Chapter 18

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CW: explosives, violence

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Wilbur parried your stroke, but almost right after, you brought the axe down towards his neck with lightning-fast speed. He barely evaded it, the edge nicking the fabric of his sleeve, and he jabbed his sword towards your side. It clanged off of the handle of the axe, and you ducked another swing, kicking at his legs.

He stumbled, and then you pressed forward, slicing at his arms, his neck, his chest. He wasn't able to block all of them, and you drew blood, from cuts on his arms and ribcage. Wilbur tripped over something, his feet flying out from beneath him, and seeing your chance, you grabbed the collar of his coat, and pressed the edge of the axe to the back of his neck.

"Anything to say?" you asked.

Wilbur was shaking, you realized. He was shaking with laughter.

"Ah, you don't want to kill me though," he laughed, his smile gleaming, "look around you! Ranboo, light that match."

Keeping your grip on the axe, you glanced around, as Ranboo took a match, and lit it using the lantern. You couldn't see anything easily in the dark, but there were piles of something, shapes and crates, and a flash of red, a piece of twine--

A chill ran through you.

TNT.

Distantly, you registered Wilbur falling out of your grip, the axe hanging loosely by your side. Ranboo holding the match against his hand, trying to keep it from going out in the night wind. The glint of light on dynamite. So much. Enough to send the needle sky-high, and the three of you along with it.

Enough to make a crater, larger than the one your house had left.

You stumbled backwards, dropping the axe. You had to run. Nothing but the sheer possibility of--red-white-yellow fire, black-blue-grey smoke, suffocating and flashing pain and hot and cold and you not being able to breathe--

"Ranboo, drop that match, will you?" Wilbur asked pleasantly.

No. No no no no nonononono--

"Ranboo if you drop that match, we're all going to die," you said dully.

And slowly, hesitantly, with trembling hands--

Ranboo blew out the match with a puff of smoke.

The rest blurred together, as you leaned against the wall of the needle, trying to block out the pounds of TNT. What had gone wrong? Why had--how could they have even gotten this much TNT into Las Nevadas?

"I suppose our plans are foiled for now," Wilbur sighed, delivering a sharp glare to Ranboo, "and Ranboo, next time, do as I say. Have a wonderful night, darling!"

With an elegant wave, Wilbur dragged Ranboo away into the desert, teetering unsteadily on his feet. You didn't move. You couldn't, you felt, not even to get the axe that lay only a few inches away, because one wrong move could possibly set off the TNT. You knew, logically, that it wouldn't. But the gap, the fear, the hollowness stayed inside you.

And that was how Purpled found you the next morning, curled up among pounds upon pounds of explosives.

・❥・

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