Herobrine's Message (13 page)

Although Commander Crunch was laughing like a lunatic, Charlie was a different story. He glanced up at the Wither in a state of total panic. Kat could see him hyperventilating, clearly terrified as he imagined what the three-headed skeletal demon could do to him.

As Commander Crunch cackled on and Lord Tenebris whispered something in Oob's ear, Kat ducked back behind the pillar. She spun Cassandrix, who had been watching the process with a sickened look on her face, to face her.

“We have to do something,” Kat whispered urgently. “They're gonna use that thing to torture Charlie and Crunch!
We need a plan, right now! Any ideas?”

“Well . . . it's not much of an idea . . . ,” said Cassandrix slowly.

“We can't waste time!” Kat hissed, panic ripe on her face. “If you have even the stupidest idea in the world, tell me now!”

“Okay,” said Cassandrix, taking a deep breath, and shaking her head clear of the sickening feeling that had overtaken her since she had first seen Lord Tenebris. “Here's what we do. I noticed that there's a lever on the wall at the far end of the room.”

Kat glanced down to the other end of the room, opposite where Charlie and Crunch were being forced to their knees by Drake. Indeed, Cassandrix was right. There was a switch on the far wall, and furthermore, the wall wasn't made out of bedrock like the rest of the room. Rather, it was made out of stone, and Kat could see that multiple pistons were positioned on the top and bottom of the wall itself.

“I think that wall,” continued Cassandrix hastily, “might be an opening, like a hangar door, so the Wither will be able to fly out of here. If we can get to that lever and open the door, this place will get filled with sunlight, which will give us a distraction for a second.”

“Okay . . . and what do we do with that distraction?” Kat asked eagerly.

“I don't know!” exclaimed Cassandrix. “I told you it wasn't much of an idea . . . more of a notion, really . . .”

“Aaaarrrgh!”

The growl of pain echoed throughout the bedrock chamber. Kat poked her head around the pillar and saw the two prisoners on their knees. Commander Crunch was gnashing his teeth together with his face screwed up, and wispy black smoke rising off his back. Lord Tenebris whispered something to Drake. Then, with one last look at the Wither, Lord Tenebris disappeared, teleporting back to wherever it was he had come from.

Then, Kat watched in horror as the Wither opened its mouth, and a black skull shot out and exploded onto Charlie's back. A scream of pure agony burst forth from Charlie, and he collapsed to the ground, crying and sputtering as the smoke rose from him.

Kat had to do something now. She couldn't allow this to go on. Even if it was suicide, there was no way that she could just stand by idly and watch this happen. She turned back around to face Cassandrix.

“Get down to that switch,” she commanded her friend. “I'll distract them.” And without waiting for a response, Kat dashed behind the rows of pillars, finally stopping when she was at the pillar closest to the players. Not even ten blocks away, her friends were being physically abused by Drake for
more information. She was so close, and yet so far.

Kat checked to see what she had left. Her inventory had been emptied while she was unconscious, so she no longer had any melee weapon. The two soldiers she and Cassandrix had killed hadn't been carrying much besides food, but there were a few important things.

The first of these was a bow and a stack of arrows, which she kept on hand, ready to fire. There was also a compass, which would prove invaluable should they escape. She had also managed to come across one single Ender Pearl. This item was of the utmost importance; all she had to do was get to Charlie and Crunch without being killed by Drake or the Wither, and she could warp the three of them straight to the door. Kat thanked her lucky stars that Lord Tenebris wasn't there anymore. She had no idea where he had warped off to, but as long as she didn't have to deal with him now, she didn't really care.

Kat glanced down at her bow, and suddenly an idea struck her. She didn't know if it would work, and if it didn't then it would only reveal her and result in far more pain to her friends. But then again, it was the only idea she had, and so she decided to go with it. She drew an arrow in her bow, and peeked around the corner of the pillar. She took a deep breath. These next few shots would not only have to be extremely accurate, but they'd have to be fast, too.

In front of the throne, Drake kicked Commander Crunch to the ground and snarled.

“Fine then,” he growled. “If you don't want to talk, let's see if my little friend can convince you otherwise. Villager, order another attack, but don't use minimal power this time . . . make it hurt more.”

As Oob growled ferociously, a wave of ice chilled Kat's heart as she realized that she would have to leave Oob behind. She wanted nothing more than to cure the little guy, not just for the sake of taking control of the Wither and the other mobs from the Alliance, but also to get her friend back. Kat shook her head of this feeling. With the operation she was about to attempt, it was no time to be getting emotional.

The Wither Skeleton's middle mouth began to glow, and Kat felt an intake of the energy around the room. She let the arrow fly, just as the projectile left the Wither's mouth. The arrow collided with the airborne black skull, and it exploded in a giant burst of light in the center of the Wither's face. The monster screamed as it careened backward from the blast, crashing into the bedrock wall of the room and tumbling to the floor with a thud.

“What is the meaning of this?” Drake bellowed at the stunned monster. “UP! Get UP! Villager, tell this . . . AUGH!”

Drake shouted in pain as an arrow sunk into his right arm. He whipped his head around to see where it had
come from, just in time to see Kat flying toward him. Her fist slammed into his jaw like a cannonball, and he reeled backward, cracking his head against the obsidian throne and slumping unconscious to the ground.

Kat would have loved to take the opportunity to take him out for good, but she had a mission. Crunch, who had tightened his muscles in preparation for the Wither's next strike, whipped around to see Kat sprinting toward the two of them.

“Who are ye?” the Commander asked, eyes wide. “Aren't ye that lass from . . .”

“I'm from Element City, yes. I'm here to get you two out,” Kat spat out distractedly, digging the Ender Pearl from her inventory as the Wither slowly levitated back upright.

“Oh, aye . . . uh, that's wha' I was about t' say . . . ,” Crunch replied awkwardly.

“Kat?” asked Charlie deliriously, his eyes struggling to stay focused on her. “Is that . . . is that really you?”

“Yeah,” Kat said, looking over her shoulder to see that Zombie Oob was almost upon them. She stood up and spun around to face him.

“Sorry, buddy,” Kat grunted as she punched Oob in the chest as hard as she could. The villager reeled backward before tripping and tumbling to the ground next to Drake. Unlike Drake, though, he immediately started to recover.

“Get ready, boys . . . we're warping out of here,” Kat
shouted, and she pitched the Ender Pearl as hard as she could toward the exit before grabbing the two prisoners around the shoulders. Suddenly, Kat heard a raspy groan behind her, and saw that the Wither was airborne yet again, and all three white mouths were glowing and hissing.

“CASSANDRIX, DO IT NOW!” screamed Kat at the top of her lungs, as she desperately looked up at the monster about to blow her to smithereens. An instant later, Kat had to squint her eyes as the pistons whirred and the entire bedrock chamber flooded with daylight. The Wither reeled back, surprised, and three skulls shot from its mouths in random directions, creating massive explosions across the roof of the chamber.

As Kat watched the Wither adjust to the light, she felt the familiar feeling of warping for a split second before tumbling to the ground at the opening. Kat could see Cassandrix standing next to the lever, which had been pulled down. Outside, a short drop down a steep mycelium hillside led to the edge of the ocean.

“What now?” Kat asked, turning to face Cassandrix as she heard an alarm go off somewhere in the distance. “That was as far as I got in my plan!”

“I have two boats that the soldiers dropped in my inventory!” Cassandrix replied, as Commander Crunch pulled himself to his feet and Charlie lay motionless on the ground.

“Okay, sounds good. Everyone, down the hill!” Kat bellowed. As Cassandrix hopped her way down the slope, followed by Crunch, Kat knelt down and shook Charlie, trying to get him to come around. It was no use. He had been totally spent by Drake's torture, and the landing of the teleportation had knocked him out cold. Kat took a deep breath and hoisted Charlie on her back, resigning to carry him down the mountain herself.

As Kat hopped off the smooth bedrock floor of the cave and onto the jagged mycelium cliff side, two black Wither skulls rocketed over her head, her hair blowing in their tailwind. Realizing that the Wither would likely be in hot pursuit of them, Kat shrugged Charlie off her for a moment and knocked the switch of the wall with a well-placed arrow. With no flow of redstone energy, the pistons returned to their off position, closing the hangar door. Even from outside the prison, Kat could still hear the explosions inside. She knew that it wouldn't be long before the Wither blasted its way through the door, so she picked up Charlie once again and hopped her way down the hill.

The trek down the hill was one of the most strenuous things that Kat had ever done. Beyond the fact that she was sprinting as fast as she could down an uneven slope while carrying another unconscious player on her back, Kat's legs still had an ache in them from the teleportation, which only
grew worse and worse with each step down the mountain. By the time she reached the final expanse of mycelium leading to the beach, her legs were killing her, while Cassandrix and Crunch had already managed to make it to the shore.

As they set up the boats, Kat suddenly heard a whooshing sound, and an instant later an arrow stuck into the ground beside her. She strained her neck to look over her shoulder and saw to her dismay that the entire outside of Mount Fungarus was now covered with black-clad Noctem troops, all firing at her. Kat looked forward again, and tried as hard as she could to zigzag back and forth, making herself a harder target.

Then, when she was just ten blocks away from the boats, Kat felt a sharp sting on the back of her right thigh, and she knew she'd been hit. Gritting her teeth, Kat hit the spongy mycelium ground hard, flopping face-down while Charlie tumbled off her back and toward the shoreline. Kat forced herself to get back up to her feet as she became aware that Crunch and Cassandrix were dragging Charlie back to the boats.

Then, as Kat finally got up, she heard a sound behind her, like a car coming closer and closer. She looked over her shoulder, and her heart stopped. The Wither had blasted a small hole through the front of the hangar door. Through that hole, a black Wither skull was flying directly toward her, and
it was now less than ten blocks away from her.

Kat had no time to dodge. She had no time to duck. There was nothing she could do as the skull sped toward her at breakneck speed. Kat took a deep breath and closed her eyes, preparing for the end.

Kat heard the explosion . . . but she didn't feel any pain. She felt the wave of force knock her to the ground. Lying there on the mycelium ground, Kat knew that, somehow, the Wither skull had exploded before it reached her. And oddest of all . . . she wasn't dead.

She opened her eyes. Sure enough, the cloud of smoke from the explosion hung right there in front of her. She couldn't see anything through the black cloud, not the island, not the mountain above her, not the Wither, not even the sky. The only form that Kat could make out was a black figure, with a cloak draped over his head, vanishing into the cloud of smoke.

For some reason that she could not explain, the name Black Hood entered her mind.

Kat didn't take the time to question what had just happened, though. She sprinted the last few steps across the shore and climbed hastily into her boat, alongside the unconscious Charlie. By the time the smoke of the skull's blast had cleared, the four players were already dozens of blocks from the shoreline, arrows from the island were falling far short of
reaching them, and Kat could hear cries of indignation and fury from the prison guards they were leaving in their wake.

It wasn't until the Mushroom Islands had completely vanished from their view that Kat finally allowed herself to breathe. She glanced over at Cassandrix, piloting the boat beside her with Commander Crunch snoring behind her.

“Hey, Cassandrix?” Kat said.

The girl returned her look, and raised her eyebrows in response.

“Good job in there today.”

Cassandrix looked across the water at Charlie's unconscious form, then behind her to the sleeping Commander Crunch, and then back to Kat again.

“Thank you, darling,” Cassandrix replied, before setting her sights back out to the open ocean.

Kat sighed, but then smiled a little to herself. She supposed it was a bit too much to ask for Cassandrix to return her compliment. She
had
managed to get a thank you out of her, with no snide remarks to accompany it.

At the very least, that was something.

It was plain that neither of them were in the mood to talk after all they had been through, and so Kat focused on piloting the boat yet again. However, as she tried to turn her mind off and allow her brain to slip into autopilot, she found that a certain question couldn't stop nagging her in the back of her
brain. Finally, she turned to Cassandrix yet again.

“Hey, I have just one more question,” Kat said slowly.

Cassandrix nodded, still looking straight ahead. Kat spoke on.

“When . . . when that Wither skull almost killed me . . . did you . . . or did anybody . . . block it?”