Herobrine's Message

by Sean Fay Wolfe

  “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.

  Charlie looked on with a smile at the battle going on before them. He still had no idea why Drake had let them into the city so easily, but whatever the reason was, it had given Charlie’s invasion force an upper hand in the first phase of their invasion plan. The Noctem Alliance was now falling back from the city wall as Commander Crunch pushed his soldiers through the gates and into the city. Meanwhile, Jayden and Sirus had both managed to get nearly all their troops over the Element City wall using their Ender Pearls, and Charlie could see that some of them had even stayed on top and were now firing arrows down into the city.

  Charlie glanced down at the bridge and saw the bodies of about five Elementia soldiers vanish into nothing, leaving a floating pool of items in their place. His heart clenched as he saw this, but loosened slightly as he saw hundreds of items spilled at the gateway where the Noctem Alliance had been standing guard. He took a deep breath and reminded himself that many of his people were about to die, and he would just have to accept this. With a heavy heart and a mindset that was trying as hard as it could to be optimistic, Charlie dug his heels into his pig and made his way down the bridge and into the city.

  As he sprinted through the streets of his city, Stan couldn’t believe the scale of the war breaking out all around him as the rain continued to fall. All throughout the streets, hundreds of soldiers were engaged in armed combat, fighting as hard as they could to destroy each other as sparks flew from their connecting blades. Arrows flew across the sky like deadly sparrows, some flying a bit too close to him for comfort. The scents and hues of dozens of noxious potion gases clouded the air, only getting stronger by the second. The bangs and whizzes of the fire charge dispensers and TNT cannons rang through the air, creating a deafening din that almost drowned out the battle cries of the eight hundred combatants spread across Element City. Every so often, the side of a building would explode as a TNT cannon missed its mark, sending dust, blocks, and various debris flying.

  Stan felt extremely vulnerable as he sprinted through this metropolitan battlefield, completely devoid of armor and without his diamond axe in hand. He knew that it would render the Invisibility Potion moot if he were carrying anything visible, but the fact that he was so defenseless made him feel jittery and panicked as he ran. And he couldn’t have those feelings now . . . not with what he was about to do.

  Finally, after running across hundreds of blocks
of streets and buildings within the battle zone, the rendezvous point came into sight. Stan hastily made his way into the dilapidated remains of the old Spleef Arena, and wasted no time in ducking into the base of a fountain that still stood in the central plaza. Though the building itself hadn’t been used in years, and it had been picked apart by vandals, the remaining structure of the arena still maintained the regal splendor it had in its heyday. The old arena and the flat expanse of overgrown grass surrounding it was calm, but Stan could still hear the sounds of warfare as they spread farther and farther across Element City. Stan’s heart raced; there was nothing to do but wait for his friends and hope that they made it without incident.

  As soon as he thought this, Stan heard footsteps above him and, without thinking, crouched to the ground, ready to draw his axe at a moment’s notice. The footsteps halted, and after a few seconds of silence, the visible form of Kat leaped up over the side of the fountain and dropped down beside Stan, landing in the stone basin.

  “Hello? Is anyone here?” Kat whispered tentatively, her sword drawn and tightly clutched in her hand.

  “Yeah, I’m here,” Stan replied, and as soon as he said it, he realized that his hand was starting to fade back into visibility. Kat looked at him and gave a sigh of relief, the tension in her body lessening slightly.

  “Glad to see you made it here okay,” Kat said as she sat with her back to the fountain wall. “You have any trouble?”

  “No, it was pretty smooth,” Stan replied as he sat down next to her. “How about you?”

  “Same,” she replied, looking at the ground as she absentmindedly chiseled into the stone with the tip of her diamond sword. “I wish that I didn’t have to leave Rex back in the village, though . . . I felt so exposed without him.”

  “Well, you know it was for the best,” Stan replied solemnly. “He won’t be any help to us on the mission, and the last thing we want is for something to happen to him.”

  Kat said nothing in response. Stan hadn’t expected her to. There was nothing to say. They were about to charge into Element Castle to try to take down Lord Tenebris once and for all. To talk about it would only rekindle the fear that the two of them were barely suppressing.

  “I wonder where the others are,” Stan said after a little while.

  “Oh man . . . I hope they’re okay,” Kat said nervously. She glanced up out of the fountain and toward the gray sky above, from which rain was still falling, occasionally accented by a clap of thunder. Stan looked at her in concern, his heart feeling as if it were being wrung out like a sponge. As he stared at Kat, the rain drizzling down over her and a light mist hanging above them, it truly hit him for the first time that there was a high possibility that some of them—or all of them—would not live to see the end of the day.

  “Kat?” he whispered.

  “Yeah?” she replied, in equally hushed tones.

  “Well . . . it’s just that . . . I want you to know that . . . if we don’t make it back . . .”

  “Don’t say that!” Kat hissed, her eyes flaring with anger as she glared at Stan; he immediately backed off. “We’re going to kill Lord Tenebris and all walk out of here alive!”

  Stan stared downward at the basin as Kat continued to glare at him. He didn’t dare question her. And yet, from the corner of his eye, Stan saw that Kat, too, was looking forward. She stared intently at the cobblestone-block wall across from her, as if trying to extract some hidden message from it.

  “We’re all going to be just fine . . . ,” she murmured to herself, still staring, as if entranced, at the wall.

  There were footsteps above, and without thinking, Stan and Kat immediately drew their bows and aimed them up, lest they be discovered by Noctem Agents. But they soon returned their weapons to their inventories. Leonidas’s head came into the well, saw both of them, and smiled.

  “Excellent, y’all are here!” he exclaimed. “Warp up outta there. We’ve gotta get a move on. Yo, Cassandrix, they’re both down there!”

  Stan and Kat both drew Ender Pearls from their inventories and pitched them up out of the well. Stan closed his eyes as he warped onto the solid brick ground above. Brushing off the slight sting in his knees, Stan saw Leonidas and Cassandrix, both clad in full armor glowing with enchantments.

  “You’re late.” Stan snickered as Kat appeared beside him in a puff of smoke that was instantly dissipated by the strengthening rainfall.

  “Be that as it may,” Cassandrix replied with an arrogant snicker, “at least the two of us are fully armored and ready for the assault.”

  Stan looked down at himself and realized, to his embarrassment, that Cassandrix was right. Both he and Kat hadn’t put on their diamond armor after the Invisibility Potion had worn off. Hastily, Stan tossed the armor out of his inventory to the ground and began to put it on, Kat doing the same as Cassandrix and Leonidas chuckled to themselves.

  Finally, Stan secured the diamond helmet on his head. His entire body was covered in glowing diamond, from his head to his feet to the axe clutched in his right hand. Kat looked equally menacing. The radiant luster of the armor shone through the rain, particularly from the three-pronged enchantment on Kat’s sword.

  Stan took a deep breath and looked at his three friends, who were no longer laughing, but clutching their weapons in their hands and looking deadly serious. It was time to end the war once and for all.

  “Are you ready?” Stan asked.

  “Yes, sir!” all three players replied in unison, shouting to be heard over the now raging storm.

  “All right,” replied Stan, his eyes glinting with fury as a flash of lightning illuminated the sky behind him, accompanied by a crash of thunder.

  “Let’s do this.”

  Charlie’s eyes widened as he realized that a block of TNT was soaring out of the raging rain and right for him. He yanked the reins of his pig to the right as hard as he could, swerving away just before the flying projectile would have made contact. The TNT hit the ground in a massive burst behind Charlie, leaving a sizable hole in the center of the street. As Charlie felt the shockwave from the explosion crash over him, he scratched Dr. Pigglesworth behind the ears in thanks.

  Although the war between the eight hundred players was now spreading throughout the city, the majority of the combat was still confined to the Merchant’s District, which bordered the outer wall near the entrance. Charlie had been on his way to the front lines to command the troops, but he could now see that the combat along the main roads was too thick. He instead fell back behind a half-destroyed building, where he found Ben looking at the battle plans laid out on a crafting table, his eyes skimming the pages so fast they nearly appeared as blurs.

  “How’re we looking back here?” Charlie asked, parking his pig next to Ben’s table as the police chief looked up at him.

  “Pretty good so far,” Ben replied quickly. “We’ve broken their first line of defense and they’re being driven back into the city. At this rate we should make it to the castle within a couple hours.”

  Charlie sighed at the idea of fighting an uphill battle for the next two hours, especially considering that the longer the combat raged, the more casualties there would be. This thought reminded him to ask Ben about the deaths on both sides so far.

  “Well, it’s kind of hard to get a certain read,” Ben said matter-of-factly, “but based on what I’ve seen, I’d estimate about fifty dead on each side so far.”

  Charlie’s stomach contracted as if all the air had been sucked out. In the short time that they’d been fighting, both sides had already lost an eighth of their soldiers! Would there be anybody left to fight on either side by the time they got to the castle?

  “Calm down,” Ben said sternly, sensing Charlie’s panic. “It’s not surprising that we lost so many during the initial strike. I’m sure the rate of casualties will only go down from here . . . at least, until they make their last stand at the castle, that is.”

  “Great,” replied Charlie miserably.

&n
bsp; “Don’t mope, Charlie!” Ben ordered, the drill sergeant in him showing itself in full now. “The invasion so far has been a fantastic success, you have nothing to complain about! Now go out there and lead your people.”

  “Yes, sir,” Charlie replied unwaveringly, and he commanded the pig back out into the open. The street was nearly deserted now, as the fighting had moved up the street and deeper into the merchant’s district. Charlie knew that he couldn’t just march up the street. He’d be taken out by snipers or TNT cannons if he rode up the street alone. Charlie glanced around and noticed an alleyway branching out from the main plaza. It looked like it went in the general direction of the combat, and it appeared totally unoccupied. Drawing his pickaxe, Charlie urged Dr. Pigglesworth forward across the clearing, ducking into the narrow side street.

  The two-block-wide path was paved with dirt, unlike the rest of the city, and walls of solid brick rose skyward on either side of Charlie. In fact, the alleyway bore a striking resemblance to the one in which Charlie, Stan, and Kat had stayed upon their first-ever entrance into Element City. Another clap of thunder burst from overhead as the rain continued to crash down from the sky in sheets. Charlie edged slowly onward, pickaxe drawn, and eyes and ears on the ready to detect the slightest hint that somebody might . . .

  It all happened at once. Charlie heard the sound of teleportation behind him, and at the same instant felt the tip of a sword wedged into a chink in his diamond armor, one thrust away from killing him. He froze like a deer in the headlights, pulling back on the saddle to bring Dr. Pigglesworth to a halt along with him.

  “Move a single block further and you’re dead,” the voice of Arachnia hissed from behind him.

  Charlie was unable to move. He was unable to breathe. He was unable to process anything other than the shock that ELM had not yet given up their hunt . . . and they now had him.

  “It’s good to see you, Charlie,” Arachnia said with a sly smile as she walked around to face him. Charlie heard the stretch of a bowstring behind him and knew that Lord Marrow had an arrow aimed at his head. “Although I know that the same isn’t true for you. You probably thought that we had given up on capturing the president after the episode at the Adorian Village.”