51.
"He's nothing but a pawn, Tommy!" Dream shouted.
"Shut the fuck up, bitch," Tommy snarled, hurling something at his head. Dream caught it on reflex.
"Wh-- a pawn?" he asked incredulously, only to get hit in the mask with another pawn.
"I have more," Tommy threatened, holding up a fistful of small, wooden chess pieces. "Don't call Tubbo a pawn."
Tubbo, standing on the sidelines, looked half-bewildered and half-amused. "Uh, Tommy, it's okay--"
"No, no, no, it's not okay," Tommy snapped, jabbing a finger in his direction. "You are a fucking human being. You make your own life decisions. You're not a pawn."
Dream cleared his throat. And was promptly hit in the chestplate with another pawn.
"I didn't even say anything!" he protested, then glanced down at the pawn lying on the floor. "Wh-- is that made out of netherite?"
"Shut," Tommy snapped, pointing a threatening finger at him. He rounded on Tubbo. "You're not. A. Pawn. Repeat it after me, Tubbo."
Tubbo gave him an exhausted half-smile. "Tommy. . ."
"Say it."
Tubbo shrugged. "He's right, though. I'm a pawn." He gestured to the blackstone walls around them. "And this is checkmate. Better to just accept it."
Tommy gritted his teeth and rounded on Dream. "This is all your fucking fault," he accused. "Now Tubbo's making fuckin' chess metaphors."
Dream sighed. "Tommy--"
A pawn enchanted with Knockback II sent him crashing into the wall.
52. remix, pt. 1
Tommy slammed a picture down onto the courtroom table. It was an image of George's burning house. A picture of Dream giving the camera a thumbs up, which had obviously been cut out of another picture, was glued into the space next to the house.
Tommy pointed at the paper. "Caught in 4K, bitch!"
A long moment of silence. Dream stared down at the picture, expression hidden behind his mask. Tubbo cringed and waited for the fallout.
"Oh, no," Dream said dully. "You caught me. I lied, I burned down George's house. Guess this means I have to go into exile."
"What?" Tubbo blurted.
"I am hereby exiled from L'Manberg, and the Dream SMP, until the fourth of January next year," Dream droned on. "As the owner of this server, I'm handing it over to Tommy until I return."
"What?" Tubbo repeated.
"As the temporary holder of the SMP," Tommy added, grinning widely, "I'll escort Dream into exile and check in with him occasionally to make sure he stays put."
"Wait, wait, wait," Tubbo protested. "I'm-- hold on a second--"
Dream turned to him. "Is there a problem?"
Tubbo shoved down his instinctive fear of the man and stood his ground. "You-- what?"
"Dream burned down George's house," Tommy explained gleefully. "So he's getting exiled."
Tubbo stared at them, torn. On one hand, he was happy that Dream wasn't pressuring him to exile Tommy anymore. On the other hand, what the fuck? The 'evidence' that had been the basis for Dream's decision to exile himself was so obviously fake that even a three-year-old would be able to tell. And Dream had been insisting that Tommy had been guilty five minutes ago-- why the hell did he suddenly change his story?
None of this made sense. Tubbo glanced helplessly at Tommy, who winked at him. The message was obvious: trust me.
"Well?" Dream asked. Tubbo mutely shook his head and stepped aside.
Tommy led Dream out of the courtroom, leaving a stunned audience behind them.
~~~
"So," Dream said, staring down at the exile beach. "What do we do now?"
Tommy shrugged. "Whatever we want, I guess."
Dream hummed. "Any ideas?"
A long moment of silence. "I've actually been thinking about this since the body-switch loop," Tommy admitted. "But, uh, Dream, wanna try being the good guy for once?"
Dream straightened in surprise and turned to him. "What?"
Tommy shrugged uncomfortably. "Stop me if this sounds weird, okay, but I wanna understand what was going through your head in loop zero."
Dream's face went blank. "Trust me, you don't."
Tommy rolled his eyes. "Oh, shut it with your stupid fucking self-hatred shit. I was just thinking-- you're always, like, the bad guy in these loops--"
"Not always."
"Almost always," Tommy amended. "And nobody in L'Manberg has ever liked you except for that one loop where you literally hit Wilbur over the head with a peace treaty. This loop just gave us, like, the perfect setup for. . . for a roleswap, or whatever the fuck it's called."
Dream swallowed. "That. . . that doesn't seem very, uh. Fun. Not for. . . not for you, at least."
"Probably not," Tommy admitted. "But. . . it's a better chance for us to understand each other or some shit, right? We're. . . we're gonna be stuck in these loops for. . . whoever the fuck knows how long." He grimaced. "I'm not-- I'm not saying that we're gonna do exactly what we did in loop zero, because like hell am I ever gonna--" he gestured sharply at the beach, then took a deep breath and calmed himself down. "I'm just saying, like. . . the general plotline. I'm the owner of the SMP, you're in exile. . ."
"And I'd fight you for the discs?" Dream asked dryly.
Tommy pointed at him. "Okay, first of all, those are my discs, fuck off. Second of all, I was thinking, like, your mask or something."
A pause. Dream looked at Tommy, then back down at the beach.
"Okay."
"Okay?" Tommy repeated, raising an eyebrow. "Just like that?"
Dream shrugged. "Yeah. Okay."
Tommy frowned. "Look, man, if you're agreeing because you feel guilty or some shit--"
"I'm not," Dream interrupted. He offered a wry half-smile. "I am pretty curious. Why not give it a try?"
A pause. Tommy looked down at the beach. "Alright, then," he muttered. "Let's do this shit."
53.
Dream stepped into Niki's bakery, smiling as the scent of cinnamon filled his nose. Niki looked up from where she was setting a fresh tray of cinnamon buns on display and beamed at him.
"Hello, Dream!" she called. "Here to bake today?"
Dream shrugged. "If you've got the time. If not, that's fine."
Niki shook her head. "This is perfect, actually. I need your help with something. Are you any good at teaching?"
"Teaching?" Dream eyed the door behind the counter. "Depends on who I'll be teaching."
At that moment, the door behind the counter cracked open. Karl Jacobs stuck his head through, a spot of flour stuck to his cheek. "Dream!" He greeted happily. "I thought I heard you!"
"Hey, Karl," Dream replied. He raised an eyebrow at Niki. "So we're teaching Karl how to bake?"
"Got it in one," Niki chirped, arranging the last of the cinnamon buns and pulling off her gloves.
"Join us," Karl added. "We have cookies."
"Can't say no to cookies," Dream joked. Niki had a strict 'no weapons in the kitchen' rule, so he dropped his weapons into his ender chest before he stepped around the counter. "After you."
"Why thank you," Nihachu replied, giving him a slight curtsy before she swept through the door to the back of the bakery. Karl stepped aside as she passed through, bowing at the waist.
"The queen returns to her kingdom," he announced dramatically, then broke down giggling. Dream smiled as Niki let out a laugh of her own.
The ingredients had been piled haphazardly on the center island, presumably by Karl. Dream ran an eye over them as he donned an apron. "So," he said. "Where are the cookies I was promised?"
"We're gonna bake them!"
"So you don't have cookies."
"Not right now," Karl admitted. "But they exist in the future. That counts for something, right?"
"Think of it this way," Niki cut in. "The sooner we get to baking them, the sooner we'll be able to eat them."
A pause.
And then Karl bolted over to the counter in the center of the kitchen, snatching a spatula and holding it up like he was about to stab someone with it. "What're we waiting for?" he demanded. "Let's go!"
"I don't get it," Karl admitted, squinting at the recipe Niki had taped on the wall. "Are red velvet cookies just normal cookies with red food dye?"
"Sort of," Niki replied, not looking up from the teaspoon she was painstakingly shaking salt into. Next to her, Dream tried to sneak a chocolate chip from the bag. "Dream, don't eat the ingredients until the cookies are done."
"But chocolate," Dream protested.
Karl whipped around. "Chocolate?"
"We're adding chocolate chips. I have some white chocolate, if you want that instead."
"Ooo, can we add white chocolate?" Karl asked, hurrying over to peer at the chocolate chips with sparkling eyes. Dream wrinkled his nose.
"You like white chocolate?"
Karl nodded vigorously. "White chocolate is the best."
"It's too sweet."
"Blasphemy," Karl cried, pointing a finger at Dream's face. "You take that back!"
"No," Dream returned cheerily. "We're not adding white chocolate to the cookies."
"We are," Karl insisted.
"Compromise," Niki suggested. "We'll add dark chocolate to half of them and white to the rest."
A pause. Karl and Dream glanced at each other.
"Works for me," Dream offered with a shrug. Karl narrowed his eyes.
"I will make you like white chocolate," he promised. Dream grinned.
"You can try."
"You tap the egg on the side of the bowl," Niki explained patiently, "Then break it in like this."
"Like this?" Karl cracked the egg, letting it drop into the bowl. Dream stared at him.
"How."
Karl turned and blinked at him. Niki giggled.
"Dream has trouble cracking eggs," she explained. Dream scowled.
"I don't," he protested. "It's the eggs that have a problem with me."
"Keep telling yourself that," Niki chirped, patting him on the shoulder and leaving a flour handprint. "Oops."
Dream stared down at the handprint, then looked Niki in the eye and deliberately reached out and patted her on the shoulder, leaving a matching handprint.
Karl glanced between the two of them, then slapped his hand in a puddle of flour on the counter and clapped it on his own shoulder. "Now we match!"
Niki laughed.
~~~
"Press it between your palms, like this."
Karl narrowed his eyes at the handful of cookie dough he was holding, trying to imitate what Dream was doing.
"Then move your hands in a circle. Like this." The cookie dough gradually took on the shape of a ball. Dream set it down on the baking sheet.
"Woah," Karl said, setting his own ball of cookie dough down on the sheet. "I didn't know you could do that." He paused. "Wait, are we just going to bake them like this? We're not going to flatten them out?"
"They'll expand on their own, and we'll flatten them a bit after they've been in the oven for a few minutes," Niki explained. "That'll give them crinkle tops."
"Crinkle tops?"
"The cracks on top of the cookies. You'll see what I mean when they're baked."
"Okay."
Karl bit his lip, edging towards the open oven. Niki beckoned him closer. "Don't worry, the gloves will protect you from the heat."
"I'm not wearing a glove on my face," Karl muttered, but he carefully leaned in and snatched the tray of finished cookies off the rack. Breathing a sigh of relief, he turned around, only to slip and land on a bag of flour. The bag burst open and flour filled the air, covering them with a fine layer of white powder. The cloud billowed outwards, filling the room and moving towards the open flame beneath the oven. Dream's eyes widened.
"Wait no look out--!"
~~~
"Well," Niki said. "That could have gone better."
Dream poked a smoking piece of rubble with his foot. "Understatement of the year."
"I am so sorry," Karl whispered, trying to sink into the ground. "I am so sorry."
Niki patted his shoulder. "Not your fault," she told him. ". . . Though I'd appreciate it if you helped me rebuild."
"Definitely," Karl promised.
"What the hell happened here?"
Niki beamed. "President Soot!" she called. "How are you?"
"Fundy," the fox hybrid corrected automatically, gaze fixed on the rubble. "What happened to your bakery?"
"We tried to bake red velvet cookies," Dream muttered. He wiped his soot-stained fingertips on the front of his singed apron. "Flour and fire don't mix."
Fundy eyed the smoking ruins of the bakery. ". . . You don't happen to have any cookies, do you?" At the looks he received, he raised his hands. "What? I'm hungry!"
"Actually," Karl piped up, "I, uh, did manage to salvage the cookies."
He proceeded to pull the tray of cookies from his inventory. A few had been half-blackened by the explosion, but the rest were in a fairly decent state.
"Well," Dream said after a long moment of silence. He reached out and took a cookie. "At least it wasn't a complete failure-- oh wait, these are the white chocolate ones. Nevermind. Total failure."
Karl scowled in mock-offense. "You take that back!"
53. lava, pt. 5
"Say goodbye," Dream ordered, twisting the axe in his grip. Tubbo locked eyes with Tommy, a defeated smile on his face.
"No," Tommy protested weakly. "You. . . you can't. . ."
The Ender portal set into the wall behind them hummed. Except instead of Punz, Ranboo crashed through, eyes wide with panic.
"THE FLOOR IS LAVA!" he screamed.
Both loopers were already moving, Dream practically throwing Tubbo and his axe away in his haste to tower up. Meanwhile, Tommy, who had nothing in his inventory and therefore couldn't tower, sprinted across the room to the hallway where the pets were kept and hopped onto Henry's fence. Tubbo was left standing in the middle of the room, holding Dream's axe with a bewildered expression on his face.
"Oh thank Prime it worked," Ranboo breathed as the others began pouring out of the portal behind him.
Dream froze at the top of his tower, eyes narrowed. He pointed at Ranboo. "Wait," he said. "What?"
"What?" Tommy repeated, wobbling precariously on top of the fence. "That's-- you said-- what?"
"It's okay, Tommy," Sam soothed, leaving the crowd that had gathered in front of the portal and approaching Tommy. He raised his hands in a sort of calming gesture, like Tommy was a cornered animal. "You can come down from the fence now."
"What the fuck," Tommy said blankly. He did not come down from the fence. "You-- Ranboo-- what--"
"We needed a way to stop him from killing Tubbo," Ranboo called, a sheepish look on his face. "I heard Techno muttering about Dream acting weird and 'the floor is lava', and then when I put that together with what happened at the Community House and on Doomsday, I realized that you were playing a game of some kind. So, uh, when I realized Dream had, um, an axe to Tubbo's neck, I kinda. . ."
"Panicked and hoped we'd react automatically?" Tommy asked dryly.
Ranboo grimaced. "Basically. Yeah."
"I'm impressed," Dream said slowly. Everyone else in the room instantly leveled him with glares. He winced and raised his hands. "Shutting up now."
"It's over, Dream," Sapnap snapped. He pointed his axe at the man balancing at the top of his tower. "Give up and get down here."
"I can't go down there," Dream said petulantly. "The floor is still lava."
There was a moment of disbelieving silence.
"Oh for fuck's sake," Sapnap snarled. He slammed down a block and began towering up. Dream yelped and scrambled as far away from the other man as he could. Which wasn't very far, because he was literally standing on a one-block tower.
Sapnap was soon level with him. The man jabbed a sword in his direction. "Come. Down. Now."
"Okay, okay!" Dream practically shrieked, scrambling off the tower and landing in a crouch on the floor. "I'm down! I'm down!"
"HA!" Tommy screamed. "I WIN, BITCH!"
"FUCK OFF!" Dream shouted back. "SAPNAP MADE ME, IT DOESN'T COUNT!"
"NO RULES AGAINST THAT!"
"THIS IS CHEATING--"
"YOU'RE GOING TO JAIL, YOUR OPINION IS INVALID."
"THAT MAKES NO SENSE!"
"YOUR FACE MAKES NO SENSE!"
Tubbo interrupted the argument by stalking up to Dream and shoving his own axe under his chin. Dream yelped and rapidly backpedaled, throwing up his arms in the universal 'I surrender' gesture. "Woah woah woah wait! Don't kill me, don't kill me--"
Tubbo stalked after him as he retreated. "Why shouldn't I?" he demanded, slightly hysterical. "You've-- you've caused so much hurt, so much-- all of this-- L'Manberg, everything, it was your fault! Why shouldn't I just kill you right now?!"
"Because I can bring people back to life!" Dream shouted. Tubbo froze. "If I die, then death is permanent!"
Tubbo lowered his axe. "You. . . you can bring people back to life?"
"Yes," Dream confirmed. ". . . Schlatt. . . Schlatt gave me a book. A revive book. I can bring Wilbur back to life, but if you kill me. . ."
Tubbo glanced back at the crowd, conflicted. Tommy huffed and decided to speed the process along.
"Oi, Dream," he called. "You were buildin' a prison or some shit, right? Why don't we just lock you up in there?"
"That's. . . actually a good idea," Sam muttered.
"Oi, what's that supposed to mean?!"
Sam realized how he'd phrased it. "Wait, no I didn't mean it like that--"
Tommy scowled and crossed his arms, only to lose his balance. Sam lunged forward and managed to catch him before the floor. He grunted as Tommy began clambering up his back like a deranged koala.
"Ranboo!" Tommy shouted in panic. "RANBOO! THE FLOOR IS STILL LAVA!"
"What?" Ranboo asked blankly.
"COUNT DOWN FROM FIVE, YOU BITCH!"
"Please," Sam added, hunched over and struggling to maintain his balance with Tommy half-hanging off his back.
"Uh, five four three two one?"
The moment Ranboo reached one, Tommy let out a sigh of relief, releasing his hold on Sam. Unfortunately, his foot had gotten tangled in one of Sam's armor straps, and he pulled the creeper hybrid down with him. They both went crashing to the floor.
"Karma," Dream called from down the hallway. Tommy wiggled one arm out from under Sam and flipped him off.
54.
"No, that's not-- that's not--" His head ached. "I don't understand. It's not-- why? What's happening? Everything's different."
There was no reply. There was no one around to hear him.
"I can't," he mumbled. "I have to know. . . what. . . what happened. Why-- it's not a lie, it can't be a lie."
One foot in front of the other. He paced in a tight circle, eyes darting to the board hanging on the wall. "It doesn't make sense. I don't-- everything feels so wrong." He paused, then removed a journal from his inventory and flipped it open. "The answers-- they have to be somewhere. Maybe I should try just--? No, I can't trust them. I just need to keep searching. Something will turn up. Eventually."
He turned and left the room.
55. (credit to curry_powder)
Tommy had waited a year for this. He'd been careful. Meticulous in his planning. And now, it would all come to fruition. All his hard work and research throughout the last few loops.
It was going to be glorious.
"Okay, Chat," he called. Instantly, every head in the flock of crows surrounding his feet snapped towards him. "Remember Project Icarus?"
Loud caws. The crows did remember.
"Well, we're starting the final stage today."
Louder cawing. Several crows hopped up and down in anticipation. Others went completely still, watching him with beady eyes.
Tommy grinned. "Remember: lifetime supply of gapple seeds. Phil's gone to have a chat-- er, talk with Dream right now. Follow him like you usually do, but when you see Dream. . . you know what to do."
The crows raised their voices in assent, then took off in a cloud of black feathers. Tommy watched them for a moment, then hastily ran after them. He had to see the results.
~~~
Dream sighed. After their last disastrous attempt at working together, Tommy had taken to avoiding him during the loops. They didn't even stick to a concrete plan anymore - both of them literally just did as they pleased.
Which was why he'd joined the Syndicate this time around. He'd given himself the name Menoetius ("Interesting choice," Technoblade had commented with an unreadable look), and taken to wearing an unmarked mask. He always remained silent when he was around the other Syndicate members, keeping his hood up and as much of his body hidden as possible. The reason? As far as everyone on the server (save for Technoblade and Tommy) knew, Dream was dead. Dream wanted to keep it that way.
Still, though Menoetius was a Syndicate member, he rarely participated in the meetings. He was more of a wanderer, roaming from place to place and reporting his findings to whichever Syndicate member was assigned to him that month. Which was why he was on his way to his usual meeting spot, face hidden behind a blank white mask. He checked his inventory one more time, making sure that the journal was in place, then slipped behind a tree at the edge of the clearing and went perfectly still. With his hood pulled low and the brown cloak he was wearing, he blended in with the forest.
Time ticked by. Dream remained unmoving, gaze fixed on the treeline at the other side of the clearing. About six minutes into his wait, Philza stepped out of the trees and surveyed the clearing.
"Menoetius?" he called.
Dream silently melted out of the shadows. Philza startled violently and took a step back, raising a hand to his heart. "You're gonna give me a heart attack one day," he joked, shaking his head. "Seriously, mate, we gotta get a bell on you or something."
Dream grinned behind his mask, realized Philza couldn't see his expression, and shrugged. He pulled the leather-bound journal from his inventory and crossed the clearing, holding it out to the avian hybrid. Philza took the book, opening the book to the first page and raising an eyebrow.
"Kinoko Kingdom?" he asked. "Pretty new, aren't they? Shouldn't be much of a threat. Why were you checking them out?"
Dream tapped the Kingdom written on the page. Philza shrugged and shut the journal with a snap. "Fair point."
There was a faint caw in the distance. Philza glanced over his shoulder as the book disappeared into his inventory. "Well, I'll be off now, mate. Techno told me to let you know that the next Syndicate meeting's on Friday. Speaking of, you ever gonna show up for one of those?"
Dream crossed his arms and fixed Philza with a deadpan stare. The man laughed. "Just checkin', mate. Wouldn't hurt if you appeared sometime. You are a Syndicate member, after all."
More caws, louder this time. Dream waved a dismissive hand, shaking his head. Philza shrugged. "Alright then. I'll let Techno know."
Dream dipped his head. Philza returned the nod, then turned to go - only to see a wave of crows rising over the treetops, hurtling full speed down towards the clearing. "What the fuck?" he got out, right before the murder descended upon them with feathery vengeance.
Dream was almost to the edge of the clearing before they got him, dragging him back to the center. He tried to pull out a shield, but the crows just wormed their way under it, pecking at it and tugging at his clothes. With no options left, he curled into a ball, trying to minimize the surface area available. Through the cacophony of crowing and screeching, he could hear Philza.
"Bad Chat! Very bad-- no, get off him what the fuck are you doing-- STOP, you little shits-- "
All at once, the crows took off, funneling into the sky and disappearing into the clouds. Dream remained in a ball, unwilling to take the chance that they would return.
He looked up at the sound of footsteps in the snow. "Mate, I am so sorry-- I don't why the fuck they did that. Are you hurt?"
Dream cautiously uncurled, shaking his head. He gingerly got to his feet, then looked down at himself and paused.
The crows had apparently left him with a wide variety of shiny baubles, riddling his cloak with safety pins and other strange knicknacks. Most of the safety pins had random trinkets strung on them - Dream could count at least five bottle caps and several pop can tabs.
He realized with a start that his hood was down and hastily moved to pull it back up, only to realize that the crows had somehow clipped the thing to the back of his cloak. With a silent sigh, he resigned himself to losing that part of his anonymity. Hopefully, his hair had grown out long enough that Philza wouldn't recognize him by his hairstyle alone.
Philza let out an abrupt snort. Dream turned to him, questioning, and realized the other man was fighting back laughter.
"Sorry, sorry," Philza chuckled, gesturing. "Just, uh. Uh. Look in a mirror."
Dream raised an eyebrow and took a couple steps back, pulling out his polished netherite axe and turning it so he could see his own reflection in the blade. His hair was an absolute mess, peppered with feathers and mismatched, cutesy hair clips. One crow had somehow managed to create a little braid, which stuck up from his head like a lopsided, very short horn. The white paint on his mask had been chipped away in places, with an especially unflattering expletive scratched across the forehead.
If this wasn't Tommy's fault, Dream would eat his own boot. Without salt.
Gathering his remaining dignity, he gave Philza a nod (which the man returned, still snickering) and strode away, keeping his head held high. He had just stepped into the treeline when a flash caught his eye. Turning, he found Tommy, holding a camera and grinning like a loon.
"Ey Big D," he greeted. "How you doing?"
"I am going to murder you," Dream said serenely.
Tommy's smile disappeared faster than someone could say 'oh shit'.
~~~
Dream was sweaty, exhausted and two hundred percent fucking done with everything. Tommy was fast, and though Dream was faster, he'd also been hampered by the heavy cloak he was wearing. The teenager had somehow remained unscathed through the entirety of the chase, and Dream had eventually decided to call it a day when Tommy had climbed up a tree and dumped snow onto his head.
He let out a breath of relief as his secret base (really, a cave he had repurposed into a home) came into view. Prime, he needed a shower. And then a nap. A very, very long nap.
With an exhausted sigh, Dream stepped around the numerous traps he'd set up and shifted a rock to the side with his foot, revealing a button. He gave it a quick kick, then rolled the rock back into place, turning around just as the outline of a door appeared on the wall opposite of him. Without fanfare, he shoved it open - and froze.
Every inch of horizontal surface from the furniture to the floor was covered in crows, who stopped dead in their tracks and slowly turned their heads to look at him. Their beady eyes gleamed.
Dream took a moment to regret all his life decisions, then turned on his heel and ran like hell.
Loop Notes
52. The SMP isn't going to have a lot of fun this loop.
54. ⨅⍊ℸ ̣ ꖎᔑ𝙹!¡⚍リ'⨅ ↸||⍊⚍リ.
55. Dream swears to this day that the crow perched on his chair did a full 360 with its head. He fears the Chat, and for good reason.