"Yeah, we should," the big brown-haired girl growled, stepping forward and making Jesse take another step back quickly, "for starters, why are we here? Why did you bring us here?"
"I didn't," Jesse responded, giving her head a shake, "I'm just as confused as all of you. Maybe we should all introduce ourselves...? I don't really feel like pointing around at everyone to address them. I-I'm Jesse. Pleased to meet all of you...?" She trailed off nervously at the end.
Everyone shared glances, unwilling to be the first person to introduce themselves, before Jace stepped forward. "Hi, my name's also Jesse, but to avoid confusion, you can call me Jace. And this is Reuben," and he leaned down to scoop up the little pink pig, who let out a very cheerful squeal at this.
This prompted Petra to step forward, bowing slightly to everyone as she put her pickaxe away. "Nice to meet you- I'm Petra."
Slowly, the group started to go around, going past Jesse's group, the Ocelots and the Order of the Stone (all of whose names Jace already knew), before it came to the black-haired woman who looked oddly like Jesse. She took a deep breath and straightened up to her full height, making Jace himself stand up straighter in her presence. "It's a pleasure to meet all of you... my name's Isa." She looked like she was about to say more about that, but then paused and didn't. "And this is Benedict." She lifted the hen in her arms slightly.
"Isn't that a boy's name- ow!" and Magnus glared at the brunette woman who'd just stomped on his foot to shut him up.
"I'm Reginald," the guard bowed slightly to everyone, faintly smiling. "Nice to meet you all."
"Um, greetings, everyone... I'm Milo," the blonde man with the gray shirt said, rubbing the back of his head slightly and looking away awkwardly.
"Here, let me introduce all of us..." the guy with black hair and red glasses gestured around. "That's StacyPlays," he gestured at the brunette girl with the striped shirt, "LDShadowLady-" the pink-haired girl interrupted, "But, um, my friends call me Lizzie."
"StampyCat," the boy with the cat hoodie waved a bit, smiling at them. "Dan, the Diamond Minecart," the purple-haired boy (wait, hadn't his hair been blue a minute ago...?) bowed slightly. "Cassie Rose and her cat Winslow," and the girl with rose-red locks waved her hand in a shy wave, her calico cat balancing on her shoulders. "And I'm CaptainSparklez!" the man finished, looking pleased with himself. "I guess you could call us the 'YouTubers', if you need to refer to our group."
The woman with white hair tentatively stepped forward. "Um... I'm- I'm Harper. Pleased to meet you. None of you are... PAMA, right?"
Everyone shot each other weird looks that basically said 'no'. "... what's PAMA?" Isa finally asked, looking faintly bemused.
Harper raised her hands in surrender and looked at the ceiling awkwardly. "Nothing. Never mind."
"Well, I'm Hadrian," the white-haired man in the purple suit said, before gesturing with his head at the other two robed people. "That's Otto, and that's Mevia."
"Hey!" the blonde girl with beads in her hair piped up, "Radical to meet you all. I'm Nell, and this brah's Em."
Jace shot Jesse a look to confirm that, no, neither of them really had any idea what she'd just said.
"I'm Slab, the Immoveable!" And the dark-skinned gladiator (that's what he looked like, so that's what Jace was gong to call them) with the black helmet waved his arms, making Nell dance aside a step to avoid getting smacked in the face. The other two huge gladiators introduced themselves as Clutch (the pink-haired one) and- wait for it- Facemeat. Jace was not joking.
"So does anyone know what we're doing in here?" Aiden asked, narrowing his green eyes as he looked around.
Olivia spotted a piece of paper lying on the coffee table and trotted over. She read it, her eyes narrowing the more she read. "... apparently, we're here to be shown an alternative path of the past and future," she said finally, disbelief obviously tinging her voice.
Ellegaard's own eyebrow went up. "An alternative path...? How is that possible?" she mused.
"Your guess is better than mine," Olivia said, handing over the note. "It said that to watch it, we need to find a 'remote' of some sort...?"
"Would the remote be this thing?" Jesse asked, picking up a narrow gray rectangle resting on the other end of the coffee table and waving it slightly at them.
Jace plucked it from her hands (not in a rude way) to get a better look at it. "I don't see anything else that could be a remote..." He regarded the remote. A red button was on the top of the remote, 'POWER' written beneath it. Beneath that, there was a PAUSE button and a PLAY button. He was about to press the POWER button to see what would happen when it got snatched out of his hands, much more rudely than when he'd taken it from Jesse. "Hey!" he exclaimed at Aiden, who pressed the button himself.
"Aiden," Lukas said sternly, narrowing his eyes at the brown-haired boy, "that wasn't cool."
"Besides, you don't really know what that thing could do," Olivia pointed out.
Aiden leered at her. "Um, I can read."
The remote got snatched out of his hands again, and the slightly-shorter Jesse flopped onto the floor in front of the coffee table, arching her eyebrows. "Well, you all obviously have some beef with each other, so until you all have decided to act your age, whatever that might be, I'm going to keep ahold of this thing."
There was a long, awkward silence, before everyone started shifting into the couches and seats. Hadrian, Otto, and Mevia took up one couch, while the Ocelots and the Order of the Stone took another two. Ivor sat in an armchair near Harper's, while the YouTubers (minus Cassie Rose) took another couch. The gladiators took up yet another couch, and Petra stole one of the armchairs while Isa, Reginald, and Milo got into another couch as well. However, this meant all of the seats were taken, and Axel, Olivia, and Jace looked around for a minute.
There was a soft cough, and they looked down to see Jesse sitting on the floor. "This carpet's comfy," was all she said.
The three of them shared looks, before they slowly smiled at her and got into their own positions on the floor.
Jesse picked up the remote and pressed 'PLAY' when she'd confirmed that everyone was ready.
A/N: Done!
By the way, does anyone want ships in this story? The ships that get the most votes (basically comments) by the time I get to Chapter 5 or so will be input into the story. :3
x.X. A.L. X.x