The Task is to 'Win Secret Life'.

They make it sound so easy.

Xerean inhales deeply, pressing her thumb into her wrist, rubbing it in circles. She's anxious, definitely, but some emotions she's not understanding the origin of have started to appear in her head; finding her rock-solid, iron-hard will against killing these people is slipping. She's finding more and more will to fight Scar, and she's scared of that. What if she actually wins? And kills him? The notion terrifies her. "Alright, it's time. You ready? From here on out, we're going to be fighting. At the end of the week, only one of the people here will still be alive. It might be you." Grian states, coming up beside her. They're perched on the tower, having started to prepare it as a base when the fighting actually starts. "I'm gonna have to be, won't I?" She answers, watching Tango and Skizz walk around below. "We're running out of time, Xe. I doubt Scar would let me do this for you, even if I tried." Grian finishes putting down the dripstone around the walls, to hopefully deter anyone climbing the ladder or whoever may try to tower up themselves. He lands beside her, peering over the edges to ensure it's easily defendable. "You're used to having to kill him. To kill them. You've accepted it as normal. I haven't." She refuses to. Sure, these people are a bit strange here, even the ones she knows well, and as a being that has outlived them all already and seen plenty of universes where death is common, she should be fine with this. Grian has promised they'll go back home, but experiencing it herself and her own intentions and convictions are making it a conflicting subject. Grian nods, hopping back up onto the edge. "It isn't much easier, to be honest. But I see your point. I think, at least for the first while, we could just watch what happens, and then, when Scar makes a move, we can play it by ear." He offers. He's doing his best to accommodate her, but she does realize she'll have to make the effort to fight Scar on her own. "Okay." She takes a deep breath, then spreads her own pair of wings. "I'm going to go find Martyn. Anyone who can help us right now is useful." She decides. Martyn might be willing to help them, now that he's aware of what's going on. "Okay. I'll go visit Cleo and Etho, see where they're at." Grian dives off the tower, banking to go search for their allies. Meanwhile Xerean heads over to the dog house, where Martyn's taking inventory, digging and sorting through his chests and pausing to inspect something before keeping or discarding it. "Martyn?" She asks, rapping on the door, and he comes outside to talk with her. "Yeah?" He replies. "I'm coming to offer you into the alliance, mostly because you know more of what's going on." She starts, and when he doesn't immediately say no, continues. "Scar wants a fight. I'm not all too willing to do that. Protect you lot, absolutely, but I worry I won't be able to bring myself to hurt him. And as much as I don't like it, my pride can take the blow in order to admit that I definitely don't have much, if any faith that I'll be able to kill him, and will undoubtedly need help either way." He nods slowly. "Alright. Yeah, I could do that. I'll just get some stuff and I'll–where should I meet you?" Xerean waves a wing at the tower. "We've been making a little base up there. Check in with Grian, Cleo, or Etho first, otherwise they might shoot you, but that's where we'll most likely be." She answers. Saying goodbye, she heads off to stay at the tower. That's where she spends the majority of the next two days, just physically and mentally preparing, or flying around to check in with her team. All the while, something keeps pulling at the back of her mind, increasingly insistent, demanding to be acknowledged, but there's something else that keeps her from actually reaching it whenever she tries. Weird, but she has bigger fish to fry.

It's the third day when they reach the first death. Xerean's collecting arrows for Grian, fighting skeletons rather than just making the arrows herself. The skeletons no longer recognize her as a player, so they don't attack her, and she's pretty good at one-shotting them anyway. Then, a dramatic boom of thunder rolls through the air, that pain returns, fiery and intense; though she manages to keep on her feet this time, she's still unable to move through it. Someone's gone. Dead, and she wasn't ready. As soon as the paralysis of agony is over, she immediately looks for Grian, who seemed to have the same idea, already in the sky looking for her. "Tango died!" He tells her when she gets close enough, causing Xerean's wings to skip a beat. "Was it naturally, or was it a kill?" She asks. She can't immediately assume the worst. "I don't know, I don't know where he died or who he was with!" He cries, and she checks the notifications. There's several people reacting to the death, and the death message itself:

Tango fell from a high place whilst trying to escape GoodTimeWithScar

She looks up at Grian. "Didn't you check the death message?!" She says, looking around. "I did! It only says he fell from a high place, which could be either!" She frowns. "It tells me Scar was attacking him, he was trying to escape." The Avian frowns as well. "I didn't mess with the communicators, did I?" She gives him a questioning look, but he's already diving for Gem's tower. She keeps guard while he searches for what may have caused the issue in the Code, returning about 30 minutes later. "It wasn't me, but someone's been trying to do something to the communicators. I can't tell if they just want to alter messages, turn off death notifications, or shut them down entirely, but someone's done something." He states. "Is there any reason your Watcher buddies would do that?" Grian shrugs, then shakes his head. "They want us to kill one another. They set these up. Why would they mess with it, and not with what I've been doing instead?" He points out. "Well, if it isn't detrimental to our survival, we may as well leave it. I doubt we have the time for it, anyway." She sighs. Her anxiety is high, if Scar's the one who killed Tango, does that mean he's going to start coming for other people? "We should go get the others." She says, specifically looking for Cleo and Etho. Above all others, except maybe Martyn, those are the two most in with the plan. "Oh, look, there's Skizz–Scar's chasing him!" Grian says suddenly, both of them launching off to follow. Grian has an eye on the two men, so she follows him for a few moments until she finds them as well. They're heading for Love Island, Skizz clearly running for his life, looking hurt. He's holding one arm and there's angry red marks along his arms in general. Focusing on Scar, she notes the way he's running after him. He isn't pursuing aggressively, still at a good pace, but he's drawing this out for a reason. This is a choice; she's seen Dream do similar things when he was pursuing Tommy. In the end, Skizz will run out of energy from running, and in that vulnerable state, Scar will strike. So Xerean needs to stall him, therefore giving Grian time to get Skizz out. Xerean summons a set of javelins, throwing them past Scar to block his path, making him skid to a stop and look behind him. "Oh, there you are! You're late, I killed Tango already! We even waited for you!" Scar calls as Grian shoots past, taking Skizz and hauling him up into the sky before throwing an Ender Pearl to disappear. "I couldn't have come any earlier because I didn't know where you were, or that you would target Tango!" She points out, beating her wings to stay in place. 'Stall and get Skizz somewhere Scar can't see him' is her main goal, here, so any banter that keeps him still is welcome. "He made an enemy of me, and it's been a long time coming, for both of us. I just helped the process." He replies, shrugging. "And in any case, this is the last Session. Someone had to start the deaths." Scar pulls one of the spears out of the ground, then throws it at her, forcing the Chaos Witch to direct it up and away from herself. Scar proceeds to do the same thing with the next two, then jumps at her himself while she's trying to deal with them. They fall out of the sky and land in the water, Xerean shifting to a more aquatic form to accommodate the new biome. Scar punches her, before she can bring her hands up to block the attack. It's enough to wake her combative mindset, though, spinning to slip out of his hold and moving back. He immediately goes for her again, now with a tail, scales, and webbed hands of his own. Xerean braces herself, then dives down and behind him at the last moment, deliberately smacking him in the side with her tail. Not to hurt him, but just knock the wind out of him. Scar tries again, the two chasing one another around Love Island for about 30 seconds before Scar suddenly appears in front of her, pulling her back when she veers to the left. Kicking him with both legs in the chest, she breaks away and starts attempting to lose Scar in the water via distance, although she doesn't have much space to escape. She needs to exit the water entirely, then. Disappearing into a small dot, she reappears over by the burned egg and strange stairs that were Grian's original base, taking the moment to catch her breath. She can see Grian at the tower; his wings aren't hard to miss, so she assumes the rest of them are there, too. Probably also Skizz. For now, her goal is either distract Scar long enough for them to do something, or make him disengage, even if only temporarily. Already, he's managed to take three of her hearts, solely from the tackle and momentary brawl in the water, and she's not got a way to get them back.

After a few moments pass, she begins to wonder where Scar is, then sees him climbing out of the water on the other side of the river, back near Sunflower Valley. He turns to look at her, then walks over to the wall of his base, and then through it. Is he backing off? Or trying to trick her? Xerean's not interested in finding out, immediately making her way over to the tower. She was right, the others were already there, as is Skizz. "He let you go?" Grian says, confused. "No, I think he's doing something. In the meantime, I think it'd be wise to warn the others about what's going on, or at least tell them to avoid Scar." They admittedly should have done so from the very start, as they'd attempted to do last Session. She sits on the edge of the wall, unsure if it's adrenaline or fear pumping her heart right now. "That reminds me, Skizz, where's BigB? I haven't seen him since last Session ended." Grian asks the man, who shakes his head. "I don't know. CobbleRooms, probably, but he could also be anywhere. I can look for him, though, if you need me to?" Grian considers. "At least try and get an idea of where he is. It'll make preventing Scar from mass murder easier." He decides, and Cleo raises an eyebrow, arms crossed. Etho's busy watching around the tower, and Martyn simply hasn't spoken yet, still listening. "You think that's what he wants? Wouldn't the smarter choice be to let us kill each other and pick off who's left?" She says, and Xerean moves a little closer. "There's several things running through his brain right now: The Chaos and mindset that brings from my powers, lack of sleep, high, unregulated and fluctuating emotions, apparently he's also just sort of murdery, chaotic, and arson-prone when he's Red anyway, and whatever's left of his normal, sane self. Scar's being pushed through things even I can't imagine; I can't accurately predict what he'll do or how it'll affect him in the end, but so far, all effects are increasingly negative. He's already killed Tango, and I assume he'd been chasing you down to kill you, too. In this immensely difficult state, I doubt the true rationality he's using when making decisions." She indicates to Skizz. He nods, and Cleo grunts softly. "So he's just...confused as hell, then? Confused, angry, probably a little scared, even, and lashing out?" Martyn clarifies. Xerean dips her head, sighing. "That's a safe bet. I mean, I'm not the best at emotions and 'how this affects how that person reacts' and stuff, but wouldn't you? To have powers you don't understand, aren't used to, violent and dangerous urges and impulses you can't control–a lack of control in general, really–losing and hurting people you care about, frustration that you can't control it and then you add all past experiences and present repercussions of accidents and misunderstandings, and you've slept for maybe only a day or less over the course of two months, so you're undoubtedly so tired you can barely–well, you know the sleep part, it's however you all feel as these series progress. It's all being baked into one hot, bubbling but volatile pie." She agrees. Sleep helps these people to stay focused and rational, and again, while they're here, they don't sleep often(Grian told her that this started after Last Life; people no longer trusted their ability to sleep safely through most nights as they had before, and so the Watchers altered them to only need sleep every handful of days or so in order to keep this going, but it still heavily impacts their functionality as time passes). More than Scar has, but still far less than they normally would. Chaos magic has a mind of its own, and it's hard to wrestle into control, something Scar isn't used to, and from what she's heard of the actual Chaos Scar before, it helps nothing. There's the weird emotions buffer thing, where they'll spike, then fade away or dull down at the end of the Session or a few minutes after the event, making decisions based on and around emotions hard, so she had assumed that at least half of Scar's actions are based around these factors. As part of her preparation for this Session, she tried to understand or theorize as to what could be going on, maybe find a way around it. Clearly, it only really got her so far by nitpicking. "Grian, I might need you to do something." She states, trying to think. She can't yet understand the reason for this, but she knows it makes sense, somehow. "Yeah?" He replies. "Take Scar out of the Code." She tells him. Grian blinks, then cocks his head. "Why??" He asks, flicking his wings. Xerean unfortunately can't say the weird buzz in her head told her to, even she believes that would be a little far-fetched. She needs a legitimate reason. "If he isn't a player, then I can deal with him easier. He'll have better access to his power, and with regenerating abilities at a full capacity, it might fix the issues of his sanity and mental state. The heart system is keeping him from regenerating at all, and his need to sleep wouldn't be a problem if he no longer needed to sleep at all. He could fix himself, and maybe that would help." Grian exhales heavily. "There's two things that could happen. It's yours and Scar's Codes are connected, so whatever I'd do to him could happen to you, and vice verse; I assume he's been affected when I would mess with your Code. That could make him untouchable." She points at him. "If it makes him untouchable, then it'd make me untouchable, too." She says, and the Avian continues, the others staying silent in rapt attention or confusion. "Second, it might make it impossible to return him to being a normal player afterwards. That would mean we would make him be stuck with your powers, or at least some power, forever." This catches her off-guard. "But what about when we go back to Hermitcraft?" She asks, and Grian shakes his head solemnly. The tampering to his Code must transfer over, then. Xerean contemplates this new information, then sighs. "Do it anyway. Again, if we're connected, then that may be the final push we need to break free and figure this out. If it can help him set a few things straight, maybe we can work together to end this. And my hopeful end goal is to remove the magic from him, so if we're no longer players, it'll be far easier to facilitate that." She decides. Scar might be able to get returned to his normal player status that way, and even if he isn't, he can still live, but...only on one life. That'd be an issue. She continues to consider the matter. It is preferable to leaving him in, regeneration will help fix at least some of the problems he's dealing with, retuning his common sense and ability to fight against Chaos. "But he'd still be out of Code. Without your power, what'd keep him from dying? He'd not come back." Grian points out, and she doesn't exactly glare at him, she isn't angry with him, but it's definitely a hard, challenging stare. "Me." Xerean replies, and silence settles over them for a moment. It's not exactly a secret that while she has no romantic interest in anyone, she does have a very strong interest and affection for certain people, especially Scar. "I'll see what I can do. Somehow you got put in the Code, so there might be a chance." He concedes, and she gives him a small, grateful smile. She's running on hopes and poor logic, but that's how she's always lived her life; it's nothing new. The root problem lies with whoever or whatever brought her here and set this up in the first place. The best way she can do that is through this. Now, all she has to do is not die. Everyone else eventually leaves, Martyn going off with Skizz to try and explain what he can, and the original Roomies going to find a safe place for Grian to work. She has a moment to herself. A singular moment of peace before–why is the unreachable brain thing feeling like it's tapping now?? What is this?? After a few minutes, she recognizes it to be Morse code. Or so she suspects. It's a bunch of rythymic tapping, which seems pretty Morse Code-y. "I don't even KNOW Morse code!" She sighs, but pays attention until it repeats. Using the blank side of her Task scroll, she writes it down, ink flowing through a claw on her finger, like a built-in pen:

~•~~  ~~~  ••~ / ~•~•  •~  ~•  ~ / •~~  ••  ~• / ••••   •   •~•  •

••••  • / •~~  ••   •~••  •~•• / •~~   ••  ~•

~•~~   ~~~  ••~ / ~~  ••~  •••  ~ / ~•~•  ~~~  ~~  • / ••••  ~~~   ~~  •

~•~~   ~~~  ••~ / ~~  ••~   •••   ~ / ~••   ••   •

"I don't know what that meanssssss..." She groans, and as if in reply, she feels an aggressive push, like it was chastising her. This weird feeling has sass, which while is somewhat cute and funny, doesn't help her understand in the slightest. Pocketing her paper, she decides to ask someone else about it later.

Scar does nothing for one day.

Then, he comes after her again. By then, they've gotten everyone to be at least aware of the situation, Joel, Pearl, and Bdubs decided that they'd join in if the time or opportunity came up, while Gem and the Scots officially joined right away. Grian's no longer around, he's devoting his entire time to taking Scar out of the Code as Xerean had requested. He's in an obsidian box, hidden far away from Scar in the End, in order to make sure he can spend all of his time on this, and complete it as quickly as possible. It would have been easier on Hermitcraft with Xisuma's help, but to do it here means that he has to not only hide it from the Watchers, but make sure to keep whatever else he can stable and connected so the rest of the players don't suffer for it. Which will be hard, since most of the Code was attached to the Watchers, from what she saw. Grian had confirmed it to her while she was describing the eye, and the attack made her suspect in the first place. She's walking around with Skizz, Scott, and Impulse, explaining how she and Scar can use their powers, what they've been doing to try and figure things out, and overall, just stuff in general they don't understand(or attempting to make casual conversation), and keeping watch. They don't stray too far from the Mounders base at any given time, both to avoid Sunflower Valley, and because there's nothing happening anywhere else. "So is that why so many things feel...wrong?" Skizz wonders. "How so?" She asks, looking for clarification. "Sometimes when I do or see someone else do something, it feels weird. Sort of like...bad Deja Vu. For example, first Session; Scar's hard Task was something to do with flowers and Mumbo, right? A competition, I think. Anyway, as he pressed the Succeed button, I felt like something wasn't right. That same feeling's happened before, like when you were fighting the Warden and he killed it, when he killed Tango, and things like that." Xerean frowns. This could just be coincidental, but as a creature beyond what's normal, she can't leave something like that out. "I'm going to just guess here, and I need you to tell me how accurate this is, alright? Does it feel like you recognize the situation, like it was MEANT to happen, or already had, but then someone altered it? Like you read a book, and then you come back and find the scene's rewritten?" Skizz nods, and she hisses. The fact he recognized that at all is impressive, but the fact she didn't is confusing and worrying. "Anyone else feel like that?" She inquires. "When Bdubs died at Joel's zombie spawner." Impulse offers. "I watched Scar throw him in, then he threw me in, too, but I didn't feel anything out of the ordinary shock, adrenaline or panic, and some outrage you'd expect until after Bdubs was dead and he went to leave. The death itself felt as a normal Life Series death would, but his reaction felt out of place. Same with when he offered to let Skizz take two of his hearts. You and Grian reacted, too." He elaborates, then indicates to the Elven man. "Yeah. At first, I thought it was just normal 'I don't think he needs to get hurt for this, Tango looks sorta mad, what if something bad happens' feelings, but now that you're talking about it, that's absolutely what it was." He agrees. "Okay. Cool." She runs a hand over her face, then paces for a moment. "So I think I know what that feeling is." She states. "...so what is it?" Skizz prompts. He's been struggling to keep up with the whole situation, at this point she suspects he's just taking in the basics of what he can understand. At least Martyn had some actual time to take in what she'd said, Skizz was simply thrown into the mix halfway through, like a person being told to build a furniture set and only getting a flashcard's worth of notes. "I'm pretty sure this isn't what was supposed to happen. Those feelings of 'bad Deja Vu' are moments where things that may have been important or just in general don't match up with whatever happened originally. Meaning, this isn't the actual way this was meant to happen." Scott crosses his arms, leaning to shift his weight a little more onto his back leg. "So what is this, then? An alternate universe? Or would called an alternate reality?" She nods. "Most likely an alternate reality." She confirms. Somehow that doesn't make this much clearer for her. It is concerning, though. While her people can and do break the barriers to cross reality, dimensions, and universes, there's a reason 'reality' is very rarely(if ever) pluralized. "So then how didn't anyone–specifically you or Grian–realize?" Impulse says, which is a very valid question. "You'd be surprised how ignorant we can be. You all barely batted an eye when I killed the Warden, too." Scar replies, materializing several feet away from Impulse. Scott's ears lay flat, and Xerean turns to face him, arm up and ready, not to fight, but defend. She flares her wings out, mostly to keep them back, discouraging a reckless charge, and mostly for Skizz's sake. "What, worried they're going to get hurt? I only really want Skizz. That'd give you...hm. Let's say that'd give you another day before I come after you again. Let me kill him, and I'll walk away." Xerean immediately shakes her head, making her wings a little bigger, and she hears Skizz take a step back. "Aw, that's too bad." Scar sighs, shaking his head in disappointment. He brightens and looks up at her again, smiling. "Well, ready for round two?" He asks, then lunges forward. She bats him away with one of her huge wings, then covers the feathers with Beskar in case he tries to use the Lightsaber. For the record, Xerean hates this already. Chaos fights are not exactly clean(in comparison to fights between actual people), and she has to account for Scott, Skizz, and Impulse being here as well. She can feel the adrenaline, or whatever causes people to willingly charge into deadly battle rising; her heart's beating fast. "We can help you. We agreed to this, remember." Impulse informs her quietly, which she'd already forgotten. Right, the whole idea of this team was to watch for Scar, help them understand what's happening, and if they ran into him, try and knock down at least a little bit of health. Turning her attention back to Scar, she makes her wings a more realistic size again, then gives herself a tail. She can still fight without hurting him all too much, right? Just whack him a bit. That's fine, she thinks. Scar watches her, narrowing his eyes in challenge, goading her to attack. She thinks. Is that her spiking aggression or is that what he's actually doing? That thing trying to get her attention does something like a muffled equivalent of hitting your friend over the head with something to make them focus or when they do something stupid. Weird brain feeling is right, though, she can't over-analyze this now. It's life or death, not just for her, but her friends!

This time, she's the one who charges, jumping up and spinning to bring her tail down, then disappears and pops up again in Scar's peripheral, giving her an opening to hit him in the side, which she takes advantage of. Scar shoves his hand through the ground, making a wave of black thorns to keep her back, then shoots at Skizz, who had tried approaching from behind. Impulse and Scott drag him back, making a wall of sorts out of their shields for protection. "I'm over here!" She shouts at him, but Scar ignores her, gaze fixed on the trio of shields, poking and hitting them to try and break open to the people inside. His other hand is still moving, making the thorns come up to try and jab Xerean in order to keep her busy and focused on herself instead of the others, who have disbanded and gone for a circling strategy. Impulse darts in, shooting him with an arrow, then throws himself to one side when Scar tries to take the ground out from under him. Scott and Skizz take the distraction as an opening to get actually close and hit him once each with a weapon. Xerean then defends them by taking a nearby tree and throwing it between the opponents, giving the two time to back up. Impulse has joined up with them, too, but yet, Scar refuses to pay Xerean any actual attention. She isn't mad that he doesn't care about her, but she's mad that he doesn't care about her. He made a show of telling her to be ready to fight him, and now he isn't even trying to actively hit her! Growling, she dives back down, dodging and weaving around attacks, though a few hit the edge of her wing and arms, knocking out a heart and a half. Because she and Scar are similar in power level, and simply the nature of these fights, there are tricks she can't use, such as basically anything to do with time, astral projections, and most curses. An annoying thing about Chaos Witch battles, but she can make do. She doesn't stop time or use astral projections anyway(and she never learned curses, so it would be doubly ineffective here). Once she's close enough, she flies up, drawing a bow. There's an arrow with a bottle on it, and she shoots. The arrow (deliberately)doesn't hit Scar, but the bottle does, breaking and dousing him in water. "You told me you wanted to fight me! I'm OVER HERE–" She falters, someone's died again. Scar's grinning, watching her struggle to not fall out of the sky, instead using the burst of power to support herself up. "Oops." He says, turning to her. The pain passes, filling her with more energy, but even so, she takes a moment to stand. She doesn't have to check the Chat, it was Skizz he was after, through and through. "It's a shame I didn't get two of them, honestly. Could have made this even quicker." He sighs. "Oh, I got more hearts, yay!" He says, a very sudden, chipper tone from the lower, darker tone he had a moment ago. He looks at his arm, which appears like a normal Scar arm to everyone else, but to him, he can probably see whatever his health is at.

Grian told her that Reds will gain hearts(5, if she remembers) by killing people. Assuming he had lost no hearts until now(although, surely they must have hurt him in SOME way by now), he would have around 45-40 hearts, while she has 23. That's twice her own health. Even if he lost a couple, that's still in the same range. The idea was that with multiple people, she could whittle down his, but he's already killed three people! The irony is bitter. Scott and Impulse are still standing, but Skizz lays in the dirt. He doesn't seem to have been impaled, though, so she isn't sure HOW he died. Scott grips his sword a little tighter, and stares Scar down. "What happened to not wanting to be the villain, Scar?" He asks. Scar huffs, stopping the attacks, and Xerean lands beside her friends. "I didn't WANT to be, I was MADE to be. The entire time, I've been nothing but a pawn in someone else's game, like the rest of us, and the ONE TIME I get free will, it's still controlled, only granted to me so I can kill everyone, to end the lives of the people I cared about. So I'm done. I've been cooped up, playing nice, going along with what I'd been told, ruining myself and the things I worked hard for as a result, for nothing but entertainment. They wanted some drama and betrayal, he wanted chaos, and I guess I'm giving it to them. They made a deal, and now I have to play the part I didn't want." Scar laughs tiredly, not the mad, crazed and painful laugh he had when Jimmy tried to guess his Task, but a high, despairing one. "I don't have anything else to lose. Scott, you told me that people don't just become villains, it's a choice. Sorry, but it looks like you were wrong. It was never a choice for me." He motions with one hand when he refers to these 'they' and 'he', which she doesn't quite understand. Did he see someone, or is he seeing things? Looking for a way out? But from what he said, he knows at least a bit of what's going on, she thinks. Maybe it's that. That seems like a classic reason to go crazy and on a mass murder spree. "Don't you dare start your 'I can help' talk again, I can see it on your face. I thought you would've learned your lesson. Maybe Scott or Impulse would like to help me drive the point home?" Scar warns, now turning to Xerean. She spreads her wings, as she had when Scar first appeared. "I wasn't. I would have loved to, Scar, but I'm also realizing I can't keep damaging myself for a cause that refuses to allow me to fix it. I can't keep taming a lion if all I end up doing is getting mauled." Impulse gives her a glance, but Scar is her focus right now. "Good. It's not like you could have fixed what happens here, anyway." Scar claps his hands, and a bolt of lightning strikes in the background. "And there goes Joel." He announces proudly. While Scar clearly has no remorse for his actions, she does note he is just as frozen as she is when the pain hits. "Joel hasn't even done anything to you! He wasn't even here!" Impulse objects, and the man shrugs. "He's not here anymore. And besides, as I said earlier, it's the last Session. If we're not going to be blindly murdering each other, I'm happy to do it myself. I'm so tired. It has to end." He replies, though the last two sentences don't really match up with his demeanour before. One sounded distraught and despairing, the other desperate and determined. It sounds...familiar. She's heard those exact lines before. Before the feeling fades, she catches it and tries to anchor it down.

Immediately, she feels something wrong, like she's in multiple places at once. The moment plays again, this time Scar is right in front of her, head bowed and on his knees, hands shaking but gripping her arms tightly. "I'm so tired, Xe." He sobs. "Make it stop." The moment shifts to play again, this time she can see Scott laying on the ground in her peripheral, and Scar has his Lightsaber out, gaze cold, angry, but resigned. "It has to end." He informs her. He doesn't sound mad, he sounds mournful, almost guilty. He raises his Lightsaber, and the scene resets again. "This is the ONLY WAY! Why must you make it so difficult? I just want to be free! To be whole! And you won't let me!" He yells voice breaking a few times, covered in bruises, blood, and rain that pours down in an aggressive manner. After that, they start to overlap. In some, Scar is sobbing, begging her to kill him, cradling her while her vision dims, apologizing for something, or running away from her in clear fear. In some, they're at war still, attacking and dealing frightening damage, Scar cursing her, blaming her, definitely killing her, or hunting her. In some, he's trying to bargain about something, convince her to do something, or yelling about things she doesn't know the context to. She can't handle this, and steps back. It was like the moment she touched the Rift and saw those Echoes of herself, or the character the worlds created of her. She saw glimpses of so many different things, all at once, back to back, all in the span of a breath. Something is definitely wrong, here. If she counted right, she saw over 15, 474 different scenarios of the same thing. Some, she wasn't even in. One moment, infinite possibilities and scenarios. This is why there's a difference between 'universes' and 'reality' in her people's description. She isn't just not meant to be here, this moment is one of an immense, unending number where anything could have happened. Everything that could ever be or happen, all the consequences of millions of actions and how even a moment's hesitation or divergence can spiderweb. Someone is breaking that, blurring lines between one reality and the next. Trying to FORCE an outcome to occur, a desirable one. But which one? And why? She pushes that away. She doesn't have the TIME to think, she never does. Luckily, in the few seconds her brain takes to process this, Scar hasn't killed anyone else. Her brain is becoming more like her normal brain, and while that means she can feel more like herself and takes a bit of edge off, it gets easily sidetracked by small details, which is very annoying for moments like this.

Scar inhales, then points at the trio. "You two, I'll kill later, you, we still have a match to finish." He decides, prompting Xerean to teleport Scott and Impulse back to their base to keep them from getting hit in the crossfire. Even though they were there to help, Skizz dying has made her question whether it would actually work. However, the choice leaves her open for when Scar rams into her, throwing her to the ground and drawing his Lightsaber. Using some form of opposing force, she blocks the attack that comes next, then diverts said force to move the blade to one side and give her a window of escape to get back on her feet. She has no idea where Pearl and Bdubs are, but she's glad they haven't appeared to get swept up in all of this yet. As the fight continues, his attacks become increasingly violent and hard to parry, block, or avoid, and she's still losing hearts. Being a pacifist isn't going to work, as stubborn as she is. She's going to have to genuinely fight. When Scar throws her into the wall around the Mounders base hard enough to put a dent and several cracks in it, she finally reaches a point where she's ready. At least, in self defense. She's accepting the fact that it's going to be one of those death match things, not an endurance match as she'd hoped to achieve. She still hates it, but she's doing what she must. Her moves and actions have all been defensive, or to do a little damage, but still be effective. Getting back up, she develops claws, and adds spines to her tail. Scar lifts his head a little, smiling darkly. "See? There we go. Was that so hard?" She huffs, glancing at her hearts. She's down to 16, now, so she's going to say yes, it was very hard. Scar motions, beckoning her forward. "Come on, then. Let's have a real fight." Even so, he's the one to actually start the battle, charging forward with his Lightsaber. She doesn't move, but instead waits until he raises the blade to strike, then moves her hand to put it parallel to the weapon and pivots, having the double effect of stopping his attack and getting out of sight immediately, then throws her first actual punch, sending him sideways. She didn't put much force behind it, only enough to work like a knockback I sword. "Seriously?? Even now? Come on, I've seen you take out Ravagers with punches stronger than that!" Scar says, looking at her. "I wanted a battle to the death! A better fight than THEY could give me, because YOU have what I have. The satisfaction of winning wouldn't be worth it if I don't prove I'm strong enough to beat you, too!" He continues, once again slipping into a slightly different sort of tone. It's Scar, but it's...not? It's not just that he's mad about the battle not being how he intended, it's like it changed his whole personality to fit that entirely. He went from wanting to fight and then kill everyone to just wanting to beat her, and his voice sounded different, too. Older, more gruff and accented in a way she can tell isn't normal. More of that reality issue thing? "I'm doing my best! I'm sorry for disappointing you." She spits, very close to either releasing her frustrations and worries and sadness and all other negative feelings on Scar because he's the nearest speaking person, or just sitting down and sobbing until she becomes a plant. Jury's still out, but one of them is bound to occur. "Then be better." He replies venomously, starting the bout once more. When he lunges, she lifts her hand, and a door rises out of the ground, stopping Scar abruptly when he smacks into it. When he steps back, momentarily stunned, she kicks it open, slamming it into his face again. Scar then takes the door and throws it away, and goes after her. They start to engage in hand-to-hand combat, which mostly follows normal hand-to-hand combat rules, but with more fire, snakes, spikes, and other various distractions.

Eventually, they start fighting in the air, dive-bombing and wrestling before breaking apart to avoid hitting the ground, then meeting back up at higher altitudes. It's there she decides to take on new forms, becoming a great, bird-wolf-snake-like creature, with talons and a long tail, a thick, fluffy mane of fur, scales, feathers, and a snout. She flies up around the tower, then banks down to avoid a shot of something she didn't identify from Scar. She hears someone shout from inside the tower, and on her next pass, she takes a look inside. They've made it a little bigger, and a good thing, too, since everyone other than Grian, Scott, Impulse, and BigB are up there. Martyn's especially close to the edge, watching her. Everyone else has seen her use her powers enough that they're only interested in who wins, not the display as a whole. The difference is noticeable. Scar doesn't change form, but continues to shoot at her. Screeching, she dives down. She isn't TOO big, about...maybe the size of a horse and a half, if she had to guess, only a little smaller than a Ravager. Sweeping past Scar, she attempts to rake her talons across his body, which Scar avoids by shoving her away with a blast of air. Arrows shoot past her, and momentarily giving herself the neck of an owl, she sees Etho, Martyn, and Bdubs shooting, Cleo and Pearl supplying arrows. "Was this your plan?? Attempt to fight me, but ultimately, get them to do the dirty work? I'll put a stop to that right now." Scar says, catching the arrows and sending them back. Martyn and Bdubs duck out of the way in time, but Etho gets hit, so Pearl replaces him to shoot a few more back. "You can't possibly hope that they will overwhelm me. Even when Scott and Impulse come back, they won't be enough." He continues, as Xerean tackles and grabs him, unsure what the exact plan is with that, but decides to shove him out of arrow range for a moment. Scar flips her over, making himself heavier and shooting her into the ground. That knocks her down to 10 hearts, but Scar also isn't looking all that well, either. She's definitely hurt him, bruises and small scratches on his body. He has a crazed look in his eyes now, and his earring has not stopped glowing since the battle began. He lands back on the ground, stalking over and drawing his Lightsaber. "I will say you tried. You get an A for effort. But, it wasn't enough, and it will never BE enough. I think you know what's going on. This is how it's meant to be. It has to be." He tells her, stomping on her chest when she tries to sit up, and when she tries to teleport or phase away, it appears Scar has done something to prevent her from doing so. Raising the weapon, Scar readies to strike, just before an arrow hits the side of his hand, so he cries out and drops the weapon. This distracts him long enough for her to jump up, and they both turn to see who shot the projectile. It was BigB, who seems to only now realize that was a bad decision. "Run." She tells him, and sends him over to his CobbleRooms area. Scar stares at where he disappeared, then rolls his head over to look at her. "I do hope you realize that didn't save him, right?" He informs her. "Enough time to get away from you." Scar huffs. "We'll see." He replies, disappearing to chase the man. Panting heavily, Xerean takes inventory of the damage. Broken wings, her left arm is numb, and she suspects Scar cracked at least one rib when he stomped on her. Teleporting herself back up into the tower, she promptly collapses ontop of Bdubs, who has a moment of surprise at her abrupt appearance, but helps support her up and guide her into actually sitting down. She also brought Scott and Impulse back, who take up a space in the corner. "That could have gone better." She observes wryly. "I don't think it could have gone any worse!" Martyn says, as he and Impulse try to see what she needs help with. "He dislocated your arm." Impulse states. "Then pop it back into place. The issue with regenerative abilities not being available is I can't use any tricks to fix them, either." She tells him, and moves to allow him a better position to do so. "So what's going to happen to BigB?" Scott asks, as Impulse takes her arm, and she braces herself. "I don't know. I'm–" She screams, a line of spines shooting from her shoulder as Impulse brute-force shoves her limb back into place. Luckily, he expected as much and backed out in time. "Thanks." She grunts, wincing as she rotates her arm. "Right, so, BigB hasn't died yet, which is weird because I would have expected Scar to kill him real quick to finish me off. I'm at 10 hearts, after all." They stare at her. "What?" She asks. "You survived that fall, with 10 hearts left over? This is a height that kills people on 30!" Gem exclaims, and she shrugs. "I don't have regeneration, but Scar and I take less damage than normal people would." She explains, which still doesn't seem to sit right with them. "You're not going to win at this rate." Etho observes, scanning outside the structure, specifically for Scar. "No, I know." She replies. "If you need the extra hearts–here." Pearl gifts her a heart, an action followed by her allies, Scott, and Martyn, which thus raises her to 15. "There. Now, if it comes down to it, I'll let you kill me for the hearts." She assures her, to which Xerean shakes her head. "If I win, you'd still have a chance." She points out. "Well, if you lose, Scar kills us all anyway." Martyn counters, which is something she can't argue with.

Without warning, that fracture-see-all-other-scenarios thing happens again. This time, Scar's holding Bdubs up by the throat, the other man twisting and struggling in his hold. "You know, Xerean, I'm getting real tired of people telling me what I can and can't do. Who I can kill, what's right, what's wrong...You, Grian, the Secret Keeper, the Watchers, this Voice in my head. You all think you can dictate my life because you're some sort of celestial being. And I won't stand for it." He tightens the grip on Bdubs' neck even more and raises him up so his feet no longer touch the ground, the shorter man feebly kicking his legs and gripping Scar's arm so tight his knuckles have turned white. Scar isn't even paying much attention to him, transfixed upon Xerean as he keeps Bdubs up. Scar's voice was relaxed, but it's still menacing, the way he watches her with an easy, smirking expression. Finally, he lets go and the man falls to the ground, though he points the tip of his lightsaber at the recovering man to keep Xerean from advancing, and takes a step forward, eyes glowing malevolently as silence falls. "We've never intended to make you do anything, Scar, I promise. Think of Hermitcraft–we never tried there, either!" Xerean pleads. Scar's gaze darkens. "Scar, we only want to help you, I promise. Grian's trying his best to–" "HELP me?? HELP ME? You should have done that when Gem came after me and made me a zombie! You should have done that when Skizz blew me up in the shambled ruins of my own house! You should have DONE THAT when I was panicking and scared, stressed and upset! But you didn't, and you weren't there." He cuts her off, Xerean lost for words as rain begins to fall. "Scar, I–I didn't KNOW–" She tries, but Scar stops her. "That's not good enough! You should know what's happening by now–you DO! But even so, you're FAILING! This keeps happening!" He laughs a little. "The Secret Keeper has tried to make me a villain this whole time, and at this point, it's like, why not just embrace it?! Why not just BECOME the villain?!" He cries, spreading his arms wide and letting a surge of wispy magic coil around his arms and shoot into the sky as a clap of thunder shakes the air. "I'm tired of fighting the will. I'll do it their way–don't you even start. I tried in Trader Scar's to be HONEST, the whole time, give people good deals, honesty, and constantly, always, the Secret Keeper, and this Voice in my head, they made me a villain." Scar states, tapping the side of his skull with a strange sort of pained broken tremor at the comment of a voice in his head, then shrugs. "And fine! They want me to be a villain? I'll be a villain. But you won't live to see the end of it." Scar swings his blade, and from the context, she assumes it killed Bdubs, if not also her. The scene returns to her in the tower, but it's only her, Grian, Gem, Cleo, and Pearl. "He's always going to win." She says, and Grian makes a sound of some sort between a grunt and a sigh. "I tried my best, but unless you can get back to Hermitcraft, this isn't going to work." He tells her. "And how'm I supposed to do that? If I go, he kills you all, if I don't, he kills me. I don't know what I'm supposed to do, here!" She cries, and even as she speaks, it changes yet again. Now, she can tell it's one of those realities where she's dead, now viewing from...Grian's point of view, given the height similarity. "No, listen–listen. Scott said that people don't just BECOME a villain, it's a CHOICE. Well, I didn't have that! You know what my Task was a few weeks ago?! BE THE VILLAIN! IT ALWAYS IS, ALWAYS WAS, AND ALWAYS WILL BE!! I WAS ALWAYS GOING TO END UP THIS WAY, NO MATTER WHAT!" Scar yells, putting one hand to his chest, the other holding his Lightsaber. The tip drags near the ground, leaving a scorched line in the dirt wherever it touches as Scar moves forward. Grian puts his wings over Xerean's body, glaring at him. "Move, Grian. I'm not against killing you, too." He warns, but the Watcher stays put. Scar watches him for a moment, then sighs and shakes his head. "This was your fault." He informs the Avian, before grabbing his sweater and throwing him far away, sending him tumbling through the air, frantically flapping his wings to try and gain some control. Before he can manage that, he slams into the Mounder's wall. Grian hacks, the wind knocked out of him, and he slides down to the ground. Scar's still in the distance, staring at Xerean, unmoving.

It ends, and she's back once more. Only three this time. "Hang on, give me a moment." She says, now taking the moment to process this. So. From what she understands, she's recognizing and catching moments in other realities, existing at the same time as this. Is there some reason it's only happening now?? If they're trying to make a specific outcome as she suspected, then somehow, she believes Scar has become aware of at least a good part of how. Is it repetitive? Happening alongside other outcomes? What did he mean, 'you keep failing'? What is she supposed to be doing? She's seen outcomes where she dies, where he dies, where they meet into some neutral state, and most commonly, where Scar goes completely insane and decimates the Server. So if that's what's happening, is that her failing or nearly succeeding? Xerean already knows she can't access them at will, they appeared upon her when she wasn't EXACTLY trying to see, so the puzzle is failing her. What is it?? The buzzing thing in the back of her head is gone, too. Cool. Back to reality problems. In theory, this shouldn't be actually possible, which is why it's probably falling apart. Chaos Witches can travel through different realities, but in order to do so, they have rules. Even they don't want to destroy ALL realities, lest they lose every single source of fun they have, all at once. There's Chaos Witches in all realities as well, but they're the same as the other realities. For example, this: in all these realities being used, there is another Xerean to inhabit it, and that means that she cannot go there unless she wants to mess with the stability. Continuity is flexible, but everything has its breaking point. Looks like this is close, if not it. "Okay. I'm back." She jumps, and Grian swoops in, looking very tired. "It worked. I think. We're going to have to see, but I believe it worked." He informs her, and she sighs. Hope, she hopes. "Great. Uh, guys, I'm gonna do something, don't freak out when you can't hear us." She informs the others, then turns to Grian again. "So I think I know what's up." She states. "Okay?" She inhales, then explains what she thinks she knows to the Watcher. "I–you–what?" She lets him have a moment(several minutes, actually) to think about it, then he starts pacing. "I think they, either your Watchers or this voice Scar mentioned, or...something else, want to create a specific set of events and then a special outcome, ripping moments and parts from other sequences in order to achieve it. It would help match up with the 'bad Deja Vu' Skizz, Impulse, and Scott mentioned, and also probably the way everything seems to be escalating too fast, or how some actions don't seem to exactly match the situation. We're being guided down a path, tested in situations, then resetting when they don't work out and starting over, and that's what Scar is feeling. He's caught their eye, definitely, and he's taking the brunt of it." Grian looks out mournfully. "We really can't help him here, Can we?" Xerean shakes her head. It may be this whole 'piecing it together' thing, but she thinks it revolves around her or Scar dying. That's been the most common theme. "No." She agrees sadly. And if she can't stop it with the hindrance to her powers still limiting her, then she has no idea how to fix it. "I'm going to go find him again. I don't know exactly how, but I believe BigB has escaped. Do you think you can go look for him? Bring him back here?" She asks, allowing the rest of them to hear again. "What are you planning?" Grian asks, eyeing her suspiciously. "There's one constant in the whole thing: Scar or I dies. If that's an event that's supposed to happen, then I have to fulfill it. Who knows? Maybe this is it. If not, it'll just start over again, right?" She replies, slipping through the space between the walls that allow them to see out, hanging off the edge. "I–don't think that's how it works." Grian objects. "I don't have many options, I don't know what's going on, and it's essentially scripted, anyway. Whatever happens, happens." She lets go before he can object. In the span of maybe four hours, she's had her understanding flipped on its head, shook around, ground up, and then turned into a pane of murky glass she can't see too well through. Things are connecting and then also not, and with no complete picture, she's winging it. Because Scar broke her wings, she summons one of the hoverboards the Firelights used, and goes out seeking Scar. Is it too late to go back and sleep? 15 hearts, using her power for almost 3 days straight, and fighting another being of Chaos, she's worn out. She doesn't have a lot of hope, too few hearts and too little steam and a revelation that even her people fear dropped on her head. "Scar..." She calls, speeding across the World, looking around for the man. He pops his head up, walking out of BigB's CobbleRooms corridor entrance thing. "You did it, somehow." He admits, begrudgingly. "Yay, me?" She replies. Scar must've lost interest or something. He's somewhere out there, still, hopefully the others will get him. Stepping gracefully off the board, she makes it disappear. "You look tired." He observes, pointing the Lightsaber at her. "Do I? Couldn't tell. I feel fresh as a daisy." She replies, then throws a mist bomb at him. Leaping at him, she summons a sword and brings it down, parried by his own weapon, and for what is probably to be the last time this go-around, they fight. While Xerean is slower and fatigued, Scar is noticeably slower, too. The injuries he sustained haven't healed, either, so the damage is racking up. Unfortunately, so is hers, and while she puts Hels' swordfighting skills to good use, it isn't enough.

She's on one heart, and Scar's got the high ground. He has her on the ground again, vines coiled around her wrists and body to bind her in place as he limps over, breathing heavily. She may have lost, but he's not walking away without his own scars. "Do it, then. You know it'll start over anyway." She winces, she did a Warden shriek earlier that hurt her throat. "Gladly." He hisses, and just like that, Xerean dies.

But not really?

As Scar runs the Lightsaber into her, she gets yet another one of the broken glimpses again, however this time, she can't see, only hear broken bits of speech that she picks out to be BigB, Xisuma, Jabber, Scar, and someone she doesn't have time to identify:

"...no time, I have to help them, they'll die! Send me back!"

"I don't think she's going to-"

"I don't care, I need your skills, since you clearly have a knack for breaking through time and space, Watcher. That is ALL I care about. Do what I say."

"It hurts. So much. Please, come back."

"Wake up."

A/N

WE DID IT YALL

9981 WORDS

I'm so tired, but hey, I feel like I cooked with this one. I don't blame you if you skipped to the end, this was...crazy. If you need me to recap events, you can ask me to here >

Anyway, it might get shorter when I go back and edit it all again to make it make a little more sense. I wrote it as I did now just for the fun of it, I'm not expecting it all to be great content, I just felt like I wanted to show off how crazy I could be.