Watching and Listening - An Empires SMP AU

Home is where the friends are

           Grian himself clenched both fists at the sound of her name, althout inwardly he felt a small stab of some sentimental emotion he couldn't identify. "Out of the question." He snapped. "But you heard her. She's used to teleporting around the multiverse." Pearl said. "Maybe she could break through when you couldn't. You said it yourself that you're bad at it."

           "Yeah, but she's a Watcher." Grian said like that explained everything. "She's been lying to us and I don't think we can trust her anymore." Pearl hesitated. "I know but... but she's been my friend for so long. I don't-" "The Watchers destroyed our world!" Grian shouted. "I don't even know if the other evolutionists are alive and it's because of the Watchers!"

           He softened and quieted down somewhat when he realized how loud he was yelling. He didn't want to yell at his friends. Quietly he muttered, "And besides, no one knows where she is. She's not at Hermitopia and she's not at Dawn and for all we know she ditched this world before it got sealed."

           The hermits who had been close to Gem made sad and betrayed expressions and at first Grian was confused but then he realized why. If Gem had truly left this world, them that meant that she'd basically abandoned them. He was surprised at the fact that he seemed to care deeply about that because that little stab wound in his heart widened painfully st the realization. And then Grian realized something else.

           "Oh... this is all my fault." Grian groaned, sitting down and holding his head in his hands. "Grian don't blame yourself; it's not your-" Xisuma started to say but Grian cut him off. "It is. If I'd not been so stupidly selfish and told you all about my Watcher powers in the first place I wouldn't have been scared to use them to help us escape back when this world wasn't blocked. And now we're stuck here and we can't get home!"

           His voice went up a hysterical pitch and broke slightly at the word 'home'. Back when the rift had first closed he hadn't been that worried about it; hermits usually got into weird situations but got out perfectly fine and him most of all. But now not even his Watcher powers could get them out of this mess.

           And then be realized another thing. "And I'm the one who made us go through the rift in the first place!" He wailed miserably. "This is really all my fault!" Bdubs awkwardly walked over to him. "It's okay, Grian," He said. "At least we're all here with friends, aren't we? And Hermitopia isn't a bad home, if anything it's rather nice-"

           "Bdubs!" Grian gritted his teeth. "What about our other friends? We're never going to see them again if we're trapped here!" Grian wanted to say some more but his words dissolved into a mess of sobbing. No one said anything at first, but then Doc surprisingly came forward and started to pat him comfortingly on the back.

           "There, there," He murmured in his German accent. "I admit it's your fault and that we're in this world because of you and we are also unable to get out of this world because of you-" "Is that meant to be comforting?" Grian snorted and someone awkwardly laughed. Doc continued like he'd never heard anyone interrupt at all.

           "Sure this is all your fault but get it together. Are you going to stew in self pity because of it? Or are you going to fix this mess and get us home? It's not helping anyone if you're a mess of self hate." Doc finished, glaring slightly at the red-sweatered hermit and Grian felt a little intimidated, but that's just the effect Doc had on people.

           "Haven't you been listening?" Grian asked. "I can't use my Watcher powers." "Who said anything about your powers?" Doc asked. Several hermits frowned as they tried to guess what he was getting at. "Didn't you once make a multiversal AI?" Doc asked.

           "Oh yeah, Grumbot." Grian remembered and he smiled at the memory of the giant mustachioed machine that he and Mumbo had made to make Mumbo mayor. "But what's that have to do with-" The creeper hybrid made several frustrated German noises. "Just how thick can you be?" Doc asked in annoyance.

           Grian grinned through his tears, if only for the fact that he'd succeeded in annoying Doc again. "Okay, so humor me, Doc, what is it that I'm too thick to realize? And believe me I've realized a lot of things in the last few minutes." He grinned sloppily and Pearl beamed. "There's the Grian we know and love." She said with a smile. "Don't go all angsty on us, please, you've had too much trauma for this."

           "Trauma?"

           "You do not want to know."

           "How do you know that?"

           "You don't want to know that either."

           "I get the feeling that you're just playing us for laughs."

           "Oh, trust me, I'm not. All I'm going to say is that the Watchers are only a fraction of the trauma Grian has gone through."

           "...What exactly happened?"

           "Are you sure you really want to know?"

           "Just tell them a little; I want to see their reaction."

           "Okay, if you say so Grian. So, in order, abandoned by his parents at the age of five to live on in his own in Japan, gone to school with at least two murderers and barely made it out alive, being physically and mentally tormented by someone named Sam who might be a killer bunny I don't know, something to do with alien monsters in Tokyo, let's not even talk about that kingdom of valor place, the whole Watchers thing, the life series, and I think that's everything. Grian, did I forget anything?"

           "I don't think you did, unless the moon crashing counts. But anyway, thanks for leaving it very vague."

           All the hermits stared at them with open mouths. "Yeah, you're right, I don't want to know." Xisuma said faintly. Grian grinned. "Hey, everyone who's good with machinery, can you help me with Grumbot? He might be able to get us home." A few hermits raised their hands. "Okay, start getting a lot of metal and redstone; we're going to need all the stuff we can get in this primitive world."

           "Whose world are you calling primitive?!" Sausage barked, coming out of nowhere and breathing heavily. "Uh, nothing, Sausage." Grian said. "What are you doing here?" What struck Grian as surprising was that Sausage wasn't grinning cheerily like he always was. To be honest Grian had forgotten that he could frown; he did it so often. When Sausage spoke he was completely serious. "Meeting. Spawn. Now."