Jesse nearly jumped out of her skin every time the minecart turned a corner, sure that it was about to tip over by accident and dump her into the lava, where she'd undoubtedly die an extremely fiery, painful death.

Because even when not shooting over an ocean of boiling lava, they were travelling over ground that burned with numerous flames, or shooting past ghasts or Blazes, or– heaven forbid– passing within a hair's breadth of an open fire. At some points, Jesse actually actively had to lean away.

"Wow," Lukas said at last, his voice almost echoing in the empty space, "the Nether." From his tone, and the way he was looking around as if he'd never seen lava or fire before, he was like the Dead Enders and had never been to the Nether before.

Olivia peeped over the edge of her minecart timidly. "Yeah. That's a lot of lava. And fire. And other things that could burn you to death."

"Don't remind me," Jesse mumbled, attempting to sound like she was jokily annoyed and instead managing to emulate a strangled cat.

Lukas winced at Jesse. "Oh man, yeah, after last year... how you holding up so far?" he asked, sounding genuinely concerned for her well-being. "You doing okay?"

"Uh-huh. Yeah. I'm great." Her voice sounded faint even to her, and she turned at the dubious silence that followed to see Lukas giving Olivia and Axel a backwards look of concern. His look of concern was reflected in her best friends' faces, and she cleared her throat and tried again. This time, her voice sounded a little less like she was completely terrified.

Progress is progress, I suppose.

"Okay, fine, I'm not great, but I'm not dead yet, right?"

Reuben chose the perfect time to let out a terrified squeal, making Jesse whip back around to the front– and pale a little bit. Her heartbeat, coincidentally, sped up.

Because in front of them, the track dropped down into an incredibly steep mountain of a drop, the bottom of the track not anywhere in sight. For all Jesse knew, the drop would plunge them right into the lava.

Okay, the Order probably would not make a minecart system that would kill whoever rode it, but for all she knew it was some sort of intruder-prevention system and you had to go on a certain track to not die a very fiery death of lava.

Lukas let out a little squeak himself. "Oh, that's–" He cleared his throat, his voice having cracked into a high-pitched one that didn't sound anything like his regular voice, "that's a drop. That is very, very much a drop."

"What are you talking about, new guy? What drooooOH crap! You weren't kidding!" Axel exclaimed, sounding startled.

"Hang on!" Jesse shouted, fingers curling tightly on the rim of her minecart, just before the minecart hit the drop and they rocketed towards the track below at a speed that is probably not safe for human travel in the best of circumstances, let alone when you're above an ocean of lava.

What felt like minutes but was probably only two seconds later, the minecarts jolted violently as they suddenly leveled out, making Jesse gasp a little as the minecarts rattled dangerously, the makeshift train shooting into a tunnel so fast that Jesse could've sworn there was some g-force involved.

"DUCK!" Jesse yelled, even though she was super short and everyone could probably see the low wall hanging just above the minecart rims. They did as she commanded, all shrinking into their minecarts the best they could as the wall whipped by, making Jesse's hair flutter in the wind it generated. She tentatively poked her head back up–

"STAY DOWN!" she shouted again, and proceeded to pop back into the minecart like a human gopher or meerkat as another low wall shot past. There were no shouts of alarm or pain behind her, so she could only assume that they'd all stayed down like she'd asked.

When a few moments passed without any low walls passing, Jesse finally straightened back up, just as they exited the tunnel back over the sea of lava... to see that the track before them came to an abrupt stop at a lavafall.

Jesse's heart was now jackhammering against her chest so hard that it felt like someone was repeatedly punching her in the chest. Forcefully. At the speed of a moving train.

"Okay," and now even Axel sounded like he was struggling to keep from screaming hysterically, "so I'm not the only one that sees we're running out of track, right?"

"No," Lukas replied, shakily.

"Good!"

"Jesse, that switch!" Olivia shrieked, flailing one arm at Jesse frantically like she was trying to flag a taxi, "now! Do it!"

Swallowing so hard that she was fairly certain she'd just swallowed her uvula, Jesse tentatively leaned out of the cart, one arm stretching as far as she dared, her upper body starting to lean out over an ocean of lava... if she fell now, she'd definitely die...

Her hand slapped the switch, and the small girl let out a gasp of relief as she hauled herself back into the minecart, the carts screeching to a halt and jolting so badly that Jesse momentarily worried that she was going to get thrown out, before the carts began to descend. Jesse leaned over again, this time to see hundreds of pistons retracting in perfect sync and lowering them from the track.

Jesse let out a slightly hysterical giggle as she flopped back against the rim of her minecart. "Huh, wow! I thought something bad was going to happen there," she said, voice at least two octaves higher than it's normal pitch, but, heh, guess everything's gonna be– woah!" She was abruptly cut off as the carts abruptly started moving again, the carts splitting apart as the track split apart, jerking them aside with surprised shouts.

There was a loud shriek that sounded almost like a squeaky piston. Suspiciously, it faded away as soon as Axel was yanked by his track out of view and earshot.

And then suddenly Jesse was alone with Lukas.

Jesse blinked rapidly for a moment, before turning to face Lukas. "Should I be worried that we're gonna die now?" she asked, voice still two octaves higher than usual.

"Um–" Lukas cleared his throat again, looking slightly annoyed. His voice had just cracked into the higher-pitched voice again. "Probably not?"

"Ah, that's... that's comforting." Jesse's tone was faint as she tried to convince herself of this fact. (It should be noted that she was at her least convincing right about now, so that was not working.)

"Yeah." Lukas looked as if he wanted to say something else, looking at Jesse with the light of the lava below flickering and giving his face a spooky sort of underlighting, almost like he was a kid holding a flashlight under his face. He even opened his mouth a little bit, giving the smallest intake of breath, before pausing and then just shutting his mouth again, staring at Jesse uncertainly.

Jesse vaguely nodded, trying to calm her heartbeat to a slightly more regular pace and succeeding by the smallest amount, wondering what Lukas had been about to say. The eerie silence surrounding her so deafening that Jesse debated snapping her fingers to try to test if she'd suddenly gone deaf, except that she could still hear the minecarts rattling as they continued rushing down the track. "Well... least I'm not alone." And she gave the blonde a weak grin.

Lukas would probably have replied, except there was a sudden, terrified squeal, and Jesse and Lukas's heads snapped around to see Reuben's cart, a skeleton standing in the cart in front of him.

The carts she and Lukas were in suddenly spun on a small turn so that the tracks ran parallel to the one that Reuben was on, now within arm's reach. Jesse stood up in the cart, drawing her sword as she did so. "Hang on, Reuben!" she called to the little pink pig squealing as the skeleton aimed an arrow at him, at her little pig.

Lukas was giving her a look that, in the flickering lavalight, was a little hard to make out. Probably it was a disbelieving, annoyed, are-you-absolutely-freaking-bonkers look. You're not supposed to stand up in a moving minecart. Minecarts 101.

Jesse whacked the skeleton with her sword, making the skeleton turn the arrow on Jesse instead. Before it could fire the arrow at her, however, Jesse lashed out with her sword again, hitting it with such force that it toppled backwards out of the cart and straight into the lava below, the bow still tight in its bony grip as the lava consumed it.

"Reuben!" the girl said happily, the pig oinking at her cheerfully in return and hopping into Lukas's lap. (Lukas looked surprised but pleased at this development.) "Okay, guys, remember how I said everything was going to be just fine before? I know I was wrong then but I have a very good feeling about this– WHOA!" Jesse shrieked as a ghast shot over their heads and turned around to face her, two more floating to its side and backing it up.

Lukas gaped at them. Then he turned to face Jesse. "I think your feeling was wrong."

"Don't have to tell me twice. DUCK!" Jesse shrieked as the center ghast spit a flaming sphere at her, and she dodged down and huddled into the minecart, shutting her eyes and waiting for the fireball to hit her. Lukas ducked down too–

–and then Jesse felt a weird, slingshot sort of feeling on her sword as the fireball hit the blade, rebounded, and flew back to hit the ghast, making it flash red.

Jesse glanced at the blade in her hand. Then at the ghasts. And then she stood up again, eyes hardening.

The center one shot another flaming ball of... whatever-it-was at her, but Jesse swung her sword almost like a baseball bat and knocked it back, making it rebound to hit the ghasts again. This time, it flashed and fell into the lava below, dead before it burst into smoke. The one on her left spit another fireball out at her, but Jesse hit this one with ease, before pivoting and batting away the one that the ghast on the right sent her way. Both followed the middle ghast's example and toppled into the lava below.

"That was impressive," Lukas said, a little breathlessly as he emerged from his minecart, eyes the size of teacup saucers as he goggled at her. "Terrifying, but– impressive."

"Yeah, uh, ghasts are officially off my to-see list," Jesse agreed, plopping back into the minecart and seating herself again, "done with the ghasts. Never need to see them again ahhh crap."

The last two words were because she'd just spotted a ghast floating through a hole in a wall on the right that they were passing by.

The track, apparently deciding to torture them, promptly pivoted straight to the right, revealing that the set of tracks they were on went up and up... before running out entirely.

Lukas turned so pale that Jesse was starting to worry that if he got any paler, he'd be see-through. "Well... shi–"

His eyes flickered to Jesse automatically. "–ver me timbers and hoist the mainsail." He changed the swear so smoothly that if Jesse hadn't noticed the way his clear blue eyes had flicked to Jesse and widened slightly just a moment ago, she would've thought that was what he was going to say in the first place.

Jesse blinked at Lukas, eyes flicking from the staring ghast to Lukas. The ghast to make sure it didn't give her some sort of sneak attack, Lukas to make eye contact with him and let him know that she was being serious. "You do know that I'm fine with cursing, right? Axel curses, like, once a week."

"Well, in that case, s**t!"

Jesse would've laughed at that, except her heart was fluttering at the speed of light in her chest, and the ghast that had been staring at them now had red orbs for eyes as it spat a fireball at them. At the speed they were going, and the speed the fireball was going, though, it wouldn't hit Jesse's cart...

Lukas's eyes widened, and he picked a now frantically-squealing Reuben up, stood up– Jesse, her mind having been racing as fast as her heart, realized what he was doing and stood up herself–

– the blonde jumped into her cart and knocked the three of them back into a sitting position, Jesse practically perched in the blonde's lap now, just as the fireball plowed into the cart behind hers. The cart let out a screech as it was wrenched from the cart it was connected to, doing a flip before falling into lava.

"Sorry, Lukas, now you have no room," Jesse apologized, trying to shift so that she wasn't sitting on his lap. Because that, uh... that was really awkward.

"No, it's fine." Lukas was attempting to shift as well, his cheeks finally growing red from the heat– it probably didn't help that he was wearing a leather jacket– and the two of them managed to end up with both of them sitting on their heels with Reuben sandwiched in between Jesse and the front of the minecart.

The minecart abruptly pivoted again and began travelling up the track that ran out.

"This is bad, this is bad, this is BAD!" Jesse screamed, just as the minecart flew right off the tracks and into open air, right past the ghast's face. It slowly watched as they flew past, time seeming to slow down as the ghast came within arm's reach. Lukas could've reached out and touched it if he'd wanted, but he was gripping the sides of the minecarts so tightly his knuckles had turned pure white, Jesse had one arm squeezing the life out of Reuben, and her free hand was clinging for dear life to the front rim of the minecart.

Gravity slowly took ahold of the cart again, and the cart plummeted for a short stretch before slamming back down onto more tracks and ramming straight into the one in front of them, with such force that the connectors engaged.

Olivia and Axel both pivoted in perfect unison to look at them.

For a few moments, there was utter silence as Axel and Olivia stared at them and Lukas, Jesse, and Reuben stared back. Finally, Jesse gave a little gasp, heart still jackhammering away. Thankfully, at the moment they weren't over any lava or near any fire, so it was at least at a more manageable pace than before. Otherwise Jesse would've been a little worried that her heart was going to explode. "Is..." she let out a shaky little exhale. At least they were still alive. "Is everyone okay?"

There was a short pause.

"I mean, I'm not dead," Axel said at last, turning back around to face the front. "I guess that's pretty good."

"Ditto," and Olivia gave an almost distracted nod. "Ditto on the not dead."

"I just can't believe Petra comes down here all the time," Lukas breathed, looking visibly shaken. Actually, now that Jesse was right up against him, his face was pale in the firelight, his hair was messy and starting to stick up in odd areas, and his left hand was shoved so deep into his left pocket that it looked almost like he was going to rip the very fabric of said pocket. She'd never seen Lukas so... not put-together.

After a few moments, Lukas let out a chuckle. "Your throat's gonna be sore later, Axel," he informed the burly boy, lips forming into a trembly smile as he tried to calm himself down.

"Why?"

"I'm just saying," and Lukas was now giving a little smile that didn't look like it was going to fall off his face after a few seconds, "wasn't that you doing all that screaming before? Sounded like you were really shredding your larynx."

Olivia twisted to see Lukas, eyes slightly wide as a nervous little smile came over her own face. "Oh yeah. I heard that too. Really high-pitched? Kind of like a squeaky piston?"

So that had been Axel.

"What?" the burly boy muttered grouchily from where he was at the front, refusing to face them. "No. Shut up."

Lukas let out a little chuckle. "Never mind. Must've been something else," he replied, although he was still grinning broadly at the little joke.

Jesse finally regained her voice, speaking in a tone that was so casual that you'd never know that her heart was currently beating in overdrive. "You know those experiences that people have that they... y'know, remember and reminisce upon for the rest of their lives?"

"Yeah?" Axel asked, sounding almost confused.

Jesse's voice became dead serious as she said the next part, her grip slowly loosening on Reuben so that she didn't squeeze the life out of him. (Her little pig let out a grateful oink.) "This? This isn't one of those. Let's never talk about this ever again."

"I vote aye on that plan," Lukas said.

"I'm fine with that." Olivia's voice sounded a little weaker than usual, but the redstone-engineer-in-training definitely didn't seem as scared as Jesse felt. Or as Lukas looked. I mean, really. He looked a hot mess right about now.

"Yeah, I'm down, too," Axel agreed.

The minecarts rattled on.


A/N: Whoof, this chapter's done! Very happy about that.

I'm currently working on three projects other than fanfiction. One is a secret until Valentine's Day– it's my gift to Toni– two is Phantasmagoria, which has been renamed Phantasmata because reasons, and three is a different thing that I'm kinda excited to start.

Don't worry, I'll still upload fanfiction chapters. Just at a slightly slower pace than normal, I guess. x3

Well, they've survived the Nether so far, with... very few instances of Jesse's blood pressure going through the roof, surprisingly. (Probably a bit distracted from the minecart ride.)

Responses to reviews!

LunarTheMooncake: (laughs) It's fine. And yes, he is being nice!

NoItsBecky: (pats) / Right? I would've died LONG before this point. xD

homeworkoverload: Nyaaaah x3 / Who cares? Just ask. xD / Lol, nice!

Princess of Muffins: Surprisingly you are not the only person to comment that so far, I think someone else also said that when Toni announced it on Movie Mode. xD / Hehehe / Aw, thanks, I think xD Apparently everybody else knew the ship was serious before we did xD / LOL / Ooh, nice! And yes, she's very fearful. / Ivor is... Ivor. (That's all I can really say right now to be honest xD)

EllieRose27: Thanks! / (pats)

AquaK13: haha, truuue. / She's got more luck than the Ultimate Lucky Student at this point– whether that be Komaeda or Naegi– so she should be fine. xD / Jesse's worried she'll probably lose your ring, but she appreciates the sentiment x3 / Thank you :3 / (laughs)

Emily The Avenger: toniza

TheAmberShadow: Yes. Actually, that is the reason I picked the Tin Soldier. There's so much fire in almost every episode that it's actually hilarious. xD / Well, at the rate I'm going, I think we find out in... yeah, we find out either next chapter or the chapter after. / (snorts) / Hehehe, true!

Toni42: x3 / Yeah, I was just like "what curse do I give Jesse" and the Tin Soldier fit her personality, so I picked it... and then I realized just how much fire there is throughout the entire series, so I was like "Yep, we're going with this and torturing Jesse. Sorry Jesse." xD / Awww, I love you too :3 / Ye!

That's all for now! See ya, so long, and g'bye!

x.X. A.L. X.x