(The song from Gem :) )

Pearl
In Orbit Above K-19-12, Transistia System

"Cleo, no!"

Her head rolled all the way around to look at me, grinning unnaturally widely as blood began to flow from her already blood-red lips and eyes. She pressed the gun to Xisuma's chest.

"Why'd you leave, Pearl?" Scar's voice came, two bloody hands gripping my shoulders tightly. I tried to shrug them off, but nothing happened.

"Let go, Scar! I have to stop her!" I screamed, pulling as hard as I could.

Everything suddenly disappeared, and I fell to my knees in a black void.

The walls slammed into me, pressing in with more force than I could ever imagine. I braced my legs, pushing back with a scream

And then everything fell in on itself.

I gasped, shooting up in bed in a cold sweat. I wasn't in a box. Xisuma was already dead.

Oh, yeah. I had kinda abandoned Scar, though. Sorry.

I sat up at the edge of the bed, digging into my forehead with the heels of my palms, trying to wake myself up.

Six months. Six damn months since I went on the run with a band of morons after my home had been destroyed in the carnage of war.

Groaning, I rolled out of bed and pulled a new tank top on. Not like I was falling back asleep.

I crept out into the still-quiet hallway of our (stolen) ship, where I could hear BigB, our pilot, blasting his (stolen) rap music in the cockpit. He had his boots up on the dash when I walked in, lazily spinning his aviator glasses in a slow circle.

I had found BigB on me and Xisuma's first trip to Three Rivers City on Therllyria, when an admin Xisuma had been hunting down had gone to the king for protection. I had been sixteen at the time, and B had been eight and orphaned. After saving him from a gang, he had stuck to us like glue. After the assassination attempt on the admin went wrong, he and Karn, who had been serving as a medic-in-training in the palace and was running with us now, helped me escape. B had refused a last-minute invitation to Hermitcraft as we had left.

"You still listening to this junk?" I asked, teasingly slapping the back of his head. He startled slightly, lightly swinging at me.

"It's good!" he protested. I laughed lightly, taking a seat next to him and listening for a second.

"You know what? Not that bad." I said with a shrug. His lip twitched up slightly, a scar rippling as he did.

"Has the almighty Scarlet Killer been converted to the light side?" he teased. I threw a wadded up ball of paper at his head, holding back a grin.

"Don't hold your breath. 21 Century Earth Folk is still the best." I said stubbornly. He raised an eyebrow.

"Seriously?" he asked. I nodded.

We fell into a silence, just enjoying the music.

"Run me by this planet one more time." I asked after a while.

He cracked his neck, flicking down the eyepiece around his head.

"K-19-12, still waiting for an official name from Gigacorp, is a Venus-Class planet about the size of Original Venus, with an atmosphere of oxygen and nitrogen that's twice as dense as Original Venus's. Basically, breathable if you're good with millions of tons of pressure at once. Gigacorp is currently terraforming the planet to convert into essentially a planet sized library of their biggest secrets." he explained. I hummed in annoyance.

"So why're we here?" I asked, annoyed. He rolled his eyes, snapping the eyepiece back.

"Because they have one orbital station on the planet, where they keep info on the Lazarus Rebellion, like all known members and their status in the ranks." he drawled. I nodded. He didn't need to explain why we needed THAT twice.

Grian.

My brother had ran away six months ago, after he found the secrets Xisuma (our servers admin and the man who had raised me) had everyone keep from him. He didn't... take it very well. He ran away, and ended up involved with Nafia, the crown princess of the Empire, and the Lazarus Rebellion, where he still was as far as we could tell from the information Nafia had given us. We had been looking for anything else ever since.

"We're approaching the station. We'll be there in 30 minutes." B said, snapping me out of my thoughts.

"Good. Wake the others."

. . .
Grian
The Overlords Monastery, Karnvas

I slid under the punch, breathing hard. Sweat poured down my forehead as I threw my own, hitting a cheap shot on the AI's bruised side.

It whirled around, face impassive as it threw a roundhouse kick for my neck. I grabbed its leg, slamming my forearm into it and snapping it like a twig. I wrapped my own leg around it, rolling both of us onto the ground and slicing its leg off with my armblade. I quickly swung around, drawing the dagger from my chest strap and slicing its neck.

"Good! That was a lot better. Now you won't get killed immediately." a female voice barked as I stood. The Assassin, the right hand-(wo)man of The Overlord, the chick who was training me. Although, like The Overlord, I had never even seen her face.

I stood, resheathing the dagger.

"Any news from The Front?" I panted, wiping sweat from my forehead.

"We've pushed the Empire back another system. At this rate, they're gonna have to call all-in and finally get GigaCorp's Army Branch involved." she said. I smirked.

"Good. Then we can take 'em out, too." I said confidently, turning to hit the punching bag.

"Grian. Stop." she said. I turned to her, annoyed.

"What? I'm training. Like you asked." I snapped.

"We have news on Scar." she said. I immediately froze.

Finally.

"Where is he? Is he here? Is he ok?" I demanded. She nodded.

"I found him on Earth, in Egypt, of all places, getting some kind of tattoo. But he's alive and heathy, even if he's been drinking himself dizzy every night." she said.

"Why isn't he here, then?" I demanded.

"Because it seems GigaCorp has recruited him as their newest personal assassin. And they're sending him on his first mission. To kill one of the old Hermits."

.  .  .
Gem
Nest, West Aviara

"So are you gonna die today or make it out alive?
You gotta conquer the monster in your head and then you'll fly
Fly, phoenix, fly
It's time for a new empire
Go bury your demons then tear down the ceiling
Phoenix, fly."

The crowd absolutely erupted at the last verse, giving a standing ovation as they rained the stage in roses and thunderous applause.

I smiled widely, giving a deep bow as the curtains dropped. I picked up a singular rose, sticking it into my hair.

Impulse stood from the drum set, grinning wryly. Scott strapped the guitar back around his back, smiling almost as widely as me.

"I think that's our most successful concert yet! What're the profits?" Scott whooped. I threw him a rose, which he stuck into his own, sea-blue hair.

"I have no clue. But that crowd..." I let out a shaky breath. That had been INTENSE. The crown prince of West Aviara himself had invited us to the capital city, Nest.

"I know. That was insane. Think we made any kind of difference?" Impulse asked as we stepped away from the main stage and out the back door.

"Excuse me, but are you the group preformed tonight?" a weak voice asked from to our side in the alleyway just outside the ring. The young woman sat huddled in the corner, a ratty blanket wrapped around her shoulders.

I smiled, kneeling down in front of her. I pulled my black leather coat off, draping it around her.

"Yes. My names Gem. Were you able to see it?" I asked, silently smacking myself. Of course she hadn't.

"No. But I heard it. You had a voice like an angel." she said reverently. I laughed lightly.

"It sounded fine. But thank you very much." I said. She cocked her head, a small smile clinging to her lips.

"Do you really think that the war can finally end?" she asked.

"Of course." I said simply.

"Your music made me want to sign up for the Dragon Blossom Rebellion, try and make a different. But I don't have the money to get there. What should I do?" she said. I knew about Dragon Blossom. A group of semi-pacifists in the jungle dedicated to showing that there were alternatives to war. Impulse, Scott, and I were big public supporters of what they did. Public rallies, peaceful protests, even a few concerts from people like us. We had preformed for them once.

I patted the jacket I had just given her.

"Hide this, make sure street thugs don't see it. Sell it and whatever else you can afford to get rid of in the morning. Just the coat should be enough to get you there, though." I said warmly. She looked shocked.

"But it's yours!" she said, trying to hand it back. I pressed it into her hands.

"I can afford to lose it. Take it. Get to the Dragon Blossom. They'll take good care of you." I said. She looked at a loss for words for a moment, then she threw herself on me in a tight embrace, sobs racking her body. I returned the hug.

"Thank you. I'll fight back against war with everything I have. May the gods bless you, Gem and the Scotts." she cried. I chuckled a little, helping her stand.

"Of course. Remember, don't let the street thugs see the coat. That's your ticket out of here." I said gently. She nodded, determined, before rushing off.

I turned to Impulse, letting out a shaky breath in the cold night air.

"In answer to your question: yes. We're making a difference, even if it was just one person our music reached."

. . .
Scar
New Cairo, Egypt, Earth

I pulled aside the lavish curtains, rougher than I intended. I took a deep drink from the bottle of hard liquor in my hand, looking at the ruined pyramids in the distance. Ships buzzed around them, working tirelessly to preserve them. More buzzed around the central strip of the city, working to restore the ancient river that once ran through this dry desert land, centuries ago.

"Legend. Do you know why I brought you here?" a gruff voice asked behind me. Barnes. Damn Barnes.

"Because you have nowhere else to put me?" I said bitterly, grabbing a reed-spun chair and plopping into it with the glass bottle in hand.

"Because I figured you would appreciate the history of this city. Those pyramids are some of the oldest monuments of our people's history. They were built thousands of years before humanity even DREAMED of stepping into the stars. This city was completely razed by the Zombie King and his armies in the fourth World War, and was rebuilt just in time to be razed again in the fifth. The beloved pyramids were almost destroyed in the war as well, especially after Egypt gained Nuclear Weapons. New Cairo is a city built on blood, sweat, and tears and is the PERFECT monument to our species, wouldn't you agree?" he monologued.

I took another drink, completely uninterested.

"Didn't the Vex kick y'all's asses as soon as you left this solar system?" I slurred. Barne's eyes narrowed.

"They beat us in the first war, yes. But humanity rose from those ashes once more and drove the Vex to near extinction." Barnes said. I snorted.

"If I remember correctly, you were getting whooped back into the Stone Age until the Thellrilians showed up and saved you, leading to a looooong string of them saving humanity's asses over and over again." I said.

"We would've beaten them. And remember: you're just as human as me, Legend." he said impatiently, spitting the last word like an insult.

I grunted, raising the bottle for another drink. Barnes violently ripped it out of my hand, throwing it off the balcony.

"You should be sober for this, Legend. I have your first mission." he said.

"That was my favorite kind, man." I muttered, but gave the man my attention.

He handed me a file.

"His name's Fable. He's been going around the Galaxy, selling valuable Gigacorp secrets, turning the populace against us. Which is, I'll remind you, bad for business." Barnes said as I drew the file out. Basically everything was classified, except two words: "from Hermitcraft."

"They're from-urp-from my server." I slurred. Barnes put a hand on my bare shoulder, squeezing too tightly.

"Is that gonna be a problem, Legend? Or should I get Myth to do it instead?" he threatened calmly, tightening his grip.

I stood, cracking my tattooed neck.

"No, sir. I'll bring you their head on a silver platter."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Naaaah, y'all know what time it is: M E M E S