After the resistance got Zed back, it was full steam ahead for preparing to take down Tango. Zed resumed his post at Tango’s side, using some faux icy tears that Stress made in order to pretend like nothing happened. However, when he could get away from Tango’s side, he did, checking in with the others so they could be certain he hadn’t been overwhelmed once again.
For the others, preparation consisted more of preparing weapons and plans based off Zed’s information about Tango’s movements. Batch after batch of the potion was brewed by Stress, Impulse enchanted swords and axes with the best enchantments he could find, False spent hours in a room they’d set up full of training dummies, giving people combat pointers if they asked. Gem tasked herself with devising the perfect plan of attack, while Doc and Etho researched less messy ways of dispelling a large amount of story magic.
“I don’t understand why we’re so worried about dying, anyway,” False voiced one day, while tipping a batch of harming arrows, “Won’t we just… respawn?”
“Oh yeah, you avoid story magic normally, don’t you?” Gem asked. When False nodded, she continued. “Deaths with too much story magic in them can get… messy.”
“If you’re lucky, you’ll just lose an eye.” Doc added.
“If you’re not…” Impulse trailed off, looking haunted. “I don’t ever want to go back to that.”
“Oh.” False gasped, “Is that why you two—with the Civil War—”
“Yeah,” Impulse nodded, “Now can… can we stop talking about this?”
“I made biscuits!” Stress burst into the room. “With extra strength potion!”
———
But then, as was likely inevitable, things went wrong. Zed missed one rendezvous, then two. The resistance were worried that they’d have to find him and drag him back to himself yet again, when the knock on the door came. Impulse opened it to a shaking, terrified Zedaph, missing half his icy armour, who wordlessly handed Impulse a letter.
Opening it, the resistance realised it was from Tango (although the handwriting looked nothing like his). It read:
To the people who think they can stop me,
Hello. Yes. I know you exist. I don’t know what you’ve done to poor Zed here but rest assured, I will make you pay for it. I will make you pay for everything.
Zed told me (after some persuasion) that you’re staging a little coup. Firstly, I find it cute, really, that you think you stand any sort of chance defeating me. Secondly, if you try to attack me outside of my terms, know that I will wipe the floor with you.
But! Don’t tell me I’m not a gracious king on occasion. I’ll give you a fighting chance. Why not? It’ll be fun!
If you stage your coup tomorrow at dawn, I promise, I’ll go easy on you.
If not…
I know where you are.
Yours faithfully,
His Majesty, The Warden of Frost, King of Hermitcraft, Tango of the Tek variety
Doc glowered at the letter, lowering it to the table. Zed shrunk back into the wall, nervous.
“Sorry,” he whispered.
“It’s not your fault,” Doc replied.
“The question is, do we take him up on his offer?” Etho asked, sniffling.
“Oh, it’s 100% a trap,” False responded.
“But I don’t particularly like the idea of fighting him in this house, either. Too many doors that can be sealed with ice,” Gem replied.
“Either way, we’re fighting on his terms,” Impulse added, his head in his hands, “And so we’re dead either way.”
“Maybe we can turn the appointment to our favour?” Stress offered, “How much does ‘e know, Zed?”
“Just… just that the resistance and coup exist. Nothing about how prepared we all are.”
“Then I say we do it!” Stress clapped her hands. “Gem, you have a plan for attacking at dawn, right?”
“Yeah?”
“Then we follow that plan to the letter. We beat Tango at ‘is own game, and we save both ‘im and the whole server!” Stress announced. “Who’s with me?”
A chorus of assent rang around the room. The resistance were ready to rumble.
———
Tango raised an eyebrow as Zed shuffled awkwardly into the throne room.
“What do you want?” Tango asked, suspicion filling his voice with venom. Those resistance idiots had made Zed betray him, after all.
“Um, ah, well,” Zed wrung his hands, not making eye contact—both clear tells that Zed was lying, “The resistance told me to tell you, uh, that they are coming, they just need a few more minutes.”
“Yeah, nice try,” Tango scoffed, standing up from his throne, “I can tell you’re lying. They’re not coming at all, are they?” Tango strode across the room to cup Zed’s face, “And they sent you as a sacrifice to keep me appeased!” His thumb gently brushed Zed’s woollen hair, “Like a lamb to the slaughter.”
He was readying a surge of his powers to put the ice back in Zed’s eyes when an axe struck him from behind. Acting purely on instinct, he yelled, shooting a bolt of ice that pinned his assailant to the wall just left of his throne—Doc. Tango turned to Zed, the expression on his face somewhere between an amused smile and an enraged snarl.
“You clever little—” an arrow struck Tango in his shoulder. He turned, and False was perched in one of his windows, nocking yet another arrow. He threw up a shield of ice before this one could reach him. Another arrow shot him in the back, which a quick glance asserted was from Gem, and he put up another shield to prevent further attacks from her. Behind him, he heard Doc’s mechanical arm scraping across the ice it was trapped in. Tango threw up yet another shield just in time to block the poison potion that was being thrown at him, and then he looked around himself, and his heart dropped, because—
“Well, it looks like Tango’s trapped himself before we even got here!” Etho’s voice came from the entry to the throne room, as he, Stress, and Impulse all stepped up behind Zedaph.
“Stand down, Tango,” Impulse warned, lowering a crossbow at Tango, his voice only slightly shaky, “Or I’ll shoot to kill.”
Somewhere, some distant memory made the pit of Tango’s stomach drop at the thought of that, a visceral fear lashing out in his subconscious. He took that fear, and twisted it, and turned it into an ice-cold rage. He laughed bitterly, his powers beginning to coalesce in his hands.
“You think you’ve won, don’t you?” he laughed, “You really think you've won!” The laughter continued for a moment more, then in an abrupt movement he swung his arm, pinning all the resistance to the walls with a sweeping arc of ice. Only Zed had the forethought to duck.
“Tango,” Zed warned, pulling out his icy spear and pointing it at Tango’s throat. Tango grinned, and turned the spear to useless snow with a wave of his hand. He noticed Impulse eating a cookie out of the corner of his eye. Weird.
“Zedaph,” Tango replied, shooting a bolt of ice at Zed’s feet to pin him there. “Come back to me, why don’t you—”
Tango was cut off by the sound of shattering ice, and an inhumanly-strong person lunging at him, shoving Tango through the shield behind him. The two grappled for a moment, then whatever was granting the other their strength wore off, and Tango was able to throw them off. He stood up, dusting himself off, before turning to look at his assailant.
It was Impulse. Of course it was Impulse.
“You,” Tango hissed, voice filled with malice as he prowled towards Impulse. “YOU!” Impulse tried to scuttle away, but his movements were slow and awkward and it was hard to find any purchase on the icy floor. “You have been a thorn in my side,” he shot a bolt at Impulse’s leg, pinning the man there, “For far too long.” He drew his axe, and raised it, “Goodbye, Impy.”
The axe came swinging down, and Impulse screwed his eyes shut, not wanting his last memories of Tango be those of his own death. He braced for the impact of the axe into his chest or throat or anything, but, after a few agonisingly long seconds in which Impulse’s life flashed before his eyes, it never came. He kept his eyes shut for a moment longer, wondering if Tango was just prolonging his suffering.
“...What am I doing?” Tango’s voice broke the silence, quiet and trembling and nothing like it had been mere moments before. Slowly, Impulse opened his eyes, and saw the axe that was being held inches above his chest, by shaking, pale hands. He followed the line of the axe up to the man holding it, whose vibrant red eyes, free of any ice, were filled with confusion and terror.
“Tango?” Impulse asked. It was too good to be true, almost, seeing his friend being himself again. Tango looked down at Impulse and, finally realising he had an axe in his hands, cast the weapon away with a sudden, panicked movement. It clattered across the floor, skidding on the ice until it hit a wall.
Tango’s heart pounded in his ears. This couldn’t be right. The room was spinning, and he could see his friends all trapped in ice, and there was a crown on his head and he was wearing blue and he’d been about to kill Impulse and it was all wrong, it was all bad. He pinched himself, it had to be a nightmare! He winced at the very real pain. His breaths were coming in funny, and it was simultaneously too loud and too quiet and he needed to get out of there.
He was moving. The crown wasn’t on his head anymore. Everything was coming in snapshots, like whatever had sunk its teeth into him before was trying to come back, to re-establish control, but it was okay because he was getting away, he would soon be far away, as he walked across some body of water—maybe the Hermississippi—leaving a trail of ice in his wake.
He didn’t stop. He didn’t stop for miles and miles until his legs couldn’t support him anymore and he collapsed into a snowdrift. He didn’t know where he was. Void, he didn’t know where he was, and the snow around him didn’t belong anywhere near birch trees, and the sense of wrongness came flooding back into him and then he was choking back bile and panting and heaving and hyperventilating and he couldn’t think because everything was bad, everything was wrong.
Numbly, after a while, he realised that there was a voice talking to him. An irrational part of his mind screamed that they were furious with him, that they’d make him pay for what he’d done. Having already drained his emotional reserves dry, he couldn’t bring himself to care. Their voice sounded safe, and warm, and he was so cold, and he just wanted to go home. He fell back into comforting arms, and his mind slipped away into the realm of sleep.