Part of the Infused AU

Xisuma POV

Hermitcraft Season 6 was drawing to a close, and the hermits were ready to move onto Season 7, and update to 1.15. Xisuma had told the hermits not to tell Grian how they got to the next season, as he wanted it to be a surprise for the newest hermit. Xisuma was going to tell him as they went over to the portal, but it took longer to prepare it, so he wasn't able to. Grian had to wait until it was time to go through.

Grian POV

"Hey, guys! I hope everyone's ready for Season 7! Now, Grian, you don't know how we are getting to Season 7, correct?" Xisuma started his end of season speech.

"No, I don't because no one would tell me!" Grian responded, standing at the front of the gathered hermits.

"Well, that's because I told them not to tell you. I was going to tell you on the way over, but something came up." Xisuma, who had his helmet off, as the jump between seasons is one of the few occasions that he did, smiled sheepishly. "Anyways, may I present to you, the portal that will bring us to 1.15 and Season 7!" Xisuma flipped a lever on his podium, and a redstone door opened, revealing a large nether portal.

Grian froze. It was Evo all over again. The portals, the updates. It was all the same. As Grian looked at the nether portal, it started to change. It grew smaller, becoming the standard four by five nether portal. Sandstone appeared where the rest of the portal used to be. And the bedrock, shaped like the Evo symbol. It was all too much. Grian shut his eyes, wishing the image would go away, "No, no, no," he muttered, starting to back up. He ran into someone. He looked up at them and saw Solidarity staring back down at him. Grian frantically looked around, looking for a way out. Somehow, he had been pushed to the middle of the crowd, and all he saw around him were his family, the Evolutionist. But they were gone. He knew that.

'Grian, calm down. We're not in Evo anymore, we are in Hermitcraft, they don't know we are here' Red tried to calm Grian down, but Grian ignored him, pushing him off to the side

Grian pushed through everyone to the front, only to see the face of the watchers who took him, standing on a stage in front of the portal. In fear, Grian ran, away from the portal, away from his past. But no matter how fast he ran, he couldn't escape his demons, his past. Grian ran through the nether hub to Hermitville, the long tunnel transforming into the secret underground railway he wanted to connect to everyone's bases. He burst into Hermitville, only to see it turn into Downtown Evo, the build-off houses becoming Pearl's base. So Grian kept running, running past hippie land, past Area 77, past New Hermitville, into the undeveloped land beyond, where he eventually passed out from exhaustion. 

Xisuma POV

Xisuma flipped the lever to reveal the portal, looking to Grian to see his reaction. He seemed frozen. Joe came up to say a few words, and all the hermits pushed forward, knowing Joe was a quiet speaker. Grian, however, didn't move. He started backing up a little, before running into Mumbo. Grian looked up, before starting to push through the hermits up to the front. He got there, looking up at Xisuma and Joe before turning and running off. "Grian? Where are you going?" Xisuma called after him, effectively drawing the hermit's attention away from Joe and onto Xisuma. "Grian just ran off" Xisuma pointed to where Grian had gone, "Any ideas as to why?"

"No, but we need to find him! We can't just leave him here!" Stress responded, starting to walk in the direction Xisuma had pointed, "Well?" She asked when no one moved, "Are we going to find him or not?"

"Let's split up to find him faster!" Mumbo suggested, looking quite worried. "Iskall and I can search his base and around Sahara"

"Concorp can check along the elytra course!"

"Ren, Impulse, do you guys want to check hippy land and Area 77 with me?" Doc volunteered

"Jevin, Wels, and I will check Hermitville," Python said.

"Us girls can check the shopping district!" False called

"Keralis, Bdubs and I can check New Hermitville" Xisuma decided. "If you don't have a group, you can join a group and help search" The hermits separated into their designated groups, Zedaph, Tango, Joe, and TFC joining separate groups. Xisuma jumped off the stage and walked over to Keralis and Bdubs, before going as a group over to New Hermitville. Upon arriving in New Hermitville, the trio split up to search and cover ground faster. Half an hour later, they regrouped having not found Grian. 

"Well, what if we look a past New Hermitville a little? He could have run this way but went to the forest beyond."  Keralis suggested.

"Maybe, should we split up again to look?" Xisuma asked. The other two agreed, and Xisuma started searching. He went about ten minutes into the forest and was going to turn around before he heard soft sniffles. Cautiously, Xisuma moved towards the sound to find Grian, leaned up against a tree, crying quietly.

"Grian?" Xisuma said softly, not wanting to scare Grian that much, though he was hidden by a bush. 

"Taurtis?" Grian asked looking around the general area.

"Who?" Xisuma asked confused, stepping out of the treeline.

"Taurtis, my best friend. Have you seen him around at all, stranger?"

"No, and I'm Xisuma, by the way." Xisuma was concerned. Why didn't Grian recognize him?

"Have you seen Solidarity or Mini at all?" Grian asked, starting to panic a little.

"No, I don't know who those people are."

"Oh, so are you a new member of Evo that they didn't tell me about?"

"Uh, no, I don't know what Evo is..."

"Then, Solidarity, Mini, they aren't here?" Grian bit his lip. "Netty? Pearl? No one? They left me?"

"Ummm...."

Grian held his knees to his chest and leaned back against a tree, "No, they wouldn't leave me. They're somewhere. They wouldn't just leave me." He muttered, his shoulders starting to shake, "Unless the watchers did something to me. Hey, uh, Xisuma, where am I right now?"

"You're on the Hermitcraft server, near the end of season 6," Xisuma replied

"Hermitcraft...." The cloudiness that Xisuma didn't realize was present left Grian's eyes. "Hermitcraft. Xisuma, we can't go to Season 7. They'll find me!"

"Who will?" Xisuma asked, unsure of what to do.

"The watchers. If we go through that portal, it will bring us to the watcher headquarters, all the hermits will get to the next world and update. Only, we won't be able to go with you. They'll take us again."

"There isn't another way to get to a new world nor the new update, Grian, you'll have to go through the portal."

"There is another way to get to another world, and another way to get to a new update, remember the world border?" Grian stopped, his body rigid. "The world border, they would have noticed... But I hid our aura well... They should have thought we were a normal player... What else have we done... The civil war... The build off... The time machine!" Grian stood up and started pacing around. "They definitely noticed the time machine. They know we're here. Why aren't they doing anything? No. No. No, this isn't good. This isn't good."

"Grian, we'll protect you if you go through the portal. We need to get to Season 7. This is our only chance." Xisuma tried to persuade.

"No, we can't, we can't put you in danger like that. We're staying here, we can't go on. Not when they are waiting." Grian said, his voice laced with fear.

"Grian, who is this we?"

"Xisuma, don't you remember the beginning of the season, when we had the meeting about my aura, and how it was more powerful than normal players'?" Grian asked.

Xisuma thought back to the beginning of the season, an event that occurred almost 2 and a half years ago.

"Grian, thank you for meeting with me. I just had a few questions about your player code and aura." Xisuma started as Grian walked into his admin office. 

When Xisuma had mentioned the reason for the meeting, Grian tensed up. "What do you need to know?" He asked stiffly but it seemed like he was having an inner war with himself. 

"Well, I was just wondering why your aura is so much more powerful than one of an average player"

Grian sighed. "Well, I guess we had to tell you sooner or later." Grian's eyes went unfocused for a second, and wings appeared on his back, as well as a dragon tail. "We are Red and Grian, the first watcher experiment infusing the players and the watchers together. We escaped from where we were held captive, and the watchers, they, found us as we were going through the portal, and they know we escaped." Grian took a shaky breath. "We were traveling through worlds trying to find a place to live, but they found us because they were open worlds. When we appeared here in Hermitcraft, we were only able to access this world because you guys were coming into it. Now that the portal is gone, no one can enter, nor leave."

"Okay, but can you explain the wings and tail? And why you were an experiment?" Xisuma asked, still a little confused

"When Grian is in full control, we appear as a regular player, when Red is in full control, we appear as the watchers would in the original end. When we share control like we were doing now, we appear as a player, only we have these wings, a tail, and heightened senses. We were an experiment because the watchers wanted to create a superweapon to fight against the listeners, and so that the watchers could have a physical body outside of the end."

"But then why did you need to escape? I would think you would have a decent life being a superweapon and whatnot."

"No, we were, in the watcher's eyes, a failed experiment. I, Grian, was too stubborn to allow Red to take control, and," Grian paused for a second, before continuing, sounding ever so slightly different, "I, Red, didn't really want to be part of the experiment, and I just let Grian do whatever while sharing control."

"Okay, one last question, what should I call you when you are both in control?"

"You can call us, Grian, Red, or a combo between both. As long as we know that you are talking to us, we should respond. But, please, don't tell the other hermits about this unless it is absolutely necessary. We don't want the watchers to find us again." Grian took full control, the wings and tail vanishing before he walked out of the room. 

"I'll call you, Rean." Xisuma decided, but Grian and Red were already gone.

Xisuma nodded in understanding, causing Grian to let out a breath. Their eyes went cloudy for a second before their wings and tail appeared. "So, Grian, Red, you are going to have to go to Season 7 with us. Grian, you can just take full control, and I can help hide your aura-"

"No, that wouldn't work. According to page 394 of the Minecraft Book of Knowledge, 'No player can go through a portal to a new world, nor a new update, while AFK' then immediately after, 'A player is AFK when they have no control over their bodies actions.' Do you understand what we are getting at?"

"So, when Grian is in full control, Red is AFK?"

"Yeah, so we would be physically blocked from going through the portal unless we both shared control, therefore giving ourselves away to the watchers, and we would have to explain everything to the hermits."

"Well, it's really either that or you get trapped in an abandoned world that is open to people, meaning you'd get discovered by the watchers anyways" Xisuma replied, as his phone buzzed, indicating a new text. He took it out of his pocket, unlocking it before seeing what the text was.

Mumbo: Has anyone found Grian yet?

Scar: No

Wels: Nothing here

Xisuma: I found him, everyone should meet back up at the portal

"Grian, Red, you need to tell everyone. I will delay the portal jump until you do. If you tell them, we can better protect you from the watchers."

"No, you guys will just blackout as soon as you go through the portal. Unless Red does a spell, that could work" Rean muttered, then sighed. "Fine, we'll tell the hermits, but Red is doing all the talking."

"Great! Now, Rean, let's head back to the portal and meet up with the Hermits."

"Seriously, Rean. You couldn't have come up with anything better?" Grian said in disbelief while walking towards New Hermitville, where Xisuma assumed Keralis and Bdubs would be waiting for them. 

"Well, it's better than Gred." Xisuma shot back.

"Oh god, yeah, don't EVER call me Gred. That's awful and reminds me of my favorite Harry Potter character." Grian looked at Xisuma, before speeding up, "Race ya!"

"You're on!" Xisuma said before he started running after Rean, determined to catch up to them. With Xisuma not having to worry about looking for Grian anymore, and also running, it only took him four minutes to get back to New Hermitville, as opposed to the ten minutes he spent going into the forest. About halfway through, he overtook Grian, being more athletic due to his heavy armor. Xisuma burst through the tree line into New Hermitville, almost crashing right into Keralis.

"Shashwami! Where's Grian? You said you found him" Keralis asked

"We were. Racing" Xisuma replied between breaths as he bent over trying to catch his breath. "Grian. Should be. Right behind me." As Xisuma said that, Rean came through the treeline, their wings disappearing from behind them, meaning Grian took full control. 

"Hey, guys!" He said as if he didn't just have a complete panic attack ten minutes earlier. 

"Grian! Why did you run off?" Bdubs asked curiously.

Grian stiffened for a moment before relaxing and replying to Bdubs, "I'll tell you when I tell all of the hermits. I don't want to explain it twice."

"Okay, that's fair. Should we take the nether portals to get back quickly?" 

"Do you want to have to fly 1000 block back to the mainland Bubbles? Yes, we are taking the nether portal."

"Off to the nether!" Grian said ridiculously, and although Xisuma didn't know Red that well, he could imagine that Red was facepalming in the mindscape. 

Grian POV

'Are we seriously doing this right now? We are telling the hermits the secret we kept from them all season?' Red argued with Grian as they went down the nether tunnel with Keralis, Xisuma, and Bdubs. 

'Well, how do you think they will react when they get to season 7 and find us gone!'

'But they would get over it, plenty of people have left going into a new season!'

'Red, I can't just leave them. Will you please do the spell that will allow them to be conscious while they go through the Watcher Headquarters?'

'Fine, but I'm doing the permanent one so I don't have to do it again when we go to Season 8.'

'Perfect'

"Grian? You've been really quiet this whole walk." Keralis interrupted

"Huh, oh, I'm just thinking, must have zoned out, sorry Keralis."

"Well, you must have been thinking about something interesting, we about to leave the nether!" Bdubs laughed and jumped through the nether portal to get back to the overworld, the other three people following. When they emerged from the portal, they went straight to the season 7 portal, realizing they would probably be the last ones there. 

'Ready Red?'

'No. Can we just run away again? Just this time go even further away? I'll fly us to the distant world limit.' Red complained, preparing to take partial control. 

Grian shoved Red away from control, causing their body to stumble, almost falling over. Luckily though, as they had reached the portal, there were plenty of people to catch him. In this instance, it happened to be Iskall, who caught Grian, noting that he seemed to have almost gone limp when he fell. "You okay, Grian?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Grian replied curtly before walking off, leaving Iskall to wonder what happened. 

"Ready Grian?" Xisuma asked as Grian walked over to where he had stood near the stage. 

"No. I don't think I can do this Xisuma."

'Then don't. We can just fly away now Grian. We don't need to deal with this.'

'You know, you are acting like the demon on my shoulder right now Red.'

"Grian?"

"What?"

"Did you hear what I just said?" Xisuma asked

"Uh, no, sorry" Grian replied, still distracted.

"I was just saying that the hermits are waiting. We need to talk to them."

"Okay, I don't suppose I can just back out of this?" Grian asked dejectedly, already knowing the answer.

"No Grian. You can't run away from this."

'Yes, we can. Well, I can. You would just go along with it'

'Shut up Red'

"Fine, I'll do this. But you need to say something first."

"Okay," Xisuma climbed up onto the stage and set off a few fireworks to get everyone's attention, Grian standing next to the stage, really not wanting to go up there and speak to all the hermits. He was never all that good at public speaking. "Okay, everyone! So, we successfully found Grian in the forest just outside of New Hermitville!" Xisuma announced

"Why did Grian run off?" Someone called from the middle of the crowd, and Grian couldn't tell who it was from just the voice.

"Grian is going to tell us that right now."

Knowing that was his cue to climb up onto the stage, he did so, though grumbling under his breath the entire time. "Okay, so, I ran for a couple of reasons. The first reason was that the jump to a new update reminded me of a world I was in before joining Hermitcraft, and I don't have the best memories of leaving. The second reason is that, well," Grian sighed, trying to figure out how to continue, "I've been keeping something from you guys this whole season. I'm, I'm not the person I said I was." Closing his eyes, Grian let Red take some of the control, and he could hear the hermits gasp as he felt the weight of his wings and tail appear. "I, we, are Rean, as dubbed by Xisuma," Grian sent a look towards the admin, "We are the infused body and mind of a player and a watcher, Grian and Red. We were an experiment to create a superweapon to defeat the enemies of the watchers, the listeners, but to the watchers, we were a failed experiment. I, Grian was too stubborn to let Red take control, and Red, who never wanted to be part of the experiment, was content with partial control like we are doing now."

Stress raised her hand, and once Grian gestured for her to ask her question, she asked, "Who are the watchers, and why did they need to do this experiment?"

"Well, Stress, watchers are the beings that get all of you between updates and worlds, their power is just so great that you blackout whenever they interact with the player, leaving you with no memories of the occurrence. They needed to do this experiment because in player worlds, watchers have no physical bodies, but by infusing a watcher and a player together, they would have no such limitations. Listeners are not restricted by this either." Red answered, kicking Grian out of control of the voice box, answering Stress's question with ease. 

"Unrelated to Stress's question, what happens when you change control? All of us noticed that you just grew wings all of a sudden" Python piped up.

"Well, the reason for that is that-" Grian shoved Red away from the voice box control midway through Red's sentence, wanting to spare the hermits from his essay-like speech. "To sum up what Red was about to say when I am in full control, we appear as a normal player, when Red is in full control, which isn't often, we appear as the enderman-dragon hybrid that the watchers are. When we share control like we are doing now, we appear as a cross between the two, meaning we have wings, a tail, and dragon ears, though they are currently hidden in our hair. Any other questions?"

"Yeah, I do, Rean," Xisuma smirked, and Grian knew he was up to something

"What Xisuma?" Grian said a little exasperated. 

"Well, why don't you explain to the hermits your little dilemma with the watchers? If you don't I will."

Red took control of the voice box back from Grian and loudly expressed his thoughts, "No, no, nope, no, nope. Not doing it." Red took control of the wings and started to fly off before Grian took the control back to turn around. Red then started wrestling Grian for control, and their physical body went limp, as neither minds were in control of it. This obviously freaked the hermits out, as they still didn't really understand exactly what was going on. 

Grian and Red were still fighting unaware that they were plummeting to their deaths when they felt the air around them stop moving. Well, it still was, but at a much slower rate. Grian and Red stopped wrestling and went over to the control panel to see what was going on. They must have been falling, and Xisuma had caught them before they hit the ground. "Xisuma? Why did you catch us?" Grian said slowly, a little disoriented from fighting Red.

"You went limp while in the air and started falling." He replied.

"Oh, Red didn't want to explain our escape, so he booked it." The duo had reached the ground, and Rean rolled out of Xisuma's hold.

"Escape?" Ren spoke up, having heard what Grian was saying due to better senses, being a hybrid and all. 

"Um, so, since we were the first experiment, that didn't go well, we were put in a cell, fed twice a day, and was living in horrible conditions. Red and I got fed up with it, and we planned an escape. When Red takes full control, he has all of his watcher powers, including teleportation. The watchers had forgotten to magic proof the cell, so we teleported out of there and to the portal room. From there we were jumping through worlds, looking for a place to live. But the watchers found us in all of them. Until we appeared here, a private server, at its one point that it is open. We were safe from the watchers, and I, Grian, recognized a few of you from my pre-experiment life all those years ago. Mumbo being the main person. Scar was another. While the watchers can't get us here, they know we are in this world, because I was so stupid and created the time machine." Grian took a breath, not wanting to have a panic attack. If that happened, Red would take over, and the world wouldn't be able to handle the power of a watcher in its physical body. Another reason they were a failed experiment. "When we go through the portal, all of us will be sent to the watcher's headquarters in order for them to transition you to a new world, that I wouldn't be joining you in. You will all blackout, and we'll be captured again."

"But you said that Red could do a spell," Xisuma prompted.

"Yes, Red has agreed to cast a spell that will prevent you from blacking out in the watcher headquarters. For some reason, Xisuma thinks that you guys will be able to help us. But be warned, this spell is permanent and will last until you perma-die."

"Well, Xisuma is right we can't just leave you to the mercy of the watchers. We'll get you to season 7, Rean, we will. And why couldn't Grian just take full control and pretend to be a normal player?" False spoke up.

"Well, two reasons. One, the watchers already know what we look like, and according to the Minecraft Book of Knowledge, on page 394 it says that an AFK player can not go through a portal to a new world or a new update. It also says that an AFK player is anyone who is not in control of their body. You can probably see the problem."

"Can Red do the spell now? Please?" Xisuma seemed to be getting impatient.

'Red, do the spell.' Grian ordered

'Fine' Red responded, drawing out the word before going over to where Grian was and taking over control of the voice.

"Kyvm vm l miuww kt isueuxk iutiwu nstf owlpqvxd tbk vx kyu rlkpyus yulgzblsousm" Red said, doing a couple of hand motions, and the spell was complete. The hermits looked around seeing if there were any visible differences, but there were none. 

"Well, now that that is complete, is everyone ready to go through the portal?" Xisuma asked. The overwhelming number of yeses drowned out Rean's quiet no. "Rean, do you have anything else to add?"

"Well, when going to new worlds, the watchers empty the inventory of the player, so if you guys are sure you want to try to help me, I would recommend go grabbing your god armor and don't wear any elytra, you won't need them in the watcher headquarters, especially since the watchers are really powerful. When we get there, Red will probably take full control, so that we have a better advantage. We will look different from the other watchers though because Red doesn't have the watcher mask anymore." With this information, the hermits all scrambled over to the nearest enderchest to grab their god armor and weapons, which they had removed because they had previously believed that your inventory had to be empty to go to a new world.

The hermits regathered, and as a group went through the portal.

Word Count: 4413

This took so long to write, and I am only putting a word count because of how long this thing is. Yes, there will be a part two, but after I start writing a PJO/Hermitcraft oneshot (twoshot? Miniseries? IDK).

All while writing this I was listening to Minecraft Parodies and Orginal Songs...

So we are going to play sing the song. I write the first line here, and you guys continue the song if you know it! (I had to limit myself to 10, there are so many good ones!)

1. I used to rule the world

2. Got my helmet on my head, figure out what that zombie said

3. Creeper? Aww Man

4. Greeting, square ones, let's take a journey

5. I am believing

6. Watch you now, while you turn something into nothing

7. On the other side of the lake, I knew

8. I came to dig, dig, dig, dig

9. So you can try, to hate on me

10. I'm waking up, a beach of dust

I'll probably do another one of these in the next oneshot

Oh, and feel free to check out My Book of Drawings, I'll be posting all my drawings, fanart, and other crafty type things.