When Darkness Takes Hold - HermitCraft fanfic

Chapter 2 - "EX"periences

(T/W for a description of gore and injuries ahead, sorry bout that)

POV: Xisuma

Location: ???

"After that episode you let me have all by myself, someone found me," EX revealed, his gaze still set on his helmet.

"Who?" I asked, encouraging him slightly to talk.

He sighed, his head hanging and his limbs drooping. "I'm not supposed to tell you," he said, his voice choking slightly.

My eyes widened as I noticed tears dripping down onto his helmet from within his mess of white hair. "EX..." I said, my own voice choking a bit.

He sighed. "I wish I could be something other than 'Evil Xisuma.' I know that's pretty much who I am but at this point, I think I'd rather be my own person," he revealed, his semi-deep voice softening as he revealed his wish.

I furrowed my eyebrows. "We could call you EX but have it stand for something else," I suggested.

He turned his gaze to me, his softly glowing red eyes filled with tears. "Like what?" he asked, sounding as if he didn't believe we could do that.

I paused to think. "How about the X stand for another name?" I suggested.

Hope flared in his red eyes. "Like what?" he repeated however with more optimism in his voice this time.

"There's a lot of names that start with x. Like, Xander, Xisuma, duh," I paused to laugh at my own dumbness. "Xavier, Xeno, Xanthus," I continued.

He straightened as he heard a name.

I blinked, curious what had happened. "What?"

His mouth gaped open slightly for a second before he found himself and closed it. He leaned back in his chair, his thoughts seeming to run very fast.

"Xanthus sounds interesting," he finally said.

I smiled. "Now for the E," I said.

"It needs to sound cool," he reminded.

I smiled. "Of course," I said before beginning to think.

A name popped into my head. The meaning was a bit off but maybe it would encourage EX to be nice again. "How about Evander?" I suggested, a smile growing on my face.

He smiled a bit. "Evander Xanthus," he said. His smile grew. "I like it," he said, his gaze on me again.

I suddenly noticed that his scleras were a bit more gray rather than black as if giving him his own name brought him back a bit. To combat my sudden lapse of reaction, I smiled back.

"Nice to meet you, Evander Xanthus," I said with a grin.

As he was grinning back, the grin turned into a grimace as he shut his eyes tightly and placed his head in his hands, his helmet dropping to the floor with a clang.

I blew a stray piece of brown hair out of my eyes as my grin faded. "Evander?" I called, worry sprouting inside of me.

I silently gasped as he suddenly looked at me, his eyes glowing neon green rather than their former red. His scleras had returned fully to black and framed the green perfectly. Eyes wide, I tried to struggle to get out but my attempts were in vain.

He slowly stood, his entire personality changed in a matter of seconds. "Little Xisuma Void, did you really think that giving EX a name would change anything? Hermitcraft will still fall, as it should have done a long time ago." The words came from EX's mouth but the voice was extremely off. It was much deeper and more sure of itself compared to EX's normal voice.