Chapter Text
They were initially planning on walking from city to city to find everyone, occasionally sending messengers to deliver the news. At some point, though, Dove just gave his elytra to Theo so he could fly from place to place.
If nothing else got his trust, that surely did. Theo flew away excitedly. “I’ll give this back to you later!”
Wifies watched him leave, then pulled another elytra out of his echest.
“So what now?” Dean asked.
“He’ll be back in 5 minutes, so we can’t go for another stash.” Wifies hummed. “I guess we’ll just wait here.”
“Do you think I can take control?”
Wifies glanced over. Dean was trying to seem nonchalant as he asked, leaning his arm against the side of the chair. Wifies turned the seat to the side and stood. “Don’t die, bro. I don’t have another mace.”
Dean practically jumped into the chair, hands going over the keyboard. “I need to find something to smash with the mace.”
“Please don’t. You’re going to die from fall damage.” Wifies pulled up another chair from the living room, sitting down next to Dean and propping his elbow on the arm rest. He leaned his head against his palm.
“I’m not that much of a chungi, bro.”
“I’m sure.”
Dean sighed. Wifies was right, though, so there was nothing he could say.
“Hey!”
Dove glanced up. Theo landed down next to him, taking off the elytra. He seemed surprised for a moment. “You have another elytra?”
Dove nodded. Dean glanced at Wifies, before placing a sign. “u can keep that 1 if u want.”
“You’re offering away my elytra?” Wifies asked incredulously.
Dean shrugged. “Ours now, bro.”
Wifies rolled his eyes, but he didn’t really care, so he moved on. “Also, can you make the typing differences a little less obvious? They're going to figure out two people are running this account."
Dean shrugged and edited the sign. “You can keep that 1–“
“Change it to word form.”
Dean sighed. He probably didn’t expect taking over the alt to be so much work. “You can keep that one if you want.”
“Really? Are you sure, bro?” Theo asked. He didn’t seem to question the momentary typing pattern change, which was good. He wasn’t the brightest, Wifies noticed. Like Dean. ‘Dove’ nodded. “Wow. You are rich, dude. Thank you so much.”
Dean edited the sign. “Yup. Ur—“ delete, delete, “—you’re welcome.”
“No for real, thank you. Oh my goodness." Theo walked in circles for a moment. "Okay, uh. I got Paramount notified and he's going to spread the message to Fymada, so that should be everyone. We should start heading back to the Northern Council."
"Do I gotta go reunite with the army?"
"Need to," Wifies corrected. "Not 'gotta'. It's more consistent with Dove's writing."
"It's too late to change now, bro." Dean shrugged. "Just adapt."
"Huh?" Theo seemed to be confused, then thought for a moment. "Oh, right. I guess you are technically just a soldier. Uh, I'll ask Parrot if you can join the council meeting. If you help with… supplies I don't see why he'd have something against it."
"Huh. So Theo can be bribed," Wifies commented beneath his breath. It was useful information.
Dove nodded enthusiastically and broke the sign.
"Okay let's—" Theo paused. "Yo, wait. We can fly! I almost forgot, oh my goodness it's been so long. Let's hurry, dude." He equipped his elytra and waited for Dove.
Dove swapped on the elytra and followed Theo into the air… and then crashed into the ground a moment later.
"Bro." Wifies was starting to regret letting him have the controls.
"My bad. It's been 2 years."
Dove launched into the air again and quickly caught up to Theo. Theo glanced at him. "You good, dude?"
Dean tried to make Dove nod, but instead swerved up and down. Wifies felt a little like crying. Fortunately, they weren't too far from the building, and they touched down at the gates. Or, in Dove's case, crashed so quickly a totem popped because Dean turned too sharply. Theo looked at him, but didn't question it. Wifies forced Dean to double up on totems.
Eventually, Parrot and Reina appeared at the top of the staircase, and Theo and Dove walked towards him.
Parrot seemed surprised when he saw them. "Uh?"
"How'd it go, Parrot?" Theo asked.
"Oh yeah, um. We questioned her. Cindercrest is targeting Highwater next so we should prepare for that. You got the leaders right?"
"Okay. And yup. Should all be in the meeting room now."
"Good." Parrot paused. "Also how did you get an elytra? And why is Dove here?"
Dove crouched twice in response to being mentioned. Theo motioned to him. "Dove gave it to me. That's also why he's here. He wants to join the meeting."
Parrot slowly turned back to Theo. "Join the strategy meeting," he deadpanned. Even though he seemed to trust Dove at first, even Parrot had limits to that. "Why?"
"Well, he's a good soldier and also," Theo lowered his voice, "…he's crazy rich as well." Theo went back to speaking normally, as if Dove didn't just hear him clearly. "He's like… our supplier! Like the rest of the leaders."
"Theobald." Reina said. "You can't just invite a possible spy to join a meeting with every leader just because he gave you—"
"Reina, wait." Parrot interrupted, then looked at Dove. "Hm. Here, let's try this. I'll let you sit in on the meeting and even join the leaders… if you give me your mace, but I can't guarantee that I'll give it back."
"Huh?" Reina looked over.
"What?!" Theo's head snapped to Parrot. "You can't just ask that! That's not something you ask! There's no way he'd—"
Dove tossed Parrot the mace.
Everyone was silent for a stretched moment.
He placed a sign. Nobody spoke as they let him write. "Whatever you need, Parrot."
Parrot hummed. "…hm. I guess he can join then."
Theo was flabbergasted as Parrot turned and walked towards the meeting room. He looked back and forth between Parrot and Dove. Even Reina seemed to be surprised, staring at Dove for a while before following Parrot.
Dean blew out a breath and glanced at Wifies, but found that he was completely unconcerned. "You aren't worried that Parrot will keep it? It's your only mace."
"If he thinks it'll keep himself safer, he can have it. We're not any better at PvP than him," Wifies explained. Dean seemed far more concerned about it than Wifies either way. "Anyways, I don't think he's going to keep it. He just wants to see how far we'd go to get on his good side."
"Okay… okay. So should we not go farther? What if he gets more suspicious?" Dean asked. Dove began to follow Parrot, and Theo moved behind him.
Wifies hummed. "Nah. There's no point in holding back. We're only here to help, after all. If he doesn't want us around, we'll just keep ourselves around."
"I guess, bro." Dean paused and checked Dove's inventory. "Keep going with that stalker stuff, I guess."
Wifies rolled his eyes.
It didn't take long to arrive at the large meeting room. Dean let out a quiet "ooh" as he entered, then he realized everyone was looking at him.
Luckily, he didn't have to do anything as Parrot began speaking and the leaders turned away. Dove went and stood behind Parrot, along with Reina and Theo.
All the leaders began introducing themselves. When it got around to Parrot, he looked at Dove. "Dove, why don't you introduce yourself?"
Dean looked frantically to Wifies. "Uh. What do I say? I can't lose this aura, giving Parrot the mace was the most auraful thing I've ever done on this server."
"Oh my goodness, bro." Wifies sighed. "How about this? Dove is Parrot's official sponsor. That's an strong title."
Dove placed a sign. "My name is RepentantDove. I am Parrot's official sponsor."
Everyone looked around at eachother, but continued to finish introductions.
OutlawAndrew suddenly spoke up towards the end. "Okay. I gotta say it. I know we're all wondering this." He pointed towards Dove. "Who is this? Why is he here? We've never seen him around before and I know most of us haven't met, but I've at least heard of all of you. Besides Dove."
Dove punched the sign to emphasize what he wrote, but Tetra spoke as well. "Yeah, like he just showed up during the battle of Merchant City. It sounded like Parrot didn't know even him. Why is he here now?" There were various sounds of confusion and concern with that statement.
Theo stepped forwards. "Hey! He's—!"
"Guys, guys." Parrot spoke, and everyone quieted. "It's true that I haven't known Dove for long, but he is dedicated to helping our cause and has supplies most of us couldn't even dream of having now." People looked around in confusion, but Parrot continued, pulling out a certain item. "For example, this."
The air in the room froze. Fymada gasped and Horace stepped back slightly. Theo snickered. Dean felt a little put on the spot and kind of wanted to get Wifies back in the chair.
"How did you…?" Fymada started.
"It came from Dove. It was a token of his loyalty." Parrot tucked it away. "I will not be keeping it on me, for your information. Still, he has enough other gear to be our personal supplier and tank. Actually." He turned. "Dove, do you think you could get some better gear for the rest of the leaders?"
Dove nodded. Dean went into the e-chest and began looking through shulkers. He placed four down, one for each armor piece. Then he placed a couple miscellaneous item boxes.
Wifies felt a little at a loss because, dang, Parrot only knew 'Dove' for like half a day and already asked a mace and 12 netherite armor sets from him. Not that he minded, it was just kind of crazy in hindsight. War was war, he supposed. He was more surprised Dean didn't want to gatekeep it.
But… could the leaders take advantage to the support to betray Parrot? No, none of that thinking. Parrot could probably choose his allies well enough.
Wifies was actually worried about the trims on the armor. Would Parrot get suspicious about them? There was no way he didn't recognize them. Should Wifies tell Dean to avoid using an invis pot just in case?
If Parrot was suspicious, though, he didn't show it. He went on to discuss plans to build another war machine in Highwater, where Cindercrest was apparently going to attack next. He then talked about needing to distract the enemies until the machine can be built. Then the meeting was over.
Dove picked up the shulkers after everyone got whatever they needed. Parrot went up to him. "Sorry about putting you on the spot like that, bro. Do you still have enough gear?"
"It's cool. I might need to go for a restock though." Dean glanced at Wifies, who nodded thoughtfully. Some of them did take extra sets. Mostly the outlaw guy. The nearest stash that still had items was 50k blocks away. It'd be around only half an hour there and back, much less if he spammed rockets and didn't let Dean fly.
"Okay. Here." Parrot gave the mace back. "Help us distract the Cindercrest army. You can go for a restock afterwards. Try to be back before the Highwater battle starts."
"Thanks. Will do."
"Yeah, hah." There was a smile in Parrot's voice. "I'm trusting you, bro."
He walked out of the room.
"Oh heck yeah." Dean moved forwards to pick up the weapon. "It's hammer time."
"You are going to die." Wifies shook his head, disappointed in advance.
"Nah, I'd win."
"You wouldn't," said Wifies.
"I wouldn't," confirmed Dean.
Dove sprinted to follow Parrot.