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Page 46
Fine, he thought to himself, have it your way, Stan.
He switched his enchanted diamond sword to his right hand, held it in front of him, and leaped into the air, rocketing at top speed toward Stan, who mirrored him and flew directly at Lord Tenebris. It was only a matter of seconds before the two players, flying directly at each other, met in the center of the wood plank–block platform. Their blades clashed together, sending a shower of sparks down to the ground below them as the two operators teleported away.
As Jayden looked around, he realized that most of the Noctem soldiers had managed to get over their shock and were beginning to fight back. Indeed, Jayden still had absolutely no idea how a diamond axe had appeared in his inventory, nor how the same thing had happened to all his friends and allies.
All he knew was that, whatever was happening, it was because of Stan, whom Jayden had seen fly toward Lord Tenebris and warp into the sky. Stan had clearly gotten operating powers somehow, and was now using them to fight Lord Tenebris. As soon as that fight finished, Jayden was sure that Stan would help them subdue the Noctem armies. Until then, though, Jayden knew that they had to buy Stan as much time as they could.
“Well, well, well . . . look who we have here,” a voice with a Welsh accent spoke from behind him.
Jayden spun around and saw three players staring at him with contempt. He realized with a jolt that one of them was Zingster, the harsh corporal who had overseen Jayden’s training in Nocturia. The other was LemonKipper, who had the skin of a mermaid and was a stuck-up member of Jayden’s class. He didn’t recognize the third player, who had no face. His or her skin (Jayden couldn’t tell) was totally black, except for a giant number 4 that stretched from the player’s head to their toes.
“Hey guys,” Jayden said, raising his axe and dropping into a fighting stance, “long time no see.” He had seen Zingster and Kipper fight, and he knew that he could take both of them.
“Don’t sound so chipper,” Kipper snarled at him. “We’re gonna make you pay for what you did to Nocturia, Councilman Jayden.”
“Wait . . . that’s right,” Jayden said, realizing that Kipper and Zingster should probably be dead. “How did you three escape Nocturia?”
“I got caught swiping some QPo,” Kipper said, no hint of guilt in his voice, “and Zingster decided to take me out into the tundra to teach me a lesson. When the bomb went off, we decided to head over here.”
“I let him get away with the theft,” Zingster grunted. “Because we’ve got bigger fish to fry!”
Zingster drew out his pickaxe and rushed into Jayden as Kipper did the same with his sword. Jayden knocked the pickaxe out of the way and locked the blade of his axe into the sword. The two players struggled to overpower each other for a moment before Zingster recovered and attacked again, forcing Jayden to feint away from Kipper and dodge.
Well, they’ve both gotten better, Jayden thought to himself as he swung his axe at Zingster’s hand. The Noctem corporal dodged and used the opening to body check Jayden, sending him to the ground with a thud. Immediately, he rolled to the side to avoid a stab of Kipper’s sword, and rolled several more times to avoid the sword that repeatedly plunged into the gravel. All of a sudden, Jayden felt his axe fly out of his hand, and looked up in time to see Zingster raising his pickaxe for another strike, just as Kipper did the same.
Jayden rolled to the side while swinging his feet around, dodging the sword strike while sweeping his legs behind Zingster’s knees, sending him tumbling down, his pickaxe flying into the air. Jayden used the momentum to leap to his feet, catching Zingster’s pickaxe while using it to counter Kipper’s sword strike. Once again, the two players pressed into each other’s blades, sending sparks flying, until Jayden finally started to win. He came closer and closer to overpowering Kipper, and was about to overtake him when he sensed something flying at him from the corner of his eye.
Instinctively, Jayden ducked, and the flying potion hit Kipper squarely in the face. The impact knocked him to the ground, right on top of the recovering Zingster. The cloud of gray smoke from the bottle wafted to the ground, surrounding the two players and knocking them unconscious.
Jayden had gotten slightly sprayed by the gas, too, and he felt a little woozy. He turned to face the thrower, and found the player skinned with the 4. Without another word, the player produced another potion bottle from nowhere, and tossed it at Jayden with a grunt.
The good news was that, from the grunt, Jayden could tell that this player was female. The bad news was the barrage of Potions of Slowness flying from her hands directly at him. Still armed with Zingster’s pickaxe, Jayden didn’t have enough reach to block the potions without getting hit, so he was forced to dodge, duck, and weave between the bottles. The fumes of the potions began to rise, and Jayden felt himself becoming more and more affected by the vapors.
Before long, Jayden decided to call it quits and sprint away from the player. As fast as he tried to run, though, the potion weighed down on him, making him feel as if his legs were just blocks of lead. He knew it was futile as he heard the player approaching him from behind, but he kept running until the player body checked him, sending him careening forward. He landed at the base of the Avery Memorial Courthouse, slamming his head on the bottom step and sprawling out on the ground, knocked out cold.
The player with the 4 on her body smiled and drew a Potion of Harming out of her inventory. She walked over to Jayden and held the Potion of Harming over Jayden’s face. She was about to let it go when—
“Hey!”
The player looked up, and there, at the top of the steps of the courthouse, stood another player. He was wearing a light tan leather tunic and pants. His clothes were covered in burn marks, but he still sat tall and strong atop the pig he was riding. The player was aiming a bow at the girl.
“Get away from him,” Charlie growled as he let the arrow fly.
His aim was dead on, and the potion bottle shattered in her hand. The cloud of red toxins enveloped her arm and she gave a screech of agony before looking up at Charlie contemptuously, drawing two more Potions of Harming as she set her sights on him.
Charlie stood still, and gave a smile. He knew that he wasn’t good enough with a bow to repeat that shot, so instead, he raised his hand and gestured forward.
The player with the 4 looked slightly confused, but then her eyes widened in horror as a massive wave of players began to pour out of the courthouse directly toward her. She turned and sprinted as fast as she could onto the battlefield, desperate to avoid the massive wall of thousands of players who were dashing down the stairs. All of them were unarmored but were holding up various weapons of different materials, chanting, “Down with the Alliance!” and “Long live President Stan!” as they charged into the plaza to fight the Noctem forces.
After a few minutes, all the thousands of players had left the courthouse and were joining the battlefield. Looking out at the plaza, Charlie gave a satisfied grin as the players he had just led from the courthouse joined the fight. He glanced down the stairs and noticed that Jayden was still lying there, and he was starting to stir.
Charlie ordered Dr. Pigglesworth down the stairs and pulled up next to Jayden. He extracted a bucket of milk from his inventory and poured it into Jayden’s mouth. Instantly, the effects of the potion vanished, and Jayden sat up straight, rubbing his head where he had fallen on the stairs. He looked around in a daze, and when his eyes landed on Charlie, they widened.
“Charlie?” he asked in awe.
“Yeah, it’s me,” he replied with a smile.
“But . . . how did you get here?” Jayden asked as Charlie helped him to his feet. “And . . . where did you get that many players to help us?”
“Well, it’s kind of a long story,” Charlie said as Jayden extracted a Potion of Healing from his inventory.
“Give me the short version,” Jayden requested as he started to drink the potion.
“Well, basically, ELM captured me and warped me up to t
he tower, and I got the attention of one of the Withers to help me escape,” Charlie said. “It did manage to kill them, but it also blasted me off the tower.”
“Yikes!” Jayden exclaimed. “How’d you get out of that one?”
“The same way that Stan did,” Charlie replied. “I had a Potion of Fire Resistance on hand. Well, it wasn’t totally the same,” he said as he scratched his pig between the ears. “I gave mine to Dr. Pigglesworth as we were falling, and he kind of acted like a fireproof life raft and swam me out of the lava moat after we landed. I got a little burned,” he said, gesturing to the scorch marks all over his clothes, “but I shook it off.”
“Okay,” Jayden said with a nod, “but that still doesn’t explain where you got thousands of players to come and fight for us!”
“Well, being in all that lava got me thinking,” Charlie replied, “and I realized that with all the fighting going on in Element City, there was probably nobody guarding Brimstone besides the Wither Skeletons. I had been away from the battlefield for so long that it probably wouldn’t have made a huge difference if I went back or not, and I realized what we could probably use most were reinforcements. So after we got out of the lava, I snuck back into the castle and went to the Nether.”
“And you freed everyone who was locked up in Brimstone?” Jayden asked, amazed.
“Yep. Actually, to be honest, I have this little guy here to thank,” said Charlie, smiling as he pet his pig on the head again. “I was able to use the bridge to get from the castle’s Nether Portal to the prison, but I still had the Wither Skeletons to deal with, and I didn’t have a weapon. Dr. Pigglesworth was able to dodge all the Skeletons’ attacks, and I was able to free all the soldiers and citizens who the Noctem Alliance locked up in there . . . which, I had forgotten, was the entire population of the city.”
“And they all joined the battle?”
“Yep,” Charlie said. “I told everybody that our final battle against the Noctem Alliance was going on, and everybody said that they wanted to help out. They looted the storehouse at the prison, scraped together any weapons they could, and followed me to the portal in the courthouse. So that means that, as of right now, the entire population of Element City, citizens and soldiers alike, is out there fighting the Noctems.”
The two players turned to look out on the battlefield again. Indeed, now that the citizens from Brimstone were out on the battlefield, the Noctem forces were outnumbered ten to one. Jayden and Charlie both knew that, despite the massive advantage in quantity, the Noctem soldiers were still skilled fighters, and the two Withers were still raining their skulls of death down into the battlefield. They still had a long way to go before the battle was won.
CHAPTER 29 THE LAST BATTLEFIELD
Bob!”
Ben looked up from the map he’d pulled off a dead Noctem soldier and saw his brother riding Ivanhoe toward the abandoned store that he was concealed within. As Bob rode through the doorless frame, Ben was relieved. The map had showed him some very odd things that he needed to ask about.
“Hey, bro,” Ben replied as Bob reached him. “What’s going on out there? Because either this map is malfunctioning or about a thousand new players just entered the battlefield.”
“That’s no malfunction,” Bob replied, and Ben was shocked to see that his face was lit up with joy. “Charlie just came back, and he brought everybody who was locked away in Brimstone with him.”
“Really?” Ben said. “That’s fantastic! And all of them are fighting?”
“Yes, but that’s not entirely a good thing,” Bob replied solemnly. “On the one hand, we now outnumber the Noctems by a ton. But on the other hand, we still have to worry about that.”
Bob pointed out the window, and Ben followed his finger until his gaze locked on one of the Withers. The giant skeletal mob, which had been harmlessly floating in the sky, was now firing indiscriminately into the crowd. A rapid-fire barrage of black skulls flew from the three mouths of the monster, creating a blitz of explosions that was spreading through the crowd.
“Now that there are so many republic fighters in the crowd, the Wither isn’t afraid to hold back anymore,” Bob explained, an urgent note in his voice. “It realizes that, regardless of who it fires at, it will probably hit more of our soldiers than theirs. We’ve got to take that thing down, and fast.”
Ben was blown away by the notion that any mob in the game would have the reasoning skills to think like that. Then again, Lord Tenebris’s psychic grip on this particular Wither had probably bent its mind in odd and unexplainable ways. Anyway, it didn’t matter. Ben knew that his brother was right, and their top priority had to be taking down the Withers.
“All right,” Ben replied. “Let’s go.”
Ben yanked a Potion of Swiftness out of his inventory, guzzled it down, and immediately felt a surge of energy course through his veins. He took a deep breath and ran out of the building and onto the battlefield, Bob right behind him. Ivanhoe was fast enough to keep up with the potion-enhanced Ben, so it was side by side that the two brothers raced across the outskirts of the plaza and toward the Wither.
As they ran, Ben looked at the fighting players and saw, to his delight, that the Noctem forces were starting to be overwhelmed. He saw various throngs of black-clad players all fighting back to back as they were swarmed by the sheer number of republic players who were now on the battlefield. His stomach lurched with disgust when he saw a republic fighter fall to the ground, items flying about him in a falling halo, and it only encouraged him to sprint faster.
After dashing as fast as they could, the two police chiefs were finally close enough to the Wither that they could hear the screams of its victims as it continued to fire its life-draining projectiles into the crowd. Ben looked at his brother, who pointed to a brick-block building at the corner of the plaza, the bottom floor of which had been partially torn apart by TNT blasts. Ben nodded, and the two of them sprinted into the building. He hardly noticed the dilapidated remains of a store on the ground floor. His eyes immediately locked onto a staircase. He didn’t break his pace as he raced up the stairs, his brother on piggyback right behind him.
They burst onto the roof and looked out over the Avery Memorial Courthouse plaza, where thousands of players were now fighting. Not too far away from them, the Wither was hovering high over the battlefield, still bombarding the field with skulls. Although the explosions were tearing rifts in the groups of Noctem and republic players alike, nobody made any attempts to stop the monster; they were all too busy fighting one another.
“How are we gonna take that thing down?” Bob asked, desperation in his voice. He looked at his brother, who appeared to be in deep thought. “Do you have any ideas, bro?”
“Well . . . I do have one. . . .”
“Spit it out!” Bob cried.
“Well . . . ,” Ben said, pausing for a moment, as if unsure that he wanted to suggest it, then finally replying, “We could try Operation Hook, Line, and Sinker.”
Bob stared at his brother for a moment, mulling over this insane idea.
“But . . . that operation was designed to take down Ghasts! That thing probably has twenty times the firepower of a Ghast!” Bob said, sounding overwhelmed. “And also, in order for that to work, we’d need Bill.”
“Well, I’m sorry, do you have a better idea?” Ben demanded as a particularly large blast sounded in the middle of the battlefield, accompanied by another morbid chorus of screams. “At the very least, we’ll be able to distract it for a little while, and hopefully we can hold it at bay until Stan’s ready to come down here and finish it off!”
“Might we be able t’ help ye?” a voice came from behind them, cutting off Bob’s reply. The two brothers looked behind them and saw Sirus and Commander Crunch walking across the top of the roof, bows and arrows in their hands and enthusiastic smiles on their faces.
“Yeah, you can!” Ben shouted with glee, happy with any backup they could possibly get.
“How did
you guys know we were up here?” Bob asked.
“Oh, we were just over on the roof of that building over there”—Sirus pointed over to the building next door—“and it was pretty funny ’cause, at first, we ran in there to avoid the Wither, but then we saw it was an anvil store, so we’ve been dropping anvils off the roof onto the heads of the bad guys ever since then!”
“Uh . . . guys?” Ben said slowly. He looked back and forth between the two players as if they were insane. “You . . . both have bows and arrows in your hand. Why didn’t you just use those?”
“Oh, I be sorry, Mister Reason ’n’ Practicality,” Commander Crunch spat sarcastically. “Pardon me if, in th’ midst o’ all o’ this ghastly warfare, we felt th’ need t’ inject a wee bit o’ classic cartoon-style comedy into the mix.”
Ben and Bob stared at him for a moment, now absolutely positive he was insane, before realizing that it didn’t matter. Sirus and Crunch were here, and they were both competent with a bow and arrow—that was all that really mattered.
“Okay, here’s the plan,” Ben explained, as Sirus and Commander Crunch listened intently. “You three shoot at it from behind me. I’ll have my sword out, and I’ll block all its attacks.”
The three other players nodded and, wasting no time, they stood side by side behind Ben, notching arrows in their bows and training them on the Wither. Ben dropped into a fighting stance, his sword raised and ready to deflect.
“Ready . . . aim . . . FIRE!”
On Ben’s command, three arrows flew over his head, over the crowd of warring players, and directly into the backs of each of the Wither’s three heads. The giant boss mob shrieked in agony before spinning around and setting its sights on the rooftop where the four players stood. Bob, Commander Crunch, and Sirus didn’t stop, continuing to send arrows flying into the Wither’s body as the monster let loose its first flurry of attacks.
Ben leaped into action, swinging his sword through the air and cutting all the Wither Skulls in two, creating small gray explosions that just barely grazed his skin. The Wither and the players continued to fire at each other. As more and more arrows sunk into the scattered pieces of black flesh hanging from the beast’s skeletal rib cage, Ben spun his sword around, deflecting countless explosions, the Knockback Enchantment on the sword keeping the blasts far enough away that he hardly took any damage from them.