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*continued angry Rush noises*

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I spun blindly through the portal for a few moments before getting my bearings. What was happening? Shouldn't I have come out the other side by now? Had something gone wrong? Or was this supposed to happen? I couldn't tell which was weirder.

It hadn't quite been a full minute before I landed on my feet, standing upright on pale green grass. Four of the others were nearby.

"Where's th-nevermind." I cut myself off as the other boy appeared next to Jenni. He swayed, looking rather disoriented. The blue-armored girl gave him a disapproving look, and he smiled sheepishly.

"Sorry. Haven't had much experiences with portals."

"Me neither, but you don't see me stumbling around like a drunk Enderman." She snapped.

"Well, you do that even without any help." He shot back, grinning.

The leader boy rolled his eyes, then gave me a sideways look. "You have dealt with portals before?"

I laughed abruptly. "Oh yeah. A whole crazy hallway of them."

"Really?" He asked, looking genuinely intrigued.

"Mm-hm. It's called the Portal Network. A few of my friends and I got trapped in it a couple months ago, and had quite a few, uh, interesting adventures." I explained briefly.

"Oh, me too! Well, not the trapped part. But I have been portal-hopping a few times. It's an awesome experience." Jenni added. "What about the rest of you?"

"Other than this, once. And it was only one portal, not a whole network." The leader said thoughtfully.

"I've only ever been through a Nether or End portal." The silver-blue armored boy chipped in. "I never knew there were other worlds before now."

"Same." The boy with the turquoise armor added, raising his hand. He had a surprisingly deep, pleasant voice, with a faint accent that I couldn't place. The dark girl had a similar accent, though not as prominent as his.

"Huh. I wonder if I've ever been in one of you guys's worlds and just never realized it." Jenni mused. I stiffened slightly, realizing that she had a point. That would be kinda strange.

"Speaking of which, I wonder what world we're in now." The leader boy wondered aloud. I glanced around, paying attention to our surroundings for the first time. We were in a Plains biome, with a small copse of trees nearby. A medium-sized house stood near the trees, made primarily of stone and oak wood planks.

"Seems pretty average." I commented. The dark girl snorted. "Don't turn around."

It is hard to explain the feeling I experienced as my brain registered what she had said. No one ever wants to hear the words 'don't turn around'. It makes you instantly wonder what could be behind you, and fills you with an unbeatable sense of panic. As humans, we fear the unknown, and that fear is magnified by knowing that something is there, but not knowing what it is. And let me tell you, the things that were running through my mind were not pleasant. In an unfamiliar world, who knows what could be waiting to attack me?

I sent her a wary look, and Jenni sighed. "Just ignore her. There's nothing behind you."

I pivoted, to see that she was right. There was nothing behind me. Just a few steps away, the grass dropped off into pure void.

My eyes went wide. I quickly turned around and jerked my head up, surveying the area attentively. I'm not sure how I missed it earlier, but the entire place, the plains biome, the small forest, the house, everything, was all surrounded by void. We were on an island, floating above oblivion.

I could feel a frown taking over my expression. "How...what...what?!"

"Yeah. We're kinda penned in, as I see you just noticed." The dark girl said with a smirk. "That's putting it lightly." I muttered under my breath.

The leader boy squinted up at the sun, shielding his eyes with his left hand. I noticed that the strange white object was once again clenched in his other fist.

"What opened the portal, by the way?" I asked him. I suddenly realized that since he had whatever-it-was that opened the way to this world, my friends wouldn't be able to get here no matter what they did. This made me feel suddenly very alone.

"Oh, this?" he asked, opening his fist to reveal a shimmering silver gem. It was rectangular, and about as long as his hand from wrist to fingertips. "I don't know how it works, to be honest. It just opens a passage to wherever this place is, without needing a portal frame."

"Where did you get it?" I inquired. He hesitated for a moment. "Umm..."

Jenni interrupted, possibly feeling sympathetic to him being put on the spot. "Let's continue this conversation inside; I need to sit down. That stupid portal kinda makes me feel sick, and I'm nervous about being so close to the edge of the island."

She led the way to into the structure without any argument from the other four. The immediate interior of the house was comfortable and roomy, with a carpeted main central room and a few chairs scattered near a currently dark fireplace. Jenni instantly sank into one of the chairs, looking slightly green.

I decided to stay standing, watching her quietly. "Do you usually get sick after portal-hopping?"

She shook her head. "Nope. Just traveling through that one. And it's really not so bad; it didn't last long the other times."

"So you've all been here before." I checked, and the others gave various forms of confirmation. The brown-haired boy sat down backwards across from me, leaning his forearms the back of his chair. "You're the only one who hasn't been informed of the full situation."

"Thanks for reminding me." I snapped. There was an awkward silence, and I immediately regretted my harsh tone.

"Well, we might as well get the introductions over with, before we get into the full story." Jenni said, trying to break the tension. "We all know your name and each other's, but I expect you'd like to know ours."

"That'd be nice, yes." I replied dryly. "I heard that your name's Jenni, but I didn't catch any of the others."

"I'm Justin. I honestly do feel bad for tying you up earlier, by the way." The silver-blue armored boy said, extending his hand to me. I shook his gloved hand, feeling my previous dislike for him soften.

The leader boy in the blue and gold armor spoke next. "I'm Joss. I was the one who originally received the message to find the rest of these idiots and you." There was a slight pause after his rather chilly introduction.

"My name's Jacqueline, but you can call me Jaq." The dark-skinned girl said abruptly, pronouncing the nickname 'Jack'.

"Not 'Jackie'?" I checked.

The taller girl immediately leaned in, jabbing a finger at me. "If I had meant 'Jackie', I would've said 'Jackie'. It's Jaq." She said in an ominous tone.

One of the boys laughed, and I glanced over to see that it was the dark one with the turquoise armor, the one who looked remarkably similar to Jaq. "Ignore her. She can be a little feisty sometimes, and I would know. My name's Jandro, by the way, and I've known Jaq since we were new spawns. I'm the one you can go to if she starts being horrible." He pronounced the foreign name like it started with an H, not a J. Jaqueline just rolled her eyes at his comment.

"Is 'Jesse' short for anything? Jessica, maybe?" Joss asked, looking only semi-interested. I shook my head. "Nope. Just Jesse."

"That's not even a girl's name." Jaq interjected.

"It's unisex. Like Alex, or Rory." Jenni corrected. Jaq rolled her eyes. "Rory is a boy's name."

"Ah, I object. My boyfriend's sister is named Rory, and she's the girliest damn thing I've ever seen." Justin added.

Jaq gave him a look of pure disgust. "You must be a stranger to mirrors, then."

"Jaq, knock it off. I'm not having another gender-related argument with you." Jandro said, sounding like he was trying to hold in a laugh.

"So. Would you like to explain how we all wound up here?" I asked. Joss sighed, but nodded.

"Three days ago, I received a message. I had no clue who it could've come from, but at the time, I was too curious to be suspicious. It was written on very old-looking parchment, and wrapped around this thing." He began, lifting up the portal gem. "The instructions were clear, but very weird. They told me how to activate the portal, and said that I needed to find five strangers and bring them to this place. I'm a lone adventurer, you see, so I didn't have any reason to not do as the letter said.

"I traveled to Jenni's homeworld first, but things...didn't go so well. I explained the message, and did my best to convince her to come without fighting. She agreed, but her companions were a bit more hesitant. They challenged me, and, well..." he glanced at Jenni, silently asking if she wanted to continue.

"The wraiths came out of nowhere, literally nowhere, and attacked my friends. They fought back, but they didn't have a chance. Half of them were murdered before my very eyes. I couldn't do a single thing. After that, I had to go with Joss. There wasn't really any other choice." She murmured quietly.

"We ended up here and decided to rest before trying to find anyone else. We were both a little traumatized by the violent events, and wanted to make a better plan. Luckily she's better at talking to people than I am, and we figured we could convince the next two without any more deaths. What we didn't count on, however, was Jaqueline's ridiculous temper." Joss continued, shooting an annoyed look at the dark-skinned girl. She made a face and flipped him off.

"Jaq and I are bandits. Like I said, we've known each other since we were little, and we had a group of other people who helped us with our not-so-honest escapades." Jandro said. "Joss warned us about the monsters, but Jaq was too annoyed to listen. She continued to argue, and the rest of our team backed her up. I bet you can guess what happened." he finished grimly. I nodded, feeling a wave of sympathy for the three who had to be present when their friends lost their lives.

"Jaq was horrified and devastated, but mostly mad. She point-blank refused to come with us. I can hardly blame her, since at the time it seemed like we were responsible for the deaths of her friends. I don't know how Jandro managed to convince her otherwise, but he did. The four of us then went to Justin's world, hoping to have at least one mission that didn't end horribly." Joss continued. Then Justin added his part of the story.

"They managed to accost me right before I left for a new adventure, which was lucky. I've always been a pushover, according to my friends, so they didn't have too much problem convincing me."

Jaq snorted. "All we had to say was 'monsters might come after the people you care about if you don't listen to us' and there was literally nothing else to do."

Justin ignored her. "When we came back here, Jaq and Joss had an argument over how to get you to come alone. Joss wanted to be non-confrontational, but Jaq hoped you would be more compliant if the message was threatening. That obviously didn't work, since we still had to fight your friends."

"Yeah, threatening me usually doesn't go over well with them." I added with more than a hint of sarcasm.

"Obviously." Joss replied, shooting Jaq with another glare. She turned her head, making it very clear that she was ignoring him.

"So now that we're here, we're hoping that whoever summoned us will explain what the heck is going on." Justin concluded simply.

"Huh." I frowned, once again mentally running through the list of people who might want to hold me hostage. Nothing added up, especially with these five strangers.

"And before you ask, we've already tried to figure who might want us, and why. We can't think of how all this could possibly fit together, so if you have any ideas..." Joss said.

I shook my head. "No one I know would go to this effort to get to me. All the enemies I still have are either safely locked away or would rather kill me right out."

"There's gotta be some kind of connection, though. Between the six of us, I mean. It can't be just completely random, right?" Jenni mused.

Before anyone could reply (as if any of us had an answer), a shudder shook the building, like an earthquake. I automatically went into panic mode, running through my mental list of possible disasters again. The shaking continued, becoming stronger.

"Go, go! Come on! We gotta get out!" One of the others yelled, and all six of us went bolting outside. I immediately turned around to look at the house again, which was shivering to its very foundations.

"What the fuck is going on?!" Jaq exclaimed.

"Uh...GUYS?!" Justin shouted. He was facing the same way as me, but instead of watching the building, he was looking at what was behind it.

An obsidian pillar was growing up from the ground, shaking the rest of the island violently. I stared in shock and confusion as it grew taller and wider, becoming an almighty tower.

Then the shaking abruptly stopped, and a kind of energy blast shot out from the tower, sending me stumbling backwards. I cursed under my breath as I regained my footing, then noticed Jandro pointing to the top of the tower. I followed his gaze, to see...

A figure had appeared on the top of the structure, tall and dark, its long cloak blowing behind it dramatically. I glanced over and locked eyes with Jandro, his expression of mystified disbelief matching my own.

Jaq started stomping towards the tower. "W-wait! What are you doing?" Jenni called. The other girl turned, walking backwards to reply.

"Well I don't know about you, but I'm going to get some freaking answers." 

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don't have time to keep uploading rn

will do it later