Chapter 13 - Gone

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Dream SMP

Drista had gone straight to Techno. She knew that he might be as well the only one that will be able to stop Nightmare.

"Techno!!" Drista cried out as she broke down his door.

"Drista?" Techno looked up and so did Michael who was holding his axe.

"I need your help," Drista said, taking the axe from Michael. The zombified baby piglin took his golden sword and stabbed the floor with it. His chicken which Drista had brought along so that Michael would have his chicken friend with him, bawked and flew on top of Michael's head.

"What happened?" Techno asked as he picked took his axe back from Drista.

"Dream isn't himself anymore," Drista said weakly.

"He isn't?"

"No. He's been replaced with someone...Someone called Nightmare..."

"Nightmare?" Techno asked, confused.

"Yeah," Drista said. "He said that he was Dream's opposite."

"That makes no sense," Techno said.

"I know," Drista said. "But nothing really makes sense at the moment does it?"

"You have a point there," Techno admitted.

"Well?" Drista said. "Are you going to help or not?"

"Where's Michael going to go?" Techno asked.

"We can leave him with one of the Hermits," Drista said, picking up Michael.

"Alright," Techno said. "Go give him to one of the Hermits and come back." He began rummaging in his chests.

About half an hour later, Drista came back and both her and Techno went back to the egg after leaving Michael with one of the Hermits.

"George!" Drista called out when they entered the chamber.

"You looking for that bitch?" Goodboyhalo asked as he walked out from behind the egg. "That idiot got rid of Nightmare somehow," he said annoyed. "He's so fucking annoying."

Out of nowhere, an arrow was shot at Techno, but thankfully, with the enchanted armor he was wearing, the arrow only took a bit of his health.

"What the-" Drista turned around to see Skeppy, but instead of his diamond blue appearance, he was red.

"Skeppy?" Drista asked.

"I'm Jef, not Skeppy," he said.

"What the hell is going on here?" Techno asked, confused.

"Oh Techno!" Jef said. "I didn't know you were here," he said, sarcastically.

Jef aimed another arrow at Techno.

Sk3ppy was slain by Technoblade using [Orphan Obliterator]

"WHAT THE FUCK," Good said. He took out a sword and lashed out at Techno.

B@dboyhal0 was slain by Technoblade using [Orphan Obliterator]

"Hey, Techno," Drista said as the two bodies returned to their original state and dissolved.

"What?" Techno asked.

"I just noticed. Some letters in their usernames are...Replaced with different characters," Drista said.

"What do you mean?" Techno asked.

"The e in Skeppy's name is replaced with a 3," Drista said. "The a in Bad's name is replaced with another character and the o is replaced with a 0." Drista thought about it some more. "And instead of the i in Phil's name, there was a 1." Then she recalled something from a couple days before. "And in Dream's username, there was the same symbol replacing the a in Bad's name."

"So what does it mean?" Techno asked as the two left the chamber.

. . .

Later that night, everyone's chat dinged with the same message.

<DreamXD> You all will be able to go home soon

<DreamXD> Generik and I are working on the situation

DreamXD left the game

— — —

Hermitcraft

Xisuma was relieved to see that they would be able to go home soon. He couldn't stand another week in this world with Dream.

He was helping Impulse and Tango set up the machine outside.

"Alright, who's gonna operate this?" Tango asked.

Impulse sighed. "Not me. I mean, you're entrusting a guy who ate amethyst shards as a food source in Season 8 to operate a machine that is powerful enough to control gravity?"

"Fair." Tango said.

"Hey, do you guys think everything will go back to normal after we get back to Hermitcraft?" Xisuma asked, putting in another screw.

Impulse glanced at him. "Depends on what you mean by normal. Is Hermitcraft ever 'normal'?"

"If you're talking about our friends, then I don't know." Tango sighed.

Impulse and Tango noticed how X's face turned to anger, tears starting to form under his eyes.

"How could Dream do this? We lose 8 of our friends already and then he just had to kill 11 more."

"I agree X, but revenge won't get you anywhere. And what about that sweet and kind derp you usually are? The X we know can't disappear," Tango said.

"Yeah? He kills members of his own server too. People who are completely innocent and he doesn't give a damn. He recently killed Skeppy and Bad. What did they even do? According to the Dream SMP members he's just a wholesome demon. And ALL of the Hermits were innocent too. Even Grian. I can't believe he's done this."

Impulse was worried for his friend. "X, killing him won't solve anything. It'll just make you as bad as Dream himself."

The admin looked confused. "Kill him?"

"X, we know that's what you want to do, we're not stupid." Tango said.

Xisuma sighed. "And maybe that is what I wanted to do. Why do you care?"

Impulse looked frustrated as he wrenched in a bolt. "We're your friends. We're pretty much obligated to care. And even if we weren't, we still would."

Tango nodded in agreement. "X, you're better than this. You're not the type of person that would kill somebody."

The admin soon broke down crying. "I know, and sometimes it's really hard to keep in anger when there's so much of it. I broke a promise because of this, one I definitely intended to keep."

Impulse put down his wrench. "What promise?"

Xisuma took a deep breath. "I made a promise to Generikb when he left and made me admin. I promised him that I would protect the Hermits and the Hermitcraft server no matter what happened. I cared about them, after all. I've seen many people come and go, bringing the server to the amazing group we had. I felt like I belonged at Hermitcraft, even in my derpy moments. Dream took that all away. I'm a failure. I even let my own brother die."

Tango put down his drill and tightly hugged the admin. "You didn't let your brother die. He sacrificed himself to save you. As for the Hermits, you tried. It wasn't your fault. It was Dream's, remember?"

As he let go of X, Impulse raised another question.

"But wasn't that Nightmare controlling him?"

"Who's Nightmare?" X asked. "And how and why is he controlling Dream? And how do you know this?!"

Impulse looked guilty for some reason. "Well, I kinda accidentally eavesdropped on Drista and Technoblade."

X slapped his face, or rather, helmet. "Impulse...you know what? Forget it. You didn't answer my first two questions."

"I'm pretty sure Nightmare is Dream's opposite. And I have no idea why he's controlling Dream."

Tango looked at the admin and the amethyst-eater. "Ok, but there's still one question left unanswered."

Impulse raised an eyebrow. "And that would be...?"

Tango smirked. "How does one 'accidentally' eavesdrop on someone?"

"Tango!" Impulse said, rolling his eyes and in a sarcastic tone.

Xisuma chuckled as the two started teasing each other out of pure friendship.

"Hey you two, it's getting dark out. We should probably go now."

"Yeah, if only we had Bdubs to sleep the night away for us." Tango said, jokingly.

Impulse elbowed him.

"Oh...right. I'm so sorry X..." Tango said.

"No, it's fine. I'm okay," X said, even though he clearly wasn't okay.

Xisuma walked away, and Zedaph came running towards Impulse and Tango.

"Hey guys!" He cheerfully said.

Tango smiled. "Hey Zed! What brings you here?"

"What do you mean? You invited me here to help set up the machine. I forgot though, sorry!"

Impulse laughed. "It's fine, Zedaph."

Zed frowned, knowing it wasn't okay, considering the situation with the moon. "Are you positive?"

"Completely. X, Tango, and I were enough. Though I wouldn't advise being late again, an extra set of hands still would've been nice."

"Sorry..."

"We said it's fine! We might not be able to solve the moon though." Tango said, looking up at the moon.

It quickly started setting though.

Xisuma went to bed. Sweet Dreams

But the moon was still able to be seen. It was gigantic on the horizon.

Zedaph sighed. "So I was thinking..."

"What were you thinking?" Impulse asked.

"Maybe we shouldn't stop the moon. We're leaving soon anyway."

Tango nodded. "I guess it's really no use setting up a huge machine if there's a possibility it won't work."

"Yeah, you know what? Let's head back and have some fun with the rest of the Hermits." Impulse suggested.

Zed smiled. "Oh, I am so down!"

Team Z.I.T. arrived back at Hermitstead, and suggested playing charades with everyone. Including the Dream SMP, if they wanted to. The Hermits all agreed happily. Their minds needed to be taken off all the death.

"Alright, I will ask in chat." Xisuma said.

"Why you?" Ren jokingly asked.

"Because whenever one of you guys put something in chat, things escalate to the point where it looks like y'all are on stuff."

That got some laughs out of the Hermits.

"Yeah that's fair." Mumbo said, remembering how one time the chat had started talking about farming and cloning him.

<Xisuma> Hey, we were talking about playing charades. You guys want in?

<Renthedog> Of course :)

<Xisuma> I was talking to the Dream SMP members, Ren XD

<Georgenotfound> Sure! Sounds like fun!

<Drista> Oooooooh this could get interesting!

<Technoblade> Yeah, but you better not make the prompts 'killing orphans' or things could get messy

<Xisuma> Oh, we know...

<Kristin> Sounds enjoyable, of course!

<Xisuma> :-)

<Tango> Ok, ok. They want in. Can we get high in chat now?

<Xisuma> No. Close off your chat immediately

<Tango> Awwww man :(

<Zedaph> Tango you forgot to say 'Creeper'

<Xisuma> Here we go again...

<Drista> Heck yeah!

<Technoblade> Time to go stab some stuff let's goooo

<Tango> Let's take Mumbo's mustache!

<MumboJumbo> No! Not my moustache please!

<FalseSymmetry> Let's do it!

Before charades started, everyone except Xisuma successfully took Mumbo's moustache away.

Mumbo was smiling through the pain. He had his moustache taken away one too many times.

"Challenge completed." Ren said.

Drista laughed. "I'll say."

Zedaph grinned and looked at Mumbo. "Get rekt."

"Children behave!" Xisuma exclaimed.

After X calmed everyone down, they tried splitting into teams for charades.

Unfortunately, there were 11 of them, so the teams would be uneven.

Technoblade frowned. "Now someone has to leave. I guess I'll go."

George wasn't impressed. "No, I can. I can at least hang out with Dream."

Techno shrugged. "No, I insist it's fine. I have better things to do."

"Like what?" The brunett asked.

"Killing orphans." Techno said casually, as he left the room.

They finally divided up into even teams, picked at random. They named the teams too.

Team Chaos Crew included Mumbo, Impulse, False, Drista, and Tango. Team Responsible Face Coverings included Kristin, Xisuma, George, Zed, and Ren.

Mumbo was up first. "Hey! Who put this on the other team?"

He started pretending to eat cereal.

Ren and Zedaph burst out into laughter and high fived each other. Their eyes had tears from the laughter.

Tango smiled. "Judging Ren and Zed's laughter, I'm gonna guess the word was spoon."

Mumbo slowly nodded.

Kristin was up next.

She acted like she was cutting something and bringing it back to her mouth.

Xisuma was puzzled as to what her word could be.

Impulse slowly smiled.

"Knife?" Ren asked.

Just before their minute ran out, George blurted out the answer.

"Fork! The word is fork!" Drista proudly smiled at what she put in the word list.

False laughed. "Why are all the utensils being drawn first? I'm gonna guess and say the next one is knife."

Everyone burst out in a fit of laughter at that statement. Unfortunately, the next word, in fact, was not 'knife'.

Eventually, everyone was exhausted from the fun and went home. Thankfully, Mumbo went home with his moustache.

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One more chapter before the Epilouge!!

-Pleb

How I came up with names for the randomly picked teams (I legit used WheelDecide): Chaos Crew: Kinda obvious, and Drista being on the team helped. Responsible Face Coverings: Well most of them are pretty responsible and they all have some sort of face covering. Xisuma has his helmet. Zedaph's S8 skin had lab goggles. Ren has sunglasses. George has goggles. Mumza in fanart is typically drawn with a veil covering her face from what I've seen.

-Galactic