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votederpycausemufins · 1 year ago

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We're back with another chapter of Surprisingly Familiar. And I'm posting on here first rather than Ao3 bc it is not loading :')

The first two sections had a lot of backstory, so i tried to have less of that in the last section.

“Try it again. You’re making the curve too round.”

“I’m trying!” Grian huffed as he traced a small spiral in the air. “Can’t we just go back to the easier stuff?”

Grifter had called Grian over for some more magic training. Unlike before, where it had just been along the lines of using magic to do basic spells that anyone with magic could do, he was now insisting Grian work on using magic more specific to Listeners. Apparently it meant drawing the sigil of the Listeners with magic. Something that was apparently very particular.

“Sorry, but no. One of my friends has been looking into your situation. He thinks we can get you back to your time, but that there’s a bit of a time limit on that.”

“What?” Grian stopped to look over at Grifter. “Like, there’s a certain time that it can be done, or what?”

“Like, if you stay in this time too long, eventually you will never be able to get back to your time at all. I’m not going to try and go through all the ‘temporal explanations’ because I don’t really understand it all myself. But he was connected with Evo, so he knows some time stuff.”

Grian nodded a little at that. If it was another Listener who had worked with that world, then they would know about messing with time. Probably. Grifter had mentioned what it was about at one point forgetting that Grian didn’t remember that world.

“From what I can tell, the longer you’re out of your time, the more you connect with this time. Technically there’s always actually having you travel back to the past and then reconnecting, but then it becomes a lot more difficult. There’s a report of some people who had actually made a time machine that tried to just take it back an hour or so, but instead sent themselves back to before the Watchers and Listeners even existed as groups.”

“They… they did?” Grian nervously asked. If that was how bad it could go, then maybe Grifter was right to worry about taking too long.

“Yeah. They eventually got back, but dismantled the machine not long later, as they should have. Essentially, as long as the world still thinks you’re from whatever time, most methods can use you as a focus point. Because something most people don’t consider is that you can’t just travel in time. If you went back even a minute, well, the world moves along in the universe over time. Unless you can tell me the exact moment you got sent here, it would take a lot more work to figure out.”

“Well, I was asleep when it happened, so I can’t help there.” Grian replied, trying not to sound angry at Grifter, but he was frustrated at the situation.

“Exactly. So, if you want the chance to hop back in time and use magic to save Taurtis, we need to kinda rush through training.”

Grian sighed before looking back to where he was working. “Can we at least take a small break first? It’s a lot more exhausting.” Out from the ground stood two spikes of bedrock. Each one was from managing to successfully draw the sigil. While it took a lot of energy, it seemed to be from boosting Grian’s magic, his magic’s color shifting from purple to green.

“Hmm, alright fine. It won’t work well to hurt yourself.” As soon as the words were out of Grifter’s mouth, Grian flopped onto the ground to rest. He had his eyes closed, something Grifter was happy about so that his frown wouldn’t be seen.

Grifter had gone back to try and get some more help with the Grian situation, only to find that a certain someone had figured out how to get into Hermitcraft. That, along with the group of Hermits that were trying to get into this world- well, half hermits, half family, which made it even worse- certain plans needed to be sped along. Lying about Grian potentially getting stuck in this time was just one way to help move things along. Plus, Grian wasn’t actually from the past, so he couldn’t get sent back home. So it would be easy enough to claim something or other had delayed them just long enough that now the easy way was gone. It would probably be best to try and frame it as being Astrid or Flora’s doing. Sure, Grifter adored Flora, but she was getting far too close to Grian, so if he had to throw her under the bus to make sure he could finish this plan, he would.

“Hey Grifter?” Grifter looked up to where Grian was lying, glad to see his eyes still closed. “Is it okay if I hang around the castle for a bit once we’re done here?”

“Of course. It’s technically your castle as well. Any reason why?”

“Flora and Astrid are busy.” Grian lied, badly enough that Grifter could tell.

“Sure they are. What’s really going on?”

Grian hesitated before answering. He could tell the truth, at least part of it, but either way, it wasn’t great. “It’s just… uh…” He tried to wrack his brain for something to say that wasn’t exactly a lie, but wasn’t a truth either. “I saw some of Flora’s family. And their grandmother tried getting close. She… she looks a lot like what I remember from Mum, but at the same time not. And I don’t like that I can remember more of someone that isn’t Mum rather than Mum herself.”

“Ah, yeah I can see how that’s hard to deal with. So I guess they’re spending more time there?” Grifter asked, not looking further into Grian’s answer. Grian gave a small shrug, not really saying no, but also not saying yes.

“I don’t know. I guess I’ve also just been around you a lot, and then around Flora and Astrid, but I haven’t really been near the people who are going to be my husband and kids.”

Grifter couldn’t help but light up at that. Unlike Flora and Astrid, Sense and their boys knew exactly what was going on and could help steer Grian in the ‘right’ direction. ��Oh well that is a very easy fix! I’m not sure about the boys, but Sense is probably just busy with redstone and needs a break.”

“So, I could spend some time with him?” Grian asked, getting a nod from Grifter before getting taken away to see the redstoner. It took a little bit of hunting before the pair finally found him working in the castle, indeed doing some redstone engineering. He didn’t notice them immediately, too entranced in his work, but eventually Grifter snuck over and grabbed Sense, making him jump at first before giving a small laugh when seeing who it was.

“To what do I owe this surprise?” Sense asked after noticing that Grifter wasn’t alone and had brought Grian along.

“Well Grian brought up the fact that you two haven’t gotten to interact much, so I figured you two need some one on one time!” Grifter explained, and Grian was surprised when Sense’s smile actually fell. For a moment, he seemed almost scared before it morphed into simply just surprise.

“I uh, I thought you two would want to interact more yourselves?” Sense offered, looking between the two avians again. “Or perhaps all three of us? Or what about the boys?”

“The boys are busy with their own things right now and if I’m not training Grian with magic, I’ve got admin duties to deal with. The regular stuff is already enough but the added bits for helping Grian have made things almost overwhelming, so the backlog piles up when I work with him.”

Grian felt a little guilty at Grifter’s explanation. It was probably that Sense was upset that all Grifter’s free time was being spent helping him and not with Sense. And now he needed to spend that time with a younger version of Grifter that didn’t know him as well. “I don’t have to if he doesn’t want-”

“Oh nonsense! Seesee will be perfectly fine, right?” Grifter asked Sense. “But if he doesn’t think so, I’m sure I can convince him.” And Grifter leaned in to whisper something into Sense’s ear. After a moment, Sense nodded and Grifter smiled. “Well that settles it! You two have fun! Bye!”

Grifter left in a blur after giving Sense a quick kiss, leaving only a feather or two behind with Grian and Sense, having them stand there awkwardly for a number of moments before either of them moved, that being the redstoner getting back to his work. At least until Grian stopped him again.

“Uh, what exactly are you working on? If you don’t mind me asking?”

“I do mind, actually.” Sense replied before pulling away to go back to work. “I’m sure Gri will be too busy to notice if you stick around or not, so you’re free to leave.”

“I’d rather stick around.” Grian spoke up, not even asking if Sense minded this time. “And Grifter mentioned you should take a break from whatever you’re doing, and you know, he’s me, and either way, I think you should too.”

There was a pause before Sense said anything more. “I’d rather not.”

“Please? Just for a little bit?” Grian pleaded, then paused before asking a question. “Do you not want to be around me because of the chance I’ll change the past?” When Sense didn’t reply, Grian continued. “Look, I’m not going to lie, I am going to try and save Taurtis no matter what, but that doesn’t mean I can’t make sure I find you too. Honestly I’d love it if we were able to boot Sam out once and for all and you could be there instead.”

“Is that so?” Sense asked, which pulled a smile from Grian.

“Oh yeah of course. I’m sure you’ve heard plenty about him from Grifter, but he was a giant asshole, still technically is for me, but hopefully I won’t have to deal with him too much longer. And I could maybe also make sure to have you around if I knew what you were doing back then.”

For a moment, Sense actually considered the possibility before remembering how it was just impossible outright. Grian wasn’t really from the past, so he couldn’t go back and change anything. But Grian wasn’t supposed to know that, so he had to play along. After thinking it over a few moments, Sense huffed and pulled himself out of his machine, wiping redstone dust onto his pants before walking towards where he had left his dress shirt and suit jacket. An action that made Grian realize the redstoner was only wearing a tank top above the waist. While he was still covered, Grian averted his eyes anyway for decency, at least until he could see Sense finish buttoning his shirt out of the corner of his eye.

After Sense pulled his jacket on, he went for his tie before realizing it had been caught by his machine at some point and had been shredded up. “Ugh, great. Do you mind if we head to our, er rather, my room so I can grab another tie?”

“Nah, it’s fine.” Grian shrugged before starting to follow behind Sense. “Sorry about that one.”

“It’s not like you could have stopped it from getting destroyed.” Sense waved Grian’s comment off. “And Grifter wouldn’t have repaired it anyway.”

“Really? Why not?”

“He’d prefer me to cycle through my whole collection. I just find it easier to stick with one and our ways of organizing them are different. The last time I went through wearing ties, I found Gri with ties strewn about the room, arguing that patterns shouldn’t be sorted with colors unless the patterns were the same color or whatever.”

“Well I’ll try not to freak out over your tie sorting.” Grian said, crossing his fingers that whatever he was about to see wouldn’t be such a visual travesty.

When the pair reached Grifter and Sense’s bedroom, Grian was reminded of when he had first woken up there. Well, other than the fact that it looked a bit more messy than it had however many days ago. He wasn’t sure if it was due to Grifter being so busy, or if this was how it normally looked and they had just made it look nicer for Grian. Honestly he could see it going either way.

Sense went over to a pair of folding doors and slid them open, revealing the mass of ties hanging inside. For the most part, they were indeed sorted by color, but Grian’s eyes immediately caught on a few ties that looked like they were out of place. As Sense thumbed through the ties in the cooler section of colors, Grian pulled out a tie covered in blue and purple patterns, though the base of the tie itself was a red color. After putting it back, he found what seemed to be an orange tie covered in multicolored flowers that also made it look out of place grouped with other normal orange ties.

As Grian continued to look over the ties, Sense finally picked out another generic looking blue tie, putting it on. As he started to try and close the closet doors again, Grian stopped him, instead pulling out a tie that was a dark green, one that reminded Grian of the magic Grifter used. “Here, why don’t you wear this one instead?”

“I’d rather not.” Sense said after looking at the cloth, pushing it back towards Grian. “I’m perfectly fine with the one I’ve got.”

“But you were just wearing blue!” Grian complained, pulling the tie Sense had on away, finding it easy since he hadn’t managed to actually tie it yet. “You’ve got so many colors here! Wear something else!”

“I prefer blue.” Sense argued, pulling a different one from that colored section. “Blacks and whites are too bland and I like a little splash of color, and Grifter isn’t a fan of me wearing purple, so we agree on blue.”

“What? What about all the other colors?” Grian asked, gesturing especially to the gradient of pinks all the way to greens and even dipping into cyans. “Even a light blue might be nice.”

“I have my reasons for not wearing those other colors as well.” Sense said, attempting to close the closet again, but being stopped by Grian forcing them to stay open, shocking Sense by the fact that it was through magic.

“Then how about you tell me and then I can choose one for you that you might like that isn’t boring.”

Sense glared Grian down before relenting and sitting on the bed. Grian smiled at the action before turning back to the closet and going through the ties. “So I assume greys fall under the same category as blacks and whites.”

“Of course.”

“Okay, What about browns? I don’t see many of those?” Grian looked back over to Sense, wanting to hear about that.

“Leather ties aren’t exactly comfortable to wear.” Sense began to answer. “And I just don’t tend to get many gifts of brown cloth ties. It’s either something colorful or greyscale to be ‘classy’.”

“Well, red ties could be classy too.” Grian lightly argued, pulling out one that matched his feathers.

“Well red is a difficulty for me.” Sense argued. “Not only am I told it clashes with my eyes, but cleaning redstone from it is a pain. Not to mention the fact that my… other self tends to use that color.”

Grian looked up. “You mean like how with Grifter and me and-” Grian hesitated, not recalling off the top of his head what Sense knew about Grifter.

“How you’re from Wels, yes.” Sense agreed. “The two of us have interacted in the past, so I prefer to make sure we don’t overlap, so I don’t wear red.”

“Well how about pink?” Grian asked. “It’s different enough from red, right?”

“A certain someone I hate very much is fond of pink and I will never get over that fact.” Sense crossed his arms. “Potentially, pink would be fine otherwise, but I would burn those things if Gri wouldn’t get upset over it.”

“Okay, good to know.” Grian quickly pushed the pinks away along with the reds. “Orange?”

“Too close to red and yellow and I don’t use either of those.”

“Oh. Wait, why not yellow?” There was silence to Grian’s question, making him look over at Sense and ask again. “Why don’t you wear yellow? It’s… not because of me, right?” Grian’s feathers ruffled, remembering the amount of times that Sam plucked his yellow feathers because he wanted them for himself, since ‘Taurtis is always wearing blue and gets some of your blue feathers, I want some yellow ones!’. The memory made Grian shudder before he remembered where he was. “If I- if Grifter gets upset-”

“He doesn’t get upset if I wear yellow.” Sense finally spoke up, though he was staring at the ground. “I will not wear yellow. I can’t. There’s-” He cut himself off as his voice caught in his throat. “I used to, but then things happened. So I don’t anymore.”

“Can I ask what happened?” Grian asked softly, pushing the ties back in place. He couldn’t help himself when he sorted a green tie out from the yellows and into the dark greens. He needed to do some sorting to help scratch that itch he felt looking at the mess. But after he put it in its new spot, Grian pulled his hands away from the gray tie and grabbed a light blue one before handing it to Sense and closing the closet.

Sense took the tie and put it on, waiting until he had tightened it around his neck to say anything more. “Well, I guess you did already ask about my past. Probably around the time you’re from, I ended up in a… situation.” Grian could tell that it was something Sense didn’t want to fully elaborate on, so he wasn’t going to pry on what the situation was exactly. “I ended up with someone who… he wasn’t quite as bad as Sam I wouldn’t think, but it was a similar problematic friendship.”

“That’s… not great. I’m guessing they’re the reason you don’t like yellow?”

“Sort of. I just… remember an argument we had where for reasons I won’t specify-” Sense immediately clarified, making Grian nod that he wouldn’t ask about those reasons. “-that the fact that I was wearing a yellow tie at the time was actually a large part of that argument. I know that sounds idiotic without the context but-”

“Me hating rabbits sounds idiotic without context. I’m sure a lot of things can sound idiotic or bad or whatever without context. But that made you swear off yellow?”

“Uh, no actually.” Sense continued. “Not entirely. I-” He paused again, a quick laugh escaping before he said more. “I’m not sure what it is, but I’ve lost a lot of the people close to me when yellow has been involved.”

That caught Grian off guard. “Wait, really? That seems weird.”

“Well, there was of course the argument I had with… my ex friend. But after him, I still wore yellow ties for a while. It’s part of why I have so many, even compared to my large amount of blues.”

Grian had to admit, there were a large amount of yellow ties when he had looked. He figured part of it was because if Sense wore mostly blue, those tended to get destroyed one way or another, so there weren’t quite as many as he would have ever owned. “But then something happened again?”

“My father liked yellow as well.” And despite the fondness in Sense’s voice, a chill ran through Grian as he immediately realized the mention of losing people and referring to his dad in the past tense meant that they were dead. “I liked the idea of matching him and I was even gifted a number of ties from him. But because of that, I couldn’t stand to see myself in that color anymore because it just made me think of him. And how I still never managed to do anything about it.”

“How did he die?” Grian asked, not expecting an answer since it seemed Sense was torn up enough talking about it vaguely. But he was surprised to actually get an answer.

“He was murdered.” Sense answered, venom in his tone from how angry he was now, any sadness completely gone. “And unlike the others, he wasn’t brought back since that would oust our new ‘admin’. Not like this wasn’t our third one anyway. And I couldn’t do anything against that hack and his stupid obsession with trying to destroy his brother’s server. Not to mention the fact that he’s apparently coming here.” And then the angry frown curled into a smile. “Well, this isn’t Helscraft anymore, Grifter’s the admin. And you’re not going to be the only hacker around this time.”

“Uh, what do you mean?” Grian asked, making Sense look up and shake his head, having gotten completely lost in his own thoughts.

“Oh, nothing. Just, apparently Gri and I’s old admin isn’t happy about us being here. To the point he’s even involved his brother and a number of wels to try and mess with us. Not to mention bringing along my other self.”

“Really? That’s not great, is it?”

Sense huffed. “Well, if Grifter can’t handle it, it won’t be, but I’m sure he’ll be able to.”

Grian patted Sense’s shoulder comfortingly before the redstoner pulled him into a hug. Grian almost pulled away, but then hugged back. Right now, it seemed like Sense needed it, and he didn’t want to take that away from him. And as they stood there, hugging one another, it hid as the light blue tie seemed to dull as a grayish purple started to coat it instead.

Everyone was just sort of standing around, not sure how to react to what they had just seen. After the jungle had faded away, half the group rushed to check on the other half. Mumbo had quickly gone to look at Grum while Phil and Techno were worried about Wilbur. Paul went to help Doc recover from the whiplash of getting his cybernetics back while also dealing with his heightened hybrid instincts, and finally Xisuma went to go to Tommy’s side.

What had thrown everyone off was Tommy flinching at Xisuma, but not from his reaction to Xisuma but rather Xisuma himself. X found himself dressed in armor that wasn’t his bee themed set, nor his regular set of green. Instead, he was dressed in a gray while standing to the side of the group was the familiar armor he normally wore, but currently being worn by Evil X.

The confusion wasn’t helped as the moment Xisuma called to his brother, they had unfrozen from whatever shock they had been in, running off across the end islands the group had found themselves on. Which left them to their present situation, at least until Phil finally pointed out that they would need to gather blocks to follow Xannes, since he was the only one of their group who could fly.

Doc was helped to sit down, not currently able to help out, but after that, everyone started to work on mining, save for Xisuma, who was staring off in the direction Evil X had gone, and Tommy, who went to Xisuma’s side. “Are… are you okay?”

“I should be asking you the same question.” Xisuma replied, not taking his eyes off the horizon. “You’re not injured from anything that was in the jungle, right?”

“Yeah. I mean, I don’t really remember much after I got separated from you guys. I think I got knocked out pretty quickly. Uh, should we assume this is him going through it now?”

Finally Xisuma looked away and down at Tommy. “I’m.. not sure. I think if it’s not, it’s something of mine that he doesn’t like.”

Tommy glanced towards where he had last seen Xannes in the distance. “Why was he wearing your armor? Mumbo said that was yours, right? Is it because you two are clones?”

Xisuma looked shocked before looking at Tommy again. “What? Clones? Who said we were clones?”

“NPG mentioned he was your clone or something. Cuz Mumbo didn’t know if you were siblings or he was a clone or what.”

“He’s my twin brother, not a clone.” Xisuma clarified. “I suppose it’s because the two of us look so much similar as opposed to…” the admin trailed off as he looked towards where Wilbur and Techno were, Tommy following his gaze and knowing what he meant. “I believe it’s probably because we have matching scars as well.”

Tommy looked back to Xisuma, realizing he couldn’t see through the visor of X’s current helmet to see the scars he knew were present underneath. It was a set of four claw marks that sliced over Xisuma’s face, going over his left eye in a way that impressed Tommy with the fact that the eye itself seemed unharmed.

“I think I remember you mentioning you got them from a dragon?” Tommy asked. Xisuma had shown off the scars to him back when he was still relatively new to Hermitcraft, trying to find ways to connect with Tommy. He had also given a summary of how he got them to Tommy, but he hadn’t really cared at the time.

“Yes, an Ender Dragon. I had managed to bring one into where our family lived and it attacked, leaving Xannes and I with our scars.”

“You think this might be about that?” Tommy asked, vaguely remembering the story a little better now that Xisuma had given the summary again. “I know you lived in the end, but the dragon’s there and now we’re there.”

“I… If it’s for me, potentially” Xisuma admitted after some hesitation. “Evil X liked to taunt me with it. There was one time where he brought in dragons to try and destroy Hermitcraft.”

Tommy shrugged. “I mean, I honestly was worried that we’d end up in a destroyed Hermitcraft at some point, either from you or me. The fact that this is just the boring ass end is pretty good in my books. And one dragon versus all of us looks pretty good in our favor!”

The wince Xisuma gave was hidden behind his helmet. While he knew Tommy was trying to help reassure him, X was also worried about Xannes being on his own and potentially ending up on the other side of whatever they might be fighting. He almost said something about it too, but then the pair of them were called over to help with bridging in Evil X’s direction to try and catch up, and to also talk about what situation they were probably in.

“So, why is he wearing your armor?” Grum asked as they were halfway across a void gap between the islands. No one was completely sure if the void was really there, but no one was fully eager to find out. “And why are you wearing that instead?”

“Well uh, that’s a really long story.” Xisuma replied, his feeble attempt to avoid the topic pretty obvious to the others.

“C’mon X, everyone’s bearing their truths to the world, it’s your turn now, innit?” Tommy asked, lightly elbowing Xisuma.

“Well, I suppose the simple answer is that armor used to… belong to him.”

“Seriously?” Mumbo asked, turning around in shock and having Paul barely grab him in time to keep him from falling off the bridge. “It was his? I can hardly believe him ever wearing anything other than red. Even with all your different armors, he’s kept the same style.”

“Since Hermitcraft, yes, but that wasn’t the case in the past.” Xisuma hesitated before saying anything more, enough that Tommy tried taking back his previous statement, saying the admin didn’t need to actually say anything. “No, you’re right. Especially because I think I know what this is all about.”

“This isn’t about when you banned him that one time, right?” Tommy asked, since he had already heard the story not too long ago. “I could just tell them if you don’t want to.”

“It’s something different.” X stepped onto the next island they reached, turning back towards the group. “As you know, Xannes and I are voidwalkers. That’s essentially the term for End based humans similar to netherborn, aetherkind, and if you want to be specific about it, terrans.”

“Which is what most of us are.” Phil said, gesturing to the group. “Not sure if he counts though.” And that time he pointed to Grumbot.

“I am Robots Georg, an outlier that should not be counted.”

“I’ll pretend I know what that means. Anyway, you were saying X?”

“Well, despite the name, voidwalkers can get what is known as void poisoning. Similar to how despite being in a dimension filled with water, you can still drown, and even netherborns can be susceptible to lava and fire in the right conditions. Some more than others, I know Tango constantly forgets his limits, not to mention-”

“We get the picture.” Techno cut Xisuma off. “Your point?”

“The last time Xannes and I were in these respective armors, there was… an incident.”

“What are you even doing with your life? The family business? You never cared about that before!”

“I care about it now, isn’t that enough? It’s not like you’re taking it up, so someone has to.”

“I’m doing something better! Something our parents can be proud of.”

“You know, you don’t get it, do you? What you do doesn’t matter to them.”

“And I’m sure you know that sooo well, huh? You’re just trying to kiss up to them by taking an interest in what our family has done for generations, huh?”

“Well I’ve been getting good at it, Starting out in the overworld is a little pain but-”

“What, can’t handle a little bit of sunlight or something? Or maybe you can’t stand wearing that suit, huh? Wish you were home where you could be out of that stuffy thing? Just lounging around in bed being a good for nothing waste of space?”

“You take that back!”

“Why should I? Isn’t that all you are?”

“I’m not! It’s not like you’ve been around, I’ve been putting plenty of work in.”

“Sure you have. So much compared to me, right? Except I’ve actually been busy. The reason I haven’t been around is because of all the work I’ve had to do. All the training I’ve had to do.”

“Stop it, you’re pushing me too close to the-”

“And once I’m done, I’ll be able to do just what you can but even better. It’ll be simple and easy. All I need to do is pop in a few commands-”

“-Look we might-”

“-pop into the End and just-”

“Xisuma!”

“Wh- You?!” Tommy looked shocked, realizing that Xisuma was being the jerk in the story, not Xannes.

“Yeah, I agree with Tommy. “ Doc spoke up. “Sure, you did a lot of pranks back in the day, especially with Biffa, but that sounded kinda cruel. You sure you’re not embellishing it to sound worse than it was?”

Xisuma winced. “No, I was an asshole back then, no way around it. I… our parents seemed to constantly put me above him to the point it got to my head. Both in the idea that I was better than him, but also that I could just keep being at the top of whatever I was doing. Around that time was when I first looked into admin classes. Suddenly there were people better than me and… well I took it the wrong way at first. I was so used to our parents putting Xannes down that… I came back to do the same.”

“Wow… yeah you were an asshole.” Tommy agreed. “How the fuck did you manage to come out of it like this?” And Tommy gestured to all of Xisuma.

“Well, for one I ended up dropping out of the class and didn’t again until after Hermitcraft had started and around the time Generik’s residency was starting to look shaky. But the main reason is what happened next.”

“Which was?”

Xisuma sighed. “The two of us both ended up falling, though Xannes managed to keep us from completely falling into the void. We were still stuck on a low outcrop from an End island with no easy way up. Not to mention our suits were damaged.”

“Xannes! Your suit!”

“Huh? Oh, it’s just a tear in the back, no big.”

“The fabric’s almost completely gone! How the hell did you manage that?! Do you have any idea how hard stuff like that is to repair?!”

“Oh, that’s what you’re concerned about… Thanks. Good to know the fabric is so much more important than my well being.”

“Well you’re the one who got us stuck in this mess.”

“Me? You’re the one who pushed us in here. I’ve been living here and could have been just fine with a respawn, but you’ve been away at your fancy school, so it wouldn’t have been as nice for you.”

“Then why not let me fall?”

“I could have. If you want I could still push you in!”

“Then do it!”

“...No. I’m not the only one who had their suit damaged.”

“What are you- my helmet!”

“See, at least I can stitch back together my suit.”

“You mean make Mom do it for you.”

“No I don't. I know how to sew. I learned even without Mother’s help.”

“Calling her that won’t make her dote on you.”

“I know that! Look, can you shut up for just… five minutes. Unless you want the void seeping in faster.”

“We did actually stay there quietly for a while, and at one point they even pulled their suit off to start fixing it. They didn’t exactly have the necessary tools on hand, but that actually made it a little more impressive. I had been worried about them not wearing it though, since there’s a reason we wore them even in the End.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re coughing too much. Take your helmet off so I can see.”

“I said I’m *cough* fine! Don’t touch me! *cough*”

“‘Suma, c’mon, let me look!”

“Fine! Whatev- *cough* -ever.”

“Shit, this is bad.”

“What *cough* do you mean?”

“It’s already black. We still don’t know if anyone’s coming, and if they are, how long it’ll take. If they knew you were back then maybe-”

“So? *cough* They’ll notice you’re gone and *cough cough* come looking. How *cough* long are you usually out?”

“... Take my helmet.”

“What?”

“Put it on you derp! You need it more right now. Unless you want to die.”

“What about *cough* you?”

“I’ll just wear yours to make it take longer. They’ll show up soon enough, so it should last me until then.”

“No one showed up for hours. I’m not sure how long it even took because the two of us passed out before then.” Xisuma finished in a somber tone. “Turns out a near death experience really shakes up how you see things. And apparently my own armor was more damaged than I thought, because at some point Xannes switched ours up to make sure it would stave off the void poisoning for me. And he was right, I recovered fairly quickly, but he didn’t.”

“But I mean, he’s alright now, right?”

“I guess.” Xisuma answered, though he didn’t sound sure. “It was after that that they started being a bit more angry and violent towards me.”

“And a side effect of void poisoning is a sort of… unpredictable blind rage, right?” Paul asked. “The void causes a weird decay in the mind, similar to what zombifies creatures, but practically irreversible.”

“Right. And so I just wonder if maybe his current situation is my fault. If I hadn’t started that argument-”

“Well it sounds like your parents were jerks too!” Tommy said, cutting Xisuma off and making Phil wince. “If they hadn’t treated you like a perfect golden child and him as a scum of the… End, black sheep, then it wouldn’t have happened, right?”

“Well, yes, but-”

“Tommy’s right.” Techno spoke up this time. “And look, I’m not trying to use it as an excuse for any of us, but sometimes the actions we take are influenced by others in a way that the blame can be placed on them. It depends on the actions themselves, but in this case it doesn't seem like your fault.”

“The Wither were totally yours though.”

“And I said I’m not using it as an excuse.”

“How about we stop talking and just find Evil X!” Grumbot practically shouted, pointing off into the distance. “There’s lots of lightning that way! So they must be there! Let’s go!”

“So, that was your dad, huh?” Jrum spoke up as the block he was trying to lift with magic fell back down the pixel or so he had managed.

“Yep! That’s Papa! He’s really really really nice and I love him lots and lots!” Vee replied with the biggest smile on her face. “He adopted me, and then my sister, and so now the three of us are a big happy family! Well, maybe not big, but definitely happy!”

Jrum couldn’t help but roll his eyes. Vee at the very least seemed innocent enough, or maybe the better word was oblivious. Her dad had been working with Grifter and somehow hadn’t realized that something was wrong with Grian. Or, well, it sounded like he did know, but completely trusted Grifter with any lies he told. But that was what Vee was saying, and she had also fallen for Grifter’s lies, so who knew, maybe her dad wasn’t lied to, but both he and Grifter were lying to her.

And then there was her sister, which made Jrum more sure that they were all just lying to Vee. He remembered that comm call. He knew the voice on the other end. It sounded like his dad, but simultaneously not. It had to be Grifter then, right? Vee had even said it was Grifter. And he was there through Vee’s sister’s comm. The same sister that was apparently dating Grifter’s niece. They all had a connection to Grifter, so there was no way none of them knew what was going on.

“Ooo! Lookit! You’re doing it really well!” Vee exclaimed, making Jrum realize he had moved the block up a full meter this time. He was a little surprised by that, since he hadn’t even been paying attention to what he was doing, and now that he was focusing on the block, it fell once more. “Aww, don’t worry! You’re doing really really well!”

“Whatever.” Jrum huffed. “You know, you keep bringing up that your dad adopted you and your sister, right? And in that one meeting you mentioned that she had a brother that sucked?”

Vee’s smile disappeared. “Yeah… he was really really bad.”

“Mind telling me?” Jrum asked. They had figured out who Flora or Fleur was supposed to be, but Astrid was still a little up in the air, and since she was around Grifter and maybe also around Grian, it was important to know about her too.

“Um, well…” Vee hesitated, kicking at the ground. “Nightmare was-”

Vee didn’t get a chance to continue, Jrum immediately recognizing the name. “Nightmare?! Her brother is him?!”

“Y-You know him?”

“Know him?! It’s because of him that my brother got kidnapped by Tommy’s stupid hels! And then it turned into a whole mess with Grifter getting involved and hurting my family! And then Grifter came back and made everything worse!”

“Eep!” Vee yelped, and Jrum looked over to her and the spike of bedrock that had appeared from the ground, pointing at her face. Jrum was shocked to see it, looking himself over before looking back up to essentially growl at the spike. Surprisingly, it seemed to react to his growl and disappeared into the ground a moment later. “You g-gotta be careful with that.”

“Yeah… sorry…” Jrum responded, though distracted. Things kept happening when he was angry, so maybe- “How much do emotions affect magic?”

“Uh, a lot?” Vee answered, though she didn’t seem confident with her answer. “Uh, they can help with focusing it. Papa helped me train with music and he said it was because uh… the emotions of the sounds help with how you feel, ‘n then it works as a guide for what you want the magic to do!” That time she started unsure, but slowly got more confident as she spoke, which helped reassure Jrum. Especially when she followed it up with a little magic demonstration of her own.

“So because I keep feeling angry and frustrated, stuff keeps happening for me? Do I just need to be constantly angry?”

“Oh no no no.” Vee quickly waved her hands to stop Jrum. “It’s just stronger stuff makes it react more when you’re new to it! Even sometimes when you’re not new to it cuz Papa has had it happen too. Uh, it’s kinda like when I got scared and then made those boxes.”

Jrum remembered the bedrock that trapped Ren. And then he thought more to his own dad, and the times his magic had acted up when it seemed he was feeling some sort of intense emotion like anger or fear. He could even remember one time when Grian was really happy and that had caused some sudden magic. Jrum almost made a comment about it, but then paused. When he had been trying to eavesdrop on the conversation Phil and Paul had had, way back when the latter had first arrived. He had made a comment about knowing Jrum was listening in to their conversation. He hadn’t known how the man recognised Jrum had hacked his way in, but Paul seemed to know enough magic that if Jrum was using magic instead…

Jrum focused once more on the block in front of him, reaching out and managing to lift it once again. This time he was actually controlling it when it got a block higher, and still when he pushed it left and right before it finally fell on its own, Jrum finding himself a little tired.

“You did it!” Vee exclaimed, jumping up and down before tackling Jrum with a hug. “We should show Papa! Oh wait, he’s busy. I could message Astrid! But she might be busy too. Grifter is-! Grifter is bad, we said that. Uhh… Well I think we should tell someone!”

“Yeah whatever, let me see who’s available.” Jrum rolled his eyes, trying not to smile with how infectious Vee’s joy was. He was easily able to send a message to the world chat, getting an answer not too long later from Joe, who was apparently happy to be available. Jrum thought he would be more involved in whatever important stuff the Hermits were up to, but Jrum also supposed that Vee was already pretty comfortable with him. “Joe says we can meet up with him. Let’s go.”

Vee was bouncing again as they left to meet with the Hermit, finding him a small distance away from the meeting room at what seemed to be a newly set up table and chairs for the three of them to hang out at. “Howdy there you two. I heard you had somethin’ to share?”

Jrum couldn’t get a word out before Vee answered for him. “Jrum’s doing Watcher Magic! Like he could do a little before, but he’s doing a lot better now! He did block moving! C’mon, do it again!” Jrum sighed before moving a new block a bit, though not nearly as much since he was still tired from before, and running over there hadn’t helped him regain any energy.

“I need some redstone.” Jrum panted, surprised when Joe handed some over. “Why do you have-?”

“Well someone pointed out that you might need some since you were doing a lot of work. Well, technically multiple someones, as it was recommended you get somethin’ to eat followed by gettin’ pointed out you tend to eat minerals like redstone, especially since that helps with chargin’ you up.”

“Uh, thanks then.” Jrum ate the redstone before getting some more from Joe, which he put in his inventory to save for later and make sure he didn’t use it all up in one sitting.

“No problem at all.” Then Joe looked towards Vee. “Yes?”

Jrum looked over to Vee as well, finding her fidgeting where she stood. “Um, are you still mad at me?”

“Mad at you? Now what gave you that impression?”

“Well, when you visited me when I was at Stress’ place, you got really upset.”

Jrum saw as it took a moment for Joe to remember what she meant. “Ah, that. Well I’m sorry for makin’ you think I was mad at you. You had just caught me off guard with what you were talkin’ about, and I suppose that surprise came off as anger which you thought was directed at you.”

Jrum was a little taken aback. Joe caught off guard? That never happened. Or well, it could definitely happen, but he had the uncanny ability to always seem to know what was going on when things were serious, like with the current situation. He was a little worried for a second that Joe could be lying, but he didn’t seem to have a single tell that he could have been.

“What had you been talking about?” Jrum asked, looking between the pair.

Vee opened her mouth, seemingly to answer, but was stopped by Joe. “It’s not somethin’ that’s exactly common knowledge. Part of why I was so surprised she knew about it.”

“But Papa said Listeners get to know about it! And shouldn’t Watchers too? And Jrum’s one.”

“And I’d have to agree with you on that part.” Joe replied. “But I believe you mentioned you’re still trainin’, and that seems like the thing to wait ‘til you’re fully fledged to learn about.”

Vee huffed and crossed her arms, slumping in her chair. Jrum looked between her and Joe, now even more confused and wishing he weren’t in the dark about… whatever they were discussing. “Can I at least get some vague clue about what it was?”

“You could, but I believe if you learn a little, you’ll want to know more, so nothin’ at all may be best for you.”

“What if I promise I won’t ask anything else?” Jrum suggested, trying to also give pleading eyes to Joe in hopes he could be convinced. “At least if it has any connection to what happened to Dad?”

“Well, I suppose it does.” Joe started to speak, getting Jrum hopeful. “Alright then. But you’re promising you won’t go lookin’ into it, alright?”

“Yes! I won’t! I’ll just imagine my own answers or whatever!”

“Okay, and Vee, you better not help him along.” Vee nodded, staying silent and even pretending to zip her lips. “We happened to get on the topic due to how Grian ended up messed with due to the mixin’ of magic from he and Grifter. Magic from Watchers and Listeners mixin’ together’s got a special term. And that term comes from when it first happened, specifically on a rather large scale. Despite that, it’s a little bit taboo to talk about the incident itself, and Vee happened to mention somethin’ implyin’ she knew about it more than most.”

“Oh. So like… how Dad talks about stuff when he was younger, and so everyone kinda just says that it’s when he was in highschool, but not any specifics?” Jrum offered as a sort of comparison. Especially since he and Jrum didn’t know as much about that time as the other Hermits did, so it was a similar situation for Jrum himself.

“Now I think that’s a fine comparison.” Joe complimented the bot. “Includin’ the part that he’s probably the one who should be tellin’ you about it. Or someone else older than you.”

“Vee’s older than me.” Jrum pointed out, reminding Joe that he was literally only a year old due to being a robot. “So she could count.”

“Now I’m sure you know that isn’t what I meant.”

“Yeah, I was just joking.” The bot huffed. “I said I wouldn’t ask about it more.”

“Um, mister Joe sir?” Vee carefully spoke up, hiding a little when Joe looked over to her and said she didn’t need to use formalities like that. “Why can’t you just help his dad? Because you’re… a thing I can’t say to Jrum.”

“Hey, I know he used to be Herobrine.” Jrum pointed out before pausing. “Well, I mean he technically still is? He goes by Joe now, but was it just a name thing, or is it a concept or-”

“The nuance of that matter isn’t a highlight of this discussion right now.” Joe said to keep Jrum from overthinking things. “As for your question Vee, despite any connection I have to what you tend to refer to as Hels, my involvement in this situation isn’t one that was ever foreseen as direct involvement. That being said, the situation also isn’t one that everyone is so sure it is.”

“Wait, what do you mean it’s not what we think it is?” Jrum asked. “My dad has been kidnapped and based on what everyone is saying, he’s missing a gigantic chunk of his memory. How is it different from that?”

“Jrum has a point! Why’s it not that? Is it because Grifter is trying something we don’t know about but you do?”

“Grifter’s involvement isn’t exactly what’s causin’ it to be something else. And as far as the Hermits and you are concerned, it is what you think. But there’s plenty of other people involved.”

Both kids looked confused before Vee gasped. “The other Watchers and Listeners! Or at least the Listeners, I don’t think Grifter could lie to the others as easily. But he must’ve done a bunch of lying to them! And… and Astrid and Flora and everyone was with him too! They’re being lied to as well! I need to call Astrid again so she can help!”

“Now slow down. I believe you already did talk to her about that, now didn’t you?”

Vee frowned. “Well, yeah, but now we know more so she needs to know more!”

“Vee’s right.” Jrum agreed. “But also shouldn’t do it yet, because she mentioned something to me.” Joe gestured for Jrum to continue after the bot paused for a moment. “You know how Vee keeps mentioning she and Astrid were adopted? Well, apparently before Astrid got adopted, she lived in the Hels version of Tommy’s server because her brother was the admin. Her brother was Nightmare, Dream’s Hels.”

“Now that is something we didn’t know yet.” Joe conceded. “Vee, you said your sister didn’t get along with her brother when you talked about her at the meeting, right?”

“No, he was really mean! He hurt her and Flora and her whole family and even tried to do it to me once. He was just as mean as my mom was.”

“How much does your dad know about Nightmare?” Joe asked, Vee answering that he probably knew more than she did. “Alright, I’ll need to go back into the meetin’ to tell the Hermits and others about that, you two take some time to rest before you go back into trainin’ alright?”

“That sounds like a good plan to me.” Jrum agreed before standing up, stretching, and then starting to go towards a nether portal. “If you need us, we’ll be at Daddy’s base. Dad’s portal is too dangerous.”

“Perfectly good reasoning.” Joe nodded, waving just before the two were whisked away by magic into the Nether.

“Uh, Jrum?” Vee asked shortly after they had stepped out of the portal and into the hub. “Did it seem like he knew more about what’s going on than he said?”

“Huh? Oh, well, Joe is always like that. I think it’s a mix of him being so old, being a poet writer whatever, being a Hermit, and probably five other things.” Jrum shrugged. “Plus, he probably does but doesn’t want to tell us just yet because they want to know more about it themselves, or because we’re younger. Or heck, maybe even both at the same time.”

“Huh. Okay I guess that makes sense.”

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