Hello there!
As you can see, I'm not dead (yet)
I'm sorry it took me so long to finish this chapter but I wanted to try finishing Grian's Evo series so that I could reference some stuff in future chapters and I completely forgot I had to finish this one TwT
ENJOY~
_______________________________________

BOOM

Doc and X's conversation was brutally interrupted by the sound of an explosion which made the earth shake under their feet.

The two players casted a quick look at each other before storming out of Grian's shop to see what was going on.

There was a little puff of smoke coming from Iskall's Treasure Island and the hermits were already starting to gather near said attraction. When Doc and X arrived the majority of the server was already there.

"What the fu- LANGUAGE" Doc was interrupted by an annoyed JoeHills that of course, even when the server was being attacked by aliens, was still worrying about cussing.

There were shulker boxes scattered all across the island, only half of them remaining in their usual mound and there were many tiny purple embers flickering around it.

The creeper hybrid rolled his eyes and was about to reply when a loud cough coming from the pile of shulker boxes made all the players fall silent.

Some hermits took a couple of steps back while some others brought out their diamond weapons. They didn't know if 'the alien' was aggressive but they weren't taking any chances anyway.

Suddenly a player's head popped out from the shulker boxes. The stranger tried to free himself but tripped and awkwardly tumbled down the pile of blocks instead.

X analysed carefully the player: he had short ruffled black hair and was wearing a blue shirt and some black pants with suspenders, all of his clothing looked torn and dirty and from what X could see, he also had many bruises throughout his body. There was a pair of headphones laying beside him.

X decided to do what a peaceful and welcoming server owner like him would do and walked up to the stranger ignoring the other hermits' warnings.

"Hey, are you alright?" He asked, kneeling down beside him. The boy slowly opened his eyes and then shot up in a sitting position, almost headbutting X in the process.

"NETTY?!" The player looked at the admin standing next to him with a worried glance before realizing he wasn't the person he was looking for

"Hey, you don't look like a girl wearing a lemur costume..."

X blinked

"That's... not something I get told everyday I guess" The admin could hear a couple of chuckles coming from the crowd.

It was then that the strange player started looking around and realized he was being watched by at least fifteen strangers and a creeper guy that was pointing an enchanted trident at him while growling.

At that sight the boy jumped up and shrieked.

"Doc, stop scaring our guest!" Stress exclaimed as she stepped next to the creeper scientist.

"What do you mean by guest?! We know nothing about this guy, he just randomly appeared here!" Doc responded. "Well, that's still no excuse to be rude!"

The creeper man simply rolled his eyes and dug his trident into the ground.

"Excuse my friend, he isn't very trusting with strangers, I'm Xisuma but everyone here calls me X" The admin told the boy as he offered him his hand.

The stranger simply stared at it as a very awkward silence fell over the group.

"You do know what a handshake is... Right?" X said in a desperate attempt to get out of the embarrassing situation they got themselves into.

The boy broke out of his trance and shook his head before grabbing the admin's hand.

"Y-yeah sorry, I simply haven't done something like this in years... You see, my server has been-"

The player interrupted himself mid-sentence and suddenly jumped up.

"Oh right! My server! I don't have time for this, I need to speak to your admin right now!" He yelled while swinging his arms around, making most of the hermits question his sanity.

"Well you won't need to go far then, I'm the admin of the Hermitcraft server."

The boy's eyes lit up

"Hermitcraft server?! I think I've heard about you guys before... Oh yeah! He used to always say how talented the members of this server were!"

"He?"

"My server's admin, although I haven't seen him since..." The glimmer of excitement in the player's eyes slowly faded into one of sadness.

X was pretty confused by the player's reaction and didn't really know what to do so he looked back at his friends hoping that at least one of them would help him out.

Stress was the first one to catch her friend's silent message so she walked up next to him and started talking with the other player.

"Are you alright love? We've seen you fall from the sky and it was quite a fall, wouldn't you like to rest a bit?"

"Speaking of that fall... How did you even enter this server?! It's whitelisted!" Doc interrupted.

"I fell through a portal." The boy responded, as if falling through random portals was something completely normal

"A portal?" X asked.

"Yeah, I've created one using the server pendents' power" As he said that a purple necklace appeared around his neck and the admin couldn't help but notice how similar its energy felt to the other weird magic waves he discovered a few days ago.

Suddenly the pendent started glowing very brightly as three voices were heard from behind the crowd.

"Mumbo Jumbo you are AFK! I'm gonna take that mustache away~"

"Oh for goodness' sake, stop singing the AFK song! You've been chanting it for the past twenty minutes! Iskall, do something!"

The Swede looked at his pleading friend thoughtfully before winking at Grian as a huge smirk appeared on his face.

"Mumbo Mumbo Mumbo AFK~" Grian's eyes lit up as both players started singing together, even louder than before. The redstoner let out a loud groan.

"I swear, if you keep doing this I'll never hang out with you two ever aga-What in Notch's name happened here?!" Mumbo exclaimed as he looked at the mess that was now Iskall's Treasure island.

The other two Architects stopped singing and turned around.

It was then that the boy and Grian locked eyes with each other. 

The stranger shoved X and Stress aside as he stepped forward.

"G-Grian? I-is that really you?!"

"T-Taurtis...?" 

Taurtis broke into a run and tackled Grian with so much force that they both rolled for a couple of blocks.

They got up in a sitting position and started sobbing quietly as they hugged each other.

The hermits were pretty confused and all of them kept sending questioning looks at Mumbo and Iskall but the redstoner didn't even realize it and just continued to stare blankly at the scene while Iskall simply replied with a I'm-as-confused-as-you-are shrug.

After a minute or so, the two players let go of their hug and got back up on their feet

"Taurtis what happened to you? You look like you've been inside a tornado!" Grian asked after taking a closer look at his friend's condition.

"I should be the one asking that question! The last time I saw you you were being kidnapped by the Watchers and now you have fricking wings!" Taurtis exclaimed.

"How about WE ask you a couple of questions since none of us have any idea of what's going on?" X said as he stepped closer to the two.

"Oh yeah, I guess I should give you some answers" Grian chuckled while scratching his head.

"This is Taurtis!" He said as he wrapped one arm around his friend's neck. "He was one of my old server mates and we've been friends-"

"BEST friends"

Taurtis interrupted him with a mischievous tone and Grian just rolled his eyes with a grin on his face, not noticing the weird expression that appeared on Mumbo's face.

"...and we've been best friends since the dawn of time."

X picked up the headphones that were still laying on the ground and handed them to Taurtis.

"Well all of Grian's friends are welcome here." Taurtis took them and put them back on his head smiling.

"Soo... How did you end up here?" Grian finally asked.

"Oh well, Netty and I created a portal with our pendents to escape so that we could go and get some help to- RIGHT! I need to stop getting distracted and focus on the main reason why I'm here. WE NEED YOU BACK ON EVO!"

Grian was taken aback by his friend's sudden panic attack but thought he was just overreacting since his impulsive and exaggerated reactions were what turned him into the avian's favorite Evolutionist to prank (seriously though, Grian was super evil towards Taurtis during Evo, he literally dedicated a twenty minutes long episode to trapping him in a dungeon and making him go through many rooms with different traps in them! OwO)

"Is this why you look like you've been beaten up by a rampaging rabbit?"

Taurtis shook his head and put both his hands on Grian's shoulders.

"This is serious Grian, the Watchers have completely taken over Evo, all the Evolutionists are being mind controlled, even Netty has been taken over by their stupid dark magic!"

Grian's slightly worried look turned into one of pure horror

"W-why would the Watchers do this?! It makes no sense! They said they wanted me so why would they destroy Evo after they already got me?!" Grian exclaimed.

Suddenly his mind was flooded with the nightmares he had in the past months, was that really what happened to his old friends?

"I don't know why they would do something like that but they did! We need you back Grian, Evo needs its admin!"

The rest of the hermits watched the scene, some where confused, other surprised.

"Wait are you saying that you two are from Evo? The legendary Evo?! Grian, how come you never told us you were part of that server?!" Iskall questioned in an attempt to get some more information about the weird situation all of them were in

"I... wasn't just part of that server..." Grian said as he moved Taurtis' arms and stepped in front of the crowd of Hermits.

"I was Evo's Admin"
_______________________________________

Wow! Who would've thought that in a book called "An Admin's Allegiance" that had Grian on its cover the gremlin would be an admin!?
I totally didn't see that coming....
Obvious plot points aside, I want to congratulate with QuarantineSeal for translating all the players' names from the prologue correctly! (I know that Cloudheart translated them too but she didn't write what the names were so I'm not counting it >:3)
Why am I saying this now? Because I can UwU
Welp, that's all for now, I'm going to lock myself up in a room to finish the last 10 episodes of Evo and prepare myself emotionally for the finale since everybody told me it's super emotional TwT
~Star