"Can you remind me again why we split up, Techno?"

"Just trust me, Dream."

"Trust you?!" Dream asked in a low whisper, bringing his arm up to his mouth. Drips of constant water leaked nearby, and he wondered if it led to a lake. His wings felt heavy from the moisture around him, and he wanted to wash the jungle sweat off. Call it a birdbath. "You're literally trying to kill me right now!"

Dream could practically hear Techno roll his eyes when he sighed. "All right, just to make you quit complaining and to compensate for your early death, I'll make you a deal. You can have my crown for five minutes, no longer. You want the shiny thing, right?"

His fingers twitched when he thought about the gold flashy item. "U-hm." He swallowed and shook his head. "Th—at sounds good, but I can't. Especially not if I'm dead."

Dream brushed a leaf away, panting from the warm heat. His wings were folded up against his back, not trusting the grabby plants around him. "All right, chickee—"

"What had we talked about!?" he interrupted, running his eyes over the shifting shadows everywhere. "Don't call me that!"

Dream heard a smirk come out of the com. "Aww, what's wrong, chickee? Can't handle a nickname?"

"It's a stupid nickname!" He stepped over a log, blazing through a trail of his own only for it to disappear behind him.

"Heh. Anyway, how about you get the crown for five minutes and I preen your wings first when we settle down for the day? Considering you live, of course. You do need to learn, but we can hold that off for once."

His wings fluttered at that, and he bit his lip. Shiny thing and Techno has to preen my wings? Will I ever get another chance like this? "Fiiiiiine," he groaned, smiling. "I'll stop complaining and try to survive. Can't handle some words?"

"Ouch. Nice comeback," Blade laughed. "But please focus on your task. They have two of your numbers already, I don't know how they find any in this MAZE of a world, but I need to make sure that you are safe first. I know my limits, but I don't know yours."

Dream spun his knife, tempted to whistle with the birds around him. "Well, I am a badass villain on the run. What do you do for a living? Farm potatoes? I bet that can be fun too."

"You saw the potato field. I know you did. And potatoes are very healthy, actually."

He clamped a hand over his mouth to stop the burst of laughter from exploding out and ruining the mission. "I didn't. I just—"

Something in front of him moved and he dove under a large leaf. "I'll call you back." he said hastily before turning off the com. He took a breath of the warm sticky air and crawled closer to whoever had upset the scenery.

"Did you see something?" a hesitant voice asked.

Nobody answered at first, but a few jungle plants bowed to a hand that brushed through them. The second person sighed. "No. Thought I heard somebody over here, but this jungle keeps tripping me up. There's too much noise everywhere."

"We already have three numbers, Quackity. We better watch out. Others will be trying to get them."

"I know, I know Sam." Dream saw a glimpse of a man looking around before the plants moved again, hiding him.

His heartbeat fluttered up. Oh my gosh, so many things could be wrong. He swallowed and pulled the bow from behind his back, gripping one of the wooden arrows. The stone lodged on the end of the arrow pulled down, like a comfortable weight.

"Come on, Sam. Let's go after Bad and Skeppy. They have a number we need."

Dream edged closer, and followed The Warden as they tramped through the underbrush.

"I'm glad that I'm a Turacoverdin bird. I blend in a lot with these leaves," Sam said, twittering slightly without a care in the world.

Quackity snorted and flapped his purple wings behind him. "Any color blends in with the jungle. You could be a highlighter pink or baby blue and still be next to invisible."

"True. But when we find a forest, green is definitely a color you'd want."

"Why would we want a forest when we have everything here that we could need and more?"

Dream crept closer, wincing when every footstep squished the moist floor under him. Wiping his brow, he moved to walk alongside them.

"Because everybody is in the jungle," he pointed out, hitting a leaf away from his face. Dream couldn't even hear the thump thanks to the howler monkeys screaming their lullaby's in the near distance. "If we get most of our numbers so close to everybody else, they will start coming for us."

"That's not the point of Minecraft. The point is to get as many materials as possible as fast as you can, in order to go to the Nether, in order to get to the End."

"That's not how we're playing it, Quackity. They changed it from the last time we did this. It's not just one game anymore. It's three. And we've never started in the jungle before."

"Exactly. It's more lax. We're not so cut-throat at each other anymore."

Sam sighed and raked a hand through his green hair. "No, Quackity. I'm telling you, it's harder. But whatever. We're getting close to the Night Diamond. We shouldn't give ourselves away."

"One of them is a chick, Sam, and the other is a peacock. I'm sure we'll be fine."

The Turacoverdin paused and flapped his large green wings. Dream flinched when the man glanced to his side. A red oval outlined his brown eyes, but he looked over him and continued marching. "Really? They're allowing a five-year-old to play? I thought these people were better? But then that shouldn't be too hard."

"No, it shouldn't."

Dream took a breath. They don't seem very wary. Maybe now is a good time to attack before they meet the other group.

Grabbing his arrow, he pulled the string back on the bow. It tightly protested, eager to snap back, and he aimed at Sam's legs, who had both of his needed numbers.

"Ah!" Sam fell, clutching his leg. "I'm shot!"

Quackity jumped for the arrow and yanked it out. His teammate screamed, blinking back tears, but took off his green bandana and started to work on wrapping his injury.

"Who is here!?" Quackity asked, flaring out his purple wings. "Come out, coward!"

Dream ducked his head, smiling, and circled around them. He took a glass block out of his suit pockets and threw it against a far tree. It shattered, falling to pieces, but the noise was barely audible, and his smile slipped. The man whipped around to the sound, however, and ran forward. "I'll catch you, you know that!?"

Dream dove forward and grabbed Sam's hand, quickly slicing at the leather straps that held the case on his arm and sliding it off.

"Hey!" Sam shouted, jerking his arm away. "No!"

Spinning around, he sped off with the case. "Later losers!" he threw over his shoulder. With deft fingers he took out the two paper numbers from the cast and slipped them into his own, tossing the cast to the floor.

Congratulations! Dr3am has stol3n numb3rs on3 and nin3 from Aw3samdud3.

"Looks like you did it, big brain!"

Dream gave Techno an evil grin and flapped his small wings in his face. "How did collecting supplies go, dad? I could have died, and you say you're trying to protect me, but I had to get these numbers by myself."

Techno slipped and had to climb back onto the branch he was on. "What did you say?"

"Nothing. It's a joke."

The man said nothing as they jumped onto and out of trees until he shook his head. "A—whatever. And I only went an eighth of a mile. How do you know I collected some supplies?"

"Your pockets look more filled than they did earlier," Dream said, laughing when an outraged scream shook the forest around them. "And that's Quackity."

Techno chuckled, flapping his pink wings for balance as he glided around. "I'm just surprised that you were able to steal the numbers without fighting for them for ten minutes. I thought you were going to rush them head on."

"What kind of fool do you take me for? If I did stuff like that, I would have been dead years ago." Dream glanced behind him. "They're not following yet. I heard them talking about some other group, something Diamond's? They also have numbers but one of them is a chick." He hesitated before grabbing a thick vine. It scratched his skin a little bit with its coarse skin, and when he landed on a tree, he was more than happy to let it go. "Should we check up on them?"

"No."

"W-why not? They're not going to make it to the second round. And there's a young kid here!"

Techno flapped over to his tree and shook his head, before climbing down the stairs. Dream followed, entering into the center of the tree. "Because. We have our own problems. Whoever is in charge of that chick should do a good enough job."

"The guardian is a peacock, Techno! Not an eagle like you!"

"Hawk," he corrected, fixing the torch stuck in the wall. The flames flickered, revealing two small beds, a chest, and a table.

"You could be a chicken for all I care!" he burst out, his wings spreading out to make him look larger. "But if you won't at least try to help them, then I will."

Techno stood in front of the stairs and crossed his arms. Dream couldn't see his eyes because of the pig mask, but he could feel them burn him. "What am I supposed to do? We have our own problems right now. We need to get out of the forest, fill your cast first in order to work on mine—"

"Right!" Dream threw up his hands. "You allowed me to go and get my own numbers! You allowed me to attack them!"

"While I was watching from above the trees!"

"So why would you care about letting me go and help them?"

Blade let out an annoyed growl. "I let you go because I wanted to see how well you could stand up for yourself. I don't care about those other avians because our goal is to survive and to stay alive. We don't have room to usher anybody else under our wings. You especially."

Dream took a few steps back and dropped his shoulders in defeat. "Fine. I won't. But I want to do something."

The avian let out a relieved sigh. "And we will. When we can. Now is not the time when we made enemies on the very first day of the game." He moved forward and Dream sidestepped away from the chest.

He watched as Techno bent forward to take something out. "What would you like for dinner?" he asked, peering at the few bags of food they had.

"I'd like some jelly beans," Dream answered, crawling closer to the stairs. "When I next get hungry." He put his arms into his sweater pocket and caressed the bumpy zip lock bag.

"Uhh, let me find them . . ."

Tiptoeing up the stairs, Dream climbed to the top of the tree and brushed aside some of the branches from his face. "Ha! Time to go."

"Skeppyyy!"

Dream turned in the direction of the faint shout. One of the names was Skeppy, right? I don't know, it was something weird.

Hopping off the tree, he jumped to the ground and began to run. "DREAM!"

Smirking, he ran faster. "Sorry, Techno! I guess I'm nicer than you!" He pushed on, smacking the plants away from him and hoping that no bugs flew onto him. His wings felt really heavy, flapping halfheartedly against the sticky air, but he had to ignore them for now.

"Bad! Just run!"

Crashing through the underbrush, he stumbled around and gasped. Brilliant blue feathers lay around the floor, the owner of whom struggling against the grip of Quackity. The man had the peacock's arms behind him and the blue-winged teenager was flapping his wings at him.

"No, Skeppy!" Dream blinked when a black figure ran past, screeching in fury. The object flung itself at Quackity, who let go of the peacock and latched his hands on the small black wings. His shout turned into a whimper and he tried to flap him off. "Let me go!"

Dream stared at the avian. He was all black with pointy ears that now lay flat on his head and a barbed tail that whipped around. His yellow eyes glowed until they were suddenly white and he let out a strangled scream. Dream took a step back, hardly remembering to breathe.

"Stupid chick," Quackity mumbled, clamping his hand over his mouth. "Just shut up already. We need your numbers."

Dream slowly took out his knife, still eying the 'chick.'

"Get out of here!"

He yelped when a flash of blue burst before his eyes and he was knocked to the ground. Hands pounced his stomach and he kicked the avian off. "Dude! I'm here to help!"

The peacock rolled away. "Lier! You know that Bad has all the numbers!"

"No—I—I mean I do now. Please, all I wanted to do was help you guys because I heard a chick was in this group!" Dream flared out his wings. "I am too! All I wanted to do was to protect you guys!"

Bad screamed again, alerting both of the avians. He was clawing at the man, leaving red scars, and Quackity hissed against the pain. Dream ran forward, pulling his arm back, and let it fly at the man's face.

"Ahh! You!" The man snapped his purple wings shut, glaring at Dream while hugging Bad to his chest. "You came back to give back the numbers you stole from Sam, did you?"

"No. Let him go, Quackity!"

The man frowned. "How do you know my name?"

"That's besides the point!" Dream grit his teeth together. "Let him go! Or I'm going to shoot another arrow, and you'll get a matching scar with your partner!"

Quackity glowered at him. "You're a chick too. What can you do to me?"

He puffed out his chest and held an eye staring contest. "I'm Dream," he said evenly. He watched the man pale a bit and his Adam apple bobbed when he swallowed. "T-that's a lie. Dream doesn't have wings."

"I'm a chick, aren't I?"

The man watched him, and Dream could practically hear him thinking everything through. Slowly, he released Bad, who was also observing him, and backed away. "The heck are you doing here?" he hissed.

Dream crossed his arms. "Leave."

Quackity sneered, but suddenly gasped at something behind Dream and whirled around. A heavy hand clamped over his shoulder and he flinched, yelping. "You're dead now, Dream."

"Techno!" Dream tried to bolt away, but his arm got wrenched behind him. "Ah! That hurts!"

"Should have thought about that before you dove headfirst into trouble."

"I said I don't do that!"

"And yet," he started, walking away and forcing Dream to follow, "That was exactly what you didn't do."

"Ah, may I interrupt?"

They looked at the peacock who was smoothing down his blue feathers with a slight shiver. "I just want to thank you, Dream, for coming out to help us. Without you, we would have lost our numbers."

He smiled. "No problem!"

"Actually, there is a bit of a problem. A huge one, actually," Techno answered dryly, looking at Dream. He sighed, but looked at Bad who's eyes began to dim back to their regular yellow. "Are you the chick Dream was talking about?"

He nodded. "I am BadBoyHalo, but others call me Bad or BBH." His lips curled into a smile. "And thanks for saving me. I already have most of my numbers, and I would have gone feral if I lost them all."

Techno stiffened. "I thought you were a crow?"

"And I am. But I am a hybrid two times over, not just an avian. I do not know what else I am, but it sure freaks people out." He shifted and glanced over at Dream. "I did not know there was another chick here."

"That's hilarious," the peacock started, grinning. "Two OP chicks that are better than some adults. I'm Skeppy by the way."

"Nice to meet you, and now we have to go," Techno grunted.

"His name is Blade!" Dream called out, waving to the two as the hawk avian dragged him away.

"Dimwit," Techno hissed.

"You're not my father."

"Sometimes, I wish I were," he replied heavily. "Sometimes I wish I were." 

-----

Hey guys! Who is your favorite character in the Dream SMP? I'd love to know! Mine are BadBoyHalo and Dream. X3