Herobrine's Message (38 page)

All three members of the villager family were locked in a hug, but broke apart when the door opened. As they saw who had come, all three looked slightly confused.

“What are you doing here, Leonidas?” Mella asked.

“I had to see y'all one more time,” Leonidas replied, trying to keep his composure despite the feelings of guilt welling within him. “I'm going to war tomorrow, and I might not come back.”

“Ah,” Mella replied.

“I heard that you three villagers weren't gonna be there at the battle,” Leonidas continued awkwardly. “I heard that you were gonna be staying here at the village, along with like thirty other players who weren't goin' into battle.”

“This is true.”

“And before I leave . . . I just need you to know . . .” There was a catch in his throat, but Leonidas continued.

“I am so,
so
sorry,” Leonidas continued, tears beginning to stream down his face. “I am
so
sorry for everything that I did to you. I know that it's my fault that the rest of your village is dead, includin' Blerge. But I promise ya, I never wanted anythin' but the best for ya. You villagers are my family, and when I saw those soldiers takin' advantage of ya, I got so mad that I wasn't thinkin' straight. I don' expect ya to forgive me, but—”

“Leonidas, we know that the players who were in our village to protect us were not treating us kindly.”

Leonidas, who was doing all that he could to keep from breaking down, looked up in surprise. “What?”

“At first, we did not realize that we were not being treated kindly,” Mella continued. “We knew that the players were sent there by Stan, who was very kind to us, and so we believed that those players that Stan had sent to us were being kind to us, but in a different way. We did not think that Stan would send bad players to us.”

“I'm sure he didn't mean to,” Leonidas replied quickly, jumping to Stan's defense.

“I know that he did not,” Mella said solemnly. “Stan is a good player, and he made a mistake. You are also a good player, Leo-nidas. But I am not sure what you did was a mistake.”

“It was,” Leonidas replied glumly. “Even if those guys were terrible to you, they still would have fought off the Noctems when they attacked the village. They would've wanted to save their own butts.”

“Maybe they would, maybe they would not have,” Mella continued. “What is important is that you were not trying to hurt us, Leo-nidas. You were only doing what was best for us . . . or at least, what you thought was best for us. And now my family and me are no longer surrounded by bad players.
We are surrounded by players who are good, and nice to us . . . and you are one of them, Leo-nidas.”

Leonidas's heart lifted as Mella gave him a warm smile. Then, Oob stepped forward. He looked Leonidas directly in the eye and spoke.

“When I was a little villager,” he spoke slowly, his face screwed up in concentration as if he were trying to meticulously pick every word he said, “I was told by my family about a player named Leo-nidas, who we called the Sacred One. I learned about how, when bad players came to our village, the Sacred One gave himself to them for the sake of protecting us. I always wanted to meet this player, who was so kind, so brave, and so selfless. Now that I am finally meeting you, Leo-nidas, I would just like to say . . . thank you for everything, o Sacred One.”

Tears of joy ran like rivers down Leonidas's face. He rushed forward and scooped up the three villagers into a tight embrace, his spirit lifting as the memory of the villagers, the guilt that had been weighing him down for all these weeks finally evaporated. He was with his family once again, and they forgave him. If he died in battle tomorrow, it would now be with no regrets.

Stan opened his eyes and surveyed the area around the spawn point, which had once been a featureless expanse
of grass blocks. Now, however, it wasn't anything close to flat; the terrain bore evidence of countless hours of training. The surface of the ground was pockmarked with craters, and half-destroyed structures stood proud and tall, looming against the brilliant pastel colors of the setting sun.

“Sally?” Stan cried out quizzically. He knew that she wanted him here. In the midst of the greetings upon his return to the Adorian Village, Stan had definitely heard her voice ring out from beyond the server. It was different this time, though, very staticky and fragmented, causing Stan to wonder if everything was still okay.

“Coming!” Sally's voice echoed from somewhere Stan couldn't see. He waited for a moment before Sally emerged from behind a tall tower of bedrock blocks with a few holes punched through the center. She levitated toward him until she finally reached him and set her feet firmly on the ground. Stan smiled; it was always nice to see her.

“Thanks for coming, noob.”

“No problem, always happy to visit,” Stan replied. “Is something wrong? You haven't contacted me for nearly a week now.” Even though his training was complete, Stan had found it odd that, after contacting him almost daily since their lessons began, she had been silent since their last meeting before the invasion of the Adorian Village.

“Well . . . there is a bit of news,” Sally replied slowly,
causing Stan's heart to sink, “but we'll get to that in a minute. First, tell me how the invasion of the Adorian Village went. Did you manage to take it back?”

Stan nodded, and spent the next ten minutes detailing all that had happened since their last meeting. Through the recounting of the battle, Stan momentarily forgot his worry about Sally, but instead a new uncomfortable feeling took rise within him. When Stan told Sally about the attack on Nocturia, her eyes widened.

“Whoa whoa, back up,” she exclaimed, trying to process what he had just told her. “Are you saying that . . . you managed to take out over a hundred Noctem Alliance soldiers, including one of their generals, in one fell swoop?”

“Yes,” Stan replied, feeling slightly queasy. “And I've been feeling sick to my stomach ever since.”

“Why? That's amazing, noob!” cried Sally, her face totally lit up. “Do you have any idea how much easier it's gonna be for you to take down the Alliance when you have one less general and a hundred less troops to deal with?”

“Yeah, I know, but . . . those troops weren't even in combat. Lord Tenebris . . . ugh . . .
Herobrine
,” Stan corrected himself under Sally's glare, “ordered that all troops return to Element City except for them. That means that those troops probably weren't meant for fighting at all.”

“You don't know that,” scoffed Sally. “He was probably
just keeping them there so that they could sweep through Element City and mop up whatever was left of you after the big battle was over.”

“Yeah, I guess . . . ,” Stan murmured before another thought occurred to him. “But what if some of those players were actually just upper-level players who didn't want to live under the republic anymore? I mean, Nocturia wasn't a military base. It was the capital of the Noctem Alliance's country. They stopped launching attacks from there as soon as the battles on the Cold Front ended, so doesn't that mean that I technically killed over a hundred citizens? I mean—”

“Stop it, Stan,” Sally ordered in such a voice that he immediately ceased talking. “You can't worry about it now, the deed is done. Maybe it was right, maybe it wasn't. All that matters now is that you're going into an even fight, and you have that much better a chance of defeating Herobrine and his army.”

“Yeah . . . ,” Stan said after a minute. “I guess you're right. . . .” But as hard as he tried, he still couldn't get the image of the crater where Nocturia used to be out of his mind.

“Anyway,” he said, eager to change the subject, “you said you had news?”

“Yeah, I do,” Sally replied. Stan's stomach clenched; he recognized that tone of voice, and he knew that it was seldom followed by good news.

“What happened?” Stan asked.

“Well . . . ,” Sally replied. “Have you wondered why it's taken me so long to get back to you after last time?”

“Well . . . yeah . . . but I just assumed it was because the training was over.”

“Oh, come on, Stan,” Sally laughed bitterly. “You're my only means of finding out what's going on in Elementia. I'm not just gonna stop contacting you!”

“Your friendship means a lot to me, too,” Stan said sarcastically. “So why didn't you contact me?”

Sally sighed. “Security became even tighter somehow. I was really close to figuring out how to hack into the player files and give you operating powers, but then, out of nowhere, new software showed up. My computer didn't even recognize it. It just said that it wasn't possible to even look at the internal mechanisms of the server anymore.”

Stan cursed under his breath. “So all the work you've done so far has been for nothing?”

“Pretty much,” Sally said sourly. “I'm gonna have to totally restart my efforts to get you operating powers, Stan . . . and that's actually what I want to talk to you about.”

“Wait . . . what do you mean?”

“Well, you're planning to invade Element City soon, right?”

“Yes. We were planning on suiting up tonight, and marching out tomorrow.”

“Yeah, well . . . I think it might be best if you held off until I got you operating powers.”

“Wait . . . what?” Stan demanded, incredulous. “You want us to call off the attack?”

“I think you have to,” Sally replied sadly. “I think that you'd have a much,
much
better chance of beating the Alliance if you had them, so I think that it's worth holding off.”

“But . . . we have so many advantages right now!” Stan cried. “The Noctem Alliance is still reeling from the attack on Nocturia. They've never been more vulnerable than they are now! And we've just trained a hundred new soldiers that the Noctem Alliance doesn't even know about! It's only a matter of time before they discover that we have them. If we want the element of surprise, then we have to attack tomorrow!”

“But Stan,” Sally said fearfully, “they've got Herobrine.”

“So?” Stan demanded. “They've got one of him. We've got a hundred soldiers! Are you saying that Herobrine alone is going to be powerful enough to make up for a hundred unexpected fighters,
especially
when the Noctem Alliance is so disorganized right now?”

“That's the thing, Stan . . .
we don't know
,” Sally replied darkly. “Nobody has any idea how powerful Herobrine is, and you won't find out until you fight him. You only have one shot at this, Stan, and I think that when you take it, you should be as ready as you possibly can be. From what you've
told me, the Noctem Alliance seems to be willing to hold out in a stalemate a little while longer. Why don't you use that to buy time for me to get around this blockage?”

“And how do you know that you're gonna get past it, huh?” Stan demanded, staring at Sally accusatorily. “You've been trying nonstop for months now, and every time that it seems like you're close to cracking it, something else pops up out of left field and makes you start back at square one. You're telling me that I shouldn't strike now while we've got a tiny window of opportunity just so that you
might
be able to get me operating powers, when you've been trying and failing to do it for weeks?”

Sally opened her mouth and raised a blocky finger again, then closed it. She stared at the ground for a moment, in deep thought, then looked back up at Stan.

“Stan, I told you what I think you should do,” Sally said calmly. “You're going to return to Elementia, and I'm not going to be there. You're the president, and so it's your choice. Whatever you say, your people are going to go with. So choose wisely, noob.”

Stan looked at Sally for a moment, unsure of what to say. Then he nodded and turned his back to the setting sun, away from Sally. He knew that their conversation was over. He took a deep breath, and the words appeared in his head.

DISCONNECT FROM SERVER?

“Stan!”

Just as he was about to leave, Stan turned around to face Sally one more time. She was standing facing him, and as the sun disappeared under the horizon behind her, Stan saw the earnest meaning in her face.

“Please do the right thing,” she said.

Stan held her gaze for a moment, nodded again, then turned away. The words reappeared in his head, and as Stan prepared to say the words, the crater in the midst of the tundra where Nocturia had once been flashed in his mind. As the image of the troops being engulfed in a wave of fire resurfaced, Stan knew that he would rather die than have the deaths of those hundred players be for nothing.

“Yes.”

Ben, Bob, and Charlie heard a whooshing sound behind them, and they looked up from their schematics, spinning around. Stan had appeared in the other end of the hotel's planning room, right beside the window that showed the sun setting behind the skyline of the trees of the Great Wood over the village wall.

“Hey man,” said Charlie, giving Stan a polite nod of the head. “How'd the talk go?”

“Fine,” Stan said purposefully. “Guys, I've made my decision about the invasion.”

The three players stared at Stan, their eyes wide and their ears perked. They had been waiting for Stan's decision for hours now.

“Go on,” Ben said in anticipation.

Stan took a deep breath, and then replied.

“Prepare the troops. We invade Element City tomorrow at the stroke of noon.”

A
lthough he was trying to focus on the battle plans that he had propped up on his pig's head, Charlie couldn't help but notice that the farther that they marched down the road toward Element City, the darker the midday sky was becoming. He glanced up and there, not too far away, he could see the dark gray shroud that the Withers were casting over Element City. The march didn't slow down, however. Charlie still walked on, with the sounds of four hundred heavily armed soldiers marching in unison behind him on their way to take back their home.

The preparations for the invasion had been largely silent. There had been no big speech delivered, no final pep talk, no announcements of any kind. All the soldiers now marching down the road knew exactly what they were headed into. Words were not necessary.

At a glance, anybody would find it impossible to believe that many of these players had only been training in combat for the past week. Besides marching perfectly in unison, each and every player was suited in a glistening helmet and chestplate of diamond armor. The same held true for the weapons. Each player was fully equipped with a diamond weapon of their choice, as well as iron backups. To equip every player with such high-tier equipment, however, came
at a cost. The storehouses back in the Adorian Village had been totally cleared out. If this invasion were to fail, there were no remaining materials to fall back on.

Charlie returned the plans to his inventory. He didn't need them. He knew them like the back of his hand by now, and looking at them further would only heighten his already overwrought nerves. Charlie had been aware for a while that he would be commanding the assault on Element City, but now that they were on their way, the full realization of what he was about to do struck him like a bolt of lightning. Charlie took a deep breath. He couldn't think too hard about it. He knew what he was doing, and his only job at the moment was to keep his fear at bay. Only with discipline could he lead his people to victory.

Charlie's thoughts drifted to his commanders, and he turned around, glancing over his shoulder into the massive wave of soldiers that was marching behind him. Jayden, Commander Crunch, and Sirus all walked ahead of the troops. All three of them bore the same expression: grim and determined, with no hint of joy in their eyes as they imagined what they would find in Element City. Charlie knew that, somewhere deep within the hundreds of players, Stan, Kat, and all the other commanders marched. They had special missions to do while the other soldiers were fighting, so they took to the center of the assembly to stay inconspicuous.
Charlie imagined that, at this moment, their expressions mirrored those of the commanders out front, including himself.

A crash of thunder sounded from overhead, causing several soldiers in line to raise their heads in alarm. A moment later, a light drizzle of rain began to fall from the sky. Charlie gave an offhanded glance at the sky, wondering how much of the discoloration above was from the thunderclouds and how much was from the Withers.

Charlie squinted through the rain, and there, slowly but surely, the Element City wall came into view. As he approached, the silhouette of the newly repaired structure loomed into sight, rising out of the mist. They didn't check their speed as they advanced closer and closer to the main gate of the city. The forest that they had been marching through started to thin out; more and more trees had chunks ripped out of them, or else were just lowly wood-block stumps.

Finally the forest ended altogether, giving way to the badlands that had been torn into the ground by the weeks of warfare around the outer wall. The giant ditch around the entirety of the outer wall sunk far below ground level; to approach the ditch from within it would be an uphill battle. Charlie raised his hand, ordering a stop. When they reached the edge of the trench, he could finally see the wall clearly. He did a double take. As prepared as he was for the attack,
he had not expected what he was now seeing.

A bridge had been built across the open expanse of the badlands. Constructed of wood-plank blocks, it was five blocks wide, and extended from the edge of the forest to the base of the wall. Wood-plank blocks also extended from the top of the bridge all the way down into the base of the trench, concealing the underside of the structure. The other end of the bridge sat at the exact center of a giant rip that had, alarmingly, been left in the center of the wall surrounding the sprawling city, with the Withers hovering far off over the castle. The entire open portion of the wall was totally filled, from end to end, with Noctem soldiers, clad in black leather armor, all of whom had some sort of weapon drawn and ready. And standing directly at the center of this massive wall of Noctem Troops, at the exact center of the bridge's far end, was Drake, his cape billowing in the wind and a leering smile on his face.

The players behind Charlie were dead silent as they stared across the bridge at the soldiers clad in black who would be attempting to kill them within the minute. Charlie heard movement behind him, and he turned around to see Jayden, Crunch, and Sirus glance at each other, the same thoughts in each of their heads.

Charlie was on the same page. He had been anticipating a hard fight through the trench to enter Element City. It didn't
make sense that the Noctems would not only leave a giant gaping hole in their wall, but also build a bridge to make their entrance into the city easier. Clearly, something wasn't right here.

There was movement on the Noctem side of the bridge, and Charlie's eyes immediately locked on to Drake. The Noctem general had taken a step forward and was now walking at a strolling pace down the center of the wooden bridge toward Charlie. Immediately there was a bustle in the front lines of the Elementia soldiers as all of them drew their bows and trained them on Drake. The moment they did so, the Noctem archers at the other end of the bridge did the same, aiming at Charlie, who raised his hand to indicate his men hold fire.
Something is very odd about this situation,
he thought to himself. As he did so, Drake continued to walk, finally coming to a stop at the center of the bridge. He gave Charlie a look, as if to indicate that he should walk out to meet Drake halfway.

“Wha' do ye want us t' do, General?” Commander Crunch whispered up to Charlie.

Charlie looked out at Drake. He knew that this must be some kind of ploy. There was no way that Drake would do this with no ill intent. And yet, as Charlie made eye contact with Drake, he immediately got a feeling in his gut that Drake wasn't going to attack him . . . and that, despite all
his better judgment, he should go out to meet the Noctem general.

“I'm going out to meet Drake,” Charlie whispered back. “Keep on holding. Don't fire unless they do first.”

Before anybody could respond to him or Charlie could talk himself out of it, he gave a tug on Dr. Pigglesworth's saddle, and the pig began to trot slowly forward, onto the wooden bridge and toward Drake. As he traveled across the open expanse of the trench, Charlie could feel all eight hundred of the warriors on both sides training their eyes on him. Charlie took a deep breath and shook off the incredible tension that was hampering his breathing as he continued forward. Finally, after several agonizing seconds of walking with bated breath, Charlie stood face to face with General Drake.

“That's a fine-looking pig, Charlie,” Drake said with a smirk, looking downward slightly to meet the eye level of the seated Charlie. “It's good to see that you've managed to continue to be useful to your people. Very few have even survived our Silverfish Torture, let alone returned to the battlefield after it.”

“Well, I've been a thorn in your side for this long,” Charlie replied wittily. “It would be a shame to stop now that we're so close to taking our city back.”

“Oh, you think that the city is yours,” Drake said, with a
note of pity in his voice, as he shook his head and gave a sad smile. “Oh dear . . . You know, it's going to be a shame to kill you and all your men, Charlie. You're all so clueless that it's nearly pitiful.”

Something snapped in Charlie's head as Drake said this, and he growled back, “Don't insult me, Drake. Just tell me why you wanted me to come out and meet you.”

“Oh, I just had a few questions for you about the setup you've got going over there,” Drake replied conversationally, looking at the wall of Elementia troops, many of whom were still aiming at him with their bows.

“Funny,” Charlie said, glancing down at the bridge they were standing on, “I could say the same thing to you.”

“So where's your president, anyway?” Drake asked, scanning the rows of soldiers, looking for Stan. “I'd have expected him to be out front.”

“That's none of your concern,” Charlie replied quicker than he had intended.

“Ah, I see,” Drake chuckled. “I suppose that he'll pop up during the battle at some point. I suppose that I'll just have to cross that bridge when I come to it. That ought to be fun.”

“Speaking of crossing bridges,” Charlie asked suspiciously, “what's the deal with the one we're standing on?”

“Well, it's a manner of courtesy, of course,” Drake replied, as if it should be the most obvious thing in the world. “You
took all the time to evade us, raise an army, and march all the way to our doorsteps. Lord Tenebris has great respect for you for doing that, Charlie, and as such, he ordered that you should at least have a fighting chance at getting
into
our city before we kill you all. Therefore, the bridge is here for your convenience. You can use it to avoid traversing the trench. I assure you, it's totally safe.”

“And why should I believe that?” Charlie demanded.

“Oh, Charlie, would I lie to you?” Drake laughed with a smirk. “I'm a member of the Noctem Alliance, my friend. Although we may not follow your rules, when we set rules for ourselves, we'll play by them to the death. You can trust our word. We're going to destroy you, and don't expect us to play fair for a moment while we're within the city. But I give you my word that the bridge is safe to cross. It's not booby trapped or anything like that. Now, why don't you go back and lead your men across, while I do all in my power to stop you?”

And with that, Drake turned his back to Charlie, and proceeded to march back toward his soldiers. Charlie stood in the light rain in total shock, trying to comprehend what Drake had just said. After a moment, though, he just gave up. Drake was clearly trying to play some sort of mind game with him . . . or else he was just a lunatic. Charlie shook his head; although he knew that the time had finally come to put these psychopaths out of commission, he still felt like this
moment hadn't come nearly soon enough. He ordered Dr. Pigglesworth to turn around and make his way back to the Elementia soldiers at the far end of the bridge.

Charlie had a gut feeling that Drake was telling the truth about the bridge. As despicable as the Noctem Alliance had proven themselves, the one honorable thing that they did seem to exemplify was sticking to their word. Charlie remembered the first time he had met Drake in the Nether months before, where Drake had sworn during the interrogation that he would not lie to them. Indeed, in time, everything that Drake had revealed had turned out to be true.

Charlie still had no idea
why
Drake had told them those things. The second that the general had tried to escape, he had done so with ease, but Charlie had better things to do than to try to work it out. He had been trying to decipher the warped, maniacal mindset of the Noctem Alliance for far too long now. The days of fighting with trickery and deceit had finally come to a close. It was time to do the fighting in a language they could both understand perfectly.

“What's the deal with the bridge?” Jayden asked, as Charlie reached the front of his men and turned around to face the wall again.

“It's safe,” Charlie replied unemotionally, not taking his eyes off Drake. “Charge when I give the word. Have your archers stay back and cover us from the rear.”

“What?” Jayden asked incredulously. “How can you be sure that it's safe?”

“I'm your commanding officer. Don't question me,” Charlie replied, a bit more harshly this time, causing Jayden to back down. “I'll stay back with the archers and follow you in a bit. Ready your weapons.”

“Ready your weapons!” Jayden, Crunch, and Sirus replied in unison. Instantly, hundreds of bows and diamond tools emerged into the hands in the army, and readied themselves for an attack.

“Ready!” cried Charlie. “And . . .
charge
!”

Charlie waved his hand forward and watched as hundreds of diamond-clad warriors rushed ahead, parting around him like a rock in a raging river as they ran toward the bridge. Charlie heard a cry ring out from the Noctem end, and a shower of hundreds of arrows flew into the sky, soaring through the air and crashing down like a meteor storm into the tide of players now surging across the bridge and into the city.

“Cut to the sides!” Charlie bellowed as his soldiers started to fall to the rain of projectiles.

Jayden, Crunch, and Sirus at the head of the charge exchanged a quick glance and nodded to each other. Just as the mass of troops barreling across the bridge was about to hit the wall of Noctem soldiers, now drawing their
closer-quarters weapons, Jayden and Sirus leaped off the bridge on both sides, landing firmly in the trench below. The streams of troops followed their three leaders like a diamond snake dividing in three, pouring off the bridge and swarming through the trench, leaving only Commander Crunch's troops to fight the soldiers blocking the main entrance to the city.

As Crunch and his men collided with the black wall of Noctem troops and engaged them in swordplay, the Noctem troops appeared to be disoriented as they tried to branch into sections to break off the three-pronged assault of Crunch, Jayden, and Sirus. It was too late, though. By the time the Noctem troops had made their way into the trench to combat Jayden and Sirus's soldiers, the republic soldiers had already drawn Ender Pearls from their inventories and were teleporting to the top of the Element City wall in an ever-growing cloud of purple smoke.