Down in his cave, the meteor sits plotting, after the stunt, he pulled a few weeks ago his magic supply was running very low and would only recharge from magic being used around the world and Vex magic is absolutely horrible for regaining energy. As he forms his plan he grins, "It's perfect, give a hermit some magic. Have him use it and I will gain more power," he ranks a while to think and starts deciding just who to give this power to.

As he thinks one particular hermit comes to mind, Hypno. The man hasn't given much inclination of what he's associated with so he's perfect for the job. Smirking to himself, Avar starts weaving the magic together before sending it out to find him.

The spell hits its mark and Hypno flops over in his sleep mumbling something under his breath. As the sun starts to rise, Jevin rushes over to Hypno's home and knocks frantically at the door.

Hypno stumbles over to the door and opens it confused, "Jevin? What's up?"

The blue slime is shaking slightly and grips his arms, "Meteor's Activated again and it's being really weird. So, Doc told me to find you so he can check if you're being affected."

"Slow down, what's weird with the meteor?"

"I don't know but Doc sounded frantic," Jevin shrugs as he rubs at his arm nervously.

Hypno shrugs, "Shopping district right?" At Jevin's nod he continues, "Give be like ten minutes I'll be there."

"Thanks, man, I know it's early."

"You're fine, it's important," A few minutes later Hypno reapers now properly dressed and ready for whatever horrors the day holds.

As the pair head over to the shopping district Hypno starts to get a bit nervous. Because well, the meteor is probably at least a little bit bitter and probably isn't going to show any sort of restraint.

Doc grabs Hypno's arm and pulls him over to the town hall; leaving Jevin behind, "Hypno, you're being affected."

"Wh- how, how do you know?" Hypno asks as he draws his arms close to his body.

"He told me. The meteor, he seemed oddly excited about affecting you."

"That's not a happy thought."

"No, it's not," Doc agrees, "that's why I'm worried and that's why you're here. There isn't a visual effect on the meteor it could mean he's low on energy or something more sinister."

Hypno nods slowly, "I don't really know, something feels off but I can't describe what..."

Humming softly Doc squints at Hypno, "If nothing that we can tell happens well go to the Vex and ask them. Is that good?"

"Yeah, that's fine," Hypno muters.

Slowly a day ticks by with no evidence of changes, then another day passes, and another until a week has passed. Doc walks towards where Hypno is working.

"We need to talk to the Vex don't we?"

Doc nods, "We should, Scar's going to meet us in the shopping district."

"Alright," Hypno mutters as he trails behind the scientist.

When they arrive Scar is having a very nice conversation with a pair of Vex. All three are hovering above the diamond pile and little blue sparks of magic are shooting off.

"Hey, you were with the slime guy," One of the Vex happily chirps as it flutters around Hypno's head, "Well he is still slime but he looks a lot less sticky."

"That was you? Thank you so much for helping him," Hypno says as he gives the vex a respectful nod.

The Vex's grin widens slightly, "I like this one," It states before flitting back to its partner.

Scar laughs softly as he jumps down off the diamonds and settles on Doc's head, " Let's get started."

The pair of Vex swirl around him in an almost hypnotic manner. Blue flecks of magic flutter down in front of Hypno's face.

"So, we know what's happening. It's just not something that we can help with," The first Vex starts to explain at Scar's mild protest, "It's newer magic from beyond our time."

The other Vex picks up the explanation, "You see, when we Vex were exiled to our mansions, we lost track of magic. We only know the old ancient magic. He's not going through a physical transformation but it seems the meteor has given him something of a patronage."

"What's that?" Hypno asks as one of the Vex settles down on top of his head.

"It's like what the ConVex have, we gave them magic in exchange for them doing tasks for us," Hypno's face pales considerably, and the Vex hurriedly explains more, "Since there was no formal agreement for the magic there is no contract binding you to do his bidding."

Doc's eyes go wide, "He has magic."

Scar grins as he flicks his wings and zooms into Hypno's face hovering in midair for a moment, "He does!"

"Wait, wait, what does this mean? What kind of magic?" Hypno asks nervously.

"The magic itself is old magic, but it's different somehow. It has a slightly different energy."

Scar nods, "It feels like Grian, when he first joined," His eyes go wide as he realizes, "Watchers."

Doc grins at a memory, he had become friends with several of the watchers over the years after they had rescued him, "So do we go to the Mega Hub and go to their office or is one watching now?"

There's silence.

"Mega Hub it is then."

The pair of vex bid them farewell and disappear in a thick plume of blue smoke.

"So, who's going?" Scar asks.

"I'll go, Hypno you should stay here just in case. Scar if you want you should come and I think either Grian or Xisuma should come."

After much deliberation and back and forth it's decided that the group heading to the watchers would be Doc, Scar, and Xisuma. Doc calls ahead and schedules a meeting with a few of the watchers, one recognizes his voice and the conversation derails slightly and somehow ends up on speaker; Doc is convinced the watchers did something to his communicator. It ends with a slightly embarrassed creeper and grinning watchers. They had brought up one the times when Doc was adjusting to being part human.

~~~

Three masked watchers step out of the mist and walk towards the hidden laboratory. They had gotten a tip that something odd was happening at this building. Swiftly they enter the building and take the people inside away to be questioned.

As they look around they find a small room off to the side. Subject 77 is embossed onto the door. Pushing it open a quiet hiss fills the room. It wasn't filled with malice but with fear.

"We will not harm you, small one," One of the watcher's murmurs as he gently coaxes the creeper into the light. All three gasp as his emaciated form comes into view. The small creeper is missing an arm and a large chunk of his face is gone replaced with half corroded wiring. He looks to be about the size of a ten-year-old child, "Oh, no, where are your parents?"

The creeper cocks his head to the side curiously.

The second watcher speaks up, "I don't think he understands, his mind has been altered he's probably terrified. Let's bring him to headquarters and see if we can find his family."

"There may be an issue with that," The third watcher calls back, "I found his file. It doesn't have a before picture or list where he's from."

Nodding The watchers check the rest of the facility and return to the headquarters. They clean him and get all the gunk out of his eye socket. By the time they finish he has fully warmed up to them and is following them around, stumbling since his arm is missing so he only has three legs.

It's concerning to the watchers that he refuses to walk properly. They start heading up a staircase and halfway up they pause. Turning around they see the newly nicknamed creeper, Doc staring up at them eyes filled with confusion.

"Uhh, I Don't think he started as a human. I think he's a creeper that's been cut apart and turned humanish."

Doc is scooped up and carried into a large open room, there are trees lining the back wall and grass covering the floor. In one corner there's a nice living area with a bed that's covered in piles of blankets and a table with chairs set around.

"Let's give him a few weeks to adjust then we can start teaching him how to do things," One of the watchers decides after they see what's happened.

As the weeks pass it's evident that Doc is incredibly smart and has picked up on things rather quickly. He's started to figure out how to talk and is mimicking the watcher's mannerisms.

At one point they bring him to an appointment with a doctor to make sure he's not sick or anything. On the way back it becomes apparent that stairs are still a foreign entity to him. He stops at the bottom of the stairs and looks up. Standing close to the wall he carefully steps up and promptly falls back. After a few more attempts he gives up and gives a quiet I'm stuck, help me, hiss.

~~~

"Could you really not figure out how stairs work?" Scar asks, giggling a little.

"I couldn't, I didn't know what they were," Doc grumbles as they prepare to teleport.

With a Pop, they arrive in the mega-hub. The mega hub is the huge central server where the watcher's offices are located.

As Xisuma and Doc walk through the crowded mega-hub they attract several people staring and whispering. Scar slips further down in the backpack Doc is carrying.

They swiftly make their way over to the watchers. As they walk through the bustling city the bright lights, vendors sell their wares and people bustle around.

When they arrive at the big red and white building they are swiftly ushered into a private waiting room. After a minute, three watchers show up and fuss over Doc for a while. Scar and Xisuma grin as their friend gets coddled. He grudgingly accepts them making sure he's alright and not hurt.

This room is clearly used for waiting for a meeting and not for the standard dropping of bug reports and change requests. The room is split into three different sections one for each dimension.

Xisuma walks over to the end area and takes a seat. Doc and Scar sit next to him and they start preparing what they are going to say to the Watchers.

After almost ten minutes someone walks in to bring the hermits into the meeting room. Now the watchers tend to look like your average everyday players, at least when they're at the office. When out observing and helping worlds they're in their much bigger forms with wings. Occasionally watchers will have some slightly off-putting features in either form. From extra eyes and arms to exclusively walking on their hands.

As they walk towards the meeting room a watcher in a dark purple cloak swiftly walks towards them, "You're the hermits correct?"

"Uh, yes," Doc says, a bit confused at the sudden appearance of the other watcher.

"Good, please follow me," He whispers something to the other watcher who nods and teleports away, "I'm sorry about that. One of the watchers assigned to your world arrived and is now helping explain what's happening."

Scar flutters up and looks at the watcher curiously, "We're heading back the way we came?"

"Yes, the watcher assigned to your world has caused the meeting to move to a different room."

Doc squints at the watcher but keeps his mouth shut. They arrive at the meeting room and sit down in the offered seats. As they look around the room it's evident that this room isn't frequently used. The furniture is pristine along with the rugs and bookcases. The watcher who brought them into the room bows and swiftly walks away.

Two Watchers slowly start to materialize and the meeting begins.

"Once again we would like to extend an apology as we have no means to combat such ancient magic. Your watcher has told us what is happening, as such we have made Hypno an instructional guide to a few spells that we know how to use."

The conversation continues for almost an hour. Occasionally different watchers pop by to say hi to Doc and Xisuma. Quite a few watchers show up to give Doc things, one of the watcher's ducks in throws a blanket at Doc then teleports away. Rolling his eyes fondly Doc shoves the Blanket into his bag. A watcher in a cloak That looks like it's made of stars stops by to check Doc's arm. As she leaves she hands Scar a small chunk of Vex magic. As the meeting ends they are teleported back to hermitcraft.

As they land on the spawn island the Watcher gently shakes his head, "Your world will one day be whole again. There will come a time when he will be defeated. It takes a lot of magic to change someone's form, he can't do this forever."

Scar flutters off Xisuma's head from where he was settled in between his horns, "Thank you for meeting with us."

Xisuma flicks his tail, "We are grateful for your help."

"Don't hesitate to ask us, we may not be able to stop him but like your vex, we can slow and alter the transformation."

"Thank you for everything," Doc nods as the watcher blips out of sight and back to the mega-hub.

Xisuma takes the book and heads out to find Hypno.

He finds the man sitting on a cliff and looking out over the ocean. Sitting down next to him the pair chat for a while. Xisuma passes him the book and explains what the watchers had told them.

Hypno thanks him and walks inside to start reading and checking the book out. As he opens the leather-bound book there's a flash of light and a small Dragon appears. Jerking back in surprise Hypno nearly falls off his chair.

The dragon is about the size of a housecat and has mostly white scales with a spattering of gray on his head. As he blinks up at Hypno his bright blue eyes seem to glow. He opens his mouth and chirps loudly.

"What are you?'' Hypno breaths.

In responses, the small dragon drags the book over and nudges it open. The book's first page consists of a pre-charged spell that was set to trigger when Hypno opened the book. The spell appears to be a find familiar spell. It can summon a fairly small creature to help with magic.

As Hypno reads he comes across a certain line, "You can talk?"

The small dragon picks his head up from where he lays curled on the desk, "Technically, I can. It is telepathy but you can call it speaking."

"Dang, that's, well, that's, pretty cool."

"I'm here to help you with learning magic. No one has called upon my kind in many centuries. The watchers prefer teaching themselves."

"Do you have a name?"

"I do not."

"Can I give you one?"

"You may."

"Max?"

"I like it," Max says flicking his wings open and stretching, "If you're wondering what exactly I am, I'm a white Pseudodragon."

Hypno nods, "Is there anything else I should know?"

Max hums, "If need be you can see through my eyes and hear through my ears. It's a fairly useful spell."

............

"Try it again," Max drawls from his perch curled around Hypno's shoulders.

"This isn't possible," Hypno protests, he has been trying to make a small stone levitate for the last few hours and hasn't made any progress.

"It is, you need to feel the magic. You know what I feel like and you know what Vex magic feels like. Find what's in common and use that to manipulate the stone."

Nodding Hypno holds his hand out and gently tries to feel for the magic. He feels something and quickly concentrates on wrapping it around the stone. Lifting it off his hand for a moment. Before dropping it, exhausted, "Why am I so tired?"

Max grins as he stretches, "It's the first time you've done this. It's going to be hard until you get the hang of it."

Over the course of a few days, Hypno slowly gains more strength and is able to hold the stone in the air for a few minutes.

"Good, I now want you to throw the rock, without magic," Max grins.

Hypno nods and tosses the rock, it lands several feet away with a small clater.

Max uses a spell and the pebble zooms back into Hypnos palm, "Throw it again, this time with magic."

Nodding Hypno carefully wraps the stone in magic energy and throws it. It sails well over fifty feet and stops with a clater once out of Hypno's range.

"Good, you are far exceeding my expectations."

.........

Hypno groans as he stumbles through a nether portal. The warp between dimensions is always a bit nauseating but today it's worse than normal. The heat of the nether isn't helping either, if anything it's making things worse. For the first time in two weeks, Hypno is alone, Max had decided to stay at the boardwalk.

Stumbling, Hypno makes his way into the shopping district. Scar had implemented a new rule, shops must pay for road access. Unfortunately, he forgot to tell the hermits why. The road pass is a prize pool for the road competition.

Hypno pays the access pass and clears the barricade and roses out. He grins as he stumbles out of the shop. His face falls as he sees the mild chaos unfolding in front of his eyes.

One of the Diamonds in the trees had fallen off and hit Beef's back causing him to spook. His ears are pinned back on his head. Stomping his hooves he bellows in the back of his throat. He backs up slowly, starting to panic.

Hypno walks up slowly trying to calm him down. It's not working, Beef is freaking out. Xb walks over and tries to help. Again it fails, Hypno looks at beef and suddenly a small pulsing light fizzles into existence. Capturing Beef's attention. It slowly works calming him down. Looking at his hands Hypno stumbles over to the wall and sits down, burying his head in his hands.

Xb quietly walks over and asks if he's alright.

"I'm fine, just really tired. This whole thing is taking a lot out of me."

The pair sit together as Beef slowly calms back down.

As he slowly returns to his senses, Beef groans, "I hate that. I mean I've gotten used to this but it's the worst," His tail flicks as his back hooves click, "I can't..."

"Hey, I can't promise that anything will get worse or better, but I can promise that we will be here to help you," Xb frowns, as he gently consoles Beef as Hypno nods along.

........

"You need to practice magic," Max decides as he watches Hypno work on his boardwalk.

"I'm almost done with this bit. I'll practice in a while."

Max huffs annoyed and hops up onto the retaining wall, "tell me when you finish."

"Yeah, I will."

A few hours later Hypno walks into his house, where Max is waiting with a small pile of candles.

"What's this?" Hypno asks curiously as Max grins.

"Prestidigitation," The small dragon purrs, "It's a jack of all trades spell. You'll figure out how to manipulate magic to do all sorts of things."

Hypno drags a chair over to his table and sits in front of the candles, "So what am I doing?"

"For starters, I'm going to have you put out the fire," Max explains as he lights the candle demonstrating, "It might be easier for you than it is for me, I'm an ice dragon so a fire is fairly difficult."

"Ok. You should check Cub's base out, he has a cool ice rink thing."

"Focus. I want you to concentrate on influencing the air around the flame to compress."

Nodding Hypno reaches out and feels where the flame flickers. He squints at the flame and makes a fist. The flame wavers but remains lit. Frowning, Hypno tries it again.

It works. Max nods, "You are a fast learner, although I expect that is the meteors doing. Try it again, keep practicing."

Over the course of an hour Hypno slowly gets the hang of the spell and under Max's watchful eye starts relighting the flame.

"You have done well, if you have the energy I would like you to attempt to make a spark shower."

Hypno grins "That sounds pretty cool."

"I'll show you how to do it then you try," Max instructs as he flicks his tail causing gold sparks to shower down.

With determination, Hypno starts the spell. It takes quite a bit of effort and attempts but in the end, he ends up casting a similar spell to Max.

"Well done!" Max congratulates as Hypno slumps back in his chair exhausted, "Go to sleep we'll resume our lessons in the morning."

Hypno gives the dragon a tired smile before he walks over to his bed and falls asleep. As the sun rises Max jumps onto the bed and pushes Hypno on to the floor.

"What was that for," Hypno grumbles as he brushes himself off.

Max blinks up at Hypno before walking off towards the kitchen.

Rolling his eyes Hypno walks after him. After breakfast when Hypno is ready. They resume lessons.

Max flicks his tail in excitement; almost falling off the table, "We're going to try something a bit different. Color," He pulls the candles out and pushes them in front of Hypno, "Change the color from white to green."

"You're not going to demonstrate?"

"I already did."

"... what?"

"Look at your hair."

"What Did You Do?" Hypno asks as he turns towards a mirror.

Max flutters up to a higher perch, "Something..."

"Why?" Hypno asks, his hair had been turned from the dark blonde to chartreuse.

"Practical applications. The first step of today's lesson turn your hair back to normal," Max instructs, poofing his scales up slightly.

Hypno glowers slightly, as he tries to identify what the magic that changed his hair is. As he finds it he concentrates on removing the spell.

After a lot of trial and error, Hypno returns his hair to normal, and after much prompting from Max, he changes the candle's color.

"Very good," Max purrs as he stands up, "It took you longer than expected."

"Well, you didn't actually give me any information about what I was doing."

"Fair enough," he concedes.

"I have one more challenge for you today, I want you to fix this," The temperature in the room drops. It swiftly becomes nearly freezing.

Hypno glares at the dragon who looks positively gleeful in the cold. As he reaches out trying to make sense of the magical energy he finds the source of the cold and starts warming the air. After he finishes Max grins, "Well done."

.......

"Welcome to Target," Cub laughs as he shows everyone the new game he's created. His tail flicks wildly in excitement as his ears swivel to catch the sounds.

Hypno grins, it's been some time since he'd hung out with the others. As Cub explains the mini-game, Max is carefully inspecting Wels's wings; Catching the others' attention.

Beef and Etho grin at the small pearly dragon chirping at a very confused knight. Joe looks at the pseudodragon fascinated. Jevin and Xb are looking at the tiny dragon, somewhat dumbfounded. Cub grins his fangs poking out slightly.

As Max scrambles up onto Wels's head he flicks his tail annoyed. Hypno facepalms when he hears what Max is rambling angrily about.

Wels looks over to Hypno, "What's he saying?"

"He's judging you on poor scale maintenance."

Reaching up Wels pulls Max off his back, "You know I don't really know how any of this works. I got my wings like six months ago."

Hypno frowns as Max gives him a long-winded message to translate, "Uh he wants to teach you how to take care of your scales."

"Oh, that's kind of him."

The conversation continues for a while until they start trying the new games out. Cub grins wildly as he explains how to play. Since the game is near the Pong Ice arena Max watches from atop a pillar of ice.

As they continue to play the games Joe loses so he's sent to sit on a nearby bench to wait. Beef loses next and carefully sits next to the bench, tucking his legs under himself. His tail flicks aimlessly as he and Joe start talking.

Hypno grins as he wanders over, "That was fun."

"Cub did amazing on this game," Joe agrees as Beef nods.

A sudden crack splits the air as Xb drops off the map. Everyone turns to look at him, "I'm ok, just a little bruised... I think," He calls up to the others.

"Hey, Joe can you grab him a health potion?" Cub calls from the top of the arena, "Just in case, that fall didn't look good."

Xb gives Cub a smile and nods, "Alright."

Hypno helps him over to the bench, where he and Beef look at his ankle to make sure he is ok. It looks like he sprained it a little.

"You should put ice on that," Beef explains after looking at the offending limb.

Joe walks up behind them, unexpectedly silent, "Howdy."

Spinning around Hypno nearly falls as he slips on the suddenly slick ground.

"Sorry?" Joe offers as he slides over to the bench and gently takes a look at what had happened.

Max notices what's happening and flies over, "Well, I think you learned grease."

Hypno tries to stand up but slips back onto the ground, "Well how do I undo this?"

"You don't," Max snickers, "It'll last ten minutes."

By this point, the others have paused their game and have come over to see what's happening.

"Why is the floor slippery?" Jevin asks as he slides over to Hypno.

"I may have done a spell by accident and made the floor all slippery."

Jevin laughs as Wels walks over to help Beef get off the slick area. So he can actually stand up without falling. They wait for the potion to take effect and for the ground to return to normal before continuing the games

Notes:

Thanks for reading I hope you have an amazing day/night