Herobrine's Message (31 page)

He took a deep breath and looked down at the dragon. The monster was frozen in midair. Stan watched as rays of light erupted from within the Ender Dragon until, finally, the monster exploded in a beautiful burst of light.

“Well done, noob,” Sally smirked, applauding Stan as he levitated downward and landed next to Sally with the crunch of dirt block underfoot. “I admit it, I got too cocky. You fully deserve that victory.”

“Well, you're not wrong,” Stan replied smugly, a self-indulgent smile wide on his face. “That was a good warm-up. What've you got to show me today?”

Sally smiled and shook her head. “There's nothing else to show you, noob. Your training is complete.”

Stan did a double take, and then stared at Sally, mouth
hanging slightly open. “Are you . . . are you serious?”

“Come on, noob, when am I not?” Sally replied again, conjuring a wool block beneath her and plopping down on it. “We've been working at it for weeks now, and I've finally shown you everything that I know. Ha . . . You know, I remember back when you really were just a noob . . . walking into the Adorian Village, training with me and the guys, and heading off to Element City for the first time. And look at you now. You're an
operator
, Stan.”

An overwhelming feeling crashed over Stan. He didn't know how to describe it—it wasn't sad, but it certainly wasn't happy, either. It was as if, in that moment, the entire weight of how far he'd come crashed down on him like an avalanche. He remembered all that he'd learned . . . all the people he'd come to know . . . all those he'd lost . . . and all that he had left to do.

“Sally,” Stan said, turning around to look at his teacher. “Do you . . . do you really think that I'm going to be able to beat Lord Tenebris?”

“You know, Stan, that's something that's really bothered me,” Sally spat out in annoyance. “You know
who
Lord Tenebris really is. And you know what he's doing to Elementia, and thousands of other Minecraft servers, as we speak. He's the most evil and destructive force that Minecraft has ever faced, so the least you can do is call him by his real name.”

Stan shuddered. It was true. He, along with the rest of his friends, had avoided calling Lord Tenebris by his true name. It just seemed that if they didn't say it, they wouldn't have to face it. They wouldn't have to face the reality of what they were going up against, what they had to destroy. Stan took a deep breath and spoke again.

“Fine. Sally, do you think that I'm going to be able to defeat Herobrine?”

Sally looked at the grass-block ground for a moment, and then looked up at him, an earnest look in her eyes.

“Stan, do you want my one-hundred-percent honest answer?”

“Yes.”

“I don't know. I have no idea whether or not you're going to be able to beat Herobrine. I mean . . . something that has the ability to steal energy from the game of Minecraft itself . . . to put thousands of servers at risk . . . just to make itself stronger? If he can do
that
, then I can only guess what he's fully capable of, and I'm not sure if you're going to be able to defeat him, even if I do somehow manage to hack operating powers onto you in Elementia.”

Stan felt like the air was being drained from his lungs, and he was forced to conjure a block below himself and sit. It hadn't even occurred to him that he probably wouldn't be able to get operating powers in Elementia at all . . . and that
he was more than likely going to have to fight Herobrine without any aid, armed with only an axe. The Elementia Army had no plan to defeat Herobrine—in all their strategy talks, they had treated Herobrine like the elephant in the room. Nobody was willing to bring him up, terrified by the prospect of what he might be able to do. If Stan didn't get operating powers . . . they were all doomed. And even if he did . . .

“But I'll tell you one more thing, noob.” Stan turned to face Sally, who was giving him an encouraging smile.

“If I had to pick anybody in Elementia to fight Herobrine, then I'd choose you in a heartbeat.”

Stan smiled. For a while, they simply looked at each other. Nothing was said. Nothing was done. They just stared into each other's eyes, taking in the immense respect that they shared. Before long, though, Stan stood up.

“Well, I'd better go now. The tunnelers are probably under the Adorian Village by now, and they'll be getting ready for the attack.”

Sally nodded. “Good luck, noob. I may not be sure if you can take down Herobrine, but I have no doubt at all that you'll be able to take back my hometown.”

Stan gave a laugh as he nodded in agreement, but then, his face hardened. Stan focused, and once again, the words flashed in his mind.

DISCONNECT FROM SERVER?

“Yes.”

“The preparations for the attack are all ready, sir,” Sirus reported, standing in full salute and sounding official. “We're directly underneath the main street of the Adorian Village, and we're all ready to, you know, totally blow our way in and take out all the Noctem soldiers by surprise. Haha, they won't know what hit them!”

“Thank you, Sirus,” Bob replied, nodding his thanks. “Please go and prepare the troops for the assault. I'll be there in a minute.”

Sirus nodded and took off as Bob turned to his brother, who was sitting next to him alongside all the other Elementia leaders in the base of the cave. “Come on, Ben,” he said, commanding Ivanhoe to walk away from the circle. “Let's inspect the troops. And get ready, guys, we're gonna launch the assault as soon as Stan gets back.”

Bob and Ivanhoe walked away from the circle of players and toward a mass of troops farther down the tunnel. Ben followed them. Leonidas watched them go and looked around.

This cave wasn't a natural mine that had been expanded, like the bunker beneath Element City had been. This was a square-shaped tunnel, carved through the stone block
underground by hundreds of miners, desperately digging as fast as possible to avoid the encroaching Wither that was blasting its way in, with Noctem troops not far behind. About twenty troops had stayed behind in the bunker to man the redstone traps that had been set up, and although the Noctems hadn't followed them into the tunnel they had dug out of the cave, they hadn't heard back from the troops either.

Leonidas, lost in his train of thought, suddenly realized that everybody was looking at something. He followed their line of vision and saw that everybody was staring at Sirus, who was conversing with the two police chiefs in his jittery fashion.

“I still can't believe that he's alive,” Kat said.

“I still don't completely understand that,” Cassandrix said, turning to face Kat. “Could you please explain to me what happened to him? And why everybody finds this so amazing?”

Kat was quite pleased to find that Cassandrix was talking to her in a civil manner. Although Kat tried to be pleasant toward her, Cassandrix only returned the attitude half the time, while reverting to her snappy, unbearable personality the rest of the time. Kat was glad to see that, today at least, she was being agreeable, and answered her question.

“You see, Cassandrix, Sirus was our redstone engineer
during the Battle for Elementia, when we first took down King Kev. That was back before the Mechanist joined us.”

Hearing his name, the Mechanist looked up, revealing his tired and stressed face for a moment before returning to the book he was reading.

“Anyway, a lot of players died in that battle, and he was one of them. And even though none of us saw it, one of our friends named Archie said that he saw Sirus get killed in battle. Apparently, it happened right as the battle was ending, right before the castle tower blew up, in fact. We all thought that he was dead, and according to him, he was. Yet somehow, he managed to come back.”

“I see,” Cassandrix replied, looking mystified. “But . . . do you have any idea how? I mean . . . the server's difficulty is locked on Hardcore, and there's no way to change it unless King Kev himself did it. And even then, he gave up his operating powers! So there's no possible way that Sirus could have gotten back onto the server through simply respawning!”

“Yer guess be as good as any o' ours, lass,” Commander Crunch responded solemnly, “but fer now, thar's no way t' know fer certain. More than likely, it had t' do wit' some sort o' glitch, but fer now, we 'ave more important thin's t' worry about.”

There was a dark silence around the circle of leaders. They all knew that that was the understatement of the
century. Nobody knew what to say. They all knew exactly what they were about to go into, and yet at the same time had no idea.

“I still can't believe that the Noctems managed to find us,” muttered Kat.

“Why is that so surprising?” Charlie demanded defensively. “They've been inspecting every block of the city nonstop since they've broken through the wall. It's not
that
surprising that they've managed to find us!”

“Calm down!” exclaimed Kat, shocked by Charlie's aggressive tone. She had no idea what had come over him since they had rescued him from the prison on the Mushroom Islands, but Kat didn't like it one bit. She had expected that by now he would be back to his normal, friendly, soft-spoken self, but if anything he had only gotten worse.

“What I meant,” Kat continued cautiously, “was that Ben and Bob have been sending spies out into the city, to see how close the Noctems were to finding us. According to the intelligence they gathered, the Noctems were doing most of their searching in the Merchant's District, on the total opposite end of the city. If that's true, then it makes no sense that they managed to discover us here so quickly.”

“Well, however it came about, th' attack couldn't 'ave come at a worse time,” Commander Crunch replied darkly. “We 'ave t' act fast, now that th' Noctems know where we be,
'n' we 'ave no time t' put together an actual invasion plan. We be forced t' jus' rush willy-nilly into th' Adorian Village, 'n' hope that this cockamamie assault wit' no thought put into it somehow works.”

“You're right,” growled Leonidas in disgust. “Why couldn't the Noctems have broken in, like, just two or three days later? That would have made everythin'
so
much easier!”

Suddenly, Charlie leaped to his feet, prompting all to turn toward him. He looked distressed and mortified, and it seemed as if he were on the verge of tears. For a moment, nobody moved as Charlie looked like a deer in the headlights of his friends' concerned looks. Then Charlie turned around and marched away from the circle without a word, a sob escaping his mouth as he limped down the tunnel.

“Wha' be his problem?” Commander Crunch asked incredulously as he turned to look at his comrades, and saw that nobody had the slightest idea what was wrong with him.

“I'll be right back,” Leonidas said determinedly and, before anybody could stop him, he stood up and took off down the tunnel after Charlie.

“What do you want?” demanded Charlie as Leonidas caught up to him, weaving around a group of soldiers pulling on diamond armor as he went.

“I wanna know why you're so upset, man,” Leonidas said straightly. “You've been totally out of it ever since we met up,
and you seem like you're upset with me. Listen, dude, I know I haven't really known you for long, but it's pretty obvious to me that you've got somethin' going on.”

“Oh it is, is it?” Charlie spat, looking beyond outraged. “Well, thank you for noticing!”

“Charlie, listen . . . I know that your injury has been bothering you—”

“Shut up!” Charlie bellowed at the top of his lungs, causing all in the vicinity to turn and stare at him. “Just shut up and go away! I don't want you to be here! Just . . .
leave
!”

And Charlie took off, hobbling down the mine as fast as he could, crawling under the nearest outcrop of rock that he could find.

Leonidas took a deep breath. Although he could feel his frustration at Charlie's attitude boiling in his stomach, he knew that in this case, he had to be the bigger man. From what Stan had told him, Charlie was usually calm, collected, and even timid. In other words, miles from what he had just witnessed. Something was very wrong, and Leonidas was going to find out what.

Slowly, he crept over to the edge of the cave, to the outside of the stone-block dimple in the wall. As he peeked into the crack, he was surprised to see that Charlie was actually crawling awkwardly out of the hole. Leonidas stepped back as Charlie grabbed on to the cave wall and pulled himself
to his feet, bearing his full body weight on his good leg. He looked up at Leonidas, eyes still slightly red, but a tired, apologetic look on his face.

“Sorry,” Charlie mumbled, unable to meet Leonidas's eyes. “Look at me, what I've become . . . screaming, throwing a fit, running away and hiding in a cave . . . pathetic . . .”

“Charlie, I know that ya don't think highly of me,” Leonidas said hastily, unwilling to acknowledge that what Charlie had just said was true. “Maybe you're having a hard time forgivin' me for the things I did in the past . . . maybe it's something else I did, I dunno. But trust me, man . . . I'm not just some idiot who's only good for a fight, I've got a brain, too, and I've seen a lotta crap since I've joined Elementia. If you're willing to talk, I wanna do what I can to help ya. So please, Charlie . . . can ya tell me what's wrong?”

Charlie sighed. “I don't have a problem with
you
, Leonidas. . . . Well, I mean, I do, but it's not a real problem. It's totally unfair to you, and I know that. . . .”

“Tell me.”

“It's just . . . ever since you joined us, you've been nothing but amazing. You've helped us fight, you've talked with us, you've become a part of our group. Everybody loves you, and I was just really jealous of that—the fact that you've done terrible things in the past, but you're one of our greatest assets now. For me, it's exactly the opposite. I mean, look at me. I
can barely walk, let alone fight, and . . . since I was imprisoned, I've really hurt our cause. And now there's nothing I can do to fix it.”