The Watchers in the room all grabbed various weapons, aside from Tommy. Purple magic ran through the room like electricity, all directed at the two intruders.

"Oh relax, we're not going to harm you," Dream drawled, dropping his weapon onto the floor. Nobody in the room relaxed, all still fixed on Techno. Dream rolled his eyes.

"Fine, Techno isn't going to harm you." A few of the Watchers relaxed at this, but none of them put down their weapons. Dream momentarily glared at the other, until reluctantly, Techno dropped his sword onto the floor and put his hands up, rolling his eyes as he did so.

Most of the Watchers put their weapons away after that, however it would be a mistake to think any of them were off-guard.

"It's very simple," Dream's smirk was almost audible from behind the mask. Grian and Zyno locked eyes, mostly in confusion as to Tommy's reaction. He was still hidden behind Grian, desperately clinging to him. "We're just here t-"

"We're here for my brother," Techno interrupted, to which Dream raised a brow. "Seeing as this homeless blob enjoys theatrics so much, it's taking far longer than it should." Dream's jaw locked, like he was restraining himself from saying something. "Believe it or not, I'm not keen on the idea of another incident, but if that's what it takes." He shrugged, leaning over to pick up his sword again.

Weapons were aimed at him again.

"Oh, relax." Dream sounded exasperated more than anything. "He just said he's trying to avoid another incident, I'm the one you should be worried about."

At that point, Grian could get a fairly accurate assessment of his character; narcissistic, confident, didn't get on with Techno but was working with him out of either fear or respect, needed people to fear him for validation. Was probably the reason Tommy came here - from experience people who joined the Watchers were either running from something, wanted revenge or simply had nothing else left. For him it was the last one; he had nothing to go back to after- that.

"Who's your brother?" A voice came from the crowd, coming from the watcher that was besides Tommy when he entered the realm.

"His name's TommyInnit," Techno replied nonchalantly. "Stupid red and white shirt, smile scar on his neck, joined fairly recently I would say. I know he's here, before you say you don't know who he is." Tommy shook his head violently behind Grian's back, flinching when Techno stepped forward.

"The hell you even want him for?!" Grian shouted, a wave of anger rushing through him. "Back off!"

"To be honest, I just want to make sure he's ok, hasn't got himself killed yet." The light, amused tone he'd carried throughout seemed even more prominent with the words. "I'm assuming he's fine and doesn't want me here?"

"Just leave, he's just fine with us." Grian's voice was harsher than he'd expected. Somehow he'd become attached to the other gremlin child within the space of 30 minutes, but he felt an urge to protect him.

The taller figure didn't flinch. He also didn't seem that offended, just mildly amused. He locked eyes with Tommy behind Grian, who was shaking his head frantically, before going back to the dirty blond again.

"That's understandable, have a great day." Techno disappeared, leaving just Dream. The other Watchers were all slightly surprised, but relaxed, resting their weapons down, which seemed to irritate him further.

"Come on Tommy, come back home," Dream tried to convince in desperation. It was a vast contrast to the mocking, confident voice he'd had when he'd first arrived. His plan was falling apart now that Techno had gone. He was looking at Tommy, who had now drawn to Zyno. "Your dad misses you."

"The f*ck he does," Tommy snorted, taking a sharp intake of breath. "Come up with more convincing arguments next time." Dream clenched his fists, but reached for his communicator on his wrist and typed in coordinates.

"You can't escape me forever, Tommy," he threatened, his calm demour returning. "Wilbur says hi." With that, he pressed his communicator again, and disappeared in green sparks. Whatever confidence Tommy had conjured up seemed to disappear, and he began clinging to Grian's arm desperately.

There was silence for a few seconds, as if they were expecting the two to suddenly reappear into the area. When nothing happened the following seconds, everyone fully relaxed and put their weapons back.

"They're gone now, you can come out." Grian said to Tommy, who at this rate was probably going to tear his arm off with how hard he was clinging onto him.

Tommy breathed a sigh of relief, and finally let go.

"Before anything, though, come with me." The other watcher suddenly said, towards Tommy. "You need to go and sign some things in the HQ."

The boy tensed up again, and turned to Grian.

"You'll be fine, it's not that bad." Grian shrugged, trying his best to calm him down.

He still seemed hesitant. He looked from Grian to Zyno, before following the other watcher.

"Well, that was something." The dirty blond spoke up after a bit, and Zyno nodded in agreement.

"Wasn't expecting them to be the ones who arrived," He laughed. "I mean, we get a lot of pissed off families from time to time, but nobody usually just straight up joins the realm."

Grian hummed in reply. "I probably should get going now-"

"No, no. Not yet. We need a mission report first," SB interrupted. Grian groaned in response, knowing he couldn't get out of that. "Any players causing problems and stuff like that need to get filed."

Grian froze at the reminder of Pearl. He probably should report that.
"Fine," he conceded. "Might as well get it over with."

SB seemed surprised at how easy it was to get him to agree, maybe sensing that there was an issue, but didn't say anything. They made their way to a more secluded area, with a reluctant Grian in tow

SB brought up his Watcher Comms, and clicked a button on the side, lighting up holograms in the air. He scanned through the database, eventually opening a folder labelled 'Xelqua', where there were a few folders. He clicked on one, and inside were three files, one labelled 'Player Server Data', another labelled 'Evolution SMP', but the one SB clicked on was labelled 'Hermitcraft'. He also brought up the mission report form on a different screen.

He ran through the usual questions, most of which didn't have complicated answers. Mostly asking if there have been technical changes, or player changes the Watchers were unaware with. Grian paused on one of the last questions.
"Is there any threat to the mission, your identity or the Watchers?" SB looked up when Grian didn't answer.

"Can you look at the list of players, and look at the latest ones?" He eventually asked, avoiding saying it outright. SB nodded, switching onto another screen and searching the database.

"Ah- GeminiTay and PearlescentMoon, right? There's nothing off about that?" He shrugged, turning to face Grian. "Are they causing issues?"

"Cross-reference them with other servers, specifically the ones that there's been missions to." SB frowned but complied, typing in a few commands. Realisation settled onto his face when he saw the first server that showed up as a result, and the highlighted member 'PearlescentMoon'.

"Evolution SMP," he stated. "That was destroyed, nobody should've been able to escape."

"Exactly," Grian nodded. "She knows it was the Watchers who destroyed it, and knows I was there, but I don't think she's put the pieces together. She's definitely a risk though."

"Wait," SB interrupted. "Did you actually see her while the destruction was happening?"

Grian thought back, which wasn't something he often did. Despite being the one to cause the destruction, he still was upset by it. Still got nightmares about it.
"No," he eventually said. "But she couldn't have gotten out, we blocked entry and exit to the serve- oh."

They both turned to each other at the realisation.

"Oh."

"On the positive side," SB eventually continued, "She never saw you causing any of the destruction if she wasn't on the server at the time. As long as you have a good excuse as to how you survived. Worst comes to worst, you'll just need to eliminate her first."

Grian nodded, some level of guilt in his mind, but he managed to push it back without much thought. "Do you mind keeping an eye on her server log?"

"I'll let you know of any developments," he agreed. "I'm also going to look into her history, see if I can find where she's been. Theoretically she should've been picked up if her name was on any public registers in the first 6 months after Evolution, however it's not perfect, and again, only public registers. Stuff like hypixel, DreamSMP, Hermitcraft, personal servers etc wouldn't show up because they have player registers private."

"So if she knew about it, it would've been easy for her to wait out the 6 months."

SB nodded in confirmation.

"We still need you to fill out the final section of the form," he reminded, causing Grian to groan.

"Oh come on, I thought I'd managed to avoid that," he grumbled lightheartedly, smiling slightly at SB. "What's the next question?"