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Grian sneaks into town hall, it’s the dead of night, making it completely empty, but he can’t be too cautious. He still vividly remembers the layout of the place. He carefully enters Mumbo’s office, deciding to check there for more information first. He stills, breath catching in his throat when he realizes that someone is still here.
Grian stares at the desk, initial shock fading to a more concerned one. He slowly approaches the desk, walking around to lean over Mumbo’s shoulder. He admits that he has had his own share of late nights in the office, but this late? Grian winces, remembering how this technically isn’t the first time Mumbo passed out. But every time it’s happened before, Grian was there, waking him up and telling him to go home to rest. It seems like Grian was the only one who would do that.
He can’t help but feel bad, Mumbo and him weren’t serious when Mumbo starting running for mayor. They never expected to win, but here they are now. Things have changed a lot since then.
Grian sighs, reaching over and gently shaking Mumbo by his shoulder, “Mumbo?” He shakes a little harder when he gets no response.
This time Mumbo stirs, blinking up hazily at him, “Grian…?”
“You fell asleep at your desk again, you need to take care of yourself better.”
It takes a couple minutes for Mumbo to come into full awareness, his whole body seems exhausted, deep shadows under his eyes. He pulls back suddenly, pushing his chair away a little bit, “Grian!?”
“Hey,” he replies, straightening back up. “I’ve told you before,” Grian lightly scolds, “you need to take better care of yourself.” The familiar teasing seems to cause Mumbo to relax, even by a little. He doesn’t respond, glancing away before refocusing on Grian, clearly favoring keeping his eyes on Grian over anything else. At the silence, Grian leans against the desk, “you don’t need to be so stressed,” he murmurs. Mumbo still doesn’t respond, unsure of the reason, Grian continues. “Come with me, you don’t need to be stressed anymore.”
Mumbo shakes his head, “no, I can’t.”
Grian hesitates, choosing his words carefully, he needs to pick the correct way to go about this if he wants to successfully convince his friend. “You’re running yourself into the ground, this isn’t good for you. If you connect to us, you wont’t have to be stressed anymore.” Grian pauses, “I truly am sorry for lying to you all this time. I just couldn’t let you destroy the mycelium.”
“Why is it so important to you?” Mumbo counters, staring almost desperately into his eyes.
He sits fully on the desk, letting out a breath, “because it’s a blessing. To become one with the mycelium is a better fate then anything you can possible imagine.”
Mumbo’s eyes drop to his neck, where the mushrooms grow out of it, “I have my doubts.”
Grian trails a finger across them, “well it’s true. These don’t hurt or anything. Well, unless you try to pull them out. And my sweater pushed on them uncomfortably. Outside of that, they have no impact on my life.”
“Not exactly what I was thinking.”
“Growing them doesn’t hurt,” he pauses, “well, I don’t exactly know that. I wasn’t aware for that.”
“What does that mean?” Mumbo responds, a tinge of concern in his voice.
Grian, Scar cautions.
I got this, he counters. “You’re not conscious when you Connect. You don’t feel anything that happens until you wake up. Even then, you don’t feel it either.”
Mumbo’s eyes refocus onto the mushrooms, “again, I find that hard to believe.”
Grian can’t help but chuckle, “they are a part of me. Just an extension of myself. It’s not any different then any other part of me.”
“And you don’t find any issues with that at all?”
“No. There’s no reason to. Again, they don’t cause us any harm. There are no downsides to becoming like this. Things can only get better from here.” He hesitates before adding on, wanting to be completely honest with Mumbo, “well, we are a bit more sensitive to light, but it’s not impossible to deal with.”
“And the borderline mind control isn’t harmful?”
Grian lets out a breath, “you heard Cub and Pearl’s theory right?” Mumbo hesitates, but nods. “Well, they’re correct. You don’t have to worry about any of that if you agree. I mean, look at me.”
“You let Scar infect you,” Mumbo mutters, surprised.
Grian grimaces at the word, but nods, “yeah, I did.”
“Why?”
“Because it sounded nice, what he offered.”
“What did he offer?”
“Pretty much everything I’m offering to you.” Grian clears his throat, suddenly awkward, “well, not everything.”
“Right…” Mumbo replies, not asking for clarification, like he already knows. Grian files that away to ask him later.
“Point is, I accepted the offer because I wanted to. I don’t regret it, and I promise you won’t if you agree as well.”
Grian can’t tell if Mumbo’s resistance is thinning, or if it’s his guard, but he suddenly looks way more exhausted. “I can’t, everyone voted for me. I can’t let them down.”
“You’re not letting them down, once we completely connect to everyone on this island, things will change for the best. Everyone will be happier this way. Isn’t that what you’d like? To make everyone happier then they are now. You can help with that.”
“They can’t be happy if they’re mindless drones.”
Grian sighs, “that only happens if they show resistance. Once they realize how much better it is, the effect starts to fade. They might not understand now, but they will.”
Mumbo takes a moment to take that in, eventually responding, “will you hurt anyone?”
“Never,” he swears and holds out a hand in offer. “We care for all connected under us, we will never hurt anyone currently Connected to us or who will eventually be. Join us, Mumbo. Everything will feel so much better. No more stress.”
Mumbo stares at Grian’s hand for a silent minute, before reaching out and grabbing it, murmuring a quiet, “alright.” He shivers when he grabs his hand, but looks surprised.
Grian can’t help but laugh at his expression, “thought it would be immediate?” Without waiting for a response, Grian tugs his friend to his feet.
Mumbo staggers as he stands up, looking sheepish, “maybe?”
“Usually doesn’t work that way, Scar’s kinda the exception,” Grian replies, tugging Mumbo to follow him. He can return for information later, this is way more important.
Scar hums in agreement, I’ll meet you there?
Nah, just meet me at home, Grian replies.
“Is that why he calls himself the Father Spore?”
“That’s one of the reasons,” Grian replies as he retraces his steps back, leading Mumbo along.
He doesn’t say anything until Grian leads him into an alleyway, “uh, where are you taking me?”
“Home.” He pauses, clarifying, “mycelium territory.”
“Ah,” he mumbles, seeming nervous.
Grian squeezes his hand, “everything will be alright.”
Mumbo nods, looking a little reassured.
After traveling through a maze of alleys, Grian finally reaches the quarantined zone, aka mycelium territory. He stops when he notices a familiar person, “I thought I said I’ll meet you home.”
“You did,” Scar confirms, approaching them, “I just wanted to meet you both before then.” Grian huffs, Scar ignores it in favor of giving Mumbo a lopsided smile, “been a while, mister mayor.”
Mumbo ignores the greeting in favor of staring at them, baffled, “what do you mean both?”
“Ah, right,” Grian responds, turning to face him. “We’re all connected via a hive mind, we always knows what’s going on around here.”
“When you said connected I didn’t think you meant that connected,” Mumbo replies, looking as shocked as he can in his exhaustion. “You can see everything?”
Scar shakes his head, “not everything. The mycelium doesn’t have eyes, after all. It communicates with us, but differently then our sporelings can. We can see what they see, if we choose to.”
“Wh- sporelings!?”
“Our children,” Scar clarifies, a questioning lilt to his voice.
“That- that’s not much better!”
“What we call them is besides the point,” Grian interjects, stopping the discussion before it can get further off topic. “Any person who is connected we can see through their eyes, whereas we can’t see through the mycelium, just feel.”
“So you can watch what someone’s doing whenever you want?
“Technically,” Scar admits, “I don’t do it unless I have to or if there’s a reason to. I won’t do it randomly.”
“Same,” Grian agrees.
“I did see your entire encounter with Grian.”
“You saw all of that!?”
“I wanted to make sure he was safe,” Scar explains with a shrug, “watching what he does is the easiest way to do that.”
“Right,” Mumbo replies, hesitantly.
“I won’t do that to you,” Scar offers.
Without permission? Grian questions.
Without permission, he echoes.
“Yeah, okay,” he mumbles.
“C’mon, let’s get you back home,” Grian murmurs, coming to his side, noticing his exhaustion catching up to him. Mumbo slowly nods.
“Our sporelings have a place set up for you,” Scar says, coming up beside him. “Just rest now,” he whispers, placing a hand on Mumbo’s shoulder and increases the spore cloud around him.
Mumbo is out within seconds, Scar catching him easily. Grian hums in disapproval, “I was going to lead him back before doing that.”
“He was already on the verge of passing out,” Scar counters.
“I suppose…”
Scar easily picks Mumbo up, “let’s head back home.”
“Yeah,” Grian replies, a lot more cheery then when he first set out. After all, he has Mumbo back!