Chapter Text
The Minecraft Championship was a celebrated sporting event that took place every month. Players from all sorts of worlds joined in to play games against each other in teams of four. What was more important to Xelqua, currently going by the alias Grian, was that all the Hermits from Hermitcraft attended these events, some playing, some spectating. It was rare that all the members would be off world together, so of course this was when his mission was planned for.
He studied the profile on his communicator before scanning the crowd. He was looking for a very specific Hermit, one going by the name of Mumbo Jumbo. He was a tall British man with black hair and a large mustache. Usually Grian would use his powers to find him, but he was limited at the moment. He had to use his eyes the old fashioned way.
Then he spotted him. He was sitting up in the stands near the Player called Iskall. Iskall was excitedly speaking about something while Mumbo was nodding his head along. Grian couldn't have any interlopers. He needed to talk to Mumbo alone.
Although he couldn't use his Watcher magic, Grian had plenty of other tricks up his sleeve. He walked up to the top of the bleachers where he was least likely to be seen, somewhat behind where Mumbo and Iskall were sitting. He plucked a single feather from his wings, throwing it at the slushie sitting next to Iskall.
The feather knocked the slushie off balance, it toppled over directly onto Iskall's lap. Iskall shot up, yelping, "Cold, cold!"
"Are you okay?" Mumbo looked over towards them. "Oh dear, I have some napkins?"
Iskall shook their head. "I think this is a more serious issue than napkins can deal with. I'll go wash up in the bathroom. I'll be back soon."
"Alright mate. Don't take too long, you don't want to miss dodgebolt!" Mumbo waved as Iskall walked away. He then used his napkins to half-heartedly mop up the spilled slushie on the bench.
Now was Grian's chance. He moseyed down the bleachers, sitting on Mumbo's opposite side. He grinned as he spoke, "Hello Mumbo."
"Huh?" Mumbo dropped the napkin that was fully saturated with slushie onto the ground. "Oh, hello? Do I know you?"
"You will." Grian folded his hands under his chin as he leaned in closer to Mumbo. He whispered into his ear. "You are going to be my boyfriend."
…Earlier...
Xelqua had been called to the main headquarters for an important mission. He was brimming with excitement as he approached the quartz building, decorated with tall pillars and copper domed roofs. He had been so bored lately, he was itching for something to do.
Once he entered, he was directed to a small conference room. It was rather plain with just a table, chairs, and a few potted plants. Personally he thought he could do a way better job of decorating! Not that it was really necessary for him to do that, he just thought it was fun. A few bookcases, some candles, maybe even a chandelier-
Xelqua's thoughts were interrupted when a Watcher entered the room, one wearing full uniform. They had on the deep purple robes that tied with a sash around their waist, a shining gem at the collar that resembled an eye, and a large hood that just barely showed the mask beneath. Xelqua jumped up, bowing.
"Hello Xelqua. I am Xenzo." Xenzo bowed back towards him. Their voice sounded feminine, but Xelqua didn't want to jump to any conclusions. Most Watchers seemed to disregard gender entirely. Xelqua and his sister were some of the few that enjoyed gender very much. Mostly because it was funny. "Please, take a seat."
Xelqua nodded, sitting down at the table. Xenzo sat across from him. "I'm sure you are aware that there is an important mission we need you to undertake."
"Yes. I am aware." Xelqua tried to speak formally, despite it being against his nature. "What does this mission, uh, entail?"
"We need you to infiltrate the Hermitcraft world." Xenzo tapped their wrist, bringing up a hologram of sorts. Very fancy. It showed a map of a world, which Xelqua assumed was the Hermitcraft one. It shifted to show the faces of two Players, one who looked like a cyborg creeper, the other looked like some sort of human-canine hybrid. "Lately, two of these Hermits, Docm77 and Rendog, have been engaged in strange activities. We think they may be tampering with technology that Players should not have their hands on. We need you to go to their world and investigate them."
"Oh, that sounds fun." Xelqua chuckled. "I mean. That sounds like an important mission."
Xenzo laughed under their breath, airy like the ringing of bells. "It is okay, Xelqua. We picked you because of your personality. It is perfect for mixing in with the Players, especially the Hermits. They are all very, hmm, eccentric."
"Oh. Thank the void." Xelqua relaxed back into his seat. "This doesn't sound that hard. I'll just hang around them and Watch for a while."
"It's not that simple." Xenzo pressed their wrist again, the hologram from before vanishing. "This needs to be a stealth mission and Hermitcraft is whitelisted. Even a Watcher cannot enter without alerting the Admin, Xisuma. We wouldn't want Docm77 and Rendog to know that we are Watching them and hide what they are doing. You need to find a way onto Hermitcraft as a Player. We will have to strip you of your Watcher powers for this mission as well."
"Oh. Interesting." Xelqua tapped his fingers on the table. Going to a world as a Player sounded amazing! Xelqua had always wanted to try building things like they did. Not that his mission was about that, but it would be suspicious if he didn't build things, right?
"Indeed." Xenzo laughed. "So you need to get Xisuma to whitelist you. The easiest way would be to blackmail one of the Hermits into saying that you are related to them and that you need a home to stay temporarily. I will send you the files on all the Hermits. There is plenty of blackmail material within. All you need to do is pick which one to target. We'll put the plan into motion during the next Minecraft Championship."
"Sounds good to me." Xelqua started to scroll through the information that Xenzo had sent him. Once he reached the Player known as MumboJumbo, he knew exactly what he could do.
"Boyfriend!" Mumbo's eyes grew very wide as he backed away from Grian.
Grian grabbed him by the wrist, pulling him in closer. "Don't be so scared. I have a deal for you that you can't refuse."
"Eh? Is this drugs? Oh no, Xisuma warned me about this-"
"What? No." Grian let Mumbo go and laughed to himself. "Listen, Mr Jumbo. I need to get on the Hermitcraft world. You are going to tell Xisuma that I'm your boyfriend so that he'll whitelist me."
"I'm not doing that." Mumbo's voice was high-pitched. It was probably good that no one around them was paying attention to this conversation, they were all enthralled by the sports game.
This was where Grian's special bargaining chip came in. A lot of Hermits had dark secrets that Grian could exploit, but when he read Mumbo's profile he found something even better. Grian pulled out a stack of diamond blocks. "I heard that you wanted to be the richest Hermit. It's too bad that you don't have a single diamond to your name."
"I do! I totally do!" Mumbo argued, but his eyes were fixed upon the shiny blue rocks.
"Don't fool yourself." Grian placed the diamonds away. "You can be the richest Hermit if you go along with this plan. I have an entire Ender Chest filled with shulker boxes. Each shulker? Filled to the brim with diamond blocks. You will be richer than your wildest dreams. Doesn't that sound nice?" Grian had prepared that in advance, he couldn't use his powers to spawn diamonds in anymore.
Mumbo's eyes were sparkling with possibilities. "That many diamonds, huh. That's… hundreds of thousands of diamonds, isn't it? Umm…"
He was breaking already. This was way too easy. Grian knew he made the right choice.
"Hallo?"
Grian looked up to see that Iskall had returned from their bathroom journey. "Hello, Iskall, I assume?"
"Yes. And who are you?" Iskall looked a little concerned.
Grian smiled, looking at Mumbo. "Yes, Mumbo, who am I?"
Mumbo looked utterly stunned to be put on the spot. He swallowed before responding, "Oh. Well. This is my boyfriend?"
Grian grinned ear to ear. It was too easy. He stood up, holding out his hand to Iskall. "I'm Grian. I'm Mumbo's boyfriend." The funniest part was this was the first time that Grian had mentioned his name. Mumbo must've been sweating bullets since he didn't know. Playing mind games with the Players was way too much fun.
"Boyfriend?" Iskall looked baffled now. "When did you get a boyfriend?"
"Uh." Mumbo's eyes darted around, finally landing on Grian. "Well. Actually I need to talk to Grian real quick. I'll talk to you later, Iskall."
"Huh? But I'm so confused…" Iskall's voice faded into the distance as Mumbo pulled Grian away. They eventually ended up underneath the bleachers.
"Wow, did you take me here to make out? You work fast, Mumbo." Grian chuckled, leaning against the far wall.
"No. I don't know why I said that you're my boyfriend. I panicked. I was thinking of all those diamonds…" Mumbo started to pace back and forth in front of Grian. "I don't even know you! You are probably lying about the diamonds."
"I'm not lying." Grian placed a shulker box on the ground.
Mumbo spun it open. "My word. This is unbelievable."
"Believe it. It's all yours for the low low price of pretending to be my boyfriend and getting me on Hermitcraft." Grian picked up the shulker box before Mumbo got any strange ideas and tried to steal it.
"Okay, but why do you even want on Hermitcraft? You are incredibly wealthy. You could buy anything you wanted. There can't possibly be anything on our world that would interest you."
"Listen, Mumbo." Grian walked up closer to him as the crowd cheered loudly above. "There are things you can't buy. Such as amazing worlds with spectacular builds. I just want to explore and experience it a bit."
"Ah." Mumbo squinted his eyes at Grian. "You are one of our fanboys then? I knew Hermitcraft was somewhat famous but I never really realized…"
"Sure. I'm a big fan." Whatever made Grian's job easier. "I was hoping you could teach me some redstone too. It seems interesting but I can't wrap my head around it. I've heard that you are one of the best."
Mumbo's eyes lit up. "I don't know if I'm the best, but oh man, you came to the right place! I can teach you redstone! Do you want to make a piston door? Or maybe even a vault? I can-"
"Okay, hold on." Grian put up his hands. "Before that, let's think up a story to tell Xisuma so he'll let me in your world. First of all, we should think up a story of how we met."
"Oh. Hmm." Mumbo ran his fingers over his mustache. "I don't know what to tell him. I'm pretty sure I told him before that I've never dated anyone?"
"We can say that you were just embarrassed about being gay or something." Grian waved his hand in dismissal. "So do you go to other worlds often? Like to bars or clubs?"
"Oh void no." Mumbo shook his head. "I stay on Hermitcraft unless I'm on my single player creative testing world."
"Okay…" This might be more tricky than Grian first imagined. At least Mumbo seemed fully on board. Manipulating Players was too easy! Some diamonds and flattery were way better than blackmail. So now he had to think up a story of how he started dating Mumbo. Mumbo, who was a true Hermit who stayed on his home world. He tapped his foot against the ground, when an idea came to him. "I think I got it!"