Chapter Text
Diansu stayed at Talon and Eight’s base for a week. They helped him get geared up (albeit not with his beloved Elysium), and caught him up on all that had happened during the few months he was dead.
— — — — —
“What do you mean that Rat didn’t destroy the last end portal?!”
“What do you mean that it leads to a liminal pool dimension now?!”
— — — — —
A good portion of it, he didn’t take well.
— — — — —
“The whole server voted on whether or not to let Lux kill Blake, and they voted to let him LIVE?!”
“It was more complicated than that!”
“He’s a maniac! Anyone with a functional brain would see that!”
“And yet you enlisted his help for the spawn takeover.”
“… fair enough.”
— — — — —
But by week’s end, he was as ready as he could be (mentally) to face the world he had left behind.
Which, of course, meant that the universe was ready at that exact moment to screw him over.
— — — — —
Up until that point, the day had been just like the others that Diansu had spent hidden under the ocean, and he was frankly starting to get sick of hiding.
Sure, it was probably the only reason he was even still alive, but it couldn’t hurt to talk with Talon and Eight about potential next steps.
The worst they could say is no!
“Are you insane? Genuinely.”
Okay, maybe “no” was more of a middle-of-the-road scenario.
“I get that you’re itching to get started on this whole vengeance thing,” Talon continued, “but Blake is still very on edge right now. We need to take some time to let him cool off.”
“And give him more time to prepare to strike back?”
“If only to give us more time to plan.”
“And besides,” Eight interrupted, “Blake is constantly patrolling the Nether. We don’t have an easy way out of Spawn.”
I can’t take this anymore!
“So we’re just supposed to stay here, like sitting ducks, just waiting for Blake to come to us him-”
A metallic crash from above cut the argument short, as the trio looked above at the hatch which now boasted a sizable dent.
Speak of the devil…
A whispered “go” from Talon forced Eight and Diansu into motion, sprinting down the hall to the Nether portal, bursting out into the blistering hellscape.
Eight immediately took charge, “go to Rat and Astron’s place. They might not like you, but once they learn that Lux is behind your revival they should be willing to help.”
“What about you and Talon?”
The slime gave Diansu a regretful look. “Talon can keep him distracted, I’ll cover your tracks. If we don’t make it, you’re welcome to take whatever you need from the base.”
“Then you better make it or I’m stealing every Warden head you have.”
Eight gave him a final listless smile before Diansu finally started toward the hidden manor.
— — — — —
It wasn’t until he was out of the immediate vicinity of Spawn that Diansu began to slow his trek through the Nether. He trusted that Blake would remain occupied, but in his haste, there was one other variable he hadn’t accounted for.
“Diansu?”
Blake’s second-in-command.
Shit.
Diansu slowly turned to see Nox behind him on the path.
“...hey, Nox. It’s been a-”
“Don’t you even start.”
Still stunned by their sudden appearance, Diansu could only stare as Nox continued their tirade.
“Honestly, my view of reality had become so fucked over the past two months that you being alive might as well happen. Sure. Whatever. I honestly couldn’t care less about you. The only thing I care about,” Nox finally approached Diansu, their face only inches away from his screen, “is that you stay out of my way.”
Diansu gave a shallow nod before Nox finally stepped away.
“Good. Keep it that way, or else I’ll tell the whole server about you.”
Nox quickly vanished down a side path, giving Diansu the privacy he needed to make sure he didn’t accidentally fry anything major in his panic.
— — — — —
Diansu’s destination was unassuming. If he didn’t know any better, he would have assumed that it was just a random portal someone had made after getting lost in the Overworld.
The perfect disguise, and the perfect trap. A trap that Diansu had no choice but to walk into.
He wasn’t an idiot. Rat hated him before Lux got into Charter, and now that she was gone, he would probably hate him even more.
But Rat wasn’t an idiot either. Unless he was forced to, he wouldn’t touch Charter with a ten mile pole, so if their conversation went south and Rat killed him, he would just respawn back at Talon’s base, giving him another chance.
Then again, he didn’t know if Blake was still there, so he could die all the same, but it didn’t hurt to be a little optimistic.
Faking one last breath to steel himself, Diansu stepped through the portal.
— — — — —
It was quiet in the Overworld. The same choking silence that had hung over Spawn was all the more present here, tangible in the way only grief could be. The sky was grey, not threatening rain but muting the world’s colors.
The mansion stood solemn at the foot of the mountain, dark and foreboding. Waiting for him.
Best not to make it wait longer, then.
Walking quickly to try and work out his nerves, Diansu finally found himself at the door and knocked, not letting himself hesitate.
The silence stretched just long enough for him to start raising his hand to knock again when he heard footsteps on the other side of the door and it finally creaked open.
“Please stop bringing flowers, guys. We don’t want you luring Blake he-”
“Hello, Astron.”
To her credit, it only took her five seconds to unfreeze and respond.
“...you shouldn’t be here.”
Diansu sighed, “believe me, there isn’t a single person in the world who is more surprised about me being alive than me.”
Astron pushed the door, letting it slowly swing as she took a step forward.
“No, I mean that you shouldn’t be here. Especially after everything, right here is probably the worst place you could-”
“Astron? Is someone at the door?” called a voice from deeper into the manor.
“No- well, yes, but it’s just-”
Oh no you don’t.
“Just someone who wants to talk,” Diansu interrupted.
Footsteps echoed through the space before a familiar mask came into view in the living room.
The world seemed to freeze for a moment, before Rat’s voice returned, dripping with malice.
“You.”
That single word nearly made Diansu flinch, and sent his heart straight to his stomach.
“Y-yep, it’s me, and I’m sure that you have several questions-”
“Don’t think you can trick me with that silver tongue of yours.”
Rat started walking forward as Diansu started backing away.
“You take over spawn, enlisting the help of Blake and Nox, refuse the treaty-” Diansu nearly tripped going down the steps- “-run like the coward you are, hide away on some forgotten island, come back with a vendetta and a fancy suit of armor-” Rat’s out of the house and shouting now- “decimate everyone who stands in your way, convince Lux to sell her soul to Charter, and make me choose between her life and my soul-” Rat pulled out an all-too-familiar blade- “and now you have the nerve to come back and ask to talk?!”
He’s between me and the portal, I need to RUN-
“I think you’ve already said everything you need to.”
Diansu was barely halfway to the treeline when Rat leapt, the greatsword he wielded crashing into the sand barely ten feet behind him.
He thought he might’ve heard Rat taunting him with the weapon that had already taken his life once, but Diansu could barely think beyond his panicked running. Every few seconds he heard another crash behind him, each time getting ever so slightly closer.
He only glanced back once, and saw Rat preparing to leap again, Astron on his heels trying to get him to stop, but it was at just the wrong time as he tripped over a root hidden in the leaf litter. He barely had a moment to try and scramble up before sickly golden chains burst from the aether, completely immobilising him.
Rat stood over him for a moment, a hunter basking in a successful capture, before raising the blade-
“Good riddance, Diansu.”
-the dark metal glinting in the setting sun, making Diansu close his eyes one last time-
I’m sorry, Lux.
-and bringing it down over Diansu’s head-
I only hope you know that I tried.
-only to be interrupted with the clang of metal.
It took a moment for the impact (or lack thereof in this case) to register, but once it did, Diansu opened his eyes to see something somehow more impossible than Rat simply missing him while he was a sitting duck.
The weapon of his demise was stopped in mid-air a foot from his face, caught in the crook of a ghostly anchor, outlined in gold. Diansu followed the handle up, along an arm, before finally landing on the face of-
“Lux?”
Rat’s voice was barely a whisper, his legs, once firmly planted, began to tremble, and his weapon slipped from his fingers, falling to the forest floor beside him.
“Okay,” Lux started (how), "manifesting like this takes a lot of energy so you three better listen up. He-” she pointed at Diansu- “-is alive because of me. My soul managed to escape whatever ritual Blake tried to use me in, and I used the last of my energy to bring Diansu back, because you’re gonna need him to finish the job we started. So you all better get along, or else.”
With Diansu and Rat both frozen in shock, Astron was the only one to speak up.
“Lux, what about you?”
Her body was starting to fade away. “I’ll be fine. I linked myself to Diansu’s body so I can listen to everything happening around him, and with enough time, I can build up energy to talk with you. But as for right now, I need to stop manifesting physically or else I risk damaging my soul.”
The fading grew faster, and Lux was nearly gone by the time Diansu composed himself enough to speak.
“Lux, wait!”
She turned to him.
“...Thanks. For giving me a second chance.”
She grinned at him before her form finally vanished, leaving the odd trio alone with the silence.