Hey, I put a cuss word in here. Heads up. Yeah, I know, out-of-character for me. But it's hilarious!

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[Orange Steve's POV]

The Leader, Happy, Funny, Shy, and I arrive in the Hub.

"He's in the house right now. The lightning most likely woke him up." I say.

"I hope he'll be alright..." Happy says.

We walk into the house, and I head upstairs to get Sabre while everyone else waits for us downstairs. When I get up there, I see Gerald sitting on the bed next to Sabre, who's still laying down but looking at me. I walk over to Sabre and pick him up.

"Hey buddy, I brought the Leader and some of my friends to help." I say.

"Okay..." Sabre mumbles, and I take him downstairs.

The Leader takes Sabre when we get down, and I see that he's scanning the little guy. He stops once the scan is over, and looks up.

"This is the effect of those strange purple fruits that have been growing recently..." The Leader says.

"What?" I exclaim quietly. "But he hasn't been anywhere near them! I've made sure of that!"

Suddenly, Funny points at a spot near the storage room door. I didn't notice earlier, but my friends had moved to different spots of the house; Funny near the storage room, Happy next to the front door, and Shy next to a window.

"Yo, what's sugar paint doing over here?" Funny says, confused, motioning to a dark red blob on the floor.

I look over, and now I'm confused too.

"I...I don't know." I say. "We don't have any of that in the Hub..."

"Then... how'd it get there?" Funny asks, and I shrug.

"H-Hey, there's scratch marks o-on that tree outside..." Shy says, pointing out the window.

I rush over, starting to get worried. Sure enough, there's deep gashes into the trunk of the tree near the balcony.

"What in the..." I say, trailing off as I start to get worried.

"Did someone break in here and freaking poison Sabre?!" The Leader says, still whispering as we all have been, so none of us accidentally make Sabre's headache worse.

"Oh, I'm about to kick somebody's sorry metal ass." I say.

"Language, Orange Steve." The Leader says.

"Something just moved outside." Happy says, staring out into the yard towards the forest, through the open front door. "It looked like a person."

Me, Shy, the Leader, and Funny move towards the door, also looking out for whatever Happy just saw. In a few seconds, we see a figure move hastily through the tree branches. The Leader lays Sabre down on the couch and joins us as we all walk towards the tree the figure hid in, all pretty ticked off.

As soon as we get close, the figure dashes away further into the trees. We waste no time chasing him down. We go in circles for a little while, until who ever this is speeds up towards the end of the forest towards one of the portals. Funny runs ahead, out of sight. We suddenly hear the crashing of branches and a shocked yelp, as Funny seems to have jumped at the intruder, grabbing him through the leaves.

"Who the frick are you?!" Funny says, and we all catch up to him.

We reach the end of the forest, and I see Funny holding an all too familiar red-and-colorful figure by the neck, as said figure is halfway hanging out of the tree canopy. He's struggling to get out of Funny's steel grip, and I notice he has little dark red sugar paint splotches on his hands.

"Let go of me!" Rainbow Red screams, and Funny just pulls him out of the tree and onto the floor.

"Mind explaining what you're doing at my friends' home?" Funny coldly asks, and I overcome my shock and step forward.

"YOU." I shout, and Rainbow Red fearfully looks up at me.

Funny lets go as I walk forward, knowing what's about to happen. I pick up Rainbow Red by the back of his shirt and hold him up as my other friends step forward as well.

Now, this guy is screwed. Us Orange Steves not only have the strength advantage, but uh... Rainbow Red is 8'2". Meanwhile, Shy is 9'0", Happy is 9'3", Funny is 9'4", the Leader is 9'7", and I'm 9'6". So we tower over this idiot.

Cutting back to the situation, I tighten my grip and look Rainbow Red in the eyes.

"You did that to Sabre, didn't you?" I growl.

"H-Hey, I didn't do a thing!" Rainbow Red panics, trying to wriggle free by swinging back and forth.

"Orange, you know this guy?" The Leader asks. I turn to him.

"Yesterday, Sabre and I found him in a cave near Red Steve's house while we were looking for the Red Crystal." I begin. "Turns out, the reason why Red was freaking out so much the day before we found Sabre is because this guy stole the Crystal from him, and now he won't give it up. Thing is though, he's probably nuts. Was a little over-defensive about the Crystal, and kept getting unsettlingly close to Sabre, even reaching out towards him sometimes. I couldn't do anything about it because I had no idea what he'd do."

"I don't have the Crystal right now, so you're not getting it." Rainbow Red says, gritting his teeth.

I turn back to him and smile, and he shrinks back.

"Hey, anyone wanna play 'Keep-Alive'?" I say, and my friends smile too.

"W-What?" Rainbow Red stammers.

"Heh, Hey Shy, it's your turn for first strike." Happy smirks, and Shy has a look of excited rage.

"I'll sit out for this one, I'm gonna see what I can do about Sabre's condition. You four have fun." The Leader says, walking away.

"Okay then!" I say, getting ready to throw. "Ready guys?"

"Hey- HEY- HEY!" Rainbow Red yells as I wind my arm back, aiming for the group.

I toss the intruding crazy bot in the direction of Shy, who's now holding back a punch. I already see Shy letting it go as I shout;

"KEEP IT ALIVE!"

The sound of metal against metal as Shy's fist connects with Rainbow Red's face, hitting him with an uppercut, fills the air. Funny is already aiming for his side to have the next hit and directioning it towards Happy, as Rainbow Red tries to gather his bearings mid-air.

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[Orange Leader's POV]

I'm glad that the game of 'Keep-Alive' is near the portals and not the house, so the loud noises don't cause Sabre any more discomfort.

While it would be fun to join in, that cretin had been threatening one of my people and his friend after all, I have to figure out what will help our tiny human friend's current illness. As my scan said, it's caused by those strange purple fruits that resemble apples, so there's most likely a kind of antidote. Even if there's not, we can just wait for this to pass, it definitely won't kill him. Although... if we can't get Sabre to eat anything and keep it down, this might reverse a lot of the progress he had on not looking like a tiny skeleton.

As I'm searching through my database for information on the plant responsible, I'm surprised by Orange Steve walking back into the house, covered in Retavine. I panic for a second, before he raises his hand and explains.

"Don't worry, it's not mine." Orange says. "He didn't have a weapon or anything. I'm okay. I just figured I should get this Retavine off before it does something. Who knows what that guy does in his free time, I ain't risking some sort of acid dissolving my systems."

"Alright then." I say as Orange leaves the room and goes to his own.

"What's Retavine?" Sabre asks, his voice still sounding scratchy.

"Well, Retavine is a conductive liquid that flows through our bodies, giving power and energy to our systems." I explain. "Actually, it's just like how your blood works in your body."

"Cool." Sabre says.

Eventually, Orange comes back out to the living room as I finally find the data on ingredients for an antidote. Sabre had fallen asleep a while ago. Orange comes over to me on the couch when I wave him over.

"So we need herbs called ginger, chamomile, white sage, and tulsi, then some honey." I say. "Easy enough, once we find a patch of biological materials."

"Isn't there old herbal store remains that got overgrown by its own product?" Orange asks. "I'm pretty sure it by where we found that water source."

"Oh, you're right!" I say. "We can probably find most of what we need there. And we already have a beekeeper in the Village, so getting some honey will be no problem."

I get up, carefully making sure I don't wake up Sabre next to me. Orange and I then head out the door to get the other three.

"It'd probably be better if you stayed behind to watch over Sabre, Orange Steve." I say. "Since there's already been an... intruder here, someone has to protect him, and you know him the most."

"Gladly." Orange says.

We approach the group of three, who are all wiping Retavine off themselves. The strange intruder is nowhere in sight.

"Hey guys." Orange says. "Where'd the crazy guy go?"

"Ah, he teleported away just as it was getting really fun." Happy says.

"We got him past the treeline at one point!" Funny exclaims.

"Well, I've gotten the list of materials we need to help Sabre." I say. "Orange will stay behind her to keep watch on him. The rest of you, could you please come with me?"

"Sure." Happy says, smiling as usual.

"W-Where to?" Shy asks.

"The old herbalist's shop near that water source we found a while ago." I say. "It has most of what we need most likely, and there's an ingredient we can just get at the village."

"Alright then, let's go!" Funny says, and I step forward, joining the group.

"Be safe guys, the Mutilators are out again." Orange warns us.

"Don't worry, we will." Happy says. "Watch out for any more crazy people!"

We all laugh, and I prepare to teleport as lightning starts to strike around us. Orange waves to us as everything fades to white.

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[Orange Steve's POV]

The others left a little bit ago, and I've been staying by Sabre's side since.

I can't help but wonder though, how did Rainbow Red trick Sabre into eating those purple fruits? I know the sugar paint was involved, but I didn't see any strange apples when I was gathering things to cook for Sabre yesterday night...

I'm pulled from my thoughts when I notice Sabre stirring awake, and he looks up at me. I smile a little bit and pull him into a hug.

"Hey buddy. You feeling any better?" I ask my small friend.

"I dunno..." Sabre says quietly, and he hugs one of my arms, leaning against me.

I sigh, a little worried. Usually resting for this long helps him feel better, like when he fell from that tree branch one time. I guess this is very different from being injured.

"Do you want to try eating something again? Like, something small?" I ask, knowing he doesn't really have anything in him right now from... earlier today's 'incident' with Gerald.

"Okay..." Sabre says, and we let go of each other.

I get up and quickly grab a bit of bread from the storage room. It's worth a shot. I then bring it back over to Sabre, and he slowly takes small bites of it, being careful not to go too fast. We stay silent for a while after he finishes, and I decide I need to ask him what happened.

"Sabre?" I say.

"Yeah?" He answers.

"How exactly did you get sick? The Leader said that this is the effect of the weird purple apples that grow in here." I say, and Sabre curls up a little more in his blanket, looking nervous.

"...You're gonna be mad..." Sabre mumbles, and I giggle.

"Heh, buddy, all of this that's happened today is punishment enough if you did something bad, I won't be angry with you." I say.

"...Okay." Sabre sighs. "I, uh... I got hungry in the middle of the night, and I snuck down to the storage room to grab some apples. There were three darker ones than normal, and I thought that they'd kind of be like how berries work... I was kind of right, but I guess they were the bad apples that just looked like good ones."

I sigh, and pull Sabre into a hug again.

"What am I gonna do with you, ya little troublemaker?" I say, slightly smiling.

"Hey, ya can't contain the apocalyptic nature. Ya just gotta deal with it." Sabre says, giggling a little.

We go silent again for a while. Then, Sabre starts coughing again.

"Can I have some water?" He asks.

"Yeah, let me get some." I say, getting up.

I walk back into the storage room, noticing Gerald walking towards the living room as I head in. I've just picked up a water bottle when I hear a familiar, but very unwanted sound coming from the living room, followed by Gerald sounding annoyed and seemingly running around the room.

"What happened?" I ask.

I then hear Sabre coughing some more, then his hoarse voice.

"Gerald did it again..." Sabre says.

I walk out of the storage room to see Gerald hiding under the table while covered in an acidic substance, and Sabre curled into a ball on the couch, still covered by the blanket. I sigh and looks at Gerald.

"Gerald, I SWEAR-" Is all I get out before Gerald scurries off into my room.

What is with him recently? Why does he keep jumping on Sabre?! That might hurt him one day- Wait. Gerald went into my room.

I hurriedly rush into my own room, hoping he hasn't done anything yet.

"Gerald, you better not be getting any of that on my stuff-!" I say, and I hear Sabre giggle.

This has turned into a house of chaos... but hey, I wouldn't trade it for the world. I'm not on my own outside the village anymore... and I love this kind of life. My time being the one to watch over Sabre has been the best part of my life, and I haven't even been doing it for that long. In fact... it's one of the best things that's ever happened to me.

And I hope it doesn't end anytime soon.