Nothing of Note

When it came to the list of things that made Zedaph happy, meetings didn’t usually rank in the top ten. Not even the top fifty, probably. Sure, it would depend on what the meeting was for - a ‘let’s give Zed free diamonds because he deserves it’ meeting, now that he could get behind. But typically, a meeting was a long, boring process, usually involving him saying very little and hoping that nobody tried to call attention to him.

However, today Zed found himself actually enjoying the gathering. It had been several weeks since Tango and Impulse had moved out from his base, and although he was happy that they felt comfortable being alone again, the newly returned silence in the cave had left him feeling a little lonely. These weekly updates were an excellent excuse to see them again - even if the purpose was a little more serious than just hanging out.

He fiddled with the pen and clipboard he’d been given, letting the voices of Tango, Impulse, and Xisuma wash over him as his mind and gaze wandered. He hadn’t had much of an excuse to travel to Xisuma’s base before this new building had been constructed, and even though they’d met here many times before, he could still find something new to look at in the tangled jungle outside the windows. Failing that, he could always find distraction in the squeaky-clean reflections on the laboratory tables inside, and failing that, he could always -

“Zedaph?”

He blinked back to attention to find everyone staring at him.

Right. He could also, you know, attempt to pay attention to the meeting.

“Do you have any questions?” Xisuma arched his eyebrow from behind his visor, an amused gesture that made Zed sure he knew that he hadn’t been listening at all.

“Um, yeah, actually.” Zed rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “It sounds like it’s all going well, and I appreciate the update, but my main question is really just: could you repeat that last bit? And maybe the beginning too?”

“And, let me guess, also the middle?” Tango said dryly.

“Yeah…”

Impulse summoned a chuckle. “It’s okay, I think I drifted off a bit there, too. Thankfully, I should know enough to catch you up.” Zed noticed that the tired smudges under his eyes had darkened since they had last met. Impulse certainly would know more than enough to fill in the gaps - he’d been working on this new project with Xisuma for weeks, and if Zed knew him at all, his hours of research were probably double his hours of sleep by now. He felt a soft pang of guilt at not being able to help out more, but the truth was, he just didn’t know how. Two cooks seemed enough in this particular kitchen, and he didn’t want to get in anyone’s way. At least attending these meetings made him feel like he was doing something.

A method that would only work if he didn’t space out again. He leaned forward, determined not to make Impulse and Xisuma repeat themselves twice.

Impulse steepled his fingers in front of him, elbows leaning on the pristine iron surface of the laboratory table. He cast a quick glance down to the haphazard stack of notes piled in front of him before giving his report:

“We’ve finally figured out how the totems work.”

Zed sat bolt upright. “Really?”

“Yes, really.” Impulse pulled a pencil from behind his ear and gestured at the notes. “We had our suspicions, since we already saw the totem’s effect on Tango, but we wanted to take some extra time to make sure that that’s actually what we were seeing. The alternative would be to believe something that came from Reflex at first glance, and, well…” He chuckled bitterly. “Not happening. But now, we can be confident about what those things actually do.”

“Well, the most we can without actually testing them,” Xisuma amended.

“Which you’re not going to do.” Tango leaned back in his seat and cast a suspicious glance at the glass cases on the edges of the room, where the only three Totems of Dying left in their world lay. “Personally, I don’t even think you should be messing with them at all. You should’ve thrown them into lava the moment you collected them.”

Zed winced. They all knew Tango didn’t like this project - he’d been uneasy and unwilling to help since day one - but this was the most open he’d been with his disapproval yet. It was a sore subject, and Zed wasn’t looking forward to the argument that would likely follow.

Impulse drew a deep, impatient breath. “Like I said before , we’re being very careful. Any totem we aren’t actively experimenting on stays locked up in that case, and neither of us work on them alone. I know they make you nervous, but I would rather know more about them than just leave them to -”

“Leave them to not hurt people? Because all you’ll get is pain if you keep messing with them -”

“Guys, please!” Zed waved his hands in a futile attempt to calm his friends down. He agreed with Tango that the totems were dangerous, and he agreed with Impulse that a known danger would be better than an unknown one...but after all the arguments they’d had about it, he doubted that this would be the one to resolve the matter.

“This entire meeting is about how you’ve found the solution to the totems, yes?” He turned to Impulse and Xisuma. “That means that you can stop working with them -” he turned to Tango “- and you can stop worrying about them working with them.” He trained his eyes on the table in front of him, suddenly self-conscious of his outburst. “Right?”

Tango sighed, slumping down in his chair. “Right. Sorry.”

Now that the aggression had drained from his face, Zedaph could clearly see that the only thing behind it was worry. Tango knew firsthand what those totems could do, and he also knew the guilt and pain of the aftermath of an attack from Hels. His fear that Impulse and Xisuma were pushing themselves too far in pursuit of a solution was justified.

But so was the pursuit itself. With Reflex banned and Tango’s clone long gone,  Helsknight even more so, these totems were the only link to the Hels dimension they had left to work with. They were the only path to a solution, to stopping this from ever happening again. As nervous as the items made all of them, they were a necessary evil.

“We might be able to stop working with them now.” Impulse spoke gently, an apology in his tone. “But I’m afraid it’s a little more complicated than that.”

Tango waved a hand towards the scattered papers, still not meeting Impulse’s eyes. “We’ll figure that out later. Just tell Zedaph what you already told me.”

Zed peered at the notes, unsuccessfully trying to decipher the tables and graphs upside-down. Most of it looked understandable (if it were right side up, that is), but there were a few odd symbols in a language he wasn’t familiar with, and what looked to be scribbled lines of code in Xisuma’s handwriting. He suddenly felt a little less bad about missing out on the research process - as neat as everything else about their admin was, his handwriting was atrocious.

“So, if you haven’t been testing the totems, what have you been doing? Just poking at them with magnifying glasses and whatnot?” Zed cast a glance to the rows of tools organized along the counters.

Xisuma cleared his throat and began to speak, calm and professional. “We did a little bit of that, but it wasn’t very useful. They’re exactly the same on the outside as the totems we know. However, I was able to look into the totems’ code enough to figure out how they operate. They’re coded the same way as a regular Totem of Undying, with only a few key lines changed. They look the same, activate under the same conditions...but the transfer of energy is different.”

Zed’s brow furrowed. “Transfer of energy?”

Xisuma flipped open the communicator on his wrist, projecting glowing lines of text out into the air in front of him. The other three leaned in, attempting to trace where the normal code ended and the evil began.

“When a Totem of Undying activates, it transfers energy to the player,” Xisuma explained. “That energy is what gives you extra regeneration and resistances when you would normally just die. A Totem of Dying, however, takes energy. It pulls it from the player’s body and sends it to the master totem, to be stored as charges.”

The gears in Zed’s brain began to turn. “But the master totem is in Hels right now, with Reflex….”

“....but it’s still linked to the totems we have here.” Impulse gestured to the case. “Which means there’s a link between Hels and the Overworld.”

“Which means…”

“Which means absolutely nothing.” Impulse gave a frustrated sigh, making the pile of notes flutter. “That link would only let energy travel, not a whole person. We’re at a dead end. We know how the totems work now, but it’s given us no clues about how the clones get into this world, or how to keep them out….”

X rested a comforting hand on his shoulder. “We’ll figure it out eventually. Maybe the totems are the way to do that, maybe not, but we’ll figure it out.” His words were soft, but his eyes were fire and steel. Zed could tell that he wasn’t giving up any time soon.

He understood that. He felt the exact same way - he wanted to feel safe in his own world again, and he wanted that for his friends, too. He would do whatever they needed him to if it would help find a way to keep the Hels Hermits out, to stop one of them from returning and making his friends’ lives a waking nightmare again.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” He turned towards Impulse and Xisuma, hopeful. “I know you’ve said before that you don’t really need anything, but we need to figure out how to stop this as soon as possible. I really don’t like the idea of you guys getting jumped by Horrible Tango and Jerkpulse again…”

He trailed off. A sudden silence had overtaken the room, planting a sinking feeling deep in his chest.

“Guys?” He smiled nervously. “Anything I can...do…”

“Well, actually, yes,” Impulse started carefully. “But it’s not really about the research.”

“We aren’t very worried about a clone who we’ve already seen returning,” Xisuma explained. “Statistically, it’s much more likely that we’ll see a new one in the next little while.”

Something about the way Xisuma was looking at Zed did not alleviate the sinking feeling. At all.

Zed swallowed. “So what does that have to do with me? It could be anyone, right, just random…?” The question fell flat, like a lifeline gone slack, thrown just a little too short of its mark.

“Not...exactly.” Impulse took a deep breath, the corners of his mouth tightening in that way they always did when he needed to say something tactfully. “When I got frustrated with staring at the totems all day, I started to think about how Reflex managed to disguise himself so convincingly as me. He got everything right, my voice, my movements, every detail of my clothing…” His eyes got distant for a moment. “I don’t know how, but he must have known a lot about me, to be able to fool everyone like that. And Tango’s clone knew a lot about him, too - he knew how Decked Out worked, he knew what would lure Tango there without making him suspicious… These people seem to get most of their power from information. They like to have a lot of it before they make their move.”

He paused for a moment, searching for the right words, before seemingly deciding to just say it plainly. “Zed, you’ve been directly involved with both of our Hels incidents. The person that they have the most information on right now is you.”

“Oh.” Even though he had anticipated it, the confirmation that this was where the conversation had been leading made his stomach lurch.

Zed’s sinking feeling could now be classified as fully, completely sunk. How had he never thought of this before? He had been so focused on surviving and helping his friends overcome their own doubles that he’d entirely forgotten to worry about the possibility of his own. He’d fought Tango’s clone directly, he was the first one that Reflex approached - who knew how much the Hels Hermits knew about him? The idea that both of them had reported back to some shadowy, horrifying, hypothetical mirror image of himself made him want to scream, made him want to hide in his cave forever and never let anyone in again -

“Hey, hey, it’s okay!” Impulse rested a hand on Zed’s arm, which he only now realized had been shaking. “It was just a thought that I had, just a theory. You know I like to over prepare. I was just wondering if maybe a few extra precautions would be a good idea.”

Zed took a deep breath. “Yeah. Yeah, that sounds like a plan.”

Tango, who had been rapidly taking notes from the time Impulse started speaking, grew thoughtful. “Hmm...I might have a few ideas. Frequent check-ins, a safety code that changes every day...I think we can make this work. Whatever we pick, I’m not letting some dorky villain-Zed feed you to a herd of vampire sheep or something.” He elbowed Zed playfully.

“Hey, what makes you think Evil Me would be dorky! He could be really scary!” Zed protested, managing a smile. As serious an issue as this was, he was more than willing to accept Tango’s gift of humour. It always made him feel just a little bit better to banter instead of worry.

“Does a vampire sheep burn in the sunlight if you shear it?” Impulse pondered, eyes twinkling with suppressed laughter.

“I think our goal is to avoid finding that out.” Xisuma chuckled. “Right, so Zedaph and Tango can run through some ideas and create a system to keep Zed safe, Impulse and I can talk about where we want to go next with the research - but for now, I think we can be done here. This meeting has gone on more than long enough, and I, for one, am a very busy bee.”

~

“Ow!”

Zedaph disentangled himself from his front door and stumbled into the cave, exhausted. He didn’t regret building any of these contraptions, even if they were a pain to deal with sometimes, but on nights like these when he could barely keep his eyes open, a front door that likes to bite you wasn’t exactly a gift.

Still rubbing his head, he dragged his feet all the way over to the bed and flopped down without even bothering to take off his armour. He had been worried that he wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight, with all his spinning thoughts of evil totems and research plans, but the meeting had actually left him feeling more safe than he had in weeks. In spite of promises to be “finished” with the meeting, the process of wrapping up had taken an extra half hour due to the storm of ideas and reassurances he’d been given. He smiled as he recalled the lengthy talks over how frequently he was to be checked in on, what the best codewords would be and how often to change them, and the host of other solutions his overprotective friends had suggested to ease his worries. He felt a pang of regret that none of these systems had been in place when Impulse or Tango could have used them, but he supposed that was the sad reality of life: learning by trial and error requires error . Costly, painful error, that all of them were keen to never repeat again. If an evil Zedaph did decide to show up? Good luck to him. He was going to need it.

Zed cuddled down into his sheets, allowing the cool embrace of the fabric to soothe him. Faint, fluffy silhouettes of vampire sheep pranced in the last remaining fragments of his thoughts as he slowly faded into sleep.

~

Magenta. That is how it starts. How it always starts, he realizes, as the memory returns to him in a rush - he has been here before, in this dreamscape. He cannot recall when it started, and he doesn’t try to. He just loses himself in that glimpse of purple and pink, feeling the wash of emotions it sends rippling his way. Happiness, trust...the magenta is a friend. It feels safe.

The scene switches. The magenta is gone, the next thought-fragment pushed forward to replace it. A garment of clothing settles around Zed’s shoulders - heavy, but not too heavy. A spark of accomplishment, joy at a job well done. A hand unknown presses a clipboard into his arms, and he finds himself holding a pencil without ever commanding his hand to take it. It feels right, though, like an extension of his body. He taps the tip against the paper and begins to write.

NO CHANGES OF NOTE.

He nods decisively. The words are not his, but he doesn’t mind them pretending to be. The clipboard disappears, but the dream allows him to keep the coat, as though rewarding him for a job well done.

The next scene creeps in in stages, parts manifesting as soon as Zed notices they are missing. He is standing in a pristine white room, featureless in all but the three figures standing before him. Two of them appear to be bleeding. Red drips and splashes onto the ivory floor, more than is safe, more than is possible, but both of them are smiling. They show no sign of pain - they are happy, grateful. The smiles are the only parts of their faces that aren’t a blur, the only part that registers as human. Zedaph wants to ask if they’re okay, if they need help, but the third, unbloodied figure reassures him that they don’t. And he is right: they don’t. How can he be anything other than right? His eyes are the colour of safety, and he wears this dream like reality.

He raises the clipboard to take another note, but he doesn’t have the clipboard anymore. The clipboard should know better than to pretend it still exists. Out of shame the paper transforms into a bedsheet, and the clipboard into his arm, and the pencil into his finger, and Zedaph awakened.

He blinked, disoriented. The details of whatever dream he might have just had blow away like loose feathers in the wind, leaving him with only the feeling of missing something. He sat up and tried unsuccessfully to rub the sandy feeling from his eyes. Might as well not have slept at all, with how tired I still am , he thought. Some kinds of sleep are more exhausting than waking.

He glanced at the position of the sun on the Cosmodrome and winced. Late, too late. Long past noon. The stress and busyness of the day before must have gotten to him more than he thought, for him to sleep so late and so strangely. Oh well. There was still plenty of time to get cracking on a new project, or at least to plan one out.

Zedaph shed the remnants of the restless night and planted his feet on the ground of a new day, firmly on the right side of the bed.

Zedaph never did get the chance to start that new project. Halfway through gathering materials he realized that he’d properly slept through his scheduled check in with Tango, and if he didn’t want his friend to start sounding the alarm to the entire server, he was going to have to get a move-on. He tossed his jumbled pile of components into a nearby shulker and took off, hoping Tango had decided to wait for him rather than immediately entering panic mode.

He found him pacing a circle into the grass by the shopping district portal, looking about three seconds from spontaneously combusting out of worry. Zed checked his watch and winced. One full hour after our meetup time. Well, he was here now, and that’s what mattered.

“Hey, Tango!” He glided to a running stop on the path and waved.

Tango whipped around at the sudden sound, just about jumping out of his skin at finding Zed so close with such little warning. His bow was in his hand in an instant, aimed squarely at the center of Zed’s forehead as he suspiciously backed away.

“Woah, woah, it’s me!” Zed raised his hands. “It’s actually me! I just slept in, that’s all.”

“Password?” Tango squinted at him.

Zed sighed. “The password is, ‘Tango is the greatest and I owe him twelve diamonds’....”

“No, it’s not.” Tango threateningly tightened his grip on the bow, but Zed could tell from the mischief in his eyes that he already believed it was him. “What’s the full password?”

“Fine...‘Tango is the greatest and I owe him twelve diamonds, and also a stack of pancakes’,” he said with a laugh. “Does that make you feel better?”

Tango smirked, finally relaxing the bow. “Oh, so much. You have no idea.”

“Don’t expect to actually be getting either of those things,” Zed crossed his arms. I’m not even sure I have twelve diamonds to my name right now.”

“And if you did, they would probably be borrowed from me anyway.” Tango held a hand to his heart in mock sorrow. “I give so much, and yet I get so little….”

Zedaph laughed along with Tango, but he noticed that as much as he leaned into their light-hearted banter, his friend’s smile never quite made it to his eyes. An undercurrent of anxiety ran through his words, peeking through in his reaction to Zed’s arrival and in how hard he was trying to move past it. Zed didn’t want to pry...but he had known Tango too long to just push away the knowledge that something was off.

Zedaph responded, keeping his tone light. “Well, what you nearly gave me today was a free arrow, and not in the way I’d prefer.” He looked sidelong at the bow, now resting unused at Tango’s side. “Why so tense?”

Tango hesitated, caught off guard. For a moment Zed could see him weighing the possibility of brushing off the moment again, maintaining the layer of false relaxation...but instead he let the carefully constructed smile fade from his face. He sighed and sat down, cross-legged on the grass in the middle of his trodden-down circle of pacing. “It’s just...you were late. It freaked me out.”

“I mean, yeah, but I’m late for everything!” Zed sat himself down on the grass as well, avoiding a bare patch of dirt where Tango had scuffed it. “Something else is eating at you.”

Tango picked at the grass, avoiding his gaze. “It’s nothing, really. Just...the way that the last few weeks have been going makes me nervous.”

“Well, now that the research is almost over -”

“It’s not just the research.” Tango’s expression fell into frustration. “Impulse spends all day locked away in that lab, and I don’t want to be anywhere near those totems, which means I barely see him anymore. And you?” He gestured vaguely. “You’re always a little spacy, but lately you say next to nothing and I don’t even know what you’re thinking half the time…and now we need a regularly scheduled meeting just to know you haven’t been replaced? How am I supposed to know if a Hels Zedaph shows up when everyone’s already acting all distant and wrong ?”

“Tango…”

“I’m making too big a deal out of nothing.” Tango turned away, running a hand over his face. “I’m sorry. It’s just...I thought we’d all agreed to stick together, after last time.”

Zed blinked. He hadn’t really been paying attention, but come to think of it...when was the last time he’d seen Impulse outside of those meetings? When was the last time he’d contacted Tango, not because he needed something, but just to tell him about his day? He’d just assumed that they wanted space, thought they both needed time to themselves to process after all that had happened...but did either of them ever actually say that? Had they been living the weeks since they moved out of Zed's base under the assumption that he didn’t want to see them anymore?

“No, you’re right,” he said slowly. “I think I’ve been feeling that way too, without realizing it. Now that you guys don’t need me to bring you food and make you healing potions and all that, I guess I just didn’t know how else I was supposed to help you, so I avoided you…” He fiddled with a button on his sweater. “I’m not good with words. I didn’t know what I could say to make you guys feel better, after all the ‘doing’ things were already done.”

“Maybe we don’t need you to help us.” Tango leaned to the side, gently bumping Zed’s shoulder with his own. “Maybe we just need you to be our friend.”

Okay, Zed wanted to say. Okay. I can do that. But he knew his voice would crack if he tried, and it didn’t really need to be said, anyway. It could be felt just as well with a hug.

A hug and an idea.

“We should get Impulse,” Zed suggested, pulling away and standing up to brush grass off of his pantlegs. He reached down to help a protesting and joint-cracking Tango up from his own seated position. “I don’t care where he is in his ‘research process’ right now, he could probably use a break.”

“Maybe we can convince him that we need him to help look out for those hypothetical vampire sheep or something.” Tango grinned ironically. “Just replace his work with other work that just so happens to involve having fun with us, that’ll do it!”

“I don’t think he’ll need to be tricked into a break this time, he’s probably been at it more than long enough to get frustrated.” Zedaph laughed. “And I think he’d much prefer something that doesn’t involve vampire sheep.”

“We can go test Among Us!” Tango suggested. “It’s just about at that stage, and I think I have enough finished for a three player game if we modify it a bit.”

Zed grinned. “That’s the greatest sale’s pitch for a day off I can think of. ‘Hey Impulse, I know you’re terribly busy, but wanna come get shot by invisibility arrows in a game that’s only three quarters finished and probably won’t explode?’” He put on an absolutely pathetic Impulse impression and stepped across to Tango’s other side. “‘Why sure, Zedaph, I can’t think of a better way to spend my afternoon! Sign me up!’”

“I can -” Tango started, before half collapsing with laughter at Zedaph’s attempt at an American accent. “I’ll go tell him, I bet I can word it slightly better than that!”

“Nobody could word it better than that!” Zed crossed his arms triumphantly and sauntered towards the shopping district portal. “But I guess you can try. Meet you there?”

“Count on it!”

~

The scraping thud of pistons muffled Zed’s footsteps as he slowly crept around the corner. He held his breath as Impulse finished sifting the gravel, pressing in close to the wall to avoid being seen. His friend scanned the area and turned to walk away, entirely unsuspecting. It was all Zed could do not to give himself away with a giggle, but this opportunity was too good to pass up. Impulse was almost in line with him now, almost... three, two, one, NOW!

“Boo!”

“Aaa!”

Zed jumped out from his little hiding spot, then doubled over laughing as Impulse scrambled for the paper he had dropped in his surprise. “You should have seen your face!”

“I thought ‘my face’ was about to get killed, the way you jumped at me like that!” Impulse rearranged the yellow helmet he was wearing and did his best to look distraught, but he was entirely unable to keep his smile from showing. “At least you let me finish my task before scaring the living daylights out of me.”

“Yeah, I’m not the imposter.” Zed showed Impulse his hands, empty of either crossbow or paper. “I only have one more task, in the iron mine. I just got a little bored.”

That had been a pesky problem when trying to figure out their three-person version of the game, but Zedaph was impressed with how well Tango had solved it. Even though it took a while, they had had almost as much fun feeling out how the game would be played as they had actually playing the rounds. Just arguing with Impulse over who would get to wear the pink helmet (Zed won) or seeing Tango wrestle with an uncooperative redstone door (the door won) was raising Zed’s spirits, and he could already sense the stress of the other two evaporating in the action of the game.

Action that he was about to experience first-hand if he didn’t get his task done before the imposter killed him.

“So, in theory, if you didn’t kill me just then and I didn’t kill you, Tango’s the imposter, right?” He fell into step beside Impulse, headed deeper into the mining area.

Impulse tapped his finger on his chin thoughtfully. “Well, as long as you aren’t the world’s greatest liar. You could be playing the long game, startling me and then not killing me in order to gain my trust.”

“The game pretty much ends as soon as one of us dies, the long of the ‘long game’ isn’t very long.” Zed chuckled. “That would be hilarious, though...thanks for the idea for next time.”

He pressed the button to set the minecart rolling and watched it glide along the track, the visor of his own helmet clinking gently against the glass of the window. The minecart scooped up the iron on the track and returned it to him, and he picked it up out of the chest with a triumphant whoop. One down, a few more to go.

“So, that pretty much means Tango is the big scary bad guy this round, right?” He brushed past Impulse on his way to the next chest. “With his luck, he’s probably all by himself way at the other end of the map, which leaves us to -”

He heard the crossbow string tighten a second too late. A twang and a brief flash of pain as an invisibility dart thudded into his back, and his game was over.

He whirled around. “Impulse!”

“Sorry!” His friend raised his eyebrows in mock innocence. “Just playing the long game.”

Even though he was invisible, Zed still felt obligated to stick his tongue out at Impulse as he strolled away, whistling. By their rules he could still go on to get double points if he found and killed Tango before Tango reported Zed’s death, but a well-timed slowness potion from the ghost area could still save the round. He took a deep breath and plunged through the ghost exit door, ready to give it his all.

Impulse did end up winning that round, but Zed won the next two, one as Imposter and one as Crafter. He suspected that Tango kept losing because he was going easy on them, having built the game from the ground up himself, but that was fine by him. As long as they were all having fun, he didn’t care - and even Tango seemed to be addicted to the endless promise of ‘just one more round’.

Finally, though, they grew bored of their little three-person test run. After taking some notes and fine-tuning a few tasks, they all gradually let go of the excuse that they were there to be productive and ended up in a giant snowball fight in the ice boat course. Impulse crouched behind a turned-over boat for cover as Tango rained snowballs rapid-fire from his perch atop his own boat, cackling maniacally. Zed crept around behind him holding the massive snowball he’d been forming on the sidelines, poised to bring it down on Tango’s head - but Tango turned before he could pull it off and pushed it into Zed’s own face instead.

“Mmph! Abort mission! Abort mission!” he mumbled around his mouthful of snow.

“Too late!” Tango scooped his own snowball up from the frosty ground and added it to the pile atop Zed’s head. “Mission failure!”

“Reinforcements!” Zed yelled, just as Impulse came barrelling in from the side to tackle Tango into a snowbank. Zed piled on with just as much enthusiasm, and all descended into laughter and snow-wrestling chaos.

“Man,” Tango sighed, finally extracting himself from the breathless and snowy heap to rest on his back on the ice. “I’m almost regretting putting in all of this redstone nonsense in here.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Maybe I should just make the whole thing into a snowball fight arena.”

“Among Ice,” Impulse suggested, bursting into a fresh fit of giggles.

“Yeah…” Zed pulled a stray invisibility arrow from his inventory, turning it over in his palms. “I think it’s best the way it is now, though, honestly. You put so much effort into it! You really outdid yourself with the - ow!” The tip of the arrow slipped, nicking the side of his snow-numbed hand.

A single drop of blood slid down his finger, splashing softly into the snow. It blurred as Zed felt his eyes unfocus.

Blood splashing on blackstone, Tango’s cry of pain. Blood splashing on glass, Impulse’s gasp. Blood splashing on cool white tile in his own dream long forgotten and yet still here, still feeling real…

“Zedaph?” Tango was looking at him strangely. Impulse’s attention was on removing the snow from his collar, seeming not to have noticed Zed’s lapse in concentration. His finger was already healed, the blood long gone, not even half a heart of health lost.

Zed shook his head, blinking his eyes to dispel the haze. He needed to pull it together. This was their time, his time to be with them and have fun and have everything feel alright. It was supposed to be good. It was good. He wasn’t about to let his memories ruin it for them. After all, if Tango and Impulse could still have fun after everything they had been through, surely he had no right to be this upset by a measly drop of blood...

“Sorry, just...lost track of where I was for a minute there.” He got up and brushed himself off, shedding the remnants of the moment along with the snow. Tango let him, with no further comment. Zedaph was grateful for that.

He took a deep breath, determined to pick up the thread of their evening just where he had left it. “Now that we’ve had a nice break, who’s up for another round? I’ve got a few new ideas we could try.”

They played long into the night, long after the game had been properly “tested”, but none of them cared enough to mention that. Zed let the laughter of his friends soak into every part of him, giving his own in return and watching their faces light up in response. It felt good. It felt right, like the way things were before, when their biggest worry while playing the game would have been misfiring a crossbow or breaking Tango’s redstone. It filled Zed’s heart to the brim, and after they were finally exhausted enough to say their goodbyes, the night-time flight home didn’t feel dark at all.

Zedaph snuggled down farther into his bed, burrowing his face beneath the blankets to escape the strengthening light of the Celestial Cosmodrome. He had slept better than he had in months - no strange dreams, no restlessness, just the sweet exhaustion of sinking into slumber after a long night of games and laughter. He was rested now, and looking forward to a solid day of working on his contraptions, but he didn’t want this feeling to end just yet. Surely a few more minutes couldn’t hurt.

Sadly, it seemed like that was never meant to be. The buzz of his communicator pierced through his bubble of sleepiness, and he sat up, yawning and blinking as he tried to resolve the glowing letters into actual words.

<TangoTek> Remember, meetup in an hour

<ZedaphPlays> ii remenber

Zed chuckled. Just-Woke-Up Zed wasn’t very good at typing. Maybe he should wait until that idiot clocked out and Functional Zed took the reins before trying to hold a conversation.

He stretched his arms over his head, closing his eyes and thinking through his plans for the day. He hadn’t had a new contraption in a while, but the time felt right. All the stress and uncertainty of the last few weeks had really stopped up his creative flow, but now...it all felt like it would turn out okay. Impulse and X would figure out the secrets of Hels, in time. They thought they were at a dead end now, but Zedaph knew them - there probably wasn’t a problem on the server that their combined intellect couldn’t solve. Tango would relax after that was over and done with, Zed would continue to sleep better, and they could all go back to hanging out together just like last night. They’d had a rough go of it, but they were Hermits, after all. When life knocked them down, they knew how to get up again.

And for Zed right now, that meant literally. Filled with the confidence of new hope, he swung his feet over the side of the bed and -

Immediately tripped and face-planted into a tangled up pile of crimson vines.

Ow. Wrong side.

He hauled himself back upright with all the necessary overdramatic groaning noises, but the truth was, he wasn’t phased. He wasn’t about to let a randomiser he built ruin his day with bad luck. He closed his eyes, scooted over a few feet to the right, and opened them again to a cloudy blue artificial sky.

Ah. Right side. First try.

He wandered over to the Magic Puddle to wash his face, mumbling contraption ideas to himself. Today felt like it needed something springy - not a slime cannon, he already had that, but maybe something like it. Something going up instead? He already had an elevator, but that wasn’t bouncy enough, and something bouncy would add that little extra Zedaph-y touch that the cave still needed…yes, some kind of slime trampoline would do nicely.

He barely felt the water he was splashing over his face, too wrapped up in his plans to care how wet his shirt was getting. Once done, he stayed kneeling by the puddle, gazing at its rippling surface as though a blueprint for his idea would manifest out of it. He could picture where he wanted the machine, could picture what he wanted it to do, but the exact arrangement of the circuits was tricky to visualise...his brain hummed as his eyes unfocused, pulling abstract shapes from the water and trying to -

Wait. That hum. It wasn’t just his racing thoughts.

Zedaph went still. Something in the room felt wrong - a sudden shift in the air, a drop in the temperature. His heart skipped a beat. Those shapes, in the water. Those weren’t just a figment of his imagination either. He peered closer, sleep-heavy brain still struggling to resolve the hazy reflection he knew to be there.

It was a face, hovering just behind his own image. His face.

The world, which had seemed to descend into slow motion, suddenly sped back up as a shot of adrenaline coursed through Zed’s veins. The soft humming turned into a grinding clank that vibrated within his very bones, chattering his teeth as he willed his shock-frozen limbs into motion. He stood up, whirled around, scrambled to put the puddle between himself and the owner of that reflection without falling head-first into the water, all while jumbled thoughts raced through his head: he’d let his guard down, he’d let himself relax too much, he’d let himself get too peaceful and too hopeful and too happy and now he was about to pay for it -

“Get back!” Thankfully, as early as it was and as unprepared as he’d been, he still remembered how to hold a sword. He fumbled it out of his inventory and brandished it in front of him, hoping the shake wasn’t too visible. Crouching and guarded by the edge of the pool, he finally paused for long enough to fully comprehend what had just imposed itself on his base.

Zedaph’s jaw dropped. Before him stood a swirling, humming blue portal, the cogs and pistons that lined the frame whirring and smoking as they laboured to keep the gateway open. It wasn’t a Nether portal, it wasn’t an End portal - it was like nothing he’d ever seen before, a thing that shouldn’t exist . The undulating film that stretched across the frame flickered and sputtered as the power ebbed and flowed, sending crackling sparks and glowing droplets of solidified magic spraying out across the floor of his cave to fizzle into nothingness next to a pair of neat, black shoes.

Zed slowly raised his eyes to meet the gaze of the owner of the shoes, the master of the portal, the intruder into the one place Zed thought was safe. He stood silhouetted before his clanking creation, arms crossed over an unbuttoned lab coat that was far too red-stained for comfort. He leaned his weight to one side in a casual stance and regarded Zedaph as one would a finished project - pride and excitement shining in his unnaturally purple eyes. Eyes that were, aside from the wild and slightly singed hair, the only thing that differentiated his face from Zedaph’s own.

“Bloody hell.” Zed took several slow steps backwards toward the door, his eyes never leaving the clone.

“Zedaph!” The other man spread his arms wide, white coat rippling in the unnatural wind from the portal. “Finally! I was starting to think that we’d never get the chance to meet.” He sauntered closer, a cold grin creeping across his face. “Don’t bother to run. You won’t make it to anywhere that matters.”

“I...I said stay back!” Zed leveled his sword at the clone, but he could feel his breath getting fast and uneven. He was right - he had no chance of making it to the door, and no one was close enough to hear a call for help. Why, oh why had he thought it was a good idea to stay in this cave alone…

The intruder did stop his approach, but it was a casual pause, the kind that made Zed seriously doubt his flimsy blade had any part in it.

“A sword? Really? I must say, I expected a little better from you, Zedaph. Surely you could muster up some gadget or gizmo to deal with big, scary intruders like me.” He waggled his fingers and raised his eyebrows in a mocking expression of alarm. “Go on. Activate your baby zombie security system or something. I’ve been dying to see how that one works.”

“I - you - what?” Zed refused to let down his guard, but a wave of confusion washed over him. He had very much expected to be dead or restrained by now, but somehow the extra time didn’t make him feel any better - only terrified. He had been inching his way towards the button for the security system, but now that the intruder wanted him to activate it...he didn’t trust that, not one bit. No doubt that had been the intention of the comment: to make him doubt himself.

He couldn’t afford to reveal that it had worked. Pushing what little confidence he had left into his shaking limbs, Zed drew himself up into his nearest approximation of a threatening stance. He didn’t really expect the clone to be afraid of him, exactly - Zed was sure he didn’t cut a very intimidating figure, standing there wild-eyed with his bedhead and his armour not even put on yet - but this casual nonchalance was making his head hurt. Even if it was a long shot, he had to try to gain the upper hand.

“Alright. Let me tell you exactly how this is going to work.” He did his best to calm the quiver in his voice. “You’re going to get back in that portal, or I’m going to use this -” He reached for his communicator. “To send you straight back to Hels!”

“You don’t have admin powers.” The man scoffed. “And as for Hels, as a fellow scientist you should know better than to speak so confidently of things you know nothing about.”

“I know more than enough to understand that you’re evil!” Zed burst out. “You’re here to lock me in an obsidian box or steal my skin or attack me with vampire sheep or something!”

The intruder paused for a moment, before breaking out in a harsh, wheezing laugh. “Vampire sheep! Obsidian boxes! Is that the type of thing my colleagues have been getting up to here?” He began to stalk toward him once more, ignoring the sword entirely. “Well, I don’t deal in clumsy schemes like that. I simply want to work with you, that’s all! Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll get used to me before long.” His voice was honey over broken glass, and the grim precision of his steps activated every survival instinct that Zedaph possessed.

This wasn’t working. Zed was running out of options, fast. Any moment the clone was going to realize how scared he was and take advantage of it, disarm him, use him to lure his friends in and get them too - he couldn’t let that happen. His only option was to run and hope for the best. He needed to get out, now .

He threw one wild, arcing slash at his attacker and bolted for the door.

His feet skidded on the smooth stone of the cave floor, losing traction in the damp. He hurtled toward the door and crashed into it, begging the pistons to activate in time for him to escape, to hide, to warn someone that there was something on the server that was danger and pain and deception and not him, above all else not him at all -

He felt a hand on his shoulder. The fingertips dug into his skin, yanking him around to face his fate, the other hand gathering a fistful of his collar as he flailed for something, anything that would help him. He looked up into narrowed, cruel eyes, inches from his own and glowing a venomous….

Magenta.

Magenta. His own eyes unfocused, the edges of the world growing fuzzy along with the edges of his anger and fear. Every muscle in his body relaxed. The ache of sustained tension drained from his shoulders, and his breathing slowed as his mind grew blank. Magenta. Trust, peace, friend. Exactly like his dreams. He remembered now. It was all clear. It was okay. The swirls and gleaming patterns in the eyes wound around each other, wound around his mind, found every little fire of terror and anger and suspicion and snuffed them out one by one. It was alright, really. This was meant to happen.

“There, that’s better.” The voice seemed to echo from a great distance, slowly growing closer. The eyes faded back to a dull purple, and Zedaph was released.

He blinked. His mind still felt a little foggy, but that was alright - it was pretty early in the morning after all. He’d never been one to wake up very quickly. His guest should understand. He seemed like the understanding sort - or at least, Zed thought so.

“I’m sorry...do I know you?” Zed rubbed the side of his head, blinking sluggishly. This person seemed so familiar, and if he was here, Zed must know him...but he couldn’t call to mind a name at all. How embarrassing…!

“Oh, I’m Aadaph!” The guest - Aadaph - smiled warmly. Friendliness radiated from every part of him, from his stance right down to the happy crinkles at the corners of his eyes. He stuck out a hand for Zed to shake. “You were a little bit surprised to see me. You didn’t leave me much time for an introduction.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.” Zedaph tried to recall. The remnants of fear still clung to him, but he couldn’t identify why. Aadaph must be right - he had probably been quite startled to get an unannounced guest. He felt badly for reacting so strongly, now that it was clear how pleasant this person was.

“Don’t worry, it’s quite alright,” Aad said forgivingly. “I figured you might be a bit upset, when you first saw me. So I made a few...preparations, beforehand, just to calm you down. First impressions are important, you know.” Aadaph strolled over to the magic puddle and filled a bottle of water from it, handing it to Zedaph. “Drink. You’ll feel better.”

Zed swirled the water in the bottle and took a sip, lagging mind still connecting the dots. Magenta. First impressions. “My dreams? That was you?”

“Yes!” Aad clapped his hands as though delighted at Zed’s powers of observation. “Just a little helpful introduction, a few subconscious signals sent across the energy threads between worlds. It’s not very hard, really, not with a basic knowledge of psychology and a few hit-and-miss trials with an interdimensional frequency modulator.”

“Ah,” Zed said, sagely pretending that he understood any of that. Mostly, he was still trying to work out exactly how he’d gotten here. He felt happy, peaceful, but something about it was making it difficult for him to connect his thoughts to each other and figure things out. He would have to remember to ask his guest to explain what he’d said again later, when the world stopped spinning.

The dizziness seemed to get worse when he thought about certain questions, things that were still confusing him. Best not to think about them, then. Surely if they really mattered, Aadaph would have told him the answer already. Still, there was the tiny detail of where exactly his new guest was from. He must have known at some point...

“So...you said you’re from...” Zed scratched at the back of his head, trailing off. The word felt slippery in his mind. He tried again. “You said you’re from H -”

“I don’t really like to use that word,” Aadaph interrupted. He smiled, but Zed sensed a slight, hidden nervousness. He vaguely wondered why. “Best not to invoke the name of things we don’t understand, right?”

“Right,” Zed agreed. He had already forgotten what he was about to say, so he reached for an alternative explanation. “So, are you...a new Hermit, then? I don’t think I’ve seen you before...except for the dream thing.”

“Do you want me to be a new Hermit?”

Zed paused, confused. “New people are always welcome, if that’s what you’re asking. I’m not really the one who makes the decisions or anything -”

“Then I’m a new Hermit,” Aad said agreeably. His eyes flashed, just slightly. And he was. Of course, how could Zed forget! He remembered Xisuma telling them about him...he thought.

He finished his water and set the bottle down on a nearby shulker box. He blinked again, trying to clear the fog from his peripheral vision, but it would never quite leave entirely. He decided to let it stay. It was glittery and nice, after all, this fog. It made the cave feel warm. He faintly recalled that he was going to send some message to someone, or about to go get somebody for something - to meet Aadaph, maybe. He would have to have a tour of the server, if he really was new...but maybe that could wait. A clipboard, held tightly, words written in his own hand. ‘No changes of note’.

Yes, Aadaph’s arrival was inconsequential. Chances were that Tango and Impulse and all the others already knew him, and Zed would look silly trying to introduce them to each other. There was no need to tell them anything - nothing to tell them, in fact, not really. Zed was still curious about why Aadaph was here, and about the portal, and his time would be better spent talking to his new friend than on sending unnecessary messages.

“I came to see if you wanted to work on a project together!” Aad said from behind him. Zed drifted back into attention to find him examining the contraptions one by one, nodding at their different parts and gesturing as if visualizing how the circuits connected. He looked up at Zed with the glee of an inventor shining from his face. “Your skills are most impressive, and your ideas...you and I, we think the same, you know. I think we could be very useful to each other.”

“Oh! Well...they’re not very efficient,” he said, scratching his neck in a sudden burst of self-consciousness. “Some of them are very stupid, really.”

“No, I don’t think they’re stupid at all!” Aadaph smiled, his face brimming with encouragement. “I quite like your creativity, and I’ve made quite a few very slow contraptions in my day, too. Some experiments are best done quite inefficiently. It’s the experience that matters, much more than the end result. You understand.”

Zed very much did understand - and he felt flattered that finally, someone else saw about his inventions the same way he saw them. It wasn’t that the Hermits didn’t like his type of project, exactly...but he realized now that it had been a long time since someone had properly appreciated the thought he put into them instead of only noticing the humour of how ineffective they were in terms of basic function. He had to admit it felt nice, to meet someone who felt the same way. His mind filled with all the glorious projects they could create together, contraptions the likes of which he’d never had the confidence to attempt before…

He reached for his redstone box. “You said you wanted to work with me? What did you have in mind?”

Aad gestured to the portal. The frame was now empty, the blue having faded and sloughed off now that the components were no longer being powered. “That needs at least fifteen minutes to recharge, I’m afraid. So I thought we might brainstorm some ideas, if I’m stuck here anyway.”

“I’ve never seen that kind of portal before.” A scrap of Zed’s surviving suspicion resurfaced. “Where did you say your base was again?”

“It’s a long-distance portal,” Aad explained smoothly. “An invention of my own. My home is...quite far out, you see, and I didn’t feel like walking or flying all that way. Quite inconvenient, that would be.”

“Ah. Well, you’ll have to show me how it works next time.” The scrap of suspicion drowned in a wave of curiosity.

“Oh, certainly! You’ll get to see many wonderful things, if you choose to work with me!” Aad spun around, arms held wide and lab coat flaring. “We can start with this cave. It’s beautiful as it is, of course, but with my help, I’m sure we can make it magnificent . After that, you can come help me with one of my own machines in return.” He quirked an eyebrow. “That’s only fair, right?”

“Of course!” Working on other people’s redstone always gave Zed a little bit of anxiety, especially if he didn’t know them. He was always afraid to break it, but something about Aadaph made him think that he wouldn’t be angry if that happened. The fog in his brain neatly rolled over his fears, coating them in confidence and light.

“And then,” Aad continued, stopping in front of Zed and grinning. “You can invite some of the other Hermits over, hm? To help test our work? The test subjects where I come from were always a little...resistant. I’m sure your friends will be much more cooperative.”

“Oh yes,” Zed said enthusiastically. “I get Tango to test my contraptions all the time! Sometimes he doesn’t even know he’s doing it, like with the baby zombie security system. You should have seen the look on his face!”

Aadaph leaned back and let out a long, gleeful cackle. He rubbed his hands together in anticipation, eyes glowing full force.

“Yes, yes, I think I would have liked that very much. Don’t worry. We’ll be seeing a whole lot more of that type of expression by the time we’re through.”

He plucked a sharpened pencil from his pocket and spread a sheaf of Zed’s blueprints out on a shulker in front of him. “But first: your contraptions. I’m here to help. Just give me the word.”

“I’m here, I’m here, you don’t have to bow and arrow at me!” Zed skidded to a stop on the grass of the shopping district, coming to rest in front of a very unhappy-looking Tango.

“I think that’s traditionally called shooting.” Tango crossed his arms and glared at him. “And you’re two hours late.”

Zed mumbled a vague apology, but honestly, he was mostly just surprised that it was only two hours. He had been so caught up in the whirl of blueprints and planning with Aadaph that he had dove straight into building afterwards, the meeting a discarded half-thought pushed to the back of his mind. They had worked like a well-oiled machine, ping-ponging ideas back and forth as they fit together pistons and slime blocks and repeaters into a glorious disaster of a contraption, a beautiful and chaotic masterpiece. For all Aad’s insistence that they thought the same way, Zed hadn’t really believed him until they started building - after all, this new Hermit barely knew him, and he’d be a tiny bit worried about someone who came naturally equipped with a Zedaphy brain. But his new friend really did seem to think like him. They had the same thoughts about efficiency (minimal), fun (maximized), danger (irrelevant)...they even started to suggest the same idea a couple times, before Aad would burst out laughing and again point out that they were almost like the same person. That was always the wording he used: almost the same person. It made Zed feel understood, valued, but...something in the back of his mind twitched at the phrase, a muffled warning bell with no real source or destination. Probably just a combination of nerves and excitement. Focusing on Aadaph’s eyes as he talked seemed to help calm the feeling.

Right. Speaking of focus.

“...password.” Zed snapped out of his happy haze to find Tango looking at him expectantly. How long had he been talking for?

“Uh...it’s ‘I will not be late to future meetings with Tango’, right?”

“Right.” Tango narrowed his eyes and examined Zed’s face, his annoyance fading into concern. “Were you listening to a word I said? You seem kinda out to lunch right now, no offense.”

Zed smiled apologetically. “Oh, yeah, sorry, I was listening.” For a given value of listening. “I was just thinking about my latest contraption, you know how it is.”

“Mhm.” Tango nodded, as if he understood, but his gaze stayed fixed on Zedaph for a second too long, as though searching for something but never quite finding it.

He knows something’s wrong, but he isn’t sure what. The thought flickered across the back of Zed’s mind, evaporating long before he could connect it to any source or logic. What a silly thing to think! Of course Tango didn’t “know” something was wrong - nothing was wrong. Tango was obviously still upset about the totem situation, that was all. He didn’t know what Zedaph knew, that it was all going to be okay. He didn’t have all this lovely pink fog to reassure him of that. Zed would have to do the reassuring himself.

“Hey, you remember how you get when you’re thinking about a project!” Zed’s voice sounded strange to his own ears, as though muffled by a thick layer of cotton, but it seemed lighthearted enough to hopefully soothe his friend. “At least I’m not distracted enough to forget I’m in the shopping district and walk into a light pole.”

“Hey, that was one time!”

“One time that you told us about,” Zed countered.

“A couple of light poles, a couple hours late to a crucial meeting…” Tango raised an eyebrow, moving his hands up and down as though weighing the two consequences against each other.

“Sorry,” Zed dispensed again automatically.

Tango sighed, giving in. “Just try not to do it again.” He rested a hand lightly on Zed’s shoulder. “You worry me sometimes, but I’m happy that you’re thinking about a project again. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you all caught up in an idea like this. It’s nice.”

Huh. Maybe his little slump over the last few weeks after the others had moved out had been more noticeable than he thought. Come to think of it, he wasn’t sure when he’d last built a contraption before Aadaph arrived, instead of just scribbling down half-hearted sketches and pacing around his base trying to find motivation. It did feel good to be excited again. He wanted nothing more than to go back to his base, to test out the new slime bouncer they’d built some more, to see what else Aadaph had in store for him. There was an urgency hidden behind the light mist that still hovered around the edges of his brain, a drive he could not disobey. He needed pistons in his hands and redstone dust on his clothes and the boundaries of possibility bending in the wake of his ideas. Everything else - these meetings, the others’ research, any other project he could think of - all of it was just fluff, an obstacle to be waited out and moved aside.

Still...Tango’s words from yesterday’s meeting hadn’t faded from his mind. It’s like you’ve drifted off completely. As drawn as he was toward his new project, a little time talking to a friend and breathing something other than musty cave air was probably good for him.

“Do you want to hear about the contraption?” Zed could already feel his excitement bubbling up, ready to be turned into long rambles about circuitry and slime block mechanics. If he wanted to talk to Tango, talking about the project would be the perfect way to ease the pull it had on his mind long enough to actually pay attention to their conversation.

The enthusiasm must have shown on his face, because Tango laughed and settled into a comfortable lean against the portal, ready for whatever long winded explanation was sure to follow. “Go ahead, redstone boy! Wow me with your contraption-ification!”

Zed didn’t need to be told twice. All other thoughts faded away as he began to talk, envisioning each part and piece of his invention hovering around him as he picked apart every aspect of their function and potential and released it into the air as words, sentences unspooling into the sunlight. He meant to mention Aadaph at some point, meant to ask Tango if he wanted to meet him - but every time he tried to bring the topic up, some other phrase or facet of the machine that he had yet to explain popped into his head, and it just never seemed like the right time. That was alright; it could wait for another day. For now, he was content to focus on his shiny new contraption for as long as this excitement would last.

As he spoke, he could already feel the cool air clearing his head a little bit, waking him up - not erasing the sense of urgency, but dulling it. As excited as he still was to see what Aadaph had planned for him next...the day was still fresh. He could wait a bit longer before going home.

~

When Zedaph finally did return, after nearly an hour of back-and-forth rambling, he was feeling much better - tired, but in an I’ve-done-lots-of-work way, not in that vague foggy way from before. He must have not slept as well as he thought he had last night, that was it. He had had a strange and busy day, what with meeting his new friend, but now that that was past, he could move on. Surely, the last remnants of that odd detached feeling that still lingered would fade away with a nice long nap.

Whether that was true or not, Zed would never get the chance to find out. Aadaph was already waiting for him when he returned to the cave, leaning against the reignited portal.

“Welcome home!”

Zed jumped at the unexpected greeting, almost tripping on his way in. “Hey,” he stammered, walking through the cave as the door slid closed behind him. “Back so soon?”

“Well, you still have to honour your end of our deal, right?” Aad gestured to the newly-constructed slime block launcher and grinned. “I help you with your contraption, you help me with mine! It’s only fair.” His stance was casual, legs crossed, hands resting in the pockets of his lab coat - but his eyes were sharp, alert. Nervous, even. As unassuming as the rest of him looked, something about that expression of anticipation sent a strange, suspicious chill down Zedaph’s spine.

Help with some projects was fine, sure, but he did like his solitude - even Tango didn’t usually stay for more than a few hours when they were working together. The fact that this new person wanted to move forward with their projects so quickly was odd, to say the least. This time, he pushed back at the fog that tried to muffle his mental alarm bell, trying to find its source, trying to understand its warning.

“I thought we were doing that another day. And…” A strange static filled his ears, a slight headache gathering at the base of his neck as he struggled to make his scattered thoughts connect into conclusions. “Come to think of it, why have I never seen you before?” He still didn’t want to seem too rude, but if Aadaph was going to continue showing up unannounced, the least he could do was provide Zed with an explanation. Or two.

“New Hermits don’t usually join in the middle of the season.” He stared past his uninvited guest, into the bright, unnatural blue of the portal. Suddenly, something about it seemed more dangerous than fascinating to him. He shifted his gaze, locking eyes with Aadaph. “Where did you come from?”

Aadaph froze. Just for a second before returning to his well-rehearsed casualness, picture-perfect smile and all, but a second was all it took for Zed to realize he’d struck a nerve.

“Who have you been talking to,” Aad said. The tone was light and friendly, but the undercurrent of tension made it clear in no uncertain terms that it was not a question.

Zed crossed his arms. “Answer my question first.” The rushing in his head was making it harder and harder to focus - at this point he wasn’t even sure what he was focusing on , didn’t even know why he was being so insistent - all he knew was that something was off here and he didn’t like it. He was missing something, something was being kept from him, something wasn’t adding up.... His time with Tango had cleared away some of the fog, just enough to let him question and wonder and think properly for the first time in - how long had he been like this? How long had he been like this? Why couldn’t he remember?

Aadaph took a deep breath, resetting his stance. He opened his hands in a seemingly calming gesture, but there was danger humming beneath the surface. The fleeting thought that he should have brought Tango back with him crossed Zed’s mind. In the absence of that type of safety, he instead settled for the safety of inching back toward the door.

“No - stop, listen ,” Aadaph started, his lighthearted tone dipping into a snarl near the end. “You don’t understand. I can help you understand. Stop moving towards the door.”

The word stop dug into Zed’s limbs like metal hooks, freezing him in place. He felt that he would be able to move if he wanted to, but he couldn’t summon the motivation to want to, no matter how hard he tried. He should be worried about this, should be screaming for help or screaming at Aadaph or just screaming out the fact that he didn’t know what on earth was going on and he didn’t like it at all...but the other word - listen - sealed his lips. All he could do was stand, and shake.

“That’s better.” Aadaph strolled towards him. “You’re a little confused now, but I can assure you, once we go through that portal you’ll understand: who I am, why you’re here, who you are, all of it. I am simply trying to help you realize your full potential, Zedaph!” He swept his arms in a wide, all-encompassing gesture, surveying the cave around him. “This, all of these little machines, all of these contraptions - they are nothing but practice for your true calling! They are an indicator of what you really need, how much your skills can stretch, how far you can go if you would just open your mind and learn to ignore the part of you that is so paralysingly terrified of hurting people!”

He leaned in close, eyes gleaming with excitement. “Do you know how much fun you could have, Zedaph, if you stopped limiting yourself to harmless humour and small-scale redstone toys? Every time you build one of these little contraptions, every time you load a dispenser with a stupid fish instead of an arrow or fit a piston with a slime block instead of an iron spike, you wish you could go farther. You wish you could test the limits of your capabilities against the limits of human endurance and see which emerges victorious. You dream of experiments that your narrow-minded servermates would never let you perform, but I, I will! Just think of the things we will build, when you agree to work with me! I’m your ticket to freedom from all those pesky little details of ethics and etiquette that you so desperately wish you could throw away.”

Zed struggled, straining with all his mental energy against the invisible bonds that kept him frozen in place. He didn’t! He didn’t wish that! Sure, he liked to test his machines on Tango or Impulse or anyone else who would pretend to be unsuspecting, and sure, he didn’t mind it when things like his baby zombie security system caused a little bit of harm, but that was different! That was all in good fun! Whoever this man was, whatever weird trap he had just stumbled into - his mind was still not letting him connect the dots, still stubbornly holding the obvious hostage - whatever was going on here, there was something seriously wrong with Aadaph. Zed needed to leave, needed to get out now -

“I know you, Zedaph.” Aad’s eyes lit up, slowly, swirling runes and spirals tracing a white-hot path across Zed’s retinas. He couldn’t keep from staring at them, couldn’t close his eyes, could look away….

“I know you want those things, because I do. I wanted to extend my reach, and I did, and look at me now! We’re the same person, really, but you have so much yet to learn…” His voice softened. “You are me, but you haven’t realized it yet. Once we go through that portal and you are where you belong, I will help you realize.”

Zed felt his breathing slow. The fog was rolling in again, thicker than ever. All of his alarm, all of his suspicion, it all sunk to the bottom of his mind and dissolved in a warm puddle of confusion, like badly-stirred sugar in a cup of bitter tea. He resisted at first, but somewhere along the way he seemed to have lost the reason why . Not only why, but...what was he resisting again? The last few minutes grew murky - he was pretty sure he had been mad about something, but if he couldn’t remember, it must not have been that important. No changes of note. Again the words flashed across his subconscious, written by his own hand, underlined in vibrant pink ink.

Magenta. Trust. Friend.

~

Aadaph held out a hand, helping him to his feet. Zed didn’t remember sitting down, didn’t remember why he was shaking, but he was glad for the small piece of comfort. This new friend of his certainly was proving his worth. His smile, although jagged, had an overlay of sweetness in Zed’s mind. His eyes, although viciously triumphant, made him feel at home - faintly, through the thick layers of vague detachedness that covered him now.

“What happened?” His own words came to him as if from underwater. The voice didn’t sound like his.

“You must have fallen, that’s all. How do you feel?” Aadaph’s voice, however, was crystal clear. Zedaph wondered how another person could have a voice that sounded more like his than his own, but “wondering” was an outdated term, wasn’t it? There was no room for that in his slow-flowing thoughts anymore.

“I feel...a bit dizzy.” Zed smiled gratefully. “Thanks for looking out for me. I’m not sure what would have happened if I had fallen in here all alone.”

“Oh, probably nothing good.” Aad took his arm and started leading him towards the portal. Zed went along without question. The world felt floaty and strange, and he wasn’t really worried, even though the portal was odd and unfamiliar. How could anything bad happen to him when the world felt this pleasant?

“Where are we going?” He asked, more of a way to pass the time than an actual demand. The portal grew closer, candy-blue and inviting.

“Oh, nowhere in particular.” Aad’s grip on his arm tightened, bruising Zed’s skin. “Just a little place I like to call home.”

With a shove, Zedaph was thrust from the world he knew and into a waking nightmare.

Zed’s bubble of numb positivity burst as soon as he entered the portal.

It was quicker even than an End portal, a single millisecond that pulled every bit of breath from his lungs. He fell through the frame into a blinding white room. Iron lab benches lined the walls, overflowing with bubbling potions and strange whirring devices - but Zed registered these only peripherally as he collapsed to the freezing tile floor with a cry.

WRONG. That was the only word the feeling left him, the only thing he could possibly assign to the sensation that hung in the air all around him as thick as solid stone. Every gasping breath he took, every tiny ray of light that he desperately squeezed his eyes shut to avoid, every particle of reality itself - it felt malicious , like time and existence itself held nothing more dear than the idea of slowly crushing him down into just so much worthless dust. He was nothing, worse than nothing, a stain upon the earth, and this world was making him feel that dreadful reality in every pore of his body and every fibre of his bones. This world, from the air to the ground to the light to the very code the Universe spun to uphold the dream within a dream that was his pathetic existence: every single aspect of this world was evil.

Zedaph was not in Hermitcraft anymore.

He was vaguely aware of Aadaph coming through the portal behind him, neatly stepping around his quaking form and snatching two matching sets of safety goggles from a pair of hooks on the wall. He slid one pair on over his wildly unkempt hair and turned, crouching down to offer the other to Zed.

“Oh come on, it’s not that bad. You get used to it after a while.”

Zed’s only reply was a whimper.

Aadaph sighed. “ Fine, I can make it feel a little better in the interim. You’re going to have to build up an endurance to it if you’re going to stay here, though: those who didn’t didn’t last long.” He burst into a peal of ironic laughter. “Funny, I’m so used to this place that I actually forgot how much it hates us, until I breathed Overworld air.”

Zed almost asked what he meant, almost asked where they were, but at the moment he was a touch too busy dealing with the impending feeling of imminent doom to form a coherent thought.

Aadaph gently propped him up, leaning him against one of the many cupboards under the nearest lab bench. He closed his eyes and concentrated hard, all the lines of sleep deprivation and crazed determination on his face deepening, until the glow of his irises was strong enough to escape the cracks of his eyelids even with them fully closed.

And then, he opened his eyes, and Zedaph’s feelings shut off. All of them.

Zed blinked. The fog wasn’t over his brain anymore. His brain was fog.

“There.” Aadaph didn’t seem friendly now, or malicious. He didn’t seem at all, in fact. He just was. And Zedaph, mostly, was not.

“Hm,” he provided helpfully. He held no opinion on this fact.

“Ah.” Aadaph frowned. “Too much.”

The fog retreated slightly, and Zedaph was once again allowed to exist. Just barely, but at least the horrible crushing feeling was gone now.

“There. I’ll give you a moment to adjust, and then we can get started.”

His thoughts were scattered much, much too far apart for him to even consider attempting to gather them again, so instead he took a moment to properly look around the room for the first time. Still sitting on the floor, he numbly turned his head and scanned over the contents of the shelves and counters. It was an odd mixture between clean and messy, he realized. If he had still had need of thinking, he might have wondered why the lab equipment looked so well cared for and yet so strewn about on every available surface, but he had nothing in him left to spend on questions today. Instead, he settled his gaze on the heavier of the two doors in the room, in the absence of a window to stare out of.

Aadaph noticed him looking. “Oh, you won’t be needing that door today, friend. They would eat you alive out there!” He laughed. “Thankfully I have my ways of keeping the world out when I need to. My companions know better than to disturb our little experiment, and I’ve made sure that anyone else who tries will have the most gloriously unpleasant day. You’re not the only one who’s fond of security systems, you know!”

Zed blinked. Was he ‘fond of security systems’, before? He guessed he was, if Aadaph said so.

“As a matter of fact, I bet some of the data we find today would help make a great new trap for our lab, don’t you think?” Aad clapped his hands together and stood. “You might still feel a little weird, but you can adjust while we work. Best to get started sooner rather than later. Follow me .”

Well, of course he would, Zed thought vaguely. No sooner had the words left Aadaph’s mouth than follow me began to feel as natural as breathing.

Aadaph pulled him to his feet, ushering him through the second, more narrow doorway and into yet another sterilized white room. This one, however, had no shelves of gadgets or brewing stands of potions - it was utterly featureless, blank. The room from my dream. There was nobody in it, no pistons clanking in the background this time, but it was undeniably the same place. Zedaph felt nothing about this - no alarm, no satisfaction at having recognized it, no fear at what it might be for. The only thing he felt was a faint, tickling urge to make the room the way he saw it in the dream. It wasn’t fully realized yet. He needed to make that happen.

“You know what we’re going to do.” Aadaph handed him a piston and gestured toward the blank back wall. “It’s my turn, now. We’re going to build my kind of contraption. I think you’ll like it more than you expect.”

The next hour passed in a blur of mechanics and scientific theory. Zedaph accepted the components Aad handed to him, placing them down almost on instinct. He understood where they went, knew how they connected on a level so intuitive that the fog of his mind didn’t even make a dent on his knowledge. Years of trial and error, experiments and data, time after time of hitting a roadblock in a project and pushing past it - nothing could erase that. Yes, he could see the circuits he was building spread out before him, could track the signals as they looped and extended and powered all the parts of this machine...but somehow, none of the parts he understood fit together into a whole picture. Every time he tried to focus on what the machine did , Aadaph would say something and interrupt his train of thought.

So eventually, he stopped trying. He just soaked in Aadaph’s rambling in the background. The machine was good, he said. It would give them good data, he said. It was to be useful and fun and delightfully inefficient. It was going to cause pain, he said, but it was all for a good cause. All for the sake of knowledge, of testing their skills. A beautiful endeavor of creativity and technology, the art of doing something mostly just to see if they could achieve it - all the things that Zed himself enjoyed. It was exactly how he thought when he was working on his own contraptions, Aad reminded him. How could it be anything but good?

And Zedaph believed him. His hands coated in redstone, his eyes glazed, he continued weaving circuits through the fabric of his dream turned life turned dream again, and to everything his colleague said, he agreed.

Eventually, the machine was finished. Zedaph knew this only because his hands seemed to have stopped moving, resting idly in his lab coat pockets - when had he been given a lab coat? He couldn’t remember, and he supposed it didn’t matter. It felt right, and that was what counted. It was comfortable.

“Oh, brilliant job!” Aadaph’s voice slowly filtered through his mind like rain through spring soil. “This is just what I was thinking! See, I told you you would understand. We make such fantastic lab partners, don’t we?”

“Yeah,” Zed said automatically. He squinted at the machine. Even now, when it was finished, he was unable to decipher exactly how all those potion-loaded dispensers and crushing pistons were meant to interact. It felt like something was missing, some odd component meant to fit in with the circuits as a centerpiece.

A test subject.

“Do you want me to get in it?” He suggested. He was here to help, after all. He faintly remembered liking it when friends offered to test his own machines. Yes, that felt like the right thing to say, the nice thing to do.

Aadaph, however, didn’t seem to think so. “No, no,” he said, waving his hand dismissively. “Trust me, you don’t want to test this one. You helped me build it, after all! Don’t you want to see what it does from the outside?”

Of course he did. If Aadaph said so, that was what he wanted.

“We need somebody else to test it.” Aad handed Zed his own communicator, already open to the private chat setting. “Just choose whoever you think is best and shoot them a message, alright? Tell them to meet us at your cave, and then I can go back and get them for you while you wait here.” He grinned\. “Don’t be too picky. Whoever you don’t call now, we can just use next time! Or the time after that. Or the time after that.”

Zed stared blankly at the little blinking bar indicating where he should start typing. It wasn’t a question, really - Tango was the one who most regularly participated in Zed’s contraption antics. As fun as Impulse was to hang out with, he was usually much too busy, and Tango had just the right amount of appreciation for weird and wonderful redstone to enjoy testing Zed’s machines almost as much as he did.

This was no different, right? So why was he hesitating?

With the last bit of free thought he had left to him, Zed whispered.

“Will it hurt him?”

Aadaph’s eyes bored into his own, smothering any thought of disobedience.

“Yes.”

Zedaph sent the message.

There was a crack in the wall.

It was just a small one, where the concrete corner joined. It must be from a change in temperature. Maybe it had been frozen and warmed and frozen again by some experiment, flashes of heat and cold. Maybe the portal gave off heat and cold. Zed couldn’t be sure.

Some of the tiles were cracked, too. Something brown and red was stuck between them, never properly washed off.

His safety goggles had a small crack in them. Zed felt as if he should probably be worried about this. He wasn’t.

One of the drawers was a little bit open. If Zed had more energy, he might go see what’s inside of it. He didn’t.

One of the gears of the portal had a small scratch in it.

A light was flickering. It was giving him a bit of a headache.

A tap at one of the lab benches was dripping.

Zedaph had been left alone in the lab. Aadaph was gone through the portal - retrieving their test subject. In his absence Zed felt nothing. He had no purpose, no pull toward anything or push away from something. He was...lost. Lost like a half-broken gold helmet left adrift at the bottom of a chest, though, not lost like a player in the woods. He vaguely wondered if he still counted as a player. If he was still himself.

Maybe he wasn’t even a person anymore, he thought numbly. Maybe he was just fog.

He could get used to it. At least he wasn’t actual fog. That would get blown away by the wind and be all inconvenient. He so didn’t want to be inconvenient.

Really, that was the core of it all, wasn’t it? He didn’t join in any of the wars on the server, never picked a side. He hadn’t wanted to join in with the totem research, afraid to step on anybody’s toes. He had avoided his friends, not wanting to make them feel worse with his fumbling, clumsy words after they had already been through so much - and he hadn’t shared his own struggles, not the nightmares or the fear. He hadn’t tried very hard to tell anyone about Aadaph, either. He just...he didn’t want to take up space, really. He didn’t want to make himself a nuisance. Some people wore it so well, being the center of attention, but not him. Sometimes he just wanted to fade away.

And now, he had. Maybe that was for the best.

One of the sinks had a half-empty coffee cup in it. It looked to be a little bit burnt. It probably hadn’t been very good.

One of the Erlenmeyer flasks on the lab bench was missing a chip from its mouth.

The hum of the portal grew to a crescendo, and Zed snapped back to attention, ready to obey whatever his next instruction was. He blinked his eyes back into focus to see Aadaph step out of the swirling blue, and his compass, his drive, his central purpose, returned to him.

Right. The experiment. It had to proceed.

“Are you ready?” Aad asked. His coat was scuffed and torn, and he was slightly out of breath, but his face was shining with excitement. He was holding onto something. The thing was making a lot of noise, struggling violently, but it seemed to be tied up with rope. It kept shouting the same word over and over again - was that his name? Was he supposed to answer to that? Zed squinted, trying to resolve the squirming figure into a person he recognized. All he could register were flashes of red and black and blond, panicked and confused eyes in a face that wouldn’t piece itself together in his mind.

“Who...who is that,” he asked faintly.

“Our test subject.” Aadaph’s eyes gave off another brief flash of light.

Of course. Test subject. Not a who, a what. The lie made Zed feel better, so he let it stay. Not that he had much choice, really.

He woodenly stepped forward to help Aadaph load the test subject into the machine. Aadaph was speaking - a constant stream of congratulations and compliments and wild imaginings of how glorious this test would be, how much data they would collect, how beautiful the contraptions they could make with the knowledge that the subject’s suffering would provide them. The words flowed over the subject’s screams, trying to drown them, but the frantic phrases still filtered through: what are you doing and can you hear me and Zed, please, wake up all piercing through the fog like a hail of arrows. The haze didn’t clear - Zed still flipped all the right levers and pressed all the right buttons on autopilot with a pair of hands that didn’t feel like his own - but a slight unease was starting to rise in the back of his mind.

A grunt of effort from Aadaph, and a final clang of an iron trapdoor, and all was ready. The subject was in place, a new edge of panic to his shouts at the realization that he was trapped, but there was no way out for him now. He will understand later , Zedaph’s mind told him. It will be for the best in the end. Better to ask forgiveness than permission.

“You may have the honour.” Aadaph’s triumphant grin burned itself into Zedaph’s eyes as he placed a single, final lever before him. “It’s your machine, after all. My design, your project, your glory. Do it, in honour of us, in honour of all you can achieve once you overcome your limits! Begin the first trial!”

Zed’s world faded, melting away until only a tiny bubble of existence remained. All that mattered, all that he knew, all that he needed and ever would again, was laid out before him in horribly simplicity.

Himself, and the lever.

Power, and a natural path for it to flow.

It was the only thing left.

So why am I hesitating?

He stood frozen: unable to step back, unwilling to step forward.

It felt too right. Something was nagging at the back of his mind, some abandoned thread of logic picked up and unraveled by the shouts of his soon-to-be victim.

“ Where are you? ”

The cry tore through his subconscious. The questions it pulled to the surface threatened to fade back into the fog, but this time, he refused to let them. He stayed paralyzed before the lever, holding on to them as tight as he could.

Where am I?

“Come on, I don’t have all day!” Aadaph huffed in impatience, but Zed refused to look at him. Somehow he knew that if he saw those eyes again, his last hope would be buried in choking mist. Instead, he locked onto the steady red gaze of the test subject through the bars, pleading, grounding him, pulling him towards finally piecing together why the air and the portal and Aadaph and his entire last few days had felt so deeply strange and wrong…

Where are you?

Zedaph’s lips barely moved, but the words were clear. More than clear enough to serve their purpose.

“I’m...I’m in Hels.”

Hels.

His ears popped, and every billow of fog in his brain hardened and shattered . It washed away in a wave of fear and realization. The memories of the last few days flashed rapid-fire across his vision, scrubbed of every lie that had made him think they were anything but poison... He jerked his hands away from the lever, wanting nothing to do with it, horrified at how close he had been to pulling it.

“You!” He staggered backwards, pointing a shaking finger at Aadaph. Now that his control was lifted, Zed could feel every bit of the painful wrongness that permeated the air, but he wasn’t about to let that stop him now. “You, you tricked me, you said we were going to work together -”

“And we did! What, you don’t like what you created with my help?” Aadaph tried his best to pull his friendly face back on again. He spread his arms wide, his eyes turned to full power in one last frantic attempt to reign him in, but Zedaph kept his gaze firmly trained on the wall behind him. He wouldn’t let himself be taken hostage in his own skin again.

“No,” he said bluntly. “I did not create this. You’re the only one to blame for this, and you’re the one who’s going to let us go.” He drew his sword, all but forgotten in his earlier numbness, and pointed it straight at Aadaph’s throat.

Aadaph’s breath caught.

For the first time since Zedaph had met him, he stopped smiling.

“I had hoped,” he snarled, reaching into his lab coat. “I had hoped to gain an ally and a friend today. A friend in you, and a fresh supply of lab rats in your Hermits...but if you’re going to be so unpleasant, I guess I can settle for just a couple of extra test subjects.”

He drew a shimmering potion bottle from his coat and threw, breaking into an unhinged laugh. Zedaph threw himself to the side, not quite fast enough - the splash potion shattered against his leg. Noxious fumes filled the air, and Zed gagged and doubled over as every muscle in his body cramped.

“Zed!” The test subject - Tango , Zedaph now realized in horror - thrashed in his ropes. Through the black spots of pain Zed grabbed a shard of glass from the floor where the bottle fell and staggered over to the machine. He fell against it, fumbling among the levers and buttons and finally managing to pry the trapdoor open.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry about all of this -” he said as he sawed away at Tango’s ropes with the sharp edge of the glass. “I didn’t know...”

“Shh, I know it wasn’t your fault.” Tango kept his eyes trained over Zedaph’s shoulder, staying as still as possible as the ropes were cut. “That’s a conversation for later, we’ve got bigger problems to worry about right now!”

Zed had barely opened his mouth to reply when something grabbed his collar, throwing him back from the machine. Unprepared and weakened by the potion, he tripped and sprawled face-first across the floor. Aadaph’s approaching footsteps set every nerve blazing with adrenaline. No, no, I didn’t get through the ropes yet, I need more time -

Move . He flipped over and scrambled backwards, barely suppressing a groan as another wave of pain shot through him. Whatever this potion was, it was far worse than normal Poison or Harming. Zed had a sneaking suspicion that it might somehow be Poison and Harming .

And if he didn’t move soon, he was about to get another chance to find out. He rolled out of the way just as the second bottle shattered against the wall. Grabbing for the doorframe, he pulled himself to his feet as Aadaph lunged for him, a short blade appearing in his hand. Zed deflected with his sword, his arm shaking as he struggled to keep it in the air and keep himself on his feet at the same time. As obvious as it was that Aadaph was not a fighter, a blade in the hands of an angry mad scientist was still a prospect that Zed did not at all enjoy - especially given that Aad probably got his non-fighter-ness from Zed in the first place. He tried his best to keep calm and assess all his options as Aadaph advanced again, but the blood on his lab coat and the burning in Zed’s limbs and the hostility in the air itself all added up to a slim chance of survival and an even slimmer chance of victory…

If it was a one-on-one battle, that is. Movement caught the corner of Zedaph’s eye. Tango had managed to reach the shard of glass and picked up where Zed had left off, sawing frantically at the ropes. As Aadaph drew back and prepared to strike again, Tango snapped the final strands and exploded from the machine like TnT from a cannon, eyes blazing and only one target in his sights.

“Hey jerkface!”

Aadaph barely had time to turn around before Tango’s fist met his face with a resounding crack, sending him reeling and clutching his cheek. Tango grabbed Zed’s arm just as his knees gave out and sprinted into the next room, diving into the portal with him in tow.

There was a single, weightless moment between worlds as the blue swirls filled his view. Then, the rough stone floor of his cave rose to meet him, and he collapsed in a tangle of limbs with Tango back in the Overworld.

Tango scrambled to his feet immediately, drawing his sword. “We probably have about five seconds before whoever that was -”

“Aadaph,” Zed supplied breathlessly.

“- follows us through that portal. Assuming he doesn’t have any secret battle robots or anything crazy like that that he wants to prep first.” He glanced down. “Zed? You alright?”

“Yeah, I’ll...I’ll be fine,” Zed wheezed. The potion seemed to be wearing off. He rolled over on his hands and knees and slowly got to his feet, tasting iron. As much as he could use a regen potion and a nice healing round of complaining, there was no time to waste. They were already well over Tango’s guess at how long before Aad made his appearance again.

Tango was glancing back and forth towards Zed’s front door as though waiting for something, but all of Zed’s attention was focused on the portal. There was no way Aadaph had just given up. There was no way he was going to let them be. Things were never that simple, never that easy for Zed and his friends.

“They’re here!” Tango shouted. Zed whipped around to see Impulse and Xisuma burst through the door, weapons drawn. He had barely enough time to question what they were doing here and how Tango knew they would come before the portal whirred into high gear, and a battered and furious Aadaph rejoined the playing field.

Blood trickled down from his cheekbone, splashing on his collar to join the many, many stains of past agony not his own. His eyes darted between the faces of those assembled, and Zed could see the gears moving in his thoughts as he pulled together all the data and all the evidence of what his experiment had devolved into, trying and failing to assemble the shattered pieces into a plan that still worked in his favour. In a split second, Zed saw him come to the edge of defeat.

And in a split second, he saw his eyes light up with triumph.

Faster than Zed could react, Aadaph spun into motion. With one hand, he raised a speed potion to his lips; with the other, he sent a blindness potion in a blurring arc toward the door. X and Impulse, expecting an attack with a sword or a bow, were unprepared. They shouted and stumbled as the potion took their sight and their already-limited grasp on the situation along with it. Tango hesitated, torn between trying to help them and keeping an eye on Aadaph…

And the frantic, flashing world seemed to shift to slow motion as Zedaph found out what the speed potion had been for.

In one moment, Aadaph was still by the portal, a good fifteen or twenty blocks away. In the next, Zed was frozen in place, a hand around his throat and searing magenta scouring every thought from his skull.

All sound in the room grew muffled as all will and intent slipped away again, all but two thoughts that remained. The first, burning with a light to rival the eyes themselves: No, this can’t be happening. No, not again, not after how hard I tried to break free, not after I did break free…. It wasn’t fair! Zed had already won, already earned the right to be himself again...he clung to this single, stubborn thought as the fog tried to take him once more. He used it as a lifeline, pulling him above the haze.

The second thought threatened to drag him back down. It flashed across his vision, a replay of his dream. The two figures, bleeding and grateful - Tango and Impulse, he could now tell. The eyes told him it had to be done, that he had to make the dream a reality. It would be for the best, they said, the light of their pupils blasting meaning into his subconscious. His sword wavered, guided toward Tango, toward Impulse and Xisuma, toward anyone else who would stand in their way. Our gain will be worth their suffering.

But he didn’t believe it.

He never had.

With a wrenching cry and a burst of power that was entirely his own, his choice to make, his will to use, Zedaph drew his hand back and thrust his sword through Aadaph’s chest.

The warped reflection of himself stumbled, the glow of his eyes flickering. He opened and closed his mouth, even now still searching for some lie he could piece together like one of his machines to convince Zedaph he was really a monster, that he belonged to the world of Hels...but it was useless now. He already knew who he was.

He stepped back and let Aadaph fall backwards through the portal.

~

It was a long time before any of them moved or spoke. At last, Tango hesitantly went to get some milk for the still-blinded Impulse and Xisuma, and their quiet talking by the door helped to bring Zed back to earth. He was so happy that they were okay. He should probably be checking on them, doing something more useful than just standing here in shock, but...he was just so tired. Maybe it was okay for now, to just stand here and be .

Happy. Tired. He was allowed to feel those things now.

He blinked. He could see the cave again - really see it, look at each contraption and remember all the ideas and the good times that had gone into it, all the things that made it his. His mind felt entirely clear. Every corner of it was bright and free of fog for the first time in - how long? He could hardly even remember, but in that moment it was the greatest feeling in the universe.

He let his sword fall from his hand and cried with relief.

Zedaph hadn’t been left to stand there alone for long. Caring hands had bundled him up in a blanket and guided him through the soft blur of tears to sit down. A natural blur , he’d thought as he clumsily accepted a drink of water from Tango. The best kind, really. He did his best to answer all their many questions, as much as they reassured him that he didn’t have to do it right now. He didn’t have to, but he wanted to. Now that he could talk about it, he wanted to tell them all about what had happened and how it felt. X asked most of the questions - trying to fill the gaps where he felt he should have known and done more, Zed guessed. Impulse hugged him for a long, long time. His own language of sorrow at not being there sooner, Zed knew. But he needed that hug much more than he needed help in the fight or any preparation beforehand, any aimless words about who should have been where and when. They were there at the right time. They were there when Zed needed them most. Not the past or the future, just, now . Now, the only time anyone can live in, really. He was so happy to be living in it with them.

He talked, and then cried some more, and they listened until he slowly trailed off, exhausted once more, but warm. And then, they just were. Together.

Impulse had been the one to finally break the silence, hesitantly suggesting that even though he had basically just gotten here and had been blinded for most of the confrontation, he was still pretty sure that the clanking and smoking mechanical portal in the middle of Zed’s base would need to be dealt with sooner rather than later. Zed had abruptly realized that Aadaph returning through the portal was still very much a possibility, and between the four of them - with Zed giving suggestions from the sidelines - they were able to decipher enough of the portal’s circuitry to disable it.

It was like nothing Zed had ever seen before - most of these components weren’t even craftable in the Overworld, nevermind usable with the redstone properties he knew to be true. He was itching to test out all the many gears and widgets, contraption ideas flying through his head...but for some reason, incorporating the science of Hels into his inventions wasn’t an idea he much wanted to pursue. He had had more than enough of that brand of experiment to last a lifetime.

Actually, he’d had more than enough of all of this to last a lifetime. Throughout the last few days it had become increasingly clear to him that he was still suffering from the fear and pain that Tango’s and Impulse’s clones had inflicted on him. He had pushed it all to the back of his mind, telling himself that they needed him more than he needed to process - but now that he’d come face to face with his own double, all the weight of the last few months was pressing down on him. Maybe now that he was resting after his own terrible adventure, he could start to untangle how this whole mess altogether had made him feel.

“Hey, Zed.”

Zed looked up from his perch on the edge of his storage hole, tossing away the pebble he had been idly examining. Impulse and Xisuma were talking in low voices by the portal, taking notes on the backs of their totem research papers. Tango had been talking with them, but now he had wandered over to plop down beside Zedaph.

“Hey.” He avoided Tango’s gaze, a sudden seed of awkwardness lodging itself in his chest. A glance at his friend’s eyes reminded him of the lever he’d almost pulled, the pain he’d almost caused….

“You know it wasn’t your fault, right?” Tango refused to look away. “I barely even knew what was going on, and even I could tell you were totally out of it.”

“Yeah, I was.” Zed sighed. He wasn’t blaming himself, not really, not like the others had after their own incidents. He really did have no control over the situation. To pretend that there was something more he could have done, that if he had just tried harder or been better in some way, would be a lie. No, it wasn’t Zed’s fault...but that didn’t stop him from feeling badly that it happened, in spite of all their many safeguards and plans.

“Even at our last meeting, you seemed a little off.” Tango furrowed his brow. “Maybe I should have called that sooner...but we were all super stressed, and you tend to hold stuff in. I don’t know, I guess I just thought that -”

“It’s okay.” Zed smiled softly. “We’re alive, and neither of us is trapped in a weirdly smelly lab.”

“Yeah.” Tango let out a breath. “I might not have clued in as much as I should have, but at least I had a bad enough feeling about all this to tell X and Impulse where I was going when I got your message. I was about 97.99% sure it was fine or else I wouldn’t have gone, but I did tell them to come looking for me if I didn’t shoot them a message by five minutes after I left.”

“Oh. Well, I never thought I’d say this, but I’m glad at least 2.01% of you doesn’t trust me!”

Tango chuckled. “All of me trusts you. It’s my wonky intuition I’m never so sure on.”

“Well, in that case, I’m glad you’re wonky.” Zed leaned on Tango’s shoulder, pulling his blanket tighter.

Thinking about how close Tango had come to never telling anyone where he was going, how close they’d come to not having X and Impulse as the final distraction they needed to defeat Aadaph...that made him shiver a bit. He didn’t want to think about it. No point now, anyway.

“Are you okay?” Tango put a gentle arm around his shoulders. He must have noticed the shaking.

“Am I okay?” Zed sat up straight, looking over at him in dismay. “You got kidnapped and loaded into some pain-y death contraption! I almost flipped the lever! Are you okay?”

“Please don’t do that.” Tango crossed his arms. “I didn’t ask you if I was okay.”

Zed paused, and sighed. His shoulders slumped. Without even thinking about it, he had turned back to that same old habit of not being willing to take up space, always trying to put others first. It was a good instinct, in some situations, but now...he was probably only adding to his hurt.

“No,” he said, slowly and cautiously. The word felt odd in his mouth, like a new language. “No, I don’t think I’m okay.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“I will be.”

“Yeah. Eventually. But it’s okay to just be how you are now, right now.”

“...Yeah.”

Tango looked over at him with understanding in his eyes.

“That’s what helped me a lot, at least.”

“Thank you.” He really meant it.

It felt odd, like a new language. But unfamiliar or not, it felt right.

They sat in silence for a long minute. Zedaph sensed that Tango would wait until he was ready to say more, to elaborate on his not-okay...and he would, in time. They would live in the future and the present, all of the Hermits, picking each other up and carrying each other forward just like they always did, just as they had after every other victory or loss or near miss in their lives.

Still...something about that, just as they always had , scratched at the back of his mind just enough to keep him from sitting still. He picked and pinched the hem of the blanket between his fingers as the question rolled through his head like a final sharp stone in a boot worn by travel.

How many more times is this going to happen? What was the point of celebrating, if next week or next month or many months from now, another villain would show up to wreak havoc?

Wait. A spark flicked up Zed’s spine. An idea. The portal!

He jumped up, ignoring Tango’s questions, and approached the empty frame that Aadaph had left behind. It was not “just as they always had”. This time was different! This time, the intruder had left behind more than just damages, and totems that refused to reveal their secrets. Aadaph had tipped his hand, made the mistake of letting slip how he got to their world, likely the same way all the Hels Hermits had managed to break through…

“What’s wrong?” X turned from his conversation with Impulse, alerted by Zed’s sudden movement.

“Nothing, nothing at all, just give me one moment -” Zed stopped in front of the portal and stared at it as if the final piece he needed was inside it, and if he just looked hard enough he could break through and find it….

Energy.

“Energy!” He nearly jumped for joy, spinning around and waving his hands at X and Impulse as though they had any hope whatsoever of knowing what on earth he was on about. They, predictably, looked absolutely baffled, but Zed was on a roll now and nothing could stop his racing brain.

He ran over and pulled Tango along with him to the portal, still trying to figure out exactly what he had just realized while simultaneously attempting to explain it.

“Energy...the portal uses a lot of energy. See, those generators we found earlier -” he pointed to the heap of dismantled components they had removed to disable the portal “- they created enough energy to power the portal!”

“...yes?” Impulse’s eyebrows quirked. “I thought we already knew that?”

“We did!” Zedaph was almost vibrating by now, the pieces coming together faster than his mouth could catch up. “And what else do we know? What did you guys just tell us in the long boring meeting a few days ago, the part with the totems that’s the thing that does the part where it absorbs energy?”

“ Huh? ”

“That’s not grammar!” Zed made a futile attempt to calm down and gather himself. “What I’m trying to say is: I think Reflex’s totems are the key to stopping these portals from opening in our world!”

“I…” Xisuma froze, finally starting to process what Zedaph was trying to communicate. “You mean...if we could find a way to kind of...redirect the totems’ energy-absorbing ability toward the portals, if a new one tried to open in the Overworld, the energy used to keep it running would be drawn away?”

“Exactly!”

“But we only have three totems,” Impulse pointed out. “That would buy us some time if another Hels Hermit tried to get through, but it wouldn’t last forever - even if we could figure out a way to get a totem to activate for a portal the way it does for a player.” He scratched his head. “Which I can’t see how to do right now.”

“Right.” Zedaph’s heart sank a little. He’d been so sure he had found a solution, so sure they would have a way to finally have peace again….

“No…I think it could still work.” X activated his communicator, admin screens folding out into full projection in front of him. “It would take a bit more meddling with the server’s guts than what I usually like to do, but I could copy the corrupted part of the totem’s code into the world code and tune it to absorb the energy of a portal anywhere in the world.”

Tango sputtered. “So - and stop me if I’m hearing you wrong - you’re gonna take janky corrupted totem code, from a Hels-ificated Reflex totem, you know, the kind that killed me , and you’re sticking it into the foundation of our reality?”

“Well...when you put it like that…” Zed turned to Xisuma. “What are the chances that something like that would make the universe go kablooey?”

“As rough as it sounds, I think I could manage it. I would make backups, and we could do it in stages...” X grew thoughtful. “Tango, would you like to help me? You know a fair bit about code, and I think both of us would feel more comfortable with you as a second opinion.”

“Great, so now it’s going to be my fault if the world goes kablooey.” Tango scowled and pretended to still be resistant, but Zed could tell that he was already more at ease. He knew as well as any of them that a move this crucial, if it worked, would be more than worth the risk, and he would give it his all to make sure it went off without a hitch.

“So, if we succeed…” Impulse gazed at the portal, a mix of hope and hatred playing across his face. “If we succeed, then any time a Hels Hermit tries to come through, their portal will be shut down before it even opens.”

“Yes.” Zed looked around at each one of them in turn, all of their eyes lit up with the fire of invention and possibility...and victory.

The reality of what Zedaph had just said hadn’t fully sunk in until he voiced it out loud. Could it really be possible? No more preparing for the worst, no more discussions in hushed voices about what horrors could be waiting for them all, no more nightmares of seeing your own face staring back at you at the end of a merciless sword...all of them, the entire world and every Hermit in it - all of them would be free from that. At this point, Zed had a hard time even imagining that reality.

Still, he did. He saw a future in which him and everyone around him could heal, really heal, without the constant quiet dread of being wounded again. Against all the odds, after everything they’d just been through, the thought sent a leaping spiral of fierce joy sailing up through his chest. Not everything was fixed, not everything was certain, a million things could go wrong between now and the time when they would all be secure - but he was so, so done with being afraid. The feeling inside him was liquid gold, and as he looked around the room at his friends, letting their problem solving and questions and beautiful efforts to try and improve their world wash over him, he knew one thing, deep in the core of what made him him :

They had won.