As soon as Ant stepped onto the cobblestone street of Witherbend, he was almost immediately pulled off of it. The Minecraftian struggled to escape his sudden captor's grip, but was unsuccessful. A voice, that of a stranger's, in a demanding tone came from behind him. "Tell me, are you with the Dark Legions or not?"
"I'm not! I don't even know who they are!"
The stranger released their grip on the pryomancer, who nearly fell over afterwards. Balancing himself, he turned to face the mysterious stranger. "What was that all about!?"
They shifted their gaze towards the town gate before answering. "It had to be done. If you were with the Legions, you would probably be here to take the last few supplies from this place."
"And why would that be?"
"Witherbend is under a curse. Every hundred years or so, the Wither in the ancient temple to the south of the town awakens. This time, we weren't prepared, which means total chaos for us. The Legions are taking what they can before this town becomes nothing but a massive pile of rubble."
At the mention of rubble, Ant paused to look at the buildings around him. Most of them had taken severe damage from explosions, while a few were completely demolished. He hadn't been able to see the destruction from the dirt road outside of the town. He silently faced the other Minecraftian, unable to think of anything to say.
"C'mon, you must be exhausted. Let's head back to my place."
Slowly at first, Ant began to follow them, briskly switching over to a normal walking pace as the two travelled down countless streets and alleyways, before finally reaching their destination, which was a run-down inn, which was, surprisingly, still intact. Later that night, a thunderstorm passed through, leaving its rumbling cries to echo in the empty streets and buildings of the devastated town of Witherbend. Meanwhile, off in the opposite direction, Sparklez and Rain were taking residence within the confines of a small cave along the rugged dirt path to Tolurn. Rain had kept quiet for most of night, and now was no exception. The eldest of the two Minecraftians got up from his spot on the stone floor, and silently approached the young child. "Rain..."
She didn't even look at him, let alone even acknowledge his existence. In response, the Captain rested a hand on her shoulder, and proceeded to gaze at the vast area around the cave's entrance. After a short moment, Rain gently brushed away his hand, and retreated to the depths of the enclosement. Sparklez didn't bother to follow her, as she needed her space. It was better to leave the girl alone for now. With a sigh, he returned to his previous spot, and leaned against the wall, watching Rain in quiet observation. Soon enough, he lost interest and slid into a sitting position, and steadily began to doze off. Outside, the storm raged in an unspeakable anger, blasting harsh, cold winds across the lands. That same exact force was what constantly hammered the building known to members of the Dark Legions as the Facility, the same place that Ant, Sparklez, Rain, and Storm had been held hostage in.
Even from down in the deepest parts of the building, the storm was heard. As a cloaked figure ran down the twisting and turning hallways, the forces of nature continued to fiercely batter the structure. Their red eyes seemed to pierce though the darkness, endlessly searching for the one passageway which lead to their destination. Suddenly, the figure halted at an intersection, recognizing instantly where they were at that moment. They turned to their left, before proceeding to dash down that exact corridor. It was escentital for them to evade capture. Finally, the cloaked figure had made it to a large, empty room, which only had an strange pattern engraved on the floor, yet it actually held a great amount of importance. The figure pulled down their hood, revealing themselves to be none other than AntiVenom. Anti slowly approached the odd rune-like pattern on the floor, which began to glow with an orange light as soon as the pyromancer stepped on it. He made his way to the center of the room, where the runic pattern's starting point was. Anti hesitated for a moment, now having second thoughts, which he quickly ignored. There was no turning back now.
He hadn't used dark magic in quite a while now, so hopefully the spell would work. Anti attempted to channel the shadowy energys around him, and was successful in doing so. His eyes flashed a blank white for a second, before reverting to their blood red color. Although casting the spell had only taken a few mere moments, it had managed to drain a fairly large amount of strength from the Minecraftian, which was mainly due to his rustyness from using that type of magic often. He dropped his knees, unaware that another being was now standing in the room, one that was easily recognized as the Lord of Shadows, Herobrine. Anti slowly looked up, immediately spotting the dark lord. "H-Herobrine..."
The blank-eyed figure only smirked at the other's reaction. "Now, who else would it be?"
Anti, now pale from using the summoning spell, tried to rise to his feet, but found himself abuptly forced back down by some unknown force, which was probably Herobrine's doing. The pryomancer struggled a bit more, but eventally gave up. Still staring straight into the other's pure white eyes, Anti finally spoke, but with a serious tone, while still giving respect to his former master. "My lord, if you're planning to escape the hellish realm of the Nether and get revenge on your brother, it will only end in defeat, I can assure you that."
"Ah yes, but you fail to remember that I was weakened at the time. Now, I am almost at my full strength. There is almost no chance of failure this time."
Herobrine's response left Anti in silence. The last war had nearly ended with the Dark Legions victorious. If Herobrine was at full strength this time, it might not end well for the people of Minecraftia. However, at this point, war was inevitable. The pryomancer looked away, unable to even think about how Minecraftia would be like if the Dark Legions suceeded in their plight. "If you side with me, I can give you unlimited power. You would like that, wouldn't you, Anti?"
"How can I trust you after what happened last time? You promised to keep my younger brother safe, and that was all just a lie."
"Promises have to be broken sometimes, Mr. Venom. And if you won't listen to reason, I might just have to force you into doing so."
The pryomancer's eyes widened. "You wouldn't dare..."
"I would. Now if that's all, I believe the both of us have work to do."
"What do you mean by-"
Suddenly, a pillar of dark energy blasted from the ground below Anti, which the darkness swiftly began to overtake him. After the blast subsided, he was left twitching in pain, trying to fight off the threat of possession. It was a losing battle, since the energy Anti had still was too little, and he was forced to accept defeat. Almost all of his senses instantly became useless, as the pryomancer was forced under Herobrine's control. When Anti looked back at the dark lord, he was not the same person as before. His eyes were now the same blank white as his master's. Then, without a sound, the two Minecraftians vanished from the room entirely, as if they had never existed.
The ground outside the cave was now damp from the previous night's storm, and the grass was coated in silvery dew. Rain hadn't said a word since yesterday, which was worrying to the eldest of the two. Sparklez shot a glance in her direction, noticing her somber expression. She was fiddling with her jacket's zipper, in a similar fashion that Storm used to do. The Captain's own expression darkened with the memory of his fallen comrade. Regardless, they still had to press on. It wasn't unbelievable that Aero might've lied to him, which he probably did, knowing him. Behind the Minecraftian, Rain was still staring off into space, but slowly found herself pulled back to reality. Her first thought was that of what had gone down in the forest between Aero and Sparklez. She frowned, uncertain if it was a good time to ask about it. Otherwise, the question would bother her for even longer than it had already. After a few minutes, Rain had finally gained enough confidence to do so. She silently walked up to the older Minecraftian, and paused, slightly afraid of asking.
Just ask already, she told herself. The girl lightly tugged on the other's jacket, catching their attention. Sparklez stopped immediately, and turned around to face her. "What is it, Rain?"
"I have something to ask you about..."
(A/N: Gawd, this chapter took forever to write. I had the idea for it and everything, it's just I was professional-crastinating. Yes, I just said that. Actually, I typed it, but WHATEVS! Sorry for leaving you guys hanging for so long. Life just hates me sometimes, but doesn't it for everyone? Don't answer that, because it's a yes. And don't you dare lie, 'cuz that is a true fact. Life hates everyone at some point in time. Anyways, I've officially decided to change Sparklez's red eyes to white (Future Dray here! If you read up to this point, and it's your first time reading, just ignore this! I've already changed it. :P). It fits the reason why he has them much more than the red eyes thing does, because I actually settled on a reason, and white makes more sense. Probably explained that in the worst way possible, but does anyone REALLY care? Exactly. Also, ANTI IS NOW POSSESSED! *insert epic evil laugh here (Like AntVenom/Taylor's. His evil laugh is boss, hands down. :3)* Um, so yeah, just putting that out there. Now, onward to the reviewer questions!)
To Anti: WHERE IN THE OVERWORLD DID YOU GO!?
Anti: That is information that you have no reason to learn of. It is only for my master and I to know. (He's still possessed, by the way.)
To author (Meee~ :3): HOW DAFAQ DID YOU COME UP WITH THIS STORY!?
Me: Well, the idea came from a Minecraft plugin on one of my friend's server, which was the Avatar: The Last Airbender plugin. I was messing around with it and got the idea for Anti to have fire abilities from the Firebender class. Anti was a much different character from how he is today, since he was originally an evil clone of AntVenom, which soon changed into Anti being Ant's brother. That's pretty much how I got the first spark of inspiration for this fanfic.
To CaptainSparklez: Will you fall in love with Rain?!
Sparklez: Why would you think such a thing? Rain is much younger than I am, if you were unaware of that. She's ten, I'm 21. Doesn't make much sense, does it?
To CaptainSparklez: What are your red eyes for?! (A/N: I've changed them to white now.)
Sparklez: That's something I'd rather not answer...
(A/N: Thanks so much for reading, and it looks like my job here is done. DRAY, SIGNING OUT!)
