Читать книгу Book Three: Part 2 Herobrine’s Message - Sean Wolfe Fay - Страница 8

There was silence in the Capitol rotunda, save the sound of hundreds of pairs of feet marching. Row by row, the black-clad troops filed into lines. Jayden and G glanced around the room nervously at the dozens of dark figures positioned in the upper balcony, all of whom had loaded bows aiming down into the giant mass of soldiers.

G took a deep breath and let it out. He knew what was going on. Four days had passed since he had left Sirus alone in that obsidian chamber with a diamond pickaxe in his hand, and now Tess had ordered that all soldiers meet in the rotunda for an emergency.

Sure enough, Tess emerged on the highest, most ornate and most pronounced balcony of the rotunda, made from chiselled quartz blocks. There was no hint of joy on her face. There was only a scowl as she looked down on all the soldiers. Gazing back up at her and cowering under her intimidating leer, they were all silent. Finally, Tess spoke.

“Last night,” Tess announced, “our hostages from the Adorian Village escaped captivity.”

A collective gasp rolled across the soldiers as they realized what that meant.

“To escape, the hostages tunnelled through a five-block-thick wall of solid obsidian,” continued Tess. “This is a feat that would take at least two full days to complete if done by anything other than a diamond pickaxe. And seeing as no guards saw any sign of an escape in progress during their check-ups, this can only mean that somebody in this room managed to sneak a diamond pickaxe to the hostages.”

A collective burst of panic rose off the crowd, and though nobody dared to speak, the tension in the room could be cut with a sword.

“I know that someone among us is the traitor,” Tess said slowly as her eyes swept over the soldiers below her. “If you step forwards and reveal yourself to me now, then you shall simply be executed by firing squad, quickly and painlessly. However, if you don’t, then I shall be forced to begin interrogations, and when I discover who it is, you will be tortured without mercy before you become food for the Zombie villagers. If anybody would like to speak out, you may do so now.”

G, who was struggling to keep his own heart from exploding with panic, heard Jayden beside him take a deep breath, let it out, and then raise his hand.

“I confess,” Jayden said, a slight warble in his voice. “I did it.”

G’s mind went blank, refusing to comprehend what was happening. He turned to stare at Jayden in utter shock, totally blindsided and utterly bewildered by what his best friend had just said.

“Is that so?” asked Tess, a hint of surprise in her voice as all the soldiers around Jayden backed away from him in abhorrence. G followed suit, convinced that he had gone totally insane. “How did you do it, Drayden? And what was your motivation?”

“My name is Jayden!” he exclaimed, pulling off his black leather cap, throwing it to the ground, and stomping on it. “I am a member of the governing council of Element City and a friend of President Stan2012. I have been living undercover among you for these past weeks, working to free the hostages you have taken from us. Now, my work here is done.” A manic smile crossed Jayden’s face as he pumped his fist into the air and, with patriotic fervour, he bellowed, “LONG LIVE THE REPUBLIC! LONG LIVE PRESIDENT STAN!”

G’s mind was still reeling from what was going on. He was hardly able to comprehend that Jayden had just revealed himself for no good reason, and that soldiers were drawing their bows and taking aim at him. Suddenly, a lightbulb clicked on in G’s head. There was at least one good thing that could come from this turn of insanity. G leaped forwards and into the ring, letting the overwhelming despair that was boiling inside him burst from his mouth.

“How could you do this?” G shouted, tears streaming down his face as he let all the white shock he was feeling burst through his voice. “You were my friend! I trusted you! How could you work for that evil president?”

Jayden glanced back at G, and caught his eye. For an instant, he looked miserable, as if all he wanted was to be able to say “sorry.” However, the look soon vanished, to be replaced by nothing but zeal.

“I’d never lower myself to the level of calling myself the friend of a Noctem!” Jayden spat in disgust.

There were so many things that G longed to say but knew he couldn’t. He was forced to simply stand still, quiet and motionless. It was all the same, though. Words could not describe the agony that wrenched his heart as two soldiers pinned Jayden to the ground, and a third raised a bow to his head. G looked away, preparing for the arrow to fly.

“Hold your fire!” Tess’s voice rang out from the balcony above.

G looked up, hardly daring to believe his ears. The collective group of soldiers, including those who were restraining Jayden, seemed to follow suit as their eyes locked on Tess. She was staring back and forth between Jayden and G, an intrigued look on her face. G’s heart skipped a beat. Did she suspect something?

“Executioner, stop,” Tess said again, holding up her hand. “I have a better idea. All troops, move out. Leave this rotunda. Guard and MasterBronze, stay put.”

G was petrified as the troops began to move out around him, giving him uncomfortable glances as they flooded through the doors. The executioner put his bow away and drew a glowing diamond sword, jabbing it up against Jayden’s back and grunting, “Hands in the air, dirtbag.” Jayden complied, and his eyes darted to the side and met G’s. He could tell they were both thinking the same thing.

Tess knows, G thought in a panic. She’s got to know. Why else would she have singled me out? All the recruits probably realize that Jayden and I have been talking this entire time. And why did Jayden reveal himself anyway? She might not have ever guessed it was me. He didn’t need to sacrifice himself!

The sounds of footsteps on the stone-brick floor echoed throughout the cavernous rotunda as Tess made her way to the centre. G and the executioner snapped to full attention as Jayden scowled at her.

“General Tess,” the guard asked in disbelief, “why did you tell me not to execute this spy?”

“Trust me,” Tess replied, a devious grin creeping across her face, “I know what I’m doing. Guard, you are dismissed now.”

The guard stared at Tess with a total lack of comprehension, and then turned round and made his way to the door, grumbling the whole way. Jayden watched as he went, hands still raised, and Tess drew a glowing diamond sword from her own inventory, pointing it at Jayden.

“MasterBronze,” Tess said slowly, turning to face G, “I understand that you are friends with this traitor. Is this correct?”

“I thought I was,” G grunted, trying to sound hurt and betrayed, and not let his true dread be too obvious. “He always seemed like such a nice guy, I can’t believe that he’s been working for President Stan this entire time.”

“Well, I hope that you can bring yourself to believe it,” Tess chuckled, “because you’re going to be the one who kills him.”

G heard, but he didn’t understand. “I’m … sorry …?” he finally croaked.

“For the past few weeks, I have been training you as my apprentice, MasterBronze,” Tess continued matter-of-factly. “I must say that, so far, I am quite impressed by your progress in combat and skills training. However, if you are truly going to become a great leader of the Noctem Alliance, you must learn to make sacrifices for the sake of our cause … even if it means stabbing your best friend in the back. And besides, if your loyalties are in the right place, then you should be able to get over it quickly.”

G stared blankly at Tess, still not understanding what he was being asked. Then, out of the corner of his eye, G saw Jayden staring at him with wide, fearful eyes, and finally snapped back to his senses.

“Um, well …,” G sputtered, trying to think fast. “I mean … General Tess, ma’am … can I at least kill him in private? It’s … going to be difficult enough without you watching.”

Tess sighed and rolled her eyes. “Whatever. We’ll go to the holding chamber. Move it, you worthless piece of trash!”

Tess poked the diamond sword into Jayden’s back and he began to walk forward, hands still raised above him. G followed Tess down the hallway. He realized that they were headed towards the room where Sirus and the others had been imprisoned. G glared with contempt at the back of the general who was walking in front of him, and his hand started to crawl towards his pickaxe before he stopped himself. As easy and satisfying as it would have been to strike Tess down right then and there, he knew that he couldn’t do that. They were the only ones in the room, and Jayden was unarmed, so the rest of the Alliance would know that he had done it. And regardless of what happened, he still had to cure Mella and Stull, something that would be much easier if the Noctem Alliance trusted him.

It wasn’t long before they reached the obsidian room. At Tess’s command, G pressed the button to open the iron door. Once it had swung all the way round, Tess gave Jayden a kick in the back, sending him tumbling. He face-planted on the floor of the now vacant obsidian chamber. G glared at Tess with burning hatred but forced himself to curb his anger as she turned to face him.

“I’m coming back shortly,” Tess decreed sternly. “And I will expect you to bring me his weapon.”

And with that, she stepped back into the hallway and pressed the stone button again, swinging the iron door shut.

“What were you thinking?” bellowed G, spinning round to face Jayden the second the door closed.

“Don’t yell at me!” Jayden retorted, crossing his arms over his chest. “Do you have any idea what I just did for you?”

“You almost left me without a best friend?” spat G. “You made Tess expect me to kill you? You put me into an incredibly difficult position? Take your pick, they’re all true!”

“Oh, open your eyes, man!” cried Jayden. “It was only a matter of time before Tess realized that you let those prisoners go. Since I took the fall for you, you can stay in Nocturia for as long as you want! You can free the villagers, you can find out so much information, do so much damage to the Alliance. For the first time since we started fighting this war, Element City has eyes on the inside of the Noctem Alliance, and that’s not something worth giving up, even if it means I have to die. Actually, the fact that Tess ordered you to kill me makes all of this so much better!”

“How do you figure that?” exclaimed G incredulously.

“Because now she’s going to have total faith in you!” Jayden said, sounding as if this should be incredibly obvious. “She’s already rearing you up to be her little lackey. If you do this, then she’s going to trust you with anything and think that you’re totally devoted to the Noctem Alliance, and to her.”

“Oh, my apologies. You’re right, Jayden!” G replied, a mock cheerful tone in his voice. “I mean, gee whiz, why didn’t we do this in the first place? Oh, yeah, that’s right! Because in order for this plan to work, it still required me killing you!”

“Oh, don’t be so sure,” Jayden replied with a smile. And with that, he reached into his inventory and pulled out a bottle. The potion within it was transparent, almost clear, but it had a definite grey tint to it. G gasped.

“Jayden. Where did you get that?”

“I swiped it,” he replied, taking the bottle and tipping it down his throat in one giant gulp. “Yesterday, we went to the Brewing Plant in the Nether while you were surveying the grounds with Tess. Here, catch!”

Jayden’s hand plunged into his inventory for a second time and out came his diamond axe, which he tossed through the air towards G, who caught it. “Just wait until the potion takes effect, then show the axe to Tess, and I’ll slip out through the door, invisible, and make my way back to Element City!”

“Wha … wait,” G said, as he put together what Jayden was saying. “You’re … you’re leaving me?”

“Well, the alternative is that you kill me, and I think that option is considerably less appealing to everyone,” Jayden replied, sounding a little annoyed.

“But … you can’t leave!” cried G. “I need you here! Tess has been working me into the ground, never leaving me alone, making me be with her all the time, taking me away from everyone else so she can train me. The fact that she’s so nice to me isn’t even cool any more – it’s just uncomfortable! I can’t lose the only person that I can still talk to!”

Jayden simply stared at him for a moment in disbelief. Finally, he managed to get out, “Dude … do you … realize what you’re saying? Do you see any hint of irony at all in anything you just said?”

G stared back, looking confused. Then, without warning, Jayden began to fade away, becoming dimmer and dimmer by the second.

“The potion’s taking effect!” exclaimed Jayden, pulling off his armour and frantically reaching into his inventory and tossing random items to the ground, making it look like a player had died. “G, go open the door now, and hurry! I don’t have much time before the potion wears off, and I have to get all the way into the tundra. I’ll say hi to Kat and the others for you when I see them … bye!”

And with that, Jayden disappeared.

G stared at the place where his best friend now stood, invisible, and then down at the diamond axe in his hand. He knew that Jayden was right. He forced himself to walk to the iron door. He gave three sharp knocks on the iron face, and seconds later the door swung open. G stepped out and felt a rush of wind behind him, indicating that Jayden had silently taken off down the hallway.

“Did you finish the job?” Tess asked.

G took a deep breath, reached into his inventory, and pulled out Jayden’s diamond axe. He handed it to Tess, who took it, looking thrilled.

“Well done, MasterBronze!” Tess exclaimed, patting him on the shoulder, which made his skin crawl. “In honour of your loyalty to the Noctem Alliance and to me, I am promoting you to the rank of Corporal. You will, from now on, have the duty of being my assistant commander in the training programme.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” G replied. He knew he ought to be thrilled at this promotion, which would allow him access to even more high-level secrets, but he still couldn’t shake the feeling of total isolation now that Jayden was gone, and he was stuck with this Tess, this player who had total control over his life.

“Now, come with me, Corporal MasterBronze,” Tess continued, a grin crossing her face. “It’s time to go and see your fellow trainees, and present their new second-in-command to them.”

G’s stomach churned as he followed Tess down the hallway. She was talking to him so affectionately, like he were her prized show dog instead of another person. It made him feel powerless, degraded and humiliated. G shuddered and wished that somehow, he still had Jayden to talk to.

“Charlie, please … let me take a turn, I can see how bad you’re hurtin’ …”

“Leonidas, for the last time, I am fine!” Charlie bellowed, whipping around to face him. “Stop interrupting me or we’re never gonna get to Element City!”

“OK, fine, calm down, man!” Leonidas cried out, raising his blocky hands defensively.

Charlie shot one last steely glare at him before turning back around, and continuing to hack away at the solid cave wall with his stone pickaxe. Leonidas stared at Charlie’s back, illuminated by torchlight. He had been baffled by the hostility Charlie had been showing towards him. Since they had joined up with him and Stan, Leonidas had been pleasantly surprised by how quickly everybody had warmed up to him. Everybody, that was, except Charlie. And even as Leonidas watched Charlie mining, it was clear that he was hurting. Every swing of the pickaxe brought another grunt of discomfort, and every step he took through the newly mined cave saw another limp.

Leonidas was the only one who even noticed Charlie’s outburst, however. Commander Crunch was busy tunnelling forwards alongside Charlie, while Stan, Kat, and Cassandrix walked behind, talking among themselves. Stan put torches on the wall as they walked, and Rex trailed lazily behind Kat.

“I still can’t believe that we’re being forced to sneak into our own city,” Kat spat in disgust.

“Oh, I’m sorry, dear. Allow me to play you a sad song on the world’s smallest violin,” Cassandrix replied, sticking her bloated lip out in mock sadness before reverting back to a scowl. “Kat, we’re all down here together. There’s no need to whine about what we’re all feeling!”

“Shut up!” cried Kat, so loudly, that Stan cringed and raised his hands to his ears. “There’s no need to be so obnoxious about it!”

“I’m sorry, what’s that, Commander?” Cassandrix said loudly, looking over at Crunch, who was still firmly fixated on his digging. “I’m sorry, I can’t hear you. There appears to be an infant who’s crying because her feelings are hurt. I do wish the parents would take care of her.”

Kat turned red as a beet, and was about to retort when Stan forced his way between the two of them.

“Enough, you two!” he cried, indignantly glancing back and forth between them. “We’re all stressed enough as it is in this stupid tunnel. We don’t need your bickering making things worse!”

“She started it,” Kat mumbled, causing Cassandrix to roll her eyes and shrug with an arrogant sigh.

“I don’t care who started it, I’m finishing it,” said Stan firmly, as he continued to walk forwards between Kat and Cassandrix. Man, I’m so glad to be back with everyone, Stan thought to himself, trying to think as optimistically as possible. I missed talking with everybody so much …

“Hey, Charlie!” Kat hollered right next to Stan’s ear, causing him to cringe again. “Are we past the wall yet?”

“If my calculations are correct,” Charlie replied, trying to keep his breathing steady as he winced with the effort of mining, “we passed underneath the wall a little while ago, and we should be underneath the Merchants District of Element City by now.”

“Hey, did you hear that, everybody?” Stan asked, looking around the mine at all his friends. “We’re back in Element City! Welcome home, guys!”

There were lacklustre murmurs of assent around the mine as Charlie and Commander Crunch tunnelled into a sizable natural cave. Stan sighed. He knew that they had to get to Element City as quickly as possible, and the fate of all of Minecraft might lie in their hands. But that didn’t change the fact that they had been walking for three straight days with no sleep, and everybody was worn out.

“OK,” he said, finally letting his inner exhaustion come forwards. “Maybe we should take a break for a little while and rest.”

As soon as Stan said this, the entire group collapsed onto the ground, letting the fatigue of weeks of trekking with almost no rest finally hit them. Stan lay down as well, not even caring that the stone-block floor below him was uncomfortable. Rex curled up at his feet, and Stan was just about to doze off when he suddenly had a startling realization.

“Hey, guys, we can’t all go to sleep yet,” he mumbled, forcing himself to sit up. “Somebody has to stand guard.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Leonidas said, grabbing a ledge on the cave wall and pulling himself to his feet.

“NO!” Charlie cried, causing everybody to snap up right as Charlie jumped, wincing as his bad leg hit the ground. “Get back to sleep, Leonidas. I’m standing guard.”

“Come on, Charlie!” exclaimed Leonidas, looking concerned. “You’ve been mining all day. You really ought to take a rest!’

“What’s that supposed to mean, huh?” Charlie demanded accusatorily. “Are you saying you don’t think I can do it?”

“No, I …”

“Then shut up and sit back down!” Charlie spat out bitterly. “I don’t recall asking for your help!”

Leonidas stared at Charlie, amazed at the harshness in his voice. After a moment, Leonidas lay back down and, with an uncomfortable glance at Charlie, rolled over to face the wall. Stan was outraged, and was about to chastise Charlie for his harshness when, without warning, an explosion erupted in the wall beside them, showering the entire group with dust.

Within seconds, all six players and the wolf were on their feet again, weapons drawn, glancing into the misshapen hole in the cave wall. A shadowy form appeared in the smoke, and as the dust settled, a row of figures came into view. The form of Creeper Khan, with Arachnia, Enderchick, Lord Marrow and Zomboy standing directly behind him.

There was a moment of silence. Stan and his friends stared at the mobhunters, transfixed in horror that they had been discovered. Meanwhile, the members of ELM stared back, their eyes alight with joyous amazement.

“Fancy seeing you here, Stan,” Arachnia hissed with a grin, stepping forward to the front of the group.

“How did you find us?” Stan demanded as he uncomfortably forced himself to look into Arachnia’s eight red eyes.

“Lucky break, I guess,” she replied with a grin. “We were just about to set some traps for you guys down here. We didn’t expect you to get back here so quickly.”

“We’ve been walking nonstop,” Stan replied slowly, trying to buy time as he wildly thought of how they could escape from these bounty hunters. “We wanted to make it back to Element City as fast as possible.”

“Aw, poor tragic you,” Arachnia sneered. “You tried so hard, and got so far … but in the end, it doesn’t even matter.”

“Haha! I ged id!” Zomboy shouted. “Because dose are da words to a song! And you used dem in …”

“Shut up, Zomboy,” Arachnia said offhandedly.

“OK,” he replied meekly, looking to the ground.

“Well, congrats to you,” Stan said, still desperate for more time. “You finally managed to catch up to us. Now what?”

“Well, you’re going to come with us, Stan,” Arachnia replied in a disturbingly sweet-sounding voice that made Stan’s skin crawl. “Lord Tenebris is most anxious to see you. And as for your friends, well, they’re of no use to anybody any more, so they will be disposed of.”

“Well, I’m sorry, Arachnia,” Stan retorted, keeping his voice pleasant and conversational as he realized that there was no escape, and they would have to fight. “But I’m afraid that I can’t let you do that.”

And before the mobhunter could respond, Stan leaped forwards and locked his axe against the glowing diamond sword that Arachnia had pulled out, and the two of them began to duel. Immediately, the players who had been standing behind the two leaders leaped into action. Kat lunged toward Enderchick with Rex at her heels, Cassandrix and Creeper Khan struck at each other simultaneously, and Commander Crunch rushed in to help Cassandrix. Lord Marrow and Leonidas both released a barrage of arrows at each other, while Zomboy lunged at the nearest target, Charlie.

Charlie feinted backward to avoid the giant stone axe that the oversized player slammed into the ground, leaving cracks in the stone blocks of the cave floor. As he moved, Charlie felt a sharp pain in his foot, and it nearly gave out, but he managed to stay on his feet, cringing in pain. Charlie glanced up at Zomboy, who was raising his axe and preparing for another attack. He’s not very fast, Charlie noted to himself, and he’s taking way too long between attacks. He must be a heavy fighter.

Charlie became aware of explosions going off behind Zomboy as Creeper Khan started to use his pyrokinetic powers and Lord Marrow fired off explosive arrows, but Charlie forced himself to focus on his own fight. Zomboy continued to walk towards Charlie, swinging his giant stone axe from side to side, forcing Charlie back down the cave towards the way they had come. Charlie saw multiple openings in the attack that would allow him to counter, but each time he was about to strike, the pain in his leg flared up again, and he was forced to fall back to avoid another attack.

Finally, after a frustrating minute of dodging, Zomboy launched a particularly powerful downward axe strike, which Charlie sidestepped. The axe blade shattered the stone block beneath it in a shower of sparks and became lodged in the ground, forcing Zomboy to struggle to pull it out. Seeing his chance, Charlie launched himself forwards off his good leg, and sunk his stone pickaxe directly into Zomboy’s chest. The giant mobhunter winced and staggered backwards, axe still in hand, before collapsing to the ground with a massive thud.

Charlie took a deep breath, and let it out as he looked down at the massive body of his defeated adversary. He was infuriated with himself. That giant thug was so unskilled that it should have been an effortless kill, but his leg had made it much more difficult than it had to be. A dark thought crossed Charlie’s mind. What if he came face to face with a skilled opponent? Not somebody like Leonidas in their fight in the forest … someone who actually wanted to hurt him? Charlie shuddered as his mind clouded with these thoughts, and he began to walk back towards the fight, past the body of Zomboy, determined to prove himself.

What Charlie hadn’t expected was for Zomboy’s axe to fly up off the ground and directly at him.

Charlie managed to pull his backup pickaxe out of his inventory to block the attack, but the impact of the oversized stone axe on his weapon still sent him flying across the cave. He hit the wall with a smack, landing hard on the stone-block floor, right on his bad leg. Charlie let out a holler of pain and clutched his damaged limb in agony, glancing up through his teary eyes to figure out what had just happened.

Zomboy was back on his feet. His stone axe was held firmly in his right hand, Charlie’s pickaxe was still lodged in his chest, and he was staring at Charlie with a grin, no sign of pain on his face at all.

Charlie was perplexed, not sure how it was that Zomboy was still alive, until it hit him. Zomboy was part of the assassin team, and, according to what Stan had told him, each member of their team seemed to be modded to have some sort of special ability. Charlie realized that this player must be modded to have extra HP, and be able to take a ton of punishment before he died.

As the giant beast of a player lumbered towards Charlie, he prepared to kick off the wall, and get out of the way of the incoming attack. Zomboy began to raise his axe over his head as Charlie kicked off the wall, only to have his knee buckle under the pressure. Charlie hardly noticed, though; he was too focussed on the axe raised over Zomboy’s head.

Just as the blow was about to fall, an arrow flew from deep in the cave and lodged itself into Zomboy’s skull, right between his eyes. The giant player gave a yelp of pain, and then proceeded to look down the tunnel towards the source of the arrow, not dead from the blow (somehow) but most certainly angry.

“Hey!” he bellowed down the mine, his eyebrows, with an arrow sticking out between them, knitted in fury. “Wads da big idea?”

Charlie glanced down the cave, and his face lit up in amazement and relief. There, standing in the mouth of the cave, was Sirus, bow raised, and an army of twenty players, all armed with stone weapons, standing behind him.

“Charge!” the crazed redstone mechanic bellowed.

The entire mass of players barrelled through the cave, sending arrows and flying weapons at Zomboy. Sensing that he was overwhelmed, the massive mobhunter turned, the attacks simply sinking into his back to no effect. With his axe in hand, he dashed down the cave and back towards his comrades.

As the wave of freed hostages continued to rush past Charlie, Sirus stopped to help him to his feet. “Hey, Charlie, man, long time no see, how’re you doing?”

“I’m … fine,” Charlie replied. He couldn’t believe his eyes. From what he had heard, Sirus had perished in the Battle for Elementia. “I … I’m really glad to see you. But … I thought you …”

“Oh, I get it, you thought I died,” Sirus replied with a short laugh. “Yeah, I thought that, too, but I respawned, and I saw somebody duck into the woods and I figured that the hill probably wasn’t safe, so I decided that I wanted to go out into the middle of the Ender Desert because I thought that could be fun, but then I got hungry and tried to eat part of a cactus, and it kind of caused me to hallucinate to the point where I imagined that I was at a wedding between a cantaloupe and—”

“I’m sorry, but do we have to talk about this now?” Charlie cut in urgently, jerking his head towards the blasts and shouts of the ongoing fight down the cave.

“Seriously though, dude,” Sirus continued, as he got into position to help Charlie up, “you must have done something pretty bad to that leg of yours, ’cause it’s totally busted, gone south, practically useless, comparable to the poop of—”

“OK, I get it, Sirus,” Charlie cut in, irritated. “I’m already frustrated enough without your commentary.”

Sirus merely shrugged and pulled Charlie to his feet. Charlie attempted to take a step forwards, but his bad foot couldn’t take the slightest bit of pressure without him screaming in agony. Sirus noticed his suffering and placed Charlie’s arm around his shoulder, slowly helping him follow the horde of Adorian Villagers that had surged down the cave and towards the ongoing fights.

Look at me, Charlie thought to himself bitterly. I can’t even walk by myself. I’m nothing but a cripple now.

As they reached the end of the cave, Charlie saw that, to his confusion, there was no fighting. Stan, Kat, Charlie, Cassandrix and Commander Crunch were all standing around, looking exhausted and in various states of injury, but the assassins had vanished.

“Where’d they go?” Charlie inquired to Commander Crunch as Sirus helped him sit down on a loose stone block.

“They warped away, lad,” the Commander replied as he nursed a blast wound on his arm. “As soon as Sirus ’n’ his scallywags arrived, the other scallywags realized that they were outnumbered, ’n’ couldn’t win. Th’ poppet that goes by th’ name o’ Enderchick grabbed her mates, ’n’ they all warped away. T’ where, we can only venture guesses, but I doubt they’ll be comin’ back anytime soon.”

Charlie nodded in understanding and looked around at the scene around them. Sirus and Stan were in deep conversation, Stan’s eyes wide, as if he were talking to a ghost. The hostages were wandering around the cave, some of them tending the wounds that had been inflicted during the fight. Suddenly, there was a commotion in the back of the cave, and two of Sirus’s followers came forwards, holding Leonidas with his arms behind his back.

“Hey, what do ya think you’re doin’?” Leonidas demanded, clearly too tired from the fight to resist them.

“We found another one of them, Sirus,” one of the two players said, and Sirus turned to face them. Immediately, his jaw dropped.

“Leonidas of RAT1! Force him down, men!”

And with that, the two players delivered sharp kicks to the back of Leonidas’s knees, forcing Leonidas to fall to the ground, a grunt of agony escaping his mouth as Sirus loaded an arrow into his bow.

“I’ll take care of this,” he announced heroically, and he was about to let the arrow fly when Stan realized what was happening. He knocked the bow out of Sirus’s hand, sending the arrow flying down the mine.

“President Stan, what’re you doing? This is a dangerous criminal who needs to be executed!” Sirus cried out.

“Sirus, calm down, it’s OK! Leonidas is on our side now. He’s realized the errors of his ways and he’s fighting for Element City.”

Sirus looked at Stan incredulously for a moment, and then raised an eyebrow in scepticism.

“President Stan, with all due respect, this player is responsible for tons of terrible things that happened during the rebellion against King Kev, and he’s killed more people than you’ll ever realize as a part of RAT1, so are you sure you don’t want me to kill him?”

“I am positive!” Stan barked in fury. “I’m granting Leonidas a complete presidential pardon for his past actions. He’s been traveling with me for weeks, and has proved to me time and time again that he’s sorry for what he did under King Kev and the Noctem Alliance. Now, he’s willing to give everything that he has to make up for what he did in the past! So I’ll thank you for not being rude to him!”

Sirus opened his mouth, and then closed it again. He gave a sideways glance at Leonidas, who had pulled himself to his feet and was shooting a dirty look at Sirus. Finally, Sirus spoke again, his voice still sounding suspicious.

“If you say so, President Stan,” Sirus replied slowly, and with that he turned to work on Charlie’s bad leg.

“Thanks, man,” Leonidas said, smiling at Stan for a moment before going to tend to a burn wound left on him by one of Lord Marrow’s attacks.

“Don’t mention it,” Stan replied offhandedly, barely paying attention as he came to a startling realization.

Within the next day, Stan would be at the underground bunker of Element City, which held his friends and all his citizens. They would surely be overjoyed to see him, along with Charlie, Kat, Cassandrix and Commander Crunch. However, he had never considered how the citizens of Element City would react to Leonidas.

As clear as it was that Leonidas had had a change of heart now, Stan still couldn’t change the terrible things that Leonidas had done in the past. And as he led his citizens forwards in the greatest challenge that Element City had ever faced, Stan wondered just how they would take it when they found out that he had granted a full presidential pardon to one of King Kev’s most powerful soldiers.