“Surely, you must be loved by your people for these great creations,” she said. “Have they made you a king for such greatness?”
“A king?” He looked up at her, surprised, then cut through the last of the chains. “I don’t know about that.” He stood and surveyed his work. “There you go. You’re free!”
“How can I ever repay you for this?” she asked, swinging her tail.
“Oh, don’t mention it.” I thought I saw a blush creep up his face, like he was embarrassed to say what he really wanted.
Still, the Ender Dragon guessed that he had an idea. “There must be something.”
“Well.” He looked up at her looming form. Steve Alexander and the dragon were two different sizes and two different species, but right then they were the same—two total outsiders. “If you’re misunderstood and I’m misunderstood, maybe we can be misunderstood together. Will you be my friend?”
“A friend?” she repeated. “Ah, this world has changed from the one I knew. Friendship has never been offered to me before now.”
“Then let’s be friends, you and I,” he said. “I have a home some distance from here, but I’ve always wanted to build a new one in the jungle, where I can be away from people. We can build a home big enough for both of us, right near here.”
“What luck that we have found each other,” she agreed.
“Come on,” he said, sounding eager now. “I’ll lead you to the surface. If we have each other, we won’t need anyone else.”
He quickly led her through the mineshaft, bouncing with each step. Wolf trotted along at his side, ever faithful. The Ender Dragon followed more slowly behind, her large body filling the mineshaft as she swayed through it. They passed the End portal room, and Steve Alexander didn’t ask about it again.
“It will be nice to see sunlight after so many years in darkness,” the Ender Dragon said fondly.
But when they rose to the surface, it was overcast. Rain sprinkled on the Ender Dragon’s snout. As she emerged from the darkness of the mineshaft, I could see just how enormous she really was. She stood tall as a building behind Steve Alexander.
“Sorry about the weather,” Steve Alexander said. “It should clear up soon.”
Then a scream echoed from the distance, and he tensed, turning. “The village!” he cried. “The overcast sky is letting mobs out! They must be attacking the village!”
“Show me where you want to build our home in the jungle biome,” the Ender Dragon said, turning toward the trees and vines near them.
“But what about the villagers?” Steve Alexander cried. “What about the mayor?”
She looked back over her enormous shoulder at him. “I thought you didn’t care about them. Or do you just care about the mayor?”
“I—I—” Steve Alexander stammered. He caught himself and said, “Even if I don’t like them, I can’t just leave them in danger!” Just then, I could see an idea struck him. It crossed his face like a light turning on.
“Dragon!” he called up to her. “Will you help me protect the villagers?”
CHAPTER 8
The next thing i knew, we were back in the village. Steve Alexander’s guess had been right—with the overcast sky, the village was overrun by zombies! The zombies had torn down the contest sign and were chasing people into their houses. People weren’t even safe in their homes, because the zombies easily tore through their wooden doors. I saw Mayor Pandra was fighting off a zombie with a wooden sword, but wooden swords were about as useful as wooden doors. And after all that bragging about their new, bigger wooden swords, I saw Mick and Drake hiding under a table and clinging to each other. Zombies surrounded them, closing in.
“Hit them, Drake!” Mick yelled.
“No, you hit them, Mick!” Drake yelled back.
They wimpily shook their wooden swords at the zombies. One zombie ripped the sword out of Mick’s hand and broke it in two in the process.
“That’s not fair!” Mick said. “We made the swords bigger!”
They huddled closer together, not even trying to protect themselves anymore.
Then a black shape appeared in the sky. As the shadow drew closer, the features of the Ender Dragon became visible. Her wings were flapping furiously, and Steve Alexander was riding on her back, sword held up high.
As they came into the village, the Ender Dragon opened her mouth and spewed purple-colored fireballs all over the zombies, freezing them in their tracks. This gave the people the opportunity to run at the mobs with their wooden swords. The zombies around Drake and Mick froze, and villagers rushed over to take care of them. I noticed Drake and Mick didn’t come out from their hiding spot. But they both lifted their heads and looked around them with am-I-really-seeing-this expressions.
The Ender Dragon swung down low to the ground, her wings almost brushing the houses, blasting more purple fireballs from her mouth while Steve Alexander reached down and struck zombies with his diamond sword. One hit from that sword was enough to make a zombie disappear.
The tide of the battle was turning before our eyes.
When the Ender Dragon reached the edge of the village, she swept back around to fly over it again. The Ender Dragon’s breath and Steve Alexander’s sword quickly finished off any zombies that remained from the first sweep. And as the last of the zombies vanished, the clouds parted in the sky and sunlight poured down on the scene. The Ender Dragon gracefully landed in the grass, folding her wings.
Steve Alexander slid off her back, and when his feet hit the ground, everyone in the area started cheering, except for Mick and Drake.
At first Steve Alexander looked surprised by all the cheering. But as the applause went on, he seemed to realize it was for him. For him and the dragon. Meanwhile, Wolf came running safely into the village and joined his master, his tongue lolling happily out of his mouth.
“Steve Alexander saved us!” I recognized the voice of Mayor Pandra. She came out of the crowd and stood before him. “Steve Alexander and the dragon!”
“It was nothing, really,” Steve Alexander said. He looked sort of embarrassed, but I could also tell he was really enjoying himself.
“Hey, he just got lucky!” Mick said, pulling himself out from under a table. He was still holding his broken wooden sword. “A few more seconds, and we would have had those zombies!” Just then, another piece of his sword broke off and fell to the ground.
“Yeah!” said Drake hotly. “Don’t forget: Steve Alexander can’t even ride a horse. He’s not special.”
“Who cares if he can’t ride a horse?” a villager jeered at Drake. “He can ride a dragon!”
Steve Alexander’s chest puffed out with the praise. “I wouldn’t have been able to do this without my new friend,” he said, turning to the Ender Dragon. “My diamond sword could have only done so much.”
“We must honor both of you for your great courage,” Mayor Pandra said. She handed Steve Alexander a medal she’d pulled out of her cloak. “And it goes without saying that you won this year’s contest.”
He took the medal, beaming.
“What is your name, dragon?” Mayor Pandra asked, looking up at her. “So that we can always honor it in our village.”
The Ender Dragon tilted her head as if she’d never heard this question. “My name?”
“You don’t have a name?” Steve Alexander looked up at her in disbelief. “Everyone needs to have a name. Even Wolf has a name!”
Wolf gave a happy bark.
“You named your tamed wolf … Wolf?” the Ender Dragon said. “Then are you going to name me Dragon?”
He shook his head. “The name Dragon might scare people off, but everyone should know your kindness.” He thought about it for a moment. “I know!” he said, beaming up at her. “We’ll name you Jean!”
CHAPTER 9
It hit me like a ton of bricks. “jean!” i cried. I’d been so caught up in what I was watching I could barely think about our mission to find the Ender crystal shards. But now my min
d was flashing back to the haunted jungle temple, where we’d found notes inviting people to a party put on by Steve Alexander and J—. And that was it. All the papers had been so old that we hadn’t been able to find a single card with the full name of the second person. No, not person—the full name of the dragon.
I looked at Maison, Alex, Destiny, and Yancy, and saw they’d already come to the same conclusion.
“This is … a lot more complicated than I expected,” Destiny said.
“Life is complicated,” Yancy said. “And … I guess sometimes even life inside video games is complicated.”
The white light was coming up around us again. We were about to see something different! The next thing I knew, the five of us were deep in the jungle, surrounded by trees and vines. Parrots chirped in the branches. From his perch on Yancy’s shoulder, Blue chirped back.
Steve Alexander was working on constructing a massive building in front of us, Wolf at his side. The Ender Dragon—or should I call her Jean?—was helping him carry supplies for what he was making.
“It’s the jungle temple!” I exclaimed, my heart thump-thumping. “They’re making it together!”
What was going on here? This dragon was helpful, and I knew there was no way the evil Ender Dragon would help save a village! Maybe this wasn’t the Ender Dragon. Were there two dragons? Were they twins? My head hurt trying to figure all this out.
“Hey, someone’s coming,” Maison said.
We all turned toward the sound of people making their way through the jungle. Wolf came over to investigate, walking right past us as if we weren’t there, even though the dog came so close his fur brushed against my sleeve.
I saw Mayor Pandra and a few other people were inching through all the trees, trying not to stumble. Steve Alexander looked up, did a double-take, and then ran over.
“Mayor Pandra!” he exclaimed. “Do you need any help?”
She stumbled on a vine and he caught her before she fell. Then, looking embarrassed, he quickly let her go.
“Thank you,” she said. “We were hoping we could talk to you and Jean …” She trailed off and stared in awe at the partly-made jungle temple. “What is this?”
“It’s a special home for Jean and me!” Steve Alexander said eagerly. “Come, I’ll show you.”
He walked her through parts of the building, pointing out the trapdoors and hidden passageways.
“So fancy!” she said. “But it seems dangerous for guests.”
“It’s just to keep us safe, way out in the jungle here,” he said. “Look, I want to show you the redstone I’ve been working with. Watch this.” He pressed a switch and a minecart zigzagged through the hall. The mayor clapped her hands over her mouth in astonishment.
“You can make it move without touching it!” she marveled.
“Yeah,” he said. “Some villages have asked to use the invention, so I’m starting to get a little bit of a name for myself.”
She put her hands back down. “That really does seal it, then. Steve Alexander, I came to ask you a favor.”
“A favor?” he repeated. Jean was following along behind, watching them talk. “What?”
“I want you and Jean to help the people of the Overworld fight mobs,” she said. “What you did in the village a few weeks ago was incredible. With all your inventions, and with your ability to ride a dragon, I think we could be seeing a bright new day for our world.”
“I don’t know how much I can do …” he started to say.
She grabbed his arm. “Yes, you do!” she insisted. “All the people in our village are already mining diamonds to make diamond swords. They saw how much better your sword was than their wooden swords. And you said yourself that some villages are interested in your redstone work. We need to spread this knowledge more. And each night, if you can ride your dragon and chase away the mobs harassing villagers … oh, how amazing that would be!”
It looked like he didn’t want to tell her no, but he was hesitant. He turned to the dragon. “What do you think, Jean? This would involve you too.”
“I trust you to know what is best for us,” Jean said calmly. I kept watching her, waiting for some clue that she was going to turn evil, or some proof she was a dragon different from the Ender Dragon I knew. “I await your decision.”
Mayor Pandra looked back at him with begging eyes.
Slowly, Steve Alexander said, “If it’s fine with Jean, it’s fine with me.”
“Wonderful!” Mayor Pandra cheered. “There’s something I want to show you.”
She pulled out a piece of paper with a sketch on it. The sketch showed a heroic-looking Steve Alexander riding Jean, her long black wings spread wide as she flew.
“I want to make a statue of this in our village,” she said. “It’s just a design now, so first I wanted to see what you thought of it.”
“It’s … it’s incredible,” Steve Alexander said, as if he could barely believe it. Jean hung her heavy head over Steve’s shoulder to get a good look, too.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if before long there’s a statue like this in every village of the Overworld,” the mayor went on.
I could tell her words were really getting Steve Alexander pumped up. He handed the paper back to her and said to Jean, “It’ll be dark within an hour. What do you say we start flying to villages now, to make sure they’re safe?”
In response, Jean lowered herself to the ground so he could climb on her back. As soon as he was comfortably settled, she ambled out of the temple and took off for the sky.
“The Overworld will never be the same!” Mayor Pandra called up to them as they flew away.
And then the white light came in again, pulling us into another scene.
CHAPTER 10
“I don’t know what to think,” i admitted, as we watched scene after scene showing Steve Alexander and Jean saving villages from mob attacks. Their battles all looked like the first one, with Jean sweeping down and shooting her fiery purple breath and Steve Alexander taking out mobs left and right with his sword.
“This is clearly a different dragon,” Alex said with an eye roll. “Just because they look the same doesn’t mean they are the same.”
“I don’t know,” Yancy said, his hand to his chin. “People can change. Why not dragons, too?”
“I think we just need to watch and learn,” Maison said. “My mom always said you can’t jump to conclusions. You have to learn all about something before you have an opinion on it.”
Yancy snorted. “Not in the days of the Internet. The more knee-jerk your reaction online, the more the Internet seems to reward you for it.”
“Guys, shh,” Destiny said. “The scene is changing.”
After the village rescues, we saw different villages putting up statues of Steve Alexander and the Ender Dragon. At one point we watched Steve Alexander and Jean proudly posing for an artist who was making an enormous, blocky statue. We also saw a lot of cheering crowds, and villagers and mayors handing them medals. If Steve Alexander had once been a loser, he was now the most popular person in the Overworld.
We also saw how his life was changing. After making his large jungle temple, he built a whole lot of other mansions around the Overworld. He was sure on the up and up. There was a scene where he and Mayor Pandra got married, and a few scenes later we saw him, the mayor, and a little boy running around. I guessed that must have been their son, Steve. I wasn’t sure how many years were passing with each new scene now. But in each group scene we saw more people with diamond swords. We could see redstone being used in some backgrounds. Steve Alexander’s inventions were definitely making their way around the world—and people were loving them.
Well, apparently not everyone.
“I hate him!” Mick said in one scene. He was standing with Drake at the back of a crowd, watching Steve Alexander accept another village medal.
“I know!” Drake said. “I asked him, ‘Are you going to make your diamond swords bigger?’ He said, ‘No, I’m
going to try enchanting swords to make them more powerful.’ What a snob!”
“No kidding!” Mick said. “He only thinks about himself.”
“He has the whole Overworld eating out of his hand,” Drake said. “He wouldn’t be so fancy if he didn’t have that dragon friend.”
Mick’s face lit up. “Hey, I have an idea! Let’s steal his dragon!”
“You numbskull!” Drake said. “How are we going to steal a dragon?”
“We could make bigger wooden swords,” Mick offered. Drake grabbed him by the shirt and shook him.
“No sword is ever going to be big enough to steal a dragon!” Drake said.
“Excuse me,” said a person in the crowd. “I couldn’t help overhearing what you were saying about Steve Alexander. Do you know him?”
“Known him since childhood!” Drake bragged, letting go of Mick. “Why?”
“I’d be interested in hearing your stories,” said the person. He gave them a greasy smile.
In the next scene, Steve Alexander was home at night in the jungle temple, reading a book to Steve. The Ender Dragon was lying behind him, watching them, her long wings stretched out. Mayor Pandra walked over timidly, as if she had something bad she wanted to say.
“Steve?” she said to the boy. “Why don’t you go play for a few minutes?”
“Can I play with Jean?” the boy asked eagerly.
“That’s fine,” Jean said, and she got up and lumbered out of the room with Steve. As soon as they were gone, Steve Alexander asked, “What’s wrong?”
“When I was in the village today, people were saying horrible things about you,” Mayor Pandra said. “Apparently Mick and Drake have been spreading all sorts of mean, nasty stories, and people are believing them.”
Steve Alexander shrugged. “I can’t control what people believe. Besides, Mick and Drake have always had it in for me.”
“The other people don’t know that. They just know Mick and Drake were childhood friends of yours—”
The Last of the Ender Crystal Page 3