Grian's POV
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Grian, Cultie, Scar, False, Doc, and Cleo all sat around a large, circular table, situated in what was designed to be a homely diner. Stress soon came back from getting all seven of them a bite to eat, then sat down herself. A short silence followed, before False stood up. "Okay," she said, facing pointedly at Cultie, who was calmly staring back at her. "You want to explain to us what the heck you were going on about back there?"

Now that he wasn't about to die, Grian was able to get a good look at these two new people. False wore a white, striped shirt, jean shorts, and brown combat boots. She now had a comically large hat and an eyepatch over her left eye. Huh, it seemed like she had a bit of a pirate theme going on. All she needed was an earring and she'd be se- oh, no, she had one of those, too. Thorough, this girl was.

Stress, on the other hand, was completely different. Her outfit resembled that of a scientist. She wore an ankle-length white coat over a simple blue-and-white striped shirt and black leggings. Her hair was done up in a bun—though it didn't fit very well, considering how short it was. The last thing Grian noticed was a pair of goggles that hung around her neck like one would wear a necklace. He mustn't have noticed that in the wildness that was before.

Now, the brit turned to the hooded person who sat next to him, picking apart a piece of chicken while he matched False's glare. He popped a piece in his mouth, chewed, swallowed, and leaned back in his chair. "Well, I'm a world-hopper. My offer to you is to unlock all of your memories and then continue gathering all of your scattered friends together." He said this all so calmly, like this wasn't at all unusual. "What else is there to explain?"

Momentarily too stunned to speak, False raised a hand, then pressed it into her head. The air of confusion radiating off of her was almost palpable. Grian understood; he had also been as confused as her when Cultie first explained everything (maybe he should learn to be a bit less blunt). As far as he could recall, though, he was not quite as... angry. To Grian, the pirate-impersonating girl seemed upset at Cultie about the very notion of something else coming before her life now.

Stress's reaction wasn't at all like False's. Granted, she didn't seem to have much of a reaction in the first place. The scientist's hands were folded over an untouched plate of salad. Her voice was smooth when she commented, "How do we know you're telling the truth? For all we know, it could all be an elaborate hoax." She looked uneasily down at her food.

Grian opened his mouth to speak, but Cleo interrupted. "I'm sorry, did you not see us fall from the sky?" she pointed out. She had been quiet up until this point, but now she sat up straight in her chair, challenging the other two. "Did you not see the chat messages? It's pretty clear that we're not from here," the zombie girl said, glaring at False.

Stress shrank into her seat, becoming suddenly intensely focused on her meal. "I'm sorry," she replied, not meeting the eyes of anyone else at the table. "But you have to understand that it's a bit far-fetched. You all suddenly just... appeared in our world, then your cult leader friend–"

"Why does everyone call me that?!"

"–...then your friend claims to be recruiting a bunch of amnesiacs to...well..." She looked up at Cultie, who was no longer eating his food. "What even is your goal here?"

...Huh. That was a good point, actually. Grian hadn't even considered that. He had never even thought to ask him. A motive... That was a really good point. Why was Cultie doing all of this? The gremlin couldn't think of any reason for the hooded person to go about this whole ordeal, especially since he didn't have any ties to them. He did say when he first dropped into Grian's world that he was just exploring, after all. But then again... Something didn't add up about this person. Suddenly, all eyes were on him. All the food on the table was left untouched.

"Come to think of it," Doc piped up, "How did you know which worlds to come to for this mission of gathering up all of our so-called 'friends?'"

Grian furrowed his brow. Could this person be hiding something sinister? He's clearly hiding something, but could he be a bad person, really? "And how you knew that we were all missing our memories, how did you know that?"

Cultie suddenly looked very small in his chair, with five sets of eyes on him. Wait, five? Grian glanced around. Scar was nowhere to be seen. Huh. Maybe he was getting something; he didn't say anything before he left. How long had he been gone? Grian turned back to Cultie, who looked between the others and sighed. "...I didn't stumble upon your world, Grian, by accident." Well, that much was obvious. He waited for him to continue. "I, um, I..." He seemed so uncomfortable, like this was something that he hadn't talked about with anyone in a very long time. "I had a friend who lived with you all, way back when. I made a promise to them."

He said nothing more, leaving the other five to look at each other, confused and more curious than ever. No amount of prodding made him open up anymore, though, and after a minute, they all just sat back down in awkward silence. Suddenly, the door slammed open and Grian whipped around to see Scar, seemingly also surprised at how loud the blow was. "...um. Hi," he said sheepishly. "Uh. Whoops." He glanced between all the eyes staring at him and chuckled. "Did I... interrupt something? ...Well, uh, anyway, have any of you seen Bee?"

Stress glanced at False, who rolled her eyes. "For those of you who don't know," False began, like she was a narrator of a nature documentary, "Scar's absolutely nuts. He thinks he can talk to birds."

"False, we all can literally do magic I don't understand why you still doubt me."

Completely ignoring him, the pirate girl continued. "Bee is this little bird thing that he talks to. Maybe a demon. Probably a demon." Grian nodded slowly. Could that be the bird that interrupted his tour of the world? "Either way, don't listen to him."

Scar, seeing that one person did not care and Stress shrugged, turned to the remaining four. "False is right about one thing, Bee is a bird. A cockatiel, actually. Uh... about yea high-" He held his hands a little bit apart from each other. "-weird orange eyes... I can't seem to find her. I can normally find her when I need to..." The magic man seemed really shaken up about this. Grian looked over at his friends. Cleo and Doc seemed just as confused as he was. Cultie, though, was still. No... he was shaking.

"Bee is your bird friend, right?" Cultie restated casually, leaning back in his seat and grabbing his chicken. "Can't say I've seen many birds fitting that quota around here." He paused, thoughtful, then shrugged. "Nah, can't think of anything. Sorry."

"The last time I saw a bird like that was when you were, um, talking to her earlier today," Grian admitted. "Why were you looking for her?"

Scar stared into Grian for a hot second, then shook his head. "That's... it doesn't matter. I'll sort it out later!" He grinned, then retook his seat at the table. "So, what'd I miss?"

To Grian's surprise, Stress spoke up first. "Nothing much," she stated simply. "We were just eating." Well, that was a lie. And a very blatant one at that. Grian stole a look at False, expecting her to call Stress out, but instead, she just nodded in agreement. Why would she do that? The others got the cue to not say anything, and Grian kept his own mouth shut.

He didn't dwell on this for long, however, as Doc took a glance outside and stood up. "Well, it's about that time," he said to Grian and Cleo. He then left the diner. Cleo and Grian continued eating, but Scar raised an eyebrow. "What was that all about?"

Cleo spoke as she pulverized a potato. "Oh, every day around this time, we have these weird scars that get angry. No biggie."

"Ah, makes sense," False said with a nod. "We get that too. Is it that time already?"

Soon enough, there were only three people left in the diner. Everyone else had either left to deal with their issues, or just got bored and left altogether. The only ones left were Grian, False, and Cultie, though he was standing near the window, staring out at the sunset. The gremlin took a sip of his sugar water. The room was silent other than the occasional movement of utensils or the like. After a little while, False spoke up. "I don't think we've really been properly introduced." She held out her hand, grinning. "Hi, I'm False. Pleased to meet you."

Grian shook her hand awkwardly. "My name is Grian. And, er, likewise." There was a split second of awkward silence, before both of them burst out laughing.

"Wow, seriously when was the last time you met anyone?" She challenged. Grian was about to spit out a retort, when he realized he had no retort to give.

"Well.. besides Cultie—that's the name I assigned to him without his consent—I can't actually remember the last time I've really seen anyone else other than you guys," Grian said. "I've known Doc and Cleo for as long as I can remember. So.... Wow, I haven't met anyone in awhile!" He laughed and sat back.

Wow, he hadn't even thought about that. It was something so simple, yet he was surprised. Meeting new people today was something that Grian hadn't felt was strange, but the more he thought about it, it was kind of odd.

"How about you?" He offered. "When did you meet Stress and Scar?"

False leaned back and kicked her legs up onto the table. That could not be sanitary. "Actually, I only met those losers a few months ago. For a while, I just hung out alone. I didn't know anyone else was here. So, yeah, I have met people more frequently than you!" Before she could say anything else, a quiet sound, almost like static, began to emanate off her. Grian knew this sound well. Under the eye with the eyepatch, a long, glowing, white scar was revealed. She barely flinched. "You see," she explained at Grian's clearly astonished face. "The eyepatch makes it look so much cooler."

And just like that, it fizzled out. It would surely be Grian's turn soon. He should probably leave, then. When he stood up, False didn't question him. In fact, she seemed almost relieved. He waved goodbye to Cultie, but he didn't notice. The second he closed the door behind him, he heard a slam on the table, and then a muffled voice coming from False.

He couldn't very easily make out what she was saying, but he decided that privacy was for the weak and stood next to the door, trying to listen. It's not eavesdropping if it's loud enough for someone outside to hear. Right? Sure.

"Okay, you hooded freak, you better explain yourself better."

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean is that Scar's been talking about some past life, something he couldn't remember. Says that Bee told him about it. And now you come in, claiming the same thing. I want answers."

"I told you everything I know!"

"You're lying."

Grian didn't hear anything else from inside the diner. He turned around from the door to see Scar towering over him, staring at him with a mixture of intrigue and amusement. "Are you spying on them?" Without hesitation, Grian nodded. "Sounds fun! I was wondering, though, if you'd like a place to stay for awhile."

The next thing he knew, Grian was in a lavish apartment room filled with everything he could ever need to live comfortably. Apparently, this was because a certain someone got annoyed and spent the next three days building an entire apartment complex. Because of course, that is the only reasonable coping method for one's emotions.

Having nothing better to do, Grian climbed into bed. Soon enough, he had fallen into a peaceful sleep.

It was as if he was trapped in a moment in time. He was sitting on a bed, staring forward. On his shoulder leaned... something. He couldn't tell what it was. It wasn't a person, that's for sure. He felt like he knew who it was. It was on the tip of his tongue. Shouldn't he know what this was? Shouldn't he remember? No... he didn't. Where was he? When was this? It felt so recent, but he couldn't place it. What was his name again?

The gremlin awoke to the sunlight shining through the window. He hardly had time to fully wake up when he heard a commotion outside. Pulling on the complimentary elytra provided to him, Grian opened the window and jumped out. He glided to the ground, admittedly quite further away than he had intended, and walked over to see what the argument was over. Everyone was already up and talking. Well, not talking, more like yelling at each other.

False's arms were crossed, and she barked at Cleo, "No, I am not going! I'm staying here with Stress and you can not stop me!" Ah. So that's what the conflict was.

"Oh for the love of the Nether, stop being such a wimp!" Cleo yelled back, glaring at False. "We left our world and we're perfectly fine!"

Grian casually strolled over to Scar, who was sporting a defeated frown. He looked up when he saw Grian approaching and waved meekly. "Good morning, Grian. These two have been at it for the past twenty minutes." He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I literally have no idea what to do."

The gremlin averted his gaze from the fight scene and looked over at Stress and Doc, who, unlike the other two, were having an actual discussion like civil people. "Yeah, so if my theory is correct..." Stress was saying as Grian walked over.

"Then someone definitely should stay here," Doc finished. "Can't say I'm happy that you won't be coming with us, but I understand."

"Understand what?" Grian chimed in, making the two scientists jump. "Oh- sorry, heh. What were you two talking about?" 'And how can you hear yourselves think over all of the noise,' is what he would've added if he didn't have a little common sense.

"Stress has a theory that if a world should go without any members in it for too long, it will implode and be erased forever," Doc explained bluntly. Oh. Yeah, Grian agreed with Stress, maybe someone should definitely stay behind.

Then, he had a thought. His world. His world and everything in it could be destroyed. Mister Minty was still in his world.

Unfortunately—fortunately?—he was torn away from his thoughts quite literally by Scar pulling him off to the side. "Please tell me you have an idea of what to do. I don't care what the group consensus is, but this screaming is starting to hurt my eardrums," he groaned, covering his ears. That Grian could definitely agree with. He was going to need one heck of a sugar-water after this.

"Cleo, False, shut up both of you," came a voice from a mouth that did not belong to Grian. Everyone turned to look at Cultie, who was leaning against the apartment building. "I have a massive headache right now and you two are not helping. False, Stress, you're staying here? Great, we'll meet up later. The rest of you, make up your minds real fast."

Grian glanced at Scar and shook his head slightly. This was... odd. Sure, he hadn't known Cultie for very long, but this just seemed unusual. He seemed perfectly fine earlier. Huh. Maybe he just didn't get much sleep. "I'm leaving," he said, raising his hand. Doc, Scar, and Cleo did the same.

"Cool. Grab my cape, please." Everyone did so. "Hold on, please."

Suddenly, Grian was no longer on the ground. He was no longer anywhere. All around him was a void, a black void, with symbols moving so fast he couldn't tell what they were. This was the second time he had seen this, but he had never gotten a chance to really look at it. As he was suspended midair, he could still feel himself clutching Cultie's cape, but in his mind, he was all alone. All alone in the loud, deafening silent, bright, indescribably dark void.... Until....

Grian joined the world
ZombieCleo joined the world
Docm77 joined the world
GoodTimesWithScar joined the world

"Uff!" Grian hit the ground just a few feet away from Doc, who landed nearly on top of Cleo, and so on and so forth. The gremlin stood up and brushed off his pants. Where were they? Clearly not in his, nor Scar's world. No, they were in the middle of an oak forest. In the distance, a flower forest was just visible. Completely leaving everyone else behind, Grian began to wander towards the forest and noticed a few cozy little cottages. Maybe that's where the people that lived here resided! Before he could reach it, however, he caught a glimpse of silver. The person seemed to notice him as well and turned to him. Their red feather plume in their helmet bounced as they ran towards Grian. The person pushed his visor on top of his head and grabbed Grian's shoulders with a vise-like grip. His bright blue eyes were large with surprise.

"Grian, oh my gosh it's you!" He cried. "Grian, everyone's gone mad, you have to help!"

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No one's POV

[[valueT ME=not_fhnd]] Ago

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Sage sat alone in his room. How sad. Or not. Whether or not it was sad didn't change the fact that he was sitting alone in his room. All of the rooms on the server were his now, but this one was his specifically. His hands clutched a small sheet of paper featuring a man in a suit and a gray cat. He wasn't crying, though. At least, not that people could see.

A sound of pistons, and a six-foot-tall mound of metal walked into his room. Sage narrowed his eyes.

-(Author's Rambling)-

Oh ho ho, how fun! Cultie seems a bit, as the kids say, 'sussy'.

:)

I'll see you in the next one, my little Readers!

Promise out!