"Hmm," Jesse hummed after a minute or two, looking at the machine. "Redstone blocks, some pistons... wonder what this thing's supposed to be?"
"Hello? Anyone?"
Jesse turned at the familiar voice. "Olivia?" she called out.
Sure enough, Olivia turned the corner, Reuben at her feet. The Enderman hybrid teleported over to Jesse, enveloping the shorter female in a tight hug. "Oh man, am I glad to see you! I thought Reuben and I'd be lost in there forever!"
Jesse hugged Olivia back, not nearly as tightly as Axel could but still pretty tightly, before releasing her friend with a grin on her face. "It's good to see you, too." Kneeling down, she gently patted her little pink pig.
Olivia was quiet for a second, before saying, "This maze... we don't have time for this. I mean, the clock's ticking... yet here we are stuck in this elaborate puzzle."
"I know. I mean, I like puzzles, but... I know when the time is that we can DO them," Jesse added, making Olivia chuckle. "And we really need to figure out what happened to the others."
"I wonder if they found a way over this pit," Olivia mused.
The two girls turned to look at the huge, gaping pit, in silence for a moment. It was almost as if they were paying tribute to it somehow. "I think it goes down forever," Olivia said finally.
Jesse looked at the machine. "What about this thing? Could it get us across?"
Olivia looked at the machine as well, crossing her arms a bit. "Hmmnn, it's some kind of flying barge." She pressed a hand to it, examining the machine. "It would probably get us to the other side... but it's in pretty bad shape. And it's really complicated."
"You can fix it, though, right?" Jesse tilted her head at Olivia, who put a hand to her mouth. "I don't know. I think it's out of my league. I wish I'd had more time to study with Ellegaard. She could probably have fixed this right up."
"I'm sure you'll be able to figure it out," Jesse said cheerfully, smiling up at the dark-haired girl, "you're one of the smartest people I know. I'll help you."
Olivia looked at Jesse, a hopeless look in her eye. "How can you help me when I don't even know where to start?" she asked, voice sounding hollow. "This layout doesn't even make sense. I mean, what was Ivor thinking?" She slumped a bit. "Or maybe it's just me."
"You studied with Ellegaard at the age of five or six," Jesse pointed out, arching her eyebrow, "and you're one of the smartest people I know. You can definitely do this."
"How are WE supposed to do this, if the Order can't? They're the Order of the Stone, Jesse. The Order of the Stone, do you-" Olivia sighed and turned away. "Soren and Ivor are always at each other's throats. Ellegaard and Magnus argue all the time. The 'greatest warrior in history' can't remember his own name. How are we supposed to do this? How are we supposed to do anything? We're nobody."
"All I know is," Jesse said softly, "is that the world is depending on us."
Olivia shook her head, glaring at nothing in particular. "Then maybe the world is in trouble. They defeated a dragon, Jesse! Can you even name one thing we did correctly?"
Jesse walked over to Olivia, ducking down to meet Olivia's frustrated eyes. "Well, we're hybrids, first off, so we're not just human. But ignoring that... we reunited the Order of the Stone. You got Ellegaard. Axel and I got Magnus. And we both played a role with Soren."
Olivia blinked at Jesse, before her glare softened. "Yeah... I guess that's true..."
Jesse looked expectantly at the Enderman hybrid, who rolled her eyes with a soft laugh. "Agh. Alright. I'll try it one more time."
She turned back to the machine, Jesse waiting expectantly not too far from Olivia, who was examining the machine, before her eyes widened. "Wait a minute... wait a minute... I think I see what he was trying to do, here!"
"See, told you you'd figure it out!" Jesse beamed at her, Olivia smiling up at her gratefully. Standing up, she handed the spider hybrid a piston, rattling off, "Jesse, take this piston, craft a sticky piston, then place it on the other side of the barge, along with a redstone block."
Jesse nodded and gave Olivia a weak grin. "Sure."
Going over to the chest, she set down the piston and rummaged through the chest. "Hm, a slime ball... and some redstone dust. Oh, and a flint and steel. Huh." She pulled them all out, juggling them slightly- six arms were really helpful in this situation- before going over to the crafting table and working, before finishing a redstone block and the sticky piston. "All right, we're done with that," she said, holding both with a grin, before walking over to the opposite side of the machine, Olivia still doing some work on her side.
Jesse put the redstone block, then tried the sticky piston, just as Olivia finished, the redstone starting to glow.
The two of them high-fived, a grin on their face. "Hey, we did it!" Olivia exclaimed, beaming.
"We did!" Jesse agreed.
Olivia gave Jesse a small smile. "Oh, and Jesse- thanks for everything you said earlier. It really helped."
Jesse put a hand on her friend's shoulder. "Hey, no problem."
The moment was shattered by a yell of, "It must be this way!"
"Gabriel?" Olivia asked, sounding bemused.
"Run!"
"Lukas!" Jesse exclaimed.
Sure enough, Soren, Gabriel, and Lukas skidded around a corner, followed by a large horde of zombies. Reuben let out a terrified squeal.
"Everyone, get on! Onto the barge!" Jesse yelled, Olivia bleeping into the barge. Soren, Lukas, and Gabriel scrambled in, and Jesse tossed Reuben before grabbing the flint and steel and striking them, making the pistons start moving away from the edge.
Jesse backed up a step, before running forward, and lunging, catching ahold of the edge of one of the boats, dangling with one hand over the bottomless abyss.
"Oh sheesh," and Lukas leaned down and pulled the spider hybrid into the boat as Jesse kicked furiously to get in, managing to scramble in. Looking back, they watched as a zombie dumbly fell into the abyss.
"Well, at least that wasn't one of us," Lukas panted, sounding relieved. His tail kept standing up in the air, bushy as they'd ever seen it.
"Yeah," Jesse agreed, "that was- that was close. Is everyone okay?"
Soren's eyes were fixed on the lab, and he didn't move at all. "For the moment," he said, still not tearing his eyes from the lab ahead.
"Wait," Gabriel spoke suddenly, "I remember something."
Everyone turned to look at the warrior, who was looking at Soren in interest. "Didn't Ellegaard build a machine like this once?"
Soren nodded, hands clinging to the rim of the boat. "Once, in the Nether."
"Hmmm..." Gabriel's eyes, still discolored, widened. "And you were terrified of flying on it!"
"What?" Soren laughed nervously at that, hands tightening on the boat edge. "Stuff and nonsense!"
"No, no, I'm positive!" Gabriel insisted, the two Order members seeming rather oblivious to the silent giggling fit the hybrids were having in their boat. "You spend the whole ride quivering in terror!"
Jesse barely managed to eke out through her laughter, "Soren, is that true?"
"No, of course not-" he was cut off as the barge rocked a bit, making his head snap forward and his hands tighten even more on the boat edge. His knuckles were actually white.
"Well..." Gabriel chuckled slightly, "I might be mistaken."
"I liked you better when you had amnesia."
A/N: Haha poor Soren xD
angelwings: Sure, but right now all my attention is focused on this one story. And yasss (dances around) I love that song
Kaos Ruin: Pfff nice
TheRealRedGaming: Yep, pretty much. (shrugs) I guess he thought the Wither would be more impressive.
x.X. A.L. X.x.
