Chapter 1: Flash Out!

Perspective: Kay

I lost balance as my feet touched the floor of the great hall but in a second I was up on one knee, Apotyre raised and teeth bared fierce as any animal's. The Ender and all her host had been here when we left and I wouldn't let them try that trick with the colosseum again. But they were gone. The hallway was dim. Only friends remained. For the moment.

Exhaustion crashed into me like a wave and I felt the burns on my back and every other wound on my body. I didn't bother getting up fully and amused myself with the observation that my enemies all seemed to love throwing me into colosseums and death games. First Vareide, now The Entity via his Grey Ones. It sure was a hell of a coincidence. Then again, The Grey Ones might have read up on me, probably thought they were being clever or something. A just revenge after "eleven years" stuck in my world. Honestly, they could have done much worse than that!

Conceptually, I mean. The colosseum was genuinely horrifying. I'd wondered if we would make it out of that one. The back of my obsidian chestplate still felt hot where the fireball had caught me, and the skin screeched beneath, as if a million suns had scorched my back. Or, was it where I'd caught the fireball? The pain was messing with me and I could no longer remember if that was a deliberate choice or whether I'd tried to flee and been struck down. Then I remembered who I'd been guarding.

"Astro!"

It felt like my ribs were reaching inward to grab at my heart and wrap their arms about it and make sure it was safe, like a mother guarding her young. My eyes leapt about the room to find the other survivors of the colosseum and our comrades who had been left here. Aside from Astro, I hadn't known anyone there longer than a week.

It was hard to tell where everyone was. The room was dim and hot. Scorch-marks lined the floor and some walls and the air was still warm. Smoke had discoloured the ceiling. There had been an explosion.

My heart was released a little after I found the wizard at my foot. I'd started this breakout to free him. If he'd died… what would I tell Aaron and the others? Then again, I didn't know this was the same Astro waiting for me on the border of the Vanilla Craft. We'd only been together for an hour but he seemed older, more cynical and he looked at me as if he knew something horrible that I didn't.

Steve and Jennifer, the Herobrine-killers, were already up and about, scouting for the enemy. Steve, sword drawn, purple eyes sharp. Jennifer, red-haired and bow ready. Their armour was cracked from the fight - Steve was now barefoot - but they would fight until the last. I thought it was strange that, aside from the cracks, nothing had marked them. They were pristine when they should be caked with blood and soot and sand.

They marched up to join Amanda. Since we'd been teleported away, she had taken up a perch atop a statue of a strange, contorted creature with countless limbs, and who scanned the hallway with scowling eyes. Her crossbow sat in her hands, like an attack dog on a leash.

And of course, Fristad, my saviour. He kept grabbing at the purple-glassed goggles, making they were on tight. He offered me a hand to get to my feet, acting very concerned, but I didn't buy it. He was hiding something. Anyone who transforms into an Endling at random is not to be trusted. Endlings aren't to be trusted. Period. I didn't take his hand, struggled up on my own.

On my feet at last, I turned to find the rest of our group. It was not a pleasant sight.

Tyron, the gigantic green furball was acting all jittery and grumbling to himself, probably addressing Kir, his sword. That wasn't a crazy thing. The sword was sentient - something from their world called "Bluestone". The only abnormal thing about this was that he was talking aloud. I heard him mention "Freak" and became wary. He could appear at any moment. I also felt a pang of pity. This creature was another Herobrine-killer, said to be a great hero, and now he was ready to stab shadows in the hope of gaining revenge on his torturer.

But there was a more pressing issue. David lay sideways against a castle wall, the floor in front of him blackened as if he had been propelled by a blast. The arm which once wielded his gauntlet was now a mangled stump hanging over his blood-covered abdomen. Destiny stood crouched beside him, holding a hand comfortingly to his cheek. Her ponytail had been cut loose, and the ends of her brown hair were singed, embers grow at the far end.

"Notch, what happened to him?" asked Fristad.

"His gauntlet exploded," said Warnado, whose arm was wrapped around Amanda. It was hard to tell beneath the darkness of his hood, but his eyes seemed to widen in awe and confusion. "It fired the biggest deadly green ball of lightning I've ever seen. It was amazing but I can't actually believe we're all still alive."

"It only killed some of the endermen," warned Destiny in heartbroken monotone. "The rest teleported away. More will come."

"All the more reason to get the heck out of here as soon as possible," said Fristad. "Carry him over here and we'll teleport out of this place."

Tyron offered to carry the fallen David. I tried to carry Astro but my burns made it pointless. Fristad and Steve ended up doing it. I sincerely wished Fire was there. The absolute size of that one! He could've carried both of them. At least an Ending wouldn't have been carrying my friend. But he was nowhere to be seen.

Then, our newly united group converged on Fristad and vanished into a dimensional rift.

When they appeared in another space, they were in the familiar room of crowded and stacked furniture. Fristad stumbled, as if dizzy.

"I'm sorry, guys," Fristad groaned between labored breaths. "This is as far as I can go. The strain of teleporting so many people is becoming too much for me."

"It's alright, Fristad," Steve reassured him. "I recognize this place. The exit to the tower isn't far from here."

Our motley gang of the battle-weary, the disarmed, and the gravely injured walked as fast as it could. Considering we had two limp bodies in tow, we made good time.

After several hallways and another two flights of stairs, a large, red carpeted entryway and a double door would have been all that stood between us and freedom… if we had have been alone.

Instead, a half dozen armed guards stood along the edges of the carpet, pulling their swords from their sheaths and bows from their backs as they turned to face the attempting escapees.

Then, Warnado reached into his hood and tossed a cylindrical metallic object without warning and screamed, "FLASH OUT!"

Then, a white flash and explosion blinded and deafened almost everybody including half of the escapees. Luckily, the other half of the escapees were not blinded and also none of them were deaf, allowing them to slowly make their way to the exit while the guards groaned with their eyes shut and hands pressed against their ears.

The double door was pushed open, and finally the crew breathed the sweet and pure night forest air.

"Thanks for that, Warnado," I said. "If it weren't for that metal canister of yours, we'd probably all be dead." I paused in thought. "Say, can you get more of those? Seems like they'd be quite useful to have around."

Warnado didn't answer and instead asked: "By the way, do any of you know what 'FLASH OUT!' actually means? Because I don't."

I rolled my eyes and took that as a "maybe, but I prefer you not knowing". I laughed a little. He was a weird kid, but I liked his style.

"We should get going," said Jennifer. "The sooner we get as far away as possible from the Tower, the sooner we can treat Astro and David's wounds. And the sooner we can all meet up with Fire in the village alive."

Jennifer stopped for a moment to stop David's bleeding with some extra leather she had on hand, then she scouted ahead into the shadows of the forest. The rest followed behind, always careful not to leave more tracks than they had to. Traveling at night was perilous business, with the skeletons eyeing for easy targets and creepers potentially lurking around every corner. Luckily, Amanda and Destiny still had ammo to spare, and the rest were in good enough shape to fight the occasional monster. The group took turns carrying the fallen Astro and David.

Nighttime turned to dawn, Fristad transformed into a human again, and the group came to stop at a place where the tower was long gone from sight, and forest obscured the horizon all around them, leaving no sense of direction except the leaf-screened sun above.

"We don't have nighttime cover anymore," reasoned Jennifer. "This is probably the best time to set up camp underground."

"Did you just say, 'underground'?" I asked with confusion.

"Yes. We are going to build an eleven meter by eleven meter underground living space a few meters beneath the dirt," explained Jennifer.

"We don't have time for that nonsense!" I said. "We have two injured men in desperate need of treatment, and any hour now the Entity's henchmen could come looking for us!"

"Don't you realize we've thought that through?" Steve snapped. "It'll take us a few minutes to build the shelter. I don't know what block physics and inventory size are like in your world, but they certainly don't apply here."

"Okay…" I snuck a suspicious glance at the now-human Fristad, before glaring back at Steve. "My apologies if I'm sceptical. I do forget we're all from different worlds."

Fristad's brows clenched in confusion, as he racked his brain for what he could have possibly have done to make me angry at him. Steve simply flashed a look of contempt at me for a moment before pulling a full-sized diamond shovel from his pocket and proceeding to jump into the dirt-floored staircase that Jennifer had just dug up.

Mere minutes later, Steve walked out of the staircase and beckoned the group inside. The pairs carrying Astro and David, and the rest following behind, walked single-file, first down a dirt staircase, then into a stone hallway, and finally into a barren, torchlit square room with stone and dirt walls.

"I'm going to seal the entrance with pistons," announced Steve. "When I'm done, the staircase should be able to merge with the grass above with the flip of a lever. Need any medical supplies, Jen?"

"I should have enough," she said, "but I think someone else should use them. We need to mine more resources."

"Agreed," replied Steve. "Any volunteers?"

"I can help dress the wounds," offered Fristad.

"Your kind shouldn't be anywhere near a body," I snarled, wincing from my burns.

"What is your problem, Kay?" Fristad turned to face me, visibly angry for the first time. "If you have something to say to me, then just say it!"

I weighed my words carefully. Endlings were dangerous and I didn't trust them to heal up Astro, but equally antagonising them wouldn't be too wise. Especially not with the burns still searing on my back.

"I would simply prefer that the wounds be dressed by someone else," I said. "And I am more than willing to do it myself."

"You don't trust me," concluded Fristad, regaining his composure. "You're worried I'll hurt you and… your friend. I get it." Fristad turned to face Destiny, who stared listlessly at the injured David. "Do you want my help?"

Destiny nodded silently.

Jennifer placed chests with supplies, crafting tables, furnaces, and beds throughout the room. She then dug the first stone steps of a downward stairwell in the side of the underground room.

Warnado followed behind her and watched expectantly. "You're digging a tunnel down into a potentially large and dangerous cave system? Sounds like fun! Mind if I join you?" Without waiting for a response, Warnado conjured a ghostly pickaxe. Amanda soon followed behind.

"I'll stay here," Tyron offered.

"Sounds like a good idea," said Steve, as he pulled down the lever on his finished Redstone contraption. In a chorus of hydraulic chugs and scratching stone, the grass staircase lifted and became a wall of pistons, blocking off the light from above.

Steve reached into his magically deep pocket and pulled out a square metal object the size of his hand with a rod sticking out of it. He handed it to Tyron.

"This radio will allow you to communicate with Jennifer and I," said Steve. "All you have to do is press this button and talk into it. Keep us informed. Do you have a clock?"

"No."

Steve rummaged his pocket again, pulled out a clock, and placed the clock in Tyron's remaining large fuzzy palm. "We'll be back before noon."

I turned my attention back to Astro, and with a feeling like churning in my heart I set about dressing his wounds. My eyes and hands traced the lines of age and battle on his face. We had known each other for only a few years but it already felt like a lifetime. He had been my drinking buddy, confidant, advisor, co-leader, financial backer and even, once, my almost killer. I knew him as one of the most kindly friends, most fearsome warriors, and - even if he occasionally needed me to force him to make a decision - one of the most brilliant tacticians I had ever met. But the unconscious man might as well have been a stranger, because he betrayed none of that. Now he just looked weary, beaten, and old before his time.