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As the world hop between seasons continues Cub feels a cold burst of magic freeze him in place. Squirming around he spots a flickering blue form, “Vex?”
The ghost-like creature giggles, “That is correct.”
“Mind letting me know why I’m being held up?”
“We have a deal for you,” It chitters.
“And what might that be?” Cub asks slowly, he knows better than to blindly accept deals from the vex.
“Welllll, We want to experience life as you,” The vex chitters.
Cub sighs, “And you want to shadow me?”
“In a way, yes.”
“You want to see a world without being summoned,” Cub muses.
“That is true,” It nods.
“And just you?”
Nodding the vex lands on his head, “Just me.”
Cub looks thoughtful for a moment, “It can’t hurt… what do I get out of this?”
The vex grins, “More vex magic than you could imagine.”
“Deal,” Cub grins.
A sharp grin splits the vexs face, Cub feels a sudden drop as vex magic clouds his vision. After that nothing. He can’t move. He can’t see. There’s nothing to hear or to smell. He’s floating, trapped in space.
______
“Woah Cub,” Xisuma helps the older man up, “You alright there? That was a choppy world hop.”
The Vex in Cub’s body grins, “We’re… I’m ok, I feel amazing actually.”
Xisuma blinks a little then laughs, “I’m glad you’re ok.”
The Vex nods, before slowly wandering down to the place that Cub planned to build his base.
About a week passes and the hermits don't seem to notice anything different. After another week the vex makes a mistake.
It uses a little magic to turn back time and the time turns back on its vessel as well. Xisuma and His brother find him first.
Xisuma is shocked and starts digging through the code. Evil X laughs slightly and wanders off.
“Should you go get him?” Cub the vex asks, turning its head to the side.
Xisuma looks at the retreating form of his little brother, “He’ll be ok.”
The vex shrugs and sits still watching Xisuma work through his code.
“So…” Xisuma starts as he comes across a small note in the code, “You still doing the vex stuff.”
“I-uhh? Yes?” The vex stutters.
“Are you aware it’s altering your code?”
“What?”
“It’s nothing much, just a bit of vex code thrown in,” Xisuma explains, “Just be aware of that.”
Internally the vex relaxes, “I will make a note of that,” it seems that its possession of Cub’s body has some signs.
After that the vex lays low for a while, most hermits assuming he’s getting used to being thirty. A few days pass and he heads out and starts pranking people.
The others grin and laugh at the harmless pranks before moving on. As it walks down the path to boatem village the vex pulls a Diamond out and starts licking at it.
He passes Impulse talking with Tango and they blink at him for a moment before waving and continuing the conversation.
The others in the village spot him but brush it off as they’ve seen Scar eating diamonds before.
Scar spots him and frowns slightly. That’s not something Cub should be able to do. He watches as ‘Cub’ walks over to trade with Grian.
Once he’s inside Scar takes his hat off and equips his elytra. Taking off he looks for the RV that Ren and Doc are living in.
Crash landing he skids to a stop next to Doc.
“You ok?” The Creeper asks.
“I don’t think Cub is Cub.”
“Explain,” Doc hisses.
“He’s been acting weird this season, just little things so I didn’t think anything of it… he ate a Diamond.”
“You can eat them, he can’t?” Doc asks slowly.
Scar shrugs, “yeah, we can both eat Vex magic… I just ate more than I should have when they first gave it to us. That’s why I can eat diamonds.”
Doc blinks at him softly.
“It’s a test,” Scar explains, “The magic tastes really good to me so I ate more. It shows the vex who can handle more magic at once.”
“Ok,” Doc nods, “So there’s no way Cub should be able to do that.”
Nodding Scar swallows, “Not unless a vex possessed… him.”
“That bad?” Doc hisses.
“Depends, I don’t think the vex wants to hurt anyone… but it still has Cub.”
Hissing Doc crouches, “So anyway to get Cub back?”
Scar grins, “There is, but I want to watch what he’s doing.”
“Is Cub safe?” Doc asks.
“I hope so…” Scar whispers, “If he’s in the magic it’s bad. If he’s not he should be ok.”
________
Giggling The vex blinks at the pile of magic around it. The deal it made with Grian was for some terra-cotta that’s necessary for making the magic.
As it sits it starts a spell. Concentrating and condensing the magic into a small orb. Once the magic is settled it licks at the orb and grins.
Concentrated magic has some interesting side effects. Ears start to point, teeth sharpen, and a pair of tiny crystalline wing nubs start to sprout. It doesn’t really notice the changes. It's used to looking like that after all.
GoodTimesWithScar: Hey Cub can you come to the spawn egg I've got something to show you.
CubFan135: sure I’ll be right there.
Scar and Doc wait for the vex to arrive. The plan for catching it is pretty risky. If they don’t catch the vex it could run off and it would be nearly impossible to find it.
Cub’s body steps into the egg and a redstone door slams shut behind it. The vex startles and tries to run only to slam into the wall.
“Ohh, you ok?” Scar asks softly, tugging at his suit.
The vex groans, “You know?”
“Yep,” Doc hisses, “What did you do to Cub?”
“He’s in the vex realm,” The vex calmly explains, “He agreed to my deal.”
Scar frowns, “You worded it to trick him.”
“I did,” The vex giggles, stoping at the twin glares heading at him, “I just wanted to see what it would be like to be human… to touch things.”
Scars face falls into shock, “You didn’t swap bodies with Cub did you?”
The vex nods hesitantly, “I did…”
Doc hisses, “That’s not good…”
Scar turns and starts pacing, “Players can’t be there for long… we can’t see, hear, or anything.”
The vex freezes, “That’s true…”
Trying to calm himself down, Scar sighs, “Least he’s not in the magic.”
“You’ve said that twice…” Doc hisses, “What does that mean?”
The vex slowly stands, “The vex magic is a pool of all the vex magic possible.”
“And if a vex mage touches it can severely corrupt code and make you more vex-like.”
“Like when you have magic and get wings.”
Scar nods as the vex hands him the orb of vex magic, “Like this,” He yelps, dropping the orb as he becomes more vex-like.
They talk for a bit longer and end up calling Xisuma over.
Once Xisuma gets there the vex waves softly and explains what happened.
Frowning Xisuma sighs, “Can you give him back.”
“That we can do,” The vex giggles, “This was quite the experience. Bye now.”
With that Cub slumps to the ground and covers his head with his hands. Pulling them back once he feels his hair, “Xisuma?” He whispers, “What’s happening?”
“The vex possessed you, and Uh while that was happening you got glitched and you’re now about thirty,” Xisuma murmurs, “Do you want my helmet? I have an extra one.”
“Why?”
“It can filter out sounds and more of the light. You haven’t stopped squinting and whenever there’s a noise outside you flinch…”
Cub nods softly, “Yeah… how long?”
“Almost a month.”
Cub’s face falls, “A month….” Shaking he pulls his communicator out of his pocket and looks at the unfamiliar face, Xisuma hands him the helmet and he puts it on.
It’ll take a few weeks to get used to all the changes and being back in his body, but it is good to be back.