Onscreen, Jesse finally got back up, gently shaking off Cassie's hand, and trotted over to the still-pulsing, glowing red block that Lukas had abandoned several feet away. Scooping it up, she turned back around to face the others as she scrutinized the intricate designs and pale white claw marks on its sides, and the inner glow that pulsed along with the beating of the 'Heart'.
"The Redstone Heart," Hadrian murmured, narrowing his eyes at the screen a bit. He attracted a look from Otto, but otherwise he didn't say a word.
"It's something else, isn't it?" Harper asked Jesse softly, although her gray eyes glimmered a bit with pride.
Petra's eyes widened a little as she got closer to it, and Cassie carefully edged her way towards it with her own wide-eyed sort of look. "Wow... so that's the Redstone Heart," the Blaze hybrid breathed, keeping her voice low as if raising it any louder was going to break it somehow.
"It..." Cassie stepped forward now, carefully resting her hand on top of it for a moment as she looked down at it, the red glow reflecting in her eyes as she stared at it. "I never thought I was going to see this thing again," and she ran her hand over it gently before letting her hand drop to her side, before glancing up at Harper with an amused and, well, almost mischievous look on her face. "I assume you 'borrowed' it?" she asked the older woman.
Onscreen-Harper and Real-Harper developed identical sheepish smiles on their face. Real-Jesse couldn't help but giggle a little bit at that. Ivor hid his own smile- he thought Harper looked rather adorable like that.
Adorable in the endearing sense. Definitely not the romantic sense. Nope. No idea what you're talking about. Especially not regarding the heavy red blush forming on Ivor's cheeks. I have no idea what you're referring to. It must be a trick of the light.
Mevia hid her own smirk at the sardonic comment and the resulting sheepish expression on Harper's face (which really was rather funny), although in contrast, Hadrian's expression darkened into a scowl.
Ivor smiled at the Heart, giving the block an appraising look. "Beautiful," he said, also keeping his voice low. Maybe it was out of a sense of respect somehow.
"And dangerous too, right?" Lukas added, glancing up from the block with a worried look on his face to look from Harper to Cassie. His ears flattened onto his head a little bit, as if he was a little scared of the Redstone Heart.
"Well, no, like we said earlier... not really," Otto said, shrugging slightly when Real-Lukas turned to look at him with a quizzical expression. "Depending on what it's powering, it's really harmless."
"So, just to clarify... say it was powering the lighting system of a building or something..." Stacy said slowly, arching her eyebrow at Otto with a thoughtful look.
Harper was the one to respond, her sheepish look fading to a blanker, more agreeable sort of expression. "Well, it'd be a bit of a waste to only use the Redstone Heart to power the lighting system of a building, but yes, it would be completely harmless." She paused. "Did we establish this before?"
Mevia's lips tightened thoughtfully. "Did we? I really can't remember."
"Yeah, neither can I."
Onscreen, Jesse's lips twisted a little bit as she looked down at the block thoughtfully, before glancing up and over at Cassie and Harper, who were standing across from one another a little bit. "I'd imagine those two are better suited to answer that question, but I don't think it's that dangerous, actually. It just seems to be a power source."
Olivia chuckled and patted Jesse on the back, although she practically had to lean behind Petra and Jace to do so. "Hey, good guess. Better than Jace's attempts, anyway."
Jace swatted at her with a playful scowl. "In my defense, you were asking me about something I had no previous knowledge of, let alone its existence," he told her, doing his best to keep himself from grinning.
"Yes but still, you should probably have known that llamas can be brown."
Petra was in the middle of a yawn when this comment was made, and she nearly choked as she began to laugh in the middle of her yawn, sounding like she'd suddenly gotten punched.
"I like llamas," Jesse contributed to this conversation cheerfully.
Onscreen, Harper looked rather pleased at this assumption, while Cassie gave a slight nod. The audience had to quell a furious round of giggles at the exchange just now when Harper started speaking again. "Jesse's right on the money. Now that the Redstone Heart isn't powering PAMA," and all of them automatically looked up at the slightly-smoking giant computer screen on the wall, "it can't hurt anyone."
Jesse's lower arms reached out a bit as well, allowing Jesse to tilt the block around without accidentally fumbling it and dropping it. "I wonder what we should do with it," she mused softly, the spider hybrid tilting her head to one side with some still-wet blood running down her face. Absentmindedly, she reached up and mopped more of it away with her sleeve, the dark blood mingling with her armor and making it less noticeable. (Both Real-and-Onscreen Ivor relaxed noticeably.)
"It can help you find your way home," Harper said, after a full ten seconds of thoughtful pause.
"Seriously?!" Petra suddenly sat bolt upright, turning and exchanging an excited look with Jace.
Jace just grinned cheerfully himself, his green eyes glowing with pleasure at that. "That's awesome!"
"Finally," Magnus grumbled, although there was still a grin on his face, "something might actually be easy for you guys."
"Don't jinx it, Magnus."
Soren, Isa, Mevia, Otto, and Hadrian simply blinked, before exchanging somewhat dubious glances with one another over the excited chatter that had started up in the room. (And the fact that Magnus was now attempting to noogie Gabriel and completely failing didn't distract them either.)
This was the first they'd heard of THAT.
Onscreen, everyone's heads snapped around to face the Old Builder- even Cassie's- all of their eyes widening in near-perfect sync. Ivor's mouth even dropped open a little bit.
"No way!"
"That thing can help us get home?"
"That's awesome!"
"We should get home then!"
"The faster the better."
A chorus of exclamations rang out all at the same time, voices overlapping and making it all the more difficult to distinguish who'd just spoken, although Petra's eyes were sparking in pleasure and Lukas's ears were perked up happily. Jesse's arms had stalled, still cradling the Redstone Heart, before she glanced down at it with wide eyes. "No way... how is this gonna do that?" she breathed, looking quite fascinated by the idea.
"When we head to the Portal Hallway, I'll show you exactly how," Harper said, giving Jesse a warm smile as the spider hybrid carefully placed the Redstone Heart into her inventory.
Real-Ivor let out the softest, relieved sigh. At least they wouldn't have to say goodbye to Harper yet. He'd become quite fond of her, honestly.
Jesse returned the smile the moment she noticed it, before stretching all of her arms out with a light groan and a faint wince. "Ugh. I'm ready to leave this core behind," she sighed at last, sounding a little tired.
Understandably, the whole near-death experience had probably been more than a little exhausting.
"The whole town will be waking up," Cassie suddenly spoke up, as if this thought had suddenly occurred to her. Winslow glanced over at her and meowed as the redhead reached up and adjusted her glasses thoughtfully. "We should be there to say hello or something."
"Plus... this place gives me the creeps," Lukas added, wrinkling his nose a little bit as he looked around the room. The spider hybrid gave a light laugh and ruffled a hand through his fluffy blonde hair, making him jokingly glower at her as he patted it back into place.
Real-Jesse did the same, making Lukas playfully groan at her and try to shy out of her reach- which was a little hard, since she was pretty much sitting in his lap. "Jesseeeee, stop," he half-groaned, half-whined at the playful attempts to ruffle his hair.
Jesse sat still for a moment, blinking thoughtfully.
"I have more puns if you'd like to hear them." It was really odd how angelic Jesse could manage to look sometimes. Seriously. You could practically see a halo hovering above her head.
"Never mind, this is great. Continue."
Petra bit her lip to stifle her laughter. Really, Jesse could be quite devious sometimes.
Onscreen-Jesse lowered her arms again quickly as he gave her the mock-glare, grinning at him cheerfully. "Fair enough. Now c'mon, let's get outta here!"
And all of them started walking out of the still-glowing red core for what was hopefully the last time, without even a single backwards glance.
The screen changed to show that the sun had risen while they'd been inside, bathing the whole mesa in a warm, golden glow. Zombies and skeletons were keeling over and dying- as they rightfully should- and it was bright and lovely outside. The spider hybrid's face broke out in a relieved sort of grin. "We did it," she murmured softly, all of her arms giving a little stretch before dropping back to her side loosely.
The ocelot hybrid let out his own relieved sigh and grin. "Ahhh... to be in control of my own brain again! I choose where to go, I choose what to say..." and he gave a little stretch himself, his tail and ears twitching around madly in relief.
Harper looked a bit uncomfortable for a moment, glancing over at Lukas, before adding quietly, "Just remember, you were only chipped for a little while. The rest of the townspeople, though..."
She paused as they rounded the corner, coming upon a huge crowd of people hugging, running around, cheering, doing a little dance- all things that they wanted to do. Not PAMA, not anybody else.
Just themselves.
"Oh..." Stacy winced a bit. "Yeah, I'm sure they're a little disoriented themselves."
"Although definitely much happier than before, I'm sure," Lizzie added, raising her finger a little bit as she made her point.
"Yeah, definitely."
Onscreen, Ivor winced a bit himself, rubbing the back of his neck and tilting his head a bit at the thought. "Yes... it must be a strange feeling, to suddenly be awake and aware after such a long time under PAMA's thrall..." he murmured, sounding rather sympathetic as the group started walking towards the rest of the crowd, a few of them spotting them and waving at them when they noticed, a faint smattering of applause that grew louder and louder as more people noticed the approaching group.
When Jesse and the rest of the group had pretty much met the rest of the crowd- Harper hanging back a few steps for some reason- one man ran up to them with excited eyes. "It's you! You're the one who saved us!" he exclaimed, making Jesse shy back a bit with a slightly surprised but also relieved smile on her face. "Who are you?"
More and more people began to crowd around them, a faint blush coming over Jesse's face as the spider hybrid realized just how many people's attention she had now. "You fought so bravely," a woman behind him exclaimed, "all of you!"
A few members of the crowd developed more curious looks, before they turned to one another and started muttering, the screen spinning around to show Jesse crossing all of her extra arms and hugging her elbows a bit shyly, Lukas's tail twitching around cheerfully and the boy batting at his ocelot ears cheerfully, while Petra's eyes glowed cheerfully.
"Oh... yeah, they've probably never seen hybrids before, have they?" Sparklez realized, rubbing his head with a wince.
"Yeah, they're probably a little nervous about them, then..." Dan agreed, biting his thumbnail and giving the screen an anxious sort of look.
"As long as they're not rude about it, I have no problem with it," Isa mumbled, low enough that only Milo could actually catch it, seeing as he was sitting right next to her. He gave a little nod but didn't say anything in reply.
Onscreen, Jesse diplomatically ignored this fact (if she did, in fact, notice all the whispering) and gave a playful little bow, her lower arms shifting casually so they were behind her back. "Well, I'm Jesse, this is Ivor," and the potionologist huffed a bit as she tapped him on the shoulder, although he was also smiling faintly, "that's Petra," the Blaze hybrid gave a little wave and smirked a little bit, "that's Lukas," the ocelot hybrid gave his own little bow, tail and ears twitching neatly, "this is Cassie," the red-haired girl blinked in bewilderment at being included, "and we're the New- or, uh, Hybrid- Order of the Stone!"
Real-Cassie blinked a bit in surprise, exchanging a startled look with Aiden. Aiden wasn't quite looking at Cassie, but when he noticed that she was staring at him he returned the look, his own expression blank and not that surprised.
After all, this was Jesse that they were talking about.
Several people onscreen started cheering at the introduction, before Jesse glanced over at Cassie with a slight smile, who was still staring at her in bewilderment and a little gratitude.
After a few moments, Cassie lifted a finger and pointed at herself subtly, blinking again. She didn't actually open her mouth or say anything, but her meaning was crystal clear.
Me?
Jesse simply nodded, her small smile growing warmer as she stared right back at Cassie.
You.
Real-Cassie was still staring at the screen openly. There may or may not have been tears pooling in her eyes from how happy she was becoming. Aiden spotted and gave her a light pat on the back, trying to hide his own smile.
Turning back to the crowd, Jesse continued, "We're... well, um," and now she smiled slightly sheepishly, glancing over at Petra and Lukas, "a little over half of us are hybrids-"
Mevia let out a little huff of laughter at that, although it seemed to be out of amusement more than anything else. Otto and Harper glanced at each other, their surprise evident in their expressions.
She seemed... normal, now. Better. More mellow.
More like the old Mevia.
"- and we do good deeds." Jesse paused thoughtfully for a moment, thinking about the statement she'd just made. "Or, try to, at least."
Isa couldn't help it- she just outright snorted at this. 'Try to'. Jesse was always helping people. Always doing good deeds, even if it ended up being in a rather roundabout way. And, well, the other Order members were helping her do it.
Milo was shaking his head as well, his lips twisting into a sort of lopsided grin as he chuckled at this himself. As a sort of second thought, the two of them exchanged slightly amused glances with one another, even managing to hold the other's gaze for more than a few moments before glancing back at the screen, neither of them saying anything but still smiling a little.
Reginald hid a grin. So these two could agree on things.
The man who'd run up to Jesse looked impressed- even grateful. "Wow! Well, thank you. We owe you everything."
"You're right," Harper spoke up all of a sudden, stepping forward and giving Jesse's shoulder a squeeze. The spider hybrid gave her a warm grin as Harper continued, a small smile on her face, "Jesse and the Order of the Stone really are heroes. This wouldn't have happened without them."
Ivor felt the tiniest grin creep over his face, his arms crossing as he leaned back into the armchair and attempted to smother it, with little to no success.
He'd been called a hero before, back when the original Order had first 'defeated' the Ender Dragon. Back then... well, there was a reason he'd just gotten up one day and walked out, having quite a row with the others before storming out, being sure to slam the door as hard as he could as he did so. Being called a hero when none of them had even done anything worth being called a hero for...
It was nice to finally deserve it, even if it was only a little bit.
And, okay, he was never going to admit this- not to himself, and definitely not the others...
... but something about it coming from Harper made his heart warm a little bit.
Onscreen, the man's smile fell off his face, his eyes widening in surprise. "Harper... is that... you?" he asked, sounding slightly surprised.
Harper's smile faded all of a sudden, her hand falling off of Jesse's shoulder and fidgeting with a stray thread on her hood as she lowered her eyes to the floor. "Um... yes." Her voice had become a lot smaller than before.
"Oh," Real-Jesse suddenly spoke up, blinking a little bit. "Harper built PAMA, didn't she?"
It was not an accusatory question- more like a thoughtful recall than anything else.
Real-Harper's expression twitched, but otherwise the woman didn't say anything more about that.
Aiden blinked at that. Now that Jesse spoke up about it, he remembered this fact himself. In fact, he remembered being slightly sickened about this fact when the fact had initially hit him. What with Lukas ending up still being possessed by that weird black thing and all the action and fighting and hullabaloo and Jesse nearly dying and the entire audience thinking that she'd died and then it turned out that she wasn't dead...
Well, judging from several of the other members' sudden expressions of dawning remembrance, Aiden was willing to bet that they'd all forgotten the fact entirely.
"Hi, Harry," Harper finished onscreen, still looking at the ground almost shyly. Her expression was a little more concerned now.
Onscreen-Cassie blinked at that, before leaning over to Petra, who was the nearest person to her. "Oh. So Harry was a real person after all," she whispered to Petra, keeping her voice low so that the rest .
Both Real-and-Onscreen Ivor scowled a little for some reason. The Order exchanged delighted, slightly evil grins.
The Blaze hybrid shrugged a bit at that herself. "Looks like."
The man- now known as Harry- narrowed his eyes at Harper almost suspiciously, other members of the crowd- and much more than when people had started noticing Jesse and Lukas and Petra's extra limbs and such- beginning to mutter amongst themselves, in low voices so that there wasn't anything particular jumping out at them. "You... didn't do this to us... did you?"
A/N: Ahhh, poor Harper. Feel bad for her.
Next update will be Composite! Also, by the way, I've got two fanfictions up called 'Minecraft: Normal Mode' and 'The Fairytale Curse'. I really like both, so feel free to check them out!
Ah, I've missed this. Feels good to get back into things. XD By the way, for those of you who had to review as a guest, the reason is because I got rid of that one chapter with the previews (I think), so it just shifted it one chapter back. And I'm really excited for an upcoming chapter in this story.. :)
Responses to reviews!
Destroyered: Fair enough x3
Gamerwhogames: Thanks! And you're leaving, so that's sad, but I'll be waiting!
Lunar: (laughs) Glad you think so! And thank you! :3
ShiningHopeBeast: I'm glad I'm able to get into a sort of regular update schedule now! And I hope so too, trust me xD / I'm glad you liked it! Sorry about the DanCat bit making you uncomfortable, I'm honestly getting tired of writing ships into the story— especially since I've stopped shipping Lukesse. It's getting harder to write some ships. But I'm glad you like the chapter! / I hope I can do it without hiding!
AquaK13: Yep! / Yeah, it was sad, I feel bad for him. / Well, I mean, I guess this doesn't really seem like anything compared to... y'know... her dad. / Oops, that explains why my feels jar is so empty. XD / Thank you! I'm glad you liked it. / Haha, thanks. I'm hoping my grades'll get back to normal soon.
Mikaza1498: Oh. Harry Potter is good, you should read it. XD xD xD / Oh, really? That's probably because my chapters tend to be shorter, haha. Though I feel like Toni42 updates fairly regularly too! / Yeah, middle school and high school are different. It's a little much xD
Guest: (snorts)
Em: (laughs) Yeah, sorry about that.
NoItsBecky: HELLO / And haha, I can see that xD
Rabbits rule: Awww. (Pats) / And wow 0-0 Glad you liked it, though! And thank you!
homeworkoverload: AW I DID?! I'M SO SORRY! And yes, I'm kind of back, haha. XD
NovaAurora10: (laughs) Glad you got an account!
J.M.M.: THANK YOU!
RavenBlaze4850: Thanks for the cookies! / Haha, thanks. XD / Uhh, yes, I'd count that as a reaction. Sorry I made you cry xD / Yeah, sorry about that. Fanfiction's weird.
LittleAngelbun: WE HAVE BOTH RISEN FROM THE DEAD
EnderKitty68: Yes, I am back! And haha, I'm glad you were excited! I just didn't want to leave you guys on a major cliffhanger for who knows how long.
InsaneAcrobat: Haha, true! / Yep, that's straight As. / (coughs) (laughs) / Nope, no kissing. Not onscreen. XD And I hope the ban is revoked soon as well!
KrazyKat: (grins) Oh, you'd better believe I'm doing Season 2 xD
Guest: ... I said that in the first chapter, in the first A/N. Did you read that?
Zenspider: ? I mean, assuming that the animals understand their female owners, they would know what's going on...? Considering all three of them are owned by girls...?
Darkbeast Dend: Thank you!
EllieIAm: Hmm, maybe xD
Crystal: Yes, I am still alive xD / And I'm doing my best to get my grades up and to update as well. And yeah, sorry about that, that was my fault. :/
Princess of Muffins: Awww, sorry I made you cry. But, glad you liked it! I am doing my best to get updates back to normal. / Yes, I am doing the second season. And yeah, probably will!
PuzzleMaster: I swear some of you guys are mind readers! XD
Well, that's all for now! See ya, so long, and g'bye!
x.X. A.L. X.x
