BadBoyHalo: The 808th Demon

-Chapter 17- The Meeting

808 woke up to his heart racing. It was shallow, rapid, and very, very weak. He tossed and turned in his bed, but it didn't help any. Soon he was aware of his breathing, also delicate and enfeebled. Looking out the window of his room, he stared at the blazing street lamp pouring its bright candlelight within. His consciousness seemed to flicker around with the flame, each flutter and flit arousing a strange nausea.

He carefully lifted himself off of bed, passing by Sapnap curled up in his spirit form. 808 fingered his way in the darkness until he found the bathroom. Turning on the light, he took a long, dreadful look in the mirror— it was exactly what he was afraid of.

His face was blotched with grayish spots, pale as a ghast on a bad day. Once spotlessly iridescent eyes were now muddled with blackened chips growing ever darker. He put his hand to his cheek, even they were already beginning to sag. With another pathetic cry from his circulatory system, he was thrown back onto something that could support him. The sheer bewilderment and utter disbelief he held was too much for him to handle, yet he knew it this time had to come eventually.

He couldn't stay here.

"Dad..." Sapnap came hobbling in dressed in his covers, and rubbing his eyes. "What's going on..."

"What are doing up? Off to bed with you," 808 commanded as he put his cloak over his face.

"Are you okay?"

He gulped his queasiness. "I'm fine."

"Dad..." he repeated, a tad more hollowly. "You look like Uncle."

808 glanced back at the mirror— so he did. Except even worse. How much time went by? Had he really been in the Overworld for this long? After some thinking he came up with about three weeks. Strange, it felt like he got here only the other day.

"Maybe Puffy should check you out." Sapnap readjusted the blanket over his head. 808 replied with a harsh swallow, remembering the other night. They hadn't talked since, hadn't even seen each other. When he woke up in the dead of night and came hobbling back to the hotel like a drunkard, she was nowhere in sight. Even Tommy had asked, and in response he sloppily put together Niki's name, since that was his best guess. That was all he remembered before pouring himself into bed that night. And the next morning came with no sign of her clocking in, leaving he and Sapnap to do all the work that day.

"I promise you I'll be fine," 808 assured. "Just a little under the weather."

Lies don't hurt anyone more than the one telling it.

—————

Backtrack to earlier in the evening, when it was time for the Butcher Army to meet. It had been a good while, almost forgetting about the entire operation. Although it had gone unsaid, they all agreed it was 808's unexpected appearance at fault— although Tommy and Tubbo hadn't brought up a single word, the others would frequently catch them silently battling with their eyes. Tommy's gaze demanded that he must stay, but Tubbo would fight back with a harsh no. Needless to say the issue certainly wore on them, as Dream had predicted. The wedge had been driven, and it was difficult to dislodge.

But now it was the infamous Technoblade's turn to take their attention. After all, a wanted man can't hunt for himself. And today was a very successful day: after prying information from several passersby and barging into homes with no warrant, the compass now finally lay in the center of the conference table. Yes, the compass, the very thing they needed. All four sitting around examined it carefully.

"Damn you, Phil." Tommy grumbled. "I knew you were hiding something from me."

"It really can show us where he is?" Fundy pawed at it curiously, craning his head along with the needle. Tubbo gave a small nod to him.

"This is a pretty big deal," Quackity chirped. "Better not lose it."

"Don't jinx it, dipwad!" Tommy snapped, trying not to giggle. "You need to learn how to shut your mouth."

"Oh?" Fundy mocked. "And you have a say?"

"We're getting off track..." Tommy broke down into embarrassed laughter, Tubbo and Quackity soon joining in. It didn't take long before they threw insults around like a snowball fight.

"Why is it when seriousness is needed, or at least desired, you guys can never deliver a single ounce of it?" Ranboo piped up from the corner of the room. He sat quietly in the rocking chair, observing. The four looked back, almost startled, and laughed some more. Ranboo could only shake his head, and wait for when they could finally compose themselves.

"Anyway, I suggest we prepare ourselves," Tommy proclaimed, taking the compass, "it's gonna get messy."

It was assumed the meeting was adjourned, for what better way is there to end it with a spine-rippling last word. It's gonna get messy. There was no doubt about it. Technoblade was a kind of man who didn't have the word "surrender" in his vocabulary. The taste of defeat was foreign to him. He sharpened his sword with his deathly gaze alone, and he could make the grass bow down to his magnificent boots. "Messy" was what he wore, flowing in the wind behind his back and tickling the hair on his neck. What a cursed cloak and crown he adorned himself with so proudly! Oh, but he knew, Tommy, Tubbo, the whole Butcher Army knew. It was all a twisted façade that he loomed over them, and it was working.

They were terrified.