Chapter Text
Grian didn't expect to see Scott with Hermes on his doorstep that Saturday morning. Because, really, when Scott asked if he could come in the morning he didn't expect it would be with Hermes.
"Scott" he began while leaning on the door frame "why do you have Hermes with you?"
"Oh yeah, about that. That's the reason why I called you actually. So, I took Pix to meet him and he started talking about the Void Infection or something like that?"
"You want me to make sure he doesn't have it," Grian guessed.
"Yeah"
Grian smiled.
"Sure, I can take a look. However, I don't think he has anything. It's been months since they started taking care of him, if he had something, they would already be at the hospital, unless…"
"Unless what?"
"Nothing, come in"
"So, there are a couple of things I need to tell you about this. First, you cannot be close to me. I'm going to be in full Watcher mode, not the one I use as a villain, this one is different. Hermes may cry, but the Watcher form is not pretty. I would be surprised if he doesn't cry."
"Why do you need to be in your Watcher form?" Scott asked.
"My memories from that time are almost gone. My Watcher form still has every memory intact".
"Oh, okay"
Grian took Hermes in his arms and ruffled his hair carefully.
"Hello little fella," Grian said "Did you miss me? I haven't seen you in a while".
Hermes babbled.
Grian smiled.
"So," Grian said looking at Scott "Pearl and Timmy are still sleeping just for you to know. Also, you can take anything from the kitchen without problem. I'm gonna take care of this fella".
He took the blonde kid to his bedroom and he let him sit on the bed.
"Sorry if this scares you, Hermes"
Grian's wings twitched and then they began cracking as the feathers separated from each other and another pair arose. His hair started slowly shifting to a silver-white as the eyes started appearing in his wings.
Hermes didn't cry, he just stayed there without moving. As if he was analyzing what was happening in front of him. Grian has seen adults crying as his Watcher form is shown and this little Shulker kid didn't even start sobbing. The reason may be his origins, End species weren't something that Overworld people see constantly. End hybrids were more used to strange and purple creatures; maybe that was the reason for his reaction.
Grian looked at Hermes carefully. He didn't even flinch or anything. He wasn't going to cry, everything was fine. Grian sighed. He slowly put his finger on Hermes' forehead and he let the eyes do their thing. Everything came flooding his brain.
Hermes was born in a hybrid experiment center with the objective of creating a full Shulker kid. It would make them rich, unlimited Shulker shells on a world when End traveling is almost impossible. They would be sold for a pretty penny on the black market
Son of a human mother and a shulker-avian father. Human genes were always weaker, they were in the lowest hierarchy level. If any of the parents had two hybrid traits and the other parent was a human, the human genes would be lost. The perfect way of playing with the genes.
Playing God.
Chimera children were created to meet the needs of greedy people that wanted to make money with poor kids that were born to die. To be used again and again.
The Void Infection was long forgotten. Hermes was a laboratory baby, they seriously needed to protect him. He knew what life those kids were forced to have, the abuse that they learned to expect. It was hard shooting down those centers exactly for that, seeing the faces of injured kids trying to protect the younger ones even if they took their lives. Protecting the younger ones didn’t even lead to anything, it was just hiding them temporarily from the abuse. They couldn’t really save them. It was difficult to show those kids kindness, their trust in adults was destroyed, and they only knew abuse. It took years for those kids to start healing. They were lucky Hermes was still a baby, even if he was abused, he was mostly protected by the older kids.
But, however, there was another question.
Who left Hermes in that alley?
Hermes was the only semi-successful experiment. Being injected with an extra amount of Shulker genes to try to secure the appearance of them. It was a cruel experiment that killed the mother. Her body not being able to support the number of hybrid genes. It was pure luck that Hermes managed to survive. Most kids born in that experiment center didn't manage to develop totally the abilities that their hybrid genes provide.
The hybrid experimentation center that Hermes' used to live in was discovered when he was five months old. He was secluded in a special End atmosphere area, making it hard to access it. Hermes was taken by one of the workers of the center and he escaped with him. Mutation of hybrid genes was one crime, but involving End genes would be the (funnily enough) end for them. End-related crimes were judged on the End, they weren't kind to workers of these centers. All the abuse that these species encountered for years was still resented and nobody could tell
them that they were being unfair. Who would try?
25 kids under the age of five were rescued, 5 under the age of ten and a search order for an End kid was released. The worker that had taken Hermes found out about it so he let Hermes to die on the nearest alley. He let a baby to die in an alleyway just to get out of the radar. To protect himself he let a baby to die.
Guess Watcher would need to pay him a visit.
"I need to talk to Joel"
No, focus. They came here searching for another thing. He needed to confirm, even if he knew that, if Hermes had it, the avian genes that he had would eliminate any danger. He just needed to touch his forehead again.
Hermes has Void Vitiligo, undeveloped right now. But it is present. Around his fifth birthday, he may start presenting different color skin patches around his back and legs. The avian genes eliminate the danger that it could be to any Overworld species.
He also has wings.
The bone structure for wings is there, it just needs to grow enough to let the wings free.
Grian definitely wasn’t expecting to have another avian that, at some moment, could consider him as a part of his flock, but he was happy. He hasn't met a lot of avians these last years, and most of the avian species seemingly start to become extinct.
It would be nice.
Doctor appointments were a pain.
Especially when it was for kids. Kids were mostly little chaos gremlins. Even Hermes could fall under that category, loving to come near everything with cool colors or just running (crawling really) around to follow everything that moves. Luckily, the staff of the Hero Tower were really understanding, they could understand something that a lot of people seemed not to. Kids have a lot of energy, they move like crazy and like to ramble about stuff. As long as they don’t kick, shout, or hit another person they are okay.
Sausage was fine with taking Hermes to the doctor on his own. Because even if Joel wanted to take him he couldn’t. The Hero Tower was extremely strict about who could enter it. It was fine, after all, it was just a general check-up. Getting everything in order so Hermes could get his shot and everything without any problem. Sausage even requested to have the nicest doctor that they considered to have, which led him to meet a doctor that he had never seen before.
Doctor Nia.
A nice woman with pink hair and bright green eyes. She seemed to interact with Hermes just fine so he let her be. Everything went smoothly, she managed to get him entertained enough so he wouldn’t cause any trouble. She was a miracle worker.
“So, I just registered everything. He is a healthy little Shulker boy, however, I try to look him up and I don’t see any info about him in the system. Remind me, whose child is he?”
He gets it. She is worried for him, honestly, he would also be worried if he didn’t know Hermes’ situation. He is at the Hero Tower after all, their job is to make sure that people are okay, especially children.
“I know this seems bad, but trust me he is safe” Sausage stopped a second to think “Wait could you look up for Shulker kids missing or stuff like that? I have been trying to get info about him but I couldn’t find anything ”.
He probably didn’t realize how suspicious that request sound until she looked at him.
“I’m gonna trust you with him, but please bring him in another day so he could get his shots. Deal?”
“Deal”.