As soon as Jimena woke up that morning she had a sinking feeling in her chest that it was going to be the worst day in her life. It didn't help that there was someone in her head that was telling her all the stuff she was supposed to do that day and making her feel even worse. Oh well, at least Herodias was being nicer now, thanks to 2 for some reason...
Sighing, Jimena looked down at her hand as she summoned a violaceous blade around her fist. Then she punched the wall with it. Instead of her hand hurting there was now a burning hole in her bedroom wall. A very ugly burning hole in her bedroom wall. "Well, at least we know that works." She muttered mutinously to herself.
Dragging her feet and feeling like she wanted to stay in bed forever and never wake up again, she moved to the kitchen and found Martyn and False already there and looking twitchy. False had a lot more weapons on her than her paranoid self usually allowed and had shaking hands. Martyn's eyebags were a little better but the shadows under his eyes were somehow even worse than earlier and he kept on sipping coffee.
Wordlessly Jimena slid into her seat and stared blankly at the table. "Today's the day." Martyn muttered as he finished what appeared to be his third cup of coffee. "Yes." False said, not looking happy about it at all. Do I have to do this? Jimena asked Herodias. Yes. Came the expected reply. With a frustrated sigh the girl buried her head in her arms.
"I am not okay." Jimena mumbled even before anyone could ask her. "Relatable." Martyn said shortly, pouring himself a fourth cup of coffee. "That's not healthy." False told him. "Does it look like I care?" Martyn asked, sounding slightly unhinged. False paused a second before answering. "No." Her other personality said after a while. "Then leave me alone and don't talk to me about my ?*$^*&in' coffee!" He snapped.
"Language!" Jimena and False immediately admonished. Martyn scowled at them but said nothing and went back to drinking his coffee. Jimena just felt even more tired looking at him attempting to keep himself awake and wondered if she should be drinking coffee too. She technically wasn't really a kid anymore...
"Pass me the coffee." She asked in what was supposed to be a polite voice but it turned out sounding incredibly exhausted and drained. Martyn understood and wordlessly passed her his fifth mug of coffee that he hadn't drank from yet. Jimena blew on it and then started sipping. It was a lot more bitter than she expected... but she oddly didn't want to stop drinking it either.
"Great, now we have two coffee addicts in the house." False muttered in what Jimena thought that she expected to be humor. "I'm not addicted." The girl pointed out, setting the mug down. "Yet." Martyn shrugged. "Well, if I die today this will be my only cup of coffee I will have in my life so I don't think this counts as an addicting." Jimena said.
Everyone just stopped trying to make conversation with each other after that. False went back to cooking and a few minutes later she was passing out plates of eggs. Jimena made a face. "Did you have to cook eggs of all things?" She whined. False smiled for the first and maybe last time that day. "It was just to lighten the mood up a bit." She said. "Do you feel better?"
"No." Jimena said flatly. "Neither do I." Martyn said, stabbing the egg rather aggressively with his fork. Suddenly Jimena had a vision of Martyn holding a knife in the place of the fork and stabbing it into the sheriff rather than the egg and she blinked, hurriedly looking away. Or maybe I'll be the one who kills him today. Ugh, I hate this whole thing. Why do the Watchers have to make us do this?
Jimena waited for Herodias to say something or maybe break her promise and start with her mental scratches again but nothing happened. She didn't even speak up at all. Which was better than before at least, but... Jimena was just really confused now. With a resigned sigh she started spooning the egg into her mouth. Then she stopped.
"Wait... False..." She looked directly at False. "This actually tastes... nice. What did you do?" "Uh... I cooked an egg?" False asked. "Have you been able to cook an egg properly in a way that actually tastes good this whole time but just made it horrible on purpose?" Jimena asked, her voice accusatory. False's hidden smile gave her an answer.
"Recurring prank. I love it." Martyn said with a devilish grin. Jimena eventually found herself laughing along too. "Ah, well, at least we finally had a good egg for once in our life before we maybe all die horrible deaths today." Jimena said. No one called her out about the death part and they all just continued eating.
<Are you prepared yet?> Qiron's obnoxious voice suddenly erupted across the room and the effect was instantaneous. Jimena's shoulders sagged in recognition of what his presence meant, False stiffened up and started to move more reservedly, and Martyn tried to not even acknowledge the voice at all; his mood somehow even grimmer than it was before.
<I asked if you were prepared.> 2 repeated, his voice sounding dark. "Can we kill everyone after breakfast?" False asked quietly. "I don't commit mass genocide on an empty stomach." Martyn added, eyes on his food. "Can I just finish this egg, please?" Jimena asked before Qiron could say anything.
There was a pause that went on for longer that any of them expected. <Very well.> Qiron said to everyone's surprise. <When you have finished eating I will teleport you all straight to spawn with your Watcher allies. Once there you are supposed to kill everyone who is not on our side, regardless of past friendships and alliances. Understood?> Everyone nodded and silently went back to eating.
As soon as they were finished with breakfast, which they had tried to make last as long as possible to delay the inevitable, Qiron teleported them to spawn just like he said he would. Jimena blinked, disoriented. Teleporting felt really weird. Then she glanced up around her and saw four new Watchers that would apparently be fighting with them. There was a yellow one, a gray one, a pink one, and a bronze one.
Then Jimena turned and saw Hermitopia not too far away and her heart sank. "This is actually happening." She gasped aloud. Her stomach started doing flip-flops and suddenly she regretted having breakfast. It also didn't help that the teleportation made her feel like throwing up a little.
"Weapons out." The yellow Watcher instructed them. With mutinous expressions on their faces False and Martyn started double wielding swords and Jimena sighed as she gave herself the purple Watcher blades. Not too far away the other Watchers did the same.
Then people started filing out of Hermitopia. They weren't just hermits; the emperors were there too. Jimena felt even worse when she spotted Sheriff Jimmy amongst them. They locked eyes with each other and Jimmy opened his mouth as if to tell her something but Jimena looked away.
At first everyone just lined up into two lines without being told, just staring at each other and holding their weapons out threateningly. No one made the first move yet. Then Qiron's voice echoed across the whole battlefield. <Fight.> And so they did. The lines of people rushed to each other and Jimena found herself running along.
Suddenly it was unbearably noisy. People screamed as they were stabbed and scratched and sharp weapons left their body coated and dripping with blood. Jimena just closed her eyes and waved her blades around without really looking. She didn't want to see if she killed anyone. She didn't want to kill anyone.
Then she felt her blade make contact with something. Something soft that yelped and splattered something warm and sticky onto her hand. Jimena's eyes shot wide open as she saw a hermit whose name she didn't know fall down to the ground, a gaping hole in his stomach.
Not comprehending for a second, Jimena looked at the ugly wound and then at her hand which was drenched in red, red blood. Then it clicked and she backed away in a hurry, breathing heavily. What did I just do. What did I just do. Throwing balls of energy at people was one thing but actually seeing them bleed... Panicking, Jimena rushed forward again and healed the hermit.
"What are you doing?!" Herodias shouted and Jimena jumped backward. "I can't do this! I can't do any of this!" Jimena yelped. She glanced back at the hermit who was being helped to his feet by... Jimmy. She and the sheriff locked eyes once again, his blue eyes full of pleading to her.
"Jimena..." He called, reaching out. "Please. I don't want to fight you." "I don't want to fight you either!" She yelped back. In an anxious hurry she fluttered her wings and just fled. She didn't really know where she was going. She just dodged around fights, looking for someone in particular. False. She just wanted to see False right then and there.
She found her fighting with her hermit counterpart along with some other familiar hermits. Doc, Jevin, Cleo... Jimena noticed that False seemed to be holding back. She's not actually trying to kill them this time. Jimena stumbled forward, calling False's name. False turned and moved toward her.
"I hurt someone." Jimena blurted. False nodded in gentle understanding while still keeping her eyes on the hermits who held their weapons like they didn't know what to do with them. "I know. I've hurt people too." "How do you do it?" Jimena squeaked. "Keep on going for revenge and more revenge and hurt so many people?"
There was a pause as False tried to find a suitable answer to her question while still preparing to defend herself and the panicking girl behind her. "I don't know." The other personality said at last. She smiled bitterly. "Revenge is a funny thing."
"Fight already!" Herodias suddenly screamed and both Jimena and False jumped. They looked at each other sadly. Jimena slowly slipped away to find some other part of the battlefield to fight in. Maybe she could just stand around and pretend she was fighting. But with Herodias in her head...
Jimena started running. Maybe she could find someone she didn't like and fight that person instead. Instead.... instead of friends. But all she could see were friends. And the others were people she didn't necessarily know but didn't necessarily hate either. This is hard.
Then something came crashing hard into her, knocking the girl into the wall of Hermitopia. Dazed, Jimena got up and looked around to see who'd thrown the thing at her. All she saw was chaos. Confused, she looked down only to see that it wasn't something that had hit her. It was someone.
Grian. "Grian! Are you okay?!" Jimena asked in a hurry, crouching beside the fallen hermit. With a wince Grian sat up and started healing himself. But it was taking too long. And the numerous burning scratches and slashes across his body.... Jimena had an idea where he'd gotten those from. It wouldn't heal quickly enough on its own. So she reached out and started helping to heal them.
"Traitor!" Jimena turned to see the bronze Watcher glaring at her with intense fury. He summoned a giant ball of energy and tossed it at them. Without even thinking, Jimena picked up Grian and threw him aside and out of the way as the attack struck her head-on.