There was a good, five-second beat, before everyone onscreen slowly swiveled to stare at the Old Builder. Even Winslow. "Um... Harper?" Onscreen-Cassie asked, slowly.
Everyone in real life had also turned to stare at Harper, whose cheeks were slowly turning redder than a poppy. Well, except for Soren, who seemed quite unsurprised, which might've been surprising in itself until you remembered his 'Wool World'. Cassie didn't look that concerned either, but then if you considered the fact that she'd pretty much murdered people to try to get out of her world...
... yeah, no wonder they looked so blank about the whole thing right now.
"Er... Harper...?" Mevia asked, slowly. (As if she could talk.)
Harper managed to mumble something along the lines of 'I got lonely okay' before sinking into the chair, looking as if she'd rather like to sink straight through it into the depths of the earth. Or, well, as deep as you can go without hitting lava or bedrock.
Ivor patted her on the arm a bit.
Onscreen-Harper shot all of them a slightly sheepish look. "Hey, don't you judge me. Being alone gets lonely," she replied defensively to the odd looks she was currently on the receiving end of.
Cassie immediately glanced away, a sort of shadow falling over her eyes. "You're telling me," she huffed, quietly.
Aiden squeezed Cassie's arm sympathetically.
The spider hybrid gave the tiniest shrug at that explanation, seeming to accept it, before reaching out and grabbing ahold of the bucket, tugging out of the item frame- before nearly fumbling it and dropping it, having apparently misjudged the weight of the thing. However, she managed to keep it from spilling water everywhere at the last second, steadying the bucket.
"Happy to help, friend!" 'Ron' chirped.
Jesse blinked at that for a moment, before the spider hybrid simply shrugged again and moved back in Harper's direction. Harper smiled, taking the bucket from the girl. "Thanks. See, I needed a way to confuse PAMA in case it ever found a way down here." She gestured at the cavern around them. "That's why all this is way more complicated than it needs to be."
"Yes, usually if possible, I try to go for the simplest, most basic route," Real-Harper nodded in agreement, the blush on her cheeks clearing up slightly. Not much, mind you, but enough that she no longer looked like a cocktail cherry. Now she just looked like a regular cherry. "But with PAMA, if I did that, it would've figured it out in no time. So I decided to make the system down in the secret lab much, much more complicated than necessary."
"Oh. That makes sense," Jesse said, thoughtfully. Harper nodded a bit before moving over to the cauldron on the floor, upending the bucket and splashing water into the cauldron. Immediately, a section of floor glowed brightly, illuminating the corner they were standing on- the spider hybrid looked down and shifted a bit in surprise- and streams of water came pouring down from the ceiling. A set of pistons that had been blocking the doorway slid neatly to the side.
Ivor tilted his head, leaning over slightly to get a better look at Harper as she moved to a little pool of water nearby, presumably to refill the bucket. "Wow. What a builder," he said, softly.
A round of giggles rose from the audience at that, Ivor's cheeks starting to turn slightly pink. At that moment, he and Harper were quite the nice pair, red and pink. Might as well throw some hearts in there and we could pretty much call it Valentine's Day.
"Hmm, I think you find more than just her building impressive," Cassie hummed, giving Ivor a teasing grin and crossing her arms as she regarded him.
Onscreen-Ivor opened his mouth, looking over at Cassie with a scowl and looking fully like he was about to lecture her about it. He proceeded to pause, before shutting his mouth and turning away again, his cheeks turning the same shade as his real counterpart. "Shut up."
The giggles intensified.
The spider hybrid smirked a bit at that, as if trying not to outright laugh, before turning to look in Harper's direction, the woman still stooping down and collecting water. "So, you know about PAMA's weakness to water, then?" she asked mildly, gesturing around at the water pouring from the ceiling.
"Yeah, I do. I'll admit you figured it out way faster than I did, though," Harper replied, giving the spider hybrid a wry smile.
"Well, I mean, it was kind of an accident the way we found out..."
Lukas nodded sagely at the soft comment, patting the petite girl in his lap on the back. "Very true." He wasn't exactly smiling, which was understandable in the current circumstances, but... he was definitely looking a bit happier than a few minutes before.
"Once PAMA caught on to its weakness to water, it started eliminating as much of this world's water as it could find. This water that's down here? It might be all that's left."
Olivia's smile from Ivor's crush on Harper faded. "... that's... kind of sad."
Nell's own smile fell a bit, the girl pulling her feet up so that she was curled up on the couch a bit. "Yeah, brah..."
Onscreen, Jesse's face fell into a bit of a frown- just as the whole tunnel suddenly rumbled and shook.
Everyone's eyes widened.
"Um... is that what I think it is?" Ellegaard asked, voice sounding more than a little faint. (Magnus automatically looped his arm around her waist for support.)
"I think so," Isa said, quietly.
Aiden didn't say anything, but he was biting his lip, and his hand had just tightened on Cassie's forearm so much that he was cutting off the circulation to her arm. She didn't seem to notice, though.
Onscreen, Cassie proceeded to swear so badly that it would've made a sailor's ears bleed, but no one bothered to scold her about it. Even on the audience's end, nobody gave her a funny glance. (Actually, I'm willing to bet that half of the people in the audience were thinking along the same end as she'd been.)
"I hate to take a leaf out of Cassie's book, but..." Ivor proceeded to mutter a fifteen-word list of swears that sounded suspiciously like there were a couple foreign ones in there.
Harper looked horrified. "I still need to activate the other cauldrons!" she cried, before automatically looking at the other three. "Hold them off to buy me more time!" She started towards another cauldron with water bucket in hand, before pausing and looking back at them. "And whatever you do, don't get caught- I'm not about to get left alone again."
Jesse blinked a bit in surprise that, both real and onscreen.
For Harper to be desperate enough to have the company of someone she didn't even know, a teenager who hated her guts, and a former experiment of hers who she hadn't seen in over a decade...
Well, she must've been really lonely.
Onscreen, Cassie whipped out her axe, backing her and Ivor (who was noticeably unarmed) into a corner. "Jesse, you can keep them back more effectively than I can- I've got your back!"
Jesse nodded, uppermost right arm whipping out her sword as she turned to face the tunnel entrance. The screen changed to show the corner they'd rounded to get here, before zooming in rapidly to show a red-eyed Petra, Lukas, and several chipped spiders marching around the corner in a strange, almost spooky synchronization.
Em grimaced a bit at the sensation of chills crawling up her back. That was seriously creepy.
"You could've made this much easier for yourself," PAMA droned, via Petra.
Real-Petra was doing her best to loosen her grip, since Jace looked as if he were being strangled, but her arms seemed to be locked in place and she was barely able to breathe herself.
The spider hybrid glanced at the spiders, brow furrowing slightly, before shifting her attention back to Petra- and then diving to her left abruptly, landing on all eights and doing a quick backflip into a standing position off-center of where she'd been. A fireball blasted through where she'd been half a second ago, which Cassie used her axe to slam straight into a waterfall, where it immediately fizzled out.
Jesse looked from Cassie back to Petra and Lukas, just in time to see the ocelot hybrid mechanically unsheathing his claws, while flames started dancing up the blade Petra was holding.
"Oh come on!" Stacy groaned loudly, summing up the sentiments of every human being in the room (and possibly Reuben, if his slightly annoyed/anxious expression was any indication).
"Why did PAMA have to be so darn smart," Jesse groaned, glaring at them. "Get out of their heads, you- you- you oversized hunk of metal and redstone!"
"Oh wow, Jesse actually insulted someone," Axel joked, feebly. "She must really hate this thing."
That got a few chuckles, but Petra was turning paler by the second and Lukas looked like a marble statue from how pale and still he was.
"Your friends," PAMA-Petra spoke calmly, "have been made useful. You, too, will be made useful."
The spider hybrid simply let out another sigh, tensing up and getting into a more defensive position. "You asked for it, PAMA," she said quietly, eyes beginning to glow red.
Lukas glanced at Jesse for a moment. Paused.
And then Petra swung her flaming sword at Jesse, and the spider hybrid dove out of the way in the nick of time, the ocelot hybrid walking past Jesse to engage in combat with Cassie. "Petra, snap out of it!" Jesse shouted, but there was no command to it- only a sort of pleading, because this was her friend she was trying to stay alive from, not some other unknown enemy.
PAMA-Petra responded by almost lopping off Jesse's head with the flaming sword, the spider hybrid doing a sort of sideways flip out of the way and narrowly avoiding getting decapitated. "I know all your moves now, Jesse," PAMA-Petra droned.
"There!"
Jesse's eyes flicked over in time to see Harper dump another bucket of water into the cauldron, Lukas casually sidestepping the column of water that came pouring down from the ceiling, splashing all over Ivor and Cassie and soaking the two of them. Ivor spit out a little spout of water as Cassie furiously blinked water out of her eyes and Winslow hissed angrily. "Er... thanks?" he thanked Harper (albeit in a rather confused way) as he poked his head out of the water, black hair shiny with water.
"Well... at least they won't get chipped now?" Milo offered, weakly.
"That's an optimistic way of looking at it," Mevia muttered under her breath.
"I did not need a bath right now," Cassie crabbed halfheartedly, smacking a spider with her axe and sending it flying backwards. The spider hybrid glanced back to see it flying at her, before whirling around on the spot and slamming the spider to one side with the sword, sending it soaring straight through one of the waterfalls. Immediately, it spasmed, arcs of lightning lighting up the area around it, before the redstone chip came off with a rather loud popping sound, and it looked up at Jesse.
"Help the red-haired girl and the black-haired guy in the corner NOW!" Jesse hissed at it (the audience could tell via the subtitles), a strange humming starting up as well. The spider immediately scuttled off to go help Ivor and Cassie in whatever way it could, while Jesse spun on the spot again and barely managed to block a fiery hit from Petra's sword, which literally sent sparks flying as it grated against Jesse's blade. The force of the blow made Jesse skid backwards a step, making her stumble backwards-
"Look out, brah!" Nell gasped, hands flying to her mouth.
Jesse skipped back a step and lashed out with her sword, which Petra responded to by sending a fireball right at Jesse-
The spider hybrid threw herself to the ground, catching herself on all eights, just in time to catch the sound of something sharp swiping over her head. She looked up and twisted around a bit to see the fireball flying off in a different direction, while Lukas staggered a bit, claws swinging through where Jesse had been, off-guard.
"That was- that was close," Lizzie gasped.
"You said it," Real-Jesse whispered weakly, her fingers running over the choker on her neck in an attempt to calm herself down.
It was not working.
Onscreen, Jesse immediately threw all her weight onto her upper six legs and used her back legs to kick back reflexively, hitting him in the legs and knocking his legs out from under him, whereupon he immediately toppled straight forward, Jesse rolling aside in the nick of time as the ocelot hybrid tumbled straight into Petra, managing to knock the both of them off-balance. Petra staggered before regaining her balance, but didn't move to help Lukas as he scrabbled to get purchase and get back to his feet.
Jesse rolled back a bit again, panting and desperately trying to drag air into her lungs as she clutched at her chest and used her sword to push herself back up to her feet, eyes filling with anxiety as she regarded her friends.
"Here goes another one!" Harper shouted from where she was standing near another cauldron, an empty water bucket in hand.
Several more waterfalls came cascading down from the ceiling, Jesse dodging sideways in the nick of time to avoid getting soaked. There was now so much water pouring down from the ceiling, that it was starting to create a veil in front of the now un-blocked doorway.
"End of the line, Jesse," both Petra and Lukas now spoke simultaneously, in the PAMA-affected voice that sent chills crawling up everyone's back every time someone spoke, as they steadily advanced on the spider hybrid. Jesse looked desperately at Cassie, but Cassie had her hands fall trying to handle some of the spiders that were crawling at her and Ivor and Winslow, even with the help of the non-chipped one.
Jesse turned back to face the two of them, face almost white with fear.
Lukas tightened his arms around Jesse, feeling his heart beginning to pound so hard that he could hear every palpitation in his ears. Petra was biting her lip as she stared at the screen, hands actually trembling from how wound up she was.
And there wasn't anything being said- in fact, the audience was perfectly silent right now- but the audience could practically see exactly what the poor girl was thinking right now. Two of her best friends, who were also some of the only friends she'd had for a very, very long time. An ocelot and a Blaze. Two people who knew exactly what the black-haired girl had gone through. Two of the few people for whom Jesse would pretty much do anything, and when I say 'anything', I mean anything.
And now she had to choose between the two of them.
A/N: There are a select few scenes in the original Hybrid that I feel like I lose some creative freedom writing in this format, and this is one of them. Agh.
Sorry about a very late update, haha. x3
RQTC: What is the best Minecraft: Story Mode fanfiction you've seen so far? (No, I'm not fishing for compliments. Tell me genuinely what you thought was the best.)
For me, it's a tie between Toni42's Movie Mode, ChoyofBonk's Decibels, SilverSilence14's Of Plagues and Pals, or TealEmpress's Portal Party. Yeah, four way tie. These stories are FANTASTIC, and so are the authors actually writing it. (Meanwhile I'm here cringing at some of my old work- and some of my recent work, for that matter.)
Guys, seriously though- feel free to make up background characters for Phantasmagoria! The contest still isn't over yet! Even if you don't think you'll win, who knows? However, please take it seriously. I actually am planning on making this comic for professional purposes and just for fun, and I put the contest not to get joke characters but to get actual characters and to include the people who support my (not-professional) work in something that I do.
Responses to reviews!
LunarTheMooncake: (laughs) Nice. Love the song. / (laUGHS) Yeah, very true. xD / Haha, thanks. I just don't take insults from people who don't even have correct grammar well. / Alright, fantastic! / Ah, I see.
CamronXTheXGamer: (laughs)
ChibiMCSM Crew: Er, probably not, I'm super busy. Sorry :/
BeliTheGhoti0304: Next chapter, but you were right xD / Lololol nah, there's a lot of people who could be named Ron. / Nah, go ahead if you want! I'm accepting almost every character (except for blatant joke characters) / (laughs) / Probably more, but I can't be bothered to go check through the A/Ns. / (laughs)
andie: 0-0 Well, not really. They just keep being a parasite if you ignore them... / (laughs) No spoilers. / (laughs) Um... yes. Yes, I think you are slightly addicted.
LegoGirl794: (laughs) Sans/LegoGirl, you are cleaning up my floor. / Thank you for the character submission!
Toni42: :3 I'm glad you understand... that being said, I hope you like this chapter!
Kaos Ruin: (laughs) I love your character! She sounds pretty cool. :3 / Alright, thanks!
ChloSky: I'm glad you like it so far, Chlo! / (laughs) I'm actually going to go straight into the sequel using this story, since I'm lazy and don't feel like making a second story. Hahaha xD And I will possibly be working alongside Composite along with HCM, so when we catch up to where we are in Composite, then updates will come out at the same rate as Composite. But no trouble! Thank you for asking politely :) / Aw, thanks :3 / I like your unicorn lolol
Rabbits rule: Ahhh, cool. xD
AquaK13: Harper appreciates the hug :3 / (winces) No, she definitely goes back to her world... but- ah, but that'd be spoilers. ;3 / Indeed. / It's fine, it's not your fault x3 / Ooh, cool! Thank you for the character :) / Hahahaha xD
PoptartCrumbs: (laughs) Right?
gorloxianfang: (laughs) Well, welcome to the ride! And hm, I'll see what I can do with that. Thank you for submitting a character!
giriri: Can you repost it here? I don't really have time to go back through every review, since there were so many... / 0-0 No need to get that violent... / (laughs) / Yeah, Ivor's pretty great :3 / Yep, that's a nice song. That I think I mentioned the day it first came out, somewhere back in the story... lololol / I know that full well. I just wrote 'giant crab in Moana' because it sounded funnier.
homeworkoverload: Thank you for the submission! It looks fantastic :)
S4SH4L4SH4theGaMeR101: Agh! Tell your friend I feel bad for him (winces) / He's not her father in the Hybrid universe... but it's the same person, with the same personality. So sort of? / (laughs)
LickLickLick: ? Ariza is me. And no I'm not. And if you review in the future please use a less... awkward name.
ahnjoseph87: Ah that sucks. And no need to apologize, you're not the one who did it x3 / Hm, cool. Thank you for being detailed! :)
InsaneAcrobat: 0-0 That would be... interesting, to say the least.
Guest: Pffff-
Guest: You will see. No spoilers :3
J.M.M: :3
Toniza ship: 0-0
is joke: ... I wouldn't have taken it seriously anyway. In the future, please submit an actual character and not a joke.
LittleAngelbun: (laughs) Aw, I'm flattered! That might just be due to me updating almost daily most of the time, though, lol
x.X. A.L. X.x.
