Chapter Nine: Herobrine
"Herobrine" I muttered, rolling the name around in my mouth. "Herobrine" Horus was still not back from wherever he disappeared to, and that in itself was making me nervous.
The people shifted uncomfortably and I stopped. Gathered around us were a small band of survivors from the town of Wood's End. "Are you sure it was him?"
The people nodded fervently. "White eyes, diamond sword, fireballs coming out of his hands." A woman shouted from the back of the group. "I saw him, jumping across the rooftops as easily as a boy hopping onto a stair"
I thought about it. I couldn't send for help now, I'd gotten banned from the Aether. I could only take him on alone.
Scratch that. I didn't have a death wish.
"Please" the woman begged. "My children are in the cellar"
Ah, goddammit.
I pulled my sword from my Inventory and held it up high. "Look!" Someone whisper in the crowd. "He's one of Notch's Elites! See that insignia on the hilt of his sword?" Well, they obviously don't know I was wanted for murder. I took that as a good sign.
I did my best grim smile, putting on a theatrical facade. "Friends!" I called out. "If I am not back by afternoon, go to the nearest town and find help there. Pass on the word that Steve of the Elites has perished. In return, I will do my best to rid your village of this menace." If Herobrine was indeed a ghost, there was a chance that I would not respawn if killed. If he was a god, then I would definitely not respawn.
A ragged cheer rose from the crowd. I suppose that's the best I'd get under these circumstances. I turned on my heel and marched toward the burning village, my head raised high. I think they bought the dramatic act. My hands were clammy. There's no reason, I told myself. There hadn't been so much as a peep of Him for thirty-three years, so it couldn't possibly actually be Herobrine.
... Right?
I stood in front of the village, scanning for the intruder.
"So, have you found out the cause of this yet?"
I jumped about five feet in the air.
"Gah! Stop doing that!" I shouted, heart hammering like crazy.
Horus merely shrugged. "It's your own fault you don't pay attention to your surroundings"
"Where were you, anyway?" there was a smell of something burnt coming from him, which suggested he had been inside the town.
He nodded in the general direction of Wood's End. "There was a nutcase jumping across the rooftops, setting fire to everything" he said. "I didn't get a clear look at them"
"Well, about that-"
A fireball hit the ground to my right, and my sword came out in a flash- just in time to deflect the second one, headed straight for me.
A heavily built man in diamond armor dropped out of nowhere. He was holding a diamond sword in one hand, and a sphere of flames in the other.
"What are you?!" I shouted above the crackling of flames. The man shook the stringy brown hair out of his face, revealing dull white eyes.
Oops.
"I AM HEROBRINE!" he bellowed.
"Charming" Horus deadpanned. Then, without another word, he spun on his heel and walked off, as casually as anything.
"Hey!" I yelled. "I need some backup here! Fighting an evil immortal spirit!"
"You'll be be fine" Horus replied in a voice so bored it could reduce someone to tears. "Call for me when you're done with him"
I stared speechlessly as he vanished out of sight. The white eyed man flexed his muscles and grinned. "Ha! Your friend has been scared off! If you value your life, you would follow his example"
Actually, Horus did not look like he was scared at all. Just mind-blowing boredom and a complete lack of interest. Maybe even disdain.
I raised my sword. The man saw it, or more significantly, the insignia of a bull carved on its hilt. Suddenly he seemed unnerved.
"Yes, be afraid" I brandished the sword. "I am an Elite, a warrior of Notch. Go back to the hole you crawled out of or face my wrath. So on and so forth. Forsooth." I waved the sword around. And did it some more, attempting to scare him away.
The 'forsooth' was probably a little over the top. The man laughed. "I will simply have to crush you like I did to the others" with that, he charged.
Typical villains.
I angled my blade so the sunlight bounced off its extremely reflective surface and into those white eyes. The man shouted in pain and stumbled to a halt. I rapped his knuckles hard with the flat of my blade, forcing him to drop his sword. But I'd forgotten one thing- the fireball he still held in his hand. He threw it at me and I twisted to the side to avoid being turned into a barbecue, giving him plenty of time to pick his sword up again. He jumped impossibly high, landing behind me and lashing out with the sword. I swung my own blade over my head and blocked his strike from the behind before it buried itself in my back. I spun around so I was facing him and made a stab at his thigh, which was blocked with unnatural speed. He lunged forwards and I jumped to the left, not quite avoiding the edge of his blade. A shallow gash formed on my right leg, sending twinges of pain shooting through the limb every time I moved.
I gritted my teeth and leapt back, dodging another fireball on the way. He was simply too strong for me to handle, and soon I'd tire out if I kept this up.
Not giving me to time think, he rushed forwards again. A shower of sparks fell as our weapons clashed together, obscuring my vision for a brief moment. I quickly leapt back before he could try anything funny. A brick fell off a nearby building, and an inkling of an idea formed in my head.
I blew a raspberry and bolted towards the town, skidding to a stop once I was under one of the buildings. I hastily blocked a swing of his sword and widened my eyes. "Oh my Notch!" I gasped dramatically, pointing over his shoulder. "What the Nether is that?!"
Oldest entry in the Classic Tricks for Dummies 101, but hey, I wasn't complaining if it worked.
The white-eyed man spun around, looking where I pointed. I fished the Ender Pearl I had gotten earlier out of my Inventory and chucked it onto the roof of a building. Materialising in a shower of sparks, I winced from the aftershock and watched as he looked this way and that, wondering where I'd suddenly flown off to. I tossed an itemized object from hand to hand, and grinned evilly.
Clang!
I dropped an anvil on top of him. He went down like a sack of fertiliser. I carefully made my way down and picked up my anvil.
"I will not be defeated-"
Wak.
Turns out the diamond helmet protected him from most of the damage. I hit him with the flat of my blade.
"By a mere-"
I got utterly fed up and took off his helmet and smacked him with the anvil.
Bang
After that, he finally shut up. May have had something to do with the fact he was unconscious.
"Had fun?"
I whirled around and shook my fist in Horus' face. "You! Walking away and leaving me to deal with the most dangerous entity in existence-"
"And who might that be?"
"Herobrine! This guy here!" I waved my sword at the unconscious dude on the ground.
A look of amusement flitted across Horus' face. "Let me show you something"
He produced a bucket of water from his Inventory and set it on the ground. Then he pried open the man's eyes and shoved his head into the bucket, sloshing it around a few times. Surprisingly, he didn't wake up.
He lifted the guy's head out of the bucket and opened his eyes for me to see. Instead of dull white like they were, they were now an uninteresting brown.
"So... the guy was just a guy on potions all along?" I asked, disappointed. Damn, I tried so hard, too!
Horus inclined his head slightly. "Fire magician. Speed Potion, Strength Potion, Leaping Potion still in effect" Now that he mentioned it, I can see the potion particles rising off the dude.
The said dude groaned, and tried to climb to his feet. Horus splashed a bucket of milk in his face and the potion particles vanished. The guy suddenly paled. I picked up the bucket of water and swung it into the side of his head, knocking him out again. Then Horus tied him up with a leash and gave the end to me.
I started dragging the guy back to where the villagers were. Behind me, I heard the snap of a finger and suddenly the crackling of flames went silent.
It was the village elder, Leroy, who saw me first. A full sized cheer rose from the gathered people as they saw me dragging the 'Herobrine' up the hill. I got my leg bandaged, and quickly explained what happened, and who the guy actually was, then left him at the mercy of the angry villagers. After I gave him a solid right hook to the face for the trouble.
Horus was waiting for me when I got back to the burnt town. "What's our next stop?" I asked as we started walking again.
"Iron Hills. Used to be a series of mineshafts, until some Griefers blew the whole place to high Aether. They've built a City on top of the collapsed cave system."
We arrived at the outskirts of the city just as the sun started setting. Horus did a magicky thingy with illusions and got us past the guards easily. We went to a hotel that was simply named 'Iron Hills Hotel' (gee, I wonder why).
"Be careful" Horus said as we traipsed up to our room. "Notch rarely sends his people here, so the criminal activity is through the roof. Watch out for the slave hunters"
"Slave hunters?!" I wasn't sure I heard right. Wasn't that banned a few thousand years ago?
He'd disappeared. The speed and silence that guy does things are extraordinary.
"I'm going to do a bit a shopping for provisions" I said. No response. "Well, see you" I turned and walked out, shutting the door gently behind me.
I went downstairs and asked the manager a few questions. Yes, they did have a market, and yes, it was open at this time of the day (night, actually).
I followed the directions the guy gave me, and sure enough, found myself at the market. There were stalls selling all sorts of things, from horses to dyes. I considered getting a horse, but decided against it as none of them looked fit for long distance journeys.
I wandered over to a potions stall and grabbed a few potions. I paid the stall owner with a diamond and left to go to the tool shop. As much as it embarrassed me to say this, I did need to replace my flint and steel. Right now I didn't have the flint to craft one myself, and it only cost two iron ingots anyway.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a bulky guy dressed in leather armor, with an axe strapped across his back. He was staring straight at me.
I shrugged it off, telling myself it was probably nothing, and continued with my wandering.
After some time, I gradually became aware of the same guy seemingly following me everywhere. Sometimes he'd be talking to other people, but wherever I went, I could always see him. I began to suspect he was following me.
Charming.
What I did next was probably a very stupid move, but I did it anyway (who said I wasn't stupid?). I deliberately walked away from the market, towards the quieter parts of the city. I spotted an alleyway that I assumed was a dead end and strolled down it.
Soft footsteps behind, stopping when I stopped, starting when I did, creeping closer and closer. A normal person would not have been able to hear it, but due to my enhanced senses, I could hear every step. And it wasn't just one person.
I turned a corner and found myself at a dead end, just as I hoped. Behind me, the footsteps grew louder and louder, not even attempting to be quiet now.
"Are you lost, little boy?" sang a voice from behind me. Raucous laughter followed. I didn't bother turning around. "That one would fetch a nice price on the market"
Ah. So they were slave traders. All the more reason to whip their behinds and hand them in to the guards on silver platters.
I turned around and scrutinised them calmly. An unsightly company of men with a variety of mismatched weapons and armour blocked the exit. The thugs stared back, most likely wondering how much I'd sell for.
Not very much, I reckoned. Unless the buyer was extremely inebriated. Crap, I was curious now. How much would I sell for?
"I know a few ladies who'd pay a lot for his pretty face" one guffawed. I frowned and touched my face, imagining it framed on a wall. "I'd like to keep my face to myself, thank you very much"
"Slaves don't have belongings" another said, unfurling a whip. "Get on your knees, boy" he held a knife in his other hand. When I didn't respond, he came up to me and shoved the blunt side of the knife against my throat. Or tried to.
The proximity of his face made him a very tempting target. Before I knew what I was doing, the guy was reeling back with a mouthful of broken teeth, and my fist was making the return journey from a particularly vicious right hook. Then I kneed him in the groin.
He dropped to the pavement and curled up into a little ball of misery.
"Who's next?" I said casually. There was a slight lull as total silence fell over the place like a shroud, then all six remaining slave traders leapt at me, weapons swinging.
I grabbed a wrist belonging to a guy holding a crude stone sword, and gave it a hard twist. Then I kicked someone else in the groin, elbowed another person in the armpit, and bounced a block of cobblestone off someone's head. I backed away to make sense of it all. I could barely tell who was who from the tangle of limbs.
The men stepped back too. They eyed me warily. I wondered why they weren't running away yet, because common thugs were usually very easy to scare off.
"Why are you doing this?" I tried to reason with them. "You could make an honest living. Go take up farming, for example. Farming's nice. I have a friend who farms." A lie. I didn't know a lot about farming, I admit, so I had to sell the idea the best I could. It didn't look like I was succeeding.
The guy with the axe spoke up. "We weren't really after you. It's your friend we're interested in. You're just a bonus. So do yourself a favour and tell me where your friend is, and we might let you go" he grinned, showing off a mouthful of surprisingly shiny teeth.
"What makes you sure it's us you're looking for? We're just random travellers going to, uh... the Aether... yes, the Aether! You know, to make a complaint"
Axe Guy snorted. "You're hard to miss. A guy with strange blue eyes, he says. With another guy who has strange purple eyes, he says. He wants the guy with the blue eyes- gonna give anyone who catches him a chest full of diamonds, he-"
"Looking for me?" Came a silky voice from the mouth of the alley. I looked towards the source of the sound.
A slender silhouette stood in the moonlight, then began walking towards us. I scowled. "Have you been stalking me again?"
Horus shook his head. Then nodded. "I was actually following these gentlemen" he flicked a finger in the thugs' direction. "They have been following us since we came through the gates. So I followed you when you went outside"
"Next time you decide to go fishing with me as bait, can I have some warning first?"
Meanwhile, the thugs looked back and forth between us while we bantered. Then Axe Guy finally lost his patience. "For diamonds!" He shouted, charging.
"Jierda"
Axe Guy shrieked in pain as both of his legs suddenly bent out of shape with a wet snapping sound, tumbling to the ground in a graceless pile.
"What just happened?" I yelped, looking around for hidden assassins. Horus blew smoke off his fingers theatrically, in a rather smug fashion.
The rest of the men scattered like chickens in the the presence of an ocelot.
Before you could say "Oopsie", my traveling companion blurred into action. Within moments, most of the thugs were either decapitated, burnt to a crisp, or both. I snapped to my senses and ran after the rampaging magician.
"Stop!" I shouted, catching his arm in a tight hold. A bolt of light misfired and splashed harmlessly against a wall, forming a massive sheet of ice.
Horus turned to look at me quizzically. "You don't have to kill them!" I yelled.
His expression froze, and the temperature seemed to suddenly drop to minus ten degrees. "It is a necessity" he said coolly. Before I could stop him, he spun around and hurled his pickaxe. Halfway to the entrance of the alley, the last man dropped.
He turned back to the guy with the axe and lifted him up by his collar. The man whimpered like a child.
"Who's paying you?" Horus asked in a dangerously soft tone.
"Guy from Arcopolis" the guy said thickly. He swallowed. "Big-shot wizard. I don't know him. Please let me go, I have a wife and six kids at home."
Arcopolis. The Golden City. Where the most powerful magicians go.
"How many people are after me?"
"Everyone who wants the bounty" the guy replied. "Wife and five kids, remember," he said quickly. "They want you, Peregrine. They want you bad. If I was you, I'd let me go. There's others who-"
"Five kids? What happened to the sixth?" Horus said very, very softly.
The man paled.
I turned away quickly just before a sickening thump filled the air as the severed head hit the ground.
For a moment there was just silence.
Then I walked away unsteadily, feeling something numb spread through my chest. Horus didn't call after me.
A/N: Still banned. I had to wrestle with my laggy phone to actually put the words in where I wanted them, so there may be a few errors.
Evangi= Netherwolves (plural)
Evangar= Netherwolf (singular)
P.S: I know some people are disappointed I haven't actually put Herobrine in properly, but he's playing a major part in the story. You'll find out how later.