"Excuse me, sir," Gabriel said impatiently. Now that Jesse was paying attention and not trying to stifle an explosion of laughter at Axel's... interesting way of trying to get Gabriel's attention, Gabriel was starting to develop a slight tic in his right eye, and there was a slight edge to his voice. He must've been getting bombarded with questions earlier. "You'll have to wait your turn."

"Just tell me first," Ivor continued, Jesse glancing over her shoulder and searching for the alchemist– she could only assume that was what he did, seeing all the potions in his basement– but finding nobody.

Which wasn't that surprising in itself. Jesse was short.

"Do you really believe anyone can be great?"

Gabriel's eyes narrowed a bit, clearly annoyed. Jesse was willing to bet that he was starting to regret– hey, that was another rhyme– coming here for the keynote. "With enough hard work, yes."

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

The warrior's facial expression changed to one of shock as he stepped backwards, perhaps on reflex. "Ivor?" he gasped, Ivor walking purposefully towards the stage. "Is that really you? What happened..." Gabriel trailed off, composing himself and getting over the shock, before levelling a glare at the black-haired man. "How dare you interrupt like this."

"That's the guy who attacked us in the basement!" Olivia exclaimed, pointing at Ivor and looking at Gabriel.

Petra looked as if she wanted to add many more... colorful descriptors to that, but through what looked like a tremendous amount of will, she managed to just clench her teeth together.

The warrior glared at Ivor, crossing his arms. It came to Jesse's mind that it was almost like a petulant child's reaction. "I wish I could say I was surprised," he growled at the other man.

"If it's surprises you want, you're in for a treat," Ivor replied, voice practically dripping with venom as he climbed the stairs to the stage. "Why don't you tell them the real story, Gabriel?" The way he spoke Gabriel's name... it was as if someone had just stuck a foul piece of food in his mouth, or some other foul substance.

"I see time has made you bitter," Gabriel said calmly. Jesse didn't know how he could stay so calm while Ivor was glaring at him like that.

"And it's made you," Ivor was now on stage and standing within arm's reach of Gabriel. Heck, if he'd wanted to, he could've punched the warrior. "An even bigger fool." He turned to face the crowd, putting his arm around Gabriel's shoulder and giving every single member of the audience an icy stare. Gabriel looked about as happy as if someone had dropped a venomous snake on his shoulders. "Now, these people were promised greatness, and I'm ready to deliver."

Jesse's head was spinning, and her glass heart, for the fifty-thousandth time today, was pounding so hard she could easily feel it through her shirt. He'd let her go, he'd been almost nice just now, he hadn't looked this angry even when he'd discovered them in his basement...

What was going on?

Ivor let his arm fall off of Gabriel's shoulders and strode purposefully towards the back of the stage. "I'm sorry this is how they have to learn the truth," he said, almost bitterly.

"Gabriel, you have to stop him!" Jesse almost screamed at the warrior– forget being polite, forget trying to keep everyone from panicking, every single person in this room was in the most danger they'd ever been in– but before he could do anything, Ivor flipped a lever that had been resting on a red beam. The ingredients for the Wither steadily rose out of the floor, two of the Wither Skulls already resting on top of it.

"But nothing built can last forever, Gabriel."

Gabriel's eyes widened as it finally, too late, dawned on him what Ivor was going to do. "Ivor, no!" he yelled, starting towards the back of the stage as Ivor took out the final skull– Petra's skull, it had to be, the other two looked older, not as fresh, because Petra's had been acquired that day– and set it in the center, on top of the weird, machine-like block.

An explosion blasted through the front rows, knocking everyone in range a few steps back and throwing Gabriel and Ivor off of the stage, thick, black smoke rising from the stage.

The Wither rose, three black heads staring blankly at every person in the audience, spine dangling towards the floor, and ribcage clamping onto the still-glowing machine-like block. Ivor, who was on the floor, clambered to his feet, staring at the Wither. Jesse couldn't see his facial expression. "Creature: attack!"

The block suddenly flashed at the order, and the Wither started flying around the building. Too late– far, far too late, as people finally realized how much danger they were actually in– the audience began to scream, terrified shrieks echoing through the hall, shoving and stampeding for the exit in a panic.

Jesse suddenly found herself being shoved along in the mass of people, Reuben no longer anywhere near her, no Lukas, no Petra, no Axel, no Olivia, no anybody. "Guys?!" she shouted in panic, even as she was being forced along towards the doors.

Even though she was completely surrounded by people, she felt completely alone right now.

Desperately, she squeezed through the crowd, gently elbowing her way through until she abruptly reached a clear area.

She was relieved beyond belief to see that so far, all of her friends were okay, though perhaps a little frightened. Gabriel was on his feet, eyes wide as he stared at the creature, Reuben was letting out a frightened squeal, Petra looked as if she'd just gotten sucker-punched, Olivia was gnawing at her nails so badly that Jesse was tempted to yank her hand away before Olivia bit away the nails completely and just ended up with blood all over her hands, Axel was muttering something under his breath, and Lukas appeared frozen in terror.

Honestly, Jesse could relate– her heart was now going faster than the piston that Olivia had wired wrong one time and it had just started extending and retracting at the speed of light. It had had considerable force behind it, too.

The Wither turned to stare directly at Jesse– and then promptly spit out a flaming skull.

Fear shot through Jesse with the speed and force of a gunshot, adrenaline promptly taking control of her instincts. Before she knew it, she was diving out of the way in the nick of time as the skull detonated and leaving a crater where there was previously floor. Clawing her way back into a standing position, Jesse was just in time to dodge another one of the grinning skulls.

Lukas suddenly let out a gasp and staggered back a few steps, as a block in the floor beneath him shook violently as it was sucked out of the floor, soaring towards the Wither–

Which seemed to absorb it.

The walls were beginning to fall apart as the monster sucked blocks that composed the walls towards it, as well as a poster, a vase, some carpet, and soon there was a hurricane of objects being sucked up into the Wither, adding what looked like black, shadowy stuff to it.

"Everyone, stay calm!" Gabriel shouted, drawing a diamond sword, "this foul beast is no match for me!"

Ivor lifted his arm and pointed at Gabriel, staring at the creature. He looked almost like a child tattling on another one. "Creature: attack!" he repeated.

The machine-like block flashed again, and the Wither slowly turned to face Gabriel. The warrior leaped into the air– much higher than Jesse would've been able to manage– and slammed the diamond blade into the glowing block.

The blow didn't even dent the block– actually, on the contrary, a shockwave of force slammed into Gabriel and sent him crashing to the floor, sword skittering out of reach.

Axel made an odd, strangled sound at the back of his throat.

"What have you done...?" Gabriel groaned as he shook his head, pushing himself into a painful sitting position.

"Gabriel–" Jesse started towards the warrior, trying to help him up, offer him assistance, as pitiful as it might be, do anything

"No!" the warrior jolted to his feet, whirling around to face Jesse. Fear was written into every line of his face as he regarded the much-shorter girl. "Stay away! It's after me, not you!"

Gabriel wasn't currently facing Jesse, so he didn't see the Wither firing one of the flaming skull-bombs at him. The shorter girl quickly lunged forward, seized his arm, and dragged him sideways, the entire group darting over a few steps to avoid the bomb detonating another crater in the floor. At this rate, they'd be standing on an island of floor.

"Look at him, the mighty Gabriel!" Ivor taunted, dark blue eyes glinting with... something. It was another one of those looks that Jesse couldn't recognize, but unlike the others, Jesse wasn't sure she wanted to figure out what it was. "Looks like true greatness is out of his reach. He may not be able to defeat this creature, but I can!"

The alchemist– or– well, whatever he was– turned to face the Wither. "Creature: retreat!" he said aloud, raising his voice to be heard above the howling sound that the wind that all of the sucked-up items were creating.

Jesse looked up at the Wither automatically, just to see what it did–

Something caught in her lungs. It might've been her breath. It might've been her heart. Heck, if her heart had still been in her body, she was sure it would've migrated up to her throat by now.

The Wither's center head had morphed into something right out of a nightmare. It was the same shade of black, but now there was a single, glowing, indigo eye where before there had been two. The head had morphed into something strange and animalistic, the mouth now an uneven gash in the monster's head that went almost all the way around the skull. The 'lips' of the creature were parted enough to reveal almost blue teeth, all looking clumsy but carnivorous and slightly rotted.

Besides looking as if it had just come from Jesse's worst nightmare, it did nothing except turn to face Ivor.

Ivor cleared his throat, a little more uncertainly. Was that a flicker of fear in his eyes? "Creature– retreat," he tried again, enunciating his words more carefully.

Now the Wither simply started drifting towards Ivor.

Now the man looked extremely bothered– almost scared, really.

It occurred to Jesse that there was something off about Ivor. Not the same thing that was off about Lukas, although she couldn't place quite what that was either, but definitely something was off about him.

But for the life of her, she couldn't tell what it was. Especially while not being in the middle of what felt like a hurricane, with wooden blocks flying from the walls and swirling around before slamming into the Wither, which didn't seem troubled by being hit by every block in a twenty-yard radius and was, in fact, absorbing it.

Ivor swallowed– if he'd done it any harder or louder, it would've been a gulp. "Uh– no need to be alarmed, my friends."

For there being 'no need to be alarmed', he sounded pretty alarmed.

"I have an elixir that will destroy this creature."

Jesse's head snapped up, and she twisted over her shoulder wide-eyed at Axel.

An elixir... a potion.

Ivor pulled out a purple potion, and Axel paled as he realized what Jesse was looking so panicked about. "Uh-oh."

The older man yanked out the cork and hurled the potion at the glowing block. It smashed into a miniature explosion of purple smoke, but– as expected– the Wither remained completely unharmed. Ivor, if possible, turned even paler than before, eyes widening as he took a half-step back in shock. "W-what? Impossible!" he muttered, as if to himself, "it should've worked– I took such care– the Command Block shouldn't still be–!"

"The potion– Axel, you have to throw the real potion!" Olivia hissed at the burly boy, eyes widening in fear. Some of her curly hair was blowing around so fiercely that Jesse half-expected her ponytail holders to come flying off.

Axel frowned. "But... finders keepers!"

"You thieves, you're ruining everything!" Ivor snapped, having apparently heard this remark.

Lukas shot Axel a white-faced look of disbelief, and Petra looked as if she might punch him.

Axel reluctantly pulled out the glowing, purple potion. Jesse snatched it out of his hands so fast that she nearly dropped it on the floor, before she turned on her heel and pulled her arm back in a throwing position, taking aim as quickly as she could. "Jesse, throw it!" Olivia commanded her, loudly, in order to be heard over the howling wind.

Jesse threw it as hard as she could, the potion soaring straight at the Command Block–

A strange, black skin crawled over the Command Block and shielded it from view just before the potion bottle hit the block and shattered, a miasma of purple and silver and gold smoke rising from where the potion had shattered.

"It's protecting itself...!" Ivor muttered, horror shining in his eyes. "Without the Command Block exposed, the potion is useless... it wasn't supposed to happen like this..." He backed away a step. And then another.

Petra let out a furious snarl at that. "Oh, no you d–"

Before she could finish the statement, Ivor turned tail and fled.

Petra growled, glaring after Ivor furiously. She stood her ground, though, eyes practically smoldering with anger as she turned back to the matter at hand. She looked as if she wanted to chase him down and then punch his teeth in.

"Ivor!" Gabriel practically roared after the other man, his own eyes glinting with anger, "you coward, get back here!"

But Ivor did not come back.

Abruptly, a purple-indigo beam fell on the warrior, and he let out an alarmed shout as he began getting lifted into the air by the beam. Olivia sprinted forward and seized one of his legs, but her own feet started lifting off the floor. "Jesse, help me!" she yelled, the shorter girl sprinting forward and grabbing ahold of the other leg without hesitation. After a few seconds of tug of war with the beam, Jesse and Olivia succeeded, and Gabriel toppled out of the beam to the floor.

Jesse offered him her hand, and the warrior heaved himself back to his feet. (He almost yanked Jesse on top of him, and he probably would've if she wasn't expecting him to be so forceful and dug her heels in. As it was, she nearly lost her balance.) "Thank you," he told her gratefully, before his lips pressed into a thin line and he glanced back at the Wither, which looked about the size of Jesse's treehouse by now. "Ivor was right about one thing... I can't defeat that thing. Not by myself."

He now looked at the gang as if he was truly seeing them for the first time. "Everyone's running away... except for you." He considered whatever his idea was for a moment, staring at the five of them, before he gave a slight, determined nod. "Will you help me? I must get to the temple... but what comes next, I can't do alone."

Jesse's heart was thudding away in her chest with such force that she was worried that it was going to go right through her pocket, her hands were trembling, and she was out of breath.

After this was all over, Jesse thought back and realized that she could've declined, of course. Could've told him no! because she was terrified and felt like she might just faint if she actually thought about what was happening, the chaos currently surrounding her, the howling wind around her. Could've let someone else step forward and agree, let herself be lead along like a lamb. Like Petra, for example. Petra was braver than she was. And Petra's heart wasn't made of glass.

But in that moment, surrounded by a hurricane of flying objects, glass heart beating away so hard that if it went any harder or faster it would shatter into a million pieces from the inside out, it never even occurred to her to say no.

"Of course!"

Gabriel gave a satisfied nod. "Follow me!" he shouted, and the entire group turned tail and, following the example of everyone else who'd been in the keynote, sprinted away as quickly as they could, the howling of a supernatural, living storm catching up to them with every step they took, no matter how quickly they moved, no matter how fast they ran.

Even as Jesse followed them, she couldn't help thinking that her Fairytale Curse was 'The Steadfast Tin Soldier.'

The soldier, even when thrown into a fire, even when he was thrown out a window, was steadfast in his attempts to get back to the ballerina. He faced death without any change in expression. He did everything he could to get back to the ballerina. He was brave.

But Jesse had never been more afraid.


A/N: Excitement~

Okay, so here's a planned update schedule– I'm going to update this story until I get bored of it, then move onto HCM and update that until I get bored, then move onto Composite and update until I get bored, then move onto Minecraft: Normal Mode and Just a Game and update those until I get bored. Wash, rinse, repeat. xD

Don't worry– if you're waiting for Hybrid: Cinematic Mode, I have plenty of stuff planned. I just don't have any interest in working on it right now, and, well, fanfiction is fun for me, not a chore. I don't want it to ever become something that I feel like I have to do, like washing the dishes or vacuuming. If I try to write stuff that I'm not fully invested in writing, I feel like it will feel forced and won't read as smoothly, and that wouldn't be good for you guys or me.

So yeah. Fairytale Curse until I get bored, and then so on so forth. xD

Responses to reviews!

NoItsBecky: (shrugs) / Trust me, so many people are going to be angry with me when I get to a certain point xD but thank you.

LunarTheMooncake: (pats) / Hehe~

ShiningHopeBeast: (laughs) If you were, I would suggest more of a 'hrm' than a 'hmm' xD

TheAmberShadow: (snorts) Jesse's pants HAVE caught on fire before. / Indeed I am xD / Don't throw anything at Petra, unless you're in a dangerous situation or you're playing catch. / (chuckles) / Very true! xD / Guess what? / No. xD Not a bad guess, though. / Hugs~ / Well, also, he's taller and can probably attract Gabriel's attention more easily. / No. xD

J.M.M.: (laughs) / (blinks)

AquaK13: (laughs) Sorry, I update fast. / Hehe / (shrugs) / (laughs) You'll see why I said there's 'no Lukesse' earlier...

Toni42: Indeed xD / :3

That's all for now!

x.X. A.L. X.x