"Mercury!" she called out, hardly knowing where her brain had pulled the name from. And then, without waiting from a response from him, she spun around and waved to Lillian. "The Weavile! He's one of Gladius's illusions, I think."
Lillian’s eyes shot open when Jade called out Gladius’ presence. If Jade hadn’t known that was one of his illusions, she might never have put two and two together on that. She was lucky Jade was there. She’d have to remember to thank her later.
It still wasn’t visually obvious whether or not it was Gladius, but he did seem to recognize her…
"'Sup, sis. Your real brother's here too, ain't he? Cool. Real cool. I hope whatever you guys do to me hurts reeeaaal good."
oh no. That was him.
That was him. But he was clearly not in his right mind either. What did that even mean? Did he really think they wanted to hurt him? (Okay, to be fair to him, he might not be wrong about Gladion. But her?) She had done
nothing but indicate that she cared about him and wanted to count him as a brother.
She needed to look him in the eyes. To look him in his
actual eyes and tell him he was wrong. Before her higher levels of thought processed what she was going to do or decided what the plan afterwards was, she had channeled ghost energy into the hand that she’d left on of the grip of her rapier and—
Lillian used Shadow Sneak!
—flicked the Weavile illusion upside the head. Then quickly took a step back, surprised at herself.
“Wait, I—” Didn’t mean to? She meant to, sort of. She just wanted to— to— was mad that— It was just
this again.
She took a deep breath. Her thoughts were moving too quickly, her feelings resonating with the crowd. But she couldn’t panic, this was not a good time to have a panic attack, so she pushed through it and forced herself to lock eyes with Gladius. (That was why she’d done this in the first place and now she felt like her heart would explode if she followed through. But she was familiar with this feeling and familiar with pushing past it.)
“You. You can’t say that.
Stop.”
She returned her weapon to its place at her side. This time, she didn’t keep a hand on the grip.
“I
don’t want to hurt you.” (That didn’t hurt, right? That hadn’t been the point it was a weak move and she was weak, he resisted it and was so much stronger.) “Do
not put that on me! I have been
kind to you!”
Well, she wasn’t doing a very good job of it right now. Her blood was running hot. She couldn’t stop now, she was desperate to be listened to.
“Gladion, he left me alone with her, you know that? Right? You know, that’s why I first met you and couldn’t tell you weren’t him. He ran away, and I never saw him again, and before that when I actually knew him you two hadn’t even diverged at all! I don’t know either of you anymore, and you both hate each other, and I’m—
I’m trying! Okay?”
She’d be crying if she still could. Her face was flush with blue blood, badly enough that she could feel the warmth.
“You two can tear each other apart and I can’t stop you but
do not drag me in. Do not make me take part. Do not put sides or favourites onto me, or decide I have one and then get sad you’ve decided it’s not you! I can’t— I
can’t make it work if you do that. And I want to, I
will, so
don’t.”
Finally, she allowed herself to break away from looking at him. Now that she had poured out the last of her anger, she wilted back, bracing for retaliation.
“I’m sorry. I love you.”
Objective: 
