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Evil X was not having the best time. It rarely was, all things considered, but right now there was one specific thing that was making it miffed.
Xisuma. It's original. Sure, they had made it in like a lab or whatever, but that didn't mean they were its dad, and it definitely didn't mean that they got to act like it. Sure, it was all good natured "making sure it takes care of itself" and "stopping it from taking over the server" but that didn't matter! It could take care of itself! Most of the time.
It was saying all of this to Worm Man, while kicking a rock around in a circle. Worm Man was practicing a yo-yo trick, but EX knew he was listening. Worm Man was nice like that. Nice in a good way, unlike Xisuma. They were different. Somehow.
"I just want to show that they don't own me! I'm my own person!" It kicked the rock extra hard and it went flying off somewhere. In its mind, it went far enough to hit someone's build and chip one of the blocks.
"Sounds like you need a late teenage rebellion phase," Worm Man said, messing up the trick and having to manually wind the string back into the yo-yo. "Or early. I guess you're only a few years old. And also thirty."
"Thirty-two," it corrected, "and what do you mean teenage rebellion phase?"
"Oh you know, when kids decide they're too cool for school and do things their parents don't want them to do, mostly because their parents don't want them to do it."
"So they're evil?"
"Not evil, no," Worm Man clarified, "I guess some people do bad stuff. But mostly it's just, you know. Listen to loud music with swear words in it. Stay up past their bed time. Drink energy drinks. Zed dyed his hair black and got one of his friends to give him a piercing, that made mum really mad."
"What did you do in your teen rebellion?" EX couldn't picture Worm Man as anything other than a goody two shoes.
"Oh, I didn't really do anything like that. When it was my turn, Zed was growing out of it, so it wasn't cool anymore."
"But you know what to do, right? You can teach me."
So that's how EX ended up with an old portable music player, with a bunch of songs on it from a website that seemed determined to give it a virus. It had chosen a bunch of loud songs with heavy guitar and people shouting and singing about probably drugs or sex or something, EX couldn't really make out the lyrics. Either way, they sounded cool.
And it had worked with Worm Man to pick out a new outfit. They had asked Zedaph if they could just have his old clothes, and he'd said yes, but it turns out that he had entirely different proportions, especially as a teenager, so they just took notes. It had a pair of jeans, intentionally ripped, and a t-shirt with a really cool looking skeleton on it. The skeleton was holding a gun.
It was still working on the outfit when Xisuma came back. It had found some scrap canvas fabric and was painting its logo onto it, and it would sew it onto the jeans when it was done. Then it'd make one for Worm Man, so they could match. Worm Man would probably only wear his if it was pink, though. Fine, it wasn't on its clothes so the colour didn't matter.
The music player was already pretty loud, but EX turned it up just a little bit more when Xisuma walked by. Perfect. This would annoy them so much, and show that it was so cool and different and it couldn't be controlled by anybo-
"Is that Rob Zoglin?" Xisuma asked. EX checked the music player. It was. How did they know that?
"Ooh, haven't seen one of these in a while." They picked up the music player and turned it around in their hand. It had a sticker of a sheep on the back of it, which wasn't very cool, but it wasn't like they could find another one.
"I guess Worm Man's been introducing you to some music. Good taste! I saw this guy on tour a couple years back, pretty sure I still have the t-shirt."
What.
Xisuma had walked away, leaving EX with its thoughts, and Rob Zoglin's very loud guitar which was now seeming a lot less cool. When they came back, they had a black t-shirt in their hands, on one side was a very grungy looking design, and on the other was a list of dates and locations. Xisuma pointed one of them out.
"Yeah, I went to the Hypixel show. It was cool. You can have this, if you want. It should fit you. Wait, what am I saying, of course it'll fit you. You're me."
EX wasn't listening to any of that. Xisuma was obviously very excited that their clone shared their music taste, and they kept rambling about band recommendations and upcoming shows they could go to together, maybe they could bring Doc along too. This was horrible. EX wanted to never listen to a guitar again. When Xisuma was done, they gave it a side hug and ruffled its hair, before going back to what they were actually meant to be doing.
EX sighed deeply, paused the music, and pulled out its communicator. Worm Man had a lot of complaining to listen to.