We're not talking about how long this took to update, mkay?

—————————————————————————————————————

[Sabre's POV]

Almost there, and... done!

I finish tying the last bit of wire to my little project, and hold up the makeshift hammer triumphantly. It's cool how I could make one with just a rock, a conveniently shaped stick, and some of that project wire that you can bend to use as frame for stuff.

I grab the head of the hammer and wiggle it a little bit, making sure it's secure. I don't want this big rock falling off while I'm trying to fight and landing on my foot.

Just as I start swinging it around to test it out, Orange walks up and sits down next to me. The gazebo gives some nice protection from the bright sun, even though it's starting to get chilly.

"Whatcha got there...?" He asks, sounding a little concerned.

"Hammer weapon." I reply. "My pocket knife isn't gonna do anything to somebody trying to attack me unless they have wires exposed, and blunt force seems to work to do damage to robots."

Orange just stares for a solid five seconds.

"...And why do you need a hammer to attack people?" 

"Self defense, duh."

"Sabre..." Orange sighs. "You don't need to worry about people coming after you. I'm going to protect you the best I can, and that means I'm not letting anyone get to you. You know that, right? Did that stuff about the Prophecy get to you again?"

"I know, Orange. And no, this isn't about the Prophecy." I say, setting my new hammer down. "I know you're gonna keep me safe, but I still want to help fight. I don't want to just sit there on the sidelines while you risk yourself fighting what should be my battles for me."

I sit there, quiet for a second.

"I... I want to help protect my new home. And I want to protect you, too." I continue. "But so far, I've mostly just been sitting there while you fight. I haven't been given a chance to show I can help fight too, and I want to be ready when I get that chance so I'm not... helpless."

Orange is quiet too, for a minute.

"...Have you really felt that way about fighting this whole time?" Orange asks.

"Yeah... back in my old world, I was too weak to fight because of how hard the others made it for me to survive. Now that I'm actually able to do more stuff without feeling like I'm gonna pass out, I want to help you. Like I'm supposed to."

"But you don't need to feel like you have to fight, okay?" Orange replies. "Yes you will need self-defense sometimes, with everything after you it's to be expected. But your safety is what I'm here for; to protect you. Helping humans is what every Steve was originally built for. So... you don't need to worry about me getting hurt. You're not... 'supposed' to. Just being here and safe is enough."

He gently grabs my hand and takes away the hammer, tossing it to the side and into the grass.

"And you don't need to make weapons, either. It's more dangerous for you than any of us. So... maybe don't make any more of those, okay?"

"Okay..." I sigh. "Would that have even done anything against a robot-?"

"Uh- probably not, no."

"Figured."

"Why'd you make it then?"

"I couldn't find something sharp."

"Sabre."

"What?! At least I didn't try breaking something to get a sharp thing!"

At that moment, we're interrupted by lightning. We turn our heads to see it coming from the yellow portal, and two Yellow Steves in armor step out. They look serious. Orange picks me up off the ground and places me behind him, and I peek around him as I find my footing.

"Stay behind me." He says quietly as they get closer.

The Yellow Steves stop a few feet away, staring at Orange, occasionally glancing at me. Orange stares back.

"Who are you, and what do you want?" He asks sternly.

"We were sent by the king. He wants to see you." One of the guards replies.

"Well, we don't want to see him! So go away!" I shout, stepping out from behind Orange. He pushes me back a little.

"I'm afraid it isn't an offer." The other guard says. "He wants to see you now."

"And I'm afraid that Nightmare's not getting what he wants this time." Orange says. "You're just doing your jobs, I get it, but I'm not putting Sabre in danger by having him anywhere near him. Now please just leave. If you don't, I will use force."

They look at each other for a moment, one glancing back at us.

"Well then... what a shame." He says. "We thought you wouldn't want to see anything happen to your chestplate-wearing friend."

We both freeze. Do they really have Yellow Steve? Did he get caught by Nightmare when we went to get the fake Orange Crystal?

"...What did you just say?" Orange says, a few orangeish sparks arcing around his hands. He looks... really mad. I carefully put my hand into my hoodie pocket, where I have my pocketknife. Glad I brought it out of the house with me today. It's fairly dull, but it'll have to work if this gets messy.

"You heard him." The other guard says. "If you don't come with us, we can't guarantee his safety. Do you really want to risk that?"

Orange just stands there for a moment, hands rolled into fists, but then he lowers his head and relaxes them. He looks down at me with one hand outstretched.

"Come on, let's go." He says, sounding upset.

I take his hand and he lifts me onto his back, carrying me, as I wrap my arms around his neck to hang on. We look over to the guards and they turn, leading us to the yellow portal. I hold on a little tighter, closing my eyes, as we get closer.

Orange gently puts his hand on my arm, talking softly.

"It's going to be okay, I promise." He says in a quiet voice.

"...I trust you." I reply, just as quiet.

As we step through, I hear the noise of the portal drown out everything else, and my surroundings shift.

—————————————————————————————————————

When I feel the moving stop, I open my eyes, and it's... nothing like I expected.

We're not at the Yellow Kingdom. We're at... some kind of camp. There's yellow tents surrounded by just a fence, a handful of robots around doing stuff. There's a big hill at the back of the fenced-in area. Where did these guys take us?

Orange seems just as confused as I am, looking around. The guards start walking, motioning for us to follow, and Orange does as they walk down a simple path leading into the camp.

People look at us as we pass by them. But they don't look scared like the Yellow Steves at the kingdom did, they look... hopeful. As we go by, I notice a lot of them have damage on them like scars. Lines that look like scratch marks, really bad dents, places on their 'skin' that have clearly had to be replaced, replaced limbs, I even saw one or two missing an eye. Were they in fights? Or something else?

When we reach the big hill, I see that there's a very neat cave entrance with a staircase, leading down. Following the guards inside, we descend far down. It kind of reminds me of the cave near the Orange Village... but not nearly as dangerous. Or... carved-looking. Looking at it closer, it seems like this cave was made by people.

We reach the bottom of the stairs, and... wow, this is a lot cooler than I thought it would be.

It's a throne room. Lanterns hung from the ceiling of the smallish room, dimly lighting the space, two more guards on either side in the middle of it. Most of the room's light is coming from a Yellow Steve sitting on a throne, and he's clearly important. He's wearing a crown and nearly white silver robes, and dark brown boots with gold trim. There are glowing yellow lines all around him, patterning his arms and face in symmetry. I can see two small battery looking things attached to his back, with the same glow.

Although... it's not just that. Like with some of the Yellow Steves outside, he has off-colored panels of metal replacing what should be the normal steel on parts of his body. Part of the upper left side of his head also looks like it had to be replaced, resulting in his hair having a half-shaved look. There's a big, welded line on his neck.

As the guards stop, they nod to him and join the guards standing against the wall, one going to each side. The Yellow Steve on the throne looks at us with a kind expression.

"Hello. Sorry for the... confusion. It was the only way we could think of the get you to come here." He says. "We didn't mean to cause any harm."

"Uh... thanks, I guess?" Orange says. "But our friend, is he safe?"

"Of course! Serial number LC5-Y9873 is perfectly alright." The Yellow Steve answers. "He's just with some of the other refugees outside, helping some of them adjust to being here. Speaking of, thank you both so much for helping so many of my people. It's been so relieving to see so many arrive safe."

"You're... welcome, sir." Orange replies. "I, uh- I don't mean to be rude, but who are you?"

The Yellow Steve smiles, and sits up straight.

"I am Helios, the true king of the Yellow Kingdom. And this..." He says, motioning to his right. "Is my assistant, Aelius."

I look, and yep, there's a Yellow Steve standing there next to the throne. He looks official, wearing a gold colored fancy military jacket over some more normal clothes. Has he been there this whole time-? I didn't even notice him.

"And you two must be Orange Steve and Sabre." Helios continues. "It's an honor to finally meet you both in person."

"Same to you, sir." Orange replies.

"...Hi." I say quietly. This dude is intimidating. And his assistant staring at us from the shadows like he's trying to make our heads explode isn't helping.

"Now, you're probably wondering why I had you come here." Helios says, his expression turning a bit worried.

"I'm guessing it's because of Nightmare?" Orange says. Helios cringes slightly at the mention of him.

"...Yes. You see, it's not exactly simple to attempt to gather a resistance. It doesn't help that only the people here know I'm still alive." He starts. "We've heard about your run-ins with... Nightmare. How you were able to stand against him and even outwit him. As he's a very clever opponent, that's not any easy task, yet you two were able to do it more than once."

"Are you sure about the 'clever' part? Because his defenses weren't exactly great." I blurt out. Helios hides a smile, Orange glares at me while trying not to, and I'm pretty sure I heard a guard laugh.

"Yes, well... we've noticed the Darkness he's infected with us starting to decay his body more quickly. It stands to reason it might start to be doing the same to his components." Helios answers. "Which is why we want to strike to take back our home soon, while he's weakening. We don't want him to come up with something to strengthen himself before we can. But, we need help to do that. Most of our population is trapped under his rule, what you see here is those of us that escaped his wrath by making him believe he got rid of us... just a handful of people. We'll need more support if we want to take him down."

Helios then stands up, a bit shaky for a moment, the descends the small set of stairs leading up to his throne, and stops in front of me and Orange. He extends his hand.

"So I'd like to ask if you'd help us in our resistance efforts." He says. "You'd both be very valuable assets to us, and your skills would help us greatly. However, it is your choice."

Orange smiles, and takes his hand, while I lean forward and place my hand on top of his. Shaking the king's hand, we see everyone's faces light up.

"Of course we'll help you, sir. No one like Nightmare should get away with so many crimes." Orange says.

"We were already gonna kick his butt, but it'll be more fun with friends!" I add, grinning.

"Sabre!"

Helios laughs as we each pull our hands back, him folding his behind his back.

"Nice to see that the Catalyst has a sense of humor." He smiles at me.

"Thanks! I try."

Suddenly, we hear someone coming down the stairs, fast. Turning around, we see it's another guard. He looks scared.

"Sire! Sorry to interrupt, but we have a situation!" He exclaims.

"What's wrong?" Aelius says, suddenly next to Helios. He's a quiet one.

"There's a Mutilator! At the edge of camp!"

"Has anyone been attacked?!" Helios asks.

"No, it's sticking to the end of the forest. But it's definitely aggressive. Nobody's been able to drive it away."

A roar echoes from outside, and the guard looks back, panicked. Next thing I know, Orange is running up the stairs, following all of the guards that were in the room with us. As we leave, I hear Aelius and Helios talking.

"Sire, please, stay here-"

"I can't just leave my people out there at the mercy of a beast!"

"I understand that sir, but you're damaged. Your people will still need their king."

We leave the cave before I can hear anything else.

Outside, everyone's in a panic. People are rushing into tents to hide or grabbing weapons, the guards in their gold armor all rushing to the same place, the entrance to the camp. Orange follows them as I hang on tight. As we head over to see what's going on, I see our friend Yellow Steve approaching the entrance with the guards too. He looks at me for a moment as he runs past us.

Once we reach the camp entrance, I hear Orange gasp as we see what's there. It towers over the Yellow Steves, nearly the same size as the smaller trees it's standing next to. One large eye stares at the robots pointing weapons towards it as it growls. This one... is a lot bigger than the one we saw with the Orange Leader a while back. As I stare at it, I only think one thing;

That's one big dog.