AN: God of War Ragnarok is out and I've been playing it a couple days. So far it looks and plays like a continuation of the last God of War, though I hope you can access ALL the realms and not just the ones left out. No spoilers plz.

This Chapter was ready a couple of days ago, but I was too busy (not with God of War) to properly finish editing it and uploading it. I'm doing this before work, hoping to get it out before I have to get ready. I've kept you readers in suspense long enough.

Definitely another long Chapter.

Enjoy the latest in the All Out Spaghetti Arc. It's a little dull, I'd say Nothing Happens This Chapter.

Disclaimer: I don't own Minecraft. If I did, I'd make Thick or Mundane Potions able to clear Potion effects like milk.

Chapter 224

DRAW!

[Lunar Castle: Throne Room]

Lenz and the Paragons didn't have to chase Trishmegistus and Alfonso_Bialetti for long. Trail went straight into the throne room. The two bounty hunters waited there, fully buffed with multiple beneficial effects. Resistance IV, Regeneration II, Absorption IV, Health Boost I, Haste II, Speed II, Strength II, Jump Boost II, Fire Resistance, Saturation I. Alfonso was even standing upside-down on the high ceiling with the aid of Levitation, giving him an aerial view of the battleground to cover all threats with his dual crossbows. It would be impossible to get close to him for close combat.

Queen Jillian and Lenz took note of the throne room's lighting by redstone lamp and shared a look and a quick nod. Meanwhile, Z7 dashed towards Trish with daggers in hand and particles of Resistance IV swirling about her. Shroud and Doyle shadowed her. Jillian's Team Delta archers took up their bows while Witige hung back with a brewing stand and a cow of all things tied to a lead. The animal mooed serenely while Witige went to work filling iron buckets with its milk.

Why am I delegated to this task? The Beta-Male thought morosely. I can throw down!

Arrows were sent hurtling towards Witige and the cow in question but were intercepted by Lenz's arrows or Dwight's shield. They knew to protect their milk source as it was their only remedy for Trish's potion effects.

"You're in trouble now! We're all buffed up!" Trish crowed before shooting out a purple beam of nausea at Z7. The Jibberwoman slid under the beam, then rolled to the side when it held like a beam sword trying to graze her. Doyle caught it behind, but Shroud was able to dodge and join Z7 on the attack.

Z7 slashed at Trish's neck and side with twin iron daggers, the damage at a fifth of the power due to Trish's Resistance, and further dulled by her armor and Absorption Hearts. Shroud struck at Trish's gut, his sword biting deep with Crit Aura but chipping away only a fraction of an Absorption Heart for his trouble. The Absorption Hearts wouldn't regenerate naturally, however, and could be whittled down first.

Z7 and Shroud weaved through Trish's potion beams, evading getting hit while dishing out small cuts so that they never overextended. Lenz loaded his crossbow with a rocket and closed one eye while he took aim at Trish through his goggles, but he held off at the last second when he spied Alfonso aiming at him, ready to intercept at a moment's notice. Lenz clicked his tongue before lowering how weapon. There was no point shooting rockets if Alfonso was ready to intercept.

Jillian and Trenay proved this by warning Z7 and Shroud to stay back before they fired white and light blue rockets at Trish. Alfonso intercepted both, and it was only then that Lenz used his hip angle lean technique to Quickdraw like Alfonso and fire a pair of arrows at the Mocha Snipe. They both hit Alfonso in the chest, the projectiles surprising him before he narrows his eyes under his gambler hat.

"Quit pretending to be the Bird of Prey you ain't, boy! You'd do well to turn around and walk away!" Alfonso fired at the engineer, prompting him to take cover behind Dwight and his shield. Him and a few of Jillian's Team Delta archers were acting as cover with their shields out.

"Time for Plan Blackout." Jillian advised while Z7 and Shroud kept Trish busy in close combat. Doyle joined them soon after Witige cured his nausea with a bucket of milk. "I'll get the lights. Remember: Aim for the book."

Lenz nodded and drew his standard bow. He fired tipped arrows of damage to help chip away at Trish's Health only for Alfonso to intercept them all.

"If this is the best you can do, you don't deserve the title of a bird!" Alfonso ran along the ceiling while Quickdrawing and loading more arrows with every holster, firing a salvo at Lenz and the Paragons. They huddled under shields and then threw themselves out of the way of a potion beam.

Trish had her book out while ignoring the slashes Z7, Shroud, and Doyle inflicted upon her. "Go ahead and buzz around. I'll just go after the slower ones." She fired a bistre beam that struck two of Jillian's archers and siphon their Health for Trish. Witige quickly cured them with milk buckets from the cow. "Yo, Alfonso! You gonna kill that cow or what-?"

Trish cut off with a garbled shriek as Z7 shoved a bucket of milk into her face, the Berserkers' lips sealed tight. "Blf dlm'g tild fk yrt zmw hgilmt... ru blf wlm'g tvg blf xzoxrfn!"

"Pftt!" Trish blew air out her lips before shoving the milk bucket aside and sending out a blast of dark gray particles towards Z7. Despite the point-blank range, Z7 was able to bend double and avoid it before skipping back. Milk dribbled down Trish's chin, but she didn't drink a drop of it. Her potions were still active.

It was enough time for Jillian to get into position, however. Several archers - including Lenz - splashed themselves with Potions of Night Vision just as Jillian activated the light switch to turn off the throne room lights. Everything became pitch black. Only the flashes of lightning from the glass window overlooking the cliffs illuminated the room, but the archers could see perfectly fine with their night vision while Trish and Alfonso couldn't see.

This was their chance to fire. Lenz, Jillian, Trenay, Dwight, and the six Team Delta archers fired upon Trish's left hand - the one clutching the Vivlio Zythopoiias tight.

Sensing the danger, Trish tightened her hold and reflexively shielded the book by hugging it to her chest. Haste and Swiftness made the motion instantaneous. Her arms took the brunt of the salvo and she barely felt anything with her Resistance and Regeneration. The next instant, she selected Night Vision in her book and blue particles joined the rainbow swirling around her. She then shot a blue beam at Alfonso to help him out.

"Was that your big play, queen?" Trish taunted in the darkness.

"Half of it." Jillian replied lightly while everyone dispelled night vision with milk buckets. She then turned the lights back on.

The sudden shift from darkness to light was blinding. Night vision enabled Trish and Alfonso to see darkness like it was light out. Now it made them see light out like it was light out! There was a reason you didn't drink potions of night vision during the day. It was blinding!

"Gah!" Trish covered her eyes as the strain was too great. Pupils dilated or opened wider in dim light, then contracted in bright light. The Potion of Night Vision forced the eyes to dilate to their maximum in order to see in the dark. So now Trish and Alfonso had pupils wide open in a brightly lit throne room!

Alfonso covered his eyes as he squinted to try and limit the light he had to perceive. He narrowly avoided an arrow and fell back along the ceiling. He couldn't dispel the Night Vision without dispelling all the other effects. Jillian had trapped them into using Night Vision, and now their visibility would be limited.

Neither one of them dared to drink milk when Jillian and the others were waiting for an opportunity.

Still...

Alfonso shook his head. "If you think this is enough to stop a Bird of Prey, you're dead wrong!" Alfonso ran forward along the ceiling with his crossbows and swung them into the redstone lamps, breaking them one by one. The lights slowly blinked out, swathing the room in darkness once more and enabling Trish and Alfonso to see clearly. "Cheap tricks like this are wasted! Only a head on shootout can settle this, boy!"

And only after dealing with Alfonso could the group focus on Trish.

Now that the room was swathed in darkness - broken only by the flashes of lightning from outside - there was no choice but to use Night Vision. Witige hit everyone with the splash potion and the fight continued.

Lenz fired a tipped arrow of Slowness at Alfonso only for it to be intercepted. Then a salvo of his Quickdraw shots rained down. Lenz tried intercepting with his bow, but there were too many and he was forced to cower behind a shield.

The next instant, a maroon beam zoomed forth and zapped the cow - the milk bucket source - with Harming II. The cow mooed in pain, running about while stuck to the lead it was tied to. Then a pair of arrows found its neck and killed it. The Paragons only had a few milk buckets filled and no way to refill them.

Z7 kicked Trish in the torso for her cruelty, but the damage didn't even seem visible as Trish merely laughed it off.

Lenz swapped to his crossbows and loaded each one with a rocket before adopting Alfonso's Quickdraw stance. The archer on the ceiling had his fingers hovering over his belt in anticipating. Lenz moved first to signal the start, and he drew and fired a fraction of a second faster than the Mocha Snipe. However, Alfonso prevailed for one specific reason.

Lenz's first rocket was intercepted, then his second rocket. Those were both his shots done while Alfonso had already reloaded his first crossbow with his Quick Charge belt reload combo. It allowed him to reholster his crossbow and draw it back out with a loaded arrow, firing as soon as his second crossbow needed a reload. Then he could just alternate. When his left crossbow was firing, his right was reloading. When his right was firing, his left was reloading. The pace was slightly slower than Lenz's, but the engineer couldn't pull off the reloading technique the Mocha Snipe demonstrated. He couldn't holster crossbows with enough force and finesse to load a new rocket, let alone an arrow. All he could manage was mimicking Alfonso's draw stance to optimize draw speed. Draw speed, not reload speed.

The rockets were intercepted in midair and detonated in gray sparks far away from Alfonso before a hail of arrows peppered Lenz's chainmail and forced him to find cover beneath a shield.

"You can only fire two at a time." Alfonso revealed. "Meanwhile, I can quickly reload and fire both weapons and continue to fire regardless of what you do."

"I commend you for copying my stance after witnessing it just once, but you don't possess the substance built upon years of studying the bow to properly use it! You don't get to be a a Bird of Prey by being a copycat, boy!"

Lenz gave up the crossbows in favor of his standard bow and moved out of cover to take pot shots at Alfonso. The arrows were intercepted or else thinned into the stone ceiling as Alfonso sidestepped them with ease. Even if they hit, they were at a fifth of the strength thanks to his Resistance potion effect, and his Health was insurmountable considering Absorption, Regeneration, Health Boost, and Saturation.

"You can't beat me in Quickdraw, boy! You don't have nearly enough hands!" Alfonso kept prodding the engineer, though he spared arrows to the other archers attempting to shoot Trish's book out of her hands while she was entangled with Z7, Shroud, and Doyle. Trish let loose a beam of Blindness and waved it before her. It caught Shroud in the leg while Z7 and Doyle vaulted over it. Shroud was further blasted by a beam of Harming and Wither and had to fall back so Witige could heal him. It was another bucket of milk gone when they had to preserve their supply without their cow. When the milk ran dry, people would start dying.

There has to be something I can do. Lenz thought to himself as he took stock of the throne room. Z7 was doing well ducking and dodging Trish's beams, but she wasn't infallible. It was only a matter of time until she got hit with something she couldn't fight with. And then she'd have to drink milk and lose her Resistance IV.

Lenz spied the glass window at the back of the room as a bolt of lightning flashed over the ocean he feared. He took note of the positions of Trish on the floor and Alfonso on the ceiling. He registered his shortcomings in being able to reload like the Mocha Snipe. He acknowledged that the Bird of Prey acted as a shield for Trish, and that she couldn't be targeted so long as he was a factor.

A plan began to form in his head.

Maybe I don't need more hands...

Lenz tore through his gray pocket box.

[Nitebane: Warfront]

Cobb felt faint prodding coupled with the numb, stinging pain on his left forearm, pectoral, and cheek.

"Mm okay..." He mumbled dazedly while his vision swam. Rain dripped down his face onto his eyelids, prompting him to turn his head. Thunder boomed and an incessant prodding worked to further wake him up. "I'm still here. I'm still here." He said more for his benefit than whoever was nudging him.

"Get up, Cobb. Come on! We're too close to the crater."

"Oh my God..." There was a sound like someone retching. "Baltic, his skin-"

"I already tried healing it and nothing. Cobb, we need to move."

Slowly, Cobb stirred into a sitting position with the help of two people lifting him up. His left arm burned and felt tender as he shifted it, the ache eliciting a sharp wince. His eyes focused on who was holding him and spotted a familiar aged face with blue hair. "Baltic... What hit me?"

"Same thing that hit Akasha by the look of it." Perry mumbled. He was there too. He stood up and looked into the distance with his hands on his head. He looked awestruck. "Geez..."

Cobb craned his neck to see and winced as his face and pectoral burned. The skin stretched tight.

What he saw was that his head was about a couple inches shy of a massive crater over a hundred meters wide and a hundred meters deep. He peered down and saw the stone and ores, the caves and leaking water and lava from underground springs. Not even the zigzagging stone juts had been spared, the sharp points worn down as if erased by a large sphere. Some juts had rounded structures or else connected by a slim bit of stone due to how Thed's Hack had erased them.

Cobb hated to think what that could do to a person...

And then he was looking down at his topless chest and tender arm, his mouth hanging open as he was locked in a stupor.

He remembered the fast-approaching black sphere of Thed's. He remembered himself leaning back and changing direction with his trident, the smoky sphere only grazing him instead of enveloping him fully. He remembered the pain. Now he saw the results.

Due to how he dodged, he only made contact with the sphere in three places: his left arm from his hand up to the elbow, his left pectoral, and his left cheek, just under the eye and to the left of his mouth. Everywhere that sphere touched burned in a way that made Cobb immensely grateful for the cooling rain soaking his skin. The muscles and skin felt tender, but they looked charred black. The parts of his arm that were touched were removed of all hair, and the fingernails on his left hand were a raw purple. His skin looked the color of charred meat, and he was sick just looking at it and acknowledging it was his hand. His left pectoral was in the same charred state, though it was in a rounded diamond shape that encompassed his nipple. It looked like a diamond-shaped tattoo if he didn't notice the ugly raw shades. He couldn't see his face, but he felt how tender it was. He brought up his hand - his good one - and roamed his fingers over his left cheek, the digits sensing the difference in skin texture immediately. It felt dry and weathered, like burnt beef jerky.

"Auoh..." Cobb uttered in disbelief over his deformity. "It... it's healable, r-rght?" His eyes sought Baltic's desperately, but the man could only shake his head helplessly.

"I-I don't know. I hit you with a Lingering Potion of Healing II as soon as I found you-" Baltic's head jerked as he looked towards the crater and cursed. "Luis, help me get him up. His nametag is still big."

Hanging over his head, Cobb saw his enlarged nametag that practically glowed in the dark. Sandra's Hack was still in effect, meaning he couldn't hide. He may have killed Rrhys with his quick thinking, but there were still three more incensed Hackers with a bone to pick with him. He didn't want to get caught in another of Thed's Nuker spheres again.

"I can stand. I can stand!" Cobb assured Baltic and Luis. He stuck his Riptide trident into the ground and used it as a crutch to hold himself up. Meanwhile, his tender left hand gripped Jade's diamond cutlass from where he dropped it on the ground. Baltic spared a glance to it but said nothing.

Cobb's left arm might have been damaged but flexing his fingers and muscles he found that everything still worked, albeit more painfully. He shook his left hand lightly to dull the pain as he and the Paragons moved away from the crater's edge and into the somewhat safe forest of crisscrossing stone juts.

The high-pitched scream of Hannah's missiles dogged their heels, the smoky projectiles bursting against the ground where they had been as they found refuge in the juts. Heather, some Beta-Males, and a few Team Delta archers were there waiting.

"Survived again, did you?" Heather asked. "Don't even try to pawn it off as me seeing things like in Milstatt. Oh, I don't know how I survived, but it was a near thing. I don't want to hear it! I saw your Head and gear fly off, so how-?" She faltered as her gaze dipped to Cobb's arm. "Dear lord..."

"Thed awakened a new Hack after I killed Rrhys." Cobb explained. "I'll tell you how I avoided dying later. Just know that I can't do it anymore for this fight. I'm on one life."

"And they're down one Hacker." A Beta-Male commented. He looked to Cobb with awe. "You're really the real deal taking one out. And you held your own against so many of them for so long! Not even Carys can boast of dueling four Hackers at once."

"There's a witty retort in there somewhere, but right now I'm still processing how my damaged body parts now resemble dried kelp snacks. What's your name?"

"Milton_Bancroft, sir."

"Can you tell me how much better I am than Carys later? Preferably when Hackers are dealt with."

"O-Of course! You-you still intend to deal with them? Even after witnessing such devastation?"

"Not a problem." Cobb winced a bit less as he continued flexing his hand. He was getting used to the tenderness. "I finish what I start." He had little time to waste as Hannah was likely on her way. "Okay, listen up. We're all still alive despite A.) The Hackers knowing where I am, and B.) Thed having awakened a Nuker Hack. He should be able to vaporize us in an instant, but he's not. New Hacks are unstable, meaning he doesn't have full control over it yet."

"He passed out shortly after letting that sphere loose." An archer reported helpfully. "It extinguished his smoke too. Like he expelled it all in that one Nuker."

"Right." Cobb groaned as his cheek ached. His only consolation was that the Hackers were hurting in their own way. "If I were the Hackers, and I just found out one was dead and the other fainted, I'd drop everything and call for a tactical retreat. Hannah can't do that, however, because only she can fly, and she doesn't have the Strength Hack to carry two people. She needs to wait for Thed to wake up. Maybe she has Llewellyn watching him while she keeps us busy. Since she has a Respawn Hack, she's more likely to face us herself."

Also, she was likely pissed. There was a very real chance she'd awaken a Nuker Hack too just to blow Cobb off the face of Minecraftia.

"I saw her revive after you killed her." The Beta-Male who had been there earlier spoke worriedly. "If she has a Respawn Hack, how do we kill her?"

"We don't. We contain." Baltic tossed a splash potion in hand. "If she doesn't possess Strength or Speed, she can be paralyzed with Potions of Weakness and Slowness."

"Just keep her paralyzed?" The Beta-Males looked to each other before turning to Baltic. "You think we can do it, boss? She can fly, after all. We're just support. And she can shoot those missiles-"

"You let me worry about the missiles." Cobb volunteered, his Riptide trident pointing to the sky before he heaved it and corkscrewed away. "It's me she's after anyway."

Spinning through the air brought a wave of pain as his left arm trailed behind him. The skin lost a lot of its elasticity and felt tight and sore when stretched. Same with his chest and face. It was noticeable, but also manageable the longer he moved and stretched it. The cooling rain soothing and moistening the dry skin also helped. It was for that reason Cobb didn't will his undershirt or hoodie back on.

Cobb's trajectory slowed, and, with the grace of a parkourist, he landed on the edge of a stone jut, out in the open for all to see. He took a glance at the massive crater below before turning his attention to Nitebane. The capital wall looked to be holding well enough against the throng of Griefers. He could see flashing blocks of TNT being shot into the attacking army from cannons.

The Paragons were managing. He just had to keep the Hackers' attention. A trivial matter at this point.

Sure enough, the smoke-clad figure of Hannah flew towards him, her body leveling out to land on a stone jut opposite his and at the same level.

"Thed's incapacitated, isn't he?" Cobb started. It was more statement than question. "If you and Llewellyn fall back with him, nobody will chase you." Cobb dodged several screaming missiles with a bite of his Chorus Fruit warping him out of harm's way and onto a lower stone jut. "Listen to me, Hannah!" He called up. "The more you fight this battle, the more our clashes will cost! Is victory worth losing everything? Do the smart thing, cut your losses, and leave Nitebane in peace."

Hannah pointed her hand down before her, tears flowing freely from a determined, murderous gaze. Dark vapor pooled in her hand.

"I mothered Rrhys and Sandra like they were my children. They're dead now." She spoke with a heavy weight. "Do you know what it's like to have to bury that which you've nurtured? You can't. It's the love of a mother."

Two dozen MultiAura missiles shot out of Hannah's hand going straight for Cobb's face. The fisherman threw out a flurry of snowballs to intercept, the smoke and snow bursting between the two.

"I will parade your cold Head before every corner of every kingdom, and slaughter everyone you hold dear!"

Cobb scowled at the woman's threat; his earlier mercy forgotten. "Bad move, lady. I get nasty when people threaten my people."

At once, Hannah's hands flew up over her head, the dark vapor enveloping her starting to churn and swirl more violently. Bits of smoke wafted off her body before solidifying and darting out as missiles. It was like her body was shooting them off like shuriken, the missiles swerving in the air and hurtling towards Cobb at breakneck speeds. Ten, twenty, forty, sixty. They screamed with the fury of their summoner as she kept summoning them with no end in sight.

Brain: She puts the 'multi' in MultiAura.

Bladder: She's about to put the MultiAura through our head if we don't MOVE!

Cobb swung under his stone jut before dropping, some of the missiles bursting against the stone while others swerved around in pursuit. Cobb fell with the rain, letting himself drop halfway between touching the ground and getting hit with missiles before he used Dart Leader to zoom to the right. The missiles followed, as did Hannah. The enraged Hacker was firing off MultiAura from her body in an endless salvo while she flew. Cobb didn't understand the limits of Hackers, but she had to be expending a tremendous amount of energy doing all that. How good was she with her Hacks?

Cobb couldn't make any mistakes. The safety net of his totems was gone now, and he had no more armor. Damage would be going straight to his Health Meter, and he couldn't get caught in those missiles again.

Cobb noticed a glowing Creeper outline appear nearby and changed direction towards it. Seems the Paragons were keeping to his plan of singling out Creepers for him to charge. He didn't think it would do all that much against Hannah's Respawn Hack, but it would work to shake her resolve.

He winced as his charred left hand readied his fishing rod. He hoped he could still flick his wrist like before. However, as he neared the glowing Creeper, several more screaming missiles came from above and he had to divert or else get destroyed... like his Creeper.

Cobb looked over his shoulder to spot Hannah with a raised hand and a determined expression. She had seen him charge a Creeper and was determined to keep him from using them against her.

Cobb zoomed straight up before lobbing his second trident at the smoke-clad woman. "Stepped Leader!"

Hannah looped around it in a perfect aerial dodge that in no way slowed her down. More screaming missiles were sent towards Cobb, and he had to block a few with snowballs before darting off to avoid the rest.

I can't keep blowing snowballs like this. I'll run out of shots before she does. He thought, his Channeling trident slapping into his waiting palm and eliciting a piteous keening. His skin was too tender on that hand. Good thing I'm a righty.

Cobb switched out his Channeling trident for the cutlass before rapidly changing direction. He shook off the missiles for a second, even as more were being summoned by the Hacker he was currently hurtling towards. He held out the cutlass as he spun, the white sparks of the weapon's automatic Crit Aura activating and making his corkscrewing body into a drill of white sparks. Cobb's white, sparking drill met Hannah's dark, missile-discharging aura and resulted in an even match that knocked both fighters for a loop. They both recovered with trident and flight respectively, though they were much closer to the ground, then.

Hannah zoomed towards Cobb with MultiAura missiles shooting off of her. Cobb readied his trident and loudly proclaimed, "Stepped Leader!"

Hannah swerved aside, expecting the Channeling trident. Instead, Cobb corkscrewed by her with Riptide.

"Bluff check!" He declared triumphantly before snagging the hem of her black sheathe dress with a fishing rod and yanking it over her head. He tugged her along with her Riptide momentum, then threw it again to drag the Hacker in another direction.

Hannah struggled with the dress over her face blocking her vision. The dark aura enveloping her continued to fire MultiAura missiles to try and hit Cobb, but the fisherman was too fast for them as he continued to zoom towards where he hoped the Paragons were stationed. He flew through stone juts so that the missiles getting shot off would have no space to maneuver and blow up harmlessly.

Since Hannah was still struggling with the dress pulled over her face, Cobb brought himself closer to the ground and swung his fishing rod left and right, his motions twisting the fishing line and making Hannah scrape against the ground or stone juts. Her body buffeted against rock, dragging painfully and further encumbering her with her dress.

Finally having enough, she willed off the dress entirely, but not before Cobb veered upwards with his trident and unhooked her. The Hacker shot past him and crashed into the base of a trio of stone juts, an enraged groan tearing itself from her throat as she slid to a stop along the ground wearing only a lilac, long-sleeved undershirt.

She was barely back on her knees when a pair of splash potions nailed her. Weakness and Slowness from a couple of Beta-Males paralyzed Hannah and made her fall limply to the ground, belly down, with her hands splayed out. Her lilac eyes were wide and shaking as they darted helplessly.

"We... we got her!" Milton_Bancroft spoke with skeptical jubilation, his surprise shared by his fellow Beta-Male. "Holy hell, we got her! We caught a real Hacker!"

"She's under?" Heather stepped out, her crossbow trained on the motionless Hacker. She looked nervous to be so close to someone so deadly. "She's really under?"

"Keep her subdued." Baltic marched into sight, his eyes angling up to witness Cobb landing safely beside them with his trident. "We'll keep making potions to keep her paralyzed." Cobb nodded. "You just worry about those last two-"

"YOU STAY AWAY FROM THEM!" Hannah screeched madly. "YOU INSECTS STAY AWAY FROM MY SONS!"

"I warned you about the costs." Cobb reminded her. "If you weren't prepared for this outcome, you never should have picked this fight. Now it's too late. The choice is out of your hands."

"The choice is out of my hands," smoke swirled around Hannah's splayed arms and into her open hands, "as you'll soon learn!"

Baltic threw down a Splash Potion of the Turtle Master to fortify himself and Cobb just as a dozen MultiAura missiles were shot out of Hannah's hands towards them. Towards them, but not at them as they all swerved around, missing the pair. Even paralyzed, Hannah could still fire off missiles. Some of them crashed into the stone juts as they swerved upwards in a wide loop, but most of them held their trajectory, completing the loop and angling down.

Not towards Cobb or any Paragon.

"I'll show you how prepared I am..." Hannah swore, her Hacker smoke lessening as she concentrated on the missiles and grit her teeth. "What a mother will do to protect her kids..."

The missiles crashed into Hannah's paralyzed body, the multiple bursts of smoke killing her and causing her body to explode into gear.

Cobb flinched in shock for the sole reason that she shouldn't have been killed by that due to her Regen. The missiles couldn't overcome a full Health Meter all at once. Each one did maybe three or four Hearts of damage at a time. Regen would have fixed her anytime she wasn't taking damage.

Had she... willed it off on purpose?

"She kill herself?" Heather wondered aloud before the gear started to smolder with smoke.

"No..." Cobb hurried Baltic and the rest along.

Hannah's smoking Head trembled as her Respawn activated. Tendrils of smoke wafted off the Head and connected to all the gear that had scattered about. The items slowly gravitated towards the smoking Head like a magnet. The smoke swirled faster and faster as the items drew close, a smoky tornado of deepest darkness obscuring it from sight.

Hannah didn't wait for the smoke to clear this time as several missiles shot forth from the obscuring cloud. Heather and Milton dove behind stone juts while Baltic merely withstood the blast with a shield.

Hannah flew up from the cloud and hovered high up, her gaze watching everyone. The fact that she could meant she wasn't paralyzed anymore. She had broken out of it... by dying? Cobb wasn't aware of that. Was it possible to clear potion effects by dying? It was something nobody else in the world could have verified alive. Not even Baltic was aware of such a thing.

Hannah looked livid as she glared down at that gathered opposition. She looked a little worse for wear. Her black dress was gone, and she didn't seem to care gone will it back on. Her headband had been blown off and her ginger hair had unraveled from its Gibson tuck style, the strands soaked with rainwater and sticking to her head and cheeks. She only had her lilac undershirt and some under clothes concealing her lower half.

Her eyes darted to the Paragons before they narrowed and she cupped smoke-clad hands over her mouth. She whispered something into them, and suddenly BalticSkies, Hopeful_Heather, Milton_Bancroft, and the last Beta-Male, GregoryShistu, had giant glowing nametags just like Cobb's. Hannah removed the smoke-clad hands she was whispering into from her mouth.

"Maybe you can avoid me," Hannah declared to Cobb, "but they can't."

There was a scream of missiles, a cry of warning, the whistle of a firework rocket, the breaking of several glass bottles, and a tumultuous boom of thunder as lightning crackled overhead.

[Lunar Castle: Throne Room]

Lenz was nearly set up. Good thing too, since he wasted enough time getting ready. Trish had hit Shroud and Doyle multiple times with debilitating effects, forcing the Paragons to burn through their milk or else let up the pressure of the artifact wielder. Meanwhile, Alfonso was still on the ceiling intercepting any and all arrows aimed at Trish from Jillian, Dwight, Trenay, and the Team Delta archers. Witige was doing his best to support the group with potions and milk, but he was struggling on his own. Z7 still had Resistance IV and hadn't been hit with a potion beam yet. The only good news was that nobody had died.

Yet.

Lenz pulled back the mechanism of his crossbow with both hands before setting a firework rocket. It was one of the big impact ones. The last one, in fact. It would also be the one to make or break the fight against the Mocha Snipe. Lenz took a deep breath and let it out slowly to calm himself. He slammed the crossbow into his belt before stepping out of cover and back into the fight.

When Lenz revealed himself, the vigilant Alfonso and the watching Paragons had to do a double take. They couldn't believe he had eight crossbows strapped to his belt and a ninth in his hand. Every one of them was preloaded with a rocket. Eight ones of small explosion, the last a big explosion.

Typically, a Crafter would store items that were readily needed at their belt. Things they might need at a moment's notice like a sword, torches, a pickaxe, some blocks, food, a bucket of milk, a potion, or even an ender pearl.

Not eight crossbows!

They were the same crossbows Lenz made for the Paragons, though only Dwight, Trenay, and Heather accepted theirs. He kept the rest in one of his pocket boxes for safekeeping, hoping for the day they'd take them. He never thought he'd have to use them all himself, but there was no other way he could think to overcome Alfonso's Quickdrawing and Quickreloading.

"That's your big play?" Alfonso called out unimpressed. "It's about quality, not quantity. Nine pathetic crossbows can't match the power of my two Quick Charge ones. Quit embarrassing yourself, boy!"

"Shut up and draw." Lenz called back. "I am about to overcome the Quickdraw you pride yourself on with an even quicker draw. Yes, a draw the likes of which nobody has ever seen! A draw I dub... the Volition Repeater!"

"...Volition Repeater?"

"Hlfmwh wfny." Z7 broke off from fighting to murmur dispassionately.

"Gsv mznv szh hrtmrurxzmxv, tvg luu nb yzxp. Anyway!" He wiggled his fingers. "Prepare yourself. For the Gray Eagle is about to show off his wings. I will prove that I am worthy of that title-"

A purple beam of Nausea struck Lenz in the center of his chest, his defiant speech cutting off with a strangled gasp as his vision warbled. "Ack! Nooo!"

"You were rambling." Trish insulted before leaning back from one of Z7's daggers. The Jibberwoman attacked more aggressively following Lenz getting zapped. More aggressively and sloppily. She left herself open, and Trish was able to use her Haste and Speed to whip her book around and nail Z7 with Wither II. "Wuh-oh! Looks like you got got! I'd drink some milk if I were you. Go ahead and shake off Wither." She called out gleefully while Z7 clutched her gut and doubled over. Her Health was being siphoned into Trish. "You'll shake off your Resistance IV too!"

"Wlrmt z olg lu yziprmt, zivm'g blf?" Z7 grimaced before rolling out of the way of a beam of Slowness. "Wznm."

"We only got one milk bucket left." Witige fretted. He looked between Lenz clutching at his eyes and Z7 losing Health rapidly and took a step toward her.

"No!" Z7 shouted in common, her words halting Witige. She was gesturing wildly to Lenz. "Im! Im!"

"What makes him so special?" Trish asked, her fingers flicking through pages. Jillian and Dwight fired rockets, but Alfonso intercepted them and made their efforts fruitless. "Flyboy-looking ass with his scarf and goggles. He ugly and dweeby as fuck. I'mma escort him off this plane of existence."

She fired another bistre beam and struck the engineer, afflicting him with Wither II. She then held her finger on the effect and whipped it around, striking Shroud and Doyle.

"Ahhh, it's a heady feeling siphoning Health from four different guys. Can only save one, now! Choose wisely!" Trish mocked, pulling the Vivlio Zythopoiias out of Z7's desperate lunge right before zapping her with dark gray Blindness. "Hahaha! You're struggling!"

"Z7! Stop letting her rile you!" Jillian barked. The situation was rapidly falling apart. The queen fired a rocket only for Alfonso to intercept and make it blow up in her face. "Godamnit! Every archer focus on that ceiling prick!"

"Hard lines, boy." Alfonso called down calmly, his crossbows intercepting arrows and rockets with ease. "Looks like that whole 'true Bird of Prey' thing didn't pan out after all." He leveled his weapons at the nauseated and withered engineer. "I'll at least send you off with a quick, dignified death. Take solace."

Even now, the Mocha Snipe wasn't taking the Gray Eagle seriously. Lenz didn't want to lose to this guy again, if only to prove he was a real archer. Chen belittled him in Zeppil, but Veronica - another Bird of Prey - gave him that title because she had faith in him. He'd wager his bow on this fight, and he'd best the both of them - Alfonso AND Trish.

'Listen to me, Lenz.' The engineer recalled. 'This might sound mad, but you gotta trust me when I say this thing will save your life. You take this thing and keep it close at your belt or backpack and if you ever think you're about to die, you use your Quickdraw training to put it in your hand. I mean you hold onto it real tight. Hold it for dear life. You got it? No matter what situation you're in, even if it's a false alarm, if you think you're about to die, your hands better fly to this totem. You grab it and don't let go until the danger's passed. You got it?'

With dizzy, shifting vision, Lenz saw Alfonso fire at him. His hand flew to his backpack with ingrained Quickdraw training from Z7 and he pulled his best hope, trusting Cobb.

He felt the first arrow slip between his chainmail armor into the crook of his neck. The second impact never registered to him, but to everyone else, his Head and gear lay scattered across the floor. Jillian and Dwight cursed, with Z7 unable to witness Lenz's death.

Then, by magic, his gear pulled itself together and reformed the engineer to his original state. His vision was no longer shifting like oil on water. The Nausea I and Wither II were gone, replaced with Regeneration II, Absorption II, and Fire Resistance I.

Lenz sneezed to his shocked audience, only a few of them noticing the golden totem breaking after the engineer's resurrection.

The blank shock showed on Alfonso's face as he hung upside-down over the throne. The grip on his crossbows slackened. The glass window of the back wall was still behind him. A strategic position to exploit!

Lenz took the moment of surprise for the window of opportunity it was as he bent his knees, leaned back, and ripped out his crossbow using Alfonso's stance and Z7's training. "DRAW!"

Volition Repeater!

Lenz clicked the trigger on his crossbow and launched the first gray rocket at Alfonso. Everything played out in slow motion between the two archers while appearing as real time for Trish and the Paragons. The high-pitched whistle reverberated throughout the throne room and drew all eyes. It was a small explosion one, but it was still packed with firework stars.

The Mocha Snipe shook off the surprise and drew up his first crossbow, aiming and firing in a fraction of a second before bringing it down to his belt and raising his second. The rocket had sailed a little over halfway between the two archers before it was intercepted. The small blast of gray sparks erupted over the throne room, the brilliant light reflecting off the eyes and armor of the onlookers.

Alfonso had to be fast, though. He expected Lenz to fire again, and he was right. Another small explosion rocket had been fired, this one sailing through the sparks of the first and getting a little closer. Alfonso had already fired his second crossbow, his other slamming into his belt to be reloaded near instantly with Quick Charge and his own skills. He was already drawing that crossbow, switching so that he could reload his second and figuring Lenz was out of hands to shoot with. The second rocket exploded after being intercepted like the first.

A third rocket whistled as it sailed through the gray sparks.

Alfonso's eyes widened a fraction as he fired his reloaded first crossbow while reloading his second at his belt. He had to interchange. He had to load one while firing the other.

The third rocket was shot down, but a fourth emerged from the sparks. It covered more space than the ones before it.

Alfonso shot it down only to scream internally when a fifth flew at him. Then a sixth.

Alfonso understood now what Lenz had done. He preloaded all nine crossbows so that he could maximize his number of shots. Switching crossbows, he had no need to reload. He just pulled out a new firearm when the one he had was empty. They may have had the same stance, but there was no way for Alfonso's reload-draw to be as fast as pulling a new weapon entirely, and each millisecond of time he lost made those arrows get closer and closer.

Alfonso's eyes widened in panic and his hat blew back when the eighth rocket was intercepted right up in his face, blinding him. Through the gray sparks, Lenz's final rocket - large burst - whistled in, faster than Alfonso could react to, and detonated right in the middle of his chest in a blast larger than the previous ones. The Mocha Snipe cried out in alarm before he was blown back out the window and ejected from the castle and into the heavy rain. The levitation that enabled him to stand on the ceiling now made his body float up, twisting and thrashing as he failed to find purchase and floated out of sight towards the stormy sky.

Archer dealt with. Lenz thought proudly through sore wrists and aching fingers. He had dropped his last crossbow from the strain of his new Volition Repeater technique, though he quickly picked it back up and reloaded it with his last gray rocket. He aimed it at Trish, the Berserker preoccupied taunting Z7 and not yet aware her defender was outside the premises.

"Rmgviuvivmxv rh tlmv! Wizd gsv yllp zdzb uiln svi ylwb! (Interference is gone! Draw the book away from her body!)" Lenz called in Jibberish so as not to alert Trish. Even blinded as she was, Z7 could still hear, and her ears perked as she caught the message loud and clear. Being blinded and withered hadn't dampened her spirit. If anything, her other senses were heightened, and she was plenty used to operating with limited or zero visibility.

The Team Delta archers, Dwight, Trenay, and Jillian readied their bows now that Alfonso was gone.

Lenz aimed his crossbow steadily and took a calming breath, his tinted goggles betraying nothing.

"Where are you looking, stupid?" Trish mocked. Z7's head swiveled as her ear caught sound like a satellite dish. "Poor girl's left in the dark-"

"Blf hslfow rmgilwfxv blfi oldvi ork gl blfi fkkvi ork hlnvgrnv."

Z7 turned and sprinted at Trish, her daggers cutting through the air at her sides. The Berserker gave a start seeing she was heading right for her, but she readied her Vivlio Zythopoiias to blast her right in the face.

She was just toying with the idea of what to use when a barrage of arrows riddled her body and turned her into a pincushion. The Paragons' doing. Trish's Resistance and Regen were keeping her safe and sound, but the dozens of arrows sticking her were an annoyance she tried to wave off with her arm.

"Alfonso! You dozing off on me? Do your damn job!" Silence was her answer. "...Alfonso?"

Lenz held the crossbow with both hands. Steady as a rock. His eyes training on that book.

Z7 darted in close despite her blindness and going entirely off of Trish's voice. The Paragons' best assassin was used to fighting blind with her long hair constantly covering her face. This was no problem.

Trish saw the approaching assassin and flung her left arm down with the book, a gray blue beam of Slowness VI surging forward.

Z7 defied nature as she leapt up and rolled sideways, dodging the potion beam blind. She flung out both hands, her daggers interlocking under Trish's extended book-holding arm and dragging it back along with her. Meanwhile, Z7's legs found purchase on Trish's shoulders, one leg locking under the knee of the other to choke the Berserker. Z7 leaned back, throwing her whole body askew to send Trish off kilter, pulling back hard on the book-holding arm at the same time until the arm was fully extended towards the ceiling, the book clutched tight. Trish thought she was keeping it out of reach, when really the book was at its furthest point from the woman's protection.

A shimmer passed across Lenz's eyes as he saw his moment and pulled the trigger. The mechanism loosened with a click before a high-pitched whistle rent the air.

The rocket sailed right for the outstretched hand holding the artifact. Lenz trusted Z7's Resistance IV would keep her alive from the ensuing blast.

The small burst of the gray rocket was packed with power. No matter how much Resistance or Regen or Health Boost or Blast Resistance Trish possessed, an explosion targeting her dainty fingertips was bound to rattle her hold.

The book was hit more than her fingers, but Lenz's shot succeeded in knocking the Vivlio Zythopoiias - and Z7 - clear off of Trishmegistus. The Berserker's mouth flew open in a noiseless scream of despair. Her blue eyes followed the book of potion effects as it tumbled end over end through the air, only to be snapped up by a lightning-fast hand.

Jillian's.

Trishmegistus turned to the queen now holding the open Vivlio Zythopoiias in hand. There were many things Trish could've said to try and appease the threatening woman facing her, and it was telling, perhaps, that her best attempt at forgiveness after killing her people, extorting her for emeralds and armor in a crude deal, backing out of said deal, and attempting to kill her was:

"...I love you?"

Jillian replied with a raised eyebrow before pressing a finger to the book's colored text like Trish had done and sending forth a beam of dark gray. It struck Trish dead on - the Berserker unfamiliar with being on the wrong end of one of her book's beams - and she fell back with an unfocused gaze before clutching at her eyes.

"N-Nooooo! No no no!" She wailed petulantly. "It's not fair! It's mine! My book! Why am I being punished!? I didn't do anything wrong!" She leaned up and drew a sword, swinging blindly around her in the hopes that she would hit someone. She didn't. "Where the hell are you!? Come at me! I'll rip you apart! Raagh!"

Jillian ignored her as she flipped through the pages and pointed the Vivlio Zythopoiias at Shroud and Doyle. "Don't dodge this."

The assassins obeyed, getting shot by beams of azure, redwood, pink, orange, and red. The healing beams remedied the wither effect gnawing away at their Health. Z7 was a different case with Blindness, and therefore required Witige's last bucket of milk. Afterwards, she was splashed with Potions of Healing and back to a full Health Meter. She parted her hair and blinked her black eyes that could now see the resulting battlefield. She took note of the broken window and the missing Alfonso, her eyes then straying to Lenz massaging his wrists. She smirked proudly, piecing together his victory against the Mocha Snipe using the Quickdraw technique she taught him.

"I think I'm getting the hang of this." Jillian commented, her finger holding on a colored text to summon a beam sword of its respective potion effect.

"Stop playing with my stuff!" Trish snarled, her sword swinging towards the general direction of Jillian's voice and missing. The Berserker may have been blind, but she still had Strength, Speed, Resistance, Saturation, Haste, Night Vision, Fire Resistance, Health Boost, Absorption, Slow Falling, and Jump Boost. She was still invincible.

Jillian decided to even things out a bit. "You can hear me, can't you? You afflicted many Crafters with torturous effects and preyed upon Testificates, and while killing you is appealing, I have a more fitting punishment in mind."

"We do not have time for this!" Lenz urged. "Cobbert needs that book against the Hackers-"

"This won't take a minute." Jillian assured coldly while flicking a page. "Let's see... how about we add... Mining Fatigue, Wither, Nausea, Hunger, Poison, Weakness, Slowness... there's Bad Luck in here too? Eh, I'll add that on top. Why not."

Trish whimpered after getting hit by all the mentioned effects, her insides burning and hurting at the same time they fixed themselves with her infinite healing effects. Her Health was now getting siphoned away, and it showed on Queen Jillian as slight bistre particles were gravitating toward her and fixing her Health. Trish could never be fully paralyzed while infused with Strength, Speed, and Haste, but Slowness VI was stronger than Speed II, so she moved at a slower pace.

"I bet you have a milk bucket or two on you." She snapped her fingers and the six Team Delta archers moved towards the slow-moving Berserker, stripping her or her Blast Protection diamond armor, and the three milk buckets in her possession. She futilely tried to slash at them, but she was too slow to land any attacks as they got her out of her armor. "I guess there's no chance of getting my emeralds back." They were stashed in Trish's and Alfonso's ender chests, after all.

"...L-Let me go and I might consid-"

"No point in begging. There's no getting out of it." Jillian reached down and seized Trish by her platinum blonde side ponytail before dragging her towards the broken back window. The Berserker winced over being manhandled, her hands feebly and slowly battling at the queen's arms before Trenay, Dwight, and Z7 restrained her limbs and helped carry her.

Once they reached the window, Jillian zapped Trish with a sky blue beam of Levitation I on top of everything else. A furious cocktail of colorful potion effect particles were swirling around her, and she floated off the castle floor, tethered down only by the Paragons gripping her.

There was no ceremony to it. No witty speech. No remark on her exit. Jillian had more pressing issues attacking her city. Instead, the Paragons simply worked as one to heave Trishmegistus out of the broken window after Alfonso. The Berseker screamed as she floated up like a free balloon in the wind and rain, her body writhing and twisting out towards the ocean as she tried and failed to catch something. Jillian and Z7 looked up out the window just to verify she was floating up and wouldn't catch on anything. Once they were sure her ascent would be uninterrupted, they pulled their heads back in and went about their business.

"Lenzington!" Jillian shouted, startling the engineer. She marched over with a sour look. "There's a lot going on right now, so I don't have time to question you too thoroughly. Just know that I expect an explanation as to how you came back from the dead just now, and what that golden statuette of yours was, and how you broke out of the infinite potion effects."

"Yes, yes. I'll tell you later, but please. We need to get the Vivlio Zythopoiias to Cobbert!"

"Assuming Cobb is even still alive at this point, he won't be getting this." Jillian clarified. "Why you're convinced it has to be him to wield it is lost on me. I'll be using this to buff our Paragons on the wall and let them challenge the Hackers. The durability of Resistance IV is an even match against their Regen Hack."

"Jillian, please. Cobbert knows what he is doing-"

"You give him too much credit. If Cobbert knew what he was doing, he'd have killed one or two of the Hackers out there. I'm not holding my breath, and am prepared to join the front knowing there's likely four Hackers to worry about."

"But-"

"Lenz," Trenay cut him off. "If you want to help Cobb, you'll listen to Jillian. You're the MVP in this fight. There's no denying it." A few Paragons nodded respectfully. "But there's another fight out there we need to get to. Can you get us there faster?"

Lenz was dumbfounded for a moment before realizing she meant his TNT ender pearl cannons. There were skyscrapers between them and the battlefield, but Lunar Castle was at the top of the sloping cliffs. With a careful eye, and steady aim...

He swapped his tinted goggles for his tinted glasses. "I will get you there. I need only some TNT."

A short while later, Lenz had rigged up an ender pearl launcher on the castle's ramparts. The Paragons had helped out with procuring the materials, and they were now ready to launch.

"Send me first." Jillian ordered. She flattened the soaked purple and black beret on her head as the wind threatened to sweep it back. She had the book tucked tightly at her belt and had already buffed herself and all the Paragons with Strength, Resistance, Regeneration, Haste, Speed, Saturation, Absorption, Health Boost, Jump Boost, Slow Falling, and Night Vision. Even Lenz was buffed. "I'm trusting you that this works, as there's no other way you lot could have gotten here in five days."

She didn't entirely trust it, though. Why else buff everyone with Slow Falling and Resistance before the battle? Whatever. Lenz wouldn't miss.

"Try and get us right to the battlefield." Dwight requested. "Those Hackers are in for a surprise once they see what we're packing." There was a cheer of assent from the Paragons before Lenz went over when to throw the pearl and proceeded to load the TNT.

"Throw it... NOW!"

Lenz didn't wait for anyone to land. He reloaded the launcher as soon as it was used, before the person getting launched was even warped, and sent out someone new. Part of it was haste, another part of it was his duel with Alfonso and the importance of firing fast.

Before long, it was just Z7 and Lenz, the engineer having to go last as he was operating the thing.

"(You didn't do too bad against that archer, nerdling. Mastah is proud.)" Z7 congratulated while ruffling Lenz's hair teasingly. "(You know, being blind made me come up with some good material.") The assassin joked lightly before throwing her pearl on Lenz's command. As she waited, she held up her knife like a microphone. "(Have you ever tried blind-folded archery?)"

"(No?)"

"(You don't know what you're missing. Heyo-!)"

Her last word cut off as she warped away, though she definitely caught Lenz's smile. Despite the dire situation Cobb was in, Lenz couldn't fight the smile bubbling to the surface.

More than that, he felt proud to be an archer. He beat Alfonso at his own game, proving himself worthy of his bow and his title of Gray Eagle. Mastah Veronica hadn't made a mistake taking him under her wing.

No pun intended. He wasn't Z7.

As he readied his own ender pearl, however, he paused, his eyes taking in the castle behind him. Up by the North Tower, he thought he saw something oddly shaped on the steeple.

He put on his goggles to keep the rain out and looked more carefully, a frown forming on his face as he saw who it was. He clicked them back up and went back to the cannon, his finger reaching for the button.

He stopped himself, his finger hanging incredibly close to the wooden switch. He bit his lip and thought about Trish's unsavory fate sent spinning into the sky for all eternity. Without milk, she would float forever and never come down, or worse, what if there was a Border up there like a ceiling and she smacked right into it, dying instantly. Would that be a kinder fate or a crueler one?

Lenz shook his head to try and dispel the thought. He wasn't his problem. Cobb was in trouble. He almost killed him.

But then, hadn't he almost killed Cobb in that Stronghold? Cobb saved him, and now he was one of his best friends.

Lenz slammed both palms into the surface of the cannon before spinning around and aiming his ender pearl for the top of the West Tower where the airship was docked. He warped up to it and used his infinite Speed to sprint in. He reached the bridge and quickly clicked the controls, finding nothing worked. Jillian had disabled Trish's airship for a reason.

Groaning to himself, he ripped up the floor of the airship to expose the controls, his eyes scanning the redstone circuitry for what was missing. He had to pry open a good chunk of the floor to locate the problem - a single missing redstone repeater between the circuits - before he patched it back up and started the airship. It hummed to life, the power finally reaching the Command Blocks powering the thing, and he took off without replacing the torn up floor.

He flew towards the North Tower steeple where Alfonso_Bialetti was clinging for dear life. His Levitation was threatening to pull him into the sky where he would never return, and his hands were slipping from the rain washing down the steeple.

"HELP!" The Mocha Snipe cried out as he saw the Sporr approach. Lenz could hear the desperation over the rain and thunder. "PLEASE! HELP ME!"

"Hang on! Hang on!" Lenz called out, not knowing if his voice would get through.

"I'M SLIPPING! HELP ME! HELP - AHHH!" His hands slipped and he started floating off into the sky. "NONONONO!"

Did he not have milk? Lenz flicked a switch and sped up, the ship ascending quickly. The Sporr was no Asmodeus, but it was a small, speedy vessel a little bit faster than Alfonso's ascending speed. The engineer was able to fly the ship over the cowboy and catch him, his body smacking into the hull.

Lenz stopped the ship and leaned out with his hand, reaching down and clasping Alfonso's before dragging him inside with his infinite Strength effect. The Mocha Snipe was soaked to the bone as he was hauled inside, though he continued to float before bumping into the ceiling, finally safe.

"You-You saved me." He gasped. One hand clutched at his heart as he steadied his breathing. "Thanks, I-"

"Quiet." Lenz commanded from the controls. His words were serious as the grave, the Mocha Snipe falling silent after seeing what this boy - this man - was capable of. "I almost did not save you. I only did it because you are an acquaintance of my Mastah. I do not have milk, so you are going to float there for a while." The airship hummed with life as it descended. "Trish is as good as dead. If you do not wish to join her out the side of this vessel, you will be cooperative and compliant. Show aggression of any kind and you will be shoved out this airship to float to Jeb knows where. Do you understand these conditions as they have been stated?"

Chocolate brown eyes regarded Lenz warily from the ceiling as Alfonso took in his rules. He didn't look sad to hear Trish was as good as dead. Their relationship was only ever meant for self preservation: She guarded him, he guarded her. They didn't like each other, she did unsavory things, and she made multiple threats when she had to keep him in line. He stuck with her for safety and nothing else.

And now that she was gone, and Lenz was threatening to cast him adrift...

Alfonso drew his crossbows, the action making Lenz grow tense. Before anything could happen, however, the Mocha Snipe let them fall to the floor with a resigned look on his face. He curled along the ceiling like it was a bed and closed his eyes, tipping his hat over them as he did so.

Lenz's gaze lingered on him for a second before he grabbed the crossbows for safe keeping and returned his attention to piloting the Sporr through the storm and back down to the ground.

For his mercy, he got to be a Skipper for one more day.

[Nitebane Wall]

With Ines' help, Captain Attila had the delightful experience of firing primed TNT into a crowd of aggressive Griefers. The arrow turrets were also working to thin out the army and take pressure off the wall. There had been no sign of the Hackers joining the attack. If the Griefers weren't still trying to get in, Attila would have assumed the Hackers left.

However, the Paragons kept hearing that one male Hacker demanding Cobb to show himself. Bad enough they were calling for Carys and Floyd, but now the magnified Hacker voice insinuated King_Cobb was protecting Nitebane. Given that the Hackers hadn't yet attacked, Attila was convinced Cobb was doing just that.

Then the massive black sphere of smoke blew up east of the city. It encompassed dozens of stone juts and much of the ground, and when the smoke cleared, everything that had been touched by that sphere was gone. Erased from existence.

Seeing that scared Attila. It scared a lot of Paragons and citizens on the wall beside her. In contrast, ir bolstered the Griefers, lending them confidence to continue their siege despite the losses they sustained. A handful made a push and actually bypassed the walls.

"Delta! Send a platoon after them!" Attila ordered before firing another primed TNT at the Griefers. "God, they're just so many!"

"You did well, Attila." The Captain heard a familiar voice and turned to see Queen Jillian arrive amidst a backdrop of lightning. She had a book held open in her hand and was accompanied by several Paragons, including the legendary assassin of Team Epsilon, Z7. They all had various potion effects swirling around them. "Time for our counterattack!" Jillian commanded, her voice drawing attention from every citizen and Paragon within earshot. Even the Griefers paused for a moment, cowed into silence by her authority.

"My citizens! You've fought hard to keep these invaders at bay! For those of you that endured a war-torn ruin of a kingdom, you've fought even harder! You possess the spirit but lack the strength! To you, I offer this strength!"

She held her finger to the text of the Vivlio Zythopoiias and summoned a beam sword of dark red. She swept it before her, invigorating the Paragons and citizens with infinite Strength II.

"For those of you feeling sluggish and exhausted, I bestow upon you the swiftness of the wind, so that you may run these heathens down and trample them underfoot!" An electric blue beam was cast before her from the book's spine, filling everyone it touched with an exhilarating energy. They felt like they could run a mile.

"For the wounded I offer healing! For the frail I grant resistance! Go my people! Go! You are blessed by potion effects that match a Hacker's invulnerability!" She cast more and more until everyone on that wall had the same protective potion effects that she had. "Charge the battlefield! Charge! Show these base Griefers the might of Nitebane! Show them why we are the bane of the unholy night! Show them why Mobs fear us! Show them that today is not our last day! CHAAAARGE!"

The Paragons and citizens took up her warcry, their voices blending together and raising each other so that it shook the battlefield and rattled bones. Nitebane's forces leapt from the wall and floated down to take the fight to the Griefers. The attacking army was unprepared for Crafters sporting all kinds of potion effects. Only a fifth of the damage they inflicted bypassed their powerful Resistance IV effect.

The Griefers went from pressing the wall to being swarmed and pushed back under Nitebane's stronger, faster, and more durable fighters. They couldn't hold their ground and began retreating into the stone juta towards that massive crater. Many called for their Hackers to save them, but none answered.

Attila, similarly buffed with effects, almost wished they did. She felt invincible!

Jillian and a few noteworthy Paragons lead a charge of their own through the Griefers. They were looking for someone, likely the Hackers themselves, and were moving towards large glowing text that could be seen through the stone juts. The wall was left with only a smattering of forces given the sudden shift, and the Captain felt confident leaving it to Ines and her redstone devices to protect the city. Instead, she followed Jillian for some much needed payback against the Hackers she and so many others grew to fear living in a ruined Nitebane.

[Nitebane: Warfront]

Cobb shielded his eyes from the sudden explosion of dust. Hannah's missiles had gone straight for Heather, the explosions nearly killing her if not for Luis tackling her out of the way. The lovebirds. Subsequently, Baltic doused them with Splash Potions of the Turtle Master to protect them.

At the same time, Cobb threw his Channeling trident at Hannah and Heather had replied with her own exploding projectiles. It zapped and blew Hannah back, but it wasn't enough of a one hitter and quitter to wipe out all her Health. Even if it was, she could always Respawn. Paralyzing her was truly the only way about it. Hannah also had more targets now that Baltic, Heather, Milton_Bancroft, GregoryShistu, and now LuckyLuis all had enlarged, glowing nametags. Like Cobb, they had nowhere to hide.

Cobb went under a stone jut and caught the Channeling trident as it returned to his hand before taking out his Riptide and hurling it to the left. He expected his hand to stick to the trident and for it to pull him along like it always had. Instead, the trident left his hand entirely, getting thrown and sticking into the ground a little ways away.

"What the-?"

Hannah watched the occurrence with unsettling focus, Cobb noticed. He hurried over to pick it up, noting how he had to step from out of the cover of the stone jut and into the pelting rain. Riptide needed water to work.

Hannah had an intense, focused look before she flew up and fired dozens of missiles from the aura of her body. Instead of tracking Cobb, they seemed to hem him and the others in, almost herding them underneath the stone juts.

Cobb clicked his tongue and made a risky toss weaving through the smoke missiles as he refused to get penned in somewhere his Riptide wouldn't work. The trident's mobility and evasion was the only thing keeping him alive! The others were fine between Baltic's shield and the Beta-Males' Potions of the Turtle Master.

As Cobb flew past some stone juts, he registered an influx of Griefers coming his way. They were retreating from the wall, running around the stone jut bases like trickling water only to pool in modest clearings where they attempted to take a stand. Then the Paragons and Nitebane citizens came next. They pursued the Griefers doggedly with brandished weapons and more potion effects on them than Cobb could count. Honestly, it reminded him of Trish and her rainbow of buffs, just on hundreds of people.

Cobb landed on a jut and perched there, watching the combat unfold. Since Carys and Jillian geared the population of Nitebane for war, Nitebane's forces always had quality against the Griefers' quantity. This was like what quality would be if it found out it was invincible and youthful again. Cobb couldn't believe Nitebane's forces were now matching the recklessness the Griefers showed when attacking the walls. If these guys had the same Resistance and Regeneration as Trish, they could shrug off End Crystals and crossbow rockets. What did they have to fear from an army of Griefers? What did they have to fear from Hackers?

...Aside from Nuker.

"Lady Hannah!" One Griefer begged upon spotting Hannah floating above. "Help us, please! Our weapons do nothing against Nitebane's forces! We're powerless!"

"When have you worms not been powerless!?" Hannah snapped, her wrath terrible and beautiful in the Griefers' eyes. "Without us, you bottom feeders have nothing! You're worth more to us dead than alive! Why 303 even tolerates your existence baffles me!"

Hannah's rage made more MultiAura missiles fire off of her, many of them darting around and targeting indiscriminately. Nitebane's forces could take the hits with Resistance IV, but the Griefers that were hit more than three times could not. Seeing her missiles were ineffective, she tried turning her attention back to the Paragons she gave enlarged nametags to. Luis, Baltic, Milton, Heather, Gregory. Only, as she was targeting them, a redwood beam of Resistance passed through them first, reinforcing them to handle the blows. Hannah seethed, looking quite demented.

"Nothing's working!" She screamed, sending out more missiles that exploded ineffectually against Nitebane's forces. "WHY ISN'T IT WORKING!?"

"Baltic!" Jillian called, running over and cutting through a pair of Griefers without much effort. Z7 and her assassins followed loosely, fanning out and killing Griefers with ease. Z7 was a blur of motion, her wet hair whipping around as her daggers flicked across throats and eyes. Dwight and Trenay unloaded red and light blue rockets to kill pockets of Griefers here and there.

"What's the status report? Where are the other three Hackers?" Jillian demanded as she fired a dark gray beam at Hannah. The Hacker dodged it, unsure of exactly what it was.

"Rrhys is dead. Cobb's doing." Baltic reported, the news making Jillian whip her head so fast her beret spun. She also just noticed the alchemist had an oversized nametag hanging over his head. "He kept their attention, fighting four at once. Thed_Hearst is incapacitated as of now, but he's gained Nuker. Llewellyn is likely watching him while he recovers. No telling when that window will end."

"He... killed a Hacker? Fighting four at once? What? What?" Jillian was dumbfounded for a moment as she took that in. "How... how did he... Rrhys had Regen and that Durability Erosion, so how...?"

"Holy hell, that's the Vivlio Zythopoiias!" Heather remarked, pointing at the book in Jillian's hand. "How'd you get that off Trish? No way that self-absorbed brat just lent it to you."

"It was... it was Lenz's doing." Jillian admitted. "I'd hoped he'd join us here, but he never showed."

"Sounds like the Beginners aren't the liability to this alliance you pegged them for, does it ma'am?" Luis added rather harshly. The words gave Jillian pause for thought.

The queen gazed at the battlefield and the citizens now courageous enough to start shooting arrows at a Hacker, knowing she couldn't kill them. This newfound confidence was instilled by their faith in her and made real with the Vivlio Zythopoiias. The tide of the war had changed, and it was thanks to Lenz for finding his window and securing the artifact for the Paragons.

But would their forces have even been able to mount a counteroffensive if not given ample time by Cobb? The fisherman went out to face the Hackers and kept them distracted long enough to pull them off the wall. He even killed a troublesome one of them, and without the protection of an artifact. Jillian realized she needed the comfort of one just to come to the front. He couldn't have had a handful of good gear after being locked up and stripped of everything, yet he felt confident enough in himself to fight four Hackers at once. Where was his Resistance IV beam? Where was his Regeneration II? His Strength II, his Speed II, his Health Boost I, his Absorption IV?

How much more powerful could he grow with all that?

Jillian recalled her past conversations with the fisherman.

'But... but I can help with the Hackers-'

'Can you? Look at you. What do you got, hm? Nothing. Not a thing. Oh wait, yes. A green-dyed leather tunic. You have that. The shirt off your back. Dyed in the proud colors of your now derelict kingdom. That's the full extent of what you have to offer me after picking a fight with Trish.'

'She has already proven her superiority over you. From a pragmatic standpoint, it makes more sense for me to invest my time and resources with Trish than you. She has assets to better resolve the predicaments I am facing. Therefore, she's the one I'm choosing to ally with. You see the sense in that?'

'I trust her more than I trust you to resolve this.'

'But I don't see that I need to explain this to you. Your role in all this is to lay there, out of the way, while I handle things.'

'I'm not just talking about your role in this coming conflict. It's for all conflict in general. Everything. Your job, until Carys declares otherwise, is to lie back in that cell and stay out of the Paragons' way.'

Jillian wrinkled her nose distastefully before tilting her head up and finding Cobb perched on a stone jut and hurling a trident that kept returning to his hand and summoned the storm's lightning on impact, smiting Griefers left and right and trying to help out. He was bare-chested, his arm blackened. Clearly hurt. When Hannah flew at him, he threw a different trident and zoomed off in a corkscrew fashion.

'Jillian, please. Cobbert knows what he is doing...'

"Ma'am?"

The queen dispelled her thoughts upon being addressed by one of her Delta archers. She couldn't get distracted when there was still a war to fight. She narrowed her eyes on the airborne Hannah pursuing Cobb and fired a beam from her artifact. Hannah swerved around it, breaking off her pursuit.

She was about to try again when a wall of cobblestone erupted before her. She stepped back as she recognized the ability as one of Llewellyn's.

"Watch the sides!" Jillian heard Attila shout before another wall of cobblestone sprang up from the left. Then another from the right. They were getting penned in. Crafters and Griefers alike.

Cobb noticed and darted back with Riptide.

Jillian, Z7, and Baltic armed themselves as walls came up like three sides of a box around them. Stone juts crumbled as Llewellyn obtained the cobblestone necessary to erect such walls. Jillian couldn't see him, but she spun around towards the one side that wasn't yet closed off.

"Do it, brother!"

Thed_Hearst stood there, his body clad in flickering smoke, breathing heavily and with both arms held out and coated in inky blackness.

"There's one! ATTACK!" Someone called out before a surge of Crafters charged.

"They have nothing to hurt us with!" A Nitebane citizen bolstered morale. "Not while we have the Queen's protection!"

An agonized cry tore itself from Thed's throat as a small black orb flew from his hands towards the charging Crafters.

"GET BACK!" Baltic screamed before tackling Jillian the opposite direction.

The tiny black sphere struck a Crafter and all hell broke loose.

Hundreds of brave voices were silenced in an instant as the black sphere of smoke expanded rapidly to encompass them. It was impossible to discern what was happening inside it, though the unknown nature of the sphere had everyone running back from it. With the cobblestone walls on all sides, the only escape route was back, the Crafters and Griefers on the side caught between Nuker and solid stone before they were swallowed up.

The Paragons that knew what was coming were already going to the back wall with some of the new arrivals in tow. Z7, Shroud, and Doyle - as well as several others - used their infinite Speed and Haste to try and outrun the black smoky surface rushing to catch them. Room was running out, however, and the ones at the back pried apart the back wall only for more walls of cobblestone to erupt before them. Llewellyn was keeping them caged from the other side, like they were stuck on a trash compactor.

As limbs and parts were enveloped just before the sphere fully consumed them, Crafters and Griefers cried out in agony, their faces twisting into expressions of blinding pain. And that was with Resistance IV mitigating 80% of the damage! Effects were useless in the face of Nuker.

The expanding sphere bit deep into the earth and almost consumed the summoner Thed if not for Hannah swooping down to carry him out of there. Not even their Regen was immune to such a destructive force.

Then, just as the cloud of black threatened to swallow them all up, it vanished. One moment it was rushing to swallow them, the next it was gone.

Those fortunate - or unfortunate - enough to have been partially enveloped near the end survived but screamed in agony or else passed out as their limbs and parts that touched the cloud were now charred an ugly, raw black, the skin withered and the clothes that had been there forcibly willed off.

There was a large round crater in the earth. It served as the new barrier penning them in with walls on all other sides. Rain pelted shocked faces as Crafters and Griefers alike saw their comrades enveloped by the sphere were now gone. Not even gear or Heads left behind. Ores were exposed from the erased land, water and lava springs started to flow out. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed.

Jillian beheld the scene with horror. Nearly a quarter of their fighters got caught in that sphere despite it stopping short. Nearly a thousand Paragons and Nitebane citizens were gone, as well as whatever Griefers caught in the chaos. The Hackers had Nuked them all.

Luis was sporting a blackened foot and knocked out with Heather crying hysterically over him. Dwight's back was also blackened and bare. He laid there on the ground unmoving. Shroud was curled up fighting tears in his eyes while he cradled his right hand. Several other Paragons and Nitebane citizens were similarly charred black on certain parts of her body, though Jillian was unsure on who among her forces were alive or dead. She was afraid to find out, and she couldn't even find Trenay or Attila in all the confusion.

Most everyone was silent, though there was the occasional wail of despair as casualties were realized. Some asshole Griefers were even laughing amongst the crowd over the overwhelming despair. Fear towards the Hackers had set in again, crippling morale. Jillian had to rekindle the people's fire. She struggled for the words.

Then, sailing over the crater, a smoke-clad Hannah carried Thed under his arms. Jillian felt her breath catch as she saw flickering smoke swirl around his body. He slowly brought both hands up as his sclerae darkened, his icy blue eyes on the Crafters trapped and stunned before him. A small sphere started to form between his hands. The artifact in Jillian's hand fell numbly to her side. No potion effect would save her, or anyone, from that.

A trident struck Hannah from above before a bolt of lightning zapped her and Thed. The pair cried out and began to fall, though Thed kept his eyes open and hands outstretched. The black sphere ready to fly.

"DART LEADER!"

A corkscrewing Cobb slammed into them from above, sending Thed's aim down just before he fired the Nuker. Cobb, Thed, and Hannah spiraled towards the ground while the black sphere angled downward towards the existing crater. It detonated on the land furthest from the Crafters and the rushing sphere of inky darkness made the crater deeper, the top of the sphere rising only slightly from the ground. Cobb's quick thinking spared Nitebane's forces for the moment.

"GO COBB!" Perry shouted, his voice breaking the terrified silence. "Kick their asses!"

Jillian watched the bodies of Cobb, Hannah, and Thed strike the tip of a stone jut further back before rolling down out of sight. He was still facing them, and without any of the potion effects so many others enjoyed.

Jillian wiped her face before drawing her bow and shooting a Griefer dead.

"Don't give up!" Jillian called out. "We're still here! Still fighting! Do you want to see Nitebane back in the days it used to be!? In ruins, with you and your loved ones stuck in a floating skyscraper, subsisting on scraps!?"

"No... No!" Attila' voice carried with so many others. The people were rallying, many taking out their anger on the Griefers that had taunted or laughed at them.

"That's right! We can beat them!" Jillian declared, her arrows flying as she dispatched more Griefers. Z7 darted in fast and lashed out with daggers. Witige, Milton, Gregory, and Baltic started throwing Splash Potions of Harming at enemies. "We can beat them!"

Several Paragons started tunneling out the sides of the cobblestone cage Llewellyn built. That was their escape route. Jillian herself grabbed an ender pearl and aimed it over the crater towards where Cobb had landed.

Maybe I should have placed my faith in him.

The world spun as Cobb rocketed into Thed and Hannah. Dancing volts lingered along their bodies from the Channeling trident he threw at them, but he was mainly throwing himself at them just to throw off Thed's Nuker aim. He had no idea if he succeeded or not as they all spiraled to the ground, but he knew that a lot of people were now dead, and he had no way of knowing if Lenz or Baltic or Jillian or Heather or Perry or anyone else were among them.

Hannah's body struck the point of a stone jut first, cushioning Cobb and Thed before they all proceeded to roll down the sloping jut. The impacts were painful, Cobb's shoulder slamming hard more than once. His tender blackened left breast took one of the impacts and brought a surge of excruciating pain that stole his breath away before he slammed onto his back at the bottom. He marched his back, stifling a scream through his teeth before he rolled to his hands and knees.

He was already chewing a Chorus Fruit, his body warping out of the way of Thed's Reach attack. The Hacker stood on shaking knees, his body struggling to stand and his smoke flickering on and off.

"All that power. It's a burden, isn't it?" Cobb called out.

"I don't know how 303 does it..." Thed gasped, his body going unnaturally still. Cobb recognized Blink and threw his trident straight up, narrowly avoiding getting beheaded by a reappearing Thed and his Strength infused sword slash. "But I'm starting to get the hang of it."

Dozens of missiles zoomed up to meet Cobb. Fine by him so long as they didn't target Nitebane's forces. He intercepted several missiles with snowballs before darting aside in midair to avoid the rest. He didn't see where Hannah shot them from, but he knew she was around. Maybe she was bringing Llewellyn over.

Thed flew after him, sending out shockwave after shockwave of Reach in the hope that one would connect. Cobb noticed he didn't use Nuker again. The power must have been too unstable.

Comparing the craters, the second and third Nuker were smaller than the first in both size and duration. It stood to reason that one of that size would wipe out Thed's powers similar to Floyd and the cooldown on his Speed Hack.

But if Cobb ever got caught up in one, he was dead.

He was lost on what to try, though. Without the Paragons to herd Creepers, his only one-hit kill option were his End Crystals. The Hackers had seen enough of them to be wary and keep their distance. Cobb couldn't even kamikaze like with Rrhys now that he was out of totems.

Thed's body froze suspended in midair behind him and Cobb darted unpredictably to avoid any sneaky Blink remergences before lobbing his trident at the frozen man. "Stepped Leader!"

The trident and lightningbolt struck before Thed rematerialized, his sparking body vanishing and taking damage before reappearing in the air closer to Cobb and spiraling to the ground. Cobb pressed his advantage, drawing his cutlass and Riptiding down in a drill of white sparks that struck Thed's body in midair and sent him through a stone jut and into the ground.

With Thed struggling to his feet, Cobb worked fast with a block of obsidian and an End Crystal. Thed was within range. Cobb skipped back and lobbed a snowball.

It crashed into a cobblestone wall that sprang up between him and the crystal. Cobb spun in place and found Llewellyn rushing in with a Strength enhanced fist. Cobb threw the Riptide trident only to pale as it left his fingers without him. The rain above had been blocked out by a cobblestone ceiling.

Llewellyn's fist buried itself into Cobb's gut. Spittle flew from his mouth before he was launched through a stone jut and sent sliding across the harsh, rocky terrain. His trident flipped through the air before sticking into the ground near his head.

He gave a low groan before attempting to roll to his feet. He almost rolled over the lip of a crater. The same crater Thed created with his second and third Nuker spheres. Cobb glimpsed into an abyss as the vaporized earth had bit down all the way to bedrock. The Void stared back at him, lava and water pouring down from springs along the crater wall. The other side of the crater had the cobblestone box and the fighting Crafters and Griefers.

Cobb unstuck his Riptide trident only for the rain pelting him to cease. The light from the lightning dimmed and the thunder became muted. Cobb looked up and saw a new cobblestone wall as Llewellyn blocked off the rain. The Hacker made a cobblestone ceiling stretching over him and across the crater.

"I told you. He can't fly off without rain." Hannah's voice called out from under the cobblestone ceiling as she flew over. Her body flared with smoke as she prepared dozens of MultiAura missiles Cobb had no way of flying away from. Cobb shoved a Chorus Fruit down his throat and warped to avoid a few, his snowballs coming out to intercept many others. He fell back from the assault.

From the other side, Thed flew in and spun like a tornado, his sword sending several Reach slashes at Cobb. The fisherman ducked behind a stone jut that crumbled before his eyes from Llewellyn's Hack. Cobb took a slash to the chest and was sent skidding back before he erected a few blocks of obsidian to block the rest. Thed and Hannah's attacks slammed into the wall of obsidian he hid behind, not letting up for a moment. How long before Thed dished out a Nuker to wipe him and his cover out completely? Cobb grit his teeth, wracking his brain for an idea to turn the tables.

Hannah's hands fanned out as she commanded her screaming missiles to do the same. They circumvented Cobb's obsidian barricade and surrounded him before darting in. He was trapped!

"King_Cobb!" A feminine voice shouted moments before a redwood beam struck his back and made him feel more resilient. Hannah's missiles struck next, but they no longer hurt like they had before now that he was fortified.

Once the barrage ended, Cobb glanced behind him and saw Jillian stationed on a stone jut with the Vivlio Zythopoiias in hand. She closed the book with a snap and reared back her arm.

"As queen, I hereby grant this to the most suitable man to rid us of these Hackers!" She shouted before flinging her arm and lobbing the thing at Cobb.

The fisherman's eyes widened, both at the artifact and the sincerity with which Jillian was trusting him. Compared to their conversations in the cell about liabilities and assets, this was an act of faith fostered by his selfless actions and efforts. If even she felt he was the best man for the job, he'd happily accept-

A screaming missile of smoke struck the Vivlio Zythopoiias in midair and knocked the book towards the ground. Thed was already zooming towards it before Cobb got going.

Why throw it!? You like spiking my blood pressure!? Learn to hand things over, twit!

Cobb tore an ender pearl free and chucked it. Not towards the book's landing spot but to the stone jut just past and above it. He also drew one of his fishing rods while Thed went unnaturally still, using his Blink Hack to make Cobb unable to tell when Thed was close enough to the book.

The Vivlio Zythopoiias fell to the ground as if in slow motion as Cobb and Thed rushed for it. Cobb warped and Thed reappeared, the first hand snapping up the book being clad in smoke.

"HA!" Thed grinned viciously with the book in hand, his body soaring forward from his burst of momentum. "The key to those potion beams is mine now-!"

The bobber of a fishing line snagged the leather cover near the spine and yanked it out of Thed's hand as he flew by. Thed came to an abrupt stop and whirled around in time to watch Cobb flick the fishing rod towards him and snag the powerful artifact at the end like a freshly caught fish.

"That just gave me a little heart attack." Jillian commented with a hand to her heart.

Hannah whirled on Jillian and fired off thirty screaming missiles heading straight for her. Jillian knew they wouldn't kill her with her level of Resistance and Absorption, but Cobb saw where she was positioned and knew Hannah had other ideas.

He warped over with an ender pearl and had time to grab Jillian by the shoulder before the missiles peppered them both, blasting them back and off the edge of the crater, down towards the exposed Void through the bedrock's crust.

As they plummeted towards dark oblivion, and with the cobblestone ceiling overhead preventing rain and Riptide, Cobb flicked open the Vivlio Zythopoiias desperately for the right potion effect before stabbing his finger to the sky blue text.

Back at the top of the crater, more of the Paragons had ender pearled over. Baltic, Z7, Witige, Milton, Gregory, Trenay, Attila, Perry, Doyle, and Heather. They all had weapons out and were shooting at the two Hackers flitting about as well as the grounded Llewellyn.

While they were distracted, a pair of bodies floated up from the crater and into sight. Cobb and Jillian. Cobb had given himself the dangerous Levitation effect and was using it to keep Jillian afloat. Anything was better than falling into the instant death that was the Void. The pair of them floated up until smacking into the cobblestone ceiling cutting off the rain.

"How do you send the beam-?" Cobb struggled between holding the book and holding Jillian.

"Press the second line of text." Jillian told him helpfully.

"Oh. Okay. Got it." He flicked a few pages before finding the worst effect he could think of. With one hand, he held the book spine out. "SUCK WITHER, THED!"

A bistre beam shot out just as Thed whirled. It looked like he tried to use Blink to evade, but his frozen body was still struck before materializing a short distance away, covered in bistre particles.

Nobody was prepared for smoke to violently gush out of Thed's body as he arched his back in midflight, his mouth twisting into a horrible expression. Black smoke swirled out of his eyes and mouth in three tornados, small at first but then growing larger and merging until they were one big tornado large enough to surround a person. Thed let out a garbled moan as it sounded like something was being expelled from his esophagus.

Not even the Hackers knew what to make of it as Thed's tornado vomiting drew all eyes and put a pause on the combat. Hannah screamed something. Was it a new Hack?

As Thed clutched his throat trying to stem the tornados of smoke pouring out of his eyes and mouth, the violently churning vortex of dark vapor twisted in midair and elongated. It was like a snake flowing through the air. It struck like a snake too, the other end of the smoke vortex thrashing towards Cobb.

He had no idea what it was, but he tried to avoid it. Stuck on the cobblestone ceiling and disoriented from standing upside down, all he could do without dropping Jillian was push off with his legs. His leap barely made it a few meters, and the winding vortex of smoke only tailed him in his escape attempt. It was like there was a thin string connecting Cobb to Thed, and the vortex was running up it.

Cobb turned and shielded Jillian with a muffled curse into her beret before the smoke vortex enveloped his face. He shut his eyes as the dark vapor stung slightly and stank of sulfur. Despite his mouth being shut, he could taste something foul slipping past his lips. It was suffocating him and forcing him to cough, which let in more of the smoke and made everything worse.

In a few moments, the vortex calmed, then subsided entirely. Cobb opened his eyes and saw Thed covered in bistre particles and clutching his body as the Wither effect tore him up from the inside out. It was also siphoning his Health for Cobb. The tornados coming out if his eyes and mouth were gone, but Thed looked a little rattled as he gazed upon Cobb with dawning horror. What? What was he so horrified by?

"Oh my God..." Hannah gasped, flying close only to gain a deranged look in her eyes. "NO! WHAT IS THIS!? WHAT'D YOU DO, COBB!?"

Cobb wished he knew. He didn't know why the Hackers looked so shaken up. Even Llewellyn looked frightened, though it was hard to see him. Smoke lingered from the subsiding vortex, obfuscating Cobb's vision and making him rub at his eyes. Why didn't the stupid smoke go away?

Jillian looked up from within Cobb's arms and let out a shrill cry of surprise. The Paragons below echoed the exclamation. "King_Cobb! Y-Your eyes!"

"My eyes...?" Cobb passed a hand over them to try and dispel the black vapor to no avail. It was getting annoying having to look through smoke. "What about my eyes?"

"They're... they're black! The sclerae!" Jillian's words made Cobb nearly drop her.

Cobb's green eyes were now green islands in pools of darkness. His sclerae had darkened like a Hacker's, and while he didn't have the lines over his eyelids, a dark miasma was seeping from the corners of his eyes and wafting before him, swirling around his body like an aura.

Cobb used his fingers to close one of his eyelids, the smoke winking out for a moment as if he sealed a billowing chimney. Those were the eyes of a Hacker. He held up his hands to his face and marveled at the smoke coating his fingertips. No wonder the other three showed varying levels of disbelief, fear, and rage.

For the first time in history, a non-Hacker was given the eyes of a real one.

Inventory (Cobb): 1 Book {Vivlio Zythopoiias}, 7 Ender Pearls, 9 Obsidian, 1 Ender Chest, 46 Chorus Fruit, 26 Snowballs, 5 End Crystals, 1 Fishing Rod, 1 Fishing Rod, 1 Fishing Rod, 1 Trident [Riptide III, Unbreaking III], 1 Trident [Loyalty II, Channeling], 1 Diamond Cutlass, 1 Map {Minecraftia}, 1 Green Shulker Box {Pocket Box}

Green Shulker Box {Pocket Box}: 53 Eyes of Ender, 32 Blocks of Emerald, 8 Emeralds, 1 Lapis Lazuli, 64 Books, 2 Books, 1 Enchanting Table, 1 Book {How to Kill Stuff for Numb Nuts}, 1 Book {Advanced Mob-Slaying}, 1 Book {Mobs of the Nether}, 1 Book {Mobs of the Bounty Days}

[EXP: 42]

Inventory (Lenz): 1 Chainmail Helmet, 1 Dragon Head, 1 Chainmail Chestplate, 1 Chainmail Leggings, 1 Chainmail Boots, 1 Iron Dagger, 9 Ender Pearls, 1 Bucket, 1 Compass, 1 Bow, 1 Bow [Infinity], 1 Crossbow [Unbreaking II, Quick Charge III], 1 Crossbow [Unbreaking II, Quick Charge III], 1 Crossbow, 1 Crossbow, 1 Crossbow, 1 Crossbow, 1 Crossbow, 1 Crossbow, 1 Crossbow, 1 Crossbow, 1 Crossbow, 42 Arrows, 1 Crafting Table, 1 Furnace, 62 Dark Oak Planks, 55 Chorus Fruit, 1 Book {Citizenship Information}, 1 Paper {Daymonte Entry Pass}, 1 Paper {Ringwood Entry Pass}, 1 Paper {Zeppil Entry Pass}, 1 Paper {Akasha Entry Pass}, 1 Red Shulker Box {Pocket Box}, 1 Gray Shulker Box {Pocket Box}

Red Shulker Box {Pocket Box}: 1 Shears, 1 Lever, 9 Redstone Torches, 8 Redstone Repeaters, 3 Redstone Comparators, 18 Blocks of Redstone, 2 Hoppers, 3 Pistons, 2 Sticky Pistons, 1 Book {Airship Piloting 101}, 2 Fire Charges, 36 Charcoal, 4 Torches, 32 Pumpkin Seeds, 1 Book {Redstone Textbook}, 1 Book {Notebook}

Gray Shulker Box {Pocket Box}: 53 Arrows of Poison {0:11}, 64 Arrows of Harming II, 57 Arrows of Harming II, 52 Arrows of Weakness {0:30}, 49 Arrows of Slowness {0:30}, 64 Arrows of Fire Resistance {1:00}, 64 Arrows of Healing II, 64 Arrows of Invisibility {1:00}, 64 Arrows of Leaping {1:00}, 64 Arrows of Slow Falling {0:30}, 64 Arrows of Night Vision {1:00}, 63 Arrows of Strength II {0:12}, 64 Arrows of Swiftness {1:00}, 63 Arrows of Swiftness II {0:11}, 64 Arrows of Water Breathing {1:00}

[EXP: 25]

Inventory (Baltic): 1 Iron Helmet [Protection III, Unbreaking III], 1 Iron Boots [Protection III, Unbreaking III], 1 Iron Sword [Sharpness II, Unbreaking III], 1 Shield, 1 Bow, 1 Diamond Pickaxe [Silk Touch I, Mending I, Unbreaking II], 10 Arrows, 3 Brewing Stands, 1 Water Bucket, 28 Bones, 1 Ender Chest, 1 Book {Citizenship Information}, 1 Paper {Gold Citizenship Pass}, 20 Emeralds, 16 Cooked Chicken, 1 Lingering Potion of Slowness {1:00}, 1 Lingering Potion of Slowness {1:00}, 1 Lingering Potion of Healing II {0:05}, 1 Lingering Potion of Regeneration II {0:05}, 1 Blue Shulker Box {Pocket Box}

Blue Shulker Box {Pocket Box}: 41 Glass Bottles, 64 Dragon's Breath, 59 Dragon's Breath, 37 Blaze Powder, 28 Nether Warts, 30 Soul Sand, 62 Phantom Membranes, 64 Blaze Rods, 18 Fermented Spider Eyes, 50 Carrots, 50 Melon Slices, 55 Rabbit's Feet, 48 Gold Ingots, 2 Gold Nuggets, 45 Gunpowder, 52 Redstone Dust, 46 Glowstone Dust, 52 Ghast Tears, 52 Sugar

[EXP: 32]

Inventory (Z7): 1 Diamond Helmet [Protection III, Unbreaking III], 1 Diamond Chestplate [Protection IV, Unbreaking III], 1 Diamond Leggings [Protection IV, Unbreaking III], 1 Diamond Boots [Protection III, Unbreaking III], 1 Iron Dagger, 1 Iron Dagger, 1 Iron Dagger, 1 Iron Dagger, 1 Iron Dagger, 1 Iron Dagger, 1 Iron Dagger, 1 Iron Dagger, 1 Iron Dagger, 1 Iron Pickaxe, 32 Cobblestone, 1 Crafting Table, 1 Furnace, 21 Charcoal, 14 Torches, 9 Oak Wood Planks, 1 Cake, 7 Baked Potatoes, 2 Buckets, 1 Book {Citizenship Information}, 1 Paper {Gold Citizenship Pass}, 1 Purple Shulker Box {Pocket Box}

[EXP: 47]

Inventory (Floyd): 1 Mob Head {Creeper}, 1 Iron Sword, 1 Diamond Helmet [Projectile Protection IV], 1 Diamond Chestplate [Projectile Protection IV], 1 Diamond Leggings [Projectile Protection IV], 1 Iron Pickaxe, 1 Shears, 2 Iron Ingots, 7 Steak, 2 Sticks, 29 Coal, 20 Torches, 1 Fishing Rod, 1 Furnace, 1 Crafting Table, 1 Minecart, 1 Bed, 1 Boat, 1 Diamond Boots [Projectile Protection IV], 16 Gunpowder, 16 Ender Pearls, 2 Ender Pearls, 1 Splash Potion of Invisibility {8:00}, 1 Bucket, 1 Map {Minecraftia}, 1 Book {Citizenship Information}, 1 Paper {Ringwood Entry Pass}, 1 Paper {Zeppil Entry Pass}

[EXP: 44]

Inventory (Soul): 1 Diamond Axe [Sharpness V], 1 Iron Pickaxe, 62 Iron Ingots, 20 Flint, 12 Gold Ingots, 1 Shears, 1 Milk Bucket, 1 Diamond Helmet [Protection IV, Unbreaking III], 1 Iron Chestplate, 1 Diamond Leggings [Protection IV, Unbreaking III], 1 Diamond Boots [Protection IV, Feather Falling IV, Unbreaking III], 1 Crafting Table, 1 Jukebox, 1 Music Disc {chirp}, 1 Bed, 1 Furnace, 24 Torches, 34 White Wool, 61 Cobblestone, 32 Jungle Wood Planks, 1 Armor Stand, 1 Map {Minecraftia}, 1 Book {Citizenship Information}, 1 Paper {Ringwood Entry Pass}, 1 Paper {Zeppil Entry Pass}, 1 Paper {Exter Entry Pass}

[EXP: 41]

Cat-Face the Cat

Christopher Squawken the Parrot

Inventory (Noman): 1 Diamond Sword [Sharpness I], 1 Diamond Chestplate {Severe Shield}, 1 Leather Boots {Bottes Zephyr} [Dyed White], 1 Iron Helmet, 1 Diamond Chestplate, 1 Iron Leggings, 1 Iron Boots, 1 Iron Chestplate, 1 Iron Pickaxe, 60 Nether Warts, 20 Soul Sand, 1 Flint and Steel, 1 Shears, 10 Cobwebs, 1 Milk Bucket, 1 Water Bucket, 5 Buckets, 1 Bed, 1 Crafting Table, 1 Brewing Stand, 33 Glass Bottles, 4 Packed Ice, 1 Ender Chest, 16 Ender Pearls, 4 Ender Pearls, 3 Phantom Membranes, 61 Glowstone Dust, 29 Gunpowder, 18 Redstone Dust, 61 Blaze Powder, 62 Gold Nuggets, 61 Brown Mushrooms, 1 Book {Citizenship Information}, 1 Paper {Zeppil Entry Pass}, 1 Paper {Exter Entry Pass}, 1 Map {Minecraftia}, 1 Book {The Art of Peace}, 1 Enchanted Golden Apple

[EXP: 35]

Inventory (Kalmarin): 1 Diamond Helmet [Protection III, Unbreaking III], 1 Diamond Chestplate [Protection IV, Unbreaking III], 1 Diamond Leggings [Protection IV, Unbreaking III], 1 Diamond Boots [Protection III, Unbreaking III], 1 Mob Head {Skeleton}, 1 Diamond Sword [Sharpness III, Unbreaking I], 1 Map {Paragon Minecraftia}, 1 Book {Citizenship Information}, 1 Paper {Gold Citizenship Pass}, 22 Cooked Chicken, 29 Apples, 1 Bow [Power I], 36 Arrows, 12 Ender Pearls, 1 Bed, 1 Crafting Table, 1 Furnace, 40 Torches, 31 Sand, 12 Cobblestone, 21 Oak Wood Planks, 1 Water Bucket, 1 Lava Bucket, 1 Milk Bucket, 43 Coal, 1 Clock, 1 Compass, 1 Iron Pickaxe [Unbreaking I], 1 Wooden Pickaxe {Old Reliable} [Unbreaking III, Efficiency V], 1 Book {Meetup}

[EXP: 37]

AN: I like spaghetti.

While I was writing this, I felt like the last couple of words fell a bit flat. Maybe I could've written it more dramatic or in a different way. Originally wanted Cobb's float up to be a surprise to the Hackers, like, oh, maybe he fell to his death. Then I realized he still has a giant, glowing nametag that can be seen through solid objects. Screaming 'sneak attack' would have been more subtle.

In case it wasn't obvious from the Chapter title, Lenz is the star of this chapter. The Volition Repeater technique he used is just spamming loaded rocket crossbows in your hotbar. The name Volition Repeater got its origins from playing Red Dead Redemption 2 with my trusty Carbine Repeater. A repeater was a kind of rifle or repeating firearm that could fire more than once without a reload. Add that to Lenz's redstone experience and repeater expletive, and I felt it was fitting. Other repeater names I toyed with include Kalthoff Repeater, Lorenzoni Repeater, the Spencer Repeater, and the Cookson Repeater.