When Jimena was aware of her surroundings again, she didn't know where she was. Instead of the battlefield by the surveillance tower or the safety of her or False's house in Cogsmeade, all that met her eyes were solid stone and dirt. She was in a cave somewhere.
"You're awake," False breathed, and that's when Jimena realized she was there. "False, where are we?" Jimena asked, sitting up, but a sudden pain in her leg made her stiffen up. A closer inspection proved that it was put in a tight splint and was probably broken.
"We're in the cave." False said. "The cave I woke up in when I first arrived in this world." "Okay, but why aren't we at Cogsmeade?" Jimena wondered for a second before the answer came. "Because the hermits are at Cogsmeade. The bomb should've taken out the tower by now though, so that's no longer a problem." False said with an excited grin.
Jimena grinned too. "That's great! But we should really be getting back soon. Who knows what they'll do to Cogsmeade?" "Not with your leg like that." False said sternly. Jimena smiled with a sudden idea. "Okay," she said sweetly, and then used her Watcher magic to heal herself. In a few minutes she felt all back to normal again.
False watched in surprise as she slipped out of her splint and began to walk around normally. "How did you do that? What else can you do?" She asked. "Um, I'm not entirely sure the extent of my limits." Jimena admitted. "Although I've figured out how to teleport dirt and fire bolts and heal myself." "Wait, teleport?" False interrupted.
"Yeah... wait, how come I only remembered that now?" Jimena asked herself in mild confusion. She touched her head and immediately felt a soft buzz of residual pain. "Those headaches of yours are getting worse," False said in a worried tone. "I'm not sure they're going to get better on their own."
Jimena said nothing and just stared out into space for a few moments. Then she felt something warm and furry graze her ankle and looked down to see Ginny surprisingly there somehow, purring comfortably. "Ginny?! How did you get here?!" Ginny meowed an incomprehensible response.
False bent down to caress her cat but looked even more worried. "If Ginny can find us here I don't think she's the only one," She said. "We need to move. Do you think you can try teleporting?" Jimena closed her eyes and focused, but when she opened her eyes again she and False were still securely in the cave.
"What? Why didn't it work? It worked on the dirt," Jimena said in confusion. She tried again to no avail. False chewed her lip for a second, thinking. Then she said, "Try that rock over there." Jimena did as instructed and it vanished. "I guess you can only teleport inanimate objects." False said.
"That's not helpful at all." Jimena snorted. False patted her on the shoulder. "Don't worry. I have no idea what kind of power it is that you're using, but maybe with enough practice you can teleport people sooner or later." "Yeah," Jimena echoed. She paused. "I wonder if Grian knows how to," She mused.
"What does this have to do with Grian?" False asked sharply. "Oh, he was a Watcher too," Jimena said, shrugging, then she realized what she just said and stopped. "Wait, how come my mental block is gone now?" "Mental block?" False asked thoughtfully. "Yeah, Grian said that they may have put a mental block in my head to stop me from telling people who don't know about the Watchers about them." Jimena said.
"You were kind of yelling about a Watcher thing during the fight." False said patiently. "It was kind of hard for me to miss." "Oh. Well, that explains it." Jimena said awkwardly. Then she realized. "Explain! I can tell you about stuff now!" And so she proceeded to tell False every confusing detail that she knew about the Watchers and her situation.
When she was done False's mouth was hanging open. "I don't think either of us was expecting that." She said dumbfoundedly. "Well, now both of us have complicated backstories." Jimena said somewhat brightly. "Who else knows about this stuff again?" False asked, frowning. "Uh, Grian, Jimmy, and Scar," Jimena recited. "I think that's all of them."
False relaxed. "Okay," She said. "Now let's try going back to Cogsmeade. You're all healed up and they might be injured from our little bomb. They'll be easy picking." Jimena grinned in apprehension. "Perfect." She said. Ginny meowed and then trotted out of the cave.
Then they snuck back to Cogsmeade. Being sure to stay out of sight, they used the tunnels to make it back to False's house and then spied on the surveillance tower with their own telescope, or at least what was left of it. The bomb False had set up surreptiously during the fight had done its job, and all that could be seen was a smoking stub of debris and rubble surrounded by unconscious bodies.
---
False got up with a pained wince, testing her burned limbs and finding that they still worked, albeit painfully. There was a residual ringing in her ears from the sound of the explosion but she was slowly regaining her hearing. Then she remembered the other hermits and immediately got up to see if they were okay.
The first thing that caught her eye was the destroyed tower, standing there like an empty shell of its former self. But around the tower were the fallen hermits. Most were unconscious, depending on their proximity to the blast, but a few others like Cleo and Doc and Jevin and Grian were up and trying to help everyone.
False immediately rushed over to the last medical kit to see how much healing potions she had left and whether she could use it. To her growing disappointment and horror, the health potions had been nearly used up and there were barely any bandages or other supplies left.
My clone. She planned this. That's why the bomb was timer, why she left earlier when she could've killed us all. She was also trying to get us to waste our resources. This was her retribution. And she won. That thought was enough to send a shiver of rage through her whole being. Gritting her teeth, she turned to the fallen hermits to see what little she could do to help.
She came face to face with Grian, who seemed strangely okay. "Grian? But you were the closest to the blast," False mumbled in confusion. Grian in response opened his hand,which was glowing a calming crimson. "Watcher, remember? And do you want to see what else I can do?" He bent down next to Cub, who was badly injured by the explosion, and pressed his glowing hand to his wounds.
With a soft moan all the cuts closed up and flesh returned to normal. False stared at Grian, mouth agape. "How long were you able to do that?" She demanded. Grian gave her a sheepish grin and went to heal the other hermits.
He finished healing all of them in a few minutes and not a moment too soon, because once he was done False sensed someone approaching. Someone familiar. She whipped around, hand on her sword and pointing it at her clone's neck.
The other False grinned manically, seemingly unbothered by the threat to her life. "I see your Watcher has healed the rest of you as well." She said. False said nothing but prepared to skewer her if necessary. "But you've lost the tower, although that was the whole point. I can't have you spying on me all the time. This is my empire, my safe place."
"You were supposed to be fixed." The inventor gritted her teeth as she spoke. "What did you do?!" "I don't need to be fixed. You don't understand, do you? This is who I am. Your definition of fixing me is just to make me more manageable, to make me easier for you to handle. You've never really saw me as a person, have you?" The clone mused.
False tensed, her free hand reaching for her ax hanging unused from her belt. Around her, she sensed the hermits moving closer to help of things got messy. "We were friends once," False choked out. "But then you went crazy and I had to fix you." "No, I went crazy because of what you did." Her clone shot back. "And it's about time I finally got my revenge. With some help from my real friends, of course."
Before False could ponder about what she meant, she was struck in the back by some strange energy blast. It knocked her off her feet and into the hard rubble-strewn earth. Her sword slipped from her grasp and the other False picked it up to use herself. "Thanks, Jimena!" She called, and False looked up to see the girl floating there, smirking.
"Jimena!" Grian called, summoning his own scarlet wings to fly up to her. Jimena stared at them for a second before responding. "You're accepting what you are. Never thought I would see the day." "Look, Jimena, you can trust me," Grian said desperately. "You're on the wrong side!" Jimena regarded him coldly. "I think you're looking at the wrong war," She said, and then she struck again.
All the hermits scrambled back into battle again, but while they were healed up, their weapons weren't necessarily all fixed up. Soon, swords were snapped in two, bows ran out of arrows, ax heads came off of their handles. But Jimena needed no material weapon, and the clone False was a weapon in herself.
"Stay out of my empire!" She ordered with a hysterical tone, stabbing False with her own stolen weapon, forcing her to parry with her ax, a weapon she barely used. "I might just let you go if you leave me alone!" "Are you sure about that?" False asked suspiciously. Then her clone's face changed to something harder with more bloodlust in her eyes. "No, you've got to die!
Thrown off guard in confusion for a second, the inventor wasn't able to block the sharp blade that twisted deep into her shoulder. "False!" Several hermits screamed. False ignored them and tried to escape but the clone wouldn't let her. She forced her to the ground, stepping on her chest and driving the sword in deeper.
Spots flooded False's vision and her head felt heavy as blood leaked out of what she was fairly certain was a deadly wound. Then there was a crimson blur and Grian was there, no wings or weapons, just Grian in his little red sweater and scared face. "False!" He pleaded. "Don't hurt her!" "She hurt us." The clone responded coldly.
"Us? Um, yeah, I know she did, but I think you've had enough of your retribution now!" Grian argued. He held up his hands in a peaceful gesture. "Just- just let her go and we'll stay out of Cogsmeade! You'll never have to see us again and you can have your safe place with Jimena and your cat." "Her name is Ginny." False and Jimena, who'd landed beside them, said at the same time.
"Well, consider our deal," Grian said softly. "Please?" False hesitated. She shot a doubtful glance at Jimena, and then at False and the bloody sword buried in her shoulder. Internal conflict flashed across her face for an agonizing few moments before she got up and yanked the sword out.
"Jimena, let's go." False said curtly. Jimena looked at Grian with a puzzled expression before she turned and followed False back to their house. Grian breathed a sigh of relief and then healed up False, who had lost quite a bit of blood by then. And then all the hermits collected their stuff and left Cogsmeade.