"First, we need to arm the village." I said. "Erik, you said you know how to build cannons n shit."
"Indeed I do. I'll get to it." Erik said.
"I can help you build them, you just have to show me how." I said, looking towards Jamie. "You can brief the villagers on what tactics we'll use."
"What tactics are we going to use?" Jamie asked.
"First, see which one of them has combat experience. The ones that don't should help us with reloading the TNT cannons and arrow launchers."
"Cool." Jamie said, leaving towards the storage room, which players were now flooding out of in mixed sets of armor with multiple different types of weapons, ranging from sticks, to an enchanted bow.
"Hey, I found your brother Erik…" I joked, pointing towards the person holding the stick. "Very funny…" he replied.
As he got out some cobblestone, he began to build a platform, with one block sticking out near the end.
"Mind copying this platform on each corner of the village?" He said, handing me some cobblestone.
"Sure." I replied, taking it. As I made my way over to the left corner, I turned to look at the fire. It was only getting worse, and the sun was beginning to near the horizon. Looking in the distance, I could see Jamie explaining the game plan to the other village members. Looking towards Erik, he was placing the redstone and dispensers, as well as loading them.
Looking for Miles, I couldn't find him. Eventually, I had finished building the platforms for all of the TNT cannons.
"Hey Erik, I'm done!" I hollered.
"Great!" He replied. "Now we can work on the arrow cannons."
Walking by the other villagers, most of them had bows out. I assumed Jamie was giving them a quick archery lesson. I could see Miles running back from the forest. Taking a look, the forest was now a lot thicker than it used to be. He also brought back a few players with him.
"Forest should be a good escape route now, should we need to use it." Miles said.
We heard another explosion. Looking to the left this time, I could see a small crater in the far distance, just outside the flames.
"That must be their warning signal or some shit…" I said. "That means they're close."
We heard another explosion. Another crater formed a little ways out of the village.
"Or maybe they're already here…" Erik said.
"Shit…"
Looking back at the other villagers, they were all looking at the craters as well. Some kept their bows out. Some took aim. Others switched to a sword and shield. Taking a look at Jamie, her face was full of uncertainty. I could tell she was worried sick.
As the village people scattered, some went to the tnt cannons to prepare to fire them, while others went out to the outskirts, ready to fire at whatever would come out of the forest fire.
"Jamie!" I hollered, grabbing her attention.
"You got this." I said, pulling out the enchanted diamond sword she gave me.
Jamie gave an unsettling nod.
As we all looked towards the forest, the first few people came out. One had a herobrine skin, two had random player skins, and the last one…
"Holy shit, we're screwed… that's the imposter from among us…" I joked.
As they came out of the smoke, there were a bunch of players following behind, and almost none of them had any armor.
"Good…" I thought to myself.
They began to approach. As everyone on the frontlines primed their bow, they all took aim and attempted to fire at the players. They managed to get a few long range shots, but the majority of the arrows missed as the players pursued forward. Taking a look at their weapons, I noticed that almost all of the players were just equipped with a sword, which would come in handy.
"Erik!" I hollered. "Fire the cannon at them, they only have meles!"
Erik motioned for some of the people to fire a neighboring cannon, while he took care of the one he was currently at. The cannons both shot singular blocks of TNT towards the players and exploded, sending some of them flying as the pursuit continued.
Now that the invaders were close, it was time to keep them from getting closer. Arriving at the frontlines myself, I took out my bow and began to rapid fire at the oncoming horde of players. I was able to kill one of them, but most of my second bow shots wouldn't connect, so I was only able to injure the majority of them. The players were now getting dangerously close.
"Everyone, switch to your swords!" I said, pulling out mine and equipping a shield. I made probably the dumbest decision ever.
I charged the group.
"I sure hope my plot armor comes into play…" I thought to myself.
As I continued running, the other village players followed. As we all continued towards the horde of players, I could hear a bunch of swords clacking together. I locked eyes with the herobrine guy, and we got into a swordfight. Looking around the battlefield, it appeared that we were doing great at holding the enemies off. None of them got past us.
The player's sword clashed against mine. Looking closer, it was another enchanted diamond sword. As we kept clashing our swords together, none of us managed to actually get a hit, and I also noticed that the player was trying to push me back.
"This isn't good…" I thought to myself as he continued to swing. Another shot from the TNT cannon fired, almost taking out some of the villagers along with the enemies. I looked back to see that Erik was now running towards the battlefield with an iron sword out. Catching me off guard, the herobrine character landed his first hit in my chest, startling me, as I fell to the ground. I held up my shield as he tried landing more hits on me. I could see cracks forming on the shield and realized I didn't have another one in my inventory. As I tried to pick myself up, this player continued to relentlessly hit my shield with his sword, cracking it more and more and more with every swing he delivered. I looked around me. Erik was about to get into his first sword fight with one of the players suited in leather armor, Miles was dominating the battlefield, and Jamie…
Jamie was pinned down by the amongus guy.
I used the shield to headbut the herobrine guy and made a beeline for her, as the amongus guy was raising his sword at Jamie, her iron sword covering up her face. As I approached the amongus guy, I jammed my diamond sword directly into his side, causing him to stumble and fall to the ground. Approaching him, I slashed the hell out of him until he disappeared. Looking at Jamie, I grabbed her hand and pulled her back up.
"He was too sus to be kept alive." I said.
We began to approach the horde of players together, and I was glad to see that the village people seemed to be defeating them, until I saw something in the distance. An obsidian tunnel, with three command blocks inside it.
"Shit…" I said.
"What?" Jamie asked.
"They wanted us to get closer, look!" I said pointing to the cannon.
"HEY!" I yelled. "EVERYONE FALL BACK!"
It was too late. I saw a white glow from deep inside the obsidian tunnel, and a couple seconds later, about 100 pieces of TNT were shot out of it, directly towards our group. As they spread across the area, both the enemy players and us scattered, but some didn't run fast enough and got caught in the explosion, including Miles. One block sent him flying into the air, his entire body glowing a bright red. When he made contact with the ground, his body glowed red once more, and he did not get up.
"Oh SHIT!" I yelled, rushing over to Miles. He tried to pick himself back up, but he could barely even roll over. As we approached, another bunch of TNT blocks shot out of the cannon. This cannon shot made it to the village, completely annihilating two of the houses.
"Miles?" I said, kneeling down to him, as the other villagers were fleeing back towards the village.
The cannon stopped. The herobrine player approached us.
"Surrender, or your people will die." He demanded.
I grabbed Miles' arm and pulled him back up. He looked at the herobrine player, then looked towards the villagers.
"Attack and kill whoever tries to leave this area." The herobrine player said, turning around to his accomplices. They all equipped full diamond sets except for the helmet, which was replaced with…
A pumpkin.
"These people are the pumpkin heads…" I thought to myself.
"Until you surrender, our people will continue to capture all the village inhabitants and lead them here. Then, we will kill them one by one." The herobrine player said.
I pulled out my diamond sword and tried to pull a quick attack, but he grabbed the edge of my sword, and pushed it into my chest. Immense pain filled my body as I stumbled to my knees.
"MIKE!" I heard Jamie yell. Turning to my left, she was running towards me with her bow out, ready to fire. The herobrine player grabbed me and held me against him as a human shield.
"SHOOT ME, AND YOUR FRIEND DIES!" He yelled. Jamie stopped running.
"Let him go." Jamie demanded.
"Surrender your village." the herobrine player said.
"LET HIM G–"
"SURRENDER YOUR VILLAGE!" The herobrine player interrupted.
"H-he is the village leader…" I said in a raspy voice, pointing to Miles. "Not us…"
The Herobrine player let go of me, and I stumbled to the floor. Jamie put her bow away and approached me.
"Shit, you good?" She said, looking at the blade sticking out of my chest.
"Fuck no…" I groaned, grabbing the sword and trying to pull it out.
The herobrine player approached Mike and grabbed him by his severely cracked iron chestplate, but it shattered as he was picking him up and he fell back to the ground. Grabbing him by the shirt, he pulled him up. I looked around to see all the pumpkin head players grabbing the villagers fleeing towards the forest.
"Our plan failed…" I muttered. "We… lost…"
"Lets not worry about that now…" Jamie said, grabbing some food. "Take this."
Taking the food, I munched on it, and gradually, the pain started to reside.
"Are you the village leader?" The herobrine player asked Miles.
"Y–es." he replied, clenching his chest. I could tell the TNT explosion took a big toll on his health points.
The herobrine player picked Miles up by the chest and pinned his diamond sword to his neck.
"Surrender." He said. Miles looked around. Sure enough, all the pumpkin heads were bringing in all the villagers. He looked towards us, a look of pure fear in his face.
"I–I'll give y–you… any–thing you w.. Want…" Miles said in an extremely raspy voice.
"That won't cut it." the herobrine guy said, holding him up higher. Miles struggled, his arms now trying to grab onto his to pull off.
The pumpkin heads got all the villagers together in front of us three. Looking around, I recognized one of them. It was Erik. As the herobrine guy looked around, he pointed at Erik.
"Kill that one first." He said.
Jamie ran towards him.
"Don't move, or he dies now." The herobrine guy commanded. She stood down.
"Well?" He said, turning towards Miles. He didn't say a word. The herobrine guy sighed.
"Alright, kill him."
One of the pumpkin heads pulled out a netherite sword, and raised it above his head. Another one was holding him in place.
"Wait…" Miles groaned.
The two players stopped.
"W—we surrender…"
"God dammit…" I thought to myself.
The herobrine player let Miles go.
"Tell your people to go back to their houses. We will loot them for all valuables, then figure out what to do with you guys."
Miles looked at the villagers. "D-do it…"
The villagers began to return to the village, a look of defeat in all of their faces. Erik approached me, looking at the sword shoved in my chest.
"Holy shit are you okay?" He asked.
"Does it look like I'm okay?" I replied sarcastically, coughing. "I got a sword shoved into my chest harder than Will Smith slapped Chris Rock…"
Looking at the herobrine player and Miles, he took one last look at him, pulled out his sword and…
He impaled the sword right smack in the middle of Miles' chest.
"NO!" I yelled.
"SHIT!" Jamie followed.
And with that, Miles' lifeless body turned into a puff of smoke, and faded away, leaving his heavily cracked and worn out armor, and a sword.
"Go home." The herobrine player instructed us. "Your village is now ruled by the Pumpkin Heads."