Cleo's POV

Present Time

World IV
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ZombieCleo joined the world

Cubfan135 joined the world

Oh snap, Cleo was drowning.

Luckily, the pond wasn't that deep, just a bit kelp-ridden, so she shook off a small but that clung to her foot and paddled her way to the top. What awaited her was the familiar scenery of Scar, False, and Stress's world. The sun was just beginning to dawn, casting a deep red glow onto everything in sight. Oh, how nice it was to see colors again. No offense to RenBob or anything, but that monotone gray palette gave her a headache.

The blue water was nice. The green hedge on the small island in the middle of the pond was nice. The sky was nice. Being able to see past her arms was nice. She would lose her mind to live in that world, she thought. She wondered how RenBob could manage to not lose his mind.

Ding! Cleo's communicator rang out.

<FalseSymmetry> Youre bacvk?

<StressMonster101> Hello Cleo! Who is that??

Cleo looked up from her communicator to spot a sputtering Cub. "Pssphsmdjs, this isn't my world!" He said. "Cleo, where are we?"

"I told you to just trust me," Cleo replied simply as she waded through the now-wade-able water. "Remember that other group of people I was telling you about the other night? That Scar came from?"

"Yes?"

"This is them."

With perfect timing, the 'them' in question teleported right to the shore. The flowery one—whom Cleo remembered as 'Stress' and 'the nice one'—wobbily grabbed onto the arm of the yellow-haired one—whom Cleo remembered both as 'False' and 'the one I got into a fistfight with'. The two straightened and walked over to where Cleo and Cub were standing in ankle-deep water.

"Two questions," False stated. "A, who is this, and B, why are you b-"

"Don't care," Cleo interrupted. She then proceeded to show exactly how much she did not care about those questions by immediately answering those questions. "This is Cub, he's another one of our Cultie-assigned-best-friends." The Cub in question waved. "I'm taking him around to all the worlds I've visited so far!" (Please, dear reader, note that this number is a measly three, and that's including Cub's home world. She is not as impressive as she makes herself out to be.) "We're gonna stop by my world after this."

Stress nodded. "I see," she said. "Well, it's nice to have you back."

"Is it really," False interjected with the same amount of genuine curiosity as a dead squid.

"Yes it is."

It seemed that the two natives had differing views regarding Cleo, which is fine considering that she had differing views regarding each of them. Cub looked between False and Cleo. One could cut their glares with a pair of rusty shears. He turned to Stress and held a hand out. "It is good to meet you...?"

"Stress," she clarified, shaking his hand. "And likewise! Here, let's show you around."

The tour of the plaza was not unlike the one that Cleo had previously been on, save for the incident with the ravager. This time, though, the atmosphere was slightly different. The noise of False and Stress showing off the plaza to Cub faded away into the background as Cleo walked just a pace behind, thinking intently and bouncing on her feet as she walked.

She was still pondering the conversation with RenBob and that other person he mentioned, RenDog. It rang a bell, which was weird because literally nothing else did in the conversation other than that name. RenDog, RenDog, RenDog. They must've been one of those other people she knew back then. She tried her darndest to get anything else, a face, a personality, anything, but nope. She was drawing a blank.

Wow, this was annoying! She almost wished she could go back to not knowing anything.

Almost.

Okay, that was a lie. She was bored before. Sure, now she was annoyed as anything, but before she was bored and that was worse. At least now she had something to do other than drink soup and do elytra courses. Plus, she'd been getting answers to her questions!

Now, if only she could find Cultie, then she'd get even more answers. Answers about what the heck that RenBob guy was, who RenDog is, maybe he knew something about the scars... Hopefully he showed back up at Cub's world soon. Bonus points if he came back with Grian in tow—that little gremlin hadn't left Cleo's brain since he left the world. Where did he go? How? He must have figured out how to use his communicator to leave, but why didn't he tell everyone else, or at least just Cleo and Doc? Why in the middle of the night? Why without her? She was fully ready to add another person to her 'people I've had a fistfight with' list.

She drifted back in line with everyone just in time for the group to reach the dining district, specifically a very detailed-looking food truck labeled ... "The Bodacious Burger"....???? False seemed to have been about to say something but bit her tongue.

"Oh, right," she muttered barely loud enough to hear, then, faster than an enderman, slipped into the food truck. Just a moment later, her head popped up at the window, her awesome eyepatch gone, replaced by some hastily-scribbled-on scars. "Why hello there!" She said in a very bad impression of Scar. "And welcome to The Bodacious Burger!" In her normal voice, she added with a smirk, "Can you guess what it sells?"

Cleo blinked. "Uh, burgers? Beef?"

"Wrong! Chicken." False, grinning widely and without losing eye contact, pulled out an entire cooked chicken and slammed it on the counter.

"What?"

Ding!

"Chicken burgers, I guess," False said with a shrug. "Don't ask me; ask Scar."

"That's not a thing," Cleo argued.

"It's not my food truck, I just said ask Scar!"

Ding!

"Does he even sell bread to go with it?"

"Of course he sells bread, are you dumb? It's a burger truck why woul- Oh, actually, no. No, he doesn't. It's just chicken. He just sells chi-"

Ding! Ding!

"What!?" Both of them shouted at the same time and pulled up their communicators.

GeminiTay joined the world
PearlescentMoon joined the world

<StressMonster101> hello?

<Cubfan135> Who are you??

False raised an eyebrow at Cleo, leaning over the counter. "You invite anyone else? Maybe consider warning us when we're having guests in the future, yeah?" She chuckled.

"No, I don't know these people," Cleo said.

False stood back up and cocked her head. "Wait, you don't?"

"Then how did they find our world?" Stress chimed in.

False slipped out of the food truck. "Let's find out," she said, taking the lead back in the direction from which they came. As she passed her, Cleo noticed her slip her hand in her pocket and a glint of metal. Stress matched her pace, with Cleo and Cub following a few feet behind.

"You really don't know them?" Cub asked.

"Nah, and I don't recognize the names," Cleo affirmed, shaking her head. "You?"

"No." He didn't say anything for a moment, and Cleo was about to fill the silence, but he continued, "I did recognize False though. Vaguely." He shrugged. "I don't think they believe in all that amnesia stuff."

Cleo nodded. "Yeah! Which is dumb, because Cultie did do the thing...did he?" Come to think of it, she couldn't remember Cultie actually doing his cult ritual with these guys. That explains it. Kind of. "I'll add that to the list."

"List?"

"Yeah, I'm makin' a list of things to ask Cultie next time I see him. Got anything to add?"

"Other than the RenBob situation?"

"Yeah, other than that."

"Maybe the shadow creature in my world," he suggested casually.

Not as casually, Cleo exclaimed, "Shadow creature????" She glanced at Stress and False who were walking significantly quicker. They were probably out of earshot, Cleo reasoned, as she definitely would've turned around upon the mention of a shadow creature. "Like an enderman?"

"No, no, not an enderman. It's- ah, how do I describe it..." Cub paused and tapped his foot as he thought. "Before you showed up, Wels, Beef, Zedaph, and I kept seeing this weird creature hanging out in the woods. Creature? Monster? Thing? I don't know." He shrugged. "Actually, Wels and I never saw it; it was always just Zedaph and Beef. I still have half a mind to think they're crazy, but then again, we all thought Wels was crazy and then you guys showed up so maybe they're onto something. I dunno."

Cleo just stared at him. One would think this would be something they'd mention sooner, right?

Oh hey Cleo, by the way, since you're staying here with us instead of leaving with Cultie and Doc and Wels which wasn't really your choice since they left without asking you but that's not the point anyway, by the way there's a random guy that we can't identify living in the forest. Have fun!

Something like that would've been nice. She wasn't bitter or anything, though.

She didn't say any of that, though. In the end, the only thing she ended up saying was, "...so not an enderman, then."

And Cub just said, "...no."

Cleo glanced up at the sky. Or rather, the clouds. She could tell it was day already by the littered arrows and faint scent of smoke in the air, but it was still rather dim. She hardly needed to shield her eyes; she couldn't even find the sun. "Well, I guess we should ask him about that, then," she concluded. But first, they had to catch up to False and Stress, who were both now considerably ahead of them.

By the time they caught up, they were almost at spawn, where two new figures were standing out of the water. One was wringing out her jacket, and the other was trying to untangle a bit of kelp from her small (but still present) antlers.

"Gem!! Where are we," the one in the jacket complained angrily. "I thought we were going straight back!" She flinched as the other apparently gave up with that piece of kelp and just shook herself dry, flinging both water and sea flora at her.

"Grian asked me to take a pit stop," she just responded and pointed at where the four were standing. "Pick up that one."

'That one' is a phrase that could be referring to any of the four people standing there. Although, maybe that was just Cleo's thought, as the other three immediately looked at her. Okay, actually, that did make sense. She was the one closest to him out of the group. She should've thought of that sooner. "Me?" She vocalized, gesturing at herself.

The deer one nodded. "Yup! But like, I guess we could grab the rest of ya, too? If you want?" Oh no, not this again. Cleo instinctually began to roll up her sleeves.

"Okay, okay, before anyone goes anywhere," False broke in, pushing Stress and Cleo out of the way to approach the two newcomers. "Two questions." Not this again. A, who are you, and B, why are you here, Cleo muttered under her breath in time with False. Stress chuckled. Cleo grinned.

The answers to these questions were much more interesting than the questions themselves. Turns out, these people were friends of Grian's, but not the rest of the crew. A fun twist this time around, Cleo was digging it. They come from a group called the Watchers, who were responsible for maintaining all the worlds and whatnot, who all of them were supposed to know quite well, and apparently it's concerning that they don't. That's fun.

False, surprise surprise, remained adamant that she would not be leaving this world. Cleo, of course, joined team world-hopper, which was much more fun and also let her beat up Grian. Cub also decided to come with, given that Cultie was probably wherever Grian was. The shocker this time around was that Stress actually decided to come with (on the conditions that she had a free return back at any time, of course).

Apparently, Cub and Cleo were not special for figuring out the second funciton of the communicators, as the one Cleo now knew as Pearl proceeded to explain exactly how to use them so they could world-hop at any time they liked. How convenient, wish she knew that sooner though. Oh, well.

PearlescentMoon left the world

GeminiTay left the world

ZombieCleo left the world

Cubfan135 left the world

StressMonster101 left the world.

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Iskall's POV

Four Days Later

World VI

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Deep in the reccesses of a distant forest, there was a small shack. It didn't look like much on the outside. Its wood siding was replaced every once in awhile, but it was peeling at the edges, there were random gaps in places there shouldn't be, and it was held together in equal parts by actual building materials and cobwebs. The ceiling was lopsided and an amalgamation of different components. The windows had cultures of moss growing in the corners, climbing up the cracks in the glass.

And while the outside wasn't much to look at, the inside was just as bad. It was dark and smelled faintly of mold and mildew. Bits of metal, glass, wood, and redstone were stacked awkwardly in the corner. One of two lone sources of light came from a small, overworked torch on the wall over the workbench. The floor creaked as boots walked over it; the redstone dust kicked up at the slightest draft, covering everything in a pale red coat; the windowsill's cactus had held on for as long as possible, but even it was dried up.

Leaning on the aforementioned workbench, half-asleep, lay a certain cyborg called Iskall. His tired eye stared, half open, at the new-and-improved, sleek, upgraded, and stll not working robot he had rescued a few days earlier. What time was it? Late enough that he could pretty much only see out of his robotic eye. He groaned.

Five days. He had been working on this thing for five days, and he still couldn't get it to work. The first day he spent meticulously picking through every little wire, every plate, every chip in the little guy's system to salvage anything he could. Thankfully, his main board seemed largely undamaged, or else this all would have been for naught.

Then, he plucked out all the frayed, burnt out, rusty, water-damaged, fall-damaged, fire-damaged(!!), and otherwise unsalvageable bits and bobs and replaced them with new pieces. Iskall didn't know how this thing managed to function before; it looked like it was pieced together by a complete amateur. Well, so was he, in terms of actual humanoids. And yet, he swiftly waltzed his way around like this was nothing more than a simple claw machine to him. He wasn't exactly complaining, better being oddly experienced than mucking everything up.

He replaced the shattered glass screen with a new, modern one, with glass that wrapped around the side for a cleaner finish, rather than a metal border. All the dented, random metal plates were replaced with shiny new panels. The clunky body all fixed up with more efficient, flexible glass and steel. It was one of his better jobs, if he did say so himself. He was even able to reattach the hand, and tied a nice bow around it too, like he was wrapping a present.

So why, oh why, had he spent the last three days trying and failing to get it to turn on? He double, triple, quadruple checked all the redstone and code and whatnot. So why? He was starting to wonder if it was hopeless. What if it was? What if after all this effort that he put in, he still couldn't save it? He hated to think like that, but it wouldn't be the first time he failed a project.

He didn't even know where this thing came from. One day he is just chilling with his friends, the next day a bunch of random people show up, mess with his head, turn his world upside down, and he discovers a robot that had no business being anywhere in this world. And then he can't even fix the darn thing! He didn't know what happened to it, he can't fix it, what was he even doing? He hadn't even left his shack in two days; last he heard a bunch of new people showed up, but he barely got to meet them. And in the newest batch, he just saw their join messages on his communicator.

Iskall stood up, stretched, chomped on a raw potato, and paced around his shack. Was there anything he hadn't tried? Praying, perhaps? He chuckled under his breath. He needed a walk. Or a nap. Or both. But first, the walk. Iskall meandered his way over to the door, but paused at a clackkkssssk noise of something scratching against his floor. Iskall crouched down and picked it up. It was a small rod, split cleanly at one end, and hosting a little blue bauble at the other.

Wait a minute, Iskall recognized this. He glanced over at the robot, who definitely used to have this attached to its head and definitely didn't now. He rushed back over to his workbench, tap-tapped his eye to turn on its built-in torch, and oh-so-carefully reattached it. If this was the thing preventing it from working, Iskall was going to eat his vest.

And it looked like he had quite the meal ahead of him, as the second he reactivated and closed the panel in the back of the bot's head, its screen flickered, flickered, and two giant blue eyes, a cartoony mustache, and a few little blush marks appeared on its screen.

"...hello?"

Iskall jumped. "Hi, there," he responded slowly. He really wasn't used to his machines talking to him. It had a small voice, like a little kid. "Is everything working?"

It didn't respond for a moment, and Iskall's heart stopped. But then, he let out a breath as it said, "Um...Wouwd I know if it wasn't? What's going on? Where's Gwum?"

Iskall had no idea who that was.

Before he said anything else to the bot, he dashed to the door, opened it, and stuck his head out, looking for his mysterious benefactor. But, as the dawn rose, the orange glow of a screen blended right in with the rays of sunlight shining through the trees and he saw nothing.

-(Author's Rambling)-

Happy Birthday Unreac!!! Four years is quite the long time, dontcha think? I've been so excited to introduce this next bit, y'all have NO IDEA, hehehehehe.

Gotta run, but in the meantime, I'll see you in the next one, my little Readers!

Promise out!'