"I feel like it got bigger," Axel said, staring.

Olivia nodded, mouth hanging open slightly. "It must be like the Great Devourer in that cartoon Jesse used to like to watch- the more it eats, the bigger it gets. And so far, it's not really a picky eater."

"Soren?" Ellegaard asked softly. The two Order members put their swords away, as they walked towards Soren.

"It's him!" Magnus said, staring, "i-it's you!"

Soren stepped forward, hesitantly, giving the two of them a shy, worried smile. "Hello, old friends."

Before anything else could be said, an ear-shattering roar rang through the air, everyone clamping their hands over their ears until it abated. "It's time to go," Soren said, more urgently, "we only get one shot at this. Remember, once the Formidi-Bomb is crafted, it'll explode in a matter of seconds."

A pause as the information sank in, before Soren continued, in a smaller voice, "it means whoever is doing the crafting... will be in great danger. I was hoping... perhaps we could draw straws?"

Everyone looked at each other silently (well, as silent as it could in the chaos), not wanting to outright say no, but not wanting to go either. Everyone looked at the two Order members besides Soren, who were shuffling their feet and being quiet and not saying anything.

"I never wanted to be a hero."

Everyone's eyes snapped over to Jesse, whose arms were all crossed. All of them. "I never wanted to be a hero," she repeated, "but I'm willing to do the heroic thing." She closed her eyes, bracing herself, before turning to Soren, eyes hard. "I'm going to set off the Formidi-Bomb."

"Jesse!" Axel burst out at that, "You- you could die!"

When Jesse met his eyes she gave a sad little smile. "I know. I'm not all that excited about it. But I've got to do this."

Axel opened his mouth to protest, as Soren came over to her. For a moment, he looked as though he were going to try to talk her out of it, even opening his mouth. Jesse cut him off. "Soren, I've made up my mind. You're just going to make something that's already hard for me even harder. Just give me the TNT." And she held out her hand, waiting.

Soren stood there for a few moments more, mouth open, before he shut it and silently gave it to her. "We'll... the rest of is... we'll build distractions in its path. Hopefully it will buy you some time."

Petra coughed a bit, giving the two Order members a glare. "You should be ashamed of yourselves."

The two of them looked at the ground, before Ellegaard looked up and stepped towards Jesse. "Jesse, take my armor. It'll help."

Everyone's eyes widened as the two females stood there. But not one to be upped by Ellie, Magnus darted forward. "Nah, you can take mine. It's gotten me out of a lot of jams."

"I insist," Ellegaard said, brown eyes meeting green and red.

"I double insist."

"I triple insist."

"I... insist four times."

"Quadruple."

"Know it all."

"You say that as if it's a bad thing."

Jesse put up a hand, cutting both of them off, before stepping down and standing in front of Ellegaard, giving her a worried look.

"Jesse, you deserve this. What you're doing means we're ALL GONNA DIE!"

Jesse jumped a bit as Ellegaard's head snapped up, before whirling around. The Witherstorm was practically in front of them now, and they all ran away a bit, Ellegaard yanking off her armor and tossing the pieces to Jesse. She wore a sort of suit underneath, a plain brown suit that was actually pretty nice looking.

Jesse threw on the chestplate, the pants (oh... wow, that sounded so wrong), the boots, and jammed the helmet on her head in record time. If there was a trophy for 'shortest time for putting on armor with four extra limbs', Jesse would've won it in a heartbeat. As it was, Jesse had to hug her ribs again and squeeze. Good thing Ellegaard was a bit larger-proportioned than the slight, small girl, otherwise it would've gotten incredibly uncomfortable.

"Jesse, you're going to have to set down a crafting table out there and make that Formidi-Bomb!" Soren said urgently, "everyone else, grab a buddy and split up, we need to keep that Witherstorm on track, so build, build, build!"

Olivia groaned. "Oh god, she actually has to put down a table?!"

"Less talking, more making sure none of us die!" Jesse yelled, rushing straight towards the storm and juggling a crafting table.

"Jesse, don't forget!" Soren added, "Super TNT in the middle, gunpowder all around!"

Jesse lunged out of the way of a tentacle as it smashed some trees out of the ground, roots tearing, leaves flying, and sent it flying who knows how far.

Jesse was back on her feet in an instant, running as fast as her legs would allow towards the Witherstorm, before stopping underneath it, looking up at the ginormous cloud-like monster. "Ohh, I hope this works."

She didn't have time to look back at her friends, who she hoped with all of her might were okay. She slammed a crafting table onto the ground, dropping the Super TNT in the middle, and began to put gunpowder down around the Super TNT piece by piece, so fast that she was surprised she wasn't scattering everything all over the floor.

Just as she placed the last one, another roar rang through the air, and an indigo glow covered Jesse, the crafting table, and the crafting ingredients, lifting the girl into the air.

"Not good!" Jesse screamed as gravity seemed to abandon her, the Super TNT and gunpowder having started shaking, but moments later pieces floating away from each other. "Not yet!" Jesse cried out at the Witherstorm, "not yet!"

Jesse looked around, before swimming forward through the air and snagging one piece of gunpowder. "Okay, okay, got it..." She swam for another one, fingers brushing it towards her. As soon as she did that, she dodged sideways as a tree floated lazily past her, watching as she got so dangerously, insanely close to the monster's mouth that she could practically smell it- surprisingly, it smelled like burned cake and rubber. Not a good combination.

Jesse got a piece of gunpowder, before snagging the Super TNT, looking from the bomb to the gunpowder. "Oh, please, please, PLEASE don't blow up."

Jesse swam down to the crafting table, a little below her, spotting the others finishing up what looked like a Reuben with sunglasses, as a tentacle came flying at them. "LOOK OUT!" she screamed.

The tentacle smacked into Ellegaard and Magnus, the two of them going flying, Magnus smacking into the statue but Ellegaard flying at a tree- Jesse screamed again-

Everything seemed to go in slow motion all of a sudden, as Olivia bleeped into sight behind her, caught the redstone engineer, and started flying backwards from the impact-

Olivia bleeped out of sight and landed several feet away, the two girls, Olivia noticeably taller than the engineer, hitting the ground and rolling several feet before stopping, both of them slowly moving.

Jesse turned back to the Witherstorm, mere FEET from the Witherstorm's mouth, eyes both blazing red in fury. Jesse moved more quickly than she'd EVER moved in her life, setting down the TNT and the gunpowder, and the ingredients shook before condensing with a loud 'pow'. It was shaped like a normal TNT block, but it was a dark purple-gray rather than bright red, and a glowing, shimmering F on each side. Simply crafting it had demolished the table, which floated by in several pieces.

Jesse took about half a second to admire it, before grabbing it and turning around to face the Witherstorm. "Hey, eat this!" she shouted, shoving it as hard as she could.

The Formidi-Bomb floated lazily towards the beast's mouth, when suddenly she felt something snag on the back of her armor. She turned to see Axel, Lukas, Petra, Olivia, Magnus, Ellegaard, and Soren clinging to a fishing rod, the same one Olivia had taken from the loot room. Reuben was jumping up and down, and even though Ellegaard seemed to be favoring one leg more than the other, she was okay. She was okay!

Jesse let out a loud cheer as they began to reel her back, away from the huge monster, as the Witherstorm's middle head opened its mouth to grant the Formidi-Bomb entry.

Just as the jaw closed over the bomb, a massive flash of white blinded Jesse, a huge blast of light and heat that sent Jesse flying backwards towards the ground.

For a moment, gravity was gone, and everything was so white that Jesse could see nothing but the white-

Then her back slammed into the ground, her breath huffed out of her lungs, and Jesse blacked out.

With only one last thought before her conscious faded.

Is it over?

A/N: HOH MY GOD THAT WAS SO HARD TO WRITE! And surprisingly not as long as I expected.

Kaos Ruin: Yes indeedy.

rebekahtpe: Good to know xD And I don't have one.

x.X. A.L. X.x.