"Okay, so how are we supposed to get out of here?" Lukas hissed- literally. His hair was standing to stand on end as he stared at the Endermen endlessly milling around the next room. "We seriously need to come up with a plan. And not our- our usual, 'we'll-come-up-with-a-plan-when-we-need-to-OH-WAIT-NOW-WE-NEED-ONE-" His voice had risen both in pitch and volume and was as close to a shriek as any of them had ever heard it.
"Shhhh!" Axel hissed back at him, his voice as low as any of them had ever heard it.
"-kind of plan," Lukas finished, his voice back to a whisper.
"Well, he's right," Magnus pointed out.
"Yes, thank you for pointing that out when none of us can hear you onscreen, Magnus," Jesse snarked back, although it was fairly obvious that she was doing it because her nerves were too shot to do anything else. "That's so helpful."
Jesse glanced back at Soren onscreen, who was staying in the back of the group. "Soren, you're the one who's been studying Endermen for years... any ideas?"
Soren was silent for a moment as he watched the Endermen, before glancing back to Jesse. "One constant about Endermen is that they hate water. If you could get one of those fountains to overflow..." He trailed off thoughtfully before glancing between Jesse and Olivia. "Jesse, you or... um..." His face went slightly slack. "Lizzie?"
"Olivia."
"Olivia could go."
Olivia shook her head a bit, making all of them look at her. "When I fell into the water in the grinder earlier... well, I didn't really want to say something; it really wasn't that important. But when I landed in the water, it was like I was getting a static shock over my body. It wasn't too bad, but... if we're trying to fool the Endermen, I might have to go more fully 'Enderman' and I'm not sure if it'll actually start hurting at that point."
Jesse pursed her lips slightly as the group glanced at each other. "Okay... gah, just as I thought I'd never have to smell this thing ever again," she sighed, pulling the mask over her head. "No one better hit me in the face again."
Both onscreen and real Soren gave her a rather sheepish grin.
Jesse slowly began to make her way forward again. Petra rasped, "Good luck" before she walked into the room full of Endermen. Glancing around, she watched one Enderman that was watching her carefully off on the side, before turning back to the front- and jumping with a soft gasp as a pair of violet-tinted eyes met hers.
Several members of the audience jumped as well. Olivia's face was buried in Axel's shoulder.
Jesse froze stock-still, staring back at the Enderman, not even daring to blink. She stood there, perfectly still, for almost a full minute, before the Enderman slowly turned away, its back facing her, and then walking away smoothly. The spider hybrid allowed herself a long, quiet sigh of relief, before continuing her journey over to the fountain.
Only to jump, trip over her feet, and nearly fall when Soren called out to her quietly, "Try not to die."
"Notch-damn, Soren, don't do that!" Jesse exclaimed softly over her shoulder, glaring at him with one hand over her heart. She looked as though she could've cheerfully strangled him.
He got the point and shut up.
Jesse tiptoed to the fountain, before quietly beginning to punch through one of the blocks that was keeping the water into the fountain. She let out an exclamation of triumph as water splashed all over the floor, making all of the teleporters hiss angrily and teleport to higher ground, out of the way. She looked around a bit before turning back around to her friends and waving all her arms at them. "Coast is clear!" she called.
Everyone uncovered their face, and upon seeing no Endermen- well, excluding the short one in the water- they tentatively came towards her. Olivia made a face as she started walking through the water herself. "Oh, gosh, this feels like pins and needles," she remarked awkwardly.
Petra patted Olivia on the back sympathetically.
Jesse peeked into the next room and then let out a groan. "Aw, I gotta do this TWICE?" she groaned at the sight of the next room swarming with as many Endermen, if not more.
"Oh Notch we're all going to die," Lukas groaned.
"No we're not, Lukas. Think happy thoughts!" Jesse said encouragingly.
"Oh, my bad. Hey, you know what? We're surrounded by Endermen in the End with almost no way out, but hey, we're all gonna be fine!" Lukas said, in a extremely sarcastic mock-cheerful manner (it was pretty obvious he was just doing it out of stress, though), before dropping his hands and giving her a deadpan look. "That better?"
Jesse gave him a disgruntled look for a moment, before flicking him on the forehead and turning back to the screen.
Petra chuckled. Jace grinned, leaning against the taller redhead. She looked at him, before patting him on the head and turning back to the screen.
Onscreen, Jesse started forward with a huff, motioning to her friends to stay behind the wall and out of sight. Reuben looked up at Axel, who was still in plain sight of the Endermen, and nudged Axel. The burly boy had gotten distracted, though, and he toppled into the water with a yelp and a splash.
Real-Axel huffed.
Jesse marched straight to the fountain. "Okay, fountain number two," she said determinedly, "prepare to meet your doom." And she punched through another block, eyes flicking sideways as she watched the other Endermen, before breaking through the block and sending a wave of water over her feet and all over the floor. The other Endermen shrieked in rage before teleporting to higher ground, like the previous room.
Jesse gave another quick look-around before shouting, "Okay, everyone, let's go!"
Axel opened his eyes, and, upon seeing no Endermen except for Jesse in sight, bolted for the exit. The others were quick to follow, and Jesse raced after them- only to nearly slam full-force into Petra, although at the last second she realized that the group had stopped and applied the brakes, skidding to a halt and falling over into the water. Apparently the shock was a bit too much, because the Enderman suit ripped a moment later.
Jesse winced and pulled the Endersuit off as quickly as she could before kicking it into a corner.
"You know, most girls don't take their clothes off in front of guys unless they're in private," Gill said suddenly.
Real-Jesse's face turned fifty shades of red, and she hid her head in her hands. Lukas coughed a bit, looking supremely uncomfortable now, and even Petra was blushing a bit. Maya grabbed a pillow from behind her and proceeded to start clobbering him with it, her own face bright red. "Gill, would you quit being so dirty?!" she yelled at him, voice rising into a squeak.
Most of the other females in the audience were also blushing heavily now, and Isa had actually hidden her face behind Benedict from blushing so hard. Gill was grinning mischievously though. "Sorry, sorry!" he exclaimed, but he was still cracking up.
"You better be!" Maya yelled at him, before flopping back onto the couch with a huff, face still bright pink.
Onscreen, Jesse looked back up apologetically. "Sorry, sorry," she whispered, before looking at the group, which was still standing perfectly still. "What's wrong?"
When none of them answered her, Jesse gently pushed her way to the front, and her eyes widened.
The screen changed, and everyone in the audience's face went extremely pale. The wool world was almost literally coated with the tall monsters. The bridges, the 'grass', the 'trees', even some of the other structures. The only place they weren't was in the water.
"Uh oh," Jace said slowly, shifting so that he was sitting mostly behind Petra. She glanced at him before flopping onto him, making him go 'oof' quietly.
Onscreen, Jesse let out a long, slow breath. "Well," she said, finally.
"They're everywhere," Axel squeaked, his own eyes wider than dinner plates.
"How are we supposed to get through this? Both physically and psychologically. If we somehow get through this..." Lukas shuddered, his hair and ears shivering like a leaf, his tail extremely bushy now. "I can't say this won't become some sort of recurring nightmare. No offense, Olivia."
Olivia was staring at the crowd of Endermen herself, slowly shaking her head. "None taken," she replied breathlessly.
Slowly, the whole group turned to look at Jesse. Even Soren. And he'd been the leader of the Order of the Stone!
Jesse bit her lip and stared into the crowd of Endermen. "Hmm... well, most of us are hybrids. I'm not sure Endermen react towards other mobs... at all. So maybe if we tried to go into our more... well, mob-like forms, we could get to the trapdoor? If Petra lent Soren the cloak, he'd be able to make it through," she suggested at last, still staring into the crowd of Endermen.
"Not a bad idea," Petra said from where her head was now resting on Jace's stomach. The mocha-haired boy had to prop himself up on his elbows to actually watch the screen.
The group turned to regard the scene before them onscreen.
Finally, Lukas let out a long sigh. "Well, it's the only idea we've got."
Jesse slowly nodded, a more determined look fixing itself over her anxious expression.
A/N: Ooooh so excited for next chapters (jumps around)
RQTC: Does anyone play Episode Interactive?
LunarStarsMoon: (high five) / Lol yep x3
Emily The Avenger: Correct! / Lol xD / Ahh, I've heard of it. I honestly don't really want to read it... but at the same time I do xD
Meow Shadow: (laughs) Well, I try. / Kewl. :3
Kaos Ruin: I'm a nice person; I don't think it actually ever occurred to me to pick the other option xD
sailor. mikuchan: Yay!
Darkbeast Dend: It's honestly fine, don't worry about it. / Cool!
DynamiteHunter6: Well, she does, but to get the resources she needs to kill all these monsters... and I don't know about you but she probably doesn't want to fight a crap-ton of monsters everyday xD / Nice!
JJ14: I'm honestly not sure how to include it... (rubs head awkwardly) it's more like bromance.
S4SH4L4SH4theGaMeR101: (laughs) Yep.
Emily The Avenger: NO PROBLEM EM! xD
Rabbits rule: Cool! Glad you like the chapters. / (blinks) Um, wow! Thank you! / (blinks) That... sounds more like a fanfiction idea.
SofiaTheWriter88: Yeep :3
Raven: (laughs) I'm glad you think like that... honestly my writing's decent, but it's nothing really amazing.
EthanDaCabbage: Oh! I'm glad you like them!
mEEplePeoPLe: Thank you!
x.X. A.L. X.x
