Foreword:
Whew…Yeah… I've been busy. :/ And—Yeah, I'm not gonna make any excuses.
Well, here it is! The next chapter! I could've sworn I had something more to say on the matter, but I've been away from this for a while because of life stuff. I apologize in advance because this chapter is pretty slow, mainly because this part in the game was really slow, but I did a pretty good job of making it go even slower. I at least hope I did an okay job of making it interesting. Well, hope you enjoy! :)
Chapter 4 – Calling Names
««««« … »»»»»
"Did we make it?" Jesse gasped out, leaning against the check-in stand.
"Hmm, let me see…" said the lady running the stand, looking annoyingly calm. She checked her watch and took an oddly long amount of time doing so before she looked back up with a smile. "With fifteen minutes to spare."
Jesse sighed in relief while Olivia and Axel gave each other a high-five.
"A little frazzled, are we?"
"Uh. Yeah," Jesse mumbled, taking in the area around them. The forest atmosphere invoked an air of creativity, and the slight overcast from the morning rain made the weather perfect for building. Nothing harder than trying to build under an angry sun.
"Forget to set your daylight sensor?"
Jesse looked at the lady and blinked. He assumed her comment had something to do with redstone, but before he could ask, Olivia happily stepped in. "Some people use a sort of redstone clock to wake themselves up early with note blocks or lights. She's asking if we slept in."
"Sounds like torture," Axel grumbled.
"Bravo!" the lady praised. "No one ever gets that joke. You must be very good with redstone."
Olivia blushed slightly and looked down at the floor. "Oh, not really."
"And modest. You know, you remind me of my daughter, Gloria, in Redstonia. Very talented girl. She even looks a bit like you. Of course, Redstonia has a bad habit of rooting the humility out of people. I guess it's all the stuck-up engineers there."
"You've been to Redstonia?" asked Olivia.
"Once or twice," the lady said with a smile. "Just to visit."
"I've always wanted to go there. What's it like?"
She shrugged. "Lot's of sand, lots of redstone, lot's of red sandstone."
Jesse yawned.
"Wow!" exclaimed Olivia. "That sounds awesome!"
"It is pretty nice, yeah."
"I would love to meet Ellegaard."
"Aah, so would my daughter. I think you two would get along."
"Is she good with redstone too?"
"I would think so! She learned from the best!" she chuckled. "Kidding."
Jesse yawned louder.
"What have you made?"
"Well…"
Jesse's brain practically turned to mush when the lady started listing off a dozen of what he assumed were machines of some kind. While Olivia looked genuinely interested, even enraptured by this technobabble, Axel rolled his eyes and mouthed something to Jesse. Either 'girls' or 'nerds'. Either one would have been appropriate.
Finally, Jesse loudly cleared his throat, and Olivia looked back at him.
"Oh, right. We'd better, uhh… yeah."
The lady chuckled again. "All righty, then." She grabbed her quill and put it to her paper. "Team name?"
Jesse looked at her, stupefied as Axel read his mind. "Team name?"
"You didn't hear? Gabriel the Warrior wants to announce the winning team at the keynote tonight, so we're having every team pick a name this year."
Suddenly, the pressure was on, and Jesse couldn't help but think that in this respect, the Ocelots had already beaten them.
"We are not ready for this," Axel spoke up after a moment of silence.
"So much for losing anonymously," added Olivia, though Jesse couldn't remember a single time any of them had mentioned that. He loathed to think that was her best case scenario.
"Umm… Could we—have just a minute?" Jesse asked.
Still smiling, the lady nodded her head. "I don't see why not."
Jesse smiled back, then led the three of them off to a nearby tree where they huddled together.
"We've never had to choose a team name before," Olivia said.
"Yeah, yeah, I know," said Jesse. "Any ideas?"
Axel and Olivia looked at each other and then back at him with embarrassed smiles that said, 'it's all you, Jesse.'
Jesse bit his lip and averted his eyes, thinking.
"How about, the 'Order of the Pig'?" he said dramatically.
Reuben gave a pig-laugh. Olivia raised an eyebrow and she and Axel each spoke in turn.
"Really?"
"Is it meant to tie us to Reuben, or are you making fun of me?"
No luck there. "The 'Dead Enders'?"
"Woah. Sounds like a name for pirates," drawled Axel.
"What does it even mean?" questioned Olivia.
Jesse grunted in frustration. While Olivia seemed perfectly happy shooting down ideas she didn't even help come up with, and neither of them seemed to have any of their own, Jesse thought hard for another moment. Just when he was about to give up, something came to him that he was sure they would like.
Jesse smiled. "I know! The Nether Maniacs!"
"You just thought of that right now?" Axel asked.
"Yup," Jesse stated proudly.
"We've never even been to the Nether," Olivia cut in, and at that, Jesse threw hands up and exclaimed in exasperation, "Who the Nether cares?!"
Olivia gasped. "Jesse! Watch your mouth!"
"Well we can't just go in as the 'No Names,'" Jesse said, and then their attention was turned to Axel. "Guys, I got it! The 'Order of the Ender Maniacs'!" Olivia gave him a perturbed look. "I don't know about tha—"
"Or if you'd prefer, we could go as the 'Dead Nether Pigs'."
Olivia scowled. "At this rate, I think I'd be fine going in as the 'No Names'. Or if we NEVER want to live it down, we could just go in as 'Dead Meat'."
An awkward silence fell on them. Finally, Jesse spoke up again. "Dead Meat it is."
Olivia planted a hand on her forehead with a sigh, while Axel, despite looking speechless, also looked like he was holding back laughter.
They returned to the booth, and right as Jesse was about to say 'The Order of the Ender Maniacs,' an idea dawned on him. His eyes lit up, and with one last attempt at salvaging whatever grain of hope his comrades had left, he announced, "We're the Quincunx Stars."
Olivia and Axel were apparently left speechless from the lack of criticism they gave.
"Okay, Quincunx Stars," she said after they finished checking in, jotting the name down on her paper, then smiling up at Jesse once more. "You guys are in Booth 5."
Jesse smiled. It sounded even cooler when someone else said it.
Axel had to squeeze through a gate far too small for him to get in, then stopped to help Reuben get his wings through. Once they were inside, Olivia marveled, "Wow Jesse, that's so cool!"
Axel caught up and added, "It's more than just 'cool'. It's awesome!"
Jesse smiled bashfully, rubbing the back of his head.
"Yeah," Olivia agreed enthusiastically. Then she paused and put a finger to her chin in thought for a moment. "What does it mean?"
Jesse blinked. He was hoping she wouldn't ask that.
"I… have no idea."
Olivia blinked this time, and he explained further, "I just saw it on a poster."
"Oh. Now I've got to look it up to make sure it doesn't mean anything dumb."
"Oh, will you relax, Olivia? No one else is going to know what it means either."
"Yeah, Olivia," said Axel. "It doesn't matter, it's still a cool name."
Jesse smiled triumphantly as Axel went on.
"Man, we have what we're building and all the stuff for it. We've got a cool name, a mascot," Axel looked down at Reuben who oinked happily. "We are so ready."
"I think this might be the first time we've completely decided on something before getting to the competition," Olivia said, sounding hopeful... for once. "This year, it's going to be different. I just know it!"
"That's the spirit."
Of course, just when Jesse thought they would enter one of these things with a shred of hope, some random guy wearing a 'Soren the Architect' hat and an EnderCon t-shirt ruined everything in the short time it took him to walk by them and say, "Nice pig, losers."
Jesse glanced back at his team, and of course, Axel looked downhearted while Olivia wore an indignant scowl. Jesse continued on and said the only thing that came to mind that he thought might help. Nothing.
Like most years, Olivia and Axel headed straight for their booth to compare themselves to the competition, while Jesse made the rounds to survey the competition.
Unlike most years, he was surprised to find that a competition where usually only five, ten teams competed, was now crowded with over a hundred people from what looked like fifty different booths.
"It's like everyone in town is here," he mumbled to himself. There had never been so many people at this competition, but then again, Gabriel the Warrior had never been the grand prize before. It made sense after all, but it was a good thing they had reserved a booth in advance.
Most of the contestants in Booth 1 were pacing back and forth per the norm; Always punctual, never prepared. Booth 2 seemed confident despite the fact that their cobblestone generator was about to become the world's most short-lived obsidian generator. Everyone in Booth 3, however, was running around like chickens that had been standing too close to lava. And then there was Booth 4.
Jesse stopped.
"I don't like the look of this," he muttered to himself. It was bad enough having to compete against the Ocelots, but being within shouting distance during the competition didn't bode well for keeping everyone going under pressure. Maybe they shouldn't have reserved a spot.
Jesse looked over at his own booth in hopes of seeing Axel and Olivia completely oblivious to this, but of course, they were already worrying behind his back. Groaning in frustration, he walked over to them.
"Man. They've got matching leather jackets and everything," Olivia worried as he approached.
"So cool…" Axel worried back.
Jesse looked again at the Ocelots, who were now setting up their materials… or rather, Lukas was setting up their materials and briefing the rest of them while they stood watching idly, barely listening—or so Jesse assumed. Lukas demonstrated something by pulling out a small glass item with another small glowing block inside. Jesse considered jumping on the worry wagon himself when he recognized what it was.
Axel perked up and stood tiptoe—as if he needed the extra height boost—peering anxiously over their fence into the Ocelot's building area.
"Is that a freakin' beacon?" he said. "They have a freakin' beacon?! Freacon beacon?!"
Freacon Beacon was right. Beacons were crafted using two of the most valuable ingredients known to man; Obsidian, and a Nether Star. Heaven knows where they got one got one of those. Certainly, they couldn't have killed their own Wither, so how in the Overworld had they gotten their hands on a beacon?
Jesse's eyes widened when it hit him. That must be what Petra sold them yesterday.
"That's stained glass," Olivia observed, pointing out the variety of colored glass that Lukas pulled out next. "They aren't just building a beacon… they're building a rainbow beacon."
Jesse murmured, "A beacon sounds awesome," and instantly regretted it.
"What's that?" Olivia asked.
"Oh, nothing! I said… nothing."
Regardless, Olivia wilted and said, "We're gonna lose."
Just then, as though summoned by the mere dread of his presence, one of the members of the Jerkelots strutted over, looking important. If it weren't for the stupid grin plastered on his empty face, Jesse might think he was important.
"Well, well, well," Aiden taunted, calling the attention of Thing 1 and Thing 2. "If it isn't the Order of the Losers."
Jesse raised an eyebrow at him. This comment might have been insulting had he not heard the same joke worded differently every year since their third competition.
"Great, the fail squad's here," said the girl Ocelot whose name Jesse could never remember... 'Lila' or 'Mia' or something like that.
Thing 2—AKA Gill—gave Jesse a snide look and said, "Lukas, get a load of these losers."
Lukas pulled his head out of a chest and glanced over at them just long enough to not do anything about it. Then he turned back to his task.
"We're just looking," Olivia hastened to explain with an irritated look on her face.
Aiden smirked. "There'll be plenty of time for you all to look at it after it wins and gets shown at EnderCon. Well…" He paused, regarding Reuben, "maybe not all of you. EnderCon doesn't allow outside food or drink."
Reuben flinched and Jesse scowled back at Aiden, trying to think of some witty comeback. Before he could, though, Aiden added, "I'm talking about your pig." And as though he were talking to someone at his own intelligence level, Aiden explained even further still, "I'm saying he's food."
Jesse blinked, unsure if he should qualify that insult with a response. Any other time Jesse knew he could have said something to make him sound stupid, but it seemed Aiden had already done that.
He decided to just let him bury himself.
Aiden's snide smile finally disappeared and he broke eye contact with Jesse for the first time, looking around as though pondering something else to say—like he hadn't said enough already.
He supposed eventually Lukas had had enough as well, because he finally came storming over with an irate look on his face. "Stop wasting your time, Aiden," he said, then pointed back to their own booth. "We've got work to do."
Jesse couldn't help but smile at Aiden being told off by his own boss, and relished the defeated scowl Aiden wore when he turned back to Jesse and said, "You're lucky I'm busy."
Lucky my bucket, Jesse thought. If it weren't for Lukas every year, the rest of the Ocelots would just make fun of Jesse's team until the contest was over and they would have no trouble winning. Stupid Lukas.
The rest of the Ocelots meandered past Lukas back to their booth, but Lukas stayed put. He stared after them, and once they were gone, he looked back to Jesse and his team and took a step forward.
"Listen, no hard feelings guys. I know tempers tend to run hot for these competitions, but why don't we just forget about all this, and, y'know… make this about how cool our builds are."
Jesse peered behind Lukas at the rest of his team, who were still watching instead of working, and deduced from the looks on their infuriated faces that they hadn't reached the same conclusion as their 'leader'. It was hard to take his call for a truce seriously when his wingman was glaring at them over his shoulder. Stupid Aiden. Stupid Gill. Stupid—whatever her name was.
Why did Lukas have to do this every year? Why did he have to insist on being sportsmanlike? Well, at least he wasn't spitting in their faces by wishing them luck like he usually did.
With a determined scowl, Jesse said, "We're going to crush you."
Lukas gave a condescending chuckle. "I don't know if you know this, but… we're pretty good…" He paused and smiled cunningly. "Ohhh, wait. I get it. It's like a joke, right?"
Jesse frowned and put on the toughest face he could muster. "No, I'm serious. We're going to destroy you."
"Ha! Y'know, you're really funny. That's awesome. Hey, good luck."
Jesse glared, and Lukas' cocky smirk wilted a bit.
Yeah? Well, you can keep your luck 'cause you're gonna need it more than we will! Jesse taunted in his head, and as his attention was called away by the announcer, he could've slapped himself. Man, I should've said that!
"Ladies and gentlemen… Welcome to the 23rd annual EnderCon Building Competition. The winners of this year's competition, as usual, will have their build featured at EnderCon. The winners will also meet, in person, Gabriel the Warrior!"
As soon as they were proclaimed, the words of the announcer were swallowed up in a roar of cheers by the hundred-plus people, Jesse's team included. Determined even more to win the competition, Jesse resolved to focus
on winning and to think no more of the Ocelots and their freacon beacon.
Of course, right then, like the recurrence of a nightmare or a bad headache, Jesse heard an enthusiastic chant of, "Ocelots!"
Frowning, he turned to see their rival team enacting some weird ritual.
"Ocelots!"
Maybe they were performing a human sacrifice.
"Ocelots!"
Maybe they would sacrifice Aiden! He could dream, couldn't he?
"Whoa… Handshake?" Olivia marveled, and pointing at them, she turned to Jesse. "We don't have a handshake."
Like a handshake was so impressive. They probably weren't even going to sacrifice anybody.
Jesse laughed at himself.
If it made Olivia feel more secure, though, what was the harm? "We'll just make one up."
Jesse raised a fist in front of him and Olivia and Axel gave each other odd looks, but followed his lead.
"We'll call it the… uuhhhhhh…" Jesse paused, and Olivia and Axel waited with uncertain expressions. Jesse thought about their build, and an idea came to him.
Jesse smiled. "The Creeper Clap!"
Jesse went in for a double high-five, which Axel enthusiastically missed, and Olivia halfheartedly met, then threw back his splayed out hands, and vocalized a mock explosion. Olivia and Axel were both left looking utterly confused.
"Get it? Like—'cause—creepers explode?"
Olivia blinked, and a long moment later, Axel mused with mild interest, "Ohhhh. Heh."
As quickly as he'd been proud of himself, Jesse hoped no one would remember this moment. "You know what? Handshakes are for dweebs, anyway."
"Aaaand just like that, I'm nervous again," said Olivia.
Jesse wilted slightly. Yeah, his handshake hadn't panned out, but so what? He wasn't about to let all this go to waste, and he refused to resign himself to another year of idiots like Aiden calling them all losers. They had to win. "Don't talk like that! We can do this! Just stick to the plan and everything will be fine."
Olivia looked somewhat comforted by this. "Okay."
"Let's do it," Axel said.
It would have to do, because at that moment, the announcer lady spoke again. The competition was about to start. Jesse's heart leaped and he took a deep breath.
We can do this.
"Three…"
Jesse patted Reuben on the head and got in position.
"Two…"
He looked to his right and gave Olivia a reassuring nod that she returned.
"One…"
To his left, Axel frowned in determination.
Jesse braced himself, as the last word before the horn entered his ears.
"BUILD!"
« … »
He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name.
—Psalm 147:4
Author's Notes:
OoooOOooH! What's gonna happen? :O I know, not the best 'cliffhanger' ever, but I had to end it somewhere, and I have plans for the next chapter that wouldn't fit into this one. :] I regret to inform that it'll probably be another while though. I would offer a preview, but unfortunately, I don't have a preview to give. Sorry. ^^'
Oh! This isn't a huge deal, but just so you know, I did go and make a bunch of edits to the previous chapters, so go have a look, if you're curious. :)
- In response to TheAmberShadow — Yes! I would love to give you extended notes! :D However, I can't send you a PM because you don't have an account. :( I'm sorry if I made that unclear. I think I recall saying that you needed to leave a 'signed' review (that being one left under a named account), but I guess now you can sign them without having an account. :/ My apologies, that's my fault. For future reference, I cannot send anyone any extra content unless you have an account that I can PM. Otherwise, I have to awkwardly work it into the actual chapter. :/ However, since you asked, I'll take the excuse and leave the extended notes for Male Jesse in the Choice Notes for this chapter. :) It is… really long though, so please don't feel like you have to read through it. :}
- Whatshername — At the time of writing this, I wasn't sure of 'her' real name, so for Set in Stone at least, I had decided to just work around it and make it an ongoing joke. Even though I know her name now, I purposely neglected to say it, and for two very good reasons. One, I don't want the whole beginning of the story to be name soup, and two, because it seemed to be an ongoing joke before 'Order Up!' came out amongst the fans who didn't think to check the credits for her name. Like me, some people just didn't know what it was, so they either made something up, or just followed along with what the rest of the fandom had accepted, which turned out to be her real name. So even after 'Order Up!' though, I decided to just roll with it. XP If you don't know what it is, you can look it up, but I'm not gonna tell you. :P
- Ahead of the Game — You might be wondering why the team in Booth 2 was already building despite the contest not being underway. I headcanon that people are allowed to build things before the competition if they either get permission, or it's a tool to help them while they build but that requires setup. Eg: A cobblestone generator. :P (Eh… should I leave a note about cobblestone generators in the Glossary? :/)
-Worry Wagon— I'd like to take a moment to call myself out on my own hypocrisy here. I tend to be very finicky about mentioning anything like this when I'm writing for Minecraft, but forgive me, this was just too funny. X)
-Juuuust let him bury himself.— I just wanted to draw attention to this for a minute. I think this would be one of those sayings that has a slightly different meaning in Minecraft than it does in real life, but only slightly. In Minecraft, burying yourself is something that a lot of people do to get away from monsters if they were being dumb by wandering around at night, or staying out too late. So in this case, I think Jesse means for it to be like, "Yeah, eventually Aiden will realize that what he's doing (or saying) is stupid, then dig a hole and hide in it." It's a way of saying, 'this person should be ashamed of themselves.' ;P
Choice Notes:
- The Quincunx Stars— The four actual names that the game gives to choose from are, in my opinion, absolutely ridiculous. While I understand that it's not important, has no long-term effects, and it is Jesse and he's really silly sometimes, I still wanted to come up with something better. However, I didn't want Jesse's other silly ideas to never get the light of day, so hence the funny discussion. :)
- Gloria — Some of you may or may not know that this is the name of one of the people you run into in Redstonia, and I always thought she looked very much like the 'Check-in Lady.' XD (If anyone knows her name, I'd love to hear it!) So I thought, why not? Without spoiling too much, this is I suppose, my way of connecting the world more, and giving more life to the people therein. These aren't just NPCs you can talk to, they're real people and they have people they care about as well. I'll refrain from saying anything else lest I spoil the people reading this who don't know/remember what happens. XP (Hi Mom!)
- Who the Nether Cares? — I always loved this joke. X) However, it bugged me that even though they made this joke, they still used 'Hell' later. I've decided to change this, not just because I don't like swearing in my writing unless it's absolutely appropriate, but I figure since there actually is a Minecraft equivalent of Hell, and they actually make this joke, them cursing in these spots doesn't even make any sense. I know what you're probably thinking. Who the nether cares? And the answer is, I care, so get used to it. :]
As for Olivia here, you could debate that this is out of character, but since she is shown as being very blatantly opinionated about things that are important to her later, I think I'm justified enough in having her be this way. :P
-The Creeper Clap—Yeah, I just had to come up with my own dumb handshake. XP
- Male Jesse (Extended!) — Oh boy! (Pun fully intended) Here I go. Don't say I didn't warn you. XP Now, note that a lot of these are very interpretable, as most things in MCSM are, but remember that I'm not trying to convince you to abandon your headcanon or anything, I'm just giving my thoughts. Also, spoiler warning on this one. ;)
The main thing that comes to mind is Petra's implied crush on Jesse if he's a he. Of course, Telltale tried to write the story where you don't have to see it this way, but her motives don't make the most sense if this isn't the case. For instance, if Petra likes him, it would make sense that she might channel that into trying to get him involved in her life by telling him about her jobs/trades, or even inviting him to come along with her, especially since she does this so suddenly. You could say that they just like each other as friends, but they don't even really make that clear. (I believe I've stated before that Petra's character is pretty half-baked to me, and her relationship with Jesse is even more so.) There are also a few times that Jesse will make some weird comment that makes me laugh if Jesse's male, but if Jesse is female, they make me think, 'Whhaa...? O.o'. One time is when Jesse says the "We're super close now," line, and two is a line that you can only get if you talk to the DJ at EnderCon and say the, 'I'm looking for someone' option. Jesse proceeds to say what sounds like a really bad pick-up line that is hilarious if Jesse is male, and if not… eh… All that aside, there are WAY too many fanfics for female Jessie! I'm sorry, but I am biased and I'd like to see some GOOD fanfiction with male Jesse, thank you very much! |:(
I'm all for girl power and stuff, (and pardon if this makes no sense to someone who isn't me) but to me, it actually seems like Jesse being female degrades Lukas a little bit (a lot). Suddenly all of their interactions with each other make Lukas seem lame or weak, or even downright immature. The first time I actually saw that scene where Jesse and Lukas are fighting over the amulet, I saw it with Female Jessie and remembered thinking, 'Dude, what's your problem?' but when I saw it again with Male Jesse, I loled. For some reason, two dudes fighting over something like two-year-olds fighting over a hotwheel is hilarious, but not so much with a guy and a lady. Whenever Jessie does something totally epic and awesome, I find myself asking, 'Why can't Lukas do this? He's a guy, he should be able to do this!' Normally the answer would be, 'Because he's not Jesse,' :P but with Jesse being Jessie, it just doesn't seem right to me. :/ Especially since there are two capable guys and a super headstrong girl on the team, it's hard for me to even see Female Jessie as the strong, bold leader that my Jesse is. :3 Call me sexist if you like, but I'm a girl, so neh! ):P
Glossary:
Well, none of these are really necessary, but here I go…
-Obsidian— Obsidian is one of the strongest blocks in Minecraft. It can't be blown up by TNT, and even with the strongest pick, it takes ten times longer to mine than any other mineable block.
-Rainbow Beacon— Both the beacon and stained glass are pretty straightforward (and also fairly well explained in the chapter itself), so I'm just gonna say that in Minecraft, you can color the light that comes from a beacon by putting stained glass over it. (Yea, not important.)
- Daylight Sensor/Note Blocks— Two more redstone components, once again pretty straightforward. Daylight sensors check for daylight, and note blocks play notes when activated. (Did I mention, not important? XP)