A/N - Hey guys! Axle here. Sorry if I surprised you, but I'm back! I know I haven't been writing any stories in a loooong time, I've been really distracted with other games and family/friend issues, which have been sorted now (thank Notch...). But anyway, I decided that the plotline for WeN was too short, and climaxed then concluded too fast, so I've re-written a few chapters to add a bit of extra content. Don't worry! If you already read WeN, everything past the abandoned hut is the same so far! It was just rather inconclusive. Anyway, if you haven't read it, I'm happy to announce that, because I'm back into the whole area of writing (for a while I hope) you awesome readers out there should be receiving a new chapter every two days or so. The prologue and first chapter are basically identical, so I'll put them up now, but after that some things change and other things haven't been written yet! Hoping you enjoy the new WeN and that I get as many favs and follows etc. as I did for the chapters I had up on the original.

- AxleMC131, out.
Let the adventure begin! (Again!)


PART 1 - Paradise and Purgatory

Prologue – The Demi-god's Arrival

Axle

The crack of thunder and lightning. The whistling of skeleton arrows. The groaning and snarling of the undead. The scuttling of spiders, the explosions of creepers, and the clang of sword upon flesh and armour. All these sounds surrounded me as I whirled my diamond blade, killing mob after mob only to be assaulted by more. Nearby I could hear my friends, the rest of the Grounded Team, battling just as fiercely. Moohickyalah was behind me somewhere, Wingnuts and Doomesdaye off to the left, and Jay in front of me, atop a small rise, loosing arrows into the fray. Behind him, the small settlement we had until so recently lived and thrived in, burned steadily. Sparks and smoke rose up over the crumbled stone wall, and the well in the middle of the settlement reflected the red-hot flames. All of our possessions, everything we had mined and gathered and built, had been destroyed. All that remained was what we were carrying at the moment.

We knew this was not a normal mob attack. There were far too many monsters for them to have spawned naturally. No, this had been planned by a force greater than ourselves, or any other normal Minecrafter. This had to be the work of… Him. But why? Maybe the rumours were true, and the Demi-god simply enjoyed watching people die from his antics. But there was no time to think about that now. The monsters were closing in and we had been pushed together into a small group.

Moohicky, my girlfriend, stood shoulder to shoulder with me, swinging her blade as furiously as any of us. "You okay?" I said to her out of the corner of my mouth, dodging an arrow and slicing a zombie's arm clean off.

Moohicky grunted as a spider leaped off the screaming zombie's back and grabbed her sword in its mandibles. She kicked it and it released the blade, only to then be skewered by an arrow from Jay. "Yeah. Fine. You?"

I had scratches all over me, my armour was wrecked and dented, and I could taste blood in my mouth, but I was still standing and fighting like a mad thing. "Yeah."

Doomesdaye, having laid an explosive trap some blocks away, stuck a lever in the ground and pulled it. There was a short hiss. "Everybody DOWN!" the miner yelled, covering his face. I ducked down and met Moohicky's blue eyes. Her jaw was set, and her face said everything. We weren't giving up. If Herobrine had it in for us, so be it. I leaned forward and kissed her briefly on the lips, at the same time as a huge explosion rocked the ground beneath us all. I looked up to see many monster bodies flying through the air. There was a crater in the ground nearby.

Jay and Wingnuts, back to back, were alternating between firing arrows and slicing mobs with their swords. "This is really the life!" Jay yelled, grinning weakly. He was barely standing, his armour broken away in many places, and blood was pouring from several wounds on his body as he blocked and parried the blows of a zombie with a sword. "An infinite number of monsters with us in the middle!" Wingnuts merely grunted in response as he let loose another arrow, hitting a creeper through the head just before it blew.

Doomesdaye was now dual wielding a pick and a sword, slashing and stabbing with the tools. "There's so many of them!" he yelled over the screaming and grunting of angry, dying monsters. "Where are they all coming from!?"

"I don't know!" I yelled back, whacking a skeleton's bow in half with the flat of my blade, before beheading the undead beast.

Moohickyalah took a quick glance at the remains of our humble little settlement. "I can't believe they torched our houses!" she yelled in anguish. "Everything we owned, Axle… Gone!"

"I know," I said back, "It's tragic, but we have to focus on survival for the moment Moohicky!"

Suddenly, the monsters froze. I swung my blade at an enderman who was still within reach and he just teleported away. Every single monster had stopped where they stood. I looked around in confusion. "What the hell is this?" I demanded of no one in particular.

We gathered together in a circle, looking outwards towards the monsters. They were all staring at us with expressionless eyes, but they did not move to attack any further. And then Doomesdaye looked upwards at the lightning-torn night sky. "Notch help us, this is Herobrine's work…" he muttered in despair. Our suspicions had been confirmed. No way was this normal for Minecraftia.

And then, without warning, a bolt of lightning struck the ground right in the middle of our group.

And as if out of nowhere… He appeared.

With the element of pure surprise on his side, he swung his glowing sword at Moohicky. She screamed in pain, and I saw her armour shatter before the mystic blade. My girlfriend collapsed to the ground. Moohicky! I gave an angry squeal and drew out my bow. "Don't you touch her!" I yelled.

In a second there were four bows pulled back to full draw, pointed directly at Herobrine's head.

"Go back to your Nether Realm, Demon," Wingnuts said firmly. "I always thought there was never any good in Herobrine, and you've proved me right!"

The Demi-god turned and stared straight at Wingnuts with his white eyes. And he laughed, a chilling, empty laugh that echoed through our very minds. "Silly, stupid humans. You think you scare me?" I am a God of Minecraftia! I cannot be killed by mere mortals no matter how many enchantments your weapons may have!"

I trembled before the hollow, cold voice, but I held my ground and pulled the arrow back further. "Why Moohicky!?" I demanded, "Why not any of us?"

The Demi-god turned to lock his gaze on me now. His blank eyes seemed to burn with white fire, and I suddenly felt as though he had anchored me to the ground, just by staring at me. I couldn't move or speak from pure fear, only let out a pitiful stammer. Herobrine grinned an evil grin that chilled my very soul, and he spoke again. "That, silly human, is for me to know..." He suddenly raised his sword up high over Moohicky's unconscious form, preparing to finish her off and yelled, "And for you to find out!" And he swung the sword straight down towards Moohicky.

"NO!"

Four arrows simultaneously left their shafts and whistled angrily towards Herobrine. There was an explosion, and I was thrown backwards by several blocks. I shook my head to recover and leaped up, then stared at the point where the Demi-god and Moohicky had been only seconds ago.

The smoke cleared to reveal nothing. I froze in disbelief and felt my stomach constrict, then I fell to my knees, yelling "No! No! No!" over and over again, in pure anguish.

My girlfriend, Moohicky, and the white-eyed Demi-god were gone.