Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The masks appeared overnight, in every base but two. Blue-grey, with glowing eyes, waiting for someone to try them on. Most were ignored or thrown out quickly, the bases’ owners remembering all too well the havoc that those masks could cause. Ice castles, catapults, chemical spills, mycelium pirates, and conquered cathedrals hung in relatively recent memory.

But not everyone’s memory reached back that far. One mask rested on an armor stand in the middle of a grand entry hall for mere hours before its recipient returned and, true to his nature, plucked the mask from the stand and tried it on without a second thought.

Grian flinched at the sudden onslaught of discordant whispers. He started to reach for the mask to remove it, but something stayed his hand.

The whispers quieted to a dull buzz. One spoke out above the others, its voice childlike and playful, yet somehow something... more. Thank you! Thank you!

“Thank you?” Grian repeated out loud. “What am I being thanked for?”

For joining us! For accepting our power!

“Your... power? Like, magic, or?”

The voices giggled. Magic!

Now that he was past the initial shock of hearing voices in his head, Grian realized that he could feel new power within him. He didn’t know what to do with it, but the voice did, and it showed him how to cast blue lights and sparks around himself.

Grian laughed at his newfound abilities. “This is amazing! So I can cast spells and stuff whenever I have this mask on?”

In due time, you will have our magic at your disposal always. Use the mask only when doing our work.

Grian shrugged. Later, he would wonder at how easily he accepted the Vex’s offer, without knowing if there was anything he would have to give in return. But right now, he was enamored with the power and potential of their magic. “Alright. Will you, like, tell me when you need me or something, then?”

You will know. Right now, there is another who is considering our offer, but he hasn’t yet made his choice. He has a... personal connection that would be valuable. Go to him, and help him see our side.

Grian nodded, opened his elytra, and launched himself out of his mansion. He turned northeast, to the sea. Only on the final glide down to his destination did it occur to him that he hadn’t used a single rocket in his entire flight.

Chapter Text

The Vex head sat on the floor in the center of an end stone brick disc. The builder concentrated on his windows around the edge, trying to ignore the whispers.

You’re thinking about it, aren’t you? It’s a perfect match, you working for us.

“Shut up.”

If you really are so uninterested, then why haven’t you thrown us away yet?

Jevin whipped around and glared at the head. But he didn’t have a snappy answer, so he turned sulkily back to his building. He noticed a mistake in the pattern he had been trying to match, and sighed in frustration.

Our magic could help fix that.

“Will you just-”

He was interrupted by a flurry of manic giggles. You put on a fine act, but you know you want to reconnect with your roots.

That gave Jevin pause. “My roots? What do you know about my roots?”

More than you do.

“You’re lying. No one knows where I came from.”

More tittering. Tell us, what happens when a slime absorbs something it can’t digest?

Caught off-guard by the question, Jevin answered. “The thing just kinda sits there, usually? Sometimes a few traits get picked up, like when I used the concrete from the Button to change my color.”

What might get ‘picked up’, then, if the slime comes into contact with a being made purely of magic? Magic that happens to prefer the color... blue. What happens when a slime absorbs a soul?

If Jevin had a heart, it would be pounding out of his chest. Without realizing, he had moved away from his window-building and edged closer to the Vex head in the middle of his base. He barely noticed someone else landing on the platform with a faint thump. Was the Vex implying what he thought it was? And more importantly... was it telling the truth?

The Vex are many things, but we are not liars. See for yourself: your nature grants you the use of our power, with no contract.

Jevin held his blue hands in front of him, deep in thought. He could see the sense in what the Vex were telling him. Somewhere, deep inside, he felt that it was true, but he didn’t quite trust the Vex to not have messed with his mind. Was he really... magical?

At the thought, he felt it. Blue-white lines like electric arcs crackled through him, starkly visible beneath the surface. He stumbled backward in shock and would have fallen if not for a steadying hand on his arm. Jevin turned to see a man in a red sweater and a pale blue-grey mask.

“Grian?” Jevin exclaimed, unsure whether to focus on his friend or his own hands. “They, uh... looks like they got you, huh?”

Grian shrugged. “I would say we ‘joined forces’. Have you decided to join us too?”

Jevin chose not to answer for a few moments, watching the magic glow and change shape within him as he manipulated it. Finally, he looked back up at Grian. “Nah.”

Grian’s masked face didn’t change, but this obviously baffled him. “‘Nah’? What kind of an answer is that?”

It was Jevin’s turn to shrug. “The Vex’s most compelling offer was the magic. Since I apparently already have that, why would I put myself under Vex control?”

“To train and learn how to use your magic better?” Grian offered.

Jevin smirked slightly. “I’ll figure it out.” And if I do need help, I know two people I can go to who I would trust a lot more than Vex-possessed Grian.

Almost as an afterthought, Jevin reached down and picked up the Vex head. The lines of magic in his fingers licked toward it. He could feel the two trying to connect, but he ignored it, walking to the edge of his platform and throwing the head as far as he could into the ocean. He turned back to Grian and made a face as if to say, “what now?” Grian made an exasperated sound and disappeared off the edge of the base. He reappeared moments later, flying back to his mansion. 

Jevin watched Grian go, noting the silent, almost effortlessly controlled flight. The ConVex weren’t TOO bad to have around the first time, he supposed. He did enjoy a good prank now and then.

On the other hand, the new ConVex now flying away was the man who had started a war.

Jevin returned his attention to the magic, watching the veins of energy retreat and disappear into his sleeves. He pulled out his communicator and opened up a private message to Cub.

Chapter Text

Grian flitted around the rooftops of his mansion, adding details and replacing missing blocks. Vex magic, he was discovering, was a builder’s dream. He couldn’t quite hover in one place for long, like he would in a world with Creative magic, but Vex flight was still much more precise and controlled than elytra flight, and easier than constantly making bridges and columns of random blocks to stand on. He would even call it better than Creative for the ability to simply go through blocks to access tight spaces. He seemed to be able to swap blocks remotely between his inventory and his shulker boxes on the ground, too, giving him access to everything he needed without having to constantly fly back and forth.

When he got bored of working on the roof, Grian landed inside the mansion facade, looking around for something else to work on. His focus fell on one of the many towers at the corners. Grian poked his head through the wall.

A creeper turned to look at him.

Right. He never lit that one up. Grian hurriedly pulled back, then took a floating leap to enter the tower again from above. He shot a blue-flamed arrow at the creeper, giving it an ethereal glow in the dark tower. A second shot took the creeper down. Grian landed, placed a few temporary torches, and got to work.

Grian stepped back and admired his handiwork. The floor of the tower was now made of light blue glazed terracotta. He didn't know why he chose that; it just felt like the right thing to use. He wasn't even sure where he'd gotten the blocks - it wasn't a material he usually had on hand. Two comfortable chairs sat casually against two of the walls. There wasn't much floor space, but that didn't matter. Shelves ran all the way up the walls, interspersed with partial platforms to view them from. Most of the shelves were empty for now, with only the occasional flower pot. As a final finishing touch, Grian put the Vex head he had fished out of the ocean in a place of honor on the top shelf.

And just in time, as he heard a knock on the wall below. Grian grinned. He had heard whispers that he would be meeting someone else today who was partnered with the Vex. He dropped back down to the floor and put his Vex mask on. This was official business, after all. “Come in,” he called.

A man with another Vex mask and a black bandana on his head walked into the room. Grian was surprised to find that, though he prided himself on having visited as many of the other hermits as he could, he didn’t recognize his visitor at all. But the Vex, as always, provided, and Grian saw a name appear in white letters above his guest’s head.

“Hey, Hypno!” Grian greeted casually. “What do you think of our little clubhouse?”

Hypno looked around, taking in the space. “Not bad! Plenty of space for all our schemes and souvenirs.”

Grian smiled, and the mask smiled with him. “I’m glad you like it! On the topic of schemes... I know exactly who I want to prank first. A little... payback, you know?”

-----

Hypno found himself in a bit of a daze when he returned to his base that evening. He had been planning on doing some more terraforming on his islands, but then he had found the new mob mask in one of his chests, and now the rest of the day had gone. Hypno had been wearing squid and cow masks and the like as a joke since he arrived, so he figured this new mask had been left there by another hermit as a gift. But there was definitely something different about this one.

It spoke to him, for one thing. He couldn’t recall much of what it had said, but it had talked him into joining a new group of pranksters. Superpowered pranksters, apparently, as the mask had also insisted on bestowing its magic onto him. It was marginally useful for decorating his islands, Hypno supposed, but he wasn’t a big builder, and the Vex magic tended to play havoc with redstone. The ability to pass through blocks was useful for troubleshooting tight circuits, at least.

Hypno took a long look at the chest he had put the mask in, with his other animal heads. Something still compelled him about it. The Vex were definitely messing with his brain. He hated feeling like he couldn’t think straight, especially when he had a project he was trying to focus on. That mask would stay in a chest for a long time, he decided.

Then again... because of the Vex and his meeting with Grian, he had a plan for a prank he was going to pull anyway. And he’d made a promise to Grian that they would both work on it together.

What would it matter, though, if he didn’t wear the mask that day? They wouldn’t be seen, and if they were they’d be recognized regardless.

What would it matter, then, if he DID wear it?

Maybe he would put the Vex mask on again, just one more time.

Chapter Text

<iJevin> --> <cubfan135> Hey, can I talk to you about something? In person?

<cubfan135> --> <iJevin> Of course. Where do you want to meet? I’m at my base

<iJevin> --> <cubfan135> I’ll come over

Cub reread his communicator as he waited. Something about Jevin’s messages felt off to him - too tense for Jevin’s usual laid-back demeanor. And Jevin had offered to come to Cub’s base in the desert with no hesitation. Something was definitely wrong.

Cub’s Nether portal made a louder woosh, indicating that someone was coming through. Something in the back of his mind told him, Scar? But that didn’t make sense. Why would Scar be visiting today? Cub turned to find his more expected guest, Jevin, and was taken aback by the state Jevin was in. The normally cool and collected Jevin stood blankly in front of the portal, looking shaken and lost.

Cub hurriedly searched through the chests still in the smaller pyramid, finally finding a few stray sandstone stairs that hadn’t made it into the sorting system yet. He set one down next to Jevin. Jevin leaned on it, then sat down heavily, burying his head in his hands. Cub placed a second stair across from him, but didn’t sit yet. “Can I get you anything? Tea? It’s sweetened with the best honey this side of the Hermiatic Sea.”

As he hoped, that got a small smile out of Jevin, but it quickly disappeared. “No thank you. I... not right now.”

Cub nodded, more serious now, and sat down on his stair. “I understand. What’s bothering you, Jevin? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Jevin gave a dark chuckle. “You could say that, yeah.” He paused for a long moment, unsure where to begin. “You’ve probably heard about the Vex heads showing up in everyone’s bases.”

“Yeah, a couple people have told me about that,” Cub confirmed. Suddenly, he realized why he’d briefly mistaken Jevin for Scar. “Oh, did you put one of them on? Giving them control can be a little scary sometimes, I know, but-”

“Not exactly.” Jevin tightened his arms and shoulders around himself again. Cub’s talk of Vex control was not helping matters. “I never touched the one in my base, until I refused its offer and threw it in the ocean. But it... it told me that I was already one of them.”

As Jevin told the rest of the story, Cub found himself leaning farther and farther forward until he had almost fallen off his stair. “I had no idea...” he finally murmured. “They never told me. Not that they had any reason to, I guess. But now that I’m hearing it, it makes sense. And like they said - the Vex don’t lie.”

“So it wasn’t some trick,” Jevin replied, looking very slightly relieved. “They didn’t somehow force their magic on me - it really was just always there.”

Cub smiled. "No tricks this time! And even better: no contract. Scar and I only got out of that life because the Vex let us leave. But since you’re technically one of them, they literally can’t tell you what to do.”

“Are you sure? I thought Vex had this sort of hive mind thing going on.”

“Yeah, Vex don’t often act as individuals,” Cub admitted, “but neither do slimes, and yet here you are. I think you’ll be fine.”

Cub patted Jevin’s hand in reassurance. When Cub’s own hand came away sticky, he remembered how warm it was in his desert. He stood up. “You’ll probably want to get back to your own base now.”

Jevin clenched and unclenched a fist a couple times, and nodded. “Yeah. Thank you so much, Cub. I’m glad I could talk this out, you know?”

“Anytime, man.” Cub smiled as Jevin started to leave, this time through the gate to travel home over water.

Jevin paused, turning back to Cub. “Hey, can you show me some cool magic stuff sometime? I’ve got all this now and it’d be a shame if I didn’t use it.”

“Absolutely,” Cub replied. “It’s definitely better to know what you’re doing with this stuff.” When Jevin took out his rockets, Cub stopped him. “Actually, I’ll show you the best thing right now.” He winked. “You won’t need the rockets to fly home.”

-----

“Alright, so magic in general is kinda hard to explain, but this’ll be pretty intuitive,” Cub explained, the two of them standing on the shore. His eyes started to glow icy blue. “Vex themselves don’t ever land, so you’ll practically start flying before you even think about it.” As he talked, Cub demonstrated by letting himself float into the air, bobbing up and down as he watched Jevin. 

Jevin tried to relax, to focus on the energy he had felt before. Despite knowing it was there, it still startled him when it suddenly sparked through him. The magic arced across his hands and through his face, turning his eyes the same blue-white when it touched them.

“Whoa ho!” Cub exulted. “I didn’t expect to see the magic like that, dude! That’s cool!”

For the first time since arriving, Jevin gave Cub a genuine smile. The smile quickly turned to surprise as he, too, found himself floating off the ground. Moments later, though, he floated back down and landed again. “It’s hard to stay in the air.”

“It’s just hard to hover,” Cub reassured him. “Try doing what I’m doing, kind of a swoop and bob. You can use your elytra to help maneuver, too.”

Jevin tried again, this time pushing himself upward every time he got close to the ground. Soon he was mirroring Cub almost motion for motion.

“Now, magic alone isn’t great for long flights,” Cub explained, swooping up higher, “but what you can do is use it to basically replace rockets. That’s how we’re getting back to your base.”

The two settled into an easy, familiar glide, boosting themselves upward whenever they dipped close to the ocean. Jevin stayed near the water’s surface a little longer, enjoying the sea breeze on his face. He would never have realized that being a Vex could be so... peaceful.

Before long, the duo had landed uneventfully at Jevin’s base. They chatted for a few more minutes, then Cub readied himself to go back to his pyramid.

Anytime you need us, just let us know , Cub offered.

“Sure thing,” Jevin replied automatically. He paused, realizing Cub hadn’t actually spoken that aloud. “Wait-”

Cub just winked, and flew away without another word.

Chapter Text

Grian soared over the shopping district on tattered wings. He had tried patching them a few times since they started looking ragged a few days ago, but none of the patches seemed to work. Grian found he didn't really mind, though. They were working just fine for now, and if he fell mid-flight he knew he'd be able to catch himself.

He needed to check his shop, but the glint of diamonds and magic distracted him. The town hall. The throne.

He veered toward it, dove in for a landing just inside the entrance. The path toward the diamond throne seemed to hum with power.

The moment Grian landed on the blue and white tile, his elytra broke. But it wasn't the wings that failed. The leather straps of the harness snapped and fell away, yet the wings remained at Grian's shoulders. Grian barely paid them any mind, his eyes focused on the throne.

He strode forward into the grand hall, magic crackling at every step. A zombie piglin sat calmly upon the throne, uncaring for the wealth and power surrounding it. Grian climbed up onto the throne as well and shoved at the piglin, nudging it until it grunted in annoyance and stepped down. It stood nearby, watching Grian as though to make sure he didn’t steal anything.

Grian sat on the throne and smiled. This was his rightful place, he thought. The whole position was his idea, it would only be right.

Except he also knew very well that this had all started as a joke. He had simply decided it would be funny to set Mumbo up in a position where no one knew exactly what he was meant to be doing, including Mumbo himself. Grian honestly hadn’t expected it to turn into a full-blown election.

Showing off Mumbo as a figurehead wasn’t a bad idea, Grian reasoned. After all, the only person with more power than a ruler was his adviser. And Grian had invented the position of mayor here; regardless of where he stood, he could control what that position meant. 

He really did enjoy sitting on this throne himself though.

Unfortunately, now that there was an official campaign, Mumbo wasn’t a very popular candidate. Grian’s chance of even getting close to the diamond throne once the votes were cast was slim. 

He ran his hand over the carpeted cushion on the throne’s seat. Something could be hidden under it. Something, perhaps, that would convince the winning candidate to trust Grian, to let him have a say. That could work…

Grian’s eyes fell on the polling station in front of the town hall, and he huffed in annoyance when he was reminded of one of the leading candidates. Scar. He might have been able to get away with his dastardly plan if False or Stress were to win, but if he accidentally triggered the trap on Scar, the entire plan - and more, he was sure - would go up in blue-colored smoke.

Motion out of the corner of Grian’s eye caught his attention. He turned to see the faint outlines of white letters on the other side of the wall. Someone was wandering around the outside of the town hall, and Grian was sitting somewhere he shouldn’t be (yet). Grian hastily flew straight up off the throne, exiting the town hall through the upper balcony.

In his rush, he almost forgot to do what he had come to the shopping district to do in the first place. Grian dropped down into his shop and started methodically going through barrels and boxes for diamonds. The repetitive motion and familiar surroundings calmed him a bit. He twisted his head to inspect his wings, now a part of him and not just sticks and cloth fastened to a harness. They barely looked functional, but they were just for maneuvering, really - it was Vex magic that carried him as he lifted off once again, headed for home to plan his next move.

Chapter Text

Jevin woke up feeling like he was lying on sticks. They shifted with him as he tried to get comfortable. He rolled onto his side, confused. Did I accidentally go to bed with my elytra on? But no, his elytra was on an armor stand with the rest of his armor.

He sat up. He could still feel the slight weight behind him. It was like something had gotten stuck in his back.

Two somethings.

Jevin found a mirror and twisted, trying to see. At the thought of wanting to see them better, the objects flicked up and out.

Wings. Or, rather, branching shards that he could only assume were Vex wings. He moved them up and down experimentally. The weirdest part, Jevin realized, wasn’t the wings themselves. He was already getting used to the mental action needed to move them around. The weirdest part was that they were solid . It was an unfamiliar and not particularly comfortable sensation, having a part of himself that was hard and unyielding to the touch.

Jevin started to pull out his communicator, then thought better of it. Cub?

Jev? came the reply. Cub sounded tired. He had probably just woken up as well. What’s up?

I need some advice. Can you come to my place?

A pause. Sure thing. I think I can guess what you need to talk about.

-----

Jevin felt Cub’s presence before he saw him, walking out of the Nether portal. When Cub stepped forward, Jevin saw the reason Cub already knew why Jevin had called him. “You too, huh?” Jevin said.

Cub gave Jevin a casual half-smile and flicked open his own wings. “Yup. It’s been a while. All that flight training we were doing the other day must have manifested them.”

“Are they, like... crystallized magic or something?” Jevin wondered. “I’d never gotten close enough to a regular Vex to notice.”

“The little ones are ven,” Cub replied absent-mindedly. “And essentially, yes. Your wings become part of your soul. They are made of magic, but you can shape them in a lot of ways. For instance-” Cub’s eyes glowed. His wings shimmered and stretched, until they looked like an elytra on his back. “A lot of the hermits don’t know I’m using my Vex magic again, and they don’t know you’re Vex at all, so it’s nice to disguise our wings.”

Jevin smiled. “Thanks for the tip. Is it visual or did you actually change their shape? Because these wings are actually really annoying me.”

“It can be either,” Cub frowned. “They bother you that much?”

“They feel like I fell through a tree and got branches stuck in me,” Jevin complained. “I’m not used to having... anything solid attached to me. I don’t exactly have bones.” 

Cub chuckled at that. “Try changing them then. See what works for you.”

Jevin closed his eyes and focused both his magic and his body. Slime pushed outward, inching along the crystalline structures. When the wings were completely covered, they dissolved into arcs of magic, which then retreated, leaving behind wing-like shapes made of the same slime as the rest of him. Jevin laid his wings flat against his back and sighed. “Much better.”

Over the next few minutes, Jevin experimented with his new wings. He had no more trouble keeping their shape than he would have keeping the shape of his arm or leg - the wings felt like a natural part of his body now. He tried making them look like elytra, but couldn’t get them to look or feel quite right. So instead he played with changing their color to white, or leaching the color out of them completely, and flattening them against his sweater. It seemed strange, wearing an elytra over them, but it was a better option than letting the whole server know that Jevin had grown his own wings.

Chapter Text

Grian stood on a platform about halfway up Vex Tower, admiring the slime head on the shelf across from him. He had stolen it from Jevin’s base after they had built a prank on him. Hypno had tried to convince Grian that they should find a different trophy, but Grian argued that if Jevin really wanted a slime head, Xisuma had about a million of them. Grian would often steal small, unimportant bits from his friends, replacing them when he remembered and had extra to spare. He didn’t see why this was any different.

Hypno entered the tower and flew up to meet Grian. It had been a few days since that prank, and since then Hypno had also earned his wings, his elytra breaking and transforming when he last landed on the clubhouse floor. “Hey G.”

Grian smiled at him. “Hello! How are you today, my good sir?”

“Just dandy,” Hypno replied. “A little birdy told me we’re here to deal with an imbalance of wealth among the hermits.”

“And more importantly,” Grian added, “an imbalance that is not in our favor.”

“Absolutely.” Hypno nodded. “So we have our target?”

Grian’s smile turned into a smirk. “A certain CEO with an office tiled in diamonds.”

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Hypno said. “Everyone else is in the Nether today. It’s the perfect time.”

-----

The ConVex soared over roads and swooped under cranes toward their destination. A window high up the side of a skyscraper revealed a room built for pure decadence. Not bothering with the intended entry, Grian and Hypno simply dove through the glass, landing neatly in front of the desk.

“Look at this place,” Hypno laughed. “Diamond floor, beacon lighting, and of course he’s got the piano to top it all off.”

“It needs to be... redistributed a bit, don’t you think?” Grian agreed, already pulling out a shulker box and setting it on the desk. “I have just the thing to replace it. It’s even the same color!” He ripped out one of the diamond blocks and replaced it with prismarine bricks. “...Well.” Grian gave Hypno a mischievous grin. “Nearly the same.”

With the help of their magic, the two had replaced every diamond block in the room with prismarine bricks. Even the blocks under the grand piano were easily taken care of. The beacon lamps were swapped for sea lanterns. As a final touch, Grian waved his hand, conjuring a banner with a Vex face on it out of thin air. “Now...” he said with exaggerated flair, “where should this go?”

-----

“We can’t actually just steal his diamonds,” Hypno had pointed out. Grian had made a show of groaning about it, but agreed. So now the two of them were carrying a box of diamond blocks and beacons out to the end of the pier - after leaving a sign cluing Keralis in on the fate of his floor, of course.

“ Dear Keralis,

Your blatant display of wealth has been noticed, and slated for redistribution to the common workers. All valuables have been transferred to a shipping container, slated to leave on the next ship out of port, and replaced with more humble materials. Thank you for your cooperation. ”

The ConVex landed on the container ship. Most of the containers had Swedish lettering on the sides, so Grian pointed at one at random. They entered the crate and emptied their shulker box. All the diamonds - and both beacons - were placed in a pile and looked quite at home in the shipping container when they were done. On the outside, they found a point that was visible, but not obvious, a few blocks down a narrow path between crates. Hypno summoned the banner this time, and put it on the crate as a marker. Hey, no one could say the ConVex didn’t try to help Keralis find his diamonds again.

Chapter Text

Jevin couldn’t help but stop and stare for a moment at the sheer size of Grian’s mansion. That man is insane , he found himself thinking. Of course, Jevin’s base wasn’t exactly small, but the level of detail and apparent completion on Grian’s mansion was incredible. This was going to be a challenge.

He might need more string.

Jevin had practically cleared out the reserves at his mob farm for this, leaving only just enough string in the chests to put a bit in his shop later. He had brought shulker boxes upon shulker boxes full of string, but now he wasn’t sure that would be enough for what he wanted to do.

The best place to start, he reasoned, would be the area Grian spent the most time in. He set down his boxes in the grand entrance hall, and got to work.

He spent most of the day meticulously hanging string across every square meter of Grian’s storage room. The net he wove stretched five blocks high, and would certainly be a hindrance to anything Grian tried to do until it was cleared. Next, Jevin flew through the ceiling of the grand room, into the unfinished upper level, and continued stringing. He focused on areas that would need to be cleared in order for Grian to continue building here - the floor of the space and the wide hole in the back wall got covered the most heavily. 

Jevin was just checking his supply to see if he had enough for another layer when he felt someone enter the room below. Out of habit, he looked toward the feeling to see who it was. To his surprise, he could see who it was: five white letters floated in his vision, bobbing with the person they were attached to. Grian was home.

A moment later, Grian stopped moving. Jevin crouched near the upper level entrance.

Grian stepped closer, then flew up toward him. Jevin frantically lifted off and shot away, disappearing through the roof just as Grian appeared through the floor.

-----

Grian buzzed low toward his mansion. He briefly wondered why there seemed to be more shulker boxes around, but decided they were probably just part of a chest monster he had forgotten.

The next moment, he was flailing at the strings entangling his arms, wings, and face.

“What the-” he sputtered, before quickly turning intangible to escape. “Who put these here??”

Grian floated around, frowning, turning tangible in moments to pull down string after string. “This is going to take so long to clear...” Then he realized that he could feel the presence of another Vex mage. He looked up toward them. He couldn’t see a name through the ceiling, but he could guess who it was. Grian sped upward, hoping to surprise them, but by the time he reached his upper level, they were gone. He saw only a brief glimpse of a name before it was out of range, and nodded, unsurprised. Jevin. Retaliation for our prank on him, I’ll bet.

Grian looked around, noticed more string here, and sighed. Experimentally, he sent out a burst of magic. The strings directly through and around him all snapped, but the ends still clung to the walls, and only a few blocks away more strings still stretched undisturbed.

This was going to take a while.

Chapter Text

The results of the election were about what Grian had expected, but not what he had hoped. Mumbo got a total of one vote - from Grian. He hadn’t even voted for himself. And the landslide victory had gone to the one person that Grian couldn’t use his newfound magic to manipulate. Something else might have to be done.

As the audience who had gathered to hear the results started to disperse, Grian called one of them over. Hypno, hang out here for just a bit? There’s some things I want to do here...

By that afternoon, there was a lot more life in the shopping district than there had been before. Most of the shops that had simply looked like living things before were now moving, looking around, watching. The Zoucher shop, Jevin’s mob drop shop, and all three faces on Mount Scar wore grinning Vex masks. The giant plants in Scar’s landscape shop waved impatiently, the chest monster snapped at anybody flying by, and Jrumbot milled around, seemingly looking for something.

-----

Beef trotted casually out of the portal to check his own shops. His llama shop turned its head to watch him, but otherwise nothing seemed amiss. After picking up his profits at the Bone Zone, he stepped out onto the path by the quartz shop.

A sudden rumbling, snapping sound nearly scared Beef out of his skin. Something caught his leg, then disappeared. Beef whipped around. What was that??

It happened again, and this time he saw it. The giant Totem of Undying was raising its hands like the Evokers it was modeled after, and the fang attack ripped toward Beef once more. This time he dodged, and wisely decided to go the other way.

-----

Wels skirted the edge of the shopping district, headed for the terracotta shop. As soon as he had hopped the lily pads and landed inside the skull, it snapped shut with a boom . It startled Wels, but the skull was so big that the upper half still didn’t even touch him.

“Is this supposed to be some kind of trap?” Wels wondered aloud. If it was, it wasn’t even doing that very well - Wels finished buying his terracotta, then opened his elytra and boosted away through one of the eye sockets.

-----

Iskall exited the portal and immediately noticed the guardian shop looking at him. Nervously, he skirted around the still-standing polling station, keen to stay out of the guardian’s line of sight.

“HELLO.”

Iskall jumped and looked around. The robot that had housed miscellaneous mayoral merchandise was now standing up, and staring at him.

“...Hello? Are you the one who just spoke to me?”

“YOU WEAR A PINK HEART.”

Iskall looked down at himself. He was still wearing the campaign shirt for Stress. “I guess I do, yeah."

The robot’s eyes narrowed in anger. “THE PINK HEART KILLED MY BROTHER.”

Iskall frowned, confused. “Your... brother? Wait, do you mean Grumbot-” He cut himself off with a yelp as the robot swung at him, knocking him off his feet. It stepped toward him. Iskall scrambled backward, then flipped over and frantically launched himself in the direction of home.

Jrumbot followed Iskall’s movement, then began stomping after him.

-----

Jevin trotted down the path, keeping a wary eye on all the things now moving around in the shopping district - until he was distracted by his own shop, which wore a Vex mask that watched him as he came closer.

Jevin sighed. “Good grief.” He decided he’d deal with that later, and dropped down the ladder to check his stock.

His feet touched the floor. The walls rushed in.

SPLAP

Jevin tried to groan. But making sound while trapped between blocks, practically two-dimensional, was impossible. That hurt.

The trap would have been death for any of the other hermits, but for Jevin it was even more of an inconvenience: he was stuck. And although he didn’t have any bones to break or organs to crush, being forced into a new shape like this was painful. He was too flat to even try to struggle free, so he just waited for a minute, hoping the trap would reset and drop him.

Wait, what am I thinking? I can get out of this right now. Jevin turned himself intangible and flew up to ground level. He noted the walls returning to their positions as he left. His body could usually bounce part of the way back from such an extreme squish pretty quickly, and by the time he reached surface level, he was back to a rough semblance of a humanoid shape, but he would take time to return to normal, so he flopped onto one of the bones he’d built to rest and re-form.

-----

GoodTimeWithScar was fireballed by S̟͉̮̫̰͈̍̓͛̐̽̄͝c̵̗̺̹̻͕̟̺̐̿̌̽̽͜͡á̛̙̗̩̯̯̉͗͘͜͜ŗ̴̺͚̮̞͉̩̮͍̲̊́͛̓͠a̵̡̛̮͉̠̲͈͚̱̦̫͆͛͒̐͛̋͑̿͝ J̸̧̘͕͉̣̗̦̜̐͑̓̆̊̑r̢̘̞̥͂̊̈́͗̒͊͢.̢̜̹̭̙̆͊̊͆͞͠

<Grian> RIP

<GoodTimeWithScar> What in the world??

<GoodTimeWithScar> Could someone get my sutff? I was just restocking my shop

<cubfan135> On it

<GoodTimeWithScar> Be careful! I think my plants are out to get me!

Cub swooped down toward Scar’s greenhouse. The three giant plants bursting from the top swung around, tracking his movements. He landed and quickly threw up a shield of magic just as a fireball from the biggest plant burst against it.

Cub shook his head as he gathered Scar’s dropped items. The two of them had animated builds before - he fondly remembered the giant Vex construct that had targeted Ren’s base under their command - and he didn’t want to spoil the prank just yet, assuming Grian actually let it reverse at some point, so he left the plants to their business. But not before taking a risky dive into the big one’s mouth and pulling out the dispenser in its throat, and enduring a barely-resisted fireball to the chest for his effort. The plants could wave and snap all they wanted, but the hermits shouldn’t have to risk their lives just to buy some dirt and leaves.

-----

As the ConVex flew away, their mission in the shopping district complete, they flew over one more creation. One that had been living, once, thanks to the magic of redstone, but now floated lifelessly, smoking around the edges, in the middle of the sea.

Grian paused over it. He could bring it back to life, here, right now. And he almost did. But the robot deserved to see both its dads there when it woke up.

I’ll come back for you, Grumbot, Grian told himself silently. I promise.

Chapter Text

Grumbot happily watched the world around him. His dads had brought him back online, and he had helped Mumbo become the mayor! Although Mumbo had been the one to build Grumbot’s circuitry initially, Grian seemed to be the one to bring Grumbot back from his glitched crisis. When Grumbot had awoken, he had noticed that Grian looked very proud, and Mumbo very surprised, to see him alive. But Grumbot didn’t question this. Questions were what had caused him pain before.

There were things he couldn’t help but question, though. On their last visit, his dads looked nervous. They whispered around him. Grumbot could hear it, though he was originally designed to only accept written words. He couldn’t understand what they said, and they didn’t input their conversation to him. Then they left behind him, instead of just flying away. There was also an explosion, which Grumbot could not understand, so he ignored that.

On top of that, something looked wrong. He couldn’t quite tell what. He experimentally reached a hand out - a new ability that Grian had granted him - and... touched something? Grumbot was supposed to be out in the open air, with the only solid object around being the platform in front of him.

Grumbot turned his head. More new mobility. More movement revealed that there were walls around him! Why had he been boxed in? Who would have done such a thing?

With a display of force he hadn’t thought to be capable of, Grumbot swung his arms, knocking down the walls and flinging away the roof. Outside, everything looked the same, which only confused Grumbot more. He picked himself up, walking on his hands, and headed to the shopping district. One of his dads would be there, attending to mayoral duties. They would explain.

-----

Bdubs trotted along one of the paths, about to check in on Scar and head home through the Nether, when something huge and grey slammed down in front of him.

“What in the world is this now??” He scrambled back and looked up. A giant robot looked back at him. “Wait... you’re Grumbot, aren’t you? What are you doing here?”

“LOOKING FOR DADS.”

“I don’t think either of them are here right now,” Bdubs replied. “They both live in the southwest jungle. I was just here helping with some mayoral stuff for Scar.”

Grumbot’s head snapped around to follow Bdubs faster than Bdubs thought possible. “YOU ARE LYING.”

“What? Wh-why would I be lying?” Bdubs answered with a nervous laugh, continuing to walk, casually trying to put distance between himself and Grumbot. “You haven’t been keeping up on the news?”

“DADS TOLD GRUMBOT MUMBO IS MAYOR. GRUMBOT TRUSTS DADS. YOU ARE LYING.”

Bdubs’ voice lowered in sympathy. “Ohhh. I hate to break it to ya, buddy, but- AAGH!” The rest was cut off by a giant hand dropping onto him from the sky.

BdoubleO100 was slain by G̸̩̠͖̳̤̪͒̏̈͊̕͞r̶͚̲̳͖̞̃͂͒͡͝͡u̴͇̩̤̳̪̓͗́̋̂̈͘m͇͍̱̫̫̘͕̦̳̌̔͗͋̐b͓̹͎̪̓͒͋̑͘͠͞ͅo̡͙̦̳̠͌͆̉̅̚͡ţ̷̛͈̳̺͈̳̺̃̒̆̅̓̂̓̕͜

<falsesymmetry> What is even happening

<Grian> uh

<iskall85> Grian...

<Grian> yeah I noticed

<MumboJumbo> Oh

<MumboJumbo> Oh dear

<Grian> that wasn’t supposed to happen

<iskall85> Both of your robots are on murder sprees!

<BdoubleO100> I’m fine, if anyone was wondering

<iskall85> Grian, I think you should go get Bdubs’s stuff

<BdoubleO100> Grumbot freaking squished me!

<BdoubleO100> For telling him the truth!

<BdoubleO100> Oh no he’s gonna go after Scar

-----

Scar curiously walked back and forth along the front section of the town hall floor, feeling familiar magic crackle gently under his feet. It hadn’t been this way when the town hall was built; Scar would know if it had. So when had the blue and white tiles turned to Vex magic?

A series of booms outside made him jump. Then the sunlight coming through the doorway was abruptly cut off. Slowly, Scar turned around. The entrance was blocked by a giant, robotic face, one glowing eye framed by the doorway. Scar could feel the same magic emanating from the robot. The eye searched, then focused on him.

“C-can I help you?” Scar stammered, trying to sound professional.

“ARE YOU THE MAYOR?”

“Um, yes! And I’m here to, uh, provide my service for, um, whatever you need...”

“YOU ARE NOT MUMBO.” The eye grew angry.

Scar was searching for a reply to this when the face disappeared from the doorway. In the next moment, an equally huge hand reached for him. Scar yelped and, by instinct, threw himself backward through the throne to huddle on the other side. The hand scraped at the throne, then vanished, replaced again by the angry eye. Scar pulled out his communicator, not even reading the messages that had been buzzing over the last few minutes before typing one of his own.

<GoodTimeWithScar> hep

<GoodTimeWithScar> help

<GoodTimeWithScar> I’m in town hall with a big robot blocking the door

-----

Cub was already on his way after Bdubs’ death. He stepped through the portal just as Scar’s messages buzzed in, and practically ran into Grumbot’s control panel. Just to see what would happen, Cub pressed the “Flood Mayoral Reservoirs” button.

Grumbot twitched and briefly stopped his pursuit of Scar, backing up to see who had messed with his buttons. He raised his hand to swipe at Cub.

Then Jevin punched him in the face.

Jevin had had the same idea as Cub, and entered the portal only moments after him. Like Cub, Jevin responded to Grumbot’s presence with the first reaction he thought of. When he punched Grumbot, he felt a slight shock of magic in return, and shook his hand out in annoyance. Beyond that, it didn’t seem to affect Grumbot, who turned and tried to focus on the person bobbing in front of him. Cub took this opportunity to dodge around Grumbot and enter the town hall to check on Scar.

After a few minutes of Jevin dodging and weaving around Grumbot’s waving arms, Grian finally showed up. Immediately, Grumbot’s full attention was on him.

Grian gave a sheepish wave. “Hi, Grumbot.”

“YOU LIED TO GRUMBOT.”

“I... guess we did, didn’t we? I’m sorr-”

“ DADS LIED TO GRUMBOT. ”

“We wanted you to be happy!” Grian protested. “You’d been through a lot for us and-”

“GET GRIAN.”

Grumbot snatched Grian from the ground before Grian could react. Grian yelped and squirmed in the huge grip. He tried phasing through the robot’s hand, but found that he couldn’t escape even then. Grumbot’s grip tightened.

“Grumbot, please,” Grian squeaked.

“Shut it down, Grian!” Cub shouted from the town hall. “It’s not listening to you anymore!”

“I... can’t just... kill... Gr-” Grian struggled for breath.

“He was already dead!” Cub cried, dodging a swipe from Grumbot’s other arm. “He shouldn’t have been able to be un-fried! This isn’t what Vex magic is for, Grian. It’s supposed to be for having fun, not trying to fix everything that doesn’t go your way.”

Grian’s vision was blurring. He thought he heard a rib crack as Grumbot squeezed ever tighter. “I’m... sorry...” he gasped. His eyes flashed. 

Grumbot’s eyes dimmed. Grian fell through Grumbot’s hand, catching himself a few blocks above the ground, gasping for air with one hand on his chest.

Cub and Scar jumped down to him as he landed. “Dude, are you okay?” Scar asked, with nervous glances toward the now-inert Grumbot.

“I will be,” Grian wheezed. “Sorry, Scar. Oh!” He half trotted, half stumbled down the path, throwing dropped items haphazardly into a shulker box. “Bdubs’s stuff. Gotta apologize to him too.”

Something in the back of Grian’s mind questioned his response. Why was he apologizing for Grumbot’s actions? And didn’t they... just a little bit... deserve it? Grian shook his head. Of course they didn’t. Grumbot was his fault. Besides, cleaning up his mess meant putting off the lecture he’d probably be getting from Iskall.

Chapter Text

Xisuma had been building a base that matched his bee-themed armor. Or maybe he designed his armor based on his plans. Whichever way it happened, he had upgraded his armor now, to be more heat-resistant and emulate the creatures of the Nether. Now he and his base no longer matched.

The ConVex were here to fix that.

Ooh, I found his concrete maker, Grian announced.

Don’t mess with it, Hypno warned. I heard he had it designed custom. We don’t know how to use it.

I won’t, I won’t. Grian rolled his eyes and dug through the collection chests below, pulling out all the red concrete he could find.

Well, I found his honey storage, so that’s where we’ll put it all when we’re done.

They started with one of the pipes, pouring honey out of the side of a building. Hypno started to break and replace blocks, but Grian stopped him. “Watch this.” He held a stack of shroomlights in one hand. With a totally unnecessary flourish, he touched his other hand to the honey. In the next moment, the entire irregular shape had been replaced by shroomlights, and Grian held the honey in their place. He grinned at Hypno, the mask grinning with him. “If you actually used your magic more maybe you’d pick up some building tricks too!”

Hypno just shrugged, dodging the question. The two split up and got to work, replacing stripes of honey and yellow concrete with lava (“He’s a strider now, it’ll make him feel at home!”), or shroomlights when flowing lava would mess up a shape. Honeycomb was replaced with magma blocks, and Grian even put a few red concrete accents in places. They chatted as they worked, though Grian found himself doing most of the talking as they discussed their magic.

Have you ever used Admin magic, Hypno? Grian asked at one point. I used to all the time, before I came here.

Not much, Hypno admitted, half hoping that would end the conversation. I’ve messed around with all sorts of tech that comes pretty close, though.

Some of these Vex abilities are a lot like Admin powers, Grian explained. I wonder what it would be like if someone could have both at the same time…

Hypno wasn’t sure what he thought about the tone of Grian’s “voice”. But another part of his mind, worming its way forward, reassured him. It was just a rhetorical statement. Of course it was. And of course he would “sound” mischievous, a little devious - the two of them were ConVex, doing Vex work. Mischief was the name of the game. Or was that... chaos?

-----

“You’ve got a visitor,” Hypno observed as the two landed back in their tower.

“Oh, so I do,” Grian answered. He pulled his mask off and placed it in its usual spot on a low shelf. “I’d better go say hi.”

Hypno nodded, waved, and departed with his mask still on his face. Grian didn’t know why Hypno didn’t leave his mask here with the others, but he supposed Hypno had a reason.

Grian dropped through the ceiling. He didn’t bother entering his main hall the normal way, pretending nothing was different. Most of the hermits knew about his magic at this point, and his visitor was a Vex mage like him, who would almost certainly have felt Grian’s presence above, just as Grian had felt his visitor’s presence below.

And yet, Grian still managed to sneak up on him.

“Hey Scar,” Grian greeted cheerily. “Whatcha doing here?”

Scar jumped and turned toward him. “Oh! Grian! I was just coming over to talk with you. It’s... pretty important.”

Grian raised an eyebrow. “I said I was sorry about Grumbot.

“It’s not about Grumbot,” Scar clarified. “Well, it kinda is... but...” Scar sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Why was he so bad at this? “Look, what I’m trying to say is, what you’re doing with Vex magic... it’s getting a little out of hand.”

“Spoilsport,” Grian pouted. “You’re only saying that because you almost got killed twice.”

“Vex mages aren’t supposed to kill anyone !” Scar protested. That wasn’t strictly true, especially since the Vex and ven their magic came from would attack players without a second thought. But players didn’t do that. Tricks and traps weren’t meant to kill, unless everyone involved accepted the risk. And it had to be possible to disarm them.

“You can’t tell me that you and Cub never did a single dangerous prank,” Grian scoffed.

“We didn’t!” Scar replied. “...Well, we did once. But it involved a single elder guardian in Mumbo’s base, not rampaging robots across public areas. Magicked builds are really hard to get rid of when they’re active. Iskall still hasn’t managed to take care of Jrumbot. Mumbo disarmed our prank on him in like an hour.”

Grian laughed. “I find that a little hard to believe.”

“You could ask him if you want, I’m sure he’d tell you all about it,” Scar told him. “But that’s not the point.”

“What is your point, then?” Grian asked. 

“My point is, uh...” Scar paused. He hadn’t actually planned ahead this far. Most of the points he was going to argue fell flat for the same reason as the first point - he and Cub had kind of done it all.

But, in doing all the things they had done as the ConVex, they’d learned a few things. “My point is, be careful,” Scar finished. “The Vex push you. They always want you to do more, go in this direction or that one, and sometimes that’s fine, but you gotta think about some of these things and see when it’s going too far. Or when you’re using their magic for the wrong reasons.”

“I think it’s going fine so far,” Grian decided. “But thanks for the warning.”

Chapter Text

When did I put that on? How long was I wearing it?

He kept promising himself he would never touch that Vex mask again. Yet somehow, he kept finding himself somewhere he didn’t think he was going, pulling the mask off of his face and burying it in a chest. He never remembered putting the mask on, or anything that he did after that, and that terrified him.

He looked around, trying to orient himself. He was on top of the first floor of his base, the place he usually landed whenever he flew in.

Oh yeah. The wings.

One day, he had come out of one of these Vex-dazes, as he had started calling them, with a pair of crystallized spikes attached to his back, and the elytra he had been using nowhere to be found. These “wings” didn’t seem safe for flying on, but they were sharp and stuck out in a way that he couldn’t put an elytra on over them. Reluctantly, he had learned to use his magic outside of the Vex-dazes, just so he could still fly.  Hypno never used the magic for anything else, afraid that it would drag him further away from himself, but he couldn’t bring himself to give up flying.

The sun was going down. Last he remembered, it had been around noon. He had been about to step out of his house to work on his new Nether farms; now he had to duck back inside. Between finding moments of clarity to work on his projects, and the unpleasant, whispering dreams, Hypno hadn’t been getting a lot of sleep, and having just come out of a daze he was in no shape to deal with phantoms right now. He glanced back at the mask, then left it lying on the ground. Maybe it would vanish in a few hours, like any other item left lying around for too long.

Somehow, he doubted it.

He lay in bed, trying to either shake off or sleep off the fog around his brain. He could sometimes remember bits and pieces of what he and Grian did, but even those memories faded quickly. And he knew that not everything they did was as harmless as those fragments of memory tried to convince him. Hypno was no fool. He had seen the shopping district while their spell was active. He noticed that his own trident shop was conspicuously unmoving, so he must have helped enchant everything else. He’d seen the messages in chat about Iskall being hunted by one of Grian’s robots, and seen the carnage of the other robot. Hypno was pretty sure he wasn’t responsible for those two, but he still wasn’t thrilled about the association.

Hypno rolled onto his back, noticed a faint blue glow projected on the ceiling, and shut his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see it. Then he sighed and rolled back onto his side to keep his wings from digging into his back. He had briefly considered trying to cut the wings off, or otherwise remove them, but something told him he shouldn’t. Told him very, very strongly. It already felt like the wings were a natural part of him, and cutting them off would be like cutting off his own arm - and yet somehow even worse. 

I’m sure it’s fine.

The whisper felt like his own, but he also knew that he wouldn’t logically think that. That had also been happening more and more - the Vex were apparently trying to think for him.

And, at times, it was working. They were reassuring sometimes, and even though deep down Hypno knew something was wrong, he couldn’t bring himself to get too upset about it. After all, the Vex didn’t seem to mean any harm in what they were doing.

Of course, not intending to hurt anyone didn’t mean that people wouldn’t get hurt.

I’m sure it’s fine.

Chapter Text

<TangoTek> --> <Zedaph> Get your butt over here dude I need to show you something

<Zedaph> --> <TangoTek> Good something or bad something?

<TangoTek> --> <Zedaph> Yes

<TangoTek> --> <Zedaph> It involves both of us

<Zedaph> --> <TangoTek> I’m flying through your window right... now.

A moment after Zedaph sent that message, he veered through the main window of the blue tower, aiming directly for Tango, who, as expected, was standing in the middle of his storage room reading chat. Tango looked up a moment too late.

“Aagh!” Tango yelled as the two went crashing to the floor, laughing. “Get offa me, guy!”

Zedaph rolled over, got to his feet, and held out his hand to help Tango up. Tango accepted it, making Zedaph stumble slightly.

“Tango,” Zed said casually, “Did you know one of your towers has a missile’s rear end sticking out of it?”

Tango widened his eyes in mock surprise. “No!! Really???” He poked Zedaph in the shoulder. “That’s what I called you over about, dude. Did you know that missile was fired from your buoy?”

Zedaph’s look of surprise was genuine. “What? No way.”

“Yes way!” Tango exclaimed. “Go check it out, dude, there’s a cannon on your buoy and it’s pointing right at us.”

Zedaph rocketed out of the tower again, heading for the ocean. After a few minutes, he shot back in. This time, Tango dodged him. “Dude! There’s a cannon on my buoy! How did that get there?”

“I was hoping you could tell me!” Tango replied. “It’s your buoy.”

“Wha- do you think I did this?” Zedaph sputtered with mock indignance. “I would never! ...Well, I might. But I didn’t!”

Tango pondered this for a moment. “You’re right, it can’t have been you. The build looks too good.”

Zedaph laughed. “Right, yeah, that too. Shall we go down and take a closer look, figure out who the real culprit is?”

With that, the two took a quick glide to Tango’s red tower, and the exaggeratedly blown-out hole in it. Zedaph stumbled to a landing on the blobby missile itself. Tango tried to land on the blue and white glazed-terracotta “fire” at the back, but as soon as he touched down, his brain filled with static. The faint glow behind his eyes flickered, he lost control of his limbs, and his momentum carried him right off the other side. As soon as he fell, his mind cleared. He caught himself on his elytra, and glided down to the ground. Tango put his hands on his hips and glared up at Zedaph, who almost fell off from laughter.

“Stop laughing at me!” Tango yelled up at him. “I didn’t expect a random prank to fry my circuits like that!”

Zedaph swallowed his laughter and frowned, looking down at his friend. “Did it really? I didn’t think there was much of anything that could mess you up just by touching it. Are, uh, are you okay?”

“Yeah, it must have been only while I was touching the fire stuff out the back or whatever that is. I think I’m good now.”

“What is it supposed to be, anyway?” Zedaph wondered, crawling toward it. “I mean who makes fire and explodey bits and stuff out of terracotta?” He poked it cautiously, then snatched his hand back. “It zapped me!”

“So it does have some sort of weird power to it,” Tango said. “And whatever it is doesn’t like my redstone very much.”

“I just realized this thing hit your tower guy right in his eye!” Zedaph called down. “That’s gotta hurt. And they used my buoy to fire this! How dare they!”

“Hey, as long as you’re here, do you, uh, wanna help me clean this up?” Tango asked.

Zedaph rolled his eyes. “So that’s why you called me to look at this! It was all a scam!” He chuckled, amicably pulling out his pickaxe and getting to work on taking down the magical “fire”. Tango started by gathering up the red and white blocks that had been scattered on the ground as if they’d been blown out when the tower was hit.

As they worked, they chatted about the prankster behind it. “You know what, Tango?” Zedaph realized. “I think you’ve been Vexed, man.”

“Ohh, dude, I’ll bet you’re right!” Tango replied. “We knew that the ConButts were back in town. Except this time instead of Cub and Scar it’s Grian and... uh... actually it might just be Grian?”

“It feels wrong, somehow, to talk about the ConVex and have it just be one person, I dunno,” Zedaph observed. “Even though Grian is the only one we know about.”

“Yeah, but I think that’s just because we’re used to it being two people?” Tango pointed out. “We have no idea what’s possible with the crazy magic they have, it could totally be just one person doing all this. Especially when that one person is Grian.”

“What if there was a second person, but they were keeping it a secret?” Zedaph speculated. “Or the topic just never came up and they’re good at hiding it? We’ve never actually seen the pranks while they’re in the process of being made.”

“Wouldn’t they be kind of hard to miss?” Tango said. “Grian’s got the, uh-” He gestured behind his shoulders - “the weird wing things sticking out of him now.”

“It’d have to be someone who isn’t as social, then, because then not as many people would see them with the wings out,” Zedaph decided. He gasped and snapped his fingers. “Unless they can disguise their wings! Then it could be anyone! It could be you, even! Wait, no-”

“Whose base are we cleaning up, exactly?” Tango laughed. “Besides, you saw me up there, I wouldn’t be able to handle the magic and stuff without going completely haywire.”

“Yeah, and I guess that rules out a couple other people, too,” Zedaph agreed. “Hmm.”

The two friends fell silent as they finished taking the cannon down from Zedaph’s buoy. Tango thanked Zedaph for the help, and Zedaph flew home, suddenly preoccupied by theories about the mysterious second ConVex, and whether he could investigate who it might be.

Chapter Text

Jevin flew low over the water, admiring the modest island chain as he approached. Hypno had sent him a private message asking to come over, and as Jevin landed on the sand, he fully expected a sign to pop up in front of him saying “You Smell”. Or maybe Hypno had called Jevin over so that he’d be away from his base while Hypno snuck in and planted signs there. Jevin chuckled at the idea, then paused. He could sense another Vex mage in the area.

Maybe Hypno had called him over for something more serious.

-----

Hypno paced in his bedroom, going over what he wanted to say, when he felt a presence coming near. He concentrated on it for a moment, and realized that the... energy... felt like the same energy that flowed within himself. Someone else with Vex magic? The Vex themselves?

His heart started beating faster and his mind raced. A Vex coming to him when he was lucid couldn’t be good. Were they angry that he was going to tell someone about them? What would they do to him? They could force him under their complete control. If they really wanted to they could probably destroy his mind completely. Hypno automatically started looking for a place to hide. They can fly through walls. I can’t hide-

“Hypno?” A blessedly familiar voice called from his doorway.

Jevin was here. Hypno forced his breathing to steady, tucked his wings uncomfortably tight against his back so they would hopefully be out of sight, then walked shakily to the entrance.

And stared for a moment, as his frazzled mind caught up to what was in front of him. His friend looked the same as he always had, but... the magic that Hypno had been so scared of was now clearly emanating from Jevin. 

“You’re... one of us,” Hypno said dumbly. “One of them. You’re with the Vex.”

“I’m just as surprised about you, dude,” Jevin replied with a wry smile. “Is that what you wanted to talk about?”

“Yeah, come in, come in.” Hypno gestured and led Jevin into the living room, where a couple of chairs had been set up. Now that the tension had broken much more quickly than expected, Hypno tentatively allowed himself to relax, letting his wings spread to a more comfortable resting position.

“Hey, if you’ve got Vex powers too,” Hypno realized, “why don’t you have the wings like this?”

“Oh, I do,” Jevin replied casually, undoing his elytra harness. “I just learned how to hide them really well.” He tucked the elytra away and spread his own wings, letting his color spread back into them. “I’m not too keen on letting the whole world know right now. I’m actually in a bit of an odd situation.”

“You’re telling me,” Hypno chuckled. “I’m not sure I want to be associated with all the things the Vex have been doing, you know? Even though I technically am involved. I don’t even have any memory of doing whatever they do with me.”

Jevin gave him an odd look. “No memory? At all?”

“Well, not much,” Hypno hedged, growing more concerned. “I mean, I see the pranks later, and I know I was a part of them, but if I try to remember building them or meeting with Grian or even just putting on the Vex mask to do that, it’s just bits and pieces.”

“You should talk to Cub or Scar about that,” Jevin frowned. “Like I said, my situation is a bit different - I don’t know what it’s supposed to be like to be under Vex control, and I’ve only been a Vex mage about as long as you have.”

Hypno fidgeted nervously, and Jevin thought he saw Hypno’s eyes flash blue for a moment before he replied. “I don’t want this to get out to too many people though. You’ll keep this a secret, right?”

“I’m already keeping my own secret,” Jevin pointed out. “Of course I’ll respect yours. I won’t even tell the other Vex mages about you. But you really should talk to them - they’ve been a huge help to me and will be able to help you a lot better than I can.”

“I... I’ll keep that in mind,” Hypno said. His hand drifted to his head as he spoke, as though he had a headache. 

Jevin narrowed his eyes. Hypno was starting to act oddly as the conversation progressed. The eyes, the “headache”, dismissing his suggestion as if it wasn’t Hypno’s idea to seek help in the first place... Jevin suspected that suddenly he wasn’t really talking to Hypno anymore.

“Alright,” Jevin decided, getting up from his seat. “At least let me help you disguise your wings,” he tried, reaching toward the crystalline structures.

Hypno smacked Jevin’s hand away, wide eyes suddenly pale blue, confirming Jevin’s suspicions. Your wings become part of your soul. A Vex mage would have to be incredibly trusting, he imagined, to let anyone touch the mage’s wings. Even though Hypno was a good friend, the Vex in control was not a fan of Jevin’s curiosity.

Jevin rubbed his hand. He had been expecting as much, but it still hurt. He didn’t trust this Vex much either, so he acted as though he had no idea what was really happening. “Alright, if you’re sure,” he smiled. “I’d better get going. Thanks for trusting me with this.”

Hypno’s eyes darkened back to normal. He smiled as well, his hand back on his head. “See you around, Jev. Thanks for listening.”

Jevin tucked his wings down again, put on his elytra, and lifted off toward his base. As soon as he was out of sight of Hypno’s islands, though, he turned and headed south instead. He hated to go back on his word, especially since he was pretty sure Hypno was speaking as himself at the time, but the whole situation felt wrong . The experienced Vex mages needed to know.

Chapter Text

“So Jevin found out that you’re a ConVex.”

“Yep.” They were meeting in their tower clubhouse - Grian had an idea he wanted to share. Hypno continued: “I invited him over, in a moment of weakness, to tell him.”

“So what?” Grian asked. “You’ve asked me to keep your involvement a secret, and I do, but I still don’t understand why it matters so much to you.”

“If anything we do ends up getting out of hand,” Hypno explained, “I don’t want people thinking any of it was my idea. I’m going along with it, but...” He paused, one hand to his forehead as he listened to whispered suggestions. “Anyway, now the others know there are two of us, and we know there are three of them. Jevin won’t join the new ConVex - he’s been swayed by the has-beens. If it comes down to it, he’ll side with them, against us.”

“Well, maybe we need a third too, what do you think?” Grian smirked.

Hypno frowned. “Everyone else refused the Vex’s offer though. And we’ve been wreaking some pretty major havoc. Who would want to join us?”

“Well...” Grian flew up to the top of the tower. When he landed back at the base, he was holding the mask that could have become Jevin’s. “If you’re anyone to judge by, they may not need to accept us right away. I played a trick on a few people in our last world, that I think will be just the thing.” I won’t even do any enchanting this time, he decided. The Vex should be persuasive enough on their own.

-----

Cleo strode purposefully across the lawn toward her next project. Halfway there, she tripped on a string stretched across the path. Before she could react, she felt something drop over her head. Her vision turned slightly blue. “What in-”

The moment Cleo heard whispers from the mask, she yanked it off her head. She turned it around and grimaced when she saw the grinning white face on the front. “Oh, no you don’t,” she scolded it. Cleo searched her inventory for a moment, then turned and marched for her storage area.

The head continued to chatter at her, a multitude of voices mostly saying nothing. One voice called out, “How?”

Cleo scoffed, still poking through chests and shulker boxes with her other hand. “How did I resist your subtle charm? Aha!” She triumphantly pulled out a bucket full of lava. “Not what I was looking for, but it’ll do. Anyway, I’ve been... influenced... by heads like you a couple’a times before. Do you remember the temple your friends desecrated two worlds ago? It might not have been your kind directly, but you directed those poor unfortunate souls into doing it. I'm sure if you did remember - or care - you definitely wouldn’t have tried tampering with me again. I did build that for a reason though, you know. And then there was that whole thing more recently…" She wrinkled her nose at a barrel mostly full of cave spider heads as she passed. "So, y’know. Kinda know what to expect from magic heads by now. Not particularly interested in being a servant to anyone at the moment. Especially not to you.” Cleo dug a small hole in the ground, poured the lava in, and tossed the Vex head in after. Its chatter dissolved into a quiet cacophony of whispers as it burned.

Chapter Text

The ConVex flew through the narrow, netherrack tunnel for longer than either of them had ever flown with a purpose. Before they entered the portal at the other end, they rested. They wouldn’t need too much magic for this trick, but they would need plenty of energy, and when their human stamina started to flag, their magic would have to take over. They also took the time to triple check that they had everything they needed.

“Ready to bring his apocalypse to life?” Grian finally said over the noise of the portal. “Remember, we gotta be quiet as soon as we go through, because he’s probably there.”

“Ready,” Hypno nodded. “Drop down right away if he’s in the room?”

“Yep.” Grian gave a thumbs up, and both dove through.

-----

Grian looked around, a little disoriented at the dark blue and orange room. It had been a while since he was last here, and in that time, the portal had apparently been moved completely.

Looking up, he noticed a floating name moving around, and heard the faint sounds of building. Above us, he warned Hypno. The two dropped silently down to the main level of the structure.

In the near silence, surrounded by concrete, glass, and water, the rattling, rushing sound seemed to come from everywhere at once. After a few moments of confusion, the sound crescendoed, and a jolt of pain shot through Hypno. He stumbled forward, barely biting back a cry. What-?

Grian looked in the direction the attack had come from and was met with a single, glaring red eye. Are you serious? Who keeps guardians in the middle of their base??

Security measure? Hypno winced, rubbing his side.

The guardian started aiming its attack again. The ConVex hurried to one of the side openings and, after a quick check to see the coast was clear, dove away to regroup at ground level.

-----

They touched down in the middle of the built-up village as the sun was dipping behind the tallest cliffs. Hypno immediately followed the sound of villagers. I’ll block off their doors.

Grian rolled his eyes. Dirt blocks? Really? We can do better than that. He dipped through the ground, emerging in xB’s storage room. He turned in a slow circle, searching the chests with his magic, before finding what he was looking for.

Grian returned carrying four acacia wood trapdoors and four acacia signs. He broke Hypno’s barricade and the doors themselves, then replaced the doors with trapdoors. Then he put signs over them to make them look boarded up.

Did you steal those from xB? Hypno scolded.

It’s not stealing, Grian corrected. None of this is leaving his base. Except the doors, he amended, pocketing them. I’m keeping those.

As the moon rose, the two flew some distance away, just to the other side of the mountains. They had a long setup process for this trick, and of course didn’t want xB to notice it early. Grian pulled a quick platform of stone out from the cliff for them to land on. 

Hypno ducked away from the screech of phantoms above them. Grian sighed and gave him a look, expression exaggerated in the darkness by his glowing eyes. Before Hypno could say anything about it, Grian jumped off the platform and glided toward the nearest group of mobs.

Both of them carried armloads of hastily-carved pumpkins, and as they flew they showered the pumpkins over any cluster of mobs they saw. Some of the smarter, more curious zombies picked up the pumpkins and put them over their heads; these zombies were lured back under the rest platform by Hypno while Grian zipped between the other mobs’ feet, gathering up the other pumpkins to drop again. He had also brought a few of the hollow mini-blocks that some hermits were collecting, and left those for zombies to pick up as well. Hypno picked off some of the more annoying mobs from afar with his bow, watching them glow briefly before they fell.

After the first night, most of the mobs disappeared, but the pumpkin-headed zombies stayed, growling at their prey sitting out of reach. The ConVex waited for the next night. Bored, Grian summoned a banner and twirled it in his hand.Then, an idea struck him. He dropped the banner down, and almost immediately one of the zombies picked it up and started waving it. Grian let out a muffled snicker, and both started creating more banners.

On the second night, they did the same thing. On the third, beset by more phantoms than before, the same thing. It was the longest period of time that either of them had worn their masks. Grian grumbled and started shifting his back and forth by the third day, but Hypno started feeling more comfortable in his. During the daytime, they chatted. At one point, Hypno expressed his concerns over letting a horde of hostiles loose in xB’s base; Grian reassured him by pointing out that xB already had the guardians, so clearly he didn't mind some danger around. What was a few zombies? To Grian's mild surprise, Hypno agreed easily to this line of logic.

At another, they sorted out their inventories and took stock of how many head-covering items they had left to use. Grian paused over one. I wonder what would happen if we gave a Vex head to a proper zombie.

Hypno shook his head. Nothing good, I’m sure. And don’t forget the plan.

Grian shrugged and reshuffled some items. Yeah, yeah. Our Vexes probably would have stopped me anyway.

-----

On the fourth night, the ConVex led dozens of zombies through town, like mischievous Pied Pipers. They split up, using their magic to strategically evade zombies and leave clusters roaming aimlessly across the walled space. When they reached the shattered valley, Grian looked up, surveying the structure they had entered the area through. We gotta get some up there.

So they found some leads, each lassoed a few zombies, and they flew up to airdrop the zombies into the structure, and a few on top of the floating island for good measure. This time, they were in and out before the guardians had a chance to notice.

Finally, Grian - draped over the edge of a roof to stay out of the zombies’ reach - scrawled a sign above the fake doors of the villagers’ house: Oh no! The zombie apocalypse has really happened this time! Fortunately, we boarded up the villagers for you :) Next to the sign, he hung yet another Vex banner. He surveyed the land from the roof, watched the swarm of zombies milling about. Another job well done.

Chapter Text

Dropping down into his spawner farm viewing area, Xisuma was greeted with the familiar sound of skeletons clattering into piles of bones at the bottom of their drop shaft. He noticed with amusement that the back wall of the room was constructed with magma blocks, rather than the usual honeycomb. He must have forgotten to check down here when he was cleaning up after the ConVex. Xisuma decided he’d deal with that later. For now, he just went over to his favorite spot and settled into an afk trance.

He was rudely brought back to reality by an alarm sounding in his ear. “Warning: Interference detected from unknown entity.”

Xisuma groggily squinted at the message projected on the inside of his visor. It gave no further clarity than the audible warning. Could it mean...? No, it wouldn’t. Most of the reason he had set up a tamper warning in the first place was his evil other self. Evil X was a known entity in the system. Something else was wrong.

“ Warning: Interference detected from unknown entity.”

“Alright, I get it,” Xisuma grumbled. “Got any details?”

“Unknown entity is attempting to access motion assist programs.”

Belatedly, Xisuma noticed his field of vision wasn’t quite right, as if something was blocking parts of his visor. Some sort of hacking rig? Who would - or could - do that? As far as he knew, admin magic like that his suit ran on couldn’t BE hacked by an ordinary player, and the other admins in this world were all people Xisuma trusted absolutely.

“Warning: Suit compromised.”

Oh dear. Xisuma tried to take a step back, to reach up and find out what was on his helmet, or in the worst case take his helmet off completely. But the motors and mechanisms that would normally provide him with temporary boosts to strength or stamina were locked in position. He could barely move.

“Warning: Suit compromised. Shutdown imminent.”

Xisuma closed his eyes, fighting down his rising panic. He needed to be able to breathe calmly once the airflow of his helmet dropped to its minimum. Once everything shut down, the mechanisms would unlock. His armor would be heavy, but movable. He could figure this out-

“Warning: Xisuma compromised. Protocol change: double shutdown.”

What?? Xisuma opened his eyes, and immediately regretted it. The warnings and alarms still blared in his ears and scrolled on his screen. Half the warning lights in his helmet were flashing in his peripheral vision. Two spots of pale blue reflected off his tinted visor. Something was trying to whisper to him from the back of his brain. His skin tingled and itched all over, especially where it touched his armor. He felt way too energized, too calm, too anxious. He wanted to grab his head, to rip his helmet off right now, oxygen be damned, but he still couldn’t move.

“Warning: Xisuma compromised. Double shutdown in progress.”

A faint hiss emanated from his air filter. Xisuma smelled something unusual, something sweet , and his panic spiked. No malfunction had ever pushed the safety protocols this far before.

The gas filled his helmet. His eyes started to water. Xisuma tried to blink them clear, but it turned into his eyelids fluttering muzzily. Lights winked out around him. The alarms were blessedly quiet. "No..." he murmured weakly, swaying on his feet, his world darkening. "Not yet..." 

He barely felt himself falling.

-----

This wasn't what they expected.

The Vex were pleased with their subject's ideas. When the first spare mask had been lost, the Vex granted each of their subjects one extra, to recruit whomever they chose. Grian chose, as far as he knew, the most powerful person in the world.

They had snuck into his base in person this time, hoping to drop the mask onto Xisuma while he was in his trance state here, so by the time he awoke, he would be one of them. They hadn't expected him to wake at the mask's touch, responding to signals that, from the outside, could barely be heard. They didn’t expect the magic to take control of his armor first, its color changing patchily, haltingly from its recent red to a matching grey-blue, as Xisuma strained against its hold and the sounds from inside his helmet got louder in response.

They didn’t expect their admin to crumple to the floor like a marionette with his strings cut.

The ConVex emerged from their hiding places and cautiously approached Xisuma. They could just barely see the rise and fall of his chest. He was still alive, at least. But what had happened?

Grian, wanting to get a better look at Xisuma’s face - and to have another chance at recruiting someone to the ConVex - pulled the mask off of Xisuma’s helmet. Immediately, a sickly sweet scent wafted out from the air filter. Grian reeled back, coughing, and pulled his sweater up over his nose. What on earth is that?

Hypno wrinkled his nose. The reason he’s out cold, I think.

So we had nothing to do with this? Grian asked, gesturing broadly at Xisuma’s form.

Well, Hypno corrected, it was our mask that prompted his suit to do... whatever it’s doing.

So we had nothing - Grian gave Hypno a stern, but almost scared look - to do with this.

Hypno nodded slowly. Riiiight. Someone should at least know that Xisuma is out of commission, though. For completely unknown reasons, of course.

Grian shrugged. I guess. But now that the Vex mask is off him, surely he’ll wake up soon enough.

Chapter Text

Hypno was trying to design a shroomlight farm. The Vex had been suspiciously quiet the past few days, and Hypno wanted to make the most of his time before they inevitably summoned him again. But right now, he was finding it hard to concentrate with his communicator constantly going off. Chat rarely got this busy for something unimportant, but Hypno refused to check. He'd rather not know if it was once again a Vex problem.

At the same time, each buzz made him more curious, reminded him that something was happening, something he should probably know about.

He noticed chat slowing slightly, but it didn't seem to be stopping. Hypno chucked the communicator into his ender chest - its sounds would have a hard time reaching him from another dimension. Or... something. No one really knew how ender chests actually worked.

Hypno tried to refocus on his farm. But his mind wasn't on the redstone. It was still on the frenzied conversation. Unbidden, he started thinking up worse and worse scenarios they might be talking about.

He sighed and pulled the communicator back out of his chest to look.

<TangoTek> Has anyone heard from Zed lately? He hasn’t been answering my messages

<impulseSV> Could he just be working on a particularly tough contraption?

<iJevin> I haven’t seen him around for a few days at least, now that you mention it

<TangoTek> He never just stops responding when he’s tinkering

<TangoTek> Besides, you know when he’s working on something by the death messages in chat

<impulseSV> True, true

<TangoTek> I checked in every corner of his base that I could find.

<impulseSV> Don’t you have a little admin magic? Can you look for his coords?

<TangoTek> Oh yeah! Hang on, I’ll try...

<Ethoslab> Speaking of admin magic and missing people, I feel like we haven’t seen Xisuma around lately either

<Keralis1> You’re right!

<Keralis1> He hasn’t restocked our shop in a while. I thought he was just busy.

There were a few more lines of confused and concerned chatter, various hermits speculating on what might have happened to their friends. Then Tango returned with the result of his search.

<TangoTek> I can’t find Zed’s coords at all

<TangoTek> Well, I’m getting something, but it’s just a long string of numbers and I don’t know where to even start.

<VintageBeef> That’s not good.

<impulseSV> Maybe tracking just isn’t one of your powers?

<cubfan135> Sorry, but I’m getting the same thing

<cubfan135> Tracking is fine on everyone else

<cubfan135> Including Xisuma

<impulseSV> Crap.

<TangoTek> You can say that again

At first glance, this seemed unrelated to Hypno’s concerns about the Vex. But he had no idea what Vex magic was truly capable of, and for someone to go so thoroughly missing, some sort of foul play had to be involved. The tangent in chat about Xisuma awoke a vague piece of memory that nagged at him; he couldn’t place any details, just a feeling of unease, and a suspicion that Xisuma was unreachable. Could Hypno have also been somehow responsible for Zedaph’s disappearance?

Hypno didn't know Zedaph very well, but he distinctly remembered Zedaph making a point of introducing himself when they had first worldhopped in. He seemed like a pleasantly gregarious, fun-loving guy. Hypno hoped that whatever had happened to the man would turn out okay.

-----

Zedaph opened his eyes to see an enormously tall cliff face that definitely wasn’t his mountain. In fact, he was pretty sure he’d never seen any mountains that stretched that high, or were quite that rippling shape. He moved to roll over, but one arm flopped over the edge of a ledge, and he scrambled back.

Looking down over the ledge was a mistake. The cliffs stretched downward as far as they stretched up, in the same rippling shapes. Zedaph hurriedly dug a few blocks into the wall behind him, sighing in relief as he stepped away from the dizzying sight.

Now his mind was free to work on bigger problems. Where WAS he? How did he get here? And more importantly, how difficult would it be to get home?

Zedaph opened his communicator. There were no new messages. His coordinates were either glitched or ridiculously high numbers. No answer to question 1, then.

He tried to remember what he had been doing before he woke up here, but the memories were very fuzzy. He got a headache just trying. He was snooping around someone else’s base, maybe? Beyond that, nothing. No answer to question 2, either.

Zedaph turned back to his communicator.

<Zedaph> Hello?

Error: No Connection

“Well.” Answer to question 3: very difficult. In fact, he didn’t even know where to start. He checked his inventory. Standard tools, all half broken; armor and elytra, in decent condition (thankfully he had actually put his elytra on before leaving his base); nine fireworks; 7 wood planks; 34 cobblestone; a fence gate; 17 torches; three pieces of pork; and... four eggs.

Zedaph poked his head out of his shelter to look around. The narrow canyon stretched as far as he could see, but there weren’t many useful resources to be found. The few ledges were mostly too narrow and dark for trees to grow, or for animals to live on. 

Zedaph wasn’t one to give up on anything, though. He dug his shelter to a more comfortable size, made a crafting table out of some of his precious wood, and tried to pretend that it was just his first day in the world. When the hermits figured out what had happened, they’d come for him.

If they figured out what happened.

Chapter Text

Hypno was already regretting volunteering for this.

He had met up with Keralis and the two were flying into the jungle. Beforehand, Hypno had clumsily covered his wings with cloth, trying to make them look more like an elytra. He knew Jevin had mentioned being able to disguise them with magic, but Hypno didn’t want to get into that. He told himself that it was because every use of magic was more opportunity for Their control, but it also felt like changing his wings would mean accepting them, and all they implied. The branching crystals had shifted into a flatter formation at his touch anyway, for easier disguise. He could tell the random fabric he found was already fraying and coming loose, though, which is why he flew well behind Keralis.

Keralis and Etho had been growing more concerned about Xisuma’s lack of response in chat. When they asked about where Xisuma was, Cub checked, and realized that Xisuma was still in the exact place that he had been - for days. So Xisuma’s neighbors were meeting up to check on him. Hypno asked to tag along, as he knew he was somehow responsible for this, and he felt that he needed to help rectify the problem. Maybe his fractured memory of events would come in handy.

They touched town and wandered the paths for a moment, briefly confused as to where exactly the coordinates Cub had given them actually led. Then Hypno caught a glimpse of a white string of letters somewhere below them. Dropping through the ceiling of a stone room. A viewing window in the back. Xisuma standing there, tranced, waiting for them. He rubbed his face, hoping the letters would go away. “Doesn’t X have a skeleton farm?”

Keralis nodded excitedly. “Ooh, yeah yeah yeah! This is that place!” More familiar with the proper ways of getting around Xisuma’s base than Hypno was, Keralis led the way through the actual entrance. 

Keralis gasped as soon as they reached the underground room. Hypno hadn’t thought Keralis’s eyes could get any wider, but so they did, as Keralis rushed to the blue-grey heap sprawled in the middle. “Sashwammy!!”

Keralis put his ear to Xisuma’s chest. “He’s alive!” he announced. “But but but... only just so, I think. And what happened to his suit? It’s all faded now somehow.”

A muffled alarm reaching his ears. Patches of red flickering, then settling into a familiar blue-grey. The magic doing its work. “Yeah, that’s... pretty weird,” Hypno replied distractedly.

“Did his suit break? Maybe he can’t breathe right!” Keralis started poking around Xisuma’s helmet, feeling for a latch.

Hypno frowned. “Taking his helmet off will only make things worse.”

Keralis looked up. “Do you have any better ideas? No? We will try. Ow!” He snatched his hand back, eyeing the place where it was with an expression like a hurt puppy. “It shocked me! What was that about?”

A smooth, computerized voice emerged from a hidden speaker. “Emergency shutdown was activated. Admin access only.”

Keralis made a nervous buzzing noise. “This seems like a bigger problem than maybe we thought. We should ask the other admins to come help, I think.”

Hypno nodded, already pulling out his communicator. He hesitated before typing a message, unsure of what - or how much - to say. Finally, he opened a private conversation to Cub, snooped on Keralis’s screen to make sure they weren’t messaging the same person, and started typing.

<Keralis1> --> <Tango> We need your help!

<Keralis1> --> <Tango> We found Sashwammy, but his helmet is saying we need admin access to help him.

<Tango> --> <Keralis1> That doesn’t sound good. I guess I’ll see what we can do.

<Keralis1> --> <Tango> Thank you!!

<Keralis1> --> <Tango> Hypno is telling Cub too I think

<hypnotizd> --> <cubfan135> We found X

<hypnotizd> --> <cubfan135> He’s totally unconscious and it sounds like only an admin can wake him up

<cubfan135> --> <hypnotizd> At least we know he’s still with us. I’ll be right there.

<hypnotizd> --> <cubfan135> There’s another reason you should come see what’s happened, too

<hypnotizd> --> <cubfan135> I guess you’ll see when you get here

-----

Cub and Tango arrived at about the same time, but Cub was the first to drop down into the room, with Tango trailing far behind. Hypno realized with a jolt that he could feel Cub’s magic just as he felt Jevin’s, and that meant that Cub could sense him . But, to his surprise, Cub barely gave him a second glance as he knelt by Xisuma.

Keralis went to greet Tango, still by the far wall of the room, and Cub addressed Hypno. “Do you know what exactly happened here?”

It wasn’t said in an accusatory way, but it made Hypno nervous anyway. He looked anywhere except Cub’s face. “No...”

Cub raised his eyebrows. Jevin had told him about Hypno’s stolen memories, but Cub could tell Hypno was avoiding him on purpose. “Are you sure?” he asked, just as neutral and curious as before. “Any details you have might help solve this.”

He watched Hypno’s internal struggle with concern. A mage shouldn’t have to argue with their Vex that much, especially not when the mage wasn’t being summoned to do their work. Or argue with themselves, as the case may be. Finally, Hypno replied. “Well... I do know a bit...”

-----

“Tango?”

Tango looked up from where he sat near the entrance of the room, arms wrapped around his knees. “Hey, K-man,” he answered dully.

Keralis looked around, then back at Tango. "Why are you sitting over here?" he asked.

Tango stared at Cub and Hypno, talking in low voices over Xisuma, for a long moment, then gave a half-hearted shrug.

Keralis sat down next to Tango, sympathy obvious in his eyes. “You’re thinking about Zedaph.”

Tango sighed. "I guess I'm glad we found X, you know? But none of us even have any idea where to start with Zed. It's so frustrating! And then I come here, and I see X in like a coma or something, and now I can’t help but imagine Zed in the same situation, but in a place none of us know to look …” He trailed off, unable to continue without choking on his words.

Keralis thought about this for a minute before replying. “Sashwammy... he and I are friends for a long time. Like you and Zedaph, except maybe even longer. It’s not nice, seeing him like this. But you and Cub, you’re so so smart. So many people in this world are. And we’re Hermits, right, and that means we look out for our friends. So I think we’ll figure something out. We’ll get Sashwammy AND Zedaph back, don’t you worry.”

“Yeah… maybe we will.” Tango nodded and slowly got up. “I came over to help Xisuma, I should probably get over there and see what’s going on.”

-----

Cub looked up. “Ah, Tango! We were just figuring out what actually happened. It looks like someone-” Hypno tried and somewhat succeeded not to look guilty as Cub spoke - “tried to bring the Vex to Xisuma, but there’s a failsafe in his suit that responded by knocking him out cold.”

Tango, still distraught but visibly relieved at the news, sighed. “I guess it makes sense he’d have that,” he replied. “Wouldn’t want something bad coming along and taking control of a full admin. He probably programmed it in to deal with Evil X.”

“Huh?” Hypno questioned, concerned. “ Evil X?”

Tango glanced over at Hypno, deliberating on a response. “He’s... it’s a long story,” Tango finally said. “But not really important right now.”

“This hasn’t really happened before,” Cub mused. “Maybe...” He reached out and touched Xisuma’s helmet, a glint of admin magic in his eyes.

The same computerized voice played again. “Unknown entity was detected. Emergency shutdown was activated.”

“Cancel emergency shutdown,” Cub stated firmly.

“Emergency shutdown cannot be canceled. Interference is present in the system.”

“What?? But-” Cub groaned in realization and put his hand to his face. “Oh, man. Of course. The magic was granted by an entity his suit didn’t like, so the suit is still reacting to the magic.”

“Is... there a way to take Vex magic out of someone?” Hypno asked hopefully. 

Cub shook his head and sighed. “Not that we know of. Once a Vex, always a Vex. It can change forms, it can heighten, it can lessen, but it never goes away.”

“So, uh... what do we do?” Tango asked.

“Well, if it’ll let me access it, we might be able to hack in and tell Xisuma’s suit that Vex magic is not a threat, and then it’d let Xisuma wake up,” Cub decided. “Other than that...”

He looked around at the three dejected faces in front of him, and forced a smile. “We’ll bring him back, you guys. We’ll bring him back.”

Chapter Text

Keralis sat in his office, surrounded by wealth, but barely seeing any of it. The floor and ceiling were once again made of diamond, recovered from the shipping container that would have sent the blocks off to sea.

It made him angry. Not that they had moved his diamonds in the first place, no, that was just a harmless prank. But now his beautiful diamond office only reminded him of the people who had hurt Xisuma. Part of him wanted revenge, but he wouldn’t know what to do that wouldn’t put a target on his own back.

He stood up, stretched, walked around his desk - and nearly broke down in tears when his eye caught the button on the wall just outside. Etho had installed it just a day before they found Xisuma. Keralis had been so excited to show Xisuma the song - their song - remastered by the noteblock genius.

He’s not gone forever, Keralis reminded himself firmly. He’s just... taking a very long nap. There are smart people taking care of him. He’ll be awake in no time.

-----

Joe ambled through his dog park. It was peaceful here, but peace was a very fragile and localized concept.

It’s also subjective, he thought, as dozens of dogs raced laps around him, barking up a storm.

He sometimes prided himself on being an island of calm in the middle of the storm of chaos that constantly swirled. But what can one do when that storm goes from a fun ride to a dangerous squall, and starts capsizing one’s friends one by one?

Usually, when the captain fell, the next person in command would take over the ship for the foreseeable future. Here, there were a few people who could take on that duty, but one was still worrying about the man overboard and another was busy tending to their fallen leader AND trying to manage the more Vexing aspects of the group’s problems.

Which left Joe. The admin who never used his magic.

It seemed silly, at times. Admin magic - or at least the piece of it granted to him and Tango and Cub - was based around words. Surely Joe would be the best backup admin around.

The problem came, he would guess, with how those words were used. Joe was a man who couldn’t help but improvise, who preferred to talk and rhyme and orate freely, and that was dangerous business when the words he used were magical. Admin spells had too much structure, a syntax that didn’t make sense to him. It was too easy to cause harm or inconvenience to himself and the people around him if he didn’t say the words just so.

Still, he didn’t feel right sitting around doing nothing. Xisuma himself had trusted Joe with admin powers, so Joe should be using those powers to help Xisuma. Joe remembered that he probably still had the book Xisuma had given him on the subject; maybe that would reveal a helpful secret.

But first, he’d hang out with the dogs a little longer. They really were quite therapeutic.

-----

Grian couldn’t sit still. He flitted from one project to another, starting many things, finishing nothing, trying to keep his mind off recent events. Off what he had done.

Unlike Hypno, Grian had been working amicably with the Vex, delighting in the extra power and the call to mischief, so outside of those moments under the mask, they mostly left him alone. He knew and remembered all the things he’d done for them, and until recently quite enjoyed those memories. Only now was he starting to second-guess his choices.

They didn’t feel like his choices, not really. With the masks on, the Vex were always in partial control, though they usually let their subjects dictate the exact details. But these last few excursions... they stemmed from his silly ideas. It was almost entirely his fault that Xisuma was lying unconscious for the foreseeable future. Even their one success, a couple days later, had felt a little hollow by comparison.

But the feature that downed Xisuma was unique to him, so no one else should fall to the mere presence of magic. They had one more mask, and Grian had one more idea. If he couldn’t recruit the most powerful person here, maybe he could recruit one of the smartest.

-----

Hypno couldn’t sleep.

Logically, he knew he’d already beat himself up enough over Xisuma, but another part of his mind kept circling back around to it, not letting him forget.

I did this.

I don’t have any control when They take over.

But it was still me behind the mask.

It was Grian’s idea.

But I went along with it.

We had no idea that Xisuma’s armor would react that way.

But-

Hypno buried his face in his pillow, willing the thought spiral to stop.

He had no idea how much time had passed when he suddenly felt someone else walk in. Bewildered, he rolled onto his side and looked up to find Jevin standing in his doorway.

Jevin gave him a jaunty, but sincere, smile and a small wave. “Hey man. Hope I didn’t wake you.”

Hypno shook his head, still confused, as Jevin stepped farther into the room and placed down a second bed. “What are you doing here?”

“Surprise sleepover. I was having trouble sleeping too, and thought you might like some company.” Jevin climbed into bed and winked at Hypno. “If you want to talk, go ahead. If you don’t, that’s fine too.”

For an absurd moment, Hypno was a little jealous that Jevin could lie on his back like that, even with the wings that he knew his friend had too. Hypno found himself chuckling a bit at that, and at Jevin’s very direct approach. He shook his head and closed his eyes again.

He didn’t really know whether he wanted to talk or not, so Hypno just tried to relax and appreciate the company. Despite all the implications of the magic in him, everything it reminded him of whenever he had to use it, he found it surprisingly comforting to be able to feel Jevin’s presence a few meters away. Before he knew it, Hypno found himself falling into restless slumber. It was the most peaceful sleep he’d had in weeks.

Chapter Text

Zedaph built a staircase.

Well, he supposed, it would probably be more accurate to call it a “slabcase”, since he was building it out of slabs to save resources. Slowly but surely, he stuck slabs to the high cliff walls and made his way upward. If he found himself under an overhang, he would take the opportunity to mine more stone as he climbed; if he reached a particularly wide ledge, he would take the opportunity to rest his tired limbs. But soon he would get up, pick up his slabs, and start climbing again.

Once again, he tried to remember what had happened just before he woke up here. It hurt his brain to think about, but he wasn’t exactly using his brain for much else at the moment. He could tell there was a memory there , niggling at him, but he just couldn’t quite reach it.

He kept climbing.

He got a vague impression of... the color black. Well that’s helpful, he thought sarcastically. That could be anything from a spider to a failed void jump to a particularly dark cave.  

He kept climbing.

The black thing was... clothing? Maybe? If it was, that narrowed down his options to... about half the hermits. Mumbo, Beef, TFC, xB, Hypno... even Tango and Impulse wore a lot of black, but Zedaph didn’t think they were responsible for this. Although with all the wacky things they did together, he really couldn’t even be sure of that.

He stopped to rest. The top of the cliff still seemed so far away. There had to be a top, right? Nothing could be infinitely tall. His stomach growled. He allowed himself one bite of a porkchop. He still held out hope that he might find more food at the top, but right now, he could barely move. He even thought, not for the first time, of just jumping off the ledge. But with his supposedly impervious communicator out of range, and everything around him so different, he didn’t want to risk the chance of not being able to respawn out here. Or, maybe worse, respawn working, but putting him somewhere else in these endless canyons, with nothing.

His friends must be worried sick about him. He kept climbing.

-----

Impulse watched Tango pace back and forth in the main room of his base. “I wish there was something we could do ,” Impulse said, not for the first time.

Tango sat down on his bed with a huff. “Yeah, but we can’t. Not without X’s help.”

“Are you sure?” Impulse wondered. “I mean, X is the big guy, but you’ve still got some power. Maybe your admin spells could still reach him somehow.”

Tango stood up, opened the communicator panel in his arm, and started pacing again as he searched through the list of options. “Hmm... no... not that one... oh! There’s a kill spell. If he died, maybe he’d respawn back at his base, or at the spawn island.”

Impulse shrugged. “Anything’s worth a shot, man.”

Tango typed in the command and double-checked that everything was right. His eyes flashed white - or rather, a pale pink, as the white of the admin magic overlaid his usual red - and he activated the spell.

And immediately gasped as he felt something stop functioning in his chest. He clutched at himself with a grimace. The glow in his eyes flickered and went out, his legs buckled, and he dropped to the floor with a thud. Before Impulse could finish standing up in shock, Tango had burst into scattered code, leaving his items behind. Impulse’s communicator buzzed.

Impulse’s heart pounded, and he forced himself to calm down. It was fine. Just an accident, it had startled him, that’s all. He pulled Tango’s items together, throwing them haphazardly into a chest, as he watched white Galactic letters and motes of light coalesce over Tango's bed.

After a few moments, Tango sat up in bed with a groan, more of frustration than discomfort. “Why didn’t that work?” he muttered, opening his communicator again and navigating back to the spell. “I’m sure I wrote it out right...” He tapped the screen twice, then froze, wide-eyed, hands shaking. Suddenly he brought his fist down on the screen, making Impulse jump and himself wince in pain, then dropped his head into his arms.

Worried, Impulse walked over to put a hand on Tango’s back. He peeked over Tango’s shoulder at the communicator. The words were difficult to see past Tango’s hair and the cracks that now spread across the screen, but Impulse could just make out the original spell and an error message that Tango had opened below it.

/kill Zedaph

Error: No entity was found

Chapter Text

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The impacts echoed through the hollow trunk of the tree. The hunter had returned.

He had showed up faster this time, it seemed. The robot was learning Iskall's habits a little too well.

Thump. The wood creaked. Iskall winced. He really did not want this thing punching a hole in his beautiful tree. Not that Jrumbot had succeeded in breaking through yet, but he didn't want to take the chance. He'd already been hiding from the robot, trying to go about his normal life around it, for more than two weeks. He had even taken the time to calibrate his diamond eye to the robot's energy signature so he could better tell when he was close.

It was time to try a new strategy. Iskall methodically arranged his items, including armor and elytra, into a chest next to his bed. He didn't want anything too nice getting lost if negotiations didn’t go to plan. He touched the bed frame, making sure he felt the brief spark of magic connecting him to it. Then he approached his ground-level entryway. He could see a large pair of feet - wearing sandals - waiting for him.

"Hallo? J- uh- Jrumbot?" He called, mouth tripping over the strange combination of sounds.

The feet shifted. Jrumbot bent down slightly to look in, but said nothing.

“I want to, uh, apologize,” Iskall told the robot. He stepped closer to the entrance, hands out nonthreateningly. Jrumbot, to Iskall’s surprise, stepped back, apparently letting Iskall approach. “For what I’ve done to... to you. And to your, um, family? I’m sorry.”

Jrumbot shifted his weight slightly, as though considering. His expression never changed from its ridiculously cute and cheerful-looking demeanor. Which made it all the more startling when Jrumbot stomped his foot and yelled, in his oddly high-pitched voice, “NO. NO SORRIES FOR DEATH. ONLY... DEATH.”

Jrumbot grabbed at Iskall. Iskall flinched, but the arm never found him. Instead he heard another thump just above him. He looked up to see that Jrumbot had leaned over to reach him, but in trying, Jrumbot’s head had bonked against the side of the tree. Jrumbot’s arm was still wiggling, a good few meters above Iskall’s head.

Iskall stared for a moment, then burst out laughing. “Oh my goodness,” he gasped, almost falling over in hysterics. “Sometimes I wonder why I even run from you!”

Jrumbot backed up a step and raised his foot instead. Iskall dove away as the foot slammed down where he had been. Right. Still dangerous. Even with the tiny arms.

Plan A had failed, now he hoped Plan B would work. Iskall ran between Jrumbot’s legs, and Jrumbot turned around to follow his movements. Unexpectedly, instead of continuing his stomping, Jrumbot reached for Iskall again. Iskall resisted the instinct to dodge away - which wouldn’t have been a difficult escape, seeing Jrumbot’s comical reach. Instead, he stumbled forward, as if he had tripped over something, and Jrumbot’s stubby hand grabbed him around the waist. The bot had a surprisingly tight grip, and Iskall genuinely struggled to loosen it just a bit. He wondered if Jrumbot had decided to just squeeze him to death.

In an instant, Jrumbot whipped around, arm outstretched, and Iskall slammed headfirst into the tree.

Iskall woke in his bed. He forced his first breath to be slow, steady, quiet. He lay perfectly still, listening, and watching his surroundings through his cybernetic eye. He focused on the energy radiating from Jrumbot in his peripheral vision. It moved slightly, one direction, then another. Iskall hoped that he would see Jrumbot walk away, or maybe deactivate now that he had completed his goal.

Minutes passed. Iskall hated being the prey. He focused on his breathing. Slow. Steady. Quiet.

Jrumbot moved out of Iskall’s field of view, but not in the direction he expected. He didn’t dare turn his head to look, for fear of ruining the ruse.

THUMP.

Iskall started and almost fell out of bed. Jrumbot was pounding on the wall again. He knew Iskall was alive!

THUMP. “YOU TRICKED ME.” THUMP.

Iskall scrambled upright, adrenaline taking him from near-afk to near-panic in an instant. Loose bark rained down on his head. He kicked open the chest he had prepared, grabbing a sword, a pickaxe, his elytra, his rockets, and some food. He threw the elytra on, barely fastening the harness right, and rocketed up through the top of the tree. He shot higher, higher, then finally leveled himself out into a glide to catch his breath. Jrumbot could follow him anywhere, but the robot couldn’t fly. Iskall was safe in the air.

He coasted northwest for a while, avoiding the other hermits’ bases, and finally came to rest on a small island in the middle of the ocean. He knew Jrumbot was slowed - though not stopped - by water, and there was plenty of room to see the robot coming and escape again. Jrumbot always seemed to know where Iskall was, pursuing him over open land and waiting at the exit of any place the robot couldn’t fit into.

Iskall took a moment to collect himself. He needed to get rid of this robot once and for all. He didn’t trust Grian to actually deactivate Jrumbot, so it was up to Iskall. And he had one tool, a weapon, and an elytra.

He probably had had plenty of time to grab all his gear, now that he had the chance to think about it. But it was too late now - Iskall was not going back to his tree until he knew Jrumbot wouldn’t come back with him.

Technically, there were plenty of individual spaces in the world where he was safe, places that Jrumbot was too big for. Many people’s bases, caves, the Nether... unless Jrumbot figured out how to use Grian’s mega portal... 

Mega portals. Iskall did the math. He was pretty sure it was possible to make a portal big enough for Jrumbot. What if Iskall trapped Jrumbot in the Nether?

He could already see Jrumbot’s beaming face on the horizon. Time to go. But now he had a plan.

-----

Mining obsidian took forever. Especially when one was crouched carefully at the bottom of an underwater ravine, without any of his fancy armor enchantments, gulping at air dragged down by the magma block beneath him. At least he had the best pick he could have. As he mined, he did the calculations to figure out how much obsidian he’d need. 84 pieces for one portal. 84 for a second, to make sure the transfer went smoothly. Round up just in case he needs extra. In total, he mined 192 pieces of obsidian, clearing out the ravine almost completely. By the time he was done, Jrumbot was sitting above him, waiting. Iskall tried to ignore him, using his elytra and rockets to boost himself up and out the other end of the ravine.

After another flight that took him around the far side of the landmass that xB had built on, Iskall quickly built a tower of random blocks, then a human-sized portal on top. He dove in to prepare the other side - but once there, found himself in a spot that barely needed any preparation. On a thin, flat expanse of Nether waste, Iskall built the first Jrumbot-sized portal.

When Iskall went back through, from his high vantage point he could already see Jrumbot on the horizon once more. He built the second portal even faster than the first, built a small shelter on one side, and waited.

Soon, Jrumbot approached. Just as Iskall hoped, the robot took the shortest path to him, directly through the portal. He lingered, figuring out how to get to Iskall through the little shelter - and vanished into the Nether.

“Yes!” Iskall wasted no time on celebration yet. He braced himself, and also stepped through the big portal.

In the Nether, Jrumbot hadn’t exited the portal yet. Iskall found himself between the robot’s feet. He ran out in front. “Hey! Robot... kid... thing! Come get me!”

Jrumbot stomped toward him, the netherrack shelf shaking with every step. Iskall dove off the edge. Maybe Jrumbot was dumb enough-

Jrumbot stopped at the edge and watched. Not quite THAT dumb, then. Iskall swept underneath the platform, reached up, and dragged his pickaxe through the stone, tearing a massive hole in the soft netherrack. Jrumbot turned to track him. One foot landed on the edge of the hole. Iskall made another pass. The other foot came down heavily, trying to keep Jrumbot’s balance. The shelf shuddered.

One more pass. One more step. Iskall’s wingtip brushed the netherrack as the shelf crumbled behind him, taking Jrumbot with it deep into the lava ocean below.

Iskall stumbled to a halt on a more stable hill and sat, catching his breath. His gasps turned to chuckles, and then to relieved, cackling laughter as his victory sunk in. There were plenty of hermits still dealing with the bigger problems that the Vex had caused. But Iskall? Iskall was free from his.

Chapter Text

Scar stood on the concrete wall, surveying his handiwork, when he felt someone land beside him. He turned to greet his visitor. “Howdy, Cub.”

“Hey man,” Cub replied, looking around. “This is quite the operation you’ve got here.”

Scar grinned. “Why thank you! Are you just here to admire the dig site, or did you need me for something?”

“I did actually want to ask you a favor,” Cub admitted. “A pretty big favor, actually.”

“Ooh, do tell.” Scar sat down, making himself comfortable on the wall, and patted the space next to him for Cub to do the same.

Cub sat down, facing Scar, and sighed. “It’s about the Vex.”

Scar’s smile fell. “More problems with the new guys? I tried talking to Grian, but I don’t think he listens to me.”

Cub nodded. “Yep, more problems. Have you been keeping up with the Herald? We’ve been trying to keep people informed through that.”

“Kind of?” Scar replied. “I’m a bit behind. I did see the story about them bothering Cleo...”

“Not just bothering,” Cub corrected. “Recruiting. By force. Cleo thought she’d shut them down, but they’re still at it.”

“By... force?” Scar asked, his voice small. “That’s not how it’s supposed to go! They always ask. They asked us. Or, well, I guess we asked them. But still!”

“You’re right,” Cub agreed. “It all feels just... wrong. They’re pushing too far. And I can’t help but think that now they’re moving toward a hostile takeover. That’s why I came to you.”

“Cub, you know I’m no good in a fight,” Scar protested. “Why not warn False? Or Wels?”

“You’re better than you think you are,” Cub reassured him. “And I came to you because the point is not how many good fighters we have. The point is what we can do. If the new guys actually successfully force someone under Vex control, they’ll have three Vex mages fighting against the server. We should make sure we have three Vex mages fighting for the server.”

Scar’s eyes widened as Cub’s words dawned on him. “You’re saying you want me to return to Vex ways with you.”

“Not Vex ways,” Cub clarified. “Vex magic. We’re both free mages and I don’t want to change that. I know it’s a big ask, since we promised we’d stay away, but this time they’ve kind of come to us.”

“Yeah, well,” Scar gave him a sheepish smile, “I was kind of hoping you’d ask. Of course I’ll practice Vex magic with you again.”

Cub grinned. “Glad to hear it!”

“I dunno where my mask is, though,” Scar admitted. “Kinda lost it. It’s probably somewhere around here... in a chest monster...”

“That’s fine,” Cub told him. “With what the Vex have been calling their subjects to do lately, it’s probably better that we don’t use the masks ourselves anymore. I’ve got a different idea for bringing you back to full potential.” As he spoke, he was forming a ball of magic in his hands, about the size of a cherry. He tossed it to Scar.

Scar inspected it for a moment, touched it tentatively to his lips, then gave Cub a guilty look. Cub smiled teasingly at him, but nodded. Scar smiled, closed his eyes, and popped the magic into his mouth.

It tasted as wonderful as he remembered. As the magic dissolved on his tongue and spread through his veins, Scar couldn’t help but giggle a little.

Then the magic reached his spine, and began to grow.

To the unfamiliar bystander, it would have looked like it must have been painful, the crystal wings growing and branching from his body. But they didn’t hurt him at all. It felt like something familiar returning to him, something he never knew how much he’d missed.

Scar rolled his shoulders and opened his eyes, now that magical ice blue instead of their usual soft green, and grinned. “Man... it’s good to be back.”

Chapter Text

Three more blocks.

Two more blocks.

One more.

Zedaph placed the last block of his slabcase and finally emerged from the deep canyons onto a large expanse of grass.

It was disappointingly flat. He wasn’t sure what he had expected, really, given how high the cliffs were, but the lack of trees, or even grass taller than a few centimeters, was still a letdown. The sky’s the limit, he thought, and chuckled despite himself. There were plenty of animals milling around, though, so there was still hope for his main goal of getting some more food.

He wasted no time in swiping his sword at the nearest pig - then stumbled as the sword passed harmlessly through with no resistance. “What??” He wrinkled his nose , then leaned down to touch the pig with his hand. His hand also passed right through. “You're a ghost pig!” Zedaph exclaimed. “Ooh, you’d make a good friend for Yoyo, wouldn’t you? But I can’t eat you if I can’t touch you...” The pig oinked and wandered off, as if nothing had happened.

Zedaph sighed and looked around. No trees to cut, the animals couldn’t be hit-

Something bumped into him. Zedaph yelped and swung his sword instinctively at the air. This time it connected with something! Out of the corner of his eye, Zedaph thought he saw a sheep at least ten meters away fall. The mutton dropped at Zedaph’s feet. He picked it up and inspected it. “Okay,” he slowly said to himself. “So the animals here exist , they just aren’t where they are. Fascinating AND annoying!”

He spent some time walking across the plain, waving his sword carefully, navigating by feel. When he found a few eggs lying around, Zedaph picked them up and swept his sword along the ground. He only hit one chicken, but it was still something to sustain him. And maybe the eggs would get him more - he had used his fence gate to block off a part of his makeshift shelter, but none of the eggs he’d had to begin with had given him any chickens.

As soon as the sun started to set, Zedaph hurried back to his path. There was less than no cover up here, and who even knew what directions he’d be attacked from, if nothing was where it appeared to be?

Phantoms screeched below him. One swooped up toward him and he smacked it away with his sword. The phantoms had been flying around all the time since Zedaph had arrived, and seemed unaffected by the strange displacement affecting the animals. Zedaph wondered if they were normal because they belonged here, somehow. Maybe the constant swarm was from some sort of nest nearby.

He continued hopping down the slabcase, until he saw what looked like a person ahead, apparently inspecting Zedaph’s work. “Excuse me!” Zedaph called, stepping closer. “What are you doing?”

The figure turned. They were dressed all in grey, with pale eyes that glowed in the shadow of the cliffs. Zedaph noticed now that the figure was hovering, with lacy-looking wings waving gently behind them. Their face stretched into a wide grin upon seeing him, and they floated up to a point just above Zedaph’s eye level. Human! Ye built this here?

“Uhh...” Zedaph tapped the side of his head with a flat hand, thrown off by the silent speech. He really must be going insane from hunger and lack of sleep. “Yeah? I needed to explore up top. Who are you?”

It must have been our magic that brought ye here, the figure mused. Ye are speaking to one of the Vex.

“Vex?” Zedaph was totally lost. “Aren’t those the little guys you get from evokers?”

The figure frowned in exaggerated offense. Those are just ven. Our magic, giving itself life to fight for us. Barely even sentient. It was ye humans who wrongly assigned them our name. We are a True Vex!

The phrase “barely sentient” niggled at Zedaph, like he’d heard it used somewhere else in the past. Or maybe he’d used it? It probably wasn’t important to the more pressing matters, though.

"If it was Vex magic that dumped me out here," Zedaph asked, "does that mean you could get me back home?"

The Vex thought about this for a moment. Maybe... It burst into laughter. The sudden sound almost startled Zedaph off the steps, which only made the Vex laugh more. But it's more fun watching ye try to survive in our home! 

The Vex faded into the wall, its laughter fading with it. Zedaph gave the wall a nervous glance and continued picking his way downward.

Something suddenly hoisted him up by his armpits from behind. Zedaph heard the chittering laughter again, behind him, all around, echoing off the canyon walls. He kicked frantically and tried desperately not to look down. The Vex tossed Zedaph through the air in the general direction of his shelter. Zedaph yelled and scrambled to open his elytra before realizing that he was drifting down, rather than falling.

After some squirming, he managed to flip around in midair and glare up at the Vex. “That was rude!”

Just helping you out, the Vex giggled in a tone of “voice” that made it very clear that helping was not their intent.

Whatever the Vex had done to him wore off while Zedaph was still a couple meters above the ledge. He hit it with a grunt, the impact knocking the wind out of him. Groaning, he stumbled inside, still not convinced that the entire encounter hadn’t been a figment of his delirious imagination.

-----

More days passed... he thought. In the constant shadows of the cliffs, with phantom screeches at all hours, it was difficult to mark the passage of time. A single chicken roamed in its little pen. Or at least Zedaph assumed it did - like the animals at the top of the cliff, the chicken did not actually appear to be where it was, so what Zedaph really had was a vague impression of an animal and the sound of clucking. He imagined that the chicken probably looked like it was walking around contentedly inside the solid stone wall. He named it Wally.

Zedaph could tell from the pitch of the clucking and the distinct lack of any mysteriously-appearing eggs that Wally had not grown up yet, so to distract himself from his empty stomach Zedaph wandered, for about the zillionth time, out onto what he had started calling his “balcony”. He wasn’t even looking for anything, not really, but sometimes he just needed a change from standing inside a room to stand on a terrifying cliffside instead. He’d even tried making it less terrifying - he had some spare stone left over after building the slabcase, and decided to use it to expand his balcony all the way across the narrow chasm. Even so, there was always a chance that he could get flung off the edge again, for no reason other than some being’s amusement. For the same reason, he had been avoiding going back up to the clifftops for more food.

There were no phantoms nearby at the moment, only their faintly echoing cries. Which allowed Zedaph to hear something else echoing down the canyon: a voice.

It sounded vaguely familiar, but was too far away for Zedaph to make anything out. The voice wouldn’t be a Vex, he reasoned, because they didn’t talk out loud. Assuming his conversation with one had actually happened.

For that matter, Zedaph couldn’t quite believe that the voice he was hearing could possibly be real. But... if it was... that could mean rescue! Or at least company. Company would almost be equally welcome.

He had to get closer, to confirm what he was hearing. He checked his elytra, stood on the edge of his balcony, and took a deep breath to calm his nervous heart.

Then he jumped off and rocketed toward the sound of hope.

Chapter Text

Jevin moved through the shopping district on autopilot, distracted by thoughts of, well, everything that had been happening over the last few weeks. So distracted was he that he didn't sense the person walking the other direction until it was too late. The two collided.

“Oh, sorry-” Jevin started to apologize. But as soon as the other person had brushed him out of the way, Jevin found himself... elsewhere.

Jevin jumped back, instinctively pulling himself into the air and off the narrow ledge he had appeared on, flicking out his wings from under his elytra to stabilize himself. He looked around in awe at the strange, incredibly tall cliffs. They almost touched above him, casting deep shadows all around, but to his left and right they stretched in straight lines as far as he could see. Where was he?

Someone emerged from the side of one of the cliffs, startling Jevin again. The newcomer was as big as he was, almost the same color as the stone, with glowing ice-colored eyes and white crystal wings so intricate that they almost looked like snowflakes. It was not quite like any vex that Jevin had ever seen, but there was nothing else it could be. It looked at Jevin and grinned, showing the glow in its smile as well. It spoke silently to him. What are ye doing here, ye ven?

Jevin frowned. “I don’t even know where ‘here’ is. Or how I got here.”

The large Vex cackled. Ye don’t recognize your ancestral home, ye ven?

Jevin raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms. “...No.” By now he had some guesses, but he wasn’t about to give this thing talking to him any satisfaction. “Why are you saying my name like that?”

He almost smirked at the baffled look on the Vex’s face. Ye have a name?

“Yeah. Jevin.”

A pause. Then the Vex broke into wild, cackling laughter. We are not calling ye by name, ye ven! Your mind has been dulled by slime! Tell us... where did ye get this name of yours?

“No idea,” Jevin replied, deliberately casual. “I’ve always had it.”

The laughter returned, even wilder. Oh, what a glorious thing! A Vex wanders too far, falls to a brainless swamp dweller, and transforms into something new - something too dull to even know when they’re being called lesser! How fitting it is, then, to take an insult to your intelligence as your forever name as ye walk among humans!

Jevin’s eyes narrowed. He was still somewhat trying not to show emotion to this figure, but it was really starting to piss him off. “Look, can you just tell me how to get out of here? Clearly I’m not wanted. I’d rather get back to my real home.”

Ye should know, the Vex giggled. Ye have our magic. Ye got yourself here.

“I actually didn’t-” Jevin started to reply. But the giant Vex had already disappeared back into the wall.

Jevin sighed. Vex magic had brought him here? But he certainly didn’t do it himself... then who-

This had all started when Jevin had brushed past someone in the shopping district. A Vex mage; someone wearing the mask at the time, no less. None of the mages he knew of wore their masks for casual business. He knew the ConVex were trying to force their magic onto a few others, and it was starting to look like they had succeeded.

He swore to himself. This was definitely a development that Cub and Scar needed to know about. They certainly wouldn’t approve, especially if the forced Vex mages went around casually sending people to who knows where. Jevin drifted in the air, trying to recall who exactly he had run into, to know who they would be dealing with. He’d caught a glimpse of a black shirt... a shirt, he realized with growing concern, that had writing on the front advertising exactly who was wearing it.

A noise startled him out of his thoughts. It sounded like... someone yelling? Then came the distinctive sound of a rocket firing. Jevin dodged just as the person blew past him, barely avoiding the edge of their elytra. They tumbled to a stop on the ledge Jevin had first landed on, back pressed against the wall, and turned to stare at him. “Jevin??”

“Zedaph!”

“Oh my goodness, I’m so glad to see you!” Zedaph gasped. Then he squinted and wrinkled his nose. “...Assuming you’re... actually here? Why are you floating? And glowing?”

Jevin quickly widened the ledge using solid magic. As an afterthought, he pulled stone from the cliff out along the magical frame, to give Zedaph more confidence that it was sturdy. He landed on it and walked toward Zedaph, hand out. “It’s really me, dude.”

Zedaph grabbed Jevin’s hand and pulled himself up. Zedaph looked... well, like he had been trying to survive on no supplies for a week. Now that he had confirmed that Jevin was actually there, tears were starting to prick at Zedaph’s eyes. Still holding onto Jevin, he asked, “Before anything else, anything bad happens... can I get a hug?”

Jevin grinned and pulled him close. “Of course. Come here.”

Zedaph gave Jevin the most enthusiastic hug he had ever given. “Mmm,” he murmured into Jevin’s shoulder. “You give the best hugs. So... squishy.”

Jevin snorted. Zedaph started giggling. Soon, both were sitting on the ground, laughing out loud with the relief of finding each other and the absurdity of the situation.

“Are you sure about that?” Jevin chuckled. “You like hugs that are squishy AND cold?”

“Hey, man, out here I’ll take what I can get,” Zedaph replied. “Besides, you’ve got that hoodie on all the time and that’s nice and cozy.”

Their giggling died down when Zedaph’s stomach growled. Jevin gave him a look of realization. "Wow, you really haven't had any food?” Without waiting for an answer, he pulled out a golden carrot and handed it to Zedaph.

Zedaph’s eyes widened. He reached tentatively for the carrot, as if afraid it would vanish before he got there. He took a bite, sighed in relief, then wolfed down the rest of the treat.

Almost immediately, he doubled over and groaned as his stomach protested the sudden onslaught of rich food after so long with next to nothing. Jevin, unsure what to do, reached over to lightly rub Zedaph’s back. At Jevin’s touch, a small shiver rushed through Zedaph, and he quickly felt much better. He sat back up to stare at Jevin. “Was that you? Did you do something just now?”

Jevin pulled his hand back and looked at it, eyes tracing the flickering arcs of magic. “I guess I did, yeah.”

Zedaph continued to stare at Jevin. Jevin could almost see the gears turning in the man’s head. Then Zedaph suddenly scrambled back against the wall, looking... scared? “You’re a- a ConVex!” he cried. “You’re the other ConVex, aren’t you?”

“Vex mage,” Jevin corrected placatingly. “Or, well, half-Vex, I guess. Not a ConVex. That's just Grian and H-" He stopped himself.

“You’re... not the one who zapped me here,” Zedaph replied, slowly catching up. “But you said ‘and’... so there are two ConVex. I knew it! Tango didn’t believe me, but I knew -” He winced and put his hands to his head. “Okay, okay, too much remembering for today.”

“More than two now, I think,” Jevin said, as much to himself as to Zedaph. “And that third... I think is probably who zapped us both. If it were either of the two I knew about, people would have started disappearing much earlier.” Zedaph’s last sentence registered. “‘Too much remembering’?”

“They must have done something when they zapped me,” Zedaph explained. “Probably so I’d forget who did it, like I was snooping around too much.”

“That’s something to deal with later,” Jevin decided. He thought he could feel a Vex listening in on their conversation. “Let’s get out of here first.”

It took a moment for Zedaph to realize what Jevin had meant. The slime had said it so casually, and Zedaph was almost accustomed to the strange place they were sitting in. When it clicked, Zedaph could only stare, speechless. He was going home.

Jevin stood up and offered his hands to Zedaph, who took them and pulled himself up. He was shaking, though from hunger, exhaustion, or excitement, Jevin couldn’t tell. Jevin closed his eyes, keeping a tight hold on Zedaph, feeling the magic fill his body. Vex magic got us here, he thought. Vex magic can get us out. I’m... I am Vex. I’ve got this.

Chapter Text

There was no feeling of movement, but the air changed. A little warmer, a light breeze, the smell of the sea. The sound of waves on the shore mingled with the woosh of a Nether portal.

Jevin opened his eyes onto a sandy island. There was a portal and a bed, and a mess of chests, barrels, signs, and boats. 

Zedaph gasped and broke away from Jevin’s grip, spinning around and falling into the sand. “We’re at worldspawn!” he exulted. “Jevin, you did it! We’re home!”

As Zedaph spoke, both of their communicators buzzed twice. Jevin checked his.

<Tango> omg
<Tango> zed???

No sooner had Jevin finished reading than Tango and Impulse were there, Impulse briefly disoriented from the admin teleport. Zedaph was making sand angels when his friends tackled him and pulled him back upright for a proper embrace. 

As Team ZIT laughed, cried, and generally made a scene, Jevin looked back to his communicator. After Tango’s cryptic messages, people were wondering what was going on, and Tango of course was too busy to clarify.

<iJevin> I can confirm, Zed is back!

He didn’t bother explaining any further in chat, knowing Zedaph would enthusiastically tell the story to whoever would listen, as he was already doing to Tango and Impulse.

Which meant Jevin’s secret would probably be out soon. Oh well , he figured. It was really only a matter of time.

Someone flying in broke Jevin out of his thoughts. He looked up to see Hypno trotting across the sand. “Oh, hey man.”

“Jevin!” Hypno called. “What happened, dude? I tried to message you and it wouldn’t send. I was worried.” He glanced over to greet Cub as he also arrived, touching down nearby.

Cub looked around, grinning at the sight of Jevin and Team ZIT. “Hypno told me he couldn’t contact you, so you can imagine how I felt when I saw the same thing had happened to you that had happened to Zedaph! Glad to see you’re both home safe. I’m guessing you brought him back, Jevin, but how did you find him?”

Jevin shrugged. “Dumb luck. The same Vex mage zapped us both to sort of the same place - it wasn’t you, Hypno, don’t worry,” he added, at Hypno’s stricken glance - “and Zed actually is the one who found me. I thought it might be possible for me to get us both back.” He continued, explaining the accidental discovery of the third Vex mage. Hypno sat down heavily next to him, apparently just as surprised by the news as Jevin and Cub.

“I’m going to have to chat with you and Scar for more details on this later,” Cub mused. “Nothing about this is right.”

“Well, I don’t think you’ll want me there,” Hypno replied, moving to leave.

“Just a moment, before you go,” Cub stopped him. “If you and Grian still have any chance to do so, see if you can take back control of where the Vex are leading you. They can be, and have been, pretty insidious if you let them, but it’s totally possible to work with them for a common goal.”

Hypno gave Cub a sad smile. “It might be too late for that. If it would have ever worked.”

“There’s still time!” Cub encouraged. “There’s still time. You’ve got this.”

Chapter Text

Hypno sat on his bed, staring into a grey face. He traced his hand along the mask, along the edges of eye and mouth that would form to his own features whenever he wore it. He felt the thrill of power as he held it, heard whispers trying to nudge him toward putting it on. Choosing to hold the mask made him nervous - but no more so than being unable to choose at all.

"I think we can get along better than we have been," he said finally to the mask. He wasn't sure that was true, but part of what had gotten him here was him not trying to control the situation better. "But not the way things are going now."

The whispers picked up. Ye serve us, ven-human.

"Yeah," Hypno conceded, "but you need me more than I need you."

The whispers turned to laughter. Whether ye need us or not, ye cannot leave us. Not now.

Hypno sighed. How could he negotiate with these beings that had caused - made him cause - so much trouble?

He suddenly had an idea - not implanted there by the Vex, but an idea of his own. He casually got up and started pacing, mask still in both hands. “Yeah, so I’ve heard. ‘Once a Vex, always a Vex’,” he quoted. He meandered out onto his balcony, lingering near one of the support posts of the railing. “But even then, you have to actually make me wear this to serve you, right?”

Ye think ye have the full picture, they hissed.

Before they could continue, Hypno raised his hands and slammed the mask down on the corner of the railing. The mask’s ceramic-like structure cracked, and split in two.

An influx of energy sent Hypno stumbling backward with a cry. He dropped one half of the mask to grab his head as all the memories that had been hidden from him flooded in in a jumbled mass. The Vex’s whispers and laughter crescendoed. Ye thought that would work? Ye’re more foolish than your half-breed friend.

Hypno fell to his knees, grimacing and putting his other hand - still holding one half of the broken mask - to his head, as the unfettered chaos swirled within him. Through the turmoil, one thought pushed to the surface. I really messed this one up, didn’t I?

Then he fainted.

-----

Two ConVex stood on a balcony high above the ocean, outside a building with green glass windows. One held their last gift mask in his hands, and avoided looking at his partner. The sight of a ConVex with a half-naked face was jarring.

Grian wondered why the Vex had only summoned him and Hypno, and not their third member. Or, indeed, why they summoned Hypno at all, since clearly something had gone wrong. In response, he got only a few whispers - something about "wouldn't listen" and "showing off". Who was being shown off to whom, Grian wasn't sure.

Their target sat unmoving in a high-backed chair. He was in his afk trance, and probably wouldn’t notice someone walking in, but Grian tiptoed anyway, Hypno close behind. An odd, breathy sound echoed from under the floor, but it was so out of context that neither recognized what it could be.

Then they got their answer. From a row of holes along the base of the organ that dominated the room, blazes rose to track the intruders. Fireballs peppered the room. At the same moment, an alarm started clanging, and the bottom of the chair dropped out into an escape hatch.

The ConVex dove in different directions, Hypno narrowly avoiding the fireballs, Grian taking one to the shoulder and another to the leg. His dive turned into a roll to put out the flames. “Scarper!” he cried. Both dropped through the floor. Seeing the hatch tunnel below, they flew off, following it to its exit.

-----

Doc was jarred out of his trance by the cacophony of bells, already quickly fading as he dropped through his tunnel. He hit the bottom with a jolt. The minecart he was sitting in locked to the tracks and picked up speed. All working as intended, but worrying nonetheless. Who had triggered the alarm?

He looked around nervously, then chuckled at himself. He was in a tiny minecart tunnel far underground. Once he was out of the open room, he was fairly safe, unless the intruders could fly through walls.

The minecart finished its journey, dropping into a chamber guarded by iron golems. Doc felt safer already. He took the opportunity to try to steady his breathing and calm his shaking nerves. He still hadn’t died even once in this world, and at this point it didn’t really matter anymore - but it mattered to him, even though it made moments like this feel even more fraught.

After a few minutes, he risked closing his eyes to calm himself further. Moments later, he opened them again, thinking he had heard a muffled sound nearby, maybe a room over. But it was so faint, he wasn’t sure he had even heard right, over the continuous clunking and scraping of golems. He waited longer. So much for calming down.

Minutes dragged by, mostly silent. Finally, the situation moved from tense to boring. Doc sighed and pushed the button to drop him into his bedroom.

He immediately saw the two figures waiting for him. One had a face that reminded him briefly, bizarrely, of his own, but before Doc had the chance to process any of the details, the other figure leaped at him. His hand went to his sword, but there was no time to draw it before something was shoved onto his face.

Chapter Text

Doc staggered backward, knocked off balance, and fell on his butt. Power flowed through him, and though he didn’t know what it was, it almost felt good - until it reached his cybernetics, pushing and sparking painfully against the redstone nerves. He growled and reached for whatever this thing was that was still stuck to his face.

A sudden spasm from his redstone made his right arm smack him in the face. Shaking it off, he tried again, with both hands, noticing dimly that the color of the glowing wires on his arm was shifting away from its usual red. He barely got a grip around the edges and started tugging when his arm spasmed again, jerking the thing away and making him cry out in pain as it tried to take his skin with it. He let go, and it fell back into place. Something chittered with laughter.

Finally, Doc looked up toward the ones who had invaded his room, hoping for information, if not answers. He was greeted with two - or, one and a half - familiarly masked faces. Masks that he hadn’t seen in a long time. 

“Vex,” he spat. Of course Grian would be one of them. Whatever they had done to him was probably Grian’s idea. Doc noted the scorch marks on Grian’s sweater with satisfaction.

“Don’t worry,” Hypno told him. Hypno’s voice was pitched even higher than usual, and so stiff that, apart from the subtle accent, it barely even sounded like him. And there was another layer to it, as though Hypno was speaking in sync with a second entity. “The ConVex never hurt their own.”

Their own...? Doc tried to get to his feet, but his shaking arm threw him off balance again. Why was his processing so slow, his mind so fuzzy?

And why did he suddenly feel revulsion at the sight of Hypno’s half-masked face? It was no stranger a sight than the face he saw in the mirror each morning.

Not anymore, a voice whispered to him. Ye wear our face now.

“Fuck you,” Doc managed to spit. Immediately, an explosion of static filled his head. He reached for the mask again and yanked on it, to no avail.

Ye are Bound to us now, the voice laughed, sending another burst of magic into Doc’s redstone-connected brain to punish and distract. Ye will learn. Now... what might ye desire...

-----

Hypno watched through impassive Vex eyes as Doc struggled with the mask that Grian had enchanted with a curse of Binding. Watched as the red light of Doc's redstone augments warred with, and finally lost to, the blue of the Vex. Stood by as Doc stood up, arm crackling with dual energy and still occasionally spasming, drew his sword, and made to fly east, crystals ripping elytra to shreds as he took off.

Until suddenly, briefly, Hypno wasn't impassive anymore. His vision shifted, narrowed slightly until he was only seeing out of his unmasked left eye. His left hand twitched. He couldn't feel his right. He did feel the Vex still lurking in the background, on the side. He had to make the most of this free moment.

Carefully, intensely aware of how quickly he needed to act, Hypno fumbled his communicator into his left hand, eyes still following Doc. The Vex said something through him to Grian. Hypno clumsily poked out a message, barely looking at his screen for fear of the Vex seeing.

<hypnotizd> --> <cubfan135> dox

<hypnotizd> --> <cubfan135> doc

<hypnotizd> --> <cubfan135> 2 bdins

 At that moment, he lost interest in writing more. His vision returned to normal. Noticing Grian take off, Hypno remembered suggesting they follow Doc - their newest member seemed to have a goal, and the ConVex were curious to see what he would do. Smiling, he rose from the ground and flew after them to watch events unfold.

Chapter Text

Cub read and reread the messages from Hypno. The sloppiness was concerning - it meant Hypno was in a hurry, or maybe partly incapacitated. He hadn’t seen or heard from Hypno since they talked to Jevin at worldspawn, and now he was sending messages that sounded like a hostage situation. The warning about Doc was pretty clear, given the new ConVex’s recent activity, but Hypno’s best efforts to communicate might still be in vain if Cub couldn’t figure out what “bdins” was.

A notification for the public chat came in, and Cub switched over to check it.

<BdoubleO100> HELP

BdoubleO100 was killed by Docm77 using m̴̨͇͍̳̈̀̄̌̐̀̕͟agic

Cub blinked in realization, looking down at his keyboard. The I next to the U; the N next to the B. Hypno’s message clicked into place. Doc 2 bdubs.

 <VintageBeef> I thought you two had made up?

<BdoubleO100> We had!!

<BdoubleO100> Or I thought we had

<BdoubleO100> But Doc’s got some weird powerup and now he’s gone all crazy!

<BdoubleO100> And now I’m all the way at worldspawn, dangit!

<Welsknight> that’s what you get for just slapping down a bed wherever like a vagabond

The weird powerup, Cub assumed, would be a mask, feeding Doc Vex mag-

He scrolled back up to the death message. Bdubs was killed by magic? Vex magic couldn’t kill people. It simply didn’t produce the right effect. But if Bdubs’ frantic messages were to be believed, that was what had happened. Or Doc had suddenly decided to brew potions of harming for combat use, but somehow that was the less plausible answer.

Cub hopped in his ice boat and sped back to his base. As he traveled, he sent a different kind of message. Scar, Jevin, all hands on deck. We need to intercept Doc before he traps Bdubs at spawn.

On my way, came Scar's reply.

Roger that, came Jevin's.

Cub reached his base and immediately launched himself up and out without wasting time on the proper doorway. As he flew past the crystal containment area, movement to the right caught his eye, and he turned to meet it.

Two figures were already locked in aerial combat. One flitted about with the relative intricacy of Vex flight, but the other swooped and dove in long, sweeping passes, the signature of elytra flight. Someone clearly had the same idea as Cub did.

As he got closer, Cub recognized the non-mage by a flash of red hair. Cleo must have seen the chat and hurried to help. Or maybe she was just itching to finally fight some Vex. Either way, one more fighter was a welcome presence, in Cub’s opinion. And if anyone could handle themselves around Vex magic without wielding it themselves, it’d be Cleo.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Cub greeted her with exaggerated casualness as he flew in and blocked a punch with his shield.

Cleo dove down, swooped around, and made another pass, growling in frustration as Doc dodged her again. “Yeah, I couldn’t leave well enough alone.”

Cub fell into parallel flight with her. "Well, the extra help is appreciated, Cleo," he assured her. 

Before he could say more, he sensed Doc coming up from behind and turned just in time to block another attack. This time, red and blue energy scorched across the front of his shield, crackling through the metal edges. The force of the blow knocked him back through the air. "Whoa!"

The two mages circled each other warily. Red and blue arced equally around Doc’s cybernetic arm, frequently sparking off each other, but the colors never mixed. Doc wound up for another punch. To Cleo’s surprise, Cub lowered his shield. Doc’s charged fist connected with Cub’s shoulder.

It felt like being struck by lightning. Cub crumpled around the impact point and crashed to the ground. He could taste sand, copper, and magic, and it was a few moments before his muscles started responding again enough to sit up. 

Cleo ran over to him. “What was that about?? I saw you, you just let him hit you with that? Are... are you okay?”

Cub stiffly got to his feet. “It was an experiment,” he grunted. “I wanted to see exactly what we’re dealing with here. I’ll be fine, although I don’t think I’d be able to take another hit like that right away.”

At that moment, Scar ran up to check on Cub. Jevin was now distracting Doc. “Well,” Cleo replied, stepping back, “it looks like our backup’s here.”

She scanned the area for safety, before her attention was drawn to the northern sky. Two figures were leisurely approaching. “And not a moment too soon,” she added. “Because their backup is here too.”

Chapter Text

The approach of the new ConVex elicited gasps from both Cub and Scar - not for their presence, but their appearance.

“Oh no,” Scar fretted. “What happened to Hypno?”

“He must have tried to - quite literally - break away from the Vex,” Cub mused.

“Negotiations didn’t go too well, then,” Jevin said. “If that wasn’t apparently a really bad thing to have, though, I would honestly say the look is kind of dope.”

“I was thinking that too,” Cleo agreed. “It looks pretty evil.”

Now that he saw the other mages arriving, Doc turned back to fight, drawing his sword. The twin magics in his arm travelled down the length of the sword, drawn to the diamond blade. This time, Cub engaged him, as Jevin flew up toward Hypno and Scar faced Grian.

A glancing blow knocked Cub back. Stunned, he fell into the walled-off nest of crystals. Immediately, their hum, equal parts dizzying and soothing, surrounded him. As he brushed against the red one for support, a shard fell away into his hand and filled with his magic. The shard echoed it back, transmuting the magic into healing. Rejuvenated, Cub grinned, then tapped the other crystals for help. Yellow granted a speed boost, and he launched himself back onto the battlefield.

The field was changing quickly, as Grian and Scar chased each other across it. The builders used their magic to shape the ground beneath them, pulling up stone spires and walls to attack and defend. The magic-infused land could only be passed through by the mage who moved it, making the terrain a maze for everyone else.

Jevin met Hypno in midair. Hypno had no shield, only a sword and a bow, but Jevin hesitated before his attack.

Hypno didn’t hesitate. Jevin just barely dodged the first swipe. “Hypno, come on, dude,” he tried. “You don’t wanna hit me. I’ve been trying to help this whole time!”

Hypno swung again, and Jevin put his shield up.

I’ve been trying to help! Suddenly, Hypno was once again in a narrow, but free, state of mind. His right arm still slashed and stabbed at his friend. Hypno wanted to call out to Jevin, to reassure him, apologize, or maybe cry for help, but found that he couldn’t speak. He didn’t even know how.

He had an idea. Quickly, he put his bow away. Hypno brought his hand to his face - and pinched his nose.

Jevin paused, did a double take, even laughed. “Okay, you got me,” he teased. “I’m glad to see you’ve got a chance-”

The moment passed. Jevin’s defenses were down. Hypno’s eyes hardened, and he ran his sword through Jevin’s stomach.

Jevin groaned. “...Couldn’t be that easy, could it?” He felt Hypno start to pull the sword back, and thought fast, stiffening himself around the blade. “Oh no you don’t. This is mine now.” Hypno’s yanks on the sword were painful, but Jevin held fast and twisted away, taking Hypno’s sword with him. Drifting hazily to the ground, Jevin maneuvered the sword until he could pull it completely into himself, leaving no visible trace except a tear in his sweater. Now that the sword was in one place, he could easily let himself heal around it.

Until he was tackled to the ground from behind. Jevin twisted to find that a masked TFC had finally arrived. 

Jevin rolled away from an axe chopping where his arm had been. Something weird had happened when TFC touched him. Like Jevin’s magic had connected somehow. And some long-lost memory, pushing at the back of his mind... 

He grabbed TFC’s wrist. There it was again! Jevin risked focusing on the thought - the instinct . A slime instinct, to seek out and merge with others of its kind. TFC, of course, was no slime. But he was, currently, Vex - like Jevin. Was his slime nature being drawn to Vex magic? Did that mean he could...

TFC swung again, and Jevin caught his other wrist, tentatively letting the merge instinct take over. He felt himself drawing in magic - absorbing TFC’s magic. It was working!

And it kept working. TFC’s mask kept feeding him magic, and Jevin kept drawing it in, unable to stop until the process was done. Despite Vex magic’s usual chill, Jevin started almost feeling warm with power. Energy surged within him, pushing at the edges of its containment. Starting to panic, Jevin tried to pull away, but TFC realized what was happening, and held on. Then TFC started to laugh: his familiar, low, gravelly laugh overlaid the chittering of the Vex.

Jevin struggled more urgently, crying out in pain. His vision faded to white as the magic’s glow overtook him. Power filled him so tightly, pushed so energetically, he felt like he was about to-

iJevin blew up

Chapter Text

The explosion swept across the battlefield. Vex magic couldn’t do major damage to the players scattered around, but that much at once still had an effect. TFC, the closest to the blast, was knocked out cold; Hypno, who had dropped down expecting to fight for his sword, was tumbled through the air and landed, dazed, a dozen blocks away. Doc flinched as the magical shockwave agitated his already-sensitive cybernetics; Cub took the distraction to push forward and finally gain the upper hand against him.

Grian and Scar barely noticed. They dipped and dove through their jagged terrain, each focused more on flight than direct engagement. For the moment, Scar was chasing Grian. Grian dove through a dirt wall. Scar, unable to go through that way, arced over the top, then looked around for Grian.

He sensed Grian shoot up behind him and moved to dodge, but Grian was too fast. To his terror, the next thing he felt was not a blade in his back, but stubborn hands on his wing. He swung around, trying to shake Grian off, to no avail. “Please...” he whimpered. “Please don’t...”

Grian’s foot brushed against Scar. Scar thrashed again. Cub, help! he called in desperation.

Scar felt two sneakers dig into his back. He felt a horrible pulling, then tearing, and then the most excruciating pain he had ever experienced. A scream ripped from his throat and mind at once, but he barely heard himself over the fire overwhelming his thoughts. His world dimmed, but, unluckily, didn’t quite go dark. He curled into a ball, shivering, as if to hold together some bit of himself that was rapidly pouring away.

Everyone stopped, momentarily, in shock. Regardless of who was fighting whom, every mage on the field heard the dual scream and felt it like ice in their hearts.

Cleo, non-mage that she was, was the first to recover. She whirled on the nearest ConVex, which happened to be Hypno. As a zombie, she couldn't produce tears - nor was she usually much of a crier anyway - but her voice was tight as she yelled, "What did you do to him??"

Cub was at Scar's side in an instant, sliding to his knees, heedless of the pool of indigo blood already staining his clothes and skin. “Oh no oh man Scar-” He summoned a quick shield of magic around the two of them to buy some time, so focused on Scar’s plight that at first he didn’t notice the third person caught inside the dome.

Grian floated to a landing, staring, horrified, at the delicate crystal structure in his hand. What had he done?? He knew the pain of losing a limb, but what he had heard - felt - from Scar was so much worse. He had thought- no, he hadn’t thought. He never did. He had just done what the Vex suggested to him. Why had he ever trusted these guys more than- more than the friend he had just gravely hurt?

Out with the old, in with the new. The Vex sounded pleased with themselves.

"No!" Grian yelled aloud. Cub looked up in surprise. Grian, too, dropped to his knees by Scar, then recoiled slightly at the sight. Scar’s skin and clothes were losing color with every moment, fading to bluish-grey.

Grian turned to Cub, a look of guilty terror on his face, exaggerated by his mask in a way that, in another situation, might have almost been funny. His voice was high with grief. “What’s happening to him? How do we fix it??”

Before Cub could answer, Grian’s eyes unfocused slightly, and he closed them, listening to the response in his head. When he opened them again, he looked even more scared. He ran his hands through his hair. “He- I- oh my god, I tore his soul in half. He can’t respawn like this. I...” His throat closed with tears. He couldn’t finish the last sentence. Cub nodded gravely.

Unexpectedly, Grian’s hands moved from his hair to the corners of the mask. It took some effort to overcome the suction-like effect that kept the mask in place, but after a short struggle, Grian yanked the mask off his face and threw it as hard as he could. It bounced off the inside of the shield. “No more,” he whispered. “I just-”

His eyes fell on the wing that he’d dropped on the ground. “What if we put the wing back?” he stammered, getting excited and already grabbing it. “We could-”

Cub watched dully as Grian scurried around, trying to make Scar’s wing fit back in place. Grian’s hope was infectious, though. “Worth a shot, I guess.”

“It’s not staying,” Grian pouted. “Do you have any regen or health potions or something?”

“No, I-” Cub’s hand closed around something in his pocket. He pulled it out. “Oh, I have this!”

Grian scowled. “A crystal? Really?”

“It worked for me, it’ll work for him.” Cub gently closed Scar’s hand around the red crystal, then sent a pulse of magic through them both. “I hope.”

Scar’s shivering slowed. As Grian watched, the skin healed around the wing, setting it back in place. But no color returned to Scar's face or clothes.

Cub sighed. “We stabilized him. He won’t lose any more of himself. But...”

Scar stirred, then opened his eyes, revealing that they had turned a blank, faintly-glowing white. He looked between Grian and Cub. “I... feel a bit better now... except my head’s still all confused and... Thank you for helping me!” He stuck out his hand as if to shake hands with them. “My name is...” He paused, pulled back his hand to inspect it as though it would reveal a clue, then shook his head and held his hand back out to Cub as if nothing had happened. “What’s your name?”

Chapter Text

Cub stared, frozen, heart pounding, at Scar’s outstretched hand, as Scar’s words refused to sink in. Or maybe Cub didn’t want them to sink in. Didn’t want to accept what they meant. His gaze traveled to Scar’s face, that familiar, gentle smile stretching just a bit too wide under blank white eyes. Soulless eyes.

Grian shifted awkwardly. Cub turned toward him, and Grian flinched as Cub’s expression changed from chilly despair to icy fury. Grian hoped that fury was not directed at him, but instead at the beings that had commanded him here.

No, they hadn’t commanded. They had asked . Maybe pushed him a little. They suggested that he introduce them to two of the most powerful people on the server. Had they known something Grian didn’t? That their magic would shut down Xisuma, would send Doc on a rampage?

After all, they had willfully asked him to destroy a friend. They gloated about it until Grian tore his mask off to be rid of them, and he still heard the frustrated whispers in the back of his mind.

Grian forced himself to look back at Cub, but Cub’s attention had shifted. He stood up slowly, touched two fingers to his throat, took a deep breath, and stepped out of his shield.

Immediately, Doc, who had been pounding on the shield, turned to swing at Cub. Cub barely hesitated as he parried and shoved Doc back. “VEX!” Cub boomed, voice magically amplified to fill the whole battlefield. Everyone turned toward him.

“The players here may not have any idea what just happened,” Cub began. “But the Vex know. They know. And yet you still chose to subject someone to the worst fate that could possibly befall a player-mage. You all felt some of his pain, and still did it. 

“We worked with you as friends across two worlds. We called you to us in the first place. When we left for this world, you let us go with a smile. Scar loved every minute of it. He was happy to be a full mage again, would have been happy to work with you again, should you call, and you’ve repaid his loyalty by taking advantage of his one weakness as a full mage and-” Cub hesitated, his voice breaking. “You’ve destroyed one of your most loyal servants, Vex. You’ve destroyed him. And by doing so, you’ve lost two more people who once followed you. Are you really happy with the damage you’ve caused here?”

The three remaining ConVex passed glances at each other. Cleo and Jevin - who had quietly rearrived in the middle of the speech - just stared in incredulity.

“Leave,” Cub commanded. “Leave us alone, and never come back, or... or...” He couldn’t think of a threat. He knew he didn’t have the power or authority to make them leave. In their eyes, he wasn’t even one of them anymore - just a human who used their magic. If he was lucky, they would listen to him. But he knew they wouldn’t. They’d just tear him apart too.

Cub sank to the ground, defeated. His throat was tight, and he coughed twice, ending the amplification spell. With those coughs came all the emotion he had been holding back while he spoke. As the Vex advanced on him, Cub sat in the middle of the battleground and cried.

-----

Cleo jumped into action, trying to protect Cub against multiple assailants at once. Even Grian half-heartedly joined forces with her, after Cub lost focus and dropped the shield around him and Scar.

Jevin’s contribution was to once again head straight for Hypno. This time, though, Jevin’s sword stayed sheathed. This time, he had a plan.

Hypno sliced his sword at Jevin. Jevin leaped into the air to dodge it, sailing over Hypno’s head. Hypno moved to meet him. Jevin grabbed Hypno’s arm and wrestled it behind him. Hypno tried to twist out of Jevin’s grip, but the slime could not be shaken so easily. As the two rose higher, Jevin switched his hold, wrapping himself around his friend, leaving one hand free to reach for Hypno’s face.

Jevin snatched at Hypno’s mask, digging the broken edge into his hand for better leverage. Hypno struggled futilely, unable to extricate himself from the slime man’s sticky hold.

Jevin pulled up on the mask. “I promise-” he grunted with every pull- “this won’t - hurt - a bit-”

Both Hypno and Jevin yelped as the mask finally came free. Hypno thrashed harder. Jevin caught a glimpse of Hypno’s eyes, still blazing blue with Vex control. He threw the mask, trying to make a note of where it landed far below.

Then, Jevin crossed his fingers and pulled his instinct forward once more. Almost immediately, his insides started to churn with anxiety, as he felt Hypno’s magic flow into him. What if he was wrong? What if it wasn’t the masks constantly feeding the mages power? What if he-

Within moments, it was done. Jevin glowed a little brighter. Hypno’s crystal wings crumbled to dust, and he slumped in Jevin’s grip, unconscious. The sudden change in movement, the loss of the wings - which Jevin had been bracing himself between - and Jevin’s surprise that his plan had even worked, were finally enough. Hypno slipped out of Jevin’s grasp.

“Wha-” Jevin fumbled to pull his friend up, but missed. As his hand brushed Hypno’s, Jevin felt a flash of his magic working. Hypno dropped toward the ground fast - then slowed to a drift. Jevin drew level with him and followed him to a gentle landing on the ground.

Finally, Jevin addressed his other pressing concern: the extra magic he now held within himself. It was nowhere near the excess he had pulled from TFC, but it was still not very comfortable - like when he was holding extra mass from a careless little slime.

Thinking of little slimes, though... Jevin couldn’t split himself fully, but when he picked up slimes, he could, and usually would, split them off again to get back to the mass he was accustomed to. If he could merge magic like slime, it followed that he could split it like slime. He held out his hand and focused on that.

Sure enough, the arcs of light inside him came together at the surface of his hand, forming a ball of magic in his palm, and he felt the energy inside him return to normal. To his surprise, the ball of magic lifted off his hand, shaping itself into a humanoid form. It turned around, and Jevin found himself staring into the face of a ven.

“Oh,” Jevin murmured to himself. “Living slime; living magic.”

The ven floated aimlessly for a moment, then focused and started to swoop toward Hypno. Jevin scrambled to his feet, hand on his sword. “No no no-”

As soon as Jevin said it, the ven stopped. It looked back at Jevin. With a start, Jevin realized it was waiting for a command. For his command. He had no idea what to tell it.

“Uhhh... go that way?” Jevin pointed south, away from the battlefield and from any other hermits. “And just... keep going.”

The ven chittered, nodded, and flew south. And just kept going, until it was out of sight.

For about the hundredth time, Jevin stared at his hands, marveling at the energy arcing through them and what he could do with it. He was about to turn back to the fight, when Hypno stirred next to him.

Hypno grumbled and rolled onto his back, trying to sort through the events of the past day or so in his head. All the memories were there, but there were so many of them, and they were still all jumbled together... Then it occurred to him that he was lying quite comfortably on his back. 

He put his hand to his face. Normal. He looked around, and his dark eyes met Jevin’s. Jevin squatted next to him and put a friendly hand on his shoulder. “Welcome back, dude.”

Chapter Text

A cry caught Jevin’s attention. He turned back to the battlefield to see Cleo, glaring, briefly paralyzed by Doc’s attack. Grian swooped in to lead Doc away from where Cub was sitting. Cub was facing Scar, back to the battlefield, wings resting wide open - almost like he wanted something to happen to them, too. “I’d better go,” Jevin told Hypno.

Hypno rolled over and tried to push himself up. “I can help-”

“You don’t look like it, dude,” Jevin replied. “Maybe go talk to Cub, though? I’m not sure exactly what happened, but it’s really messed Cub up.”

Hypno nodded darkly. “I’m pretty sure I know what happened. I’ll see what I can do, I guess.”

“Thanks, man.” Jevin was already on his feet, running, then flying, back to the action.

He landed just in time to see TFC grab Cleo’s arm. Knowing what would come next, Jevin reached for Cleo, but before he could touch her... the teleport failed, with only a brief flicker, and Cleo wrenched her arm free, baring her teeth. “I’ve had enough of your tricks, Vex, you’re not gettin’ me with anything else! Oh, hey Jevin.”

Jevin gave her an astonished smile. “Hey, Cleo. I think I’ve figured out a way to actually beat these guys, and I could use your help.”

“Yeah?” Cleo blocked the swing that Jevin had just dodged.

Jevin circled around. “On my signal, go for the mask itself. I need it off his face.”

Cleo grinned. “Gladly.”

On TFC’s next swing, Jevin grabbed his arm, then ducked under TFC’s wings to pin him. TFC tried to lift into the air, but Jevin pulled the less experienced flyer back down, keeping him low enough for Cleo to jump up and grab the mask.

“It’s not coming off, Jevin,” Cleo fretted, tugging at the mask again.

“They’re like suctioned on or something, keep trying!”

Cleo pulled harder, almost yanking both the mages off their feet. “Uh... still not working, and now he’s bleeding...”

“What??” Jevin risked poking his head up for a look. TFC had been surprisingly calm throughout the struggle. And now, sure enough, a trickle of blood ran down his face, staining his beard.

Cleo stepped back. “Oh god, I know what’s happening. Grian started this thing in the last world - I think you’d just gone on your worldcation at that point - anyway, we ended up with like five people running around with dragon heads literally stuck on them with Binding curses. I think he’s done basically that again.”

“Uhh... well, that’s not good,” Jevin laughed nervously. “Because the only way to get a Bound item off is-”

“Do whatever you need to, guys,” TFC interjected. Jevin was so surprised he almost let him go. “I really don’t mind.”

“Erm... alright.” Cleo leveled her sword at him. Jevin ducked.

TFC grinned at her, the expression amplified by the mask. “It’s an honor to be killed by you once again - more directly this time.” Cleo chuckled, and TFC laughed with her, with no trace of Vex behind it. He was still laughing as she thrust her sword through his heart.

As soon as TFC vanished, Jevin took off and flew south. Cleo opened her elytra to follow, barely keeping up. “What now?” she yelled, before nearly crashing into the wall of Cub’s pyramid, which Jevin had simply flown through. She dove through the actual entrance and caught up again.

“Gotta get to him,” Jevin explained in a rush, already almost at Cub’s Nether portal. “Probably at his base. You should probably go back and help Grian - Doc’s a beast to try and oppose on a slow day.” With that, he vanished into the Nether.

-----

Jevin rose through the roof of the tunnel he arrived in, turning in a circle to get his bearings. He barely cared about the heat of the lava ocean just below him - he had noticed before that the magic inside him did wonders for keeping him cool. Finding the hanging hub portal, he leveled out and shot north, forgoing the mess of tunnels and instead heading straight through the netherrack to Tango’s portal, then out to TFC’s base.

TFC was there, nonchalantly poking through chests for backup tools. He looked up just before Jevin entered. “Ah, Jevin! I gotta thank you,” TFC said. “You know, someone showed up to drop that mask on my head one day, and I never could get the darn thing off! And once the Vex took control they wouldn’t even let me off myself to break it, of course.”

Jevin, taken aback by the casualness of the scene, just watched TFC for a moment. “They aren’t... still in your head?”

TFC shrugged and turned toward Jevin, a distinct shine behind his naturally blue eyes. “Not that I can tell. Maybe they’re just letting me be for now. Can’t say I miss ‘em,” he laughed.

As TFC walked across the room and bent down to look through another chest, Jevin realized that the older man was moving more smoothly than... well, than Jevin had ever seen him. “You’re looking good for a recent respawn,” he commented.

TFC stretched and smiled at Jevin. “Thank you! I’m feelin’ pretty good, too. I think it’s that magic they were pumping into me, making sure I could do the things they wanted me to do.”

This left Jevin with a dilemma. He had come here to absorb TFC’s Vex magic for good, like he’d done with Hypno. But, if this was its effect on TFC, Jevin wasn’t sure he wanted to take that away from his old friend. On the other hand... this could be a trick of the Vex.

“I’m going to have to box you in here,” Jevin decided. “Just until our other, uh, problems are taken care of. To make absolutely sure everything’s fine, you know?”

TFC sighed. “Yeah, I get it. Gotta make sure those pesky buggers aren’t gonna come back to bite you in the rear, right? See if I really am free of ‘em.”

“Yep,” Jevin replied, already conjuring a large bubble of magic around them. “You’ll be all good in here?”

“Super,” TFC assured him. “I’ve got a couple books I never got to reading before this all happened - I can keep myself occupied.”

“Alright,” Jevin said. “See you in a bit.” With that, Jevin left the bubble, leaving TFC with plenty of time to think.

Chapter Text

TFC sat down on the lid of one of his chests with a sigh. He wasn't in the mood for reading just yet. Idly, he wished he'd had the inclination to put some form of seating area in his base. But problems seemed to keep coming up in his life, preventing him from getting things done here, and he was far from getting around to any sort of luxury beyond a few walls and a bed.

The Vex, oddly enough, had not particularly been one of these problems. They encouraged using the magic they granted to build, ever interested in what "their" players would create, so when TFC mostly just showed interest in working on his tower, the Vex mostly didn't interfere. After a few cursory attempts to get the mask off met with failure, TFC resigned himself relatively easily to the constant inundation of energy in his bones and faint whispers in the back of his mind.

Until one day, one of his neighbors paid him a visit. TFC would have welcomed them in, but the Vex chose to act directly through him, and instead he watched the visitor vanish before his eyes.

They told him that Zedaph was intruding, spying, meddling around in business he shouldn't have been messing with. Maybe they were right. But even so, Zedaph hadn’t deserved to be rudely booted off to who-knows-where just for being curious.

The Vex had reassured TFC that Zedaph was just fine, and encouraged him to use that same magic on any grievance in his life. Gradually, TFC did, disappearing anything from blocks he tripped over to clutter in his chests. By the time a week or so had passed, the habit was so natural that he thought nothing of doing the same to an obstacle he bumped into in the shopping district. Too late, he realized that the "obstacle" was instead a close friend of many years.

After that, TFC decided he'd rather not listen to the voices in his head anymore. He had complied so easily before that the Vex hadn't devoted much to controlling him, but he could be very stubborn when he wanted to be. This combination made it quite easy for TFC to simply ignore the Vex's summons for a little while. He let the two people who had - somewhat - signed up for this, go to Doc’s base without him. And then the Vex got wise and took over again, because they needed him as backup in the resulting fight.

A knock at the door shook TFC out of his thoughts. “Come on in,” he called without thinking, then corrected himself: “Well, as far in as you can get-”

“Whoa! What the heck?” It was Hypno’s voice coming from the other side of the wall of magic.

“Yeah, I seem to be in lockdown here,” TFC replied with a dry laugh. “Jevin had to get back to the fight in a hurry, but I suppose he wanted to make sure that on the off chance my Vex came calling again I wouldn’t be going anywhere.”

“On the off chance the Vex come calling again?” Hypno repeated. “Did Jev not just get rid of the magic, the mask... all that?”

“He never said anything about getting rid of the magic...” TFC mused. Now that it was on his mind, though, it occurred to him that he couldn’t feel Hypno’s presence, and he’d been around the other mages just long enough to know that he should. “Hang on just a second, are you trying to tell me you’re actually Vex-free?”

“Yeah,” Hypno replied, “and I’m pretty sure it took, like, two seconds, too. Although I did pass out at one point, so I can’t say for sure. But he didn’t do that to you, hmm...”

“Nope.” TFC snapped his fingers, watching blue sparks arc across them. “I wonder if that’s what he was trying before, when I first got there. I could feel something happening to my magic, but didn’t know what. And then of course Jevin went boom, and... maybe that’s why he hesitated this time, heh. I wouldn’t blame him for not wanting that to happen again.”

“Mmm, that’s possible, yeah. Anyway, I came here to apologize to you,” Hypno said. “Coming to you with one of the Binding masks was kind of my idea, I think, so it’s kind of my fault you got caught up in this mess.”

“You and I both know it wasn’t really your idea,” TFC reminded him. “Or maybe it was, but They were what made it sound like a good one. And really, no need to apologize to me. The Vex kind of ignored me most of the time. Probably why they haven’t bothered me since I respawned. For all I know they up and left as soon as the mask came off. I wasn’t worth the effort,” he added with a laugh. “Though I suppose when all this is over I should apologize, myself, to Zedaph and Jevin, just for peace of mind.”

“You might not have to wait much longer,” Hypno informed him. “When I left to come over here, they’d actually managed to restrain Doc and were going to try and get his mask off with admin magic. And he’s the last controlled mage to take care of, since Grian broke away from them after...”

“After Scar,” TFC finished. “Poor guy. When I got knocked silly by Jevin’s explosion, first thing I heard as I got up was him screaming like the devil himself had got a hold of him. And with the Vex in us telling us things, we pretty much know what happened, don’t we?”

Hypno nodded, then remembered TFC couldn’t see him. “Yup. It’s an awful thing to happen to anyone. And even Cub doesn’t think there’s a way to save him.”

The two sat in grim silence for a few moments, then Hypno spoke again. “Cub told me that once you get Vex magic, it can never be taken from you,” he mused. “But Jevin... somehow... proved him wrong. I have no idea how he did it, but... I don’t know, maybe Jev will be able to prove Cub wrong about Scar, too.”

Chapter Text

Cleo circled Doc warily, looking for an opening. She no longer had a shield to protect her - the arm holding the shield was lying a few meters away. A minor downside of being undead, mostly made up for by the fact that the loss of a limb barely slowed her down.

She also seemed to be oddly resistant to Doc’s energy attack, maybe for the same reason. Far from immune, though. Her remaining arm still shook from the most recent hit. Grian picked up on this and tried his best to distract Doc, dipping and dodging around the man’s head like a pesky insect, but Doc would not be deterred.

This was the scene Jevin found, upon arriving to the field for a third time. He seemed to be making a habit of showing up in the middle of something. He watched Doc thrust his sword toward Cleo. Cleo, too tired to dodge and unable to block, took the hit square in the chest and vanished in a messy burst of red, blue, and white magics. That probably wouldn’t be a fun respawn.

Which left Jevin and Grian. Jevin knew what needed to happen, but he would need to trust Grian to help. Grian clearly didn’t want to fight Doc head-on, instead leading him in an upward spiral. Jevin didn’t blame him. 

Grian! He called. Grian jumped and looked toward him. Lead Doc at the ground. I have a plan. ...Sort of.

Grian, somewhat surprisingly, complied with little hesitation, executing a tight flip in the air and diving down again. As soon as Grian disappeared below the dirt, Jevin summoned a mat of magic, which Doc half landed on, half crashed into. When Doc made contact, Jevin extended the magic into a tight, crystalline shell, hoping it would hold.

Grian popped out of the ground nearby, saw what Jevin was trying to do, and added his own contribution: a second shell, of magically-infused stone and dirt. In moments, all they could see was Doc’s head and a bit of his chest.

Jevin landed and drew his sword, then winced as Doc thrashed against his containment. Every time Doc’s redstone arm pushed against the magic shell, Jevin could feel the magics clashing. Doc could probably break out, given time.

“Hold on a second!” Jevin turned to see Hypno jogging up to him. “You just need to get his mask off, right? So you can do... whatever you did to me? Is there any way you could do it without killing him?”

“I mean... you tell me, dude,” Jevin answered skeptically. “I’m assuming you guys put Binding on this mask too. And does killing Doc in order to free him really matter that much?”

“Well...” Hypno admitted, “not really , but he won’t respawn close to here, and you know he’ll just go after Bdubs again or something and it might be hard to track him down. Plus, he still hasn’t died yet since arriving in this world - you know, the challenge he set himself and built all the security for? - and it seems unfair to break that just because of Vex stuff he can’t control.”

“Any suggestions?” Jevin asked skeptically.

“Maybe Cub’s admin magic has something to help?” Grian submitted.

Cub looked up at the sound of his name and looked at them. Once he’d processed the rest of the sentence, he walked over to them. “Admin magic, huh? To get a Bound item off?”

Jevin nodded. Hypno, apparently remembering something else he had to do, excused himself, pulled a spare set of elytra out of an ender chest, and flew off.

“I think I can do that, yeah.” Cub searched through his admin spells, a faint white glow behind his eyes - though the admin glow was nowhere near as striking or dead -looking as Scar’s. “Yeah, here.” Noticing Jevin’s uncomfortable look as Doc struggled against his bonds again, Cub typed quickly, then put one hand on Doc’s mask and entered the spell with the other.

A red flash whisked across the mask, then went out. Cub switched his grip and pulled, efficiently removing the mask and throwing it in the general direction of the pile Jevin had made. “It’s best this way,” he murmured, almost to himself.

Doc flinched at Jevin’s touch, and Jevin grimaced slightly at the heat of the redstone energy under his hand. But now that he had successfully absorbed magic once, he could easily do it again, with only minor discomfort as he pulled the warring magics apart. He released Doc, and indicated to Grian to do the same. Both helped catch Doc as he slid, unconscious, to the ground. His mechanical arm and eye still sparked occasionally. The battery of magic had been rough on them. Jevin once again turned the extra energy into a summoned ven, but this time sliced at it with his sword, wasting no time on commands.

“So it’s... that easy?” Grian asked in wonder.

Jevin shrugged. “I guess so. For me at least.”

Grian held out his hand to Jevin. “Me next.”

Jevin hesitated, surprised. “Really? You’re... basically a free mage now. I think. You don’t want to keep the magic?”

Grian shook his head. “They’re still in the back of my brain. I can tell. After what they had me do, I want nothing to do with them anymore. Get rid of them. Please.”

“...Okay.” Jevin took Grian’s hand, and in moments, it was done. Grian stumbled backward, fighting to stay conscious, and would have fallen if not for Jevin’s steadying hand on his arm. Almost as an afterthought, Grian half strode, half tripped, over to where his own mask lay forgotten near Scar. He picked up the mask, made his way to the beach, and threw it as far as he could into the ocean.

Cub watched the proceedings in amazement. “That’s... incredible,” he finally said. “That’s incredible. This shouldn’t even be possible. How did you...”

“Apparently,” Jevin speculated, “it comes with the territory of being a- being part slime.”

Cub shook his head. “Absolutely incredible. Never seen anything like it.”

Jevin chanced a smirk. “Well, you’ve probably never seen anyone like me, either.”

That actually garnered a brief laugh from Cub. “You certainly are one of a kind, Jev.”

Cub sighed, the smile disappearing from his face. He turned back to Scar, still sitting patiently with a vacant grin. Cub paused. Then he turned back to Jevin. The others could almost see the gears turning in his head as he turned back to Scar. “I wonder...”

Jevin caught on first. “If Scar was lost because of the Vex part of him... if he isn’t Vex anymore, then...!”

They moved closer to Scar as they spoke. “It’s a dangerous gamble, though,” Cub pointed out. “If his soul is too shattered, too far gone, he might just... vanish. Forever.”

“Oh, I didn’t think of that,” Jevin mused. “Would it be worth taking that risk, to you?”

Scar looked from one to the other as they spoke. “What are you guys talking about?”

Both of them looked to Scar. “He is lucid, in a way,” Jevin pointed out. “We could ask him.”

“Who is?” Scar asked.

Cub knelt in front of him. "Scar," he started.

"Who's that?"

Cub sighed. "I mean you. You are Scar."

"Why?"

"Never mind. We have something we want to do, something to bring you back to your old self.”

Scar thought about that for a moment. He frowned, but not in sorrow or remorse, only simple, innocent confusion. “There did used to be something different, wasn’t there? Different from now. You want to bring that back?”

Cub nodded. “I think you’ll like it. But it’s dangerous. We don’t know exactly what will happen. You could... you could be gone forever, if this goes wrong. Are you okay with that?”

Scar grew more confused. “Okay. What’s the dangerous part?”

Cub sat back on his heels, processing Scar’s response. Then he turned to Jevin. “Let’s do it. In this state, it doesn’t matter to him what happens. And the real Scar... he’d say it’s worth the risk. Better one or the other than this. ”

“Wait,” Scar interrupted. “You said I was Scar, and now you’re saying I’m not the real Scar? I’m confused.”

Cub pinched the bridge of his nose exasperatedly. “You’ll be the real Scar in a few minutes. I hope. Jevin, do it.”

Jevin nodded, knelt down, and grabbed Scar’s wrist.

Chapter Text

Color returned to Scar as Jevin pulled the Vex energy away. His wings, which had been the cause and solution to Scar’s pain minutes earlier, faded and crumbled. The white cleared from his eyes. He stared for a moment at Jevin.

Then Scar’s face contorted in discomfort, and he slipped sideways. Cub gasped as Scar listed toward his lap and dissolved into code in front of him. He fumbled for his communicator.

<cubfan135> Scar?

<cubfan135> if you see this please respond

A second passed. Two.

Three.

Four.

Ten.

Cub held his communicator so tightly his knuckles were white. His hands shook.

Fifteen seconds.

Twenty.

<GoodTimeWithScar> cub?

Cub jumped so hard at the communicator's buzz that he almost dropped it.

<cubfan135> Scar!

<cubfan135> are you ok

<cubfan135> where are you

<cubfan135> omg

<GoodTimeWithScar> worldspawn I thnik

<cubfan135> I’m coming to you don’t move

With a faint whoosh of displaced air, Cub was gone. Jevin handed his elytra to Grian and the two flew to worldspawn after him.

When they got there, Cub was helping Scar to sit up. Scar stared for a long moment at Jevin - who was still glowing a little brighter with excess magic - as if still trying to process what he was seeing. He turned around, and gave Cub the same long, puzzled look.

Then Scar noticed Grian and flinched. Grian winced with remorse.

But the same memory also reminded Scar of something else. He realized why he still felt off. He started twisting, squirming away from Cub, reaching around himself to try to feel his back, his shoulders. A place where something should be. And nothing was.

"Cub, what- what's going on?" Scar asked, his voice rising in pitch as he grew more frantic. "This is... a dream, maybe. Wait. I... I remember something happening... someone telling me I might die for good if it went wrong. Am I dead? Cub, am I dead??" He grabbed Cub's wrist, as if he wasn’t quite sure Cub was really there.

Cub held onto Scar's wrists in return, presenting a calm demeanor that he hoped would reassure his friend. “It’s gonna be okay, Scar. You’re alive. You’re alive, and you’re you , and that’s the most important thing.” He sighed and dropped his head. “But, in order to make that happen... your connection to the Vex had to be taken away.”

Scar sat for a moment, stunned to speechlessness, not quite believing what was happening. “Taken away?” he repeated, even higher. “How? That’s... that’s not supposed to be possible!”

“That’s what I thought too,” Cub replied. “But I watched it happen - twice. Three times, counting you. You’d have to ask Jevin how he does it, because I honestly don’t know.”

“Maybe... later,” Scar decided, his voice finally dropping closer to its normal pitch. “This is all getting to be a bit too much.”

“Totally understandable,” Cub said. “Totally understandable. Would you like me to take you to your base?”

Scar nodded slowly. “No teleports though, please. I’m confused enough already!”

As Cub helped Scar into the nearest boat, Jevin stopped them. "One thing, before you head home. This may not be a good time, but I don't want to, like, die on my way home or something and lose the opportunity. Right now... I'm still carrying around your magic. I wish I knew of a way to give it back, but I don't think that's possible. But I can, um... I guess show you? Turn it into something you can interact with, for a little while. Do you want me to do that?"

Scar, completely baffled, nodded. "I guess so? It'd be something, at least."

"Alright," Jevin smiled. He held out his cupped hands. Magic coalesced in Jevin's hands, then above them. The magic took on form of its own accord and turned to look at Scar. 

Scar stared, awestruck, at the ven now sitting in Jevin’s hands. The ven’s face turned red, and it shrieked at Scar before Jevin commanded it, “Stop. That’s a friend.” He had no idea if ven knew what the concept of “friend” was. “Go to him,” Jevin continued, pointing at Scar, “but no attacking.”

The ven flew over and landed on Scar’s shoulder. Scar smiled for the first time all day and reached over to pet its arm. “Hey, lil guy.”

“Ven don’t live very long,” Cub reminded them. “It’ll probably be gone by the time we get home.”

“That’s fine,” Scar murmured, still enamored. “I’ll enjoy it while it lasts.”

Chapter Text

Cub faced Scar in the boat as he rowed them both across the sea toward the jungle. They sat in silence for a while. The only sounds were the rush of water over the oars and the chitter of the ven on Scar’s shoulder. The sounds it made as Scar stroked its head would have been terrifying to anyone else, but Cub just smiled and Scar just kept petting it and murmuring to it like a cat.

“So...” Cub finally spoke up. “How are you feeling right now? Besides the obvious, I mean. That had to have been a rough respawn for you, and then with everything else that happened...”

Scar looked over at him. “Dazed, mostly? My head’s still spinning, and it feels like I missed something somewhere. Like nothing is where it should be.”

“Understandable,” Cub replied, “understandable. How much do you remember of what happened?”

“Not a lot from before I respawned,” Scar admitted. “Just the... the pain at first, and then it went away and I think people were talking, but I don’t remember much of that. I don’t even know how I died? But I did, obviously, and I thought I was using my permanent bed, but I woke up at worldspawn somehow, so I didn’t know where I was at first, no idea what happened, and when I replied to your message suddenly you appeared! That’s why I thought it must be a dream at first, because as soon as I thought about you, you were there, but you didn’t seem real, and I almost didn’t feel real, and I couldn’t figure out why, but now I know it’s because I couldn’t sense your magic anymore because I don’t have magic anymore and-” Scar cut himself off, throat tight. 

He picked the ven off his shoulder and held it in his hands. “And then there’s this little guy, but any minute now-” As if on cue, the ven flickered and started to fade. Scar sighed and nodded, tears starting to form, petting its head even as his hand started to go through it. As always, the ven’s expression never changed, and it chittered happily until it disappeared completely.

Scar sighed, sniffling a bit. “That’s probably the last time I’ll ever be on good terms with a ven like that.” Cub gave him a brief, sympathetic smile, and kept rowing until the boat bumped up against the jungle shore.

The trek through the jungle was long and arduous. Cub stayed staunchly by Scar’s side as Scar stumbled, tripped, and climbed over all the roots and undergrowth. It only got more difficult as the sky darkened and the shadows deepened. Scar’s home was still all the way on the other side of the jungle, and there was no way either of them would make it through unscathed at night.

Then they broke out onto the shore of a lake, next to a root three times as tall as either of them. Cub sighed in relief and helped Scar climb up onto it, and they used it as a bridge to reach the safety of the giant tree. 

Cub craned his neck to examine the spiraling path up through the trunk. “Iskall?” he called. “You home?”

Moments later, the man in green dove down from somewhere near the top, circled them once, and came to a somewhat graceful landing. “Hallo! What brings you to my humble Omega Tree?”

“Trying to get Scar home,” Cub explained, “but we got caught outside with night falling. We’ve both had a pretty stressful day and we need a place to stay for the night.”

Iskall made a grand gesture around him. “Well, welcome! I’ll see if I have any spare beds for you. If you need one right away this moment, mine’s right over there.”

“Thank you,” Cub replied gratefully. “Scar, why don’t you take that one?”

Once Scar was safely tucked in, Iskall beckoned Cub over to the storage area, and the two talked in low voices as Iskall searched for materials for another bed. “What happened today?” Iskall asked. “Weird death messages, Doc apparently acting crazy, you getting really excited after Scar’s respawn? Did you see, not even the communicators know how he died? And now you two don’t even have the same energy signature anymore, you always did before.”

“It’d take all night to explain it all,” Cub sighed. “Maybe some- wait, the same energy signatures? Since when can you read a Vex energy signature?”

Iskall tapped the side of the device over his artificial eye. “I set my eye to pick it up when that robot was chasing me around. Didn’t really make the connection, actually, until I started seeing the same stuff around you and Scar and Grian.”

“That eye of yours is certainly something,” Cub marveled.

“It’s the diamond glass,” Iskall explained proudly. “Redstone too, of course, but diamonds are just such a good, uh... a good conductor of all sorts of energies. Conductor? Is that right?”

“Yeah, ‘conductor’ is right.” Cub pulled a diamond out of his inventory and started fidgeting with it, feeling its push and pull against his magic. “Even Vex magic. One of only a couple materials that can do that.”

“And then you can also make diamonds mega-clear,” Iskall continued, turning back to his chests and finally pulling out some wool and assorted wood scraps, “so you can make lenses and stuff that still pick up energy out of the air. You’ll probably want your bed near Scar’s?”

“Yeah, thanks,” Cub answered distractedly. There was an idea starting to touch at the back of his mind. “Hey, I might need your help with something in a couple days or so...”

“A couple days?” Iskall asked, surprised. “Why not tonight? Or once you get Scar home?”

“Well, I’m not sure what exactly I need yet,” Cub explained, repocketing the diamond and climbing into the bed. “Once I figure it out, I’ll let you know. Thanks so much for doing this for us, by the way.”

“Any time, dude,” Iskall grinned. He put the patchwork bed he’d made a short distance away from the others. “Sweet dreams.”

Chapter Text

Jevin and Grian watched from spawn island until the boat with Cub and Scar was out of sight. Grian turned to leave, then paused and started unbuckling the elytra he was wearing. "Oh yeah, this is yours..."

"Keep it," Jevin replied. “I don’t actually need it.” He spread his wings to demonstrate. “I only grabbed an elytra out of habit, since I’d been using them as a disguise.”

“Alright, thank you.” Grian refastened the harness, then took a closer look at Jevin’s wings. “Hey, how come you get to have wings that, like, match? Did you just get squishy wings because you’re a slime?”

“Nah, Cub showed me how to change it up,” Jevin explained. “They started out as those big crystalline things just like everyone else’s. Do you have any idea how weird that felt for someone like me?”

Grian laughed. “Man, though, if I’d known I could have changed them... I think something really bright would have been awesome. I could have had big, purple, feathery bird wings or something, instead of those little twigs! Not that it matters now, though. Not happening, not worth it anymore.”

Jevin chuckled and shook his head, mind already on other things. Hoping Cub and Scar would get home safe. Wondering how Scar would deal with his loss. Thinking about the others who still had Vex magic...

He couldn’t help either of them further just yet. But he could at least chat. TFC? You doing good still?

There was a long pause before he got a tentative reply. Is that you, Jevin? Now how does this work? I’m doing well - learning new things, apparently!

Jevin smiled. You didn’t get much practice with telepathy with the other mages, then?

Well, considering I mostly ignored ‘em and barely saw ‘em... No, I can’t say I got much practice talking to ‘em.

Right, yeah, Jevin acknowledged. Well, I’m just checking in on you. I need to get Cub over to see you, but it might be a little while yet. We... had a bit of a crisis with Scar, and now Cub is getting him home.

How’s Scar doing? TFC asked somberly. I was glad to see him in chat - wasn’t sure he’d pull through.

It’s been rough on him, Jevin told him, but he’s safe, and - physically - he’ll be fine.  

Jevin explained further, catching TFC up on what he’d missed while locked in his base. TFC, in return, explained to Jevin what exactly had happened to Scar in the first place.

-----

The next day, Jevin contacted Cub, and in the afternoon, both flew to TFC’s base. After announcing themselves, Jevin entered first, then held open a gap in the magic wall for Cub.

Cub appraised TFC with interest. “Jev told me about you on the way here.”

TFC raised his eyebrows, his mouth quirking. “Uh oh! Nothing bad, I hope, heh.”

“No, not bad at all,” Cub replied. “Apparently he’s in a bit of a dilemma about whether it’s safe to let you keep the Vex magic you were given.”

“‘Given’ is an awfully kind way of putting it,” TFC grumbled. “But I can’t deny that it’s nice to have. It gives me some energy, makes me feel a few years younger, you know?”

Cub smiled. “I know exactly what you mean, man. I know exactly what you mean. And I think it’s totally fine to have you keep being a Vex mage, if that’s okay with you.”

“Well... maybe that would be fun for a while,” TFC decided. “As long as the Vex themselves don’t come knocking again, right?”

“Right,” Cub confirmed. “But I have a feeling they won’t. They aren’t very patient sometimes, so the fact that you’ve been fine for more than a day just sitting in here is a good sign. Just check in with me every so often to make sure, and I can also show you some things to do in case they do ‘come knocking’.”

“Well, thank you very much for your confidence,” TFC affirmed, shaking Cub’s hand. “I appreciate you taking the time to work this out. And I hear you managed to get everyone off that field alive and well?”

“Indeed we did!” Cub replied. “Although not without some... emotional losses, you could say. But what matters is that, thanks to Jevin - and Grian, too, for that matter - everyone’s safe now.”

“That’s good to hear,” TFC nodded. “I look forward to seeing Scar again, when he’s up for it of course.”

“I’ll be sure to send him your way when he decides he’s ready,” Cub reassured him.

With that, Jevin dropped the magic shield around them. As he and Cub stepped toward the door, Cub turned and gave TFC a mock salute. “Godspeed, fellow Vex mage,” Cub smiled. “Godspeed.”

Chapter Text

"You want to tell them, Jev?"

"I think it'd be more believable coming from you."

"Alright." Cub started typing.

<cubfan135> Everyone, good news!

<cubfan135> We think we have a way to get Xisuma back

<cubfan135> We're going for it in about an hour

<cubfan135> Come by his base if you want

"That's an awful lot of confidence you've got there," Jevin laughed nervously.

Cub clapped him on the shoulder. "I believe in you, Jev. I believe in you. You got this."

-----

Jevin, Cub, Tango, Joe, Hypno, Grian, Mumbo, False, and Keralis crowded around, kneeling by their friend. Xisuma had been moved from his basement to his storage tower, for the extra space, light, and safety. He rested peacefully on his back, one hand laying across his chest.

“I still don’t think I fully understand what’s happening,” Mumbo complained.

“Well,” Cub summarized, “You know that Xisuma’s been like this because of an unfortunate run-in with the Vex. We guessed that the only way to bring him to would be to get the leftover Vex magic out of him, but at the time we didn’t think there was any way of doing that. But now there is, so that’s what we’re about to do. Jevin?”

Jevin nodded. “Ready.”

Cub swept his hand toward him. “Take it away.”

Grian snorted at the possibly-unintentional pun. Jevin reached forward and put his hand on Xisuma’s wrist.

Immediately, color started to return to Xisuma's armor, vibrant green building at the edges and spreading inward until it reached the point where Jevin's hand touched. The grey of the helmet deepened to normal, and the tint of his visor flickered from white back to purple. But inside the armor, Xisuma didn’t stir.

“His helmet needs an admin to tell it that he’s safe,” Cub explained. “Joe, how about you do the honors?”

Joe leaned back on his heels. “Now, Cub, you know I have difficulty with accomplishing exactly what I set out to do with admin magic...”

“That’s part of why I asked you to do this,” Cub assured him. “It’s not strict spells changing the world, here. It’s just talking to someone to get Xisuma back. You’re the perfect admin for the job.”

Joe smiled. "Thank you for having faith in me, Cub. I shall do my best."

Joe hovered his hand over Xisuma's helmet. His eyes and the insignia on his shirt shone with a soft white light. A spark of magic jumped from him to Xisuma.

A computerized voice responded, making a few hermits in the circle jump. "Admin detected."

"Oh, wow!" Joe exclaimed. "An automated audio assistant! Pleased to make your acquaintance!"

There was a brief pause, then the voice announced: “Admin identified: Joe Hills. Please state your intent.”

“My intent with this enchantment is to inform and request. The interloper you were protecting him from has been dealt with, so I now implore you to release Xisuma from the grasp of his drugged sleep.”

Silence fell for a few moments as the computer parsed Joe’s speech. “Running diagnostic,” it finally declared.

Moments more. “Diagnostic complete. Interference from unknown entity is no longer present. Proceeding to reverse emergency shutdown.”

A sudden burst of air escaped from Xisuma’s helmet, making everyone except Jevin and Tango lean away from the numbingly sweet scent. Xisuma took a long, gasping breath, then resumed a normal breathing pattern.

“Normal airflow resumed,” the helmet-voice said. “Estimated time of consciousness: twenty minutes.”

“Thank you kindly,” Joe said, the light of his magic dimming as he removed his hand from the helmet.

Now all that was left to do was wait.

No one was willing to leave Xisuma’s side, so the nine hermits around him started chatting instead, the topic ranging from the events of the last few days to how Xisuma had originally rescued, discovered, or otherwise picked up each of them into the fold.

“It’s been 20 minutes,” Tango announced with concern.

“It did say ‘estimate’,” Cub pointed out.

Another minute or so passed before Xisuma finally stirred. He groaned, his eyes fluttered open, and he looked around at the myriad worried faces above him. “None of you would happen to have a cup of tea around, would you?”

The tension dissolved into relieved laughter. Mumbo got up to go get exactly that. Xisuma tried to roll over and winced at his muscles’ complaints, finally using his suit’s strength-assist mechanisms to sit up a little.

Joe helped prop him up, beaming. “Xisuma! We are so glad to see you back in this waking world of wonder once more!”

Xisuma gave a slight smile in response. “Thank you, Joe. I’m not convinced I’ve fully returned yet...” His gaze fell on Cub, startling Xisuma so badly that he fell completely out of Joe’s hold and onto the floor again. He scooted backward, heart pounding.

Cub froze, watching Xisuma carefully. He reached forward. Xisuma scooted back further. Cub dropped his hand and sighed. “I understand. I’ll stay over here in case you need me.”

Xisuma kept staring - watching Cub, until Joe directed his attention away. “Now, come on, there are all these other people to gaze upon much more joyfully! There’s old friends, new friends, red friends, blue friends...” Joe gestured to Keralis, Grian, Tango, and Jevin in turn. “Jevin in particular has been instrumental in pulling you back from the brink of eternal slumber.”

At the compliment, Jevin glowed with embarrassed pride. And with the extra magic he’d absorbed. “I mean, we didn’t know that would work. Didn’t even know I could help until like two days ago. We just got really lucky.”

“Often, luck is just as important as skill, in this great game we call life,” Joe imparted.

At that moment, Mumbo returned with the tea. Xisuma accepted the cup gratefully, popping open the front of his helmet to drink it. He sipped a bit and sighed, holding back a cough. “Ahhh, see? Tea makes everything better. I’m feeling a bit more alert already. How, uh...” He almost didn’t want to ask. “How long was I out?”

“Almost two weeks,” Hypno spoke up.

“Two weeks?” Xisuma sputtered, then started coughing again. He flipped his air system back down until the fit subsided. “Sorry. Oh my goodness me! That’s longer than I expected. What did I miss?”

Chapter Text

Scar paced outside the town hall. Even many days after the battle with the Vex, he couldn't make himself go inside, couldn't bear walking that familiar tile floor. He'd done some good work as the mayor, he thought. The shopping district was green and beautiful, the mycelium meticulously dug out by hand. The manual labor had helped, at first, but as soon as it got tiring it just reminded him of what he’d lost. Of how he could have used magic to sweep the shopping district with a wave of green and barely break a sweat.

"Scar?"

Scar jumped and turned around. He wasn't used to Cub being able to sneak up on him. Scar gave his friend a sad smile. "Hey, Cub. What's up?"

"Well..." Scar noticed that Cub's hands were conspicuously holding something behind his back. "I've got a little something for you here. I think it’d really add to your mayoral presence, you know?” He drew his hands around to reveal a small, pale blue glass object on a golden chain.

Scar picked it up and inspected it. “Is this... a monocle?”

“Custom made from diamond glass,” Cub smiled. “Iskall and I have been working on it for a little while. It suits the look you've got going. It’s also got a little bit of a surprise for you...”

Scar clipped the chain to his jacket and tried the lens on his eye. He gasped at the tiny spark of energy that shivered through him. His eyes widened, making the eyepiece fall off his face. “Was that-”

Cub smiled wider. “You know it! It’s not much, but it should be just enough to make life a little more interesting, you know? Brings back some of the feel, the, uh, taste -" he winked, making Scar giggle - "even some of the smaller, fun spells you always loved."

Scar took a close look at the monocle. Cub could see his hands shaking slightly. "Cub, how... how did you even make this? This is incredible!"

“Iskall helped a lot,” Cub admitted. "It's made from the same stuff as his eye, after all. I just told him what I wanted it to do. Oh, and I admin-coded it to you, so if you die with it, you'll respawn with it too."

Scar turned it over in his hands. "Does it- no, it's just an object. It holds magic, but it can’t produce it. It won't last forever, will it?"

"It does only hold a tiny bit of magic at a time," Cub explained apologetically. "But it's super easy to recharge! You'll be in Town Hall enough on official business, just touch it to the tiles and it'll fill right back up. I could even put a 'charging station' or something in your base if you want. Or you can hand it to me, Jevin, or TFC and any of us will charge it too."

Tears pricked at Scar's eyes. He scrubbed at them with his sleeve. He didn't know what to say. He just stood there, staring at the gift, until Cub stepped forward to hug him. Scar accepted it without moving, then finally clutched the lens in one hand as if his life depended on it as he returned the hug.

Eventually, they pulled apart, and Cub gestured encouragingly at the monocle. "Hey, why don't you try out a trick or two now?"

Scar put the monocle back on his eye and allowed himself a smile at the small thrill of magic. “I do have a fun idea I was tossing around before... before. I should be on the diamond throne for it to have its full effect though.” He turned and half jogged, half flew up the stairs to the mayoral seat of power. Once he was settled, he touched his hand to his throat. A faint flash of light crossed the lens of his new eyewear - a flash that could easily have been mistaken for a stray reflection.

“What do you think, Cub?” Scar boomed, his voice echoing around the town hall. “What if I spoke to the people like this? I could call it... the Mayor Voice.”

Cub grinned. “Excellent idea, Mayor Scar! Adds a bit of gravitas, reminds everyone who’s the decision-maker around here.”

Scar coughed twice and hopped down from the seat. He put his arm around Cub’s shoulder. “I can’t thank you enough, Cub, seriously. This is... this is absolutely amazing. It wouldn’t have helped with any big projects, I’m sure, but... you know how much I missed this.” He giggled. “It’s good to be back… sort of... again.”

Chapter Text

One day, Cub found Jevin and TFC once more in the shopping district at the same time, Jevin explaining how his Trader Jev’s store worked. Both noticed Cub quickly and turned to greet him.

“Hey man, what’s up?” Jevin waved. “How’s Scar doing?”

“Much better,” Cub replied, “much better. That extra little bit of outside magic is doing him a world of good. On the topic, though, I should let you guys know that I’m dialing back my own magic use now. I’ll still answer any questions either of you have, but I won’t be using much myself.”

TFC nodded. “Toning it down for his sake?”

“Well...” Cub wavered on his answer. “In part, yeah. It’s still a little odd to me, our powers not matching each other anymore. But also, I mean... This server doesn’t really need Vex mages around, and even if it did, we’ve got the two of you now, right? Without the Vex themselves influencing events, Vex magic is mostly best used for little party tricks, and Scar and I will both keep doing that, I’m sure.”

“That’s actually kind of weird to think about,” Jevin laughed. “No more ConVex shenanigans. For the first time in a long while.”

“Yep, no big ConVex plans.” Cub winked at Jevin. “At least, not from me and Scar.”

Jevin grinned, but before he could say anything more, Cub was off again.

Once Cub had left, Jevin turned back to TFC. "You know, we both kind of got dragged into this, and Cub has done so much to help us out. We should really... repay him somehow."

“Interesting way of saying ‘repay’ there...” TFC noted. “You planning something special?”

“I mean, it’d be pretty boring to just leave a chest of stuff in his base,” Jevin pointed out. “Especially since he pretty much has all the raw resources he’ll ever need. But what he also has is a bunch of empty space he hasn’t filled yet.”

A slow smile spread across TFC’s face. “Has he now? I haven’t ever been in that pyramid of his. He could be hiding anything in there.”

“Or someone else could hide something in there.”

“I still haven’t ‘repaid’ them,” TFC recalled, “for their lovely ‘gift’ on my base two worlds ago. Never got the chance then, and honestly forgot about all that until recent events. Maybe we should check out his place, and see what we can rustle up that he’d like.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Jevin decided. “Meet here tomorrow at sundown? More plans from there?”

“It’s a date.” TFC laughed and held out his hand for Jevin to shake. Both went their separate ways for the day.

The next day, at sundown, the new, new ConVex got to work.