Everybody were gathered in the living room. Jesse, Axel and Olivia were sitting on the couch with Petra standing behind it and leaning on the back rest. Lukas stood in front of them, his arms crossed over his chest. All of them had their eyes on the potion bottle Ivor held in his hands.

It wasn't a potion like Jesse had ever seen before. It was a bright teal colour, either leaning more towards green or blue depending on the light in the room. It had little bubbles floating up and down in it, almost like a soda.

"Are you sure this is it?" Lukas asked, frowning at the potion.

"Sure is." Ivor said, putting it down on the coffee table.

"How exactly does it work?" Jesse asked, leaning down to the examine the bottle more closely.

"It won't be able to stop your transformations forever." Ivor explained. "But it will hold them off for few more days. Three at the least."

"That's not a lot of time." Olivia said softly.

"It's not, but it's the most you can get." Ivor explained. "As for you-" He gestured at Petra. "You'll still be turning normally. But you should be able to control your actions. For, at the least, three more days."

"I don't care if I have to walk around on all fours for hours on end, as long as I stay sane." Petra muttered.

Lukas checked his watch. "Basing this off of Petra's experience, Jesse's first transformation will be in ten minutes. What are we waiting for?"

Jesse took a deep shaky breath. She did not want to know what it felt like to turn. Ivor took the second dose of potion from his pocket, putting it down on the coffee table as well.

"Go on." He said.

Jesse and Petra exchanged glances, before both reaching out for the potion bottles. To Jesse's surprise, the bottle felt warm in her hands. Usually potions were cold, or at least room temperature. She removed the wooden cap with shaky fingers, nervously lifting it up to her mouth.

Now, no potion tasted great in particular, but they were never awful. This on the other hand, probably went on the list of one of the worst things Jesse had ever tasted.

"Oh my lord, Ivor, what is in this?" Petra groaned in disgust as she slammed her empty potion bottle back down on the table.

"Believe me, you don't want to know." Ivor said casually, picking up both of the empty glass bottles.

"You sure there aren't any negative side effects to drinking this?" Petra asked, as she took a glass of water. "Like, for example, death?"

"My thoughts exactly." Jesse muttered, feeling relieved as a gulp of cold water washed away the bitterness.

"Complain all you want, you'll thank me later." Ivor grumbled, causing Petra to roll her eyes.

The door to the room opened, and Ellegaard came walking in. She had a large bag slung over her shoulder.

"Are you going somewhere, Ellegaard?" Jesse asked with a frown.

Ellegaard nodded quickly. "Redstonia." She explained. "Allison is very organised and responsible, but she isn't the leader type. Redstonia needs me."

She looked over at Olivia. "You stay here and help your friends, OK? Don't worry about Redstonia, between me and Allison, everything will be fine."

Olivia smiled gratefully and nodded.

"I'm going with Ellie." Ivor explained. "See where and how I can help out in Redstonia. After all, we're all each other has left of the old order now." His voice was slightly sad.

"Be sure to let us know of any changes." Ellegaard said, as she and Ivor made for the door. Everybody nodded.

As Ivor stepped out of the Order Hall, Ellegaard hesitated for a second. She turned around to face the New Order again.

"Listen, I was wondering if I could make one request..." She said, sounding a little uncertain.

"Of course, what is it?" Olivia asked, standing up from the couch.

Ellegaard hesitated once more, before taking a deep breath. "As much as I hate to admit this, Soren is one of my oldest friends. We used to be incredibly close."

She looked over at Jesse, her eyes pleading. "I understand that you must do whatever you can to stop him, but if you can... go for the command block itself. That way you'll only depower him, not..." She trailed off.

"Not kill him." Jesse softly finished the sentence.

"I know he's done awful things to you, to Petra, to Olivia, to all of you." Ellegaard said. "But we've lost both Gabriel and Magnus. There's not much left of the Old Order."

Jesse stood up as well, walking over to Ellegaard. She put her hand on the older woman's shoulder, giving her a reassuring smile.

"I'll do what I can." She said.

Ellegaard smiled back, nodding to her. "Thank you Jesse. For everything."

With those words she turned away and left the room as well, leaving the New Order alone. They were quiet for a short while, before Petra spoke up.

"Jesse, you're not actually thinking of sparing Soren's life?" She asked.

Jesse didn't blame Petra, after all the pain Soren has put her through.. She didn't trust Soren either, and part of her hated him more than anything. But after what Ellegaard just asked of her, she couldn't imagine killing him.

Jesse looked back towards Petra, sighing. "I can't kill him." She said softly.

Petra opened her mouth to protest, but Jesse didn't give her a chance. She walked up, putting her hand on Petra's shoulder.

"We have to understand that Soren was also a person once. And he had friends, he still has friends, who cares for him. There might still be a little light, underneath all the darkness."

Everybody nodded, not objecting. Lukas broke the silence.

"Remember what Soren told you? About before he and the others formed the Order?"

Jesse frowned, rubbing the back of her neck as she tried to rember everything he said. But before she could speak, Lukas went on.

"He said he got kicked out of the Old Builders' Group. He decided to reform a new group of friends... Architect, griefer, engineer, warrior and alchemist, the perfect match. A Replacement."

"What are you trying to get at here?" Petra asked, lifting an eyebrow.

"Were the rest of the Order really Soren's friends?"

"Or was he just using them..." Jesse finished the statement softly, as she too realised what Lukas was getting at.

"That snake." Petra muttered, running a hand through her red hair.

Nobody else said anything, but they all shared the same sorrowful look. The mere thought of Soren, possibly never caring for his friends, was heartbreaking. Especially considering how much he meant to them, even after what he did to them.

Finally, Lukas decided to end the heavy silence. He took a deep breath, looking at the the rest of them.

"Discussing this isn't going to get us any where." He said firmly, before turning towards Jesse.

"After all, you only have three days to win this battle."

-------------------------

It was already late afternoon, meaning there wasn't much left of the day. The Order spent the rest of the afternoon discussing how they were going to go up against Soren for the second time. Or rather, arguing about how they were going to go up against him.

"If we go to his fortress again, we'll be walking straight into a massive trap." Lukas had pointed out. "If we can somehow lure him to us, he'll be the one walking into a trap."

"And risk putting Jesse's town in danger? This isn't the place to be having a boss battle, Lukas!" Petra had snapped at him.

Jesse had vaguely muttered that she'd rather not think it through, and just walk blindly into battle, to spare herself the stress. When she saw how horrified everybody looked, she quickly played it off as a joke. So the conversation went back to the location of the battle. You'd believe they were looking at possible maps in a video game, like they had all the control in the world.

"Look, I'm not saying Jesse should take him on in town square." Lukas went on. "I'm just saying, instead of going to Soren, we let him come to us."

"Oh, and how to you plan on doing that, huh?" Petra asked, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "Have Jesse send him an e-mail, saying 'Hey there! I want to have another go! Meet me outside of town at 3 PM with your sword equipped' Huh? The fact that Soren lifted his curse proves that he has no intention of going on with this battle! He's cursed Jesse, and he wants to let her die that way."

"Don't look at me to fill in all the gaps here, Petra!" Lukas snapped, sitting down heavily in a chair and pulling his hand through his hair.

There was intense silence. Lukas and Petra kept glaring at each other. Rascal was on Petra's lap, nibbling her fingers and tugging at her jacket for attention.

Axel didn't look like he was planning on contributing to the discussion, so he just casually ate one chocolate bar after the other. Rascal kept giving him hopeful looks.

Olivia and Jesse didn't say much. Jesse was resting her elbows on the table, her chin in her hands. She was honestly feeling too tired to take part in the argument.

"Maybe we shouldn't go to Soren, or let him come to us." Olivia suddenly spoke up. Everybody looked over at her.

"Sounds like a great plan, let's wait out these three days, so Jesse can go trough the pain of transforming, and I can slowly loose my sanity." Petra said sarcastically.

"No, I'm being serious." Olivia said, rolling her eyes at Petra. "Instead of going after Soren, we should go after the command block instead."

"We don't know where it is." Jesse pointed out with a sigh.

"And Soren will have it guarded, remember all those guys back at the temple that managed to over power us?" Petra added, sinking back into her chair. Rascal reached up and started tugging at a string of her hair.

"We should consider this though." Lukas said, jotting something down in his notebook. "It's hands down the safest route."

"It pains me to say this, but I think it's time we start looking past the safe routes." Jesse said with a sigh, leaning her head into her hands. "We only have three days, two and a half to be more exact. I'm not sure if we're going to have time to discover the command block's location."

"Jesse's right." Petra said, as she tried to free her hair from Rascal's teeth. "The only way we can end this, is to destroy Soren, once and for all."

Lukas looked like he was about to say something, when Jesse spoke up. "I didn't mean that either."

"What did you mean then?" Petra asked with a frown.

"We need to go for both." Jesse said matter-of-factly.

"How will that accomplish anything?" Axel asked with a mouthfull of chocolate.

"We need to pretend to be going for Soren, while in reality going for the command block." Jesse explained. "We need to trick him."

"That doesn't change the fact that we still don't know it's location." Olivia pointed out, looking confused.

"No, no, Jesse's on to something here." Petra said, a smile playing on her lips. "We can trick Soren into revealing it's location."

Jesse nodded, grinning over at her friend, before explaining to the others. "We make him think that we know where the command block is. Pretend that we're planning on destroying it. That way, we might trick him into giving away where he's hiding it."

----------------------

Jesse sighed heavily as she thought back to the conversation. At the time, she thought they actually had a plan, but not any more. There were so many unfilled gaps in their plan.

Jesse groaned in frustration as she turned around in bed again. She was awfully tired, but couldn't sleep.

She pulled the pillow over her head, wishing she could just block out all the negative thoughts and worries that were keeping her awake. But alas they were there, and she couldn't avoid them.

"There's no way I'll be getting a good night's sleep this way." Jesse thought to herself, as she sat up and turned on the lamp on her bedside table.

Crossing her legs underneath her on the bed, Jesse started reading through Lukas's notebook that she had brought with her. They had a good plan, but it was patchy.

Jesse sighed, as she scribbled down some extra notes with a pencil here and there, possible methods, safety precautions. But honestly, it didn't feel like she was getting very far.

Jesse stifled a yawn, as she crossed out a few things she had written before she discarded the thought. She rubbed her tired eyes.

"This isn't helping." Jesse muttered, looking at all her vague notes, of which 50% percent was already crossed out.

She leaned back against the wall, raising her gaze off the notebook. Jesse kept absent-mindedly tapping with her pencil against the notebook, as she tried to think of possible bait to lure Soren away from the old temple. But she found her thoughts wondered away from the topic. She started thinking about her friends, and how this whole thing has been affecting them. Especially Petra and Olivia, who's both suffered on her account.

Jesse couldn't help but wonder – will things ever be the way they were before? She remembered that evening she and Petra talked about leaving Beacontown after taking down Soren.

Jesse smiled slightly as she thought of all the plans they made for the future, all the ideas they had that they couldn't wait to put into action. All the fun that awaited them.

Her face fell. At the time she was so sure everything would work out. That they could go on with their lives again. But now she's asking herself, how? They had two days left.

If they failed, neither she nor Petra, would be adventuring again. They would forget who they were. They would become... animals.

Jesse shuddered slightly, wrapping her arms around herself. She wanted to tell herself that it won't happen, they will succeed. But then, she found herself fretting. So much had gone wrong, they have had so little success.

Jesse looked down at the notebook that lay discarded on her lap. She clenched her fists. The plan was a bust. In theory it sounded perfect, but they had no way to execute it after hours of planning.

As much as she didn't want to believe it, her life wasn't going to be ending the way she wanted it to.

So much for her happy ending.

In a sudden burst of emotional anger, Jesse grabbed the notebook and tossed it across the room. It hit the wall with a soft thud, dropping to the ground. Jesse took a deep, shuddering breath as she raked her hands through her hair.

Ironically, she felt like she was acting like Petra at that moment. Her friend was after all the type who would express her fears in the form of rage.

"I hate you." Jesse muttered, scowling. As if Soren was in the room, in front of her, as if he could hear her, she went on.

"All I did, was try and help the people I care about, and you want to kill me for that! You're mad!"

Jesse didn't care that she was practically talking to the walls. She just went on, trying to get the blinding rage out of her system.

"You're taking everything from me! My friends, my life!

You're such a coward, you can't even face me. You can't even kill me yourself, you're relying on power to do the work for you!

You're nothing but a coward, hiding behind that damned command block!"

Jesse brought her fist down on her pillow, cursing in frustration. She felt hot tears well up in her eyes, her breathing heavy from the rant.

"I hate you." She repeated, although this time her voice was low and exhausted.

Jesse's clenched fists was shaking. Her breathing was quick and unsteady. Her face was pulled into a determined scowl. Whether she was sad or scared, all she showed was anger. Pure hate for the man that has ruined her life.

However, all Jesse's thoughts came to an abrupt end, when what felt like a loud explosion shook the ground, and a chorus of terrified screams rung out.

___

Ehh, this chapter was absolute crap at first, so I did an entire rewrite of it XD 

And of course, the queen of cliffhangers struck again! What do you think happened at the end? ;) 

Luckily you'll find out in four days instead of the usual five, because I was being a bread and completely skipped updating yesterday! 

In the future, if I do something stupid like this; Yell at me. 
Message me, comment spam me, blow up my notifications XD Whatever you feel fitting xD 

Anyhow, for now I'll leave you all to your thoughts and theories of the chapter!

See you in four days with another one!