Archive of Our Own

"So you're saying that you will give me ten diamond blocks," Impulse inferred, "after I make you fifty candy trees, right?"

Scar tugged on the front of his suit to look more professional, "Yep-a-rooni-tooni! Do we have a deal?"

Impulse nodded his head, grinning, "I don't suppose this deal involves ten blue-stained glass, does it?"

Scar playfully gasped, placing his palms flat against his chest, "How dare you! I am an honest businessman and I will not let my wares take this slander!"

Impulse raised one singular eyebrow.

It was a stalemate until Scar dramatically sighed, flopping a little as he opened his inventory, "Alright, fine, you got me." He pulled out ten real diamond blocks, "I am serious about the trees though."

Impulse chucked, happily taking the payment, "You should have them by the end of next week; thanks for doing business as always."

The two men tipped their hats to each other, Scar turning around and walking away a little so he had plenty of room to take off with his elytra, only to be stopped right before he could pull it out by a large and fast force slamming into his upper back and sending him tumbling into the ground. It was such a quick event that Impulse nearly dropped the diamonds in shock. As he took in the scene before him, he realized the number of people doubled, "Grian?!"

Tangled on the ground in a pile of feathers was in fact Grian, Scar loosely trapped underneath his legs. The men were groaning, slowly gaining clarity of whatever just happened. The first one to do so, surprisingly, was Grian, who quickly flushed in shame as he realized what he just did, “Oh my gosh, I didn’t- that’s-” he proceeded to get up to his feet, pulling Scar up with him as an apology. “I am so sorry, I don’t know what’s been coming over me.”

Impulse tilted his head as he watched Grian straighten Scar’s hat and suit, Scar still a little out of it. “So you’re telling me that you annoying Scar when he least expected it was not intentional?

“Not exactly,” Grian admitted as straight-laced as possible, worrying Impulse. Grian only ever avoided the opportunity to take credit for stirring up stuff when he felt something was wrong. “Recently I’ve been having these moments. It’s almost like I blackout but also not because I actively think about my actions before doing them. I almost took out Tango the other day but held back, now it just happens with no room for resisting.”

Scar snapped back to reality at this moment, “Hey, I’m okay. Got my noggin rocked a little, but honestly, the fact that you think you can do anything to me that’s worse than what I’ve already done to myself is a bit dramatic.”

Grian froze before chuckling once, his anxiety quickly dissipating now that his mind registered Scar as relatively okay, “Hah, fair enough.”

“What do you mean by ‘blackout but also not’?” Impulse asked politely. He didn’t want to sound like he was accusing Grian of anything.

It was here that Grian got flustered once more, but this time out of embarrassment. Like he was asked to kiss someone on a dare. He managed to whisper out, “I wanna do… bird things.”

Both Scar and Impulse weren’t sure what that meant. Impulse gave Grian permission to continue, “What kind of bird things?”

Grian’s fingers fidgeted with the end of his jumper, “It’s like my brain goes animalistic. I can’t speak Common, only make noises, my brain focuses on ‘keeping myself safe’ like everything around me is a predator, and just now,” he gestured to Scar, “my brain wanted nothing more than something to sit on and saw my friend then didn’t question that maybe going super fast was not a good strategy to use! I don’t know what’s happening.”

“Oh! That’s easy, you’re forming hybrid traits!” Scar said like he was an expert on the subject.

Grian wasn’t ready to accept that answer yet, “Am I though? Ren said he got his when he was a teenager; I’m in my twenties, Scar. I think we’re past the ‘late bloomer’ stage and straight into ‘maybe get that checked out by a doctor’ stage.”

Scar shook his head, walking to Grian’s side to reach behind him, “Can I touch your wings for a second?” When Grian nodded, Scar brushed the feathers as he began to explain, “Not every hybrid can even get them. It’s like players having blue eyes or green eyes, you know? Take Doc for example. Four legs, like a regular creeper, but he can’t explode. He can’t even fizzle like a lit fuse unless he’s really pissed. Meanwhile, some hybrids get player legs, some can explode, and some honestly just look like sentient creepers. It’s about how much DNA gets passed on and whatnot. It’s not all that uncommon for traits to come later, especially if the amount of DNA you have is very small.”

Impulse nodded along, happy to learn new information he was unaware of previously, “Wow, Scar, I didn’t realize you were so knowledgeable about this stuff.”

“You learn things when you’re a traveler,” Scar said with a smirk. “Lots and lots of things. Also, spending half a season with Doc who is the closest thing to a living library doesn’t hurt either.”

Impulse suddenly realized why Scar asked to touch Grian’s wings: it must have been a trick he learned that helped calm winged hybrids down. It seemed to be working relatively well with how Grian was noticeably loosening up. At least, he was until he picked up on what Scar was trying to do.

“Are you sure?” Grian backed away, signaling in all but words for Scar to stop. He lightly hugged himself, still struggling to let all of this go, “I don’t want to wave this off as ‘instinct’ or whatever and call it a night in case it might be something else.”

Scar leaned over to throw an arm around Grian’s shoulders, “Grian, I know your case is a little, er, different, but your main feature is your wings, so it’s only logical that your traits manifest as more aviary-type ones. I think you’re gonna be fine.”

Impulse was sure that conversation was not meant for him so he promptly dropped it from his mind.

Grian hummed with an uncertain tone, “I guess, but that doesn’t fix the elephant in the room. Scar, I rammed into you like a giant rock. I could have really hurt you. I would hate to do the same thing to someone else without having a concrete reason why, especially with people who don’t want to deal with-”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that,” Impulse interjected before Grian could go on a tangent. He now felt comfortable enough to jump back into the conversation, “Just… maybe go for bigger targets? I’m sure Scar would love to offer his shoulders, but he’s unfortunately on the skinnier side of the Hermit roster.” Grian giggled over Scar’s faux objection. Impulse raised one of his arms like he was going to beckon a parrot to it, and, well, “I know I don’t.”

Grian blinked like he expected Impulse to say sike, but when Impulse made no move to correct himself, Grian shook his shoulders to get rid of tension and gently flew upward, carefully making sure his wingspan didn’t bonk either friend or that the gust of wind that came from taking off knock them over. With precise aim, Grian situated his feet on Impulse, one on his arm and the other on the shoulder connected to it. The two wobbled for a second as they found their equilibrium, but once it was found, they stood almost perfectly still.

“There you go,” Impulse said. “Are you feeling better yet?”

Grian looked around, examining everything with a keen eye as his wings fluttered partially to keep balance and partially because yeah, he was, “I like this. I like this a lot.”

Scar laughed, “I think he likes this Impulse.”

Impulse grinned even wider, “I wonder what gave it away.”

“See, Grian? Hybrid instincts are wacky things,” Scar started getting his elytra back out to take off as soon as he was done talking. “But once you realize they’re like naggy children that shut up when you give them what they want then everything works out. Don’t be afraid to ask around for more details, it’s not like you’re the first hybrid on this server that’s needed accommodations. Do not ask Jevin about the places he’s randomly found slime,” Scar leaned forward, cupping his mouth like he was telling a secret, “it’s a lot more than he expected.”

Impulse and Grian waved Scar goodbye as he flew away, Impulse having to stop his waving sooner so he could use both arms to stay upright. Grian was getting a little too into the idea of pleasing his instincts. Not that Impulse was going to object to helping his friend, but when the guy was turning his head to practically curl into and around Impulse, there was a part of Impulse that wanted to nudge him so neither of them fell over.

Grian let out a chirp, quickly bringing a hand over his mouth as his face turned slightly pink one last time. He climbed down before Impulse could say anything, and Impulse figured he could let Grian at least have that. The poor guy had already gone above and beyond his comfort zone for today. Impulse would not have handled any of that with as much grace as Grian did.

“Thank you,” Grian said. “That helped a lot.”

Impulse just grinned like he had been during their entire interaction, “Of course. Don’t be afraid to ask for more if you want. It’s kind of nice feeling you on my shoulder if I’m going to be honest.”

With a nod, Grian was flying away like Scar was, leaving Impulse to get to work on all those candy trees he was asked to make. Man, he almost forgot about that. It was ridiculous the things you could forget in the span of a few minutes sometimes.

Impulse didn’t think much of that day for the rest of the week, which maybe he should have done. It wasn’t like Grian being a hybrid was any kind of secret—the guy used his wings to travel a total of ten blocks sometimes—so there wasn’t an obligation not to mention his current predicament to other Hermits. The guy might have appreciated having the rest of the server know so he had help avoiding a repeat of what happened with Scar.

Regardless, he did not do that, and now Gem was getting ready to leave Boatem after hanging out with Impulse for the day, “Thanks for inviting me again! Hanging out with you is always a blast!”

“Heh, same here!” Impulse agreed, walking her out to the front of his factory. “Our meetups never fail to be the highlight of my week.”

Gem nodded, turning around to face him completely while she pulled out her elytra, “Aw shucks, that means a lot to little ol’ me. Let me know when you wanna do another!”

Impulse opened his mouth to agree and say a final goodbye, only to get cut off by the sight of a red blur rapidly approaching from the sky straight for Gem. “I- Gem, you need to-”

Instead of watching another one of his friends get pummeled into the ground, however, he got to watch as Grian’s feet clipped her antlers like tripwires, sending him careening into the dirt and traveling about a dozen feet away. Grian made no move to pick himself or his face out of the grass, his butt sticking up toward the sky with his wings splayed and feathers going everywhere. The only movements he made otherwise were his body flattening as he registered the absolute fail he just took.

Meanwhile, Gem just tilted her head, like she was aware a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment occurred but she wasn’t exactly sure what the moment consisted of, “Um, what just happened?”

Impulse let out an elongated laugh, “It’s kind of a long story. I’ll Private Message you the details later, ‘cause I should probably make sure Grian is alright first.”

Gem, ever the saint, just nodded her head and saluted him, “Sure thing, Impulse! Catch you later!”

As she rocketed away, Impulse shook his head fondly before walking over to Grian. Grian was now laying on his back, staring up at the sky with his arms straight out at his side, very displeased with himself. Impulse crouched down, bringing his fingertips together like he was about to interrogate a criminal.

“So, hybrid instincts,” Impulse asked, “guess birds can’t beat moose? Gotta love those firmly planted hooves, am I right?”

Grian sighed, “Let’s get everyone together to make a game of rock-paper-shears out of this. If only for my dignity.”

Impulse let out a hearty chuckle, “Hey, maybe that can be your game this season! I know Ren would dig it.”

Grian brought one of his arms over his eyes, a grin tugging at his lips.

---

Doc took watching over Ren very seriously.

His friend trusted him during these vulnerable moments and he was going to go above expectations if he could help it. They weren’t sure what caused it—one of the first times it happened was during broad daylight, so it wasn’t moon-related, much to Ren’s chagrin—but they learned how to spot it coming. Usually, another Hermit jokes that Ren’s probably catching fleas with how much he’s complaining about being itchy, leading the two of them to get ready for the oncoming onslaught of Ren becoming Ren-except-now-he’s-more-dog. It typically lasted a day and then Ren was back to normal; it was almost as if it were a cold of sorts.

Nothing about Ren was dangerous or out of control, he was just… very instinctual. Some Hermits have asked to hang out with Ren while he was like this because they wanted to see his behavior for themselves, not just hear about it in stories from the guy, but Doc always said no. As he previously said, he took this role incredibly zealously with absolutely no room for anything to go wrong. His friend asked him to protect him and his integrity and he would follow through on that no matter what.

Which was why the sounds of Ren getting agressive were so easily able to send panic racing down Doc’s spine.

Ren has gotten out before—only two times so far—and ran into other Hermits, which was why neither Doc nor he got upset when the others were curious about Ren’s more hybrid parts. It’s been shown time and time again that Ren is simply not dangerous, and when you knew his personality, it was honestly superfluous that they even needed to consider the possibility. But right now, with vague crashing noises coming from the part of the Octagon they closed off for this kind of stuff, Doc was never happier to have been persnickety than now.

Pulling out his trident and brandishing it, Doc took a deep breath right outside the door. His hind leg rubbed against the ground like an upset horse getting ready to run. Then, with an exhale, Doc burst through the door and brought his trident above his head, ready to throw it immediately, “Ren! What’s-”

And promptly froze on the spot.

Oh, Ren was making growls and swiping at the air with his sharp hands, but not because he was angry. His tail was wagging and his ears stayed facing forward and out of all things, his pupils were dilated. Dilated pupils could sometimes mean fear, yes, but when you had those first two things along with it, there was a good chance the emotion was something more along the lines of happiness or excitement.

Ren was playing.

The cause? A certain pesky Hermit currently straddling a shelf near the ceiling with their wings extended to display dominance, trying to be bigger than they actually are.

Boatem had recently sent out a server ping with the news that Grian was finally manifesting hybrid traits. With that knowledge in mind, Doc brought his trident back down to have one end rest on the ground as he parsed the story. Grian was probably over in the Octagon to buy something, he heard (or perhaps even saw) Ren in the state he was in—Ren probably saw him as well—and then the two of them and their instincts clashed together to form this scene.

Doc knew that Ren was just having fun and meant no real harm, but to Grian’s bird brain it was probably hard to think around predator danger run get away.

Stepping completely inside the room and shutting the door behind him, Doc continued to watch his friends go at each other as he thought of a way to separate them. Even if Grian wasn’t in any real danger, it would be rude to leave the guy in this stressful situation. Maybe it was Grian’s fault, maybe he snuck in to pull a prank and now he was reaping karmic consequences, but there were better ways to get back at him than this.

Doc let out a short hum as he was right on the verge of coming up with something.

Which was the exact wrong thing to do.

The noise alerted the other hybrids to his presence, and before he could even regret that decision, Grian was flying off his ledge and toward Doc, roughly landing on his upper back and holding onto his hair like it was a handle. Ren soon followed suit, moving so quickly that he semi-tripped right before getting to Doc and ending up on his knees, grabbing one of Doc’s creeper legs as he only stared at Grian with giant, puppy-dog eyes.

Doc just had to stand and stare blankly in front of him, letting the two hybrids use him like a giant tree, “Is this really happening right now?”

Eventually, Ren got a lucky swipe in, almost snagging Grian’s pants, to which the shorter Hermit responded by hissing.

Wait, what?

Blinking in shock, Doc turned just enough to be able to look at Grian’s face in time to hear him not only hiss again but also notice that his pupils were slit. Not dilated, not just smaller, completely slit as if he were a feline hybrid. No bird could ever slit their pupils, and even if there was one out there with that ability, it definitely was not a parrot.

And that was what Grian was, yeah?

Yet Doc was currently staring at a parrot hybrid that could slit their pupils. Was Grian maybe half-and-half? It was rare but not impossible for two different hybrids to give birth together. If that were the case, though, then what was Grian's other "half"-

Ren suddenly swatted again, managing to lightly smack Doc on the cheek.

"Okay, that's it," Doc said, reaching down to gently but firmly grab the back of Ren's shirt and hold him off the ground like an annoying puppy. As expected, Ren became very displeased with this, trying to cute his way into getting Doc to let him go.

Doc was going to do that, but only after he dealt with the other hybrid in the room. Turning around again, Doc spoke to Grian, "Alright little birdie, you're free to leave now."

Grian titled his head a little, absorbing what Doc said before booking it off the creeper hybrid toward the exit. The door was opened as quickly as it was shut, leaving Doc to sigh in relief. When hybrids got lost in their instincts, they didn't become completely animalistic, moreso like humans running on nothing but vague inputs from their brains.

Mob hybrids like Doc and Jevin were a concern in that regard, but with how few mob hybrids were reported to supposedly "lose control," it was largely considered a wives tale at best and a stereotype to demean hybrids at worst.

"Um, Doc?" Ren abruptly started speaking again and at the worst time too. "Why am I being held like a delicate kitten?"

The haze of instincts tended to wear off pretty quickly, and Ren's seemed to go away right as Doc began to hold him. Doc shook his head, lowering his friend to the ground so Ren could stand on his own feet, "It's a long story."

Grian came over to apologize the next day when he realized what occurred during the previous one. With a patented Ren arm around his shoulders, all was forgiven, and Doc watched fondly from a distance as the two shared pointers on what to do next time either of them ended up in a similar predicament. Doc couldn't hear the exact advice, it was a pretty significant distance he had between them, but he was sure it was helpful nonetheless.

Doc eventually joined Ren in waving goodbye to Grian as he flew back to his base. While Ren stood with his hands on his hips, Doc took a deep breath, "Man, I can't believe we have a half-and-half on this server."

It was hard to see the nervous flick of Ren's ears, but it was there, "Uh, what?"

"Grian’s a half-and-half," Doc repeated. "I didn't think so at first, but yesterday when you two were going at it, he hissed and his pupils were thin like a cat's. Maybe I'm old and haven't kept up with the times, but I'm pretty sure parrots can't do that."

For a brief second, Ren had an explicitly panicked expression before he cleared his throat and quickly morphed the noise into laughter, "Wow, only on Hermitcraft! Hey, don't we need to count our pumpkin stock at some point? I think we should get a head start while we can!" Then he was speed-walking away, refusing to make eye contact.

Huh.

That was odd.

"C'mon big guy, we don't got all day!"

Whatever, Ren was usually a little weirder after one of his instincts days. That said a lot when you thought about how weird he tended to be already. Doc could take it up with Grian himself another time anyway.

---

“You gotta tilt downward a little more!” Grian yelled over the rushing of the atmosphere around them. As well as BDubs’ screams.

BDubs had recently been over at Boatem to say hi to Pearl when he heard Grian and Mumbo talk about the latter taking some flying lessons from the former. He promptly remembered when he got lessons from Grian way back when and immediately decided that he wanted to join in on the action. Of course, he was a lot better nowadays than when he first started using the device, but it never hurt learning new tricks here and there!

That’s what he thought, at least, before he and Mumbo got run through the wringer within the first twenty minutes of Grian’s “lesson.” Definitely not a boot camp drill or anything. Jeez, no one took flying more seriously on this server than Grian did, that’s for sure.

“Woooooah- WOAH-” BDubs yelled as he managed to twist in a pretty cool flip one hundred percent on purpose.

Grian was following close behind, “Hey, great job BDubs! Keep it up!”

He sure will once he figured out how he did it in the first place. For the most part, the rest of their time spent together continued normally. Grian was a god at flying like usual, and Mumbo and BDubs were able to osmosis some of his skill level as they took pointers and tips from him.

Then disaster struck.

A particularly hard gust of wind managed to smack BDubs at just the right time and at just the right spot for his form to become shaky. Normally, he would be able to just recover and move on with his life after a little bit of struggling, but that same gust of wind hit Mumbo as well, and thanks to their proximity, the chance to recover was significantly decreased. As such, someone smacked the other one and then their elytras were twisted about, and needless to say, BDubs was pretty sure he would not be credited with having the loudest screams for today.

“GUYS!” Grian called out, maneuvering to try and untangle them before they crashed horribly. He got close and managed to snag Mumbo’s arm, almost succeeding in his attempt, but a leg shot out and got him right across the jaw hard enough to disorient them. Thankfully, they weren’t that high up—Grian wasn’t that mean—but it still felt like forever before they finally reached a solid surface and made BDubs unconscious for hopefully a not-embarrassing amount of time.

When he came to, he found himself peeling his face off the dirt and shaking his head free of stars and foggy haze to try and see where he was. It seemed to be a nondescript field in the middle of some trees; not enough to be a forest, but enough to make it so that anyone who walked by would probably not see them. The wind gently blew around him, ruffling his hair and baggy hoodie. Pulling out his communicator, he noticed it was busted from the fall with a grimace. Oh boy, Etho was not going to be happy with him for breaking another one.

Eventually, he spotted the friends he was previously flying with and immediately completely woke up with an adrenaline boost. What could he say, the sight his eyes laid upon was rather odd.

Across the way were Mumbo and Grian, Mumbo still out cold and Grian crouching over him. No, that was not the odd part. The odd part came from Grian looking absolutely furious, glaring directly at BDubs, and his fingers curling into the ground like he was ready and waiting for BDubs to attack them. Or maybe even just attack Mumbo. It was as if he were some guard dog who thought its owner was being threatened.

There was being defensive of your fellow Hermits and then there was… this.

Oh! Wait a second, Grian had been dealing with some hybrid stuff recently, hadn’t he? Of course he was acting out of character. Perhaps his brain registered Mumbo getting hurt as BDubs’ fault because of their collision that started this and now it was simply acting on its base instincts of “friend hurt stop thing that hurt them.” Gosh, BDubs was so good at this, he needed to become a detective for one of his bits at some point. Though, it was kinda weird that Grian had this under his belt. BDubs wasn’t aware birds were the protective type-

Right, right, friends in trouble. He should probably handle that first. But how? He couldn’t contact others for assistance but he couldn’t leave his friends either. Mumbo was injured and Grian was most likely scared out of his wits. Grian might have been injured as well considering he also crashed!

BDubs stood up and unintentionally took a step forward toward the duo, making Grian tense up more. BDubs promptly took a step back and registered how Grian noticeably calmed down at the sight of BDubs behaving non-threateningly. Ooh, BDubs could work with that. He could work with that a lot. Maybe it would be okay if he took a second to get some backup.

“Hey there buddy,” or BDubs could throw everything out the window and attempt to fix this mess himself. That worked too, “I know that you’re freaked out right now, and I’m sure I’m not helping the matter with my own freaked-out-ness, but if you want I can help Mumbo heal a little if you let me get just a teensy weensy bit closer.”

Grian seemed to struggle between getting more aggressive or listening to the soothing voice in front of him. BDubs guessed that now would be a good time to try and take another step, and when Grian made no move to tense up or loosen up, BDubs knew he was getting somewhere. He took another step and another, and when he was a few feet away, that’s when Grian decided to react again.

BDubs stepped back one more time, “Whoops, moving a little too fast I guess. Sorry, I’ll let you have some space.” Waiting a minute or so, BDubs moved forward again, successfully earning no reaction from Grian. Finally, he got close enough to be able to kneel next to them, carefully maneuvering Mumbo out from under a pouty Grian. Seriously, the guy let out a huff from his nose when his friend was taken away from him.

“Easy, I’ll give him back in a sec,” BDubs explained, pulling a splash potion of Healing out from his inventory. He didn’t have normal potions on hand, but since they were all banged up, BDubs figured that they all needed a little bit of a hit. Softly breaking the object on the ground in between them, Bdubs sighed at the feeling of rejuvenation flowing through his veins and also felt relief at the sight of Mumbo twitching in his arms. The man didn’t wake up, but BDubs could tell the potion was working like a charm.

Suddenly, the noise of someone flopping over made BDubs look up to see Grian laying on his side on the ground out cold much like BDubs was and Mumbo is. Getting hit with a pain-killer-semi-tranquilizer after being sore and paranoid combined to get his brain to turn off the danger imminent switch. On top of the exhaustion he received from that, he was also probably tired from the flying lesson, thus the clonking out as soon as he thought it was okay to do so.

Aw, he was kind of cute like this.

Regardless, now that BDubs was no longer dealing with the possibility of being ripped to shreds, he reached forward toward Grian’s pockets to find the man’s communicator to ask another Hermit in the nearby area to help him out. A hop, skip, and a jump later, they were safely inside a base with all of their injuries and scratches treated properly. They would be ready to go as soon as they got up and left.

When Mumbo and Grian woke up, Mumbo simply had no idea of anything occurring while he was out of it while Grian straight up forgot how he reacted. With the reserved and almost shameful expression he was trying to hide, BDubs assumed that he might have remembered but just didn’t want to admit to it, which BDubs understood. The guy clearly felt bad (even though nothing went egregiously wrong and it was honestly pretty cool of him to want to protect Mumbo like that), so with a friendly grin and singular nod, he hoped he got across that all was forgiven and that Grian didn’t need to feel remorseful.

BDubs would be asked by multiple Hermits what exactly went down, and every time he would just grin and say, “My super awesome amazing spectactoobular flying skills rocked them so hard they passed out! You just had to be there to see it!”

Contrary to what it may seem like, BDubs could keep a secret.

---

What a week.

Grian was thankful that so far nothing had gone too awry. He had his stint with Scar, who was still none the wiser—Impulse was an absolute darling for not looking too deeply into what Scar said as well—and Ren was as helpful and sympathetic as he ever was, letting Grian know that he was with him and his secret was still safe and sound. Grian just hoped Doc took Impulse’s route and didn’t think too hard about Grian’s idiosyncrasies. (No, Grian did not use a big word there for the sole reason of imitating Doc or anything.) Then there was BDubs, and it was hard to tell if the man’s deflections were genuine or it was just him being himself, but Grian appreciated it regardless.

Now Grian was in the nearby ocean sponge hunting again. He managed to lose a stack because of a skeleton and creeper (don’t ask) and since he had nothing else going on today, he figured now would be a good time to restock. As he swiped at another guardian, he swam forward into the tiny room and started chopping at the sponge pile. He counted in his head as each sponge entered his inventory, mentally doing a little victory dance when he realized this would be the last little bit he needed.

It was a relief, he had already been down here for way longer than he wanted to be. Now he probably needed to go fishing because of how much he tore through his puffer fish supply. Speaking of which, when was the last time he took a potion? It was kind of crazy that he managed to achieve all of what he did in the past eight minutes. If you asked him he would have said all of that took way longer-

Right as he exited the temple, an arm wrapped around him and squeezed tightly. It wasn’t a guardian, because he could still breathe through the pressure and a guardian would be trying to strangle him. That didn’t stop him from jolting in surprise and attempting to escape as he was dragged to the surface. As he was plopped roughly on land, he blinked as Pearl leaned into his vision.

“Holy crap holy crap holy crap- Grian?!” She was panicking pretty badly over him for some reason. “Grian, hey, can you hear me? Did you inhale any water while down there? Jeez, what am I saying? If he was in the middle of drowning he obviously wouldn’t be able to respond-”

What? What in the world was she talking about? Not only was the speed of her voice making it almost impossible to understand what she was saying, but the parts Grian could understand were also already confusing enough. Why would she be worried about him drowning? Oh gosh, she was about to perform CPR, Grian needed to nip this in the bud.

Grian shoved his hand onto Pearl’s face to get her to listen to him, “PEARL I DIDN’T DROWN.”

Pearl sat still with his hand on her face, muffling her words, “... What?”

“I never drowned or even began drowning,” Grian confirmed, taking his hand back and sitting up because Pearl was finally giving him space. “My breathing never went down. I always had more than enough air to breathe with. I had plenty of Water Breathing potions, okay? I’m okay.”

Pearl stared at him like he said he could fly to the sun and back. She pointed to their side, “Then what are those?”

Looking over, Grian took a second to realize what he was looking at, but when he did, he felt his heart stutter in a minor panic.

On the ground next to the shore was a handful of Water Breathing potions, the ones Grian brought with him for this trip.

Wait a minute, if those were there, then what did Grian use? He had to have used something, how else did he live without drowning like Pearl was worried about? Come to think of it, he might have only taken one potion to start before jumping in the water, and that’s how he left the rest of his potions on dry land; he just didn’t realize he didn’t have them in his inventory. But again, that just makes the pressing question of why the heck he didn’t drown more prevalent because he was for sure about being down there for a long ass time, so-

Oh. Oh, Gods. He was able to breathe underwater by himself.

“Shit,” Grian whispered to himself.

Pearl heard him anyway, “What? What’s wrong? Shouldn’t you be happy you didn’t- wait.”

Grian quickly crawled over to the shore next to his unused potions to shove his head in the water. He didn't hold his breath even a little, and after watching a clownfish swim around for a few minutes, Grian confirmed what he and Pearl surmised from this experience. Grian’s “hybrid traits” seemed to be getting even more advanced.

Grian yanked his head back out of the water and ran his hands through his hair, fighting the urge to scream, “What is happening? I mean, it’s obvious what is happening, life hates me as usual, but does it have to hate me so explicitly right now? Where is this even coming from?”

It couldn’t have been the stupid void visit he made during MCC, could it? Then again, Oen mentioned something about “interesting behaviors.” Grian just chalked it up to being able to do that weird magic they could do and maybe some godly acne, not claws and gills or whatever it was that was happening to him right now!

Pearl was reaching forward like she wanted to console him but was also waiting for permission, “But are we absolutely sure it could be that? Maybe you were always going to start acting this way. Hybrid DNA is unpredictable, you know.”

As much as Grian would love to use a cop-out—he didn’t know his parents or where he was born even, so for all he knew he was part-whale-part-ocelot at this point—he knew he couldn’t. He would rather be paranoid and wrong instead of dismissive and dangerous. There was no sign of this kind of stuff after he first escaped and nothing in the years coming afterward.

This only became a problem after using his magic for the first time way down in MCC's code to fight that virus.

As for why that was the case, well, he would probably need a lot more time to figure that out. And maybe some therapy. It said a lot about how tired he was of everything that he was finally considering it.

"I really don't know," Grian lied. "It's hard to think it's anything else after what happened at MCC. It's just too coincidental."

Pearl nodded, "Yeah, you're not wrong about that. I'm sure we'll figure it out in no time, though."

Grian smiled, touched at Pearl's never-ending loyalty, "Of course. Thanks for checking in and making sure I'm not being dumb by the way. I'm glad I have you looking out for me."

Pearl leaned forward a little with a salute, “Someone’s gotta do it!” She pinched Grian’s cheek as her final act of the conversation, “Now then, I gotta head out. The girls and I are all having an elytra race around the server and I refuse to come back with less than gold.”

“That’s the spirit! Don’t forget everything I’ve taught you!” Grian shouted at her as she flew off. Once she was out of range, he immediately sighed in relief and sagged his shoulders, almost folding in on himself.

Grian felt bad about taking advantage of her trust in him like that, but he could at least take solace in the fact that he wasn't doing it because of reasons he might have had in the past. Right now he was doing it because, really, what was she supposed to be able to do? Grian had no idea and he not only spent years knowing Watchers existed, he lived with them. If he had no clue where to start, then someone who only learned about their existence a year ago would not be any better. He loved her, but her solution of punching problems away was not any healthier than the stuff he was doing.

He planned to get her more involved once he learned more, he truly did, but for right now, he just needed to ride out whatever kind of metamorphosis he was suffering from. He was concerned about what other kinds of "behaviors" might sprout up, but realistically he would need to deal with them even if he had an inkling as to what was going on. At least no one had gotten hurt from his antics so far.

Besides, surely nothing weirder than what’s already happened will happen, right?

---

"Alrighty Mr. Cubfan," Hypno said as he opened the door and kept it open so xB could walk outside with two shulkers in his arms. Once he was a reasonable distance through, Hypno continued conversing with their customer, "Two shulkers full of nothing but leather."

Cub nodded and hummed as he watched xB bring the objects closer to him. As the boxes were set on the table, Cub was quick to make work of opening them to see that he was getting everything he paid for. Not maliciously, they've all had their moments when they're selling their wares to the others and they leave the small details out, "Yep, looks like everything is here. Thanks again for taking my order on such short notice."

Hypno threw his arm around xB’s shoulders and opened his mouth to finish the interaction, but a much different voice calling out interrupted their conversation.

“I swear to GODS if one of you took my HELMET AGAIN!” All of them turned their heads to watch as Welsknight landed rather aggressively from his elytra and stomped his way over to them. “I TOLD you that my armor is OFF LIMITS!”

Hypno was quickly taking his arm back to hold it up in a placating pose congruent with his other arm toward Wels, “Woah, hey! I know that! I know how important your armor is to you, I would never use it for a prank."

Wels calmed down a little at that, but still fumed at the prospect of having no leads as to where his shit went, "Ugh, then where did it go? I only ever take it off in my base so someone had to have taken it from there."

"Um, if I may interject without fear of being brutally murdered," Cub started, earning a glare from Wels. He elaborated quickly, "I believe I saw Grian over in that part of the server recently. Like, within the past twenty-four hours recently."

That little prick.

Wels felt as if he should have been less surprised, "Of course. Thanks for the tip."

"Go easy on him!" xB shouted with a hand cupped around his mouth toward Wels, who was already flying again and heading to Boatem.

Cub raised an eyebrow inquisitively, "You of all people are asking someone else that's pissed at Grian to go easy on him?"

xB rolled his eyes at the same time Hypno threw an arm around his shoulders once more, "You betcha! Little xB over here has grown a soft spot for our favorite gremlin."

xB promptly shoved him off by pushing on his face, "I just know that he's been off-kilter recently, more so than usual. I heard Pearl mention something about it to Ren, but nothing concrete like why."

Cub hummed, gathering the shulkers into his inventory, "That's unfortunate."

xB heard the genuine concern behind those words, "Yeah."

Meanwhile, Wels landed at Boatem a lot more nicely than he did at Hypno and xB's place. He wanted to take this quietly so he could get the jump, leaving Grian with as little room to run and get a headstart as possible. He knew this song and dance and he knew how to stop it before it even began.

As he stepped inside Grian’s alley, he looked around to see if he could pick up on anything that would tell him where Grian currently was but then got briefly interrupted by slipping on something on the ground. Regaining his bearings, he looked down and became immensely confused at the sight of a black hoodie underneath his foot. What?

He even moved his foot back and forth a little to make sure the hoodie was real, and as it bunched up under the pressure, he reluctantly accepted reality. Now he had to answer the burning question of what it was doing here. That definitely was not something of Grian’s; Wels was pretty sure that was one of Pearl’s hoodies actually. He knew the two of them were close, probably closer than a typical bond one would get with other Hermits, but close to the point of sharing clothing?

Slowly looking upward, Wels noticed that the hoodie was not the only offender in this scenario. A small line containing both clothing and even just random items traveled further and further into the build until Wels just could not see any more of it. It was as if the line was never-ending, but considering never-ending things were only something Doc could achieve, Wels assumed that there had to be a place it stopped at some point.

Following the trail to a back corner of the unfinished bank led Wels to find his target and to also completely freeze on the spot. Oh, Grian was there, but he wasn’t the only thing. Various objects that were also owned by the other Hermits—one of Scar’s hats, a clock from BDubs, a few of Mumbo’s extra ties, a face mask from Etho, and many other things that blended in a smorgasbord of colors—surrounded him. All of them were ultimately minor things that the Hermit’s had extras of and wouldn’t notice were missing.

All except for Wels’ helmet, which Grian was curled around like it was a stuffie with his pet dragon snoozing inside, her head peeking out from over the rim.

“What the fuck,” Wels said to himself.

Stepping closer, Wels managed to get right up next to his fellow Hermit before alerting any living thing currently contained in the pile. When he did, it wasn’t even Grian that woke up first and instead the baby dragon, who elected to growl at him for encroaching on their territory despite literally being inside something of his. Still, he stepped back with a hint of reproachfulness, like he realized he was coming across a very personal and intimate moment.

The noise the dragon made finally got Grian out of his stupor, though he was not aware why she growled. He lethargically sat up, stretching his arms and wings over his head to get the blood flowing through his limbs again. Once he reached as high as he could, he fully opened his eyes and paused at the sight of Wels patiently watching him and waiting for him to be done.

“Uh, hi?” Wels began.

In a shocking turn of events, Grian was the one who ended up reacting dramatically while Wels was the subdued one, as Grian started struggling to get off his secret pile, his arms flailing and his wings flapping as he clambered down. “Hey, missy, nap time’s over now, you gotta get out,” he said to the dragon, which made unhappy noises as he yanked her out. “Do not play the upset card with me right now, we aren’t even supposed to have this-” He managed to finally get her free with great difficulty, and she scampered back up the pile to lay in the spot he was just in, most likely absorbing the warmth that was still there.

“I am so sorry,” Grian apologized, turning around and holding the helmet out toward Wels with almost desperate ferocity. “I’ve kinda been off the rails recently with some stuff, and it’s making me do things I don’t want to do. I know your armor means a lot to you and this is a flimsy excuse at best but-”

Wels held his hands up in a surrender pose close to himself, all bashful and guilty. Which, again, he has no idea how this interaction turned out this way when he was originally the slighted party, “Woah, hang on now. It doesn’t look like you damaged it or anything so I don’t see any reason to be super mad. No harm, no foul.”

Still, Grian was pretty insistent on his want to make things right, so without saying anything else, Wels reached forward to take back what was rightfully his. Instead of looking at it to make sure it was fully intact though, he simply watched Grian as the Hermit awkwardly straightened out his clothing and wings, trying to regain a sense of grounding. Wels was peeved about his helmet being taken, sure, but he didn’t want Grian in shambles.

Well, he did come to Boatem with the intent to give Grian a piece of his mind, so maybe that was where all of the sudden guilt he was feeling came from.

In a show of good faith, Wels grabbed the feathers sticking out of the top of his helmet and ripped them off, holding them out for a thoroughly shocked Grian to take. Wels cleared his throat, “It seems you’re starting a collection of sorts. Little bits and pieces from everyone looks to be the theme, so… here?” Gods, he was so bad at this.

Grian’s red face was even starker now that he had a look of utter disbelief to go with it, “You didn’t need to ruin your helmet for me!”

“I mean,” Wels countered, “the amount of times these feathers have been blown up or lit on fire or straight-up chopped off is insane. If I didn’t have some kind of process in place for fixing them at this point I would just be stupid.”

And finally, with that consolation, all the fight left Grian like a gust of wind, “Oh, I s-suppose.” He reached forward carefully like the feathers would disappear if he got too excited about it, before grabbing the soft objects and bringing them closer to look at them in more detail. Wels could visibly see the tension draining from Grian’s shoulders and his face gain a more giddy expression.

As Wels slipped his helmet under one of his arms, he looked around Grian to gaze at the object pile once more to try and see exactly what Grian had gotten his hands on. Like before, it was hard to discern just how much was in there, but when Wels’ eyes landed on an old and busted communicator that was clearly previously owned by X, it dawned on Wels that he could kill two birds with one stone while he was here.

(Metaphorically. He was well past the physical want to kill a bird now.)

“Hey, Grian?” Wels knew the Admin had been hanging out with Grian a lot, so if anyone would have some kind of deets Wels was looking for, it would be him. “Has X… worried you recently? Like, even a little?”

Grian sobered at that, completely losing any focus he had on his new gift, even putting the feathers immediately into his inventory, “Sort of, why do you ask?”

Admitting to helping your Admin’s alternative currency scheme that most of the server laughed at was probably not the right direction to take this in, so Wels went for a more vague explanation, “I've been helping him out with a project he wants to do this season and… I don’t know. I’m concerned about him, more so than usual. This isn’t him being a derp or not sleeping, it’s almost scary the way he’s been acting.”

Grian softened up, looking around to make sure they were the only two still in the alley. When he looked back, he was the most serious and controlled he had been during their entire meeting, “Yeah, I don’t disagree with you there. I’ve thought about asking a few times before, but I’ve asked about other things and he always gets… dodgy. Something is off, but I don’t know what.”

Wels sighed, happy to know he’s not alone in this but also staying upset because he was hoping to get some kind of answer. Even if it was small, even if it didn’t help much in the long run, he wished he could have at least gotten something to start with. He supposed confirming someone to be on your side was good enough for now.

“Well, feel free to let me know if you learn anything new,” Wels turned to start walking out of the alley and slipped his helmet on. “I think we both want answers, and those will come faster if we work together, yeah?”

Grian didn’t miss a beat in nodding his head and holding a fist out for Wels to bump, “Of course. Hermits stick together.”

Wels stared at Grian’s hand before happily bumping it, “Hermits stick together.”

As Wels sat in his base that night, attaching new feathers to the top of his helmet, he realized he finally felt confident in what he was doing since he first joined The Evil Empire. He was already feeling pretty hinky about it when X first suggested the idea to him, and as time went on that feeling only got worse. If not because of the suspicious aura around it, at least for Xisuma’s sake. Something about that place was not doing favors for the Admin—or any of the members, honestly—and Wels wanted to get to the bottom of it, even if it meant disrupting all the hard work put into it.

If there was anyone Wels wanted on his side to help him disrupt someone’s well-thought-out plans, Grian was obviously an easy pick.

---

Knocking on X’s door, Grian held his arms behind his back as he rocked back and forth excitedly.

Not for any reason in particular. He was delivering a nice and chonky order of deepslate to their Admin after the guy requested it. It was a normal delivery, Grian just felt like being dappy today.

The door suddenly opened, revealing Xisuma, “Ah, right on time I see.”

“Yep! I don’t make the most diamonds this season for no reason, you know,” Grian pointed out, happily handing over the deepslate while X handed over the appropriate amount of diamonds. As Xisuma deposited the deepslate into a shulker, Grian skimmed through the diamonds to make sure he got everything he wanted. He quickly learned that was a good choice of action, “Uh, X?”

Xisuma looked up from his inventory with a hum. Grian proceeded to pull out two derpcoin from his pile of currency, “While I don’t discourage your new business efforts, the G-Train does not take derpcoin as a form of valid currency.”

Xisuma blinked before realizing what was being asked of him, “Oh! My apologies, I must not have seen those in there.” X reached into an ender chest near the door to pull out a few replacement diamonds, “Here you go.”

Trading the currency out for the right one, Grian nodded as he deposited the diamonds and only the diamonds into his inventory, “Thanks again for buying! I think this is just enough to start having my hourglass leaking diamond blocks for aesthetic reasons. Gotta flex on your neighbors from time to time, you know?”

Xisuma laughed, leaning on his door frame, “Of course. By the way, have you considered letting derpcoin into your business yet? The Octagon has, and I’ve heard their sales have been exceptionally good because of it.”

“Riiiiiiiight,” Grian agreed in a noncommittal tone. “Not exactly. Like I said, I appreciate your commitment, but something like Derpcoin isn’t what Boatem is going for this season.”

X shrugged his shoulders, accepting Grian’s answer with a tone that said you win some, you lose some, “Perfectly understandable.” Right before Grian could begin getting ready to leave, Xisuma stepped outside his base, “Wait, I almost forgot. I’ve been working on something that I want to show you.”

Oooooh, an X surprise! Grian liked the sound of that. Giving the Admin an appropriate amount of room, Grian waited patiently as Xisuma got fully outside and held up an arm with the elbow bent.

“Here, try hopping on,” Xisuma said, holding his arm still.

Grian was pretty sure that was the closest he would ever get to literally feeling his pupils expand.

Wasting no more time, Grian jumped upward with a few flaps of his wings and landed perfectly on his Admin’s arm. Catching him, both physically and off guard, was the quiet noise of something mechanical whirring and the light feeling of something gripping the bottom of his feet. Then he was aligned just right, neither player swaying or worrying about falling over.

Grian blinked rapidly, trying to understand why everything was working a little too well, “Woah, what’s happening?”

Xisuma happily explained, “I added a few new updates to my armor to accommodate your new needs. Everything in here is mostly for me, but I make sure to add at least one thing for all of you guys. In the case of an emergency or just for fun, I want to be prepared.”

Grian’s wings fluttered in excitement, “Wow! What did you have for me before?”

“A fire extinguisher of sorts,” Xisuma answered flatly.

Ah, Grian did go hard with the explosives during his first season.

Lifting one of his feet, Grian noticed that the latch let him go with relative ease, the grip adjusting to accommodate a one-foot balance instead of two. Damn, this tech was amazing! Grian decided to hop down from his Admin completely after that, “Thanks a bunch, X. That felt really nice.”

Xisuma chuckled, bringing his arm to a resting position now that Grian was no longer using it, “I’m happy to hear that. I put a lot of work into it. I was worried about it not working when you tested it out for real so I made sure to tweak it as much as possible.”

With that statement, Grian remembered another reason he was looking forward to coming over here, “Oh? Lots of late nights you’ve been having recently?”

“Nothing more than usual,” X answered a little too conveniently. He began walking back to his base.

Grian not-so-subtly stayed right on his heels, “Yeah? Hard at work to keep the server running I bet. I’m sure the job is taxing, especially later in the season. All these builds stressing out the code.”

Xisuma reached his door, a strained chuckle exiting his lips, “It wouldn’t be so bad if you and the Octagon didn’t feel the need to attempt to outclass each other in terms of lag.”

Grian bit his lip, wondering if he should just rip the bandaid off instead of playing the game he was playing, “So I suppose you’re probably not feeling the best dealing with all of that, and I just want to say that I’m ready to offer whatever help you may need with-”

“Grian,” Xisuma snapped, turning back to stare at Grian. “Please stop prying.”

… Excuse him?

It was a testament to Grian’s progress that he didn’t immediately feel the need to shrivel up under slight pressure from an authority figure, but he was too busy being shocked at X’s tone to realize. Xisuma was snapping at him. Xisuma was snapping at him.

He would need to message Wels later and thank him. Grian had been slowly letting Xisuma’s concerning behaviors go as a simple low point, but clearly, that was a mistake. Xisuma, Jevin, Beef, everything reeked of something suspicious. Grian needed to truly get to the bottom of this, if only because he did not want to see one of his friends have an episode like he did.

Before he could continue arguing, Xisuma shook his head and placed his fingers against his face, “Jeez, I’ve just been a right mess during this interaction, haven’t I? I’m touched by your concern, but I promise you can relax. I’ll even promise to let you know if anything is really wrong, okay?”

Yep, there it was. “Really wrong” was keyword for “I’m not gonna tell you anything even as I’m dying.” Grian regrettably knew that on a personal level.

In the meantime, Grian let out a faux sigh and grinned, “Thank you. I’m just worried about you, you know? All the Hermits. I still feel bad sometimes about thrusting my stuff into everyone’s lives, and I would hate for it to take precedence over something of yours just because it seems ‘worse’ in comparison.”

Xisuma tsked as he shook his head, throwing his arm around Grian’s shoulders to bring him into a loose hug, “And what have we all said about that?”

“That my brain is being stupid and I deserve nice things,” Grian droned like an annoyed teenager. “Be careful before you start sounding like Pearl. It’s already hard enough dealing with one of her.”

X let Grian go with a more genuine chuckle than the one from before, “I think she has her head on her shoulders is what I think.”

Grian playfully gasped, “Traitor!”

Xisuma shook his head as he walked back inside, moving his door so it was shut enough to only show himself in what was left of the open doorway, “Again, thank you for looking out for all of us. But just remember that you don’t owe us for treating you with kindness like you always should have been. There’s no reason to go out of your way to find some kind of ‘payment,’ alright?”

“Absolutely,” Grian nodded, picturing himself holding a hand at his back with its fingers crossed.

Rushing back to Boatem, Grian landed a little harder than necessary as he ran into his base to grab a book and quill before running back out and looking around the area. That’s when he remembered who he handed Gaile off to before meeting with X and knew exactly where to start. As Scar’s Wagon came into view, he looked down at the ground to see Scar playing with a familiar dragon.

“Hey sweetie!” he called out to her, getting her to immediately jump over to him and climb his body to his shoulders and cuddle his head. He then turned his attention to Scar who was walking over, “Thanks again for watching her.”

Scar smiled, “It was no problem! All of us got a lot of exercise from the experience, even Jellie, who needed to work off a couple of extra treats from over the week if you know what I’m saying.”

Grian rolled his eyes, some of his bite getting lost in translation because of what he was focusing on in his mind, “Yeah, and whose fault is that again?”

Scar sniffled, adjusting the front of his suit in defiance of Grian’s criticisms, “Maybe it was a cat treat ghost of some kind, you would never know. Besides, forget about that, what’s got you about to rocket out of your pants and into space?”

His friend knew him so well, “I’m here to not only pick up Gaile but also to take some notes!”

“Oh?” Scar said, slightly more concerned than before. “This isn't going to end with me tied up and hanging from the ceiling again, is it?”

Grian pulled out the book and quill he grabbed earlier, sitting down on a chest while giggling, Gaile slithering down to the other half of the chest to sit in a similar pose, “Quit being dramatic, you baby. I’m just thinking of researching something, and what better way to begin than by asking a whole bunch of questions!”

Scar nodded, agreeing with Grian’s thought process, “Right, of course, but do you mind telling me what exactly it is you want to research?”

Grian’s smile was sickly sweet, professional yet mischievous, “Tell me all you know so far about the Derpcoin chain going on. And I mean everything.”