A/N: that rare author's note at the beginning of a chapter. ._. Anyway, posting this one early 'cause there's a kind of important question at the end that i need answered. Anyway- on to the chapter!
Axel came barging into the main room, causing nearly everyone inside to jump. "The body is gone! The body is gone!" He screamed in obvious panic. Petra was beside him, her face scrunched up and a hand near her ear. Jesse and Reuben exchanged glances before they both got up and joined the group.
"Axel! Please! Calm down!"
Olivia stood from the couch she was sitting on. "What do you mean 'the body is gone?'"
Thief twisted to give Olivia a look, "I don't know, maybe he means it's gone?" The engineer gave her a glare as Petra began to explain.
"Axel and I were going through the maze when we heard Eli yell." She said, "When we got there, he was knocked out and Lukas was gone."
"All that was left were these capes and his sword." Axel took out said pieces of evidence as he said this. Logic walked closer and had a little chat with the boy.
Justice, meanwhile, spoke up. "Th-then that must mean s-someone else is h-here with us…"
"No sh*t, Sherlock." Thief mumbled, apparently a little too loudly as Justice gave her a glare, the Logic pair exchanged an exasperated look, and Reuben sighed.
'And I might just know who…' Jesse added silently.
Olivia raised a hand, "Okay, but why would they take his body? Anything remotely valuable he had on him is in Jes- Logic's inventory."
The ravenette beside her shrugged. "Who cares?"
"We do." "Shut up, Thief." Logic and Justice said simultaneously. The former was rummaging through his inventory, the latter was scowling at Thief. Jesse hid a snicker as said kleptomaniac huffed and childishly crossed her arms.
Suddenly, one of the boys swore, and everyone's heads turned to Logic. "What is it?"
"It's gone!"
"What's gone?"
"Lukas's- his necklace! It's- It's gone!"
A number of them turned to look at either Thief or Axel accusingly. Thief held her hands in a surrender, "I didn't take it! Seriously, Justice has been watching me like a hawk, I don't have any necklace!"
Justice nodded. "She's right. Unfortunately."
Eli appeared from behind Axel and immediately checked his inventory, to see that yes, he didn't have it either. "So what now?" Reuben asked.
"Now," The mocha-haired boy began, "we're gonna have to think of our next move."
"Namely what to do with Thief, how we're gonna look for Redemption-"
Justice continued for Petra, "-and what to do now that Lukas is gone too." Olivia nodded.
"We're gonna have to look around more."
"Oh!" Thief jumped in her place excitedly, "Maybe this place's got secret passages, like the White Pumpkin's!"
Petra raised a brow. Jesse had a similar reaction. "The who now?"
"The White Pumpkin..?" She gave Petra an odd look, "You know, the lady serial killer in that two moon world? The one who was crazy for this enchanted flint and steel?"
Logic stood straighter upon hearing this, and Eli's eyes narrowed. "Come on, don't tell me you can't recognize her just by that?"
The boy in blue shook his head, "No, we do."
"Well, I don't!" Justice said. Jesse interjected with a 'Same here.' "Who is she?"
Thief was about to give another snide remark when Logic interrupted her. "I'd say this is the part where we catch up on each other's timelines."
"Timelines?" The clock came back to Jesse's mind.
He nodded. "It's already obvious that we're all from different universes, we should at least know at what point in time we came from."
"So, what," Petra shrugged, "you're saying we should recount our adventures?"
"I have a better idea!" Jesse said loudly, bringing everyone's attention to him. Reuben jumped at his sudden yelling, "What was the date before you woke up here?"
They all shared looks for a moment, before Petra responded. "December 17, Δ42."
Axel's brow furrowed. "Two months ago?"
Thief's had a similar reaction. "It was like… Feb Δ43 when I blacked out."
"Do you know the specific date?" Olivia asked, "Because it was February 10, Δ43 for me."
"Same here." Said Logic. He turned to Jesse, "Non?"
Jesse frowned. "May 19, Δ42." He ignored the shocked looks everyone gave him and looked over at Eli. "What about you?"
The taller boy took in a deep breath, then, "...August 15, Δ52."
Petra's eyes widened. "What?"
Jesse's eyes narrowed, and he held his chin in thought. 'Justice and Petra came from December of 42; Thief, Axel, Logic and Olivia from February of 43; Eli from 52, and Reuben and I from May of 42. A full ten years before Eli.' He looked at each of them as they speculated on when Red could have come from, 'That confirms that we're all from different points in time.. which would explain the journal, right? So it's just a matter of who owns it..'
"J- Non?"
He blinked, then looked up, to see that Eli was looking at him from across their little circle. Silence began to take the group over as all attention slowly went to him. "Do you have something you'd like to say?"
"Uh.." He pursed his lips, nervous and surprised at the sudden attention. Then he nodded. "Yeah, actually. This."
He sifted through his inventory and took out the blue journal. "I found it in the li-" Thief cut him off when she snatched it from his hands and began to flip through the pages. Her eyes widened as she scanned each page.
"Holy crap," She exclaimed, "this is my handwriting!"
"We share a handwriting?" He muttered in a deadpan tone. She heard, and looked at him with a raised brow. "What are you talking about?"
"Wait, what's in the book?" Axel asked, "Come on guys, don't leave us in the dark."
She looked up, then back down at the journal and flipped back to the first few pages. "It's just a stupid journal, but…" She arrived at the first page, and read each title aloud as she flipped each page, "Witherstorm, Reuniting the Order, Finding Soren, Destroying the Storm…" She looked back up at everyone else, "This is how we became the order!"
Jesse's brows furrowed. 'What?'
"And not just that," Added Olivia, who was peering at the journal from over the girl's shoulder, "There's more. Green Eyed Prick, Murder Mystery, Evil Computer, and The Old Builders."
After counting the titles with his fingers, Reuben frowned. "Wait, th-that's it? Only eight chapters?"
Thief nodded. "Yeah. After that, it's all just some mumbo jum…" She paused, then squinted at the page.
'What now?'
The girl's eyes widened. "The date on this page says… October 21, Δ45."
Logic turned to Eli and opened his mouth to ask something, but the older one cut him off. "I don't have a journal." He said, his arms crossed. "That has to be Red's."
"How would you kn-know?" Justice asked, looking at him as if he'd done something suspicious. Meanwhile, Jesse took the journal back from Thief, who was reading through it herself. She stuck her tongue at him, a gesture he returned with a glare.
"None of you said anything about it being yours," Eli reasoned, "and if it's got a handwriting more than one person in this room shares, that means it has to be one of y- ours. Ergo, it's Red's."
Jesse raised a brow at his slip up, but said nothing. "Hey, Non." He turned to Petra.
"Yeah?"
"How much of that journal did you read?" She asked. Her brows were furrowed, but her eyes were… somewhat soft? Was she concerned?
He shrugged. "Just the first few paragraphs of the first entry, that's all. Why?"
Thief had the same thought. "Yeah, wh- oh."
Everyone else seemed to share the sentiment, save for Jesse and Reuben. "Why? What's wrong?" Reuben asked. Justice bit her lip and began to play with her hair, Logic glanced to the side, and Thief was doing her 'lost fish' thing. Axel, Petra, and Olivia had similar reactions. Eli's eyes simply hardened.
"Keep looking through that journal, Non." He said simply.
Everyone else suddenly became more distressed, with Justice exclaiming, "Are you for real?!"
"There could be evidence in that journal."
"Y-yeah, b-b-but-"
"Dude," Thief slammed the backside of the couch like a desk, "we might as well just tell him already."
Jesse looked between Thief and Justice, confusion and frustration rising. "Tell me what?"
The green-eyed girl turned to him, "Reu-"
A pillow to her face coupled with Justice yelling "Shut up!" cut her off. As she fell to the floor behind her, Justice said, a little quieter this time, "Th-that's enough o-out of you!"
Axel jumped in surprise, whilst Olivia's eyes widened. Petra gave a surprised yelp. "Jesse!"
The other girl gave a soft apology.
"Look," Eli said, "it's late, and sleep deprivation won't do us any good. Let's think about our next move tomorrow, alright?"
"Wh-what about Th-Thief?" Justice stammered, "W-We can't j-just let her-"
Said girl groaned. "Are you kidding me, Justice?" She asked, glaring at the stripe-clad girl as she got up, "You've been on my case this whole night, could you leave me alone?!"
"Well-"
"If it shuts both of you up," Eli said, his voice raising with every word, "we can lock her up for the night while some of us stay up for night watch." He looked between the two girls, both of whom were glaring daggers at each other. "Is that a deal?"
There was a moment of silence, Petra mumbling something Jesse couldn't hear, then, "Fine."
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After a while, the group came to an agreement. Every night, they'd have three people up as nightwatch. Two will scout the whole area, and one will watch Thief (who will be locked up in a makeshift prison, much to her chagrin). So for tonight, Justice and Eli would scout the area while Jesse watched Thief. Everyone else stayed in the bedrooms in either the right mansion or the middle one (bedrooms that Eli had failed to mention the first time).
Jesse leaned against the wall of Thief's makeshift cell. It was made of some obsidian blocks Logic apparently found in his hut. The cell itself wasn't very big; the space inside was just enough for her to curl up in a ball and sleep. A single window with iron bars served as her only other connection to 'the outside world.'
He didn't know if it was overkill or not.
It might be the former.
He slid down and sat on the ground, then took the journal out of his pocket. When he looked at the blue leather, the scuffle from earlier came back to his mind. He frowned. "Hey Thief?" He heard some shuffling from behind the obsidian walls, then the sound of something grabbing metal. Looking up, he saw that Thief had grabbed the iron bars.
"What's up?"
"Why didn't Justice want me to read the journal?"
"Nng…" She clicked her tongue, "Sorry, can't tell you."
His frown got deeper. "Why not?"
"I'm a woman of my word, Non."
This made him laugh. "As if!"
"Read it for yourself!" She said with a chuckle. "You'll get to it, eventually."
With that, she went back to whatever she was doing, leaving Jesse more or less alone with the journal. The remnants of his laughter faded, and he looked back at the book. He shrugged, then flipped to the first page. Finding where he left off, he continued reading.
[A short while after finding Reuben, we got attacked by a bunch of mobs. I told Reuben to run, and shortly after that, I got attacked by a spider. I was able to hold them off a bit, but I got attacked again, and Petra came to my rescue (thank goodness).] "Convenient." Jesse muttered.
[On our way back to town to look for Reuben, she showed me something. It was a wither skull! In the span of a whole day, I built a super cool structure, won a contest-] His eyes narrowed. "Wait."
He went back to the previous paragraphs, then to the one he was currently reading. "You were still looking for Reuben, how did you know you won the contest?"
Was it her ego talking? He frowned. 'Then again, it did say at the beginning that 'the world was being torn apart by a monster,' so she must have written this after knowing the results of the competition.'
Jesse paused, then reread the suspicious paragraph. Tucking the memory of it away, he continued reading. […I built a super cool structure, won a contest, and had to go look for Reuben in the woods, but her? She went to the Nether and faced a wither skeleton! It's incredible! But why did she get it in the first place? I mean, it's just a dusty old skull, right?]
"Yes."
[Nope.]
"Oh."
[Turns out she had a deal with this shady guy who promised to give her a diamond in return for a wither skull. She offered for me to come with her. I couldn't refuse!
But the guy cheated us out on the deal, and left lapis instead. Lapis! In exchange for a wither skull?! We chased the guy down to the Keynote at Endercon (oh, and we found Reuben)-] Jesse cracked up, [-with Olivia, Axel and Lukas tagging along. And what did we find, you might ask?
The recipe for a wither. But not quite. There was some strange block in the middle. It was some sort of..pulsing..machine. It was so...fascinating.. It felt like it was calling out to me…] His brows furrowed when he read this, but he continued on.
[But we'll get to that later. The shady guy, Ivor-] Jesse frowned. The name sounded familiar, but…
'Wasn't that the word I heard Logic and Olivia say earlier?'
Confused, he continued reading. [-his name was apparently, found us, and we had to make a run for it. We tried to warn Gabriel, but we were too late. Ivor unleashed the wither on the convention, and it sucked everything away. Even the people. We had to run.]
Jesse's reading was interrupted by the sound of metal hitting rock. He closed the book shut and glanced up, as if he were talking to Thief face to face. "What are you doing?"
"Breaking out!" She said, the metal-on-rock sound following her response. "What's it look like?"
His eyes narrowed. All of her inventory was taken by Justice, so.. "With what?!"
Another swing of Thief's 'weapon.' "Your hoe."
"WHAT?!"
He quickly got up and looked through the window to see that yes, Thief was trying to break out. His enchanted diamond hoe was in her hands, and he caught her mid-swing. Her expression reflected that of a deer caught in the headlights (not that they know what headlights are, but you get it).
"When did you get that?!"
"I'm not telling you!"
"THIEF."
She huffed, and stopped her escape attempt, handing him the hoe through the barred window. "Fine.." she said, prolonging the 'i' like a child.
With a huff, Jesse took the hoe and kept it in his inventory. He and Thief had a little glaring contest for a few moments, until the girl put an end to it by sticking her tongue out at him and turning away with a 'hmph!' Jesse sighed, then sat back down and resumed his reading.
[Gabriel told us to go to his temple, where he said it would be 'safe' (it wasn't). But it eventually was only us and him left. He gave me this amulet and told me to find the rest of the Order. Me, find them? But he trusted me with it, so I had to go.
Everyone escaped into a Nether portal, where Gabriel said we should all be safe. I was about to go too, but something happened.
Gabriel got caught in a tractor beam. Petra and I tried to save him, but she got caught too. Lukas was too frozen in fear to help, so it was up to me. I saved Petra, thankfully, but Gabriel was too far away for us to reach. Then Petra insisted on her staying behind to fight whatever she can. Before I could do anything about it, I was knocked into the portal by one of the Wither Storm's tentacles.
In the Nether, we found minecarts, which turned out to lead to the Order of the Stone's temple. Can you believe that?!]
"Not really." Jesse mumbled.
[And there, do you know what else we found out? Ivor was a member of the Order of the Stone! It was so weird. But anyway, using the amulet Gabriel gave me, we were able to track the locations of Magnus and Ellegaard. I went with Olivia to Redstonia so we could get Ellegaard's help to defeat the witherstorm.
Wish us luck.]
Raised eyebrows and a blank expression were the only reaction Jesse had to reading the entry. He blinked down at the book, then glanced around.
"...That escalated quickly."
A/N: i accidentally deviated from the original plan in the previous chapter and now i'm kinda nervous about how this story's gonna go. but that might just be me panicking over a small detail. who knows. we'll just see from here.
Anyway, the question i mentioned earlier- should i put each entry in the chapter when Jesse reads it, or just summarize it and say something like 'bla bla bla jesse read through the entry'?
Review Replies!
BeliTheGhoti0304 - [Now I'm even more worried.] [Ah.] [Well, good news then: all of those will be happening. :D] [Cool! I'm coughandcolds there. :3] [That's for me to know and for you to find out for yourself. ;)]
doodlingcubes - [It's fine! ^_^]
Ariza Luca - [good thing i want to, then }:D]
Jay - [Thank you! That means a bunch. ^_^] [Oh. Phew. /relieved sigh] [There are, and now I have permission to reference them! YAY!] [Yay to both of those! :D]
Fun actually-not-'fun'-by-its-actual-definition Fact: In the very first draft/concept for the story, Lukas was supposed to die by first being beaten horribly to near death, and then suffocated to death. The suspect was going to be Axel.
I think at least one of the reasons for this being scrapped is kind of obvious.
Last thing! Those little weird messages?
They're clues to the identity of the killer. :3
See ya! :D
