"Wow. That is… that's a lot of stairs," mumbled Lukas, both of them immediately pulling out their journals to write either a quick note detailing the cracks and crevices, or a short passage about these stairs. Their efforts would likely not be wasted, as it has been proven they have many years of details kept embedded in their memory, despite their past constant state of somewhat weariness. Something I had admired them for long before truly meeting them. "And all revealed by the Redstone Heart… amazing." "Yeah. Not bad, right?" Jesse walked back over to the Heart, pulling it out from the pocket in the wall and squirreling it away. For a reason unbeknownst to me and unexplained by the laws of this universe, I could hear it beating, which disturbed me immensely. I hoped, with some reluctance, to observe it from a closer position and a different standpoint some day—preferably without touching it. "After you," offered Harper, gesturing to the staircase. Both leaders gazed up the stairs, reluctance in their expressions. "...Okay guys. Not sure what's up there… But whatever it is, we all need to stick together, got it?" Everyone nodded, including me, despite knowing the complications that would come. Nonetheless, this was using up our narrow time limit. "Yeah. We've got your back Jesse." "I can't believe we're finally this close," exclaimed the other Lukas. Midnight and him began to climb the stairs, walking side by side, though I'm not entirely sure Midnight noticed. She seemed a bit out of it, and reasonably so. Sometimes, I can't help but wonder what occurs in her mind. "Feels like just yesterday we were building this place…" Reminisced Harper, her expression bearing many mixed emotions. "Still don't agree with some of the aesthetic choices." For example, the lack of color leading to an absent feeling. It felt like being watched. "Wait. You're from here?" "Uh huh? What's the big deal?" "It's a big deal because we've been in the Old Builders' world this whole time and you didn't tell us!" "There was never a natural time to bring it up! Kinda thought I'd never need to come back, to tell you the truth." Up past the first flight of steps, the quartz walls opened up into a lavender void. Quartz blocks laid spontaneously scattered throughout the space. It looked somewhat similar to one of those personal spaces Admins have, but less… graceful, to say the least. "What are you hiding from us now, Harper?" "Nothing! Nothing. Well… Almost nothing. Just… The others might not be 100% happy to see me." "'Others?' You mean we're going to meet more Old Builders?" "Still don't like it when you call us that. Yep, but I gotta warn you… They're not as friendly as I am." "I'm probably the, uh, nicest Old Builder." I don't know about that, Otto seemed pretty nice to me. He's just stuck with the wrong crowd, I guess. "Are you joking?" Questioned Other Jesse. "You think you're 'nice'?" This caught me severely off guard. It was… not quite what I was expecting. I didn't remember him acting so standoffish in the book. …The book. 'I had forgotten about the book! I wonder if I still have it?' Quickly, I sorted through my things, pulling back out the book. It seemed fuller than before—which I should've expected. I flipped open a random page, skimming… "Well you're gonna give us the Atlas and then we can go home, right?" "Yeah I don't know if you remember the whole PAMA thing, but…" "Hey. I had good intentions with that, alright? Don't make me regret helping you." "Kind of… The Atlas isn't exactly mine to give. It belongs to the other 'Old Builders'. And, well, they might not want to give it up…" Their talking fogged my mind. The words were blurring in my head, my eyes couldn't stay on the page. Immediately, Jesse's words made me forget the book altogether. "I'm sure we can figure something out. Make a deal with them, right?" Questioned Jesse. His heart was in the right place, but nonetheless… Midnight and I glanced at each other knowingly. 'Oh, Jesse… if only you knew.' Chances are, he wouldn't have a bounce in his step as we walked to our fate. And yet, Midnight and I still did, despite our weariness. Perhaps it's different when you know the end isn't the end. "Oh yeah. They love making deals." And she left it at that. "Jesse, come here!" Whispered Lukas, stepping forward a bit to get his attention. Quickly, they shifted into a huddle, me close behind and listening in uncomfortably. "Are you sure we can trust Harper?" "No, I think she's definitely hiding something… But if we're going to get home, we need her help." I couldn't help but flinch—she was definitely not trustworthy, but she did help us save our friends. Hesitantly, I stepped forward, fidgeting slightly with the book in my hands, having put aside its importance for now. "...I know you're weary of her, guys," I said, joining the group. "Believe me, I trust her about as far as I can throw her. Which, uh… is probably not at all. But nonetheless, she helped us survive! She even helped us save you, Lukas. No matter the person, that's some points in my book. Just give her another shot, okay?" "Alright, I guess you have a point…" Replied Lukas, his expression softening—hopefully not in shame. "Don't worry, okay?" Said Jesse, glancing between the two of us. "We're going to get that Atlas and get home." Immediately, Harper stuck her head into both groups' personal discussions, with barely any shame at all. "I'm sorry you all feel that way," Interjected Harper, startling both groups. "Sorry. I just couldn't resist a good eavesdrop. I promise you all, I am trying to help. You just gotta go through there." '...How did she listen to both groups at once?' We stopped at a doorway, Harper continuing forward a couple paces, then swiveling around to face us. "A door? Like a regular door?" "Time to step through and find out," She said ominously. Her facade was quickly fading, but it seemed that a select few—Midnight and I, were the only ones noticing. The leaders stepped up, the other Jesse hesitantly opening the door. A blinding light beamed out from it, causing the two Ivors to peer over the leaders' shoulders. Jesse put up his hands to attempt to smother the light away from his field of vision. "Before you go in there, I have one more piece of advice." She walked behind the groups as she declared loudly. "Don't die." And with that, she shoved the back of the group—which consisted of Midnight and I, forward. All ten of us fell through the doorway, stumbling against each other like a set of dominoes. We crashed onto the snow below, Midnight landing on her arm, and me just barely managing to strike my shoulder onto the ground. It was obvious she was in much worse pain than I was, a stuffled shriek just barely being withheld from escaping. But we would have to deal with that later, despite the misfortune of such. There was no time granted to patch up wounds. Around us were people in half-colored jumpsuits, consisting of two teams: orange and green. The competitors screamed at their groups, though Em did most of said screaming, and everyone ran toward the other team's members. A few stronger people, obviously chosen for said strength, stood on a ledge throwing TNT down at everyone. "It's like some sort of crazy game," mumbled Jesse, deep in thought. A bad choice of words. "Really? You think this is a game?" "No, no, no, Jesse's right!" "Spleef!" 'But wait, how do they even know about spleef? No one else in the group seems to, so why do they?' "Gesundheit?" "No, it's a game! You try to knock the floor out from other people and make them fall." We ended up splitting up to try not to knock each other into the death-holes. Multiple competitors immediately were struck down, and several others began to gang up on us unsuccessfully. I think maybe, just maybe, there's way too many of us here for this battle-zone. Some person from the green team attempted to attack Jesse, which ended up being a big mistake. He swung at the person, hurtling them straight into a hole and to their demise. The two watched the person plummet, seeing the machine below them swiftly eliminate the competitor. Only their inventory remained. "Argh! That was my only decent teammate!" Groaned Em. Her teammates were notably and reasonably upset at her comment. Furious, Em began to attack the Petras, though she clearly could have just gotten revenge on Jesse. The two Petras ended up being sandwiched between competitors, meanwhile the Ivors somehow managed to get surrounded by rings of lit arrows. Midnight was being targeted by the gladiators, and meanwhile I had somehow managed to end up on the other side of the arena. Forget logic, I might as well be the queen of insanity. "Oops. Did Facemeat drop something?" The leaders quickly sprung out of the way, tackling the Lukases, who apparently still didn't know how to dodge after all this time. Unfortunately, that caused the leaders to somehow get stuck in the blast-zone. "It looks like the Green Team Captain is about to-" His voice was muffled by the shouts of our team mates. Quickly, the leaders gave orders to the blondes, not even taking the time to mention Midnight and I at all, while they ran to help the Petras. 'Seems pretty biased to me, but they're the leaders, so whatever.' While the Jesses wasted time chit-chatting, me and Midnight quickly defended ourselves enough to gain the time to get closer. Straight after the Lukases helped out the old men, Nell dug out the snow beneath them. "Oh," I mumbled. "Well crap. Lukas?" As I started to run over, I got a glimpse of the piston machine below us in action. Despite how far I was, I still managed to hear their screams over the fighting. The four of them were crushed, leaving nothing but inventory. Maybe my pulse quickened, maybe even my blood ran cold, but if so, I didn't have the time nor effort to notice. It was simply irrational, after all. They would be fine, I had seen this scene many times before, and everything would be alright in the end, no matter what's in the spur of the moment. Including a few silent, unnoticeable sobs. Finally, as I managed to reach the others, I began to take in the scene, crouching down and staring into the pit of their stuff. For some reason, the Ivors still had redstone chips with them. Another noticeable factor was the flowers that had been in the blondes' inventories. After the horrible scene that had just transpired, the leaders acted purely on rage. Other Jesse moved slowly toward Nell, sword in hand. All of a sudden—"Stop the match!" Yelled out Hadrian. As we all stepped off the snow, the groups yelled at poor Nell. Midnight seemed a bit out of it, but I had no right to judge her for such. We were all a bit shaken, even me, despite the situation. Infuriated, the three Old Builders blocked down from their perch. "My friends are dead. You killed them!" "Wait, wait, wait, and that's why you're ruining our games?" Huffed Mevia, crossing her arms. "Yeah, come on, geez!" Groaned Hardrian. "How petty are you?" "Lashing out just because your friends were eliminated." "Kind of 'sore loser' behavior, don't you think, sport?" What a hypocritical thing to say. "It is part of the games," chimed Otto. It was obvious that the others didn't understand, so he finally explained, "Your friends aren't dead." "Wait. What? How?!" "When people are eliminated in the games, they don't die—" "That would be wasteful!" "Obviously! They come back and then we have them go work in the mines!" As if on cue, the two Lukases called out from behind a fenced-in room. As all of us watched, most of us on guard, all four of our no-longer-deceased friends got dragged away, causing the leaders to panic. Eventually, Hadrian explained, already getting bored of their lack of knowledge on this. "It's called 'respawning', champ. We're not monsters." That's quite debatable in the eyes of every competitor in this place, including us. "Ahem. In our games when people 'die' they reappear in one of our 'respawn zones'." "I hear it's still pretty painful though." "Well, sport, now that you've come and interrupted our games I'm sure our fans would love to know how you got here. Spill." "I don't believe that's any of your business," said Midnight. Hearing her voice surprised me a bit, it had indeed been quite a while since she last talked, and she often didn't disrupt important events like this. "Well that's cute. Almost as cute as you'll look down in the mines, slugger." He glared down at her, eyeing her with a suppressed urge to harm. She was walking a risky trail if she kept this going—I couldn't help but feel kind of proud of her nonetheless. "Let's not get hot-headed, Hadrian," inputted Harper, appearing from seemingly nowhere. "The Jesses are with me." Just the Jesses, no one else. "Well, if it isn't Harper…" "I must say, this return is unexpected," commented Otto. "You're telling me. I'm here for the Jesses." Once again, the other eight of us were forgotten. It was like she was trying to ignore us—to be fair, that wouldn't be very surprising at this point. "Oh, really? So tell me, Champ. Why do you think Harper brought you here?" "We came for the Atlas. I want you to hand it over so my friends and I can go home." "Straight and to the point. I'd like it if I weren't simmering with barely controlled rage right now." 'You and me both, buddy.' "We're, of course, not going to do any of those things, but…" Mevia paused, then with great difficulty, settled with the words, "...admirable try." "Well that's all well and good, but I'm confused. Why would we give anything to someone like you?" Jesse thought for a moment, before resorting to a terrible question. "...What if I was about to change your mind?" Quickly, Hadrien turned to him, a disinterested look on his face. "Hm… that'd be hard. Because, see, I could be watching Slab squash you right now, which would be highly entertaining… What could you possibly offer that's better than that, slugger? I doubt that you'd have anything that would interest us." Quickly, everyone glanced at each other, thinking frantically for something that they might find… 'useful'. Jesse pulled out the Redstone Heart. "What about this…? I present…" "The Redstone Heart," Hadrian practically sputtered. Quickly, though, his eyes were on Harper. "Seems just like yesterday someone took off with that and vowed 'never to return with it.'" "Oh, but I didn't bring it back. Jesse did." "Thing's no toy, slugger. How about you just hand it over, huh?" "Oh, I've got you interested now, don't I?" Jesse's face got wiser, and he kept the Heart close, withholding it from Hadrien. "You've certainly got my attention, yes. Here's the way my offer works: You give me the Heart. You and your friends go back down to those portals. I never look at your insignificant faces again." "Wait, without the Atlas?" Interrupted a Petra. "But how will we get home?" "I don't play that way, Hadrian. If we can't have the Atlas, you can't have the Redstone Heart. Come on gang, let's get out of here." An impressive bait—the second we all turned, Hadrian scrambled back to change the deal. "Wait! Wait. I'm… sure we can reach an agreement that suits everyone." In his 'agreement', Midnight and I, along with one of our groups, would play in the games. After all, it's important to only have one team worth of competitors instead of two. If we won, we'd get the Atlas, and if we lost, we'd be sent to the mines. "But there's one other thing I want. If they lose… Harper has to go to the mines, too." "Oh, gravel…" Serves her right. "Harper, wanna be a friend and show our new competitors to where they'll be staying?" "...Sure thing." Before I knew it, we were all in Competitor Village, most of us wandering around. Harper had been quick to rush off, and the Jesses were busy on a fetch-quest. Midnight had immediately found Slab, so that was one less thing for me to do… which left nothing for me to do, actually. I was completely useless in this situation. Jesse was already half-way done getting wheat, so why bother even using my bread from earlier? So, I just sat there. And sat there. Until, finally, the portal was entered and left, our friends in tow. Midnight was quick to hug her Lukas—though somewhat struggling to do so with her injury. The Lukases lacked their armor, and… the Ivors lacked clothes. "Uh, what are you wearing…?" "Right? "Shut up! My outfit breathes wonderfully!" "Anyway. How's it been going out here? You, uh, you don't have our stuff by any chance, do you?" "He's worried about his diary." "Working on it," answered Midnight. Both Lukases looked at her, mine slightly surprised. "Might take a bit, though." She simply shrugged. I couldn't help but feel… well, useless. Once again, I was not contributing at all. At least everyone was doing fine without me, that was pleasant to know. A while after, we were at the dorms, ready to finally sleep in a proper bed after so long. Of course, insomnia visited some of us… but morning waits for no one. And apparently no one waited for each other, either. I could hear talking in a room nearby, making the dorm feel even emptier than before. "Hello, competitors, and welcome to the next day of the Games. And, it's gonna be a hot one!" "Woo! Yes it is, Hadrian! And how're our teams looking, Otto?" "Well Mevia, purple, green, and yellow are still making a strong showing, but after yesterday's performance in Spleef, I'm afraid to say that the red team has been completely eliminated." "Aw, I guess it's back to the mines for them!" "And, of course, about our plucky newcomers—" "Otto, shut up." It was surprising how he still had 'friends' with how he acted. "We don't need to hear about them. Well, for everyone else, don't forget to be like Tim out there!" "I've got a good feeling about this," declared Jesse. He seemed to be one of the only ones who thought so, because I sure didn't agree. "Alright, I can get behind that kind of optimism. No idea what this event is, but I'm sure we'll kick butt." Okay, nevermind. I was apparently the only one doubting, it seemed. "Alright, competitors… The next event is upon us, time to head to the starting line!" "Starting line…?" Surprisingly, Midnight seemed to have forgotten this part. It was time for what I dreaded the most. "A race! We've totally got this!" Maybe Petra and Jesse had it, maybe even Midnight had it despite her injury, but I definitely was not part of that 'we' that was spoken of. "'Got this', huh?" Perfect timing. He strolled through the locker room, strutting leisurely. "Boom! Surprise Locker Room Visit! Hah, how we doing everybody?" Competitors whispered very loudly amongst themselves in surprise as they not-so-subtly pointed directly at him. Despite this, he seemed not to notice, or perhaps just not care. "And here are the newcomers that everyone's been talking about since their, heh, 'explosive' debut in Spleef."
It's been a long time. I'm back to say this:When it comes to this story, I can't keep going. I'm sorry.I'm going to try again at my own pace, but this one is staying incomplete.Zenna was, in a way, part of me. She was always supposed to be me. Over the years, I stopped relating to her. I would change, and she would stay the same. It got to the point where looking at her and this story made me think of myself when I was younger. When I started the original story, I was grieving the loss of a family member. I don't remember when it happened, but they died sometime near when I started the story, either before or after. Being here and writing this is painful because it feels like I'm at that time in my life again. I'm sorry, I just can't.Legend, if you're reading this, I'm so sorry that I left the rest of the crossover dumped onto you. I had left the story behind for a few months to calm down and brainstorm and somehow forgot about it entirely for a little while. When I came back, I couldn't shake the feeling that if I continued the story, it'd be taking advantage of your writing and your kindness. I'm sorry, but I can't finish the crossover. I don't want to take your writing, and I don't feel like I can handle starting it up again after so long.I didn't mean to ditch the crossover, I just couldn't keep up. I'm not much of a writer, and this story was more like an outlet for my pent-up emotions than an actual story. Nothing was planned out, there were plot holes everywhere, and I kept changing the backstory mid-chapter. I should never have tried to make the crossover to begin with. I shouldn't have roped you into something I knew I couldn't finish. Your stories meant everything to me, even if that's a bit cheesy to say. Doing the crossover meant a lot to me, even though I didn't finish it. I hope you can forgive me. Either way, I wish you the best, no matter where that is.I want to try and finish what I started, or at least get closer to doing so. I'm going to make a new story. It'll still be MCSM, and it'll still be somewhat like this, in a way, but it won't be this exactly. I might post at random intervals. I can't create a schedule for myself, as that stressed me out a lot before and would likely stress me out again. I'm going to try and do a bit better this time. I'm not sure if I can, but I'll try.I can no longer relate to Z, but I don't want to give up entirely on her. I want to try again. I'm going to change Zenna's name to Zora. I'm also adding a new character that was never intended to exist. A twin brother named Yoseph. Why? Because he's going to help me relate to the story again. Zenna was supposed to be somewhat like me back then, and Yoseph will be somewhat like me now. He won't be a self insert, he will simply serve to balance his sister out a little more.I'm not continuing the original version of this story. I don't think I can, to be quite honest.I just feel like I can't write Zenna properly anymore. I used to write her as if she's somewhat a part of me, but I can't really do that anymore, as I realize that projecting myself onto her would undermine how I designed her to be. Instead, I will try my best to separate myself from her entirely and give her the respect and character design she deserves. She'll still be her sassy self, but she needs to be three-dimensional, not a cardboard cutout of a self insert character.I'm warning you now, I may incorporate non-straight and non-cis characters or relationships into the new story. If you don't like that, it's okay. You're free to not read it if you don't want to. I don't want to force anything that might make you uncomfortable onto you.I'm leaving this story untouched after this. The other version will be posted separately when I get around to writing it.
This is the author, signing off. I hope we meet again someday, even if it's not here. Either way, I wish you all the best.