"Is that... What kind of sword is that?"
I gulp and glance at Petra, noticing a few drops of sweat already glistering on her forehead. At least I'm not the only one worried about this. Facing Jesse is already hard enough, and now he has some new, probably more powerful, weapon!
"You could have made this so much easier." Jesse swirls the sword in his hand, the blazing orange handle expertly controlled by his fingers. "It is useless to defy me."
We all take steps back as Jesse gets closer to us. It's one thing to fight a bunch of red-eyed mobs or even strangers. But our friend! The one who has helped us through thick and thin and never gave up on us no matter how hopeless we were. It doesn't matter if he's not himself, I'm still attacking him! How can I swing my sword at him while looking at his face?
"You deranged heap of wires!" Petra stops retreating, planting her feet and raising her sword. "Get out of Jesse's head!"
"Strange." Jesse also lowers into a fight crouch, my heart exploding at the sight. "I don't understand why you are trying to protect your friend now when you hurt him without remorse earlier."
I freeze, hearing Petra's sharp inhale. A rock hard cube of ice plummets into my stomach. It looks like P.A.M.A. already knows how to use Jesse against us, and it hasn't even started to attack us yet. We are so dead.
Petra screams out a war cry and unleashes a fury of attacks on Jesse. But even from here I can see that she's aiming at places to weaken, but not to considerably hurt. Something tells me P.A.M.A. won't be playing the same way.
"Come on Jesse! Fight it!" Just as Petra prepares to send a powerful blow, Jesse flips backwards. Easily getting out of dodge.
"I know all your moves now. Why even bother fighting back?" Jesse stands back up properly again. I gulp but as we all ready our swords again, I pale as I see the spiders crawling all over the cavern.
Then, without any indicator, Jesse flat out sprints straight towards Ivor. My eyes barely able to keep up with him. Ivor raises his sword and Jesse slashes though it, Ivor's sword shattering as he flails backwards.
"Ivor!" I run over to the fallen potion master, holding my sword out in a means to protect him.
"Don't you see, you only delay the inevitable." Jesse slowly approaches me, sword at the ready. My eyes flicker over to Petra sneaking up on him for a second, before returning back to the cold red ones.
"Jesse's stronger than you! You won't be able to control him forever!" A lifeless smile appears on Jesse's face, before he whirls around and swings at Petra. The attack catching her by surprise.
She tries to keep up with him, but Jesse's now incredibly fast and strong and toying with our minds. Even though it's three verses one, we're at a huge disadvantage.
Waterfalls rain down from the sky, but it doesn't affect the fight at all. Petra's sword is stronger than Ivor's and so is she, but every time their blades collide, Petra is the one who staggers back. I stare, my arm quivering as I want to help my friend. But helping Petra will hurt Jesse, I can't hurt Jesse.
Within a few seconds, she's on the ground after trying to dodge a swipe to the head. It mostly missed, but I hear a gasp of pain come from her. Jesse blurs as he launches his sword at her, Petra barely evading it.
"Lukas!" I somewhat pay attention to Ivor's hiss, my mind on Jesse. "We need to stop these spiders or else we've already lost to P.A.M.A.!"
With difficultly, I drag my eyes over to Harper who's getting surrounded by spiders. This was probably P.A.M.A.'s plan all along, distracting us with Jesse. And it worked, really really well.
I start dashing over to the Old Builder. "Help Petra!"
The adrenaline in my blood finally has some purpose, as I stab a spider. It screeches and turns to me, but I go and slice another one. I dodge their pounces and jab at a different one, leaving Harper free to continue.
I turn just in time to see eight hairy legs flying towards me. I side step quickly and push the spider into water. Before ducking at another's pounce. Hurriedly, I grab it and fling it to the water. The heavenly zapping of electricity going off.
The last spider rams into my side, bringing me into the ground. Panicked, I kick at it. Managing to send it into the water, while I jump back onto my feet. The normal spiders all dazed, and within seconds they're all dead.
"THERE GOES ANOTHER ONE!"
Water cascades from the sky, but over the roar of the waterfalls a scream rings out. My eyes nervously dart over to the cry, horrified by the sight of Petra on the ground weakly clutching one arm.
"You shouldn't be attacking me, you should be thanking me."
I run over to Jesse, my every fiber seething with rage at this damned computer! I don't think I can even hurt Jesse, but I'll make sure P.A.M.A. is too distracted to fight Petra anymore. I really don't want to hurt Jesse but I can apologize later, I can't exactly say sorry if we all get chipped.
Ivor too lunges at Jesse, going for his feet. "Thanking you? I've never heard anything so foolish!"
Jesse, lightning fast, kicks him right in the face. Before turning and clashing blades with me. I see why Petra couldn't handle Jesse. Even charging at him, he almost effortlessly blocked my attack.
"You see, Jesse was starving, sleep derived, and emotionally exhausted before merging with me. I was shocked that his own friends did this to him and never bothered to help."
I freeze, and Jesse pushes against me. I collide helpless on the ground, disorientated and confused. A defiant 'NO' roars out and I raise my heavy head toward it.
Jesse somehow teleported to Harper, but his sword is sheathed. Only his hands out in front of him. Petra's staggering to her feet, as I am too, but P.A.M.A. never had the intention of letting us get close enough.
Jesse drops the ground then springs up, upper cutting Harper. A sharp crack rings out along with water splashing onto the ground, and before Harper can open her eyes back up, Jesse delivers another strong punch right between her eyes. Petra and I haven't even gotten halfway there.
A spider comes over and Jesse hauls the limp body on, a rose falling out of her pocket. Before we can even get close, the spider climbs the wall and vanishes. Jesse, still in the clutches of P.A.M.A., and soon Harper will be too.
"NOO! YOU WON'T GET AWAY WITH THIS YOU VILE MACHINE!"
Spiders hiss and screech, and I can dimly make out a distraught shout coming from Ivor. I turn to see the freaky mobs are circled all around him, ready to cut him into pieces.
"Petra!" I sprint over to Ivor. "Fill the remaining cauldrons and grab that rose too!"
I pinpoint the spiders blocking the waterfall, aiming for those. If Ivor can get in the water, he'll be safe. He's weaponless now and I refuse to lose someone else to P.A.M.A..
Arcing my sword to the side, I slice at the spider before kicking another out of the way. "Ivor, in the water!"
I hear him splash as I continue to cut through the spiders. Mainly dodging them and pushing them into water. Kinda like what we were doing to the enderman at Soren's fortress to get away, when Jesse was fighting with us.
A huge waterfall covers where the door is. Petra runs past me, and I help Ivor up. We both race to the waterfall, not bothering to check if the spiders are after us. We break through the water, seeing Petra already running through the doors.
Ivor scurries through, and I slam the door behind me leaning on my arms. I take a deep breath and turn around, sliding down onto the floor. So drained from only a few minutes of fighting. So mentally tired from the constant fear and worry about attacking my best friend. So worried about hurting Jesse and another friend getting hurt by him.
"No...." As if that word could stop P.A.M.A.'s words from repeating in my mind, over and over again. Shredding any strength left and leaving me useless on the ground. Jesse's my friend, I would never hurt him. I would always help him. P.A.M.A.'s wrong, just trying to get inside my head.
But then why do I feel so bad about it?
"No! NO! NO! NO!" I blink a few times, refocusing on the world. But P.A.M.A.'s words are still there, whispering in my ear.
"How could this happen?!" Petra is in a rage, throwing her left arm madly and making wild jerks with her right. "We lost Harper! Jesse just destroyed us! And we're all weakened to some degree! How could some big heap of circuits do that without taking any damage at all!?"
Ivor scoots away from her. "I have to admit though, Jesse seemed notably stronger. Faster, more skillful, and not too mention that sword."
Petra turns on him, pure anger in her eyes. "What? You don't actually agree with P.A.M.A. do you?"
"Uh, no... of course not." Petra takes a menacing step forward while Ivor steps back. "I'm just saying he was a much more difficult opponent than I was expecting. That's all."
"Good... because if you thought that computer was being honest-"
"Stop."
Honesty is in its code, P.A.M.A. wasn't programmed to lie. It might not tell the truth or all of it, but it can't lie. If it could have, it would have realized it would have been much more 'useful' to lie to us from the beginning. There could be information we're missing, but P.A.M.A. didn't lie to us.
"Lukas... is, uh, s-something wrong?" I look at Ivor, wishing Jesse was here instead trying to talk to me. He was always so genuine and his words full of care when he talked to me.
"Yes." I stand back up, weak and tired and sad. "P.A.M.A. wasn't lying to us... what it said was true to some degree."
Petra sharply inhales, her eyes shooting daggers at me. But I don't care. I just want Jesse back. I don't want to fight another friend. Although am I his friend if I allowed such awful things to happen to him without noticing?
"Lukas..." Petra isn't making a move on me, but she's growling and her fists tighten. "P.A.M.A. was lying. Just trying to get in our heads."
"Really Petra? Really? Can't you see? P.A.M.A. can't lie! If it could it already would've. We know getting chipped does make the host stronger and faster, but that was insane! Jesse was moving triple the speed and he completely broke Ivor's sword in one swing!"
Petra's lips tighten and she crosses her arms. "That was because of the sword P.A.M.A. gave him..."
"No, that sword was, is, Jesse's idea. P.A.M.A. made it after chipping him. Don't you think P.A.M.A. would of had all of the townspeople armed with them if it knew how to make them? Besides that was ridiculous, not even diamond pickaxes break stone so quickly."
Petra looks away. "So what if he has ideas for fancy swords, I've been with him the entire time while he was improving his swordsmanship and I've never seen those fighting styles. That was from P.A.M.A.."
"Maybe it was... but where did P.A.M.A. get that knowledge? From normal townspeople? Zombies? Jesse was probably practicing when you weren't around."
"Lukas." Petra's eyes snap back to me in a glare. "What are you trying to say?"
"I'm saying that P.A.M.A. was right." My heart pounds painfully in my chest, begging my to stop so it doesn't have to listen, but I continue. "We expect so much from Jesse. We expect him to do almost everything. Whenever one of us is down, he takes care of that person and does their work. Whenever something needs to be done, he always does it."
"He's just being a good friend."
"Then what are we?!" My voice crackles and becomes strained, tears prickling at the back of my eyes. "We're suppose to help him too but we just let him do all the hard work! And the moment we aren't happy, Jesse comes right over to help us! But we never do that to him! We've just always assumed he was fine even though he's going through the exact same stuff we are!"
I take a deep breath, futilely trying to calm down my racing heartbeat. I don't want cry, this isn't the time, but one tear falls. And another and another. Until my tears are streaming down my face. I raise my hands to wipe them away, looking down in shame.
"Petra, think about it. You got angry at him earlier when he only wanted the same thing you did. Don't you think he hates seeing us get so close to dying so often? Sure he's right there with us, but I can't imagine how much he misses Axel and Olivia. They've been inseparable for years and this is probably the first time being without them in forever. Jesse's in the same boat we are, yet we feel as if we can dump our problems on him."
I look back up, Ivor and Petra both turned away. "So yes, I agree with what P.A.M.A. said. We used Jesse like a tool, not as a friend. So now we better make up for it, or he'll forever remain as a tool to that machine."
The others make eye contact with me, regret burning in their eyes. Silently they nod, and together we make our down in Harper's lab.
Jesse, we're going to save you. From P.A.M.A. and from ourselves.