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Written by: Waffle-Ninja, hapyhappiness, p3pp3r_, Duskstorm1, ultimatebookworm12, and hxrmits

Word count: 2000

Summary: EX finally wants the spotlight, and he's willing to do anything for it.

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Xisuma always got the spotlight. It was how it worked. He had special gifts and powers. He was the admin of a whole world.

But a little-known fact about the revered admin was that he had a twin brother.

It wasn't the fact that the brother wasn't known. It was what he was known for.

You see, Xisuma had an evil twin.

Xisuma's twin wasn't given a proper name. Everyone just called him Evil Xisuma.

Evil Xisuma worked hard to live up to the expectations put on him because of his brother. But, the lifestyle he subjected himself to wasn't exactly social. He spent all his time by himself honing his skills while his brother was out making friends.

He had worked hard. Harder than his twin. Evil Xisuma had worked until he vomited, cried and almost gave up multiple times. He realized that he had worked better and harder and soon he was stronger than his brother.

But he didn't stop there. He worked even more. He pushed his limits, striving only for a goal that was close to his reach. With every goal met, he set a new one. He still set them even when he was technically more powerful than Xisuma.

"Why do you think you're better than me?!" Xisuma had shouted at him one night, defensive and sick of the frustrated glares he received from his twin.

"Well, someone didn't get all the special gifts, so they have to work harder to live up to the expectations people give him," EX snapped.

"Wh-it's not my fault great I got all these great powers!" X exclaimed. "And what expectations?!"

"People always expect me to be just as good as you, despite the fact that I don't have any special powers. But maybe you haven't been paying attention, hogging the spotlight like you always do."

"It's not like I do it on purpose! You rarely even come out of your room!" X snapped at EX. Before EX even knew what he was doing, he lashed out and slapped his brother across the face.

X looked at EX in disbelief. He got slapped. By his own brother no less! Nobody had slapped him before. He felt anger boil inside of him.

He opened his hand and watched the purple magic zoom out. It collided with EX and sent him flying across the room, slamming into the wall, then sinking to the ground.

X held his breath. Never had he used his magic against his brother, or to hurt anyone in general.

His twin got up, groaning, but was conscious enough to send the most hateful glare X had ever seen come from him. From that day, EX was even more determined to show that he was better than his brother, even without the gift from the Void.

After that X saw less and less of his twin brother. Each interaction wasn't much. A glare if X was lucky or being fully ignored if not.

When the two twins turned eighteen, X moved out. He didn't know what EX decided to do so he just put him in the back of his mind and moved forward with his life.

X ran a world with his friends happily, but he saw small anomalies start to happen.

First, X noticed that parts of his world had been corrupted. Trees turned upside down, pets missing, houses completely ransacked and destroyed. Large gaping holes in the group. Then, there were even corrupted saves and large amounts of data and hard work had been lost.

He had been suspecting and with each corruption and each mess-up, his suspicions grew stronger. And they were confirmed when he saw him.

His twin.

The very sight of him ransacking the world he ran sent waves of anger coursing through him. It was bad enough he chose to disrespect him (Xisuma being the older twin), but now he was messing up the world that he ran.

X was about to confront him, then a thought made him halt. What about the Hermits?

He started running back. If anything happened to them...

When X got back to the main area he saw everything was intact. He searched quickly for each of the hermits. He found all of them except for one...

"Grian?" Xisuma called out, his feet clicking on the linoleum concrete floor. "Are you here, G?"

Grian's base was HUGE. Xisuma was still impressed by it. The tall, looming building always intimidated him as he flew past it or spotted it in the distance. As Xisuma searched his base, he couldn't find him.

But, as he flew up through Grian's greenery floor and to the top of his base, he saw him and... his brother. Sitting on the edge, swinging their legs, chatting like nothing happened in the last few days.

"Grian!" Xisuma called, trying to catch his attention. "Grian!"

He finally turned around, seeing Xisuma. His face turned into one of confusion, replacing the happy one. "Hang on- you're X? But- you're also X." He turned over to where EX was sitting. "Wait- what?"

"Oh, look at that," EX piped in suddenly. "It's time for us to go." With that, he grabbed Grian by the arm and jumped off the side of the roof.

"Shit."

X grabbed a spare Elytra (why did Grian have so many?) and jumped off the roof, using way too many rockets to catch up with his brother.

He's pretending to be ME! And he's with Grian! X thought angrily as he zoomed through the air. "Where did they go?"

Landing near the Shopping District, X scanned the air for any sign of the pair. They were nowhere to be seen.

Xisuma sighed harshly. He almost didn't want to believe it really was his brother. After all these years, and all of the regrets he still had he almost wished--no. He couldn't. He never would listen anyways. 

Frustrated, X clenched his fists, it wouldn't hurt to give his brother a chance, would it? How bad could anything get with a smidge of trust?

Two days later and Xisuma still hasn't seen Grian. He was getting scared. Did Evil X do something to his friend? He had to find him.

——

Grian was living the life, feet kicked up on the table with biscuits and tea scattered across the room. Sitting right across from him was X, his newest best buddy. While at the beginning of the season he didn't really understand X, now they were inseparable. Xisuma had this edgy spunk that he never noticed before, this attitude that the builder could really get behind.

"So, what should we do next?" asked EX.

"Well, I haven't seen Mumbo and Iskall in a while, why don't I introduce them to you?" the builder replied.

"I don't think that's a good idea..." EX said. He felt like such a pushover. He tried to kidnap Grian, but it really doesn't seem that way when Grian is the one willingly going along with it.

"So...you're not Xisuma are you?"

"I- uh-I really shouldn't have- umm I'm sor-" EX mentally cursed himself for stuttering. He wasn't the best at social interaction, it was always easier to pretend to be someone else.

He looked up only to see the expression on Grian's face. Trembling with laughter, failing horribly at containing his amusement. "You gotta relax dude, it doesn't matter. But honestly, you seem pretty nice though; you've got me interested. Who are you, really?"

EX turned to face Grian's black (soulless) eyes, he sighed. "My name's Evil X."

"Evil X?" Grian repeated, shocked.

The admin's twin nodded. "I'm Xisuma's twin brother, we had a fight a few days ago so I dressed up as him and played it off just so that I could be apart of Hermitcraft." (that's just messed up, bro...)

Grian furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, making EX stop. He raised an eyebrow, indicating for Grian to speak.

"Alright...I get that you're probably mad at your brother if you two got in a fight...but dressing up like him? Is that really your way of revenge? I could do better than that." EX turned red from embarrassment under his helmet, but Grian couldn't see.

"I'm not done!" he snapped, causing Grian to recoil. "You didn't let me finish! I dressed up as him because-"

"Or are you trying to prank him? I could help you with that-" EX glared at Grian, silencing him.

"Anyway, my plan was to..."

TIME SKIPITY SKIP SKAP

EX was smiling under Xisuma's mask as he told Mumbo, Iskall, and Grian that he's got this.

The trio nodded at him and gave him the signs. The first place to start was IDEA, for sure. Luckily, those three weren't around.

Grian's basic plan was genius, threaten X with what he holds so close to home, his evil brother. Though with his addition, the prank seemed to carry just that much more weight.

It was so simple, wear blood red and black edgy costumes and act as stupid as possible. To X, it would feel as if everyone just left him for his brother. 

It had been easy to recruit Mumbo, he would honestly follow Grian off a cliff, he was so blind...but that's what EX needed. For this to work he would need a lot of the Hermits' help and minimal questions. He could only hope that Grian wouldn't snitch.

My god, he did. 

Grian bailed. EX wasn't sure what to do. He was mad, nearly boiling over. He had been this close to getting some sort of pathetic revenge and he had been stopped. He was falling apart, he could help but laugh, of course, he of all people got the short end of the stick. The world was never in his favor. The hysteric tears pouring down his face. They never understood, did they; Grian was just..he was just...a traitor. He had been betrayed, and oh boy, did he hate being played as a fool. He twitched, uncomfortably. These almost foreign wicked urges shook him by the shoulders and dared him to look in their eyes.

Those aloof, uncaring jerks never saw it coming.

EX could feel his sanity leave him. The anger and pain rose from the top of this spine to the bottom of his feet.

EX clenched his fists tightly. He still couldn't believe the only friend he had ever made would betray him at the first possible chance. He always knew it was a possibility, but he had hoped Grian would at least be better than his brother. But it seems like all the hermits were the same. He needed to make them pay.

This is why EX never wanted to get involved with people. He knew they'd never support him or be true to him. Just like his brother.

EX disappeared again after that. Vanishing to a cave near the edge of the map. Nobody saw him for months.

X thought his twin was gone. Life went back to normal. Until little mishaps started to happen.

A few things started to go missing, nothing too important, but just enough to notice.

EX screamed. It was all he could do at this point. He was a pathetic excuse of a monster. He had been hiding in his kingdom of solitude. A coward with a grudge and the hatred he held for the Hermits that only seemed to burn brighter as time went on. The harsh violent fiery inferno burned behind his eyes with each action he took. He couldn't wait to hold X's gory uncaring heart in his own bare hand.

The day had come. The day EX would finally face his twin brother. He waited in his base. Waiting for Xisuma. It was around ten o'clock at night when the admin got back.

Evil Xisuma stayed silent for a while, watching his brother prepare himself for bed. The younger was like a wild cat. Prowling and stalking around its prey. And then...

He pounced.

Xisuma died. The end :D