Herobrine's Message (50 page)

“So . . . is he gonna . . . ,” Bob stammered, his face as white as a ghost.

The Mechanist turned to face him and smiled. “Your brother will be fine, Bob. The potion I just gave him will give him enough strength to survive until the Wither effect wears off.”

“Mechanist . . .”

The Mechanist looked down at the source of the feeble voice and saw Ben looking up at him, his eyes fluttering open. Bob's face broke out in relief, but Ben only looked up
to the old redstone mechanic with the wild white hair. He looked exhausted, yet still a smile crept to the corner of his mouth as he spoke.

“Thank you. And . . . I'm sorry.”

“You don't have to be,” the Mechanist replied, returning Ben's slight yet earnest smile.

Ben opened his mouth as if he were about to reply, but then shut it and gave a sigh of contentedness as his eyes closed, his head rolled to the side, and he passed out.

Leonidas emerged from the rabble of brawling players, and he took a deep breath. The fighting that had now spread across the entire plaza was intense, and he had just sprinted right through the thick of it. Everywhere he looked, the glut of republic soldiers and citizens were teaming up to bear down on the Noctem soldiers with full force, and the black-clad forces were fighting back just as hard. Twice, Leonidas had halted his run through the crowds, taken aim, and sent an arrow into a Noctem soldier, thus preserving the life of a citizen the soldier was about to overpower.

He might have stopped more than twice, but he had a job to do.

As he was fighting, he had seen Bob run with his brother into an old run-down store, above which one of the Withers floated, firing its deadly blasts down into the crowds.
Leonidas knew that, with the only archer as good as he was occupied fighting the boss mob, there was a very important task he had to do.

Even if it wasn't his job, he still would have sought the task out anyway. This was personal.

Leonidas walked slowly around the outer ring of the battlefield, and the further away from the courthouse he went, the higher the number of Noctem soldiers in the crowd. The soldiers of Lord Tenebris were truly giving it their all, charging into the battle with weapons blazing and fire in their eyes, but Leonidas could also see another trait present, written all over their faces: fear. For the first time, as the Noctem soldiers gave it their all against the thousands of republic players, a pit opened in their stomachs as they considered the possibility that they might not win this battle.

Leonidas was nearly back at the execution platform, and he saw that this was the only place on the entire battlefield where the majority of the players wore the black colors of the Noctem Alliance. This was where the Noctem Alliance was digging in their heels and fighting most ferociously. Even as he watched for just the space of a few seconds, Leonidas saw nearly ten Elementia players try to fight their way into the mass of black leather and get cut down in the process.

Leonidas's heart gave an unpleasant jolt as he saw these players die, but it confirmed what he had guessed. The
execution platform was where the Noctem Alliance was fighting their hardest, and this would be by far the most difficult area for the republic forces to take. If his target was going to be anywhere, it was here.

Trying to avoid attracting attention from the Noctem forces, Leonidas covered his face as he stealthily slipped into the decrepit house closest to the execution platform. Judging by the weathered sign Leonidas saw above the door, it used to be part of the Apothecary's chain of potioneers. Indeed, as he made his way through the ground floor, he saw empty cauldrons and brewing stands strewn haphazardly about, shattered glass bottles covering the floor and making it appear to shimmer. Leonidas was careful to avoid making a sound as he scaled the stairs to the second floor.

This floor was totally barren; Leonidas assumed it used to be someone's living space, but not a single item remained on the flat wood-plank floor. He made his way across the floor to the window. From there, he could see all the way across the sprawling plaza in front of the Avery Memorial Courthouse, filled to the bursting point with players that Leonidas was sure, for better or for worse, were fighting the final battle of the war.

Leonidas knew that the biggest thing he could do to ensure the republic's victory in the war was to eliminate the opposing leaders, so he drew his bow. Notching an arrow in
it and pulling the string taut, he looked out the window, scanning the cluster of black forms right below him. He scanned every single face that he could see, desperate to find one of the two players that he was looking for. His heart started to race as he searched. Leonidas knew that the longer he stood looking out this window, the better the chance that . . .

“Looking for me?” a voice called out from behind Leonidas.

Slowly, Leonidas turned around, his bow still raised, until he was facing Spyro. The Noctem general stood at the top of the stairs, his glowing diamond sword shining an eerie light on his black leather armor as he dropped into a fighting stance, a wicked grin on his face.

For a moment, the two players stared at each other. Leonidas remembered, long ago, when Spyro had been a mere private, helping him to construct Nocturia. Back then, he had been so innocent, so curious, and so open-minded, even going so far as to question if the Alliance he had joined was doing the right thing. Now, though, Leonidas stood across from a savage killer, twisted by months of leading an organization of hate and intolerance. He knew that he had no choice but to destroy the Noctem general . . . but he also knew he had to at least try to avoid the conflict.

“Stand down,” Leonidas said in a monotone, his bow still trained on Spyro's forehead. “I don't want to hurt ya, Spyro.
You're not a bad person . . . you're just lost. The Noctem Alliance is gonna fall today. Please, don't fall with it.”

“That's funny,” Spyro replied, raising an eyebrow. “The great General Leonidas who trained me would never try to negotiate a surrender. He would just start the fight as fast as possible, and end it even faster.”

“The General Leonidas
you
know is dead,” Leonidas replied proudly. “I ain't never pickin' a fight again unless I have to, and I don't want to do it today. Please, Spyro . . . I'm beggin' ya . . . stand down. Stop this.”

For a moment, Spyro's mouth hung open, and his eyes were wide, as if he were in deep thought. Then, all of a sudden, his eyebrows creased, his eyes grew bloodshot, and his face contorted into an ugly mess of rage as he gave out a battle cry, sending a Splash Potion of Harming directly toward his former master.

Leonidas didn't even flinch. He may have promised himself to never start a fight again, but he would never hesitate to finish one. Within an instant, an arrow had shot the potion out of the air in midflight, and Leonidas had sent a flurry of arrows flying from his bow, directly at Spyro. Despite Spyro's best effort to deflect the attacks with his sword, the arrows came too many, and too fast. It was only a matter of seconds before one of the arrows found a chink in Spyro's armor, and he slouched down to the ground as
five more arrows sunk into the weak points.

As Spyro lay on the ground, six arrows sticking out of him, struggling to stay alive, Leonidas advanced on him, one final arrow in his bow. He stood over the Noctem general, staring down at him with pity, while Spyro returned a glare of utter loathing.

“Do ya have any last words?” Leonidas asked sadly as he pulled the arrow back, aiming directly for Spyro's temple.

Spyro said nothing. Instead, in a surprisingly swift motion for somebody who was teetering on the verge of death, he raised his hand to his mouth and let out a long, high-pitched whistle.

Leonidas had no time to comprehend what he was doing. Seconds after he started to whistle, the wall behind Leonidas exploded, showering him with dust and debris and knocking him to the ground, sending his bow and the arrow notched within it flying out of his grasp. Leonidas squinted his eyes through the dust, and as he looked out the massive hole where the wall used to be, his heart stopped dead. There it was, floating directly above him, its raspy, metallic breath wheezing through its charred black rib cage as the six eyes of the Wither trained on Leonidas.

“There!” Spyro coughed, and Leonidas tore his horrified eyes off the giant skeletal mob to see Spyro pointing over at Leonidas's bow, which was still sitting in the corner of the
room. As he saw his weapon lying on the wood plank–block floor, for the first time, it hit him like a stack of bricks that he was unarmed, and totally defenseless. No sooner had he begun to move toward the corner of the room, desperate to retrieve his bow, than he heard the sound of the Wither firing another attack from behind him. Leonidas barely had time to raise his arms over his face before the skull connected with the bow lying on the floor. The force of the explosion slammed into Leonidas, sending him tumbling back to the ground, now with black wisps of smoke rising from his arms.

In horror, Leonidas looked over at where the patch of floor had been, only to see that the entire corner of the house had been totally blown to bits. His weapon was gone.

Leonidas's heart rate, already racing from the Wither's attack, now skyrocketed to dangerous levels as he realized that he was totally defenseless. He still had a glut of arrows in his inventory, but nothing to fire them with. He had no way of fighting back against the Wither, which was now aiming for him again.

It was all Leonidas could do to dive-roll to the side, desperately trying to avoid the onslaught of explosions tearing the ground around him to shreds. Leonidas's head whipped around wildly and saw that nearly the entire floor had been blasted apart by the Wither's attacks. Only a few wood-plank blocks remained levitating over the ground floor of the
shop below. Leonidas looked above him and saw a window. Without thinking, acting on pure survival instinct, Leonidas launched himself off the floor, flying out the window before the Wither could blow him to bits.

Leonidas felt himself falling through the air for a moment before landing with a crunch on the dirt blocks below him. He let out a shout as pain seared in his legs, and he allowed himself a second to lay still to let the pain die down. In that second, he looked around him. He had landed in a narrow alleyway, about four blocks wide. The building on one side of the alley Leonidas recognized as the seafood restaurant next to the Avery Memorial Courthouse. The other side of the alley was the Apothecary store, or rather, what was left of the store. The Wither's explosive attacks had blasted off huge chunks of the second floor, so the only things remaining that Leonidas could see were a few fragments of brick-block wall.

A raspy breathing registered in Leonidas's ears, and he knew that his brief respite from the fight was over. Although his legs still felt as though they were blazing with flames, he forced himself to stand, just as the Wither floated out from around the side of the house. All six of its beady white eyes trained on Leonidas, who was trembling as he imagined how he was going to fight this thing with no bow.

All of a sudden, an Ender Pearl flew down from the
second floor of the Apothecary store, and landed just below the Wither. Leonidas's jaw dropped in disbelief as out of the cloud of purple smoke walked General Spyro. He was no longer full of arrows and clinging to life by the skin of his teeth, but he looked totally happy, healthy, and sadistic. As Leonidas stared at him, he noticed that the Noctem general was smoking with the red fumes of a Potion of Healing as he looked up at the Wither and pointed toward Leonidas.

“Finish him off,” Spyro ordered with a cruel smile.

The Wither took another breath in and fired three skulls directly at Leonidas. Despite the colossal strain on his legs, Leonidas still found the strength to hop backward, dodging the explosions that blasted giant holes in the ground.

As Leonidas caught his breath, trying to keep his will to continue fighting alive, he realized with a start that the holes the Wither had blasted in the dirt-block ground of the alleyway had not made a crater. Instead, they had opened up a hole that revealed a drop of more than ten blocks down into a cave. It dawned on Leonidas that they must be over one of the abandoned mines underneath the city. He saw a bright light shining up from the cave, but he hardly cared what it was. All he knew was that he had already sustained a lot of damage, and he didn't have enough health to survive a more than ten-block fall. If the Wither's blasts knocked him down there, he would be killed on impact with the ground.

The Wither fired a steady stream of projectiles at Leonidas, not giving him a moment of rest as he dodged the stream of explosions by mere inches. It wasn't long before Leonidas realized that it was futile to dodge the blasts that were ripping the alley apart, revealing more and more of the old mine below them. Desperately hoping that he could outrun the Wither's attacks before one managed to connect, Leonidas turned around and began to sprint down the alley as quickly as he could.

What he didn't expect was to run headfirst into a brick wall.

Leonidas fell to the ground in a daze, looking up and realizing, with a horrified lurch of the stomach, that the alley was a dead end. Instantly, the adrenaline kicked in as Leonidas leaped to his feet, desperately looking for a way out. But there was none. And there, hovering over the torn-up dirt floor of the alleyway, floating closer and closer to him, was the Wither.

Leonidas was just about to break down, losing all self-control in the midst of this horrific turn of events, but instead he let out a sigh. He took a deep breath, and realized that there was nothing that he could do about it. His time had simply come. He had defied death one too many times, and now, it was all over for him. He closed his eyes, reflecting on how content he was to have made up for all the mistakes in
his past, as he readied himself to be blown to smithereens by the Wither.