Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A man in a chicken mask stood in the dusk of the alley. So far, it had been a pretty calm evening, and he was itching for something to do, someone he could help. He spread the rust coloured wings that sprouted from the two holes in the back of his jacket, and flew to the roof of the nearest building.

“Poultryman! Long time no see!”

Poultryman sighed, his shoulders dropping as he looked across the way. Relaxing on the other side of the roof was another young man, this one dressed in a red, purple and black outfit and a domino mask.

“I don’t have time to chat, Hotguy, I’m on patrol,” he replied dismissively, not looking forward to whatever hijinks the other had brewed up.

“Oh, yeah, you’re so busy.” The villain had a joking smirk on his face, and Poultryman suspected he’d been following him for a little while. It had truly been a boring evening. When he’d become a hero he’d expected to just stumble upon evil plots every second day, but really, all that had happened over the past few months was some first aid, breaking up a few civilian fights, one convenience store robbery, and stopping a depressing number of creeps.

Poultryman spread his wings and hopped over the alley to the next roof, setting off on his usual route.

“Stopped any poor people from stealing today?” The brunette teased, knowing it would push Poultryman’s buttons.

Poultryman ignored the villain, watching citizens make their way home before the true night began.

“It’s not funny, Scar.”

The other man perked up upon hearing his own name. “Ooh, civilian names.” Hotguy flew backward beside Poultryman, his shimmery gray vex wings flapping like a hummingbird. “Also it is objectively funny. A chicken man fighting crime?” He giggled, that typical Scar smirk present on his face.

“So funny, Hotguy,” said Poultryman, his eyes on a college-aged woman holding her groceries to her chest as she made her way home. He spotted a man not far behind her, who followed as she took a turn onto a more secluded street.

Hotguy opened his mouth to reply, but Poultryman had already taken off. He landed as silently as he could, a few steps behind the man, and watched as it became absolutely clear the creep was following her. He stepped forward and grabbed the man’s shoulder, at which the man spun around, twisting out of his grip.

“What the fuck, man,” the creep said, stumbling back a few steps.

“Have a habit of following women home at night?” Poultryman said, watching out of the corner of his eye as the woman shot him a thankful glance and took off running. The man scoffed at his words, looking at him as if appalled by his audacity.

“What, so a man can’t be anywhere near a woman now?”

Poultryman let out a slow breath. He was itching for a fight, feeling his watcher heritage fighting to boil up inside of him. He grabbed the creep by the bicep and twisted his arm behind his back until he saw fear in the man’s eyes. The urge for violence crawled up his spine, yearning to be set free after so long of being locked away, but he kept himself composed, he wasn’t like them anymore.

“We both know that’s not what was going on here.”

He twisted the arm a little bit further, then let the man go, watching him stumble a few steps before running off in the opposite direction to the one the woman had gone, back towards the crowded street. He took a few deep breaths, checking his wings for rogue watcher-navy feathers, before flying back up to the rooftop where Hotguy was waiting.

“You let him go?” He asked curiously.

“No, left him with a present from Doc.” He pulled a mini baggie full of what looked like sequins from his pocket. “These things are little speakers. In a few minutes, it’ll start shouting he’s a creep for everyone to hear.”

He slipped the baggie back into his pocket, and made a note not to let the master pickpocket Hotguy stand too close to him for the rest of the night.

“So you and Mumbo need anything from Walmart? Gonna pop by one later tonight,” Hotguy said a few minutes later.

“I’ve told you, we’re not cheating.”

“Come on, it's Walmart! Stealing hurts them less than your self-righteous glare hurts me!”

“Nope-” they were cut off by a siren close at hand. Poultryman spread his wings and took off in the direction of the sound.

It turned out to be a fire truck, heading to an apartment fire. Poultryman landed on the fire escape and ducked under the smoke pouring through the kitchen window, giving up on calling out for inhabitants when his voice came out in a croak. He coughed into his sleeve and raised the collar of his jumper to add another layer of fabric between himself and the smoke.

“Didn’t know you were fireproof,” Hotguy commented through a gas mask he’d pulled out of nowhere. He hovered next to Poultryman as the latter began his search of the apartment.
There turned out to be six inhabitants huddled in the small bedroom, the unmistakable smell of pot wafting out when Poultryman opened the door.

They worked together to move the six safely out of harm’s way. As they flew together back up to the floor where the fire was very quickly spreading, the hero X made his appearance. X was one of the big three: X, Wizard, and Zombie, the heroes kids looked up to.

“X is here,” Poultryman hissed to Hotguy, but the Vex villain shrugged. “We’re cool,” he said, ducking through the window ahead of Poultryman. Poultryman turned to him, bewildered by this information.

“You’re cool? With one of the most notoriously mysterious heroes? How do I not know this?” They rushed through the empty apartment and into the hallway, Poultryman used a special key that was one of Doc’s more terrifying inventions to open the doors and check for stragglers. He was rushing out of one window with a striped gray cat in hand when X floated up to his balcony.

“Everyone’s out of here?” he asked, pointing to the apartments where the fire had spread.

“Yep,” Poultryman said.

“Get yourselves out,” X said, floating away. Poultryman and Hotguy watched from the next roof as X forced the air out, suffocating the fire.

“So,” said Hotguy, when X had left and the fire department was assessing the damage, “Anywhere I should stay away from in the next few days?”

Poultryman sighed.

“They’re planning something in one of the hybrid neighborhoods, I think,” he said. Hotguy nodded, scratching the gray cat between the ears. “Are you planning on returning her?”

“Finders keepers,” Hotguy replied. Poultryman started to stand up, but Hotguy interrupted. “Oh, oh, I meant to tell you, there’s this modeling club,”

“...What..?” He asked the brunette, blinking at him a few dozen times. Knowing Scar, this could be anything from a wicked trap, to a gossip circle.

“You know, like making little buildings? Modeling. Anywho, there’s a meeting tomorrow night, you and Mumbo should come along, it’s really fun.”

“You’re in a miniatures club?”

“Yeah, don’t act so shocked,” Hotguy said with faux outrage.

“You’d better not be planning something,” said Poultryman.

“Nothing, nothing, I just want you and Mumbo to meet my other friends. It’s at this little store called Hermitcrafts. 5pm sharp.” he flapped his vex wings and lifted himself from his seated position. “See you then!”

Poultryman snorted to himself at Hotguy’s retreating form, shaking his head affectionately at the other’s antics.

*

Nestled in a back alley in one of the most overcrowded hybrid neighborhoods of the city, there was an impressive secret. If one pushed the overflowing trash can out of the way, they’d find a little button, so small it blended perfectly with the brick it was nestled in. Grian pressed this and stood back as the door to Doc’s hideout revealed itself.

The bricks moved one at a time in a mechanical fashion until there was an arched opening into the complex below. Grian stepped through, and headed down the stairs as the door shut itself behind him. He had always been amazed by Doc’s machinery; No matter how often he ended up accidentally breaking something, Doc always managed to fix it better than it had been before. His work felt like magic to Grian.

The stairs ended in a low cavern lit by real flaming torches. He walked to the table set at the back of the room like a receptionist's desk, and emptied his pockets of gadgets. As he did so, a door opened behind the desk, similar to the entrance one, and the infamous Doc himself stepped out from the back rooms.

“Sequins work great,” Grian said. “I forgot to ask, how long do they last?”

Doc shrugged.

“Long enough,” he said, with the unhinged smile that had made Grian so wary of him at the beginning. “Did Scar give you his invitation?”

Grian blinked a few times. How did Doc know about that? Was this some sort of setup by Scar? He knew he had always been a sort of trickster, but would he go this far?

“The miniatures club?” he said, uncertain. Doc’s smile widened. “Oh I knew that was a trick of some kind!”

“Not a trick.” Doc gathered Grian’s gadgets into a little box with his hero name. “Let’s just say its members aren’t the most normal people,” he said, cryptic as usual. Really, would it kill him to be straightforward once in a while?

“Villains?” Grian asked.

“Not… really. You’ll see.”

Grian left Doc’s lair with his thoughts swirling. Despite Doc’s concerning words, Grian was fairly certain the mad scientist wouldn’t send him somewhere dangerous with no warning. And Scar, for all of his chaos, was fairly trustworthy. He’d invited Mumbo too anyway.

As Grian unlocked the door to his apartment, something clicked into place. Scar had said he knew X in some capacity. Doc knew all sorts of heroes in his role as the unofficial gadget dealer. They were inviting him to a hero club.

“Fuck,” Grian said, as he opened the door.

“What?” asked Mumbo, sitting at the kitchen table with his laptop open.

“Scar knows I’m a watcher, but I’m pretty sure he’s just invited me to a hero club of some sort,” Grian said, dragging his hands over his face in frustration.

“A hero club?” Mumbo closed his laptop, attention clearly piqued.

“I mean, I think. Scar apparently is cool with X of all people, and Doc asked me if I’d received the invitation. He said they aren’t normal people. Gotta be heroes.”

“That’s so cool! Wish I could go,” Mumbo replied, his expression one of clear, unjealous excitement for his friend.

“You’re invited too,” Grian said simply, as if he hadn’t just dropped the most exciting information Mumbo had ever heard.

“I- what? Wait, really?”

Grian sighed and set about making himself something to eat.

“You can go, if you want, but the more I find out about heroes, the more I put them in danger,” he said.

“I’m sure Scar thought that through before he invited you,” Mumbo pointed out. “Look, I can go, make sure things are good, report back.”

“Would you?” Grian stuck a cold slice of pizza on a plate and sat down across from Mumbo.

“Yeah, I can just tell them you don’t wanna know heroes' identities, see if they have a plan for that, then go out and get you. Wouldn’t even have to lie.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Chapter Text

The street was still bright in the 5 o’clock summer sun. Hermitcrafts, the shop they’d been invited to, was in a thin building squashed between a bright modern chain pharmacy and a little cafe to which the line was out the door. ‘Hermitcrafts’ was written in a gray blocky graffiti style, while the rest of the storefront was decorated in an intricate mural of the countryside. Mumbo stared at it for a few moments, briefly admiring the art on the building before snapping himself back to the present moment.

“Right,” Mumbo muttered as he and Grian stopped on the sidewalk across the street. “I’ll just pop in, figure out what’s going on, uh…” he ignored the urge to wipe his sweaty palms across his suit pants. "Right, yeah..” He muttered, trying to calm his nerves, which wasn’t working as well as he had hoped it would.

Grian, for all of the mischief constantly present in his eyes, looked scared. It was for that reason that Mumbo was determined to reach behind his awkwardness and inability to lie, and make this club a way for his friend to have fun.

“You’ve got this,” Grian reassured him, patting the taller man on the shoulder. “I’m just going see if I can get myself a coffee-” he narrowed his eyes at the insanity that was the line for the coffee shop, “-I’m sure you’ll be able to find me.”

“Yeah,” said Mumbo, cracking a smile. He looked both ways, then they set off across the street.

The inside of Hermitcrafts was quite similar to the outside, which is to say, very painterly. It was clear that whichever artist had been commissioned for the outside of the building had done the murals for the inside as well; the walls of the shop were covered in fantasy scenes of castles, enchanted forests, and medieval villages, as well as some sci-fi cityscapes, ruins, and industrial scenes, each corresponding with building sets on the shelving in front of them. Behind the counter in the back right corner was a scene of a bustling high street with shoppers and cars and a plane in the sky with a banner that incorporated the fire exit sign.
“Wow,” said Mumbo out loud. He felt his gaze being pulled to a kit for adding functional lights to a build, and had to remind himself that he had a mission, but the temptation was there.

There was a man behind the counter wearing a bulky mask over the lower half of his face. He was frowning at something on his computer when Mumbo spotted him, but looked up as he approached.

“Uh, hi, I’m here for the miniatures club,” Mumbo said, trying and most likely failing to keep the question out of his tone.

The man behind the counter seemed to smile. “You must be Mumbo, will Grian be joining us?” he asked, tilting his head to the side curiously.

“I’m here first to ask a few questions,” Mumbo said, a hand reaching up to twiddle his mustache absentmindedly. There was a pause, as the man at the counter seemed to expect him to say more, before replying.

“So he figured it out?” he said, not unkindly.

“What, that you’re,” Mumbo lowered his voice and did a sweep of the store - empty but for one young woman who seemed entirely engrossed in the options for purchase, “a hero club...?” He asked hesitantly, somehow still feeling like he was being watched, despite the lack of people within the store.

“A hero club?” The man behind the counter laughed, the sound making Mumbo feel silly for asking the question, as if there was something he was supposed to know but didn’t. “No, the hero club.” He started moving to the side of the counter where it opened to the rest of the store, but Mumbo had one more question he had to ask.

Mumbo took a breath, his eyes wandering over the store again. “I’ve gotta ask, then, why am I here?”

The man held the gate open for Mumbo as he answered.

“We’re heroes and friends of heroes - those who can be trusted with their identities,” he explained, and it all made sense now. Of course he would be invited as well, he was Grian’s roommate, for crying out loud.

Mumbo followed the man through the door to the back room.

“So, you… are you a hero then, or a friend of a hero?” he asked, awkwardly trying to make small talk amidst the silence.

“I’m the shop owner,” was the reply, then after a short pause. “Xisuma.” His name felt familiar to Mumbo, but he decided it was better to not ask for the moment.

There were a lot of people in the back room. They were huddled around tables, working on elaborate miniature structures made with various materials. It was truly like the murals in the shop had come to life.

What caught Mumbo’s eye in particular, was a blonde man working on a mini arena, where as Mumbo watched, a little robot shot out of a compartment in the wall to attack another, smaller one, that the man was piloting.

“Oh my gods, that looks like a videogame in real life,” Mumbo said, his attention entirely stolen.

“Thanks, I made it mostly myself,” said the blonde man, pressing a button on his controller that shut down the mini. “My name’s Tango, nice to meet you.”

“Mumbo,” he introduced himself in return, enamored by the machine in front of Tango. “I’ve gotta see how this works! It looks incredible.” He felt like a little kid in a candy store.

Tango obliged him, releasing something in the set and pulling the visual part of the game off of its base. Underneath was a mixture of miniature mechanical and computerized components, which worked together to create the dynamic game. Mumbo let out an involuntary ‘oooh’ when he’d had a second to take it in.

“Oh no, you’ve pulled him over to the dark side,” laughed a brunette woman a few tables over.

“The dark side?” asked Mumbo, not taking his eyes off the beauty that was Tango’s build.

“Stress means redstone. It’s a sort of specialized part of the miniatures craft named after the company that makes these.” Tango chuckled, pointing to the red wire that connected all of the components together.

*

To his own surprise, Grian made it to the front of the coffee line. He ordered himself a large coffee, two milk and three sugars, and sat down at a table to enjoy it… only to jump back up again when he saw his watch; It was five thirty already! It was only then that Grian’s previous concerns over the club’s mysterious invitation resurfaced. He had had enough time to think about it to conclude that Scar wouldn’t purposefully send him into a truly dangerous trap, but it was always possible the man had been tricked.

He left the coffee shop so quickly it felt like he’d teleported, then stopped just shy of opening the Hermitcrafts shop door. Contrary to his anxious exterior, Mumbo was actually capable of taking care of himself. It was a given in the environment they’d grown up in. If Mumbo was in danger, Grian would be in the same amount should he barge in.

“Are you coming inside?” asked a voice behind Grian. He jumped, letting out an entirely undignified squeak, feathers puffing up slightly, and turned to face the man who’d spoken.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to sneak up on you,” the man said, chuckling slightly. “I’m Xisuma, it’s my shop.” He stood casually, sure of himself but not threatening.

“Where’s Mumbo?” Grian asked, standing still, anxious about where his best friend and roommate had ended up.

“He got a bit distracted by the redstoners, I figured I’d go seek you out myself, but we must have missed each other.” The man–Xisuma spoke kindly.

Grian wasn’t wired for instant trust, but he willed himself to relax. Mumbo was certainly the kind to be easily distracted, he knew that far too well; Whenever they entered a craft store he watched the grown man run around, attention grabbed by a million things and their original objective -which was usually prank supplies- forgotten.

“Shall we go take a seat?” Xisuma asked, tilting his head slightly towards the coffee shop. “You can ask all your questions.”

They ended up back at the table Grian had initially chosen. One of the cafe workers came over with a hot drink for Xisuma a few moments later, and he smiled and thanked her by name.

“So,” Xisuma started. “I’ve gotta say, I’ve met a lot of heroes, but not a lot who send a civilian in to check things out first.”

“Oh, right,” Grian sipped his coffee. Xisuma lowered his mask for a few seconds to sip on his, before returning it to place. “I dunno who told you our first names, but I’d guess you’ve done some research before letting us into your secret club.” Grian assumed, barely making eye contact with the masked man in front of him.

“Not really,” Xismua shrugged. “We work off of a consensus vote, so Scar gave us a little presentation, and we all agreed you should join.”

Grian nodded, his brow furrowing slightly. Of course Scar was the one to have suggested the two of them should be invited, it shouldn’t have been a surprise, really.

“Had you done your research, you wouldn’t have found much. The two of us had to leave a lot of things behind, needless to say I didn’t send in someone who can’t defend himself.”

There was another short pause. Grian cursed his own awkwardness.

“I suppose I should instead say, then, that I haven’t met a lot of heroes who don't seem concerned over their identity being found out, but still don’t want to meet others.” Xisuma commented, taking another sip of his coffee. The silence made Grian want the ground to open up and swallow him whole.

“I don’t have the best track record with other people’s secrets,” Grian opted to reply. Their table was a black hole of silence compared to the bustling noise of the busy café.

“Interesting,” said Xisuma, with a tone far less concerned than Grian was expecting. “Well if you don’t want to, you don’t have to join. Honestly, Mumbo can pass on anything important, if that’s easier.”

“Yeah,” said Grian, feeling like a helium balloon had finally been allowed to deflate in his chest. “Could you go in there and get him though? I just want to let him know I’m heading out.”

*

“There’s a group of us that meet up at Doc’s after meetings, you should come along,” Tango said. Mumbo was surrounded by little blocks and pieces, fiddling with them as two other redstoners, Etho and Impulse, explained their current projects.

It was only when Xisuma showed up and borrowed him that Mumbo remembered he’d been there for a reason.

“Oh my gods Grian, I’m so sorry, I haven’t learnt anything about the heroes, I’ve just been learning this stuff called redstone, it’s got so much potential.” He cut himself off before he started going off on a rant.

“I’m glad,” Grian said. “Me and Xisuma have had a chat, and I’m probably not going to join the club. We were thinking you could pass anything I need to know on to me.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Mumbo, slightly taken aback. “You’ll be off then?” He asked.

“Yeah, I’ll see you when you get back,” Grian said with a sad but optimistic sort of smile, giving a little wave and setting off for the apartment.

“Are you sure you’re just the shop owner?” Mumbo wondered aloud as he and Xisuma walked back through to the back room.

“I’m the one who makes sure things get done,” Xisuma said, after a pause. He opened the door to the back room, and held it open for Mumbo. “Hermits!” he announced once the door had shut. “We have a few things to discuss as a group, why don’t we get started.”

There was a great noise of chairs scraping as people turned to face the center of the room. Xisuma and Mumbo both took free seats, and joined the circle that was forming.

The meeting was the most chaotic thing Mumbo had ever been a part of. It started with a man with a Swedish accent pointing out their new member, then Mumbo introduced himself as a friend of Poultryman, the circle went around and everyone gave out their hero names, and finally, they moved on to actual matters of business.

“It’s not just me who’s been seeing an uptick in Watcher sightings, right?” Impulse asked, causing Mumbo to freeze. Of course this was the first thing that got discussed when he joined, although it would have been much more awkward if Grian was there too.

There was a chorus of agreement as Mumbo shifted in his chair. He felt like an outsider to this conversation, and well, to be fair, he was an outsider, but still.

“I’ve heard they’re planning an attack in one of the hybrid neighborhoods,” Scar informed the group.

“Right, we should organize patrols, so we’ve always got someone on the ground to let us know if anything happens.” That was Bdubs, the hero ‘Sleeping Beauty’.

“Yeah, you can pull the three am shift,” Etho snidely commented. Mumbo didn’t have to be able to see his face to know he was smirking, he could hear it in the white-haired man’s voice.

“Hey! It’s not my fault I need my beauty sleep,” Bdubs replied in faux outrage.

Things devolved from there. By the time Mumbo, Tango, Etho, Impulse, and Xisuma headed out for Doc’s (through a secret tunnel Doc had apparently built all the way from his hideout to Hermitcrafts???) Mumbo's cheeks were hurting from smiling, and he felt a jump in his step that not even the looming threat of Watchers could diminish. Although, he had to remember to inform Grian of that new information once he got home.

*

Grian had used to like sleeping. Sure, he’d never exactly had a perfect sleep schedule, but even the Grian of a few months ago would be concerned to find out how much he slept now. He made himself another coffee, the one from the café long drunk, and settled in at his desk, wrapped in a warm red blanket.

He had a bad habit of checking his old socials when he got too tired, reminding himself of the people he was keeping alive by living like this. Joel, Lizzie, and Pearl still hung out occasionally, when the old friend group got together- which meant only at Joel and Lizzie’s wedding, an event which it still pulled at his heartstrings to know he couldn’t have attended. The university group had drifted since he’d left, but they were still alive and thriving, and that was what mattered.

It wasn’t even all that late when his eyes started drifting closed of their own accord. The last few nights were catching up to him. In the end, it was only eleven when he let his head rest on the cool wood of his desk and gave in to the bliss of sleep.

When Grian closed his eyes, Xelqua opened his.

*

Doc’s base was supposed to be neutral grounds, like a church for Mafia bosses, according to Grian. The heroes and most of the lesser villains had a pact that no violence would occur there, and Doc would continue to allow both sides to test his nonlethal gadgets. Those whose tactics Doc didn’t like, steered clear, because anyone with half a brain could see that Doc was not someone to be messed with.

The five redstoners who’d migrated there after the meeting - or four, depending on whether they considered Mumbo truly one of them yet - were several hours into a detailed tour of the lower levels of the base, where each room seemed to defy the logic of what was automatable even more than the last.

Perhaps tour was the wrong word for it. Doc was checking on his farms and his experiments while they tagged along and got into places they weren’t allowed. It had gotten to the point where Doc was swearing in German under his breath when the sound of a loud explosion reached them from way above.

“Oh, look at that, you’ve broken something,” Doc groaned, his crocks in sports mode as he raced upstairs to see what was wrong.

There was another explosion before he’d even left their sight, and the redstoners all turned to each other with equally grim looks. Mumbo and Xisuma raced upstairs after Doc, and a few moments later three fully kitted superheroes joined them.

When they finally found the source of the noises, Mumbo’s stomach plummeted. Three watchers were battling Doc, their larger-than-life bodies barely seeming to flinch when one of Doc’s explosions hit them. Right in the middle, his wings a darkened navy purple that twinkled with the light of stars, was Xelqua.

The fight seemed to happen in a blur, Mumbo’s vision partially constricted by Xisuma, who had insisted on crouching in front of him. Gone was the shop owner’s relaxed confidence, replaced with an expression of a sort of grim terror. Slab, Furnace, and Jester all glanced to each other with worried expressions, before looking back to the Watchers. Mumbo didn’t like that look, it made him nervous.

The three heroes got to work. Jester put up an illusion spell around the three of them, blurring them in the Watcher’s vision, which made their actions harder to follow, while Slab created a snowstorm around the Watchers. Furnace geared up to send a burst of fire toward them, the flame growing in his palms, but before he was ready, one of the Watchers used its wings to blow the storm away, and Slab along with it, the hero flying hard into the wall behind them.

Slab let out a pained groan as he collided with the wall, struggling for a moment before getting back up on his feet. Furnace glanced back at him before sending several angry waves of fire toward the Watchers.

Jester looked almost helpless in this situation, his power focused mostly on support, according to what Grian had told Mumbo in the past. The imp hero searched frantically around the room, until his eyes settled on one of Doc’s boxes. He grabbed a random gadget and threw it. The little metal ball hit the nearest Watcher, and there was a moment where the being seemed affronted by the pityable nature of Jester’s attack, then a net shot from the ball, growing until the Watcher was caught, as a whale in a fishing net. The enemy was only phased for a second, though, ripping through the rope with the brute strength of its enormous arms. It turned to Jester, unharmed, but angry.

Despite their efforts, their attacks, their dodges, their defenses, after a mere ten minutes, one of the watchers retreated with Slab and Jester slung over a shoulder each, and a second crated Furnace along with them. All three heroes were limp, unmoving. Mumbo looked at Xisuma worriedly, swallowing thickly at the situation, which had only grown worse and worse as he watched.

To Mumbo’s dismay, it was Xelqua who stayed behind, matching Doc blow for blow, and then a little bit more. It was terrifying, literally powerless, he was forced to just sit there and watch.

“We can’t just sit here doing nothing!” Mumbo hissed finally, his voice more high pitched than he would have liked. Xisuma tore his eyes away from the fight, turning to face Mumbo.

“The two of us are no match for watchers,” Xisuma told him, though it made Mumbo feel utterly useless. “And no matter how long he holds on, Doc isn’t either. Not without a plan.” He started to straighten himself up as he continued to speak. “You need a plan. You need to stay united.” he began to walk towards Xelqua and the fight, and Mumbo felt a force like wind holding him back. “Oh, and don’t trust X,” Xisuma said, before he looked up at the hulking Watcher before him.

Xelqua caught sight of Xisuma at the same time as Doc did, both adjusting to the new figure entering the fight. For Doc, apparently, that meant distracting Xelqua with a particularly smoky explosion, nodding to Xisuma, and racing for where Mumbo was hiding. Before the mustached man knew what was happening, he’d been grabbed by the arm and was being led through the tunnels of Doc’s base at breakneck speed. When they finally stopped, it was in a low, dark tunnel that was nowhere near anywhere on the tour. Mumbo bent over forwards, his chest heaving.

“What... the heck was that?!” he exclaimed with a croak when he’d caught enough of his breath. Was this what Grian’s life was like every day as a hero? Because if it was, Mumbo was incredibly glad that he wasn’t one.

“A declaration of war,” said Doc.

Chapter Text

Mumbo had a million and one questions swirling around in his head. It made him feel woozy. He settled on the one he figured Doc would have the most concrete answer for because anything else felt much too complicated at the moment.

“Uh… where–.. where abouts are we?” Mumbo asked nervously, running a hand through his semi-tousled hair.

“In the emergency exit tunnels. This one should lead us to Ren’s house. We need to get all of the Hermits back together, immediately.” Doc told him, his face stony but his eyes alight like he was thinking very hard about something.

When they’d both rested enough that their chests weren’t heaving, Doc set off down the tunnel again. They walked for what felt like ages, Doc turning down different tunnels without so much as a moment’s hesitation, while Mumbo was certain he couldn’t find his way back to where they’d been two minutes earlier. He supposed it must be by design: only someone Doc was helping could possibly make it out.

And make it out, they did. The tunnel sloped up, then stopped at an open metal platform. Doc instructed Mumbo to stand on it with him, then input a code into the wall, and the platform started to rise up. When it finally stopped moving, Doc squinted out of a tiny peephole that was letting light into the elevator shaft, then tapped the wall on a seemingly random spot, and stood back as the wall holding the peephole slid back to reveal an indoor corridor.

Doc set off once again, with Mumbo behind him growing increasingly concerned that the German engineer could have a secret door into Mumbo’s own apartment. He was also growing increasingly self conscious of what he must look like walking next to a man dressed only in a tattered lab coat, jeans, and crocs, in what appeared to be a rather high end apartment complex.

But they met no one. Doc stopped in front of one of the apartment doors and rang the bell. Then again, when no one answered. On the third ring, they heard footsteps, and Ren’s tired voice asking who the hell was at his door at four o’clock in the morning. He must have checked the peephole, because the door was suddenly flung open wide.

“What the hell happened?” Ren asked, ushering them in, before shutting the door behind them and engaging the bolt lock.

“Watchers. They showed up in my fucking house,” Doc said, walking further into the apartment and starting to open cupboards. “Where the hell is your first aid kit?”

Ren rushed off, returning with a large red box labeled with a plus sign in white tape. Doc sat down on a large gray sofa, pulled back one side of his lab coat, and started inspecting a burn on his side.

“They got Slab, Furnace and Jester,” he paused, and glanced up at Mumbo, who was still standing by the door, before continuing. “Xisuma gave Mumbo and I a chance to run, but they will have got him too a long time ago, now.”

“This is bad,” said Ren, redundantly. No one had the wit in that moment to call him out on it.

In the almost mournful silence that followed, Mumbo’s jumbled thoughts settled on Grian. Gods, Grian would be waking up in a few hours. Most mornings when Grian awoke from a watcher night, Mumbo was right there. He listened, did his awkward best to comfort, and then they did something together, to distract Grian while he processed what had happened.

“I- I’ve got to go,” Mumbo said. Doc and Ren, who had been helping Doc wrap his injuries, both spun to look at him.

“The Watchers could still be attacking, we should stay out of sight,” Doc said. “We have to regroup. I’m going to call all of the hermits over once we’ve had a minute to sit, then we’ll figure out next steps together.”

“I’ll be back, I just have to go let Grian know what’s going on. And, you don’t have to worry about me, I know how to stay out of the Watchers’ sight. My parents were in the same circles as them, you learn, ya’know.” Ren and Doc both seemed to have to take a second to take that in.

“I-” Doc said, seeming to want to argue, but Ren interrupted him.

“You should go. We’ll unpack… all of that… later. Just be safe, my dude.”

“I will,” Mumbo said, making a somber but thankful face.

*

Grian woke up slowly. He stretched, and rolled onto his back, feeling his sleepy muscles readjust to being awake. Then, a split second later, he was on his feet. Gods, gods, gods, gods, let it be a nightmare, but when he sprinted into the bathroom and saw himself in the mirror, it was obvious. His skin and wings still had that purplish tint to them that they held after a transformation.

As he stared at himself, glimpses into the previous night started to flood into his brain. He’d gone gladly with them to Doc’s hideout, they’d smashed their way in, and the heroes… Furnace, Slab and Jester… he’d hung out with Jester on patrol before, and Slab was a long time hero, everyone had heard of him. He remembered helping the other Watchers to take them down, fighting Doc, then… Xisuma had walked right up to him. He’d sacrificed his own freedom for Doc and oh… Mumbo, Mumbo had been there. Why did Mumbo have to have been there?

He glared at his wings in the mirror, itching to pluck feathers until there was nothing left but plain white. Instead, he let himself walk backwards from the mirror until he hit the opposite wall, gaze not faltering from his reflection. He was starting to slide down the wall towards the floor when there was a hesitant knock at the door.

Grian hadn’t even considered that Mumbo might be home. Who would come back after having to run for their life from their roommate? But he recognised those knocks. Those were the knocks that Mumbo reserved only for a Watcher morning, when he wanted permission to come in and tell him everything was going to be alright. And Grian wanted to open that door and melt into his best friend’s arms, into the one place where he’d always felt truly safe, but he couldn’t stomach the thought of looking his friend in the eyes. He would have hurt him, he would have knocked him out cold and handed him off to the Watchers like nothing.

Grian opened the door in a motion so fluid he felt wind rusting his hair, and pushed past Mumbo towards the balcony door.

“Grian!” Mumbo called after him, and oh his voice sounded devastated, but Grian ignored it, throwing open the balcony door with the same amount of force as he had the bathroom one, and spreading his wings, soaring off into the early morning sky. There was only one place he could think of to go, one person he could imagine would always see the bright side.

Scar was sitting on the floor in the middle of his apartment, illuminated by the golden rays of the rising sun as he bounced a pompom on a stick for the gray cat he had stolen to play with. He was the picture of happiness, and Grian faltered for a second, before knocking loudly on the fire escape window where he had landed.

Both Scar and the cat jumped, Scar’s jump being more of a half-fall-over before he caught himself with his hands and sat back up. The cat, on the other hand, handed several feet further back from the window, eyeing Grian.

“Don’t sneak up on me Grian, you’ve scared Jellie,” Scar said, when he’d fluttered over to the window and opened it for Grian.

“I did something,” Grian said, pulling himself through into the room.

“You did something or the Watchers made you do something?” Scar said, clearly conditioned by all that Grian had admitted in the past.

“W-we attacked Doc’s base,” Grian told him, casting his eyes away from Scar’s face.

“Let’s sit down,” said Scar, placing a gentle hand on Grian’s shoulder.

They ended up back where Scar had started, the vex enticing Jellie back over with his homemade cat toy while he waited for Grian to continue.

“Mumbo was there, and a bunch of heroes, and the shop owner - Xisuma. I was fighting them, and Mumbo was just watching. He must hate me now!” he said the last part through the palm of his hand, which he’d buried his face in.

“Grian, you and Mumbo… that man is incapable of hating you. And even if he was, Mumbo knows you have no control over what the Watchers make you do. He’d be a stupid man if he was upset with you for this.” Grian heard some shuffling beside him, then Scar placed his hand on his shoulder again. “Can I hug you?” he asked, and Grian nodded, feeling Scar’s arms wrap around him moments later. Just as he buried his face in Scar’s shoulder, the doorbell rang.

Grian and Scar sprung apart at the sound, suddenly in potential threat mode. They glanced towards each other then both made to get up.

“I’ll get it,” called a familiar voice from elsewhere in the apartment. That was Cub, Scar’s brother (and, Grian had always hypothesized, Scar’s partner in crime).

Before Scar and Grian could make much headway towards the front door, the unmistakable sound of Mumbo’s voice reached them.

“Do you know if Grian is here?” he asked. “I thought he might have come to see Scar.”

“I don’t know, I was asleep until a few minutes ago, the construction outside made some loud noise, woke me up,” Cub replied.

“You don’t mind if I go check?” Mumbo said, but before Cub could open his mouth to reply, Scar opened the door into the hallway, giving Mumbo a clear path of sight down to them. Cub looked from Mumbo, to Grian, and then to Scar, his expression revealing that something he thought comical had crossed his mind. He retreated to his own room before anything further could be said.

“Grian,” said Mumbo, and Grian took him in fully for the first time since the previous day. Mumbo was clearly still wearing his suit from the night before, the knees dusty from where he’d knelt during the fight, and a smattering of soot covering him from head to toe, no doubt from the numerous explosions he’d been in proximity to. To Grian’s relief, though, he appeared physically unharmed.

“I’m sorry,” said Grian, his voice breaking slightly. “I’m so, so, sorry!” he felt Scar’s reassuring hand on his shoulder again, and let it ground him.

“No,” said Mumbo, starting to move forward. “You shouldn’t be sorry. That wasn’t you, that was Xelqua.” he kept walking until he was close enough to Grian that the latter had to crane his neck to look up at him.

“Told you,” said Scar softly.

“You and Doc, you got out okay?” Grian asked. Mumbo took the sudden change of topic in stride, taking a step back before he replied.

“Yeah. Doc’s got a few burns, but Red King is patching him up. What happened after we left, if you remember?”

“It’s a bit spotty,” Grian sighed. “Xisuma didn’t even fight me, really. I think he was running around me, then I caught him when he tried to escape. I remember passing him off to another Watcher, then there isn’t much else.” he would get in trouble, the next Watcher night, when Xelqua told everyone what he’d shared, but it wasn’t enough to make his friends a target, he had toed that line enough to be sure of that.

“That’s alright,” said Mumbo. “Doc’s calling everyone in for an emergency meeting, did you get the message, Scar?”

Scar pulled out his phone.

“Yes, I did. Thank you Mumbo,” he said.

“No problem. You should come along Grian, we’re going to need your help,” Mumbo said, seriously.

“I can’t, you both know that. The next time I fall asleep Xelqua will share anything I’ve learned. Any plans that I contribute to, any identities I learn? Consider them no longer a secret.”

“So we just don’t let you leave,” Scar said.

“Have you ever tried to restrain a Watcher before, Scar? It can't be done,” Grian shot back.

“All of the hermits will be there,” Scar said. “We’ll put our heads together and figure it out.”

Grian opened his mouth to reply, but Mumbo beat him to it.

“If not now, Grian, when?” he asked. And didn’t that hit a spot. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place. If he went now, something horrible could happen, but everything could also be fixed. If he stayed, something bad would almost certainly happen anyway.

“Now,” said Grian. “I’ll come now.”

Chapter Text

The watchers brought Tango, Etho, and Xisuma to a starkly white underground facility. Xisuma watched them cart the three of them down a hallway from his place flung over the shoulder of a watcher. He felt his eyelids acutely as he struggled to keep his eyes open. There was something about the space that made him feel not exactly warm and safe, but trusting. He could feel a dream struggling to overwhelm his consciousness, the fear that poked and screamed from the back of his mind swallowed up as soon as he noticed it. A large hand grabbed him around the middle, and he grunted involuntarily as he was hoisted into the air and flung like a doll into an empty room. He felt the clang of metal, and knew before he could even raise his spinning head that a door had closed, shutting him in a blank white prison cell.

*

Mumbo stopped just short of the door to Ren’s apartment. He looked back at Grian and Scar, who had both stopped behind him.

“Should we plan out how we’re going to do this?” he asked.

“Nope,” said Scar, without a moment’s hesitation, fluttering forwards and knocking loudly on Ren’s door before Mumbo and Grian could pull him back. There was a moment where Mumbo became aware of the noise that had been coming from the other side of that door only in its sudden disappearance, then the door opened.

Ren stuck his head through the heads width he’d opened the door, saw who it was, and pulled the thing wide open. The apartment was full of people, some whom Mumbo recognised from the Hermit Crafts club the night before and others whom he didn’t recognise. Mumbo opened his mouth to take the forefront and introduce his best friend, but once again, Scar beat him to it.

“Hello Ren, everyone!” he said, addressing the crowd like a ringmaster announcing the act of the best trapeze artists in the world. “I have brought with me the solution to all your problems, the best prank artist I have the pleasure of knowing, the one and only, Grian!”

Mumbo played with the sleeves of his dusty suit as Ren matched Scar’s energy and welcomed them into his kingdom. He glanced over at the chicken man in question, and saw Grian looking down at his shoes, his chin hidden under the fabric of his red turtleneck as he tried to make himself seem small. Scar held out a hand and Grian took it, letting himself be pulled into the apartment. Mumbo followed, so in essence Grian was sandwiched with support. Ren shut and locked the door behind them, and there was a moment of silence, before raucous conversation struck up once more.

“Okay so as I was saying, we have to draw them out! Get a watcher to bite the bait, then, ya-know-” the comically short man speaking, Bdubs, mimed punching something.

“One problem,” said a tall woman with flaming orange hair, whose appearance in the same room as Mumbo caused him to do a double take, nearly giving in to the urge to pinch himself to make sure this wasn’t a weird dream. Zombie continued, stepping over to Bdubs and addressing him individually. “No one knows…” she trailed off, raising her eyebrows expectantly and smirking slightly.

“I know, I know. No one knows how to defeat a watcher. But literally what are we doing this for if we can’t defeat them?”

“That’s right, everyone,” said Ren, walking over to his wooden coffee table and stepping up on it, to raise his height above the rest of the room, ignoring the ominous creaking the table made. “We are here today because we cannot keep letting the watchers get away with everything they do. They have taken three of our own, and that is a step too far.” He opened his mouth to continue, but Scar took over the audience’s attention.

“Exactly,” he said, still in his exaggerated announcer’s voice. “And that is why Mumbo Jumbolio and I have brought to you, an expert on watchers.” He had fluttered upwards as he spoke, and finished his little speech with an exaggerated lean forwards, like some sort of human arrow pointing towards Grian.

“Oh my gods, Scar,” Grian said, the first Mumbo had heard him since he’d decided to come here. “I am far from a watcher expert.”

“Don’t under-sell yourself,” Scar said. “Grian here knows the most about watchers of anyone who isn’t on their evil side.” he brought a hand up to cup his mouth and stage whispered in Grian’s direction, “Are you going to tell them or should I?”

Grian sighed, and Ren’s living room was so silent you could hear a pin drop.

“Right, I said I would,” he said, before setting his shoulders and scanning the crowd. Mumbo watched his eyes meet Doc’s, and mentally pleaded for the mad scientist to choose today to let someone off easy. Grian took a sharp inhale in, and blurted out, “I’m a watcher, technically.”

“What?” said Ren, still standing on his coffee table though everyone had turned their back to him.

Grian’s wings seemed to be puffing up involuntarily at this point, and Mumbo stepped forwards, placing a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“He was raised as a watcher, but he escaped. He’s not in the slightest on their side,” he said, looking to Scar for back up.

“Mhmm,” said Scar, and Mumbo wondered in the back of his mind if the man was capable of being serious in front of an audience. “Grian here hates the watchers more than all of you combined,” the vex told everyone.

“Mostly escaped,” Grian said. “I lose control sometimes when I fall asleep.”

“Well that’s just perfect,” said Bdubs, the crowd parting between him and Grian.

“I hope that was sarcasm,” Grian said, a hint of humor in his tone.

Bdubs huffed and pulled out the pocket watch he kept on him, flipping it open. In a flash, his green sweater turned into the mossy hooded cape that was his hero costume.

“I know I’m mostly known for putting people to sleep, but I can keep you awake too!” he said.

“I have known you for years, and you have literally never mentioned that you can keep people awake, too.” Zombie said, accusatorily.

“Of course not,” said Bdubs. “It’s psychological torture. I would never do that to a person. Except now. Because anything is better than weaponised sleep.” He crossed his arms, puffing out his chest.

“And when was the last time this happened to you,” came a rumbling voice from the other side of the room.

“Last night,” said Grian quietly. Doc stood up off the couch, the dressings wrapped around his burned side evident even with his lab coat fully back on. He walked slowly through the room to where Grian stood, still by the doorway. The room seemed to collectively hold its breath, or maybe that was just Mumbo. Doc stopped in front of Grian and held out a fluffy green hand.

“Good fight,” he said. Grian shook his hand, and Mumbo let out his breath.

“Now, how do I win next time?” Doc asked.

Chapter Text

Grian took a deep breath. He wished they’d made a plan for this on the way here rather than walking in silence as if to an execution. But he was nothing if not good at improvisation.

The man whom the apartment belonged to held out a hand and pulled Grian over to the wooden coffee table he’d been standing on earlier. A string of people followed them, Doc reclaiming his spot on the couch, now front and center, and the hero Sleeping Beauty, his mossy costume now retreated again to a sweater, stopped on the other side of the armrest, watching with his unnaturally large eyes. Mumbo and Scar came last, Mumbo depositing his folded dusty suit jacket over the back of the couch and coming to stand to Grian’s left, off the side of the coffee table. Scar deposited himself between Doc and Sleeping Beauty, leaning back like he was settling in for a movie.

“They taught us we were invincible,” Grian said. “In watcher form, a watcher cannot truly be defeated. There is a way to force a watcher out of that form, though.” He took another deep breath, subconsciously glancing at his wings out of the corner of his eyes. They were miraculously free of that defensive purple. “Watchers gain their power from the fear and loss of others. They farm it, and their powers amplify it. In order to force them out of their watcher form, you have to be truly fearless, and win something from a watcher. You have to gain control of their game, without breaking the rules, and then win it.”

“You have to trick them,” Sleeping Beauty said, with conviction.

“Pretty much, yeah,” said Grian.

“And this will absolutely work?” Doc asked, his eyes slightly narrowed.

“I’ve seen it happen,” said Grian.

There was a slight silence as everyone waited for Grian to say more.

He let his eyes flick to Mumbo only briefly, and glimpsed the subtle guilt his best friend was trying to hide.

“Well, we can set a trap,” said the man next to Grian, his fluffy pointed dog ears alert and happy. “Give them the perfect opportunity to -harvest- and then offer them up a game they can't refuse.”

“And while they’re distracted,” Doc added, “We go in search of their prisoners.”

The room seemed to come alive once they had a direction, and Grian nearly forgot he was standing on a podium in a room full of near strangers. It was like an orchestra. They’d warmed up, and now they were harmonizing. The music flowed, the players came in and out, and somehow Grian found himself with a half-drunk coffee in his hand and a plan in his head.

It was quite simple (, really.) The hermits were divided into two groups, Team Prisoner Rescue: Grian, Scar, Mumbo, Sleeping Beauty, Zombie, Muppeteer, Astronomer, the villain Fallen Angel who’d showed up mid plan when he’d found out his friend Jester was kidnapped (no one knew how he’d found his way to Ren’s house), and Cub, who had shown up with coffees for those who’d lost sleep, and a casual, “hey.” And Team Watcher Game, composed of the rest of the heroes, and Doc.

Team Watcher Game would head to Doc’s cave for supplies. They would prepare for ambush, draw the watchers in, and present them with a game they couldn't refuse. When they gave the okay, Team Prisoner Rescue would head to the building where Grian guessed they were holding their prisoners, doing their best to get in and out without being caught.

When all the details had been set up, Sleeping Beauty made it known that he disagreed with the amount of sleep Mumbo and Doc had gotten the night before (none).

“Ren, you make sure he actually sleeps,” he said, pointing to Doc, and fixing Ren with a glare that shouldn’t have been as threatening as it was. He then turned to Grian and Mumbo. “You,” he said to Grian, “Should sleep. I can see it in your eyes. Unfortunately, you have a free pass.” Beside Grian, Mumbo was fiddling with his sleeves and the hem of his waistcoat. “You should sleep too.”

“Shoulda called him Santa Claus,” someone muttered from the mob of gathered heroes. “...KnOws when YoU’re AwAke…”

In the end, Grian and Mumbo ended up inviting Sleeping Beauty over to their apartment, which nearly turned into the entirety of Team Prisoner rescue coming with them, until Grian mentioned that the apartment was tiny, and it ended up being just Sleeping Beauty and Scar that joined them.

Chapter Text

When the Hermits put together their plans for the first offensive, they forgot a few very important details.

It began perfectly, which is always a bad sign. Grian waited with the rest of Team Prisoner Rescue within the safety of a forest of planted pine trees. The sun was low enough to provide some cover, setting behind them in a sky of fiery red. In front of them was an unassuming warehouse. Beyond that, the city rose up, lit by the bright light of its many buildings. Grian held a little round device in his hand, waiting for the low red light it emitted to turn green, the signal that the trap had worked.

Their team looked pretty good to him. They had one of the big three on their side after all, Zombie, standing with her flaming red hair tied back in a navy bandana for stealth. She stood behind him on his right, keeping her own eye on the signal.

On his left were Scar and Mumbo, Scar dressed up in one of his many hero costumes, this time a dark suit with Orange and Teal highlights. Zombie had asked him if he had anything less flashy and he’d insisted that this was his most stealth outfit, and that the colours would help him blend in with the sunset. Mumbo was wearing another of his own suits, which had earned him a few amused smirks. Grian was certain that even if Mumbo had been a hero he would have somehow found a way to wear a suit and tie. As it was, he’d pointed out that the watchers already knew who he was, so he wasn’t pressed about being seen.

Muppeteer, Astronomer, Fallen Angel, Cub and, of course, Sleeping Beauty stood behind them. Muppeteer wore a blue and green hand sewn costume that had earned him part of his name. He looked just the slightest bit creepy wearing it, especially in the shadows, but when they’d gone over the plan the final time, Grian had heard him speak, and he sounded really nice and easy-going. Astronomer, like Zombie, had red hair, but hers was still visible through the crown of sticks she wore, complete with woven flowers. She was dressed in an emerald green cape, and overalls. Fallen Angel wore a suit like Mumbo, but had completely customized it with black patches sewn into the worn pants and holes ripped in the shirt and jacket for his pitch black wings and to free his arms of sleeves. Cub looked oddly relaxed without the white lab coat he always wore. He was dressed in black with a briefcase over his shoulder that seemed to be stuffed to the brim. Sleeping Beauty was covered head to toe in his usual fluffy moss.

They seemed a pretty formidable group, all put together. Grian felt some sort of pride mixed with confusion that he was allowed to be part of it.

The signal flipped to green as the first stars started to shine brightly over the city. Zombie reached back to tap Astronomer on the shoulder, and the young woman blinked suddenly, shaking herself as she came back from an astral projection.

“It’s a maze down there,” she said, brows furrowing. “There are so many floors down there. I was only able to check the first five. There were a bunch of cells, but I only found Xisuma. And no traps or Watchers.”

“One prisoner is a good sign that there will be others,” Zombie said, her tone level and determined. “You’re sure there were no traps at all?”

“Nothing I could find,” Astronomer said.

“There’s definitely an alarm somewhere. We just have to get in and out quickly,” Grian said.

“Let’s go then,” said Zombie, and she cast one final look around before racing off across the empty parking lot. Grian and the others followed, letting Astronomer lead once they’d entered via the door that Zombie unceremoniously kicked down. Zombie herself was nowhere to be seen, but the lights were flashing red in a silent angry protest.

Astronomer led them straight to the nearest set of stairs, and they raced down towards where she had said X’s cell was located.

“Stop!” Cub hissed suddenly, and the group came to a confused halt. “We’re not alone anymore.”

“What?” Grian hissed back. “That quick?”

“Skulk sensors can’t lie. There are a bunch of them coming this way.” He was holding a petri dish with black and blue glowing sludge inside it, and the stuff was writhing like a cat being held against its will.

“Too late to turn back now,” shrugged Scar and he took the lead, fluttering down the staircase.

Grian looked around at the others then took off after Scar, wishing the stairwell was large enough to spread his wings. The padding of feet following him shared the others’ unanimous answer.

He followed Scar through the open door to the fifth floor down, and felt too late as his body passed through an illusion into a corridor of nightmares.

The floor was dark red brick with a thin line of black carpet down the middle, and walls of dark grey stone lit only by the dim glow of the turquoise flames that sat in the lanterns on the walls.

“What the heck is this?” Bdubs said, when the rest of them piled through.

Astronomer was looking around herself in total shock.

“This wasn’t here five minutes ago,” she whispered.

“It looks like Tango’s game,” said Mumbo quietly.

“What?” asked Grian.

“Decked out, Tango’s miniature game. The more noise you make, the harder it beco-” he shut his mouth abruptly, staring down the end of the hall, where an enormous grey robot built like a buffalo stood, staring them down. “Run.”

Scar pulled open the door nearest to him, and they all ran in after him, shutting the door and finding themselves in another identical hallway.

“What the-” Mumbo held his index to his mouth in a silent plea, and Astronomer stopped talking. The group set off down the new hallway, each doing their best not to make a noise.

This hallway ended in a short staircase that took them down into what looked like a beautiful cave. There were small stepping stones over a shallow pool and the walls were lined with moss, stalactites and light green vines that grew glowing orange berries. Scar went first, unconcerned by the prospect of splashing the water as he fluttered silently to the other side. Mumbo went next, then Cub. While Muppeteer was midway through the stepping stones, Grian caught a glimpse of something purple, and turned to see a watcher gliding down the hallway they had come down. The stepping stones suddenly shook and slid down into the water, and Muppeteer lost his balance, splashing down to his knees. He got to his feet in an instant and raced through to the other side, but it was too late. The metallic creak of a robotic monster began to grow louder from the corridor on the other side of the cave room. At the same time, the pond itself began to slide downwards, the water slipping through cracks at the edge of its base as the whole bottom of it rushed down into an abyssal hole in the ground. Grian cast his eyes around for another way across, but Astronomer had a better idea. She raced back up the few stairs and flung open one of the doors in the hallway they had come down.

“Come on!” she urged, silence abandoned. Fallen Angel and Sleeping Beauty took her advice and raced through the doorway.

“Grian! My powers have a limited distance, come on!” Sleeping Beauty called. Grian shared one final longing look over to Scar, Mumbo and the others, and raced after Sleeping Beauty. He spared one final glance at the separated rest of the group, seeing the back of Muppeteer’s costume disappearing down a third corridor.

And then there were four.

Unsurprisingly, they found themselves in another hallway. Astronomer chose a door and they followed her, crisscrossing through a spatially impossible series of corridors until she finally stopped, chest heaving.

“I think we’ve lost them for a bit,” she whispered, barely audible. “I’m going to scout ahead.” Grian nodded, and her eyes took on that uncanny valley sort of sheen that meant she had astral projected. He looked around at the other two, taking in their determined faces and tired postures. He felt like he’d been hit by a truck, even with Bdubs’ magic giving him a bit of energy.

The silence seemed to etch on forever until in a split second Astronomer was back and running again.

Somehow, she found a staircase within the maze and when they stepped out on the floor below, everything was back to concrete floors and office style drop down ceilings. The redhead hero counted down five doors and pulled open the sixth. Inside was a padded white cell with a bright white light pouring down on Jester, who was sitting with his back against the far wall.

“Impy!” Fallen Angel exclaimed, running into the room and throwing his arms around his friend in a bear hug.

“Skizz?” asked Jester, looking up. He spotted the other three in the doorway and his eyes widened.

Grian spun around just in time to see the large purple gloved hand of a watcher grab Sleeping Beauty by the arm and throw him to the side. His head hit the wall, and Grian felt his exhaustion hit him like a second, larger truck.

The following few seconds were a whirl of action and adrenaline, and the next time Grian was fully able to process his surroundings, he was in a cell of his own, a concerned man with a large mask over the bottom half of his face kneeling next to him.
“‘Suma?” he slurred, blinking in the harsh light.

“Fancy meeting you like this,” said the shop owner as Grian slowly sat up.

“No… no, no, no… please…” Grian cast his gaze around the horrible walls of the cell then squeezed his eyes shut, taking in a deep calming breath.

Xisuma waited until he had opened his eyes again to speak.

“Mind filling me in?”

“I led them all here,” Grian said. “Mumbo and Doc gathered everyone and I knew this place was a Watcher prison, but it must have been a trap.” He took another deep breath, and took a moment to think before he did his best to explain the rest of what had happened.

*

In the end, only four of them made it out of the warehouse. Mumbo and Scar found themselves alone back at the edge of the forest, and they collapsed together under a tree. A few minutes later, Zombie appeared out of the darkness and let herself collapse next to them. She was holding her detached left arm in her right, and sporting a gaping hole in the middle of her chest, which she seemed unconcerned by. None of them said a word for several heavy minutes. Finally, when Zombie had positioned herself with a needle and thread to sew her arm back on like Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas, the final person to escape came racing out of the same door they’d entered by. Muppeteer had a whopping four watchers on his tail, and was dodging their attacks with impressive success.

“Oh shit,” muttered Zombie, getting to her feet with her arm only a quarter attached. “Joe! Plan 4.2!” She shouted, taking off running straight towards the watchers.

Scar and Mumbo shared a glance then took off in opposite directions. Mumbo ran into the forest, thinking Scar would follow, but Hot Guy, to his friend’s total shock, took off after Zombie.

Mumbo stopped for a second, watching Scar pull out his bow and start shooting at the unaffected watchers, then sighed.

A bat flew through the night sky above the commotion, circling silently as the three heroes split up and drew the watchers on a wild goose chase.

Chapter Text

When they met up next, the group seemed to have shrunk more than from the missing heroes. Nine of them were now under the control of the watchers, and after what they’d found in the “Warehouse”, it seemed that the watchers had more than just imprisoned them. Mumbo felt sick as he sat on Ren’s sofa. They’d decided to meet somewhere else now that Grian had been caught, but the four who had escaped the warehouse had stayed behind while Ren packed.

Mumbo couldn’t imagine going back to the apartment alone, and he knew Scar felt the same about his own situation. In a way, Mumbo was glad they’d been separated from Grian and the others. He didn’t like not knowing what had come of them, but it had been horrible to watch as Cub had put himself between the watchers and his brother. Mumbo had had to practically drag Scar out of there, and he knew he wouldn’t have been able to had it been Grian he’d watched being caught.

“D’you think it's our fault?” Scar asked, quietly. He’d been silent for the past hour, they both had, and it took Mumbo a moment to follow his train of thought. He had to think about his answer. They were the ones who’d convinced Grian to join the heroes. Then, convinced by them that it was okay, Grian had shared the information that had gotten five people imprisoned.

“It’s the watchers’ fault,” he said out loud, sounding less sure than he had hoped to.

“Right,” said Scar, and Mumbo knew he’d picked up on his own guilt.

“That’s everything,” Ren said, stepping out of his bedroom. He had packed two small suitcases, but seemed to be leaving most things behind. Doc stood beside him, the suitcase that held the stuff he’d been able to rescue from his own home standing ready to go by the door. It turned out that the watchers the other team had thought they’d lured away were only a single watcher and a big illusion. Still, the one watcher and a bunch of wayward spells aimed at things they could not hit had succeeded in effectively decimating what was left of Doc’s lair. He didn’t seem too bothered, until one noticed the unusual smell of gunpowder in the air. Doc was literally fuming.

“So long apartment, you have served me well. Until we meet again,” Ren said, and Mumbo stood up, heading to the door with Scar, Zombie and Joe.

As Doc led them to the elevator he and Mumbo had left through the previous morning (which felt like much longer ago), Mumbo turned to Scar.

“What about your cat?”

“Oh don’t worry about Jellie,” Scar said. “My neighbor takes wonderful care of her own cat, and she was more than happy to take care of Jellie too. I told her I travel a lot for work.” he let out a little attempt at a giggle, but it was clear that his mind was still on Cub and the others.

Doc’s elevator took them down into the tunnels that the furious inventor seemed to know like the back of his hand. He led them through to an entirely different part of the city where after peeking through a tiny window he pressed a button and the wall slid aside to reveal the upper floor of one of the city’s public libraries.

They all followed Doc down to the library’s main floor, where a librarian silently unlocked the entrance to the basement. Down at the bottom of the stairs, the other eight remaining heroes and allies were waiting in the ante-chamber before the locked library archives.

“Do we have any ideas for a new plan?” Zombie asked, starting the meeting without any pleasantries.

*

It wasn’t long after Grian woke up that the watchers showed back up. A watcher stepped into the room holding two pairs of handcuffs in her hands. Grian glanced over at Xisuma, who shook his head almost imperceptibly, and let the watcher handcuff him without fuss. Grian followed his example, expecting his cellmate would explain himself later.

The watcher then blindfolded them, and Grian walked blindly through corridors and up stairs until the air changed and he knew he was outside. That didn’t last for long as he found himself guided into some kind of truck which then drove off.

When the blindfold came off, he was in a watcher facility he’d never seen before. This one was clearly newly built, and expensively too. The cell where the watchers had removed his blindfold was also padded, but larger, with several sets of bunk beds lining the walls, and a single toilet sitting out in the open at the back. Xisuma was still beside him, and the watcher who’d unblindfolded them was shouting for them to go stand at the back of the room. Her voice came out through a filter, and the familiar echo brought back chills of memory. Even though he’d been around watchers in his sleep rather recently, it was entirely different to hear them while he was fully conscious.

Grian and Xisuma walked to the back of the room, and Grian turned his head just enough to see as seven other prisoners were unloaded in groups of two and three. First arrived Sleeping Beauty and Astronomer, then Fallen Angel and Jester, and in one big group, Cub, Slab and Furnace.

When they’d all been unblindfolded, the watchers locked the grate door and slid open a small opening through which they removed one by one their prisoners’ handcuffs.

“Any problems and you will keep these,” their watcher guard let them know, before shutting the little opening and slamming a more solid door on the outside of the grate door, through which only a small beam of light reached them.

Grian turned to Cub first, asking after Scar and Mumbo.

“If they’re not here, I think they got out,” he said, and Grian was not as relieved as he would have liked to be.

“I haven’t seen anyone in any other cells,” Astronomer offered. “I’ve been looking around, trying to get as much information as possible.”

Grian nodded. After that, there were more introductions in order, the final three heroes Grian hadn’t shared his life story with.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, when he got to the part of his involvement in their kidnapping, which he’d left to the end, having successfully left it out of the version of the story he’d told Xisuma. He looked down at his feet, and waited for judgement.

There was silence.

When he couldn’t take it anymore, Grian finally looked up.

Xisuma was smiling, and when Grian tilted his head questioningly, the shop-keeper spoke.

“Those of us who’ve been around awhile remember that there used to be a supervillain no one knows about anymore. They called him The Goat, and he beat all the old heroes over and over again.” Slab nodded in fond nostalgia. “Now, he’s best friends with his old arch-nemesis!” Xisuma said. “To be a hero, we’ve gotta be able to forgive people looking for redemption.”

“You’re talking about Doc,” Grian said. Xisuma nodded. Suddenly Grian found himself mourning not having befriended the heroes sooner. “Thank you,” he added.

Xisuma bowed his head slightly in acceptance, and the nine of them sat in comfortable silence for a moment.

“Tango,” Sleeping Beauty said finally. “How did the watchers get your game plans?”

He was not the only one wanting that question answered, even Xisuma seemed curious.

“They have a machine,” Furnace/Tango said.

“More like a room of machines,” Jester put in. Tango nodded.

“They had both of us tied in those machines for hours before they put us in our cells. I’ve never felt so tired in my life as I did after whatever they did.”

“They were made of nothing like the kind of electronics we work with,” Jester added, and Tango nodded.

As the two heroes continued to explain the strange machine the watchers had used, Grian felt something click in the back of his brain. He remembered being young, brought to “work” by his parents as a learning experience. The people in the meeting his parents had brought him to had been discussing technological advances, most of which had flown over his six or seven year old mind. What he’d actually taken in had been when they’d started talking about children.

“You’ve all noticed their slow development! The children are befriending players and listeners instead of their own kin! This generation is becoming soft, but we’ve found a way to recruit! It’s in early development, but in a few years we’ll be able to pad out our numbers no matter how many children defect.”

“Gods,” Grian said out loud. Heads turned, and he realised he’d spoken louder than he meant to. “They’ve done it, done what they’ve been trying to do for years. They’ve made a machine to turn players into… into watchers.”

He was sure then that if Tango hadn’t already been pale, all of the colour would have vanished from his face.

“We have to find a way to warn them,” Grian said quietly, remembering that should someone be standing on the other side of their cell door, they might be able to hear anything.

“Pretty difficult from a cell,” Tango pointed out.
They didn’t sit in their cell much longer before the outer door was opened again. A watcher called for them to come forwards one by one for handcuffs, and they found themselves led through the building, unblindfolded, flanked by four watchers, with one at the front and one at the back. As much as being surrounded by so many watchers after such a long time freaked Grian out, it also amused and encouraged him that the most formidable enemy any hero knew thought they needed six of themselves to keep nine players under control.

Any residual amusement faded when he saw where they were being taken. The room Tango and Impulse had described had at least twenty of the odd machines in it. They were made of an odd purpley-grey material that Grian had never seen before, but knew before he was ordered to sit in one that they would be incredibly uncomfortable. His only comfort was that he couldn’t see any sharp or stabby implements.

The watchers ordered each of them into the seats, starting with Impulse, then Tango. They went one at a time, waiting until each person was enclosed by the clear top that came down over the seats to remove the next person’s obsidian handcuffs. After Tango, the watcher at the front removed Xisuma’s handcuffs.

“Remove your mask,” he said.

Xisuma raised an eyebrow.

“I can’t breathe without this,” he said, not moving to remove it.

“Hmpf,” grumbled the watcher.

“Machine won’t work,” said one of his fellows.

“No shit,” grumbled the first watcher. He turned to Xisuma. “Turn around.”

With the shopkeeper’s handcuffs safely back on, it was Grian’s turn.

“You’re turning them into watchers, aren’t you,” he said, as the first watcher removed his handcuffs. “I’m already a watcher, I don’t really need to go in there.”

Though he couldn’t see his face through the mask, Grian knew that the watcher was giving him an awful smirk.

“It will fix you, kill you, or do nothing, I don’t care.”

“Right,” said Grian, as the watcher grabbed his upper arm in a vice-like grip with his enormous hand and led him towards his chair.

What it did was break the machine. As soon as the lid was down and the machine started dispensing a clear gas, Grian felt himself begin to transform, growing past the point the machine could take. The lid cracked, and the watcher, who had turned to his next prisoner, ran over to stop the dispensing.

When the watchers finished their work, Grian and Xisuma were standing off to one side together waiting for their fates to be decided. Grian tried to keep the occupied machines out of his sight, not wanting to see his new friends so powerless. After a moment, three of the watchers herded them out of the room and back to the cell.

It felt larger now, without the others. Grian threw himself down onto one of the bunkbeds and stared pointlessly at the framing of the bunk above him. Against his better wishes, he felt himself begin to drift off.

*

The watchers struck in the middle of the downtown core, scattering a line of club-goers waiting for admission.

Doc, Ren and Scar were on the other side of town, enjoying a bowl of stew that had been thrown together from the cans in the cupboards at Doc’s safe house. Mumbo had just stepped out to find something that wouldn’t set off his allergies when the alarm Doc had placed on the counter started blaring. He tried to jump up, but had to wait for Ren, who had been lying with his head in his lap, much to Scar’s restrained curiosity.

By the time they arrived at the scene, the confrontation was already well underway, and there were no watchers in sight, at least of the traditional type. Instead, Guardian, Host and Knight were, with difficulty, holding their own against Sleeping Beauty, Furnace and Jester. The thought-kidnapped heroes had a glowy purple tinge to their eyes reminiscent of the symbol that projected from the white masks the watchers wore.

Scar fluttered forwards, stopping when he realised that the ground by one of the buildings was strewn with bodies. Getting closer though, when he’d recovered from the shock, it became clear that the civilians lying about were only sleeping. Letting out a deep sigh of relief, he set about moving them further from danger, glancing around before letting a spark of magic loose to make his work easier. Scar had a civilian over each shoulder when he spotted the lone watcher out of the corner of his eye. They were standing behind the glass front of a tourist shop bursting with little trinkets, perfectly still as they surveyed the proceedings. Setting down the civilians inside the convenience store where he’d placed the others, he reached for his own of the watcher alert alarms Doc had handed out, but paused suddenly, coming back into view of the watcher. There was something familiar about the figure, even with the horrible smooth white mask covering their face. Their deep purple wings were folded neatly behind their back, unlike the open, biblically accurate stance of the others. It was the hair, though, that flipped the switch in Scar’s mind. He couldn’t remember what Grian had said his watcher name was, but he knew he couldn’t have pronounced it anyway.

“Grian,” he said, doing the best imitation of casually strolling into the convenience store that he could with his obviously fluttering wings. “Long time no see.”

The watcher didn’t pause, or even seem to hear him as Grian turned and glided forwards. He reached his arms ahead of him, gathering speed as Scar moved closer to the shop door.

“Grian?” the watcher reached for his wings as if to grab him by them. Realizing that his attempt was doomed, Scar gathered his hands together, pulling a static ball of magic out of the air and beginning to stretch it into a protective field. He was disrupted by a hand which grabbed his right arm and pulled him after it out the tourist shop door, which chimed a fun little bell as it opened.

Mumbo pulled Scar around the corner from the shop, then grabbed him by the shoulders and gave him a little shake.

“What are you doing?” he asked, voice cracking slightly.

“You know, what they do in the movies?” Scar said, trying to shrug off his friend’s hands.

“He’s not the hulk Scar, he would have seriously hurt you, he might have ripped your wing off! He’s a watcher! They don’t care if you’re their friend when they’re in that form.”

“But… he’s broken, or whatever he says,” Scar said. “And besides, I would have been fine. You'd’a seen how well I can defend myself if you’d only waited another minute. Where did you come from anyway?”

“I was in there keeping track of him,” Mumbo said with a dismissive shrug. “And I saw that magic you’ve told no one about.”

“Well I’ve got some questions for you about things you tell no one,” Scar replied defensively, crossing his arms in front of his chest as Mumbo took a step back.

“Well,” said Mumbo, equally as defensively. “We’ll just have to agree that neither of us knows anything.”

“Good then,” said Scar. “And I’ve told some people.”

“Me too!”

“Good.”

“Good then.”

Mumbo was the first to crack a small smile, then they were both grinning at each other while a block away Doc, Ren, Guardian, Host and Knight played sleep-tag simultaneously with fire-dodgeball, while Jester grew little illusions that disoriented them all.

It took them a moment to come back to the moment, realizing that they’d lost track of where their local watcher had ended up. Grian was gliding gently towards the commotion while everyone was too busy to notice him.

Scar sighed and cast a glance around, deciding that Hotguy would have to bow out of this one.

Both Zombie and the until-then elusive Wizard both made their appearance just as the weather took a turn for the worse. Slab stood on a nearby roof, the frigid wind whipping around him as he gathered a snow storm.

Wizard threw a barrier of maroon magic up into the sky, protecting the dancing heroes and villains below.

“Cover me!” Zombie called over the sound of the roaring wind slapping into the magic. Wizard removed one hand from the force of the shield above and directed it in front of Zombie as she moved through the field of fireballs to where Furnace was standing. Her arm was fully reattached and a new shirt hid any remaining hint of the hole in her chest. Had Tango managed to burn her though, it would have taken far longer to heal. As it was, she tackled the Nether hero to the ground, pulling her bandana off her head and using it to bind his hands in fists so he couldn’t use his powers.

Behind her, face red from exertion, Wizard had thrown up a third force field against the slowly advancing watcher who paused when he reached it, standing at the edge of the battle with his mask impenetrably blank. He slowly reached a hand out and placed it against the magical barrier, ignoring the static sparks that flew as he made contact. He pushed through, entering as if Wizard’s magic had been made of rain. Wizard dropped the useless force field and concentrated his energy back on keeping out Slab’s storm.

Meanwhile, Sleeping Beauty had tagged Host and was running after Red King, who seemed to be enjoying himself. Doc was keeping Jester occupied, giving the distracting illusionist a taste of his own medicine with sparks and smoke that prevented him from keeping up his illusions for very long. Knight and Guardian were facing the still slowly approaching watcher, beams of Guardian’s magic doing little to tire him.

Like always, it was clear: they could win against anything but a watcher.

Then, the wind changed. Slab’s storm dissipated in an instant and Jester and Sleeping Beauty each turned away from their sparring partners at the same time, retreating before anyone could react.

“Test one, fail,” said Xelqua, before gliding off after the others.

Furnace, struggling to break free from Zombie’s grip, was left behind.

“Fall back!” she called, stopping the heroes who’d started to give chase. Follow the plan.

Chapter Text

Mumbo swooped after the retreating watcher and friends. Jumping after them from roof to roof, out of view to anyone but the bat that flew above her, was False. She was one of the lowest profile heroes, the kind whose sighting would make the news every time even in this hero infused age.

Xelqua, Sleeping Beauty and Jester were racing along the city streets with seemingly limitless energy, twisting and turning down random alleys and through parks as they went. It was clear that they knew they were being followed, but it wasn’t until Mumbo saw Slab that he knew False had been spotted. Slab had made a ladder of ice and climbed up ahead of them while Xelqua herded them around.

False stopped in her tracks when met with Slab’s gathering ice storm, pulling out her sword and sliding her goggles down over her eyes. Mumbo, keeping close to the opposite building so he’d blend in with its darker brick, swooped down after Xelqua, leaving False to her fight.

With the tracker out of the way, Xelqua, Jester and Sleeping Beauty slipped into regular foot traffic, Jester’s illusions masking their identities. Little did they know, a little bat had managed to keep his tail of them.

He swooped down low, weaving around the legs of pedestrians until he was right behind Sleeping Beauty. The watcher-controlled hero appeared out of costume, but beneath Jester’s illusion, he was still dressed in his long mossy cloak.

When the group stopped at a crosswalk, Mumbo slipped himself under the hem of the cloak, holding on for dear life as they set off again.

It wasn’t until the pavers and asphalt turned to cool stone tiles that Mumbo realized he’d been a spoon and failed to think this plan through very well. Strategically sticking his head out the bottom of the cloak had given him the location the prisoners were heading, but now that he was inside, and a watcher was following behind the group, he had no way of flying back out without being stopped and captured. Trying to keep calm, he opted to stay where he was, but it was beginning to tire him to stay in bat form for so long.

Luckily or unluckily, Mumbo wasn’t sure, they walked straight to the cell. He heard the sound of a metal lock turning, then a watcher barking orders - Hands behind your backs! - then more moving noises before Sleeping Beauty started moving again.

The next thing Mumbo knew, the cell door had been slammed behind them, and the watchers had accidentally imprisoned an extra person.

Xelqua, Sleeping Beauty, Slab, and Jester all collapsed immediately onto the bunks that lined the edge of the room, and Mumbo was able to crawl along the back post to the top bunk above Sleeping Beauty. From there, he held onto his bat form using the vestiges of his energy, waiting with Cub, Fallen Angel, and Astronomer for one of the others to wake up.

Grian was the first to open his eyes. Mumbo, relieved, gave him a few seconds to orient himself before fluttering down to the ground in front of him. As soon as he hit the floor, he began to transform back, finding himself sitting at full size in the middle of the cell.

“Mumbo?” Grian asked, “What happened?”

“Xelqua attacked downtown with them three. I snuck back under Sleeping Beauty’s cape,” Mumbo replied quickly.

“Oh gods,” said Grian, casting his eye around the cell. He suddenly frowned. “Where’s Xisuma?”

Mumbo nearly kicked himself. He’d completely failed to notice the lack of the final prisoner.

“We don’t know,” said Fallen Angel. “Gem’s had a look around and he’s not in the purview of her powers, he was gone when we got back.”

“Got back?” Mumbo prompted.

“They put all of us in these weird machines, I’m guessing that’s what turned Dippledop and the others’ eyes purple. When the three of us woke up, we were alone in here.”

“They took me and Xisuma back here after - the machines didn’t work for us - and I must have fallen asleep,” Grian added. “Zombie stopped Furnace, right? I remember feeling angry about that.”

“Yeah,” Mumbo nodded.

“Right, what’s the plan then?” Grian asked.

“Plan, right,” Mumbo mumbled. “This was sort of a spontaneous thing. I have my phone though!” He dug the device out of his pocket. It was a cobbled together machine, made in parts Mumbo had bought separately as a sort of hobby. The thing didn’t have nearly as much capacity as most modern phones, but it had, among other things, the internet, sat nav, and, most importantly at the moment, texting.

“Right,” repeated Grian, briefly closing his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” interrupted Astronomer, “But is anyone going to talk about the elephant in the room?”

Mumbo turned around, and found that she was staring directly at him. She didn’t seem particularly upset, but Mumbo still felt his shoulders bunch up slightly.

“Ah, yeah,” he said, fiddling with his cuffs. “I’m a vampire, been one my entire life, mean no harm and all that.”

Astronomer smiled.

“That’s cool, sounds really useful!”

“I guess.”

They moved back to the other topic after that.

“Could I see your phone,” Grian said, holding out a hand. Mumbo held it out, and Grian unlocked it, opening Mumbo’s texts. “You’ve got a message from Scar, wondering where you are.”

“Oh, should we tell him?” Mumbo said. Grian shrugged and passed back the phone.

Mumbo: I may have followed the prisoners and snuck in with them
Mumbo: Research center, corner of Rush and Boogaloo
Mumbo: Now i’m stuck

The messages took a tantalisingly long time to send, keeping the five now all gathered around the phone on tenterhooks.

Scar: oh buy
Scar: *boy
Scar: every0ne thers?
Mumbo: Except Furnace and Xisuma
Scar: safe to call?
Mumbo: Sure

When the phone call came through, it was choppy, but better than waiting for texts. Scar asked to talk to Cub immediately, then Grian, then the phone came back to Mumbo.

“So the watchers don’t know you’re there?” Scar asked.

“Nope. They’ll find out as soon as they open the door though.”

“Impulse could help hide you,” Fallen Angel suggested.

“If he wakes up first,” Cub said quietly.

“I might be okay for a bit, but not indefinitely,” Mumbo relayed to Scar.

“Okay. We’re working on a plan,” Scar told him. “Has your phone got good power?”

“Oh yeah, this thing lasts ages.”

“K-keep us updated, alright?” Scar told him.

“Yeah, will do.”

It was three hours before Slab, Sleeping Beauty and Jester woke up, one after the other.

When everything had been re-explained, Astronomer went back on lookout and Mumbo decided to call Scar again.

The group was resettling itself mostly onto the bunk beds. Fallen Angel sat himself down next to Jester, giving his friend a little side hug before relaxing next to him. Slab was in one of the darker areas of the room, sitting cross legged in the back corner of the bed behind the door, his expression unreadable even though he’d lost his mask at some point. Astronomer sat on the edge of her own bunk, unnaturally still as her mind wandered the building. Cub, too, had his own bunk, and he seemed to be deep in thought, occasionally making notes in pen on his arm. Sleeping Beauty didn’t seem as able to sit still as the rest. He’d stayed on the bunk he’d woken up in at first, but then made his way over to Slab’s bed, making conversation from the other end of it. Grian and Mumbo sat next to each other on the final of the six bottom bunks.

Mumbo dialed Scar’s number, and Scar seemed to pick up as soon as the call went through.

“Everyone’s awake now,” Mumbo told him.

“Good, good,” said Scar. He sounded out of breath, and interference in the background sounded like he was outdoors. “Listen. There’s been a slight hiccup, nothing to worry about, Doc, Red King and I, we’ve got eyes on the building. Get ready when you hear the explosions.”

“Explosions?” Mumbo asked.

“Don’t worry they’re mostly for show, won’t hurt a hair on your pretty head,” said Scar. “Once we get you out though, Doc and X have this amazing plan, you’re going to love it. We’re going to take out the watchers for good.”

“X?” said Mumbo, remembering what Xisuma had said before he’d been kidnapped. “Xisuma said he wasn’t trustworthy.”

“Funny he’d say that,” said Scar, and Mumbo detected amusement in his voice. “Don’t worry about that, we’re all used to his shenanigans.”

“Oh, alright.”

Chapter Text

The cell grew silent as they waited for whatever Scar and company were going to do. Sleeping Beauty had joined Slab in his corner and pulled a knife out of the og hero’s coat. He was examining it while Slab watched with a raised brow.

Mumbo moved over on the bunk he and Grian were sharing until his shoulder was touching his friend’s. Grian was deep in thought, his brow slightly creased, and he was staring at his hands on his lap like they had personally wronged him. In a fit of spoon-like behaviour, Mumbo acted without thinking and stuck his hand over Grian’s. He turned it over and curled his fingers around Grian’s palm, giving it a light squeeze, in which he hoped to convey reassurance. Grian shifted to look up at him, his brow still creased, but didn’t pull his hand away. Instead he let his head fall onto Mumbo’s shoulder.

“What a mess we’ve gotten ourselves into,” he mumbled. Mumbo hummed and let his head slide down to rest on top of Grian’s.

They sat like that for a few more moments until they heard the promised explosions. The cell shook, but seemed in no danger of collapse. The group sprung to their feet and corralled around the door in a semi-circle, no semblance of relaxation remaining in their poses. Scar appeared moments later, flinging the door open. He seemed to have somehow acquired the key, and Mumbo had a sudden mental image of him pickpocketing a watcher. He decided not to ask.

They reached no resistance or illusions as they raced back down the hall Scar had come down, the vex leading the way. That is, until the room itself started shaking. Mumbo felt his footing start to loosen and transformed. Cub and Fallen Angel both took to the air as well, and each grabbed the person closest to them, Fallen Angel pulling Jester along, and Cub Sleeping Beauty as the ceiling split in two and started to come down. Grian, Astronomer and Slab weren’t so lucky. The three of them stepped back instead of forwards, and Mumbo watched as a wall of misplaced concrete came down between them.

“I thought you said the explosions were harmless,” Fallen Angel said to Scar.

“I don’t know - they’re Doc’s explosions, ask him,” Scar said.

“Is there another exit for them to take?” Mumbo asked. The building settled and he let himself slip back into his “human” form, stepping cautiously towards the wall of rubble.

“I don’t have building plans!” Scar replied.

“Guys! Can you hear me?” Mumbo called. There was no response. He started searching through the debris for a way through.

“We’ll never be able to dig through all that,” Cub said. “We should head up and look for another way down.” The building chose then to decide to give another shudder.

“Hey, at least maybe this will destroy all of the machines,” said Jester.

“And us along with them!” Fallen Angel reminded him.

“I’m going to try to find my way through here,” Mumbo said, “Bats can fit through really small spaces, there’s gotta be…” he transformed again, and the rest of the group split up, most heading up after Cub’s plan. Scar stayed behind, and Mumbo heard him telling the rest that he was just doubling up for safety’s sake, but as soon as the rest were gone, magic exploded from his fingertips and shot out through the concrete barrier.

“That should keep it steady for a few seconds if it starts to shift, just long enough for you to get back out.” Mumbo gave him the closest thing he could to a nod in bat form and started squeezing his way through a hole he’d found in the rubble, where a larger bit of concrete was held up like a widowmaker tree.

Unfortunately that hole didn’t go far, and Mumbo found himself backing out, looking for another way through. As he did, he saw Scar standing with one hand holding up his initial stabilizing spell while the other began shifting the debris, making his own way through.

*

Grian stopped and took a deep breath, his heart racing at how close the ceiling had come to falling on his head.

“Come on, we’ve got to find another way out,” said Slab, the first time Grian had heard the quiet hero speak.

He nodded, and they took off.

It was a dead end. Because why would there be a second exit out of the obviously illegal secret basement where the Watchers were keeping their prisoners.

As they turned back, a whoosh of magic announced the opening of a portal behind them. Grian whipped around and faltered as a Watcher stepped out, the portal closing behind them. Grian instinctively took a few steps backwards, but there was nowhere to go. They were trapped.

The watcher let out a low chuckle. It pulled something out of its pocket and held out an arm, letting the device fall from a string, like a yo-yo. The bobble on the end started to gently sway back and forth, and a light smoke poured out of it, filling the hallway with a purple haze. It tasted like smoke from a fire, and Grian coughed. Astronomer and Slab, standing right behind him with a sword each in hand (Slab’s made of magical ice), seemed to be hit harder, both breaking out in horrible coughing fits. Grian backed up, trying to get out of the smoke before it did whatever magical thing it was going to do, but the watcher stepped after him, matching his pace. Astronomer and Slab both sank to the floor, wracked with full body coughs, before suddenly stopping. Grian turned his head to look at them, urgently wondering if the smoke had suffocated both to death or unconsciousness, but they both looked fine. The two heroes stood slowly, eyes only on each other. They held their swords out in front of them, then, at the same time both struck.

Grian backed further away, avoiding the swords as they started swinging with full earnest.

“Astronomer! Slab!” Grian called. The Watcher just laughed.

*

Mumbo turned pretty quickly back into his human form, helping Scar as he pulled bits of rubble out of the way. They were starting to make a sizable dent in the blockage when the sound of footfalls made Mumbo suddenly jump. He spun around, half expecting a watcher though the footfalls weren’t heavy enough for that, and instead saw X.

The hero’s expression was hidden behind his dark visor and helmet, and Mumbo still wasn’t trusting despite Scar’s earlier dismissal of Xisuma’s warning. There was something about it being the one last thing the man had said to him that made him inclined to take it seriously.

“Where is everyone?” X asked.

“Grian, Etho and Gem are on the other side of this wall, everyone else went looking for another way down,” Scar reported, his voice slightly strained. He’d had to start taking some of the weight of the rubble as their hole in it widened.

“Why should we trust you,” Mumbo asked, unable to stay silent. X looked taken aback for a second before he let out what sounded like a chuckle from behind his helmet.

“Because I’m the one that warned you,” he said, slipping his fingers into a slot in the helmet and pulling the outer layer of it off. Xisuma stuck the helmet under his left arm and raised his right in a sort of half shrug half jazz hands motion. “Ta-da!”

“Well now I really feel stupid,” Mumbo said.

“It’s obvious once you know, I’m aware,” Xisuma said. He lifted the helmet and replaced it, walking further up to the rubble and raising his hands to help with the rubble removal.

“Hold on,” Mumbo said, returning to his own efforts as he spoke. “Why’d you warn me against yourself then?”

Xisuma sighed.

“Because this has happened before,” he said. “You didn’’t think the watchers developed their machines without someone to test them on, did you?”

“Oh.”

The three of them fell silent. Mumbo glanced over at Scar, who had lost his usual playful smirk in exchange for a serious expression that looked very wrong on his face. He gave a little nod, as if confirming that he’d known about this already.

“So two of the big three are members of the Hermitcrafts Miniatures club in other identities. That tracks,” Mumbo said finally. He pulled a chunk of rock Scar had loosened the size of his fist out of the rubble, and the topic was effectively changed as they saw through into the rest of the hallway.

About halfway down it, a Watcher stood watching as Slab and Astronomer dueled with full force. In any other circumstance it would have been mesmerizing to watch: two master swords people swiping at each other with a weird grace and elegance. Instead, Mumbo transformed and flew through the hole, racing up to where Grian was also watching the fight.

“Shit,” he said, casting around uselessly for some way to break them apart.

Luckily, Scar seemed to have widened the hole enough for a person to fit through. He appeared at Mumbo’s side, magic blossoming at his fingertips.

As his spell formed into the shape of a shield, the watcher pulled something out of its pocket that had Grian suddenly pushing both Mumbo and Scar backwards.

“That’s how he’s turned them against each other,” he said in a rush. Mumbo and Scar continued to back up as a purple tinged smoke made its way out of the device. As quickly as the smoke appeared, though, it disappeared, sucked out of existence by X’s powers.

The watcher started to advance, seemingly deciding to use its own hands now, and several things happened at once. Scar flew forwards with his shield at the ready, pushing his way between the fighting heroes. The floor shook once again as an explosion sounded in close proximity, and Mumbo spun around to see Doc walking through a cloud of smoke, the rubble that had collapsed again after Scar stopped holding it up completely out of the way in the aftermath of one of his explosions (How the building hadn’t come down on their heads yet, Mumbo didn’t know). At Doc’s heels was Bdubs, followed by a whole host of heroes.

In the end, it was Bdubs that put an end to the fight with his powers, while Doc dropped rubble on the Watcher, slowing it only briefly, but enough for them to set off as a group towards the end of the hall and the staircase to freedom.

There were even more heroes upstairs.

“Serependapitous!” Scar yelled nonsensically, and everyone ran for the exits as Doc set off an enormous explosion aimed at the ceiling above where they were all standing.

Chaos ensued, and the next time Mumbo’s brain held any thoughts other than incoherent screaming, he’d somehow wound his way back to the hideout in the library basement. It seemed everyone had, which was either the result of meticulous planning or incredible luck.

He found himself seated at the edge of a cot, with Grian seated on one side and Scar on the other. They were all covered in dust and dirt, and Mumbo’s hands were worn raw from digging.

Heroes moved through the hideout in various states of exhaustion and injury. Doc seemed perfectly fine, but Red King had taken a hit, and his right arm was bandaged from wrist to elbow. They sat together on one of the other cots, conversing in low voices.

Mumbo stood up abruptly when he could no longer stomach sitting still, and Grian and Scar wandered after him as he stepped out into the rest of the hideout.

They ended up stopping over where Bdubs, Etho, and Gem were seated. Both of the final two had some scrapes from their battle, but otherwise seemed fine, if slightly sheepish.

“You guys are alright?” Mumbo asked anyway.

“Yeah,” said Gem. “It was a good fight.” she turned to Etho with a glint in her eye. “We should go again, without the intent to maim or kill. See who’s better.”

“You were winning,” Etho said quietly, his eyes suggesting a smile though his mouth was once again covered by a mask.

“Won’t know for sure unless we go again,” Gem said.

“Alright,” acquiesced the older hero.

*

When everyone had had a moment to settle down and fix themselves up, they gathered for a meeting, and the plan X and Doc had come up with for finally taking down the Watchers was revealed.

“We’re going to get a dragon,” X said.

“Those are real?” asked Grian with a slight shiver.

“They’re real, and we’re going to bring one to the overworld,” said Doc.

The room seemed to hold its breath for a second, until Grian spoke again.

“I had a different idea.” Eyes turned to him. “Have you all heard of the listeners?”

Chapter Text

It had been awhile since Grian had thought about the listeners. He’d been warned when he was small of a group that liked to kidnap Watcher children. By the time he’d gotten older, and started to realize how much of what he’d been taught was lies, they were only a faint memory, considered just another one of the Watchers’ victories. The only reason he considered them now was because of what had happened to Jimmy, the first friend Grian had made in university.

A few of the hermits who’d been heroes longest nodded, but no one seemed particularly enthusiastic.

“They still exist, to some extent.” He stared at the fists he’d made on the meeting table in his nervousness. “I know they don’t have the best track record of success, but they’re one of the only things I remember the Watchers ever being afraid of.”

“You’re certain they’re still around?” Doc asked.

“They recruited a friend of mine in uni. I didn’t believe they were real listeners at the time, but that was just arrogance.”

“If you’re sure, it’s worth looking into,” put in X. Grian was a bit shocked to have the vote of confidence of one of the big three, but he tried not to let his uncertainty show on his face.

“So we split up,” said Doc. “X can lead a team to the end, and Grian can lead a team to the listeners.”

Grian felt himself settle slightly at the confirmation that he would not have to go anywhere near a dragon, at least for now. He had just been planning to take Mumbo and excuse himself for a few days from this mess to get re-acquainted with old friends and finally solve the mystery of Jimmy’s sudden distancing from Grian’s life mid-way through second year, though.

“We wouldn’t want to spook them, though, or give the Watchers something too easy to scent out,” Mumbo pointed out easily, and Grian felt himself relax the rest of the way. As usual, they were on the same page.

“I’ll come,” Scar said. “The end is-” he gave an exaggerated shudder, “-very dangerous.”

As seemed to happen, their group expanded from there. Sleeping Beauty expressed himself very concerned with Grian’s sleep schedule, and Slab casually added himself to the list. Then Astronomer expressed that she would go where Slab went, for the chance to spar with a worthy partner. Cub said he’d stay with his brother, and Grian finally put his foot down after that. Seven was enough.

X’s group left first; it was a several days’ journey to only the portal that could bring them to the dragon’s habitat, and they agreed to meet up the next morning after everyone had had a good night’s sleep and set up for their absence. When they were gone, only the group Grian was leading remained, as well as Doc, Red King, Zombie, and Muppeteer, who volunteered themselves to stay behind and keep the city from falling fully into the Watchers’ and various other villains’ hands while everyone else was travelling.

Red King pressed a credit card into Grian’s hand, and told him to use it to pay for gas.

“I don’t have a car,” Grian said. He glanced around and everyone else shook their heads in turn.

“None of you?” Red King asked.

“You don’t have a car either,” Doc said quietly.

“Yes but that’s because I like going for long walks. Seriously guys, none of you?” They all shook their heads again.

“I was expecting to take the train,” Grian told him.

“Fine, use that for your tickets, and an uber wherever you’re going.”

Grian handed the card to Mumbo for safe keeping, thanking Red King before the seven of them headed out too.

*

Scar showed up at the train station dressed in his favourite brown corduroy trousers and his old leather aviator jacket. The sun was just beginning to rise, reflecting a beautiful golden hue over the clouds.

“It’s been ages since I’ve left the city,” he said to Cub, as they sat down together on one of the old metal benches that lined the inside of the train station.

Cub chuckled.

“I haven’t felt the need to,” he said, “city has all you need.”

“Hmm,” said Scar. “I’ve been wanting to grow sunflowers somehow, bring a bit of the country to my backyard. The city is so grey, it needs a pop of colour.” he paused as an idea struck. “I should take up spray paint!”

Before Cub could reply or Scar could elaborate on the many mural ideas that were filling his brain, Bdubs arrived. He was pulling a tiny carry-on suitcase, and wearing a horseshoe of moss around his neck like a travel pillow. Gem and Etho weren’t far behind, both also dressed in comfortable civilian clothes for the ride. Etho carried only a navy duffle that looked too small to hold much of anything, and Gem had a worn backpack with flowers embroidered where it seemed to have torn in the back.

“Ooh Gem, I love your bag,” Scar said, fluttering around to get a better look at it.

“Thank you Scar!” she said. “I shouldn’t get the credit for the flowers though, Zombie did those.”

Grian and Mumbo showed up last, Mumbo with a laptop bag slung over his shoulder, and Grian carrying an old suitcase that looked to be bursting at the seams.

“Right, I’ll go get us the tickets,” said Grian, holding out a hand for Ren’s card, which Mumbo handed over.

“I have to ask,” Scar said, when Mumbo had come over to sit with them. “How many of those suits do you have?”

“How many have you ruined in the past-” Cub paused. There was a moment of silence as they all calculated how many days it had been. “-two days and a night?”

“A magician never tells his secrets,” said Mumbo with a little chuckle.

“I can think of only one answer,” said Scar. “Magic suit.”

Mumbo laughed.

“They’ve mostly just got dirty, I’ve been lucky actually, there’s only one I have to send to get fixed.”

“You’re still not convincing me they aren’t magic,” Scar told him. “Do you wanna trade? I’ll test it out for you!”

Before Scar could convince Mumbo to trade, Grian returned. He passed Mumbo back Ren’s card and handed each of them their tickets.

“There’s a two hour ride to Boatem, then we’ll have a few hours before the next train to Crossover.”

*

Grian had meant to contact Pearl the night before. He’d pulled out his phone and followed his usual routine scrolling through everyone’s socials, looking for the usual signs that they were doing okay. Pearl posted a meme to her instagram story at 3am, and Joel and Lizzie had new photos from a dinner date they’d gone on that evening. Grian had clicked through to Pearl’s DMs and paused with his thumb over the keyboard. It had been years since he’d spoken to her. Who knew if she’d even be happy to hear from him.

As he sat on the train, Bdubs’s magic keeping him from being lulled to sleep by the gentle movement of the train car, he pulled out his phone once again.

Grian: Hey
Grian: I know it’s been awhile
Grian: But I’m going to be in town starting tonight
Grian: If you’re free, maybe we could meet up?

He waited for a few minutes for a reply, then shut off his phone with a click and turned to look out the window as the tracks wound their way out of the city and to the forests and fields that extended beyond it.

It was a long two hours.

When the train pulled into their stop in Boatem, Pearl still hadn’t seen the message.

“Hey, you doing alright?” Mumbo asked as the group walked around the small Boatem train station and towards the bus stop that would take them into town.

Grian showed him his messages.

“She’s a late sleeper, she probably hasn’t woken up yet,” Mumbo pointed out, and that cleared some of Grian’s anxiety.

Boatem was gorgeous. They took a bus to its historic downtown, looking through a few of the shops - Scar spent over an hour in the magical pet adoption center - before grabbing a bite at a café and heading to the town’s main landmark to eat.

The sun warmed the concrete benches they sat on around the boatem pole, but a drifting breeze kept the place cool and pleasant. Grian tried to enjoy it, but waiting for Pearl’s message and knowing he would have to sleep again eventually, kept him on edge. It felt like an age before the time came to head back to the train station and move onwards.

Alas, it was as Grian sat down in his new seat that his phone finally chimed.

Pearl: Yes! We’ve got to catch up!
Pearl: Do you have somewhere to stay? I can ask Joel and Lizzie if their guest room is available
Grian: I’m actually travelling in a group, Mumbo, a couple friends and I. We’ll just get a couple hotel rooms
Pearl: You don’t have reservations?
Grian: No, why?
Pearl: There’s a huge festival in town right now, most of the hotels will be filled up
Grian: Shit, thanks for the heads up
Grian: Do you think there’s enough room at Joel and Lizzie’s for both me and Mumbo, if there aren’t enough rooms?
Pearl: hold on, I’m checking availability
Pearl: How many of you are there?
Grian: Seven total
Pearl: There’s only one room I can find. Some of you can crash at my place, I’ve got couches and an air mattress. I’ll call Joel rn
Pearl: I think we can make this work, I’ll call to book the room
Grian: you’re a life saver
Pearl: …room’s gone
Pearl: we can still make this work. Some of you will just have to share
Grian: I’ll let everyone know

He turned to Mumbo, who had been reading over his shoulder.

“That’s rotten luck,” Mumbo commented.

“I told them too many people was a bad idea,” Grian said. He looked out into the aisle where the rest of the group was spread out across three rows.

*

It was just going dark when the train pulled into Crossover. It was a larger town than Boatem, but mostly populated around the university, which had let out for summer. Both Pearl and Lizzie had stayed after Grian left to continue their degrees, and Joel had stayed with his then girlfriend. Jimmy had fallen off the radar after his recruitment, but he was a Crossover native, Grian remembered, and he hoped that if anything, they’d be able to figure out where he went starting from there.

There was a vintage Dodge Charger waiting in the parking lot when they got off the train. It really shouldn’t have been able to seat eight people, but Lizzie had put a charm on it at some point, and they all fit without any problems.

“Long time no see,” said Joel, when Grian sat down in the passenger seat. Grian paused for Joel to be upset, but his old friend only slapped him on the shoulder. “We missed you and Mumbo at the wedding, but maybe you can make it up next week, on Lizzie’s birthday.”

“I don’t know if we’ll still be here then, but if we are, definitely.”

“What are you doing here, anyway?” Joel asked, and Grian had definitely walked into that one. He glanced back at the others behind him, looking for some kind of help.

“We’re looking for the listeners,” Bdubs said.

The next corner that Joel turned was a little sharp.

“Why?” he asked, and Grian detected a hint of false calmness in his tone.

“We want their help.”

“Right.” Joel parked the car on the street in front of Pearl’s apartment. Grian, Mumbo and Scar got out, and Joel rolled down the windows. “We’re meeting back here at nine-ish tomorrow?”

“Nine works,” said Grian, and Joel pulled away. As soon as he was gone, Scar turned to Grian and Mumbo.

“Is it just me, or is he hiding something?”

“Shit,” Grian said, not quite listening as his exhaustion hit him full force. “I should have stayed with Bdubs.”

Chapter Text

The moon stood high over Crossover as Pearl’s doorbell rang. She tore her eyes from its glow and buzzed in her guests, waiting in the door frame for them to come up the stairs.

“Hey Grian, Mumbo, and..?”

“This is Scar,” Mumbo said, pointing to the vex man hovering next to him. On Mumbo’s other side, Grian’s eyes were puffy, his eyebags dark, and he was letting out a large silent yawn.

“Come on in,” Pearl said, stepping back into her apartment. “It’s not much, but it’s home.”

The apartment consisted of a little corner for the entrance way, the living room to the right, and forwards and beyond the living room, the small kitchen, separated by an island. On the right hand wall were the windows, while the doors to Pearl’s room and the bathroom were on the left hand wall of the living room.

“I’ve got the air mattress set up,” Pearl said, pointing to where it was nestled in front of the tv, the long couch between it and the door and a little love seat against its head. “I’m thinking Grian can take the small couch, cuz he’s shortest”

Almost before she’d finished speaking, Grian had collapsed on the loveseat and was out like a light.

“I get the sense he’s tired,” Pearl said.

“Yeah,” said Mumbo, sounding oddly upset about it.

“Dibs on the other couch,” said Scar, sitting down..

“It has been a long couple days,” Mumbo said to Pearl.

“Well I’ll be awake for a while, so just knock if you need anything. First door’s bathroom, second’s my room,” Pearl told them, before heading back to her room. She heard them moving about through the wall, and waited until the light was out and there was no noise coming from the other rooms to throw open her window and get out of there.

Crossover’s very own superhero, Moth Woman, did her rounds before popping over to the Beans house, on the other side of town from her apartment. She landed on the sill of Joel’s office window and was let in before she could knock.

“Have you got anything?” she asked in a rushed whisper, once Joel had closed the window behind her.

“A bit,” said Joel. “Apparently they’re here for the listeners’ help with something. I tried asking these guys what-” he gestured to the floor, indicating where Pearl assumed the rest of Grian and Mumbo’s friends were sleeping. “-for, but they just said they’d explain in the morning, when everyone was together. Lizzie tried asking how they all know each other and they said they’re part of a club that makes miniatures together.”

“What?” Pearl leant on Joel’s desk, while he sat back down in his chair. “Do you think he’s turned on the Watchers?”

“I guess we’ll find out tomorrow,” Joel said.

*

Grian woke up with his head spinning, and sat up so fast his blanket fell off the couch, landing on the floor near Mumbo’s head. He scrambled to the bathroom and stood with his back to the mirror, peering at his wings over his shoulder to see if any feathers were at all purple. He only felt his heart rate start to lessen when they’d proven to be completely innocently white.

He sat down on the rim of the tub and rubbed his fingers over his eyelids. Maybe they were far enough away that the Watchers weren’t bothering to call him back. He’d wake up before he made it anywhere near home and Doc’s explosions were supposed to have taken out all of those horrible machines, not that they’d worked on him the first time.

There came a quiet knock on the bathroom door, and Grian stood to let Mumbo in. He settled on the edge of the bathtub again, and Mumbo joined him. Silence stretched in the centimeters between them, before Grian let his head fall into his hands again.

“What time is it?”

“Four thirty,” Mumbo replied quietly, after a second. He was wearing the pjs Grian had got him as a joke one christmas, the ones that had a suit and tie printed on the front. Seeing that made Grian crack a smile, and suddenly he was giggling, trying to be as quiet as possible so he wouldn’t wake the others up, but unable to stop himself. “Doing okay there buddy?” Mumbo asked, and Grian finally stopped himself, taking a deep breath to calm down.

“Yeah, I’m good. Look at that though, I’ve had more than eight hours of sleep tonight!”

“Right,” said Mumbo. “I suppose you aren’t going back to bed, then?”

“I can’t,” Grian sighed. “I know we’re far away, but I can't risk getting summoned.”

“Right,” Mumbo said again. He stood up and held out a hand for Grian. “I’m going to try to catch up on some of my work, if you want to join me.”

“You’ll wake me up if I fall asleep again, yeah?”

“Sure, bud.”

They settled next to each other on the air mattress and Mumbo dug out his laptop, pulling up a file one of his clients had sent him, and setting about doing something to it that Grian hadn’t bothered to learn to understand. The lines of code were boring to stare at, and before long he found himself leaning back against the love seat, struggling to keep his eyes open.

The next thing Grian knew, sun was streaming in through Pearl’s living room windows, and he was practically lying on the floor, the mattress having deflated nearly completely under the weight of two people. And two people there were lying on it. Grian’s left side was warm against Mumbo’s side, where they’d been pushed together as the mattress deflated. The traitor was starting to stir now, and Grian was still looking at him when he opened his eyes. They stared at each other for a moment, faces inches apart. Some traitorous part of Grian wanted to lean into Mumbo’s warmth, to lean in and wrap an arm around him, to bury his face in Mumbo’s neck and go back to sleep. He blinked, realizing he’d been staring for way too long, they both had.

“Wake up love birds!” came Scar’s unmistakable voice from the kitchen. “I made pancakes!”

Grian was sitting up in an instant, getting up off the mattress like he was jumping into a pool on a cool day, braving it before he chickened out at the sting of the icy waters.

“Dibs on the washroom,” he said, grabbing his bag and avoiding Mumbo’s eyes.

He turned the shower on full cold and stood under its spray for a few moments while he wrapped his head around things. So he wanted to cuddle his best friend. He was probably just touch starved. The traitorous thought ran through his head though as he turned off the water and reached for one of the towels Pearl had left out. Did he want to kiss Mumbo? Did he… gods. At some point, without realizing it, Grian had developed a serious crush on his best friend. He dried off, got dressed, brushed his teeth, and headed out to the kitchen, where Scar loaded his plate up with piping hot pancakes and he sat down with Pearl to have breakfast.

Mumbo joined them a few minutes later and there was blissful silence in Grian’s head while they all ate Scar’s delicious cooking. When his plate was emptied though, he made the mistake of glancing up in Mumbo’s direction. Mumbo was looking right back at him. They both looked away again quickly. Scar was uncharacteristically silent, and though he smiled brightly at Grian when he looked over, it didn’t quite meet his eyes. Pearl, on Grian’s other side, looked like she could have done with a few more hours of sleep, eating her pancakes slowly and methodically. Grian stood up and brought his plate to the sink, getting started on the washing up for something to do with his hands. Scar joined him not long after, drying the dishes and putting them away as Grian washed them. He took Mumbo and Pearl’s dishes as they finished eating, and in no time at all the kitchen was sparkling.

“Joel says they’re on their way,” Pearl said, not long after, and they all settled back at the kitchen table to wait. Mumbo pulled out his laptop and Pearl started scrolling through her phone.

“You know,” said Scar, “I don’t think you’ve ever told me what you went to university for, Grian.”

“Architecture. Family tradition, my parents were very proud. You?”

“Oh, college art degree, nothing fancy,” Scar told him, leaning forward with his elbows on the table. “I was actually saying to Cub yesterday, I wanted to give our apartment some more colour. I think when all this is over I’ll get back into painting. And you know, why restrict it to the apartment. There are so many boring concrete walls just begging for my skills.”

Pearl snorted without taking her eyes off her phone.

“He’s serious,” Grian told her. “Scar has a hobby of finding ways to give the middle finger to authority,” he explained, pulling on an exaggeratedly fancy voice for the final word.

Pearl smiled and held up a fist for Scar. He fist-bumped her and turned back to Grian with a growing smirk.

“I like your friends Grian.”

“Oh boy, what have I done,” Grian said, but he found himself smiling.

The doorbell rang a moment later, and they all stood to greet the others. Lizzie had come as well, and there was a round of introductions.

Before long the air mattress had been thrown in a corner with all of the blankets and pillows and the chairs had been brought in from the kitchen so they could all sit together.

“Now,” said Joel, when everyone had settled into the chairs. “Will someone please explain what’s going on?”

“I’m sorry,” Grian said, with a sigh. “I really wasn’t trying to get you guys involved. We’re here looking for Jimmy. I thought maybe he could lead us to the listeners, so we could get their help taking down the Watchers, for good.”

“Taking down the Watchers?” Joel said, emphasising the second word like he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing.

“I’ve been done with them for a while,” Grian said. “But recently…” he paused, and Scar took over.

“They kidnapped some friends of ours. Don’t worry, we got them out, brought the building down on the stupid Watcher’s heads,” he said, like it was a regular thing to do.

“That building collapse was you guys?” Lizzie said, at the same time as Joel said “Holy shit.”

“With a few more friends,” said Scar nonchalantly.

“More from your miniatures club?” Joel said, and Grian turned to look at the four who’d gone to Joel’s house. They all looked between each other for a moment.

“They’re trustworthy, right?” Gem asked.

“Fully,” agreed Grian.

“We’re heroes,” Bdubs blurted.

“You’re kidding,” Pearl said.

“Nope!” Bdubs stood up and pulled out his pocket watch, and his sweater transformed.

“Sleeping Beauty,” Pearl said instantly, her jaw dropping.

“And this is Slab,” Bdubs continued, “and Astronomer, and-”

“I’m just Scar’s brother,” Cub said, before Bdubs could introduce him.

“-our resident biologist,” Bdubs said, “Who has yet to don the cape, but we will convince him.”

Pearl, Joel and Lizzie all turned to Scar, where he was relaxing, seeming to have forgotten that it would be his turn.

“Hot Guy,” he said, miming the shooting of a bow. “We’re chill cuz they secretly agree with my methods,” he said.

“Am not,” Grian replied in habit. Scar raised an eyebrow and Grian rolled his eyes at him.

“Well I doubt Crossover news makes it all the way to the big city, but I’m Moth Woman, if you’ve heard of me,” Pearl said, standing up and letting wings of shadow sprout from her back.

“Oh yeah,” said Etho, nodding to her in acknowledgement.

“That’s, a coincidence,” Gem said, smiling widely.

“Joel comes on some of my runs with me,” Pearl said. “He’s too stealthy to have been given a name yet though.”

“Still in your cryptid phase?” Bdubs said, nodding. “Lucky. Once they choose a name for you, there’s no coming back. As a tip, give them your own ideas, if you get the chance.”

“At least you weren’t named after a misunderstanding,” Etho said with a quiet smile, and Bdubs huffed, crossing his arms and tilting up his chin in an exaggerated pout. When he sat back down, though, they were both smiling.

“Right, back to business,” Joel said. “Jimmy actually got back in touch with us a year ago. Pearl, Lizzie and I got in touch with the listeners last night, so now we know you’re not all evil, we can let them know and you can talk.”

Grian blinked at him in shock.

“Why did you stay friends with me in university if you knew the Watchers sucked?”

“Same reason Mumbo did, I bet,” said Joel, elbowing Mumbo lightly.

“I seriously doubt that,” Mumbo said quietly, and Joel shot him a confused look, but continued. “Cuz you’re a good friend, and we were hoping you’d get there eventually.”

Grian felt his cheeks heat up.

“You’ll call Jimmy for us then?”

“Hell yeah, let's go end the Watchers once and for all!”

Chapter Text

Jimmy was on shift at a cute little café in downtown Crossover called The Canary. He called into the back to say he was taking his break when they stepped in, and disappeared for a moment before returning sans apron.

He looked a lot more confident than he had in university, and it made Grian feel sort of bitter sweet - if he’d broken from the Watchers’ spell earlier they might have stayed good friends.

Joel, Pearl and Lizzie passed on their seal of approval when Jimmy met them outside, then introductions were passed around and they got down to business.

“The original listeners are gone,” Jimmy said, “But we have some of their tricks.”

*

The police had wrapped tape and detour signs around the perimeter of the research center, or, what was left of it. Two days after the heroes’ grand plan was executed, it stood ignored as civilians got on with their daily lives. Doc and Ren lived out of the bunker under the library while Doc rebuilt the machinery he had lost and Ren did his usual charm filled rounds, waving to civilians while all anyone with poor intent saw was the calculating glint to his smile. Cleo and Joe appeared when they felt like it, lending a hand and good conversation.

The Watchers were eerily silent. It wasn’t their style to disappear when a fight had gone wrong. Part of him wanted to believe they’d hurt the Watchers so badly that they had retreated to lick their wounds. He’d been around long enough to know that that wasn’t the case. The Watchers were planning something, moving on to the next step of their plan, escalating. The thought of it made the fur on the back of his neck stand on end.

It had been a sunny few days, but now the clouds were closing in over the city. A storm was coming, both literally and figuratively. They only had to hope that everyone got home before it hit.

*

Crossover was decorated head to foot in orange and yellow and little cut outs of corn and pumpkins and other staples of the fall harvest. As they walked further from the Canary, the crowds started to grow, clustered around market stalls and buskers and little game set ups.

The strip that led up to town hall was the most crowded, and Jimmy slowed down. Seeing as it was a group of superheroes following him, he shouldn’t have worried about losing them. Etho kept to the back of the group, pulling his hoodie up as soon as the crowds got thick. Before too long though, they reached town hall, and the crowds started to thin again as Jimmy led them to the alley on the left side of the building.

They all crowded around as he felt around the red bricks on the side of the hall, his fingers finding a bit of mortar that pushed in. The bricks moved away after that in a formation Doc would have been proud of.

“You guys built your blumming base in the basement of town hall?” Joel said, as Jimmy led them through the door and into a well lit staircase that descended further underground.

“It’s great, isn’t it?” Jimmy said, moving about like he was a kid showing off his room to his friends.

“It’s a shock you haven’t been caught already,” Joel replied.

“Relax, Martyn’s put some kind of spell on it,” Jimmy said, reaching the bottom of the staircase. The wall closed behind Etho, and he followed the rest of the group down. Bdubs slowed down to stand beside him, clearly trying to make it look casual.

“What’cha thinkin’?” Bdubs asked quietly as they stepped out of the stairwell behind the rest of the group.

“Something is going to happen.”

“Yeah no shit,” Bdubs muttered. “We’ve just got to hope these listening guys can hold down the fort ‘till X gets back.”

“That won’t be for days.”

Bdubs nodded and let out a noise close to a ‘tsk’ of agreement.

They fell silent as the proverbial star of the show stepped out of one of the back rooms. He was dressed like he was from a different time, wearing a loose white shirt that would have looked normal on a pirate, and a light green vest with a red sash wrapped around his waist holding it all together. Etho watched the man’s eyes flick to Grian immediately, then to Jimmy. He raised an eyebrow and Jimmy began to explain.

*
Once Martyn had been brought up to speed, two more people walked in, and the whole thing restarted. Grian was reassured that they were the last to come, and finally they could get into the important issues.

“So everyone else has gone to the nether to get a dragon,” Martyn said.

“Most of them,” Gem interjected.

“So you’re going to make the Watchers fight a dragon.”

“Yup,” Gem said.

“We were hoping you could also give us some help,” Grian added.

“You’re going to bring a dragon. To the city.,” Martyn said again.

Grian had not thought that far ahead. He was leaving that to X and the others.

“Yup-”

Chapter Text

There was no explosion, there was no pause, there wasn’t even a second of time to think.

The sky was bright blue and dotted with fluffy clouds. A bee buzzed somewhere in the distance. Grass tickled his arms. A faint music played from somewhere, so quietly Scar wasn’t sure if he was dreaming it. He felt mildly dazed, like he’d been woken up by his alarm earlier than he would have liked, and couldn’t quite put his finger on why.

It came back so instantaneously that Scar had sat up and fluttered up into an upright position before he’d actually registered wanting to. He was in a forest somewhere, with nothing but the clothes on his back and no idea how he’d gotten there. The sun was hot in the sky, and Scar slipped off his shirt, using it to wipe his face before setting off.

*

Bdubs woke up in the shade. He banished all sleepiness in an instant and got to his feet, looking around. There was a knotty old oak above him, her leaves swaying in the wind. This countryside would have been picturesque except for the fact that Bdubs had no idea how he’d gotten here. He remembered being in the listeners’ base under Crossover’s town hall, but this looked nothing like the landscape from the train ride there. The ground rolled away from him, dotted with patches of trees. He could see a hint of water off to his left, and, miraculously, some kind of clearly man made wooden building in the distance to his right.

Having taken five steps down the side of the hill where the old oak stood, Bdubs spotted Astronomer. She was standing stock still, her eyes doing that creepy wide thing they did when she was mentally elsewhere. Bdubs poked her in the arm, and she came to, jumping in surprise when she saw him.

“Oh my god Bdubs I have been looking everywhere for other people, thank goodness.”

“I’m going to assume that you also have no idea how we got here,” Bdubs said, and she nodded. “There’s a building somewhere in that direction,” Bdubs said, pointing. “I could see it from the top of the hill. I’m thinking that’s a good place to start.”

“Yes, right.” said Gem. “And hopefully we’ll run into the others on the way.”

*

It didn’t take Grian long to find the walls of this dimension, but tearing at them was having no result. He stepped back and gave the barrier a sullen kick. It vibrated slightly, like a taught piece of cloth rather than a solid wall, but didn’t show any signs of weakness. He tore at it again.

*

Mumbo reached the town from the skies, and nearly turned back when he got close enough to make out its details. The place looked medieval. The buildings were made of hand worked wood and stone, and the people dressed like they were in a cult, in long formless robes with wide sleeves.

His first thought was that it was just his luck that he’d wake up somewhere where the only people had either never seen a smartphone or had decided to reject them, and his second thought was of the trippy tunnels in the basement of the Watcher warehouse they’d broken into. Far from the feeling those tunnels had provided when he’d been in them, this thought brought a sense of relief. Obviously, the Watchers had created some sort of illusion and the town wasn’t real. His third thought was that he had no way of proving this, and also no way of getting out of the illusion, if that was what it was. He ended up walking straight into the village.

“Hello,” he said, to the first person he came across. “Could you by any chance tell me where I am?”

The villager replied to him in a nasally voice with words that sounded nothing like any language he’d heard before. To be fair he hadn’t exactly studied languages, but still.

“Mumbo!” He swung around to see who had called. Gem was walking out of the forest, with Bdubs on her heels.

“Thank goodness,” Mumbo said, voice slightly more high-pitched than he would have liked. “You haven’t seen anyone else, have you?”

“No, I’m guessing you woke up alone too?” Gem asked. She paused when she and Bdubs reached him, looking around the village. “This is, not weird.”

“I think it’s an illusion, like the lifesized Decked out tunnels,” Mumbo told them.

“Right,” said Bdubs, squinting at the villagers. “That’s just great, isn’t it.”

“Not ideal, no,” Mumbo said.

*

The sun was going down by the time Grian gave up on tantruming and started to wander. It was only when odd creatures started appearing out of the encroaching darkness that he realized this dimension may be more than just an endless forest.

At first he tried flying up into a tree, but just as he settled into the branches a spider larger than a person crawled to the base of the tree and started its ascent. Stifling a shriek for fear that he might summon more horrifying things, Grian thanked his wings and took off into the sky.

This turned out to have been something he should have done earlier, as from the sky, the lights of a nearby village stood stark against the darkness. He made his way over, half expecting to find the place somehow abandoned.

When he tentatively landed on the roof of one of the buildings, Grian felt his stomach begin to turn. The city was crawling with nightmare creatures. There had been weird things in the forest, but here he saw what was clearly a zombie snacking on what remained of a corpse. The Watchers were out for blood. They’d grown tired of their shame and decided to end him once and for all.

Squashing down the feelings that made his hands shake, Grian walked the perimeter of the rooftop as quietly as he could. When he was sure that there were no spiders or other crawling things in sight, he risked sitting down, curling up on the ridgeline where he could see anything approaching without much movement. Still, he missed the moment someone appeared behind him.

“Grian!”

Grian spun in shock so quickly that he nearly lost his balance and slid down the tiles to the ground. Sitting with a single heel hooked over the ridgeline keeping him from falling, Grian stared at Scar.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, voice shaky with something halfway between relief and fear.

“Same as you,” Scar said, a hint of amusement in his tone. “In some illusion the Watchers have created, at least, that’s what Mumbo said it was.”

“Mumbo’s here?”

“Everyone’s here.” Now Scar sounded concerned. He fluttered down until he was close enough to hold out a hand and help Grian back up. When he was seated again, Grian couldn’t bring himself to let go of Scar’s hand. In a moment of impulsivity, he pulled Scar into a hug, resting his chin on his friend’s shoulder and taking shaky breaths. Scar accepted the hug, wrapping his arm tentatively around Grian and giving him a little squeeze, like he wasn’t quite sure this was happening.

“I thought the Watchers put me here alone to die,” Grian said after a moment. He started to pull back, wanting to see the expression on Scar’s face, and Scar gave him one last squeeze before letting go.

“Geez, man,” he said. “No, we’ve finally managed to communicate with the people that live here, and everyone’s holed up in the hotel thing they’ve got going on. Everyone who was at the listeners’ base is there. We all thought the Watchers had singled you out.”

Grian, for some reason, maybe the absurdity of the whole situation, let out a little giggle. Scar didn’t seem to find this particularly strange, and just sat watching Grian, his expression not quite decipherable.

When Grian’s brief bout of insanity was over, they both stood up, and Scar led the way back to the hotel. It was more what might be described as an inn, with a thatched roof and walls made of wood and limewashed. Scar flew over to a second story window and knocked to be let in. There were too many zombies on the ground to risk the main entrance.

“Look what the cat dragged in!” Scar said, in a tone altogether too cheerful for the meaning of that saying.

Grian dove in through the window and landed in the middle of the room. It was fairly small, and there were only five of the people from the listeners’ base in there, sitting on three thin beds that lined one wall.

Suddenly the arrangements at Pearl’s house seemed luxurious. Mumbo stood up quickly when he saw Grian, and walked quickly over, stopping in front of him like he didn’t quite know what to do with himself. Grian made that decision for him. It seemed giving hugs was addictive.

“It’s a Watcher illusion, right?” Mumbo said, breaking the awkward silence after they’d broken apart.

“Yeah, sort of. I’ve been at the border all afternoon, but I can’t break it.”

“If we’re going to be discussing strategy, should we go get the others?” Pearl suggested.

“Is that what we’re doing?” Gem asked.

“Can’t this wait until the sun is up?” Bdubs put in, stifling an enormous yawn. Beside him, Etho chuckled and earned himself a glare.

“There’s nothing we can do right now, as far as I’m aware,” Grian said. “You may as well sleep.”

It was then that he noticed that there were eight of them and three beds. It seemed the others had divided themselves up two to a bed, but that left him and Mumbo, as Scar had made himself comfortable sharing with his brother.

“Are there other beds somewhere else?” Grian asked.

“They only had the six,” Mumbo told him. “I volunteered myself for the floor since they’re too short for me anyway.” He pointed to a pile of pillows in the corner, and now Grian realized that no one else had their pillows. He’d also procured a blanket from somewhere. “Of course now we’ll have to find a solution for you,” Mumbo mused aloud.

Grian raised an eyebrow.

“Come on, you’ve got to sleep,” Mumbo said, picking up on Grian’s meaning instantly. “If they were going to control you they wouldn’t have stuck you in here.”

“You don’t know that,” Grian said. He retreated to the window and seated himself as comfortably as he could on the wooden sill. The zombies and other creatures roaming the streets were awful, but at least seeing them would keep him awake. As he settled down for a long night, he felt some of his exhaustion lift off. Looking back over to the beds, he saw that Bdubs had a hand extended in his direction from where he lay, like he was doing a spell.

“Not a replacement,” he said in an attempted whisper.

Grian nodded his thanks and turned back to the dystopian outdoors. Soon soft sounds of deep, sleepy breathing filled the room. Alone in the world of the awake, Grian felt the shock of their current situation settle over him like a weighted blanket. He took a couple deep, calming breaths and tried to use the hours ahead as brainstorming time to get out. Dimension building was a rare Watcher talent. It took a lot of energy, and they didn’t do it unless they were certain the outcome would be worth it. He was fairly certain they’d harnessed Jester/Impulse’s powers to lighten their load in the warehouse, and that was why it had been possible for some of them to leave the way they’d come. Here, he didn’t want to be the one to tell the others that that wouldn’t be possible. It would be more like breaking one of Mumbo’s firewalls, that fateful game they’d used to play, except there were no entrances coded in for his benefit this time.

The worst part was that Grian was fairly certain he knew what the watchers’ plan was. They meant for everyone trapped in this dimension to slowly succumb to the dangers of the world. They would harvest the terror everyone felt as they dropped one by one.

It was still long before dawn when Grian heard a quiet rustling of sheets and Scar quietly joined him at the window. They sat in silence for a while before Scar spoke.

“We’re stuck here for good, aren’t we.” He said it like a statement rather than a question, more somber that Grian was used to hearing him sound. It was wrong for Scar to be so defeated.

“We’ll think of something,” Grian replied, willing it to be true.

Someone shushed them from the beds, and Scar led the way to the door, heading out into the hallway and down a thin rickety set of stairs to the main floor of the inn. Here there was a big open space with sturdy round tables and a bar at the front. It was empty, but the perfect place for midnight conversations. Scar took a seat at one of the tables and Grian sat next to him.

There was once again silence, as both of them figured out what they wanted to say.

“I wish I could have done more with my life,” Scar said, sounding remarkably calm about it, like he was lamenting a coupon he’d allowed to expire rather than his own life.

Grian tried to think of something positive to say, but it was far too late at night for niceties.

“I guess it’s up to X's plan, now that I’ve gotten us all killed.”

“Woah,” said Scar, with some conviction. “This is not your fault.”

“It kind of is though, how else do you suppose the Watchers found us, in the listener base of all places?”

“I don't think they did. I think something else happened that we’ve all forgotten,” Scar said.

“That’s… entirely possible,” Grian said.

“Not that it really matters now,” Scar added with a shrug.

“If they did the work to make us forget something, it could be a way out,” Grian pointed out. Then again, he didn’t say out loud, if they’d forgotten, they had no way to figure out what it was.

Scar made a contemplative noise, but ended up just shrugging.

“So, is there anything you wish you did with your life?” he asked.

“What a question,” Grian chuckled.

“It’s worth asking. I wish I’d asked out my crush, umm, become mayor, gotten arrested for something funny…” he trailed off and turned to Grian expectantly.

“I wish I’d told everyone I care about how much they mean to me, and done something to really give the Watchers the middle finger.”

“Do you have friends I don’t know about?” Scar asked, “Cuz I thought everyone you cared about was here.”

“Yeah pretty much,” Grian said with a shrug. “M’ just too much of a coward.”

Scar’s wings lifted him out of his chair and over to Grian’s, where he braced one hand on the table and the other elbow on the back of Grian’s chair.

“Well I for one am not,” he said. “You, Grian, are amazing, and you matter to me a lot. I wish I’d invited you to Hermitcrafts earlier.”

Their faces were inches apart. Grian hesitated, and after a moment, Scar pulled back. He sat down in his chair, and watched grian expectantly.

“I’d vote for you if you ran for Mayor,” Grian said.

“Of course you would. Everyone would,” Scar said. “I would make an amazing mayor.”

“Gods, I love the way you say that word,” Grian blurted, smiling suddenly.

“What word?” Scar asked.

“Amazing.” Grian did his best impression of the way Scar said it, “A-may-zin’”

“I say it perfectly normally,” Scar said, trying to sound defensive and failing, the huge grin on his face giving him away.

It seemed that Scar wasn’t the only early riser that morning, as not long after that, people started trickling downstairs. First came Etho, followed by Bdubs, who was altogether too cheery for such an early morning. Lizzie came next, dragging her husband behind her as he yawned. The two last people who’d had the misfortune of showing up to the meeting with Martyn, whom Grian remembered being introduced as Scott and Big B, came next, a few minutes apart.

With that, the midnight energy gave way to early morning chatter. The villager who manned the bar was up not long after them, and handed over a breakfast of hard rolls and stew, for seemingly no charge.

“Is everything free here?” he asked Scar quietly.

“We killed a couple monsters. I think they think we’re going to kill the rest. They’re very grateful.”

“You killed a couple - you know what, I’m not going to ask,” Grian decided. He dug into his breakfast, his body suddenly remembering he hadn’t eaten since breakfast the previous day.

Chapter Text

It turned out that the monsters burned up in the sunlight. By the time everyone had come down and had their complementary breakfast, Pearl being the last of the group, the sun was high enough for the villagers to have their doors swung open and their fear on hold until night reigned again.

They all found themselves eager to be outside despite the danger, and the meeting that was long overdue finally took place in the courtyard outside the inn. Luckily this time everyone was starting on roughly the same page, so they could get right to the strategizing.

Martyn, as it turned out, knew a great deal about these pocket dimensions.

“It depends on how tailored this world is,” he said. “We need a few materials, but unless this was generated so those things don’t exist, we should be able to build an exit.”

They had to rely on the Watchers’ sense of a game. If there was no way to win, it wasn’t nearly as fun to watch. And in the absence of some sort of hope, the only emotions that were produced were dull and tasteless. What the Watchers would want was betrayal, terror, and despair.

“They will have made it possible,” Grian found himself saying. “Difficult, but possible.”

Martyn nodded grimly. He caught Grian’s eye and grian knew they were both thinking the same things. Now that he thought about it, there was always going to have been a way out. Some goal for the Watchers to tear away at the last second. It was going to be about as rigged as a carnival game, but they had to try.

The beginning of the process involved scouting out their world. Martyn divided them into smaller groups and sent them to explore all corners of the world. Scar, who had somehow managed to trade a nearby villager for a chestplate that shone with enchantment in the time that the meeting had taken place, was drafted to stay behind and gather tools from the village.

Grian and Mumbo set off in their prescribed direction as soon as everything had been arranged. They started walking in silence, and it felt somewhat stifling. Grian’s thoughts swirled through his head: a continuation of last night’s half-hearted planning, analysis of his early morning conversation with Scar, and most currently stifling, the situation with Mumbo.

It didn’t feel like it had only been a day ago that he’d woken up on the air mattress in Pearl’s apartment. The laundry list of things that had happened yesterday had banished Grian’s revelations from his mind, but now, supposed only to be exploring, everything came flying back. Mumbo was standing just to his right, looking around at the forest with a keen kind of interest and twirling absentmindedly with the end of his moustache. Grian wanted to give him a hug. He wanted to feel that Mumbo was solidly there in his arms. He imagined stopping and turning to Mumbo, telling him the truth once and for all. It would come out in a bit of a rush, before his nerves could overtake him, but Mumbo would hear. He might question, make sure he’d understood, and that Grian really meant it, then he’d slowly reveal that he’d been feeling the same way…

“Grian?”

Grian blinked. Mumbo had stopped walking, standing in the entrance of what looked like a small cave. Grian felt his cheeks heat at the way his thoughts had been turning.

“Ooh,” he said, turning his full attention to Mumbo’s discovery. Mumbo didn’t seem to question things, crouching down in the cave’s entrance and peering into the darkness.

“It doesn’t look like it goes very far, but I may as well check it out,” he said, before suddenly there was a bat in his place, which took off into the crevice.

*

Ren locked the door behind him, dropped his jacket onto the table and sunk into a chair with an exhausted sigh. The lower level villains of the city had started to realize that something was up, and they’d begun to take advantage of the opening. He hadn’t seen Joe or Cleo once, but he knew they were both off dealing with incidents in other parts of the city. If the teams weren't back soon there was going to be real trouble.

He’d barely rested his head for a moment before Doc came rushing out of the back room he’d set up his temporary workshop in.

“I’ve lost contact,” he said. “The listener team has all disappeared at once!” He was holding his laptop, and angled the screen so Ren could see a replay of the team’s trackers suddenly disappearing.

“Shit,” Ren said, standing back up even as his achy limbs protested.

“We are going to lose contact with the dragon team as well, soon, but that’s to be expected…” Doc said, pressing a hotkey that switched to the trackers on the dragon team.

“This has Watchers written all over it,” Ren said. “What do we do?”

“Nothing, for now,” Doc said. “We can’t exactly go after them until the others get back…”

“We should tell the others, at least,” Ren said. “Give them some warning.”

Doc seemed to think about this.

“They will be safe, in the end. All they have to do is get there. If the watchers show up first, there’s nothing they can do. If we warn them, all we do is provide a distraction from their mission,” he said, finally. His words were spoken slowly, like he was trying to reason it out as he spoke.

“Don’t we owe it to them, though, to tell them?” Ren asked. “If it was me, I’d want to know.”

Doc sighed quietly, light smoke escaping his nostrils.

He pulled his phone out of one of the pockets in his lab coat, and rang someone. Ren pulled around to Doc’s side, and Doc pressed the speaker button. A moment later, the phone was picked up.

“Hello?” said X.

“Is everything okay over there, dudes?” Ren asked over Doc’s shoulder.

“Yeah, we should be arriving tomorrow morning. How are things in the city?”

“Not great,” Ren said. “But that’s not why we’re calling.” He gestured to Doc, who took over.

“Grian and the rest have gone missing,” Doc said. Ren heard X take in a sudden breath on the other end of the line.

“Any idea what’s happened?” he asked.

“We’re thinking Watchers,” Ren said. “They’ve been radio silent over here, so you guys watch out.”

“I can send a couple people back to go see,” X suggested.

Ren glanced in Doc’s direction.

“That’s an idea,” Ren said into the phone.

“You’ll be alright with fewer people?” Doc asked.

“Hold on, let me go talk to them.” Ren and Doc stood in silence for a moment, listening to the muffled sounds of X discussing with the rest of the group.

“Alright, K and Fallen Angel are on their way.”

*

The crevice was empty except for a couple of real bats, so Grian and Mumbo continued on their way. The sun rose overhead and had started to fall back down behind them before they reached the edge of the dimension.

“The days must be quicker here,” Grian said. Mumbo blinked and joined him looking up at the sky.

“Goodness, yeah,” he said.

Grian walked right up to the barrier and turned to look down it. The vegetation seemed to grow through like there was nothing in the way, but Grian could still see for a good distance.

“Start heading back then, shall we?” Mumbo said, and Grian tore his eyes from the barrier. Mumbo took his silence as acceptance and began to lead the way back where they’d come.

“I was having a chat with Scar last night,” Grian said suddenly, surprising himself. It came out more like he was admitting to cheating than beginning a new topic, and Mumbo turned to look at him with an expression of mild concern. “Well, you know how late night conversations go, we got to talking about some mildly morbid stuff.” Mumbo was still looking over at him, but less like he was concerned, and more like he was waiting for him to continue. “He asked what I wish I’d done with my life,” Grian told Mumbo. “I said I wished I’d told my friends how much they mean to me.”

“Oh,” said Mumbo, like the tension had been let out by that statement.

“So anyway,” said Grian, “You’ve got a nice face, you’d make a good scarecrow, keep the crops safe from the birds, you know?”

Mumbo took a moment to take that in, then let out a laugh.

“Thanks, I think?” he said.

It was nearly dark by the time they reached the inn, and Grian was starving. He could feel the effects of last night’s lack of sleep trickling in, and the first thing he did when they got inside was look for Bdubs. Etho was sitting at a table in the far corner with his supper, and Grian made a bee-line over.

“Where’s Bdubs?” he asked.

Etho let out a quiet chuckle before answering.

“He should be back in a sec,” he said.

Sure enough, Bdubs came down the stairs a moment later. He was still wearing his mossy cloak, but it fell back mostly behind his shoulders now, like a cape. On his front he donned a silver chestplate, and he had knee pads of the same material as well.

“I look like Knight,” he said, when he reached them. “All I need is a sword.” He looked at Etho, and it seemed as if his eyes grew even larger as he pouted. “Pretty please?”

Etho produced a sword made of ice and handed it over. Bdubs took it, then immediately switched it to his non-dominant hand, producing a glove made of moss before grasping the sword again properly.

“Nice,” said Mumbo, who had followed grian across the room. “Where’d you get those?”

“Scar,” Bdubs said. “He’s got a whole stack, as well as a bunch of other things. If we have to fight a wild beast to get out of here, I’ll be ready.”

“Great,” said Grian, sounding more tired than he’d meant to. “Could I get a bit more help staying awake?”

Bdubs eyed him.

“You’re gonna have to sleep eventually.”

“The longer I hold out, the longer until you’re stuck in here with a Watcher.”

“If they wanted to do that, wouldn’t they ‘ve done it before you woke up?”

“The last time I slept was two nights ago,” Grian said, confused.

“I mean when we woke up in here,” said Bdubs.

“I was already awake,” Grian said. All three that were listening stared at him.

“The rest of us sure weren’t,” Bdubs told him. “I’ll help you out, but any longer and it will be super dangerous.”

He tapped Grian on the shoulder, and Grian felt his sleepiness rescind itself.

“Thank you.”

By the time Grian had finished his supper, the sun had gone down, and the first noises of the same creatures from the previous night could be heard outside the front door. The villager who ran the inn had left the bar to drop a heavy wooden beam over the door sometime before the sun fully went down, and now they were stuck inside for the night.

Grian tried to relax, repeating to himself in his head that they were fine, but just as he’d started to think he could maybe believe that, Cub shot out of his seat.

“Has anyone seen Scar?” he asked, loudly enough that the whole room heard it. They all froze, looking around. Grian’s eyes caught on Bdubs.

“He isn’t upstairs?” he asked quietly.

Bdubs shook his head vehemently.

“Fuck,” said Grian, louder than he would have liked to.

“We’ll find him,” said Gem. “I’m sure he’s fine.”

“He was out last night when he found me,” Grian found himself saying, but his stubborn head couldn’t help but feel like this was different.

“I’ll go check if he’s nearby,” Gem said, and promptly fell still. By the time she was back, Bdubs had raided Scar’s stash upstairs and returned with armour and a large number of swords, which he was handing out. Etho was watching this latest development with a slight furrow to his brow.
Grian was handed a sword and tested its weight in his hand. It felt odd, too heavy for him to wield confidently.

“I’ll stick to my fists,” he said, handing it back.

“He isn’t within my vicinity,” Gem said.

“Who here can fly?” Cub asked the room. Several hands shot up. Grian, Mumbo, Pearl and Cub himself were the next round, flying out the upstairs window to do some reconnaissance from above, where no mobs could reach them.

Or, at least, that’s what they thought. No sooner had Grian taken off, but he heard a loud screech that sounded like it came out of Jurassic park. A weird bird-like thing had latched onto his leg seconds later and bitten its sharp teeth into his calf. He rolled over and started kicking at it with his other leg, but no sooner was the first one dislodged, others appeared. Pearl and Cub seemed fine, and Grian couldn’t even see where Mumbo had gone. It seemed these things had chosen him alone as their target.

Giving up on getting anywhere, he returned to the window. Two of the things got in after him before Bdubs closed the window, but Etho and Gem made quick work of them.

To Grian’s relief, one of the weird things that Scar had acquired over the course of the day was a bottle labeled in Scar’s handwriting, ‘Potion of Healing’.

“Do we trust that?” asked Joel.

Grian’s legs were covered in little bites, each bleeding bright red down onto his socks. He took the potion from Bdubs, who was holding it, and downed it in one gulp.

The thing had the texture of if you’d swallowed bubbles, but tasted mildly of strawberry candy. His first thought was that medicine was definitely not supposed to taste that good, and that he should probably not have drunk it, but slowly, as everyone in the room watched, he felt the pain dissipate.

“‘T worked,” he said, out loud.

It was not long after that that Cub, Pearl and Mumbo returned. To everyone’s relief, Scar was with them. He had acquired a gorgeous purple cloak at some point during the day, and had somehow gotten holes tailored to fit his wings sewn into the back in the time since then. His, Cub’s and Pearl’s arms were full of trinkets, and Cub looked mildly ticked off.

It turned out that Scar had accumulated so many things that he could barely support himself, and he’d only been stuck because he’d refused to leave them behind.

“Did you see that zombie last night?” He defended himself after Cub had explained the situation. “It was all covered in diamonds. I can’t just leave this stuff for the zombies to wear.”

They all eventually settled down for the night, six leaving for the other room, and Grian took his place in the windowsill once more.

Chapter Text

This time Scar slept through the night. Grian sat on his windowsill until the first people woke up, then followed them down to another day’s breakfast. He could tell, somewhere in the back of his mind, that he was very tired. Breakfast seemed to take longer than it had the day before. Each second ticked over into the next. He tapped Bdubs on the shoulder when he came down and asked if there was any more he could give.

“Sleep is stronger,” Bdubs said.

Grian was pretty sure they met outside again. BigB had found a cave the day before, and Martyn declared today’s activity exploring that cave.

The trees were moving weirdly. They seemed to jump in front of his face.

“You good, mate?” Mumbo asked. He placed a hand on Grian’s shoulder and Grian jumped.

“Yeah, just a bit tired.” He heard the words come out of his mouth, felt himself form them, but he couldn’t remember having decided to speak.

It was a long walk to the cave. The trees continued to sway, the vampire continued to give him odd looks, and the sun kept trying to take him down. With each step, a new blinding light hit his face. He might have a headache, but that wasn’t important.

Everyone was walking too quickly. Only the vampire and the tall woman were walking with him. Everything took too much concentration. There were stones and leaves on the ground, and the trees were running everywhere.

“He’s asleep on his feet!”

“We’re gonna take him back!”

“No, I’m okay.”

“You aren’t, bud. Let the others deal with this.”

‘If you relax a little bit, I can take over. I’m not sleepy, they’ll let us through.’

Pearl and Mumbo each had a hand on one of his shoulders. They were practically holding him upright.

“I just need to sit down for a moment, I’ve got a bit of a headache. The cave will be better for my head I bet.” He let out an unsure chuckle, and sat down with their help. “That feels better,” he said. The trees were only lightly swaying in the wind. His legs didn’t feel so wobbly.

He got to his feet slowly, smiling awkwardly at the arms Pearl and Mumbo had at the ready in case he stumbled.

“I don’t know what that was, my head feels loads better now.”

“Are you sure? I’d feel better if we went back,” Pearl said.

“Well I’m still a bit tired, but, well I’d rather stay within Bdubs’s power range.”

“Oh, right,” said Mumbo.

He started walking slowly, but once he was sure the world wasn’t swaying, he sped up. Before long, they’d caught up with the rest of the group, and he had to field questions from what felt like everyone. Bdubs stayed away, but he was watching. He looked… a little angry, but it wasn’t clear why.

He felt the last bits of his headache disappear the moment they reached the cave. It was cooler than outside, and the darkness was refreshing. BigB led the way as far as he’d gotten before he’d decided to turn back, and they continued past that point. A few people had actual torches, and fire lit the way ahead.

The cave ended in a large-ish cavern, where, seated at the far end, there was a skeleton. Whoever they were, they had been dead a long time. And apparently, they held the secret to a portal out of here.

Martyn stepped forwards first, and went to open the bag that sat beside the skeleton. It disintegrated in his hands, revealing a pile of little black stones. Obsidian.

“Well would you look at that,” said Martyn. “We only need a bit more than this for the portal.”

He was wearing a little leather satchel that Grian hadn’t noticed, and he started to pile the stones inside.

“I wonder who this was,” said Lizzie.

“Someone in the same state as us,” said Joel.

‘Soon they’ll be able to leave! But if the players leave, we cannot watch. They will spread their evil ideas, they will ruin everything!’

“The players aren’t allowed to leave.”

Martyn swung around to face Grian, but found himself face to face with Xelqua instead. Xelqua reached for the bag, and Martyn held it out of his reach, scrambling back out of the way. But Xelqua was faster. He grabbed Martyn by the arm, but the bag was gone.

Throwing Martyn to the side, he spun around. The rest of them were spread out, with their weak ones in the back, and the rest holding their weapons at the ready. Scar had flown upwards, out of the reach of Xelqua on the ground. Xelqua decided that this one would go first. He soared upwards, grabbing the struggling vex out of the air by his legs, and throwing him down to the ground. Scar reacted before the impact though, somehow pushing himself back up into the air. Xelqua was above him now, though. He dove down, landing a fist right in the hero’s chest. This time, he hit the ground, wheezing.

When Xelqua made to follow him, the others got in the way. Swords whacked at his legs and his wings. He batted them out of the way. They’d get their turn.

“Hey!” The vampire, Mumbo, was standing far too close, like he was asking to be killed. “Hey, If you kill him…” his voice wobbled, and Xelqua paused. This was fun.

“You’ll do what, bite me?” Xelqua asked, letting his laughter fill the room.

“I can’t do very much, no,” said Mumbo, and he sounded more confident now, even though he was speaking very fast. “But if you kill him, you’ll never get him back. He’ll be gone forever.”

Xelqua laughed once more. He turned back toward Scar, who was mostly on his back, seemingly trying to lift himself up by his elbows. He walked forward, raising his hand in preparation for a dramatic moment, and felt the wind blow out of him like his sail had been cut.

If Scar died, he’d never get to run for mayor, he’d never get to ask his crush out… Grian couldn’t remember the other one. He sank to his knees, and crawled towards Scar. Someone put a hand on his shoulder, trying to hold him back. He let them. He didn’t deserve to run to Scar, not when he’d done that. He’d given in so easily. He was vaguely aware of Mumbo running forwards in his place as sobs wracked his body. The hands on his shoulders loosened, and he sank even further to the ground.

“Grian?” Etho asked, close to his side. Grian jumped, slightly, and his tears turned to a hiccup.

“I was going to kill him,” he said, his voice barely more than a croaky whisper.

“But you didn’t.”

“Is everyone okay? Did I hurt anyone else?” He hated how pitiful his voice sounded. He was making them think he was better than he was. Why was no one angry?

“Martyn’s a bit banged up, but he’s alright.”

“I guess you were right,” came another voice, from Grian’s left, away from where Etho was sitting.

“What?”

Bdubs came into view, looking down at him.

“As soon as you fell asleep, the Watcher took over.”

“I shouldn’t have given in, I’m so sorry.” His breaths were coming in in deep shudders, threatening to turn once again to sobs.

“Hey, no. Falling asleep is not your fault. It’s a thing our bodies do.”

“I should have been able to last longer than that! Two nights? I’m pathetic!” he saw speaking louder now, needing them to understand.

“We are not pathetic for needing to sleep,” Bdubs said. “I will not hear that kind of language in my house.”

“Your house?” Etho said quietly, humor in his voice despite the situation.

“It’s a figure of speech,” Bdubs said, crossing his arms.

“I mean, it’s your house now,” Etho said, with a shrug.

Something about them bickering in the midst of everything made him feel lighter. He felt his breaths begin to calm, and his eyes cleared of tears. Scar was still lying where he had been, and he didn’t seem to be trying to sit up anymore. Mumbo was holding his hand and speaking to him, but he didn’t seem too upset, which Grian hoped meant that Scar would be okay.

“Can I go see him now?” he found himself asking, in a whisper.

Etho and Bdubs paused and turned to look at him.

“What?” asked Bdubs.

“Can I see him?”

“Scar?” Etho clarified, and Grian nodded. The snow hero stood and walked over to where Scar was, crouching down to speak. He returned moments later, and Grian felt his heart race in anticipation of the response. “Scar does not hate you,” Etho said. He held out a hand and helped Grian get to his feet.

Both he and Bdubs stood back, though, as Grian walked towards Scar. He hesitated at Scar’s feet, catching Scar and Mumbo’s eyes in turn before looking away.

“What made you change your mind?” Scar asked in a raspy voice.

“You never got to run for mayor,” Grian said, quietly.

“Oh,” said Scar. “You know, the mayor thing was kind of a joke, so if you’d like to go back to your murderous ramp- rampagne-ramp- oh whatever.”

“And you never got to ask your crush out,” said Grian, even more quietly.

For some reason, this struck Scar as being funny, and he started laughing. He’d barely made a noise before it switched to a horrible cough, which quickly sobered him up.

“Well it's a good thing I don't hate you now, or that one would be over too.”

It took Mumbo saying “Oh my gods,” for Grian to wrap his mind around what Scar had said.

“Oh,” he said.

Scar blinked, then seemed to be the last of them to figure it out.

“Shit, didn’t mean to say that,” he said. “Well I guess that’s over with, too, now. You can just kill me.”

Grian looked between the two of them. Mumbo had turned bright red and wouldn’t catch Grian’s eye.

“How do you not hate me,” he asked.

“Because it’s not you that does all those things,” Mumbo answered. “It’s stupid Xelqua.”

“But Xelqua is me! The mind control machines don’t even work on me!”

“Those machines started turning you into Xelqua.” Grian realized how loudly he had spoken when Etho replied.

It was true, though. And some small part of his brain, pushed into a corner, started to believe them. And that was enough.

*

“There are no signs of a struggle, no signs of where they went, nothing,” Skizz told Doc. They had searched the base high and low for hours, but it was as if everyone had vanished.

“You might want to look at this,” Keralis said, behind him. Skizz turned around. There was a purple spark that seemed to be floating in mid air. As they watched, it got bigger.

“Hold on, something is happening,” Skizz told the phone.

The spark grew to a weird flame that seemed to bubble slightly, still floating in the air in the middle of the room. As they watched, a hand reached through, then another, and together they pulled the sides of the flame apart, until it opened into another world.

“There is a Watcher, opening some kind of portal,” Skizz relayed to his phone. He caught Keralis’s eye and they both prepared themselves. Then, the portal opened wider, and Skizz saw the missing team looking through.

Etho was first through, then Gem, and they both turned around to help Scar through next. One by one, thirteen people stepped through the portal. The watcher was last, and the portal closed behind him as soon as he’d fallen through. He shrunk down over the next second, until Grian was sitting there, taking a deep breath, and accepting Gem’s offer of a hand up.

“Everyone is back,” Skizz told his phone.

“What do you mean?” Doc asked, on the other end.

“They just walked through the portal, pop. I don’t know any more than you, dude,” Skizz said.

Someone called his name, and he found himself kneeling next to Scar.

“A couple broken ribs, nothing I can’t fix,” Skizz said, after his examination.

“I had a healing potion,” Scar said through a grimace, “but it was needed already.”

“I told you to bring more,” Skizz told him, holding his hand above the damaged area. It began to glow a faint blue as his magic worked its way into Scar’s ribs.

“I had to make new once we got there, they stripped me of all my stuff,” Scar replied.

“You made that potion?” Grian asked, standing a bit back from the proceedings. “We all thought you traded for it.”

“Traded for the stuff,” Scar said.

“Okay, be careful with them, but I’ve done what I can,” Skizz told Scar, removing his hand.

*

They caught the train straight back to the city. Pearl, Joel, Lizzie, Scott, Martyn, Jimmy, and BigB all came to the station, but most of them had decided to stay back. Martyn boarded the train alongside them, and Pearl came too.

“It’s time Joel earned his hero name,” she said, when she announced she was coming with. The rest all had their own obligations. Jimmy had the Canary to look after, which it turned out he owned and managed. BigB was in a similar state, eager to head back to his bakery and make sure things had gone okay in his absence. Lizzie and Scott both taught at the university, and had to return to their work as well.

“I’ll try to keep in touch this time,” Grian said to Lizzie on the platform. “I’m sorry we aren’t staying for your birthday.”

“Well if you vanquish the Watchers in three days, I’ll be expecting you,” she said.

“I’ll let you know if we do,” Grian agreed, before following the rest onto the train.

Chapter Text

Scar took the aisle seat opposite Grian and Mumbo. Grian had been treading on eggshells around all of them since that morning, and Scar honestly didn’t blame him. As much as they’d all tried to convince Grian that it wasn’t his fault, it was a complicated situation, and Scar could see himself feeling the same way in Grian’s shoes. He had some experience with people blaming his actions on his vex heritage, and he’d spent a lot of effort proving that he was a villain in his own right. And not an evil one at that. He’d started out his career trying to make things better, to be a sort of Robin Hood character, stealing from the rich to give to the poor. Apparently, that wasn’t hero behaviour. Wizard had been his second attempt.

On the train, Mumbo was trying to convince Grian to sleep. Scar had never met someone who had a less healthy association with sleep than the man in the opposite window seat. Mumbo was reminding him that they’d gotten him out of the watcher state before, and that he needed more sleep than just letting his mind rest while Xelqua took over on a hike. Grian’s brow was furrowed like he was thinking very hard. He seemed to give in though, leaning back in his seat stiffly, with his eyes closed. If Grian hadn’t been likely to pass out from pure exhaustion, Scar would have bet all his money on him staying awake the entire train ride.

As it was, only a few minutes after he gave in, Grian relaxed into Mumbo’s side, looking a lot more peaceful. Mumbo didn’t seem to know what to do with himself, but the look on his face as Grian slept on his shoulder was as clear as day to Scar.

Scar tore his eyes away from the two of them, looking instead past Cub out into the fields they were racing past. Cub was reading some scientific article on his laptop, relaxed and deep in concentration at the same time. Scar adjusted himself. He hated sitting in moving vehicles, it caused some of the same pain as actually putting weight on his legs. Because of the way his vex wings made him weightless, flying was the least painful way to be.

Unfortunately, his only distraction at the moment was his thoughts, and those were preoccupied with the should-have-been-obvious-fact that the reason Grian had changed the subject when Scar had accidentally revealed his crush was because he was trying to subtly let him down. At least he didn’t seem to be bothered by Scar’s affections. Though that could just be because he was too tired to think about things clearly.

But there was no point dwelling on this while the man himself was sleeping. Scar turned his thoughts to the design of the mural he was planning for his and Cubs’ apartment when he got back.

*

Grian was woken out of a deep sleep by Mumbo calling his name.

“We’ve arrived in Boatem, time to get off,” Mumbo said when Grian had stirred. Grian yawned as his brain slowly woke up, and he followed Mumbo and the others off the train in a sleepy haze. It was pitch black outside, and they all headed into the train station to find seats and wait for their connecting train.

Grian had had a full night’s sleep on the train, but his body seemed to be demanding more. Still, by the time most people had sat down in the corner of the nearly empty train station that they had sort of claimed, Grian was more awake.

Bdubs was the one who appeared the most affected by their decision to take overnight trains in their rush to get home. As soon as Etho took a seat, Bdubs sat next to him, then promptly lay down over a few seats with his head in Etho’s lap, and went back to sleep.

Etho himself didn’t seem inclined to sleep. In fact most of them stayed awake. Cub was glued to his laptop screen, reading at breakneck speed through something Grian couldn’t see. Pearl seemed comfortable, doing something on her phone with her legs crossed in front of her on the chair. Gem, Skizz and Keralis were talking animatedly about something in a corner, and the rest just seemed to be sitting quietly. Grian sat down not far from Etho, and let his head rest on the wall behind the seat.

When Grian next woke up, it was still pitch black out. The analog clock on the station wall said it was just about three in the morning, though he wasn’t sure how accurate it was. More people were napping now, and it seemed Etho had been left to keep watch.

Grian got up and got himself a packet of crisps from the vending machine on the other side of the train station. From there he could see a TV that silently broadcasted upcoming trains. It had the time in the corner. It seemed the clock on the wall was an hour ahead. Their train was set to arrive in the next twenty-five minutes. Grian opened the crisps away from his sleeping friends - and they really did all feel like friends now. It surprised him, when he thought about it, how little time it had been since some of them had been acquaintances at best.

Grian pushed the exit door open and stepped out onto the platform. The chilly breeze that ruffled his hair felt nice. It helped to wake him up the rest of the way. Darkness seemed to stretch out forever all around him. The station was an island of bright yellow light in a sleeping world. Grian couldn’t decide if it felt peaceful or off. He finished his crisps and threw the packaging in the trash before stepping back inside.

*

It was still dark when they pulled into the station in the city. Grian had stayed awake for the final leg of the journey, lost in thought now that his brain wasn’t begging as much for sleep. Ren was waiting for them outside the station, and in the light of the street lamp he was standing near, he looked exhausted. There were bags under his eyes that hadn’t been there when they’d left, and he had less pep in his step.

Doc was waiting in the nearest entrance to his tunnels, a fake manhole cover. They headed back to the library base, where Doc offered everyone a cot in one of the back rooms.

“Who’s out patrolling?” Etho asked, as the room emptied.

“Zombie and Joe. They’ve been taking the nights and I’ve been taking the days, for the most part,” Ren said. Etho nodded and set his tiny duffle bag down on the table.

“I’ll suit up and join them,” he said. He shot Grian a questioning look, and Grian nodded. A few minutes later they were walking along the rooftops of a row of old apartments. It was a quiet patrol, conversation wise. They didn’t run into Zombie or Muppeteer, but there was plenty of nefarious activity going on. A string of storefronts had been set on fire, and there was a ring of street fighting happening right in the open, as if to taunt them. By the time the sun made its appearance and they finished their loop, Grian had had the most unrelated-crimes filled night of his career. There was no doubt the city was struggling with its sudden lack of heroes. There were certainly signs though that the civilians were doing their best - the man who’d strung hoses down to the fire before the overwhelmed fire department got there was a notable example.

When Grian and Etho returned to the library, breakfast was mid way through. Scar, Cub, and Skizz were gone by their arrival, and Bdubs, Gem, and Keralis headed out when they saw Grian and Etho were back.

Doc served them steaming plates with eggs and bacon and hashbrowns that he and Ren seemed to have cooked together. Grian dug in, famished.

After breakfast, Doc offered both of them the cots again, but Grian was still far from tired and Etho shook his head. Grian had no idea when the icy hero had last slept, but he seemed perfectly fine.

“I suppose we should get on with it, then, and have our little meeting,” Doc said, looking around the table. Grian hadn’t known this was the plan, but Mumbo, Martyn, Pearl, and Ren all seemed to be filled in. He followed them into another of the library’s basement rooms, where Doc seemed to have set up an office in their absence.

It was a rather small room, filled to the brim. Doc’s cot was in one corner, behind the door. Opposite the door was a desk that had the signs of having been salvaged from Doc’s old hideout. It was overflowing with maps and sticky notes, spread out like a tablecloth and just missing the red string. The only light other than the monitor at the back of the desk was coming from grow-lights on a metal shelf on the opposite side of the room from the cot. There were several healthy tomato plants winding up scaffolding set up in their pots. Grian supposed they must have been rescued from some untouched hidden part of Doc’s old hideout.

They all crowded in, and Doc turned on the fluorescent ceiling lights, which somehow managed to make the space seem even smaller. Ren sat down at the foot of Doc’s bed, and the rest of them formed a sort of semi-circle around the walls of the room.

“Grian,” Doc said, when everyone had stopped moving. “How, exactly, have you seen a Watcher be taken down?”

Grian supposed that he should have seen this question coming. He was glad Doc had waited until they were in a far smaller group.

“I’ve seen it twice now,” Grian said.

Growing up, Grian had had full control over his powers. Their use had been drilled into him, and he had been taught to never, ever, fully turn them off. A watcher without their powers was nothing.

Mumbo had never seemed to mind the way Grian’s powers fed off of games. They’d grown up together: vampires and watchers had a sort of understanding, and their friendship had started with playdates arranged by their parents. Grian bet his parents wouldn’t have done that if they’d known what the friendship would lead to.

It had started with a game, as all things with Watchers tend to. Mumbo had come up with a game that basically consisted of breaking into his computer. It had started with his password written on a sticky note and hidden in their apartment. Slowly, it had progressed, as Grian learned some basic coding, into a sort of virtual escape room. One day, when Mumbo had been in the middle of writing his most complex code yet, he’d had to take a break. He’d left the computer open, with a sticky note telling Grian it wasn’t ready yet. Grian, with his infinite prowess, had decided he could break in anyway. And he’d thought he had, only for a rickroll to play as soon as he’d typed in the password he’d found. Mumbo hadn’t even been in the house, yet his simple trick, meant as a joke, had forced Grian’s powers off.

It had only been later that he, and the rest of the Watchers, had discovered that he still had access to his powers. It was just some block in his subconscious that stopped him from using them. Grian had been disowned, Xelqua had been born, and slowly Grian had started to see how awful the watchers truly were.

“The second time did something as well,” Grian explained, after he’d filled everyone in. “I have access to some small portion of my powers again.”

He’d discovered this when they’d returned to the village in search of more obsidian. Scar had charmed the villagers into revealing their secret stash of the stuff, then he’d traded for just as much as they needed to finish the portal. The Watchers being Watchers, there had been an extra amount of magic poured into stopping them from opening the portal. What they hadn’t expected was for Grian’s powers to kick in when he tried as a last resort to pull it open with his own bare hands.

“Mumbo Jumbo, the man who has taken down a watcher twice,” Ren commented, when Grian was finished.

“Well the first time it was an accident,” Mumbo mumbled.

“But both times it was because you are his friend, he let his guard down. We don’t have that kind of advantage with the rest of them, so we’re back to square zero,” Doc said.

“We know it’s possible,” Mumbo said. He was standing to the right side of the desk with his arms crossed and his fingers tapping out a restless rhythm on his arm. He would have looked completely out of place in the small room had Doc and Pearl not also been freakishly tall.

“If I could,” said Martyn, standing near the door, between it and the tomatoes, “Things aren’t as hopeless as you’re making them sound.” He got six people’s silent attention immediately. “I don’t know how much X knew when he suggested it, but it’s an excellent idea to bring a dragon in to fight the watchers. A dragon’s breath is one of the few things that can harm a watcher.”

“In full Watcher form?” Grian asked. He’d been taught that the dragon was formidable, but he had never been taught it could cause harm - only that it wouldn’t let a watcher through into the end cities. That, and he'd been taught they were only legend.

“The end cities never would have survived without that,” Martyn said. “It’s the original purpose of the dragon defended gates. I never knew it was possible to bring one though into the overworld though.”

“Ah, never underestimate the G- redstone,” Doc said, sounding quite proud of himself.

“I only have one question,” Martyn added. “We’re bringing in a big dragon to fight the watchers. How are we planning on keeping it away from civilians?”

“We need an arena of some kind,” Grian said. “We have to take the dragon to an open place where there are no civilians, and trick them into going there.

“So we just have to sneak a giant lizard into some place,” Ren said.

“It should be fairly simple to trick the watchers into going somewhere, though,” Mumbo said. “We plant a purposeful bypass in our encryption and let them into our communication. Let them think they’re going to ambush us at a secret meeting, but really we’ve got a dragon.”

“Rick roll them,” Doc agreed.

Grian felt his cheeks warm up slightly.

“All we’ve gotta do is sneak the dragon in, have the watchers try to ambush us, and then defeat them with the dragon before they can lead it back to civilians,” Pearl summed up.

“Easy enough,” said Ren.

“Great,” said Grian.

Chapter Text

Grian wasn’t very used to entering Scar’s apartment by the front door. The past few times he’d been there before, he’d entered by the fire escape window. The hallway outside the front door was far too typical and plain for someone like Scar. It seemed almost wrong. Mumbo was the one who knocked, and there was a short wait before Scar opened the door.

“Come in, come in,” he said. “I was just entertaining the poor Queen Jellie.” He had the cat in his arms, and Grian wasn’t entirely sure how he had opened the door with her occupying both his hands.

“You know I haven’t forgotten you stole that cat from a burning building,” Grian said, as he and Mumbo stepped inside and the door shut behind them seemingly of its own accord.

“Don’t think so lowly of me, Grian,” Scar said. “That was not a good place for our queen.” He adjusted the cat until he could scratch under her chin. She leant into it, purring.

Scar led the way down the hallway to the door that led into the kitchen and the living room. He set Jellie down on the couch and turned to the kitchen as she hopped to the ground.

There was a mildly awkward silence as Scar made them both tea and himself a cup of coffee. Grian fiddled with his nails. After the meeting, Etho had left to finally sleep and Grian had learned that Scar and Cub were back at their own apartment. He’d shot a message to Scar and they’d both headed over. Now, Grian was aware that they were alone for the first time since Scar had accidentally revealed his crush. Grian wasn’t ready to make any life altering proclamations. His own thoughts and feelings weren’t nearly so jumbled in his mind as they had been, he knew that what he felt for both Mumbo and Scar was more than platonic, but everything was so crazy at the moment that he needed their friendships to stay exactly the same, one thing he could rely on in the chaos.

When their drinks were ready, they all migrated to the living room floor, where Jellie was sitting waiting to be ambushed with love.

“What exactly do you mean, that Jellie’s old place wasn’t good enough?” Grian asked, trying to steer the conversation in a slightly easier direction.

“They had her in a tiny cage,” Scar said, and it looked like he wanted to elaborate but decided against it. “Some people do not deserve pets.” He paused, frowned slightly, and seemed to steel himself. Grian raced through topics in his head.

“So we’ve got a plan to defeat the watchers, or at least the beginnings of one,” he said, slightly too quickly to be natural.

“That’s good,” said Scar. “Before we talk about that, though, I wanted to apple- apologize.” Mumbo frowned beside Grian, and Grian felt his chest stiffening. “I didn’t mean to make things awkward back in the cave. I don’t want to come between you two.”

“You didn’t… come between us,” Grian said, not entirely sure he understood Scar’s meaning.

Now Scar looked confused too. They both stared at each other for a moment, trying to figure the situation out.

“Are you two not secretly together?” Scar asked suddenly.

“Wh-what?” said Grian, at the same time that Mumbo made a noise halfway between a noise of questioning and clearing his throat.

“Ah, my bad,” Scar said, still looking confused.

There was a third-trimester silence. Grian felt like someone was approaching a balloon with a needle and he needed to brace himself for the pop.

“I, uh, need a moment,” he said, getting up and swiftly opening the fire escape window. He stepped out onto the old metal, taking a deep breath of fresh air. He resisted the urge to take flight.

Grian wasn’t sure how long he stood there for. His tea, left behind on the living room floor, had surely gone cold and/or been licked by the cat though. Eventually, someone knocked on the still open window, and Grian turned back towards the inside. Mumbo pulled himself through and came over to stand beside Grian.

“We’re all being spoons today, aren’t we,” he said quietly, like he was commenting on the weather.

“I don’t want things to change,” Grian said, the cool air having loosened his tongue. “At least, not while everything else is so…”

“Pants?”

“Yeah.”

Mumbo nodded silently. There was a row of pigeons standing on a roof that looked too steep to hold them opposite the fire escape, and both Grian and Mumbo stared in their general direction for a few moments.

“No matter what your answer would be, I think, the response would be positive,” Mumbo said, quietly and cryptically.

“Are you sure,” Grian asked, daring to turn and look his best friend in the eye.

“Fairly certain,” Mumbo said, and there was something so open in his expression, like he was talking about himself rather than a situation between Scar and Grian.

“Oh,” said Grian, putting two and two together.

“Yep,” said Mumbo, his entire face starting to flush red.

“And if my answer was both?” Grian found himself saying.

“I mean, I don’t know about him, but I would be more than happy with that outcome,” said Mumbo. He glanced inside and Grian followed his gaze. Scar was sitting exactly where he had been before, cat on his lap, clearly avoiding looking at them.

“Right,” said Grian. “Right.” His heart was beating in his chest, building up to something like a cuckoo waiting to pop out of the clock.

He stepped back inside, and repeated himself once more, louder, when Scar didn’t look up. There was something so vulnerable on his face when he did, though.

“These past few days have put me in a lot of weird situations. There has been so much going on, and somewhere in there I managed to realize that I had feelings for two of my closest friends,” Grian declared.

Scar’s eyes widened, and he looked like he wanted to get up, but alas there was a cat in his lap. His eyes flicked over to Mumbo, then back to Grian.

“Is this actually happening? Cuz I’m starting to wonder if I fell asleep.”

“Scar, Mumbo,” Grian said. “When all of this is over, would you both like to go on a date… with me?” His words sounded a bit cheesy, and he cringed, but there was a huge smile growing on Scar’s face.

“It would be my honour, good sir,” Scar said, sounding partway out of pride and prejudice and partway like Mickey Mouse.

Mumbo said a single, slightly breathless, yes, and Grian felt some of the tension in his chest loosen.

*

In his tiny office under the library, Doc was hard at work. It wouldn’t be long until the team in the end would be back, and everything needed to be ready for their arrival. There was, of course, the antenna in the overworld for the team of redstoners to use to calibrate their machine, but a quick message to an old friend had made sure that it was set up the day X and his team had set off. Doc kept a channel open watching for the signal to return showing that someone on the team had stepped back into the overworld. As soon as that happened, they needed to get a message.

At the moment, though, Doc was modifying a particular code to his purposes. The encryption Doc installed on the devices of all who came to him for gadgets was solid. No one had ever broken through it. This was in part because he was a genius and in part because he knew enough villains to hear whenever there was a new threat and modify things before anything could happen. He was just in luck, at the moment, that there was a new trojan on the market. It was just feasible, with the extra stress of everything going on, that he might have forgotten to update his code around it. There was then the issue of making sure the watchers exploited this exactly how he wanted them to.

In the aftermath of the destruction of their old main building, the watchers had simply bought a new one. Don’t ask how Doc knew which building they had bought. He had his ways. The chaos of their move was part of what the heroes had been relying on to get the upper hand. But the watchers had moved far quicker than they’d expected. They were bound to feel good, even though their plan had ultimately been foiled. This was a chess match, not a quick spar. It didn’t feel nearly so good to win easily as it did to play with your food. It was this that Doc was relying on when he loaded his own virus onto a thumb drive.

Once that was done, there was only one thing left to do.

*

Doc had called only half the heroes who were home into a meeting. Grian slid into a chair, and waited. The long table looked empty with so many people in the End. Doc had pulled Mumbo into his office briefly, and Grian rested his chin on his hands as he waited. It wasn’t long before Doc and Mumbo reappeared. Mumbo sat down next to Grian and Doc filled them in on the details of his plan.

“We must appear to be disorganised. They will be watching us closely. If you can, take longer in your fights, fake injuries, practice your makeup.” He pointed to his under-eye bags here. “And if, for the idiocy of the gods you must discuss the plan, do it in person, where there are no devices listening.”

Superheroes, luckily, were used to performance. Part of the job was keeping civilians calm and secure even when you felt that the next fight might take you out. This was just the opposite of that.

And the city noticed. If things had gotten bad when most of the heroes disappeared off the face of the earth for a few days, they seemed fine compared to now. Grian paused on one of his patrols, which he’d taken to doing with Etho now. There was an old stand giving out free newspapers at a bus stop they passed by. Most of these were empty nowadays, but this one had a few copies of the city’s daily paper stacked inside. Maybe there was an old folks home nearby. Curious, he scooped it up.

Of course, they’d made the front page. “Heroes in distress?” the headline asked. It went on to talk about their disappearance and return, then turned to some theories. The most prominent one was pretty spot on. It spoke of the fight in which the watchers had debuted their mind controlled heroes, and speculated that there was fighting going on in secret. They’d figured out that the building collapse was one such fight, and suspected that some heroes had been badly injured, or even killed.

Grian felt slightly sick. He imagined how the city’s normal populace must feel, how scared they must be. He felt, for a moment, like he was playing with them, like he was doing his watcher duties even in his attempt to defeat them.

“It’ll be over soon, eh,” Etho said beside him, so quietly that no one else could have picked it up.

Grian replaced the newspaper where he’d found it, just as the clouds opened and big droplets of rain began to fall.