Both River_KingK and Dongle requested to know the full context behind Techno's state in chapter 10 - Coma. So I decided: why not write the full idea out and then went ham with over 3k words of it. You're welcome!

The sky itself had been torn open.

Phil could only gaze upon it in horror, tendrils of fear coiling their way into his gut. He had traveled the world far and wide - had known kingdoms come to rise and fall to dust again - but he would still have to admit he'd never seen anything like this. It blotted out the sun and painted everything in hues of red. The ground shook beneath their feet.

And in that moment, Phil knew there was a likely chance they would all die.

"Get up." His fingers closed around Ranboo's wrist tighter, trying in vain to pull the shellshocked teen onto his feet. "Shit! Ranboo, get up now!"

His yelling at least seemed to have an effect and Ranboo shook violently but tried to stumble upright. Vines snaked between the crevices the earthquake had made, bursting open horrifically. Phil thought being anywhere near them would be a terrible idea, but he couldn't fly while carrying Ranboo and they couldn't run with Phil's sprained ankle and there was no higher ground to get to with every structure in a ten-mile radius demolished.

Appearing in a blur of movement, Technoblade was beside them.

"We're not going to be able to take it out like this," he said calmly, too calmly given the situation. A wound in his shoulder was bleeding red onto his shirt, the torn fabric of his cape stuck in the jagged edges. His eyes scanned the battlefield and Phil followed suit, watching as many others were still fighting those being controlled by the Egg's influence. "We need to be able to get closer."

"Closer? Techno, have you seen what it's done?"

As if wanting to reaffirm his concern, the earth rumbled again and more heat spewed forth from the cracks. The Egg was minutes away from hatching at most, its form a bulbous, pulsating mass of veins and crimson. Its followers were protecting it at the cost of their own lives – Phil saw Purpled cut Skeppy down with Bad not even batting an eye at it. Between their defenses and the Egg's vines, approaching it seemed like the worst possible idea.

But it was also the only plan they had.

"It's like a plant, right?" Techno asked. "If you want to get rid of a weed, you cut out the roots."

Following his gaze, Phil saw the almost fragile, thin strips of red tissue where the Egg connected to the ground. Previously hidden, its emergence had revealed its weakness and this explained why it was more defensive than usual, not wanting the risk of allowing somebody to sever them. Getting close enough to cut them would be near impossible though, not without taking an immense risk.

Which explained why Techno was thinking of doing it.

"Okay," Phil heard himself say, and it was like he was listening to somebody else. Like he was looking at his own body through a distorted lens instead of his own actions. Steadfast and certain. "Okay, I'll cover you. I'll make sure you get there."

Techno grinned at him, all sharp fangs and pleased camaraderie. Phil could feel his heart sinking into his stomach like a stone. He caught Techno's sleeve in his fist before he could speed off.

"But you'll make sure you get back. Promise it to me."

Grin not faltering, Technoblade smiled. "Don't I always?"

He was gone before Phil could so much as blink. Ranboo nodded at him and handed him his crossbow, and a satchel loaded with arrows and firework. "Be careful, both of you."

"We will."

Phil took off to the sky, wings spread wide to gain height. From up here, the battlefield seemed too small, the people scurrying along it like ants. Ranboo hurried back to Tubbo and Tommy, to help the two as they desperately tried to defend against the dangerous mob of mind-controlled people. There was no time to second guess their decision. Following a speck of pink and red that stood out among the rest, Phil tracked Technoblade as he tried to push his way towards their target.

It was eerie to see the Egg come to the realization of what they were doing. It diluted, the sound it made high-pitched and enough to almost sent Phil crashing back onto the ground when a terrible headache erupted between his temples. He could hear its voice, screeching and clawing at a way in.

Not allowing the distraction, he nocked the first arrow. Its followers had heard its call, and as one turned to stop the two in their attack.

From the sky, Phil fired at those trying to get in Technoblade's path. Where possible he aimed for the legs or other non-fatal areas, acutely aware of these people being controlled by a power greater than any of them could have fathomed. He would avoid killing them if he could. Those that did manage to slip through were swiftly cut down by Techno's sword.

As they approached the Egg got more vehement in trying to stop them. Its vines burst from the ground and Phil switched to fireworks quickly, the colorful explosions tearing the crimson plant matter to shreds. Techno hacked and slashed at the remaining stalks, jumping over any that grew underfoot. The heat was getting unbearable, Phil could feel it scorching his skin. Sweat ran down his back in rivulets and he was fast approaching the end of his rope.

Still he pushed on, refusing to leave Techno to fend by himself.

"Phil!"

A call of his name from below. Phil dove towards it, acting on pure instinct to know what he had to do, slipping back into a rhythm long abandoned. There was no snow on this battlefield, no patches of ice or wisps of gale shrouding them from enemy view. Somehow it still felt exactly as it had back then, falling into tandem like a well-oiled machine picking up its familiar work. He aimed the crossbow straight ahead of him, waiting. Technoblade passed him, a flurry of cape billowing behind. The Egg lashed out – a rushed assault which the piglin easily stopped with his shield. Phil trembled as blow after blow was caught, growing in strength and precision. But it was with old satisfaction that he found that deep down he wasn't scared, his hands were steady on the bow.

Phil knew Techno wouldn't allow any of the attacks to harm him.

They were almost there now, moments away. A few vines managed to push past, scratching into Technoblade's arms, his legs. Phil held his breath and waited.

"Now!"

He pulled the trigger, watching Techno duck and roll over the ground. The firework erupted against the Egg's oncoming onslaught, exploding into a burst of red and blue. Techno carried forwards with the momentum and slashed at the anchors they had seen earlier, dislodging them.

What could only be described as an inhumane shriek pierced the air. Phil fell to his knees and covered his ears, though it couldn't help against the way it echoed into his skull, seeped into his mind. The screaming was mimicked by those previously under the Egg's control, writhing on the ground in shared pain. Through unfocused vision, Phil could see the vines shrivel, deprived of the only thing keeping them alive. They retreated into their core, desperate to protect the beating heart of crimson that Techno was hacking away at, driving his blade into over and over again.

The single remaining vine reeled back and Phil couldn't even shout out a warning. It skewered into Techno's abdomen in a desperate bid to stop him, but he hardly reacted as he sliced it loose. The noise ended as suddenly as it had picked up, leaving an unnatural silence to fall over them. Phil could hear his own exhales in the sudden stillness, black-feathered wings draped over himself.

It was over.

He straightened up but buckled again when he tried putting his weight on his injured ankle. The pain shot through his limb, sharp and stinging as the adrenaline which had allowed him to ignore it until then waned away. Technoblade rushed over to his side, catching him before he could fall.

Phil pulled him into an embrace instead, fingers tangling into long pink hair. His forehead fit perfectly in the crook of Techno's neck, pressing skin to skin. They didn't need any words to assure each other of their presence, only the locking of bodies. Techno's hand came to rest on his back naturally, warm and comforting. Feverish – almost.

Techno was shaking against him.

"Tech-?" Phil pulled back just in time to watch his friend's eyes roll into the back of his head.

Panic seized him and he lowered them both to the ground quickly, trying to brace Technoblade as he slumped forward. Laying him on his back, Phil instantly noticed the sudden paleness of his face and the way his chest rose and fell much too rapidly. While his eyes were still open, they were hazy and unseeing. Another violent convulsion rippled through his entire body.

"Fuck!" Phil scrambled to find out what was happening. Techno hadn't sustained any head injuries that would explain a seizure but... He pulled the stained and ruined shirt to the side and recoiled at the wound left by the vine that had pierced Techno's abdomen. It looked angry and red - much more so than was normal. A viscous black fluid seeped out, blending in with the blood.

Around the edges of the gash, something was moving, crawling beneath the surface of Technoblade's skin.

"What the fuck!" Tommy's cursing was what alerted Phil to the boy's arrival. He looked over his shoulder to see Ranboo and Tubbo too, faces twisted in revulsion at the sight.

"Get Ponk," Phil demanded urgently and Tubbo turned around to sprint away. Anybody under the Egg's influence should be freed when it shriveled. Phil only hoped the doctor would be able to help.

"What happened?" Ranboo sunk onto his knees on Techno's other side, hands hovering in uncertainty about how to help. Tommy stood behind him.

"I don't know," Phil said, then shook his head to correct himself. "I think the Egg did something, put something inside him."

"That's-" Ranboo started but Tommy cut him off.

"Jesus, that's bloody gross."

Technoblade groaned, low in his throat and full of pain. He blinked several times before some limited awareness came back to his stare, eyebrows drawn together in confusion. "Ph'l?"

"I'm here, mate." He leaned closer, getting into Techno's field of vision. "I'm right here. Tell me what you're feeling."

Techno coughed a little before answering. "Doesn't feel great."

A miserable chuckle forced its way up Phil's throat. "Yeah, I can tell." He glanced at the wound, and the small tendrils of something that were trying to squirm their way deeper into the piglin's body. A seed, his mind provided. The Egg had planted a seed, sprouting inside Techno's flesh and poisoning him from within. "We're working on it."

Tubbo skidded to a stop next to them again, dropping to his knees and into Ranboo's side. The taller immediately interlinked their fingers, grasping for comfort. He had brought both Ponk and Nikki with him, though the latter hung back to give them more room to work. Phil recounted what happened as quickly as he could.

To his relief, Ponk merely nodded. "Whatever it is, we need to get it out of him fast. In the meantime, who has any potions on them?"

Ranboo instantly pulled some out and offered them to Ponk, who contemplated for a moment before taking a healing pot from his hands. Uncorking the bottle, he put it to Techno's lips.

"Do you think you can drink this? It'll help with the pain."

Techno nodded weakly and Ponk started carefully tipping the potion forward, making sure he wouldn't choke on it. The pained expression on Techno's face faded slightly as the numbing properties of the potion took hold and his eyes slid shut.

"Where should we bring him?" Ponk asked, looking at Phil for an answer. The avian hesitated, knowing their tundra base to be much too far away to be a reasonable option.

"What about the community house?" Tommy offered. "I mean, it's nearby and it's not like we're using it for anything else anyway."

"Sounds like a plan."

Before Ponk could even ask him to, Ranboo had slid his arms underneath Techno's body to pick him up. The piglin whimpered softly at being jolted, causing Ranboo to mutter a quick apology. Phil always forgot how strong the other was, seeing as he was so lanky. But between his height and the enderman genetics, carrying Techno did not seem to be a problem for him.

They made it to the community house in record time, where Ponk directed Ranboo into laying Techno down on a bed in one of the rooms. He turned back towards the others. "I'm going to need help with this improvised surgery."

"I can do it," Phil said, already stepping forward before Ponk's hand on his shoulder stopped him.

"You're not helping me with your ankle looking like that. Take care of yourself first."

Looking down, Phil could see the offending foot had become swollen in his inattention to the injury, aggravated further by him running around on it. Bruises wrapped around his leg, promising pain he'd surely regret later - though it was hard to care when Techno was still in such a dismal state. He was about to protest when Niki beat him to it.

"I'll help," she said with no hesitation. "I have some medical experience too."

Ponk smiled gratefully, waving her into the room at the same time that Ranboo came out, tail swishing nervously. "You guys just sit tight and look after your own injuries, yeah? I'm not going to be able to do much with multiple patients."

And as much as it pained Phil to feel powerless to do anything that could help, he would admit this was true.

They sat outside that door for what felt like hours, though Phil couldn't tell in hindsight how much time actually passed. Ranboo helped him wrap up his ankle and elevate it, giving him a potion as well which he sipped on slowly. Phil watched as Tubbo patched up the cuts and bruises Tommy had gotten, though the three of them seemed to be fairly unscathed given the circumstances. They could be appreciative of small mercies, Phil supposed. Then at long last the door opened, Ponk stepped out looking haggard.

Phil had to restrain himself from jumping him with a million questions at once, trying to appear calmer than he felt. But when the doctor managed a small grin, the relief in the room was palatable.

"He seems to be doing well for the moment," Ponk said, clearly happy to be delivering good news. "If he makes it through the night we should be golden, though it might take a while for him to wake up. His body had a bad reaction to the Egg's toxin."

Phil was already pushing up onto his feet, wincing as his ankle throbbed painfully. "Toxin?"

"The seed," Ponk explained. "It's some kind of last resort defense mechanism meant to lethally poison and kill the aggressor from what I could tell, but thankfully we managed to remove it in time."

The information barely seeped into Phil's brain, feeling increasingly exhausted. All he heard was that Technoblade was alive – alive and not at immediate risk of dying. Which was more than enough for him. "Can I see him?"

"Be my guest."

Niki was still in the room, trying to rub the blood from her hands with a wet cloth. Phil grimaced at the sight of Technoblade on the bed. He looked horrible, really. Too pale and motionless, bandages covering most of his stomach, the wound in his shoulder, and patches of his arms and legs. But his chest moved with steady breathing, so Phil took solace in the soft noise of every inhale.

He pulled up a chair, sinking down on it. And thus the waiting game began.

Phil didn't leave the room for all those three weeks. Others came and went, but Phil was a constant throughout it. Niki was there more often than not as well and he knew there would be no words in his vocabulary that would ever be enough to thank her for her kindness, no riches he could offer her to repay her for all she did.

She squeezed his shoulder softly to wake him up from where Phil had fallen asleep slumped in the chair again, back aching from the terrible position, and offered him another cup of tea. Lavender, his favorite.

"He'll come back to us," he told her more than once, when the lines or her face were deepened by worry. The words wavered, but his trust in them hadn't. "He always does."

Consciousness returned to Technoblade slowly, like water trickling through cupped palms.

His thoughts were a sluggish mess and he couldn't remember what had happened or why he felt so incredibly weak, unable to command his muscles to do much more than twitch his fingers. When he did, he heard somebody gasp and speak in an urgent tone. He couldn't understand what they were saying though.

With too much effort, he managed to pry his eyes open, not able to discern much about his surroundings through blurred colors. Two shapes were moving above him, then a different voice reached him - speaking with the same urgency. He still couldn't grasp the words however and tried to shake his head.

He wanted to move, sit up, get up, but he was too drained to get far in the attempt, his muscles stiffened as if he hadn't used them in a long while. A hand settled on his shoulder to push him down again and Technoblade almost flinched from how sudden the touch was. He didn't know what was going on and he hated it.

The voice was talking to him again – lower now, almost soft in an attempt to be reassuring – and Techno felt like he should respond maybe but couldn't with how scratchy his throat felt. All that came out was a raspy and half-enunciated grunt of confusion. With the return of his awareness to the waking world also came a flood of unpleasant stimuli, mainly pain making itself known in his stomach. It felt like somebody had taken a knife and carved a chunk out of him. It hurt pretty badly.

Whoever was tending to him probably noticed his distress, since the hand left his shoulder to return moments later with a cup for him to drink from, bringing their other arm behind him to help him into a semi-seated position to make swallowing easier. Techno still wasn't clear on what was happening, but the drink didn't smell poisonous and he was parched, meaning he didn't hesitate in accepting it. Almost instantly the cloyingly familiar wave of magic washed over him that told him it had been some kind of regeneration potion.

They laid him back down carefully before the hand returned once more, this time to brush against the side of his head, through his hair. Their thumb stroked gentle circles into his temple, making his body automatically relax. Although he just woke up, he was already tired.

"Shhh, it's okay Tech," the voice said, tracing the edges of his consciousness. He should recognize it but couldn't, he only knew that it made him feel safe. "You're okay. Go back to sleep, I'll be right here."

Technoblade didn't see any reason to resist, drifting off into that blessed darkness again.

The next time he came around those two voices were still there, whispering to each other. He was definitely more lucid, enough to open his eyes immediately and bring the room into a fuzzy sort of focus. While still not able to recall exactly what had happened, the memories were returning gradually.

And with them the realization he should probably be grateful he was still alive.

Phil turned to the bed when he noticed Techno was awake. "Hey," he said softly, a brittle smile playing around his lips.

"Hey," Techno echoed back, ignoring how his throat hurt forming the single word. He stared at Phil, who had dark bags beneath his eyes which betrayed how little he'd been sleeping. The avian's hair was a mess, tangled and unwashed, and the stubble from several weeks without shaving was visible around the line of his jaw. "You look like shit."

Phil laughed – the comment wasn't even that funny. He was probably only laughing because Techno was the one who made it.

"Thanks mate. I missed out on my beauty sleep lately."

"No kidding." He wanted to try and sit up again but Phil's glare deterred him. Everything ached too, so it probably wasn't a bad idea for him to stay put. "Have you been here the entire time?"

"Pretty much," Phil admitted.

While entirely expected, Techno was still unhappy about it. "You should go home, Phil. Get some rest."

"I will. Not yet though, the others are on their way here. Niki let them know you woke up, they'll want to see you. You had us all pretty worried."

Technoblade grunted in acknowledgment, hating the thought of anybody coming over and fussing over him too. "There's no need to worry about me ever."

Phil laughed again, much more freely, as if he'd read his mind. "I don't think you'll have a choice in the matter, Tech. Besides, you did kind of save the entire server from being corrupted by an evil egg."

"Huh, I guess we did do that," Techno said. Phil nodded his head, accepting the statement.

"We did."

If nothing else, they would both sleep a lot more soundly tonight.