Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ren looked out at the beautiful, starry sky. Unlike his home planet this season, it was still clear, untainted by smog or light pollution. Gazing over at the full face of the Moon, he found himself thinking…

Was it, perhaps, just a little bigger then usual?

No, not at all. The Moon was totally average, as always. Everything was in perfect order, gentle and peaceful like an azalea tree on a mangrove shore.

A sudden breeze whipped through the grounds of the colony, kicking up red sand and dried twigs, ruffling the exposed fur of Ren’s ears and tail.

The wolf hybrid let out a howl. Some time ago, he had used to be embarrassed of such things, but lately, he'd realized there was nothing wrong with indulging his instincts from time to time. Ren grinned wide, sharp canines gleaming, upon hearing his fellow wild wolves howl back a response.

Everything was peaceful.

… Too peaceful.

Things had been going too well this season, Ren thought. No world-ending threats, no wars, just… hanging out with his bestest friends in the world. Which wasn't bad, not at all! What it was is suspicious. As if something was just waiting, lurking beyond the skybox or beneath the void, ready to jump out once everyone had finally let their guard down. Ren had to make sure he wouldn’t. What good would a guard dog be if it merely rolled over for intruders?

Ren let out a sigh and shuffled his feet in the sand. No. No. He was worrying too much. He had promised himself to just enjoy the moment this season.

He raised his gaze from the ground and his eyes widened in awe. As if an answer from the universe itself, a brilliant shooting star trailed across the sky. He clasped his hands together and wished, with all his heart he wished, that these peaceful, fun days would last.

Closing his eyes, he carefully worded out the wish in his head, just in case the shooting star was some cruel genie that would pick it apart and somehow seek to turn it against him. Then, he realized he should have wished for more wishes. Then he realized that, wait…

There aren't any shooting stars in Hermitcraft.

What there were was yelling German men. Well… One yelling German man, to be specific.

Doc could have been a shooting star, the way he plummeted into Ren's front lawn straight from the stratosphere. Thankfully, he landed in a large, dead bush, softening the fall that would have otherwise crumpled him like a harmonica.

"Ren, Ren it's an emergency!" he got out in the midst of untangling himself from between the twigs, torn elytra haphazardly discarded behind him.

The genuine panic in his voice made Ren do a double take. Sure, Doc lost his cool sometimes, but those were controlled incidents, just him being a big baby in the presence of his friends. Most importantly of all, it was always anger, never fear, and especially not panic.

Ren quickly ran up to him.

"Woah, man, slow down. What's going on?" Ren asked as he approached his friend.

In response, Doc took a few disoriented steps back, holding his hands out defensively.

"Stay! I need you to listen very carefully" he asserted.

There was a red warning light blinking where his left, robotic eye should have been, periodically casting an eerie glow on their surroundings two.

"Find the core! I need you to find the core…" Doc got out with a hiss, like he was in pain – Ren couldn't gauge if it was from the fall or something entirely different.

"I- You're going to have to be a little more specific than that, what core? Where do I look? What's going on?!" Ren got out, though these were only the top three of the millions of other questions running through his mind.

"It… It should have been at my base, but I've been looking everywhere, it's not there, it's not…" Doc kept backing away and tripped over Ren's meticulously terraformed basalt, landing roughly on his tail. He pressed a palm to the bionic side of his face, looking like he was about to crumple in on himself. He looked so… small and vulnerable.

Ren didn't really understand what was going on. What he did know was that Doc seemed really stressed. He looked like he could use a big, warm hug from his good ol' friend Ren-diggity-dog.

As he stepped closer, he even considered that this could all be a really crazy prank that Doc was pulling – Well, he'd gotten him! It'd be nice if he could hit him with the punchline soon, though…

Docm77 blew up
Rendog was blown up by Docm77

It was deep into the night when Cleo's communicator pinged. Not many Hermits were up to much this time of night, but for Cleo it was when she thrived, when they could get the most done without fear of a scalding sunburn.

She glanced at the screen with an amused smile.

<ZombieCleo> I thought demise was over, guys
Docm77 blew up
Rendog was blown up by Docm77

Well, that was… a bit odd. Embarrassing for Doc to get caught in his own trap twice.

Docm77 blew up
Rendog was blown up by Docm77
Grian fell out of the world
GoodTimeWithScar fell out of the world
<ZombieCleo> OH NO
<ZombieCleo> do you need help?
<GoodTimeWithScar> only emotioanl, Cleo
<ZombieCleo> oh, you poor man, Scar
<Grian> SCAR
Docm77 blew up
Rendog was blown up by Docm77

Chapter Text

Xisuma was entirely weightless. The complete lack of sensory input left a nervous itch at his fingertips, which he tried to squeeze together in an attempt to feel anything, but his form was spread too thin. Wherever he was, if it was a place at all, he occupied all of it, particles so far apart, an observer couldn’t have possibly realized they belonged to a single being. Not that one could observe much at all. It was pitch black, Xisuma felt his eyes impossibly dilate to look for any spec of light – that, at least, was a feeling – but nothing manifested. There were no sounds, either, just his own formless breath and heartbeat, which now sounded deafening.

He’d had this nightmare many times before. It had gotten stale, the initial fear of being suspended in the void having long since worn off. Now, it was just what sleeping was like for him, provided he even dreamt anything at all. He sometimes envied people like Scar who could have entire builds come to him while he was resting. Xisuma wondered if his mind was just fundamentally uncreative. Though, this experience was almost too exact, like a memory.

X’s thoughts were interrupted by an unbearable light cleaving through his being, falling ever faster as if in a hurry – his vision twisted, the light became him and the entire world faded to white.

Xisuma was awoken by the otherworldly flashing of his communicator, his room blinking in and out of existence like he was in a glitched chunk. He reached out and took the thin, rectangular device in his hands, wiping the sleep crust out of his eyes as he read back the log.

He squinted, observing the sheer frequency of death messages.

<xisumavoid> deathloop?
<Grian> Scar and I are fine
Docm77 blew up
Rendog was blown up by Docm77
<Grian> not sure about those two
<ZombieCleo> surely four times is enough, doc
<ZombieCleo> what did sweet Ren do to you?

Xisuma had a bad feeling. It was just one of those instincts he had developed over his years as an admin. He quickly willed himself out of bed to put on his suit and helmet, then entered the airlock of his room. The door slammed shut behind him, repressurization starting shortly thereafter. It was painfully slow, especially when he was in a hurry, but it was a necessary evil. Without the low pressurization his void form would have compacted to the size of a sugar cube in the Overworld air. The seconds passed like molasses through the waist of an hourglass, taking their sweet time to form into sluggish drops before falling.

Docm77 blew up
<Rendog> HELP
<Rendog> SOMETHING'S NOT RIGH
Docm77 blew up
Rendog was doomed to fall by Docm77

With such a high frequency of deaths, it either had to be a very elaborate bed trap or, the more likely option…

World spawn.

The door sizzled open, X already pressed up to it, rockets and elytra ready. He took off, white particles trailing behind him. Xisuma was in the clouds before he knew it, the skyline of Joel's cyberpunk city casting neon rays on the side of his helmet.

X nearly fell out of the sky when he saw spawn.

The crater was massive, at least thirty blocks wide and fifty blocks deep, dust and debris rising in the air. He wanted to cry at how long it would take to place the maps again. When he realized there weren't even any maps left, he wanted to cry harder. If this was on purpose, Doc would pay for the emotional damage tenfold, Xisuma would see to it.

By the time he landed to perch on the white, barren walls he knew that was merely wishful thinking.

He could barely make it out through the sound of his own heartbeat, but there was a rapid, manic-paced attempt at negotiation going down at the bottom of the hole.

"Look, dude, it doesn't have to be like this, I'm sure we can figure something out-" Ren pleaded through the dust kicked up by previous explosions.

"I said I don't want to see you! Go away! Everyone keeps touching my stuff! I hate it! Leave!" Doc yelled back.

"Dude, I hate to say this, but you're the one who keeps coming for me, I - Hey, stay back, okay? I'd love to leave you alone! Er- Give you some space, I mean, you just go in that corner, I climb out -"

"That's what you always say!"

A loud bang rumbled through the spawn building and X had to brace himself for the shockwave. Bricks, stone and other debris chipped the reinforced glass of his helmet and the netherite plates of his armor. The whole building shook like it was about to collapse in on itself.

<xisumavoid> stop respawning
<xisumavoid> stop respawning
<xisumavoid> stop respawning
<xisumavoid> stop respawning
<xisumavoid> stop respawning
<ZombieCleo> what's going on?
<ImpulseSV> do you need help, X?

Xisuma crouched down to catch his breath a little, watching the puffs of hot breath leave his helmet into the cold, uncaring night air. The brutalist, concrete flats of Impulse's base eerily loomed in the distance. The setting Moon shone through the empty apartments.

He thought for a bit. It would be bad to get anyone else involved in whatever was going on – yes, as admin, his first priority was to minimize casualties.

<xisumavoid> Everyone, make sure your spawnpoint is set somewhere away from world spawn
<xisumavoid> do NOT break your bed and make sure your spawn is unobstructed
<xisumavoid> do NOT come to spawn
<xisumavoid> standby for further info
<ImpulseSV> I found a bunch of stuff at Ren's base
<ImpulseSV> boxing them for now

X watched the dust blow past in front of him. Judging by the lack of death messages, the two had indeed halted their respawns. Except… No. The heat detector of his visor was picking up a humanoid shape with horns in the dust cloud.

"Docm?" X called out. He was hesitant to set foot within the spawn chunk, vary that whatever was affecting his friends resided there.

"Ren?" came the response. "Ren, I'm sorry, please come back"

Xisuma had never heard Doc speak like that before. The only word he could think of to describe it was… contorted. Like a twisted wire being pulled through the eye of a needle.

"Doc, it's me, X" he called out again. "Can you hear me?"

"What do you want?!" Doc snapped his head in Xisuma's direction, startling him, precise as a laser despite the smog.

"Doc, I'm here to help, what's going on?"

There was a choked out something, maybe a sob or a cough, X wasn't quite sure .

"I- I…"

Whatever it was, Doc was clearly struggling to put it into words.

"I don't want to, anymore"

X saw Doc sit down on the rugged, fresh crater floor, spots of the wall still warm with… Well, what had once been Rendog. His heart clenched up into a tight knot.

"Nerves, X, nerves" he whispered to himself.

Suddenly, the warm splatters and chunks lining the crater walls lifted, twisted as they reassembled into flesh, bones and skin, the grotesque, wet symphony of a gruesome respawn echoing through the area. X could make out Ren's silhouette through his visor.

"X!" Ren called out.

Doc let out a sharp hissing noise.

"X, I don't have much time here, I - Doc came to me a bit ago, he said something was wrong, he wasn't like this, then" Ren stammered through his words, "He said something about finding or losing a core, you've got a clue what that is?"

X froze. Oh. Oh, no.

"Ren, did he say where? Doc, do you remember where?!" Xisuma panicked, lunging forward from the half-destroyed wall he'd been crouched on, right into the crater. His elytras opened shortly thereafter, the plunge taking him through the lifting particles of sediment, a red, blinking light faintly visible somewhere through the fray.

"He said his base, but he had searched already! Oh, dude, are you coming to give me a hug, again?" Ren asked, facing Doc. "Don't make me hit'cha, man, not when you're like this… You don't wanna see Rendog when he activates his PvP skills - Ack!"

Ren yelped as Xisuma reached around his armpits to lift him up mid-flight, rockets trailing white through the smog behind them before the two of them crashed through the surface into the open, night air – there would have been a heavenly moment of calm, were it not for the sudden change disorienting X enough that he lost control of his elytra, sending them tumbling to a roll on the grass outside.

"Sorry, sorry, tough landing…" X apologized to Ren, who was splayed out a short distance away.

He shook his head. "I'm just glad to be out of there" he said between breaths. "Doc has lost his marbles, a little bit. I love him, but he has" he said as he attempted to gather himself. So much for peaceful days…

"Impulse has your stuff" X inhaled, realizing he'd forgotten to.

Xisuma looked back at spawn. The area was covered in a fine layer of dust from the repeated blasts, the interior no doubt lacking any structural integrity at this point. And Doc was still in there, lost and confused.

Ren blew his dirty hair out of his face. "Thanks, man. I- Is there anything I can do?"

"No, I don't think so. I'll have to get Cleo, though" Xisuma explained, already typing out a message.

"Do - Do you mind if I get going, then…?" Ren said, dusting himself off, slightly wobbling. "I… I think I might have multiple concussions"

"You took that like a champ" X noted.

Ren beamed. "Well, what can I say, it isn't easy to take down the Re- Wooah!"

Still disoriented from the several blasts he'd taken, Ren lost his footing and stumbled back – thankfully, Impulse had swooped in just in time to catch him.

"Woah. Thanks" Ren said, looking up wide-eyed at his savior.

"Hey, bud, I've come to pick you up. We'll go back to base and set your spawn, okay?"

Ren nodded and the two walked off with a wave, Impulse and Xisuma exchanging a small thumbs up on the way.

"So, is it a mob thing?" Cleo asked, standing on the perimeter of the blast zone. The Sun was beginning to rise in the east.

"More than likely. I’d go to get him myself, but… I’m not exactly of this world" Xisuma explained.

Cleo raised an eyebrow, mouth pulled to a half-frown. "So, you're volunteering me as tribute?"

X chuckled. "Precisely!"

Cleo scoffed. "Sure, fine. Hey, Doc, I'm coming down to you!" she hollered, then started climbing down the rock wall, using her pickaxe as leverage.

There was a quiet hiss from the bottom. Xisuma couldn’t make out exactly where Doc was, he’d slipped somewhere into a cave opened up by the explosions.

Cleo reached the floor in the meantime and approached an indent in the wall. "Hey, Doc. How are you feeling?"

X didn’t hear his reply, if there was one.

"Yeah, it's pretty bright, isn't it? I can get you somewhere dark, if you trust me. Do you trust me, Doc?" Cleo asked, perching her pickaxe on her shoulder. "We can go to my base and maybe you can take a nap. Or whatever you want, just don't damage anything. How does that sound?" They offered him a hand. The red warning light from Doc’s missing eye reflected on her pale skin.

X saw Doc’s robotic arm reach out of the cavern to take Cleo’s.

"That's it. Thank you"

Cleo disappeared into the tunnel along with Doc.

Logic gates. Decoders. Multiplexors. Doc tried to slowly build up something coherent in his brain. He clung to systems, blueprints – the things he knew were human with absolute certainty. He rehearsed the layout of a 2D memory unit with read and write functions like it was his religion. His head was throbbing like he’d been hit with an anvil.

He realized he was speaking out loud. Responding. Doc wasn’t sure what part of his mind had been taking care of that particular task. He felt fragmented, split into uncountable pieces that kept churning away regardless. Doc didn’t have a clue which one of them he was.

There were other noises, too. Sharp, piercing, hitting his eardrums strike after strike. It wasn’t his heartbeat, but… a tool of some kind.

And words, not his own, but…

Someone he knew. He wasn’t sure why, but a feeling of safety washed over him.

“And what is the processor made out of?” she asked.

“A control unit, an arithmetic and logic unit and registers, usually” he replied. This part of his mind felt like muscle memory, almost. He wondered if he perhaps didn’t actually know the answer, if his lips and vocal chords just knew to make those sounds to be rewarded with approval. Like a cat pretending to talk by pushing buttons.

That periodic, grinding sound was still slamming against his sensitive ears. The air felt cold and damp against his fur and skin.

“Did you learn this all by yourself? Or did you get help from the Hivemind?”

The previous method of cold, accurate muscle memory failed with this one. Doc assessed the variable parameters. “Learn”, “Help”, “Hivemind”… “Yourself”

By the time he got down what two of them were, he’d forgotten the third one, his mind stuck running in an endless loop. The complexity was too high.

It didn’t help that there was a searing pain creeping into his body. It was like his skin was at war with itself, his fur feeling like needles in his pores.

The metallic clanking stopped and suddenly, there was a gentle, grounding hand at his side.

“Shh, not again. It’s okay. I asked a bad question, let’s talk about something else”

It bubbled to the surface all at once. “Cleo, what’s happening?”

Desperate. Lost.

It was Cleo? Which part of him had made that realization? Why hadn’t they told him?

He felt fingers intertwine with his human hand. That was sensations in five places he considered distinct. Four were the sensitive inbetweens of his fingers. The other was the back of his thumb. Five places. Doc tried to cling to each and every one of them.

“You’re unwell” they said bluntly. Of course, Cleo said it bluntly. Or did Doc think it was blunt because it was them saying it?

“You’re unwell” she repeated, “But we’re going home, now. When we get there, I’ll make you something to eat and wrap you in as many blankets as you want. I promise, Doc”

Doc was his name. He knew that, he thought – though, it was good to get some confirmation.

“I learned it. I learned it because I really like it” he replied, time passing twisted and out of turn. “I also learned from the Hivemind”

She hummed. “What do you like about redstone?”

Her fingers slowly slipped away from his. The rattling resumed.

“I find it relaxing. And there’s – there’s something about big, imposing machines, you know? There’s a lot of beauty in function, I think”

That reply came from somewhere different again. It was an opinion. Opinions were the sentences of others jumbled together until they belonged to no one in particular, so you called them your own. It hurt. Something hurt.

“I love hearing you talk about your work, you know. A while back I heard you say it must be annoying to listen to, but I don’t feel that way at all. I’m glad you share your ideas with me”

It was safe here. And contorting. Suffocating, like being smothered by a feather pillow.

A light opened up in the ceiling.

“Come on, we’re here” she said.

Hand. Hers were always so, so cold. He wanted to take them in his and warm them, to make sure they were okay.

She guided him up into a familiar room.

“It’s okay. Everything will be okay”

Chapter Text

A low, early Sun shone down on the decimated remains of world spawn.

The Hermits were stood around the crater, some observing the damage, others idly chatting away, waiting. Ren was the only one sitting, still battered and bruised from the events that had transpired. He was being fixed up by Zedaph and Pearl. In the meantime, Scar was walking in circles, balancing on the edge of the hole as if to tempt fate – Gem shook her head at him in disapproval. The only ones not present were Doc and Cleo.

Impulse raised his hands and clapped a few times to draw everyone's attention. Silence slowly settled over the group and he nodded in acknowledgement.

"Most of you are already aware of why we've called this meeting" Impulse started, "But for the sake of clarity, let's lay out all of the information"

He glanced at X, who nodded and began speaking.

"As you all know our friend, Docm, is a man of many species. Human, creeper, goat, cyborg…"

"German" Joe Hills chimed in.

X chuckled. "…and German"

Scar was beginning to teeter dangerously close to the crater and Skizz pulled him back like a parent pulling a toddler away from an electrical outlet.

"So, for personal reasons I won't go into, he has a chip in his brain that helps… negotiate between all of his instincts" X explained, vaguely gesturing at his own head. "Now, the problem is, the power core for his implant has mysteriously disappeared. Does anybody know where it could be?"

Silence. Not the kind you could hear a pin drop in, just a normal, white-noise silence. There was still wind. No one was holding their breath – but nobody knew what to say, either. Scar nearly fell into the hole again, this time Mumbo caught him last minute.

"Does he not have spares?" he asked while dusting Scar off with one hand.

"You know how hard it is to make sub-block contraptions, Mumbo" Zed interjected.

"Well- I always prepare for contingencies! And the contingencies of contingencies!" Mumbo replied fiercely.

"I think that's called overthinking" Gem quipped.

"Well not for the implant that manages your brain!"

The remains of spawn erupted into noise.

"Enough, guys" Impulse ordered, the hall falling silent as he did. "Either he has them or he doesn't. What matters is that we need to look for a core – spare or otherwise – for the sake of our friend"

"Or the blueprints, even!" Zed suggested. "It'd take a while, but…"

"If we have to do sub-block cramming for Doc, we'll do it…" Tango sighed.

"You can do it" Etho winked and Tango gasped. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding. I don't have any experience with redstone at micro scale, but I can try to help if it comes down to it"

"Okay, that's a good idea” Impulse approved, “I think we should formulate a plan to look for the items. We could split into groups, does that sound good?" he suggested.

X frowned. "Wow, if only we had a convenient map to discuss where each party should search…" he lamented, looking at the crater in the spawn room floor.

Skizz placed a hand on his back. "Don'tcha worry, bud, we can fill out the maps while we're looking around" he offered.

Xisuma's eyes lit up. "That's a wonderful idea, Skizz!"

Mumbo nudged Grian. "Hey, don't you have a big map at your base?"

Grian jumped at the touch and looked a bit dazed for a moment – he hadn't spoken all this time. Few people even noticed he was there, which was odd for the usually loud and theatrical avian. "Oh, yeah, I guess, I do, don't I" he monotoned, "Doc's base isn't on it, though"

"That's fine, we can make that work. Let's meet up at Grian's in ten" Impulse laid out, then looked over the Hermits present. "And… This isn't to accuse anybody, the last thing I want is us distrusting each other. But, just in case, if someone, somehow, maybe through a little prank gone wrong, happens to have the core and is feeling a bit embarrassed right now – as they should be – there's a chest outside of my base, you can go put it there"

The Hermits nodded in acknowledgement, then went to take a short break.

They all split up into their respective groups, with most people being tasked with searching areas around their bases. The only exceptions were Tango and Etho, who went to look at the mail system, portal hub and various farms in the Nether, and Xisuma and Zed, who went to Doc’s base and industrial district.

That’s how Scar, Mumbo and Grian ended up hikingup Magic mountain. The three of them were perhaps the top three worst picks for such a physically laborious task, but the plan had been made in a hurry. Doc's well-being was on the line, after all.

"Grian, is something wrong?" Mumbo asked.

The aforementioned avian hadn’t said anything since they’d left spawn.

"Yeah, you didn't even push me into the crater, that's not like you" Scar teased, helping himself along with his wings on the steep terrain.

"I… I guess I'm just worried about Doc, is all…" Grian said between exhales.

Mumbo raised an eyebrow. "Grian, I'm saying this as your friend… You're sweating bullets there"

"We just climbed up a mountain, Mumbo! On foot! You think I ever walk anywhere?!" he questioned, fluttering his wings behind him.

"And you're yelling a lot" Scar noted. "Besides, I rarely walk anywhere and I'm killing this! Look!" Scar jumped up and fell backwards into a bush, his cane going flying. He sat there with crossed arms in silent contempt for the world.

Mumbo helped him up and they kept going, eyeing more saturated cherry petals and berry bushes with suspicion – any one of them could have been Doc’s missing eye from afar.

Mumbo and Scar exchanged a glance, some mumbled words, a silent look at Grian – but they didn’t say anything to him, nothing accusatory, almost as if refusing to let him get a word in edgewise.

Grian stopped in his tracks. It was no use. They had to be seeing it written all over him. Everyone could probably see it, he thought. He was sure Impulse had. Guilt had a color. It was yellow and ugly like a wet sponge.

"I…"

The two turned around to look at him. Grian was expecting frustration or anger on the faces, but there was none of that. His friends weren’t capable of looking at him like that. There was only barely-masked concern, eyes blinking emptily as petals brushed past with a gust of wind.

“Did you say something, Grian?” Scar asked.

The wind was pushing against his wings like it was ushering him to fly away.

“Grian, you didn’t” the words left Mumbo’s mouth.

Grian looked down at the ground and sighed, burying his face in his hands – void, he just wanted the feeling of hiding it be over, at least, as little relief as it would have granted him.

He heard Scar and Mumbo approach, grass, old leaves and twigs crunching beneath their feet. The soft tapping of Scar’s cane. Grian tried to cling to that. He’d always found that sound comforting.

"Look, all you have to do is return it” Mumbo reassured, “I'm sure he'll be a little mad, he'll get his revenge and whatnot, but it'll be fine"

"Yeah, you might even get a cool story out of it" Scar chimed in.

"Guys, no…"

"I know he's scary, but – look at him! He's having a really bad time! And everyone is currently on a wild goose chase when they could be… I don’t know, getting things sorted, you get my point" Mumbo asserted.

Scar nodded.

Grian couldn’t take it anymore.

"Guys, I would have returned it if I still had it!" he cried out, searching their eyes for disgust, hatred, sympathy, anything to push against, to help ground himself. But he’d rolled two blanks.

There was silence in the cherry forest. Even the falling of petals seemed to stop for a moment as the realization dawned on the other two.

Oh no.

Doc felt a hand against his hair. It picked through the knots carefully, deliberately, those spots by the stems of his horns he could never quite get to by himself. They’d gotten matted on more than one occasion and attempting to wedge a razor or scissors between the bone and his scalp was even dicier. He’d tried to take good care of his hair and fur since then.

He was laying on someone’s lap, the rest of his body against something soft, most likely a bed.

There was an otherworldly char on the side of the room opposite them. The floorboards had bent out of shape, nails sticking out left and right, the doors and hinges had been blown off of the cabinets.

Doc tried to focus his eyes, but his depth perception felt way off. “Did I -”

The person above gently hushed him. The thigh under him shifted and he turned his head to look up.

Fiery red hair framed his vision. Cleo. Again. Or still?

He felt nauseous. His consciousness drifted.

"I had it with me when I fell in the void!" Grian blurted out.

A look of horror spread across his friends' faces.

Scar stared at him, wide-eyed. "When we were playing chicken yesterday?"

"… Yes" Grian admitted.

Scar covered his mouth, the words coming through muffled. "Oh, no!"

Mumbo pinched the bridge of his nose. "Oh, dear…"

None of them said anything for a while. They just started walking to edge of the chasm in Magic Mountain, to the gaping hole in the bedrock.

"I don't know what we were expecting" Scar mumbled as they arrived at the site.

"That it would magically be here and everything would be fine?" Grian half-joked, his voice cracking under the pressure. He bit into his thumb nervously.

"Grian, we have to tell the others"

"I know that I have to tell them, Mumbo! I've know that since- since yesterday! Okay?!" Grian yelled, wings puffed up defensively.

"So…?" Scar asked.

Grian looked down into the void. "There's really no way to get it back from there, is there…" he pondered.

"Well, maybe if you caught up to it with rockets, somehow didn't die and flew back up?" Scar suggested.

"It could wor-"

"No" Mumbo stated firmly, "Just… No, I'm not even letting you attempt that"

Grian sighed. "Just… please give me ten more minutes before my life is over" He sat down at the edge if the void, dangling his feet in. There was really nothing underneath there. No matter how much his eyes tried to adjust, they picked up nothing.

"Oh, come on, now, don't say that" Mumbo said, sitting down next to him.

Scar took the place on his right. "Yeah, we all know your life only ends if your higher plane self does something inappropriate"

Scar's eyes seemed to… glow as he said some of those words. It was kind of eerie.

"What…?" Grian asked, slightly bewildered.

"I think he's saying what matters is that you didn't mean to cause any harm" Mumbo translated. Maybe.

"Yeah, something like that. Though, now that you mention it… Why did you take his eye core thingy out?" Scar pondered, smacking his shoes together, kicking dirt and dried mud into the void.

Grian's face turned red. "… I thought it'd be funny to send him on a scavenger hunt. I didn't know it was load-bearing!"

Mumbo and Scar gave him a tired, but sympathetic look.

“We’ll figure something out” Mumbo reassured, though it sounded like he was trying to convince himself of that as well.

Scar glanced at his clock. "Your ten minutes is up"

Grian sighed, then got up. "Okay. Okay… Right-"

"Do you need backup?" Scar offered.

Grian shook his head. "No, I… I have to do this myself. We prank hard…"

"And we clean up harder" Mumbo and Scar finished in unison, more of a shared exhale than anything.

Grian opened his communicator.

<Grian> Can everyone still searching come to Magic Mountain?
<Grian> I have something to tell you.

Chapter Text

The gaping hole into the void next to Grian certainly didn't help with the feeling that the ground was about to open up beneath him. The shared sigh, the piercing glares of his fellow Hermits burned into his memory like he was a CD.

"Right" Xisuma said, being the first one to actually say any words in the aftermath. He pressed his thumb to his opposite wrist, depressurizing his suit.

"You're not thinking about…" Keralis started.

"I'm going to need everyone's elytras, preferably those with unbreaking" he flatly stated. "And as many rockets as the rest of my inventory can fit"

Scar elbowed Mumbo. "Hey, it's what I said" he proudly declared.

"You're crazy, X!" Cleo said with a worried look on their face.

"He's got a point, though. He can survive down there… It's just a matter of making it back up" Tango added.

Cleo pressed a hand to her temple. "Yeah, but what if he goes… void-knows how many blocks deep, those items have been falling for days, his elytras break or he runs out of rockets and he can't die?! Then what, Tango?" she questioned.

"Well, what other option do we have?" X asked, hands already on his helmet.

Grian just stood there, wishing he could vanish into thin air. Mumbo placed a hand on his shoulder. He could feel him looking at him, but didn't raise his head to meet his gaze, instead eyeing the unending dark plane below them. He felt it stare back.

"At the very least we should crunch some numbers to see if this is even possible beforehand" Cub reasoned.

There was a sound like an oven being lit and Tango blew his flames out of his face. "Alright, the mathificator is warming up… The speed of an item falling is…"

"But do we even have time for that? The items are falling further into the void as we speak" Zed asked.

"If you get going ten minutes from now, you’ll need eight elytras, the rest of your inventory slots should be rockets. Use rockets on the way down and you'll catch up to it with equipment for the way up and plenty to spare if you get lost down there. And make sure you have an empty slot to pick it up" Tango monotoned, his eyes a fiery red, before calming to a milder orange. "How's that?"

Skizz pat the less flaming hot backside of Tango's head, his coarse hands indifferent to the heat. "You have a wonderful brain, buddy"

Tango beamed back at him, both literally and figuratively.

"Okay, got it. Can I get eight elytras with unbreaking?" X requested.

They prepared accordingly.

X set his feet to the edge of the hole and breathed in, then took off his helmet, his body easily slipping out of his suit as it rapidly shifted between states of matter, appearing more like a cloud of ash than a human in the high pressure of the Overworld.

"Catch you guys on the flipside!"

The rest of the Hermits smiled at him, some shouting words of encouragement.

And with a small wave, he was off.

It didn't take long for his body to rearrange itself into its natural state – though, he did feel slightly embarrassed for a moment, realizing he was technically naked save for his elytra.

It didn't matter, though. There was nothing down here except for him. Maybe some curious Hermits had caught a glimpse as he dove, but if that ended up being the worst thing that had happened today, he'd consider himself a lucky admin.

It felt oddly freeing being down in the void. It was of his own volition, this time, unlike in his dreams.

Xisuma recalled that this was where he'd been born, a long, long time ago. From… dust, maybe. He couldn't exactly place the memory, it felt more like he simply knew than he remembered.

As he dove ever faster, using rockets to accelerate himself, he had a thought – just what was pulling him downwards?

What could possibly overpower the weight of the Overworld?

And that was when a floor entered his vision. A purple, foggy nothing. No, it wasn't a floor, it wasn't even solid and Xisuma, helplessly fast, plummeted straight through the purpur atmosphere, straight through clouds and fog as he tried to slow or at least reorient himself…

Crash.

His body disintegrated for a moment. Thankfully, that was not as big of a deal as if he had been human.

He gathered himself, literally, on an opaque, dark purple ground. It was made of a fine layer of dust. But there was nothing else, nothing his eyes or other senses could perceive, anyway. Other than…

A white shulker box sitting flat against the thin, slightly sparkly veil of the ground.

Cautiously, X approached it. It did not seem threatening. After some deliberating, he peeked inside.

It was a Hermit mail service parcel. The kind Pearl, Etho and Tango had made.

Inside was… the core. The red outer casing of the eye along with the battery unit and connector cables attached to it. That and a small note.

Xisuma cautiously unfolded it.

"I know you will come looking one day"

… Was the entire message. Underneath it were two simple penstrokes:

"X"

Xisuma's eyes darted around the void, trying to find any answers, but it was just the deafening darkness staring back at him. It was time to leave, he thought. The void had been kind and he was not about to question it.

He picked up the shulker box. He needed to get back home. To his world. The one he belonged to, now. There was nothing left for him here, not anymore. He heard the mass of the void hum in response. X couldn’t tell if it was affirmation or a warning that it was about to gobble him up.

Xisuma braced and took off towards the surface, rockets drawing a trail like a comet in the wast expanse.

Doc found himself fiddling with the siphon of Cleo's sink. He felt like he had an inkling of what was going on, now, and he was pissed, because he couldn't work, he couldn't help anyone and he was stuck being a burden on his friend. So, he'd busied himself with fixing every appliance she owned.

"Coffee?" Cleo offered, carefully filling the kettle so as not to let it overflow and ruin his work by dripping into the currently open sink.

Doc hummed. Coffee, at least, still tasted the same. Everything else tasted like dirt.

"You should eat something beforehand" they suggested, pouring some beans into the grinder before churning away with the crank.

Doc pulled his lips to a frown. "I'd sooner chew off my arm, thanks" he replied, tightening the bolt of the freshly cleaned siphon before pausing. "Sorry. I didn't - Why did I say it like that"

Cleo didn't say anything back, leaning a hip to the counter top as she observed the damage from… a while back, now, she hadn't gotten around to fixing the hole in the floor and ceiling Doc had supposedly left shortly after his arrival. He'd offered to do it, he would have been grateful for anything to do, he despised being idle, but she had said she wanted to do it herself.

Doc began to clean up the tools he'd been using. He couldn't shake the feeling that Cleo was hiding something. There had to be something they weren't telling him, there just had to be. She'd been so vague with the details of the progress of the search, they had, apparently, "narrowed it down", whatever that meant. It was frustrating to be treated like this. He found himself angrily tossing wrenches and screwdrivers into the tool box before he thought better of the whole thing and took a deep breath. Cleo was his friend. Surely, she'd at least say something if he asked her outright.

But she'd finished making coffee in the meantime. So, it was only polite to sit down.

He saw Cleo test the drain in the sink, before excitedly clapping their hands together. "Doc, you're an angel!"

He smiled at the praise, but quickly pulled his lips back to a thin line and waited for her to join him at the table. They hadn't even finished sitting down when the words left his mouth.

"Cleo, you'd tell me if something had gone wrong, right?"

She seemed to stop halfway before remembering to lower herself into the chair. "Uh… What do you mean by that?"

Doc fidgeted with the metallic bolts of his robot arm. "Like if the core had gotten damaged or destroyed or - or if the world outside was ending, what do I know" he chuckled nervously.

Cleo sighed and smiled, reaching across the table. "Of course, I would, Doc"

But for some reason it all seemed so, so fake. What if the Hermits had gotten tired of looking? What if they just wanted him gone, now? What if Doc had outlived his usefulness to the server?

He felt his stomach twist and an urge, somewhere deep, to run far away.

The puncture in the bedrock was lined with glowstone against the dark night sky as X flew through. He didn't feel like he'd been gone that long, but the people who had seen him off had vanished. The cavern floor had been flattened with a layer of stone bricks, bedrock still sticking through in places.

The massive wireframe of a redstone contraption was visible against the far right corner. To his left, X could make out a light and two silhouettes in the distance – Tango's head of flame and a slightly taller frame with an elytra. He quickly slipped back into his helmet and suit, which someone had placed on an armor stand, then took off running towards the both of them. X picked up bits and pieces of their conversation as he did.

"It should last, at least for a bit. There will probably be a point where you're just spamming golden apples, though…" Tango explained.

X willed his legs to carry him a little faster.

"It's fine, worst case scenario, I die. I can handle that"

The other form turned out to be Grian in a protective suit of some kind. His wings weren't an elytra, they were his own – albeit plated with netherite in places.

"Yeah, and we'll have to make this stuff again! Who… Who knows how far down he is, now? This is the longest shot of my life… Literally" Tango sighed.

"Guys!" X called out.

Tango and Grian both snapped their heads in his direction.

"X?!"

"I have the core!" Xisuma exclaimed, holding up the angular, red object triumphantly. "There was some weird stuff down there, let me tell 'ya"

Tango and Grian both jumped him, hugging him so tight he was afraid his suit would pop.

"Oh, X, I'm so glad you're back!" Grian cried.

"We were about to dunk Grian into the void, that's how desperate we were…" Tango chuckled, his voice soaked in relief.

"Woah, woah, I'm gone for an hour and the server devolves into this?" Xisuma posed.

Grian pulled back to face him. "An hour?! X, you've been gone for weeks!"

"What…?"

Tango let him go, which X was half-grateful for as his flame hair was beginning to smoke up the lens of his visor. "Yeah, we figured you'd gotten lost or ran out of supplies or something, and we couldn't contact you and-"

"Well, it was an hour for me! Time must flow different down there…" X thought out loud.

He thought back to how the package was labeled to himself… by himself, seemingly. It was odd, to be sure.

From the direction of the machine wireframe, multiple figures began making their way towards them.

"What happened, guys? We heard yelling" Impulse prompted.

"X is back!" Grian hollered, the incoming group all picking up their pace as they caught wind.

Impulse, Mumbo and Cub all made their entrance by near-tackling X from all directions. Though, one thing felt strange… Something was clinging to his leg. Or someone…

X looked down to see Etho. A tiny, half a block tall Etho.

The formerly tall man cracked up as X made eye contact with him.

"Hey, Xisuma" he greeted, like this was the most normal thing in the world.

"I'm gone for a few weeks -" X started, "And you guys do…" he picked up Etho like a cat, "This?! How?!"

The others shared a chuckle.

Tango clicked his tongue. "We were trying to figure out how to do sub-block placements for Doc's replacement core – yeah, we found the blueprints, by the way – and we figured… Maybe a small player could build smaller blocks" he explained, "So, we exploited a bug with entity cramming and squished Etho"

"It didn't work" Mumbo continued.

Etho wiggled his legs. "Yeah, we should have figured. If it was related to size, Bdubs's builds would be tiny" he quipped.

He was kind of cute like this, Xisuma had to admit.

"Anyways, we couldn't figure out a way to, er… un-squish him" Tango elaborated.

"X, I told them I didn't mind" Etho said to him, "But everyone was going around all gloomy and melancholic and looking at me as a grim reminder you're gone… I knew you'd come back, though" he asserted, folding his arms. "Oh, who am I kidding, I was so worried!" Etho gasped, head hanging limp as he clung to Xisuma's hands.

X gently pat his head before putting him down. That was just something he'd have to deal with later.

"I have the core" X informed, "How's Doc been fairing?"

The others looked back and forth for a bit.

"Well…" Impulse started, "We didn't want to leave him all by himself, but Cleo couldn't be there all the time, so we needed another mob hybrid. Tango was busy with preparing Grian for the void dive and helping out with the new core, so we landed on Scar"

"To which Doc promptly jumped out a window and ran off into the woods" Cub continued, "Scar was covered in cat hair, as it turned out" he half-chuckled.

Grian spoke up next. "Yeah, so Skizz and Joel pinned him down while Cleo used a lint roller, then they tracked Doc down to – to your base, actually, X, that's where he is, now"

"Void knows what Scar's done to him, though" Mumbo wondered, "He's probably making him have a Disney marathon"

Grian raised a finger in objection. "No, Scar's careful when he wants to be. Especially when Cleo has threatened to cleave him in two otherwise" he smirked, slowly getting himself out of the netherite-plated exosuit. Tango walked over to help him with the back.

"So, I have an explosive German man in my storage system. Good, that's uh… Surely, that's fine" X worried.

They headed off to X's base, sending a message to Cleo on the way. She knew Doc well enough and X figured any number of complications could arise during the re-installation of his core.

Chapter Text

"Hey, Doc! Oh, Doooc!" Scar called out, wandering through X's base, carrying a basket of food like Little Red Riding Hood. "Man, this is a real maze Izuma has built. How do you even find the exit? Or… the entrance? Or the - where am I?"

Doc must've strayed from the room Cleo had hastily refurbished to accommodate him, as the door had been left ajar and he was nowhere to be found. Scar carefully inspected the interior. It was alright, given the circumstances, with a bed, a table and other basic furnishings. The window had been neatly covered up. Doc currently hated the light. That, at the very least, assured Scar that he wouldn't leave X's base. Last time he'd only left Cleo's base under… duress, let's say.

"I promise I'm cat-hair-free, now! You don't need to run from me!" Scar called out, looking under the bed. "Are you hiding in here?" he inquired, opening the closet. There was only dust and some spare clothes Cleo had brought over from his base. Scar lifted up the carpet, "Yeah, you're far too tall to fit in there"

"Scar?"

Scar jumped so hard he nearly hit the ceiling.

"Oh, Doc, you – you scared me!" Scar yelped as he turned to face Doc by the door. "How's it going? How are the - " Scar was about to say the kids, but that made no sense. "The situation? The, uh… vibes?"

He grinned wide, trying to polish the word salad that had just come out of his mouth.

Doc observed him for a bit, his mouth a flat line, before sighing and sitting down on the bed. He wasn't outwardly hostile, so that was a good sign at least.

"I brought you a lot of stuff, look!" Scar lifted the handkerchief from atop his woven basked, revealing various food items, some cookies, some ground coffee…

Doc didn't move, though his eye curiously followed Scar's hands as he set the different goods on the desk.

"Not in a talkative mood, ey?" Scar asked, mostly just to himself. "That's alright, I get it"

Once he finished unpacking, he sat down on the carpet, legs tired from standing. He propped his cane up against the wooden desk chair.

"I will take a breather, if you don't mind – But after that, I'll be out of your hair" Scar offered, "Or we can hang out. You're my star customer today, Doc, it's whatever you want"

Scar leaned forward on his elbows and looked up at Doc, who had turned his face away – only the red blinking of what used to be his robotic eye stared back at him.

"I'm… fine, all things considered. Better than I was yesterday, I think. Sorry for the trouble" Doc let out a half-hearted chuckle.

"That's good to hear! And don't worry about it. We didn't really think it through ourselves" Scar replied, thinking back at the cat hair incident.

"You can go, if you want. I can handle myself"

Scar snorted. "Now, that, my friend – That's phrasing I know from a mile away"

Doc turned to face him inquisitively, allowing Scar to see the nervous twitch of his human eye. Periodically, his glance darted around the room as if… searching.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

Ah. The foot in the door! Another outstanding victory for salesman Scar.

"Hmm, now, how do I put this…" Scar thought aloud, "I think… I think it's easy, especially when you're a bit under the weather, to be really quite stubborn about accepting help. I get all moody, too, whenever I have a flare up" he explained, pressing a hand to his lower back, "Last time Grian came over to help and, boy, I got so upset with him. I felt really bad afterwards"

Doc raised an eyebrow.

"What I mean is, it's easy to get into the… the sort of mindset that people aren't willing to put up with you when you aren't projecting your ideal self or aren't on your best behavior or whatever" Scar continued.

"Scar, I literally pose a threat to anybody who comes to see me, you included!" Doc rebutted, slamming his palms on the bed beside him. "Don't you remember what I did to Ren? What happened to Cleo's base? What I -"

Scar sighed. "So?"

"What do you mean 'so'?! I killed him over and over again, because – because of what, even? And now everyone is running around looking for a stupid prosthetic I misplaced, I've halted the entire server with this…"

Scar shook his head. "Again: So?"

Doc stared at him in silent bewilderment.

"We're your friends, Doc. If we have to put everything on the back burner to help you out, we will. It isn't a question of whether it's convenient, whether it feels good, whether it's exhausting – It's just something you do" Scar stated, then smiled. "That's what I think, anyway. But once you're better and can go see them, I'm sure the others will share my sentiments." he said.

Doc let out a shaky sigh.

"Just say the words, Doc, and I'll do whatever I can" Scar assured, straightening his back.

Doc gripped fistfuls of the bedsheets before letting them go again.

"…Can you stay?" he asked after a while.

"Of course, I can"

"I guess, I just envy you guys, sometimes" Doc said as he leaned against the wall, sipping some coffee.

This was one of those floor conversations – the kind you can't have anywhere else other than on flat hardwood.

Scar hummed to indicate he was listening. He'd propped a pillow behind himself to make the seating arrangement a bit more comfortable.

"You guys – you can all be proud of what you are. Your hybrid traits make you stronger, give you cool abilities, what do I get? A crippling fear of… they who shall not be named?" Doc asked, making the gesture of cat ears with his hands, "… Crippling fear of my friends?"

"It's fear? Around humans, I mean" Scar prompted.

Doc shrugged. "I don't really know what it is. Overwhelming, that's what"

He took another sip of coffee.

Scar stayed silent. Sometimes, that was better than saying anything.

"You guys all talk about embracing your hybrid sides and being yourselves – I… I just can't relate, at all!" Doc let out, robotic arm gesturing in the air. "My creeper… part" he shuddered as he said that, "I don't consider it a part of myself in the slightest"

Scar looked deep into his tea, deeper than it really was, blowing cooling ripples across the surface.

"I… I'm sorry. I didn't know it made you feel that way. Did it feel like we were pressuring you?" he asked, looking over at Doc.

Doc placed his mug by his side. "No, that isn't what I mean… I don't – the Goat does not succumb to peer pressure, come on, now" he smiled weakly. "I just never felt like I could be one of you guys. I guess, that doesn't matter, though. I don't know why I went on this tangent"

Scar turned his full body towards him and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Of course it matters, Doc!" he asserted, "Just because your relationship to being a hybrid is 'It's complicated', that doesn't mean you belong with us any less. If anything, I'm sure many of us can understand how you feel"

Doc raised an eyebrow, half-curious, half-skeptical. "Really?"

"Of course! You think Cleo likes getting full-body sunburns? You think X likes being in a pressurized suit all the time? You think Tango's happy about being unable to set foot in wooden houses? Of course, they aren't!" Scar yelled, a bit louder than he'd meant to. "That's the whole point of the ‘Being proud of yourself’ spiel. Nobody would be making a big deal out of it if it was easy"

"But their hybrid traits all have redeeming qualities" Doc countered, "Cleo can summon hordes, Xisuma can survive in the void, Tango can dive through lava, for void's sake! And what can I do? Blow myself up? There's nothing to be proud of there, Scar"

Scar frowned and crossed his arms. He shook his head. "They aren't proud of the cool things they can do, Doc. They're proud of themselves. For thriving or for simply having made it through everything. How awful, how cruel would it be to live in a world where people are reduced to the abilities and disadvantages handed to them by chance" Scar's voice was calm, but stern.

Doc looked away, his hand tracing circles in the carpet before bunching up the strands in his fist.

It wasn't anger. Scar could tell as much. It was simply a soft, quiet defeat.

"You've got me there, Scar. You've got me there"

His voice shook a little.

Scar figured there might be a reason he wasn't looking at him, as well.

A good salesman, alright. From a foot in the door all the way to the floodgates.

"I…" Doc looked at the wall opposite them. "I needed to hear that. Thank you"

Scar placed a hand on his shoulder. "Make sure to leave five stars" he whispered.

Doc cracked up, a half-sob also coming through.

"… Way to ruin the moment, man"

"It's not ruined until we both say that it is" Scar shot back.

"Fair, fair… " Doc sniffled, eventually accepting his outstretched arm, embracing him. Scar carefully moved his mug away. They stayed like that for a bit.

"I'm… I'm getting tired. I probably won't be so, er… Hospitable for much longer" Doc warned.

Scar pulled back from him, stretching his arms out with a yawn. "Want to try to take a nap? I'll be here" he offered.

Doc hummed. "That soundss… good"

"How's Ren?" Doc asked, eye half-lidded with sleep.

"He's doing good, don't worry. He's looking forward to seeing you again" Scar assured. "Everyone is"

Chapter Text

Scar was quite startled when an entire ensemble touched down in front of X's base.

"Well, hello there! What's the occasion…?" he prompted the sudden visitors.

"Scaaar, we have the core!" Grian squealed, wrapping his arms and wings around his friend. "I might get to live!"

"Ooh, that's exciting news, Grian! Oh, hi Izuma!" he greeted, trying to wedge his face though Grian's various fluffy limbs and appendages.

"Hi, Scar!" he greeted back. X felt a small tug by his lower leg – Etho.

"X, you need to protect me. He keeps wanting to have a tea party with me" he whispered, pointing at Scar.

"Don't listen to him, X, he likes the attention" Cleo rebutted, having arrived shortly beforehand. "Don't you, Etho? Yeah, you're living your best life, being carried everywhere!" they told him, picking him up and putting him on their shoulder.

"X, help, she's kidnapping me!" Etho yelped.

"Aww, isn't it a little Etho? Isn't it a tiny-little Etho?" Scar baby-talked as he walked past, "X, it's good to see you, friend!" he greeted, grabbing the sides of his helmet and lightly bumping heads with him. "How was the void? Great sights there, I hear"

X chuckled. "Great sights, indeed. And lots of weird time dilation"

“… Lime titration?”

"Hey, Doc?" Cleo half-whispered as she opened his door a creak. "It's me, Cleo. Can I come in? I have something for you" she explained.

There was a low hiss in the dark room.

"Scar and Tango are here, too. We'll come in, okay?"

The three set foot in the small space, Tango's hair illuminating it in a low, orange light. Doc was nowhere to be seen, though Cleo was sure she'd heard him.

The three scanned the room until Scar dipped his head down to look under the bed and found the telltale blink of the red warning light.

"Oh, there you are" he greeted, laying down on the carpet to be at Doc's eye level.

Doc withdrew further to the back wall and let out a hiss.

Tango and Cleo joined Scar on the floor to take a look themselves.

"Why are they here?" Doc asked, most of his body obscured by darkness, only his red silhouette blinking into view every once in a while.

"Why are we here?" Tango asked for clarification, gesturing between Cleo and himself.

"No, outside. I saw them, why are they here?"

"Well, it's because we have great news, Doc! Look here!" Cleo said, holding up the red power core.

"You found it?" he asked with disbelief.

"It was a collective effort" Tango smiled, looking over at Scar and Cleo.

"Why don't you come out, so we can help you put it back?" Cleo suggested.

Doc's tall frame seemed to impossibly shrink underneath the bed. It seemed this wasn’t going to be easy.

"I'd… I'd love to do that, I just…"

"Is Scar covered in cat hair again?" Cleo chuckled, poking the vex hybrid in the shoulder.

Scar looked back at her, faux-offended. "Am not!"

"Are you stuck?" Tango asked, head tilted slightly to the side.

There was a bit of silence before Doc spoke again.

"Not physically, no…" he replied quietly. "It's hard to explain"

Doc pulled his knees up to his chest.

"Try to, anyway?" Tango suggested.

Scar shook his head. "Watch this, I have a great idea" he said, crawling forward on his elbows, contorting his body around Cleo and Tango to, against all odds, get under the bed with Doc.

"Let me… Let me see things from your perspective" he offered as he finally reached his destination.

"…This is stupid" Doc cracked up, now wedged against the wall. "I'm actually, physically stuck, now"

Scar chuckled, "Uh, well, you see – what we have here is a translation of your feelings to a tangible, chemical-physical-euclidian plane"

"A what?!" Tango asked from next to them.

"Nevermind!" Scar dismissed, "You and I will get out of here together, just you watch, Doc"

Doc hummed in response.

"Now, what do you feel like is keeping you here?" Scar prompted, attempting to take up a sophisticated pose underneath the bed. He was failing, utterly so.

Doc fell silent. "It's… It's stupid"

"That's fine, tell us about the stupid thing" Tango assured, head tilting to try to get a glimpse of him through the blockade of Scar’s body.

Cleo laid their head against the floor. "Yeah, we'll put all three of our brain cells together and figure it out"

She could hear Doc crack up from behind Scar."I can't see anything from this guy, so it just feels like you guys are directly in my brain"

"We are, Doc" Cleo laughed, "We're your little brain goblins"

"Well?" Tango prompted.

"No, it's really dumb… I - and that upsets me, right? Because I know it's dumb, I know I'm a grown man under a bed and I still can't…" Doc started.

"We're actually two grown men under a bed" Scar corrected.

"Yeah, you're really crowding it in here, Scar" Doc chuckled, lightly kicking him with the side of his foot.

There was an amused exhale from Tango as he pushed himself into the small corner still free between the bed and Scar, making sure his head wasn't actually under the bed as not to burn anything. "Make that three"

"I don't know if I'd classify you as a grown man, Tango" Cleo quipped, walking around to the head of the bed so she could look at all of their faces – two silly, one slightly bewildered, but comfortable overall.

"Hey!" Tango yelled back, "I grew! Once upon a time!"

"Why are you guys like this?" Doc asked, shaking his head, though there was undeniably a fondness in his voice.

"Mass hysteria?" Scar offered, completely sandwiched between the two others.

"Alright, Doc, spill the beans" Cleo prompted from the head of the bed.

"I - Stop kicking me, Scar!" he chuckled, "I…"

Doc sighed.

"I guess, I'm just worried about… causing everyone more trouble. About hurting someone or myself. I know it'll be fine, you guys are here, but I just…" Doc exhaled, "Yeah, it's really irrational, now that I'm saying it out loud"

There was a silent moment of understanding. It was just like that, sometimes. Sometimes you were simply under a bed and you needed your three stupid, amazing friends to crawl under the bed with you to get you out.

"Ready to get out then?" Scar asked.

Doc nodded.

Scar turned his head to the other side, nose brushing against the ribs if the bed. "Alright, Tango, you're up!"

"About that… Can you move your leg? My leg is kind of under there… And my arm's up here" he explained, wiggling his fingers at the head of the bed.

"I can't move my leg because your leg is there!" Scar shot back.

They uselessly shuffled around under the bed for a bit.

"So, we're actually stuck" Doc concluded.

The four of them burst out laughing.

"Well, why didn't you just lay next to me like a normal person, Tango?" Scar accused.

"Scar, nothing about this is 'normal'" Cleo commented.

"For the bit, Scar! For the bit!" Tango defended.

Cleo sighed and got up from where she was half-crouched, gripping the bed frame then lifting her side up.

The three, newly freed men shared a sigh of relief.

Scar wiped a drop of sweat from his forehead as he got up. "Phew, I thought we'd never get out…"

Once they had all exited, Cleo lowered the bed back to it's original place.

"There" Tango said, gently patting the metal plating on Doc's head. "Does that feel alright?"

Doc shook his head around a bit, but the machinery seemed stable. His robotic eye was shining the way it used to.

"That feels a lot better" he said, running his fingers over the area.

"I'm glad" Tango smiled.

"By the way, Tango" Doc started, "Where did you guys find this? And who found it? I'll have to thank them"

"About that…" Cleo chimed in, "I think there's someone who wants to talk to you"

Doc raised an eyebrow. "Sure…?"

“Ah, but me first. Tango, shoo” she said to him and the man begrudgingly left them alone.

Cleo cracked their fingers. “Remember how you asked me if I’d tell you if something had gone horrifically, catastrophically wrong?”

Doc exhaled through his nose. “Let me guess – did something go horrifically, catastrophically wrong?”

Cleo nodded sheepishly. “I hope it’s alright I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want to risk you getting stressed or upset, especially when there was nothing you could do about it. I kind of had to make that executive decision” she explained. “So, I just wanted you to know”

Doc nodded. “I understand. I… I would have preferred knowing, even so. But I understand that you were in a difficult position”

“Hopefully there isn’t a next time, but I’ll keep that in mind” she responded. “We’re all good, then?”

“Of course. I’m curious, though: What was the world-ending catastrophe?” Doc asked.

Cleo bit into her lip and raised her eyebrows. “I’ll leave that for to the man of the hour”

They exited the room, out into the hall.

There was an anxious bird-man outside, idly shifting from the front to the back of his feet as Scar talked to him. The latter was gesturing in big, broad strokes, like it was the best story he'd ever told, not that Doc could make out any of it. They were too far away.

Scar then leaned down slightly, putting a hand on Grian's shoulder. He said something, pat the shorter man's cheek, then walked off towards… Well, not the exit. It was the hallway to another room. Scar was about the get lost, again.

Grian only acknowledged their presence when they were too close to reasonably ignore anymore.

"Hey, guys" he said with a half-hearted smile.

They exchanged greetings, then, after a shared glance and nod, Cleo and Tango brushed past them towards the actual exit… Then turned around to the other side of the lobby, figuring they should probably rescue Scar from the fate of wandering these halls for all eternity.

Doc and Grian were left standing in the wide, stone brick room. It was some part of Xisuma's storage system – bright, colorful, specific. Doc really liked it. It was a neat mix of form and function.

"So…" Grian started, trying to tuck his rather large wings behind him.

With him looking at Doc like that, it could only mean something had gone ridiculously wrong in his absence. Doc had been mindful not to keep any open-air buttons at his base, but he could have missed something – and Grian certainly had a sixth sense for them. Doc braced himself.

Grian sighed. "I'm sorry, it's all my fault" he said, eyeing Doc's shoes before remembering himself and lifting his head to look him in the eye.

That was… not a great start.

Doc let out a sigh. "What did you do?"

He breathed in, shoulders slumped. "I took it. I took the core. I - I thought it was just a fancy light. I wanted to give it back as soon as I saw the consequences, but I… I lost it" He wrapped his arms around himself.

Doc felt blood rush to his temple. "You… You what? Why would you do that?"

"I thought it'd be funny to take your stuff… That it could be a whole scavenger hunt thing with the snails or whatever, like we did with Skizz. I… didn't know… I'm really sorry, Doc"

Doc sighed, his sinuses stinging like after a nosebleed.

"How- How do you even misplace something like that? Did you die?" he questioned.

Grian nodded. "It's not that I didn't know where it was… It might have fallen into the void" The end was so quiet, Doc wasn't sure he heard it right.

"Into the void?" Doc buried his face in his palm. "Stupid… Why would you go there? Why would you have it in your inventory?"

Grian pulled his lips shut and gestured he didn’t know.

"So X had to go get it and then he was gone for like two weeks and everyone was panicking and the redstoners were trying to build you a replacement while also building me a suit to go get Xisuma and Scar started a cult and Etho was stuck being small and - and" Grian started crying, "It was a disaster and none of it would have happened, if not for me"

He sniffled for a bit, still holding himself with his arms, his wings raised to his sides defensively. "Void, why am I crying?" he asked, wiping at his eyes with the sleeve of his sweater.

Doc didn't exactly know what to do in this situation, so he simply pulled him into a hug.

Grian just started crying harder, the sudden lack of pressure letting loose what he'd most likely been holding back for weeks.

Doc rubbed the back of his sweater. What a stupid, stupid man. What a horribly earnest, stupid man.

"You know…" Doc started, "You may be careless, impulsive and clumsy…" he listed off with a hint of fond amusement in his voice, "And I'm definitely pissed. My revenge will be astronomical, Grian" he calmly explained, "But I'll stop being pissed, eventually. So, stop making that face. It doesn't suit you"

Grian's head shifted against Doc's lab coat. "Thank you…"

"Oh, don't thank me, yet. Not until I've waterlogged every slab in your base" Doc chuckled. Grian pulled back from the hug and slammed a fist into his palm. "Bring it on! I'll be waiting!" he proclaimed, voice hitching, eyelids still swollen and red.

That was more like it, Doc thought.

Chapter Text

It wouldn't have been a proper disaster on Hermitcraft without a party to see it off with. The last few weeks had been hectic and everyone was eager to take the edge off.

The spot they landed on was the large, flat plains Scar had cleared out in preparation for the zoo next to his base. It was a cozy area, with its back against pine forests, mountains and builds, the other side looking out at the grasslands. A perfect spot for a camping trip, a few barrels of mead and a campfire to roast marshmallows on.

Perhaps there were a little too many cooks in the kitchen with everyone seeking to supply their own specialties – but, in the end, in stunningly Hermitcraft fashion, the madness formed into a cohesive, excellent whole.

Skizz and Impulse were manning the grill, the aforementioned unlicensed mead was from Joel's honey farm (the permit office was willing to turn a blind eye, just this once), Scar had bought cookies, Grian had supplied the fish, so on and so forth until there was food, drink and desert to everyone's liking. The atmosphere was calm, like nothing could ever go wrong – of course, everything always inevitably did, but they also inevitably made things right again. These were the two immutable truths about life on this server.

Ren could have sworn he'd seen a shooting star, but… It was just Cub, setting off some special fireworks for the occasion!

"X, can you turn him back, soon?" Bdubs asked, a tiny Etho eagerly cooking skewered rabbit on the fire next to him. "It feels so… wrong"

"Are you just unused to feeling tall, Bdubs?" Etho asked, turning his skewer to get an even roast. "This is what you look like to me all the time"

"I am not small!" Bdubs rebutted.

"Just vertically challenged?" Tango asked from behind him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

Bdubs turned around and continued roasting his marshmallows, now on Tango's head.

Tango casually took the end of the flaming hot skewer in his mouth and ate the snack on the end.

Bdubs got up to run after him, so Tango took off – the former shaking his skewer in the air angrily.

X chuckled. Everything was back the way it was meant to be. Mostly, anyway.

He looked over at Doc, who'd arrived a bit late – he'd returned to his base to sort his things out. He was now being jumped by an overly excited Ren, always so, so happy to see him. Doc kept hold of him and spun him around before putting him back down.

The party went on well past midnight, until the various Hermits either went home or went to sleep in one of the several tents they'd prepared. Capacity had been slightly misjudged, so a lot of people found themselves sleeping in cozy, warm piles.

And thus, all was well in Hermitcraft, again.

"Ren, get your leg away from my -" Doc complained from the far edge of the tent.

"Aw, come on, Doc, I thought we were married~" he purred in response.

Bdubs blindly palmed Ren’s face to stop him from shuffling. "Tall claims court has not approved of this union"

Etho chuckled from on top of all three of them. "But Scar's cult has!"

“Scar’s what?!”

fin.