Oneshots

A New Chance | Antarctican Empire

This is a sequel to Grief, so I suggest you go read it if you haven't yet.

Children were laughing and playing on the streets, oblivious of what had happened just 3 years ago. The bombings, the war. Techno was sitting on his throne, watching these children have fun. I wish I could be so young again, he thought. Childhood was the best time to be alive, no chores, no pains, and most importantly, no kingly duties.
Rebuilding an empire was hard, but in his opinion, it was all worth it to see these children having fun on the streets again. The looks of joy in their eyes compared to how they had looked just three years prior. Full of pain, hurt, and most prominently, uncertainty.
"Techno?"
"Yes Phil?"
"Why did we do this? Why do we care so much about our country to completely rebuild it? Why didn't we leave, and become commoners in a new land?"
"Our pride Phil. This country holds our pride and honour. We will not leave this country, whether that means prosperity or death."
"Phil," he continued, "Let us not question why we are alive, let us just be thankful that unlike many of our brothers, we still are."
"And also, I need to go oversee our farmers, do you want to come?"
"Yeah sure. It's good for the leaders to be involved in a community."
"Uh huh, c'mon, let's go."
They walked in silence as they looked at the kingdom. Admiring the beauty of the land that it was today.
"Techno, who is that?
"Phil, meet Squid, he's the head of our fishing and agricultural sector. And Squid, I'm sure you know who Phil is."
"My king, he bowed toward Techno, my general, prince."
"Oh Squid, there really is no need."
"King Technoblade, I insist."
"No, please don't. I really do not want to be reminded of my past dictatorships."
"My apologies Technoblade."
"No problem Squid. And enough with all of that, I would like to see the farms now."
"Follow me." He gestured for Techno and Phil to follow.
"Wow." This was Phil's first time seeing the farms, and he was impressed
"Yes. They're pretty cool aren't they?" Squid smiled, for he had very much prided himself with creating these amazing farms.
"Yeah, wow. Squid, it's only been 3 months since I last saw this place, you have really transformed it."
"Yup." Squid smiled like a young child, clearly not used to being prided by his work.
"So I gotta go now. Phil, you can stay to talk to Squid if you like."
"Well Squid, thank you for your services. The kingdom could not exist without you. And I need to go check up on our nuclear weaponry, so goodbye."
"Thank you sir, and goodbye."

As he walked down to the underground testing area, he felt a twinge of regret. Are we really going to do this? To kill millions of WIlbur's citizens as he did to ours? Are we going to carry through with this plan? Being second in command of a growing empire was not easy. Techno trusted him to watch over the kingdom in areas that even he, the great ruler of Antarctica had failed.
As Phil walked down to the nuclear testing area, he felt sick. They were going to kill millions of innocent people. Women and children..
But it's okay, they killed millions of our citizens, we deserve to kill theirs. He tried to reassure himself, he tried to force himself to choke down lies. This is just revenge, it's okay. This is how we make Wilbur pay. But what he still could not understand is why Wilbur had done that first sin. Sure they were in a war, but bombing hundreds of cities? Killing tens of millions? That was too far. Why are we making innocent people pay for what their ruler did? Something they could not control.. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't make himself do this. Hw wouldn't murder so many people. He would not be in control of this.
Wilbur paced up and down his office. Spies had informed him of Antarctica's bombs, but there was nothing he could do. He hated this feeling, of not being in control. It was a new feeling, a strange sensation. He felt scared, nervous, two things he had not felt since he was just a boy, waiting for his report card grade or outside of the classroom as the teacher talked to his parents.
He heard cannons booming, destroying in the distance.
The war had already begun.