Pix stared at his communicator with a slight frown, sending another message.

-.-.-

PixlRiffs: Has anyone seen Oli?
fWhip: Pix you've been asking that for the past hour
fWhip: I think it's safe to assume nobody's seen Oli
PixlRiffs: ah
PixlRiffs: Okay
PixlRiffs: I haven't seen him since last week, so I'm just- mildly concerned
fWhip: I'm going down to his empire (for debt-related reasons) in a bit, so I'll see if he's there :)
PixlRiffs: thanks FWhip.

-.-.-

Pix sighed, turning his communicator off. He hadn't seen Oli in a week- the bard hadn't been seen since he rescued Pix from the hole- and he was starting to get extremely worried.

The brunette blinked as another message popped up on the communicator.

-.-.-

SolidarityGaming whispers to you: Hey Pix :D I was gonna go look around at Shelby's empire, maybe try and get rid of some sculk
SolidarityGaming whispers to you: (as the sheriff it's my job to ensure the safety of all our server members, even when they're corrupted)
SolidarityGaming whispers to you: anyway, I was wondering if you wanted to come with me?

-.-.-

Pix paused before shrugging and typing a response. It'll take my mind off Oli.

-.-.-

You whisper to SolidarityGaming: sure! I'll meet you there in like... fifteen minutes?
SolidarityGaming whispers to you: yeah that works. See you there! ^_^

-.-.-

Pix switched off his communicator again, checking that he was wearing his elytra before grabbing some rockets and walking out of his house.

——

The brunette landed next to Jimmy, smiling awkwardly as the dark blonde let out a startled scream. Jimmy paused, clearly embarrassed, and he cleared his throat before speaking, his voice lowered to a whisper. "Pix! This is meant to be a stealth mission. Be quiet." The sheriff added with a huff, although he didn't appear to actually be annoyed.

Pix shrugged apologetically, glancing around. "Sorry sheriff." He muttered with a half-hearted eye roll. "What are we doing again?" Pix added warily, frowning as the two began walking further into the mangrove forest.

"Uhh... clearing up some sculk, looking for Shelby to try and reason with her, trying to see if we can get any more information about the sculk infection... you know, sheriff stuff. I just invited you along to distract you from Oli, honestly. I'm sure he's fine, but..." Jimmy shrugged, slicing away some (regular) vines that were blocking their path. "You tend to overthink things."

"That is true." Pix admitted quietly. I'm probably overthinking. Again. I'm sure Oli's fine. The brunette gagged slightly as a sculk vine shot towards him, slicing through it with his axe. "This stuff is everywhere here, isn't it?"

"Yup. It was never this aggressive when Cub was infected. It just kind of sat there menacingly." Jimmy said thoughtfully.

"Maybe... it... gains more power the more people it controls?" Pix suggested, shrugging. He wasn't exactly sure how it worked- he hadn't been able to find anything about the sculk infection, after all.

"Yeah, I-" Jimmy broke off, swearing under his breath and ducking behind a tree, pulling Pix with him. "Look." The brunette peeked out from their hiding spot to see Scott (who was absolutely covered in sculk, by the way) messing with his sword and looking around with a somewhat menacing expression.

"Well. That's not good." Pix whispered, staring at Scott for a moment before moving out of sight again. "What do we do?"

"I don't know!" Jimmy let out a sigh. "I don't want to fight him. I don't want to hurt Scott. But if he notices us... we'll probably have to." The dark blonde mumbled, looking incredibly troubled.

"Well, if you didn't resist the sculk so much, we wouldn't have to fight you." Scott commented as he suddenly appeared behind them. The fading swirl of purple particles around the cyan haired man suggested that Scott had used an ender pearl.

Both Jimmy and Pix jumped away immediately, Jimmy dropping his sword in his panicked state. Pix leant down to pick up the iron sword, passing it back to Jimmy before gripping his own axe and glaring at Scott.

"What do you want?" Pix demanded, trying to stop his voice from trembling. There was no flying out of this- the air above them was filled with trees and the only clearing was about ninety metres behind Scott.

"Oh, nothing really. I'm not here to hurt you. But Shelby figured out you were coming, and we wanted to show off our new... recruit." Scott finished, smirking.

"'We'?" Pix echoed, more than a little confused.

At the exact same time, Jimmy blurted, "Our?!" with an incredibly confused expression.

"I...nevermind." Scott said with a sigh.

"What do you mean by new recruit? Has someone else been infected?" Pix asked quietly. It's not going to be... no, I'm just overthinking again.

The corrupted mayor of Chromia smiled cruelly, his eyes glowing in a way that suggested he enjoyed whatever he was about to subject Pix to. When he spoke, his voice was full of glee. "Turn around."

Pix and Jimmy exchanged a confused look before turning around- and the brunette immediately stumbled backwards, unintentionally dropping his axe.

No.

No, no, no, no, no-

NO-

Jimmy shot him a look that was a mix of alarmed and sympathetic.

Not Oli.

Oli paused, pulling a face. "Oh, hey Pix." He said quietly, looking mildly confused as to the alarm on Pix's face.

The brunette said nothing, looking over the bard's sculk-stained clothing, the vines curled around his neck and arm, Oli's normally hazel eyes that were now a dimly glowing shade of blue that was reminiscent of sculk-

Not Oli.

No, no, no, no, no, no-

Pix silently grabbed Jimmy's wrist (practically dragged the dark blonde sheriff along with him), pushed past Oli...

And ran as fast as he could.

Not Oli.

Oop mystery person was Oli

Big sad

Anyway hope you enjoyed :>

I said there would be angst