Lukas gave a small chuckle. "That's a good one. Let me think."

"How can you guys joke at a time like this?" Axel snapped,"Petra's still out there. She's all by herself. There's nothing funny about that."

Jesse shrugged at her friend, her faint smile faltering. "Axel, Petra can handle herself. If she can handle the Nether as casually as she does, she can survive. She wouldn't mind at all. She'd want us to keep our spirits up."

Axel's sharp expression softened. "If I were her, I'd... I dunno. It just feels wrong."

"Fine then," Lukas conceded, standing up, "we should probably get some rest. We gotta start looking for this temple as early as we can. Now, my guess is, if we start at the portal, and... kind of split up-"

"Whoa, what are you doing?" Axel snapped at Lukas.

"Did I do something to you?" Lukas asked, his eyes hardening. His tail- and yes, he did have a tail- flicked a little bit, as did his ears, which showed that he was getting agitated. "I'd really like to know. You keep getting on my case for what seems like no reason."

"He's just trying to help, Axel," Jesse said, pushing herself to her feet.

"I'm sorry, Jesse," Axel apologized to her, "I'm not going to sit here and listen to this guy telling us what's what."

Lukas glared at him. "I'm just trying to get ready for tomorrow."

"You're the only one wearing that stupid jacket," Axel shot back, "don't tell us what to do."

Luka's eyes seemed to glow a bit, the pupils narrowing into slits and the whites of his eyes filling up with the green-blue irises. "Take. That. Back," he hissed, his hair starting to stand up on end. It didn't take a genius to tell he was pissed.

"Can't. Wouldn't." Axel snapped.

"You know what?" Lukas stepped toward Axel, even though he was a full head shorter, "I get to wear this jacket because I know how to build. But that doesn't mean I don't know how to break things."

"Your threats don't scare me," Axel hissed, backing away from Lukas a little bit, "now that we know how you really are."

"Jesse, your friend is way out of line!" Lukas's head snapped to Jesse, "I wasn't going to bring it up, but I can only take so much."

Jesse crossed all of her arms, sending all of them a look. "Let's just drop it."

"Don't be like that, Jesse," Axel said.

Jesse repeated herself slowly. "Just. Drop it."

Axel ignored her instead, turning back to Lukas, "Haven't you done enough damage for one day?" And he shoved Lukas backwards, making the shorter boy stumble, "Petra might be dead because of you."

"Axel, what the heck?!" Olivia exclaimed.

Lukas hissed again, angrily. "I don't have to take this. Listen, why don't I just leave, and let you guys hash this out-"

"You are not going anywhere," Jesse snapped back immediately, and all of them looked a bit taken aback at the fact that she was snapping, and the look on her face. "Axel, stop antagonizing Lukas."

"But, Jesse-"

Jesse made a chopping motion with her hand, cutting him off. "No. That's enough. We are all on the same team right now. He's staying."

They all sat back down by the fire, Axel staying standing. He glared at the fire as if it had personally offended him.

A long silence stretched out, interrupted only by the sound of thunder, and then rain, before Jesse sighed, making them all look at her. "Since we're all going to just sit here in silence forever unless someone says something," she pulled out the leatherbound book, but made no move to open it, "perhaps we can all talk about our being hybrids."

Everyone stared at the floor silently.

Everyone looked up at her as she raised the book, "Does anyone here recognize the symbol?" And she poked it with her finger.

Axel leaned in, before stiffening, the glare in his eyes fading to a look of shock as he stepped back. Lukas flinched a little as Axel 'accidentally' stepped on his tail, but didn't say anything. Olivia's eyes widened when she got a good look at it, and Lukas nodded faintly.

"Thought so. I found this in Ivor's weird basement. This book must have... well, something at least, to do with us, if we're all able to recognize it. Now, what exactly it entails, I have no clue..." Jesse looked down, one hand resting on the cover.

"But it has to do with our being hybrids. Does anyone know how, by any chance?"

Axel shook his head, slowly. "No. I didn't even know until I exploded earlier. I was just... I didn't even know before that," he finished, lamely.

"I didn't even realize I was an Enderman until I teleported. I never realized that my right eye was..." Olivia trailed off, putting a hand over her right eye.

Lukas shook his head as well. "I never knew," he said, quietly, looking as though he were in shock.

"Neither did I. I suspected, since this morning... I guess it was confirmed when I started being able to use my string abilities." Another short silence. "I don't know how we're hybrids, or how we never knew." Another silence. "I guess we'll find out in a minute."

Her fingers slowly slid under the cover and flipped it open to the first page.

The handwriting was pretty messy, but still legible. It was pretty obvious that the writer of the entry was pretty scatterbrained from all of the crossing outs and wandering spacing.

"'The Bureau of Amalgamology contacted us today. What they do it fascinating, they create hybrids. Mixes of animal and human, or in this case, monsters and humans. They've taken about five children- mainly because children are less likely to fight back too much, apparently- and injected monster DNA that was painstakingly taken from the monsters. The effects have been extraordinary, according to them, and they said they'd be honored if we came to look at them. Ellegaard-'"

Olivia interrupted here. "Ellegaard? Like, Order of the Stone Ellegaard?"

Jesse shrugged. "I don't know any other Ellegaards in existence." Then she continued. "'Ellegaard and Magnus are all for it. Gabriel thinks it might be interesting, and even Ivor-'"

"Wait, Ivor?"

Jesse gave a joking, long-suffering sigh at all the interruptions, but she was grinning a little. "Yep. Maybe he worked with the Order before, and that's how he knows them? It might explain why he seemed to have such a grudge with Gabriel," she suggested.

Axel had sat down now, and Lukas shrugged. "I guess that makes sense."

"'Even Ivor thinks it would be fascinating to see them. I honestly cannot deny that I'm a little curious, so, tomorrow, we'll head to their lab and have a visit with the children. ~Soren.'"

Jesse looked up from the book. "The handwriting changes in this next part. 'We arrived at the lab yesterday. The children are all very small, no older than 5 or 6 years old. The scientists told us they were all very dangerous, but really they seem quite harmless. They were all very frightened when we first entered the room, but after only a few minutes they warmed up to us. Ivor took the spider hybrid and the two of them read together for a bit. Her hair was very short, only about chin-length. I guess it's too much trouble to keep it long. Anyway, the Enderman hybrid developed a fascination with redstone after a couple of minutes with me. I think I like her! And Magnus had fun with his creeper hybrid. I think Gabriel liked the Blaze hybrid, and Soren and the ocelot hybrid had some fun together as well, although none of these boys would ever admit it. Boys. ~Ellegaard.'"

Jesse looked up at them again. "This next entry is a couple of weeks later. 'Today we couldn't stay that long, but we decided to name our hybrids. And great, we're already considering them 'our' hybrids. We just happen to like spending most of our time with the kid we spend time with. It's too much trouble to just keep pointing and go 'hey you'. Soren went first with his ocelot hybrid. He took about ten minutes to name the kid Lukas, with a k and not a c because he thought it sounded cool.'"

Jesse looked up, speechless, at her friends, before back down at the book. "'Then I got to go. My dad always wanted to name me Axel and often fought with my mom about it before I was born apparently. So I decided to use that name. It's a pretty... good one.'" Jesse faltered and looked up again, before back down. "Um, 'Ellegaard got to go next, and decided on Olivia. I don't know why. It's kind of a boring name in my opinion. Gabriel decided to name the Blaze hybrid... Petra. And...'" Jesse broke out of her reading voice to gulp, before finishing, "'Ivor spent about ten minutes before naming the spider hybrid... Jesse. I don't get some of these names, but whatever. ~Magnus.'"

All of them looked at each other, silently staring at one another in shock. No one said anything.

Really, there was nothing they could say.

Jesse finally, quietly, shut the book. "I think that's enough reading for tonight."

A/N: There's not really much for them to explain, since they're all kind of in shock about the whole thing. They're trying not to show it- after all, dying at the hands of a very angry Witherstorm is really not the way they want to go out. I'm thinking after the whole thing is over they're probably going to have like a 'group therapy session' or something.

I don't know, really. Any suggestions?

Kaos Ruin: Yep! Happy birthday! And they sort of touched on it, but, like I said, they're probably going to have a 'group therapy session' and all be in shock together! Yay! (xD)

x.X. A.L. X.x