"Yes..." Ivor nodded, looking rather thoughtful about the whole matter. "It seems like it might be worth our while to poke around the kitchen."

Lukas nodded at the sentiment, before jerking his thumb at the group of YouTubers. "You guys go on ahead. I'm gonna stay here and keep an eye on these other people. I don't want anyone trying anything when we're not looking."

"Ah, Lukas. Ever the levelheaded one," the spider hybrid teased him.

"Gee, thanks," he joked back with a roll of his eyes, halfheartedly swiping at her.

Jesse ducked the swipe with a laugh and trotted offscreen, the screen fading out to black as she did so.

"Notch these two just need to kiss already."

"Shut up, Gill," a now-very-embarrassed Jesse and Lukas chorused, refusing to even look in his direction.

Maya grinned, eyes lighting up a bit. "Hey, you just quoted Aiden!" she joked.

"Well, looks like things might be calming down a bit, at least," Stacy said, in an attempt to be positive about all that hullabaloo that had just happened.

"You just jinxed it again," Petra pointed out, absentmindedly.

Stacy considered this fact for a few seconds.

She then proceeded to say a word that is not really polite for public company.

"Back in the kitchen," Petra said onscreen, the screen fading in to show the three of them walking into the kitchen. It actually still looked exactly the same as it had before this whole fiasco had started- even the glass from Lukas and Jesse's unplanned collision with the window was still there.

I'm pretty sure that despite the very much janitor-like suit the White Pumpkin wears, we can see that they're not, in fact, a janitor in disguise. She put her hands on her hips, looking at Jesse expectantly. "So, what are we looking for exactly?"

Jesse tilted her head, considering it for a minute, before replying, "We just need concrete evidence in terms of Stampy right now- either something that proves he IS the White Pumpkin, or something that proves that he ISN'T. If we're gonna do that, we just need to find something that might show that he was involved- something more than excellent redstone. That really doesn't prove much."

Petra saluted, albeit slightly playfully. "Got it. I'm on the lookout."

Jesse looked around the room absentmindedly, brow creasing as she frowned thoughtfully at her surroundings, before tilting her head slightly.

The screen switched to show the picture of the creeper wearing an apron and a chef hat that all of them had spotted earlier.

"I still think it's a weird painting," Mevia mumbled.

Onscreen, Jesse approached it, tilting her head slightly. "Huh. Looks like it's the painting I spotted when we first got to the mansion." She paused at that, blinking. "... man, that feels like that was ages ago."

"Indeed it does, spider-lady."

Jesse actually jumped a bit at the sudden vocal intrusion, courtesy of the narrator. (She wasn't the only one- her real self, along with a good ninety-percent of the audience, started a bit at the voice suddenly coming on.) "Dude!" she hissed, after looking around and making sure that none of the others were in earshot. "You gave me a heart attack."

"Aww, that's the nicest thing anyone's ever said about me. I'm flattered, really. I might cry, I'm so full of squishy pink feelings."

Lukas may or may not have snorted at that.

Jesse poked him.

Onscreen, Jesse stuck her tongue out at the ceiling and went back to looking at the painting. As she looked back down, though, she blinked, and cocked her head to one side. "Does this painting have... eyeholes?" she wondered at last, reaching out and carefully extending her fingers towards the eyes of the painting...

Her fingers went right through.

"Oh yeah," Petra said from right behind Jesse, blinking at the painting in surprise. "How did I not notice that before?"

Without answering the question, Jesse reached out carefully, aligning her six arms with the edges of the painting, before curling her fingers around the frames, giving a slight lift...

And, with a neat popping sound, the painting came right off the wall to reveal a tunnel, right in the wall.

Cassie scowled.

They found it.

Dammit, they found it.

She knew she should've hidden that a lot better, but nooooo, she just had to prepare the templates for the paintings, hadn't she?

"Ooh!"

Both onscreen-and-Real Jesse let out an amused giggle at Ivor's exclamation, before climbing inside the tunnel, having to lift herself a bit to avoid tripping over the rim. The tunnel opening actually led to a much wider space than it appeared to be from the outside, with a lever on the wall right next to its entrance and a redstone torch not too far away.

"It's some sort of secret passageway!" Ivor exclaimed, eyes lighting up as he poked his head inside.

"No, really, I thought it was the End," Hadrian drawled.

Ivor scowled at him.

"Interesting..." Ivor looked around for a moment longer, before tilting his head at the lever. "What do you suppose that lever does?"

"I've got a bit of a hunch... just in case, guys, make sure you're nowhere near that arrow trap," Jesse warned them. Ivor pressed his back to the wall, and Petra shifted back a few steps, also joining Ivor in pressing her back against the wall.

Jesse reached up, taking ahold of the lever... before bringing it back down with a satisfying thud.

The lights suddenly flickered out, the sound of the dispenser disengaging sounding in the silence. When the lights came back on, it was to reveal several tipped arrows still quivering ominously where they were embedded in the floor.

"Yep- more of those tipped arrows." Petra frowned at them. "Nasty."

The hopper proceeded to whir into movement, and sucked them down into the floor.

"Well, seems like we found how the White Pumpkin killed TorqueDawg..." Ivor said slowly, turning to face Jesse and arching his eyebrow at her.

"Yeah, and how he's getting around the house," Jesse agreed, turning around to survey the dark secret passageway. There was a ladder on the right, and she went to the wall and climbed straight up it, ignoring the ladder altogether.

Petra let out a heavy, but amused sigh and hovered after her, leaving Ivor to clamber up the ladder behind them. "I assume we're investigating the creepy passageway?"

"What, you wanna head back to the dining room?" the narrator asked, drawling a bit sarcastically.

Petra scowled. "That was unnecessarily rude."

"Has the narrator ever been polite before?" Jace wondered, abruptly.

"... I see your point."

Onscreen, Jesse glanced at the narrator, before giving a slight shrug as Ivor crawled up behind them. "Your assumption is correct. We've come a bit too far to just turn around and call it a day," she responded, slightly teasingly.

And with that, the three of them walked down the hallway.

The screen switched to show Jesse coming to an intersection, with at least twelve different paths branching off from there- some of them going straight up, and some of them going at odd diagonal angles. It looked like the secret passageways were some sort of winding maze.

Jesse cautiously continued forward, almost at a tiptoe.

"Be careful, guys," Jesse said, in a soft voice. "And stay on your guard. We have no idea if the White Pumpkin might be around the next corner or something. Just... standing there and watching us."

"And now I am creeped out," Em announced, flatly.

"You are not the only one," Hadrian murmured, staring at the screen with a 'wtf' look on his face.

Onscreen, Petra frowned at the floor, gold eyes glinting as she tilted her head downwards. "I hope Stampy's okay locked up in the library... we could've put them all in even bigger danger."

Jesse frowned at that, eyes narrowing as she chewed on that thought for a few moments. "I'm pretty sure he'll be safe in there," she said at last, firmly. "I don't think the library has traps."

"Yeah, I didn't see any during the interrogations," Lukas agreed, giving Jesse's midriff a comforting squeeze.

"I sure hope so," Petra replied, softly.

They all turned the next corner, to see another opened-up space with a painting back, eye holes in the painting. There was a lever right next to this painting, as well.

"Another lever," Ivor said, thoughtfully, regarding it with fascinated dark blue eyes.

"Ivor, I swear, if you flip that lever," Ellegaard growled, shooting the black-haired man a glare.

"Why are you looking at me like- I wasn't even planning on flipping the lever!"

"Glad to hear it."

"Oh, come on! Why are you looking at me like that when Soren was the one who flipped the lever?!" Ivor complained- evidently this was an incident that had happened back in the days of the Order of the Stone.

Well, the original one, that is.

Onscreen, Jesse unknowingly interrupted the argument Ellegaard and Ivor were about to start, shuddering a bit as she looked at the lever. "It's probably another trap. Don't flip it, D-" she caught herself again. "Ivor."

"What on earth do you keep accidentally nearly calling Ivor?" Soren wondered, looking at Jesse, whose back was to him.

With a tremendous amount of self-restraint, Jesse managed to keep herself from looking in a faintly conspirational way at Ivor. "Nothing," she said, mildly. "I'm sure I'm just kind of blanking out right now."

"... well, with the situation, I guess I could see that happening... Notch knows Aiden used to do it a lot," and Maya shot Aiden a pointed look.

"In my defense, I didn't sleep the night before," Aiden shot back, frowning at Maya.

"Well, you did kiss Gill on the cheek."

Half of the audience would've done a spit-take had they been drinking water. As it was, they still spluttered loudly and looked 'round at Aiden so fast that they ricked their necks. The rest were now laughing hysterically. Jesse had managed to get stuck somewhere in the middle of the two camps and was now choking slightly. (Reuben was attempting a piggy version of the Heimlich maneuver.)

Aiden was turning a very lovely shade of amaranth pink. "Maya," he hissed, his blush growing steadily more acute by the second, "I told you it was an accident, I was half dead on my feet from lack of sleep and-"

"Oh yeah, and you used about twenty pick-up lines on Jace."

Jace abruptly laughed, the memory finally clicking into place in his head. "Oh yeah. I remember asking Lukas out of actual fear who that was and what they had done to Aiden."

Lukas grinned, the memory coming back to him as well. "And I told you that he was a professional assassin who took on Aiden's appearance to perpetrate his mission."

"Yeah and then Aiden kissed Jace, too," Gill added, grinning widely at Aiden.

Aiden smirked a little, even though he was now turning the shade of a watermelon. "Didn't Jace slap himself in the face to try to wake himself up?" he added.

"That I did."

Jesse was laughing so hard she was actually turning red with the effort of trying to get herself to stop. (She was not the only one, I will tell you that now.)

After a few moments, Jesse finally managed to quiet herself enough that while she was giggling, it was no longer distracting them from watching the remainder of the episode.

Onscreen, Jesse went over to the painting, and put her eyes up to where the eyeholes were.

The screen switched to show Jesse's green eyes looking around from a bunny, fading out even further to show that Jesse was behind the bunny tapestry in the library.

"Oh!" Lizzie's eyes widened. "You can keep an eye on Stampy this way!"

The screen switched once again to show Stampy sitting on a chair in the library, hands resting on his knees in a fidgety way, the boy shifting around in an uncomfortable way.

"It's the library," Jesse reported, blinking in interest, the screen switching to what Jesse was seeing through the eyeholes, "I can see Stampy locked up in there-"

She was cut off by the sound of the door opening. "Hey, I have to speak to you." And Dan slipped through the door, letting it shut behind him with a soft little click.

"Dan?" Sparklez blinked, looking a bit startled. "What are you doing in there?"

Dan shrugged, looking bewildered by the whole thing. "How do you expect me to know?"

"Oh! Dan!" Stampy stood up, face filled with obvious astonishment. "What are you doing here?"

"Yeah, Jesse would really like to know that, too," the narrator commented, although the feminine voice lacked some of the usual snark that it contained.

"Forget Jesse- all of us would like to know," Slab grumbled, sounding extremely disgruntled about the whole thing.

"I snuck in past that blonde guy- uh... Lukas?"

Lukas frowned. "Is my name really that easy to forget?" he asked nobody in particular.

"That doesn't matter right now- I have to speak to you. It's really important," Dan said, urgently, waving off the matter of remembering Lukas's name.

Stacy frowned, looking bewildered. "This, uh- this sounds really important," she said, slowly. "I- I wonder what it is."

There was a full moment of tense silence, before Dan blurted- "It was me... I killed Sparklez!"

Real-Dan's eyes widened in shock, mouth dropping open in stunned silence.

"What?! WHAT?!" Lizzie exclaimed, backing away from Dan hastily (and accidentally shoving a poor, shocked-silent Stacy off the couch, but that was irrelevant right now). "You- you- you're-?!"

"You-" Sparklez's eyes were wider than dinner plates as he scrambled away from Dan a bit too, hands up to his mouth. Stampy was gaping at Dan, mouth hanging wide-open as he stared at Dan. "You killed me?!"

"You're the White Pumpkin?!" Petra and Jace were goggling at Dan in shock, ignoring the fact that they'd just spoken in near-perfect sync. Jesse was mouthing wordlessly at the green (no, now it was- was it blue? It was hard to tell in this lack of light) haired boy, Lukas surreptitiously scooting away. Olivia was hiding behind Axel, who was hugging Olivia so tightly that she was nearly turning a little blue from lack of oxygen. Cassie was clinging onto Winslow, but also hugging Aiden with one arm (Aiden had a funny look on his face from that- maybe she was squeezing him too hard?), while Maya and Gill were scrambling back into the armchair from where they'd accidentally knocked it over.

Harper was hugging Ivor again, the dark-blue eyed man too shocked to blush or stutter about it. Magnus and Ellegaard were totally not death hugging each other. Nope. No idea what you're talking about. Anyway, ignoring the two of them obviously not death-hugging one another, Gabriel had his sword half out of his sheathe in defense, and Soren was taking refuge behind the couch.

Isa was hiding behind Milo (she'd somehow managed to squeeze between Milo and the back of the couch, huddling into a little ball with Benedict cuddled in her arms. Milo would've usually snapped at her, but something made him stop. Maybe he just thought it was the wrong time), while Reginald had automatically drawn his sword and extended it defensively in Dan's direction.

Em and Nell were exchanging looks that basically read 'WHAT' in shock, while Slab, Clutch, and Facemeat were hastily grabbing at various weapons on their person (and fumbling them in panic, to boot). Hadrian was half-out of his seat, ready to get himself out of there at the speed of light, Mevia grabbing onto Hadrian's sleeve- maybe her arm would get dislocated, but at least she'd be out of there. Otto simply remained sitting on the couch, looking downright stunned.

Onscreen-Jesse jerked back in surprise.

"What?!" Onscreen-Stampy yelped, backing away in shock. "YOU'RE the White Pumpkin?!"

Dan blinked at that, looking confused. "Oh- what? No. No no no." And he moved forward, further into the library.

To reveal that the White Pumpkin painting- the one with the top hat- now had a pair of moving, golden eyes.

"Wait- but-" Jesse stared at the screen, abruptly cutting herself off, before suddenly exclaiming, "What?!"

"Wait, so Dan's not the White Pumpkin?" Lukas said, quickly, frowning at the screen. "But I thought-"

"I swear, it was an accident!"

Stampy spluttered incoherently for a moment. Onscreen, Jesse froze, the spider hybrid's eyes wide in utter horror as she gaped at the painting, which was surveying the scene before them. "But but, Dan, 'accident', really?" Stampy had a beseeching tone to his voice.

The kind that said he wanted to believe Dan- really and truly.

But he was currently finding it a little hard to do so.

"I swear, I had no idea, there- there was this button (I'm not good with buttons) but but I had to push it, I had no clue what it would do, now I feel awful," Dan babbled, pacing up and down the room like an utter maniac as he ranted to Stampy.

"Oh." Real-Stampy abruptly relaxed. "That actually does make sense."

"Yeah, we all know how Dan is when it comes to buttons." And Lizzie shot Dan a look.

Dan winced sheepishly.

"Actually, that... oh, that explains a lot," Jesse mumbled, leaning forward. Her slightly frightened expression relaxed. "It explains why so many of the clues could've fit more than one person... and why no one person could fully fulfill the other 'requirements' for being the White Pumpkin."

"So- none of them are the White Pumpkin?" Petra asked, sounding like she was in a mix of being disappointed and being relieved. On one hand, they didn't have to accuse anyone of murder...

... but on the other hand, they were no closer to finding out who the White Pumpkin was.

Lukas frowned with a sigh. "I guess not."

"Well, it's just-" Onscreen-Stampy frowned at that. "Th-that's a little hard to believe..."

"I know, I know, it sounds ridiculous, I've been beating myself up about it ever since it happened- and then you got locked up in here," Dan abruptly drew to a close, taking a deep breath, before letting it out and making this dejected sound. "I just had to come in. Clear my conscience."

"Well, that was very sweet and all," the narrator drawled, "but, uh, yeah, there's a murderer right behind that wall-?"

Onscreen-Jesse stared at the White Pumpkin portrait, frozen in shock, her eyes still widening in horror. The White Pumpkin- whoever it was- hadn't noticed Jesse yet, still scrutinizing Dan and Stampy.

A moment later, she shook her head furiously and jerked away, whirling around on her heel to face Petra and Ivor. Her face was paler than Ivor's (and we all know how hard that is to achieve), and she was shaking a bit. "The White Pumpkin-!" she blurted, voice having dropped to a desperate whisper. "He's in there!"

A (slightly overdramatic) blast of thunder and lightning from both ends.

And then, with another mechanical groaning, the lights went out again.


A/N: Welp. Next chapter will be nerve-wracking (but fun for me to write). Also, we've discovered a segment of exactly how Cassie could prepare Ivor's, Jesse's, Lukas's, and Petra's portraits so fast. (If we follow the time that passes in the game- let's say about ten minutes- but also assume that they did a time skip of simply walking through the hallway, and the 'time speed-up' of Lukas climbing up the tree, that gives Cassie about 15 minutes to prepare the portraits, which, considering it takes ME one day to make most of my art, and I'm probably a quicker artist than most people, is more than a little implausible. So... explanation time!)

RQTC: Did anyone notice anything last chapter? 'Special', I guess you could say? I know some of the reviewers DEFINITELY noticed, but some of the others I'm not entirely sure.

Responses to reviewers!

sailor . mikuchan: What do you think? :3 / Nope, I wish there was pre-order though.

TheRealRedGaming: Red, you do realize that I said in HCM, right? In the Hybrid universe, there is only one Command Block. (Ignoring if that's canon or not.)

RapidSammi: (scratches head) How did this chapter turn poor Sammi-kun into a broken record? x3

AquaK13: Fear and paranoia are more powerful than you think. / (laughs) / I'm not saying anything, but... you might be right. / (laughs) Nope, sorry. / Savage comebacks are the bomb x3

LunarStarsMoons: (nods) / I did, as well, to be honest. I was just following Stampy's playthrough tbh xD / ... I have no idea where that came from. / (laughs)

Darkbeast Dend: Darkbeast, please- one or two reviews a chapter. / I'd use the shikomizue.

Seastorm25: (laughs) / Ah, same here. Minus the ignoring part, haha xD / :3 / Very true, hence why Jesse abstained. Well, except for her little 'hunch' with Cassie lolol

PoptartCrumbs: (laughs) / (slowly smiles a bit)

Emily The Avenger: x3 / Indeed. / (evil laugh with you)

Cassie: x3 / Do you have iOS or a PC? You can buy it on there. Or, you can buy it on Google Play- for Android.

J.M.M: Hmm, okay. Please don't joke like that again, I take everything very seriously and very personally, since I can't sense the inflection in anyone's tone. / Yay! :3 / Oh no, what happened?

KaosRuin: Lol you're right about that

RavenBlaze4850: (laughs) / Haha, very true. / (laughs) Ah, I see. I'm glad you'll be back shortly./ Mmm, I see. / Ahhh, I see. / Er, nope. No time. But I do know the movie now. / :3

InsaneAcrobat: Ahh, I see. / (laughs) / That will be explained. Actually, it was explained in Hybrid- didn't I mention that? / (points) / ... I never said I wasn't going to update HCM. / (laughs) Cool.

DarkPrincess2001: Yep.

S4SH4L4SH4theGaMeR101: (laughs) / Ahh, I see.

RWBYSTRQ: (laughs) / Not on iPhone, you can't.

BeliTheGhoti0304: Hahahaha xD / I used Thesaurus; it said it was a synonym for 'hybrid'. So I went with that. xD xD / Ahhhh. :3 / Nahh, it's fine. I was busy too.

Jessedude33: 'I really like this story. You're delusional.' Those two statements seem a bit at odds with one another, hm? / Yes, Magnus. The griefer (puts a lot of emphasis on 'griefer) who destroys things. / 1) What's wrong with being a nerd? That just means you're smart. / 2) What's wrong with being a dork? I'm a dork. / 3) Because at that point in time, Jesse was a small fry. Also, my Jesse is super small and petite- so 'small' fry is not as much of an insult. / 4) If you were living in a town where every citizen was trying to maim/kill you, you'd be paranoid about it too. Besides, anything can be stolen. / 5) Yes, because he's a griefer. / 6) More times, actually. Also, a few occasions were accidents. / I don't mind if you don't like Magnus. That's your opinion. But you do not force your opinion on others. / I don't care if you call me delusional, but until you've written a story either better than or at least on the same level as this one, I will pay your insult as much attention as Trump pays his taxes. / Did you pay attention when playing Episode 2 for undoubtedly fewer times than I have (I've played through MCSM at least 7 times by now), because Olivia/Axel did help Lukas, at least for a little bit- when you come back with Magnus and Ellegaard, the entrance to the temple is fortified with the style that Olivia/Axel would use, and I can't imagine that Lukas would go to such lengths to imitate their style. / This is my story. If you don't like the choices I go with, then don't read it, and come up with your own ideas for a story.

(sighs) I'm sorry for this huge block of text, everyone who is not A-Magnus-Flamer/Jessedude33. It's just that the points that they made were ridiculous enough that they irritated me to no end.

RebekahTPE: (laughs) Was it really? / (laughs) Well, you got one. Now to wait for the other. / Ahhh. / Sign language for sure. I'd rather be able to communicate with others.

LittleAngelbun: Nah, you're good :3 / (laughs) / Hmm, maybe.

x.X. A.L. X.x