Persephone Grief/Adamantha Snark/Leo Whatsthename: The Lemon Kind (featuring Ricardo!)

 Persephone and her attacker hit the ground hard, momentarily knocking the wind out of her. But only for a second. The attacker kicked her in the stomach, then punched her in the mouth. Persephone bit her tongue, and yelped from the pain. She elbowed her attacker in the solar plexus, then swept her leg around, sending them crashing back to the ground.

 Leo Whatsthename  clicked his fingers, trying to summon a spark as he hit the ground with a thud. He gritted his teeth as he felt at least two of his ribs breaking. Either that or he was being paranoid. He hovered on the edge of his consciousness, flailing wildly, then his arm hit something furry. He blinked his eyes open and saw a strange white miniature elephant, only with smaller ears and a bit longer...almost a weasel? It was Ricardo. Leo didn't know how he knew this. Ricardo the hallucination. It made perfect sense. It suddenly occurred to him that he must be dreaming. Ricardo looked at him imploringly, either begging him not to wake up or asking for bananas and pickles on toast, Leo wasn't sure. Bananas and pickles on toast? Where did that come from? Leo wasn't a softie and he didn't have a sense of humor. He woke up.

"LEEEEEO! HEELLLLPPP!" Olivena screamed from somewhere nearby.

Oilvena, that overgrown brat. If she wasn't working for Mevolent, he'd leave her to die. She was technically his superior, though, in rank if not in brains, so he threw a fireball in the general direction of the screaming. 

 "None of that now." A blade pressed to his neck, drawing a spurt of blood.

For some reason, all Leo could think of was throat lozenges. The lemon kind. And sparkles, evil sparkles that would kill the invisible attacker person weirdo. Unfortunately, the sparkles were just figments of his imagination. Blood, so much blood. Leo liked blood, even when it was his own.

Persephone squinted at the attacker. Her blade was cutting into his neck, but he was just sort of
 mumbling to himself. This was slightly worrying.
 "Who are you, how did you find me, and why are you attacking me?"

Adamantha pinned back Lily-liver's only remaining good arm and formed her finger extensions into a fist. 

"You're no better than you think I am, you know." Olivena tried one last retort, but it was honestly too late.

"Procrastinator," Mantha muttered as she hit Lily-liver across the jaw with her invisible fist, knocking her out cold. That wasn't enough though, not after all the times Liver had caught her at pickpocketing (not to mention "caught" her a couple of times when she'd been doing absolutely nothing. Seriously--if she was going to get "caught" anyway, she may as well actually take things, so she could have her fun first.) Mantha lifted Lily-Liver's right hand and inspected her nails. She selected one of the needles of poison, the only one she recognized, and began to carve an "L" into Olivena's forehead.

"Ricardo the ice weasel elephant, I'm coming!" Leo exclaimed in a loud whisper as the blood oozed from his neck. After a pause: "Olivena, we don't have to like you now!" 

From somewhere in the distance, Olivena screamed. Her scream was good, it meant more blood, probably. 

Persephone's forehead wrinkled in confusion.

"Ricardo the ice weasel elephant?" Most people babbled right before the died, but it was usually more along the lines of "Don't kill me!"

He stared at a point a little past her left shoulder, his eyes wide. She kicked backwards, worried that there was someone behind her, but not wanting to let the crazy man go. There was no one there. Just a hallucination then, the could deal with those.

"Look, answer my questions, and you can go with Ricardo. I just need some information."

Leo vaguely heard a voice asking for information. Huh, weird. "Blood is cool," he said. "Blood is very cool. Shells are not cool, unless they have crabs in them, then they're ok. I already told Mevolent all he needs to know, whaddoyouwant?" Ricardo was right there, why wasn't he helping?

"What did you tell him?" Persephone snarled. "What did you say?"

"I told him about that healer's cabin and hideout... I'm in these woods every day, with Ricardo sometimes. I know things." Leo tried to nod proudly but couldn't remember how to do it, so he remained mostly still. "Since we've taken care of the rebel-people here, we should go get the ones in the hideout, which will be easy and see if we can get the healer to help us instead!" Leo was all ready to go!

"Do you honestly think that Ras would help you? Don't be ridiculous. He's the most loyal person I know, which is more than can be said for you. Thank you, and goodbye." With these words, Persephone leaned forwards and slit Leo's throat.

Olivena woke up in the middle of a snow drift (not that kind, the Norwegian kind!), completely unable to move. Leo Whatsthename and a weird white...miniature elephant??? were standing above her, laughing.

Fabi's note: Well... in case it isn't obvious, this is not how I'd originally planned on incorporating Ricardo. That is all.