Midnight Arson (Platonic! Ranboo x Tubbo)

Chapter 25: The Strange Man

The enderman hybrid scrambled to his feet. "Who am I?!" he spluttered. "Who are you?!"

The man before him looked...odd, to say the least. For starters, the being seemed quite young- well, no younger than anyone else on the server, but perhaps too young for the trials of war. He wore a wildly colorful hoodie, followed by a pair of jeans and some sneakers. Inquisitive blue eyes stared back at Ranboo from under hickory-colored bangs, questioning the sentient's entire existence.

"Wait, don't tell me," the human started. "You're Ranboo, right?" The hybrid gave the man a cautious nod. "Ah. Well," the man replied, taking in his surroundings, "I can see why Dream called me, then. We've got a lot of work to do, so let's begin."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa," the enderman rambled. "Hold up. Begin? You want to begin? What is there to begin?! The server exploded; everything's gone!!"

"Not necessarily," the man argued. "I mean,-" The human looked down at his wrist, where the arms of his watch stood frozen in time. "-we got about fifty-two seconds before the nukes level Las Nevadas. Plenty of time to-"

Ranboo grabbed the man by the collar of his hoodie, eyes filled with rage. "To what?! TO WHAT?!" he yelled, shaking the stranger's shoulders. "DON'T YOU GET IT?! There's nothing left to save!! We're too late!!"

The man shrugged Ranboo's hands aside. "Chill out, dude," he said. "Time's frozen. Nothing's going anywhere."

"I- What?"

The stranger rubbed the back of his neck. "Boy, I probably should've started with that, huh? So, uh, my name is Karl, and I'm your dimension's local time traveler."

With time having stopped in the physical world, existence itself seemed to come to a grinding halt. Before he could stifle the urge, Ranboo threw a punch straight into Karl's nose. "Where the HELL have you been?!" the creature yelled. "You could have stopped this before it started!! You could've- You could have! You- You-"

Karl staggered back a step, shaking his head while pinching his nose. The man touched just under his nose, only to find blood on his fingertips. He gasped. "I'm bleeding!"

Ranboo clenched his fists. "You're gonna bleed some more if you don't start talking!" he growled. "Where have you been?!"

The time traveler held his hands up as a sign of surrender. "Easy, easy! Do you know how many universes I have to run? I'm a very busy man, Ranboo. But I gave Dream a button for when the apocalypse happens, so-"

"Dream? Dream? And how the hell do you know Dream, hmm? What are you- cousins? Long-lost relatives?" The enderman threw his head back in agony, clawing at his hair in a panic, and screamed. "WOULD SOMEONE JUST TELL ME WHAT'S GOING ON?!"

Ranboo placed his hands on his knees, desperately trying to catch his breath before he passed out. It was all too much. The arson, the dreamons, the scandal, the nukes- When would it all just end?