Finally, Olivia spoke up, probably so that Jesse would disentangle herself from the hug. "What is all this?" she asked, voice echoing a bit in the large room.

"Looks like it used to be the basement," Jesse decided, separating herself from the hug quickly upon realizing she'd just been hugging Evie for, like, the past ten minutes, clearing her throat a little. "Weird place to have a hideout."

"I bet you anything I'll find my Wither Skull here," Petra spoke, looking around the basement.

Aiden muttered something under his breath. Evie didn't have very good hearing, but she could've sworn that he'd just said "I'll take you up on that bet."

Axel began to meander deeper into the basement, walking with excitement past the shelves. "And if we find anything else cool to steal along the way," he leaned over to get a better look at a glowing redstone lamp, "so be it, right?"

Petra scowled at the burly boy, crossing her arms as she walked over towards him. "Axel- that's not what we're here to do."

"I did say we should do whatever we have to..." Jesse mused. This was clearly not the response Petra was hoping for, because she turned her scowl onto the black-haired girl behind her. Evie blinked at Jesse with a blank expression on her face.

So that was what she'd said to warrant the 'you're more intense than I gave you credit for' from Lukas, then.

"And if the guy's not around," Axel picked up the sentence from where Jesse had trailed off, popping up from around a bookshelf with a huge grin on his face, "then what we have to do is steal."

"I mean, it does make sense," Aiden muttered, again under his breath. (Lukas elbowed him.)

"I don't want to stoop to his level," Petra insisted, crossing her arms and turning back to Axel, shaking her head insistently.

Axel was quick to have a response. "But isn't that the best way to get back at him?"

Evie sensed that the argument was going to go on for a while if someone didn't step in, and Jesse seemed as if she was wavering in both directions, so she spoke up. "I... don't think we should steal from this guy."

All eyes immediately switched to her, and her mouth went completely dry. Evie sometimes wished she could act like a regular human being and not one that had the most crippling shyness in the universe.

"It- it just- it just seems wrong," she finally stammered out. "Just- just because he stole from Petra doesn't give us the r-right to steal from him. If anything, Petra's the one who should-should decide if we steal stuff from this guy or not, since she's the one who- who got cheated out of her diamond. And- and if she says she doesn't want to, then I don't think- I don't think we should. Steal, I mean."

Jesse nodded, looking slightly sheepish. "Yeah, Evie's right. If Petra doesn't think we should steal from him, then we shouldn't. It was her deal, after all."

"No one ever lets me have any fun," Axel complained, but Petra wasn't glancing back at Axel like the rest of them- she was just staring evenly at Evie. Her expression was completely unreadable as she regarded the smaller girl.

Evie blinked a couple times, uncertainly. What was she supposed to do? Why was Petra just staring at her? It was making her really uncomfortable.

"We let you hang out with us, don't we?" Jesse was quick to retort, before her small smile fell and she glanced around. "The faster we find what we're looking for, the faster we can get the heck out of here."

"Oh- especially since I don't know when Ivor's going to be back!" Evie suddenly blurted.

Petra narrowed her eyes suspiciously at Evie again. "Why would you know when Ivor's going to be back? I thought you weren't with him?" she asked, voice tinged with suspicion.

Evie was too nervous to notice. "When I snuck in here earlier, he- he left through a passageway in the wall," she stammered nervously, "and I think he was saying something about checking to make sure nobody was sneaking up on him. I think it'll take him a while to get around the whole keynote and make sure, but-"

"Yeah, I agree with Evie," Jesse nodded, "we should get out of here as quick as we can. C'mon!"

With that, Evie found herself suddenly standing alone as everyone fanned out into the shelves. Even Aiden quickened his pace as he went to have a look among the bookshelves. Tentatively, Evie walked forward, moving quickly as well. Now that she wasn't so worried about being caught, speed was more important than stealth.

She came upon Petra rifling through a chest while Jesse came up behind her as well. After a moment, Petra pulled out a glittering golden sword, arching her eyebrow with a sort of impressed look. "Oh, hello," she said, sounding slightly impressed. She swung the sword, making Jesse leap back to avoid getting decapitated and smack right into Evie. Evie flailed her arms to stay upright, but ended up flat on her back on the floor.

She wished Ivor had some carpeting on the floor.

"Too heavy," Petra decided, shaking her head with a distasteful look on her face. "And too soft."

"But super flashy," Jesse grinned at the gleaming blade.

Evie probably would've made a comment, except she was trying to discern whether or not falling on the floor the way she had had given her a bruise or not. The way it felt right now, it probably had. Just her luck.

"Yeah," Petra mumbled, "I don't think this guy does much fighting." She paused, before glancing over at Jesse. "Hey, you still have that one stone sword, right?"

"Yeah, I had to use it to threaten some jerkwad butcher to save Reuben's life," Jesse nodded, reaching up and rubbing the back of her head with a slightly sheepish expression on her face.

Petra's eyebrow shot up. "Jeez... oh, well, guess that was a pretty good cause." She paused, before leaning over to look at Evie, who was still sitting on the floor and rubbing her back. "Hey, Evie, you could use a weapon, right?"

"Huh?" Evie blinked up at Petra, before her eyes widened and she removed her hands from her back, waving them a bit in the air. "Oh- no, really. I'm not good at fighting at all, I'd probably just ending smacking myself with it-"

"Aw, c'mon, you can't be that bad. I mean, you held off a bunch of monsters with a hoe," Petra pointed out, leaning down and pushing the sword into Evie's hands.

"She did?" Aiden was suddenly poking his head around a bookshelf with interest on his face. It was so quick that Evie honestly was wondering if he'd just been hiding behind the bookshelf and eavesdropping.

Evie attempted to pass it back, feeling her cheeks flushing bright red. Good thing it was dim in here. "Petra, the area was so filled with monsters that I literally couldn't have missed, I was just flailing wildly with the hoe..."

"Not initially," Jesse mused, to Evie's slight dismay, as Petra reached down and shoved it back at Evie, "I mean, we weren't completely surrounded initially, and you still hit them pretty good."

"Then I just got lucky. Really, I'm really terrible at fighting, guys, I'm so clumsy..."

Aiden let out an annoyed sigh, making Evie turn to blink at him. "Look, I'm not an expert or anything, but even if you're clumsy it might be good to have a backup weapon."

Jesse stared blankly at Aiden as if he'd grown a second head, but Petra jumped on his suggestion. "Exactly. What if your hoe breaks? You won't have anything to defend yourself with." The redhead then paused. "Uh, unless you have a second one."

"Well, I have a lucky iron helmet as well, but that's my only lucky iron hoe."

This time, all three of them stared blankly at Evie- really, what was wrong with a lucky iron hoe? There was nothing wrong with one!- before Petra cleared her throat a bit. "Um... yeah. If that's your only weapon, and it breaks, then you should have an extra weapon in case you get attacked."

"But-"

"Just keep it, okay?" Petra reached out and patted Evie on the head, making Evie blink at her almost childishly. "Who knows? Maybe once we get out of here I can teach you or something."

"Oh." Evie blinked up at Petra from where she was still sitting on the floor, feeling oddly like a little kid from the way she was sitting with a gold sword in her lap. "I guess that would be okay."

Petra gave Evie a quick grin, before turning back to the chest.

Clambering to her feet, Evie slid the sword onto her back, before trotting after Jesse, who passed where Aiden was standing and emerged into a larger area, where Axel was peering around at the shelves. "Find anything, Axel?" Jesse asked cheerfully, reaching up and tilting her head.

"I wanna steal that," Axel pointed up at a potion on the shelf, "and that," and he pointed at a redstone lamp, before gesturing at a red mushroom. "I just wanna touch that."

"Decisions, decisions," Aiden muttered sarcastically. Axel scowled in his direction.

Evie had to wonder how two people whose names started with the same letter could be so antagonistic towards each other.

Actually, antagonistic started with 'A' too. Maybe that explained it, then.

"Ooh, take a look at that!" Jesse exclaimed, making Evie look up at Jesse. The black-haired girl was standing near a white block with a strange, glowing potion sitting on it. The bottle gleamed gold, and the liquid inside was a luminous purple that, combined with the gold light of the bottle, gave an eerily beautiful glow.

Evie hummed, trotting over and regarding it with an interested look. "Huh. What IS this?" she wondered, giving the bottle a childish little poke.

Axel came over as well, eyes practically glowing in the reflected light. "You're not gonna believe this," he said, staring at the potion as if hypnotized, "but I swear I had a dream about this."

Actually, with the way Axel was staring at it, Evie could kind of see that happening.

"Okay, potion. I know this is a big step, but... I would be honored if you'd come home with me."

Okay, well, now it was just a little weird.

"C'mon, Axel," Jesse said, putting her hands on her hips and tearing her own eyes away from the potion, "go make yourself useful and find that skull."

"I am..."

And then he scooped up the potion and slipped it into his pocket.

Evie stared at Axel, before lifting her finger and pointing at the spot where the potion had just been. "Um, unless that potion was made out of Wither Skull, which I don't think it was, I don't think that's doing what Jesse just asked you to do."

Aiden made a sound that sounded a lot like he was snorting.

"Yeah, you... literally just did the exact opposite of what I asked you to do," Jesse nodded, "besides, there's no way he's not going to notice that his fancy potion is missing."

"A good thief," Axel declared, looking around and spotting another purple potion, though the bottle wasn't gleaming gold and the potion wasn't glowing, "always covers his tracks." He seized it and popped it onto the block where the fancy potion had been. Actually, if you didn't know what was there before, or if you didn't stop and stare at it for a few seconds, you probably wouldn't have even noticed a difference. "Fixed it!"

"Oh, yeah," Aiden drawled sarcastically, making Axel shoot a glare over his shoulder at him and Lukas glance up from where he was examining a bookshelf carefully, "the perfect crime."

Evie decided to go talk to Lukas, since Jesse seemed to be heading in Olivia's direction, and walked over towards the blonde. She could vaguely hear Olivia and Jesse's conversation- something about Ivor not being a slouch when it came to enchanting- before it seemed like Jesse was starting to talk to Reuben. She could hear little piggy oinks, at least.

"Hey, Lukas," she spoke up, making the blonde turn to look at the girl.

"Oh, hey, Evie. Nice to officially meet you." And he turned to her a little more and gave her a friendly smile.

Evie gave a shy little wave. "Uh, hi. Lukas. Nice to meet you too. Uhh," she glanced around for a topic that would make her seem not like an idiot (she did have an odd penchant of making herself seem like a complete imbecile), and her eyes landed on the bookshelves. "Uh, did you find anything so far?"

"Uhh..." Lukas glanced back at the shelves, frowning as he scanned the shelves, "you want an instruction manual on 'How to Build a Creepy Villain Lair Using Everyday Objects?'"

If Evie had been drinking any water, she would've spewed it out and started giggling. Just... just the way he said that and the title. As it was, she did start giggling quite hard and had to clap her hands to her face to keep herself from bursting out in laughter altogether. Lukas glanced back at Evie, a surprised smile coming over his face at the sight of the girl nearly choking with giggles.

"Nice job, Lukas, I think you broke her," Aiden said, walking over and taking a look at Evie.

The way he said that just got Evie giggling even worse. If she started laughing, and Ivor started coming back at around the same time, that was going to be pretty bad.

Thankfully, there was a distraction about five seconds later- the sound of something mechanically sliding into the floor. Evie turned to see Olivia stepping back from the bookshelf she'd been scrutinizing earlier with a slightly startled expression, the bookshelf disappearing into the floor to reveal... a weird 'T-shape', with one block of something dark and weird with- were those faces?!- something that looked like faces on three of the sides of the main block- a block with a strangely orangey-skin-toned outside, though it was patterned oddly, and a smaller white square with tiny, colorful glimmering lights flashing cheerfully. At the foot of the weird T was a large chest.

Jesse raised her eyebrow, looking slightly bewildered. "What... is all this stuff?" she asked, everyone crowding around to get a better look.

"Soul Sand," Petra murmured, indicating the blocks with the weird faces, "it's everywhere in the Nether."

Jesse regarded the block in the middle, looking even more bewildered than before. "What about that block in the middle?" she asked, glancing at Evie as if she thought Evie might know. Of course, Evie didn't, so all she could do was shrug a bit.

"I've never seen one of these before," Olivia mumbled, squinting at the machine and hesitantly reaching up to touch it, "I wonder if I just... take a closer look..."

Evie focused more on Olivia. She had an expression almost like the one Axel had had while staring at the potion, except magnified to a scary degree. If Axel had looked hypnotized before, Olivia looked like she was possessed.

A chill shot down her back as Olivia murmured in wonder, "Do you feel that? It's almost... pulsing-"

"Don't touch that!"

The statement came out more like a desperate shout than she'd intended, Evie realized a second late as her shouted words echoed back to her. Everyone was staring at her again. Jesse in particular had started back, having been almost right next to Evie.

Olivia turned back to look at Evie with an almost startled expression, as if she'd forgotten that they were there. "I- I was just curious."

"Curiosity killed the cat," Aiden suddenly spoke up, making Axel scowl at him even more darkly than before, although the way he said it didn't seem to be mocking- just as if a thought had occurred to him.

Evie shook her head, feeling her cheeks flush red again in embarrassment. That had been much louder than she'd been intending. "The way you were looking at it... it was creepy." She shook her head, feeling that chill slowly fade away but a foreboding feeling still lingering. "Anything that can make someone stare at something like that isn't a good thing."

Jesse took an uneasy breath, gathering her thoughts and trying to appear less started. "Yeah. Don't forget what were here for. Find that skull," she said, regaining her composure. (Or, well, whatever composure Jesse did have.)

Olivia nodded and stepped back, as Jesse moved forward and lifted the lid to the chest. She'd barely taken a look inside when her eyes widened, and she leaned back, blinking in surprise. "Soo... good news, weird news."

Evie moved up the stairs to stand closer to the chest and looked over Jesse's shoulder into the chest- before her eyebrows shot up. Jesse continued, as the others began peeking into the chest themselves, "I found the skull, but..."

Petra scowled. "What the hell? Why'd I risk my neck for that skull if he's got two of them already? He was in such a hurry to get it, too." She paused, expression growing more uncertain. "There's gotta be something bigger going on here. Something we just don't see."

Maybe being nervous around this creepy block was doing it, or maybe it was because she didn't have Christina or Camry or Max breathing down her neck, or maybe it was just because she was with people that seemed to actually like her even though she wasn't a part of their groups, or, heck, maybe it was just because Evie read so many books in her spare time, but something suddenly clicked together in her head.

Soul Sand.

Three Wither Skulls.

Evie's eyes widened, things beginning to skitter into place.

Oh Notch.

"He's trying to build a Wither," she whispered.


A/N: Evie reads a loooooot, so she knows how to make a Wither, if not what all the ingredients look like. Seems that Petra's still a little suspicious, and Evie seems to be getting along with everyone! So far. That's pretty good...

Well, I mean, minus the whole Wither thing.

Responses to reviews! (Only on FFN though because I lost track of the ones I replied to on Quotev)

Lunar: Yep!

Princess of Muffins: He and Axel just do not get along xD / Yeah, Evie's fun to write. / (laughs) You're not the only one.

NoItsBecky: Ah, I see. / Oh I'm not confident at all, I'm completely petrified about publishing this story xD but Evie is the only MCSM OC I know of so far that has legit nothing special about her, except she's uber clumsy and extremely shy and pacifistic.

AquaK13: N'awww, glad you like her. / Haha, yeah! / Aww, you can get a hug. Evie likes hugging, although she's pretty shy. / (laughs) You're, like, the fifth person to say that.

EnderKitty68: Is it because Aiden seems to have a crush on her? xD

x.X. A.L. X.x