Jesse slammed onto her back, feeling the heat almost immediately as a couple grains of sand puffed up around her. Lukas crashed down a couple feet away, and Cassie was unfortunate enough to land on her face to get a whole mouthful of sand.
Winslow made a funny, angry sounding meow as he got up and shook a dust cloud of sand out of his fur.
"This is... oddly pretty, in a way," Jesse, putting her hands on her hips as she looked around. "I gotta wonder though, how does anyone live here?"
Petra sheepishly rubbed her head as Cassie spit sand out of her mouth. "Maybe there's... I dunno, like a redstone city over that hill? Behind that mountain?" she trailed off, rather weakly.
"Hey, it's a rare biome," Lukas said, pulling out the journal again, "that's pretty cool, at least."
"Hey, Lukas, I've been meaning to ask you, what's that?" and Jesse pointed at the small brown book in his hands.
Lukas looked up from where he was writing in the journal. "Oh! It's, ah, it's just... a journal, that I picked up back at Cassie's place." He chuckled nervously, glancing at Cassie.
Cassie peered at it. "Huh, I think it was one of the journals I planned to start writing in and then never got around to it. Never mind, at least it's being put to good use."
Lukas looked a bit startled that the red-haired girl was taking this view. "Oh- right, okay." He slipped the journal back into his pocket as Ivor looked around the place, strolling around and looking about him. "Uh, how.. how you doing, Petra?"
"So much for my hunch with that redstone portal, huh?" Petra asked, with a sigh.
"Hey, don't beat yourself up, Petra," Jesse said, looking around at the rather deserted biome, Winslow perching on Cassie's shoulder with a content meow, "we've seen worse."
"Hey, yeah!" Lukas perked up. "At least there's no fire, no squids..."
"No squids on fire," Ivor added from where he was standing.
Jesse didn't seem sure whether to laugh or look stern at that, and decided to compromise by choking.
"Maybe you're right," Petra said.
But she looked considerably more cheerful after that, as Lukas good-heartedly thumped Jesse on the back.
"Hm, would you look at that. It looks like some sort of road," Ivor hummed, looking at the ground interestedly. There was a pale, sandy path that travelled in a long, straight line.
Jesse crossed her arms. "Well, it looks like a road, no matter how shoddy the work looks... which means civilization, which means someone had to have built it," she said, thoughtfully, before giving Petra a grin. "I don't think you were that off with your hunch, Petra."
Petra looked even more cheered.
"I think you're right," Lukas said rather agreeably.
"Well," Cassie said, drawing all four sets of eyes to her and making the redhead shrink slightly, "we're not going to find out where it goes by standing around on it."
"Yeah, Rose is right," Jesse said absentmindedly.
Cassie looked at Jesse, arching her eyebrow. "'Rose'?"
"Hm?"
"You just called me Rose."
"Did I?" Jesse squinted at Cassie a bit. "I think it sounds nicer. I guess maybe it's because of your hair?"
Cassie blinked, her hand going to her hair automatically at that last part.
"It is pretty nice hair," Lukas agreed mildly.
"Let's go," Ivor said teasingly, pushing the three teenagers ahead and making Jesse stumble a bit. She shot her d- mentor a mock glare and started trotting along the makeshift road, Cassie still blinking at the new nickname Jesse had just given her. Winslow looked pleased and let out a sort of meow.
"Winslow is pleased that Cassie is socializing," Lukas reported.
"Is he really," Jesse said, giving the calico cat a rather sad backwards glance before turning back around, scanning their surroundings. "Sand. Clay. Annnd more sand."
The sound of a rock shifting came to their ears and Jesse tensed a bit. "What was that?" she asked cautiously.
Petra looked at Jesse and Lukas, looking a bit wary. "Well, I was right, there are people here... you two are the stealth people, wanna check it out?"
"Lazy," Jesse joked, thumping her friend on the head and making the Blaze hybrid stick her tongue out at her. Jesse proceeded to drop to all eights and raced across the ground, before poking her head over a lump of earth.
"What do you see?"
Jesse scanned the landscape, and then her eyes widened. "What th-"
"What? What is it?" Lukas pressed down on Jesse's shoulders to peep over her shoulder at the zombie.
The zombie that had a strange, flashing red chip on the back of its head.
"Why isn't it on fire?" Jesse mused, frowning at the zombie thoughtfully.
Lukas was quiet for a moment as he thought about that. "Maybe that's... this world's 'thing?' Zombies and other monsters come out in the daytime?" he suggested, peering at the zombie carefully. "Not that much crazier than anything else we've seen."
"We should try to get a closer look," Jesse whispered back. "Try to see what we can find out."
Lukas gave the black-haired spider hybrid a thumbs up. "Cool."
He unsheathed his claws, which made a sharp metallic sound. Jesse looked over the lump of earth to see the zombie beginning to turn, as Lukas's muscles tensed, coiling- and then he pounced, slashing with one hand before whirling around and bringing the other claw down on the zombie.
The zombie turned to face Lukas, eyes glowing red. It showed no sign of going down.
"Uh- J-Jess-"
Jesse lunged down, lower arm flicking out an axe as an upper arm yanked out her sword, and she brought down her sword on the zombie's head as hard as possible.
The zombie turned to face Jesse, who kept slashing with the sword. "Oh- oh, okay then, we've- there's something wrong with this zombie!" Jesse exclaimed, her axe arm bringing the weapon up in a deadly arc, cutting into the zombie's ribs as Jesse's sword sliced at its neck.
Claws punched right through the zombie's chest, and the zombie stood there, an interlocked mess of claws and sword and axe before exploding into dust, making Jesse drop her arms tiredly and give Lukas a fierce, tired grin. "Not what we were expecting, huh?"
A/N: Whoop- first deadly zombie. Um... yay?
120 chapters.
I-
This is the longest story I've ever stuck with.
Like holy crap! Thanks guys!
differemnt guy: Wither Skeleton. Because... uh, because they're cool. I don't know xD
Kitty7Claws: Not this episode, nope.
Toni42: Lol, thanks :) It was fun to write.
RapidSammi: Yeah, that's pretty accurate xD
rebekahtpe: Not until Episode 8, unfortunately. And awesome at writing- I mean, I love drawing, but I could make up for it with my amazing writing skills. I'd prefer having both, to be honest, though.
LittleAngelbun: (grins)
angelwings: No prob :)
TheRealRedGaming: Ah... yeah, sorry, can't do that request. (rubs head) Sorry :/
x.X. A.L. X.x.
