"Oh no," Mevia groaned loudly.

"Harper!" Jesse gasped, mouth dropping open in surprise.

PAMA continued, in its usual infuriatingly robotic voice (which made Jesse stop gaping at Harper in shock to glance over her shoulder at the computer with an annoyed expression on her face, which made a few people chuckle slightly), "Your attempts to defeat me have been... impressive, Jesse. Your tenacity and spirit will help to improve me... once you have been made useful."

Onscreen-Jesse just rolled her green-and-red eyes at the computer-

A blur of motion shot forward in the corner of the screen, which also happened to be the corner of her peripheral vision.

"Move!" Petra shouted, which wasn't entirely necessary.

Jesse dropped to all eights and shot forward towards the spire like a bullet, just in the nick of time- Harper proceeded to slam into the ground where Jesse had been a moment before, almost as if she'd been trying to stamp on Jesse. The spider hybrid skidded to a halt at the bottom of the tower, almost running straight into it from how fast she'd been moving a moment earlier.

"That was close," Sparklez sighed in relief.

Harper nodded mutely in agreement. She didn't really trust herself to say anything. Not right now, anyways.

Jesse straightened back up in a quick, whip-like motion, pulled out the bucket of water- and then paused, a frown coming over her face as she kept holding the bucket of water uncertainly. "I can't do anything to Harper... and I can't use the water bucket on her, either." Her gaze switched to the top of the spire, before flickering down to where Harper was standing back up, rotating eerily on the spot. "Not when there's one spire left..."

Harper started moving towards Jesse.

The spider hybrid shoved the bucket's handle between her teeth and whipped around on the spot, slamming all of her hands into the side of the spire. Her limbs immediately attached, and the young woman started scrambling to get to the top rapidly, limbs propelling her to the top of the tower as Harper started leaping up the 'steps' to the top, water slopping down Jesse's front a little bit as the bucket swung crazily around in her teeth.

Ivor realized he'd been holding his breath for a solid minute now and quickly exhaled, getting some more air back into his lungs.

"The odds of you defeating me," Harper-PAMA spoke, "are 3720 to one."

Real-Jesse just blinked a bit. "How did PAMA get that number?" she wondered, momentarily distracted from the current situation.

Olivia snorted a little at that.

"Never tell me the odds!" Jesse retorted, yanking the bucket out of her mouth and upending it over the last redstone block- just as Harper reached the top and tackled Jesse off the top of the tower.

"Be careful!" Otto exclaimed.

Water cascaded over the last block, the final spire's light flickering and dying, and the entire cavern shaking and rumbling, the lights almost entirely winking out except for PAMA's massive screen, which was showing the three warning signs, all three illuminated red and flashing dangerously as the entire cavern quaked threateningly.

"You did it!" Harper shouted, feeling a massive wave of relief rush through her. "Now you just have to yank out the Redstone Heart, and PAMA will be deactivated for good!"

"Oh- good! This..." Magnus paused, before putting his hands up. "Actually, ya know what, I'm not going to say anything. I might jinx it."

"That's probably a good point," Ellegaard mumbled, lips quirking into a relieved smile regardless.

The spider hybrid let out a pained gasp as her back slammed into the glass floor, but she barely had time to heave in a shallow breath before Harper suddenly slammed her back down, making the glass beneath them crack slightly. "This isn't over, Jesse," Harper intoned, although her eyes were set in a harsh glare at Jesse, "I will find your homeworld, and make everyone you ever cared for useful. It will be-"

Jesse's eyes suddenly flashed red, and she let out a furious shout as she slammed her lower arms into Harper's gut, knocking the older woman off of her. Harper had barely staggered back to her feet when Jesse was suddenly grabbing Harper by the front of her shirt, fixing Harper with a look of such pure fury that the audience was both surprised that Jesse could even manage an expression like that, and that it was lucky Jesse wasn't actually mad at Harper.

"PAMA, you're pretty smart, but you just made a really, really poor life decision. You do not ever threaten my friends!" And Jesse drew her arms towards her before shoving out violently, knocking Harper backwards and making the woman trip-

Straight into the waterfall of water from where she'd dumped the water onto the spire.

Electricity arced everywhere, Harper letting out a loud scream of pain as her back arched from the electric shock, the entire area flashing white and red and white again-

The chip popped off almost anticlimactically and clanked as it bounced over the edge of the glass platform, plummeting out of sight.

"She's okay!" Jace cheered, throwing his arms into the air.

That comment caused the entire roomful of people to cheer a bit, except for Hadrian (who just sat back with a sigh, but of what it was hard to tell), and even Mevia was furiously applauding until she paused, shaking her hands out slightly with a little wince. Harper looked around a bit in surprise; judging by the stunned expression on her face she hadn't been expecting that in the least.

"My Creator," PAMA exclaimed... sort of. It was more of just a statement. "No!"

Harper blinked slowly as she sat back up, looking exhausted. "... Je... sse...?" she managed, sounding a little pained.

A huge, relieved grin spread over Jesse's face at that, the spider hybrid's tensed-up position suddenly relaxing and the red flooding right back out of her right eye. Harper shuddered a bit, reaching up and holding her head as she swayed a little in place. "Ugh. That was worse than I could've imagined..."

"Don't worry, Harper," and Jesse raced over and pulled Harper to her feet, the older woman staggering in place a little bit but otherwise remaining pretty stable, "PAMA's nearly finished."

"Good, good..." Harper murmured, almost absentmindedly... before her eyes widened. "Jesse, behind you!"

The entire audience collectively tensed up at that. Olivia winced sharply as Axel's arm tightened around her ribs so tightly that he may or may not have been cracking them. At least she could still breathe a bit.

The spider hybrid whirled around at the shout of alarm in the Ancient Architect's voice, the screen following her gaze to show that the huge structure with the pulsing, beating block was beginning to retract into the floor. "Ouchie... detected," PAMA's voice blared out, as an alarm started wailing. "Preservation. Protocol. Initiated."

"Preservation Proto...?" Clutch dissolved into silence, mouthing the rest of the word slowly as she tried to figure out what that meant.

"What's going on?!" Jesse cried out, whirling back to face Harper with a wide-eyed expression on her face, the entire cavern's light flickering and pulsing with this persistent beeping sound that was starting to sound along with the wailing alarm.

"You shorted out the processing towers!" Harper shouted back over the blaring and the beeping and the wailing of the alarms, "PAMA's withdrawing the Redstone Heart to save itself!" Caught up in a small fit of panic, Harper seized Jesse by the shoulders and started to shake her furiously, "get to the Redstone Heart and rip it out before it's too late!"

"Yeah, okay-" Jesse quickly detached Harper's hands from her shoulders, giving her head a little shake to clear it, "- you bet I will!" And with that, she dropped to all eights again, skittering around and racing towards the structure with the Redstone Heart on it-

A blur of motion slammed into Jesse, and the spider hybrid curled up into a ball as she tumbled backwards again, ending up right back next to Harper as she ended up in a sitting position, hands resting in her lap and her eyes blinking a little in confusion (and squinted up a bit in what looked like pain) as she let out a little hiss of pain.

"We've got company," Harper said, voice beginning to sound extremely worried.

Jesse got back to her feet, shaking her head, before looking up-

And freezing stock-still.

Real-Jesse suddenly froze in place as well, something clicking together rather abruptly in her head.

She might just have figured out who had slammed into her just now.

"Jesse?" The petite girl glanced back to see Lukas touching her shoulder, concern dancing in his eyes. Behind him, she could see Aiden looking over at her with a worried glance, and Petra was frowning in concern at her as well."Are you okay? What's wrong? You just... kinda froze."

Jesse wanted to tell them...

But at the same time, she so desperately hoped she was wrong.

A moment later, wordlessly, she lifted her hand and pointed back at the screen.

Because silhouetted dimly against the glowing Redstone Heart, glowing, dull-red eyes fixed in an intense glare right at the spider hybrid, was Lukas.

"Oh no," Maya gasped, hands going to her mouth in shock.

"Oh no..." Real-Jesse whispered, her shoulders sagging a bit in a look that was almost along the lines of despair. "Why the heck did I think this was going to be easy...?"

Harper glanced over at the tone in Jesse's voice, worry dancing in her own eyes. "Your friend looks tough... you sure you can handle him?" she asked in a low voice, gray eyes narrowing in concern.

The spider hybrid didn't even have a chance to answer, because Lukas-PAMA started speaking, which drew Jesse's attention back to the blonde ocelot hybrid. "Why keep trying, Jesse," Lukas-PAMA spoke, in that eerily robotic voice that still creeped out the entire audience. "You will only fail."

Jesse's gaze hardened a little bit, and she looked like she was about to retaliate, but Lukas wasn't apparently done-

"Just as you failed to save Reuben."

Real-Lukas instantly slapped his hand to his mouth, eyes widening in shock. Real-Jesse actually jerked a bit, as if she'd been physically struck, a soft whimper escaping her mouth. Real-Reuben had let out a surprised squeal at the mention of his name, while Jace had let out a little whimper of his own, tears beginning to brim up in his own eyes. Petra's arm had tightened around Jace in a probably-painful way, but he didn't even notice, he was just frozen in place next to Jesse. Axel's arm was so tight around Olivia that now she couldn't breathe, but she didn't really care at the moment.

Aiden's mouth was hanging open in shock at the comment, and Maya had clapped her hands to her mouth, feeling tears welling up slightly in her eyes. Gill was frozen in place himself, blinking rapidly at what Lukas- no, PAMA, that wasn't Lukas- PAMA had just said. Cassie had frozen in place herself, and even Winslow looked a bit comically shocked about the whole thing.

Soren looked a little nauseated from the comment, his cheeks having drained of color, which was replaced by the palest tinge of green. Gabriel's mouth was actually hanging open in surprise, while Magnus looked a bit as though someone had just hit him in the face. Ellegaard was sitting still as well, her mouth hanging open in shock as she stared at the screen herself, hands resting limply at her sides. Ivor was frozen in place, except where his eyes were flickering from Jesse and Lukas back to their counterparts onscreen. Harper herself looked as though she was frozen in surprise.

Isa's arms had tightened around Benedict so much that she was basically squeezing the tiny chicken like a stress ball. Milo's hand was resting on the couch loosely, the other one straightening his rumpled hat from where he'd upset it and and essentially knocked it right off his head when he'd been reaching up to scratch his head. (Right before PAMA had made that statement.) Reginald was gaping at the screen in dismay himself, although his mouth wasn't hanging open.

Stampy's hands were covering his mouth, as if forcing himself not to make a comment, and Dan's hair had, without anyone noticing it, turned a strange mix of red, green, and white- he essentially looked a bit like a Christmas tree. Lizzie's shoulders were tense, and Stacy's hand was covering her mouth, tears building up in her eyes in shock. Sparklez had knocked his sunglasses off into his lap, but that statement had caught him so off guard that he was actually just frozen in shock, staring at the screen.

Mevia's eyes had widened, and she was vaguely wondering why she couldn't breathe, before realizing she'd started holding her breath and letting it out in a silent exhale. Otto was actually blinking rapidly and in a good amount of surprise, while even Hadrian looked slightly surprised by the statement PAMA had just made. Nell's hands were at her mouth, as if preventing her from saying anything, and Em was gaping in shock at the screen herself. The gladiator's couch had almost gotten knocked over by the gladiator's reactions. As it was, Slab had barely managed to keep it from toppling over altogether by jumping off and using the momentum from his jump to shove the front of the couch back down to earth.

The room was entirely silent.

Onscreen, Jesse froze again, eyes widening, as if she'd just been hit by a truck. For a moment, she was just utterly silent and still, all of the sound around her having suddenly winked out with a sort of brief shriek. Lukas's mouth kept moving, PAMA still talking through the blonde ocelot hybrid, but Jesse just didn't seem to be aware of it, and all of the sounds, the beeping and the blaring and the wailing having turned into a strange buzzing sound, with the faintest undertones of ringing that wasn't going away.

Not in the least.

"Oh Notch," Lukas said, softly. His eyes were wide as he leaned around to stare at Jesse's face, noticing with a guilty clench of his stomach that Jesse was whiter than a piece of porcelain. "Jesse... I'm... I'm so..."

"Hahaha..."

Onscreen-Lukas stopped speaking suddenly, blinking at Jesse once. He and Harper and PAMA all stared at Jesse in confusion.

Because she'd just giggled.

Another dark giggle bubbled out of her. And then another. And then more, and more and then suddenly Jesse was chuckling, but it wasn't her usual laugh, it was this strange dark version where they couldn't see her eyes at all, her hair and a shadow was blocking it from sight from them, and then it grew to nearly hysterical levels, so dark and so strangely sweet that it was... what was the word...?

Venomous.

"Oh... okay, PAMA," she said, stopping her laughing fit a second later and slowly revolving on the spot, voice that same poisonous sweetness that she'd just been laughing with, really almost a little like a singsong tone to her voice.

The shadow on her eyes came off to reveal that her eyes were blazing bloodred in the darkness, tears sliding down her cheeks, but her eyes weren't filled with anguish- no, it was filled with this strange, crazed hatred and fury and grief, all at once, that frighteningly sweet smile still fixed on her lips.

A chill ran up all of their backs.

They'd never seen this side of Jesse.

Never before.

Jesse spoke again, lightly and in that same singsong tone... which just made what she said next all the more frightening.

"You're going to die now."


A/N: Hey guys! The contest for Phantasmagoria's background characters is officially OVER. (No more character submissions, basically. xD) Good news is that we ended up with 34, which is only six off from where my goal of 40 was! Thanks so much!

So, I looked through them all, and here are the ones that got picked as background characters in general.

Yes, I had to pick. Unfortunately, that one reviewer from last time... um... they didn't fix the character submission like I asked them to fix it. So that kind of rendered their character unusable, since I do not have the time to pick through the usable aspects of a character. Also, the fact that they thought that their character was picked as a main character (or even as a speaking character in the first place) before I even announced it... I don't know why. But it just made me pissed off for some reason.

So here are all of the picked background characters (and where they came from, if you want to know)!

Sasha Gamer (S4SH4L4SH4theGaMeR101 - email)
James Michael (J.M.M - email)
Letitia Beth Freeman (ShiningHopeBeast - email)
Luna Eclipse Lark (Starlight - email)
Anaya Sherman (Starlight - email)
Melody Fernsby (Raven - website)
Oliver Libra (InsaneAcrobat - website)
Minako Kurusu (ForeverFairy - DeviantArt)
Amber Darkscribe (DarkPrincess2001 - DeviantArt)
Preston (Infernius Flashfire - DeviantArt)
Lizz (Apologizee - DeviantArt)
Sean Piehel (DefinitelyNotSean - DeviantArt)
Anna (annathegoat - DeviantArt)
Belinda Anderson (Beli0304 - DeviantArt)
Coraline Evans (GuestPerson13 - YouTube)
Hamuko Kurusu (LunartheMooncake - HCM)
Voria (KaosRuin - HCM)
Sabrina Santiago (AquaK13 - HCM)
Avery Tristani (homeworkoverload - HCM)
Joe Pierce (ahnjoseph87 - HCM)
Amber Grace (LegoGirl794 - HCM)
Michael Jordannes (homeworkoverload - HCM)
Zen (giriri - HCM)
Chryss Taylor (CrystalTearsofFaith - HCM)
Drake Troy (ShiningHopeBeast - HCM)
Gorlox Fang (gorloxianfang - HCM)
Angelica "Ellie" (MysticKitty - HCM)
Sabrina Miles (A Random Guest - HCM)
Lorelei Arissa Song (A Random Guest - HCM)
Tyler Aimi Benbow (homeworkoverload - HCM)
(yes, I am aware this is the third character they submitted; they asked beforehand if they could.)
Sophie Tara Markswood (Midday Moonlight - HCM)
Lorelei Elisa Ashland (Midday Moonlight - HCM)
Violet (MysticKitty - HCM)
Cai (PoptartCrumbs - HCM)

And the characters that got picked to have speaking roles are, in order of the best rating:

1. Voria (KaosRuin - HCM)
2. Sean Piehel (DefinitelyNotSean - DeviantArt)
3. Tyler Aimi Benbow (homeworkoverload - HCM)
4. Lorelei Arissa Song (A Random Guest - HCM)
5. Oliver Libra (InsaneAcrobat - website)
6. Chryss Taylor (CrystalTearsofFaith - HCM)
7. Coraline Evans (GuestPerson13 - YouTube)
8. Joe Pierce (ahnjoseph87 - HCM)
9. Sabrina Santiago (AquaK13 - HCM)
10. Preston (Infernius Flashfire - DeviantArt)

Congratulations if you were picked for either list!

RQTC: Are you guys aware that you will really hate me next chapter? And I'm saying you'll REALLY hate me. I'm just not sure if you'll hate me because I end up leaving you on a cliffhanger, or because just of the content of the next chapter in general.

Responses to reviews!

Endie789: Alright, no. Your character did not get picked for a main character, or a speaking background character, or even a background character in general, simply because you didn't even wait for me to announce the winners of the 10 speaking characters to assume that you got picked, and because you didn't follow the rules. You can't make requests for Phantasmagoria's story to be changed based around the characters; simply because it is an original story that I wrote and because the background character contest was to allow people who read my stories- people that I'm extremely grateful for- participate in something that I'm extremely excited to make, and allow them to get 'early access' to something I am working extremely hard on. Please be aware that after this chapter is replaced with the old one, I am going to delete all of your reviews. Not to be mean, but because you posted so many that was essentially the same content, even when I asked politely to please change the information or to summarize it, and because I think your reviews are annoying some of the other readers who read the comments sections as well as me. You didn't change it when you could, or do the small revisions I asked that would've taken, at MOST, ten minutes. So I'm sorry, but I'm not including your character(s) in Phantasmagoria.

To those of you who read this big long rant, I'm really sorry, but this has been bothering me for several days now and I figured it was about time I address the problem.

PoptartCrumbs: OMG, I totally know how you feel. Popcorn is so good :3 / I don't like that, for some reason... probably because that was the only popcorn I ate when I had braces. / Yes, this is lovely! Thank you for the submission :)

RavenBlaze4850: Yeah... and you're going to hate me next chapter. I know it. A ton of the readers are just going to despise me after this next chapter. / Hehehe, I'll see if I can manage that next chapter. / Yeah, true. But still. Popcorn is great. xD

giriri: (laughs) No, no it is not. / (thumbs up) / (grins a bit) You're gonna hate me next chapter. Trust me.

KaosRuin: Yes, to be honest, you should just know off the top of your head by now that I give cliffhangers xD

DarkPrincess2001: Yes, do you see the problem here? xD

InsaneAcrobat: (laughs) Yeah, I see your point about that. / Yeah, thank you for backing me up a little on that point. Also, the point is that the personality is supposed to outline a few things like if they're a nice person. Not if they have ADHD or something. / Honestly, I can't include the characters because they didn't follow the guidelines they set, except sort of one, but then they expanded WAY too much on the personality. So... I can't include any of them.

MysticKitty: Oh, gosh, no, that's awesome! Thanks so much! / Yes, thank you for pointing that out! I actually directed them to your first character submission as a reference, but I don't think they got it, unfortunately, because they still didn't fix it enough and it's been bothering me for weeks. / Thank you for shortening it, but unfortunately cannot accept the character not because of the deadline, but because they still went way too far into the character design when I need like, three sentences total.

CrystalTearsofFaith: (shrugs uncomfortably) I'm not going to be able to include their character, which makes me feel bad, but, well, I did warn them. Multiple times, in fact. So...

homeworkoverload: (laughs) Well, you did get a speaking role for one (only one, because there were so many other nice character submissions out there as well!) But thank you for submitting all of them! / Do they really?! Good god... / Yes, it is, and after this chapter is put up I'm deleting the comments, simply because they didn't follow the guidelines and because scrolling past their stuff to see what other people said about the chapter is getting tiresome.

LegoGirl794: It's not canon, but it's still a pretty interesting theory to have! Though it must be noted that the watching of the episodes doesn't take place in the hotel, lol

Yutah123: (laughs) It was just an A/N, but that's true.

andie: Ahhh, I wouldn't have put it that way... although I kind of have to say that I agree with you...

Again, congratulations to all of those who got picked, and thank you all for participating! That's all for now, so see ya, so long, and g'bye!

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