. This is me, and I am better than ever.”
“Tango,” Zed spoke, with difficulty thanks to how Tango was holding his jaw, “Let go.”
“No, I don’t think I will.” Tango laughed, a sinister, wheezing thing that sounded painfully wrong coming out of him. “I don’t think I will! You don’t get it, do you, Zed? I deserve to rule this server.” He gestured around at the building they were in. “I have a castle! I have a throne! Does Ren have any of those? No! Ren would probably—Ren would definitely be a terrible ruler! He’d make everyone throw their diamonds into a pit or something! I deserve the crown! I should be king.” Tango came down from his monologue, breaths heaving.
“And if you try and stop me…” Tango grabbed Zed’s chin again, eyes alight with malice. Zed struggled and thrashed, but between the ice on his leg and Tango holding his head steady, he couldn’t do much beyond shutting his eyes as tightly as he could as Tango raised his hand and fired a bolt of ice directly into Zed’s face. “There’s more where that came from.”
With that, Tango released Zed from where he was trapped, and gestured for Zed to leave. Zed took the hint, scarpering out of the Deep Frost Citadel and dashing down the mountain, driven by nothing but blind panic until he reached the river that enclosed Tango’s domain. At that point, he collapsed, the adrenaline draining out of his system and leaving him weakened and freezing.
And void, was he freezing. Taiga biomes usually weren’t this cold, he thought, but there was a chill in him, running deep into his bones. Even his eyes felt cold, somehow, and he could feel the beginnings of a migraine taking root behind them. Generally speaking, he just… hurt everywhere. Everything was cold, and miserable, and it hurt, and he hated it. He hated everything.
With a soft grunt of effort, he turned his head from where he lay, casting one last glance at Tango’s base. There was something wrong with Tango, he knew, and he swore then and there that he would get to the bottom of it, even if it killed him.