A/N: This took a while. I am publishing this at eleven thirty at night. My holidays are nearly over. I had the most enchanting day ever. I am tired. Have a chapter.

"Anyone up for a boss battle?"

It took a moment for the words to sink in.

Oh, crap.

I'm fighting a boss battle.

I have never been good at boss battles.

Ever.

I sagged and grinned despairingly at Herobrine. "A boss battle?" I squeaked.

"A boss battle," he replied, smirking. "I am pretty boss, after all."

Mélodieux scoffed and rolled her eyes, but Triston burst out laughing. I caught a few sniggers from the mobs at Herobrine's side, too.

"Um… well, actually, we don't have to fight," I reasoned, gripping my sword tightly again. "I mean, I just want the villagers back, really, so if you just gave them to me, I'd go." He stared at me dubiously, one eyebrow raised.

"Come on, Flu," he said, flicking his fingers to beckon the fire onto his arms. It wrapped around his forearms and hands like fluffy orange gloves as he kind of… glided over to me. His feet barely seemed to touch the ground, fire trailing from his forearms until he drew to a halt in front of me. "Surely you know by now? I have a grudge against you," he explained, holding out his hands and letting the fire race up his arms to take the shape of a sword in his hands. He took its flaming hilt in one hand and weighed it up as it solidified into diamond that glowed ethereally.

I realised he was in Creative Mode.

"And I hold grudges," finished Herobrine, switching his grip and smashing the pommel of the sword into the side of my head.

I was sent sprawling onto the netherbrick, managed to do a form of cartwheel on my helmet and ended up flat on my back in front of a pigman. It drew its sword and prepared to run me through, but Mélodieux appeared out of nowhere and socked it in the face, giving me enough time to stagger upright and take a fireball to the helmet. Said helmet chose that moment to disintegrate. Dampnas.

I drew my sword and leapt backwards as another pigman attempted to slice my head off. Parrying another blow from it, I struck and it dodged expertly, signalling to something over my shoulder that spat yet another fireball into the small of my back. "This is hardly fair!" I yelled, staggering forwards and slicing a new gash into the pigman by sheer chance.

"You think I play fair?" Herobrine queried innocently, grabbing me by my hair and hoisting me into the air. I screamed and thrashed in his grip until Triston gave him a karate-style kick and he dropped me onto a small crowd of pigmen who managed to warp my chestplate until it broke off. Beginning to ooze purplish blood from various long cuts around my torso, face and arms, I thrust my sword around vaguely and elbowed and sliced my way out of the throng. Back in a clear netherbrick space, I pushed some hair out of my eyes and squealed as it clumped together with a reeking mixture of my blood and zombie pigman juices. "Ew! Ew! Ew!" I screamed, flailing about and waving my sword in the air. I managed to put a few eyes out just by that and suddenly there were about four less pigmen and three fewer blazes around, Herobrine ordering the wounded to back off. Well, at least he was considerate of someone, I mused.

I heard the sound of two blazes rearing up behind me and darted forward, making a hairpin turn left just as six fireballs shot past where I had been seconds ago. Mélodieux and Triston were picking at a group of pigmen a few blocks away, too insubstantial now for their punches and kicks to do any real damage. Another two blazes (or maybe the same two) dashed in front of me, grating eagerly, and I danced from side to side as a few flaming projectiles hurtled towards me. Yelping as I dodged the last one, I sprang forward and fought the blazes melee style, my sword combated by their spiralling rods. Strike and parry and strike and parry and strike and parry and thrust; just like that one of the fiery things was dust and I allowed myself a crow of victory, brandishing my sword high.

The other blaze chose that moment to wrap its smoky tail around my neck and yank me over backwards.

I let out a strangled gasp and the world warped and swirled in a blur of red and purple and pain until I collided with the netherbrick and something snapped. This was going freaking well, I was sure. "Alright, alright," I heard a familiarly deep voice say, pushing back the remaining blazes and hoisting me none too gently to my feet. I swayed there, sagging a little and yet stubbornly clinging to my sword, as Herobrine spoke again. "This is the bit where you lot back off and I duel her alone. Y'know, the classic villain-fights-hero thing. Except in this case it's villain-fights-Herobrine," he added with a grin.

"I'm hardly the villain," I complained, attempting to straighten up. Everything was still blurry. My hair felt wet. It was probably blood. Ew.

"Oh, sure," Herobrine retorted, "like you haven't been an absolute pain ever since you spawned."

"I've been a pain?" I echoed, incredulous. "You're the one who pushed me into lava and kidnapped my villager! I was just doing regular Minecrafter stuff, punching trees, punching sheep, punching rocks, punching air…"

"Minecrafters do a lot of punching," we noted at the same time and glared at each other.

"You've also been slaughtering countless mobs, wrecking my terrain, cutting swathes through my underground-"

"I'm as gentle as I can be!" I retorted, annoyed. "I replant saplings, trim the landscape instead of marring it completely-"

"You just don't get it," snarled Herobrine. I flinched before his blazing eyes. He was holding his sword ready now. "Just die already!"

With that he swiped for my head and I ducked with a squeak of fright, falling onto my butt and rolling out of the way about a second before he skewered my head. He managed to slice off a few strands of hair. On my belly a few blocks away I tried to push myself to my feet and he stepped on my head, pushing me back down. Writhing beneath his foot, I was struck by inspiration and attempted to call out "Look, Notch!" My voice was muffled by the netherrack, however, and it came out more as "Moof, Mawf!"

"What?" asked Herobrine, bemused. He took his foot off my head for a moment and crouched beside me.

"Made you look!" I crowed, pulling myself up and him down by the front of his shirt, grabbing the sword that clattered from his hand and dancing backwards a few steps. The pigmen, blazes and now multiple ghasts in audience hissed, booed and growled, threatening to step up and attack me again. Distracted, I didn't notice Herobrine until he had twisted my arm up behind my back and taken the sword again with a falsetto "Thank you!" He then threw me over his shoulder and whipped around again to stalk towards me. I scrambled to my feet and looked about frantically for a weapon, snatching a gold sword off a nearby pigman who oinked in protest before parrying Herobrine's slash and ducking out of reach. "En garde!" I exclaimed, adopting an amateurish fencing position. Herobrine rolled his eyes and humoured me, adopting a fencing position too. "En garde. You're going to die."

"Hey Mélodieux, he sounds like you!"

Isn't he just dreamy? There was barely a sneer in her voice. That was heavily disconcerting.

Abruptly Herobrine leapt at me and I blocked his blow in the nick of time, retaliating and having the tip of my sword sliced clean off. We exchanged a flurry of strikes that I could barely see and left us both with numerous cuts, though his healed instantaneously. Lucky sod.

Correction: Lucky dreamy sod.

"Oh, don't you start," I muttered, attempting to take Herobrine by surprise as he stared at me blankly. I thrust for his neck and could have sworn I hit stone because the sword's golden hilt shattered in my hand and suddenly Herobrine was floating a few blocks in the air, holding me by one foot.

"Seriously?" he asked, dubious.

Seriously.

"Seriously!"

"Shut up," I moaned, blood rushing to my head. I was so dead.

"You just don't die, do you?" Herobrine said, exasperated.

"I like not dying," I replied, words strained. "It's a favourite pastime of mine."

"We could take care of that."

Herobrine whipped around – swinging me wildly in the process – and I was granted a notably upside-down view of a trio of tall, thin, black things and brightened up at the prospect of endermen.

Then I noticed their empty eye sockets.

And bones.

And stone swords.

Wither skeletons.

Oh come o-

"And what do you things want?" Herobrine growled.

"I will tell you what I want, what I really, really want," sang one of the skeletons, bouncing from side to side until the undead beside it tossed its sword to its other hand and whacked it in the head.

"You appear to be having trouble with that Minecrafter," that skeleton noted, its voice flowing smoothly. I was surprised I could hear it. "We would love to deal with it."

"Oh, yes, Minecrafters, horrible things," I agreed, jerking my thumb towards Herobrine in the hope that they'd think he was the Minecrafter. "Really ought to be dealt with and all that."

"Do you see? Even it agrees," the third Wither skeleton pointed out.

Well. You're an idiot.

"What was your first clue?"

"Shut up, you two," I hissed. The skeleton that had spoken first – I'll call it Spice for convenience and because of the song it sang – looked at me strangely.

"So you think you could kill her?" asked Herobrine disbelievingly.

"We are Wither skeletons," the second one – I'll call it Strike – said. "We can kill a lot of things."

"A lot of things can kill me," I piped up, feeling lightheaded. Blood rushing to the head was an odd feeling. "You're just a failure, Herobrine."

Oh, way to get on his good side.

"Don't call me a failure, Mellifluousness," he retorted, swinging me dizzyingly from side to side and using my name as though it was synonymous with the word. It probably was. That's not the point, though.

That's entirely the point.

Shut up.

The final skeleton, which I'll name Point, stepped forward. "Of course you are not a failure, Herobrine," it said soothingly. Sucking up to him. Nice. "Minecrafters are stubborn creatures. Leave it to us. We will deal with it."

Well, this was a dilemma.

Herobrine or Wither skeletons.

Wither skeletons or Herobrine.

Herobrine.

Wither skeletons.

Doom or doom? Would you like a side of agonising death with that? There's a special on Withering right now.

Oh, sod off, you.

"Well…" Herobrine sounded like he was considering the undead's offer.

Wither skeletons.

Herobrine.

I really couldn't decide which was worse.

"Yeah, go ahead," said Herobrine, chucking me at the Wither skeletons. Spice managed to catch me, grinning skeletally at me until I pushed off him and rubbed the sting of his touch off my arms.

"I don't suppose we could-"

"Nope," says Strike, tossing its stone sword into the air, catching it again and running me through.

Well, they certainly get down to business quickly.

I stared blankly at the sword in my chest.

I attempted to speak.

Weird choking noises escaped my throat and a thin trail of oddly-coloured blood dribbled from the corner of my mouth.

"Ewwwww, that's gross."

Well, this is Mellifluousness we're talking about…

With a sickening shick Strike withdrew its sword and I collapsed before it.

"Well, you're dead."

"No freaking kidding," I replied distantly, staring into the Void. Armourless. Weaponless. Diamond-pick-less.

"Um… Respawning…"

With that I was dropped face-first onto the long grass of the plains.

Rain pelted down around me.

Thunder laughed at my pain.

"OH COME ON."