For some reason, Grian seems to be giddy first thing in the morning, smiling uncontrollably the second he rises from his bed and easily (which is unusual with his track record) leaves to start his day. Is it because he has finally built his G-train? Is it because he's starting to make the layout for his mountain? Is it because the Tegg is at its climax? Is it because he gets to link his build with Mumbo's enormous rock of an armchair and create a gigabase with all of the Boatem crew?

  Eh, probably all of the above.

  His body has never felt this lighter in a while, so he's quite happy with the surge of serotonin coursing through his veins. This way, he can work more efficiently and faster compared to before. He'll never know, at this rate, he might actually be able to finish the back of things for once (maybe not, but there's nothing wrong with hoping). With a skip, he heads towards an open space before propelling himself with a flap, soaring through the skies in glee as he flies to the mountain.

  Right before he lands, he can hear a ring from his pocket and decides to read it as he rummages through his new chest monster for the required materials. He turns on his ringing communicator with one hand as his other is getting busy and sees Scar's name with a red number one circle logo, indicating that he sent a private message. He clicks it, showing a new message from a few seconds ago.

  < GoodTimeWithScar > Gman

  < GoodTimeWithScar > I need some assistance!

  < GoodTimeWithScar > I lost all my items by the beach when I almost got killed by Octagon goats

  < GoodTimeWithScar > But I'm back at the spawn area and they might be washed away

  < GoodTimeWithScar > Help!

  Grian snickers as he reads all the new messages and types as he flies away from his base.

  < Grian > fear not!!

  < Grian > gman is on his way

  < Grian > to save the day

  < GoodTimeWithScar > GMAN!

  Grian lands at the sandy shore and pockets his communicator, spotting the promised items flowing with the water. He begins to remove his shoes and unroll his trousers, dipping his feet onto cold water and shudders for a few moments before starting to collect the big hat, diamond head cane, a few copper blocks, wood, Shulker boxes, and more. Whilst he's collecting, he notices a peculiar small circle and picks it up. Is it garbage? He brings it ahead of him, only to see it as a green-colored contact lens.

  Why would that be here, though? Unless... No, it can't be.

  Right?

  With Scar's stuff in tow, he flies back to Boatem's direction towards the first wagon as his heart begins to skip. Why does he feel apprehensive all of a sudden? There's nothing wrong with the possibility of Scar wearing colored contacts, surely. He bites his trembling lower lip as he tries to convince himself before finally landing at the porch, keeping all the things inside one of the empty barrels as he waits for his friend.

  Grian paces around the room, contemplating if he should wait for Scar to arrive or leave and just message his friend that all his stuff is safe inside the barrels.

  Should he stay? Should he leave? Why is this so hard?

  He hastily takes out his communicator and begins to type with quivering fingers, getting a lot of typos and no comprehensive thoughts getting across. A cold something lands on his shoulder, causing him to yelp and whip around as he clutches his communicator tightly to prepare it into a weapon. But all he can see is a grinning Scar waving towards him. Sure, he's wet but at least he's fine.

  Suddenly, his stomach drops as he sees raven and emerald irises staring at him, moving his gaze up to see a fully chocolate colored hair instead of the signature chestnut. He steps back in reflex as Sam speaks words that are deafened by the loud ringing in his ears, walking forward with a grimace as he reaches out a hand.

  No, no, no, no, no!

  Not again! He's going to force him to do things against his will and snap at him if he won't listen!

  But Grian's body is petrified in place, unable to move as Sam plants a hand on his shoulder and grasps it tightly as his words are completely drowned out, making him look like a colored silent movie. He should stay as composed as possible, relaxing his shoulders and standing straight if he doesn't want Sam to point a knife towards his way again.

  "Are you alright, G? You've been quiet this whole time." Sam's dark voice that sounds a lot like Scar's questions, surprisingly vivid from beneath the constant ringing.

  "Yeah- Yeah, I-I'm fine. I'm- It's probably from working too much." Grian strains a smile as he manages to take a step back whilst hovering his hands in front of him, as if they'll act as a shield when the time comes.

  "Oh!" Grian flinches. "We can't have that! You really need to take care of yourself, you silly goose. Otherwise, you're gonna destroy your health and body." Sam crosses his arms as he shakes his head in disappointment.

  "Sure, I'm- I'll d-do that. Your items are inside the barrels and if you need any help just call me. Okay, bye!" Grian walks back towards the porch as he rambles, turning his body 180 degrees and flies away without waiting for a response.

  Grian nosedives as soon as he spots his house and crashes at the door towards his chests, when his wings finally give in from too much flapping all at once. He huffs and puffs as he uses the chests as a support when he slowly stands up with wobbling legs.

  How is this possible? All this time, the one person he's been running away from is right under his nose, yet he didn't even notice. There's still the possibility that they're look-alike or long lost relatives, but the splitting image is both uncanny and undeniable that the two are the same person. Should he call him Sam now that he knows or pretend he didn't see anything and still calls him Scar?

  Should he stay as far away from him as possible before he can do something to him again? Should he suck it up and interact with him like there's nothing wrong? Why is he here on Hermitcraft? Did he come here to look for him? Why is he changing his appearance? Is it to disguise himself and not look noticeable to the people who knew him, including Grian himself?

  More and more questions flood his mind faster than a bullet whilst Grian sways left and right as he gradually makes his way to the kitchen, rummaging through his messy chests and cabinets as he finds that medicine box. Once he finds it, he opens it and fetches himself a blister pack before hastily stores the box back to its original place as he gets a glass of water and heads to his bed. He flops down whilst popping two tablets and swallows it with the help of the cool water.

  Grian is fully aware of his terrible sleep schedule that's caused by insomnia, but with his thoughts being this jumbled and still under the influence of a panic attack, he can't tolerate another long day and sleepless night with more unwanted thoughts.

  Even if it's still daytime, he lies to his bed and wraps the thick blanket around himself, hoping to hide from the outside world and suppress the wheeze as he closes his eyes.

  When it's supposed to be a bright day of progress, all Grian can do is sleep to avoid his problems for the first time in a while.

  ─── ? ??☆: *.? .* :☆?. ───

  Scar stares at the mirror with a huff, realizing that he shouldn't have dyed his hair in the middle of the night or disaster strikes. When the other Hermits saw his discolored hair, they gave him a boisterous laugh about how ridiculous he looked with darker locks. Of course, some were being polite and lied about him looking good but their repressed laughter said otherwise.

  This time!

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  He'll make sure to use the bleach and dye his hair lighter than it actually is correctly. He stares at the chocolate locks with a scowl.

  Dye the Hermits’ hairs.

  Oh, man.

  He really does look ridiculous with this color, especially when he's so used with a lighter shade. He definitely hates this only because of how terrible the tone is and not just a gut feeling about despising it for a different reason.

  Change their shampoo into dye.

  Shush, inner vex prank voice!

  Can’t he catch a break for one minute? Jeez.

  He’s quite busy at the moment, so he’ll really appreciate it if it stays quiet for at least one second. He’ll make sure to prank his friends later, okay?

  .

  .

  .

  Thank you.

  ─── ? ??☆: *.? .* :☆?. ───

  The warm rays of the sun wipes the coldness away from Scar's body as he places the lime Shulker box amongst the others, stretching his arms overhead and popping his stiff joints with a sigh of relief. As usual, the dreams or nightmares about living as a different person are still present earlier, making him nostalgic for an unknown reason and question about that certain teenager that awfully looks like Grian but sports a blue sweater, now that he realizes it.

  How come he never noticed it until now? This makes him a spoon like Mumbo if he hasn't managed to put two and two together. He shouldn't probably jump to conclusions, though. The kid's probably a look-alike and a completely different person and coincidentally looks a lot like Grian, that's all.

  Blow a crystal in Mumbo’s base.

  He glides down and safely lands on the ground in front of the Boatem hole, staring at the crushing void that can possibly swallow them whole at any moment. Sure, it's scary thinking about falling to his death with a simple slip, but when one takes advantage of this, it becomes a treasure chest filled with golden opportunities of pranking his friends.

  Maybe he'll ask Tango for redstone help when the time comes since Impulse is most probably busy working on his factory to join him (definitely not only because there's still the possibility that he's upset with him after the iSoar incident. He loves the pun, though).

  Scar hears a click behind him and turns to see the door slowly opening, with Grian emerging from it with droopy eyelids.

  "Good morning, Grian! How's the beauty sleep?" Scar grins and waves a hand as he greets.

  "Scar!" Grian's eyes widen in surprise. "You're- It's—fine." He sighs. "How a-about you? It's a b-bit early to camp by the Boatem hole if you ask me." He closes the door behind him with a click as he walks forward to Scar's left.

  "Oh, it's nothing." Scar flaps a dismissive hand. "I'm taking a break from productive work before pranking Pearl later, that's all."

  "Ooh, uh, already planning to spread mischief, eh?" Grian drawls.

  "It's gonna be explosive, I'll tell you that." Scar snickers as he continues to stare at the void below them. "Don't you dare push me into the hole, mister!" He twists his body behind him with an exclaim as he spots Grian averting his gaze and whistles.

  "What?" Grian innocently complains as he chuckles. "I'm not doing anything.”

  "I know your ways, Gree-on. You always sneak behind people and prank them when they least expect it. You always do it at every chance you get." Scar crosses his arms as he turns back to the hole with a fond shake of his head while he smiles.

  Grian is quiet for a moment before huffing.

  "You know me... Just sticking to my brand and everything. Nothing wrong with that, right?" Grian's voice is getting smaller as he continues to talk.

  Scar turns behind him and sees Grian slowly walking back.

  "Grian? Where are you going?" Scar tilts his head in wonder.

  "What? I- Uh... I need to- There's just a l-lot of work needing to be finished, you know? The G-train isn't gonna restock itself." Grian points his finger towards the messy chests and Shulker boxes as he nervously chuckles.

  Understandable. After all, Scar has been looking for a reason to procrastinate since he's bored after all the progress he has made so far. He needs to have fun once and a while rather than overworking himself again.

  Hide the Shulkers.

  "Oh! Can I come? I'm just waiting for Pearl to come back from visiting Gem's base, so I could enact my creeper prank with her." Scar beams as he tucks his hands behind and bounces the heels of his feet.

  "Hmm... S-Sure, why do- you can come. I need to t-take these first, though." Grian smiles as he crouches to pick up the Shulker boxes with the help of his enchanted diamond pickaxe.

  "Yes! Thanks, Gree-on! Take all the time you need!" Scar throws a fist above his head in victory.

  The two of them arrive at the G-train and Scar hums and sways left to right happily as he looks at Grian retrieving all those shiny blue profits, placing them all into his Ender chest before restocking all the chest with products. Hm, the radio silence is kind of boring, to be honest. He really wants Grian to talk about something.

  Oh!

  "Hey, G-man." Scar calls.

  "Y-Yeah?" Grian doesn't look up from his work as he replies.

  "Do you have any stories to tell me? I'm kind of bored right now." Scar leans his cane to his stomach as he tilts his top hat to properly rest on his head. "I still haven't found Jellie yet, so I'm feeling restless for not having her with me."

  "Not that I kn-know of."

  "How about some stories from high school?" Scar blurts.

  Scar doesn't remember anything before joining Kingdomcraft, so he's not sure if he attended high school or not. Since he's planning to confirm with Grian about that kid in his dreams, anyway, so why not?

  "I... don't want t-to talk about him- it." Grian's mutter is barely audible from Scar's distance.

  Him? So, he does know something.

  "Come on, Gree-on. I wanna know what happened." Scar whines as he taps the diamond head of his cane with his fingers in rhythmic matter.

  "No." Grian refuses with a low voice.

  "Pretty please, Grian. With a cherry on top." Scar pleads as he claps his hands.

  "No."

  "Just one couldn't hurt."

  "No."

  "Pleeeease."

  "I said no, Sa- Scar."

  "Come on."

  "..."

  "Grian..."

  "No means no, Scar!" Grian yells as he slams a chest shut.

  No means no, huh? Based on his reaction, Grian and the kid are most likely the same person, so...

  Dang, it!

  Scar really wants to know! It's really cute imagining a teenage Grian with his mischiefs. If he won't talk, then he probably should use it.

  You leave me no choice, Grian, Scar thinks to himself as he feels the surge of vex magic coursing through his veins like a similar sensation of adrenaline, rushing all throughout his body and providing a new form of energy.

  "Why did you stop wearing the blue sweater, Gree-on? You look so good in it and everything." Scar chants with his Charm, where he can use his voice with a bit of vex magic to make his target abide by what he requests.

  Scar really doesn't want to use this very much since he'll end up with a sore throat depending on how much magic he imbues into his voice, increasing or decreasing the success rate between the number of people one at a time or all at once.

  "Because it's not my clothes!" Grian yells as he clutches his red sweater with a hand by the chest area, body glowing slightly blue with the help of Scar's eyesight that can easily detect the usage of vex magic either from his own or other fellow vexes.

  "But you look so good in it! It is such a waste if you ask me, Grian." Scar crosses his arms in disappointment as he prods.

  "I don't want to wear that thing again!"

  "You look—"

  "Stop what you were doing, Scar." A voice reverberates while someone grabs Scar by his wrist, deactivating his magic entirely with a simple chant like instantly cutting off a redstone connection with water.

  Scar turns his head to see none other than Cubfan himself, who's currently pulling him away from the G-train with a scowl.

  "Cub? What—"

  "Shush, Scar." Cub intercepts as he turns his head to the side. "I apologize for the trouble Scar has caused you, Grian. I already DMed Mumbo, so he should be on his way here." He confesses before turning back to Scar and focuses on pulling him away.

  Cub has finally let go of Scar's wrist when they arrived at the artificial orange canyon that Cub himself created.

  "Scar, what was that earlier?" Cub furrows his brows as his voice raises an octave.

  "What do you mean? We were just talking." Scar taps his cane to the ground as he answers.

  "You used your magic on Grian!" Cub yells as he throws a hand towards the horizon behind Scar, probably Boatem's direction.

  "So? We've always used magic towards the Hermits." Scar furrows his brows in confusion.

  "Wha—? You used it with the others?" Cub's jaw gapes as he stares at Scar with wide pine eyes.

  "Y-Yes." Scar averts his gaze to the side, suddenly feeling weird for saying that. "Don't- Don't you use them on the Hermits?"

  "No, Scar! Because they're my friends!" Cub inhales and exhales deeply before his shoulders slump, standing back straight as he regains his composure. "When did you start using magic towards them?" He pinches the bridge of his nose.

  "Uh... I think i-it was... during the Mayoral election, I think. I-I used a bit of it to s-some Hermits to convince them to vote f-for me." Scar fiddles with the diamond head of his cane as he stammers.

  "Okay. That kind of explains a lot. At least it was more recent than I thought. How many times did you use it?" Cub sighs in relief as he tucks his hands into his pants pockets.

  "Including earlier... I think three times. One during the election, and last to recruit HEP members." Scar counts his fingers as he muses.

  Scar definitely should apologize for this one, right? He made Cub mad, which is very unusual since the guy is always calm and carefree, until now that is.

  "I'm so sorry, Cub."

  "Sorry, Scar."

  Both stare at each other after realizing they apologize together, loosening the tension a bit as they crack a smile.

  Push him to the stalagmites.

  "I forgive you, Scar. I should have told you about vexes more instead of yelling at your face. I do apologize for that. That was pretty terrible of me to do that." Cub fixes his necktie as he stares at Scar's direction with a solemn expression.

  "I also forgive you, Cub. I didn't think of the consequences of my actions and should've asked for you." Scar rubs the back of his neck as he chuckles unamusingly. "By the way, what happens when you use vex magic towards other people?"

  "Well, if they're not a vex, there's a chance that you'll eventually succumb to the hunger of feeding with their dormant magic or life force. And you risk killing them or turning them into vex as well. Like you did."

  Drop a dripstone above Cub’s head.

  "Oh..." Scar presses his lips into a flat line. "That was really stupid of me, then." He reaches for his chest with a trembling hand as he deadpans.

  "Nah, you're okay. As long as you learn from your mistakes and apologize—" Cub gestures a hand at the direction behind Scar. "—then you're okay."

  "Thank you, by the way. For today and for everything." Scar genuinely smiles.

  "That's what friends are for. Now go and be with your friends. There's nothing for you here to do anymore." Cub throws his hands ahead of him in a shooing motion as he chuckles.

  "Bye, Cub!" Scar waves his hand as he runs away from Cub, not turning back to see his reaction as he snickers.

  "Bye, Scar!" Cub's voice is gradually fading as Scar fires a firework rocket and propels himself mid-air, flying towards Boatem with determination.