A/N: It's been way too long, but here's the new chapter, bros. Max's birthday is the 26th May because in the books she got the name Ride from Sally Ride, and that was the day Sally Ride was born. Enjoy!*

The Eleventh Encounter

Chapter Three – DJ Wanted

Now, I'm used to tight and dangerous situations, not just in the gaming world. Especially being a female teenager, I'm under some threat just walking on my own at eight pm. But, trapped pretty much out of my own house with a horrendous bloodthirsty mutant at my heels is not a good idea. However, being as prepared as I am, I'm ready to sab the poop out of this thing until I see it writhing on the floor with… laughter?

"You… tried to… HEHEHEHE… kill me!" Retch giggles in an irritatingly familiar voice, hugging his knees to his chest. Then he whips his 'face' off and Iggy is now lying, wheezing, on my cloakroom floor. "With… heheehe… a stake!"

"That's what you're supposed to use, if I remember correctly, to murder a vampire, a Retch… and an IGGY!" I hiss, raising the stake menacingly above my head again. Iggy's look of hysterics rapidly morphs into a look of pure terror, and he scrambles clumsily off the cold wood. As he races through to the kitchen, I'm hot on his tail. He flails his arms out behind him and begins to screech like a little girl as he hurtles towards the open back door. Oh, no you don't, Iggy.

Oh, no you don't.

I shove the stake back into the bag and fling it through the lounge door as I pass, not waiting for the tell-tale thump that means it's landed on the couch, and gradually speed up towards Iggy, who's already out on the patio. I throw myself at him, straddling his hips from behind, and wrap my arms around his neck. "Where should I scatter the ashes?" I yell over the commotion: Iggy's yelps for mercy and some thumping around in the house.

"In your game room please! I pretty much live there anyways!" Iggy shouts back, whilst trying to throw me off like a Buckaroo. He gives one last fruitless tug on my arms, then spies the picnic bench, and I catch on quickly to his plan.

"Don't sit on me, please! Please! You're a fat lump! Have mercy!" I cry, but Iggy just chuckles menacingly.

"I'll put your ashes in Dylan's underwear drawer, shall I?" he begins to giggle again, positioning himself in front of the bench, ready to plonk down.

"You know? I would like that." I reply with a sense of finality, scrunching up my eyes and nose and bracing for impact.

"Oh, you would? I think I would too." A wonderfully familiar voice murmurs from somewhere on the patio. I immediately l jump backwards off of Iggy, pushing him over onto the grass in the process, and bound over to where Dylan stands in front of the sliding glass door. I encase him in a warm, tight hug. "Whoa, down girl." He grins down at me (which is only a few inches), and I grin back.

"What happened to the trip?" I question, stepping back and allowing him to breathe.

"Cancelled. Apparently, the baby came early." He says, referring to his aunt's pregnancy, which had been reason for his journey. "I'm still going to see her, but they need some time to get her settled into her new home before a bunch of strangers barge in and start cooing at her little baby face."

I glance behind him to see my brother, Ari, filming this whole charade with his video camera. "How long have you been here?" I ask suspiciously, arching an eyebrow. Ari snorts, stifling laughter.

"Er, long enough. Let's just say, the viewers are going to get some kicks out of this one." His face breaks into a feral yet warm-hearted grin. I roll my eyes, weaving around the boys and back into the kitchen. You see, I pretty much spend all my time with boys: the only permanent females in my life are my mom, my mom-in-not-quite-law, and my 'agent' Brigid, who sorts out all of my shows. The problem is, they're all late-twenties and above, which does not count them in the giggly sleepover category.

I plonk myself down on the couch, twisting so that my legs hang over the arm, and let my torso fall so that my head rests on the couch – or at least, what I thought was going to be the couch, but is now someone's lap. Glancing up, Dylan is smiling fondly down at me. Then I look over at the boys: Ari is following Iggy's movements with his camera, and Iggy is admiring the new games which I clearly told him to raid my bag for. I also specifically told him to scatter everything else across the carpet, and since Iggy is so good at following instructions, that's exactly what he did.

"So, Maximoo. Fancy getting your butt whipped at Halo?" he asks off-handedly, still scanning the back of one of the cases. I narrow my eyes. I smell a challenge.

"If you're asking to play me at a gunner game, I'm not the one who fancies their butt whipped." I snarl, letting some canine attitude seep into my tone.

"Oh, oho, ho." Iggy looks up, eyebrows raised, clearly put out. "You did not just say you're going to beat me, did you?"

"No, I didn't. But I implied it." I smile sickly sweet, causing Iggy to launch himself at the Xbox above the TV screen, and snap the whole thing on in a rush. He has a look of furious concentration (also known as severe constipation) on his face when he turns on three controllers and throws them out, and as he sits down next to Dylan, he looks at me with a serrated you're-so-going-down glint in his eye. I swing round so I can look at the screen and Ari can sit and film next to me. It's treading on thin ice to step into Iggy's territory, but there are perks. For example, it's hilarious.

I only just glimpse Iggy selecting the Xbox Live symbol and before I can blink, I find my player on a hill. Jogging down to the bottom, I find a Revenant has spawned in so I quickly grab the driver's spot and speed off at ground level. My plan is to team up with someone who has a couple of guns and explosives, so we can just drive around the map flinging annihilation at poor unsuspecting players. Phase 2 is complete when I find Dylan aiming a sniper rifle at someone up the other side of the valley, and he quickly jumps in. Now for Phase 3: let's go bust some heads.

"Unfair! No tag teams!" Iggy wails.

I sit against an arm of the sofa, legs stretched out, scrolling down our website stats page, searching for the number of requested videos. Ari sits across from me; his feet touching mine, uploading the Halo video to my gaming channel. We have an elongated sofa for purposes like this, and Ari and I happen to be about the same height, so we both take up half. Iggy is sitting cross-legged on the floor next to the sofa, watching the screen intently. "Ooh! Look how many people want you to get Minecraft!" he says eagerly, like a kid in a candy store (a kid whose mom just handed him fifty bucks and told him to go nuts).

"Ehwat?" I ask, pulling a face. Iggy pokes the screen vigorously, attempting (and failing) to point at a few of the comments.

"The guys and I have been doing a series lately, and we've gotten a lot of views on it. They just want you to join in; see how good you are at a game where you don't have to prance around shooting everything that exists." He elbows me in the ribs accusingly. There's a pause, then…

"Ehwat?"

"Ugh. Right, let's have this computer," he mutters, prising the laptop from my legs where it so constantly sits, and squeezing onto a sliver of sofa next to me. I sit up and watch, mildly interested. He goes onto an unfamiliar website and clicks 'download'. "Happy birthday." He puts in his own details to pay for the full version of the account. My brows knit.

"It's November. My birthday is May 26th." I tell him pointedly.

"Okay, merry Christmas instead then."

"That's in a whole month."

"Oh my God! Happy November, Max! HAPPY NOVEMBER!" Iggy rages. In the corner of my eye, I see that Ari's filming again. I chuckle, turning my attention back to the screen. He plonks the laptop back on my lap, having finished the procedure.

"So, what exactly is the aim of it?" I ask and Iggy turns to me like I'm a madwoman.

"Mine… build… explore… adventure… create!" he answers in a misty, far-off voice, which breaks into a flat monotone on his next sentence. "I'll leave most of it for you to discover. Wouldn't want to give you a head start." He walks out, probably heading to the 'stress chamber', also known as the game room. I turn to Ari, and we shrug at the same time. Sibling intuition, see.

I go back to the website, clicking on the toxic green 'Forums' heading under the title. I scroll through some recently posted chats to see if there's anything interesting to look at. Number sixteen is a thread headed 'HIDECCO PARK NIGHT RAVE', which catches my imagination, because I live just off a small town called Hidecco. I click on it and see a string of details about a party, and a signup link right at the bottom saying DJ WANTED. Ooh.

Skimming through the comments, it seems like nobody's signed up yet, and the comments are still rolling in, so it's an active conversation. My laptop has automatically signed me in as MROfficial (the guys made their own accounts in the same format: IGOfficial, AROfficial and DBOfficial), so I click on the add comment box, type in a message and hit send. It gets immediate varied reactions, which I decide to reply to, for the LOLZ.

MROfficial; 18:23 Hmm. Interesting.

ZOMG Nuggets; 18:24 ZOMG! Nuggets!

Piratechnics; 18:24 Calm your nuggets, woman. It's probably some hobo pretending to be Max.

Step Station; 18:24 MAX! MAX! MARRY ME!

MROfficial; 18:25 I live in a house! :(

Piratechnics; 18:25 answer a question only Max would know. Then we'll see.

ILUVMR28_; 18:25 OHMERGERD! Am I hallucinating? D=

MROfficial; 18:25 If only I would know, then how are you supposed to know if I'm right?

Maelstrom; 18:26 OH MY GOD. This is going on Facebook RIGHT NOW!

Piratechnics; 18:26 that's exactly what Max would say!

ZOMG Nuggets; 18:26 I told you! Who did I tell? Oh yeah that's right! You! Me! That's who told you!

The conversation with Piratechnics goes on for quite a while, in which time the comments from ZOMG Nuggets and other passing users get more and more wacky, and a few of his friends join in. I get out of them they all live somewhere around Hidecco and that they will all make sure they're at the party if I'm going. I make them swear on this invisible cactus right here that they will not spill, and promise that I will definitely be at the Hidecco Park Night Rave.

*or die