Do the both of us a favor and read the author's note at the bottom when you're done. Also, enjoy :D

Chapter 25: Aftermath

(Third Person POV)

"Motherfucker!" Shawn says angrily as he pounds his fists on the desk in front of him. He stands up abruptly from his office chair, sending it rolling away behind him. As it rolls, it quickly disperses into a black wisp of smoke. "This one didn't kill him either?!" He puts his hands on and leans over the desk that he's standing behind. In front of his face is an ethereal viewing screen, which allows him to see into the mortal plane from where he currently is. Displayed on it is Jordan falling through the air on the back of the wyvern that should've been his downfall.

"The boy is resilient, I'll give him that. He may prove a greater challenge than I originally anticipated." says a voice with no visible source.

"Nah, that's bullshit. I know I can put an end to him. I just need to find something that'll effectively put him out of commission." Shawn replies, still peering into the window to the mortal plane.

"Perhaps you can, but you shouldn't ignore his abilities. We've thrown three challenges at him, yet he still stands strong. To underestimate a man of this potential could be your downfall."

On the screen, Jordan falls from his knees to the ground, covered in dirt and blood.

"He's lost a lot of blood. Maybe he actually is dead now."

"Doubted. He is in contact with the other two. He's essential to them. I have no doubts that the duo is keeping the kid's heart beating."

The screen in front of Shawn disappears, shrinking until nothing is left.

"Well?" Shawn asks his partner's voice.

"What do you mean, 'Well?'"

"Cut the shit, Herobrine. You haven't dismissed me, so I know there's something more to why you brought me here that...than that!" Shawn gestures to where the vieweing screen was a second ago, referring to what he was just shown.

"You're a sharp kid, but that mouth will get you into trouble. Don't forget just where you are or whom it is you're speaking to." the voice booms. Oddly enough, that line wasn't delivered angrily, as one would presume.

Shawn walks around to the front of the desk and takes a seat on it. "Whatever. I think we both want to just get down to business. I'm sure we'd both rather I be out there taking action."

"And what exactly do you intend to do? Tell me, human, just what is your plan for when I let you go?"

"I...I'll find something! Shut up!" Shawn retorts.

"As I said, you are indeed a sharp kid. You're smart, but you have a plethora of fatal flaws. That mouth, for example."

Shawn scoffs.

"And that attitude. And your extreme haste that you just displayed, trying to rush into anything that may be in front of you, despite not having any idea what you may be against or what actions you'll even take. The worst-and dealiest-of them all, however, would have to be your arrogance."

"Yeah, whatever. Down to business: why am I still here?" Shawn hops off of the desk and leans against it, crossing his arms.

"I had no intention of revealing my physical form to you, but this matter seems better discussed face-to-face."

"We're supposed to be working together, and yet you still planned on keeping secrets from me? I'm hurt!" Shawn mockingly grabs his chest.

Small embers appear out of thin air and start to swarm together, creating the outline of a tall figure, roughly six feet in height. The embers disperse to reveal a tall. demonic figure. The figure has the general body of a goat, except bipedal. Its glowing eyes are completely white and its arms are punctuated with sharp claws. Protruding from its backside is a long, forked tail as well as two large, bat-like wings from its upper back.

"Is that the Jersey Devil?"

"I can choose any form I want to appear in. This one appealed to me."

"I don't care. Can we talk business now?"

"As I stated before," Herobrine starts, opening up another viewing screen, displaying what's currently happening on it. "The boy may be a more difficult opponent than I'd anticipated him to be."

On the screen, Skye cries as she clutches Jordan's body. She desperately talks to him, trying her best to put pressure onto his still-open wound, which is still seeping blood. The blood's flowing has slowed, though that may not be an entirely good thing. The group-both human and half-human-crowds around her, all in concern of their unofficial leader.

"I'm sure we can hit him hard enough to get him on the ground and keep him there. How're you doing on power?"

"Not well. The dragon took a good amount of my energy to create. Manipulating the aliens last night left me without my full power. On top of all of that, It's harder to tamper with a different material plane than it would be to summon something here. You do realize there are limits to what I can do, no?"

"How long will it be 'til you're charged up again?"

"It'll take a few days."

Shawn looks toward the ground, pondering on the current situation.

"But," Herobrine breaks the silence. "When the time comes, I think I have a way to break the boy."

Shawn looks up cocks an eyebrow at the comment. "You said he's a force to be reckoned with. So how exactly do you plan on getting to him?"

Herobrine reaches up and points to the screen next to him. He rest a sharp claw on Skye.

"Her."

(Jordan's POV)

All I see is darkness. My entire body is cold. I can't move a muscle. I'd swear I was dead, if it weren't for the sound of my own beating heart. The only sound I can hear. Suddenly, pain! My entire body begins to ache, as if by the flick of a switch! My eyes snap open and I try to let out a scream from the abrupt, astronomically high level of pain. But nothing comes out of my mouth. "Fuck!" I want to exclaim, but not a sound.

I feel myself slowly moving, but it doesn't really feel like I'm going anywhere. It's like I'm on a raft, floating down an eternally stretching river. I lie on my back, the excruciating pain keeping me from moving even a muscle. I stare up at nothing. The "sky"-and everything-is pitch black. I can't see anything, but not because it's dark; there's nothing to see. Just like the Gateway from when I first came here. But it doesn't feel the same here as it did in the Gateway. It feels...eerily empty. Morbid. Extremely foreboding. I don't really know how to describe this place. All I can say is that it definitely doesn't feel right. Despite it being completely desolate, it feels like there's something big here that I'm missing.

In an instant, the pain coursing through me is alleviated, disappearing completely. I slowly rise to my feet, with some difficulty. Though I now may not be in pain, my body's experiencing serious fatigue. I have an extreme lack of energy. I have trouble just staying upright. I fall to one knee, heaving heavier than I probably should be. I look up at the "sky" once more.

"No," a voice says, seemingly in my head. This voice is new, completely different from Notch's, Jeb's, or Herobrine's from what I remember of it two months ago. "It is not time yet."

"Time? Time for what?" I ask, now able to speak.

"For you."

"What? What the hell does that mean?!" I demand, but get no reply.

Before I can say or do anything else, a wave of pain rushes across my head, and I fall to all fours from it.

"Agh, fuck!" I fall to my side, clenching my head in anguish. I shut my eyes tight as I clench the sides of my head.

I sit up straight, and extremely fast. Not only does my head collide with something, but I get an extreme head rush.

"Okay, bad idea." I say, my eyes closed and my hands on my woozy head. I open my eyes to see everyone circled around me. Everyone has a face of relief; some of the girls even have tears in their eyes. Skye is most notable. She's practically crying, and one thing I also noticed was her hand going from her jaw to cover her mouth. That explains what I hit when I sat up. "What'd I miss?" I joke.

"Jordan!" Skye exclaims as she wraps her arms around me tightly, both bring me in close and causing the two of us to fall completely on the ground.

After a moment of mixed surprise and confusion, a gentle smile finds its way onto my face and I return the embrace. I can hear her crying as I do so. That's right, the fight with the wyvern went down.

"Jordan..." Skye says as she pulls away from me. I wipe the tears off of her face as I look into her eyes. She comes in close again, this time pressing her lips against mine in a passionate kiss. The kiss lasts a little longer than we would usually go, but seems about right given the circumstances. Eventually, the need for oxygen causes her to pull away. "That was because I missed you." she says.

I see a movement just barely in my field of vision. By the time I process it as Skye reaching back with her hand, she's already socked me-probably as hard as she could-in the jaw. "That was for leaving me, along with your little tender moment in the pit with Neige."

"That's fair." I say, rubbing my jaw. It didn't really hurt much, but making it look like it did would make Skye feel better. In me peripheral vision, I see Neige turn away, probably embarrassed. For her sake, I pretend not to notice. I'd rather have Skye mad at me-I'm used to it-than Neige, especially when she didn't do anything wrong. Was It really that "tender" of a moment? I didn't really think about what I was doing then; I just kind of did it.

Skye presses our lips together again, in an equally long and somehow even more passionate kiss. After pulling away, she buries her face in my shirt, not saying anything

"And that one?" I ask, sitting up with her maintaining her position on my chest.

"That one was because I...I..." Skye starts to break down in tears, unable to even finish her sentence.

I wrap my arms around her again. "I know, Skye. I love you too." I finish it for her as she cries onto me.

With Skye's body pressed against mine, I notice that the two of us are both wet from head to toe. I forgot, we fell into the water during that battle. I look down and the ground under me wet and red. Oh yeah, I was bleeding. I bled out a lot during that fight. I don't really know how I'm still here, but I can only assume it was those two. I'll have to thank them later, for both myself and for Cupa.

I rise to my feet, separating myself from Skye, and pull up the hem of my tank top. I see a long, diagonal scar stretching across my lower abdomen, starting at my left side and running about two-thirds of the way to my right. I should get this cleaned up.

"Since most of us-myself included-probably didn't really see it, how'd that happen?" Jared asks, his voice slightly muffled behind his mask.

I wring the excess water out my wet tank top-which I'd taken off-and use it as a rag-or washcloth, to some-to wipe the remaining blood and dirt off of my body. I stay kneeling at the side of the river.

"Climbing. The dragon was blocking the front door, so I was making my way up its back to get to Skye. I was doing a pretty good job at not stabbing myself on the spines. That is, up until I about halfway up. It jerked back erratically; cut me pretty bad. It was a deep one." I submerge the tank again, dragging it through the water and rubbing parts of it together to clean it off, before bringing it back up and wringing it out again. I then press it onto my face, scrubbing away the grime from both yesterday and today.
I wring the tank out one last time, this time as much as possible, before standing up and slinging it over my shoulder as I turn around. One thing I see is Skye covering her mouth again, tears brimming in her eyes.

"What's the matter?" I ask her.

"I..." she chokes out. "I did that..."

"What?" Jared and I say in surprise.

"I hit the dragon; I made it jerk back! I-I'm the one that did that to you!" she says as she buries her teary face in her hands.

I remain silent as I stand there and look at her. Again in my peripherals, I see Neige look at Skye, then me. From what I can tell a look of concern lies in her eye, the concern most likely not for me, but for what I may do in reaction to Skye's statement.

I continue to stand there, maintaining my blank expression with my eyebrows furrowed, before eventually approaching my girlfriend slowly.

I grab her hands and pull them down to her sides. Without warning, I pull her into a hug. I run a hand through her hair, which had grown long in the time we'd been here. I continue to hold her in my embrace, feeling her long, black hair. For some reason I've always liked the feel of her hair.

"You know," I start. "You should really do something about this." I lift a handful of her hair and look at it before letting it fall to her back once more.

Skye pulls away from me, a small smile on her face.

"And you this." she puts a hand on my balbo 'stache.

"Not in a million years." I smile back at her.

Skye presses herself against me again and I laugh lightheartedly as I hold her in my arms.

(Third Person POV)

Skye pulls her purple shorts up around her waist, pulls up the zipper, fastens the button. Jordan had made a small shed-like structure for the two of them to change out of our wet clothes in. He went in first and had gotten done pretty quickly. Now everyone's just waiting on her.

"I'm the one who hurt Jordan. I almost got him killed while he was trying to save me. What if he really did die? What would I do then, knowing that I was the cause?"

As she pulls her black tank top over her head, the events of the last forty-five or so minutes replay in her head, specifically the end of the battle.

The dragon's dead body crashes to the ground, kicking up dirt as it skids across the grass blocks. Jordan is launched off of its back, hurtling limply through the air like a ragdoll, before hitting the ground. The landing isn't any better than the launch, however. His body tumbles across the ground, bounces countless times and getting more and more covered in dirt and his own blood with every short collision. He eventually comes to a hard stop, sliding a few final feet across the grassy ground before halting completely and lying there with not the faintest sign of life.

"JORDAN!" Skye screams at the top of her lungs as she rushes to reach her boyfriend's side.

Moments later he rises. With all of his remaining strength, he manages to give a weak thumbs-up.

Skye expresses her concern for the seriousness of his injury, but he only responds with a faint, "I'm fine." that he doesn't even end up finishing.

Momentarily, he falls to his knees, then his face, and remains still there as blood seeps out from his open wound.

Skye screams his name over and over again as she sits on the ground, holding his lifeless body in her arms.

Everyone else in the group crowded around as it happened. The group looks at the scene with wide eyes and gaping mouth. The majority of them are on the verge of tears, given that they aren't already crying like Skye.

"You'll be fine. Everything'll be okay." she says to him repeatedly as she cries, rocking him back and forth in her arms. "He's not breathing!" she screams through her tears.

Jared rushes to the side of his friend. "He's lost a fatal amount of blood; I don't think it's possible for him to come out of this alive! There's nothing we can do!"

Skye looks up at him with a face sadder than anything he'd ever seen in his life. It breaks even his heart seeing her pitiful face in that moment.

"There has to be something we can do to save him!" Neige speaks up, also in tears.

"Neige is right! We can't just sit back and let him die!" Cupa says.

"He's saved a handful of our asses on multiple occasions, and probably all of ours just a minute ago!" Ana adds.

In the background, Raphael recaps what went down in the Nether before Blazette made off with Jordan. How Jason was sitting injured and became a sitting duck, and how Jordan saved him.

"No, "There is something." Raphael takes out his bow It'll stop the bleeding but there's no guarantee he'll actually survive, given how much blood he's lost already. Medically speaking, he shouldn't. The skull over there is right; he's lost a fatal amount of blood, but if there's anything we can do to at least try to keep him alive, I say we do it."

"What do you have in mind?" Andr asks.

Raphael responds by taking out Skye's ultimate bow, which he'd grabbed from the trench to prevent it from annihilation. He readies an arrow and points it at Jordan. Just as he's letting go, a snowball collides with his hand, sending the arrow flying off course.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Skye says as she turns Jordan's body away from him and her back towards him.

In his peripheral vision, he sees the various mob girls, all of which in states of hostility, ready to attack him.

"Are you trying to kill him?!" In an instant Luna's at his throat, her sharp claws pressing against the flesh ready to pierce through.

"No," Jared speaks up as he lets an arrow loose also aimed at Jordan. He'd forgotten about that feature of the ultimate bow: it heals other players-or in this case, other humans-when you shoot them. "He's got the right idea."

As he releases a second arrow, Luna charges from Raphael to him nearly instantaneously. His speed matches hers, however, and he grabs her and performs a defensive takedown on her. One thing that the group-with the exception of Jordan-is unaware of is Jared's several years of training in various styles of martial arts. Jordan was the one who urged him to learn in the first place. Andr lunges at him as well and he dispatches her just as swiftly, easily, and cleanly.

Neither of the two are actually hurt in the process. He respects Jordan more-and is just wiser-than to harm anyone close to his heart. He knows well enough of the raw power that can be invoked from within his African American friend. He'd seen it years ago when they were younger. The event that caused him to see Jordan's fighting potential was actually the very one that made Jordan suggest him taking martial arts. From that moment on, Jared took training in various forms of martial arts and with various weapons, subjecting him to sparring matches with Jordan. Due to Jordan's innate ability to take in as just as much as-if not more than-what he can dish out, the fights always ended in a stalemate with both of the two

Just then, something diverts everyone's attention. A noise paired with a motion. In Skye's arms, Jordan groans and stirs. The girls immediately cool down, and almost break down. Everyone watches him in an eerie silence, nobody either able to find the words to say or in too emotional of a state to speak at all. The guys have looks of hope and relief on their faces and the girls have tears in their eyes as he quickly sits up, as in someone flicked his "on" switch.

As Skye steps out of the hut, she overhears the conversation at hand, causing her to quietly stop and listen.

"In all seriousness, you shouldn't be here." Jared says.

"Yeah, I know. I don't really know why I'm alive, but I know that I definitely shouldn't be." Jordan says. His voice is deeper and less lighthearted than usual, showing the seriousness of the topic.

"How does it feel?" Jared asks.

"What do you mean?" Jordan retains his serious tone.

"Multiple things, really. First, how does it feel knowing that you shouldn't be standing here with us?'

"it's...it's really something; a lot of things. Opens my eyes a little bit. Makes me value every moment I and how I choose to spend it, 'cause life can take a sharp turn on you at any point in time and, if you're not ready, you may just get run over. It makes you realize just how small your individual life is compared to the entirety of the world. It makes you wonder just how much your life actually matters among everyone else's."

"And how does it feel knowing exactly whose actions resulted in it?"

"It's really complicated. I don't blame Skye if that's what you're asking. I know she'd never intend to truly hurt me. As violent to me as she may be to me on a daily basis, she'd never cause actual harm to me; she isn't that kind of person. I know she can't live without me, and the same goes for the other way around. I think she just has an interesting way of showing it. Despite this, it's really weird thinking 'My girlfriend almost killed me.' Especially given the truth to the statement in this context. I find it easier to look at how it might've affected her rather than how it affects me, though."

"What do you mean?"

"I couldn't care less what happens to me, so long as Skye makes it through. If I did die-at her hand, no less-it would seriously fuck her up. I don't think she'd be able to live with herself. She'd probably blame herself. She'd probably sink into some serious depression over something that she didn't even mean to do. It might even drive her to thoughts of suicide."

A moment of silence lingers in the air and Skye covers her mouth with both hands as tears well up in her eyes and roll down her face.

"I...I know what it's like," Jordan continues. "What it's like for someone to do because of my actions. I didn't directly kill her, but she died to save me. The worst part...the worst part is how avoidable it was. I was ignorant. I wanted to protect her, and yet my actions drove her to give her life to save mine. I know all the pain of watching someone die, of holding them in my arms as the life drains from their eyes. And even more, I know the guilt. It burdened me heavily-hell, it still does! But I managed. Somehow...I managed to find the motivation to keep going. I know she isn't as strong as I am emotionally. I know she might not be able to find that strength to push forward. And, even if I'm not alive to see it, that suffering isn't something I want her to have to experience. Given all that, I don't think I can die just yet, for her sake."

Skye stifles the sounds of her crying as she slides down the wall of the hut until she hits the ground. She never realized how deeply Jordan felt about her, how much he cared. She never knew that he valued her life more than his own. The thing that hits her the hardest is that she almost got rid of this, someone who cares this deeply about her and probably do anything in his power to keep a smile on her face. She can't even fathom how she never realized the depth of his feelings before. So she sits there, up against the hut, and cries to her heart's content.

Once again, sorry it took so long to get this out. I've been really preoccupied and have had an extreme lack of motivation to get any type of work done. I also feel like I need to state this explicitly: Yes, I do take requests for OCs for this story. If you want to submit a request, do NOT-I repeat, do NOT-send it via a review. If you want me to add an OC into the story send me a detailed bio of them IN A PM. From this point (September 27th, 2015) forward, every and any OC request sent in a review will be ignored completely and immediately without consideration. I know it may be a lot quicker and easier to send them in a review, but, for the sake of your OCs, please do it in a PM. I will also be putting this note on chapter 1, so that any newcomers who don't make it this far before thinking about sending an OC request will know where to send it as well.
A few more things:
1. A shout-out to Thamiir Davis, a follower of A New World (and myself if I remember correctly) and the creator of the masked man you know as Jared. Sorry this came so late, Thamiir. I forgot to put it in when I actually added Jared, but hey, better late than never, right? :D
2. For those of you who want a full-on, legitimate harem, I have news for you. I, sadly, will not be able to incorporate that into the story. That was the plan when I started writing this story, but, upon the introduction of Skye, this goal became significantly more difficult and was scrapped soon after. I apologize for the inconvenience and hope that there's still enough for you to enjoy.
3. Hopefully the identity of the traitor was easy for you all to guess, but if you haven't already I encourage you to go over the chapter(s) necessary to find it. Concealing his/her identity from you guys wasn't really my priority when I added that in. All I wanted to establish was that there's a traitor in the group.