Grian glanced briefly at Scar as the brunette knocked loudly on Mumbo's door. "Mumbo! Mumbo, get outside! Mumboooo-" There was a brief paused as the door opened and Mumbo glanced outside.

"What's so urgent that you need to make that much noise?" Mumbo asked with a half-hearted laugh, his gaze briefly flicking to Grian.

"I have a proposal to make." Scar declared brightly, grinning with a determined expression.

"I'm flattered, Scar, but we haven't even gone on a date." Mumbo joked with a slight roll of his eyes, causing Scar to choke slightly, his face going bright red as Grian bit back a laugh.

"I- that's- you- huh- well you're- what?" Scar blinked, shaking his head. "That's not what I meant!" He protested, his face still slightly red.

Mumbo pulled a face. "What did you mean, then?" The black haired man asked seemingly through gritted teeth, his gaze yet again lingering on Grian before he looked back at Scar.

"Well- it's a long story, can we come inside? It's really cold." Scar added with a somewhat hopeful expression.

Mumbo sighed, closing his eyes briefly. "Okay. Then you have to tell me what the hell this is about."

——

"You want me to do WHAT?!" Grian winced slightly as Mumbo stared at Scar with a disbelieving expression. "After everything that happened, you expect me to just carry on being a hero because one of the villains tried to scare Etho- who, I might add, is probably working with them anyway."

"Hey, Etho isn't working with the villains. He's good now." Grian interrupted him hastily.

Mumbo shot him a half-hearted glare, sighing. "Even if that is the case, why do you need my help? With the vigilantes on your side as well, you greatly outnumber the villains."

"We don't want to underestimate them again." Scar repeated with a slight frown. "Last time we underestimated them-"

"I know! You really think I don't remember?" Mumbo hissed, looking more upset than anything. "If you're just going to talk about that for ages, I'm just going to have to ask you to leave. Both of you." He added sharply, his gaze flicking to Grian again.

"Mumbo, we aren't asking you to be a hero again, just to help us until we've taken down the Red King." Scar reassured him quietly.

"I don't care. I don't want anything to do with the hero world. I just want to live a normal life. I think I made that pretty clear the last time we had a proper conversation, Scar." Mumbo said with a frown.

Scar stared back at him. "You mean when you said you didn't want to speak to me anymore just because you weren't being a hero? Then?"

"Yes. I only spoke to you because I was confused about Grian. I've made that clear as well. I don't want anything to do with the fights between heroes and villains, or the heroes, or- or you. Now I won't ask you again. Get. Out."

Scar glanced back at Grian, biting his lip with a slightly nervous expression. "I'll deal with this, G. Wait outside."

Grian didn't hesitate to turn around and walk away, closing the door behind him. It broke his heart to see Mumbo and Scar acting like that. They're best friends! What conversation did I miss? Oh. Well it was probably after I died, but... I've never known Mumbo to completely push everyone away.

Then again, I have no idea what happened after I died.

——

Grian blinked as the door opened and Scar and Mumbo walked out. They both looked rather upset, more so Scar than Mumbo, but Scar shot Grian a smile that was obviously fake. "He's agreed to help. Yay." Scar added with an awkward laugh, doing jazz hands and smiling again.

"Only because I want to make sure Grian's safe." Mumbo muttered quietly, and Scar shot him a glare.

"Yeah, you made that quite clear." The brunette mumbled, and the black haired man glanced at him with an emotion that Grian couldn't quite figure out. Scar paused before raising his voice. "We should probably get back to headquarters and see if everybody's there, and then we need to start planning what we want to do."

——

Grian stared as he walked into the heroes' headquarters and was greeted by the sight of Axolotl talking enthusiastically to Viridian, who was nodding quietly and listening to her talk.

Although the dirty blonde had only seen her in person a few times, the hero looked a lot different than usual. She was a lot shorter, and the only thing that remained of her somewhat god-like axolotl form was a few scales scattered across her face like freckles (similar to how Piscis used to look) and a large scaly tail that was swishing back and forth.

It wasn't until Grian got closer that he realised who the hero was.

"Lizzie?!" He blurted, and the pink haired woman turned to him with a surprised expression.

"Grian?" She paused, clearing her throat awkwardly. "I mean- hello, random citizen I have never met before." Viridian shot her a skeptical look and she huffed crossly before smiling at Grian. "Yep. You got me."

"So this is your second job?" Grian asked slightly incredulously, grinning.

"Yup." Her gaze flicked to Mumbo and Scar, who were both confidently pretending that the other wasn't there and had started their own conversations with Thunderstruck and Scott (or Natura, as he had started to refer to himself) respectively, and she pulled a face.

She opened her mouth, presumably to ask a question, before closing her mouth, clearly deciding that she didn't want to get involved. "Do you know if there's going to be a meeting about the villains or not?" Lizzie added.

"I mean, there probably will be at some point, but I don't know when." Grian said with a shrug.

"Maybe when Ekrixi-" Viridian rolled his eyes slightly at Jimmy's chosen alias. "-gets back with the vigilantes, they'll start the meeting?" He suggested.

"I guess so." Grian said with a shrug, his gaze flicking back to Mumbo and Scar briefly before he turned back to Lizzie.

Wooo update :)