The screen faded back in to show Jesse and Petra walking through a cave with total silence. Petra was staring at the floor as if it were one of the most fascinating things she'd ever seen, and Jesse was fidgeting with her dungaree strap awkwardly.
Finally, the black-haired girl spoke up, clearing her throat. "So... um... you- set the zombie on fire. From halfway across the clearing." Her voice sounded stilted and awkward.
Petra scuffed her shoes on the stone, still staring down. "Y-yeah." Her voice was still unnaturally steady.
"How are you staying so calm right now?" Dan questioned Petra. "I know I would've freaked out long before that."
Petra slowly shook her head after a moment of deliberation. "... I have no idea," she uttered back.
"How'd you do it?" Jesse finally asked onscreen, after an extremely long pause, "that was really awesome. I mean, it looked like a fireball, but... I don't know, you can't shoot fireballs. Normal people can't... I don't think, anyway." Jesse smiled faintly back at Petra, making it clear that it was a poor attempt at a joke.
Petra smiled a bit herself, before her gaze went back to her boot. "Yeah... no, they can't." Scuff. "I don't know how I did it either, to be honest." Scuff. "I just... reacted, I guess." Scuff.
"Ah," Jesse responded. There was another awkward pause.
Petra finally looked up and turned to look at Jesse, mouth opening as though she wanted to say something, before pausing, her breath not even fully making it out of her mouth. Her gold eyes widened a bit. "Wait... Jesse, what's that on your sides...?" she asked, slowly.
Jesse looked back down at herself, the screen panning back down to reveal the rather pointy bumps starting to stretch her dungarees out. She sighed, and the bumps curled back in, becoming less prominent again. "... Petra, can you keep a secret?" she asked.
"What do you think?" Petra asked with a roll of her eyes, spreading her arms out.
The audience all snickered a bit at this.
Jesse grinned at this. "Okay, I get it. Ummm," and Jesse hesitated on the 'm' sound, before continuing, more hesitantly. "Well, I had this sort of... I guess you could call it a vision, earlier. And it was me. As... a spider hybrid."
Petra blinked at her.
"And at first I thought it was dumb but now-" The black-haired girl was starting to pick up steam, gesturing with her hands increasingly wildly and her voice rising. "I have these bumps on my sides, and I shot string out of my hand like frickin' Spiderman or something, and I feel like my left eye is getting even darker than usual, and the bumps are getting bigger, and I can see almost as well in the dark as I do during the day- maybe better, actually-" She was practically shouting now, voice having reached the highest pitch it could without reaching hysteria-level, "and now the bumps are getting BIGGER, and I actually have to make an effort to hide them and I can move them!"
She abruptly cut herself off, leaving the last two words echoing in the cave.
"Do you do that often?" Stampy questioned Jesse. She let out a sigh and nodded, twisting to face him. "All too often, unfortunately."
"Ah." Petra cleared her throat. "Can YOU keep a secret?"
Jesse crossed her heart and then put a hand over her eye automatically. "If you can keep mine, it's fair that I keep yours," she replied.
Petra blinked at the weird oath-hand-signal-thing, before nodding. "Okay."
And she hesitantly pulled up her left sleeve.
Jesse leaned a little closer to see Petra's gold arm, which was starting to reflect the torchlight. "... that looks like a Blaze Rod," she finally stated quietly.
Petra cleared her throat. "Yeah. I think it's a Blaze Rod too." She gave her arm another look. "Especially since I shot fire out of that arm."
This prompted snorts from the audience.
Her smile faded upon seeing Jesse's serious face. Jesse stared at Petra's arm for another few moments, before straightening up to look at her friend. "Okay. Petra, this is what we're going to do."
Petra blinked as she slowly moved the sleeve back down. "Oooo-kayy..." she said, slowly.
"We swear an oath or something to not tell ANYONE each other's secret unless it's some sort of life-threatening situation or something. Somehow. We can divulge it ourselves but we can't tell anyone about the other person's secret," Jesse said, sternly.
"An oath seems kind of childish," Petra noted. Jesse shrugged at that. "Yeah, but it's a habit of mine from when I was kid... that's probably why I'm making one now."
Petra rubbed her head a bit, looking awkward. "That... seems fine," she said slowly.
"I think Onscreen-you agrees with real-you," Jace told Petra. She grinned back at him.
Jesse held out her hand, and Petra shook the hand that Jesse extended. Jesse released the hand then and crossed her heart before covering her eye, automatically uttering rapidly, "Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye, a secret's a secret, my word is forever, I won't break my word, I won't break it ever."
Petra's eyebrow went up in surprise. "Haven't heard that version before."
Jesse shrugged at onscreen-Petra's comment. "It's a variant of the long original poem."
"It's a variant of the very long original poem," onscreen-Jesse responded promptly.
The raven-haired girl blinked. "Hey, I just said that."
Hadrian snorted at this. He leaned over and mumbled quietly to his cohorts so that nobody else could hear, "She seems to be the leader, in a way... and yet she's practically still a young child."
Otto didn't meet Hadrian's eyes as he muttered back, very quietly, "But that doesn't matter to you, does it." A long pause. "You'll hurt her if it's necessary."
There was no response from either Mevia or Hadrian.
Petra blinked, before slowly repeating the motion Jesse had done. "Um, cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye... a secret's a secret... um..." She hesitated for another second, before finishing, "my word is forever, I won't break my word, I won't break it ever."
"I didn't think you'd be the type of person to swear oaths like that, Petra," Lukas hummed thoughtfuly.
"... neither did I. I guess I'm full of surprises," Petra joked feebly.
"There ya go," and Jesse grinned at Petra cheerfully. Petra slowly smiled back, eyes softening a little bit.
"So," Jesse said after a moment, arching her own eyebrow and crossing her arms curiously with a tilt of her head, "what were you doing out in the woods, anyway?"
"Ah," and a mischievous grin twitched over Petra's lips.
Real-Petra grinned a bit herself, leaning forward with anticipation.
"Since we're on the topic of secrets right now, have you ever seen..." She reached into her seemingly-endless pocket and pulled out a blackened skull, that secretive grin growing to beauty-pageant proportions. "A Wither Skull?"
A/N: Wow, one of my shortest chapters in this story so far xD Well, since I'm following the actual storyline of Hybrid with minimal changes to dialogue (The original story started out a certain way, but I feel like I've developed the characters differently since then x3), I suppose that was to be expected.
RQTC: Have you ever done something but then gone "Hnnnng" upon seeing it three months later?
Yep- the original second chapter of Hybrid.
lucykillrcassie: Yeah, I love that line (evil grin)
MissyMattingly: Hehe, yeah x3 I decided I liked the idea myself and went for it. And I'm glad you like that!
RapidSammi: (laughs) I'm glad that's the case!
LunarStarsMoons: Yeah, I love that line x3
Boggie445: Unfortunately not; since I'm following the storyline of Hybrid. Sorry!
potatoguest: That's fine! And I agree with whoever said that (I feel like it was Jesse but I MIGHT be wrong)
x.X. A.L. X.x
