The Razor's Edge

by fyrnacx

Summary:

When Jesse and Petra mysteriously vanish within the Portal Network three years after the Admin's defeat, Lukas finds himself leading a team of allies, old and new alike, on a journey to find them. However, their simple search and rescue mission quickly lands them in the middle of an inter-universal conflict that threatens to tear their reality apart at the seams.

Notes:

Hello, and welcome to my first multi-chapter fic in many years! :) I've been working on this for a while and eventually got so excited that I just had to post the first chapter! I might occasionally go back and edit chapters a bit as I continue writing, so if I do, I'll let you know in the notes for each chapter!

Chapter 1: Prologue

Summary:

The story begins.

For those of you who have been reading since the beginning, I'm sorry for just adding a prologue randomly when I'm already four chapters in, but I think this way it adds some suspense and intrigue during the beginning of the story, as well as adding some context that would be a little much to explain later!

Hadrian and Mevia strolled down the idyllic path that wound through the plains. It was a beautifully sunny day, hardly a cloud in the sky.

The endless expanse of grass they had been traversing eventually gave way to a small farm, nestled next to a crystal blue river. There were animals, crops, even a water wheel, the very picture of a cozy, peaceful life.

Only Hadrian and Mevia knew what lay in that cabin. Or, rather, right outside of it.

The man, who had been in the middle of harvesting some carrots, stood up once he heard the crunch of pebbles beneath their shoes. He peered at them disbelievingly, his lapis-blue eyes piercing them from beneath his straw hat. They hardened in recognition, and before the two Old Builders could take another step, he was pressing a blade against Hadrian’s neck.

Diamond, enchanted. They had expected nothing less.

Mevia drew her own blade, but Hadrian called her off, “No, Mevia. That’s not what we came here to do.”

“And what did you come here to do?” the man asked, his voice low and cold, “Because the last time I saw the two of you, I was told that I would never see you again.”

Hadrian steeled himself; he hated this part. “We came here to ask for your help.”

As predicted, the man laughed, throwing his head back as his mirthless laughter pierced the air sharply, like it hadn’t heard a noise that loud in a very long time, “Bullshit.”

“It’s the truth,” Mevia objected, “Why else would we be here?”

The man quieted, his eyes shifting towards her, then back at Hadrian, appraisingly, “What in the name of Notch could you possibly need me for, and what makes you think I would agree to help you?” he asked flatly, the blade against Hadrian’s neck loosening, “My refusal to help you is what landed me here in the first place.”

Hadrian took a deep breath and put on a well dusted, cocky smile, “Because we’re your only chance of ever getting home.”

Chapter 2: The Inn-Between

    The traveler shivered as he walked through the Portal Network. Although filled with the warmth of people from all types of worlds, the hallways were cold and damp, the stone slick under his feet as if it had just rained. Fellow travelers jostled against him, but he paid them no mind, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on his destination.

    The doors to the Inn-Between creaked slightly as the traveler stepped into its cozy atmosphere. Conversations slowed as the people inside took a peek at the inn's latest customer, but they quickly moved on from him. Cloak, bow, quiver, there was nothing particularly eye-catching about the man himself. No, the wildcat padding at his side was much more interesting. Some awed gasps sounded from the crowded tables, but everything returned to normal once the creature growled at them, treading closer to his master's side as they walked toward the bar. The novelty over, the people around them resumed their chatter.

     "Be quiet, Dewey," the adventurer chided softly as he sat at the corner of the bar, "Everything's fine."

    The ocelot, Dewey, merely huffed and laid down underneath the stool. He kept one eye open, tail flicking restlessly as he glared suspiciously at the rest of the patrons. A man at a booth in the corner stared at his human, and Dewey resisted the urge to growl again. He didn't like the look of him, but as long as he didn't try anything, Dewey had no reason to get up from his rather comfortable position.

    The cheerful laughter of a table close to the bar made the traveler smile slightly as he looked around.

    Wow, it's certainly been a while.

    A large mural on the wall next to him caught his attention, and he got up from his seat to take a better look.

    Four people clad in armor stood together with wide grins on their faces. An older man in a green robe made bunny ears behind a tall woman with fiery red hair. Next to her, a short man with brown hair and sparkling eyes posed with a diamond sword, and beside him stood a taller, blond man with a shy smile. Behind them was the inn itself, proudly nestled in the Portal Network. The adventurer fondly regarded the mural before looking at the plaque beneath it.

    Years ago, a band of heroes known as the Order of the Stone found themselves stranded in the Portal Network. Trying to find their way home, they jumped from portal to portal, spreading their ideals of heroism and adventure to people across the worlds. Although not the ones to build the Network, the members of the Order of the Stone are heralded as the first true pioneers of inter-dimensional travel, responsible for opening the Portal Network to all. This inn rests on the same spot they made their camp, intended to be a “rest-stop” between worlds for any weary traveler who might need it. We here at the Inn-Between are proud to uphold the Order of the Stone’s legacy to this day.

    "Taken an interest in the Order of the Stone, huh?" a gruff but friendly voice startled the man out of his reverie, and he turned around with a nervous laugh.

    "It's a wonderful mural," he replied as he sat back down.

    "Painted it myself when the place was built!" the man behind the bar said proudly, "Name's Morris; what brings you to the Network?"

    "I'm... looking for someone. Two people, actually," the traveler corrected himself.

    Morris chuckled and shook his head, "In here? That's quite the mission, stranger," he shot the man a scrutinizing glance before shaking his head slightly, "Anything you'd like to order? We've got everything from freshly caught salmon to chorus fruit wine."

    "Just some sweetberry tea, please."

    A loud meow of protest interrupted him, and the man laughed, "And some raw salmon for my companion."

    "Sure thing," Morris disappeared and returned a few minutes later, holding a steaming mug of tea and a plate of salmon. He placed both in front of the traveler, who took the salmon and tossed it to his cat. A pleased purr rumbled from beneath his seat, and the man chuckled slightly before picking up the mug.

    "Thanks."

    Morris nodded, but after a few seconds of silence, he asked, "You have a name, stranger? I've been in charge of this inn since it was built half a decade ago, and I don't think I've ever seen you before."

    The man paused briefly, blowing on his tea as he deliberated over whether to respond. Then, he shrugged and took a sip, "My name is Lukas."

    "Lukas?" Morris glanced at the mural again, "That's a mighty funny coincidence."

    The adventurer smiled and pulled his hood back slightly, exposing blond hair that was a dead match to the man on the wall. After a second, he pulled the hood back to its original position.

    "I guess you could say that."

    Morris' eyes nearly dropped out of his skull as his voice became a hushed whisper, "Creators! You're really him! I thought I was imagining things when you sat down, but I was right!"

    Lukas scratched the back of his head sheepishly, "Is it that obvious? I wasn't trying to draw attention to myself."

    Morris waved him off, "You're fine, son. I only suspected because I've spent hours staring at that goddamn mural. I would know any of the Order of the Stone from anywhere," he grinned conspiratorially, "You know, your friends Jesse and Petra are regulars here. Always bring good business when they stop by after one of their adventures!"

    "Oh! Well, it's a pleasure to meet you!" Lukas sat up in interest as he extended a hand for Morris to shake, "They're actually the ones I'm looking for."

    Morris shook it, "That's a hard task; Jesse and Petra could be inside any of those portals out there. I haven't seen them for a couple weeks now."

    "Is that... odd?" Lukas asked, taking another sip of his tea.

    Morris shrugged and started wiping down the counter, "Not particularly. Those two are quite unpredictable; they'll come in to eat three days in a row and then won't show up for weeks."

    Lukas nodded to himself. Interesting.

    Morris looked very much like he would like to barrage Lukas with more questions, but before he could do anything, a man clad in exotic armor and a heavy black hood grabbed his arm. Dewey hissed at him from his spot under Lukas' stool, but the man paid him no heed as he whispered lowly to Lukas.

    "Come with me."

    Lukas' insides turned to ice as the strange man's grip tightened, but he picked up his tea anyway and bid Morris goodbye, making sure to leave a gold piece on the counter.

    "Come in anytime!" Morris waved cheerfully before leaning in and muttering, "Let me know if you need anything."

    Lukas nodded before following the stranger quickly, trying to look braver than he felt. He had been in the Portal Network for half an hour; what could this stranger possibly want with him?

    He wasn't a fighter by any means, but he prepared to draw his sword out of his inventory. He wouldn’t be caught off guard if this shady figure decided to attack him.

    "Sit." The man said before taking a seat himself. Dewey growled menacingly at him, but he showed no traces of fear as he ordered, "Call your companion off; I'm not going to hurt you."

    "Dewey!" Lukas hissed at the ocelot as he sat down, "Behave yourself."

    Dewey gave him a reproachful look, laying down with a huff. So much for protecting his human.

    "So, what do you want fro-" Lukas was immediately interrupted by the mysterious (and rude) figure.

    "Shh! " he hissed, surging forward and clamping a gloved hand over Lukas' hand before he could even blink, "Keep your voice down!"

    He waited several seconds until Lukas figured out he wanted a nod before slowly retracting his hand and tugging his hood down, revealing--

    "IVOR?"

    The inn fell silent for a beat as everyone glared at their table. Lukas tugged his hood down lower at the scrutiny, feeling his ears burn as he raised an apologetic hand. Thankfully, the awkwardness only lasted a second before everyone turned back to their companions and kept talking. However, when he looked back up, Ivor stared daggers at him.

    "Great job, you fool!" he whisper-shouted as he pulled his hood back up, "Now everybody knows I'm here!"

    "What, are you an inter-dimensional criminal now?" Lukas retorted, still feeling like the whole situation was utterly surreal.

    "Only in a few worlds!"

    Lukas chuckled and shook his head, feeling his tension drain away, "Why am I not surprised?"

    "I have no idea! I am the pinnacle of human virtue, and more people should acknowledge that--stop laughing!" Ivor snapped as an incredulous snort interrupted him.

    "I'm sorry," Lukas laughed, "Who am I talking to again?"

    Ivor scoffed haughtily before abruptly slamming both hands on the table. Dewey hissed in surprise, but a quick pat from Lukas was enough to soothe him.

    "What's going on?" Lukas asked, startled.

    "I overheard you asking Morris about Jesse and Petra!" Ivor ignored his question completely. Lukas rolled his eyes; Ivor had not changed one bit.

    "Yeah, because that's not creepy at all."

    "Creepy? Maybe. Illegal? Certainly not!" Ivor huffed, "Anyways, I called you over-"

    "Dragged me over, more like."

    "Called you over to ask why you're searching for them."

    "You dragged me over here to ask about that?" Lukas asked exasperatedly, "What happened to 'hello'? 'How are you; I haven't seen you in three years?'"

    Ivor groaned and sat back against the booth, "Yes, yes, hi, hello, how are you, I missed you, blah blah blah. Now, can we get back to the issue at hand here?"

    Taking a page from Ivor's book, Lukas decided to zero in on the one thing directly beside the point.

    "You missed me?" he waggled his eyebrows teasingly but then realized that he probably looked stupid because Ivor couldn't see his face under his hood, "Aw, I would almost think that you cared about me, Ivor."

    "Yes, well," Ivor fumbled, "It-it has been a while, and-- anyway! What are you doing out here, looking for Jesse and Petra?"

    "Why are you so concerned about it?" Lukas questioned, starting to feel worried about the other's insistence.

    "I'm asking because they seem to have vanished off the face of the worlds!" Ivor said impatiently, "And if you're looking for them all of a sudden after all this time, you must know something about it!"

    A chill ran down Lukas' spine at his words; beside his leg, he could feel Dewey tense at his discomfort. Vanished?

    "What do you mean, vanished? Have you been looking for them?" he asked.

    Ivor sighed, his brow wrinkling in genuine concern, "Since Jesse and Petra left Beacontown after defeating the Admin, I've been using my training in the Shadow Arts to... keep tabs on them."

    "So you've been spying on them. For three years," Lukas clarified.

    "Yes, I suppose that would be another way to put it," Ivor waved him off, "But my point is, I always know where they are in the Portal Network. Well, usually ."

    "...Uh huh."

    "However, about two weeks ago, I lost track of them. Suddenly, none of my contacts had seen them, and nobody in the Portal Network was talking about them!" he explained, "I've been keeping an eye out, but they’ve left no trace of their whereabouts."

    Lukas’ brain spun, "Two weeks ago...?"

   That would place their disappearance right before... Founding Day.

    "Shit... then they really are missing," he said finally.

    "How do you figure?"

    Lukas sagged back against the plush cushion of the booth, his palms growing sweaty within his gloves, "They didn't visit Beacontown for Founding Day."

    Ivor stared back at him blankly.

    "...Jesse and Petra always come back for Founding Day." Lukas emphasized, "That's the whole reason I'm here; they didn't show up for the Founding Day celebration two weeks ago. The whole town is worried."

    Ivor pursed his lips, "So you have no idea where they've gone?"

    "No."

     "Wonderful. "

 

— — — — —

 

    "Do you remember the last place they were before they vanished?" Lukas asked when they walked out of the Inn-Between a few hours later. Lukas had wanted to go searching for Jesse and Petra immediately, but Ivor insisted that they would be better prepared if they had a meal first, which was a surprisingly wise idea coming from him.

    Ivor scoffed when Lukas told him this, but otherwise, they had a very pleasant catch-up. However, lunchtime was soon over, and their mission was ready to begin.

    Ivor furtively glanced around the small groups of travelers wandering down the hallways before murmuring, "Sky City. After that... gone."

    "Must you act like we're doing something illegal every time I ask about Jesse and Petra?" Lukas sighed.

    Ivor shushed him hurriedly, "Think about it, Blondie!" he hissed as he dragged Lukas to the side of the wide corridor, "If word gets out that Jesse and Petra are missing, the entire Portal Network will collapse into chaos! We can't let this information fall into anyone else's hands; who knows who would try to take advantage of the greatest heroes in all the worlds being missing!"

    Lukas had to give it to him; that was pretty reasonable.

    "So I guess we're going to Sky City, then," he said, "Hopefully, we'll find a lead or a clue as to where they went."

    Ivor rolled his eyes, "Thank you for the itinerary, Captain Obvious."

    "We are going, right?" Lukas asked, "You're gonna help me find them?"

    Ivor spluttered indignantly, "Who do you take me for, a heartless villain? Of course I will!" he added as an afterthought, "Besides, you haven't visited the Network in years; you'll need my skills to survive."

    "Hey, how do you know I haven't traveled in the Network recently?" Lukas scowled as he and Dewey fell into a walk beside his old friend, "For all you know, I could come here regularly!"

    "Not according to my contacts, you don't! You should really get out more, by the way," Ivor called in a sing-song voice as he started to run down the hall. Lukas gave chase, Dewey mewing with excitement at the rush as they sprinted down the hall after Ivor.

    "Who the hell are your contacts??"

Chapter 3: An Unexpected Reintroduction

Summary:

The hunt for Jesse and Petra begins.

Wow.

Sky City had changed a lot.

Honestly, the name had become a bit of a misnomer.

When Lukas and Ivor stepped out of the portal, they emerged under a sprawling pavilion at the center of a bustling town that was, notably, on the ground. Trees surrounded them in all directions, but in the distance, Lukas could see towering mountains and deserts fading into the horizon. Near the pavilion, a large lake glistened in the sunlight, casting light rays onto the surrounding buildings and trees.

It was wonderfully picturesque, and Lukas would have loved to write about it in his journal if it weren't for the fact that they were in a hurry.

"Welcome to Sky City!" someone wearing a uniform greeted them when they stepped out from under the pavilion.

"You! Where is the Founder?" Ivor asked impatiently. Lukas was really going to have to teach him some basic social etiquette.

The person blinked, looking taken aback by his abruptness, "Um, she's with Milo, overseeing the construction of one of our new farms," they pointed over to the opposite side of the lake, where the town's buildings gave way to fields dotted with windmills and barns. It reminded Lukas of a world that he, Jesse, Petra, and Ivor had explored while stranded in the Portal Network. It had been filled with sheep, so the people living within had developed extremely advanced methods of farming enough wheat to care for all of them. It hadn’t been the most exciting world they had come across, but the lamb chops they were offered had been absolutely incredible.

Ivor started marching towards the main road without further conversation, so Lukas hurriedly said, "Thank you!" before jogging after him.

"Would it kill you to be a little polite every now and then?" he panted when he and Dewey caught up to him. He put his hood down, enjoying the midday sun on his skin and the faint breeze in his hair.

"What do you mean?" Ivor asked. When Lukas glanced at him, he could tell that the older man was actually being sincere.

"Forget it."

Dewey bounded ahead of them in excitement, the ocelot's tail flicking wildly as he chased all sorts of scents around. Every time he saw something new, he looked back to Lukas and mewed excitedly, reveling in this new world that was similar to his own, but at the same time completely different.

"Have you been here since we discovered that portal, all those years ago?" Ivor said as Lukas looked at the passing civilians in interest.

"No," he admitted, "I haven't been to the Portal Network in years, and when we were exploring it after meeting the Old Builders and everything, I never really thought to revisit a world we had already been to."

Ivor hummed, "It's really quite nice here, now. When people from other worlds came looking for the famous 'Sky City', the Founder realized that tourism could be great for her little town. Now, a lot of the residents take travelers up to the old city on tours," he pointed upwards, and when Lukas followed his finger, he could see the faint outline of a colossal island above them, so high up that it didn't even leave a shadow on the ground. The Founder and Milo had evidently not wanted to move very far from their original home.

"But the Blaze Rods destroyed Sky City. How can they take tourists up there?" Lukas asked.

"After serving several years in prison, the Blaze Rods were ordered to eradicate the monsters and restore the damage they did to the city," his friend replied, "Apparently, they've become quite valuable additions to the Royal Guard."

Lukas scoffed, "The Royal Guard? I'll believe it when I see it."

Ivor just shrugged, "Perhaps they really did turn over a new leaf after we thwarted their plans with the Eversource! I mean, it happened to me!"

Lukas opened his mouth to object, but couldn't find anything good to say as a rebuttal. Ivor had tried to destroy their world, after all, and he still called him one of his closest friends.

"Dewey! Be careful, don't stray too far!" he called when his ocelot started straying farther and farther down the street. He got nothing more than an irritable tail flick for his concern, but Dewey waited a few seconds for them to catch up before returning to his thorough investigation of the road ahead.

Ivor snorted at the interaction, "You're like a mother hen, I'm sure he can take care of himself."

Lukas shot him a look, "I just don't want him to go hunting and come back with someone's pet in his mouth."

That made Ivor laugh outright, "I guess we'd better tell the Founder to keep a close eye on Bernard, or whatever she named that damn Eversource!" As he spoke, Dewey picked up the scent of something in the air and immediately jumped into a sprint.

Lukas gasped and started running after him, "Oh god, the Eversource! I forgot! Dewey, get back here right now! "

He could hear Ivor cackling behind him, but he paid the other no mind as he raced after his rogue companion. Oh god, if his ocelot killed the Founder's treasured pet, he'd have to flee this world as a wanted fugitive. Not even that would be enough; she would probably hunt him through every world in the Portal Network just to kill him herself.

Please, Dewey, have some restraint for once in your life, Lukas prayed to himself as he called the cat's name again.

Up ahead, a chicken ambled onto the farmland path. Despite Lukas' shouts, Dewey sped up, jumping over a few branches and running closer and closer to the oblivious chicken before-

"Whoa! Watch where you're going there, cat!" a voice scolded Dewey as large hands hoisted the chicken safely out of Dewey's path, "Benedict is not on your menu!"

The ocelot huffed angrily, but Lukas dove and scooped him up before he could do anything else.

"Dewey, you are in so much trouble right now!" he seethed as he turned the cat around in his arms so he could look his companion in the eye. Dewey had the sense to look ashamed, but not even his pitiful cower was enough to assuage Lukas' anger.

"What have I told you about hunting in crowded places? These animals could be people's pets! Remember, you only go hunting when we're in the wild!" Dewey mewed sadly, and Lukas felt slightly guilty for getting so upset, but only slightly.

"...Lukas?"

Hold on, that voice was eerily familiar.

When Lukas looked up, Aiden was standing in front of him, holding the Eversource in his arms.

His mind went traitorously blank, "Uh..."

After a few seconds, Dewey started writhing in his arms, so he let his cat down with an apologetic pat. Aiden looked at him doubtfully, raising the chicken higher in the air.

"Is your ocelot gonna go after Benedict again?"

Lukas shook his head fervently as he glared down at Dewey, "Of course not, right, Dewey? " Dewey glanced at the Eversource longingly but eventually nodded.

Lukas relaxed and looked back at Aiden, "There. He won't do anything."

Aiden gingerly placed Benedict down, but Dewey remained still as the chicken ruffled its feathers haughtily and scuttled farther down the path. Lukas breathed a sigh of relief, making a mental note to give his companion some salmon later as a treat.

Aiden shifted nervously when Lukas looked back at him. His uniform marked him as a Royal Guardsman, which was such a contrast to how Lukas had seen him last that it made him want to laugh. He looked completely different now… well-kept. Professional, even. His hair was short and slicked back, a long scar splitting his cheek and nose.

Jesse gave him that, Lukas realized with some trepidation.

“You’re lucky that guard was watching the Eversource!” Ivor cackled behind him, “I don’t think you’d ever be welcome here again!”

Lukas shivered at the thought of the Founder’s wrath, “I was thinking that she would kill me.”

Aiden chuckled slightly, his pale green eyes still shifting hesitantly between him and Ivor, “No no, Isa and Milo outlawed the death penalty a few years ago; you and your ocelot would live.”

Dewey brushed against Lukas’ leg as he stared, “That’s… informative.”

“What is wrong with you?” Ivor leaned in close, examining Lukas like he was a particularly confusing book, “Did you trip and hit your head or something?”

Lukas stepped back and shoved Ivor away, “What? No! I’m just…” his cheeks heated at his awkwardness, “surprised, is all.”

When Ivor didn’t react, he sighed and gestured to the guard in front of them, “It’s Aiden, Ivor. You know, the leader of the Blaze Rods?”

“We aren’t the Blaze Rods anymore,” Aiden piped up quickly as Ivor’s head swiveled to him.

“By the Creators, you’re right!” Ivor said after a second, “I didn’t recognize him, what with the uniform and all.”

“Yeah…” Lukas murmured in agreement.

Looking thoroughly embarrassed at the scrutiny, Aiden averted his eyes, “Maya, Gill, and I joined the Royal Guard a few years ago after Isa felt that we had properly atoned for our crimes against Sky City.”

“Wow…” Lukas turned to Ivor and muttered, “I guess you were right.”

“Of course I was!” Ivor whispered back.

“So… what, you guys aren’t criminals anymore?” Lukas turned back to Aiden, who flushed at the question.

“Well, I guess not. It’s still on our records, but we’ve gained back a lot of the trust we lost when we… destroyed Sky City. I’d like to think so, anyway.”

Lukas regarded him skeptically, but Ivor cut in before he could respond, “Well, then could you lead us to the Founder? We have… business to discuss with her.”

Very subtle, Ivor; Lukas sighed to himself as Aiden’s eyes narrowed.

“Sure…” he replied slowly, “Follow me.”

He led them on an extremely awkward walk through the fields, occasionally taking what looked like a compass from his coat pocket.

“What’s that?” Lukas asked the third time he pulled it out.

Aiden glanced over at him briefly before he put it away, “Tracker. Isa put one on Benedict when some people from Crown Mesa came to town selling redstone inventions. It’s pretty handy; now I don’t have to keep him on a leash anymore,” he laughed slightly, “Benedict did not like his leash.“

Crown Mesa… Lukas shook off his feeling of unease regarding that name and instead focused on the fact that he was having a decent conversation with his ex-best friend for the first time in years, “So the Founder is still protective over him?”

Aiden rolled his eyes, “Unbelievably so. Oh, also-” he added when they crested a small hill, “Isa isn’t called the Founder anymore; she dropped the title when she and Milo started ruling together.”

“Oh, I see. Thanks.” Lukas nodded to him, “You get that, Ivor?” he called out.

“Yes, yes, I’m not deaf!” Ivor grumpily said behind him.

“Just making sure you didn’t age too much in the years you’ve been gone!”

“You’re going to age me more than time ever could if you keep talking, Blondie!”

Lukas chuckled, letting the breeze blow his hair back as he turned back and kept walking. When a questioning meow interrupted him, he glanced down to see Dewey looking pleadingly at the road ahead.

He sighed, “Okay, go wild, buddy,” he told the ocelot, who happily zoomed away. “Don’t hunt anything!”

“He’s cute,” Aiden commented when Dewey disappeared, “apart from trying to kill Benedict.”

Lukas shrugged ruefully, “I found him in a jungle biome a couple years ago. I’ve found that you can take the ocelot out of the jungle, but you can’t take the jungle out of the ocelot.”

Aiden hummed in response, glancing at him again before pointing ahead, “There, Isa and Milo are over by that barn.”

“Thanks!” Lukas and Ivor continued walking, but Lukas looked back when he only heard two sets of footsteps.

“Wait!” he called to Aiden’s retreating form, “Aren’t you going to take us the rest of the way?”

Aiden turned around and held up the tracker, “I’ve got to make sure Benedict doesn’t get into any more trouble; good luck with your… business, or whatever it is.” He nodded with an awkward smile and turned away.

Lukas caught up with Ivor, feeling extremely conflicted about how that interaction had gone. First Ivor, now Aiden –as soon as he stepped into the Portal Network, the universe had been throwing his past back at him, which was… uncomfortable. Lukas had yet to decide whether it was in a good or bad way.

Ivor, of course, was a good thing. Lukas had really missed him, and the fact that he was no longer alone in his search for Jesse and Petra was comforting. Having someone who was strong, experienced, and funny (although he would never admit it) by his side throughout this adventure would be invaluable. Though now that he was thinking of the older man, he was also reminded of his friend’s traveling companion.

Where has Harper gone?

Looking at Ivor, who was starting to speed-walk towards Isa and Milo, Lukas decided that his question would be better asked at a later date.

Aiden was a… bad thing? Good thing? Lukas hesitantly placed him in the ‘neutral’ category because, on paper, the interaction had actually gone quite well. He had been nothing but polite, even likable, if Lukas ignored the fact that he had tried to kill him and the rest of his friends all those years ago. Apparently, all three of the Blaze Rods were reformed enough to gain positions within Isa’s most trusted circle of soldiers: the Royal Guard.

Had they really changed that much? Had they even changed at all? The part of him that believed in redemption wanted to think so, but a much larger part of him staunchly reminded himself that Aiden, Maya, and Gill were why Sky City had been destroyed and he and Jesse had almost died. If it weren’t for the water below them, they would have been nothing but inventory. Could he really look past that?

You looked past Ivor, past the entire Witherstorm in fact, his mind supplied.

The Witherstorm that he helped destroy, Lukas whispered back. When did Aiden, Maya, and Gill ever try to help us with anything?

“I think they’ve spotted us!” Ivor’s exclamation cut through his internal dialogue and he looked up to see Isa and Milo waving at them, smiles lighting up their faces as he and Ivor waved back.

I’ll worry about it later.

— — — — —

Lukas hadn’t been expecting such a warm welcome. When they were ushered into the Founder’s– Isa’s – quarters, he was shocked at the unusual hospitality shown by Isa and Milo. Refreshments were immediately served, and Lukas tried not to show how hungry he was as he grabbed a piece of watermelon and started munching.

“You are the reason we discovered land below us!” Isa exclaimed when he expressed his surprise, “Although Old Sky City was destroyed, you both helped our citizens survive the devastation that the Blaze Rods wrought on our poor city.”

“Speaking of the Blaze Rods, we saw Aiden on our way over.“ Ivor said.

“He was the one who led us to you,” Lukas explained.

“Oh, yes, I am sorry if seeing him brought back any unpleasant memories,“ Isa frowned, ”Benedict ran off, and he volunteered to go look after him for me.“

“I will say, he really has turned over a new leaf since he became involved with the restoration efforts!” Milo added, pouring them some tea, “I’m quite proud of him, honestly.”

“Proud of who?” the door opened, and a harried-looking Reginald and Aiden strode into the room. Reginald saluted Isa and Milo quickly, bowing with a quick, “Isa, ma’am! Milo, sir!” Aiden copied the gesture before setting the Eversource in Isa’s lap.

“Really, Reginald, when will you drop those formalities and just call us by our names? I feel you’ve earned it by now,” Isa smiled as she scratched Benedict’s head, “Aww, are you happy to see your Master?” she cooed to him.

“Old habits die hard, ma’am.” Reginald said before winking at Ivor and Lukas, “So, Aiden was telling the truth; you are here! I do hope you’ve been staying out of trouble this time.” he sat next to Milo, who patted him on the shoulder. Aiden remained standing behind them, looking decidedly uncomfortable.

“Of course they are; they’re here to…” Milo paused, then looked at them sheepishly, “Er, why are you here? Not that we aren’t pleased to see you! I just realized that we never asked what the purpose of your visit is.“

Lukas shared a glance with Ivor before speaking, “Um, we’re here to ask if Jesse and Petra were here about two weeks ago.”

“Two weeks ago…?” Isa echoed thoughtfully as she and Milo exchanged glances of their own. Some hidden conversation seemed to pass between them. They seemed to be attuned to each other, and it kind of weirded Lukas out. The last time he had seen them, they had been at each other’s throats at every opportunity. To see them in such synchronization was… strange.

“…Yes, they were. Might I ask why you’re curious?” Milo asked after a few moments of silence.

“They’ve gone missing,” Ivor said bluntly.

“Beacontown’s Founding Day celebration was held a few days ago, and Jesse and Petra never showed up,” Lukas cut in, “They would never miss such an important day, so the whole town is worried that something happened to them inside the Portal Network.“

“When I found Lukas, and he told me this, I informed him that Sky City was the last place Jesse and Petra had been spotted before they disappeared,” Ivor finished the little tale, looking expectantly at the four Sky City officials.

Isa, Milo, and Reginald shared dubious looks. “How do you even know that? You weren’t with them when they visited,” Reginald pointed out.

“I have my ways,” Ivor replied evasively. Lukas rolled his eyes, then clicked his tongue disapprovingly at Dewey, who was looking at Benedict how a starving man regards a steak. Dewey startled at the noise, his ears pinning themselves flat and then twitching indignantly before he lay down at Lukas’ feet.

“Well, Jesse and Petra were here, but their visit was extremely brief. They completed a mission I had given them and left promptly after.“ Isa took a sip of her tea.

“What was the mission?” Ivor questioned as he leaned forward in his seat.

“They had retrieved several sets of elytra that I needed for the Royal Guard. They will make travel to and from the old City much easier.”

“Elytra…” Ivor sat back and caressed his small beard thoughtfully. When he didn’t say anything else, Lukas jumped into the conversation.

“Did they talk about anything else? Maybe about where they were going or a new adventure they were planning?”

The four across from them fell silent.

“…Anything at all?” Lukas asked weakly.

More silence.

“Okay, people,” Ivor started to stand up, “This–”

“Wait! They did mention something to me,“ Isa sighed, holding up a hand to stop Ivor’s impending tirade.

Lukas hauled him back down by the arm, “What was it?”

Isa regarded him carefully before leaning forward, “Nothing I say here leaves this room. I’m only telling you this information because you are Jesse and Petra’s most trusted friends, understand?”

“Okay…” Despite his eagerness to hear this new information, Lukas’ eyes strayed to Aiden, who hadn’t said anything since entering the room. Is he qualified to hear this information as well?

Isa followed his line of sight until she realized his concern, “Oh, don’t worry, Lukas,” she reassured him, “Despite what happened in the past, I have faith in Aiden’s discretion. He was also present when Jesse and Petra visited, so he is already aware of this knowledge.”

Lukas nodded, feeling only slightly reassured. Aiden glanced downwards, the tips of his ears stained red.

“When Jesse and Petra gave us the elytra, I offered them a new mission, as I often do. For travelers like them, odd jobs like item retrieval or monster slaying are popular for making a living. However, they declined my offer, saying they had another mission to complete. An incredibly urgent one.”

Milo continued for her, “Erm, this mission did seem rather different than their usual adventures. They were remarkably shifty and refused to tell us anything of substance about it,“ he chuckled nervously, ”and what they did tell us, they insisted upon being absolutely secret.“

“Yes, but what was it?” Ivor asked irritably. Lukas couldn’t even fault him; Isa and Milo were clearly dancing around the subject, but he couldn’t imagine why.

Reginald looked at both of them for some hidden confirmation and sat forward, “They told us that they were going to an ancient portal within the Network to retrieve an extremely powerful and dangerous artifact. Apparently, they had been hailed by an old friend, who insisted they find and bring it to Beacontown as quickly as possible.”

“Okay, now we’re getting somewhere!“ Ivor massaged his temples.

“But why bring it to Beacontown? If this extremely dangerous artifact was already hidden, shouldn’t it just stay in its hiding place?“ Lukas wondered.

Aiden spoke up, his voice quiet, “Petra told me that people are after it, people who are obsessed with its power. If Jesse and Petra could find it before they did, they could bring it back to Beacontown and store it in the Order’s vault, where it would be safe from interference.”

Lukas reached down and ran a hand through Dewey’s soft fur. Feeling his brain spin, he asked one more question, “Did they tell you what this artifact was?”

They all shook their heads.

Lukas looked to Ivor, who shared his expression of trepidation.

“So… we have an ancient portal, a dangerous artifact, and mysterious people who are after said artifact,” Lukas said finally. He felt like throwing up, but he tried to take deep breaths and focused on the comforting warmth of Dewey at his feet.

“That’s more than we had earlier!” Ivor slapped his shoulder encouragingly. Lukas gave him a feeble smile.

The people across regarded him sympathetically. “We are truly sorry we can’t provide you with more information,” Milo said earnestly, “If there’s anything more we can do for you both, please tell us.”

— — — — —

“The Portal Network hasn’t even been fully explored yet,” Lukas sighed when they left the Founder’s cottage, “Jesse and Petra could’ve gone through a portal in a section that hasn’t even been documented.”

“That’s likely,” Ivor said from beside him, “I’ve visited nearly every documented world, and none of their portals seem ancient. We’re going to have to do some adventuring!”

“You say that with such enthusiasm,” Lukas muttered.

“Lukas,” Ivor put a hand on his shoulder, pulling him closer as they walked towards the Pavilion, “I’ll admit, this isn’t a wonderful situation, but we have to hope that Jesse and Petra are still alive when we find them. Hopefully, they left some footprints or something out there!”

“You’re going to go look for them?” Aiden’s voice sounded from behind.

They turned to see the guardsman standing uncertainly outside the cottage door.

“Yeah. What else are we supposed to do?” Lukas replied.

Aiden took a few steps forward, putting his hands up in a placating gesture, “I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just…” he faltered, “I was going to ask if you guys needed any help.”

“We’re quite stocked up on supplies, actually, but thank you,” Ivor said, “Although, I suppose procuring more blaze powder wouldn’t hurt–”

“I was volunteering my help,” Aiden interrupted, “I’ve already talked to Isa, Milo, and Reginald, and they all approved me to join your search party.”

Okay, this was officially the weirdest day of Lukas’ life. Aiden? Volunteering?? To help with something???

“Why?” the question burst from Lukas’ mouth before he could filter it out. He cringed at the accusation in his tone but couldn’t take it back now.

Aiden pressed his lips together briefly, “Almost ten years ago now, I stole from and attempted to kill you and the rest of the Order, destroying Sky City in the process. Since then, I have served my punishment here and worked to redeem myself in the eyes of this world’s people, but I haven’t done anything to receive forgiveness from you.”

When Lukas and Ivor didn’t say anything, he sighed, “However, I also know that I don’t deserve your forgiveness. I’m not offering my help out of any expectation that you forgive me; I’m offering to help because,” he closed his eyes briefly, as if warding off a painful memory, “when Jesse fought me, he had every opportunity to throw me off the island or leave me defenseless against the monsters. But he didn’t. He took mercy on me instead and helped me escape with the rest of Sky City’s citizens.

“Even if he doesn’t forgive me for what I did to all of you, I still want to help find him and Petra. I owe Jesse that much; it’s the least I could do for getting a second chance.”

…

Wow.

“Holy shit,” Lukas said at the time as Ivor said, “You’re in.”

“What? Shouldn’t this be, like, a joint decision? I’m here too!” Lukas glared at his friend.

“You were going to say no? We need all the help we can get!” Ivor gestured to Aiden, “He has combat training; his help could be invaluable!”

“He tried to kill all of us!” Lukas hissed.

“So have I! ” Ivor countered.

“That’s different! You changed your ways and decided to help us when it really mattered!”

“And how is that any different from what Aiden is doing now?” Ivor pointed to Aiden, who merely tried to look like he wasn’t eavesdropping on their very loud argument. Dewey wandered over to him, sniffing him experimentally.

“I understand if you don’t want me to travel with you. I haven’t done anything to warrant your trust.” Aiden put his hands up again as Dewey circled around his shins. His inspection done, the ocelot turned to Lukas and gave a single meow as he trotted back. That wasn’t how Dewey expressed his disapproval… it was quite the opposite.

“Where did you even learn to speak like that?” Lukas shot back, deeply unsettled, “You sound nothing like the Aiden I knew.” It was like he was a completely different person.

The guardsman shrugged, “I was locked up in prison for a few years; after we all displayed good behavior for a long enough time, they lent us books from the library and gave us journals to write in,” he smiled lopsidedly, “I wrote a few stories, even got them published, but eventually I had to focus on my duties with the Royal Guard.”

“Writing…,” If it weren’t for the fact that Lukas had known Aiden since they had first spawned, he would swear that the person in front of him was an impostor, and a very bad one at that.

“Ooh, you’re an author too, Blondie; there’s something you have in common!” Ivor nudged him.

When Lukas didn’t budge, he straightened with a frown, “Look. I know you don’t trust him, but the Founder does! Reginald and Milo, as well. That has to count for something. And, if he tries anything, I can just utilize my extensive know-how of the Shadow Arts and,” he looked to Aiden with a wicked grin, “make him disappear.”

The half-smile that Aiden had been wearing vanished immediately.

“I hate to admit it, but that actually does make me feel a bit better,” Lukas muttered under his breath to his friend, who laughed.

“Then it’s settled! Now, boys, onto the adventure!”

Chapter 4: Trial and Error

Summary:

Into the thick of it!
Spent FOREVER writing and rewriting this chapter, then just decided I needed to get it out before I drove myself crazy LMAO
Enjoy!

“These portals look far from ancient,” Aiden commented as they peered down a dimly lit hallway.

Ivor groaned, “Check it off the map, then.”

Lukas sighed and unfolded the large piece of paper that displayed their map of the Portal Network. The main hallway (called ‘Main Street’ by portal hoppers, wasn’t that cute?) stood in the middle, with smaller corridors branching off occasionally. There was no pattern; sometimes corridors would be five blocks apart, and sometimes they would be twenty. Not for the first time, Lukas cursed the Old Builders’ inane building design as he drew the new corridor and promptly marked it off.

The three of them had quickly ruled out any documented corridor as an option when they bought their map from the Inn-Between. None contained any portals regarded as “ancient,” meaning they would have to start in unmarked territory. Since the entirety of Main Street was already mapped out, only the branching corridors were left, of which some were marked, some not. As they walked down Main Street, the corridors became more and more worn, sometimes collapsing in on themselves or being reduced to cracks in the wall barely wide enough to fit a chicken, much less a full-grown human. Lukas crouched in front of one such crack, over thirty blocks from the last one.

“Should we look in crevices like these? They’re too small for a human to fit through.”

Dewey huffed and wriggled through the opening, re-emerging a few seconds later with a triumphant meow. Lukas laughed and scratched behind his ears.

“I know you can fit, boy. Very impressive.”

Dewey nodded seriously and promptly sneezed, sending a cloud of dust flying into their faces.

“If Jesse and Petra had been through here, they would have mined an entrance big enough for them to fit,” Aiden pointed out amidst his coughing, “So I think we can rule out little cracks like this.”

“Sounds good to me,” Lukas drew it and marked it off, same as all the others, “Main Street is ending soon, about a hundred blocks, give or take.” A breeze whispered through the hallway as he spoke, filling their noses with the smell of stale air and wet stone.

“This place is so weird,” Aiden shivered, “It’s like the deeper we go, the colder it gets.”

“The older it gets,” Ivor chimed in, “The further down we travel, the older the Network becomes. That’s why people don’t come here; the portals are becoming unstable.”

“How does a portal become unstable?” Lukas examined a particularly large crack in the rock but, upon further inspection, dismissed it and moved on.

“Apparently, when a world encounters something cataclysmic, it starts to… fracture. When a world is fracturing, its portal becomes unstable and eventually dies along with the world.” Ivor crouched down, “It also occurs if a world has reached the end of its natural lifespan, but that’s only happened in a few cases, like the portals down here. Corridor here, by the way.”

“Do you think our portal became unstable when the Witherstorm destroyed everything?” Lukas wondered as he came over to mark it down.

Ivor glanced at him, “It’s plausible.”

Lukas looked at the small hole and promptly crossed it off on his map.

“I didn’t even know worlds could fracture,” Aiden mused as they continued.

“It’s not commonly known; I only know because I have a friend who is,” Ivor caught himself, “er, has extensive knowledge on the Portal Network. Only a few worlds have started to fracture, but I’ve never been to any; I haven't ever traveled this far down Main Street.”

“That’s… not as comforting as I thought it would be.”

— — — — —

After another hour, the three of them finally reached the end of Main Street. Lukas was so glad to see the end that he didn’t even care that most of the hallway was dark and dusty at this point; he was just happy to finally have gotten somewhere.

After they finished celebrating, he pulled out the map and a torch, “Okay, so out of all the branching paths we saw, only six are accessible.”

“And that’s not counting anything that could be in this area,” Aiden reminded him.

“Exactly,” Lukas gave two more torches to him and Ivor, “I suggest we fan out and start looking for any Jesse and Petra sized-holes here before going back and trying the others.”

“This is so exciting!” Ivor exclaimed as he took a torch and started examining the far wall, “This is completely uncharted territory we’re talking about, quite possibly one of the first worlds ever discovered! If Jesse and Petra found that artifact that Isa and Milo mentioned, who knows what kind of power it could hold–”

“Ivor, you’re rambling again,” Lukas reminded him, going to examine the opposite wall and leaving Aiden with the hallway’s end.

Ivor cleared his throat, “Yes, of course. My apologies.”

“Hey, guys? Come look at this,” Aiden called out a few minutes later, holding his torch to a lever hidden in one of the dark corners of the hallway. It was hidden by a crumbling pillar, placed just above the floor. It would have been virtually invisible if they hadn’t been searching for something out of the ordinary.

The three of them exchanged glances.

Lukas carefully examined the lever, putting his torch on the wall and crouching to get a better look. “This lever was pulled recently,” he realized, “I can see handprints on the arm.” He turned back to his companions for insight, but Ivor merely waved him on impatiently.

“Well? Pull it!”

Lukas flipped it up, and the hallway started to shake. Dust and rubble began falling from the ceiling, and a deep screeching noise emanated from the wall in front of them as it began to move.

Dewey clung to his leg in fright as Ivor shouted something incomprehensible. Gritting his teeth against his ocelot’s claws, Lukas clung to the wall for support as a gigantic doorway slowly shuddered to life before them. After seemingly hours of earth-shattering tremors, the shaking stopped, and the doorway stood tall, well over six blocks. The corridor within had no lights at all, the walls only faintly illuminated by the warping, glowing fields of the portals inside.

It looked terrifying.

“I call ‘not first,’” Ivor stepped back.

Aiden looked hesitant but said nonetheless, “I’ll do it.”

Lukas looked at him skeptically, “You sure? I can go first.”

“No, no,” Aiden said, gathering his resolve, “I’ll just take my sword out, you know, as a precaution.” He unsheathed a diamond sword, holding it in front of him cautiously before inching through the doorway. Lukas followed behind him, his bow at the ready in case there was anything hostile waiting to ambush them. Ivor treaded close behind.

Once inside, Lukas put up several torches, lighting their surroundings.

Even illuminated, this place was creepy.

The portals surrounding them looked nothing like the ones on Main Street. Someone had carved intricate designs into their frames, their fields kaleidoscopes of colors that fizzed and crackled dangerously. Lukas jumped away from a particularly violent rush of sparks that flew from the portal next to him.

“Careful, Dewey; stay close to me,” he told the ocelot lowly. His animal companion nodded, sticking to Lukas’ heels like resin as the three humans slowly made their way further into the small corridor.

After several moments, the corridor started trembling again, except this time, the damage was much worse. Entire blocks fell from the ceiling, dust clouds erupted in the air and caused Lukas to cough, his eyes beginning to water as he desperately tried to get air. He could hear Dewey choking beside him, and his hearts seized as he crouched to the floor and wrapped them up in his cloak in an attempt to shield themselves.

“It’s okay, Dewey, it’s alright, we’re gonna be fine,” he tried to comfort him, but his voice came out hoarse and shaky. He pulled his cat close, feeling him shake as he prayed to the Creators: please prevent the hallway from collapsing.

After a few more seconds, the earthquake stopped. Lukas stood up and brushed himself off, ensuring that Dewey was breathing all right. Thank the Creators, he thought with relief when the cat merely coughed and returned to exploring the area.

“What was that? ” Aiden sneezed, his face half-buried in his shirt.

“…That might’ve been me.”

Behind them, Ivor was dusting himself in front of the wall, shaking dust out of his hair with an irritated grumble.

…Wasn’t a doorway there a second ago?

“Did you seal us in? ” Lukas exclaimed, feeling his throat constrict again, and not because of the dust this time. “If we tried to mine through that door, this whole place could cave in! The Network’s gravity is different from our homeworld’s!”

“Relax! There’s a lever on this side; we’re not trapped,” Ivor said flippantly, “This way, nobody else discovers this place on their own! What if people found the open doorway, and their interference made the place collapse before we could find Jesse and Petra? We’d be stuck in one of these portals!”

“Let’s just hope that opening the door again doesn’t lead to that collapse,” Aiden sighed.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m with you,” Lukas told him.

“Nobody ever appreciates my thinking,” Ivor muttered.

After putting up a few more torches, Lukas had fully illuminated the room. It was a relatively small corridor, with only two portals on each side and one on the back wall. Three portals were illuminated, their fields crackling with multicolored particles that almost seemed to flake off the portals themselves. Their frames, while intricate, were cracked and incomplete. Eyebrows furrowing, Lukas pulled out a journal and flipped to a page with an illustration of a portal on Main Street; the portals in front of them were dim by comparison, their light barely managing to reflect off of their frames. No wonder it had been so dark before Lukas put torches up.

“Interesting… all of these worlds are fracturing,” Ivor murmured.

“Interesting or concerning?” Aiden shot back.

The other portal frames were empty. They hardly looked like gateways anymore, more like piles of blocks and rubble on the ground. Lukas walked over and placed a careful hand on the closest one. Despite his soft touch, the redstone under his hands crumbled away into dust, sending the rest of the frame tumbling to the ground. Lukas jumped back from the rubble, feeling like he had just committed a crime.

“What? It’s not like they’re going to jump out at you!” Ivor snapped.

“I thought no world has ever died,” Lukas looked back at him and Aiden.

Ivor frowned, watching Lukas as he walked around and cataloged all the portals in the brand new journal he had brought specifically for this mission, “Of natural causes, at least. That’s what Harper told me.”

“So, all these worlds didn’t die on their own terms,” Aiden concluded. The thought sent a chill down Lukas’ spine.

After several minutes, Lukas finished updating his journal, “Alright,” he began, “These portals seem pretty ancient to m ,” he shot Aiden a pointed glance, but the guardsman remained silent, “So can we agree that Jesse and Petra probably went through one of them?”

“We could try examining each one to see if there’s any disturbances in the dust that could point to recent use, if they didn’t get erased by the tremors from the door mechanism,” Aiden suggested, giving Ivor a meaningful look of his own.

Ivor threw his hands up, “Oh what, I’m the bad guy, now?”

Lukas shook his head, “When documenting everything, I didn’t see any signs of recent use. I think the dust blanketed everything in here.”

“Well, that just leaves it up to our old friend, trial and error!” Ivor enthusiastically nudged him towards the nearest portal, “The last one in is a poisonous potato!”

“Wait! Ivor, wait –and he’s gone,” Lukas sighed, “Let’s go, then.”

He and Dewey ran for the portal Ivor had gone through, ignoring Aiden’s confused shout. As he felt the all-too-familiar sensation of falling through air, an overwhelming sense of déjà vu filled him.

Jesse, Petra, wherever you are… I hope you’re okay.

— — — — —

“About time you showed up!” Ivor pretended to pull out a clock when Lukas, Dewey, and Aiden materialized on the other side of the portal.

“You didn’t leave us much choice,” Aiden retorted as Lukas examined their surroundings.

This world was… surprisingly unassuming. Simple, almost. Lukas immediately grabbed his journal and started to jot down notes.

“Don’t you think looking for Jesse and Petra takes priority over your journal?” Aiden’s annoyed voice broke his investigative focus, and Lukas gripped his quill tightly.

“Oh, so now you’re all worried about them? You weren’t all that concerned about us when you threw me and Jesse off Sky City!” he snapped back, “I’m just taking notes; I know what our priorities are.”

Aiden gritted his teeth and Lukas straightened up instinctively. He put his book away and took a step towards the guardsman, but Dewey moved between them, growling and fluffing up his fur. There was a tense silence as Aiden’s eyes narrowed and Lukas held his breath. Ivor, for once, was quiet, glancing between them as they stared at each other, daring the other to lash out first.

Aiden was the first to step back. He ran a hand through his hair, slightly mussing it up, and shook his head, “I’m sorry, Lukas. I shouldn’t have gotten angry,” he said diplomatically, eyes falling away from Lukas’.

Lukas was sure that if he opened his eyes any further, they would fall from their sockets. There was no way Aiden had just apologized to him. Unbidden!

Dewey looked over at him meaningfully and he coughed slightly, getting the hint.

“Uh, yeah. I’m sorry, too.” Wanting to escape from the horribly awkward atmosphere, he turned around and took his book out again. His quill flew over the paper twice as fast as he tried in vain to get a few sketches of the place they had traveled to.

“You know, for one of the first worlds ever discovered, this place is kind of–” Ivor trailed off as he kicked a stray rock.

“Underwhelming?” Aiden finished.

“I was going to say unfinished,” Ivor huffed, “There’s hardly anything here!”

He was right; Lukas had gone to so many worlds and had seen so many things that the world they had jumped into was… honestly pretty boring. It was a standard oak biome, with trees and grass and the occasional rustle of animals amongst the undergrowth.

“Wait, what are these?” Lukas knelt on the ground, where tiny cracks formed webs among the grass.

Ivor crouched next to him, “I…have no idea. I’ve never seen anything like them before.”

“They’re everywhere, even on the trees,” Aiden called from the other side of the small clearing. When Lukas walked over and ran a hand along the cracks forming in the tree trunks, he noticed they were bigger than the ones he had seen on the ground. An uneasy feeling slunk down his spine as the four of them examined the clearing, noting the rip-like crevices that seemed innocuous enough up close but ran across everything they saw, as if the world itself was made out of shattered glass.

“The cracks grow bigger in this direction,” Ivor said finally after a few minutes of searching. When Lukas looked up from his journal, he stood next to the tree that Aiden had pointed out earlier.

“Then they must be emanating from something,” Aiden mused as he walked over to him.

Lukas stood up and brushed some dirt from his knees, “I think we should follow them and see what the source is. Maybe it’s whatever Jesse and Petra were sent after.” He walked past Ivor and Aiden, Dewey breaking off from his heels to nose around the bushes and tall grass.

“Stay close, Dewey,” he called. When Dewey mewed plaintively in response, he sighed, a small smile flitting across his face, “Yes, you can hunt if you want.”

The walk was peaceful. Since it was in the middle of the afternoon, the sun was bright and the sky cloudless as they strolled through the woods. All around them, they could hear the sounds of life hidden just out of view: the buzzing of bees, the howls of wolves, the huffs of cows. It was… a lot like home.

Come on, Lukas, it’s way too early to start getting homesick, he scolded himself.

Behind him, he could hear Ivor and Aiden chatting amicably, and emotions he had been trying very hard to ignore sprang to the forefront of his mind. Anger. Resentment. Anxiety. Apprehension.

Part of him still didn’t believe that Aiden truly wanted to help them. Honestly, he was still hung up on the fact that Aiden even offered to help him and Ivor. After what happened in Sky City, Lukas had thought Aiden was beyond hope. He had walked through that portal believing it was the last time he would ever see his former best friend. And now, a decade later… he was walking through this forest with Aiden and Ivor, who were hitting it off surprisingly well. For a man famous for holding grudges, Ivor certainly didn’t seem to have one against the royal guardsman.

It made Lukas feel all the more alone.

Almost as if he could understand Lukas’ thoughts, Dewey trotted from behind a fallen tree trunk with a piece of chicken in his mouth.

“Mrrw,” he mewed, his mouth full of raw meat.

Lukas huffed a small laugh and reached to scratch behind his ocelot’s ears, “Thanks, buddy, but I think you should take this one.” Dewey flicked his tail and bounded off into the forest to eat his kill, and Lukas continued walking, trying to shove all thoughts of Aiden out of his head.

He’s not your best friend anymore; he’s just someone you haven’t seen for ten years. Of course, you’re gonna be nostalgic, he reasoned as he heard Aiden laugh behind him; the more you put him out of your thoughts, the better.

A while later, the dense trees of the oak biome thinned out into a grassy plain. Winding rivers cut through the land, and herds of wild animals grazed peacefully on the long grass that grew in plentiful amounts. It was… majestic. However, its natural beauty was disturbed by several things.

One, the deep cracks that had grown bigger and bigger as they walked.

Two, the cottage in the middle of the plains, right next to one of the rivers.

“Someone actually lives here?” Aiden asked in surprise as they began to walk down a path that wound through the plains.

“I don’t see how that’s a shock; it actually reminds me a lot of home,” Lukas responded thoughtfully.

“Home,” Aiden echoed.

“Well, isn’t this picturesque?” Ivor commented as they continued walking, “You’re right, Blondie; this does remind me a lot of your little cabin!”

“You live in a cabin?” Aiden asked as he sped up to walk next to Lukas.

“Uh, yeah… right outside of Beacontown’s walls,” he answered reluctantly, “Built it myself a few years ago. It’s a cozy place.”

“How is Beacontown doing?”

“Fine?” Lukas said, feeling vaguely weirded out by Aiden’s interest in the subject, “I wasn’t aware that you knew of it. We only named it officially after we discovered the Portal Network.”

Aiden shrugged, a small smile crossing his face, “Well, Sky City has a lot of tourists, and many come from Beacontown. Your book made everyone want to see the legendary floating city for themselves.”

“Hmm.”

“Actually, why has Jesse even been in the Portal Network with Petra? I thought he was still ruling over Beacontown,” Aiden frowned suddenly.

“Uh, no, not anymore. After the fight against the Admin, he and Petra decided to go off adventuring together.”

“Oh wow, and the town’s still going strong and everything?”

“Why are you so concerned about it?” The bubble of annoyance inside Lukas burst. For a moment, they all stopped, surprised by his sudden shout. Lukas heaved in a breath, trying to regain control over himself. His fists clenched, but he forced his body to untense after a few seconds. He needed to stay calm.

Aiden looked like he would very much like to respond with the same hostility Lukas had given him, but his voice was even as he replied, “It was my home too, Lukas.“

For some reason, Aiden’s refusal to escalate the argument made Lukas even angrier, “Was,” he said shortly before turning heel and storming up the path, holding his breath until he was a safe distance away from his two human companions. He was seriously not in the mood for this.

After several moments, someone fell into step beside him.

“Conflict resolution really isn’t my strong point,” Ivor sighed after Lukas remained silent.

“I still don’t see why you insisted on bringing him along. He tried to kill us, Ivor, all of us!” Lukas raked a hand through his hair as he seethed, “He pushed me off that island without a care in the worlds. He smiled as we fell! After all we’ve been through!”

Ivor was quiet.

“Ai– he was my best friend,” Lukas ducked his head, trying to fend off the tears that pricked his eyes, “and then, after the Witherstorm, all that didn’t matter anymore.”

“It mattered,” Ivor said as they walked. Lukas let out a small, bitter laugh.

“Then he wouldn't have tried to kill all of us.”

Lukas refused to look Ivor’s way, instead staring at the cabin gradually approaching the horizon. The tall grass of the plains had disappeared, now replaced with fields of all sorts of crops. Wheat, melons, beets, and even cacti covered the flat expanse around the cabin. The sections closest to the cabin seemed to be newly replanted, but the crops on the outer edges of the fields were still ripe as if someone had stopped harvesting halfway through.

“Ellegaard died because of me,” Ivor spoke as they rounded a slight bend in the path.

Lukas almost forgot to speak in surprise, “What? No, Ivor, the Witherstorm killed her.”

“Uh, just in case you forgot, I created the Witherstorm.” Ivor rolled his eyes at him, but his countenance was uncertain.

“You had no idea it was going to become so powerful,” Lukas said resolutely.

“And yet, it did. I was so angry because of my friends’ lie that I created a monster just to teach them a lesson,” Ivor shook his head, “The world almost ended because of me, Lukas, and nothing I do will ever erase that.”

Lukas didn’t say anything; he just felt the weight on his chest grow even heavier.

“Now, I’m not telling you this to convince you that I’m a monster,” Ivor laughed heartily, “That would just be self-sabotaging of me! No, I’m telling you this because, despite all the harm I did to everyone around me– especially my old friends –I still cared for them.

“Hell, I created the Witherstorm to follow Gabriel specifically, and by the end of the whole ordeal I was throwing myself into the tractor beams of that blasted thing just to save him!” he shook his head with a fond smile, “And after that whole stint with the Admin, I tracked them all down. Gabriel, Magnus, Soren, I found them all, and I made amends.”

“And how is that working out?” Lukas asked skeptically.

“Pretty good, actually,” Ivor grinned at him, “I’m sure Jesse would be proud.”

Against his better judgment, Lukas felt himself smile.

“Aiden is doing the same thing,” Ivor nodded behind them, where their companion was marching along, looking steadily forward. Lukas snuck a glance at him before turning back quickly.

“But what if I don’t want to make amends?” Lukas asked.

Ivor shrugged, “That’s your choice, Blondie. Creators know you’re not obligated to.”

For some reason, when Ivor strode ahead, Lukas felt even worse than before.

— — — — —

After a quick check around the perimeter (insisted upon by Ivor), the four of them ascertained there was nothing besides the farm fields, the cabin itself, and a small stable. From the outside, it seemed like simply what it was: a cozy little cottage in the middle of nowhere, perfect for a farmer or a particularly introverted writer (Ivor elbowed him with a wink at that one; Lukas didn’t think it was particularly funny).

However, there was one thing that caught their attention.

The cracks, two to three blocks wide at this point, all appeared to emanate from the cabin itself. It was like a giant had come from above and punched a hole right underneath the cottage. Maybe, if they managed to get inside, they could find the cause.

“You think there’s an ethical reason to excuse this?” Aiden asked as they stood at the front door. Lukas had knocked several times, but it had been ten minutes, and no one had come to answer the call.

Ivor promptly kicked the door open.

“You would think a practitioner of the Shadow Arts would be a bit more subtle,” Lukas said pointedly as they all filed in.

“As a master of the Shadow Arts,” Ivor corrected, “There are times when it is appropriate to be subtle and times when it is not.”

“Did that old man tell you that before or after he made you scrub the floor for the hundredth time?” Lukas retorted, feeling a smirk twist his lips as his old friend scoffed.

“After,” Ivor said with great dignity.

The interior of the cabin was as nondescript as the outside. There was a small kitchen, a living room, a bedroom, and a bathroom. Lanterns softly illuminated the space, creating a cozy, lived-in atmosphere. The fridge and cabinets were fully stocked, the bed rumpled but slightly made, and the hearth filled with fresh ash from a fire. The cracks that marred the world outside didn’t extend inside, but Lukas didn’t know if that was because this structure was man-made or because the house’s owner was simply on top of its repairs.

“There has to be something about this cabin that makes it the center of the fracture,” Ivor said as he collapsed onto the worn couch, “I highly doubt that the rotten pumpkins in the fridge are the reason this entire world is collapsing!”

“We’ve been over every inch of this place! It’s completely fine,” Aiden threw his hands up as he paced  around the living room, “What happened to the homeowner?”

Lukas was quiet, leaning against the front door as he examined the interior for what seemed like the tenth time. Aiden was right; there was nothing amiss here. There weren’t even any signs of Jesse or Petra. 

“Maybe this house has just been abandoned longer than we thought?” he tried.

Ivor shook his head, “Then why are there freshly planted crops outside? Someone has to have been here recently.”

“Perhaps it was Jesse and Petra foraging for supplies,” Aiden suggested.

“Maybe,” Lukas said, unconvinced.

As they theorized, Dewey walked onto the fuzzy carpet in the center of the room, kneading biscuits contentedly. However, when he began to lie down, he suddenly sank into the floor with an alarmed yowl.

“Dewey?” Lukas launched himself to the source of the noise only to find the orange carpet funneling through a hole in the floor. Before the rug completely vanished down the passageway, Lukas threw himself to the ground and grabbed it, hauling his ocelot up and freeing him from his plush prison.

“A secret trapdoor!” Ivor exclaimed when they threw the carpet out of the way. After checking to ensure Dewey was alright, Lukas joined him and Aiden in peering down the mysterious opening.

“Well, that’s certainly strange,” Aiden commented.

After telling Dewey to stay in the cabin, Lukas led the way down the simple ladder set into the wall. Lamps lit the way down, giving the passage a dim but warm light. When Lukas finally touched solid ground, he was amazed by what he saw.

The surface cabin might have been warm and cozy, but the space below was anything but. Someone had built the walls out of shiny, polished deepslate and lit the room with soul lanterns. The floor was made of wood: spruce and dark oak set in a checkered pattern with a rug patterned like a ghast on the floor. In front of him was an ornate Nether portal that extended from floor to ceiling. Various workstations lay about: a brewing stand, an anvil, and a small nook with an enchanting table.

“Well? What do you see down there?” Ivor shouted irritably from above. Lukas remembered that his two companions were still on the ladder and stepped further into the basement to give them space.

“It’s safe! Come down here and look.”

“Holy shit,” Aiden breathed when he climbed down, “This place is crazy.”

“Yeah,” Lukas agreed, “Maybe I should think about adding a basement to my house.”

Besides the main room, two others branched off on either side. The left side was a storage room filled with shelves of meticulously labeled chests. Ivor wasted no time in rifling through them, to Aiden’s amusement and Lukas’ exasperation.

“We already broke into their home. Do we really have to steal their stuff?” Lukas sighed when Ivor gleefully pulled a couple of blaze rods from a chest labeled “Potion Ingredients.”

“Hey, you’ll be thanking me when I brew these bad boys into healing potions to save our backsides!” Ivor retorted as he reached back in, “Oh, glistering melons! Wonderful! ”

Aiden also started peeking into chests, “Wow, this person is stacked. I’ve never seen so many ender pearls in one place!”

“Well,” Lukas hedged when he faced the full brunt of their pleading expressions, “Maybe they won’t miss a few items.”

Aiden and Ivor returned to their ransacking happily while Lukas scribbled a note and tacked it to one of the shelves.

Sorry, we were on an important mission and needed supplies. I hope you won’t miss a couple of things.

The next room, across from the storage area, was small. In the center, a tall, glowing portal made of cracked cobblestone crackled dangerously. As they watched, a large jagged rip cut through the floor up the wall.

“The portal back,” Ivor breathed, “It’s… ripping this world apart?”

“Was this person an Old Builder?” Aiden asked, glancing sidelong at him.

“No, that’s impossible. Harper said that there were no other Builders apart from her, Hadrian, Mevia, and Otto.”

“Well, Harper did have a tendency to, uh, twist the truth,” Lukas faltered as his friend turned to glare viciously at him.

“She wouldn’t have lied to me! You don’t know her like I do; we had a bond. We trusted each other.”

“Okay, okay, this person wasn’t an Old Builder,” Lukas put his hands up in surrender, then pointed to the glowing portal, “but they still knew about the Network portal! And somehow got it to open.”

“That’s not incredibly strange, remember Cassie Rose? She wasn’t an Old Builder, just from another world!” Ivor countered.

“We never confirmed that!”

I did!“ Ivor sniffed haughtily, ”When I told Harper about her, she told me that Cassie actually originated from Crown Mesa. One day, she just disappeared through the portal, despite Harper’s warnings about the Portal Network. They never saw her again.“

“Oh,” Lukas shivered as he looked back at the portal with trepidation, “that’s actually pretty sad.”

“Yes, well, she should’ve listened to Harper when she had the chance,” Ivor sighed.

Another loud crack resounded through the air, making them all nearly jump out of their skins as a gaping hole opened up underneath Lukas’s feet.

With a yelp, Lukas leaped towards the portal, wobbling as he made his landing. He whirled around, where Aiden, Ivor, and Dewey were staring at him in naked fear.

“Holy shit, this place is collapsing!” he exclaimed, refusing to take his eyes off the floor lest another fracture take him by surprise.

“Yeah, we’d better get out of here,” Aiden agreed quickly as he jumped across the gaping hole. Dewey followed, rubbing up against Lukas’ leg with a purr. 

Ivor jumped as well but still looked hesitant as he asked, “Do you think Jesse and Petra are in here?”

“I mean, this place had a lot of stuff, but nothing out of the ordinary,” Aiden pointed out. “I think we’d have come across them by now, especially since this is the origin of the fractures.”

Lukas nodded, trying not to feel like they were just trying to find reasons to leave without searching more, “I agree; let’s look at the other worlds before we return to this one. I don’t want to be here when the rest of this floor gives out.”

As if trying to speed them up, another hole shuddered open beneath Ivor, who clutched onto Aiden with an ungainly scream.

“Time to go!” Aiden tried to shove Ivor off of him, but the man just clutched onto him tighter, “Ow, fuck, Ivor!”

“Come on!” Lukas pushed them both through the field before picking up Dewey and jumping through himself. A second later, they all tumbled to the floor of the old room, coughing through the billows of dust that immediately assaulted their noses.

— — — — —

After that, they decided to take a break; it had been an exhaustingly long day. Although he had only left Beacontown that morning, Lukas felt like he had been back in the Portal Network for ages as he slowly lowered himself to the ground in the corner of the room. They had set up several bedrolls and a small fire, which was the best they could do regarding their circumstances. Not for the first time, Lukas wished they could’ve slept in that cabin, but the risk of being swallowed by the abyss in their sleep was too significant.

“I still feel strange just sleeping in here,” Lukas mumbled when they all settled in, “This place kind of freaks me out. Maybe we should sleep in shifts.”

Ivor snorted as he roasted a fish over the flames, “You had no problem with it the first time!”

“Well, that was different,” Lukas said as he watched Dewey knead biscuits on his pillow, “The main hallway was a lot less intimidating than this room. Plus, we know that someone is after Jesse and Petra. What if they stumble across this place and try to kill us?”

He leaned back against the stone wall, trying not to give in to the negativity brewing in his head, “I feel like something’s missing, like we aren’t equipped well enough for this.”

“You miss them,” Ivor looked at him knowingly as he offered a fish to Aiden, who took it with a grateful nod.

Lukas could feel himself turning red, “You have to admit, having two capable warriors by our side diminished a lot of worries about sudden attacks!”

Ivor shrugged, “Of course.”

Lukas was quiet for a while longer, eventually pulling out some cod for Dewey and provisions for himself, before he spoke again, “It just feels different, being on this adventure without them. I haven’t really gone looking for anything outside of Beacontown in years.”

“I’ll admit, I have missed them on my adventures,” Ivor sighed wistfully, “I almost forgot what traveling with companions felt like.”

“Speaking of companions, where is Harper, anyway? I thought you two traveled together again after we defeated the Admin.”

“Hm? Oh, no, we didn’t. We spent a lot of time exploring the Network together after you all settled down in our home world, but after the Admin, we split ways,” Ivor shook his head, “We kept in contact, although I haven’t heard from her in a while.”

“I totally thought you both had a thing going,” Lukas teased, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone make you smile like that.”

It was Ivor’s turn to blush, although it was barely noticeable through the pallor of his cheeks, “Yes, well, she is a remarkable woman, but I won’t say anything more than that.”

Lukas’ smile disappeared immediately. “Actually, I’m not sure I want to know.”

Silence reigned for a few more minutes, long enough for Lukas’ eyes to flutter and his head to nod. He was just about to call it quits and snuggle up to Dewey when a quiet voice echoed in the room.

“What was exploring the Network like? For the first time, after you left Sky City.”

When Lukas rubbed his eyes tiredly, Aiden focused on his fish, refusing to make eye contact as Lukas and Ivor looked at him and then back at each other.

“It was amazing,” Ivor said dreamily.

“In the moment? Stressful and overwhelming,” Lukas admitted, “Looking back on it? It was… kind of fun, I guess. There were definitely some worlds that I wouldn’t go back to, but it was certainly the adventure of a lifetime.”

Aiden nodded thoughtfully, “I read your book. I had no idea you guys became stranded between worlds when you left Sky City. Isa promptly blocked the portal off until she could properly study it, and I was thrown in a jail cell,” his eyes darted briefly to Lukas’ gaze, then shied away for a second before he dragged them back, “I feel like you all getting lost was my fault, I’m sorry.”

Lukas was stunned for a moment before his mouth started working again, “Uh, yeah… sorry, I still have no idea how to react when you say things like that. It’s like you’re a different person.”

That wasn’t entirely true. In all actuality, this reformed Aiden reminded him a lot of the man that had spawned into the world with him a long time ago, before the Witherstorm, before the Ocelots, before everything. Maybe that’s what scared him so much.

“If it helps,” Ivor said through a mouthful of food, “We would have gone through and gotten stranded anyway. You just happened to expedite the process.”

Lukas shrugged, “He’s right.”

Aiden’s mouth twitched upwards, and he leaned back against his pillow, “Well, I think I’m going to get some sleep,” he said, looking a bit more comfortable as he settled onto his side.

“Me too,” Lukas lay back as well, making sure not to disturb Dewey as he did so.

However, sleep seemed to evade him for what seemed like hours. He badly wanted to turn over and get more comfortable, but Dewey had snuggled into his arms, and he would rather lie awake all night than disturb his cat.

If Jesse were here, he would be snoring in two seconds flat, his inner voice whispered.

If Jesse were here, Lukas would have fallen asleep by now. He remembered nights in the Portal Hallway, leaning against the stone walls with weary eyes, yet refusing to fall asleep for fear of something approaching from the dark…

 

His hand gripped his iron sword, heavy against his lap, as he stared down the seemingly infinite hallway. It was utterly silent, the only noise coming from his sleeping companions and their crackling fire. They had been stuck in the Hallway for months now, long enough to set up a home base in a room carved into the end of it with beds, chests, and a roaring fire to keep them warm. By all standards, it was a cozy little space filled with knick-knacks and souvenirs from various worlds they had visited, but Lukas still couldn’t shake his dread. The silence was unnatural; everything about it was unnatural. He just wanted to go home.

His eyes stung with unshed tears as he stared down the abyss. He had to stay strong; he couldn’t afford to cry.

“I thought I told you that we don’t need to keep watch here,” an achingly familiar voice said softly beside him.

Lukas jerked, almost instinctively jabbing his sword at his unknown assailant, “Creators, Jesse,” he exhaled slowly as the hero sat beside him, “I nearly swung at you.”

Jesse shrugged, “But you didn’t, so we’re all good.” His hair was slightly tousled from sleep and his eyes were forming bags beneath them, but his smile was still as charming as ever.

“This is the third night in a row you haven’t slept.”

“I can’t,” Lukas responded, “I’m too tense.”

Jesse yawned, “Maybe the next world we visit will have a hot spring. That would be awesome.”

They had discovered hot springs in a world filled with volcanoes. The springs themselves had been wonderfully relaxing, but the constant threat of lava and ash pouring from the sky had dampened their rejuvenating effect.

“Hopefully, the next world we visit will be home,” Lukas sighed.

His friend was quiet, “I’ll get us home, Lukas, I promise.”

Lukas looked away, back down the hallway, “Can you even promise that, Jesse? Don’t get me wrong, I believe in you; I’ll follow you to the end of the world–-er, worlds, I guess, but I’m starting to lose hope. What if we never find the portal home?”

Jesse reached over and pried the sword from his grip, replacing it with his gloved hand. His armor was scratched and worn from use, looking like it had been used for a lifetime, not merely a year, “We will. We’ve made great progress so far; it’s only a matter of time before we stumble across the right one. And, if we find some more hot springs in the meantime, we should try to enjoy them.”

When Lukas gave him a tired smile, Jesse grinned mischievously, “Say, if you’ll follow me to the end of the worlds, maybe you could follow me to my bed?”

Wh–what?

This was it; Lukas was finally dying. He had fought a Witherstorm, fell from Sky City, and helped capture a serial killer, but that one little comment would be the thing that turned him into inventory.

“J-Jesse!?” he choked on his own spit, trying his best to die quietly so Ivor and Petra wouldn’t have to wake up and witness him keel over, “What do you mean?”

Jesse laughed, patting Lukas’ shoulder as he stood up and extended a hand, “Whenever one of us had trouble sleeping, me, Axel, and Olivia would all get in a cuddle pile! It always helped us relax; maybe it’ll help you too.”

Lukas let himself be hauled up, trying to calm his frantically beating hearts, “Oh, okay. Sure,” he said blindly, still trying to reboot as Jesse led him over to his bed. Did his friend know how that question would affect him? Was that on purpose? Had that been a test?

After placing their beds together, he and Jesse climbed onto their respective sides and huddled together. Lukas tried to maintain as much space between them as possible, but Jesse completely disregarded his efforts and scooted over to him with sparkling eyes. After retaking Lukas’ hand and squeezing it, he could hear the hero’s breathing slow.

“Sleep well, Lukas,” he murmured before closing his eyes and instantly falling asleep.

How does he do that? Lukas wondered as he watched the other man’s chest rise and fall slowly. With everything that just happened, how does he still fall asleep so quickly?

It took a few minutes for his hearts to settle finally, but when the pounding in his chest was finally gone, and he was able to take a few deep breaths, his eyes began to drift shut.

Maybe Jesse’s idea really does work, was Lukas’ last thought before he, too, fell into slumber, reveling in the solid warmth of the man beside him.

He never realized that he hadn’t let go of Jesse’s hand.

Chapter 5: The Concept of Redemption

Summary:

In which the team finds some juicy gossip (and also clues, those are important).

“Rise and shine, Blondie!”

“Wmph,” Lukas grunted as he pushed something fuzzy off his head and sat up blearily. When he only saw Ivor clearing away the remains of their campfire, his brain stalled.

“Where’s Jesse’n Petra?” he mumbled.

Ivor raised an eyebrow at him, “Presumably, somewhere within one of these portals.”

Lukas paused, then looked behind Ivor at the crumbling room they had camped in. Aiden was already up and dressed, munching on what appeared to be some type of bread.

“Oh,” he said lamely. That’s right, they weren’t stranded in the Portal Hallway; that adventure had been years ago. Jesse and Petra weren’t here. “Gotcha.”

That conversation with Jesse last night had just been a dream.

Lukas’ dream plagued him as he stowed his things in his inventory and fed Dewey (who was extremely offended at being pushed off his head so rudely). Even though the dream soon started to fade, he clung to what he could: the reassuring lilt of his friend’s voice, the warmth of his hand, and the sly grin he had used to tease him to his bed. However, rather than soothe him as they did last night, the vestiges of his dream-Jesse now only aggravated the loss Lukas felt in his absence, like a festering wound.

He tried to shake it off, but when he closed his eyes, he could still feel Jesse’s presence beside him like a specter. If he focused hard enough, he could fool himself into smelling a hint of Jesse’s scent in the musty air—woodsy, with a hint of sweat.

Okay, this was starting to get weird.

“Alright,” Lukas clapped his hands together when they had finished packing up, “Which portal do we want to try first?”

The only two portals still operational were one made of lapis lazuli on the left wall and one made of multiple, seemingly random types of blocks in front of them. The first portal’s field was somewhat stable, but the other’s flickered wildly, flashing brightly for one second and dimming to an ember the next.

“Maybe I’m biased, but I’m voting for the lapis one,” Aiden said.

When Lukas turned to Ivor, his friend shrugged, “Don’t look at me! Although we could always flip a gold piece.”

“We’ll go with the lapis one, then,” Lukas decided, “I’ll go first.”

Double-checking to ensure that Dewey was on his heels, he stepped forward into the blue portal field, feeling a rush of newfound determination as he was whisked away.

— — — — —

“You think they’re in here?”

“Why would they be, though?”

They had fallen into an entirely flat world—just a completely level grass expanse: no trees, hills, caves, nothing. The only things that broke up the endless horizon were the faint outline of strange-looking structures in the distance and the small cracks that ran along the ground in web-like patterns.

They looked exactly like the ones that they had seen yesterday.

“Ha! At least finding the exit portal will be easy as pie!” Ivor exclaimed as he took out a spyglass.

“What is that on the horizon, there?” Aiden pointed to the structures, “They look like buildings.”

“What… oh! ” Ivor laughed excitedly after a few seconds, “I know what this is! Harper told me about it!”

“How does this ‘Harper’ know about all of this anyway? I thought no one’s explored these worlds yet,” Aiden questioned as Ivor started running, leaping gracefully over any cracks in his way.

Lukas chased after him, motioning for Aiden and Dewey to follow, “Well…” he hedged, wondering if he should divulge that information or not, “Ah, what the hell. You said you read my book; do you remember the Old Builders I mentioned?”

“The people who made the Network?” Aiden panted behind him, “You said that one of them helped you get home.”

“That was Harper,” Lukas said, “She wanted to remain anonymous, so I’d advise you not to mention this anywhere else, lest Ivor use his Shadow Arts on you.”

Aiden grimaced, “Yeah, I’d prefer not to disappear.”

Lukas chuckled slightly, and when he looked over, Aiden was smiling.

When they finally caught up with Ivor, the man was gawking at the fantastic structures that dotted the world. After making sure he wasn’t preparing to run off again, Lukas hurriedly started scribbling down some sketches. Ivor had led them to what appeared to be an imposing desert temple, but Lukas could also see things like carved totems, redstone contraptions, and artificial mountains… things that he had never seen before and things that stirred up old memories within his subconscious.

A chill ran up his spine when he caught sight of a huge blank screen in the distance. It didn’t seem connected to any redstone, but he could’ve sworn he saw glowing eyes look back at him before he turned back to his companions.

“What even are these?” Aiden wondered as Lukas tuned into the conversation.

“They must be designs! Schematics! Blueprints that the Old Builders tested in this world to bring into the Portal Network!” Ivor exclaimed, “Harper told me about this place. She said she would bring me here one day to study the Old Builders’ creative process! Oh, this is magnificent!”

“Huh, yeah, that makes sense. That building over there kind of looks like the temple that housed the portal key back in our world! Do you think the Old Builders built the temples here first and then recreated them in each world?” Lukas asked as his quill flew over his notebook.

“Like rough drafts?” Aiden mused.

“Yes, yes! I imagine they developed many of their ideas here! Look over there; those must be unactivated portals!” Ivor was over the moon; Lukas hadn’t seen him this excited since Jesse and the rest of the Order found their world’s portal key, which had been a long time ago. Despite the urgency of their mission, he couldn’t help but gaze at his old friend fondly as he rushed from structure to structure, giggling to himself.

“He is certainly… eccentric,” Aiden said as Ivor unsuccessfully tried to activate the portals.

“You can say that again,” Lukas chuckled, taking down a few more notes about the world. Dewey ran off to catch up to Ivor, darting between the portal frames as the man tried vainly to open them.

“What can I say,” he continued with a smile, “he grows on you after a while.”

“I never really saw him as much more than the man who created the Witherstorm,” Aiden said after a moment, “I guess for all my talk of forgiveness, I never forgave him for what he did.”

Lukas paused, “A lot of people haven’t forgiven him. One of the only reasons that people even accept him as a member of the Order of the Stone is because we all vouched for his character,” he continued observing Ivor, who was throwing fish to Dewey, “But, even after everything he did, I still call him one of my closest friends. He’s the reason I believe in redemption.”

“Do you think that any person can be redeemed?”

Sensing the subcontext, Lukas chose his words carefully, “No. I think people could only be redeemed if they felt true remorse for their actions. Some people never reach that point.”

Aiden was quiet, but when Lukas snuck a glance at him, his face was impenetrable. Worrying his lip, Lukas considered the actual question behind this conversation.

Did he think Aiden could be redeemed?

No.

Yes.

…Maybe.

Aiden had tried to kill them, but Lukas knew he had the ability to be good. Aiden had burned their friendship to the ground, yet here he was, potentially risking his life for people he once hated. He wanted forgiveness, but Lukas wasn’t sure he could give that to him. Aiden had just become too different, too separated from the person he once was. Even if Lukas did choose to forgive him, their relationship would never be the same. But, if he didn’t, could he handle never getting his best friend back?

Well, he’d been through it once before.

“Remember when we first spawned?” he asked, surprising himself with the question.

“Uh, yeah,” Aiden said stiltedly, caught off guard, “You spawned on the ground, and I spawned in the tree right above you.”

“And then, when you tried to climb down, you fell on top of me.”

Aiden laughed softly, his cheeks tinted pink, “I felt so bad; I thought I had killed you.”

Lukas cringed at the memory, “Not the best introduction.”

“What, to me or living?” Aiden raised an eyebrow.

Lukas tried to resist the urge to laugh, but he couldn’t help but snort as he replied, “Both.”

How was this still so easy? It shouldn’t be; sliding right back into their familiar dynamic despite their history felt wrong, like he was somehow betraying his friends by wanting Aiden to be his friend again. His laugh broke off as he tried to figure out what to do. What decision would make everyone happy? Did such a choice exist?

The questions were too overwhelming, so Lukas took them and put them in a box labeled “Do Not Touch Until I Get Jesse and Petra Back” and shoved it deep into his subconscious.

Or he tried to, anyway.

Lukas took out his spyglass and checked among the buildings for any sign of Ivor and Dewey. In the time he had spent talking to Aiden, they had shrunk into distant specks on the horizon, “We should go after them,” he said brusquely. Keeping Aiden at arm’s length was the safest way to continue; he had bigger problems on his hands right now.

Aiden’s smile faded, but he agreed nonetheless, “Okay.”

The cracks continued to grow as they started jogging towards their companions, growing thicker and deeper. Occasionally, they pulsed with an eerie purple glow, sending particles flying into the air like a portal would. Wherever Ivor and Dewey were heading, it had to be the source of this world’s fracturing.

When they finally caught up to the other half of their team, they were examining what looked like the most outlandish smithy Lukas had ever seen. Lava flowed through small channels in the ground and fed into a strange machine decorated with diamonds and obsidian, connected to a small building. Weapons and tools of all kinds, from broadswords to hoes, were hung from the ceiling outside. Crafting tables, anvils, and other workbenches Lukas didn’t recognize were stationed around randomly. Walking up to one, Aiden wiped away the thick layer of dust that coated it and read the words engraved into the surface.

Hadrian’s Workbench.

Do not touch, HARPER!

“Sounds like Harper had a habit of borrowing things without permission,” Lukas said, examining the tools placed neatly around Hadrian’s workspace.

“Sound like anyone else we know?” Aiden snorted.

“If you’re referring to me, I take offense to that!” Ivor scowled as he gingerly stepped away from a particularly flashy rapier.

Lukas rolled his eyes lightly as he approached the obsidian machine.

“This almost looks like… an enchanting table,” he ran his hand along the rock, surprisingly cold considering how much lava he could hear bubbling inside. The obsidian wall was smooth, but after a few blocks, Lukas’ hand fell into a large hole in the side, almost causing him to lose his balance.

“This must be where the Old Builders forged their weapons and equipment,” Ivor responded, “The enchantments they used were too powerful for an ordinary enchanting table.”

Lukas’ hand stilled, “Do you think that’s what Jesse and Petra are after?”

“An enchanting table?”

“No, something forged by the Old Builders! I mean, it makes sense, right? Somebody sent them to an ancient world to find an artifact that nobody knows about except for the Old Builders; Harper must’ve been the one to give them that mission!”

“That would certainly explain Jesse and Petra’s unwillingness to share anything with Milo and the Founder,” Ivor muttered, stroking his beard in thought, “Harper always insisted on being secretive.”

“Why couldn’t she just get it herself, though?” Aiden asked, “Or ask Ivor to retrieve it for her; why ask Jesse and Petra?”

“And who’s after them?” Lukas bit his lip.

Ivor put his hands up, “Whoa, people, we are asking too many questions that we don’t have the answers to! We need to find Jesse and Petra first, then we can ask them about all the details!” he glared at them both, “Which means that we need to find the portal out of here!”

“Actually, I think it’s right in here,” Aiden pointed inside the small building next to the enchanting machine. Sure enough, when Lukas and Ivor quieted, they could hear something inside humming softly. The fractures in the ground cut through the building, running into the small room. Aiden was right.

“Good job, Greenie!” Ivor slapped Aiden on the back before walking through the doorway.

“Greenie?” Aiden whispered as Lukas started following Ivor inside.

“Maybe it’s because of your eyes?” Lukas shrugged and continued walking, but Aiden's hand fell on his shoulder.

“Hey, look at this,” Aiden motioned to a small sign hanging beside the entryway.

Keep out; currently working on something to close the rift.

- H

“If this is a portal, it’s the strangest one I’ve ever seen!” Ivor called out from further within. When Lukas shrugged off Aiden’s hand and rounded the small hallway, he understood what the other man meant.

“Woah.”

This wasn’t any ordinary portal. In fact, Lukas had never seen anything like this before.

The most accurate way he could describe it was… like a rip in a piece of paper or a jagged, gaping wound. Beneath it, a giant hole swallowed up most of the ground, leaving only a few blocks to stand on. Several large cracks fed into it; as Lukas watched, a block of spruce wood broke off the floor and fell into the abyss.

The humming sound ebbed and flowed in time with the pulsing rift before them. Colors crackled around its edges, but the inside looked nothing like any portal field Lukas had ever seen. Instead of a swirling, colorful fog, it looked like they were looking through a hole in reality itself, one that looked straight into…

“A taiga biome?” Asiden asked incredulously.

“Anticlimactic, right?” Ivor scoffed and crossed his arms.

Dewey hesitantly prowled forward, giving the rift an experimental sniff before leaping into it.

“Dewey!” Lukas called out in worry, “Stop! It could be dangerous!” Oh god, what if he fell into the hole at the bottom–

However, nothing happened. Dewey simply landed on the grass and sat down facing them, licking his paws haughtily. Something rustled in the bushes next to him and his ears perked up, but when Lukas shot him a dangerous look, the cat wisely decided to stay put.

“Harper’s never told me about anything like this,” Ivor reached towards the rip in wonder, flinching slightly when he came into contact with the swirling color around the edges, “It tingles!”

Lukas stepped away from it uneasily, “Dewey, come back from there; I don’t like the look of it.” The ocelot easily jumped back through, to his relief.

This rip certainly appeared to be the rift that ‘H’ had mentioned. Had the Old Builders opened it by accident? Was this supposed to be a portal to another world?

In front of the rift, somebody had tacked a yellowing piece of paper onto a wooden fencepost that looked two seconds away from toppling over.

You know what? Fuck this. I’m sick of fueling your insane power trip. Maybe Steve was right to leave, because nothing I say will ever convince you that this is a fool’s errand. I’m going to search for a way to close the rift myself.

I’m taking the Redstone Heart and the Razor’s Edge with me; you three have proved they cannot be wielded without great cost.

- H

“Harper?” Ivor wondered.

“Power trip?” Aiden repeated.

“Razor’s Edge?” Lukas asked.

Many things were slowly slotting into place, but Lukas didn’t know if they were relevant to their mission or just extremely juicy gossip about the Old Builders and their separation.

“So… should we go through the rift or the last portal?” Aiden asked, “Because, feasibly, Jesse and Petra could be in here as well,” he gestured to the rip before them.

“No, we should check the portal first,” Lukas massaged his temples, “If there’s nothing there, then we go through this rift. If Harper is the one who gave Jesse and Petra this mission, it doesn’t make any sense for her to send them through something that she wanted to close.”

“I agree,” Ivor finally turned away from the rift, “Whatever Jesse and Petra are after, it won’t be here.”

— — — — —

“So, do you think Harper sent Jesse and Petra after the Razor’s Edge?” Lukas asked his friend after they had set up camp later that evening. They had found the return portal near the smithy, in a surprisingly simple structure stocked with food and a couple of beds. Jumping at a chance to sleep anywhere that wasn’t the Portal Network, they promptly settled down for the night. After all, they were far enough away from the rift that Lukas wasn’t afraid of waking up to a gaping expanse where their campsite had stood, and the idea of sleeping in a nice, soft bed instead of a sleeping bag atop crumbling stone bricks was too good to pass up.

“Not necessarily,” Ivor waved dismissively, “Harper could have asked Jesse and Petra to retrieve anything. I just don’t think she would send them into something that she wanted closed in the first place. What would she even want from it?”

“I guess that makes sense.”

“Well, either way,” Aiden yawned widely, “There’s only one portal left, so hopefully, we’ll have made some progress by this time tomorrow.”

“We’ve made plenty of progress!” Ivor turned to berate Aiden, but the guardsman had already fallen asleep.

 

“Hey, Lukas!”

“Jesse? Oh, Creators, you scared the wits out of me!” Lukas placed a hand over his heart as Jesse swung through his front door with a wide grin.

“Oh, come on, I thought you were tougher than that!” Jesse teased playfully as he bounded over and wrapped Lukas in a tight hug. The author reciprocated, sinking into his friend’s warmth for several blissful seconds before he pulled away.

Lukas rolled his eyes, “I was knee-deep in editing this book; I had no idea you were even here until I heard your voice.”

“That explains why you didn’t answer my knock,” Jesse said thoughtfully.

Lukas laughed, and because he was selfish, he pulled Jesse into another hug. As he pressed his face into Jesse’s fluffy hair (trying his best not to inhale his scent because that would be creepy), he said quietly, “I’ve really missed you.”

Jesse sighed, making no move to pull away again, “I’ve missed you too; it’s been a long time.”

After several more seconds, Lukas figured he couldn’t get away with more strangely intimate physical affection. He released Jesse, “You guys are earlier than usual; Founding Day isn’t for two weeks!”

Jesse shrugged, a bit of color tinting his cheeks as his smile turned a bit shy, “Well, me n’ Petra have visited both Boomtown and Redstonia since all of us met up last time, so we decided to spend a bit more time in Beacontown to hang out with you! And everyone else,” he added when Lukas looked away to avoid the explosion of feeling he had experienced at those words, “of course, we also wanted to spend time with everyone else.”

“Oh, yeah, duh,” he nodded furiously, even though the silly, stupid smile spreading across his face betrayed him, “I’m sure Radar will jump for joy when he hears about how long you guys are staying this time.”

Jesse’s bright smile faded into something more comfortable, his eyes growing soft as he gazed up at Lukas like he was drinking him in. Lukas could feel himself leaning closer as if being drawn to him like a magnet, closer and closer…

When he realized they were only several inches apart, Lukas tore himself away from Jesse’s compelling gaze and took a few steps back. He blustered, running his hands through his hair, “Um, so where’s Petra? Is she in Beacontown?”

Jesse recoiled as well, acting like he had just been doused in cold water as he replied hastily, “Oh, yeah! She’s getting some supplies, but she told me to tell you that she’ll be back for dinner! I, uh,” his voice grew sheepish, “I wanted to come by early and see if you wanted to make dinner? With me? For us?”

Lukas laughed, a bit of their previous tension leaving him as he clapped Jesse on the shoulder and led him into the kitchen, “That sounds great, Jesse.” Man, he had forgotten how cold it was in his little cottage… maybe he’d light a fire in the hearth tonight.

 

When he woke up the next morning and saw Ivor and Aiden snoring up a storm instead of Jesse and Petra, Lukas simply rolled over. He closed his eyes, hoping that if he fell right back asleep, he would wake up again in his living room with an aching neck from sleeping in his favorite armchair, and Jesse and Petra asleep on the couch.

Chapter 6: Into the Fray

Summary:

Lukas and Co. find another crew!

Notes:

This chapter was originally gonna be longer, but it was getting a little long for my taste, so I decided to cut it here! VERY excited to move this story forward :)

Another day, another portal.

Hopefully, this would be the one, because if it wasn’t… Lukas honestly wasn’t sure where to go next.

“Are we ready?” he asked his companions.

“Let’s just go already,” Ivor rolled his eyes before stepping through. Shrugging, Aiden followed after him.

“Creators forbid I confirm we’re all on the same page before stepping through the mysterious portal,” Lukas muttered as he and Dewey stepped into the crackling portal field.

“By the Founder,” Aiden breathed when they stepped out the other side, “This place is amazing.”

They had spawned on a large hill that sloped into an enormous valley. Patches of wild grass dotted the ground, mixed with podzol and mycelium. Trees filled the valley at the base of the hill—birch, oak, spruce, acacia, dark oak… all taller than Lukas had ever seen. Big, fluffy clouds drifted across the sky, casting faint shadows onto the thick treetops. To their left, tall, jagged mountains soared, their snowy peaks vanishing among the clouds. On the other side, a long series of rolling hills ensconced the forest. Lukas could barely see what was beyond: grassy plains and winding rivers snaking into the distant horizon. The sun shone brightly, glowing over the hills and lending its golden rays to the majestic view.

“Fascinating,” Ivor murmured.

Lukas knelt to the ground to examine the patches of mycelium and podzol, but instead found something much more interesting: “This world is fracturing as well. The cracks are faint, but they’re there,” he reported, his notebook already in his hand.

“Did Harper ever tell you about this place?” Aiden asked Ivor, who was still staring at the massive forest ahead of them.

“No,” he said slowly, as if the word was foreign to him, “No, she did not.”

“So, standard procedure then?” Lukas asked as he stood up and dusted himself off, “Follow the cracks, see where they lead?”

Aiden nodded, “It’s never steered us wrong before.” Ivor was quiet.

As they trekked down the hill, Lukas whistled to Dewey, who had bounded ahead excitedly.

“Hey, buddy!” he scratched behind the ocelot’s ears when he approached, “Wanna take the lead on this one? I could really use your help figuring out where these cracks lead; they’re so much smaller than the ones in the last two worlds.”

Dewey meowed and puffed his chest out proudly. After studying the cracks for a few seconds, he padded ahead on the small trail at the base of the hill. He paused and looked back every few moments, ensuring the rest of his team was behind him before continuing.

That’s my boy, Lukas thought fondly as Dewey looked back again. Navigation had been something he and his cat had worked on a lot over the years, partly because Lukas wanted Dewey to help him chart courses through the numerous biomes that surrounded Beacontown, and partly because he had a bad habit of getting too immersed in note-taking on the trail to remember exactly which way home was.

Speaking of which, he definitely needed to write down some notes on this place before they found Jesse and Petra.

Behind him, he could hear Ivor and Aiden chatting again. Apparently, Ivor had gotten over Harper’s reluctance to tell him anything about this place and was looking around as keenly as Lukas.

“This place is ancient,” he said in a hushed tone, “Look at how massive these trees are! And how dense the undergrowth is… wait, is that a piece of diamond ore?”

“What?” Lukas and Aiden replied at the same time. Their pace ground to a halt. Dewey soon poked his nose out from around the bend, growling in frustration when he realized he had almost lost them.

Not that he could ever lose them. Dewey had an excellent sense of smell.

“Creators, that is diamond ore!” Lukas exclaimed, amazed.

Through a small opening between two tree trunks, they could see a small formation of diamonds glittering in the dappled sunlight filtering from the treetop. They just sat there, in plain sight.

“I don’t believe it! Diamonds can’t spawn on the surface!” Aiden laughed a little in disbelief.

“Maybe things are different in this world,” Lukas mused, jotting down this miraculous occurrence in his notebook.

“Well, either way, I call dibs!” Ivor jumped over a bush and rushed over to the pile of ore, pulling out a diamond pick and making swift work of the precious material.

Aiden groaned, “Damnit.” Ivor made his way back to them, his grin dripping with smugness. Rolling his eyes, Lukas turned back to an impatient Dewey.

“Let’s just keep going. Who knows, maybe we’ll find a chunk of emeralds next.”

The diamonds seemed to be a lucky spawn, but that didn’t stop them from harvesting many different materials as they trekked through the forest, all distinctly out of place. Lukas found an outcropping of obsidian jutting out from a rock, Aiden found a small fortune in gold, Ivor even came across nether wart, but rarer materials like diamonds and emeralds seemed harder to come by.

(They did find a few more diamonds, but a triumphant Lukas shouted dibs before Ivor or Aiden could even open their mouths.)

“I’m just saying, guys,” Aiden implored a few hours later, “You know, you’ve both found diamonds, so I was thinking that the next time we see some, maybe I should get them–”

“Guess you should call dibs or something, then,” Lukas said easily as he scanned their surroundings for anything that could be out of place. He could feel Aiden’s glare pierce his back, but for once, he didn’t care. This was actually kind of fun.

The further they walked, the more he noticed that this world’s generation was… strange. Trees would occasionally spawn without leaves or upside down, and sometimes their parts would be made of something completely different, like an oak tree with a trunk made of quartz or a spruce tree with prismarine blocks for foliage. Nothing made sense, but it all combined to create a wild, chaotic beauty. It was actually quite reminiscent of the Farlands.

“Oh, hey, a chicken!” Lukas said in surprise some time later. Up ahead, a chicken had flitted onto their path, pecking aimlessly at the ground.

“Perfect, I’ve been waiting for a chance to sample the local wildlife!” Ivor unsheathed his sword enthusiastically and marched towards the creature, but when he got too close, the chicken squawked indignantly and scurried off into the underbrush.

“Damnit!” Ivor cried as he threw his hands up, “Since when do chickens run away before you even hit them?”

“Maybe it was the extremely threatening diamond sword you were swinging around,” Lukas tried not to smile.

Ivor turned to him and Aiden as they approached, a peevish expression on his face, “A normal chicken would have no reason to suspect that my sword is threatening, Blondie.”

“Wait, Ivor, your failed hunting attempt might not have been for nothing.” Aiden interrupted as he crouched down and scooped something up from the floor. As Ivor retorted indignantly about how it was not a “failure,” but merely a “setback,” Lukas focused on what Aiden held out to them.

“Is that… a spawn egg?” he asked in confusion as he stared down at the black and green spotted egg in Aiden’s hand.

“It is,” Aiden’s eyes were huge, “It’s a creeper spawn egg. That chicken just laid a creeper spawn egg.”

“But only the Eversource has the power to do that!” Ivor protested, his bruised ego forgotten, “And it’s all the way back in Sky City!”

“I don’t know what to tell you, but that’s what just happened.”

Ivor immediately went tearing into the undergrowth where the chicken had gone, but came back a few minutes later empty-handed, “Gone,” he gasped as he tried to catch his breath, “It was nowhere to be seen.”

“I guess we just have this now?” Aiden asked. His arm moved and Lukas flinched instinctively, his mind suddenly transporting him to that small lake underneath Sky City, watching hundreds of mobs fall to their death from the smoldering city above. He could still hear the explosions in his mind, could still hear the faint shrieking of ghasts as they lay waste to everything before them. Aiden had razed that city to the ground.

He must’ve done a bad job covering up his fear because when Aiden’s eyes met his, the guardsman faltered, his hand halfway to his inventory.

“Um, would you like to take it?” he offered awkwardly, holding the egg out towards Lukas like he was approaching a cornered animal.

Lukas felt himself physically untense. His slight smile full of gratitude, he took the egg from Aiden’s gloved hand and put it in his inventory. 

“Thanks.”

The relieved smile Aiden gave back was enough to assuage the majority of Lukas’ worries as they all continued, with strict instructions from Ivor to watch out for more chickens hiding in the forest.

“I just don’t understand,” Ivor was in the middle of saying the next time they came across another living creature, “If every chicken can produce spawn eggs here, why was the Eversource so important to the Old Builders? It’s no different than any run-of-the-mill chicken!”

An abruptly loud moo interrupted them. Up ahead, Dewey was hissing at a large cow currently grazing in the middle of their path. It blinked placidly at the ocelot’s aggression, taking another bite of grass as Lukas, Aiden, and Ivor caught up to them. It certainly looked normal, but then again, so had the chicken, so Lukas was more than a little wary of what tricks this world could be playing on them this time.

A glance at his companions revealed that they were clearly feeling the same way, but, unsurprisingly, Ivor’s curiosity won out over his caution. He approached the cow, unsheathing his sword again and preparing to strike. The cow merely stared at him, looking thoroughly unconcerned about the whole ordeal.

“See, this is how that chicken should’ve reacted!” Ivor glared back at them.

“Are you sure about this? What if it tries to eat you or something?” Aiden remarked, both he and Lukas opting to watch from a distance.

“Nonsense!” Ivor exclaimed, standing beside the cow, “It’s just an ordinary cow. Admittedly, the chicken was a bit of a surprise, but this thing has no idea what it’s got coming!” he slapped his free hand roughly on the cow’s back.

It promptly disappeared.

“Wh-” Ivor looked back at his hand, like that’s where the cow had gone, “What? ”

Lukas coughed, trying desperately not to laugh at his friend’s bewilderment, “It had no idea what was coming, huh?” his voice wobbled before he gave up pretenses and burst out laughing.

“W-how was I supposed to know that would happen?” Ivor blustered. Aiden snickered.

“Shouldn’t that be one of the tenets of the Shadow Arts? ‘Always expect the unexpected,’ or something?” he said between laughs.

“No, but I think now is a great time to remind you of my earlier threat,” Ivor snapped, a little desperately. It wasn’t entirely successful, but it did reduce Aiden’s mirth to a mere smile. Having no such threats against him, Lukas was free to chuckle to his hearts’ content.

“And you. I honestly expected better from you, Blondie.” Ivor shook his head vehemently, “After all I’ve done for you.”

“I seem to recall saving your ass, more often than not,” Lukas replied, feeling an immense sense of gratification as the other man stuttered in surprise, “But, in your defense, that was really strange.”

“Thank you!”

— — — — —

Twilight was starting to fall before they made any progress in their search.

It all started with Dewey suddenly bounding back to them. He pawed at Lukas’ leg, meowing incessantly until he stopped talking to his companions and focused on the ocelot.

“Dewey? What’s up?” he looked up and suddenly realized the things his cat was trying to tell him.

One, the forest’s border was approaching.

Two, in the clearing ahead, an enormous building loomed above them. The forest surrounded it, making it look like an abandoned tower or temple. It was comprised of countless materials; in one section alone, Lukas could spot sea lanterns, warped wood fenceposts, and crying obsidian, of all things. Another section was made almost entirely of gold and redstone blocks. Yet another looked almost disturbingly like Soren’s artificial happyland he had seen in the End.

Three, a glowing portal that matched the one they had gone through, stood in front of the house's main entrance. Lukas breathed a sigh of relief at the sight; at least they had found their way back to the Portal Hallway relatively easily. Its cracked frame fizzled and sparked dangerously, but it wasn’t the source of this world’s fracturing.

The two rifts, cut into space side by side closer to the forest’s edge, were undoubtedly it. A large hole had completely swallowed the ground beneath them, even larger than the one they had seen in the Old Builder’s test world. It was just as much an incredible sight as it was a horrifying one.

The rifts themselves were odd. The one to the left opened into what appeared to be a sprawling wheat field, and the other opened up to bedrock. A dull reddish haze spilled out from it, looking like floating blood.

Before any of them could speak, a loud voice boomed throughout the clearing.

“I’ve told you before, Mevia, we cannot simply charge after them! That would be suicide!”

To Lukas’s absolute horror, Hadrian flung the doors to the building open, striding through them imperiously with two others in tow. His arm was immediately grabbed, and it was only through sheer force of will that he didn’t scream as he and Aiden were dragged behind one of the thick tree trunks.

“Stay silent,” Ivor hissed urgently, “We can’t let them see us!” Lukas ignored him, scrambling to peek out from behind their hiding place to see what was happening.

“It wouldn’t be if we sent Steve!” Mevia argued back from her position to Hadrian’s right. The man next to her scowled.

“I’m not a robot, Mevia, you can’t just throw me at the problem over and over and expect it to go away!”

“No, I expect you to solve it!” she shrilled back.

Hadrian spun on his heel as the two started snarling at each other, “Both of you, calm down! Steve,” he said, his voice dripping with a honeyed sweetness that made Lukas want to gag, “Of course you’re not a robot. And, Mevia,” his usual, condescending voice crept back in, “You need to treat our ally with respect.”

Mevia’s glare turned toxic, but the man–Steve–didn’t seem mollified either. He rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, shoulders hunched uncomfortably at the attention.

“Let’s just figure out how we’re gonna get the Razor’s Edge back,” he said finally, “Then you can close all these rifts and I can go home.”

“Of course,” Hadrian said smoothly, turning back around. Lukas could see his face; his glasses were cracked, but his smile was as smug as ever as he led Mevia and Steve towards the exit portal.

“For now, I think one of us should guard the portal at all times, to prevent Jesse or any of the others from escaping.”

Mevia and Steve nodded seriously, but Lukas didn’t hear anything that came next. He exchanged glances with Aiden and Ivor, their eyes both a mix of shock and triumph. Jesse and Petra were here. His hearts lept to his throat, chest heaving as he tried to focus on what else they were saying. However, his brain was flying too fast to comprehend their words, and too many puzzle pieces were slitting together for him to understand anything he heard.

Harper had to be the one who sent Jesse and Petra here, on a mission to retrieve this "Razor’s Edge." The people after them were Hadrian and Mevia, of course they were, who else would know what his friends were after? Evidently, they had succeeded in their mission, but now Hadrian, Mevia, and this Steve guy had control of the only exit out.

Lukas knew they were still in hot water, but he couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face. Jesse and Petra were here, alive. All that stood in their way were these three, and they had already beaten Hadrian and Mevia once before! What advantage could this new guy possibly give them?

For the first time in a while, things were really starting to look up.

That was, until all hell broke loose.

“Now! ” A familiar voice shouted from their right, where two people had burst from the treeline, heading straight towards Hadrian, Mevia, and Steve. Blades glinted in their hands, and arrows whizzed past them from a place hidden amongst the trees, barely missing Steve and Hadrian. The person leading the charge hardly flinched, running up to swing his sword at Hadrian, who parried it with his own blade.

Lukas’ hearts plummeted to his stomach. He would know that strong voice, that fluffy brown hair, from anywhere. It was Jesse.

Before he could think, he was running out from their hiding spot. He didn’t have a plan; he only knew he needed to help Jesse. He couldn’t see the other person quite clearly from his vantage point, but if Jesse trusted them enough to go into battle alongside him, he trusted them too. Transitive property.

“Wait, what are you doing?” Ivor shouted from behind him.

Lukas spared a brief glance back. Dewey was at his heels, but Ivor and Aiden were hovering uncertainly, still hidden but half-ready to bolt after him. 

“It’s Jesse!” he yelled back, “We need to help him!”

That was all the convincing they needed. Ivor took out several potions and Aiden drew his blade, both running to catch up to him as he turned back around and appraised the situation.

Jesse was currently trying to fend off both Hadrian and Mevia, who (for all their time spent in prison) looked no more rusty than the last time he had seen them. The other person was engaged with Steve, who looked to have more skill than Lukas had anticipated. Arrows flew through the air, one lodging itself in Mevia’s arm. She howled in pain, stumbling over her feet and crashing to the ground.

“Let us go home!” Lukas heard Jesse yell as he came into earshot.

“Not until we get what we want!” Hadrian retorted, stabbing his sword towards Jesse. The hero blocked it with his forearm, an unfamiliar golden armor encasing the entirety of his arm up to his elbow.

“You heard what he said, Hadrian!” Lukas took out his bow and shot the sword from Hadrian’s grasp, “Let us go home!”

Jesse’s head whipped towards him, his eyes wide with shock, “Lukas? I thought I told you–” he looked back where he had come from as an arrow flew from that direction and embedded itself cleanly into Hadrian’s shoulder. He looked back at Lukas like he was seeing a ghost, “What–”

“We’re with you, Jesse! Next time you get lost with Petra, let me know!” Ivor burst into view, slapping Jesse heartily on the shoulder, “Running after you has been exhausting!”

Jesse looked absolutely confounded, “Wh–”

“I’m loving the reunion, but we’re in the midst of a fight here, people! Can someone help me out?” Aiden grunted as he blocked Mevia from stabbing Jesse in the back. Lukas put his bow away, pulled out his iron sword, and fixed Hadrian and Mevia with a glare.

“Sure thing.”

With four people (and an ocelot) against two, the battle quickly tipped in their favor. It wasn’t long before Hadrian and Mevia, full of arrows and desperately downing healing potions, gave up and fled to the building they had come from. Lukas turned to his friends in triumph before he heard an awful sound.

The person who had been fighting Steve screamed in pain as the man embedded his blade in their stomach. They staggered back, their stance faltering as Steve advanced upon them.

Jesse’s face twisted in terror and he spun around, breaking into a sprint, “Jack! ”

Jack? Lukas thought dimly as he and his companions ran after Jesse, how could he be here? I swear I saw him in Beacontown right before I left…

Before Steve could move in for the kill, Jesse threw himself in front of Jack and parried the blow, a grating CLANG resounding through the clearing as their swords crashed together. Jesse gritted his teeth, pressing forward until Steve was forced to step back.

Then, he switched his hold on his sword and drove the blade directly through the other man’s stomach.

Lukas’ jaw fell open as Steve staggered back with a cry before keeling over and vanishing in a puff of smoke. Jesse panted hard, not even seeming to notice Lukas, Ivor, and Aiden’s horrified expressions as he turned around and knelt in front of Jack, who was moaning in agony.

For the first time since reuniting with his best friend, Lukas sensed something was very wrong.

However, this feeling was quickly shoved to the side when he saw the building’s doors swing open and Hadrian, Mevia, and Steve rush out again.

“How–” Lukas managed to get out before a hand landed on his shoulder and spun him around.

“We need to get out of here!” Jesse ordered, Jack’s arm slung around his neck, “Can you help me with Jack?”

“Sure,” Lukas said quickly as he rushed to Jack’s other side and helped prop him up. Jesse sighed with relief at the lessened weight. Lukas tried to hoist up as much of Jack’s weight as possible, not wanting to give Jesse even more trouble.

“Thanks, Lukas. Now, everyone, follow me! Ivor, can you try to slow them down so we can make it to the treeline?”

“Certainly!” Ivor took out a few potions and threw them at their opponents’ feet, instantly coating their bodies with a foul-smelling, dark colored liquid. His plan worked; their shouts of pain echoed around the clearing as they tried in vain to claw the liquid off their faces and arms, their pursuit entirely forgotten.

“Potions of harming!” Ivor announced proudly at the group’s bewildered faces, “Now, let’s go, we don’t have all day!”

“C'mon, guys,” Jesse grunted in exertion as he and Lukas started half-jogging in the direction he had originally come from. “Hold on, Jack, we’ll get you fixed up in no time.”

“I’d expect nothing less, fearless leader,” Jack mumbled weakly, trying his best to keep up with their pace. Ivor, Aiden, and Dewey followed them, worried expressions on their faces that eased only a fraction once they made it to the treeline.

A few minutes later, they had clambered deep enough into the forest that the clearing was invisible. All Lukas could see were densely packed trees in all directions. He breathed a sigh of relief; it would be nearly impossible for Hadrian, Mevia, and Steve to find them now.

Though judging from the rapidly darkening sky, those three were starting to become the least of their worries.

“Lukas?” Jesse called.

Lukas furrowed his eyebrows. He was right here; why was Jesse calling out for him? He opened his mouth to respond, but someone emerged from the undergrowth before anything came out.

Him.

His armor was dirtier and his eyes were older, but it was unmistakably him.

“What?” Aiden broke the silence.

Jesse laughed hoarsely, “Yeah, that’s kinda what I’ve been thinking.”

Lukas’ other self stared back at him, his blue eyes sharpening as his gaze raked over his form. He shifted uncomfortably as the other Lukas stepped closer, his previously shocked face fading into a frown. 

The first thing he realized was that this other him had many more scars. The second thing he noticed was that his armor was worn: patched together in some places and completely replaced in others. The third thing he saw were stress lines creasing his forehead and mouth. He looked colder, tougher, more of a fighter than a writer.

Lukas’ impersonator opened his mouth to say something, but choked when Dewey came forward, his whiskers quivering inquisitively as he examined the lookalike. He closed his mouth, his bottom lip quivering as his gaze locked onto the ocelot approaching him.

After several fraught moments, Dewey hesitantly nuzzled Other Lukas, confused as to how there were two of them now, but not too bothered. Other Lukas closed his eyes, his hands tightening into fists at his sides as the cat sniffed him.

“Uh–Dewey, come back here,” Lukas called nervously, not wanting to get on Other Lukas’ bad side. Dewey perked up and trotted back, bumping his head against Lukas affectionately before going to wind around Aiden’s legs like some kind of furry snake.

“It’s okay,” Other Lukas spoke, his voice quiet and eyes misty, “I don’t mind.” 

“Well, I do!” Ivor’s abrasive voice cut into the thick atmosphere. Lukas wasn’t sure if he was glad for the interruption or annoyed at his lack of tact, “We have an incapacitated invalid here that needs healing; we don’t have time to stand around waiting for Hadrian to come sniff us out!”

“Hey, watch who you’re calling an invalid!” Jack retorted, jostling Jesse and Lukas as he attempted to pull himself from their grasp.

Jesse wrestled him back in place easily, despite his protests of damaged pride, “Ivor’s right. C’mon, follow us, we have a small camp set up nearby,” he nodded to Ivor, Aiden, and Lukas as he spoke, his voice calm and firm, but his eyes betraying him.

They set off through the forest, moving in silence through the thickets. Every so often, they would see an animal or an outcropping of rare materials and Ivor would get an intensely yearning look on his face, but he remained with the group as they traveled. Questions whirled through Lukas’ mind, and he could tell from how Other Lukas glanced back at him repeatedly that he was experiencing the same thing.

How could two of him exist at the same time? Could that other man even be classified as “Lukas,” or was he just someone who happened to share his face and name? How did Jesse find him? Creators, how did Jesse even find Jack? Lukas had seen him the day he left Beacontown; there was no way Jack could’ve found Jesse before Lukas, Ivor, and Aiden did…

Lukas’ stomach twisted unpleasantly when a new question popped into his head. Just who are we traveling with?

— — — — —

“Here we are! Our home away from home,” Jesse proclaimed when they arrived at a camp set up in a small clearing. It wasn’t much more than a dirt shack, but Lukas figured that any shelter was better than nothing, especially when Jesse, Jack, and Other Lukas chose to settle in the one place with no tree cover. However, he didn’t think he could entirely blame them for their choice, because when he looked up, the stars that hung in the night sky were absolutely stunning.

When he looked back around, their new companions were still looking up at the sky, their gazes transfixed on the stars like they would die if they looked away. Lukas felt his eyes drift to Other Lukas for the fiftieth time in the last hour. His face, which had been blank and closed off ever since Dewey approached him, was naked with emotion. As Lukas watched, a fragile smile curved his lips, looking almost unnatural on his usually impassive face. Or maybe it was just unnatural because Lukas wasn’t used to staring at himself, which was also an entirely plausible option.

“Alright!” Ivor broke their silence yet again, clapping his hands briskly as he pushed forward and strode towards the cabin, “Jesse, Jack, Blondie, follow me.”

Other Lukas twitched instinctively at the nickname, but paused when Jesse and Lukas hauled Jack forward. Jack, tired of being manhandled by them, was already trying to support himself fully, but they kept their firm hold on him as they walked through the doorway inside the cabin. Aiden and Other Lukas followed.

When they set Jack down, Ivor immediately set to work. Putting down a brewing stand Lukas didn’t even know he had, Ivor made quick work brewing a potion of healing before giving it to Jack with a sharp, “Drink up!”

Looking slightly dubious but in too much pain to disagree, Jack took the bottle and drank the red liquid like a shot. He coughed slightly, some of it dribbling down his lips, but a quick tongue swipe prevented any drops from spilling to his beard or shirt. He sighed with a small, dreamy smile as he absentmindedly gave the empty bottle back to Ivor.

“It’s been a long time since I had the pleasure of drinking one of those.”

“I’m almost jealous,” Jesse chuckled as he sat on a dirt block, “My arms still ache from Steve’s blow earlier. That guy is strong.”

“I can brew you a potion as well, Jesse!” Ivor offered, already turning back to the brewing stand as he spoke. Jesse raised his hand, the one with the strange golden armor, and shook his head.

“No, save it for the future. Healing potions are too rare to waste on a bruised arm.”

Lukas furrowed his eyebrows as he caught eyes with Aiden, who wore a similar expression. Potions of healing were expensive to make, sure, but rare? He had never thought of them as things to ration. Another moment of silence passed as they all looked to each other with uneasy glances, sizing each other up before–

“Okay, so what the hell is going on here?” Aiden burst out as Other Lukas said, “Can we talk about the enderman in the room, please?”

“Yeah, I’m in agreement with the other me,” Lukas said quickly, “I’m trying my best to stay calm, but I have no idea what to do. How did you guys even find another version of me, if that’s who this guy is! For all we know, he could be an impostor!” The last part was directed at Jesse and Jack, who looked increasingly confused as he spoke.

Other Lukas bristled slightly, “I assure you, if one of us is the imposter here, it would be you,” he raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms, “I’ve been with Jesse and Jack since before we fell through the rip, so they can vouch for me. Where did you come from?”

“Wait, you three fell through the rip?” Ivor interrupted before Lukas could reply. He stalked forward, his eyes gleaming like he was about to pounce.

“Yeah? Isn’t that how you guys got here, too?” Jesse asked, “We were at the top of Beacon Tower when this gigantic hole ripped through the floor and sucked us all in,” he sighed, massaging his temples as he continued, “I’m just glad it opened somewhere remote; if it had been in a more populated area there would’ve been chaos.”

Lukas, Ivor, and Aiden all shared a significant look.

“We never fell through any rip,” Aiden said finally.

“Which begs the question,” Ivor cut in, starting to pace around the cramped interor of the hut, “Where exactly do these rifts lead? How are Jesse, Lukas, and Jack,” he gestured meaningfully to Jesse’s golden armor, “or, at least, different versions of Jesse, Lukas, and Jack, here with us?”

"I'm guessing you're about to tell us?" Lukas said dryly.

"I've been crafting this hypothesis for a while now, so let me indulge in the thrill of it all before I just say the whole thing out loud!" Ivor retorted.

Jesse’s eyes widened as understanding dawned upon him, “Oh, Creators.”

“What?” Jack asked irritably as his head swiveled from Jesse to Ivor, “What’s wrong?”

“You three,” Ivor pointed imperiously, “Are from another universe! ”

Notes:

If y'all want to see more MCSM content, including the FULL DESIGNS for Lukas and Co. in this fic, check out my tumblr (fyrnacx as well) :) I'm gonna be posting designs for all of the main cast as they appear!

I also post other cool things like ship art and oc stuff, soooooo

Chapter 7: What Could Have Been

Summary:

Little bit of background on our new additions to the crew!

Notes:

I'm playing 5-D chess in my head keeping track of all these characters.

Next chapter is a BIG ONE FOR THE JESSKAS FANS!!!!!!! But for now, enjoy this introduction to the Bedrock crew (they would HATE that I call them that lmao), I want to explore their own story someday, but for now they will feature in this one :)

ALSO if you ever see a random space before/after an italicized word, I'm sorry... I write my fics on Calmly Writer and edit on Google Docs, and for some reason that just happens with italized words. I try to edit them out but sometimes I miss a couple since I always post these late at night for some reason.

“You three are from another universe!”

 

“I would say that sounds crazy,” Jesse said, “but I think crazy went out the window when I saw your Lukas run up to me while fighting Hadrian.”

Lukas briefly considered taking offense at being called “Your Lukas,“ but he had unconsciously dubbed his counterpart “Other Lukas,” so he figured that he couldn’t argue with it.

He was really going to have to find a different name to call these versions of Jesse and himself, because this was going to get really confusing really quickly.

“So, those rifts aren’t portals to other worlds, they’re portals to other universes?” he asked, tabling the naming issue for later. Dewey ambled around at random, taking his sweet time going around the circle they had formed and giving each one of them a thorough sniff test. Judging by the cheerful flick of his tail as he padded back to Lukas’ lap, they had all passed. Lukas patted his legs, expecting his ocelot to come curl up on top of him like usual, but Dewey only gave him an affectionate headbutt before clambering over him to sit in Aiden’s lap.

Trying not to feel betrayed, Lukas focused back on what Ivor was saying on Aiden’s other side.

“I suppose ‘timelines’ would be a more exact term,” Ivor nodded, “But yes! That’s the only plausible reason two different iterations of Jesse and Lukas could exist in the same dimension.”

“It makes sense that they started trying to master travel to other universes,” Other Lukas mused from across the fire as he leaned back against the cabin’s dirt wall, “I mean, the Portal Network was the Old Builders’ magnum opus, right? How else could they possibly outdo themselves?”

“It’s the logical next step,” Jesse agreed heavily, “And somehow, they dragged us all into their mess.” He clenched his jaw so hard that Lukas could hear his teeth grinding together. It was the angriest he had ever seen the hero, from his own universe or not. His golden armor glinted in the firelight as his other hand caressed it, like a bruise that refused to fade. Lukas wasn’t quite sure why he was so upset, but apparently Jack and Other Lukas did.

Jack sighed and leaned forward, resting his head in his hands, “Oh Creators, Beacontown…”

Other Lukas’s face remained stoic, but his eyes softened as he got up from his post behind the two of them and placed his hands on their shoulders, “Remember, Beacontown can still survive without us. We have a whole team of people back there: Radar, Axel, Olivia, Stella, Ivor…” Ivor startled slightly at the mention of his name, “Beacontown isn’t defenseless now; our friends can fend off raiders on their own.”

Jesse took a deep breath and shot a weak smile back at Other Lukas, “You’re right, I know you are. I just can’t help but feel nervous whenever I’m away.”

“Especially because we’re trapped here!” Jack groused, only looking slightly comforted by Other Lukas’ gesture, “Leaving Beacontown for a little bit is fine and dandy, but I’m starting to think that we might be stuck here for the long haul. These adversaries of ours are the real deal, especially that guy in the ugly shirt.”

Other Lukas cracked a small smile, “Are you sure you aren’t just saying that because he beat you, the Velvet Tornado?”

Jack’s mouth fell open as Jesse snorted, spinning to fix Other Lukas with a betrayed glare, “Low blow, friend.”

Other Lukas ignored him, looking much too pleased at getting Jesse to laugh. The sight brought Lukas a smile of his own; he had been starting to think that he and Other Lukas weren’t all that similar, but he supposed some things would never change.

“Fascinating,” Ivor leaned forward, clearly enraptured in their conversation.

“What is?” Aiden asked.

“My theory must be correct! Just think about it,” Ivor waved towards Jesse and his companions with a flourish, “This must be a version of Jesse who stayed in Beacontown after the fight against the Admin, directly contrasting the actions of our own Jesse!”

When Ivor mentioned the Admin, the three across the fire froze, laughter dying on their lips as they looked at Ivor like he had just invoked the name of a demon.

“Wait, he could just be a Jesse who’s never even met the Admin! Or he could be from the past,” Lukas argued, “Remember, Jesse ruled Beacontown for a long time before he even picked up the gauntlet.”

“Yes, but he didn’t meet Jack until after he found the Admin’s gauntlet,” Ivor countered, “They have to at least know about him.”

“…Good point.”

“Believe me,” Jack chuckled darkly, “We know all about the Admin.”

“Yeah,” Jesse raised his armor-clad arm up again, “I even have this to prove it.”

They all stared at the armor for a long moment. It’s funny, Lukas thought, I could swear I’ve seen something like that before. It covers the whole arm, even his hand, just like Jesse’s old–

“Oh, Creators,” he said suddenly as he realized, “It’s the gauntlet.” Despite the roaring fire in front of him, a chill snaked down his spine.

“Huh?” Aiden turned towards him slightly, Dewey still purring in his lap.

“The gauntlet,” Lukas motioned towards Jesse frantically, “He has the gauntlet!”

“What gauntlet?”

“When Jesse told me about his final battle with the Admin, he mentioned that using the failsafe, hashtag potato four-five-one, at the terminal,” Lukas explained, feeling a little silly as he said the ridiculous code aloud, “gave him a golden gauntlet that Fred had created to destroy the Admin’s powers. It broke when he defeated him!”

“When he defeated him?” the three across from him exclaimed in unison, looking varying degrees of outraged.

“Oh, yes, how could I forget!” Ivor slapped his forehead. “With all the excitement, I hadn’t even noticed!”

“But if it broke after defeating him,” Aiden said slowly, “Does that mean this version of Jesse never defeated the Admin?”

Lukas’ excitement over his deduction skills quickly waned as he looked from Aiden and Ivor to the three across the fire, who now looked supremely uncomfortable. Jesse's gaze was steady, but his fingers rubbed the gauntlet again and again in a repetitive motion, a nervous tell.

“Yes,” Jesse said at last, his free hand coming to rub the glittering gauntlet again, “Yes, it does.”

“Jesse–” Other Lukas began to protest, but Jesse continued anyway.

“Almost a decade ago, I fought Romeo in the Terminal Space and lost.”

— — — — —

The familiar feeling of a heavy metal gauntlet encasing his arm was an unwelcome one, but at least Jesse could take comfort in the fact that he would only have to wear it for a few moments until he took Romeo’s powers away and ended this all for good.

“That’s your big plan? You’re just gonna run at me?” Romeo taunted as Jesse ducked under another piece of flying rock. He simply stood there, amused as the hero rushed towards him. He obviously didn’t expect Jesse to actually go through with it, but he was quickly corrected when Jesse’s fist recklessly smashed into his face with all the grace of a creeper’s explosion.

Romeo flew backward and crashed onto the floor, his body flashing a rainbow of colors. When he tried to stand up, the colors glitched, running along his chest and limbs as he tried desperately to regain control of the situation.

“I don’t know what you’re playing at,” he snarled, bringing his hands together, “but it ends now!”

Jesse instinctively squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the clap that would spell their deaths. He could feel the gauntlet pulse wildly, still full of power, but it didn’t matter. They would all be dead in–

CLAP!

“W-what?” Romeo’s voice trembled.

We’re still alive! Jesse thought with elation as he opened his eyes. The gauntlet worked!

“Yes, Jesse!” Petra’s cheer filled him with determination. Just a few more punches and this would all be behind them. They were actually going to win.

“We’ll hold him down!” Jack and Petra rushed towards Romeo, who growled viciously at them.

Jesse followed, but just as his friends made contact with the Admin, they vanished into thin air. Suddenly, he was alone.

No.

Jesse’s knees gave out, and he crumbled to the ground at Romeo’s feet.

“Ha ha!” the Admin laughed triumphantly. It sounded like the unpleasant squeal of a rusty stonecutter. “Guess your little last-ditch scheme wasn’t as successful as you’d hoped!”

“No…” Jesse whispered, feeling tears spring to his eyes. He willed himself to get back up and keep going, but the gauntlet felt like an anchor, chaining him to the ground at the deity before him. Rage, unlike anything he had ever felt, surged through his body like redstone current, drowning out every sound, every sense, until all he felt was red.

What had he or his friends ever done to deserve this? Why should Romeo decree who lives or dies, who lives freely, and who’s imprisoned under bedrock? What right did he have to dictate their lives like this?

He had none, yet here he was: snuffing out two of his closest friends’ lives for trying to save their world, killing them like someone stomping on an annoying silverfish. That’s all his friends had ever been to Romeo: annoying, insignificant little bugs to crush underfoot.

His narcissism made Jesse sick.

When he finally staggered to his feet, Romeo was smiling at him.

“Well, two down, one to go! Guess that gauntlet doesn’t have enough power to keep me down,” he said cheerily, like he didn’t just fucking murder Jesse’s best friends in front of his eyes. His body still glitched with dozens of neon colors, but as Jesse stared at him, the glitches started to stabilize. His power was recovering.

Jesse launched into a sprint before he could say anything else, figuring he only had a few seconds left before Romeo generated enough power to kill him, too. He wouldn’t let Petra and Jack’s sacrifices be in vain.

Romeo teleported backwards just as Jesse’s fist was about to make contact, grin turning insufferably smug as he floated off the floor.

“You know, Jesse, you could have had a part in my new world! If only you just played nice, hm? Oh well, I’m sure I’ll find someone new who will fill in the gap!”

He clapped again, and Jesse’s world went sideways.

 

His eyes shot open.

The first thing he noticed was that he wasn’t in the Terminal Space anymore. This was decidedly bad.

However, the next things he noticed were Jack and Petra’s panic-stricken faces crowding into his personal space, and for a moment, he forgot all about the stupid Terminal Space.

“You’re alive,” Jesse said hoarsely, his voice crackling as he slumped into their arms with relief. He could feel his body shake as he clung to them, fingers digging into flesh so roughly that it had to hurt.

“Jesse,” Petra shook him lightly, eyes wide in concern, “Are you okay? Did you beat Romeo?”

Jesse’s entire body felt like it had been dumped into icy water. He clambered out of Jack and Petra’s grasps and looked up to the sky above the Admin’s tower, clinging to some faint hope that there was still an entryway to the portal that would take them back to Romeo.

There wasn’t. Bedrock continued to expand, blanketing the tower, then Beacontown, then the areas beyond in darkness. There was no way they’d be able to make it to Romeo now; they had had one chance, and he blew it.

He had failed.

“Jesse? Guys? What’s going on?” Lukas’ voice snapped him out of his stupor. Jesse turned around to see the author jumping up the stairway two blocks at a time.

“I don’t know! Romeo teleported us out of the Terminal Space,” Petra gestured frantically between her and Jack, “and then Jesse just appeared next to us but the bedrock is still spreading and he still has Fred’s gauntlet on–”

“I couldn’t do it,” Jesse cut her off tonelessly, “He teleported me away before I could reach him. He’s still up there.”

Everything was silent, save for the rumbling of the bedrock storm above him. His friends stared at him, shock and terror written across their faces in bright neon paint. He stared back, unable to speak, unable to move, and he watched as the sky grew dim and his friends’ faces became shrouded in shadow.

Lukas’ distraught blue eyes were the last thing Jesse saw before their world went dark.

— — — — —

“It’s been almost ten years since then, and we’re still stuck under the bedrock,” Jesse finished, a bitter edge crawling into his voice as he stared into the fire, “and I still have this stupid fucking gauntlet.”

Other Lukas put a gloved hand on Jesse's shoulder in a comforting gesture, but Lukas could see the dark shadow over his eyes as he stood behind the hero. Jack had cast his gaze to the ground, knocking his knee against Jesse’s softly. 

“So,” Jesse looked back to them, “I’m guessing from your horrified expressions that things went a little differently in your universe.”

Lukas, Ivor, and Aiden all shared a look: eyebrows scrunched up together, eyes wide, mouths pursed in a universal look of worry.

Put in more specific terms, what do we tell him?

Ivor chose the easy way out first, “Well, I wasn’t really there, per se, I mean I was, but not with Jesse–er, our Jesse– so I think Lukas would be best fit to tell this tale,” he waved his hand at Lukas with a flourish.

For some reason, Lukas looked to Aiden next for some form of help, but the guardsman shook his head, “I wasn’t there at all, so I’m gonna have to stick with Ivor on this one,” his eyes said sorry, but he didn’t look all that repentant as he stroked Dewey’s spotted fur. Damn the both of them.

Lukas turned back to his audience, starting to feel self-conscious at their expectant (and apprehensive) gazes, “Well,” he started, trying to figure out the best way to put it, “In our universe, that… didn’t happen.”

Everybody leaned forward. Lukas wished that he were anywhere but here. How was he supposed to tell his friends (well, versions of his friends) that in his universe, everything went right?

Oh, actually, our Jesse beat Romeo, and now we all live happily ever after! Something told him that saying that would not go over well.

“So, what did happen?” Other Lukas questioned, a tad too impatient for his liking.

“We defeated the Admin,” Lukas said awkwardly, “Right before he bedrocked over everything. We were able to reverse the process and strip Romeo of his powers. Now he’s just a regular person, like us. Last I heard of him, he was in the Underneath somewhere.”

Ivor nodded in agreement, “Yes, he’s been working with Xara to find refugees and lead them to the Surface Portal.”

Lukas looked over at his friend briefly, “How do you–”

“Contacts, Blondie, contacts.”

“So your Jesse managed to take Romeo’s powers away?” Jesse asked, his face impenetrable. Jack and Other Lukas shot him glances, their foreheads creased with worry.

“Yeah,” Lukas nodded, awkwardness giving way to sympathy. He couldn’t imagine what the three of them had gone through underneath the bedrock, couldn’t begin to fathom the strain placed on Jesse’s shoulders as he led Beacontown onward through a dying world. He had only been to the Underneath once, to conduct research for his latest book on the Admin, and it had been… a wasteland. The only place remotely safe had been Fred’s Keep, but it had been trashed by scavengers by the time Lukas got to see it. He shivered to think of Beacontown in that state. How did it look in their world?

Ten years was a very long time.

“Did your Jesse leave Beacontown? With Petra, after fighting the Admin?” Jesse asked eventually, dragging his eyes up to meet Lukas’ after several moments. They were slightly distant, as if focused on something behind him, something that wasn’t there.

“Yeah, why?” Lukas responded.

Jesse shrugged, barely a lilt of his shoulders as he leaned back against Other Lukas slightly, “Never figured out what I would’ve done.”

 

After those final words, a quiet tension fell over the group. Silence reigned, broken only by several quiet words shared amongst the three across the fire. Lukas didn’t really blame the others for not being sociable, but their stares and murmurs were starting to put him on edge. At this point, he was considering skipping dinner and heading straight to sleep, anything to relieve himself of the awkwardness.

It was uncanny how… different they were. On a surface level, Jesse and Jack behaved so similarly to his universe’s own versions of them that Lukas could almost fool himself into believing they really were from his universe. However, the longer he observed them, the more differences made themselves known.

Jesse still had his signature suspenders, but he wore armor over them, one arm completely clad in intimidating-looking armor and the other bare except for the gauntlet. A worn chestplate hugged his torso, making him look like some of the scavengers Lukas had seen in the Underneath. His smile, while still genuine and full of warmth, was thin and strained, like it was painful to wear. He was pale, way more than how Lukas remembered his own Jesse.

Jack still had his eyepatch and vest, but his face and arms were littered with scars, some extremely fresh.  His usual five o’clock shadow had progressed into stubble, which he itched at occasionally, grimacing in discomfort. He was surprisingly quiet; usually, Lukas’ Jack would be jumping at the opportunity to tell some of his daring escapades around the fire, but this Jack told no such stories.

With Other Lukas, it was more difficult to tell. Lukas knew that he himself had a tendency to be quiet and reserved, especially in group settings, but this version of him was positively withdrawn. He hardly ever smiled, his face instead set in a stony mask that betrayed none of his thoughts. His expression only softened for Jesse; sometimes, the hero could even coax a smile, Other Lukas’s face transforming like the sun coming out from behind a cloud.

A paw tapped his leg insistently, accompanied by a curt meow. Disturbed from his musings, Lukas looked down and saw Dewey sitting next to his foot, looking extremely disgruntled.

Just because he wanted to skip dinner didn’t mean his furry companion wanted to.

“Oh, so you only want my attention when you want food?” he asked his ocelot snarkily, making a show of crossing his arms.

Dewey just rolled his eyes, ear flicking sassily.

Exhaling in a quiet chuckle, Lukas fished a couple of salmon from his inventory and tossed them to Dewey, who deftly caught them. The ocelot bumped his head against his owner’s shin softly before padding off to a dark corner of the dirt hut to enjoy his spoils. When Lukas looked back up, Other Lukas was staring at Dewey, his mouth drawn tight. Suddenly, the silent author’s eyes flashed over to his. Before Lukas could say anything about his strange behavior, the other man addressed the group.

“We should think about what we’re gonna do tomorrow.”

Jack, who had started to nod off, jolted awake, “Yeah,” he said, like he had never begun dozing, “Those three’ll have our heads if we run in there like we did today.”

Jesse dipped his head in agreement, “We need to make a more structured plan. I was hoping that we would just be able to fight them off long enough to jump back through the rift, but that seems to be out.”

“Who knows if it would even close behind you all?” Ivor added, “I don’t think this’ll be as easy as jumping back through and hoping the hole will seal itself!”

As much as Lukas wished that this whole situation could be as simple as that, he had to agree with his friend, “Ivor’s right. Hadrian, Mevia, and Steve need the Razor’s Edge before they can close the rifts. We heard Steve say that they would close them once they got it back.”

“Looks to me like we need to get our hands on this artifact, then,” Jack cracked his knuckles.

“Jesse and Petra have it,” Lukas said, “If we want to find it, we need to find them first.”

“I think we saw them,” Jesse ran a hand through his short brown hair, “When we first fell through our rift. It was pretty hectic, but I remember a small group of people running into the forest in the opposite direction we went; Hadrian and Mevia had placed down several iron golems, so I didn’t have a lot of time to look around before we ran too.”

“There weren’t any golems there earlier today,” Aiden quirked an eyebrow, “Where did they go?”

“They fell down some of the trenches that were opening up in the ground,” Other Lukas said, “The ground was shaking, like there was an earthquake, and these giant holes just started opening up. We almost fell into one.”

Jack shivered, “They were like bottomless pits.”

“Fractures,” Ivor mused.

“So we all agree that we’re going to search for Jesse–er, our Jesse and Petra tomorrow?” Lukas clarified.

When everyone nodded, he pointed towards his other self, “Great, now onto other concerns: I can’t keep calling this guy ‘Other Lukas.’”

— — — — —

That night, Jesse filled his dreams once again. All Lukas got were snippets, glimpses of memories that left him filled with a strange but all too familiar ache in his chest.

“Lukas, it wasn’t me that locked you all up, it was the Admin!” Jesse pleading with him in the Admin’s prison.

“Wish me luck tomorrow, yeah? Maybe I’ll get a good hit on that gladiator who stole your journal.” Jesse smiling at him from his bunk in the competitors’ barracks.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Jesse giving Lukas his cookie that first night, all those years ago.

Between his dreams, Lukas wondered if Jesse knew how much that moment meant to him.

Chapter 8: The Moment You've All Been Waiting For

Summary:

WE DID IT LETS GO GUYS NOW THE JESSKAS PLOT CAN FINALLY BEGIN

ALSO I AM SO SORRY FOR THE WAIT, WRITER'S BLOCK SUCKS BUT I'M BACK WITH A VENGEANCE

The next morning, they packed their camp and set off through the forest before the sun breached the horizon.

When its golden rays finally shone down upon them (what little could filter through the dense tree cover), Lukas, Ivor, and Aiden’s companions pretended they weren’t affected. They hardly glanced at the dappled light before continuing through the rough path they had all made last night. However, Lukas could see the sparkles in their eyes as they walked, small smiles twisting their mouths.

Ivor, Jay (Jesse kindly offered to go by a nickname to prevent any confusion between him and Lukas’ Jesse), and Lukas walked up front, with Aiden and Jack behind them, and Lou (“Jesse calls me Lou, sometimes; I suppose we could go with that.”) trailing along behind, bow at the ready in case anything–or anyone–decided to attack them from the rear. For the umpteenth time that morning, Lukas mentally reviewed their plan:

Step One: Retrace steps back to the Old Builder’s house residence base(?).

Step Two: Head in the direction Jay saw Jesse and Petra run.

Step Three: Trace their steps?

The plan grew somewhat nebulous after step two, but the vague idea of a plan was better than going in blind.

The hike back to the Old Builder’s base took longer than it had yesterday, but Lukas didn't know if it was because he wasn’t in a panicked haze this time or because Ivor insisted on stopping to harvest any material he deemed worthy of grabbing. It was probably the latter, because after Ivor ran off the path for the third time, Lukas and the rest of the group just kept walking without him. Ivor could catch up.

The trees started to thin a while later, signalling they were approaching their destination. They crept closer and closer, until they were right at the edge of the treeline. From their vantage point, the Old Builders' base was in clear view, but something was different.

Aiden squinted, “Is that obsidian?”

“Shit,” Jack sighed, “I guess it’s a good thing we weren’t planning a repeat of yesterday.”

Evidently, their adversaries had some sense, because both the exit portal and the rifts had been completely encased in obsidian. Steve stood guard amongst them, looking like a disgruntled dog who had been shoved outside by its owners. They would never be able to break through those barriers without being spotted.

Lukas put that problem on the back burner; escaping wasn’t their priority right now.

“So, Jesse- Jay, what direction did you see Jesse and Petra go?” he asked, flushing slightly at the slip, even though he had no real reason to be embarrassed.

Jay smiled at him briefly (Lukas felt a pang of wistfulness), then pointed across the clearing, “That way, next to the weird dark oak tree with lime glass for leaves.”

“I hate to be the naysayer here, but just because Jay saw them go in that direction doesn’t mean that’s actually where they went,” Aiden pointed out with annoying logic, “We’re more likely to get lost in there than make any progress.”

“Well, do you have any better ideas?” Lukas turned to face him fully, trying his best–and failing–to keep the edge out of his voice. Between them, Dewey hissed uncertainly, his hackles starting to rise.

A small vein bulged in Aiden’s forehead, “Okay, look–”

“Everybody be quiet!” Lou shushed them all, eyes focused on something beyond the trees, “Across the clearing, two o’clock.”

Jay, Jack, and Ivor immediately turned to look, but Aiden’s glare burned into Lukas for another second before his eyes slid away.

Releasing a breath he hadn’t known he was holding, Lukas followed suit. Dewey nudged his leg comfortingly, but he couldn't give his ocelot more than a halfhearted scratch behind the ears.

“…I don’t see anything,” Jack muttered.

Lou raised his hand to point, then thought better of it, “I saw a flash of red amidst the foliage.”

Ivor scoffed, “That could just be a mooshroom, for all we know!”

“Quick, Ivor, go try to kill it!” Aiden whispered.

Lukas let out a snort. He couldn’t help it. He stole a glance at his former friend, who was looking studiously away from him in favor of waggling his eyebrows at Ivor, the latter of whom looked about two seconds from murdering him. A vague sadness pervaded him as he watched the guardsman tell yesterday’s story to their new companions. When they laughed, Lukas felt strangely out of place.

Come to think of it, why weren’t Jay and Lou more affected by Aiden’s presence? Why weren’t they acting as awkward as he was, shooting strange glances at Aiden behind his back and giving him the cold shoulder? Maybe they thought that Aiden never betrayed them in his universe and was still friends with Lukas. Or, wait, maybe in their universe, Aiden never betrayed them.

Maybe Lukas was just the only one having this problem in the first place.

“Wait, I just saw it!” Jack scanned the forest, “But that’s more pink than red, Lou. Maybe you should get your eyes checked.”

Lou frowned, “No, it was definitely red, Jack. You’re the one with an eyepatch, maybe your eyesight’s starting to go.” Jack made an aggrieved sound and started to argue with the blonde fighter, but Jay put up a hand, silencing them.

“It’s both. The red is about a block off the ground, but the pink is right above the forest floor.”

Ivor shrugged, still protesting but now looking doubtful about his hypothesis, “A pig and a mooshroom! Not the most unlikely duo!”

Lukas opened his mouth to suggest actually going to see what the mysterious colors were instead of shooting the breeze, but Steve got up and started to move towards them before he could say anything. Without waiting to see what the turquiose-clad man was doing, Lukas grabbed the backs of Ivor and Aiden’s collars and pulled them down, hissing a quiet, “Get down!” to the others before Steve saw them quarreling in broad daylight.

Thankfully, Steve remained ignorant of their presence, walking a few laps around the hastily built obsidian barriers before settling back down in the center. He flipped his sword a couple of times, looking like he might keel over from boredom at any moment.

Something clicked in Lukas’ brain, a question that he had thought about yesterday but had shoved aside in favor of dealing with their new companions.

“How is he even still alive? Do they have a respawn zone somewhere inside their base?” Lukas asked, still crouched on the ground, “Because Jay for sure killed him yesterday.”

“I guess they could,” Lou said, gently moving Dewey aside to allow some more room for Jay to kneel, “but it seems reckless to me. What if one of us dies within its effective radius and respawns inside their base? We’d be able to surround them easily.”

Ivor nodded slowly, “Yes… I agree with Other Blond Guy. We have to collect more information about Steve; maybe he has abilities that we don’t.”

“Wait, guys, be quiet,” Aiden whispered, “Something’s caught his attention.”

Steve had gotten up and was approaching the opposite side of the treeline, sword held at the ready. They watched with bated breath as he stalked towards the edge of the clearing.

“Hey, that’s where we saw those flashes of color,” was all Jack got out before chaos ensued.

Steve rushed into the foliage and stabbed his sword somewhere out of sight. A scream erupted from the bushes, instantly setting them all on alert. Someone tore into the clearing, Steve hot on their heels as they desperately tried to escape his sharpened blade.

“Who is that?” Jack squinted as Lou pulled out a spyglass and zeroed in on the commotion. Whatever he saw made him fumble with the instrument as he put it away, his face twisted in a rare display of shock.

“Olivia?” he said incredulously.

“What the hell is she doing here?” Lukas and Aiden exclaimed simultaneously.

“Why don’t we, oh, I don’t know, help her instead of standing around like idiots?” Ivor glared at them all before jumping into the open and sprinting off.

They didn’t need any more convincing. Jack unsheathed his sword with a loud battle cry and followed the alchemist, the rest of them hot on his heels.

When Olivia saw their ragtag group burst from the trees, she immediately veered left, trying to duck and weave through the obsidian barriers and giant fissures in the ground as Steve chased her like Dewey after a creeper. She clutched something in her arms, but Lukas couldn’t see more than a pink blob before she ducked out of sight, barely dodging Steve’s sword.

“Hah! Take that, you swine!” Ivor yelled as he pelted Steve with a bottle of dull grey ooze. It stopped him in his tracks. Ivor sure loves his potions of slowness, Lukas thought wryly, those would’ve come in handy yesterday.

Steve’s sword scraped across the obsidian where it had been frozen in time, giving off sparks as it inched along its intended trajectory. Lukas caught up to them a few seconds later, panting heavily as he sheathed his sword.

“You had those the whole time?” he said exasperatedly as the rest of their companions approached.

“Obviously not!” Ivor retorted. “I brewed it last night! It was the only one I had, by the way.”

“Wait… is that you, Lukas?” Olivia’s cautious voice distracted Lukas from the brilliant comeback he was about to fire back. He looked over to see the woman walk out from behind the obsidian structure where she had taken refuge, examining them all with a cautious, yet relieved look in her eyes. Olivia (or this version of her, if Lukas had to guess, because she looked completely different than the Olivia he remembered) wore her hair in thin braids, some tucked under her old green beret that he hadn’t seen her wear in ages. Her bright red vest stood out amongst the other earthy tones of her clothing; no wonder Steve had spotted her.

“Uh, yeah?” he replied hesitantly. It wasn't a lie; he was Lukas, just not the one she was thinking of.

Olivia’s eyebrows furrowed, and her previously relieved expression turned into a frown. “We didn’t see you fall through the rift,” she said, gesturing to the structure where the rift leading to a wheat field had been, if Lukas’ notes were correct. “Where have you been? And why are you wearing that strange armor?” Her eyes flitted around the group that had formed around her immobile attacker, “Why are there so many of you?”

After a few seconds of silence, her shoulders slumped slightly, her face worn out, “None of you are from my universe, huh.”

The silence answered her.

“Reuben?” Jay moved past Lukas quickly, almost shoving him aside. His voice was strange and tight, like he was forcing himself to speak.

Olivia stepped back automatically, her arms loosening around her cargo enough to reveal a shaking, wide-eyed pig. Reuben stared at Jay for several tense moments before he let out an inquisitive oink, pawing at Olivia’s arms to let him down. She complied, looking dubious. Dewey tried to prowl forward stealthily, but after making eye contact with Lukas' glare, he went still.

Good cat, he thought approvingly.

Reuben ambled up to Jay, who slowly took a knee as the pig approached him. He was still as his old friend, his best friend, sniffed him up and down before butting his head into Jay’s hand with a strangely sad look in his eyes.

Almost too quiet for Lukas to hear, Jay let out a shaky sigh. He reached out to pet Reuben softly, like the pig was made of brittle clay.

The dam was broken. With a delighted squeal, Reuben launched himself into Jay, enthusiastically bowling him over onto the ground. Jay laughed, and only then did Lukas realize how truly different he was from his own Jesse. Whereas Jesse held himself high with assured confidence, Jay stood with his shoulders set, his jaw clenched like bracing himself for a storm. Jesse was warm like a campfire in a clear summer night, but Jay was colder, like a candle struggling to burn in the wind. The differences were subtle and easy to overlook, but seeing Jay laugh with such joy revealed just how thin his smiles had been last night, how much effort he put into maintaining his affable persona.

Beside him, Steve twitched, breaking Lukas from his thoughts. Throroghly discombobulated, he stumbled back and collapsed into something warm yet unyielding. On instinct, Lukas glanced back to apologize to whomever he had almost trampled. Please don't be Aiden.

It was Aiden.

“Sorry,” he muttered as he moved back towards Steve. Aiden was silent, and Lukas tried not to think about how that made him feel as he took this opportunity to study the Old Builders’ ally properly.

His irises were a piercing lapis-blue, his dark brown eyebrows furrowed in bitter concentration. His body was toned and littered with the scars of a seasoned warrior, and his sensibly buzzed hair supported the theory. As Lukas drew closer to examine the rest of his features, Steve’s eyes snapped over to meet his.

“The potion is wearing off,” he realized with alarm, “We need to get out of here before he can move again.”

“Follow me!” Olivia piped up quickly, “I’ll take you back to the others; they have to know that there are even more of you than we thought.”

Jay reluctantly got up from the ground, although Reuben stuck close to his heels. His eyes were suspiciously red as he asked, “The others?”

Olivia started to say something, but decided against it, “It’ll be easier if I just show you.” Steve’s sword screeched against the obsidian, and they all jumped.

“By all means, lead on!” Ivor proclaimed, waving Olivia forward impatiently.

Leaving Steve behind, they all ran into the forest, following the fissures away from the Old Builders’ base. At their rigorous pace, it didn’t take long for the sun’s rays to fade and the foliage around them to feel suffocating. Lukas kept his eyes forward, focusing on Jay’s spiky pauldron ahead to avoid losing his way. Every few seconds, he looked down to ensure that Dewey was still padding at his heels; the ocelot was more than capable of tracking them should he get separated, but this forest was so thick Lukas didn't want to take any chances. Ivor stopped once to collect some cocoa beans that had fallen to the forest floor, but Lukas could hear him start complaining when Aiden hauled him forward by the scruff of his tunic. There would be no detours on their journey this time.

For every step he took, the pit in Lukas’ stomach grew larger at the thought of meeting “the others.” Would Jesse be among them, or was Olivia simply taking them to the rest of the people who had fallen through her rift? He desperately hoped for the former, because he wasn’t sure how long he could keep going without at least an idea of what was happening here. It felt like they’d been running around in endless circles without answers to any of their questions, and he was getting sick of it.

Jesse had the answers; he just knew it. Jesse would know what to do, which plan to make, and how to make him feel better. If they could find him and Petra, everything would be alright.

A few moments later, he tripped over a stray root in the ground, but a hand grabbed a strap in his armor and yanked him back upright before he could tumble to the floor. When he looked back, Aiden was retracting his hand, looking slightly awkward.

“Thanks,” Lukas forced a smile.

“No problem,” the guardsman said before looking ahead. Lukas did too, before he could trip again.

After some amount of time, which had to be less than an hour but was just long enough for Ivor to start grumbling under his breath, they finally reached their destination. Unlike Jay, Lou, and Jack’s build, this cabin rested between two trees, with a small space cleared out front for a fire and several logs. It looked pretty cozy, and under different circumstances, Lukas thought it would make a lovely campsite.

Olivia cupped her hands around her mouth and hollered, “Guys! I’m back!”

There was a brief sound of chaos from within the cabin before two heads poked out of the door.

“Olivia! You–um. Who’re these dudes?” a tall man with black hair stepped out with a confused frown. Axel.

“Wait, is that Lukas?” the other man yelled, and Lukas’ hearts constricted when Jesse stepped out from behind Axel. His fluffy hair was tousled just how he remembered, and his eyes were still their comforting shade of emerald green.

Although something about his exasperated frown seemed…off.

— — — — —

Lukas took pride in being the resident voice of reason, the planner, the patient one. He didn’t like losing his cool, especially in front of people whose opinions he cared about. Usually, he was adept at controlling his reactions, instead maintaining a cooler, more snarky rapport in front of his friends and then letting his more extreme emotions out alone.

Unfortunately, this adventure had decided that it really liked testing his patience.

Almost like he could sense Lukas’ frustration, Ivor placed a hand on his shoulder, “Look at it this way, Blondie: there were only two rifts, so the next Jesse we meet will have to be ours!”

Lukas appreciated the effort at cheering him up, he really did, but right now he was way too focused on the expression of genuine annoyance that was twisting this new Jesse’s face. At first, his gaze had concentrated solely on Lukas, but when Lou walked into view, his head had swiveled to glare at the other man almost immediately. Now he was stuck looking back and forth between them, and to make things even worse, Axel had started doing it as well. Almost involuntarily, Lukas looked towards his more taciturn counterpart, who, for once, was looking back at him with an expression equally as lost.

Neither of them was used to their friends staring at them like this, but at least Olivia didn’t seem as outraged as her companions.

When it was obvious that New Jesse (as he is hencefore dubbed, Lukas thought with a sigh) and Axel were content to simply stare indignantly at the two Lukases, Olivia rolled her eyes, “Guys, obviously our Lukas isn’t here. These two,” she gestured vaguely to them, “aren’t from our universe.”

She looked towards the rest of the group, “Sorry, these guys are a pair of knuckleheads.”

When neither New Jesse nor Axel seemed mollified by her statement, she raised an eyebrow at them meaningfully, “Since they aren’t from our universe, they have no idea why you’re glaring at them so intensely. Honestly, this is a horrible first impression, even for you two.”

That seemed to get the mens’ attention, and New Jesse’s face mended itself into something more sheepish as he reached up to clasp his overalls, “Yeah, I guess they wouldn’t know about the beef, huh… sorry.” he directed that last part to Lukas and Lou, who merely nodded awkwardly in response.

“I dunno,” Axel muttered, his look still mutinous as he crossed his arms over his green plaid shirt, “I couldn’t imagine a Lukas we didn’t have beef with.”

Olivia walked over and slapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t be dramatic, Axel.”

“Hey! Why’d you only hit me and not Jess?” Axel complained as he rubbed the affected arm.

“Because at least Jess apologized!” Olivia shot back.

So, this new Jesse went by Jess? Thank the Creators, at least Lukas and the others didn’t have to figure out new names again.

Jess stepped forward as his two friends started to bicker and smiled again, more genuinely, “Don’t mind them. So, how did Olivia find y’all?”

Before anyone could respond, Reuben bounded forward from where he had been rooting around in the undergrowth and launched himself into Jess’s legs. The man merely laughed and scratched the pig’s head fondly, his grin stretched wide across his face.

This version of Jesse didn’t have any scars marring his cheek.

“Well, I was trying to spy on the Old Builders with Reuben, but that weird guy with the blue shirt somehow saw us and tried to kill us again! I thought we were goners, but then this guy showed up,” Olivia pointed to Ivor, “with the rest of them behind him.”

“We’re looking for Jesse and Petra,” Lukas stepped forward impatiently. He didn't mean to be rude, but the fact that they had found two Jesses thus far, and neither of them belonged to his universe, was really starting to grate on his already frayed nerves. “They have the Razor’s Edge, the thing that brought you to this place?”

To his surprise, the three of them nodded, “Oh yeah! We know about that,” Axel said, a bit smugly.

“How?” Lukas took a deep breath. “Do you know where they are?” If these four knew Jesse and Petra, then where were they?

“When we fell through our rift, Jesse and Petra helped us escape from the Old Builders. We’ve been trying to help them figure out a way to get us back home,” Jess frowned slightly, “but we don't have any experience in combat or stealth, and we're also unarmed.”

“But they’re here?” Lukas pressed, needing to know.

“Yeah, though they went foraging for supplies earlier. They said they'd be back soon.” Jess shrugged.

Lukas turned back to Ivor and Aiden, his hearts beating erratically. A shout of jubilation bubbled inside him, but it caught in his throat, refusing to come out.

He wouldn’t be able to celebrate until Jesse and Petra were actually here, until he could gather them both into his arms and hold onto them for a very long time.

Instead, he exhaled, letting his joy fizzle into the forest air.

The rest of his group stepped forward: Aiden, Ivor, Jay, and Lou sat on the logs, Dewey tagging along and pawing at Lukas' variant. Jack knelt next to the fire. Lukas joined them, so absorbed by his thoughts of seeing Jesse again that he almost missed the conversation between the two Jesses around the fire.

“So, what kind of world are you from?” Jay asked casually, sitting close to where Jess and Reuben stood, “Are you also the ruler of Beacontown?”

“Beacontown? That’s Jesse’s town, right?” Jess asked as he plopped on the ground, procuring a carrot and throwing it to an extremely happy Reuben, “Nah, we all live in Warrior’s Keep!”

Warrior’s Keep?

Lukas' eyes met the others'.

Warrior’s Keep was the town they had grown up in, which had been razed to the ground when the Witherstorm was born. It was halfway across the world from Beacontown: a few hours' travel by Nether railway, but at least a week away in the Overworld.

It was nothing more than a graveyard now.

Logically, this could only mean one thing: in their world, Ivor had never created the Witherstorm.

“Ah,” Jay replied in a strained voice, evidently having come to the same conclusion, “Yeah, you’re right. My world and Jesse’s are… very similar, from a certain point of view.” Beside him, Lou focused on Dewey.

Axel nodded eagerly, “He and Petra told us all about their adventures, like going to Boomtown and destroying the Witherstorm! We’ve never gone on any sort of adventures though,” he frowned, almost petulantly.

Olivia rolled her eyes, “The only adventure we’ve ever been on is trying to beat the Ocelots at anything, ever.”

Jesse bristled and twisted to face her, “Hey! We’re going to win this year, I know it!”

“You’ve said that every year for the past ten, Jess. Besides, have you even heard what they’re planning to build this year?” Olivia asked wryly.

Jess clambered to his feet, “Have you? What is it?” he demanded quickly, “Olivia, this is great! If we can get intel on what Lukas is planning to build beforehand, then we can take measures to mitigate it–”

“It’s a redstone computer, Jess.” Olivia interrupted, sounding close to despair, “A redstone. Computer. ”

A shiver ran unbidden down Lukas’ spine, but he forced his face to remain neutral.

Jess was quiet as he sat, his hands balled loosely into fists at his sides, “Then I guess we’ll have to think of something to top that.”

“Are you guys talking about the Endercon Building Competition?” Aiden asked curiously from his place next to Ivor.

Jess looked at him with a wary expression as if just noticing him now. “Any competition,” he groused, sitting back on the ground with a thump, “I don’t know how, but we’ve been competing against them for years and never won once.”

“Maybe they’re cheating!” Axel piped up. Jess and Olivia groaned; Lukas got the impression that this was not the first time Axel had brought this up. Nor the second, nor the third. Not even the fourth.

“They’re just better than us!” Olivia crossed her arms, “They have the better materials, better ideas, better connections–”

“Well, you know what?” Jess propelled himself to his feet again, even more violently than the first time, “We have the better team! The better people! We have passion and an unshakeable will!”

“Dare to prepare!” Axel cheered from behind him.

Olivia frowned, “I thought it was ‘go team?’”

Jess' shoulders sagged, “C’mon, guys, we talked about this.”

“We change it up every time!” Axel defended himself, “It’s not my fault I keep forgetting.”

“This is why Aiden, Maya, and Gill always make fun of us,” Olivia sighed heavily, leaning back against the hut's wall.

"Hey, don't bring them up. Aiden tripped me the other day, and I'm still not over it," Axel said seriously.

Aiden stiffened, his cheeks flushing uncomfortably as he watched the three banter back and forth. Lukas felt himself tense as well; even though he had never gone out of his way to antagonize Jesse and his friends before the Witherstorm, he hadn’t exactly discouraged the rest of the Ocelots from bullying them either. The worst part of it was that, if someone ever asked Lukas why he did nothing to stop his friends from mistreating the other group, he wouldn’t have been able to give a proper answer, at least not one that didn’t make him sound like a total dick. And, from the context clues not-so-subtly hidden in their conversation, the Ocelots were still very antagonistic towards Jess and his friends.

Those memories had largely faded into the past for him, but his inaction regarding the Ocelots’ bullying was still a sore spot, something that fed into a small pit of guilt at the bottom of his stomach. Usually, he could ignore it, but the longer he stood and watched Jess, Axel, and Olivia talk about him, even if it wasn’t him, the more the guilt started to eat away at him.

After a few minutes, Aiden stood up.

“I’m going to see if there’s any food around here,” he announced to the sets of eyes on him, “I’ll be right back.”

He spun on his heel and marched the way they had come, his back ramrod straight and steps carefully measured. Lukas watched him go, filled with a grudging sense of understanding. If it was difficult for him to listen to their rant, he could imagine it was doubly worse for the person responsible for the harassment.

Especially if he really does want to change.

“I’ll go with him,” Lukas spoke before he could think about the consequences of his actions, “Buddy system, and everything.”

Ivor shot him a look of surprise, but was quickly derailed when Jay asked him a question. Taking advantage of the distraction, Lukas slipped away from the group and followed Aiden. It didn’t take long for him to catch up to the guardsman, who was scanning the undergrowth for anything edible.

“Any luck?” he asked when he stopped at Aiden’s side.

Aiden glanced at him, “There's a couple of berry bushes over there,” he pointed curtly further into the forest.

“Better than nothing.”

They had only walked a couple of paces before Aiden burst, “What is with you?”

Lukas stopped, turning to face his former best friend. He resisted the urge to ball his hands into fists, instead tugging nervously at his shirt as he replied, “I don’t know what you mean.” It was an utter lie: he knew exactly what Aiden was talking about.

Aiden scowled at him, a vein bulging in his neck as he hissed, “Don’t give me that bullshit! One second we’re joking around, and the next you’re colder than ice! Every time I think we might be getting somewhere, you go ahead and treat me like the scum of the Nether! Which one is it? Are you actually interested in giving me a second chance, or are you just going to string me along until this adventure is over and you never have to see me again?”

So much for commiserating together, Lukas thought to himself as he felt tendrils of white-hot anger shoot down his spine, “Oh, so because I’m not forgiving you on the spot like Ivor did, you’re angry? That doesn’t sound like the little speech you made back in Sky City!” he whisper-shouted back, irrationally afraid of the others hearing their argument.

“That’s not what I meant!” Aiden took a step towards him and Lukas backed away on instinct, “I just–” his voice cracked and Lukas was shocked as Aiden placed a fist over his mouth in mortification, “I don’t want to know if you forgive me or not, I just want to know if you can.”

There was a long silence as they stared at each other. Suddenly wanting nothing more than to return to the campfire, Lukas looked around, searching for anything that could get him out of this horrible conversation. Unfortunately, there was nothing, although now would be a really good time for Jesse and Petra to come striding out from the darkness.

“…I don’t know,” he admitted quietly.

Somehow, this seemed like the worst answer, because Aiden’s shoulders slumped as he repeated, “You don’t know?”

Lukas shrugged helplessly, now unsure who he should be upset at, “I don’t know! I look at you, and I don’t know who I see. Are you the man who used to be my best friend, or are you the man who threw me off Sky City?”

Aiden closed his eyes like he wanted to flinch away from Lukas’ words, but his voice was steady as he said, “Both.”

Now it was Lukas’ turn to repeat, “Both?”

Aiden opened his eyes, looking resigned, “I’m both. One doesn’t take away the other. You can’t separate me into two different people; otherwise, that wouldn’t hold me accountable for what I did. I may be different now, but I can’t change what I did in the past.”

Despite the heavy tension blanketing the atmosphere, Lukas couldn’t help but quirk an eyebrow, a faint sense of amusement running through him at Aiden’s words, “Did you finally listen to me and go to therapy?” he teased lightly, trying not to sound too apprehensive.

Aiden took the small olive branch, his face pulling into a small smile, “Law-mandated. Isa wouldn’t let me, Maya, or Gill within ten blocks of a weapon until we agreed.”

Despite the attempt at humor, the air surrounding them soon fell silent again. Aiden’s pale green eyes bore into his, and Lukas realized he wasn't going to say anything until Lukas gave a real answer.

“I can’t forgive you, not right now,” he said finally, reaching up to fiddle with a lock of hair that had fallen into his eyes.

Aiden’s eyes dimmed, but, surprisingly, he showed no trace of anger as he stepped away, “I understand.”

“I think it’s because I still don’t believe that you’ve changed,” Lukas continued, “Yeah, you seem like you’re making an effort, but I just can’t convince myself. I’m still so angry at you for what you did, for literally throwing me into the abyss and smiling as I fell!” Well, so much for trying to lighten the conversation; now, he could feel the anger stirring again, his hearts vibrating frantically and his palms sweating.

He tried to push down the rage broiling in his chest, but it only grew as he took in Aiden’s morose expression. “And the worst part is!” he stopped, feeling ashamed.

“The worst part is,” he forced himself to keep going, the anger in him needing to let it out, “that I feel like I’m the only one having this problem!”

Aiden’s eyes widened and he opened his mouth to say something, but something in Lukas had come loose. Now the words were pouring out of him like molten lava, and he couldn't stop it even if he wanted to, “Everyone in Sky City’s forgiven you, Ivor forgot about it in about two seconds, and the rest of us didn’t even look twice before accepting you!” he took a shallow breath, “Why am I the only one having this issue? Why doesn’t anyone else remember what you did?”

Silence reigned again, broken only by Lukas’ heaving breaths as he struggled to control himself. I am calm, I am patient, I am collected, he repeated the mantra over and over again, but funnily enough, it didn’t seem to work. These past few days had run him ragged, and it seemed this was his final breaking point. For the hundredth time, he wished that Jesse were here.

He was disappointed once again.

“Lukas,” Aiden murmured, looking slightly spooked, “Half the people in Sky City still look at me like I’m a criminal.”

He didn’t reply.

“It took Petra half a year to even have a civil conversation with me,” Aiden continued, his voice a little stronger, “And another six months for her hand to stop straying to the hilt of her sword every time I said hello.”

Lukas exhaled.

“Ivor… yeah, Ivor pretty much forgave me immediately,” Aiden said sheepishly, a hand coming up to rub the back of his neck, “but I think that’s only because he understands what it’s like for people to view you as a villain, even when you want to change for the better.”

Some of the weight pressing upon him eased.

“So, what I’m saying is that you aren’t the only one having this problem,” Aiden finished with a half-smile, “I hurt you, and just because I’m trying to change doesn’t mean that the hurt will magically disappear. I don’t expect it to.”

Not for the first time, Lukas wondered what skin-stealer had assumed the form of his former friend, because he had never heard Aiden sound so… emotionally intelligent. It hadn’t always been the case throughout their friendship, but in the past, after he had met some rather unpleasant mercenaries running a combat training program in town, Aiden had never been willing to talk about anything as vulnerable as emotions. Eventually, Lukas learned to simply keep his feelings to himself. Now, he kept a tight seal on his inner thoughts, which very few ever got to peer through.

Maybe Aiden was trying to change.

Something in his expression must’ve shifted, because Aiden cut him off quickly before he could speak, “You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to, just let me prove it to you. Let me prove I’m not the same person I was ten years ago. Let me show you that I'm sorry.”

As the words rang through the clearing, Lukas examined Aiden, really looked at him. His eyes were wide and sincere, a frown twisting his lips and his eyebrows furrowed. He certainly seemed genuine.

A memory flashed through Lukas’ head, quicker than lightning.

 

When the blonde opened his eyes, the first things he saw were oak trees.

Later, people would tell him that oak forest biomes were relatively common places to spawn (“I spawned in a jungle biome,” someone once told him with an air of I’m-so-much-better-than-you), but to the blonde, those oak trees were the most beautiful things he had ever seen. Tall grass and vines wound up their sturdy trunks, flowers of all colors bloomed everywhere, and he could hear animals frolicking somewhere in the bushes to his right. It could’ve been heaven.

However, this thought fled quickly when he heard a high scream penetrate the air and he felt an enormously heavy mass collide into him, sending him hurtling to the grass before he could even think.

His vision flashed red, and one of his ten hearts disappeared. He couldn’t see them, but he knew. Just like he knew he had ten units of hunger, and precisely 41 slots for storage. They were just the facts of life; his new life.

“Oh shit, I am so sorry!” the mass–-which turned out to be a person–-exclaimed as they scrambled off him. As the blonde attempted to haul himself up with a groan, a hand reached down and grabbed his, pulling him completely upright. Immediately, his vision was filled with worried, pale green eyes and furrowed eyebrows.

“I’m so sorry, man,” the person apologized again, looking slightly panicked, “I-I just… I just was, like I was alive, and I had no idea that there wasn’t ground below me–”

“It’s okay, I just…woke up too!” the blonde jumped in excitedly, glad he wasn’t alone, “We’re…  just-alive buddies!”

A split second went by as they both processed the beginnings of their new lives before they burst out laughing like he had just said the funniest thing ever.

And to them, he had.

 

The Aiden that pushed Lukas off Sky City had been completely different from the one who had spawned into the world alongside him; that was a certainty.

And, if Aiden could change for the worse, then it was safe to say that he could also change for the better.

“Okay.” Lukas exhaled, the rest of the weight on his chest dissipating with the single word.

An unsteady smile lit up Aiden’s face. “Okay?”

Lukas nodded, feeling himself smile alongside his former friend, “I’ll let you prove it to me.”

Aiden’s smile spread into a grin. “Okay!” Lukas couldn’t remember the last time he had seen the other man look so happy.

His feelings were still there, the anger and hurt still lurking beneath the surface of his consciousness, but for the first time since meeting Aiden again, Lukas felt like he was actually on the right track.

Maybe everything would turn out all right after all.

“I’m sorry,” he added as Aiden finally started picking the berry bushes, “for not treating you well these past few days.”

Aiden turned to him and shook his head, “You don’t have to apologize for that, even through my anger, I understood why you were acting that way. But, if it makes you feel better, I forgive you.”

Something rustled amidst the foliage.

Lukas instinctively unsheathed his sword, Aiden doing the same, “What was that?”

“Dinner, hopefully,” Aiden said with relish as he began to stalk towards where the sound had originated: a particularly dense patch of trees.

Lukas looked on warily, “I don’t know, maybe it was a–”

“GET THAT CHICKEN! ” An oh-so familiar voice boomed from behind the trees as a huge chicken burst out of the leaves with a terrified squawk!

“I’M TRYING! ” A figure erupted into view behind it, moving so quickly that they were merely a flash of blue and orange. Their blade swung down and cleaved the chicken in half, rendering it nothing but a puff of smoke and a mouthwateringly large piece of meat.

“Whew!” their companion breathed as they stepped into the clearing as well, “Well, I think that should be enough–”

Everything was utterly still.

Lukas’ hearts lept to his throat as he stared at the bewildered newcomers before him, his mouth agape.

“JESSE?”

Notes:

Lukas after finding this story's fiftieth Jesse variant: If the next Jesse we find isn't ours, I will genuinely murder the person closest to me.
Aiden, directly to Lukas' right: IVOR SWITCH SPOTS WITH ME

Chapter 9: A Reprieve

Summary:

With everyone finally united, it's time to fill in some blanks and create a game plan.
That, and have an extremely emotionally charged conversation with your best friend in the moonlight.

Notes:

JESSKAS NATION RISE UPPPPPPPPPPPPPP

real ones will notice the transformers reference I wrote in this chapter

Lukas was floating. The sun had lit a fire in his chest, and the heat of it was carrying him up, up, up until he could hardly feel the ground beneath his boots as he stared at Jesse and Petra. Suddenly, everything else faded from his head, now irrelevant compared to the utter relief flooding his body at the sight of his two best friends before him.

Jesse’s eyes, wide and warm and right, met his. His scars wound up his cheek and forehead exactly where Lukas remembered them, his hair ruffled like he had just been through a windstorm. Without a doubt, this Jesse was his. He had to be.

“Lukas?” Petra broke the stifling silence that had fallen under the four of them, “Aiden? What are you doing here?” her eyes widened, “Did you guys come from the second rift? Jesse, I told you I saw people fall out of that one!” she turned and elbowed Jesse in the side, but her companion was still.

His eyes hadn’t left Lukas’. Lukas found that his mouth refused to move.

“No, actually, we came from the Portal Network,” Aiden answered when it was clear that Lukas wasn’t going to, “We’ve been looking for you.”

His words were enough to jerk Jesse out of his stupor; his eyes snapped to Aiden in shock as Petra exclaimed, “From the Network?”

Aiden nodded, a smile lighting up his face, “Yep! Ivor and Lukas will be able to tell you more,” the guardsman gestured to Lukas as he spoke, “but it’s been one hell of a week trying to find you both.”

“What?” Petra laughed delightedly as she bounded forward and dragged Lukas into a suffocating embrace. “How the hell did you guys manage to follow us all the way here?”

Petra’s touch managed to break Lukas out of whatever state Jesse’s stare had put him in, and he hugged her back happily.

Everything was finally going to be all right.

“Well, after you missed Founding Day, I figured at least something was up, ” he grinned at her when they parted, “And I had the fortune to meet an old friend at the Inn-Between who had an uncanny knowledge of your whereabouts.”

Petra groaned good-naturedly, “Oh, Creators, Ivor. We’ve told him to stop tailing us at least three different times now, right, Jesse?”

Jesse cleared his throat and stepped forward stiltedly, like he was unsure of whether to approach them, “Oh, yeah,” he said, his smile distracted, “Four times, actually. Anyways, where is he? And why are you here?” The last question was directed skeptically at Aiden, who reddened at the scrutinizing gaze the hero leveled him with.

He shrugged bashfully, “Lukas and Ivor went to Sky City to ask Isa and Milo about where you two went after your last mission, and I volunteered my help.”

Jesse’s face softened, “Well, I’m glad you’re all here. To be honest, we’ve been in a bit of trouble with this whole Old Builder situation.”

“Yeah!” Petra added, running a hand through her flaming hair, “Not to bash the guys that fell out of that rift, but they haven’t actually been that helpful with helping us get out of this place.”

“We met the people who fell out of the other rift on our way to find you. They’re other variants of us,” Lukas thought back to the taciturn trio, “They have a lot of experience with fighting and foraging, so I think they’ll be able to help us.”

“Oh really?” Petra perked up in interest, “Who are they?”

“Jesse, Jack, and I.”

The warrior sagged in disappointment, “Still no me, huh?”

Jesse snorted, “I’m sure we’ll find another version of you eventually. Remember, the rifts are still open.”

Lukas cringed slightly, “Well, Hadrian and the others covered them in obsidian, so if anyone else falls through, they’ll be trapped.”

At this, Jesse’s eyebrows flew into his hair, and Petra’s voice dropped into a threatening growl, “That slimeball. I swear, I’m this close to just going over and pulverizing him to bits–”

Jesse laid a calming hand on her shoulder, though his glare suggested that he very much agreed, “Remember what Harper said? We have to protect the Razor’s Edge above all else.”

“What did Harper say?” Aiden voiced Lukas’ wary question.

Petra hesitated, then looked toward the direction of the campfire, “Well, I guess we should explain it to everyone, huh?”

Lukas stepped to the side, gesturing for her and Jesse to walk ahead, “Lead the way.”

— — — — —

Jesse and Petra raced down Main Street, narrowly avoiding collisions with fellow travelers as they ducked and weaved through the crowds. They had just finished their latest mission: collecting elytra for Isa and Milo in Sky City. It had been an overwhelming success, but also left Jesse feeling positively ravenous.

“Pick up the pace, Jesse! Last one to Sky City’s portal is a rotten potato!” Petra shouted gleefully as she rushed ahead.

Jesse urged himself to run faster, but his stomach growled in protest, “C’mon, Petra, can’t we get some food first?” he complained. They had collected more elytra than anticipated, meaning their mission had also run longer. They were by no means starving, but Jesse had eaten nothing but a piece of steak and a small carrot for the past two days, so on second thought, maybe they were starving.

Petra pretended to consider his plea, “Hm, how about we stop for food first if you beat me to the Inn?”

Jesse sighed, but he could feel his competitive streak flare at her challenge, “You’re on.”

Needless to say, Jesse won. The very prospect of a fresh, hot meal was enough to propel him forward like a minecart on powered rails, and he easily breezed by Petra (“How-?”), who found it increasingly difficult to navigate through the masses crowded within the Portal Network’s walls.

He didn’t bother waiting for her when he reached the Inn-Between, a devious smirk spreading across his face at the thought of Petra’s indignation as he pushed the front doors open and waved to several patrons.

“Jesse! Great to see ya!” Morris greeted as he sat at the bar.

“Morris! How you been, man?” Jesse nodded to the bartender, silently counting down the seconds until Petra burst through the double doors.

Three…

Two…

One…

A loud boom resounded throughout the inn as the doors flew open violently. The chatter died down, intimidated by the thundering footsteps approaching the bar.

Jesse hid a growing smile behind his gloved hand.

“How the hell did you run so fast?” Petra sat down grumpily after assuaging the crowd with a quick wave, “Shouldn’t you run slower when hungry?”

He shrugged, knowing he was playing with fire when he responded, “Maybe I wasn’t going fast, you were just going slow.”

That earned him a hard punch to the shoulder.

“Have you ordered yet?”

“I was about to when you so rudely interrupted me,” Jesse teased her one more time for good measure before turning to Morris, who had been waiting patiently for them to finish their argument, “I’ll just have my usual.”

“Mine too,” Petra added.

“Coming right up,” Morris disappeared into the back room with a wink.

It didn’t take long for them to get their food and start eating. Morris stayed and chatted with them for a bit, but when a customer on the other side of the bar called for his attention, he disappeared with a rueful smile and left Jesse and Petra to their own devices.

“So, next stop after Sky City is Beacontown, right?” Petra asked through a mouthful of steak.

“Yep,” Jesse confirmed, “I know Founding Day is still two weeks away, but Radar really wanted my help with decorating this year.”

“Uh-huh, and you’re sure that’s the only reason?” Petra’s voice had a knowing lilt to it, and when Jesse looked over to fix her with what he hoped was a sufficiently clueless expression, her eyes twinkled.

“Well, it’s the only reason he gave,” Jesse said eventually, focusing on his sandwich.

“I’m sure,” there was a short pause before Petra continued, “We still going to Lukas’ place for dinner when we get there?”

Jesse felt himself smile instinctually, “Duh, don’t we always?”

Over the past few years, it had become a tradition for them to have dinner at Lukas’ cottage on the first night of their visits. It made the process of going back home less stressful if they knew that fresh food and a place to sleep would be waiting when they got there, but the main reason they always visited Lukas first was simply because Jesse usually couldn’t wait to see him again. Something about throwing open the cottage door and scaring the author to pieces gave Jesse a sense of unfettered joy that he only seemed to feel around the blond-haired man.

“Sounds good to me,” Jesse could tell Petra badly wanted to say more, but fortunately for him, they were interrupted before she could continue.

“Psst! Jesse!” Someone grabbed his shoulder harshly. Jesse tensed, using every ounce of willpower he possessed not to unsheath his diamond sword in front of the entire tavern.

He spun around in his seat, Petra close behind him, and made direct eye contact with an extremely stressed-looking Harper. Somehow, she looked even older than the last time he had seen her; new wrinkles marred her face as she whispered to the two of them.

“Come with me; I need to tell you guys something!” She tugged at him again, pointing surreptitiously to an abandoned booth in the corner.

“Harper?” Jesse exclaimed in surprise, “It’s so good to see you!”

Harper cringed, looking around nervously, “Shh, don’t be so loud!”

“But we just started eating!” Petra protested as Jesse started digging through his inventory for gold pieces.

“Well, she’s obviously upset about something; we’d better hear her out,” Jesse nodded to Harper, “Just take your food with you; Morris won’t mind.”

Petra grumbled under her breath but tossed a few pieces of gold on the counter before sliding off her stool and following them to the dimly lit booth.

“What’s up, Harper? It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” Jesse grinned at her as they all sat down. He was almost sure that Harper wasn’t just here to say hello, but it had been years since they had seen each other, and he was always happy to see one of his friends.

Harper smiled weakly, “It’s good to see you too, Jesse.”

The sentiment was rushed but genuine, and Jesse could feel Petra relax slightly beside him at the admission before their friend continued.

“Look, I’d love to stay and chat, but unfortunately, we’re running on borrowed time here.”

Jesse and Petra exchanged glances. This didn’t sound good.

“What’s wrong?” Petra asked.

Harper sighed and folded her hands on the table, “There’s no roundabout way to say this, so I’ll just say it: Hadrian and Mevia have escaped from their prison.”

“WHAT? ” Harper nearly jumped out of her skin at their thunderous shout.

“How did they manage to get out?” Jesse asked as Petra hissed, “Those fucking slimeballs!”

Harper shook her head helplessly, “I know this is going to sound crazy, but remember how we left them in that world with nothing but chicken-sized zombies?”

“Yeah?”

“And you guys know that, sometimes, zombies drop iron ingots…”

“Alright, Harper, cut to the chase,” Petra interjected, her limited patience wearing thin.

“Okay, okay! Somehow, Hadrian and Mevia gathered enough iron ingots to make a staircase of iron blocks up to the exit portal.” Harper twisted her hands together nervously.

Petra slumped over the table defeatedly, but something still wasn’t quite adding up in Jesse’s mind, “Wait,” he asked, “Don’t you need a crafting table to make those? We left them with nothing!”

“Yeah, we did leave them with nothing,” Petra straightened, fixing Harper with a steely glare, “Harper.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault!” Harper lifted her hands in the air defensively, “They got wood from the zombies, too!”

“How?”

“Zombies can spawn with wooden tools! I assume that’s what they used to make the crafting table, or they had wood in their inventories when we left them there.”

Petra stared at her, “You can’t make planks from wooden tools.”

Harper sniffed, a little too haughtily for Jesse’s liking, “Maybe not in your world.”

“Wh–”

“Okay, the point is, they’re on the loose.” Jesse interrupted them, much more concerned with the actual problem at hand, “Do you know where they are?”

“No, but I know where they’re going,” Harper leaned forward, her voice growing almost too quiet to hear as she continued, “That’s where you guys come in.”

Jesse and Petra leaned forward.

“Hadrian and Mevia are after an incredibly dangerous artifact called the Razor’s Edge,” Harper said lowly, “If they get their hands on it, it could spell doom for not only the Portal Network, but also the entire universe.”

“What? How?” Jesse felt a chill run down his spine. “What does it do?”

A shadow flickered across Harper’s eyes before she continued, “The Razor’s Edge possesses the ability to create gateways through universes. It was the Old Builders’ final project, and the one that ultimately tore us apart.”

“Woah, gateways through entire universes?” Petra breathed, her voice hushed with awe, “That’s awesome!”

Their friend grimaced, “In theory, yes. Imagine the knowledge we could gain not only by visiting other worlds, but different planes of being! It would have been the greatest discovery of our lives if it had worked.

“Unfortunately, we learned the hard way that opening gateways–rifts, we called them–to other universes came with a catch: the rupture in reality would destroy both connected worlds. The more open rifts, the faster the worlds would deteriorate. If used unwisely, the Razor’s Edge could cause the utter destruction of everything we’ve ever known.”

“Wow. Okay.” Jesse’s brain reeled, but he tried his best to wrap his head around this incredibly concerning knowledge, “Let me guess: Hadrian and Mevia aren’t gonna use it wisely.”

Harper smiled grimly, “I suspect that, with the loss of their Games, they’ve been itching to reclaim some sort of power. The Razor’s Edge would be the best way to do that, and it’s not the first time they’ve tried to commandeer it for themselves. A very long time ago, before we all split apart, Hadrian, Mevia, and Otto wanted to use the Razor’s Edge to establish dominance over as many universes as possible, regardless of destabilization. They would have succeeded in their plan, but I took the Razor’s Edge and several other important artifacts and vowed never to return with them.”

“So where do we come in again?” Petra asked, “If you have the Razor’s Edge, then why are Hadrian and Mevia such a threat?”

Harper shifted uncomfortably.

Jesse felt his hearts sink, “Harper…”

“Alright, I hid it!“ Harper said quickly, ”When I learned that Hadrian and the others had started the Games, I decided to hide the Razor’s Edge in the one place they would never think to look: home.”

Jesse got the strangest sense of deja vu from those words but gestured for Harper to continue anyway.

“That’s where you come in: I’m afraid that, with Hadrian and Mevia free, they might visit our homeworld to get supplies and scour our old home for any artifacts or weapons they left behind. I need you both to get there first to retrieve the Razor’s Edge and bring it to Beacontown.”

“Wouldn’t that just lead Hadrian and Mevia to our world?” Petra protested, “Besides, why can’t you do it; you’re the only one who actually knows where it is!”

“No, that’s the thing!” Harper leaned forward excitedly, “Beacontown is the one place Hadrian and Mevia would never go! They would never willingly step foot in Jesse’s world, and besides, they could never make it past all of Beacontown’s defenses! The Razor’s Edge would be perfectly safe there.”

“That’s true,” Jesse mused, “You know how much of a stickler Radar is for security, especially within the Order Hall.”

Petra huffed a small laugh, “That’s an understatement.”

“Also,” Harper’s smile faded, “I have another mission I must attend to.”

“Like what?”

“I need to create something that can close the rifts,” Harper studiously avoided eye contact, “Once I do, I’ll meet up with you two in Beacontown.”

“Wait, you guys never figured that out? ” Petra exclaimed.

“Get off my back; it’s not easy creating artifacts like the Razor’s Edge!” Harper glared at her, “We all split up before we could create a solution, and it takes a long time to create something that powerful on your own without the proper equipment. I’m almost finished with it; I just need a couple more materials before it’s ready for use.”

Only slightly mollified, Petra slumped back against the booth and crossed her arms.

“Anyways, are you going to help me or not?” Harper looked at Jesse pleadingly.

“Sure, we’ll help you,” He agreed, knowing they weren’t going to get any more answers from her and already itching to get back on the road. If Hadrian and Mevia got their hands on such a powerful artifact, he had no doubts that they would wreak havoc with them. As the leader of the Order of the Stone, he refused to let that happen.

“Great! So, once you leave here, you’re going to have to go–”

“Wait, we were just about to head to Beacontown for Founding Day!” Petra interjected again, “Can’t this wait until after?”

Harper shook her head vigorously, “Oh, don’t worry, this shouldn’t take long! All you have to do is pop into my old home, retrieve the Razor’s Edge, and bring it back to Beacontown. You’ll be back for Founding Day; don’t worry.”

Jesse was starting to feel that there was more to this than met the eye, but he reluctantly nodded in agreement. Even if they missed Founding Day, they needed to retrieve this artifact before it fell into the wrong hands.

Sorry, Lukas, “Alright, then tell us what we need to do.”

“Thank you,” Harper dipped her head gratefully, looking like two tons of weight had just been lifted off her shoulders, “So, first, you’re gonna want to head all the way down Main Street…”

— — — — —

“However, I think Hadrian, Mevia, and that Steve guy followed us here because we had barely found the Razor’s Edge before they attacked us,” Jesse told everyone around the fire, “We almost beat them, but before we could run through the exit portal, Hadrian and Mevia started creating iron golems.”

Petra shook her head, “Jesse had to use the Razor’s Edge twice to prevent our heads from being smashed in.”

“When the two rifts opened, it was chaos. We barely managed to escape into the forest with Jess, Olivia, and Axel unscathed,” Jesse finished, looking uncharacteristically grim as he made eye contact with Lukas, “We’ve been stuck here ever since, trying to find a way out.”

Petra growled, her hands twitching into fists, “We could easily take them, too! They’ve just got such a hold over us that we can’t escape.”

“Well, maybe with all of these other versions of us here,” Jess piped up confidently, “we can finally turn the tide of this fight!”

Jesse smiled at him, “That’s the plan.”

“What if,” Lou mused from his post next to Jay, “We don’t fight at all?”

The circle fell silent as ten pairs of eyes fell on him.

“Isn’t that, like, the opposite of the plan?” Axel asked.

“Hear me out,” Lou raised his hands to field their questions, “We’ve all been fighting them on and off this entire time, and that’s just gotten us stranded in the forest with no easy way out of this mess. Maybe, if we play our cards right, we could convince the Old Builders that we intend to give up the Razor’s Edge in exchange for safe passage home, get rid of the obsidian barriers, and use the element of surprise to jump through our respective portals and rifts before they can do anything.”

“I like the sound of that,” Jay nodded in agreement.

“That’s all well and good,” Ivor crossed his arms, “But for that to work, we’d have to ensure that Hadrian and Mevia uphold their end of the deal first!”

Lukas sighed, petting Dewey absentmindedly as the cat wound through his and Aiden’s legs, “We all know how Hadrian and Mevia feel about sticking to their word.”

“And remember, we have to figure out a way to close the rifts, or otherwise, all of these worlds will be destroyed!” Petra added with a groan.

“Okay, fine, it won’t work,” Lou frowned, “Do we have any other plans?”

“Not really,” Jesse admitted, “We were focusing more on the ‘survival’ part until now.”

“Honestly, can we do anything without Harper?” Lukas asked, “She’s the only one who can close those rifts! We need to subdue Hadrian, Mevia, and Steve so they don’t pose a threat, then find Harper so she can get everyone to their respective universes without all these worlds being destroyed.”

Aiden nodded, “Lukas is right. Getting everyone home won’t matter if all these worlds are doomed anyway.”

Everyone’s heads turned towards Jesse, who nodded determinedly.

“Then we’ll keep going on the offensive.”

— — — — —

Twilight soon faded into night.

They had all crowded into the small cabin Jesse and Petra had built until it was full to bursting. It took a good fifteen minutes (and a lot of swearing), but they eventually settled into a relatively comfortable sleeping arrangement. Jay, Lou, and Jack huddled in one corner with Jess, Axel, Olivia, and Reuben in another, and then Lukas’ companions crammed themselves into the rest of the space.

Lukas was actually pretty comfy, but he still found himself restlessly twitching next to Ivor, who elbowed him grumpily whenever he dared to move more than a finger. After about an hour of this, he decided that he was nowhere close to falling asleep, so he slowly tiptoed out of the cabin for a breath of the cool forest air. Dewey stirred and tried to follow, but decided to stay inside when the night chill swept into the cabin.

Already feeling a bit better, Lukas sat on one of the logs and relit the campfire, watching the flames flicker and dance as his exhausted mind wandered.

“I thought I’d find you out here,” Lukas whipped around at the sound of Jesse’s voice to see him propped up against the cabin wall, looking at him with a soft smile.

“Oh! Yeah, just needed some fresh air,” he laughed nervously, scooting aside on the log, “Wanna join me?”

“I’d be honored,” Jesse’s smile curved into a smirk as he took a seat, his mischievous eyes reflecting the flames before them. As their hands brushed, a hazy memory popped into Lukas’ head.

“Say, if you’ll follow me to the end of the worlds, maybe you could follow me to my bed?”

Lukas tried to banish the thought to the deepest corner of his mind reserved for embarrassing memories, but a part of him had to laugh: he really had followed Jesse to the end of the worlds.

“Sorry I didn’t give you as warm a welcome as Petra did,” Jesse was saying when he focused back on the conversation, “Seeing you here was honestly the last thing I expected; when we missed Founding Day, I didn’t think you’d ever leave Beacontown to find me.”

Lukas frowned, a bit insulted, “Why not? You’re my best friend, Jesse. Of course I would try to find you. I’m just sorry I didn’t find you soon enough to prevent this mess.”

Jesse looked taken aback, his eyes searching Lukas’ face for any signs of deceit. When he found none, he said, “Well, I know you’re writing that book about the Admin, and you’re leading the Ocelots again–”

“I published that book months ago,” Lukas interrupted, “and the Ocelots have largely downsized now that we’ve finished the beautification project. I don’t do much nowadays; I just help Radar with administrative duties around Beacontown.”

“Oh!” Jesse replied, sounding surprised, “I-I hadn’t realized. I’ll have to read your book when we get back.”

“I care about you,” Lukas said, knowing he was beating a dead horse but unwilling to let the subject go, “Whenever you’re in trouble, I’ll never be far behind.”

Jesse exhaled in a quiet laugh, “I suppose that’s true. Thanks, Lukas.”

They both lapsed into silence. Even though the fire was only a few blocks away, Lukas barely felt its heat compared to the warmth radiating from the man beside him. Jesse was still, but his head would tilt towards Lukas every so often, and Lukas could feel curious eyes roaming his figure like he was something to be studied.

After the third time, an exasperated smile twisted his lips, “Alright, I’ll bite. What’s up?”

Jesse flinched, like he had been deep in thought, “Nothing,” he said quickly, “I was just thinking about how nice it is to see you again. It’s been a while.”

That was true; Lukas hadn’t seen Jesse since last Founding Day. The Order usually set aside time to get together at least a few times per year, but this year had been busier than most, and Jesse and Petra had been traveling the Portal Network for a very long time.

Lukas had begun to ache for their quiet dinners together, the little visits the two would pay him when they passed through Beacontown. After a while, his whole life began to revolve around those moments. He remembered one day, he had waved Jesse and Petra off from his cottage’s porch and immediately thought:

Only a few more months until I see them again.

The thought had disturbed him, especially considering he was happy with his life in Beacontown. After the Order had settled down, he had looked forward to a peaceful existence spent with his ocelot and his writing. After publishing his books about the Order, he thought about trying to write in a different genre, like fiction, but he ended up scrapping every manuscript because all of his main characters looked and spoke just like Jesse.

He would wake up restless, something inside of him itching and chafing to get out of the cottage. At first, he satisfied it by helping Radar with running Beacontown. However, there were only so many papers to sign and projects to oversee before that also became stifling. It got so bad that he even asked Jack about it, but the older man was no help; he would simply smile and ask when Jesse and Petra would visit next.

When Jesse and Petra missed Founding Day, Lukas could hardly sleep. He didn’t know what was wrong with him: was it worry for his friends, the monotony of his daily routine, or the insufferable itch that had burrowed under his skin?

With a start, Lukas realized he hadn’t felt that itch since leaving Beacontown.

“It’s been too long,” he sighed.

Jesse shifted uncomfortably, “I’m sorry, we should’ve tried to visit more–”

“No, it’s not your fault,” Lukas cut Jesse off. He meant it; Lukas didn’t blame Jesse and Petra for being busy with their adventures: he was lucky they were still in his life at all, “You guys wanted to see the worlds, and I wanted to stay home.”

The words were true, so why did they feel so strange on his tongue?

Jesse smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes, “Yeah, I guess so. Speaking of, how's everything been?”

Lukas shrugged, “Same as usual. Radar’s been freaking out about you guys being dead somewhere, but I promised him I’d bring you back safe and sound.”

For some reason, talking about Beacontown made him feel weird, so he changed the subject, “What kinds of adventures have you and Petra been on recently? You know, besides engaging in guerilla warfare with the Old Builders.”

Jesse’s eyes lit up, and he immediately launched into an enthusiastic retelling of the past year. As Lukas watched him weave tales of abandoned temples, underwater cities, and ender dragon nests, he found himself entranced by Jesse’s stories. Something about the way Jesse spoke enraptured him and drew him in until he could practically see the epic scene in front of him. Suddenly, all he wanted was to be closer to Jesse, to finally touch him after months of impatiently waiting to see him again. He sidled closer to the other man until their thighs pressed together and their shoulders bumped whenever Jesse became particularly animated, but he still yearned for more. He wanted to wrap his arms around him, feel the other’s breath on his skin, he wanted…

He wanted…

“Holy shit, Lukas, are you okay?” Jesse exclaimed as Lukas pinwheeled off the oak log they had been sitting on.

“Huh? Yeah!” Lukas clambered back onto the log, keeping a few inches of space between him and Jesse as he smoothed his hair down furiously, “Yep, just lost my balance; everything’s fine. You can keep going.”

Jesse cautiously resumed his tale, but Lukas could barely listen to another word he spoke. Somewhere along the line, Jesse finished his story’s climactic ending with a flourish, but all Lukas could see was his best friend’s brilliant grin, the tousled waves of his hair, and the strong silhouette of his shoulders.

His stomach collapsed into a black hole.

“Wow–Jesse,” he stammered, desperately trying to regain his cool, “That sounds awesome! Um, I’m pretty tired now, but maybe you could tell me more another time?”

Jesse frowned, obviously noticing something was wrong, but he took the hint and rose gracefully. “Of course, Lukas,” he said with a terribly charming smile. “I hope you sleep well.”

Lukas gave him a clumsy grin in return before speeding inside, hearts pounding so loudly he was surprised nobody woke up.

He quickly laid down next to Ivor and Petra as he heard the door open again. Soft footsteps trod closer, and he felt Jesse lie down on the soft dirt directly beside him, his breath softly fanning Lukas’ hair.

And, as if that wasn’t enough to almost kill him, Jesse had to whisper, oh so softly, into the silent room, “Good night, Lukas.”

And, well, he had to respond.

“Good night, Jesse.”

Notes:

Jesse: oh no i'm experiencing Gay Thoughts about my best friend

Lukas: OH NO I'M EXPERIENCING GAY THOUGHTS ABOUT MY BEST FRIEND

Chapter 10: From the Frying Pan into the Fire

Summary:

The Old Builders basically roll a nat 20.

Notes:

I'm so sorry for the long wait and short chapter! Writer's block has really taken hold of me, what with classes starting soon and dozens of other ideas constantly bouncing around my head.

I'm gonna try to put less pressure on myself to write longer chapters, so hopefully you all should start seeing chapters more often! I figure having shorter chapters more often is better than having slightly longer chapters less often lol, and it helps me feel less guilty for leaving this fic for so long!

The sun was just setting when Steve slipped inside the Old Builders’ base. His entire body ached as he walked through the cramped corridors, but he forced himself to trudge down to the basement instead of going to his bed.

He couldn’t rest yet.

“Well, well, well, look what the ocelot dragged in,” Hadrian drawled when he entered, “A part of me almost thought you’d taken off for good.”

Mevia sneered from her place beside the white-haired man, “He wouldn’t; he can’t afford to lose our help.”

Steve’s eye twitched, but he resisted the temptation to punch her in the nose, “Actually, I tailed them to their base,” he replied coolly. If he wanted to have any chance at getting home, he had to play his cards exactly right, which first meant not rising to Mevia’s bait.

Hadrian’s gaze sharpened, “You know where they are?”

“Yep,” Steve bobbed his head in affirmation, feeling none too smug as he added, “I figured we could sneak up on them tonight and steal the Razor’s Edge before any of them can raise a sword in protest.”

The white-haired man stroked his beard, “Yes,” he said slowly, “That is an idea…”

“Mevia and I can take the ghasts,” Steve cut in, trying not to sound too excited, “We’ll destroy their camp, flush them out of the forest, and have the Razor’s Edge within our grasp in only a few hours.”

Hadrian studied him over the rim of his glasses for a moment before laughing heartily, “See, I knew you would come in handy, sport! And ol’ Mevia here thought you would’ve tried to betray us by now.”

“Well, fortunately for you, she was wrong,” Steve deadpanned. Mevia seethed in the background, but he kept his eyes fixed on Hadrian. Between the two Old Builders, it was clear who was running the show, and Steve had no desire to make him angry by arguing with Mevia. It had not ended well the last time he had gotten on Hadrian’s bad side.

Steve banished the thoughts of that fracturing world with its lonely cabin and tried to think of home. Home … with its yellow sun, rustling grass, and tall dark oak trees.

Or were they spruce? He couldn’t remember anymore.

“It’s decided then,” Hadrian clapped, “You and Mevia shall take the ghasts to their campsite and flush them out. Do try to keep them all alive: I’d like to be the one to turn them to inventory,” the chip in his glassses caught in the flickering torch-light, “I’ll remain here and oversee things.”

Steve gave him a clipped nod and joined Mevia in striding up the stairs, sparing a fleeting thought of wistfulness towards his soft, warm bed upstairs before walking towards the stable.

Talking to each other was a no-go once they were up in the air, so Steve waved vaguely in Mevia’s direction and set a course due north, hoping she would have the sense to follow him.

“The last thing I need is a lost Old Builder,” he muttered as he urged the ghast towards the thick forest.

Thankfully, Mevia flew close behind him, and an hour’s trek turned into mere minutes of flight. Once he felt safe in assuming their enemies’ camp was below, he stopped his ghast and gave Mevia a warning whistle.

The Old Builder pulled up alongside him, teal hair whipping around her shoulders, “Why have we stopped?”

“Because we’re here!” Steve yelled at her, “Obviously,” he added to himself.

“Well, then we don’t have any moments to dawdle, do we?” Mevia snapped back, “Fire!”

Steve felt a vague pang of sympathy as the first of their ghasts’ fireballs lit the canopy aflame. He had little clue who they were, but a part of him couldn’t help but feel a sense of kinship, even if he was carrying out Hadrian’s will. Any enemies of the Old Builders were friends in his eyes.

However, friendship alone wouldn’t get him back home, so Steve followed Mevia’s lead as she began their ambush, pushing everything but his goal out of his mind.

— — — — —

Lukas woke up to chaos.

He coughed, dispelling something harsh and gritty from his lungs as he stumbled to his feet and tried to take in his surroundings. Someone trampled his shoe as they rushed by him out of the cabin, but he hardly registered the pain as his gaze focused upwards to the sky. It was the dead of night, but for some reason, their surroundings lit up with a flickering orange glow that promised to consume everything in its path.

The forest was on fire.

“What’s going on?” he yelled into the throng of panicked voices. He coughed again, and this time when his hand pulled away from his mouth, he could see black flakes of ash among his spit.

“We’re being attacked! Ghasts are burning down the forest!” Aiden yelled from somewhere outside. Lukas moved to join him, but he tripped over something small huddled next to him on the floor.

Dewey.

“Dewey!” Pure panic gripped his heart. He immediately knelt and placed a gentle hand on the spotted ball of fur, nearly weeping in relief when it felt it tremble beneath him, “Dewey, boy, I’m right here, are you okay–”

An explosion sent the cat into his arms, “Ow, Dewey! Claws!” Lukas tried to pry his ocelot off, but Dewey had dug his claws in fast, and trying to extricate him right now would only make him a sitting duck for the hailstorm of fireballs raining upon them. So, Lukas merely fastened his armor around his chest and hoped it would function as a somewhat stable cat carrier.

If things inside the cabin had been bad, outside was even worse. Most of them were desperately trying to deflect the ghasts’ fireballs, but Lou was trying to shoot the ghasts themselves, and Axel, Jess, and Olivia looked like they were trying to play baseball without knowing any of the rules. Around them, the forest blazed, and when Lukas looked up and saw the two ghasts illuminated by the orange-red glow of fire, he noticed something strange.

“What the hell kind of ghasts are these?” Jack complained as he dove away from a huge fireball, “They’re dodging all our attacks!”

“Why are they even here? Ghasts spawn in the Nether!” Aiden added.

“Look!” Lukas pointed to what he had seen: two small figures atop the hellish creatures attacking them, “People are riding them!”

Jesse and Petra swore simultaneously, “The Old Builders!”

In response to their revelation, the ghasts spit out another volley of fireballs, completely demolishing the cabin and missing their group by mere blocks.

Lukas whipped out his bow, intending to join Lou in taking down their attackers, but Jesse pulled him out of another fireball’s path, one that would’ve hit him and Dewey directly. Smoke billowed around them, causing his eyes and lungs to scream out in protest, but he gritted his teeth and followed Jesse blindly out of the cloud.

“Thanks,” he rasped as he and Dewey gulped breaths of fresh air.

“Are you alright? That almost hit you!” Jesse hovered next to him anxiously,  “Maybe you should hang back–”

“I’m fine, Jesse, thanks to you,” Lukas interrupted him with a weak smile, “And I’m staying right here; if we’re fighting ghasts, you’ll need an archer.” Jesse looked like he’d very much like to argue more, but a yell distracted them both.

When Lukas turned around, smoke was clearing around the prone forms of Olivia and Jess.

“Shit,” Jesse muttered, already halfway to them before he had even finished saying the word. Across the clearing, Axel and Reuben knelt over their fallen companions, shock and fear splayed across their faces. As Lukas watched, Reuben gave Jess’ hand one shaky nuzzle.

His hearts screamed at him to help, but he instead drew his bow again and aimed for the ghasts above. If they couldn’t kill these ghasts, no amount of help from him would matter because they would all soon be dead.

He released his arrow and another before he was even sure the first had made its mark. They hit the ghast in rapid succession, causing it to let out an unholy shriek of pain before swooping even lower, below the tree line. From this distance, the figure atop the monster became clearer, and Lukas swore to himself when he saw long teal hair.

Mevia.

He could see the old woman cackle delightedly from her perch, but fortunately, she was still too far away to hear. Unfortunately, the lack of sound did nothing to dampen the rush of anger Lukas felt at simply seeing her face, so he shot three more arrows before diving to avoid three balls of flame and ash.

For several minutes, his mind was filled with nothing but shoot, dodge, shoot, dodge. For all the faults that Mevia had–which were many–she was obviously skilled at piloting her ghast, and pretty soon Lukas was thinking less on the side of shoot and more on the side of dodge . He could hear the others shout around him, see bodies twist themselves out of flames’ way like silverfish, but so many fireballs were raining down upon them that it was all Lukas could do to stay untouched.

“Everybody!”

A tremendous bellow that could only have come from Ivor pierced the air, “Meet behind the cabin, now!”

You mean the single wall still left? a part of Lukas thought as he dodged one more fireball from Mevia before following the rest of the group. By now, the smoke was as thick as a blanket, and if it weren’t for the fact that they were all coughing loudly, Lukas might not have been able to find his way back to their old cabin at all.

“We need to split up!” Petra was saying when he joined the rest of his friends.

“Absolutely not, we need to stick together and try to escape!” Jesse frowned at her fiercely as he jabbed a thumb down at the still unconscious Jess and Olivia, “We can’t afford to split up with two of us already down.”

Lukas worried his lip as he stared at them, hands unconsciously coming up to comfort Dewey, who was still miraculously strapped to his chest. Splitting up was never the good option, but what else did they have? The Old Builders would be able to follow them easily wherever they went on their ghast steeds, and he and Lou were having increasing amounts of difficulty shooting them through the haze of inky black smoke and stinging their eyes.

“Steve and Mevia–” Ah, so Steve was the other ghast pilot, “–will just chase us down and flush us out of the forest! If I stay, I could give you guys the cover you need to vanish into the treeline and get Jess and Olivia to safety!” Petra argued, her eyes flashing obstinately as she and Jesse faced off, “Jesse, you need to trust me on this; I’m not saying this for no reason!”

Jesse sighed, blinking soot out of his eyes, “No, I know. But if you’re going to challenge those two, I’m coming with you.”

He made to step towards Petra, but her hand shot out and shoved him back, “No, Jesse,” she said firmly, “You have the Razor’s Edge. We can’t let it fall into their hands, and besides, you’re the only person here besides me who knows this forest. I’ll distract the ghasts, but you need to lead the rest of us into the trees and keep them safe until I can make my way back to you guys.”

“Wh–by yourself? Petra, there is no way I’m letting you face them alone,” Jesse shoved forward again, “The Old Builders know I have the Razor’s Edge, they won’t stop until they find me!”

Petra opened her mouth to continue arguing, but Jay put a hand on her shoulder, and she fell silent, looking at him with vague surprise.

“I’ll go with Petra,” his tone brooked no argument, “She won’t be alone, and the Old Builders won’t think to go after the rest of us because they’ll think I’m you.”

Lou and Jack stepped forward immediately. “If you’re going with Petra, then we’re coming with,” Jack said stubbornly.

Jay looked hesitant, but when Lou took his usual place beside him and murmured, “My place is with you,” a soft, crooked smile graced his features.

“Well, I guess that’s it, then,” Petra cocked an eyebrow at Jesse, “We meet at that little waterfall cave you and I found yesterday afternoon.” The hero sighed, knowing that he was beaten.

“By tonight,” Jesse stressed, “I don’t want to lose any of you.”

Petra held his gaze solemnly, and in a split second, some secret communication passed between them that Lukas had no hope of understanding. Over his frantically beating heart, Lukas felt a slight tinge of something sour twist in his stomach.

Petra’s gaze remained heavy, but when she responded, her voice was light, “A whole day? C’mon, Jesse, you know me; this won’t take more than a few hours.”

Jesse rolled his eyes in fond exasperation, but he never got to respond because at that moment, both Steve and Mevia’s ghasts came into view.

“There!” a faint voice shouted, and then suddenly Lukas’ vision was filled with nothing but fire.

“Go!” Petra screamed, already charging forward to deflect the projectiles. Lukas knelt, grabbing the first thing he could (which turned out to be Reuben) and running after Jesse and Axel, who were already carrying Jess and Olivia. Ivor and Aiden followed beside him, their faces tight with tension.

Unable to spare a glance back towards the rest of their companions, they fled into the trees.

— — — — —

This situation was starting to remind Petra more and more of that horrendous Nether world she, Jesse, Lukas, and Ivor had fallen into all those years ago.

Her arms and back sizzled with burns, her eyes watered from ash, and the bandana she had pulled over her nose barely did anything to filter the smoke entering her lungs with every breath. The alternate versions of her friends beside her weren’t faring much better: Lou was missing his shots more often than not, one of Jack’s arms had been rendered unusable by a stray fireball, and Jay’s movements were starting to flag with exhaustion. By contrast, the ghasts and their riders seemed none the worse for wear.

At least they haven’t gone after the others.

Petra threw herself out of the way of a huge projectile and felt the blast of heat as it exploded behind her. It had been a while since Jesse and the others had fled, and she was starting to wonder exactly how she and her little group could escape the Old Builders and meet them at the rendezvous point. The forest around them had been completely charred for hundreds of blocks in every direction; any attempt they could make to flee would almost certainly result in Steve and Mevia gunning them down before they could meet the treeline.

A grim resolve steadied her hands and tightened her posture; it would be a lie if she said she hadn’t been expecting this. A quick look at her companions’ faces revealed the same gritty determination, and even though they weren’t her friends, not exactly, she was still filled with a rush of gratitude.

Fighting Steve and Mevia alone would’ve been a nightmare.

The four of them fought viciously, deflecting fireballs and shooting ghasts until it felt like their arms would fall off. After a while, when they were trapped in a ring of blazing fire and forced back-to-back, they fought as a team. Petra, Jay, and Jack would cover Lou’s position as he fired a quick volley of arrows above them, and he would repay the favor by sniping a stray fireball in midair that was on route to hit them square in the backs. However, no matter how many fireballs they deflected back at the ghasts, it was clear that they were fighting a losing battle.

Several minutes later, one of the ghasts flew low and its rider leaped to the ground.

“I would suggest giving up,” Steve said, brandishing his diamond sword.

Petra was sorely tempted to take his head off right then and there, but a meaningful nudge from Jay redirected her focus to Mevia, who was still upon her ghast.

Slowly, hating herself for it, Petra sheathed her sword. Beside her, Jay, Jack, and Lou did the same.

Steve straightened up in relief, although his sword remained steadily pointed at them, “Thanks,” he smiled, looking altogether too kind for someone willingly associating themselves with Hadrian and Mevia, “I really wasn’t looking forward to fighting you guys.”

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of Universal Constants