Guess who missed the upload date again? Me. It was me. If I had a nickel for every time I missed an upload date, I'd have like probably seven nickels, which is seven too much.

I deeply apologize.

But hey! At least you get a new chapter, right?

Krios

Jax's Inner Arsonist Shows

Unsurprisingly, Michael did not believe me when I told him I was looking for the bathroom.

Michael pulled out a sharp looking diamond axe, and I leapt to the side as the axe split the reception counter in half.

The three people inside the room all tried to run through the door at once, which resulted in all three of them getting caught in the doorway at the same time.

I turned and ran for the stairs, the sound of angry curses following me. An arrow sailed to my left, and a potted plant exploded.

I should've brought Jax with me! I frantically thought.

Behind me I could hear feet pounding the floor—they'd caught up. I risked turning my head, and saw Travis and Michael chasing after me with axes while the two strangers loaded their crossbows as they ran.

I looked forwards and kept running, when a thought occurred to me.

Herobrine! Lightning powers! I can take these fools!

I extended my hand towards them, willing them to blow up.

Nothing happened, except for me nearly running into another potted plant and tripping.

I cursed and looked back forwards—had the hallway always been this long? I saw the door to me and Jax's room, and charged towards it.

The light behind the door flickered on, and the door opened.

Jax stepped out, yawning. "Wha's going—"

I slammed into him full speed, and we both smashed into the floor, Jax making a choking sound as I landed on top of him.

I quickly stood and slammed the door shut, locking the door.

That'll keep them out!

An axe split through the door, and splinters littered the ground.

Oh, right. Axes.

Jax looked around for his shulker boxes, which weren't there. I grabbed a heavy cabinet and slid it in front of the door, blocking it.

"What the hell?" Jax shouted. "Care to explain, Toni?"

"Michael and Travis are stealing our stuff and selling it to some other guys, and they caught me, and they're trying to kill us now, and can we please discuss this later?" I pleaded as Michael smashed through the entire top half of the door, furiously smashing the cabinet to bits.

Finally the cabinet burst apart, and Michael charged in, swinging his axe around. I ducked and the axe swung over my head, carving a deep groove into the wall. Before he could swing again, I slammed into him with my shoulder, and we both fell to the ground. Michael's axe scittered to the side, right under the bed.

The two thieves burst in, crossbows loaded. One of them pointed the crossbow at Jax, who kicked the crossbow upwards. The crossbow fired into the roof, and Jax punched the thief in the face, making him stumble a little. The second thief fired, and Jax deftly caught the arrow. He rolled under the first thief's outstretched arm and then stabbed him in the ankles, making him scream and fall forwards.

Meanwhile, my battle wasn't going very well. Michael was surprisingly strong—my entire body ached as he punched and kicked every inch of it. I grabbed him by the neck and squeezed. Michael choked and kicked me particularly hard, making me groan. But still, I kept squeezing, at least until the a boot smashed into my face, throwing me off of Michael.

I blindly grabbed whatever I could find, which was a lamp, and swung it at the direction of my attacker. There was a thud and a yelp, which meant I'd hit my target.

I looked up to see Travis staggering back, clutching his head but still holding his axe very tightly. Before he could recover I stood and whacked him with the lamp again. He didn't drop the axe, so I whacked him again.

This time the lightbulb in the lamp burst, showering Travis with sparks. The back of his shirt began to smoke. Travis noticed and screamed, stumbling backwards. He tripped over Michael, who was just beginning to get back up, and they fell down together. Travis screamed like he was on fire, which…he was.

Michael pushed off Travis and stood, pulling an arrow out of the wall. He charged with a scream, and I jumped onto the bed beside me as Michael slashed the arrow at me. I grunted as the arrow grazed my face and a small cut opened up on my cheek. Michael leaped onto the bed and brought down the arrow, only for me to roll off, grabbing a pillow on the way down. Michael turned, and I swung the pillow at him full force.

The pillow exploded against his face, and Michael blindly waved his hands through the cloud of feathers, trying to find me. Amidst the confusion, I punched him in the face, and he went down.

Meanwhile, the thief Jax was fighting had abandoned their crossbow in favor of a dagger, and was now swiping at Jax, who was also armed with two arrows. The thief swung, and Jax rolled under the swing, lifting up the two arrows to stab.

But this time the thief dodged the stab and kicked Jax, knocking him backwards into the wall.

They lifted up the dagger to stab Jax, but in a panic, I picked up Travis's axe and threw it at the thief. I missed by a long shot-the axe slammed into one of the pillows on Jax's bed, making it burst.

Well at least the thief's attention was drawn to me, although I wasn't sure if that was a good thing, judging by their expression.

As if my situation couldn't get any worse, Travis had finally managed to put out the fire on his shirt. Travis finally stood from the corner he'd been writhing in for the past few minutes, glowering at me.

I suddenly had a very stupid idea. I looked up at the light in the ceiling, grabbed an arrow from the floor, and thrust it into the light.

BANG! There went our only light source.

Other than the dim moonlight shining through the window, the room was now completely dark. Now the only part I could see of Travis was his shadowy outline.

I heard the thief and Jax grunting, and quite a lot of crashing. I saw Travis's blurry outline looking back and forth, confused.

That's when Jax and the bandit crashed into Travis, and they all collapsed into a shadowy pile.

Someone pulled themselves from the pile, and the two remaining figures began to beat each other up, grunting and shouting as they did.

Finally, one of them stopped, and the room was lit up by a bright fire—Travis had pulled out a torch.

It was like a scene out of a sitcom-it turned out that Travis had been beating up one of the thieves instead of Ax, who I noticed was standing next to me.

"You idiot!" Travis shouted, pointing at the thief. "What are you doing?"

The thief ignored Travis, standing and glaring at Jax.

"You brat!" he screamed. "I'll kill you!"

"I don't think so," Jax said as he charged, slamming the thief's head against the wall.

Travis jumped onto the bed, pulled out his axe, and leaped down from the bed, grinning at me like a shark. He lifted the axe into the air and brought it down, hard.

I barely managed to catch the handle of the axe, and was pushed backwards into the wall as Travis pushed the axe closer to my head.

A bead of sweat ran down my forehead, and the blade of the axe slowly moved towards my face, the metal edge glinting red in the torchlight.

I groaned and pushed the axe to the side, making it slam into the wall right beside my ear. Before Travis could pull it out, I slammed my head into his nose as hard as I could, and there was a loud crack. Travis stumbled back, and then fell to his knees. I pulled the axe about of the wall and lifted it into the air like a golf club, and then swung it.

The dull side of the axe slammed into Travis's face, and he was lifted into the air for a brief moment before falling to the floor in a heap.

Jax shouted and pushed the thief my way. I swung again, and the dull end of the axe smashed into the back of the thief's head, throwing him forwards onto the floor.

For a second, all was silent except for me and Jax's heavy breathing.

Jax broke the silence. "I can't even sleep without you getting into trouble."

"It wasn't my fault, okay?" I snapped at him. "Besides, if I hadn't woken up they probably would have slit our throats in our sleep."

Jax sighed. "Yeah. I guess."

The room became silent again.

"So," Jax said, "should we go get our stu—"

Before he could finish, a flowery looking vase flew out of nowhere and smashed against Jax's face, knocking him back.

I turned to see Michael bearing down on me, a crazy look in his eyes.

I yelped and jumped away as Michael swung his fists. He turned to me, and snarled. "You could have died painlessly in your sleep."

"I would prefer to keep my life," I said as I ran towards the window.

Michael followed me close behind, and then I was standing right in front of the window. I turned, and Michael charged.

I also dived forwards, trying to do the same roll Jax had done a lot of times before, but instead smashing my head into a bed frame. Still, I succeeded in rolling under Michael's outstretched arms.

Michael smashed into the window, and cracks spread throughout the glass. Michael turned, growling.

I only had one shot. I stood, even though everything looked like it was spinning, and slammed into Michael as hard as I could, knocking him backwards into the window.

The glass smashed, collapsing into a dozen shards which sparkled in the moonlight. Michael sailed backwards through the window, a look of surprise on his face.

He fell several meters to the ground below with a resounding thump.

Jax sat up, rubbing his forehead. "Whaa…Toni?"

What I tried to say was "The danger has been removed." Instead what came out was a pathetic sounding "Bluurgh."

"Michael's not dead…is he?" Jax said, staring at the window.

"Probably not." I said. "He only fell a few meters. He'll be fine."

"Oh," Jax said.

Then we were silent again.

"I'll go get our stuff," Jax said.

"You do that," I said and then passed out.

?-?-?

When I woke up, the sun was just starting to rise, and Jax was eating a sandwich while sitting on one of the beds.

"Good thing you're awake. I was about to wake you up myself." Jax said, taking a bite out of his sandwich.

"Is that a sandwich?" I asked, and my stomach rumbled.

"Yeah. Sorry, this is the only one. You can have an apple, some bread, or some baked potatoes. Also some golden carrots. But no sandwiches."

"You're a terrible person."

"Being hungry'll do that to you."

I sighed. "Where's the food?"

"Over there." Jax said, pointing in the direction of a pile of various colored shulker boxes.

I opened one of them, and an enderpearl rolled out. "Jax, there are at least a dozen shulker boxes here."

"It's in the brown one." Jax said as he finished his sandwich.

I ate a golden carrot, (which was surprisingly tasty) a few apples, a single loaf of bread, and some potatoes.

After breakfast, Jax stuffed all of the shulker boxes into his inventory. "We're heading out," Jax said. He pulled a diamond sword out of his inventory and handed it to me.

"Oh, thank god." I said, cradling the sword like it was a newborn.

"Wouldn't want your precious gift to get damaged, would you?" Jax teased.

"Shut up."

"Anyway, let's get moving." Jax said. "Luckily, Janlyn isn't that far away. It's only a few hours walk."

"Your interpretation of 'far away' and my interpretation of 'far away' are completely different," I grumbled.

"The archery competition is at 4 P.M. Right now, it's 11 A.M. We've got time, but we still need to hurry." Jax told me.

"What about the thieves?" I asked.

"They're tied up and laying outside." Jax said. "I made sure of that."

"Good," I sighed. "It wouldn't do to have them scam more unfortunate travelers."

"Yeah," Jax agreed. "Which is why I'm going to burn this place down."

I stared at him in surprise. "You're going to what?"

"I'm going to burn the place down," Jax said. "After all, we don't want more travelers to get killed here."

"I guess, but isn't that a tad extreme?" I asked.

"Not really," Jax said. "The smoke will probably attract some people, who will find these guys and the note we left here."

"What note?"

"This note." Jax said, pulling a sticky note out of his pocket. I squinted at it.

These guys probably robbed a lot of people. And probably killed a lot of people. I mean, they tried to rob me. So lock them up.

"Huh." I said. "I guess it does the job."

"Yup," Jax said. "So you're okay with this?"

"Yeah, I guess." I sighed.

"So then let's go."

Once leaving the hotel, the first thing I saw was the four thieves standing in front of the door. I noticed that they were all tied together.

Michael spotted us and shouted, "LOOK! THERE THEY ARE!"

Jax looked slightly impressed. "How'd you guys stand up? I tied your arms and your ankles together."

One of the thieves shouted, "GET EM!"

They all hopped towards us once, and then all of them fell over.

There was quite a lot of cursing and shuffling, until they finally gave up and lay on the floor, limp.

"Are you done?" Jax said, unfazed.

"You brat," Travis groaned. "We'll kill you once we get up."

Jax rolled his eyes. "You can dream."

We dragged the four outside of the hotel, and then Jax walked back over to the hotel, pulling out a flint and steel.

"What are you doing?" Michael snapped.

"Burning the place down," Jax said.

"WHAT? WHY?"

"This can't be your first time doing this." Jax accused. "You've probably stolen from countless travelers and even killed some of them! Isn't that reason enough?"

"Oh, come on!" one of the thieves whined. "We've only killed five people! That's not that much!"

Jax looked at me like 'can you believe these guys?'

I stepped forwards. "It's you that made us resort to this. If you'd just chosen another way—literally any other way to earn money instead of stealing from travelers and killing them, this wouldn't be happening. Tell me. Why did you choose this way?"

"Regular jobs don't pay enough," Travis groaned. "And taxes. You wouldn't understand, you're a kid."

"You're right," I said with disgust. "I don't understand. Jax, light it up."

"Wait!" Michael began frantically, but Jax struck the flint and steel together, and part of the hotel set on fire.

Michael howled and tried to stand, but fell back over again. I stared at the fire, which spread a lot faster than expected. I watched the fire spread until the entire building was burning. I coughed as a waft of smoke seemed to fly right at me, and suddenly I was reminded of my village's destruction.

"Let's get out of here," I said.

"Good idea." Jax agreed. He stuck the sticky note to the floor, and then we quickly rushed away from the fire, the four thieves screaming and cursing at us.

Suddenly a memory of my dad smiling at me appeared in my mind. I shook my head, getting rid of the thought. I had a quest. I couldn't let my emotions get in the way.

I wiped my eyes—they were watery from all the smoke.

At least, I think it was because of the smoke.

?-?-?

While we walked to Janlyn, I was pretty much silent.

Jax noticed this after a few hours. "Hey, are you okay?"

"Yes. I'm just thinking." I snapped.

"Thinking about what?" Jax asked.

"Were you always this nosy?" I complained.

"Were you always this snappy?" Jax retorted. "I'm just saying, usually you'd be complaining about how much your feet hurt after walking this long."

"You flatter me." I said sarcastically. "No, I'm not okay. Happy?"

"Why not?" Jax asked, and I got the feeling he was genuinely curious.

"Hmmm, let's see here." I said mockingly, putting a finger on my chin like I was thinking. "Oh, that's right! My village burnt down, my entire family's probably dead, I'm probably going to get some deep seated trauma later on in life, and I'm the reborn soul of Herobrine. Oh, and I have to save the world. Almost forgot about that one."

Jax sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Toni, I…ugh. Usually Rook's the one that handles the emotional stuff. Listen, I know it sucks, and I know this was all dumped on you in what…a few days? But most heroes go through hardship. Most heroes lose people. Most heroes…god, I'm making you feel worse, aren't I?"

"Well, you're not making me feel better," I snorted.

"I'm sorry, Toni." Jax said quietly. "For…everything. It sucks you had to go through this at your age."

I was slightly taken aback—I hadn't expected Jax to say that.

"It's fine," I said. "It's not your fault."

"Yeah," Jax said.

More awkward silence. I hoped that Shaft was an extrovert, because if we kept having awkward conversations like this, I didn't know how I could bear the awkwardness.

"I'm hungry," I announced. "Do you have a craving for steak?"

"No," Jax said. "Why steak?"

"I don't know, but…it's almost like I can smell it." I said, and it was true. I could literally smell steak…

Wait.

I looked up, and saw a bunch of buildings grouped together.

"We're here!" I shouted. "We're at Janlyn! Finally!"

Jax sighed in relief. "Thank god. The time is round ten thirty P.M—I thought we wouldn't get there in time."

"Me too," I said excitedly. "Look—a steakhouse. We can eat."

"Now, Toni," Jax chided. "We're here to find Shaft."

"Yeah, but the archery contest is at four," I whined. "There has to be time to eat."

"Thinking like that may make us lose Shaft," Jax lectured. "We have no idea how long it'll take to find them."

"But—" I began.

"We ate earlier," Jax said firmly. "Let's at least look around before eating."

"No," I insisted. "I haven't ate anything except for a few apples, and a piece of bread, and a golden carrot, and some potatoes, and..." I stopped when Jax stared at me. "Okay, I've already eaten enough, but I just really want some steak."

"If you've already eaten enough, that means you don't need to eat any more." Jax snapped.

Maybe it was childish, but I plopped down onto the ground. "I want to get some steak."

"Toni, I said NO!"

"Come ooon," I begged. "Can I have some steak?"

"No."

"Can I have steak?"

"No."

"Can I have steak?"

"No."

"Can I not have steak?"

"No—wait."

"Let's goooo!" I cheered, pumping my fists into the air.

"AUUGH!" Jax yelled, throwing his hands into the air. "TONI, YOU CAN'T HAVE STEAK!"

"Why. Not."

"UGH! BECAUSE WE CAN'T WASTE TIME ON STEAK!"

"WE'VE GOT SO MUCH TIME!"

"WE'VE GOT TWO HOURS!"

"FINE!" I yelled.

"Alright! Is that settled?" Jax said, exasperated.

"You're what my sister would call a wet towel," I grumbled. "Yeah, yeah, whatever." Satisfied, Jax turned forwards. We began walking, and the smell of steak grew farther and farther away.

My stomach rumbled, and I looked back longingly at the steakhouse. I yearned for the delicious steak—but alas, perhaps it was never meant to be.

I sighed and stared at my feet, until I noticed something green peeking out of Jax's pocket.

A bunch of emeralds.

Slowly, a grin spread across my face.

Jax's going to be pissed.

He won't notice.

He will notice.

It's not that big of a deal.

…

Well, you only live once.

Jax

Toni couldn't understand.

I was annoyed with her—and annoyed with myself. How could I have thought that this girl, this twelve year old not even out of middle school yet could understand that this wasn't a game? I didn't even look back to see if she was following me, which in retrospect was a bad decision.

Actually, in retrospect the whole argument was pretty stupid. Though it was mostly Toni's fault.

We'd been walking for a little bit when I noticed how silent Toni was.

I waited for her to complain, but she said nothing. I began to feel guilty. Had I gone too far? Was she mad?

"Toni?" I asked.

Silence.

I sighed. "Listen Toni, I'm sorry, but we have no idea how long it will take to locate Shaft. It could take a few minutes, (which is pretty unlikely) or it could take the whole day. I'm sorry, but it's pretty unpredictable. What I'm trying to say is I'm sorry, but we can't afford to waste time on your steak. And besides, you'll be able to eat a lot of steak at Valaither."

Still, silence.

I turned back. "Toni. Do you accept my apology—"

Toni was gone.

...

I stared at the spot Toni was supposed to have been in.

"…damn it."

Of course. The one time I try to apologize, (which was totally unreasonable—she should have been the one to apologize.) Toni turns out to not even be here. Why was I not surprised?

I turned and stared at the steakhouse. Sure enough, the door of the steakhouse was slowly swinging shut, and the feet I saw definitely looked like Toni's.

I growled and kicked the ground. She wouldn't be able to pay for it, anyways. After all, she didn't have any emeralds to pay with.

I'll let her dream, I thought. Then when she looks for me and finds that I'm missing, she'll be totally lost. I'll find her eventually, though. Maybe that'll teach her that we should work together.

Irresponsible? Yeah. But to be fair, I was pretty steamed at Toni at the time, so my judgement was a little screwed.

Sure, walking around an enormous town looking for an archer wasn't exactly the most riveting activity, but I'd gone through worse, like being trapped in the salmon pit for a few hours or doing the dishes for everyone in Valaither. (Don't ask about the salmon pit.)

Maybe this was for the best. Maybe we both just needed a little alone time. And there're was the added bonus that I wouldn't have to hear her complaining anymore. I swear, if she had complained about her aching feet one more time, I would have punted her to the moon.

I decided to start my search for Shaft. I began by asking some random passerby, "Hello. Per chance, do you know where I could find Shaft? Y'know. The archer."

They looked at each other, looked at me, said "No," and walked away.

"What a friendly town," I muttered.

I continued to ask around, but got pretty much nothing. Nobody had useful information on where Shaft was.

I wasn't that surprised. After all, I couldn't expect immediate results. This would take time.

After a few minutes, I noticed something, or someone, lurking around me.

They'd been lurking around for a while—they just hadn't talked to me yet. I began to feel wary, eyeing the man out of the corner of my eye.

Finally, he walked up to me, and I put my hand on the pommel of my sword, ready to pull out my sword at a moment's notice.

He looked at me; I looked at him.

"I heard you were looking for a certain archer?" the man asked.

…

I took my hand off my sword. "Yes, I was. Do you know where they are?"

"Of course," the man said smoothly. "Follow me." The man turned away, and I followed him right into the busy streets of Janlyn.

We turned to the right, and found ourselves in an enormous farmer's market, reminiscent of the marketplace in the Aether. There were lots of similarities, including the villagers shouting to buy their goods, the loud chattering of the crowd, and people making deals and scurrying through the road, holding bags of goods.

I kept my eyes on the man, making sure not to lose him in the crowd of people. Suddenly he turned, and we left the busy streets of Janlyn just as fast as we'd entered them. Now we were walking through a dark alleyway, which is always a red flag.

I looked at the man questioningly, and the man said without turning around, "It's a shortcut. Don't worry about it."

Soon we were out of the alleyway, and I found that I would have much preferred to be jumped in the alleyway instead of this place.

In this area, the streets were empty, and the buildings lining the streets were just as empty. They all looked old and decrepit, like they could collapse any second. I couldn't believe it—how had we come from such an energetic and lively marketplace to such and old looking ghost town? We hadn't even walked that far. In fact, I could have sworn that the sunlight here was colder than the sunlight back in the marketplace.

"What is this place?" I asked, looking around.

"Just keep following me," the man assured me. "Trust me."

"Are you sure Shaft is this way?" I said doubtfully. "Cause this place does not exude liveliness."

"Just keep following me." the man repeated, still walking forwards.

Still, I wasn't that worried. If this turned out to be a trap, which it probably was, I could just whack the man with my sword and be on my way. After all, he didn't appear to be armed.

"Stop," the man said, and I nearly ran into him.

"Okay," I said. "What no-"

"Perfect," the man said as he turned and pushed me backwards.

Oh no. A trap. Who could have seen this coming.

I fell onto my back, and the sun was obscured by a spot of black that was heading right for me. I rolled out of the way, and an anvil shattered on the ground, pelting me with metal shards.

"Surprise!" the man shouted with a grin. "This was a trap!"

I rolled my eyes. "Oh no. I'm so shocked." I sighed and pulled out my sword. "I don't have time for you."

The man charged, and I stepped backwards under the shadow of a building. I vanished and reappeared behind the man, who looked confused.

I swung my sword as hard as I could, smashing it into the man's head as hard as I could, sending him flying through the window of an ancient hotel.

"Well, that was a waste of my time." I sighed. "Well, better get back and start loo—"

I heard multiple loud thumps, and turned to see three more men wielding weapons.

"There's more of us!" one of the men laughed. "Surprised?"

I rolled my eyes. "Isn't the whole point of a surprise to be surprising? This is not a surprise."

"I'll show you something surprising." another one of the men shouted. "This axe…! Through your face…dang it."

"You need to work on your trash talk, Max." the first man sighed.

"Shut up, Mark!"

"Enough talking. Bottoms up, boys!" the last man ordered.

"Whoo! Let's go, Mack!" Max said as he downed a green potion. Mack drank a dark red potion, and Mark drank a light blue potion.

Pft. Their names are Max, Mark, and Mack?

Wait, no! I need to concentrate. It looks like Max drank a potion of leaping, Mark drank a potion of swiftness, and Mack drank a potion of strength.

This is going to be a bit harder than expected.

Jeremy switched to his bow and leapt high into the air, taking me off guard. He fired a volley of arrows at me, all of which I deflected. Then, before I could react, the first man dashed towards me, swinging his sword as he did. I barely managed to block the slash, and as I did more arrows flew towards me. I dodged most of them, but two got through, slashing my arm and making me hiss.

The last man came out of nowhere, smashing into me with enormous force. Again, I barely managed to block, and the first man suddenly ran behind me, kicking the back of my knees and making me stumble.

The last man's axe swung towards me, but I slammed aside the axe, pulled out an enderpearl and threw it onto the rooftop of a building.

I materialized there, huffing and puffing.

So this was their plan. I thought as I ducked behind the railing of the building, arrows flying at me. I'm outnumbered, and they're much more stronger and speedier. Fighting them all at once is suicide. I need to find a way to split them up.

Before I could figure out how to do that, Max fell from the sky, grinning like a madman.

"Hello!" Max cheered as he switched to his axe and slashed at me. I dashed back, smashing back his axe.

I swung at him, but he just jumped into the air to dodge my slash, landed behind me and swung again. This time the axe cut open the back of my shirt, and I stumbled forwards.

I turned and began to swing again, until someone kicked the back of my knee, making me stumble. I turned to see Mark slashing at me with his iron sword. I ducked the swing and slammed into Mark's chest, sending us both tumbling off the building.

I pulled out an enderpearl and chucked it towards the ground as hard as I could, and instantly teleported to the floor. Behind me, Mark slammed into the ground with a thud.

Then Mack was on me, swinging his axe with the force of a speeding minecart. I grabbed my sword with both hands to block the blow, and my feet dug trenches into the ground.

I pulled out another enderpearl and threw it behind Mack, and instantly teleported behind him. Mack stumbled forwards, and I smashed my sword into the back of Mack's head, knocking him into the ground.

Max dropped down from the building, grinning at me as he fell.

I was screwed. Mark was already recovering from the fall, Max was coming down to help, and Mack would undoubtedly recover quickly.

Unless a miracle happened, I was completely and utterly—

Max slammed into the ground, unmoving.

"Nice landing," Mark deadpanned.

Max didn't move or respond.

"Max?" Mark said, his eyebrow raised. Mark flipped over Max, only to find an arrow embedded in his shoulder.

Mark's eyes widened. "Oh sh—"

Swish!

An arrow slammed into Mark's leg, making him shout out in agony and fall over.

Tk. Tk. Tk.

I heard the sound of boots clicking against the ground and turned. There stood a young woman holding a bow at Mark, an arrow half-nocked in her bow.

"Now," she said as she tilted her head to the side. "What's this fuss all about?"

Shaft has joined the game.

Again, I'm very sorry for the late update. I can't guarantee this won't happen again, but I'll try.

Many apologies.

Krios