The New Order (17 page)

“What are you talking about!” yelled G. “Of course it's
our
business! Whoever's been leaking our information is a traitor to the council and needs to be put away! Without a trial!”

“Oh, come on, do you ever think anything through?” snapped Kat. “First taking a day off to see me, now this. G,
if you put them away without a trial, then you get the people who're rioting on the lawn outside even more mad! I bet as soon as somebody takes credit for all this, half the city will probably call them a hero for exposing what we were hiding from them! And then if we jail that guy, and especially if we don't give him a trial, then what will they think of us?”

“Sounds like you've put a lot of thought into this, Kat,” replied Jayden suspiciously as G stared at her in disbelief. “Is it possible that you know more about this than the rest of us?”

“Oh, shut up, Jayden, we've all put a lot of thought into this!” Kat retorted. “Excuse me if I like to think about the consequences of my actions before ordering in Operation Bomb-the-Crap-Out-of-Everything and Project Jail-People-Without-Trial!”

“Oh, yeah, and your ideas are pure diamond!” Jayden shot back. “Yeah, your plan for dealing with the NNA went over perfectly, didn't it?”

Kat stood up in her place, sending her chair toppling over. “Why, you little . . .”

Goooooooonnnngggg!

The sound of the note block rang loud and clear throughout the room, courtesy of the wooden button under the table that Stan had just mashed. He had hit the button so hard that it cracked, but he didn't care. Stan was beyond fury now. He was actually getting to the point where he hated these
council meetings, which he used to enjoy.

“The next person,” said Stan, his voice shaking with rage, “who throws an insult at someone else at this table is going to be kicked off the council! Permanently!”

“What?” exclaimed Jayden in shock.

“You can't just make empty threats like that!” said DZ, startled.

“As a matter of fact, I can!” said Stan, whipping out a copy of the constitution from under the table and flipping it open to a page he had had bookmarked for some time. “It says right here that I can nominate anybody to be kicked off the council if at least three other council members vote to support me! And I don't know if you've noticed, guys, but you're divided in two, and both sides have at least three people!”

There was a moment of silence as the truth behind this statement hit the council. Everybody sat there, mulling it over, until finally Charlie spoke. “What I was saying before,” he said, almost timidly, “is that it's not our duty to search out the person who leaked that information. That's the police's job. I'll talk to Bill, Ben, and Bob about organizing an investigation.”

“Okay, thank you, Charlie,” replied Stan. He was glad that was taken care of. He had other orders of business to attend to. “Mechanist, I need you to do me a favor.”

The old player nodded. “Name it.”

“You're pretty good at explaining things. I need you to make an announcement to the people explaining to them why we kept the information about the attack from them, and why we need any leads about who leaked the information. Can you do that?”

“I'll do my best, Stan,” the Mechanist replied in his Texas drawl.

Stan nodded. “All right, then. In the meantime, the rest of us need to stop worrying about the leak, and worry about our biggest problem: the Noctem Alliance. Let's be honest with ourselves, people. We know absolutely nothing about them, how they work, and what their game plan is. The only way we're gonna figure that out is by interrogating one of them.”

Jayden snorted. “Oh yeah.” He laughed sarcastically. “'Cause we definitely have a captive Noctem soldier just sitting around.”

“Yeah, we do,” replied Kat, a hint of arrogance in her voice. “I ordered the messenger that told us about the NNA to be put in a high-security cell in Brimstone.”

Jayden paused. “Oh,” he replied sheepishly after a moment.

Stan ignored Kat's smug smirk and spoke on. “I'm gonna visit Brimstone myself to interrogate him. Charlie, Kat, and
DZ, do you guys wanna come with me?”

Charlie and Kat nodded, and DZ pumped his fist up and down. “Sweet!” he exclaimed. “It'll be just like old times! Except instead of slaying a dragon, we're gonna do a political interrogation! Swiggity swag!”

Stan couldn't help himself. He grinned. “Okay!” Stan announced, clapping his hands together. “Meeting adjourned!” And with that, he put the constitution back under the table and walked out the door.

In the hallway, Stan turned back to close a door DZ had left open. He was about to walk to his room when he heard some noises coming from a side hall near Kat's room.

“. . . go away, G, I don't want to talk to you right now.”

“Come on, Kat, it'll just take a second.”

There was a moment of silence. Stan put his back to the wall and edged closer to the hallway. As much as he knew it wasn't any of his business, he had to know what was going on between G and Kat.

“G, I don't have time for . . .”

“Why don't you wanna talk to me, huh?” G's voice simpered back. “We haven't spent any time together, just the two of us, since Elementia Day.”

Kat snorted. “Yeah, that was the day Archie got killed, and we've all been working nonstop since then to take down the guys responsible.”

“But I miss you, Kat.”

“Oh, get over it, G! It's been five days, that's not that long! And honestly, given everything that's hit the fan since then, our relationship has been the last thing on my mind.”

G gave a cynical grunt. “Huh, yeah, sure . . . since then . . .”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Come on, Kat, ditch the others, don't go to that prison. Stay here with me instead.”

“How can you even say that?” Kat sounded appalled.

“There's still three of them going; they don't really need you.”

“I want to go, G! This is important, and I want to be a part of it!”

“If you really like me, then you'll stay, Kat.”

“Oh, come on, G, you know I like you, that's not fair!”

“No, I'll tell you what's not fair!” cried G. He sounded enraged now. “Back in the old days you were different, you were committed to me, and I really liked you then! But now, what happens? I ditch work to try to come see you, and I'm so nice to you! And how do you repay me?”

There was a moment of silence. Stan's body tensed, and his hand instinctively moved to his axe. He had a premonition that he was going to have to intervene here.

“I'll tell you how. You tell me to get back to my job, and
you spend more time with your friends than with me!” Every syllable G spoke now was punctuated with contempt.

“G, I . . .”

“And you vote against me and my friends on the council! Why would my own girlfriend betray me like that? Tell me that, Kat.
Why
?” roared G.

There was a moment of silence, punctuated only by G's snorts of rage. Then, all of a sudden, G spoke, and he suddenly sounded different, gentle and kind. The sudden shift in tone sent shivers down Stan's spine.

“Hey, Kat, there's no reason to look so upset,” said G, with something resembling sympathy, which Stan found even more disturbing to hear.

“Yes, there is,” Kat spat. G pretended she hadn't said anything and kept talking.

“It's okay, Kat, I'll forgive you. Even if you're not perfect, I still really like you, and I'm perfectly willing to keep you if we could just go back to the way we were. You know, happy. What do you say?”

There was a pause during which Stan held his breath. When a voice spoke again it was G's, not Kat's.

“Tell you what, Kat. You stay with me instead of going to check on that prison, and we'll have a nice day out, away from all these political debates and war talk.”

There was more silence.

“Come on, Kat, give me a hug.”

“I don't want to give you a hug, G,” said Kat, finally speaking again, her voice furious now.

“Come on, Kat, I'm trying to work with you here! Just give me one hug and I'll let you . . .”

“No, G, you won't let me do anything!” cried Kat. “You don't own me, and you don't get to decide what I can and can't do!”

“I'm just asking for a hug. It's not hard.”

“I said
no
, G!” Kat yelled.

G gave a shout of frustration, his voice ripe with anger now. “You are the worst girlfriend ever, you know that? I'm still willing to keep you, even after everything you've put me through, and you won't give me one stupid hug?”

Stan had heard enough. He bolted out from around the corner and stood in the middle of the hallway, his eyes widened with concern as Kat and G stood screaming into each other's faces.

“Is there a problem here?” Stan asked.

G's head spun around to face Stan, and Kat used his distraction to shove G away from her, causing him to stagger backward into the wall.

“For heaven's sake, Kat, I just want a hug!” cried G. “Stan, is that too much to ask? To get a hug from my girlfriend? That's all I want!” He spun back toward Kat, his eyes
blazing. “What's your problem?”

“I'm not the one with the problem here, you are!” Kat shot G a look of disgust before turning to Stan. “He won't listen to me, and he's trying to force me away from you guys. How long were you standing behind that wall?”

“Long enough,” Stan answered solemnly.

Kat eyed G with contempt. “G, I'm telling you right now that if you try to hug me without my permission, I will fight back, and I'll win, too.”

“And you'd better not ever talk to her like that again,” said Stan coldly.

“Or what?” spat G.

“Or I'll have you removed from the council and kicked out of this castle,” Stan retorted.

There was a moment of charged silence. G looked bewildered, glancing back and forth from Kat to Stan, both of them holding him in their eye lock with contempt. After a moment, G's body loosened up. He looked at Stan.

“Fine,” he said in a defeated voice, but when he turned to face Kat, resentment dripped from his voice. “Well, I hope you have fun by yourself, Kat, because we're done.”

“You took the words right out of my mouth,” Kat replied, matching his level of scorn.

G opened his mouth as if he were about to speak, then closed it again. Finally, with one last look toward Kat that
said more than any insult ever could, G turned around and sulked down the hallway. Stan and Kat watched him as he took a left at the far end and entered his room, leaving Stan and Kat standing alone in the hallway.

There was an awkward silence. Stan knew that he should say something. “Uh, Kat?” he asked after a moment. “Are you . . . I mean, are you gonna be . . .”

“Yeah, I'll be fine.” Kat sighed, looking at the ground. “I've been meaning to end it for a while now. Thanks for backing me up, Stan,” said Kat, looking at him with something that Stan hadn't seen in Kat's eyes in far too long: genuine happiness. “You're a good friend.”

Kat gave him an earnest smile. Stan returned it, trying to express without words that no matter what happened, he knew they would always be there for each other. Suddenly, Kat spoke in a loud, excited voice that caught Stan off guard. “Now come on, Stan! That Noctem prisoner ain't gonna interrogate himself!”

CHAPTER 17
THE PRISONER OF BRIMSTONE

C
onsidering that Kat was about to enter a dimension that housed the most dangerous living criminals in the history of Elementia, Stan was amazed at how giddy she was. He sat next to her now, alongside Charlie and DZ, as they waited for their escorts to arrive and take them through the portal to Brimstone Prison.

“So, Kat, DZ, how did the Spleef semis go?” asked Stan.

“Oh, yeah, I had forgotten about that!” Charlie exclaimed. “Tell us all about it!”

As Stan and Charlie looked on expectantly, DZ suddenly looked downcast, and all the happiness that had been building in Kat's face vanished in the blink of an eye.

“What's the matter, guys?” asked Charlie with concern.

“You did . . . I mean, you did win the match, didn't you?” asked Stan.

“Well, of course they won!” said Charlie, as if this should be obvious. “All the stats and leader boards said the Ocelots stood no chance. . . .”

“No, Charlie.” DZ sighed. “We lost.”

“Shut up, no you didn't.” Charlie laughed. “You guys are way better than that other team, the leader
boards had you at first place in the tournament, there's no way you could lose to a team as average as the Ocelots.”

“Thank you, Charlie,” snapped Kat bitterly. “It's not like that's all we've been hearing every time we've talked to anyone, and it's not like Cassandrix has already rubbed our noses in it, no, we haven't heard that at
all
, Charlie, thank you for pointing it out!”

“Whoa, okay there,” said Charlie, raising his hands. “Back off, I just can't believe it. You guys actually lost?”

“Yerp,” replied DZ, sighing. “Well, I guess there's always next year.”

“Or there's always this year!” a thrilled voice came from behind them.

The four players looked at the doorway and saw Ben enter. He was waving a piece of paper in his hand and looked elated.

“What are you talking about, Ben?” Kat asked, looking bewildered.

“We're back in the tournament, guys!” he exclaimed.

“Wait, what?” Kat asked, so surprised that she tumbled backward off her chair in the midst of pulling on her iron boots.

“Are you serious, man?” asked DZ as he ran over to look at the paper, quickly followed by Kat after she regained her footing. “How the Herobrine did that happen?”

“Read for yourself,” replied Ben with a grin as he flourished the paper forward for his teammates to see. Kat read it aloud.

“‘Attention members of the Zombie Spleef Team. The Ocelots Spleef Team, which was due to compete in the upcoming Spleef World Finals, has been disqualified from the tournament for unsportsmanlike conduct. As a result, you, the runner-up to the disqualified team, are now slotted to take their place in the Spleef World Finals'!” Kat finished, and she gave a scream of joy before jumping into the air and landing in a group hug with her teammates.

“The Ocelots got disqualified?” asked DZ in awe. “What did they do?”

“You guys haven't heard yet? It's all anyone's been talking about,” Ben answered. “People are talking about it even more than they're talking about the leak. Apparently, the Ocelots were at a victory party when Cassandrix and the other Skeletons came up to them and started trash talking them. They got the leader so worked up that he punched one of Cassandrix's teammates. People who were there say that it was hardly anything at all, that it shouldn't leave any lasting damage, but Cassandrix is making a big deal out of it, making it out like her teammate took an arrow to the heart or something.”

“Yeah, that sounds like Cassandrix,” said Kat with
disdain, “milking it for all it's worth.”

Ben nodded gravely before continuing on with equal vivacity as before. “Anyway, the incident may have gotten overblown, but the good news is, when the league found out, they disqualified the Ocelots and now we're back in! We get a second chance!”

The three Zombies danced around, making victory noises and acting insane with happiness. Charlie and Stan watched in amusement with huge smiles on their faces.

“Okay,” DZ said. “So now that we're back in, we're gonna have to practice our butts off every day until the finals. They're in just a couple weeks, so we're gonna have to push ourselves harder than we've ever done before as soon as we get back from Brimstone.”

“Are you guys sure that you still want to go to Brimstone?” Charlie asked. “I'm pretty sure that Stan and I could do the interrogation ourselves, and you guys have training to do.” Stan nodded in agreement.

“Are you kidding me?” DZ laughed. “Job first, sports later. We're not gonna miss the interrogation of this guy just so we can practice! I mean, come on, we may finally figure out what the Noctem Alliance is planning!” Kat backed him up with a swift nod of the head.

“Okay, then, you guys go on with the investigation,” said Ben as the entourage of guards began to enter the room.
“I gotta say, it's a shame we can't go with you guys. Bob seemed particularly upset about it, but my brothers and I are setting up an investigation into the cause of the leaks, so I'd better get back to that.” Stan nodded, and the scarlet-clad police chief left the room.

As he did so, the four guards dressed in army uniforms who would serve as their escort to Brimstone Prison formed a square pattern around the four council members. Stan sighed. He disliked traveling with guards and longed for the days when he could go anywhere he wanted unattended. However, since the attacks by the Noctems had started, the citizens had wanted to keep their president safe, so Stan had instated the guards for protection on the journey to the perilous dimension.

The eight players marched through the purple glowing portal two by two. As Stan entered the mysterious purple mist, he felt the agonizing squeezing sensation that he had been dreading, where it felt like he had a black hole in his stomach. Then, as suddenly as it had started, the sensation stopped. Stan inhaled the warm, arid air around him as he looked around the Nether.

Stan hadn't been to the Nether since the official opening of the Brimstone Prison back before the last major update, but it looked largely unchanged. The Netherrack cave was as ominous as ever. The lava sea was as majestic as he had
remembered, and the Nether Fortress looming in the background looked just as imposing.

The Nether Fortress was made primarily of cobblestone now, and resembled an ancient bastille more than a hellish fortress of nightmares. Months ago, Stan had been cornered in that fortress by RAT1, King Kev's assassin team that consisted of Leonidas and two of his now-dead accomplices. Charlie had managed to get Stan, Kat, and the Nether Boys out right before RAT1 had blown up the majority of the fortress. After the battle, a place was needed to hold the dangerous war prisoners. The bits of Nether brick that had been blown apart were then rebuilt with cobblestone, and it had become Brimstone Prison.

That was when Stan had last seen it, during the renaming. He knew now, though, that many changes had taken place within the fortress. While he originally had teams of guards watching the prisoners within the fortress, he received a message one day that his guards in the fortress had all been slaughtered. Stan sent a scout to see what happened, and they had discovered that Brimstone Prison was now home to giant black Skeletons known as Wither Skeletons. Research had told them that these monsters had appeared in the prison during the latest update to Minecraft, and they could fatally poison a player with one swipe of their gigantic stone swords.

Stan gave a lot of credit to Blackraven for figuring out
a way around that problem. It was he who discovered that the Wither Skeletons were much more intelligent than the other evil mobs in the game. He had managed to reason with them, and convinced the Wither Skeletons to become the guards of Brimstone Prison. The mobs were a sadistic race, gaining joy from the aura of the anguished prisoners. They were happy to provide their services to the prison, provided that there was a constant supply of new prisoners to add to the cesspool of misery from which they drank.

As they began to walk down the cobblestone bridge that led to the entrance to the prison, Stan felt Charlie shaking beside him.

“How are you shivering?” asked Stan, wiping the sweat from his brow. “It's gotta be at least a hundred degrees in here!”

“Nah, it's not that,” Charlie stammered. “It's those . . . those . . . things, in there . . . they creep me out. . . .”

“What, the Wither Skeletons?” Kat butted in. Charlie nodded.

“Dude, don't worry, they're on our side. They're not gonna attack us, I promise,” said Stan. As much as he might disagree with Blackraven, Stan did trust him to do his job right.

“I know they're on our side, I believe that, it's just . . . I don't feel right getting help from a monster that feeds off
pain and uses poison to attack.”

“It's actually called the Wither Effect, not poisoning,” corrected Kat, looking at him in surprise. “Come on, Charlie, you're the bookworm, you're supposed to know all this stuff.”

“Well, what's the difference?” Charlie asked.

“Oh, they're the exact same thing, except the Wither Effect can actually kill you, whereas poisoning can just make you incredibly weak.”

Charlie was about to respond when he gave a shout of surprise at something behind the other players. Rising above the cobblestone viaduct were no less than three giant, cubic Jellyfish, all of which had blazing red eyes and fireballs flying out of their mouths. Three of the guards leaped forward to take the hits for the players, but Stan, Kat, and DZ had already notched and fired three arrows at the projectiles, hitting them dead-on, knocking them into the distance.

As the guards got to their feet, they could only watch in awe as the four elite players rained a wave of arrows onto the Ghasts. At one point a fourth Ghast rose up behind them, but before the fireball could make contact, DZ whipped around and swung his diamond sword into the fireball, sending it careening back into its sender. The Ghast fell a little before regaining its balance, giving DZ the time to leap in the air and send an arrow flying into the Ghast's forehead. The giant white beast plummeted downward and landed with a
whooshing noise on a Netherrack island in the middle of the lava sea before vanishing.

DZ turned around to see that his comrades had just downed the other three Ghasts. The four players looked at one another, saw that nobody was hurt, and gave a quick sigh of relief. Then they looked over at the guards, who were staring at them with jaws dropped. Only now, it seemed, did the guards realize that their job was pointless. The four players they had been mandated to guard were heroes, who had built their reputation by traveling Elementia and ridding it of some of Minecraft's greatest threats.

“Um . . . ,” one of the guards with a bushy moustache said. “Should we . . .”

Stan chuckled with amusement. “Go,” he said, and with that, the guards scurried back down the cobblestone bridge toward the Nether portal. All four council members laughed to themselves a little before they continued toward the imposing Brimstone Prison.

As they neared the front gate, Stan saw, for the first time in his life, the Wither Skeletons that now had the run of the prison. They were terrifying. Standing almost as tall as an Enderman with bones bleached black and gray, these undead monsters lugged giant stone swords on the ground behind them. A single player dressed in an army uniform stood between them.

As they approached, the two Skeletons guarding the door leered menacingly at the players. The guard stepped forward and asked in a gruff, emotionless voice, “State your business.”

“Presidential Request to interrogate prisoner number 02892,” said DZ, having memorized the prisoner's ID number.

The guard took one glance at Stan and nodded, before turning to look at one of the Wither Skeletons. The four players watched in curiosity as the guard made a series of clicks and vocations with his mouth, which were echoed by the Wither Skeleton in some form of conversation. After a minute of this, the guard turned to DZ and gave him the directions to the prisoner's chamber. DZ nodded his thanks and walked into the prison. The other three players hustled to catch up to him.

“What just happened, DZ?” Kat asked, wonder in her voice.

“Oh, Blackraven had that guy learn how to speak the language of the Wither Skeletons,” he replied.

“Where would he learn how to do that?” Stan asked.

“The internet,” DZ replied nonchalantly.

“What?” exclaimed Kat skeptically. “Where on the internet did he find something like that?”

DZ slowly turned around to look at her, and replied, “Kat,
the internet is a strange place . . . so don't question it.” And with no further discussion, the four players continued into the fortress.

Ominous didn't begin to describe the feeling of walking through the prison. The ceiling was made of cobblestone, but patches of the floor still had the original Nether brick blocks of the fortress, giving the impression in the dim light that the floor was scattered with pools of blood. The light was faint. Stan knew that Wither Skeletons, like normal Skeletons, were dark-dwelling mobs. There were no torches, with the only light coming from the lava sea and glowstone stalactites on the roof of the Netherrack cave.

As the four players walked down the corridor, all ill at ease, Stan caught glimpses into a few of the cells through the windows of the iron doors. What he saw made him feel a stir of pity. The players were curled up on the floor, hopeless, with nothing left to live for. However, Stan only had to remind himself that these were former members of King Kev's army, and had they not been captured, they would surely be fighting for the Noctem Alliance by now. That ebbed his sympathy instantaneously.

There was one particular cell that caught Stan's attention, and he fell behind the others because he had to take a look inside. Stan glanced in abhorrence at the player sitting up, back against the cobblestone wall, looking back at him.
This player had a black ski mask, a bare muscular chest, and black pants. The first time Stan had seen this player, Jayden's brother Crazy Steve had been shot. The second time, Jayden had gotten his revenge. It never occurred to Stan that the Griefer would have ended up here. It took a yell from Kat to get Stan to rip his fascinated gaze away from this player.