When Thalia woke up, there was an unusual ruckus down below. Loud clatter came from the tavern part of the inn, along with many people shouting. Thalia sighed and got up, stuffing her things back in her bag. She picked up her sheath and put it back on her belt, making sure she had her sword before leaving her room to go downstairs.
    When she got there, she found several men punching and kicking and all of them shouting. Vern was leaning on the railing of the loft, watching them almost in amusement. "What's going on?" Thalia asked as she joined him by the railing.
    "Western brawl." Vern said. "Always wanted to see one."
    "Yeah, pretty neat I guess. And violent." Thalia said. "Who started it?"
    "I did."
    Thalia looked at him in surprise. "What?!"

Outside the inn, most of the town was still aside from a few people walking across the deserted road now and then. A slight breeze blew sand around their feet as they walked, and a few kids played in the fountain which now had water. Everything was peaceful aside from the inn; that is, until the boys suddenly appeared in a flash of purple in the middle of the road.
    "Is this Sick Bay?" Logan asked.
    "No, I don't think so..." Clancy looked around and pointed at the fountain. "That fountain, see it? It's painted gold. It's rusty, but you can still see it. The one in Sick Bay should be silver. We're in Fort Savannah, I'm pretty sure." Clancy sighed. "We only have two pearls. What are we gonna do, walk?"
    "That's what we were gonna do before we had the pearls." Logan said. "Our situation could be a lot worse..." His voice trailed off as the noticed the dull noise coming from inside the inn.
    The two looked over and Clancy noticed the two horses tethered to the hitching post; alongside two other horses. He smiled. "Logan, I don't think we have to walk."
    "Oh, thank god." Logan said sarcastically, heading towards the inn. "We get to ride horses instead..."
    "What, would rather walk?"
    "Honestly, yes, I would."
    Clancy just rolled his eyes and pushed open the door. As soon as he looked into the inn he yelped and turned away again, around the corner of the wall. Logan gasped and ducked just in time so as to not get hit in the face by a flying stool. The two stared at the stool in shock, then looked at the door again. "Really?" Logan said finally. "Western bar brawl?"
    "Vern provably started it."
    Logan looked at him. "What on earth makes you think that?!"
    "He likes to experience new things, especially things of different cultures. So I wouldn't be surprised if he took a punch just to watch a brawl."
    Logan shook his head. "You two are the dumbest geniuses in the world." He said.
    "Look, I'll break it up." Clancy said.
    "You're gonna get punched in the face."
    "No, I don't think so." Clancy set his pack down on the bench outside the inn and sorted through it until he pulled out a metal sphere about the size of a baseball.
    Logan looked at it with uncertainty. "What is that, a grenade?"
    Clancy smirked at him. "Not quite." He said.
    He twisted its two halves until a small ticking sound emitted from it. He tossed it inside the inn, where it rolled into the crowd and disappeared from sight.
   
"Vern you can't just do that because it sounds cool!"
    "Clancy doesn't mind."
    "Well I'm not Clancy, am I?!"
    "Unfortunately, no."
    For a moment, the two remained silent. Then Thalia noticed someone by the door toss in a silver sphere. Her eyes narrowed. "What's that?"
    "What?" Vern followed her gaze and studied the object for a moment. Then, it suddenly let out a fog-like, gray gas and Vern's eyes widened. "Oh, that!" He grabbed Thalia's wrist and ran back into the closest room; Thalia's.
    "What's going on, what was that? Are we under attack?" Thalia asked.
    "We're jumping out the window." Vern said in reply.
    "What?!"
    "I'll explain later." Vern said. He opened the window and jumped out into the bushes without hesitation, despite the fact that the fall must have been ten feet or so. Thalia waited until Vern moved out of the way, shaking leaves from his hair, before she too jumped down.
   She muttered cursed as she stumbled her way, unscathed, out of the bushes. "Okay what was that about?"
   "Not sure." Vern tousled his black hair and walked around to the front of the building. Thalia followed after him. She stopped at what she saw.
   None other than the potentially mad scientist himself was peering into the room, taking a few steps back as the gas started to extend outside. Inside the building all had gone quiet.
   "I assume you fixed the kill glitch, then." Vern said.
    Clancy looked at him in surprise and beamed. "Vern!" He said. He hugged him. "So you started the fight didn't you?" He said after pulling away.
    "Yes." Vern replied.
    "I don't really want to interrupt here, but please tell me ginger's not dead." Thalia interrupted.
    Clancy nodded to the left, a small smirk on his lips.
    Thalia looked in the direction he gestured and smiled. He was there, still in drag, standing by the fountain. She walked up to him and looked at the fountain as well. Neither spoke, and Thalia couldn't be sure if he knew she was there. She kept a deadpanned expression as she spoke. "Nice day, isn't it ma'am?"
    "Go die in a hole." Logan replied lowly, not missing a beat.
    They both fell silent, not looking at each other. Then the two finally exchanged glances and Thalia snorted with laughter. Logan smiled as well and brought her into a hug. "Missed ya, TK."
    "I'm sure you did." Thalia said. "So um... You're not dead then, huh?"
    "Me? Why would I be dead?"
    "You fell like thirty feet."
    "Yeah, that was lucky. I don't know how we got outta that with no broken bones."
    Thalia shrugged. "Hey, I'm not complaining."
    "Yeah, me neither." Thalia said. "We should probably go shouldn't we?" She started to turn around to ask Vern if he was ready to hit the road, but Logan stopped her.
   "Don't turn around." He said, his eyes locked over her shoulder.
   She looked at him in alarm. "Why?" She asked.
   "Because Clancy and Vern are over there mackin' on each other."
   Thalia scowled, groaning loudly, and Logan snickered. "Oh for god's sakes - get a room!"

The four managed to get on their way to Sick Bay in the next ten minutes. They got within thirty miles of the place before it grew dark, and they set up camp for the night in the desert.
    "Hey guys, do us a favor," Logan said to Clancy and Vern as they sat around their campfire. "if you do the do tonight, do it like way over there so we don't have to listen to it."
    "We could say the same to you." Vern replied coolly.
    Clancy choked with laughter on his water.
    Thalia couldn't help but laugh either. "Oh for gods sakes..."
    After a while the four relaxed again and began talking almost like normal people.
    "So, what exactly happened to you?" Vern asked Clancy and Logan.
    Clancy froze and looked at Logan warningly. Logan remembered what he said about Vern and Jordan: 'If he finds out we fell off a train and met you without him, he'll bloody kill us.'
    Clancy opened his mouth to speak, but Logan got in first.
    "We ran into Jack."
    "Jack?" Thalia and Vern asked in unison, their levels of excitement varying.
    "Why on earth was he in the jungle?!" Thalia asked.
    Logan shrugged. "No idea." He replied. "But he gave us a lift."
    "May I ask who this Jack of yours is?" Vern asked.
    "He's a friend." Thalia said. "Human-Ilex hybrid. He can teleport places."
    "Ilex?" Vern scrunched up his nose a bit.
    Clancy groaned. "Vern c'mon, we actually made friends..."
    "I'm just not comfortable around Ilex..." Vern said.
    Thalia's eyes narrowed. "Why not?" She asked, as though she were testing to see whether or not his dislike was valid. She knew some people had a right to be afraid of Ilex - perhaps because of an attack, but some people didn't like them just because they were racist.
    "My grandfather died in the Magist War." Vern said lowly. "I have every right to keep my distance from their kind."
    "Jack's good though." Logan said. "He was actually put in one of the concentration camps during the Magist War. He wasn't one of the ones fight-"
    Thalia cleared her throat and changed the subject. "So where are we gonna get this red diamond?"
    "From an old scientist in the Sid-Lab named Professor Greene." Clancy looked at Thalia and Logan. "I don't remember if I've told you this or not, so I'll say it now. The diamond will be in a glass case. DO NOT let it touch there air, or-"
    "Kaboom." Thalia said. "I've been briefed."
    "I haven't, how big of an explosion will this be?" Logan asked.
    "Big enough to kill everyone in both Sick Bay and Fort Savannah."
    Logan's face grew pale. "...A-Are you sure this mission is really a good idea?!"
    "The red diamond is worth almost three hundred full buckets of coal in energy." Vern said.
    "And the cool thing is, if you have to, you can use all of it at once to create something if it's an emergency." Clancy said.
    "But we don't plan on doing that-"
    "Unless an emergency arises." Clancy interrupted Vern. He nodded in the direction of his partner. "You probably noticed, but I have a bigger conscience than he does."
    "No, no, I didn't notice that at all." Logan said sarcastically, clearly still spooked be the pressure on not dropping the red diamond.
    Thalia cleared her throat. "So all we gotta do is get this thing and then we can go home?"
    Clancy shrugged. "Yeah. That's about it."
    Thalia nodded. "Well, then, this should be interesting."
    Logan, the only one to consider the assassin at the moment, laughed nervously. "Haha, yeah..."