Chapter Text
Master
Tommy didn't know what he was expecting to happen when he died. Maybe he would see Wilbur standing in a grassy field, or maybe he would just float away in a black void of nothing. Death was neither of those things. In fact, Death wasn’t a thing, but an entity, a being with thoughts and emotions. She was beautiful in so many ways it wasn't even describable. With wings darker than the blackest black, and yet somehow still visible to the boy’s unworthy eye, if sight was even a concept in the afterlife.
She wasn't easily described, but that was easily excusable. Tommy was never really in a specific place, position, or mindset throughout his time in Death’s care. He knew that he was dead, but that didn't help much. In the end, though, it didn’t matter. She had plans for him, and they required him to become more than he was.
She led his mind through the things that people weren't supposed to know. He forgot most of it mere moments after learning it, but the experience still left him irrevocably changed. Each time his demeanor became more controlled, calmer, and more mature to put it best. By the time he was pulled from Death’s embrace, lured by the sound of Dream’s voice, he was nothing like the boy who had been murdered.
He was still Tommy Innit, but he had been changed by the void of Death, molded by her hands into the perfect vessel to fix this broken, bloodied world. The voices would sing and shout as he brought this world to its knees, and then help it grow into something magnificent. He would be the Master this world needed, in service of Death herself. His new title would be The Master of Death.
Clay
Dream giggled madly as he grabbed Tommy's corpse by the hair, pulling the teen’s lifeless body up from the floor. With his free hand, he harnessed the power of the Revive Book, reaching beyond the veil of the afterlife to pull Tommy’s soul back into his body. With a ragged gasp, Tommy’s eyes flew open, his lungs wheezing as life returned to his stiff corpse of a body.
"♪Wakey wakey Tommy♪!" the mad prisoner called out in a singsong voice.
Tommy slowly opened his eyes, his breathing steadying as he turned to look up at Dream. The masked man shook the boy by his hair a bit before finally letting him go. He expected Tommy to fall to the floor, cursing in pain as he shook off his rigor mortis. However, while the child did stumble a bit at first, he caught himself quite easily. His joints cracked slightly as he stood up straight, seemingly shaking off the last bit of stiffness with alarming speed. Dream elected to ignore this, just waiting as Tommy finally met his gaze.
"Well Tommy?” he pressed, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice. Dream wanted to know all the things the child had witnessed! All the horrors he had seen! Why did he hate Tommy again? “Your back! Back from the dead! What was it like!"
Tommy didn't react to the question, and Dream felt his grin falter. The teen hadn’t moved since straightening up. He hadn’t so much as twitched and wasn't running his mouth like he was supposed to be. All he was doing was staring, barely even blinking as he did. Something was wrong…
"What’s the matter?” Dream questioned, laughing maniacally as he tried to get a rise from his revived victim. “Death got your tongue‽" Once again, he was met with nothing but silence and blank staring. "Tommy?"
Waving his hand in front of the teen’s face didn’t do anything, which made Dream begin to worry. Had something gone wrong with the ritual? Had he been mistaken about the power the Revived Book held? He needed to be sure. He grabbed the Book to see if something had gone wrong, and that’s when it happened.
A single, bony hand sank into his ever-growing hair, pulling him back sharply and forcing him to drop the Book. It fell to the ground with a heavy thud as Dream was forced to turn back and meet Tommy’s gaze once more. What he saw sent a chill down the masked man’s spine, leaving his mouth dry.
Those eyes… they were nothing like those of the boy he thought he knew. They were the same pale blue, but there was a power behind them that felt older than time. The longer he stared, the more terrified Dream became. Those weren’t Tommy’s eyes! Those were the eyes of something old, something dangerous, something that was not the terrified teenager Dream had murdered not two nights ago.
"The war and corruption have nearly broken you,” Tommy said in a voice that made the hairs on the back of Dream’s neck stand on end. “You still cling to your sanity, but the Pandorica will break what is left of you. When you are done with this life, I will come to cleanse you of the corruption, then lead you to a new life under my guidance.”
Dream was panicking, trying to back away from the creature wearing Tommy’s skin. The grip on his hair tightened, preventing his escape, and sending fresh bolts of terror down the masked man’s spine. Never before had he felt such cold terror, left shaking under the cold gaze of those shimmering, inhuman eyes.
Then, just as suddenly as this turn of events began, the creature that was once Tommy released Dream’s hair, letting the man crumble to the ground. He scrambled backward as quickly as he could, wedging himself between the wall of his cell and his chest. Tommy didn’t seem to notice, or maybe he just didn’t care. Instead, the revived boy took a deep, controlled breath.
"SAM!!" he shouted, his voice reverberating off the obsidian walls.
Dream cringed at how the loud sound vibrated throughout his body, covering his ears as he cowered in the corner. Despite his fear, his desire for control flared. He needed to move, to demand answers, to grab Tommy by the collar of his shirt and beat him once again. But… he couldn’t. He couldn't find the strength to break out of his shock and terror.
More than that, as much as he desired control, he instinctively knew it was a battle he would lose. Tommy was stronger than he was when he died. Before the teen was barely able to push him back, much less hold him still by his hair. And then there were his words and voice, both conveying a power that Dream had yet to witness, a power that could no doubt tear him to shreds if Tommy so chose.
In the end, all Dream could do was watch, the boy’s words playing over and over in his head as he tried to decipher their meaning.
Daedalus
Sam knew that Tommy’s death was his fault. Not a single person argued against that, not even himself. After months of listening to Dream go on and on about how much fun he had with Tommy, the Warden never expected the prisoner to kill the teen. He hated himself for allowing such a crime to be committed, but he hated the prisoner even more for committing the crime.
These thoughts were running on an endless loop in his head as Sam approached the lava wall with Dream’s daily ration of potatoes. He began going through the motions of lowering the lava wall when he heard it, a voice he never thought he’d hear again outside of his nightmares.
"SAM!!"
Sam dropped the potatoes, turning to the wall of lava in an instant. Was that really Tommy? Was this another trick from Dream? Had his guilt consumed him to the point that he was hallucinating?! He had to know. He had to know if this was real.
"T-Tommy?!" he yelled back.
The response was almost immediate and at a volume that only the loudness of Tommy Innit was capable of. "SAM! LET ME OUT!"
"Tommy!” Immediately, Sam began scrambling towards a different set of controls, ones that allowed visitors in and out of the cells. “Get in the corner!"
He held his breath as he flicked the lever, a million questions running through his head. How was this possible? How could Tommy be alive? It didn't make sense! Tommy was dead! Right‽ His eyes fell on the opening where visitors would be dropped, waiting with bated breath.
When the prison’s systems finally deposited the boy in front of the lava, Sam felt his breath leave him. There he was, Tommy Innit, untouched and very much alive. With shaky legs, Sam approached the boy he considered a son, reaching out as if afraid the teen would cease to exist.
"Tommy?" he whispered, his voice trembling with emotion.
Just before Sam’s hand touched the boy’s skin, Tommy raised his head to look him in the eyes. The sight of them caused Sam to gasp in shock, stumbling backward. Those eyes… they were wrong! Tommy's eyes didn't look like that! They were… they were…
"Sam." Tommy’s voice cut through the static in the Warden’s mind, interrupting his thought process. "Let me out. Sam."
Sam choked on his breath, seeing the nigh emotionless visage before him. How could Tommy say that with such a straight face‽ Those were some of the last words Tommy had said to him before… before…
"Right, yes, let's…" Sam stammered slightly, straightening up before turning towards the exit. “Let’s go…”
~\~/~
The two moved quickly throughout the prison, Sam occasionally glancing over his shoulder at Tommy. The boy had been unnaturally silent since his retrieval from the cell, and Sam silently wondered if he was even real. Part of him wanted to turn around and address the boy, ask questions, or just pull him into a hug. However, every time he turned around, he couldn't bring himself to open his mouth.
All of the millions of hairs on his body stood up on end whenever their gazes met. Tommy's presence was off as if replaced with some unknown beast who merely wore his form. The uncomfortable silence and tenseness of the journey lasted to the locker room, where Tommy collected his few meager belongings from the chest.
Finally, as they approached the gates of the prison, Sam managed to work up the courage to open his mouth to say something. He wasn’t sure what he would have said, but he was derailed by the feeling of a hand in his hair. He stilled, stiffening as the hand tilted his head up, exposing his throat in an almost threatening manner.
Sam looked into the strange eyes of the boy he had once considered his son. Sam knew he didn't deserve the title of Father after what he allowed to happen, but he hadn't expected to lose it in such a manner. He never imagined that the boy he loved would die, and then return, only to no longer be a boy anymore. That boy was now a man, a man broken and reforged by Death herself.
"You are not broken yet, but you are breaking,” Tommy told him, slowly relinquishing the grip he held on Sam’s hair. “Come to me when the empty Pandorica has shattered you. I will help you rebuild from the ground up."
Tommy's ominous words rattled around in Sam's head as he watched Tommy walk off into the rising sun.
Thanatos
Philza shuddered violently, grasping his chest as he fell forward, tumbling out of the chair he was in. He fell to his knees with a soft thud, gasping for air as everything seemed to spin. His free hand grasped the rug beneath him, trying to anchor him back into reality as his body adjusted to what had just happened.
Someone had to have been interfering with death, causing a disruption far greater than Phil was used to. By now, he knew the feeling of Death’s work almost intimately. He could tell when a totem was used, or a respawn failed for one reason or another, but this… This was something new. Something unexpected. Something dangerous…
Phil whistled to one of his chat, a single crow swooping down from the rafters of his home to land on the man’s bucket hat. There it remained as Phil opened the window, waiting for a finger to be offered as a perch. Once it landed, Phil began to whisper quickly into the bird’s feathers.
"Go see if you can find what that was."
Chat cawed quietly and took off into the snow. Phil watched it fly off, then looked out at the endless landscape of ice before him. He could see clouds in the distance, signs of a storm rolling through in the near future. Silently, Phil sent up a prayer that Techno would be safe, both in the physical and the metaphysical one that he could feel coming upon the winds.
Phil took a deep breath to steady himself, then turned around to return to what he was doing. Looking across the room, he found himself staring into the startled eyes of Edward the enderman. He froze, afraid of angering the silent housemate, but Edward did not get aggressive. Instead, he just seemed to meet Phil’s gaze, purple eyes unblinking until the man finally looked away. Endermen don’t just casually look into another's eyes, not like that.
Something was wrong. Very wrong.