Finally we could see the horizon line after the mass of black. I looked over the Endermen that were coming at us, and there had to be hundreds of them.
“You don’t know what you’re doing, Alexandra!” Dad ranted. “We run some people to the next village and get supplies, and then …”
“And then those of us who stay are turned into Endermen!” Aunt Alexandra shot back. “We have to evacuate together.”
“That’s a cowardly thing to do,” Dad said.
“It’s not cowardly if it saves people! Even you know that sometimes you have to pull back. It’s not the same as surrendering! This is war, and we need a strategy.”
“Strategy!” Dad said. “Your strategy is to put a group of kids in charge of saving the Overworld!”
For the first time they seemed to remember that we were there. Both of them looked our way.
The pressure was on us. Aunt Alexandra looked at us as if she were silently begging for a great idea. Dad looked like he thought we were in over our heads.
Maison was the first to talk. “I don’t think we can defeat the Endermen in one-on-one fights because of how many there are,” she said. “We have to do something to take them all out at once.”
“Like TNT,” Yancy cut in. “Do you have any TNT?”
“Yes,” Dad said. “But that will destroy the village too.”
“Besides,” Alex said, “they might just teleport around the TNT to come after us.”
“Well, what destroys Endermen?” Yancy said. He started counting ideas off on his fingers. “Lava does. That’d be hard to find around here, though. There’s water. Can we get the Endermen to follow us toward some nearby lake or something?”
“There is a lake nearby,” Dad said. “However, I still don’t know that it will work. You would have to get the Endermen to follow you into the water, and not teleport in front of you while you’re heading there.”
“It’s the best we have,” Aunt Alexandra said.
“Stevie?” Maison said, waving her hand in front of my face. “Are you still there?”
I came out of my thoughts. As soon as Yancy had mentioned water, my mind had wandered to this morning. That dark tunnel. The twists and turns. The dripping water …
“There’s water down below, in the tunnel,” I said. “If we get the Endermen to follow us down there, we can knock out the blocks and flood the place.” It would be very dangerous, but I didn’t want to admit that. Because I knew the alternative was to try to fight the army coming toward us. “I think it’s the best chance we have.”
CHAPTER 20
“No, stevie,” dad said. “you could drown! We’ll go to the lake instead.”
“Stevie’s right,” Yancy said. “If it’s underground, they won’t be able to escape so easily, and the rushing water will catch them by surprise. I don’t think we have any better ideas. And people are better swimmers than mobs, so I don’t think it’s as dangerous as you believe.”
Dad mulled this over. Saying you didn’t think it was as dangerous didn’t mean it wasn’t incredibly dangerous.
“Stevie and I can go together,” Yancy said, slinging a friendly arm over my shoulder. “I’ll put my Jack o’ Lantern back on, and that will throw the Endermen off a little.”
“Destiny and I can help fight off Endermen,” Maison said, clutching her baseball bat. “And we’ll follow you to the tunnel so we can back you up if there are any problems.”
I nodded. Part of me was looking at Maison, and another part was looking at the Endermen. They’d almost reached the village now.
“Give me this chance, Dad,” I said, looking up at him. Right then he looked so tall and distant he might as well have been an Enderman. I knew he was only trying to protect me because I was his kid, but he might be sacrificing the whole village to do it. I knew then that even though Dad could get really frustrated with me, he cared about me more than anything else.
“I know I messed up earlier,” I went on. “But I was also right about the Endermen. I think we can do this as a team, like we’ve done other things with teamwork.”
Dad looked at me for a moment. “You’ve amazed us before, Stevie,” he said. “Go amaze us again.” Then he ran into the village, yelling for everyone’s attention. Many people were running into their houses or fleeing the village instead of fighting.
For a moment I let those words sink in, my heart pounding.
“Which way to the tunnel?” Yancy asked, putting the Jack o’ Lantern back on his head and adjusting it.
“That way,” I said, pointing.
“What way?” Yancy said, not seeing.
Maybe this wasn’t such a good plan after all. “To your right,” I said. “Yancy, I don’t know about this. We want the Endermen to chase us, so there’s really no point in the Jack o’ Lantern.”
“We want the Endermen to chase you,” Yancy corrected as if I were being silly. “If they’re not aware of me being there, I can help you fight them off.”
I still didn’t agree, because the Endermen were basically ignoring everyone other than me, anyway. Yancy was making this more complicated than it had to be.
“All right, fine,” Yancy said, pulling off the Jack o’ Lantern. And then he walked directly into an Enderman.
CHAPTER 21
The enderman hissed. it was the one with Yancy’s backpack, and it threw the backpack to the side and thrust its arms out at Yancy, trying to grab him. It would have gotten him too, if an arrow hadn’t come flying out of nowhere and struck the Enderman. In a split second Alex had pulled out her bow and saved Yancy. The Enderman startled, and a second later Maison and Destiny jumped on it with their weapons, finishing it off.
The next moment several more Endermen appeared around us, circling us, closing us in. I tried to look for Dad, to see if he’d come back and help us, but he’d disappeared somewhere in the village. We were all alone out here.
“Stop them!” Aunt Alexandra said, raising her diamond sword.
We had even less time than I realized! Endermen were rapidly making their way through the village, teleporting several blocks at a time. Almost as soon as they reached the village, they reached us. In less than a minute we would probably have the whole army of hundreds all around us, and the villagers wouldn’t be able to fight them off and free us. The tunnel idea wasn’t going to work, though it wasn’t because of the danger—we didn’t have a way to make it there in the first place!
We were all fighting as best as we could, but it had turned to in-the-moment self-defense when we should have been running ahead. Looming, night-black bodies with purple eyes kept flashing in front of me, being knocked back by my sword or someone else’s weapon, but always reappearing.
“There’s no way to fight them when they’re teleporting!” I exclaimed.
As soon as I said it, I realized what I was saying.
There was only one way to get on even footing with a mob that can teleport. You have to be able to teleport yourself.
Like going down into the tunnel and flooding it with water, this was going to come with great risks. Then again, what choice did we have?
“Alex!” I cried above all the noise. “We need your Ender pearls!”
CHAPTER 22
Where was alex? the endermen were pressing in closer and closer. I lost sight of all my friends, because there was just the crush of Enderman bodies, coming in to seize the crystal. If I took a step back, I’d run into an Enderman. If I took a step forward, one would snatch me. They were at all sides of me, so it was like being in a rapidly moving storm cloud.
An arrow hit the Enderman directly in front of me and it vanished. There was Alex, struggling to get through. The Endermen were pushing all against us. I reached for Alex’s hand and was pressed back. I reached again, and this time I was able to take both Ender pearls from her.
I threw the first Ender pearl up into the air so that it would go over the Endermen’s heads. I couldn’t see where it was going to land, and I hoped I threw it far
enough away from the attacking mobs.
I knew the second the Ender pearl hit the ground. Everything went blurry again and my breath got sucked out of me. I tried to pull more air in, and it felt as if there were nothing there! The colors kept swirling like paint.
Then I landed on the other side of the Endermen, on my stomach, as if I’d fallen. The pain felt like a mob had attacked me and I’d taken a direct hit to the gut. I tried to get back up on shaky feet. What I really needed was food and milk to feel better, and I knew I wasn’t going to be getting those things for a while. I had to ignore the pain and keep going.
But as soon as I rose, something grabbed me from behind and lifted me into its clutches.
CHAPTER 23
I thought i was done for. but it was yancy! the Jack o’ Lantern was long gone and he looked ready for action.
“This way, right?” Yancy said, running toward the cave.
It took me a winded second to understand what he was talking about. “Yeah!” I said. “It’s inside a cave. You’ll never miss it!”
The Endermen, meanwhile, had realized the crystal shard and I weren’t where we’d been. They’d stopped attacking Aunt Alexandra and my friends and were looking around. It didn’t take long for them to figure out where I was. They began to teleport, chasing after us.
“Hurry, Yancy!” I said. “They’re catching up!”
Yancy had longer legs than I did and I was pretty sure he could run faster than me on a normal day. And he could definitely run faster than me when I wasn’t feeling well. At the same time, I knew carrying my weight was probably slowing him down.
“Look out!” I said.
Yancy tripped over a single block and we both took a spill. I hit the ground face first with a grunt and was just glad I didn’t lose my grip on the crystal. When I opened my eyes, I saw the black feet of an Enderman hovering over me.
An arrow hit it, which I knew was Alex’s doing. I whirled my head around to see Yancy stumbling to his feet. At the same time, Alex, Maison, Destiny, and Aunt Alexandra were racing toward us, taking out Endermen as they went. They knocked out one Enderman at a time here and there, but there was no way a small group could defeat this many on their own. In the far distance I could see other villagers rushing to help, but I knew they’d never make it in time.
“Come on, Yancy!” I shouted.
Then another Enderman was in front of us! Alex shot it with her arrow and Yancy and I ducked. We could almost see the cave from where we were! I thought maybe I was well enough to run, but I was wrong. I was even weaker than I thought, from the teleporting and from the fall. When I stumbled, Yancy caught me by the arm to steady me.
Two Endermen appeared in front of us, the rest close to our heels. My first thought was that Alex, who was keeping track behind us, would just knock out those two Endermen with her arrows. Then I saw that one of them was slightly shorter than the other. It was the last missing villager!
“Wait, Alex!” I shouted, in case she didn’t notice the difference in all the chaos. From a distance they might all look the same size. It was only from up close that I could see the important difference. I threw myself at the shorter Enderman, trying to tap it with my purple crystal.
It disappeared. Alex hit the other Enderman.
No! I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t lead the villager-Enderman down to the tunnel and risk destroying it with all the real Endermen! But I also couldn’t risk myself and the Overworld by stopping to look for one villager, could I? As I kept running and looked around, I didn’t see where it had teleported to.
“Yancy!” I called. “I saw the last villager! It’s in this crowd!”
Yancy looked around wildly. “I don’t see anything.”
He wasn’t the only one. Endermen were leaping and bolting behind us, appearing, disappearing. Looking back made me even more dizzy and slowed me down, so I had to look forward.
A small dot in the horizon caught my eyes. That little thing was the cave!
“Stevie! I found the villager!” I heard Maison call. She and the others were catching up, and she was pointing to an Enderman near her. Instead of striking it, she was trying to push it forward with her baseball bat, as if to push it toward me. In response, the Enderman hissed and lunged for her. This time she had to strike out with her baseball bat in self-defense, and the Enderman teleported away to safety. And it got lost in the crowd again.
Then I saw it, near me! It was to my side, so I had to stop running forward and go for it.
“Stevie, what … ?” Yancy cried, stopping in his tracks.
I vaulted toward the villager-Enderman. It disappeared and showed up a few feet away. The other Endermen were circling around me, the whole group of them closing in. This might be my only chance. It might be my worst decision too. But I had to try.
This time when I threw myself, I landed on the ground just in front of the villager-Enderman, my arm outstretched. It worked. The purple crystal touched its foot and everything turned violet.
I saw the transformation start to take place. It was so blinding I had to cover my eyes with my hand. In the violet haze there was an even more intense purple, and that belonged to the real Endermen’s eyes. Those eyes looked even more crazed as they sensed their prey getting nearer. They were rushing at me against the purple backdrop, and in seconds they would overwhelm me.
Yancy jumped down beside me. The next second I was surrounded by Maison, Alex, and Destiny too, all of them holding their weapons out, surrounding me like a protective circle.
As the violet light went away, I knew even this circle wouldn’t be enough.
We had only one chance now.
“Hold on to me!” I shouted, and threw the last Ender pearl toward the cave.
CHAPTER 24
I didn’t know if this would even work, but i felt everyone put their hands on my shoulders so we were connected. We were going to find out if an Ender pearl could teleport the five of us together.
The next few seconds were probably the worst of my life. Not only was there that awful, unable-to-breathe feeling, but I didn’t know what would happen when I finished teleporting.
When I came to, I was even more tired and weak. I felt sore all over. I also noticed three things: I still had the precious crystal, we were closer to the cave now, and my friends were with me. They were all looking pretty dazed too, though not as much as I was.
The next thing I did was look behind me. The Ender pearl had thankfully given us some distance, though still not enough to feel relaxed at all. The Endermen were swiftly moving across the field toward us. We were always thrown off when they teleported, but when we did the same trick, it didn’t really give them any pause.
All five of us were on our feet and hurrying the final stretch to the cave. As I ran, my feet felt as if they weighed a thousand pounds. My side was split, ripping me with pain when I needed to run the fastest. This was the terrible cost of using those Ender pearls.
As we were running, listening to the hissing sound of the Endermen, everything felt like a blur. Was that the effect of the Ender pearl too? Everything was more intense and it seemed as if we were going in slow motion. The Endermen sounded even louder than before. I dared to look back behind us, and I saw that even though we were all running as fast as we could, we were losing our lead. Even after using our best defense, we might not make it to the cave in time. The Endermen were catching up, and we were weak and all out of Ender pearls to help us.
Even in all this craziness, I thought of something. I thought about the boy who was mocking me earlier and then who’d gotten turned into an Enderman after trying to be “a hero.” He’d said he wanted glory. Maybe that was the difference. I didn’t really feel I deserved to be called anything as great as a hero, and maybe that was because I never went out looking for glory. All the battles I’d been in had been self-defense, or fought to protect others. No, I definitely didn’t go looking for danger. But if danger came my way, I wasn’t about to hide and ignore it. I was g
oing to risk everything for those I cared about.
The pain and fear made that all the more clear to me. Even though Maison, Yancy, and Destiny weren’t from this world, they were willing to risk their lives too. Alex said she liked danger and adventure, but she was always there for a friend in need. They didn’t put themselves in real danger for glory, but rather for friendship. For doing the right thing. And sometimes you had to face great odds and stand up to your biggest fears to do so.
Just as we reached the cave, the Endermen surrounded us.
CHAPTER 25
“We’re almost there!” i shouted. we couldn’t give up this close! I could even see the hole in the cave.
Endermen came up from behind us and then began teleporting in front of us. They had us surrounded.
“Just get down the hole!” Maison shouted. “We’ll follow you!” She swung out her baseball bat, knocking it against an Enderman reaching out for me.
I felt bad for just running and not helping with the fighting, but I knew why Maison suggested this. We had to keep the crystal safe.
Staggering now, I came up on the hole. If only I didn’t feel so dizzy. I pushed down the pain and kept going. I made myself concentrate on the hole so that I wouldn’t be distracted by all the hissing behind me, by all the Endermen coming up to take us on.
Purple eyes appeared above me and I managed to duck in time for Destiny to take the Enderman out with her wooden sword. Now I was crawling, getting closer. As soon as the Enderman over me was gone, I stumbled back up and realized my knees were creaking.
I came up to the hole, my old enemy from earlier today. And, taking a deep breath, I plunged down into the darkness.
CHAPTER 26
It took a second for my eyes to adjust. the purple glow of the crystal was the only thing lighting my surroundings now. At first the tunnel looked haunted with that eerie violet glow moving along the walls.
Adventure Against the Endermen Page 5