So, I learned about this thing going around Tumblr and some other sites called "Countdown to 2". In it, fandom participants are to write or art something that has to do with an episode from season 1. Yesterday was episode one, and today's episode two. I missed yesterday's upload because I just figured out about Countdown today, so I'll start with episode two, Assembly Required! I'm not sure I'll be commemorating all the episodes, but I know that I know that I KNOW I'm going to be doing episode 5 (it's my favorite episode!). So, grab your popcorn, or sunflower seeds, and enjoy the story! Hit it, Crisper!

Crisper: (hits it)

Midlife crisis was an unfamiliar term for Jesse. He had plenty of adventures and chases under his belt, and many more to look forward to (being fifty was by no means stopping him). Even today held some kind of adventure. Maybe it wasn't going to be as fast-paced as running from killers with axes or finding a chest filled with strange, ancient treasures unknown to man, but it was good to be alive and involved. A smile creeped across his face as he blinked his eyes open and sat up on his bed. He had a habit of waking up with a smile, one he didn't hope to break anytime soon. He got straight out of bed and went downstairs to the kitchen where he saw Axel, Olivia and Petra rummaging around for some breakfast. He lived with them in a house for five. It wasn't their old treehouse, but it often felt like it was.

"G'morning, Jesse." Petra greeted with her slightly scratchy morning-voice.

"Hey," he said, walking over to the table where he was two little girls, about seven and eight, sitting at the table for some breakfast. Jesse noticed that they looked similar to Olivia. Where they related? When they looked up and saw him, they instantly beamed, excited to be meeting the famous Jesse.

"Hi, Jesse!" They both shouted, waving like there was no tomorrow. "I'm Shaniqua!"

"And I'm Tasha. We're Olivia's cousins," she pointed to Olivia who was in the kitchen, pouring a bowl of cereal. Jesse looked to her for an explanation.

"Something came up, so they have to be here just for the day. You don't mind, do you?" She asked, getting a chorus of 'of course not's and 'we love visitors' from the others. Jesse turned back to the girls and smiled.

"I know you. Sometimes when Olivia comes over for the holidays, she talks about you." Tasha said as-a-matter-of-factly.

"Does she?"

"Yeah, a lot." Shaniqua answered. "Could you tell us a story?"

"How about how you're king of BoomTown?"

"Really, girls!" Olivia scolded sisterly, rushing over to them with a cup of coffee. "Leave him alone. He just woke up, and now you're bombarding him like fangirls. Give him some time to breathe," she said, setting the coffee in front of Jesse.

"It's really alright, Liv," he said, taking a sip of the black coffee. It was piping hot and very strong, just the way he liked it. "I'm not that tired." He said, idly scratching at his stubbled chin. He didn't have a beard as thick as Ivor's, but the thin growth of reddish-brown hair around his chin suddenly seemed fitting to him one day, and he kept it since. It was a minor change that he enjoyed.

"That was a great day." Axel said, sitting across the table from him with some toast and a jar of Nutella. "You ever think of dropping by there any?"

"Where? BoomTown?"

"Yeah. You're still king, you know."

"Really?" Tasha beamed.

"Eh, they probably forgot about me. I'm sure they've gotten someone else, too. Can't be king-less for that long."

"Are you kidding? No one could forget that day, or you." Axel argued, slathering a large helping of the hazelnut onto his toast.

"That is so cool. You're, like, king of something. That's really sweet!" Shaniqua chided, making Jesse grin weakly.

"You should tell them how you actually became king," he turned to Shaniqua and Tasha with an eager grin, "It'll knock your socks off!"

"Yeah! Tell us!"

"Why don't you tell them, Axel?" Jesse asked, staring at his coffee as if he was bored by the subject.

"It's your story, dude." Axel said. Jesse gave a weary sigh that made the two girls beam, and then grinned, starting to jog his memory on that eventful day.

"So, Axel, Olivia, Lukas and I had just found the Order Temple after spending the night in a dirt-hut."

"Why'd you have to build a dirt-hut?" Shaniqua asked.

"Well, we were on the run from the Witherstorm. It was nighttime, so we needed a place to stay. We were going to build a treehouse, but we decided that would take too long. The next day, we went straight to do what Gabriel told us, find the rest of the Order. After a bit of planning, Axel and I decided to go find Magnus the Griefer while Olivia went to look for Ellegaard the Redstone Engineer. It took us a little trouble to get to Boomtown—"

"Why?" Tasha asked.

"We had to take a trip through the Nether on this crazy minecart-system!" Axel blurted before Jesse could answer. "And we had to fight a Ghast, but Jesse handled it pretty well. Remember?"

"I'm still trying to forget." He said tersely, making Axel chuckle. "Anyways, we ended up getting through to Boomtown."

"Man, that place was fun."

"No, Axel. I think 'crazy' is the word you were looking for just now." Olivia said from the kitchen.

"How do you know? You weren't even there."

"One look at Magnus could tell you." She said.

"Magnus is awesome."

"And crazy."

"It was fun and crazy, okay?" Jesse laughed, his mind going back to that day full of dodging eggs and bombs and flying people. Creepers were the least of his concerns that day. "Have you ever seen a Creeper blow up?"

"Yeah, on the nature channel sometimes." Tasha said with a nod.

"Well, imagine that, but with people instead! Right when Axel and I got into the city, we were on the run. There were people everywhere, throwing TNT at each other and rotten eggs! Actually, looking back it was kind of on the crazier side, Axel."

"Pfft, that's just your opinion. If we were going by fact, we'd say it was awesome!"

"Yeah, sure. Anyways, when we got to the city, we tried asking if anyone knew where we could find Magnus. It was kind of hard considering the fact that everyone around us was trying to blow each other up. So, I pulled out the amulet to see if we could find him."

"The amulet had colors on it that would light up whenever one of the Order members was near. Magnus was the green one." Axel explained.

"The green was really bright, so we knew he was near, but that's when some of the other griefers saw it, too! All of them wanted to find Magnus so that one of them could be the king of BoomTown."

"What happens next?"

"Right after they saw the green lighting up, all of them tried taking the amulet from us! And one of them almost did! She ran off with it, so Axel and I had to chase after her! She and her buddies were really fast and good at jumping over stuff, and we had to chase them on the tops of buildings, too!"

"Wait, you mean you were running on top of tall buildings?!" Shaniqua asked with disbelief. Jesse and Axel nodded, smiling proudly. Both girls let out long, shocked 'wow's, marveling at how brave and strong these two men sitting in front of them were.

"I fell and hit my head, too. But I had to get right back up! If those griefers got away from us, who knows what could've happened! It took some running and jumping, but I finally caught up to the two who'd stolen the amulet. Turns out they were friends. So, they were in this little hut arguing over who got to keep the amulet, and that was the perfect opportunity! There was a hole in the shack big enough for me to stick my hand into, so I reached right in and grabbed it just like that!"

"Cool! And then did you go to find Magnus?"

"Not yet. Because right after I got it, they put out some TNT to blow me up!"

"Oh my gosh! Did you live?!" Tasha asked. Jesse paused, giving her an amused look. He and Axel briefly exchanged glances and snickered.

"Of course, I lived." He finally answered. Tasha gave a relieved sigh and sank back into her chair. "You know, if this story's getting to be too much for you two, I could stop." Jesse said smoothly and teasingly.

"What? No! I want to hear the rest!" She shouted, suddenly perking up.

"Me, too!"

"Yeah, Jesse." Petra said. Jesse glanced around the table, seeing that Olivia and Petra had taken a seat and were listening too. "It's just good to hear this story again."

"Well, alright. If you insist," he drawled. He took a second to remember where he was in the story. "Oh, right! So, they put TNT out to blow me up. I barely had a second to jump onto another part of the roof and get going again! It took a while, but I finally found Axel right in front of Magnus's castle." He looked down clicked his tongue, tapping his head a few times. "Can't remember how we got rid of all those griefers, though."

"Didn't we use eggs or something?"

"No, I think that was earlier… oh well. We were standing outside of Magnus's castle, and saw these two stone doors. I thought we needed to knock, so that's what we did. And then, we fell!"

"How did you fall?!"

"Through some trapdoors in the floor. They were painted to look just like the castle so we wouldn't be able to see them." Axel answered. "Guess where we fell."

"Um… Magnus's house?" Tasha said timidly.

"Yep! Except it had more of a lair-vibe to it."

"It gave a whole new meaning to that game 'The floor is lava'." Jesse added.

"I'll say! Well, Jesse and I saw Magnus! He didn't really want us there, but we knew we needed to get him to come back with us to the temple to get to saving the world! He had these really cool traps that would drop us into the lava if he found something about us that he didn't like. He wanted to know why we came there and all, so we told him everything. Like how there was a Witherstorm, and that Gabriel sent us—"

"It was a good thing we had that amulet."

"I know! It only took us a few minutes to convince him we needed his help, and we were ready to go!"

"Almost. Magnus knew that he couldn't just leave BoomTown, since he was their king. So, he needed a reason to leave, like someone else becoming king! And that's where I came in."

"Yeah! Jesse had to play this game called the Death Bowl. It's how the griefers in BoomTown pick their king. Two griefers grief each other until one of them falls off his tower. The last man standing becomes king!"

"Well, I wasn't supposed to actually play in the Death Bowl. We were supposed to fake it. But halfway through the games, Magnus started getting serious. Wanted to blow me up. I guess he forgot our "grand plan". He'd built this huge skeleton canon, with mountains of TNT on it, too! I would've been a goner if Axel hadn't gotten me some of that stuff in those chests."

"Yeah, I got him a bow and some arrows. Hey, didn't you make your tower out of pink cotton?" He asked. Snickers fell across the room and Jesse blushed a bit.

"In my defense, I thought we were going to fake it!" He shouted.

"It's not that bad!" Petra laughed. "It kind of adds to the fact that you survived that!"

"He barely had a block left afterwards!" Axel shouted.

"It was pretty impressive. So, what happened was that I shot an arrow at Magnus's TNT. He had so much of it, that it ended up blowing up his entire tower!" He got a collective 'whoa' from both girls, and smiles across the entire table. "And that's how I became king of BoomTown."

"That is so cool!"

"Yeah, it was. Anyways, after I became king, we had to rush out, because the Witherstorm found us. We made it back to the temple though. Lukas had really built the place up. Petra showed up too, and Olivia came back with Ellegaard. Magnus and Ellegaard weren't so happy to see each other, but we all ended up getting along."

"Lukas fixed the temple?" Shaniqua asked. Jesse's smile faded the slightest bit.

"Yeah. He really was a great builder." He said, glancing across the room where they had a small picture of him. The room seemed to go solemnly quiet and Jesse sighed. "It's not the same without him." He added. The girls' countenance seemed to drop, and they slightly hung their heads. But they both flinched when they heard a door swing open. Out of the hall and down the stairs marched a sleepy, angry blonde, glaring right at Jesse.

"Seriously, Jesse!" Lukas shouted as the others, except Jesse, snickered. "Every time you tell this story, you make people think I'm dead! Why?!"

"It's funny. Besides, you sleep in so late it almost feels like it." Jesse said, finally giving way to laughter. Lukas groaned, playfully rolling his eyes as he made his way to the kitchen. That was another thing Jesse liked so much about telling this story.

So, there you have it folks! Day two of Countdown! Well, I've gotta rush because I'm s'posed to be in bed. This story was written in one day with no post-editing, so I'm sorry if that first paragraph doesn't match the rest. Hehe, gotta get in bed before my mom kills me. This felt kind of weird typing up, since it was mostly dialogue. I'm used to writing a mixture of actions and dialogue, so I hope this wasn't boring for you guys.

Just so you know, these oneshots won't all be Jesse telling a story. There's supposed to be a different style per shot, so don't leave if you found this one dissatisfying. Hang around!

See yah! And thanks for reading! Leave a review, favorite and follow! I'm planning on doing some more countdown episodes, so stay tuned! Close it, Crisper!

Crisper: (closes it)