After a moment of silence, in which Jesse and Aiden were glancing at each other, glancing away from each other, then glancing back at each other without seeming to know what to say, Lukas shrugged. "Well, whatever you guys are doing," and he extended the slime ball to Jesse, "count me in."
"Thanks, Lukas," and Jesse and Aiden both jumped a little in surprise as Petra came up to them, with Axel and Olivia in tow. Reuben was tagging along, too, letting out a cheerful little squeal at the sight of Jesse again. Petra's smile turned into a slight smirk as she glanced over at Jesse.
"Told ya he was useful," she added to the black-haired girl, in a slight whisper.
Axel scowled a little at Lukas. "Aw, man," he complained a little, "this guy isn't actually cool, is he?"
Lukas surreptitiously stepped back a little, having to tilt his head back a good amount to make eye contact with the scowling, burly boy. His expression was a little defensive. Almost protectively, Aiden sidled over a step to Lukas, giving Axel a glare that could have set anything on fire. Axel didn't stop scowling— on the contrary, his expression became colder as he turned slightly to return Aiden's glare.
Jesse wished Evie was here; she felt that the girl could probably have defused the tension a little bit.
"Remains to be seen," Olivia replied coldly, narrowing her eyes at Lukas herself. Lukas turned his defensive expression to Olivia, looking even more guarded.
Deciding to ignore the situation and let Petra keep control of it, Jesse just moved towards a nearby crafting table. "It's craftin' time," she said, just to punctuate the now-awkward, tense silence that was permeating the area. Picking up a slime ball and placing it down on the table, Jesse could hear the conversation... sort of resuming as Lukas finally attempted to defuse the tension himself.
"So... you guys been building together long?" Lukas asked, a little awkwardly, as Jesse placed down the slime balls as quickly as possible. "You've got good chemistry."
"Are you jealous?" That was Axel.
Aiden scoffed. "Jealous? Of you?" he sneered, and ah. Ah. There was the Aiden Jesse was used to. Really, Nice Aiden just did not make sense to Jesse.
"I'm just saying," Lukas quickly intervened, presumably to avoid having Axel punch Aiden in the face, "I think it's cool that you have a team that works so well together."
"You guys are totally jealous."
Thankfully, before the conversation could go anywhere else, the nine slime balls that Jesse had placed down shivered together, merging together to form a glistening slime block. "Ta-da!" Jesse announced, interrupting any possible replies, "one slime block!" She grinned proudly at it for a moment, before her grin slowly fell a little as she realized exactly what she'd just made. "Gross..."
Well, hopefully this would help them find Evie and Ivor.
"I'll take that," Olivia said, picking up the slime block— actually, she had to yank a little, since the slime block remained resolutely stuck to the crafting table right up until she yanked it off, leaving a small trail of slime residue on said table— and moving to a spot between the crafting table and the chicken machine she'd been looking at earlier. She squinted up at the machine, then down at the ground, and then raised her arm and gestured slightly. "Riiiiight—" And she bent down, setting the slime block on the ground, "there."
Axel crossed his arms, shooting Aiden one last glare, before turning to face Jesse. "It's all you, Jesse."
Jesse nodded, before jerking her head at the tent above the crafting table. "Give me a boost."
Axel bent forward obediently at the request (well, it was a bit more like a demand, but Jesse was in a bit of a hurry right now), and Jesse scrambled up onto his back, grabbing ahold of the tent edge and working to pull herself up quickly.
"It's a good thing you're so light," Axel remarked suddenly, making Jesse slip and nearly fall right back off the tent in surprise. Which probably would've been painful.
"Sheesh, Axel, don't do that!" she yelped, ignoring the fact that Aiden had almost certainly just stifled a snort and scrabbling to get a better handhold now, "nearly scared the pants off me."
Pulling herself up onto the tent rooftop, Jesse checked over the edge and had a look at the slime block. Hopefully she wouldn't overshoot and miss the slime block— if she did that, she'd probably break her ankles, from how high up she was right now. Backing up three large steps, she took a deep breath and charged forward, launching herself off of the top of the tent just as she reached the edge.
"Don't die don't die don't die," she squeaked to herself, chanting it in a terrified sort of mantra as she fell towards the ground, the little bit of wind that was generated from the jump snatching at her hair and making it fly into the air—
Her feet slammed solidly into the slime block, and Jesse's knees automatically bent to absorb the little bit of shock the landing gave her, before Jesse felt her legs automatically launching her up again, sending her soaring in a neat arc at the glass pane. The momentary bit of fear she'd been experiencing fell away, replaced by exhilaration, and she let out a little "wheee!" as she drew her fist back—
And smashed it through the glass, breaking it to shards with no problem.
Chickens immediately exploded out of the machine at an actually frightening rate, spewing out of the machine and everywhere in a huge flood of startled clucking, white feathers, and a few startled yells from the other people in the convention. "My poultry! My precious poultry!" someone shouted, presumably the creator of the machine. Jesse landed with a slight 'oof' next to the machine, stumbling a little from the landing, and mentally apologized to him.
The usher ran forwards, shouting as he tried to attract attention among the floods of chickens and the general chaos that had started up in the area, "Keep your eyes closed! They'll peck out your eyes!"
He was abruptly bowled over by a chicken and was knocked onto his back, screaming in fear as they began to swarm over him, even hopping onto his face.
Jesse mentally apologized to him even more.
Petra, Olivia, Aiden, Lukas, and Axel ran towards Jesse, dodging several chickens as they did so. Reuben was hiding behind Axel slightly. Perhaps he figured that the burly boy provided more protection from the hordes of chickens. "Now's our chance!" Petra exclaimed, pointing at the now-unguarded keynote.
Without any further prompting, the entire group charged up the steps and towards the keynote. Jesse could hear a faint "Hey!" behind her, from the usher, but didn't look back as they dashed at full-speed towards the keynote.
Evie speed-walked into the keynote. Right now, it was fairly empty, but there was still a few people milling around and chatting.
Not Ivor, though. Although Evie hadn't been expecting him to just be standing around.
Scanning the room for Ivor, she was rewarded by a glimpse of the man darting through a door off to the side, leaving the door slightly ajar, as if he was in a hurry. Hustling over to the door, Evie set a hand on the door handle, and pulled a little to open it—
The door let out an explosive sort of creaking noise, making Evie freeze in her footsteps and stare through the crack for a hint of Ivor popping back over to look at it, or coming back up the steps to look at Evie. When five seconds passed without Ivor opening the door or the sound of footsteps on the steps, Evie carefully eased the door open and slipped through the crack, thanking whatever being might exist that she wasn't a very thickset person.
Carefully, Evie made her way down the steps with exaggerated slowness. Knowing her luck, if she went at more than this speed, she was just going to trip straight down the stairs and cause a ruckus. And also possibly develop a concussion.
She carefully poked her head out from behind the wall that blocked her sight from the rest of what seemed to be a basement, absentmindedly noticing a maze of bookshelves, dotted with glowing potion bottles, lamps, and spiderwebs that glinted in the dim light. The air smelled slightly musty and... Evie wrinkled her nose a little bit. Was that Nether Wart?
Evie could hear faint clinks and tinkles from glass somewhere in the basement, so she slipped down a few steps and tip-toed deeper into the room, darting behind the bookshelves and sidling along with exaggerated care, sticking close to the bookshelves to avoid being spotted. Hopefully. Maybe.
Maybe.
Suddenly, the clinking of glass stopped, replaced by a chest creaking open, then shut, then the sound of footsteps.
The wavy-haired girl froze perfectly still, back practically pressed into the bookshelves. Maybe, since it was dim in here and it wasn't like she was wearing anything particularly neon or eye-catching, and because she wasn't moving, just maybe he wouldn't spot her...
Ivor passed by the bookshelf she was trying to merge with, with how hard she was pushing her back into it, without a second glance. Strolling quickly and almost purposefully towards a wall that was perpendicular to the one that was opposite Evie, he shoved aside a bookshelf with a great deal of ease— it had to be fake, Evie decided— and stepped into the hole in the wall he'd just revealed, before sliding the bookshelf back into place behind him, muttering darkly about "if anyone's sneaking up on me, I will certainly catch them by surprise".
She waited for another ten seconds for him to come back. Maybe he'd forgotten something.
When he didn't do that, Evie let out a loud and somewhat shaky sigh of relief, sagging against the bookshelf and allowing herself to slide to the floor, heart pounding away like some sort of jackhammer in her chest. Well, looks like that fictional book she'd read had actually had some pretty good tips. What was it again? She'd read it a long while ago. All she could remember was that one of the characters was named Halt.
Suddenly, she heard more footsteps, from where Evie had just followed Ivor into the basement, and Evie abruptly yanked her knees up to her chest and held her breath. Maybe Ivor had already finished doing his walkaround the area?
No, he'd literally left just ten or twenty seconds ago. No way he'd gotten back so quickly.
Well, but maybe...
"You're way more intense than I gave you credit for, Jesse."
Evie immediately perked up. That definitely didn't sound like Ivor. And he'd just been talking to Jesse. She wondered what Jesse had said for this guy (was it Lukas? It sounded like Lukas.) to call her 'way more intense than he gave her credit for'.
"Ready?"
Yes, that was DEFINITELY Jesse's voice.
"Ready."
And that was Petra!
Evie scrambled to her feet, not caring how much noise she was making, relief flooding through her so intensely that she actually forgot how to breathe for a moment. Thank Notch and Jeb and whoever else exists in this universe, they'd tracked her down!
Somehow. Even though she hadn't left any indication of where she'd gone.
Whoops. She'd probably have to apologize for that.
Evie burst out from behind a bookshelf, cutting off whatever Jesse had been about to say— something that started with an 's'. Or maybe a 'c', Evie didn't really know— and full-out tackled the shorter girl, very nearly knocking Jesse over altogether. As it was, Jesse's back slammed into Aiden's stomach (Evie had to wonder why Aiden was here, but she was so relieved and really didn't care that much right now), Aiden staggered backwards into Olivia, Olivia tripped over her feet and banged her skull against Lukas's shoulder, Lukas stumbled into Petra, and Petra collapsed against Axel. Thankfully, Axel was quite hard to just bowl over, so the domino chain stopped there. Reuben let out a happy squeal and butted his head against Evie's leg.
"Evie!" Jesse exclaimed, voice clearly saturated with surprise, and a little bit of pain from Evie just abruptly tackling her.
"Notch, I'm so relieved you're here!" Evie stepped back, clearing her throat and trying to pitch it lower so she didn't sound like she was attempting to do an impression of a chipmunk, unable to help a relieved grin from spreading over her face. She knew she was probably acting way too clingy and relieved but she did not care, you will get stressed out when you're tracking a guy who's shady and weird.
"What were you doing?" Petra asked, in a tone that Evie couldn't quite identify, but could tell was not exactly good.
Evie immediately sobered up a little bit, rubbing the back of her head awkwardly and looking back to the floor. "Oh, uh... I chased after Ivor, but then I got sidetracked because of some people, and then I saw him again, so I chased after him, and then he came in here, and I came in here after him, and, uh, sorry I didn't let you know I was chasing—"
"Okay, but you're not like... with Ivor, right?" Jesse interrupted, giving Evie a strange sort of look.
Evie blinked at Jesse and the question that, to her, had come seemingly out of the blue. "Wha...? No. No, I've never met Ivor before tonight. Why?"
Aiden cut Petra off before the redhead could say anything, clapping Evie on the back with a funny look on his own face. "Well, it's good to see you're okay," he said, giving her a wry sort of smile. Evie let a small smile come over her face as she looked around. There was Lukas, and Aiden, and Jesse and Petra and Olivia and Axel, and Reuben was butting his head up against her leg and rubbing her leg with his head and this was the first time Evie had felt this relieved about anything.
Jesse's face finally broke out in a relieved smile as well, and she moved in to give Evie a hug.
Evie almost pulled out of it in surprise. Really, the only reason she'd pretty much TACKLED Jesse earlier was because she'd just been so thrilled and relieved to not have been trapped in this creepy basement with Ivor all alone and because Jesse had found her. She hadn't been expecting Jesse to do the same on a more gentle scale. After all, they'd just met that day. Evie didn't expect Jesse to remember her past today, let alone hug her.
Not that she didn't like the hug.
So, after a few seconds of making to get out of it, hesitating, and thinking it over again, Evie awkwardly reached up and put her arms around Jesse a little bit, giving the lightest little squeeze of a hug.
Although really, she didn't get why Jesse looked so relieved.
A/N: Awww, Evie has reunited with the others! Looks like Petra might be a bit wary of Evie now, though, hmm. And Evie is still shy, even though she pretty much exploded in relief xD
I'm really enjoying writing this story so far! I don't know if anybody's enjoying it, but I'm enjoying writing it! Especially since Evie's got nothing special about her, she's not a badass, and she's actually probably not very good at much of anything.
Reviews and comments make me excited to write more! Mainly because it's funny to see people's reactions, lol xD
Replies to reviews!
LunarTheMooncake: Yep xD
Princess of Muffins: Definitely a bit silly, haha. It just doesn't make sense to Jesse xD / Glad you like the story so far! Here is more :3
x.X. A.L. X.x
