Chapter Text
After months of looking for any clue on Mumbo’s whereabouts, Grian wakes and tries something that his half-asleep brain conjured - feeling for the magic that surrounded his redstoner friend.
Miracle above miracles, it works. He traces his magic to a small world scarcely bigger than Evo, a dim red glow compared to the burning ball of the claim he has on his hermits, on his family.
He grabs the essentials - armor and weapons, enchanted with spells more powerful than a player would ever be able to cast. Perks of being a species similar to artificial gods.
Setting off, Grian glances back once more at the temporary campsite the other hermits are setting up in the new world of Season 9 - already protected from anyone who dared to harm them thanks to Xisuma - and blips out of existence.
The world is warm. Uninhabited, warm, and green. Tracing the magic on Mumbo resulted in a plains biome, then. Turning around, Grian almost thinks he got the wrong world. But, no, he was being Watched. The weight of the capital letter feels similar to drowning, and Grian thought he was getting better, truly, partially because 2 death games would numb him to the unsettling feeling, but…
Being Watched here is worse. Far too heavy for Quoroth or even Orez. Heavy enough to be-
“Xelqua,” the Cacaphony speaks.
Grian whirls, teeth bared, and sees Mumbo, new Watcher robes pooling around his feet, standing between Xyrstad and Orez. He can feel the waves of fear coming from his mustachioed friend’s mind.
“We have something of yours. Would you be open to our trade proposal?” he continues.
“…What could you possibly want from me?” Grian spits, though he already knows the answer.
Orez smiles, a horrible thing that sends dread down Grian’s spine, and says, “We don’t want much from you, Xelqua - we just want your return.”
The hilt of his sword feels warm beneath his fingertips. He doesn’t remember drawing it.
Orez makes a tsk sound, “Really, Xelqua, it’s not even obsidian. You should know better than to point scissors at people.”
“You are not a person. A person wouldn’t square off someone else’s wings. A person wouldn’t remove another pair entirely.”
They sigh, “Of all the places for Quoroth to run off to… I’m more surprised you let him stay with you long enough for you to hear about that.”
Grian laughs at that, “You wanted us to be brothers - family, right? Well, wish granted.” He threw in jazz hands for good measure.
Xyrstad cuts in before Orez can reply, “Xelqua is not here to bicker with you, Shadow. He is here to make a choice.” Obsidian is at Mumbo’s purple-clad throat, now, “Either you come with us nice and obediently, or we take this convert you’ve claimed and break him.”
Grian grits his teeth. Of course they would target Mumbo - the spoon had taken some of his code and made himself into a Watcher. His eyes are darting frantically around the world, looking for a way out, and Grian speaks, “…Fine.” He lowers his sword to the ground, “You win. But you don’t get Mumbo.”
He steps away from his sword and towards the two Watchers using his friend as leverage. Chin up, defiant as he always will be, and looking straight at where their eyes would be behind the masks they wore. They simply look back at Grian as Mumbo starts crying, “Grian, you can’t go with them..! You fought too hard to give up now, please-“
Grian offers him a melancholy smile, “I’m not giving up. I’m just… getting…CLOSER!- ”
A blast of magic escapes his fingertips, and Xyrstad gets nailed by a ball of purple fire, dropping Mumbo. Orez makes a noise of frustration, hovering between attacking Grian or grabbing Mumbo from where he was currently scrambling down the bluff towards Grian. He doesn’t give them time to make that decision, sending a second fireball toward them.
Orez dodges, drawing their obsidian blade with a flourish. “Bad move, Xelqua,” they spit, then fly towards Grian with the fury of a thousand suns. He whirls, snatching his own sword from behind him, and meets Orez’s with a clang. Parry, dodge, and attack again, sparks catching from the friction where their enchantments met. Orez gets the first blood, a shallow nick to Grian’s cheek. They battle back and forth until Grian manages to split their mask into, exposing iridescent steel-grey eyes. Orez growls and jumps back toward Xyrstad.
Turning his back on the now-maskless Watcher, Grian turns to check on Mumbo behind him. The redstoner’s a sobbing mess, really, “Grian, mate, I’m so sorry for getting captured by them- I-I didn’t think they’d try to take me from the Boatem hole, of all places, considering they’re supposed to live in the end, and-“
Grian cuts him off via a giant hug, specks of tears beginning to form, “Shut up, you spoon. Just let me enjoy this.”
“As much as I’d hate to ruin this touching reunion… Oh who am I kidding I would absolutely love to ruin this moment,” Orez says. Mumbo stiffens, and that’s all the warning he gets before he’s pushed to the side.
It’s all the warning he gets before Mumbo gets hit with the full force of Orez’s magic.
And
Mumbo
Falls.
There’s a strange rushing in Grian’s ears as Mumbo lies on the ground in front of his feet. His mustachioed friend looks strangely serene, eyes closed, body limp.
And then Mumbo’s mind grips Grian’s, in a way reminiscent of the dying world that he gave up to protect his friends, his hermits, his family. But Mumbo isn’t dying, because if he was, then… well, he’s not dying, because Grian said so. Grian’s magic laid in thick ropes around Mumbo, a protection, a claim, a stake challenging the world to even dare to incur the wrath of a Watcher.
Grian can hear shouts, he thinks. Impulse, maybe, and Scar, too? Why were they here on this abandoned world where the Watchers had taken Mumbo?
Another tug and Mumbo is muttering words, the same words, over and over again, “It’s not…your fault, it was never.. your fault…”
A whispered prayer, a desperate plea for only him to hear, over and over… Growing fainter and fainter as the mind that held a twinkle and a quick laugh, the soul that saved the emotional wreck that was Grian, begins to dim.
More shouts. Someone was shaking his shoulder, but he couldn’t be sure who. It’s as if all of the time in the world has compressed into this single moment.
…Mumbo’s words cease, and the blackness beckons the mind that filled the hole in his own. Grian battles the darkness and keeps it at bay even as his own form flickers into something more. Echoes of YOU’RE NOT LEAVING ME fill his mind - he’s done this before, he‘ll do it again - Mumbo is his his HIS-
But the black is too strong, and his hold on Mumbo slips into nothing more than a thread.
With all the tenderness of the day they first met, Mumbo’s mind rouses with a final (not final, never final, he can fix this, he has to-), “You’re going to be… okay without me… You’re… You’re strong…” Mumbo’s mind reaches into his own, pulling him into a mental semblance of a hug, Grian breaking a little more as he catches a minute whisper of, “I love you, G…” He reaches back to return the embrace because Mumbo was here, and they were safe… and catches upon nothing. There is a horrible, horrible void in his head, and the silence is deafening even as his thoughts clamor with gone gone gone GONE
Because Mumbo’s body is in his hands, and his wings are becoming a bleached white. No, no, nonononono you can’t just leave, you can’t just leave me here you’re MINE (But he has, he has, and Grian’s mind is screaming into the void as if it will bring him back.)
He sits for what feels like an eternity, staring at Mumbo’s eyes that will never crinkle with laughter again, will never look at Grian with all the air of a wet cat because he left Grian, he left Grian alone-
And Grian knows why. (He knew, he knew that they needed protection, and yet-)
…He couldn’t fix it. And because of his weakness, Mumbo was gone.
A voice breaks through the fog in his head and immediately Grian shrinks because he knows that voice. He knows it was going to play out like this as he stares into the guiltless gray eyes of Orez, closer than before because this was their plan, their ploy to retrieve Xelqua from the world below and punish him for ever daring to turn away from their kind. Xyrstad merely Watches.
Another voice. Impulse, pulling at his arm, positively screaming that Grian needed to leave now, but he can’t leave, because then Grian will have left Mumbo’s still-quiet mind hiding somewhere in this world.
Orez is closer, and he’d rather die than go back, but he’d rather die than leave Mumbo, because Grian will never abandon Mumbo, never be so weak as to allow Mumbo’s mind to slip from his grasp again, he just needs to find-
“Run! Leave, now!” and Grian’s entire body seizes as Scar (Scar, the eighth-Vex, unable to break the life debt that Grian has imposed upon them both) speaks.
Grian moves. He has no choice.
...Mumbo's body is left behind him.
His mind is screaming now, biting and clawing at the walls that Scar has unknowingly put up again, and he’s trapped and helpless as Orez comes closer to Mumbo’s body.
They pick him up and Grian’s thoughts boil, his running steps slow—
Before the full force of runleavenow hits Grian and his pace doubles as he wails and cries at the walls that force his body to run, that force him to move away from his home, from the spoon that saved him from loneliness, that he was too weak to save. Orez grins, sharp teeth glinting as they cradle Mumbo closer, taunting Grian because they know, they can see the magic on Mumbo and they knew what taking him would do because Grian is broken again.
With that, they return to Hermitcraft. Grian doesn’t remember how. There are more people gathered around them, and Grian knows that he’ll never be strong enough to protect them. How could he bring himself to fight for them, for his family, if he was too weak to save Mumbo when it mattered? How could they trust him when they found out the horrible, horrible mistake they had made by welcoming a monster who hurt everyone he came across into their homes?
…How could they forgive him for what he had caused?
Once human, once Watcher, and now nothing more than a husk trying to reach into the void, Grian screams.