The next thing I knew, I was surrounded.
As scary as seeing a pair of purple eyes in the darkness is, I still wasn’t prepared to suddenly have a whole mass of Endermen joining me. They’d teleported in that instant. I swung my diamond sword at them, making them back off. Where were the others? Then Alex landed behind me, her arrows at the ready. Maison was next, followed by Yancy and Destiny.
“Run, Stevie!” Destiny called.
Putting my head down, I ran the best I could. Each step seemed harder. I kept swinging my sword, keeping the Endermen at bay. The others fought as backup, hitting all the Endermen they could get so that I could get through. Even with their help there was still an onslaught of enormous mobs in the way.
In the tunnel, everything felt more brutal. It was darker; it was closer together. The hisses of the Endermen were so close now that they rose up in a single, terrible roar. It was the kind of noise to fill your nightmares.
How much farther was the water?
I realized I couldn’t remember exactly where it was. The tunnels all looked the same, and they were so confusing.
I was fighting mobs with one hand, and the other hand was trying to hold tightly to the purple crystal and touch the walls at the same time. I strained my ears, trying to hear the water on the other side. But the Endermen’s hisses were were too loud for me to hear anything else.
Wall after wall was dry as a bone. Then finally my hand touched a block with dripping water.
“It’s here!” I called out. I began hitting the block as fast and as hard as I could with my diamond sword. Now that I was standing in one place, the Endermen surrounded me again. They got in front of me so that I couldn’t even reach the wall!
“I don’t think so!” Maison said. She jumped in front of me, hitting the Endermen back. I remembered what made Maison and me such a good team, even before we started fighting our battles with the others. Maison cleared out the room for me and began banging the wall herself. I thrust my sword into it, and then I felt the wall crumble.
“Now!” I shouted, hoping the others could hear me.
I took a deep breath.
And the water came out and covered us all.
CHAPTER 27
The pressure of the water knocked us all back. I was underwater and I opened my eyes. The purple crystal made the water tint violet just like everything else, and I could see the Endermen turning red and disappearing. Disappearing for real!
“You useless Endermen!” It was the evil voice again, blaring in my head. She was furious, watching her minions lose. “You almost had it! I won’t rest until I get that crystal!”
And then the voice was gone, as if it had never been there.
In the mass of red Endermen, I glimpsed Maison swimming, her black hair floating all around her. Even though we’d defeated the mobs, there was no time to celebrate, because we were still in real danger of drowning. I could see Maison was scrambling in the direction of the hole we’d made in the wall, her arms and legs paddling. The pressure was so strong I could see she was also having trouble moving forward. The hole we’d opened up basically created its own waterfall and was flooding the entire area.
I swam in the direction of the hole. More and more Endermen vanished, clearing the water. Within seconds, they were all gone. It had been the right move to defeat them all at once. But now I was understanding why Dad was so worried. Swimming against this current would be challenging, especially while weak from teleporting with the Ender pearls.
It was starting to get harder to breathe. I tried to go up to the surface and I hit solid rock. No! The tunnel was completely full of water! I helplessly struck at the ceiling, as if I could push the blocks out of the way and breathe. It was no good. Then I knew the only chance I had was to get through the hole I’d just made, and hope there was air on the other side.
I could see where the opening was … it was just so difficult to get there. My arms were so tired I felt sick. My legs hurt.
And I needed to breathe. This was even worse than teleporting, because as scary as teleporting is, you know you’re going to be able to breathe in a few seconds. You just had to hold on and wait it out.
I could see the air bubbles leaving my mouth and rising up. My lungs were screaming in pain as if they were going to burst. The more frantically I pushed myself, the closer I got to the opening, but it was only a little closer. It wasn’t close enough for any relief. I didn’t know if I had enough air to get me there.
In the Minecraft game they played on Earth, they showed the character’s health with little hearts, and the more hearts on the screen, the healthier you were. I knew that if I were being looked at in the game, I had maybe a heart and a half left.
I felt something clamp down around my hand. There was Maison in front of me, her fingers curled around my blocky hand, pulling me forward with her. Her cheeks were puffed out and I knew she needed air too, but she saw I needed help even more. As she began to pull me with her, Alex showed up and grabbed my other hand. Then Yancy and Destiny were there, grabbing hold too. I felt myself start to move forward for real now, even with all the gushing water.
Together we pulled ourselves through the hole and into a dry area, gasping for breath, hardly able to believe we’d survived.
“We did it!” I said once I was able to catch my breath. I was so glad to be breathing again that the terror of the unknown voice fell to the background. “We really did it! The Endermen are gone!”
“See, this is what feels normal these days,” Yancy wheezed. “If we’re not all in terrible danger, it just feels boring.”
“Oh, stop it, Yancy,” Destiny said.
Then a hand came out of the hole and a large body pulled itself up beside us.
CHAPTER 28
My first thought was that a lone enderman had made it and was climbing up here to steal the crystal and get its revenge. But the body didn’t have the long legs and arms. Or the purple eyes. It was Dad, who must have swum in from the tunnel’s entrance.
“Dad!” I said, relieved.
The first thing Dad did was make sure we were all okay. Then he looked at the purple crystal, which I was still grasping in my hand.
“Amazing,” Dad said.
“Did we take all of the Endermen out?” Alex bounced forward, wanting to know.
“There weren’t any that I swam by,” Dad said. “Alexandra is doing a final sweep of the area to see if any others are hiding around. Here.” He reached into his toolkit and pulled out food for us. Wonderful food! I snatched the meat he gave me and swallowed it down almost without tasting it. All the pain from the attacks and Ender pearls vanished. I felt like new again. The others ate greedily too, though I don’t know if they felt as much relief as I did!
“Good thing you know this tunnel so well, Stevie,” Yancy remarked, stretching and taking another bite of cooked beef.
I felt embarrassed. Seeing my face, Maison said, “What? What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know this tunnel well,” I blurted. “I fell down it earlier and an Enderman attacked me and I barely got out of here.”
But I saw my friends were all smiling.
“The first Enderman I fought today was really hard too,” Alex said. “You know, the one that appeared in my house? I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to beat it!”
Suddenly, I didn’t know what I was so embarrassed about. These were my friends, and they weren’t going to make fun of me for mistakes. Not like that mocking boy. Maybe we really could be the official Overworld Heroes, and help the villagers in times of need.
CHAPTER 29
When we came out of the tunnel and back into the cave, there were crowds waiting for us. They were cheering.
“We checked the area, and no more Endermen were found!” Aunt Alexandra hooted with joy. To Dad, she said, “How could you doubt your big sister? When I form a group to save the Overworld, I know what I’m doing. The Overworld Heroes are going to make us proud again and again, you just wait. Maybe
you and I could be a heroic task force too, if you weren’t so stubborn.”
“I’m not stubborn,” Dad said. “You just argue with everything I do.”
“I do not,” Aunt Alexandra said.
“You just proved my point,” Dad said.
“See, that’s the stubborn thing,” Aunt Alexandra said. “You can’t let anything be. Just be proud of your son, Steve. I’m proud of my daughter.”
Now Dad looked my way. “I am proud of him,” he said. “He just doesn’t always listen. He can be a little …”
“Stubborn?” Aunt Alexandra said with a smile. “Gee, I wonder where he gets it from.”
Someone cleared their throat loudly and I turned. It was a man I recognized but didn’t know well, and he had his hand on the mocking boy’s shoulder.
“Stevie,” the man said. “I want to thank you. I was the person you changed back at the last minute, the one you stopped to help.”
I realized it had been so crazy at that moment that I hadn’t seen exactly who the villager had been. It was the mocking boy’s dad!
“After my son went missing, my wife and I went looking for him,” the man continued. “And the Endermen got me. But you saved me, and my son …” I could tell this was really emotional for him. Everyone else had turned and looked.
The mocking boy coughed awkwardly into his hand. “I’m, uh, sorry about earlier,” he said. “For making fun of you and lying to your dad and stuff. I shouldn’t have tried to be a hero.”
I smiled and shook my head. “I never try to be a hero,” I said. “I don’t even think I deserve to be called that. I just do what I do to protect us all.”
The boy looked at me as if he’d never thought of it that way. His eyes lit up.
“The Endermen are defeated,” Aunt Alexandra said to Alex, Maison, Destiny, Yancy, and me. “Can I count on you five the next time something happens in the Overworld?”
I looked down at the purple crystal. “They’re defeated for now,” I corrected. “We still need to figure out what this crystal is. We need to protect it from the dark forces that might use it for harm. I have a feeling more mobs will be coming.” I thought of the voice some of us had been hearing. Whatever that voice was, it and the crystal were linked, somehow. I just knew it.
“We’ll get to the bottom of this mystery,” Maison promised, looping her arm over my shoulders. “We won’t let you down.”
“Yeah, because we’re the Overworld Heroes,” Alex cut in.
“And we’re going to do everything we can to live up to that name,” I said. My hand closed tightly around the crystal as I remembered the voice I’d heard in the tunnel. Something evil was coming closer, but we had good on our side. “We won’t let this crystal fall into the wrong hands. I swear it.”
WANT MORE OF STEVIE AND HIS FRIENDS?
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Escape from the Overworld
DANICA DAVIDSON
Attack on the Overworld
DANICA DAVIDSON
The Rise of Herobrine
DANICA DAVIDSON
Down into the Nether
DANICA DAVIDSON
The Armies of Herobrine
DANICA DAVIDSON
Battle with the Wither
DANICA DAVIDSON
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WINTER MORGAN
Skeleton Battle
WINTER MORGAN
Battle in the Overworld
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WINTER MORGAN
Hidden in the Chest
WINTER MORGAN
Encounters in End City
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Adventure Against the Endermen Page 6