The screen came back in to them climbing out of the minecarts and going up a small flight of steps. "Can you throw up inside your body?" Jesse asked as she climbed out.
Olivia nodded. "Uh huh. I know, because I just did. About five times."
The group reached the top to see a circle of land, multiple minecart tracks leading to and from it. Archways were looping over each other above them, and Jesse looked around, her eyes practically sparkling. "Wow!" she breathed, "wow, wow, wow, wow! Just look at this place!"
"Agreed with Jesse- that's amazing," Lukas called out, raising his hand like a schoolboy. Jesse laughed, making him grin slightly.
Olivia looked just as awed, her right eye seeming even brighter than before and the skin around the eye having gotten a bit darker. "All of these tracks converge at this point," she said, looking around. "You could probably get anywhere in the world from here!"
Ellegaard nodded. "Yes, you can. It took years to build- mainly because I was the one doing most of the work," and this was said with a pointed glare at her teammates.
"Hey, I helped!" Soren said, sounding affronted.
"We helped with some of it," Gabriel defended himself.
"There's the portal!" Lukas called out, and indeed, there was the Nether Portal, looking just as nice as the one that had been destroyed. It was also lit up, so that was one less thing they needed to worry about.
"This is what Gabriel was talking about," Lukas said with a nod.
Axel started walking towards the portal. "That's our way out!" he exclaimed.
"It must lead back up to the surface..." Olivia mused, crossing her arms.
Lukas's ears suddenly flattened, as a worried look crossed his face. "The surface is also where that creature is."
At this, Axel came to a sudden halt, only a good foot from the portal.
"Oh, crap, he's right," and Jesse touched her lip with a small frown. "We have no clue what we're walking walking into. It could be... really dangerous..."
"Jesse should probably go first," Soren said. "She's the only one with a sword."
"Axel can explode, though, remember?" Stacy asked. "Wouldn't he be fine?"
"I'm not sure he can control it, though," Petra mumbled, narrowing her eyes at the screen.
"Oh, true..."
Axel bit his lip and turned back to the portal. "Okay... I guess I have to go through now. I'm going. I'm... going right now," he said, sounding nervous. He didn't move one inch though.
He suddenly yelped as Jesse threw her arms around his neck in a sudden hug attack, making him stumble back a step. "I call dibs on going first!" she called out jokingly.
He pouted at her, although his eyes practically shone with gratitude. "That's not what I was saying," he whined a bit, but everyone could tell he was faking.
"That was nice of you, Jesse," Lukas said.
The black-haired girl gave Axel a pat on the shoulder. "Hey, he's my friend, right? That's nothing."
Jesse let go of him and poked him in the bis playfully. "Too bad, I just called dibs," she teased him, making him grin at her. "Besides, I've got the six arms. I'll be fine!"
She moved in front of Axel, staring into the swirling purple doorway, before turning to look back at everyone else. "Welp, see you guys on the other side, I suppose."
"Be careful," Olivia said, looking and sounding concerned.
"Thanks, Jesse," Axel added.
With that, Jesse turned around, took a deep breath, and walked right into the purple.
She walked out of the other side and made a splashing sound, looking down. She was in an ankle-deep body of water in the nighttime, a smaller waterfall forming the pool of water she'd just stepped into, which flowed over the cliff into two separate waterfalls which went who knew how far.
"Huh. That's... not a temple," Olivia hummed.
"The temple's not that far from there," Soren said dismissively. "It's just a security measure to make sure people don't break in."
"Huh. Not what I was expecting," Jesse hummed, stepping further into the water, before a zombie seemed to appear to her side. Her head snapped up at the first groan, and she looked around at it.
Axel blinked. "Oh. Good thing I didn't go first, I guess."
With a yelp, Jesse sent another string of silk at the zombie. The moment the string had attached, Jesse was twisting and using the string as a sort of lasso to hurl the zombie over the edge of the waterfall, ripping the silk off and then letting it go, letting the long string of white trail like a veil as the zombie fell who knew how far.
"Radical, brah!" Nell cheered.
"I'm assuming at this point that radical means something along the lines of 'awesome' and not the dictionary definition, so thank you, I think," Jesse said, shooting her a smile.
Axel stepped through the portal, blinking as he saw Jesse pulling off the rest of the silk that was still attached to her hand. She looked up at him when she heard the sound of him stepping through. "There was a zombie," she offered by way of explanation, as she walked over to some stairs leading out of the water.
"Oh. Is it dead?" he asked.
Jesse shrugged as she shook some of the water off of her dungarees. "I mean, I tossed it over the edge, so I don't know. Most likely it is...?"
Olivia and Lukas followed through the portal a minute later, all of them climbing back onto the grass and looking around at the trees and grass surrounding them. "Where are we?" Olivia finally asked.
"In the dark. In what seems like... the middle of nowhere," Jesse said finally, looking around at their landscape but finding nothing of interest.
"Maybe we should bed down for the night," Lukas suggested, "it's dangerous to be out when it's this dark."
"That's probably the best idea," Petra said. "Better to go find the portal in the morning, when it's light and there aren't monsters wandering everywhere."
"Though we were heading towards a temple," Axel retorted.
Olivia simply shrugged at the faintly accusing tone in his voice. "We're looking for a giant building. It should be pretty obvious."
"Ivor said-"
Axel cut Lukas off. "Ohh, 'Ivor said'. Well then maybe this is the temple." There was a moment's pause. "I'm being sarcastic."
"Uh oh," Harper winced. "I think the shock's wearing off." When she got several odd looks, she explained, "since Lukas is a member of the same group that pretty much bullies Jesse and her friends, it's likely that now they're not in a dangerous situation, her friends are going to be... unpleasant towards him."
"Axel, c'mon," Olivia said, frowning at the creeper hybrid.
Jesse quickly cut in, cutting off whatever Axel had just opened his mouth to retort. "We have to build a shelter," she said quickly.
Lukas blinked at this. "I... thought that was what I said, but... um..."
"Let's just build a hut," Jesse decided after a moment. "We can just block the entrance up with some dirt blocks. It's only for one night, anyways."
"Yeah," Axel agreed. "A treehouse'll be spider town. I hate spiders."
Jesse sent Axel a perfectly deadpan look. This made Real-Jesse laugh and Axel rub his head sheepishly with an odd grin at this. Axel seemed to realize his mistake onscreen and backpedaled. "I mean, except for you, Jesse. I mean, you're not trying to suck our blood or anything like that. Don't spiders eat like that?"
Jesse rolled her eyes and then put her arm in front of her face, imitating having lifted a cape to block her face. "I vant to suck your blood," she joked.
This prompted a small round of laughter from the audience, even though they were all still incredibly tense and a bit nervous.
She dropped her arm and the weird Transylvanian accent while turning to look at Olivia and Lukas. "This'll probably be faster, anyways," she added.
The two of them just shrugged. The screen sped up so that the hut was built in a matter of seconds, once again, before they all trotted inside. Jesse stacked two dirt blocks in front of the 'door'. "And... there. No monsters can get in here now."
There was a short pause in the darkness of the hut, before suddenly there was a spray of sparks, and a torch came flickering to life. Lukas was staring with this extremely perturbed look at his hands.
Mainly because he now had claws.
"Oh, wow. You're getting more cat-like by the minute," Jesse joked faintly, making Lukas grin weakly at her.
The screen slowly faded so that there was now a small fire in the center of the hut. Jesse and Olivia were sitting right next to it, Reuben sitting in Jesse's lap. The screen changed to show Axel standing with his back to the fire, and Lukas sitting in a corner a few feet away from everyone else. All of them had their arms crossed over their stomachs.
"When was the last time we ate, anyway?" Jesse suddenly wondered. "I mean, with Endercon, and all that running around..."
Abruptly, Axel's voice cut through the awkward silence. "Oh man!"
"What?" Olivia asked the burly male, his back still to all of them.
"I'm going to tell you something, but you have to PROMISE not to freak out," Axel said, still not facing any of them.
Jesse tilted her head and blinked at him innocently. "What?"
"Okay, no, seriously, you don't look like you could hurt a living being," Sparklez spoke up suddenly.
Jesse shot him a joking glare. "Gee, thanks."
He turned back around to show that he had a handful of cookies. "I have cookies."
"Oh. There you go. You won't starve, at least," Petra said.
Axel trotted over to the group, putting one cookie in his pocket. "One for me." He handed one over to Olivia, and then another one to Jesse. "One for Olivia. One for Jesse."
"Thanks, Axel," Jesse said gratefully, and raised the cookie to her mouth. She paused when she saw Lukas looking at it. His eyes flickered back up to Jesse's, and he glanced away awkwardly.
"And one for... Reuben." And Axel put the last cookie in front of Reuben, who started to nibble it hungrily.
"Sorry, Lukas, I only have four," Axel 'apologized' to Lukas.
Jace frowned at Axel. "Axel, that's not really cool."
Axel winced a bit and rubbed the back of his head, but he didn't actually say anything. Probably because he didn't know what to say.
Onscreen, Jesse seemed to have had the same idea, because she frowned at Axel. Lukas shook his head again, looking away from all of them. "Oh no, it's- it's okay. I'm not that hungry anyways."
His stomach growled a bit, and there was this short, awkward silence where everyone was looking at Lukas and he was blinking back at them. He picked up a moment later, awkwardly. "I'll just... grab something in the morning. Or something."
Jesse got up immediately and walked over to Lukas, holding out the cookie slightly. Lukas stared at her blankly, not understanding what she was doing. "Take it."
Lukas's eyes widened, and he looked over at the dark-haired female sitting on the couch. She'd turned her face away just enough that the only thing he could see was the back of her head, though.
Onscreen, Lukas seemed to have had the same reaction, his eyes widening as he shook his head slightly. "Oh... no, no, Jesse, you already got me out of the basement... I-I can't do that-"
Jesse reached down, took his hand, and set the cookie in it gently. "I insist." Her voice was quiet but firm.
Lukas looked over at Real-Jesse, catching her eye as she turned her head back around, and smiled at her, not sure what else to say. She looked at him for a moment, before slowly returning it.
Lukas opened his mouth to say something, before stopping. He then slowly smiled at Jesse, gratitude shining in his eyes. "I... thanks, Jesse," he thanked her.
She grinned and patted him on the head, making him squint his eyes shut with this pleased look as his ears flicked, before going back to her spot by the fire and sitting back down.
Axel scowled a bit as he looked over at Jesse. "That was for you, Jesse. Not him."
Jesse shrugged. "I'm not that hungry anyway."
Her own stomach gave off this louder growl than Lukas's. She blinked down at it for a moment, before rolling her eyes with this barely repressed grin. "Stomach, why hast thou betrayed me," she joked.
This made the audience laugh again, onscreen Olivia and Lukas chuckling faintly as well.
There was another silence for a few moments, the sound of eating taking over the conversation, before Olivia looked over at Lukas, having finished her cookie. "If you had to, which would you rather fight: a hundred chicken-sized zombies, or ten zombie-sized chickens?"
A/N: Yep, so, there's this chapter xD
RQTC: Did you give Lukas the cookie or not?
No new reviews :3 I hope you enjoyed this chapter!
