The morning after the base raid was peaceful... mostly. It hasn't exactly been too quiet ever since the blobs were discovered, but today they're being a little more mindful of how much chaos they're causing.

Sabre and Time are, like always, having breakfast in the kitchen while the blobs surrounding them all munch on their own little portions of what Time had made for them. Other blobs are either playing in other rooms or had just decided to go back to sleep in random spots around the house.

Time and Sabre had so far not found out about what most of the blobs had gotten up to the previous night (mostly because they were both tired from the events of the raid), which the blobs were relieved by. Sabre probably would have grounded quite a few of them if he did.

Speaking of them, blobs listen in on their conversation during breakfast.

"And you're sure that you're not feeling any other weird effects?" Time asks Sabre, making it the fifth instance of that same question.

"Time, again, I'm okay." Sabre sighs, although is still smiling. "Nothing else is happening. The village healer said himself when he checked on me after we got home, the only side effect was drowsiness, and that's faded by now."

"I still want you to take it easy today." Time says, taking a second to pet the blob that's always hanging around in his pocket, Fluffy. "Whatever potion they made you take might not be completely out of your system yet."

"I'll be fine, Time. Don't worry."

"Wh- 'Don't worry'?!"

"Ohhh boy, wrong choice of words-"

"Sabre, you were kidnapped, for goodness sake! And unconscious for most of it! How do you know those bandits didn't do anything to you?!"

"Well, I don't, but-"

"Exactly. And with your history of hiding things from people, I can't really take your word for it when you say you're fine. How do I know you're not experiencing some other kind of effect and you just don't think it's that much of a big deal?"

"Oh c'mon, I don't hide stuff from people that much."

"When Hypno was messing with your head? When the Demon Steves were a problem and you decided to try to find a solution on your own? That one time when you got sick last year during the stormy season and decided not to tell me, and ended up getting worse because you went out in the rain?"

Time takes a second to motion to the blobs.

"Them?"

Sabre is silent for a moment, then mumbles under his breath.

"Still not that often-"

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

A few blobs giggle at that, prompting a slightly annoyed glare from Sabre. He's about to go back to eating his food, when;

"GET MOTHERED IDIOT!" A blob's voice pipes up distantly from across the house.

"Hey!" Sabre says, turning around and looking for the culprit.

"Are they making fun of you again?" Time chuckles.

Sabre mumbles quietly to himself again, slightly annoyed, while all the blobs surrounding them start laughing even more. Sabre doesn't stay annoyed, though. After a few seconds he smiles, glad that things are back to normal.

He and Time go back to talking, the topic eventually going to happenings during the other day's harvest festival. Time tells Sabre about all he had missed during the incident, bringing up the odd behaviors of the blobs (which Sabre confirms that all are normal). The small creatures peacefully play with each other and just generally hang around the house, some of them getting into the usual antics of snooping while their siblings and friends try to tell them off for doing so.

"And yeah, they can absolutely handle eating things that normal creatures aren't really supposed to." Sabre says, recounting a few moments when he would turn around and a blob would be in the middle of eating something inedible. "It's just another weird thing they can do. I've seen one eat a bunch of magnets before and they were completely fine, didn't even get sick. They did have to avoid anything electric for a while, though."

"Really?" Time asks, having finished earlier and started washing his dishes. "Heh, if the Professor finds out about all that, he's never going to leave you alone about it."

"Which is why I'm not gonna tell him anything." Sabre laughs.

The two go silent for a moment as Sabre starts to clean up his empty plate, when Time stops and turns to Sabre, looking concerned.

"Sabre?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't mean to be so uptight about your well-being, really. It's just..." Time starts. "You get yourself into a lot of trouble. And with everything that's happened so suddenly... the creatures, the Bandits, the scars you've only recently told me about... I'm just anxious that something is going to start up again, and with how everything seems to target you for some strange reason-"

"Time, nothing's going to happen. It's been so long since any kind of battle, I don't think anything is going to attack soon." Sabre says, reassuring his friend. "In fact, the last time there was any kind of major conflict was with The First Curse."

Time sighs, and glances out the window. The blobs have mostly gone silent, wondering what's going on.

"In a few months, it's going to be three years since that happened..." Time says. "I just... I don't know. For the past two years, every time it comes up I fear that something's going to go wrong."

"And that's understandable. We both have our anxieties about it, given what we went through to stop that creep." Sabre says, looking down for a moment, but then brings his attention back to Time. "But just like those last two years, nothing's gonna happen. You made sure of it yourself that he's not going to come back."

"And we still haven't told the others about that-"

"We don't need to. It was over so long ago, Time. You don't need to worry about it anymore."

They're both quiet for a bit. The blobs, having never known of this kind of topic, have listened intently. Sure, they knew that Sabre and Time had stopped the conflict between the Realm and the First Curse, but their caretaker had never talked about any sort of anxiety surrounding what had happened. They didn't even know what Sabre had experienced when he and Time went missing for a while; He had always gone quiet or changed the subject whenever they asked.

After a minute, Sabre walks over to the kitchen sink and places his dishes in, then places his hand on Time's shoulder to reassure him.

"It's going to be alright." Sabre smiles. "That celebratory festival will go perfectly fine like always, and we're going to be okay. No big bad will attack the Realm, and I'm sure that this whole fiasco with the Bandits is just them getting a little bolder."

Time looks at him for a moment, takes a deep breath, and smiles. He seems to relax a bit.

"Y'know what, you're right... I'm probably worried over nothing." He says, then laughs a little. "Hey, remember when that first festival was thrown to celebrate the Curse's defeat, Light's recovery from the battle, and our return, and everybody kept focusing on us and Light?"

"Ohhh yeah, how could I forget that." Sabre says, laughing as well. "For someone that's usually so blank-faced, I had never seen Light look that flustered before. His face almost looked pink!"

"And all of the Colorless Guard teased him about it for a week." Time says. "And for once, the Violets weren't the only ones throwing flowers and flower crowns around. By the time the festival ended, you were so covered in flowers that a few hummingbirds flocked around you when you sat still enough."

"And you looked like a colorful, overgrown topiary." Sabre laughs, lightly shoving Time. "And then the festival celebrating the Curse's defeat became an annual thing... Not really surprised, since he had been an enemy of the Realm pretty much since it was created."

"Yeah, honestly kind of excited to see what's planned for the fourth one this year." Time says. "Really glad that the old Rainbow Kingdom ruins were turned into a gathering spot for all of the Kingdoms."

"It's a good way of honoring the past." Sabre smiles.

They then notice how all of the blobs have gone quiet. Sabre chuckles and ruffles one's hair as Time walks towards the living room.

"What've you all gone quiet for? Excited at the mention of another festival?" Sabre says, a bunch of the blobs starting to squeak again.

Soon enough, the tension has been forgotten, and the duo has moved to hanging out in the living room while the blobs play around them. Sabre grins as he hears the happy laughter of the blobs while they play, and sees Time has calmed down after being so worried.

He grabs a book he had set down before the festival and picks up where he left off. A very long time ago, he first started reading storybooks in his free time so he'd have stories to tell the blobs whenever he visited them, but soon enough it became something he did to relax and genuinely enjoyed doing. In the kitchen, meanwhile, Time started making sugar cookies for the blobs.

He had spent a while reading, before he noticed one of the blobs sitting next to him looking a little strange.

"Arty? You okay?" Sabre says quietly as he nudges Artimis, who's buried themselves in a little blanket.

Artimis pops up from the blanket, but to Sabre's surprise, the creature's normal bright yellow colors have turned into a deep red.

"Uhhhh- Arty?! What'd you do??" Sabre says, a bit panicked as he picks up the very confused bee blob.

As Artimis notices their color change, the crimson already starts fading back into yellow. Sabre rubs a small changing spot on the blob's face as he looks at them, also confused.

"What in the-" He starts, but Sabre doesn't have time to finish his sentence before all heck breaks loose.

Two blobs suddenly start zooming across the house, so fast that they're barely seen. One smacks into a wall while the other runs into another blob, apologizes, and runs off again while writing in a tiny journal. The super speedy blobs startle most of the other blobs and they start to run around as well, adding to the commotion. The blob that ran into the wall made a support on a shelf break, making all the blobs sitting on that shelf start to fall. However, most of them find themselves floating in the air instead of hitting the ground, while the one that does suddenly finds that their body has turned into stone (and their impact has left a large dent in the floor).

The loud noise from the rock-ified blob hitting the ground scares even more blobs, and all of a sudden both more blobs and items around some of the little creatures are also levitating. One blob was holding seeds when they were spooked, then found themselves holding popcorn instead of the seeds, and as more blobs panic around them they decide to experiment more with this odd ability.

Blobs and items starting to float out of the blue gets the attention of the blobs in the kitchen, who also start panicking, while Time quickly stops icing the sugar cookies to try to figure out what's going on. A blob that was previously sleeping wakes up from all the noise, and sees that they suddenly have galactic wings. They immediately take off, knocking over a glass of water in the process, the water falling towards the two Ender-type blobs below. The more catlike one panics and begins to teleport frantically, not noticing that there's now a tiny umbrella made of a strange purple solid floating near them. The other Ender blob also teleports, but stops after teleporting once and sees they're right next to the tray of freshly iced cookies. They get distracted, grab a cookie, and immediately after eating it a small explosion appears next to them, launching them in the opposite direction.

The sound of the small explosion brings up the panic to another level. An axolotl blob falls into the sink, the water around them moving oddly as they interact with it. A blob standing in a windowsill filled with flowers in flowerpots becomes scared, and suddenly all the flowers near them start to wither. A blob that was holding a butterknife so they could hand it to Time to help with icing the cookies gets startled, and suddenly the knife is a flower. Another blob is almost run over by one of the speedy blobs, but in an instant they're completely invisible.

A blob tries to wake up their sleeping sibling, at first failing, but after they nudge them the sibling jolts up fully energized. While Constellation is still panic-teleporting, she knocks down another blob, who suddenly has tendrils stretch from their back that resemble the ones on their head. A few blobs suddenly dart behind furniture to panic as they notice they now have claws. A blob confusedly looks at what's supposed to be the end of her tail, but there's now a four-fingered hand. Some blobs have weapons suddenly appear out of nowhere. A blob tries to jump down from a countertop, but the ceiling is now their floor and vice versa, making them kind of stuck there. As a blob squeaks, frost shoots out of their mouth.

Another blob phases through the floor halfway, and scrambles back upward to get out. A blob trying to mind their own business while eating a cookie suddenly has wings and horns poof onto the as they were thinking about it. A blob stumbles inside the lit fireplace, but does not get burned at all, and has fun messing with the burning flames. 

Sabre panics and runs around, trying to get all of the creatures to calm down and stop their sudden bursts of power. Time looked into the living room and froze in place out of pure confusion.

"Sabre, what on earth-?!" Time exclaims, but is interrupted by a blob flying into him. He quickly catches the blob and calms them down, while Fluffy peeks out of his pocket now sporting some fangs for some reason.

"I don't know! One second I was just reading, I notice Arty changed colors somehow, and then-" He confusedly motions to the situation taking place all around the house, making a panicked noise.

As Sabre and Time both try to figure out what's going on and diffuse the situation, the commotion has been noticed by the village outside.

The two Village Leaders are observing the current state of house from down the path, also taking notice of the blobs that are outside also suddenly discovering they have weird abilities. Watching the village's resident heroes frantically try to get the house under control, they just stare for a moment before the Yellow Village Leader interrupts the silence between them.

"We should..." He starts. "We should really do something."

"Do you have any ideas on what to do here?" The Violet Village Leader answers, beginning to look concerned as he sees tiny explosions inside the house.

"...Fair point." The Yellow Village Leader says.

They both jump when a series of loud crashes come from the house, follow by quiet a few expletives from both its residents.

The Village Leaders glance at each other.

"Go get Light?

"Yep."

—————————————————————————————————————

Light Steve was sorting out resources the Guard had recovered during the raid of the Bandits' mountainside hideout, discussing what to do with them with an Elite. Some had to be deciphered, while others needed someone with experience in whatever subject the papers and journals were filled with. His office had a tense atmosphere.

"I've already sent off all the coded documents to the Professor and a few of the scholars in the Red Kingdom, so hopefully they contact us with progress soon." Light says as he wraps up telling one of his Elites about the situation with the evidence, spreading a few reports on his desk. "The rest of it is being investigated by various experts in the fields of the odd subjects written down... which also includes the Professor, since there was so much about potions and mechanics."

"Sounds like he's having one heck of a field day." The Elite replies, chuckling a bit.

"Yep, he is. He looked ecstatic when I told him about the documents and how he was in charge of investigating a good chunk of it." Light says. "Apparently things were getting boring, according to him. How was those scouts' recon mission on going back to the hideout?"

"Uh...that's the thing, sir. There was nothing there." The Elites says, a bit perplexed. "There must have been some sort of explosion or something caused by something left running in there, because all that was left was scorch marks and an impassable cave-in, according to the scouts."

Light sighs and rubs his eyes for a moment, clearly annoyed.

"Of course..." He mumbles. He then looks up at the Elite. "We saw a lot of illegal practices and bootleg machinery in there, so it must have been either one of those going wrong and causing a chain reaction among them. You know how those are."

The Elite stays silent for a moment.

"Sir, are you alright?" He asks.

"Yes, just been busy with all of this." Light answers, motioning to the multiple reports scattered over his desk. "Not every day a massive criminal syndicate is uncovered, especially after so many years of just small-scale incidents. And the strange cases of those 'bandits' that were in a trance... the Green Kingdom has all of them on life support until they can figure out how to snap them out of it, since they've all stopped responding to any stimuli apparently."

"Understandable, sir." The Elite says, a worried yet knowing expression just barely peeking out from behind his helmet. "A lot of the teams are also run a little ragged because of the short notice. Just... don't overwork yourself."

"I'll be fine Elite, no need to worry about me." Light says, giving a small smile. "I can handle a bit of paperwork. You can go ahead and head back to your post, thank you for meeting with me."

"Will do Captain, and no problem." The Elite says, saluting. "I'll let my squad know about the situation, and tell them to tell the others."

Just as the Elite leaves Light's office, there's a knock on the door.

"Come in." Light calls out.

The Yellow Village Leader enters, a worried look on his face. Light starts to look concerned, but the Village Leader starts before he can say anything.

"Good news, it's not about Sabre this time." He says, an awkward smile on his face, trying to ease the pressure.

Light relaxes a little.

"So, what is it, then?" He asks.

"Well, uhm..." The Village Leader begins. "Since the creatures followed you and the Guards during the base raid, did anything... strange happen to them?"

"Yes actually, I was going to let Sabre know about it once he fully recovered." Light says. "Why?"

"There's... a bit of an... issue with them." The Village Leader says nervously. "Suddenly all of the creatures are doing strange things, and Sabre and Time are trying to get it under control, but it's causing quite the commotion."

"Oh, crap..." Light says, getting up from his desk. "And knowing Sabre and how he is about those creatures, he's probably freaking out about it."

"Yeah, it's not really going well."

"I'll explain everything to Sabre. Mind teleporting me to the village?"

—————————————————————————————————————

When Light arrived in front of the duo's house, he could already see the mayhem going on inside.

While the majority of the commotion was coming from in the house, there were also a lot of the creatures outside, too. And they were all discovering something new as well.

A straw-hatted blob was being chased by a silverfish, when they turned around and a hammer appeared out of nowhere, squashing the bug while the blob just stared in complete surprise. A blob trying to block out the noise and nap on the porch was being bothered by a mosquito, and when they swatted it they noticed that a small cut from the raid was suddenly gone. Another blob was chasing around mirages of butterflies that disappeared every time they got close. A blob that was previously inside the house is now outside, and more plants wither around them as they continue to panic.

A blob rushes out of a small opening in a window covered in tiny vines. Two blobs playing with each other suddenly stop when one runs into another, the other blob suddenly curling up in pain. Another blob with claws is tearing up anything they can. A blob looking sad nudges a bit of dirt, and are surprised when a pretty rose suddenly pops out of the ground. The blob picks the rise and runs off.

Light carefully avoids stepping on any of the blobs, and makes his way to the front door. He knocks, and has to wait for a minute before Sabre opens it.

"Oh, hey Light. What are you doing here?" Sabre says, looking exasperated and exhausted.

"One of the Village Leaders got me and told me that there's something going on with the creatures." Light answers. "Are you... okay?"

"Uh- Yeah, just- There's a lot going on right now." Sabre says, quickly catching a flying blob and starting to calm them down. "You can come back later, if you want-"

"Sabre, I know how this happened." Light says. "I came to explain everything to you."

Sabre stops and looks at Light, then snaps out of his shock and lets Light inside.

While Light explains everything to Sabre and Time, the blobs eventually all calm down, and most go outside to test their powers in a... less destructible environment.

Lots of things are tossed around, some blobs end up tangled in various products of others' powers, and general shenanigans ensue while the more responsible blobs try to keep everyone in line.

Soon, in the middle of a duel between two element-powered blobs, a familiar face appears.

The blobs all excited crowd around Gerald as he trots towards them, trying to show off to their favorite pig friend. Gerald, meanwhile, has his usual 'Why do I put up with this' face.

"What, you get told to come babysit or something?" A blob quips, giggling, having noticed his expression.

Gerald huffs and sits down, prompting the blobs to climb on him. As usual, to make up for their chaotic antics, the blobs give him little gifts of golden carrots (naturally), a little cape, a flower crown, affection in the form of nuzzles and cuddles, and various pretty plants and flowers.

Some blobs are still a bit wary of him, hanging out in the background. A blob from earlier has their journal again and is excitedly writing, not letting anyone see what. Another blob finishes drawing a picture in the dirt and shows it to Gerald, who gives an approving nod.

It's pretty clear to the blobs that Gerald cares about them, and he just doesn't like showing it that much.

Meanwhile, inside the house, Light has finished explaining the events in the potion brewery of the Bandit hideout during the raid. Sabre thinks for a minute, concerned, while Time places a hand on his shoulder to reassure him.

"Do you think it'll be temporary, since it's a result of potions?" Sabre wonders aloud.

"No idea, but since it's only showing up now and potions normally only last a few minutes..." Light says, also concerned. "It probably isn't. It's best you go to an expert with this sort of thing to check."

"Like the Professor-" Time begins.

"Not the Professor." Sabre interrupts, looking a little miffed at just the idea.

"Sabre, I know you don't exactly trust Professor Red with the creatures, but he's our best bet with identifying potions and their effects." Time says, crossing his arms. "The Green Steves have only had experience with healing potions, and the Violets' alchemy skills have only recently become more advanced."

"No way am I letting him anywhere near-"

"Sabre. We don't know what other effects this could have, just like how you 'mystery potion effect' situation. What if it becomes dangerous to the creatures?"

Sabre mumbles for a second before abruptly answering 'Fine'.

"Don't charge at him again, okay?" Light says, remembering what happened last time.

"I won't! I had reason to last time!" Sabre exclaims, then notices a blog sneaking across the room out of the corner of his eye, and turns to them. "Rosemary, you get back into time out, you tore up most of the yard."

The blob grumpily hops back to the time-out corner. When Sabre turns back around, he sees Time and Light giving him a look.

"What?" He asks.

"And you say you don't act like a father to them." Light chuckles.

"Hey!"

Light is about to say something else, when he gets jumpscared by Artimis suddenly popping up from the couch squeaking, now the same color as it. Sabre now laughs and motions for Artimis to come to him as they start to change back to their normal yellow.

"Little gremlin..." Light says quietly.

"Arty was just saying hi." Sabre smiles, holding the little blob and placing them in his hood. "If you think they're a gremlin, you haven't seen the group of siblings known as the Chaos Trio."

"One of them is the one with the straw hat, right?" Time asks, handing a sugar cookie to Squirrel.

"Yep, and that one you're giving a cookie to is Squirrel," Sabre says, turning around. "And Whisper is-"

When the three of them turn to look at Whisper, they all scream, as the little blob's head is magically floating above their body. Seeing that the blob is happily singing as they always are, they calm down, and Sabre gently pushes their head back down to their body.

"Origin above, I thought that it was dead for a second..." Light says, still a bit in shock.

"Uh, yeah. Me too." Time says, his hands shaking as he places one over his heart.

"Whisper. For the love of all that's holy. Don't do that again." Sabre tells the little blob, who just squeaks and hops away.

A beat of silence passes, the group able to faintly hear the squeaking of the blobs outside.

"I should probably head back to the Guard headquarters now." Light says, getting up. "Good luck with all this, you two."

"We're probably gonna need it." Sabre says, already sounding overwhelmed.

"See you later, Light." Time says, waving as Light exits the house.

The sound of lightning comes and passes. Once he knows Light is gone, Sabre runs a hand through his hair and groans.

"So much for today being quiet..." He mumbles.

"Want me to wrangle the ones in here while you get the ones outside?" Time offers, noticing the blobs that are still upstairs sounding like they're getting rowdy.

"That would help, thanks." Sabre says, glancing out the window. "I should probably tell them to stop harassing Gerald."

Sabre gets up from the couch and heads towards the front door, but stops for a second.

"If one bites you for whatever reason, just get me and I'll get them off." He says, then exits the house to get the blobs playing outside under control.

Time sits in silence for a minute, caught off guard by that statement.

"Well, alright then..." Time says, standing up and looking towards the stairway. "Hopefully they don't actually bite me..."

He notices Squirrel sitting on top of the back of the couch, looking up at him with a smile, and he grins while giving her scritches on top of her little head.

"You wouldn't do that though, right?" Time says quietly to the creature. "You've been a total sweetie to me."

The blob responds by suddenly coughing out a gold nugget. Time freezes in place again, very confused. The blob nudges it towards him after a second and he hesitantly picks it up.

"Uhm... thanks?" He says, then mumbles to himself as he heads upstairs. "Guess that's what you do now."

The blob mayhem slowly starts to wind down as Sabre and Time collect the blobs and get them to stop their shenanigans... although, one jumps through a house window and ends up breaking it.

—————————————————————————————————————

Aaaand here we are, another chapter done :3

Hope you guys had fun wrecking the house lol-

Anyway, the next chapter is gonna be a bit of an interesting one:

After a while of figuring out what happened to the blobs, helping them learn how to control their new powers at least a little bit, and generally making sure that you guys don't cause trouble, Sabre really needs a break.

It just so happens that he's overdue with some therapy sessions, and Therapist Green has a night free, so after discussing it with Time he agrees to Green's invitation to spend a night at his house for both a very needed break and catching up with each other and on missed sessions. Now, we all know that Sabre wouldn't just leave us unsupervised, so of course:

This means that Time gets to babysit the blobs while Sabre is gone.

And since the main caretaker isn't here (and eventually Time's gonna need help from the rest of the village lol-), that also means that the blobs can get away with a lot more stuff than when Sabre is here >:)

So, here are your events!

—

Event 1:

Okay, who duct taped who to the ceiling?

The Taped: ✨1/1✨

The Tapers: ✨3/3✨

Aaand who used the leftover roll of tape to duct tape Time's entire pocket watch collection to random spots around the house?

✨1/1✨

—

Event 2:

Now, you guys are gonna be able to wander off and spy on people. Spying grants you guys insight on some of this book's lore! You can only pick one of these options though, and once it's decided, the other two options will be discarded entirely and the lore that was to be mentioned will be revealed much later. So, imma give a good, fair chance to all of these to be picked by making the voting quota 30.

(And you guys can't spy on Sabre because you're already gonna get trauma and backstory lore through a therapy session and just him hanging out with Green Imeanwhat-)

Choose wisely :>

Spy on:

- The Professor (11/30)

- A nearby Bandit camp (6/30)

- A meeting between the Leaders (13/30)

—

Event 3:

What did you do that caused so much of a ruckus, that the rest of the village came over to investigate?

—

Event 4:

Very late at night, after Time has passed out in bed after dealing with your shenanigans all day. The blobs are getting ready for bed, when...

There's a bandit trying to break in through a window.

—

(5024 Words)

Seeya next chapter ^v^