BadBoyHalo: The 808th Demon

-Chapter 25- Fork in the River

The Army held dearly onto the bucking raft, with spouts of foam and weeds leaping into their laps. All four frantically rowed through the rush of distressed river, trying to stay upright and away from rocks as they traveled north.

"Where are we even going?" Fundy shouted over the watery roars.

"Like fuck I know!" Tubbo yelled back. "But I think this is gonna open up to the ocean soon!"

It was astonishing to him just how much brute force the water could possess. Each wave slammed into him, somehow always hitting harder than the last, and left him with barely enough time to hack the water out his lungs before yet another one came. All the while, the salt burned him from the inside out.

Tommy cursed between his coughing and spitting. "Tubbo, maybe we should at least find a way out this storm? My eyes hurt like hell!"

"Well, if you find anyplace calmer, let me know!" Tubbo's focus did not move away from the waves— and at the banks he watched tree after tree, branch after branch, and stone after stone fall out of his choppy view. He wanted everyone to continue pressing forward.

"Tubbo," Fundy pawed at his shoulder, "I think Tommy is right though. We kind of forgot something..." He directed his attention to the back corner of the raft, where Ranboo lay floundering himself into a sad pile.

He was struggling.

...

"...Okay."

The four poor souls went on. And soon Tubbo's guess became true. The river's mouth opened up to a wide seascape, and the thick tree lines quickly receded past their eyes. The sky was dark, except for one tiny sliver of blinding yellow light, pushed way out in the far horizon. Squinting through a bloodshot eye, Tubbo searched for a way out— a beach, a shoal, a small piece of serenity of any kind. When he wasn't pelted in the face with water and weeds, he forced himself to scour every inch of his periphery.

There.

One pitiful tree atop a handful of sand sat a few hundred meters from the mainland, all alone. The storm just passed over it, though the trip there will still be a rough one. Tubbo gave the order and they rowed to "safety."

Tommy grasped the lowest branch for support while Fundy tied down the raft. Tubbo balanced himself on the sad excuse for land, with most of the sand mound sliding off into the water the moment he pressed his shoes in it.

Ranboo stayed on the raft. He was a complete mess, sputtering and gagging, and in an extraordinary amount of pain.

Tommy spoke to him. "Are... are you alright?"

He didn't get much of an answer. It seemed that Ranboo was attempting to, but got lost in his violent convulsions. He, along with the others, could only stare.

"What even was that thing..." Fundy said.

"I have no idea," replied Tommy. "It was like BadBoy, but white and disgusting."

"Like a GoodBoyHalo! Am I right, Tubbo?" Fundy nudged his elbow at Tubbo's side, hoping to get a giggle out of him. But one look at his face told that he was nowhere near amused.

"I fucking told you all to not blindly trust this demon shit!" He shot his voice through the thickness of the waves, sneering and gnashing his teeth at them. "Now look where this got us! This was probably all part of Dream's plan! Or worse, it wasn't his plan!"

Tommy shot his finger up to Tubbo's chin. "Oh, don't you start! You're seriously gonna blame us for this?"

"It's not a matter of pinning the blame, but taking accountability for what you wrongly put your faith in. You trusted BadBoy," Tubbo motioned upward, "now look what he dragged in."

The three began to bicker once more. Their voices were lost in the midst of the swirling chaos around them as they slipped and trudged about the muddy sand and gravel. Then their banter had escalated into pushing and shoving, and their arguments had deepened its cuts into each other.

Swords were close to being drawn, had it not been for a terrifying screeching coming from behind them.

There was Ranboo, once again left forgotten and suffering atop the bobbing raft. His face was twisted and profuse in fury, and his brows and cheeks crushed together from anguish. His black half had formed boils, still hot and hissing, while his white half was stained red with bloody tears. Through his deteriorating voice he shouted his lungs out at them.

"I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE! YOU ARE ALL UNBELIEVABLE!"

Tommy, Tubbo and Fundy had completely frozen in place. They might as well have been shot through the heart, as they stood wide-eyed and mouths hung agape.

"You are pathetic! Such incompetence! Our world is hanging by a thread and you're busy having a petty squall! And I have yet to see any of you address where the hell Quackity is! Can we be certain if he's even still alive? Have you thought about that at all?"

Tubbo tried to interject, but came up with nothing. Neither of them could.

"You all have been nothing but trouble for me! I didn't sign up for this shit! Every choice you've made this far has led us to the brink of death! This whole thing..." His strength was waning fast, and more pain shot through his body. "It's not fucking funny. I can't do this anymore. We... can't do this anymore..."

The four of them stood still for a bit, staring aimlessly.

"Well, what would you like us to do then?" asked Tubbo, exhausted.

Ranboo, still grimacing from all the stress, replied to him.

"Disband. I want all of us to go our separate ways and seek refuge from this awful place. The assignment we have shared as the Butcher Army is clearly finished."

"Disband?" Tommy exclaimed. "Go our separate ways? What do you mean? We're not done yet! We still have to get L'manberg back, and Technoblade could still be—"

"Tommy, please!" Ranboo insisted. "There is nothing left here! Anything else we could do would end up being a waste. I value your lives more than your prestige. Please just find peace in our defeat, and hide away from here."

Tommy could only sputter.

"I agree with your proposal, Ranboo." Tubbo said, giving both Tommy and Fundy a bit of a shock. "Though I wouldn't quite call our work here a defeat... I like to think that it's been put on hold."

"Does that mean we could technically meet again?" Fundy asked.

The four then agreed on that crummy island that, on contingency of Quackity's existence, if the Monster leaves, the storm passes over, L'manburg is left alone, and Technoblade is yet again found and continuing to be a threat; they all shall unite under the same name once again, and resume their mission.

They said their solemn goodbyes and made more rafts with the spare wood they had left.
Fundy traveled east, Tommy went south, and Ranboo and Tubbo continued north.