Work Text:
Xisuma opened his eyes, knowing something was wrong with the certainty someone has after being a part of the world’s code.
Opening his admin panel, he searched for the error, but found nothing, just code and interactions and mobs and there-
A single line of code that sent a chill down his spine.
{Ten players have been teleported to —--, —-, —}
The coordinates weren’t readable. Xisuma knew they weren’t anywhere on the Hermitcraft. But that wasn’t what scared him.
No, unreadable coordinates were not terrifying. What was terrifying was that Xisuma knew teleporting was disabled. Nobody should be able to teleport without permission from him, and he knew that no players had asked him to teleport anything recently.
He delved deeper and deeper into the code as only admins and Voidwalkers could, searching for the name of whatever had teleported ten of his hermits out of the world. He came across a server mention of a firewall breach about two hours previous, and after he cross-referenced the time between that and the teleport, he decided that whatever had breached the firewall protecting the server had to have been whatever teleported the Hermits.
He was going through the list of missing hermits, PearlescentMoon, ZombieCleo, GoodtimeswithScar, Renthedog, Bdouble0, EthoSlab, TangoTek, ImpulseSV, Grian, Mumbo Jumbo, before realising that was the list of hermits who had joined the newest Life Series, Last Life. However, when he checked the coordinates from which each member had been teleported, he noticed that it was seemingly random, as if all the hermits had just been going about their day when it happened.
With the sinking feeling of wrongness growing, he tried to check the code of whatever had done the teleporting, he felt some kind of magic trying to grasp his mind. He left the section of code, and used his Voidwalker abilities to weave a protection layer around himself. He pulled up the code again, and recognized a built-in spell which would make whoever was to read it to become paralyzed in a semiconscious state. With his protection, he could only barely escape it, such was the power.
The code itself was a name he didn’t recognize. A string of letters seemingly arranged randomly. It read Nibigenin. Xisuma tried to delve deeper, find more, but only felt himself falling to the spell. He closed down the code again, and noticed that his own protective layer had been destroyed without his knowledge.
Xisuma needed to know what happened. He needed to find the Hermits. He knew one person who might know, despite being a pain. Xisuma took a deep breath, forcing down the sense of wrong to be buried by something, anything else. He stared at the decorated interior of his base, forcing down the distrust that ate away at his very soul. Xisuma felt a quiet, cold rage settle over his body in place of whatever was there before. Good. He wanted this right now, anyways.
“Evil X?”
HIs brother, Evil X, appeared out of nowhere into the empty space of Xisuma's room, materializing into being with a sharp crack.
“Right here, little brother. What do you want? Some advice for your advertisement of Derpcoin? A report?” Evil X smirked, enjoying Xisuma's cross expression.
Xisuma drew his sword and slammed Evil X into a wall, blade at his throat. “What did you do to my hermits?” He growled.
Evil X grew an expression of genuine confusion. “What do you mean?”
“They’re not here. Someone teleported them. You and I agreed that they were off-limits. All I do is help you with Derpcoin. You stay on the sidelines. You do not touch them. I may be giving you a second chance, but I’m not an idiot, Ex.” Xisuma hissed.
“No, X, I promise I don’t know. I haven’t been doing anything. I made a house yesterday. I was sleeping this morning. You called me, and I came.” Evil X held up his hands, despite being pinned, in a gesture of surrender, and Xisuma felt a faint ripple of amusement.
Funny how a sword at your throat made people a lot more helpful.
“Alright, well somebody did, and I have no idea who. I have to find them. Ex, I’ve got to find them! Oh I’m a horrible admin, can’t even track one teleport-” Xisuma fretted, dropping his sword and beginning to pace.
“X, shut up. I mean this in the kindest way, but you’re a pleb. I took a peek at the code. That’s more powerful than you wove whatever protection you made. It ate it. You just need to try again.” Ex interrupted, rubbing his throat where the sword had been pressed.
Evil X leaned forward, waiting for Xisuma's answer. To keep from looking his brother- his soul, his own soul, why would you do this, his other HALF- Xisuma stared into the stupid Derpcoin logo in his foyer, trying to look at the detail in the coin instead of Evil X's eyes. It didn't work, because Evil X just kept staring at him.
“...I can’t do it! I’m not strong enough. Not on my own.” X confessed grudgingly.
Evil X raised an eyebrow. “Do you want help?”
“...Yes.” Xisuma muttered.
“Promise I won’t blow everything up!” Ex chirped, opening his copy of an admin panel.
“I’ll take us to the best port, and pretend I didn't hear you say that.”
Xisuma teleported the brothers, the halves, to the port, a place between visible reality and code. It was a almost nonsensical place, vision occasionally blurring into code, and code occasionally ceasing to exist. It was made of the most gorgeous colours, though. Greens of every shade and the most clear orange ever. It was a small room. Well, small in comparison to any other build on the Hermitcraft server. A room full of colour, and code, and it thrived within nonbeing and existence. In the centre of the room, there were two circles, perfectly suited for the brothers. X ignored how unused one of the circles looked, stepping into the circle with scuff marks and lines through it. Ex almost uncomfortably stepped into the other.
"Do you still remember how to do this?" Xisuma asked.
"I could never forget." Ex responded easily.
He and Ex stood facing each other, and began.
Simple movements. A hand drawn up by Xisuma, matched by Ex. A hand flung to the side, drawing on the code within the port, copied by a reflection. Shifting back, pulling from the room around them yet not tearing it apart. Eyes meeting, one calm and the other almost but not quite excited. One's movement smooth, the other rusty, as if a dance almost forgotten. Two legs struck out, hands following, the movements increasing in size and speed. Limbs drawn back in, heads bowed in reverence, and arms splayed in an X. Two parts of a whole, facing each other and yet farther away than any expanse. Hands offered, almost hesitantly, and held. Hands drawn apart, two sets cast out to grasp the code even tighter, ready to mold it however they desired. Bodies becoming less than solid, moving within code. Ready.
The two brothers worked in tandem, Voidwalker abilities surging in sync. Xisuma’s boundless creativity and joy with Evil X’s equally boundless passion and control working together to delve into the code better than either could do alone. They worked deeper and deeper, beginning to enter the state of existence that Voidwalkers alone could achieve within code. The state where they were more code than player, where their senses and memories blended as they were meant to, Voidwalker twins becoming one. Together, the halves worked to create a protective layer over both of them, before bringing forth the only line of code from whatever had teleported the hermits. Their sheer power, unstable though it was, what with the distrust and suspicion of the years making a wall between them, was more than enough to withstand the spell on the code. They examined the code frontwards and backwards, upside down and inside itself.
The code in itself was not evil or good, but the intention behind it was the most convoluted bad intention X had ever seen in a line of code, including any of Evil X’s shenanigans. Ex thought it reminded him of something he had seen long ago. One of Hels’ business associates. They called themselves Watchers. Wels had been out of his depth entirely. They hid themselves behind masks and, strangely, the colour purple. X searched for more while Ex was expositioning unintentionally. Within the state of being code, they could not hide thoughts from each other. X found a strange detail, a hangnote of a code, and when he delved deeper, pulling Ex along with him, he found a string of code identical to that small hangnote on Grian and Pearl’s code.
The very same hangnote that marked them as Watchers.
X knew Ex wanted answers now as well, and they tore into the code even more vigorously, Ex forgoing his own wants so they could stay synced. They didn’t find anything more, and so they slowly began the process of returning to corporeal form. It felt like moving through caramel when you were used to lightning, thoughts having to become separate things, when they were meant to be one. They slowly, ever so slowly, returned to their port, facing each other as they had when they began.
“Watchers.” Xisuma muttered, running the word over in his head and storing it away.
He had heard of them before, although he only remembered now. Grian told him long ago about Evo, about Watchers, about his ascension. Pearl had brought it up to assure him not to worry about her doing anything overly insane. He had only forgotten it because it had been so long. And he knew, through both of them, that most naturally occurring Watchers were hostile or inscrutable. This was bad. So, so bad.
“This is bad, X. We need to warn the other Admins for the people going to Last Life. They won’t be safe either.” Ex reminded, rubbing a hand over his pale, colour dry skin, having taken off his mask sometime between being code and player.
X brought them back to his room, and only then noticed the incessant dinging of his communicator.
{ADMINCHAT}
{Fwip: check your code, something’s gone wrong on Empires.}
{XisumaVoid: All my Life players are missing. Watcher took them. I think the same thing might have happened to you.}
{Fwip: Nobody else has anybody missing, so it’s just us. Bigb, Martyn, and Skizz were visiting so they could all teleport together, and they’re gone too.}
{XisumaVoid: Get all the Admins you can. We need to find them. Watchers doing this is a major problem. Other servers might be having issues as well. Watchers enjoy fiddling with things and seeing the outcome. So, expect a higher rate of glitches.}
{Fwip: Got it. Can you look for the server Last Life is going to be on? I can’t find it, but you should be able to, since you’re much better at this sort of stuff than I am. (: }
{XisumaVoid: Will do.}
“Well, X-ee? What’s happening?” Ex asked, flexing his hands as if warming up for a challenge.
“It looks like we’re going to have to work together for the foreseeable future.” X sighed, bringing up his Admin panel to check for any other glitches.
Of course, Evil X showed up as one, not being whitelisted, or even having player status. Xisuma ignored him in favour of blocking a minor redstone glitch.
Ex nodded. “Thought so. You wanna let your hermits know?”
“Probably. I’ll do that right now.” Xisuma agreed, opening his com to the world chat.
{XisumaVoid: Hello everyone! As some of you may have noticed, all of the Hermits that are part of the Last Life series have vanished. This is not how it was meant to happen. They were taken by Watchers. I will be looking for the server, as it may be hidden behind several layers of code and Watcher nonsense. Please be aware of any issues or glitches, and report them to one of the other admins. Admins, please do your best to keep track of glitches and report them to me. I will do my best to stay on top of them. Try to travel in pairs, as we do not know what the Watchers want. Thank you everybody, and have a good day!}
{Joehills: Don’t worry Xisuma! You work on finding those hermits, and we’ll take care of the rest!}
{Zedaph: Find ‘em soon, hopefully! Tango and Impulse will keep everybody safe until ya do!}
Xisuma turned to Ex. “Are you ready? This’ll probably take up most of our time until we find them. Derpcoin will not be happy.”
Ex shrugged. “Eh, your hermits are more important. I can only take over the economy if there are hermits who use my currency. Let's do this.”
Xisuma took a breath, and together, he and Ex began to search.