Chapter Text
It was much like any morning on the Hermitcraft server. Grian and Scar were hanging out between their bases, discussing plans and pranks. At some point, one of them inevitably got bored of standing around and simply started walking, causing both of them to end up wandering the various forests behind their build areas.
And then someone screamed.
Grian looked at Scar. Scar looked at Grian.
“Was that you?” Grian whispered, frightened. His wings had puffed up from the panic.
“No, and that didn’t sound like a shracker, either. Who else is even active right now?” Scar asked, half-whispered in that way Scar does when truly panicked.
Grian checked the tablist. Only Xisuma was shown as active, and that scream probably wasn’t him, seeing as X wasn’t likely to be in the forest behind Dwayne and Scarland to begin with. Well, that probably wasn’t a good sign. “Right, I’m going to let X know what’s going on, and then we go from there, ok?” Grian said quietly, trying not to let the fear creep into his voice. Panicked Scar was not a helpful Scar.
“Ok,” Scar replied, sounding a little more calm.
Grian let out a nervous sigh, closing the tablist to message X.
«Grian»: hey x, scar and i heard a scream
«Grian»: we're going to go investigate that
Scar snickered as his com pinged with Grian’s message. “Oh, I highly doubt he’s going to think that’s a good idea.”
Grian grinned. “Oh, I’m sure he’s going to be fine with it. We’re both very trustworthy, after all!”
Their coms pinged.
«Xisuma»: please don't.
“See?” Grian continued, “It’s a great idea! We just need to be quiet, ok?”
“Of course, I’m ah-mayzing at being quiet, Grian!” Scar replied, a little too loud. That was probably fine.
“…Right,” Grian said, simply choosing to start quietly making his way towards the direction the scream came from. Hopefully, Scar would follow.
˚₊ ˚ ‧₊ .:･˚₊ ˚ ‧₊ .:･˚₊ * ˚ * ₊˚･:. ₊‧ ˚ ₊˚･:. ₊‧ ˚ ₊˚
As the two Hermits made their way into the dark oak forest the scream seemed to have originated from, Scar suddenly grabbed Grian by the shoulder, effectively stopping him. Grian whipped his head around to look at Scar, but before he could say anything, Scar had his finger up to his lips. He then pointed to a particularly tall dark oak tree that stood at the edge of a natural clearing in the forest. Sat at the base of said tree was a Player. They were horned, split black and white down the middle, and appeared to have broken their leg. They were also holding a child.
Grian bit back a gasp at the sight, and looking back at Scar revealed that he was already messaging X with updates. Grian pulled his com out, hoping to keep it from pinging and alerting the Player to their presence.
«GoodTimeWithScar»: hey x, we found a person
«GoodTimeWithScar»: two people actually, if you coutn a smal child a s a pekple. whinch i pronably would.
“Really?” Grian whispered, though before anyone could say anything else, another message popped up.
«Xisuma»: currently dealing with a frightened teen on my end, send me your coordinates and i will be there asap
Scar was already responding.
«GoodTimeWithScar»: sounds good!
As Scar was copying down coordinates to send to X, the trees on the other side of the clearing began to rustle as another Player burst into the clearing, clearly armed with a very large axe and very clearly agitated. They were some sort of goat or sheep hybrid, and were heavily scarred. The black-and-white Player seemed terrified by the rustling, curling protectively around the child in their arms.
“Scar-“ Grian started whispering before getting interrupted by the armed Player yelling, “Ranboo?"
"Wh- Tubbo?" The split-colored Player, Ranboo apparently, exclaimed confusedly, wildly whipping their head around in search of the voice. Finally spotting the other Player, most likely the Tubbo in question, they visibly relaxed, uncurling from the kid in their lap. "Michael and I got here safely, don't worry. Well, I mean, I did just definitely break something falling out of that tree, but Michael is fine. Did you happen to see where Tommy ended up, by the way? He should be somewhere around here too," Ranboo said, a lot calmer than Grian thought anyone would be after falling out of a tree and apparently missing someone.
Grian turned to look at Scar, mouthing ‘Tommy?’ at him. Scar shrugged, gesturing to his com. Right, probably the teen X had found. This wasn’t great, but Grian and Scar could probably handle this.
“Wait, Tommy's here?" Tubbo responded, sounding significantly less calm than Ranboo had. Grian looked back, seeing that the axe had been lowered significantly. Good, they were probably just scared by the screaming earlier. Probably not a big threat, but one X should be made aware of. Unfortunately, before Grian could even lift his com to message X, Scar…
Well, Scar tripped. Somehow. From standing still. And the Players in the clearing definitely heard. ‘So much for waiting for X,’ Grian thought, immediately coming up with a plan that hopefully wouldn’t end with him or Scar meeting the sharp end of that axe.
Grian started walking forward, towards the clearing and called out, “Hello? Is anyone out there?" He only hoped Scar would catch his drift and play along.
Scar’s footsteps thankfully came shortly behind. "Did you break your elytra?" Scar called out, clearly understanding what Grian was going for.
The two older Players in the clearing froze. Ranboo curled around the younger Player, most likely the Michael mentioned earlier, again while Tubbo stood protectively in front of them, axe raised once again. Everyone was perfectly silent until Grian and Scar broke the edge of the clearing, when Tubbo suddenly yelled, “HEY FUCKERS! Why don't you just leave my family ALONE?!"
Both Grian and Scar froze.
“Watch your language!” Grian squawked.
“Wow, that’s the biggest axe I’ve ever seen!” Scar gasped, seemingly in total awe of Tubbo’s axe. It was a tone Grian recognized immediately from Third Life. Scar was going to get that axe one way or the other. This wasn’t going as well as Grian hoped.
Tubbo was yelling threats at Scar. Scar was trying to smooth talk his way into getting Tubbo’s axe in his hands. Ranboo was looking mildly conflicted from their spot on the ground. Grian took this moment of confusion to type some messages to X.
«Grian»: X HELP
«Grian»: THERES ANOTHER AND THEY ARENT HAPPY
«Grian»: HURRY PLEASE
‘There,’ Grian thought, ‘that’s probably fine.’
“Um, if I may,” Ranboo suddenly spoke up, “I don’t think the axe is strictly necessary, Tubbo.”
Tubbo whipped around, staring incredulously at Ranboo. “Ranboo, beloved, ‘if I may,’ we don’t know who these people are! Or how we even fucking got here! I think the axe is quite justified, actually.”
“It’s just, well, I mean, they aren’t armed? And what if- what if it’s safe here?” Ranboo replied, sounding remarkably like how Mumbo would start to nervously ramble in stressful situations.
Grian lifted his hands in surrender, and saw Scar doing similarly. Tubbo looked at them suspiciously.
“Well, it’s not like I recognize either of you, so you’ve got one chance before I start swinging. Did Dream send you? And where did you send us?”
Grian and Scar exchanged confused looks.
“Who’s Dream?” Scar asked.
“How do you end up on Hermitcraft of all Whitelisted Servers without knowing?” Grian asked.
It was Tubbo’s turn to look utterly confused. Ranboo, on the other hand, lit up upon hearing what Grian said.
“Hermits?” They asked excitedly, “Tubbo- Tubbo, listen, they’re here to help.” They turned to look more directly at Grian and Scar. “You’re going to help, right?”
Scar looked unsure of how to answer. Grian knew him well enough to be able to tell that he had come to a similar conclusion: these Players had been in a dangerous server. They were young. They had a child with them. Something was wrong, very wrong, and they didn’t just need help, they needed help.
Grian recovered first. “Of course,” he said, trying to use his two braincells to think things through for once, “we should probably wait here for our Admin though, seeing as one of you is injured.”
Tubbo seemed to accept that response, though they bristled at the mention of Admin. They finally set the axe down, resting their foot on the head. Nothing left to do but wait for X to show up with his scared teen in tow.