Preface: Hello, everyone! This story is the final Minecraft-themed story in my one-shot collection! I hope you enjoyed the series if you've been following from the start, but I still have a few more installments before I end the series as a whole! Anyway, let's get started!

The Student Slaves

[Party Selected: Danny, Liam]
[Current World: Minecraftia]
[Current Location: Private World, Liam's House]

[BGM: Johan Johnson - Halland]

"Woo! What a haul!"

Danny and Liam stepped back to admire the spoils of their latest expedition. They had gone back to the Creepgyptian Desert to explore more of the tombs hidden in the other pyramids, and when they came back, they had all sorts of gold, diamonds, lapis, and other amazing jewels. Right now, they were in the treasure room of Liam's house, putting away their handiwork.

"It certainly is," said Liam, adding to Danny's comment. "We make a good duo ourselves, but I hope we can get the rest to join tomorrow!"

"Agreed," Danny added. "Too bad Pork Chop was feeling sleepy - he would've loved this."

Liam rolled his eyes and pointed to the jewel that was on top of a quartz slab. The jewel resembled an emerald block, but it was colored black rather than usual bright green. "Y'know, I've never seen a gem like that before," he said. "Do you think Kevin modded our game again while we weren't looking?"

Danny shook his head. "Doubt it. This was from the Creepgyptian Desert, and King Creep was there without mods" He noticed something else odd about it. "Hey, why's it glowing magenta?"

[BGM: Peter Hont - Intertile]

Suddenly, the gem shattered into pieces, creating an explosion that seemed to create a rift in the fabric of reality. A player that resembled a young boy with blonde hair wearing some kind of military uniform jumped out. "Finally!" he said in a relieved manner. "I thought no one would ever find that gem!"

"I'm sorry," said Liam, confused, "who are you?"

"My name is Sam Savior," said the boy, "the leader of the Student Slaves. The Minecraft server I play on is protected, so no one else can play on it, just like how no one who plays on it can play on any other world. That gemstone was my only way to reach you."

"Wait, back up," said Danny, "what are the Student Slaves?"

"Ah! Forgive me," said Sam. He began to explain his predicament. "My server was just like the one you made for your school district, until the evil Principal Dick took over. He reduced the borders to the 256x256x128 border from the earlier Minecraft versions and set up 'schools' across certain parts of the server. The principals of the schools are in charge of each region and the 'students' are treated like slaves, hence my resistance's name. We're forced to log on to Minecraft each day from 9 to 5 and we can't play on any other world."

"Wow. That sounds...illegal," Liam remarked. "But why do you need us?"

"I'll explain at the base," said Sam. "Just follow me!" And so, Danny and Liam followed Sam through the rift, realizing that their session was gonna take an unusual turn.

[Location Change: Sam's World, Perimeter of Student Slaves Base]

[BGM: Peter Hont - Stuga]

The entire landscape looked barren. The grass was a sickly gray, the sky was smokey and full of smog, the water was a dirty brown...basically everything looked polluted. "Wow. Talk about crimes against nature," said Liam as the three began to run. "And not a single mob in sight, either!"

"Principal Dick disabled mob spawning," said Sam. "He's at least merciful to allow respawning, because death from starvation is pretty much a normal occurrence."

"Wow, that's harsh," was all Danny could say. Even after what he, Liam, and Kevin had been through since December, he still couldn't comprehend how all of this was even allowed.

The three stopped at an oak tree containing a rather tiny-looking tree house. "Here it is, the base!" said Sam.

"Are you sure you aren't a post-apocalyptic KND?" asked Liam.

"I'm sure," said Sam, understanding the reference. He climbed up the ladder and poked his head into the surprisingly large interior. "Hey, everyone! I'm back!" called Sam.

Danny and Liam poked their own heads inside. Looking around, they saw meticulously-designed work desks made of crafting tables, furnaces, anvils, brewing stands, cauldrons, and grindstones, as well as some chests and enchantment tables surrounded by bookshelves. They also noticed many more players, all wearing the same uniform as Sam. "Hooray! The saviors have arrived!" they all cheered as they noticed Danny and Liam.

"Are we fulfilling some 'chosen one' prophecy?" asked Danny. "Because I've been down that path before!"

"Yes, kinda," said Sam. "You see, we are able to gaze into your server with our advanced technology. We've seen you gather the fountain gems, witnessed your triumphs against Doppel and Perinton Pig, and even how amazingly you dealt with other oddities! We think you could use that power to guide us to victory!"

"If you say so," said Liam. He and Danny kneeled down and held their hands up. "O fountain gems, stones of miracle, give us the power to defeat a great evil!" was typed into the chat as magic gauntlets appeared on their hands. With that, they snapped their fingers, and Danny gained a creeper mask, a pair of elytra, blue leather leggings, and diamond boots, while Liam gained a set of iron armor kitted with gold highlights and an arm cannon. Plus, they had the Supafied status effect, a combination of several positive status effects that made them near-invincible.

"It's so much awesomer up close!" one of the Student Slaves whispered.

[BGM: Peter Hont - The Four Horsemen]

After that, the Student Slaves gathered their own gear. Through recon missions into the mines, they were able to acquire heavily enchanted diamond equipment, as well as access to the Nether for potions. They had several different classes: Warriors had basic melee weapons and helpful potions, Mages had several magic-based items like splash potions and golden apples, and Archers were kitted with bows, crossbows, and both helpful and harmful tipped arrows.

"Alright!" declared Sam once everyone was all ready, taking his leadership role. "We will be marching to Principal Dick's fortress on top of Spawnpoint Mountain. Warriors, you take care of the inner defenses. Archers, you cover the east wall. Mages, you cover the west wall. The saviors and I will take care of Dick himself. Let's move out." And thus, with the two Minecraft Maniacs by their side, the Student Slaves set out for their biggest mission yet.

The fortress was guarded by a tall wall, packed with layers of gravel, sand, water, obsidian, and lava. Since mining through would be inefficient, the Archers and Mages piled up with some spare dirt blocks, climbed onto the wall, and prepared to rain down their projectiles.

"Wow. You guys could be a PVP faction," Danny complimented. "What are the inner defenses like?"

"AI-controlled players," answered Sam. "Watch out, they're highly coordinated." The group began to pillar-jump as well before jumping into the battlefield. Across the battlegrounds were pitch-black creatures with white, glowing eyes. The Warriors unleashed their swords and tridents and began to fight against the creatures.

Danny and Liam began to fight as well, providing a hefty backup. "Who made this AI?" said Danny as he slashed through a…okay, from now on, I'm callin' them 'entities' because that's what you call anything like that in Minecraft.

"Probably Dick," said Liam, sending a supercharged blast through a huge wave of entities, and they all fell to the ground and vanished, dropping nothing in return. "Y'know, for highly coordinated creatures, they go down pretty easily!"

Sam chuckled. "Clearly, Dick did not anticipate your presence." He dug his sword into another entity and then took out a bow and shot another with an arrow of poison.

Danny charged forward through a group of entities, allowing some more of the Warriors to attack them as they stuck to his sword. He watched the arrows and potions rain down in front of the iron door serving as an entrance. "Alright, it looks like we have a clear way in!" he declared.

"Alright! Let's get in there and get that principal!" shouted Liam. He shot one last blast before pressing the button next to the door. He and Danny quickly ran into the fortress before the door shut.

"Good luck, commander," said one of the Warriors, shaking Sam's hand before he entered as well. "We'll continue the battle outside."

[BGM: Peter Hont - Grand Throne]

The inside was made entirely out of dull stone brick. Not even chiseled. "Guess he puts function over looks," said Liam.

"Alright, the AI-controlled players here are much more advanced than the ones we faced outside," instructed Sam. "We'll have to be careful."

"Or we could just do this!" said Liam. He began to charge up his arm cannon, held the energy blast as an orb in place, and tossed it into the air. With a quiet explosion, everyone heard the same electrical defeat noises that they heard outside. "Alright, that should take care of them!" said Liam.

"Well, maybe not the stronger ones." As if to answer him, an entity ran up to Sam, wielding a bow. Sam shot a potion of harming at the entity...and he was met with a barrage of flaming arrows. "Like that!"

"Not so fast!" Danny shouted. Slamming his sword down, he activated his shield spell, putting a golden bubble shield around Sam. The arrows bounced off of the shield as the commander walked up and dumped a bucket of lava on top of the entity.

"Nice try, Principal," Sam remarked as he watched the entity burn and refilled his bucket. Turning around, he noticed that a few more entities were blocking the way, holding up ordinary brown shields. "Alright, these ones we'll attack from behind," he instructed the others.

"How'll we do that?" asked Liam.

"These ones are flawed," explained Sam, beginning to dig underneath them. "They won't turn around." Danny and Liam followed Sam through the tunnel. "We'll have to go with melee weapons," said the commander, "the shields still work from behind."

"I'll take care of this," said Danny. He charged his sword to 40% power and then started jumping, turning with each jump and leaving an afterimage each time that did extra damage.

"Impressive," said Sam. "You really are as grand as we've seen." He pointed to a spiral staircase made out of slabs. "Now we'll just have to climb these stairs, and Principal Dick is ours."

Carefully climbing up the staircase, Danny and Liam kept themselves en guarde in case they found anything else waiting for them. "Gee, this seems a little suspicious…" Danny whispered.

"Dick's not known for taking advantage of situations," Sam whispered back. "He prefers just making himself strong and then charging right in."

[BGM: Peter Hont -The Arch-Illager]

Before long, the three had reached the roof of the fortress, where Principal Dick was waiting for them. He had crazy, mad scientist-like hair, but dressed like a school principal, with a black suit and tie. "Well, well, well," said Dick, teasingly, "look who's come back with some new friends."

Sam unsheathed his sword. "Your reign of terror ends here, Principal Dick!" he shouted, determinedly.

"We'll see about that," said Dick. In a second, his person was immediately covered by a set of black, sturdy armor and a black sword, both of which were glowing from enchantment.

"Netherite gear? He's had the newest beta this whole time!" Liam shouted. "Even with our power, he's probably unstoppable!"

"Not for much longer," said Danny. He wasn't one to use the spell he was about to do, but he figured that this was a desperate situation. He shot his sword up into the air, and characters from the Standard Galactic Alphabet began to shoot out of the armor. The enchantment power began to drain and get sucked up into the sword.

"No!" cried the dictator. "I had all my enchantments at level 100000! Now it's at level 10!"

"You drained his power!" said Sam in awe. He smiled and threw an ender pearl behind Dick and dumped the refilled lava bucket on him while he was still in shock.

"Now's our chance!" said Liam. "Combo time!" He aimed his arm cannon at Dick and fired a blast at him. While Dick was stunned, Sam quickly set up a group of dispensers and filled them up with arrows before connecting them with a redstone clock circuit, allowing the arrows to fire pepeatedly onto the dictator. Last but not least, Danny used his sword's power to summon a group of iron golems, who tossed Dick into the air and played a game of volleyball with his body.

"Gah! How am I losing so easily?" cried Dick as he was thrown from golem to golem. "This was the most I've ever prepared for a battle before!"

Eventually, his body was thrown all the way to the edge of the roof. "Allow me to finish the job!" said Liam, and with one final energy shot, Dick was sent falling over the ledge.

"Oh. My. God." said Sam, stunned. "We did it! We triumphed against Principal Dick!" Suddenly, messages from another Student Slave member, Don, popped into the chat. "Wait! He's still alive? But they think they've found the source of his power?" He grabbed Danny and Liam's hands. "C'mon! Only one more thing we gotta do!"

The three ran down the steps and took out their pickaxes. Mining through the wall, they eventually came across a simple orange block with pulsing lights and a stone button on top. "A command block? That's the source of his power?" Liam said in disbelief.

"Looks like it," said Sam, his hand hovering over the button. "All I gotta do is press it, and I'll be the admin!"

"NOOOOOOOOO!" In one last desperate attempt, Dick ran back into the fortress and ran towards the three, hoping to stop Sam from pressing the button. Instead, he was forced to watch as the button was pressed. The message "Sam_Savior_7479 is now the admin" appeared in the chat, and the three heroes watched as Dick vanished into a puff of ones and zeroes.

[BGM: End]

"Huh?" said Danny. "He was an AI himself this whole time?"

"That explains so much," said Sam. He tried fiddling his arms. "I can't believe it!" he said. "All this power feels so amazing!"

"Yeah, just don't let it corrupt you," said Liam with a chuckle. Suddenly, they began to hear cheering from outside. "Looks like the others got the memo."

[BGM: Peter Hont - What You Came For]

Stepping outside the fortress, the three saw that the world had returned to its usual, bright colors and not a single entity was there. The Student Slaves had put down their weapons and began to celebrate their victory. "Danny and Liam! Danny and Liam!" they began to cheer.

"Boy, Kev's not gonna believe this…" Danny said, watching as everyone eagerly shook his and Liam's hands. Before long, the two had joined the Student Slaves in enjoying an amazing victory feast of pork chops, apples, cake, bread, mushroom stew, and other foods that the resistance movement had so desired. After being well-fed, the two stood for pictures so that heroes' statues could be erected in their honor.

Once they were finished getting the stereotypical hero's rewards, Danny and Liam prepared to return to their private world. "Now that I'm admin of the server," said Sam as they walked back to the rift, "I'll open it up to the public and allow everyone to come and go as they please." He deflated a little. "I'm not sure I can handle running a whole server on my own, though."

"You're not on your own," said Danny. He looked at Liam and thought of the times his friend had shown concern for his personal issues. "If there's anything I've learned from my own adventures, it's that a good team is always there for one another."

"And you've got the best team in the world," added Liam. "Just like we do."

Sam smiled. "Thank you for everything. I'd like to give you something." He handed Liam a small fragment of the gemstone that allowed them to come to Sam's world in the first place. "Just throw this in the ground in case of severe emergency and we will come to your aid."

"Thanks, man," said Liam. "Well, I guess we'll see you when we need you!" And he and Danny waved goodbye as they stepped back through the rift, back to their private world.

[Location Change: Private World, Liam's House]

[BGM: Peter Hont - Beach House]

As the rift closed, the two looked back at where the gemstone had been. There was nothing but an empty spot now, with the only proof of their expedition being the rest of the treasures. "So, you wanna place the fragment where the whole thing was?" asked Danny.

"Nah," said Liam, staring at the fragment. "Something tells me that if Buzzer were here, he'd want me to hold onto it."

Danny smiled. And then he giggled. "Y'know, I think this whole time, only you were supposed to go in there."

"Makes sense," said Liam, "considering I did most of the work."

"You did not!" retaliated Danny.

"Did so!"

"Did not!"

And that's how the two spent their last five minutes playing Minecraft that day.

The End

Credits

Voices:
Alfred von Any - Danny
Willy Blanq - Liam
Will Buie Jr. - Sam
Raphael Alejandro, Scarlett Estevez - Various Student Slaves
Paul Scheer - Principal Dick

Music:
Minecraft Dungeons Music Team

Additional Music:
Peter Hont - Beach House (Credits)

Written by: Alfred von Any

Edits by: Jesus von Any

Postface: Confession time: like my first Minecraft one-shot, The Nintendounas Tribe, this story was loosely based off of a story I wrote for school one time. And quite frankly, both versions are good in their own merits in my opinion. I really like how I interpreted the world of this story - imagine if you were forced to play Minecraft every day if you could barley do anything. The classes for the Student Slaves were actually partially inspired by my own class plan based off of the official Guide to PVP Minigames, while a few bits of the ending were taken from the writer's bible included in the DVD for The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3. But despite that little nod, the treehouse base was my own idea, not stolen from Codename: Kids Next Door. And I named Principal Dick after the word "dictator"; get those dirty thoughts outta your head!

That should be it! Please read, review, and share around, and I'll see you all later! Stay diamond, everyone!

-Alfred

~Minecraft and everything related to it are properties of Mojang Studios and Xbox Game Studios. No copyright infringement with any of these companies nor financial gain was intended in the making of this story. Any resemblance to real-world people or events are either coincidental or done fictitiously.~