The Life and Times of Radki

Separated by Mind, Connected by Heart

Ignore the cheesy title and read the chapter! (I promise, it's better than it looks). Also, this was written as a prototype script for my MC:SM Rewritten S2 books, but was scrapped due to future episode arrivals. But then again, the moments I came up with were too cute to lose. So, I decided to share them here instead!

"We're wasting time!" Jack declared as he hopped into the minecart, ready to go after Stella. They needed to shut off the Admin's clock to end the eternal night, and the arena they had been put into certainly wasn't making it easier. The Admin, now in the form of a talking snowman, had challenged Jesse and his friends to beat a series of trials to reach the said clock, but along the way, the group had met Stella, who had and still was continuing to complicate things, claiming that her llama would sniff out the clock faster than they could even figure out how it worked. Jesse was just about to follow when Radar stopped him.

"Wait! The Admin built this whole place to eliminate people, right? Trick them?" Radar reminded him. "Sure, it LOOKS like Lluna found something, but that's--"

"--Just what the Admin wants us to think!" Nikki finished, stepping up next to Radar. Seeing the two close together, for some reason, bugged Jesse in the slightest. Ever since he first met her in Beacon Town, Radar had been acting skittish and nervous around his little sister. Not to mention, Nikki had seemed to be hitting it off with his assistant as a friend. Both were acting EXACTLY the way he acted around Petra. Could they be feeling what Jesse thought they were?

"You SAW the llama!" Vos disagreed, hopping into the minecart behind Jack.

"Jesse? Nikki? You guys coming?" Petra asked, sticking out an inviting hand to her old friends.
"We could really use a hand over here," Lukas said, getting into the minecart behind Radar, on the opposite track. Two roads, two choices. But which one to pick? The siblings looked at their friends, then each other. 

"You thinking what I'm thinking?" he asked Nikki.

"Oh, yeah," she agreed, smiling. With that, Jesse crossed over to the left tracks and prepared to jump into the minecart behind Petra. He turned around, expecting to see his sister to find him, only to find she had raced away on the other side, about to get behind Lukas.

"Hoh, boy," he thought. "Now we'll catch it." For the first time in a very long time, Jesse and Nikki had different opinions on an important decision. Jesse believed that the Admin was using reverse psychology on the direction to the clock, but Nikki thought he was going classic. And from the looks of it, neither was comfortable with what the other chose, for once.

"Nikki, what are you doing over there? C'mon, we have to get that clock!" he said.

"I know! That's exactly what I'm doing!" Nikki replied. "Don't you see? This is a setup! It's the oldest trick in the book!"

"And what makes you think the Admin's going old style?" Jesse challenged, stepping away from the minecart to talk with his sister.

"Um, he's an oldie himself! It's all he knows!" Nikki shot back, doing the same. "C'mon, bro, what's gotten into you? You respected my choices before! Even if they were different from yours!"

"Look, even if you were right, how are you going to stay safe? The group you picked isn't exactly packing muscle here!" he told her, flashing a glance at Radar.

"For real?! I can't believe you just said that! I am PLENTY safe around who I'm going with, and besides, I can take care of myself!"