"I... feel like it got bigger," Axel said onscreen slowly, staring in the direction of the Witherstorm.
Olivia nodded, her mouth hanging open slightly. "It... must be like the Great Devourer in that cartoon Jesse liked to watch a while back."
"Hey, I like that too!" Jace exclaimed. Jesse grinned a bit and reached out to high-five the mocha-haired boy.
"The more it eats, the bigger it gets. And so far, it hasn't really shown signs of being a picky eater."
She was nearly cut off by Ellegaard's quiet question. "Soren?" she asked, slowly.
The two Order members put their swords away as they stared at Soren, tentatively approaching him, almost as if he was just an apparition.
"It's him!" Magnus exclaimed as they stopped only about arms' length away, staring at him intently. "I-it's you!" Obviously, he was addressing Soren on the second part.
Soren stepped forward a bit himself hesitantly, slowly giving the two Order members an almost shy, worried smile. "Hello, old friends."
"It's a shame Gabriel couldn't be there as well," Soren said quietly, the other two Order members glancing at the warrior. Gabriel took in a small breath, as if preparing to ask her something, before pausing and turning away again, his mouth pressing into a thin line as he stared at the screen.
Before anything else could be said, both onscreen and in real-time, an ear-splitting roar rumbled through the air, making everyone onscreen clamp their hands over their ears until it abated. Soren's shy smile immediately faded into a more serious look. "It's time to go," Soren said, more urgently this time, "we only get one shot at this. Remember, once the Formidi-Bomb is crafted, it'll explode in a matter of seconds."
There was a grave silence as the information sank in, before Soren continued, in a more quiet voice, "It means whoever is doing the crafting... will be in great danger." Another short, awkward pause. "I was hoping... perhaps we could draw straws?"
Everyone looked at each other silently, the chaos in the background seeming to fade away. None of them seemed to want to say no outright... but none of them seemed to want to go, either. After a moment, everyone looked at the three Order members. Soren looked away, rubbing his elbow. Ellegaard shuffled her feet and looked down at her feet. Magnus developed an interest in the sky. A few more moments passed.
"I never wanted to be a hero."
Everyone's heads snapped around. The screen switched to show Jesse with every single set of her arms crossed, a hard look on her face. "I never wanted to be a hero," she repeated, "but I'm willing to do the heroic thing."
"Jesse, if that means what I think it means-" Petra's warning was cut off as onscreen-Jesse took a deep breath and shut her eyes, bracing herself, before turning to Soren, red-and-green eyes blazing and iron-hard. "I'm going to set off the Formidi-Bomb."
"Jesse!" Real-Petra yelled at her. Not that she was the only one; several of the younger members of the audience had also blown up at her in anger, and the older ones were all gaping at her. "What the heck are you thinking?!"
"Every minute we stand there like idiots is another minute wasted! We can't afford to waste time with that- that thing a stone's throw away!" Jesse shot back.
"Why does Jesse have to do it?" Gill complained. "You're the Order of the Stone, you defeated the Ender Dragon, you're the greatest heroes that ever lived...! So why does..."
He trailed off. Maya picked up the thought herself, "Why does Jesse have to do it?"
The Order all exchanged a rather shamefaced look. Finally, Soren sighed. "That's a difficult question with no good answer."
"Jesse!" Onscreen-Axel burst out, "you- you could die!"
Jesse's expression was a bit anxious, before it set, and she looked up and gave him a small, sad little smile. "I know. I'm not all that excited about it. But I've got to do this."
Axel opened his mouth to protest onscreen, but Jesse turned away to face Soren again, the builder coming closer. For a few seconds, the audience thought he was going to try to talk her out of it, even going so far to open his mouth, but Jesse cut him off. "Soren, I've made up my mind. You're just going to make something that's already hard for me to do even harder. Just give me the TNT." And she held out her hand, waiting.
The audience all glanced from Real-Soren to Onscreen-Soren, as if expecting him to try anyway. Onscreen-Soren stood there for a few more seconds, his mouth still slightly open, before he shut it again. After another moment's silence, he set the Super TNT block into her hand, meeting her eyes. "We... the rest of us... we'll build distractions in its path. Hopefully it will buy you some time," he said, in a shaky voice.
Petra coughed into her hand, giving the two Order members a glare. "You should be ashamed of yourselves."
There was a long pause where both of them looked at the floor, before Ellegaard looked back up and stepped towards Jesse. "Jesse, take my armor. It'll help."
Everyone's eyes widened both onscreen and in real-life. Ivor blinked in surprise before looking at the Order's couch automatically, seeing his own surprise mirrored on their faces. Ellegaard's had softened into a smile.
A moment later, not to be one-upped by Ellegaard, Magnus stepped forward. "Nah, you can take mine. It's gotten me out of a lot of jams."
Ellegaard stared Jesse in the eye. "I insist."
"I double insist."
"I triple insist."
"I... insist four times."
"Quadruple."
"Know-it-all."
"You say that as if it's a bad thing."
Jesse put up her hand, looking a bit overwhelmed and effectively cutting off both Order members, before hesitantly moving to stand in front of Ellegaard, giving her a worried look.
"Jesse, you deserve this. What you're doing means WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!"
Both onscreen-Jesse and most of the audience jumped at that.
Jesse blinked at her in shock, before something seemed to click in her mind and she whirled around on the spot. The Witherstorm was pretty much hovering in front of them by now, and they all quickly fled back a bit. Ellegaard quickly yanked off the armor and tossing the pieces to Jesse to show her wearing a brown suit underneath.
Jesse grabbed the pieces and threw them on as she received them. The chestplate, the pants (oh... wow, that sounded a lot less wrong in my head), the boots, and yanked the gloves on in record time. As it was, when she had the chestplate on, she looked at it for a moment before wrapping her arms around her midriff, sucking in a huge breath of air, and squeezing into it.
"If there was a trophy for 'shortest time for putting on armor with four extra limbs'," Jesse spoke, in a frail attempt to make a joke, "I would've just won it in a heartbeat." This did get a few chuckles, but most of the audience's attention was transfixed to the screen.
The screen changed to show Jesse shaking her head and looking slightly off to the side, fully armored up in Ellegaard's armor.
Ellegaard hummed thoughtfully, tilting her head to one side. "Hm. It suits you," she said, after a few seconds.
Jesse winced a bit and put one hand to her ribcage area, before letting her hands down again.
"Jesse, you're going to have to set down a crafting table out there and make that Formidi-Bomb!" Soren almost shouted urgently onscreen, "everyone else, grab a buddy and split up. We need to keep that Witherstorm on track, so build, build, build!"
Olivia groaned as she rushed over to Axel. "Oh, NOTCH, she actually has to put down a table?!" she nearly shrieked, sounding extremely panicked right about then.
"That," Otto said, pinching the bridge of his nose and looking as though he had a migraine, "is incredibly inconvenient."
"Less talking, more making sure none of us die!" Jesse yelled, grabbing a crafting table into her hands and bolting towards the Witherstorm.
"Jesse, don't forget!" Soren yelled after her, "Super TNT in the middle, gunpowder all around!"
Jesse turned back to nod at him, before turning back around. Right then, she flung herself sideways as a tentacle whipped over her head from where she'd been a few seconds ago, smashing some trees out of the ground, roots clinging to the dirt, leaves flying, branches snapping off from the force of the blow, and sent it flying away who knew how far.
The spider hybrid rolled over a few times, before scrambling back to her feet and racing towards the Witherstorm at breakneck speed. Finally, she skidded to a halt right underneath the gigantic, cloud-like monster. "Ohhh, I hope this works," she groaned.
She slammed the crafting table onto the ground, dropped the Super TNT in the middle, and then began to put the gunpowder in place. She was doing it so fast, and her hands were shaking so hard, that it was honestly a little surprising to the audience that she wasn't dropping the gunpowder all over the floor.
Just as the last one was placed down on the table, another deafening roar rang through the air, and an indigo glow covered Jesse, the crafting table, and the ingredients on the table. Gravity took a vacation, and everything floated into the air.
"No!" Lukas yelled, a death grip on the girl next to him.
"Not good, not good!" Jesse nearly screamed as she floated into the air. The Super TNT and gunpowder had started to shiver together a moment before, but now the pieces were floating away from each other into the tractor beam. "Not yet!" she screamed at the Witherstorm, as if it could hear her or even cared. "Not yet!"
She let out a hiss of anger, squeezing her eyes shut, before slowly swimming through the air and snagging one of the stray pieces of gunpowder. "Okay, okay. I got this. I got this!" she practically chanted, hands shaking again.
"Jesse, if you die, I swear to Notch I'm going to bring you back to life just so I can kill you again!" Petra nearly yelled at Real-Jesse.
"I feel like she'd find a way to do that," Jace said to Lukas, Jesse nodding in agreement.
"She's Petra."
"Good point."
Jesse spun in midair slowly, snagging another piece of gunpowder and using her fingers to bat it into reach. The moment she had a secure grip on the second piece, she quickly flailed out of the way as a tree lazily floated past her, watching it as she started floating towards the Witherstorm's mouth. She wrinkled her nose and clamped a hand over her mouth. "Ugh- burned cake and rubber- not a good combination," she muttered, seeming to suppress her gag reflex.
Jesse reached out a moment later, pulling a last piece of gunpowder into her hands, before reaching out and catching the Super TNT in her hands, looking anxiously from the bomb to the gunpowder. "Oh, please, please, PLEASE don't blow up..." she groaned.
"Ah, yes. I nearly forgot about that," Mevia murmured.
Jesse swam back down to the crafting table, spotting the others finishing up what looked to be a Reuben with sunglasses. A moment later, she gasped in shock as a black tentacle lashed out, flying at the others. "LOOK OUT!" she screamed.
The tentacle smacked into Ellegaard and Magnus, sending both of them flying. Magnus smacked into the base of the statue with a groan, but Ellegaard was sent flying back at a tree.
The screen suddenly went into slow motion. Olivia bleeped into sight behind Ellegaard, catching the redstone engineer from behind, before getting knocked off her feet by the impact and flying at the tree herself. She squeezed her eyes shut, before she disappeared in another spray of magenta sparks.
Suddenly, the screen sped back up, and Olivia bleeped into sight again several feet away, the two of them toppling to the ground and rolling several feet before coming to a halt. Olivia slowly sat up, wincing. Ellegaard followed suit a moment later, much more slowly and shakily.
Both Olivia and Ellegaard breathed a relieved sigh.
Onscreen, Jesse's teeth gritted, and both eyes were now blazing red with fury. She was mere meters from the Witherstorm's mouth now, as she turned back around to face it. "Mess with my friends," she said, in a quiet, intense, furious voice, "and I will destroy you."
With that being said, she moved more quickly than they'd ever seen her move, EVER, setting down the remaining TNT and gunpowder. The ingredients shivered, before condensing together with a small 'pow' and a momentarily bright light.
When the light faded, what remained was what looked like a normal TNT block, but with a dark purple-gray color rather than the customary bright red. There was also a glowing, shimmering F on each side of the TNT block. Simply crafting it seemed to have demolished the crafting table, which was proven a moment later as it floated into the Witherstorm's mouth in several pieces.
"She's literally got a few seconds before it explodes!" Soren shouted, "if she doesn't get that into the Witherstorm, this whole thing will have been for nothing!"
Jesse took exactly half a second to admire it, before taking ahold of it and drawing her arms back like a bowstring. "Hey! Eat this!" she yelled at it, before shoving the Formidi-Bomb right at the Witherstorm's mouth.
The Formidi-Bomb floated almost lazily towards the beast's mouth, when suddenly something snagged the back of her armor.
Jesse went "hmm?" in surprise and turned around to see Axel, Lukas, Petra, Olivia, Magnus, Ellegaard and Soren hauling on a fishing rod, the same one Olivia had been looking at in Soren's treasure room. She must've ended up taking it.
Reuben was jumping up and down in an excited fervor next to them, and Ellegaard looked as though she had a hand clamped over her chest and ribcage area in pain, and was favoring one leg more than the other.
But she was alive.
Jesse let out an incoherent cheer as they reeled her back towards the ground, away from the huge monster, as the Witherstorm's middle head opened to slowly grant the Formidi-Bomb entry. It floated inside.
Just as the jaw closed over the bomb, a massive blast of white light suddenly sent Jesse flying towards the ground from the force of the explosion. Her back slammed into the ground, and she seemed to bounce off, the screen abruptly going black.
"Did... did she do it?" Cassie asked, sounding breathless.
Jesse's voice suddenly spoke onscreen, fading away even as she spoke, making the audience fall silent with the truckload of tension that had started permeating the room.
"Is it over?"
A/N: There will be some slight changes made to the original Hybrid story; most of them being around this part. I think I've mentioned this before, actually xD Easily one of the longer chapters of the story so far.
RQTC: Who has read Ranger's Apprentice? I may be making a crossover x3
MissyMattingly: Most of the storyline is explained throughout the actual story, so you shouldn't need to actually read Tower of God xD and hm, interesting idea.
Kaos Ruin: (works on the next part of the story; which I've decided to change a bit from the original Hybrid.)
LittleAngelbun: (laughs) Okay, you do that.
S4SH4L4SH4theGaMeR101: (laughs) / And did you like it?
LunarStarsMoons: (laughs) / ... what does Tower of God have to do with... paranormal stuff..? (confused) / (laughs) It'll take a while, since I'm trying to work on finishing this one first.
Emily The Avenger: (laughs) I know, right? / Nope. / Aww, thanks for including HCM on the list!
AquaK13: (laughs) / You don't have to know the series to get the story; you just have to keep reading. A lot of stuff is eventually explained throughout the story. xD
Rabbits rule: Uhh, no, the reason isn't because they'll take over the school... it's because... well... bunnies have a lot of... sex... so basically you'll have... humping... rabbits everywhere in the school.../ I'd tickle them and make them laugh more xD I like it when people laugh and are happy. And if they weren't ticklish, I'd just poke them in the cheek over and over. xD / No... no, I'm not a stalker. I just guessed from the way you format and write your reviews. I trust everyone too, don't worry xD / (looks at my new pack of wolves) Um... you do realize my parents are allergic to animals, right? xD / (goes and pets Jess)
sailor. mikuchan: (grins evilly)
Darkbeast Dend: (laughs) / Uhh, I've... never read it, and I don't know where this fanfiction is... soo... (rubs head awkwardly)
RapidSammi: Hahaha! Sorry, Sammi-chan x3
SofiaTheWriter88: Lol, that's true.
rebekahtpe: Yay! / Don't worry, I ain't planning to. xD / YES! / No, my English teacher did. / A butter knife. It's a knife but it's still dangerous. (If it's a matter of life or death, aim for the eyes. If ya can't see well, ya can't attack well.)
Guest: I was working on a card for my grandmother yesterday xD
DynamiteHunter6: Really? Wow, I'm flattered! / Harry Potter, Rangers Apprentice, and anything that Rick Riordan has written.
x.X. A.L. X.x
