Chapter Text
Jimmy's heart pounded as he raced across SkyNet. He felt an arrow graze his arm, but he kept running.
He leapt over a bend, and dashed towards the TIES tower. He heard Etho swear behind him, but didn't bother looking back. Once he reached the tower, he spun around and pulled his own bow out of his inventory. He shot blindly, again and again, until-
Etho shouted as he fell, and the crack of lightning lit up the night. Jimmy didn't need to check his comm to see the message that had appeared. He had already seen it far too many times.
"Guess that's that, then," he said into the empty air. He was much too tired to put on any kind of show, and the novelty of winning wears off after enough times- especially when those times didn't really matter anyways.
Besides, he didn't really feel like giving their voyeuristic overlords any more entertainment. He had done quite enough of that.
No sense dragging it out, he thought, climbing onto the tower railing, hopefully next time I can die before Skizz sacrifices himself.
The server was spread out around him, lanterns shining like stars in the distance. He could see the Clockers tower, and the outline of Bread Bridge. He knew if he looked behind him, he would see the ruins of the Coral Isles.
He still had thirty-seven minutes on his timer, but he felt no need to wait it out. He knew he had another twenty-four hours to go.
He could almost see the ghosts hovering around him, whispering. Waiting to see what he would do.
He stepped off the edge.
–
Jimmy woke up. Again.
He was in a circle with thirteen other players. Again.
Grian told them all they had twenty-four hours to live, and wished them luck. Again.
They all ran off in different directions to gather resources. Again.
Jimmy punched a tree, more aggressively than usual. “Seventh times the charm,” he muttered to himself. Everything ached from the fall, but that would fade soon, as respawn pain typically did.
He wondered if it would be easier to just get it all over with now. He really didn't want to ruin the game for his friends, but he wasn't sure how much longer he could do this.
It had been a month and a half since he had last been on Empires. A month and a half since he had seen Fwhip and Shelby and Katherine and all his other friends. He missed them, and he missed Tumble Town, and he really missed not having to worry about watching his back all the time.
He wanted to go home.
He heard his comm buzz. Boogeyman in a few minutes. He didn't bother worrying. Who was or wasn't Boogeyman never changed. The victims sometimes did, but never these first two. He was never close enough to change it even if he wanted to.
He continued on his usual path. He got tools and mined for iron, waiting for when he would run into Joel.
He always ran into Joel. He didn't always end up teaming with him, but they always found each other in the beginning.
After seeing how determined Joel was to break his curse the first two times, he had tried joining other groups. He had tried the Clockers, but Cleo was even more protective, and had fought tooth and nail to keep him alive. He had tried the Mean Gills, but had the same problem twofold with Scott and Martyn. And again with the Nosy Neighbors and Pearl. Going solo hadn't worked either. Maybe he could join TIES? He doesn't know where they would fit a J, though. And he was pretty sure Tango would be much worse than the others.
Maybe he could try the Bad Boys again? They were reckless enough that he could excuse it with that, and they had definitely been his favorite team. Maybe he'd just go with the flow.
His comm buzzed again. Boogeyman. He continued mining; after a few minutes, there it was. Skizzleman was slain by Smajor1995. He knew in a few more minutes, he'd get a similar message of Skizzleman was slain by Bdoubleo100. Poor Skizz.
Things happened the same way they had the last six times. He ran into Joel, who told him he was the bad boy of the server. They ran around for a bit, died in lava–at which point Jimmy realized he'd basically accepted himself into the Bad Boys again–and generally caused a ruckus.
Joel trampled crops and killed cows, and they eventually made their way to the mansion. They climbed up to the roof, where Jimmy did his best to seem surprised to find Grian there. They bantered back and forth a bit, then Grian joined the Bad Boys. Their duo was a trio, and all was right with the world.
They started a farm (which Jimmy knew would soon extend to Entertainment Mountain- Bread Bridge was a constant here), and made terrible jokes about Bad Boys 2.
Eventually, as she always did, Cleo came and burned down the mansion. Jimmy tried to freak out the way everyone else was, yelling and throwing water buckets about, but it was hard to feel anything but resigned. He hoped no one could tell how exhausted he was.
After a while, everything calmed down, and everyone split off to rest up for the night. The three of them pushed their beds together and curled up under the covers. Jimmy lay in the middle of his teammates, staring up at the sky.
He heard Joel shift next to him. “Are you two still awake?” he whispered.
“No,” Grian said, muffled by the blanket he was burying his face in. Joel reached over and smacked him.
“Oi,” Jimmy frowned, annoyed at being in between their bickering.
“Sorry Tim,” Grian snickered, not sounding the least bit sorry. He rolled over to face them. “What's up, Joel?”
“Dunno. Just… thinking.”
“That's new.”
“Shut it,” Joel snapped.
“Sorry, sorry. What're you thinking about?” Grian stretched his wings.
“Do you guys ever feel, like… deja vu?”
Jimmy tensed up. “What'd you mean by that Joel?”
“I dunno. It's just- all day I've felt it. Like- like I've done all this before.”
“I… actually get what you're saying,” Grian sat up, “I feel it too. It's weird.”
He looked down at Jimmy. “Did you feel it, Tim? Like all this has happened before?”
Oh, you have no idea, he thought. “Dunno what you're on about,” is what he said instead, punctuating it with a yawn. “Let's just go back to sleep.” He rolled over, smacking Grian in the face with his wing.
Grian sputtered, gently batting at the yellow feathers. “We can't go back to sleep if we were never asleep in the first place.”
“Hush, you.” He pulled the other two down with his wings, spreading them over his friends. They grumbled a bit more, but eventually they were all lying back down, and he heard their breaths even out.
Feeling like they'd done all this before, huh? They had no idea how close to the truth they were. He could only hope this was the last time they did it.