Gifted: A Hermitcraft AU [ON HIATUS]

13: All is (not) well

(AHEM: chapters 13 through 15 are all UNDER CONSTRUCTION. This means they are being rewritten. The plot things in these line up mostly correctly, but the writing's pretty bland. But read anyways if ya want to :>)

Also for this one disregard the entire first seven words pls.

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Soon after his confusing interaction with Grian, Joe heard a certain sheep shouting for help. It was coming from the pavilion.

Joe sprinted towards the fancy mayoral area and watched in horror as Zed was carelessly chucked into a pole. He was dumbstruck, by only for a moment. Joe grabbed his communicator and rang Stress. She picked up quickly.

"Stress! Emergency!" Joe was panicky, and ran to Zedaph's side along with Grian and Impulse.
"Yeah?!" She sounded somewhat tired.
"Shopping District- the pavilion! Other-Iskall he came a-and ... Zed!" Joe struggled with his words, something that didn't usually happen to him.

"I'm on my way, stay on the phone Joe..." Stress grabbed a small bag of medical supplies off her table and began to fast travel through the Nether. "Explain to me what happened..."

//////travel skip//////

Stress ran as fast as she could into the mayoral pavilion. She immediately saw Zed crumpled on the floor by one of the large pillars. Impulse and Joe sat next to him, and Grian cradled Zed's limp head in his lap.

Kneeling beside the four of them, Stress said some reassuring words and began to assess. It was bad, but Zed would make it. She tallied two, no, three broken ribs, plus one fractured and a possible concussion.

Stress pushed aside her stress (pun intended) and began to heal. Fracture: fixed. Concussion symptoms: alleviated. Ribs one and two: good as new.

The third bone was a separate story.

Nothing Stress did would properly relocate the bone. It wasn't beyond repair, but it would need time, lots of it. "I can't fix this one..." she mumbled to herself.

"Hmm?" Impulse looked up at Stress.

"Oh..." She took a deep breath and nervously flitted her wings. "He's still got a broken rib. It's pretty bad and I can't fix it." Stress felt like she was about to cry.

"It's alright Stress." responded Impulse. He remained calm, though worry gripped the edge of his voice. "What can I do to help?"

Stress thought for a while before answering. "You can bring Zed back to his base... You'll probably need to stay the night, and give home one of these when he wakes up." She dug around in her bag and handed Impulse a bottle of painkillers.

"I got this!" Impulse flashed her a smile and a thumbs up.
"It's pretty late, so I'll check in on him in the morning, k?"
"Sounds good"

Impulse gently lifted Zed, careful not to harm him further. He hid his emotions behind a grin. All the other hermits saw him as the happy guy, the guy who was always positive and could brighten your day. That was what his powers could do after all. Oh but he was not happy at all.

Impulse was mad. No, not mad, nor furious.... Impulse was... LIVID.

This Other-Iskall guy had hurt Impulse's best friends, and he was super sarcastic, annoying, and careless. Whoever it was needed to stop hiding behind Iskall before who knows how many more get hurt.

Impulse was sick of him.

He felt himself ready to overflow with rage. But he locked his anger and fear away. Impulse put on his fake smile. Maybe he could make it feel real this time. Nobody needed to know his pain.

Nobody wanted to know his pain.

...

They all parted ways. No one knew where Other-Iskall had gone. No one knew where he would strike next. No one knew the torment Iskall had been going through.

...

Mysterious Cave: Location Unknown

The voice was angry with Iskall. Bad Iskall! Bad! You are my puppet you do what I say!"

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry, please!" Iskall sobbed and clutched his head. The voice was screaming so loud he could barely hear his own thoughts.

You're useless! I'm in full control now. The voice took back Iskall's body. "It's time to plan."

Other-Iskall walked over to a large whiteboard with a big map of hermitcraft as well as pictures of each hermit. "Okay... threats... eliminating threats... who's a threat?"

He tapped his chin. "Xisuma, he's a threat. And Doc, Doc's a threat." He grabbed two red thumbtacks and slammed them into both hermit's pictures. He then took a few more and placed them into False, Stress, Keralis, Etho and xB's photos. He's gonna kill them! Thought Iskall. Other-Iskall heard this.

"You know what? I won't kill them. I'll make it much worse! And Iskall, you'll have to watch!" If Iskall has been in control he would have been trembling. "So, lets get to work!"

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I am not super happy with this chapter. At least I managed to slip in some Impulse angst that might come into play later on...

Side note: Double Life just started! Im super excited to see how it turns out! (Tango and Jimmy are definitely going to die early on, my prediction, but I really hope they don't)

<3 Lily and Soe