Okay. Hear me out. I actually have a good reason for uploading late this time.

So I was doing some stupid stuff, you know, as high school kids do, and then my mom got mad at me and took away my computer privileges for a week.

So I couldn't write for an entire week, and then I had to take another week to start writing this chapter.

I'm really sorry, but you know...at least I have a solid reason. \_(ツ)/

Also ara celene with another review!

Ara celene: Yeah, as you'll see in this chapter, Cara is...not at all similar to Notch. Like, at all. Also don't worry about the late review-I've got tests coming up as well.

Anyways, enjoy!

Cara Blows Stuff Up

As we ran through the city, I asked Cara several questions.

"Are you really Notch's reincarnation?"

Cara rolled her eyes. "Yes."

"What powers can you use?"

"Fire powers," Cara said irritatedly.

"That's cool! What's your favorite color?"

Cara turned and glared at me. "This isn't kindergarten, Toni."

"Sorry. That question's been burned into my head ever since my mom taught me how to socialize—"

"Shh!" Cara suddenly dragged me into an alleyway with her, and we hid behind some trash cans. A few seconds after, some pigmen ran through the street beside us. One of them stopped.

"I heard something," they muttered.

"You've been saying that for the past several minutes." another complained.

"Why are we out here, anyways?" another pigman groaned. "This place was burned down a month ago. There's not going to be anyone here."

"The explosion we heard says otherwise." a pigman said, and all the other pigmen went silent. "And besides, Klith heard from the spy in Valaither that Herobrine brat and her friends are coming here."

"How can we even trust him?"

"We're not paid to think. We're paid to do what he says. Now shut up."

"But the spy is–"

I was listening intently when suddenly Cara stood up from behind the trash cans. I looked at her, alarmed. "What are you doing?" I hissed.

Ignoring me, the girl pulled her golden pen out of her pocket and clicked the end. As the group of pigmen turned around, it elongated into a spear and Cara hurled it at the pigmen, spearing two of them to the wall. The pigmen yelled in shock as the girl pulled out her knives and fell on them like a lion on a group of gazelles.

I ran out from behind the trash can, but just as I pulled out my sword, Cara had the last pigman in her grasp. She stabbed the pigman, who exploded into dust. There was nothing left of the pigmen but dust floating to the ground.

She'd killed eight pigmen in nearly ten seconds.

The look on her face was kind of terrifying–her expression was almost blank as she sheathed her knives and pulled the spear out of the wall, turning it back into a pen.

She picked up a radio one of the pigmen had dropped. It crackled loudly, and a voice echoed out of it.

"Anyone there? We've found the archer girl, and we need backup immediately! Our coords are -1748, 65, 9834–AGH!"

The radio abruptly stopped.

Cara pocketed the radio and glanced at me. "That one of your friends?"

I realised my jaw was wide open and recollected myself. "Um…yeah."

"We're going to pick her up, then. Can she last longer than five minutes?"

I nodded.

"Good." Cara pulled out two potions a light shade of blue. "We'll get there in less."

Sam

Let's split up, we'll cover more ground, they'd said. There won't be any monsters, you'll be fine, they'd said.

Spoiler: I was not fine.

"Stupid Jax," I grumbled as I fired an arrow that exploded, collapsing an entire building onto a mob of pigmen. "Stupid Toni. Ooohh, look at me! I'm Jax! There won't be any monsters, you'll be fine! And they most certainly won't have ROCKET LAUNCHERS!" I yelped as a rocket flew past my face and slammed into a building, blasting it apart.

A pigman got close enough to slash at me, nicking the edge of my jacket. I swirled around, drew and arrow, and fired it into their skull. "Let me angrily monologue in peace!" I snapped.

"Surrender now!" One of the pigmen yelled. "And we'll make your death qui-"

"Who?"

"…what do you mean, who? I'm standing in front of y—"

"Asked?"

The pigman stared at me blankly and then spoke into a radio. "Shoot her dead."

I turned and ran, screaming "Wait, I was jokAAGH!" I felt the air in my lungs leave me as I was blasted sideways by an explosion, smashing through a window and landing on the ground with a thud.

I took some time to collect myself, coughing. I heard the pigmen get closer, making noises of triumph.

I angrily spat on the ground and wiped my mouth as I sat up. "Damn pigmen and their new fangled technology." I stood, fired an explosive arrow through the window, and ducked down as the arrow exploded. Smoke blew through the store's window, hiding me as I ran to the back of the store, coughing loudly.

I found a back door and smashed the handle, pushing the door open and stumbling out of the building. I pulled out my communicator, my fingers feeling like clay.

Sam: jax whre are u

Jax: Sam! I ran into some pigmen and beat them, and I heard you were caught!

Sam: not cuaght yet

Sam: just have minor to mediocre injuries

Jax: I'm on my way. I heard your coords.

Sam: no dont come, theres too many here

Sam: ill meet you at the charred sign

Jax: You sure?

Sam: ill be fine, let's just get out of here quickly

Jax: Wait, why isn't Toni responding to any of this?

Sam: not sure, but it's safe to say she's in the same situation as me

Jax: Then how do we reach her?

I groaned loudly and banged my head against the wall, which I quickly regretted as my head began to pound.

Toni, what are you doing?

There was a whistling sound, and a pigman yelled "INCOMING!"

"Oh, son of a—"

BOOM.

Toni

We got to the coordinates, and I groaned.

There was a lot of pigmen—a lot more than eight, or ten. It was more like twenty to thirty. And at least two of them had rocket launchers.

"That's gonna be an issue," Cara murmured. "See your friend anywhere?"

"No," I whispered back. "I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing."

"So she's hiding, or she's been captured." Cara mused. "Right. Time to pull your weight. We're going in."

"Wait." I stopped her. "Are we just…going in? With no plan? And what do you mean, pull your weight?"

Cara shrugged. "I've killed at least a dozen pigmen already. How many have you killed? Four? Five?"

"This isn't a competition."

Cara sighed. "Alright. How many times have you ran into a battle with a fully formed plan?"

"Well…usually the fight comes to us, so we don't really have time to plan…"

"Exactly."

I don't know what I had expected Notch's reincarnation to be like, but she was really starting to get on my nerves.

But then again, she wasn't really wrong. I'd killed over fifty pigmen in that cavern. I could probably do it again, and with Cara's help it could be a lot easier.

I still thought she was annoying, though.

"Okay then." I scowled. "Wait. I'll blast the rocket launchers with lightning, and when they blow up, we run in and kill the rest."

Cara looked at me strangely. "You'll blast them with lightning?"

"Well, yeah. Didn't you see me do it earlier?" I frowned at her.

"But I thought…" Cara shook her head. "Never mind. Sure, you do the…lightning thing, and then we'll go in."

"Okay." I rolled up my sleeves and pointed my sword towards the pigmen with the rocket launchers. They weren't hard to find—the big rocket launchers they held stood out pretty well. The question was if I could even shoot lightning that far.

You can, it just won't be very accurate. Herobrine told me.

"Well, great." I grumbled.

Cara crossed her arms. "You can't do it?"

"I can," I snapped, and I refocused on the pigman with the rocket launcher. Electricity crackled around my sword, and Cara raised her eyebrows.

Lightning shot out of my sword, streaking towards the rocket launcher pigman at the speed of sound. As the pigman slowly turned, the lightning spread out, thinner strands of lightning spiraling out from the main one.

The lightning struck a pigman next to the rocket launcher pigman, and sent a wave of electricity through the mob, vaporizing a few pigmen.

…damn it.

"You missed," Cara said as the pigman with the rocket launcher aimed at us. "WHY DID YOU MISS?"

"IT WASN'T INTENTIONAL, CARA!"

Before the pigman could blow us up, an arrow sailed into the crowd of pigmen. It exploded, scattering the pigmen in all directions. There were two more violent explosions, probably from the rocket launchers blowing up.

"And that's what should have happened." Cara said sarcastically.

"You try hitting an object from a dozen meters away with lightning!"

"Hate to interrupt," a voice said. "But we're kinda in danger."

Cara swirled around, summoning her spear and pointing it at Sam, who raised her hands. "Whoa! Let's not be trigger happy, now!"

"Don't impale her, she's the one we're looking for!" I said frantically.

"I wasn't going to impale her," Cara said as her spear shrank back into a pen. "Now we need to go in, while they're scattered—"

"WHERE IS SAM?"

"Ah." Cara scowled again. Honestly, it's like scowling was the only facial expression Cara knew how to make. "That another one of your friends?"

I turned to see Jax fighting the pigmen, slashing through them with his enormous sword. "Yeah, that's Jax."

Cara huffed. "Why'd you bring so many people here?"

"We were looking for you," I said.

Cara scoffed but didn't say anything. "Let's just go get the guy. He seems to be struggling."

Cara ran in, leaving me and Sam behind.

"I assume your trigger happy friend's Notch's reincarnation?" Sam guessed.

"You'd be right," I sighed.

"She's a lot more…feisty than I expected." Sam said, watching Cara run towards the crowd of pigmen, wielding her daggers. "Well, we'd better follow her. Can't let her have all the good ones."

We both ran in, and Jax turned, looking confused upon seeing me, Sam, and Cara charge towards the crowd of pigmen.

We crashed into them from behind, taking them by surprise. Cara tore into the pigmen relentlessly, all of her swings glowing gold. Sam simultaneously fired arrows and whacked pigmen with her bow, which had razor sharp blades on the end of it. And I took out rows of pigmen at once with only a few slashes, my sword crackling with lightning.

Jax grinned and joined us, and the pigmen could barely fight back. They managed to swing at us, but we cut through them quickly, not letting them retaliate.

I heard Cara laugh maniacally, and quickly glanced around just in time to see her swing particularly hard. Fire exploded from her daggers, making an enormous cloud of flames that engulfed half of the remaining pigmen. Fire bloomed up from the fireball, growing quickly. Cara's gleeful expression quickly turned confused as the fire began to multiply in size, nearly engulfing the entire street.

The pigmen were long gone—now the only thing we had to worry about was the enormous inferno swirling towards us at a rapid pace.

"RUN!" Jax yelled, but I was running long before he'd yelled.

All four of us ran down the street as the inferno stretched into the sky, lighting up the entire city like it was noon instead of midnight.

I didn't know how long we'd been running when I glanced behind us to see that the fire wasn't chasing us anymore.

We slowed down. I leaned on my sword, coughing. We didn't speak for a long moment—we just panted, catching our breaths.

Sam was the first one to speak. "Girl, you nearly frocking killed us!"

Cara brushed hair out of her face, looking annoyed. "It got out of my control. It won't happen again."

"You'd think Notch's reincarnation would be able to control their powers better," Sam muttered.

Cara straightened and strode over to Sam, who didn't back down. "Well, maybe you try summoning magic fire next time. What's that? You can't, so don't judge."

Sam inhaled deeply, and I could tell she was trying hard not to get mad. Which was unusual, but I guess she just didn't want to get blasted into next week. "I wasn't trying to judge you. I was just—"

"Watch yourself." Cara spat.

Sam matched Cara's glare. "You think just because you're Notch's reincarnation you're hot stuff? Well, being the reincarnation of the greatest man to live doesn't mean you can be a jerk and get away with it. Ask Toni. Or Jax."

"Now, let's not—" Jax started.

"And you don't get to give me sass for something out of my control." Cara growled.

"Stop it," Jax said, but was ignored once again.

"Out of your—?" I stepped forwards. "I've got better control over my powers, and I'm thirteen."

"So am I."

"Well, what does that say about you?"

"Toni," Jax said in a warning tone. "Sam. Cara. We don't have time for this."

Sam said loudly, "I'm sorry, but you're not cut out for...this."

Cara pulled out her knives, glaring at Sam. "What's that supposed to mean?."

I began to pull out my sword when Jax screamed, "THAT'S ENOUGH!" The ground cracked, and obsidian shot up between Sam and Cara, who stepped back in alarm. Obsidian burst from the ground all around Jax, who looked pretty pissed.

"More pigmen in the city definitely saw that explosion. They're probably coming here as we speak." Jax snapped. "We don't have time to argue. Cara, tame your temper. Sam, don't retaliate. And Toni. I thought you'd have more restraint. We have what we want. It's time to go."

"Have what you want? What am I, an object to you?" Cara muttered.

Jax fixed her with a glower more intense than Sam's or Cara's and she snorted, but didn't say anything further.

"Alright. Now we need to run. I've got the coordinates of the portal back to the Aether, and we're pretty close to the edge of the city, so we just need to run a little more." Jax said.

"Wait, but we don't need to do that." I said. "We can just teleport out each. You can take Cara, and I can take Sam."

Cara snorted. "How? I get how you can, but how can he?" She jerked her head towards Jax.

"He has a name," Jax said sarcastically. "And I'm the reincarnation of Null."

"Oh. Well, then why didn't you use your powers in the fight?" Cara said.

"Why didn't you?" Sam retorted. "Oh, wait."

Cara tried to leap at Sam, but Jax just grabbed her by the back of her coat and dragged her into the shadow of a building. "Teleport to the sign we passed entering the city," Jax told me.

I nodded, and he melted into the shadow. Cara tried to say something to Sam, but teleported with Jax before she could finish.

"What a prick," Sam scowled. "You'd think the reincarnation of Notch'd be a little more bearable."

I chose not to comment, grabbing Sam's shoulder. "Just a warning, I've only teleported with another person once before."

"Well, that's encouraging."

I imagined the burnt sign and began to feel a tingling sensation in my body. Sam yelped as we vanished with a flash of light.

I felt lightless for a moment and felt my skin prickling, but I didn't feel too weird. Compared to traveling through Valaither's portals, this was pretty smooth.

We appeared with a flash at the sign next to Cara and Jax, and Sam staggered away from me, twitching slightly. "I'm never taking the Toni express again," Sam groaned. "I felt static electricity crack across my entire body."

I blinked. "I felt fine."

"I felt like I was falling through a tunnel." Cara muttered. "A cold tunnel." Jax rolled his eyes but didn't say anything.

"We should teleport the rest of the way," I suggested, mostly to mess with Sam and Cara.

"No," both of them said at the same time.

"Well, let's just go then." Jax said. "It's midnight, and I don't want to go to bed after three A.M."

?-?-?

Nothing happened worth describing during walk back to the portal, unless you count the several arguments Sam had with Cara, one of which were about pineapple on pizza. (I'm pretty sure Cara pretended to like pineapple on pizza solely to disagree with Sam. Me, a girl who actually likes pineapple on pizza, was confused.)

When we got to Valaither, nobody was up. We walked over to the front desk, where a balding man sat, reading his book.

Jax knocked on the man's desk. "Hey, we've got a new arrival. Got a card?"

"Some manners would do," the man said as he pulled a card from a drawer in his desk. "Room 306."

"Hey, you guys are neighbors." Jax said to me and Cara.

"Ooh. I don't envy you." Sam whispered to me.

"I heard that."

"Okay," Jax said. "Let's all go to our rooms and get some rest."

"What?" Cara said. "No. I need to talk to you guys."

"Then tell us right here," Sam said.

Cara rolled her eyes. "Obviously I can't talk about this in public. And we don't have time to waste. We need to talk about this now."

"You need rest," Jax said. "We'll talk tomorrow."

Cara made a sound of frustration. "This concerns the fate of the world."

Me and Sam looked at each other and shrugged. "What's new?"

Cara looked at us like we were nuts as Jax frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, so now you're interested?" Cara snorted. "Then take me to my room. I'll tell you what I was doing in Outopia."

?-?-?

Cara walked around, studying the room. "Interesting. But my room back at my hometown was better."

Sam scoffed, and I asked, "What, were you rich?"

Cara shrugged. "Something like that."

Jax sighed. "Just get to the point already."

"Impatient, much?" Cara quipped as she walked over to a table and pulled out a chair. "Everyone take a seat."

We all sat, and Cara leaned forwards.

"The attack on Outopia wasn't just random." Cara said. "Klith had a very specific reason for it."

Sam rolled her eyes. "Obviously."

Cara glared at her, but continued. "Klith came there because Outopia held something he wanted—a piece of the Bedrock Key."

Jax gasped, and Sam let out a heavy sigh. I looked between them, confused. "Uh, anyone wanna elaborate? What is that?"

Cara laughed. "You're kidding. Right?"

Sam turned to me. "You don't know? It's like, a really popular story."

"It is pretty well known," Jax agreed.

"Well, I've never heard of it." I frowned.

Cara sighed and launched into a long explanation.

"A long time ago, there was an intelligent race that lived in the Nether. They were a race of pig people, and they were pretty smart. Smarter than the pigmen that live in the Nether now, at least." Cara began. "But this race was really bloodthirsty and violent, so all the strongest humans like Notch and Herobrine banded together to beat them, and they were sealed away with a huge layer of bedrock, which we call the Nether roof."

Hey, I remember that!

You do?

Yeah, it was really crazy. It was terrifying, but looking back on it also kinda fun.

You fought a bloodthirsty race of pig people and you thought it was fun?

Well it wasn't fun back then, but now I'm thinking it was a lot funner than sitting around in a 13 year old girl's head reading books all day.

…should I take offense to that?

You don't need to.

"Gross oversimplification," Jax said, "but yeah. The war was really big at that time, because they actually got really close to taking over the world. Their extremely advanced technology was only rivaled by our magic."

"Wait a second." Sam interjected. "Does that mean the Nether isn't just a big underground world? There's a surface above the Nether roof?"

"Obviously," Cara said. "The Nether's just an enormous cave system. If you think the regular Nether's dangerous, wait 'til you hear about the surface. It's ten times deadlier."

Sam gulped. "I'm not a fan of that."

Cara rolled her eyes. "Anyways, the point I'm trying to make here is that Notch and Null worked together to make the Bedrock Key–a key that could be used to create and destroy bedrock easily. Notch found this to be too dangerous for anyone to have, so he smashed it into five pieces and hid them across the world."

"And Klith is trying to find these shards?" I said slowly.

"Pretty much." Cara said. "One of the shards were hidden in a vault in Outopia. That's why he burned the place down."

"So let me get this straight," Sam said. "Now we have to stop Klith from gathering five of these bedrock shards, one of which he already has, or else Klith is going to open up the Nether roof and unleash a bunch of smarter and more advanced race of pigmen into the Overworld?"

"Bingo." Cara mockingly clapped her hands. "Would you like a trophy?"

Sam sighed and put her head in her hands. "This is going to be a lot harder than finding the Hellstorm, isn't it?"

"Now do you get it?" Cara said agitatedly. "We can't waste time, and as much as I hate to admit it, I can't do this alone. So either we leave now, or Klith takes over the world."

Jax stood, putting his hands on the table.. "I agree. But we can't just rush out. We need to prepare. Me, Toni, and Sam wouldn't have found the Hellstorm if I hadn't had my shulker boxes, or if Sam didn't have her quiver full of special arrows."

Cara also stood, a fiery look in her eyes. "Klith could be closing in on another shard as we speak."

"Do you even know where the four remaining shards are?" Jax countered.

Cara hesitated. "Yes," she said unconvincingly.

"How many do you know the location of?" Jax asked.

"I said I already know where they are, alright?" Cara snapped.

"Is that true, or are you just lyin–?"

"ALRIGHT!" Cara yelled. "I only know where one is. Happy?"

To Jax's credit, he didn't rub it in. "That's exactly why we need more time. Me and Toni took at the very least one day to pack everything. You can't spare at least one day?"

"Wait, wait." Sam held up her hands. "If we know the location of one, can't we just get rid of the one shard? Then the Key can't be completed, right?"

"Not possible," Cara said. "The Bedrock Key needs to be fully completed in order to be destroyed."

"What?" Sam said, shocked. "What idiot came up with that?"

I interjected. "How are we even going to destroy this Key, anyways? It's bedrock. Bedrock doesn't break."

"Notch broke the Bedrock Key," Cara pointed out.

"Yeah, but Notch is, you know, Notch." Sam deadpanned.

"I've got Notch's powers." Cara said, annoyed.

"The weapon is only as good as its wielder," I said.

Cara turned on me. "And what's that supposed to mean?"

I shrugged. "Notch is Notch. You're Cara. Sorry to say, but you're not exactly on the level of Notch."

Instantly I knew I'd touched a nerve. Cara stared at me, her eyes wide, and then her expression darkened. She pointed to the door. "Get out. All three of you."

I instantly felt guilty. "Um…I'm sorry, I didn't–"

"Didn't you hear me? I said get out." Cara snarled.

Me, Jax, and Sam exchanged glances.

Jax spoke first. "Okay. We'll be leaving now. Get some rest, Cara."

We all turned and walked towards the door. The whole way I felt Cara's cold glare on my neck. It didn't feel nice–it felt like someone was rolling a cactus on my neck.

Before Jax shut the door, Cara yelled. "You get one day! No more! One day!"

Jax shut the door, and we all kind of just stood there for a moment.

I sighed heavily. "We're really doing this again, huh?"

"We have to, whether we like it or not." Jax ran a hand through his hair with a sigh.

"Oh, and Jax. I think you're right about the…" I lowered my voice, looking around. "...the traitor thing."

Jax frowned. "Well, I don't think we should talk about it here, it's too open. Let's talk about this later."

"But–"

"Toni, not now."

I sighed as Sam interjected. "We're also not going to talk about the other, more obvious elephant in the room?"

Jax raised an eyebrow. "Which is?"

Sam jerked her head towards Cara's door. "Her. She seems…kind of like a narcissist."

"I agree," I said. "It kind of feels like she thinks she's better than us."

"I think you guys are being too harsh on her," Jax said. "I think she's just insecure."

"Insecure?" Sam scoffed. "Arrogance is coming off her in waves."

"Arrogant people can be the most insecure," Jax said, and for some reason he sounded sad when he said it. "Anyways, I'll see you later. I'm heading to the library."

"The library?" Sam laughed. "It's well past midnight, Jax."

"There's too many things I have to research," Jax said tiredly. "I'll see you guys tomorrow."

"Alright then." Sam sighed. "I'm going to go tell Trevor to clear my schedule for the next few weeks. Oh boy, he's not going to be happy."

"Um…I'll be going to bed, I guess." I said. "See you two in the morning."

They nodded, and we parted ways.

Once I got to my room, I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. I looked like a tired, sooty mess. About what I expected.

After washing up and changing, I turned off the lights and flopped backwards onto my bed.

I tossed and turned all night, unable to go to sleep. I felt like I should have been doing something, but I wasn't sure what.

Then I remembered.

I sat up and opened my bedside drawer, rummaging through the contents inside and finding a flip phone. I opened it and hit a few numbers.

The phone began to ring, and I honestly didn't expect her to pick up, because it was nearly one thirty A.M. But to my surprise, I heard a click, and a voice came out of the phone.

"Toni?" I heard Cal's weary voice. "What are you doing up so late?"

"Sorry, did I wake you up?" I said guiltily.

"Not at all. I was actually about to call you." Cal sighed loudly. "Oh. I'm so sorry I didn't call you for your birthday. There was this guy with rock golems, and there was a magic woman I had to chase–"

"No, no, it's fine." I assured her. "It sounds like you had a rough time. And I wouldn't have been able to pick up anyways. I fought a bunch of magic withers, met my old school bully, and then a magic girl almost set me on fire."

Cal chuckled. "Looks like we never get a boring day, huh?"

I laughed with her. "Yeah."

"Did you have a reason for calling?" Cal said.

"Kind of," I said. "But you can speak first if you want. You sound like you've been through a lot."

"So have you."

"But I want to hear your story first." I heard a sniffling from the other end. "Cal? You okay?"

Cal let out a dry laugh. "I'm not quite sure. Am I? Hey, is it really okay if I talk first?"

"Totally."

"Okay," Cal said, sounding relieved. "Okay. Now. Would you like the bad news, or the bad news?"

Fun fact: Sam originally yelled "Girl, you nearly frickin killed us!" but it autocorrected 'frickin' to 'frocking', and I thought it was funny so I kept it.

Also Cal's back! Hooray! We are in fact switching to Cal's POV next chapter, so just keep that in mind.

Also I'm not sure if I'm going to be uploading this Friday. Probably not, and I'm sorry for that, but it's going to take me a little time to slap together another chapter.

Anyways, have a nice day! Krios