Sunset came too slowly and yet too quickly.

Gem and Scar climbed his tree to get the full light of the moon. I stayed in the treehouse because they wanted to do it alone.

I was incredibly terrified that Scar would push Gem off the tree, she wouldn't spread her elytra fast enough, she would fall to her death, and not respawn because she wasn't in the Empires. I still didn't trust him completely. I didn't really trust anyone completely, except for Gem, FWhip, and maybe a few other Emperors. Third Life, Last Life, and the Grand Crown had made sure of that.

I paced the treehouse that I now knew was Scar's base. Crystals hung on the walls and ceiling, and there were a bunch of shards in the trash can - failed experiments. Random objects and knickknacks lined shelves and counters, including a diamond in an item frame. It was labelled first diamond.

Was it the first diamond Scar had ever mined in his life?

I certainly hoped not, but anything was possible with that guy.

It was another hour before the two wizards came inside. Gem looked tired. Scar looked energetic. Both were excited.

"This guy drains me," Gem muttered as soon as Scar walked into another room. "He doesn't listen, but he says he wants to learn magic. But I needed him there."

I laughed.

Scar bounced back into the room. "Can we go talk to Grian now?"

We nodded.

The three of us took off on our elytra and went to Town Hall, where Grian was talking to Mini and Tomohawk about the Hermits.

"We have the crystal made!" Scar sang as he ran inside.

That was followed by Grian yelling, Mini and Tomohawk laughing, and several feathers drifting out the open doorway.

Gem and I walked into the living room.

Grian was leading another meeting. Scar seemed to have lost control of his powers in his excitement and accidentally thrown the coffee table at Grian with magic. Thankfully, he had dodged, but was eyeing the table like it was a ghost.

We pulled Scar out of the room, apologizing, and waited out in the hall.

Scar was grinning from ear to ear.

"I'm pretty sure he's high on magic," I said.

"Yup!" Scar cheered.

"I was excited, too, when I got my powers," Gem said.

"Really? I couldn't tell," I said dryly.

I remembered it all too well: flashes of green and purple light, a bunch of things breaking, FWhip chasing Gem around, brandishing the shovel he had been trying to terraform with. It had been loud. Very loud.

I prefer not to think about that day.

After Mini and Tomohawk left the room, we walked in. Scar held up a blue crystal triumphantly. "We have a way! We've got a magical crystal!"

"Not this again," Grian muttered.

"No, but this one-"

"Scar, I know it's fake, and you're going to try to sell it to me. This isn't the time to give people false hope!"

"It's not false hope," Gem said. "It's real. It's as real as the teleportation crystal."

"It's not," Grian insisted, and suddenly, I realized.

Grian didn't like magic. He may have accepted his Watcher status to an extent, but he still feared it, and therefore all magic. It wasn't that he didn't believe in it. It was that he was afraid of it.

I knew how to convince someone how to do something for me or give me something or tell me a secret. But I didn't know how to make someone face their fears.

"I don't have time for this," Grian growled. "Hermits are missing. People could be dying from starvation or worse. I can't afford to waste my time with some fake magic."

He spat the word magic out like an insult.

Gem's gaze darkened. "So you think this is fake?"

She let her ever-present staff's glow intensify.

"Communication, portals, the Admin wristbands, your own powers - you call those fake?"

"Uh-oh," I said.

Gem grabbed the crystal from Scar, who yelped in protest. She slammed it on the (now cracked) coffee table. "This is magic, whether you like it or not. I'm going to use it to find the missing Hermits. You're welcome to join me, unless you're too scared to help the people you've known much longer than I have."

They hit him where it hurt.

Scar whistled. "Buuuurned."

Grian stared at the crystal on the table. The blue gem glowed slightly in a shade of pale blue, the color of the sky on a crisp morning before the sun rose over the horizon.

Grian reached a hesitant hand toward the crystal, trembling just barely enough to be noticeable.

"It's not going to hurt you," Gem taunted.

Grian glared at her and grabbed it. After examining it suspiciously, he reached out as if to put it back on that table - but instead threw it onto the hard wooden floor. The crystal shattered, its glow fading.

Scar, Gem, and I gasped.

"This type of magic isn't possible," Grian said. "We'll find a way. But this isn't it."

He pushed past me and stormed out of the room, leaving only four grey feathers and a bunch of blue shards behind.

"I didn't know he hated magic that much," Scar said, staring at the remains of the crystal.

"Me neither," I admitted. "But he did have a hard time accepting being a... never mind."

Scar didn't know about Grian's secret yet.

"Being a what?" Scar asked.

I shook my head and bent down to pick up the crystals.

The sharp pieces cut my hands, but I didn't stop until they were all in a leather pouch at my belt.

"What now?" Gem asked.

"Now, we make another one and find the Hermits behind his back," I said. "If it's okay with you."

"Ooh, I live to bend rules," Scar said.

I ignored him. "Gem?"

She nodded. "Scar will have to do most of the work this time," she said. "I'll lend a little bit of my power this time, but I'm spent."

Scar pumped his fist.

I took a breath. "Okay. Take two. Here we go."

We headed back to Scar's base. While the wizards made the new crystal, I sat inside and read a random book I found. It was about plants. Kind of boring, but I had nothing better to do.

When they finally came back inside with a new crystal (this one was orange), they both looked exhausted. I insisted they sleep before we do anything.

We all went to bed. For me, it was the first time in a while, and I had even managed to spawn some phantoms. I hoped they hadn't given Scar and Gem too much trouble. Then I drifted off.

I can't contact you when you're awake!

"Oh. You again."

I told everyone else already, and they told you, but remember that you have to work together. You four, Gemini, Scar, Jimmy, and you, all have a power that nobody else has, and that's the ability to touch Watchers.

"I'm not the only one, then."

No.

"But what about Grian?"

He is more of an honorary Watcher. He has the power, but not the physical form. As a result, you can see and touch him.

"This is confusing."

I know. It was for Martyn and Jimmy, the first time. But I have a plan. It will require a sacrifice, and it will cut off Gem and Scar's magic completely, but it will seal the Watchers in the Downside-Up. Excluding that plant magic that Gem has now. That's a Fey variety, not one I am experienced with.

"Not now."

What?

"We're going to find the Hermits first. If this plan will get rid of Gem and Scar's magic, then I want to use it a little first."

A little bit of surprise leaked into my mind before the Listener sealed off her emotions again.

Very well, then. Hurry. We don't have much time before the demons, both physical and emotional, return to the Empires. And I can't contact you for very long. The curse blocks me, and it's getting stronger.

"Wait, WHAT?"

Then, as always, I woke up in a cold sweat just as I was about to get a decent answer.

But this time, it was because of Gem.

She was shaking me. "Wake up, wake up, it's time, we can go find everyone..."

I glared at her. "I was about to get answers."

Gem let go of me. "Did the Listener contact you? What did she say?"

"She said she had a plan to defeat the Watchers, but I told her that we were going to find the Hermits first."

"That's big."

"I know. But I don't really want to hear it until we find them."

"Did she say anything else?"

I hesitated, then said quietly, "A warning. She said something about demons in the Empires."

Gem gripped the edge of the bed. "Xornoth," she breathed.

I nodded grimly. He was the only demon I could think of who had ever been to the Empires, unless Tango the half-demon counted.

Wait.

"Do you think you can dream communicate Tango?" I asked.

Gem raised her eyebrows. "Probably. I could contact you while you were in your death coma."

"I don't know if he'll wake up otherwise," I said.

"Should we do that now?"

"Don't ask me!"

"It was your idea. But did the Listener tell you anything else?"

I bit my lip. "She won't be able to contact me much anymore. She didn't explain why before you woke me up. But she did mention something about a curse."

Gem pulled me out of bed. "We'll figure it out. We've gotten this far, haven't we?"

We had gotten this far with a lot of trial and error, secrets, and death. But I decided not to say that.

We headed out of the little guest house we had built with Scar and met him outside. He held the orange locator crystal in one hand.

"How do I use this?" Scar asked.

Gem shrugged. "You made it, you figure it out."

"Uh," Scar said. "Okay. Um, Iskall Eightyfive."

Grian had told me a little bit about Iskall. He was one of the missing Hermits.

"We made it to locate them and transport us to them," Gem said to me as the crystal started to glow. "You might want to grab on."

I grabbed her hand as she grabbed Scar's, and then we were off.

It was nothing like Watcher teleportation. This was more like floating than falling, and the lights swirling around us weren't as blinding. And instead of slamming down onto the ground, we came out of the world hundreds of feet above it.

We screamed and used our elytra, but Scar's broke at the last second (of course it did, that guy never checked it). Gem and I grabbed his hands to keep him from falling to his permanent death, because we were all outside our registered worlds. If we died, it was over.

"Nooo," Scar said, squeezing his eyes shut. "Noooooo. Why did it put us in the air? I die from falling way too much!"

His added weight was too much for mine and Gem's elytra. We glided down a lot faster than usual.

"River!" Gem yelled over the rush of wind. We angled toward it and managed to land safely.

Dripping wet and rather annoyed at Scar, we clambered onto dry land.

"Oh, no," Scar said.

"What?" Gem asked.

"I can't find the crystal."

Gem and I stood up at the speed of light. "What?"

"Oh, never mind, it's right here."

We sighed with relief.

We finally took a look at our surroundings. There were a lot of mountains, and the river we had just climbed out of winded through a large valley of birch forest.

"There's so much birch," Gem gasped, smiling. But then she frowned.

Scar looked pained and stared at his shoes. "Bdubs and Keralis hated birch."

Gem and I also became interested in the stone beneath our feet.

"Hallo?" a voice said.

We looked up to see a man with dark brown hair and a lime green shirt approaching us. He had a blue eyepiece on his left eye - was that diamond? The green eye that remained widened. "Scar? Gem?"

"Iskall!" Scar cheered.

It was moments like these where I felt extremely awkward.

The two guys gave each other a quick hug. "Where have you been?" Iskall asked. "We've been searching. And worrying. So much."

"So have we!" Gem said.

Iskall looked at her. "What happened to you?"

"Oh, I just returned to my home world, changed back into my wizard robes, got frozen and unfrozen, and then came to find you guys. All in a day's work."

Iskall raised his single brown eyebrow.

"Who's 'we'?" I asked.

Iskall seemed to see me for the first time.

"Iskall, this is my sister, Blue," Gem said.

"She was a Last Lifer," Scar added.

I winced.

"Didn't know you had a sister," Iskall said to Gem.

"I do. It's kind of a long story, but the short version is that I also have a home in the Empires. Blue, and my twin brother FWhip, live there."

"But who else is here?" Scar said eagerly.

Iskall counted on his fingers. "Stress. Doc and Ren. Beef. Zedaph. Hypno. But I think that's it."

"What about Wels? Cub? Etho? TFC?" Scar asked.

Iskall shook his head.

"Do you have any idea where they are?" I asked.

"Etho had a TNT cannon, but I left before he used it. I don't know if it worked, or if he's just floating in space, or if the moon..." he trailed off.

Scar, Gem, and I exchanged sick looks. I didn't know if the Hermits could handle another death.

"We don't know about anyone else," Iskall said. "But what about everyone else? The other Boatem people? Mumbo? Anyone?"

Scar gave a tight smile. "We have Mumbo, Impulse, Pearl, Grian, X, Cleo, False, Jevin, Joe, Gem and me of course, and Tango's still unconscious but we think we have a way to wake him up."

"Unconscious?" Iskall said.

"He exploded," I said. "I found him floating in the Void with a lot of burns and stuff. Now, according to Grian, he's been muttering about rabbits. We don't know what happened to him."

"Wait, GRIAN-"

"He's alive, yes," Gem said.

Iskall stared at us with wide eyes. "Wow. Okay. This is kind of a lot to take in. You know where most of the Hermits are, Grian's alive, and only seven are still missing."

"Four," Gem corrected grimly.

At first, Iskall looked confused. "What... oh."

"Bdubs, Keralis, XB... they're..." Iskall said fearfully. "...gone?" He whispered the last word.

We nodded solemnly.

"You'd better come see the others," Iskall said, his voice hard.

"Do you have an Admin?" I asked, my inner FWhip acting up.

Iskall nodded, all signs of cheerfulness gone now that he had the news. "I have an old Admin wristband from Kingdomcraft. I'm temporary Admin until we find X, but you said you've already found him."

"We have," Gem said.

Iskall led us to a large stone area on the edge of the river, then typed something into his communicator. We sat down on rocks and waited, deciding not to talk much.

A few minutes later, the first few people came over in boats and on foot. Then I realized they were the only people in the world.

The ones in boats arrived first, climbing out of their vessels and up the steep slope to where we were.

"What is she doing here?" someone complained.

I turned to see Ren, arriving on foot.

"Hi," I said.

He glared.

I smirked. "Where did your glasses go, Ren?" I resisted the temptation to pull them out. It gave me immense satisfaction that he hadn't gotten a new pair yet.

Ren fumed and turned away.

Gem grabbed my arm. "Blue, no," she warned.

"He's the one who can't decide which side he's on," I said.

"Shut up," she hissed.

"He'd get along great with Joel if they hadn't been enemies in Third Life."

"Blue."

I stopped.

It wasn't long before the rest of the missing Hermits arrived.

We gathered in a large circle.

"What are we here for?" a guy who seemed to be half creeper, half cyborg said. "I want to get back to the villagers."

The other Hermits gave him strange looks. I figured most of them hadn't been here long enough to get villagers yet.

"Well," Scar said, stepping out dramatically from behind a tree. "I think you're here because we're here."

I let out a mental sigh.

"Hi," Gem said. "You guys know me. You know Scar. Some of you know Blue. This is Blue." She pointed to me. I waved halfheartedly.

"We've got good news, better news, and really bad news," I said. "Which do you want first?"

"Let's get bad news over with," a guy with honey blonde hair and a brown shirt said.

Gem bit her lip. "We've been looking for all the Hermits to gather them back together," she said. "But there are three - that we know of - who... who didn't make it."

The Hermits let out gasps, cries of alarm, and sobs. "Who?" a girl with short brown hair, and warm eyes of the same color asked quietly.

I waited for Scar or Gem to answer, but when they didn't, I said, "Bdubs. Keralis. XB."

"You're lying," Ren accused.

I looked up at him, silently daring him to challenge me. "Why would I lie about this, Ren? I'm not the one who started a war over a crown."

"Unless you're talking about the Grand Crown," Gem said. "You kind of started that war."

I didn't answer. I just kept glaring at Ren. He glared right back.

Scar stepped in between us. "We have important things to talk about! The Red Winter War is in the past. We need to work together."

I humphed and looked away.

"They're really gone?" A guy with a bloody apron said.

Scar nodded.

"But what about everyone else?" The blonde guy with the brown shirt said.

"Wels, Etho, TFC, and Cub, we don't know," Gem said.

"But the rest of the Hermits are fine," Scar said. "They're searching the remains of Hermitcraft for you guys, though."

"Do they have a world yet?" The creeper guy said, folding his arms.

"They're - we're not registered yet," Scar said. "But yes, they have bases in a world called Gateway."

"And where are you from?" The brunette girl said, turning to me. "Do you live in Gateway, too?"

"The Empires," I replied. "Gem is from there too."

"Too late to blow up your base now," Ren said bitterly. "It was already gone."

Gem smiled. "I was never going to blow up my base. Neither was Pearl. We were just giving you a hard time."

I had no idea what that was about, but the look of anger on Ren's face was worth it.

"That's the best news," I said. "Most of the Hermits are alive."

"Why aren't they here, then?" Iskall asked.

Scar held up the crystal. "They don't know we're here. We made one of these, Grian smashed it 'cause he doesn't like magic, and now we've made another one against his orders and come here."

"Grian?" several Hermits said at once.

"That's the good news," Gem said. "He's alive, although he has gone through a few changes."

Puberty, thirteen-year-old me said in my head, then burst into mental giggles.

"Less pranking," Scar said. "He's more serious now. I don't know what happened while he was gone. Blue won't tell anyone. But he's alive, at least. He and Xisuma are working together to lead the people at Gateway."

"I could see Grian leading, honestly," Iskall said.

"The Civil War," the brunette girl supplied.

"The Turf War," Ren added.

"Pretty much every organized event in Hermitcraft," Scar said.

The Hermits nodded in agreement.

"Who's still missing?" a guy with pale brown hair, eyes so dark they were almost black, and a black bandanna said.

"Etho, Cub, Wels, and TFC," Scar answered.

"Only four," Doc said.

"You're not the only one who can do math," Iskall said, then hesitated. "Wait, maybe you are."

Nobody laughed. There was a long silence.

"It doesn't seem real," the butcher guy said. "Bdubs, Keralis, XB... they're really deleted?"

"Yes," Scar said. "We've found their bodies and everything."

Tears ran down most of their faces.

"Can you... can you bring us to the rest of them?" Iskall asked.

"We can," Gem said. "Right now, in fact."

"We don't have the transport crystal, so we're going to have to use this," Scar said, holding up the locator crystal. "Everybody, grab hands."

"Wait," I said. "What if we land in the air again?"

"What do you mean?" Gem asked, confused.

"We're the only two with elytra," I said. "We can't carry everyone. We could barely carry Scar between the two of us."

"That's a problem," Gem said.

"We could go to the End," I said.

"That would take a long time," Iskall said. "Most of us don't even have any diamonds yet. Except Doc."

I assumed Doc was the creeper guy, because he had full diamond gear.

"Then do it like we did in the Empires, before the dragon was killed, Xornoth came to power, and half of us were yeeted into Last Life," I said. "Just build a flying machine and go right past her."

The Hermits looked taken aback. "But..." Brown Shirt guy said. "But we've always killed the Dragon before we go endbusting."

I crossed my arms. "What matters more, seeing your friends again, or your pride?"

"Seeing friends again," the Hermits muttered.

"How many rockets do you have?" Iskall asked.

I checked my belt pouch. "Not many," Gem answered for all of us.

"So we'll need a creeper farm and a sugarcane farm," Iskall said. "Zed, Doc, stay here and get a creeper farm going. Try to work together. And make it efficient. Zedaph."

Doc and Brown Shirt Guy, who was probably Zedaph, nodded.

"Ren, Gem, Scar- wait, do you have a registered world?"

"Yes, but this isn't it, so if I die, I'm dead," Gem said.

"Same," I said.

"No," Scar said.

Iskall stared at him. "How have you survived this long?"

Scar shrugged. "I built a tree."

"We need to get you guys registered," Iskall said. "All three of you. Gem's sister, you can un-register yourself later if you want to."

"My name is Blue," I said, a little annoyed.

"Okay. Gem, Scar, and Blue will get registered. Then Gem and Blue will join Ren and me endbusting."

"What about us?" The butcher said.

"Come or stay. Whatever. I just need the redstoners doing farms and the fighters with me."

Bandanna Boy, Brunette Girl, and Mr. Butcher decided to stay and help with the farms.

Doc and Zedaph turned to leave. Then Zedaph said, "Shouldn't we introduce ourselves or something?"

Doc grunted.

I immediately sorted him into the "Grumpy" category with Ren, Etho, Joel, and Joey.

"Just call me Doc," Doc grumbled, then continued down the hill.

I moved him to the "Extremely Grumpy" category.

"Zedaph Plays," Zedaph said, glancing apologetically at the rest of us before going after him.

The other Hermits joined in.

"Beef Vintage," Mr. Butcher said.

"Hypno Tizd," Bandanna Boy said.

"Stress Monster," Brunette Girl said.

"Scar Goodtimes," Scar said.

I gave him a playful shove. "I already know you." He stepped out of range, chuckling.

"And I'm Iskall, and I take it you already... for lack of a better word, know Ren," Iskall said.

"I thought I did," I mumbled. "At the beginning of Third Life. Then he got possessed, tried to kill my allies and me, told us to kill him, then seemed fine until he got possessed again and then helped kill me."

"Then got killed," Ren growled. "Speaking of, you're here. You say you know where Grian is. So where's the filthy traitor?"

I hesitated maybe a little too long. "I don't know."

However, it sold to everyone but Ren.

Gem and Scar shot glances at me. STOP STARING YOU'RE GIVING IT AWAY, my brain screamed at them.

Iskall huffed. "This is going to be a long raid."

I couldn't agree more.

—---

Only a few hours later, we were ready. Scar, Gem, and I were registered into the Ninth World that wasn't officially part of the Hermitcraft Realm yet.

Did that mean I was a Hermit? I hoped not, because I was fine in the Empires. I didn't want to live at Hermitcraft as well. It would be too much work to build not one but two bases, to deal with not one but two groups of pranksters, to figure out Realm hopping and how to spend my time and where to be at what time. It would just be too stressful.

We left the Spawn area at sundown, because it didn't really matter when we left. There was no day and night in the End.

However, that turned out to be a mistake, because the stronghold was pretty far. We walked late into the night, fighting off armies of skeletons and legions of zombies as we went. But we managed.

We got to the stronghold as the first traces of dawn were lightening the sky. When our Eye of Ender went into the ground, Scar (who had repaired his elytra with experience from the mobs) dug straight down.

"Scar, no, you're going to end up in a cave..." Gem called down the hole after him.

Two seconds later, our communicators buzzed. Part of being in a registered world meant I had access to the communicator network.

Scar Goodtimes feel from a high place

"That idiot," Iskall grumbled. Then we all burst out laughing.

"I guess we should go get his stuff," Gem said, frowning at the pit.

I looked down and felt the blood drain from my face.

Darkness. A meter-by-meter hole in the ground. And below, a cave.

"I'm not going down there," I decided.

Gem looked at me. "Blue-"

"No," I insisted.

"Are you scared?" Ren laughed.

"Yes," I admitted. I backed away from the hole. "I don't think... strongholds look too much like..."

The Watcher fortress. If they were Dreamstone, the two would be exactly the same.

There was probably a reason for that. But I was too busy trying to breathe to really think about it.

Ren and Iskall looked confused. "Is it claustrophobia?" Iskall asked.

It wasn't, really. It was a lot more complicated than that. But that was the best way of putting it. I nodded.

"You don't have to go," Gem said. "I mean, it's be nice if you came, but you can stay up here if you want."

Ren and Iskall looked like they thought otherwise.

I peered down into the hole again and took a deep breath.

It's just a freaking hole in the ground, I thought. It's not the Downside-Up. Don't be a chicken.

I bit my lip. I was probably still pale. I felt pale.

"I'll do it," I said, even though my gut was yelling at me to stay as far away from that stronghold as possible.

When they claimed into the hole, I hesitated before following. My throat tightened, and my heart raced. But as I stayed in the hole longer, I got used to it. I closed my eyes, pretending I was in a nice, open space.

It didn't work that well, because the air down there smelled weird.

We rode a makeshift waterfall into the cave and lit torches to keep the monsters away. Then we collected Scar's things. Iskall got his elytra after he and Ren debated over who got to use it for endbusting. We divided his stuff between our backpacks to keep it safe until we returned.

It's okay scar, stay there, Iskall typed.

I want to help though!

Hurry up if you're coming, I said.

But it'll rake me all dayy

"Rake?" I snorted.

"Typo," Gem said.

"I know," I said. "Still kind of funny, though."

Just go, Scar typed.

"We'll stick his stuff in an ender chest when we find one," Gem said.

"If we don't die, too," Ren muttered.

"Shut up, we're not going to die," I said.

"Then how will we get back?"

"... Die."

Ren crossed his arms with a smug expression.

"Can you two just stop for five seconds?" Gem said.

We found the stronghold and broke inside.

"Should we split up?" Ren asked.

"Maybe," Gem replied.

"No," Iskall said.

"Definitely not," I agreed.

"You better not be saying that just because I suggested it," Ren said.

I shook my head. "I actually think it's a bad idea. If one of us gets lost, we might not be able to find the others."

Also, I really didn't want to go into the windowless, cramped structure alone.

"That's probably smart," Gem said.

So we went into the stronghold together.

We didn't bother collecting the books from the library, or the stone bricks from the walls, or the iron bars from the doorways. We only had one goal.

It took over two hours to find the portal room. Iskall placed the Eyes of Ender.

The portal lit.

I got flashbacks to the Empires, when a trap by Sausage, Joey, and FWhip had dumped my allies and me into a portal just like this one. After that, I had been knocked unconscious before I could do anything, the Ender Dragon had been killed, Xornoth had come to full power, Sausage and Joey had proven themselves untrustworthy, and Joel, Jimmy, Scott, Pearl, Lizzie, and I had been dumped into Last Life.

My last experience with the End hadn't gone too well.

Gem looked like she had similar thoughts as she stared into the starry gateway. But she was the first to jump in.

Iskall, Ren, and I were right after her.

When we came out onto the obsidian platform, Iskall was pushed off by accident. Lucky for him, Scar's elytra allowed him to get back. He landed, and then the four of us started work on a flying machine for Ren's sake (Even though I would have just left him there).

Gem and I weren't much help. Redstone was not a big thing at the Empires, where we had magic to solve problems with. But Ren and Iskall told us what to do, and we had it finished in no time.

Iskall placed the last block, and then with a chug and the sound of pistons extending, the motor whirred and we were off.

It took a while to get to the Outer Islands, and once we were there, there were no cities in sight.

Avoiding the eyes of endermen, we trekked across the bland endstone islands, using bridges and ender pearls to make it across the large stretches of void.

Finally, Ren cheered, "Over there!"

We looked at where he was pointing, and saw an End City. There was a port there.

"Wings for Ren," Gem said. "Then we can keep going to get some for the other Hermits."

"How many do we need?" I asked.

"We'll need seven pairs if we want everyone to have elytra," Iskall answered.

We made our way to the End City. Iskall went to get the elytra from the ship. Ren was on the ground right below it. And Gem and I went into the City itself to get the Ender chest, loot and shulker shells.

"Do you feel it?" Gem asked as soon as we were out of earshot of the boys.

"Feel what?" I asked.

Gem looked up at the End. "It's hard to explain. Like a connection."

Now that she mentioned it, it was there - a feeling of peace and familiarity, like home. But also, a sense of nostalgia, or maybe longing. And fear - fear of the unknown, of what I was getting myself into.

"This place holds a lot of secrets," I said quietly.

Gem nodded.

We headed into the End City.

It wasn't my first time being inside one, but I had never felt like I did that time. Maybe it had something to do with Last Life, or the Listener, or the Watchers, or all three.

We killed the shulkers at the front, then proceeded to climb the stairs higher and higher into the City. We parkoured up the spiral staircase, slaughtered a bunch of shulkers in the central tower, and used our elytra and the end rods along the sides to climb up.

We found a room with an ender chest.

But we weren't the only ones.

As we walked in, at first all we saw were dark grey feathers. Then the boy turned around and yelped.

Gem screamed, and so did I, when I saw what he was.

He wore a hood that cast his freckled face into shadows. A cloth mask, like the one Etho wore, was pulled down, but the way he hastily put it back over his nose told me it wasn't supposed to be. He had raven hair with a single purple streak in it.

He had wings, but they were much darker than Grian's. These ones also had an indigo tint to them, and they shimmered in the light of the End rods. The rune that floated above his head, however, was identical to Grian's, and his white eyes were similar as well.

A Watcher.

I pulled out my sword, moving toward him to attack.

"No, stop!" he yelled. "I know I'm a runaway, and I'll go back, don't kill me please... wait..."

He yelped again and scrambled backward, panting heavily.

Then I realized he was only about fourteen or fifteen.

"You're Admins," he said, his voice trembling as much as he did.

I pointed my sword at him. "You're a Watcher."

"I didn't know there were more than two," Gem whispered.

"S-stay away!" The Watcher said, huddling into a corner and wrapping his wings around himself.

Gem and I exchanged glances.

He didn't seem evil. He just seemed scared.

But acting scared was one of the best ways to fool someone. And people were usually the most evil when they were scared. Like Martyn.

"Who are you?" I demanded.

"Blue, no," Gem protested.

I didn't lower my sword.

"We're not going to hurt you," Gem said. "Blue, put down your sword."

"He's a Watcher," I growled. "They tore apart our family, Gem."

"And now it's back together, stop it!" Gem grabbed my sword hand and wrenched the blade away.

"Third Life... Last Life... the Downside-Up... it's all their fault," I snarled, pointing at the Watcher.

"Not his!" Gem argued.

I looked darkly at the shivering bundle of feathers that was the Watcher.

Gem walked over to him and touched his wing gently. "I'm sorry. Some of your kind aren't the kindest."

The Watcher carefully lifted a wing to peek at us, then put it back down.

"Blue, stop glaring, you're scaring him," Gem said.

"Better than him trying to kill me," I spat.

"No, you're trying to kill me," the Watcher said, his voice muffled by his wings. "Just like you killed my family. And everyone else."

I sucked in my breath.

"We didn't kill your family," Gem said, her expression one of worry. "Who..."

He raised his wings to glare at us. "Maybe you didn't kill them, but others of your kind did. And now you're here to kill me, too."

Gem opened her mouth, probably to say something comforting. Then she closed it as nothing came to her mind.

"We've lost people too," I said quietly.

"I never should have come here," the Watcher whimpered to himself. "They told me it was dangerous."

"Who told you it was dangerous?" Gem asked. "The Nether is much more dangerous than the End, if you ask me."

"They said that fugitives resided here," the Watcher continued his rant. "They said that Hallene and Xelqua were here, in the End. They warned me not to come. But of course, my stupid pea brain decided to be curious, and now you're going to kill me."

Xelqua... that sounded familiar, but I couldn't quite place it.

"We're not going to kill you," Gem said. "We didn't even know there were more than three Watchers."

The boy looked up suspiciously. "Of course there's more than three, but you already know that because you're hunters! You're gonna put me in a cage and pluck my feathers and stick me in Area 77, and I won't let you!"

Suddenly, his entire demeanor changed. He went from terrified to angry. His eyes burned with hate, and violet energy flickered around his hands.

"Stop!" Gem screamed. "Please, stop! We're scared of you! We really are!"

The boy lowered his hands, the energy fading. "You... you are?"

Gem took a breath. "We are. Before you try to zap us with whatever spell that was, listen to our side of the story. What's your name?"

"... Rege," he said, surprised that we had asked.

Gem smiled. "I'm Gem. This is Blue. We're from a world called the Empires."

"I've heard of it. Do you promise you won't kill me?" Rege asked, drawing his wings closer to himself.

"I promise," Gem said.

"I promise," I said.

Gem sat down on the floor. "So, well, we've never had the best relationship with the Watchers to say the least. We were fine until they put Blue into Third Life with fourteen others. They each had three lives, and once they died, they became a ghost and had to wait out everyone else's deaths."

"I went through some pretty horrible things there," I added. "The Watchers spoke to me in my sleep. They offered me power, which I refused. And then they gave it to someone else."

And now I feel like I should have taken it after all, so that the Empires didn't have to deal with it, I thought.

"Blue came back to X Life, our home world at the time, but she still barely knew anything about the Watchers. She just knew that... well, they had put her into Third Life."

"And I hated them for it," I said. "I still do."

Rege winced.

"We moved to a new world, the Empires," Gem said. "And there was a demon there. It was this whole complicated thing. But right after we killed the Ender Dragon, Blue and the other Third Lifers from the Empires, plus two, were put into Last Life."

"It was even worse," I said. "The Red King from Third Life came back. Then he was betrayed by his best friend, who was working with the Watchers. And then, the Watchers themselves turned up, as well as a way home. Most of the Last Lifers got out. But one of my friends, the Red King's former best friend, and I were held back. We still don't know exactly why. But the world shattered, and the three of us were just floating there."

We silently decided not to tell Rege about the Listener, in case he told the other Watchers about seeing us or something.

"I've heard of Third Life and Last Life," Refe said quietly. His voice was already soft, but now it was practically a whisper. "They even let some of the older people go and watch it. I chose not to. I don't like the sight of Admin blood."

"Me neither," I said.

"But we aren't Admins," Gem said. "We're just normal people. My brother's an Admin. But we're not."

Rege shook his head. "All of you are Admins to us," he said. "The people you call Admins are the ones we call Prime Admins."

"So X is a Prime Admin. FWhip is a Prime Admin... oh, that's scary to think about," I said.

"Keep going with the story," Rege said.

For a brief moment, I felt anger. This was just a story to him? A form of entertainment?

"Next... well, Blue doesn't like to talk about what came next," Gem said, glancing at me.

"Next," I growled, "The Watchers brought my friend and me into the Downside-Up, where we found out that they had imprisoned a few of his friends who everyone thought were dead. So we escaped, but just as we did, one of the Watchers turned up. He wounded me and one other person, and dealt some serious emotional blows as well. While we were there, we also found the third person who had been trapped, the one who betrayed his friend. He was nearly insane. They did things to him, I don't know exactly what. But nobody deserves that."

"I believe you," Rege said, looking horrified.

"What about your end?" Gem said. "We didn't know there were more."

"First of all... who's the third Watcher? You told me about the first two. But what about the third?"

"Their secret to tell," I said.

Rege pouted but didn't say anything else about it. "Fine. A long time ago, Watchers lived in the End. We built these cities. But then the Admins didn't like our power, so they came to the Capital and killed a lot of us. The remaining Watchers escaped to the Downside-Up, where most Admins couldn't go."

"But... most Admins can't hurt Watchers," I said.

"That was a spell we cast right after the battle," Rege said. "There were three members of the Watcher Council. Two escaped. One was a traitor. Her name was Hallene. She decided to help the Admins, even though it would probably get her hunted by both sides. Because of her, the Watchers lost the battle. But Hallene is still alive somewhere. She can reverse the spell that protects us and let Admins hurt us."

Uh-oh, I thought.

"The Council wanted a new third member. In an attempt to make peace with the Admins, they chose one of them to become the new Watcher Three. They chose an Admin named Xelqua, or that was his middle name. I don't remember his first. But then he started to resist the Watchers, so they... well, they killed his friends. Or, they tried to. Hallene helped some of them escape, which was one good thing that she did."

Gem and I sucked in our breath.

"None of the lower-ranked Watchers agreed with what the Council had done. But we couldn't speak up about it," Rege said miserably. "That was just a few years ago."

"Evo," I said. "From our point of view, Gr- Xelqua became a Watcher, and then once they had him, Watchers One and Two just took over."

"Of course, that started a whole new war," Rege said. "The Council said that Xelqua and Hallene are still out there, working with the Admins to kill us all. I wanted to know what actually happened with the First War, that's why I came here. But the Council was right, it's swarming with Admins. If you want to kill me now, go ahead and try."

Gem stomped her foot. "For the last time, we're not going to kill you! But there are people outside who will come looking for us any minute, and they might. You might want to leave."

Rege nodded and pulled out a pickaxe. It was weird to see such an ordinary tool in the hands of a Watcher. He broke a hole in the wall.

"And before you go," Gem said. "We don't have anything against the lower-class Watchers. Just the Council. If you want to live, you might want to warn your friends and family. Tell them to come to the End, or somewhere else. Anywhere but the Downside-Up."

"You've been chosen by Hallene," Rege said fearfully, then flew out the hole he had made, leaving me nauseous and somewhat confused.

"That was a lot to take in," Gem said.

I nodded. "Grian and the Listener are members of the Watcher Council, or used to be. There are more than three Watchers, in fact, a whole society of them. And we killed them off."

"The Admins who lived probably before we were even born," Gem said.

"Should we tell Jimmy and Scar about this?" I asked.

Gem hesitated.

"I don't really see a need to," she said. "We could warn them that more Watchers exist. But Jimmy especially might not take that too well. And our goal still stays the same, defeat the Council."

I nodded and turned to grab what we had come for: the Ender chest.

However, as I put my hand on it, suddenly everything went black.

A bustling End City, with Watchers flying around it on shimmering wings. It was easy for them to get from place to place.

A great battle, with silver and red soaking into the endstone side by side. Watchers fled as legions of wingless soldiers climbed the soaring towers, striking down as many inhabitants of the city as they could.

I stood facing two figures in black, wearing grey robes. I said something unintelligible and waved my hand, sending a burst of magic at my comrades.

A group of people watching as they were teleported to safety, but others weren't. And a feeling of deep regret and anger. Their power had grown, but mine hadn't.

A boy with blonde hair and a green shirt, facing two figures in black. One of my Chosen. A traitor.

A crowd of people in the middle of a battle. I recognized the golden glint of the Red Crown, the dark shimmer of an enchanted Netherite sword. I did nothing to help. I did what I always remembered doing: watch.

The Watchers had told Blue not to interfere. So, naturally, I had to, just to spite them.

Four Chosen, to defeat the people I hated.

Was I using them?

Maybe.

But it was for a good cause.

—---

"Blue, are you okay?"

The room in the End City came back into focus.

"The Watchers are for sure the bad guys," I gasped. "But that doesn't make the Listener good."

"What do you mean?" Gem asked.

I looked at her. "Grey is in between white and black. It's not good, not bad. It's both. The Listener is both."

"Blue, I don't-"

I grabbed my sister's shoulders. "She's been using us, Gem. She doesn't care about most of the Admins. She just cares that the Watchers are defeated."

Gem looked frightened. "We need to get you to a portal."

"I'm telling the truth," I insisted. "I saw it."

"Come on, you can tell me later," Gem said. "We need to get you home." She grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet. I hadn't realized I was on the ground.

Her communicator buzzed, but mine didn't. A message from Jimmy.

Gem glanced at it, then shrieked and let go of me.

She shoved her communicator in front of my face so I had no other choice than to read it.

The shock came too quickly for me to even cry.

The revelation about the Listener was forgotten as I processed the message.

Five words that crushed my soul, and I realized how Gem must have felt when I hadn't come back from Last Life. But this was probably worse. It was definitely worse than Cleo's betrayal in Third Life. It was worse than the feeling after a Boogeyman kill. It was even worse than dying itself.

I think FWhip is deleted.

~~~

:)

-Indigo