Turn Back Time: It Was Never Meant To Be

Chapter 14

They brainstorm ideas, wasting precious minutes. They decided their only chance to reclaim the discs was to fight Dream, and this time, Tommy couldn't run away.

Luckily, Tubbo had some armor stored in the chests, which included a very worn pair of diamond leggings that looked like they would fall apart any second, and a shield. Tommy wanted to think that he out-armored Dream, because he had the netherite and Dream did not. However, he knew that he did not have the amount of skill that Dream did, and that he wouldn't last a second in a duel to the death against him.

Were the discs worth dying for?

Once Tommy was armored up, they looked out the window, and expected to see Dream waiting for them. Instead, Dream was nowhere to be seen. Even when they rushed outside and ran around the whole house, he was not there. Tommy got a feeling of unease in his stomach, and brought up the possibility that Dream could catch them by surprise when the time was up, hence giving him the upper hand. Then Tommy realized that he didn't even have a sword, and he didn't see one in Tubbo's storage.

It didn't take much time to get back to Tommy's house, but it was more time wasted, more time passing until it was up.

Tommy burst in and made way to Phil's room, paying no notice that Wilbur was not home. Phil left not that long ago, but it felt much longer. Tommy missed his dad, and going into his room didn't make it better. He was somewhat lucky that the ongoing conflict was able to distract him. He'd only been in Phil's room a handful of times, as Phil never let them go in it.

The walls of the room were bland save a portrait of Wilbur's mother hanging. The bed was nicely made and everything in the room was in order. A picture of Phil, Techno, Tommy and Wilbur from years ago sat framed on the bed stand. He diverted his attention back to his task, and opened the closet. It was mostly bare, the clothes that once hung were taken with Phil. In the corner of the closet sat a bundle of weapons, and you wouldn't notice they were there if you weren't looking for them.

He was about to settle on an iron sword that looked almost new when he noticed something shimmer in the back of the bundle. He pulled out the weapon to see a netherite sword. If this wasn't shocking enough, it was enchanted. Why did Phil have a netherite sword, much less an enchanted one? Only the wealthy and the royal had access to the material, and they were by far not wealthy.

On the hilt of the sword was the engravings of the enchantments placed on the weapon, put there in the enchantment process. Tommy recognized a level 2 sharpness enchantment and mending. He felt guilty for taking this sword. Maybe Phil forgot it when he left? Then he remembered that Phil was already gone, and the sword would be more of a use to him than it would sitting in a closet. He tested the weight of the weapon in his hand and straightened his back, which had been slouching. He saw movement in his peripheral vision, and looked over to the window to the left of the closet. Dream stood outside the window, looking at Tommy. He blinked and stumbled back before looking up again, and this time Dream was gone. He shook it off, convinced it was just his mind playing games on him, and made his way back through his house.

He met back up with Tubbo, who looked surprised at the sword but otherwise didn't say anything about it.

"I have an idea," Tubbo said as they were jogging back to his house. "What if we trap him in the nether?"

The nether was a separate dimension, only accessible by portal. There was a communal portal just outside the main village, but only workers and hunters went through it. It could also be used as a form of fast transportation-- one mile in the overworld equals eight miles in the nether. It wouldn't be impossible to trap someone between the portals, but Tommy wasn't keen on going to the nether. He'd never been there, but he's heard stories and seen pictures. It could only be described as quite literally hell itself. Tubbo had been to the nether a few times that he knew of, but never told him why.

"That way you wouldn't have to face him head on. It could work," Tubbo continued when Tommy didn't say anything.

Tommy considered it for another moment before nodding. Tubbo was smart, and Tommy never doubted him when it came to his ideas. Besides, it seemed like a better option than facing Dream head on.

With little time left, they made their way to the portal. It was located outside the village, and even if you went the wrong way it would be impossible to miss. It was stationed on an elevated piece of land that might have been dirt and stone but was now a mix of blackstone bricks, basalt logs and gravel. The portal itself stood eight feet high and four feet long, made of obsidian. It's squarish frame held a swirling pool of purple galaxies. It was pretty for a portal that led to hell itself. A blackstone staircase led up to it.

Tommy had never seen the portal this close up, but Tubbo strolled up to it with ease. No one were around, which was good for them. He hesitantly stepped up on the obsidian frame and into the mess of swirls, only calmed by the feeling of Tubbo's shoulder against his.

His vision started to sway, and the world around him seemed to swirl with the purple tint and fold in on itself, until it went black. He started to panic when he couldn't feel Tubbo's shoulder anymore. Then suddenly he was in a different world. Tubbo guided a nauseous Tommy out of the portal and onto solid ground.

"Takes a bit to get used to the effects. Anyways, you better shake it off because I need your help," Tubbo said, helping Tommy sit down.

Once his vision began to clear, he saw that they were standing on a platform made of blackstone. The air was almost scorching and hard to breathe in, and smelled of burnt hair and smoke. The air itself seemed to be tinted red. The portal was in the middle, and there were no walls and ceiling to the platform. A few chests and crates sat in a corner along with some long wooden planks in a pile. Blackstone and cobblestone paths stretched out beyond the platform and out farther than Tommy could see. When he looked up, he could see clusters of glowstone, a rock native to the nether, that glowed. Miners harvested it for lamps in the overworld. They were attached to the nether roof, which was made of netherrack, the maroon colored stone that most parts of the nether was made of.

Further above that was the nether roof, made of bedrock and was supposedly flat and stretched on for infinite miles. No one could see the roof, and he didn't know if anyone had actually been up there.

He shakily got to his feet and walked over to the edge. He was expecting to be on netherrack, maybe even on warped crimson, but instead he looked down to see a long drop that ended in lava. Lava covered the ground that was so far beneath them, and stretched on for miles. No wonder why the environment was so hot.
"Long way down," he muttered, mostly to himself.

He stepped away from the edge when Tubbo called for his help carrying the wooden planks. Approaching the crates, he spotted some lone fire charges scattered on the floor. He pocketed a few of them, as they were somewhat rare and very useful for starting fires and trading. Together, they carried them one by one over to the portal and nailed them to the obsidian frame. Soon, they had both sides of the portal covered up by the planks except for the middle, where they would plan to get hits on Dream.

When Dream would step through the portal in the overworld, he would appear inside the wooden planks, inside the portal. Tubbo and Tommy would be able to gain the upper hand, and maybe even get the discs back. Dream wouldn't be able to break out of the planks, nor portal back to the overworld. He would be stuck exactly where they wanted him. Their plan may just work, it was foolproof.