Wow, these chapters are coming out like hotcakes! I must have more spare time than I bargained for! That's a good sign, right? I just hope I don't get too busy all over again. I like keeping you guys entertained. Now, for the chapter!

Chapter 8: Treehouse Trouble, Take 2

Jesse’s POV:

            After Axel vanished into the portal, Jesse offered to go next. He walked through, seeing the hypnotic swirls curl like flames he couldn’t feel, and back out into the Overworld. There, he saw Axel getting massacred by a zombie! Taking quick action, he shoved it off, then drew his stone sword and killed it.

            “Oh, man,” he gasped. “That was close.” Axel stepped out from behind the boulder he’d retreated to, shivering.

            “I’m never going first again,” he vowed. They pressed on as Nikki, Olivia, Reuben, and Lukas hopped out of the portal.

            “Where are we?” asked Lukas.

            “In the dark, in the middle of nowhere,” Jesse answered.

            “If my common sense is working correctly, that’s not good,” Nikki said. “We need to find that temple ASAP, and I don’t see nothing.”

    “You’re right,” Lukas agreed. “Ivor said--”

            “Oh, ‘Ivor said,’” huffed Axel. “Well then maybe this is the temple.”

            “The Order wouldn’t lay down all that track for nothing. It’s gotta be here somewhere,” Jesse tried to keep his team’s spirits up.

            “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” Lukas was in the same with Jesse.

            “Um, I was agreeing with you, so now I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Axel was insistent on cutting Lukas out. Jesse found that rather annoying.

            “Well, in case we don’t find it, we need to build a shelter,” Nikki suggested.

            “I say we build a treehouse,” Olivia knew Nikki had the right idea.

            “Nah, that’ll take too long, and we’ll be exposed while we do it” Axel objected. “We just need a quick and dirty hut.”

            “Let’s go with a treehouse. We live in one, after all,” Jesse reminded Axel.

            “Yeah, fine,” he sniffed, not entirely in a good mood.

            The rest went to work, mining up wood and stone and everything else they needed for their temporary shelter. The group worked in complete silence, so quietly it was almost painful to Jesse. When they were done, they had an oak wood platform with a fire circle in the middle, and a fence post safety rail, and a gazebo-style roof to cover it all.

            “If I wake up with a spider on my face, I’m going to expect YOU to deal with it,” Axel demanded.

            “Lower your expectations, Axel. I doubt any spider will be hungry enough to make the climb,” snorted Nikki.

            “Well, maybe if we built into the tree a little more--” Lukas began, but he went against it. “Never mind. This is fine—it’s good!”

            “Looks good, guys,” Jesse tried to compliment everyone, but soon saw that no one was listening.

 

Lukas’ POV:

    A little while later, they got a fire going. A wolf howled in the distance to the same full moon above them. No one moved or spoke, but sat still. Jesse and Nikki rested in one corner as Axel stood a little way from them, arms crossed, next to Olivia. Lukas sat in a corner all by himself, thinking it would be best if he kept his distance between the group. Axel’s hostile glare said it all.

    “Oh, man!” Axel finally piped up.

    “What?” Olivia asked.

    “If I tell you this, you guys have to promise not to freak out,”

    “What is it?” Nikki pressed impatiently.

    “I have cookies!”

    The big guy pulled the treats out of his pocket, overly proud of himself. Lukas didn’t find cookies to be news worth freaking out over, but at least they had food for the night.

    “One for me…” Axel walked over to Olivia. “One for Olivia…” He padded to Jesse next. “One for Jesse…one for Nikki…”

    “Thanks, Axel,” said Nikki.

    “Yeah, thanks,” Jesse repeated. Lukas stomach rumbled, but he knew Axel wouldn’t provide for him.

    “And one for Reuben and Zephyr,” Axel finished, splitting the last one in half and placing them in front of the pig and the bat, who had been laying down together. “Sorry Lukas, I only have five,” Axel said, but he wasn’t fooling anyone. Everyone knew he wouldn’t hand him one even if he had enough. Heck, he gave it to a pair of animals over him!

    With this in mind, Lukas watched Nikki get up and hold her cookie out to him. “Take it, Lukas,” she said.

    “Oh no, I…I can’t do that,” Lukas protested, not wanting to deprive his young friend of food, but Nikki placed it in his hand.

    “I insist,”

    “…Thanks, Nikki,”

    Lukas ate Nikki’s cookie in a flash, trying not to feel guilty. Oh well. At least he wasn’t hungry anymore.

    “That was for you, Nikki, not him,” Axel said, echoing Lukas’s own thoughts.

    “Oh, please. I can go without some food for one night,”

    “So could he!”

    “My cookie, my choice,”

    Snorting with resentment, Axel turned away pointedly. Olivia ate her own cookie in silence; Lukas suspected she must have felt awkward doing so.

    “If you had to…” she asked suddenly. “Which would you rather fight? A hundred chicken-sized zombies, or ten zombie-sized chickens?”

    “Choose wisely,” Nikki advised jokingly, brightening Lukas’s gloomy mood.

    “Hehe…uh…. that’s a good one…let me think,” he chuckled.

    “Maybe we should drop the jokes for the night,” Jesse sighed. “I mean, there’s really nothing to laugh about anymore. Not since that Storm came to be and Petra--” he stopped to swallow painfully. Lukas knew he was recalling escaping into the Nether and leaving her behind. It was a hard memory to think about.

    “Fine. Then we should probably get some rest. We need to start looking for the temple as quickly as possible,” Lukas said, aiming to take Jesse’s mind off his best friend. “Now, my guess is, if we start at the portal, and kind of split up--”

    “Whoa, what are you doing?” Axel said.

    “Did I do something to you?” Lukas asked, mildly annoyed. “Because it seems you keep getting on my back for no reason.”

    “We’ll figure out in the morning,” Jesse said.

    “Maybe you’re right,” Lukas took a patient sigh, understanding that Jesse was trying to make peace. “I AM pretty tired…”

    “Jesse said us, not you,” Axel flared up hostilely once again.

    “Axel, we’ll figure it out in the morning,” Jesse repeated.

    “You’re the only one wearing that stupid jacket. Don’t tell us what to do,” Axel huffed.

    That hit Lukas’s nerve. ‘Take. That. Back,” he growled.

    “Can’t. Wouldn’t,” Axel said.

    “You know what? I get to wear this jacket because I know how to build. But that doesn’t mean I don’t know how to break things,”

    “Your threats don’t scare me know that we know how you really are,”

    “Jesse, your friend is way out of line,” Lukas turned to Jesse for help.

    “Let’s just drop it,” Jesse was too tired to take sides, apparently.

    “Don’t be like that, Jesse,” Axel looked like he wanted Jesse to pick over the two of them.

    “Just drop it,” Jesse said again, but Axel showed no signs of stopping.

    “Haven’t you done enough damage for one day? Petra might be dead because of you,” Axel was raising his voice, and prodding his beefy hand on his shoulder.

    “You’re taking this too far, Axel,” Olivia said, getting to her feet.

    “I don’t have to take this,” Lukas was struggling to keep his voice level at this point. He didn’t like being reminded of his mistake back in the fortress. “Listen, why don’t I just leave, and let you guys hash this out.”

    “You can’t leave!” Olivia protested. “It’s dangerous out there!”

    “I can take care of myself. It’s what Axel wants, right?”

    “Let him leave if he wants to leave,” as expected, Axel didn’t stop him in the slightest. Jesse, however, had different plans.

    “You’re not going anywhere,” he declared.

    “Oh, yes he is. Even if I have to force him out,”

    Lukas immediately knew what was coming next, and tenses his muscles in preparation for a fight. Things were about to get ugly.

    “ENOUGH!” Nikki barked, so harshly that everyone was taken aback. “Alright, that’s it! Axel, get your back fat on the ground. NOW,” the 14-year-old hissed. Axel plopped on the floor, his weight propelling Olivia up a few centimeters before she bumped lightly back on the ground. “Lukas, I’m talking to you too. Sit,” Nikki wheeled on Lukas. In no place to argue, Lukas sank back to the floor, shocked by how fierce and dangerous such a small girl could look.

    “Listen up, meathead,” Nikki turned to Axel again. “Lukas is part of our team now, and I don’t care how much you don’t like it. If we’re ever going to survive, we need to stick together and quit picking fights. We only have one enemy, remember?!” Axel bit his lip, and faced the ground in shame.

    “And Lukas--” Nikki wasn’t done with him yet. “You need to fill in all those holes in your brain too! I can understand that you feel like an outsider, but I expected you to be more patient about this. I’m Axel’s friend as much as I am yours. Anything threatening you say to him, you say to me.”

    Nikki was on a roll, speaking to everyone now. “Furthermore--” she went on. “We need to forget our past relationships, and focus on the present. We may be the last chance the world has, and if that last chance is a bunch of bickering buffoons, we’re all doomed! Get me?”

    “Yes, Nikki,” Olivia whimpered.

    “Uh-huh,” Axel gulped.

    “Absolutely,” Lukas agreed without hesitation.

    Nikki suddenly relaxed, her furious face melting away to exhaustion and sadness. She sat heavily next to Jesse. She didn’t enjoy talking so severely to her friends, Lukas could see that. This certainly wasn’t the same friendly, wisecracking, all-about-fun Nikki he met at EnderCon.

    “Zombie-sized chickens,” he finally said to Olivia. “That’s what I’d fight.”

    “Why’s that?”

    “Because I’m starving,”

    As they spoke, thunder rumbled, and rain started to fall. Good thing they had the gazebo roof over their heads.

    “Thanks for keeping me around, Jesse,” Lukas mentioned.

    “Yeah,”

    “And Nikki--” Lukas was cut off when he noticed she had already turned away from him and was fast asleep. Her slumber seemed to signal everyone else to go to bed. Heart heavy with guilt and remorse, Lukas laid down and let sleep take over as well.

     

Nikki’s POV:

            Nikki trudged along when dawn broke. She still felt upset about giving her friends a piece of her mind. They must be terrified of her, or worse, angry that she would be so brutal. Even now, she saw Axel flash a look of undisguised hatred back at Lukas, then he sped-walked away up next to Olivia. He sure wasn’t going to get past that anytime soon.

            Lukas came to a stop next to Nikki, looking resentful. She held her breath anxiously. What was she going to say to him?

            But Lukas only closed his eyes and sighed apologetically. “I’m sorry about before,” he said. “You were right: I shouldn’t have threatened Axel. He’s been your friend way longer than I’ve been. I should’ve just stayed in my place.”

            Nikki felt relieved, but also guilty. “Nah, it’s fine,” she said. “And I shouldn’t have lost my temper back there. I could’ve found a gentler way to cool things off.”

            “So…we’re cool?”

            “Cool beans,” she replied humorously. Grinning, Lukas walked on, seeming happy to have let that out. Nikki felt just the same. 

I feel like that ending could've been left on a more interesting note...meh, it's not like I can do much about it, right? Until the next chapter, friends!