Welcome to Gaia! ::

He stopped but didn't look up. "Go tell the others to get ready to head out."

Rep glanced around at Al barking orders at everyone like he was ******** in charge.

And crossing his arms went back to doing ******** nothing at all.

The dragging, roiling heaviness of the sick grief made it difficult to concentrate on anything, but Jordan had heard the last part of what Kim had said, and he was sure it was not her. It was a forcible reminder that as much as he still felt the residue of his other self's emotions for his child, Creation was still a Legacy, inhuman and capable of being dangerous.

Kim fell, and Melvin moved to check on her, and then Seren was crying over the ... the body. Was Kim dead? He couldn't tell. He would feel more distress over it later, maybe, but for now, everything was grey and slow and awful, and nothing penetrated the veil of guilt and grief.

Melvin had the artifact, and Al was shouting that it was time to go. Jordan shook himself in a vain attempt to clear his head, and walked over to where Melvin stood, laying a hand briefly on his shoulder in concern.

The longer they sat there, the longer the pause in witty conversation, the more Soleil's easy smile began to slip away until she was left staring up at the tree with somber features. Missing Zane's question and comment entirely. It felt like a huge weight had settled on top of her, within her. Something squeezing around her chest until it ached, but not hindering her breathing.

For a long moment she was silent, and then she was rolling up on her knees to climb slowly to her feet again, one arm moving to rub her hand up and down the other. "I don't like it here." It wasn't pretty anymore.

This place gives me the creeps, and my chest, it hurts...

<Grief.> Her weapon provided in a deep rumble.

Her lips pressed into a thin line, the fingers of her free hand opening and closing restlessly. "What do you think they're doing up there?" She meant Melvin and the girl that had claimed responsibility for everything. She could see them up there, but she couldn't hear what they were saying.

And then the girl went limp, falling to the ground like a puppet with her strings cut.

Then there was loud, mournful yelling.

Eyes going wide, Soleil reached for Zane, groping for something to hold onto. "Qu'est-ce qui s'est passé? Est-elle morte?"

"Right," Jordan said, and turned to move over to where Seren sat, holding Kim. Having a concrete task helped a little with the draining depth of the grief. He knelt down next to Seren. "Hey," he said quietly. "We need to take her back to the island. Do you want to help?"

It was like watching a disappointing season ender episode, one minute Terry was just catching his breath from swimming, the next Kim and Melvin were off to do who knows what. The life trainee was expecting some massive laser-light show but there was none. Instead, they were one artifact up and one sun hunter down.

At first, Terry simply thought Kim had fainted, he didn't blame her. Being on this island was draining. But then Seren started to cry and Kim wasn't moving. Maybe she was sleeping?

He hoped she was. Worse case she was in a coma but the people in the Life Labs should be able to stabilize her. Right? Terry made his way to where Kim was, with Seren and Melvin and one more.

He ignored the yelling instructions, promising to pay attention once he had Kim with him. "Why are you crying?" he asked Seren, thinking this to be some overreaction, not realizing, or more likely accepting that the Sun was dead.

He brought out the runic bandages, using them to wipe at the blood, "Hey, koibito, don't do an Asuka on me. You wouldn't like me doing a Shinji on you, would you?" he murmured.

okay this was reaching a high level of sicking now. Seren was hurting, Melvin was hurting and now Terry. There was zero way she wanted to Burt him at any time. "No..no...". Soundless cries, no one could hear them. She watched as they all got ready to move on, and praised that strength even while wanting to soothe them all.

Yeah, not possible, but somehow she was still here. Did that mean she wasn't totally dead. Maybe it was like a weird deep death seeming coma? Who cared. She wanted to hug Terry and let him know she could hear him even if he could not sense her. What if she was like... Totally gone though. Cursed to watch all she loved and cared for come undone around her?

Yup this was high ranking messed up crap, and she deserved ever second of the torture. Hadn't her own hijacked voice said she abducted a whole flipping family?