Unrecognizable

~Chapter Nine~

Grian's POV-

Ah, what a nice day! The sun was shining, the birds-- that he hadn't yet relieved of their lives-- were chirping, and there wasn't a murderous creature in sight. It was the perfect day to do practically anything one would want. The only problem was, Grian had no clue what he wanted to do. Of course, he had plenty of things he could be doing, but simply didn't want to. The Hermit had done quite a bit of building lately, so that wasn't exactly on top of his priorities list. And a small part of him wanted to check up on Grumbot, but he just couldn't think of anything that he could talk to the robot about.

Quite frankly, the sweatered Hermit didn't exactly want to do anything that day. With only a day left until the investigation, Grian was too distracted to be productive. And how could he be? He and Scar were about to-- hopefully-- find out what had been keeping Mumbo away from everyone for three consecutive months. Or, at least some sort of idea or clue. 

Grian, though he hadn't been doing anything majorly productive or useful to his base or other projects, had been planning out the next day's investigation ever since he and Scar had split up. Of course, he hadn't written anything down, but his head was as good a place as any to store information.

The brit decided it'd be a good idea to stop by Mumbo's base. He had no idea about the investigation, after all; perhaps Grian would catch him there and... advise him to work on something other than his base the next day. Maybe, if his friend wasn't there, he'd do a quick rundown just to see if he couldn't find anything exceedingly obvious. So, he pulled his elytra on over his shoulders and dug through his pouch for some rockets.

And, of course, with Grian's luck he had a total of zero rockets. Wonderful. Luckily, he had quite a few stored in one of his miscellaneous shulker boxes, so in a matter of minutes he was taking to the sky, his wings spread and rockets shooting off.

As he flew, Grian reminisced about his old elytra course in the previous season. He quite missed that old thing, putting it together and, better yet, actually running it and seeing how fast he could complete it, was extremely fun. A small part of him wanted to bring the game back, but a larger and more reasonable part reminded him that he already had a ton of things going on; he didn't need to add to the list.

The brit found himself dipping and resurfacing, looping through tree branches, narrowly avoiding walls of small holes, and other stunts to entertain himself as he flew to his friend's base. He was about to fly through a particularly small gap in some trees when Mumbo's megabase came into Grian's field of vision. He couldn't help a small gasp escaping from his lips as he took an emergency landing in a tree.

Mumbo's base was completely different. It had nearly lost its ruinous feel entirely, modernized withnthe same materials as last season. Where was Mumbo going with this? Why had he changed his base so much? He had seemed so proud of his work; it seemed so strange that he'd just scrap it all. But, Grian wasn't one to question another Hermit's architecture, and he wasn't about to start. Perhaps he'd bring it up should he see Mumbo there, but, other than that, he would remain silent about it.

Reasoning that he was in walking distance and coukd also do to stretch his legs, Grian hopped down from the tree, landing not-so-gracefully on the ground below. "Uff," he groaned as he rose back to his feet, dusting off his knees. Grian quickly looked back down at his boots, which were shimmering with enchantment-- and real enchantment; not Scar's magic nonsense. What he noticed, however, was that a certain hue was missing from his normal boots. Sighing to himself, Grian realized why that fall had hurt so much. He hadn't given his boots Feather Falling, that was it. The brit made a mental note to do so later.

As he neared the base, something caught his eye. In the cirner of his vision he caught a small blur of grays. Was that... Jellie? Running quicker, he eventually caught up to the silhouette and scooped it up. It was!

The cat let out a yelp of displeasure as Grian removed it from the floor. Her amber eyes bored into the Hermit, firey orbs fixated on Grian's own.

What was she doing here, of all places? Scar had mentioned that the cat had been running off, though he hadn't known where. Did she come to Mumbo's base? If so, why? And if Scar had sent her, wh- actually, Grian decided he'd rather not know. Distracted, yet fondly, Grian stroked the cat's forehead. "Hi, Jel-"

Grian started to greet the cat, but was cut off by a sudden hiss. She started squirming viciously in his grasp, and with a yelp Grian let the cat go, rolling up his sleeve revealing a small-- bur very much there-- scratch. Was that... Jellie's doing? No, it couldn't be! Jellie was a sweet cat, she wouldn't purposefully attack anyone. And Grian was certainly holding her right; she wasn't in pain, so that wasn't a possibility for her sudden feistiness. The brit looked down to where the cats stood, only to find kicked-up dirt in her place. She had already run off, it seemed. Grian decided that he'd ask Scar the next day about her. Perhaps he knew what was going on.

Looking up, the sky was dimmer than Grian first thought. He should be going back home. So much for checking out Mumbo's base, he thought bitterly to himself. But, he reasoned that it was a good idea to get some sleep before the next day. It would be big after all.

So, he pulled out some more rockets and ascended into the sky, headed back home.

-(Author's Rambling)-

Was this a short one? That couldn't possibly mean anything about the next chapter, nope. What are you talking about?

Heh, anyway, thanks for coming, and see you in the next one, mu little readers!