"You all are the first people I've seen come out of the portal network in forever," Harper continued, the other three being quick to follow her (although Cassie did noticeably lag behind a bit more than the others), "so you'll have to excuse me if it made me a little... anxious."

The spider hybrid abruptly turned her body so that she was regarding Harper in a more scrutinizing manner. "... yeah, I forgot. Cassie's aunt was an Old Builder... so you're...?"

Harper let out a sound that was a mixture of a huff and a laugh, but her teeth were showing and she was definitely smiling a bit. "Huh. Forgot you people called us that. Never was my favorite name."

"None of us liked it very much," Otto mumbled, frowning at the unfortunately familiar name.

"None of you really liked it," Cassie corrected the white-haired woman onscreen.

Otto blinked.

"... my aunt might've thrown a pie at someone who called her that once," Cassie murmured, thoughtfully.

Onscreen-Ivor made a rather loud 'coughing' sound and covered his mouth quickly. The 'coughing' fit went on for a good several seconds, in which Onscreen-Cassie scowled at him and tried to elbow him in the ribs.

The real audience was starting to follow in his footsteps.

"Yeah, it makes you guys sound ancient," and Jesse made a little face, before her expression went back to dead serious. "But, um... if you're an 'Old Builder'," she tentatively put the word in air quotes, "can't you help my friends get free of PAMA?" Her middle arms crossed across her chest, while her lowest set of arms steepled the fingers together anxiously.

Harper winced at that. "I'm afraid that's a little out of my abilities right now. PAMA's just too powerful."

Hadrian, Mevia, Otto, Soren, and Isa all exchanged sharp looks at that.

If Harper- a member of the, well, uh, you know- couldn't handle PAMA, was calling PAMA too powerful...

Then this thing was definitely out of control.

Harper was silent for a moment onscreen, and Jesse tilted her head at the woman innocently. "... is... something wrong?" she asked, tentatively, red eye glinting oddly in the light.

"There's no exit portal out of this world."

Everyone's heads onscreen snapped around to face Cassie, who was still walking along behind them casually.

"Wait- there's no- that's not possible-!" Mevia spluttered, eyes widening.

The red-haired girl looked up onscreen, looking surprised at her comrades' surprise. "When there is a portal leading back to the portal network, a certain item of importance, whether emotional or otherwise, will be 'humming'. For me, that's my glasses. For Harper, it'd be her aviator hat thingamajig. My glasses haven't been humming since we got here."

Ivor glanced over at Harper in interest. "Was that a feature you installed yourself?"

Real-Harper glanced over at him, a frail sort of smile on her face. "We all worked on it, but it was designed in case there was already a portal crafted back to our world- in case one of the others had already come into it and worked on it themselves. Just to save time. I'm... oddly glad that some of us didn't terminate the enchantment."

Was it just Jesse's (the real one, mind you) imagination... or did Hadrian, Otto, Mevia, Isa, and Soren exchange guilty looks?

Onscreen, Ivor looked back around at Harper, although there was more curiosity dancing in his expression than accusation. "Is that true?" he asked, softly.

"Yes... it was impulsive, but it was the only way I could think of to make sure PAMA didn't spread to other worlds," Harper said quietly, wincing a bit and turning back around to face the front.

Maya suddenly winced. "Oh... yeah, that was probably a smart choice, considering PAMA's desire to 'make everyone useful'..."

The entire audience winced in turn.

Onscreen, Jesse frowned slightly, before turning to stare at Harper. "Why didn't the Old Builders stay at the lab, by the way? The scientists got a bit more..." The screen glitched, showing a scene where Jesse's wrist was attached to a sort of bracelets with electrodes fastened to it.

Except with tongues of electricity shooting up it and lighting up the whole room, Jesse doubled over on herself and screaming in pain.

Lukas's eyes tightened, and his arms tightened around Jesse in sympathy. The petite girl simply reached up and tightened her grip on his wrists, trying to steady her breathing and not doing so well.

"... brutal, without you guys around," Jesse finished, her face having tightened up a bit.

Harper was silent for a moment, before she reached up and rubbed her head. "Well... I never actually liked the stuff they were doing in the first place with the hybrids. I would've just been happy to see them survive beyond day one, to be honest. We had to head back to our world to do some... other things..."The sharp tone in her voice snuck out as quickly as it had come in, "but we took one to keep studying personally and w... the others," she corrected herself, "just told the scientists to keep up the work and report back to us. But..."

Harper paused, before continuing, in a much slower voice, much more frightened, "we- they- were a bit hasty... and the head scientist that was promoted was..."

"A complete psychopath who enjoyed children's pain?" Jesse responded, probably a bit more sharply than she was intending if her wince and glance-away was any indication.

Harper winced herself, hesitating at her next words. "... something along those lines, yes."

Jace frowned upon noticing the way Jesse had paled a bit- no, scratch that, now that he was looking closer, Jesse was looking quite a lot like Snow White would when she'd been confronted with the woodsman trying to kill her. "Do you know this 'head scientist' that the two of them are talking about?" he asked, in a soft voice that had the situation been any more loud in any way, shape, or form, the entire audience would've missed. However, in this nearly dead-silent tunnel onscreen, everyone could hear it.

And they might've been pretending otherwise, but everyone was listening.

Jesse's hands were trembling and loosening from where they were fastened around Lukas's wrists, the blonde managing to shake off what had happened to him and Petra and leaning around to stare at Jesse in concern.

It took a minute- or two- or three- but slowly, Jesse's mouth managed to open. "Of course I know him." Her voice was strangled and frail, as if someone had just stomped the life out of her.

And not a minute later, they found out why.

"He's my father."

The entire room seemed to be frozen in shock from the revelation that the person who'd caused all the bruises on their Jesse's back, all of the pain, fear, trauma that she just could not let go... was the exact same kind of person in this alternative path to the future they were watching.

Cassie broke the silence a moment later.

"Well I am definitely murdering this git when I've got a chance."

"Cassie," Otto scolded the redhead, mildly.

The redhead dropped her eyes to the floor, a bit shamefacedly at the gentle rebuke.

"At least let the rest of us have a swing at him before you finish him off."

Now everyone was looking at Otto, who had a look of... almost mischief dancing in his eyes as he regarded the screen. With that usual smile still fixed on his face... well, Otto actually looked a bit scary for once like that.

The tiniest smirk snuck over his face at the sight of everyone's stunned stares. "I'm a stickler for rules, not a pushover."

Hadrian exchanged a look with Mevia, who simply glanced at him before glancing away again.

They might've forgotten that.

Lukas tightened his arm on Jesse's shoulders, wrapping his arms around the petite girl in as tight a hug as he dared. A few moments passed before she turned around in his grip and buried her own head in his shoulder, tremors running through her body so insistently that it was almost a steady vibration now, the only thing keeping her even remotely upright being the blonde with his arms around her (and was her choker glowing...?).

"Don't let go," she whispered, so softly that Lukas almost missed it.

He smiled slightly, a sadness tinging his expression.

He'd be able to keep his promise here, but when they went back...

"I won't."

Onscreen, Harper looked back up at Jesse, apology written all over her face. "We didn't get any reports or complaints about the head scientist until after the last report, about ten or eleven years ago. The remaining scientists alerted us that the new hybrids they'd created had escaped, and that they'd had to activate the memory chips... but also that the head scientist had been mistreating you to the point where it was just blatant child abuse. That... that was when... some of us realized how badly we messed up." She was silent for a moment, before continuing much more quietly, "It was the reason that some of us just couldn't stay anymore."

Harper, Soren, and Isa automatically exchanged glances.

"... and the memory chips?" Jesse's voice wasn't condemning, it wasn't cold. It wasn't even remotely angry.

She just sounded so, so tired.

"Well... I suppose that after ten years of no upkeep or actual usage save for repressing the memories, they started to fail. Your memories should all return in time, but... it depends on how strong the memory chip is still going. It could take years for you to fully recover your memories." Harper glanced over at Jesse in worry.

The spider hybrid didn't even look upset about that. Just a little resigned. "Of course. Why am I not surprised." She noticed the way Harper was glancing over her shoulder at her and immediately smiled, shaking her head a bit and straightening up. "Don't look like I'm about to bite you or something, I'm not mad about that. You didn't really have anything to do with it, not directly anyway."

Real-Harper's shoulders seemed to relax a bit.

"Oh, but speaking of direct involvement..." Jesse's expression changed, to a more worried one. "PAMA. What is it?"

Harper abruptly ground to a halt, Ivor nearly running straight into her back as the entire group came to a halt, Cassie setting Winslow on the ground. "I swear, I made PAMA with good intentions."

"Oh... boy." Aiden abruptly flopped backwards a bit, arm slipping off Cassie's shoulders (the redhead frowned). "I... you made... PAMA."

Real-Harper's shoulders tensed right back up. "... yes."

"... holy crap you made PAMA!" Gill yelped all of a sudden, jumping backwards and managing to upset the couch altogether. "You made the thing that just chipped Lukas-!?"

Lukas and Petra looked remarkably as though they'd just gotten slapped.

"I didn't think it would get this bad!" Harper exclaimed, squirming around to glare at Gill a bit, "I never expected PAMA to go this far, although at this point I sure did. But when I made PAMA-!"

"But you did make it," Em pointed out.

"No duh Sherlock," Mevia snapped back, making the brown-haired girl scowl at the blue-haired woman.

"Guys, yelling at each other isn't going to do anything!" Jesse exclaimed, voice barely rising enough to allow them all to hear her. "Why don't we just watch the episode? I'm sure Harper is about to explain herself or something onscreen, and we don't want to miss anything. Alright?"

Stacy had looked as if she was about to jump right into the argument herself, but at that all of them looked up at Jesse before turning back around to face the front. "Yes, Jesse," they chorused quietly, sounding a bit as though they were naughty children that had just gotten a good scolding.

The rest of the audience hid their grins.

"It was designed to help automate things. Make everything more efficient. Use monsters to help with farming or mining..." Harper continued onscreen, looking back at them with a slightly worried expression.

"That... actually, that does sound more efficient," Ellegaard mumbled.

"I'm guessing that PAMA decided that the townspeople themselves weren't efficient enough?" Ivor asked softly, a frown creasing his brow.

Harper nodded at that, beginning to walk again as a slightly sour look came over her face. "Right in one. Started making them 'useful'. That happened about... five or six years ago? Since then, I've just been trying to stay one step ahead... trying to figure out how to stop it."

"Being an adult really doesn't seem as cracked up as everyone seems to make it out to be."

Everyone looked 'round at Jesse, who looked surprised at the fact that everyone was looking at her- evidently she'd accidentally said the thought aloud.

"I mean, think about it. Gabriel finds it hard to ask for help, Magnus locks himself up in a tower all day so people can't kill him, Ellegaard probably locks herself into a big building when she really wants to think, Ivor was alone for over 10 years, Soren has his, um, Wool World, Isa is lonely and tired all the time, and Harper's basically been trapped by herself in a world where she's alone and has had to try to figure out everything herself," Jesse said, counting off on her fingers.

There was a short silence, before Ivor's lips quirked up. "Well, she's not wrong."

"When we were back in town," Onscreen-Cassie spoke up, frowning slightly, "PAMA seemed to really want to capture you... why's that?" Her arms were still crossed, but at least she was addressing Harper.

Harper glanced over her shoulder at the redhead. "When PAMA chips someone, everything that person knows gets absorbed into its database," she began to explain.

"Right, like how PAMA started talking about our adventures once Petra and Lukas got... well... you know," Jesse said, looking down at the ground a bit.

The white-haired woman nodded and continued, "If I got chipped... PAMA would know how to build an exit portal."

Nell's eyes widened. "Oh... bro that is so totally not good."

Onscreen, Cassie abruptly came to a screeching halt, straightening up with her green eyes starting to flicker red. "Oh hell no."

The spider hybrid frowned, red eye glowing a bit as she took that into consideration. "Oh. Yeah, I definitely see why you'd try to avoid that at all costs. Seeing Olivia or Axel get chipped..."

"Or Soren..." Ivor mumbled, eyes widening as he slowly thought. "Or Gabriel or Magnus or Ellegaard..."

The entire Order exchanged surprised looks at that.

The three of them- Ivor, Cassie, and Jesse- all shuddered rather violently at the thought of people getting chipped.

Harper hesitated, before narrowing her eyes and nodding. "I do think I can help you..."

Everyone was now paying the utmost attention to the screen again.

"With PAMA, your friends, getting out of here... but to do it, we're gonna need to go to my lab."

Jesse blinked at that statement. "What's in your lab?" she inquired, curiously.

Harper's expression turned into a sort of thinking face. Her lips twisted a bit to one side and a thoughtful, sort of dazed look entered her eyes. (Actually, it looked a bit like Ivor's deep thinking expression.) She looked as though you'd basically have to knock her down to get any sort of response. "Well, it's a bit... complicated."

Jesse turned her head, mouth dropping open. The screen slowly zoomed out to show a floor made of glass, with water flowing in little streams along the sides. The walls were a vibrant reddish-gold, which made the colorful lighting of the room that much more beautiful.

"Holy crap," Maya whispered in awe. "That's beautiful."

"Yeah, and the redstone looks really complicated, too," and Olivia leaned forward, eyes sparkling with interest. Sparkling, I tell you. It was surreal.

"Before we head inside, we'd better activate the defense system- don't want any of those chipped-up creeps following us inside." Harper strolled over to a lever in the wall, flipping it decisively and making a cauldron shoot up out of the floor (Winslow hissed and bolted off). "Grab my bucket for me?" she added, glancing over her shoulder. "Ron's got it."

The entire audience blinked at that.

Harper felt her cheeks start coloring a bit in embarrassment.

"'Ron'...?" Petra questioned slowly.

Onscreen, Jesse blinked again. "'Ron'?" she echoed Real-Petra, brow furrowing a bit in confusion.

"Hello friend Harper!"

The spider hybrid let out a sound that was somewhere between a loud hiss and a shrieking cat and leaped straight onto Ivor with a hug, the man staggering and managing not to just topple right over. Cassie had a face that looked torn between amusement and concern from where she was standing near a sort of contraption with a creeper head resting on it and a bucket of water hanging from one of its arms. "I am happy to see you, my friend!"

"... Harper, what is that exactly?" Hadrian asked in a light, casual voice, turning to look over at the white-haired woman with this utterly confused look on his face.

Harper cleared her throat a bit, feeling her cheeks flush even redder. "... Ron."

Onscreen, the spider hybrid gently eased herself back to the ground, still looking a bit shivery from the sudden scare just now. "O... kay."


A/N: Three things I need to talk to you guys about. One is good(ish) news, the other is not so good news, and the third is more like scolding.

1) You can now post Phantasmagoria background characters in the comment section of HCM.

Remember, the contest for entering background characters and possibly getting one featured in Phantasmagoria ends on August 5th! (Though I might extend it a bit longer.) Now you can enter them in the comment section of HCM. Just in case you forgot, you need to fill out this form:

Name:
Age: (16, 17, or 18)
Appearance:
Height:
Weight:
Personality:
Quotes: (Two or three things the character would say)

So feel free to enter the contest? Note, you CAN enter up to two background characters in the contest.

2) Due to a complete lack of courtesy in a certain reviewer's review last chapter, the next chapter of HCM will be pushed back again, simply because I am getting angry and when I get mad about something I don't work as effectively. This is also related to the next thing I need to talk to you about.

3) EVERY STORY EXCEPT FOR HYBRID: CINEMATIC MODE AND COMPOSITE IS CURRENTLY ON HIATUS. THEY WILL NOT BE UPDATED UNTIL ONE OR BOTH OF AFOREMENTIONED STORIES ARE COMPLETED. Over 6 months ago, I first made this announcement, and I am beginning to get downright irritated with the fact that people ignore the fact and ask me to update another story. Furthermore, the review section of this story is NOT the correct place to ask me about it; the review section of THIS story is to talk about THIS story. If anyone tries to comment on a different story or asks me to update a different story, you have clearly not read any of the multiple A/Ns I posted in this story and I will simply ignore you from this point onwards. At this point I simply don't have the patience or time to deal with this sort of blatant ignorance of what I have clearly stated multiple times. Sorry if this comes off as rude, but this is literally the end of my patience when it comes to this course of action.

RQTC: Have you ever told someone not to do something and then they turn around and do the thing you JUST told them not to do?

Yes. Multiple times.

LunarStarsMoons: Shoo, bug. You are not welcome. (swats at it) / x3 / Haha, I'm glad xD / Oh, good! Glad you think that :) / (laughs) I mean, I don't know anything about them, so...

homeworkoverload: (cracks up) I see that you too, like the many people laughing their butts off in this room, also are very mature. xD / Oh, the beach is... kinda fun? Idk xD / Ooh, I'm glad you like Mevia a bit now! / (laughs) I have no idea what you're talking about, but okay.

azzhoeandie: (laughs) / Ahh, I'm glad about that! :3

AquaK13: (laughs) Yeah, sorry about a very late update. I was late for a very important (up)date. xD / Shit now I just have an image of Ivor selling tomatoes in my head xD / (laughs) / hahahahaha nice, dude. / AHAHAHA GREAT PUN (high five) / Oh, is she really? I never watched Drake and Josh, but that's cool! / Hahaha, I guess so. x3

ChibiMCSM Crew: I'm glad that you like it! :3

RapidSammi: (laughs) (quietly joins in singing with you) Well, I'm glad you find it funny x3

EnderKitty68: Hahaha that'd be an interesting fanfiction idea on its own xD / Some people don't like that, but I'm glad you like it! I feel like it lets people imagine the reactions a bit better. / Thank you, and I will!

CrystalTearsofFaith: Ahh, I see. / Hehehehe xD I'm not saying anything, but I'm glad you like Mevia a bit. / I loved writing this! It might take a very long while to actually finish it, but we'll see. xD

Emily The Avenger: (cracks up along with you)

Infernius Flashfire: Ahh, I'm glad you think so x3 / Alrighty :3

InsaneAcrobat: Halloo! Glad to have you back :3 / Ah, I see. And that's true, I can see what you mean, but it doesn't stop me from giving me a headache whenever Hadrian comes around. xD Him and his deals.

Jac: (laughs) / No, it's just that they've been friends for so long that they can kind of 'read' each other very well. / (laughs) And Jesse, and the rest of the audience... / Very true.

Toni42: I agree, Toni-kun. :3

Shadow: No. They've been friends for so long that they can 'read' each other very well.

Rabbits rule: (laughs) Indeed it was. / That's good! / Oh boy. Um, Sans, Underfell!Sans, Underswap!Sans, Error!Sans, Flowerfell!Sans, and there's probably more but I can't think of their names.

giriri: I don't feel comfortable with telling you that. / (chokes) Oh my god that was so funny xD

pls dont kill me: First off, as long as you are polite when speaking to me, then I'm not going to get angry or annoyed. xD It's only when you are rude that I'll be annoyed. / Secondly, technically it's not half of a thousand since it's only 455 words. xD / Thirdly, this IS a 'reaction' story- the characters are REACTING to my old AU/fanfiction, hence the long paragraphs of reactions. Sorry if you don't like it, but I kind of have to keep it in, otherwise some characters show up a lot and others kind of just pop in randomly, and I try to avoid doing that if I can. But thank you for the input! :)

D: Okay, I'm sorry, but that was extremely rude. I try to be a nice person, but be rude to me for no reason and I'm going to get mad at you. First off, don't tell me to 'get some new eyes' due to not being able to understand your review because your grammar was atrocious, spelling was abysmal, and your message was such a long run-on sentence that it was literally painful to read. If I cannot read your review, it is most likely your fault, because I've gotten some pretty hard-to-read reviews before but yours was like deciphering a code. / Secondly, I have stated multiple times throughout the course of this story's A/Ns that ALL STORIES INCLUDING THE ONE YOU MENTIONED ARE ON HIATUS, so clearly you didn't read that or just ignored it. Besides, I didn't 'finish it' 'years ago', I took a HIATUS on it LAST YEAR. I'm glad that you like the story, but if you want me to update you need to ask me in the comment section of THAT story, or actually READ the A/Ns in this story, because I have stated more than FIVE TIMES that all other stories except for this one and Composite are on hiatus. I'm so glad that you paid such close attention to what I wrote, because it doesn't hurt my feelings at all to hear that I spent time writing out a notice and people completely ignore it. Thanks a ton, kid.

To everyone else, I am so sorry about this rant here and about the delayed chapter, but the fact that someone could just blatantly ignore something that I've stated multiple times throughout this story just pissed me off beyond belief. And when I'm pissed, my productivity levels hit bedrock.

Well, anyway, that's it for today. G'bye!

x.X. A.L. X.x.