Evangeline Butler, better known as Evie to most people, jogged carefully towards the Endercon Building Competition site, mentally spitting out every single swear word that she knew. Of COURSE her alarm clock wouldn't go off when it was supposed to, especially on a day like today. Why was she even surprised at this point.
The only reason she wasn't full-out sprinting to get there was because she was going to trip and fall flat on her face if she did, and that would just slow her down even more than her dark, short wavy hair attempting to get stuck on every branch she shoved past, leaves whipping at her amber eyes and fair skin.
When she finally pushed past the thirteenth branch and brushed a couple of leaves out of her hair, she noticed that her team had already made it through the gate. Breathless, Evie walked up to the booth, where two teams appeared to be facing off. "Um, hi, I'm with the Bookworms?" she asked, lungs attempting to heave as much air as they could back in.
One of the boys at the team nearest the sign-in booth snorted, making her glance over. "'The Bookworms?' That's the lamest name for a team I've ever heard," the pale-green eyed boy sneered at her.
If Evie had been any normal person, she would shot back a snappy comeback, but because she was just such a shy person and just... really bad at comebacks (the only one she currently could think of being 'yeah, and you're mean'), she glanced away back at the lady at the booth, who she knew... not personally, but they had enough mutual friends and acquaintances that they knew each other.
"Oh, yes. You guys are in Booth 4," and the woman gave her a friendly smile.
"Wow, look at Little Miss High-and-Mighty over here. Too good to reply?" the same boy asked, his voice perfectly innocent-sounding.
Evie felt her cheeks color at that as her amber eyes flickered over to the look at him and his group. The brown-haired girl was snickering a little, and the bearded boy next to her was grinning nastily at her. The only member of the team nearest the booth that wasn't sneering at her was a blonde guy with a purple-striped shirt. In fact, he appeared to be giving her an apologetic sort of look.
And an actual apologetic look, not the sorts of 'apologetic' looks that Camry gave her.
"Hey, leave her alone, Aiden," and Evie glanced over her shoulder to see the girl behind her put her hands on her overall-clad hips. Her much-longer black hair hung practically down to her rib cage, barely kept out of her face by a gold pin, green eyes narrowed in anger. "She's not trying to cause any trouble with anybody."
"Yeah, dude, be cool," the much-bigger male just behind her glared at the one who'd been rude (Aiden, apparently), "she's not doing anything." The other girl in the group- a girl about a head taller than the petite girl, with darker skin and curlier hair topped off with a pale green beanie with goggles on her head, didn't say anything but nodded agreement, giving the guy a glare.
Mumbling a weak sort of 'excuse me', Evie turned back to the woman at the booth, gave her a grateful smile and nod, and moved through the gates and headed for Booth 4 before the situation could escalate too much, where her teammates were waiting for her.
"Evie, there you are." Christina, the tallest member of the group, frowned, putting her hand on her hip and cocking her head to one side, narrowing perfectly mascara-ed eyes at the shorter girl. "Where were you? We almost didn't get let in until we said you were late and would be showing up soon."
"Sorry- I overslept," Evie said sheepishly, reaching up and rubbing her head with an awkward smile.
Her teammate didn't return it. "Seriously? You overslept? Did you forget we had the competition today?" she snapped at the slightly shorter girl.
Evie's smile faded a little bit, but she kept it up. "Uh... no, my alarm clock just didn't go off. Sorry, Christina."
"C'mon, Christina, cool it," and Camry shot Evie an apologetic look that looked a little fake (as usual), rubbing her head. "It was an accident. We've established that. Just let it go."
Christina scoffed, turning on her heel and heading over to the chest containing all their building materials. "Whatever. I don't even know why we let her build with us," she muttered, under her breath but still loud enough for Evie to catch.
Evie's smile faded, and Max sighed, reaching out and patting Evie on the back. "Uh, sorry, Eva-" That was the name he insisted on calling her by. It had taken her a few times to get used to it, but eventually she'd adjusted. "She's just..." He trailed off, as if unsure of what exactly she was.
"A b*tch," Penny chimed in, under her breath.
Max frowned over at the shorter female. "Camry!"
"What? It's true. I don't even know why you bother trying to stay friends with her, Evie," and Camry shook her head at Evie, curly brown hair bouncing around a little bit. If Camry had been anyone but Camry, Evie would've taken it as being nice, but since it was Camry... well, you get the point. "It's like trying to make friends with a rattlesnake. Actually, making friends with the rattlesnake would probably be easier."
"Well, I've been friends with her since elementary school, I can hardly just tell her I don't want to be friends with her anymore," Evie shrugged. Much like you two. "Besides, she's not that bad all the time."
"Just most of the time," Max offered, smirking at Christina's back.
Evie sensed she should probably change the subject. So, she did so with incredible tact and skill. (That was sarcasm by the way. Incredibly heavy sarcasm.) "... Anyway, what are we building today? Are we still doing the fantasy castle with the moving dragon like we planned?"
Evie wasn't GOOD at building, but she wasn't necessarily bad at it either. At least she was better at putting blocks down in a decorative fashion than fighting. Or redstone. She was terrible at both.
Max and Camry immediately exchanged a look that made her think that it was a good thing she'd brought BOTH her lucky hoe and her lucky iron helmet with her. "Um... no. Christina changed the plan at the last minute. We're building a flying machine."
Evie's eyes widened a little bit in shock. "What?! I don't know how to build a flying machine! And we don't even have slimes!" she exclaimed, voice rising up in slight hysteria at the end.
Camry shrugged, frowning. "We told her that too. She told us to mind our own business and that it was a better idea than the castle."
"Which is a total lie, by the way, I prefer the castle," Max muttered, making sure to keep his voice low so that Christina didn't catch it.
Evie let out a long, low, groan. In the background, she could vaguely hear Aiden sneering at someone. From what it sounded like, it was the same girl that had defended her back at the entrance and her team. "Great. Fantastic. There is no way this is going to work. She does know we're supposed to have slimes, right?"
There was a very long pause at that, enough time for a girl with normal-length red hair and a blue-striped bandana on her head to walk past them at a normal speed and start chatting with the two groups, who appeared to be facing off with one another.
"... I don't think she does."
Evie sighed, reaching up and rubbing the bridge of her nose to try to alleviate the gigantic headache that was currently forming. It didn't work, but you know, at least she was trying, right? "... oh sweet mercy..."
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE NEED SLIME TO MAKE A FLYING MACHINE?!"
Long story short, they'd just tried to explain that they couldn't build a flying machine because none of them had any slime.
Needless to say, Christina was not taking it very well.
"You didn't know?" Evie didn't have a foul tongue, but she was having a great deal of trouble with not cussing Christina out at the moment. "Of course you need slimes to build a flying machine."
"Well, you could've TOLD us that!" Christina snapped at Evie, the tall girl towering over the currently-looking-severely-irritated older girl.
Max immediately glared at Christina. "Don't drag me and Camry into this. We tried to tell you. You were the one who insisted on changing the build at the last minute when we'd all decided on the castle and the dragon idea last month." And if it had been anyone else saying this, Evie would've thought he was actually being nice, but it wasn't, it was Max. He just had preferred the dragon and castle idea.
"I only agreed because I thought Evie would change her mind and agree that a flying machine was better!" Christina whined, stamping her foot like a petulant child. Honestly, the entire group had to wonder how old this girl was in the first place...
Evie stared at Christina, unsure whether to laugh or facepalm. Hard. "You never put the idea to me in the first place..."
The group's argument (and in Evie's case, her weak attempts at defusing the situation and failing miserably) was interrupted by the sound of fireworks going off.
Looking up, the group next to them- the girl and her group who'd defended Evie earlier- had built a giant Enderman, fireworks shooting out of a dispenser behind them. It might not have been the most complicated build... but it was definitely very impressive-looking.
"Nice build!" Evie yelled up to them, giving an encouraging smile as she turned away from Christina.
The girl leaned over the edge of the Enderman to see who it was that had spoken. Upon spotting Evie, the girl grinned widely. "Thanks!" she shouted back.
Suddenly, Evie felt a pair of hands slam into her back, and she stumbled forward a few steps, pinwheeling her arms in an attempt to keep herself upright. The attempt might've worked if Evie had been someone less clumsy, but unfortunately, Evie was pretty much the clumsiest person on the planet, and the pinwheeling just threw her even more off balance.
Slamming into the ground with a little squeak of surprise, Evie rolled over and sat up to see Max and Camry staring at Christina, wide-eyed, the taller girl's already petulant expression twisted into a harsh glare. "What are you doing congratulating the other team?! You're supposed to be on our team!" she practically screamed at Evie.
Evie flinched at the scream, but her eyes were wide at Christina. "Did you just shove me?!"
In all of their years of being 'friends', Christina had never manhandled her like that. Shouted, screamed, threw a fit, acted like a child, used petty insults, acted as if Evie was trash, sure. She'd done all of that and probably more.
But she had never so much as touched Evie before.
"Yeah! What are you going to do about it, you piece of sh-"
"Leave."
Christina stopped mid-screech, staring at Evie as if the girl had just sprouted two heads. "What did you just say?"
"I'm leaving." Evie stood back up, absentmindedly dusting herself off. "The three of us have been friends for nine years, and I have never once done anything to you. I try not to argue. I don't talk behind your backs. I don't even bad-talk you guys."
She shook her head a little bit, an almost apologetic look coming over her face. "But you guys... you start arguments with me every other week, you talk behind my back- don't look at me like that, I've overheard you," she directed this at Max and Camry, who'd started to protest, "and you insult me every other day, if not every day. I tried to stay friends, because I figured that's what a good friend would do."
Evie's voice was starting to shake and oh. Oh yeah, now her throat was closing up and she was narrowing her eyes in an attempt to keep herself from crying because she wasn't a crybaby she wasn't a little kid she wasn't going to cry-
"Are you calling us bad friends?!" Camry demanded, her big brown eyes growing wide with anger. "We try to defend you-"
"And then trash-talk me behind my back. I'm not saying you're a bad friend," Evie said quietly, trying to keep every little bit of the tremors threatening to shake her to the core and spill out in her voice and eyes back so that they didn't see her cry, she was not going to let all of these people see her cry, "I'm just saying you're not a good one to me."
There was a literal minute of pure silence, where Camry, Christina, and Max were just staring at her and she was staring back.
There was more Evie could have said, but right then a terrified squeal rang through the air, making Evie spin around to see a little pig wearing... was that an Ender Dragon costume?... squeal and run around, the tips of the wings flickering with flame, before the pig took off towards the woods.
Behind him, lava poured out from one of the builds that Aiden was standing near, a startled expression on his face as he danced out of Reuben's way.
"Oh no- Reuben's on fire!" Evie could hear the girl from earlier shout from on top of the Enderman. "Reuben, no! Come back!"
Before Evie actually even realized what she was doing, she jumped over the fence and was sprinting after the pig. She hadn't even made it out of the area before her foot caught on her other foot and she nearly tripped forward and broke her nose.
A hand seized her wrist, keeping her from faceplanting but very nearly jerking her arm right out of its socket, and she glanced up to see that Aiden had instinctively grabbed at her arm to keep her from hitting the ground. She could tell it was instinctive, because he was blinking in surprise at having her arm in his hand.
She would've thought about it more if she couldn't see thin trails of smoke floating off of the Ender Dragon wings on Reuben's back disappearing further into the forest, and she quickly regained her balance, yanked her arm out of his grip with a hasty "Thanks!" and continued tearing off into the woods, although she made sure to go at a less breakneck speed after Reuben so that she didn't trip and break something.
As the sounds of the building competition faded away, the sun continued to set, shadows growing and lengthening and making the area so much harder to survey than before.
Especially since her eyes were actually tearing up now, and she was pretty certain it wasn't from the fact that her shoulder was now aching a little bit or the smoke trailing after Reuben.
A/N: ... so yeah, the first chapter of this is up.
I've noticed that tons of people have MCSM OCs that have cool powers, or they're really badass, or they're a Gary or Mary Stu, or they're shipped with one of the main characters.
Minecraft: Normal Mode follows an OC that has literally nothing special about them. They are not a cool person, they don't have special skills, they're not an expert, they're not particularly good at anything, they don't have special powers, they're not shipped with anyone, and they're not particularly emo or cute or pretty or anything.
They're literally as ordinary as they can get, except for maybe being a huge pacifist. They're a bit of a crybaby at times, they're extremely clumsy, they're shy, and they're not mysterious or special in any way.
So even though there's nothing cool about them, I hope you enjoy this fic regardless. :3
x.X. A.L. X.x