“I must admit, Stan, that you managed to catch me off guard,” Lord Tenebris said after a moment of silence. “This is something that no player has ever been able to do before.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Stan replied snarkily.
“However, it doesn’t matter to me how you attained these powers, Stan,” Lord Tenebris said, his eyes looking more sinister by the moment as a rumble of thunder sounded in the distance. “Your strength still pales in comparison to the might of I, the great and powerful Lord—”
“You can drop the act now that we’re up here,” Stan cut in bitterly. “I know who you really are, Kev.”
Lord Tenebris opened his mouth for a moment, looking outraged, and Stan was sure that he was about to burst into some sort of tirade. But then, as quickly as his anger had risen, it ceased. He had heard something in Stan’s voice that he had, again, not been expecting: certainty. Stan was not simply making an unfounded claim to get under his skin—Lord Tenebris was floating across from a player who unquestionably knew the truth about him.
“So . . . you finally figured it out,” Lord Tenebris said, looking at Stan in a calculating manner.
“Yep,” Stan replied, looking at Lord Tenebris and shaking his head. “I always had trouble believing that two egomaniacal dictators would be able to gain total control on the same Minecraft server in the span of just six months. At least it makes a bit more sense now that I know it was you all along.”
“I must ask, Stan,” Lord Tenebris said evenly, his eye twitching at Stan’s comment as he tried not to show any cracks in his self-assured persona, “what tipped you off? I thought that I hid my trail quite well.”
“Well, let’s just say that I had a run-in with a friend who was able to help me put together the pieces of the puzzle,” Stan said audaciously. “As a matter of fact, it was the same friend who helped me get the powers that are letting me float up here and talk to you now.”
Lord Tenebris’s eyes widened, and then his face contorted into an ugly sneer.
“It was that mongrel Sally, wasn’t it?” Lord Tenebris snarled at Stan. “She’s been a thorn in my side for months now, never ceasing her attempts to break through my defenses, to peel back the layers of protection that I installed to protect my beloved server. . . . She finally succeeded in getting in. . . .”
“Well, Sally did help me quite a bit,” Stan replied, his cheery, conversational tone of voice making Lord Tenebris’s rage build. The Noctem leader was used to every player whom he spoke to cowering in fear, not treating him like a joke. “But she wasn’t the one I was referring to.”
“And I suppose that you’re not going to tell me who did,” Lord Tenebris scoffed.
“Well, I might,” Stan replied, his steely gaze equaling Lord Tenebris’s as he clutched his axe tightly in both hands, “if we didn’t have more important business to attend to.”
“Indeed we do, Stan, indeed we do,” Lord Tenebris said softly, raising his sword in front of his hollow, white eyes as his face twisted into a sick smile. “The time has come to end this once and for all. It’s time for the showdown that was always meant to be. You and I, Stan, one on one, with no armies, no traps, and no tricks.
“Oh, and don’t forget, Stan . . . I’m a man of my word,” Lord Tenebris simpered, bowing his head. “The terms of our duel remain unchanged. Whoever wins this fight shall be proclaimed the rightful ruler of the Minecraft server Elementia.”
“I wouldn’t look so cocky if I were you, Kev,” Stan shot back, as he returned his axe to his inventory and raised both of his hands in front of him. “I beat you once before. . . . and I’ll do it again.”
“Oh, that’s cute. You’re right, Stan, you did beat me once.” Lord Tenebris laughed as he, too, pocketed his sword and mirrored the position of Stan’s hands. “But you forget—up here in the sky, you don’t have Avery or the Apothecary to die for you. The only one that you have to rely on is yourself.”
“And that’s exactly who I’m counting on,” Stan replied as he took a deep breath, drew back his fist, and sent a pulse of explosive energy flying through the air at Lord Tenebris.
Dropping into a fighting stance, Lord Tenebris teleported out of the way of the blast, reappearing a few blocks away, where Stan immediately aimed another blast at him. The two of them repeated this six more times, each time Lord Tenebris reappearing closer and closer to Stan. After the sixth blast, Lord Tenebris was within close range of Stan, and a sword appeared in his hand as he stabbed it at Stan’s stomach. In turn, Stan conjured an axe in his own hand, knocking the sword to one side and, in one motion, summoning a globe of dozens of Blazes around himself and Lord Tenebris while warping away.
Stan reappeared ten blocks overhead and looked down to see countless flashes of fire as all the Blazes in the globe opened fire on Lord Tenebris. Then, without warning, all the tiny flashes were totally overpowered by a massive blast of light and sound as Lord Tenebris created an explosion around himself, destroying all the mobs in one fell swoop and sending a shower of Blaze rods falling to the ground far below. Lord Tenebris skyrocketed up to Stan’s level and, from ten blocks away, raised his hand and fired a salvo of hundreds of arrows at Stan.
Stan knew that he couldn’t redirect all those arrows with his mind at once, and so he raised his hand, summoning a cow to appear in front of him in a puff of smoke. As the arrows all pierced the hide of the animal, killing it instantly as it plummeted down to earth alongside two raw pieces of meat and a leather skin, Stan focused with all his might on the air above Lord Tenebris. Instantly, in a series of pops, dozens of blocks of gravel appeared in midair over his head and began to fall down around Lord Tenebris’s head.
The Noctem leader was preparing another attack as he got clobbered in the head with the first block, knocking him out of his focus and sending him tumbling down, directly into the path of the next falling block. Lord Tenebris looked up and realized that he was in a storm of falling gravel and, with a deep breath, he aimed a skyward punch. The invisible pulse of energy connected with one of the blocks, creating an explosion that wiped all the other gravel from existence. Lord Tenebris then aimed a punch directly at Stan, who was still recovering from the effort of creating blocks in midair.
By the time he sensed it coming, it was too late for Stan to block the explosive pulse of energy. It was all he could do to catch the invisible sphere of deadly energy in his outstretched hands. The invisible force powered toward Stan’s core, but he found to his utter amazement that, with all his focus, he was actually able to keep it from reaching him and blowing up. Also, the more that Stan focused on keeping the pulse away from him, the stronger it became, and the harder it fought to come toward him. The pulse grew and grew as Stan tried to keep it at bay, holding the energy pulse between his hands. When he felt as though he couldn’t hold it any longer, he pushed both of his hands forward, sending the powered-up blast back at Lord Tenebris.
He felt the enhanced blast long before it reached him, and Lord Tenebris knew that, whatever Stan had done to the invisible shot of energy, it was far more powerful than anything that he had ever created. He doubted that he would be able to survive this explosive blast, or even deflect it if he tried. Lord Tenebris raised his arms in front of him and devoted all of his focus to creating a three-by-three-block barrier of obsidian in front of himself. As the explosion hit the three blocks and ruptured with massive force while Lord Tenebris remained completely safe behind it, he knew that he had just made a huge mistake.
Indeed, at almost the exact moment that the three blocks appeared in midair in front of Lord Tenebris, Stan stretched his hand out toward the shield of obsidian. Before Lord Tenebris could even muster the will to teleport away, the blocks of obsidian expanded off the shield, occupying the same space as Lord Tenebris and continuing to grow until he was totally smothered by the black rock.
Stan looked at the five-by-five cube of obsidian with satisfaction. Lord Tenebris had been totally encased. He would be unable to
move, and would soon die from suffocation. Stan didn’t want to take any chances, though. He didn’t trust anything or anyone besides his own hand to finish off Lord Tenebris. Stan willed a diamond sword to appear in his right hand, and he stretched it out in front of him as he rocketed directly toward the obsidian prison.
As Stan flew at the giant cube of black rock, he could hear a faint rumbling inside and picked up his pace, desperate to spear Lord Tenebris with his sword before he could try anything funny.
Just as Stan’s sword was about to puncture the tip of the obsidian prison, it exploded into a million tiny pieces. Stan screeched to a halt in midair, and even then, he had to warp backward to avoid the hundreds of diamond pickaxes that were whirling in the air around Lord Tenebris. The pickaxes were rotating around him as if in orbit, spinning at a dangerous velocity as Lord Tenebris floated in the center, a devious smile on his face and his white eyes locked on to Stan.
Man, thought Stan to himself as his heart crawled to a stop. I don’t know what he did to give himself so much power, but I sure wish that I . . .
Suddenly, Stan realized with a jolt that he had made a horrible mistake. He had been so intent on showing off his new powers, on leaving Lord Tenebris completely and totally stunned, that he had nearly forgotten the peril that this server and all of Minecraft was in. And if Lord Tenebris was using new abilities like this by drawing power from the server . . . then that meant . . .
“Kev! Stop!” Stan desperately shouted into the tornado of spiraling pickaxes. “You have to stop using . . .”
But it was too late. Lord Tenebris had already stretched his hand out toward Stan, willing the globe of pickaxes to break from their orbit and come spiraling directly at him. Stan was afraid to teleport for fear of appearing in the path of a flying pickaxe, so he dropped his diamond sword and willed an axe to appear in its place. The pickaxes came flying full force at Stan, and he spun and twirled his axe around. Each time a flying pickaxe struck the blade of his axe, it bounced off in a shower of sparks with a clang and began to fall to the ground far below.
As the globe of spinning diamond pickaxes started to thin out, Lord Tenebris took a deep breath and stretched both of his hands out toward Stan. In one motion, all the pickaxes flew directly at Stan. There were too many of them for him to block all at once. Although he spun his axe as fast as he could, desperate to deflect all of them, one pickaxe slipped through a crack in Stan’s defenses and struck him cleanly between the eyes.
Luckily, Stan was hit by the blunt part of the blade and not the point or he would have been impaled through the head. Still, the force of the blow was enough to send him tumbling down, and he dropped his axe as he clutched his face in agony. After falling for dozens of blocks, Stan righted himself and opened his eyes, only to realize that he couldn’t see a thing. Taking a deep breath, he focused all his energy on healing, and restoring the health that he had lost. Instantly, Stan felt better, and his eyesight returned to normal—just in time to see Lord Tenebris flying at him at maximum speed, sword outstretched and pointed directly at him.
Stan didn’t have time to conjure a new axe and block the attack. All he had time to do was will an enchanted diamond chestplate onto his body before the point of the sword drove into Stan’s stomach. He felt a massive crack shatter through the center of the armor, but it didn’t go through. However, in the split second after the sword made contact, Stan saw the sword glowing with all three kinds of enchantments. The effects of the Knockback and Fire took effect, as Stan burst into flames and was hit with the blunt shockwave of the sword.
Stan plummeted through the air, far faster than he was aware an entity could travel in Minecraft. He was totally dazed, and barely able to think properly. When his thoughts returned to him, the first thing he noticed were the flames erupting from his body, leaving a trail of gray smoke behind him as he rocketed through space. He willed himself to be protected, and he felt the tickling sensation of Fire Resistance.
As hard as it was to do while shooting forward at such a high speed, Stan forced himself to look where he was going, and saw to his dismay that he was about fifty blocks away from crashing into a skyscraper. It was all he could do to shed his chestplate and encase himself in a new set of head-to-toe enchanted diamond armor right before he made impact with the side of the building.
Stan’s body had the same effect as a wrecking ball as he barreled straight through the core of the skyscraper, tearing countless blocks away as he did. As hundreds of blocks were ripped from their place by Stan’s body-turned-projectile, he went into a sort of trance, where his senses nearly shut off. He simply turned into a living meteor as he ripped through the core of the building, burst out the other side, and slammed into the stone-block street below. Stan felt himself propelled deep into the ground with a sickly crunch before finally slowing to a halt.
For quite a long time, Stan lay there in his crater on one of the many roads that crisscrossed through the buildings of Element City’s Skyscraper District. Slowly but surely, Stan’s senses returned, and he came to the realization that he was still alive. He wasn’t entirely sure how—even with full enchanted diamond armor and his enhanced level of durability as an operator, he was sure that he should have died from such a huge impact.
Stan opened his eye just the tiniest crack, and his heart jumped as he saw the form of Lord Tenebris, descending from the gray sky to where he now lay. Stan knew that he had to get out of there. As much as he wanted to lie there forever, there was far too much on the line to risk anything now. With a single deep breath, Stan once again felt a wave of healing wash over him, just as Lord Tenebris touched down beside him. He raised his diamond sword over Stan, preparing to finish the job.
Just as the sword fell, Stan vanished, reappearing in the middle of the street directly behind Lord Tenebris. The sword plunged into the stone at the bottom of the crater with a clang, and Lord Tenebris cursed loudly before whipping around, realizing that Stan was there, and meeting his eye.
“I need to talk to you, Kev,” Stan said authoritatively. “If you don’t stop using—”
He was cut off as a bombardment of dozens of fireballs shot out of Lord Tenebris’s hands, directly at Stan. He warped out of the way just in time, and the fireballs flew behind him and collided with the nearest skyscraper in a wave of heat. Instantly, the base of the colossal building burst into flames, and even as Stan watched, the flames began to climb higher and higher up the walls, threatening to engulf the entire tower within minutes.
Stan barely had time to register this, though. He was too busy dodging the mixed flurry of fireballs and explosive blasts that Lord Tenebris was firing at him like a machine gun, punching back and forth between his hands. Each new burst was accompanied by a grunt from Lord Tenebris, whose face bore a look of insanity.
Stan warped side to side, each time just barely missing the attacks, and each time condemning another building to burst into flames, or be torn apart by an explosion as the missed attacks flew off into the city. Stan tried to speak to Lord Tenebris for just a moment, to beg him to stop for his own sake at least, but every time he reappeared, a new blast of fire and volatile energy was upon him.
Before long, Stan began to tire; having to constantly warp around was really wearing him out. Thus, after one particularly close call, Stan didn’t warp again, but instead took off, leaping into the air and flying through the city like a rocket. Behind him, he heard the sound of another player taking flight, and he glanced back to see that Lord Tenebris had taken chase, gaining on him while continuing his barrage of fire from his outstretched hand.
Stan felt the heat as the fireballs gained on him, and rolled to the side, leaving the fireballs to crash into the side of a cobblestone building. Stan cut a sharp turn to dodge another flurry of fireballs, and then began to fly straight up before swerving around the edge of a skyscraper. Behind him, he saw the top of the skyscraper he had just turned around explode with massive force as Lord Tenebris’s missed attack connected with
it.
Stan continued to fly, weaving in between the mile-high buildings as fast as he could, desperate to come up with some sort of plan to stop Lord Tenebris and speak to him before it was too late. Stan felt a series of explosive bursts coming up on him fast, and he did a barrel roll to dodge them. On and on Stan flew through the city, just barely managing to evade the rapid-fire string of explosions that were shooting from Lord Tenebris’s hand. Stan glanced behind him and saw that the buildings in the city were being torn to shreds by what seemed like a straight line of explosions, slashing the buildings like a machete that drew closer and closer to Stan.
Then, all at once, the blasts just stopped. Stan continued to rocket forward through the city, but the line of explosions slashing across the facades of the buildings had totally ceased. His heart skipped a beat as he realized what had happened, and he looked forward again and there, sure enough was Lord Tenebris, floating directly in front of him and aiming his fist directly at Stan.
Finally, Stan thought to himself.
In one motion, Stan summoned an axe in his hand and cut in front of himself, hitting the explosion midflight as it went off in his face. Barely noticing as the blast tore off his remaining diamond armor, leaving him unscathed, Stan let go of his axe, allowing it to fly down to the ground below, as he stretched both of his hands out toward Lord Tenebris, just as the Noctem leader did the same to him.
Instantly, Stan’s entire body went rigid, and he found himself nearly unable to move as he was locked into Lord Tenebris’s psychic grip. He looked up in shock and saw that Lord Tenebris, too, had gone as stiff as a board, unable to move as he held his hands out toward Stan. The two operators floated, still locked into each other’s telekinetic grips and totally immobile. When Stan realized he could talk, he knew that his chance had come.
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