Poplar St. (OFFICIAL WATTPAD UPLOAD)

Chaos-Borne

Gods, I need a drink.

Now, Phil usually stayed away from alcohol, but he made the occasional exception, he thought to himself as he sank onto a barstool, massaging his temples. Especially in times like now, when his nerves were frayed and his sanity was hanging by a thread.

Something wasn't right with Tubbo.

There was a strange air hanging about him. Not quite the hazy death aura of someone close to their end, but certainly something cold and foreboding. His arm had only gotten worse since he'd been wounded, and he definitely didn't look any better. Phil had checked his arm for broken bones this morning. Tubbo's bruised, gradually blackening skin felt... hard, almost like his skin was turning into—

—no.

No, Tubbo was fine. He was just overthinking it.

"Excuse me," Phil sighed to the bartender (who was squinting at Quackity in what appeared to be disbelief). "Could I get two whiskey shots, please?"

"Oh, yessir," the bartender replied hastily—his local accent was strong, Phil noted—taking one last glance at Quackity before setting down the glass he'd been drying. "Say, do you know anything about the guy over there in the back? Blue beanie? Avian with white gannet wings?"

Phil blinked. "Yes, why?"

"Do you know his name?"

Phil hesitated.

Quackity had said something about people recognizing him. This was his hometown, after all, and it wasn't a big place.

The bartender stared at him expectantly.

The man looked somewhat trustworthy. He carried himself in a casual manner—albeit a bit nervous—and the way he dressed and the distinct lack of scars on his hands suggested that he likely worked at the tavern full time. He was tall, with short-cropped dark hair and a well-trimmed goatee, and soft brown eyes that kept darting off to stare at Quackity.

Phil frowned. He'd learned things over the course of his long life, and one of them was that looks could be very deceiving.

"What do you want with him?" He asked.

The bartender winced, setting the shots in front of him. "It's personal. I think he's someone I used to know, but he's... very different looking."

"Oh," Phil said. "Well, his name is Quackity—"

The bartender slapped his hand down on the counter, a huge grin appearing on his face. "I knew it! I knew it was that crazy bastard, I just didn't recognize him because of that big-ass scar—um. He's gone. Where'd he go?"

Phil spun around on his barstool, and he almost screamed in frustration.

Quackity was gone. In his place was none other than Foolish, polymorphed into human form as he chatted with Ranboo and Tubbo, and Phil caught a glimpse of Eret slipping out the back door.

He growled under his breath.

Now, Phil knew Foolish and Eret. They'd run into each other on the battlefield on multiple occasions throughout the centuries—most often on opposing sides—and the results were never pretty. He and Foolish were the Totem God and the Angel of Death, after all, two opposing forces that would inevitably clash whenever they met and forever pitted against each other in some petty rivalry that fate had dictated millennia ago. Phil remembered their most recent battle very well, which (coincidentally) had had a hand in the events of today. Foolish had been fighting for the Naiads, wreaking havoc on Phil's troops, but things had gone downhill for both of them when Eret had gotten involved.