Herobrine's Message (11 page)

Leonidas realized just how tired he was. Stan had the right idea; it was late. Leonidas was far too exhausted to think about Spyro, now delivering his whereabouts to Lord Tenebris, or to figure out just who it was who had just saved his life. All Leonidas wanted to do was find the softest pile of dirt he could and go to sleep.

A
s G and Jayden walked down the hallway toward the Training Center Gymnasium, neither of them spoke. They both knew that, to keep their cover, they should have been chatting like the other trainees around them, eager to partake in the sparring tournament that was only moments away. However, they had given themselves a pass, as they had both been plagued with nightmares last night after yesterday's tour.

Not that the tour hadn't been extremely helpful, because it had. The walk around the Capitol Building had been crucial to figuring out where the Adorian hostages might be held. There had been areas where the tour wasn't allowed to go, and they had pegged those as various places where the hostages might be. The tour of the training facility had been equally helpful, as the layout would have to be memorized if they wanted to be able to make an impromptu escape.

However, toward the end of the tour, the two boys had seen a sight that would haunt them forever. From a glass room overlooking a dark, stone pen, they had finally gotten a glimpse of Stull and Mella. The two Zombie villagers were disgusting, letting out moaning noises and occasionally garbled rambles that resembled speech. Jayden and G had watched in horror as
unconscious Elementia soldiers had been dropped into the pen, immobile prey to the Zombie villagers.

It was all that the boys could do to stop from getting sick, and they weren't the only ones. While a few of the recruits either watched in amazement or cheered for the Zombies, the majority of the players just looked really uncomfortable. None could feel the effects more profoundly than Jayden and G, though. Those villagers had visited them in Elementia a good few times, and the sight of them eating Elementia soldiers haunted them even the next day as they went into the area.

“Welcome,” said Tess as the recruits filed into rows, the early-morning sunlight blinding them from the glass roof above. “Today is your Aptitude Tournament. You will be called up by me, and two players will fight each other until one is unable to continue. Killing and permanent crippling is not allowed, but all else is. The winner will advance to the next round, and so on. Based on your performance during your fights, I will determine your base rankings during your training. Now, everyone stand at the sidelines. The first fight will be between MasterBronze and LemonKipper.”

G took a deep breath and stood up; MasterBronze was his cover name. He stood in the center of the ring, and another player stepped into the arena across from him. Although he was now covered in black leather armor, G recognized this
player. He had the skin of a merman, and was cocky to a fault.

A black foot soldier stepped forward from behind Tess and walked over to the two of them. “What is your weapon of choice?” he asked G.

“Pickaxe,” G grunted in response, and the soldier reached into his inventory, pulled out a stone pickaxe, and handed it to G.
Well,
he thought, turning it over in his hand,
it's not diamond, but it'll have to do.

“What is your weapon of choice?” the soldier asked, turning to face Kipper.

“Sword,” Kipper replied in a Welsh accent, snatching the stone sword that the soldier had pulled from his inventory.

“Okay,” Tess announced as the soldier backed away. “Ready? And . . . Fight!”

G raised his pickaxe in a defensive stance, allowing Kipper to make the first move. He gladly obliged, holding his sword in an attack stance and bouncing on the balls of his feet.

“You're going down, kid,” Kipper hissed as he tried for an overhand strike at G's head. In one motion, G sidestepped the attack, caught the sword in his pickaxe, and twisted the weapon out of Kipper's grip. Then G dropped to the floor and swept Kipper's leg, sending him tumbling to the ground. While his foe was dazed, G grabbed the stone point of his
pickaxe and clubbed Kipper over the head with the wooden end, knocking him out.

“We have a winner!” Tess announced, and all the recruits clapped. G didn't feel like it was much of an accomplishment. Kipper obviously wasn't a very skilled fighter. He took his place back in line, and received an encouraging nod from Jayden.

A series of fights followed the first one, ranging from two totally equally matched fighters, to two cowards running away from each other, to one player totally dominating the other. G found the fights to be rather tedious, and only really paid attention when it was Jayden's turn.

Jayden's fight was against an archer, and he initially played defensive, blocking every arrow shot with his stone axe. Eventually, though, he found an opening, and managed to use a carefully placed axe throw to deliver a leg wound, causing him to win so the wound could be healed with potion.

The next round of the top eight fighters wasn't very interesting either. Both Jayden and G outmatched their opponents by a considerable degree, and managed to take them out without much effort. The other matches were slightly more interesting to watch at least, ranging from an intense sword fight to two archers sniping at each other.

After the top eight were narrowed to the top four, a series of matches ensued that were a bit more interesting.

Jayden locked swords with an impressive pickaxe fighter, who used the weapon more as a projectile than a melee weapon, dodging Jayden's axe swipes while trying to hit him from afar. Eventually, though, Jayden was able to land a solid blow on her, and he won.

G went into combat with one of the archers, who actually gave him a rough time. The pickaxe was much harder to block arrows with than the axe, and the archer actually managed to land a couple of shots. It wasn't long, though, before G managed to force an approach, and he won his battle with a blow to the stomach not long afterward.

“Okay,” announced Tess as the last cringing recruit pulled himself off the field. “We're down to the final round. It's MasterBronze versus Drayden!”

Taking a deep breath, G walked back into the ring. As he looked Jayden in the eye, it occurred to him that he really didn't know who would win this match. Although he and Jayden were both easily better than the rest of the recruits, mostly upper-level players who had lived their whole lives in luxury, he and Jayden were both a bit out of practice. They hadn't sparred at all since before King Kev had fallen, when they were still working in the Adorian Village together. And even back then, they were very evenly matched.

“Ready . . . and . . . FIGHT!” announced Tess.

G caught Jayden's eye, and he knew they were both
thinking the same thing. The two of them had the same fighting style, where they played defensive until they found an opening, and then broke into a ruthless, all-out attack. But if both of them played off counterattacking, then how were either of them going to win?

G sunk into an offensive stance.
It doesn't really matter who wins,
he thought to himself, a
s long as we both get high scores so we can work our way into the higher ranks of the army faster. So I guess I'll give Jayden an opening.

G rushed in, pickaxe blazing, as Jayden sunk back, ready to counter. Just as he was about to strike, though, he cut left, dodging Jayden's axe jab and knocking the axe out of his hand with a stray strike. G lunged in to follow up with a pickaxe blow, but Jayden rolled out of the way, landing by his axe. Jayden snatched his weapon off the ground and sent it spiraling through the air toward his opponent. G feinted out of the way, but the handle of the flying axe caught his hand, sending his pickaxe into the air. Jayden and G watched as their weapons clattered to the ground beside each other.

The two friends caught each other's eyes for a moment, and then rushed as quickly as possible to retrieve their weapons. G had the head start, but Jayden was faster, and they grabbed them at the exact same time. The two players pressed into each other's blades as hard as they could, struggling for an advantage. Then, right as G was thinking that he
couldn't keep up the fight much longer, the two stone blades shattered into a thousand pieces, sending the two players reeling back away from each other.

G turned around to glance at Tess, unsure of whether or not he was in trouble. She just looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to finish. A lightbulb going on in his head, G sprinted toward the recovering Jayden. As the two locked eyes, G, with his back to the others, winked at Jayden and made a face as if he were knocked out before drawing back a punch.

Jayden got the message. G threw the punch at Jayden's head, missing him by a millimeter, but Jayden still went tumbling backward through the air. He landed on the ground with a thud, seemingly unconscious.

“Well done, MasterBronze,” Tess said with a smile as a soldier went over to Jayden and poured a Potion of Healing in his mouth. Jayden's eyes fluttered, then opened as he pulled himself to his feet. Though he was rubbing his face where he got punched, he still walked over to G and shook his hand. As the other recruits cheered for them, Jayden shot G a smile and a wink, which he happily returned.

Kat took a deep breath as she caught sight of a Noctem soldier walking down the hallway. She forced herself not to look, and instead to focus on the unarmored back of Cassandrix,
and the pickaxe she was holding up to it.

As the duo passed the soldier, he gave a polite nod in Kat's direction. She returned the gesture, and continued walking down the hallway, until he was out of sight.

Kat released the breath she had been holding in. It was a relief to know that the armor that Cassandrix had looted from the Noctem guard disguised her so well. She told herself that it was all fine, and that even if she was captured, she could always just call Rex back out of hiding to help her.

“Seen anything yet?” Kat hissed to Cassandrix as they turned left down a hallway, past a new row of jail cells.

“If I had seen either of them, darling,” Cassandrix whispered back in irritation, “don't you think I would have said something?”

Kat bit her tongue to hold back her retort, and forced herself to keep walking. It hurt her to see that, while most of the jail cells were empty, some of them housed players who were clearly not even soldiers. She could only assume they were civilians from the Mushroom Islands. As much as she wanted to, Kat knew that she couldn't break those players out. They just had to find Charlie and Commander Crunch as quickly as possible and be on their way.

The two rounded another corner and checked another row of jail cells, lining both sides of a hallway that led to an iron door. None of these cells held Charlie or Crunch either;
in fact, they were all vacant. Kat snorted in irritation, and was just about to make a left turn at the iron door when a soldier stepped around the corner and into her way.

“What do you think you're doing here, soldier?” the player demanded. He had the skin of an extremely muscular Mexican wrestler.

“I'm just moving this prisoner to a holding block for interrogation,” replied Kat somberly, hoping that her prison jargon was believable.

“Do you have clearance to come this way?” the guard interrogated further.

“No,” replied Kat, gears whirring in her head. “I wasn't aware that this area was blocked off.”

“Lord Tenebris is operating dangerous procedures behind that door, kid,” the soldier grunted.

Kat's eyebrows shot up. “He is?”

The guard eyed Kat suspiciously. “Of course . . . and you should know that. Weren't you at the meeting this morning, soldier?”

“Well, I . . . uh . . .”

“You're an imposter!” the guard exclaimed. “
Secu
—ugh . . .”

The guard's shout was cut off as Cassandrix launched forward and wrapped her arms around the guard's neck in a chokehold. Before he could shake her off, Kat slammed the
pickaxe into the guard's forehead, knocking him out, and finished him off with a powerful blow to the stomach. A ring of items, mainly food, burst from the player and onto the ground.

“Hey! What's going on over there?” a voice rang out from down the hall, and Kat heard the stomping of footsteps running toward them. Kat raised her pickaxe and dropped into a defensive stance, and was just about to panic when a pair of hands whipped her around. Cassandrix was looking back at her, clad head to toe in the dead soldier's black armor.

“Stay calm,” Cassandrix murmured, “and follow my lead.”

And with that, Cassandrix bent down and began to pick through the items lying on the ground as the soldier's body disappeared. Kat did the same, praying that Cassandrix did indeed have a plan.

Moments later, a group of six players, armed with bows and fire charges, burst around the corner and aimed directly at the two girls.

“What happened here, soldiers?” the player at the front of the group demanded.

“It was an escape attempt,” Cassandrix replied solemnly. “We were transporting a prisoner to interrogation, and she tried to overwhelm us. We were forced to kill her . . . and judging by the inventory she dropped, she's been planning
this escape for a while, hoarding her food and everything.”

“Which prisoner was it?” the head guard asked. “And what cell did she come from?”

“Well, I know that the prisoner's name was Cassandrix,” Cassandrix continued, giving Kat a glare of steel when her eyes widened, “but I'm not sure what cell she was from. The two of us received her a few hallways back from another pair of soldiers whom I didn't recognize.”

“Well, if that's the case, I'm going to have to ask the two of you to come with me,” the head guard ordered as his soldiers lowered their bows. “General Spyro will be returning from the island raids soon, and you'll present all your findings to him.”

“I'm sorry, but that's not possible at the moment,” Cassandrix replied, not missing a beat. “The two of us were meant to escort the prisoner to this point, and then hand her off to yet another pair of guards. You see, we were ordered to stop here to guard this door . . . as I'm sure you know, the illustrious Lord Tenebris is operating dangerous procedures in there.”