The nearest world hub to Hermitcraft was, as usual, bustling and busy. This was no more true than in the market, which, even on an off-day, was full of stalls selling things from at least seven different dimensions and five different modpacks, as well as homemade art. People roamed around, oohing and aahing at whatever those people with Tinker's Construct, or Immersive Portals, or even the Create Mod had made. Among them were three familiar faces, just having a friends' day out together.

Impulse turned over the mask he'd found in his hands, experimentally holding it up to his face and showing it off in the mirror propped up against the side of the stall, weighing up how it looked on him. It was fabulous, he was fabulous, but he wasn't entirely sure if it was better than any of the masquerade masks he already owned.

"You look amazing, Impulse!" Zed's voice came from behind Impulse, along with an inexplicable feeling of dread. Then again, Zed was always accompanied by an inexplicable feeling of dread - it was just a Zedaph thing or something - so Impulse didn't really notice that fact.

"I'm honestly kind of on the fence about it." Impulse replied, taking it off and turning to face Zed. "What do you think?"

"I think that even if you wore it to the Infernal Gala itself, you'd still outshine everyone there."

"...Really?" Impulse asked, his tone suddenly thoughtful. Zed didn't know, of course, but Impulse, as the infernal ambassador to the sprites, was actually a regular attendee to that very same masquerade, and he wouldn't mind an opportunity to show everyone else up next time it rolled around. It might even prevent him from being the inevitable assassination target.

"Well, except for the grim reaper." Zed conceded. "He's just too fabulous."

"If you say so." Impulse chuckled. With that, he and Zed moved on to discussing the other masks on display.

"I'm just gonna go have a look around elsewhere." Tango quietly said, backing out of a conversation in which he had no real stake.

"Don't end up in mortal peril, I don't have time!" Zed called after him. Tango grinned at Zed's Zedness, and then wandered off.

He meandered aimlessly, noticing a stall that sold fire resistance potions pre-mixed in such a way that they could fireproof fabric - he made a mental note to come back here once his own supplies of the stuff ran out - as well as a few other things he found mildly interesting, although he only caved to buy one shiny trinket, because it was the shiniest shiny trinket.

It was just after he bought the thing when he passed by a side alley, and something caught his eye. In the alley was another stall, separated from the rest of the market. On display, it had small vials of something, and more concerningly, items of clothing bearing feathers of a disturbingly familiar orange. Tango shifted his shoulders uncomfortably, wishing that he could show his wings, just so he could make sure they were still there.

It was probably fine, though. Many phoenixes sold shed feathers, as a bit of income on the side, or maybe to increase the chances of a future incarnation of theirs being able to bring them back, or whatever. That was probably what was going on there. With that, he decided do go and help a fellow phoenix out.

Still, the thought that something else was going on wouldn't leave his mind. Maybe it was just a gut feeling, maybe it was something in the stallholder's smile. Maybe it was the fact that the tip of one of the quills was stained a shade of red that no phoenix's feathers were (their blood, on the other hand... well). In any case, maybe it wouldn't hurt to ask.

"Where did you find these?" Tango asked innocently, gesturing to one of the boas.

"The usual way." The stallholder answered. "Asking... 'nicely'."

It took Tango a moment to process what the stallholder was implying.

"What."

"I don't wanna say it out loud, man!" The stallholder chuckled. "It's only dubiously legal, you know." When the stallholder saw the anger beginning to set into Tango's face, a singular eyebrow was raised in response. "What, you're not one of those-"

Tango snapped before the sentence could be finished.

"How. Many." Tango growled, dragging the stallholder closer by the jumper collar. "How many phoenixes have you hurt?"

"Does it matter?" The stallholder smiled. "They're just birds."

"Of course it matters. They're people." Tango replied, shocked and angered.

"Well of course something like you would say that." The stallholder replied, a slight hint of venom in the otherwise-calm tone of speech that was used.

"What?" Tango frowned, confused, letting the stallholder go to give room for his thoughts.

"You have a fire in your eyes that betrays you." The stallholder purred, and before Tango could even process what this person meant by that, an entire bucket of ice-cold water was pulled out from a space under the stall and thrown in his face.

The water, with how cold and how wet it was, was enough to temporarily put him out. A feeling of vertigo washed over him, accompanied by a faint headache. Dazed, his senses becoming disconnected from his thoughts other than a deep-seated feeling of being cold, right down to the bone, he swayed slightly, then crumpled to the ground. He was vaguely aware of his humanoid disguise falling, with no energy to sustain it, before he lost consciousness entirely.

Time skip brought to you by the fabulousness of the grim reaper. He is fabulous. Have a good day.

When Tango came to his senses, there was the sound of a voice, rambling on about something or other. That was what first brought him back to reality. He tried to focus on the words, to try and wake himself up further. Unfortunately, with coming back to his senses, came the awful uncomfortable feeling of being down to embers, unable to burn. On top of that, thanks to the awkward position he was laying in, his entire left wing had gone numb. Great.

"...And you should be thankful, really. I'm the only one who really dares to compete with the Guild these days, keeping them busy, you know, so if it weren't for me, all of your kind would be hunted down without mercy..." The voice was saying. After confirming that what was being said was just your generic monologue, Tango tuned out again, and focused on trying to figure out a way out of this situation.

Of course, before he could do that, he had to figure out how to open his eyes. That seemed a bit difficult for now, so he just settled for trying to use his other senses to figure out his situation. Judging by the feeling of the surface he was lying on, and the gentle rocking he felt, he was in some sort of cage or basket, being carried somewhere. That didn't seem good.

In terms of what he could do to make things slightly more good, he was still too out of it - too cold, really - to do much. Even trying to flap his good wing, the one that hadn't gone numb, was too much effort. All he could really do was open and close his beak. So he did. He let out a cry, a desperate cry for help, and hoped that Fate would do the rest.

Thankfully, Fate was a friend of a friend, even if Tango didn't know it.

Nearby, a kitsune was hopping around from rooftop to rooftop, giving himself a bit of a parkour challenge to amuse himself while he was trying to work through a spot of builder's block with his base on the server he was from. When he heard the cry for help, he paused. That couldn't mean anything good.

Well, he had never been one to turn down a call for help, and he wouldn't be now, either. He bounded over in the direction that the cry had come from, until he saw the source. The stallholder walked down the street, carrying a phoenix in a cage, looking around shiftily. The phoenix must have been the one calling for help. Not even pausing to formulate a plan beyond 'kick that person's butt', the kitsune leapt in.

The stallholder turned around, startled, before seeing the raw anger in the kitsune's eyes. One lightning bolt too close for comfort later, and Tango's cage was held behind the stallholder's back, guarding what the kitsune seemed to be after. The kitsune, however, wasn't going to take anything from the stallholder, and proceeded to ruin the stallholder's day with well-placed fire and lightning.

After the stallholder was gone, the kitsune scratched at the lock of the cage until it broke, gently opened the door, and pulled Tango out. He threw a fireball at Tango, to help dry him off and rekindle him, and Tango pretty much instantly felt a lot better. He staggered to his feet with a quiet squawk, and experimentally flapped over to a nearby conveniently-placed pile of sticks.

It was at that point that he figured he should thank his rescuer, and also remembered that he was currently in a form incapable of speaking any language other than the various dialects of bird language. Well, he knew how to fix that bit. As he shifted back, hoping the fox spirit spoke at least one humanoid language, he began to speak.

"Really, I can't thank you enough for the rescue." Tango smiled, stretching his wings as he shifted into a slightly more humanoid from. "They'd put me out, so I don't know..." He trailed off as he turned around, seeing the shocked expression on his rescuer's disturbingly familiar face, and catching on to the silence echoing between them.

Because the kitsune who stood there, nine tails fanned out and clawed hands shaking, wasn't the total stranger that Tango was expecting to see. Instead, under the spiked white hair with fox ears poking out was a masked face that Tango otherwise knew too well, none other than his friend, the one who he'd just spoken with yesterday, Etho.

"...You too, huh?" Tango asked, chuckling nervously.

"I guess." There was another awkward moment, before a grin broke out on his face, pulling at his mask in that tell-tale way. "Glad to know I'm not alone."

"Yeah." Tango agreed, stepping down from the pile of branches, hiding his wings away. As he took a step, though, he stumbled a little. "Mm," he mumbled, "Still a bit out of it."

"I got you." Etho stepped forward, moving to support Tango. "You here with anyone else?" He asked.

"I got separated from Zeddy and Impy." Tango nodded. "I left them at that mask booth." With that, Etho nodded, and helped Tango around the market, until the two of them eventually found a slightly concerned Zedaph and Impulse.

"Tango! We've been trying to find you!" Zed shouted, running over. "I mean, I know you went off on your own, but we couldn't find you, and-"

"Impy, don't worry." Tango assured him. "I'm fine, just got a bit lost. Etho found me." Etho frowned slightly at Tango's lie, and more noticeably the part where his voice didn't, in fact, jump two octaves, but he let the moment pass.

"Don't do that again." Impulse said, before pulling Tango into a relieved hug. "We were so worried."

"It's okay. I'm okay." Tango whispered. He wasn't sure if the assurance was for himself, or for Impulse, but either way it was true. He was okay.

This took waaaayyy too long. This should have been done on TUESDAY. Aaaa. Whyyyyyy.

I've been Entropy, peace out from the present!