"What?!" Cassie almost instantly protested, glaring at Jesse. "No I'm not! Look at the facts! We caught Lukas with that White Pumpkin head right after Dan and Stampy nearly got murdered! I think you're just lying to protect him!"

Lizzie looked over at Jesse, looking a bit apologetic. "Well, Cassie's making a lot of sense, Jesse... do you have any evidence to back you up?" she asked, hesitantly.

Jesse crossed all of her arms as she breathed in deeply, before slowly letting it out and beginning to pace across the floor. "Well, yes, actually. Something's been bothering me for quite a bit, now. Something that happened in the Great Hall right after TorqueDawg got hit by that trap."

"What's that?" Cassie asked, rather snappishly. She was getting more and more defensive with each passing second.

"Cassie Rose was already in the room. Nobody else was there. And TorqueDawg's picture..." Jesse turned around just enough for them to see her red eye, gleaming in the still-dim room, staring right at Cassie. "Was somehow already crossed out."

"Oh- oh yeah!" Lizzie's eyes widened, letting out a little gasp. "That's right!"

"Oh yeah- Jesse's right!" Onscreen-Lizzie realized, eyes widening in shock.

"I just said that."

Half of the audience snorted at that offhand comment.

Cassie stuttered for a second, before her eyes hardened and she regained her composure. "That doesn't prove anything! Lukas is still way guiltier looking!" she snapped, defensively.

"Very mature of you, Cassie," Em drawled, eyes still fixed on the screen. Real-Cassie shot her an annoyed look.

"How about this then?" Jesse fired back immediately, "when we were down in the basement, we found the White Pumpkin's secret lair. And inside, we found some rather interesting items. Items for the White Pumpkin's evening... 'festivities'. And there was one rather important detail. The White Pumpkin had portraits. All ready to go, pre X'ed out, one for each of us... except for Cassie."

Stacy gasped, hands going to her mouth.

"Ooh! That's good," Ivor said, sounding almost... proud of Jesse in that moment. Jesse grinned back at him, and gave Lukas a little smile as well when she noticed the relieved and grateful smile spreading over his face.

"You're doing great, Jesse," Petra told the spider hybrid, sending her an almost literally beaming grin, "now, go in for the kill." She paused, before adding, "Metaphorically."

Jesse looked straight at Cassie, eyes beginning to turn a vibrant shade of red. "But it was the last piece of the puzzle that helped me figure out who we were all really dealing with here." She leaned forward a bit. "Cats. Dozens of calico cats. And they all looked just. Like. Winslow."

Winslow's ears perked up a bit at the sound of his name.

Cassie stepped in front of the cat, who completely curled up behind her as she scoffed slightly. "An amusing story, Jesse. But if you saw all of these supposed cats just like mine, then what color is Winslow?"

Jesse blinked at the question in slight surprise, and Cassie took the opportunity to press on. "Shouldn't be a problem if you saw a hundred of him."

The spider hybrid met Cassie's gaze directly, red eyes glowing slightly. "Winslow," she stated, calmly, "is black, white, and orange."

Cassie stepped aside, glancing at Winslow... to reveal that he was indeed, black, white and orange.

"Oh my Notch." Lukas glanced over at Cassie, his stomach beginning to drop slightly in anxiety. "You're... you're the... you're the murderer?"

A blast of thunder on their end made all of the audience members jump out of their skin a bit, looking around frantically.

Cassie remained silent, staring rather blankly at the screen.

"Cassie... is this all true?" Stacy asked the redhead, uncomfortably.

"This whole scheme has been about getting a portal key, hasn't it?" Jesse asked, voice hardening as she spoke. "Killing whoever gets in your way just to get your hands on it!"

Cassie's eyes were wide as she glanced around, before looking right at Jesse... and then her expression went completely blank. She straightened up a bit, staring at Jesse evenly.

And slowly began applauding. "How very clever, Jesse," she told the spider hybrid, coldly.

Real-Cassie felt something wet on her cheeks. She looked up to see if the roof was leaking or something, but there was nothing there- just darkness, as the glow from the screen wasn't enough to illuminate up that far.

It wasn't until she felt her throat closing up painfully that she realized she was crying.

She stopped applauding and turned away, strolling away slowly. "Well. I guess that's it, then. You caught me." And she turned back around, green eyes filled with an almost icy hatred. "I am the murderer."

And a blast of thunder and lightning lit up the room, making several people jump a little bit in surprise.

"Oh Notch." Sparklez scooted away, staring at Cassie in near-horror. "You're... you..." He was stuttering and it was a wonder that he was even able to form words right now, he looked so simply stunned. "You're the White Pumpkin...?"

"... yes."

Cassie's affirmation was so quiet that it almost went unheard. But of course, it didn't.

Jesse's hands were clasped to her mouth in stunned surprise, while Lukas was steadily tightening his death hug on Jesse, Reuben letting out a little whine and shrinking back a bit. Petra and Jace's hands were intertwined, Petra squeezing it as tightly as she could and possibly cutting off Jace's circulation; but Jace was too shocked to care. Olivia was gasping for breath, while Axel simply looked stunned.

Ivor turned from where he was perched in his seat, eyes wide in shock as he regarded the girl with her head tilted forward and a shadow over her eyes. Soren was simply frowning, looking slightly confused now, while Ellegaard was death-hugging Magnus (who was also staring at Cassie in shock) and Gabriel was just mouthing words to himself silently, too shocked to actually say them aloud.

Maya's hand was at her mouth as she glanced over at Cassie, Gill's back pressing into the couch as he did his best to get away from Cassie. Aiden was just staring at Cassie blankly in surprise, looking as if he honestly didn't really know how to react. Isa was death-hugging Milo, who now had a frantically clucking Benedict in his lap and a Founder practically hanging off of him. Reginald was biting his nails anxiously as his gaze flickered from the screen to the red-haired girl sitting on the couch next to Aiden.

Stampy and Dan were practically wrapped around one another in a tight hug, while Lizzie and Stacy were exchanging shocked looks and Sparklez looked as if he might just faint right now, he was honestly looking so incredibly stunned. Harper was hugging Ivor tightly, but also staring at Cassie in slight confusion at this point, while Em and Nell were exchanging shocked looks.

Slab's mouth was hanging open, while the other two gladiators already had their weapons out and at the ready in case she tried to attack someone. Hadrian glanced at Cassie, frowning a bit at the red-haired murderer. Mevia was also frowning a little in confusion, and Otto simply looked bewildered by this turn of events. They... remembered Cassie. She hadn't been this way before.

What had happened to Cassie?

"I just don't believe this," Stacy exclaimed, frowning.

"I know, I was shocked too," Stampy told her, eyes widening a little bit as he looked over at the brown-haired girl.

"Same here," Em muttered under her breath.

"I'm relieved... but also surprised," Lukas murmured, his tail twitching a bit as he absorbed this new information about the identity of the murderer.

Ivor hummed thoughtfully, tilting his head. "Always the quiet ones."

Jesse frowned, looking a little bemused now. "But... what did any of us ever do to you?" she asked the red-haired girl at last, simply looking confused about the matter.

"Directly? Nothing," Cassie replied, almost casually, shrugging her shoulders slightly, before her gaze hardened and she stepped closer to Jesse. "But you idiots had the one thing that I most desperately needed. I've been stuck, in this stupid world, with it's stupid two moons, for YEARS. Trapped!" She started walking around, glaring into everyone's eyes as she circled around them. "With a portal RIGHT UNDER MY NOSE, but no key to open it! That is..." And she slowly turned around, facing them all. "Until I finally heard that this world's portal key had been found."

She crossed her arms, staring coldly at all of them, as the ones that she might've once called friends- and the new adventurers- glared at the red-haired girl angrily. "I knew it was one of you... so I tried my best to earn your friendship. Figure out who had it."

"How could you, Cassie?!" Lizzie burst out, glaring at the redhead intensely.

Real-Cassie felt a tear sliding down her cheek now. Winslow mewed up at his owner, giving something akin to a frown as he regarded her. Aiden glanced at her too, before sighing and putting an arm around her in an attempt to comfort her.

A moment later, she curled up into herself, leaning into the slightly-taller boy, feeling her shoulders start to shake as she buried her head in her arms.

It had been... almost nice, really.

To forget why she'd been so angry, for once.

To stop obsessing over getting out of that world with two moons.

To have people that she actually liked.

To have people that liked her.

Why was it that when she had something... even if for a moment... it just escaped her reach again?

Jesse simply stared at Cassie for a moment, a slightly sadder look coming over her face as she regarded the redhead.

Ivor glared at Cassie onscreen, making a noise in the back of his throat. "You're despicable," he told her, coldly.

Lukas nodded, gesturing at him a bit. "And he knows despicable."

"Hey!" Real-Ivor exclaimed, gathering a few giggles from a still-rather-nervous audience.

"We need to do something with you, 'Cassie Rose'," Stacy said, the last two words becoming almost... mocking, in a way. Angry.

"I vote we build an obsidian prison, and surround it with lava!" Stampy exclaimed, stepping forward and glaring at Cassie-

"No no no no no I won't let you do that, I can't! No!" Cassie immediately started backing away, shaking badly as she looked around them, eyes darting around as if she'd been trapped in a corner, before nearly snarling at Jesse. "This is YOUR fault! You did this to me!"

"Oh..." Real-Jesse looked a little bewildered, before her expression changed to a sadder one, and she slowly started looking back down at her lap. "I'm... sorry..."

"Hey- what did Jesse even do?!" Jace exclaimed, glaring at Real-Cassie.

"Yeah, YOU were the one who murdered people!" Lukas exclaimed, tightening his arm around Jesse in his tight hug.

"Why is Jesse even apologizing?" Petra mumbled under her breath.

Ivor glanced over at Cassie, his innards twisting as he remembered something.


Onscreen, the group stared at the portal in varying levels of horror, Jesse slowly catching her breath and looking at Ivor.

He caught her eye and glowered at her. "You ruined everything," he accused her.

Jesse's fists tightened, and she stared at the ground.

"Oh, crud," Jesse sighed, leaning forward onto one elbow. "Looks like I'm about to start blaming myself for everything."

"Do you do that?" Jace asked her.

Jesse let out a short bark of laughter. "Yeah. When things go really wrong, I manage to convince myself that I'm the reason everything got so messed up. I guess that's 'cause of the way I was raised."


Ivor's lips tightened, and he returned his attention to the screen.

Onscreen, the whole group started moving towards Cassie, Winslow meowing and running away, as Cassie whipped out a diamond axe, glaring at them all. The spider hybrid kept walking and drew her sword, holding it out more defensively than anything else.

"I'll fight all of you!" Cassie nearly snarled, "each and every one of you! I'll-" She suddenly let out a shout as the floor dropped out beneath her, the screen switching to show Jesse, Lizzie, and Stacy jerking back in surprise, before sand suddenly plummeted from the ceiling and slammed into the floor.

"Oh sh!t!" Petra exclaimed, in shock.

Stampy gasped, running towards the mountain of sand. "Another trap! C'mon, we need to dig her out!" he exclaimed, beginning to punch through the sand blocks as they heard Cassie's muffled shrieks beneath the sand.

Real-Cassie looked up from where she'd been curling into a ball, blinking in surprise. Her face was still mostly hidden, but you could see her overly bright, shiny green eyes, brimming over with tears.

Lizzie and Dan joined in quickly, but Stacy scoffed and turned away. "After everyone she's hurt?" she huffed, "she can dig herself out."

"She did terrible things, but no one deserves this!" Lizzie exclaimed, giving Stacy a look, before returning to punching through the sand blocks.

Jesse stood there for a moment, looking from Stacy to Cassie, before rushing over and punching through the sand blocks herself. She punched through one, then another, and then punched one that was sitting in the floor- and stopped, eyes widening.

The screen panned down to show an arrow and a lever floating up through the sand.

"Oh-!" Sparklez blinked in surprise, eyes widening.

Stampy paused in his digging onscreen, eyes widening. "Wait- look," he exclaimed, standing up. The screen switched to show Lizzie, Stampy, Jesse, and Lukas all standing around the part of the floor that had caved in, an arrow, the lever, an Ender Pearl, a pufferfish, and a piece of redstone was floating in.

"She's... dead," Gabriel said, blinking in surprise. None of them seemed to really know what to say about that.

Jesse squinted at the screen for a minute or so, before shaking her head. "No. She's not."

Several sets of eyes turned to stare at Jesse. "But- Jesse, her inventory-" Petra began, hesitantly.

"But she was holding an axe just now; we saw it. If she had the axe just now... where is it?"

Everyone blinked, and returned to looking at the screen- and Ellegaard put one hand to her temple in realization. "Oh- yes." She frowned. "How did I not notice that before?"

"I can't believe it," Stampy said, after a second's pause, staring at the pit with her items floating around, "she's... gone."

"What a way to go," Ivor mumbled.

"Yeah, I guess in all the chaos... she forgot where her own traps were. Wow," Petra mumbled, tilting her head as she stared into the pit.

"But... her inventory isn't fully there...? Jesse just pointed that out, but..."

Ivor cut Harper off. "Yes, but I imagine that in all this chaos, it was a bit easy to forget that. Especially with so many things beginning to happen in such a short amount of time."

Onscreen, Jesse frowned a bit. "... I feel kinda bad for Cassie. She did some awful things, but... no one deserves to be trapped away from home like that," she said, at last.

Real-Cassie could feel her throat closing up a little bit, and her breath was catching as she did her best to inhale properly.

She wasn't doing the best job.

Stampy sighed. "If only she had just asked us for help... we could've avoided this whole thing."

"You wouldn't even tell Jesse when you had the flint and steel. Why would you have told me?!" Cassie snapped, making all of them shift back in surprise at the venom in her voice.

"Well, in my case, none of you guys actually KNOW me that much. They knew you. Besides, I was an outsider who they were rather suspicious of. You were a friend. And friends help friends," Jesse reasoned.

Cassie scowled. "That's not what I've learned," she muttered, in a low enough voice that none of them could actually catch it. "I can't trust anyone here."

Her eyes flickered to Hadrian and Mevia, before she looked away.

Onscreen, Jesse blinked as she noticed something, and turned around. "Hey... it's morning," she said softly, blinking a bit, before approaching the window and hopping up onto the sill to have a look, Lukas following her.

The screen switched to show zombies keeling over and dying in the morning sunlight, flames dancing over a lot of said zombies.

Jesse and Lukas turned back around, walking towards the others with slightly bemused looks on their faces. Stampy turned around as well, looking a little bewildered now. "I... I guess that's it, then," he said after a few moments of stunned shock.

Stacy chuckled a bit, smiling. "Yeah, we're free!"

"And we're alive!" Ivor exclaimed, eyes widening slightly. "Let's, er, let's not waste it standing around. There could still be traps EVERYWHERE in here!" And he moved to leave.

"Very comforting, Ivor," Magnus muttered sarcastically.

"Hey, but it's true!"

Onscreen, the others followed him, the screen panning down to show Cassie's things still floating around in the pit.

Real-Cassie could feel her stomach clenching into a tight little knot, her breathing becoming quicker and quicker.

"We're nowhere near finished yet, are we?" Sparklez mumbled, a rather fearful shadow falling over his eyes as he stared at the screen.

There was a deathly silence in the room, before Jesse simply shook her head a little bit.

"No. We're not."


A/N: Expect a LOT of updates in short amounts of times for this next week, guys. And I mean LOTS.

To those of you who read Hybrid, I did change this part of the story a BIT more drastically than before... but you're going to have to see how. (smiles)

Things are going to go down very, VERY soon.

RQTC: When was Hybrid published? (Without looking at the story stats.)

LunarStarsMoons: THANKS FAM / INDEED! / Right? x3 / Hmmmmm... something along those lines.

Emily The Avenger: (screams with you)

RapidSammi: Nope; no one's killing Cassie. She's a MURDERER, and she's smart. They don't wanna try, because she could easily outsmart them.

InsaneAcrobat: No xD / (laughs) / Ahh, gotcha. / I see. (nods) / I'm assuming you haven't read the original Hybrid yet? If so, don't read it; it'll be more fun without reading it :3 / No problem fam!

sailor . mikuchan: (laughs)

Toni42: Nope~ :3 / I loved writing it!

RavenBlaze4850: (laughs) / Hehehe xD / Very true. :3 / Ehhh. / (winks)

giriri: Indeed. / (laughs) / ?

PoptartCrumbs: Yeeeeaaaaaaa boi xD or gurl xD I'm sorry, terrible spelling is on purpose xD

x.X. A.L. X.x