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And it came down to the final gambit. Exhausted as he was, the drone was prepared to for one last frontal assault. His scythe at the ready in a low guard, mace held high and resting lightly on his shoulder, he was set and determined to put down the desert troll for good. Unfortunately, the Jade Blood had other plans. With a curse that was more of a snarl, Janzek could only do his best to avoid the quickly growing vines, latching his scythe onto one of the thicker stalks and allowing it to grow underneath him, ensuring that he stayed above the new bramble.

Teeth gritted, he searched desperately amidst the tangle of foliage, looking for any sign of the Jade Blood. Smoke became his first signal. Soon followed by the vivid flash of orange and heat. Eyes wide and jaw hanging, it took all until the flames were practically licking at his feet for him to scramble for the nearest clearing. Coughing and now covered with ashy residue, he made it near the foot of the green house, rubbing at his eyes to ineffectively clean away the smoke.

Seeing that the fire was no longer creeping in his direction and that the winds had turned in their favour to keep the billowing clouds of smoke away from the doorway entrance, the drone slid down the face of stalk with a heavy, exasperated sigh. That was the hardest fight he had ever endured in his life. With that having been just a single enemy with a team of younglings, he wasn't really sure how much of a feat others of his generation would've considered it to be. His ex-spade would've laughed in his face for sweeps had he seen his sorry state of existence, he knew that much.

Listening to the the cracking of drying vegetation, Janzek was ready to just sleep right then and there, but this one little thought pestered him to keep his half lidded eyes from closing completely. There was work to be done still. He had things to find, but damn did his legs feel like rubber and his arms ached, and his satchel felt a lot heavier than he ever remembered it being.

His satchel.

Completely forgot... He mused with a feeble laugh, pulling out that rejuvenation supplement. It wouldn't help much against his pains, but at least it would give him enough of an energy boost to keep going. Quickly eating that, he hefted himself back up to his feet, alerting a few of the other survivors to follow suit before talking over a way to clear an entrance into the building. Shortly after, the trolls took their first steps into the green house.

Janzek moved quickly, moving past the rows and rows of plants, roaming through the rooms, taking only seconds to glance through whatever notebooks he happened to come across. There was definitely some interesting theories here, but his biggest prise, and the greatest surprise came in the form of something he least expected to find.

Staring into the shy but curious eyes of an enlarged insect, Janzek had dropped everything, stunned into silence. It's living.. it's still living.. he... how... With a similar gait as someone being compelled, the drone took a staggering step forward, reaching out to touch the grub just to ensure that he was indeed not imagining things. Instead, the virgin grub backed away further into the basement, its movements sluggish and heavy. After a few seconds hesitation, Janzek followed, finding her resting on a nest of vines and dried leaves.

It's breathing sounded heavy and forced, laborious even. She was dying. After living for so many sweeps, perhaps the commotion that took place outside had been too much for her. Stress and fatigue, and quite possibly because she knew her charge had also been defeated. Whatever the reason, Janzek and what few others that had found their way into the basement gathered in contemplative, respectful silence as they waited for her to breath her last.

When the silence became complete, Janzek was the first to act, carefully slicing open her midsection to procure the matriorb at last.

(Happy Mother's Day!)

A strangely cold feeling had settled into his chest, and he sniffled hard, willing the tears to stop, but they wouldn't. The situation was eerily, vaguely familiar to something, but he had to force himself not to think about that, or he might really lose it. Should he really feel so upset? s**t like this happened all the damn time, didn't it, so why should he care? Trolls died every day, for reasons far less important than this. He reached up to rake his wrist across his face and eyes, trying to mop up the wet, and nearly stumbled down the first dune that he reached as he moved away from the jadeblood's hive. Maybe it was because so many of them really shouldn't have had to suffer such ends.

At the sound of his name, he jerked his head back, expression full of a very uncharacteristic anger, until he saw who it was. He looked away quickly, biting the inside of his cheeks in an attempt to hide his upset state, but he only succeeded in slicing up the insides of his mouth. He finally tripped on the sand and flopped down on his a**, quivering angrily. "He didn't have to die. We shouldn't have fought him... Why did they have to push his buttons like that? Now...now..." he shuddered, and swallowed the lump in his throat. It was just one stupid adult. Why did it even matter? The guy had done everything to protect himself...and his lusus. Had they even figured out the guy's name? He began to quiver anew at that thought. The jade blood would not even be recognized for his contribution, however unwilling it had been...

Odette could hardly see over the flames. She couldn't see the jadeblood, nor any of her teammates. Panic kicked in. She picked a general direction and ran, luckily it was in the direction of the greenhouse, where she spotted some of her fellow teammates.

She collapsed onto her knees, body instinctively coughing madly, doing more bad than good to her weak breathing organs. Tears welled up in her eyes from coughing so hard, and the ashes in the air weren't really helping, either. There were burns on her feet, and her slippers were ruined. Her wounds were more than likely infected, not to mention the wound on her back was still bleeding quite a bit.

Was it all over? Just like that? Was the jadeblood... dead? They killed him. It wasn't supposed to happen like that. Sure, he killed himself, but she and the others drove him to it. She killed him. Not only did she play a large part in driving an adult troll to commit suicide, she also destroyed the chances of reviving the mother grub and saving the troll race.

The thought made her gag, and she was too weak to hold down the urge to throw up. She leaned away from the others, careful not to get her food juices on somebody. There was a lot more than she was used to, seeing how she was eating a lot better at the camp and during the expedition than she did at home. Throwing up a lot of food was a lot better than dry-heaving, at least. Odette desperately wished her lusus was with her right now to comfort her and hold her messy, flame-scorched hair back. She wanted to curl up in her coat and pretend she was back at her hive. She could pretend she was in her damp, dark, dirty hive, and that this whole trip never happened. But she threw off her coat during the fight, and left it to be engulfed by the flames.

Some of the others went into the jadeblood's hive. Odette remained outside on the verge of fainting, not having enough strength to follow the others. It was an awful sight to see. Just before she was a powerhouse, dealing damage like it was nothing in order to save her and her friend's lives. Now she was laying on her side like a wiggler, in a pool of blood, tears, and throw-up, sobbing quietly.

Shuddering, Torero wrapped his cape around himself like a blanket, though it did little to soothe him. He wasn't shaking from cold, after all—but it wasn't quite fear, either, as he looked around at the carnage he had missed out on. Torero lived to fight, but this had been completely different. Beasts, no problem! ...But another troll? He couldn't bring himself to do it. It didn't seem right. That jadeblood couldn't have been the villain of the story, but he died anyway. And Torero couldn't do a damn thing. Some hero.

He finally managed to tear himself away from the sight at Zeffer's leave, hesitantly turning away—not because he wanted to stick around, hell no, but because it felt wrong just leaving but what could he do, nothing, and it was killing him inside so maybe, yeah, maybe better he did leave on shaky legs, dazed, trailing after his teammates still trying to come to grips with the fact that his big adventure was a sham.

Just as Aprife kept his distance from Zeffer, Torero stood apart from them both, head bowed and standing uncharacteristically silent. What could a dumb little kid say in a situation like this? Nothing, and again he was struck with the sick realization that he could do nothing to help. He tried to keep his sobbing as quiet as he could now, as the tears finally broke. Even if Rocinante wasn't here, Torero instinctively kept quiet. He was being selfish. He was a selfish, useless little kid who couldn't help the jadeblood and couldn't even help his friends.

For the rest of the time seated quietly on the dune, Aprife said nothing, didn't even flinch when Torero showed up, bringing their little ragtag team back together again. At some point he had laid his head down against his arms, his breaths much calmer than those of his comrades, but not for lack of thought. The yellowblood wasn't sure how he was keeping himself from really freaking out, but he was. And maybe only for now. He wasn't sure. All he really knew was that his body didn't hurt as much as it had back before, during the battle royale, when he had had almost all the s**t gloriously kicked right out of him. He clung to the fact that he could at least keep moving. That, and he wasn't alone. Aprife did horribly when he was alone. Now would have been ten times worse, he was completely certain.

"I'm okay," he muttered, shifting a bit to feel the way his skin was sore and tight in some places. Most of the dings were minor. One hand, he noticed, was more cut up than the other. His dominant hand. That was probably how he had lost the pen. Somehow his hand had been hit and he hadn't even noticed. "Rero?" he turned back, taking in the sight of the shivering redblood. Aprife was starting to stand up, albeit slowly. "You, too?"

If everyone was at least fit to travel, maybe they could get out of here without having to deal with seeing the other trolls bringing out the matriorb, to be reminded of all the blood and destruction. If the others wanted to, that is. "I got pretty good at finding my way. Training back at the camp…" he muttered into his sleeve as he wiped his mouth. "We… don't have a lot of supplies, though…" His voice trailed off as he glanced back out along the desert.

The rancid smell of burning was what woke Taquin up, and it was then pain that kept him awake. A huge stubborn throb worked though his head, and as he attempted to stand, the horizon tipped and he reeled until he sprawled back onto the ground. The scent of smoke was a warning he could not ignore, however, and he stumbled and crawled blindly until he found cover behind a clump of something large that smelled a lot more safe. He sat and caught his breath, coughing out ash and smoke, and wincing at the pain in his chest. He was pretty sure a rib was broken. Moonlight began to flood into his eyes, and he was able to see the horizon, the rubble of shriveled and hacked foliage scattered across the sand, a few injured trolls stumbling across his line of vision. What had happened?

Ah yes. The jadeblood. There had been a battle. Taquin remembered now, fighting for his life and his pride until he had been knocked aside by a fairly large blow from the wildly thrashing plant-life. The flood of memory brought along with it a land-slide of pain, twinges of the wounds he'd endured in the fight. The scratches and bruises and torn ligaments and broken ribs were nothing to the searing pain he felt in his head. His vision blurred again and he leaned forward until his bloodied face rested in his torn and battered hands. His glasses were gone, but he didn't care about that now. They were most likely snapped in half and crushed somewhere in the wreckage, anyway, along with his shattered fighting staff.

After a few deep and painful breaths, the spinning in his brain finally lessened, and he stood up to go survey the battlefield. Every movement pinched Taquin's side, but he did his best to ignore it. He could barely put any weight on his left leg without it collapsing beneath him, but he limped along anyhow. Apparently he had been hiding behind a pile of dead vines severed from their life force. As he moved around them, he found out why. Fire leaped from the center of the wreckage, burning steadily away, but not spreading too far. Still more trolls were caring for their wounds and looking for comrades lost during the battle. He saw that more were entering the jadeblood's hive. There was no longer anyone to block their entry. He looked again at the leaping flames and knew that the troll they had come to find, to recruit, to seek aid from... was no longer alive. They had killed him.

They had killed a headstrong troll, a competent, persistent, respectful troll who had done nothing but try his best to survive. And for what? Because he had abjured their advances? In the name of hemo-equality they had killed a valiant being who deserved the life he had tried so hard to protect more than any Taquin had ever met. In the name of hemo-equality! Taquin couldn't help it. The pathetic irony had him laughing, curling up with the pain it caused his side, but the laughs still persisted. He fell to the ground as orange tears ran tracks through the grime on his face and stung the cuts and scrapes. This rebellion was nothing but a sick joke. Hadn't he told himself this already? And yet it amused him so, he just had to come back to it, didn't he? He just had to be a part of the disgusting, hilarious spectacle. It was just so funny, how no matter the good intentions of troll-kind, in their hands those intentions did nothing but twist into brutality, injustice, and suffering.

But no, that wasn't very funny at all. In fact, it was infuriating. Taquin lay in the ash silent, his hysterics quite sobered. He painfully brought himself to his feet once again, a coursing red-hot anger pumping through his warm-blooded veins. Someone had hell to pay for this. Oh, he couldn't think of who, but he would find them. Someone deserved to be punished for all the events that had transpired here, and to feel the brunt of his fury. The injustice of it all swirled the anger to irrational levels. The constant confidence whiplash he had endured over the past few days because of this rebellion, coupled with the heinous slaughtering of the type of troll he had done nothing but hope to save with their victory, had finally snapped the emotional backlog in his brain. A passionate vehemence grew in him so strong, he could barely feel the shouts of pain his side and leg and sore arms gave out as he stormed past the surviving trolls into the greenhouse. He wasn't sure of his purpose until he remembered the mothergrub. Oh, they had better hope to ******** gog they hadn't killed her too. Trolls cursed and yelled as he shoved past and jostled the injured, but he ignored them, quickening his steps, massacre on his mind for all the crimes this deplorable group of nooktwisters had committed.

Upon entering the basement, he immediately saw the virgin mothergrub's white body against the back wall, jade leaking out of her and coloring the ground. Everything inside Taquin twisted out of shape at the sight of the lusus of all lusii corrupted and exploited to propagate such a disgusting race of trolls. He saw the matriorb leaning out of a stack of cloth next to a drone who had busied himself with a pile of books on the floor. Green stains covered his uniform. He was obviously the cuplrit. Taquin made his way over to him, body stiff and full of purpose. The drone's wretched face turned towards him as his heavy footfalls came close, but Taquin allowed him no time to react. He pulled him up by the collar and pointed to the slain lusus with his other hand. His face was contorted with his rage as he demanded of the drone, "DID YOU DO THIS?!"