Grian's breathing caught in his throat. Jimena wasn't going to die, was she? Not after he'd found out she could be trusted. Not before he apologized to her. Not because of his fight with Qiron in her mind, right? Surely her fate wasn't because of him, was it? This was not right. This should not be happening.
Then Jimena blinked and sat up, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief and started to crowd around her. "Jimena, are you okay?!" Timmy asked anxiously. "Yes, why?" Jimena asked, like she hadn't just scared the living daylights out of everyone. "You just looked dead for an hour!" Scar said. "It wasn't an hour, Scar," Grian said.
Jimena blinked. "What?" "After I searched through your memory I went back to my own body but you didn't wake up and we got worried," Grian recapped. "Oh." Jimena said. "You scared the living daylights out of us and you just say 'oh'?!" Timmy shouted hysterically. Jimena looked alarmed. "Sheriff, calm down!" She said, and Grian felt the hysteria drain away from Tim. Jimena was eating it.
Then Grian remembered something very important he should do. "Jimena, I am so, so sorry," He started, but the girl put her hand over his mouth. "You don't have to say it," She said. "I understand, Grian. I don't remember everything about my time with the Watchers, but I remember how much you wanted to leave us." She paused, and then added, "And thanks to you, I can remember leaving them too. I understand why you wouldn't want to trust me."
Grian managed a wan smile. "Thanks," He said. The two of them just smiled at each other for a little bit. "So..." Scar started, "What exactly happened? Like in Jimena's head." "Yeah, I would like to know that as well," Timmy said. So Grian explained everything that had happened, because Jimena didn't experience all of it.
"Wow." Tim and Scar said at the same time when he finished. "That was a lot," The hermit said. "You guys almost died!" Timmy said quaveringly. "But they didn't," Scar pointed out. Tim shot him an odd look and Grian sighed. Scar never did have a very good awareness of danger. It was a thing that had cost him a lot in the life games several times.
Jimena touched her head. "How damaged do you think my psyche is?" She asked Grian. He thought for a moment. "I'm not sure," He said slowly. "But Qiron's magic seems to be helping." "You sound surprised," Jimena said observantly. "I just don't know why he's going to the trouble of protecting you," Grian said. "Since you ran from him and are a rogue Watcher like me."
Jimena acquired an odd look on her face. "I feel like he cares about me, somehow. I just don't know why." She said. "I remember that there's this important reason, but I just don't remember what." Grian and Jimena didn't say anything after that, pondering what Qiron's reason could be.
Then Scar said, "Grian, where's your hat?" "My hat-" Grian glanced up at his hatless head. "Oh!" He exclaimed, remembering. "I left the tag hat at Hermitopia!" "Tag hat?" Jimena asked, confused, so the others explained to her Grian's new tag game.
"I took it off to try on my fishbowl- I mean astronaut helmet when I bought my Halloween costume, and I forgot to put it back on," Grian groaned. "Scar, it took you this long to remind me?" "It's not my job to remind you; it's your job to wear the tag hat," Scar said, and Timmy giggled.
Jimena had a frown on her face. "This tag game feels a lot like the boogeyman curse from Last Life," She said. Grian stopped and thought about what she said. "Yeah, well, this time you can respawn practically infinitely and you always have the option of not playing the game," Grian justified.
Jimena thought it over for a moment. "Well, can I help?" She asked. "Since I'm not a hermit or an empress I can't play, but there's nothing in the rules that says I can't help the it." Grian paused and considered for moment. "Okay, you can help me dig the pit trap to make someone fall into the void!" He said.
So the two of them flew off to Animalia, where they thought they could trap Mayor Lizzie, the 'human' who certainly wasn't an anthropomorphic cat at all. The capital of Animalia was where Lizzie lived, so they planned to set the trap there.
"Fox people?!" Grian said, startled at the sight of anthropomorphic foxes living in the village. "Well, this is Animalia, after all," Jimena said, not sounding surprised at all. "I have never seen anything like this before," Grian said, staring. "You haven't been to Sanctuary yet? Well you should, the rabbit people there are very nice." Jimena said. "Rabbit people too?!" Grian yelped.
Jimena finally tore Grian away from the foxes that weren't right and they grabbed some shovels and started to dig. They dug deeper and deeper and eventually they were having trouble taking all the excess dirt out of he hole. "I'm starting to get the idea that we should have done this with machinery," Grian said.
"Is that how normal people do it?" Jimena asked. "Well, yes," Grian admitted. "Then why didn't we do it with machinery?" Jimena asked, sounding a bit outraged. "Uh... because I wasn't thinking," Grian said. "That sounds like you," Jimena said.
Grian wondered for a second how Jimena would know that about him until he remembered they briefly knew each other when they both used to be with the other Watchers, and that gave him an idea. "Use your Watcher powers to get all this dirt out of the way." Grian suggested.
Jimena just stood there perplexedly looking at the pile of dirt in front of her. "How?" She asked blankly. "I thought you remembered being a Watcher!" Grian said. "Not everything, and I've never used my powers on dirt!" Jimena huffed. "Just focus on it and imagine where you want it to go," Grian said. "And maybe make some fancy hand signs while you're at it."
Jimena frowned but did as she was told. Suddenly the dirt was enveloped in purple light and it was gone. She gaped. "Good job!" Grian said, clapping. "Where did you send it to?" Jimena gave him a sheepish grin. "Maybe you shouldn't ask," She said, and the two of them went back to digging.
Eventually soil gave way to stone and the rogue Watchers swapped out their shovels for pickaxes. Whenever the pile of earth that they dug up got too big, Jimena would teleport it away to somewhere, although she never told Grian where. Then she asked Grian why he didn't use his Watcher powers.
"It's a reminder of them," Grian said bitterly. "The Watchers and all the stuff they did. I don't want to benefit from something they were the cause of." Jimena paused. "Am I a reminder of the Watchers?" She asked quietly. Grian said nothing for a few seconds, figuring out his answer. "You remind me of me, a Watcher gone rogue," He finally said, and Jimena smiled.
They kept on digging, knowing it would be a while before they reached bedrock, but knowing that if they stopped their trap might be discovered so they kept on going. But then they ran into something unexpected. Jimena swung her pickax and broke a hole in the floor. Some pebbles fell in, and after a few seconds the rogue Watchers heard a splash coming from within it, like they'd landed in water.
Surprised, they mad the hole bigger and found out that they'd dug into a preexisting cavern. And the cavern was dimly lit with torches sticking out of the walls, so it wasn't natural. "Oh yeah, fWhip lives under Lizzie," Grian recalled, snapping his fingers. "This must be part of Gobland."
"Should we still dig down?" Jimena asked, leaning against her pickax. Grian shrugged. "Eh, it'll make our work easier." "fWhip will probably get mad," Jimena said. "Not if no one tells him it's us," Grian said. "Come on." He jumped into the hole and landed waist-deep in a pool of water. A splash next to him told him that Jimena had jumped down too. But he wasn't really paying attention to her. His attention was riveted on his very strange surroundings.
In the middle of the pool was a stone platform and it had a narrow bridge leading from it to another tunnel, which was probably the entrance. The platform had a raise pedestal on it and on the pedestal was a book, with a golden sheriff's badge lying on top. And on the walls, surrounding everything and watching them eerily, were hundreds of dolls that looked just like Timmy.
"What is this?" Jimena asked quietly. Grian could only stare. "This place is not right," He managed to say. Jimena numbly shook her head. The two of them continued to stare at the toys that seemingly stared back. "I'm going to tell the sheriff about this," Jimena said, breaking the silence. "Uh, yeah, you do that, I'm getting out of here," Grian said, rocketing up and out of the hole, and Jimena was right behind him.
They decided to dig again in another direction, to avoid the creepy Timmy shrine, but to quit for the day because it was nearing nighttime. Jimena used her Watcher powers to fill in the hole so no one would fall in and hurt themselves, and they walked around for a bit to find a suitable location on the way home so they didn't have to next time. Soon they were in a district with houses that had green rooves and slime-filled ponds everywhere.
Grian stared at the citizens of this green district hopping around and fishing, too shocked to register what he was seeing for a second. Then Jimena tapped him on the shoulder and he managed to burst out, "Frog people too?!"
---
False and Doc used the parts they'd gotten from the goblins to make a new computer and hitched it up to the mindwiping chair, making sure all the wires were in their proper place. "Thanks for helping, Doc," False said. Doc made a weird face and shrugged noncommittally. "Soon I can start planning how to kidnap my clone and fix her," False said. Then she realized how that sounded. "Uh, I should probably reword that."
"You're not going to do it now?" Doc asked. "Not the right time," False said. "I might need the hermits' help because the other me is a very good fighter, but they're all busy preparing for Halloween. And False can be either really punctual with her schedules or really spontaneous and not listen to it at all, so I need to catch her on a good day where I can predict where she'll be and where Jimena is, because I don't want to hurt her or let her find out about any of this."
Doc nodded, understanding. "Call me when you need me," He said, and then paused for a moment. "Just promise me you'll never mess with memories again after this." "Why are you so particular about that?" False asked, then backed up a bit when the creeper hybrid glared at her intimidatingly. "It's not right to mess with someone's head like that," He growled. "Now promise me." "I won't," False promised. "If this goes well, I won't have to."