Chapter One – The End
The Void is infinite, surrounding, and consuming. It lurks beneath the Overworld, only the unbreakable bedrock standing between it and all creation. Bedrock is a gift from Notch, to protect us from the destruction the Void would bring. The Nether is a hellish place, surrounded on all sides by the Void– but even there Notch gave his gift of bedrock, to protect those that venture there.
Then there is the End.
The End has no shelter from the Void, the consuming darkness forever engulfing it. Not even Notch felt it was worthy of the protection of bedrock, for the life there is just as twisted as the Void itself.
"Drink up, boy," Steve muttered as he upturned the bottle, letting the water drip into the wolf's muzzle. He happily licked up the liquid, as the landscape around them was void of such. White stone dry as a desert, rough and uneven under their feet. After a moment Steve brought the bottle to his own lips, drying to cure the thirst that scratched at this throat.
He let the glass bottle slide to the ground as it became empty, shattering on impact. There was no point of letting it take up a space in his inventory, drawing his diamond sword as he peered around the obsidian pillars, eyes scanning the pitch black sky for any signs of their foe.
The End island had become deserted since he had arrived– what had once been littered with the demonic Enderman was now just an empty expanse of land in the middle of nothingness, which Steve was fine with. Endermen were dangerous foes, as for his sole focus to be on the true threat was exactly what he needed.
His eyes narrowed as he caught sight of movement within the blackness far above, and he slowly drew his diamond sword, which gleamed with the enchanted magic that pulsed around it. Steve slowly moved around the pillar, not wanting to lose his defensive position or sight of the creature, barely able to make out the broad wings of the beast as he flew overhead. He felt a light pressure against his side, the wolf's whole posture tensed.
He brushed his fingers across Sol's head, his ears flicking in response, and he tried to let the action calm him. There wasn't a fight that he and the wolf had lost before, and even if this was their greatest challenge yet he knew that failure wasn't an option. Destroy the dragon, and then this realm would be free of the demon that haunted it.
Suddenly a beam of light filled the sky, temporarily illuminating the dragon as she flew overhead. Steve's eyes widened in horror, and he charged forward, slashing with his sword. The diamond weapon vanished in an instant, a bow taking its place in one hand, an arrow in another. He nocked the arrow into the bow, falling to one knee as he took aim up at a distant obsidian pillar.
The dragon let out a roar as the arrow flew, swooping in front of the crystal atop the pillar– taking the blow instead. Steve cursed under his breath as he summoned another arrow from his inventory, once again carefully aiming at the crystal. He could have sworn that he had destroyed them all off them, but the pulsing beam showed that the dragon still had one last source of healing.
The best gave a loud bellow, banking about in midair as she came flying back towards the center of the island. Sol gave a low growl, but Steve held his ground as he let his second arrow fly. It soared right over the dragon's head, letting out a low whistle as it flew right towards the ender crystal– which let out an echoing boom as it erupted in a fiery explosion.
The next roar the dragon was different from the ones before it, a low wavering tone echoing through the cry, as if aware that she was left vulnerable without her crystals. She didn't veer off course from her charge though, and Steve barely had time to slip his bow back into his inventory when the creature dove down at him, bashing into his chest with a swing of her monstrous head.
The wind was knocked out from Steve as he was sent flying into the air, his diamond chest plate having taking the brunt of the blow, but with the impending fall there was a desperation to his actions as he trusted his hand forward, desperately reaching into the pocket dimension, blocky hand closing around a glass bottle. There was no time to drink it, but that had one been what it had been intended for– shattering the bottle against his chest plate as he began to fall.
Tingles ran through him, a lightness taking root in his stomach. He was no longer plummeting towards the ground, but it felt as if he were lightly drifting as the effects of the potion took hold. Steve let out a shaking sigh of relief as he opened his eyes, catching the eye of the dragon flying about in the distance, seemingly coming in for another charge. Drawing his diamond sword once more he shifted to a charging position, the potion of slow falling helping him land lightly on the ground.
Sol was at his side in an instant, letting out a low whine.
"Sorry, bud," Steven muttered. "That was the only one Mom gave me. I don't know if you'd even know what to do with it though."
The wolf gave a bark as if in reply, but there was no time for words. A low hiss had filled the air, seemingly echoing from every part of the End, and the two of them ran forward as the dragon's mouth began to glow purple. A burst of energy rushed out from her maw, the dragon breath exploding, covering the ground where they had stood with a crackling mist. Both Steven and Sol knew to avoid it, having been caught in one of the blasts earlier in the fight.
The two of them moved together as they always had– Sol a white streak in the dark realm, and Steve glowing with his enchanted gear. Above them the jet black dragon circled in the darkness, nearly invisible save for her unearthly violet eyes and the bursts of her magical breath of the same color. She lingered high in the sky, tempting Steve to draw his bow once more as she stayed just out of reach, but with her being so close he knew she would strike the moment he paused to take aim.
It became a waiting game, the dragon slowly becoming aware that the small figures below could easily dodge her firety breath attacks, and so neither could land a blow. She could either swoop in close to attack with sheer brute force, but with no crystals remaining any wounds inflicted upon her could not be healed. She could wait for him to attempt to rain arrows once more to come in for an attack, but Steve stood steadfast as he waited, sword in hand.
Minutes past, the only sounds being growls from Sol and the flapping of wings– but the dragon was the first to break. She wound across the sky as she twisted about, tucking in her wings as she dove down at him– claws extended. Steve rushed forward as if to meet her, but moments before claw and sword struck he dove down, her talons swiping at empty air as he rolled, before jabbing his sword up into her back leg.
A deafening roar filled the air, and Steve was rewarded with a lash of a whip-like tail. He was sent tumbling across the endstone, a ball of dragon breath being fired as his collapsed form. He tried to roll out of the way as the misty breath rippled as it expanded, the edge of the magical mist burning him as he tried to pull away.
Steve let out a hiss, slowly pushing himself to his feet, the whole ground shaking as the dragon landed at the foot of an obsidian pillar, her hiss echoing around them as she launched another burst of dragon breath at him. Back on his feet he was able to avoid it with a duck as he ran forward, one hand holding his sword, the other vanishing into his inventory as he sought for a golden apple. The metallic fruit sent ripples of healing magic through him as he bit into it, the pain of his burn lessening just in time for the dragon to come charging forward.
Now that she had landed he could truly get an appreciation for her size, the creature easily being the largest mob he had ever seen. The ground shook with each step she took, scales looking like obsidian. Twin gray horns jutted up from her head, spikes of the same material running down her neck all the way to her tail.
Steve raised his sword as she swung her head like a bat at him, the blade piercing scales as he was sent flying back. The remains of his slow falling potion caused him to drift to the ground in a stuttering fashion, the remains of the potion beginning to wear off. He was panting as he landed, sword raised to be prepared for another charge– but there was no dragon rushing at him.
Instead the beast had raised itself up onto its hind legs, ivory fangs bared at the small white figure fearlessly attacking it, the wolf sinking his teeth into the dragon's wounded leg.
"Sol!" Steve cried, light pouring from the dragon's wounds instead of blood– but yet it only seemed annoyed at the wolf. He watched as her head craned forward, snatching the wolf into her jaws as he tried to strike again. "No!"
His words did not stop the dragon from whipping her head, sending the wolf flying into one of the obsidian pillars. The canine slumped to the ground, frighteningly still as the dragon opened her maw again, releasing a final burst of dragon breath at the wolf with a flare of purple light.
As the mist began to disperse there was no wolf left in the attack's wake.
Steve could only stare at where his oldest companion had once stood– now gone. The only thing he could hear was his heart pounding in his chest, a wave of emotion crashing down over his as the realization settled in. What he was feeling, he did not know– but it was hot and pulsing. His hands tightened around the sword, the feeling he presumed to be anger making his vision blur.
He tasted salt in his mouth as he wheeled around to face the dragon, which was shaking as it watched light drip from her slashed scales– one on her face from where his sword had struck, another on her leg from the wounds Sol had ripped open, and from scattered punctures across her body from arrows he had fired up at her went the fight had began. A snout pressed against the injuries, but it did nothing to stop the light from escaping within.
The dragon then raised her head, looking from Steve, and then out into the Void that surrounded them. Her violet gaze returned to him once more, their burning glow piercing through the darkness. For once, the dragon did not charge at him, or even make a sound. Just peering at him with those eyes that looked to be something more than the monster he had been told so much of, almost as if there was something of understanding in its gaze.
But Steve saw none of them, all he felt was the pulsing raw anger roaring through him. The dragon was a blur in his sight, but he knew it was the cause of his pain, and the festering in his heart told him to destroy it. To rip the monster apart as it had done to Sol. There was no desire to rid this realm of the creature, so for the honor of slaying the mightiest of beasts– he only longed for its end as it watched him with that horrible gaze.
Steve let out a cry as he charged forward, eyes flashing with an unnatural glow as he rushed forward. Looking back he would say that he moved much too swiftly for the dragon to land a blow– but in the moment the creature didn't even move as he struck. Diamond pierced obsidian scales, light seeping out as he drew it again, lashing at whatever limb he could reach– legs, wings, her sweeping tail. Groaned pains escaped from the dragon, but her claws did no more than twitch as the sword struck her side.
"For Sol," Steve snarled as he raised the weapon again– bringing the sword down with a deadly arc onto the dragon's head.
Her whole form began to crack as the sword struck, a webbing of light spreading across her entire body as Steve stumbled back, the purple glow in her eyes going deep. You could see a bright purple energy radiating from the fractures appearing along the dragon's body, and she was slowly lifted into the air. Steve raised a blocky arm to shield out the intense light coming from her, her obsidian colored-body slowly dissolving away. Pure energy poured from her, the very essence of her existence.
The white and purple glow swirled through the air, just as quickly as it expanded it seemed to shrink down onto itself. Steve watched in silence as it spun faster and faster, forming an orb as it drew all of the light back in, solidifying into a single mass that fell down to the earth.
It looked harmless enough, the strange obsidian mass resting on endstone. Steve blinked at it, taking a single stepforward, when a black light burst out from the top. He watched as the wave of energy washed across the endstone, racing towards the middle of the island. He turned as it circled the bedrock shrine that stood in the middle of the island, before settling into the empty pool– looking as if a starry sky was staring back at him.
He recognized what it was immediately– the same kind of portal that had brought him here in the first place. The stories had said that the dragon could create portals between here and the End, which was why he had sought out the demon in the first place. The End was a place open to the Void, and for portals to form between this corrupted realm and the Overworld... slaying the dragon had been the only option.
Perhaps one last one had been created upon its death, but Mother had told him portals linked so close to the Void were unstable– as the Void was nothing but destruction. It should be enough to get him from here to home, and this time it should collapse in on itself. Then there would be no more dragons to create more, and as long as he did not mend the portal within the overworld it could not open from that side. No link from his world to the Void, no way for Endermen to come into the Overworld.
They were safe. He had one.
But without Sol it did not feel like a victory.
What had felt like rage in the moment was gone, the burning emotions rushing through him not being one of anger– but one of sorrow. His eyes flickered over to where the wolf had fallen, not even a tuft of fur lingering as its remains. Steve slowly hiked over to where he had fallen, only finding his collar floating as an entity. He held his hand out to the strip of orange leather, which immediately leapt into his hands.
"I'm so sorry, Sol," Steve whispered, and nothing but silence echoed back.
He tucked the collar away into his inventory along with his sword, drawing a torch instead to light up the dark realm. He knew that he could go straight into the portal and return home, but instead he went to investigate the orb that had formed in the dragon's wake. Particles drifted off from it, giving it a faint glow, but asides from that it looked like nothing more than a carved block of obsidian.
He set the torch on the ground next to it, reaching out to touch the strange object. Usually mobs left entities upon death, not blocks– but of course a dragon would be different.
Zzppt!
Steve jumped at the sound, wheeling around as he heard the sound of teleportation. His eyes scanned the ground for any sign of an Enderman that seemed to have just appeared, making sure not to look up to where he could make eye contact.
But he didn't not see any sign of the Enderman– but instead he saw the strange obsidian block once more.
His eyes widened, looking back to where his torch was– but there was no obsidian stone next to it like it had been before. Wide eyes looked back and forth between where it was now and where it had been, and he nervously glanced around– but he was alone on the End island. Swallowing, he drew his sword, reaching out to touch the obsidian stone once more.
Zzppt!
He watched as the stone suddenly vanished, leaving nothing but lingering particles as it vanished from sight. Steve glanced around again, and sure enough he found it now resting several blocks away from him. He hesitated, surprised, but he supposed it wasn't the strangest thing that could have happened. This was the realm of Enderman after wall, so why couldn't there be something else that could teleport about?
No matter what he did he could do no more than tap the stone before it would teleport away. It didn't matter if it was his sword, shovel, pickaxe, or even a golden apple– it would just zip away. He had even pulled out his silk touch pickaxe, which had always worked well for gathering fragile blocks like stone and ice– but still it had teleported away at the smallest touch.
He dd not know why he was so determined to figure out the stone, perhaps it was a frustration to claim something from the one that had taken something from him, or maybe it was a desperation to get his mind to focus off of anything but the replying memory of Sol's death– but he pursued the stone relentlessly. Summoning every item in his inventory to see if it would allow him to claim the stone, surrounding it with blocks only for it to keep zipping away from him again and again.
It was almost anticlimactic with how the chase ended– the stone teleporting right above his torch, only to fall and turn from a block to an entity.
Steve slowly approached, watching as the entity slid into his hands. He turned it over, before tucking it away into his inventory and picking up his torch once more. He had his prize, and so he had no reason to remain here for any longer. He headed over towards the bedrock portal, looking down at what looked to be a starry sky, and then up at the endless Void surrounding the End.
Such an unnatural thing– and he was glad to be rid of it. Without glancing back he jumped into the portal, being whisked back to the Overworld.
Every Enderman knew the exact moment when their Queen died.
They could feel her energy rippling out from the center island, through the Void and sky, all the way out to the farthest reaches of the end cities and even the highest flying end ship. They all knew that this time would eventually come– for as long lived as the dragons were, even they could not live forever. But yet it had not been age that had claimed their queen, or her own desire to return to the Void, but rather her life had been viciously claimed by another.
By a Player.
Dusk had been told that their kind had died out long ago, that the powerful creature that had once ruled the Overworld had died out a long time ago, their remains being nothing but the reanimated corpses of zombies, who had no spark of life left within them. Husks of the created species that had one been. But yet a Player had not only been seen– but had waltz into their realm, slaughtering Endermen until they had escaped to the outer islands, leaving only their queen to defend them– and now too she was gone.
Players were merciless creatures, Dusk knew that much. She had heard stories that had been passed down for generations, how the creatures had slaughtered mob after mob, both hostile and peaceful. They had been giving the gift of Crafting– something from Notch himself– but yet they had abused their gift and had become a pestilence to the land, danger to any mob that could cross their path.
She had thought that perhaps the stories had been exaggerated, a fragment of history twisted more into a horror story, but today had proved her wrong. The Player had begun slaughtering the moment he had entered their realm, glaring into their eyes, clearly aiming for their most vulnerable point.
There was no time to ask question though– where the Player had come from when there was supposed to be no more, or if it would return to continue their path of murder– because the most improtant thing was securing the egg and preparing the realm for the hatchling of their next queen.
It was supposed to be a sacred moment, where they stood with their queen in the last moments of her life, only to welcome her egg as it came into existence. Generations upon generations of dragons had ruled the Enderman, and this coming egg would be the hundredth of her kind, something that should have been celebrated by all of Ender-kind. Instead the egg was alone on the island, probably with no company save her mother's murderer.
Dusk ignored the uncertain chitters of her kind as they gathered around end cities, no one wanting to be the one to go confront the Player should still remain– but she was sick at the thought of the egg being left alone. Yes, it was surrounded with Energy to protect it, very few could touch an egg unless they were a creature of the end, but that didn't mean it was safe from the Player. Who knew what such a monster could do, and the fact that they were hesitant to go and protect their new queen was disgraceful in Dusk's eyes.
So with Shulkerboxes in her inventory, stuffed to the brim with chorus fruit for when the queen would hatch, Dusk was the first to teleport back to the center island.
She had been met with the most horrible sight any Enderman could lay their eyes on– the sight of the Player holding Her Majesty's egg in their hands, slipping it away into their inventory.
Before she could do a thing, decide to attack or warn the others, the Player turned away, heading towards the bedrock shrine. Fear boiled up within Dusk, energy running through her as she prepared to teleport forward to intercept them–
But the Player had already stepped through the portal, vanishing from the End with a single flash of light. Dusk teleported to right where they had been standing, panting as she stared at the flickering portal.
The egg was gone. A player had taken the queen. She was gone, she was gone, she was gone–!
The flickering of the portal snapped her out of her racing thoughts, and Dusk looked about at the empty end island. No other Endermen had yet to return from the end cities, she was the only one that knew the fate of their queen. She could go back and warn them... but with no Ender Dragon to keep the portal stable she didn't know how long it would be open. If this were to close there would be no path between the End and the Overworld, and no way to go after the queen.
Dusk was no special Enderman. She had not been born of high birth or had done anything to earn herself a great honor– but she had always been loyal to the queen. Only certain Enderman were given approval to go to the Overworld... but now was not the time to worry about that. The flickering portal was telling her just how limited her time was, and that she didn't have any to waste.
Someone needed to go after the queen's egg, and she was the only one that could.
Dusk gave herself no time to hesitate, no time to weigh the risks of going after a Player– one that had slain her Queen. She just closed her glowing eyes, teleporting forward into the portal before she could change her mind, whisking herself away to the Overworld.
Edited: 1/2/2021
Other chapters to be edited and updated soon.