The Nether Flower

Chapter 2: The Blackstone Path

Tw//Blood, kidnapping, swearing

Phil had decided to go back to the Nether the following day, as the people in the Overworld were being unusually aggressive. A group of people had been watching his house from afar, and when he'd approached them they had started to throw things at him but missed. They had always despised him and been scared of him, but they had never been daring enough to attack him.

The Nether was almost completely quiet, only a few endermen were chirping peacefully outside the tunnel. He walked on the blackstone path through the warped forest, which transitioned into the crimson forest surrounding the bastion. The path came to a fountain that had no water or lava in it, just vines that grew over it and a single flower on top that hadn't bloomed yet. Phil was about to go to the bastion, when he heard commotion coming from his left. There were people screaming, something heavy hitting the ground and the distinct, manic, snorting laugh of a piglin brute.

"Take that, you filthy fucking rats!" Brisinga roared in piglin.

"Alright, so watch this, I'm all surrounded..." she whispered to a very small piglet who was clinging onto her shoulder. The little boar had a dagger with intricate carvings and a little crystal flower at the hilt.

"Hold on now!" she yelled, and the little piglet tightened his grip and squealed with excitement. She raised her axe to about shoulder height and with a single motion, she spun around rapidly, and the people surrounding her fell to the ground.

The piglet slid down her red gown and looked at the six corpses around him. He seemed ecstatic, and now that he was down beside his mother, it became very apparent that he was around a fifth of her size.

"So, you're really going to commit a massacre in front of your kid?" Phil asked her.

"Of course! He's got to learn somehow, you know?" Brisinga responded. She didn't seem very surprised to see Phil there at all, but cared much more about cleaning some blood off her golden armour.

It was clear that this was a work day for her, as she usually didn't wear any armour aside from the golden plates on her tusks. The armour she wore at work was very recognizable, it was decorated with swirls and runes, as well as a long, crimson gown that clipped onto the chestplate.

Brisinga picked up her son, who at the sight of Phil had begun clinging to her leg.

"He picked out a name for himself last night!" she said proudly and switched back to piglin.

"Really? What's your name then?" Phil asked, also in piglin.

The piglet had curled up in his mother's arms and seemed too shy to make eye contact. He murmured something, too quietly for Phil to hear.

"Say that again, sweetheart," Brisinga said softly.

"Come on, just a little louder."

"Technoblade," the piglet whispered, then he buried his face in Brisinga's shoulder.

"He's a little shy," she explained in english while she ruffled her son's hair.

"I can tell," Phil laughed while Technoblade suddenly got very interested in the clasp on Brisinga's gown.

"You are my fearsome little murder machine deep down though, aren't you?" she cooed at her son, who giggled and nodded. She put Technoblade down on the ground and looked accusingly at Phil.

"How in Grimner's name did you not know that these assholes were going to get through?" she gestured at the decapitated corpses that were spread out around them.

"You live right outside the portal for Freja's sake! How did you not notice six or seven people walking in?"

"I don't spend a lot of time in that town, and I don't talk to the people there if I can help it," Phil answered.

"Well, what time is it up there right now?" Brisinga asked.

"Probably eight in the morning or something like that. These fuckers were up early."

"Probably planning a heist on the bastion," she growled.

"Well, good thing I dealt with them, though I think one got away."

The conversation about the people that had gotten so close to Brisinga's home continued, until she looked around and fear struck her.

"Where's Techno?" she said, panic visible in her scarred face.

"I don't know. Maybe he got bored and ran off?" Phil suggested.

"But he would have been back by now! He's way too shy to just go off on his own!"

She ran into the crimson forest and began calling his name, and Phil went towards the warped forest to look there. Several hours passed and other piglins had joined the search, but nobody had found even a trace of him. That was until Phil made his way to the portal tunnel to look there, and found a dagger that he recognized as the one Techno had. It's blade was covered in tiny runes and on the hilt was a small crystal flower. The tip had a little bit of blood on it that had started to dry out.

Phil brought the dagger back to the search party, and by now, Brisinga had gotten hoarse from screaming her son's name. Her friends stood around her, trying to comfort her as she was on the verge of a mental breakdown. She saw Phil, and she saw the dagger in his hand.

"Were did you find it?" she croaked and took it from him.

"At the entrance to the portal tunnel," Phil answered. The piglins around them gasped and started chattering.

"Is he in the Overworld then?" "He must have been taken, no piglin would go into the Overworld of their own accord." "Brisinga, I think it's time to give up."

But Brisinga stared at the small knife in her hand and started trying to get past Phil, towards the portal, but she was held back by her group of friends.

"No, Brisinga! You won't get out of there alive!" one of her friends cried.

She looked around desperately.

"But he could still be alive! He could still be out there! I have to find him!" she pleaded.

"I'll go look for him," Phil said. Everyone present stared at him. As he had said this sentence in english, half of them had no idea what he'd just said.

"Promise to bring him back alive," Brisinga demanded.

"I'll do my best," Phil assured her.