#i had one friend but i respawned very far away and i was upset because i didn't know if we were still friends GOD so this is how scar felt

[triplehearts]

pls post your trafficsona 🥺 (at your own pace of course I just really like looking at other ppl’s sonas)

Just for you anon, just promise not to flip her, she’ll get dizzy

[mlobsters]

supernatural s8e1 we need to talk about kevin (w. jeremy carver)

new season, new me. *silent wish goes up for smaller sideburns*

of course they had to include "dick is coming" in the recap. we can't let the opportunity for a dick joke slip out of our hands

very xfiles

okay i threw this in lightroom real quick to make it less dark because what is going on here? it's very... strike a pose, for feral!dean. and the kids are like from a painting. it's very dramatic. maybe i will paint it some day.

well the infamous benny appears. i also didn't realize purgatory was gonna be a time jump like hell. read something not too long ago that was fairly evocative of the environment of purgatory so i was thinking some of the show happened there (though i suppose flashbacks are also a possibility).

lol i'm already upset, broad strokes know how this goes with their reunion emotionally.

this is so ridiculous. i was just complaining how i felt so blah with the end of s7. well here we go, let's hurt my feelings with brother conflict stress and i'm gonna be upset about it? make up your mind

okay so some fics i've read are like "sam didn't look for dean while he was in purgatory" but i did not pick up that for all intents and purposes, sam had no reason to assume he wasn't dead.

there's a lot going on in this scene. like the semi dodging the cas questions, how he got out, etc.

SAM Yeah. Yeah, I – you were gone... Dean. Cas was gone, Bobby was dead. I mean, Crowley even shipped off Kevin and Meg to parts unknown. DEAN So you just turned tail on the family business.

are you kidding me right now, dean? like he should carry on hunting because it's the family business??? i'll chalk this up to being mad and fucked up for being hunted for a year.

SAM Nothing says "family" quite like the whole family being dead. DEAN I wasn't dead. In fact, I was knee-deep in God's armpit killing monsters, which, I thought, is what we actually do. SAM Yes, Dean. And far as I knew, what we do is the thing that got every single member of my family killed. I had no one – no one. And for the first time in my life, I was completely alone. And, honestly, I-I didn't exactly have a roadmap. So, yeah, I-I fixed up the Impala, and I just... drove.

💔

DEAN After you looked for me. Did you look for me, Sam? [SAM looks away.] Good. That's good. Now, we – we... always told each other not to look for each other. That's smart. Good for you. Of course, we always ignored that because of our deep, abiding love for each other, but not this time, right, Sammy?

well i can see now why fics harp on this point. so i'm assuming sam thought dean was in heaven. would dean expect sam to try to get him back from there too? tucking 'deep and abiding love' into my pocket

okay right i've talked about this before too, how sam is always the fuckup begging for forgiveness and dean is the righteous man. and i'm tired of it! this thing with the voicemails from kevin tran is just... cruel. i don't like the point they're making.

real life, anyone in sam's situation would be a fucking mess. i still don't really think sam would flake on the phones with kevin like that.

whoa whole new desktop. so long untitled 1 and 2

oh we get urls now in the new web browser! and look at that, already an invalid web url http://www.searchtheweb/main missing your tld, friend 😔 1 out of 2, at least

lying about the dog in the car too. all right

okay, purgatory flashback after all. umm. what happens when you die in purgatory? respawn there? or is that the way to the big empty i've heard about

DEAN Hmm. So what was it, hmm? What could possibly make you stop just like that? A girl? Was there a girl? SAM The girl had nothing to do with it. DEAN There was a girl. SAM Yeah. There was. And then there wasn't. Any more questions?

*heavy sigh*

not getting through this episode tonight. reconvene tomorrow

[aurabird]

Guidance for Guilt

How does one deal with the guilt and regret they feel when they see the way people look at them? You seek out another that has been in the same situation before.

Also on Ao3

Despite the title, this doesn’t actually have angst in it.

-----------

Sausage went by horseback as he left Mythland, too afraid to even touch the corrupted elytra he once wore for longer than a few seconds let alone wear it again.

The ride through the desert was slow despite the well-worn paths from trade routes, the unrelenting heat miserable for both him and his stead and briefly he debated turning back and borrowing an elytra from someone.

Night fell as the moon took the place of the sun. It was a respite from the heat sure, but out here, night brought a chilling cold. The Mythland king would never understand why anyone would want to live in the desert, and yet one of the largest and most powerful empires was nestled at the heart the said biome.

The Vigil of Pixandria shone like a beacon in the night as if to lead those weary and lost among the dunes to shelter from the elements. Sausage grimaced briefly at the fact that the last time he was there, he’d built a fake embassy and trapped it, the aim to kill the empire’s king. He had been struggling to fight off the corruption then and even though he had the self-awareness to know what he was doing was wrong, he did it anyway.

To be fair, his mind argued, Pix HAD issued a challenge to all that wished to prank him to make sure their attempts were more than a pathetic pitfall trap... so was it really Sausage’s fault if the oracle had asked for something so explosive in the first place?

Sand began to transition granite and brick as Sausage entered the oasis of an empire. The streets weren’t empty, but the citizens of Pixandria that were around spoke in hushed whispers of intrigue at him. They didn’t know who he was, he’d worn his assassins guild attire strictly so that he could hide his face.

After all, he was still technically enemy number one in pretty much every single empire. If the Pixandrians had known who had entered their city, then their reactions probably wouldn’t have been the most welcoming.

He found an inn in the center of this residential area and paid the stable boy the money required to leave his horse there before continuing to the capitol of the empire.

As he entered the familiar area he found it mostly empty, understandably so given how late it was, and took time to look at the Vigil; the colorful candles and lanterns that decorated the are around it just as stunning as the last time he’d been here.

Pix had told him once that the Vigil was for the twelve empires alone since in Pixandrian beleif they all had to exist regardless of what terms they were all on lest the balance of the universe be upset. He shuddered at the realization that if his journey in the spirit realm had ended in failure that he could have caused something far more catastrophic than whatever Xornoth would bring to occur.

Then came sadness at the thought of how many of the recorded deaths were by his own hand? He’d been told of the arena fight, how he’d gone on a murder spree when the corruption took control over him entirely...

"I had a feeling you’d show up eventually.” Came a familiar voice, snapping him out of his thoughts. Sausage turned to face the speaker and found the Copper King himself casually leaning against the wall of a building that looked like a shop of sorts.

Sausage wasn’t surprised that he’d been expected, Pix was a unique individual in the fact that he was an oracle not only with the ability to see deaths seconds before they happened, but he would sometimes get prophetic visions every now and again. He was a wise and kind ruler, albeit with a streak of mischief at times as well. The man no doubt had questions about Sausage’s recent death by Gem’s hand and his delayed respawn, but that’s not why the Mythland king had come to see him.

After the death of the enderdragon, the Copper King had exiled himself in his guilt and regret, heading into the harshness of the desert with almost nothing but the clothes on his back. Signs of his struggle could be seen in the form of scars and burns. This, is why Sausage had come.

“I’m...probably not at the top of your list of people to see right now...but I...I need guidance, Pix. I don’t know how to cope with what I’m feeling.”

Pix gave him a gentle smile, “Come, we’ll discuss it inside.”

The interior of Pix’s abode was something Sausage had only seen once and, at the time, he’d not been in complete control of his body and actions. Now that the haze in his mind was gone, the place was stunning. Sandstone and striped birch made up walls accented with copper. The sandstone and glazed terracotta floor accented with dried honeycomb, desert plants filling pots nestled into corners and on shelves. It was a humble place as opposed to the massive castles and towers of the other empires.

He sat down at an oak table while Pix went off to grab something, returning with a glass of water which Sausage graciously accepted. Pix then sat down opposite of him and spoke "So, since you sit here now, I assume your trip to the spirit realm was successful?“

Of course Pix would know about that, “I think so? I don’t feel corrupted anymore and the haze that used to cloud my mind is gone so...maybe? I...still don’t understand how going there cured me.”

“In Pixandrian beleif, those with damaged souls go there to heal or pass on. Xornoth corrupted yours entirely and when Gem killed you, that’s where you ended up. You were dead to the world for a week, Sausage; the only sign that you were going to come back was because that spirit tether of yours was glowing.”

Sausage pulled the strange object he’d been given by Sir Carlos out and looked at it, “That’s what this thing is called?”

Pix nodded in response, “Most souls that end up in the spirit realm pass on while others get lost and eventually fade away over time. A spirit tether ensures that a soul will find its way back to its body. They are extremely rare so I was surprised to find you had one.”

“A friend gave it to me...I guess I quite literally owe him my life. But my spiritual journey is not why I came here; I see the way everyone looks at me, to them I’m still the servant of evil, Xornoth’s corrupted Champion. I have nightmares of what I’ve done and who I’ve hurt, I have permanent scars to remind me of my mistakes...there’s so much guilt and regret, Pix...I don’t know what to do.”

"Guilt and regret are hard wounds to heal; even now, I still cannot forgive myself for what I did to the enderdragon and, honestly, I don’t think I ever will. Speak with those you wronged, even if they don’t believe you at first. It will take time and effort to fix what has been broken and there will be scarring that remains once the wound heals, but I know you, Sausage, and you’re pretty hard to stay mad at for very long.”

A pained smile crossed Sausage’s mouth at those words, “Even though I’ve caused so much greif and pain?”

"I don’t speak for the others, but the way I see it, if we’re going to stop Xornoth, we need to be united. The sooner we put our quarrels aside, the sooner we can deal with him.”

“Joey is still drunk with power and praise and I’m pretty sure that crown of his is messing with his mind somehow. We need to save him first, Pix, before he’s too far gone for us to do anything.”

Pix nodded, “Agreed. But, for now, you’ve traveled a long way to get here. Why don’t you stay in Pixandria for the night and head off to Mythland to make amends with the others in the morning?”

As if in agreement Sausage yawned, “Alright, thank you Pix, for everything. And...I’m sorry for the embassy trap but you did kinda ask for us to do better pranks.”

A laugh escaped the Copper King at the comment, his brown eyes glinting with mischief, "I did, didn’t I? Well, you know me, my retaliation will be tenfold so I hope you’re ready, Sausage.”

Sausage let out a chuckle and a sly smirk, “Bring it on, Copper King.”

[lucifers-favorite-pen]

How The Obey Me Brothers Would Do in a “The Forest” AU

Fandom: Obey me

Pairings: None

Warnings: Swearing, idiocy, mild gore

The Forest was just released for the new Oculus headset, and Levi could NOT pass up this opportunity. However, it’s just his luck he got his hands on a cursed copy of the game, and ended up sucking the House of Lamentation into the game! Here’s how our favorite boys faired in the universe of “The Forest”

Lucifer:

Is pissed.

Bitches about it heavily

Is irritated that he has to find and wrangle a digital son now as well as his siblings. 

Would definitely help everyone else build a little shelter before nightfall, but would be grumbling about how much work he has to do at home and how far behind this would put him. 

Doesn’t let MC lift a finger and is 100% a mother hen the whole time. 

Seems inconvenienced by the whole cannibal thing, until he realizes magic doesn’t exist here and he has to use his melee fighting skills to kill them. Skills that are a little rusty...

Teams up with Beel to be the camp dads and take care of everyone

Super paranoid about the stability of the walls and the house at the beginning

Dies from eating a poisonous berry. He didn’t know he could be affected by poison in this game.

Over all, does his best to keep everyone alive, and feels really bad when someone dies. 

No longer feels bad when he learns that the worst thing that happens is you lose all your stuff and you respawn. 

A solid 7/10 job. Probably dies a few times due to someone else being an idiot, but is a pretty good survivalist when push comes to shove. 

Mammon:

Is also pissed

He was in the middle of counting the grimm from his latest modeling gig when he was sucked into the game.

Bitches and moans with/at Lucifer, but tries to build and maintain a shelter.

Who’s Timmy?

I don’t think crows exist in the game, but seagulls do and they all land on his fingers and he makes friends with them.

Is very upset when one of his brothers kills a bird for food or to simply carry around its head as a trophy. 

Sees cannibals and tries to trade with them with the grimm he has in his pockets.

Dies on sight.

Now when he sees or hears cannibals he screams and cowers behind MC 

When they go away or the screaming stops, he stands up straight and dusts off his jacket “Psh, I wasn’t afraid! I was trying to comfort you from behind! YOU were the one afraid”

After a while in the game, he gets his shit together and honestly kinda kills it. 

This is the avatar of greed, you know he is going to gather and horde so many valuable resources and then guard them with his life. 

“Mammon I’m hurt please stop hissing at me and let me have the medicine bottle”

*hiss* “You can have ONE pill and ONE pill only”

Over all, the definition of “They had us in the first half ngl”

8/10 for managing the group’s food and resource stores so well and only dying a fuck ton of times. 

Levi

...oops?

Feels quite guilty, but is also secretly pumped to immerse himself in the game.

Was extremely skilled at this game IRL and tries to explain how it works to everyone else, but they’re all so pissed and no one’s listening.

“That’s fine, who would want to listen to a yucky otaku like me anyway!” 

Magic doesn’t exist here, but that doesn’t stop Levi from yeeting himself into the ocean and turning into a giant sea monster while his brothers complete the game. 

They don’t want his help? They don’t want to know that the cannibals can’t swim and that they’ll be safer if they build a boat and live in a boathouse on the water? Fine. Then Perish <3

That goes for Timmy too, fuck that kid. 

Doesn’t want MC to suffer tho, so he’ll kill a few sharks and throw them up over the wall with his tail. (I’m assuming that if the game is released for Oculus Rift that they will get their shit together and also make sharks edible)

Is having a grand time taking over the ocean. 

Will sometimes go to shore to visit MC. Everyone is confused as to where he has been and how he is thriving. He just smiles and jumps back in the water.

10/10 strats. Never once dies. Tells everyone what they were doing wrong and how they could have had it easier when they beat the game and are back IRL out of spite.

Satan

Angy

Is throwing things in their spots while building the shelter, but is still helping

Spawns in with the book he was reading in his hand.

That book is eventually stolen from his grasp in the night and used as kindling for the fire.

Lucifer explains that if he didn’t steal his book they all would have died. 

Satan does not give a fuck

“Use the kid’s stupid fucking drawings you dipshit!”

“I can’t they’re story items!”

Goes on a rampage and kills so many deer, effectively feeding the group for a week.  

Sees the cannibals for the first time and thinks “same” 

Pretty good fighter and pretty resourceful when it comes to making armor and weapons. 

Outfits MC with the all of his prototypes and tells them to go run at a tree

“How do you feel, MC?”

“Like I ran at a tree with a deer skin on my chest”

“Interesting”

Very upset at the whole no magic thing, but will work with it.

Over all, 7/10 job. Dies a couple times from cannibals and the other monsters, but makes it to the end.

Asmo

Oh dear. 

Oh dear this sweet summer child. 

“Why are we looking for this child when he’s so ugly?”

Is distraught and so very upset this is happening to him. Cries variations of “woe is me” for the first five hours of game play

Does not help build a shelter

Does not help gather food and resources

Does not help period. Only whines. 

Sees cannibals sprinting and jumping towards the shelter and pushes Lucifer in front of him

“Take him! I’m too pretty to die!”

“HEY!”

What follows after the first three days is a slow decent into madness. 

Ends up butt ass naked for the majority of the game because the clothes he spawned in with were ripped to shreds and “No animal skin clothing in this world is good enough to adorn my perfect body”

Starts speaking to the animals and becomes friends with all of them like a Disney Princess. 

The animals come to his aid when he lets out a specific shriek that calls them to his side.

Spends his time weaving flower crowns for MC, his brothers, and his animal friends. 

Everyone knows he’s snapped when Beel brings back the dead body of a cannibal and Asmo dips his dirty little finger into an open wound and wipes the blood on his lips. 

“I just love this shade! Don’t you?” 

5/10 job. Dies multiple times from trying to befriend hostile animals, but also has an army of woodland creatures at his disposal by the end of the game.

Beel

Bro you know this mans is about to make this game his bitch

Spawns in with a cheeseburger.

Eats the cheeseburger.

“I have a son?”

“I HAVE A SON :D”

“Where is my son?”

Honestly the thought of Beel in this game is so sexy like I’m simping so hard rn 

Grab your water skins and buckle up bc it’s about to get thirsty up in here y’all

A shirt? Beel doesn’t know what those are anymore

He crafts one of those shoulder harnesses out of hide and bone and sticks a bone shiv thing on the forearm 

Don’t mess with this demon when his dinner and his family is on the line.

Is not afraid of anything except the death of his loved ones.

Cannibals? Nah, dinner.

Other monsters? Nah, dinner. 

Full shirtless lumberjack mode with Lucifer, and later Mammon, when cutting down trees in the forest. MC is drooling. 

Definitely makes a game out of how many trees they can all chop down before giving up.

Plays knuckle bones with Belphie and MC using real knuckle bones. 

Doesn’t want to share his food with the others but will if they didn’t get anything to eat that day. 

Chef Beel. That’s it that’s the post. 

10/10 job. Only dies once throwing his body over Belphie’s sleeping one to save him. 

Get’s annoyed when he finds out Belphie was fake sleeping

Very sexy. Would watch. 

Belphie

Nah dude no thanks 

Alexa play “Wake Me Up When September Ends”

Alexa play “Billie Jean”

“And the kid is not my son”

Get’s so fucking pissed when he finds out he can’t sleep without everyone else deciding to sleep too so he just lays down with his eyes closed and hopes for the best.

Doesn’t help with anything unless someone asks him to

Even then he’ll roll his eyes like brat and slowly do it

An actual sloth

No like he clings to MC and Beel like a sleepy sloth 100% of the time

He can’t find any cows and is sad so he settles for the local deer instead. 

Fake sleeps through most of the whole thing, paying monster and cannibals alike absolutely no mind. Beel will take care of it.

Freaks the fuck out when Beel dies on top of him and goes into a rage and kills everything in sight. 

Very sweet reunion when he realizes that they just respawn.

No longer pays death any mind and continues fake sleeping. 

0/10. Virtually useless. 

Masterpost

[votederpycausemufins]

Alright, I got the second part of my vaccine, also got tested for the virus by my school (randomly chosen and it just so happened to be the same day as my vaccine appointment), safely met with my family, and then I’m like 50ish% sure I threw my back out? but it’s my upper back and not lower which is why I’m not sure.

So yeah, chapter is a bit short, but I wanted to get one out today.

@petrichormeraki @helleborusangel​

Mumbo tried to ignore everyone talking as he worked with Grumbot. He was using the handkerchief he normally kept on him to clean the redstone from his hands to clean up the robot. He had gotten a bit of the water that had been left in Tommy’s inventory to make the cloth damp and started carefully washing everything off Grumbot’s body, though some redstone was left behind. He frowned at how much was coming off onto the cloth and the fact that he needed to clean that off too. 

Slowly but surely, all the grime was washing off and being replaced with shiny metal. There were still dents and cracks, but just cleaning the robot up helped as an improvement. Mumbo dried any spots that were still wet to make sure no water got into Grumbot’s circuits before standing up and stretching, having been in an awkward pose to clean everything up with Grumbot refusing to do anything but stay curled up in a ball.

“How’s he doing?” Phil asked as Mumbo walked over.

“”Well, he’s clean at the very least. I don’t have anything to work on physical repairs and I’m terrified about what I’ll see when checking on the circuitry.” Mumbo looked around at the group. “Techno’s still not here?”

Phil shook his head. “I haven’t heard anything. It’s getting to the point I’m starting to worry. But trying to find him with everything going on won’t be the easiest thing. So we just hope he sends something back on where he is or wait until we can’t wait anymore.”

Mumbo nodded, and then the two of them were surprised as they got messages sent to their communicators.

[Eyes] X-T, Y-T, Z-T

“Do you think that’s-” Mumbo started.

“Techno’s coordinates? Possibly. So far whatever this is has been sending us help.”

“Take EX with you? I of course should be staying back here for Jrum.”

“I’ll probably be fine on my own.”

“He’ll make the trip faster. And if something is wrong, better to save time.”

The avian ended up relenting and walked over to talk to the helsmit. In a matter of seconds the two of them were gone and Mumbo went back over to Grumbot. He winced at the sparks that flew from the holes in Grumbot’s torso. Obviously he needed to at least get a look at what was going on in there. His hand moved to turn Grumbot off, but just before he could press the power button, he was stopped. “Please don’t.”

“Grum?” Mumbo asked quietly, not completely sure he heard Grumbot speak with how quiet the words were.

“C-can’t turn off. Th-that would b-be bad. N-No admin.”

Mumbo immediately pulled his hand away. That was right. Theseus had disappeared with Dream, so for now Grumbot being the console was likely the one thing keeping this world stable. Mumbo also quickly plugged Grumbot in to make sure it didn’t run out of power.

“Do you need anything?”

“I don’t know h-how to answer th-that.”

“Why not?”

“I-It’s confusing. And I-I’m tired.”

“Do you want to go into sleep mode?”

“I… I shouldn’t n-need s-sleep. O-only need b-battery.”

Mumbo hugged Grumbot. “It’s okay if you go to sleep. No one will get upset at you.”

Grumbot shook it’s head. “Need to f-fix first. T-Tommy not a-awake. Sh-should be. A-And f-fix t-time. C-can’t without-”

Mumbo held Grumbot closer. “You don’t need to do anything except rest. You’ve been through a lot, both you and your brother.”

“H-had to h-hurt him to h-help him. K-keep him a-away. D-didn’t know what w-was happening. Didn’t know wh-what else to do.”

“Well…” Mumbo wasn’t sure what to say. Jrum obviously hadn’t had the best experience while stuck here, but it wasn’t as bad as what happened to Grumbot. And for all the redstoner knew, Jrum could have ended up in the same situation as his brother if nothing had been done. “While  I don’t… fully approve with the methods… at the very least your brother is not… the worst he could be.”

Grumbot gave a slight nod before speaking again. “Is th-there anything you w-want Console to do?”

“What do you mean?” Mumbo asked, curious by the phrasing.

“What th-things need to b-be done?”

Mumbo frowned. “Grum, you don’t need to do anything. Please just go to sleep.”

There was a pause from Grumbot as it processed what was said, then went into sleep mode. Mumbo sighed in relief as he could feel Grumbot relax in his arms. He put the robot back down on the bed and tucked it in before checking on Grian and Jrum. After making sure they were all asleep, he collapsed in a chair.

“Are you doing okay?” Mumbo looked up to see someone who, because he was so tired, he thought was himself for a split second. 

“Tired. But to be completely honest, I’ve been more exhausted dealing with those three. I’m the one with impulse control. Not to be confused with The Impulse Control that Zed has. Hmm… maybe I’m more tired than I think. Have you ever tried a mustache?”

“I… don’t think I can grow one.”

Mumbo nodded. “Alright. What’s your name?”

“Ranboo.”

“The one Tubbo was worrying about, right?” Mumbo asked, but then didn’t give Ranboo a chance to answer. “And what does Tommy think of you?”

“I’m pretty sure we’re friends. Maybe. I tried what I could to keep him company. Even though I couldn’t be there.”

“Sounds good enough to me. Still unsure about him.” Mumbo gestured to Bad. “And what about him?”

“Uhh, I’m not sure to be honest. And I don’t think I would have it written down.”

Mumbo tilted his head slightly, trying to ignore the fact that just doing that made him feel a little dizzy. “Why would you need to write it down?”

“I don’t really have the best memory of things, so I write everything important to make sure I can’t lose it.”

“Well maybe you can visit and can get checked out in Hermitcraft. See if someone there can help you.”

Ranboo nodded, then was distracted as Michael came over and reached for his hand before pulling him away. Mumbo watched as the two left, Michael excited about seeing Techno, who had just arrived with Xannes. Philza didn’t seem to be back, which was mildly concerning, but at this point, the redstoner was a bit too tired to care and fell asleep.

Grian woke up with a start. He hadn’t quite had a nightmare, more just something in the dream startled him awake. He shifted slightly and realized that he was still holding Jrum in his arms, who was also asleep.

Carefully, the avian pulled away and got out of bed, making sure Jrum didn’t wake up. He looked over at the other beds and was glad to see it seemed Tommy had moved. The other bed was empty however, which worried Grian. He looked around more and found Mumbo asleep in a chair, but also without Grumbot.

There were voices from an adjacent room, and Grian was hoping his other son would be there. He tiptoed to not wake the others up, then peeked into the next room. Everyone was gathered around and talking. Well, Xannes was off to the side reluctantly playing with a Ziglin, but that was the only exception. The avian looked around a second time. He didn’t see Grumbot anywhere, and it looked like Phil was gone but Techno was in his place.

Techno. Grian didn’t care if they were related or not. He had been the one to cause this whole mess by killing his kids. And now one of them was missing again and here he was. For the second time that week, Grian had a sword to the piglin’s neck. He had moved fast enough that everyone jumped back in surprise at his sudden appearance.

“What is it this time?” He said in a bored tone which made Grian even angrier. Instead of saying anything, he just swung the sword, cutting into Techno’s arm. He attempted a second swing, but he was pulled back from behind by Xannes, leaving the avian flailing for escape, wings hitting just about anything they could.

“Calm down or I’ll break one of your arms.” The helsmit threatened as he managed to get Grian pinned on the ground. He then looked up at Techno. “Any clue why he’s acting like this?”

“He kidnapped Phil who said he was a Watcher. I went after Phil and made a few withers to get his attention. People started attacking, I attacked back. They were collateral. Didn’t realize they wouldn’t respawn right.”

“More like you didn’t care.” Grian growled from the ground. “First both the boys, then you were threatening NPG, and now you’re here and Grum isn’t!”

“What do you mean he isn’t here?” Bad asked, cutting into the conversation. “No one’s gone in or out of that room since we all came out here. Well, until you of course.”

“Then you weren’t paying attention.” Grian accused, but Tubbo stopped him.

“No, we’ve all been watching in case someone woke up, especially with what Techno found.”

“Found a way to kill my kids again?” Xannes sighed and twisted Grian’s arm a bit. The avian yelped at the sudden pain, and for a moment the helsmit was glad it seemed to have shut him up, before Grian managed to swipe his leg to make Xannes fall to the ground and pin him instead.

“Can you at least first hear what we found out? We think it’s related to Tommy’s condition.” Tubbo tried to offer, knowing that Grian seemed to like Tommy almost as much as the bots.

Grian hesitated, but then nodded. “Okay fine, but make it quick. I already saw you got him to move.”

“Wait, what do you mean he moved?” Tubbo asked, quickly moving to the extension room.

“Well he’s on his side now.” Grian explained, following behind, flaring his wings out when he felt crowded from behind as the others rushed to follow as well.

“Well we didn’t do that.” Tubbo said, going over to Tommy. “Oh, and looks like it might not have been Tommy either.” He looked back over to the avian. “Well it looks like you don’t have to panic about Grum anymore. He’s right here.”

Grian closed his wings back up so he could get over to Tubbo and Tommy. Once he got closer, he was able to see Grumbot curled up in the teen’s arms. The moment he saw the robot, Grian sighed, glad that nothing else bad had happened. He also then glanced back to Jrum to make sure he was still there, glad to see he was.

“See, everything’s alright.” Tubbo said, even though Grian could tell that wasn’t entirely true.

“What did you find out about Tommy then?”

Everyone left the sleeping area again to talk. “I went to check on my place when we got back.” Techno started to explain. “Not many people knew about it, so went to see if anyone was hiding there. It’s far off, so it could have been used as a hideout. Turns out I was right, and someone was there. But not willingly.”

“And that would be?” Grian asked, looking at the others to see if their expressions would tell him anything.

“After Wilbur died, he came back as a ghost, though it didn’t quite act like him. Preferred the name Ghostbur over Wilbur too. Well, he was there, but alive. And he wasn’t Wilbur. He was just an alive version of Ghostbur. Somehow he got revived and was in my house when it happened. Since then, he hasn’t been able to get out, no matter what he tries. He says it’s like an invisible wall.”

“And what’s that got to do with Tommy?”

“Obviously Ghostbur didn’t show up at his body, or else he wouldn’t be in my house. Tommy lost his last life before being revived, so there’s a good chance he’s in the same situation and we just have his body.”

“Then where is Tommy?”

“I can’t hit the button! It’s gonna crush me!” Tommy yelled out, unable to stop the flying machine he was currently in.

“Mine out the back!” Zedaph yelled, making Tommy realize that, yes, he could do that. He pulled out a pickaxe and broke through the pistons, slime blocks and observers, escaping just before the machine would have crushed him between itself and whatever was keeping him stuck. 

“Okay, your drill didn’t work.”

“Hmm, really thought that one would do it.” Zed replied, looking down at a napkin he had written a list on and crossed out one of the items. “Well! Next up we’re going to need some cows.”

“I do not want death by cow.”

“But they’re the perfect size for it.” Zedaph pouted, but crossed another thing off the list.

“Just give me the next idea!”

“Okay, so we’re just going to need you to use some minor telekinetic powers-”

There was an interruption as Scar arrived in tow with Cub. “Okay, I picked up all the magic crystals I think might be able to help. If that doesn’t work, Cub and I are fully prepared to try some vex magical shenanigans.”

“I’m not a fan of the word shenanigans, but whatever, let’s fucking try it!”

From there, the various hermits tried a number of ideas to get Tommy out, but none of them seemed to work. At the very least they learned that he could go into the minecart tunnel and all the way to Mumbo’s hobbit hole without trouble as well as the fact that Tommy seemed to be the only one affected, but it still wasn’t ideal. 

A few hermits stayed around to keep Tommy company, which he was very glad for. A few small minigames were built to help pass the time. Since the situation with the bots meant Tommy had missed out on HHH, Ren started using some unused questions from the day as well as getting Tommy’s answers for what he had asked. From there it just dissolved into a bit of storytelling.

For the most part, Tommy just listened to the stories, but when he was offered to tell one of his own, he passed up on the offer, asking for some time to think of a good one. While the others started talking, he tried thinking of something to share when he realized something. “Guys… I… I don’t have a fucking clue when I got here.”

They asked for clarification and Tommy explained that thinking back, he couldn’t remember anything from his exile or the first few weeks he was in Hermitcraft. Except for a few short bits of memory, he had nothing. He tried to calm the other hermits down by mentioning Ghostbur had the same thing happen, but that only seemed to make them more worried.

Just about everyone stayed over that night no matter how much Tommy wanted them to not stay just for pity, but he ended up enjoying the impromptu sleepover. Though it was still in the back of his mind, just having the hermits there for him made things feel a bit more normal.

Grumbot stared at [:)]. He should be awake but he wasn’t. The revival didn’t seem to have worked and it wasn’t sure why. So it asked for more help, but then was upset when none was given. Well, the staying near [:)] suggestion was repeated, but it could very clearly see that just being in proximity to [:)] was not doing anything.

It glanced up briefly as [:)] came near. It couldn’t quite see them, but the listed coordinates for them matched their current position. [:)] came near afterwards, Grumbot able to see the edges of his red feathers for a moment. They talked about it and [:)] for a moment before leaving again, and then it could hear them discussing Ghostbur. It sounded like that revival mostly worked, though there seemed to be an issue with it. Grumbot frowned at that, wishing it had known about this sooner. It would need to find Ghostbur to fix the situation and then proceed to fix [:)].

Grumbot tried to move, but was stopped. It needed to stay near [:)]. It argued that this was not helping [:)]. The answer was that it wasn’t supposed to be helping [:)], it was supposed to be helping Grum. But Grumbot didn’t care. Grum was not in charge. He was just supposed to work his programs. It, on the other hand, was meant to run this world and keep everything in order. And that included fixing the revivals.

[violetarks]

Just A Game: Nope

Anime: My Hero Academia (SMAU)

LEVEL DOWN | MENU | LEVEL UP

A few hours later, he came around with some sushi.

Kaminari went to the bathroom and as he passed the hallway window, he noticed Shinso getting out of his car. So he raced back to warn Y/N.

She stood there for a few moments before taking a deep breath in. She said she would talk to him. It stunned everyone.

Judging by the last time she faced a conflict like this, the way she acted now was way different. She didn't want to ignore the problem, she wanted to face it. It was unusual for her to do so.

Kaminari offered to come. He was worried for Y/N. Everyone there was. But he felt his heart heave the most when she said she wanted to talk to him. Although, Y/N still insisted on going alone.

"What are you doing here, Shinso?" Y/N asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

Shinsos stopped on his tracks. He wasn't even inside yet and she was in front of him. "I... was gonna' drop off some lunch because you seemed a little out of it during our texts." He claimed, holding a bento box, "Are you okay?"

Y/N tilted her head to the side and mumbled out, "I'm fine. Although I was wondering when your part in Uraraka's video comes up." She watched as he stiffened in his shoes. "Because I watched the full 45 minute thing, and you were nowhere to be found."

"My parts were probably cut out." He told her, shrugging his shoulders, "Don't worry about it, I don't do much."

Y/N squinted at him before clenching the fabric of her shirt. "That's a lie, Shinso." She stated, "I talked to Uraraka. She said you had nothing to do with the video. And that you weren't even filming with them."

Shinso froze. He didn't think she'd go so far. But she did and now he was found out. "Okay..." He sighed out, dropping his shoulders into a slouch, "I'm... I wasn't in the video and I didn't help... I'm sorry, Y/N."

"Why did you lie to me?" She asked, lofting her head up to stare him in the eyes.

"Because I..." He started, but found himself struggling to finish. Todoroki's words rang in his head. 'You have to tell the truth to some of us'. Why did that stop him now?

"Because I didn't want you to know why I really missed out on our date."

"And why did you miss out on our date?"

A part of them wanted to be thrilled for announcing that it was officially a date, to the both of them. But they couldn't right now.

"I... drank too much coffee the night before because I wanted to make sure which one I liked before going out with you." Shinso stated. It felt like a weight off of his chest, but he knew just admitting this wouldn't make things any better.

No matter what, that little part of him wanted for Y/N to never know the real reason he don't make it to their date. Or maybe for her to forget now that she knows. Maybe it was his pride or his insecurity.

She only grit her teeth and pinched the bridge of her nose. On the inside, she found it kind of cute that he was going so far. But that doesn't mean lying was okay for that.

"Shinso, why are you keeping secrets from me?" She huffed out.

"Why not?" He retorts, his defenses pulling up, "Why should I always tell you the truth?"

This was his barrier. He'd become snarky and sarcastic in times when he was freaking the Hell out, like now. His mind was screaming at him for doing this whilst his mouth kept ratting off whatever bullshit he thought of. It was horrible and he knew full well that it was.

She was shocked. She took a step forward to him. "I thought we were finally getting somewhere, Shinso..." She mumbled out to him, blinking her eyes, "I really wanted to get to know you. Maybe we could've been friends or—..."

Shinso's heart was beating so fast at what she was saying. It's been weeks since they met. Shinso would be lying if he said his YouTube history wasn't filled of her videos and best stream moments. He adored her. Even from the start. His first 'research' task was when they went to the shops together. He liked how she seemed like a normal person and not some big time streamer. She was amazing and he knew that from the start.

Getting to know Y/N was like a very hard game that only few dare to play. You have to get passed her jokes and Daisuke talk to see that she's actually very caring and wants to please everyone. Under that, she was hard-working and driven. And beneath that, she was insecure of letting people in.

He could tell by the fact that she became so wary and walled in after he didn't show for their date. It took a while to break those walls down.

They had texted for weeks after that and he simply made it back to his respawn point where Y/N would make jokes about Daisuke being her child. He could go in with another life.

"I don't know if this is just a game to you, but this is my life, Shinso." Y/N stated, pulling Shinso out of his gaming thoughts, "I... really wanted to let you in. But not anymore."

Shinso could feel his embarrassed anger piling up. He didn't want the dam to break but it most definitely did. "You only wanted me in my life because you think I'm pretty, Y/N." He told her.

"That's not true!" She called out, feeling even more offended now.

"You don't know anything about me." He claimed, waving a hand in the air, "You only like me because you think I'm hot. Name one thing about me. Go on."

She looked angered by his statement, like she wanted to pound his face in. But when Y/N relaxed a little, she released her fists at her sides. She looked up to Shinso, furrowed brows.

"No. I don't want to name the things I know about you." She said lowly. She stepped forward, jabbing a finger into Shinso's chest harshly.

"Because fuck you, Shinso. I thought I knew you enough to say you were a good person, but now I see that I really don't know who the Hell you are. And if this is you, then I don't want to."

With that, she turned away and shut the door behind her. Looking up, she saw Jirou, Kaminari, Kirishima and Bakugou standing there. They most definitely were eavesdropping.

They didn't say a word, only making their way back up to the studio.

"Get off your phone, Y/N."

She looked up from her screen, seeing Bakugou standing in front of her. He had his hands on his hips, one of them with his drum sticks encased inside. He looked irritated and strict, making Y/N sigh and place her device back on the couch. She was going through her silly text messages with Shinso.

It had been two hours since he left, Y/N declaring that she didn't want anything to do with someone who wouldn't tell her the truth.

"Right, right, I gotta' focus." She said, rummaging through the piles of papers that had lyrics written on them, "I can't get distracted anymore!"

They were all pre-written, half of them Jirou's and a quarter each for both Y/N and Kaminari. Some of them were absolute shit, written at 4 AM with alcohol running through their systems. Others were well-written but only half done, abandoned as soon as another idea popped into their head. Only few were great and finished.

"Still mad about Shinso?" Kaminari asks from apposite her, sitting on the floor with his electric guitar on his lap.

Y/N nodded her head slowly. "Yeah. Yeah, I am." She responded quietly back, trying to re-read the sentence over again, "But that doesn't matter anymore. We're working on a video. I can't let you guys take all the work."

They all exchanged looks before Y/N grabbed her drink from the table. As she sipped, Bakugou clicked his tongue and stood up from his spot on the couch, moving to the drum set.

"That bastard doesn't deserve it." He claims, twirling the drum sticks in between his fingers, "He should've just told you the fucking truth from the start."

Y/N had reached out to Uraraka as soon as she realised that Shinso had lied. She asked the brunette if he was in the video at all, and she asked for the truth. Uraraka did tell her the truth. That Shinso wasn't a part of the video. At all. She also apologised for the things he did. Y/N said it wasn't her fault and that she didn't need to apologise.

"What's so great about him anyway?" Jirou questioned, tuning her bass guitar.

Y/N blinked a fee times at her. "He's just... so calm and I felt loose around him, like with you guys." She admitted, playing with the corner of the paper in her hand, "It was like he went out of his way just to talk to me. It was nice."

The smile she wore soon fell. Because she realised she was smiling. And needed to stop.

"I guess not anymore." She mumbled out, placing her hand on the table, "If he has to lie about filming a video as an excuse."

Everyone noticed how down she was. Usually when she was upset, they'd play games and stuff to help her. She would even play Minecraft, it was relaxing. Kaminari once deleted a whole lot of footage for an upcoming video and got Y/N to calm down by building her a flower garden in her world.

But she refused this time. She didn't want anyone to see how badly Shinso affected her. It was horrible. But she wanted to work.

"Maybe if we liked each other some more, then this wouldn't have happened." She whispers to herself.

Kirishima eyes a stack of papers. "Hey, what about this one?" He asked, trying to pull her out of her thoughts, "Have you done this one yet?"

Y/N plucked the paper out of his hands. She then shook her head upon reading it. "Nope. I haven't." She informed them, passing around the paper to Jirou, "Me and Jirou worked on it but we can't get the third verse right."

Once Kaminari got the paper, he gasped and searched for another one. "Wait, wait, wait!" He shouted out, waving the lyrics in the air, "I've got something perfect for this!"

He shoved the stack of papers into Y/N's lap. She chuckled, reading through them, "Wow, Denki, these are great. I bet we can use them for this song." She stood up and walked over to the other electric guitar. "Katsuki, can you follow along? Jirou has bass line and I have main plucking."

Bakugou nodded his head, ready to play.

The air seemed better now that she was distracted. Everyone silently cheered for Kirishima, thanking him for finding a solution to this unspoken problem.

They started playing, Bakugou falling in line with the drumming and Jirou teaching Kaminari the base chords.

Kaminari said the lyrics he wrote didn't quite suit his voice, which is why he dropped the song after getting to the chorus. He has asked Bakugou to sing it and he refused. He said he'd kill him if he asked again. So Kaminari asked Kirishima, who sheepishly accepted after the blonde assured him that his voice fit perfectly.

"Y/N, you doing okay?" Kaminari asked, hand on his hip, "You seem more tired than usual."

She waved her hand. "I keep messing up the plucking. It's freaking hard to keep it in line while singing." She sighed out, stretching her fingers out.

"Why don't I play the plucking while you sing?" Kirishima offered, crossing his arms over his chest as he stood by Bakugou, "You sing the chorus' and the first and second verse. So I can play the rest to take it off your hands. Easy."

Y/N smiled, looking at him with a grateful gaze. "That'd be great, Eijiro. Thank you." She said, handing him the electric guitar. As she began teaching him the chords and the plucking, Jirou, Kaminari and Bakugou stood by.

"Really brings you back, huh?" Kaminari said, staring at them. They all looked so happy.

"Yeah. Back in high school, when all this was just a pipe dream." Jirou laughed quietly, shaking her head. She would've never dreamed of having her own studio.

Bakugou hardened his glance at Y/N. "Should've kept her safe." He told them.

Jirou and Kaminari shared a look.

"There's only so much we can do for her. She's bound to fight for herself at some point. Y/N's strong."

Fun Fact: Y/N and Jirou have a bunch of things they've worked on. Jirou's played alongside her in many video games, sometimes with Mina too. And Y/N's featured in many of Jirou's songs. 'On Board Bebop' is Y/N's most recent project that her fans begged her to make with Jirou featured, which is a pile of songs she wrote with her passion and emotions. That's because the way 'Cowboy Bebop' ended made Y/N feel different than she was before she watched it.

TAGS: @just-some-stars @freyafolkvangr @headfirst-halo @wotsitgirl @falling4fandoms @katsuki-bakuhoee @adorable-punk-superheroes @firecet @ouijaeater15 @swoonhui @thegalxe @caitff @camry-orphanaccount @angelofdarkness1020 @someweirdshitman @jazzylove

[sweetest-honeybee]

To Hell and Back

Chapter 23

Summary: Tango goes to have some cake an hot chocolate with Stress.

Characters: Tango, Stress, Xisuma (Doc, Hels, Wels, Keralis, Impulse mentions)

TW: None I don’t think?

————————

They were all in shock at the event.

Xisuma was seething.

Doc was pulling Beef and Wels out of the cage.

Tango had shot the arrow, much to their surprise.

Hels was still stuck in his other state of mind, not showing any signs of returning to his usual sadistic self. Tango’s hands were shaking from shooting his friend for any reason that wasn’t to just mess around. But again, it wasn’t Wels. It was a weird substitute for Wels that apparently had more willpower than he did and that really said something.

Thankfully, the knight was unconscious now. Only one arrow wasn’t enough to kill him and that’s what he hoped for. If Wels died and respawned, while he wouldn’t be too far away, it was safe to assume whatever that thing was had control over him and would have him flying off somewhere else in the opposite direction. Really, at some point it would come out to be a stupid plan. They’d message everyone to capture Wels on sight and given how spread apart everyone was across the map, hiding spots weren’t too evident. A search team of about twenty odd people would find him within an hour at most.

“Tango, are you alright?” Xisuma asked him. His head snapped towards the admin.

The demon exhaled shakily. “I shot him,” was all he said, still staring at the scene in front of him.

“I know, I know, but you did the right thing, Tango.” Xisuma’s voice wavered too much for Tango’s liking. He seemed just as panicked as everyone else was. Yet, his hands were balled right around his sword and his eyes showed none of the usual softness behind his visor.

Tango shook his head, disregarding that statement. “I shot Wels, X.” He gestured vaguely at the knight. In the spur of the moment, he forgot that it was Wels simply being controlled, firing at him instinctively. But after it all, it was still his tiefling friend.

“Yes, you did. But you also just saved Beef from being hurt more than….that.” He gestured vaguely and then put a reassuring hand on Tango’s shoulder. “You can leave if you like. You don’t have to be here.”

Well thanks, Tango wanted to say bitterly. Not quite what he wanted to hear, but Xisuma had a point. A shaking mess of a demon who could now barely hold his bow wasn’t too useful in this situation. Before Tango could accept the invitation to leave, the admin was already typing into his communicator, presumably asking for more help. His hands dropped to his sides defeatedly.

“Okay,” he muttered, taking one last look at the unconscious pair. “Keep me updated?”

“Will do.”

With that and a quick pat on the back, the demon rocketed away from the sandstone building. While he flew, he took out his communicator to see who was coming to help in his place. Preferably more than just one person, he thought. Probably someone fairly close by. Thankfully, he doubted Stress would be accompanying them and her hot chocolate sounded quite good right now.

<Xisuma> We need some backup at Beef’s base

<ImpulseSV> I can lend a hand

<Keralis> Me too

<Keralis> On my way

Well, at least they had people who Wels didn’t just try to kill an hour earlier. Tango was still a bit shaken up by that. So, he decided to visit Stress, seeing as she wasn’t accompanying them. Rather than taking the Nether Hub, he opted to take the long route to think and simultaneously clear his head. He kept thinking about Evil X for some reason, but that was justified quickly when he thought back to Xisuma.

Knowing the admin, he could probably just ask about it later, but he didn’t really want to press into matters that weren’t his, jokingly or not, given what’d happened earlier on from doing so. He also wondered about Evil X and how nervous the guy looked before flying off to his base. Poor dude, maybe Tango should’ve at least tried to understand what happened. After all, Xisuma was rare to anger and when he was, Tango didn’t imagine that it was pretty, be it cold silent glares or outright rage.

Nonetheless, it would probably leave you upset with yourself more often than not.

Slowly, he crept up on the familiar giant butterflies crawling around on the jungle trees and the pink topped buildings. The butterflies glanced at him but continued their activities. He landed on the glass rainbow to get a better view of the surrounding area. The demon looked around, not initially finding Stress, but after a few more seconds his eyes landed on the familiar pink cardigan. Strange, he thought she’d still have the T-shirt on, but who was he to judge when that landed him in a mess on its own.

At the sight of her, he grinned and glided down to the pathway where she was.

“Hey Stress!” He waved.

She turned to him. “Oh, Tango! Fancy seeing you here. I thought you were with Xisuma.” She tilted her head in question. “At least I thought anyways. Saw something goin’ on, I assumed you stayed with him.”

“Uh, yeah, I was. Then things got a little heated so I left,” he answered.

Stress nodded. “I saw they needed some backup. Mind telling me what happened? Nobody really knows what’s going on besides the few of you.”

That’s right, they hadn’t really explained in chat, or to anyone else really, what was happening with Wels and Hels. Tango grimaced at the thought that Wels would probably be waking up soon and lash out again. He didn’t want more people to be hurt, especially not Beef. Beef was such a nice guy and genuinely wanted to help both knights. He didn’t deserve how much he was hurt by it. And Impulse was there too now, and that was an accident waiting to happen. He didn’t want one of his closest friends hurt.

“Tango, you alright there? You’re spacin’ out a bit.”

The demon shook his head, ridding himself of the previous thoughts, and coughed awkwardly.

“Well uh, you know how Beef has that cloning machine, right? And Wels used it?”

“Vaguely, but yes.”

“Well, something’s gone wrong recently. I mean, not that it hadn’t before after he used it but worse this time.”

Stress began leading them inside her brewery, nodding along to him. “What happened the first time?”

“Ah, apparently it made this evil clone, I dunno if he met you yet-“

She perked up happily. “Oh, you mean Hels! Yes, yes, he’s a very interesting fellow. Very cooperative, too, I had to care for him because he came in from HelsCraft lookin’ like a mess.”

Tango raised a brow, suddenly interested in what she had to say instead. “Looking like a mess? Nobody really mentioned anything about that when they came over. Just said Hels wanted to meet me and moved on.”

“Oh yeah, had a dagger in his stomach and everythin’. Looked real painful but he’s a tough cookie.” Stress smiled as she sat the demon down on some stairs near a small kitchen she had built earlier on. Not too great for the overall area and stuck out against the few stands but she apparently recently put one in each of her builds in case of events like these, or just to keep baking convenient. “Care for some cake and hot chocolate? No offense, but you look like a mess, too. Could use some sugar.”

And always prepared with sweets.

Tango snorted. “Sure.” He sighed, continuing his story. “Anyways, so after all that, apparently he and Wels began like….switching places? Hels is becoming nicer and Wels….” he trailed off, grabbing Stress’s attention.

“What about Wels?” She leaned against the counter thoughtfully.

“He….came over because he shut himself off from everyone and I pestered him with some trades. But, after telling him that his offers were crap, he tried to kill me.”

Stress fumbled with the cake knife as he said that, her face twisting into worry. “Kill you?! Why on earth would he try to kill you over a trade?!”

The demon shuddered, the knight’s smirking face burning into that back of his mind. “It wasn’t him, Stress. He keeps being taken over by this….weird dark force or something. You should’ve seen his eyes, Stress, they were as red as mine!”

“Oh, goodness. Are you….alright? I mean, we all saw earlier that Evil X killed you, though. We just assumed he was causing some mischief.”

Tango shook his head. “Wels nicked my wing and I just,” he pushed his hands away from him, conveying a falling motion,”fell right into one of the towers.” He circled his arms around himself. “He didn’t help me. I couldn’t speak ‘cus I was hurt. But, I guess just by coincidence, Evil X came over and just….he said something about just going ahead and killing me and after that I was in my bed.”

Stress had momentarily forgotten about the cake and mugs sitting next to her, invested in his story. She had a hand over her mouth in sad surprise. “Did- did anything else happen?”

“Ah….Evil X came in, said Xisuma needed me to come with them. We go back up and Wels has these nasty red marks on his face but he’s still all evil and whatnot. Doc had him tied up and they just left. Suma wasn’t looking too good though.”

The lady eyed him curiously. “Not looking too good?”

“He was looking like he was gonna pass out. He said something about how he apparently hit Wels, something else about not affording to lose another Hermit.” Tango perked up. “Hey, do you know anything about that? I mean, I’ve been here for a while and the servers changed and stuff. Some people left, but he said it like….someone died or something. Like permadeath.”

Stress shook her head with pursed lips. “No, sorry Tango. Is there more to the story or do you want to eat some cake now.”

Slightly, Tango smiled. “Cake first.”

With a grin, she cut him a slice and moved to get some milk and cocoa beans for the hot chocolate. The two fell silent while she worked, pouring the milk in a small pot and placing it on top of a furnace where some heat began growing. She began to hum absentmindedly and cut herself from cake as well. Within a couple minutes, the milk warmed and she finished up grinding the cocoa beans with sugar.

“You like yours with whip cream and marshmallows, luv?” She looked up at Tango who was busy picking at something on his shirt, probably just to pass the waiting time.

“Hm? Oh yes, that’d be nice. Thanks, Stress!” The smile on his face grew and Stress couldn’t help but to warm at the sight of it. At least she had a knack for cheering up her friends with her recipes.

“Right then, they’re done!” She placed the cake and hot chocolate on a tray and had the demon follow her to a lounge-like area through a painting. Well, he’d never seen this before. Looks like she had a whole bunch of surprises.

“This is my private room to chill out once in a while, don’t tell anyone. I have a bunch of these.” She sat on a pink sofa tucked into one end of the long, thin room. “Given what on earth happened to you, I’m deeming you worthy to see it,” she added with a smile. Tango sat on the sofa as well, feeling how plush the cushions were.

“Guess I’m just that messed up now, apparently,” he chuckled. “Thanks again, Stress.” He took the cocoa happily.

“Anytime! If you need a sit, just come right on over.” She took a sip of her cocoa. “I really do hope Wels gets better though. And Hels too. Can’t imagine being kicked out of your own dimension.”

“Me too, Stress, me too.”

[homunculusrune]

➳ Permanent Starter Call | Relationship ad

So this is specifically for isola muses who would like to have meaningful or long-term relationship/arrangements with Prisoner! It’s not necessarily a Necessary Permission just to interact with Prisoner- I’m pretty much okay with interacting with anybody! This is more of an interest call for plotting out an interaction if they haven’t met yet. 

I’d ideally like to interact with a lot of people, because Prisoner at least at this point is pretty reactionary and survival oriented. He also has maybe a lot more issues than he’s had the time or environment to parse.

Prisoner is the nameless and voiceless (but highly opinionated) protagonist of the roguelike game Dead Cells, where he has been stuck in, more or less, a groundhog day loop in an ever-shifting setting populated with undead monsters. He’s been fighting for his survival, and dying a lot. His ethics are colorful in the name of survival, but his heart’s in the right place. 

cause his head’s not, geddit? ha ha.

➳ CONTENT WARNINGS

Prisoner comes from a rather dark and upsetting game. The world as he knows is an island ruled by a tyrant king who held a bloody inquisition and genocide against his own people in an attempt to curb the rising tide of a mutagenic, zombifying disease known as the Malaise. While egregious examples will be tagged accordingly, Prisoner’s experience- and elements of his trauma- come laden heavily with themes of incarceration, execution (especially by hanging), torture, illness, body horror, blood, violence, and the desecration and burning of the dead.

If these are greatly uncomfortable for you, it is entirely up to you if you’d rather we don’t interact, or would like to interact but ask that I keep one or more topics away from how he interacts with your muse specifically, please communicate this. 

➳ FRIENDS

This is easy to achieve but does not go very far. Prisoner is fairly wary of intentions for the environment he was used to living in, and, also, kinda losing his mind a bit in Spirale for there being more than seven living people who are not trying to kill or exploit him. Prisoner can be summarized as friendly but mistrustful so most people who hold a few conversations with him, or just stick around one way or another, will get on his good side, by virtue of watering the horrible wilting plant that is his sense that he’s a real person.

He may or may not unexpectedly drop some of said issues on you if you get into conversations with him, depending on his mood. The world he knows in general, and the specific path he’s beaten through it, are rather unkind and dark, so if you’d rather keep things light, this is just something to communicate on OOC. (see content warnings; while in-character these things might pop out of the blue, out of character is another story- I am more than happy to discuss and will pretty much always forewarn you if Prisoner’s mood is swinging for the morbid.)

He also has a soft spot towards small animals or children so if your muse is young, cute, or seems that way he will at least want you to be okay. (and, yes. this includes monsters. this is a guy who occasionally secures the company of large one-eyed carnivorous/bitey grubs... and puts little bows on them. His sense of cute is not everybody’s.)

Prisoner’s pretty willing to run small favors or hear out friends (is not opposed to quid pro quo arrangements either, even if they’re pretty loveless) but if the arrangement seems exploitative he may ditch on you. If you’re in trouble, he’s likely to help out, even if he doesn’t necessarily like or trust you that much- other survivors are rare where he comes from. 

➳ SPECIAL SLOT: HOUSEMATES!

Prisoner is in House 112! Mostly, I’ve operated on the idea that he has come and gone at odd hours at best and not dropped off any personal belongings- thus making it maybe a little hard to tell if he’s there at all except that someone may have poked around or swiped food- but if your muse lives in the same house in Fibonacci Ward, please let me know anytime if you want to interact on that front!

➳ ALLIES / TRUSTED

More selective than casual friendship; this is a situation where Prisoner’s actual loyalty rears its head and it generally comes down to that he genuinely believes that you aren’t going to use him. Being used is a major concern / fear of his; he has pretty good reason to believe his entire existence was meant to be a means to an end for another person, and then personally spent an uncertain amount of time working for someone who proved to be using him for selfish gain and then abandon him in the lurch.

Other people who are synthetic beings, or who have been exploited/used somehow may be quicker to earn his trust or at least his compassion. 

At this level you will almost definitely be privy to a lot of Prisoner’s exciting personal issues and he may even be willing to not pretend that he’s joking about them. 

To have Prisoner’s loyalty means that he will not only work very hard or risk injury to help your muse, he may actually be willing to die for it- as he’s used to a respawn system much like Isola’s, he is potentially willing to use his own death as a means to an end. 

➳  ENEMIES

This can range from the frivolous to genuinely serious. Prisoner is generally averse to authority, has a habit of viewing upsetting or macabre situations opportunistically, and can be plenty abrasive or flippant; if your muse takes things very seriously or is personally offended by his attitude I am absolutely game to play that out. It’s also worth noting as someone who lived much of his life at the hands and abuses of a criminal system, he is generally not a fan of persons of the law, though he can overcome that reflexive discomfort, his reflex is to be suspicious and wary first and foremost.

At the same time, he does hold himself to standards, and will also dislike or not get along with people who needlessly attack or bully innocent entities. 

Generally, if Prisoner is attacked or feels threatened, he’ll throw down at least as long as it takes him to get out of the situation. That said, most people Prisoner considers enemies, he will maybe avoid or argue with, but is unlikely to sabotage or want them to die.

The exception is...

➳ HUNTED

In his home canon Prisoner maintains a great deal of animosity for the King of the Island, a person who served as his “original host” and who he was created.. for? out of? in a way he is not himself totally clear on.

It’s a nice summary to say that Prisoner spent most of the initial run of the game actively trying to hunt the King down and kill him, and is not deterred slightly by the revelation that the King is, at the time, in a catatonic state.

Once you really earn Prisoner’s hatred, he is a very hard enemy to shake, and he will not mince words. A really great way to get into this category is to repeat previous trauma- basically, trick, trap, or persuade Prisoner into an exploitative arrangement, especially if this involves somehow tampering with or causing him to second-guess his memories. The Collector went from ‘someone Prisoner is decently fond of, or at least considers a friend’ immediately to ‘bro I would stab you in the parking lot of a White Castle’ once Prisoner realized he was being exploited by Collector, even for an ostensibly noble goal (making a cure for the plague)- he has zero tolerance or patience for this.

[quartz-slab]

Respawn

Word count: 6.5k 

@nb-sponge and @mincecruft helped me write this because they’re awesome

This is part of @ask-elementalhermitcraft‘s au, so if you want more context about this universe, go check out their blog!

"Grian."

"Yes?" he answered in his most innocent tone of voice.

"Is that a chicken on my base?" Mumbo demanded, pointing down at the top of his spherical base.

Grian squinted in the direction he was pointing, but they were a little too high up for him to see it. "I don't know, maybe? Why would there be a chicken on your base?"

The unimpressed look Mumbo gave him at that suggested he wasn't buying it at all, but before Grian could defend himself further, Mumbo was swooping down to get a closer look. With a twitch of his wings, Grian followed him down.

Since Mumbo was slightly in front of him, he got a perfect view of his friend botching the landing and tumbling head over heels along the top of his base before skidding to a stop in an annoyed heap. The sight made him laugh hard enough that his own landing was a little awkward, sending him stumbling forward several steps before he managed to stop himself.

"Nice landing," he teased.

"Oh, shut up." Mumbo tried to sit up, but the fall had knocked his elytra loose and one of the straps was wrapped around his arm, trapping it to his body. "Um. A little help, please?"

Grian shook his head, still giggling, and went over to free his friend. It took a bit of tugging from both of them, and some awkward wiggling from Mumbo, but eventually they managed to get the elytra off him. He scrambled to his feet, brushing away the wrinkles from his suit and doing his best to look dignified. His cheeks were red enough that it was hard to see his freckles.

"Thanks. Now, where did that chicken go?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, Mumbo. Why on Earth would there be a chicken in your base?"

"Well, maybe because a certain friend of mine keeps throwing eggs everywhere!" Mumbo threw his arms out, gesturing at the expanse of biomes below them.

Grian hummed, acting thoughtful. "Do you mean Iskall? It is pretty suspicious that we never see him and Poultryman in the same place, really."

"I saw you here yesterday with an armful of eggs, Grian."

"It wasn't me, it was the man in the chicken costume!" he insisted, playfully shoving at Mumbo's shoulder.

Mumbo took half a step back to brace himself, but his shoe landed on the discarded elytra and skidded. Grian had half a second to process the shocked look on his friend's face - and then Mumbo was falling off the side of his base with a shout of surprise. The next few seconds felt like an eternity while Grian realized what happened:

Mumbo was falling.

Mumbo wasn't wearing his elytra.

Mumbo was going to die and it was all Grian's fault, which meant -

Mumbo wouldn't respawn from this.

He shook himself out of his shock and sprinted forward, diving off after his friend, wings tucked as close to his back as they could go to help him fall faster. Below him, Mumbo was tumbling through the air, flailing out his arms like it would somehow help him slow down. Grian reached down, trying to catch him, but they were too far apart. The wind whipped around him in an attempt to slow down their fall, but it wasn't enough. The ground was approaching too fast, and he couldn't dive fast enough to beat it.

His view started to blur with tears, brought on by a mixture of fear and the rush of air against his eyes. If he could just fly a little faster, or if he'd moved a little faster, he'd be able to save Mumbo, but he'd just stood there like an idiot instead of reacting and there wasn't enough time.

Mumbo hit the ground with a sound that Grian knew he would hear in his nightmares forever, and vanished, leaving his items scattered over the ground.

Choking on a sob, he pulled out of the dive, wings pumping desperately as he tried to stop himself from experiencing the same impact. The wind, apparently not in the mood to mess with him right now, helped slow him down enough that the landing was only painful, rather than lethal. He still ended up rolling a couple of feet, in just the same way as he'd made fun of Mumbo for doing only a few minutes ago.

He slowly pushed himself up to a sitting position, but couldn't make himself move any further than that. For a long moment, he just sat where he'd fallen, wrapping his wings around himself in an instinctive attempt to hide from what had just happened. Falling damage on its own wasn't permanently lethal, but Grian was the one who had pushed him. Did that mean Mumbo was just - dead? For real? He shook his head desperately, even though he knew he was just fooling himself.

Still, he made himself stand up. If Mumbo was respawning at all, he would respawn in his base, right? In which case he'd probably want Grian to bring his stuff up there. He moved to go collect it, and winced. The fall had left scrapes and bruises all over him, and now that some time had passed he was becoming painfully aware of all of them. One of his ankles ached every time he stepped on it, but he forced himself to ignore it and started collecting Mumbo's scattered items.

There were too many of them to fit in his inventory, but he managed to find a few shulker boxes that weren't completely full, so he shoved all the leftovers into them. It was all a complete mess, but he could take the time to sort it out later. Right now he had to go check Mumbo's bed.

The wind was howling in response to his emotions, tugging at his clothes and whipping up the sand, but it didn't stop him from taking off. It knew when things were too important to mess with him. But even without the wind messing with him, his flying was so erratic that he almost slammed into the side of the base before landing correctly on one of the pathways. He barely slowed down when he hit the ground, letting his momentum push him forward into a run. There were a few stray shulker boxes in his way, but he vaulted over them instead of taking the time to dodge, spreading his wings to give him the extra height he needed.

He skidded to a stop next to Mumbo's bed, looking around frantically for some sign of his friend. But Mumbo was nowhere to be seen, and the sheets were just as neat as he usually left them, suggesting that he hadn't been here recently. Grian whirled around, trying to scan every part of the base for a tall, black-suited figure, but he couldn't see anything He quickly messaged Mumbo, but got no immediate response.

Mumbo hadn't respawned here. Which meant -.

Grian pressed both hands against his mouth, dropping his communicator onto the bed as the tears he'd been trying to hold back finally poured loose. His best friend was dead and it was all his fault, because he was too slow and too stupid to react in time. What was he supposed to do now? His breath hitched, coming out in frantic gasps. There had to be something he could do, but the only thing he could think was Mumbo's dead he's dead he'sdeadhe'sdead.

The wind picked up even more, approaching gale force as he panicked, whipping in fierce circles around him like it was trying to keep him safe from whatever was upsetting him. "I can't - I can't -." He wasn't even sure what he was trying to say. He needed to think, needed to figure out what to do, but the horror creeping up his throat was threatening to choke him and he couldn't think through it.

He started to back away from the empty bed, then turned to run, launching himself into the air with no thought to where he was going. The wind snatched at his wings and tossed him higher, too frenzied with his emotions to even notice that he was there anymore. Suddenly a thought managed to break through his panic: Xisuma. If X rewound time, he could catch Mumbo, or stop him from falling in the first place.

Clinging to that desperate thought, he flew off into the storm.

----

Mumbo sat up with a gasp. For a moment, he couldn't see anything as his head swirled with the vertigo that always came with dying and respawning. After a few seconds his vision cleared, and he started looking around to try and figure out where he'd respawned. This wasn't his base. Where was he?

It took him a moment before he remembered: this was the mining mesa. He'd been mining terracotta yesterday, and slept because it was getting dark. He must have forgotten to break the bed before he left.

Groaning, he stood up. Without any items, it was going to take him forever to get back to his base. Hopefully Grian wasn't too freaked out; he'd looked pretty scared while he was trying to catch Mumbo. It'd probably be best to hurry, just in case.

This time he made very certain to break the bed. There were a few chests near the beanstalk, and he dug through them quickly to see if he could find anything useful. Most of it was junk, but he found a mostly intact stone sword and a few uncooked potatoes. No one would mind if he took those. He would have preferred some redstone, but if he really had to, he could summon some from the ground. Not that he was expecting to; if he hurried, he could be back to his base before it got dark. He jogged over to the beanstalk and stepped into the water elevator, letting it propel him up to the nether portal. When he appeared in the nether, he mentally thanked Joe once again for marking the path back to the shopping district and set off at a run.

About halfway back, he slowed down to a walking pace to check his communicator. He had one message from Grian, which read “where are you?” He responded with “Respawned at the mesa, on my way back.” He shoved the device back into his pocket and continued running.

By the time he reached the shopping district portal he was too winded to run anymore, but he made himself keep moving anyway, stumbling through the portal. If he could find an ender chest, he was pretty sure he had a spare elytra that he could use to get home.

Barely two steps out of the portal, the wind hit him hard enough that he staggered and nearly fell over. He hadn't seen wind this hard in - ever, actually. It tore at his clothes, knocking over signs and sending dirt and leaves whirling through the air. He dug his shoes into the ground to brace himself and held up a hand to shield his eyes.

This obviously wasn't natural weather; it had to be because of Grian. Mumbo needed to get to him right now.

There was no way he could fly in this weather, but he started off in the direction of iTrade anyway to get his spare elytra, just in case the wind calmed down at any point. Getting there felt like it took twice as long as it should have, with the wind pushing him off balance every few steps so he had to concentrate on staying standing more than where he was going.

Half-blinded by the wind and not paying enough attention to what was happening around him, Mumbo ran straight into Iskall as the other man was coming out of iTrade.

"Whoa, you okay, dude?" Iskall asked, grabbing onto Mumbo's arm to steady them both.

"I'm fine, I just - I'm sorry, I have to hurry, I need my elytra." Pushing away from Iskall, he stumbled over to the nearby ender chest. The large building it sat next to helped block some of the wind so he could actually move without needing to brace himself.

"Why? There's no way you're gonna be able to fly in this weather." Iskall followed him toward the chest, tucking himself against the building to hide from the wind. "Do you have any idea what's going on with Grian?"

Did he leave his elytra in the blue shulker box or the green one? Mumbo dug through the stacks of random items he had stored in his chest, grabbing some spare armor and supplies while he was at it. After a moment, it registered that Iskall was talking to him. "What?"

"Grian. The weather was just fine half an hour ago, and now the wind is going absolutely insane and he's not answering any of our messages. I think something might be wrong.”

"I think something might be -

"I think something -

"I think -.”

Iskall's words suddenly stuttered, looping back on themselves several times. The lid of the ender chest, which Mumbo had just closed, was suddenly open again. He let go and flinched back in surprise, narrowly avoiding having his fingers crushed as it swung shut.

"What was that?" he asked. Just in case it happened again, he moved slowly as he stood up, but time seemed to be moving normally now.

“I dunno, man.”

"Right. Anyway... Yeah, something is definitely wrong. We were on top of my base, and he tried to catch me but couldn't, and I think it really scared him. He didn't mean to, of course, but he's obviously really freaking out about it." He started to strap on his elytra, then stopped when he realized that it would be nearly impossible to fly in this weather. Instead, he tossed it into his inventory.

"That...didn't make any sense, Mumbo," Iskall said. "Slow down and explain it to me again."

Mumbo took a deep breath. He was practically vibrating with the urge to run off and find Grian, but he made himself calm down somewhat so he could explain what was going on. "I fell off my base and died, and Grian's really freaked out about it, as you can tell."

"Oh, yeah, I saw the message. But what's the big deal? All of us fall off things all the time."

"I don't know? I guess because he tried to catch me and couldn't?" Mumbo shrugged helplessly. "Does it matter? We need to find him and calm him down."

"You're right. Okay, you go see if he's still where you died, and I'll get - get the others to help look for him."

"Thanks, Iskall!" Mumbo started to rush off, stopped, and turned around. "Um... Do you have a spare boat?”

----

Grian hovered over Xisuma's base, trying to see if he was there. It was hard to tell with how much he was being jostled around by the wind and the fact that everything was still blurred by tears, but he was pretty sure he could see someone moving around at the bottom of the giant square hole. Tucking in his wings, he dove down to land right in front of him.

Ignoring the other man's noise of surprise, Grian lunged forward to grab his green hoodie with both hands and drag him down to eye level. "X, you have to help me! Mumbo - I pushed him, I didn't mean to, he wasn't wearing his elytra and he - he." Grian choked on the next few words, unable to force them out.

"What? Are you crying? What are you talking about?" The taller man tried to pull back, but Grian stubbornly clung on.

"Mumbo's dead," he burst out. "Because I - because I killed him."

Xisuma made a noise like he'd been punched in the gut and roughly shoved Grian away, stumbling back several steps to brace himself against a chest. "No. No, no, no."

"I'm sorry." He swiped the sleeve of his sweater across his eyes. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to - you have to rewind, right now."

"You." Xisuma reached up to tug at his hair. He was shaking hard enough that Grian could see it from several feet away. "Why." It wasn't a question.

"I didn't mean to! We were just joking and I pushed him and he fell and I couldn't catch him and he didn't respawn." Grian took a step toward Xisuma. "Please, you have to rewind -."

Grian took a step toward -

Grian took a step -

Grian -

The world stuttered and jumped like a scratched record, and then he ran into a chest that was suddenly much closer than it had been a second ago. "What was that?"

"I can't. Not anymore."

"X, please."

"I can't!" Xisuma shouted. "Time fucking abandoned me and all I have is this!"

He flung out his arm, and the stacks of chests around them abruptly jerked closer. Grian dodged out of the way as the chest next to him toppled over onto the floor with a crash, spilling out a pile of iron and gold ingots. Heart pounding, he looked closer at the other man, taking in all the details he'd been too panicked to notice before.

There were far more scars criss crossing his exposed skin then there should have been. The set of his mouth was harsher, even when he wasn't shouting at Grian because he'd just killed his best friend. And the eyes currently glaring at him were bright red instead of brown.

"Oh," he said. Then, "Where's X? I have to find him before it's too late to rewind!"

"Are you actually this stupid, or did killing your friend also kill your brain?" Evil X snapped. "He can't help you with this any more than I can."

Grian shook his head desperately. "No, he just needs to rewind - there's still some time, right? I've seen him go back half a day, this is nothing."

"Dead is dead, idiot! As in permanent, never coming back. Even he can't fix that."

"But - no, he rewound last week when Ren fell into lava and lost all his stuff," Grian protested, wings fluttering anxiously.

Evil X made an aggravated noise and dragged a hand through his hair, making it even messier than it already was. The motion seemed to skip back half a second and repeat slightly, then continued normally. "Ren wasn't actually dead. He fell into lava because he wasn't paying attention, not because someone pushed him." The disgusted glare he sent Grian at that had the smaller man's wings flinching in front of him in an instinctive attempt to hide from it. "Have you ever seen him rewind for someone who hadn't already respawned to go whine at him?"

"No," Grian whispered. The air around him started to swirl faster, responding to his growing dread by trying to push everything away from him.

"Exactly. As long as they respawn, he can rewind as much as he likes. If they don't -" another record-scratch jump had the same gust of wind tousling his hair three times before Evil X continued, tone forced flat in a way that was almost eerie compared to how agitated he'd been earlier. "If they don't, it means the universe has decided they're really, permanently dead. And it won't let anyone change that."

Grian balled his hands into fists. "I don't believe you! You never liked any of us; you probably don't even care that Mumbo's -" he swallowed down the catch in his throat and stubbornly kept talking. "That Mumbo's dead. You're just trying to stop me from going to X because you don't want him to fix it!"

The world jerked around him, skipping so quickly that everything turned into a series of still images, repeating at random with a suddenness that almost made him nauseous. He shut his eyes to block it out, and then shut them again because the movement couldn't seem to stick.

"So why are you still here?" Boots scuffed against the ground, and when Grian cracked his eyes open again, Evil X had moved a few steps closer to him. He smiled mockingly, but there wasn't a trace of humor in his eyes. "You could go find him right now, instead of standing here and crying to me."

"I," Grian started, but he didn't know what to say. Evil X wasn't wrong and he knew it, but if he accepted that, he would have to accept that there was nothing he could do to fix this.

"Go on, go tell him what you did." He pitched his voice upward into a bad imitation of Grian. "X, please, you've gotta rewind for me because I murdered my friend."

"Stop! I didn't - it was an accident, I didn't mean to!"

"Oh? Well then, that just makes it all better. Make sure you mention that when you ask him."

"Stop, stop, stop." He wrapped his arms tightly around himself, squeezing handfuls of his sweater sleeves. "What am I supposed to do?"

Evil X scoffed and turned away. "Don't ask me."

"But -." Before Grian could finish the sentence, Evil X was gone, like he'd simply blinked out of existence. The sight made his heart race for a moment, even though he'd seen him teleport before.

And then he was alone, with only the howling wind for company. For a moment, he just stood there. Then he slowly sank down to the ground, curling up into a ball and pulling his wings close around him to block out the world.

There wasn't anything he could do to fix this, but at least he could put off seeing the way everyone would look at him when they realized what he'd done. At least for a little while, he could pretend he wasn't going to end up alone again.

----

The surface of the sea had turned choppy from the storm, sending large waves crashing into the beach. Mumbo really wasn’t looking forward to rowing in that, but there was no time to wait it out. He set his boat down, trying to avoid the water as much as possible, and started to jump in -

Everything stuttered, waves jumping from one spot to another like a bad stop motion animation. The sounds of the wind and the water looped back over themselves in a discordant mess, stopping and starting apparently at random. Mumbo couldn’t figure out if he was standing or leaning on the boat - none of the movements he made seemed to make any -

The side of the boat disappeared from under his hands, and he fell in the water with a splash as time abruptly became linear again.

Dropping into the cold water was a nasty shock, but even worse was the sudden lack of energy as the water wiped away the small redstone charge he normally carried. Fumbling back to his feet as quickly as possible, he searched frantically for the suddenly missing boat. After a few seconds, he spotted it bobbing wildly several feet away and hurriedly splashed toward it. The water was shallow enough to walk in, but he still took a few waves to the face before he managed to pull himself into the boat.

It rocked wildly when he flopped down, but didn’t capsize, so Mumbo ignored it and tried to catch his breath. The taste of salt lingered on his tongue from the bits of seawater that had gotten in his mouth. He spat a few times, unsuccessfully trying to get rid of it.

Right now he wanted nothing more than to curl up and take a nap, or at the very least find a circuit to recharge with until he felt less like passing out. But there wasn’t any time for that right now, so he forced himself to sit up and reach for the oars.

The wind only seemed to get worse as he rowed. He only made it as far as Grian’s base before his arms started to shake from the effort, so he landed his boat against the pathway and climbed out to stretch. Keeping one eye on it to make sure it didn’t float away again, he pulled his communicator from his pocket to check if Grian had responded yet. His little dip earlier hadn’t done the device any harm; they seemed to be nearly indestructible, even able to follow the hermits when they respawned.

There were nothing from Grian, but the group chat was full of confused messages from the other hermits. Reading through them, Mumbo realized that they were responding to...whatever it was that had happened earlier.

[FalseSymmetry] what was that??

[docm77] i’m not sure, but i think it broke my redstone

[xisumavoid] oh no

[xisumavoid] i’ll deal with it, try not to do anything dangerous in the meantime

That was apparently all Xisuma had to say, despite several more messages asking him to explain what “it” was. If Mumbo had to guess, there was probably something going on with his powers, since the weird stutters seemed to be messing with time more than anything else. That was a little concerning, but it sounded like he knew how to fix it, so Mumbo wasn’t going to worry about it right now.

He tried sending another message to Grian, but there was still no response. After waiting a few seconds, fingers drumming anxiously against the communicator’s case, he gave up and dropped it back into his pocket. It wasn’t entirely unusual for Grian to ignore messages, but he’d picked a really bad time to do it.

It didn’t look like the wind was easing up at all, but Mumbo felt a little better after his break. He got back in the boat, managing not to fall in the ocean this time, and continued in the direction of his base. The longer half of the journey was already over; it didn’t take long for the giant sphere to come into view.

He jumped out onto the shore as soon as he got back to his base, leaving his boat behind. He made his way up the beach, wet shoes squishing with every step. The wind was throwing sand into the air, stinging his eyes and sticking to his wet skin. When he reached the top of the hill, he took a moment to look around for his stuff as he walked toward his base. It was hard to tell exactly where he’d fallen, since he’d been a little preoccupied at the time, but he had a general idea. There didn’t seem to be anything there at first glance, and it didn’t look like Grian was there either. Deciding to leave it for later, he made a beeline for his bubble elevator to check the rest of his base.

The first thing he saw when he arrived at the top was his bed. There was something laying on top of it - a communicator, he realized as he got closer. It was Grian’s, judging by the amount of stickers on the back. They were layered over each other to the point that some of them were almost completely obscured, but he could still make out multiple chicken and egg themed ones near the top.

Grian himself wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Mumbo turned in a slow circle, but his friend didn’t seem to be anywhere in the base. He picked up the abandoned communicator and went to check down the pathways, just in case. Along the way, he stopped and pressed his hand against one of the redstone lamps. It flickered out briefly as he drew the power out of it and into himself. The comforting surge of energy immediately had him perking up, freckles regaining their normal glow.

A quick search of his base confirmed that Grian definitely wasn’t there. At least now he knew why his friend wasn’t answering, but this was going to make finding him a little more difficult. He pocketed Grian’s communicator and pulled out his own to type out a message.

[MumboJumbo] has anyone seen grian? i really need to find him

Several moments passed, and then his screen lit up with a new notification.

[xisumavoid] he’s over here at my base

[xisumavoid] you might want to hurry

----

Feeling someone other than himself messing with time was an extremely unsettling feeling, like expecting to step on solid ground and finding air instead. It didn’t help that the jumps were messy and badly done, snarling time into a knot rather than neatly looping it back on itself. The lava directly below the narrow path he stood on made it especially frightening. Now was probably not the safest time to be in the nether.

Xisuma quickly flew toward the nearest piece of solid ground, managing to land just before another glitch sent time twisting around itself again. For a moment, he assumed that his alternate self had decided to start messing with him. Evil X had said he would be taking a break at his base, but perhaps that was just a ruse. With a groan of frustration, he set out towards his base, mentally preparing himself for a heated encounter with his evil counterpart.

However, instead of encountering Evil X upon returning to the overworld, he was greeted by a large gust of wind slamming into him that caused him to almost stumble back through the portal. Steadying himself, he took a moment to ponder the situation. Winds this strong could only be caused by Grian when he was very upset, which wasn’t a good sign. Typically when someone this distressed came to him, it meant something had gone very wrong, and they wanted him to roll back time to fix it. He wondered about what could’ve happened as he slowly moved forward through the billowing winds.

As Xisuma moved towards the center of his base, he made out the figure of Grian curled up in a corner. He called out to Grian, but he either couldn't hear him, or he was ignoring him. He called out again, and this time Grian slowly lifted his head in response, though he kept his eyes locked on the floor.

“Haven’t you said enough?” His voice was hoarse, as if he’d been crying.

Xisuma frowned, confused. He hadn’t talked to Grian in a few days. “What do you mean?”

“Or do you want to tell me some more about what a horrible person I am? Believe me, I already know.”

“What? Grian, what’s going on?”

Grian looked up at him. He looked like he was about to say something, but the expression on his face quickly changed to one of confusion, then fear. “Wait, you’re not -.” He cut himself off by bringing his hand up to his mouth.

“It’s just me,” Xisuma said soothingly, trying to calm Grian down. “You can talk to me, it’s okay.”

“No, I can’t! Just - leave me alone!” He lifted one hand and shot a large gust of wind at Xisuma.

It only managed to shove him back a few steps before he stopped himself by grabbing onto the edge of a crafting table. No thanks, he thought. He wasn’t just going to leave Grian to have some kind of breakdown in the middle of his base.

“Not until you tell me what’s going on. Whatever it is, I’m sure we can fix it somehow.”

“He said it’s impossible. That there’s some stuff even you can’t rewind,” Grian said, voice hitching.

“Who said that?” Xisuma asked. He took a few steps closer, moving slowly so as not to startle him.

“The other you, the one with the red eyes. Dead is dead, he told me. You can’t fix that.”

Xisuma felt his blood run cold. “Someone’s dead?” He’d never had to find this out for himself, but according to Evil X, that was the one thing that could stop him from rewinding.

Grian seemed to brace himself for a moment, then burst out, “Mumbo’s dead, okay? He’s dead and I’m the one that pushed him off!” Another powerful gust of wind followed his words, but this time it was strong enough to send Xisuma stumbling back into the portal.

He fell through into the nether and landed on the ground, too surprised by the sudden teleportation to catch himself. Composing himself quickly, he tapped a button on his helmet to bring up the chat screen, intending to message Mumbo. Before he could, a message appeared.

[MumboJumbo] has anyone seen grian? i really need to find him

A feeling of relief washed over him, and he took a moment to calm down before sending a reply.

[xisumavoid] he’s over here at my base

[xisumavoid] you might want to hurry

----

After reading the messages, Mumbo got halfway to the beach before realizing that he could get to Xisuma’s base much faster if he went through the nether. Scolding himself for not thinking of that before, he switched directions and hurried toward the building that housed his portal. It was a short journey, since their bases were somewhat close already, so it wasn’t long before he reached the right portal. Xisuma was standing in front of it, leaning back against the obsidian, but he perked up when he spotted Mumbo.

“There you are! You should hurry through and talk to Grian; he’s pretty upset. But I expect an explanation when you’re through!”

“Right, of course. Thanks for finding him,” Mumbo said, stepping past Xisuma into the portal.

The wind hit him as soon as he appeared on the other side, hard enough to knock him off balance and almost send him stumbling right back into the portal. He’d known to expect it, but this was much worse than he’d thought.

It took him a few moments to locate Grian. His friend was curled up in one corner of the base, wings pulled around himself so that the only thing Mumbo could see of him was a tuft of light brown hair.

“Grian?” he called, raising his voice to be audible over the wind. There was no response, so he moved a little closer and tried again. When there was still no answer, Mumbo moved closer again, almost right next to Grian at this point. He crouched down, trying to get his friend to look at him with a gentle tap on his wing.

His wings twitched suddenly, knocking Mumbo’s hand away, and his head finally shot up. For a moment, everything was quiet as the wind died down for a second. A look of shock and disbelief was etched across his face. Suddenly, the wind picked back up, harsher than before, pushing Mumbo away slightly as Grian covered his eyes and started to shake his head. “No, no, no - stop it, you’re dead, you can’t be here - no nonoNO!”

“Grian, it’s okay! I’m fine, I’m right here, see?”

He held his arms in front of his face to protect his eyes from the wind, and started to move closer to his distraught friend. Trudging against the wind was difficult, but he was determined. As soon as he was close enough, he dropped down to his knees and wrapped his arms around Grian.

The wind abruptly halted. For a few moments it was dead quiet, but the sound of quiet sobs broke through the silence.

Grian sat up slightly so he could wrap his arms around Mumbo and bury his face against his shoulder. “I thought you were gone for good,” he said, his shaky voice muffled by Mumbo’s jacket. “You didn’t show up at your base, and I thought I -.”

“Shh, it’s okay. I just respawned at the mining mesa. I’m sorry that I scared you so much.”

“It seems kind of stupid now,” he mumbled. “But I thought maybe it counted as a permanent death because I pushed you.”

“You didn’t really push me off, I slipped. Even if that was your fault - which it wasn’t - it wouldn’t have counted as you killing me, right? The fall was what killed me, not you.”

“I…” Grian sniffled and pulled back slightly to look at Mumbo. “I’m just glad you’re okay.” He leaned back in to hug him tighter.

They stayed like that for a few minutes, just happy to be back together. Eventually, Mumbo pulled away and stood up. He held out his hand, and Grian happily took it, pulling himself to his feet.

“Let’s head back to my base - I’ll make you some cookies.”

----

Over the next few days, if anyone ran into Mumbo, they ran into Grian as well. The winged hermit was practically glued to him, seemingly afraid that Mumbo might disappear if he didn’t keep an eye on him at all times. Grian’s sudden clinginess was slightly off-putting, but he didn’t mind, because it seemed to be helping his friend feel better.

Some time later, Grian sat on the ground in Mumbo’s base, watching him work on a bit of redstone for some kind of farm. His friend was talking about something that had happened the last time he went shopping, but it was a little hard to keep track of, because Grian kept zoning out. Every five minutes or so, he would start to nod off before jerking himself awake again and trying to figure out what he’d missed.

“...and then it turned out his horse had actually wandered into Tango’s shop and - Grian?”

He sat up quickly and blinked a few times, trying to make his eyes focus on Mumbo’s face. “Yeah? Sorry, I’m listening.”

“You know, maybe I should tell you later. Why don’t you go take a nap? You look exhausted.”

“I’m fine, I’ve probably just been sitting for too long.” He smiled brightly and bounced to his feet, only to stumble as the sudden movement made his head spin.

“Grian, you’ve hardly slept at all for the past few days. Go back to your base and get some rest.” When he hesitated, Mumbo added “Seriously, I’ll be fine on my own for a few hours. Promise.”

Grian paused for a second and sighed, but responded with “Okay, fiiiiiine. See you later!” Mumbo turned away as he moved towards the edge of the building they were standing on and got ready to take off, but then he got an idea. He slowly crept up on Mumbo, and when he was close enough, he threw an egg directly at the back of his head.

“Ow! What the..” Mumbo trailed off as Grian laughed and ran away to the edge. “Grian!”

“It wasn’t me, it was the man in the chicken costume!” he called over his shoulder. He took off gracefully and soared away, leaving Mumbo to chuckle at his antics. Mumbo smiled as he put his redstone supplies back into his shulker box, and started to walk back into the main part of his base. He’d have to clean the egg out of his hair now, but he was happy to see that his friend was back to his normal self.

[ask-chaos-kin]

Chaotic Adventures in Babysitting Chapter 6

Almost to the final chapter! Co-written with @royalbabble

The Freaks still in the base had collectively decided to watch a movie to both unwind from Nightmare Medic and to take their minds off of Jesters outburst. Brutal decided to leave on another murder spree with Gentlespy. Pure was observing Pancakes can out of the side of his vision, wondering if he was taking longer than normal to heal or he was too embarrassed to come back out.

“Wonder what happened to the three while we were gone. Ya know, while they were inside the artifact?” Spyper asked aloud.

“We had to chase after Rose almost the whole time,” Pancakes answered from his can. Just as Pure thought, he was too embarrassed to come back out.

“I’ve been in Jesters artifact once before. I know you weren’t just looking for Rose,” Pure said, “You got on a few rides didn’t you?”

“One ride with Roseflame. Tilt-A-whirl. After me and Roseflame dropped 300 feet onto a bouncy castle,” Pancakes came out of his can to explain it.

“Ah, the High Drop,” Pure said.

“Why the hell do they even have that thing? Scared Roseflame to near death,” Pancakes commented.

“Jester likes falling for some reason,” Pure shrugged.

“Wait, Roseflame’s afraid of heights?” Intelligent Heavy asked, now tweaking the cube with some other random machine parts. 

“I was surprised too but yeah. Pretty bad too. Don’t have anything left of her grabbing my arm, but it was pretty similar to being held down by Painis,” he mentioned.

“Then why does she fly around if that’s the case?” Spyper asked, reclining beside his friend. 

“As far as I’m aware, she both doesn’t look down and she only focuses on where she’s going, not how she’s getting there,”

“Ah,” Spyper said, fixing his vest. 

“Kinda feel bad for her,” Pancakes stated, joining the others to watch the movie. 

“Wonder if Jester knew. They seem to know everything that goes down in their artifact,” Intelligent Heavy said, affixing the machine part to the cube.

“What are you doing over there anyways?” Spyper asked, leaning over to his friend.

“I’m trying to see if I can recycle the cube to harness Jesters magic again,”

“Will that even work?” Spyper doubted, watching as his friend used thin tape to graft the machine part onto the cube.

“No idea,” That’s when the silhouette of another Scout approached the door. Since no truck was heard pulling into the driveway, it was either Wolves Bane, Roseflame, or Anthony. Pancakes got up tentatively and went to answer the door, only to hiss in worry and disgust at the sight.

“You look like you need an ER,” Pancakes let a very bloody and battered Roseflame into the base.

“096 isn’t as hard to deal with as some others, he was just pissy because so many HECU members saw his face,” She answered, her voice was hoarse and filled with slight pain. 

“You wouldn’t happen to know any healing spells would you Pure?” Spyper asked the priest.

“Unfortunately, no. Jester does, but they can only heal shallow wounds,” Pure sighed. 

“It’s fine guys. Worse comes to worst i’ll respawn on the roof,” She dismissed it as Pancakes helped her to the couch. 

“Heard you got the High Drop,” Spyper said, leaning forward on the couch. 

“Yeah… Wait how much did you tell them,” she looked to Pancakes with slight anger in her eyes.

“...That was supposed to be kept secret wasn’t it?” He responded. She didn’t have the strength to punch him so she slumped into her jacket to bury her face.

“You fucking suck...” she crowed out though she was muffled by her jacket.

“Surprised Jester didn’t say anything about that. They hate scaring people,” Intelligent Heavy said. Pancakes shot him a huffy look. 

“Oh, they should be apologizing soon,” Pure said. 

“They don’t have to, it’s my fault Pancakes even decided to try using their artifact. I’d consider it a lesson taught,” Roseflame stated before going into a coughing fit. Pancakes rubbed her back, trying to soothe some of the internal problems.

“Easy, easy,” He calmed her down, trying to prevent a slow death on his hands. Especially someone he knew and trusted. 

A fssh sound came from the other room.

“And that should be Jester. In three, two, one…” Spyper counted down, and right as he hit one Jester came darting into the common room, sparks and smoke following them as they skidded to a halt. 

“-WAIT HANG ON DON’T DIE ON ME,” Jester panted, breathless. They stumbled over to Roseflame and nearly face planted into the floor as they went. Pancakes immediately jumped back into his can.

“Not dying yet, slowly. But not yet,” Roseflame chuckled a bit before coughing a bit more. Jester scrambled up and managed to stand upright.

“I can’t do much, but I can patch up the shallow wounds,” They said, still catching their breath,

“I’ll be fine Jester, honestly I’ve dealt with worse,” Roseflame tried to wave them off. Pancakes had absconded by the time Jester had burst the door open to rush to Roseflame.

“You’ll be fine!? Look at you! You’re clothes are soaked with blood, you have cuts all over your body, and you look like you’re two heartbeats away from death!” Jester protested. 

“Again, I’ve been through-” She paused to cough a bit more, “worse,” 

Jester scowled, clearly not going away any time soon.

“Stay still, i’m healing you,” Jester said. They extended their hand out towards Roseflame and a spiral of blue sparks began to swirl out from the palm of their hand. Dancing sparks scattered from their palm and to their fingertips and jumped away from their hand in a sort of mist that came to rest over Roseflame. The sparks started to disperse themselves, making their way to whatever shallow wounds and bruises they could and sealing them up, stopping the bleeding from those injuries completely and removing the soreness from where the bruises had been. The sparks managed to slightly cauterize the larger injuries to prevent further blood loss, but were largely unable to seal the more brutal wounds. She righted herself after the healing process was done.

“Thanks Jester,” she gave them a smile. “Though I came back to talk to you,” She started to stand up. 

“You’re gonna need more than some magic for what you went through,” Spyper said, getting up, “This is a mercenary base, right? Where’s the Medics Infirmary?”

“It’s underground. I’m fine though, honest,” Roseflame stood up and tried to walk around to show she was fine, though she stumbled quite a bit while walking at a snail's pace.

“...Ok i’m getting the bandages,” Spyper said bluntly, walking off. Roseflame groaned in response to the action and returned to the couch.

“You really should just rest for a bit,” She heard Pancakes tell her from his can.

“Fuck off tin head,” She snapped. She grabbed the can and hurled it down the hallway, Pancakes panickedly yelling from it as it sailed through the air. He ditched the can and landed on his back as his can hit his chest.

“Listen here pissy,” he groaned picking up his can before getting up himself. The moment he stood up he immediately regretted coming out of his can, because now he found himself standing right in front of a still miffed Jester. He gulped as he weighed his options. Running away would result in him never being able to see Chaos possibly ever again, going back into his can he’d be easy to just toss out the door. He didn’t know what to do other than stand his ground and hope Jester didn’t kill him.

“H-hey, didn’t know you were still here…” He squeaked out, his voice cracking at the beginning. 

“Where else did you think I would go?” Jester said harshly. 

“I-I don’t know? I just thought that-” he was trying to back away from the angry Jester while looking at them. Jester opened their mouth to say something when it suddenly snapped shut. Bewildered, Jester whipped around to look at Pure, who had one of his hands raised at Jester, imposing his basic telekinesis onto the Freak.

“That’s enough Jester, you’ve made your point,” The priest chastised, letting go of Jester. Pancakes made his way over to Roseflame still wary of his situation. Roseflame glared at him as he sat next to her. He simply helped her position into a more comfortable sitting position without saying a word. 

***

Not long after the two were asleep, Roseflame was laying with her head on Pancakes chest and her upper body along his stomach and thigh area, while Pancakes laid in a slight degree with his right arm draped onto Roseflame’s side. From the shelf that Pancakes had been resting on earlier, Jester sat, shrunken down and sullen from the scolding they’d received from Pure. They glanced down at Pancakes and Roseflame, both fast asleep and resting by the looks of it, peacefully. Even though they were still angry at Pancakes, they couldn’t help but crack a smile at it. Nothing like platonic cuddling to raise the spirits. 

Spyper returned to the room with bandages from the Medbay. He removed the blanket off Pancakes and Roseflame to patch up her wounds.

“What did she even fight? These things look like she fought with Heavydile,” Spyper commented while patching her up.

“Nah, something called SCP-096,” Jester squeaked from their shelf. 

“Doesn’t sounds too intimidating,” Spyper shrugged. Jester shrugged with him. 

“You know, I've never actually met Heavydile-”

“No,” Was all Pure said

“Heavydile is twice as feral as Painis, you don’t want to meet him,” Spyper clarified.

“Painis wasn’t even as bad as Hoovydundy. Heavydile can’t be much worse,”

“And you’re also completely inedible and the most friendly Freak this side of the planet. Of course Hoovydundy or Painis weren’t so bad. Neither of them can actually hurt you,” Intelligent Heavy chimed in. 

“Heavydile eats people and freaks, he’s not even close to human. He can barely talk besides aggressive yelling,” Spyper finished. He placed the blanket back on the two resting teenage freaks. “They’re cute like this,” He commented off hand.

Pancakes shifted in his sleep putting his other arm on his stomach, his face was slightly upset. Must have been having a bad dream. Minutes had passed since then and Pure was keeping an eye out for Chaos by the window.

“Still hard to believe that Roseflame is afraid of heights,” Spyper commented in general.

“WAIT WHAT!?” Jester cried, their squeaky voice peaking their lungs, making a very painful and shrill sound as a result. They fell off the shelf and smacked again the floor in a very tiny puff of sparkles before they shot up into the air at Spypers face, “WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE’S SCARED OF HEIGHTS!?”

“According to Pancakes, She’s horribly afraid of heights. She’s embarrassed by that fact, but she is,” Spyper explained calmly, “She apparently held onto him with a death iron grip when they were at the top of the High Drop,” 

“OHMYGODSHEWASONTHEHIGHDROPANDSHE’SSCAREDOFHEIGHTSOHGODWHATHAVEIDONE,” Jester yelled wildly. Spyper tried to calm them down, but to no avail. The panicking Jesters screaming and yelling woke the two teenagers up from their platonic napping.

“What’s going on this time?” Roseflame asked aloud, blinking the sleep out of her eyes. Pancakes stretched a bit before returning his arm to Roseflame’s side.

“ROSEFLAMEI’MSORRYIDIDN’TKNOWYOUWEREAFRAIDOFHEIGHTSTHEARTIFACTSHOULDN’THAVEEVENPUTYOUTWOUPTHEREINTHEFIRSTPLACE!!” Jester cried, panicked. The two stared in confusion for a second as they watched Jester panic.

“Put us up where?” She asked, still confused from the screaming and groggy from the nap.

“THE HIGH DROP!!” Jester yelled, throwing up their hands. 

“Oh yeah, that thing. Yeah that sucked horribly, thanks for that,” She flopped her head back onto Pancakes chest, he groaned in response to her softly flopping onto his middle. Jester threw their hands over their face and yelled while continuing to apologize profusely. Neither of them could continue to sleep so they both proceeded to stand up and stretch.

“Jester, it’s fine. I just wasn’t expecting to go from ground level to 300 ft. Also, why the hell do you have it be a free fall to almost uncertain death? That’s my only thing about it, why the free fall?!” Roseflame questioned in an aggressive tone.

“I want that answer too,” Pancakes stated in a calmer tone.

“I like falling,” Jester said sadly, “I don’t know why, I just like falling from high places,”

“I mean, I like spinning at speeds that are the closest to max speed,” Roseflame shrugged.

“Also you’re mad at us, why are you apologizing to her so much?” Pancakes asked, confused.

“I’m mad at you, not her,” Jester retorted.

“Why not both of us? I’m just as guilty as he is for the whole mess,” Roseflame commented.

“Did you open the cube? Did you use my magic? Were you the one that accessed my artifact?” Jester asked. 

“No, but I gave him the ideas,” Roseflame answered bluntly, “Hell, if it wasn’t for me, Rose wouldn’t have been by herself on the Ferris Wheel when you arrived. If you should be mad at anyone for that shit show, it’s me,” She stood her ground.

“No, I’m not. You may not be entirely innocent here, but you’re not the one who did any of this,” Jester reiterated, growing back to their normal size.

“Still, don’t throw all your anger at him,” Just then everyone could hear a truck pulling up to the house along with distant rolls of thunder. Pure went to go help his adopted daughter carry things inside. Rose was the first one of the three inside the house and was confused to see the scene in front of her.

“Hey Rose,” Pancakes greeted her,

“Are you still fighting?” She asked as she walked over to the three.

“Kinda, it’s complicated,” Roseflame explained to her.

“Why?” Pancakes and Roseflame had no idea how to answer this one. Rose tugged in Chaos’ pants to get her attention and then looked to Pancakes and Roseflame.

“I know what happened,” Rose said quietly.

“You do?” She asked in slight confusion,

“What?” Pancakes and Roseflame said in unison.

“She apparently knows what happened with the whole Artifact situation,” Chaos then had Rose tell Jester what happened with the whole situation.

“I wasn’t really asleep when Aunt Lily left. I was in the kitchen and I heard Pancakes say that he was gonna use the artifact to spy on you guys. I never heard Roseflame give Pancakes any ideas. It was all Pancakes,” Rose explained. Chaos looked to Pancakes in slight shock.

“Why would you want to spy on us?” She asked him.

“We were worried about you, we knew everyone else could handle themselves but you could have gotten hurt out there,” Pancakes answered simply.

“So it wasn’t Roseflames fault at all,” Jester said, crossing their arms, “We were all alright. I had Nightmare distracted for most of the mission. He never even saw Chaos,”

“Well think about it Jester, they had absolutely no idea of knowing that fact. Besides, he’s still a scout. Name 5 times he’s had an idea that didn’t end like this,” Chaos stated, Pancakes couldn’t argue with her about it.

“Doesn’t mean I suddenly can’t be angry with him,” Jester bit back, “How would you like it if someone broke into your room and began going through your things? Because that’s what this whole ordeal was,” 

“I do, everytime we leave, Someone’s fucking with my stuff Jester,” Chaos snapped, her eyes flashing purple as she advanced towards them.

“Then you know EXACTLY why i’m angry here!” Jester snapped, their own body lighting up with sparks. 

“OKAY ENOUGH!!!!” Roseflame screamed, the power shutting off. Chaos, Pancakes, and Jesters throats now at the mercy of Slenderman. Roseflame’s eyes changed to a state similar to Wolves Banes. Only instead of orange, they were white and filled with a piercing rage.

“The three of you need to knock it off. NOW!” Roseflame’s voice boomed to life with rage. The three where at her mercy now. While all Spyper, Rose, Pure, and Intelligent could only stare in horror at the monster Roseflame summoned. Jester struggled for a moment and took a deep breath in, and within a second their form poofed into a cloud of blue smoke, only for them to reappear somewhere else. Jester raised their hands and invoked their own power, hoisting the monster up and subduing it in a cloud of sparkling smoke, but it was apparent they were struggling to keep the monster in place. With a flick of Roseflame’s wrist, they were back in a tendril of the monster.

“You’re not getting out of this Jester, everyone else here is fine. YOU, CHAOS, AND PANCAKES NEED TO MAKE UP! I’ve already seen so many people hurt each other here! Do you really want it all to happen again?!” 

“THAT IS ENOUGH!!!!” Pure roared, using his telekinesis to sever the tendrils that held Chaos, Jester, and Pancakes. He turned to Roseflame and shoved her back into her seat, jarring her enough to make the monster she’d summoned disappitate into a cloud of black smoke, the power flickered back on as the tie was severed. Chaos and Pancakes tried to regain the breath they had been losing in the grasp of Slenderman, “Jester, i’m going to say this right now. You have every right to be angry at Pancakes, but that does NOT give you any room to start throwing a tantrum! You’re an adult, behave like one! Pancakes, don’t EVER touch Jesters artifact without their permission. You know good and well how important it is to them. Chaos, this matter does not concern you in the slightest so do not involve yourself where it is not needed. And Roseflame, you have absolutely no right to start strangling people on a whim just because you’re mad. That’s what toddlers do, and I know full well that you’re not a toddler,” Pure snapped, turning to everyone in the room as he addressed them. All four of them were shocked into silence that quickly turned into shame and guilt, they knew what they did wrong. 

Rose was behind Intelligent, on the verge of tears. Jester glanced over at the tearful child and felt a pang in their chest. Scaring people was the very last thing they ever wanted to do, yet they had managed to scare two people in one day. Pancakes guilty slunk back over to the couch and sank into the sofa, not saying a word. Chaos awkwardly shuffled out of the living room, and Roseflame sat silently, slumping into the chair. Rose then finally started to cry and everyone felt ten times worse. 

And Jester felt their entire world come crashing down.

Jester brought their hands to their face and began to cry themselves, apologizing profusely to Rose as their body began to release some sort of blue aura that radiated sadness. Rose looked up to Jester for a moment before going to their chest and hugging them.

“It’s not your fault, we just need to be nice to each other instead of being angry,” She tried to dry her eyes while hugging Jester. Roseflame and Pancakes looked to each other, they had an idea how to make up to Jester as well. Roseflame got up and made a slight detour into Rose’s room to drop something off in her bag. Once Jester saw it, she knew they’d cheer up. 

There was a knock on the living room door, and it opened to reveal Brutal and his partner in crime, Gentlespy, waltzing into the house whilst covered in blood from their murder spree, only to stop confusion on why everything was suddenly a huge mess.

“What the hell happened while I was gone?” Brutal asked turning to Pure.

“Arguments,” Pure said, rubbing his temples, “I took care of it,” 

“Let’s hope that the child’s visit isn’t too long then,” Gentlespy commented, “Brutal told me about the situation,” Everyone could only hope so.

[zora-moyashi]

First

<---Prev    Next

Core

A bright blue arrow shot at Chara, grazing her cheek.

ZM

blood dripped from her cheek as she followed the direction the arrow was thrown from

Core

She saw someone on the roof of the castle

ZM

"what's the big idea!" she calls taking a step towards the castle once again as a sort of taunt

Core

She saw that the person, a star to be assumed, had a bow like arm, and aimed it at Chara

ZM

"you dream?" she keeps going forward

Core

The star lowered their bow, they had messy blond hair and their left arm (the bow one) was covered in black. "Depends on who's asking."

ZM

"asking you clearly" she laughs

Core

"Look kid, I don't have the time or patience for these stupid games."

ZM

"hey hey hey i just want to check out the castle, soooooo" she goes a bit faster now

Core

She got an arrow threw her shoulder. "No one likes a smart*ss."

ZM

"aghssss" she hisses as the pain holding the arrow and mumbles out through her teeth "so i've heard." she glares at the star.

Core

"Tell me why you want to enter." The Star demanded

ZM

"to. look. around." she says sternly and rips out the arrow messing up her shoulder pretty badly. she can't heal herself so she just deals with it after burning the wound to stop the bleeding.

Core

The star growled, "fine, but if you touch anything, you're dead."

ZM

"whatever." She pushes open the castle doors and is met with a courtroom with broken chandeliers and stairs with almost all the carpet ripped off

Core

There were lots of crooks and crannies, and rafters on the ceiling. tons of hiding places....

ZM

'maybe I should just let her kill me so this pain can stop' she thinks looking at her shoulder. 'when was my last save..?' she can't quite remember. "What a pretty place~ I wonder is stars are hiding in here."

Core

Killer teleported behind Chara. "Hey,

ZM

"hey, decided to join?" She grins

Core

"That and here." Killer said, showing she can make save points.

ZM

"ooo you're just full of surprises." She touches the save and she heals completely. "That dream character was untrusting, I assume she's hiding something here."

Core

"Well, that's correct. She has kits."

ZM

"everyone has kits danggg like wow"

Core

"I don't and her kits are much older."

ZM

"how much older?" She climbs up the stairs and starts shoving planks away from some holes in the walls finding not much but spiders.

Core

"two years." Killer said, keeping an ear out for the corrupted Dream

ZM

"That means they're the size of tweens or what?"

Core

"Around the size of a 5 year old human."

ZM

"alright," she does more snooping. One room caught her eye in particular most of the floor was missing. The floor below was below completely dark she walked from plank to plank seeing a small spiral staircase at the end of the room.

Core

She herd giggling coming from down the stairs

ZM

she turns to the stairs. "hey? you want to come out?" she moves things around absent minded.

Core

The giggling went silent. Killer grabbed Chara as an arrow almost hit her

ZM

"woo~" she yells "do that again!" she was impressed with her reflexes. she looks around for the one who shot the arrow.

Core

Killer moved quickly, dodging more arrows, Dream was on the rafters

ZM

"we didn't reallllly touch anything you know? we ain't gonna hurt anything!"

Core

"That's bullsh*t." Dream hissed.

ZM

"hm. if you're gonna treat us like that then yeah, you're probably right."

Core

Killer set Chara down before grabbing her knife.

ZM

chara followed suit looking at dream ready to doge more shots.

Core

Killer jumped up to the rafters, ready to cut throat

ZM

chara grins and hops over to look for the kit she heard while killer keeps dream busy.

Core

The downstairs 'basement' area was mostly empty except for some support pillars. Behind a pillar she did notice a bit of fabric poking out

ZM

she goes up to the pillers

And she looks behind the one with the fabric

Core

She saw two kits, they looked to be around 5. one was a boy, with black hair, the other was a girl

ZM

"hey there~" she smiles and waves "your mom's trying to kill me"

Core

The young male hissed. KIller soon came down the stairs

ZM

"geez don't be mean, I'm just saying hi." she looks to killer, "you kill her? cause i don't think night would like that"

Core

Killer showed Chara a yellow stone, about the size of one's eye, part of it seemed to have black corrosion on part of it..

ZM

"well there you go." with a shrug she turns her attention to the kids and kneels on the floor "your mom's recharging. how about we go on a little adventure?" she asks

Core

the blond kit looked at her brother. "bad." she whispered

ZM

she snickers "haha what?" she grins while folding her arms. "i'm not bad!" she shrugs "well, mostly not bad."

Core

The two didn't seem to trust Chara and Killer

ZM

she giggles to herself. "okayyy but don't you want to get out of the castle and go make some friends? you must get board in here right?"

Core

"Y-yeah." the male said

ZM

"exactly! yuma here has a lot of friends she could introduce you to and you guys can look at a cool abandoned city. no reason not to go~"

Core

The male seemed to like this idea, while the girl wasn't sure.

ZM

she stands and looks at the girl "what do ya say?"

Core

The boy nodded

ZM

"good enough for me, let's go!" she slides down the stair rail and heads out the door without waiting for the others.

Core

Killer handed Chara the stone. "Since you haven't seen one before." The boy tagged behind, the girl slowly following

ZM

thanks she takes it. "how do youuuu know i've never held one?" she squints at her before rolls the stone around in her hand. "it's a little weird holding someone's soul." the color intrigued her maybe only because she's never seen a multi-colored soul.

Core

"Well, she'll reform in a few hours, and hers is different, it's corroded like Nightmare's."

ZM

what's this corrosion really mean for a star?

Core

it's the corrosion from the dark fruit.

ZM

"does it have any negative side effects besides, like, being evil ahaha." she kicks some rocks and takes a glance back at the kits.

Core

The kits were following. "makes it harder for them to respawn."

ZM

"hey! good for us!" she puts a finger to her chin in thought. "i think we should introduce them to horror, what do you say?"

Core

"Bad idea, Horror is a cannibal."

ZM

"i thought you all were cannibals. like just part of a genocide star thing"

Core

"Nah, I'm not, nor is LJ or Moku.'

ZM

"wooooah." she stops. " LJ's a star??? i thought she's human?"

Core

"Well, she's kinda both, I mean, she isn't a real star, but isn't like other humans

ZM

"pfft," she scoffs "she just has to be more special than she already was i suppose. I'm not even gonna ask what's up with her, it'll just upset me. so let's go see moku than?" she tilts her head.

Core

"Sure." Killer said

ZM

they head over with the kids close behind they mutter things to each other about what they think moku's like. they're at the forest where nightmare was before. chara wonders if she'll show up or not. "moku?" she calls out a

Core

"What." Mokue hissed.

ZM

"we're saying 'hi'" she says in the same tone as her

Core

Moku saw the kits, "where the he-" she growled before grabbing her rifle

ZM

"woah woah woah what the hell! what's your damage moku?" she moves in front of the kits

Core

"It's called getting rid of future competition." Moku hissed

ZM

"well cut it out they're just kids! they want to make some friends." she glares at her her eyes flashing red.

Core

Moku made her eyes flash as well, one turned red the other yellow

ZM

she takes a step forward. "you know these are dream's kits. night won't be pleased with your little extermination plan."

Core

Moku growled, setting the rifle to the side; she knew chara was right

ZM

"that's right." she huffs and steps away from the kits and looks if they're alright.

Core

They seemed confused, but where fine, Killer was arguing with horror

ZM

chara shakes her head after looking to horror. "everyone's out to get you two. what a pain. I'd take you somewhere more pleasant but i don't have the power to." she looks back at moku being sure to keep the gun out of her line of sight. "so hey, you gonna play nice and show these two around or is that job up to me?"

Core

"I know a spot to hide them." Moku said

ZM

"mm? lead the way if you want" she checks the soulstone that's in her pocket seeing no real change so she follows moku.

Core

Moku walked, a pistol on her belt

Core

She led then to a hidden grotto

ZM

when they get to the clearing chara's eyes like up she loves the area. she puts her hands to her face and grins. "it's prettyyy"

Core

"Well, I found it a while ago."

ZM

"this where you go when you have nothing to do for nightmare?" chara makes a small ball of green-blue magic and bounces it. she tosses one to the kits as well

Core

The boy caught it and gave it to his sister. "nah, this is just where I hide my stuff."

ZM

"i see," she looked around the place to see what she had

Core

There was three sketchbooks, a journal, some old targets, and old trickets

ZM

may I?" she walks over to the sketchbooks.

Core

"I guess, nothing but just a bunch of doodles."

ZM

she picks one up and flips to a page she likes being gentle with the pages

Core

There was sketches of strange flora and fauna, the majority were drawn very realistically.

ZM

"they're good, i'll give you that." she finds a flower that she likes a lot that has jagged edged pedals with stripes going out from the center

Core

Moku shrugged, "they're decent enough, anyway, how far do you plan on trying to work yourself up?"

ZM

"all the way!" she jokes putting the sketchbook down "what do you know about any of that? does my demeanor just scream 'i wanna be strong'?"

Core

Moku actually snickered. "You're an idiot, look, here is how things go down during the blood moon. all genocide stars meet up, to establish the pecking order, one is not allowed to kill another unless it is for the role of alpha, which currently is held by Blood. Now, if one wishes to go up the ranks, they have to force those higher up in the ranks to retreat to their soulstone.if you don't have a soulstone, well, don't lose." Moku explained.

ZM

"well moku, i have more in common with you stars than you may think. i won't die, i will be able to win. i've my own powers that nearly guarantee eventual victory."

Core

You can't just fight the same person again and again, you get one chance, which is why you should try to learn your opponents weaknesses." Moku explained

ZM

"moku moku moku" she shakes her head. "you all will feel like it'd be my first time. but it'd be the final time when i win. none of you except perhaps cross or killer would be able to even know i'd done anything remotely fishy. time travel's fun like that." she squints "unless you're telling me that along with one of the highest cyan abilities of teleportation you all also have the highest red ability of time manipulation. because in that case hell why do i even try." she laughs

Core

"Well, you see, when Cross first, well went rouge she tried something similar, I wasn't alive yet, but I learned about this quickly, mainly because I tried to take her place. anyway, one has to be unpredictable, uncertain of what they will even do, if anything during the blood moon is the one time we all can lose control. So even if we don't notice, others will, and can interfere." Moku explained. "Some may be able to change your save point, so still, besides, if you can outsmart your opponent, no need to die over and over."

ZM

"smarts are over rated" she waves her advice away and folds her arms "are you trying to help me or somethin?"

Core

"Actually, yes. You see, most of the others despise me, and others similar to me, since we weren't born, rather created by a version of Gaster who studied genetic data." Moku said

ZM

"i don't see the issue with that. it's like mewtwo lol. people, monsters, stars, or whatever can be so stupid! but frankly you helping me won't make anyone like you more. if you're just helping cause 'm one of the few that don't hate you, than you should probably rethink your objective." she studies her face "what are you really after?"

Core

Moku glanced at Chara, "Anarchy." She smirked sadistically, "with you in the ranks, it is only a matter of time til the file gets corroded, then one just needs to make sure a certain squid can't repair it~" She replied

ZM

chara looks pleased with this response. if she can get rid of this whole universe's file that would eliminated almost all stars she’s come into contact with. making it that much easier to climb to the most powerful in all of the multiverse. "intriguing," she nods

"i'm all for some anarchy, but how does this help you? you just wanta see everyone suffer?":

Core

"Well, once this world gets destroyed, I won't I have a separate coding, so, it just gets rid of the compition

ZM

"fair, fair~ do what you want moku, i'll help you out whenever it's convenient." she looks over to the kits. "y'all didn't hear anything by the way." she grins and shakes a finger. like anyone would believe a couple of kits anyway. chara's impressed with all of the secret alliances she's become a part of, makes her happy to shake things up a bit.

"as far as me being able to climb the ranks i have my own ways so no need to worry. i'll be ready by the blood moon."

Core

"well, avoid any outcodes." oku said, "as for these two," she referred to the kits, "they can stay here."

ZM

"cool," she turns to the kits "you guys chill out here i'll be back a bit latter." looking back at moku. "no promises on staying away from outcodes." she waves and starts to walk out of the grotto. "ciao," seeing as her time frame just got chopped way shorter and she has no intention of giving her body over for some star to control she's hatching a bit more of a risky idea for the short term.

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