*sobs* I wrote this on the five-hour car drive this weekend, but as soon as we got to the place, the frickin computer crashed and turned my entire freaking chapter to hashtags D: I mean, I love hashtags, but not nearly that much.

So, *deep breath* I rewrote it. I think it turned out okay, maybe even better than the original, so whatever.

En-juh-hoy, my be-ay-yoo-tiful Rulers!

Chapter One: Pressure

Time: thirty minutes before

Place: a crappy jump map

Ty's POV

"Jason, I swear, if you kill me one more time- Jason!"

Jason leans over, laughing so hard that it almost looks painful, as I respawn for the millionth time today. Seeing as I haven't got any weapons or armor anymore, really the only thing I can do in return is glare and refuse to talk to the boy. "Hmph."

"Aw, come on, Ty!" Jason calls, trying to hide the rest of his laughter. "You can teleport to me!"

"I hate you."

"Heh. That's okay."

I groan. "Why did I even agree to do this stupid jump map in the first place?" I ask the air as I plop down on the starting platform.

"Uh, because Sky tied us up to a couple of chairs and threatened to feed us to the squids if we didn't," Jason reminds me, and I roll my eyes. That was a rhetorical question, dummy.

I huff. "Sky isn't even here! What kind of idiot puts time and energy into forcing his two best friends to play a map only to fail to show up himself?"

Jason shrugs. "I dunno. Hashtag Truelox?"

I chuckle. "Nah, Sky ships Skylox too much for that."

He shrugs again. "... Well, Skyloxuniver-"

"I am not talking to you anymore," I say, effectively cutting him off as I stand and turn toward the map's exit door. "Where do you think Sky is?"

"I thought you weren't talking to me any-"

"Ugh, fine. I'm talking to you again, now answer the question."

Jason chuckles. "My guess is that he's either mining budder or hunting squids. Or possibly just terrorizing one of our friends."

I snort. "... Actually, that's entirely plausible." Jason teleports to my side, and we walk out of the map together. "I'm gonna go check his house. Can you look in the budder mines?"

"Can't we at least try to call him first?"

"Oh. Yeah, that would probably be smart," I reply, stopping. Jason tugs his phone out of his pocket and immediately dials Sky's number. A minute or two of obnoxious ringing later, Sky's recorded voice blares through the speakers.

"AHH, NO, PLEASE, NO! FOR THE LOVE OF BUDDER, HAVE MERCY! ACK! I'M SORRY, WHOEVER IS CALLING ME, BUT I'M CURRENTLY RUNNING FROM A BUNCH OF – AHH! - SQUIDS, CALL ME BACK LATER!"

After a few seconds of complete silence, Jason and I burst out laughing in scary synchronization. "Oh my gosh," I gasp, "he's such a dork!"

Jason nods, still giggling. "Can we just talk about his acting skills, though? Like, I can't even count how many times I've sprinted all the way to his house just to make sure he was kidding."

"Twenty-Seven."

"What?"

"Twenty-Seven. That's how many times you've dropped everything you were doing to go ensure that Sky wasn't dead."

"No way! That can't possibly be-"

"In this week alone."

"Ah, that makes more sense."

That sparks another fit of laughter, but after a good three minutes of relearning how to breathe, we're finally on our way to Seto's house. Seto is always the first person we go to when we lose Sky, because Seto actually put a tracker in the budder-loving fool's glasses (which he still wears constantly despite not having to hide his eyes anymore) a while ago after he had gone missing ten times in one week. Of course, now that the whole Red Eyes deal is history, Sky could just die and respawn back at home, but Sky would never kill himself for that reason. First of all, there's a bit of trauma about Red Eyes and death that he can't quite get over, but there's also the fact that he doesn't want to lose all the budder that he hides in the back of his inventory. Sky either finds his way home on his own, is found by one of his friends, or simply lives in the middle of the wilderness for all of eternity.

Yeah. He's a bit stubborn.

I pound my fists against Seto's front door impatiently (this is how we always summon Seto, because it often causes him to lose his focus and screw up a spell, which causes him to march up the stairs and glare at us as he flings open the door, which causes us to be amused). "Ack! No!" a voice calls faintly from the direction of the basement, and Jason and I snicker. Then a loud sigh reaches our ears, and soon Seto is tiredly opening the door and shooting us a hostile glare. "What do you guys want?"

"We lost Sky again, and we need you to help us find him," I explain, leading Jason inside. I jump onto the couch and stare expectantly at Seto, waiting for him to do his magicky thingy.

"What? That's like the twenty-seventh time this month!"

"Twenty-eighth, actually."

He sighs again. "Right, whatever. You're all idiots." He lifts his hands the slightest bit, and a transparent orb made of purple wisps of magic forms around each of them. The magic begins to float away from his hands and into the air.

Seto stops.

Confused by the abrupt pause in the spell, I tilt my head to the right a little and stare up at Seto's slightly troubled expression. "What is it? What's wrong?"

"O-Oh," Seto begins, looking distracted. "It's nothing. It's just, I- uh, well, I felt something in the air... Almost like the world was too packed? There's this unwanted pressure in the atmosphere, like there's more on this earth than there was a few seconds ago."

I shrug. "Maybe someone spawned a kid or something."

Seto bites his lip, shakes his head. "No, no, it's not that. See, when someone spawns an animal or another human, the matter used to create it is taken from an unused part of the earth. That keeps the earth's mass steady, it keeps the world from getting too packed. So it can't be that."

Jason puffs up his cheeks with air. "Uh, maybe Notch recently updated the world? Maybe he added a new block. That would affect the mass and matter stuff, right?"

Seto considers this for a moment. Finally, he nods and puts his hands up again. "Maybe. That must be it." The purple swirls around his hands.

He stops again.

He breathes out slowly, shaking his head one more time. "No, it's- it's something else. I've felt it before, I know I have- I just don't know when or why. I only wish I had stopped to figure out what this pressure was last time I felt it... I can't do it now, t-too tired for that spell... Notch dang it."

"Wait, you've felt it before?" Jason asks. Seto nods. "Well, the world didn't explode then, did it? We're still here, so clearly nothing bad came of this weird 'pressure.' Just ignore it and go on with life."

Seto thinks about this for a second and then shrugs. "I-I guess... Yeah, I guess you're right." He raises his hands, the purple orbs materialize, and I wait for Seto to pause again. He doesn't though, keeps right on going, and the magic rises into the air and forms a wispy square. Seto reaches out and tugs on the side of the square, planning to open it and look through it like a window just as he always does.

He frowns. "It's- Is it stuck?"

Jason's and my eyes widen. "Oh, no," I whisper.

Seto pulls harder, and a few seconds later, the window flies open, revealing Sky wandering around the city and asking where the heck the city gates are. Jason and I are in hysterics, laughing insanely about how we were about to freak out about nothing more than Sky getting lost in the crowded city.

A familiar hand is raised above the crowd, and soon Mitch is making his way to Sky and directing him towards the gates. Sky thanks him profusely and then darts off, probably flipping out about being late for the jump map.

Seto glares at us. "You didn't even check the city?"

I shrug, smiling apologetically. "Sorry, we're lazy."

He sighs. "Yes, yes, you are. I'm going to go take a nap – that spell took a lot more out of me than usual, but, then again, I've been more tired lately. I think I need to stop staying up so late. Have fun at the map!"

"Oh, we are not playing that map again," I growl, walking out the door and waiting for Jason to follow. "Have a nice nap, though!"

Seto nods tiredly in acknowledgment and then waves as he heads back downstairs, and I close the door gently after Jason steps outside. "Ready to go meet Sky?" I ask him.

He nods, imitating Mario as he replies with, "Let's-a go!"