Battle Scars - A Watcher-Grian AU story

Chapter 1 - Xelqua being forced out of the nest

TW: None

Xelqua smiled at the memory. It'd been 10 years since that day with Ark and Kanvi. 

A knock from the door brought him back to his senses, and he sat up, summoning purple light around his hand. The doorknob glowed purple as well, and with a flick of his hand he yanked it open.

Kanvi and Ark stood there in partial Watcher form, Kanvi with pale, almost white skin and messy, short-cut brown hair that was rather messy, and Ark with a tad darker skin and long black hair braided neatly behind their back. 

The fact they weren't in full Watcher form made him smile internally. Phew, it wasn't formal. He hated formal situations. No smiling, no joking, no nothing. Be a cold block of ice, blah blah blah...

A worried thought came up to his mind. What if they'd heard about last week... He swallowed nervously.

"Heya Kanvi! Heya Ark!" He called to them, waving. "Uh- if you heard something from a certain somebody about a bunch of eggs- don't listen to them"

"Xelqua..." Ark replied evenly while Kanvi failed to hold back laughter in the background.

"That was YOU- It was genius-" Kanvi snorted. "Ira was FUMING-"

"It wasn't me, it was the man in the chicken costume." He grinned, joining in the laughter.

"Kanvi- We have a reason to be here..." Ark sighed, looking at the two with disappointment visible even through their mask.

"Right..." Kanvi suddenly looked worried. "We need to go to the portal room."

Xelqua stepped back with surprise. The portal room was how the Watchers got to servers, and after the disaster of... THAT server... He didn't think he'd be allowed to go into another server for centuries... After all he'd been lucky to enter one at his young age of 50 in Watcher time (19 in mortal time), and with how that'd ended... He shivered, trying to expel the memory. The higher ups always said they had centuries to enter servers, and to patient, which he hadn't agreed with at the time, but his story was a pretty good example as to why to not allow Watchlings out... He tried to stop the images of the destruction from his mind, and unconsciously double checked his mask remained affixed to his face.

Purple light swirled around Ark's hands, spreading into a violet mist that swirled around the three. and the three of them teleported a circular room.

Around them in typical watcher style, the walls were overly engraved with this history of the watchers, images of the war, all enchanted to glow violet. Runes were carved in the ground, around the center piece of the room. A portal, similar to the ones players use for the nether, expect unlit, and made of bedrock.

Kanvi cleared her throat, trying to sound formal. "Xelqua, we're allowing you to enter a server. This server has been shielded from our eyes for years, ever since the uprising."

"... The uprising?"  He felt like he should know this, but it had just been pushed out of his memory, as if the Author needed a plot reason to have someone explain it. Wait, who was the author? Where had that come from? Wait- What had he even been thinking about? 

Ark shook Xelqua out of his confusion as he spoke "You should really pay more attention to class rather than pranking other watchers-" Ark sighed.

Kanvi chuckled. "Ark, come on, you missed the final exam for history in year 20 because you wanted to see a cat that somehow snuck into the end."

"Apparently I'M the only one who understands the urgency of this situation. But, for simplicity's sake, the uprising was when the rebels attacked servers, leading to the paranoia around us. It's made it far more difficult to do our job, and requires us to do things like this." Ark replied.

"Wait- What's the urgency?"  Xelqua asked

"We've discovered they're changing worlds, which drops the defenses enough for you to slip in." Kanvi smiled.

"But why? And why me." He swallowed nervously

"We need to ensure no dangerous glitches happen, but the head watchers don't think it's urgent enough to send a full-trained watcher - and you're the only one who's been in servers undercover after being saved from their server of origin, and since your still being trained so we can just call it training exercise and the other council members can't put up a fight.. Now, we need to HURRY. We'll reach out to you tonight with more details. Use this cloaking necklace to hide yourself. Kanvi and I have to channel our magic to activate the portal." Ark said, passing him a necklace.

They raised their hands towards the portal, violet fire flaring towards the portal, Galactic glowing on the frame, spelling the word ⍑ᒷ∷ᒲ╎ℸ ̣ ᓵ ∷ᔑ ⎓ℸ. Hermitcraft - It must have been the server name. Kanvi smiled at him.

"Good luck Xel, I'm sure you'll do well. You've improved a lot." She then raised their hands as well.

 More purple flame channeled in, and the portal began to flicker with watcher magic, almost lighting, before flickering out with green light. The two kept channeling despite this, as he looked at the necklace. It was a purple gem on a simple string, unassuming, but he could feel the magic swirling within it, contained within the shell. He slipped it over his neck, and felt his form shift. It was like when he entered player form, but it felt more solid than a simple illusion - and it was. To any players or admins, he'd appear to be a simple player. He looked down, and saw he was in a red jumper, and grey pants, and his grey wings had changed to more colorful parrot wings, shades of red, orange and yellow dappled through them. It was different from the green colors of his other clothes from last time, and he actually had wings this time! He looked back up, to see the portal had lit, violet fire springing in the bedrock rectangle, swirling and mixing together.

"Don't forget to take off the mask - The illusion necklace won't hide it." Kanvi smiled nervously at him.

"But then... My eyes will be exposed again... and my magic- I can't let it happen again!" He mumbled. 

Masks were one of the Watcher's most valuable items. Masks covered the eyes, which, similar to endermen, Watchers had a innate fear and discomfort of eye contact. This allowed conversations to be less awkward. They were also important because Watcher culture said emotion could be easiest be read in the eyes, and all though Xelqua didn't care at all about the whole 'Hide you emotion' junk, he was afraid they'd see the lies in his eyes. And the magical properties... Watchers had very strong magic, so the Mask limited it so they didn't lose control of it and destroy everything, and so they don't kill themselves by using too much... So if he used magic...

"You'll have to be able to control it. You should avoid using spells at all costs" Ark nodded at him. "Now go. The portal's already weakening. Farewell Xelqua, my wishes go along with you."

Kanvi smiled. "Goodbye Xel. Be careful... And remember your username is Grian. They'll call you that and you need to go along with it... You can pretend it was some sort of glitch that sent you there."

He nodded, taking off his mask, storing it in the bag that holds the extra-dimensional space known as the inventory, before running up to the two watchers, hugging them.

"I'll miss you two..." He mumbled.

Ark was taken aback, but Kanvi threw her arms around him.

"Good luck." Ark said awkwardly, still slightly unused to large displays of emotion. As a member of the council, they only really saw much of that at their home with Kanvi and Xelqua, who both didn't really like the 'No displays of emotion' rule.

"You can do it Xel!" Kanvi smiled. "Now go, before the portal destabilizes."

He nodded, before running through the flickering portal, not knowing what he'd find on the other side.

A/N:

Hello Everyone! First chapter! :D

I forgot to do this in the prologue - Pronouns for OCS:

Ark: They/Them

Kanvi: She/Her

Yes Ark and Kanvi are a platonic couple, since I can't write romance. Enjoy the semi-fluff of this chapter as it's the last your gonna get for a while- ;)