Empires SMP Oneshot Book

Take a Chance

TW: Death

"Come one, come all! Who has what it takes to battle me, Joel." Joel stands on top of a pedastool at the center of his battling arena. In the seats, all thirteen emperors waiting in silence for someone to step up. No one wants to of course, they all know what will happen if they challenge him. First comes the lose and then the gloating. Oh, the gloating. If you lose to Joel you will never live it down. And no one knows that better than Jimmy.

A few coughs sound from the stadium and even some hushed whispers, but no one steps up. Joel clearly looks pissed, after all he invited us all to Stratos just so we could duel with him. "Excuse me, do you all mean to tell me that none of you want to duel." he then makes a big show to flex off his muscles.

"I'll do it."

Suddenly everyone looks over to me, standing pitifully in the back of the stands. Witch hat and all. Lizzie lets out a gasp and I swear I hear Joey mutter 'Hear we go again.' Understandable coming from him since the last time I ever dueled everyone was against him.

"I mean I was hoping for a more worthy champion, but I'll take what I can get," Yeah Joel, I'll show you unworthy. Oh that's a good line maybe I'll say that before I actually duel him. Speaking of I suppose I have to go do that now.

The closer and closer I get to the stairs the more my thoughts encase me. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. I never should have done this and I'm seriously going to regret it too. 

I start making my way down the stairs when I'm interrupted by Katherine. She places a hand on my shoulder and stops me in my tracks. "Hey uh... you don't have to do this if you don't want to to. I don't know you just seem a little nervous." How did she know that! She's just really observant. That's it. She is just a really observant kind of person.

"I'm fine, Katherine," I brush her hand off my shoulder and continue making my walk down the stairs. Before I turn into the fighting arena I look back over my shoulder and she's still standing there. I hear her whisper a small good luck and I whisper back I'm going to need it. But there's no way she even heard me since I'm already walking out of the staircase.

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She doesn't think I heard her. I know she heard me, but she doesn't think I heard her. Sometimes she is just so completely oblivious. Like to the fact that I care about her, and that I'm worried about her. I love her. And I don't want to lose her before I can tell that to her.

When I finally get back to my seat next to Sausage I'm very visibly shaking. He seems to notice and lets out a small sigh.

"I know you care about her, but you don't need to worry. Shelby's stronger than you think. Even though one time she accidentally had to bring us all into a parallel universe because she destroyed this universe or something like that."

"Excuse me, she did what!" I must have said that a little too loudly because everyone else in the arena looks over to us.

"Shh... I don't think anyone else knows," Sausage chuckles to himself before turning make to me, "Now look I think it's starting." 

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I wish I remembered that line that I told myself I would say to Joel before we dueled. But as the nervousness seems to consume I can barely string together any thoughts let alone sentences. Katherine was right I shouldn't have done this. I most defineitly should not have done this. Looking towards Joel I see the large smirk on his face begin to grow bigger and bigger by the second. 

"C'mon Shelby, you can do this. You can do this. You can do this." I lightly slap myself on the face a few times and Joel seems to notice. But he quickly brushes it off, probably thinking that this is just normal behavior for the crazy witch that lives in the woods.