"I- what?" Jesse asked, sounding rather disoriented, wooden sword dangling at her side. "You're... going to teach me how to fight?"
"Yeah. You do a lot of it in that world, and- well- even if you don't end up doing it in your world, it's always a helpful skill to have. There's not a day I regret being able to fight," and Petra gave Jesse a pretty wolfish grin that probably didn't make her feel very good. "So I rounded up the people who are best at fighting- or, well, swordfighting, at least. You might need other types, but let's start simple for now, hm?"
"Well- I mean- Petra, this- this is a nice offer, but- I definitely won't need-"
"No buts. Now defend yourself!" And a swift overhand cut came right at Jesse.
"Wh-!" Jesse swung the sword around wildly, the wooden sword crashing into the other one and effectively stopping it from smacking Jesse on the head. "What are you-?!"
"Don't complain now watch out!"
Jesse suddenly found herself being attacked wildly by the single wooden sword, her own arm flailing around and smacking away the blade as best as she could. Even with her best attempts, though, she was still getting whacked rather painfully by the wooden sword in quite a lot of places and blocking woefully few attacks. Gabriel, Reginald, and Isa kept wincing sympathetically as the onslaught kept going.
After what felt like eternity but was really only a minute, Petra let the sword drop to her side, Jesse dropping her own arm to her side and panting heavily. "There, I think that's good for now."
Jesse looked up at Petra, panting heavily. "That was... that was... really hard... phoof." And she flopped down onto the floor, feeling her ribs ache from where she'd just gotten whacked with the stick. "... do I have to do that again?"
"Yep," Petra said cheerfully, not at all apologetic about it. "But you did pretty well."
"Petra, I missed half of your hits, you hit me in over twenty places, and I'm sore..."
"Yeah, well, for someone who's never really fought before, you did pretty well against me," Petra told her cheerfully, not at all abashed by everything she did. "Now up you get; time to practice against Gabriel."
Jesse just groaned.
"If you look on the bright side," Isa said, in an effort to be optimistic, "after this training is all over, you'll be quite excellent at swordfighting. You'll be glad to have all this training."
"Not while I'm actually training, I assume," Jesse said tentatively.
"Not likely, that will most likely be hell."
Isa and Reginald glared at Gabriel when Jesse paled noticeably and Petra gave Gabriel a grin. He simply shrugged. "That's basically what happened when I was training."
"Yeah well you didn't have to tell her that."
After an hour had passed, everyone reconvened in the living room. Everyone noticed that Jesse looked significantly more tired, and winced a bit whenever she shifted her position too significantly, but she waved off everyone's concerns and flopped down on the floor with a grunt. "I'm gonna need a healing potion..." she groaned.
Ivor glared at Petra a bit. "Exactly what did you do to her?" he asked, adopting a steely tone.
Petra shrugged nonchalantly, ignoring the way Lukas was narrowing his eyes at her. "Nothing, really."
"If you don't count 'relentlessly whacking someone with sticks' as something," Reginald mumbled, before wincing as Petra dug her elbow into his ribs rather cheerfully, still smiling away.
After everyone had settled down, Harper, who'd somehow gotten ahold of the remote this episode, lifted it and clicked the 'play' button to start the episode.
The screen loaded for a few moments, before fading to black.
Slowly, it came back in to show Little-Jesse curled up in a tube, surrounded by blue liquid. Jesse was wearing what looked like a hospital gown, several nodes attached to her arms, her chest, her stomach, and several other locations on her body. She didn't have the extra limbs yet, or the red eye, and looked... actually, it was a little weird as to how normal she looked.
"Huh. I guess this is before she got turned into a hybrid," Harper mumbled, raising her eyebrows slightly. (She couldn't pull it off quite as neatly as Ivor and Jesse could, though.)
Onscreen, Jesse looked around a bit, tapping the glass experimentally, before pressing her palm to the glass as her eyes widened.
The screen shifted a bit to show Little-Jace in his own tube, his own palm pressed to the glass as he looked at his sister. In this one, he didn't have the wolf ears, either, and he was just blinking at Jesse in slight bewilderment. He also had his own hospital gown on, nodes attached to various parts of the body.
Slowly, he raised a hand and pointed down.
The little girl followed his gaze to see a box-like object with buttons and lights and screens blooping over it. One of the little screens seemed to be monitoring her heartbeat, and- oh, that's interesting. There was someone wearing a white coat hunched over the screens, poking away at the buttons experimentally. Finally, they looked up, someone else coming in-
Everyone's eyes widened.
Cassie's aunt was the one standing there, her eyes narrowing a bit as she pointed at the tube with Jesse in it. Jesse blinked as the person in the white coat turned to talk to her. A moment later, Cassie's aunt stepped back with a reluctant look on her face, and the person in the white coat toggled a switch.
The node attached to her heart suddenly started glowing, Jesse looking down at it curiously as luminous red stuff began to ooze down the tube, until it slowly seemed to empty into her body.
"What... is... that?" Jace asked, slowly.
Lukas frowned, squinting. "Is that... spider blood?"
Everyone's heads snapped back to face the screen.
Jesse was blinking down at the tube still when suddenly she flinched, propelling herself backwards so that her back bumped into the glass of the tube. With that, she gave a sudden shudder, and slammed a palm over her left eye, shaking her head furiously as she started contorting a bit, her body trembling harshly as she tried to keep herself from shuddering so hard.
It wasn't working.
The spider hybrid abruptly screamed, bubbles exiting her mouth and the horrible sound being muffled by the liquid in the tank. It sounded a bit as if she were being pierced by knives and needles and she was screaming in pain still, the scream still being muffled, and most of the audience was now doing their best to scoot away from this absolutely horrific scene.
And suddenly, her eyes flew open, the left iris flooding with bloody red pigment. The little girl's head snapped down to look at something, in time to see bumps beginning to poke their way through the hospital gown-
And then ripping it.
The fleshy bumps that had just formed suddenly morphed into arms with hands, joints unlocking abruptly, while fingers undulated from her palms, and her extra limbs were still growing, and Jesse seemed to be screaming harder than ever now.
Another muffled scream joined, and Jesse's head snapped over in time to see Jace hunch into a tiny ball, screaming endlessly (if the stream of bubbles flooding from his mouth was any indication) with his hands clamped over his head...
Ears slowly beginning to poke their way out.
"Oh Notch," Petra gaped at the screen. "This- this is how Jesse and Jace were made into hybrids... Notch, that looks like they're going through hell right now."
Jesse clamped her uppermost hands over her head, lower ones hammering on the glass as she tried desperately to get out, to get to her twin brother-
Suddenly, the background behind her warped, and she was sitting in that room that she'd been in when Jace had been taken from her, clawing at her head, screaming at full-volume now, while Jace was wailing and sobbing for her, and there was a high-pitched ringing that was beginning to sneak its way in and grow more and more dominant, and the screen was swooping in and out of focus and view, and honestly, it was making the viewers feel a bit sick to their stomachs.
Maybe that was the point.
"You shouldn't be using that!" Cassie's aunt was shouting, desperation tinging her voice. "It's really hurting Jesse! Besides, it's not ready yet! Causing her this type of pain- it's not safe!"
A low chuckle that made Jesse abruptly freeze, eyes widening in shock.
"Don't worry. She'll be fine. These hybrids were created to be more durable than their weak mob counterparts."
And suddenly Jesse dropped to the ground, eyes rolling up in her head as she fell to the ground, screen going black the moment she hit and bounced off, a scream ringing out onscreen over the screaming that was still going on.
"JESSE!"
The screen switched to show the portal hallway, Jesse shooting upright and screaming, her irises bloodred and her hands clutching at her hair and in that moment she looked perfectly insane. There was a set of hands on her shoulders, and whosever they belonged to was saying something, saying something that the screaming was drowning out-
"Jesse! JESSE! CALM DOWN!"
Jesse's scream abruptly petered out, turning into a gasp for air as she started panting, her entire body trembling violently as if she'd run a fifty-mile marathon.
The screen switched to show a blurry, out-of-focus picture that quickly came into focus. Lukas was holding Jesse's shoulders tightly, staring into her eyes with his own, fearfully wide, blue-green eyes. His claws might've been poking out a little bit too. "Jesse? What's wrong? What happened? Are you alright?" he immediately rattled off quite the long list of questions.
Jesse blinked at him, still looking quite shell-shocked, before making to get up. Lukas put a stop to that, simply pressing down on her shoulders until she sat back down. Jesse's eyes slid around, looking at the background. Cassie was sitting up near a portal, her eyes blinking rather rapidly and looking quite red, her hands twitching as if she wanted to do something- and then she relaxed a bit when she spotted Jesse, eyes growing more concerned.
Not too far away, Petra was on her feet, looking around and turning around in little circles in a disoriented sort of way. Ivor was rummaging through his bag, before he got up and went over towards her.
A bottle was pushed into her face, a potion that was almost completely clear liquid, except for a wisp of pale blue to the drink. "Jesse, drink this," Ivor told her.
The spider hybrid just looked up, her right eye slowly fading more towards green again as she kept trembling, her expression still filled with abject fear.
"That... that was a nightmare." Ivor shook his head. "Literally."
Dan shuddered a bit, looping his arm around Stampy and squeezing the cat-hoodie-wearing boy in a tight hug. "Yeah, it's... it's a little scary. They basically used something that wasn't really safe to erase Jesse's memory."
Lukas tightened his arms around Jesse, who winced a bit. "Lukas, bruise."
"Oh, sorry."
"Jesse."
The spider hybrid simply swallowed, every muscle in her body standing out in sharp relief; she was so tense. Her eyes were filled with fear still, and Ivor pushed the potion at her a little more insistently. "C'mon, Jesse."
Slowly, Jesse's upper arms reached up to take the potion bottle, abruptly making the liquid inside the bottle start vibrating due to her hands shaking so badly. Tentatively, she put the bottle to her mouth, and drained the whole thing in a few deep gulps.
Abruptly, her entire body relaxed, and Jesse's expression also relaxed- actually, she looked pretty serene right about now, considering she'd been trembling like a leaf the minute before.
"Jesse... what was that?" Petra asked slowly, looking a little groggy but definitely concerned as she stared at Jesse.
"Nightmare," Jesse replied, sounding rather serene, before she looked down at the bottle for a moment and then back up at Ivor. "Calming Potion?"
Aiden, Cassie, Ivor, Harper, and Jesse all exchanged a small grin at that for some reason. (Hmmm, I wonder why.)
"You needed it," Ivor replied shortly, "that sounded like some nightmare."
"You don't have to say it twice," Hadrian muttered, shifting a bit in his seat. He'd dealt with some pretty nightmarish things in his time... but yeah, screaming children were a little more than he could really handle.
Jesse paused, as if she had to think about that. "Well... I guess it was okay at first," she said thoughtfully and still in that oddly serene way. "But then it turned into a nightmare really quickly. It was more like a couple of memories than a real nightmare, is all."
"Are there any repercussions from calming potions?" Mevia asked Ivor.
He shrugged after a moment of thought. "It's quite easy to get addicted to them if you drink more than your body can handle at once and start relying on them too much for everything. Depending on what you're looking for, it could easily be more addictive than drugs or alcohol- especially if one has a nervous disorder or something along those lines."
"... ah."
Onscreen, Cassie blinked at them again as Jesse leaned into Lukas, reaching up and starting to pet him, the blonde relaxing abruptly and then curling up on the floor. Jesse had to basically lie on top of him to lean into him now, but she really didn't seem to mind. After a moment, Ivor glanced up at the ceiling and petting Jesse, making her already relaxed body go even looser.
Petra blinked at them again, before going over and sitting down, pretty much leaning on Jesse's stomach- not that the spider hybrid seemed to mind. Lukas started purring softly, curling up even more than before. Winslow padded over and sniffed the blonde ocelot hybrid, before meowing and curling up next to him as well.
"Aw, this is so cute," Gill grinned. "You lot are adorable, you know that?"
"I'm not cute-" Petra began to argue.
"Yeah, she's more hot than cute."
Petra blinked and looked over at Jace, who'd slapped his hands over his mouth a second too late.
Cassie crept a little closer, lying down on her stomach and watching the other group for a moment, before closing her eyes and slowly relaxing.
The screen switched to show Jesse still petting Lukas while he purred like the engine of a car, Ivor still patting her on the back in a comforting way, while Petra dozed off against Jesse, the portal hallway illuminating the whole hallway with dim, miasmic patterns of light.
Slowly, the screen faded to black.
"That was so sweet," Slab said, sniffling a bit and reaching up to wipe his eyes a little bit.
Jace and Jesse exchanged slightly sheepish, slightly shy glances with one another, Reuben snuggling up between them as Jesse leaned into Lukas with a smile and Petra wrapped her arms around Jace in a tight hug. Axel and Olivia shifted over as well, Olivia leaning into Petra a bit while Axel used one arm to brace themselves.
This wasn't this path of the future...
But there were some times now that they were wishing more and more that it was.
A/N: I know that the chapters are a bit shorter now, but I can upload them quicker than if I struggle to reach 3000 words. It'll go back to a 3000 word limit once we reach July 11 or 12th.
RQTC: Have you ever read something absolutely awful that made you just cringe hardcore? Share 'em with me, I wanna see what readings have caused you pain xD
An example (don't send me this one) is My Immortal, known as one of the worst fanfictions... ever.
Responses to reviews!
LunarStarsMoons: (laughs) Well, I'm glad I made you feel several emotions. / Hehehe xD / (laughs) / (grins)
RapidSammi: Oh dear xD / ? What is the pinky test- oh xD okay I won't ask. xD
S4SH4L4SH4theGaMeR101: (laughs) I'm glad you like it!
MissyMattingly: Yep! :3
InsaneAcrobat: (chuckles) Yeah, I'm kinda binge-uploading. / Azira's a... well, they're not a bad person... they're not exactly good either, so xD / gotcha, cool!
AquaK13: Oh no xD / Hehehe xD / Oh my god now I can't stop thinking of a montage mashup between the two xD / Yay! / :3
sailor . mikuchan: I feel ya fam / Cool!
LittleAngelbun: I'm glad you liked them! / Oh noes you are dead T^T
giriri: (laughs) I'm glad you liked it.
BeliTheGhoti0304: Which one hahaha xD / And Gabriel, and Isa, and Reggie xD / Lolol xD / (grins)
Jack: (laughs) / I didn't even plan that... since Jesse's big on speeches in the game I just decided to make one up on the spot lol xD / Yeahhh. / Nah you're good xD / Hahaha xD / Lolololol / Nah, it's fine. xD / Yep!
Guest: Well, in this he didn't kill Ellegaard, so...
RavenBlaze4850: Hehehehe xD / Yep xD / I was going for that, sort of. Until they all started yelling at each other haha xD / (chuckles) / (laughs) Nope, I just went off to go check my music and Azira 'borrowed' my computer. xD / (laughs) / Sort of xD / Ahhhh xD / (chuckles) / Yep!
Welp, that's it for now! Bai!
x.X. A.L. X.x
