Unrecognizable

~Chapter Three~

Grian stared, dumbstruck, at the sight before him. That was... That was Mumbo Jumbo. The same Mumbo Jumbo that had been missing for three months. The same Mumno Jumbo who had disappeared without a trace. That same Mumbo Jumbo was now sitting in a minecart, grinning stupidly at Grian with a wave.

After a moment of silence, besides the incessant gonging, of courses, Grian rushed up to his friend and flung his arms around him in a hug.

"You- you SPOON, you absolute MORON- where have you been? It- it's been three months," Grian stammered. Relieved, tears began to brim his eyes. He hadn't seen his best friend in months, and now suddenly he was back, and everything would be okay. He hugged him for a moment more before backing up, allowing Mumbo to speak.

"Hi Grian-" he started. "Been awhile." He rubbed his neck, still grinning. He stepped out of the minecart and moved it aside so that the incessant gonging would stop filling the air with its deafening ringing.

Grian folded his arms. "I'd say! What have you been doing all this time?! Where have you been?!" Though his questions sounded accusatory, his voice was laced with laughter. He was so giddy to have his friend back, he wasn't even upset at what had happened. He was just relieved that Mumbo seemed alright.

"Where have I been? Oh, uh, y'know, around." He chuckled nervously. His face flushed red with embarrassment, and he seemed to find a spot in the floor very interesting.

Grian now cocked his head. "Mumbo, none of us have seen you for three months. How have you 'been around?'" His eyes shone with confusion. How had no-one seen him? They had thoroughly checked his base. "X couldn't even find your coordinates from your communicator."

Xisuma, being the admin, the leader of HermitCraft, was able to track all of the Hermit's locations through their communicators. They had a tracking device on them, specifically for this reason: in case anyone got lost and needed help getting back safely. But what was strange was, despite his best attempts at fiddling around with the system, X had not been able to find the moustached man. There were only two reasons for that-- either Mumbo's communicator had broken somehow, or the connection had gotten blocked. But, there should be no way for either to have happened. "Did something happen to it?"

Mumbo held up his silver banded arm. "No, it's right here." He looked a bit confused as well now. Had he somehow not known how much everyone was freaking out? Or was this some kind of sick prank? If so, it certainly wasn't funny.

But Grian didn't care much. He was too happy about his friend's return to be upset. Three months without seeing someone will make one not care so much about the 'how' or 'why.' All that matters is the 'what.' And when that 'what' is a friend's sudden reappearance after three months, who needs an explanation?

Grian stood there for just a moment longer, happy tears streaming down his face. After a minute he remembered: The other Hermits needed to see Mumbo again! He turned to the exit. "Mumbo, let's go call a meeting with everyone else, they need to see you."

Mumbo nodded in agreement. "Okay," he said, grinning. "But... Ah..."

Grian glanced back, confused. "Yeah? What's up?" What could be wrong?

The redstoner rubbed his neck sheepishly. "I may have broken my elytra..." He chuckled in embarrassment.

Grian shook his head, laughing. "Mumbo, you spoon," he chuckled. He quickly walked over to his enderchest and dug through it, pulling out an extra pair of wings and rockets. He threw them over to Mumbo, who strapped them on. He thanked Grian, and the two made their way outside.

Right before they took off towards the shopping district, Grian remembered something. "Oh, Mumbo," he started, turning to his friend. "How was your... project... going?"

Mumbo stared at Grian with a blank expression for just a moment, then Grian's question seemed to register in his head. "My... My... Oh- Yeah, my project. It's going... It's going well, yeah." He seemed to shrink into his skin a bit. "Let's go," he said quickly.

Grian cocked his head questioningly at Mumbo's odd reaction, but his smile quickly returned. He must've been having a hard time with it. Whatever 'it' was. And he must've been to proud to ask for help, the moron.

Grian leapt up from his spot and rocketed elegantly up into the air. "Yeah, let's," he said as he watched the hermit fumble to take off. "We need to call the others to the shopping district." Still in the middle of the air, Grian pulled up his wrist and typed out a message.

<Grian> Guys can you meet me outside of the town hall

He was about to close the screen from the other Hermits' responses-- they were inevitably bound to be rather negative and wary because of the last time Grian called a meeting-- when his communicator chimed with a message that caught his eye.

<MumboJumbo> experienced kinetic energy

Sure enough, upon looking uo from his wrist, he saw his friend's items strewn across the floor. Mumbo must've flown into a tree. Grian grinned as he swooped down to collect Mumbo's items. Mumbo hadn't changed.

Grian realized how much the other Hermits would freak out upon reading that. He chuckled to himself. Well, he thought. We had to tell them somehow.

-(Author's rambling)-

ACK I'm sorry this one is so short~ Even though it's 916 words, not a lot happened so it seems a bit small. Sorry! This took me awhile to write as it is lol. It is currently 11:30 pm, and I promised myself I would update every three days, so I wanted to sho e out something. Sorry again, and thanks for coming, my little Readers!

(Also don't be weirded out if you see chapter updates, it'll just be me fixing up some grammatical screw-ups)