"Hey, Cassie, what are you reading?"

Aiden wasn't the biggest fan of reading, but he really liked some of the books in this library.

Noticeably, a lot of them were not from this library- there was a very large box of notebooks which had a sign that said "UNFINISHED STORIES" scrawled on the side. It had been left near the door. There was a separate one that had A.L. written underneath that, and they were doing their best to check the initials scratched into the spines so they didn't chuck the books into the wrong boxes. (Not that they were chucking the books back into the boxes, they were- you know what, forget it.)

Some of the unfinished ones- for example, Movie Mode- were stuck on the shelves by accident, so they were now sorting through the books to stick them back in. Cassie had two or three notebooks in her arms, and one finished book that had a sleeve wrapped around it. She was currently reading the finished book.

Most of the people in the room were actually distracted from the 'sorting' and reading the books. Lukas had his face buried in one called 'Decibels' (although, once again, it was a notebook), Ivor had started reading one called 'October Progeny', and Soren was reading the notebook called "Elements' in interest.

Cassie looked up at him, green eyes flashing from under her black-rimmed glasses. "Hm? Oh," and she lifted the notebook to show him. "The Hybrid story. Novelized."

Aiden blinked at her as several of the room's occupants looked up at that. "Aren't you-"

"Spoiling myself? Nope. The pages are actually blank, at least up to the point where we haven't watched. It only goes up to the end of Episode 4."

"Ah. What are the other ones under your arm?"

Cassie pulled them out and looked at them. "Um, one's also the Hybrid story-" she held up the first notebook, "but it's a rewrite and only has a few minutes of the first episode finished up, so there's only about three pages filled." She switched it out for the next one. "Um, this one's called 'Minecraft: Hide and Seek Mode', there's quite a bit of this one filled out but it's still stopped. It refers to the Movie Mode notebook at the point where it's stopped," and she pointed at said notebook. "I haven't read it yet... and this last one's called 'Tower of Minecraft'. There's also a character called Aiden in it. And Jesse. And- well, a lot of people have the same names as people here, so I found that kind of interesting."

"Huh. Which crate did they come from?" Aiden asked, heading back over to the crates.

He would never admit it in a million years, but he was getting really interested in all these books.

Though he was pretty sure it was becoming pretty clear to everyone in the room.

"All of the books that I'm holding came from the crate with the 'A.L.' thing on it. Although Soren has the Movie Mode one right now, it's by someone called Toni42 or something..." Cassie paused thoughtfully. "... ooh, and I'm pretty sure I spotted another one called 'The First Guests' by GirlOfTheirOwnWorld or something like that, it's on the shelf by Ivor's head, I think..."


Two wooden swords clanged together rather harshly, making the clacking of wood ring out loudly in the room. They connected again and struggled, both of them quivering, before one of them was flung backwards.

Petra grunted and leaped back to her feet. She wasn't going to get taken down by the warrior that easily.

Gabriel parried another strike from the redhead, before ducking back as one of them came close to smacking into his side. "Heh, not bad," he managed through a few pants, getting back into a defensive position.

Petra grinned at him, eyes glinting in amusement. "Oh, you haven't seen anything yet!" she called out, through some more panting. This was fun. She hadn't had a challenge like this in quite a long time.

The two of them stayed at a safe distance from one another, before suddenly, out of the corner of Petra's eye, she spotted another blade heading at her. Automatically, she whirled around and brought her blade up in a parry, prepared to catch the blade and knock whoever was coming at her back- only to stumble a bit as her blade went right through the other blade, a blur of pale blue darting past her- no, not past her- through her. She gasped and stumbled a bit.

The clack of wood on wood rang out, and Petra spun around to see the person who'd just darted through her- a girl with dark-ish looking hair that was in a high ponytail and a pair of luminous red eyes that were rather blank, a few freckles spattering her face, like cinnamon on cinnamon toast. She appeared to be wearing a shirt and shorts as well as a pair of sunglasses resting on her head- fighting another person. This guy- it was a boy- had gray eyes that flashed red a bit as he dodged and ducked into different lighting, wearing a t-shirt and jeans.

She glanced at Gabriel to make sure that she wasn't just hallucinating, but Gabriel had completely stopped fighting and was staring wide-eyed at this scene.

"C'mon, guys, you can do this!" Another figure that Gabriel seemed to recognize was standing a little ways away, watching the two of them spar. She had dark, curly hair with a separately-colored streak through it, dark brown eyes glinting in interest. She also was wearing a leather jacket, but that was all Petra could spot through the clashing, glowing blue blades. "Red, Rapid, just find the other person's weak spot, it's simple as that!"

"Uh, yeah, Gom, sometimes it's not that simple!" the boy shouted.

The girl seemed to spot an opportunity and lashed out rapidly. The sword flicked out and smacked painfully into the boy's elbow, making him jump and grab at it, taking his eyes off of the girl. "Ow! Rapid, what the-"

He never finished, as the girl lashed out again and knocked him onto his back. The utterly blank look on Rapid's face turned into a victorious one as she bounced around in a hot fervor. "I got him!" she shouted, bouncing around like some sort of giant bouncy ball, "I got him!"

Gommie laughed and applauded, walking over to the two of them. "Splendid work, Sammi." She paused for a moment. "It's weird calling you Sammi because I'm also named Sammie," she added to herself.

A short pause.

"Ahh, never mind that. You two did great! Red, the number one thing about fighting is that you can never get distracted, that's one weakness in everyone," Gommie instructed the boy.

'Red' rolled his eyes playfully. "Yeah yeah yeah, I got you, Sensei Gommadon." He gave her a mock-bow, but an amused grin was plastered over his face.

Gommie wiggled her eyebrows in return and bowed back. "My pupil, you still have much to learn," she joked, before the three of them burst into laughter.

Petra's eyes flickered back to Gabriel's face, but Gabriel was still wide-eyed and staring at the group in stunned surprise.

"And the only way we can learn is through practice, right?" Red asked, once the group had stopped laughing so much.

"Yep. So, Sammi, since you beat Red-"

Sammi pumped her fist with a triumphant grin, Red shaking his head in amusement.

"You duel with me."

Sammi's smile faded a bit as her eyes widened, before a triumphant grin came over her face, and she placed her hand on her hip. "Ready to get your butt kicked, Sensei?" she teased Gommie.

"The question is, are you ready to get yours kicked?" Gommie replied, swiftly grabbing a practice sword and twirling it expertly.

Rapid bared her teeth in a mock-wicked grin. "We'll see about that!" And she ran forward, lashing out with the wooden blade in a low, sweeping blow.

Gommie flung herself backwards into a limbo move, the sword sailing straight over her, before she straightened back up. "Another type of fighting style-" and she started dodging the slices, jabs, stabs, and sweeping blows Rapid tried to strike on her, simply sidestepping or leaping over a blow without attempting to retaliate, "- is the Art of the Silent Fist," she finished. "Instead of fighting your enemy-" Another dodge, "have your enemy fight themselves."

Rapid narrowed her eyes, and she stopped attacking for a moment, contemplating the situation. She stood stock-still for a minute, before lunging forward and attempting to tackle Gommie's legs. She only succeeded in getting one, as Gommie attempted to leap out of the way at the last second.

"Ow, you got my ankle!"

Rapid immediately jumped off of Gommie, a faintly anxious expression coming over her face. "Oh! I'm sorry, Gom. Do you need me to get Ariza to make you a healing potion?"

Gommie suddenly sprang into action from where she was lying on her back, kicking upwards and sending the sword spinning out of Rapid's grip. The kick launched her lower body up into the air, and she did a backwards somersault and came to her feet, sword pointed at Rapid. "Nope."

Rapid grinned sheepishly and flicked her sword back into her hand. "Ahh, I let my guard down." The sword levelled straight at Gommie. "My bad."

"Never give mercy to your enemies until you know for certain that they're down," Gommie instructed, before shooting forward like a bullet at Rapid, sword darting everywhere in a flurry glowing blue, before the wooden blade swung up, poised to hit Rapid.

At the last second, Petra spotted the cracks going through the wooden sword. They were extremely faint, but for a girl who traded and went to far more dangerous places to get the items, and who was accustomed to checking the weapons she used in case they were low on durability, the cracks were extremely visible. "Wait!" she shouted, before remembering that that was no use- these people were- she didn't know- hallucinations or something.

Rapid deflected the hit rapidly, her wooden blade making the one in Gommie's hand crunch loudly as she snapped right through the old wood. Gommie's eyes widened for a moment, before she darted left, right, up, down, dodging the onslaught of attacks that Rapid proceeded to deliver.

Then came a moment where Rapid overcompensated and lunged a little too far- and Gommie struck. She grabbed Rapid's wrist and twisted it, making the other girl yelp and drop the sword straight into Gommie's waiting palm. The blade twirled expertly before flicking to point straight at Rapid's throat, the point pausing hardly an inch from Rapid's neck.

There was a momentary silence where Gommie was staring at Rapid evenly, before a grin came over her face. "I win."

Red applauded as Gommie had with him and Rapid, while Rapid gave a good-hearted groan about her loss. When it was clear that the battle was over, Gommie let the sword point at the floor. "Whew- good fight, Sammi, you're getting way better," Gommie said lightly, an easy grin coming over her face. Arching her eyebrows, she added, "Now, hows about you help me with dinner?"

A breeze gusted through the area, blowing the particles that made them up away. Petra stared at the spot where they'd been, before glancing at Gabriel, to see the same look she had on her face mirrored on his. "So, um..." she began, tentatively.

Gabriel finished the thought. "I... wasn't the only one who saw that, right?"

"No, no you weren't," and Petra shot the spot where they'd been an uneasy look. There was nothing left of them now, of course- nothing except a chilly breeze. She raised her practice sword, deciding to worry about it later. "A-anyway, you wanna keep going?"

Gabriel nodded, raising his own, a faintly distracted look on his face. "Yeah. Yeah, let's do that."


Jesse had walked for such a long period of time that she was now in one of the corners of the mansion that hadn't been explored yet. It was a nice hallway, but it was very sparsely decorated for such a long hallway- about 14 vases of flowers. That sounds like a lot, but they weren't big vases, and they were spaced out in a very distant way.

She now came to a halt outside a door at the end of the hallway. It was right next to a huge window that showed the grounds below, light filtering in through the stained glass to make stains of color on the floor that were extremely beautiful.

She tried the doorknob. Locked. Of course the door was locked.

There seemed to be a password, but it was about 14 letters long. There were... well, with 10 numbers and 26 letters to choose from, there were over 100 combinations for this password, and she didn't really want to waste the whole time standing in front of the door trying to guess a 14-letter password.

... wait...

Jesse turned around and regarded the flowers in the vases. They were all fairly tall flowers, and the vases were fairly tall as well, so they were well at eye-level. Was that a hint, somehow?

Slowly, Jesse backtracked to the nearest vase, standing in front of it. Were the flowers bent over naturally... or were they in the shape of an 'A'?

Jesse backtracked to the beginning of the hallway and looked at each vase for a few minutes. There was a P... and then there was a lowercase h...

The black-haired girl carefully made her way back to the door, 'reading' each vase, before carefully entering into the doorway a P, then an H, then an A... when she'd finished entering the number, she ended up with a very long word that she was fairly certain was made up.

PHANTASMAGORIA.

Feeling sure that she was wrong, she experimentally tapped the 'enter' button under the 14-letter password.

To her surprise, there was a very audible clicking sound, and the door eked open a bit. Experimentally, she placed her hand on the door and pushed it open.

"... oh."

The soft gasp of amazement was quite unbidden; nor had she exactly expected what this room looked like.

There was a fair wall of bookshelves on the other side of the room, and tucked in between a desk that was under a window and the wall that the door was on was an armchair that looked as if it had been overstuffed to a point- especially since there was a bit of stuffing coming out of it. The window had a dark curtain drawn over the window, keeping most of the light out of it.

On the left side of this wall was a dresser, as well as a shelf at the head of a bed (Jesse grinned at the unintentional rhyme), with another door crammed between the foot of the bed and one of the bookshelves, as if it were an afterthought. But none of these were why she was amazed.

The entire room was a dark blue color, except for the walls along the bookshelves- those were painted to look like cities, with little glowing windows that switched on and off, travelling along the desk. Once it reached the armchair, the 'scenery' changed to look like a rolling countryside, with hills and little trees dotted everywhere and a farm building making up the shelf at the head of the bed. There was more 'countryside' scenery next to the bed.

And the ceiling... the 'sky' above the painted darkened countrysides were dotted with little lights that glowed and twinkled, like stars. So was the ceiling, and Jesse stared around the room. A lot of effort had obviously gone into painting it.

Tentatively, she ventured into the room and looked around, hardly daring to breathe at the sight of it.

She trod gently, being careful not to disturb anything except the soft, dark-blue carpet. There were a lot of various things on the desk, but she left those alone as well as she kept looking around the room, her breathing the only audible thing in the whole room.

Jesse kept looking around the room, staring around herself in wonder. Whose room was this? It was beautiful. She slowly realized that she was sitting cross-legged on the floor, staring at the 'sky'.

She got up, getting ready to check the clock and then head back towards the main part of the house.

Jesse paused, still staring into the rest of the room. She glanced out into the hallway, the door still open. The clock said it was still 7:45. They still had another 15 minutes until their decided 'meet-up' time.

She hesitated. Thought for a minute. Got up and carefully shut the door.

Then she carefully settled back into her seat on the floor and went back to staring at the ceiling, a faint smile coming over her face.


A/N: Aahh, a peaceful moment for once. xD

RQTC: What ships do you wish to see in the story? Keep in mind, I will not even CONSIDER it if they don't get 7 votes by Chapter 85.

Also, the ships that you CANNOT VOTE FOR BECAUSE THEY ARE ALREADY IN THE STORY ARE:

Lukesse, Axelivia, Magnugaard, Harvor, Jetra, Bromance!Luktra, Family!Ivoresse

So far the votes for the shipping goes something like:

Aidassie: 2, Danzie: 1, Stampcy: 1, Misa: 2, Hadrevia: 1, Bromance!Maiden (Maya x Aiden): 1, Friendly!Aidesse: 1, Jessie (Jesse/Jace x Cassie): 1.

So VOTE, people!

Emily The Avenger: (laughs) / Yay! Glad to see you didn't die of boredom xD

the indecisive bird: (winks) Ahh, you know me so well / Yeeeaaah, that's true. x3

Darkbeast Dend: Ah, I see. I'd rather be a squid hybrid. (Don't ask why, I don't know xD) / Nice prank, Sam.

Meow Shadow: (laughs) Ah, thank you! But I ain't telling you xD / (grins evilly when it says you'll never have the privilege) / (waves a bit) Hello. I'd like to be in your story x3

SofiaTheWriter88: Hehe xD / Yes :3 / (laughs) Yep, that was fun. / ... those are all the ones I said you... can't vote for...

homeworkoverload: Alright, cool! / My 'ghost' says 'hi' back xD

S4SH4L4SH4theGaMeR101: (looks at ceiling) I'm not saying if you're correct, but you're warmer when referring to Recode Reality. / (nods) Just asking, by the way, how would you feel if I included you in a story? / (laughs) me too, dude

LunarStarsMoon: (grins wickedly) / Aww xD / Ikr xD / Wow! Good job, dude!

sailor . mikuchan: Cool :3

Kaos Ruin: (laughs)

RapidSammi: (points at chapter) And now the wondering is over xD

NinaNaranja: (nods) Cool. / Also, same tbh. I'd just be super polite about it xD

RebekahTPE: (laughs) Alright, cool. / I'd rather have the slow-at-start-up computer as well. I can just plan while I do it xD

CrystalTearsofFaith: (nods) I see. / Haha, that's cool too! / (taps chin) ... besides Isa and Soren being an Old Builder, Petra having gold eyes, and Ivor having dark blue eyes? No, none that I can think of off the top of my head.

J.M.M.: (laughs) / Hm, I'll think about it.

Rabbits rule: I did, that was on purpose. 'sans' means without.

That one guy: Alrighty! x3

x.X. A.L. X.x