“Two hits!” I cried. “One hit to change a villager back, two hits to defeat an Enderman!” This was much better than all the times you had to hit an Enderman with a sword to defeat it.
There were two Endermen remaining now. The one that had already come at me was approaching again, and when I hit it with the crystal, it was gone.
“This is going to make things so much easier!” I said, feeling real relief for the first time that day.
The third Enderman was watching us from the shade of a nearby oak tree, its eyes like glowing purple fire. Its stare was so intense that I started to sweat.
Then the Enderman was next to Yancy, snatching his backpack.
“Hey!” Yancy said. “Bring that back!”
The Enderman ignored him. It teleported farther out into the fields, its two long arms in front of its body, holding the backpack like a block.
“Bring that back!” Yancy said, starting to run toward it.
“Don’t!” Alex said. “Let it leave! It’s not like that backpack was a good weapon, anyway.”
The Enderman disappeared and reappeared even farther out. It still had the backpack. Then it disappeared again and reappeared as a black dot in the distance.
“What did it want my backpack for?” Yancy grumbled. “My homework is in there!”
“Feel lucky it’s leaving us alone,” Alex said, looking at Yancy skeptically.
“But this means I have to redo my homework,” Yancy said, as if this were the worst thing in the world. “It’s not like I can tell my teachers that an Enderman stole my homework.”
“Tell them your dog ate it,” Alex said.
“Yeah, they don’t believe that one, either,” Yancy said.
The Enderman was completely out of sight by now. I should have been relieved, but instead I felt a new worry. Why was the Enderman so interested in Yancy’s backpack? It didn’t have the crystal. I did. And why would an Enderman leave after attacking someone? Did it see what I’d done to the other Endermen and decide to save itself? I didn’t think Endermen used that kind of logic. When they were hostile, mobs only had one thought: attack, attack, attack.
“Let’s get to the village before anything else weird happens,” I said, eyeing the horizon.
CHAPTER 16
When we skidded into the village, i saw some armored guards going from building to building, their weapons at the ready. They must be checking each building for Endermen. Other than that, the village looked like a ghost town. And it was eerily quiet.
“Where is everyone?” I asked, holding my diamond sword. I felt a lot more confident now that I’d picked it back up. But where were all the villagers? Had they all been turned into Endermen?
Fortunately not. As we ran into the village, I could see people’s faces through windows. They were in hiding. Whole families were huddled together, looking out the windows with scared, worried eyes.
“The village must be on lockdown until they figure out what’s going on,” Alex said.
We came up to the armored guards.
“What are you kids doing out here?” one of them demanded. “You should be home with your parents!”
“We’re the Overworld Heroes,” Alex said proudly, puffing out her chest. “Our parents told us to be out here.”
The armored guards looked at her skeptically. Then they looked over our whole group more closely. They were surprised to see the Earth people, but their real shock was when they saw the blacksmith with us, safe and sound.
“There you are!” one guard said. “Where have you been?”
“No time for details,” the blacksmith said. “We need to find Steve and Mayor Alexandra so they can form a plan against the Endermen.”
“They’re in the building at the end of the street,” a guard said, pointing.
That was all we needed to hear. The six of us tore down the rest of the street until we reached the final building. It had an iron door and I pounded on it, calling, “Dad! Dad! Open up!”
The door immediately flew open. Dad looked so relieved. “I was just going to look for you!” he said. “We had a kid go missing while you were gone. No one is safe here.”
“But Dad!” I said. “We figured it out! Look!”
I held up the purple crystal. “It has some kind of special magic,” I said. “I found it in the tunnel earlier. The Endermen all want it and they know it’s around here somewhere. And there’s a voice, a really evil-sounding voice!”
“What?” Dad said. “A voice? Slow down, Stevie.”
I was standing in the doorway, out of breath. The others were all trying to crowd around me and there wasn’t enough room for everyone to stand in the doorway. Aunt Alexandra came over, holding a map of the area and a scroll that had a list of people’s names. The blacksmith’s name was on it, so I realized she was keeping track of all the people who’d gone missing in this village and in hers. The map also had markings of where the people had been last seen.
“I heard the voice when I picked up the crystal, and so did Maison!” I hurried on. “The voice said she’s in a prison. And she needs this crystal to get free!”
“That doesn’t make any sense, Stevie,” Dad said. “Crystals don’t work as keys. This doesn’t look like anything.”
He took it from me and held it. I was hoping he’d hear the voice too so he’d understand what was going on. Nothing seemed to be happening.
“The boy’s right, Steve,” said a voice behind us. We all made room so the blacksmith could walk into the building.
Dad’s and Aunt Alexandra’s eyes widened.
“Blacksmith!” Dad said. “Where have you been? Do you know where the others are?”
“They’re all in this area, looking for that crystal,” the blacksmith said. “You see—”
He didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence. Behind us we heard another sound, and this time it was a terrible hissing. It was that awful sound Endermen make when they’re about to attack.
We all whirled around. There was an Enderman, and it wasn’t any taller than me! It still looked vicious, though, with its mouth opened like an animal showing its fangs and its purple eyes sharp as ice.
I remembered what the blacksmith had said earlier. If this Enderman was my height, did that mean it was a kid from the village? The one who was missing?
Dad had already grabbed his sword and was raising it over the Enderman to finish it off. “Be gone, Enderman!” he shouted.
“Dad, no!” I cried.
CHAPTER 17
My shout distracted dad for an instant. That was enough for the little Enderman to teleport farther away from the building and to safety.
“Stevie, what were you thinking?” Dad exclaimed, frustrated.
I didn’t get a chance to answer, because the next second the little Enderman was back and standing in the building with us. Dad swung his sword and the Enderman disappeared and reappeared, right next to me this time.
“Hit it with the crystal!” I yelled to Dad.
Dad must have thought I was acting crazy, because he ignored me. He tried to hit the Enderman with his sword again. When the Enderman disappeared safely, I ran forward to Dad and snatched the crystal back.
“Stevie, not now!” Dad said. “Listen to me!”
I wanted to tell him to listen. But the best thing to do was just show him. I spun around, looking in every corner of the room, trying to figure out where the little Enderman had gone. And then I felt it right behind me.
Fast as a flash, I whirled around and struck its shoulder with the crystal. This time I was able to see what happened. First there was an explosion of purple light. It made the whole room turn violet for a few seconds and people were shielding their eyes with their hands.
Inside the light I saw the shape of the Enderman change. The long arms and legs returned to a normal length. Then the light was gone and there was an Overworld boy there, looking shaken and relieved.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was the boy who had been mo
cking me so much earlier!
“It’s the missing boy!” Aunt Alexandra said, her hand to her mouth.
Dad wasn’t even able to talk at first. He’d been this close to getting the kid with his sword because he’d looked like an Enderman.
Then Dad slowly turned his eyes my way. Even though he still wasn’t saying anything, I could see he wanted to thank me. His eyes held an apology—they were the exact opposite of the eyes that were so frustrated at me earlier today.
“The Endermen are turning villagers into Endermen,” the blacksmith said. “The villagers look exactly like Endermen except for their size.”
As the blacksmith was explaining to Dad how his brain had been clouded and he’d been trying to find the crystal, I squatted down next to the mocking boy. I guessed I shouldn’t think of him as the “mocking boy” anymore, though. Now he was looking at me like he was glad I was there—and like he expected me to hate him for what he’d done.
So I just asked him, “What happened?”
“My parents told me to stay inside, but I wanted to see the Endermen,” he said. “I wanted to be a hero. I wanted glory. So I went outside and …” He gulped. “An Enderman grabbed me. And the next thing I knew, there was this evil voice, telling me to get the crystal …”
I noticed Dad and the blacksmith had both stopped talking and were watching the boy. The blacksmith was nodding along, because he’d had the same experience. Dad looked shocked, as if he still didn’t believe it. I didn’t think he wanted to believe it.
“We need to get him home to his parents,” Aunt Alexandra said, taking charge. “Ask the librarian if they’ve ever heard of a crystal like this. Maybe we can figure out why the Endermen want it so badly.”
“The librarian is one of the missing people,” Dad reminded her.
Aunt Alexandra’s face clouded. “Right. But once we find the librarian …”
“If you hit an Enderman villager with the crystal once, they turn back,” I said. “If it’s a real Enderman, you can defeat them in two hits with the crystal.”
“But what is this evil voice you were talking about?” Dad asked.
The blacksmith, the boy, Maison, and I all shuddered, because we’d heard it. Everyone else was just looking at us, trying to figure out how a voice could be so bad.
“I’ll take the boy home,” the blacksmith offered. “He lives close to my smithy. In the meantime …”
“In the meantime,” Aunt Alexandra said, holding up her scroll, “we have to get all these villagers turned human again. Before they’re changed forever.”
CHAPTER 18
While the blacksmith took the boy home, the rest of us went out into the empty streets of the village, hunting for villager-Endermen we could turn back. We had to be wary because of the tricky way Endermen moved around. Even if an Enderman happened to be a villager on the inside, that didn’t mean it wouldn’t attack us while it was an Enderman. We had to defend ourselves while trying to protect the villager-Endermen, which made it extra difficult.
As we turned on the second street, an Enderman popped in front of us. It was Dad’s height, so I knew it was a villager.
“Now, Stevie!” Dad said, trying to keep the Enderman at bay. I rushed up and hit it with the crystal. There was the same flash of light, and then there was the missing mayor from this village. He fell to the ground, gripping his head.
“That voice, that voice!” he said. “You made that voice go away!”
Dad glanced at me. He seemed to be realizing just how terrifying that voice was.
“I’m the mayor the next village over,” Aunt Alexandra said. “So I took charge in your absence.” She told him what was going on as she checked off his name on the list. You had to give it to Aunt Alexandra: after so many years in public service, she knew how to keep her cool and keep working in the strangest situations.
“I think we should have everyone come out of their houses and meet in the center of the village,” Aunt Alexandra said. “That way we can better keep track of people, and we can watch for more Endermen.”
The mayor ran off to get started on this.
We wandered the village. It was much easier changing people back with Dad there, because he had more experience in battle. Alex was there to help him with her arrows. People began to come out to the center of the village, sticking close together. I saw the mocking boy and his mom were there too. The people were watching us as we made our way through the village, their desperate eyes asking us to make things right again.
Is that what it means to be a hero? I thought. I was mulling over what the mocking boy had said earlier. He’d gone out to “be a hero” but he wasn’t prepared, and all he’d done was get himself captured. Instead of helping the fight, he’d made it more difficult because he’d become one of the enemies. Is that what happened when you rushed into things?
There were plenty of times I’d rushed into things too. Was it just sheer luck I’d been okay so far? Sometimes I thought it was that. I had to make up plans right in the moment because something unexpected happened. In the Overworld, you had to be ready for anything in order to survive. And I guessed that included magical purple crystals and special Endermen.
As we turned people back, we kept asking them what they knew. They all had the same stories: they were captured. There was a hideous voice telling them what to do and they had to obey it. The voice was demanding her freedom, but something about the way she talked told all of us that there was a reason she was locked up somewhere.
“There’s another one!” Maison called, bringing me out of my thoughts. An Enderman was coming out at us from between two nearby houses. It was about Dad’s height, so we knew it was a villager. That meant we had to wait for it to come toward us until it got close enough that I could get it. Dad and the others were crowded close around in case the Enderman tried to hurt me while it went after the crystal.
That didn’t mean it wasn’t nerve-wracking to stand there and watch Enderman after Enderman come at me, hissing and vicious, arms out to grab. I had to trust that Dad and the others would make sure another Enderman didn’t snatch me up and teleport away again.
The villager-Enderman bolted for me but I was too quick. It felt the purple crystal strike its shoulder before I felt its long arms on me. Another flash of light. Another person saved.
Aunt Alexandra was checking the names off on her list. Everyone who we’d turned back already had their name on there.
“That’s good,” Aunt Alexandra was murmuring to herself as she looked over the list. “There are only two names left.”
As if it sensed we’d been talking about it, another villager-Enderman showed up nearby. It was walking forward, then twisted its head to peer our way. Its eyes showed a jolt of recognition when it saw the crystal.
“Get ready, Stevie,” Dad said, holding his sword tight.
I took a deep breath and nodded.
The Enderman came quickly at me, and I went to strike it with the crystal. But it vanished. It appeared next to Maison, who tried to push it over my way with her baseball bat. The Enderman looked at her strangely. That was good enough for me; it gave me a chance to lunge at it with the crystal. A moment later a woman was in the Enderman’s place, crumpled on the ground, stunned but safe.
“Fantastic!” Aunt Alexandra said, making a note. “That means there’s only one person left.”
“Don’t you think there’s something fishy about all this?” Alex asked.
“What do you mean?” Aunt Alexandra looked up from her list.
“Before there were real Endermen going around our villages,” Alex said. “We’ve walked the whole village now, and the only Endermen we’ve run into have been villagers. Where did all the real Endermen go? Why would they suddenly abandon their mission?”
Aunt Alexandra started to say something, but I couldn’t hear her. My eyes were on the horizon. The whole line of it was turning black along the edge. And it was moving.
I didn’t have any words to say
. All I could do was point.
Everyone looked at the horizon.
As the black line got closer, it became clearer. It wasn’t a single line. It was a mass of Endermen. Real, gigantic Endermen, their arms outstretched, coming our way.
Coming for me. Coming for the crystal.
CHAPTER 19
“There’s no way …” aunt alexandra began. She wasn’t able to look away from the approaching army of Endermen. “We don’t have enough villagers here to stand a chance.”
“We can get fighters from other villages,” Dad said.
“There’s not enough time, and you know it!” Aunt Alexandra snapped. “We have to evacuate. It’s our only chance.”
“We can’t let the Endermen take over the village!” Dad protested. “What if they destroy everything?”
“I don’t hear you coming up with anything better, Steve!”
Evacuate? That meant running and leaving everything behind. It might save us for the time being, sure. But as long as I had this crystal shard, I knew the Endermen would keep following me.
“I can’t believe it,” Yancy said, shaking his head. At first I thought he was talking about the sheer number of Endermen heading our way. Then I saw something else had caught his attention. One Enderman was walking ahead of the rest, as if it were a general leading them our way. And it was holding Yancy’s backpack. It must have been the Enderman from before, the one that had fled!
“It’s like it told them where they could find the crystal,” I said, stunned. “So they all regrouped for one massive attack.” I gripped the crystal even tighter, knowing that I had to protect it, no matter what.
“Maybe we can hide the crystal on Earth,” Destiny suggested.
“But what if they find the portal and attack Earth?” Maison said.
I could see the center of the village from where we were standing, and the other villagers had all crowded there. They were panicking, so they must not have known what to do, either. Dad and Aunt Alexandra were still bickering, because both of them were convinced they had the best idea of what to do, and they weren’t going to listen to the other. All I could see was that they were wasting time!
Adventure Against the Endermen Page 4