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Hels' rage burns so hot his pulse is pounding in his ears.
The only thing keeping his helm from going up in a blaze is his reluctance to burn his house down. That, and Wels dissociating on his couch with a cup of water held loosely in his hands.
Void. Wels.
He's been.. in and out since they got here.
The vacant stare makes Hels' stomach sink. Ice doesn't help. It's.. likely a code issue from being left on a dying server.
If they left him intentionally, he's going to kill them slowly. He'll make it hurt.
Only issue is they have firepower he doesn't, and the Voidwalker-
…It's not productive to plan the murder of a group he's fairly sure didn't intend what happened.
Don't get him wrong. Hels has never been a fan of the hermits. However… It was never anything to do with them personally. They're all.. fine people.
Wels may be as loyal as a dog, but so are those hermits he's gotten himself entangled in.
In the jumble of failed failsafes and broken code, he wouldn't be surprised if there was a string buried in there made to kick anyone who didn't leave or was asleep.
Who's to say it didn't break at a key moment? There was outside interference, obvious invaders..
Despite his nature as a hels, he's willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
And if he's wrong? He'd be happy to throw them to the wolves. He has no lost love for the hermits.
He just wishes EX wasn't MIA so they could confirm it for him one way or another. They'd be able to decipher what peeks through the gibberish code.
There’s a sharp gasp from across the room, and he raises his head from his thoughts. Wels is glancing around, eyes frantic before they land on him.
“..Hels? What.. When did we. Um-” The words are stammered. Confused.
Carefully he picks up the fire tong and poking at the fireplace before interrupting the knights confused words. “Drink your water. Sip, don't chug. I can see your chapped lips.”
He listens to the crackle of the fire in silence.
Finally, he speaks up. “Can you hand me your comm?”
For a second, he thinks Wels is about to ask why. Then, he silently unclapses it from his wrist with a few movements with a shaking hand. He holds it outstretched, and he takes it, pulling it into his hands.
Wels silently goes back to his water, and Hels investigates the comm.
It’s a custom-unsurprising, considering the rough treatment it must get on the hermitcraft server. And, if he’s correct, it should have connected itself to his server and started charging.
He tabs the power button lightly, and the power up screen flickers on, revealing several cracks and scratches painting the screen.
Not holographic-surprising, considering the prevalence, but he watches in silence as it finishes the sequence and finally properly turns on.
Messages flood into the comm from the past few days-first, those from the server crash, and then.. DMs.
He doesn’t touch them. He wants to hear their excuses verbally.
Fortunately, the comm seems to have been left on mute-the notifications make no noise, and Wels goes undisturbed until Hels rises to his feet, pulling a cord from his inventory and connecting the two comms.
“Hey, what’re you doing?” Wels says, and the helsmit faintly notes the rise in coherency.
Looking up at his counterpart, he says simply “I’m going to have a little… chat, with your hermits.”
There’s a lurching of armor as Wels attempts to stand and falls back onto the couch, the exhaustion and dehydration clearly catching up with him. Instead, he frantically says “Hels, no. ”
His fingers skirt over the server connections. The invitation to a “inbetween” server sits there, obviously automated. He pauses. Wels' voice is strained. He sounds panicked.
Sighing, he looks back to the knight. The comm in his hand lights up with a call. More than one, at that. Seems his counterparts hermits have noticed his comm come online.
“...I’m just going to ask some questions.”
“Hels, come on-”
The request goes through and Hels hovers his hand over the connection to the hermitcraft safe server. He considers for a moment. The fire boiling under his skin. The tenseness of his jaw that’s sure to give him a headache later.
Not wanting to burn his own house down, he firmly reminds himself he can light up when he gets there. Makes for good intimidation, anyways.
He rolls his shoulders back, and glances back to Wels. “...The food is in the kitchen in the chest under the stove. Don’t eat too much, pace yourself. Dehydration is a bitch.”
The last thing he sees when he taps the icon to join is Wels trying to stand up again, hand outstretched to stop him.
There’s wind in his hair, a building in construction two chunks away from him. He rolls his neck, and locks eyes with a startled EX-lookalike.
He clamps down further on his flames, reminding himself firmly that they can wait. They still burn a little hotter, a little stronger then they normally would as he calmly analyzes his surroundings.
There’s several swords drawn on him, he notes distantly, all netherite. No matter. Netherite makes any difference when you can’t get close enough to strike.
“How did you get on here? Why does the server think Wels just came online?” The words are spoken by a looming creeper hybrid. The man takes a step forward, a step to close for Hels' comfort, and he allows his flames to flare up for a split second. Enough for everyone slowly congregating to get a flash of heat.
The creeper lurches backwards, and Hels tilts his head. “Strange. You left him on a falling server, and yet you act as if you care?...”
A sword draws with a clean shink behind him. He doesn’t bother to look. “You don’t know hels about this situation, where did you get Wels' comm.”
He can practically feel the eyes around him snap to the second comm on his belt, and he can feel the tension rising as he lets his flames burn hotter. “Funny, I am Hels.”
He takes a step forward, towards the small glare hybrid, and he watches as the EX lookalike-X..zoom, right?-frantically drags him backwards.
The air around him is so hot he’s distorting it. Whoops. Oh well. “And I don’t think you deserve to be privy to that information after you left my counterpart to die.” He lets a foot drag, and there’s the sharp sizzle of grass as he burns cleanly through it.
A slight giggle leaves him, unbidden, as the fire in his chest relaxes and more and more of his armor is licked with flames.
A blazeborn steps smoothly between him and their silly admin, his own blaze slightly angry, barely restrained. “What did you do to Wels?” His words are snarled, and sparks visibly bite at his face.
“I fucking found him. ” Against his will, a grin starts to tug at his face. He watches the nervous look in the eyes of the blazeborn in front of him grow, and he lets go of his control. “And where were you? You’re all cowards. ”
The blazeborn lurches for a second, seeming to catch on his words, before saying frantically “He’s alive? He’s not-”
Hels shrugs nonchalantly, not communicating anything. He needs more information.
A slime steps forward, visibly trembling with an emotion he finds difficult to identify (and oh, Helvin is so much easier to read, with the skull and all). “You don’t know shit. We didn’t-the failsafes failed. We-Tango, tell him!”
The blazeborns eyes flick to the slime, and back to Hels. He pauses. And he open his comm. “I’m.. not the one who set up the failsafes. That’d be Xisuma. But they were rock solid. We couldn’t have done anything to prevent what happened.” He breathes for a moment, almost seeming to want to close his eyes.
He doesn’t. Smart. Hels' instinct driven brain probably would’ve taken the opportunity. Still, he tilts his head and listens closer as the blazeborn-Tango?-Continues.
“We had.. A break in. They tore into our code. Thoroughly. We didn’t mean to leave him, it was..”
The newly named Xisuma steps in cleanly here, seeming to realize he’s needed. “It was an accident and I swear upon Jean’s name I never intended for anything like this to happen. Can we please see Wels?”
He breathes. He carefully, methodically, reigns in his flames. “...I found him solely due to my status as a helsmit. He would’ve died. Respawn was down. The server was dead.”
There’s a chilly silence as the hermits digest this. He continues, “I have no idea how, but he was in the end. No water. 2 days. When I left my world he couldn’t stand up, cuz he'd exhausted himself.”
It’d be best not to mention how, exactly, he’d exhausted himself. He’s led the hermits to believe him and Wels are on good terms. Best to keep it that way.
Calmly, after ensuring his armor is cold enough, he steps forward into the blazeborns space, and snarls at him, “I don’t want this shit happening again. Capiche?”
A drawn out silence.
“..Capiche.”
He exhales steam, and turns sharply on his heel to walk back towards spawn.
There’s a moment of pause, and then, footsteps begin to follow.
Hels suppresses a grimace, and pulls open his comm world menu.
“Wait!” He pauses. “Before we go-”
A laugh leaves him unbidden. “We?? I’m not letting you all into my house.” He surveys them for a moment. “Four of you. At most.”
With that statement thrown over his shoulder, he taps his home world icon, and vanishes into despawn particles.