Chapter Text
Breathe, Grian.
He stared at the spot where Mumbo stood. Mumbo should be in Hermitcraft’s new world and will be at world spawn as any new player would join. Now, Grian knows his powers were flawed, that they can still be seen and detected by those who are above him; But damn it all to hell if he was going to let the Watchers get their hands on Mumbo.
He just has to try hard enough.
He has to.
The loud crackling thunder echoed through the air, the once blue skies overtaken by grey. Followed by the strong gust of winds and the sound of water clashing around him deafened him. But Grian didn’t flinch—not in the slightest.
He didn’t know why, but he was not afraid. Not anymore.
“Hello, Xelqua.”
Grian turned around slowly, his expression blank. Before him, was a familiar creature in pruple robes and bright red hair, “Red. Of course it would be you who will drag me back.”
“I would love nothing more!” Red laughed darkly, “Especially after that stunt that you pulled in Evo! Do you have any ideas how much inconvinience it was to take care of? A rogue Watcher lose in the Universe!”
“The destruction of Evo was never in our agreement!” Grian spat. He clenched his fists as he shakes slightly from the memory of watching Evo burn to the ground, “I agreed that I will train more if I left for Evo! I agreed that I will come back after the deadline you set for me! I agreed that I will go through the Trial nonetheless!”
Grian suddenly felt his muscles tense as he froze into a statue, unable to move his body under the control of Red. Damn Watcher magic.
He winced as he was stiffly forced onto his knees, eyes cast down at the wet soil beneath him, thunder booming louder in the air.
“YOU DO NOT TALK BACK AT ME BOY!” Red fumed as she steps closer to his knelt body, “YOU MIGHT’VE HID FROM US FOR TOO LONG BUT YOU ARE STILL BENEATH ME. YOU ARE NOT A BORN WATCHER, YOU ARE A HUMAN WHO HAD THE ENOUGH LUCK TO BE A WATCHER. KNOW. YOUR. PLACE.”
Grian wanted so much to hurl insults at the godess, to say so much about this was no luck and he would’ve loved nothing more but be a simple human once again. But the control Red had over him rendered his voice useless—his mouth refusing to even open and let him defend himself.
Red must’ve felt his resistance against her control for he heard her scoff at his pathetic attempts of defense. “If I had any say in this, I would strike you down where you stood,” she paused, “But I won’t. You will be brought back to the center of the universe and be put on trial for the Interitum. After all, the spectacular performance you put on Evo proved that you might actually succeed.”
“I refuse to be a living battery for all of you!” Grian growled as he partially broke away from her control before Red reels him back in.
“Well too bad. You made your bed, now lay in it.”
Grian lets out a gasp of pain as he was flung to a stone wall, hearing some crack as he felt his right wing take the fall before also inevitably hitting the ground as well.
"--just don't understand why we are still keeping him under our wing, Astrid! He has proven nothing but a heathen of a human!"
"You have eyes, do you not? Do not deny the clear fact that Xelqua is something we have never seen before. And you have said it with your own words, Red; He stands a chance against the Interitum."
The footsteps stopped as the voices paused, "And if he doesn't?"
"Then he shall be like the others."
The sound of metal scraping screeched in Grian's ear as his cell door opened, before Astrid stepped in with Red right behind her.
"Pleasure to finally be in your presence, Xelqua. You've given us quite the scare."
Despite the burning pain shot through his body, Grian forced himself back on his feet, his wings limp on the ground as he glared at the two Watchers. "I wish I could say the same for you, Astrid."
"Now don't be like that dear. It is, afterall, your fault that you have doomed Evo. We were simply doing our part."
"How was destroying my creation doing your part?!" Grian exclaimed in anger, "I asked for your blessing if I may go! And you never mentioned anything about its destruction! If I knew that the friends I had left were going to die because of me I wouldn't have gone back at all!"
"Oh you poor naive, child. You are a Watcher now, Xelqua. You now have responsibilities and duties beyond human comprehension! That is why we are to never mingle with humans, we must never lose sight of our duty and godhood."
"I forgot to mention, Astrid." Red interrupted from her place behind Astrid. But Grian continued to glare at her smug smirk, what is it now?
"Speak your mind, Red."
"There was another."
Grian paled. Oh god please not Mumbo.
Astrid froze at the statement, turning to Red for confirmation, "Are you certain?"
Red nodded, "He knows about the Interitum, and Xelqua's status as a Watcher. The fool has given him this information but now his whereabouts are unknown."
"You possess the ability to locate any being in the universe. If anyone can find him, it will be you."
"That's the problem. I can't find him."
Astrid paused, " What?"
" I know. I never thought it was possible."
"How poses a better question, Red."
Red nodded at Grian with a wicked smirk, knowing full well the consequence of the situation, "You can always ask him."
The pair stared back at him with blank expressions. God what would he give to literally get absorbed by the wall and disappear from existence at this very moment.
He back away from the two Watchers, his back pressing against the cold stone wall, the pain from his injured wing flaring up again from his movement. But nonetheless, Grian kept his mouth shut-- not a single word escaping his lips.
He can do this.
"Do what you must to convince him to reveal his whereabouts. We need this mortal to be terminated before he spreads any more of our secrets. While Xelqua is not being put forth for the trial, you may go any lengths to know his location. But he must not be killed."
Grian felt a little of his strength wash away at the command. He feared-- although a little-- for his life.
"Any lengths" is too powerful of a permission to give.
"Glad to see that we're on the same page, Astrid."
How much of this can he take before he finally cracks?
"Honestly, I'm impressed that you are still being stubborn right now."
"I have always been stubborn," Grian panted, "Why do you think I am still alive?"
Another wave of burning-- scorching pain engulfed his whole being. They've been at this for so long that the days were starting to blend together into nothing but never ending pain. Only stopping for a short amount of time for him to eat pitiful servings of raw potatoes and water, sleep if he was lucky, but he doesn't get those too often.
Grian whimpers quietly at the pain as he felt his wing twitching, desperately trying to escape the chains that it was bound to.
And then it all stopped abruptly and he was left gasping for breath.
"One day, Xelqua. That stubborness will be your downfall," Red smirked but then frowned as Grian continued to show resistance despite the torture. She didn't do anything else but walk out of his cell and calling for the guards, presumably asking for them to put him back to how he was positioned.
Grian was tired. Tired beyond belief.
These days, he often wondered if he should've just let himself die by the hand of Sam. Or the many many encounters he had with torturers and strange creatures that wished for either; pleasure, information, or food.
That was what was happening, wasn't it? Back to being a scapegoat and tortured. Still powerful, but tortured.
Kinda what happened to him in The Kingdom of Valor.
Did he really just trade one abuse with another?
Yes. Yes he did.
As he expected, two guards filed into his cell as per Red's command.
Unlike the Watchers, the guards were humanoid beings. They were not created by the Interitum, but rather, the Watchers themselves as protection for the fortress they live in-- not that they need them.
They always wore glinting, enchanted armour with their helmet covering their face with a sword sheathed on their hip. Come to think of it, Grian has never seen their face before.
All he knew was they have no empathy, no soul, and no mind of their own. Created to be the perfect puppets for the Watchers as they only respond to their command.
Normally, that will apply to him. But now he was a prisoner, not a master.
The guards unbuckled him from the chair that he was tied down to, letting out a pained whimper as they unnecessarily shoved him to the ground--the chains that bound his wrists clunking as he fell.
Grian couldn't bring himself to move from his position, tears welling up in his eyes as he just laid on the cold, stone, ground-- the scraping of the wooden chair echoing in his cell as the guards dragged it out of the door.
"I would like to speak to the prisoner." A voice calmly commanded. And all of the sudden, the scrapping stopped and was replaced with the noise of footsteps marching out of the door and slight rustling of fabric.
“Grian?”
Grian looked up at his visitor. There in front of him, was the only friend he had seen in god knows how long.
“Silver?”
She reached for her mask and peeled it off her face, revealing the shining hazel eyes that were forcefully hidden underneath.
“Oh god what have they done to you?!” Silver scurried to his side, gently tugging him up. Grian winced as she helped him sit into a much more comfortable position and lead his back against the wall for support. “I was about to ask if you’re okay—clearly not.”
“Yeah I’m not doing that well lately if you’ve noticed.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t help earlier,” She apologized, shifting his wings into a less damaging position, “I didn’t know that you were down here! I just overheard whispers how they finally found you earlier. But I brought this.”
Silver reached behind her revealed a small white pouch, “I brought some bandages and some other things, figured you need them.”
“Thanks but—“ Grian pulled up the sleeves of his tattered sweater, revealing burns and black veins crawling under his skin from all the torture he went through, “—I don’t think these can be fixed with bandages.”
Silver tearfully looked at his bruises before pulling him into a hug, careful of his injuries. Silver was one of his only friends in this dimension, she was like the rest of them, taken from her life and forced into being a godhood without telling her the consequences. According to her, she was a netherborn. She lived and grew in the nether along with her kind and families. But the Watchers wanted to know what would happen if a netherborn —the complete opposite of their kind—was forced to control End powers. So, they offered her unlimited power and the promise of the ability to explore the Overworld; and as a foolish, desperate, young netherborn, she didn’t know of the consequences of this and accepted the offer.
She only realized this offer was not like as they promised when she was in scorching pain for months. Losing control of both her nether and Watcher powers as they were in a constant battle against each other. Silver was in constant pain as she constantly shifted between her two sides—making her code unstable as it continued.
But as time passed, Grian and Xisuma helped her cope with her two sides, but sadly were unable rid of the pain. Silver simply just got used to the burning pain of her unstable code. Ever since then, it was her, Grian, and Xisuma against the world.
“Why did you run, Gri?” She whispered as she pulled away, “You know that you can’t run from them.”
“I didn’t do it on purpose!” Grian quickly defended, “Have you heard about Evo?”
Silver nodded in confirmation, then Grian continued, “After—whatever I did to Evo, I passed out and then teleported to a random world.”
“But you stayed, Gri. You could’ve returned and maybe they would’ve been a lot kinder. I’m pretty sure Red is enjoying this opportunity way too much.”
“She always hated me, you know this Silver,” Grian chuckled sadly. It was true, Red always favored Silver more than Grian—probably because she was able to pretend a lot better than him, “I just watched my friends die and my world destroyed. I didn’t really want to go back to the people that did it.”
Silver carefully rolled up his sleeves back up, looking at the burns and veins once again, “Were you alone? In the world you ended up in I mean.”
“Well—“ Grian bit his lip, “Not exactly.”
“What do you mean?” Grian watched as her eyes trailed down at the chains on his wrists. They both know these weren’t just ordinary chains, the purple veins that were engraved into it was a dead giveaway. No matter how much Grian tried, his efforts of breaking them or even trying to heal himself were just absorbed by the chains, rendering him powerless.
“I-I met someone.”
“Was it a good or a bad someone?”
“I-It was good. He was a good someone.”
Silver looked back at him, “ Oh.”
Grian chuckled nervously at her growing smirk, “’Oh’ what?”
“Oh nothing,” She shrugged—a knowing smirk still plastered on her face, “I know that look.”
“What look?”
“You know what I mean, Grian. No need to pull that denial on me,” She scooted and took a seat beside Grian, shifting his wing and leaning against the wall, “So… What’s he like?”
Grian choked on air at the question, coughing violently and Silver softly patting his back, “I-Wha-WHY WOULD YOU ASK THAT?!”
“WHAT? If my friend just literally abandoned his godhood and ran away with a stranger, he better be someone good!”
“I did not ran away with a stranger!”
“Oh yeah? Then what do you call the thing you did?”
“Uh… Hiding away with a stranger?”
“Same difference,” Silver simply waved him off, “Now come on! What was he like?!”
Grian turned away from her, “…Where do you want me to even start?”
Silver shrugged, “What about how he treats you?”
“Well… When he found me I was unconscious and he took care of me until I recovered. I never actually told him how and why I got there, but he didn’t ask! He just—kinda took me in and took care of me? I only told him pretty recently—whenever recently was—and he was suppose to take me with him to a world so he can protect me especially since it had Xisuma as an admin—“
“XISUMA?!” Silver interrupted with a shocked exclamation, her eyes widening at the revelation, “As in… our Xisuma?! How was that even possible?!”
“What? I’m sure it’s our Xisuma. And what’s wrong with that? He failed the trial didn’t he? Wasn’t the deal was if you fail, you get returned to your old life?”
Silver’s expression hardened into anger before melting into sorrow, “By now Grian, you should know better about making deals with the Watchers.”
Grian felt as if cold water was doused onto him as dread formed in the pit of his stomach. The Watchers never keeps their end of the bargain.
He swallowed before asking the dreaded question, “What happened?”
“If you are put forth the Interitum and fails, you practically just signed up for a death sentence,” she expalined quietly, her expression dark, “No one can handle that amount of raw power. It destroys both the body and mind. That’s why they kept looking for a scapegoat to sacrifice—“ She paused as she choked from holding back her tears, “—I know this because I watched Xisuma’s trial as per Red’s request. They just left him for dead, Gri. I know for a fact that he’s dead because I was the one that threw his body to the void.
At this point, I don’t know which one’s worse; pass and be used by the Watchers, or fail and die.”