The screen suddenly came back on to a deafening roar.

Jesse jolted upright, rubbing her eyes sleepily. They must've all tried to get some sleep. Ellegaard was leaning against the back wall of the cave but sitting up a bit, wincing as she ran a hand through her now-tangled hair, while Petra was covered with the cloak Jesse had borrowed from the Order's temple.

"I- we need to keep moving," Jesse said, pulling out the amulet automatically, before looking at it. An uncertain expression made its way across her face, before the screen zoomed in on it.

There was a moment's pause, before suddenly a larger hand took the other end. "I'll take it."

Jesse's head jerked up to look at Axel, shock filling her green-and-red eyes. "But- Axel- you-you can't!" she exclaimed, still not letting go of the amulet. "You could be killed! You heard what Ivor said, if-!"

"We could all be killed, Jess," Axel pointed out, tugging the amulet from her hand.

Jesse hesitated, before asking, quietly and anxiously, "Are- are you sure?"

"Of course not," Axel said dismissively, shaking his head with a sheepish smile making its way over his face.

"But you'll have three Witherstorms following you everywhere you go!" Olivia almost burst out, eyes wide.

"If it gets too intense, I'll duck into the Nether or something," Axel shrugged it off. There was a moment's pause as he pocketed it, before saying quietly, "I'm tired of being the selfish one."

Jesse's eyes were wide, before Magnus came up next to Axel and gave him a quick pat on the back and a worried smile. "Well, Axel shouldn't have to do this alone. I'm coming with you."

"You're really gonna do that?" Ellegaard asked the Rogue quietly from where her head was resting on his shoulder.

Magnus smiled and patted her on the head. "No monster hurts my Ellie and gets away with it."

Ellegaard froze, eyes widening and cheeks flushing bright pink. Magnus blinked at her, before realizing what he said and feeling his own face turn bright red. Ignoring the snickers and pointed looks being sent his way, he went back to watching the screen.

"Well, I'm coming with Jesse," and Gabriel came up next to Jesse, crossing his arms with a set expression coming over his face. "I pledged that I would help. And that is what I'm going to do."

Jesse looked around the group, a sadder expression coming over her face. The screen switched to show Soren with his hand on Lukas's shoulder, Gabriel and Petra standing together and looking at one another faintly awkwardly, Olivia supporting Ellegaard as the redstone engineer stood up to show them off, Axel standing next to Magnus, and Ivor standing a little ways behind all of them.

Reuben oinked and nudged the spider hybrid's leg, and she smiled faintly and reached down to rub his head, before looking back up at her friends. "Stay safe," she said quietly, "all of you. Take care of yourselves."

There was a long silence where everyone nodded, before Petra let out a little sigh, walked forward, and pulled Jesse into a hug. Slowly, the rest of the group crowded around, Olivia wrapping her arms around both with general ease, Lukas huddling near Petra a bit, Axel actually lifting the small group off of the ground by a few inches, Reuben butting his head into the impromptu group hug, Magnus placing a hand on Ellegaard's shoulder and guiding her into the hug himself, Gabriel tentatively putting his hand on Petra's back, and Soren let his head drop onto Gabriel's shoulder. Ivor stood at arms' length away from Jesse, before Jesse's hand reached out, grabbed his hand, and tugged him into the hug.

The real-participants of the hug all glanced at each other, before a soft, almost sad smile came over their faces, and they turned back to the screen.

Unbeknownst to them, Hadrian and Mevia exchanged an odd look before turning back to the screen themselves.

Finally, Jesse hopped up onto a horse, Ivor climbing up after Soren onto another one, Lukas perching on another one as well, Gabriel climbing back onto the horse from earlier, and Olivia bleeped into sight on her own horse. Axel and Magnus retreated a few steps, as Jesse pulled Reuben onto the saddle behind her and Petra and Ellegaard retreated into a cave.

Ellegaard took some blocks and started blocking up the cave entrance, while Magnus retreated and Ivor, Soren, and Gabriel started out. The hybrids were left all staring at each other with a sad look.

"Well... I guess this is goodbye," Petra said, quietly.

Jesse shook her head, glancing away. "I- um- I don't- like goodbyes," she said quietly, and rather awkwardly.

"So then what should we call this?" Axel asked, after glancing at Petra with a confused look.

The spider hybrid shrugged a bit, uncomfortably. "I guess it's a... see you later, alligator?"

Axel raised his eyebrow. "See you later... alligator?"

Jesse was quiet for a moment, before she took a shaky breath and finished, "In a while, crocodile." With that, she touched her heels to the horse's sides and turned it around, trotting away after Ivor and Soren. Axel turned around and followed Magnus after a few seconds, and Petra stepped back behind the stone wall Ellegaard had just put up, with a small hole to peek out of.

After a minute or two, Jesse turned around in the saddle, watching the whole scene grow smaller, and smaller, before they turned a corner and it was lost from sight. With a heavy sigh, she turned back around again, letting her eyes drift shut.

Dan glanced at Stampy, whose eyes were shiny. Actually, several members of the audience's eyes were looking distinctly watery. "Are you crying, Stampy?" he asked, arching his eyebrow.

"Nooo... I've just got something in my eye."

"What would that be?"

"... tears."

Jesse, whose own eyes were a bit watery, let out a laugh upon hearing that.

The scene faded to show the group trotting through a forest of oak and birch trees, rain drizzling down from the sky. Jesse was carving a scratch on the saddle leather, presumably to mark the first day. After a moment's pause, she pulled out the journal and flipped it open, leaning over to keep the book from getting wet. Gabriel's voice spoke over the screen.

"The children are rather shy around the scientists, but the moment we enter the room... well..." Gabriel paused before continuing, "let's just say they become extremely enthusiastic. Anyhow, Ivor has started coming weekly (I'm fairly certain Ellegaard had something to do with it) and Jesse looks very happy to read a potion book with him. Sometimes he extracts some of her venom for multiple purposes. The Potions of Poisons that he makes with her venom are easily the strongest we've ever seen. ~ Gabriel."

The voiceover's... uh... voice changed to Ivor's. "I don't really mind coming around. It's nice to see Jesse every week... and I think she's happy to see me. If her jumping on me every single time we come in is any indication."

Lukas stifled a laugh. Jesse poked him.

"Well, lately we've done little IQ tests for them, more as a joke than anything. They... actually have surprisingly high IQs, ignoring the total seclusion that they have from the outside world." He paused as well. "Perhaps that's not entirely accurate. The children do have one small window to the real world, apparently, and that would be us. ~ Ivor."

"Awwwww," Lizzie joked. Ivor huffed and looked away, feeling his face become rather hot. Harper stifled a laugh as well.

The sun and moon rose and fell a few times in a sort of patterned succession, before it slowed down sometime while the moon was up. Jesse had the journal out again and was reading it. Soren's voice came on over the screen.

"We had a... bit of mishap today. The children were in a rather bad mood today... though that may be due to the fact that they had several tests done on them the day before. Actually, I have to wonder what the tests entail, seeing as the children are always in a terrible mood for three days after one of them come up... anyway, back on topic, to cut a very, very, VERY long story short, we had quite a time trying to clean up, what with the smashed glass all over the floor, the scorch marks, the claw marks, the burning cobwebs, and Magnus's clothes catching on fire."

The audience were all fighting laughs or grins at this point as Soren paused. He picked a moment later, "Oh, and the random blocks of dirt and leaves all over the room. You should've seen Ellegaard's hair afterwards! ~ Soren."

Ellegaard's hand automatically went to her hair as, coincidentally, her voice came onscreen.

"I think the children have trouble controlling their powers when they use it past the point which they're used to using it, because Petra set a good deal of the lab on fire by accident this morning-"

Jace accidentally let a loud snort escape his mouth. Petra looked at him for a long moment, before she poked him and went back to watching the screen.

"I'm glad Olivia managed to build a wall high enough to keep the flames and the smoke suppressed while the scientists went to go put it out. Otherwise, we had a... relatively uneventful day. ~ Ellegaard."

Jesse raised her eyebrow. "Yes, that's... quite uneventful."

Onscreen, Jesse looked up from the journal. "Are we there yet?" she asked.

"Almost," Ivor responded.

The sun and moon rose and fell again three more times, before on the last time it came back onto the sun rising over a desert filled with cacti and sand. Jesse looked over at Ivor. "Are we there yet?" she repeated.

He glanced over at her, looking vaguely irritated. "Not much longer now."

Jesse sighed and pulled the journal out of her pocket, flipping it open and trapping the page open. Magnus's voice came onscreen.

"Soren thinks we should head after the Ender Dragon now. Or, well, soon. Okay, two or three months. We've mentioned it to the kids that we're going in a few months, and, ya know what? They all wanted to come with us! Even Jesse and Lukas, who are not exactly the most violent of the hybrids (that would be Petra and Axel)-"

Olivia snorted. Axel put the girl into a gentle headlock and noogied her, making the dark-skinned girl yelp in surprise. Although, admittedly, she did sound rather amused about the whole thing.

"- seemed really curious about the whole thing." A short pause. "I have no idea how to tell them they can't come. ~ Magnus."

Gabriel's voice came onscreen a few seconds after Magnus's stopped. "Petra and Jesse are actually getting VERY good at sword fighting. Ivor couldn't come today, but I think he's been teaching Jesse some tricks, because she's not half bad. She actually managed to stay in the fight with me for longer than three minutes before I knocked her over. She didn't seem too upset about me knocking her down, though. She just asked Petra if she wanted to spar, and five minutes later they were swordfighting. It's a wonder how well these different mobs get along. Even Axel and Lukas are more amicable around each other now. Although they do still occasionally hiss at one another."

Jesse giggled. Lukas poked Jesse's cheek.

The landscape changed again, moon and sun rising and falling as, presumably, another two days passed. Several trees that looked like giant spikes rose out of the ground around them, seeming to spear the sky with their frozen leaves.

"That's... actually, that's really beautiful," Jesse breathed, looking interested.

Ellegaard nodded, crossing her arms with a small smile. "Yes, those are frozen trees. You must be in a frozen tree forest. That's a... rather rare biome."

"I thought you said they were 'almost' there," Em said, looking bored out of her skull.

Ivor just grumbled and didn't say anything.

Onscreen, Jesse looked over her shoulder. Immediately she whipped around, slapping a hand over her mouth as she tried to restrain her giggles at the sight of Ivor leaning on Soren's back, fast asleep. The builder shot Ivor an irritated look and elbowed him, making the man bolt upright and nearly topple off the horse.

Ivor and Soren felt their cheeks flame red and carefully avoided looking at each other as most of the audience started giggling.

"Uh, Ivor, are we there yet?" Jesse asked, carefully covering her grin with her hand.

"Nearly," he replied, shooting Soren an irritated glance.

Onscreen, Jesse glanced at Lukas, who had a hand over his own mouth as well and was sniggering. Grinning and carefully trying not to crack up, Jesse pulled out the journal again and flipped it open, scanning the pages rapidly until she could find the part where she'd left off. Ivor's voice picked up onscreen, over the scene of Ivor shooting Soren an annoyed look and the builder telling him off.

"I brought my work to the lab today. Jesse helped me, actually, brewing some Potions of Healing. And two of Speed and one of Strength. For someone as young as she is, she's surprisingly good at it."

Real Jesse pumped her fists in the air, to the audience's amusement. "I'm not sure if it's because she reads the potion books I bring her so often, or maybe if one of the scientists practice with her, but she's had almost no mishaps."

There was a pause. "Well, except at one point when she accidentally spilled some Blaze powder and gunpowder into the same beaker and nearly blew the whole thing to smithereens. ~ Ivor."

Jesse let out a little laugh onscreen.

"There's only a few weeks until we have to fight the Ender Dragon... or well, until the schedule we've s..." The voice trailed off. Jesse blinked onscreen, the screen switching to show that half the page was filled with scribbled cross-outs. Jesse scanned the page until she found actual words, and Soren's voice picked back up, "We told the children that after defeating the Ender Dragon, we may not be able to visit them for a while. They got a bit sad, but then we promised that after the whole thing dies down, we WILL come visit, just not as often. That cheered them up. They got even more cheered up when I gave them some chocolate... though I gave Lukas a fish. Chocolate's like poison to cats and dogs, apparently." A short pause. "Not that Lukas really cares; he eats it anyway. And then he's violently sick for the whole night, since he's half ocelot." Another pause. "It's a good thing Jesse has those Potions of Healing on hand. ~ Soren."

Petra patted a wincing Lukas on the back.

The sun and moon rose and fell again, three more times. Jesse looked over at Ivor, raising her eyebrow. "Are we nearly there yet?" she asked, sounding more tired than anything.

Ivor simply let out a sigh. "No," he said flatly, not bothering to try to tell her that they were 'almost there'.

The audience dissolved into giggles.

Lukas snorted onscreen, making Jesse's lips twitched as she pulled out the journal again as she very deliberately tried to keep from laughing, her friends all attempting to hide their own grins.

It wasn't really working, though.

"There's only one week left until we go fight the Ender Dragon. The children have started asking, on literally twelve occasions, if they could come. I think Petra has been bugging Gabriel, and I've seen Jesse asking Ivor. I'm pretty sure I've seen Lukas bugging Soren about it, too. We can't let them come with us, unfortunately, for a multitude of reasons." A short pause, before Ellegaard sighed. "What are we supposed to tell them? ~ Ellegaard."

Magnus picked up a moment later.

"I'm fairly certain that Ivor and Jesse have been brewing potions as their activity. Only those two can chat without stopping and still not screw up a potion massively." He snorted a moment later. "And only Jesse can mix an incredibly complicated potion in less than ten minutes without stopping chatting once and without screwing up one bit. Her multi-tasking skills are amazing. I wish I could multi-task too. It'd make griefing soooo much easier. ~ Magnus."

Onscreen-Jesse snorted at this, before Gabriel started speaking.

"I'm writing this as fast as I can, seeing as I have to leave this off and quickly get to bed. We're going to face the Ender Dragon tomorrow. We stopped at the lab today for the last time for... well, a while. The children all wished us luck, before we split up into our usual pairs and they wished us all the best of luck separately." A soft laugh. "Petra told me to come back safe and alive or else she'd bring me back to life to kick me."

Jace cracked up, his laughter not stopping even when Petra playfully smacked him, a faint pink tint to her cheeks and a scowl blazing on her face.

The rest of the audience was doing their best to smother their giggles. She turned a withering glare onto them. They remained cheerfully unwithered, so she dropped the glare.

"So, they've wished us the best of luck. ... Now, to see if that luck will help us any. ~ Gabriel."

Jesse put the journal back into her pocket onscreen, letting out a sigh and absentmindedly patting Reuben, the pig letting out a happy sound as the screen faded to black.

"Ohhhh thank Notch," Em groaned. "That was getting so boring."

Stampy grinned at the comment. "You're worse than Jesse with her 'are we there yet'."

"Are we there yet?" Jesse asked, grinning.


A/N: (laughs) I tried.

RQTC: Anyone heard of Bendy and the Ink Machine? It's... somehow terrifying. xD

LunarStarsMoon: (laughs) / Yay :3 / Hehehe xD / And... no spoilers xD

the indecisive brid: Hehehe xD And thank you.

Emily The Avenger: (laughs) / Yaaaayyy :3 / Teehee xD

Guest: No spoilers :3 / And yes. Yes he is xD

Darkbeast Dend: Sure, it's okay to call someone by a name they don't like. / Hi, Sam!

NinaNaranja: (laughs) / She's like the kind of person who doesn't like nicknames much xD / Cool, thanks!

SofiaTheWriter88: (grins) No spoilers.

Kaos Ruin: Haha I know right?

Beli0304: I'm glad to hear you liked it :3 / Yay! / (cracks up)

AquaK13: Agreed xD A bit too far for now / Yay! And thank you!

RapidSammi: Sure! Just PM me a new thing and I will teach you my mysterious ways xD Well, I'll try. I suck at teaching. xD xD

Rabbits rule: (laughs) / I found a way to include both Jetra and Lukesse in a story. Lord help me xD / ... uhh I dunno. / Random! fjd;aj xD

potato guest: It's actually possible; if there is going to be a Season 2 they probably won't make it until late 2017-2018, so I'm still holding out for it xD

NoItsBecky: I CALLED IT. I KNEW IT WAS BECAUSE YOU DIDN'T LIKE THE SHIPS xD xD xD / Yep xD

rebekahtpe: (thumbs-up) / Haha yeah xD / Ahhh. Yep. xD / Uh... wallet?

S4SH4L4SH4theGaMeR101: Pretty much, yeah xD / And... no spoilers xD

J.M.M: Dude, it's not creepy in the least xD

DynamiteHunter6: Oh. I didn't know that. xD

x.X. A.L. X.x