[ Minecraft: Story Mode ]

[ Chapter Three: May the best team win! ]

[ Presented to you by Rapid Savvy. ]

The three humans and their pig- I mean dragon- companion had finally made it. They just needed to find the sign up booth now!

"We know what we're building, we got all the stuff for it... We are SO ready!" Axel's voice interrupted the silence that had befallen the group. "Don't you agree, guys?"

Olivia seemed to have some confidence, as she did, in fact, agree. "Yeah! This year will be different. I'm not just ready to build, I'm ready to WIN." She says with a small grin, hardly flinching when the unquenchable ball of energy she called a friend yells out a cheerful affirmative.

That's probably the cue for- ah, there we go. A bystander walks past them with a blue-gray hat. "Nice pig, losers." The person jeered without stopping.

The group came to a stop after that rude remark. The big guy had visibly bristled, Olivia was glaring as hard as she could at the back of the jerk's head, and their optimistic friend just huffed and bent down to pet Reuben. At least Reuben didn't hear that rude comment.

Once that tense moment passed, the friends looked around and-

Oh.

Oh no.

Well, uh, at least they found the sign up booth, right?

"Oh, great. Lukas and the Ocelots." Axel scowl got just a little deeper. "And I thought today actually had a chance of being even remotely okay."

The dark-haired girl sighs dejectedly, all of that earlier confidence draining like water on a scorching day. "They have matching leather jackets and everything." She points out glumly. "So cool..."

Jesse wanted to console his friends and tell them not to give up so easily, but that's when a certain green-eyed shark turned around and saw them staring.

"Well well well..." He sneered, catching the attention of the other two standing beside him. "Look who just showed up." That's Aiden, probably the most obnoxious one.

"Great." A pretty brunette rolled her baby blue eyes disdainfully beside him. "The fail squad's here." Maya, the only girl in the Ocelots.

The one with a beard smirked and nudged someone behind him. "Lukas, get a load of these losers!" Ah, but you can't forget Gill. He's just like the child playing pretend. In other words, he's more lenient in the bullying. A little. Okay, that's a lie, he's just as bad as the other two.

'Lukas' tensed up when he felt the elbow roughly jab his ribs, and he realized who they were talking about, wanting so badly to apologize to them for his friends' behaviors. Instead, he went through the gate, barely turning his head as he spoke to his teammates. "Come on guys."

The three bullies followed their blonde leader, but not without throwing smug looks back at the 'losers' as they were called.

No, Jesse decided with a determined puff of his cheeks. I will not let you jerks dampen my mood! They could be nice people if they tried, he just knew it! There was hope for them.

He wouldn't accept his friends arguments, no matter how right they thought they were. After all, the golden rule still applies: treat others like you want to be treated.

Now come on, do you really think they will learn to be nicer if you return their hostile behavior? No, they really won't. They'll think it's okay to treat you like that and keep doing it when it's really not okay.

The boy smiles and rested a hand on the dejected Olivia's shoulder, and her eyes softened while she hesitantly returned the smile.

The group shuffled forward to the sign-up booth, and were greeted by a lady with black rimmed glasses and a cheery grin. "Hello, hello! Name, please?" She asks, clicking her pen.

Axel answered before either of them could open their mouths. "Axel, and a how do you do?"

...What is he playing at here?.. You could practically feel the amount of squinting Jesse and Olivia were doing how the hell do I even word that properly? toward their bulky friend.

The lady's eyes widened, clearly flustered as she hastened to explain that she had actually asked for a team name, not their personal individual names. Axel registered this with a pink blush spotting his cheeks. Oopsie!

You think he'd know this since he's been here before, but alas.

Jesse snickered and told the equally-as flustered lady to put them under as the "Order of the pigs". Olivia was just giggling quietly as she patted the big guy's shoulder in a rather terrible attempt to comfort him.

The woman nodded and shooed them away to their assigned booth- Booth 4. The lady was nervously fixing her glasses as she scribbled down their team name. Every single year, she swears.

Axel was trying so incredibly hard to will away the mortification on his face- and failing terribly at that- while he grumbled and went through the gate. Or he tried to at least.

Yeah, he's kind of stuck.

Notch just loves to embarrass him, doesn't he?

While the big guy struggled valiantly against the evil gate- oh no, so terrible!- Jesse had fallen into a deep web of thoughts and worries and whatnot. His mind was a dizzying maze of darkness.

The brunette was jolted back to the realm of the living when he heard snickers and giggles that most definitely did not belong to his friends. He looked up and winced. Yep, it was the Ocelots.

Of course it was them. His friends never get a break, do they?

He bristled unknowingly, because no, his friends are always being harassed! No matter how hard he tries to keep their spirits up, they're always just kicked back down and then kicked down even further. Now don't get him wrong, he isn't particularly angry at anyone. Disappointed, sure, but anger? It had never really been his strong suit.

"Jesse?" The brooding teenager blinked and looked away, realizing how hard he had been, uh, staring at the Ocelots. "Come on." Olivia took him by the hand and dragged him through the gate and toward their booth.

Not that he minded of course, he probably would have continued glaring if she hadn't done so.

"They have a beacon?!" Axel almost squeaked as he gawked at the other the team. "A freaking BEACON?!

Jesse stumbled when his friend's slender fingers unexpectedly released him, his forward momentum plus gravity causing him to trip and fall flat on his face like the clumsy idiot he is.

Ground: 1, Jesse: 0.

So that's how it is huh? Fine.

With a huff, the brunette picked himself up and dusted himself off, listening to his friends.

"Huh, and we thought we had a chance before." Olivia says glumly, and gestured to the leader of the Ocelots as he pulled out something colorful. "That's stained glass. They're not just building a beacon. They're building a RAINBOW beacon!"

"We're gonna lose again."

Oh come on! Can he not keep them optimistic for one dang hour?!

...Apparently not.

Puffing out his cheeks, he called their attention to him. "Hey!" two sets of eyes looked at him. "Our build is gonna be so much cooler than some stupid fancy lights!" He tried to encourage them, instantly feeling bad for dissing the other team. They didn't deserve that, even if they had been rude.

Well, at least that seemed to cheer up them up some!

Olivia spoke up after a long pause, grimacing. "We should probably stop staring-"

"Ha ha ha!"

Well, too late for that.

"Look, it's the Order of the losers again!" Gill sneers, grabbing only two of the Ocelot's attention, who both turn around and smirk when they see what had amused their friend.

Maya laughed. "Good one, Gill!"

Oh COME ON! He just got them to smile, diddly-darn it! Those guys better not ruin his work!

Who is he kidding? Of course they will.

"We were just looking." Olivia pointed out, ever the queen of good comebacks. Do you smell sarcasm? Because I don't.

The green-eyed shark seemed to agree with the author- brownie points for me then!- because he merely raised a brow. "There's plenty of time to look at it after it wins and gets shown at Endercon." Aiden commented scornfully.

The brunette tried really hard not to roll his eyes. He swears he tried!

"You're being unpleasant." His bulky friend growled as he eyed the other team.

Jesse comes forward, standing almost protectively in front of his friends, staring the bullies down as if he were taller than them instead of the other way around. He refused to let anyone pick on his friends.

Green eyes narrowed at the smaller boy, appearing amused by his attempt to hide his friends from them. "Maybe not all of you, but-" And those eyes darted down to the disguised pig with his smirk growing in size. "-Endercon doesn't allow outside food and drinks."

Reuben squealed in fright at the taunt and quickly clopped as far away as he could from Aiden and his two goons while his human pal had frozen up with a look of shock.

Then it turned to bristling fury after the comment finally registered. Nobody... and I mean NOBODY... Messes. With. Reuben. Unless you want to die.

"Reuben." Jesse stepped forward, looking like a feral wolf with his hackles raised and eyes glaring. Aiden took a step back in surprise. "Is." Another step forward, another step back. "Not." Step forward, step back. "Food." One more step forward, one more step back.

Aiden tried to gather his composure again. "Oh really? He looks like he'd make a good pork chop." He managed to keep his smirk through his discomfort at seeing a sudden hostility from the pacifist.

That comment did not help pacify Jesse at all. If anything it only served to irritate him further.

The friends of the opposing boys were kind of just watching this happen with wide eyes, because damn, this had never happened before.

Lukas, checking a chest in the background, had finally caught on to what was happening and scolded the other three Ocelots. "Guys, stop wasting your time. Come on!" He gestured at them, a bit sharply at that.

The green-eyed shark seemed relieved when he said: "You're lucky we're busy." Then he, along with Maya and Gill, drifted away.

To be honest, he was probably lucky the blonde had interrupted the spat before things got really messy.

It definitely took a good few minutes to calm him down, and just when they succeeded in doing so, a hand rested on the boy's shoulder.

With a scream that may or may not be laughably shrill for him being a male, Jesse whipped around and tried to jump back at the same time. Key word: TRIED.

What happened instead was that he fell on his bottom in front of whoever it was that decided grabbing his shoulder was a fantastic idea.

Oh.

Okay.

it was just their favorite mercenary... Not so much Jesse's favorite person at the moment. Or ever, actually.

And better yet, she was laughing her ass off.

Wonderful.

"O-oh my gods!" The redhead managed to wheeze out with a breathy giggle. "Oh my g-gods, Jesse!"

Meanwhile, his face was burning like the surface of the Sun, and let me tell you; the sun is very, VERY hot. "Shut up, Petra."

Petra swears his face got an even brighter shade of red when she rested her elbow atop his head in order to stay upright, and she stashed that interesting thought away to think about later. So add this to the list of "Things about Jesse; the dorkiest of them all".

That's probably fairly valid, I can't lie.

Axel and Olivia were driven to deep-belly laughing in the background, desperately trying not to be too loud. I mean- they are in public after all. Laughing a tad too loud would definitely draw some stares. Also, they wanted to hear the silly banter going on between the two. Don't tell Jesse, because he will have a hissy fit, but they rather liked watching these hilarious moments between him and Petra.

Seriously, don't tell Jesse! Don't break the fourth wall!

It took a little while, but the group of friends calmed down some. They were still giggling, so they're probably prone to start laughing all over again at the next silly incident.

The mercenary kept her elbow on his head, the action intended to annoy him now. "So, how's the build going?" She asks with a cheeky grin, knowing full well without even looking that Jesse was giving her the most miffed look he can manage with those round cheeks.

She couldn't think he could ever be daunting. Scratch that, he probably couldn't pull off anything other than being adorkable. Those words are gonna bite you in the ass, Peets.

"Eh," Axel shrugs, noticing his shorter friend's growing irritation with clear amusement in his hazel eyes. "Pretty well, considering it didn't even start yet. Jesse's kept our hopes up though. Isn't he cool?"

With that strong praise, the brunette jolted in surprise and averted his eyes shyly. "I'm really not. I'm just a failure." He mutters almost inaudibly, unaware of the redhead who frowned when she heard him say that.

No way is she going to let him think so lowly of himself.

"Yeah, he's pretty great." Petra agreed, bemused when Axel and Olivia shared sneaky glances with one another. "What's with those faces?" She asked despite the fact she probably knew the answer.

Wouldn't hurt to confirm it though.

Before either of them could answer, if they even were going to, a voice interrupted their conversation. "Oh! Hey Petra, I forgot to thank you for that nether star."

She turned her head toward the speaker and smiled. "Hey Lukas. No problem." She answered, finally taking her arm off Jesse's head, much to his blatant relief.

The redhead noticed that Axel and Olivia seemed to bristle a little when she confirmed that she helped the Ocelots, yet Jesse seemed to perk up a little with a giant smile, as if he knew something his friends didn't.

Interesting. Very, very interesting.

Then again, this was Jesse. He had the strongest hopes and dreams. He believed in anyone and anything, encouraging them and telling them they have a purpose in life. He cheered up homeless people on the streets when he was in town, scolded a burglar after stopping them from stealing his money...

Let's just go ahead and say that she had never seen a thief cry until then.

"Welp, I best be off." Petra says to stop her mind from wandering any further, already beginning to walk away. "If you need anything, you know where to find me." She tossed that last sentence over her shoulder with a playful smirk directed at the suddenly wide-eyed brunette. He definitely heard the innuendo.

Ha! Kidding, get your freaking head out of the gutter. The flirting will come soon, though, I promise.

Anyway...

Olivia looked so done with Petra's bullshit. "But nobody knows where to find you!"

"Exactly."

Yeah, Olivia deeeefinitely did not facepalm mentally and physically when she heard that smug as all hell answer.

Once the mercenary was swallowed up by the trees, Lukas spoke up in halting English. "So..." And he winced when six sets of eyes were drawn to him, barely noticing it when his dark-haired friend came to stand beside him. "Uh... If you're cool with Petra, you're cool with us. So, uh..." Lukas held out a hand.

The three members of the Order of the Pig actually felt a little bad for the blonde, he looked so nervous.

"Maybe we can put aside our differences-" That gained derisive snorts from five people and a confused oink from a pig. "-and, uh... may the best team win?" His voice sounded so hopeful, and who was Jesse to deny him of some friendly competition?

Jesse accepted the outstretched hand with a competitive grin nearly splitting his face in half. "You're on, pussy cat." He squeezed the surprised blonde's hand before he backed off. "Be ready to lose to us!" He says playfully.

Lukas smiled, his tenseness fading away just a little when he realized that the other wasn't going to be hostile. "Oh, of course." He chuckled lightheartedly.

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!" They realized they had just talked through an entire speech and quickly turned away to focus on the announcer. "MAY THE BEST TEAM WIN!"

Two leaders locked eyes; one with a knowing and competitive smirk and the other with playful and smug grin in return. It's just some friendly competition, right?

Yeah.

It's not like anything bad will happen!