"Wellllcome, ladies and gentlegriefers," shouted a griefer in a suit and 3D glasses, "to the DEATH BOWL! In one corner, we have Magnus, your king of Boom Town-"
Magnus waved to them with a cocky grin as the griefers cheered. "-who is prepared to defend his title and crown."
Magnus turned to Jesse, with a grinning Axel standing a few feet behind her. "So, Tiny. Welcome to the Death Bowl."
Jesse arched her eyebrow. "Dude, I'm a little taller than you."
Magnus chose to ignore that. "The Grief-Off to end all Grief-Offs." He leaned in a little, speaking quietly so nobody else could hear them, "How you wanna fake this? What's your grand plan?"
Jesse had to think about that. The griefers chanting something that suspiciously sounded like 'Burn 'em' didn't really help.
"We'll... start off small. Then I'll... throw some TNT. Let it graze you, and... we'll call it a finish," Jesse finally decided, shrugging.
"Okay," Magnus nodded, "something about TNT. Awesome."
Jesse rolled her eyes.
As Magnus stepped back, 3D Glasses came up to Jesse. "And you? What name do you go by?"
Jesse blinked, taken aback. He dropped his voice to normal volume and said to Jesse, quietly, "I'm gonna need a name."
Jesse finally let the smallest smirk come over her face. "The Spider," she uttered.
"You heard the name, folks," 3D Glasses called to the crowd, "give a big Death Bowl welcome to the Spider!" Cheers practically blew out Jesse's eardrums, making her wince a bit and put a hand over her ear. "Let's begin!"
Jesse turned to face Magnus, as 3D Glasses declared dramatically, "Opponents will craft their own griefing towers, which they will then use to grief each other."
"Any rules about the tower?" Jesse asked.
3D Glasses glanced at Jesse. "I was about to get to that. The only rule is-"
A griefer interrupted, waving his arms in the air. "That there are no rules!"
"... no eye poking," 3D Glasses finished, earning some boos from the crowd. "Other than that, do whatever you want. Go crazy. Seriously."
Jesse gave Magnus a nervous smile, and Magnus gave her a wicked grin in return.
That certainly calmed her nerves.
"Spider! Pick your building material! And Magnus, you-"
"Nahh," Magnus cut him off, "I'm good. Brought my own supply."
"Let the griefing begin!" And a blast of cheers nearly deafened Jesse again.
Jesse went over to her side of the arena. "Okay. Some... wood. Stone. And... um..." Reuben jumped about, squealing excitedly, grinning at Jesse as if to say, 'This one! This one!' "... pink... wool."
Jesse frowned at her three options, before shrugging. "Well, if I fell backwards, pink wool would probably hurt less," she sighed, and went for the pink wool. Reuben let out a cheerful oink at that.
Jesse built her tower, which was mostly hollow and had a small space at the top that walled her in (so she didn't trip and fall too easily, since catching herself and crawling up the side probably looked weird). And a little makeshift TNT launcher.
Magnus was standing on top of his fort, which looked to be made out of chiseled stone and some... other pink block. And a TNT launcher that made hers look like a toy. Oh well, at least they were pretending... right?
"Okay... I have extra pink wool in here. Guess it'll have to do," Jesse sighed, putting her hands on her hips, before spotting a familiar figure jumping up and down at the bottom of Magnus's tower. "Axel, what are you doing?!"
"Thought you might bring that up," Axel shouted back sheepishly, "it's just that Reuben wanted to take your corner, and I didn't want to crowd him or anything, so I thought that I'd, um, watch from over here."
Jesse facepalmed. "Gee, thanks, Axel," she sighed, a joking undertone to her voice, before looking back to Magnus. "Take your best shot!" Magnus called, making an excited grin.
Jesse pulled out an egg, tossing it into the air and catching it. She stuck her tongue out of her mouth before tossing the egg at Magnus, who was forced to dodge sideways as it hit and spawned a cute baby chicken.
"Ha!" Magnus cackled, "you grief with me, you grief with the best!" And he turned to the crowd with a proud grin.
Jesse lobbed another egg at Magnus, and this time it hit him right in the back of the head and knocked him over, another baby chicken joining the other one. Jesse let out a little grin.
"So, Spider. You need to take my crown, huh?" Magnus let out a sarcastic laugh.
Jesse shrugged. "I don't exactly discriminate in accessory taking, so I guess your crown shall be mine."
Magnus kicked both of the little chickens off the edge of the tower. "You are but a student!" Magnus declared loudly, "prepare yourself! For I am here to give you your final lesson!"
And he walked over to a huge TNT launcher.
"Oh-hoh boy," Jesse giggled nervously, "please don't tell me you're gonna fire that."
Magnus pulled the switch, and Jesse ducked, which turned out to be unnecessary as the TNT soared over his tower entirely and hit a random part of the stands, scattering several members of the audience. "Er, that was... just a warning," Magnus cleared his throat, awkwardly, as the crowd booed.
"What?" A griefer yelled from behind him, "a warning that you need glasses?"
"Maybe," Jesse hummed, "in that case, go for a pair of 3D ones, they look cool. Anyway, seems that the student has become the master, and the Spider will win this fight!" She completely made up the last part on the spot. Go Jesse!
"I don't know what that means," another griefer yelled, "but I love it and I want to put it on a t-shirt!"
Jesse grinned and turned back to Magnus again, before toggling her own launcher. The TNT went soaring straight towards Magnus, who turned around and stacked slime blocks in front of him, making the TNT bounce off and back towards Jesse.
Jesse dove away as the TNT blew up a small portion of her tower, giving Magnus a confused look. "What happened to getting hit by my TNT?" She said it in low enough of a voice that the crowd couldn't hear, but Magnus could, because he narrowed his eyes. "Nobody messes with the BOOM MASTER!"
Jesse dropped her face into her hands. "God-frickin'-dammit, can't things be easy just for once?" she groaned.
"Jesse, you okay?" Axel called, rushing over to her tower.
Jesse had no time to even answer as Magnus bellowed from his tower, "Had enough yet? All righty, I think Noob Time... is over. Luck sometimes visits the most unskilled of us, but it never lingers. Skill... mastery... these are the things that will see you defeated!"
"Magnus, craft a cannon!" shrieked a griefer.
"Yeah, finish 'em with a cannon!" a different one agreed.
"If it's a cannon you want, it's a cannon you'll get!" Magnus agreed, making the crowd cheer.
"Yup, he's completely lost it," Axel sighed, "dude's going for the kill! Jesse, you better craft.. I dunno, the greatest thing of your life. Like, right now!"
Jesse frowned at the pink wool in her chest, before she let out a defeated sigh and stacked up some blocks to make the world's worst fort, before fortifying the floor a bit. "Okay... well, it's pathetic. What do you think, Axel?" she leaned over the edge to look at her burly friend.
"Yeah... it's... yeah. It... might do. But Jesse, look."
Jesse looked, and immediately wished she hadn't. Magnus was standing on a cannon that was shaped like an open-mouthed skull with enough TNT to blow Boom Town to smithereens in the mouth and a double lava fall.
She sighed and rubbed her forehead, feeling a headache coming on. "You were supposed to throw the fight..." she grumbled.
Magnus was laughing as he toggled a lever, a block of TNT shooting out of his skulls' mouth at Jesse's terrible fort. Jesse jumped back to avoid it, the TNT immediately demolishing the wall, and more TNT flew at her rapidly.
Jesse bit her tongue, before sighing and unbuttoning her cloak. "Screw it," she grumbled, balling the cloak up and tossing it down to Axel, who caught it easily. Gasps of shock rang out through the crowd, but Jesse ignored them. "Okay, if you go hard on me, I'm not going to go easy either!" she yelled back, shooting strands of string out from her palms.
She caught two blocks of TNT and launched them away, before tearing off that string and catching another one, as fast as she could. Even with her doing her best to catch and deflect the TNT, she still had to dance aside at times as TNT destroyed her tower bit by bit.
Magnus was flipping the levers so fast that it was almost faster than the speed of light.
Axel looked around frantically, still holding Jesse's cloak, before dodging off and rummaging through something- a chest, maybe? Jesse couldn't see. It was out of her peripheral vision.
Jesse's tower looked mostly like multiple random floating blocks in the air, as Magnus yelled from his skull, Jesse literally stringing some of it back together using her string, "You're going up against the King of the Griefers, and you pick pink wool? Ha!"
Suddenly, Jesse's mouth dropped open. A little behind Magnus, she spotted a little bit of pink pig- Reuben! How in the world did he get over there?
However he did, Jesse owed him ten billion carrots after this whole mess was over.
"Get off!" Magnus yelped as Reuben squealed up a storm and went around kicking his legs, "no pigs allowed!"
"I thought the only rule was 'no eye poking'," Jesse called in return.
"Stuff!" Axel yelled up to Jesse, yanking out an armful of things, "I've got cool stuff!"
He turned and chucked up an arrow that seemed to glow a bit, "I got you an arrow for your bow. It's enchanted or something!"
Jesse gave him a look. "Axel, really? A bow? In a cannon fight? There's all sorts of cliched lines about this!"
"Yeah, but the TNT, inside the cannon!" Axel pointed.
Jesse's face lit up at the suggestion. "Axel, you're a genius!" she declared loudly, yanking out her bow.
Axel grinned at her compliment.
"Time to see how well you fly, pig!" Magnus said, grabbing Reuben and setting him in front of the TNT launcher.
Jesse's eyes widened. "Reuben!" she cried out.
Magnus yanked the lever, sending Reuben flying into the air, squealing in fear.
Jesse aimed and fired, a large blast of string catching Reuben and sending him towards the ground at more of an acute swing, Axel moving in the direction of the little pink pig. "I gotcha, I gotcha!"
He caught Reuben and then set him down. "Man, you smell delicious right now," he commented, before kneeling down to get rid of the string.
Jesse scraped the string off her hand, and looked at Magnus with a deadly glare. "Hey, Magnus!"
"Yeah, short stuff?"
Jesse jumped up onto the highest part of her tower's remains, shaking her hair out of her eyes so she could get a clear look, red eye glinting in a deadly way "Flying pig jokes are totally played out!"
And she jumped into the air, just as a TNT block destroyed her island of pink wool, and fired.
The arrow flew straight into the mouth of the skull and embedded itself in one of the TNT blocks dead-center, the fire leaving Magnus's eyes. "Oh, crap!" Was all he had time to say, before the TNT exploded, triggering more explosions, knocking Magnus off his tower with a yell, before slamming into the floor.
Jesse winced as gravity took ahold-
She launched some string, caught ahold of a block, and swung herself in a round arc before landing perfectly on top of one pink wool block, stumbling a little bit but catching herself in time, before grinning down at the fallen Magnus.
"We have a winner!" 3D Glasses bellowed, "The Spiiiiderrrr!"
Jesse jumped down, doing a parkour roll and landing on the ground, Axel doing a sort of victory/war dance, as 3D Glasses said to Jesse, "You gonna say something, there, champ?"
Jesse hesitated. "Yeah. Sure. All you griefers who wanna be King of Boom Town? Or, Queen, or whatever you wanna call it? You can have it."
Gasps from the griefers.
Jesse took her cloak from Axel and swung it back around her shoulders. "I mean, don't get me wrong, this place is great, but... I would really like to just go back home right now."
Silence.
Then a sudden roar, and everything began to shake.
"Oh crap," Magnus repeated, eyes widening to the size of windmills, "that your monster?"
Jesse let out a groan as she turned to see the Witherstorm towering over Boom Town, only a little ways away.
"Yep. That monstrosity is what we call the Witherstorm," Jesse sighed, before grabbing Magnus's wrist. "Okay, now enough staring at it in horror, RUN!"
And they did exactly that, as the tractor beams roved over the town and began to lift things up. "STOP EATING MY KINGDOM!" Magnus yelled at it. "YOU'LL REGRET MESSING WITH BOOM TOWN!"
"Magnus!" Jesse yelled, making his head snap to her. "Come on!" A hint of desperation was beginning to rise in her voice.
Magnus bit his lip before running towards her and Axel as they ran for the portal, terrified griefers' getting sucked up into the Witherstorm's wake.
Jesse grabbed Axel, who grabbed Reuben and Magnus, before launching a string at the portal, which soared straight into the mouth of said portal. "Hang on!" Jesse screamed, before they were all jerked off their feet and thrown into the icy heat of the portal.
A/N: In order for me to write the entire Death Bowl, I succeeded in making this my longest chapter without A/Ns.
Thanks to Toni42 for making me fanart as well! Just look on her deviantart. I am also drawing a cover for this story, so look forward to that, peeps!
And the reviews section is STILL bugging out. Screw you, reviews! (Hey that rhymed)
Well, I'll respond when the review section's back up. Anywho, see you next chapter!
x.X. A.L. X.x.
