Jesse's POV.

"No!!" I yelled as her items popped up. Her armor, sword, and other inventory stuff bursted as she died.

"Oh well, looks like you're outnumbered~" Clutch said evily.

I kneeled down and gathered her stuff. Now, I'm all alone. I felt angry. Frustrated. And sad.

"Ngahhh!!!!" I screamed as I slashed Clutch's armor. Surprisingly, it broke and fell apart. Slab came in for attack, but I did a back flip and kicked him away.

"You will pay for what you have done to Petra."

I tried to attack Clutch again, but she was getting smarter and blocked off all my attacks. Soon, I was out of breath and they were cornering me.

Calm down Jesse. You can't fight them. Think another way.

I just hope they're dumb enough to fall for this...

"What's that?" I pointed to the left. Slab and Clutch, despite their big and buffy bodies, have smaller brains than you think. They looked away and I dashed towards the tunnel exiting Gladiator Junction.

The tunnel was quite short, and immediately I found myself facing a ten-foot tall moss wall. Vines were everywhere, and the green team was leading.

"I'm like, so gonna win this." Nell said excitedly as she climbed the vines.

"Sorry Nell, but I'm afraid I'm going to be the winner." I jumped into the vines and caught up to het and Em.

"Dude Jesse! Nice catching up there!" Nell gave me the thumbs-up. (Lots of thumbs up here...)

"Do you just not get the hint?" Em said, annoyed. "Get dunked on!" (Yes she ACTUALLY said that. I was friskin screaming.)

She mined a block, and it spilled water. Nell didn't have time to react, and fell.

"Noooooo!" Below her was a pit of lava. I can't see someone die again.

Without thinking, I fell backwards to catch her. Once I got hold of her I grabbed onto the lower vines before we became sizzled.

Nell got into the small hole in the wall and said, "Yo, thanks Jesse! I didn't believe Em would actually do that..."

"Yeah, but how can we get up?"

"We can use the waterfall, dude! Swim your way up!" She suggested and went into the water. She slowly turned around in the water and eventually swam up.

Amazed, I did the same, but was having trouble swimming up.

Once we were in land again, we ran up the stairs to finish the race. On the surface, I saw Em looking surprised, like she had seen a ghost.

"I thought you were supposed to eliminate Jesse!" Hadrian shouted out loud. "Deal's off!"

"Wait! Please!" Em pleaded. But Hadrian just walked away angrily. The other Old Builders followed too.

I walked up to Em, wanting her to explain, but she said, "I know you think I'm a scum of something, but you know, I don't care anymore. My chance of getting home is up in the smoke. You can burn me in any ways you want."

Wow, never knew she would know what I was about to say. "Well, why did you trust Hadrian? You know he never keeps promises."

"Hey, you try staying here as long as me! You'd give up anything to go home." She turned and left me.

"Jesse!" It was Petra!

"Petra! Are you okay? I saw them took you out..." I rushed over to her. She was surrounded by fences.

"Well...one thing about respawning. It hurts. But it depends where you got hit. For me, I got hit in the stomach. Ow." She said.

"Well, I picked up your stuff." I gave her her armor, weapons, and other stuff she had.

"What? Y-You didn't look through them r-right?" Petra stammered, a bit of pink on her cheeks.

"No...why?"

"Oh, well, it doesn't matter." She snatched the things and placed it in her inventory.

"Jesse? Hadrian wants to see you." Slab, the gladiator said. I was still mad about him helping to kill Petra.

"Why?" I asked, concerned.

"Just follow me." He answered.

I AM SO SORRY FOR NOT UPDATING.

I have my final exams in two weeks, and I'm quite stressed about it. So I'm sincerely sorry that my books have not updated.

I will try to write as much as I can in my free time.

Bai