< Xisumavoid > guys, I think we have a problem.

< TangoTek > the period makes that seem very threatening lmao

< Grian > you americans and your periods smh

< joehillssays > is something up

< Grian > whats gone wrong Xisuama

< Grian > *Xisuma

< Grian > ?

< Xisumavoid > I can't find Jevin's location anywhere. When's the last time any of you have seen him?

< impulseSV > no clue

< impulseSV > he was probabnyl at the meeting

< MumboJumbo > he was at the meeting, remember seeing him there

< TangoTek > So has anyone seen him since?

< impulseSV > no

< MumboJumbo > don't think so

< Grian > nope

< FalseSymmetry > Saw him run off towards the forest near the end of the meeting

< Grian > He kept glancing towards that way, think he saw something

< joehillssays > well shit here we go again

.

..

.

Xisuma placed down his communicator.

"Did you find anything?" Joe asked, only half hopeful.

"Nope." The admin responded with a sigh. "Same situation as with Grian." Joe swore under his breath, and under better circumstances, Xisuma would've made a joke about that.

"I'm gonna tell the other hermits to search for him like before, groups of three? again" Joe asked, glancing at Xisuma.

"Probably best, don't want to lose anyone else." Xisuma sunk his head into his hands, taking a breath before standing up. "What are the odds this is EX?"

"Realistically, pretty high," Joe admitted reluctantly. "It seems strange though, I thought he'd stopped after season 6."

"So did I." Xisuma sighed again. "D'you think Tango would be up for searching with us?"

Joe shrugged, peering over Xisuma's shoulder to see his communicator. "Hold on, let me message him." he tapped out a quick DM towards Tango, to which he got a quick response.

< TangoTek > sure

< TangoTek > where we meeting

< joehillssays > sumas base

< TangoTek > k

< TangoTek > be there in a minute

"He's just on the way," Joe told Xisuma, showing him the previous conversation. Xisuma sighed in relief, checking his communicator once again.

"I don't know how this could've happened," Xisuma mumbled. "Especially so soon after we got Grian back."

Joe rested a hand comfortingly on Xisuma's shoulder, seeming to sense the range of thoughts flicking through his head.

"Nobody did, Suma. That's what's so scary." Joe paused, debating what to say. "Nobody saw him coming, even though this is exactly the sort of thing he does."

Xisuma paused, before shaking his head.

"No, it's not."

Joe frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that this isn't exactly the sort of thing he does at all. He's never this simplistic, he always has a plan, and the plans are always part of something bigger. He doesn't just kidnap people for no reason."

"Maybe he's desperate?" Joe suggested, shrugging.

"Yeah, maybe." Xisuma sounded unconvinced. He was saved from having to think about it more by the whoosh of elytra and Tango swooping in.

"Hey!" Tango greeted with forced cheeriness. "You two ready to start searching?" This time the words were accompanied by a wry smile.

Xisuma nodded, just a second after Joe did.

"I was thinking we start near spawn and work our way upwards towards boatem," Joe filled in when Xisuma didn't answer. "Any other ideas?" Tango and Xisuma glanced at each other.

"Nope," Tango responded, his smile changing once again to a grim one. "Let's get started."

.

..

.

The process of searching every area for signs, and checking the entity counter in each chunk was mind-numbingly boring, but that wasn't why Xisuma's head was swimming. With every area in which they had to concede that Jevin wasn't there, he found it harder and harder to ignore the niggling doubts in the back of his mind.

What sort of an admin was he if his own brother was kidnapping the people under his protection?

Did he even deserve to be an admin if he couldn't prevent that?

How did he even know that Jevin was still-?

That was where Xisuma cut off his thought process. While the life signs could be faked, his brother didn't possess that kind of ability last he knew.

Last you knew.

With all that had been happening since the start of Season 8, Xisuma was feeling more pressure than ever. Despite all the talk of a flat team structure, there was an undeniable sense of responsibility on him to find Jevin, as the admin of the server. He owed it to Jevin, he owed it to the rest of the Hermits.

"-suma? You there?"

He was dragged back to reality by Tango snapping his fingers in front of him, and Xisuma forced himself to translate the noises into words.

Xisuma blinked, struggling to get his brain and mouth to cooperate.

"Yeah, sorry, just lost focus for a sec there," Xisuma lied, reaching for his communicator. "Gets a bit taxing, doing this for a while."

Joe shot him a sympathetic look. "It does," he agreed. "Let us know if you need a break."

Xisuma didn't reply, but nodded reluctantly.

"I swear, it's like he just vanished," Tango grumbled, kicking a clump of grass. Joe rested a hand on his shoulder reassuringly.

"That shouldn't be possible," he countered. "There should be at least some trace of him somewhere left on the server."

The blond was still grumbling. "Well, where else should we look? It feels like we've exhausted all our options."

"We could try the same tactic we did when we were searching for Grian." Xisuma suggested a bit half-heartedly. "Though I'd imagine it wouldn't be as successful as before."

"Let's at least try it first." Joe encouraged.

Xisuma reluctantly got his communicator up, and pressed a button. "...Yeah." Holographic text and panels projected onto the air, and he started scanning through them. "Hold on."

The other two just watched silently in anticipation as he scoured through the desktops of the database, and went into the server folders, and tapped on the 'server members' folder, until he finally got to Jevin's file.

With a wave of a hand, more holograms appeared right next to the already existing ones. He dragged the player file over to the newly generated panels, and dropped it there.

Suddenly, all the screens went red, and Xisuma's stomach sank.

"Um, Guys- it's-"

The both were going to look besides Xisuma, but suddenly, Tango turned to the side, his gaze locked on the bushes and his eyes widened.

"Hold on." He practically hissed, stopping Joe.

Joe raised an eyebrow. "Tango w-"

"Be quiet!" He whispered again, voice borderlining on panic. "There's someone sneaking around here!"

Joe followed his gaze, frowning and turning to Tango upon not seeing anything.

"I don-"

"There's someone there, trust me," Tango hissed again, cutting Joe off.

"Suma," Joe whispered. "Can you run a scan for nearby entities-? quickly?"

Xisuma nodded, attention diverted.
The clicking of keys all that could be heard for a few seconds.

"None in the surrounding chunks other than us and a few passive mobs," Xisuma replied, this time at normal volume. "No doom guy rip-offs to be found." Tango stared at him. "What?"

"You're literally a doom guy rip-off," he stated, raising an eyebrow. Xisuma shuffled slightly.

"That's different, I'm an axolotl," he defended.

"Sure," Tango responded, rolling his eyes. He paused for a second, seemingly lost in thought. "Wait a minute, isn't the tracking system piggybacking off the locational rendering in the game code?" Xisuma nodded slowly, not quite understanding. "So couldn't you just search through the code to find the blocking system and debug it?" Xisuma paused, his face lighting up with realisation.

"I thought the blocker was an add-on, which whenever EX makes them are a pain to remove, but if it was an exploit using the actual code..." Xisuma trailed off, typing furiously. Green lines of code flickered across the screen at an almost illegible pace, until eventually Xisuma stopped, letting out a sharp breath.

"Is that it?" Tango asked, rereading the seemingly innocent line of code. It looked normal enough at first sight - though Tango was far from an expert in coding.

"It reminds me of the line with the whitelist," Joe murmured, unfocused.

"I just assumed it was an add-on, I should've checked, would've saved us time with Grian-" Xisuma rambled, dragging both Joe and Tango's attention back to him.

"Suma," Joe cut off, sensing the rising levels of distress. He reached out towards Xisuma's shoulder before pausing. "Can I touch you?" It was only after Xisuma's nod that Joe rested a hand on his shoulder. The pressure helped drag him out of his spiralling thoughts. "You did the best you could've, this isn't your fault. You know that, right?" Xisuma hesitated.

"But I just let it happen," Xisuma eventually answered, apprehensively glancing up at Joe.

"That's not what happened and we both know it."

"Xisuma?" Tango said hesitantly, looking towards Joe for reassurance. "Don't go down that rabbit hole, trust me, it leads nowhere good."

"Yeah. Right." Xisuma forced a grim smile onto his face. "I'll have to rewire the code entirely, it's really deeply embedded," he muttered.

"I'll do it." Joe suddenly insisted. "X, look at yourself. If you spend another second looking at those screens, I'm pretty sure you're going to actually go insane." He interjected before X could open his mouth to object.

"...Touché." The admin sighed in defeat. Though he didn't really like it, Joe had a point. "Are you really up for it, though?"

Joe nodded, hand already on his communicator. "I'll stay here. Why don't you and Tango continue searching somewhere else?"

"I never agreed to this," Tango spoke up in a joking tone before Xisuma could reply. "Actually, wait, I totally did, nevermind."

The other two laughed at that, a bit lighter.

Xisuma turned back to Joe, a little tenser. "Well- uh, Joe," His voice tightened. "Be careful."

He got a reassuring smile in response.

"I will, I will."

Behind the sounds of the a pair of footsteps, none paid mind to the rustle of bushes.