I Have A Nice Family Reunion (Not)

"…hmm…hey, look. Another fact about lemmings."

Ender groaned loudly. "Another fact about lemmings? What kind of obsession did this author have with lemmings?"

Ben was reading us the book '1000 Fun Facts You Probably Didn't Know' to us as we rode Shell so we wouldn't get bored. It was a long trip, after all. The facts weren't really fun, though—either they were really boring facts nobody could care less about, (whales eat about 4 tons of krill every day) opinions disguised as facts, (birthdays are overrated) and strangely, facts about lemmings. Don't ask me why. The book was about as fun as farming beetroots, but one redeeming quality was that it gave me and Ender something to get behind.

"If I hear another lemming fact I'm going to cry." I sighed.

"If I hear another lemming fact I'm going to jump off Shell and fall on my head." Ender grumbled. "Intentionally."

"But who knew that a group of lemmings is actually called a slice of lemmings?" Ben read aloud.

"Boring," Ender yawned. "I know we're on a dragon flying fifty feet above the ground, but I'll go to sleep if you read another fact."

"Ah," Ben said with a smile. I think he was actually enjoying the experience. "Another lemming fact. Did you know that the lemming is part of the Cricetidae family?"

"Cal, how much more time do we have until we reach Cratre?" Ender said. "I might lose it before we get there."

"I think we just have a few hours." I said. "We're close, at least."

"Oh, great." Ender said sarcastically. "Even more lemming facts for a few more hours."

"I mean, the more you know, am I right?" Ben said.

"The more you know." I agreed.

Ender shook her head, smiling at the ground. She stared at the ground, and then her smile slowly faded. "Calliope," she said.

I followed Ender's gaze to a pillar of smoke stretching into the sky a ways away.

"It could just be a lava pool, right?" I said nervously.

"Maybe," Ender said. "But it doesn't seem right. Let's check it out."

Shell began to fly lower, swooping towards the smoke. We were flying above a savanna biome, tilted spiky looking trees scattered across the grass.

And then, the ground slowly turned from a pale green to an ashen gray. Shell set down on the blackened field, and I slid off him, staring around in horror.

The ground had been burned to the extent that the dirt crackled when I stepped on it, like dry leaves. The trees around us were either blasted to shreds, on fire, or blackened stumps. And in the center of it all was a large crater.

"Damn," Ben said. "What happened here?"

I bent down and ran a finger across a line in the earth that looked like it had been caused by something sharp. "Nothing good."

"You don't say," Ender said. "I don't think this was just a regular forest fire, do you?"

"No, this wasn't a regular fire." Ben said worriedly. "The dirt we're standing on has literally been burnt to a crisp, and the trees have been destroyed. There's nothing left alive. What's up?" He added, because I'd just ran over to a spot in the crater.

There's no way I would have seen it if the sun hadn't been shining in that exact spot—it blended in with the blackened ground around it perfectly. I picked it up, and Ben gasped.

It was unmistakably Dan's obsidian scimitar.

"Um…that could just be another person's scimitar, right?" Ender offered.

"No, this is definitely Dan's." I said, cold dread gripping my heart. "I recognize it."

"There will be no need to accompany me. I will be perfectly fine on my own. Cratre is only a few hours away if I use my powers correctly."

It looked like Ben was thinking the same thing as me. "What if Klith…"

"No." I said frantically. "Why would he want to capture them?"

"He knows they're with you," Ender said. "If I were him I'd squeeze all the information I could get out of them."

My grasp on the scimitar grew tighter, and I turned and ran back to Shell. "We need to get to Cratre now!"

?-V-?

The remaining journey to Cratre was only an hour, but for me it felt like a whole day had passed. The entire ride my mind raced—what if Klith caught them? What if they're being tortured? What if it's too late to—?

"Calliope." Ender took me out of my thoughts. "Whatever you're thinking, you're wrong."

"What?" I said, taken aback.

"Right now you're thinking they've been captured, or killed." Ender said. "Am I wrong?"

"No," I admitted. "But it's Klith we're talking about. What if—"

"You're not giving them enough credit," Ender interrupted. "Okay, the whole Temple thing was a complete fiasco. Things like that happen. Personally, I think they were just distracted by the…ahem…new arrival."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean they had stuff on their mind when they went into the Temple. Usually we clear our minds when going into missions." Ender explained.

"What, like meditation?" I said incredulously.

The side of Ender's mouth twitched. "Yeah. Like meditation. Anyways, my point is, they're a lot stronger than you think."

"Okay, but Klith levels of strong?"

"Good point," Ender acknowledged. "Ben?"

"We're almost there," Ben called back—he was the one steering Shell. "Just a few more minutes and—ack!"

We'd just sailed into a cloud, and I gasped as we passed through—it felt like I'd just walked into a very cold shower.

"Yeee," I shivered. "Can we get out of the cloud?"

"Please do," Ender complained. "My clothes are getting wet."

"You hear that, boy?" Ben said to Shell, who just grunted and began to descend.

"I think he likes the dampness," Ben said. "Which is weird, because he's an enderdragon."

Ender looked like she was about to make a sarcastic comment when we dipped below the clouds, and she went silent.

Below us was an enormous lake, and around it was the greenest field I'd ever seen. Buildings lined the edge of the lake, and boardwalks and buildings crisscrossed all over the surface of the lake. Some buildings barely touched the surface of the water, and some buildings stretched meters above the water, supported on stilts. Basically, it was the biggest pier I'd ever seen.

"Wow," Ender said. "For a place that got nuked, this place looks pretty impressive. Where's the crater, anyways?"

As we got closer to the ground, I noticed that the lake was unnaturally circular. Almost like…

"The lake is the crater," I said.

"Wow." Ender said again. "Where'd they get all that water?"

"Well, we are pretty close to the ocean." Ben said.

We set down slightly outside of Cratre, as we imagined that the citizens of Cratre would probably have a heart attack if a full sized Ender dragon set down in the middle of the town. We slid off Shell, and Ben told Shell, "Alright. Fly around town, but high enough so nobody sees you. If you see us get into trouble, get us immediately."

Shell nodded and flew off in an instant, flattening the grass with a gust of wind.

We walked back to Cratre. It wasn't a long walk—only ten minutes—but when we finally reached the edge of Cratre, I was ready to go to sleep for about two days straight.

When we entered the edge of town, nobody even batted an eye, even though we probably looked like utter crap.

"Excuse me," I said as I stopped a passerby. "Have you seen a boy with a brown bomber jacket, a white shirt, brown jeans, and brown hair?"

"Nope," the man said. "Sorry, kid."

He walked away, and I turned to Ender, who had her arms crossed.

"Well, you try then." I snapped.

"I think we should look in the center of Cratre," Ender said. "He's more likely to be there."

"Good idea," Ben said. "Let's go."

?-V-?

Cratre really was just an enormous pier. The water was a deep blue in the center and a turquoise around the edges of the lake. The entirety of Cratre was made up of boardwalks, cozy restaurants off to the side, and small shops. It gave off a by-the-sea vibe O'd never felt before, even though we weren't in the sea, or even a real lake. Tall wooden fences lined the edges of the boardwalk, and occasionally there were plant beds filled with greenery in the center of it all.

The view was nice, but our search for Dan was going nowhere.

We'd been looking around and asking people for a while now, but we still hadn't come close to finding the others. Every minute we couldn't find them, my anxiety increased tenfold.

Eventually, we just sat down on a bench, completely drained. We were silent for a while.

"What if the crater we found Dan's scimitar in is the place they were captured?" I worried.

"It can't be," Ben said, but this time he didn't sound so sure.

"Maybe we should stop looking," I said hollowly.

"Are you nuts?" Ender snapped. "Are you really just going to give up that fast, just because we couldn't find him in a few hours?"

I was about to say something when out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of black where it shouldn't have been. My head whipped towards a plant bed that was growing multiple shrubs and bushes.

I stood and walked towards the plant bed.

"What are you doing?" Ender said.

I ignored her, and stopped in front of the plant bed. A surge of hope ran through my veins, but I was still calm.

"Hello, Dan." I said.

"Dan?" Ben repeated.

Silence. My hope wavered.

And then. His voice.

"Did you miss me?"

"Dan," I gasped in relief, and my knees nearly gave out. "I…you…you're okay." I paused. "How long have you been standing here?"

"Longer than you need to know," Dan said. "I was trying to figure out a way to talk to you guys discreetly."

"Are you talking to Dan?" Ender said incredulously.

"Yeah, he's invisible!" I told her excitedly.

"Quiet," Dan said, his voice frantic now. "Listen. We're being hunted. Well, I'm being hunted. Me and the others."

"Let me guess. Klith?" I said.

"How'd you know?" Dan said, surprised.

"Well…we kinda…saw him."

"You met Klith?"

"Saw him," I clarified. "Not met him. Also, we found this." I pulled out Dan's scimitar.

"Is that my—?" Dan sounded astonished.

"Yes, it's your sword." I said. "By the way, where are the others?"

"Okay, let's talk out of sight." Dan said.

Ender walked over to me. "Dan? You hear me?"

"Loud and clear, Ender." Suddenly the air in front of me shimmered, and Dan flickered into view before vanishing again.

"What the—?" Ben said.

"It's this damn potion," Dan said, sounding annoyed. "Ender wasn't there, and Orca was unconscious, so Nikai had to make the invisible potion, and he did a pretty terrible job of it."

"What happened to Orc—?"

"Like I said, I'll explain later." Dan flickered into view and then disappeared again, except now only his arm was visible, so it looked like there was a single arm floating above the plant bed.

"God," Ender said. "To what extent did Nikai screw up this potion?"

Before Dan could answer, there was a shout—someone had been knocked down by a man in a brown hoodie.

"Hey!" the man on the ground shouted, and the man with the brown hoodie slowly turned to glare at the other man with eyes red as blood.

"I apologize," the man with the hoodie said. "I suppose I just wasn't looking where I was walking."

I felt a chill go down my spine. This wasn't the man that had killed my father. But he sounded like him. And those red eyes…

"Dan," I said tensely.

"I see him," Dan said, and now there was fear in his voice. "We need to leave, now!"

The man turned away from the other man, and when he spotted us, a grin slowly spread across his face.

"Let's GO!" I shouted, grabbing Dan's disembodied hand and making a run for it. Ender and Ben asked no questions, running after me.

We ran up stairs, we ran down stairs. We jumped fences, we dropped from bridges to other boardwalks. But no matter where we went, he was always behind us, stepping towards us at a leisurely pace, murder in his red eyes.

"Right," Dan urged, and we turned to the right into an alleyway where I practically ran into someone.

"Ouch!" they shouted. "Watch it!" I stared in shock—it was Nikai.

He immediately recognized me, and his jaw dropped. "It's you?"

"Nice to meet you, we're going to die, run." I said hurriedly.

"What?"

"RUN!" I bellowed.

"More running?" said Orca wearily, whom I hadn't noticed earlier. "I'd rather take a sit down."

There was a flash of red, and a neon red pike nearly sliced off Ben's head.

"On second thought," Orca said, "let's go."

"Ben?" Seu stood, gaping at Ben through disheveled hair. "You're alive!"

"This is nice and all, but can we save it for later?" I yelled, nearly in tears from indignation.

"Oh Deniaaaaaaraaa," Klith said airily.

"JUST RUN!" Ben yelled, and we all ran out of the alleyway. I heard a whistling sound, and turned my head to see a glowing halberd sailing towards Ender's head.

Dan flickered back into view as he drew his obsidian scimitar and slashed the halberd away, redirecting it away from Ender and into the building besides us, where it smashed through like the wall was cardboard instead of solid brick.

We ran out of the alleyway, and people ran out of the brick building in a panic. Klith burst from the alleyway, weapons spinning around his body, his attempts to be discreet now completely abandoned. His hoodie paled until it was snow white, and his brown hair faded and turned grey. He raised his palm, until two guards ran in front of him, wielding spears.

"H-halt!" One of the guards shouted. "Otherwise—"

Klith ran him through with a red pitchfork, and slashed the other's chest open with a glowing long sword. He opened his palm, and a scythe slowly materialized in his hand. It was made out of black metal, the hilt was inlaid with rubies, and the sharp edges were blood red. He lifted it and pointed it at me.

Thin red strands shot out of the edge of the scythe and wrapped around me. I was nearly pulled off my feet when Dan and Ben grabbed me, struggling to keep me away from Klith.

Klith snorted and merely raised his hand, maybe about to blast them with a spell when suddenly an anvil dropped out of the sky and smashed into Klith, smashing him through the wooden boardwalk and into the waters below. The red tendrils dissolved, and Durham looked down at us from a bridge above us.

"It's been a while, eh?" He called to us.

Nikai cursed. "What have you been doing this whole time?"

"Looking out for Klith, like you told me to do." Durham said as he jumped down from the bridge, landing with a thud. "And guess what? I found him."

"AAAAAAAGGGGHHHH!"

"And on that note, we'd better go." Dan said. We ran away from the scene.

As we ran, Seu ran up to Ben.

"I thought—I thought I'd never see you again," Seu said. Her voice was thick.

"I knew I'd see you again regardless," Ben said.

I turned to Dan. "We're not like that, are we?"

"Well, we're not dating."

"They're dating?"

"No."

I wasn't sure what Dan was trying to say, but before I could figure it out I ran into someone, full speed.

"Ack!" I yelped as I bounced backwards onto the ground. The person I'd ran into, a boy that looked two years younger than me, also grunted as he fell onto his backside.

"Toni?" a girl next to the boy said.

I froze.

"Look, we were actually being civil with each other for once! We were having a bonding session!" the girl continued.

"Calliope, get back up!" Dan barked. "We haven't got time for this!"

"What did you say?" I asked the girl.

The girl squinted her eyes. "Wait. False alarm. That's not Toni."

"What did you say?" I demanded, getting to my feet.

"Woah," the girl said, raising her hands. "Calm down. We don't want any trouble."

"Who are you, anyways?" the boy demanded as he got to his feet.

"More like who are you?" Nikai snapped. "Get out of the way, little boy."

The boy's face flushed with anger. "Little boy?"

Another boy my age whom I hadn't noticed before snapped, "Leave Jax alone."

"Can we leave?" Dan pleaded. "Klith is right on our trail, you know!"

The girl's head snapped towards Dan. "Did you say Klith?"

And then the last bombshell.

"Cal?"

I froze.

And slowly turned.

Standing there was the last person I'd been expecting to see.

"Wait," Dan said slowly. "Isn't that—"

"Toni?" I breathed.

She held a diamond sword in one hand and a half eaten loaf of bread in her other hand. My sister, Toni Deniara stood in front of me, looking almost as stunned as I felt.

"Cal," Toni repeated. "What are you doing here? And is that a scar?"

Toni

Ten minutes before

"Where are we supposed to start?" I said in horror.

To anybody else, Cratre would have been a cute pier residing above a picturesque lake. To me, it was the hiding spot for the deadliest block ever invented.

The anxiety had been there before, but then it had been more underlying, more in the back of my head. Now, the anxiety was enlarging, filling up my entire head and clouding my thoughts. Worries and concerns chased each other around my head, and my mind constantly reminded myself of the consequences of failing on this quest.

"Don't worry," Sam said. "Considering this thing is the size of a grain silo, I'm pretty sure there isn't going to be a lot of places Klith could have hid it."

Jax had done some reading up on the Hellstorm (he'd brought an entire library's worth of books in a single shulker box), and the bomb was the size of a grain silo. It could also cause an explosion so strong that it could make the biggest craters on the moon look like a joke.

Can you see why I was slightly concerned?

One good thing, though, was that the bomb took thirty minutes to fully charge up and detonate. That meant that we had at least thirty minutes to find the bomb and defuse it. How we were going to do that, I had no idea. I guess that was just another item on the 'things I'm confused/terrified about' list.

When I asked Jax, he said the best bet was to set off the bomb when it was at it's minimum amount of energy. For example, the big crater in Cratre would have been ten times worse, but Notch set it off when it was only twenty percent charged. And if that was what twenty percent did, I didn't even want to see forty percent, let alone one hundred percent.

So the longer it took to find the bomb, the worse the explosion could potentially get.

But another thing we had going for us was that all the items on the crafting recipe I'd taken off Fisherman hadn't been checked off. Namely, cobalt acid and radioactive titanium. Cobalt acid was the strongest acid ever, capable of burning through even obsidian. Radioactive titanium was, go figure, a more radioactive version of titanium. Both had been banned in crafting recipes, which made sense.

Now the good thing about that was that Klith still had to collect these things and incorporate them into the bomb, which gave us more time. However, we still had to be quick with locating the bomb.

Which brings us back to the conversation.

"I think we should start in the center," Jax said. "Then we should spread out."

"You really expect Klith to hide a bomb in the place with the most people?" Sam said sarcastically. "What happens if someone stumbles upon it? I bet it's at the edge of the town."

"Well, there'll be more casualties that way, even if Klith's bomb doesn't fully charge up all the way." Jax said, sounding annoyed.

"It's a nuke." Sam snorted. "It's going to kill a lot of people regardless of where it's placed."

"The prophecy said the center of the world, not the edge of the world." Jax pointed out.

"Cratre's the center of the world," Sam argued. "As long as we're in Cratre, we're at the center of the world. And from what you told me, it wasn't even a prophecy. It was more like a voice mail from Notch."

"Maybe we should split up," Trevor suggested.

"That's just as stupid," Sam snapped. "We go together or we go nowhere."

"How wise," I said. "But I still agree with Jax."

"Whaaat?" Sam said, looking from me to Trevor. "Come on, guys."

"I agree with Sam on this one," Trevor said. "It can't be that obvious."

"Well, we need to check the obvious places first," Jax snapped back. "Maybe Klith knew it was obvious, so he hid it there so we'd think it was too obvious and not search there when really it was obvious that it was there."

"I couldn't even follow half of that," Sam deadpanned.

"It's called reverse psychology, fool."

"Okay, then." I raised my hands. "I know a way we can settle this."

"What?" Jax and Sam echoed.

"The way we all settle things." I said dramatically. "Rock Paper Scissors."

Jax looked appalled. "You want to bet the fate of the world and possibly our lives on a game of Rock Paper Scissors?"

"That sounds cool," Sam said. "Let's do it."

"Fine," Jax grumbled.

Sam and Jax faced each other and smacked their palms with their fists. Sam chose paper. Jax chose scissors.

"Ha!" Jax crowed. "I guess we're going to the center, then."

"Best out of three," Sam said, her face flushed with annoyance.

They did it two more times. Jax won again.

"Best out of ten," Sam said as she cracked her knuckles.

"Nope," I said. "It's only best out of three."

"What? You're biased!" Sam accused me. "You were on Jax's side!"

"And you're the one that agreed on the game of Rock Paper Scissors," I retorted. "Jax won fair and square."

Before we could strangle each other over a game of Rock Paper Scissors, Trevor stepped in.

"I think that's enough, Sam." Trevor told her.

"Ugh," Sam groaned. "Fine."

And with that, we walked into the center of Cratre.

I was still stressed out of my mind, but I could still appreciate how cool this place was. The smell of steak and porkchops and other foodstuffs were in the air, and I could even see cool looking fish down in the water below.

I glanced to the side and saw a bakery. Through the window I could see someone moving an entire tray of cupcakes. My stomach rumbled—I hadn't had something so sweet in so long.

"Jax," I said as my mouth watered, "can we—"

"No."

"Killjoy," I complained. "Would it kill you to be generous for once?"

"Toni, last time you went off to eat something I nearly got killed." Jax said exasperatedly.

"Well, that wasn't my fault."

"Jax, you're fourteen but you act like you're some grumpy forty year old." Sam rolled her eyes and handed me multiple emeralds. "Toni deserves a break. Heck, you deserve a break. You and Toni have been working your butts off since Hiemx."

"Yes," Jax said uncertainly, "but…"

"But whatever. Toni, eat your heart out." Sam said kindly as she handed me even more emeralds.

I squealed like a kid in a candy store and ran into the bakery.

As soon as I ran in, the smell of freshly baked pastries shot up my nose, and I savored every bit of it.

I just kind of stood there for a moment when someone asked me, "Are you here to get something?"

"Yeah," I said, slightly embarrassed.

"No problem," the man said, ignoring my embarrassment. "You can have this for free." And he shoved a loaf of bread into my arms.

"What?" I said, surprised. "No, I couldn't." I pulled out the emeralds Sam had gave me. "I can pay…"

"No, no." The man said. "The head baker's kind of a perfectionist, you know. He wanted me to throw it out. Said it was too sweet."

"Sweet's always a good thing," I said.

The man laughed. "Have it. Really! Just don't tell anyone."

I nodded and tossed the man an emerald. He caught it, looking surprised.

"For your generosity." I waved at the man and walked out of the store, feeling better. I took a bite out of the bread. It really was sweet, but it tasted great.

"The head baker must not have working taste buds," I muttered to myself.

And in that moment, I had hope. Hope that I could truly save the world. Funny that it came from a loaf of bread, but now I was motivated. I took another bite. You better watch out, Klith! I'm coming for you.

And then I heard Jax shouting.

Are they arguing again? I thought exasperatedly.

And then I saw her.

My good mood shattered into tiny little pieces, replaced by utter shock.

Calliope.

It was Calliope.

My Calliope.

It was Cal.

"Cal?" I said, shock keeping me frozen in place.

She slowly turned, looking pale.

"Wait. Isn't that—?" a boy with auburn hair and a brown bomber jacket next to Cal said.

"Toni," she whispered.

"Cal?" I said again. "What are you doing here? And is that a scar?" My stomach lurched at the sight of the pale scar that ran over her cheek, over her nose, and all the way onto her forehead.

"Toni, I—I don't know why you're here, but you need to get out of here!" Cal said frantically.

"Toni, do you know these clowns?" Jax said with a scowl.

"We need to go," a girl with purple hair behind Cal snapped. When she saw me, her jaw dropped. "Wait. Is that the girl on the—?"

"Th-that's my sister!" I pointed at Cal with a shaking finger.

"That's your sister?" Jax repeated.

"You have a sister?" Sam said, shocked.

Before me and Cal could compare notes on what we'd been through, a glowing red pike came out of nowhere and sliced my bread in half. I gaped at the pike. It was a pike I recognized.

"Well, well, well." I looked up, and took a step back. Fear gripped my heart.

"Would you look at that." Klith said in glee as glowing red weapons swirled around his body. "I came looking for copper and found gold."

Okay, I know this is unrelated but scissor's spelling really gets weirder the longer you look at the word, doesn't it? Scissor. Scissor. Scissor. Weird.

Anyways, thank god we're finally out of the original Herobrine Reborn's territory. Cal and Toni finally get to meet and confront Klith. Are you looking forwards to the next chapter? Because I am.

Anyways, leave a review, follow, maybe favorite, and have a happy new year!

Krios