A (mostly) original chapter!
im trying to find a consistent update schedule but i just dont think its going to happen. i think its just gonna be whenever i fnish writing a chapter, ill post a new chapter, and i finished editing ch 4 for the most part and writing ch 5, which has only been half edited, so heres chapter 3 i guess lol
its a little bit shorter than the previous ones, but is by no means SHORT-short. ive got about 6k words here. I switched around perspectives a bit more, and had difficulty connecting things back together so i just put an indent at the start of the sentence, usually when moving between locations different characters are at. pay no attention to the unclear timeline. just pretend lukas spent like an hour getting food or that jesse and co are fast builders ksjgfhkh
theres some axel & jesse friend time here, but dont confuse it as Axel/Jesse.
Jesse sat across Axel on an expansive wooden plank high atop the tower they'd constructed. He was emptying his pockets in front of her, pulling out firework after firework and excitedly shoving every single one in her face.
"I've got cactus-glowstone, beetroot-lapis, allium-lilac, sunflower-plume, you name it. The sky's gonna erupt into rainbows—no, the sky will become a rainbow, and everything's gonna smell vaguely of beetroot. It's gonna be so cool, Jesse."
"Woah, I hadn't expected you to make so much. This is great, Axel!"
"Explain to me again why you feel the need to blow up a beetroot?" Olivia called from below them, fingers smoothing out tangled redstone wire as she worked to connect the repeater with their dispensers.
"I'm not blowing up a beetroot. I'm blowing up pieces of a beetroot. I needed the color red for a lot of these!" He whined.
"Are you whining?" Olivia asked, amusement in her voice.
"I do not whine," He whined. "And you know, if you'd wanted something different like roses or peonies or whatever, you could've just told me until waiting the day of. Besides, cooked beetroot is delicious."
"Yeah, when Olivia makes it at home with other vegetables and spices. I don't think singed, gunpowder beetroot is gonna be on anyone's top list of smells." Jesse said, picking up one of the firework rockets and inspecting it up close.
"Tomato, tomah-to. All I'm saying is that it's definitely gonna give us that extra wow factor to win if the Creeper doesn't cut it." He took the rocket from her hand, loading it into a dispenser slot and ripping a bite from his beef jerky, stealing a few sunflower seeds from Jesse before getting his hand slapped away by her.
"The Creeper's totally gonna cut it! We didn't build these dumb dispensers up so high just to not win!" Olivia said. She shimmied around an oak support beam and jumped onto the ladder, climbing up to join them. She sat down with a loud sigh next to Jesse, legs stretching out against the wood as she closed her eyes at the cool breeze the afternoon brought. Jesse leaned over and handed Olivia her bag of dehydrated peaches and bottled water, which she both graciously accepted.
"So, taking a break? Or all finished down there." Jesse asked through a mouthful of jerky she'd swiped from Axel in revenge, pointing to the repeater below them with a shoe-less toe.
"Done, I think." She said, yanking off her red stained work gloves and hanging her legs over the side of their build, drowning her water to the halfway point and wiping her mouth with her wrist. "All that's left is the Creeper."
"Hey," Jesse nudged her with her shoulder, "Thanks for being so great. I know you told Axel and I to stay away from you and the redstone stuff while you set it up, but It must've kinda sucked to be working like that while we were just sorta up here."
Olivia smiled, pushing sweaty curls out of her face that had escaped her twin braids, "Don't worry about it, we all had our parts. You did the layout and Creeper Plan adjustments, Axel did the heavy lifting, and I carried the entire team by single handedly taking care of the redstone."
She laughed when Jesse shoved her, stuffing her gloves in her pocket as she went to tear open her paper bag, taking a thin slice of dried peach.
"How's Reuben? I heard him practically screeching when he couldn't come up the tower with you earlier."
"He was just worried and felt like, probably more than a little left out. Hold on." Jesse cupped a hand over her mouth and yelled, using her other hand to wave her fingers down at the pig who was sitting on a patch of grass in the shade. "Hey Reuben! Hey!"
He didn't notice her, and she rolled her eyes, digging her hand into her pack and grabbing one of the last few chestnuts, throwing it to the ground to get his attention. Reuben merely scurried out, grabbed it in his mouth, and was back in the shade without once looking up.
"Well he seems a little upset."
"Nah. He was a man on a mission, out to get that nut. I wouldn't take it personally." Axel said, slowly reaching over Jesse to place a piece of jerky on Olivia's leg and take a slice of peach in return, like he expected her to bite him—understandable given the events of the day.
Olivia picked up the salted meat, pulling it into strips down the middle and languidly chewing on a lean strand of beef. "He'll get over himself. I think he just knows you're keeping the last chestnuts to yourself."
"Sunflower seeds by themselves aren't very filling, and I can only steal so much food from Axel." Jesse said, bringing her legs up and crossing them defensively. Olivia smiled and placed a wide peach slice over Jesse's thigh much like Axel had done.
"There. A nutritious meal."
"Wowee. Thanks."
Olivia stacked two more flat slices on top, Jesse grabbing them when they began to slide. "All right, all right, I'm not asking you to give me all of your stuff. I do want my appetite worked up enough after this that the food stalls won't even know what hit them. Those baked potatoes and pumpkin pies don't stand a chance."
"Yeah, say it," Axel said, holding up his water bottle. "I'm looking forward to those little honey shortbread cookies.
"Ohohoh, those are so good." Olivia kicked her heels against the wood plank at the thought. "And this is the year I get you two to try the caramelized squid."
The two friends gave varying degrees of protesting groans.
"I swear they're delicious! You just never give them a chance!"
"That's because no one but you would want to eat a squid on a stick. Now if it was fried? I could get behind that, but caramelized? No thanks, like who even does that to a poor squid." Jesse said, biting into a soft slice of dried peach and waving her hand around as she spoke, "Like, can you imagine being a squid and minding your own business, and then one day someone catches you and has the audacity to caramelize you of all things."
Olivia shoved the rest of the jerky in her mouth, "The taste just grows on you, I don't know what else to say—but there's no need to bring whoever that squid was before they were dead into this."
"Whoever the squid was—?"
"Oh, no! A firework's dispenser?" Aiden yelled from his own, much shorter tower, cutting their conversation short, "I'm so scared!"
"Don't even look at him," Olivia muttered, resting the crook of her arm over her knee.
"Y'know, it kinda looks like something my nephew would build in his backyard. You took the easiest possible thing and managed to mess it up!" He said sardonically, ignoring Lukas who'd turned to give him a stern look.
The Ocelot's build was eye catching, and for the most part, clean and compact. Between four dark oak support beams, red sandstone served as a channel for the redstone wire, contrasting nicely with the shimmering prismarine securing the repeaters. Just where had they even gotten prismarine? The sun was casting colors onto the ground through the stained glass blocks pressed into place on sticky pistons where they would be intermittently pushed into the light of the beacon, an offshoot of complicated but tidy redstone which would make that happen rigged around the base.
Next to them, their build looked like an old ramshackle watchtower that had been stripped of its walls. Raw oak blocks and planks, stark wooden beams with plain sandstone supports, a basic smooth stone base, and a single redstone repeater in the center with wires that reflected a red glimmer against any close surface. At the top was a narrow platform with two dispensers positioned evenly on either side. Redstone wire twisted and turned over the beams, connecting the two with the repeater.
"You worry about your build, and we'll worry about ours. Let's just be mature about this, I'd like to enjoy my break without any fighting." Jesse called over tartly, standing onto her bare feet.
He raised his hands in mock defense. "Hey, I'm just saying. That's some real questionable structural integrity and shoddy redstone work you got there, Jess."
Before she could open her mouth to retort, Olivia had stood up, face flushed dark in anger.
"Okay, Five things. First of all? Do not call her Jess! Second, our build is fine! Jesse drew up the layout herself and made last minute modifications while still keeping safety a top priority. Third, the world would sooner end before Axel here built something that wasn't sturdy as all hell. Fourth? I did every bit of the redstone work myself, down to making my own wires which I can promise are leagues above whatever cheap stuff you have.
Fifth, maybe instead of messing with us, you should be checking how you're connecting your own redstone before you have to rewire your whole system! I can see from all the way up here an absolutely rookie mistake! And way to waste the construction of your entire build by using a bunch of flashy materials instead of practical durability! That thing's going to fall apart in a matter of months!"
"What did I just say, Olivia!" Jesse said, voice high.
"He started it!"
"Hey, I laid down that redstone myself, there's nothing wrong with it! Maybe try calming down!" Aiden yelled over.
"You calm down!"
"I AM CALM!"
Lukas rubbed his face as the two went back and forth at each other, looking across and meeting Jesse's eyes from where she stood on her own build. They shared a quick, silent look of mutual suffering before turning away to their respective teammates.
"Let's just chill out, Aiden."
Just moments after he spoke, he heard Jesse begin to yell: "You need to embark on an arctic expedition! To find some semblance of chill, 'Liv!"
"Oh, don't 'let's just chill out Aiden' me! My redstone is fine!" Aiden's voice cracked, making Maya snicker from where she'd been watching the scene fold out, sitting with Gill.
"It's just redstone, it's not a big deal if you made a mistake so long as we fix it."
"Just red—Just Redstone?!" He spluttered, hands seizing in front of him up like he wanted to grab Lukas by the shirt and shake him. "Fine, check it then! See what I care! Since you're so sure I made a mistake!"
"I didn't say anything even remotely close to that."
"You were thinking it!"
Lukas just shook his head and jumped down, bending his knees from the impact. He looked over their long line of redstone circuits, bending over to examine the finer details of areas where wires were pressed up close to each other. Pressing the stone button that would move the stained glass over the beam, he watched the sparkling lines of rolled redstone turn on like a wave of light washing over them, only to stop short just a quarter away from their beacon. He frowned, turning it off and looking over the rig Aiden had laid out over planks of dark wood, puzzled. He heard Gill drop down behind him. Lukas turned towards him, the other looked nervous.
"Hey, try checking the repeaters on the left side, I noticed something there earlier but didn't want to say anything in front of Aiden… you know how he gets." He said, worrying his hands.
"Thanks, Gill. Will do." Lukas smiled, clapping a hand over his thick shoulder. He gave a small smile back, climbing back up to Maya who gave his arm a few gentle pats, speaking to him quietly.
Ducking under the beacon's supports and hopping over the sandstone base, he emerged, looking over the repeaters and instantly seeing the problem.
"Hey, Aiden? She's right, we missed a repeater, and it's making the redstone disconnect on the south side." He said, looking up to the fireworks tower and shielding his eyes from the sun, ignoring Aidens "What?!"
"Hey, uh, Olivia right? Thanks, we appreciate the tip!"
Up by the dispensers, Jesse swatted Olivia's arm. "Way to go, 'Liv."
"Oh leave me alone! Did I not say just this morning that there's only so much I can take?"
"No?" Axel turned, looking at her in confusion.
"Don't worry about it Axel, it was before you got back at the treehouse," Jesse said, holding out a hand in his direction, then looking to Olivia. "I literally can't believe the two of you got into a shouting match over redstone, and then helped them out of spite."
"Hey, thanks for all that nice stuff you said," Axel said, easily diffusing the situation and pulling Olivia down, making her sit back next to Jesse.
"Yeah, thanks for getting mad on our behalf, I guess. Like, thanks for protecting our honor."
"Personally my honor's never felt safer in its life."
"You're welcome, and I did mean every word. I was mad, but I wasn't just saying whatever I needed to prove our build was fine." Olivia said, bringing a leg up to her chest and crossing her arms around it.
"Aw." Axel pressed a hand over his chest.
"You shut it."
Jesse smiled at her, retrieving her bag of sunflower seeds at the request of her rumbling stomach. "So we're all cooled down then? Did you return from your arctic expedition? Or is the pain of having your redstone work insulted too much to bear."
"Maybe." Olivia sniffed.
"Ah, she's fine."
"Good, then we can start work on the creeper after we've eaten. That all right with you guys?"
Olivia gave a nod, feeling for her bag of food behind her and setting it in her lap. Axel quickly held up both his pointer fingers in sudden realization.
"Oh, oh, hold on. I had this sweet idea before Aiden interrupted food time." He pointed to their snacks with his hand, "If I may, ladies?"
Jesse silently pushed her bag to him, leaning back on her palms as Olivia slowly slid her own bag over, eyeing him.
"What are you planning, Axel." She said, suspicion dripping over her words like a thick honey.
"You'll see, just hang on." He grinned, turning his back to them with all three of their foodstuffs.
"If you're eating everything I'm kicking you off this tower." Jesse teased, poking him in the back.
"I'm not! Just be patient."
They could hear paper rustling, and Jesse leaned to the side, trying to get a look. He turned around, proudly handing them back their snacks.
"...Okay?" Olivia looked at her bag then to him.
"Open them."
Jesse did as he said, her face breaking into a smile, "Oh, nice! I should've thought of this while packing!"
Her bag contained an even amount of jerky, peaches, and sunflower seeds placed neatly around each other. She looked up at him with a smile, pulling out a stick of jerky.
"Thanks, Axel. Once again, you prove you are the most practical out of all of us."
"What? What is it?" Olivia asked, opening her own bag.
"Nothin', just a properly balanced snack." He said, crumpling up the cloth the salted meat had been wrapped in, ripping a bite off the single piece he kept.
"Um, no. Pause. Axel, what about you? You can't just not eat."
He waved her off. "Nah, I'm fine. I'm probably gonna eat my body weight in food tonight, anyway."
"I'm gonna have to disagree there. The first part at least, not the second—you do you; unless it's giving us all your food to eat while you sit there and starve for the next hour." Jesse said, snatching the crumpled ball from beside him before he could grab it, moving closer to Olivia who seemed to have the same idea as her and smoothed it out. They filled the square of canvas so they all had the same portion size. She placed it out over the wood between herself and Axel.
"Guys, I'm telling you, I don't need any." He said earnestly.
"You literally put together the foundation for this thing yourself." She rapped the wood under her with her knuckles, "Like, you did so much heavy lifting today. You need calories! Protein! I'm not gonna watch you pass out while you're up here and then roll the wrong way and fall to your death just because you decided it would be a good idea to give us all your food and not think about yourself."
"Specific but true. Now eat up buttercup!" Olivia smiled.
He grumbled something about Reuben being gone and him being the one babied, but placed the food in his lap, downing the seeds in one mouthful
"Chew, jeez!" Jesse scolded.
Axel leaned over her and made a loud, over the top noise of irritation through his nose, making Jesse snort with laughter and push him off her.
"Quit it! Eat your food, you dork!"
They sat in silence, all eating rapidly to fill their empty stomachs. Olivia hadn't touched her breakfast that morning she was so nervous, Axel had been busy setting the support wires for Reuben's mask, ensuring the crocheted dragon head wouldn't collapse, and Jesse slept through it.
The short girl emptied her water and set the glass bottle down over their empty bags with a satisfying breath, wiping her mouth. Blowing out a theatrical sigh, she stretched herself over Olivia's shoulder, nearly closing her eyes. She watched the rolling lava from a cobblestone generator a few booths away, letting out a yawn as the breeze ruffled and toyed with her hair.
"Move," Olivia mumbled, pushing away.
"Nooo…" Jesse whined as she was forced to sit up. Olivia pulled her legs up and rolled onto her side, using Jesse's lap as a headrest.
"The pillow cannot become the pillee, it doesn't work like that Olivia."
"Pillee?" Axel asked.
"Yeah, like the person who's using a pillow. Now scooch." She said, pulling at his arm until he moved closer. Jesse was draped over his side in a matter of seconds, Olivia grunting irritably at the movement.
The three sat in comfortable, uninterrupted silence before Axel spoke.
"Jesse. You've got a little friend." He whispered.
"You're not little Axel, you're like six feet five inches tall. You've hit your head on every doorway in Beacontown." She mumbled.
"No, no, on your leg."
"Olivia?" She asked, confused.
"No—hold on." He reached out to her calf, gently plucking something from the surface of her overalls and bringing his finger to her eye-level. "A little millipede friend."
"Aw…"
Lukas sat with an elbow on his knee and a fist under his chin, watching Maya and Gill wrestle each other with Aiden, who was leaning against a pillar. It appeared the whole competition had silently agreed to hunker down for a break, the group of three across from them seemingly the start of it. He wondered if they knew how loud they were, especially from such a height. They were currently discussing what sounded like millipedes. At least, Jesse and the large boy were. They were leaning against each other like it was the most casual thing in the world. Olivia appeared knocked out, head in Jesse's lap as she dozed.
"Okay then. Let's discuss—I mean, like, pros and cons."
"Pros and cons. I hate the number of legs that there are." The taller of the two said, idly pulling on a lock of Jesse's dark hair.
"Bad to look at." She added
Lukas saw him nod in agreement, "Bad to look at."
He puzzled over the three's relationship. Their chemistry as a team was undeniable. But as a group of friends they argued and yelled, like his own was prone to do; but unlike his team, they were inseparable. You could rarely see one without another. He hadn't believed Aiden when he told him they all lived together in a single treehouse, but it explained how domestic they could act around one another; unafraid to very publicly fuss over each other and comfortable enough that casual touches seemed the norm: hugs, messing with hair, leaning against a shoulder, falling asleep on another, the list went on. It was less like a friend group and more like a family. What kind of family, he wasn't sure, but Aiden and the other's made wild and often uncomfortable guesses about them to laugh over. He'd wondered more than once what it would be like if he and his friends shared the same dynamic, or what their own dynamic must look like to Jesse's group. Probably terrible. He was fully aware of the unnecessary dichotomy between them, and he could admit most of it, if not all, came from Aiden.
He had a saturated, brash personality that didn't mesh well with others, especially Jesse's. It certainly didn't help that he seemed to dial it up to one hundred whenever she was around. He didn't know what Aiden's beef was with her, but he tried to stay out of it. He would prefer peace, even neutral tolerance, but he usually left people's problems to themselves, never getting majorly involved unless he was sure he could deescalate whatever the Issue was.
The relaxed conversation above had descended into shouting, and "MILLIPEDES ARE COOL AND AHEAD OF THEIR TIME!" Was the last audible thing from the tail end of the argument before Olivia woke up and screeched at them.= to shut up.
He hid a laugh through a cough. Aiden must have been listening to them too, as he rolled his eyes and made a show of conking his head against the wooden beam behind him.
"Do they ever shut up?" He groaned, thwacking his head against the hard surface one last time before lolling it towards Lukas. "I swear, they're more annoying by the year."
Lukas shrugged. Listening to them talk was better than the grunts and yells from the impromptu wrestling match below them between Maya and Gill. They were beginning to roll too close towards the redstone torches lighting up their vector circuit.
"Hey, careful not to mess up the redstone, guys. Aiden and I just fixed it." He called down.
"Careful not to mess up your hair!" Maya shot back, nasally laugh cut short by Aiden's glare.
"Er, yeah, you got it, Lukas." She said, Gill pinned beneath her and mutely banging his fist against the ground.
"Thanks."
"No problem!" She said, wrapping her legs around Gill's middle and vaulting him over with a yell.
Lukas winced and found himself watching, waiting for Gill to yield so he could pull Maya off him if need be. Aiden soon joined him, crouching down with a bored look as he drummed his fingers against the leather of his jacket. They remained this way for a period before Lukas noticed just how quiet their neighbors had grown and looked back to booth five. He stood, his light eyebrows raised in a look of bewilderment.
"What? What is it?" Aiden asked, looking up at him from where he had settled.
"Check it out." He pointed to the heaps of green wool blocks, watching Jesse as she held one of the de-sized, floating cubes in her palm, spinning it with a finger. Axel and Olivia jumped from the ladder to join her, her runt pig coming up to her side. She leaned down and showed the pig the rotating block. What was the pig's name again? He swore he knew it. Ribbon? Rumon? He shook his head to himself, it wasn't important.
"Just what the hell are they doing?" Aiden stood, absentmindedly shaking Lukas's shoulder like the answer would fall out of the other's jacket, "I thought those clowns were done."
"I don't know, so did I."
"Help me get Gill and Maya separated! We need the group for this."
"Need the group for what, exactly?"
'Needing the group' apparently translated to 'Get everyone together and hide behind the extra sandstone so we can scope the situation out.'
Lukas sat with half-lidded eyes, watching Aiden pull their friends into peeking over the red sandstone, looking at Jesse's group cover their tower in blocks of green wool.
"Guys," Lukas said dully.
"Just a second Lukas, I need to know what they're trying to play at," Aiden whispered loudly. "And would you get down! You're giving us away!"
He sighed, looking up at the sky with a silent why me before crouching to his friends' levels.
"Aiden, man, I don't think they're trying to pull the wool over our eyes—pun entirely unintended—I think they're just decorating their build. Leave them to it, our beacon's not going to lose just because they decided to break out some wool."
"He's got a point," Maya whispered.
"Yeah, yeah you're right I guess. I'm just… I'm curious."
"Well, you guys have your stakeout then, I'm going to get us some food. Sound good?" Lukas said, standing and brushing off his jeans.
"Dude, that's more than good. Take some of my emerald chips if you need." Aiden looked back with a grin, pointing to his drawstring bag with a thumb.
"Don't worry about it, I can pay for you guys." He said, throwing his legs over the red sandstone blocks and exiting their booth.
Jesse took out another wool block from her Inventory, the small cube jittering as it expanded in her hands and she plunked down the soft material. She and Olivia were putting the Creeper's middle together as Axel made the feet, all agreeing early on to work on the face together. Opening her inventorying with a flick of her hand to check how she was doing in terms of wool, she was down to about three blocks. She swung over and around to reach the ladder, sliding down the side grips and deftly landing on the ground. She sent Axel a smile as she wandered over to the chest, humming to herself as she kicked it open and dug around the orderly wool. She'd noticed earlier her hands had begun to stain green, but it wasn't like she had the time or resources to just take off and scrub her hands raw.
Pulling out the least splotchy blocks of the wool, She closed the chest, stopping when she saw Lukas pass by their booth. He lifted his hand up in greeting, letting it linger in the air as he passed before sticking his hand in his pocket. He abruptly rushed off before she could even consider ignoring him, his ears pink.
Jesse rolled her eyes. She did not need this today.
She approached Axel, who was looking over the feet, and slapped his back in quick succession with both hands excitedly, "Aw man, that looks so good! We're gonna win this for sure!"
"Yeah, we will! It really turned out to be a happy little mistake that the dye job was so bad and the blocks didn't come out a uniform green. Adds texture."
"It does?" She asked, stepping back to get a better view and look up at their progress for the first time. It did have the illusion of a Creeper's real skin, all except for her section which she had been trying to keep a consistent green color.
"Now Jesse, I mean this in the nicest way possible, but your area's throwing the whole thing off."
"I'm willing to agree, but how can you mean that in any kind of nice way?" She said, voice rising an octave as she made her way back over to the chest to grab wool in variations of green, fully intending on redoing her work.
"I just do." He shrugged, "I didn't mean it in, like, a rude way."
"Okay, fair. I guess." She mixed the new greens into her inventory, shutting the chest as she absently inspected her green hands. She then proceeded to slump her head and shoulders back, making a whining noise in the back of her throat, "I've gotta do it all again."
"You don't need to. I mean it's not ruining the theme any." Axel said, stopping her with a hand as she began heading back to the side ladder. "You just gotta… y'know, pop a few blocks out here and there and replace them with a different green. Easy."
She heaved a sigh of relief, leaning forwards against Axel's arm with her forehead, "I'd be dead without you. I would have just died right now if you hadn't been here. All that green took me so long to place."
She moved back, holding her hands out, "I mean look at my fingers!"
"Hey, you're not special." He chortled, holding out his own green hands. Jesse slapped the pair together.
"Whatever. I say I am. I've been messing with like, exclusively the greenest wool I could find in the chest, so I win the idiot contest today."
"Um, no way am I letting you take my crown that easy."
"Guys!" Olivia yelled from above, "Let's get to it! I want to finish this soon, almost everyone is done besides us!"
"You heard the lady Jess, get going."
"Shut up, Axel." She snorted, making her way back to the latter she climbed up to Olivia.
"So, can I ask why it was Axel who told me I was setting the wool down wrong and not you, the person working right next to me?" She asked, attempting to itch her nose without her green hands touching her face.
"I figured you were doing your own thing and didn't want to throw off your groove."
"Okay, that's not—Woah! What is up with your hands?"
Olivia held up the appendages in question. The tips of her fingers had become a pitch black.
"Oh, turns out if you've got green on your hand and try to handle redstone without gloves, you're gonna have a case of concentrated pigments mixing on your hands—literally." She was looking over her hands like she was admiring a manicure.
"Was there an issue with the redstone?" Jesse asked, taking a hand and inspecting it for herself. It was a bit creepy—like someone had airbrushed the tips of her hands and fingernails a monochrome black. "I mean, you were using gloves earlier."
"No, no issues. I took a break to make about a dozen or so solid redstone blocks."
"What? Why?"
Olivia held a black finger to her lips, winking. "You'll see."
"Come on! Tell me!"
"Nope. You'll have to wait if you want to see my cool idea."
On the other side of the fenced area, past the booths and stage, Lukas stood huddled in a cramped, wooden shop. He shook the emerald chips in his hand, sweltering in the crowd of bodies despite having tied his jacket around his waist and tugging at the front of his short-sleeved shirt, and the cool weather outside.
Hearing the call of his order number, he stepped forward, sliding several emerald coins across the counter to the stall owner. He waved a hand at the offered changed, taking the four servings of sweet rolls wrapped in fat maple leaves from the counter, balancing them close against his chest. He thanked the man, folding his old coin bag into his jean's pocket before turning and leaving.
He ducked his head under the cloth hanging from the entrance to the makeshift front patio of the small, wooden tea hut nestled between two trees, exiting the packed shop and heading back the way he came.
The smooth cut stones of the square the building competition was centered near were lined with more food and game stalls than there had been that morning, people slowly flooding in and vendors setting up their booths and stalls. Weaving through the crowd and giving apologetic looks to those he bumped shoulders with, he broke through into a considerably more sparse path, featuring only two or three game stalls currently occupied by children. Taking a moment to breathe, he leaned against a tree, feeling the rough bark press into his back.
He pinched his eyes shut. He was still embarrassed. Embarrassed over thinking a threat had been playful flirting, a runt pig scaring the living daylights out of him, and then whatever that wave was he'd given Jesse on his way here.
Lukas pressed and hand over his eyes, just wanting to forget all of it and go back to knowing Jesse as a distant acquaintance. It's not like he'd ever been particularly into her, then or now. His friends had made fun of him endlessly for actually thinking she was flirting with him. He didn't know what he was thinking. It was all enough for him to let a crucial error be overlooked in their beacon's redstone.
He took a measured breath, brushing back a few loose strands of hair from his forehead and pushing off from the tree. He walked the rest of the way back in silence, but his thoughts kept falling into memories of every embarrassing thing he'd ever done in his life.
Attention elsewhere, his eyebrows knitted themselves together when he walked into a large shadow. He scrunched his nose up in confusion and looked, balking and nearly dropping the food in his arms at the massive, woolen Creeper that had risen high before him. He rushed over to his booth, their beacon setup nothing but a tiny trinket compared to the build next to theirs.
Jesse smiled to herself, scouring the side of the Creeper and pushing herself up from the latter, accepting a hand from Axel as she stood. They looked to Olivia, who gave a confident nod of her head, placing her hand over the lever that would activate the dispensers behind them. They had waited nearly an hour for the sun to begin setting before deciding to set off the fireworks. In that time, Olivia had added blocks of redstone behind the wool, lighting up the middle of the Creeper with the Illusions of sparks jumping off of it like it was getting ready to explode.
"And now—the moment of truth." Jesse looked past Axel to Olivia, giving her a thumbs up as Reuben ran out past the base of the Creeper for a better view of the display.
"Here goes nothing." She said. Axel and Jesse turned to look straight up as Olivia hit the switch.
Sudden, burning colors etch themselves into Jesse's eyes as fiery sparks whipped the sky, bursting through the sunset. The colors painted themselves on a canvas of deep orange and Jesse was so glad they'd waited until late evening. The air took on a tincture of gunpowder, a smell that would have taken Jesse back to bonfire nights if it hadn't been for the potent smell of beetroot. She had to look away as residue rained down, catching in her eyes and making them water.
"Oh man, this looks so cool. We'll win this for sure." Axel said, grinning widely.
Olivia coughed and held her nose, tapping Axel's shoulder to draw his attention to a gathering crowd. "The Creeper was definitely the right way to go."
"Yep, people are looking at us." Jesse sang, scanning the small crowd of whooping onlookers.
"Good build, man!" One hollered, a general chorus of agreement spreading through the crowd in the form of fists pounding the air.
She noticed Aiden skirting around the sides of the crowd, glowering as he stood back and cupped his hands to his mouth, "It's just a bunch of dyed wool!"
"You're just a bunch of dyed wool!" Axel yelled back.
Aiden looked around at the people who had gathered to watch the fireworks, growling in frustration and scanning his surroundings when his eyes landed on two blocks of stone containing lava that acted as waste disposal. He slammed his fist over the closest front block, sucking it into his inventory with a feigned, "Whoops!"
The base of Reubens wings had lost their solidity through the course of the day, and they dragged behind him limply. He made his way through the crowd, basking in the petting and occasional cooing people would give him as he passed by. He plopped down on his rear just outside the booth, butt wagging against the ground joyfully as he watched the bursts of color in slowly but steadily darkening skies, the sun inching its way to the horizon.
An unanticipated searing heat reached his skin, and he jumped up with a screeching squeal, running in a fast loop and spotting both the lava and his flaming wings. He ran in a panic, screeching as Jesse spotted him.
"Reuben! Reuben's on fire!" She yelled, hurrying along the thin head of the creeper and jumping down the ladder two steps at a time, "Reuben, no! Come back!"
Shrieking, Reuben careened around the path, heading towards an open side gate that exited into the west woods.
"It was Aiden, that punk!" Axel bellowed from above, looking to him as Aiden backed away from the spreading lava.
"The lava! It's getting closer!"
"It'll ruin the build!"
"But we need to get that thing off Reuben! It's making him run in a blind panic. He's going to leave the area and be completely lost, he doesn't know those woods!" Olivia shouted.
Jesse looked up as Olivia and Axel made their way down the ladder, Axel jumping down at the halfway point followed by Olivia, who landed on top of him. She rose to her feet, standing on his back and looking to Jesse with palpable distress.
"You guys stay and save the build, I'll get Reuben." She called, running to grab her pack and buckle it tight over her chest, thrusting her training sword down into the tool strap on her overalls and jumping into her boots.
"On it." Axel groaned from the ground, shakily giving her a thumbs up.
"We got it covered Jesse, be careful, it's almost dark out."
"I'll see you in a bit!" She yelled back, forcefully shoving Aiden out of her way as she ran after Reuben.
"We'll meet up with you at EnderCon!" Olivia called, falling back with a yell as Axel got to his feet without warning.
i had fun with this chapter even tho the last part was difficult because i had no idea how to write down such a short scene into the story and not make it look like bad pacing. anyway, i really love reviews on what you guys think, even just a few words is enough. see u next time for a 9k petra chapter lmao
also yes! there was a bad word in this one. two of them to be exact. im trying to keep my usual cursing down but im allowing myself some stuff thats been said in canon dialogue
