Herobrine's Message (49 page)

Before long, Jayden decided to call it quits and sprint away from the player. As fast as he tried to run, though, the potion weighed down on him, making him feel as if his legs were just blocks of lead. He knew it was futile as he heard the player approaching him from behind, but he kept running until the player body checked him, sending him careening forward. He landed at the base of the Avery Memorial Courthouse, slamming his head on the bottom step and sprawling out on the ground, knocked out cold.

The player with the 4 on her body smiled and drew a Potion of Harming out of her inventory. She walked over to Jayden and held the Potion of Harming over Jayden's face. She was about to let it go when—

“Hey!”

The player looked up, and there, at the top of the steps of the courthouse, stood another player. He was wearing a light tan leather tunic and pants. His clothes were covered in burn
marks, but he still sat tall and strong atop the pig he was riding. The player was aiming a bow at the girl.

“Get away from him,” Charlie growled as he let the arrow fly.

His aim was dead on, and the potion bottle shattered in her hand. The cloud of red toxins enveloped her arm and she gave a screech of agony before looking up at Charlie contemptuously, drawing two more Potions of Harming as she set her sights on him.

Charlie stood still, and gave a smile. He knew that he wasn't good enough with a bow to repeat that shot, so instead, he raised his hand and gestured forward.

The player with the 4 looked slightly confused, but then her eyes widened in horror as a massive wave of players began to pour out of the courthouse directly toward her. She turned and sprinted as fast as she could onto the battlefield, desperate to avoid the massive wall of thousands of players who were dashing down the stairs. All of them were unarmored but were holding up various weapons of different materials, chanting, “Down with the Alliance!” and “Long live President Stan!” as they charged into the plaza to fight the Noctem forces.

After a few minutes, all the thousands of players had left the courthouse and were joining the battlefield. Looking out at the plaza, Charlie gave a satisfied grin as the players he
had just led from the courthouse joined the fight. He glanced down the stairs and noticed that Jayden was still lying there, and he was starting to stir.

Charlie ordered Dr. Pigglesworth down the stairs and pulled up next to Jayden. He extracted a bucket of milk from his inventory and poured it into Jayden's mouth. Instantly, the effects of the potion vanished, and Jayden sat up straight, rubbing his head where he had fallen on the stairs. He looked around in a daze, and when his eyes landed on Charlie, they widened.

“Charlie?” he asked in awe.

“Yeah, it's me,” he replied with a smile.

“But . . . how did you get here?” Jayden asked as Charlie helped him to his feet. “And . . .
where
did you get that many players to help us?”

“Well, it's kind of a long story,” Charlie said as Jayden extracted a Potion of Healing from his inventory.

“Give me the short version,” Jayden requested as he started to drink the potion.

“Well, basically, ELM captured me and warped me up to the tower, and I got the attention of one of the Withers to help me escape,” Charlie said. “It did manage to kill them, but it also blasted me off the tower.”

“Yikes!” Jayden exclaimed. “How'd you get out of that one?”

“The same way that Stan did,” Charlie replied. “I had a Potion of Fire Resistance on hand. Well, it wasn't totally the same,” he said as he scratched his pig between the ears. “I gave mine to Dr. Pigglesworth as we were falling, and he kind of acted like a fireproof life raft and swam me out of the lava moat after we landed. I got a little burned,” he said, gesturing to the scorch marks all over his clothes, “but I shook it off.”

“Okay,” Jayden said with a nod, “but that still doesn't explain where you got thousands of players to come and fight for us!”

“Well, being in all that lava got me thinking,” Charlie replied, “and I realized that with all the fighting going on in Element City, there was probably nobody guarding Brimstone besides the Wither Skeletons. I had been away from the battlefield for so long that it probably wouldn't have made a huge difference if I went back or not, and I realized what we could probably use most were reinforcements. So after we got out of the lava, I snuck back into the castle and went to the Nether.”

“And you freed everyone who was locked up in Brimstone?” Jayden asked, amazed.

“Yep. Actually, to be honest, I have this little guy here to thank,” said Charlie, smiling as he pet his pig on the head again. “I was able to use the bridge to get from the castle's Nether Portal to the prison, but I still had the Wither Skeletons
to deal with, and I didn't have a weapon. Dr. Pigglesworth was able to dodge all the Skeletons' attacks, and I was able to free all the soldiers and citizens who the Noctem Alliance locked up in there . . . which, I had forgotten, was the entire population of the city.”

“And they all joined the battle?”

“Yep,” Charlie said. “I told everybody that our final battle against the Noctem Alliance was going on, and everybody said that they wanted to help out. They looted the storehouse at the prison, scraped together any weapons they could, and followed me to the portal in the courthouse. So that means that, as of right now, the entire population of Element City, citizens and soldiers alike, is out there fighting the Noctems.”

The two players turned to look out on the battlefield again. Indeed, now that the citizens from Brimstone were out on the battlefield, the Noctem forces were outnumbered ten to one. Jayden and Charlie both knew that, despite the massive advantage in quantity, the Noctem soldiers were still skilled fighters, and the two Withers were still raining their skulls of death down into the battlefield. They still had a long way to go before the battle was won.

B
ob!”

Ben looked up from the map he'd pulled off a dead Noctem soldier and saw his brother riding Ivanhoe toward the abandoned store that he was concealed within. As Bob rode through the doorless frame, Ben was relieved. The map had showed him some very odd things that he needed to ask about.

“Hey, bro,” Ben replied as Bob reached him. “What's going on out there? Because either this map is malfunctioning or about a thousand new players just entered the battlefield.”

“That's no malfunction,” Bob replied, and Ben was shocked to see that his face was lit up with joy. “Charlie just came back, and he brought everybody who was locked away in Brimstone with him.”

“Really?” Ben said. “That's fantastic! And all of them are fighting?”

“Yes, but that's not entirely a good thing,” Bob replied solemnly. “On the one hand, we now outnumber the Noctems by a ton. But on the other hand, we still have to worry about
that
.”

Bob pointed out the window, and Ben followed his finger until his gaze locked on one of the Withers. The giant skeletal mob, which had been harmlessly floating in the sky, was now firing indiscriminately into
the crowd. A rapid-fire barrage of black skulls flew from the three mouths of the monster, creating a blitz of explosions that was spreading through the crowd.

“Now that there are so many republic fighters in the crowd, the Wither isn't afraid to hold back anymore,” Bob explained, an urgent note in his voice. “It realizes that, regardless of who it fires at, it will probably hit more of our soldiers than theirs. We've got to take that thing down, and fast.”

Ben was blown away by the notion that any mob in the game would have the reasoning skills to think like that. Then again, Lord Tenebris's psychic grip on this particular Wither had probably bent its mind in odd and unexplainable ways. Anyway, it didn't matter. Ben knew that his brother was right, and their top priority had to be taking down the Withers.

“All right,” Ben replied. “Let's go.”

Ben yanked a Potion of Swiftness out of his inventory, guzzled it down, and immediately felt a surge of energy course through his veins. He took a deep breath and ran out of the building and onto the battlefield, Bob right behind him. Ivanhoe was fast enough to keep up with the potion-enhanced Ben, so it was side by side that the two brothers raced across the outskirts of the plaza and toward the Wither.

As they ran, Ben looked at the fighting players and saw, to his delight, that the Noctem forces were starting to be overwhelmed. He saw various throngs of black-clad players
all fighting back to back as they were swarmed by the sheer number of republic players who were now on the battlefield. His stomach lurched with disgust when he saw a republic fighter fall to the ground, items flying about him in a falling halo, and it only encouraged him to sprint faster.

After dashing as fast as they could, the two police chiefs were finally close enough to the Wither that they could hear the screams of its victims as it continued to fire its life-draining projectiles into the crowd. Ben looked at his brother, who pointed to a brick-block building at the corner of the plaza, the bottom floor of which had been partially torn apart by TNT blasts. Ben nodded, and the two of them sprinted into the building. He hardly noticed the dilapidated remains of a store on the ground floor. His eyes immediately locked onto a staircase. He didn't break his pace as he raced up the stairs, his brother on piggyback right behind him.

They burst onto the roof and looked out over the Avery Memorial Courthouse plaza, where thousands of players were now fighting. Not too far away from them, the Wither was hovering high over the battlefield, still bombarding the field with skulls. Although the explosions were tearing rifts in the groups of Noctem and republic players alike, nobody made any attempts to stop the monster; they were all too busy fighting one another.

“How are we gonna take that thing down?” Bob asked,
desperation in his voice. He looked at his brother, who appeared to be in deep thought. “Do you have any ideas, bro?”

“Well . . . I do have one. . . .”

“Spit it out!” Bob cried.

“Well . . . ,” Ben said, pausing for a moment, as if unsure that he wanted to suggest it, then finally replying, “We could try Operation Hook, Line, and Sinker.”

Bob stared at his brother for a moment, mulling over this insane idea.

“But . . . that operation was designed to take down Ghasts! That thing probably has twenty times the firepower of a Ghast!” Bob said, sounding overwhelmed. “And also, in order for that to work, we'd need Bill.”

“Well, I'm sorry, do you have a better idea?” Ben demanded as a particularly large blast sounded in the middle of the battlefield, accompanied by another morbid chorus of screams. “At the very least, we'll be able to distract it for a little while, and hopefully we can hold it at bay until Stan's ready to come down here and finish it off!”

“Might we be able t' help ye?” a voice came from behind them, cutting off Bob's reply. The two brothers looked behind them and saw Sirus and Commander Crunch walking across the top of the roof, bows and arrows in their hands and enthusiastic smiles on their faces.

“Yeah, you can!” Ben shouted with glee, happy with any backup they could possibly get.

“How did you guys know we were up here?” Bob asked.

“Oh, we were just over on the roof of that building over there”—Sirus pointed over to the building next door—“and it was pretty funny 'cause, at first, we ran in there to avoid the Wither, but then we saw it was an anvil store, so we've been dropping anvils off the roof onto the heads of the bad guys ever since then!”

“Uh . . . guys?” Ben said slowly. He looked back and forth between the two players as if they were insane. “You . . . both have bows and arrows in your hand. Why didn't you just use those?”

“Oh, I be sorry, Mister Reason 'n' Practicality,” Commander Crunch spat sarcastically. “Pardon me if, in th' midst o' all o' this ghastly warfare, we felt th' need t' inject a wee bit o' classic cartoon-style comedy into the mix.”

Ben and Bob stared at him for a moment, now absolutely positive he was insane, before realizing that it didn't matter. Sirus and Crunch were here, and they were both competent with a bow and arrow—that was all that really mattered.

“Okay, here's the plan,” Ben explained, as Sirus and Commander Crunch listened intently. “You three shoot at it from behind me. I'll have my sword out, and I'll block all its attacks.”

The three other players nodded and, wasting no time, they stood side by side behind Ben, notching arrows in their bows and training them on the Wither. Ben dropped into a fighting stance, his sword raised and ready to deflect.

“Ready . . . aim . . . FIRE!”

On Ben's command, three arrows flew over his head, over the crowd of warring players, and directly into the backs of each of the Wither's three heads. The giant boss mob shrieked in agony before spinning around and setting its sights on the rooftop where the four players stood. Bob, Commander Crunch, and Sirus didn't stop, continuing to send arrows flying into the Wither's body as the monster let loose its first flurry of attacks.

Ben leaped into action, swinging his sword through the air and cutting all the Wither Skulls in two, creating small gray explosions that just barely grazed his skin. The Wither and the players continued to fire at each other. As more and more arrows sunk into the scattered pieces of black flesh hanging from the beast's skeletal rib cage, Ben spun his sword around, deflecting countless explosions, the Knockback Enchantment on the sword keeping the blasts far enough away that he hardly took any damage from them.

Before long, the Wither started to tire. It was clearly taking heavy damage from the barrage of arrows, and its rate of fire was beginning to drop.

“Come on guys, keep going!” Ben shouted as he knocked two more skulls out of midair in a double explosion. “It's almost dead!”

As the three players continued to send arrows into the giant mob, the Wither stopped firing for a moment. Ben was confused and a little disturbed. Why would the Wither cease its barrage? He watched the boss mob open its mouth and, as if in slow motion, it fired a single projectile out of its center mouth.

As Ben raised his sword to deflect the blast, he realized that it wasn't in slow motion. A single skull had shot out of the Wither's mouth and was moving toward him at a crawl. Unlike the other projectiles, which were black and charred like the heads of the monster, this one was a cerulean shade of blue. Ben hardly had time to question what this was before the slow-moving blue skull was upon him. He raised his sword to block the attack, cutting through the air in front of the skull and sending a Knockback shockwave slicing into the skull.

As soon as the wave of energy made contact with a skull, it ruptured into a massive black explosion, which knocked Ben off his feet and sent him flying backward. Bob, Commander Crunch, and Sirus had no time to react as Ben slammed into them, sending them all falling to the ground in a crumpled heap.

Ben felt as though he was covered in some sort of corrosive sludge as he lay there on top of his friends. He had taken the full brunt of the blast from the blue skull, and he felt his energy draining as he tried to force himself to get up. It was futile, though. He felt as though he suddenly weighed several tons, and was unable to move. He watched in dismay as black smoke began to rise out of his body and drift toward the Wither floating above them. Upon reaching the Wither's body, the dozens of arrows sticking out of its rib cage began to pop out, falling to the rooftop with a clatter.

Ben was stupefied, and found himself unable to move as his brother, his friends, and Ivanhoe struggled to push him off them. The Wither was floating closer and closer to them. It was all he could do to watch, his heart stopped in place, as the monster's three mouths opened and began to glow. Ben heard three collective gasps from behind him as he closed his eyes, his face screwed in anticipation of what was to come. . . .

“Hey!”

The shout came from Ben's left, and he opened his eyes just in time to see a diamond pickaxe flying through the air and lodging itself into the right head of the Wither. As the head let out a ghastly wail and rolled limply to the side, the tool still sticking out of its skull, the Wither turned to face the noise, letting out a wail of outrage. Ben turned as well, as
did his three fellow fighters, and he had to do a double take to ensure that he was seeing correctly.

There, on top of the house immediately to their left, standing next to a loaded TNT cannon made out of cobblestone, was the Mechanist. Another diamond pickaxe was clutched in his right hand, and his left hand held a lever on the side of the cannon. He was staring at the Wither with daggers in his eyes and a glower on his face.

“Try this on for size,” he said as he yanked down on the lever.

There was a hissing sound from within the mechanism next to him, and a second later, a muted explosion rang out as a lit block of TNT came soaring through the air on a collision course with the Wither. The ignited explosive struck the Wither in a massive burst of light and sound, and the skeletal demon proceeded to let out a ghastly wail of agony as it slowly sank down to the ground.

Ben watched, awestruck, as the Mechanist sprinted as fast as he could toward the edge of the building. He leaped over the gap between the two buildings, touching down as the Wither reached the ground, still dazed from the blast as an odd white force field seemed to envelop it. What the energy field surrounding the Wither did, Ben never found out, as the Mechanist jumped into the air, delivering a flying kick that knocked the monster to the ground. Without
missing a beat, the Mechanist raised his pickaxe and drove it as hard as he could into the skeletal chest of the monster.

All at once, a horrible, high-pitched screech rang out from within the Wither, causing all in the vicinity to cover their ears. The Wither's eyes and mouths flew open in agony, glowing with a radiant white light as the skulls began to crumble, turning into a fine black dust that was immediately blown away by the soft wind. The Wither began to shake, and the ear-piercing screech continued as all the bones and flesh that composed the monster began to vanish, turning into dust on the wind.

Then, without warning, a white light flashed from within the Wither. The daze was so bright, and so unexpected, that Ben, the Mechanist, and all the others on the rooftop were momentarily blinded. It only lasted for a few seconds, though, and by the time their vision returned, all that remained of the Wither was a stain of black dust on the roof of the building.

The Mechanist took no time to reflect over his kill. Instead, his eyes were immediately drawn to the limp body of Ben, still lying sprawled out on the ground as the others attempted to untangle themselves from the pile on the ground. The Mechanist pulled out a red potion that he had gotten from a dead soldier, just as Bob realized what had happened to his brother.

“No,” he said, his voice uneven as he awkwardly pulled
himself over to Ben. He shook his head back and forth as he clutched Ben by the shoulders. “No . . . you're okay, bro . . . you've
gotta
be okay. . . .”

“He's fine,” the Mechanist replied, gently pushing Bob out of the way before he could object. He poured the potion down Ben's throat.

“What . . . what happened to him?” Bob asked, still staring at his brother as Sirus and Commander Crunch pulled him up and helped him remount Ivanhoe.

“The blast range of the blue skulls is bigger than that of the black ones, and more powerful, too. The blue ones can blast through anything except bedrock,” the Mechanist said almost robotically as he put his hand to Ben's head. “He got hit by the blast and inflicted with the Wither effect. It's a worse kind of poisoning that can be fatal if left untreated.”