The entire group looked around, but Lukas was nowhere to be seen. Aiden's eyes widened a little, his expression turning to one of slight panic. "I... I thought he was right behind me!"

"Well," Axel spoke up, frowning thoughtfully, "if he's not here, the only place he could be... is..." He trailed off, eyes widening as he realized what that meant, and the entire group turned in perfect tandem to stare at the still-open door, now practically shrouded in shadows.

"He's still down there," Jesse whispered, eyes wider than dinner plates.

Petra turned back to the group, anxiety dancing in her eyes. "Ivor's got an iron golem and all the ingredients to build a Wither down there. If he were to unleash it on this crowd of people..." she trailed off like Axel had, a shadow of fear momentarily crossing her face. "We've gotta act fast."

"It just so happens," Olivia jerked her head over her shoulder, "that the greatest warrior of all time is in the building. We should ask Gabriel for help. This is the smartest way to help Lukas."

Evie felt a little skeptical about that. (Or maybe that was just the throbbing in her skull talking.) What if Gabriel didn't believe them? Or what if Ivor got up here before Gabriel could do anything? Or what if... agh, she might've gotten a concussion earlier.

"He's tough," Petra agreed, "I just hope he's tough enough to hold out a little bit longer."

"I'm going after Lukas-" Jesse cut herself off and stared at Aiden, who'd started speaking at the exact same time she had. Same thing, too! Aiden, for his part, looked startled that he and Jesse were having the same thought process.

Olivia frowned a bit, deciding to ignore that fact for now. "If both of you go... there's a pretty high chance you'll get caught. Or worse, you'll both get stuck down there. I think only one of you should head down there."

"Then I'll go." Once again, Jesse and Aiden spoke in a perfect chorus, and the two of them glanced at one another again.

Evie had to hide a grin. The two of them were really quite similar, even if they themselves didn't seem to realize it.

Petra frowned. "Then again... it might be helpful to have backup. After all, there is an iron golem down there."

"Just send Aiden and the rest of us can go get Gabriel," Axel said, almost dismissively.

"But the only reason Lukas is even in the basement right now is because we dragged him into it," Jesse argued back, which made both Aiden and Axel stare at her as if she'd grown a second head. "I can't- we can't- just leave him down there."

"Hear hear!" Evie half-joked, as the throbbing in her head dulled to at least a small complaint. At least it didn't hurt as much as before. And the rest of her body wasn't in as much pain as it was in before.

"I still-" Aiden began, but Jesse proceeded to cut him off.

"Nope. No. I'll go get Lukas. He's stuck in the basement because we dragged you guys into this. You guys go get Gabriel." To further emphasize the point, she made a little shooing motion with her hands.

Aiden hesitated, before glancing uncertainly at Evie.

Jesse took the opportunity to bolster her point. "Plus! Plus Evie practically got a concussion earlier!"

Evie had to grin at how almost eager Jesse was- even though she knew where the shorter girl was going, it almost sounded like she was eager that Evie had practically gotten a concussion.

"You should keep an eye on her and make sure she doesn't get more hurt!" Jesse paused, before shooting Evie a slightly sheepish grin as she realized she'd just accidentally insulted the other girl. "Uh, sorry."

"No, no, it's fine. You have a point. I have a... slightly funny tendency of getting hurt." Speaking of getting hurt, her gashed elbow was starting to sting now, reminding her that oh yeah- that was a thing, too. "I could go walking down the street and I'd probably fall forward facefirst and break my nose."

Everyone winced at that.

Really, it wasn't that bad... it had actually happened one time, now that Evie thought about it, but in her defense she hadn't been paying much attention to the road and had tripped on a rock and down a step. At least her nose had healed pretty quickly.

"Uh... yeah, let's make sure that doesn't happen," Aiden said at last, giving Jesse a nod. He paused, as if he wanted to say something, before lifting his hand and pointing at Jesse. "I swear, if the blonde child has one injury when he gets back here-"

Evie very nearly lost it at that point. Blonde child. Really, Aiden was such a softy that it was easy to forget that he'd been a complete jerk when they'd first met. It probably didn't help that her head was still a bit muddled up from its enthusiastic greeting with the stone floor in Ivor's basement. As it was, she basically had to bury her head in her hands to keep herself from bursting into hysterical giggles.

When her fit of giggles finally subsided, she let her hands drop to see Jesse and Reuben moving towards the door again, while the entire group began to weave their way through the crowd in an attempt to reach Gabriel, and she quickly moved to follow their example.

Unfortunately, the crowd was so tightly knit together, and everyone was so intent on trying to reach the stage as well, that it was nearly impossible to force their way through the crowd, and they merely ended right back where they'd started while Gabriel opened up the floor for questions.

"Okay- what now?" Axel huffed, looking frustrated. "I don't think that's going to work."

"No, really?" Petra whispered back, sounding slightly frustrated.

"So, um, you know, with the Ender Dragon," one of the audience members started babbling as the entire group lapsed into silence, trying to think of a proper method of getting through the tight-knit crowd, "and, uh, the fight, uh... what was Ellegaard's favorite food?"

There was a good, three second pause.

"Bread. Next question!"

Aiden coughed, clapping one hand over his mouth and stifling a loud snort. He fully expected that Evie would join in- either giggle or snicker- so he was a bit surprised when she didn't.

He suddenly froze. Wait, where was Evie? She definitely wasn't next to him. He checked over his shoulder, just in case she was standing behind him. No luck there.

He straightened up, scanning the crowd and frowning. No, he didn't see even Evie's wavy hair... although, Evie was such an average height, and she looked so average from the back, that she could have been standing five feet in front of him and he probably wouldn't have blinked twice. "Uhh... does anyone happen to know where Evie is?"

There was a moment of silence from the rest of the group as they realized that no, Evie had gone missing. Again.


Actually, Evie wasn't missing- she was currently crawling between people's legs and moving determinedly towards the stage that way. Most of the people shifted aside as she squeezed through.

Once again, Evie was so incredibly grateful for the fact that she was not a particularly big person.

After a good minute, she finally reached a clear area that didn't seem to be blocked with more people, and scrambled to her feet, making some people murmur in surprise as she abruptly popped up from the ground- right in front of the stage.

I'm here! Yes! Evie grinned jubilantly to herself and almost did a little dance in place from how excited she was that her plan had worked, before deciding to celebrate later (and surely embarrass herself in the mirror, at home, by herself) and figure out how to get him to believe them... and head down to the basement.

Was that the plan? Evie really wasn't sure. She just got that they needed Gabriel to stop Ivor from doing... whatever he was doing with his Wither ingredients. She really couldn't figure out WHY he was making a Wither and unleashing it at Endercon.

Well, now was not really the time to be worrying about this, so she decided to focus on at least getting Gabriel to believe her about... everything that was happening. Man, did she really expect today to be an uneventful one this morning when she woke up?

Gabriel was still answering questions, so she decided to try to get his attention this way, and raised her hand like a schoolkid trying to answer a question.

Okay, so it was a bit childish to just raise her hand to ask a question, but she wasn't just going to shout out and interrupt the other people who were asking questions.

"... no, Magnus and I never... uh..." Gabriel coughed awkwardly, and now Evie was paying attention to what he was actually saying rather than her own inner pondering, she could see that his cheeks were darkening awkwardly. "We didn't... ah... next question!" he blurted at last, looking incredibly awkward.

Evie had to wonder what the question had been.

"Um, you! With the..." Gabriel paused, eyes falling on Evie. There was a few seconds of pause. "... bleeding... elbow."

Evie blinked before checking her elbow. Yep- the arm she'd raised to get his attention was the one she'd bruised/gashed on the anvil in the basement. Quickly, she put her arm down again, giving a slightly awkward cough. "Oh. Uh," she paused, not sure exactly how to phrase this. She could hardly say, "There's a creepy guy in the basement of this building who's planning on doing bad stuff and we need to stop him."

"... pardon?"

... had she just said that aloud?

Evie felt her cheeks grow extremely hot at that. Well, if she was already at this point...

Gabriel arched his eyebrow at Evie, slightly skeptically. The way he was looking at her made it abundantly clear that he'd heard her clearly. And that he understood what she was saying.

But that he didn't believe her.

Well, not like she could blame him, it sounded quite absurd when she said it aloud. Especially when she was deliberately vague about the Wither and said 'bad stuff' instead.

She took a deep breath and said, trying to sound less nervous and frightened than she felt- I mean, every single person's eyes were fixated upon her right now, and there was, you know, the threat of having Ivor actually make his way up here and unleash the 'bad stuff' he was doing on every single person in this hall and probably beyond because Withers are seriously dangerous, so, no pressure, right?- and failing miserably at it, "Every person in this building is in a lot of danger right now."

Gabriel frowned at her as a nervous murmur spread through the crowd. "Now, hang on- if this is your idea of a joke, it isn't funny."

Evie stared at the warrior, slightly unimpressed. She had a bloody elbow, her head was throbbing, there was probably multiple bruises forming on her body, and her voice had sounded like an opera singer doing an impressive vibrato and falsetto at the same time, and yet he thought she was joking? Did she actually look like the type of person to pull that type of practical joke on someone?

Maybe she did. She wouldn't really know.

This is what she gets for not socializing with people.

"Dude, she's got a bleeding elbow and she practically has a concussion right now, do you seriously think she's trying to make a joke?!"

Evie almost jumped at the sound of Axel's voice booming out behind her. When had he gotten there? When she checked over her shoulder, his expression was slightly disgruntled at the idea.

"I'm really not joking," she said, a little more meekly.

"I have a question."

Evie froze, shoulders tensing up at the sound of the unfortunately familiar voice. When had he gotten up here?!

Oh, wait. He'd probably used the secret passage. Never mind that question.

Turning to see where he was, she blinked at the sight of Jesse and Lukas quietly rejoining the group, standing just behind them. They must've gotten out fine, though.

"Excuse me, sir," Gabriel spoke, turning from Evie in the direction of the voice, "you'll have to wait your turn."

"Just tell me, first. Do you really believe anyone can be great?"

Gabriel's eyes narrowed slightly, looking almost annoyed at the intrusion. "With enough hard work, yes."

"Was that where I went wrong?!" Ivor spit as he emerged from the crowd, dark blue eyes practically blazing with anger, "I simply didn't work hard enough?!"

Gabriel froze suddenly, looking startled. "Ivor?" he gasped, looking shocked at the sight of the man. "Is... is that really you?"

Evie's brow wrinkled- they knew each other?

A moment later, Gabriel got over his moment of shock, shooting a sharp glare at the man. "How dare you interrupt like this!"

"That's the guy who attacked us-" Jesse made a circling motion to indicate the whole group, all of them staring from Ivor to Gabriel as she shouted to the warrior, "in the basement!"

Gabriel let out an almost venomous growl. "I wish I could say I was surprised," he spoke, almost bitterly.

"If it's surprises you want," Ivor remarked, voice practically dripping with sarcasm as he moved onto the stage, "you're in for a treat. Why don't you tell them the real story, Gabriel?" He spit out the last word as if he'd just ingested a Potion of Poison.

The warrior narrowed his eyes at Ivor. "I see time has made you bitter."

Evie felt her heart pounding away in her chest. This confrontation was getting oddly heated; she wished they would stop. It was getting far more intense than she would've liked.

"And it's made you," Ivor snarled, as he stalked across the stage and got right up in Gabriel's face, "an even bigger fool."

Evie suddenly was stricken by the fact that Ivor was a few inches shorter than Gabriel, he was much thinner and less strong, and his face was pale to the point where it was actually unhealthy, and yet... yet the way he was glaring at Gabriel as if he'd like to kill the man made him seem as if he was on a level playing field with the warrior.

"Now, these people were promised greatness," Ivor sneered, putting his arm around Gabriel's shoulders and glaring out at the crowd. Gabriel almost flinched away from Ivor's touch as if he was a slime. "And I'm ready to deliver."

Dropping his arm from Gabriel's shoulder, Ivor stalked towards the back of the stage, where a lever was sitting on a block. "I'm sorry this is how they have to learn the truth."

"Gabriel, you have to stop him!" Jesse almost screamed at the warrior in her panic, even as Evie was considering the note of actual apology that was hiding at the back of the snarl he'd just delivered- maybe it was just her imagination, or her slight concussion playing tricks on her- but it was too late. The switch made a dull thudding sound, and the ingredients for the Wither slowly rose out of the floor, two of the Wither Skulls already placed at the ends.

"But nothing built can last forever, Gabriel."

"Ivor, no!"

The world began to move slowly. Fragmented moments assaulting Evie as time seemed to slow to a crawl. Gabriel moving towards the other man to stop him. Ivor reaching into his pocket to pull out a Wither Skull- Petra's skull. A pale hand reaching up, the Wither Skull in his hand as he moved to place it on the center, on top of the weird block. Gabriel's arm reaching out to yank Ivor back.

The inch of space between the skull and the ingredients closing as the skull made contact with the ingredients for the Wither.

And then there was a blast that sent the front rows of the audience reeling back, knocking Gabriel and Ivor off the stage and onto the ground, ripping through the slow motion that had enveloped the world in those last few moments.

Despite the fear that was currently racing through Evie's blood, one thought immediately swam to the surface.

Well, I think we are going to die now.


A/N: Evie is honestly not wrong, that is a very accurate way of thinking at this moment xD

Two comments last time! NEW RECORD! xD

LunarTheMooncake: lUkAs hAs bEeN hElPeD xD

NoItsBecky: Hahahaha, I'm glad you noticed x3

x.X. A.L. X.x