It strikes midnight on the Battle Life server, and someone wakes up in a cold sweat.
AshleyTheUnicorn opens her eyes to a sinking feeling in her chest. She's not perfectly sure why she feels this way, but she does. She tosses over in bed, rolling over, trying to ignore the feeling, but it's too strong and she forces herself to sit up and check it out. She only got to sleep around an hour or two before, she's far too tired to deal with this.
She creeps out of bed. The other two placed their beds in different rooms, but she wants to be careful. It's quiet - almost too quiet, and it sends a shiver down her spine. Light, she thinks, it's dark right now and she needs light to figure out what's going on.
She pulls a torch off the wall, and she uses it to light her way in the dark.
She creeps downstairs. Whilst making her way to the door, she justifies checking outside in her mind. After all, her body must have woken her up for a reason, right? She's not one to ignore her gut feelings. Something must be wrong. She just has to figure out what it is. Maybe someone's sneaking around? She already knows the other members of this server aren't above thievery. Maybe it's just Megan, maybe it's not. Either way, she's not going to leave it up to chance.
That weird feeling in her chest is still there, even if it has subsided just a little.
Ashley slowly opens the door to her base, trying to keep the creaking of the door down to a minimum. She holds her sword in one hand and her torch in the other. Looking back inside to make sure the others haven't followed her - she's the strongest out of them, as they said, so she has to protect them - she steps out, and continues searching the grounds.
Nothing. Not a sound, not even the sound of wind. The air is still, and so is the world around her.
As she peers into the trees not too far away, she notices a skeleton just standing there, still, not making a move. In her curiosity, she walks towards it. It reacts.
Ashley yelps as she dodges the arrows. She attempts to use her sword to block a few. She attempts to run up to it and stab it, but it shoots her a few times - once directly in the chest.
"Ow-!"
Ashley swings enough times and the skeleton dies. She whips her head around. No other enemies in sight. She looks down, and sees the skeleton has dropped its bow.
"Sweet." she says to herself, picking it up. It's close to breaking, but she can fix it up later.
The strange feeling Ashley got in her chest has been replaced by pain. Ignoring it isn't the best option. Still in the dark, Ashley looks down and yanks the arrow out of her chest.
"Ouch, ow, nope, that's worse-" she mutters to herself as jolts of agony shoot through her body. It clears up after a second though. She's not hungry, her health regenerates fast, and the wound heals over.
Ashley decides that was probably her weird feeling - a monster nearby waking her up. She doesn't question why the others didn't wake up - maybe they were more successful at ignoring it. She shrugs and ignores it, taking her prize and walking back to her base, unsure of exactly what happened.
Part of her wonders if Sanna's joke about her being a prophet is true. Nah, of course not. If it is, she'll be cursing herself. Plus, what was she even predicting anyway? That she'd be attacked? Get a chest wound? Well, that already happened, so suck it, weird predicting powers.
Ashley just doesn't want to die, that would be inconvenient.
Ashley enters her base, sneaks past her sleeping friends back to her bed and places the torch about where it was originally. Even if it wasn't, who's going to remember about it anyway?
She places her bow beside her bed, hoping she'll remember to repair it tomorrow morning. She falls asleep as soon as she hits her pillow.
She does not notice a scar on her chest, as there was no scar to be noticed.
For AshleyTheUnicorn was not the boogeyman.
~~~
The sun rises and MeganPlays wakes up in a start. She's feeling a lot better this morning than last, at least. A good night's rest will do that to you.
"Okay, alright. So, what's the agenda for today?" she asks herself, before remembering the answer.
Right. She's got her deal with Sketch to uphold - steal the enchanting table and get it back to the Bromance Bros. Shouldn't be too difficult if she's not caught, right? She just has to lure them away from their base somehow.
Somehow.
It doesn't matter - she'll figure it out. Instead, she rolls out of her bed and gathers her supplies for the day, before deciding to text Sketch.
~~~
<MeganPlays whispered to Sketch> I'm gonna try and steal the enchanting table later today
<MeganPlays whispered to Sketch> Where do you want me to meet you to hand it over?
<Sketch whispered to MeganPlays> good morning
<MeganPlays whispered to Sketch> GM to you too, answer my question please?
<Sketch whispered to MeganPlays> give me five minutes to wake up
<MeganPlays whispered to Sketch> Oh okay
~~~
Not very helpful. Alright, time to get out of this shack and get moving.
Megan exits and starts to wander around, not perfectly sure where she's going but she's moving anyway. It smells smoky - that's most likely the sounds of skeletons and zombies burning in the sun. She spots a zombie hiding under a tree and makes quick work of it.
"Barely took any damage, nice!" she compliments herself. "I'm getting better at this."
It's reassuring, actually. Megan remembers Tanqr's words from yesterday - insinuating she wasn't good enough to be worth teaming with. Rude. Now, she's decided she's going to survive no matter what. Even if she has to play dirty to do it. But more than that, she promises herself that no matter what, she's going to outlive Tanqr. That'll show him.
Well, if she's going to survive, she's going to need to get some better tools - her iron ones are breaking. An enchantment should be enough to fix that.
Megan grins as she walks deeper into the forest. Two can play this game.
~~~
"Good morning, Bromance Bros!" Albert yells, loud enough for the whole base to hear. It's his foolproof way of making sure no one can ignore him - be as loud as possible.
Denis rolls out of bed and groans, landing at Albert's feet.
"Get up, lazy bum." Albert playfully kicks Denis's back and Denis shoots up, rubbing his eyes.
"Alright, alright, I'm getting up. Give me a second, you're like Sir Meowsalot." Denis teases, standing up and neatens himself up just a tad. Albert knows full well it takes Denis a while to wake up, so this is going to be fun.
"Because I'm your favourite little guy?" Albert responds, leading to Denis sighing.
"No- because when you want something you endlessly pester me."
"Oh, am I not your favourite anymore?" Albert pouts.
"No- Albert, let's just move on."
Albert giggles at Denis's annoyance, who rolls his eyes as they leave the room to the patio. They were originally staying in separate rooms, but Albert had to be next to his favourite person to annoy at all hours of the day.
Kreek's waiting there, and he waves at the duo as they leave together - he's gotten used to the fact that they're just always together now.
(It annoys him just a tad, but he doesn't show it.)
"Good morning, you two! Ready for some more adventuring today?" Kreek waves and smiles. Clearly a good night's rest was what he needed after the chaos of yesterday.
"Good morning, KreekCraft!" Albert responds, running to him as Denis trails along. "I absolutely am! I'm ready to kick names and take butt, and I'm all out of names - no, wait, that's not how the saying goes..."
Kreek just stares, unamused, as Denis chuckles in the background.
"Yo, wait, where's Sketch? He should be here by now." Denis asks once he's done laughing.
"I'm here!" comes a yell from behind, as Sketch trudges over to the ground. Fatigue radiates from him.
"Bad sleep last night, huh?" Kreek jokes, and Sketch sighs in response.
"No, I was just having a great sleep until I was woken up. Thanks for that."
"Well, we all have to wake up at some point!" Albert teases. "Sort yourself out, we've got a plan for today."
"Wait, we do? We haven't even said anything yet." Denis replies, confused.
"We are currently planning for today." Kreek explains. "Okay, so. We should probably start placing traps around the base then. I'm sure we've harvested some redstone."
"None of us know redstone, Kreek." Sketch responds.
"We can figure it out, it can't be that difficult, right?" Kreek says, not knowing that redstone is far more complicated than it looks.
"Actually, I've got a better plan." Denis states, and all eyes turn to him. "We've been doing a lot of defensive work. And it's clearly not helping. So how about we do more...attacking today? After all, to win a fight, you have to defend and attack, no?"
"I suppose that's true, I'd just rather not get stolen from again." Kreek responds. He's still butthurt.
"Well, here's my suggestion. How about we walk around the map and figure out who resides where? We won't be too far apart, we know there's a world border. Make contact with teams we haven't seen yet, figure out where our...'enemies' are, y'know?" Denis puts air quotes around that last part.
"Ooh, sounds like a good plan." Albert affirms.
"I mean, I'm down. We could probably find more resources that way as well. I'm sure there's parts of the map no one's explored yet." Kreek smiles. "Alright then, boys! Let's get moving!"
"You got it!"
"Hell yeah- oh, we're going now, okay-" Denis is quickly dragged off by Albert following Kreek's lead. Admittedly, Denis was hoping to take the lead this time, if only to take some of the stress off Kreek.
Sketch, meanwhile, is focused on his communicator, as he walks behind the rest of the group.
~~~
<Sketch whispered to MeganPlays> hiiiiiii
<MeganPlays whispered to Sketch> That took a lot longer than 5 minutes
<Sketch whispered to MeganPlays> shush i'm groggy ok
<MeganPlays whispered to Sketch> Haha
<MeganPlays whispered to Sketch> Where do you want me to hand over the enchanting table?
<Sketch whispered to MeganPlays> the bros and i are actually exploring rn, where's your base?
<Sketch whispered to MeganPlays> i can sneak off and meet you there
<MeganPlays whispered to Sketch> Around 300, 49, -10
<MeganPlays whispered to Sketch> Not sure if that's the exact location, but it's in the forest
<Sketch whispered to MeganPlays> cool cool
<Sketch whispered to MeganPlays> we're nowhere near there but cool cool
<MeganPlays whispered to Sketch> Don't worry I haven't even scouted where the table is yet
<Sketch whispered to MeganPlays> best to do that first
<Sketch whispered to MeganPlays> text me when you're ready to start the heist
<MeganPlays whispered to Sketch> I will
~~~
"Ashley! Wake up!"
"AAH-"
Ashley opens her eyes to Leah standing directly above her bed, giving her a mighty jumpscare.
"Maybe don't stand directly above her, Leah?" Sanna playfully suggests, and Leah beams, having known exactly what she was doing.
"Too late, I'm awake now." Ashley chuckles. "For once, I'm not the first one awake. That's nice."
"Yeah, you really slept in today. Better get that fixed." Sanna teases. "Normally we would've let you sleep in."
"And you didn't let me sleep in because?"
"Because...what's this?" Leah asks, holding up - ah, Ashley's broken bow from last night. Or maybe today's early morning, she doesn't know what time she woke up. "Why do you have a bow? You never told us?"
"Is a girl not allowed to have a bow, Leah?"
"Well, you're allowed to have it, but-"
"I just woke up in the middle of the night last night. Decided to tire myself out by searching for monsters to fight, fought a skeleton and it dropped its bow for me." Ashley explains. No need to talk about getting shot in the chest, though. "It's a bit broken, so I'll need to fix it, but it's pretty good for now."
"Ooh, alright, alright. Love to see some midnight girlbossing." Leah compliments, then remembers something. "Hey, maybe that can be our team name? The Girlbosses?"
"Wait, no, I wanted you two to forget about that-" Sanna cringes at the thought. "We don't need a team name, we're iconic enough as is!"
"No, I agree with Leah. I think we should have one." Ashley comments. "It's more fun, you know? Plus I'm sure we can come up with a name that's better than 'Bromance Bros'."
"That name's so bad even the team themselves hate it." Sanna laughs. "Well, except for Albert."
"I don't understand that man and I don't think any of us ever will." Leah jokes, leading to a laugh from the rest of the girls.
"Yeah, yeah, well, we can come up with a better name, because we're cool like that."
"What if we pick a stupid name though?" Sanna questions, before stopping herself. "That's why we're coming up with a name as a group though, isn't it?"
"Yeah, exactly that. We need a really punchy name. Hm...Girls Club?" Ashley suggests.
"No, we need to sound cooler than that. More powerful. How's my suggestion of the Girlbosses?"
"Oh, I can just hear Sketch calling us boss babes." Sanna responds, and Leah guffaws.
"Sure, I'm willing to live laugh love a little-"
"Absolutely not."
"How about Triple Threat? We're the only trio in the server, I think, so it works for us!" Ashley smiles at her ingenuity, but Sanna shakes her head.
"It's a bit...basic. I could see any team of three named that." Sanna thinks on it a little, before a lightbulb goes off in her head. "Ooh, actually, may I present a name before the jury?"
"Go ahead, since you're being the picky one." Leah teases.
"Oh shut up, you'll like it. How about...the Femme Fatales? It makes us sound threatening, powerful, and actually fits us." Sanna explains. Ashley and Leah exchange glances. Of excitement, that is.
"Yes, that's perfect! That's so good!" Leah clasps her hands together. "The Femme Fatales, about to take the rest of the server down with our sheer power! Yes! Okay, let's go with that!"
"I love it." Ashley compliments though she really doesn't need to. "Alright, it's official. We are now the Femme Fatales!"
"Thank god, I didn't want to debate for too long on that." Sanna comments, relieved. "Okay, okay, we have a team name. What are we planning to do now?"
Leah pauses, and Ashley laughs.
"Yeah, you two must've had a reason for waking me up, other than asking about the bow and arrow."
Both Sanna and Ashley look to Leah, who sighs in defeat.
"I forgot."
"Good job, Leah."
"Okay, okay, give me a second! Let me think of something!" Leah covers for herself, and the other two wait patiently for her to think of a plan. Leah connects the dots in her head, and comes to a conclusion. "I know what we should do! We aren't the best at fighting, right? So how about we look for monsters and creatures to practice our fighting skills on? That way we'll be way more equipped for the future, in case we have to fight the others, no? Ashley can even start to use her shiny new bow!" It's not really shiny, it's half broken, but whatever.
"Ooh, alright, I'm okay with that."
"Sounds like a plan! Let's go! Ashley tries to move before realising she is very much still under the covers of her bed. "Let me get out of bed first."
"Yeah, probably a good idea." Sanna teases, and the girls laugh as they start their new day.
~~~
Fight & Flight got up nice and early, and Pink stands by as BigB sits in a water pit, safe from the lava nearby.
"I feel like you're pulling the load here." Pink compliments, and BigB laughs.
"Well, you're the one who refuses to go near lava, so of course I have to do it all." BigB teases.
"You're not wrong."
Still, Pink's grateful. It's not much, just gathering 14 obsidian - but once BigB's done, he gathers up the water with his bucket and steps out of the pool.
"Alright, back to the surface - easier to do it up there!" BigB smiles.
So the duo leave the cave and follow their torches back to the surface.
As they do, Pink's mind buzzes with thought. He doesn't know much about all this - he knows you need to do this to get potions, and he knows the monsters there are a lot more dangerous than the ones here in the 'Overworld'. That's it. It's a good thing he and BigB are prepared. They got themselves gold armour, boots specifically, and they have lots of food - it should be alright. All they need to do is find a fortress - but aren't those rare?
"What if we don't find a fortress?" Pink asks, following his train of thought.
"Oh, I'm sure they'll make sure there's one there." BigB responds. Pink nods, before doing a double take.
"BigB who's they? Who's they?" he asks, with the tone of someone finding an animal eating something they shouldn't.
"Nevermind!"
Pink suddenly realises there's even more to this 'game' than he thought. But he gets the feeling that just this once, he shouldn't prod further.
They make it up to the surface, and go behind their base - BigB gives Pink half of the obsidian, and together, they format a rectangle.
"You've got your flint and steel?" BigB asks even though he knows the answer.
"Yes." Pink confirms as he walks up to the unlit portal.
"Oh, I'm nervous. I'm not very good at this. I normally rely on people that are much stronger than me." BigB admits while laughing nervously.
"Well, you're better at it than me." Pink shrugs, before setting the obsidian alight. "I'd usually just run away."
The portal comes to life, forming a purple sheen which flickers and glows in the light. Pink can make out vague swirls and spirals, and he can feel the heat radiating off of it.
"Cool, right?" BigB says.
"Cool. And scary." Pink nods. "Let's not stall."
"Alright then! To the Nether!" BigB yells, before jumping through and disappearing. Pink gulps down his nerves, and steps in after.
~~~
As Megan walks through the woods, she ends up finding herself in a familiar place - her old base, now just Hyper's. She slows down and dashes behind a tree, as she knows she's not supposed to be here - but hey, she has a heist to be performing.
She waits behind the tree as the sun rises, and DylanHyper walks out - he looks tired, did he sleep last night? It doesn't matter - Megan looks around to ensure a certain someone isn't going to interfere, before stepping out from behind the tree and yelling.
"Yo, Hyper!" He stops in his tracks and looks surprised to see her. "We need to talk."
~~~
A/N
Hello hello hello! We return with the beginning of the third day! You've had it good for too long - this time, you guys don't get to know who the boogeyman is! Have fun guessing :) Oh, Ashley's being a little dumb, Fight & Flight are entering the Hellzone, and Megan has dastardly plans. Fun.
Next chapter, things continue to...occur. No spoilers!
Thanks for reading! Au reviour, arriverderci, adios, insert other forms of goodbyes here.
- YanDan