Xerean is floating. Her eyes are closed and she's got her legs crossed, mentally and not-exactly-spiritually-but-something-similar-ally stretching herself out through the wall that they call reality and seeking for something, something beyond. Either power, magic, an entity, the Rift, Jabber...anything. She doesn't see much, only black and odd, cyan and greenish threads, which Grian and Xisuma told her are Code. Some of this threads are frayed or snapped, waving loosely through the dark expanse, those ones being what she assumes to be Grian's handiwork. Now, she's been at this for about an hour, Grian just said he managed to 'wedge a little more free', so she's taking advantage of the new flow of power to seek out what's making this all happen and see how long she can keep this up. There's many different variations of magic usage; something like this doesn't take up much, but it makes you test endurance as it starts to waver. She could see how easy it is to pick up a tree with telekinesis, or move that heart above the Heart foundation, teleport, summon an object...they'd all take different amounts of power. In the distance, she spots a sort of purple and angry light. There isn't a set color to it, hence the 'angry' description(No human's seen a color like this and identified it, so emotions will have to do). She also notes the threads appear to congregate and attach to it. Curiously, she heads over in that direction, now seeing it to be a sort of eye shaped object, which suddenly fixates on her, a slitted, dark, dark stormy blue pupil like one would give a demon or a wild, reptilian beast in the middle. She hears it screech, tendrils reaching out to grab her, so she reacts as she always has to eldritch, otherworldly threats: attack. She makes a shield, then shoves it at the eye and moves it sideways in an attempt to at the very least graze it. Instead, it sinks a good way in, making it shriek at her again. A tendril whips out and strikes her across the back and wraps around her arm. It feels like a burn, digging fire and needles into her flesh. She screams, severing the connection, and suddenly drops the few feet it is to the ground, wincing. "Ow." She says, sitting up and rubbing her arm. The burning has subsided, but when she moves the sleeve up, there's definitely something there: a purple, snaking whip of a burn and purple up her arm. Fun. She has a little bit of power left, so she uses it to reverse what she can of the damage. It's then she hears the whispers beginning to gather, which means her Task is about to come up. She sighs, rolling her shoulders, one of which pops faintly, and lets the paper fall into her lap. Opening it, she almost immediately closes it after she gets the gist of it.

Once again, Xerean is being paired with Martyn for the Session.

Why does this keep happening??

This is the second time! And the first time, it didn't end out well for either of them, because technically she failed and they both died. But, there it states, scrawled in Galactic which she still sometimes struggles with: "You are Martyn's assistant. Help them all Session. You may let them in on this Task." She groans. Are they really all that random? As a side note, it adds that Cleo is unaware of her Task, but everyone else knows it, that being 'stand in different patches of flowers and spin.' She sits up and stretches, having stayed the night with Grian and his team. She might go back to her bunker, but only if she knows Scar isn't close. Apparently Grian wasn't supposed to hit the Succeed button last Session, and Etho simply failed and had to re-roll according to his Task's rules, so they've gone off to do that. Another thing that she missed last Session was apparently, Jimmy accidentally killed Lizzie, so she's on red now, too. Cleo must be out trying to figure out her Task. Time for her to go find Martyn. She can hunt down Grian later, and he might know how to fix Watcher burns.

Scar's made walls, it appears, and she watches as Cleo tries to set fire to it, before Scar frantically puts it out. Bdubs and Impulse are there, too, so maybe they're all doing something or other. Not that it's her concern anymore, is it? She skirts around the area, and heads over to the doghouse, named literally for the corgi(she assumes) theme the shack has. Baxter is its name, if she remembers. "Jimmy!" She calls, knocking on the door. She could have just entered, but she figured it'd be nicer to knock. There's a door for a reason. He answers, looking a bit worn out. Still full of energy, but his hair looks more ruffled and his clothes have certainly seen better days. And as with all other Lifers, there are dark bags under his eyes, the sign that none of these people ever get enough sleep. "Yeah?" He replies. "Have you seen Martyn?" He thinks. "He went off to go check his Task, that way, I think." He yawns, leaning with one arm against the doorway and pointing over to where Grian's egg was. "Okay thanks!" She says, and the two share a wave as she departs. She spots Martyn striding off near Scar's, so she heads over. "Hello." He says, still reading his Task, before putting it away. "Looks like something wants the two of us together. Again. Here." He looks at her, confused, then takes the paper and reads it. "You seem to be enthusiastic about this." He observes, handing it back to her. "You don't know the half of it." She replies tiredly. She's still trying to process emotions from her death, failing to save Martyn, discovering Scar's becoming one of her people, and then him...casting her out? She isn't sure what to call it. He's been acting strangely, and she has no doubt it's connected to the powers. While she's built mentally and physically to handle the stress and effects being what she is puts on her, Scar is anything but. She has to deal with severe intrusive thoughts, limit what she can and does do in order not to hurt people, and keep her emotions in check almost constantly. Not to mention, she knows better than ANYONE, a Chaos Witch who's powerful, inexperienced, and full of high, negative emotions is not just a bad combination, they can be and are DEADLY. And that's just the mental part. She can make gravity and physics bend to her will, but there is still legitimate strength and acrobatics and all those cool agility and flexibility-based moves she sometimes does involved. She couldn't pull Martyn up mostly due to gravity and her weaker state, but she's still much stronger than she should be. And while Scar himself is quite strong, he isn't AS strong. In addition, she doesn't question his flexibility, only his practice in contortion and overextension. He could damage himself as easily as he could another person, if not more so. "Alright. Well, it shouldn't be too hard. I'm not going to like, make you do my dirty work or anything. And this gives me that chance to understand you better, eh?" He tells her, to which she shrugs. He's welcome to do so, since evidently she can't herself.

He wanders around, mostly either silent or making the barest of conversation, until he asks her an actual question. "You mentioned you got a headache to me twice. Both times were when someone hit the buttons at the Secret Keeper. And then, when Grian specifically hit his last Session, you looked like you were in more pain than before. What's wrong? Is it the sound?" She stays quiet, caught off-guard. Scott already was aware of her powers and therefore she had some more wiggle room to tell him, but Martyn is none the wiser to the powers at play here. At least, she assumes not. Otherwise Grian would have most likely told her. At least, she hopes he would have. And admittedly, she hasn't much a read on what or who's behind the curtain here, either. Grian admitted that the Watchers, or at least two or so of them, make these Life Series and the Code he is tasked to maintain, but other than that, he, too, is unaware of who could ultimately have a part in all of this. "I don't know what it is specifically. But yeah, something about those buttons just doesn't like me." She answers. "Hm." He doesn't press much further than that.

Martyn fulfills two of his Tasks, both stabbing Xerean's arm and head with pain when he presses the button, but makes her that little bit stronger. Martyn seems to have picked up on the fact she still hasn't spoken to Scar and somewhat avoids him. At some point, Bdubs dies, apparently he, Impulse, and Scar were playing a game of Chicken(Martyn had to explain it to her; she didn't understand the concept) when Scar shoved him into the lane where the zombies were. He has scars on his face and neck from their claws as a result. After they're halfway through day 3 of the Session, Mumbo dies in lava. "Oh! What was he doing??" Martyn wonders. He doesn't have to wait very long, as the vampire walks by and he stops him. "So I was helping Grian in the Nether, right? And I got on a Strider, but then realized, we didn't have anything to steer it with, and I was trapped over a lava lake. Grian tried to help me get off it and back onto some ground, but I uh, over-corrected and fell into the lava." He looks at his hands, which now have burns, as do a few spots on his face. "That sucks..." Xerean says, patting his shoulder. "Anyway, I should uh, go now. The sun's been affecting me a bit more, so I think I need to find a way to fix that." She nods, noting that she'll have to ask Grian about that later. "Right, then, come on. I'm thinking that I'm gonna go find Bdubs." Martyn says, and they set off again. A few hours later, they manage to track him down, and Martyn makes a deal with him, to do three hearts of damage to Scar. They don't have to wait long, as Scar appears with Impulse 10 minutes later. He sees her, but then proceeds to ignore her, which kind of hurts. She isn't sure when or if she should approach him again, but as both of them grow stronger, if she wants to ensure he doesn't get hurt or hurt anyone else, if she wants to fix this, she HAS to. They don't stick around all too much, only long enough for Bdubs to fulfill his deal, then they move on. On day five, things change.

There's a sudden clap of thunder, and the most intense pain Xerean has felt of her power spikes, causing her to stumble and fall to the ground, on her hands and knees. "What's wrong??" Martyn asks, confused but worried. "Get...back..." She hisses between clenched teeth, getting overwhelmed by the power surge. She needs to dispel some of the energy, or she'll pass out or some worse thing she can't think of due to pain might happen. He backs up, and she lets go a bit, allowing the ground below her ripple and turn to swirling glass with fiery branches throughout it, wings spreading from her back, and her hands elongating into claws. As much as she tries to release, she also wants to contain, so as to not damage anything or anyone. A minute passes, and it subsides, so she reverts the ground and herself to normal, breathing heavily. Her hands are shaking, and she doesn't feel tired in any way, but at the same time, like laying on the ground would be a nice idea right about now. "What was that–are you OKAY??" Martyn cries, tentatively coming back over. "What caused the roll of thunder?" She demands, without looking up. She's got this tingle running through her, something she recognizes as the pull of chaos. She's close, she's sure of it. "Lizzie's dead!" Martyn exclaims, and she finally looks up at him, easing herself off her arms. "She was red, though." Martyn nods. "She's gone, now, out of the series, with no more lives." She exhales heavily. So they get power when someone dies, too. Great. Skizz has died as well, becoming yellow, which they'd missed in her sudden outburst. "Now I want some straight answers. What exactly are you? You clearly aren't human." She stays silent for a while. "That's...I don't know if I can delve into that right now--" Luckily, she's saved by Jimmy, all smiles and pure exuberance, running over and hugging Martyn and her. "Lizzie's dead!" He sings, and when he embraces her, she feels as though something is...leaving him. She does the thing where she seeks out power and magic, and watches that pale yellow wispy stuff start to wane a bit. "He's been first to die on his red life up until now." Martyn explains as he watches Jimmy walk off. "That's certainly a reason to be happy, I suppose." Also quite concerning and sad. That has to be an awful feeling. Martyn nods in agreement. Then, he brightens. "I'm gonna go loot Lizzie." He announces. They're not too far from her base, anyway, but the fact he almost immediately decided to do that is...also very concerning. "She just died!" She objects. Is it morally wrong to loot a dead person who's not coming back?? Or is that normal here? "Yeah, so she's not gonna use it again. It's all up for grabs." He replies.

These guys are weird.

Eventually, they wander back around to spawn, where Xerean can sense something is wrong. Grian is talking to BigB and Scar, Etho dashing past them all at impressive speed. "Run!" He tells them, a nervous excitement to his voice. "Why??" Martyn hollers after him, and Xerean grabs his arm. "I think because of THAT." She points at the Warden lumbering forward at a great speed, making Scar, Grian, and BigB scatter, and Grian runs over to a nearby area, beginning to make a T shape out of Soul Sand. "Oh, no." She says, immediately realizing what's about to happen. "Grian, what have you done?!" She cries, and there spawns a Wither. Scar darts forward and attempts to shoot it, which merely angers the beast. It begins chasing him, Grian cackling either in some chaotic amusement or fear. Knowing him, it's highly likely that it's both. "We better run!" She shakes her head. "Uh, no, I'm staying. This is where I thrive, and this looks like the death of MANY people here." She heads for the middle of the action, constantly looking around for something to do. Everyone's descended into a panicked chaos, some people have formulated small groups(Scott, Impulse, and Gem, and Cleo and Etho are finding one another to try and make a plan with their respective teams), and the others are haphazardly attacking the Wither, which is still quite angry at Scar. The Warden is also present, running after players that get too close or make too much noise, so she decides, why not take that out? Before she can, though, Jimmy runs in front of it, attempting to get away, and gets hit with a direct blast. He disappears, a clap of thunder rolling in. As was the case when Lizzie died, she's brought down to her knees, then hears another clap of thunder and Grian's anguished cry. Mumbo's died, too. Great. She's almost frozen, under so much strain she can barely move, like a Time Lord with too much regeneration energy. "Xe!" Grian shouts, appearing beside her. She can't speak, she needs to do as she did earlier again, so rather than simply dispel it around her, she shoves it all into the ground directly below her and sends it away, ripping and tearing through the ground, before bursting up into the shape of a twisted, grey and black tree with leaves of ash. A common fire theme is going on, but it's just the first things she could think of to dispel the excess power. Grian covers her, ensuring that nothing comes over and hurts her while she's trying to manage this. It's a bit silly, she thinks, that as such a powerful being, she's struggling so much with this, but this is also uncharted territory. Finally, the agony subsides, and she can breathe again, almost leaning over and just falling into the Watcher. She manages to sit up, though. That tingle comes back, asking her to destroy or fight something. And she senses the difference, too: She knows this is it. "They're back. I'm back. It only took several weeks of headaches and three people dying, but I'm back." She grins weakly at the Avian, who nods, all business. "Right, we can sort all that out later, right now we need to take care of THAT." He points at the Wither, still chasing Scar, and the Warden, crawling around and smelling the air as it seeks the largest source of commotion. "Let me get the Wither off Scar's back, then we should get everyone to regroup at Love Island." She says, and then gets an idea. "Also here." She reaches out and brushes the side of his wing, allowing it to reattain its color again. Grian had told her that certain hybrid traits were hindered here, and one of those was his ability to fly. That'd be real useful for fighting the flying monster right about now. He shakes himself out, spreading and flapping his wings, and gives her an appreciative glance before taking to the air to round up the Lifers. She turns her attention towards the Wither. He's clearly getting a little tired by this point, face red and stride not as strong as it was about 15 minutes ago. She chases after them, using the uneven terrain to make leaps and bounds, before vaulting over someone's back(She thinks it was Tango) and taking that jump to collide with the Wither. All she needs to do is get it off Scar. Then he can get out and she'll meet back up with them at the base. The Wither shrieks, attempting to hit her, but since she's holding on to it, the creature's aim isn't the best. She takes a bone from its chest and whacks one of the heads with it, then promptly throws that same bone at the Warden, angering it. As it charges up to attack, she disappears, suddenly popping back up at the safe point. Most of the Lifers are there, a couple recovering from the wither effects and others catching their breath. "You can teleport now?!" Martyn exclaims, and now she feels a little bad for the unexplained confusion he's perpetually been put through up to now. "I can explain later. All you need to know is–oh, wait, there's two of you that don't know. Here. I'll tell the both of you: I can...warp reality? That's a very oversimplified thing, but that does cover it. So I can do a lot of things." Skizz just blinks, taking a moment to process this, and Martyn looks to be at a loss of words. "Anyway, I can explain later. Right now we have bigger problems." In the distance, the Warden screams, most likely still attacking the Wither. "Okay, so we'll take a few minutes to rest, but eventually, we have to go back in and kill at least the Wither, otherwise, it's never going away." Grian states, flapping his wings to get their attention. "I can handle the Warden." Xerean offers. "I feel like that's a given." Grian agrees. "Anyone got a few gapples or hearts to spare?" Scar asks tiredly. Without hesitation, Xerean gives him a heart, unsure what specific reason there was, only that she definitely had to give it to him. "Thank you." He says, not with any negativity, more a quiet resignation and appreciation. She chooses to seek him out after the Session ends, see if they can reconnect. Because if her powers are back in full, so too should his.

"Are we ready to hop in?" There's some scattered responses of nodded head and verbal 'yes'-es, so Grian nods. "Good luck!" He says, and as a sort of herd, they all make their way over to the Secret Keeper, where the two entities are still at odds. When they get close, they detach to go after the Lifers, and Xerean instantly barrels into the Warden with enough force that it rolls over. "Oi! Big, Dumb, and Ugly! Over here!" She yells clapping her hands. It snorts at her, stamping its hands into the ground and its glowing blue features pulse and flash warningly. "Oh, you mad? Come get me." She challenges. The monster charges at her, and she jumps, summoning a cool of rope to whip around its arm, then pulls herself forward to land on its opposite side, then goes under its next swing to get back. She makes a final loop around its wrists, then moves around behind its back and suddenly twists, having to avoid a stray Wither skull. This gives the Warden enough time to break free, whipping around and slapping her with the back of its hand. It kinda hurt, not just physically. In the corner of her vision, she can see Grian diving toward the Succeed button, whatever the Task was, it's been completed and he needs the hearts. He manages to hit the button, however at the very same moment, a Wither skull hits him and kills him, causing a disruption. It's not a physical one, but she can still FEEL a disturbance in the air. Grian's body disappears, despite the fact he's still there. It takes a moment, but she realizes something messed up and he no longer has a physical form. She seeks out what he's existing as, which appears to be some astral body, and wordlessly pulls it back, into the physical and tangible realm. Hoping that was the right choice, she turns her attention back to the Warden, who's seeking her out, having lost track of her when it hit her.

Her intent is to restrain it before it goes after someone else, then she'll send it back to the Deep Dark. Arguably, she could do that now, but she's trying to familiarize herself with her abilities again, some things still need a little tweaking. For example, her wings are a little mismatched, instead of the elegant brown ones she often has. After about 5 minutes of straight wrestling with the Warden, Xerean finally manages to pin it down. Everyone's just finished with the Wither, too, so she'll have to wrap this nice little tussle up. Just as she's about to, though, Scar yells, and descends upon her, driving a glowing green blade through its head. The Warden roars, bucking and thrashing as both he and Xerean keep it still, then goes still. The two slowly look at each other, one in shock and the other with a hard look in his eyes, keeping direct eye contact as he removes what she now recognizes to be a Lightsaber from its skull. She releases her hold on the Warden, burning the skulk off her hands. "I told you not to." She says, not sure whether she wants to yell it or keep talking quiet. "Well it worked, didn't it?" He replies coldly. When she doesn't reply, Scar walks away. Stepping back from the dead Warden, she looks back at the others. Scar isn't among them, instead he's waiting over by the Secret Keeper for the end of the Session. To her relief, Grian appears, diving down to land in front of her. "You killed it? I thought you were going to send it back to the–" "Scar killed it." She cuts him off quietly. Several other people have lost interest in the dead Warden and have gone over to congratulate Scar on killing it, or simply rest after such a large ordeal. "With a Lightsaber." Grian glances at the man. There's something noticeably different about him now, if it wasn't as prominent before. Scar seems darker, and not just because of the clear lack of sleep and his exhaustion from the Wither. He doesn't seem mad, but he's withholding something. The Lightsaber is a concern. "I'm gonna talk to him later. I can't sit by while he goes through this. If it's within my power, I have to help him." She hisses, still very worried he'll hold true to his threat of killing her, but still very against avoiding him. She has more experience with these powers, anyway, so surely she can at least deal with any attacks, if not stop them completely? "Save it for after the Session ends. Everyone's still getting over the craziness." She makes a face. "Of course after the Session ends." She assures him. She may be a bit blunt, but she's still capable of subtlety and discretion!

They gather with the rest to see how they're going, and Pearl slips Grian the Nether Star. Scar deliberately stays far away from her, and Martyn stands right beside her. "I swear, if you tell me that I owe you an explanation, I will punch you." She warns him, clearly seeing it on his face. Wisely, he keeps silent. The past hour was very stressful and so much happened that she's only just actually realizing the fact that Jimmy, Lizzie and Mumbo are gone. They aren't coming back. Scar's acting weird, her powers are BACK, Grian did a weird Doctor Strange thing, and she fought and wrestled a Warden to the ground. All in all, plenty to think about. Martyn suddenly stiffens, something cold enveloping him, then abruptly seems to snap back into focus, blinking and looking around, perturbed. New thing, cool. Love it. Her attention drifts to Scar. He's watching Grian intently, who's chatting with Tango. Speaking of Tango, she thinks something is up with him as well. His ears are pricked and moving a lot, meanwhile his tail is still. Usually, Tango's ears are still and his tail is more expressive. And she swears that she heard Ren at some point in the one sentence she heard him speak.

She keeps getting distracted–Scar. She needs to talk to him. Once everyone decides to depart as always, recuperating at their own homes, she follows the poncho-wearing man. She only calls out to him once they're both inside the walls. "Scar!" He stops, then turns around, gaze unfriendly. "What?" He growls. She inhales, then starts speaking. "I don't know what's going on with you, and if I legitimately did something wrong, I'm sorry, but you know me well enough to know I'm not dangerous. Not to you. You aren't MEANT for these abilities, and I worry they'll either break you, corrupt you, or kill you. I want to help. Let me help." Scar stays silent the whole time, then remains that way a few moments after. "I don't want or need it. I'm doing just fine." He replies, turning back around. "Now get out." She refuses, following him. "You used a Lightsaber to kill a Warden. What about the headaches? The pain when someone dies? Do you manage those fine?" He stops on his steps. "Fine enough to not need you. Get. Out." She doesn't move. "I'm not leaving you, Scar. We need to get to the bottom of this, and if I don't know what's happening with you, I can't find a way to stop it." She insists. "I told you to get out!" Scar yells, and a bursts of some magenta-purple-fuscia sort of energy hits her, shoving her back and outside the walls' border. "Set foot in here again, and I WILL end you." He warns, before disappearing into his shop. She exhales sharply, then shakes out the flowy part of her dress-coat thing and walks away.

The tears refuse to fall this time.