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[arthropod-concoctions]

And here's a treat i wrote for @oshawottarchive, inspired by @greenix' fantastic artwork "The statue queen and her knight!" very happy i managed to finish this one in time for the @mcytrecursive exchange.

Rating: Not Rated

Archive Warning: Major Character Death

Category: Gen

Fandom: Secret Life SMP

Relationships: Ethoslab & ZombieCleo, Grian & EthosLab

Characters: ZombieCleo, EthosLab, Grian

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, kind of; theres monsters at least, Weeping Angels - Freeform, EthosLab (Video Blogging RPF) is a Weeping Angel (Doctor Who), Gorgon ZombieCleo (Video Blogging RPF), Time Travel, petrifcation

Summary: What happens when two monsters that can't kill each other cross paths?

Fic below the cut!

Deep in the labyrinthine halls of an abandoned temple that only the exceedingly reckless dared enter, a gorgon stood next to a petrified warrior, trying on his armor.

Cleo fastened the clasps of the breastplate, but quickly unclasped them after seeing how poorly it fit. She sighed as she put the armor back onto the warrior's body. She was getting a bit tired of the dress she was wearing, but none of her recent victims had anything that fit her. It's because female warriors are going out of fashion again, she thought, and no civilians ever enter this temple anymore. Maybe she should try going out into their settlements again. That didn't end too well for her last time, but honestly, she was starting to get bored all alone in here...

“ˈiːθəʊ?” a voice suddenly called out. “hɛˈləʊ?” Cleo froze in place, almost like one of her own victims, trying to determine the source of the call. It was clearly a human, but that wasn't a word in any human language she knew. she also heard footsteps now, seemingly getting closer.

The same words were called out again, and the footsteps grew louder. Maybe this was some fool from foreign lands, who hadn't understood the locals' warnings about this place. That would be a nice opportunity. Cleo began to move towards the sound.

A man with unusually light hair turned the corner, and Cleo watched the expression on his face go from concern to relief to horror within a second. He screamed, first wordlessly in terror, then again in some unknown language. “ wɒt ɑː juː-”

Cleo lifted her veil, and the scream died on stone lips.

“An honour to meet you too.” Cleo said. She moved over to inspect her newest statue, but she could already tell it was going to be a good one. Most of her recent work didn't show abject terror like this one, they were too prepared for her presence. And the clothing-

Huh. The clothing wasn't like anything she'd seen before. The man wore tight-fitting trousers that were almost as grey as his skin now was, made of a material she could not identify. By contrast, the garment he wore over his torso was as red as blood, and very soft- soft enough to make Cleo gasp slightly as she ran her finger over it. it didn't fit the man's form in the slightest, almost as if it'd been made for somebody else. Fortunately, that meant it might fit her as well.

“I'll be taking this... whatever it is, thank you,” they said as they lifted the garment off of the statue, and chuckled. Who were you, oblivious wanderer? She found herself wondering. Where did you come from?

– – –

Etho stalked restlessly through the overgrown stone building. He'd picked this spot to camp out, hoping he'd easily blend in with the statues all around, but that was days ago, and he hadn't seen a single human since. And he was getting hungry. He was beginning to suspect humans purposely avoided this place. Maybe they did that because of the statues? He'd heard once that some humans were scared by statues. Which was stupid; why would they make statues if they were scared of them? These couldn't possibly all be his fellows either. He froze in place, which told him that there was somebody seeing him. Finally, he thought. He couldn't see anybody, which meant they must be behind him. He could hear footsteps, and then, a voice.

“...You're new,” the voice said, and then the human it belonged to stepped into Etho's view-

Nevermind. Etho was quite certain humans didn't usually have snakes emerging from their heads. The not-human woman was wearing several layers of mismatched, brightly coloured clothes, and a veil covering the top half of their face. They circled around him, hands clasped behind their back, almost as if they were inspecting him. Infuriatingly enough, Etho saw them blink, but couldn't regain his mobility; the eyes of the snakes watched him too, not leaving him unobserved for a moment.

“I didn't even know i could catch other monsters,” they said, and Etho felt them touch one of his wings. He wasn't sure how he felt about that statement. “You're definitely getting a place of honor... but first, I'm gonna try on that mask.”

Then they did something Etho definitely did not like: they reached towards his mask, aiming to take it off. That would nullify his only trump card, unless he played it now.

“Please don't,” he said. The woman stopped.

“What!?” they yelled out, then took several steps backwards. “How are you talking?” they demanded. The snakes on their head seemed surprised by their sharp voice, which was good for Etho; it meant they at least didn't consciously control two dozen eyes.

“You're not technically looking at my mouth. The mask covers it,” Etho replied. It was a trick that most of his fellows knew, but few ever used it. The mask just got in the way unless you liked talking to your victims, like he did.

“That's not how this...” the woman trailed off, flabbergasted. “Oh, whatever. Monsters petrify by different rules, i guess.”

“Monster? Oh, come on now. I'm just a regular human. Who turns to stone when you look at him. Something which you are used to, apparently,” Etho rambled. If he had an organic body, he would be sweating right now. Normally he'd be having these kinds of conversations with regular people, and he'd be able to move about two percent of the time, leaving him comfortably in control. With this creepy snake lady his mobility was reduced to zero percent, which was a whole different story.

They just chuckled at his remark. “And has wings. Can't forget about that.” They briefly placed their hand on a wing again, then took it off. “What's your name?”

“Etho.”

They turned their head sharply at that. “How long have you been in this temple, Etho?”

“...Two, three days?”

“Well now that can't be true,” they said, eyes narrowing, “because I've been getting confused wanderers walking in here calling out your name for at a century.”

Ah. He figured this had to come up eventually. “...It's complicated. Let's just say, those people haven't entered the temple yet.”

They grunted. “Traveling through time, then? Doesn't seem that complicated to me.

“Well, Etho, I am the gorgon Cleo. I'm the scourge of this temple, as they say, so I'm supposed to chase out or kill anyone who dares enter, but...” a small smile quirked their lips. “Well, clearly I can't get rid of you, because you have to be around in the future to send these people to me. So it looks like I'll have to... tolerate your presence near me.” Despite their words expressing disappointment, Cleo's voice didn't sound disappointed at all. They sounded happy about it, even.

“...Thank you?” Etho replied. He decided to keep to himself the fact that he was unlikely to stay here for much longer if there really were barely any people. Unfortunately, they did have a point; causality dictates that he would have to hunt here at some point in time, and it didn't seem like he would ever be able to get to Cleo, given the amount of eyes they had. So, it would be better to keep them happy for now.

“You're welcome,” Cleo replied, still smiling. “So, I understand you can't move as long as I'm looking at you?”

“Maybe,” Etho replied. “Maybe I'm just standing really still for fun, though.”

they laughed at that. “Right. Well, I can't keep you here forever, so I suppose I'll get out of your way for now. Until we meet again, angel Etho.”

With that, Cleo turned around and walked back the way they came. Before turning the corner, they looked back to see Etho still standing where he was; some of the snakes on their head had been lookng in his general direction still. They waved at Etho.

Then they turned, and as soon as Etho was removed from all their lines of sight, he was gone. That was by far the strangest conversation he'd ever had. It looked like he would have to abandon this hunting ground, which was a shame-- it really would have been a fun one, had it not already been occupied. Although, the gorgon didn't seem to mind sharing the space with him. they seemed happy about it, even. That was the weirdest thing; never before had he ended a conversation with someone on good terms. They always ended with one person hunting the other-- but he could never hunt Cleo, and they could never hunt him, so instead they were... friendly with each other. Fascinating.

Maybe he'd give the temple another shot after all.

_ _ _

This is it, Grian thought to himself as he took a deep breath, then stepped through the gate-like shape of the rubble, into the gate filled with statues. His head swiveled around, looking for one that seemed out of place. He wasn't entirely sure what to expect-- well, no. He knew exactly what to expect: a talking statue. That's what this ruin was known for, after all. He just didn't know the details; what did the statue look like? Did it move as well as talk? This place didn't have as much documentation as other monsters' domains in the area, which is exactly why Grian was drawn to it.

“Hello, weary traveler!” A voice suddenly spoke up, interrupting his thoughts. Grian turned around to see the answer to his questions: a stone statue of a winged figure, wearing a scarf across his face. He was standing with his hands on his hips. “What brings you here?” he asked.

“Oh. You, mostly,” Grian replied. Honestly, he wasn't expecting his exploration to be over so soon. Did the statue really have to come right to him?

“Aww, me? You shouldn't have. I'm just a humble tour guide.” Grian never saw the angel move, but every time he blinked he had a different stance- and was standing slightly closer to Grian. “There's so many beautiful statues here. Don't you want to take a look at them?”

Grian shrugged. He might as well make the most of this trip. “Sure. Lead the way.”

“Great!” the angel responded, and didn't move. Grian blinked, and he moved about a foot, then stopped again. “Uh, maybe you following me isn't the most efficient way to do this. Just wander around, and I'll provide the commentary.”

Grian snorted, then followed the angel's advice and started looking around the yard. The first thing he noticed was that all the statues-- apart from the angel-- were naked. Some of them were holding what looked like weapons and shields, but they were rotting, not sculpted from stone like the bodies. And most of them were striking thoroughly unimpressive poses. The whole thing weirded Grian out a little. The statues didn't look anything like what he would call art, realistic though they were. “Do you have any idea who made these?” he asked the angel.

“An old friend of mine,” he replied. Then he asked: “So, I'm famous, huh?”

“Yeah, kind of.” Grian turned around and searched the room for the angel, and saw that he was standing between some sculptures, filling a gap in the rows. He fit there weirdly well. “Everyone knows this as the ruin with the talking statue. Uh- do you have a name, by the way?”

“Etho.”

Grian hummed. It was a surprisingly... modern name. “My name's Grian,” he replied, then continued looking at the statues. He'd noticed some of them were covered in some weird dust, which he figured might be the remains of fabric clothing. Whoever made these statues had apparently decided to dress them in actual clothes, instead of simply sculpting them clothed. In order to avoid looking at what the decayed clothing was failing to cover, Grian now focused on the faces of the sculptures. Some of them-- mostly the ones holding decayed weaponry-- had an expression of noble determination on their face, but the majority of the statues looked scared. And they were incredibly detailed; to the point it gave Grian the creeps. “Your friend had some... interesting artistic visions,” he said.

The angel-- Etho-- chuckled. “Isn't it great?” he asked. Grian decided his honest answer to that might not be what Etho wanted to hear, so he didn't respond.

Etho spoke up again. “'The ruin with the talking statue', you say... is that all this place is known for?”

“...I think so, yeah. Why?”

“No stories about, like... people who go inside and never return?”

That did not help with Grian's creeps in the slightest. “Why would you ask that!?” he asked, spinning around to face Etho.

“Oh, no reason. Hey, have you seen that statue there yet?” he replied, moving with a blink to point somewhere behind Grian.

Grian hesitated to turn around, suddenly worried what Etho might do behind his back. This feels like a trap, he thought; but at the same time, he was very curious what the angel was getting at. He took a few steps backwards, ensuring that Etho didn't get too close to him-- then he turned around. Behind him was another statue with face and limbs contorted in apparent terror- A very familiar face, actually. The face Grian saw every time he looked into the mirror. Grian's blood ran cold. There was a statue of him in this ruin. Why the hell was there a statue of him? Was this some kind of elaborate prank someone pulled on him? The statue's moles lined up exactly with his own. No, it couldn't be a prank, he hadn't brought anybody with him on this trip. He was alone in this ruin with Etho- Etho! Grian whirled around to face the angel, but couldn't find him. He'd only been turned around for a few seconds, where could he have gone?

“Oh, wonderful!” Grian heard a voice behind him, and spun around again to find Etho's face inches from his own, his hand reaching towards the scarf around his neck. “Looks like you get to meet my old friend!”

Grian backed away, breathing deeply. He looked at Etho, avoiding blinking as long as possible- but it wasn't long enough. The second his eyes closed, he heard an indescribable static noise and felt a horrible squeezing sensation around his entire body... And then it was over, and Grian was still in the ruin, and he felt fine. Except... was he still in the ruin? The sun was coming from a different angle, the place looked less decrepit than it did before, and there were significantly less statues. There was no sign of Etho.

“What in the... Etho?” Grian called out, his terror having mostly changed into confusion. “Hello?”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

[note: the bits in IPA read "Etho?" "Hello?" and "What are you-" respectively.]

[arthropod-concoctions]

I had an amazing time participating in the @mcytrecursive exchange these last months! I've made a gift for @sharo-maneru, based on her and SugarsweetRomantic's fic Speak to the gods, and they shall answer.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Category: Gen

Fandom: Hermitcraft SMP

Relationship: Zedaph & Docm77

Character: Zedaph

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Religion, Mythology - Freeform, not inspired by any specific myths, liberal use of epithets, Animal Sacrifice, not shown but repeatedly mentioned, Ascending to Godhood.

Summary: The story of an inventor, driven by desperation into godhood.

Text of the fic below the cut!

The inventor was the son of shepherds. He loved his parents and their sheep greatly, always taking care of them both, but there was nothing he loved more than inventing. Hours upon hours he would sit in his room, creating contraptions of all shapes and sizes. He would sell some of them; to like-minded inventors as inspiration, or to other farmers and friends of his parents, on the rare occasion that there was a clear way to use the device. Many of the devices remained in his house, existing just to sate the inventor's curiosity, and to be a curiosity to his parents.

It was one such day, when the man was deeply invested in his creations, that armed figures arrived at their doorstep. They demanded to be given their best sheep, as an offering to their gods. The shepherds, who were getting old and were in no shape to protest, complied.

When the inventor realised what had happened he was distraught. He berated himself for being so caught up in his work he didn't interfere, but his parents told him there was nothing he could've done.

“All we can do now is pray that they don't return,” they said, and so they did.

But the warriors did return. Every week they would come and demand a sheep, and every time the shepherds complied, their herd dwindling quickly.

The inventor grew restless. There had to be something he could do to save his and his family's livelihood, he thought as he lay awake one night. But his parents were right; he had never been trained for combat, so he had no hope of stopping them that way. All he could do was pray; but they had been praying for months, and had received no help. Meanwhile, the warriors took their sheep as offerings, to gain the favor of their own gods.

It was unfair, he thought. Why do they gain the favor of the gods by taking from us, while we receive nothing but silence for our suffering?

Then, an idea sparked in the inventor's mind. Maybe he had to do a little more than pray to receive the gods' help.

The next day he returned to his workshop with a fervor; he was crafting with purpose now. He took an armful of ram's horns they had stored away, and fashioned them into a crown to wear on his head, adding a support that would lean on his shoulder to help manage the weight. He took the mystical red dust that powered so many of his creations and mixed it with crushed blue stone, creating a glowing purple paste to paint his face with. He took a pristine woolen blanket that he used in wintertime and made it into a coat, using the same paste to decorate it with intricate patterns. Then he went outside, gathered many heavy stones, put them into a large bag and tied the bag to a pulley, in such a way that the stones would be released at the pull of a trigger. After his preparations, he told his parents that one way or another, the gods would ensure the warriors did not return.

Seven days after the previous raid, the inventor took his disguise and painted his face, went outside, and waited. He had never seen the warriors that terrorised his family's homestead, a fact which he saw as a blessing now; it meant they had never seen him either.

The sun was setting when they arrived, and the inventor quickly understood why his parents had never argued with them. They wore heavy armor and carried fierce weapons. The inventor grew nervous at the sight of them, and he almost decided to stay hidden, let go of his plan-- but a burst of determination hit him. He had to do this, or his family's livelihood would be gone. He rose from his position and approached the warriors.

“Just what do you think you're doing?” he called out, and the warriors spun around in shock.

“Who are you?” One of them asked, pointing a spear in the disguised inventor's direction.

“You know who I am. Offerings of sheep have brought me here,” he replied, resisting the urge to draw away from the spear. A god would not flinch at a mortal's weapon. Fortunately, the support of his crown of horns forced his head to stay proudly upright.

He saw the looks on the warriors' faces; some looked skeptical, but many others seemed to believe him. The long shadows of the setting sun obscured the edges where his disguise failed, and the shining swirls of paint on his face and cloak would make him look otherworldly, especially to those unfamiliar with the properties of redstone.

When the leader of the troupe spoke, his voice was tinged with awe: “Are... are You satisfied with our offerings? Have You come to bless our mission?”

“'Your' offerings? You must be mistaken,” the man appearing as a god said. “Are you the ones that raised and cared for those sheep?” He took a step forward; the warrior took a step back.

“Are you the ones that depended on those sheep to live? And are you the ones that had them taken from you, putting your lives at risk to feed Me?” he continued, stepping forward with each question.

When the leader spoke again, his voice was trembling. “We are the ones that cast the-”

“No. I have seen these sheep's lives, and I know where they came from. As far as I am concerned, the offers to my favor were made by these shepherds.”

One more step forward. “And they only prayed for one thing: to be left alone. So leave.” With those words, the inventor released a string he had been covertly holding; the string connected to a large pulley, which had been holding up the bag of stones. They now clattered to the ground, causing a powerful rumbling and making the ground tremble.

The warriors, frightened by this display of power, fled. The inventor breathed a sigh of relief, hoping that he'd scared the warriors off for good, and he and his parents could live their lives in peace.

It was when he turned around that he saw a different figure, the sight of whom made his disguise pale in comparison. A shining green light coalesced into the silhouette of a man, with long curved horns like those of a goat's protruding from his head; he towered over the inventor, face unreadable.

“You are bold, mortal, to claim to be one of Us,” the god said.

The inventor gulped, his bravado threatening to leave him, but curiosity prevailed over his fear. If this was a god-- and it had to be, even he couldn't comprehend how to form an illusion like this-- then this was a chance like none other to finally receive answers.

“Why have You come now?” he whispered. “Why not earlier?”

“I have been watching you,” the god replied, his voice sounding like a whisper yet clearly audible. “Testing your inventiveness... and your faith. I chose to reveal myself after seeing what you've done today.”

Of course. Pretending to be a god was blasphemy of the highest degree. “I'm sorry, I didn't think-” he stammered, then looked down at the ground. “Well, I thought you'd abandoned us. That was foolish of me, I shouldn't have-”

But the god interrupted him. “No. Look at me,” he said. The inventor obeyed, and watched the god's appearance shift; his skin and clothing shifted from being made of green light to natural colors, he morphed from a towering figure to a man's height, and his horns seemed to fade into the distance, forming just a faint green outline of his head. He looked intimidating, but human. And he smiled.

“I was like you, once. I believed myself to be equal to the gods, greater, even, and proclaimed this proudly.” His voice sounded more natural now, and the inventor heard a foreign accent as the man-god spoke. “To show me how wrong I was, the gods decided to give me exactly what I wanted: an inkling of Their divinity.

“They called it a curse, but I call it a blessing. It is an existence of power, but also loneliness; and that is why I turned my attention to you. What is your name, mortal?”

The inventor's mouth was dry. He understood the god's words, understood what he was offering, yet could not believe it. A fraction of divinity; the ability to see the world as a whole, to be able to create with only a thought? Who could possibly call that a curse? And yet-

“Will I be able to see my parents again?” he asked, though he suspected he knew the answer.

“You will always watch over them, but they can never see you. What is your name, mortal?” the god repeated.

He didn't like the idea of that loneliness, but again, curiosity prevailed over his fear. He could not decline. “Zedaph,” he said.

The god's smile widened into a grin, almost mischievious. “I am Doc. Follow me, friend. We have much to talk about.”

And so the God of Invention, patron of shepherds, became twofold. And though the shepherds mourned for their son, they would never be attacked again.

[arthropod-concoctions]

Reflections

For the @mcytrecursive exchange!

About a month or so ago I took part to draw a scene from Mirror Mesa \\ That I'm alive again for Ace_of_Arthropods! Highly recommend looking at the rest of the collection including this lovely podfic I got!

As for extra content uhhhhh have this palette I put together

I feel obliged to also tell you that someone made a post headcannoning that when jimmy and Joel became allies he planted swamp azaleas everywhere to signify their alliance. (Will link if I find it again) And when I searched them up they coincidentally matched my Motifs how could I NOT.

[arthropod-concoctions]

need more appreciation for the fic writers of this fandom. i want to see more of those posts where people give shoutouts to their favorite artists but for writers. and more reblogs (!!!) under writers’ posts

[arthropod-concoctions]

My @mcytblrholidayexchange gift for @salty-seasick! I had a blast writing this, and I hope you enjoy reading it! Can be read on AO3 or below the cut:

Relationship: Etho/Bdubs

Characters: Etho, Bdubs

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Gender Identity, Trans Male Ethoslab, Coming Out, Hugs, Banter, Anxiety/Comfort

Summary: Angel and Echo may be the most powerful superheroes around, but they do have a life beyond that as well. Sometimes Echo wishes he could forget his personal life. Sometimes Angel wishes he could forget his heroic life. At least they have each other.

Note: the character called Sunny at the start of the fic is Etho.

~ * * * ~

“I think my superhero alter ego should be a guy,” Sunny said, sitting on the couch with her legs folded underneath her.

“You- really?” Bdubs was sitting on the floor in front of the couch, looking at the paper where he was sketching outfits for the two of them, but he looked up to reply to Sunny. “What makes you say that?”

“For anonymity, you know?” she replied. “If the new superheroes on the block are a guy and a girl, everyone’s gonna be looking for a guy and a girl, and someone might realise it’s us. But if it’s two guys, we’ll never be suspected.”

Bdubs let out a surprised laugh, but nodded. “Okay. You know what, that’s actually pretty smart. Sure.” He grabbed another paper, this one with two lists of bullet points, and added another point to one: “`Sunny: superhero is a man.’ Wonderful. Uh, do we have to change your outfit as well then?”

“Let me see,” Sunny replied, leaning over Bdubs’ shoulder to look at the designs. “No, I think that’s still good.” The design of the outfit had some of her hair poking out, but that wouldn’t be a problem; her hair was quite short already. She liked it that way, it was just more convenient. And the outfit didn’t show much skin; for anonymity, and to prevent from accidentally touching something she shouldn’t while using her power. If she played her cards right, maybe used a voice modulator, no one would suspect that the hero might be a woman.

“Good.” Bdubs said. “Alright, next point: names. Any ideas?”

“Hmm…” Sunny thought. “Something like Ecto? If I’m going to be phasing through things, like a ghost…”

“Ecto…” Bdubs was quiet for a few seconds, then snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it! Echo! Hear me out. I’ll be Angel, because I have the voice of an angel, and you’ll be that voice’s echo. I’ll use my singing, and then when they least expect it, you’ll show up and give them a beating. Angel and Echo.”

“Right, I see,” Sunny said, smiling and leaning back. “I’ll be secondary to you, just the way you want it.”

“No- I- no, of course not!” Bdubs laughed, and moved onto the couch, wrapping his arms around Sunny. “I’m sorry. Come on, Sunshine, you know that’s not what I meant.”

“Oh, I don’t know, Bdubs, I think the jury’s still out on that one…” Sunny laughed, then returned Bdubs’ embrace, putting her head on top of his. “I’m just kidding. Of course you didn’t mean it. You’d never say mean things about me, would you?” she asked, sarcasm lacing her voice.

“I never say mean things,” Bdubs agreed, and then they just sat for a moment, enjoying each other’s touch. Until Bdubs spoke up: “Just two superhero dudes hanging out.”

Sunny burst out laughing, and pushed Bdubs off of herself. “Come on, dude, you ruined the moment!” she said.

Bdubs laughed too. “I have to get some practice in, you know? If y- if Echo’s going to be a guy, I have to really get that in my head.”

“Just Echo, not me. I mean, if you start treating me like a guy in person as well, that defeats the whole point!”

“Of course, of course.” Bdubs sighed contentedly, the laughter finally wearing off. “You and me, Echo and Angel. We’re gonna make a great team.”

- - - -

Echo sat on the roof of an apartment building, watching the sun rise over the city- over his city. His and Angel’s debut as superheroes a year ago had been a resounding success, and their corner of the city had never been safer. When something did happen, the two of them jumped to the chase, smoothly executing the tactic Bdubs had laid out for them back then: he would take their attention, distracting and potentially soothing them with his voice, and Echo would phase in from behind and knock them out. It was still a bit of a weird strategy to Echo. Bdubs insisted that his singing had an effect, that it was an essential part of the plan, but it barely seemed to slow their enemies down after the initial confusion. Whenever he sang to Echo, he couldn’t feel any effect either, but Bdubs always said he was simply holding back. Still, it seemed a little fishy to Echo.

I keep calling him Bdubs even when thinking about his hero persona, he thought to himself. I really shouldn’t do that. Not when I keep calling myself Echo instead of-

Well, that was the other weird thing. He- she- Sunny never called herself Sunny anymore. When alone, she wore Echo’s outfit whenever possible. When with other people, every time she noticed somebody looking at her, she just wanted to disappear, to phase out and maybe come back looking different. Every day, Sunny’s first thought was what he was going to do as Echo, rather than what she was going to do as Sunny.

The plan that Sunny had made a year ago was clear. To be a man as a superhero, and a woman in everyday life, to draw suspicion away from herself.

He’s afraid it might have backfired spectacularly.

Well, I’m gonna need a new name again, he thought. Obviously he couldn’t start calling himself Echo to his friends and family as well. He thought back to the day when they were brainstorming superhero names. ‘Ecto’ was the name that popped into his head back then, was there anything he could do with that? It was very similar to Echo, but maybe he removing the `k’-sound would help. Etto, Eto…

Etho?

“Etho,” he said to himself, slowly. It had a nice ring to it. He tried again: “Hello everybody, my name is Etho…”

A smile crept onto his face. It was a very good name.

He phased out, becoming completely invisible and intangible to the outside world, then began descending through the walls the building. He kept his eyes closed as he did so, careful not to look inside the other residents’ apartments. After a minute, he’d ended up back in his own apartment; he opened his eyes, and phased back in, feet thumping the ground as if he’d jumped.

After taking a quick shower, Etho got dressed in his usual getup; sweatpants, a t-shirt, and a comfy jacket. He’d always valued comfort over fashion, a preference which had gotten stronger over the years; in hindsight, that was probably because he’d been looking at the wrong fashion.

I should probably go shopping for new clothes soon, huh? he thought to himself. He wasn’t quite sure what to do, to be honest. Should he tell Bdubs about his decision immediately? This seemed like the kind of thing you had to think about for longer than one morning before going around telling people. Not to mention his relationship with Bdubs… probably wouldn’t be the same. He hadn’t fallen in love with a guy, after all. But then, would acting like nothing’s changed be any better? Maybe-

Suddenly, he heard a pounding at his door. He jerked around in surprise to look at it; he rarely got visitors, and that didn’t exactly sound like a friendly knock. Had he pissed off his neighbours somehow? Now he heard a rattle; someone was messing with his lock. That worried him; he put Echo’s gloves back on, just in case there’d be a fight, then opened the door.

Bdubs stood on the other side of it, his copy of the apartment key in his hand. He jolted in surprise when the door opened. “You are awake!” he said.

“Yeah, I’m awake. What the hell are you doing, man? Did you…” he trailed off, taking a good look at Bdubs now. He seemed to be out of breath, his eyes were bloodshot, and he was shaking. “Wait, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Never better. Can I come in?”

Etho stepped aside, letting Bdubs enter. “Are you being chased? Do we need to fight somebody?”

“No, no, it’s fine. I’m not being chased. Not anymore. Not yet, I mean.” Bdubs walked over to the couch, and collapsed onto it. Despite his prior statement, he was clearly not feeling well.

What? “Okay…” Etho felt a stab of nerves in his chest. He sat down next to Bdubs. “You know, it’s actually pretty good that you came over. We need to talk.”

“Yeah. We do,” Bdubs said.

Etho instantly regretted that statement. The thing he was going to say suddenly didn’t seem nearly as important as whatever Bdubs was dealing with. “…Uh, should we maybe go visit the doctor’s? You-”

“No!” Bdubs interrupted Etho, grabbing his wrist. “We’re not going outside today, alright?”

Etho removed the hand from his wrist, and took a deep breath. Bdubs was making him nervous. Usually he was the paranoid one, and Bdubs was the one that gave him confidence; how the hell was he supposed to deal with this? “That statement doesn’t exactly make me more confident in your good health, Bdubs.”

“Look, Etho, I need you to tr-”

They both froze. What on earth? “How did you-”

Bdubs snorted. “Uh oh,” he said. “I’ve just messed up, haven’t I?”

“You…” Etho was flabbergasted. “Well, you did something, that’s for sure! How- I’m gonna need some explanations here.”

Bdubs closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. “Right. Explanations. It’s probably about time, huh?” “So, you know how I always say that my superpower is singing?”

“Yeah?”

“That’s nonsense. It has nothing to do with singing, that’s just a distraction. Really, it’s… I get nightmares.”

“Nightmares?” Etho said. “Okay.” That didn’t explain how he knew his name.

“I get nightmares that tell me exactly how I’m going to die that day.” “`nightmare’ isn’t the right word, really,” he continued. “Honestly, they might not even be dreams. Nothing unnatural happens in them, it’s just regular life. And then something- or someone- comes along and kills me. Or, in this case, kills us.”

“Oh,” Etho said softly. He grabbed Bdubs’ hand. “Why haven’t you told me about this earlier?”

“You would’ve laughed at me.” Bdubs looked at the wall as he spoke. He was still shaking. “A guy gets a bad dream every now and again, and thinks it’s a superpower?”

Etho shook his head. “I would’ve believed you.”

Bdubs turned to look at him. “Would you really?”

He didn’t respond immediately. Truth be told, he would probably be skeptical of this story, had Bdubs not started it by saying Etho’s name before he could reasonably know it. But Etho was skeptical of everything. If he decided he couldn’t even believe Bdubs, what would he do then? “I would have trusted your judgement,” he eventually said.

Bdubs didn’t respond immediately. He didn’t seem convinced, but eventually he spoke up: “Alright. Thanks, S- Etho.”

Suddenly, Etho felt another spike of anxiety in his chest. Right. Guess there was no postponing that conversation now. Bdubs chuckled weakly, apparently not seeing the worry on Etho’s face. “Boy. This was supposed to be your day, and I’ve really gone and made it all about me, huh?”

“I mean, we can keep talking about you if you want. I know you like to do that,” Etho said. “So, nighmares, huh? Can you tell me how exactly-”

“No.” Bdubs cut him off. “Listen, I… I really don’t want to talk about it. Not while it’s still… fresh.”

“Oh,” Etho replied quietly. He berated himself internally. Of course Bdubs wouldn’t want to go into details about their deaths. “Looks like we’re at a stalemate then,” he said. Because, truth be told, he didn’t want to talk about himself either right now. Actually, he kind of wanted to phase out and run off into the distance somewhere. Dream-Etho had made a mistake telling Bdubs, he must have. There was no way-

“Etho, I can see your mind freaking out just by looking at you,” Bdubs said, looking Etho in the eyes and smiling gently. “Come on. You really think I’m gonna stop loving you ‘cause you’re a guy?”

Etho let out a strained half-laugh. “I mean…”

“No!” Bdubs grabbed Etho’s hand with both of his, and leaned in closer to him. “I didn’t fall in love with you just because you were a girl. I fell in love with you because you were thoughtful, and smart, and competent, and had nice hair, and were you. And if a guy has all that, if a guy is you, I’ll love him just the same. C’mere.”

Bdubs wrapped his arms around Etho, who’s shoulders dropped as he reciprocated. He hadn’t even noticed he’d been tensing them. Etho leaned forwards as well, putting his face on Bdubs’ shoulder. Bdubs’ mouth was right next to his ear, so he heard him whisper: “And this isn’t the nightmare-brain talking. I said this exact thing the first time.”

Etho opened his mouth to respond, but no sound came out. He was shaking- or maybe that was still Bdubs. Maybe they were both shaking, and their relative moods would cancel each other out if they just held each other tightly enough.

Then, after a minute or so, Etho’s stomach rumbled. He lifted his face up again and slowly, reluctantly, let go of Bdubs. He suddenly felt a tear running down his face.

Etho chuckled as he reached out and wiped the tear off of his face. “You haven’t eaten breakfast either, huh? We should probably get on that.”

Etho giggled quietly. He was still a bit shaky, but feeling infinitely better than before the hug. “Wait, you left the house before eating breakfast? Wow, you must really be messed up today.”

Bdubs grinned, his typical wide grin which fit his bloodshot eyes remarkably well, in a weird way. “Yeah. That proves it, huh?” he said, and then got up to walk to the kitchen.

Etho followed him, and grabbed two bowls to put cereal in. As the two of them were preparing their breakfast, Bdubs spoke up again: “You know, there’s something else I feel like I should say, about this.”

Etho froze, holding a spoon in mid-air. “And what’s that?”

“I saw this coming a freaking mile away.”

Etho laughed, dropping his spoon and turning to look at Bdubs. “Wait, really?”

“Yeah!” Bdubs said, laughing as well. “I mean, come on. The love of your life, who has a boy haircut and only ever wears hoodies says ‘hey, I want to be a boy, but only as a superhero!’ and- you know, I wasn’t born yesterday!”

Etho continued laughing. “I guess the signs were there, huh? Although you figured it out before I did if that’s true.” He chuckled. “Maybe you saw it in a dream, just like…”

He didn’t finish the sentence, and neither did Bdubs. Etho sighed. He had to say something, or this would eat at him. “Look, I know you didn’t want to talk about it but… if somebody if this city was going to kill us, I want to know as much about them as I can.”

Bdubs looked at the ground, and didn’t respond immediately. “I just- can we talk about it later? When my brain isn’t all messed up. Right now I just wanna… watch a movie, or something.”

“I don’t know if I can-”

“We started it,” Bdubs interrupted him. “We started the fight. That’s the important part. He’s not gonna come to us if we just… happen to stay inside today.”

Etho nodded. “Alright.” He tried to banish the worry from his mind. Taking a rain day would probably be good for their health regardless, honestly. “So what movie were you thinking?”

Bdubs shrugged.

“The A-Team?” Etho suggested.

“Oh, god. Just because you’re a dude doesn’t mean your taste in movies has to get worse, Etho.”

Etho snorted. He finished making his cereal, then moved back to the couch with Bdubs.

As Bdubs was flipping through channels on the TV, Etho stretched his arms, then laid one of them around Bdubs’ shoulder. “You know what, Bdubs?” he said. “We really are just two dudes hanging out now.”

“We are!” Bdubs responded, leaning his head back into Etho’s arm. “Two dudes. Etho and Bdubs. We can take on the world, you know.”

Except for what you saw in your dream… Etho shook his head. They were in mortal peril as superheroes all the time. They could take one day off from worrying about that side of their lives. For now, Etho was content to enjoy himself--  really enjoy himself, as he’d never been able to in his life—and enjoy Bdubs’ company.

[arthropod-concoctions]

hello! wanted to ask how you felt about people making things directly inspired by your writing? I read your mirror mesa series and kind of want to gnaw on aspects of the premise longer and practice my writing in one fell swoop, but I'm not much of a writer and am not sure what the etiquette is for that so I thought I'd ask you directly! no worries either way (and no promises it'll ever see the light of day if yes I am not good at finishing things </3) just checking in!! - 🦝

oh that is absolutely fine! and i'd LOVE to see the end result if you ever posted something based on my work :D

[arthropod-concoctions]

YOUR SWAP AU IS SO GOOD AND SILLY AND YEAH FHFHRHRH

YOU ARE AN EXCELLENT WRITER THANK YOU FOR SHARING YOUR STUFF UHHHH IDK BUT IM EXPLODING YOU IN MY HEAD!!!!!!!

Omg THANK YOU!!! Im glad you like the silliness :D

[arthropod-concoctions]

(AO3 - prev)

Martyn swiped his finger across a page of the enchanted book, sketching a pose, and watching as the armor stand in front of him mimicked it. He took his finger off the paper with a flourish, and the stand froze, staying in position. It wasn't a particularly impressive pose, but Martyn smiled proudly anyways.

“This thing is awesome,” he said to Joe, who had flown in to drop yet another shulker box full of various types of stone at Cleo's doorstep. Ze said that they would know what to do with it; somehow, Martyn doubted that. “You wouldn't happen to know how to replicate it, would you?”

“Oh, that's easy, just take a book and title it `Statues',” Joe replied. Around zir head floated a rainbow of small multicoloured eyes that stared directly at Martyn.

“Right,” Martyn said, looking back at the eyes. That sounded like far too easy a process to be possible on just any server. He tried not to be too disappointed; he wouldn't have had any time for making statues in the Life games anyways, and, well, where else was he gonna do it?

“And another thing... do you know if Cleo has a change of clothes stashed anywhere?”

Joe hesitated for a moment. “...In their cross-server inventory, probably?”

“Sure, but I'd feel weird just digging through that. And I had a look around this block of skyscrapers here, but I couldn't find a wardrobe or anything.”

“Oh, fair enough. Well, I don't know about Cleo, but you can borrow some of my clothes if you want?”

“Sure. Do you have anything in green?”

Joe smiled and looked at Martyn through zir green glasses, and Martyn looked at zir green fingerless gloves and green hairtie and felt a bit silly for asking. “Oh, I've got a few things. I'll be right back!”

---

Half an hour later, Martyn was standing next to a shulker box overflowing with clothes, dressed in... not the most ostentations outfit he'd ever worn, considering a certain December MCC, but it was probably in the top ten. Cleo was a bit taller than Joe, so most of the clothes left the belly exposed, but Martyn had managed to find a chroma green pinstripe suit that fit well enough. He stepped out of the room in Cleo's base he'd used to dress up, and made eye contact with Joe, whose face lit up.

“Found something you like?” ze said.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Martyn replied, laughing. “I feel like I'm ready to play for the Lime Llamas with this fit.”

“I don't watch sports, but yeah, I think you look great!”

The two of them walked out into Cleo's courtyard, where someone was waiting for them; someone who appeared to be a blue slime in a hoodie and jogging pants.

The slime looked at Martyn and stifled a laugh. “Wow, looks like I chose the right day to go check on Cleo's replacement,” they said, then held out a slimy hand- more like a stump, really, Martyn couldn't make out separate fingers. “I'm Jevin. Nice to meet you.”

“Martyn,” Martyn responded. He tried to shake Jevin's 'hand', but only ended up slapping against it before Jevin withdrew it. It had the consistency of a water balloon. “You're a friend of Cleo's?”

“Uh- yeah, a friend. Totally. Mhm, we're best friends,” Jevin replied, nodding. “That's why I'm here. Friendly reasons.”

“Right. Friendly reasons. Definitely not `collecting blackmail material for Cleo' reasons.”

“Exactly! See, you get it,” Jevin said cheerfully. Martyn looked at Joe, who shrugged. Zir rainbow eyes shot a few glances at Jevin occasionally, but most remained trained on him. Suddenly, Joe gasped.

“Wait, I haven't even shown you the best feature of this outfit yet!” ze said, then began rummaging through zir inventory. Eventually ze pulled out a strange flashlight of sorts. “Check this out!”

Ze shone the light on Martyn; he looked down to realise his body had vanished. From the neck down, all of his body which was covered by green fabric was completely invisible.

Martyn laughed deviously. “Oh, that's fantastic. Say, can I borrow that light for a bit?”

“Sure,” Joe said, handing Martyn the flashlight. “As long as you bring it back by the end of the day.”

“Yeah, I can do that, no problem,” Martyn replied, then went back into his little changing room. After some rummaging, he found a piece of fabric big enough to cover his head, protesting snakes included; then, he pulled out his chat and began typing a message.

<ZombieCleo> Tim, where you at?

<Tango> the shopping district

<Tango> zedaph's giving me a tour

<ZombieCleo>coords?

Taking the makeshift mask with him, he went outside to meet Joe and Jevin again. “Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a rancher to prank.”

He shot a glare at Jevin, who appeared to be taking a picture of him, then took off flying with Cleo's elytra.

Despite receiving precise coordinates from Jimmy, Martyn had quite some trouble locating him and his new friend in the shopping district. Partly because the district in question was a headache-inducing mess to fly over, and partly because all of Tango's distinctive physical features were now blue for some reason.

He gently glid down to the ground, careful not to make any noise, and landed behind Jimmy and a blond Hermit who he guessed must be Zedaph. He'd been shining Joe's flashlight onto himself, rendering him entirely invisible except for his hand. He trailed behind the two of them, slowly closing the gap. Eventually he could hear what Zedaph was saying:

“And this is the hole where... Actually, I have no idea what this hole is for. It wasn't here last time I went shopping. There's hoppers at the bottom... d'you reckon we should throw something in, see what happens?”

“You know, Zed, this tour isn't very good,” Jimmy said. His accent was unmistakeable, even in Tango's voice, which didn't seem to have changed with his colouration.

Martyn was right behind them at this point, so he spoke up: “Yeah. Zero stars.”

Jimmy yelled out and whirled around, flailing his arms about in a panic. His arm collided with Zedaph's, and expelled some kind of red flash; then, Zedaph yelped too.

Martyn began laughing, pulling the cloth off of his face and pointing the flashlight down. “Oh, that was beautiful,” he said between laughs.

“Wh- Cleo- Martyn- how did you- what are you wearing?” Jimmy sputtered.

“More importantly, what were you thinking?” Zedaph added, rubbing his arm where he'd collided with Jimmy. “Do you know how annoying redstone burns are to heal?”

“Sorry, Zed,” Martyn said. “Didn't mean for you to become collateral. Hi. I'm Martyn, by the way.” Martyn extended his hand to Zedaph, who crossed his own arms, pointedly not shaking his.

“Wait-- sorry, Zed, by the way-- what do you mean 'redstone burn'?” Jimmy said.

“Well, you know, with Tango's redstonyness... he never zapped you on accident?”

Jimmy shook his head. Martyn piped up: “Wait, are you saying Tango just has redstone tasers hidden up his sleeves at all times?”

“No- he- because he's a redstone sprite, guys come on!” Zedaph exclaimed, clearly expecting Martyn and Jimmy to know this.

“I didn't know that,” Jimmy replied immediately.

Zedaph looked at Jimmy, looking very offended on Tango's behalf. “Seriously? You were married to him, and you didn't even-”

“We were not married!” Jimmy interrupted him. “We were soulmates, not-”

“About the same thing, isn't it? Still, not a very good soulmate if you didn't even know what species he is.”

“I thought he was just a regular guy!”

“He has red eyes!” Zedaph and Martyn said in unison.

“Not anymore though, they're blue now,” Martyn added. “Zed, what's up with that anyways? Why does Hermitcraft get the blue raspberry flavoured Tango?”

“Because of...” Zedaph trailed off, then sighed, and pinched his nose. “You know, I figured because you were his husband- soulmate, whatever-” he waved a hand at Jimmy, who's opened his mouth to protest- “I could skip the `introduction to Tango' part of this tour. But I guess not! Follow me, let's turn this tour around.”

[arthropod-concoctions]

(AO3 - prev)

“Grian, I have great news, I- MY HAIR!” Scar yelled into Grian's ear, startling him so much he nearly dropped Scar's cane. He jumped away from his shulker monster to look at Scar, who was pointing at him accusingly. “What have you done to my luscious elven locks?”

“I waffled them,” Grian simply replied. Long hair was nice sometimes, but he wasn't in the mood for it at the moment, so he'd bundled it up for convenience. “What's the good news?”

“Oh, right. I figured out how to do the third eye thingy without dissapearing from the mortal plane! See, right now I can...” Scar trailed off, and his regular eyes went out of focus. “Oh my, you really have turned my hair into a waffle. But I can see the back of your head from here! Isn't that great?”

“Oh, that- that actually is great,” Grian replied. “That means we can actually look at the code I messed up. Do you wanna do that right now?”

“Sure,” Scar said, pulling up Grian's chat. “It's just a file in here, right?”

“Yep. Probably called Double Life... something.”

Scar tapped away into the device, his brow furrowing. “There's nothing called Double Life.”

“Oh, for goodness'...” Grian trailed off, trying to remember what he would've called it. “I probably shortened it in some stupid way... try 'dubl'. Like Dublin, without the last two letters.”

Scar snorted. “You think I know how to spell “Dublin?” Then his eyes flitted across the screen. “Wait, what's this? 'waystobringmumboback.txt'?”

“Scar, please stay focused-”

“No, I'm reading this. I want to see your ideas. 'Build a nice piston door'... yeah that could work.”

“Scar...” Grian started to walk towards Scar.

“'Build a BAD piston door'- oh, that might actually be smarter. These are good ideas, Grian!” Scar smiled at Grian, then looked back at the screen, squinting. “Bring back ari- bring back arinara-”

“SCAR!” Grian shouted, and nearly tackled Scar to the ground. They both started laughing. “Quit reading my private documents!”

Scar stuck the arm holding the chat into the air, in an attempt to keep it away from Grian-- he simply plucked it out of his hand. “I'm the taller one now, Scar, that isn't going to-”

The device vanished, and reappeared in Scar's hand. Right. It was impossible to take someone's chat device away from them, unless your name was Grian and you were godawful at coding.

Scar rolled over on the floor, still laughing. “Sorry, Sorry. I'll behave. What was the file called again?”

“Nah, forget it,” Grian responded, grabbing some firework rockets. “Class is cancelled. I'm gonna go follow your advice.”

---

“Cub!” Grian called out, as he approached the outside of Total Chaos. Cub looked up from the mess of redstone he was standing in, and waved at him.

“Hey, Scar- no, wait, you're Grian now, aren't you?” he said, as he hopped down onto the floor.

“That's right. And he's been having a whale of a time flying around as me, and he told me you are the man to come to to have- to do cool things as Scar.”

Cub thought for a moment, then smiled deviously. “Ah, you want to learn the ways of the vex?”

“Is that what I've just... yeah, alright, sure,” Grian responded.

“Awesome! Oh, this is gonna be sick. Alright, follow me inside, I'll get some stuff sorted,” Cub said, and led Grian into the interior of Total Chaos.

Grian sat down on the carpet while Cub vanished into some nook of the building. He came back a minute later, holding two icy blue masks; one with a happy face, one with a sad face.

“Alright, this is- well, this is Scar's mask,” Cub said, as he held out the smiling mask to Grian, then briefly pulled it back. “You don't really smile as much as him, though, so maybe we should swap- actually, no, I don't know what the consequences of that would be.” he shook his head, and held out the mask again.

“...Should I be concerned about any of this?” Grian asked as he took the mask.

“Nah, don't worry dude, you'll be fine,” Cub replied. “Just put on the mask, relax, get comfortable. I'll do the hard stuff. Don't panic, alright?”

“...Okay,” Grian said, Cub's words entirely failing to comfort him. Still, he put on the mask and watched as Cub did the same. He very softly heard Cub whispering something-

Then things began to get weird. Grian's colour vision began to shift, everything turning into shades of blue and grey. Cub's skin slowly turned blue, and at once his hair rapidly shifted from black to white. Grian felt his own body change as well; he felt lighter, and the ache in his legs he was slowly getting used to faded into the distance. Grian didn't panic. He felt great, actually.

Cub smiled at Grian; somehow, he could see his mouth, even though the mask he was wearing was opaque. “You wanna go prank Keralis?” he asked, and his voice sounded very high-pitched, yet somehow normal.

Grian smiled as well. “You bet!” he replied.

---

Flying as a vex was a different sensation entirely from using his wings. Grian barely had to angle his body to accelerate to incredible speeds. At one point he was speeding towards a big tree, and started to panic as he couldn't slow his momentum enough to avoid it; but then he simply passed through the branches as if they weren't there. It felt a bit like being in spectator mode.

Grian followed Cub all the way to Keralis' starter house, and when they arrived, Cub pulled pocketfuls of blue tinsel out of his inventory, and handed some to Grian. They barely had to exchange a word as they both set out to cover Keralis' house in the stuff. Grian zipped through the house, passing through hallways and walls, smiling the whole time. He wasn't sure if he was just giddy from the flying or some kind of vexy effect from the mask.

Once the house was sufficiently tinseled up, Grian and Cub flew away from the house and settled down on top of a nearby tree to admire their work.

“Oh, baby, Christmas came early!” Cub said to Grian, who laughed in response. Instinctively, Grian reached for the cane which he'd gotten used to having at his hip. It wasn't there. He thought back, and realised he'd left the cane behind somewhere in the house to hold more tinsel. He hadn't felt the effects then, but he was starting to now.

Grian's smile faded. He started to panic. “Cub, i-” he started, but stopped talking as the world changed back to normal with a flash. Grian lost his balance from the shock, and fell.

He dropped unceremoniously onto the ground next to the tree. The fall wasn't long enough to kill him, but it hurt quite a bit. Grian looked up to see Cub gliding down towards him, his face obscured by the mask.

Cub let out a high-pitched warble which Grian couldn't understand. Then he shook his head and pulled off his mask, revealing a concerned face. “Sorry. You good?” he asked.

“I lost the cane,” Grian said, trying to sit up. “I left Scar's cane in the house somewhere.”

Immediately, Cub pulled the cane out of his inventory and handed it to Grian, crouching. “I got you. Scar did that all the time as well, don't worry about it.”

“Oh. Thanks.” Grian took the cane, and tried to stand up, but failed. Even after eating a golden carrot to recover his injuries, his legs still hurt too much to stand on. “It's not... it's not working. The cane isn't working anymore, Cub.”

Cub nodded. “I'll go get a chair. Be right back.”

Cub flew off on his elytra, leaving Grian alone at the base of the tree. He was back quickly enough, bringing a wheelchair with him.

“Thanks,” Grian said as Cub put the wheelchair down and helped him into it. He sighed. “This sucks, Cub.”

“Yeah, that was my bad. Vexing can be a little intense, maybe we should've-”

“No, not the vex stuff. That was great,” Grian interrupted him. “I mean this... this whole situation.”

“Like, I've been working with Scar to try and get us back to normal, and he is not cooperating in the slightest. Which is annoying, but... I can't really blame him? Like, he's been running and flying around and having a great time, while I'm-” Grian gestured to the wheelchair. “It feels like he's upgraded and I've downgraded, and- no wonder he's being so obtuse! I want to go back, but I feel terrible asking him to.”

Grian took a deep breath. “Sorry. None of this is your problem, really.”

“No, no, I get it. It makes sense,” Cub replied. He scratched his chin, and said: “I think you should just give Scar a bit of time, and he'll come around eventually. I mean, I've possessed other people before, and it's always fun for the first few weeks, but eventually you just want your own body back. And in the meantime, you can discover some cool stuff to do as well. Heck, we just did!”

Grian nodded. “Yeah, I hope you're right. Thanks.”

“Wait, what do you mean you've possessed people before?”

“Should I show you how to attach your elytra to the chair?”

(next)

[arthropod-concoctions]

(AO3 - prev)

Something is very off about this landscape, Etho thought to himself as he flew over forests and mountains, but I can't figure out what. No singular object looked out of place, and everything was located about where you'd expect; and yet, when flying over this world, the terrain almost seemed to blur by much faster than it should. He needed to find someone familiar, and fast.

After quite a bit of flying back and forth, Etho flew over a mesa and finally saw a familiar face; Jimmy, wandering around in what must be his base. He was hoping to find Joel, really-- he'd seen him on the player list earlier-- but Jimmy would do as well. He was getting a bit tired of flying anyway. He angled his body downward, preparing to land on the sand...

And hit the ground much faster than anticipated.

The armor he was wearing over the weird toga protected him from serious injury, but the fall still dazed him for a few seconds. Etho found himself laying in the sand, and saw Jimmy walking towards him; seemed like he noticed Etho's very undignified landing. Etho sat up, meeting Jimmy's eyes, who seemed... scared? Why would he be scared of someone he's just watched faceplant into a sand floor?

“Hey Jimmy,” Etho said, trying to sound casual. He got up fully, and only then noticed the extremely obvious fact that Jimmy only reached up to his waist.

“Hi, Joel...” Jimmy finally said, sounding very disturbed, “How's it going?”

“What?” Etho burst out laughing. “What is happening? Why am I like twelve feet tall now?” At least the weirdness of the terrain made sense now; Everything went by twice as fast because Etho was twice as big. And that explained why Jimmy looked so intimidated-

Then it hit him.

“Did you just call me Joel?”

“I- Yeah? What else am I supposed to call you, Colossus!?” Jimmy shouted back. His voice didn't sound the same as usual; he spoke with an American accent. Tango's accent, specifically.

“Wait. Wait a second, time-out.” Etho sat down on the ground to be eye level with... whoever he was talking to. “I look like Joel?”

“Well, yeah, if Joel lived in 1000 BC and- what do you mean you look like him? You are him!” Tango-- yep, definitely Tango-- responded.

“I look like Joel,” Etho said, mostly to himself. “And you look like Jimmy, by the way.”

Tango stared at him blankly. He looked down at his clothes. “I look like a cowboy.”

“Yep. You're Tango, but you look like Jimmy dressed as a cowboy. And I'm Etho, but I look like Joel dressed like a Greek god, apparently.”

Tango opened his mouth, then closed it again. Then said: “You're Eth- okay, that explains the accent, I guess. That does not explain... anything else about this. Why am I my soulmate, and why is my soulmate a cowboy?”

Etho thought about it for a while. Eventually, he concluded: “Grian messed up.”

“Grian messed up?”

Etho nodded. “Grian messed up, and somehow we ended up possessing Joel and Jimmy in their home server. They mentioned living in some kinda roleplay server, didn't they?”

Tango nodded as well. “This is true.” He sighed. “Okay. Sure. I'm fine blaming Grian for whatever the he-”

“Someone's coming.” Etho looked into the distance, where he saw someone approaching. Tango whirled around, and they both looked towards Gem as she landed on the ground. She looked different from usual; her antlers were gone, she was wearing a long pink dress, and orange butterfly wings seemed to sprout out of her back.

“Act natural!” Etho hissed to Tango. He knew people's memories could get jostled when traveling between servers, especially Lore-heavy ones, so it was entirely possible this version of Gem would have no idea what Hermitcraft even was.

Gem smiled at Tango. “Hello, Sheriff!” she said.

“Uh- hi, howdy, partner!” Tango responded, with what sounded like a cross between a British and a Texan accent. “What... can I do for-”

“Oh my god. Okay, Tango, I know it's you,” Gem interrupted him. “That accent was awful.”

“Oh, you do?” Tango replied, dropping the accent. “Amazing! Do you know what happened here?”

“Well, about as much as anyone else does. Something weird happened with your hardcore server, everyone's souls got swapped around, you know, normal stuff.” She shrugged. “Grian and Scar are working on reversing it, I think.”

“Grian and Scar?” Etho said. “That isn't encouraging.”

Gem huffed out a laugh. “Yeah, I wouldn't wanna be you right now. Anyway,” she said, spreading her arms wide, “Welcome to Empires! You guys are here as Jimmy and Joel, and Pearl is probably also around as Scott. I'm gonna check on them later. And I'm here too, and hopping back and forth to Hermitcraft all the time, so I could get messages between here and there if necessary. Got it?”

“Yeah,” Tango said, nodding fervently. “It's good to know we're not going crazy, at least.”

“Hmm, I wouldn't go that far,” Gem replied. “Well, I do have my own empire to run, so I'm gonna go there now. You guys can just... hang out, I guess.” Gem began to leave, then turned back around.

“Oh, one more thing. This is a roleplay server, and the other players are... very enthusiastic about it. They pretty much never break character. So if you encounter someone else, I'd say you should probably act like you are Joel and Jimmy, lest they make... a whole thing out of it. They were just starting a rivalry, I think. Alright, have fun!”

Then, Gem turned around and took off. Tango shouted after her: “And you're just gonna leave us with that?”

“What are you guys talking about?” an unfamiliar voice said from behind Etho.

Etho startled, got up and looked behind him to find the source of the voice. He didn't see anyone, but then remembered to look down. A bearded man wearing blue armor and a mossy green cape smiled up at him.

“Oh, you know, just...” Etho said, remembering what Gem mentioned. “Just... antagonising Jimmy, that's what I'm doing!” he pointed an uncertain finger at Tango's face, which was actually Jimmy's face. “You... you scoundrel!”

“What!” Tango responded. “I'm being antagonised! How dare you!” Tango responded, and shook a fist at Etho. Etho had to admit, he mimicked Jimmy's outraged face pretty well.

“Oh no!” the stranger responded. “Well, I don't want to get in the way of that, so I'll be gone quickly, I promise.” He didn't seem to realise anything was out of the ordinary. He also did not leave, but instead continued to look at Etho, making some kind of gesture with his hand. Etho stared blankly at him.

“Get down,” he stage-whispered to Etho.

“What?”

“Get down here, I wanna say something to you,” he whispered, making the gesture again. He was pointing to the ground, Etho realised.

“I thought you were leaving,” Etho said, but he sat down anyways. The other man grabbed his head.

“I've dropped Hermes off at your place. He can't wait to see his thunder daddy again,” the man whispered into his ear. Then, he reached down, and briefly squeezed Etho's butt.

“Okay, I'll talk to you later! Bye bye!” he yelled, and left just as suddenly as he'd arrived, leaving Etho sitting on the ground, speechless.

After a long ten seconds, Tango spoke up: “Did he just... what did he say to you?”

“I don't think you want to know.”

* * * * *

Staring at the face on the chat device's screen, Pearl took a moment to assess the facts. She had Scott's body, Scott's chat, and was in an unfamiliar player-built village that was likely to be Scott's base. Which was not in Hermitcraft.

“Grian, how on earth have you managed to do this?” she said to herself. She then used Scott's chat to check the player list of this new server. She recognised every name on the list; it seemed like the group from Empires.

Oh, Empires. What a beautiful fever dream that was, Pearl thought. Maybe she'd reminisce with some of the others later, when she saw them. But first, it'd probably be wise to get to the bottom of this situation. She narrowed the player list down to three people she'd like to see: Joel and Jimmy, in case they knew what was going on, or fWhip, in case he could reverse it with admin permissions. Then she unfolded the very colourful elytra she had on her, and started flying.

After a little bit, Pearl encountered someone else, flying in roughly the same direction as her. When she got closer, she immediately recognised him: it was Sausage, wearing a different outfit from last time, although equally regal.

“Alright, forget the list, I've gotta go talk to him. SAUSAGE!” she yelled, causing him to turn around in mid-air. The two of them circled downwards until they landed.

“Sausage! Hi! Oh my goodness, it's been so long!” Pearl said, excitedly.

“Hi Scott, what's up?” Sausage replied. “Didn't we talk last week?”

Oh, right. “Right. Okay, this is awkward, but I'm not actually Scott.”

“Really?”

“Nope. I'm Pearl!”

“Pearl... that's a nice name. Do you have new pronouns too?” Sausage asked, smiling. Pearl had to admit, that wasn't really the reaction she was hoping for.

“No- well, yes, but- this isn't a transition situation, Sausage. More like... a possession situation.”

Sausage gasped, and took a few steps backwards. “Possession?! Are you, like, a spirit that's taken over Scott's body?”

“Well, kind of... what, don't you remember your old friend Pearlo?”

“Hmm... sorry, let me think for a moment,” Sausage responded. “Nope, I don't remember any friends named Pearl. Unless you mean...” he stopped talking for a second. His eyes widened.

“No. Is it true? Are you... her?” his voice was suddenly softer, more gentle.

“Yes, I've just told you I was!” Pearl replied. She was stunned. Sure, Sausage was always pretty strongly affected by Lore, but forgetting about her this hard? Maybe Ren was right, maybe she really was cursed.

“Oh my... oh my goodness, that's amazing! You've returned to us!” Sausage said, back to his normal energetic voice. “We have to do something to celebrate... a feast. Would you like a feast?”

“I'm always down for a feast!” Pearl replied.

“Wonderful! Come on, let's get to Sanctuary. Follow me, please!”

---

“Sausage, you have got to give me a tour of this world after the feast,” Pearl said to Sausage as the two of them flew over a sea filled with pirate ships.

“Of course, I'd be happy to!” Sausage replied. Then he added, in that uncharacteristically quiet voice again: “If I may ask one question though... why Scott?”

“Well, I didn't get any choice in the matter, it was just picked randomly,” Pearl replied. “I probably would've chosen somebody else, to be honest. Scott's at least a better option than Jimmy though.”

Sausage laughed. “So true,” he said. “That's interesting though. I thought a goddess would have more power over that...”

Wait, what? Goddess? Before Pearl could ask any questions, sausage landed on the street of a beautiful city, next to a large cathedral.

“Here we are! I haven't actually prepared the feast, so I'm going to do that right now. Do you have any food you'd like to try?” Sausage asked.

“Hmmm... Soup! I love soup.”

“Soup?” Sausage repeated. “That isn't very feast-y, though...”

“No, but it is tasty. I like soup,” Pearl replied.

“Of course. You're right, I'm sorry. We can make soup! I'll get started right now. You could have a look around Sanctuary, or just take a rest in your cathedral, alright?” Sausage said. He was talking rather fast now.

“Do you need some help with that, or...”

“No, of course not! You're an honored guest, you don't have to do anything! I'll be back soon!” With that, Sausage dashed off. Pearl could still hear him talking giddily to himself.

“Well, alright then.” Pearl turned around to look at the building behind her. “My cathedral, huh...”

She stepped inside, and immediately her attention was drawn to the stained glass window in the back wall. It had a large artwork of herself, in the dress she used to wear as queen of Heliantia.

“Wow, he really wasn't lying,” Pearl said, as she strolled across the church and stepped onto the stage. There was a chair off to the side, where she sat down and stretched her legs. Or, rather, Scott's legs. That was still a very strange sensation. After a while, her chat device buzzed; a message from Gem.

GeminiTay whispered to you: Pearl?

You whispered to GeminiTay: HI GEM

GeminiTay whispered to you: oh it is you, good

GeminiTay whispered to you: Scott's in your body in hermitcraft too

GeminiTay whispered to you: where are you? I couldn't find you in Chromia

You whispered to GeminiTay: at sausage's

You whispered to GeminiTay: we're gonna have a feast

GeminiTay whispered to you: oh god

GeminiTay whispered to you: do you need rescuing?

Did she need rescuing? Sausage seemed to think she was a goddess, which was definitely weird, but a nice change of pace from being called a witch all the time. Plus, she could definitely cause some shenanigans with this knowledge. She could handle being Scott for a little while if it let her cause a bit of chaos.

You whispered to GeminiTay: nah

You whispered to GeminiTay: he's making SOUP!

You whispered to GeminiTay: you wanna join us?

This should be fun.

(next)

[arthropod-concoctions]

Hello!

The swap au is a great idea, it’s super fun to read, and I love how in character everybody is.

Thank you for writing it!

Ah thank you for the compliments! I just wanted to get really silly with this one so im glad people are liking it :D

[arthropod-concoctions]

(AO3 - prev)

After discussing the details of being the 'royal stunt double' for a little while, Bigb was dismissed by king Ren, who clarified that he really meant it this time. So he left the throne room and descended down a narrow spiral staircase all the way to the ground. He was about to head outside, when he noticed an odd sound, like someone pounding their fists against a wall repeatedly.

He traced the sound to a diorite wall to the right of the door. He approached the wall and then, hesitantly, called out.

“Hello?”

The pounding stopped. Faintly, a voice responded from the other side; Etho's voice. “Ren? Is that you?”

“No, I'm- uh. Yeah. I'm totally Ren. Etho, is that you?”

“E- what? No, I'm Joel. Ren, do you see any buttons where you are?”

“Buttons?” Bigb was fairly certain he did hear Etho's voice, but then again, he looked like Ren now. Maybe the same thing had happened to 'Joel'. “Nope. No buttons here. Why?”

“Well, I'm in this big dark room, and I can see that there's a piston door here, but I can't find any way to open it, so I thought maybe the way to open it was on your side? But I guess not, so-” he made a hysterical laughing sort of noise, which definitely sounded like something Joel would do- “well, that's fine!”

“Okay. Alright, don't worry, I can get you out of there,” Bigb replied. He scanned the room again. There weren't any buttons, but he did see an observer in the floor, with some candles on top of it. “There's an observer here. I can try and trigger it, see if that-”

“No! Dude, don't just trigger an observer, that's probably a trap!”

“I mean, it sounds to me like you're already trapped. I don't think we have much to lose.”

“Trapped?” Joel made another noise. “I'm not trapped at all! I could easily break out of here, it's just very dark, and I don't have a blumming pickaxe in my inventory, and, well, a god of the sky just isn't supposed to be in a dungeon like this, and-”

This was getting out of hand. “I'm triggering the observer,” Bigb said.

“DON'T YOU DARE-”

Bigb reached down and grabbed one of the candles standing on the observer. It clicked.

Behind him, pistons retracted, and then someone collided with him.

Joel breathed out sharply, sounding relieved. He made no attempt to move away from Bigb, so Bigb just awkwardly hugged him instead. I sure am getting personal with these guys today, he thought. Strangely enough, he didn't recognise Joel's features at all. He had pale skin, and white hair, and a scar over his eye-

No, wait. He recognised that scar. And the top half of his face. And the piece of dark blue fabric that was now hanging around Joel's neck.

Joel finally pulled back. “I wasn't scared or anything, you know. If you th-”

“Dude, your mask!” Bigb interrupted him.

“My mask? You mean this thing? I don't- wait.” Joel looked at the mask he had pulled down, then at the rest of his outfit-- Etho's outfit. He tapped on his face around the scarred eye. “Oh. Well, I guess that explains where my depth perception went...”

Bigb continued to stare at his- at Etho's mouth. “This is surreal. I feel like I just walked in on somebody naked.”

Joel let out a hum. He sure was making a lot of noises today. “Then- if I look like Etho but am actually Joel, does that mean you're actually Bigb?”

“Yeah.” Bigb nodded.

Joel nodded too. “I thought you didn't sound like Ren.” Then he pulled the mask back over his face and said: “Well... Bigb. Can we agree to forget about, just... this whole encounter?”

Bigb chuckled. “Sure. I can do that.”

“Sweet. Thanks,” Joel replied, then opened the door-- a regular door-- and went outside. About three seconds later, he came back and asked: “By the way, where the heck are we?”

“I have no idea.”

---

Gem opened her eyes, and cracked her knuckles. Both other members of the soup group were away, doing some sort of hardcore challenge, which meant she had a few hours to work on her base with no distractions-

Oh, nevermind. The player list showed that Impulse had already arrived, and a bunch of the other participants too. That was strange. The game was supposed to last around 24 hours, maybe more-- and 17 hours was not 'around 24', in Gem's opinion.

“Well, I guess that's what happens when you trust Grian to estimate a time,” Gem said, and sighed. “Goodbye, productivity.” Then she solemnly grabbed a rocked and flew into the sky.

Impulse wasn't in his own base, which meant he was probably at the shopping district. Flying in that direction, she found him soon enough- about halfway to spawn, in a screaming match with Bdubs for some reason.

“...whole time, I was thinking, 'I can't wait to be back so I'll be taller than Impulse again', and now this has happened!” Impulse shouted as she approached the two of them.

“Well what do you want me to do about it? I didn't cause this!” Bdubs shouted back.

“Impulse!” Gem yelled, interrupting the argument. Both of them jumped as she landed on the ground.

“Hi Gem!” they both said, almost in unison.

“Guys, what's happening? Do I need to slay somebody?”

“Th- no, no, that won't be necessary,” Impulse said. He didn't quite sound like himself.

“Good. Impulse, what were you even saying, about being taller than... yourself?”

“Uh- okay, that does sound weird, but it makes sense, I promise,” Impulse replied. “You see... hm. How do I put this...”

“Oh, Pearl's just gotten back,” Bdubs interrupted, looking at his chat.

“Pearl's gotten back... or... somebody else?” Impulse replied.

“Yeah. We should probably go greet... them.”

They had yet to explain anything. Impulse and Bdubs took off flying, and Gem followed them. “Okay, would somebody explain what the heck is going on?” she asked as she caught up.

“Yeah, we probably should,” Impulse replied. He slowed down, and for some reason stuck his hand out towards her. “Hi. I'm Bdubs. Nice to meet you.”

“Wha-” Gem stopped herself, and sighed. “Okay, first of all, if you're Bdubs then we've already met, so there's no point introducing yourself again. Second of all, I just left my larping world, so I'd appreciate if you didn't-”

“We're not larping!” 'Bdubs' yelled. Admittedly, his tone of voice did sound a lot like Bdubs'. Ahead, the real Bdubs-- was that Impulse now?-- landed in front of Pearl.

“Hi. How you feeling?” he said to her. Yep, that sounded like Impulse.

“Very confused,” Pearl responded in a Scottish accent. “I don't know where I am, I wasn't expecting to see you again- no offense- and I have the body of-”

“Of Pearl. Yeah.” Bdubs nodded. “Welcome to the club, Scott.”

“Scott?” Gem repeated.

“Gem!” Pearl- no, Scott- turned to her. “Can I have a word with you, privately?”

The two of them walked away from Impulse and Bdubs. Scott grabbed Gem's shoulder and whispered: “Where are we? What is this place?”

“This is Hermitcraft. I live here. Welcome!”

“You... live here? Don't you live in Dawn?” Scott said, confirming Gem's suspicions: not only was this the same Scott she knew, but he was still acting in character.

Gem replied: “Well, I live here too.”

“Okay,” he replied, looking up and around at the fantastical landscape Pearl had terraformed. “Do you know how I can get back to Chromia from here?”

Gem hummed. Scott wasn't whitelisted to Hermitcraft, so the only way he could be here is if he got Pearl's permissions as well, but she wasn't whitelisted to Empires. “I'm not sure you can.”

“I- excuse me? I can't just stay here, I have a responsibility to my empire! As do you, by the way!” Scott said, looking at Gem sternly. Classic Scott; he wouldn't break character if his life depended on it. Also, he was taller than Gem now, which she did not like.

“Oh, relax, I'm sure it'll be fine. Also, I can go over to Dawn whenever I like. I was just there!”

“Oh.” Scott looked down, then at Gem again. “In that case, can you also keep an eye on Chromia when you return? As a favor?”

Gem sighed. “Yeah, okay,” she said. “I can do that.”

As if she didn't have enough to do already.

(next)

[arthropod-concoctions]

(AO3 - prev)

About an hour later, Grian was done checking on everyone that had ended up on Hermitcraft; and sure enough, the same thing had happened to everyone. Even the people that weren't whitelisted on the server had ended up here now. A few non-Lifers had inevitably already heard about what had happened-- Grian had wasted a lot of time convincing Zedaph that Jimmy was, in fact, Jimmy, and not Tango with some mystery illness-- but Xisuma had just logged in, and he was now on his way to ask him for advice on how to reverse the situation.

He flew into the mouth of the giant skull Xisuma made. X looked up, and waved at him.

“Hello, Scar,” he said as Grian touched down. “How are you doing?”

“I'm- well, I'm doing alright, but I'm not Scar. I'm Grian, and Scar is currently in control of my body. We all somehow switched bodies when we got out of Double Life, and... I... was hoping you had some advice on how to fix that?”

“...Huh,” Xisuma said after a long moment of silence. “I've got to be honest, I've never heard of a glitch like that.” Faintly, Grian saw some screens lighting up on the inside of his helmet. “I guess I'll go check the server logs... were you all swapped randomly?”

“No. In the server, we all had a soulbond-- someone we shared health with. Everyone got swapped with theirs.” Now, Grian was ready to admit there were probably more conventional ways to code this than via souls, which he'd done; but in his defense, learning to code normally was much harder than just using watcher methods, and sounded like a lot of effort.

“Huh,” Xisuma said again. “Strange. Well, I don't see anything here-- I can just see you all logged out, and then logged in again. Maybe I can help if I take a look at your admin logs...?”

Grian sighed. He wasn't particularly inclined to show his spaghetti code to X, but he would probably have to if he wanted to get his advice. He pulled up his chat-

And stared at the orange-and-cyan device for a few seconds as the realisation dawned on him. Scar's chat. Which had Scar's files, and none of his own. More importantly, he hadn't even been able to use his Sight earlier, which meant even if he had his code, he wouldn't be able to read most of it. The only person that could, was...

“I think I have to go talk to Scar,” he told Xisuma, and slowly turned towards the exit.

---

He found Scar swimming in a river between their two bases. He clambered out of the water as Grian touched down.

“Dude, your swimming stamina is terrible,” Scar said, panting.

“Do you even know how to dry those wings?”

“No, but I'm sure I'll figure it out. It can't be that hard,” Scar said, and he shook the wings, spraying water all over Grian; and then he winced, having stretched a muscle weirdly.

“Yeah, that isn't the way to do it,” Grian replied. “Anyways, I just talked to X, and... I have bad news.”

“Really? What's that?” Scar asked. Annoyingly, what he'd said earlier wasn't wrong; Grian's voice did sound very strange talking with an American accent.

“Well, X can't see anything wrong with us, so we have to solve the problem on our own. Now usually this would be my responsibility as admin, but because I'm you and you're me, I can't access any of my own files, so...”

Grian trailed off, and looked at Scar's expression; after a few seconds, he gasped, his smile vanished, and he staggered backwards.

“No, no, wait, I... Grian, you can't do this to me! You KNOW I can't code!” He continued walking backwards, almost falling into the river again.

“Luckily, neither can I, so you won't have to learn much. I just want to walk you through accessing the files, and I think it'll mostly be easy from there?” Grian responded.

Scar laughed-- his 'I need to talk myself out of this situation and fast' laugh, which, again, sounded very jarring coming from Grian's mouth. “I mean, there's no rush, right? Honestly, I think you're not taking advantage of the situation enough, trying to reverse it immediately. You should go visit Cub, he'll show you how to have a fun time with my body.”

Grian opened his mouth to respond, then hesitated, deciding it was probably better not to acknowledge that trainwreck of an innuendo. “Well, getting you into my code will probably not be anything close to immediate, so don't worry about that. Let's just start with... okay, do you know what a watcher is?”

“Watcher? I'm a Mandalorian watcher.”

“No- alright, that's a no. Great. Well, I'm a watcher, it's a whole thing, and it comes with a bunch of tricks that relate to coding a server-- but first of all, you need to activate your Sight.”

Grian noticed Scar slowly stepping to the side, away from him. He stuck out his cane and tripped him. Scar fell over, and Grian nearly did too- he immediately set down the cane to lean on it again. It was strange. He often saw Scar swinging the cane around as if it was a conductor's baton, but he found himself needing to lean on it increasingly more. It was probably a matter of experience, he decided.

Scar groaned, and sat up on the ground. “Fine. I need to activate my science. How do I do that?”

Grian sat down opposite him. “Close your eyes, and then look at me.”

Scar closed his eyes, then opened them again immediately. “...What?”

Grian sighed. How was he going to explain this? “Alright, it's like... you use the replay mod, right? It's kind of like that. Close your eyes, then imagine you're using replay to look at me.”

“Oh, okay, sure,” Scar said, and closed his eyes again. He sat there for a few seconds...

And then he vanished.

Uh-oh. That wasn't supposed to happen yet. “...Scar?” Grian tentatively called out. Nothing happened.

“Scar, I hope you're still around here... you weren't supposed to do that yet. Can you try and reverse that?” he continued talking into the air.

No response. Grian counted to ten, and still no response. “Oh, this is bad...” he muttered to himself. He considered his options. There weren't very many of them-

Then he heard a high-pitched yell from above him. He jumped away just in time to avoid Scar crashing down on top of him.

Grian began laughing, and couldn't stop. He sank back down onto the ground as Scar laid there, looking into the sky. “Grian,” he said, “that was horrifying!”

Grian was still laughing, and eventually his laugh morphed into a long groan. He was going to be here quite a while.

(next)

[arthropod-concoctions]

(AO3 - prev)

Jimmy wasn't in Tumble Town. Instead of the mesa he'd claimed to build his empire in, Jimmy found himself in a snowy field surrounded by gargantuan walls made of blackstone. Had someone pranked him by terraforming his surroundings while he'd been in the game? Probably not; there wasn't enough time for that. He'd been inside the game for five weeks, so that was... about fifteen hours for outsiders. Not nearly enough time to gather enough blackstone to do all this.

I still can't believe I died so early again. To an enderman of all things! Jimmy thought to himself. Well, no point lingering on that now; he'd apologize to Tango the next time they played. Right now he wanted to get out of these walls and see something familiar.

He flew to the top of one of the walls to look around, but he only saw forests, no familiar scenery. He shuffled across the wall to see more-- shuffled, because whoever had dropped him into this snowfield had also put a thick, cumbersome coat on him. It got in the way of his movements and made it very hot, so he began to take it off-

Wait a minute. He was in the middle of a snowfield, yet didn't feel cold at all; in fact, he was getting very warm. Wasn't that a symptom of hypothermia? Suddenly, he noticed that his arms were very pale, unhealthily so.

“Oh no,” he whispered to himself, and put the coat back on. “Right, change of plan: I need to get out of here.” He activated his elytra again, and flew away from the blackstone construction.

He didn't have to fly long to find signs of civilization; he quite quickly came across a large street with many buildings along it. It was deserted, and didn't look like the building style of any other emperors, but Jimmy landed anyways. Then he decided to do something he probably should have done earlier; he checked chat.

Strangely enough, his chat didn't manifest as the book and quill he'd designed, but instead as a small red device. Still, it showed him the most recent messages of the server he'd ended up in:

Tango joined the game

<joehillssays> Howdy Tango, welcome back!

<Cubfan135> Tangooooooo

Tango was here! Jimmy didn't know the other names, but that didn't matter; finding Tango would already be very helpful. He decided to send him a private message; better not to alarm these strangers.

You whispered to Tango: tango

Tango whispered to you: tango

You whispered to Tango: im lost

Tango whispered to you: im lost

You whispered to Tango: where are you

Tango whispered to you: where are you

The fact that his messages to Tango immediately got sent back was worrying. Maybe Tango's chat was bugged, and somehow bouncing messages back instead of showing them to him...? Regardless, Jimmy sent him one more message.

You whispered to Tango: im so sorry about that death btw

Tango whispered to you: im so sorry about that death btw

Unsure of what else to do, Jimmy made his way to a bench and sat down. He was beginning to sweat; would it be safe to take off the coat yet? His arms still didn't have any colour in them, so he decided against it.

After a few minutes of waiting, someone flew past on elytra, noticed Jimmy, and landed in front of him. It wasn't Tango; this was someone wearing a brown sweater, with curled horns jutting out from his blond hair.

“There you are! Why weren't you responding to chat? And what are you in Scarland for?” the stranger asked Jimmy.

Jimmy wasn't sure how to respond; this person didn't seem at all concerned about the fact there was someone new on the server. He decided to get straight to the point: “I think I'm freezing to death.”

“Oh jeez. The deep frost finally got to you, then?” he stepped towards Jimmy, and put his hand on his forehead.

“I mean, you are a little cold, but I thought that was just part of your bit this season,” he said. “You feel, warmer than the last time I high-fived you. And- dude, you're sweating! Tango, buddy, I know hardcore worlds can get intense, but did you forget the difference between hot and cold?”

Jimmy hadn't ever high-fived this man. “I thought getting warm was a symptom of... did you just call me Tango?”

The man's eyes widened slowly. “...Yes? That's your name, silly!”

“No it isn't,” Jimmy said, and frowned. If he got mistaken for Tango, did that mean...?

“Oh. Okay, that's fine, uh... do you remember my name?” he spoke slowly, and had a concerned expression on his face.

“No. Look, dude, I think something went-”

“WHAT!?” the man interrupted Jimmy. “You don't even remember your best friend Zedaph? Okay, you are clearly not feeling well. Take that big coat off, I think you're overheating.”

Jimmy did take the coat off, leaving him with a short-sleeved undershirt. His upper arms were even paler than his hands; they were almost blue. Zedaph took the coat and draped it over the bench they were sitting on.

“Tango, you just lay down for a moment. I'll stay here with you, and I'll call X when he gets online, and then he'll get you checked out, okay?”

Jimmy started to lay down, then changed his mind. “No, I feel fine, but dude, I'm not Tango. My name's Jimmy, and me and Tango were-”

“Ah-bah-bah-bah, don't get so worked up, just get some rest,” Zedaph interrupted him, and pushed him flat onto the bench. He was surprisingly strong; or maybe Jimmy was just lighter than he was used to. Zedaph sat down on the bench next to him, and began writing something down, muttering to himself: “Okay, symptoms: amnesia, weird body temperature, talking in a London accent for some reason...”

Jimmy sighed, and laid down. How had he ended up in this situation?

---

One moment Bigb was rushing up the stairs of the Box, trying to help Ren. The next he was... sitting in his lap?

When he turned his head to see Ren's be-sun-spectacled face right next to his own, he immediately jumped up. He also squealed, which would've been embarrassing if not for the sound Ren made, which was louder and lasted much longer.

“He-hey, Ren! Fancy seeing you here,” Bigb said to Ren, trying to sound casual. He had not expected to see him again; he'd expected to end up back on BasicCraft with Tom. Maybe this was the afterlife? He was pretty sure Scott had mentioned an afterlife some other time.

“What sorcery is this!?” Ren responded, not sounding casual in the slightest. “Why- How is there an impostor of the king in thine own throne room?”

“Impostor? Aw, I thought you liked the matching dog ears,” Bigb replied, scratching his own ears. Yep, still furry. Then, noticing the small crown on Ren's head and the throne he was sitting on, he added: “Wait, are we doing this again? Uh, my lord.”

“Well, of course I like the ears. But-” Ren paused, and tilted his head at Bigb. “Ah, I see. You are my old self. My PEASANT self! Oh, how it doth pain me to see this reminder of how I once was... BEGONE!”

“Wow,” Bigb said. “Rude.” He'd remembered Ren having a dramatic flair as king, but he was fairly certain he'd been nicer last time.

“I am the king, and I can be rude to whomever I doth wisheth! Now leave me, I must ponder!”

Well, two could play at that game. “You know what?” Bigb said. “You look stupid in that big cape.”

Ren's face dropped, and Bigb saw him shrink down into his throne. “Oh,” he said, much quieter than before. He looked utterly crushed by Bigb's remark.

Bigb stuck out his tongue at him, and turned around to leave... but Ren's sad face made him feel bad. So he turned back around and said: “I'm sorry, my lord. That was mean.”

“Yes... yes, I'm sorry as well,” Ren replied, wiping a tear out of his eye. “I should not be so rude to my own image... but I can make it up to you!”

“You can?”

“Yes! From this point onwards, I declareth thee... the royal stunt double! If ever I need a vacation from ruling, or I get a bad haircut or something, I will calleth upon you to take my place for a meeting or two.”

Bigb raised an eyebrow. “And what's in it for me?”

“Huh? You... you'll have a position in the royal court of King RentheKing! That is the greatest honor in all of Hermitcraftia!” Ren called out, spreading his arms wide.

“Right, of course, of course,” Bigb responded, then scratched his ear again. “...Are you sure I look enough like you for that though? I mean, we don't even have...” he trailed off, as he took a good look at his own arm for the first time since getting here. Why on earth was he white?

“Yes, of course, you are my splitting image! Come, stand beside me,” Ren ordered, so Bigb approached him again and stood next to his throne. Ren grabbed his chat and turned on the camera.

“Look, our faces are identical! As soon as you don some proper royal garb, no one will tell the difference.” Sure enough, the screen showed two Rens: one with a crown and cloak, and one with the floral shirt Ren wore at the start of Double Life.

“Oh. Yeah, that makes sense,” Bigb said slowly, staring at the screen. “I have no questions about this at all.”

---

Martyn felt the characteristic thud of getting dropped into a new world, and opened his eyes to see he was laying in a flat field of grass.

“Are we going again already? Surely not, it's been like thirty seconds since the last game. I didn't even hear the rules this time,” he said to himself. He got up, and immediately saw that wherever he was, it was not at the start of a Life game. Giant rectangular pillars loomed before him, and he turned around to see two huge seahorse statues. He also noticed he wasn't wearing his own clothes; instead he was wearing a dark blue dress, and his limbs were pale green and felt numb.

He was undead like Cleo, and was wearing a dress like Cleo's. “If this is some kind of punishment for being mean to my soulmate earlier, it's-”

his statement to nobody in particular was interrupted by the sound of fireworks nearby. Martyn immediately whirled around to find the source-- was someone coming at him with a firework crossbow?

It almost seemed that way when an explosion of green and yellow lights in his peripheral vision made him jump; but the person who emerged from the explosion was unarmed. They looked a bit like Skizz, but with a significantly more eccentric fashion sense. They smiled at Martyn.

“Howdy Cleo, welcome back! How was the death game?” they said in a voice that sounded nothing like Skizz's.

Oh, so that's the game we're playing, Martyn thought. It was best to stay under the radar until he'd figured out what was going on, he thought; so he decided to play along.

“Oh you know... you know how it is with death games,” he replied, talking slower than usual, hoping to mimic Cleo's voice. It seemed to work, as Cleo's friend didn't look suspicious of him.

“Not really. It's been a little while since I did one. Maybe I should ask Grian to invite me next time,” they said. “Anyway, I'm about to go mine out some nether tunnels, do you want to help?”

“No. I'm gonna go... recover for a bit,” Martyn said. The more he was alone, the longer before someone caught on to the fact he wasn't actually Cleo. It's a good think we have similar accents at least, he thought.

“Okay, see you around!” the stranger responded, then used a pull-string firework rocket and elytra to take off into the sky. Martyn watched them fly away for a few seconds, then turn around and go back towards him.

“By the way, Cleo, I have a lot of blackstone now, so if you ever need any for your builds, just tell me and I'll give you some, alright?”

“Yeah, alright. Look, can you just-” Martyn was interrupted by the sound of yet another person flying in using elytra. He turned around and saw Scar landing on the ground and walking towards him, leaning on his cane. This was someone he knew-- he wasn't sure whether that was better for him or worse.

“Howdy Scar! Did you have fun in the death game?” Cleo's friend said, while grabbing a totem of undying from their inventory. That worried Martyn; he really didn't want to end up in the middle of a fight right now.

“Hi Joe,” Scar said to them. Then he turned to Martyn: “Look, Martyn, something's gone horribly wrong, as you can probably tell-”

“Who's Mahrtyn?” Cleo's friend-- Joe, apparently-- interrupted.

“This is,” Scar responded, gesturing at Martyn. “Wait, did he not... had you not told Joe?”

Martyn didn't respond. Well, there goes that plan, he thought. Joe stared ahead for a moment, squinting, then a smile broke across their face and they turned to Martyn.

“Oh my gosh, Cle- Martyn, that's amazing! I'm so happy for you! Is it okay if I call Quinn?”

Martyn didn't know who Quinn was, but evidently Scar did. “No, Joe, that's not what I-” he started to say, before breaking down into laugher. It was a loud cackle, very un-Scar-like; and Martyn suspected he knew why.

Joe's smile faded. “...What?” they said accusingly. “Did I not understand this correctly? Also, Scar, why are you British now?”

When British Scar had recovered slightly from his laughing fit, he said: “No, Joe, listen- first of all, I'm not Scar, I'm Grian. Somehow we all got swapped into each other's bodies when coming back from Double Life. So this isn't Cleo at all, this is Martyn.”

“Oh, okay,” Joe said. Then they blinked and said to Martyn: “Wait, no, cancel that. You mean you aren't my good friend Cleo?”

Martyn sighed. “No, sorry dude.” At this point, pretending otherwise would only make things worse. Martyn held out his hand-- or rather, Cleo's hand-- to Joe. “I'm Martyn, nice to meet you.”

Joe stood still for a second, thinking, then shrugged and took it. “It's a pleasure,” he replied. “Welcome to Hermitcraft, I guess.”

(next)

[arthropod-concoctions]

(AO3)

Grian's ears were still ringing when he respawned, back at home. He closed his eyes, buried his face in his hands, and groaned.

“I'm so sorry, Scar,” he muttered to himself. He'd decided to go make an apology to the man himself as well, as he would also be waking up right about now. Grian opened his eyes-

And immediately noticed that he was not in his own base.

He sat up and looked around to get his bearings. He was lying in a soft green bed, in an organically-shaped room with walls of living wood and beautiful wood-carved furniture. Jellie was lying in a cat bed a few meters away.

Scar's base. Why on Earth am I in Scar's base? He thought. “Scar?” he called out, then cleared his throat, because his voice sounded incredibly hoarse. There was no response.

He got up to go find Scar, but barely made it two steps away from the bed before collapsing onto the floor. His legs felt like he'd walked a marathon. That was concerning; respawn pain wasn't supposed to be this intense, even after exiting a hardcore world, and he'd barely even hurt his legs when he died. His ears were the part that got hurt-- and they still did. He rubbed his ears, hoping to make the ringing stop. It didn't, but Grian noticed something else: his ears had pointy tips.

“Wait a second...” Grian suddenly had an idea of what might have happened. He hastily dug through his horribly unorganized inventory for something with a mirrored surface. He eventually found a hand mirror with golden decorations, which he'd never seen before, and looked into it. A scarred face with dark green eyes looked back at him.

“Oh no,” Grian said, in Scar's voice.

He was in Scar's body. That must be why his legs hurt so much, he realized. He looked around and quickly saw a cane carved from spruce wood leaning against a nightstand, with a large green crystal worked into the design. Grian grabbed it, and immediately felt the pain lessen; slowly, he stood up again. For a second he tried to rebalance with his wings, but of course they were gone now.

This was a very big problem; seemed like something had gone wrong separating his and Scar's soulbond. He should probably check how his own body was doing; he closed his eyes to Watch elsewhere--

And nothing happened. He just opened his two regular eyes again.

He sighed. “Right. Scar's not a watcher.” he'd have to go check things out the old-fashioned way, but before then, he decided to send a quick message to everyone online. He pulled out his chat; the device was colored cyan and orange.

Grian joined the game

GoodTimeWithScar joined the game

<Cubfan135> heyoo

<Zedaph> Hi there!

<GoodTimeWithScar> guys

<GoodTimeWithScar> there's a big problem

<Cubfan135> need some help, Scar?

<GoodTimeWithScar> not right now

<GoodTimeWithScar> but

<Grian> no im having the time fo my life lol

<GoodTimeWithScar> im not scar

Grian experienced kinetic energy

<GoodTimeWithScar> that is

Well, at least Grian's questions of what had happened to his body and Scar's soul were answered now. He decided to go find Scar, and see if he had any idea what to do now. He left Scar's treehouse, opened his elytra-- mechanical elytra, he'd have to get used to those again-- and took off.

He flew towards Scarland's main street at first, before realizing his mistake; he set his own spawn point at his own base, so that would be where Scar was. Sure enough, when he approached his base he also saw a figure with black-and-white wings circling around the rocks floating high in the sky. It was a surreal sight.

Grian ascended up to where Scar was flying around-- quite clumsily, he should add-- and called out to him: “Scar!” he landed on top of a rock, nearly losing his balance but regaining it by using Scar's cane. Scar, who had been singing to himself, looked in his direction.

“Flying around, so gracefully on the wings of a- WHAT IN THE WORLD!” Scar shouted, the sight of Grian spooking him so much he involuntarily flexed his wings, and he began to fall down.

Grian watched Scar plummet down and try to recover, frantically flapping the wings but not letting them catch any air, before eventually hitting one of the rocks floating lower down and dissolving into white smoke. Grian winced, and began gliding down again, towards his bed this time.

He touched down just in time to see himself rolling out of his own bed, visibly shaken. Scar looked in his direction and startled again, falling back onto the bed.

“That was hard to watch. Hello, Scar,” Grian said to him.

“I don't- who are you and how have you- wait.” Scar stammered, before stopping to think for a second.

“...Grian?” his expression on Grian's face was dumbfounded. I hope I don't look like this much of a loser when I'm myself, Grian thought to himself.

“Yeah. It seems we've done a bit of a switcheroo for some reason. What, did the wings not give that away to you?”

“Yeah, but I thought we'd just merged together for some reason! I didn't think you would be in my body!”

“And that didn't concern you for even a second?”

“No, I was having too much fun for that. Look, dude, I have wings now!” Scar said, and spread his wings out again.

“Yeah, I know, those are my-” Grian didn't finish his sentence, distracted by the sight of Scar jumping up and flapping the wings, not gaining any air at all, and faceplanting into the ground. He groaned.

“You just respawned. You have to give them a few minutes before they work again.”

“That's lame,” Scar said, sitting up. “Anyway, what should we do now?”

“I dunno. Maybe we should go check on some of the other people that've come back, see if they're- what's so funny?” Grian said to Scar, who was giggling.

Scar stifled his laughter, and waved his hand. “Nothing, nothing. Keep talking.” His smile looked very out of place on Grian's face.

“Right. So, check on the other peeps, or maybe we should talk to X and see if- why are you laughing?”

Scar's giggle had evolved into a full-on laugh now. “I'm sorry!” he said between wheezes, “It's just... I sound so stupid with a British accent.”

Then he added, doing a terrible imitation of Grian's accent: “'maybe we should go see X to-' see, I just sound normal now!”

Grian pursed his lips, then whacked Scar on the shoulder with his cane. He half-expected to feel the impact in his own shoulder as well, but fortunately that wasn't in effect anymore.

“Hey, back off!” Scar said in response. “You know, technically you're hitting yourself when you do that. Self-harm is very unhealthy, don't you know?”

“Oh- you're one to talk, mister powdered-snow-baths!” Grian responded. “Anyway, I think I'm going to go check on Tango and Etho now. You wanna come with, or...?”

“Okay!” Scar said, before standing up again. “Let's fly, bird boy! Wait, no I'm the bird boy now. Let's fly, elf boy!” With that, he spread his wings out once again, and successfully took off this time. Grian grabbed a firework rocket and followed suit.

“Remember, Scar, I'm using regular elytra now. So if you fall, I'm not gonna be able to catch you.”

“Oh, you think I'm gonna fall? Of course not, I am an expert at flying with wings now! Did you not see me practicing...” Scar's voice faded into the distance as he moved closer and closer to the ground, too distracted by talking to keep his altitude consistent.

Grian heard his own voice yelp from below, and burst out laughing. Server-moving bugs aside, it was nice to be flying again. It was good to be back.

(next)

[arthropod-concoctions]

Uprooted: chapter 13 (finale)

(AO3 - ch 1 - ch 12 (make sure you've read it!))

Scott awoke to an unfamiliar ceiling and the smell of blood. He quickly sat up to get his bearings, but there wasn't any fighting going on; he seemed to be in some kind of hospital room. He was in a bed, next to similar ones with various bodies on them. He recognized Grian laying on one a bit away; there was a bloody stump where his right leg should be. Scar was sitting on the bed, watching him, but he looked up and smiled at Scott.

“There he is, our hero! How are you feeling?” Scar asked, as he moved from Grian's bed to Scott's.

“I'm fine,” Scott replied. If he still had injuries, he couldn't feel them. “I don't think I am much of a hero, honestly. I found the king, but then I freaked out and ran away.” And promptly got killed, apparently.

“Ah, but in doing so, you led him right to us!” Scar said jovially. He had bandaging around his arm and shoulder, but didn't seem to have been seriously injured. “You'll be happy to know we managed to drive the king out of the castle, and we killed his right hand Martyn and threw the body into prison. We're the heroes of Troren, you included!”

Scott shrugged. He didn't really care who got the glory, right now he just wanted to see his husband. He opened his mouth to ask where Jimmy was, but Scar spoke up again: “You know, apparently some of the old Troren soldiers got absorbed into the Red Army, and they had also been planning a revolt. That's why everyone started fighting each other all of a sudden.”

“Okay. Where's Jimmy?” Scott asked.

Scar looked away, and his smile faded. He didn't answer.

“Scar?” Scott said, but a sinking feeling in his chest told him that he already knew the answer.

“He- the mission wasn't casualty-free, and Jimmy... he was among them, I'm afraid. I'm very sorry, Scott.”

“No,” Scott whispered. Jimmy can't have died again. Hasn't he had enough bad luck?

Scar sighed. “Come with me, won't you?”

Scott stood up. “Shouldn't you stay with Grian?” he heard himself say.

“I'm not sure he'll even want to see me when he wakes up, honestly.” Scar lead Scott out of one medicine room to the door of another. There was a sign hanging next to the door; it read 'final bodies'.

Scott stepped inside, and immediately recognized Jimmy's form lying on a sheet on the floor. He seemed smaller, somehow, like pieces of him had already faded away. Scott clamped his hand to his mouth. Jimmy's face was facing away from him; he knew seeing it would make him feel worse, but he had to do so anyways. He stepped forwards.

Jimmy's eyes were closed; it almost looked like he was sleeping, or pretending to sleep, like he'd done so often lately. Scott knelt down and opened one eye, then the other.

They weren't red anymore, nor were they green. His true eye colours, blue and brown, had seeped from the edges of his irises to fill them up completely. There were tiny specks in his brown eye.

They looked beautiful. Why did his dead eyes have to look beautiful?

Scott laid his head on Jimmy's chest, and sobbed.

He wasn't sure how long he stayed there, but eventually he heard footsteps, and the sound of wood knocking against the floor, coming into the room.

“I'm so sorry for your loss, Scott,” Grian said.

Scott lifted his head up. He tried to say something in response, but “hah” was all that came out.

Grian crouched next to him-- as much as that was possible with the lower half of his right leg missing-- and laid a hand on his shoulder.

For a while they sat next to Jimmy's corpse in silence. Then Grian spoke up: “You know, me and Scar had a deal.”

“A long time ago, I owed Scar a favor- a lot of favors, actually. So I told him that as long as I was green-lived, I'd go along with whatever plans he made. That's why I joined the Red Desert; the agreement didn't end when he died, so I essentially became a red-lived by proxy. I'm Yellow now, which means I don't owe Scar anything anymore- but I can't imagine leaving him behind. I feel like I'd be lost without him. And if he died...”

Scott let out another sob.

“All this to say, I understand what you're going through. Well, I don't, but I understand how awful it must be.”

“You and Scar could move into Troren,” Scott said numbly.

Grian hesitated. “I don't think we can,” he responded. “They have strict laws against Reds, the princes made that very clear during-”

“Cleo said they'd make an exception,” Scott said, turning to face Grian. His glasses were off, so Scott could see his yellow eyes. “For the people in the mission. For Reds that could behave themselves, or had a non-Red keeping them in check.”

Grian hummed. “I don't know if that applies to us, honestly. By the rules of our agreement, I can't stop Scar from hurting people.”

“But the agreement is over. You're Yellow now.”

“I think we've passed the point of no return. Both Scar and I, we can't go back to regular society at this point. Plus, the Desert still has some unfinished business. This war is far from over.”

Scott sighed. He wasn't sure why he even told Grian this; he was right. Even if he still wasn't Red, he could not imagine Grian living a normal life among Greens and Yellows, especially if Scar was involved.

Maybe he just didn't want prince Cleo's offer to go to waste. Sure, he could move to Troren on his own, but to do what? Make dye and miss his husband? Live his days as a widower in a foreign land? He didn't think he could handle rebuilding if Jimmy wasn't by his side. He'd been uprooted over and over, and now there weren't any roots left. Only thorns.

“You're taking the war eastwards, then?” he asked Grian.

“Yep. We might have crippled Sanguacanis a little bit and scared them out of Troren, but they'll recover. And then they'll come back with a vengeance.”

“...You think you could use another bowman?”

[arthropod-concoctions]

Uprooted: chapter 12

(ch 1 - ch 11 - ch 13)

“I really hate these tunnels,” an unexpected voice behind Scott whispered. The group of equal parts Reds and non-Reds had been walking through the darkness for hours, and an error in navigation a while back had caused their initial formation to get mixed up, apparently causing prince Cleo to end up right behind Scott and Jimmy.

“They're your tunnels, aren't they?” he replied, looking backwards. It was too dark to see Cleo's eyes, but he knew they were yellow. He'd seen her in strategy meetings a few times, and although her skin was pale and flaky like Jimmy's, he knew she wasn't Red. The other prince was.

“Yes, but that doesn't mean I have to like them.” the prince responded, and sighed. “Anyway. You're married to a red-lived, aren't you?”

“That's right.”

“My condolences. I've only had to deal with Bdubs being Red for a couple days, and it's already gotten really bothersome.” Apparently, prince Bdubs had gotten fatally injured while the two had made their escape from their castle, the very castle they were now re-infiltrating.

“Jimmy's not bad, honestly,” Scott whispered. “He hasn't really changed at all, in personality at least.”

“Really? That's interesting,” Cleo said. “I have started to think, maybe we've been a little bit hard on Reds in the past. I mean, Bdubs did tell me that all he thinks about is murder now, but it's not as if he can't be reasoned with anymore. And if your Jimmy is just normal...”

“I don't know. I've definitely met some people in the Desert that I would not want to live in a town with.”

“Oh, I don't doubt that for a second,” Cleo said. They were quiet for a while, but then they spoke up again, quietly: “I suppose you and your husband would be allowed, then.”

“Sorry?”

“Well, I've already had to argue with the leader of your little band that the Reds here will not be allowed back in Troren no matter what happens, but... I can make an exception for the civilised people, especially if a Green or Yellow can vouch for them.”

“So that means...”

“If you two survive this operation, and you need someplace new to live, you're welcome to move to Troren. Special permission from the Prince. Seems fair, seeing as you'll be a hero of war after this whole operation.”

“Oh. Well, thank you,” Scott replied.

They walked on in silence, while Scott thought about the offer. Would they want to move to a new land if the reign of Sanguacanis was gone? He was getting tired of rebuilding his home over and over, but maybe the bad memories of their old home would outweigh the good memories by now. And their cows had already been released, so at this point, maybe there wasn't even anything left worth going back to.

He'd have to discuss it with Jimmy anyways. After this operation was over.

Much more walking later, eventually Scott bumped into Jimmy, who'd been walking before him. Their little procession had stopped.

“Looks like we've made it,” Cleo said. “I'd better go find Bdubs. Look alive, people.”

Scott grabbed Jimmy's hand, who took it quickly. He'd been quiet for the entire trip, but had now started humming nervously. Scott squeezed his hand, but let it go when they emerged from a hatch into a long empty hallway. Holding hands wasn't very soldier-like, after all.

And soldiers is what they would have to become, now that they'd entered the castle. Scott fastened the buckles of the stuffy green armor he'd been given, and looked around at everyone else doing the same. He could hear a lot of commotion some distance away; seemed like the rest of the Desert had already initiated their prong of the attack.

Grian found Scar and all but dragged him toward the end of the hallway. Then he turned to the rest of the group and said: “Now, remember the plan; just walk around like you know what you're doing, and if you see the king, shoot him. Good luck, everyone.” With that, he and Scar marched out of view, and other pairs began to follow.

Scott gave Jimmy one more quick hug, and then the two of them turned the corner. Immediately, they were in the midst of chaos. Voices were yelling from all directions; Scott thought he even heard Joel's voice yelling something outside. All around them, pairs of soldiers were walking in the same direction, so they followed the crowd.

Scott slowed his pace slightly, to let Jimmy pass him. “You have to walk ahead of me,” he said.

“Why?”

“Look. The Red is walking in front of the Green in all these pairs,” he said, gesturing at the other soldiers. Jimmy looked around, and nodded, then took the lead.

Ahead of them, a duo turned a corner into a different hallway. A bit of bright orange hair stuck out of the green helmet; that was Cleo.

“Let's follow them,” Jimmy said. “They probably know where they're going.” And they turned the same corner, entering a hallway with significantly less soldiers and significantly more clutter.

Ahead, Cleo cussed, and slowed pace for a moment. A few seconds later, Scott saw why; on the floor, leaning against the wall, was a portrait of the two princes that had recently been taken down. Although their eyes were green and yellow in the portrait, instead of yellow and red, they were clearly recognizable.

“Well, let's hope nobody's paying attention to the paintings,” Cleo said, and she and Bdubs continued marching. Scott and Jimmy followed.

They continued on like this, twisting through various corridors and going up stairs; they were probably heading towards the throne room. They encountered very little resistance-

Until they saw a man with a green uniform and a high collar walking towards them. Commander Martyn.

Scott almost froze in place, but managed to keep walking. Grian had told him that Martyn held grudges for a long time; would he recognize himself and Jimmy?

“Quit faffing about, the four of you, and head to the battlements! We need more bowmen up there!” he shouted at them. Evidently, he did not recognize them; he walked straight past, not even waiting to see whether they followed his orders. Scott breathed a sigh of relief, and continued to follow Jimmy, who was following Cleo. That was the most danger they'd been in up to now, and they'd gotten out of it safely.

At least, for about thirty seconds. Then they heard Martyn running up behind them, and shouting: “STOP RIGHT THERE!”

This time, Scott did freeze, as did Jimmy before him. Slowly, he turned to look at Martyn. He was accompanied by two more Red Army soldiers, and actually wasn't looking in their direction at all; he was looking down the hallway past them. Right at Bdubs and Cleo.

“You two have some serious guts coming back here,” he called out across the hallway. “But I certainly won't say no to free prisoners!”

Cleo and Bdubs broke into a sprint. Martyn jogged after them, and shouted an order: “Detain those two!”

The red-lived soldier immediately sprinted forwards, but their green-lived partner didn't follow; they stayed behind Martyn. Suddenly, they hit him in the back of the head, and yelled: “BLUE MOON!”

Blue moon? The Red Desert hadn't made any code words, and Scott had never seen this soldier before.

But suddenly, all hell broke loose. Scott could hear the phrase being echoed all across the fortress, immediately followed by sounds of violence. The other Red soldier turned around, and immediately attacked their partner; they apparently had not been initiated into whatever 'blue moon' meant. Commander Martyn had fallen to the floor, but was quickly coming to his senses again.

Scott looked at Jimmy. Jimmy looked back. Then they both sprinted away as fast as possible.

They'd lost track of the princes, so they just ran through the hallways haphazardly now. What had previously been a somewhat peaceful procession of soldiers had rapidly become a bloodbath. Everywhere, Greens and Reds were fighting each other. At one point Scott saw someone cutting the limbs off a corpse clad in green, trying to prevent it from waking up. He felt nausea coming up in his throat, and kept running.

Eventually they came across Grian and Scar trying to pass a pile of corpses. “Hey fellas!” Grian called out to them when he looked up.

“There's no need to run at this point, really. None of the soldiers know who they're supposed to fight anymore,” he said. “I don't know what that 'blue moon' thing was all about, but it's definitely worked in our favor.”

Scott and Jimmy paused. Scott tried to catch his breath, which was difficult to do with the smell of viscera permeating the area. He looked at Jimmy, who looked about as nauseous as he felt. On the contrary, the smile on Scar's face was more genuine than Scott had ever seen it as he looked around at the mess. Grian still had the same blank expression as always.

“Scott, you ready to get going again?” Jimmy asked after catching his breath, and Scott nodded. Jimmy turned to Grian, who shook his head and waved his hand.

“It's better to split up. Increases the chance of finding the king.”

Scott didn't agree with that assessment, but he wasn't about to argue with Grian; he was a bit worried about what might come out of his mouth if he opened it. So instead, he and Jimmy continued on their way.

They passed a single red-lived soldier, who knocked on their chestplate with their fist as they passed; a salute of some sort. Scott and Jimmy somewhat clumsily returned the gesture, but it was apparently enough for the soldier, who continued on their way. A little ahead, Scott could hear a voice talking loudly.

“...all this bloodshed! I can't believe there has been such a betrayal within our ranks... and WHERE IS MARTYN?!”

Suddenly, Scott and Jimmy were faced with two pairs of soldiers, marching perfectly in sync, and between them a man with a long cape coloured red, white and black, wearing a golden crown with red details on his head.

King Ren of Sanguacanis.

“Soldiers! Have you seen the Hand of the King today? Tell me so, if you have any loyalty left!”

It was as if time slowed down for Scott. If you see the king, shoot him. Grian had made it sound so easy; and theoretically it would be. He'd hit quicker shots from further away while practicing. But now he couldn't even manage to open his mouth to answer the king's question.

The king's eyes narrowed. “You're traitors as well, aren't you?” Next to him, a soldier with a mask over his mouth raised his bow.

Scott began to match his movement. His throat was dry. You'll be a hero of war after this whole operation, Cleo had said. If even participating in the assault made him a hero, just imagine the glory he'd receive from being the one to fire the killing shot...

But he didn't want to be a hero. He just wanted to go home.

In the corner of his eye, Scott saw Jimmy turn around and run. He followed his example.

Please go towards Scar and Grian, he thought as arrows began to fly around him.

And please leave Jimmy be, he thought as he felt something pierce his back. Then his vision faded.