The Past Ahead - an Empires SMP AU

Chapter 20 - Battle for the Crown

           Pearl was in Sanctuary, looking for the other emperors. After Katherine and Jimmy left to look for Joel after the meeting in Chromia, fWhip suddenly realized that they all needed to check on their empires. Everyone eventually decided to do so, and then rendevous at Sanctuary when they were done. Pearl had headed straight for Sanctuary as soon as the meeting disbanded, and had spent her time waiting for the other emperors to get back, as well as a little pvp practice against some skeletons and zombies and that had come out of nowhere.

           "Oh, hello, Pearl!" She looked up to see Pix the historian gliding down with his elytra. He landed gracefully and bowed. "Hi, Pix," Pearl greeted. "Is the Ancient Capital okay?" Pix nodded soberly. "It had a little corruption around it, but Lady Katherine left a note saying that she planted some sort of anti-corruption plant that was blue that I had to let grow to help fight back against the red corruption, so I guess that's good news." He ran his hand through his hair as he spoke but he simply phased right through himself. "Ooh, that feels weird." Pix glanced at Pearl. "Sorry, not used to being a ghost." 

           "Did you die recently or something?" "Oh, well, yeah, I guess kind of recently. I just randomly started withering and then I died and came back as a ghost." Pearl blinked. "When Gem teleported us to this time I was withering away because I was connected to Gilded Helianthia and it was burning." Pix raised an eyebrow. "Huh, withering away shouldn't be this common." He glanced at his watch. "I'll be heading to the Castle of Memories to meet with the other emperors. You coming with me?" "No thanks," Pearl declined politely. "I'd like a little more pvp practice." She waved at some more zombies and skeletons approaching. Pix nodded and flew off, and Pearl went right back to slaying monsters. 

           "Katherine! Joel! The sheriff! Thank goodness I've found you!" Pearl heard Oli's voice from somewhere on another street and headed towards it. "What happened?" That was Katherine's voice. "It's Sausage." Pearl felt her heart almost stop. Sausage was in trouble? Xornoth, if you've hurt my best friend... "Which Sausage?" Now that was Joel. Pearl burst into the street that the voices were coming from and successfully managed to startle all of them. "What's wrong with Sausage?" She cried. "You'd better see for yourself," Oli said gravely. 

           They found the Sausages in the same room in the Castle of Memories, surrounded by most of the other emperors, Bubbles, Eddie, Maria, and Hermes. Everyone was looking worriedly at Sausage of Sanctuary. Pearl gasped when she saw him. He was frozen in place, eyes open and staring but not seeing, in the middle of movement but deathly still, and occasionally he would twitch and glitch and spasm like he was fighting to leave that state but couldn't. "What happened to him?!" 

           "He told me this might happen," Historian Pix said. "That with the past emperors being in the present instead of the past, what they were supposed to do in history ends up not being done." "So what does that mean?" Jimmy asked nervously. "It means that time is upsetting itself." Princess Gem said flatly. "Why is only Sausage affected?" "That's because he remembers all his past lives," Sausage said miserably. "He told me yesterday that he felt dizzy. He was remembering things that he wasn't supposed to have done. Stuff that I did." "Sausage, it's not your fault, if anything it's my fault for bringing us all here," Wizard Gem tried to console him, but Sausage stormed out of the room. He didn't want to hear it. 

           Pearl followed him out, ignoring whatever it was fWhip was saying about Xornoth. Sausage was sitting alone in a corner on the balcony, staring out into the sunset. She joined him watching the sun go down. "It's all my fault," Sausage moaned. Pearl patted him gently on the back. "Sausage, it's not your fault that your future self went on a lore arc involving remembering all his past lives." "No, I don't mean that. I mean it's all my fault." Pearl tilted her head at him, waiting for the lord of Mythland to clarify. Her neighbor really talked weird sometimes. "I stole the research for the counter-spell. Those papers, the notes, Gem's grimoire- it's my fault that we're not in our correct time period right now." Pearl blinked.