"Hey Toni, can I burn my Literature book?"
Jesse, who was now sitting on a couch with Lukas (who had his head in his hands), glanced over to see Toni looking up from a book, blinking twice at Gommie. The girl had her hands on her hips- well, one hand on her hip. The other one was holding a book.
"... what?"
"Shakespeare is horrible. I'd like to burn the book that has Romeo and Juliet in it. Great plot and all, but it's not quite what I had in mind when it comes to the language."
Toni blinked twice at Gommie, completely unaware of Jesse sitting two seats away from him. (Well, of course, he was a ghost or something or other.) "Aren't you still using it in class?"
"Yes. But I want to burn this book."
"No."
"Burn this book with me."
"No."
"Burn this book."
"NO."
"BURN THIS BOOK."
"Burn this book... burn this book... burn this book..."
Aiden blinked at the weird, echoing voice that had just sounded from... what sounded like the other end of the house.
"Did you hear that?" he asked Cassie, whose head had come up out of the novel she'd basically buried her nose into a few minutes earlier. No wonder she had her glasses.
"Yeah, sounded like..." Cassie trailed off, as if trying to think of the right word for what she was thinking of.
"NO!"
The two of them jumped half out of their skin (Soren nearly hit himself in the nose with his book, while Slab jumped, clonked his head on a shelf, and knocked about fifteen books to the floor) and twisted just in time to see the slightly-short Becky heroically leaping out of her chair, abandoning her ghostly book on the seat, before racing out of the room to be the savior of the book that was about to be burned.
Or something like that, I dunno.
Aiden exchanged a look with the few others meandering around the room, before simply shaking his head and returning to reading his book.
Cassie glanced over at Aiden, before burying her head back into her book.
She wasn't sure what she was more surprised about- that anyone was willing to hang out with her, or that Aiden had cared enough to deliver that huge string of insults to PAMA.
Or that he even knew that many insults. I mean honestly.
Jesse watched blankly as the vision/ghost/whatever the heck they were dissipated, before bending down a bit and looking at Lukas, rubbing his back slightly. "Lukas..." she trailed off weakly, unsure of what to say, because really, what are you supposed to tell someone who just watched themselves get mind-controlled by a computer?
"... I'm sorry."
Jesse blinked blankly at that. "What are you sorry for?"
"I just..." Lukas let out a little huff, reaching up and clenching fistfuls of his hair slowly, before slowly releasing it again, letting out a long shaky breath. "I just have this awful feeling that I'm going to hurt you, and I don't want to, but I do, and-" he stopped himself, seeing as he'd started trembling. "... I'm sorry," he repeated again.
Jesse stared at Lukas for a moment, before simply sighing a little bit and wrapping her arms around the blonde in a tight hug. "You don't have to say you're sorry about anything."
Lukas pushed her away a bit, eyes flickering slightly as he regarded the black-haired girl. No, she wasn't kidding. "But-"
"Let's not talk about this right now, okay?"
"But I-"
"Lukas, please?"
"But Jesse-"
Jesse was just so wound up right now from everything that had just happened onscreen, and so anxious about what was coming next, and worried for Lukas and Petra, and for her and Cassie and Ivor and so confused about everything that she didn't really think and just did the first thing that came to mind to shut Lukas up.
Which just so happened to be to lean forward and kiss him full on the mouth
Lukas's eyes widened as she just abruptly leaned forward and put her mouth on his mid-sentence, but he quickly relaxed a moment later, wrapping an arm around Jesse and pulling her in a little closer, letting his eyes shut, and it was a damn good thing that everyone else had decided they needed to take a break from the living room in general.
I will say this, it definitely calmed Lukas down a little bit.
This area of the house was more secluded. Not as secret as some of the other corners Petra had poked around in, but for someplace she just needed to be alone in, it wasn't bad.
So of course, someone would find her.
"Petra?"
The redhead looked up to see Reuben snuffling, poking her leg with his nose, Jace poking his head around the corner meekly.
"Hey, Jace," she said tiredly, running a hand through her hair, bandana resting in her lap for once. "You alright?"
"Are you alright?" Jace asked, sincerely.
"Yeah, of course." Petra shrugged, keeping her face relatively blank. "Why wouldn't I be?"
Jace moved over, sliding down the wall to sit next to the redhead. "Well, for starters, you pretty much hightailed it out of the room when we decided to take a break. Second, you're not wearing your bandana, and you always wear your bandana."
"Couldn't it just be that I just wanted to take the darn thing off?" Petra mumbled, frowning at him halfheartedly.
"Not when you told me that this bandana was the first gift anyone ever gave you and you hate taking it off unless absolutely necessary."
Petra winced a bit at the mildly stated but firm statement. Of course Jace would remember that. She'd told him forever ago. She thought he would've forgotten the whole thing by now, but apparently he had a pretty good memory.
"... is it that obvious that I'm bothered?" she asked, after a good two minutes.
"I don't know how obvious it is to the others, but it's pretty clear to me." Jace shrugged nonchalantly, as Reuben kept nudging Petra's leg gently. "If it helps any, Lukas isn't doing great, either."
Petra winced as she remembered she'd just torn out of the room without checking up on Lukas. "Oh. Is he okay?"
"Jesse's staying back to try to calm him down." Jace suddenly smirked a little. "If anyone's gonna be able to manage that, it's her."
Petra let out a little huff of laughter, half-surprised at that. Leave it to Jace to try to make a slight joke to calm her down even in this situation. "Very true. I'd be more surprised if Jesse wasn't able to calm him down, honestly."
"He's got it baaaaaad," Jace teased, and Petra just outright laughed at that.
"Yeah, he does." She slipped an arm over his shoulders, her own shoulders relaxing slightly. "I've got it pretty good, though."
"Hey, that's my line," Jace joked, and Petra shook her head and gave him a little kiss on the cheek. A few seconds of placid silence passed.
"I didn't know you could flirt, by the way."
Jace discovered that Petra could, in fact, get quite flirty when she wanted to embarrass him. Even if there wasn't anyone else in the room with them except for a little pink pig.
Eventually, everyone trickled back into the living room. Jesse and Lukas were already cuddling on the floor, although Jesse had a cookie and was munching away on it quite happily. Jace returned with his cheeks a rosy red and Petra grinning smugly for some reason or another.
When everyone had gotten re-situated on the floor, Harper picked up the remote as if it were a nuclear bomb or something equally delicate and carefully pressed the button.
The screen loaded for a moment, before coming on to show Ivor leaning over towards Jesse. "Jesse," he said softly, his usual voice having risen into a sort of squeak, "this situation is looking a little dire, don't you think?"
"A little is putting it a bit too calmly, Ivor," Cassie hissed back, expression tinged with panic.
The townspeople halted Jesse right in front of Petra, who stared at Jesse blankly with those red eyes, before speaking in a voice that was... hers, but not. There was a robotic blare over it, making everyone in the audience involuntarily shudder at the sound of it. Onscreen-Jesse didn't look like she liked it very much either. "Don't worry, Jesse," PAMA-Petra spoke. "It doesn't hurt."
"That is so creepy!" Gill shuddered.
PAMA's attention turned to something else, and Jesse turned to see Lukas approaching her, his expression totally blank. His tail and ears weren't even moving at all. He just looked... empty, almost.
Maya pulled her Ocelots jacket over her face.
"Welcome, Lukas," PAMA intoned, Jesse's eyes widening in horror at the ocelot hybrid, "Yay!"
And then PAMA's attention went back to Jesse. "Your turn, Jesse."
The spider hybrid yelped as Lukas grabbed ahold of one of her upper arms, and Petra seized the other. She tried to use her extra arms to fight her way out without hurting them, but Petra's leg shot out and slammed into Jesse's arms, making the spider hybrid flinch in pain but do nothing to retaliate.
"Jesse's not gonna hurt her friends, but..." the blood drained from Olivia's face. "Lukas and Petra don't have any qualms about hurting Jesse right now. Not with PAMA in their heads."
Lukas winced a little.
"Get out of their heads, PAMA!" Jesse shouted, as the two others slammed her into the wall that the machine was hovering above.
"But their heads are full of so much lovely information," PAMA stated matter-of-factly, before a 'smile' flickered onto its face. "It makes me happy. What adventures you've had. A killer mansion..."
Cassie winced a bit and shifted uncomfortably.
Suddenly, the computer made a rumbling sound, the "..." coming onscreen as PAMA started processing the information.
"Does that mean PAMA's going to be able to figure out that they're all hybrids?" Soren asked suddenly, the thought hitting him like a ton of bricks out of the blue.
Harper groaned and put her head in her hands. Ivor reached out and patted her on the back sympathetically.
"Well, crap, it's gonna figure out the three of us are hybrids..." Jesse grumbled, a deadpan look coming over her face, before she blinked a bit. "... every time PAMA gets new information, it gets a tad distracted while it starts 'processing' it," the spider hybrid whispered to Ivor and Cassie.
Ivor nodded in agreement, eyes narrowing a bit. "Yes, like a computer version of thinking."
"There's gotta be a way for us to distract it long enough for us to escape," Cassie mumbled, narrowing her eyes at the computer screen thoughtfully.
"A city in the sky..." PAMA intoned.
Isa's eyes widened.
The "..." appeared onscreen again, before PAMA's face came onscreen, an almost delighted look on its face. "Towns and mountains, eaten by a living storm..." More processing noises.
Jesse gazed at PAMA for a moment, before a slow smirk came across her face. She looked around at Ivor, almost looking amused right now. "D- Ivor, remember one of my favorite activities back in the lab?"
"Wait- I think Jesse has an idea," Stacy said, sitting up and leaning forward rapidly.
Harper peeked back up.
Ivor stared uncomprehendingly at the spider hybrid for a moment, before suddenly an identical smirk made its way over his face. "Ah, yes. Riddles, logic puzzles, and paradoxes. Your favorites."
"Oh.." Harper's eyes widened as she sat back up, leaning forward a bit. "That could work...!"
"Yeah!" and Cassie's eyes lit up in excitement. "Let's just ask PAMA something really confusing, get it all busy busy, and then hightail it out of here!"
"Okay, so," Jesse bit her lip in thought. "We need a paradox- a self-contradictory statement..."
The screen zoomed in on her red eye, before zooming back out to show her hanging upside-down from the ceiling. Ivor looked up from where he was on the floor. "Hey, Jesse, I've got a pretty good one."
She beamed at him, flipping over slightly so she was actually looking at him, rather than dangling upside down and staring at him. "I wanna hear it!" she said, cheerfully.
Ivor smirked a bit at her enthusiasm, before calmly stating, "Is the answer to this question 'no'?"
Jesse thought about that, trying to figure out any loopholes, before beaming. "That's a good one!" she chirped. "I've got one, too!"
Ivor smiled at her enthusiasm this time, before turning around a bit and putting his hands on his knees patiently, giving the tiny spider hybrid his full attention. "Alright, then, let's hear it."
Jesse beamed, before stating slowly, "Trust me: trust no one!"
"That's a pretty good one," and Ellegaard tilted her head before nodding. "Both of those would work excellently for the current situation."
The screen zoomed out again, to show Jesse blinking slightly as Cassie nodded, eyes practically glowing with excitement. "Yeah- I think that would work on PAMA!"
"What would work on me?"
The screen switched to show PAMA frowning down at them.
The three of them stared up at PAMA for a moment, before exchanging secretive grins with each other.
Harper was so wound up right now that she was biting her nails.
Please, please, please work.
"Uhh... nothing!" Ivor called out, giving a nonchalant shrug.
"That did not sound like nothing," PAMA said, still giving the group an angry look. "That sounded like... suspicious whispers. Suspicious whispers make me... suspicious."
"No, sh*t, Sherlock," Hadrian muttered sarcastically. Otto raised his elbow to elbow the man in the purple suit, thought about it for a second, and then put his arm back down.
"Hey, PAMA!" Jesse finally called out, enunciating her words carefully. "Is the answer to this question 'no'?"
Ivor felt a small smile sneak over his face at the fact that Jesse had just used a paradox that he'd come up with.
... well, onscreen-him, but it's still him so it still counts.
PAMA's suspicious look changed to a befuddled one, before the "..." reappeared on the screen, beeping noises sounding as it tried to process that. "So if the answer to the question is 'no', then that means the answer to the question is yes. But if the answer to the question is yes, then that means the answer to the question is no." A question mark bleeped onto the screen.
"It's working!" Ivor and Cassie chorused in excitement, barely able to keep their voices down.
The audience exchanged relieved looks, a collective sigh of relief going throughout the room. (Minus Hadrian, but Hadrian's Hadrian. ... and what the hell just happened in that sentence.)
"So the answer to the question would be no, which would make the answer to the question yes. But by making the answer to the question yes, the answer to the question becomes no." Smoke suddenly started hissing out of the screen, a confused look coming over PAMA's face. "Error. This data is contradictory." And the screen started spazzing out, the faces turning upside down and glitching all over the place. "Does not not not not compute. Error. Diverting power."
Petra and Lukas both released their grip on Jesse's arms, the spider hybrid letting out a little sigh of relief as the villagers holding Cassie and Ivor also released them.
"Nice work, new guys!" Jesse's head snapped up and around to show Harper standing on a house nearby, hands at her sides.
"Harper!" Jesse and Ivor chorused in surprise.
Real-Cassie crossed her arms a bit, but didn't say anything.
Onscreen-Cassie scowled a bit at Harper.
"But I'd get out of there fast if I were you," Harper continued, her smile going a little more serious, "PAMA's a quicker learner than you'd think!"
Jesse nodded and started rushing towards the steps while PAMA was occupied, Ivor and Cassie being quick to follow. Abruptly, a loud beeping sound rang out. "Paradox status: on hold," PAMA stated- before the screen shifted to show that it was staring down at Harper with this gigantic creepy grin on the screen. "Gasp! My Creator! Have you finally agreed to merge with me?"
"Wait... 'Creator'..." Ivor's head suddenly snapped up, eyes widening a little.
Oh, that's what Harper had meant last night when she said she knew what it felt like to have one of your own creations get out of hand.
"Did you..." Otto suddenly reached up and touched his bottom lip thoughtfully, eyes widening a little bit as he glanced at Harper.
Harper shrugged a bit, the faintest inkling of a sheepish smile coming over her face as she nodded at him.
Yes. Yes she had.
Harper had turned away, arms crossing in anger. She rolled her eyes before snapping, "Oh, don't you start that again! Come on, you three! This way!" And she took off, jumping down from the building and racing away.
Jesse, Ivor, Cassie, and Winslow had taken advantage of PAMA's interest in Harper to race down the stairs, and now Jesse unfastened the cloak, fiddling with the clasp before throwing the cloth back to Cassie. "Ivor! On my back!" she ordered him as Cassie caught the cloth, before wadding it up and shoving it back into her pocket.
Ivor practically vaulted onto Jesse's back as she switched so that all eight of her limbs slammed into the ground, his legs abruptly snapping into place, before Jesse reached into her pocket and winged an Ender Pearl to Cassie. "Don't waste it," she instructed the redhead, who nodded, before glancing back- eyes widening.
"Uh oh," Axel said slowly.
"GOGOGO-!" and Jesse pelted forward like a rocket, Ivor yelping as he nearly was thrown backwards from the force of her speed, all eight limbs propelling them across the ground at high speed as Cassie went bolting along the path, dodging out of the way of a villager.
Jesse skidded a bit, before throwing herself and Ivor sideways just in time for Petra and Lukas to slam into the ground they'd been standing on, Lukas catching himself while Petra just landed.
Ivor glanced over his shoulder, before throwing himself forward and flattening himself on Jesse's back as a fireball pelted over them.
"Oh Notch, oh Notch, oh Notch," Lizzie was practically chanting, biting at her nails anxiously, while Olivia was hiding her eyes again.
Jesse raced right up a wall, lunging out of the way of some villagers as she did so and into a room, before yelping as she abruptly came to a halt. The screen spun to show one of the townspeople marching right at Jesse-
Cassie came swinging into the room and slammed her feet right into the townsperson's side, knocking them sideways to the floor and giving Jesse a moment to compose herself, jumping out a different window and landing on a roof, Cassie following less intuitively and nearly toppling off of the roof herself, before surveying the crowd of villagers approaching them.
The screen switched to show a few townspeople hopping down from somewhere higher, making Jesse swivel her head to see them beginning to approach them.
"How the hell did they get that high up?!" Mevia exclaimed in shock.
Jesse scrambled backwards, before leaping into the air behind her, doing a rapid spin-around in midair, and slamming into the ground on all eights, Cassie doing a parkour roll (with Winslow letting out a yowl under the beanie, making Real-Cassie wince a bit), before the three of them raced towards the staircase- only to see that an army of zombies were now lurching towards them, blocking the way out.
"You've got to be joking," Gill groaned. Jesse had turned rather pale.
Jesse skidded to a halt just in time, before reversing her path and scuttling the other way- and skidding to a halt not three seconds later, the townspeople continuing to approach them in a robotic march. The spider hybrid glanced from the zombies, to the approaching townspeople, before racing perpendicular to the approaching forces-
Only to skid to a stop once again above a large chasm.
"No no no no nonono," Stampy babbled out, clinging to Dan tightly. (When had Dan's hair turned green?)
Cassie whipped out the Ender Pearl Jesse had tossed to her earlier, looking over at the spider hybrid questioningly. Jesse nodded, giving Cassie an awkward thumbs up. "I'll be fine- you get down there fast!" And with that, she crawled straight over the edge into the chasm, Ivor letting out a squeak and tightening his grip on Jesse's shoulders, the mobs all halting at the edge of the chasm.
Lukas let out a relieved sigh. "At least you guys are okay. I mean, if you can get back later, you'll be able to free us no problem."
"I sure hope so," Cassie said, quietly.
An Ender Pearl suddenly clanged against Ivor's back, making him yelp- and then Cassie appeared right above Ivor, slamming right into him and making him topple forward with a yelp, and the force of that was enough to make Jesse's back legs come off the wall, and the three of them all sprawled into a pile on the ground with a loud "OOF!"
The audience winced sympathetically at that.
Jesse groaned from where she'd sprawled on her stomach, squirming to a sitting position and spitting out a mouthful of sand. "Ouch," she said flatly.
Cassie took off her beanie, shaking a hissing Winslow out of it and wincing as she rubbed her head. "Well, that... that could've gone a lot worse, I guess," she said, after a moment.
"True," Slab mumbled.
"Mmph." Jesse spit out another mouthful of sand, shaking her head. "Blegh. I think I've eaten more than enough sand for a lifetime."
"Ha!" and the three of them jumped as Harper abruptly skidded to a halt next to them, "maybe you've all got a shot after all, Jesse, Cassie, and, uh, new guy. Better stick with me, though!" And she went tearing off again.
"How did you even get down there?" Isa wondered.
Harper frowned thoughtfully at the screen. "... actually, that's a good question."
"Wow. She is amazing," Ivor said cheerfully, as he got back to his feet.
Ivor huffed as several members of the audience started giggling, Real-Harper simply arching her eyebrow at the man.
Ivor's smile dropped a moment later, as the groans of zombies came onscreen. "Oh no-" And the three of them turned to see the red-eyed zombies lurching towards them steadily.
"Oh are you serious?" Dan groaned, hair a shade of red.
"Run?" Cassie asked the two of them tiredly.
"Run," Jesse agreed, and that's exactly what they did.
The screen blacked out.
"That was... hoo," and Axel's grip on Olivia released, allowing the shorter girl to gulp in a HUGE breath of air, "that was kind of... exciting."
"That's an understatement," Gabriel muttered, slumping back into the couch. Several other members of the audience muttered assent at that, attempting to relax a bit.
A/N: Did I mention I published Composite on here?
(checks) No I did not.
...
I published Composite. xD
Awww, some fluff. Break up the heartbreak and doom and gloom with fluff! (throws fluff everywhere) FLUFF
I also posted my gameplay of Season 2 on YouTube, and it sucks, but I posted it xD
RQTC: Anyone ready for some awesomeness to ensue when the Season 2 characters get brought into Hybrid: Cinematic Mode? (grins) I can tell you right off the bat, I've got plans.
Responses to reviewers!
LunarStarsMoons: (giggles) / Yep xD / (laughs) Very true. / Yes, actually, that wasn't planned but I guess that happened. / (laughs)
Kaos Ruin: Ehhhhh... do you mean the end of Episode 7? 'Cause I think I do :3 / (laughs)
S4SH4L4SH4theGaMeR101: (giggles) / Yep, that's where I got it from! I didn't write 'em all because most of them make me blush my head off, but I did write some of it in there. xD
giriri: I didn't know about the first half, but that is where I got the insults from x3
Emily The Avenger: (laughs)
RapidSammi: Hehehehehehe xD
DarkPrincess2001: I think half of the MCSM audience has claimed Lukas, tbh xD
AquaK13: You have a lot of babies xD / Indeed. xD / Hehe xD / That's not the question but okay xD
LittleAngelbun: (laughs) / Okey. :3
Toni42: (laughs) Indeed.
CrystalTearsofFaith: Hey dude! / I'm glad you're back! :3 / Hehehehe xD / Okey! / (laughs)
Infernius Flashfire: (coughs and then laughs)
Jack: YEP! / Indeed. / HAHAHA YES!
giriri: Yep :3 / FFN is Fanfiction. It didn't save the response replies when I uploaded the chapter lol xD
EnderKitty68: (laughs) Naw, I think I did too.
Darkbeast Dend: Full on 9.
homeworkoverload: (cackles) / Hm... I have no idea how that's going. There are other characters, so I'll let you know when auditions for the thing are open (if I ever do decide to animate it, because it's so difficult x3) / But good idea for the release date! I'll do that :3
InsaneAcrobat: Naw, it's fine x3 / Thank you! / I've played through the whole thing three times now hahahaha xD
That's all for this time! Bye-bye!
x.X. A.L. X.x.
