It was late. The surrounding area was dimly lit. Probably because Scar was in charge of lighting it up, and his lamps were almost never on. But Scar was there; Grian had seen him trudging back to his archaic mobile home about an hour ago.

Grian himself had made a rare reappearance to his hobbit-hole, mainly to contemplate the last few days, by the lake. Scar seemed a right mess; he had seemingly hid himself away from everyone, only making an occasional journey to Doc's basement speakeasy. But Scar was nothing compared to the other hermits. There was still no sign of False or Hypno, and Iskall and Etho had disappeared as well. And they all seemed to blame Grian for it. Or at least, it was either him or his bizarre doppelgänger. However, NPC-Grian had been safely locked away, in the coat closet of an undisclosed rustic house. However, they still didn't trust Grian, not after Sl1pg8r's accusations. But the person Grian was actually concerned about... was Zedaph.

Zed had been a bit of an oddball from the start, and nobody, not even Tango, seemed to know much about his past. At least, not that he (Grian) knew of. But he somehow knew how to read computer data, which was, to say the least, unusual. But.. it was pointless; Zedaph was a bit of a recluse anyway; seeing as he was much more remote than everyone else in the previous season, and (allegedly) in the one before, he had been a bit remote as well. But.. oh, it was pointless. Everyone suspected everyone, really, and it didn't really... Grian heard laughter. He looked over the hedge, and saw distant light.

A kilometre away, Stress and Mumbo were walking together. Absentmindedly walking toward's Grian's 'summer home'. They were getting closer by the minute. Grian could make them out in the distance. Their path began to curve slightly. Grian was able to hear them now; Stress was laughing at something Mumbo was saying. It took Grian a while, but he saw it. They were walking together, arm-in-arm. He had never felt such an... anger before. He stormed back to the home in white hot fury... Well, to say fury is an overstatement... But he felt a bit of a jolt, a bit of a pang. Some sort of feeling that he had never really known.

Stress, he thought to himself. The feeling is stress... I'm just a bit... stressed, that's all. I hate stress.

"Hold it, Mumbo; I need to rest."

"But were making such good time; your base is just another three kilometres away... we can just make it."

"I just need a bit.. to catch me breath."

Mumbo and Stress had been walking for quite some time, and were just passing Iskall's Omega Tree of Doom. Stress had positioned herself on a rather large rock near the base of the tree. Mumbo leaned against a smaller tree, nearby. He pulled out his communicator, and saw that Scar, Grian, Doc, Xisuma and Joe were still up at this hour, aside from themselves. He had been sitting on this thought for a while now; he glanced over at Stress, who had pulled out her own communicator. He needed to replace his; using the same one since season four. It was time to make his move.

"Ahem," Mumbo said. Horrible way to start, just horrible, he thought to himself. He could do better. Stress glanced away from the communicator and up at Mumbo.

"Yeah, what do you need," she replied. Okay, Mumbo; you can do this, time to pull this off.

"Stress, I - uhh -" But this was all he could get out before a rustling noise filled the area. Stress let out a gasp as the silhouette of some lumbering, deformed creature lurched towards them. Mumbo picked up his torch and pointed it at the figure.

Iskall, battered, bloody and sporting a ragged eye-patch where his diamond eye used to be, and was carrying a bag (obscured by foliage) gave a feeble "Hallo," before collapsing onto his knees.

"Oh my god, Iskall! You're alive," Mumbo ran over to his friend, where he saw what the lumpy bag he was carrying was. It wasn't a bag.

False was barely conscious, and was even more bruised than Iskall. She glanced up at Mumbo, muttered something that sounded like "general," and passed out. Mumbo, Stress and Iskall all exchanged looks of confusion.