Unfortunately for me, I did not sleep well. 
A part of me was terrified that there would be another explosion that would catch me off guard, and just that thought kept me up for most of the night. If it wasn't for the fact that Noah would probably make me go back to sleep if I did so much as step a foot outside the train. 

As expected, I was the first one to get up when the sun rose and quietly slipped out of the compartment- not before taking some food and headed outside to where I knew all the people who stayed up would be. 

Noah was somehow easy to spot despite how spread out things were, and I headed over to him. 

"Hey." I tapped on his shoulder and held out the piece of bread "Good morning. Have something to eat."

"Oh thanks! And good morning to you too." He smiled, snarfing it down eagerly "How'd you sleep? You didn't stay up, did you?"

"I slept fine." I lied, putting my hands on my hips as I looked around at the sleepy group around the train "Did anyone rest? or did you stay up the entire night? How's Theo?"

"He's doing okay! and, uh, we had rest. Yeah."

 I sighed "You need to get better at lying. Sit down."

"On the grass?"

"Like you've never done it before. How did the night go?"

Thankfully, Noah listened to me and sat down on the grass, still eating the loaf of bread. "It went rather smoothly- we lit up the area with torches so mobs wouldn't spawn around us, and the few unfortunate zombies stood no chance." He flashed a smug smirk "Some of the guys are pretty good! not as good as me though~"

I kicked his arm a little bit after he said that. "Your ego is going to start inflating like a pufferfish."

"Oh, my ego is nowhere as big as you think. I daresay Ethan probably has one bigger than mine."

"Yeah, at least he has a decent sense of humor to counter it."

"Hey!"

I smirked "Anyway, I'll go pass around some food to the other people. Everyone should be getting up soon, and I'll have to attend the squad captain meeting- better not be late for that."

"Oh, right. You still have that to attend." he let out a relieved sigh "I'm so glad I'm not a squad leader! It's not really my thing, to be honest."

"I was kinda forced to being a squad leader." I laughed, remembering how I was chosen in the first place. It wasn't too long ago since that happened, but it felt like an eternity had already passed and my group-mates people I have known since I was a child.
but then again- I knew no living being other than my father for all of my life. Even then I barely saw him. The only thing that reminded me of who I was, was the setting I grew up in and the constant reminder of who I will eventually become. 

"Oh, yeah. I heard." Noah laughed "You aced the test and placed top score- and then got placed with the leftovers. Now you and everyone else is the pride of the town for passing the initial exam."

"Give yourself some credit too. Couldn't have done it without you."

Noah looked down at the remaining bite of the bread "I joined last minute after the battle. I didn't do much except for the last challenge."

I sat down next to him, completely ignoring the fact that I still have other things to do. "I said, give yourself some credit." I insisted "You helped a lot in the last challenge, and that's all that really matters"

"You sure?"

"Besides, you're in our group now and we're heading to the capital," I smirked, "You'll have plenty more chances to help out and prove your worth as a member of our group."

"So, even if I was absent until nearly the conclusion, I still count as something? I'm not just someone coming in and taking the credit?"

The question wasn't the thing that surprised me. 
It was how vulnerable his tone suddenly sounded, how wide his dark eyes went as he looked up to stare at my own. It was completely different from his usual confident self, and it sounded like a genuine question, not something he's just saying for the sake of speaking. 

Something made me think there was more to the question than the context of it was asked in. 


Unfortunately, I sat there a little too long trying to get over my initial surprise and answer him. 

Emily's voice broke the silence. "Am I interrupting something?" she asked innocently "whoops. Seems like I already have."

I sighed, standing up "Good morning, Emily."

"Good morning Amythest, good morning Noah!" she slung her arm over my shoulder "Ready for the squad leader meeting?"

Noah finished his bread and stood up "I'll go gather up the people who were on guard last night and instruct them to go get some rest- and have more volunteers to keep watch. It's daytime, and it shouldn't be as dangerous." he grinned, looking as confident as usual "Good luck with the meeting!"

I was being dragged away by Emily, but I couldn't help but shout back "You get some rest too!".

He looked back with a smile and waved before Emily put her hand on my head and turned by head around. "My my, you're close with him."

"He's in my squad. Of course, I'm close to him."

Emily rolled her eyes, mumbling something under her breath that I couldn't quite catch. She cleared her throat "Anyway, I think I saw Mara walk to the back of the train to one of it's larger rooms or something. Let's go there- I think that's where the meeting is going to be held."

"Who's Mara?"

"Oh! She's one of the squad leaders that approached me this morning. Her friend, Cole, is leading the Redstone group. I think they should be having their own investigation or something." Emily held out her hand and helped me get back on the train from a broken stair. "Pretty chill person, both of them." she looked around the empty hallway "Where's everyone else? you'd think having this many groups here would mean there would be a lot of squad leaders- Unless we're late."

The girl from yesterday night was standing in the room with four other people. I assumed some people just decided not to show up, which I found annoying. 
this was a meeting that is going to affect how we were going to get to the capital. If those irresponsible people can't stand a meeting like this, why go to the capital and test for spots at all?

"Hey, Mara! Hello people I haven't met yet!" Emily called out first enthusiastically "is this everyone? My, the groups are a lot bigger than five or six people if all the squad leaders are here."

A few people chuckled, and Mara- a girl with bright hair, dark eyes and a black hoodie that had what looked like pastel paint splashed over the top of it- even cracked a smile. 

"It seems like no one else wanted to show up, so it's all up to us." Mara answered, "Which is unfortunate for them since we can now assign their group with the jobs no one wants. " she turned her head at me "You're the person that was speaking yesterday- your groupmate was the one that volunteered to lead the nighttime patrol."

I was surprised she remembered Noah and me so well, especially since she has only seen us once. "Oh, yeah. I'm Amythest."

Mara nodded "And you already know my name. these are the other squad leaders that actually decided to show up- if you couldn't tell already."

After a brief introduction of our names and squad numbers (in the train, at least), Mara cleared her throat and somehow got all of our attention.

"Before anything starts," she said slowly, looking around "The issue of the train stopping and us not being able to get to the capital in time."

Someone nodded "Right. We need to get to the capital as soon as possible- or at least send someone for help if we can't fix the wiring for the redstone."

"Have some confidence in our fellow groupmates, yeah?" Emily flashed a grin "don't know about you guys, but one of the people who volunteered is from my group- and he's one of the best, if not the best redstone engineer I have ever met."

Someone next to me and two seats away from Emily mumbled under his breath "says someone who probably have never stepped foot out of their town before this challenge."
I was tempted to say something and prove him wrong, but I had no evidence to back it up- after all, I've never seen Caleb or Matthew do any redstone. 

Heck, redstone is very rare in the nether, and we never relied on it too much. I barely have any experince with it myself except with some simple contraptions. 

Nonetheless, I decided to speak up for the ragtag group of redstone engineers who is no doubt having a meeting of their own about the state of the redstone. "We wouldn't know how bad the damage is until they give a report of some sort." I pointed out "I'll say the damage is pretty bad, but I have no experince with redstone to come to any sort of conclusion. Though... I don't think anyone is randomly carrying any redstone around? There's bound to be some gaps in the wiring."

"Some things we can replace easily, like slime blocks." The second person who spoke earlier lifted her head "Honey blocks- I'm sure a beehive can be found easily if we explore a little."

Emily shook her head "But actual redstone is impossible to replace... we'll have to go mining, and we don't have the time for that- besides, it's too dangerous."

"Which one would be more dangerous- mining or staying on the surface and starve? We have a lot of people here, and not to mention the mobs out on an open field. We're very lucky to not have anything major last night to exhaust the people outside." she argued back. 

"So mining and replacing the redstone is impossible, but staying here and waiting for rescue might kill us because of starvation and mobs." The person next to me rolled his eyes "great! What do you suggest we do?"

Emily glared past me and at the person who spoke "Why don't you come up with some ideas rather than complain? I heard you earlier, talking smack about me. If all of our ideas are so bad, why don't you help and come up with something?"

"and you're just going to be negative and say something like 'it's impossible' or something. Why bother?"

"Excuse me? I've only said that once-"

Her hotheaded temper reminded me a little bit of Kisha, but Kisha seemed to be a lot more... cool about it.
It almost made me laugh at the realization that her temper might be what had caused the fight to break out in the inn at the first night we met her, and I decided that we wouldn't want something like that to happen here.

I pushed the two apart "Alright, hush." I sighed "You two can duke it out when we get out of this situation."

The boy glared at me "We're debating for ideas. I don't think you have one?"

I ignored his question a little and diverted it. "So, we have a few concerns right now." I said, holding up my fingers "first, the concern to get to the capital as soon as possible. Second, the fact that we won't have enough food to last us enough time to wait it out might mean starvation... and that we can't heal from mob attacks. Third, mining is too dangerous without the equipment and it takes too long which brings us back to the second problem..."

The boy scoffed again "So?"

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but we can find Redstone naturally in adbanonded places, right?"

Mara tilted her head "Yeah. In temples, abandoned villages, regular villages where you trade with a priest- though those are hard to find now with the update, and you can always kill a witch or raid their hut to find redstone."

"We're in a plains biome, which only staisfies the abandoned and regular village requirement. There isn't any human settlement around this train track, but I'm sure we can find villages and trade with them" I looked around, an idea tinkering in my head. 

Mara's eyes lit up with a hint of facination and intrique as she stared at me "So exploring? You're suggesting that we explore for those buildings for redstone?"

"Not just redstone." I answered, growing excited "Like I said, we're in a planes biome. We have horses here. Maybe we can find or trade for a saddle somewhere and send someone to ride a horse to the capital- and bring attention to us. Besides, exploring brings food, doesn't it? We won't even need to go that far if we don't want to."

"What about the rest of us?" the boy raised his eyebrow "You're not going alone."

"Oh, no. Of course not i'm going alone." I scoffed "As for the rest of you..."

"As for the rest of you," Emily said, looking back at me with a grin and silently telling me that she was definetly coming with me "Hold down the train, make sure it doesn't get blown up again. Multiple groups will go in different directions and you can come out to find us if the capital does come." 

Mara turned her head to look at me "Amythest, you're sure, right?"

Emily patted my back "What other choice do we have? Amythest is smart- remember the person who was running on the roof of the buildings back in the town? Yeah, this is her. She's smart." 


Why did she sound so much more proud than I was about that?


Everyone looked at me expectantly. 

I nodded "Yeah. I'm sure."















I'm late 
Really late
but this is a very long chapter. A lot more than i'd usually write. 
School is about to start so idk about updating next month but i'll try
See ya!