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noxite had tried really hard to make the limiter fair.
the championships were a competitive event, yes, but he and his mod team knew that it was mostly for fun. there was no money prize, no real trophy, nothing but a claim to fame and a fun little metal coin for each month’s winners. it was an event that let everyone kind of take a break from any of their servers– either ones that weren’t needed, like the hermits, or the ones that were desperately needed, like the dream smp.
(messy, messy, noxite thinks, reviewing the supposed lore that’s going on in that place. the members of that smp hadn’t meant for it to be such a publicized show at the time of creation, but now everyone there was well versed in acting and writing that it had, once or twice, bled into the mcc itself. he still remembers the bags under tommy’s eyes near christmas and the way he and tubbo had hugged in the lobby. they’re all still friends, though, and it is all just acting, if the way dream and quackity were jokingly shoving at each other on the opening day of the second season of competition– they’re all still friends.)
but on topic, again– the championships were for fun. it was a fun competition. and it had to be fair, or someone was going to get upset.
so noxite and the mods started making the limiter.
it was a small, seemingless thing that basically tried to bring anyone who was way too overpowered to a more normal level. it wasn’t entirely perfect, and it showed– there was a list of people who required the limiter, for varying reasons, and everyone needed a different level of neutralization, which was difficult. scott’s was usually the most reliable, the basis for a few mcc’s, and as they tested things out, the limit went up. even then, though, there were exceptions to the rule that required adjustments.
the main list of people that were constantly being adjusted were, as followed:
scott. as an admin, he had too much help creating and organizing the event, and often times it bled through into the games themselves. it wasn’t entirely fair for someone who worked on the server to compete in the games, but the mod team was pretty good at making sure he was on par with the rest of the contestants. there were always a few mishaps, though, easily waved away and adjusted.
philza, angel of death and effectively immortal due to a blessing by a goddess of death herself. he was well versed enough in everything that it was important to make sure he wasn’t too much of a threat– and he wasn’t allowed to use his wings for any games they weren’t needed. even still, they gave him a slight advantage in rocket spleef and in specific rounds of tgttostwaf.
techno and dream were explained away without question, mostly, but there was never enough of a cap for those two, it seemed. (landlord was still upset about parkour warrior, his pride and joy. others like pete had done well on it, but even with a limiter, landlord had updated the map multiple times to keep dream from beating it, and ultimately had failed. he kept swearing up and down that it would return and be impossible– every time he heard that, dream had laughed and said suuuuuuure, elbowing techno with a snort.)
and then there was the captain.
which is– hard to explain. noxite doesn’t entirely understand why they’re doing it to poor jordan, but the man had never complained, only given a half-hearted shrug and a laugh when scott had passed him the wristband with the adjuster. makes sense, he remembers jordan saying. i don’t mind at all.
damn. the man had seemed so much more carefree and happy back then. lately every time noxite sees jordan he seems utterly defeated, always half-heartedly smiling and resigning himself to his “curse.” noxite feels bad, he does, but even a few mods had admitted to telling him he was allowed to take his limiter off once– and jordan had steadfastly refused.
“curse or no curse,” they recalled him saying. “it’d be unfair if i did.”
damn you, jordan, and your ever humble ways.
but that’s how it is, then, and no one can force jordan to take it off, or turn it down. and as far as noxite can tell, jordan still has fun despite never winning, making connections with other players– which tends to be an issue with him, apparently, social recluse that he is.
this mcc, though, scott’s done a bit of a throwback. there are some new faces, of course, but this go around it’s a revival of some of the most requested re-teams, similar to all-stars but not quite. some players have been replaced, or switched around, just to make sure they aren’t exactly the same. the dream team has a redux, sorta– karl, george, and sapnap are all hanging out in the purple meeting area, but instead of dream, it’s tubbo, laughing high and breathless. techno’s over in the corner with false, and hbomb, and ren– a little cracked, but scott seems to be sure it’ll go well. and phil’s watching in exasperation as tommy and wilbur shout at each other while dream tries really hard to catch his breath.
and, of course, the krimson krakens are back in action– someone had to be replaced, to make it not a total repeat, and burren is already on good terms with jordan, kara, and ryan, so it works.
it’s going well, noxite thinks. they’re on game five– rocket spleef– and the lineup is a bit up in the air between those four teams taking the top four spots, of course, and it’s really fucking sadly looking like jordan’s gonna get stuck in third again. there’s still a few games to go, so it’s– they have a chance, but the longer they go, the more jordan just looks kind of. well. the way one does when things go exactly as poorly as expected.
and then something kinda, well. goes wrong. nobody hears or sees it happen, nobody can exactly tell from that alone, but all the contestants sort of shudder in the hub. it’s the final round of rocket spleef, and they’re about to drop, but all the admins feel an immediate shift in the air, and from where he is, noxite can see scott’s face twist up in that sort of way that means “something’s wrong but if i say anything i’ll be in deep shit.”
mcc is a highly anticipated event, but it’s not flawless, and noxite is so grateful that their audience is, for the most part, understanding of that. he pauses the countdown with about nine seconds left until the drop.
“hey folks,” he announces, to his own viewers and to the chat of all of the contestants, “we’re gonna go on a little break, here– some of our servers are on the fritz, and we wanna make sure things keep running smoothly! we’re gonna have to put everyone on a pause screen for a bit, just to talk to the contestants about it. be back really soon!”
with that, everyone puts on a pause screen, blocking their own views, and noxite pops himself into existence next to scott, sharing his wrist view of the server’s listings.
“do you know what’s up?”
“no,” scott shrugs. “whatever it was, though, it didn’t feel great. kinda felt like someone poured jello through my bloodstream.”
noxite grimaces at the mental image of that. “unpleasant.”
“mm-hmm. but i’m not… finding anything in the backlogs? i don’t know, it’s weird.”
he looks over to the rest of the noxcrew, but all of them either shrug, or shake their heads. nothing is wrong from first sight alone, and–
“we really don’t have time to do a manual deep dive, though, is the thing. and running the auto check will take a couple of minutes.”
“we could run it during the game,” scott offers. “it won’t make anyone lag or fumble, and we could just tell the audience that their vote is gonna be a little longer because we haven’t done it yet, and wait for the results there?”
it’s a good enough plan, so. that’s what they do. noxite apologizes for the pause, and they reset the drop timer to 15 seconds. everyone’s laughing good naturedly, and the auto check is running just as smoothly as scott said it was. noxite still can’t place what’s going on there, until the timer is close to finishing–
three.
“oh, no.” he hears scott say. “oh, uh oh, no one’s gonna like this one–”
two.
“what?” he asks scott quietly, privately. “what’s wrong?”
one.
“it’s– oh, fuck. it’s the limiters. the limiters shut off.”
go.
everyone drops, elytra’s spread– except for, notably, scott. who’s admin abilities are still on, and he’s flying, completely illegally, a hilarious horror in his expression, giggling nervously at the way he’s floating without any issue. the other person who doesn’t drop is phil, who, instinctively, has spread his wings and is staying at the same height with a few powerful beats. noxite wants to laugh at the blank, surprised expression on his face, but it’s not exactly really the time, despite how funny the wide-eyed blinking and the deadpan what he sees.
“ah,” noxite says faintly, and he feels a headache coming on when the contestants beneath them all begin to shout in some kind of protest or support.
“philza minecraft, you legend!” techno shouts far below, and hbomb shouts back, “he’s on the other team!”
the round ends, eventually, but to no one’s surprise, phil and scott win.
“we can’t turn them back on,” scott announces, to both their participants and their viewers. “i apologize for that, but, this wasn’t a canon mcc anyways, so think of it as the most scuffed mcc in history, and try not to get too upset when we inevitably do some very overpowered shit. the missing limiter isn’t obvious, in most, but it will be very obvious in some. i’m sure you can guess who, by now.”
“again!” noxite continues. “we’re very sorry for the technical issues, and we’ll have it fixed by next mcc, promise. but until then, please try to enjoy the literal most scuffed mcc we’ve ever put on! audience vote is up now for the public, by the way, most votes is the game we play. thank you!”
noxite looks over the contestants after he shuts his global mic off, glancing around at each team– a few of them look excited, a few look horrified, and the ones with the people who were grossly limited have never looked more delighted in their life.
grian’s team looks almost delighted when he unfurls his own wings, giggling menacingly. sapnap’s hair is on fire, his blaze tendencies easily coming back out, and tubbo’s desperately trying to pat the flames out with little success, fireproof as he is. of course, phil’s preening carefully, grinning at how dream is bouncing off the walls of their tank. both him and techno are crackling with energy in different ways– techno has a very menacing energy about him, his voices much louder than usual without their inhibitor.
the audience vote is running, now, and noxite can already tell what it’s going to be– people wanna see just how crazy it can get, he guesses, and the votes for survival games are rocketing upwards. the teams seem to be excited about it– it’s been a while since they’ve had a proper round of survival games, and everyone has a pretty decent pvp’er on their team to support them if they don’t have someone that’s uninhibited.
sure enough, the survival games get chosen. noxite flies around the circle and surveys each team carefully, just to see what it looks like again with everyone all done up and ready– and he pauses, by the krakens.
the captain seems normal, which– doesn’t make sense. it doesn’t, because noxite knows he’d had a limiter on, but it really honestly looks like nothing much has changed beyond maybe his appearance. there’s a glimmer of purple scales crawling up his neck and circling around up to his ears, and his eyes seem to darken outwards from the iris, the white of his sclera slowly turning black. but other than that, and the way he’s shifting off his red coat to tie around his waist, nothing much seems to have genuinely changed. but they don’t give people inhibitors for hybridisms unless they had some kind of advantage. as far as noxite could tell, jordan hasn’t gained anything in this state.
the countdown ends. the krakens don’t go towards the cornucopia, and neither do about four or five other teams, all sprinting in new directions. kara and burren are having no problem scouting ahead, digging through chests and making sure there’s no one nearby– burren plucks an extra iron sword and leather cap, and kara slings a second bow around her chest. ryan and jordan are lingering behind, however, and ryan seems a bit concerned, chatting quietly with jordan. noxite doesn’t fly close to hear the conversation at all because it feels like it may be private, given the way jordan’s hands are wringing around each other and ryan has a hand on his shoulder, like a reassurance.
and then orange rounds the corner, geared nearly to the teeth.
burren’s a bit too far ahead, and turns immediately to sprint back, scrambling at the gravel path while giggling in nervous fear, and that alerts kara, who instantly whirls around and throws the bow still in her hands towards jordan.
“i’m losing health,” burren screams, high and breathless, and now noxite sees the arrows tapl is shooting as his teammates rush forwards. krinios sprints closer, pulling a health pot from his pocket, but the second the he and kara meet up with burren, all three of them come to turn back towards jordan–
who’s stuck in place, eyes wide, bow in hand, staring towards the team of four that’s encroaching very, very quickly.
“jordan, come on!” kara shouts, and then something in the air seems to snap into place.
everything slows down and speeds up all at once. jordan pushes his glasses all the way up the bridge of his nose, and pulls the bowstring back all the way. an arrow is pulled from literally nowhere– and noxite checks, even, because his inventory was entirely empty, he hadn’t picked a damn thing up. not to mention the arrow is made of some pure light-like energy, lavender and glowing and bright against the string and the captain’s glove.
when he shoots, it streaks across the field like a rocket, arcing across the path with lightning sparking off of it and leaving rips and burns in the grass and gravel around it. kara, burren, and ryan all duck down. the ocelots duck out of the way as well, wide-eyed and shouting in shock, save for mefs, who completely seems to have missed the interval for it. he’s struck directly in the shoulder– and then again, in his lower shin, and once again, between his ribs. noxite and the players watch in utter disbelief as mefs disappears before their eyes in what feels like less than an instant.
but it’s not even over. jordan has an axe out, coated in that same, similar violet energy– a double-headed, double handed battle axe, that looks well-worn and well loved, and it’s not something noxite has literally ever seen before in his life, much less something that’s ever been put in the looting pool for the championships. before the other team even has time to process and recuperate the loss of one of their own, jordan is on them, axe swinging heavily against necks. it’s a blur of energy, crashing and horrifying in how quick it is– four ringing cannons in quick succession across the arena as tapl, martyn, and spifey all follow mefs into the spectator mode.
there is silence. the world feels like it’s completely stopped.
and then jordan lets the axe de-materialize from his grasp, and he tilts his head up towards the sky, and murmurs into the aftermath a very quiet oh.
the world crashes in upon itself as the captain is finally, finally uninhibited.
noxite blinks, and there jordan stands, his wings flared out, the dragon he is on full display, heaving and exhausted with a wild look in his eye. his teammates slowly stand up from where they’d been hiding, all of them wide-eyed, visibly shell-shocked into astonishment. no one expected this. no one.
no wonder jordan had the limiter, noxite thinks.
“...holy shit,” kara murmurs, and jordan sighs.
“swear jar.”
“wh- jordan, what the fuck, this more than warrants a pass from the swear jar.”
“that’s two!”
“jordan!”
this whole thing is going to give noxite a headache.
as the game goes on, it’s like the rest of the krakens aren’t even there.
jordan falls so easily into some type of rhythm noxite’s never seen from him before. he takes no loot, and he takes no precautions– he’s entirely too comfortable in this situation, eyes sharp as they search for more players. the axe makes an appearance once more in the downtime– he somehow splits it in two, as well, single handed battle axes that look perfectly weighted to his hands as he inspects them carefully. he never uses his wings, either, except to reach the top of trees, or buildings.
“don’t want too unfair of an advantage,” he jokes quietly. burren looks at him like he’s grown another head.
nox, kara whispers to him in chat, are you seeing this?
yeah, he replies.
did you know?
i did not. scott might have, but i don’t think anyone knew it was to this extent. he grimaces again when jordan exhales smoke out of his nose, his ear twitching when something might crackle a branch in the nearby distance.
noxite flies over before jordan investigates more. it’s the magenta team– cpk and fundy are on lookout, eret and joel are reorganizing the loot of the players they’ve just finished off– looks like jimmy and wisp, off of lime. noxite can tell that cub is still alive, nearby, and grian’s hiding up in the trees.
and then there are axe blades in the fox hybrids’ heads, turning them to dust in an instant, crumbling them away with pathetic little fireworks to announce their immediate death. two cannons ring out as eret and joel’s attention whips towards their newly fallen teammates– not like anyone can hear it in the nearby vicinity, not with jordan’s absolutely devastating and ear-shattering roar.
he sounds feral, noxite thinks, dazed and confused.
joel is too shell shocked to do anything but a half-shout before an axe cuts through him like butter. eret, used to the fighting aspect of the smp lore, immediately draws up their shield, but they’re horribly underprepared and under-armored, and jordan cracks their shield in half without any issue. smoke pours from jordan’s mouth as he grins, and eret laughs nervously before they fall back to the ground, at a total loss.
“holy shit,” they manage, and then their canon sounds off too.
noxite watches as cub, who’s come out of hiding, drops his sword to the ground and throws his hands up in surrender as jordan turns to him with a tilted neck and flared wings. noxite doesn’t blame him– he and his teammate (who’s still in the tree above them, pressed to the trunk and branches, jaw dropped) have just witnessed a full team kill from someone who admittedly hasn’t been much of a threat for any mcc before.
“i– i can just go…” cub laughs awkwardly, but jordan only snorts and pulls his axes from where they’re buried in the ground, sharp toothed with a rumbling chuckle in his throat.
two more cannons ring out a few moments later after grian falls from the tree with a cry to try (in vain) to save cub from whatever horrifying fate awaits.
noxite thinks this team will be just fine. he goes to watch someone else instead.
(the rest of the survival games goes very similarly. yellow gets devastated by jordan not too long after. purple gets downed by blue a little later on, and jordan rounds the corner on techno to avenge tubbo right away. noxite thinks he hears whispers of retribution and vengeance and eye for an eye, but there’s literally no one talking, so– it’s rather funny, though, seeing technoblade clasp his hands together and go through all possible variations of human emotion, seeing a fully grown dragon hybrid at full power charging at him. the piglin turns tail and runs. his team does not make it very far, and the krakens end up winning.
upon the return to the choosing arena, there are fans littering the stands. one faction of them are screaming, loud and demanding, red decorating their clothing and face and hair, absolutely rabid for attention. jordan grins at them and waves, almost bashful now that his bloodlust has mostly been settled out of the game. the fans cheer and roar in delight, and noxite thinks this is the loudest he’s ever seen jordan’s section of the crowd in a long, long time.)
the games after are pretty similarly played out, and while the krakens weren’t doing poorly, jordan’s absolute devastation he and his team reign upon the others in the next two rounds boost them up to a healthy point placement.
the purple pandas had been doing great, as well, with tubbo having been unlimited too– he’s not as strong as jordan, not yet, but the younger dragon hybrid had definitely been boosting his team’s efforts in the long run, helping them stay better afloat in the final game of skybattle after he’d finally recognized how to use his wings. his efforts, and sapnap’s and george’s and karl’s, aren’t quite enough, though, and when the time for dodgebolt is finally reached, noxite thinks he hears someone mentioning how the captain’s curse has finally moved on to tubbo, purple sitting neatly in the third place spot.
tubbo doesn’t seem too offput, though. neither does techno, who’s team came in fourth.
it’s green guardians against the krakens, and noxite has no ungodly clue how this is going to go.
dream and phil are a threat, both of them uninhibited with a lot of strength. but jordan evidently is some type of unhinged, with an energy about him that noxite really only has ever seen around techno, limited or not. there are wisps of fog curling up around his arms and chaining around his wings, haloing around his horns and wrapping by his legs. it’s off putting in the sense that it’s unnatural, a light lavender color that’s almost invisible to the naked eye, but noxite tries not to think too hard about it.
the first round goes easily enough, and it’s the krakens that take it. kara bites out a loud insult and ryan laughs about it, and noxite swears to god he sees another two humans form in the fog besides jordan, one of them hooded and floating with hands on jordan’s shoulders, the other taking him by the hands and shaking them vigorously with delight.
the second round goes to the krakens as well, and jordan’s fog grows as the noise does, the crowd getting violent in delight, everyone cheering the captain on further and further. even the participants are cheering him on– everyone knows the captain deserves this– and another two figures form from the fog, now, one with fox ears, and one with a cap and pack, shaking his shoulders.
the third round goes to the guardians, though. and the fourth. noxite winces when it gets down to the final round, because the tension in the air is thick and cloying, like toxic smoke. there’s a heavy weight on all of them as the two teams take their time with their arrows, discussing strategies amongst themselves.
noxite finds himself by techno, suddenly, who’s looking at jordan with some kind of horrified awe. “never seen ‘em this strong.”
“what do you mean?” noxite asks, morbidly curious, and techno turns to him with judgement.
“look at ‘em. you tellin’ me you can’t see how fucking strong they are– you tellin’ me you can’t hear them?”
noxite looks again. all he can see is that strange fog that’s there, but not, clouding around the captain and nearly obscuring anything behind him from view. that light lavender with rolling violet energy, blinking– wait.
blinking?
he looks closer, and– oh.
that’s not just magic. the shapes of abstract eyes are blinking and searching within that untouchable mass, the form of foxes dancing at the captain’s feet with sharp, feral teeth, chittering in angry delight, and now noxite hears them, each and every one. that’s not just some nothingness, that’s jordan’s chat, those are the voices that have followed him for years, and they are frenzied and demanding and he is feeding them.
“no wonder you guys were inhibiting him so much,” techno snorts.
there’s a figure that steps out from that mass, now, and noxite doesn’t recognize it, but he thinks he hears tubbo mention something about uncle tom nearby in delighted disbelief. the stranger that’s there but not whispers something into jordan’s ear and steps away with a smile, and the captain’s grin sharpens to that feral horrifying thing noxite saw back in the beginning of the survival games.
“what are they…”
the krakens jump off the side of the platform. noxite feels sick, almost, until he sees something in jordan’s hand pulled from nothing, and nowhere. tommy and wilbur are screaming in abject confusion, and dream is skirting nervously along the edge of the platform, curious and unsure. phil is the only one standing stock still, wings spread, nodding slow, like some sort of resignation.
the bow jordan has in his grasp is unlike anything noxite has seen before in his life, glittering and striking, absolutely pouring with strength and magic from eons ago, a blinding color purple, sparking with energy, and perfectly shaped into jordan’s hand. the arrow is drawn from magic, the official rules of dodgebolt forgotten, and in that moment, wings spread, eyes wide, holy and untouchable, the captain has utterly proved why he needs that fucking limiter.
even with chat screaming, the world is silent with jordan looses his arrow.
THE KRIMSON KRAKENS WIN!
the afterparty feels like a final knockout. everyone– everyone, participants to mods to admins to viewers– is going absolutely insane. it’s been forever, and the captain’s finally on that stage, laughing and bright and flushed purple in the cheeks.
(his chat has for the most part dissolved, and noxite is thankful for that, because good gods, what a show of power. he really should ask if jordan’s alright.)
jordan’s crown is hand made, different from any other, and it has been since the end of the first season of mcc, because scott legitimately felt bad about the whole been in every single one for a whole season and never won thing. it’s an intricate thing, made of gold with rubies that, noxite overhears, change to amethysts once jordan takes it back home.
(there’s a moment where jordan turns and looks past the crowd, past everyone, and absolutely lights up when he waves– he looks down towards tubbo, too, and gestures with his chin in the same direction. when the boy turns, he smiles so wide it must hurt, excitement and awe shining in his eyes, so noxite chances a glance. he doesn’t see much, at first, but in the far distance he finally spots a figure in deep purple, smiling kindly and waving to her captain. after a moment, she looks directly through noxite, winking, and then disappearing.
noxite does not know how to feel about this.)
“so,” scott says when it’s all quieted down, and the festivities are done for the time being. everyone’s gone home, and they’re starting cleanup– priority of which lies with namely the limiters. “that went pretty well.”
“it sure was… something,” noxite agrees.
“turns out,” scott continues, “that jordan’s been basically wearing that limiter everywhere. he forgot to take it off at one point, and just kinda left it there. the stronger he got in the meantime, the higher up we had to rack it. he was at like, quintuple the amount of limits we had set on him in the beginning, this go around, it’s no wonder he absolutely lost it when the thing broke.”
“...good lord,” noxite says.
scott laughs at him for sitting down at that.
but maybe next mcc they should just return it to what it used to be. just to see how it goes.