Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“How does Pearl manage to keep her storage so clean even without an item sorter?”  Tango asked as he rifled through a couple of chests.

“I don’t know, but I wish she could give me lessons.” Impulse replied, leaning over the edge of the chest he was sitting on. He quickly leaned back, feeling sick from being so high up.

Tango hummed as he opened another chest and dove into it, searching for anything useful.

“Find anything interesting?” Impulse asked, crossing his arms.

“No,” Tango shook his head sitting up, “Nothing your size anyway.”

Impulse sighed, a frown forming on his face.

“Look! Maybe being shrunken forever isn’t all bad!” Tango said trying to cheer his friend up. He came over and leaned on the chest that Impulse was seated on.

“I’m having a really hard time seeing the positives right now, Tango.” Impulse stood up and took a couple of steps closer to Tango.

With a smile, Tango’s hand shot towards Impulse, who covered his head with his hands quickly as Tango closed his hand around his body and then dropped him into his other hand.

Feeling very ruffled, Impulse exclaimed, “A little warning next time, maybe?!” But Tango just laughed.

His hands were very warm, but that wasn’t a surprise considering Tango was a blaze hybrid. “There’s a positive.” He laughed again, “I can just pick you up whenever I want!”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t count that as a positive.” Impulse rolled his eyes as Tango closed his hand closer around his tiny friend.

“So what’s it like being that small?” Tango asked, tilting his head as his hair burned brighter.

Impulse thought for a moment looking up into Tango’s huge firey red eyes, then answered, “Terrifying.”

“Terrifying?” Tango wondered.

“Yeah, when everything is like thirty times bigger than you are It’s kind of intimidating!” He exclaimed smiling a bit.

Tango suddenly looked sympathetic. “Am I scaring you? Because I can put you down!”

“No, no it’s fine!” Impulse assured him, “It’s not to bad when you hold me at eye level like this it’s just when people tower over me if you know what I mean.”

“Ohh,” Tango nodded.

“None of us are scared of you guys! It’s just the size difference is-“He swallowed, “intimidating!”

“Well, yeah, it would be,” Tango agreed, “But are you doing okay overall?” The concern in Tango’s voice was genuine.

Impulse sighed again, leaning against Tango’s fingers, “I don’t know, man. Not really,” He admitted. “This whole mess is my fault, I mean I know none of the others blame me, but- It’s hard not to blame myself, you know? Especially after we all almost died yesterday!”

Tango didn’t answer at first, but his grip did tighten a bit again. Impulse let out a gasp as he felt Tango’s thumb touch the back of his head in a gesture of comfort.  

Finally, Tango said, “You do know blaming yourself won’t bring you back to normal, right?”

“Of course I know that. I-I just don’t know what else to do-or how to stop blaming myself!”

Impulse felt Tango’s grip tighten again. He wondered if Tango even knew he was doing it.

“How do you fit so much worry in such a small body?” Tango asked with a smile.

“Hey! I’m not-“

“Don’t even think about saying that ‘You’re not that small,’” Tango said, laughing.

“Just because I can fit on your hand doesn’t mean I can’t hurt you, you know!” Impulse proclaimed trying to struggle out of Tango’s grip.

“Oh, I’m so scared!” Tango said with fake fear.

“Well, you should be!” Impulse laughed.

Carefully, Tango carried Impulse back to the chest he’d been on a moment before, and Impulse slid down his hand and onto the chest.

“You’re sure the others are okay just sitting by themselves at the coffee table?” Tango asked as he opened another chest and started placing some of its contents near Impulse as he went through it.

“I sure hope so, it’s not near any windows or anything, but I’m sure they're fine.” Impulse waved off his friend's concerns.

“I think I’m going to go check to be safe.” Tango decided as he sat up.

“You just go real quick, I’ll stay here.” Impulse said, smiling, “I can handle myself for like five minutes!”

“If you’re sure…”

Impulse crossed his arms. “Of course, I’m sure!”

 Tango stood up, “Alright, I’ll be right back! Just don’t get eaten by a bug or something.”

“I’ll try!” Impulse yelled back.

As Tango left, Impulse went to investigate the items around him. There were a couple of emeralds, a jar of assorted buttons, a couple of hair ties, and an empty potion bottle. All huge to Impulse, of course. The bottle was lying on its side where Tango had placed it dangerously close to the edge of the chest, and interested Impulse got a closer look.

There looked to be healing potion residue at the bottom of the bottle, and it looked kind of dusty, leading Impulse to wonder how long it had been left untouched.  As he walked around the front, he ran his hand along the top.

He crouched down to look into the bottle, interested. Suddenly, he felt a suction coming from the bottle.

“Woah-“Before he knew it, he’d been sucked into the bottle with the cork capping the bottle. Rubbing his head, Impulse sighed, very annoyed. He’d forgotten how potion bottles worked, sucking in nearby things in and corking themselves.

This was just great. Sighing, Impulse stood up, but as he did, the whole bottle rocked and nearly fell off the edge of the chest.

“Okay, note to self, don’t move.” He steadied himself and tried very hard not to move, hoping the bottle wouldn’t topple off the edge. This was fine! Yep, just fine.  Tango had to be back soon, right? If he just stood still, nothing could go wrong!

“Mroww?”

Impulse looked up, and towering above him was Scar’s beloved cat Jellie, staring down at him, and there was a wild look in her eyes.

Chapter Text

The cat tilted its head at Impulse, who felt his heart rate rapidly increase.

“H-hey Jellie…” He gulped as the cat slightly nudged the bottle with her paw. “L-let’s n-not do that!” Impulse squeaked as the cat's eyes followed every move he made.

 Jellie, however, seemed unaware of the distress of the tiny man in the bottle in front of her. So, while Impulse was panicking, she grabbed the thin neck of the potion bottle with her teeth and picked it up.

 “Ah!” Impulse exclaimed as he slipped and fell at the sudden movement. He hit his head against the glass of the bottle. The glass clinked as Jellie ran with the bottle out of Pearl’s storage room.

 All Impulse could do was cover his head, so it didn’t hit the glass. He felt sick from all the movement, and he couldn’t even keep his eyes open to see where he was going. He just had to hope it would stop soon.

 Fortunately, he didn’t have to wait too long. It must have been only a minute or two later when Jellie stopped, and Impulse could get his bearings. She’d stopped right in front of Grian’s starter base, quite a ways away from Pearl’s base.

 The cat set down the bottle and started licking her paw, then just walked away, clearly interested in something else.

 Impulse breathed a sigh of relief till he realized that he was still stuck in the potion bottle, and that no one knew where he was.

 Panic flooded his mind. How was he ever going to get back? How was anyone going to find him?

He began to pound the sides of the bottle hoping for the glass to break. Harder and harder he hit the walls of his glass prison. But to a normal-sized person it would have sounded like a slight clink against the glass.

“COME ON!” He exclaimed hitting his head against the bottle.

Of course he’d “Be able to handle himself for five minutes” Impulse

Kicked the glass and it hurt his foot.

“Oww!” he exclaimed rubbing it, then he shouted, “CAN ANYONE HEAR ME?” He didn’t expect anyone to be able to, he wondered if his voice even made it out side the bottle.

Impulse felt overwhelmed by helplessness, and he could do is bang on the sides of the bottle and Scream. But no one could find him and no one could hear him.

Somewhat resigned to his fate, Impulse curled up into a ball at the bottom of the potion bottle and for the first time in a while he cried.

“I got it, I got it” Mumbo shouted reaching up, his fingers grasped what he was trying to catch Successfully.

“There you go!” Scar laughed clapping his hands. They’d found a handful of buttons and were throwing them around.

“Who knew buttons made such good Frisbees?” Grian commented as he flew up to catch the throw from Mumbo.

“I never would have guessed!” Pearl shrugged as she caught the button. “Man this is kinda heavy.” She said pulling it up. It was about the same height as her knees, bigger than a normal Frisbee but still usable.

‘Sooo…..” Scar began, “Once X fixes the respawn… what happens then? I mean…” His tail flicked, “It’s not like we'll be able to really do anything…”

No one said anything, Scar doubted they wanted to answer the question. It was a strange thing, he realized, having your whole sense of normal taken away from you. Like a safety net had been removed.

“I-“ Grian began then stopped. Sighing he sat down, “I don’t know Scar”

“Maybe…” Mumbo was fiddling with his hands, “Maybe we’ll set up our own tiny homes?”

“That’s not a bad idea actually…” Pearl admitted, “I’m sure we’ll- we’ll be fine!” There was a tone in her voice that said she didn’t really believe her own words.

Grian sat down on the pile of buttons, “You know, I feel like out of all of us Impulse is definitely having the worst time.”

“Yeah, it’s his fault in a way…” Pearl admitted sitting down, “Not that I’m blaming him!” She corrected herself.

“Of course not.” Mumbo agreed, “Poor chap, I know he blames himself.”

“It was all just a stroke of bad luck!” Scar sighed sitting next to Pearl, “It’s going to take him a while to see that.”

Then the door opened and all four of the tiny players whipped there heads around, Tango was back.

“HEY!” Pearl shouted in greeting, “YOU FIND ANYTHING USEFUL?”

“Not much unfortunately,” Tango sighed. “I’m going back to look but I just wanted to make sure the four of you where okay.”

“Oh we’re just fine” Scar smiled as Tango came closer.

“Great ” Tango said with a nod, “Just checking in, left Impulse there while I just quickly came over.”

“All good here,” Mumbo affirmed, “Just an overall feeling of dread!” They all laughed off the joke that wasn’t really a joke.

“I’ll be back soon!” Tango said leaving again quickly.

“Man being small sucks.” Scar sighed, “Everyone treats you like a child.”

Chapter Text

Tango felt his heart drop. His eyes frantically searched the room. This was 100% where he had left Impulse, and he was just gone!

“Impulse?” He called out his friend’s name. No response. The flame of his hair grew brighter as worry began to build in his chest. “Impulse?!” He called out again—still nothing.

                This was bad, very bad. Who knew where Impulse could be? At such a small size, and with his respawn glitched? He shouldn’t have left him; he just knew it!

                He fumbled with his communicator. Good, there hadn’t been a death message. Then, for a moment, Tango used his brain.

                He’s got small legs! There’s no way he could be very far from here! Even if he was running!

                Why he’d moved at all, Tango had no clue. It didn’t make sense, but for the moment, his best option was to search all of Pearl’s storage room. And hope he found his tiny friend.

                With a sniff, Impulse wiped away the last of his tears. What use was crying? Taking a deep breath, he collected himself and realized that he needed to get out of this himself.

 Standing up and reassessing the situation, Impulse noted that Pearl’s base was pretty much on the other side of the Botem village. If he could find a way out of this bottle, I would be a very long (and probably dangerous) walk. He doubted if he’d be able to make it before nightfall, and he didn’t want to be caught outside when the monsters came out.

                He closed his eyes and tried to think up some kind of solution. Ideas for possible inventions ran through his head, but none of them were going to work. He opened his eyes and assessed the distance again. Realizing the only thing that was really going to slow him down was all the grass. He was going to have to fight his way through all of it, if only he had something sharp! Then cutting through all of it would be easy, and he might even make it to Pearl’s base before dark!

                His hand ran along the smooth edge of the bottle, and it clicked! If he could find a way to somehow shatter the bottle, then he could use the broken shard of glass to cut the grass!

                Now the only question was how to break the glass.

    Tango sat up and stretched. He’d been searching for a good fifteen or so minutes now, and no sign of Impulse. He was starting to get very worried; It didn’t make sense how someone so small could have made it much farther than where Tango was searching, and he’d searched everywhere!

                “Impulse?” He called out again, this time quieter than he had been. Silence. Then Tango began to worry that maybe something had happened, and Impulse was by some chance far away or in some unreachable spot.

                He needed to contact X. After all, he could locate any player with just a few commands. Tango pulled out his communicator and shot X a message.

Tango- Okay, we may have a big problem concerning our very small friends…

Xisumavoid- What’s wrong?

Tango- I can’t find Impulse.

There was a momentary pause, and Tango held his breath. Then his communicator dinged.

Xisumavoid- You what?!>!?!

Tango- I left for less than five minutes, and he was just gone when I came back!

Xisumavoid- What about the others!?

Tango- They’re all safe I just can’t find Impulse! And I'm starting to get VERY worried.

Xisumavoid- Hold on…

Tango waited as Xisuma went offline for a minute or two. Very soon, however, he was back.

Xisumavoid- I can’t find him! His code is too small!

Tango’s heart dropped. This just got worse and worse.

Xisumavoid- Hang tight, I’ll be over in a minute. Keep an eye out.

Tango’s fingers tapped the buttons of his communicator (He really needed to upgrade to the newer touch screen model) as he typed his message.

Tango- okay just hurry

Chapter Text

Pressing his hands against the smooth glass of the bottle, Impulse began observing the glass up close, looking for anything that could help him break out of his prison. As he did he remembered something Zed had said a while ago about the glass used for potion bottles.

 He’d been talking about a new kind of bottle he’d tried making and had described the standard way bottles were made. ‘To save on materials, the higher quality glass it towards the bottom of the bottle, but near the top is always weaker and cheaper. After all it has less of a chance of being cracked!’  At the time he’d just been politely listening to the scientist’s rambles, he was glad he’d been able to catch this tidbit of info.

Looking up, Impulse could see the top of the bottle, and he noticed a significant change in the way the glass looked near the top. If he had any chance of escape, it was up.

Once X arrived, the search began almost immediately. Tango double-checked every area of Pearl’s storage room, and X began running code scans again, seeing if being closer made any difference.

“Should we try to get more hermits to help?” Tango asked, sitting up from where he’d been searching. “Cover more ground?”

X shook his head, “The last thing we need right now is twenty people running everywhere in a panic. It would make this search so much harder.”

“Right,” Tango went back to searching as X typed a few more lines of code.

Come on… Come on… His finger typed as quickly as they could, and his eyes scanned every line of code that ran past at a mile a minute, then-

“I got something!” X exclaimed as a few sets of coordinates popped up on the display.

“What did you get?!” Tango asked, his head snapping around.

“It’s not an exact location, but it is a general area. He’s still in the Boatem village…” X looked closer at his display. “But, he’s all the way on the other side? How’d he get there?”

Tango stood up and shrugged, “No clue, you think we’ll be able to find him?”  

“I hope so…” X sighed, “I just hope he’s safe. Everything’s probably so much more dangerous- and I haven’t fixed the respawn yet!”

Tango looked down and muttered, “It’s my fault… I should have know that it wasn’t safe…”

X put a hand on his friend, and Tango looked up, “It’s not your fault, and talking like that won’t help anyone.”

Tango sighed and changed the subject, “Alright, let’s start the search.” He turned away, and X sighed at Tango’s stubbornness.

                Scar was staring at the ceiling. They’d grown tired of throwing around a button, and now everyone was just quietly chatting. Scar sighed as he observed the patterns in the ceiling. He’d much rather be building right now, or planning builds, or literally anything but this.

                It was looking like he wasn’t going to be able to finish his base this season, which was frustrating considering that he had so many ideas! Maybe I could make a smaller version… Ideas bounced around in his head as his ears flicked.

                “Mind if I join you?”

                Scar looked over to see Pearl standing next to him, with a smile on her face.

                “Sure, of course!”  He said with a smile, and she lay down next to him. “This has been quite the first season for you, hasn’t it?” He asked.

                “That’s one way to put it,” She sighed, “Getting stuck in a village with you four idiots, making a cooperation, oh, and let's not forget-“ She gestured around, “Getting shrunken for the rest of my life!” She gave a small laugh.

                “A very exciting time, that’s for sure!” Scar laughed along.