~~~~Lukas's P.O.V.~~~~

"Olivia, we can't stay here."

She shakes her head at me, fear etched across her face. "This is our home Lukas. We can't just run away from it."

"But people's lives come first." I glance over the citizens in the Dome, some of them better but they all need better help than just the Order of the Stone tending to them. "They can't repair Redstonia like this, they can't heal in Redstonia at all. But by bringing them to Beacontown-"

"What if they can't survive that journey though?" Olivia stomps, gesturing wildly to the side. "It's even dark now! I'm not leading my people to their death after narrowly escaping it!"

I'm tempted to yell to at her, I'm tempted to just scream all of my frustrations. Jesse willingly just jumped out into that death for these people and he will die if no one gets to him. He could be hurt or in pain or desperately needing help and I can't even feel him anymore!

Sighing out a whimper, I rub my forehead. "Okay, fair point. But what about the morning? Or maybe a bit sooner?"

She shakes her head, a direct blow to my heart. "People here can't move that distance, it's best for them to stay put for awhile."

'Is it best to just let Jesse die while we do nothing?'

That's what I want to say, what I want to scream at her. But after taking very forced deep breaths, I try another time. Another time to convince her to leave. Although if she says no again I think I just might blow up. If we don't leave, who's going to find Jesse?

"Olivia, here me out. There are fires all throughout the city, it's impossible to get into some rooms, heck entire buildings, with all the electronics malfunctioning, and I doubt there's enough good food until the people heal. Maybe not right now, but you have to bring the people of Redstonia to Beacontown. It's the closest other city and Champion City is right next to it if Beacontown can't support everyone."

She doesn't fire off anything back right away, which doesn't exactly make me feel any better. It just gives me a moment for me to realize yet again that only a few seconds after Jesse vanished did I remember that I still had a part of his flame. And I had to agonizingly sit and do absolutely nothing as I felt his terror and exhaustion slowly fade away, until he was just gone. I don't know anything now.

"Two days Lukas, maybe even tomorrow. But I doubt anyone is going to sleep until dawn, and if we're going to travel I want my people to be in the best state they can be. Which means not in shock, not sleep deprived, and able to walk."

I nod even though that just made my heart shatter. Jesse's fire starts to react to me, and I shove it down within a second. No fire, no straining the connection. That makes everything worse for Jesse. Jesse, who's probably either injured, or trapped, or has fainted, or is trying to find some lava pit because of how cold he thinks he is.

"Olivia." I nearly jump out of my skin at Petra's voice right next to me. "What about Jesse?"

My head snaps over to Olivia, desperate to hear any word that comes out of her mouth. Maybe she'll change her mind, leave sooner. I'm sure Jesse doing everything he can to get to Beacontown, we have to be there to help him. We have to leave. Petra voiced it, Olivia has to acknowledge it now.

Olivia sobs, a strangled cry before covering her face. "I don't know! I want to make sure he's fine but I can't leave everyone! I just-"

Axel, who I also didn't notice until now, wraps her up in a hug. "Hey hey Liv, Jesse's going to be fine. You know him, nothing can stop him. Not Wither Storms, not Admins, not demons."

I bite my lower lip, every single instinct of mine screaming at me that Axel is wrong. Someone has to help him right now. Right now or else he might not pull through. Jesse's not going to be fine.

But Olivia is right, she just can't leave her people. Jesse didn't run out there as bait just so we can all leave the citizens, but I refuse though to let him die for that. The others can stay here, but if I don't get to him soon then Fire Deprivation will get him... if nothing else has already.

"Take care of your people Olivia." My own voice, it sounds so far away, as if I'm listening to an echo instead. "But I have to get to Jesse, I'm not waiting."

I keep my mouth open to say something else, but nothing comes. All I can worry about is that if I don't leave now, Jesse will die. I have to find him, I can't just sit around any longer and I don't want Olivia to think that I don't care about her people.

"I'm coming with." I glance over to Petra, her features as hard as stone. "I'm not doing much good to these people but I can for Jesse. I'm not letting him go."

Judging by her tone, Petra probably isn't as optimistic as Axel. But I'm glad though I'll have her with me, or else I'd just might break down in complete fear. Besides, if Jesse's in the worst state possible then he's going to need all the help he can get.

"Thanks Petra." Solemnly, we all walk over to the door. It probably hasn't even been an hour since Jesse burst through carrying Ivor, his armor almost totally worn away and eyes shinning green.

Petra and I stop at the door, turning to Axel and Olivia by the switch. We're all so downcast, and will definitely have permanent wrinkles of fear and worry after today.

I nod at Olivia, feeling so cold yet full of anxious energy. "See you guys."

"See you in a few days." She opens the door, and the both of us run out. Olivia's broken words still reaching my ears. "Hopefully with Jesse."

We both run faster, getting through the burning streets of Redstonia as fast as possible. I try to ignore the bloody scent in the air, the thick ash suffocating my lungs, the bodies of people who got caught, the crackling of electricity from all the broken machines that the people worked so hard on, the distant echoes of the demons whispering through my paranoid brain.

Begrudgingly, those phantom screeches force my attention to the nether portal. We have to close it, we should already consider ourselves lucky that all the demons went through and that they haven't come back here yet.

"Petra."

She looks back and I nod over to the portal, changing course. She groans, but runs with me nevertheless. We get to the edge and begin to dig up spare blocks. Jesse must've jumped over with his fire, but that means the acid demons just jumped across. That's like, twenty meters, how much more terrifying can these things get?

We quickly build a  bridge and then shove blocks into the portal frame. It goes out, and we dead sprint back to the main bridge out of here. That short detour, a necessary one, sent my heart into a frenzy. Jesse can't die, I'm not going to let him die because I was too slow.

Dodging the pools of acid that haven't dissipated, we speed across the bridge towards the horses. Once we get to the horses it's a dead sprint back to Beacontown. It didn't take us too terribly long to get here, although the horses might be a bit more tired now. And it's night so we can't see and normal monsters will try attacking us.

Oh man, everything sucks right now.

It wasn't even a day ago when me and Jesse were just running around having fun. We deserved a break, and I thought we were going to finally have one after the whole thing with Ivor and the possessing yellow flames.

We make it to the horses, and I fumble to undo the lead with shaking hands. I hear Petra's blade hiss and quickly peak that she just cut the lead. Muttering, I finally get mine undone and hop on the horse. Petra's way was faster, and now I'm a bit behind her.

Thankfully, the very few thankfully things we have, the moon is full. So we can at least decently ride through the plains. The forest will be whole different story. If we're extraordinarily lucky then the horses won't get caught in roots or a branch won't whack us off our saddles or a skeleton won't shoot at us or we don't get lost or-

I should stop that train of thought.

So I force my attention onto something productive, like thinking where Jesse is. I'm assuming he's on his way to Beacontown, but he might not be there though due to injuries or Fire Deprivation. Jesse was in the Nether though, which means wherever he is he got there really fast. If he's out of the Nether at least.

I whimper and tightly squeeze the reins, I'll never be able to find Jesse in time if he's still in the Nether. If it's bad to be riding horses at night in the plains with regular monsters around, then it's hell to travel on foot through the Nether where dozens of acid demons are now at with no clue where the person you're looking for is.

If only I experimented with this connection more, learned what it can and cannot do. Like, wouldn't it be super helpful if this connection could tell me where Jesse's at? That would be super helpful, particularly since it's suppose to be this thing's job to help keep Jesse alive!

A skeleton's arrow flies above me, my horse neighing and rearing for a moment. Scowling at it, I kick its sides and bring it back into a faster gallop. There's no time to wait, and Petra's going to think that I'm a bad rider now that I'm a bit farther away. So this horse better pick up its pace even more.

I wish it was daytime, so I wouldn't have to keep nudging this horse to its full gallop when it slows slightly at the sight of the mobs in front of us. Petra cuts down the ones directly in our path, and I am pretty close to her now, so this horse needs to be solely focused on running as fast as it possibly can.

My bow would also be nice. The stupid acid demons destroyed it when I, instinctively, used it as a shield against one of their jaws. I know I could use my sword, but I'm not nearly as good with that and I don't want to risk falling off the horse just so I could ease its fear a small bit. I have Petra for monster killing.

We're almost at the dark trees and my horse slows down a bit again. This time I understand him a bit better, but I still kick him back into his gallop. There's no other choice, I have to get to Jesse. And hopefully he isn't in the Nether anymore.

Visibility drops dramatically the moment we ride into the trees. I duck as low as possible onto the horse, trying to get him to stay fast and making sure a stray branch won't hit me off my saddle.

I don't know how far ahead Petra is anymore, I can only see the trees directly surrounding me. The horse skids to the side every other stride, and I reluctantly let him slow down a bit. I only just see the tree before we have to dodge it. As much as I hate slowing down, crashing into a tree would definitely slow me down a lot more.

Although my horse though has finally seemed to realize how freakin' terrified I am and has stopped trying to slow down more than it needs to. I know this horse already ran a long gallop only a short while ago and now is now doing that again in the dark, but I really need this horse to give me everything it has. I need it to give Jesse everything it has or else Jesse might not be around anymore to give anything.

Jesse shouldn't even be so low on fire right now anyway! If I just stopped him long enough to give him his fire! If only he never nearly got himself killed weeks ago getting clay and never discovered the fire at all. And if I'm going to be wishing for the impossible I might as well just wish that these demons never existed in the first place.

Besides, Jesse was in the Nether, maybe still is. Why didn't Jesse just replenish his fire in there? Everything would be better like that. Even if he did forget or didn't have the time with demons chasing him, surely just hearing some creature would have reminded him. Once he killed a couple of creatures then he could have just rocketed himself far away from the demons and not have to worry about it so much.

I moan, wishing I could bury my face in my hands. Everything that's happening, everything single thing, we've just been reacting to it. We don't know or are prepared for any problems until they're on top of us. We have no idea how to fix anything because we know next to nothing about how to get rid of these demons or Jesse's fire and symptoms of that or the yellow fire.

That blasted yellow fire! Who the heck is behind that? Someone has to, the only someone who could actually help us, and they are being the biggest jerks they could possibly be. Shouldn't they understand what they're doing to Jesse? Do they have no heart at all?

And if there could ever be 'good' moments to where Jesse gets possessed by them, say right now, it's not going to happen. When Jesse needs the yellow fire's strength to just keep himself alive, they are just going to let him die. Is this just some really amusing game to them? We do not need to be dealing with a new Romeo on top of everything else.

The horse steps on something, losing rhythm as tires to get it back again. I immediately grab on tight, guiding the horse back onto steady feet. The horse only gets one moment to take a breath before I push him back through the forest. We have to keep going.

We're riding as fast as we can when I start to feel a slight tug. With horror I realize it's the flame I still have from Jesse. I try to push it down, I need to push it down. I'll be killing Jesse faster if I have it activated, it needs to go out.

But it doesn't, it doesn't and my heart buckles in terror. It just keeps tugging, tugging and tugging. It's not even doing anything for me so why can't I just stomp it out? If this flame is ever going to get back into Jesse, then it needs to stop killing him.

My breath hitches as I feel the tugging change a bit, just like a compass. Tugging in one direction, almost directly to my left now. That must mean...

"PETRA! GO LEFT!"

I veer the horse to the left, having to quickly readjust when I nearly crash into the Old Order's temple. I hope she heard me, I've rarely ever yelled so loud in my life. I couldn't have been that far behind her anyway, she would have also had to slow down and her horse could have stumbled a bit.

Within seconds the horse manages to get on the hill next to the temple, where I see a faint green glow emitting from the dirt hut we built all those years ago. I urge my horse to flat out sprint with everything it has left to get there. Jesse's in there, not sure how or where the light is coming from, but he has to be in there.

I jump off my horse, not really caring what he decides to do now. I fling the door open, taking one rushed step in before I stop dead. Completely frozen at the sight of a green blaze, a green blaze hovering over Jesse.

"Lukas!" Petra's very loud snap right behind me throws me out of my shock. "What's the hold up? Get in! Get in!"

I stagger into the hut, just enough to where Petra can slip in too, when the blaze moans. Jesse's right there, so close to being helped, but what the heck am I supposed to do when there's some green blaze guarding him?

Petra whips her blade out, and my stare snaps onto her, the blaze charging up with green fire and moaning louder at her. Petra scowls, ready to slice this monster apart.

And I suddenly get the massive feeling that's a terrible idea. Before I can think it, I tackle Petra. Throwing us both on the ground where I quickly slide her sword all the way across the hut.

Ignoring whatever curses she's throwing at me, I scramble to my feet and slowly approach the moaning green blaze.

"We're not going to hurt you..." To my everlasting surprise and relief, the blaze actually backs down a bit. "Yeah, yeah, that's it. Just let us help our friend."

With a final grunt like groan, it glides away and I immediately drop to my knees next to my limp friend. Quickly rolling him onto his back and placing both of my hands to the side of his face. Desperately shoving what fire I have back into him.

His body jolts, and I nearly whoop with joy when I feel the connection dragging itself back into a weak existence. But all I end up doing is choking on a sob, slouching over as I cover my face. Jesse's not going to die, he's going to be alright.

"So... Jesse's good?" Slowly, the whole world just seems to have suddenly stopped, I turn to Petra. Who's hesitantly standing a meter away, eyes flickering to her sword, to Jesse, and to the blaze.

I nod, everything finally catching up to me. "Well he's not going to die any time soon. Don't attack the blaze though, I'm not sure why, but it has Jesse's green fire. Something must be important about it... somehow."

She snorts and goes to pick up her sword. My breath stalls as she does so, bracing myself for her to just totally ignore me and attack. But she just mutters something and slides it into its sheath, before coming over next to Jesse too.

"Not going to survive very long though if we don't get him back to Beacontown. Just look at him."

I immediately glance back down at Jesse, and then realize why I've been avoiding doing that. There's a burn on the side of his neck, fresh from the acid. There's virtually no armor left from the Redstone Riot, just the black clothing underneath. His hair is a matted mess of ash, blood, dirt, and whatever is making that hideous burning smell. And that's not accounting for the fact he collapsed in the first place, probably the most worrying of everything that's happened.

Not too mention the various cuts on his face that I'm trying not to think about. He probably never even realized he got such cuts in the heat of battle. And there must be some other wounds to be producing that thick bloody smell, wounds that I just can't see.

Taking a shuddering breath, I try to think of what to do. We have to get Jesse back to Beacontown, but it's the middle of the night. We only have two horses, and I'm pretty sure they'd get really spooked by a blaze flying next to them as they gallop.

That's not even taking into account of when we get to Beacontown. Just barging in with some green blaze will probably throw everyone into a panic, especially if we're riding in with a beat up and unconscious Jesse. All of Beacontown will completely either shut themselves inside in fear or form a mob of mass hysteria. Both really bad.

Which then leaves the problem of actually helping Jesse, the only reason to go through the first two problems in the first place. Ivor, I would suspect, has all of his healing potions on him. So unless we go to the hospital, which causes more mass hysteria particularly if the blaze doesn't leave, there's nothing we can do for Jesse except keep him on his bed.

Then Petra would basically have to handle the entire town by herself because I would have to be with Jesse. Since the moment he wakes up he needs to get to the Nether to recover his fire. And Jesse's going to need some help doing things after what he just went through today.

I groan, not knowing how to solve any of these problems. Should I work forward or backwards? What would be best? What am I suppose to do if the blaze follows Jesse around like some puppy?

And then, to put a damper on the whole thing, it starts raining. Just like last time, rain to force us to stay inside. The blaze definitely can't go out now, and we should probably get the horses in here.

Petra's already standing up. "I'll get the horses. You, you make the entrance wide enough for them to come through."

I nod, although I doubt she was able to see it. I begin breaking the blocks, noticing that the blaze has glided over Jesse again. There's definitely some connection between the two, and definitely something I'll have to ask about once things calm down a bit more.

Petra leads the horses through a few seconds after I make the hole big enough. The rear up and try to back out, but I've already place most of the blocks back again. So they rush over to the corner, as far away from the blaze as they can be.

I roll my eyes as I place the door. "Let's move Jesse away from them, I think they don't like the blaze very much."

"Well," We both bend down, gently lifting Jesse up. "I don't blame them in the least."

We set Jesse down, having him lay nicely on his back. The blaze hovers above him, looking like he's not going to move at all any time in the near future. Although I've never really had to consider what blazes look like before, I was always more concerned on how to kill them.

Petra and I both settle down. As the seasoned adventurer she is, she plops right on down with a sigh like this is her second bed. Reaching up and moving her bandana over her eyes as she wiggles to get as comfortable as possible.

I, as the stressed out worrier I am, lean against the dirty wall with a moan. Everything just sucks right now. Everything is just so horribly wrong and confusing and not right at all.

Olivia has to help her people the best she can after witnessing her home destroyed by demons. Her people that are shell shocked or screaming in some sort of agony. People injured all over, and the bodies of their friends and family outside.

Hopefully, everything wrong that just decided to happen will be immediately followed by everything going right. The rain will stop soon, the horses will have all the energy in the world, Redstonia's people will recover fast, and most of the demons will be forever trapped in the Nether.

I smack my forehead, as if that could get these thoughts out of my head, forcing myself to lay back. I have to rest, thinking about all these things does nothing if I actually can't do anything about those things. I have to get Jesse back into Beacontown tomorrow. I'll probably have to stay up for super long stressful hours until I get the chance to rest again.

But I find my eyes wide open as I stare at Jesse, worry flapping through my skull restlessly. He could have broken a bone, he definitely has other burns throughout his body that could be much more severe than the one on his neck. What if giving back that portion of fire wasn't enough? What if he'll still wake up with Fire Deprivation tomorrow?

Groaning, I put heavy conscious effort into relaxing every muscle in my body. Starting with my with my face, letting my eyelids droop down shut and my expression fall away. Then releasing the tight tendons in my neck and finally loosening my tense shoulders.

I continue to work farther down. Unravelling the tension in my arms, soothing my clenched stomach and core. Before finally going down into my legs, working out all of the tight muscles slowly but surely. Releasing all the stiffness from my body as best I can.

My thoughts try to make me all tense again, try to ruin what I'm trying to accomplish. So I try to imagine something nice, something peaceful. Like a beautiful waterfall I saw once, so very relaxing.

It kinda reminds me of when me and Jesse were at the lake, before everything crashed and burned that is.

I shake my head, still trying to keep all my muscles completely relaxed. Clearly the imagining something relaxing isn't going to work, I'll just find a way to loop it back around to our dire situation.

So I try to get rid of all thoughts, have a completely blank and clear mind. Purely focusing on breathing in... and then out. Breathing in... and breathing out. In... out, in... out, in... out...

I really hope no one back in Redstonia got any burns or cuts on the chest, to the point where they couldn't breathe at least. What would Olivia do in that situation? Just end the person's misery? Or try to save them and give them a few more hours of life?

Whimpering, I come to the conclusion that it's basically impossible for me to be able to sleep right now. I'm laying on dirt, in the same hut that was built a few hours after the unholy world eating Wither Storm was created. With me is Petra, who we weren't sure was alive or dead at that time, and Jesse, who showed me immense kindness then and has collapsed onto the brink of death now. And of course there's a green blaze just hanging around too.

How in the Nether was Petra able to fall asleep so easily?

****

Ahh, and we are out of Redstonia! What happened is still going to be pretty important, but the immediate dangers and adrenaline from that place are gone. You can let out a sigh now.

And yay! Another chapty as Lukas, since it would be pretty boring if was in the unconscious Jesse's POV. Not exactly exciting.

So... I don't actually really have anything to say... uh, yeah. I guess I'll see you in a week with the next chapter!