This chapter is complete crap. Ye has been warned.
And Word+Wattpad killed my bolding and italicizing AGAIN!
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"It's the Order!"
"Thank you, Dawson, we can see that." Megan said sarcastically.
"And the Blaze Rods! Don't forget us!" Gill reminded.
"Wait, you know us?" Axel asked. "Duh. They're the ones who wrote those stories." Maya pointed out, rolling her eyes.
"Oh, right. But...how?"
"You're kidding, right? You guys are literally legends!" Aranna said.
"So you're the ones who told us to come! Well that's cool, I totally forgive you. Ooh, are we going on an adventure?" Kendall asked excitedly.
"Uh, kind of." Jesse said, not quite sure what to make of the enthusiastic girl.
"And...why?" Jasmine asked, raising an eyebrow.
Lukas sighed, taking the reins of the conversation. "The truth is, our world is in danger. So is Crown Mesa and potentially every world in the portal network. There's this huge...crevice...thing that could tear the worlds apart, and we need your help."
"Wh-what? Tearing the world...that's insane." Star protested, shaking her head.
"It's true." Logan interjected. "I've seen it. It's happening in my world too."
"Okay, but why do you need our help? We're nobody." Ruby asked suspiciously. In response, Jesse took a glossy black book out of her inventory and handed it to the golden-haired girl. Ruby's eyes widened as she leafed through it.
"What the hell..." Myst said, looking at the book over the smaller girl's shoulder.
"It's our stories." Rush marveled. Then she realized what she had just said. "What the flip how?! Where did you get this?!"
Jesse shrugged. "It just showed up earlier. But there's a message at the end that mentions you guys, and we know who wrote it."
Ruby flipped to the back of the book. "Soren..."
"Soren?! What does it say?" Star exclaimed. Ruby cleared her throat and read the three paragraphs aloud. When she finished, the room was dead silent.
"Sooooo...we have powers? How did we never realize this? Are you sure this is accurate?" Minty asked in disbelief. Aiden sighed. "Look, we don't know any more about this than you do. I wish we did, but we don't. It would be so much simpler if we knew what the heck was going on."
"We think that our best bet would be to track down Soren. None of us really want to, but he's our biggest lead." Jesse added. "And when we do find him, he has a lot of explaining to do!" Petra growled.
"Wait wait wait. I'm still caught up on these supposed powers." Jasmine said. "Me too, to be honest. But for whatever reason, we're trusting Soren on this." Olivia replied.
"Isn't he...you know, a little off?" Wolfe asked quietly. "Well yeah, but it seems like he wrote this a long time ago. And in my experience, his insanity seems to lean more towards singing about Endermen, not making up strange powers." Jesse said dryly.
"Okay, so who's going to find him?" Minty asked. "What, really? You actually want to help with this?" Myst interjected, looking surprised.
"Why not? There's definitely something weird going on here, and if Soren can explain it, I want to help." Athena said. "Me too." Wolfe offered.
"I don't know...I think it might be more productive to check out this crevice-thing. It must've come from somewhere, and if we figure out where it started, maybe we can find out why it formed." Dawson suggested.
"That's what I was thinking." Lukas said. Jesse shrugged. "You guys can go investigate the crevice, but I'm going after Soren. It might take a while to find him, though. We never figured out where he went after he bailed on us during the Witherstorm attack."
"I'm going with Lukas." Petra put in. "Anyone else interested in joining?"
"Me." Rush said, lifting her hand slightly. "Me too! This is already awesome!" Kendall exclaimed. "With ya there." Aranna said with a wink. "I'll go too." Aiden offered.
Myst shrugged. "I may as well go. What about you? You were the one who suggested it." she said, gesturing to Dawson. "Um, okay. Sounds a little...scary, to tell you the truth."
"What about the Soren squad?" Athena asked. Olivia winced. "Let's...not call it that. I'm going, though."
Megan, Minty, Ruby, and Wolfe all agreed to go with them, along with Gill and Maya.
Logan scowled. "Neither of these sound very productive. You might not even find Soren. And the crevice that went through my world wasn't exactly low-risk."
"We know. It's still better than sitting here and waiting to die." Kendall pointed out.
"Well I'm going back to Boomtown. It's not that far away from where the crevice started, so it's already in danger." Axel said. "Just...don't die, okay? That would really suck." Olivia told him, frowning worriedly.
"So, Logan? Made up your mind about where you're going to go?" Petra asked. "With you guys to the crevice. I'll be honest, I'm pretty curious about how it started." He sighed.
"I'll go too." Jasmine added. "Looks like everyone's figured out where they're headed."
"Great. Thanks, everyone." Jesse said, smiling at the group of authors. "I know this was pretty abrupt, but-"
She was cut off by a loud rumbling sound. A shudder ripped through the ground beneath them, causing several of their number to lose their balance.
"What was that?!" Dawson yelped, terrified. Logan stared at her with wide eyes. "What do you think it is?"
"Notch, no! I thought we had more time!" Jesse cried. Maya let out a low whistle. "That thing must be expanding fast, to have gotten here already. We gotta move."
"No kidding! I thought we had days before it came this far!" Petra exclaimed. "If it's spreading this quickly...we're in even more danger than we thought."
Minty and Rush ran over to the window. "Holy crap, guys, we need to get out of here." Minty breathed.
The Order led the way out of the building, with the Blaze Rods and the Authors right behind them. The cracks spreading across the town weren't even half the size of the crevice that they had seen earlier, but every few moments the ground would shake again and the fissures would expand.
Star put one hand over her mouth to stifle her gasp of horror. "Oh my Notch...this is awful!" "This is exactly what happened to my home." Logan commented, then turned away. "Let's go. The sooner we figure out how to stop this, the better."
Jesse swallowed the lump in her throat. "Yeah, I know. But if there's people trapped in the houses..." she trailed off, trying not to look at the new wreckage.
"Just staring at it isn't going to help anyone." Marilan said, an expression of determination settling over her face. "I'm going with Axel to Boomtown. He's right about it being near the crevice, and I want to help in every way that I can. If we get there too late, I'll come back to find you guys."
"Marilan..." Aiden murmured. "Don't worry about me. I'll be...well, okay, I might not be fine. But I'll stay alive." she replied lightly. He pulled her into a quick hug, and then Marilan and Axel headed off towards Boomtown.
Petra smirked at Aiden. "Didn't know you had a soft spot for her."
"Oh, shut up. Just be glad that we wasted our time coming here to warn you about this whole thing." Aiden snapped. "Guys, stop. We have bigger problems." Ruby cut in before Petra could retaliate.
"No kidding." Myst muttered as the ground shook again.
"I hate splitting up so soon, but I guess it's our only option. We'll...we'll see you guys soon." Jesse said. "Ready to go?"
"Doesn't look like we have much of an option." Megan said, nervously eyeing the unnatural crack in the earth.
The team separated into two groups and started off, one towards Soren's fortress and one following the crevice. They were all so apprehensive and anxious that they didn't notice the dark-haired woman slipping away into the shadows...
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I'm an ominous jerk and proud of it
Don't worry that's not the end of the chapter
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The door to the cottage slammed closed. "Jacky, where are you? Get down here! Jacky?"
A short woman came stomping down the stairs. "Whaaaat? This better be really damn important."
"It is. They're on their way to Soren's. Where's my sword?" The first woman asked, looking around.
Jacky glared at the brown-haired woman. "You're holding it, moron. And what did you say about Soren?"
"Not my ordinary sword. The other one." The taller woman said, still hunting for the weapon. "And I said that they're going to Soren's fortress."
The short woman frowned. "What? Why does that concern us?" Her companion didn't answer. "Salem. You're not making sense. Why the hell do we care that they're going after Soren?"
Salem stopped searching. "You're kidding, right? You'd better be."
Jacky rolled her eyes and shook out her yellow hair. "No. We've been trying to track down that weirdo for years. What makes you think they'll have any better luck than us?"
This earned her another glare. "Because they're the Authors!" "That doesn't mean anything right now! They don't have their powers, and they won't get them! At least, they shouldn't." Jacky argued.
Salem continued the search for her sword. "Shut up. You don't get it. Let me refresh your memory. The Authors and this 'New Order' are going after Soren. We've been trying to find him for years, and now they're probably going to."
The blonde rolled her eyes. "Do you have a point?"
"Why are we trying to find Soren, Jacky? What does he have that we want?"
Jacky snorted. "Nothing. We're trying to kill him, not take anything."
"Oh, but the Authors want something. Knowledge. He knows secrets, secrets that could ruin us both, along with our plan." Salem continued. "If they find him, he'll tell them about the Command Block and what we did with it. And if they find that out, we're dead meat."
"Pfff. We're all dead meat anyway. Look at what's happening to the worlds." Jacky replied smugly. Salem whirled around, leaning down to shout in the shorter woman's face. "THAT'S THE ENTIRE EFFING POINT! If they find Soren, they find out what we did! And if they find out what we did, THEY'RE GOING TO UNDO IT!"
Jacky blinked. "Riiiiiiight. And we do not want that to happen."
Salem slammed her fist down on the tabletop. "How dense are you?! After everything we've been through, I AM NOT GOING TO BE DEFEATED BY A DOZEN MEDDLING WRITERS!"
Jacky rolled her eyes again. "Honestly, Salem. Stop being dramatic. All we gotta do is kill them and we're fine. This'll be a piece of cake."
"Nine against two, Jacky." Salem reminded. "Yeah, but the two have poisoned daggers and centuries of skill. They're no match for us."
Now it was Salem's turn to roll her eyes. "Whatever. Go get your daggers. And Notch dammit, WHERE IS MY SWORD?!"
"Try the chest by the fire. You always leave important crap in there." Jacky called as she went back upstairs. Salem opened the chest and drew out the shimmering black sword. "Perfect. Haven't had to use this beauty in a while."
Jacky came back down, holding a wicked-looking sword and two purple-tipped daggers. "How many did you say there were? Nine?"
"Yes. There's more than that, but we can deal with them later. Only nine are searching for Soren." Salem replied. Jacky grinned malevolently, revealing one missing tooth. "Excellent, excellent. It's been a while since I got a good killing spree."
"Indeed..." Salem mused, examining her sword. She put it in her inventory and stepped towards the door. "Let's go. We've got to find those Authors...before they find anything of value."
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Merp.
So you can't really tell from just that little bit, but Jacky is crazy. Like, 100% pure undiluted psychopath.
And no, they're not the only villains we're going to run into.
Also...uh...Jacky is kinda based on Tyrian. Yeah.
I know what some of you are thinking. "Rush, WTF ARE YOU DOING?! First you have a character named SALEM, and now you have a character based on Tyrian? I thought this was MCSM, not RWBY!"
Ik ik. But I actually came up with Salem's basic character YEARS ago, including her name. Way way way before I got into RWBY or MCSM. And as for the Jacky/Tyrian thing...I just couldn't resist. It was too good.
Sorry this chapter was kinda short. I wrote most of it after midnight last night XD
See? This is how much I love you guys XDD
Just for clarification, here's who's going after Soren: Athena, Olivia, Gill, Megan, Minty, Jesse, Ruby, Wolfe, and Maya.
Logan, Rush, Kendall, Star, Jasmine, Myst, Aranna, Dawson, Lukas, Petra, and Aiden are trying to follow the crevice.
Marilan and Axel are on their way to Boomtown and out of the story for now. FOR NOW.
I'm going to TRY to not mess that up 😝
So...yeah! Hope you like this so far! :D
...and don't judge the Mariden it is literally my life...