A Blessing and a Curse || A Hermitcraft/Watcher AU

Chapter Sixteen

It was a warm evening and he was sitting on one of the coastlines (invisible, of course) with his wings stretched out behind him. They'd become even stronger and faster, although that was hard to believe since they'd already been just about the speed of light, and flight had become as natural as walking. His hair was almost fully black, with only hints of white left close to the scalp. He'd figured out more magical abilities, and the flames at his fingertips became more reliable as time went on.

One of the eyes on the back of his left wing watched a horse eat some grass. One on his right watched a baby zombie chase a pig. Another one on the front saw a fish swimming away from an axolotl. An axolotl. A pink one. His brother was an axolotl. He splashed the water suddenly.

"Stupid fish lizard thing." He said bitterly, blaming it for the unwanted thoughts that followed the name Xisuma. It was no lie that he was avoiding things; thinking about his brother, going anywhere near Grian or Pearl. Maybe he would be interested to find out more about the latter pair of hermits, maybe he would find out how they knew about him, but he didn't want to. He didn't want to find out anything that he didn't want to know.

-|-|-

<Xisuma> Just a reminder that the monthly meeting is today, one pm at my base.

The admin was waiting for the hermits to arrive, sitting on the steps outside his door. It was going to be a difficult meeting, he knew that, but there was no way around it. As difficult as this situation was, he had to keep the hermits safe. He looked up to the sound of distant rockets and saw one of the usual early-birds approaching.

"Hey X," Beef greeted as he landed. "How's it going."

"That one's a bit difficult to answer." He answered honestly.

"Yeah, I heard about what happened with Xavon." Beef sympathised. Xiuma nodded, spying a few more hermits on the horizon.

After ten or fifteen minutes of idle chatter, everyone had arrived. Everyone minus one, but X tried to ignore the gap. Xavon had only attended half of the meetings anyway, so it wasn't like it was that much different. It was different though.

"Thank you all for coming, I think we all know the elephant in the room that needs to be addressed today," he noticed Bdubs's confused look and the people around him snickering, "so we'll do that first. I think-"

"It what?!" Bdubs interrupted, yelling. Doc chuckled as he moved away. "Sorry." He said sheepishly to the group. "Really?" He whispered 'subtly' back to Doc, who nodded. He looked to the hermits around him, who also nodded to back up the creeper.

"I think Joe has some statistics which could get us started?"

"Yep," the said male confirmed, taking over. "I've been tracking the moon's size each night for about a week now, and..." he took some paper out of his inventory and looked at the writing on it, "if it keeps increasing at the rate it's increasing now, then I've calculated that we have only three weeks and one day until it reaches us."

"Reaches us? Does that mean..." Scar asked, although it was an obvious answer really.

"The moon will crash into the server, destroying everything." Joe confirmed. The hermits went silent.

"What are we going to do?" Gem asked.

"How did this even happen?" Zedaph asked.

"We were hacked." Xisuma answered Zedaph. The only sound was the ocean's tide in the background. The waves were higher and louder than usual.

"By who?" Tango asked. Xisuma hesitated.

"I don't know." He lied, meeting Grian and Pearl's gaze for a second before looking down. "And, I hate to say it, but I think our best option is... well... season nine." He wished he didn't have to say it, they'd barely settled into season eight and he knew no one was anywhere near ready to leave.