I'm honest to God surprised I got this out today. I thought I wouldn't finish it until tomorrow.

Also, I was watching a 7-hour long compilation of Markiplier playing Phasmophobia with Bob, Wade, and Sean the entire time I wrote this lmao /pos

Enjoy!!

*°•☆ ● ☆•°*

"Pixl, sit down."

"No."

"I said, sit."

"I said, no!"

Joel and Pix narrowed their eyes at each other, standing on opposite sides of the common area.

"What are they fighting about?" Fwhip whispered loudly to Katherine, who was sitting on the back one of the sofas, as he munched on some crisps.

Katherine nearly jumped off the sofa, not having realized that Fwhip was even there. "Oh- Uh, I think Joel wants to preen Pix," she whispered, then giggled. "It's like he turned into a papa bird, after he lost his wings."

Fwhip rolled his eyes. "God, he's been pampering Pix all week," he grumbled. "Honestly, it's frustrating seeing how easily Pix passes up on the treatment." He tipped his head back and dumped the rest of the crumbs from the bag into his mouth. "Joel's great at caring for himself especially, but he's amazing at taking care of other people, as well," he said. "He's super into self-care, specifically to honour the gifts that the Honos gave him, but he honestly really enjoys pampering himself. And others, too, of course. He's all about honouring the Honos by constantly using his gifts and talents to their full potential. I'm sure he feels pressured into taking extra good care of Pix right now, especially after their fight and because now Pix has his abilities."

"That makes sense," Katherine mumbled, then smiled. "That's really cute. I knew he was a giant softie."

Fwhip snorted. "Softie? Yes. Giant? Ehhh, not so much," he whispered, making Katherine giggle.

Joel ended up getting Pix to sit down and let him preen his wings. The rest of the class aside from Gem, Scott, False, and Jimmy eventually accumulated with them on the circle of round sofas, asking ice-breaker questions the whole time to get to know each other more since all of their training and regular classes were cancelled.

"Your turn, Shelby," Katherine said.

Shelby hummed to herself, trying to think of something to ask. "Oh! What is your favourite food?"

Pix and Katherine both gasped before looking at each other. "Uncle Winchester's froglight fruit pie!" they said in perfect unison before laughing.

"Ugh, his pies are the best," Pix sighed, moving a little too much for Joel's liking.

Katherine nodded excitedly. "Yeah! And when he would put vanilla ice cream on top-"

"-with caramel drizzle," Pix finished, and they started laughing again. "Man, I wish froglight fruit was imported into the city for cheeper. I've been craving some since we got here."

Katherine sighed contently. "Yeah, well, the farmer's do have to make a profit somehow," she said with shrug. "It is a shame, though. Froglight fruit is amazing."

The rest of the students all exchanged looks, confusing Katherine and Pix.

"What?" Pix asked, tilting his head.

"Aren't those things poisonous?" Lizzie asked slowly.

Pix blinked. "Froglight fruit?" He shook his head when Lizzie nodded. "Tell me you live in the city without telling me you live in the city," he joked, and Katherine elbowed him teasingly in the side.

"They're not poisonous at all," Katherine said. "Why would they be poisonous?"

"Oh, I don't know," Joel sighed, "maybe because they're what froglights are made out of?"

Pix and Katherine looked at each other, Katherine almost glaring at him as he tried his hardest not to laugh.

"Froglights come from frogs, actually," Katherine corrected calmly. "Hence, the frog part." That made Pix snicker. "Froglight fruit just looks like a super squishy froglight. They're really good if you give them a try."

Pix giggled. "They give you a glowing effect sometimes," he mentioned. "And they're a bit messy, but they're delicious."

Katherine nodded frantically in agreement. "We should make your uncle's pie if we ever get our hands on some," she said.

"I could probably send him a letter asking for the recipe," Pix mumbled. "Yeah, that sounds nice."

"My favourite food," Fwhip began proudly, "is deepslate. The way it flakes apart when you bite into it- Ugh, it's so good."

Sausage giggled, causing Fwhip to blush slightly. "Babe, that's cute," the brunette said, and Joel rolled his eyes, "but I think you're the only one here that can eat rocks."

Fwhip sighed. "Such a shame," he said dramatically, leaning into Sausage, who wrapped his arms around the former goblin.

"I think my favourite food is probably sushi," Sausage said thoughtfully. "But I don't know, hamburgers are pretty good, too."

Shelby laughed. "Mine is stromboli," she said. "But I also enjoy shortbread cookies. Back in Evermore, shortbread cookies are really popular, especially since we produce a lot of sugar."

"Oh, shortbread cookies are amazing," Lizzie said. "But I personally love tuna." She paused when the class gave her a mixture of odd looks. "Toffee!" she said with a nervous laugh. "I, uh- I meant toffee!" She gave a small smile before everyone quickly moved on.

"I like avocado," Joel said with a shrug, plucking out a broken feather on Pix.

"See, that's where you're boring," Fwhip joked, earning a light and playful pinch fron Sausage. "I'm kidding!"

"Anyway, it's Joey's turn to ask a question," Katherine said as she turned to Joey, who had been staring at her the whole conversation. Her smile dropped and groaned. "Joey."

He blinked. "Oh, right. Is it my turn already?" he asked, making Katherine and Shelby both roll their eyes. "Hm.. Oh, I've got one! What is everybody's sexualities? And pronouns, too, while we're at it, I suppose."

"Well, Fwhip and Sausage are definitely straight," Joel said sarcastically, making everyone laugh.

Fwhip rolled his eyes, smiling. "Yeah, yeah, you're so funny. And I assume you're straight as well?" he teased.

Joel laughed. "I mean, I'm dating Lizzie," he said.

"But you also dated me," Sausage pointed out, leading to Joel glaring at him. Though it didn't have its usual uneasiness granted Pix had his powers. "And that guy from Class H. Emo, was it?"

Joel groaned. "His name is Etho," he grumbled. "And that's beside the point. I'm bi, okay? You happy now?" He dropped his serious expression to smile, and all of the upperclassmen laughed lightly. "He/him is fine, as well."

"What do you mean, 'is fine'?" Joey asked, almost suspiciously.

"I mean, you can call me by he/him," Joel said slowly. "I guess you could technically call me whatever you want since I'm a demigod, but y'know."

Joey squinted and nodded, pretending like he understood. "Well, I'm straight," he said, stealing a glance at Katherine. "And my pronouns are he/him."

"I'm asexual and I like women," Shelby said proudly, nodding. "She/her, please!" She turned to Katherine, waiting for her answer, but she was just staring. "Katherine?"

She blinked and straightened her posture. "Oh, I'm gay," she blurted without thinking. "Wait, sorry, no, I'm pansexual, I-" She shook her head and shrunk into the couch. Literally. "Uh... she/her, please."

"What about you, Pix?" Shelby asked.

Pix looked up at her and shrugged. "I don't know," he mumbled. "I never really thought about my sexuality." He shrugged again. "I'm not sure. But my pronouns are he/him."

"I'm bi," Lizzie said, awkwardly straightforward. "She/her, please."

"Fwhip's turn to ask a question," Shelby announced.

Pix watched Fwhip's mouth move as he talked and laughed, but suddenly the brunette couldn't hear a single thing as his vision went bright and blurry. There was a sharp ringing in his ears for a moment before he could see a vision of himself walking around in some kind of pig farm in Nether. He walked toward a small work station and peeked beneath the table to find a very shiny emerald. Then, just as suddenly as he saw it, the vision was gone and his chest was heaving, everyone giving him worried looks. He had to blink a few times to adjust to how dim the light in the common area seemed now. He suddenly felt like crying, heavily upset by the brightness of the vision and ringing in his ears. Not to mention how stuffy his head felt.

"Ah, so, you've discovered omniscience," Joel said almost teasingly. "What'd you see?"

Pix looked up at him, wide-eyed and horrified. "I... never... want to experience that again," he said breathlessly. "What the fuck."

"Now I really want to know what you saw."

Catching his breath, Pix readjusted his position on the sofa. "I saw myself," he said. "I was... I was in the Nether, I think? There was this ranch-farm thing with these giant pigs-"

"The Gobland hoglin farm," Fwhip said.

Pix nodded. "I went over to this really short work station and there was this emerald underneath," he said. "I... I really want that emerald. It was so shiny..."

Joel nodded. "There's the bird instincts," he said with a light laugh. "But we're not allowed to go to the Nether."

"Not even with supervision?" Katherine asked, frowning when Joel shook his head.

"Thanks to a certain bird and his glare friend in Class H," Fwhip said, "nobody is allowed through any of the Nether portals at the school. But even if we were, it would take a long time to get to the hoglin farm anyway. Gobland isn't exactly nearby."

"I wonder why you had the vision in the first place," Shelby murmured. "Is it something important?"

Joel sighed. "I doubt it," he said. "Although the omniscience is usually provided by the Honos when I need it, sometimes it happens in the most random times."

"But he saw himself in the Nether, right?" Lizzie asked, and Pix nodded. "Surely it has to be important enough that he actually went through the effort to make it into the Nether to get the emerald."

Shelby nodded. "But what does it mean?" she asked. "What is the emerald for?"

Pix shrugged. "It's shiny," he said, making the others laugh.

"I wonder if you'll have another vision," Joel murmured thoughtfully, "that'll help explain what that one meant."

Pix groaned. "I hope it's not vague," he grumbled. "I'm terrible at using context clues."

"That's okay," Katherine said almost cheerfully. "We can help."

Joel nodded. "And if it has anything to do with our abilities being mixed up, that might be how you made it into the Nether in the vision." He turned to face Pix directly. "I want you to concentrate really hard, okay? It takes a lot of energy to do it on command-"

Pix blinked. "Wait, we're doing this right now?" he asked, panicked. All of the feathers on his new wings puffed up. "I don't want to do that again!"

"If it's something important, you have to try," Joel said sternly. "There's no way you'll get a clear answer given you've never used this ability, but as long as you can describe what you see well enough then I'm sure it'll be fine."

"It will not be fine," Pix argued. "I hated it the first time, I don't-"

"Pix." Joel placed his hands on the younger's shoulders. "I promise that it gets better the more you do it. Just relax."

Pix's eyes filled with tears that had him feeling embarrassed. "I don't want to," he said weakly.

"I promise that you'll be fine."

"No."

"Pix."

At the sound of his name, Pix let out a soft cry, making Joel immediately back off.

"I, uh..." Joel looked away from Pix, who was completely in tears now. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I didn't mean to..." He trailed off, shifting uncomfortably as Pix sobbed into his hands. "Um..."

Pix didn't know what else to do but cry. This entire ordeal was nothing less than overwhelming to begin with. The entire class was upset about it, and Pix knew they all blamed him whether they said it or not. Jimmy very obviously hated him because of what happened to Scott, the poor boy stuck in a coma. And Jimmy wasn't afraid to make his anger known to Pix.

Not to mention that his lack of having Borealis to occupy his brain when he had nothing to do or talk about left him having to think about things on his own accord, which only made him more stressed out because he was heavily dependent on having all of the extra room in his body taken up by her. Now Gem had to deal with her, which was taking so much out of the poor girl that she couldn't muster up the energy to get out of bed. And that resulted in Fwhip internalising his own worry and stress, which made Sausage worried, and that upset Shelby, naturally leading to Katherine being upset and that only made Pix more stressed.

And it was all his fault because he couldn't control his own body.

He didn't know when, but at some point Katherine took him to his room to lay down.

"I'll give you some space to relax," she said softly, handing him a pillow to hug which he took gladly. "And I'll come back in a little bit to check on you."

Pix nodded, wiping at his eyes as she quietly left the room. He fell onto his side, bouncing slightly on the bed. He was so embarrassed. But he was frankly too tired to think about it.

Who knew hero school would be this draining?

*°•☆ ● ☆•°*

"You can't push people like that, Joel," Shelby shouted. "Not everybody is as mentally tolerant to stress as you are!"

Joel frowned. "How was I supposed to know he was stressed?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe because he was already starting to cry before you kept pressuring him?" she said, an unimpressed brow raised. "How could you not think of how stressed he already is after all of this? He thinks everyone blames him for what happened. He blames himself for what happened!"

Joel glanced down and shifted uncomfortably, but didn't say anything.

"He's sensitive right now, Joel," she said, her tone much softer all of a sudden. "You can't just push him like that. He's not used to that kind of treatment."

The brunette nodded. "Right." He took a shaky breath. "Well, uh... I'm going to go back to my room," he said. "Let me know if any of you need me." After a moment of awkward silence, Joel nodded again and walked away.

Shelby sighed and sat back down on the sofa.

"Shelby," Lizzie said quietly, scooting closer to her. "He doesn't always realize that not everybody grew up the way he did."

The witch looked up and sighed again. "I know. It's just... frustrating."

Lizzie smiled gently. "Yeah, I get it," she said. "But Joel doesn't know better. He grew up in a place where he was beat until he could do what he was instructed to do flawlessly. And Professor Raven still treats him like that now. That's the only way he knows how to learn and teach."

Shelby's shoulders slumped. "I just wish he was as gentle when he tries to help people as he is when he's taking care of people," she huffed. "He's so kind when he takes care of us, but he's so mean when he tries to tutor us or help us train our abilities."

Joey scoffed. "Are you kidding?" he said. "He almost put me in the hospital once because he wouldn't let up when I said I couldn't take anymore."

"He's made me cry myself to sleep on multiple occasions," Fwhip added. "Over chemistry."

Sausage smiled nervously. "He nearly broke both of my legs once trying to help me meditate," he said.

"But he always means well," Lizzie said. "He's just... a lot tougher than us."

"It's abusive," Joey said with a quirked brow.

"He's working on it, Joey," Lizzie huffed. "You all know he's kind and his heart is in the right place. He just has a hard time expressing that kindness in a way that we understand as such. He only ever means well."

Joey rolled his eyes. "He'd do a much better job of it if he actually got it through his thick skull that we aren't all special golden children sent from the Heavens that the Honos themselves adore more than everybody else," he spat, standing up to walk away.

Joel stood just outside of the double doors to the common area, a hand covering his mouth to stop himself from making any loud noise as tears poured uncontrollably down his cheeks.

*°•☆ ● ☆•°*

Pix gasped, sitting upright in his bed. He was practically wheezing trying to get air back into his lungs, his wings subconsciously moving to wrap around him like a shield.

He had another vision in his sleep, though this time of what happened the previous night when all of their abilities got mixed up. He saw incomplete flashes of Scott crying over the bracelet stealing his magic, as well as when the bracelet took the magic from everyone else. Afterwards, there was a bright flash of white, then he saw the bracelet shattering, the gems on it all scattering. It was less painful than the first time, but it didn't make it any less jarring.

After taking a minute to steady his breathing, he got out of bed. "Alright, I can do this," he murmured to himself, staring at the door. "I just have to go... uh... right?" He shook his head. "No, that's- that's forward, I think..." He frowned and took an unsteady step forward, then another, then one accidentally to the left. Groaning, he ran a hand down his face. "Come on, you've got this, Pixl," he told himself.

It took a while, but he eventually got out of the room. He couldn't figure out which way to go to get to the common area, but luckily enough for him, he didn't have to.

"Oh, hey, Pix," Fwhip said. Pix forgot he didn't have to look down to see him. "Are you feeling better?"

Pix sighed and shook his head. "Not really," he said, and Fwhip nodded slightly. "Can you help me get to the others?"

"Yeah, sure." Fwhip led Pix out of the hallway and into the common area, where most everybody was hanging out and talking.

"Pix!" Katherine exclaimed. "You're awake!"

Pix nodded. "I, uh... had another vision," he said, and suddenly everyone was listening. " It was about the bracelet this time. All of the crystals on it broke off and scattered everywhere, but I don't exactly know where they are..."

"Wait, that's fantastic," Fwhip said, confusing Pix. "We already know where one is."

"We do?"

"Yeah, the first vision you had, remember? In the hoglin farm?"

Pix gasped. "Oh! Right!"

Fwhip chuckled. "Maybe if we collect all of the gems, then we'll get our abilities back," he said, the others nodding excitedly. "I'm sure Ms. Luz will let you through the portal to get it."

"Yeah, we should as her right now," Katherine suggested, bouncing on her toes.

*°•☆ ● ☆•°*

"No," Ms. Luz said sternly, making the entire class frown. "I'm sorry, but we've had too many... incidents where students were seriously injured in the Nether. I'm not risking that again."

Pix stood up off the sofa. "But-"

"No 'but's, Mr. Riffs," the dean said. "I'll have Raven look into it, but none of you will be traveling through the Nether, do you understand?"

Pix frowned. "It could get us our abilities back," he argued.

Ms. Luz sighed. "I understand that, which is why I'll be having Raven look into it," she repeated. "I won't allow any of you to risk yourselves getting hurt."

Huffing angrily, Pix crossed his arms and sat back down. "That's not fair."

"It's for your safety."

"What about Scott's safety?" Jimmy demanded. "What if getting that gem means Scott will be okay?"

Ms. Luz paused. "I can't let you go into the Nether," she said. "Especially if you want to travel far enough to reach Gobland's farm."

"Ms. Luz, please," Jimmy begged. "What if Professor Raven went with-"

"Jimmy, I said no," Ms. Luz said. "That's final. If I find out that any of you have been in the Nether, I will suspend you from the campus." She didn't say anything else before leaving.

There was a moment of quiet before Fwhip said, "So, we're totally sneaking into the Nether, right?"

They did, in fact, sneak into the Nether.

"Alright, here's the plan," Joel whispered, hiding from two security guards in a corner of the portal room with Fwhip, Pix, Katherine, and Lizzie. "I'll chase Fwhip and Lizzie out there to get at least one, maybe two if we're lucky, of the guards to follow us. If only one follows us, Katherine will get the other to follow her into the common area, where Joey will pretend to be sick. Once both guards are distracted, Pix will go into the Nether and follow the map to the hoglin farm."

The four of them nodded.

"Are you ready?" Joel asked Fwhip and Lizzie, who looked at each other and nodded again. "Okay. On the count of three. One... two... three!"

Fwhip and Lizzie dashed out into the open room, catching the attention of both guards before Joel chased after them. Pix took a deep breath and clutched the map to his chest as he watched both of the security officers go after them, leaving him and Katherine alone in the room.

"They're gone," she said. "Now's your chance."

Pix nodded and dashed in a zig-zagged line toward the portal, tripping and practically falling through.

Pix was immediately overheating once he entered the Nether. Fortunately, he was in the same forest as the hoglin farm, although he was still quite a while away from it. But he was getting better at coordinating what way he went, which made the journey much better combined with the gold jewelry Joel lent him so that he wasn't attacked by the resident piglins. Not that Pix totally couldn't take them, but the insurance was nice. And the earrings didn't look half bad on him either.

He was already sweating all the way through his shirt halfway to the farm, and there were several occasions where he nearly fell off a cliff into the ocean of lava below. Trudging through the brush of the forest wasn't exactly easy, only exhausting him on top of making him even sweatier.

He was half ready to pass out when he finally found the farm. It smelt pretty awful, but he supposed he could deal with it long enough to get the emerald and leave. He just needed to find the work station, which... took way longer than he thought it would. The farm didn't look too large in his vision, but it turned out to be no less than a ginormous labyrinth of stinky, sweaty, snorting hoglins and smelly fungus.

Pix groaned and leaned against a fence post, breathing hard. "Where is this stupid-" He gasped when he spotted a flash of bright green in the corner of his eye. "-work station!" He rushed over and looked underneath the table, just like in his vision. And just like in his vision, there was the emerald.

But as he reached out to grab it, he was essentially pushed away by some invisible force and shoved into the wall of a hoglin pen. "What?" He got up and went to grab it again, ending up with the same results. "Why can't I-"

He was cut off when there was a painful ringing in his ears followed by a bright flash of light. Another vision. This time, he could see Fwhip with Lizzie and Joel, the three of them shouting at each other while the two security guards tried to calm them down. The vision ended zoomed up on Fwhip, leaving Pix breathless.

"I can't grab it because Fwhip has to," he gasped.

*°•☆ ● ☆•°*

"Why do I have to get it?" Fwhip asked at dinner. Pix had waited until then to tell anybody about it purely because he desperately wanted a shower after his excursion.

Pix sighed. "I don't know, but each time I tried to grab it, I was blasted backward into the stinky pig pen," he grumbled. "And I had a vision of you after my attempts, so I can only assume that you're meant to be the one that gets it."

"Then, that would mean that each person has their own gem to find," Joel murmured, and Pix nodded in confirmation. "I can't tell if that's better or worse."

"It could really go either way," Shelby said. "If one of them is in Nether, kilometres away from our portal, then there's the potential that there could be one all the way in the Sanctuary."

"Which is across the entire nation," Sausage sighed.

Lizze groaned. "Well, if Fwhip's is at Gobland's hoglin farm, then the rest of ours are probably in landmarks of the cities we grew up in," she complained. "I'm not going all the way back to Critter City for this."

"Liz, our powers are on the line here," Joey said."

"Scott is on the line," Jimmy added.

Fwhip gasped. "Wait, if we need to go across the country," he said, standing up, "then maybe I can get us all tickets for the Gobland Tram! It goes all over the country, even all the way to the Sanctuary and Dawn!"

"Wait, that's a really good idea, Fwhip," Sausage said with a smile.

"My dad owns the entire rail system, so I could probably get us all tickets for free, too."

"But will Ms. Luz even let us off campus?" Katherine asked.

Fwhip nodded. "She'll have to, it's to get out powers and Scott back."

"I don't know," Shelby said. "She didn't exactly permit you to go into the Nether earlier, and we won't be able to get away with all of us sneaking away to ride a train around the entire country like how you got away with sneaking into the Nether."

"We don't even know if they're on the other side of the country anyway," Joel said. "Well. Unless Pix tries to have another-"

"No," Pix interrupted, shaking his head. "No, no, no, I've had enough of those today, thank you."

Joel sighed. "Then we have no need to jump ahead of things," he said, and everyone seemed to relax just the slightest bit. "I think we all just need rest, especially Pix, and then we can continue talking about this in the morning, when we're actually energised."

A bunch of "I guess you're right"s and "Whatever"s went around the large table.

"I'm always right," Joel boasted jokingly, which very successfully lightened the mood.

The spent the rest of the evening hanging out , each of them slowly making their way to bed one by one as it got later.

"I should probably go check on Gem again," Fwhip sighed, getting up off the floor to stretch. "It's been, like, four hours since I saw her last."

"Okay," Sausage said softly, then yawned. "I think I might go with you."

Joel nudged Pix's arm. "It's 'cause they're gonna fuck," he whispered, being way too loud on purpose just to mess with them.

"Joel!" Fwhip shouted, his face redder than his hair.

The brunette in question burst out in laughter, falling over into Pix. "Please, it's so much funnier when you can actually tell that he's blushing," he wheezed, making Fwhip's face heat up even more.

The ginger huffed and turned around in mock anger. "Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, mini god," he pouted, then smiled as he walked away.

Lizzie rolled her eyes when Joel still continued to laugh, even five minutes later. "You're so silly," she said, shaking her head and smiling. "I think I might go to bed, as well."

"Goodnight, Lizzie," Shelby and Katherine said in unison, the two looking at each other and blushing.

Lizzie giggled. "Goodnight."

Before she could open the doors to the girl's dorm rooms, Fwhip burst through them again with tears in his eyes.

"I can't find Gem."

*°•☆ ● ☆•°*

LORE!!

Ahem. Sorry this chapter is a bit shorter. I didn't know how to continue the last scene so I just left it as a cliffhanger lol, my badddd /lh

Either way, I do hope you enjoyed the chapter and have a wonderful rest of your day, or evening. Love y'all!! <33 /gen/p

P.S. Thank you guys so much for all the happy birthday wishes, it means a lot!! <333 /gen