Chapter Text
Charlie is sure the fish hate him. He has been out here, and not even exaggerating, for hours. He started at noon, and it's almost night. The sun is going down—looks amazing, but not the point—and his stupid fish bucket has a singular fish in it. Just the one fish, and one that clearly just entered the life of the living. That dumbass fish is barely an inch long, and if fish hatch out of eggs; it clearly just broke out of there. Barely a fish, actually. Might as well be a tadpole.
It’s fine, whatever. He can fish! They just don’t respect his technique.
His technique of… doing whatever the hell he thinks works. Because, when he caught the tiny creature, he had no bait on the hook and threw the rod everywhere. Maybe that guy was just an idiot. Does fishing involve how the current is moving? Probably not, it’s just fish.
The code covering his arms and causing them to lurch forward definitely wasn’t helping. Trying to fish while his fishing rod is being thrown around is very difficult, actually. It hurts like hell, too; top ten most uncomfortable things he’s experienced. He’d win, though. Come on, he’s Charlie Slimecicle. Why wouldn’t he?
It’s becoming increasingly more obvious that he isn’t getting anything else. The pollen is getting to him and it’s almost dark, so he throws his fishing rod to the side and finds a non-code covered part of his front lawn to sit down on. The sand isn’t too bad, he assumed it would’ve been hot from being in the sand, but maybe this part just had a shadow on it all day because it was cool to the touch.
There weren’t a lot of noises going on besides some trees blowing and maybe some birds. It was really peaceful, he hasn’t sat down and just looked around him in a while. The sky looks amazing right now too, it’s mainly orange but the top part of the sky is a light pink.
Sunset has been the best part of his day so far, honestly. Is that too depressing? Everyone has bad days, so it can’t be horrifically sad. He needs to stop thinking and just enjoy the breeze, and the view.
It is nice though. Time to relax won’t be so bad-
Ding . ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding- awful noise.
Yes, of course the second Charlie decides to sit down and have a calm time to himself, someone is messaging him. And it’s not the main server channel, too, he has the silence mode on for that. He really couldn’t care less what they are talking about there unless he’s actively around friends. Friends that he hasn’t been around in a while—guess none of them wanted to visit. I mean, he wasn’t trying anyway.
He groans and pulls up the message; from Phil. Cool, what has this old man spouted out this time?
Philza whispers to you: charlie come to spawn now
Huh? What the hell is at spawn? He hasn’t even been to spawn since Purgatory, what could be interesting there? Especially so interesting that he was sent the same message 9 times in a row.?
You whisper to Philza: is it on fire or something, im a bit busy.
Phil whispers to you: Its not on fire, just come to spawn charlie.
Okay, maybe something important is going on. He capitalized the first word and responded immediately. Is Charlie in trouble? He can’t be grounded, he’s a strong and smart boy. Phil wouldn’t ground him.
He takes one more look at the finishing sunset and pulls himself up, dragging his feet to the waystone. He doesn’t want to go, he’s tired… stupid Phil, what's so important that he has to leave a very nice moment?
“Phil probably just wants to annoy me, or steal my money. He’s going to mug me, chat, he’s going to mug me…” He responds to the voices everyone has. At least his friends do. He’s not schizophrenic, people need to stop saying that to him. Talking to chat does not equal schizophrenia.
He taps the spawn waypoint and gets sucked right to spawn, or however that thing works. He's never found out and wont ask, none of his business. Either way, nothing seems crazy at first. Lackluster, even. It’s just the normal spot with the old Christmas decorations still up. In January. Very classy.
As Charlie walks out of the dug-out room, however, he can immediately spot Phil in a crowd of people, with some kids walking around. There’s a lot of talking and murmuring about, like it’s some secret meeting.
“If it's a crowd, he might not be mugging me. Good start.” He mutters as he goes over to Phil and the group of people. He hasn’t seen these people in ages, has he? Kind of weird to see them now for the first time since they were trying to kill each other. They look less—fucked up, for lack of better words.
Phil turns around and runs towards him, grabbing his wrist and pulling him towards the group.
“Charlie– there you are, come here. You’ll like this.” Phil says with a slight smile. Not an actually friendly Philza smile, but an holy shit prepare yourself smile. Cool, great. What the hell, Philza Minecraft.
“Can you just tell me what’s happening, Phil?! What the hell???”
When he doesn’t respond, Charlie starts yelling. Why not, you know. And he’s also being pulled by Phil, for no apparent reason, without explanation.
“ SOMEONE HELP, HE’S TRYING TO MUG ME. ” Maybe he is. Maybe they are all going to mug him. He’s seen at least Fit’s kid rob someone, he knows they are taught that shit. Speaking of Fit, he started laughing at him and Phil. Not even paying attention to whatever has a whole posse.
“SHUT THE FUCK UP, CHARLIE. I’m not pulling your leg here, mate. Calm down.” Damnit, he looks serious. Slime shuts his mouth pretty quick, frowning and just following the old man.
Going past some street lights, they have some posters put up from the Federation. It has a silhouette of four eggs, and some cryptic ass messaging. He isn’t bothering to read that. Anything from the Federation isn’t worth his time.
As they get closer, Charlie can make out what some of them are saying. Specifically Tubbo.
“They just came back from death, Poppet. Give them a second to… adjust.” He watches Tubbo grab some kid Charlie’s never seen before while saying this to presumably her. She looks like four , are there new eggs? Since when? People need to tell him what’s going on around the island.
What the fuck is happening. What does he mean by that?
As Phil pulls him towards this gathering, Charlie begins to see what they are looking at. It looks like kids the size of Tallulah and Chayanne, because Tallulah is right there, hugging one of them.
He pushes Fit out of the way to get a better view because Fit’s been here long enough, he just got here.
“Hey!- Not cool, man.” He grimaces before looking back at the kids and just… let him walk past?What the actual shit is going on?? People haven’t been like this towards him since Flippa’s death-
...
Charlie finally got a good look at the kids in the middle. But, maybe he actually is just schizophrenic.
He must be, because for some reason he can’t hear what Phil is saying as his ears fill with ringing and he can’t seem to catch his breath. Obviously, it’s just his brain playing tricks on him.
There’s no way this could be real, because how the hell would Bobby, Trump, Tilin, and Flippa be standing, clear as day, in spawn after being dead for ages?