C 12: Finale, Part 1

(Ryder's POV)

I did what I was told, and ran back to the portal to Sawyer's fort. I couldn't tell whether I believed Kevin's story or not, but one thing is certain. We had to beat this game. I would help them, but I myself want to figure out who I was, and why I can't remember in the first place. I had to know who I was. I entered the portal and was greeted by Sawyer.

"Well, he finally came back. We were about to go looking for you. So, what did you find, any weaknesses?"

"No, the place is break in proof. But, I did snoop and heard them talk about something called, and "End Portal." "What is that?"

"An End Portal is a portal that leads to The End, the place that holds the Ender Dragon. Upon killing the Ender Dragon, the game ends and in theory, we return home. However, this may not be the case. Besides, this world is amazing. All of the possibilities, no one to tell you who are what you need to be in life."

"Could you show me where this portal is?"

"Hmm, I don't see why not, it's not like you could activate it without our help. C'mon, we're gonna have to take a little, stroll to the other portal."

We geared up to go to the next portal. We began walking through the hellish underworld called the Nether. We talked about random subjects, about building structures and such. We even had little fights here and there for entertainment. We would stop to eat and rest for a while. Since there was no sun, and apparently time had no meaning here, I would ask what time it was, and they would just laugh.

We were walking for what felt like hours, and then finally I saw another structure, smaller than the one we were in before. It was like a hut. He motioned for me to step inside of it, and when I appeared on the other side of the portal, I was greeted with a long corridor, with stone bricks lining the walls. They soon appeared after me, and Mat told me that we were almost there.

Then at the end of the corridor, a room emerged from the darkness. It was lit with torches, and there it was, the End Portal. I walked up the steps leading to it and saw a squared out area with floating blocks. They each had crevices the shape of cubes inside the middle of them, as if something were to be put inside of them.

"Jeez, this is cool.'' I brought out a map that Kevin gave me. He told me to only open it and load that part of it once we were at the portal. I quickly did so, then put it away. "So, what do you do here? Besides possibly granting freedom from this place, what else is its purpose?"

"Well, in the game, you beat the dragon, and it drops an egg that you can take. You enter the portal and you can't leave without dying. The only other mobs that spawn there besides the dragon are Endermen, which are strong and teleport. Just don't make eye contact with one, they don't like that."

He continued, "You may have noticed these holes in the portal blocks. That's where the eyes of ender go. Once all of the eyes are put into place, the portal activates. You have to have lava underneath it though, or else it won't work."

"Cool, cool. Is there anything else about this place, secret rooms?"

"Nah, anything like that in the Overworld is risky enough to have. Well, come on, let's go back to the fortress. It's nighttime. We need shut eye."

We continued to walk back to the fortress. We were attacked by some Ghasts here and there, but the walk back was uneventful. We still talked about what we were planning to do here. They had plans to build games to play besides PvP. I enjoyed their talks, but I still had a priority: Get the map to Kevin and go with them to beat the game, so I can find out who I am.

Final Chapter: Huh?

(Kevin's POV)

It took Ryder a while to get back, but when he came sprinting across the fields, I was happy to see he returned safely. I ran up to him to congratulate him on a job well done. We ate and talked about the game plan. All of us were going to go to the end, to beat the game, and return home.

"And the portal was amazing, with lava under it and everything!" He was still talking about how it looked, which I could get, the portal did look cool. He just rambled about their fortress, and his experience being in there. We finally got to sleep for a while.

The day we decided to go to the Portal and end the game once and for all had arrived. We packed our food and our best gear, then headed off to the portal that Ryder had said he came from. It was closer than I ever could have imagined it would be, but what can I say, we searched broader and never expected it to even be within 100 blocks. But there it was, under a clump of trees.

Ryder opened the pathway, then turned and looked at us. "Guys, just, thank you for your help. I know I shouldn't have doubted you guys in the beginning, but please, for all of the hurtful things I have said to you, forgive me." Dang, he was being very open. We all told him that we had his back. "Also, this portal reappears by the fortress in a cobblestone hut. The portal to the stronghold is on the opposite side of where we are, so we need to be as fast and evasive as possible."

"We understand," Tiffany said. We entered the portal and the familiar fortress was present. This time, it looked even bigger than what it was before. He told us that the fort was on the opposite side of the fortress. What he never bothered to say was that we had to go through the fort.

"Hey, what the heck are you thinking? You never said anything about going through the fortress. Are you trying to get us killed?" Seriously, is he crazy? Maybe he's still working with them. This could be a trap. I

"NO!" He caught that he was too loud and went down to a whisper. "It's not like that, they just had it placed like that, in case of intruders. But we need to hurry, this is around the time they would return after the hunts."

… "Fine."

We sprinted across the hellish fields of the Nether, opened the iron doors that went into the cobblestone surrounded Nether Fortress. When we stepped in, we were awestruck. Tiff and I only got the chance to see the outside of the fort. When we looked inside, we saw the beautifully arranged torches and chests filled with their treasures. We saw their main conference room, and their dining area, both down separate hallways.

"Come on, we don't have time to lose." Ryder was irritated, and not as talkative as he was before. We exited the fortress and began the hour's long trek to the final portal. We ran as Ghasts attempted to harm us, blazes attempting to burn us, and getting withered by Wither Skeletons.

Once we arrived at the last portal, Ryder stopped. He looked back at us, and we looked back at him.

"Guys, thank you."

Justin and Tiff went up to him and hugged him.

"No man, thank you. You ready to find out who you really are?" Justin asked.

"You bet. Let's go." Then a familiar voice rose up from nowhere.

"HA! THE LITTLE SNITCH BROUGHT THEM TO THE PORTAL!" Crap, Sawyer's here.

"Come on! Run in, GO, GO, GO!" We piled into the portal and came out into the stronghold. We rushed to the portal room, which had no eyes of ender in it, like we figured. However, we came prepared. Tiff loaded the other eyes into the portal holes, and Sawyer and his crew piled into the room.

"Stop you fools, why are you doing this? Don't you think this that this world needs us?"

I exclaimed back at him, "Sawyer, don't be so dumb, you know that we have to leave. Don't you want to go home?!" Tiff whistled and I could see that she activated the end portal. "Well, bye!" I jumped in, but saw that his crew were coming to jump in after us. Tiff had already jumped in and made the staircase up, since we spawned in a room. I went up and was followed by Justin and Ryder, then Sawyer and his crew went up too. I needed to make a plan, since Sawyer and his group would only slow us down.

"Tiff, break the dragon's healing crystals. Justin, get some damage on the dragon itself.

They both got to work, and I knew that the part they would play in this battle was important. "Ryder, you're with me. We need to end this, once and for all."

"Right!"

"I got Sawyer, you get Matt and… What's this guy's name again?"

"My name's JEFF, you retards."

Sawyer looked confused, "I thought it was Jerry."

"WHATEVER!" Jeff jumped at Ryder, who dodged and countered with slashes. Jeff got ultimately destroyed, and his items blew up from his body, which had gash marks all over. His body then disappeared in a puff of clouds.

Ryder made Jeff familiar with his Diamond Sword

"Whatever, he was useless anyways." Matt sized up with Ryder, but as I was watching, I was hit with an arrow.

"Dang it," I bobbed and weaved as Sawyer's enchanted bow shot arrow after arrow at me. I decided to do the same. I got my Power IV bow out and began launching arrow after arrow at him. Then I got a hit, and to his surprise, he caught on fire. Not only was it strong, but it will burn you. I went in for the fight, as he ran away. The flames didn't last long, and I saw him eat a golden apple, gladly it wasn't a Notch apple.

We began fighting, our swords meeting getting hit by fishing lures. We slashed and parried at each other, trading hit after hit. We were evenly match. Or so he thought. I began putting on the pressure, slashing faster and faster, and driving him towards the edge. I gave him what seemed to be an opening, then put the tip of my sword at his throat.

"Sawyer," I said. "Stop this. We have to leave. And you're at the edge, so if you don't want to die, you will not interfere with our completion of the game.

"Screw you! You don't know what this world means to me! How amazing this world could be as long as we cooperated? If I had become leader, nobody would have died. The fort would have been even better. Heck, we could have even had mini games. But you were too selfish, wanting all of the power."

"Wrong, you were the selfish one to walk out and leave. I didn't want anybody to die, but you sent them to kill us, and we defended ourse-"

"KEVIN BEHIND YOU!"

I turned around and saw the black ender dragon barreling down towards us, I dodged out of the way, but Sawyer was too slow. He got hit and fell over the edge into the endless void that awaited bellow.

"NOOO!" Was all we could hear as he fell, and then a still silence fell upon us.

Sawyer fell to his death

Matt looked startled and mad. "S- Sawyer?" He seethed with rage, and charged towards me. I wasn't ready to fight back. Then he stopped, and fell over, face first, revealing a flaming arrow in the back of his head.

Matt was Katnissed by Ryder

"I had to." Ryder said.

"I understand, now let's finish this." We released arrow after arrow onto the beast, its roars tearing through the air, until finally, it exploded, into a shining light of purple, and experience points fell through the air, jumping me up by 20 levels.

Justin was excited. "ALRIGHT, THERE'S THE PORTAL GUYS! WE CAN GO HOME!"

We all exclaimed in happiness, and shared hugs and hurrahs.

Tiff came up to me and gave me a big hug. "Kevin, promise me, you're going to find me in real life."

"I promise."

"My name is Tiffany Barnes, from Arkansas."

"Kevin Stones, from Alabama."

"Justin Timberlake, from Texas."

Ryder looked down, and frowned. "Gee, I guess I'll just look you guys up once we get home."

"Ryder, you should go first, we'll wait a while." He smiled at us, then jumped into the portal.

Nothing happened.

"Whoa, what's going on, why aren't you going anywhere?" I asked him. Then his body began to fall apart into clouds and float away. I see text flash above his name. I read it aloud.

"Player Emotion Guider: Codename Ryder

"Whoa, you're, a program? But, how can you feel? Did you know the whole time?"

"Well…"

"DID YOU!?"

"YES, I DID! I didn't want to tell you because I knew that human emotions would run amuck if I did. I didn't mean to hurt anybody, honest." Bit by bit, he was left as a torso.

"Then why didn't you stay away?"

"Because I wanted to do something and not be a burden on you guys. I didn't want to be lonely." We were silent, and then Tiff spoke up.

"I understand Ryder, and I forgive you."

Justin seconded that. "Yeah, same here. What about you, Kevin?"

I was silent, but said, "I forgive you Ryder, I am glad we got to know you, and I am glad you told us."

Ryder gave a faint smile as he was reduced, but by bit, into a bundle of clouds. "Thank you all, for everything." His body disappeared, and the clouds dissipated. Then piece by piece, the world began falling apart. We all jumped into the portal without a second thought and that was that.

I woke up, on my bed and heard my sister scream, "KEVIN! IF YOU DON'T GET YOUR SLOW BUTT DOWNSTAIRS NOW, I SWEAR I WILL KICK YOUR BUTT BEFORE OUR PARENTS GET BACK!"

I got up, and looked at the date. It was Wednesday. Then I remembered the world, and the names of the people in the end with me. I quickly wrote them down, then got onto my computer to type up what happened.

I can't really say for sure if what happened was real, or all just some elaborate dream but one thing was for certain.

The people in that virtual world will always hold a place in my memory, forever.

End