Dioptase's POV:

"There are newcomers, aren't there?" I asked one of the guards. "That came from a portal?"

He looked uncomfortable. "Yeah... there are."

"How many of them? What is their reason for coming here?" I had a million questions to ask.

"You'd have to ask someone else," the guard muttered, avoiding my gaze. "I don't know much. I think they went to the visitation center. They could be there still, although it's getting late."

I hurried past him and jogged through the endless corridors in the laboratory, making sure to stay away from any of the leaders. They'd become suspicious immediately the second they saw I was leaving the lab.

Taking one last look behind me to make sure I wasn't being followed, I pushed open the side door and entered the Galena visitation center. I approached the front desk, where the male twin was working. Malachai, his name was.

He looked up and gasped. "Dioptase? What are you doing outside of the laboratory?"

"I need to know about those visitors," I snapped, knowing that he would cave in to me. He was instructed to follow any orders from a higher being. "Who are they, and what do they need?"

Malachai thought for a second. "I don't know, but they came from the Ruxomar portal. They had Gaines with them, apparently. Do you remember Gaines?"

"Yes," I answered, recalling the time that a man had not only escaped Galena, but had escaped this realm altogether, a feat nobody understood. "I need to see them, now."

Malachai wrinkled his nose. "You? Why? That's the job of the leaders."

I let out an impatient sigh. "I need to know more about them, and the leaders seem to only be interested in Gaines. Now, tell me where they are. I'm a god! I'm supposed to help rule!"

The twin straightened suddenly, his eyes glazing over. "Gods are supposed to exist in theory only," he told me, reciting one of the ridiculous phrases the leaders liked to use.

I forced myself to stay calm. "Fine. If you won't tell me, then at least tell me what happened to Gaines."

Malachai seemed fine with telling me this. "He and the three gods went into the laboratory, probably to get their memories wiped."

I slammed my hands on the desk, making him jump. "GODS? THEY HAD GODS WITH THEM? WHO?"

"Their names were..." Malachai thought for a second, "Mianite, Ianite, and Dianite. Ruxomar's gods. They have no place here, so the leaders decided to get rid of them. But that's not a big deal, you shouldn't...."

He never got to finish his sentence, because I was already gone.

Dianite's POV:

I couldn't move. How did these people have so much strength that they could overwhelm a god? Three gods? It shouldn't have been possible, but these mortals seemed to do it with ease. I was filled with immense rage, but I didn't have anyone or anything to take it out on except myself.

"Are we just going to wipe all of their memories?" one of the people working at the lab asked a guard. "They might have information."

"Yes, you're right," the guard agreed, deep in thought. "But we can't risk Gaines escaping, and the information he has can be extracted through a machine. We can wipe his memory. The gods, on the other hand, will be asked questions. We might not wipe their memories at all, but instead limit their powers like we did to Dioptase.

"That's a good idea," the person said, flipping through a pile of papers sitting on a desk. "Gods are much wiser and older than mortals. They can be our allies." I decided that I would never be an allied with people like this, but I figured it was best to go with it for now, as long as it would keep me alive.

Mianite, Ianite, and I were taken into a large room with dozens of intimidating-looking machines. Now, mind you, I had seen and built plenty of complex machines in my time, but this was on another level. I had never seen anything like it. There was a worker behind every single machine, and they barely looked up when we entered. Was this a normal thing for them? Did gods just come into their world every day and fall subject to these machines? I was disgusted. 

"Welcome, you three." A tall man entered the room, wearing a suit the same color as the eerily spotless white walls. He smiled at us, but it looked like someone had taken the corners of his mouth and forcefully yanked them upwards. I disliked him immediately. 

"Shall I give them the ability to speak?" one woman working a machine asked. When she got approval, she typed something on a strange-looking keyboard and pressed a button. "They are now able to move the lower half of their faces. I'll restrain everything else."

"You haven't hurt the others, have you?" Ianite croaked, the first god to speak. 

"No, no." The man put on a pair of glasses and squinted at her. "Alternate of Iolite, I see. Interesting. Anyway, I'll have you know that everyone except Gaines was sent off to the visitation center, where they can make themselves comfortable. The Deviser has been sentenced to... well, I shouldn't say. It's just the punishment for traitors. As long as these newcomers follow our rules, they are free to live peacefully in our city."

"Well, we haven't hurt you," Mianite pointed out. "Why do we have to have our memories wiped?"

"If you cooperate," the man sighed, "Then you will be free to live as normal human beings. Well, sort of. You'll have to live in the laboratory."

"Will we be able to see any of the people we came with?" I blurted out. Ianite was in a relationship with Spark, as far as I knew, but I was only thinking of Mot when I said that. 

The man raised an eyebrow. "You may see them, but we'll have to keep a close eye on you as you interact. Galena rules."

"Okay," I replied, my voice barely a whisper. At that moment, I just wanted to embrace Mot, show him that I was alive and remembered him, and tell him that everything would be okay. But I guessed that I wouldn't be able to for quite some time. 

As I was aching to be alongside my boyfriend, the door flew open. The man jumped, and all of the workers spun around immediately. Clearly, there weren't supposed to be any visitors during that time, but that didn't stop a scrawny, paler version of me from entering the room. 

Iolite's POV:

Someone knocked on the door sharply. "Come in," I called, knowing exactly who it was. 

The door swung open, and a woman with  wavy blond hair walked in. Her blue eyes bore into mine as she sat down in the chair across from me, a permanent scowl on her otherwise beautiful face. I knew it must be something urgent, because she preferred to contact me through machinery. Face-to-face conversations weren't really her thing, and she let everyone know it. 

"Do you remember when I planted the hidden camera inside one of the rooms in the Galena laboratory?" Safire asked, tapping her fingers on the armrest. She always seemed nervous when she wasn't around her machines, perhaps because she didn't know what else to do with her hands. 

"Yes, I remember that. I thought it was just a storage room, of no use," I recalled. "I'm guessing that's changed?"

"There was a portal frame set up inside it," Safire said. "It was a portal leading to Ruxomar. Earlier today, about twenty mortals and three gods showed up through it. Can you guess who was with them?"

My mouth hung open. "Gaines came back? After everything?"

Safire nodded, an even darker look crossing her face. "I wish I could ask him why, and what information he knows, but, well..."

"Galena punished him, didn't they?" I gasped. When she nodded, I felt my heart beginning to pound. "Did they kill him?"

She shook her head. "Although, in his case, death would've been the better consequence."

I accidentally published half of this chapter early :P so yep here's the full thing, much later than I thought it would be. Welp