Work Text:
The code scrolled in front of him as he flicked his finger, moving one panel over while bringing up another, scanning the lines of commands and instructions for how the world was formed as he searched for the bug. He shifted his weight, leaning against the bedrock behind him in the small room he'd hollowed out at the bottom of the Nether, right below their spawn room. He frowned, frustrated, as he came up empty-handed with every folder and section of the code he pulled up, each line pristine and perfect, glowing green in the flickering light of the single torch he had brought with him and placed down.
Xisuma stifled a yawn, resisting the urge to take off his helmet and rub at his dry eyes, worn by hours of staring at the code. The fans on his mask whirred quietly as he breathed, regular and even in the carefully filtered environment the headpiece provided him. Thoughtfully, his unoccupied hand tapped at the copper armour plating that covered his limbs, custom-made to fit with his seasonal theme and offer him protection. He'd crafted it the first night he had free after stabilising the world, knowing that a Nether spawn was something that could severely twist the world and cause widespread glitches.
No complications had arisen to cause problems, each glitch and error caught by his watchful eye no more than a few minutes after it had first appeared. He knew he'd lost sleep in the first week of the season, but he'd managed a few nights of a regular sleep schedule before hermits alerted him that their Nether spawn was glitched, spawning them at the bottom of the world to suffocate over and over in the coarse, dusty netherrack. Already, Scar and Zedaph had been victims to the glitch, and Xisuma had been hard-pressed to reset their spawns to a pair of beds in his base, leaving them to be cared for by the small gathering of hermits who'd come at his call.
Now, here he was, at the bottom of the world, immersed in the code. He hadn't stopped his work since he began, diligently combing through each line, further dividing the letters into their respective binary, ones and zeroes travelling in front of his eyes as he searched for the smallest error. However, none presented themselves, all showing as a vibrant, healthy green, as he'd programmed them to show as. Unhealthy, disordered code was a striking blood red, as his twin had insisted, followed by a dark chuckle before he'd run off to play with lightning.
Green for the good twin, red for the evil one. Xisuma snorted, amused, knowing that Ex's dark words were a disguise for his teasing nature. However, a reputation was a reputation, and the slightly older twin was nothing if not committed to upholding the name he'd made for himself.
Xisuma shook himself awake, half-dozing as he lost himself in memories. The code was going to sleep beneath his fingers, panels sinking out of this dimension back to the fourth one, where time and space collided. He pulled up the code for the Nether again, scrolling through it until he found the gamerule for player respawn. He looked through the addendum he'd made, tying the world spawn to the x and z coordinates that were so far above him.
He tapped on the code with his finger and added the y-coordinate, placing it precisely in the spawn room they've built around the centre of the Nether fortress. With a flick of the wrist, he saved the code and let those panels fade out of view, bringing up another, smaller panel for running immediate commands. He began typing, fingers moving across the floating screen as he created an armour stand and gave it player attributes, then set it to spawn as a normal player would.
The stand appeared in front of him, ragdolling like an unconscious player onto the rough bedrock, coming to a limp rest in between the uneven hills and crevices of the rock at the bottom of the world. The admin sighed and dragged the code back open, stifling another yawn as he scrolled back to where he'd made the edit. He exhaled tightly, frustrated, when he saw that it had reverted to its original state, leaving the y-coordinate spawn to be at the bottom of the world.
Blocks broke above him, allowing a cascade of lava to flood into the room, breaking and burning the armour stand player he'd summoned. His twin came down soon after, arms crossed as he stepped out from the middle of the flow of lava, magma running down his scuffed red armour. The LEDs that glowed around and followed his eyes as they moved narrowed menacingly as he landed on the rough bedrock, just out of reach of the falling lava.
Xisuma closed the admin panels, exhaling heavily and struggling to stop it from turning into a yawn. He stood to be on even ground with his brother, casting a single glance at the destroyed armour stand and lava pooling in the room before looking back at him, raising an eyebrow. His helmet hid the expression, but he knew Ex would be able to decipher it.
"So," his twin began, "Are you ever gonna be done down here, or?"
Xisuma squinted at him, then shook his head with a huff. "I'll be done when the code works. It's almost there, I just have to figure out how to make it stick."
Ex stepped toward him, his long shadow stretching across the floor and partly up the mound of bedrock Xisuma was perched on. "And how close is 'almost', X?"
"I'm one change away, if it'll stick," the admin replied, bringing up the code again. "It's the spawn protection, I think. I must have forgotten to exclude myself when I said no one could edit this part of the code—" he began scrolling, green flashing in the reflection of his visor— "just so that no one could gain unwanted access."
"I see," Ex said, unimpressed. "And how long do you think that one change will take?"
Xisuma shrugged and leaned back on the bedrock, the world permissions appearing to his side in a separate screen. He brought them in front of himself, entering a password and completing the two-step verification to access the code. He sorted through the layers of protection, gently moving between the encryption. Finally, he reached the section about the world spawn, detailing how players would join and leave the world, as well as where they'd spawn if their bed was obstructed or broken.
Ex sighed heavily, causing Xisuma to look up as he sat beside him and pushed him halfway off the bedrock. The voidwalker knocked away the panels and grabbed Xisuma by the arms, turning him so he could press their helmets together. "Just admit it'll take you several more hours, then we can go back to the Overworld."
Xisuma shoved him off and brought up his panels again, tapping through them and beginning to edit the code. "So what if it does?" he asked, almost like an afterthought. "Seriously, Ex, if you let me finish this, I'll be done soon."
His twin waved the panels, moving to stand in front of Xisuma again. "You don't even know how long you've been down here. Not to mention, you aren't doing your usual 'Ah, Evil Xisuma! How are you on the Hermitcraft server again?' bit that you start every time you see me." He grabbed his brother and shook him. "Xisuma, you need to take a break."
The admin scoffed. "No, I don't," he retorted. He opened his communicator and stared at the unread messages before looking at the time. "It's just four p.m. I've only been here for a few hours at most."
Ex glared at him, then reached up and tapped the side of his helmet, retracting the visor and exposing his fair skin to the rough air of the Nether. "What day is it, Xisuma?" he demanded, glaring furiously into his twin's eyes.
"December… 20th," Xisuma said, his voice trailing off faintly. He buried his head in his hand, blocked by the sheets of metal rubbing against each other. He scratched his jaw, the brought the panel back up. "I'm almost done, I promise. I'll come back up soon."
His twin took his communicator in hand and opened the notification panel, showing how many messages the admin had missed. Xisuma rubbed his eyes, stopped by the glass covering them. He reached up to undo the clasp, stopped by the sight of Ex rubbing tears away from irritated eyes and replacing his visor. He'd almost forgotten about the thick, acidic air that currently surrounded them.
The twins stared at each other for a while, then Xisuma pulled up the admin panels again, returning to his work. Ex let out an audible groan, turning it into an almost-furious growl. He turned away and walked back to the column of falling lava, checking the potency of his fire-resistance potion by holding his hand near the falling molten rock.
He put a foot in the lava, ready to use it to leave the tiny cavern. "Xisuma…" He huffed, stepping further into the flow. "Can you just… come out of the hole? I mean—everyone's taking a break now. People stopped working on mega builds and stuff for Christmas and shi—stuff."
"I'll come back up soon," Xisuma said firmly, suppressing yet another yawn that felt like it started in his chest, threatening to burst out. "I'm almost done."
"Fine," Ex scoffed. He gave a cursory glance around the small room, then set a red bed down right next to the flow of lava. He pointed at it, saying, "At least sit someplace more comfortable than bedrock. That block's cold. Lava? Naturally warm."
"Ex…" Xisuma warned, not looking up from the code as he edited the permissions, moving through each layer so it would lock in.
"I'll drag you over." Xisuma looked up at his twin, staring directly at the LEDs that made up his brother's eyes. He groaned and stood, walking over to the bed and sitting on the edge before going back to his changes. "Good."
The admin shook his head, partly annoyed and endeared. He could hear Ex leaving the space, swimming up the lava stream and into the lake above the chamber. The heat was borderline uncomfortable as he worked, warming the side exposed to it, while gradually heating the surrounding air. Xisuma shook himself multiple times, feeling his movements grow slower with each passing moment.
He dismissed some of the panels and leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees and resting his head in his hands. His eyes slipped closed for a millisecond and he forced them open again, blinking furiously. They stung, dry and exhausted, but he persevered and pulled up a panel again, only to drift off again in the heat.
The explosion wrapped around him in a brilliant flash of white, heat rolling across his body. He shielded his head as the Void took over, warping him back to his base and the safety of his mine. It set him down on his feet beside his bed, leaving him to stagger from the shock as he sat heavily on the edge of his bed. Xisuma rushed to take off his helmet, taking a deep gasp of the precisely filtered air that circulated his room. He rubbed tears away from his eyes, both from the fading pain and relief that washed over him at the sight of his dark, shadowy room.
"Learned a lesson?" Xisuma looked up to see Ex standing in the doorway, helmet off and tucked against his hip.
Xisuma could feel his brain starting and stopping as he jumped to his feet, heart still hammering in his chest from the respawn. "What are you—how are you on Hermitcraft?" he sputtered, reaching for the copper sword he now realised was back at his little cavern beneath the world, likely being drowned in lava. "Right—that was a mean ol' prank, that was," he added indignantly.
Ex shrugged from the doorway, his eyes never leaving Xisuma's face. "Funny that you're bringing that up now." He tracked Xisuma's movement through drawing a sword that wasn't there. "I got Tango to grab your stuff, and I already patched what you were trying to do. Don't ask how I got in—you're actually on admin break until after Christmas."
"Oh my god, you're the worst," Xisuma snapped, reaching for the world and opening the code, tapping his fingers on the air as he navigated through the panels to where he'd been working. He cursed himself silently; the fix was an easier one, and the four days he'd spent combing through the code had been completely obsolete if he'd gotten his head on straight in the first place.
Ex waved away the panels as Xisuma caught a glance of the code, seeing it glow a vibrant green with the correct coordinates inserted. They fizzled out of this dimension, leaving the brothers standing in the dark bedroom. Xisuma faltered as his admin connection was forcibly disrupted by Ex's move, falling onto his brother's outstretched arm.
"You exhausted yourself," Ex observed, not unkindly, but with the air of superiority that came from being the older twin. "So you're going on break until after Christmas, and you're gonna let me take care of any glitches that come up."
Xisuma huffed, annoyed. "Your version of 'taking care of glitches' is like using duct tape to hold the hinges of a door together."
"Exactly, and you can fix them after your break," Ex responded. He swept Xisuma's ankles out from under him, depositing him on the bed. "I'm putting cookies in the furnace. If you don't want your base and kitchen burning down, you'll take a nap and let me do that. Fire tick is on, remember?"
Xisuma grumbled. "I don't see how you cooking will lead to things burning down."
"I'm making them explosive." Xisuma stared at his brother, trying to compute how he would manufacture a recipe to turn out that poorly. "If I'm in here forcing you to sleep—and trust me, I will—they could go off and set fire to your base. If I'm not, well…" he trailed off, allowing Xisuma to fill in the blanks.
Xisuma shook his head, feeling the weight begin to set in as the adrenaline faded. He rested his head on his hands, rubbing his palms deep into his eyes as the exhaustion rapidly overtook the high he'd felt from the respawn. "Oh my god," he muttered, shaking his head.
"Give me your armour and I'll put it away," Ex suggested. Xisuma nodded and complied, pulling off the plates and handing them to his brother, leaving him in his thin, lightly padded under armour suit. "Lay down and sleep. You need it."
"Yeah, sure. Fine," Xisuma replied, laying down on top of the covers. He clearly did, asleep before the door bumped closed behind his brother as he left the room.