Hey everyone. This chapter took a while cus I was working through a week or two long psychosis episode, then later my parents finding out about my bf, and later him breaking up w me a week or two after because he had (edited now as I learned new things) led me on for a month just to stay sane, he's a diagnosed conspiratorial schizophrenic and bipolar 2 and I was just NEVER TOLD THIS. I'm doing okay, if anyone's wondering, I'm just in a really rough patch. Enjoy!

Edit; uhm so I'm with a new less abusive boyfriend and he's great and I also forgot abt this for a while ;-;
~~

Grian's head spun. Evolution, he had heard that name. The damned server no one really liked to talk about. The one that was forgotten to time.
He had heard it from someone, from two people. Two watchers, they had taken him. He could feel Xel getting increasingly anxious and angry. It made him sick, he wanted to throw up.

"Woah, I... huh. I- I think I wanna take some time alone."
Phil, who had been watching the whole thing from afar with techno, locked eyes with Pearl and nodded, understanding this wasn't a good time to enter the camp.

Grian didn't know what to do. Grian. Grian. Gree on. He didn't even know what his name was. Not anymore. He ran out of the camp, away from his sister and his friends and everything he was and knew and into the deep jungle of the true end.

"Explain everything. I swear to the gods above, damn them, explain everything you gods forsaken bitch!" He started screaming at the end. He was talking to Xel, no one at all more so. Grian held his head in place. Memories were rushing through. What he was witnessing was an enlightening. Knowledge. Things he buried deep beneath into himself. Things he vowed to himself he would never recover.
Everything the watchers were.
Everything Xel was.
Everything he was.

'Please stop I can just-' Xel was trying to calm him down. 'I can explain it all.'
"OH YEAH?? THEN-" thud- "WHY DIDN'T YOU-" thud "BEFORE?!??"
'You didn't need it yet. You weren't supposed to know it. No one was. Everyone who escaped lost it.'
"W-what? Escaped?" He slowly stopped banging his head into the tree. His head hurt. He felt like he had to throw up.
'You were one of the few that escaped. You were free. You NEEDED this gone, Grian. WE needed this gone.' Xel explained. 'Pearl left too. Martyn, Jimmy, t-' he stopped.
Taurtis never escaped, did he?
No. He didn't. He wouldn't, in any timeline, in any life.

"I-.." Grian couldn't even get a word out before puking his guts out. Gods, he was pathetic.
He looked at his hands. They were pale, paler than normal. He was shivering, his wings felt like they were about to fall off. Grian could barely keep himself upright.

"Xel?... I-" thud. Xel wasn't there in time. He never would be. Not as himself anymore, at least.

~~
Tommy wiped the sweat off his forehead, grabbing the diamonds he had just mined. He was mining with Xisuma, had been for a couple hours now.
Leisurely, he sat down to take a short break from all the mining and exploring to recollect himself, recover some hearts, and check his inventory.
'60 diamonds, a couple stacks of iron, 2 stacks redstone.. woah. No wonder they're all rich here, the fortune pic Mumbo gave me works like magic!' He smiled a little at his findings.

Xisuma was mining out some amethyst beside him. Tommy intently watched xisuma. His mind started wondering as he examined the man. How'd he become admin of hermitcraft? Why was he always wearing that astronaut suit? What's with the visors being so purple?
Tommy looked closer. Burns. Under Xisuma's visors. Tommy couldn't see them well but they definitely concerned him.

"Soo...."
Xisuma never looked up from mining. "Hm?"
"You made hermitcraft, right?" It was always good to make some conversation right? Tommy was just curious about Xisuma. A couple questions would be fine right?
"Well no. I was brought here by old admin."
"Oh. Where'd you come from then? Why'd you join?"
Xisuma stopped.
"I uhm. I was a refuge. Hermitcraft was originally made as a refuge for special people, talented builders and miners in a hard place who needed help out. Kinda like-"
"Me." It was no secret he was naturally gifted at redstone. He caught on quick with the right help. He just never tried before he met Mumbo. "Is that why you haven't kicked me out of here?"
Xisuma shrugged, nodding at the same time. "More or less so, yes. We also felt like you would benefit being here with better people."
Tommy nodded, looking down at himself. He was right, after all.

"Wait-" his head snapped back up at xisuma. "Suma, you said you were a refuge. What happened? Where did you come from?"
Xisuma had completely abandoned the amethyst now, going to sit beside Tommy.
"I'm not.. I'm not from the overworld. Or any." Xisuma hesitated. "There's a place in the end. A place most players have never heard of, for good reason. All the endermen and the dragons and- uhm, other things, are from there. The True End. It was a.. nice place, I guess. That-" Tommy had to interrupt him.
"Wait, you're like, human though, aren't you??"
"Not really. Endling. We're like aliens."
Weird. How much about the end did Tommy not know?
"What happened?"

"..war."
Xisuma took a long deep breath and slowly took off his helmet.
Pshhhhhhh..

Half of the Endling's face was covered in burn scars, his ear torn off and his eye squinted shut.
He looked like Tubbo. It made Tommy sick.
"Oh. I- wow. Were you like burned? Or-"
Xisuma put his helmet back on and sighed in relief. Was his alien-ness not letting him breathe overworld air or something?
"My brother had me executed and they just failed at it. Not really much else to it."
He got back up. "That's when I was saved during it and brought here, and I've helped others do that themselves."

Now it made sense. "So you'd let tubbo here? He's also stuck back in the SMP."
Xisuma shrugged. "Well, if we have space! You were just lucky. We uhm, lost a spot right as you joined, I guess." Tommy could hear him finish the sentence- "for some reason."

Wait. Why WAS he here? What power brought him HERE of all places? Where was Grian?