ONE WEEK LATER...
Jesse stared sadly at the banner with Reuben's face on it and the flowers and saplings around it, her hands in her pockets so that she could feel the things she'd stuffed inside, before turning around and giving Axel a sad smile.
He smiled at his friend, giving her shoulder a squeeze, before they walked up towards a stage, through a crowd of people who were clapping and cheering. Jesse and Olivia shared a shrug and a shy smile, Petra squeezing Jesse's shoulder as they kept walking, Jesse waving at a couple people.
Spotting Lukas with his friends in the crowd, Jesse raised her hand and waved, smiling. Lukas waved back, his ears and his tail flicking. The other Ocelots glanced at Lukas's tail, his ears, his new eyes, before turning his gaze away.
Jesse and the others climbed onto the stage, Jesse walking up to Gabriel.
Gabriel gave Jesse a sad smile, before whispering to the girl, "People used to look at me like that once, Jesse. Having my memory restored has both been a blessing... and a curse. Perhaps they deserve to know the truth about the Order."
Soren nodded agreement from where he was standing with Magnus and Ellegaard, Ivor standing towards the back of the stage, away from his friends. "Yes. All those lies we told them... perhaps we should come clean?"
Jesse gave the crowd a glance, before nodding at the Order. "You're right. They do deserve to know."
The four Order members gave Jesse a look, before they nodded and walked to the edge of the stage. Jesse stepped back, twisting her hands together nervously as Gabriel started speaking.
"We all owe a great debt to Jesse and her friends," Gabriel began.
Soren picked it up. "But we owe a debt to you people as well. Which is why..."
The two of them shared an uncomfortable glance, before Ellegaard picked up, "Which is why we need to tell you something. About the Order."
The four Order members looked back at Ivor, whose arms were crossed. Slowly, his head dipped in a nod, a gentler smile coming over his face. The four friends turned back to the crowd, Magnus saying, quietly, "The Order of the Stone... isn't what you thought it was."
Gabriel looked at the floor. "We were... frauds. We used the Command Block to falsify our legacy."
Enraged cries from the crowd, as Soren finished, softly, "We were no heroes."
"So it is time for the world to celebrate new heroes," Ellegaard picked up again, "Real heroes."
Nothing. The crowd was silent. Not even a cheer.
Jesse stepped forward, putting a hand on Gabriel and Soren's shoulders. "But they did do one thing to help us out immensely. One thing that wouldn't have been possible without their help."
The Order members all looked at Jesse, confusion dancing in their eyes.
Jesse smiled slightly, as another memory clicked back into place. "They were the motivation for us to escape."
"We have to know what happened to them!" Lukas crossed his arms, glaring at Axel. His tail was bushy, and it was flicking around. It didn't take a scientist to tell that he was angry. "We can't just sit and wait for them!"
"But then what would we do?!" Axel argued back, hissing slightly audible in his voice, "Just blow up the wall and run away?"
"We've never tried that, actually," Jesse interjected, spreading out her six arms so that the two of them wouldn't have another hissing fit at each other, "and with us being hybrids, it can't be that hard to run away. We could just use our abilities!"
A short silence, everyone looking at each other as if expecting another idea.
"Well," Petra said, slowly, "that's true. We've never TRIED running away."
Jesse nodded, her head bobbing up and down, "and what if they need us somehow? We can't just leave them behind!"
Olivia nodded, curls bouncing around. "Yeah! We need to go find them!" she agreed, eyes wide.
Jesse looked around at her friends. "So we escape tonight. Okay? Everyone who agrees says 'Aye!'"
There was a resounding 'aye' around the whole room.
"Without their befriending us, and without the time they spent with us, we wouldn't have wanted to leave," Jesse finished, squeezing their shoulders, "and for that, at least, I applaud them." She then shot a web at Ivor without looking at him and dragged him to the front too. "All of them."
A grudging round of applause from the crowd at that, before the Order gave Jesse grateful smiles and then walked off again, the cheers growing louder.
"Um... I know you think I'm up here because I saved the world. But the truth is, I couldn't have done it alone. Absolutely not. I had my friends with me. My best friends," and Jesse gave the hybrids a smile. "Axel... Olivia... Petra..." she saluted playfully to the ocelot hybrid in the crowd, "Lukas... they all stood by my side, right from the start. And, they made fun of me, when I deserved it," Jesse chuckled a bit, "but that's how we are."
"Darn right we are!" Axel nodded.
"And it's... crazy, to think that my friends and I started out in a treehouse, not even knowing what we really are... and now look!" she spread all six hands, a smile on her face, "we've been to some of the weirdest places in the world! I mean, we went to the FAR LANDS!" The crowd started cheering again, "there was this huge wall, and maze, and.. well, you just kinda had to be there," and she smiled back at her friends. They returned it.
"And yeah, we're hybrids. But in the end, it was the exact thing that saved our lives, and the world," Jesse added, looking down at her arms, before smiling and putting her lowest set on her hips, the middle set crossing over her midriff.
"But in the end... what really mattered to me was Reuben. He was probably just a pig to most people, but... he was my best friend. He was so much more," Jesse said, her voice dropping as she cupped her elbows, "and in the end, he's the one who helped me save the world."
Jesse raised a hand in the air, pumping it once with a small smile, "For Reuben!"
Cheers rose in the air, loud and resounding and deafening. Jesse winced with a small smile and covered her ears as the Order came back on stage, quietly. Magnus reached into his pocket and taking out a shining, purple-gold star that seemed to shine brighter than the sun, saying dramatically, "Jesse, this is the Nether Star that dropped when the Witherstorm was destroyed."
The engineer rolled her eyes. "Nice narrator voice," she told Magnus softly.
"Thank you," Magnus whispered back, before raising it again, "You wanna do the honors?"
Jesse turned to a structure made of iron, gold, obsidian, stained glass that was behind her. Stepping forward, to the dark blue block in the center of the structure, she set it down. She quickly backed up as it started spinning, before all eight stained glass blocks burst into glowing light, sending beams of red, green, white, turquoise, and blue light soaring into the sky.
Gabriel pulled out the amulet, which Jesse had returned to him upon his mentioning that Ellegaard and Soren wanted to do something with it. "My friends," he announced, loudly, "I am proud to introduce to you..."
He placed the amulet in Jesse's hands, and Jesse felt the amulet glow brighter than the stars in the night sky as it landed in her hands, "The New Order of the Stone!"
The crowd cheered again, Jesse beaming and stepping over to stand next to her friends, giving Lukas a grin as she stood on the stage.
Tomorrow was a new day. And it might be harder going through it with one missing friend.
But Jesse would be ready for whatever it threw at her.
Jesse put her lowest set of hands in her pockets, feeling the thing again, and her expression grew a bit more somber.
Just as soon as she'd gone to do this.
A/N: AND EPISODE FOUR IS OFFICIALLY FINISHED! There will be a couple filler chapters before we start Episode 5. And by 'a couple', I mean like two.
Kaos Ruin: I'm assuming you didn't read the spoiler? And I actually made someone cry? Like... how?!
MissyMattingly: Well I'm glad you're happy for it xD
RapidSammi: Duly warned.
x.X. A.L. X.x.
