Settling Down In BeaconTown

The Plan

Jessie spoke finally catching her breath, "You don't know how glad I am to see you guys" with a tired voice, "But I told you not to come."
Ivor laughed, "And if we let you do this on your own you'd be dead by now."
Jesse looked down knowing Ivor was right. She made eye contact with everyone in the little bunker, "Thank you for coming."
"That's more like it," Ivor said smiling.
"But this isn't over, Petra is still in there! And we aren't walking out of here without her."
They all nodded.
"What's the plan, Jessie?" Radar said hesitantly.
Axel stood up, "We're right behind you."
Olivia Joined in, "Always."
"Thanks, Guys," Jesse said smiling, "Alright I got an idea."

...

After several minutes of debriefing the plan Jesse had conducted in her head, everyone was ready. They all started climbing out of the bunker and hid behind netherack getting ready to get to their positions. Lukas put his hand on her shoulder, "Are you sure about this?"
"No, not exactly."
"Well, whatever happens, we're in this together."
For some reason, those words comforted Jesse more than she could have imagined.
"Alright, everyone ready?"
They all nodded.
The plan was simple. Olvia was going to work on a trap in which once a pressure plate was activated a pigman would fall from a trap door. Axel's job was getting said pigman into the right spot for the pigman to fall. This would cause whoever was standing below it to jolt back and in a fight or flight instinct to attack the pigman. Causing every pigman in a 30-foot radius to come charging at the provoker. Jesse was going to make sure Aiden was right underneath when the trap went off. Ivor, Radar, and Lukas were in charge of sneaking around the base and taking care of any Aiden's goons. Once Aiden was distracted and no guards in sight, Jesse was going to free Petra and send a flare when they were safely outside as a signal for everyone to head back to the portal. Pretty simple, right? With no way of communicating, Jesse put her full trust in her friends as she started running towards the base with her hands in the air,
"Aiden? AIDEN! I want to talk!"
With a little hesitation, he finally spoke. "Oh Jesse, You could have already been halfway home by now. But you just couldn't leave your little Petra behind, huh?"
"Aiden I want to talk to you, no restraints, none of your guards, just you and me, one on one."
His eyes became skeptical, "Okay... Drop all your weapons, and then we'll talk."
Jesse didn't want to leave herself completely vulnerable. But if she wanted any chance of getting Aiden to trust her even a little bit, she knew she had to, "Okay, Okay. See look." She dropped her enchanted weapons and proceeded inside.
Jesse walked in and looked around, Aiden didn't just have one or two blaze rod members, she walked into a room with almost 40 other people in it. In her head, she thought, 'crap, crap, crap.. this is definitely gonna complicated some things'
She followed Aiden until they both sat down at a quartz table.
"Now Jesse, what exactly do you wanna talk about." He gave a menacing smile.
"Aiden, this isn't apart of the deal. I said just you and me."
'How is the plan gonna work now. There's no way I can actually lead him anywhere one on one. I need to find the others and tell them to get Petra and just run.'
"Okay. Fine." Aiden said, "Everyone! GET OUT!"
As the big group of people started to move into different rooms of the base, Jessie recognized familiar hair, from a familiar face that had goggles over his eyes. She knew in an instant Lukas had managed to disguise himself. As people shuffled through, She managed to whisper in his ear.
"Tell the others to get Petra and run. I'll distract Aiden. There's no time."
Lukas didn't want to hear that, but he also didn't want to draw anymore suspicion so he continued out of the room as nothing had happened.

"Who was that?" Aiden said provoking Jesse to panic.

"No one, they just looked like someone I used to know. But they weren't. My mistake."

Aiden's face didn't appear to buy into it. But regardless he continued his monologue,
Jesse didn't care how long she'd have to sit there as long as she knew every sentence Aiden spoke was another minute she was buying for her friends to escape.
"You don't get it, Jesse. These people here. Respect me. They worship me. And I've promised to give them what is owed."
"And what's that exactly?"
"I have to be a strong leader and the best way to prove to them that is to take out the champion of this world."
"So what? You're gonna kill me? Then what. What could you possibly hope to gain?"
"No Jesse. I'm not going to kill you. I'm going to use you."
"Wait wh-" Aiden stood up and began circling Jesse like a shark.

"You would never let anything happen to your friend. Hell, you being here right now proves that theory." He gave a little laugh, "you're going to relinquish all your power to me. And make it clear to your citizens."

Jesse didn't even know what to say to that his words were so, so, wrong,
"Aiden, It's not like that. I don't rule over people. I just try to do the next right thing to help people. I never asked to be in charge, I'm not some tyrant."

"You see, that may be true. But people will listen to you. I mean how many different worlds have you freed, how many people have you helped? They will join our group, and you'll be leading them under my control." He put his hands on the shoulder, "And if you don't we'll kill your friends."

"Aiden you're being crazy, what did I ever even do to you for you to be like this-"

"THIS ISN'T ABOUT YOU ANYMORE JESSE! It's SO MUCH BIGGER THAN YOU. BIGGER THAN ME!"

"I don't understand."

"You don't need to, come on, let's go." He grabbed her wrist and started pulling her towards a hallway door.

"Aiden no c'mon lets talk about this more," she jolted her wrist back freeing herself, "maybe we can reach an agreement of some sort."

"We can do this the easy way or the hard way Jeese, but either way we're getting you in a cage."

Quick Jesse, think. Your friends might need more time, more time.

"What if I joined you willingly?"

Aiden paused his struggle, "Oh?" he smiled, "And why would I ever believe that?"

" I've saved the world how many times? Maybe I finally want what's owed to me."
I hate the way that this sounds. But I can tell Aiden is loving it.
He stepped closer, looking at Jesse up and down. "Wow, Jesse. I knew there was always a little dictator in you." He stepped even closer, "maybe we could have really been something great working together but there's one problem," A few more steps and his face practically an inch away from hers, "I don't buy it."
He quickly slammed her face into the ground, "YOU REALLY THINK IM THAT STUPID DONT YOU!" She tried struggling but the slam was so hard her poor ears were ringing and she felt like she was going to throw up from how hard it was. "Aiden-" She couldn't move or fight back.

This wasn't the plan. Not at all. How could I have thought it would have been so easy.

Aiden slammed her head into the ground again and started violently punching her. "YOUVE TAKEN EVERYTHING FROM ME. NOW IM GOING TO TAKE EVERYTHING FROM YOU!" He Laughed as he screamed out his words, "YOUR HOME! YOUR FRIENDS, EVERYTHING THAT MAKES YOU YOU!"

Jesse could feel herself losing consciousness, but managed to push him off of her. "You don't know me Aiden. You don't know anything about me. But I'm about to show you why I am who I am." She managed to swing at his face so hard he stumbled backward. Jesse could feel how hard the hit was because her hand was already bruising. "Because even when things look like it's over and all hope is lost." They collided and struggled to choke each other out, she managed to pull back long enough to land a sharp blow into the side of his knee, and heard a painful crack.
"I never give up."
"STOP! Jesse please!" He began pleading for his life, "You don't understand what it's like feeling like no one loves you. You have your friends. I never had real friends, the only one who ever treated me nice was Lukas and I messed up with him."
Jesse stopped in her march towards him, her face was turning blue and black from the choking and slamming, and punches. She felts blood run down her nose onto her lips and wiped it off. "Okay. Aiden, I want to help but you need to let me-"
Before Jesse could even finish Aiden impaled her with her own sword from before. Her vision went blurry and everything began to go in slow motion. Was this really how it ends?

Not even a second later someone came into the room bursting, "JESSE?!" She couldn't make out the face exactly as she was on the ground now, covered in her own blood. Even the voice was altered when she heard it.

She could hear the sounds of clanging weapons and punching as her visions went dark and body felt cold.