(4)

Grian let out a shaky sigh, his hands clasped together as he hand them raised to his mouth. He was nervous for sure, especially after learning that Xisuma had been secretly keeping an eye on him. He was told to stay away from the server owner just before he was supposed to depart for Hermitcraft. The builder sat by the edge of his roof, his feet just hanging off of the side. Grian didn't know what do and all he could hope for is that Xisuma doesn't figure out who he is at all. That wouldn't do well for the builder.

Meanwhile, back in X's base, there was still a distressed admin and a confused poet. If Grian was a Watcher, then that will cause a huge number of problems for both the server and Xisuma. But, it seemed that Grian.. wasn't a Watcher. If he was, the server wouldn't be handling it well. And by handling it well, I mean that the server would glitch, then eventually try to delete itself, deleting any players inside.

Watchers aren't meant to play in the world. They're only meant to watch.

"What makes you think that Grian is supposedly a Watcher?" Joe asked, his southern accent peaking through ever so slightly, "The server hasn't tried to delete itself yet.."

"I know.. But that's the thing. What if Grian was alligned with the Watchers?" X absentmindly muttered, he had a strong feeling that might be the case. A Watcher that's allowed to build without the world causing a self deletion? Never heard of it before. That, or it's happened but players or the Watcher themself never made it out alive.

Joe slowly nodded, niether him nor Xisuma could be entirely sure what exactly is going on, "The only thing to do is to just wait for more clues.."

"If we're too late, then it could be our downfall" X grimly replied, furrowing his brows, "Let's just hope that it never happens. I'll keep an eye on him, just a little more secretive than before."

He paused. ".. I may have accidentally revealed myself to Grian"

Joe only let out a defeated sigh in response. What an idiot.

— • —

A month or two had passed and Grian was dead asleep on his bed, though he was tossing and turning. A dream sparked long forgotten memories to resurface.

The imagery is pure white. He wasn't able to see a single thing. All Grian was able to do was listen in on the conversation. It was all in Galatic and it sounded like a conversation between 2 adults and a kid.

"Xelqua? What kind of name is that?" The child paused, his voice sounding a little nostalgic. "Sorry to be rude, but the name kinda sucks."

Small murmurs were exchanged, how he wished he could see what was exactly happening.

"It's not like we have any knowledge of player names.." A young, but much older than the child voice softly replied.

The child hummed, "How about Gria.. no.. Grian!"

That earned a wholehearted chuckle from the older voices, "Grian huh? Sounds like a bad name."

"It sounds way better than Xelqua though!"

Grian jolted awake, his instant reaction was to sit up. Maybe the prank war was a little too stressful on him. He rubbed his eyes, looking out at the sky from his blue tinted windows. It was quiet everywhere, the only sound coming from him moving around on his bed, causing the wooden frame to creak occasionally. The builder let a tired hum escape his lips as he slowly laid back down on his bed. He couldn't help but wonder who those voices were.

Were they his original family?

No, that can't be.

He was told he was left out on the streets.

The sun slowly rose from the west and Grian was out cold just from exhaustion. He was supposed to start to help build up the GTeam base with Iskall just in a couple of hours.

That dream really must've screwed him over.

Those supposed hours had passed, to which no one's surprise that Grian was still asleep. It had led Iskall to fly over to his base just to wake him up to start on the team base. He narrowed his eyes, his elytra wings just folding up as he thought about the best way to wake up someone like Grian.

A sly smirk crept onto Iskall's face as he grabbed the bed frame and tried to lift it up to make the base owner fall out of his bed. It was a struggle at first, but he got easier the more force Iskall used to lift the bed up. Grian landed hard against the concrete floor of his base which quickly prompted him to suddenly wake up. He was very dazed, even looking around to grasp at his surroundings.

Wild laughter escaped Iskall's mouth, which instantly brought attention to himself. Grian looked up at the other and confusedly blinked. The builder rubbed his eyes and lowly groaned, "What time is it-"

"Dude, it's for you and I to build" Iskall's Swedish accent very much was heard, "I knew you stayed up late, but not that late!"

It was a small tease, yet he couldn't help but worry about his fellow hermit. Especially since Grian said he would be there and no one would be required to wake him up if he oversleeps.

"Urk.. yeah, sorry 'bout that. Some dream woke me up last night, but I'm good to go now," Grian slowly admitted, combing out his hair with his fingers. "It's nothing to worry about."

Iskall shrugged it off as Grian put his elytra on. He didn't want to intrude on any privacy that Grian wanted and he respected that. Iskall grabbed his rockets and waited for Grian, who was ready shortly after. The two took off to the area that they had picked for their team base, flying out of the builder's mega base out from the top.

The two had started to build, but Grian kept disappearing into his own thoughts. Much to Iskall's worry, but the two had eventually got the outside done with some half-assed interior. All that was there was the 3 different floors they had. Iskall had gone for the day, saying how he'll work on it more tomorrow while Grian decided to stay a little longer to work on the floor of the first floor. It didn't take him long to run out of materials, after all it was only planned to work on the exterior and not interior. The builder let out a soft sigh, sinking to the floor. He looked tired and he was. Even though last night's dream was just about 24 hours ago, he couldn't stop thinking about it. He almost even fell asleep from his own exhaustion. And I mean almost, because if he didn't hear faint footsteps coming from the side, Grian would most definitely be asleep. His vision was hazy as he tried to focus on who was walking towards him. The only thing he saw was a blue shirt with an @ plastered right onto the middle of it.

Joe looked down at the half asleep Grian and tried to lift him up. The builder let out a weak grunt, not wanting to move anymore. Joe gently shook his head, trying to prompt Grian to get back up again, "C'mon Grian, I'll guide you back to your own base."

Grian let out another grunt, soon shakily pulling himself onto his feet and let Joe guide him. He was too exhausting to make any second thoughts. The poet didn't want to alarm the drowsy builder with rockets, so he decided to take the long route of walking and boating. It was the middle of the night and Joe was slowly rowing Grian back to his mega base with Grian resting against Joe's back.

"Grian I'm so sorry, I wish that you live on"

Dead silence.

"They have a kid, what do we do with it?"

Grian abruptly awoke, suddenly moving his head away, causing Joe to jump. The poet stopped rowing and looked back at the builder.

"Wh-where am I-" the younger man softly asked, absentmindedly looking around.

Joe gently grabbed onto Grian's shoulders, "Whoa whoa whoa, calm down buddy. We're boating back to your base,"

"..my base?"

"Yeah, but it seems that you're much more awake now," he slowly let go of him, "Do you think you're ok enough to fly?"

"Fly? O-oh yeah, I think-" The builder stammered, somehow forgetting the server he's in. Grian readied himself for flight, his elytra wings slowly spreading, "Uh, thanks for that Joe-"

Grian used two or so rockets and took flight, gliding into his base. He unequipped his elytra and slowly got into bed. Yeah, this was a lot more comfortable than the hard floor back at the GTeam base. As if instantaneously, Grian basically fell asleep as soon as he relaxed. Joe took this moment to peacefully row back to his own base, not wanting to use his own rockets to disturb Grian or anyone else that is sleeping.

The next day slowly arrived and a tired Joe decided to send a message on his communicator.

"No one disturb Grian, he needs his sleep. Found him half asleep in the team base last night."

Joe decided to keep how late out of the picture, he didn't want to seem suspicious.

— • —

Grian was much more energized as the week flew by, mainly on construction of the GTeam base and just in time for the start of the war. Neither X nor Joe decided to show up for the truce flag to be taken down, they didn't want to be a part of it. Joe decided to take up the role of watching Grian while X was busy watching the entire server, noting that the Watchers would definitely take the state of the server and use it to catch everyone off guard. Xisuma readied himself to give Joe the admin handle just in case something happens to himself, but that time never came during the start of the attacks. The armored man couldn't let his guard down yet though.

Another week had passed and X had decided to drop it for now. Grian decided to make an announcement about how the civil war was going to end and Xisuma decided that he at least should show up for that. Grian called everyone taking part in the war over to the middle. There was a wooden platform with 15 heads on both sides, what the builder was planning was something that the admin was interested in. Grian placed down 3 identical flags on his side and Doc followed shortly after by placing another 3 identical flags on their side. Something about capturing the other team's flags, Xisuma accidentally zoned out. All he understood was that it was Capture the Flag and the team that captures all 3 enemy team flags or the team that still has their lives wins. And just like that, the entire meet was over but Xisuma decided to stay behind for a bit. Maybe he should just leave the trapping to his teammates.

Only 3 days had passed, 1 was spent for each team to work on the traps and obstacle courses for their flags. Both teams already had 2 flags and there's going to be a showdown for the last flag. GTeam was down a couple of lives compared to Team STAR though. It was going down later tonight and both teams were gearing up, preparing to tackle each other and invade the bases. Xisuma had once again decided to stay out of this just in case.

As night came around, both sides were ready to attack, but some people were missing. And one of those people was someone Joe was supposed to keep his eye on. He panicked and quickly set a private message to X.

"GRIAN ISN'T HERE AND I KNOW FOR HELL THAT HE ISN'T SLEEPING. I CAN'T LEAVE OR ELSE IT'LL BE SUSPICIOUS!!"

X's eyes widened as he read the message. He dropped everything as swiftly as he could and expended way too many fireworks just to fly over to Grian's base as quickly as he could. Grian on the other hand, had just landed in his base and was met with a chest dead center. He assumed that's what he's here for and opened the chest. What was inside is what caused an excited expression on his face.

A Watcher mask.

Grian slowly lifted it out of the box and Xisuma just landed in the base behind him. By the time X had noticed the mask, Grian had nearly put it on. He reached for the younger male, shouting a desperate plea.

"Grian no!"

But it was too late.

— • —

[ this is a long chapter, 2.1k words. hehe, sorry about that, i kinda went overboard~ next chapter should be out sometime tomorrow :) ]