Chapter Text
Shock, horror, and a little bit of humour filled Scar as he looked down at this tiny, pompous… Human? He never actually knew what race Grian was, he’d always just assumed he was a Human with a penitent for mischief and large builds, something Scar could appreciate.
Well, he also has a mysterious past, but who doesn’t have one of those on this server? Its one of the best features of living, building, and working in a tight community and not needing to worry about any awkward questions being asked like “Why do your legs clunk when they move?” or “How come you always smell like sulphur and burned meat?”
Although his personal favourite is “Who the heck named you? Scar is a weird name for a baby.”
Its always funny seeing their faces when he asks back with a smile, “What’s a baby?”
Of course, he knows what a baby is, he may never have seen a human baby before, but baby zombies exist, and baby animals! Like his cute Jellie when she was just a kitten. He may not know why there are such things as babies, but in his experience it’s just easier to not question the way the mortal lands work.
Speaking of questioning.
A blubbering squeak sounded from Xisuma’s helmet, distorted by the electric speakers on the sides of the helm.
A quick glance to the side shows a frozen creeper-man with what must be the blankest face Scar has ever had the displeasure of seeing on his companion, which is quite an achievement considering his usual blank and snarky persona.
Looks like it’s down to him then.
Craning his neck at a near 90-degree angle (wow the little dude really was short, his poor neck!) he observed the indignated little fluff ball as he darted his gaze between the three of them, probably trying to keep them all in his vision while looking for an escape route. Which was rude since they aren’t creepy kidnappers.
Right?
With a decisive exhale Scar decides to crouch down to his haunches, sacrificing his hip joints for his necks’ comfort.
With the bonus that it could potentially chill the tiny gremlin out.
The Grian-Imposter turned to mostly face him, keeping his two brain-stuttering companions in his peripheral vision. Honestly the mortal brain is a confusing thing, they should have recovered by now.
“Hey Lil’ Macho Man, are you sure that you said that name right? I know it can be a hard one to spell, especially the ‘I’s and ‘A’s, so can you just clarify that for us?”
A minute twitch from the near invisible blonde brows tipped Scar off to the ticking time bomb the red jumpered mortal is steadily becoming. Oh boy.
A short scoff followed by, “I know how to spell my own name, are you sure you can even spell yours?”
Tensing his jaw was the only thing that prevented Scar from baring his teeth, a habit he’s tried hard to break just for him to seem more approachable during recordings. Seems like Gumball Boy can replicate Grian’s charming yet irritative abilities, with an unwanted sprinkle of bitter snark to it.
It seemed very strange how such a familiar tone was twisted into a near unrecognisable and unpleasant quality, if Grian had truly been like this he would never have been considered for this server.
Good thing the little copycat couldn’t be Grian. Scar has seen many types of magic and science in this world, and others, he’s almost sure a spell or potion couldn’t cause an effect like this. The kid was most likely a fan-boy that’s taking any opportunity he could to tour the Hermitcraft server. He just so happens to resemble the short builder.
Barely preventing himself from clicking his tongue he tried to keep any irritation out of his voice.
“I’m perfectly capable of spelling all our name’s kiddo, except maybe yours. So how about humouring me for a bit Kiddie Winkles.”
If anyone heard a hint of anger in his voice, no they didn’t.
The snotty brat didn’t even bother trying to prevent the condescending click noise from escaping, crossing his arms as if it could make him seem taller (was he on his tip toes?).
The irritating noise seemed to knock Doc out of his blank spell (finally!), his own dark teal arms bulging and crossing in challenge at the kid’s arrogance, twisting his lips and narrowing his eye as the robotic lens adjusts. The definition of a challenging pose.
Fair play to the little guy, he tilts his head slightly in Doc’s direction and juts out his tiny round jaw in an equal amount of challenge.
If only Scar wasn’t so irritated, he would probably find humour in a 6”10 Cyborg Creeper hybrid squaring up to a 3”5 toddler that’s swamped in an oversized jumper and standing on his tip toes.
Xisuma definitely found humour in it, a quick and robotic snort followed by cough brought everyone’s attention to the admin. Good save Xisuma.
Xisuma recovers quickly and decides to stroll over to the odd trio near the back wall, settling his hands on his hip pads as he cocks his head at the, suddenly even tenser, child.
Xisuma let out a quick sigh before stating, “Nice try kid, but I’m pretty sure that nametag is taken, so do yourself a favour and just let us know your real name, I can’t have you staying on this server too long in case we get raided by Server Security looking for a missing kid.”
The kid seemed to be getting confused, almost stunned, his mouth slowly dropping throughout the whole sentence, an incredulous squint in his eyes. His face looks like the exact definition of Bamboozeled and it is quite a joy to behold the kid being scolded by a guy in a turtle suit.
Has he mentioned his love for Xisuma’s armour designs? Because they have all been brilliant.
A tensing jaw signals the kids recovery, snapping in a sharp tone, “That’s not true! My name is Grian! G-R-I-A-N!”
From the cocking of Xisuma’s hip and the unhidden chuckle that growled out of Doc, it was made clear to the kid that they didn’t believe him, and for the record Scar didn’t either. The Kid even whirled around with incredulous eyes, near demanding for us to believe him.
Scar only gave a helpless shrug with a rueful smile in response, the kid was cute yeah, but cuteness doesn’t forgive identity theft.
The kid aggressively huffed, looking between all three adults that were surrounding him (which, Scar could admit, doesn’t vote in their favour for helping chill the kid out).
Chewing on his thin lips (which, Scar noticed, seemed heavily ‘scarred’. He swears its not a pun) the kid whirls back around, points to Xisuma in what is probably supposed to be a dramatic and demanding pose.
He looked more like a new-born fawn trying to stand up to a hunter.
“You’re an admin! Right?!”
You could almost hear the slow blink that Xisuma went through in trying to process this ‘turn’ of events.
Scar really needs to stop hanging around Iskall, his puns were rubbing off on him.
Xisuma sighed and did a quick nod, he must already be tired of the kid’s shenanigans.
The little puff ball also nodded, which seemed to be more for himself than in agreement with the admin.
“Then check my code!”
Forget a slow blink, Scar could nearly hear the record scratch from Xisuma’s brain, a usually impossible achievement that is now becoming way too common. Yet thankfully the shock wears off faster than before, the poor admin must be getting used to intense shocks.
Good, the server was getting a bit too lax nowadays.
Xisuma stuttered before pausing and starting again, “Kid, this is really not helping your case, codes are not common knowledge. No normal players should know about them and especially not someone who is 4 or 5 years old!”
That seemed to make the kid’s brain stutter, a dumbfounded expression replacing the determined jut of his brows, but recovered with a reddening face
“I’m not a Kid! I’m 7!”
Huh.
Now to reiterate, Scar usually doesn’t question many things about the mortal world, but even he would question how such a short and knobbly child could look 4 whilst being a 7-year-old.
It seems that question is also on his companion’s minds, with Doc huffing out an incredulous comment, which is a relief to Scar since he thought his business partner had been shocked speechless for the rest of the day.
“Kid you’ve got to be the worst pathological liar I have ever seen, and that’s impressive considering I’ve listened to Mumbo list all the things bad about ice, of which there are none.”
Scar doesn’t know what ice has to do with lying, but he must agree with Doc, the fibbing child gag is very quickly getting old.
The kid must have thought the same as the three adults, since he grabbed excess fabric from his droopy jumper, shoves his round face into the well-worn (familiar) fibres and muffles his frustrated screech.
Awwww, that’s actually kinda cute. Almost like when Jellie rolls around in a pile of laundry while meowing. Only filled with much more rage and frustration.
The kid emerges nearly purple faced from the fabric with little puffs of air, looking like that bit of vocal therapy did a number on him.
He drops most of his jumper but keeps the sweater paws clutched tightly in his whitened fists, letting out one last huff.
“Ok look you old croons,” the near indignated rise of his server mates shoulders was hilarious to see, “my name is Grian Blockpace, I am 7 years old and I am not supposed to be here, and the only way you can see that I’m telling the truth is by Checking. My. Code.”
The sentence may have ended in gritted teeth, but the desperation was near palpable in it. Scar looked over and saw the loosening of Doc’s crossed arms, brows furrowed in a contemplative stare that he directed at the kid and then shifted it to Xisuma. Ah. So, he also doesn’t know what these ‘Codes’ are. Scar may be well travelled, and Doc may have every piece of technical prowess at his disposal, but they both know there’s certain information ‘off limits’ except for certain individuals, namely Admins.
Admins in both the mortal and unseen worlds are unique and rare compared to the mass population of players, or at least natural Admins are. Normal players can also gain Admin abilities, but they need to go through years and years of trails, studying and training before even the basic powers are granted. For someone like Xisuma to run an entire server this large and entirely on his own… it shows how powerful of an admin he is. Which can be a danger to him and his sever mates. It is illegal to announce if someone is a Granted Admin or a Natural Admin due to the Hunting wars years ago that wiped out a majority of the strong Natural Admin families, Scar doesn’t know much about what happened, but he does know that there is still intense discrimination towards any ousted Natural Admins, even Granted Admins face discrimination if there’s even a chance that they are expected to be Natural.
Theres a reason Xisuma doesn’t leave the Server much, and a reason why we usually wear disguises outside the server. Due to our high publicity people know exactly who we are and who the admin of our server is, and for such a strong admin like Xisuma, the chance of facing bigoted dolts who want to teach strong admins a ‘lesson’ through their server mates is quite high.
So, for this kid to know so much ‘forbidden’ information it could only mean one of two things. That he comes from an old, well informed, and bigoted family, which is bad, or worse…
He comes from an Admin family.
A quick glance at a now serious Xisuma shows that he reached the same conclusion, and an even longer glance at the kid shows that he knows exactly what he gave away, its obvious in the trembling fists, twitching lips, and wild eyes.
All eyes now fall to Xisuma, his posture stilled and from what Scar could see he was scanning the kid up and down, seeing him in a new light. Which fair enough, Scar’s beginning to see him in a new, more cautious light too.
Never underestimate a bigot or an admin, whichever this kid may be.
With a robotic huff Xisuma loosened his stance, shifting his feet before they turned him around to his desk, walking forward and seeming to press an invisible button on the underside of the desk lip, a large ‘CHUNK’ and a gentle whirring sees the floor open and the desk lower, Scar can smell the electrical burning of Redstone and the stuffy air that rises from the now gaping hole in the ground shows that its been a while since this function was used.
Since Xisuma had twirled around, the kid had been slowly backing away from the admin and the desk, the loud noises startling a flinch out of him, backpedalling as his bony shoulder makes a sudden contact with Scar’s chest (dang, he’s still crouched… ouch his hips).
A quiet yelps stirs an automatic reaction out of the Government commander, he slowly uncrunches from his position as he settles a gentle and lanky hand on the jumper clad shoulder, the kid barely moving his observant eyes away from the sudden hole in the floor where the desk used to be.
(If Scar noticed the kid inching closer to him, he never said anything)
Another ‘CHINK’ (another flinch) and louder whirring (harder trembling) sees what looks like a metallic and shimmery lectern accented in dark prismarine raising from the hole, sealing it up in the process. Once settled, the turtle donned Admin waves a hand in front of the area where a book would be placed, an unseen mechanism widening the top into nearly the size of a coffee table.
Scar couldn’t tell, but it almost sounded like Xisuma sighed as he held his arm in front of him, palm facing the wall and thumb extended at a 90-degree angle. From the junction where the thumb and pointer finger meet there seemed to spawn and grow a… sheet of glass?
No, it was a Screen!
Scar had seen similar magic that caused what was called ‘global hallucinations’, allowing many people see the same 3D images or even floating words, but they couldn’t be interacted with.
Which is exactly what Xisuma was doing.
The ‘screen’ stopped growing, almost the size of an adult’s chest, allowing Xisuma to ‘click’ on it (Scar couldn’t hear a clicking noise, but it’s the closest description he had) with his other pointer finger. The screen then floated over to the long, metallic lectern and just… hung there, like it was hung in an item frame but there were none to be seen.
Cool.
Xisuma repeated these another two times, so there were now three floating screens activated and all of them were running lines of code far too fast for Scar to discern any symbols; but he suspects it’s in Galactic.
A tired sigh signalled the end of Xisuma’s Admin mumbo-jumbo (HAH) as well as him turning to look at the room’s other occupants.
Scar, easily recovering from shock, nudged the frozen copycat forward, not meeting much resistance. Scar couldn’t see the kids face, but he could see his shoulders rolling back and his posture straightening in determination, strolling forward on visibly weak legs.
Xisuma looks at the runt for a solid second before once again extending his arm, palm facing downward this time. A slight gesture prompts the kid to, hesitantly, do the same.
It took a second, one spent with Scar and Doc shooting confused and interested looks at each other, before a light shown from underneath both their palms, shifting up and down.
‘Scanning,’ Scar thought, ‘They’re scanning their palms.’
Palms that seemed to show up on the screen too, one screen showed a developing and larger, thick-fingered hand with callouses and small scars associated with hard work and building. The second screen showed a still constructing yet much smaller, crooked hand, covered in near invisible lesion scars, like it was broken and then reset with a fork.
The third screen showed a lot of boxes with galactic words in them and either a green, grey, or red outline. No hands and no scans.
Xisuma retrieved his hand back once the floating screen recreation stopped building, the kid quickly following suit, the Admin resting his strangely uncovered hands (when did he take off his gloves?) on the metal edge of the control panel, not scanning just resting. Waiting.
It took only 15 seconds (15 very long and awkward seconds) before the screens flashed and suddenly the two scan-screens were filled with information, a mix of Galactic, 1’s and 0’s and what looks like advanced morse code.
Scar took one look and then glanced away, that amount of data information made him dizzy. It didn’t stop Doc from prowling closer and peering at the fast-moving data over Xisumas’ shoulder, almost like he could understand it.
He really couldn’t.
Both Scar and Doc decided it would be more beneficial to watch Xisuma as he analyses the screen with the kid’s data, palms gripping the edge of the panel harder and harder, shoulders beginning to tense.
A few seconds of what seems to be senselessly staring at the rolling data is interrupted by the admin swiftly darting his hand to the screen, pointer finger extended and the data seeming to pause.
Without a prompt the screen seems to shrink, highlighting one strand of shifting code.
A pause and then a small voice breaks the suddenly heavy silence, “Well, did you find my name old man?”
It seems that while the kid had the energy to speak up, he had no strength left to fix his posture, Scar could see him slowly caving inward on himself, peering at Xisuma through overgrown blonde locks, seemingly trying to look rebellious despite it being clear that he was desperate for an answer. Scar could at least relate to that want, from the tense atmosphere it seems the answer won’t be simple, but right now silence is not what the present hermits or the kid needs.
They needed answers.
“Xisuma,” Doc prompts, gently nudging the Admins’ shoulder with his metal-clad elbow, “Hey man did you find anything?”
Silence.
“X?”
Its like talking to an actual turtle.
“Oh X? You in there?”
Talking to a turtle would be easier, actually.
“Come on Xisuma man, your killin’ me here, you know I don’t do well with patience.”
Even the kid gets fed up, deciding that the best course of action would be to shakily climb onto the magic screen table, walk on his knees over to Xisuma and slap him straight in his Helm.
Scar and Doc could only stare, this kid was way too ballsey.
It was an efficient method though, the hit barely staggered the Admin, but it did cause him to flinch away and try to use his other arm to wipe away the icky hand mark on his helms visor, with not a lot of success. Xisuma finally looked at them all one-by-one, before landing back on the still-shifting code on the screen.
Doc, seemingly worried they would lose him to daydreams again, leaned further forward and rested a giant hand on the turtle man’s shoulder pad.
“Ok Xisuma, no more long painful waits, what’s got you spooked?”
Another slightly painful silence before Xisuma gestured towards the line of code.
“That’s … that’s the name code, something nearly impossible to change or alter after birth, we all have them. All of us.”
Scar looked towards the code, not being able to decipher a name between the shifting and glitching symbols.
Scar hummed and shrugged, “Just looks like a different language to me.”
Xisuma let out a rueful and barking laugh, like he thought it was a genuine joke he was supposed find funny. It made Scar jolt and glance at the other two, meeting only concerned gazes or nervously twitching eyes and hands.
Scar stepped toward the Control panel, resting a careful hand on the small of the kids trembling back (to let him know Scar was there or in a weird way of comfort, he couldn’t tell), desperately trying to translate the nauseatingly shifting code into some semblance of a language. It was pretty much impossible.
“Is… is it n-not supposed to look like that?”
The quiet voice once again garners stares, even from Xisuma who seems to stare long and hard before shaking his head and flicking one of his hands. A piece of code from what Scar has labelled as Xisuma’s screen floats forward and next to the glitching and jumping counterpart, only this code isn’t even code, but just a short sentence that reads ‘XisumaVoid: Admin’.
The gruff voice from the admin was unexpected and made the rest of the room’s occupants flinch, “Its… that piece of code is supposed to look like this.”
When set beside each other it truly isn’t comparable, the Kid’s code it glitching, melting and flashing various colours, while Xisuma’s stays perfectly still in understandable white text.
“Kid,” the Admin starts, “you don’t have a name.”