Chapter Text
As the hours ticked by, Grian couldn’t help the sense of dread that filled his stomach. Part of him wanted to stay in that spot in the forest, waiting for midnight to strike. He didn’t though, he couldn’t. He was far too restless. So he found himself darting back home, to do some work. It was difficult to get back into the swing of things, so much stress had made it a little harder to build a mountain than one might believe.
The occasional glance at the skyline, at the clock that had found its way into his offhand, nothing calmed his nerves as the sun made its course. Saying he was scared was an understatement. Quite frankly? Grian was terrified. He wanted to run for cover, to hide away and pretend nothing bad was happening! This was… he still couldn’t believe it wasn’t the place that he was safest in. But his dream, Pearl’s dream, it all confirmed that there was something happening.
It scared him.
It scared him in ways he couldn’t quite put into words. With everything he’d experienced up until this point… he acknowledged that it could all just end. He knew it could all go bad and wrong and that he could get hurt. This, though? This place? It had become his home, the people within it a sanctuary. He wasn’t sure who he could trust now, though, he wasn’t sure what to do and more than anything that scared him.
So he worked it out. Not in the sense of working on his issues so much as building until he forgot. Which wasn’t- it wasn’t healthy. He never claimed to have healthy coping skills, but it worked. And the more he worked, the more the fear was replaced with frustration. The frustration became anger. Anger that bubbled from places so deep he barely knew that they existed.
And in a truly Grian kind of way, he completely ignored it. It was best left untouched, if it got to be too much he’d just… deal with it alone. If there was even a him left to deal with it after all this was over.
He thought over everything for what seemed like the millionth time. They were going to meet at midnight, probably listen to poor Bdubs complain for at least a little, and then they’d… do something. That was it! There was no real plan, not really. Just a hope and a chance that things would figure themselves out. Maybe Gem would know what to do when she had everything explained to her, maybe Pearl would come up with something better. He never used to be this bad at planning, he was- he was a plan guy!
Grian paced restlessly around the base of the mountain. Mumbo passed with the materials for end crystals bundled in his arms. Grian ignored the pang in his chest. It was a fun game! They’d had fun with it! He shouldn’t have been panicking, they could respawn! They could… it was fine, it’d be fine.
The sunset would be beautiful if it wasn’t his hourglass. It was golden and glittering, pink and oranges dancing in the sky as twilight began to set in. Beautiful, time ticking to an end. It wasn’t the end, really, but Grian couldn’t help feeling as if there was something bound to go very wrong at that meeting. Eerie things had happened, but they didn’t have the big event. No one had gotten seriously hurt, not yet. It was only a matter of time.
He casted a glance out at Boatem Town as he felt the first chill of night air hit him. He blinked, letting pupils dilate and adjust. It was chaotic and wonderful in the most heartbreaking way it could be. No matter how warped it could become, it was his home. This was home.
“Goodbye nothing place,” he said, breathless, shooting off into the sky on brightly coloured wings,” Nothing gold can stay.”
In a way that felt routine, now, he soared back to the forest, back to the calm and empty area that was more tense than anywhere he’d ever been. He settled down, half shocked that Pearl wasn’t still around. It made sense she wasn’t, though he had seen her working on her own projects. His wings flared, he landed gracefully but not calmly. And back to pacing he went.
Not long after, he heard a soft fwoosh to his side, lifting his head to see the woman in question by his side. They exchanged glances, heavy glances, as they tended to do now. Grian gave her a weary smile, Pearl just bit her lip. It was tense, Void below it was tense, but at the very least they were tense together. It was… it was better than nothing, at least.
“10 minutes,” Pearl breathed, pulling her communicator out of her pocket.
“And they’ll both be here?”
“We can hope.”
“Good enough.”
The both of them fell back into a routine of pacing around, nervous, waiting, watching the clock tick down. They didn’t speak, really, but they didn’t stray too far from the other either.
Eventually, after what felt like much more than 10 minutes, there was the sound of a firework rocket bursting. Gem landed gracefully among the trees, shoving her rockets back into her inventory. She tilted her head to the side, looking at the sollom expressions within it.
“So! What’s up? That note seemed preeetty urgent!”
“Uh-” Grian fumbled over his words for a moment,” We’ll explain in a second, waiting on another person.”
The whinny of a horse was proof enough of Bdubs, even without him very openly shouting a greeting,” Hello!! Grian, Pearl- Oh Gem hi Gem- hi!!” He slowed Lulu to a stop, hopping off the horse and tying her to a tree. “Stay you stupi- hi everyone!!”
“Didn’t the note say to keep quiet?” Pearl asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I am being quiet!!”
… Maybe Bdubs was a mistake. Problem for a past future Grian has become a problem for a current present Grian. He just shook his head and sighed, reminding himself that he had a job to do. Work mode, tolerate stuff, all that bloody mess.
“Well you’re gonna have to be hush-hush about what we’re gonna do here, okay? You can be loud, you can be talkative, just- just not about this. Pearl and I grabbed the two of you for a reason.”
Then started the long winded explanation of what was going on. The dreams, the issues with everything going on the server, the… beings keeping an eye on things. Not by name, never by name, Void knows names have power, but Gem and Bdubs were brought up to speed. They didn’t say everything, of course, but it was enough to understand what was going on.
“Any questions?” Pearl said after a moment of letting silence ring.
“Uh! Yeah! Me- me- I have questions, Pearl!” Bdubs stuck a hand in the air, prompting her to roll her eyes and give him a nod to continue. “So- so those guys, right? They’re a big deal and stuff? Why’s Xisuma not takin’ care of them? If they’re this big threat to the server and- and they’re doing a bunch of bad stuff to the server, then why not grab him to help? Does he know?”
“Well- uh-” Grian was the one to make an attempt to answer,” Xisuma is… occupied. He’s gotta deal with Ex right now, remember? And he doesn’t know, I don’t think so anyways. It’s a- just in case thing, you feel me? As nice as it’d be if Xisuma could take care of the W- them, they’re… not- it’s- uh-”
“They hold more power than Admins, don’t they?” a hard to read expression was on Gem’s face as she spoke.
“Technically?” Grian said, overlapping Pearl’s “In some ways?”
“They don’t have a lot of power over the actions of the people on the server, at least not usually, but they have… a lot of influence when they decide to mess with things. Structures popping up, holes where there shouldn’t be- weird ciphers and codes.”
“Mhm.”
Bdubs cocked his head to the side, “Soooo- why did’ya choose us to help out?”
“You’ve got a set of eyes on you, Bdubs!” Pearl said, a cheeky smile on her lips,” You’re good with fine details and’d probably notice if weird stuff popped up! And, well, Gem knows a good deal about magic and the unnatural and all that, so she was a good choice from the get-go!”
“And I wasn’t?!”
“That is not what I said!”
“Okay- you better not’ve!! But thank you for the praise, I do have good eyes.”
“Ladies, ladies! You’re both pretty!” Gem cuts in, nudging Pearl with her elbow in a good natured way.
“So-” Her expression grows serious again,” that’s the thing then, right? We’re… saving the server?”
“Trying too.”
“Ohshh-oh ho yes! Do we get like- a super cool team name?”
Team name? Grian shrugged. It wasn’t supposed to be a public thing, so he didn’t really feel the need for one, but it would be fun! At least for them! Bdubs was right, there could be some pretty cool team names.
“Hit me with some names, crew!”
“Oh!” Pearl blinked,” Really? Okay- Team… day and night?”
“Day and night?”
“I- don’t know! I’m Pearlescent Moon, Grian’s named after a sun goddess, Bdubs lives in a moon, and Gem like- she has the energy of a morning?”
Gem grinned,” I like the concept! Maybe a little shorter, though?”
“I’ve got one!! I’ve got one let me go!!” Bdubs threw his hand in the air, wagging his wrist wildly,” Team Space!!”
“Maybe a little too far out?” Grian offered,” Because the sun and moon don’t make up all of space.”
“Aw... dangit! You’re right.”
“Hm…” Gem hummed,”... Team Orbit?”
“Team Orbit?” Pearl echoed,” Oh I kinda like that actually!”
“Oh ho! Ho! Orbit! That’s very good, yes!”
Grian smiled,” Team Orbit it is, then.”
“Team Orbit is on the patrol!!”
“Shhh!”
“Sorry.”
The group devolved into chatter and for the first time since this had all begun, Grian felt some tension release from his shoulders. He joined in to the talk easily, rolling his eyes at Pearl’s friendly threats on Bdubs’ clocks and laughing along with Gem at the fallout. They joked and laughed until twilight cast along the horizon, agreeing to return after a short rest. In the time before they parted ways, they’d even planned to build up a small base of operations under the ground. Pearl and Bdubs offered to part ways with some llamas to populate it.
Grian expected to have another strange dream when he laid his head on his pillow that near-morning. He did, in a way, but it all came in flashes. Darkness, bright sunlit hues, the sensation of falling and never stopping, never hitting the ground but somehow reaching it. Silence, uneasy and in the same breath calming.
Stand your ground, little Runaway.
He woke up without any answers given, but more confident than he had been in some time. Grian stretched his wings and back, running a hand through his hair. Sending a good morning message, he shot out of his house with a cheeky smile on his lips. He flew past Mumbo and scooped a handful of water from the moustached man’s mountain, spraying it at him and laughing gleefully at the shout it earned him. Zipping past Scar knocked his hat off, earning him another shout.
Before returning to that spot in the spruce forest, he flew around the Hermit continent, seeing the good in the things all around. This was a place he wanted to protect! It was home! The cold determination that had fueled him before, the panic that turned to anger, it bloomed into fiery resolve, compassion and energy. He exploded off of Bdubs’ mountain, waving a hello to the Big Eye Crew’s bases, soared over and through the shattered savannah that was so resistant to flight, and finally took himself back to that place he’d found himself so many times.
“Someone’s looking chipper today,” Pearl said, nudging him as he landed.
“I’ve got my groove back, Miss Moon!”
“So I see!"
Matching his enthusiasm, Gem shouted, “So let’s get to building, then! Oh this is going to be so epic- even if we’re the only people who’ll see it. Hopefully.”
The group were builders to their core and dipping under the earth gave them the challenge of not being able to show much of anything from above. There was also the challenge of, well, hiding the entrance. And the group were builders to their core. They stood around awkwardly for a while as Gem struggled with the door. It was fun, they were having fun. Clearly the energy from the night before had continued into the day.
Llamas hummed and bleated from underneath the spruce trees, muffled mostly by distance. They wouldn’t attract too much attention, at least probably not. At worst people would assume that they belonged to a wandering trader. Team Orbit sat in the meeting room, lazing over chairs and Bdubs riding around aimlessly on one of said llamas.
The walls were decorated like the sky. Bright sunlight patterns sat behind Grian’s chair, the stars of night behind Pearl’s, spring-like sunrise tones behind Gem’s, and the darker sunset tones behind the chair of Bdubs. A gap of purple twilight set with an empty chair between Pearl and Bdubs, a just in case and a question.
“So!” Grian spread his hands out on the table, breaking the light chatter,” What’s the stuff everyone’s caught, what ideas do we have?”
Gem stood as well, signaling to take the floor,” Well I live next to the Hermatrix boys, so I’ve seen a lot of their shenanigans. Codes and stuff seem like they’re popping up more and more around them. A lot of it goes over my head, but they seem like they’re getting… help. Sometimes from other hermits and sometimes from- well I don’t know.”
“Mmm… yeah that makes sense” Grian mumbled under his breath, glancing at Pearl as she scribbled in her notebook.
“The! Oh uh!!” Bdubs clumsily slid off his llama and popped up at the table,” The- I’m shocked you guys didn’t see it because you’re from over there but- the hole thingy is bigger now! The Boatem Hole is?”
Grian had not seen that one. Pearl’s expression said that she didn’t see it either. He just nodded along, trying to keep his cool. Because that made sense, of course that’d end up happening, but it still didn’t bode well for them. It was a time crunch, and they did have to be aware of that.
“That’s... pretty important, yeah,” he said carefully,” but uh- I patrolled the continent earlier! I don’t think I saw anything too out of place, but I didn’t look everywhere so there’s a not so small chance I missed… lots of stuff! I should have probably checked spawn, too, but that entirely passed me by.”
“I guess the question now is… what next.” Pearl said.
“Indeed.”
“Well... “ Gem tapped her chin,” These- these guys. We need to call them something a little easier. The… audience, I’ll call them. The audience is keeping an eye on things, chances are they’re at least a little aware of what’s going on, right? And we can’t… avoid that. But we can use it to our advantage! I mean- they see stuff and we can… draw their attention away from things. Make them focus on us , yknow? Keep their gaze away from the people they’re preying off of.”
Grian looked at her, eyebrow raised, “That’s- that’s not a bad idea.”
“I know! Thank you!”
“So how do we do that?”
“Give them a reason to keep an eye out.” Gem shrugged,” Sure they know that you two know that they’re watching, but they don’t really know, you feel me?”
“Give them a run for their money!!” Bdubs leaned against the table as he spoke,” Make it obvious- build things that they’d build or maybe even just the opposite of them! Oh- oh I don’t know what any of the stuff they do looks like I’ve never seen it with my own two big and beautiful eyes but- but! Just something real shocking, hit ‘em where it hurts! Do some magicky stuff to protect people or whatever- I dunno if that’s a thing you can do- but I digress.”
“I mean… it’s not like we have bedrock, but I do have an idea or two…” Pearl said, glancing at Grian again.
“We should do it with clay, I’m sure they’d just love that,” he scoffed in response.
“Ohh very nice, very nice!”
“Lead the way you two!” The grin on Gem’s face said it all.
And so Team Orbit launched into action together for the first time. It was large, larger than it maybe needed to be, but it was far off from the Hermit continent itself, so hopefully they didn’t have to run into the issue of others seeing it. The shape was simple. A broken rectangle, the top left and bottom right points disconnected from the rest, which formed two L shapes- one upside down. Made out of clay.
Pearl laid the last block and glanced over at Grian, his fiery determination infectious. While Gem and Bdubs both seemed relatively confused, they were happy to help out. Anything to protect their home, it seemed. If anything would get the attention of the… them, it’d be this.
“Good work, team!” Grian said, smiling proudly at the group that had been assembled.
“What now?”
“We… wait, I guess.”
ZedaphPlays fell out of the world
… That’s not good.
ZedaphPlays fell out of the world
Oh that’s very not good.