Peridot had sort of disappeared for a moment (she got distracted by a ladybug) and upon seeing Diamondhead...she flipped the fudge out. She stammered and struggled to find the right words. Uh—I—what type of Gem ARE you?!

Mary was going completely nuts. Her struggle was making it difficult for Twilight to hold her. And Mary seemed to be acting worse with each word that Cole spoke. Thankfully, Twilight's persistence won out and Mary stopped flailing.

Twilight lowered Mary to the ground and loosened the grip her magic held, though she didn't release it entirely, so that she would be prepared in case Mary tried to run or attack anyone again.

That may not be a concern though, because the next thing Mary said was a question for Sadness, begging her to not leave...

Diamondhead raised one of his "brows" (he didn't exactly have eyebrows anymore) and looked at Peridot strangely, crossing his arms. "What gem am I?" he asked, looking at himself. "Well, I think I'm a diamond, I mean, I named this form Diamondhead but I'm not sure about what gem this guy actually is..." he admitted, smirking sheepishly at the Homeworld Gem.

Peridot froze. A...Diamond?! She exclaimed, grabbing her hair in surprise. Y-You're not a Diamond! Unless...are you WHITE Diamond?! Oh no! Please forgive me for being rude! She got on her knees. I'm sorry i'm sorry I'm sorry! Please don't break me and harvest me, PLEEEEASE!

Numbly, Sadness remained on the ground. Though she tried to block it out, she caught snatches of Cole's haunting speech - "blood," "fake," "paint." Why paint? It didn't...make any sense...

Despite her appearance and her demeanor, Sadness was mentally only twelve. A kid. And not one like Ben, either, who had seen quite a lot in his time. The emotion had spent her whole life(?) in a world of bright colors and relative normalcy, and she had only one goal in mind: make sure Riley Anderson lived a good life. Getting ripped away from everything she stood for was already almost too much for Sadness to handle, and now...death and blood and betrayal. When could she go home?

Mary was shouting now. Sadness didn't listen, but she could feel herself starting to cry; strangely, the familiar sensation helped her breathing gradually even out. It would be okay...

"Sadness?"

Sadness flinched.

She rolled over slowly, eye-level with the blood-soaked ground. Mary wasn't moving, but she was also glowing slightly, along with Twilight's horn - though it had dimmed by now. She was also holding a ruined knife. Sadness averted her eyes like the sight was painful.

Mary wanted her to forgive her. But...

"Mary," Sadness said timidly, still curled in a little ball on the ground. "What did you do?"

edited 18th Jan '16 2:54:14 PM by Syrika

Diamondhead's eyes widened and he looked stunned at Peridot's... frankly strange reaction to him saying he was a diamond. "Hey, whoa, whoa, hold up, I'm not gonna break you or anything like that!" Diamondhead insisted, putting his hands up and trying to look non threatening. He approached Peridot gently, and knelt in front of her. "I'm a hero! Heroes don't do that! Now what's this about a white diamond?"

He sighed, trying to calm down. "Look. I'm human. My watch lets me turn into aliens, and this is just one of them. So I'm not a white diamond and I'm not gonna break you or harvest you or anything like that. Seriously. Chill out, please. It feels weird when you're bowing to me and begging like that," he told the distraught Gem.

Cole took this all in, squinting his eyes slightly at the feelings he was getting from the others around him, still holding onto his daggers.

"You-," he said, gesturing to Twilight. "Take Sadness away from here. I will handle this."

He started towards Mary, frowning a little...but then raised his daggers and put them away, kneeling in front of her, speaking softly.

"You don't have to be scared. You've done something very wrong, but you are afraid. I know what that is like. I know what you feel. Not real, not real...I know what it is like to lose friends because they learn your true nature. I wasn't real either, before. A demon, a monster...and I killed people too, to feel real. It was wrong. Do you understand? Do you know you did wrong?"

Peridot looked up, tears streaming. Apparently she was really serious about this. Really...? So...you're not White Diamond?

Darth Marr then saw Ben transform into some kind of crystal Alien, similiar to Peridot, he certainly wondered if there were crystal like beings in his galaxy.

"Strange, so are these Diamonds your leaders in your....your....agh...ugh..."

Those who saw Marr would then see him clutching his chest, while he started to cough loudly for a few seconds, after he stopped coughing he took a few breaths to catch his breath.

"It's getting worse now..." He said to himself as he looked down at the ground, it appears his terminal illness is starting to slowly affect him more and more.

edited 18th Jan '16 3:08:23 PM by Darkomega245

Kieri breathed a sigh of relief as Peridot put away her weapon, relieved that she wouldn't have to deal with two people in strangely colored armor that were trying to kill everyone within the space of two days. She gave the gem a quick bow before she went off to observe...A giant troll? Was that Ben?! Her eyes went wide at his new appearance, once again having to fight off the urge to draw her sword. Still, if this was Ben, at least she had a creature like that on her side. Theoretically-she still didn't know him all that well yet.

It was at that moment Morty emerged from a nearby building. Was that really Rick's lab? Were they that close to being back where they started. Still, the Angel's eyes still widened as she heard the tinkering from inside the building. Rick was alive...It took a great deal for Kieri not to jump into the air and whoop for joy. People really didn't die in this city! 'Well, that's no excuse for letting them die,' she reminded herself 'just don't lose complete faith if you see someone die...'

Then Kieri heard it. The coughing. She whirled around to see Darth Marr hunching over, looking close to hacking up a lung. The Angel gulped and approached slowly, not looking to provoke him. She gently rested one of her hands on his back, channeling a small amount of her healing magic through her hand before speaking. "D-Darth Marr, are y-you okay," she began "f-forgive me for being intrusive, b-but I do know w-what sickness sounds l-like..."

Darth Marr felt slightly better thanks to Kieri's magic, though he still felt the pain and corruption of the Dark Side in his body, he slowly got up from his hunch as he looked at Kieri.

"You have my thanks for healing me, Kieri"

He thanked Kieri, before pausing for a moment and then speaking to her again.

"Yes, I am sick..terminally ill. This is why I want to return to my galaxy as fast as possible, especially with the war happening against the new enemy the Sith Empire has found. I needed to atleast make sure the Eternal Empire is defeated, my people to be safe and a worthy successor to be instated before this truly takes it's toll on me."

Damn that Secretary...

edited 18th Jan '16 4:42:11 PM by Darkomega245

Diamondhead shook his head. "Right, I'm not White Diamond. Just call me Ben, okay?" he asked, trying to reassure Peridot. "Take a deep breath. Or whatever it is that you guys do. And tell me— what are the Diamonds? They some kind of rulers on your planet or something?" he inquired.

His inquiry was cut short by hearing Darth Marr's ill-sounding coughing, and he looked over at the armored figure looking concerned. "Whoa! You okay?!" Diamondhead asked, once Kieri healed him slightly. He listened to Darth Marr's explanation of his condition. "I.... gee, I didn't know," he muttered, sounding a bit helpless and worried about Marr. That still didn't shake the strange feeling he had about the man, why he still kinda made Ben's skin crawl (even though Diamondhead lacked skin, but that was beside the point). "Wish there was something I could do, Darth," he sighed.

Peidot ignored Darth Marr's obvious illness and probability of dying and answered "Ben". That...is none of your concern. But, out here, I guess it doesn't matter. Yes, the Diamonds are the ruling Gems on Homeworld. My Diamond, Yellow Diamond, is probably only the greatest one ever!

"Huh." said Morty after the man described the broom. "That makes sense... I guess." He tapped his fingers together and tried to sort through all the fairy tales that he remembered. Something about witches? Or bears? Mostly they were an indecipherable blur of his mom ^note  usually whenever she and Dad were fighting inserting her own editorials into the narrative, snippy comments about how Prince Charming didn't just sit around watching Friends reruns all night. Not always, but enough to drown out any valuable knowledge that could now be gleaned from his childhood memories. "But, uh, points for trying, right?" Morty tapped his fingers together and tried to think.

"I mean, uh, in, uh, in fairy tales magic things are always, you know, in castles and stuff, right? Gl-glass slippers and red riding hoods and junk?" Before Morty could continue this dubious train of thought, Darth Marr started doubling over and trying to hack up his lungs.

"Oh jeez!" Morty's head turned from Marr to the cottage from whence had came, unable to decide on a course of action. "I-I-I could get, uh, I could get Rick..." Before he could do that, however, Kierie intervened. "Huh. Good, uh, good work there." he said, giving her a thumbs up. "That was... yeah, really good."

Even without his normal armor, Brother Marcus was still very heavy. That didn't mean Rex couldn't knock him off the edge, but it happened slower than Rex probably would have liked; and Brother Marcus still had genetically enhanced reflexes and reaction time. Brother Marcus fell over the edge of the city like a stone...

And Rex went with him as Brother Marcus grabbed the offending giant foot with a vice grip.

"I'll have you sign my sword with your blood, heretic!" Brother Marcus yelled as they fell, the metal wings spreading out to reorient himself. He drew his sword, now a large long sword with sharp, saw-like teeth on one side, and tried to slice at Rex.

And then suddenly, they were no longer falling beneath the city, but were instead rather abruptly on the ground in a small clearing, none of the others at Plague Knight's lab within sight. They were just there, as if they hadn't been falling at all, so they suffered no terminal impact. With his grip still on Rex's foot, Brother Marcus tossed Rex into a nearby tree, then started advancing forward with a slow, menacing walk.

"The confusion of this city is unending... I'll give you one chance to tell me what you know, heretic, and I might make your death quick and painless" Brother Marcus told Rex.

"Well I haven't seen any castles yet, but I bet there's some out there, somewhere" the man cooking the beef said, waving his arm at the forest around them. "Easiest way would be to get up high. Some of you can fly, right?" he asked.

Right around then, a woman suddenly appeared among the nearby trees in a blur, then immediately fell to her knees and started hacking and breathing heavily. The woman from the ice tunneling group was still having her subconscious reeling from the stab to the neck. "Woah, is she okay?" the werewolf asked, pointing her out to everyone else there.

edited 18th Jan '16 10:24:30 PM by FirockFinion

Diamondhead was about to respond to Peridot's explanation about the Yellow Diamond and her homeworld, when the woman appeared out of nowhere, breathing heavily and coughing. Diamondhead immediately ran to check up on her, kneeling beside her. "What the heck?! Are you okay, lady?!" Diamondhead asked, sounding worried and frantic. She sounded like she was dying. Or rather, she had just recovered from dying. That was probably what happened, considering she appeared out of nowhere and people respawned in this stupid city when they died.

The Forest

Specter Knight stopped hiding behind the tree. While he hadn't expected anything to go smoothly, he certainly hadn't been expecting that. Most likely, Rex had been killed by Brother Marcus already, or was about to be. Still, on the bright side, that lowlife might be properly convinced now. He spoke evenly.

"It would seem that Brother Marcus is no longer a problem, for the time being. A shame that he had to drag Rex with him, though."

edited 19th Jan '16 12:05:26 PM by astrokitty

The woman needed a minute before she could speak, sitting on her knees with her head against the ground as she coughing eventually slowed and she could take some deep breaths without stopping. "I... I'm okay... I guess" the woman eventually muttered, raising her head back up and sitting up against a tree.

"Some little girl... She was bleeding and I tried to help... She stabbed me in the neck!" the woman explained, sounding a bit indignant towards the end as she started to fully register what had happened to her.

Bloody Mary (Forest) - Serious Time

"Don't."

Mary's serious voice cut through the air as she turned towards Twilight. She didn't want Sadness to be taken away from her. She was her friend, and she had asked a question.

"I killed the person, Sadness," the fabricated girl explained in a slightly nervous voice. "She was going to find out my secret, and I didn't want that. But then you came, and they came, and he started blurting everything aloud, and..."

She stopped, and her eyes focused on Cole, losing all traces of her previous nervousness.

"I didn't know I was doing something wrong, and I still don't really know why it was wrong, but you did something very wrong too." Her voice was stern, like that of a mother scolding a child for stealing candy. "Why did you say my secret aloud? Oh, and how did you learn it?"

Kouta stayed silent as Darth Marr began to cough up a lung. It seemed that he had help. Perhaps they could help him.

"H-Hey, I have a question... I'm looking for a friend. His name is Yu-" That's when the woman came into his view, freaking out and panicking.

"What the!?" Kouta went to the woman to try and tend to her.

"Some little girl... She was bleeding and I tried to help... She stabbed me in the neck!"

"W-wha..." This was the first time Kouta's ever dealt with a human threat. Even rivals like Kaito or Oren, while human, weren't as bad as say, a beserk Inves. Kouta still had his Sengoku Driver on. He was going to investigate this and take care of the problem. There may be something wrong with her.

"Can you tell me where this happened?" Kouta asked the woman.

Kieri couldn't help but feel a slight chill run up her back. Like there was someone, or perhaps something, that was thinking about her at that moment. Someone that meant her unwell. She had more than a few people in her mind that could fit that bill, but before she could dwell on it for long, a woman appeared out of thin air. Normally that'd be considered odd, but at this point this city was starting to lose its ability to startle the Angel. That still didn't mean that, after checking to make certain Darth Marr was feeling comparatively better and making a mental note in her brain to investigate his illness later, she didn't rush over to the woman's side too to try and help her stand up.

Kieri couldn't help but gasp at the woman's story. A girl? As in a small child? The Angel bit her lip just a bit, doing her best to push the similarities she saw between herself and this child out of her mind for the moment to focus on helping this woman. "I'm s-sure they're had t-to be some s-sort of reasonable explanation f-for it," she began slowly "m-maybe she w-was just s-startled by s-something?"

Sadness waved off Twilight. Slowly, the emotion uncurled and got to her knees, looking at Mary fearfully, but with just a bit more strength in her voice.

"I don't care about your secret. Everyone has them. But - but you killed someone, Mary. You killed her! I - that's not right, I don't understand -"

"Mary, murderers don't make good friends..."

edited 19th Jan '16 8:28:59 AM by Syrika

Upon the woman's explanation of her death, Diamondhead gasped. Stabbed her in the neck?! What was with this city? "She what?! What did she look like?! Where did you last see her?!" He put his hand into a fist. "We need to catch this girl and make sure she doesn't hurt anyone else." He looked at the others sternly. "But we can't hurt her," he told them. "If we do, we aren't any better than she is."

In the Pub

When Plague Knight entered the Pub Agarth was about to offer him some form of a simple greeting only for Plague Knight to act like he hadn't met him yet. He then moved out of the way as Plague Knight ran over to the giant bee and the sapling and started observing them and making different observations about them.

When the sapling jumped out of its pot and followed Plague Knight, Agarth watched it to make sure it didn't attack any one. After watching it stand near Plague Knight for a few minutes, Agarth put his sword back onto his back.

Agarth the heard Marcus yelling outside the pub, but before he could do anything Plague Knight told him to guard the bee and the sapling. Agarth the pulled his sword back out and walk near the door to defend the entrance to the pub.

Peridot raised her blaster at Lune, but fortunately, she was halted by the fact that many people seemed to jump to Lune's defense. And then Peridot freaked out, but Ben was there to clarify things for Peridot. Like Kieri, Lune also sighed a breath of relief. Thank goodness! The problem got stopped before it escalated.

She watched Kieri heal Darth Marr with magic. After listening to Darth Marr explain that he had a fatal illness, Lune was reminded of Filio Presty, the brilliant scientist behind Project Terrestrial Dream. It was a pity that Filio's disease cut him down in his prime.

After listening to the woman tell her story, she wondered why a little girl would murder her in cold boold. Was it because of a poor upbringing? Was it because she didn't know any better?

Lune asked, "Did she have a reason for doing that?"