Impulse finished up the floor of his base, smiling in pride at his hard work. It certainly looked impressive up where he was standing, but he figured that he wanted another angle on it, just in case he'd built it at the wrong level or something. He walked to the edge of his base and jumped into the water, sinking under and waiting for the conduit power to kick in. It didn't.

Confused, Impulse surfaced, taking a deep breath. He dived down then, looking for his conduit. It was sitting there, right where it should be, but it wasn't running. Probably something to do with the fact that it was clogged with obsidian for some inexplicable reason. Impulse surfaced once more, downing a potion of water breathing, then dived back under the water to begin the onerous task of clearing his conduit.

He was well into breaking the first piece of obsidian when he spotted a strange, almost shark-like shadow deeper into the water. Distracted, he stopped working on the obsidian, and all of the progress he'd made instantly vanished. He stared at the obsidian in disbelief, then back at where he'd seen the shadow, then back at the obsidian. And he made a decision.

Impulse swam away from the conduit, after the shadow. It had looked like a shark, from his small glimpse of it. That was impossible. Sharks straight-up didn't exist in most worlds, Hermitcraft included. Naturally, his curiosity had been piqued. So he kept swimming, swimming after the shadow. And, eventually caught up with it.

If he could've, he would've screamed. 

The monstrosity he was looking at was a lot of things, but it certainly wasn't a shark. It had three glowing red eyes, and four tentacles that oozed slime. Shocked, Impulse began to swim away, terrified, almost in a blind panic. There was a monster in the waters of Hermitcraft, he had to tell Xisuma, he had to-

The water around him exploded into a mesmerising kaleidoscope of colours. Enthralled, Impulse stared at the dazzling images, and stopped trying to swim away. He didn't even notice the other sensation, the strange shiver that ran down his spine and throughout his nervous system. Well, not until the colours vanished, and he tried to keep swimming. His arms wouldn't obey him, and as the pit of his stomach dropped, he realised something was dreadfully wrong.

His arms moved out, turning him around in the water to face the monstrosity, no matter how hard he tried to resist. It swam around him, examining him like some kind of art piece, and he couldn't do anything to resist. Eventually, however, it stopped, and that's when the voice broke through his head, saying simply:

"Good enough."

-Ace of Spades-

Tango was, rather reasonably, starting to worry about Impulse. For the past two days, he'd been ignoring Zed and Tango, holing up in his base, and not responding to chat. What's worse, he wasn't working on any farms. Tango had seen Impulse picking up building supplies from the shopping district, but he didn't even notice when Tango tried to call him over for a round of stat poker.

Tango paced in his storage room, wringing his hands. He wanted to go check on Impulse, but what if Impulse was in too much danger for Tango to handle alone, should he ask Zed to come along, but Zed wasn't online right now, but Tango was really worried about Impulse, so he needed to go now, but he couldn't rush in-

He snapped himself out of the loop of thoughts with an angry grunt. Sighing, he figured it was probably for the best that he just go and check on Impulse on his own. It's not like anything particularly bad could be going on, right? And he didn't have time to wait for Zedaph. Before he could convince himself otherwise, he flew out of his base towards Impulse's place.

He arrived only a few minutes later, having surreptitiously switched from his elytra to his natural wings halfway there, since he could go faster with them. He touched down lightly, smoothing down his hair, which had been ruffled by the high-speed flight.

"Hello? Impy?" Tango called out, cautiously making his way around the half-built storage system.

"Tango!" Impulse appeared, seemingly from nowhere. It was kinda unnerving, but Tango couldn't put his finger on it. There was something off about him, too, like his smile was just a little too wide, a little too un-Impulseish. Tango dismissed that thought; he was probably just leaping to conclusions from worrying so much.

"Impy! I've been so worried about you!" Tango gasped, running over to Impulse. "Are you okay? What's going on!?"

"What? Nothing!" Impulse protested, although there was something odd about his tone. "I've just been busy!"

"Busy with what? Can I see?" Tango eagerly asked, his curiosity piqued.

"I've just been working on the hidden underwater area." Impulse laughed, taking Tango by the arm and half-dragging him to a hidden stairwell, which led to an underwater corridor. Tango looked around in awe, as they passed a library, a storage area, a cell, and various other rooms.

"Seriously? I warned you." Tango joked, his worries slowly dissolving. And then he spotted the shadow in the water outside, the three glowing red eyes. His heart plummeted to his feet, because he recognised it. In that moment he realised just how tight Impulse's grip was on his wrist, and everything fell into place. Panicking, Tango tried to pull free.

He managed to slip out, just as Impulse turned on him, completely dropping the façade of being the friend Tango knew. Tango took a few steps, desperately searching in Impulse's eyes for his best friend, and coming up. As Impulse drew a diamond sword, and began driving Tango back, Tango sighed and summoned his own sword.

In a few flashes of blade on blade, Tango's sword went clattering to the floor. Before he could lunge for it, he found himself roughly shoved backward, tripping over his tail. He realised that he'd fallen into some kind of cell, and before he could stand up again, Impulse had locked him in, picked up his sword, and walked off coldly.

Tango tried to telport, but the spell fizzled uselessly in his hand. Sighing, he sat himself down. He guessed that he'd probably be in here for a while. He was alone, alone with his thoughts and a giant fish-monster. Great.

-King of Spades, Ace of Spades-

BDubs, in general, didn't need much. Right now, however, he rather desperately needed two things: dark prismarine, and a place to hide from Doc. Impulse's guardian shop seemed to be a good source for both of these things, so in there he ran. After taking a couple seconds to catch his breath, he went over to the dark prismarine chest, and found that it was empty, save for a few diamonds in payment.

This was bad. He needed that prismarine now. He sighed, and got out his communicator, quickly sending off a message.

BDoubleO100: Impulse. Dude. You need to restock your shop.

A minute or so later, a reply came through.

ImpulseSV: Ok. I've got some prismarine here, maybe we can work out a deal?

BDoubleO100: Alright, I'll be right over. :) Just gotta dodge a GOAT.

Docm77: There is no "Dodging" the GOAT.

Iskall85: Yes there is.

ZombieCleo: OOO DRAMA

ZombieCleo: FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT

ZombieCleo: And bring me the heads when you're done! ;)

FalseSymmetry: Are you ok, Cleo?

ZombieCleo: No.

Chuckling, BDubs put his communicator in his inventory, shifted his shoulders so that his elytra rested on them more comfortably, and rushed out of the guardian shop, buzzing past Doc and taking off. Doc yelled and turned around after him. BDubs set off into a pattern of evasive manoeuvres, but he just couldn't shake Doc off.

Until an arrow pierced Doc's elytra, and Doc went down. BDubs looked around for his saviour, eventually spotting a certain cyborg hitman, who winked at him with their robotic eye. BDubs gave them a thumbs up, then turned to fly in the direction of Impulse's base.  He set down there a few minutes later, getting out his diamonds. A short, cordial conversation later, BDubs had a shulker box of dark prismarine and Impulse was a few diamonds richer.

"By the way, what have you been up to recently? I've barely seen you." BDubs asked kindly.

"Oh, you know, a surprise." Impulse shrugged. "For all the Hermits." Something darker crept into his tone there. BDubs actively chose to ignore it.

"I'm intrigued." BDubs whispered conspiratorially.

"I can show you." Impulse smiled someone else's smile, grabbing BDubs' wrist.

"No, I think it's fine." BDubs chuckled nervously, trying to wriggle out of the iron grip.

"I insist."

It was like something had hit the top of his spine with something. A chill ran throughout him, his efforts at throwing it off instantly dissolving. Suddenly he couldn't make his muscles keep struggling, instead settling into a neutral.

"How does that feel?" Impulse asked, tilting his head. BDubs figured that whatever was going on had also happened to him.

"Great." His voice unexpectedly said, without his permission. He tried to choke it back, but he might as well have tried to hold in a hiccup for what control he had over the phenomenon.

He and Impulse went down into some hidden area under Impulse's base, and waited obediently by a window. A huge fish-thing floated there, surveying him with its three red eyes. It seemed pleased, and BDubs realised that it was what was controlling him. He decided that he hated it.

-Jack of Clubs, King of Clubs, Ace of Diamonds, Ace of Spades-