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The man known as ‘Evil Xisuma’ is often compared to a hornet. Won’t attack unless you get close or harm him. And when you do: it’s painful. But normal hornets don’t target people. Evil Xisuma will go out of his way to harm Xisuma. To the point that when EX logs on, Xisuma just waits to be antagonized. He also steals random things. Which isn’t very hornet-y, but worth mentioning.
The Hermits don’t know the two’s relationship, and sometimes think they don’t either. Some speculate clones because for all they know, their only difference is the suits. (Who knows if either of them have voice modifiers under those helmets.) Others say siblings. Twins, or a possible age difference. (Again, hard to tell with that armor.)
And the armor can be bright. Though Evil X’s is dirtied by some grime, it still shines bright under the Hermitcraft sun. He sits upon a shopping district building with a white concrete exterior and…stares at the Hermits for a few days. Sometimes he absent-mindedly plays the drums on the roof, taps his helmet, swings his legs (creating small scuff marks and dents in the shop), or summons lightning (mostly at night or when raining). The Hermits avoid him and the shop, even if there’s no visible intent of killing.
EX has a known communicator and assumed tools, so it's a surprising relief when he doesn’t show up to a meeting called by one of the Hermits. They all discuss what to do about the man in the shopping district. And the conclusion is confrontation.
Moments after the decision, all of Hermitcraft lands nearby the invaded shop with Xisuma in the lead.
“God, took you all long enough,” Evil Xisuma sighed with his deep, rumbling voice. The sun was going to set soon, starting to give the red-plated man a powerful backdrop.
“You know,” Xisuma called out, a few steps in front of the Hermits, “you can’t destroy this server from up there.”
“I’m not as big of a derp as you . I was going to let you come to me first this time. I needed a day or two to plan out my words anyway.” EX hopped down from the shop.
“What, you’ve got a big monologue this year?”
He shrugged, “I suppose so. Best time to start is the present. Alright, question one: who am I?”
“What?”
“Who am I?” He repeated in the same manner. “I’m sure you aren’t as open as to tell your friends about our…status as people. Who am I? To you, at least.”
“You’re my brother.” (A few whispers of ‘I told you!’ were heard in the background.)
“Older or younger?”
“Younger.”
“By how much?”
“What do you want, exact dates?”
“By how much?”
“I don’t know, at least three years?”
“Three years, five days, five hours, fifty-two minutes, and about twenty seconds. Come on , Xisuma! Get better at keeping track of these things! Alright, question four. It should be easy with the new information: how old are we?”
“I’m 34 and you’re 30.”
“Good. What’s my birthday?”
“Why are you asking all of these? Why’d you need to plan?”
“Not your turn yet. When’s my birthday?”
“Sometime in October…uh…” Xisuma was somewhat struggling with what should be an easy question. “October…13? Yeah, the 13th. I remember because it was a Friday, Friday the 13th.”
“Yep! The time?”
“Why would I know the time you were born, I don’t even know what time I was born!”
“Thirty-five minutes after noon plus about five seconds,” Red pointed to green. “6:27 at night plus about twenty-five seconds.” Evil X pointed back to himself.
“How do you know that?”
“What’s today’s date and current time?”
Xisuma paused before looking back at the Hermits for someone to answer. “It’s your birthday, Evil,” one said after a moment. “One minute ‘till your birth time.”
Evil Xisuma snapped. “One minute to ask questions: go.”
Xisuma blinked in surprise (though no one could see it) and stammered. “Why are you asking all these questions?”
“I’m testing you. You’re doing okay currently.”
“Why did you need to prepare? These are simple.”
“If they’re simple, why aren’t you getting all of them correct?” He paused. “And the preparation was mental, you never know what could happen.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Good memory for some things, I suppose.” Evil looked around Xisuma, “Time?”
“1827!” Someone called out.
After doing a quick conversion from military to AM/PM time, EX nodded. He grabbed a single firework from his inventory and set it off. It rose into the air then exploded into a flurry of red and purple sparks, contrasting against the setting sky.
Everyone slowly lowered their heads from the sky, but Evil X. “Do you consider yourself a good brother?”
“What?” Xisuma sputtered. “Uh, well. Recently, neither of us have been good brothers. But in the past…uh…”
“What’s my name?” Evil Xisuma looked down from the sky and directly at Xisuma, even taking a step forward. “The answer to this question determines the answer to the last one. As well as the answers to a few of the older ones.”
“Your name? Well, uh,” Xisuma hesitated. As the hesitation got longer, Evil Xisuma walked closer. The two were only an inch apart when Xisuma said his final answer, “I-I don’t know.”
Within milliseconds of the answer, Evil Xisuma reached out and pushed Xisuma back with profound strength. He walks a few steps, turns away, and kicks the ground. Looking back at the sky, he summons a few lighting bolts. Looking back down, he takes a few deep breaths.
He pivots. “For years I have been ‘Evil Xisuma’ or ‘Evil X’ or-or ‘EX’ on this server. Someone even called me ‘Eggs’ once!” he yelled “And for years before that, I was ‘Xisuma’ .” The name was venom in the red man’s mouth. “No one called me by my name to the point that I can’t remember it.” He laughed, “I don’t even know how they did that!”
“What-What do you mean by that?” Xisuma was still on the ground.
Even with the mask, everyone could tell Evil Xisuma’s face fell. “What do I look like?”
“H-huh?”
“My face, hair, eyes. Anything!” Evil Xisuma walked over and yanked Xisuma up. “Oh, please, don’t tell me you can’t remember that either. Do you know what you look like?” Evil Xisuma moved the two of them away from the Hermits.
“Of course I know what my own face looks like!”
Evil Xisuma addressed the Hermits, “What does he look like?”
The Hermits collectively shrugged.
Evil Xisuma stood still for a few seconds, breathing heavily from yelling. Then, without warning, he grabbed Xisuma’s helmet and yanked it off his head.
Xisuma was a simple man. Slightly grown-out brown hair close to the basic white boy haircut (you know the one), green eyes that matched his armor, and pale skin.
But the Hermits knew none of this. They all gasped a little when the helmet came off. (There we’re a few more ‘told ‘ya’s.)
Evil Xisuma threw Xisuma’s helmet to the side and wasted no time ripping his own off, also discarding it. “Do we look similar to you?” His voice was much less threatening without the helmet, he definitely had a modifier. The Hermits shook their heads.
And they were right. Though they were the same height, Evil Xisuma had shoulder-length, white hair (but it was dirty at the moment). His eyes were also less round and bright red, his skin was fairly darker and he had some glowing purple freckles. He also had two long scars in the shape of an ‘X’. His eyes were brimming with tears.
“How the hell did they do it,” Evil Xisuma breathed before letting go of Xisuma. He walked backwards with a tired expression and slumped against the shop’s exterior. Bringing his knees closer to his chest, Evil Xisuma stares at the ground.
The Hermits all stand where they are and look at each other. They all know Evil Xisuma needs some sort of help, but their conflicting feelings stop them. There were deaths and many other crimes in the past.
“Why now?” Xisuma asks after a minute. Evil Xisuma turns his head and glares at Xisuma. He hasn’t blinked and it’s hard to tell if the tears that threaten to escape are from that or emotion. Xisuma takes a breath and repeats, “Why now? Why not the first year?”
Evil Xisuma doesn’t respond. He makes a quick glance at the Hermits, then back to the ground. Resting his head on his knees, a singular tear falls. He doesn’t bother wiping it away.
Xisuma looks over at the Hermits. He made a gentle motion for ‘back up’ and walked towards them. “I got this,” he says in a hushed voice to them. “Go home.” Slowly, the Hermits fly off into the sky or head over to the Nether portal.
Now there were only two people in the district.
Xisuma walked over to the helmets and picked them up, carrying them as he walked to the shop. The sun had almost completely set by now, the only nearby light being from torches. Xisuma placed the helmets down and sat diagonally from his brother.
“Have you ever been back home?” The younger one asks.
“Sadly, no.” There was a pause. “You?”
“Trying. I got close, but I couldn't find anyone to get me to the town. That’s why I did it this year, asking you was a last resort.”
“Oh. Why?”
“You were always too busy being the goody-two-shoes prodigy brother to care about me. I looked up to you, you know. Smart, cool older brother.”
“You thought I was cool?” Xisuma snorted. “I did have better hair back then…But yes, I will admit that I ignored you. May I ask, how well do you remember home?”
“...Sometimes I don’t know what I made up and what was real. Who started the nickname?”
“I did.” Xisuma sighed and looked over at his counterpart, who looked back at him. “It was a joke. A good-intentioned one, I swear. We were young, the name stuck, and it went too far.”
At this point, the tears were being deliberately wiped away. “Did you ever try to stop it? Like, try and tell people to stop using the nickname? Was I enrolled with your name? How would that even work, because they knew—”
“Stop it. Stop asking questions.”
“Why? Is it bad that I want answers to my questions?”
“No. It’s just that—” Xisuma sighed. “The answers won’t make anything better.”
“I don’t care.” The man’s voice was harsh even with the blankets of emotion behind it. “Tell me anyway.”
“Your life was ruined by a small mistake I made years ago, and I didn’t know it at the time. Any joyous moment is clouded with the memory of not knowing your own name and being called by the wrong one. I didn’t stop the problem because I was more bothered with keeping up with my school work, coding, being the goody-two-shoes child. As for school, Void is a common last name. Maybe because we looked so different, they just thought we managed to have the same first name. For all that you care, which is probably not at all, I am sorry.”
There were a few seconds of silence, with stillness. Then the red-armored man picked his helmet up, wiped his tears one final time (they kept flowing), and slammed the helmet down onto his head. “Just get it over with. I know you want to go home.” He said, standing up.
Xisuma stood as well and took out his communicator, “Don’t come back until you find your answers…And maybe write when you do. Have fun wherever people end up when banned.” He pressed the button.
Dear Xisuma,
I ended up listening to you, didn’t I? Hope you didn’t forget about me since I last invaded your server. And so you know, banned people end up back in the main Hub.
So, after getting banned, I walked myself over to the library. Quite a nice place if I do say so myself. Anyway, I went to one of those public library computers and searched up ‘am I at fault’. Found some flowchart and went through it with what I thought was the correct path and got ‘Harm was caused by your character’s negligence. Your character is at fault.’ Of course, replace character with brother and you get our situation.
I don’t really forgive you, by the way. We were young, but we got older. You could’ve paid more attention.
Back on track. As it turns out, our home town was too small and isolated for the purple-eyed Endermen to know about. Not a single one could take me there. I ended up having to find enough money to borrow a pair of mechanical wings. That took a while. (Especially because I didn’t have things I stole from Hermitcraft to barter with. You guys can have some valuable stuff, by the way.) Once I was able to borrow them, I headed for the town. About a two week trip from the town I started from. Most boring two weeks of my life.
To say I was greeted with open arms and warm smiles is only partly correct. While it did happen, they still thought I was you. The older generation loves you. The younger ones, they’re funny. The older folk have put you up on a pedestal, and they want everyone else to be like you. Kids hate it.
Visited our old home first. They still live it in, and your room is still the same. Mine’s a guest room now, very dusty. Asked about birth certificates and they just shrugged. You apparently took your when you left (could’ve assumed that) and didn’t know where they put mine.
Searched your room for anything that could have my name on it, nothing. All my stuff had been thrown out or sold, so that was a no-go.
So then the only option was going through the hospital. The thing is, I have no real identification and I pissed our parents off too much going though your room. With no living grandparents, the only person left able to get the certificate is you.
You owe me no favors and I probably owe you some, so if you decide to pick one up, it will be out of the goodness of your own heart. If you do, you know where to find me. I’ll be hanging out in my singleplayer world for a while.
Sincerely,
Your Brother (who can still speak very good Enderian, if you were wondering)
Hey.
For how much destruction you’ve caused over the years, I’m still a good person. And you were right, the older folk love me. To the point it’s creepy. Interacted with the least amount of people I could when I was there.
Anyway, I got your birth certificate. Mailing the thing to you seemed too unceremonious, but you going to Hermitcraft was a bit too much for something so short. That new cafe and outdoor eating area sounded cool, I hope you’re open on Wednesday at 3!
Yours truly,
Xisuma
The man who soon will forever be ‘formally Evil Xisuma’ sat in his house. It was a quaint little cottage in the middle of a dark oak forest. He had learned a thing or two about building from observing Hermitcraft. He had taken his armor off and had a more simple outfit of a t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers on. With his hair partially obstructing his face, he looked at the letter Xisuma had sent. 10 minutes until 3PM.
With a sigh, he stood up and headed out of the cottage. It was a sunny day, with a small amount of sunlight peeking through the trees. Spawn wasn’t too far from the cottage, set at the edge of the forest. After a few minutes' walk, the area was in sight. With a single command a glowstone portal with a swirling blue inside appeared, he entered.
The main hub complex was a mix of Greek architecture and modern technology. There were large, domed buildings, vast hallways, and a few courtyards. All made with smooth, white, stone.
The room where people exited servers was a bustling circular room. The walls of the room were covered in the names of created multiplayer servers, magically updating every time a new one was created. The exit room was across a courtyard from the entrance one, and they were identical.
The white-haired man exited the building and walked slowly through the complex. The cafe was on the other side of the place, a long stretch of courtyard and small museum-esc building in the way. The plants and flowers in the courtyard changed throughout the rainbow as you walked through them. People chatted all around the area, or sat alone on benches, or hurried off to another location. The museum was about the history of the building and servers, something small but informative.
The cafe resembled something more like a hut than any grandiose Greek building. It was quaint and had very few indoor tables. You sat yourself and ordered at the counter. The outdoor area is all grass, with tables made for two scattered about. Xisuma wasn’t there yet. The younger one ordered two teas and a small muffin for himself and his older counterpart.
“Hey, sorry I’m late,” Xisuma appeared a few minutes later, dropping a small messenger bag at his feet when he sat down. He wasn’t wearing his armor either, but rather a casual graphic tee and jeans. “There was some argument I had to be consulted about, the usual.”
“Your tea may be a bit lukewarm. Saved you half the muffin, it’s blueberry.”
Xisuma took a sip of the tea then shrugged, “It’s fine, usually end up drinking mine cold anyway. So, how have you been?”
“Fine. The world’s going well, I finally found a horse yesterday. How are the Hermits?”
“Chaotic as usual. Do you plan on fighting the Ender Dragon? Or have you done that already…?”
“I’m not crazy like you Hermits. But no, I don’t really plan on fighting the dragon anytime soon. Mr. uhh…what's an ‘X’ adjective… Zealous? Seems like an ‘X’ one. Mr. Zealous Xisuma.”
Xisuma snorted, “That’s a ‘Z’ word. But that’s fair, Mr. Antisocial Alex.”
“It’s a ‘z’? Really? Wait. What did you say?”
“Antisocial Alex.” Xisuma smiled and bent over to grab something from his bag.
“Alex?”
Xisuma set down a thin piece of paper protected in plastic on the table. “Birth certificate of Alexander Void,” he pointed at the words typed in Enderian.
Alex stared at the paper. It all seemed unreal. A name. A real name. “And it’s…real? Not some fake?” He looked up at Xisuma.
“Of course it’s real,” Xisuma smiled and put his hands on Alex’s. The two sat like that for a bit. Alex stared at all the words printed onto the page; and Xisuma, who stared at Alex, making sure he was okay.
“Thank you,” Alex said, barely above a whisper. He moved a hand away and wiped the tears that peeked out of his eyes. “I, uh, feel like I should go. You must be busy with the Hermits and everything else.” He moved his other hand away.
“I’m really not all that busy today.”
“Still.”
Xisuma sighed, “All right. Enjoy your afternoon.”
“You too.” Alex started collecting his things.
“And, hey. Go out and enjoy the city now that you can. Legally, at least.” Xisuma smiled.
Alex smiled back, “I’ll write.” Then he waved and left.
Dear Xisuma,
The city is quite nice! I was able to enjoy the things I couldn’t weasel myself into before. I’ve got a drivers license and passport now! I’ve also secured myself a small job at the Hub’s cafe. Can’t really do anything higher as I didn’t finish school and don’t plan to go back.
I also defeated the Ender Dragon over in my world. I died so many times, how do you Hermits do it so easily? Haven’t gone End busting yet, I think I’ll need more materials before I do that.
Oh, and as you can tell, I changed my server name. ‘Evil’ wasn’t too bad, but I do not want your name! ‘Evil Alexander’ sounds more grand anyways.
I hope Hermitcraft is going well. If any Hermits happen to be off Thursdays and Fridays before noon, tell them to stop by the cafe! That’s when my shift is.
Send word if anything interesting happens.
Yours truly,
Alex