Small War Crimes
"Um. Impulse?"
"Yeah, Gem?"
"When you said we had to go to the Nether to get your friend I sort of assumed he'd be, you know," Gem gestures back in the direction of the portal, "waiting for us?"
"Hah! Nah, Skizz needs some help," Tango says. Zedaph nods. "Getting him out of the Nether on a fresh smp is always a bit of a pain," he admits, "but we didn't want to set anything up until we were SURE the other Hermits wanted him, you know?"
"I mean what do you mean by pain?" Gem asks.
"Aside from all this soul sand," Pearl adds. Unlike Gem, she hadn't volunteered to come be a welcoming committee; she'd been in the Nether on unrelated business and had run into the group of Hermits on her way back from a Bastion.
"Oh you weren't THERE when I joined the server!" Impulse says. "I'm sorry I always forget."
In the Nether, Impulse can float at will, so he's striding confidently a half-inch above the soul sand. Zedaph isn't slowed much either, though each step he makes has his hooves throwing up blue fire. Tango also hovers, his blaze-rods circling his head with little chiming sounds.
"Well, what happened then?" Gem asks.
"We had to do a ritual to summon him," Tango says. "It was me an' Xisuma and Mumbo."
"My ritual's not hard," Impulse says, "and it doesn't require anything fancy. But Skizz, well. It's a different story."
"Guys it's here!" Zed calls and the group hurries to him.
"You sure?" Tango asks, eyeing the sand skeptically.
"The hooves don't lie," Zed says, tapping. The soul fire that gets thrown up is visibly brighter, burning more white than blue. Impulse nods. "Okay. I've got the blood."
He takes out a shulker as Gem says, "The WHAT?"
"I've got the lanterns!" Tango says.
"And I've got the gold," Zed says with a wiggle of his pierced piggy nose. Tango and Impulse both snort and Pearl says, "Um. Do we need to do anything or?"
"Nah, just back up- maybe nine blocks?"
"Good lord what is happening." Gem mutters as she and Pearl move back a safe distance. Under their bewildered gaze the three nether-born hermits assemble what can only be described as some kind of summoning circle made of gold blocks interspersed with writing in blood that Impulse just pours out of bottles. Tango tops each gold block off with a lantern.
"Okay, Zed? You good?"
Zed adjusts the last gold block and nods to Tango, who plunks a final lantern down on it. "Good!"
"Do you hear whispering?" Pearl asks Gem.
"I'm trying to ignore it."
Impulse steps into the circle and makes one of his ghast noises- the higher screech. Then he makes another, lower-pitched one, and then- then he shoots a fireball straight at the center of the circle.
Gem screams reflexively when that fireball doesn't hit sand, but instead hits what is very clearly-
"WITHER SKELETON!" she yelps, sword already in hand, but the lanterns' fire has turned from orange to blue and the blood writing appears to be hissing and boiling into the sand and the skeletal hand that Impulse has just fired at suddenly tightens up. The whispering that she and Pearl had heard starting when the lanterns had been set on the gold blocks is full-blown shrieking now but they still can't understand what is being said.
"Come on Skizz buddy you can do it!" Tango calls from the other side of the circle.
"Fuck that job!" Zed cheers beside him.
"Fuck what job?" Pearl asks in alarm as the lanterns all break, the fire filling the tops of the gold blocks like a chunk of netherrock touched by flint and steel.
More of the skeletal arm is suddenly exposed, the sand moving and shifting, like- like it's being unearthed-
then Impulse gives a shout of triumph, grabs the wither skeleton hand, and pulls.
Gem stares as the exposed arm begins to grow flesh. Tendons and sinews creep from nowhere to stick to the blackened bone, covered by pads of fat and skin that unroll like gore-stained carpets until Impulse is holding a human hand, attached to a human arm, which is coming up out of the sand attached to a rapidly re-growing person.
"I might be sick," Pearl whispers as they watch organs form in an empty ribcage, the intestines twisting and shifting into position as they are sealed in by skin and then by cloth and thank goodness at least whoever this is will have pants on.
Like a vampire rising from the coffin in an old horror movie the wither skeleton straightens, changes, and by the time it- he- is facing Impulse, his mandible is being re-fused with threads of muscle, hair growing out of a swiftly scalp-covered head.
The last thing to come are the eyes.
The eyes are black as pitch, edge to edge, with grayblue irises that are glowing.
Glowing like soulfires, Gem realizes.
When his eyes snap open, the shrieking stops.
The man in front of Impulse is taller than him- as tall as he was when he was bones- and built broad, wearing a suit of all things.
The suit doesn't have sleeves. They have been very obviously ripped off.
There's a crown on his head, made of gold and wither thorns.
He shakes his head once, twice, then grins at Impulse.
"Dippledop I am SO HAPPY to see you!"
"Oh what are we chopped hoglin?" Tango complains from the sidelines, and Zed shakes his head, laughing.
"Someday he'll love you like that," he teases Tango as Skizz hugs Impulse tight, twirling him around in a circle and laughing as the ghastborn makes his happy kitten noises.
"Put me DOWN!" Impulse laughs. "Gem, Pearl! Come meet Skizz!"
Pearl shrugs and comes forward as Tango and Zed enter the circle. "Hello! I'm Pearl. That was flashy." She offers a hand.
The man grins and shakes her hand firmly. He feels solid enough. "Hello, Pearl. I'm Skizz. Couldn't be helped!" he glances at Zed. "You know you guys just saved me from another hundred year discussion of where to put a fortress? I thought I was gonna die for, like. The million and first time."
"That's what we do, buddy, make sure it's always interesting!" Zed hugs Skizz. "Oh it's so good to SEE you!"
"Good to be seen! How'er the ladies?"
"They're just fine and I've got all the blue wool you're ever going to need."
"Awesome. TOP!" Skizz tackles Tango in a bearlike hug. "You came out of your hole for me!"
"I don't leave my hole for just anyone, you know," Tango says, half-muffled by Skizz's arms. Skizz laughs and lets him get some air. Gem, cautiously, approaches.
"Oh- Skizz, this is Geminitay!" Impulse says, and Skizz smiles at her. Up close she can see that there are still black swirls in his skin, barely there- like smoke. They appear to be moving.
"Hello. If I touch you, will I get withered?"
"Gem!" Pearl says. "None of us were withered!"
"Not an unfair question, though!" Skizz says. He shakes his head. "No, Ma'm, no withering unless I want something withered. Perk of the job."
"What job?"
"Ol' Skizzy wizzy here is the Wither King," Tango says with a grin. "and we just sucked him right out of the throne room."
Gem blinks. "Are you telling me that Wither Skeletons have a culture?"
"Hey," Skizz says. "Rude."
"I'm sorry I just only encounter them in fortresses when they're trying to kill me!"
"And you are in those fortresses for?" Skizz asks, one eyebrow raised. Gem blinks. "Ah."
"All's fair in love and war," Impulse says with a grin, "but it's fine. They can do without Skizz for a little while."
"Okay but isn't kidnapping a royal leader technically a war crime?" Pearl asks.
"Only a small one," Zed says.
"So this won't caus, like, an economic breakdown of the wither rose economy?" Gem presses.
Skizz shakes his head. "Nope! It DOES mean we gotta move, though. I'd rather not get caught and dragged back to the Underneath for another million-year meeting."
"He's right. ALLONSY!" Zed cries, stuffing the soot-smudged gold blocks back into his shulker. Impulse and Skizz, on some unspoken signal, begin scuffing out the remnants of the boiling blood writing. Once that is done, the little group heads back towards the portal.
"How exactly," Gem says to Impulse as they go through, "am I supposed to explain all this to Grian?"
"Oh don't explain anything," Zed says.
"It's ALWAYS more fun that way," Skizz says, with a smile that's a lot bigger than one he should be able to make.
Oddly enough, Gem finds herself grinning back.
Skizz, she suspects, is going to be a lot of fun.