Ren was yellow. If this were Third Life, if this were Last Life, Ren being on yellow would mean… Well, it wouldn’t mean nothing, but it would be inconsequential. It would be a game. A traumatic game. A game he would be thrilled by, turn over in his head like a bad dream - or a very guilty good dream - for weeks after the event. He would think about how scary it all was, how scary he was, how scary his friends were, and then he would think about other things. He would live, he would die, he would lose, he would cope. He, eventually, wouldn’t care all that much.
But this wasn’t Last Life. This wasn’t Third Life. This was Hermitcraft.
A tall man sits down at the desk. His blonde hair is a mess, and he seems oddly fragile without the horned helm on. It’d been a fight to get him to take it off. He scowls, all sharp edges, broken glass.
“Let’s get this over with.”
-
“My hermit?” She curls a strand of red hair around her pale finger. “Couldn’t care less about her, I don’t think. I’ve got my own stuff going on. Besides, she’s already dead, technically. That means I’ve won, right?”
She raises an eyebrow condescendingly. “Right.”
-
“I thought we weren’t going to interview me. I mean, I don’t mind. I like talking. But I don’t have a hels.”
The man grins. His youthful features are new. The mischief in his eyes is not.
“Not anymore anyway. Not anymore.”
-
“Ye be wasting my time with this.” The man growls, because that seems to be the only tone his voice can take. It might be a side-effect of the axe, or it might just be his dramatic flair. “I don’t care for my hermit. Why would I? The man’s a coward. He made me, didn’t he?”
-
“Welsknight. What a laugh.” He sniffs haughtily, rolling his eyes. “The man’s hardly a knight - unless his tenets of chivalry include being a pathetic mess and avoiding conflict like the plague. In which case he’s the best knight around. And he has the nerve to think he’s the stronger of the two of us? I was forged in flame. What’s he made of? Fairy dust?”
-
She giggles. “Oh I fink she’s adorable. You see all the pink she wears? Got a mean streak in ‘er too, and a god named after 'er. You don’t get much better than that."
She kicks her feet up on the desk nonchalantly, like she owns the place. Her boots are black and studded, as is the rest of her outfit, and her dyed hair. "I mean, not my style really, but I can respect it. I’m gonna be honest luv, I think she could do me in. But why would she? She’s got too much goin’ on, and we’re a bit too different anyway, ain’t we? You oughta be interviewin’ them poor sods is fading out. They’ll care more than I do.”
She twirls a necklace in between her fingers, content to let her attention wander away from the interview.
-
“Yeah, I confronted my hels. We were a lot alike.” He’s given up the pretense of humanity and is floating on his back over the chair, making himself comfortable. A pair of blue vex wings flicker faintly, filling the air with the crackle of magic. His lab coat brushes the chair he’s supposed to be sitting in.
“Well I guess really he confronted me. Scrawny kid. Nothing wrong with that but I had more experience. And the smarts. He was fast though. Taught me a thing or two about speed running. He thought fast too. I think he was more of the speed chess kind of person.”
-
"I guess I think he’s terrifying?” He laughs nervously, and ice curls with his breath. “I mean, you’ve seen what he does with the ravagers, and the redstone farms and the death machines. I always kinda thought he should be the hels anyway, since he’s got all the fire-ificatory stuff going on.”
He runs his claws through his hair, and the air is chilled as he sighs. “Though I guess I would think that. None of us really thinks we’re the bad guys here, right?”
-
“Okay fine, I’ll answer your damn questions, but if the feds ask, I was never here. You got me?” He has square glasses and forest green hair, and there’s a fresh burn scar showing underneath his shirt. It seems like the last of his concerns right now.
“Yeah I think he’s a coward. He calls his dumb tweets social justice? I’ll show you what justice is. Justice is a pipe bomb on an oil rig - and there’s one in your mailbox next week if you breath a word, am I clear?”
He’s twitchy, and rightfully so. His eyes case the room, searching for hidden cameras and microphones, and anything else that could capture evidence he was here.
“I think he’s the hels anyway. You’re telling me we’re the dark mirrors of these people? I admit, I have a bit of uhh… avant-garde approach to justice. But at least I try. That man cowers in his builds every day, making the world better with stupid pretty things. Who’s that helping? Who’s that saving? If I’m hels, heaven’s pathetic, and if you’re sharing this with our hermits, you can tell him I said that.”
He stands abruptly and leaves, slamming the door behind him. He has places to be, and a long list of important organizations to infiltrate and burn to the ground.
-
“I shouldn’t even exist. None of us should,” he snarls, and he fingers the axe scar on his neck. “We do because they’re too weak without us. Always lookin’ fer someone to blame, that lot. Someone responsible fer all their fell woes. None of us asked for this, did we? Nay, we just picked up the messes they dropped.”
He chuckles, and the furred cloak on his shoulders bristles like the hackles on a wolf. “I was made by the point of a blade, and I’ll see him suffer by one, ye can count on that mate. He can run, but he cannae hide from the boogieman in his reflection.”
-
“Kill her? No way!” she laughs like you’ve told a joke. There is a moon-shaped doodle she’s made on her wrist, and she adds rays to it with a red pen she hid in her sock. The doodle looks a bit like an eclipse, or a blood moon, or some other moon-based astrological weirdness. She’s probably hiding more things. The pat-down on the way in hadn’t robbed her of much. “I mean I could, don’t get me wrong. But that kinda ruins the point of it all, doesn’t it? We’re not supposed to exist, not really. So what happens then, when you get rid of the half of you that is supposed to exist?”
She shrugs, and her smile is radiant. Her eyes are red. “Well I don’t know. That’s why I asked you. All I know is Doc’s hels disappeared one day, and I can’t even remember what he looked like. Same thing with Hypno and Cub and… well… a lot of them really. Best not to tempt fate if you ask me. I quite like being alive and remembered, you know.”
She rests her chin on her interlaced fingers. “Sucks though, don’t it? I bet she’d be a fun fight. I don’t think anyone else would be enough of a challenge.”
-
“Iskall? Yeah, we worked together for a little while.” the assassin has a red beret, and they’re cleaning the glass on the sight they keep clipped to their glasses. Their rifle is propped against the door - they wouldn’t do the interview without it. “I wonder how they’re doing now? No, don’t tell me. It’s best we stay distant.”
They shrug, “That’s why we broke it off, you know. I mean, I’d made peace with it. Death is inevitable in this line of work. I didn’t really think it was all that different from getting shot on a job. I mean, there’s no respawning from something like that, but if you’re off-world, or on a hardcore server, same stakes right?”
They give a reminiscing sigh. “They were the more soft hearted out of the two of us though. Sentimental. So they insisted when they found out, that we do whatever we could to keep me alive. I’d have preferred the friend. You don’t get many with this kind of job.”
They resituated their sight over their eye, and tapped a button on their glasses. Some redstone circuit remade itself, and a small electronic overlay flickered to life on the red glass of the sight. “We breached the topic once, on what would happen if it was them or me. I offered we go to a hardcore world, get it over with. I figured they’d win, honestly, and I think they thought so too. They wouldn’t do it.”
They smirk, “Most people call that mercy, I think. I don’t much care for it, but it wasn’t my decision to make.”
-
“What, couldn’t get Evil X here so you settled on second best? Hahaha very funny. Yes whatever, I’m his hels. Yes I hate his guts. Can we go now?”
The creature in the chair is a shadow, with bloodshot eyes that imply a lack of sleep.
“What do you mean you’ve got more questions? I don’t care about your questions. I’m supposed to be haunting that idiot right now. He’s sleeping. Every night at sundown. This is my only time to terrorize– yes this is important. Do I look like I’m doing this for fun? My life depends on this! You wouldn’t understand. You’re not a hels. You don’t get it. Last time he thought I was tolerable, we both disappeared for– for—-”
He looks confused, like his train of thought left him abruptly. He shakes his head, “Do you think this is funny? There are lives– my life is at stake here! Hurry up with your next question.”
-
“He needs to be taught a lesson. He needs to be strong. I need to be strong. I’m the only one looking out for us.” He doesn’t look nervous, he looks stern. He reaches to tuck a strand of his blonde hair behind his ear so it doesn’t fall in his face. “Look, I already know I’m not different enough. I’m not like EX, or Cleo, or Joe. That just comes easy for them. They’re their own people now, and that’s great for them. But what about the rest of us? Those of us who only ever became mirrors? Mirrors shatter.”
He sighs, and he interlaces his gauntleted fingers together.
“I’m a knight. I can’t be self-serving in this. It doesn’t matter what I want. I’m helping hels, and all the helsmits and evil doubles that get tossed in there and left until their other halves finally do something about it. If that makes me like him, so be it. This isn’t about me. I’ve made peace with that.”
-
“I always kinda wondered what would happen if a hermit lost.”
He’s playing with his vex magic in the air, spinning a ball of it on an outstretched finger, reveling in the fact that he can. “We always hear about how the hels are our other halves - inner demons, the worst parts of us, evil twins, whatever you wanna call it. And I get that’s scary for some people. But I’m a vex man.”
He shrugs. “I kinda wondered what would happen if I lost… just for the heck of it. And he really wanted to win, you know. He avoided me for a long time. And when we finally decided to fight it out, he used every advantage he had. But he was the half of me that wasn’t supposed to exist, you know. The universe favors us. It always does.”
He smirks and drops back to his feet, standing behind the chair. His vex wings flex. “I really wanted him to win. Maybe that’s why I turned out this way. It feels a little less like I took back over, you know? We’re halves. I embraced it. Sure I look a little different, and my blood boils a little different. But I made a new speedrunning record this year. Did you see it?”
Cub shoves his hands in the pockets of his labcoat and shrugs.
At the beginning of season 7 Mani set out to enhance his chicken wings (which are chicken sized lol) to match the power of his counterpart.
Mani got his mechanical wings made by Azazel (hels!Zedaph) and received added attributes from others.
such as Subject (hels!Doc) for knowledge on mechanical body attachments and BadTimes (hels!Scar) for the magical affect of collapsing into metal plates in the skin.
