No One gets Left Behind (Adopted from ZecoriTheWeirdOne)

Chapter 16

"Come on - I can show you Sahara!" Grian rambled excitedly, a smile on his face as he tugged on Netty's sleeve, as the rolled her eyes, letting Grian lead her and the rest of the evolutionists to the shopping district, immediately noticing the tall towers with fire surrounding them, implying that there had been some sort of war.

That sounded like Grian.

He led them to a large entrance with a logo above it, the word 'Sahara' printed onto the grey concrete in quartz. The interior was pretty nice, with a chest in the centre, and signs explaining how it worked, and she understood why Grian wanted to show them it, even though there was no way he did the Redstone himself.

"Did you design this yourself?" Tom asked, furrowing his eyebrows as he looked around.

"What, you planning on nicking it?" Grian joked, grinning as Tom shrugged.

"Maybe," Tom replied nonchalantly, and Grian shrugged.

"It couldn't be Sahara though, it would have to be Pacific," he pointed out, and one of the moustached hermits watching whispered something about having to nick that, before being shoved playfully by one of the others. 

"You planning on starting another empire?" Netty asked, raising an eyebrow. 

"Maybe," Grian said, smirking in a way that made Netty realise this was definitely Grian.

Netty noticed they'd attracted a crowd of people following them, including one wearing a mask and trying to stay out of sight, though when Grian smiled at him it kinda gave it away to Netty and a couple of the others like Pearl. Eventually by the time they reached a statue of liberty replica made out of prismarine, the person they assumed to be the admin joined them, sending Grian questioning looks.

"Uhhh, Grian..." he started slowly, and Grian's head snapped around to look at him.

"Yeah?" he asked, looking at him innocently.

"Do you mind explaining who these people are... And how they got here?" they said, and Grian shifted uncomfortably.

"It's complicated," Pearl explained, saving Grian from answering.

"Very complicated," Salem agreed, followed by murmurs of agreement from the rest of the evolutionists and Grian.

"Ridiculously complicated," Netty added, and Grian rolled his eyes.

"Understatement of the year," he said, his smile fading slightly as he looked at Xisuma.

"Grian can you please explain," he said, a hard tone in his voice amongst the original confusion and softness.

"I-," Grian said, taking a deep breath, his hyperactivity from earlier disaJppearing. "These... Are the Evolutionists. They're from... They're from Evo. My old server. I'm not sure how they got here - how did you get here?" he asked, turning to the Evolutionists questioningly.

"Listeners," Pearl said, looking down slightly.

"Listeners?! What the hell are they? What, are there smellers and tasters or something?" he joked, and Netty shrugged, Grian noticing she didn't exactly deny it.

"Good question," Xisuma interrupted, raising an eyebrow. "What are listeners?"

"They're like the opposite of watchers," Tom explained, biting his lip as Xisuma only looked more confused, but Grian found himself slightly entertained by that explanation.

"Watchers?" Mumbo asked, echoing the thoughts of every hermit in the room (aka every single hermit). 

"Did you not explain it to them?" Netty asked softly, looking at Grian as he shifted uncomfortably.

"I- No. I didn't want to have to relive it, and it's not as if they're important," he said uncomfortably, glancing at Xeno hiding at the back of the crowd.

"He explained it to me," Xeno said quietly, and Xisuma's head snapped towards him, his glare softening slightly as he gave him a 'We'll talk about this later' look.

Netty gave a brief explanation, leaving out the majority of the details to Grian's relief, as he just stayed quiet the entire time. The section that caught his attention though was when she said:

"The listeners are the one's keeping the Evo world and portal open as none of us wanted to stay behind."

"Doesn't it close after 24 hours?" Xisuma asked, and Netty shrugged.

"I dunno, the Listeners rattled off something about using Listener energy instead of Void energy so it can stay open indefinitely as long as there's always someone in each world, but the listeners count as people so that's fine," she explained, rolling her eyes when she mentioned the energy complicated thingy.

Grian kinda understood, but was definitely going to question the listeners if he went back.

If.

Grian suddenly realised what Netty was implying when she said the portal would stay open indefinitely.

"You seem happy here," she shrugged, noticing Grian's look of realisation. Grian smiled and shrugged.

"Maybe," he said smirking playfully.

"Evo for weekdays, Hermitcraft on weekends?" Xisuma asked, and Grian smiled, his mind still stuck on something Netty had said a couple of minutes ago.

They all followed Joe to the portal, but Netty noticed Grian seemed slightly off, as if thinking really hard about something (like when he was thinking about a design). One by one, the Evolutionists stepped through the portal, leaving Netty and Grian as the last one's out, but before Grian went through, he pulled Netty aside.

"You mentioned earlier that you'd all come," Grian said, biting his lip as Netty realised with a cold thud what he meant. She was planning on telling him later when it wasn't as big of a bombshell, but it was to be expected that he'd notice. He was smart enough to do math.

"You also said there were 11 evolutionists including me, but Netty, I only count 9," he said, looking up suddenly and meeting Netty's eyes, his eyes full of sorrow and loss Netty hadn't noticed before.

"Grian, we can talk about this later-" she started before being cut off by Grian shaking his head.

"Netty, I suppose what I'm really asking," he said, swallowing as a cold thud settled into Netty's stomach. "Netty, where's Taurtis?"

IM SORRY LUCID IM REALLY SORRY

Also nobody noticed except Lucid lmao. I feel evil. Am I evil? Maybe I am? Also how the hell did this hit 1K reads? Somebody explain please-