Scar dreams, for once.

Xian told him to sleep, so he did, getting that last tiny bit of rest that he could before 'the reckoning', as Xian refers to it. In his dreams, he sees things. They look like outcomes of what could happen. In one, he's shouting at Xerean for failing him, another he's stalking Tango, or dropping him from the burning remnants of Bdubs' globe, and in yet another, he's in an aerial fight with Xerean and Grian. In others, he's crying, mourning various people: Cleo, Grian, Pearl, Xerean, even Skizz or Scott. He could be savagely ripping into opponents or hugging someone, pleading for people(usually Xe) to kill him or hunting them to the corners of the Server, at war or explaining, planning or reacting. Some, he curses the Watchers, Xian, and the Secret Keeper, others he curses Xerean and Grian. There's so many different things, but they all follow the same track: Fighting with Xerean, different ways this Session could end, and the fact that they're in a loop, that's repeated so long that he's broken and going insane. In some, he sticks with his Lightsaber, in a few, he's taken the form of Maleficent's dragon, or he's chasing Xerean around in the sky, but rather than shouting at her, they're laughing, swooping and diving through clouds. Having fun. He likes those dreams best.

Unfortunately, he still has to wake up.

"Well?" Xian asks. Scar understands, somehow without understanding at all. "You set me up." He hisses, looking at the Chaos Witch in accusatory anger. "Yes. And you will continue to repeat this until you get it right." Xian replies, holding his gaze challengingly. "I never asked to do this. To be your little duty-follower." He spits, standing up. "And yet, you continue to be, every time. You may have power, but compared to me, you are still weak in mind and will." He ignores Xian, stumbling down the corridor to put on his armor and get his weapons. "You will do this correctly, or you will do it again." Xian warns. "What difference would it make, if I do it again? I don't remember it until now, do I?" Scar points out, picking up his Lightsaber. "I can make it worse. See if that helps what I seek. You would suffer, I could make you remember earlier, make you kill her before you found resolve." He replies, and Scar huffs. "I don't get a choice, do I?" He says, glancing at Xian. He nods, flicking his tail. "No." He agrees. "Fine." He turns the weapon on, staring at the red glow that emanates from it covering his hands. "If I'm going to kill everyone, nothing says I can't have a little fun with it, right?"

His first target is Tango. He doesn't ENTIRELY want to do this, but with nothing to lose, no point to fighting, and the flow of several different perspectives crashing in on his head and muddling his ability to discern what is and isn't real, what's some other Scar variant's emotions, and what are his own, he's essentially given up. He'll use the sliver of free will he has to choose how they die, and that will have to be enough, he hopes. If it's not, what does it matter? It 'll start over again anyway. Tango and Skizz are wandering around, striding by his base, from which he watches them. Tango has been the primary aggressor in their interactions, and from what he understands, he's on a handful of hearts. He just has to catch them alone. His opportunity arises about an hour later, when they're getting wood to make defenses, he assumes. Standing behind a tree, he strides out to intercept them. "Oh! Scar! What are you doing here?" Tango asks, tail and ears raised in surprise. Skizz comes up beside him, cautious but curious. "Looking for you, actually." He replies, stepping forward as Tango nods slowly. "So what do you want?" He inquires, already bringing up his shield, Skizz doing the same. "To kill you." Scar answers simply, and launches an attack, shoving the Pyro's shield to one side, bringing his Lightsaber up to hit his exposed side, only to be blocked instead by Skizz reacting fast, shoving Tango himself out of the way. He tries to put his own shield up, now in danger of getting hit, and while he doesn't die, he does get grazed along the arm, crying out at the burning mark and getting a scorched gash in his shield. Tango moves forward to defend him from Scar's next attack, then advances, pressing Scar back and away from his companion. Skizz recovers from the injury and comes forward to help, but not before Scar manages to kick Tango in the chest, sending him into a tree. He ducks as he then throws the Lightsaber at his opponent, cutting through the tree instead and making the top half crash to the ground. Snapping his fingers, the Lightsaber returns, and he gets a glimpse of another scenario, where Xerean takes it from him, an arrow having struck his hand, and then another where Tango gets caught with it, trying to defend Skizz. Bringing his arms up, he blocks a strike from the latter, disappearing to get behind him and deliver a slash to his other arm, then catching Tango's sword, snapping the blade and attempting to turn it back on him. Tango releases the weapon and sidesteps, pulling out a bow. "That's even worse!" Scar tells him, taking a moment to pull Skizz in front of him, forcing Tango to pause, then disappears again to reappear at his side, kicking his leg so it buckles and he falls, then pointing the Lightsaber at his neck when Skizz takes a step forward to help him. "Now, here. I think you'll want to listen to this. I'm gonna give you a choice: You can try to fight me, and I kill him now, and then kill you, or, I can give you a 5 minute head start by allowing you to run, right now." The man falters, and Tango curls his tail. "Skizz, go." He says, trying to lift his head away from the Lightsaber, while still making eye contact with his companion. "You heard him. He won't be able to hold it against you if he's dead, anyway. Personally, I suggest you run. But if you want to die with him, well, who am I to argue?" Scar adds, shrugging a little. This also has the additional bonus of making Tango come into contact with his weapon for a moment, so he grunts in pain. "Get outta here, dude." He urges, and Skizz hesitantly takes a step back, then turns tail and flees in full. Scar waits for the sound of his footsteps to disappear, then turns to the Pyro. "That was sweet of you. Very heroic." He comments, and Tango grunts, twitching his ear. "If you're going to kill me, do it already." He states. Scar has other plans. These ones, he's fairly certain aren't all his, but he'll roll with it. "I would have thought Xerean would have shown up by now. Maybe she isn't aware." Scar abruptly teleports, bringing the two of them up to the top of Gem's tower. He grabs the front of Tango's shirt, holding him out over the edge of the build, so the fiery man grabs at Scar's arm, feet straining to keep hold on the barest of edge Scar is allowing him. He can hear Tango struggling to control his breathing, it's one thing to be killed by a sword, it's another to be dropped from such a height. "So, Xerean, you coming? You hear me? I've got Tango with me! I could let go at any moment!" He releases him for half a second before catching him again, making the Pyro yelp and clutch onto Scar's arm tighter. He may not have claws, but Scar will still have red marks on his arm after, regardless. "Well? Are you just gonna let me kill him?" He calls out, loud and clear. They both wait in silence, Tango occasionally trying to get a better foothold, and a slight tremor in his hand. Finally, Scar shrugs, turning back to him. "Guess she can't hear me." He tells him, then lets Tango drop. He looks down, the fall is comparable to the height from Joel's tower, which has already been confirmed to be a lethal height. As he hears the boom of thunder roll out, a grin splits across his face, staying even when the pain hits and dissipates. "Will you go after the scarred one? He may tell someone." Xian asks, and Scar shrugs. "I will, but I'd assume Xerean already knows it was me. Chat, remember." He indicates to the device on his arm.

Seeing Grian and Xerean flying to meet one another in the air, Scar steps off the tower and disappears in a cloud of dark blue, wispy smoke, then reappears in the forest again. It's the one by the World Border and Joel's base, so it may not be the biggest, but if he can teleport around, he can make other people teleport, too. Xe's done it plenty of times to him and everyone else, after all. So he summons Skizz to appear in front of him, once the man realizes this, he skids to a stop and turns to run the other way. "Where you goin', Skizz? Your base is that way." He calls, striding after him. He's not exactly running, but he's also making sure to keep a certain pace behind the man, picking up rocks and objects off the ground to hurl at him. Skizz trips over a tree root dodging one of these such attacks, darting around behind the tree and beginning to weave around them to make himself a harder target. "That won't keep you safe for long, Skizz." Scar pointedly snaps his fingers and appears closer, narrowly dodging a tree in the process, and Xian appears in front of him. "While I do enjoy this, you only have so long before I am sure she will look for you." Xian notes, and Scar turns to chase Skizz more to the left. "Let me do what I want, why don'tcha? I'll get around to it." He replies, and Xian appears again. "When you take your time, you do not win. I would not appreciate having to restart due to your wishes for an outlet." Scar growls, and draws his Lightsaber reluctantly. He sinks into the ground, his shadow collapsing in on itself, before he uses the shadow of a tree to pop up beside Skizz and run a gash along his forearm. He stops, crying out and falling to the ground as he clutches his arm. "...like that?" Scar asks Xian, who doesn't reply, watching him across from Skizz. "If you want to kill me, too, just do it." He says through gritted teeth, and Scar tilts his head a little. "And what happened to making this place miserable, hm? You may have chosen to leave that goal, but that doesn't mean I have." He points out. Scar stiffens, emitting a soft grunt as that headache comes back. "Make them stop. I don't want to be distracted." Scar winces, but even so, he's given more visions: him chasing Skizz around the Secret Keeper, yelling for blood and his demise, only to be tackled by Xerean, the both of them falling into the water, then another where he's leaping out of the water to take Tango in and bring him to the bottom as the fiery elf hybrid struggles and claws at the arms on his shoulders. In a new one, he's got Etho in a headlock, the masked man using his elbow to roughly jab him in the diaphragm, Scar releasing him with a cough, then shooting out his hand to stop Etho's axe, pressing it at an awkward angle until he lets go, spins it, and lashes out. This time, he's staring up at the sky. It feels...different. He can hear the wind blowing, parts of thick, messy hair flickering into his vision, as well as grass, and swirls of grass, leaves, and petals carried on the breeze. He doesn't move. He doesn't need to. He has no purpose, and here he lays, silent and forgotten. Watching hours tick by endlessly, silent but deep and mournfully sad. Something roots him into the ground, not that he's getting up soon. The ground may as well consume him. It's peaceful, despite the sorrow and pain, anger and sadness he's crystallized within his heart. Otherwise, he feels nothing. Only silence and void.

Then, it all comes rushing back. Sound, emotion, thoughts, too many, too much, shrieking in his head in comparison to the silence of the vision. Skizz is gone, he's on his knees now, staring blankly out at the trees around him. "And now he's gotten away." He sighs, getting to his feet. "I have no cause in this. We have tried many things before. We are unable to remove this, so you must simply make do. You were admittedly rendered incapacitated long enough for the scarred one to escape, but you have the means now to chase after him. Go on." Scar growls at him, and inhales deeply, rolling his shoulders."You're having fun, but do not forget your Task." Xian observes, and Scar regards him with a cold smile. "I won't." He isn't allowed to.

Teleportation is useful, but it gets old really quickly, as he uses it once more to find Skizz. He's running, heading for the bridge connected to his base, still holding his arm. "Skizz!" Grian shouts, and Scar stops, narrowly avoiding three javelins a few feet taller than he is impaling his body. This announces the arrival of Xerean, arm outstretched from having hurled them. "Oh, there you are! You're late, I killed Tango already! We even waited for you!" Scar calls, and Grian shoots past, taking Skizz and hauling him up into the sky before throwing an Ender Pearl to disappear. He's hit by a blast of wind in the Avian's wake. "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 aloft. "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. Xian is watching her, he can feel Xian's fury pressing in on his skull. Scar ignores it. "And in any case, this is the last Session. Someone had to start the deaths." Yanking one of the spears out of the ground, Scar throws it, and Xerean violently moves her hands in order to direct it up and away from herself. He continues to throw the next two, then goes after her himself, dragging her out of the sky and into the water. She shifts almost immediately into an aquatic form, gills along the sides of her neck, golden, reptilian eyes, fins, and a tail. Scar throws a punch, moving through the water as though they were still on land rather than changing to the environment, making the environment change to suit him., before she can bring her hands up to block the attack. She twists to escape his hold and moves back, a half-second pause occurring. He immediately goes for her again, adding aquatic features to himself. Xerean stays still, then shoots deeper down and behind him at the last moment, deliberately smacking him in the side with her tail and shoving him away a foot or so. The two begin to chase one another around Love Island for about 30 seconds, before Scar evaporates into a stream of bubbles and pops up 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. "Do not let her escape! You can end her, here!" Xian urges, yet despite this, Xerean does escape. He doesn't notice for a minute, his confusion growing when he reaches the shallower river area. He climbs out, and looks around. "Well, how was that?" He asks, catching her figure on the hill where Grian's original base was. "Disappointing." Scar huffs and decides to leave.

Walking through the wall to his base, he suddenly collapses, and a bolt of sharp, iron-hot, acute pain shoots through his head, behind his eye, as had been the case when he first hit the re-roll button. Grunting, he drops to one knee, palm pressed against his eye. His half-vision shifts to him flying, circling Joel's tower, and Xerean, smaller and faster, darting in and around his head, raking claws across his face and trying to lead him away from it while Joel, Pearl, Mumbo, and Impulse shoot at him. Grian's also there, acting as backup for the Chaos Witch, and then it changes as an arrow nears his eye. He's in a meadow, not here, but somewhere else, familiar and insurmountably safer-feeling, where Xerean is kneeling, holding his hands in hers and watching him with soft eyes. "...catastrophic, as you know. But we are capable of doing good. You've seen what I can do, too." She takes a few blades of grass and a flower, closes her hand over them, blows into the small hole she makes, and opens it again to reveal a little lizard, green as grass with flowers for eyes, and a tongue the color of cornflowers. She lets it crawl along her arm, then passes it over to him. "With how the Hermits are, I assume that once you settle, it won't be so hard to control those violent impulses, and you can always come to me if you're having trouble." She assures him, and then it shifts again and she's looking down at him, covered in rain and wet hair sticking to the side of her face, bruised and bleeding on her forehead, pointing a sword at him. "You can do it. It's okay. I'm not mad." He encourages, voice barely above a whisper, and he watches the tip of the blade waver, swerve up, then come down as Xerean yells. It ends, and he whips back to look at Xian. "Was that you?" He demands. "No. My associates must be taking...liberties...again." He replies, and as much as he dislikes and doesn't want to trust the Chaos Witch, Scar can tell that at least this time, he's being truthful. "Continue on. Leave the scarred one to lick his wounds. I suppose she may have things to consider now, as well. Perhaps sleep may do you some good once more." He stands back up, and starts heading for the tunnel into the lower part of his base."So, would you mind telling me why you don't say Xe's name? What is it about the name that you refuse to say it?" He inquires. Xian slows, stopping in the middle of a step. "She may be my offspring, but that does not mean I recognize her as such. She is an enemy, no more, no less. And I will not utter her cursed name in my mouth, so as to remove her existence further from me." He spits. "...can you be any more vague? Come on, that isn't a real answer." Scar presses, and Xian narrows his eyes. "I do not owe you the knowledge." He states, and thus ends the conversation.

Scar sits down. He doesn't want to sleep, so he won't. But he wants to see if he can understand what these visions are, or if he can trigger them himself. "They are not meant for whims. They are not meant to be there at all. It is a consequence of our intentions and acts." Xian observes, and Scar closes his eyes. "Yeah, well, if you always meant for me to have these powers, then why shouldn't I use them however I want?" Scar argues, not sure where these snappy, angry answers are from but he agrees with them. Probably another Scar-variant. A Scariant? Whatever they'd be called. "Do not lose sight of your purpose. You only have use to me due to your connection to her and how much I can use you to BREAK her before ending her." Scar feels his lips curl back into a snarl, and he opens his eyes again to look at Xian. "This 'purpose' you gave me is a prison." He says, and Xian shrugs. "You mortals are meant to be pawns and instruments in the affairs of greater beings. It is simply time for you to fulfill your use. Be grateful it is full of such power and freedom." Scar scoffs, standing. "You call this freedom? I'm shackled to this world! Cursed to relive this story, over and over again, for a war I never had a part in! You're forcing me to do things and tear my friendship apart for a feud I don't know the first thing about, simply because it's convenient for you, because you can't do it yourself." He says, struggling to control this flare of temper. "And I will continue to do so. You may have the status of a Chaos Witch, but that does not give you the right to challenge my will." Scar narrows his eyes. "You're a coward. Using me to get what you want, because you know that Xerean could beat you anytime, but can't hurt me." Xian flicks his tail, holding himself authoritatively. "And you remain a blind fool. There is more to this, far more at stake here than you think you know–than you can EVER know. War is not won by sheer power, but cunning and wit, deception and long-standing plans." He replies venomously, moving to stand over him. Scar straightens, looking up at him challengingly. "Heart will not save you now. We have done this back and forth of submission and revolt. Be done with it, for I am tired and have little patience as the reckoning draws near." Scar shoves him to one side and moves to the other side of the room, setting down his Lightsaber. He belatedly realizes this answers the question of if Xian is actually something he can reach out and touch or not. "I'm gonna sit down, you're gonna shut up, and I'm going to just..." Scar sighs, returning to the bed and closing his eyes again. "You flutter about like an indecisive bird. You must land. I will give you ten hours to consider, or I will force actions upon you." Xian announces. Scar doesn't move. He's having pockets where he wavers, like this one was, but he knows what his choice is, what it almost always is, and what it always will be.

His time is up.

Scar is ready.

Hopefully.

What he did for those ten hours was he chased those visions, grabbed them like flying, rolled-up maps and laying them on the ground to view and study. Except he can't look down at them, moreso when he sets one down, he falls into it, and fell into a hole of seeing. He watches. For 10 hours, he sees. Different concepts, timelines, characters, all different ways to tell the same story: a fight between Xerean and Scar. Sometimes, he's violent and vicious, a common thread between most of these cases, sometimes she's the savage one, sometimes they're teamed, often times apart or against one another, sometimes he's having fun, joking with Skizz or Pearl, sometimes mining with Etho and Martyn, even visiting Jimmy and doin a trip to the End with him. And in some, his small glimmer of hope: he's back in Hermitcraft. It's the barest of flashes, muddled and distorted to the point he can only see a few seconds before he sees another reality, but backgrounds, the colors, the momentary sights or sounds, the way the air simply FEELS better, colder, freer, easier to breathe. There's such a constrictive feeling about the World Border imposed on them, it makes it feel like there's far too little space. Because that's the point, in the end. Make sure nobody can run, and ensure that there will always be a bloody battle in the end. He sees what his actions bring, which are most common, such as betrayal of his friends, Tango being the first death of the Session, and his or theoretically Xerean's win. "You see, now. You see in full what we have begun." Scar refuses to talk to him, picking up his weapon and stalking out. Whatever true part of him there was from the beginning, the real Scar, is gone, buried under several mindsets and conflicting personalities warring in his head. If this isn't a literal definition of Chaos Scar, he isn't sure what is. "I've given up. I've seen where fighting gets me, and I'm already tired. I want to be done, be rid of you, be rid of this stupid world, this loop, I want to just have it all end." Xian nods, moving to walk beside him. "And it shall. Perhaps this is where you get it right." Scar glances at him. "Ever think about the idea that maybe I'm not the problem? That you're trying too hard to force something to happen?" Xian glowers back at him. "You try my patience. I told you to choose, have you not?" Scar shakes his head. "No, I have. Not that it ever really was much of one, was it?" He replies, climbing up his ladder, and looking up at the nearing golden hour. Poking his head out of the entrance, he swiftly catches sight of Scott, Impulse, Skizz, who now has bandages along his arms, and Xerean, who's explaining something. Scott leans back, and Scar moves closer, camouflaging himself and making himself smaller to avoid detection. "So what is this, then? An alternate universe? Or would called an alternate reality?" Xerean nods. "Most likely an alternate reality." She confirms. Scar pauses, and Xian looks at him. "This should not surprise you. You have already known for several hours." He points out. Scar rolls his eyes and stands up slowly as Impulse tilts his head. "So then how didn't anyone–specifically you or Grian–realize?" He inquires. "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 the impish man. 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 her allies back, discouraging a reckless charge, and mostly for Skizz's sake, he would assume. "She still puts others above herself at all times. Use this weakness." Xian advises, and Scar snorts. "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 Skizz takes a step back. "Aw, that's too bad." Scar sighs, shaking his head in disappointment. "If the others attempt to assist in the fight, you can dispose of them easily." Xian adds, cheering Scar up a little. "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. Scar stands up, shaking himself out, and readying to charge, before she makes her wings a more realistic size again, then gives herself a tail. She's still very defensive, in how she holds herself, the way she still stands in front of her friends, and her slow movement and observant gaze. He waits, giving her the chance to initiate attack.

She takes that chance, jumping up and twisting aggressively to bring her tail down, then disappearing 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!" Xerean 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. He wants Skizz. He'll end the Heart Foundation himself. And besides, Skizz killed him. It's his fault, really. 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 now disbanded and begun to try and circle Scar. Without warning, or any sort of signal, Impulse shoots him, then throws himself to one side when Scar tries to take the ground out from under him, causing a pit to open and surge up where he'd stood. Scott and Skizz take the distraction as an opening to get actually close and hit him once each with a weapon, then as he retaliates, Xerean then backs them by taking a nearby tree and throwing it between the opponents, giving them time to back up. Impulse has joined up with them, too, but yet, Scar refuses to pay Xerean any actual attention. Scar drags the tree into the ground to get a clear view of his targets, then raises his hand to throw something at them. An arrow shoots past, narrowly missing his nose. a water bottle breaks over his face, momentarily blinding him. Scar waves his hand, just as Xerean begins to speak. "You told me you wanted to fight me! I'm OVER HERE–" She cuts off as Skizz collapses. Rather than simply shoot him, Scar chose to just take the air from his lungs, some part of that having killed him instantly, it appears. He credits low hearts count. Scar smiles wickedly, looking up to observe Xerean's valiant trial of staying aloft, presumably using the burst of power to support herself. "Oops." He says and the pain passes, Xerean slowly recovering. "It's a shame I didn't get two of them, honestly. Could have made this even quicker." He sighs, then gets distracted by the sensation of 5 more hearts being added to his health. It presently sits at 32. "Oh, I got more hearts, yay!" He says, a very sudden shift in tone and mood.

Scott grips his sword a little tighter, lifting his shoulders, and turns to him. "What happened to not wanting to be the villain, Scar?" He asks. Scar huffs, a sharp, bitter feeling flaring inside of him. He stops the attacks on Xerean, who lands beside Impulse and Scott. "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, he swears he can hear it echo. "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." Scar points at Xerean, whose face is becoming sympathetic. He can see where it's going, and he refuses to repeat it again. "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?" She spreads her wings protectively. "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." Xian lifts his head, a slight glimmer of satisfaction in his voice as he speaks. "She's not as foolish and stubborn as I thought. She can indeed learn. This is good. This is progress." He says, which is the closest thing Scar has heard to being good news since...this all started, actually. "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, an impulsive action, but a fun one. Someone's freaked out, now. "And there goes Joel." He announces proudly. There's a beat of silence while the two beings of Chaos deal with the resulting power surge. "Joel hasn't even done anything to you! He wasn't even here!" Impulse objects in the meantime, and Scar 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 demeanor before. One sounded distraught and despairing, the other desperate and determined. Xerean frowns for a moment, before he's ripped away, sent off on another vision trip. Honestly, it was interesting at first, but now, it's annoying. At least it doesn't hurt, this time. Right now, he's riding a camel with Pearl, whooping as it lopes off at unnatural camel speeds and they race across a desert, followed by Xerean and Cub on another. Grian is a shadow in the sky, and they're all having fun. As sunlight fills his vision, he finds himself slowly stalking down the steps to BigB's CobbleRooms place, a creeper egg in his hand. "BigB, where'd you go? Come on out, we aren't finished, yet!" He calls, letting three creepers spawn, and they meander down the tunnel ahead of him. There's a few small splotches of blood, so he definitely came down here, but he can't even hear the man breathing if he tries extending his senses. He enters the chamber, looking around, and tries to seek out an actual body than simply relying on senses to find him. Oddly, he isn't there. It's like he's simply gone. "Do you have any hints?" He asks Xian, who shakes his head. "I know not where he is. He does this every time. Somehow, unless you kill him immediately, he disappears. He never reappears anywhere, so we haven't corrected it. It seems intent to stay, so perhaps it is on the road to victory." The Chaos Witch offers, flicking his tail and looking around. Scar opens his mouth to reply, then grunts, and as he leans against the nearest wall, the scene changes. He's ranting to Bdubs, about how he'd done his best to be honest and a good person, and how the Secret Keeper had made him a villain the entire time. Xerean isn't there, and Bdubs doesn't sound or seem too scared, more impressed or accepting. It changes once more to him sitting atop the Secret Keeper, huddling with his knees up against his chest. Everything is silent. He hates it. He wants it to go away. He wants SOUND. He wants to hear someone speak again. Silence is too empty. Too gone. Scar may long for another voice, but looking at the devastation around him, he knows he won't.

Scar shakes his head a moment, and Xerean looks like she just came back from daydreaming. These aren't even all that helpful anymore, just showing him what could be and what isn't. Like it's taunting him. "Ignore them. Complete your purpose." Xian orders, and Scar indicates to Scott and Impulse. "You two, I'll kill later, you, we still have a match to finish." He says, and Xerean waves her hand, the two disappearing. She's sent them off, probably to keep them from sharing Skizz's fate. He takes advantage of that split-second decision in order to run into her, and shove her to the ground as he draws his blade. She holds up her hands, an invisible force keeping her from coming in contact with the weapon, then grunts as she forces it to one side and makes an escape to stand, the two beginning to circle one another. "She's still hesitant to attack. You want a fight? MAKE her fight." Scar growls, and begins to hit harder, faster, doing whatever he can to make her fight back. He accomplishes this with the use of mostly speed and illusions, but also ensuring she's always in a small, compact area. If she hasn't the time to get her bearings or plan her next move, she's either going to take massive damage, or lose entirely. Even so, she manages to take most of it, keeping up with almost everything Scar throws at her, until he throws her into the wall around the Mounders' base hard enough to put a crater in his frustration. She slowly gets to her feet, breathing heavily, and shrugs a little, a set of fangs, claws, and spines being added to her look. Scar lifts his head, triumphant. "See? There we go. Was that so hard?" She doesn't reply, but he knows her well enough to tell she's had some sort of response in her head. "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. Xerean 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. it sends him stumbling to the side, but he recovers seconds later to whip around and glare at her. "Seriously?? Even now? Come on, I've seen you take out Ravagers with punches stronger than that! 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. Those other hims are not helpful here, nor have they ever been. "I'm doing my best! I'm sorry for disappointing you." She spits, snapping her tail back and forth. "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. Slightly impressed, Scar then takes the door and throws it away, and goes after her. He reaches forward and grabs the front of the dress sweater thing she always wears, and uses it to throw her out near the base of the tower again, before appearing where she stands and initiating a fistfight. A unique fistfight, though: They'll throw distractions such as fire, snakes(he does not take kindly to that), cards, butterflies, dusts, anything that works.

Xerean suddenly jumps into the air, followed by Scar, swooping up around the tower to dive-bomb and wrestle the other before breaking apart to avoid hitting the ground, then meeting back up at higher altitudes to do it again. It's there Xerean does her most damage to Scar(he's certain she broke his nose with that door, it's not healed iteslf yet and so he's had to consciously ensure it isn't always bleeding down his face), taking new forms such as some bird-snake-wolf thing. She flaps her way back around the tower, then performs a sharp, downwards bank to avoid Scar shooting a twisted spire of metal at her. Scar doesn't change form as well, but continues to shoot at her. Screeching, she dives down and stretches out her talons to gash him with them, which Scar avoids by shoving her away with a blast of air. Arrows shoot past her, which Scar stops and allows to just fall to the ground., Giving herself the neck of an owl, Xerean looks at who's shooting, as does Scar: Etho, Martyn, and Bdubs were 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 next volley of 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. Scar flips her over, making himself heavier and shooting her into the ground. He lowers himself down, she's still got her eyes closed, but she opens them when he lands, folding his wings in. She's definitely hurt him, bruises and small scratches on his body, he's tired, but regardless, he draws 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, making her wheeze painfully. He sets some sort of shackle to keep her here, then raises his weapon, before an arrow hits the side of his hand, so he cries out and drops it. 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." Xerean tells him, and he abruptly collapses into his shadow and disappears. 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." She replies, sinking to one knee. Scar huffs, picking back up the Lightsaber. "We'll see."

Scar assumes she sent him to the CobbleRooms, or at least close to it, and takes one step to land on his wall. He sees the man instantly, opening the door to his CobbleRooms, so he draw his bow and shoots, sticking the man in the shoulder before he slips through the doorway, so he hops down to follow. He recognizes it to be the moment he saw earlier, a bloody arrow on the floor and a few small drops around it. He's definitely here. "Think I can catch him?" He asks, Xian materializing out of the wall. "I suppose there must be a time that you do, but I have yet to see it." Scar nods, and strides down the stairs, stopping at the last flight to summon a few creepers and walks a bit slower, louder, letting the monsters walk ahead of him. "BigB, where are you? I'm ready for that tour, now." He says, moving into the main chamber. The creepers are wandering aimlessly, and he can't see any more blood. "Too late." Xian sighs, then a door closes. Scar throws a set of spikes at the sound, but finds nothing when he actually looks. Only a broken door. Must have closed. But why? There's nothing here. He pushes it, hinges creaking, and the bottom scrapes the stone roughly. Nothing special about it, just a door. "There is blood." Xian announces, nodding to the door handle and lower part of the wall beside it. "But he's...not here." Scar shakes his head. BigB isn't just gone from here, he can't sense the man ANYWHERE. not here, not in the End, or the Nether. BigB has completely vanished, like he was never here. "We have never found what makes him disappear. It never comes up again, so we assume he dies in some way." Xian says, which, coming from him, seems like laziness. "Well, I'll raid his place in the meantime–" Scar yells, hit with yet ANOTHER wave of visions, abrupt and sudden, but it's not the same. They last enough to hear a second or two of words, then move on, rather than scenes.

The first one looks like BigB fighting against Tango, yelling at someone he can't see. "...no time, I have to help them, they'll die! Send me back!"

The next is Xisuma, looking down at someone in a bed, their face obstructed from view by his body. "I don't think she's going to-"

This one is Jabber, in Grian's face, threatening and unfriendly as she snarls down at the Watcher. "I don't care, I need your skills, since you clearly have a knack for breaking through time and space, Watcher."

It's him. Hermitcraft him, clasping an unconscious Xerean's hand, crying as he hangs his head low. "It hurts. So much. Please, come back."

The final one, everything is silent, dark, and still."Wake up."

He gasps, sitting up. He'd fallen asleep? For how long? That wasn't long at all! "That has not happened before. What happened?" Xian asks, not for Scar's well-being, but because he doesn't know what this was. "Another vision. I got–oh." Scar stops, and rubs his eyes. He takes a breath, then looks at his hands. "Oh." He breathes, smiling. "Someone did something. I feel much better. Oh, this is–this is great!" Scar laughs, full of new energy. He isn't tired anymore! He's free! He's unstoppable! Injuries are still there, that will be an issue in a fight, he's still physically exhausted, and his hearts are still there. But it's fine, he still has 17. "The Watcher has taken you out of the Code!" Xian exclaims, genuinely shocked. "It never does that. It always either refuses, or she decides against it, or it dies before she can ask it." Scar laughs again, almost giddy. He's so free, it's so wonderful. He's 100% ready to wreak havoc and cause misery now! "This is great." He sighs. "You may no longer be a part of the Code, but you still have small threads of it tied to you. You can still die. You still take damage. You may no longer have the need to sleep that hinders your ability to think, but you are still tired in other ways." He warns, and Scar shrugs it off. He feels powerful, and he plans to make sure he enjoys it while he can. It's going to be a lot of explaining when he gets home. Making his way back up out of the caverns, he stops. "Scar..." Xerean's calling out for him. Exiting the little space above ground, he approaches her. She's on some sort of hoverboard. "You did it, somehow." He admits, dipping his head for a moment. "Yay, me?" She says, as though not entirely sure what he meant. 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. A jolt of surprise running through his arms. She comes out of the mist, a sword suspiciously similar to the Master Sword raised, which he defends against with his own. They clash for several minutes, the last bit of golden hour illuminating the ground they fight on. When Xerean throws a grappling hook at him, he swerves around it, takes the rope, and pulls, making his other hand magnetic enough to call the hooked part back and catch that as well, so Xerean turns into a little sparrow to avoid getting hurt when he throws it again. She goes through a portal, appearing behind and to the left of him, so Scar turns to knock her arms away, then try to get her with the Lightsaber, before she directs a Warden shriek at him, echoed by another somewhere else on the Server. This is, admittedly, what he wanted, but something feels...wrong. He wants this, doesn't he? To win? To prove he can handle these things? Right? Shaking himself out of it, he throws up a wall of glass and lets it fall on her, then liquefies it to mould it into new shapes to try and cut her or trap her. Xerean instead spins, crackling with electricity, and in an electrical zap, gets out from one of the small holes in the liquefied glass to shoot that electricity at his chest, moving him backwards by about a foot. There's a small pause, the two heaving for breath, Xerean slumped over, barely unable to stand upright on her own, holding her arm and ignoring the blood leaking from her arms, mouth, neck, and forehead. The entire fight, she has not once use her wings, so he assumes he broke them in the earlier fight. Her tail has broken spines on it, some nearly snapped off, others barely more than stubs, and plenty of bruises and red marks. Growling angrily, she reaches out for him, but he instead stops her with vines, pulling her down to the ground. She struggles, but does little else, because if he's right, she only has one heart left. Not worth fighting for, since she'll lose it either way. "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, trembling with each step he takes. He isn't afraid, it's not that he doesn't want to, but he has very little strength left to accomplish even this. "Do it. Do not fail me now. You have her here. Waste no time, or it will repeat!" Xian urges, and with that, Scar drives his Lightsaber through her chest, and collapses back, staring at the sky as the thunder rolls. He braces for the pain, but even so, he still screams, as though all the pain he'd felt for gaining more power previously had come together at one time to drown him, putting him through throes of agony, but somehow, he endures. Somehow, he catches his breath, throat raw from yelling, and somehow, he stands up.

"Now claim your win." Xian tells him, practically the moment he stands. "I need a minute! I can't–I can't focus." He wheezes, staggering. His tiredness has come back, he just wants to sleep. Why is it back?! "You have just taken in her power as well. You were linked. Now that she is gone, you carry the burden entirely yourself." Xian explains, and Scar groans, then narrows his eyes to track the small shape shooting out from the tower. The others are following, or at least trying to, none having abilities of flight and such as Grian does. "What have you done, Scar?!" He cries, landing beside her. "What I had to." He replies, and Grian spends a moment to actually look at Xerean, then exhales and looks back up at him. "She was trying to HELP you! She told me about what's happening...what if you weren't supposed to?" Scar shrugs. "Then it doesn't really matter, it'll start over again anyway. I can repeat as many times as I want, as many times as I have to. This doesn't mean anything. If this isn't the right way, I'll kill myself and start again." He hopes it is. Xian hasn't offered any reason to believe it's not. "So your plan to get out, to fix this, is just...trial by error?" Scar shrugs. "The others will not be too far off. Perhaps 15 minutes once they get down the ladder. I would suggest you remove the Watcher before it has backup to assist. You may have killed her, but you haven't the hearts to spare in order to take many hits. At the same time, however, I have a request: hurt it. Physically, of course, but also mentally and in spirit. It has caused many of the frustrations my accomplices and I have encountered in Code and in overall enactment of this plan." Xian advises, walking behind the Avian. "So...you, uh...you still feeling particularly murderous? Should I be running for my life, or--" Scar answers the question by sweeping his Lightsaber, not far enough to hit the Avian, but close enough that the action makes him back up. "Right. Okay, then." Grian spreads his wings halfway. "Actually, Grian, there's another way we could settle this." He scrapes his boot against the ground, and the terrain shifts, sand sinks below their feet, cacti rising out of the ground to make a circle to enclose the two in. Grian's eyes widen, his pupils shrink, and his wings lower, the edges brushing the ground as he steps back once more. "Just like old times, you and me." Scar drops the Lightsaber, as well as his armor, any sort of weapon no longer in his reach, then spreads his arms. "Think you can do it again?" The Avian's clearly not enjoying this; Scar knew specifically how much that first win hurt him, at the time, they were still unused to the entire concept, and it hurt and cost more to die in these games. Grian's killed Scar here before, but that first one still sits wrong with him. "Come on, look! I'm not even using any power right now! Just you and me, one on one, battle to the death." He says, pointedly shedding his weapons and armor onto the ground and kicking them away. Slowly, Grian does the same. A little twitch runs through his eye. Does he really want to do this? Xerean's just died, and he's not feeling much, if anything about it. It's almost numb. Like he's hit a wall, after being carried by a wave, and the tide has drawn back. It's just him. He still feels nothing of any sort of remorse, pain, guilt, or sadness when the two men run at each other, meeting in the middle of the ring to fight. Grian immediately ducks a jab at his head, swiftly moving around to try and lash out at Scar's back, however only managing to rip the fabric a little bit. Scar whirls to face him again, just as Grian leaps up to barrel into his chest, making the taller man take a step back to manage the sudden addition of momentum, force, and new weight. When he goes to try and shake the Watcher off, he digs his talons into Scar's arm, smacking him with his wings a few times as he attempts to maintain balance. Then, he hops off, backing up again to circle him slowly. He left several bleeding lines in Scar's arm, not enough to severely damage him, but enough still to take out a heart. He finished the fight with Xe on about 4 and a half, so he's gone down to 8 and a half, now. "Why the long face? We've barely done anything to each other!" Scar says, dashing at him. Grian expertly hops up and vaults off his back to land behind him, and to avoid the cacti, Scar reflexively reaches out behind him and manages to catch the Avian's leg, thus saving him from the spiny plants. This also allows him to pull his opponent closer, use his other arm to block a punch, then releases him to hit him with a hook across the jaw. Grian falls, then rolls to one side as Scar tries to pin him there, and runs into his side, bringing him to the ground and sitting on his chest, managing a few blows before Scar recovers enough to retaliate. This is very much like the first fight, though back then, they were more hesitant. Here, though, Scar's not holding back. He moves to sock Grian in the side of his head, then freezes, pain coursing through him. The Watcher stops, confused, then realizes what's going on and hesitates. The pain only lasts for a few seconds, so Scar recovers quickly, grabs the front of Grian's sweater, and rolls over to pin him. "My turn." He states, and while it only takes two punches, Scar kills him. Xian flicks his tail. "That was arduous to watch." He informs the man, who chuckles. His fists and fingers have blood on them, but even so, he wipes some of the sweat off his face. He doesn't care about bloody hands or face anymore. "Shut up. I did what you wanted, for whatever reason. Let me have my victory, why don't you?" Scar spits, and lets the scene dissipate around him, looking at the people in the distance. "The Elven one is dead." Scott. Scott's died. "Then it wasn't an accident. Scott doesn't just die." Either he deliberately let someone kill him for hearts, or he sacrificed himself because they saw the fight the two had. "What are you waiting for? They're the least powerful opponents you have!" Scar looks at Xian without turning his head. "Oh, so I assume you missed the whole '5 AM Pearl' thing. No, that's not always the case." Xian rolls his eyes. "Then go and eliminate the strongest ones first!" He urges, and so Scar starts forward. Grian has left him on 4 hearts, so he'll need to take someone out right away.

For that, he chooses Bdubs, the group spreading out to try and overwhelm him with numbers, as Scott, Skizz, and Impulse had tried to do with Xerean earlier. Ignoring them, Scar jumps up with a self-made wind charge, then slows his descent to accurately pinpoint and aim a shot at the man before releasing and watching it land. When he hits the ground, he creates a box of obsidian, then moves through the ground to pop up behind Cleo and hit her, only stopped by Etho and several wolves instantly attacking him. He recognizes the first dog as the one that bit him, so he kills it, throws it aside, and then goes to deal with Etho. By then, the others have realized he's no longer in the box and have come to help the white-haired man fight back. Scar has to be careful, rather than allow himself to take a few hits, he now understands why Xerean used the teleportation so often in the Battle for the Rift. He's almost never anywhere for more than a second, be it getting a jab in on Impulse while he's reacting to Scar's shoving Cleo, or catching Pearl's arrow to shove it into Martyn, who manages to hit him, twice, mostly out of sheer luck. The arrow downs him, though, and slowly, Scar narrows down the list of enemies. Cleo falls to a direct hit from his Lightsaber, as does Etho, and Impulse is killed by a bolt of lightning he calls down. Gem sacrifices herself by shoving Pearl out of the way of said lightning, and while he's focused on that, Pearl goes down, too. He doesn't realize this, though, not immediately. "Did she run away?" He muses, poking the limb nearest to him, then walks around, puzzled. "She has fallen." Xian announces, standing at the edge of a gorge. Scar peers over the edge, then steps down to land inside. She's died from the fall. A strange pain at the back of his head, not the one behind his eye, begins to bloom, and several whispers gather, turning into one voice: "She's dead, Scar. You won." He looks around, hearing Grian. Why is he so desperate to find him? For a split second, he swears he sees a figure of wispy outlines staring at him, more eyes than he can count surrounding it. "Really?" He asks. He laughs a bit. He can finally rest! It's over, he's won! He can go home! Be free! Make up for everything he's done, be rid of Xian, and this madness!

And then the vision hits.

"She's dead, Scar...you won." He reads the message, blinks, reads the message again, and exhales as tears prick his eyes. "Really?" He says, and the liquid starts flowing hard, the realization, the stress, the exhilaration and pain hitting him all at once. He violently throws the zombie attacking him away, killing it, and collapses, unable to support his weight any longer as all energy leaves his body and causes him to sink to his knees. "How did that happen?" He asks, then laughs a little, making a failed attempt to wipe away the tears and clear his streaming eyes and blurry vision. "How'd the guy with no friends win?" He asks, then begins to break down in full, sobbing as he repeats the question. Kneeling in front of Pearl's still body, he slowly gets up again. "I'm so sorry." He says softly. It flickers to a new one, where the sky is dark, but there's the crackle of fire and Scar's laughing, grinning at the chaos he's caused. "I did it! I won! They're all dead!" He giggles, practically dancing around the field, on his way up to the Secret Keeper. Another change. He and Xerean press the button together. Another one. He runs his sword through her and lets her fall off the top of a tower, Grian diving in an attempt to catch her, followed by Martyn. Another. He's destroying things, caught in fury and rage, cutting the Secret Keeper statue in half in his wake. It changes to him hugging Scott, who turns out to be dead as well, and pressing the button, then to him attacking Jimmy. Jimmy? There was a reality where he lived? Interesting. It ends there, anyway, and he finds himself kneeling in front of Pearl as he had been in the first vision.

He doesn't feel as triumphant as he'd thought. He feels...sad. Empty, guilty, even. It hits him: the tiredness comes back in full force, the emotions, the realization, the adrenaline, the pain, the loss, everything he'd been hiding away and dismissing, bottling it up and pushing down, it all comes for him now. "What have I done?" He says quietly, taking a shaky breath. "You are not yet done. You have to hit the succeed." Xian tells him, but Scar doesn't move for a minute. "I killed them all. I thought it would...it would set me free. I was so desperate–look what I did!" He breathes, running a hand through his hair. "It cannot move on unless you do." Xian says harshly, and Scar looks up at him. "You know, I may have helped you here, but once I'm out, Xerean's going to absolutely destroy you, and I'm gonna enjoy it. You made me a monster." Xian doesn't move. "You can tell yourself these things all you like, but the only monster she will see is you." Scar looks away. He isn't wrong. The things he did to her, to the rest of them, forcing Grian to fight him as he had in Third Life, how couldn't he be? "I'll hit the damn button. Let's get this over with, already." He states, and rather than walk, he simply appears there as he speaks, transitioning the space around him to become where he wanted to be. Pressing the button, Scar watches the whispers and particles gather, and give him the green symbol, then he gets 5 hearts. Instantly after, he gets another piece of paper "Oh...is there more to do? A certain way to–" Scar stops. "No." He hits the button again, opens the parchment, then frowns and hits the button yet again. And then again. And again. And again. And again, and again, and again. "No!!" He yells, throwing the scroll away. The Task is 'Win Secret Life'. "I ALREADY DID!!" He cries, then whips around to look for Xian, who is no longer there. "Where are you? Where did you go?" He asks, looking around. "Where are you?? Come talk to me!!" He yells, breathing quick and panicky.

"Hello?"

A/N

10,799 WORDS

THATS A LOT