TW: Panic attacks, mentions of torture, mentions of memory altering, just your typical TWs for this story

Eyn looked at X. Despite their previous fear, they managed to speak fairly steadily. "And w- Why would grian hurt me?"

"You were begging him to not hurt you..." X mumbled, but Eyn saw him look away nervously. Did X know? If so, he was horrible at hiding at it... Eyn could feel the words X was repressing almost like a fog around him, but decided to speak a different angle... It'd hurt, but they had to tell X about it.

"... You really don't know." Eyn stared at the ground

"Huh?" X sounded surprised, his shock filling his voice.

"Do you know what the Watchers do to prisoners..." Eyn's shoulders raised as a sort of protection, as if it would defend themselves. 

A barrage of blurry, distorted memories assaulted them, horrific, bloody images of X trying to kill them, of the torture, of player after player laughing and attacking them... They didn't know what was real and what was implanted into their memories. The only thing they knew was real was the pain, the watchers attacking them, trying to make them snap... And they did, rolling into a ball sobbing for days on end until they couldn't anymore, mumbling to themself... He couldn't shake off the barrage of pain and memories.

A pressure came, pressing lightly on their shoulder, allowing Eyn to ground themself. With a deep breath, and X's calming presence he was able to swim above the flood of images, He looked up at X.

"Shh, your safe... But if you don't mind my question, what do you mean?"

"You know how watcher scars work..." They mumbled, their gaze trailing back to the ground.

"Oh Notch- did they give you these?" X touched Eyn's cheek. "Do they still hurt? Pearl said sometimes her twinge- I can see if I can find something to help-"

They chuckled sadly. "It's fine X, truely. But yeah, they gave me these, and a bunch of others... but they also mess with your mind, your memories... I can't even trust most of my memories of you... Of myself... For example, they... Made me think you nearly killed me... multiple times."

"Eyn..." X's voice was full of sympathy for the enby.

Eyn realized tears were rolling down their face, that they were shivering,  but they had to ask X...

"Xisuma... Am I how you remember me? Or am I still their little puppet, dancing to the song they made me sing?" They gasped out, not wanting to hear the truth, but not wanting to live not knowing if the strings the watchers attached to him to control him were still there.

"... You're... different." X started, causing more tears to well up in Eyn's eyes. "But... I'm not surprised. You went through a lot of trauma, it's inevitable your mind will mold to protect it's self. Frankly, I'd be shocked if you had still been the innocent little sibling I remembered."

"Just by two minutes..." Eyn mumbled.

"And I will cherish those two minutes greatly." X chuckled. "But your not entirely different, you still make your witty remarks, and keep me in line. So no, as always, you dance to your own song."

The two hugged each other, Eyn was still sobbing, but this time from the bittersweet feeling of comfort and relief. Eyn calmed down, and X ran his hand through their hair.

Silence fell, and they heard quiet sobbing from the kitchen. The two looked each other in the eyes, and ran over to see Grian curled up in a ball, tears flowing off his face, struggling for air. He was shaking and sobbing in the corner of the room, his eyes clenched closed.

"...Grian?" X whispered. "Oh notch- Did he hear the start of that conversation..."

Eyn shot a glare at X. "Not the time to blame yourself. Grian, can you hear me?"

The gremlin didn't respond to this. X walked up to try and place his hand on Grian's shoulder, but, he still got no response, just the chilling sound of his panicked breath and sniffles.

"Grian, try to breathe... We're going to try and help you, but we can't do that if we don't know what's going on... But, for now, just try and breathe." X said quietly, still receiving no response. 

"We could try to throw water in his face..?" Eyn asked, getting a glare from X. "Hey, it works in stories. Besides, do you have any better ideas?"

"... Eyn do you speak Galactic?" X asked hesitantly.

"... Yeah, why?" Eyn said, their voice becoming a lot rougher, more on edge... they didn't want to talk in the accursed language.

"This happened before, or at least something similar... He only replied when Pearl spoke galactic to him." X glanced at Eyn and looked away. "If your comfortable with it... if not, I can get pearl it's fine, but that'd... take time. And I don't want Grian in this state for longer then we need."

They took a deep breath. For Grian, they'd do it... Grian had saved them, they owed him their life. "...Alright I'll try." Eyn swallowed nervously, before their communicators buzzed. Eyn glanced at it in instinct.

<NPC_GRIAN has joined the game>

After a second messages started flooding in from the other hermits, panicking, but X and Eyn had another problem on their hands. This so-called "NPC Grian" was standing before them. 

They looked just like Grian, except instead of the signature red sweater, they had a purple one, and they had a black patch on their skin over their left eye, which instead of it being bright blue, their left eye appeared black as well, with a white scribble for a pupil, and their right one was grian's blue with a more natural pupil. He also had black, bat-like wings instead of grian's parrot-like ones and small black horns poking out of the nest of mousy brown hair. The figure closed violet tinted panels that appeared like a altered version of the admin ones, turning to Eyn and X.

"Move." The so-called NPC Grian glared at the twins, his voice raspy from lack of use.

"H- how did you get on the server-." X choked out, but Eyn pulled X back, holding him still.

"Trust me X... I don't think fighting with them is a good idea. Honestly, anything related to grian isn't a good idea to mess with." Eyn whispered.

"Yes X-eye-suma, listen to your twin." X recoiled at the figure using the pronunciation he'd come to expect from Grian. The figure pulled up his violet panels again, and sent a glittering wall of purple between the twins and the Grians.

Behind the wall, the figure placed his hand on Grian's shoulder, looking at the tether, glowing red, tugging him. He mentally pulled the tether, and let it drag him into Grian's headspace. 

The figure flinched when he saw how dark and spiked it was currently, reflecting Grian's current mental state... Grian was either on the verge of snapping, or already did... They knew they should have left the closet earlier... Grian had needed support quicker... But it wasn't going to help Grian to proceed to threaten them to build more rustic houses. Sure, rustic houses were cool, but he had been obsessed with the glitch from getting transported. But now wasn't the time for that. He had to find Grian.

Luckily, the tether remained there, leading NPC Grian through the maze of Grian's mindspace. Finally, in the darkest part so far, there huddled Grian, surrounded by shadowy images. One was of Sam, smiling manically and waving his knife around, one was of the silhouette of two watchers with demonic grins on their face, and largest, most prominent, there was a figure of Grian, in full watcher form with purple skin and more claw-like hands, grinning as Eyn and other hermits cowering in fear and/or pain before him. They ran through these figures, placing their hand on Grian's shoulder.

"Grian, that's not you..." NPC Grian whispered in galactic, figuring, given the situation, his other form would preferred to be called Grian rather then Xelqua.

"It is, it is..." Grian mumbled. "How would you know it wasn't..."

"Grian look up..." The stranger said quiet

Grian looked up, and gasped, startled out of speaking galactic. "N- NPG? Did you-"

"Yep, completely unobessed with rustic houses, and finally out of the closet!"

After the author finally stops snickering at that comment, Grian smiled sadly at NPG.

"I missed you so much... How did you know I needed someone? And how did you get here"

"The tether."

"Ohhh..."

"It suddenly strained when I was almost done my repairs. It was near snapping..."

"Oh NPG I'm so sorry-" Grian sniffled, guilt flooding from him like a fog. NPG, sensing this, hugged the gremlin.

"No, Grian. You don't need to apolgize. I haven't seen what you've been through these past couple of weeks, but you need someone who knows the real you." NPG replied.

"Heh... I don't even know that, how would you?" Grian.

"Grian. The real you shines through in this server. Not the formal, cold persona, not the stressed out, disguised Grian with the weight of a war on his shoulders, but the curious, childish, smiling Grian only I truely know. The one that cracks through the shell you've formed to protect yourself from your friends mortality. You let it shine around Eyn, before closing off again. You can't let past experiences keep you this jagged. You need to talk to someone, Grian. Someone other then your demonically summoned clone. I can stay here for now, but I can't always be by your side."

"NPG- Are you planning to leave?" Grian's eyes widened.

"Huh? Ohhh. No, not yet, but I'm planning a trip back to Hels one day. I miss a couple of my friends from there. Badtimes and Jumbo haven't seen me in a bit."

"Wait I might have met their other forms. There's someone named GoodtimeswithScar, or Scar, and someone named MumboJumbo, or Mumbo..."

"Oh, cool. I'm excited to meet them at some point. You'll have to show me."

"Well uh bad news... I was planning to bail soon... It's too stressful, and the rebels are clearly targeting this server because of me..."

"Grian, you couldn't leave them, truely."

"Yeah, could you actually call me Xelqua in private..."

"Grian-" Npc sighed. "We're not in private. X and Eyn are likely panicking over us. X is likely very curious why you asked me to call you Xelqua."

"OH CIRCLES-"

"GRIAN- That's very strong languge. I didn't expect such things from you." NPG joked.

"Wait- Before we go, I need to find you a name. I can't keep calling you NPC Grian or NPG, It's incorrect and demeaning."

"I'm fine with NPG, truely"

"But NPC means non-player character... and your more of player then-"

"SHUt- Remember, X and Eyn are waiting. Let's transfer memories, then leave." NPG replied.

Grian nodded, and NPG manipulated the tether, a cloud of the others memories pulling them both under for a minute... NPG looked up with pity at Grian once it passed.

"Grian... I got some of that through the tether's natural abilities, like your friends and their names, but... You really need to talk to X. Eyn has their own things, you can't keep just trusting them."

Grian sighed. "I know... but it scares me."

"I know. Let's head back before X bans me." NPC hugged Grian again.

Throughout the two's conversation, Grian's mindspace had returned to a dull grey instead of the nearly shade of black it had been, but it was quite still pointy. NPG knew Grian was still stressed out, and was still on the edge, but was no longer having a mental breakdown, which was a improvement.

Grian nodded, and the two held hands as they both re-entered their physical forms, causing X to yelp.

"X we could hear them talking, why were you so startled." Eyn chuckled nervously.

"I wasn't expecting it to be so sudden-"

"Xisuma." NPG nodded to him. "You have a lot of questions, so I will be answering them."

"But Eyn deserves answers too, and can't Gri-" X started.

"Grian has things he needs to do, and Eyn's about to fall asleep on their feet, and their both emotionally on the brink. I'll interduce myself. I am NPG, or NPC Grian. He/They pronouns. You are X-Eye-Suma, He/Him Pronouns, correct?"

X clearly was a bit uncomfortable with the level of knowledge NPG had. "Uh- Yeah."

"NPG..." Grian mumbled. "Uh- X doesn't know a lot about you..."

"How did they know-" X turned to Grian

"The tether." NPG replied. "Again, Grian's got work to do. I can answer any questions you may about Grian, myself or Hels in general, so long as Grian would be comfortable with it, and so long as I'm comfortable with it."

Grian nodded, and him and Eyn walked out of the room. Grian turned to Eyn. "I- I'm sorry..."

"It's okay. You don't need to talk about stuff your not comfortable with. I shouldn't have pushed you."

"And I should have realized it was dumb to come in on you like that."

"How about we both be sorry? That way I can go to bed, and you can do your... stuff."

"I can deal with that." Grian smiled despite himself, walking up to the room he had built.

Sitting on the bed, he pulled off the necklace, placing the mask on again, the world tinted purple as his partial watcher form was released. He took a deep breath, sinking into meditation until he slid into the trance-like state of visiting his mindspace. He visualized a tether between Ark and himself, and tugged it gently, before waiting.

A/N:

Surprise! It's NPG - I think you all saw that coming lol

But the question from last chapter still stands, what would you think of a Q&A? And- 250- how is this growing so fast-

But here, have some art for this story! It's the Grian/Xelqua designs.

For reference, in order the forms are: Player, Partial watcher, Full watcher. (Full watcher doesn't really show up much in the story but I have a design for it either way)

Wc: 2327 (We're back to long chapters, oh well)

- Xera