What If?

✨New Game, New Players✨

The sun rise seemed to be taking forever to come around. No matter how many seconds, minutes, or even hours that's went by, the night seemed to drag on. Especially for everyone switching shifts. Mumbo was the next to go on watch, being woken up by a slight shake from Timmy.

"My turn?" He asked in a groggy voice as he tried to sit up, seeing Grian's arms wrapped around him tightly.

"Sure is, just a heads up, Nova's down by the river. You can see them by the fence but I thought I'd give you a heads up." Jimmy said, about to walk back to his bed.

"They're still up?"

"Yeah, said they couldn't sleep half way through my watch. They needed a quiet place to kinda relax, the might be hitting a tree with their sword though" The mustached man watched as Jimmy walked away, obviously tired, crawling out from the dirty blondes tight hold, ready to start his watch. His eyes wandered over to Nova's bed, seeing it empty but not surprised from what Jimmy had just told him. He went over to the edge of the fence, looking to the river to find no one there.

"Nova?" He called out, quickly hopping the fence to make their way down to the rushing water. In the slightly wet mud were two somewhat small boot prints, they faced towards the river and then looked to have turned and started walking another direction. "Oh boy..here we go.." Mumbo pulled out his sword, following the tracks that the enby most likely made. They didn't seem to go too far but they went on for a bit.

Nova slowly followed the tracks in front of them, hearing the wind rustle the leaves of the trees around them. They held their sword tightly in their hand, determination filling their veins as they went. The enby kept silent, not wanting to draw any attention to themself from anyone who could be out there with them.

'Breath, Nova, breath' They thought to themselves as they continued to walk. Hearing every little leaf move cause them to turn to it and fight.

"I know you're out here..." They said aloud, waiting for some kind of noise. Slowly they brought their sword down, feeling the uneasy begin to die down for a second.

A second.

A yell emerged from the shadows, by the time the tired ginger turned to it, they had been tackled to the ground. Quickly Nova grabbed their shoulders, trying to push them off or at least get out from under this creature. The enby moved their legs to be under the person's waist. They kicked as hard as they could, the person being pushed off balance, letting Nova get the upper hand. The redhead quickly pushed the person off, reaching for their sword as they stood.

"I know you were-" They paused, looking at the person. Their head was shaved, dyed black to match the rest of their outfit it seemed. He wore a dark purple jacket, patches of an egg and eyes littered on it. They wore a black shirt and jeans along with black combat boots. "Who the hell are you."

"A messenger." Was all they said. "From them." They pointed to an eye on their jacket. "You'll be seeing them soon." He smirked, as he began to walk away, a hand on his sword as he disappeared into the darkness.

Once the person was out of sight, Nova took a deep breath, running their hand through their hair. Their other hand gripped their sword tightly in fear.

They sat there in silence for what felt like hours before hearing a quiet crunch of leaves behind them. Quickly they turned, not letting another person ambush them. They swung at the person, feeling their instincts from the war's in L'manburg kick in. Fight now, talk later in a way. They went to swing again when they finally heard who it was.

"Nova! Nova wait!" The enby froze in place, finally looking who had snuck up on them.

"M-Mumbo?" He had a small cut on his cheek from their first swing. They quickly dropped their sword, covering their mouth. Fear filled their mind again, different than before. Before was filled with fear of being killed, now it was fear for others to be killed. Fear they would kill others on accident. Fear that they'd be woken in the middle of the night with memories of the war flashing through their head. The memories of being attacked and almost killed in a eat or be eaten world.

"Nova hey! It's okay!" Nova broke out of their trance, Mumbo was bent down a bit to their level, his hands on their shoulders. "It's okay, I'm okay. It's just a small cut, okay? Everything's fine"

"I-I could've hurt you..I could've hurt you way worse than that..."

"It's okay, don't focus on that right now. What happened? Are you okay?" All they did was nod, looking to the ground. "Let's go back to the campsite okay?"

"I'm sorry...I'm so so sorry..." The mustached man quickly pulled the younger enby into a hug.

"It's okay, I promise it's all okay."

"I don't want to hurt anyone.." the mumbled into his jacket.

"I know, you're not going to, we'll keep you safe." They shook their head no.

"I-I can protect myself I just-I-I don't want to hurt my friends..."

"You won't hurt us." Nova felt a hand rubbing circles into their back, having them relax. "I know you won't, we trust you. I trust you."