The audience all went pale.
"Oh," Axel said, his mouth forming a perfect little 'o', "that's very not good."
"They're meant to kill monsters," Olivia called out, looking back down into the grinder anxiously, "but the thing is... they can't tell the difference between monsters and people."
"What's a grinder doing down here?" Jesse asked, looking back down at the grinder as it slammed together again.
"For supplies, of course!" Soren exclaimed, looking surprised that this wasn't obvious.
"Not just any grinder," Olivia shook her head, "this is the craziest one I've ever seen. It's gotta be Soren's."
Hissing rang out in the air. The whole group turned to see the creepers approaching them, but with more of a curious look than anything. Petra whipped out her sword and ran towards them, Jesse following suit a moment later. Petra killed her creeper before it could react, and Jesse killed her creeper with a few, well-placed hits. Petra's eyes widened as a creeper came charging at Jesse, flashing white, too fast for her to cancel it out or kill it. "DUCK!"
Jesse shot a strand of string and rappelled herself out of the way, back slamming into the ceiling painfully, as the creeper exploded and demolished part of the tunnel with a rather loud boom.
Dropping back onto the floor, lower arms rubbing her back, Jesse pulled out the amulet and held it out over the hole, the white gem glowing even more brightly. "There he is, he's right down-"
The sound of rushing water interrupted her, making the whole group turn. The screen switched to show said water gushing towards them, pulling along more creepers towards the grinder.
Lukas lunged sideways, grabbing the edge of Petra's cloak to keep her from getting washed away, Olivia bleeped so that she was flat against the wall, and Axel flattened himself against the wall, scooping Reuben up in the process. However, Jesse was caught off guard, the amulet flying from Jesse's hands. She lunged for it, only to realize that it had fallen through the hole that the creeper had made earlier as she fell forwards-
Axel's arms lashed around her torso and yanked her back to safety.
Lukas's arm, which had been tightening around Jesse's shoulder, relaxed. She patted him absentmindedly on the back, still watching the screen intently.
Jesse twisted in Axel's arms to see Axel, shooting him a grateful smile, before turning back around, eyes searching for the amulet.
The amulet hit the walkway beneath them, rolling along until a creeper that had fallen out of the hole rather than the tunnel specifically made to fall into the grinder kicked it, sending it falling downwards. It bounced off the edge of a tunnel, before landing on top of another one a little below it.
Ellegaard let out a relieved sigh. "That was a close one. They would've gotten lost without the amulet."
"Was that...?" Olivia asked with a faintly dismayed voice, bleeping into sight next to Jesse as Axel removed his arms.
"The amulet? Unfortunately," Jesse sighed, before backing up, making Axel, Lukas, and Petra back away, having come up behind her, and then dropping to all eights.
"Wait, you're gonna jump? You're gonna jump, aren't you?" Olivia asked, her eyes widening as she looked around at Jesse.
Jace gave the dark-skinned girl an odd look. "What, you want to head back to the library?"
Scrambling forward a bit, Jesse leaped over the edge, landing on the walkway on all eights, before pushing herself back up to her feet and looking behind her at her friends.
Olivia bleeped into sight a little ways behind her, Lukas hopping down and landing on all fours before standing back up, Axel jumping down and doing a belly-flop (Lukas dodged out of the way this time), and Petra glided down before tripping a bit and catching herself.
The redhead then whipped out her sword without another word, charging past Jesse and slamming the creeper that had kicked the amulet off the walkway. It flashed white at the contact before blowing up the edge of a tunnel, revealing some zombies that were inside.
Jesse ran after Petra, the two of them skidding to a stop as they reached a short staircase, where another creeper was waiting. Jesse's eyes narrowed, and she charged at it, flicking out her sword and hitting it, the creeeper flying into a wall and exploding on contact. Spiders crawled out of the hole that the creeper had created.
Jesse tumbled backwards from the force of the blast, doing a little flip before landing on all eights again, straightening up quickly. Petra slammed a spider away and jumped off of the edge of a tunnel, towards another wool-and-stone walkway. Everyone followed suit, landing on the walkway safely.
The spider hybrid looked around to see that it was almost literally raining monsters. Zombies let out moans as the water shoved them out of another tunnel or off the edge of a walkway, sending them to their second deaths below them. Creepers also fell from the tunnel they'd emerged from earlier, hissing loudly.
An arrow nearly hit Jesse in that moment of distraction, Jesse flipping backwards and doing the crab-walk move she'd done back in the fight with Ivor, before doing another little flip and landing back on her feet. Jesse spotted Axel on top of a tunnel, his eyes narrowing as a zombie approached. He flashed white, and Jesse flung up her arms, bracing herself. The explosion still knocked her back a step or two, though, making her pinwheel her arms as she nearly fell over the edge of the walkway before regaining her balance.
The audience let out a loud, relieved sigh at that, excluding Aiden. He was still salty about getting several rather fragile ornaments thrown at him.
"Jesse, get down!" Jesse obeyed Axel's shout and flattened herself to the floor, whereupon Axel charged forward and brought his fist right into a zombie's face, making it fly at Jesse. It landed on her back, but Jesse quickly stood up ramrod straight, sending it toppling over the edge along with the other zombies.
"Who wants more?" Axel yelled, looking around at the monsters.
"You want more?!" Dan exclaimed.
Jesse gave the burly boy an incredulous look. "Why in the world are you asking for more? Don't ask for more! We don't want more!" she exclaimed, momentarily flailing her arms in disbelief.
Axel ran down a flight of steps, but jumped to the side as an arrow flew past him and nearly impaled Olivia as it hit the wall, Olivia bleeping out of the way in the nick of time. "Jesse!" she yelled to the spider hybrid.
Axel winced. "Sorry, Olivia, must not have seen you."
The dark-skinned girl simply shook her head. "It's fine, but I'm blaming you for asking for more."
Jesse flailed her arms at the skeleton, which was quite a sight. "Hey, ugly!" she yelled at it.
The skeleton turned the loaded bow on her instead. The Enderman hybrid's eyes widened. "Watch out!" Olivia warned the spider hybrid.
Jesse threw herself backwards to avoid an arrow as it soared over her and vanished over the edge. Whipping back upright, the girl charged forwards before being forced to stop as the skeleton raised his bow and pointed it at her once again.
"Hey, bonehead! I'm talking to you!" Olivia taunted, waving one arm at the skeleton.
The arrow flew at Olivia instead, who bleeped out of sight and appeared several feet away. "Any time now, Jesse!"
Jesse raced down at the rest of the stairs and charged at the skeleton, which fired another arrow at her. Jesse proceeded to do a slider, sliding under the arrow before whipping back upright and slamming into the skeleton full-force with her sword, sending it flying into the abyss.
"Wow, Jesse," and Petra chuckled a bit. "You're getting good at this."
Olivia and Jesse jumped down to another walkway before racing along to where Lukas was being surrounded by some spiders. Jesse grimaced a bit as Lukas swung with his arms and sliced right through a spider, making it puff into smoke and getting greenish blood on his hands from the spider. Axel was racing down some more steps nearby.
Jesse adjusted her path so that she was running straight for Lukas, waving her arms and opening her mouth to yell at the spiders. What came out instead was a thrumming hiss that made her pull up short in surprise as all of the spiders turned to look at Jesse, tilting their heads curiously.
Until she smacked a spider with her sword and sent it flying backwards to its death. Then the spiders quickly retreated.
Jesse looked back at Lukas. His mouth fell open as he stared at something past her, and Jesse turned, her own eyes widening as thousands of spiders came creeping down the wall towards them, although even as they approached the tunnel top, they looked more confused than anything. Jesse stepped in front of Lukas protectively, holding the sword out.
"You've got a saving-people-thing," Lukas stated matter-of-factly, the two of them practically backed to the edge of the tunnel-top.
Jesse looked back at him, sword still held out defensively. "Um, thanks?" she asked back, sounding slightly confused.
"If you die because of said saving-people-thing, I'm gonna kill you."
Real-Jesse decided not to respond when Petra, Axel, Olivia, Real-Lukas, and Jace all nodded in agreement.
Onscreen-Jesse didn't have a chance to respond to that, because right then the sound of rushing water rang out in the air. She looked up to show that the holes that they'd created in the tunnels had inadvertently redirected several waterfalls of water right at them.
"Oh no!" Maya exclaimed. Aiden glared at her and kicked her in the shin hard enough to draw tears to her eyes, making her look at him with a look of hurt and confusion. Jesse and Lukas exchanged a concerned look at this.
"Oh, crap," and Jesse sheathed her sword, "HANG ON!"
She grabbed Lukas and yanked him to her in a hug as the water washed them and the spiders over the edge, Jesse's upper arms slingshotting up and latching onto the tunnel edge with her fingers before it could send them to a watery death, hugging Lukas to her in what looked rather like a death hug. They remained like that for a moment as the water kept pouring over them, before it finally faded away.
"Thanks, Jesse," and Lukas spit out a mouthful of water as they climbed back up onto the tunnel-top, dripping wet.
Jesse wrung out her hair quickly. "No problem," she panted out, before grinning slightly. "I just wanna know why we keep getting wet." Her little chuckle was cut off as a terrified squeal pierced the air, and her head snapped around to see her little pink pig galloping away and being pursued by a herd of zombies.
"Reuben!" Jesse yelled, whipping around and racing after her pig.
A/N: Still not as super-long as the chapters previously have been getting, but a bit longer.
RQTC: Would you rather slap Hadrian in the face or slap Mevia?
Slap Hadrian. I like female villains for some reason, so I want to slap Hadrian more than Mevia. (although if I could slap both, I'd do it in a heartbeat.)
AquaK13: Lol, yep xD
SofiaTheWriter88: Nah, it's fine :3
x.X. A.L. X.x