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cloudwhisper23 · 1 month

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Yet another entry for Grumbo Month! Event courtesy of @grow-bettah!

Day 6: Grumbot/Kids

Grian and Grumbot were not speaking to each other. Grumbot was actually pouting about it, leading Mumbo to believe that an argument had occurred somewhere.

But neither of them were willing to talk about it. Jrumbot tried to explain it once, describing how Grumbot thought Grian was overworking himself over the mayoral campaign.

That didn’t make much sense, of course, since Jrumbot was the one actually working with Mumbo on the campaign. He still had a point though, and after a day of allocating funds, Mumbo and Jrumbot paid a visit to Grumbot.

“I know you’re upset with Grian about something,” Mumbo started gently. “But we need to sort this out. What can I do to help?”

Grumbot scrunched his face as he responded. FATHER 1 DOES NOT WANT YOU TO HELP.

“Is that what you were fighting about?” Mumbo asked.

WE ARE NOT FIGHTING. HE DOES NOT WANT ANY HELP.

“Are you upset with Grian?” Mumbo tried.

NO.

Mumbo and Jrumbot exchanged a look before Jrumbot handed Mumbo his own piece of paper.

MAYBE FATHER 1 IS THE PROBLEM.

“Could be…” Mumbo mused. “Do either of you know where Grian is? Maybe I can sort this out.”

GRUMBOT HAS NOT SEEN HIM.

I’VE BEEN WITH YOU THIS WHOLE TIME.

Mumbo sighed. “I’ll go look for him.”

I WANT TO HELP.

“Do you have the communicator I made you?” Mumbo asked.

Jrumbot nodded.

“Good. We’ll split up and cover more ground. Let me know if you find him first.”

And so, the search was on.

Jrumbot was not expecting to find Grian on his own. He knew his role fell with administration and funding ideas more than anything else. Not that he figured Grumbot could do much better. The larger supercomputer could hardly move his moustache, much less his body.

Grumbot was definitely Grian’s favorite though. It didn’t bother Jrumbot too much, especially knowing that Mumbo secretly favored himself over Grumbot. That was just how things were.

When he heard the parrot, Jrumbot let himself feel hopeful. Maybe he was in the jungle? But it turned out to just be a bird. The parrot landed on Jrumbot’s head and squawked an imitation of Zedaph.

“What are you doing in there! Grian, you’re going to get hurt!”

Jrumbot paused. Scar had called Grian by name. Perhaps if he found Zedaph, he would find Grian? Jrumbot sent an inquisitive message to Zedaph’s communicator.

He got no response.

Jrumbot lifted the parrot from his head to cradle it in his hands. Grumbot knew how to speak parrot. Grian had taught it to him, after all. If Jrumbot brought the parrot to Grumbot, then maybe… Maybe Grumbot could ask where Grian was?

Grumbot and the parrot stared each other down. The clicking and chirping that Grumbot produced was not answered. It was a stare-down. Jrumbot beeped in disappointment, not realizing that the parrot bristled at the sound.

HE MUST HAVE TOLD THE WILDLIFE TO LET HIM BE AS WELL.

Jrumbot didn’t like that implication, crumpling the paper in his grip. If they couldn’t get help from the parrot, how could they find Grian? They just wanted to talk to him, after all.

Mumbo wasn’t having much luck. He’d looked all over the shopping district, half-hoping to catch a glimpse of Grian restocking the Barge. But Grian wasn’t there, and the Barge looked as though it hadn’t been stocked in days. There were signs complaining outside the entrances, and Mumbo had a bad feeling about it all.

Overworked. That’s what Grumbot believed anyway. Grian was overworking himself, and based on the fact that he wasn’t at the Barge, Mumbo could assume he was collecting resources somewhere. Maybe he’d even gotten hurt somewhere.

Mumbo’s hand twitched over his communicator. He’d already tried reaching out to Grian several times in the last few hours. He’d already failed to get a response. Another message wouldn’t change that.

Sighing, Mumbo traversed the tunnels to get to Grian’s nether portal. Maybe he was just working on his mega base again? He’d be easy to spot in the sky, surely. He did forget to charge his communicator on occasion as well.

“Oh! Mumbo! I’m so glad you’re here!” Zedaph grabbed his shoulders when he came out of the portal. “So, there’s been an incident.”

“What kind of incident?” Mumbo asked.

“So, I have this cave where I’ve been building all kinds of contraptions, and Grian was a bit curious. Naturally, I offered him a tour. But, something went wrong.”

“Zed. What are you saying?” Mumbo’s brow furrowed.

“A laser hit him, and he vanished. Grian’s gone, Mumbo.” Zedaph scratched his neck. “I’d like your help finding out what happened to him?”

Mumbo internally panicked as Zedaph explained. What had happened to Grian? How was it possible to accidentally make a hermit disappear?

“I can certainly try my best to help. Where did this happen?” Mumbo sent a quick update to Jrumbot to let him know that they had a lead.

“Follow me. I was going to send you a message, but my communicator died. And Xisuma hasn’t been on yet, so I haven’t gotten his input yet either.”

“You said you didn’t know exactly how it happened?” Mumbo asked, frowning as he studied the tunnel.

“Yeah! Weird that I couldn’t see how he activated it from inside, much less how it made Grian just vanish like that.”

Mumbo stepped into the tunnel in front of the laser, crouching down to get a closer look. “So-“

Somewhere, he could hear the laser powering on.

“Oh, no! Mumbo, get out of there!” Zedaph exclaimed, and Mumbo tried to get out of the tunnel, but the beam of light hit him squarely in the back.

The world seemed a lot bigger all the sudden.

“Mumbo?” Zedaph peered into the tunnel. “Mumbo are you..? Oh.” Zedaph watched the grey parrot hop out of the tunnel into his hands. “Oh. Okay. Uhhhhh.” He chuckled nervously. “Well, the good news is, we know what happened to Grian. Bad news is… it’s not meant to do that. So, I don’t know how to reverse it.”

Mumbo let out a startled squawk. “See, the main problem I realize I’m facing is that I can’t speak parrot. So whatever you just said…”

Mumbo’s feathers stood on end at that. He was clearly irritated with Zedaph’s antics. “Uhhh, you know what? Let’s go find someone who speaks parrot! My first thought would’ve been Grian, but considering that he’s probably also a parrot right now…”

Mumbo squawked again. Another parrot squawked back from near the entrance of Zedaph’s cave. He turned, and the red parrot squawked again from its place on Jrumbot’s head.

“Ah, and who are you?” Zedaph asked, tilting his head. “I don’t believe we’ve met yet, little friend.”

Jrumbot handed him a sheet of paper.

“Jrumbot, huh? Do you happen to speak parrot, by any chance?”

“Grian, you’re going to get hurt!” the parrot on Jrumbot’s head supplied.

“Oh no…” Zedaph winced. “Uh, good news, Mumbo?”

Mumbo’s wing twitched, clearly already aware of the fact that Grian was the parrot sitting on Jrumbot’s head. Jrumbot gave Zedaph another piece of paper.

“Grumbot? He knows how to understand parrots?” Zedaph seemed hopeful. “Well, that’s good news. Hey, Mumbo, since you’re small, maybe you can investigate what’s been triggering the laser. It’ll help me tons if I can disable it to see if there’s a way to reverse this mess I’ve put you and Grian into.”

WE WILL SORT THIS OUT. DON’T MAKE THINGS WORSE.

Zedaph frowned at the paper. “Well, I can certainly stay out of the way if that’s what you desire. So long as you don’t make things worse, I suppose it couldn’t hurt…”

Jrumbot nodded aggressively.

“Alright! I wish you all luck with this. Hopefully things get better. Again, I’m terribly sorry about all this.”

With Zedaph gone, Jrumbot let the other parrot perch on his shoulder before hurrying back to Grumbot’s platform.

THIS IS NOT GOOD.

Jrumbot nodded as Mumbo chirped earnestly. They seemed to be coming up with a plan, even if Jrumbot still couldn’t figure out the plan. Grumbot tried to include him in the conversation, but there wasn’t much else they could do. Ideally, Grumbot would be in the mobile body, able to follow any instructions that Mumbo gave him so things could get better.

Grumbot seemed content with the end of the conversation, though. He gave Jrumbot one last piece of paper with instructions.

YOU GO INVESTIGATE THE MACHINE. MUST SEE IF IT’S A LIVE TRIGGER OR NOT.

Jrumbot nodded wearily. The laser probably couldn’t turn him into a parrot. Not in this scenario anyway.

He was still paranoid about it, even as he peered into the tunnel leading to the laser. Mumbo had hopped off his shoulder to give him more space, but Grian stubbornly refused to be anywhere but on Jrumbot’s shoulder.

The laser stirred again, indicated by a frightened squawk from outside the tunnel, and a flash of light shot straight into Jrumbot. Shuddering, Jrumbot rebalanced himself against the reaction of light that hit him. The redstone in his system desperately tried to reset itself as something knocked him to the ground.

“Sorry, Jrumbot.” Grian helped Jrumbot get out of the tunnel as he tried to process the fact that Grian had returned to normal.

Mumbo chirped at Grian, who chuckled slightly. “I had a suspicion about it, same as you. I think Jrumbot broke it though.”

Mumbo squawked reproachfully.

“Don’t you worry, Mumbo. We’ll get you right back to normal as soon as we figure out how to fix the machine.” Grian peered down the tunnel. “There wasn’t a tripwire, from what I could tell. But at least it didn’t have any effect on Jrumbot. Which, by the way, I don’t approve of that decision. Jrumbot is a child, Mumbo!”

Mumbo chirped something back.

“Robot children are still children, Mumbo. But we can argue that once we get you back to normal. You’re not used to being a bird, are you?”

Mumbo didn’t respond to that one.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Okay! So how do we go about fixing this?”

Mumbo flew to land on Grian’s shoulder. Grian’s head feathers brushed against the side of Mumbo’s head as he crawled back into the tunnel. “Let’s see what we can do here…”

Grian wasn’t having much luck. He and Mumbo discussed the possibilities for hours, but even tinkering with the laser had not reactivated it. “Jrumbot, any chance you have an idea?”

Jrumbot clicked very slowly.

“Jrumbot? Aw, man. Mumbo, I think it messed with Jrumbot’s circuitry when he went into the tunnel.” Grian paused. “Wait, that’s probably it! Jrumbot probably neutralized it! Hang on, maybe he needs to get back in there.” Grian’s wings curled tight against his back. “Jrumbot? How do you feel about helping us try something?”

Jrumbot stared at him.

“Look, I don’t like it either, but it may set you back to normal. And if we send Mumbo the parrot in with you…” Grian scratched his neck nervously. “We could probably get Mumbo back to normal too.”

Jrumbot seemed to sag, but he made his way back over to the tunnel. Mumbo moved to perch on Jrumbot’s shoulder as he went back in. Grian listened as the laser reactivated, and he had so many more questions as Mumbo came out of the tunnel dragging an even more broken Jrumbot behind him.

“Well.” Mumbo raised an eyebrow. “That was…”

“I wonder if there’s some way to put a grate over that,” Grian said. “Oh, you’ve got feathers in your hair. Here-“

Grian pulled the grey feathers out of Mumbo’s hair and tucked them safely into his inventory.

“I think it’s safe to say redstone disrupts the laser.”

“Specifically, the stuff you put in Jrumbot’s brain.”

Mumbo snorted. “Sure. We’ll just say that. I’m going to leave Zedaph a note, and you are not going to mess with machines that you’re not involved in.”

“Ha ha.” Grian crossed his arms. “It’s not my fault redstone always goes wrong when I’m around.”

“Usually, it is, actually.”

Grian’s wings twitched. “Not always.”

Mumbo sighed, kneeling beside Jrumbot to open up his chest cavity. “At least you never seem to break Jrumbot or Grumbot. I think we’d have issues if you did that, mate.”

“Yeah. Although, I suppose this does count as breaking Jrumbot.”

“Not really. Zedaph’s machine broke Jrumbot.”

“I think that was almost a compliment.”

Mumbo’s mustache twitched as he smiled. “A compliment? For you? Nah, couldn’t be.”

“You wound me, Mumbo.” Grian shook his head. “All these insults. It’d be a shame if I went to your base and poked into your redstone.”

Mumbo paused. “You wouldn’t.”

“You know I would.”

Mumbo looked wearily at Grian. “Break my redstone and you’ll find someone accidentally blowing up creepers at your mansion.”

Grian’s eyes gleamed. “You can try.”

“I never said it’d be me.”

“You wouldn’t send Jrumbot to do your dirty work.”

“Wouldn’t I?” Mumbo resumed repairing the redstone inside the little robot.

“Fair enough.” Grian shook his head. “I’ll send Zed a message. He shouldn’t be shunned from his base for much longer.”

“I was surprised when Jrumbot kicked him out in the first place,” Mumbo answered.

“I was too. Do you think he thought of it as a family bonding exercise?”

Mumbo hesitated. “…Maybe? I mean, considering how he calls us his dads-“

“Just like Grumbot.”

“Right. Considering how we have two robot children, maybe we should do more activities with them. Just so they can feel more real.”

“And hopefully that’ll stop them from being rude to other hermits.” Grian mused thoughtfully. “Hey, Mumbo. How long do you think it would take to draft up a body for Grumbot? So he can move around when he wants to.”

“Uhhh, probably a few weeks. I’d need to be able to make him still function in a more compact form. He’s not like Jrumbot, you know.”

“Because Jrumbot’s specialized, right?”

“Right. Grumbot isn’t specialized, but he can still do a lot.”

“I suppose that makes a lot of sense.” Grian pondered it for another moment. “That could be a bonding activity.”

“What? Making Grumbot a body?”

“Yeah! I mean, you said it would take a while, so maybe Jrumbot and I could help you in some way. And you could build it on Grumbot’s platform so he can see and give his input as well.”

“You know, that isn’t a bad idea.” Mumbo looked at Grian in surprise. “It would certainly take away from the mayoral campaign, but-“

“I’m sure we could say something to Grumbot about redirecting our focus. He’d understand if it was family, surely.”

“Maybe…”

“We don’t have to drop out of the race, Mumbo. But we can start dropping hints that it wouldn’t be an issue if you lost.”

“Let him down gently, huh?” Mumbo mused.

“Exactly.”

“I suppose…” Mumbo sat back from his task, redstone clinging tightly to his fingers. “We could lean into it more, you know.”

“Lean into what?” Grian asked.

“The whole… family thing?”

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

Mumbo’s mustache twitched. “We’re already their dads. But maybe they’d feel more comfortable as a family if we were also husbands?”

Grian never felt his face heat up so fast. “Are you proposing to me?”

“Maybe I am. Is that a problem?”

Grian stared at his best friend. Mumbo didn’t seem to have any qualms about being bound to Grian for the rest of his life. For the sake of two little robots.

“I have no problem with it,” Grian said, trying to keep his voice even.

“Great. We’ll get that sorted out as soon as Jrumbot’s back up and running.”

Mumbo really planned to marry him. Grian wondered if there was some way he could make Mumbo regret that.

Walking to stand behind Mumbo, Grian peered down at him.

“Grian,” Mumbo lifted his head to look up at Grian, stretching so far back his neck was fully exposed. “What are you up to?”

“You have redstone in your hair,” Grian replied, sliding his talons over Mumbo’s scalp. “If we’re going to do the whole marriage thing, you are going to have to deal with my grooming.”

“Is this like preening wings?” Mumbo asked.

“You don’t have wings, Mumbo. I have to make do with your ridiculous hair.”

“My hair isn’t nearly as ridiculous as yours!” Mumbo grabbed Grian’s wrist to duck away from the gentle scratching on his scalp. “I know what you’re doing.”

“Do you?” Grian’s eyes twinkled. “Enlighten me, dearest.”

Mumbo’s mouth dropped open as he sputtered. “Unbelievable. You’re insufferable, you know that?”

“You’re the one who proposed, not me.” Grian shot back.

“I- You-“ Mumbo ran his own hand through his hair.

“Aw, now you’ve gone and ruined all my work.” Grian pulled Mumbo’s hand away from his head. “Just stay put and let me handle this.”

“I can’t believe you.”

“I can’t believe I’m willing to put up with you. Messy man. Messy, messy man. I’m going to have so much work cleaning up after we’re married.”

“Redstone is a pain to clean,” Mumbo agreed, sticking his hands back into the wiring.

“Lucky for you, I’m not very easy to get rid of.”

“Very lucky for me.” Mumbo sighed happily as Grian brushed the redstone out of his hair. “I could get used to this.”

Grian cooed at that. “You’re going to have to, Mumby.”

“Mumby, huh?” Mumbo laughed. “Are we going to be the couple that uses pet names?”

“We can be if you want.”

Mumbo shook his head. “I cannot believe you.”

“You said that already.”

“I needed to reinforce my point.”

Grian paused in his work to put his head on top of Mumbo’s, wrapping his wings loosely around his friend. Or rather, his fiancé.

To think this all started because Grumbot called them dad. Grian would have to get him a present for that at some point.

He cooed again at the thought of his new little family.

Grian just couldn’t help but be excited.

#grumbo month #grumbo #hermitshipping #grian #mumbo jumbo #zedaph #grumbot #jrumbot #cloud writes

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