LOCATION: 10,000 BLOCKS FROM THE ENDER KINGDOM

TIME: 4:12 PM

Third Person PoV

The leaves moved softly as the cool afternoon breeze fluttered in between them. The sun was high in the sky, the birds were singing, the clouds were drifting slowly and lazily through the air. It was a perfect, unspoilt oasis of life in Minecraftia. At least, it was until they came.

*Loud Explosion*

"Uhh, what was that?" asked Steve as Vanessa's cart thundered across the ground at an insane speed.

"All that remains of a perfect, unspoilt oasis, I think." finalised Cupa. "This thing has terrible suspension, Vanessa. I've already dropped enough TNT to blast a mountain into space."

"This-this thing is utterly terrifying! You are just one of those people that scare the shit out of me sometimes, you know that right?" shouted Stephanie over the loud sound of metal wheels against stone. The cart was so heavy and so fast it was cutting through the dirt layer through to the stone below, and Vanessa loved every minute of it.

"I. Fucking. Love. This. Cart! It wouldn't have been possible without that engine plan, thank you so much for finding it, Cupa!" She smiled at her.

"Yeah, thank you so much, Cupa." Steve and Yaebi said at the same time, with the same amount of sarcasm: too much.

"Where are the others? I hope they didn't get lost." asked Andr, who was looking out the side and checking her Voxelmap tablet they had built for navigating the Nether. Suddenly, there was another explosion, and Sera's cart burst out of the ground, the drill on the front spinning and sending mined debris everywhere. Andr looked over, and saw the others aboard her cart were not having nearly as much fun as Sera herself.

"Well, that's just great! They're over there! And it looks like they dug into a lava lake somewhere underground, because they're using lava to power that second engine." Stephanie told us.

Cupa looked over at the other passengers in with her. Crystal looked like she was going to be sick. Yaebi was curled up on the floor trying to comfort himself. Fiona and Paula…didn't seem to be bothered at all.

"Shit! Why are we slowing down?!" Vanessa yelled out. Sure enough, their cart was slowing down. Everyone cheered. But Vanessa had one final trick up her sleeve.

"See those rails? We're gonna hit those bad boys with everything we've got!"

"NO, WAIT!..." they all yelled. But Vanessa had already steered her cart straight onto the tracks. They were normal train tracks, but the cart fit perfectly. The slope, smooth surface of the metal and the initial velocity of the cart all combined to make a massive burst of speed down the tracks so fast Cupa could see sparks flying off the wheels.

"Hey Vanessa, are the wheels supposed to be sparking when you're not holding down the brakes?" she asked. Vanessa tensed up, and spoke the next few words very carefully.

"Uhh…b-b-brakes?..." she stuttered.

Steve and Cupa simultaneously facepalmed. Stephanie was frozen for a few seconds, then she too facepalmed.

Vanessa looked at them, then started giggling.

"Gotcha."

"What?" everyone on board asked.

"Just kidding, our brakes are fine. You should have seen the looks on your faces."

"Vanessa you little…" Stephanie was so close to pinning her to the floor. And boy, she wanted to.

"Test them." Crystal ordered.

"What?"

"Test the brakes."

"What, and risk losing the race? C'mon, we'll be fine. I'll stop it when we get there."

Sera's cart was just ahead of them, and Vanessa wanted to use her final trick.

"You see that gap in the tracks ahead? If we hit that we'll probably explode into a fireball of death." she said in a calm and reassuring tone.

Nobody said anything.

"But luckily, this gives me a chance to use a really awesome feature I've been saving. Yaebi, there's a switch near you. Can you flick it?"

Yaebi turned the switch on, and the gap grew closer. Then, Vanessa stepped on a pedal and the last thing we heard was a piston sound. Then the entire cart flew up into the air and came back down over on the other side of the gap with a clang of metal.

"Whee! That was fun! What do you guys think of the jumping mechanism I built?" Vanessa asked them cheerfully.

"Better question. Who fells like dying right here, right now?" asked Steve. Everyone raised his or her hand.

"Well, maybe you guys need another jump." She pressed the pedal again, and this time the cart went even further into the air. Sera and her passengers were thoroughly impressed. But this time, when they hit the ground, there was a sickening crunch. Bits of metal flew into the cart, and Vanessa had a look at the damage.

"Okay, that's just ironic."

"What is?... everyone asked.

"We just lost the brakes."

"For real?" Yaebi asked.

"For real?! Let me see. Do you know what this is?" Vanessa held out a piece of twisted metal that looked like it had broken off a wheel of sorts.

"No." he answered.

"This is a brake shoe. It stops the cart. And now, it can't."

"Oh… Fuck."

Uh oh, what will happen? Next week will reveal all, as we near the end of Part One of this story. Thank you to all my supporters and viewers for almost 20k views and to all 32 followers for sticking with me throughout the development and for giving me all your opinions!

-GoldBlockIngot