"Welllllcome, ladies and gentlegriefers," shouted a griefer in a suit and 3D glasses, "to the DEATH BOWL!"

Cheers rose up from the crowd of griefers in the stands.

"In one corner, we have Magnus, your king of Boom Town-" Magnus waved to the crowd with a cocky green as the griefers cheered again, "who is prepared to defend his title and crown."

Magnus turned to Jesse, with a grinning Axel standing a few feet behind her. "So, Tiny. Welcome to the Death Bowl."

Jesse frowned at him and crossed her arms at him. "Hey, I'm not THAT short..." she complained.

He just patted her on the head, making several members of the audience laugh at this little scene, before continuing, "The Grief-Off to end all Grief-Offs." He leaned in a little, dropping his voice so that no one else could hear them. "How you wanna fake this? What's your grand plan?"

"This was your idea!" Jace exclaimed to the Rogue.

Jesse stopped and thought about this for a moment. The griefers chanting something that sounded suspiciously like 'burn 'em' probably didn't help her thinking process.

"We'll... start off small. Then I'll... throw some TNT. Let it graze you, and we'll call it a finish," Jesse finally decided after a few moments, shrugging at him.

Magnus nodded. "Okay. Something about TNT. Awesome."

Onscreen-Jesse rolled her eyes.

"You know, I was starting to like Jesse here," Ellegaard said pointedly, sending a glare at Magnus from around Soren and Gabriel.

"Ms. Ellegaard, would you please stop referring to my imminent death?" Jesse asked politely, her face having turned a shade of pale green, "It's starting to make me queasy."

Lukas patted her on the back.

As Magnus stepped back again, 3D Glasses came up to Jesse. "And you? What name do you go by?"

Jesse blinked at him, surprised at this turn of events. He dropped his voice to a normal volume and said to her, much more quietly than before, "I'm gonna need a name."

The tiniest smirk came over Jesse's face. "The Spider," she uttered.

A grin came over Petra's face, and she clapped Jesse on the back. "Nice, nice. And it's accurate, too."

"I probably would've gone with something like 'The Destroyer' or something like that," Axel hummed.

"Well, yeah, Axel, you're you."

"You heard the name, folks," 3D Glasses called to the crowd, "give a big Death Bowl welcome to the Spider!" Cheers grew to a deafening level, enough for all of the audience members to wince and for Onscreen-Jesse to wince and put one hand over her ear. "Let's begin!"

Jesse turned to face Magnus again, as 3D Glasses declared dramatically, "Opponents will craft their own griefing towers, which they will then use to grief each other."

"Any rules about the tower?" Jesse asked.

He glanced back at Jesse. "I was just about to get to that. The only rule is-"

A griefer interrupted, flailing his arms in the air like pinwheels. "That there are no rules!"

"... no eye poking," 3D Glasses finished, earning some boos from the crowd, "other than that, do whatever you want. Go crazy. Seriously."

"Well, at least there's one actual rule," Otto mumbled.

Jesse gave Magnus a nervous smile. He gave her a wicked grin in return.

"I'm sure that calmed my nerves," Jesse said drily, making several members of the audience laugh.

Petra threw one arm around Jace and leaned forward, dragging him forward with her. "This is going to be interesting."

"Spider! Pick your building material! And Magnus, you-"

"Nah," Magnus cut him off, "I'm good. Brought my own supply."

"Let the griefing begin!"

And a blast of cheers made Jesse and the audience wince again, before trotting over to her side of the arena. "Okay. Some wood. Stone. And... um..." Reuben started jumping around and squealing excitedly, grinning at Jesse as if to say 'This one! This one!' "... pink... wool."

"Ohh, Jesse, please don't pick the pink wool just because Reuben likes it," Petra groaned, her arm still draped over Jace's shoulders. The mocha-haired boy was starting to blush a bit with his face literally being pressed up next to Petra's.

Jesse frowned her three options, before shrugging. "Well, if I fall over, pink wool would probably hurt less than the other options," she sighed, and went for the pink wool. Reuben let out a happy squeal at that.

Upon spotting the deadpan glare Petra was shooting at Jesse, the black-haired girl simply shrugged. "Can't fault that logic."

The screen sped up as Jesse built her tower, which seemed to be mostly hollow and had a small space at the top that walled her in. There was also a small makeshift TNT launcher at the top of it. A little ways away was Magnus, which looked as if it were made out of chiseled stone and some... other pink block that quite a lot of people didn't recognize. And a TNT launcher that made Jesse's look like a toy.

"Okay... I have extra pink wool in here. Guess it'll have to do," Jesse sighed, straightening up and putting her hands on her hips, before spotting Axel jumping up and down at the bottom of Magnus's tower. "Axel, what are you doing?!"

Real-Jesse shot Axel a deadpan look. He grinned back at her sheepishly.

"Thought you might bring that up," Axel called back sheepishly, "it's just that Reuben wanted to take your corner, and I didn't want to crowd him or anything, so I thought that I'd, um, watch from over here."

Jesse facepalmed. "Gee, thanks, Axel," she sighed, a joking undertone to her voice, before looking back up at Magnus.

An excited look came over his face. "Take your best shot!" he shouted to her with a single nod.

Jesse pulled out an egg, tossing it once into the air and catching it, reminding them of Lukas back at Endercon with his slime ball, before chucking the egg at Magnus. He was forced to dodge sideways as it hit and spawned a tiny baby chicken.

"Ha!" Magnus cackled. "You grief with me, you grief with the best!" And he turned to the crowd with a proud grin, putting his hands on his hips.

"Wow. I didn't know you were such a good actor," Soren hummed.

Jesse lobbed another egg at Magnus, and this time it hit him right in the back of the head and knocked him over. Another baby chicken joined the other one already running around, and Jesse grinned slightly as Magnus climbed back up to his feet.

"So, Spider. Taking an amulet isn't enough... you need to take my crown as well, huh?"

The audience all clapped, the Rogue standing up and sweeping a dramatic bow. His acting WAS really good.

"Do you even have a crown?" Axel suddenly wondered out of the blue.

Jesse simply shrugged. "I don't exactly discriminate in accessory-taking, so I guess your crown shall be mine," she called back.

Magnus turned and kicked both of the little chickens off of the edge of his tower.

"Not the chickens!" Lukas cried. This made Jesse giggle.

"You are but a student!" Magnus declared loudly. "Prepare yourself! For I am here to give you your final lesson!" And he headed over to his giant TNT launcher.

"Oh-hoh, boy," Jesse giggled nervously, her eyes widening. "Please tell me you're not going to fire that..."

Magnus pulled the switch, Jesse ducking, which ended up being unnecessary as the TNT soared over her tower entirely and hit a random part of the stands, scattering several members of the audience, including 3D Glasses.

Real-Jesse let out a relieved sigh.

"Er, that was... just a warning," Magnus cleared his throat, awkwardly, as the crowd booed at him.

"What? A warning that you need glasses?" one of the griefers shouted from behind him.

"Maybe," Jesse hummed mildly, "in that case, go for a pair of the 3D ones, they look cool. Anyway, it seems that the student has become the master. And like a spider manipulates its strings to get to their prey, I'll manipulate this battle to get to a win!"

"Wow!" Lukas exclaimed, sounding startled but impressed. "That was- that got kind of philosophical."

"I'm pretty sure I was just b-sing my way through that," Jesse hummed back, still pale but less so, making several members of the audience laugh.

"I don't know what that means," another griefer shouted, "but I love it and I want to put it on a t-shirt!"

Onscreen, Jesse smiled slightly and moved to her own TNT launcher, before toggling the switch. The TNT sailed right at Magnus, but the Rogue turned around and stacked slime blocks in front of him, making the TNT bounce off and sail right back at Jesse.

"Er... that seemed a bit too real," Soren said slowly.

Jesse dove away from the TNT as it blew up a lower portion of her tower, climbing back to her feet and giving Magnus a quizzical look. "What happened to getting hit by my TNT?" she asked, in a voice that was quiet enough that the rest of the audience couldn't hear.

Magnus certainly could, though, because he narrowed his eyes at her: "Nobody messes with the BOOM MASTER!"

"Oh. Welp. I'm going to die. Nice knowing you all," Jesse groaned, thumping her head onto the coffee table. "I leave everything in my will to whoever wants it."

"He's going to kill her," Ellegaard shook her head, "oh Notch, he's going to kill her." She swiveled to stare at Magnus with a piercing, furious look. "You just can't bring yourself to give up your stupid crown, can you?"

Magnus wisely decided not to try to defend himself, seeing as at least half of the room was now glaring at him.

Onscreen, Jesse dropped her head into her hands, the cloak still hiding her extra arms. "Notch-frickin'-DAMMIT, can't things be easy just for once?!" she groaned, although she was still keeping her voice low.

"Jesse, you okay?" Axel called out, rushing over to her tower.

Before Jesse could even nod in response, Magnus bellowed from the top of his tower, "Had enough yet? All righty, I think Noob Time... is over. Luck sometimes visits the most unskilled of us, but it never lingers. Skill... mastery... these are the things that will see you defeated!"

"I mean, they do have to keep it up if they want the griefers to keep believing it's real..." Sparklez offered weakly by explanation.

"I'm not sure it's going to matter if she's dead!" Lukas exclaimed.

"WOULD EVERYBODY PLEASE STOP REFERRING TO MY IMMINENT DEATH?! OTHERWISE I JUST MIGHT THROW UP ON THE SPOT!" This was easily the loudest, and the most hysterical, anyone had ever heard Jesse's voice.

"Magnus, craft a cannon!" one griefer shrieked.

"Yeah, finish 'em with a cannon!" a different one agreed.

"If it's a cannon you want, it's a cannon you'll get!" Magnus agreed, making the crowd cheer raucously.

Axel sighed. "Yep, he's completely lost it, dude's going for the kill! Jesse, you better craft... I dunno, the best thing of your life. Like, right now!"

Jesse stared at the stuff in her chest, before she let out this defeated sigh and stacked up the rest of her pink wool to make a thick wall with a hole so she could still see Magnus and then fortifying the floor a bit.

"She's gonna die," Magnus grumbled under his breath. "And if she dies, we all die. Great. I just murdered the whole world. And not even in the way I really wanted to."

"Okay, well... it's pathetic. What do you think, Axel?" Jesse asked, leaning over the edge of her tower to look at the burly boy. He rubbed his head awkwardly.

"Yeah, it's... yeah. It... might do. But, Jesse, look."

Jesse looked up, and her eyes widened and her face turned the shade of snow. The screen changed to show Magnus was standing behind two levers. He threw his head back and laughed as the screen zoomed out to reveal a cannon that was shaped like an open-mouthed skull with enough TNT inside to blow Boom Town sky high in the mouth, and a double lava fall.

"Don't anybody mention anything about my imminent death or I swear to Notch I will throw up on them," Jesse said, her voice back at a normal level and surprisingly steady, but still outright hysterical.

Lukas patted her on the back comfortingly, before looking at Jace. "When you need to go pick who to go find, please go to Redstonia," he said simply.

"After seeing this, wild horses couldn't drag me here," Jace responded, his chin resting on the coffee table, eyes glued to the screen.

"You were supposed to throw the fight..." Jesse grumbled onscreen, rubbing her forehead as if she could feel this massive headache coming on.

Magnus cackled as he toggled a lever, a block of TNT shooting out of the skull's mouth at Jesse's terrible little fort. She leaped back to avoid it, the TNT immediately demolishing the wall, and more TNT started flying at her.

"No no no no no," and Olivia covered her eyes, making the tiniest spaces between her fingers so that she could peek through.

Onscreen, Jesse bit her lip, before letting out this harsh sigh and unbuttoning her cloak. "You know what? Screw it!" she snapped, balling the cloak up and hurling it down at Axel, who caught it. Gasps of shock rang out through the crowd of griefers, but Jesse's eyes were narrowing at Magnus. "Alright. If you're going to go hard on me, don't expect me to go easy on you!" she yelled, before all of her arms raised and fired.

Six strings caught six blocks of TNT, and she thrashed them away, mostly trying to aim over the stadium walls to avoid actually hurting anyone in the crowd, before tearing off those strings and catching more and more, as fast as she could.

"See? You're not going to die!" Lukas said, patting her on the back again. Jesse looked much less like she was about to vomit, her face having gone back to a more normal shade as she watched the screen intently.

Jesse rolled sideways, another TNT block blasting through part of her tower. The screen switched to show Magnus was flipping levers so fast that it was almost faster than the speed of sound, irises replaced with glowing balls of fire, sending more blocks than she could handle at once at the girl, but had she not been able to throw them aside with the speed she was doing it at, she already would've died.

The screen switched to show Reuben looking up with an angry oink, before turning away and running off.

"Hey, where's the pig off to?" Gill wondered.

Aiden shrugged. "Explosions are going off everywhere. Isn't it obvious it's running away?"

Reuben snorted at him, annoyed.

Jace's eyes darkened, and he muttered, so quietly that only Petra, whose face was practically right up next to Jace's, could hear, "Don't call Reuben an 'it'..."

Axel looked around frantically onscreen, before spotting the three chests Jesse had been going through earlier and running over to them, flipping one open and rooting through it as he tried to find something to help Jesse, Magnus still firing TNT at an insanely quick rate.

Jesse's tower had turned into randomly floating chunks of blocks in the air that were strung together with string. The reason why was shown a second later as Jesse shot another string at a block beneath her, quickly webbing it together so that she had some mobility. Magnus yelled from his tower, "You're going up against the King of the Griefers, and you pick pink wool? Ha!"

Onscreen, Jesse's mouth fell open. The screen switched to show Reuben rounding a corner and coming up behind Magnus.

"Alright, go Reuben!" Dan shouted.

Onscreen, Jesse shook her head slightly. "I owe you ten billion carrots after this whole mess is over, buddy," she mumbled. Real-Reuben's ears perked up at the sound of 'carrots'.

"Get off!" Magnus yelped, as Reuben started squealing up a storm and kicking his legs and knocking Magnus away from the levers, the fire in his eyes dying a bit, "No pigs allowed!"

"I thought the only rule was 'no eye poking'," Jesse shouted to him in return.

Real-Jesse returned the high-five that Lukas directed at her, looking almost back to normal by now.

"Stuff!" Axel yelled as he ran back to Jesse, an arrow in his hands, "I've got cool stuff!"

He chucked an arrow up to Jesse, the girl shooting a string and retracting it, slapping the arrow into her open palm, the arrow glowing slightly. "I got you an arrow for your bow. It's enchanted or something!"

"When did Jesse get a bow?" Sparklez mused.

Slab shrugged after a moment, making everyone look at him- this was the first he'd actually spoken for a while. "Maybe it was between the first episode and this one?" he suggested.

"... oh yeah. That makes sense," Petra hummed.

Jesse gave him a look. "Axel, really? A bow? In a cannon fight? There's all sorts of clichéd lines about this!" she shouted to him.

"Eh, she's got a point," Cassie murmured.

"Yeah, but the TNT- inside the cannon!" Axel pointed at the skull mouth.

Jesse's face lit up at the suggestion. "Axel, you're a genius!" she yelled, pulling out said bow.

Axel grinned at the compliment.

"Time to see how well you fly, pig!" Magnus yelled, the fire returning to his eyes as he grabbed Reuben and set him in front of the TNT launcher, making the pig squeal in fear.

Jace, Real-Jesse's, and Onscreen-Jesse's eyes all widened at almost the same time. "Reuben!" Onscreen-Jesse yelled.

Magnus yanked the lever, launching Reuben into the air, squealing in fear.

"Well... Magnus is definitely gonna get it now," Lukas said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Jesse aimed and fired with her palm, a web shooting from her palm and catching Reuben, sending him at the ground at more of an acute swing. The screen switched to show Axel racing along the ground, looking up at Reuben. "I gotcha, I gotcha!" he shouted, before jumping up to catch Reuben, setting the pig back on the ground a moment later. "Man, you smell delicious right now," he joked faintly, kneeling down to get rid of the string.

Jesse scraped it off her hand, and turned to glare at Magnus with this deadly glare. "Hey, Magnus!" she barked angrily.

"Yeah, short stuff?"

Jesse jumped onto the highest part of her tower's remains, thrashing her hair out of the way so she could get a clear look, red eye glinting in a lethal way as she pulled the bow back at full draw, fingers pulled back to her cheek, "Flying pig jokes are totally played out!"

"See? Look at that," and Lukas patted Jesse on the back, the short girl twisting to get a good look at him, "you hurt one of the people Jesse cares about and she gets super intense. It's... actually, it's kind of sweet."

"Unless you're on the receiving end of it," Mevia uttered, quietly.

"Yeah, unless that."

Magnus started laughing again at the sight of the single bow and arrow, and started flipping the levers again. Jesse's eyes narrowed, and her knees tensed before she leapt into the air, a TNT block destroying her floating island of pink wool, and fired.

The screen followed the path of the spinning arrow, as it soared straight into the mouth of the skull and embedded itself in one of the TNT blocks dead-center. The fire left Magnus's eyes as they widened. "Oh, crap!" was all he had time to say before the TNT exploded, triggering more explosions, knocking Magnus off his tower with a yell. The griefers gasped, Reuben was grinning, Axel's mouth was wide open, and Magnus slammed onto his back on the ground.

The audience all winced sympathetically.

Jesse's eyes narrowed as she fired another string at a floating block of pink wool, before she swung down and then up, doing a flip in midair before landing perfectly atop a pink wool block, her eyes still narrowed in concentration and panting heavily.

After a good moment of silence except for her panting, she gave the fallen Magnus a grin. "Good... good game," she panted down to him.

Magnus glared at her for a moment, before a smirk came over his face and he shook his head slightly.

The watchers all snapped out of their shock and started applauding, except for Ivor (although he did seem to have a faint smirk on his face), Hadrian and Mevia (both of them admittedly looking rather impressed), Aiden, and- at the brown-haired boy's glare- Maya and Gill.

"We have a winner!" 3D Glasses bellowed, "the Spiiiiderrrrrr!"

The crowd exploded into cheers, and Jesse jumped down, doing a parkour roll and landing on her feet, Axel doing this sort of excited victory/war dance, as 3D Glasses said to Jesse, "You gonna say something then, champ?"

Jesse paused, scratching her head, before nodding as Axel ceased doing his dance and pulled her cloak back out. "Yeah... sure. All you griefers who want to be King or- Queen- or whatever- of Boom Town? Go right ahead."

Gasps from the griefers, and indeed several surprised gasps from the audience as they looked at Real-Jesse, who didn't really look all that surprised about it.

Jesse took the cloak back from Axel and swung it back around her shoulders. "I mean, don't get me wrong, this place is... great..." There was a short pause before she said 'great', "but... I would really like to just get back home right about now."

Real-Jesse let out this long, relieved sigh, and slumped into Lukas, the blonde looking at her before patting her on the head.

A short silence.

Everything suddenly began to shake, a low roar sounding.

Magnus's eyes widened. "Oh, crap," he repeated, "that your Witherstorm?"

Jesse whipped around, and her own eyes widened as she let out a groan, shaking her head slightly in shock as the screen switched to show the Witherstorm towering over Boom Town, in all it's three-headed glory.

"It's at Boom Town," Petra gaped, "how- how did it get from home to Boom Town that fast?"

"It- did it- did it get bigger?" Stampy gasped.

"That thing's going to eat my kingdom!" Magnus shouted.

"Yep, that monstrosity is what we call the Witherstorm," Jesse sighed, before lunging forward and seizing Magnus's wrist. "Okay, now enough staring at it in horror, RUN!"

And the four of them did exactly that, as the tractor beams started roving over the tower and lifting things up, griefers, buildings, anything. "Oh my Notch," Soren said quietly.

"STOP EATING MY KINGDOM!" Magnus yelled at the Witherstorm, coming to a stop and making Jesse, who was still holding his wrist, jolt to a halt as she desperately tried to get him running again. "YOU'LL REGRET MESSING WITH BOOM TOWN!"

"MAGNUS!" Jesse yelled, making his head snap to her. "Come on!" A hint of desperation was beginning to rise in her voice as she started yanking at his arm again.

His eyes hardened, before the group started running again, racing towards the portal. It was even more chaos than before, the terrified screams of griefers ringing out in the air, more and more explosions going off, griefers getting sucked into the Witherstorm left and right.

Jesse grabbed Magnus, who grabbed Reuben and Magnus, and launched a string at the portal, the string sailing straight through the mouth of it. "Hang on!" Jesse nearly screamed, before the group got jerked off their feet and they were thrown straight through it, the screen going black.

"Oh my Notch," Ellegaard gaped at the screen. "That- that was so fast..."

Magnus's eyes were hard as he glared at the screen, before turning slightly to look at Jesse. "Well, kid... at least you know I'll definitely be helping you now," he said, a hint of steel making its way into his voice.


A/N: Easily my longest chapter yet! It didn't help that my computer froze up three times during the writing of this chapter...

RQTC: What subject do you hate at school?

Math.

Just...

Math.

sailor. mikuchan: (laughs) (high-fives you)

LunarStarsMoon: (grins) True

RapidSammi: (cracks up)

Meow Shadow: (laughs) Welp, hope you enjoyed this.

rebekahtpe: Um... be a complete asshole for no reason. Otherwise it's extremely difficult to actually annoy me.

S4SH4L4SH4theGaMeR101: (cracks up) I wonder how the villagers felt about it...

AquaK13: Here's the Death Bowl!

Emily The Avenger: (grins)

Luna96: Hehehe xD

Guest: Kewl :3

Darkbeast Dend: ... ahh... thank you? I think xD

x.X. A.L. X.x