"WHAT?!"

Jesse simply snapped her fingers as the audience practically exploded in surprise. "Yep. My theory was correct."

Jace looked surprised, blinking several times. Lukas's arm had actually slipped off from where it had been around Jesse, and he was gaping at the screen in shock. Petra was staring at the screen with wide eyes, pointing at it, then at the chicken in Isa's lap, then at the screen again. Axel had actually fallen over in surprise, and had managed to drag Olivia with him. The dark-skinned girl didn't bother scolding him for it; she was gaping at the screen in surprise as well. Reuben let out his own squeal of surprise.

Soren looked surprisingly unsurprised by this, while Magnus had followed in Axel's footsteps and simply fallen off the couch, Ellegaard now lying on top of and struggling to get them both back on the couch. Gabriel looked like a rabbit caught in headlights, while Ivor was wordlessly gaping at the screen, dark blue eyes as round as marbles. He'd slumped down a bit in his seat so that he was nearly sliding right out of the couch.

Gill and Maya were scrambling to right the armchair from where they'd knocked it over (again), while Aiden was exchanging a startled look- the first time he'd made eye contact with anyone for a while- with the person closest to him, who happened to be Cassie. Cassie had a faintly surprised look on her face, but also... not really? (This almost surprised Aiden more than the identity of the Eversource.) Winslow's fur had shot straight up, and he was now hissing from the loud havoc that filled the room.

Stampy was babbling incoherently, Dan was simply blinking at the screen in shock, Stacy was wordlessly opening and closing her mouth over and over again, while Lizzie was looking from Benedict, clucking away in Isa's lap, to the screen, thunderstruck. Sparklez was scrambling around on the floor, scooping up his sunglasses hastily from where they'd fallen right off his face.

Harper looked remarkably unsurprised by this, Hadrian, Mevia, and Otto having similar reactions and simply watching the screen, their deadpan reactions going unnoticed in the hullabaloo that had just been raised. (Well, almost- Jesse's eyes narrowed a bit at them curiously.) The gladiators were blinking at the screen, looking both surprised and unsurprised. (Because that makes complete sense.) Nell and Em were simply staring at the screen with wide eyes and slightly open mouths.

Unsurprisingly, Isa, Milo, and Reginald looked completely unsurprised by this, although Isa did look uncomfortable about the whole thing, and Reginald's hand automatically strayed to the hilt of his sword.

"No way," Em said at last, as the din died down, still wide-eyed, "there is no way-"

As if the universe was intent on defying her, Benedict let out a little squawk right at that moment, fluttering off of Isa's lap cheerfully. In the Founder's lap sat a white egg with gray spots.

Isa slowly picked it up, being very careful with it, her fingers delicately cradling the egg as she squinted at it carefully. After tilting it from side to side for a few seconds, she announced, slowly, to the silent audience, "I believe it's a Ghast egg..."

Jesse looked a bit worried as she pointed at Benedict and slowly asked, "Um, does Benedict just... lay Ghast eggs randomly?"

To Jesse's relief, Isa shook her head, still cradling the egg carefully with a bemused look on her face. "No, of course not. Usually, if Benedict does lay eggs nowadays, it's because I asked her for a specific one... It takes her a while longer that way, but, back on Sky City, we have plenty from beforehand, so it's not usually that much of an issue. But I haven't asked her for one in a w-"

"Oh..." Jace's eyes had filled with a sudden comprehension when the audience looked at him, the boy blinking several times rapidly. "Do you think..." He looked at Jesse wordlessly, trailing off.

Jesse was just blinking at him in bemusement when she blinked again, the same comprehension hitting her. "Oh... I think we're on the same page here..."

"Well, we're back on page one here," Petra said, flinging her arms out to the sides in frustration, "mind clearing it up for us?"

"Remember back in the first episode? Aiden was bragging about being able to defeat Ghasts...?" Jace prompted, slowly.

The audience blinked at that.


"Oh, come on," Aiden scoffed, "I could beat five of those things with one arm tied behind my back."

"You wanna try? We can spawn some in here and-" Isa asked sharply, obviously tired of hearing his bragging. Aiden's eyes widened and he shook his head and hands quickly.

"No! No. I'm good."

"Thought so."


"... ohhhhh." Isa blinked at Aiden a few times, who dropped his eyes from hers to his lap, and then back at the egg she was cradling in her hands. "That... yes, that might've been it..."

"Since we can hardly sit around with a Ghast egg in our hands all day," Petra spoke up, while Axel and Olivia righted themselves and the room began settling down a bit more again, shocked looks still fixed on their faces, "how about at the next possible stopping point, we'll take a break, and we can figure out a way to get rid of the egg?"

As if on cue, Gill's stomach growled loudly.

Everyone looked at him. His face turned pink. "What? I'm hungry."

Maya valiantly fought the smile that was threatening to make its way across her face.

"Yeah, we should probably take a lunch break after this..." Olivia hummed thoughtfully. "Alright, next time we come to a stopping point, we'll break for a couple hours. Cassie, since you've got the remote, you decide the next stopping point, alright?"

The redhead nodded, waving the remote in her hand a bit. "Got it."

That settled, they all turned back to the screen, Cassie pressing the play button again. (She'd paused it while everyone was trying to recover from the shock they'd received.)

Onscreen, the screen loaded for a few seconds, before it resumed. Petra's expression went perfectly deadpan, staring at the tiny chicken with the little golden crown on its head. "What."

"No way," Lukas agreed, shaking his head and putting his hands on his hips.

The black-haired spider hybrid simply shrugged a bit at the denial. "It makes sense, though, doesn't it? There's all these spawn eggs all over the place. And where else do you get eggs from but-"

"A... chicken," Ivor finished Jesse's sentence for her, putting his hands on his own hips with a faintly impressed look. "Yes... it's so simple!"

The spider hybrid nodded in agreement. "So... the chicken lays the eggs, the eggs make monsters, and the loot from the monsters makes this entire city!" she exclaimed cheerfully, clapping all of her hands together.

And then she looked at her lower arms bemusedly.

"Still not u-" the narrator's voice suddenly got cut off with a staticky sound, making Jesse look back up at the ceiling in confusion. "Wait, cr-" The voice momentarily changed to female, before there was the distinct sound of something metal being banged against something else. "This- stupid voice changer-" the narrator's now-female voice muttered. Or, well, that's what they thought he- she said. The sound of staticky white noise and metal banging incessantly was a little distracting.

"Wait, so is this narrator a girl, or a boy, or-" Harper threw her hands in the air, looking confused. "You know what, nope. I give up. I'm not trying to figure this out anymore."

Ivor hid a faint smile at that.

The narrator cleared their throat, sounding like a guy again. "Ahem. Sorry. Technical difficulties, and all that jazz."

The spider hybrid had just begun to open her mouth to ask the narrator something when she was interrupted by Ivor, who was still squinting at the Eversource, a more dubious look on his face. "So... are we still taking the chicken, or what?" he asked at last, looking over at Jesse.

Lukas shot Ivor a look. It was a mixture of disapproval and incredulity. "The chicken that the entire city depends on?! Are we sure that's a good idea?" he asked the man incredulously.

"Yeah, that- that might not be the smartest move..." Sparklez winced, looking over at Ivor.

"What are you talking about?" Milo argued, making Ivor and Lukas look over at him, "we need to bring the Eversource to the people. With it, we'll finally be free of the Founder!"

"Can you even fight monsters?" Axel asked, twisting to look at Milo and drawing the blonde's attention away from having a glaring contest with the Founder.

Milo scratched his head, a sheepish look coming over his face and replacing the glare. "I can, because I occasionally practice in Build Club using an armor stand..."

"Oh, hey, like what I did back in the first episode!" Jesse exclaimed, pointing at Milo. The blonde innkeeper nodded, tapping the side of his nose and then pointing at Jesse with a faintly pleased look.

"Precisely. However, the other citizens are more focused on building than defending themselves... besides, none of us have even seen a monster, except for maybe the sheep."

"Sheep aren't even monsters," Lukas pointed out, also twisting to get a good look at Milo.

Milo coughed a bit, scratching his cheek a bit. "Yes, well... like I said, we don't see monsters up in Sky City." There was a short pause as he regarded the screen thoughtfully. "Perhaps I should've thought that through a bit more."

"Perhaps," Isa drawled sarcastically.

Milo shot her a scowl.

"It's cute!" And the spider hybrid crouched down and started patting the chicken gently, making Benedict let out little clucking sounds in contentment.

Isa beamed. It was nice to meet someone else who felt the same way about Benedict.

Real-Benedict, who was still running around on the floor, ran over to where Jesse, Jace, and Reuben were, clucking happily. Jesse grinned and began to imitate her onscreen-self, gently stroking the white chicken's back. Benedict let out pleased clucking noises and gave Reuben a cheerful greeting. Reuben snuffled a bit in reply, giving the chicken his usual piggy grin as Jesse started patting Reuben as well.

"You're good with animals, aren't you?" Reginald asked, smiling a bit at the petite black-haired girl sitting on the floor.

"I love animals," Jesse replied cheerfully.

"If Winslow goes over there, you're going to have a problem. You can't pet three animals at the same time," Cassie joked, patting Winslow happily and making the calico cat purr happily.

"Yeah, six arms would be helpful in this case," Jesse answered, grinning cheerfully at the thought.

Onscreen, Petra shook her head and crossed her arms in amusement. Her lips twitched a bit as if she was attempting to hide a smile. "Yeah. Of course that's what you notice about it," she said, giving the spider hybrid a wry smirk.

"Well, it is!" Jesse replied defensively, still patting the chicken gently.

Before anyone could say anything else, Petra was suddenly thrown aside by a blur of gold with a yell of shock, landing hard on her back.

"Petra!" Jace gasped, tightening his arms around the redhead next to him.

Half a second later, Ivor went flying as a blur of black and gold hit him in the side and crashed-landed right next to her with a grunt. Lukas' eyes flicked over his shoulder, and he darted forward as a dark blur whipped over his shoulder, barely missing the blonde, dodging out of the way and rolling into a defensive crouch behind Jesse, cyan eyes glowing with alarm.

"What's going on?!" Em shouted in confusion at the screen, as if someone was going to answer her.

Hadrian suddenly made a soft humming sound in comprehension, snapping his fingers. He didn't clarify it to the members of the audience who heard it and gave him bewildered looks.

Finally, Milo was knocked aside as a blur of gold and black darted past him, landing right on top of Petra and Ivor, who were starting to get back up, and knocking the breath right out of them.

"Ah." Milo winced. "I am terribly sorry about that, friends."

As the three of them scrambled to get back up, there was suddenly the scrape of metal on metal, and they found themselves staring at a pair of swords aimed right at their faces.

Slowly, the three of them raised their eyes.

The screen switched to show Maya and Gill holding their swords out at them, their nasty grins fading to rather concerned looks as they looked over their shoulders.

Real Maya and Gill's eyes widened, and they shared a dread-filled glance.

This was bad.

"Oh..." Gabriel blinked, looking at Isa with wide eyes.

The woman wearing black and gold.

Several pairs of eyes widened in surprise, and the audience's heads collectively snapped back forward to face the screen.

The screen switched again to show Isa standing in front of Jesse in a martial-arts stance, her deep green eyes blazing with fury as she opened them, leveling a glare directly at Jesse. Aiden strolled up behind her, a sneer fixed upon his face as he stared right at Jesse.

The spider hybrid simply arched her eyebrow, standing up from her crouching position into an almost lazy standing position, Benedict continuing to cluck contentedly next to her. "Would've been nice to know that you're a martial artist," she hummed thoughtfully.

The screen paused.

The audience blinked a few times.

"Wait, wh-?!" Magnus's head snapped to face Cassie, an accusing look on his face. "C'mon, it was just getting good!"

Cassie just shrugged in return. "It's not a bad stopping point."

"Oh, come on!" he complained, pretending Ellegaard wasn't currently hiding a smile behind her hand. "What are you, the Cliffhanger Queen?!"

Cassie didn't take offense at that- quite the contrary, actually, an amused smile crept over her face. "Actually, it might just be because I've been reading that 'A.L' person's books for a while now. She tends to leave off on cliffhangers all the time."

The gladiators, Magnus, Gill, and Axel let out disappointed groans as the redhead bounced to her feet energetically. "Welp, it's a nice day outside. Harper, Ivor and I'll prepare lunch. We can eat lunch outside," she said, shooting them a grin.

Jesse cracked her neck a bit as she stood up, stretching out a bit, to the disappointment of both Reuben and Benedict- she'd been petting them for a couple minutes now. "Yeah, sitting inside all day's not really healthy. C'mon, Lukas!" And before the blonde could really react, she'd grabbed him by the arm, hauled him to his feet, and was running out the door with the blonde in tow.

The audience all exchanged amused looks, before Ivor and Harper got up, almost simultaneously. "I'm not an amazing chef, but I don't burn everything. Unlike someone else I know," and Harper shot Mevia a faint smile.

The pale-blue-haired woman scowled in response. "In my defense, Hadrian was the one who thought nuking the pie in the furnace would be a good idea."

The white-haired man smacked Mevia on the shoulder, grumbling incoherently in response. Otto gave an amused smile as he regarded Hadrian. "Well, what do you know?" he said, to no one in particular. "Hadrian's speechless for once."


A/N: (laughs) Had to end that there.

OMG YOU GUYS

100TH CHAPTER SPECIAL IS NEXT CHAPTER

NEXT

CHAPTER

(scREAMS)

RQTC: Should I post the Phantasmagoria teasers here as well? (like under the A/N?) I feel like that's just annoying... if you want to see them, they're on my Quotev and my DeviantArt account. We'll just say that.

the indecisive bird: (grimaces) I'm sorry, it's so hard to read their reviews that I didn't even realize they were talking to you. Sorry. / Uhh neither do I tbh xD

LunarStarsMoons: That's kind of the idea xD / Heehee :3 / I think I voted...

NinaNaranja: (laughs) Yep. / Him? Her? Who knows? xD / Squeeeee! / Please do! I'm kinda proud of 'em :3

InsaneAcrobat: They're not annoying or long at all, don't worry x3 / Hi! And thank you! / (cracks up) We'll see if those questions are answered; I ain't spoiling this for ya. / Thank you, again! I'm glad to hear you like it so much :3

Emily The Avenger: Glad to hear that!

SofiaTheWriter88: Okay! I hope you'll check out my Phantasmagoria teasers as they keep coming x3 / Haha, same here tbh / ONE MORE CHAPTER (screams happily)

homeworkoverload: So do I, but I get dizzy super easily, so I sympathize with Milo here xD / So should I post 'em here, or...?

sailor . mikuchan: Ahhh. / (screams)

LegoGirl794: (cracks up upon reading the review)

FireBallin17: Yes indeed xD

RavenBlaze4850: Feel free; I'm pretty sure Reginald and Isa don't want him to be vomiting everywhere. (winces) / Heehee, very true xD / (winks) / ? I have no idea what that means- are you saying there IS a girl in there, or...?

J.M.M.: Ahhhh.

Rabbits rule: (laughs) / Ahhh. Same here, tbh. We have stuff in common! / 0-0 uhhh

AquaK13: Yep... xD / So do I, tbh xD / Cats are fluffy indeed x3 / (laughs) Never watched Miraculous Ladybug, tbh... It's fine, don't worry. Check it out when you've got time, tho :3

x.X. A.L. X.x