'Cub.'

Cub turned from restocking the Greens shop, hiding his shock, as Ren appeared. After a moment of recovery, he sighed, eyes narrowed and arms crossed.

'What do you want?'

Ren gave a laugh, stepping closer. 

'Oh... nothing much, dude. I just... had an idea you might want to help me with.'

'No.'

Ren blinked, almost breaking character. 

'You don't even know what it is...'

'Yeah, but at the same time no.' Cub walked away, shoving a shulker of ferns into the display. 

'If you do it... if you help me, I'm making sure you win. No questions asked.' 

Cub slammed the chest shut.

'I don't WANT to win.'

'So you'd rather I kept trapping everything in your base... sending every one of my minions to kill you? You'd rather that to killing one person?'

'...yeah, pretty much.'

'...do you not even want to know who I want you to kill?' Ren blinked, confusion and annoyance crossing his face. Cub laughed at the expression alone.

'Alright, since you're so disappointed, who do you want me to kill?'  

'Scar.'

'Nope. Not happening.'

'You'd be honoured even higher than everyone else, dude! Even higher than Bdubs! Though- now I think about it, that's not very high... but still! You kill Scar, and you get to win, Cub. Sir Cubalot. My faithful court magician.'

'You know what? I should've actually turned against you and joined Impulse.' Shot back Cub, leaving Ren speechless as he took the bubblevator down to the next level. The greyskin king was quick to follow. 

'He will die anyway. You know Scar, Cub. You know him better than anyone. And you know he's going to die to some rogue trap or his own incompetence... why not profit from it at the same time?'

'Because Scar's my friend and me and Grian promised each other we would keep him alive!' Cub burst out, vex wings flaring into existence, fireworks in hand, before flying away. 

'CUB!' Came Ren's furious yell from behind. But Cub ignored everything as he flew away, through the nether portal at Scar's starter base, and towards Total Chaos.

It was only a while of crafting and restocking fireworks and arrows later than he properly calmed down. The task was unnecessary; there was more than enough already. But he'd needed something to do... as unshaken as he'd tried to stay, it was impossible. 

You know he's going to die to some rogue trap or his own incompetence...

No. 

Scar was going to win.

And that was that.

He continued stocking up the game to play again... it would be a while, but still. He was halfway through already. And it didn't take too long, returning to the portal where-

A hermit fell out into view. Cub jumped, almost dropping the shulker in his hands. 

'Scar?' He frowned at the sight of his friend lying on the ground. 'What happened.'

'Welcome... To Scar's free trap identification service.' He joked, breathless, clearly having faced the onslaught of intended and unintended traps in the nether tunnel in.  'By... the best trap identifier in Hermitcraft, and probably the entire universe.' Cub held out a hand to help him up. He accepted, finding some cookies in his inventory.

'Are you ok?'

'Oh, yeah, yeah... I'm fine.' For a moment he paused, as though about to say something difficult. 'How... are you doing, Cub?'

'Fine.'

'Ren... Not come back yet?'

'No, not at all.' Scar narrowed his eyes.

'Cub don't lie to me.' He scolded. 'What happened?'

'I'm fine. I didn't die. Ren was... Just planning something I refused to cooperate with.' But it was impossible to shake off Scar's questions

'And that was...?'

'Killing for immunity... Joining his side. As I said, I refused. It's nothing, Scar. Seriously.' Cub walked away. Scar crossed his arms.

'Who?'

'Scar, seriously. You can trust me.'

'Cub.'

He stopped, turning to face Scar.

'Ren wanted me to kill you.' He kept his tone light, focussed on the ground. 'And claimed he'd help me win if he did. I told him no. He didn't accept my answer. I told him the deal with Grian and that I'd never kill you, and then flew away before he could reply. That's what happened.' Cub glanced up, trying and failing to look Scar in the eyes.

'Oh yeah... The deal with Grian you never told me about.' A fake interest filled Scar's voice, his pitch rising, unable to hide what sounded like... betrayal?

'It was his idea!' Was Cub's only defence. 'Scar, please, man...'

'I'm not letting yourself get in trouble for me. You're not giving yourself up just so I can live. You KNOW I'm not going to win this, Cub!' Ren's words came back again. Cub clenched his hands, eyes narrowed, refusing to think about it.

'You can still win this, Scar.'

'...and what about last time? What about Them?'

'It's not going to be like last time.'

'How do you know?'

'Because I won't let them control us any more!' He burst out. A flare of magic. Silence for a moment. 

Scar hugged Cub. He hugged back, blinking back the tears in his eyes, stifling the fear he felt... He knew. He knew the moment he died, they'd be in control. But it had to be him, not Scar. They weren't going to hurt him ever again.

'You're my best friend, Cub.' Scar murmured. 'I can tell you're scared... and stressed... and you don't want to tell me, because you don't want me to worry about you... but you don't have to hide it away, ok?'

A sob back. Scar kept hugging Cub as he started crying and couldn't stop, refusing to accept his constant comments that it was stupid...

'Am I... interrupting something?'

The convex broke apart, looking over at Impulse. Cub hastily wiped his tears away, adjusting his glasses.

'No, no. Not at all, not at all.'

'Ok... I was wondering if you had any fireworks?'

'Yeah, yeah...' Cub darted away, returning with a full shulker of fireworks, handing it to Impulse. 

'Thanks! I... well, you'll see what I need it for soon enough.'

With another nod at Cub and Scar, he took off through the portal again. It didn't take long to get back to where everything else was ready:

Zedaph's base.

TNT into the dispenser, check the charged creeper was still there, one last glance over the redstone that was probably going to not work the one time it needed to, and he got into position.

impulseSV: Hey, Zed I left something for you at your base

Zedaph: thanks!

It didn't take long for him to appear through the portal and-

A series of terrified Zedaph noises arose, followed by an explosion, a piston, fireworks and...

Zedaph went off with a bang fighting MR CREEPY CREEPER