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If Cleo hadn’t known Joe for longer than either of them have known Hermitcraft, she might be concerned about Joe having an argument with himself about which of his six contingency boltholes to hide the two of them in and discuss plans. She might be even more concerned about how blatantly questionable several of them are—she didn’t even know Etho had an attic, let alone one Joe knew how to break into and had hidden a bed in. However, Cleo’s known Joe since longer than either of them have known Hermitcraft, and frankly this is an impressively minimal amount of bafflingly designed anxiety-induced disaster prep for him, so she just lets him guide him into the room and sits cross-legged on the floor.

“No one ever remembers that the overworld smells different,” she says with a sigh.

“For example, here it smells like Etho’s socks,” Joe responds. “Why does he keep socks in the attic, Cleo? I still haven’t figured it out!”

Cleo snorts. “He’s a very strange little man.”

Joe shakes his head. “No, no, if he were a strange little man, I’d know. That’s what I am!”

“No, you’re a strange little puppet these days. Entirely different.”

“Oh, right.”

The two of them sit in silence for a bit after that. Cleo just breathes. They are supposed to be dead or exiled, and they are not. “Supposed to be dead but they’re not” is like, Cleo’s entire thing as a zombie, and Joe’s entire thing as a person, so that’s not what’s making Cleo’s heart race. Maybe Joe’s right; maybe it is the smell of socks. Maybe, though, it’s that the world is different colors. Everything isn’t the same awful grey and red, stretched out endlessly across the horizon.

A fuzzy puppet hand is placed on her own. Cleo looks down.

“Sorry I couldn’t talk to you the whole time. I was being hunted for sport,” Joe says.

“What? No, don’t answer that. Scar. That was obvious. Don’t know why I bothered asking.”

“Doc also kind of wanted to?” Joe says. “But as we both know, Doc’s really bad at making threats that are actually actionable. It’s sort of embarrassing. Cub, also, although Cub and I were mostly engaged in psychological warfare. It’s kind of a shame he exiled himself; who else has an appropriately complex relationship with fireworks and comic sans?”

Cleo snorts. “Never change, Joe.”

“I can’t promise that. To live is to change,” Joe says solemnly.

“Walked into that one,” Cleo says.

They both fall silent a little longer.

“The fact you called me at all, uh. Texted me. Kept me company. Fought a dragon? The drop shipping? I—”

“If my best friend goes mad from loneliness I’m not a very good friend,” Joe says.

“Still, thanks,” Cleo says. “Thank you. It was—thank you.”

“Anyone would have,” Joe says, and all at once Cleo is laughing and sobbing into their hands. Distantly, they can hear Joe panicking; he’s never been very good at other people’s emotions. It’s just—nothing, for days, and everything now, and the edges of their sleeves are still singed from Grian’s attempt to render it all pointless, and Joe’s right here, and Joe’s right here, saying:

“It’s alright, Cleo. I mean, it’s not, there’s an authoritarian government that isn’t letting me play Permitmaster. But it’s okay, for some definition of that, I think—”

“They really wouldn’t,” Cleo manages between choked breaths.

“What?” Joe says.

“You said it’s what anyone would do and they really wouldn’t,” Cleo says.

“…really?” Joe says, and he sounds so idiotically baffled and so exactly like Joe Hills, constant in Cleo’s life since before either of them knew what a Hermitcraft was, that she breaks down into sobs again. Distantly, she recognizes that this is a symptom of having ridden a horse across the nether roof for enough days in a row that her ability to emotionally regulate snapped a little. Immediately, though, she can’t stop thinking about how lucky she is.

Joe smiles, strangely kind for a puppet, and leans his entire felt body against her. He stops talking for the moment. Cleo knows it’s more that he’s probably panicking internally than out of any desire for silence, but…

She’s really, really lucky.

By some miracle stroke, they’re both left alone long enough for Cleo to pull herself together, and then, to the sound of distant fireworks and sirens, they escape Etho’s attic, laughing.

Together they really are going to be so annoyingly unstoppable.

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it would be a CRIME for me to not add hana hyperfixates here. fucking masterpeice (all one video)

big fan of when youtubers break out the corkboard and string. thats when you know youre in for an insanely pointless breakdown of a media you're only tangentially familiar with.

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A quick recap, since we… learned a few things?

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eefo and his mcci cosmetics lol (frog and coffee mug !!)

kind of an older drawing but i think it looks cute so why not post !!!

i love him sm

also i tried out a shorter hair design for him here

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bro said he couldn't stop thinking about cogs all week. he said he likes massive cogs so i put him between a bunch of them.

btw yeah something possessed me to draw this last week and then it went away. but heyyy mumbo is still talking about cogs all the way so it's still relevant.

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Doc isn't sure what's more surprising in the moment.

That Skizz is sitting on a (stolen, from HIS shop-!) shulker box, that he's smoking, or that for the first time in- well, at least since he's come to the server- both mangled gray wings are on display, shifting ever so slightly with the breeze.

"Hey, Doc." Skizz says absently when the Goat lands. "How you doin'?"

"Better than you if Impulse catches you," Doc says."You, sir, are meant to have quit."

Skizz snorts, takes another long, professional drag and says, through the smoke like a dragon, "Impulse is thirty million blocks away, Doc."

A pause.

"Good fucking place for him." Skizz whispers. "You should get, Doc. While the getting's good."

"What are you doing out here?" Doc asks. He'd been exploring the area, moving beyond the world border and its Exile, and he'd found the little desert BECAUSE of the spot of color that was Skizz, settled on the edge on a sandstone outcropping. He's facing New Hermiton, or would be if the settlement was in the proper render distance.

"Watching. Bearing witness, maybe." Another drag. "Ren built Sal a shrine."

Doc blinks. He remembers seeing the giant salmon, the floating heads.

"Oh." He says. "Oh no."

Skizz laughs and it's unlike any laugh Doc has heard from their witty, wise angel. It is broken glass ground over a concrete floor. It is full of blood and phlegm. It is the softest step in a ruin you are supposed to be alone in.

"It'll take a bit for him to figure out land travel. Sun'll slow him down, so will the lack of water. If Jevin slimes him up maybe he'll make the edge of the sand."

"And if he does?" Doc asks carefully. His cyborg arm tingles.

Skizz shrugs. "I've killed a God before, Doc." His wings twitch in unison. "Who knows, maybe it'll be easier the second time around. Worst case I slow him down down enough for X to pull the trigger."

If he can, is unsaid. If Jevin's faith alone is not enough fuel to save a God from a Command.

"Skizz," Doc says, "Are you SURE?"

In response Skizz grinds out the last of the cigarette, pulls a new one from a pocket, crumbled. He lights it with a sliver of magma charge balanced on a split thumbnail. He takes another deep drag.

"It's only a matter of time now, Doc." Skizz says, the ember catching the back of his eyes as the sun sinks, lighting them up a vibrant near-resin orange. "Only a matter of time."

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Isthmus Amadeus Jevin- who had spent most of his life lackadaisically avoiding any greater destiny which might perhaps be attached to such a name- sits on a block of diamond in the center of a vast patch of salmon carcasses in what once was a desert.

It is not a pretty sight to see or to smell, and if Jevin had a real nose at the moment he'd probably have a lot to say about that but that's the beauty of being a slime; noses (and most other body parts) are optional.

There is the small problem of matter, though, which cannot be created or destroyed but which can be scooped up into buckets by a fallen angel who calls, "I got it!" and comes trotting back through the fishy carnage, stopping in front of Jevin. "Pretty sure this is the last of you, bud. Hold still."

Jevin does as he's ordered, remaining still as Skizz- who is covered head to toe in fish guts, ichor, and blood- sets up both the bucket he has brought over, full of a suspiciously familiar jiggling blue substance, and a bucket of fresh water from his inventory.

He first pours a measure of water into the blue substance, which soaks it up like a jelly sponge. Then he wets a rag and wrings it out over the stump of Jevin's shoulder before lifting the bucket of blue goo and pouring it down.

It slurps and schlorps and forms an arm, which is immediately encased in the ABSOLUTELY-seen-better-days diamond armor that had been previously held inside of Jevin's body.

"There. All in one piece again." Skizz says, beginning to rifle through the plain shulker next to Jevin's diamond block, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and a hankerchief holding crumbled magma charge slivers. "Don't suppose you smoke?"

"You're not supposed to, right?" Jevin asks. His voice sounds strange in his own ears.

"I mean no," Skizz says, "but I'm in Exile. No rules, remember?"

He lights up, pulls in a lungful of smoke, says, "So. Welcome to the club."

"The club?"

"The shittiest club in the multiverse. S'got a real elite membership, you should be proud. Not the first slime, though, sorry. Charlie beat you by a couple years."

Jevin blinks at Skizz and then at the mess all around them.

"Why am I so calm?" He asks.

"Eh, it'll take some time to hit you." Skizz says. "When it does it's- gonna be bad. And there's nothing I can do about that. I'm sorry."

"He just wanted to make things better," Jevin says. "that's all."

Skizz sighs. "That's all they ever want to do, Jev. It's not their fault. It would be like- like faulting a gravel block for falling, or a block of TNT for exploding. A God's a simple thing. The problem is they want the world to be simple too, and no world is simple enough for a newborn God."

"He didn't deserve it," Jevin says suddenly, and he has no water to waste but he can feel his eyes welling up and he almost gets rid of them but then Skizz is hugging him tight and as all the jelly of his body tenses to allow the contact Skizz says, "I know, buddy. I know."

Skizz is hoarse and he's crying too and Jevin remembers that it's okay to feel things around Skizz, because Skizz is Different in a way that Jevin thought he understood when he and all the other Hermits agreed to let him join but is only now really able to quantify.

Jevin cries for Sal, and sitting in the remnants of that same God's first and last rampage Skizz lets him.

Jevin is feeling wrung out and too dry when he's done. The sun is low in the sky and Skizz reluctantly leaves him to stick some torches around the area, pushing aside dead fish with his feet to find purchase.

When Skizz comes back he returns to the water bucket, and quietly wets another cloth before he starts washing Jevin's face like a father would a child, letting the water absorb into him.

"What was yours named?" Jevin asks suddenly, caught with a horrible need to know, to question the one thing Impulse had told them all they weren't allowed to bring up.

No one asks Skizz why he is a Fallen Angel.

No one asks Skizz about being a God Slayer.

Ever.

Got it?

Skizz settles back down on his shulker.

"You're going to laugh." He says.

"Maybe."

"Dugan."

"Dugan?"

"Dugan. God of Lesser Things." Skizz watches the sun set, listens to Jevin continue wringing the wet cloth out to get his liquids back. "That was my job. Look after the small things, Skizznyal. All the little ones, the weak ones. Look after the rabbits and the fireflies, the newborn and the late. I didn't even know I was doing it until he was sapient. I molded him out of clouds- the clouds on my world were handy that way."

Skizz sucks in a breath. "A few other angels, they thought it was neat, making a God with no schematic. My direct boss gave me a reward for it. Only then the Big Boss decided it was time for the annual wipeout."

He smiles bleakly. "You wanna know how many lesser things die in a Flood?"

Jevin winces.

"You build a God off a client specification there's rules. There's a contract and cascading plans. No one had a plan for an untethered God. I tried to talk him down. Tried to explain that looking after Lesser Things means sometimes seeing them off."

A pause.

"He didn't like that. So, to make a long story very, very short, I got into a grappling contest with a living shard of my own belief, got a few angels killed, got an entire section of the server so polluted it's probably still cordoned off and got myself fired. Basically in that order."

Jevin frowns. "Wait. Killing Dugan didn't..?" he gives a little shoulder shimmy.

Skizz laughs. Like the laugh Doc had heard about forty eight hours prior, there is no humor in it. "Angels don't Fall for killing lesser Gods. They fall for making a mess no one else wants to clean up."

Jevin is quiet. What can he say?

They sit and watch the moon move for an hour or two before he says, "I can't even make him a grave, can I?"

"You are his grave now, Jev." Skizz says.

Jevin knows he's right.

-

Part 1 of this mess

Part 2

A/N: so what the fuck was up with all that, huh?

Wish I knew! : D

No I did NOT look up any official Ijevin lore nor do I plan to at least not for this short series you get what I wrote them's the breaks

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So simple

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One must imagine Evil X and Xisuma being at peace with each other :)

Happy birthday to Evil X my favourite most tragic april fools character <3

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I wonder if he would be interested in joining the Evil Empire…

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Imagine how many shops I could steal from!