Grian’s POV
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Joe (very calmly) clasped his hands together and asked, "What in the Nether are you doing here?" 

Gem, unfazed, took another bite of her raw beef. Grian grimaced; Weren't deer herbivores? "Ask Grian," she said, pointing at him. Wow, way to throw him under the bus. Joe followed her direction and looked at the gremlin, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh, I'm looking for my friends," Grian explained, raising his hands defensively. "I wound up out of our world and I'm trying to make my way back….-" he glanced around at the unfamiliar scenery- "...though I guess this one isn't it." That was the simplest way he could explain his ordeal. Now that he said it out loud, this task seemed much more outlandish. How was he supposed to get back to the one world he needed out of hundreds, maybe thousands of them? What are the chances that he might be able to stumble upon the right one at random? Was his mission even possible? 

Joe nodded slowly. "So there are more worlds; I guess I owe Iskall some diamonds," he mused. Grian, brought out of his worry session, thought he heard a spot of bitterness in his voice and chuckled quietly. 'Some' diamonds must've been an understatement. "Wait here," Joe continued. "I'll grab Iskall and Keralis and I'll be right back." And with a few seconds of typing on his communicator, Joe disappeared into thin air.

That definitely could've gone worse, Grian decided. Those names, Joe, Iskall, Keralis, they all seemed familiar. He whispered them under his breath, and they felt natural coming out, like he had said them time and time again. Well, they'd arrive back soon and Grian might figure everything out. 

…

Grian and Joe must have very different definitions of 'soon'. Grian, Pearl, and Gem had plenty of time to improve upon their shack, adding a porch and ladder and basic necessities,and fight off night monsters before they burned to a crisp come morning. And Joe still hadn't returned. For three people whose sole jobs are (or 'were', in Grian's case) just surveying players and learning their opinions for hours on end, they got bored very easily. So, they did the only thing that anyone in their situation would do. They sat in a circle and played cards for two hours.

"Hmm…" Pearl stared at her cards intently, then said, "Grian, do you have a creeper?"

"Nope, go fish."

"Aww man." Pearl drew a card from the center pile and added it to her increasing hand. This was the only game that Gem and Grian agreed to play; Pearl had way too much of an advantage with her memory to play most other games. At least in this one the two G's had a fighting chance.

"My turn," Grian mumbled, and took a look at his cards. Zombie, skeleton, sheep, and… the next card's design blurred from a splotch of water. "Hm-?" And then another. And another. "Oh, crap," Grian hissed as he looked up to see the leaves above them glistening with raindrops. The trees were not doing a very good job of sheltering them from the oncoming storm.

"Ahh! Clean up before it gets heavier," Gem yelled, stuffing her cards into her inventory. She grabbed Grian's and Pearl's as well. "Why didn't we make a roof?!" That was a definite design flaw, and one that Pearl was desperately trying to fix as they spoke. And it was a good thing too, because the rain just got heavier and heavier. A dense mist formed from the downpour, so much even that Grian could hardly see in front of him. 

Grian felt a yank on his collar and stumbled back, now under the newly-made awning. "Do you want to be all wet?" Pearl asked incredulously. It took considerable strength to pry her hand off of his collar. She balled up her fists and shook one in front of Grian’s face threateningly. "Because I can push you back out there if that's what you want." She snickered. Rude. Grian calmly thanked her for pulling him out of the rain, then walked deeper into the shack and- nope! He actually shoved Pearl out from under the awning into the rain. The latter's eyes darkened and she grinned wide. "Oh, you've done it now!" 

The next thing Grian knew, both he and Pearl were sopping wet and laughing, while Gem was cheering 'Fight, fight, fight!' from the sidelines. This, this felt natural. These were the shenanigans that the three always used to get up to. For the first time since Grian's world was flipped upside down, he was actually genuinely enjoying himself. He hadn't even remembered he was ever a Watcher until yesterday, but he missed all of this with the passion of years of nostalgia. Like meeting a friend you haven't even thought of in years and realizing the hole in your heart all that time was from them. 

Having eventually settled down, Grian sat beneath the awning and stared out. This time away from the others wouldn’t be so bad, he thought. He wondered how they were doing. Had Cultie moved on to the next world? Who would he bring with him? Maybe Grian’s group and Cultie’s would collide one day. Wouldn’t that be something. His pondering was so rudely interrupted by a few faint shadows passing by, then the squish of feet hitting mud. He stood up. Was that Joe and his crew? Took them long enough!

He jumped off the platform, back into the rain and landed with a splat right next to where Joe and two other people stood. It was hard to see through the fog, but one of them had a brightly colored jacket and the other had some sort of metal fixing over one of his eyes that glinted in the little sunlight that shone through.

The bright one stuck his hand out and said, "Hi, I'm Keralis! You are…?" 

Grian shook it. "Grian," he responded. 

Keralis cocked his head. "Brian? The rain is very loud, I can't hear you." The rain was not very loud. 

"Grian," he repeated. 

"Brian it is." Keralis grinned. 

As this exchange was going on, Joe and the other person, who by process of elimination was named Iskall, climbed up onto the porch and under the awning, and began to chat with Gem and Pearl. Grian and Keralis, realizing they had been abandoned, swiftly followed. 

 Grian ducked into the shack, where the other four were seated on some hastily-made chairs. He and Keralis plopped down on two more. As he was wringing his shirt out, the one Grian assumed to be Iskall turned to him and asked, "So, you're Grian, right? It's your fault that you and your friends wound up here?" Grian looked up. "You have made me a very wealthy man." Iskall grinned. 

Something clicked. He knew this person. His mind filled with blurry scenes of memories and moments. Grian punching him in the face with a chunk of diorite, taking away the half heart he had left to signify the end of a game. Iskall on the verge of murdering him while he explained that a root vegetable may have found its way into a giant redstone machine. The two of them standing over what seemed to be a broken robot.

Those memories and more all hit him instantly like a sack of bricks, just like when he remembered his whole time with the Watchers. And yet, all this just left him with more questions. So he must have known these people, but from where? When were all those memories from? Some of them had other people involved, but they were all just so blurry that he couldn't make them out. He thought that meeting these people would provide him with some clues, but it also came with a new understanding that he was missing a lot more than he thought. 

He came back to reality by Gem kicking him in the shin. "Oh- sorry," he said with a forced chuckle. This would have to wait for later. When he eventually saw Cultie again he'd have to have a long talk. "I got lost in my thoughts. Aaaanywho, what were you talking about?"

Pearl scoffed. "Maybe you'd be able to follow the conversation if you didn't keep spacing out all the time," she chastised him. "But if you must know, Gem and I were explaining how we all ended up here. Apparently they had no idea that there even were other worlds!"

Grian blinked. "Yeah, well I didn't actually know that until a few days before I wound back up with you," he admitted. 

"Oh, yeah- right, I forgot," Pearl stammered. "You forgetting everything and all…" Her face flushed red and Grian couldn't help but laughing. "Look, I'm literally a Watcher okay, it's not my fault no one else knows about the other worlds…" She trailed off, seemingly having suddenly thought of something. "You know, most players still know about the other worlds, even if they haven't traveled out of their own. I mean, how do you all expect to be able to worldhop if you don't know they exist?" She sat back in her chair and narrowed her eyes. 

That was actually a very good point. The entire reason Grian ended up becoming a Watcher in the first place was because he was making a new world with his friends, so obviously he must've not been oblivious even before he was a Watcher. And yet, everyone he had met so far, except maybe Wels, seemed to be completely unaware of the fact that other worlds exist; even Grian himself. Hmm… 

Grian crossed his arms. “And how are you supposed to receive the updates if your admin doesn’t collect them from the Watchers?” That was a thought he just had. When he worked in Evo, the Watchers would work their magic manually, but in any other case, the admins would have to come to the Watcherlands to collect the packages themselves. It was always chaotic on update days from the sudden influx of players in the Watcherlands. He completely forgot about all that. This was becoming more confusing by the second.

Joe's eyes resembled those of a zombie: not a hint of recognition in the slightest. He shook his head. “Yeah, I don’t have a clue what you guys are going on about. Watchers? Updates? Worldhop?” His voice got more incredulous with each word, and he ended up raising his hands in confusion. “This is just a lot to take in,” he said, dropping his arms and resting them on his lap. Grian internally grimaced. He hoped this wouldn’t turn into an argument again. 

Before anyone else could say anything, though, Gem’s hand went to her earpiece. She stood up. “Sorry, I appear to be getting a call; I’ll be right back,” she said, quickly ducking out of the shack. For a few seconds, Grian could hear her muffled voice through the wall and over the rain, but soon that faded away too. 

Grian turned back to Joe. "It's hard to explain without just showing you," he said, smiling apologetically. "And it is kind of hard to do that right now." He frowned slightly, thinking. Was there any possible way he could show Joe and company that he and his friends weren't talking nonsense? 

Grian turned to Pearl to ask her if she had any ideas, but Gem burst back into the room before he could say anything. "Pearl," she said quickly. "Mr. Creator man needs you back right now. He needs to talk to you about something." Her eyes were wide as saucers—though, on second thought, not as wide as Keralis's. 

Pearl made some unintelligible noises, and pulled up her communicator. "Uh, alright?! Thanks for the notice??" She stammered as she quickly typed things in. Grian's eyes were locked in on her, and he could feel that the other three were also enthralled. "Be right back," Pearl said with a quick wave. She clicked a key, and disappeared.

PearlescentMoon left the world

Grian stared at the empty seat for a moment, then turned back. "So……." He did the only thing he could think to do in this situation: grin and pretend that this was all planned from the beginning. "Thoughts?" What are you talking about, this is just an elaborate presentation. Grian wasn't at all ruffled by this turn of events; in fact, it was all just to show those three how worldhopping worked, trust him. 

Iskall was the first to open his mouth. "So, it's controlled by the wristbands?" He asked. He was quiet for a moment, then nodded. "Yeah, that makes sense. All those commands on there and everything, one of them would connect outside this world. How did she do it?"

Grian was relieved that Iskall was so receptive to the idea. It made sense, given everything he now remembered about him. So, he would love to explain to him every intricacy of how it worked. "I have no clue." There was one problem: Grian didn't know. When he did it the other night, he hadn't been completely aware of what he was doing, and every other worldhop before and since then was initiated by someone else. Grian was sure he had done it at some point, but it must've been so long ago that he had forgotten. "Gem would know," he said, looking up at where Gem still stood in the doorway.

"Oh, um," she said. How does it feel to be thrown under the bus? "It's a certain command. You have to-" -do a lot of command jargon that Grian didn't catch completely. He tuned out after a second of her rambling about different technical terms and the like. His mind retreated back in his brain for a moment, for a quick break. After those few hours of normalness, everything was crazy again. It was like the universe was done letting Grian catch his breath, and threw everything it had back at him, like the moment after lag stopped the world from working temporarily. Usually, Grian thrived in chaos, but usually he was the one causing it. This time, he was just along for the ride. Maybe it was time he got buckled in, rather than trying to take over the wheel.

The rain soon cleared up, and the natives of this world invited Grian and Gem (and Pearl, once she returned) to come see their settlement. They eagerly obliged—Grian had been desperately hoping to see their buildings since he arrived—and thanks to a few spare elytras, the crew got there in minutes. 

The 'town,' if you could call it that, was more like one giant machine, equipped with huge moving parts and some (definitely unsafe) construction areas. The first thing the group did was enter a giant elevator that brought them up to a cylindrical building. As soon as he stepped out of the elevator, Grian instantly started running around like a bird let out of its cage, admiring all the intricacies and details of the architecture. 

The building was built out of copper and various other metals and stones, with accents of blue concrete and sea lanterns to provide some color. As it began its descent, the sun's reaching rays shone through stained glass, making them glow pleasantly. In the middle was a large spiral staircase leading back down into an area that was inaccessible from the outside; it seemed to descend for ages, further than Grian could see as he peered over the edge. 

He was so enamored that he did not notice Iskall popping up next to him until he said, "It's great, right?" and made Grian jump nearly two blocks into the air. "Ha! My bad." He didn't seem very sorry. "Anyway, this is my place," he continued. "Been working on it for, well as long as I can remember, I guess!" He pointed to a section of the staircase that fed into a platform. Grian couldn't see what was beyond the first few feet from his angle, but luckily Iskall explained: "We don't exactly have any guest living set up because we weren't exactly planning on anyone joining us today, but I have an extra room that I use when working on all of my farms and stuff, so you guys can chill there for now." He glanced through the window, where the reddening sun approached the mountains in the distance. "Here, I'll show you around," he finally said, beckoning for Grian to follow him down the stairs.

Grian did so, and the two emerged in a room that was almost bare, save for a bed, a crafting table, a few chests, and a table in the corner. On the table sat some sort of small device, with lines of redstone looping over it and down through a small hole in the wall. Upon further inspection, the device seemed to look like a charging port for something or other with a divot no larger than an apple in the center. "Hey, what's that?" Grian asked, pointing at it. 

Iskall followed his finger and said, "Oh that's just something I've been working on." Then, to Grian's surprise, he reached up to the metal thing over his other eye and popped a large chunk of it right out. It was surprisingly long, and Grian realized that there was no eye under there at all, just mechanics.  

He must've been wearing his shock on his face, because Iskall laughed. "Oh! Yeah, this is my eye," he said with a grin. He inserted the chunk of metal into the machine on the table, and the bit of what appeared to be diamond in the middle began to glow blue. Grian's eyes widened. Last time he checked, diamonds didn't do that. "I've been working on this for awhile," Iskall explained. 

He removed the chunk of machine from the charging port and held it up. The glow fizzled out. Iskall's gaze was entirely transfixed on the diamond; it was almost like he was in another world. When he spoke, he sounded almost different: "Y'know, I have no idea how I got this. Up until a few weeks ago, I had no clue what it even is supposed to do. I just have always had it." An unsettling silence filled the room, deafening everything but Iskall's voice. "I didn't even question it until Keralis asked about it one day, and I found that I couldn't explain it. So, I did some fiddling around, and I think it was supposed to replace the eye that is supposed to be there." He frowned. "But I just can't seem to figure out how to make it work when it's not plugged in here. Do you know redstone well?"

Grian was so enthralled in Iskall's story that he didn't even realize he was being asked a question until a few seconds after Iskall gave him an expectant look. He was back to normal, like Grian imagined his entire change in demeanor. Grian quickly laughed, embarrassed, and held up his hands. "Oh no, I am absolutely useless when it comes to redstone," he admitted. "You should ask my friend; he's much more knowledgeable than I am."

"Who's that?" Iskall asked.

It was Doc. Grian knew this for a fact. Doc was the one always messing around with all the machinery. He always managed to figure out a way to exploit or break something. Doc was the most redstone-savvy person Grian knew. So why did he hesitate? He shook his head; he was just frazzled. "My friend Doc," Grian said at last. "He's not here right now-"

They were interrupted by a pair of dings.

Docm77 joined the world
Welsknight joined the world
GoodTimesWithScar joined the world

"-...but I guess you'll meet him soon," Grian finished. 

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No one's POV

[[TwT M=not_ks]] Ago

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It was late. Sage and Grumbot sat on a log next to a fire. To them, however, the fire was apparently not warm and inviting, but cold and nippy, as that was how they treated each other. Grumbot sat with His arms and legs crossed, while Sage sat a few feet away, hunched over and staring crossly into the fire. 

Sage's foot tapped. First slowly, then it got faster and faster until he finally stood up with a grunt. Grumbot looked up at him calmly, with that same neutral expression he now always wore. This seemed to annoy Sage, as he finally let out a breath he had been holding and exclaimed, "Okay, what is wrong with you?!"

Grumbot's eyes narrowed. "That is none of your buis-" 

Sage cut him off. "You're all messed up!" He shouted. It seemed that this was something he had been holding in for a very long time. He gestured angrily at the robot. "For someone who can't talk unless spoken to, you usually don't shut. up. But now you don't have anything to say, do you?" He didn't let Grumbot answer that. 

It became clear that Sage was not in the mood for listening right now. His gaze darkened, and his voice now came out like a cat's hiss. "You seemed pretty mad when you put an arrow through my best friend's skull," he spat out. His fists balled up at his sides. His shadow almost seemed to grow bigger with each second. "And according to Iskall, you weren't exactly pleased when you somehow learned about what happened- what- that- when I- him-" And, there went his dramatic speech. Sage couldn't seem to say that last bit and he instead sputtered out a series of unintelligible nonsense—mumbo jumbo, if you will. 

"Just- what happened?! Why are you like this?! Why do you never show any emotion, ever?" He finally spat ou-

"BECAUSE I CAN'T, SAGE." Grumbot stood up too. His heart monitor was flat, but the robot Himself was almost shaking. "I don't know what happened. All I know is that my crystal is broken now, and I'm back to how I was when my Dads first made me. I can't feel, I can't react, I can't do anything, unless I am given a definite reason to."

And just when it seemed likely that Grumbot was going to take a swing at Sage, He stopped. He stopped shaking, He stopped yelling, He just stopped. Sage blinked. That was…something.

And yet, Sage didn't comment on what just happened. Instead, he turned around and said, "I'm leaving. And I'm not taking you two with me. Find your own way to civilization, or whatever you're going to do. I don't care." Sage pulled the hood of his cloak over his head. He needed to be unrecognizable for what he needed to do. "Just don't bother me again." He closed his eyes, and he was gone.

It was quiet. Everything but the soft crackling of the fire was dead silent. Even Jrumbot, who had been watching the entire interaction from inside of a tent, didn't say a word. 

-(Author's Rambling)-

School's out! Whoo! And look, it's almost June 22, our birthday again! I will probably not have another chapter out by then, so I'll just have to wish Unrecognizable an early and belated happy birthday!

And to those of you who have been here throughout everything: my clumsy early 2020 writing, my extremely inconsistent upload schedule and unannounced hiatuses, and all the (frankly confusing) twists and turns, thank you all so much! I always appreciate you being here and interacting, even if it is to threaten me, haha!

Here's to another year of evil clones and game-breaking shenanigans! I will see you in the next one, and all to follow, my little Readers!

Promise out!