(WC: 1828
Category: Humor
Warnings: None

THE TURF WAR ENDING SERIOUSLY COULDN'T HAVE COME AT A BETTER TIME WTF

The ending honestly just turned into ZIT being three idiots sharing a braincell but I'm not complaining I missed writing em (I'm so sorry for the crappy endings to these oneshots lately)

I call this the Turf War But It's Slightly Serious AU, where parts of the war were more serious (like Bdubs and Scar trapping the Resistance, getting really competitive during Showdown/RipZone), but other parts, not so much. In the end, it was mostly fun and games. So there's some lingering tension (but not as much if the war was 100% serious)

Enjoy!)

And just like a compass

That leads the way

We may take the long road

But I'll never fade

Things after the Turf War didn't automatically return to normal.

Zedaph purposefully didn't get involved in the Turf War because he didn't want to get caught in the crossfire. He didn't usually take part in things like this, instead wanting to focus on his own personal projects. Getting caught in the crossfire wasn't something he wanted to do.

Impulse and Tango, the remaining parts of ZIT, on the other hand, usually decided to get fully involved. This time, they'd ended up being on opposite teams--Impulse on the Resistance team, Tango on HEP's side.

That had been a little jarring to all three of them--it was a direct reminder of Season 6's Civil War, where they had had the exact same lineup: Impulse and Tango on opposing teams, and Zed staying out of it.

The only difference this time around was, instead of things going back to normal like the Civil War had, there was some lingering tension. Subtle tension, but noticeable enough to Zed that he wanted to do something about it.

One day on a cold December morning, Zed had woken up--on the right side of the bed--and messaged Impulse and Tango separately. Both of them had received the same gist:

<ZedaphPlays> D'you think you could help me test out of my contraptions? My portal crosshub thingy is messing up for some reason, and I need your superior redstone prowess as assistance :D

He purposefully left out the fact that he'd invited the other person along, too, wanting it to be a surprise. Of course, his extensive redstone knowledge would never fail him, and his portal crosshub wasn't broken at all.

He just wanted to see if he could get the old ZIT team back again.

Impulse arrived first, around noon. Zed looked up from his tinkering with his x-ray minecart system and waved cheerfully at his visitor. "Hello, Impulse! Thanks for coming!"

"No problem," Impulse replied, scanning the Cave. "You've been busy during the war, huh?"

"Absolutely. While you guys were fooling around with your purple fungus and dirt, I was making state-of-the-art space stations! For pigs! Zero-g pigs!"

"Glad to see you haven't lost your charm during the war," Impulse laughed a bit.

Zed feigned a shocked gasp. "I would never!"

He led Impulse to the Nether portal beside his bed, gesturing to it. "Okay, so when I step through this portal and back, it doesn't place me here. It puts me at the portal near my storage area."

"Huh." Impulse studied the portal for a bit. "That should just be as simple as just repositioning the portal, if I remember correctly. Quick fix."

"Thanks, Impy. Appreciate it!"

Impulse rolled his eyes at the nickname. "I can fix this in no time, then I'll be out of your hair."

Zed didn't want Impulse out of his hair just yet--Tango hadn't shown up, and he wanted them to meet up again.

"Wait, Impulse," he said, stalling for time. He (half-honestly) admitted, "Well, I also wanted to just spend time with you. We haven't gotten to talk much with all--" he waved his hand around. "--this going on."

"Hey, I missed you, too, Zed," Impulse said, ruffling Zed's hair playfully. "It feels nice to just sit back and relax. Not having to worry about anything in the moment, y'know?"

"I get the feeling," Zed replied (truthfully this time). He furtively glanced towards the entrance to see if Tango was anywhere near.

"What are you looking at?"

Okay, maybe not as furtively as he thought.

Luckily, though, he saw the iron door swing open at that moment. A grin blossomed on his face as he saw the T of ZIT walk into the Cave. "Tango! Hey!"

Impulse glanced behind him and did a little double take when he saw Tango. He quickly got over it, though, instead putting on a smile. "Oh, hey, Tango! I didn't you would, uh, be here too..."

Tango noticed Impulse standing next to Zed and mirrored his double take. He glanced at Zed with a raised eyebrow. "Yeah. Uh, Zed invited me to help him fix his crosshub Nether portal thingamajig."

Impulse's smile grew more strained. "Oh, really? That's why I'm here."

Zed panicked as the tension in the Cave hitched up a notch, so he quickly changed the topic. "Anyway!" he said, forcing a laugh. "Uh, crosshub! I'm just gonna go through the portal real quick, just to see where I end up, 'kay?"

Impulse and Tango were in the oddest standoff he'd ever seen, each not saying anything.

"I'll take that as a yes." He quickly ducked into the purple vortex before he had to watch his two friends act like mere acquaintances around each longer for any longer.

He lingered in the Nether for a while before popping through a different section of the portal purposefully, making it look like the hub was glitching out. "Ah, crud. Okay, so it is broken. Tangy, Impy, you guys could help, right?"

Before either of them could respond, Zed grabbed Impulse's arm and dragged him off to a portal on the far side of the Cave, intentionally splitting him and Tango up. He pointed to the portal next to his bed and gestured for Tango to work on it.

"What are you doing?" he scolded Impulse once they were out of earshot from Tango. "You two are acting so tense around each other, it's weird to see. What happened?"

Impulse sighed. "I dunno...It's weird now, after the war. We were on opposite sides, and in the end we had to fight it out. Now that the war is over, things are supposedly going to go back to normal. But that's not really been the case. A lot of the others have already moved on from it--it was mostly fun and games after all--but I haven't."

When he went to go check on Tango, he'd said roundabout the same thing.

Zed didn't know exactly what happened during the war. He knew they had battled it out with minigames--all fun and games of course--and the Resistance had won. Like he said, he purposefully stayed out of it--partly because he didn't want another thing to deal with, partly because things like this had gotten out of hand.

While the war didn't go out all like past ones had--Demise came to mind--there was obviously some tension lingering between the opposite teams.

He didn't know quite what to do.

At the very least, he could try and ease the tension between his friends.

He grabbed Tango's hand and pulled him towards Impulse, plopping him next to the portal Impulse was working on. "Here. You two work on this side. I'll be on the other end."

As he walked over to his side, he glanced behind him secretly to see what Tango and Impulse were doing. They were standing on either side of the portal, both seemingly not knowing what to do. Impulse kicked at the obsidian frame, looking down at his crocs.

Tango looked Zed's way and somehow managed to catch him studying them. "Zed, what are you looking at?"

Okay, maybe he wasn't as subtle as he thought.

Finally, an idea struck him. He ran to his storage area excitedly, digging through chest after chest until he found what he was looking for. He bolted out of the area with a long string of garland trailing after him. He threw the decoration at Impulse and Tango before running back to his chests to grab more.

"I know what you guys can do! Help me decorate my base!"

Tango and Impulse both catch the garland at the same time, looking at each other like, "Uhhhhh, do I take it or do you...?"

"Come on! I'm not doing all this by myself," Zed prompted, hoping they would take the bait. "It's almost Christmas, and this place isn't decorated in the slightest. We need to get into the holiday spirit here!"

Impulse and Tango are reluctant at first, but they both cave in and decorate one part of the base while Zed works on the other (while not-so-secretly checking up on them), hanging up multicolored lights and festive garlands. He's a little disappointed when the little icebreaker attempt doesn't work, so he decided to ham it up.

"Come on!" he called, pulling out a ridiculously long string of lights and trailing it around him, getting it tangled in just about every contraption you could think of. "I'm doing all the work here!"

"Zed, you're getting your lights tangled in your redstone--" Impulse started.

"Then untangle them!" Zed said insistently. "I'll string the lights around, and you position them!"

"That's not how it works..." Tango chimed in, wincing as Zed just got the lights tangled further. "Zed, you're gonna trip over your own lights--"

"Hm?" Zed turned to look at Tango, taking his focus off of where he was going. He tripped over a string of lights that was hanging over his redstone wiring near his Magic Puddle, and he fell face-first into the water with a loud splash.

Impulse and Tango couldn't help but grin at their friend's shenanigans, and they burst into laughter at the same time. They glance at each other, and that's what finally breaks the tension between them.

Zed poked his head out of the Magic Puddle, coughing up a bit of water as he pulled himself out. "Oh, come on," he groused. "Me acting like an idiot was all I had to do to get you to stop being so tense around each other? You couldn't have told me this earlier??"

Impulse did a double take at Zed's words, something finally clicking for him. "...The portal hub wasn't broken at all, was it?" he realized, a grin spreading on his face.

"Nonsense!" Zed exclaimed, feigning shock and wringing his tunic out. "Why would I call you here if it wasn't if I needed your help? It wasn't because I wanted you guys to bond or get back together something. Who does that?"

"Well, whatever your motive was, it doesn't matter," Tango said. "I missed seeing your antics, anyway."

Impulse nudged Tango with a small smile. "I missed you too, y'know."

"Likewise." Impulse turned to Zed. "Uh...do you need any help drying up, or are you okay...?"

"You know what you could help me with?" Zed asked, cocking his head. "Decorating my base."

"You're not going to let that go, are you."

"Nope!" he said cheerfully, taking a seat next to his water closet, looking at the pair expectantly. "Now, tell me. What happened during the war? We have a lot of catching up to do."

Tango sat down next to Zed, making himself comfy as he prepared to tell a long story. Impulse took up the tangled lights and started hanging them around, giving the Cave a cheery, warm feeling to it.

"Oh, man. Where do I start? You missed a whole lot."

"From the very beginning! I want to hear it all."