Chapter One- Hail

It was raining again.

Every day that week it had rained, and it rained again today. It wasn't just rain either- there was hail and thunder, which was why they had so many people staying in the penthouse. There were six in total. Xephos and Honeydew were simply there because that was where they lived, while Sips and Sjin had been caught out there while working on the rails and bakery. As for the sixth person, that was Lomadia. She had come over for a short visit with Xephos since they hadn't seen each other in a bit, but now the visit was no longer 'short.' Normally they would've braved the elements in there armor, but the rain impeded their vision enough for them to decided to stay in the Jaffa Factory instead of trying to find their way home.

"Sjin, don't be such a babby!"

"I'm not a babby!" Sjin replied to Sips, looking comically indignant.

"Then why won't you just do it? Is your babby skin going to get hurt by some falling ice?" Sips snarked.

"No! I just... I... It's dangerous to go alone...?" Sjin supplied.

Xephos, who had been standing by until now finally said, sighing, "Fine, I'll go get it if it's that much of a problem..."

"See, look what you did now, Sjin, you big babby."

"I... what, me? I didn't..."

"Sjin, you're such a fuppin' ding-dong..."

Suddenly a loud beeping filled the compound, stopping the squabble.

"Oh notch, it's worse than the rape alarm..." Sjin said, wincing as their sleeping companions stirred.

The other half of the group had been still asleep, as it was still only around midnight. The only reason Sjin was up was because he had been working late on the UU matter device, only to break the recycler and realize that they were out of both rubber and sticky resin. He then, not wanting to suffer the freezing rain and hail alone, tried to convince Sips to go outside with him, to no avail. Their arguing, in turn, woke Xephos.

"What the bugger is that?" Honeydew asked, yawning as he woke up but clearly annoyed.

"Stop messing around, you guys," Lalna mumbled, still half asleep.

"I-I don't know what it is," Sjin said. It didn't sound the same as the alarms at Sipsco, but he didn't think there were any alarms on Minecraftia that sounded like that. It just sounded... odd.

"Go shut it up, whatever it is," Lomadia said irritably, obvious not enjoying being woken up.

When nobody made move to quiet the beeping, Lomadia looked over at Xephos, about to tell him to go silence the bloody thing , when she saw his face. He didn't look happy, nor did he looked particularly annoyed. He looked dazed, and just plain shocked. But the most noticeable reaction was of pure horror...

"What's the matter with you?" Honeydew asked, Lomadia not being the only one to notice.

"Hmm, what...? I'm sorry, what did you say?" Xephos asked, turning his head towards the dwarf.

"Are you alright? You look like somebody just shot you dog..." Sjin declared, frowning as he stared as his friend.

"Sjin's right for once, Silk-Shirt, you look awful. Like, worse than usual," said Sips.

"Oh, I'm fine, I just... um, I believe I know whats beeping..." Xephos said quietly, slowly backing towards the designated flying hole.

"Do you?" Sjin asked, interested. "What is it?"

"It's over in the Jaffa Cafe, I'll just go... turn it off," the spaceman replied, blatantly ignoring Sjin's question.

"Whatever, as long as it's off..." Sips mumbled, either not noticing or not caring about Xephos's odd behavior.

Taking that as his cue to leave, Xephos flew down the factory and out the door, the whole group's eyes on his back.

It was awful outside- hail rained down fiercely while the wind howled, but the alarm could still easily be heard through the storm. Xephos knew what the alarm was. He knew exactly what it was. The fact that no one else knew what it was just assured him further. He'd only heard it once, in training, since it was only for emergencies. No other alarms sounded like it for that reason.

His first idea as for why it was beeping was just plain naïve, but then he realized that the device had simply malfunctioned. Not surprising since the device was old and hadn't been used for four years.

Quickly reaching the Jaffa Cafe, he threw open the door, glad to get out of the cold. Making a beeline for his bed, which he had still used since he'd never bothered to stick a bed factory itself, he grabbed his bag. The beeping was almost deafening this close- designed to alert everyone nearby. Grabbing the golden object, he ran his hand over it slowly before tapping it lightly, hoping that it would silence the beeping.

It did.

"Captain Xephos, are you there?"

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Back at the Factory~

After a few moments in which no one seemed to do anything the beeping stopped.

"Finally..." Sips mumbled, yawning.

"Now that that's settled," Honeydew mumbled, laying back down,"I'm going to get some sleep."

Lalna was already asleep, if he ever woke up. Lomadia and Sjin, on the other hand, were wide awake.

Sjin glanced in the direction of the Jaffa Cafe. He wondered if Xephos was just going to go ahead and sleep in there. It did make him feel a bit guilty

"I'm just going to go check out the Cafe and see if everything's okay..." Lomadia declared, starting down the hole.

"Oi! Now wait just a second, I'm going too!" Sjin said.

"You want to go freeze your bum off outside? You don't have any armor." Lomadia replied skeptically.

"I'm wearing a space suit," Sjin replied, raising his eyebrows.

"Whatever."

"I'm beginning to think you'd rather I not go..."

"What\ gives you that idea?"

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Okay, I know this isn't very good, which is the reason I'm writing this- to try to improve my writing skills. Hopefully some of you enjoyed it. I also wanted to thank my reviewers, I really appreciate it!

As for the reactions of them, I'd imagine Sips wouldn't notice if Xephos was upset. I'd also imagine Honeydew would be too tire to care then, but be more worried when he woke up and wasn't as groggy.