A Blessing and a Curse || A Hermitcraft/Watcher AU

Chapter Ten

Trigger warning: self harm, very detailed description. Also I used wheelofnames to decide on a random character so you get Impulse today/next chapter.

Xavon stood in the manmade cave that sat beneath his base and looked over the surrounding stone. He was practicing teleportation, a skill he'd managed to learn the day before after the meet-up incident. So far, he could only move about fifteen blocks, and always landed a little bit off where he wanted to. As he repeated the action, coming into and out of presence around the room, he became slightly more accurate. There was no flash or grand announcement that he'd teleported; instead it was simply that one second he wasn't there and the next second he was. Like someone had blinked, except they hadn't. The process was silent, like the darkness that surrounded a Watcher's nature.

After a while, something in him that felt like it was also somewhere else entirely became tired, so he stopped and walked over to the chest that contained his items and the WATCHERS book. He flicked through the pages to the magics section and went to the list of what Watchers were capable of.

• teleportation
• 'telewalking' (walking at a speed nearly equivalent to teleporting)
• illusions/hallucinations
• shields
• invisibility

He knew that the list would be infinitely longer, these were just theories. 'Invisibility, that sounds useful.'

He brought his both of his hands up and concentrated on what he wanted, as if he were wishing for a dice to land on six except it actually had a chance of working. The purple fire burned ferociously, like it were trying with all its might to knock a door down. Energy was surging through his forearms and hands, whirling under his skin and spinning around his bones. After a few exhausting seconds, something changed. His hands extinguished and he examined his paled skin. It looked the same. He frowned, maybe this one would take a bit more practice.

He looked up as he heard a knock on the door. The door was a long way away, separated by more than fifty blocks of stone, but he heard it anyway, and saw Doc and Ren stood outside. He realised he should answer or else they would get even more annoyed at him, so he took off his mask and cloak and let his unnatural characteristics fade away and rushed up the bubble elevator. By the time he opened the door, they were walking away.

"Wait, I'm here!" He called out to them, but they didn't acknowledge him. "∷⚍↸ᒷ," he muttered, before he realised. Was he invisible? Had it worked? He ran after them. "Hello?"

They didn't show any signs of knowing that he was there, so he waved a hand in front of Ren's eyes, and received no reaction. He stopped and let them walk on without him. Now that he thought about it, it did make sense that he'd need to be able to see himself. The two hermits flew away and he was left watching their figures turn into dots. He looked down at his hand and arm curiously, before grinning and turning to go back inside.

-|-|-

He allowed his mind to wander as he and Xisuma de-sanded the desert. It was a mindless task and he had a lot of time to think. Could he use his new skill of invisibility to practise flying? He needed a big space to learn, and what would be better than outdoors if he could guarantee no one seeing him? That would work; he could finally train his wings. He could finally fly freely. He smiled beneath his helmet at the idea.

Xisuma stopped to transfer the material into a shulker box, and Xavon watched him sadly. It was only a matter of time before... before his brother would hate him more than anything in the universe. Before the only person to ever love him would look at him with fear and revulsion. He ducked his head down, not wanting to think about it. All of that care and compassion would be gone within a second. He bit his lip as his chin wobbled at the thought.