The screen came back onto Jesse's screaming first, before the screen faded in to show her hitting the ground and bouncing once, surrounded by a purple-and-pink hue, bouncing through a miniature gorge before rolling over the ground and finally coming to a stop, arms wrapped around Reuben.
Lukas noticed Jesse turning progressively more pale from where she was sitting next to him. "Hey, you okay?" he asked her, making sure to keep his voice relatively low.
Jesse took a very slow, very deep gulp, before shakily raising her hand and pointing at the corner of the screen.
Most of the audience followed her gaze. In the background were the faces of those who'd been sucked into the Witherstorm, their expressions frozen in expressions of horror or fear, and behind a purple, glassy substance. However, onscreen-Jesse and onscreen-Reuben didn't notice.
Petra shuddered. "Notch that's creepy."
Panting slightly, Jesse sat up, dropping Reuben next to her and giving him a stern look. "Reuben, don't surprise me like that," she gently scolded the pig, although it was pretty clear that she wasn't all that angry about it, "you could've gotten hurt if I'd dropped you."
Reuben gave her a squeal of apology as she glanced around her surroundings, "Well, then again on the other hand... I'm glad I'm not here alone." She fondled his ears and struggled to her feet, looking around again. "Just stay close, okay?"
She began walking through the almost cavernous insides of the Witherstorm, before her eyes widened and she froze, having spotted the people inside the Witherstorm, their eyes blank white and nearly glowing with a strange purple hue.
"So that's what happened to all those people," Milo mumbled, his own face a bit pale.
"That's what happened to Gabriel, and the Ocelots..." Sparklez trailed off, staring at the screen.
Gabriel and the three members of the Ocelots shivered. "Yes, don't remind me," Gabriel muttered, looking as though he might be a bit sick.
After a long moment, Jesse took a long, shaky breath and continued through the Witherstorm, hands trembling. "Ohhh, I hope this thing doesn't have some sort demonic immune system..."
Jesse groaned and placed her head in her hands. "I just jinxed it, didn't I?"
Suddenly, the whole room seemed to shake, and her head snapped up to gaze at the ceiling. "Okay, screw that, looks as though it's got an immune system."
"Yep, I jinxed it."
The entire room suddenly started turning, making Jesse cry out in shock and shoot out some webs. Her lower arms scooped Reuben up again as she retracted the string, sending her flying towards what was now the ground at more of an acute angle rather than a free-fall. However, she still let out a pained grunt as she collided with the ground, lower arms instinctively releasing and letting Reuben plop on the ground next to her.
Jesse grimaced as she pushed herself up, raising her head- and making direct eye contact with a withered man. She let out a yelp and shuddered as she flung herself backwards, scrabbling to get away from him.
"Hey, wait," Maya said, leaning forward and making Gill grunt a bit as she put more pressure on his knees, "isn't that the butcher from Endercon?"
Real-Reuben whined and nuzzled into Jesse's arms, Jace reaching out and fondling his ears while Jesse reassuringly hugged the small pig that was sitting in her lap, being careful to leave room for Jace to fondle his ears.
Reuben let out a terrified squeal onscreen, galloping away.
"Ah, no!" Jesse scuttled after him, "Reuben, come back! Wait up!"
She made it only a few feet before it turned again, making Jesse gasp and topple off what was now the wall, doing a sort of lazy flip in midair before doing a sort of faceplant on the ground, grunting in pain as she landed. She'd started getting up when Reuben landed right on her, knocking her back to the floor with a yelp.
Jace patted the black-haired girl next to him sympathetically.
Onscreen, Jesse slowly got up to all eights, a bit more warily than before, before her eyes widened.
The screen switched to show that, in front of her, under some sort of bizarre archway, was the Command Block. They appeared to be in what looked like the very heart of the monster, the ground littered with purple dust, and withered people stuck on the walls, the archway appearing to be made out of the Witherstorm's tentacles.
"Amazing," Hadrian muttered, in such a low voice that only Otto and Mevia could hear him, "and to imagine that it used to look like a normal Wither, save with the Command Block in its ribs."
Jesse got up to her feet, moving slowly, gingerly, in case the Witherstorm started turning again. She took a few tentative steps... before full-out sprinting at the Command Block, even as the cavern started shaking again, although it wasn't enough to cause Jesse to trip or fall or stumble.
She slowed to a walk as Reuben caught up to the spider hybrid, giving the girl next to him a worried whine. Jesse's eyes, however, was fixated on the Command Block, even as tremors rattled through the cavern beneath her. "There it is," she whispered to Reuben, although her eyes were still fixed on the Command Block, "we meet again, Command Block."
A slow, metallic scrape as she unsheathed the miasmic sword, giving it a flick and making a flash of pink light reflect into the viewer's eyes. "Now, it's time to destroy you."
Carefully making her way onto the raised platform, Jesse paused in front of the Command Block, fist tightening on the hilt.
"Hey, this'll be a piece of cake!" Axel said cheerfully. "This looks pretty easy!"
"This just looks way too easy," Olivia spoke up uncomfortably. "After all they've been through, it's hardly just going to be in and out, is it?"
Nell frowned at the screen, her usually serene brow creasing suspiciously. "Well..." she trailed off, not daring to say anything in case she jinxed it.
Suddenly, Jesse's arm swung up, flicking the sword with a flashing wheel of light into the air, before letting out a loud yell and slamming it down on the Command Block. A resounding, trembling CRACK! rang through the cavern like the sound of a whip, white sparks spitting out upon contact and making a huge crack appear in the Command Block.
However, it still wasn't quite breaking.
The Witherstorm let out a roar of pain and anger, Jesse dropping to all eights in a preparatory way as the entire cavern shook violently. The archway, which looked as though it'd been made of the Witherstorm's tentacles, suddenly peeled apart to reveal that it was, in fact, made of the tentacles. Reuben let out a loud squeal of fright as the tentacles all shot at Jesse.
Ivor swore violently, making most of the audience turn to stare at him. He'd been a pretty grouchy person before this point, but he'd seemed to refrain from actually swearing.
"Are you kidding me," Magnus groaned. "This thing has a freaking immune system. Seriously. To quote Tiny here-"
"Hey!" Jace and Jesse chorused, twisting around to jokingly glare at Magnus.
"Why can't saving the world be less stressful? Seriously, I'm pretty sure she's not older than 18."
Jesse paused. "Well, in that time I'm 17 right now. Now that I think about it, I'm 17 here too. So you're not wrong..."
"Let's discuss age phenomenons later," Petra joked, reaching over to tap Jesse on the head. Jesse very maturely stuck her tongue out at the redhead.
"Oh mother of-" Jesse whispered, before flattening herself to the ground to dodge a tentacle. The cavern rumbled again, shaking so badly that it was enough to send Jesse tumbling backwards off of the raised platform as it began to rise higher into the air.
Tentacles began to come from the walls, and Jesse's already pale face turned pure white, green-and-red irises shrinking to pinpricks in her eyes. "Oh Notch, oh Notch oh frickin' Notch!" the spider hybrid nearly whimpered, hand tightening on the sword as she quickly scrambled back to her feet, another tentacle slashing down at Jesse and Reuben.
"Look out!" Dan yelled, forgetting that there was really no point.
Jesse lunged forward, scooping Reuben up and rolling sideways, a tentacle skewering the spot where she'd just been standing, lunging back to her feet and releasing Reuben in the process to leap over a tentacle that barely missed Reuben. "Oh Notch!" she repeated, landing hard on her feet and staggering as the cavern continued shaking.
"Reuben, whatever happens, we have to destroy the Command Block! Okay?" Jesse shouted down to the pig, brandishing her sword at another tentacle that was preparing to come at her.
Upon hearing that, Reuben started to let out a bunch of angry squealing, whipping around to a tentacle from before and squealing at it, almost like the piggy version of a barking dog.
"Go, Reuben!" Lizzie cheered, several of the other audience members cheering agreement.
Onscreen, Jesse beamed at him, before turning back to the tentacle and lashing out with it. With a good, swift flick of the wrist, she literally cleaved the tentacle right in half and left the top part to wriggle around wildly on the ground.
"That was awesome!" Axel yelled, making Olivia wince as he yelled right into her ear.
Jesse grinned at the tentacle on the ground, just as another one came whipping at her.
"Look-"
Jesse blinked, eyes widening, before she whirled around on the spot and slashed that tentacle too, destroying it rather effectively.
"Oh. Never mind."
"It's doing everything it can to protect the Command Block," Jesse mumbled, dodging another tentacle as it nearly skewered her, letting her eyes flutter shut. She took a deep breath.
Her eyes opened, blazing red.
"Which means I have to do everything I can to destroy it."
"Whoa," Cassie looked a bit taken aback now, "she's pissed."
Jesse was staring at the screen, her expression hard. "It messed with my friends," she said at last. "And like I said before. Mess with my friends, and make no mistake about it, I will break you."
Onscreen, Jesse dodged another tentacle before hopping onto it. It gave a hard thrash, the girl using the harsh motion to launch herself at the platform, transferring smoothly into a parkour roll and whipping to her feet, only to flip herself onto her back and do a crabwalk as one tentacle thrashed the air immediately where she'd just been, launching into a handstand and kicking it away before flipping herself back onto her feet and cleaving that tentacle in half as well.
"Awesome," Nell and Axel chorused in perfect unison.
Another tentacle whipped at her, trying to lob her head off, and she simply raised her sword in defense, the tentacle literally splitting itself down the middle from the force of the hit, making Jesse's feet skid a bit as she tried to keep herself from getting shoved off of the platform, before wheeling the sword around in a flash of pink light and smashing another one down before it could even reach striking distance.
"You get really good at this," Petra said, grinning at Jesse. Jesse smiled back, although it seemed to become rather forced when Petra clapped her on the back. Lukas was probably the only one who noticed the way she flinched a bit, and that was only because his arm was around her.
"Ahh... Petra, do you think you could stop that, please?" she requested, politely but quietly.
Petra blinked at Jesse a bit. "Huh? Oh, okay then."
Whipping directly to the Command Block this time, she raised her arm, grabbing the hilt with her other hand as well, and slammed the sword down on the Command Block, sending even more white-hot sparks spitting everywhere and causing another resounding crack sound to ring through the cavern as another crack appeared in the Command Block, but still not destroying it.
"Oh come on! How strong is that thing?!" Gill complained.
"Considering we basically tried blowing it up using the strongest bomb ever and it wasn't even scratched, pretty damn strong," Axel replied, eyes glued to the screen.
"Good point."
Jesse suddenly let out a scream as the Witherstorm started rotating again, but this time turning completely upside down. She smacked against the walls as she toppled onto the floor, landing on her back and nearly falling through a gaping hole that happened to be directly beneath the Command Block. She yelped and quickly scrabbled to get to safe ground, looking up to see the Command Block still sitting on the floor- or, well, what used to be the floor.
"... well, f*ck then," Jesse said, after a very long pause.
Jesse blinked when she spotted Hadrian staring at her. "What?"
"... nothing. I just didn't think you were capable of swearing," he said at last, returning his attention to the screen.
He had to lean down to duck the pillow Jesse proceeded to chuck in his direction, although it did sail harmlessly over the back of the couch.
A/N: Oh boy. Two more chapters. TWO MORE CHAPTERS. I'm both excited and scared now.
RQTC: Is Jesse a cinnamon roll in this story or what? xD
A bit short, but, y'know, I wanted to end on that note. Also, action xD
Emily The Avenger: Cool (thumbs up) / That was the intention, yes xD And yeah :3 / Thanks! But yes, it will happen soon.
RapidSammi: Not even four now xD / It's fiiine. And true xD / (laughs) / Indeed it is...
Beli0304: (grins) / Uhh, no. I ain't spoilin' this. (grins) / No, it's drawing OR writing. No inbetween.
Kaos Ruin: Lol me too xD
sailor. mikuchan: (laughs) Here is the new chapter. And cool. And no both. xD / (laughs)
LunarStarsMoons: (screams with you) / Yep :3 / Writing just comes easier to me, but I can do drawing too :3
Meow Shadow: (grins) / Yep. (deep breath) / Ahhh, I see. / The R means Random. RQTC stands for Random Question of The Chapter. xD
S4SH4L4SH4theGaMeR101: (laughs) Yeah, I feel your pain fam.
AquaK13: No problem, dude :3 / Alrighty, cool :3 / Oh, I have way more xD
RebekahTPE: (laughs) / (cracks up) Yeah, that'll be cool. / (laughs) / Rain. I love rain :3
the indecisive bird: Cool :3 / (laughs) Alright, then.
homeworkoverload: Ahh / (nods) Probably. / (laughs) Don't worry about it, dude. / (grins) Oh, you'll see what I've got planned. / Bai!
MissyMattingly: Ah, alright.
Rabbits rule: (laughs) No, don't buy Jace, he's copyrighted xD / He's been fixed, so he's fine. :3 / ... yeah, he jinxed it xD / Neither do I, Aboun :3
NinaNaranja: (laughs) Yep, pretty much. / Ahhh, that sucks. But yay!
Idon'tlikecheese: (nods) I see.
CrystalTearsofFaith: You made me start laughing in the middle of math class. Thanks, dude xD / Nahh, it's cool :3
J.M.M.: Nope, you can go back a couple comments and check; you asked me. I think you may have checked out my poll and not known what it was for something.
Darkbeast Dend: Because Reuben is loyal :3
SofiaTheWriter88: (laughs) Glad to hear that! ANd yeah :/
x.X. A.L. X.x
