Chapter Text
They finally made their way back to the surface. After a few frustrating wrong turns deep in the sprawling labyrinth of the mineshaft, the cramped, suffocating stone finally gave way to a steep tunnel leading upward.
Emerging from the blocky dirt and stepping onto the vibrant, pixelated grass, Venti threw his arms up, stretching his hands high above his head. "Ahhh, it feels nice to be in fresh air again!" He let out a relaxed sigh, taking in the blocky, geometric landscape. "Even though this isn't my world, at least I can find comfort in the warm breeze."
Oliver stood by his side, scanning the horizon. His brand-new diamond sword was clenched tightly in his fist. The adrenaline pumping through his veins completely masked the dull ache of the weapon's jagged, pixelated hilt digging into his palm. He turned his gaze past the square canopy of the trees, and his breath hitched.
Looming in the distant sky, slowly drifting above the plains, was the Wither.
"It's over there," Oliver murmured, stepping closer to Venti. "I guess we didn't wander off too far underneath it after all." He narrowed his eyes at the three-headed monstrosity. "Or maybe... it moved on its own."
Venti shook out his arms, loosening his shoulders. "Alright, I'm ready!" In a flash of teal light, his ornate bow materialized in his grip. "My burst is just about fully charged, but let's stagger it first!" He flashed a confident smile. "Remember the plan—"
"The Swirl," Oliver nodded, his grip on the sword tightening. "I know."
The air around them was comfortably warm, a stark and welcoming contrast to the freezing, oppressive dark of the caves. The sunlight and fresh air breathed new life into them, charging their energy for the fight ahead.
Venti dropped into a ready stance, his eyes locking onto the floating terror. "You can keep up with me, right?"
Oliver mimicked his boyfriend's posture, bending his knees slightly. "I can try."
"That's the spirit!" Venti beamed. "I'll charge at it and fire an Anemo arrow to activate my wind. You run in right behind me, jump, and slash with your sword using your new Vision. The blast from the freezing cold will trigger the Swirl!"
Oliver nodded firmly, though a sudden spike of doubt made him blink. "Y-You're sure I can jump that high? Remember, I'm... I'm still just a regular guy from a pretty pitiful universe."
"The best we can do is try," Venti said softly, offering a reassuring wink. "If all else fails, I'll just protect you with my wind again."
Oliver swallowed his fear, replacing it with sheer determination. "Okay. Let's do this."
"Now!" Venti shouted. The bard took off like a shot, sprinting across the blocky grass with his bow at the ready.
Oliver swung his diamond sword to his side and bolted after him. Despite having only wielded a sword while trapped inside his old avatar, the muscle memory was surging back with clarity. It felt natural. His mind, after all, was still inside of that avatar when he was in control of it.
He stayed right on Venti's heels, weaving through the square trunks of oak and birch until they burst out into the open plains, directly beneath the hovering Wither.
Up ahead, Venti skidded to a sudden halt. He drew back the bowstring, Anemo energy violently swirling around the fletching of the arrow, and then he let it fly.
The projectile shrieked through the air and lodged itself into one of the Wither's skeletal skulls. A massive eruption of wind exploded from the impact, knocking the colossal beast off balance. The Wither screeched, its three heads snapping down to glare at the bard.
But before the monster could retaliate, Oliver surged past Venti. He planted his foot against the grass and launched himself upward. The human didn't know how it was happening—he was soaring far higher than his physical body ever could back home.
"NYAAA!" Oliver roared, twisting in mid-air. He swung the diamond blade down with everything he had. A devastating blast of biting, frosty mist erupted from the edge of the sword, hurtling directly toward the staggered Wither.
The moment the biting Cryo energy collided with Venti's lingering Anemo energy, the elements reacted violently. A miniature, howling blizzard materialized in the sky. The sheer, concussive force of the Swirl reaction blasted the Wither backward. It thrashed helplessly in the vortex before completely losing its buoyancy and plummeting from the sky.
Everything fell perfectly into place.
Directly beneath the falling beast was a shallow, pixelated water lake. Minecraft's native elements seemed to perfectly obey the laws of Teyvat's physics—the second the Wither crashed into the water, the intense Cryo energy instantly froze the entire lake solid, trapping the monster in a massive block of ice.
"Ahh! Perfect!" Venti cheered. He dashed toward the frozen lake, rapidly firing a barrage of wind-infused arrows at the trapped creature.
Oliver landed smoothly and didn't waste a single second. He sprinted onto the ice, slashing his diamond sword violently across the Wither's exposed ribcage, vaulting over its frozen heads to strike at them.
But the victory was short-lived.
The dark energy inside the Wither pulsed violently. The ice splintered and shattered. With a deafening growl, the beast broke free and immediately launched itself high back into the air.
Oliver gasped, swinging his sword in a desperate move, but he hit nothing but empty air as the Wither retreated out of reach.
"Don't fret!" Venti called out, quickly moving to Oliver's side. "We'll take this terror down! You're incredibly quick on your feet with that new sword, babe!"
Oliver smiled, catching his breath before glaring back up at the hovering boss. "Same thing as before?"
"Yep! Swirl!" Venti readied another arrow. "The good news is, this creature probably isn't used to elemental reactions. Just a guess on my part. So it definitely wouldn't grow none the wiser! It'll be completely ignorant to our ways of attacking,"
As Oliver tightened his grip on the freezing hilt, a wild, reckless idea sparked in his mind. "Hey! Venti? I just got an idea, but it might sound completely insane."
"What is it? To me, no idea is ever truly crazy!"
"Okay! Uh... you can heal, right?" Oliver asked quickly.
Venti lowered his bow slightly, tilting his head. "Heal?" He blinked. "You mean like when I healed you with the Statue of the Seven? Well, yes, but we don't have the Seven here. I can heal on my own without them, but it takes an astronomical amount of energy—even more than my burst! It doesn't hurt me, but I wouldn't be able to use my burst again for a while!" Venti's eyes suddenly widened in sheer panic, and he nearly dropped his bow. "Babe?! Are you hurt?! Do you need to be healed?!"
"N-No!" Oliver quickly reassured him, his eyes glued to the sky. The Wither was glowing faintly, performing a strange, pulsing idle animation that Oliver had never seen in the game before. It was absolutely Nerraw's influence mutating its behavior.
He suddenly realized that the white orb in Venti's pocket was no longer glowing. It seemed the artifact only reacted when Nerraw's true form was directly exposed. That's why it's possessing these things, Oliver said to himself. It's using them as meat shields... We found that out on the first world with that robot. He did it then...
The only way to win was to get rid of the Wither itself. That'll leave Nerraw exposed.
"Babe, come on, make your move!" Venti urged, shifting nervously. "Do you need healing, or are we fighting?!"
"The healing wouldn't be for me!" Oliver shouted over to Venti . "It would be for the Wither!"
Venti's eyes narrowed in pure bewilderment. Normally, the bard wasn't one to judge, especially not the mortal he loved so dearly, but he was completely stumped. "Ollie... you are aware we are trying to kill it, right? If I heal it, it'll... well, be fully healed! We'd have to start this fight all over again!"
"No! In the actual lore of Minecraft, undead mobs are weak to healing magic! If you throw a splash potion of healing at them, they take massive damage!"
Venti's eyes lit up with brilliant realization. "Wow! Wait, really?!" he gasped. "Are you serious?! It's actually weak to healing?!"
"Yes! But... I'm not entirely sure if it'll react to your specific type of healing!"
Venti didn't hesitate, though his expression tightened. "Healing without the statues will drain me significantly, Oliver! If I do this, there is no turning back!"
"We have to try! The Cryo and Anemo aren't doing enough permanent damage!"
Venti let out a heavy breath. "Okay. I trust you, babe."
The bard lowered his bow and aimed both palms up at the monstrosity in the sky. He closed his eyes, his brow furrowing as he dug deep into his core. A brilliant, emerald-green light flared around his hands. "Here goes nothing!"
A massive, concentrated beam of pure, restorative Anemo energy shot from his palms, blasting directly into the Wither's skeletal chest.
The monster shrieked.
Oliver's theory was flawlessly correct. The Wither thrashed violently in the air, its dark, corrupted body violently rejecting the pure, Archon-level restoration. The sheer potency of a god's healing was infinitely more devastating than any potion.
The Wither's ribs cracked open, brilliant green light tearing through its hollow chest. It let out one final, agonizing scream as it literally withered away under the absolute purity of the magic, erupting into a massive cloud of white ash.
Venti instantly dropped to one knee, driving his fist into the dirt to keep from collapsing entirely. He was panting heavily, desperately trying to hide just how severely the magic had drained him. But a proud, exhausted smile fought its way onto his lips. "How dare I ever judge you?" he wheezed softly. "You know these worlds far better than I do."
But the battlefield wasn't over just yet.
From the center of the falling white ash, a thick, suffocating darkness began to ooze outward. The dark entity, Nerraw, hung suspended in the air, its hollow, glowing white eyes glaring down at them.
Venti gritted his teeth. He knew his body was completely spent; he couldn't even summon a gentle breeze right now. Moving as quickly as his trembling hands allowed, he slipped the necklace with the glowing orb into Oliver's pocket.
"Never could have seen that coming," Nerraw hissed, its voice echoing like grinding stones. "Using healing to kill. Never would have guessed it."
Oliver felt a sudden, intense warmth blooming against his hip. He looked down and realized the orb was practically blinding through the fabric of his pocket. He glanced over at Venti, his heart dropping at the sight of the exhausted Archon. "Venti!"
"Don't worry about me!" Venti forced out, locking eyes with him. "You have a Cryo sword, and you have the orb! Go fight it!"
Oliver nodded. The human didn't hesitate for a fraction of a second. He gripped his diamond sword and launched himself into the air, straight at the entity.
"Since when did you become so... fictional?" Nerraw snarled, swiping a long, jagged arm of pure darkness at Oliver's approaching form.
But Oliver didn't dodge. He vanished.
With a sharp crack, Oliver teleported out of the blade's path, leaving behind a dissipating cloud of shimmering ice crystals.
"What?!" Nerraw roared.
Oliver materialized flawlessly behind the dark creature, his diamond sword swinging in a devastating, icy slash. The freezing blade tore through the entity's back. Nerraw stumbled forward with a howl of pain, spinning around to see Oliver practically hovering in mid-air, buoyed by the freezing mist.
"When did you become like this?!" Nerraw yelled, its dark form flickering defensively. "You're not inside the avatar!"
Before the entity could launch a counter-attack, Oliver reached into his pocket and ripped out the silver necklace. He thrust the blinding white orb directly into Nerraw's chest.
A concussive shockwave of pure light exploded across the plains, nearly blinding the entire area. The dark, flaming monster was blasted out of the sky like a meteor, slamming very hard into the blocky dirt that it carved out a massive, jagged crater yards away from where Venti knelt.
The bard, still taking deep, recovering breaths, couldn't help but smirk. "Pretty sexy watching you fight, babe."
Oliver, still descending gracefully on a cushion of frost, flushed red. "Okay, let's not distract me, please—"
Down in the crater, the dark creature slowly, painfully pulled itself out of the rubble.
"It's exactly like what he had dealt with. Time is repeating itself," Nerraw muttered, its voice dripping with venomous disbelief. "Down to every last sickening detail... A human meeting a fictional character and getting together with it..."
Oliver landed softly on the grass, his eyes narrowing in fury. "Venti is not an 'it'."
Nerraw slowly turned its glowing eyes up to meet Oliver's. "The Fictional Universe is exactly what it says it is. It is fictional. You are risking your life for a delusion!"
"The dimensions inside it are real to the people who live in them!" Oliver snapped back, leveling his frost-coated blade at the creature. "And they have more heart than you ever will! Tell me—do you work for Doctor Barclay? Or are you just another one of his victims?"
Venti blinked, watching the confrontation closely. He was drained, but he forced his muscles to stay tense, keeping just enough reserve energy to jump in if his boyfriend needed him. He would never leave Oliver hanging.
"The doctor running those experiments?" Nerraw sneered, the darkness around it flaring aggressively. "He is the exact type of delusion I was talking about. Playing pretend with worlds that aren't his own for what? Money? A false sense of worth? All I want is to fulfill my master's plans..."
Venti's eyes widened. Master's? he repeated silently in his head.
"But my master has proven to be a traitor to himself!" Nerraw screamed, ascending back into the air in a terrifying flurry of dark energy. "But he created me for one purpose, and I will see it accomplished, no matter the cost!"
The entity thrust its arms forward, firing a rapid barrage of razor-sharp dark shards directly at Oliver.
Oliver gasped, parrying the first shard with a swift crack of his diamond sword. He quickly raised the glowing orb in his other hand. The second dark shard slammed into the artifact, violently rebounding off the light. The projectile purified instantly, transforming into a brilliant bolt of white energy that shot back and struck Nerraw squarely in the chest, blasting the creature back into the dirt.
Nerraw rose slowly from the new crater, its form wavering violently. "Curse that wretched necklace..." it hissed, closing its eyes. "Time for new scenery..."
The dark creature raised a hand and snapped its fingers.
Venti gasped. "Oh SHIT!"
A jagged, chaotic blue crack violently spider-webbed across the green, blocky terrain. It completely ignored the structural physics of Minecraft, shattering the ground like thin glass.
The ground violently split open, revealing a roaring, terrifying blue vortex beneath them.
"VENTI!" Oliver screamed.
The bard, completely devoid of energy, couldn't leap to safety fast enough. The ground gave way beneath him, and he tumbled backward into the void.
Oliver didn't think. He didn't hesitate. Gripping his sword tightly, he dove headfirst into the rift, chasing after the man he loved.
~~~~~~~~~~
Minutes later, a separate, perfectly circular portal opened on the blocky grass nearby.
Stepping out from the light was a dark-skinned man holding a massive, key-like weapon.
Mark had been meticulously tracking the chaotic energy trails left behind by Oliver and Venti, hunting for any sign of their whereabouts.
"I tracked them to Minecraft...This better be Minecraft..." Mark lowered his Keyblade, his eyes scanning the incredibly square trees and perfectly flat dirt walls. "Yep. Definitely Minecraft."
The Keyblade wielder analyzed his surroundings closely, searching for any bodily proportions or environmental damage that defied the game's rigid style. From where he stood, everything looked infuriatingly normal.
He pulled out his handheld scanner, tapping the screen, but it was dead quiet. "They must have traveled to another world already," Mark muttered in frustration. "I wonder if I can figure out where."
He walked toward a nearby lake, the pixelated water shimmering in the sun. But as he stepped onto the shoreline, he stopped dead in his tracks.
"Hmmm," Mark hummed gently, crouching down.
In the center of the lake were massive, jagged shards of ice. But the ice wasn't pixelated. It was realistic, highly detailed, and completely alien to the environment.
"No doubt about it, someone who didn't belong in Minecraft was just here," Mark deduced, tracing a gloved finger over a frosty shard that had washed ashore. "But who uses ice? Last time I checked, Venti doesn't use Cryo magic." He stood up, crossing his arms. "And Nerraw doesn't use ice either. He's supposed to be a mirror to Dark-Blade; he's too blinded by pure darkness to wield other powers. Very odd."
Suddenly, his scanner began beeping frantically.
"Why is it picking up such a massive energy spike all of a sudden?" Mark looked around, tracking the directional ping. It couldn't have been Nerraw's lingering presence. Even though the entity was devastatingly powerful, it didn't leave signatures that looked like this.
"It must be picking something else up. But what? What could possibly give off this much raw energy in Minecraft?"
Mark carefully navigated the uneven, blocky terrain, following the intensifying beeps. As he crested a small dirt hill, a bizarre, static-like shimmering sound reached his ears. He glanced down at the scanner—the energy signature was rapidly diminishing, as if the source was evaporating. "Huh..."
Mark looked up from the screen and instantly scrambled backward with a sharp gasp. "Gah?!"
He had nearly stepped right off the edge of a massive, jagged blue rift embedded directly into the earth.
"Holy..." Mark stood frozen, staring into the swirling vortex. "Did Nerraw do this?"
He stepped carefully to the edge of the tear. The jagged, blue-lined edges were visibly shrinking, pulling inward toward the center of the void. The rift was closing rapidly. He had to make a choice, and he had to make it right now.
"Should I... jump in?" Mark muttered.
He had to. There was no doubt this was where Oliver and Venti had vanished to; he was closer to finding them than he had ever been.
Mark made his choice. He summoned his Keyblade, held it tightly at his side, and dove headfirst into the collapsing rift.
As the rushing blue energy swallowed him whole, the digital readout on his scanner flared brilliantly before turning off.
"Entering Sil—[glitch]—ill—[hlitch]—Sub-7414"