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Chapter 9: Guardian Angel

"What the hell is going on?" I demand with crossed arms. After I fell asleep I was paid another visit by Notch and Jeb. "We really don't have a way to explain it too well ourselves." Jeb scratches the back of his neck awkwardly. "Find a way." I demand. "When you crossed through the Gateway you ended up weakening the barrier that separates our world from yours. Though, it was only spanned for about one Earth mile." Notch explains. "Therefore-" Jeb begins. "My friends have no trouble passing through." I cut him off with a sigh. Is my mind really that strong? Why did Skye have to come through? Jason is just fine but why her?! I still can't completely comprehend just how she was able to make it through. "A female managed to make it through the Gateway. Just how weak did I make the barrier?" "How it is at the moment, excessive activity there would completely destroy it; anything from your world could make it here and vice versa." Jeb says. "About how long do you think it can withstand?" I ask. "At this rate of one human each day, it has within a week." Jeb says. "A week?!" I exclaim.

"This type of thing has happened once before," Notch says, piquing my interest. "About a year ago, another human with a mind similar to yours passed through. It weakened the Gateway's barrier, but not this much." "Is this other human still here now?" I ask suddenly. Notch, while caught off guard, still answers, "Why yes. He actually is. You'll meet him soon enough." In the meantime I need to protect Skye. She's never been very good in dangerous situations. I won't let anyone hurt hurt; and if they do, they're fucked. I don't know how I would go on knowing that it's my fault she got hurt.

"Soo...question." I say. "Shoot." says Notch. "Are you two gay with each other?" I ask. "What?! No!" Jeb says quickly. "Hey, there's nothing wrong with you being gay. I can live with you guys' decision as long as you don't try to include me in anything." I say. "I assure you we're not gay." Notch says. "Well if you aren't doing each other, what the hell are you doing up here, 'cause this is boring as FUCK! I get bored out of my mind here and I'm only here for what feels like minutes!" I say. "We watch the timelines." Notch says. "Timelines? Explain." I say, cocking my eyebrow.

"You would assume that, being gods, we know anything that has happened, is happening, or will happen. It's a bit more complicated than that. We know everything that ever has happened, sure. But we can only see what can happen, not what will." We can't say for certain what will definitely will happen but we see any possibility that could happen." Jeb explains. "Go on. I find myself...intrigued." I say. "There are different paths in time for different possibilities, and they're are infinite possibilities in this world." Jeb explains. "Imagine the beginning of time as a straight line. For every possibility, decision, et cetera(etc.) that happens, the line breaks off into multiple lines, one for each outcome. For example, last night Skye dropped her glasses trying to escape you. You knew who she was and that's why you didn't shoot her. Well at the point where she dropped the glasses the line originally broke off into another path. On this path she never dropped the glasses and you shot her." he continues. "No way! I'd never shoot Skye, no matter what!" I interject. "But you would shoot a thief that isn't her. And you just so happened to not know it was her." Wow. I can only imagine what I would've went through if I did end up shootings Skye.

"So, basically, there are different timelines, essentially parallel universes, for any and every outcome and decision ever." "Exactly." says Notch. "If there are an infinite amount of them, why waste your time on this particular one?" "We can only live in a single timeline. For whatever outcome that actually happens, the other possible timelines disappear. The moment's passed and it's impossible for them to ever happen." "So when you say you look at the timelins you don't mean looking at other present realities. You mean looking at future possible realities based on each possible outcome of anything that actually has an impact on the world." "You got it." "Mindfucking." "That's a way of putting it." "So what should I do about Skye? She's not exactly fit for this world." "If you care about her as much as you're letting on, you'll do whatever you can to keep her safe." "I will." "Then it seems that we're done here. By the way, Jordan, you should check your mail. It'll start to pile up."

I wake up to a surprising silence in the house. Andr is still on the couch asleep. Skye is still in my lap asleep. Did I actually wake up before everyone else? Odds are I'll meet another one of my friends today. There's not exactly a wide range of people to expect, not many of my friends like Minecraft, and that's fair. It's not the most exciting game; I get it. I don't want to wake up Skye by getting up, so I check my watch for the time. 7:43. Fuck that. I'm never up this early when I don't have school. I tilt my head back and close my eyes again. I fall asleep easily enough, after all I haven't been awake long.

It's dark. The sky is a mix between a blood red and a fiery orange. The grass and leaves are a dry orange-brown color. The clouds in the sky are a dull dark gray. It reminds me of the apocalypse. I walk through an apocalyptic forest biome. Eventually I reach a section of a plains biome. The same one that my current house is in. I walk continue to walk forward in the direction that the house should be in. Given the setting, I doubt it'll be standing.

I start to run across several burned corpses. The thing that freaks me out about the corpses is that there wearing our clothes. The clothes aren't completely intact, but definitely recognizable. The first corpse has Cupa's creeper hoodie. The second has Ana's jacket. The third has a Halo 4 t-shirt that I've seen Jason wear a lot. The fifth has Ana's jacket. The sixth is wearing the graphic tee Sky wore on her first day here. Oddly enough, there are more than that. The next corpse has a light gray jacket and a black t-shirt. I know exactly who's that is. He wears that combination way too often. The next has a big winter coat resembling a snowman. After that is a corpse wearing a small gray vest. Every single one of the corpses has, from what I can tell, a look of pain and sheer agony on its face. The final, and most sickening of all, is wearing my clothes. My red, black, and white button-down and black jeans; the original outfit I wore here. The sickening thing about this one is that the head is missing.

I continue to walk until I reach the ruins of my house. Once near, I see a person kneeling down, looking at the ruins of my house, which appears to have been burned down. The unsettling thing about the situation is that the person has a psychotic smile on his face. The guy has dark brown, slicked back hair that reaches down to his shoulder blades. He wears a long black trench coat, that reminds of Kirito from Sword Art Online, along with dark blue jeans, and black military-style combat boots.

He notices me and looks at me with red eyes that make my blood run cold. "You! How many times do I have to kill you before you stay dead?!" he quickly pulls out an enchanted diamond sword and lunges at me at a speed that, for a human, shouldn't be possible.

The diamond sword goes in through my chest and out through my back. I snap awake immediately, jumping out of the armchair I was sleeping in, drenched in sweat and clutching my heart, where I was stabbed. Everyone else is already up and now is looking at me weird. I feel like my heart is beating at least 2,000 times every five seconds. I fall to one knee, still clutching my heart. "Jordan!" Skye screams and rushes to my side. "Shit man, are you alright?!" Jason exclaims, rushing to my aid. When my brain processes the fact that my heart is still beating I stop holding my chest and stand up.

I walk upstairs and change out of my current clothes. I put on a red, short-sleeved, v-neck t-shirt and a pair of slightly baggy khaki cargo pants. I put on a dark gray D-ring belt, not really to support the pants, but it kind of enhances the outfit. I never wear cargo pants without a D-ring belt; they just look better with them. I finish off the look with a red and black OBEY snapback.

I sit down on the black couch and wait for my heart to slow down. "Are you ok?" Andr asks. "You look like you've seen a ghost." Ana follows up. "I'm...I'm fine." I manage to breathe out. That was some freaky shit. The worst part is how real it felt. I don't just mean that like I didn't know it was a dream. I knew it was a dream and yet everything felt so realistic. I'm cut out of my thoughts by a knock on the door. "I got it." I say and get up. I walk to the door with everyone behind me. Ice runs through my veins as I see the face of the stranger. He's the same guy from the dream-or better said nightmare-I just had. The only difference is his eyes. Instead of a satanic red, they're grass green. Now actually looking at him face-to-face I notice that he's just under 5'11". Yet another person shorter than me.

I look at him coldly. To him I must just seem like I'm not really showing a facial expression. "Hi, I'm Shawn. I'm new here and, by coincidence, managed to find this house; and an amazing house it is." he says in a typical cool-guy voice with a smile. Bullshit he just got here. The city I live in isn't exactly the biggest, so there's nobody there I don't know. And according to Notch and Jeb, the range that the barrier's weakening didn't go too far. If I'm right, he's the other strong mind that weakened the barrier last year. He may seem completely calm and cool to the others but I instantly see what he's hiding. His smile, his eyes, his voice; they're all the appearance of a secret troublemaker. I often have the same look on my face. I'm not the most decent person. Might as well play along for now. I smile back and say, "Thanks. One moment please." I shut the door. I push the others away from the door, out of earshot of Shawn. "Play along." I whisper to them. "What? Why?" says Ana. "Look at me," I say, completely serious. "Play. Along." I walk back to the door and open in back up. "Sorry about that. I was seeing if my girlfriend put the raw beef in the oven; turns out she didn't. Anyway, hi. You can call me Red." I say, putting on a convincing fake smile. "Color or character?" he asks. "You're a Pokémon man?" "More or less." "Same here. You know, I get the feeling that we're gonna get along just fine." We exchange a fist-bump. I wonder how much bullshit could be avoided if I killed this guy right now.

"You can step in if you want." Ana says, catching me off guard. Shit. I expected someone to invite him in but was hoping it wouldn't happen. "No thanks. Thanks for the invite but I'll have to pass." "Got a lot of exploring to do?" "Yeah. You seem to know the life." he says, half-smiling. He seems a lot like me. Shame I'm gonna have to hate him. He turns around and walks away from the house. I shut the door and breathe a sigh of relief. "What's with you?" Jason asks. "It's nothing; don't worry about it."

I walk to the kitchen, where the baby Komodo Dragon and coral snakes are Waiting to be fed. The small have grown a lot since their hatching. It hasn't even been two full days and Draco, the Komodo Dragon, is already at his full length of 10 feet. The coral snakes have already grown to their full lengths. One snake is two and a half feet while the other is just two. Animals in Minecraft, for some reason, grow and age at an amazing rate. The snakes, a male and female, always seem to fight over just about anything and to be opposites in just about every way. I appropriately named the female Yin and the male Yang. I feed Yin and Yang each a cooked rat and feed Draco a cooked turkey.

Herobrine implemented the OreSpawn Mod so I should probably start to acknowledge that fact. It adds a shitload of tough mobs and, though it's not something I would usually choose to do, I'm gonna need the badass armor it adds. But first, i need to see what mail I've apparently been getting. I walk outside and open my mailbox. Given the tip, I'm not surprised to see a package and an envelope. I walk back into the house and put the box on top of the coffee table. "What's that?" asks Cupa. "I don't know; let's see." I say as she takes a seat next to me and I open up the box. Inside is a new back scabbard, this one identical to my current one but with two scabbards for dual wielding. I find it kind of justified that I'll be able to dual wield without another mod. I would've probably ended up dual wielding anyway, even without the scabbard. I take off my current scabbard and put the new one on.

Along with the scabbard is, oddly enough, my cell phone, headphones, and charger. "How the hell?" I quietly ask myself as I pull out the white iPhone 5c with the Apple charger and ear buds that come with it. I hit the power button and look at the screen. "Fully charged." I say to myself. I slip the phone into my pocket and the charger and headphones into the bag. The last item is me, Skye, and Jason's toothbrushes as well as three tubes of toothpaste all strung together by a rubberband. I tear open the envelope and see a note that makes my stomach drop and my heart skip a beat. 'Watch your back. -H'.

I rip the note up violently just as Skye walks down the stairs. "He okay?" she asks Cupa. "I honestly don't know." Cupa replies. I craft two diamond swords and a diamond pickaxe with the diamonds from the temples and put the swords into my new scabbard."I'm leaving. Skye, you're coming." I grab her hand. "With any luck, we'll be back soon. Sleep with this next to you at all times." I tell Cupa, giving her my iron sword. "Why?" She asks. "Cupa. Promise me that you'll sleep with this in range." "O-Ok." she says hearing the seriousness in my voice. "But how do I use it?" She asks. I don't have the time to teach her how to properly use a sword. I wrap my hands around hers, helping her hold it steady. All the while I can feel the 'girlfriend stares' Skye's shooting my way. "You hold it and swing." I say and swing her arm down and across. I practically drag Skye out the door. "Where are you going?" Andr warps in front of me. "Utopia." I say to her, looking at the ground as I walk. "Where?" "I'm looking for a Goodness Tree." I continue walking, searching the ground for brown ants. "A what?" Andr says in utter confusion. "Don't worry about it. We'll be back." I continue to pull Skye away from the house.

"So what was that with Cupa?" Skye asks. I can feel her stare drilling into the side of my skull. "I was teaching her the basics of a sword." I say, refusing to look up. If I look at her while she's mad, her glare will melt my skull. Anybody with a girlfriend knows that. "You pulled a golf date move." she says. "What?" I ask. "That thing that guys do when they take their girlfriend golfing. Where they wrap their arms and hands around the girl's and teach them to play." she says. I can hear the anger tugging at the back of her throat. "I was just helping. Nothing more." I say. "Okay then." she says starting to simmer down.

It takes 10 minutes to find an ant and five more minutes to convince Skye to kill a bird. I managed to catch a blue Grosbeak for her. It took another two minutes to console her after she snapped the innocent bird's neck. If there's one thing Skye's amazing at, it's wasting time when she's with me. "Let's go!" I exclaim, stepping on the brown ant. When I step on the ant, a portal opens up in front of me and Skye. I step through and pull her through me. The portal immediately closes behind us in the Utopia Dimension. "It's...beautiful!" Skye exclaims in astonishment. For miles all you can see a beautiful, gigantic trees. If you don't see trees you see large fields of grass full of golden apple cows. As we walk I also marvel at the amazing scenery. "Alright, focus your mind on the Grosbeak. How it acts, how it looks, what it would be like to be it."

We both start to morph, me faster than Skye. She occasionally stops throughout the morph claiming she has to throw up or that it's really uncomfortable and she doesn't like it. I tell her that's just a part of the process and she continues on. Once she finally finishes her morph, we take off. "This is just like those weird books you're always reading." I hear Skye's voice in my head. Oh my fuck. Telepathy?! I didn't even know we could do that! Then again, I never tried. I know what I'm calling this."Hey, Animorphs is a good series! You can't even bag on it when you've only read half of one book!" I thought-speak back to her. Thank you K.A. Applegate. "Whatever." she says back to me.

We fly for a few hours, from giant tree to giant tree to giant tree. "So what is this 'Goodness Tree' we're looking for anyway?" Skye asks through thought-speak. "Trust me, you'll know when you see it. There's no mistaking a Goodness Tree." I tell her. "You know, it's really peaceful here. No chaos. No interruptions." Skye emphasizes 'interruptions'. "I don't know. It seems like it would be good at first but get really boring really fast. Besides it's only like this above ground aside from one mob. And trust me, that is not something you want to go against." I tell her. "I kind of like it. Just you and me. Not having to worry about the others." she says. As much as I like where this is going, I also kind of don't.

After hours of flying and resting a Goodness Tree comes into view. "There it is!" I mentally shout, quickly changing the subject back to the primary objective. I fly as fast as I can toward the the gigantic tree. The thing that distinguishes this tree from its brothers and sisters is that the trunks and branches are gold blocks, the steps up the tree are diamond blocks, and the leaves are emerald and other gem/ingot blocks. We fly as fast as we can toward the tree. "Don't go any higher than the second branch level. The King is somewhere around the top and I do not want to disturb him." I tell Skye. We land on the second level just like I said. "We don't even need to go any higher. This branch alone could supply us for who-knows-how-long!" Skye says in completely justified amazement. We both demographic and I give her an iron pickaxe as I take out my diamond one.(Btw, each human came into Minecraftia with some type of backpack. They do need an inventory after all.)

It takes until sundown to mine as much as we can from the tree. Once my zombie bag and her backpack are both full to the brim we each hear a vicious roar from the top of the tree. "Oh shit, we gotta go! Now!" I grab Skye's arm and run to the edge of the branch. "Shouldn't we morph to birds?!" Skye asks frantically. "Not fast enough!" I jump off the edge and pull Skye with me. "Skye, get on my back!" I say as we fall. She doesn't hesitate to do so. One thing she'd learned about me from the years of our relationship is that I always have a crazy plan that just might get us out of a sticky situation. "Hold on tight and don't let go!" I say to her. My heart beats out of my chest. Hopefully I'm fast enough; if not...I've lived a good life. I focus as hard as possible on the bat horse DNA inside of me and the changes swiftly begin.

My fingers and toes melt together and harden into hooves. My skin darkens until it's jet black. No no no. I need the wings! My neck extends and my face protrudes from me face as my ears slide up my head to the top. Well...we're fucked. Suddenly my back starts to feel weird. Quicker than hitting a light switch two huge, black, leathery wings shoot from my back. "Yes!" I yell in thought-speak. "Jordan! The ground!" Skye screams. In my excitement I didn't notice we were about five seconds away from hitting the ground. At this moment I realize the fact that separates the outcomes of life and death. I don't know how to fly this morph. "Shit!" I yell. I've got an idea that I'm not too sure will work. But it's now or never.

I stop thinking. I stop any brain activity that I can. I let my human mind slip away and, luckily, my idea works. The bat horse mind quickly takes over. In a split second the bat horse flaps it powerful wings and, just like that, we're going from falling to flying. The morph seems to finish itself and I go completely bat horse. Skye manages to hold on as we suddenly stop plummeting toward the ground below us. I take the horse body back over and fly us a safe distance away from the Goodness Tree.

I land and Skye climbs off of my back. I demorph and Skye slaps me. "What was that for?!" I yell at her. She just looks at me before jumping into my arms. "Don't ever scare me like that again." she says. "No promises." I say, holding her closely. She pulls out of the hug and grabs my right hand. She places my hand on her left breast and I feel her heart beating at what feels like a thousand beats per minute. "Did I really scare you that much?" I ask and she nods. "Can we leave now?" Skye asks. "Nope." I say. "Why not?" she whines. "We need a brown ant," I say. "And I don't think we're about to find one in the dark." "So that means..." she starts. "We're stuck here." I finish.

I mine our way into the trunk of the nearest Magic Apple Tree and close it back up. I place a few torches and two beds. I sit down on one and Skye sits next to me. We both dump everything we mined on the ground and we review what types of blocks we got; there's way too much to actually count how much we got. Diamond, gold, emerald, ruby, amethyst, titanium, and uranium. We have enough to last forever. I craft two ultimate swords and inspect them. The hilt is made of iron and obsidian with two large rubies in the top and bottom that are visible on both sides. The blade has a colorful glow to it and is a few inches longer than a normal Minecraft sword. I take my diamond swords out of the scabbard and put the ultimate ones in. I take off all of my gear as well as my shoes and socks an lie down in the now king size bed. Skye takes off her gear, jeans, shoes, and socks and lies down next to me and snuggles up against me. I wrap my arms around her and kiss her. "Night." she says. "Night." I say.


Well that's over. My birthday was actually on Wednesday. Sorry for not coming through then, but I'm here now. I was too excited thinking about it and couldn't focus on writing. I may just make this a weekly thing. I'll probably start some action soon. Right now every chapter ends with Jordan falling asleep and that's getting boring. Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed. Follow, favorite, review. I'll see you in the next chapter.

KTHXBAI