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Technoblade had been unsettled for a while. Fair, he'd been able to manage by preparing for the inevitable war, but even that familiar grind of sharpening blades and hammering armor in shape didn't scratch the itch under his skin.
Some old contacts from his SMP Earth days, back when he'd been interested in world domination, had reached out for help. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision, a desperate last attempt to survive the battle, but he'd shown up. Techno had planned to leave soon after that. He'd stay just long enough to get them on their feet and he'd be back to his mostly normal life. Then, Wilbur had done what he did best, talk. He spun a tale of corruption and broken trust, of underdogs and people just trying to do the right thing. Before he knew it, Techno had built a small base of his own and was helping the budding nation in the active war effort.
Techno mostly did grinding on his own, leaving Tommy and Wilbur to their own devices. He wasn't here for their government, after all. He'd made it clear from the start; there would be no governments left under his watch. Their revolution would be for a free world.
By the time he'd received the invitation, however, Techno wasn't so sure the three of them were on the same page. He heard whispers from Tommy's secret meetings with that goat boy; they talked of structures for their new government, what laws they'd put in place. It was all juvenile stuff but it was still a governmental structure. Techno had seen Wilbur smuggling loads of TNT out of their meager ravine base in the dead of night and had seen the look in his eyes get more and more possessed with each passing meeting. Techno wondered if they were all fighting for the same cause.
Maybe that's why Techno took up the invitation that day. He told himself it was for reconnaissance, to gauge the enemy’s strength. Inside he knew he was reaffirming what he was fighting for.
He showed off his fireworks, received praise for his skill in the forge, and all the while he was still looking for that nugget of corruption, that thing that would prove to him what he always knew; all governments turned corrupt, none of them could be truly trusted.
The boxing match put him on edge. The smell of blood and sweat, the calls for blood, the bets changing hands, it all took him back to his time in the ring. The endless fights against hopeless odds. The cruel, unfeeling masters who forced him to fight for their amusement. (The kind man who'd handed him his first sword and told him to trust nobody). Needless to say, Techno was antsy as soon as the president came to the stage.
The ominous stare was what tipped it over the edge for Techno, what made The Blade come out in full force. Red crept into his vision and his finger tightened on the trigger of his crossbow, but he held on. His movements were stiff as he was called up, his hands jerked as he stared down the barrel at the boy Tommy had been planning a government with since the start, the boy who was wearing the matching uniform of the president who'd killed his worker at least five times that day.
The voices chanted in his ear and Schlatt egged him on as a single moment of clarity came over him just before he let the shot fly.
"I'm sorry Tubbo."
The Blade greeted Wilbur with a nonchalance he'd grown like a second skin, brushing off Tommy's demands for repentance easily. He'd learn soon what the world was like. In the meantime, he and Wilbur had a country to blow up and a few gods to appease.