Chapter Text
It was a Tuesday, and the normally calm base was a hive of excited activity. Everyone was buzzing about in a flurry of urgent meetings and tasks, hammering out the last logistics of their imminent departure. A few weeks ago, a young outrider had brought news of a larger base to the east, and the plans to move had just been finalized.
Techno, their best resident warrior, had been placed in charge of the defense detail, and was subsequently tasked with ensuring the safe transfer of over five dozen people across 50 miles of barren, monster infested desert. That number included a just under a dozen warriors and scouts, about as many people who were decently competent with a blaster, several beginners, and a vast majority who weren’t allowed to hold a gun for fear they would shoot themselves in the foot.
This left Techno scrambling for a transport plan that would keep everyone safe without stretching his resources until they broke. He didn’t have enough people to protect a group that large for that long. Someone like Phil could certainly handle his own in a battle and had the endurance of an ox, but he wasn’t infallible and Techno couldn’t ask anyone to travel for two days straight on high alert with no breaks.
So he turned to the next best solution, making two separate trips. It meant tripling the time taken, but it would be worth the sacrifice for the additional security. In the hostile wasteland, a smaller group was a safer group. Less targets, less noise, less light, less guards needed. He carefully divided the base into two parties, keeping families together but also trying to put an equal amount of firearms experience on both sides.
He talked with his crew of more seasoned warriors and ended up assigning all of them to both groups, with one return trip in the middle. They had one new face among them, Tubbo, the outrider who’d come from the larger base they were heading for. He was only a teen, but he piloted his junk metal speeder better than most of the adults could handle a proper jet bike. Techno didn’t hesitate to assign him to make both trips, and the other veterans trusted his judgement enough to keep grumbling to a minimum.
The whole thing entailed way more complex strategies than he was used to implementing, and yet he found himself well suited to it. He was still running around like a pig with a pin stuck in his behind, but it was always with a purpose. He had everything meticulously organized and categorized neatly in his hard drive, his schedule planned down to the minute as he raced to get everything ready by the date set for the migration.
He’d taken to charging himself with a portable generator on the go instead of powering down every night, which increased his productivity by about 30% but also had the unfortunate effect of periodic fits of disorientation, similar to sleep deprivation in his human companions. After nearly a week of this behavior, Phil caught him during one of his dizzy spells and made him lie down for a proper charge. Techno would never admit it, but it felt amazing waking up after his first clean restart in too long.
Phil had also helped him clean up his battle enhancers, which he hadn’t used since he first came to the base. The four foot limb extensions were intended for use in military maneuvers, but he’d never been sent out in a battle against humans before. He’d only fought the mutated monsters that roamed the desert after the bombs destroyed most of civilization, and the weaponized limbs adapted to that just fine.
Tommy and Tubbo accidentally walked in on him during his first time with the enhancers back on, and the sight of him looming almost five feet over their heads should have scared them. It didn’t, they were too fearless (or arguably stupid) to be wary about a fully-outfitted battle droid. To be fair, he was basically Tommy’s brother, but Techno hoped he was at least a little intimidating. He’d have to be, if he was going to get both parties through this journey unscathed.
He finally finished inventory and preparations with 36 hours left to spare before departure, enough time for a nice long charge and an exhaustive briefing from anyone in charge of anything related to leaving. Dream, who was one of the veteran survivalists, was responsible for transporting the majority of their perishable supplies such as the plants from the greenhouse and rations. His friends George and Sapnap were overseeing the packing of less delicate items like furniture and assigning people to drive the supply wagons, and BadBoyHalo, the cartographer, had roped his roommate Skeppy into working on mapping the route with him.
The track they were planning on following would take almost 20 hours to traverse nonstop, since they had to add an hour or two to detour around a ravine. They were going to camp for the night in an open plain dubbed “Bumblebee Flats” by Tubbo, who informed them that it was largely uninhabited by most types of monsters and that no, he did not have a particular reason for naming it after a type of animal that now only existed in a dangerously altered form. He just liked bees.
Tubbo, even though he’d had his hands full furnishing Bad and Skeppy with the geographical knowledge they needed to make maps of the surrounding area and telling Dream and Techno everything he knew about the fort, had settled wonderfully easily into their little society. He and Tommy had hit it off right away and the pair would often be heard sprinting down the hallways, loudly shouting well-meant abuse at each other. Phil thought it was cute. Wilbur thought it was a disaster in the making. Techno thought they were a headache, but he was content to let them run wild as long as they didn’t drag him into anything.
The morning they were leaving with the first group, Phil helped Techno hook himself into his battle enhancements, connecting his main power supply to the larger battery and making sure everything was securely anchored to his regular limbs. Last to go on was his helmet, a spherical piece of one-way bulletproof glass that he didn’t like much because people couldn’t see his face, but would do wonders for his vision in the desert sandstorms and protect his more fragile features (read: brain and hair, both irreplaceable) from projectiles.
With everything in place, he couldn’t stand fully upright anywhere except the cafeteria and the speeder garage, both of which had twelve foot ceilings. He was attracting strange looks like sugar attracted ants, most of which disappeared after a glance from Phil but made him uncomfortable nonetheless.
He’d long ago made peace with the fact he was a battle droid, designed for war and given sentience by some freak piece of unknown programming, but wearing his old helmet made him feel like a nameless weapon again. He didn’t like it, but there were bigger priorities at the moment than his mild discomfort, so he didn’t complain.
He met up with the other leaders and veterans in the garage, where most of the people armed with blasters had already revved up their speeders and the ones who hadn’t were helping civilians into blast protective suits and directing them to traveling groups. He proudly surveyed his elite team, glad he had such strong people to depend on.
There was Phil tightening a bolt on Tubbo’s speeder, Fundy telling a group of younger kids to stay far away from any holes they saw in the ground, Eret helping Skeppy and Sapnap load the last of the trees into the mobile greenhouse with Dream’s close supervision, and Schlatt gruffly correcting a less experienced fighter’s grip on his blaster. Antfrost was securing a load on the back of a midsize jet bike, George was tightening the straps on another man’s pack, Niki was cleaning her long-range blaster, and Bad was helping a young mother into the back of a wagon with her baby.
Wilbur and Tommy were also coming with this first group, though only Wilbur had been assigned a weapon. Tommy had started shooting just a few weeks ago, and while he could definitely hit the side of a barn if given adequate time, a blaster in his hands was not a risk Phil felt was justified since they were in limited supply. Tommy had spent a week grumpily complaining to everyone who would listen (and quite a few who wouldn’t) that he should’ve been given one.
He had finally perked up when Tubbo offered to let him ride along on his speeder. They’d gotten the okay to pair off for scout work since Tubbo had a blaster of his own (guess who was bitter about that), and they were going to ride a few minutes ahead of the main caravan along with fellow scout and pilot Eret to make sure the way ahead was clear of monsters. They were equipped with a radio transmitting to Techno’s helmet if they ran into any trouble.
This whole expedition was a stupendously dramatic production, Techno observed with a grin. You’d think they were going 200 miles instead of 50 with the wagon train they had going on.
Gee, who’s fault was all the pomp and circumstance, his broken AI snidely commented.
Eh, shut up, Techno chastised with a shrug. Better safe than sorry.
After an hour of stalling, most of which was spent trying to get everyone into a semi-organized walking order so they could keep track of the whole party, they finally were ready to go. They put about half the people in full blast suits before they ran out, and the people left over went into the wagons, dust shields over their faces and canopies sealed on all sides. The youngest children, too small to fit into the suits, were traveling in a repurposed mobile greenhouse with a few mothers for supervision and an air seal to keep the grit out of their developing lungs.
Almost every member of his elite team was mounted on a speeder or jet bike, Bad and Skeppy on a two-seater at the front to navigate and Dream and Techno bringing up the rear. They were the only ones besides the civilians not on a vehicle. Techno was now too big for anything they had in the garage, and Dream had been working night and day to make a personal jetpack, which he’d completed two weeks before departure and insisted on using for the trip.
They certainly made an interesting pair. Dream, who’d almost died in one of the original bombings half a year ago, had both legs, his left arm, an ear, and one eye replaced with mechanical prosthetics. After his recovery, he spent much of his time at the base upgrading himself, and now he was easily on par with Techno as far as physical abilities were concerned. Both of them could keep up with the speeders if necessary, though it probably wouldn’t be needed until the return trip since the caravan wouldn’t be moving especially fast.
With everyone ready, Phil gave the okay to leave. Tubbo pulled his speeder up to the exit and Tommy reached over and punched in the code. The huge doors opened with the grating screech of rusting metal, and the whole party winced at the painful noise.
Tommy, the notable exception to this reaction, whooped with joy as Tubbo gunned it out into the desert, Eret peeling out after them with an eye roll as the hovercraft disappeared into the dust.
Techno pressed his intercom button to connect with their helmets. “Just go a few minutes ahead, okay? We’re goin’ much slower than you are.”
“No problem!” Tubbo’s voice crackled through his speakers.
“I’ll keep an eye on them,” Eret reassured him.
Alone and unprotected…
They have Eret, they’re safe, he rebuked.
“All right, here we go!” Phil called from the head of the group. “Everyone stay close and keep track of your family members. If you see anything moving, report it to someone on a speeder immediately.”
The wagons lurched into the air, long-suffering hover tech laboriously shoving them a foot off the ground as they started forward. The considerably more lightweight jet bikes and speeders powered up with a sound similar to an entire hive of bees taking flight all at once, lifting gracefully off the ground as their riders tucked their feet into the sides. The party ventured out into the wasteland, the doors closing behind them with a resonant thunk and an air of grim finality.
It was still early in the morning, the sun low on the horizon and the air cool from the fading night. They eased into travel, settling into a slow and easy pace that the people on foot would be able to maintain for the day. Dream was also walking for the time being, conserving the power in his pack for later.
“How’re the enhancers working?” he asked, tilting his head back to look up at Techno’s helmeted head several feet above him.
You hate them, don’t you? Bad memories, black blood, machine oil…
Shut up, they’re fine, he disparaged.
“They’re okay, gonna take some gettin’ used to though,” he replied out loud, flexing the reinforced, elongated fingers on one hand. His thick clawed feet stirred up the loose dirt below his feet with every step. The new range of motion and reach the upgrades provided felt unnatural after months of using his default height, but he enjoyed the increased power humming in his core. The enhancers’ battery would last for the whole two days as long as he wasn’t doing anything too strenuous.
“How’d the jetpack turn out?” he asked in return.
Dream smiled proudly, electronic eye literally lighting up in excitement. “Excellent. I haven’t been able to practice much outside yet since I just finished dust-proofing a week ago, but it handles better than Sapnap’s tricked-out jet bike and the last time I flew I topped out at forty miles an hour.”
A monster could swat him out of the air in an instant.
“How’s its agility? That’s the most important thing in combat.”
“Better than I could’ve hoped for. It turns almost on a dime.”
“Awesome.”
“I can’t wait to blast something into pieces from 10 feet over its head.”
Now that’s something I can get behind, the AI in Techno’s head agreed.
“Hopefully you won’t need to. We want to avoid a battle,” Techno reminded him.
“Oh, of course. I’m just saying that I haven’t fought anything in two months and I still haven’t gotten my revenge for the new scar on George’s arm.”
“He tripped and gashed it open on a rock,” Techno scoffed. Stupid oaf, the voice contributed. Only I get to insult my friends, he reprimanded.
“And we still don’t know which rock it was. I’m settling for general revenge on all things hostile,” Dream declared.
“Fair enough,” he conceded, a smile evident in his tone.
They fell into a comfortable silence, absorbing the quiet voices of those walking in front of them and the whispering of the wind whirling through the clouds of sand behind them. Every fifteen minutes Eret would check in via the radio, and Techno would shoot Phil a thumbs up to let him know they were fine.
They walked for hours without incident, the only drama being a brief ruckus caused by a poorly-secured chair crashing to the ground off the bike it was tied to. They left it behind with a laugh, the owner proclaiming it had been on its way out anyway and one of the legs always wobbled. There were no monster sightings.
They made their first stop at noon, the sun bright enough overhead to make a solid attempt at boiling their heads like eggs inside their helmets. They pitched their food tent and ate a few people at a time so that everyone could experience the luxury of a dust-free lunch in the shade, even if the fare itself was mediocre at best.
Techno didn’t need to eat (plus his fingers wouldn’t have let him anyway), but he did take the chance to practice running using his longer legs, enjoying the massive amount of ground he could cover in a single leap. He loped in a loose circle around the caravan, peering off into the swirling clouds in search of monsters who might take the chance to attack while they were stationary
Halfway through their break, Tubbo, Tommy, and Eret coasted into camp to grab a meal for themselves, the two boys dismounting from the bike laughing and giggling together and Eret plodding exhaustedly along behind them. Techno walked over and joined him in the food line.
“How’re things goin’?” he asked, taking in how his friend’s hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat and the lack of color in his cheeks.
Ghost boy, one wrong move and he’ll collapse, the AI sneered. Techno shook his head, like he was shaking off a fly.
“Never a dull moment with those two,” Eret joked in response. “I’m out of practice. I used to be able to travel like this for days, but I feel ready to drop already.”
“Is the coolin’ system in your suit workin’ properly?” Techno worriedly wondered.
“I’m pretty sure it needs a new fan or something,” he answered. “The air coming in is clean, but it’s certainly warm.”
“Let’s find someone to switch with you, and we can try and make some more room in one of the wagons for another person-”
“No, you don’t have to. It’s not that bad. I know you need someone out there with the boys. Nobody else can keep up with them.” He winked and inclined his head to the left, where Techno saw the pair laughing hysterically and running from a red-faced Fundy, a stolen nature guide tucked under Tommy’s arm. Techno smirked and pressed his intercom button.
“Tubbo, I’ll carry you on my shoulders for ten minutes if you can get that book back to Fundy.”
Such a good commander, sowing hilarious dissent among the troops.
Tubbo immediately turned on his friend, tackling him to the ground as he shouted in surprise. The book skidded across the ground and Fundy dashed after it, scooping it up and running back to his jet bike. He sent a dirty look towards the tussling teenagers, carefully stowing the guide in the bike’s storage compartment.
Techno walked over to his brother and friend and scooped them both up as Eret watched in amusement, depositing Tubbo on his shoulders and holding Tommy at arms length like a cat caught by the scruff of his neck. He kicked and yelled abuse, punching uselessly at the metal limb as Tubbo nearly fell off Techno’s back from laughing so hard.
“Favoritism!” Tommy accused, still trying to get free. “You’re my brother, you’re supposed to be on my side!” He waved frantically at Sapnap, who was patrolling the border of camp on his speeder. “Help a guy out!”
“You’re not getting anything from me,” Sapnap chortled, clearly enjoying the sight. “Remember that prank you pulled on me last month?”
“Aw, c’mon, all you had to do was change your sheets and you’d never know it happened.”
“I hold grudges. You’re on your own.”
“If I set you down, what are you goin’ to do?” Techno asked curiously as Tubbo leaned on the side of his head with a humongous grin on his face.
“Tear off your leg and bash your brains in with it.”
Kid’s got taste, the AI remarked.
“I think that you’re goin’ to go get in line for lunch and stop tormentin’ poor Fundy.”
Tommy angrily crossed his arms, face bright red and hair mussed. “Never.”
“If you’d prefer to go hungry all afternoon I could always tie you to the back of Eret’s speeder.”
Ooh, good one, the voice contributed.
“You wouldn’t,” Tommy blustered.
“Tubbo, do you know which wagon the tow ropes are in?”
“I’ve got one in my speeder already,” he said with relish.
“Fine,” Tommy growled. “I won’t completely obliterate you like I’m totally capable of doing. Now put me down.”
Instead, Techno put his brother up on his other shoulder, so now he had two teenagers clinging to his back like limpets. He lumbered over to Eret and dumped the pair at his feet, cracking a smile as Tommy landed one last punch on his helmet and immediately yelped in pain, the cold glass unforgiving against his knuckles.
“See you guys in a bit, I’m off to do another lap around the area,” he told them as Tommy and Tubbo immediately started bickering and Eret shook his head in resignation. Never a dull moment was definitely one way of putting it.
After another two hours on the road, the monsters still hadn’t made an appearance, and it was starting to weird Techno out. Usually it took less than an hour for at least something to find him out in the wastelands, but they had yet to encounter anything. He wondered if they were intimidated by the large group, but his gut told him that wasn’t the case. They’d never cared about numbers in the past.
Scaredy-cat, the AI teased. He ignored it, turning to Dream
“It’s too quiet,” he confided to his traveling companion..
The other man shrugged, glancing at the vast expanse of desert around them. “I’m just counting our blessings. Like you said, we don’t want to fight anything.”
“I don’t trust it. I’m not used to it being peaceful out here.”
“You can do another patrol circle if you want.”
“I’ll do it after Eret’s next message, he should radio in soon.” He checked his internal clock. Only a few seconds left, actually.
He waited. The minute turned over and the clock kept ticking, but his radio remained silent. He pressed the intercom.
“You guys all right over there?”
Silence.
He stopped dead on the trail, listening with bated breath. Dream paused a few steps in front of him, looking back in confusion.
They’re dead, all dead, never see them again, better break down and cry, baby.
Shut UP! Techno mentally shouted. He jabbed the button again.
“Eret? Tommy? Tubbo? Can you hear me?”
There was a crackle of static from the other end, and a snatch of broken shouting cut through the glitching. He couldn’t tell who it was.
“Guys?” he yelled.
Another burst of static, and Tommy’s panicked voice broke through to his speakers. “-uck! Too many, help! Eret is-” The radio shut off again.
Techno’s stomach dropped like a bowling ball. “They’re in trouble. Tell Phil where I’m goin’,” he called to Dream, breaking into a run. He didn’t wait for a response, picking up speed as he tore past the rest of the very confused caravan and one mildly concerned father figure.
He pushed himself to run faster and faster, head swiveling back and forth as he searched for the scouting party. The dust swirled and pounded on his limbs like a constant headache, fighting to keep him from making progress. The visibility was terrible, he’d long lost sight of the caravan behind him and he doubted he could see thirty yards in any direction.
All gone, crashed, mauled, dead…
A faint sound reached his ears, and his head immediately shot to the right, homing in on the noise like a hawk in the throes of a hunt. He switched directions and sprinted toward the sound. It was growing louder with every passing second, and soon he picked out high pitched shrieking that could only be one person. He’d heard it too many times in the base to not recognize it. He pushed himself even harder, coaxing every ounce of momentum out of his protesting legs.
The faint outline of a tall sand dune came into view, then a thin column of smoke trailing into the sky from a large depression at the base of it that he couldn’t see into. The first monsters came into view a moment later, a pair of mutated spiders that scuttled over the top of the dune and raced down into the pit with unearthly wails.
Techno would probably never get used to the sight of the horrifying creatures. The massive arachnids were four feet high and twice as long, with bodies covered in matted black hair, legs studded with wickedly sharp barbs, and eight beady red eyes that looked in every direction at once. They attacked anything that moved and didn’t stop until it was a gorey smudge smeared through the dirt.
He rapidly flicked the switch on his arm that triggered the activation of his weapons, brow furrowing in discomfort as the joints and parts in his arms rearranged themselves. In just a few seconds, his left arm had converted into a high-powered blaster, while his right had shifted into a formidable broadsword. His back erupted with spines and he lost a few inches of height, almost stumbling as his leg and back plates contracted into sturdier armored protection.
He charged over the crest of the hill, taking in the scene below him. The smoke was from a smashed bike, wrecked in a heap at the base of the dune with one of nine spiders snarling ferociously from the top of it. Tubbo was zipping around the ditch on his own speeder, firing shots from his blaster into any monster he could get in his sights.
Tommy was on the ground standing over the unconscious form of Eret, the motionless man’s gun in hand and pumping blasts in any direction far enough from his friends that they wouldn't get caught in the crossfire. Two spiders already lay dead, wounds peppering their bodies like buckshot. The rest of creatures were gradually converging on the two stationary figures, despite Tubbo’s best efforts to draw their attention to himself.
Techno leapt into action, jumping down into the pit and driving his sword deep into the abdomen of an unsuspecting arachnid. He wrenched it out with a grunt as the thing squealed in agony and turned on him, but he blasted it in the face before it could attack. One down.
Tubbo hollered in triumph and relief as he fired another shot into the side of a second spider, Tommy immediately starting to shout vulgar but highly motivating encouragement to him. The monsters, realizing the imminent danger, started pressing closer to Tommy and Eret. Techno barreled into the group and impaled the head of the one he’d shot, firing rapidly into the cluster to his left. Another one keeled over, and a second stumbled to the side, three of its legs blown clean off. It fell to a smattering of shots from Tubbo, swinging by on another pass from his speeder.
Techno burst through their shrinking circle in a slashing whirlwind of metal, planting himself beside his brother just as the nearest monster lunged for him in a fury. Techno darted to the side and braced himself, feet sliding back an inch as the spider, unable to stop in time, impaled itself on his blade. The heavy weight dragged his weapon to the ground as he struggled to free it, Tommy finishing the still-struggling spider with a few scattered blasts to the head.
Techno glanced backwards and barely managed to get loose in time to throw himself bodily onto another monster like a juggernaut, interrupting its attempt to sneak up on him from behind. The spikes on his back plunged deep into the creature’s flesh, eliciting an agonized scream of pain as it dropped to the ground and rolled, trying to dislodge him. He followed through the roll and stood up with a forceful push as his feet hit the ground, then crushed the spider beneath his body weight for a second time. Its scream of anguish petered out as its head was crushed under his back.
He heaved himself to his feet, spikes coming free from the corpse of the monster with a wet squelching noise as he zeroed in on the three remaining enemies. He made his choice of target as another one stormed towards Tommy, nailing it between the eyes with a blaster pulse. He rushed forward and ran it through with his sword for good measure as Tommy beamed, awe mixing in with the fear on his face.
The last two spiders hissed in warning, one flinching to the side as Tubbo fired into its hide. Techno pounced, slashing at the eyes of the one on the right and shooting the one on the left point blank. It tumbled to the ground, four leg joints mangled past usage as the other one howled and leapt at him in a literally blind rage.
It slammed into his chest and nearly eight hundred pounds of monster smashed him into the ground, pinning him in place as his armor groaned in protest against the pressure. His blaster arm was trapped and close to cracking, his sword crushed against his chestplate. He cried out in pain and aggravation, fighting to push the deadweight off of him.
“Look out!” Tubbo shouted, and Techno glanced backwards to see another pair of spiders crawling over the hill. There must be a nest on the other side. He strained against the monster trapping him, desperate to get back up before they could reach his friends.
A low roar reached his ears, and a familiar voice rang out, “Looks like I’ve walked into a pretty nightmarish situation.”
“Dream!” Tommy called, waving frantically.
“Get this off me!” Techno yelled. “No time for one liners!”
The droning came closer, and Dream flew into his field of vision, held aloft by his jetpack and a blaster in each hand. He buried four shots into the twitching spider and holstered his weapons, backing up so he could gain some momentum before zooming forward and throwing his shoulder into the mass of black hair. Techno pushed upwards at the same time, and the now-dead body of the spider gave up its prey, flipping over onto its back as Techno scrambled to his feet and gave himself a fast once-over.
He may have cracked a plate or two, and the spikes on his back had likely dulled, but nothing major was broken. Good. He nodded in thanks to Dream and threw himself back into the fight, joining his younger brother in firing at the two new threats as they dashed over the wreckage of the speeder and raced closer.
“They’ll just keep coming if that’s a nest, we need to get out of here,” Dream exclaimed as he dive bombed one of the creatures and sank three shots into its skull, downing it.
“Agreed,” Techno shouted back. “Tommy, get back on Tubbo’s speeder and book it to the caravan. Dream, give him coords. Can your jetpack support Eret’s weight?”
“No, it’ll wreck the stabilizers. Tubbo, punch these in.” He rattled off the location of the group. “Can he ride on the working speeder?”
“No good, too heavy with three of us,” Tubbo called.
“Change of plans. Dream, get Eret secured on the speeder and follow them back to the group. Tommy’s ridin’ back with me.” Techno fired one last shot into the remaining spider, killing it, and flicked another switch on his arm. The spikes on his back retracted with a squeal of metal. Definitely bent. He looked up to see three more of the miserable monsters swarming over the crest of the dune. They had forty seconds, max, before the spiders reached them.
Dream swooped down and tripped into a landing, grabbing Eret under the arms as Tubbo looped around and stopped in front of them. Techno took his unconscious friend’s legs and they sat him down on the speeder, locking his arms with one of Tubbo’s so that he would stay upright. The taller man completely dwarfed the teen.
“You’ve got a tow rope?” Dream asked. Tubbo nodded. “Good. Get out of danger, stop, and I’ll help you tie him a seatbelt. Don’t forget to hold onto him. Go!”
Tubbo didn’t wait another second, sinking his foot into the gas pedal and tearing off into the desert with his passenger. Dream fired up his jetpack, streaking after him in a blur of brown and green.
“Hurry, get on,” Techno told Tommy, kneeling down and gesturing to his back with his sword arm. Tommy, for once not arguing about the indignities of ‘piggy-back-rides,’ clipped his blaster to his belt and clambered onto the wide metal shoulders, curling his lip as black monster blood from the spider-squishing stained the front of his shirt. He wrapped his arms around his brother's neck and his legs around his torso, rapping twice on his helmet to give him the okay to move.
Techno lurched into a jog, clomping clumsily up the steep side of the sand pit as the spiders came ever closer. He cleared the edge and got onto firmer ground with the attackers only a yard behind him. With the dirt solid under his feet, he started building more speed, but it was difficult to accelerate with a lanky teenager clinging to his back.
He veered a bit to the left of where Tubbo and Dream had gone, making sure the spiders would follow him and eliminating the risk of running into them while they were helping Eret. Even carrying Tommy, he could still outrun them with ease, and within two minutes the last monster had disappeared into the dust clouds behind them.
The AI broke into his thoughts. Shouldn’t have split up, Eret could be dying right now. Stupid to leave them.
No, it wasn’t, he argued. He slowed to a comfortable trot and pressed his intercom. “Tubbo, did you guys make it out all right?”
“Yeah, we did,” came the enthusiastic response. “And we didn’t need the seatbelt after all!”
Lucky break. Won’t happen next time.
Another mike clicked on. “Hey,” Eret croaked raggedly. “I heard I passed out and crashed.”
“Eyyy!” Tommy cheered. “You really had me worried there, man.”
“Are you okay?” Techno asked.
Long term damage, he’ll never walk again…
“My head hurts like crazy, I’m as dizzy as a top, my rib cage is bruised to hell and back, and I might have a broken arm. I’ve been better. Oh, and my suit tore, so there’s dust everywhere. But I have not been eaten by a spider, so that’s good.” His throat sounded rough and scratched.
See, he’s fine, Techno thought. He’ll heal.
This time.
“What happened?” he questioned.
“I don’t know, I was just driving, feeling kind of tired and achy, then my vision started going spotty and the next thing I know I’m waking up on my back with these two standing over me looking like I’ve just become a zombie.” He paused. “Dream says to tell you it was probably heat exhaustion.”
“The symptoms sound about right. Next time we travel you’re drinkin' twice as much water and we’re gettin’ you a suit with a proper coolin’ system.”
He laughed ruefully. “Sounds great. See you back at the caravan?”
“See you there.”
“Bye!” Tommy and Tubbo chimed in at the same time.
Techno smiled in relief, flicking the switch that would relax the rest of his battle modifications and chuckling at Tommy’s exclamation of surprise. He was glad to get his fingers back and put the whole ordeal behind them.
Keep your weapons handy, this is still a dangerous desert.