Chapter 51: Hateful Origins.
"Look in my eyes, Dan..." Stampy requests, "I want the last thing you ever see, the picture your whole life led up to, the image burned into your mind for any experiences you may have after death, I want all of that... to be, my, eyes."
"...WHY!?" Dan demands.
"Because I'M what did this to you, Dan!" Stampy growls, "not Cassie, not Jesse, not Lukas, not even yourself, I'M responsible for what happened to you today, you understand!? your murder is MY crime! I am the human being that ended the life of the Diamond Minecart! remember my name and remember my face, TDM! because I left an impact! you'd still be breathing tomorrow if it weren't for me! I'm one of the biggest influences in your life, you got that!? if you ever catch sight of me in the afterlife I expect you to run for the fucking hills because Stampy's in town! I want to leave a permanent imprint of myself on you forever, Minecart! to teach you to never fucking cross Stampylonghead ever again!"
Dan stares at him in awe.
"B-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-BUT I DIDN'T EVEN CROSS YOU A FIRST TIME!" Dan blubbers before spitting out "we've always gotten along before! we've been friends for YEARS, Stampy! why do you suddenly hate me!?"
"First of all, I put WAY more care and effort into my channel than you did, but your dumb throwaway crap got you MILLIONS more views and subscribers than I ever got through my genuine hard work making intelligent content, hell! mine was even childfriendly, unlike yours Mr. BoobsForClickBait, so I even had a wider audience range, and I STILL couldn't get anywhere near to matching your level of success!" Stampy actually starts to bitterly answer Dan's question, "that's where all my resentment started, and it boiled and festered inside me over the course of years, I even beat you during the building contest the one time, remember? proving I that I had superior minecraft skills, but despite that, you, purely for your popularity, were still considered the greatest of the great, and was ranked above me just the same as before, as if the event didn't even happen, you wouldn't have felt great about it either if you were in my shoes, but I had to just choke it down and carry on, filming and editing hours a day, making way less money, and getting way less love than you, but I would, of course, put on a happy face and be a good sport about it, and wouldn't ever directly disrespect you, but I was jealous, Dan, jealous of all you had that I deserved way more and worked far harder for, and I've carried that jealousy as long as you've known me, all the way up until tonight, and ohhhhhh, tonight sure did not help your case any...!"
"St-Stampy...!?" Dan gapes "I...! I had no idea... that's... that's really how you feel?"
"Tsk! I didn't hide it that well, I'd still occasionally hint at it through my behavior, if you had just paid close enough attention you probably could have caught it." Stampy rolls his eyes, "besides, what does it matter how I felt anyway? if we were such good friends, then why did you think I took your stupid flint and steel?"
"Uh..." Dan thinks about it, "I mean... we were never really THAT good of friends... and you DID take my flint and steel!" his eyebrows curve "you bastard! do you know how much work it took to get that thing!? what the hell did I ever do to deserve that!? it's not MY fault I was more popular! blame the fans, not ME."
"Wow, nice way to treat your fans!" Stampy spits, "anyway, we're not talking about how horrible I was to have taken it, we're talking about how you apparently NEVER suspected me to have any ill will towards you, but I appeared to be your very first theft suspect after TorqueDawg was taken out of the picture, so tell me, Dan, why is that? why couldn't Stacy have taken it? why couldn't Lizzie have taken it? why couldn't Sparkles, or Cassie, or any of the other people we've never seen taken it? why was I the one to stand out to you so much when I never showed any spiteful or nasty feelings towards you? while the other people around were generally way more adventurous and outgoing and confident than me? don't you think one of them would have been a little more likely to steal the key to new dangerous worlds, than anxious, timid little Stampy Cat who's always seemed perfectly content just staying in his creative little safe-space building love gardens?"
Dan narrows his eyes, "Fine, you want the truth? I suspected you from the beginning because, honestly, I always knew you weren't as 'happy friendly Stampy Cat' as you wanted everyone to believe, there was something sketchy about you, and I knew that if you had a vendetta against anyone, it would probably be the only minecrafter bigger than you: me, and on top of that, I had that artifact as secure as anything could make it, I knew for an absolute FACT that whoever stole it had extensive, crazy-good levels of minecraft skill, a level that I believed could pretty much only belong to the second-place minecrafter who had previously bested me in certain subjects before, I don't believe Stacy could have pulled it off, or Sparklez, and especially not a noob like TorqueDawg, Lizzie was the only person besides you who could have maybe managed it, and I trusted her far more than I did you, Stampy, and I, was, RIGHT."
"Yeah, you were, nice job getting me for it though." Stampy passive-aggressively shrugs, "did you have any other final questions?"
"One...!" Dan nods "what would I need to do to make you go EAT A DICK!?"
Silence.
"...that was a bad question." Stampy comments, "do you have a proper one, or do you just want us to end it?"
"I'll end YOU." Dan growls.
BAP-SLICE! Dan throws his head back into Stacy's face, at the same time he grabs onto Stampy's arm with one hand and runs his stone blade across Stampy's wrist, with Stacy he had hacked into her, so it didn't do much, but by sliding the blade on Stampy he cuts much deeper, and Stampy's expression widens with horror as he feels not only excruciating pain, but also his fingers immediately going numb from loss of blood.
"ARAHHHHH!" Stampy screams, twisting in pain and instinctively trying to pull his mangled hand away, he immediately starts using his other hand to turn and jab his blade though Dan's stomach more in an attempt to make him stop.
"KILL HIM, STAMPY!" Stacy calls, her eyes shut tight and nose hurting from the impact with Dan's head, but her helmet kept her safe.
"Let GO!" Dan orders, hacking his sword at Stampy's other hand.
"URGH!" Stampy pulls the blade out and starts going for Dan's sword hand.
"Urgh-urgh-urgh-urgh-urgh-urgh-urgh-urgh!" Dan and Stampy both make pitiful attempts to harm each other's sword hands, they're both just going for the wrists and utterly failing, it's very childlike and unimpressive.
"FUCK IT, MINECART!" Stampy gets frustrated, clanging Dan's sword aside as hard as he can and going for the face.
SHPTZ! blood flies as Stampy maims Dan's pretty little face with multiple, deep slashes.
"WRIST!" Stampy goes back for the wrist.
"URGH!"-Ding! Dan twists his wrist like fuck to block Stampy's attack with his own sword.
"Huh!" Stampy jumps back, cautiously eyeing Dan to assess his condition.
Dan's face is scratched up and he has a fucking stab wound, THAT'S his condition, there's no blood in his eyes because his helmet prevented Stampy from cutting anything higher than them.
"AHHH!" Dan screams at the blood dripping from his chin "YOU FUCKING CAT! I SHOULD'VE KNOWN YOU'D DO THIS!"
"Calm the fuck down for a second!" Stampy backs up more as he wipes away the tears of pain from his face using the sleeve on his upper forearm, then looks at his heavily bleeding wrists soaking into his sliced up hoodie cuffs, "ohhh, this'll never come out..."
"Is he dying!?" Stacy calls.
"Not quickly!" Stampy calls back.
"Fucking BITCH!" Dan roars, twisting his arm around and jabbing his sword into the back of Stacy's left knee, it easily rips through her jeans and bites into her sensitive tendons.
"ERRRGH!" Stacy grunts in response.
This was bad for Stacy, but it leaves Dan WIDE OPEN to Stampy.
"YOU FUCK!" Stampy charges and stabs towards Dan's chest.
"HA-HA-HA-HA!"-SHING! Dan laughs gleefully as he suddenly equips a second stone sword (the one he made himself, the one he's been using was PwnKang's) to his other hand and uses that to stab up at Stampy, not even trying to actually defend himself.
SWISSC! Stampy's sword plunges into Dan's chest, making another hole in his armor and dealing a second serious blow, while at the same time Dan's sword gorges along Stampy's face, starting at his chin, then going up across his cheek, continuing in a cut through some of Stampy's hair, and finally ending with ripping out of Stampy's hood, directly through Stampy's left cat ear, which is shredded.
"UGHHH!" Stampy groans as the force of his momentum makes him fall and collapse on top of Dan, his eyes shut tight against the hot, searing pain emitting from his face.
"Get...!" Dan breathes, furious but still pleased with himself "OFFFFFF!"
Dan shoves Stampy as hard as he can, knocking the large kitten to the ground and making him roll a couple feet away.
"Stampy...!?" Stacy's jaw drops in shock as she finally regains visual contact with her boyfriend, horrified to see his condition.
"YOU TOO!" Dan roars as he struggles and stabs back at Stacy with both swords, neither make contact, but Stacy is forced to lose her grip on him and go sleeking away to escape.
"FINALLY!" Dan snarls as he twists and scrambles to his feet, Stacy does the same, doing her best to not limp from her wound.
Silence, as both Dan and Stacy stare at each other, standing, facing the other directly, weapons raised and poised to strike, Stampy just cries on the sideline, trying to stop his face from bleeding out.
Whoooooo...! a small wind picks up.
"Like I said..." Dan growls, quietly, his hair blowing beautifully in the breeze as he stares determinedly into Stacy's eyes "I'm meant to survive, you will not kill me, not easily, not with a struggle, not at all."
Stacy's large, green, shiny eyes gleam back at him, she sniffs back a tear.
"Dan, I never hated you for the same reasons Stampy did..." she informs him, a hint of regret in her voice as her own long, brown hair ripples with the wind, "I hated you because as long as you were around to hate, Stampy would do it, and nothing would ever distract him, not even me, it made me feel small, insignificant, as if he cared more about secretly feuding with you than he did about our relationship..." she spares her eyes a quick glance at Stampy before returning her focus completely on Dan "...I no longer believe that was the case, what me and him have done to you today, and last night, gave me an epiphany: this whole time, I had wrongly assumed that his feelings towards us were mutually exclusive, it was my own, selfish, 'look-at-me' bias that made me fail to see the truth, he never neglected loving me for hating you, he was always trying to include me IN hating you, I just never had the motivation to feel like joining, but you showed me this truth, you gave me the motivation, Dan."
Dan's eyebrow raises with interest at this curious turn of events.
Poll Results!
"Stacy and Stampy are fighting Dan and the latter is losing. What do you think will happen next?"
1. Stacy and Stampy will kill Dan. 1 Vote(s). (25%)
2. Dan will fight back best he can and turn it around somewhat. 0 Vote(s). (0%)
3. They'll make peace. 1 Vote(s). (25%)
4. They'll stop fighting to have a chapter-long conversation. 1 Vote(s). (25%)
5. Jesse and the gang will show up. 1 Vote(s). (25%)
6. Something totally unexpected. 0 Vote(s). (0%)
Total Votes: 4.
Total Voters: 2.
What a surprise! What a triumph! Nobody expected it, but Dan has successfully managed to turn this fight around enough to give himself a fighting chance! (Don't worry, voters, ain't nobody gonna judge you for voting against Dan. It was the most logical thing to do.)
And now, Stacy and Dan will face off in an epic showdown. It's a duel between two of the greatest minecraft Youtubers of all time, and those with the ability to compete impressively in such a match. (Stampy's combat skills leave a lot to be desired.) How will their battle end? Go to the new poll and vote for your thoughts now!