CHRONICLE

BOOK ONE: LYDIA

PART TWO: THE FALL

Chapter Twelve: Blood of Gods

Herobrine breathed slowly and evenly, eyes closed, and waited.

The zombie was coming closer now, moving slowly and deliberately. Not my mob, Herobrine thought. Someone else is controlling this one. The footsteps increased in tempo, and then the zombie took a running leap, soaring higher into the air than any monster should have been able to. Herobrine waited for the last second, listening for the metallic hum of the beast's sword coming for him.

The zombie never saw him move.

Herobrine slithered from his throne with impossible speed, snatched up his pick, turned, and drove it into the back of the zombie just as its sword was slashing through the space where he was just a fraction of a second ago. The zombie fell dead across the armrest of the throne, its sword ringing as it fell to the side. Regaining his footing, Herobrine wrenched his pick from the back of the dying mob and flicked it sharply downwards, shaking off the putrid blood.

More growls echoed from behind. Herobrine turned, looking over his shoulder, and saw that a full squad of zombies had entered the hall, opening the way for other mobs to enter. Another squad was on the way, and spiders could be seen crawling up the walls. He narrowed his eyes at the nearest attacking body, the squad of zombies armed with iron swords and waiting in battle stance. Raising his pickaxe, he turned to face them fully, leveling his weapon at them and concentrating. His muscles bunched imperceptibly.

Blood and ashes! They fight like sentient beings! I'll have to be more careful...

Herobrine vanished from where he stood and reappeared in the center of the grouped zombies. All of them shouted voicelessly in surprise as they were blown backwards by the small shockwave of force from his super-fast motion. Half the squad was caught unprepared and died on the spot from the force. The rest had managed to brace themselves in time.

One zombie took the opportunity to attack. Moving as fast as its undead legs would carry it, the zombie lunged forward and slashed down at Herobrine. Herobrine parried with his pick, sparks flying, and ducked as the zombie kept moving and slashed for his neck as it went past him. Whirling, Herobrine beheaded the zombie on the sharp inner edge of his pick, the head flying off towards the next attacker. The zombie, with unforeseen agility, leaped and rolled in midair to avoid the projectile, and slashed down at Herobrine with the full momentum of its body.

Now they're sentient beings with talent. Glorious.

Herobrine parried again, ducked, and swept himself under the zombie, pick whirling to parry the next strokes. The zombie went around him, meaning to confuse him, but Herobrine knocked its sword aside as it went and struck backwards with his elbow, solidly catching the zombie in the chest. Ribs cracked under the blow. Continuing his momentum, Herobrine whirled and rammed the flat head of the T of his pickaxe into the zombie's chest with a burst of his unnatural strength, sending it flying up into the air to crash into the pillar nearby and stay there, broken and dead.

An arrow landed right between Herobrine's feet. He stumbled backwards a half step and looked upwards, to the balconies on either side of the central aisle of the throne room. Several bow-wielding skeletons stood up there at the ready, and they all had arrows nocked and drawn. My, he thought, don't they have a good strategy.

More arrows rained down. Herobrine cartwheeled to the side, five arrows buried point-down in the stone where he was just moments ago. The skeletons kept shooting, reloading in perfect rhythm to keep up a steady stream of arrows. He backflipped again and again, the arrows striking the stone in a line behind him. Rolling to regain his footing, Herobrine blocked arrows on his pick and ran for the nearest pillar, building up as much momentum as he could and leaping up into the air, running straight up the pillar and under the vault it held up, catching himself on the other side by burying his pick in the back of a spider and using it as a fulcrum to kill his momentum and let him spin up and over it and back down again.

The spider fell dead to the floor three stories below, and Herobrine caught himself one-handed on the grillwork that fenced in the balconies. The skeleton just inches from him stumbled back in surprise, and then immediately recovered and prepared to shoot. Herobrine smirked.

Launching himself off the balcony railing, he twisted in flight and caught himself on the railing of the opposite balcony. The arrows of the skeletons passed harmlessly around him and struck the opposite skeleton archers dead. Rolling his eyes, Herobrine released his grip and dropped to the floor of the throne room once more. He reached out with his senses, detecting what creatures remained.

He suddenly sensed a presence he had not sensed since his last conversation with the Endermen in the forest. He had killed two, but one had managed to escape back to the End. Now it was returning. This one in particular had a personal vendetta against him, and it was linked directly to whatever Void forces were fueling the war. But that presence was still a ways off- he had more immediate worries. Swallowing hard against the rising cold in his chest, Herobrine counted to three and ducked.

The zombie's fist passed harmlessly over his head. As the zombie cried out in surprise as it was turned around by its own momentum, Herobrine grabbed its opposite arm and held it in a lock. Straightening, he turned to face the oncoming squad of zombies, these unarmed, and threw his pick with a sharp snapping motion of his arm, sending it spinning through the air and into the face of another zombie, who was lifted into the air and thrown backwards by the force of the pick's momentum. Blood sprayed through the air in a fine mist, and the pick kept going, circling the room and wrecking havoc.

Narrowing his eyes, Herobrine turned once more and slid his hand from under the shoulder of the zombie to its wrist, using his other hand to strike the small of its back, pulling its arm out straight and putting it on its knees on the floor. The next zombie was coming up to attack him from behind.

Sticking out his leg, he swept the ankles out from under the incoming zombie and, looping the arm holding his captive's wrist over his head, he twisted his body and threw the zombie he held across his back and onto the one he had tripped, flattening them both to the floor. But he didn't release his grip on the zombie's wrist.

Bracing himself, Herobrine threw the unfortunate zombie over his head by the wrist into the next zombie, crushing it flat to the floor. Tossing the broken zombie spinning into the air, he released its wrist and seized both ankles with each hand. Spinning the beast around with the full force of his body, he sent the zombie flying into the last three of the squad. All of them fell hard with muffled cries and the crackle of breaking bones.

The entire fistfight had taken no more than five heartbeats. Immediate threat dealt with, Herobrine reached out quickly with his senses as he stepped back to admire his handiwork.

Now for that blasted Enderman...

A black-skinned fist slammed into his face.

Herobrine flew backwards off his feet from the blow and hit the ground in an uncontrollable slide across the smooth tile, a strangled cry of surprise escaping him as he struggled to stop sliding and flip back up to his feet. The Enderman teleported after him, and just as Herobrine had regained control of his footing, it rammed its fist into his face again and sent him backwards up into the air and into the back of his throne. As soon as Herobrine's back struck the wood with bone-jarring force, the Enderman was there, one clawed hand around his throat and the other bludgeoning his face. A grating scream of victory began to fill the air as the Enderman tightened its grip on Herobrine's neck. Herobrine immediately wrapped one of his hands around the Enderman's wrist and struggled uselessly with the other below him for the sword the first attacker had dropped in the seat of the throne.

"You are no god!" The Enderman said gleefully in Herobrine's mind, forcing its telepathic power onto him.

"No!" Herobrine sputtered, hand still grasping for the sword.

"We will kill you!" The Enderman continued. "We will bring you to your knees and make you beg for mercy!"

"You have no such power over a creator!"

"Then prove it." The Enderman seemed to grin, its jagged teeth bared. "Saddled by your creation, you make yourself powerless against us."

Another idea struck Herobrine just as the Enderman prepared to strike another devastating blow to the side of his head.

"And you," he hissed through his slowly crushing windpipe, "are powerless without THIS!" His eyes flew wide as he released the Enderman's wrist and rammed his hand down the Enderman's throat and grasped the small glowing pearl embedded within. The Enderman screamed in an entirely different manner and tried to close its vicious jaws and teeth around Herobrine's hand, but it was too late. Herobrine tore the pearl out of the Enderman's body, and while it was distracted, was able to reach down and retrieve the sword. Gasping in a lungful of air now that the Enderman no longer held him in a stranglehold, Herobrine viciously drove the sword hilt-deep into the Enderman's belly and released the hilt, sending the creature flying away with a hard kick to the chest.

Now to finish this. Herobrine regained his footing standing on the seat of the throne and looked up.

Fueled by magic, the pickaxe was just finishing its circuit around the throne room. Herobrine launched himself into the air and caught the pickaxe mid-flight in his free hand, the Ender pearl still in his other hand. Twisting his body, he hooked the pick around the Enderman's body and used it as an anchor to turn on, sending the Enderman straight up into the air and himself straight down. He hit the floor in a run, launched up in the air again, and kicked off a pillar, coming along side the Enderman as it was still going up.

Rolling in the air, Herobrine used the full force of his strength to strike the pommel of the sword with the flat side of his pick, sending it through the Enderman and down into the floor. Completing his roll, Herobrine threw down the pearl and teleported, reaching the ground before the Enderman did. He wrapped his fingers around the hilt of the sword and pulled it free from the stone, raising it up into the air over his head.

The Enderman landed on it point first, impaling itself through the chest with an ear-shattering dying scream that sent a shockwave through the room, cracking stone and glass in its wake.

Herobrine let the arm holding up the Enderman fall to the side, the eyes of the Enderman now blank in death and the rest of its body limp and beginning to dissipate. Pulling the sword free, he calmly began to walk back to his throne.

A single drop of blood fell from the deep scores on his hand left by the Enderman's teeth, splattering on the tiles.

Taking a shaky breath, Herobrine surveyed the room from the dais. His senses told him the battle was over, and no more rogue mobs were coming. Dropping the sword beside the throne and putting his pick away in his inventory, he stepped down from the dais and went to the tile where the fox hole was hidden below. Two corpses of zombies were lying on top of it- he kicked them aside and carefully wedged his fingers into the seam between the tiles, lifting the stone and pushing it aside.

Lydia looked up as light entered the small hiding hole from above. Herobrine reached his unhurt hand down towards her, beckoning.

"It is safe now," he called. "My enemy somehow took control of a number of my monsters and used them to attack me." Lydia climbed the ladder, accepting Herobrine's hand and letting herself be pulled the rest of the way from the hole and onto the floor of the throne room again. The smell of rotting flesh and blood assaulted her nostrils, and she grimaced against it, looking around at the dead zombies and spiders around the floor.

Then she noticed the healing cuts on Herobrine's other hand.

"You're hurt," she said, surprised. Herobrine looked down at his hand and tucked it behind him, looking up at Lydia again.

"So I was. It happens on occasion." He turned to go back to his throne.

"How? You're one of the most powerful beings out there..." Lydia trailed off as Herobrine stopped walking towards the throne and leveled his gaze at hers.

"So I am," he answered, "But what do you think would happen if I unleashed my power in a place like this? My enemy knew I would have to hold back for the sake of my people here. I had to fight more like a human would, and thus I face a greater risk of injury. This," He held up his bleeding hand, "is of no consequence to me. My body can repair itself from any injury. I am a Creator god- I am above the needs of the flesh I wrap around myself." No need to think about how close to the truth the Enderman was, for now at least.

"I see."

"Now," Herobrine said in a more brief and businesslike tone, "You need to get out of here. This attack was by no means the last that will come to me. Go back to your home country and ride quickly."

"What will you do?" Lydia asked. Herobrine looked away, gazing at the rising stars through the windows.

"I am going to subvert my enemy's manipulation," he answered, his voice soft. "I'm going to lift the lock down on Luminara and devote myself and my power entirely to finding the identity of the traitor. It is time I forced his hand, for all the times he has forced mine." I will do what I should have done a long time ago...

"That's all you need me for?" Lydia asked as she began inching towards the door. Herobrine nodded.

"Yes. Just keep the record. And stay alive, of course. Now go! Quickly, child!"

Lydia turned and ran for the door, shouldering it open and running from the throne room. She didn't stop running until she had reached her horse, still tied to the bridge post and rearing out of distress at the scent of blood.

"Hush, Windfoot!" Lydia cooed, taking the reigns and pulling the horse back down to its feet. "Shh. Shh. We need to get out of here. That's better..." Stepping up on the stirrup, Lydia smoothly mounted and broke into a gallop, flying out of the city as the last dredges of sunlight vanished from the sky and night fell over Luminara.

Herobrine settled down in his throne and closed his eyes, letting his thoughts fall to silence in meditation and reaching out with his senses. He had attempted to contact Notch many times and been answered with silence, but he never gave up trying. Now he searched for any trace of his brother's presence to follow and attach to.

Nothing.

Opening his eyes, Herobrine stood from his throne and stepped down from the dais, going under the balcony on one side and into a side hall, to the room where the entrance to his meditation hall lay. Pushing aside the obsidian slab with a wave of his hand and a measure of power, Herobrine dropped down the hole and landed on the floor of the redstone lit chamber, bending his knees to absorb the impact.

He had one last trick to try. It would be risky, but he had to speak with his brother one last time before the real battle began. Straightening, he produced with his mind and a burst of his innate creation energy twelve blocks of glowing yellow crystal glowstone. With a wave of his hand, water spread to fill the vertical portal frame, and white sparks flew as the portal magic activated. Quickly, Herobrine chanted the spell that would hide his power and the portal's energy from prying eyes and senses, and reached his power through the portal, into the Aether.

There he was at last able to sense his brother's presence.

"Forgive me for what I am about to say, brother." Herobrine whispered to himself before sending his mental summons through the portal.

"Notch," he called with his mind, and the presence jerked and immediately grasped to his. A humanoid image appeared on the surface of the water, taking on the dark hair and eyes of the eldest of the creator gods.

"Herobrine," the image answered. "It has been a long time."

Haha! It's finished! At last!

So- how did I do on this version of a certain well-known battle between Herobrine and the mobs? In my humble opinion, it was much better than the last try, but I'll let you be the judge. (Oh, and before I get some wise guy review saying Herobrine was using a scythe, dummy, I'm going to openly state that Dilingoo, the creator of the animation, said himself that Herobrine used a pick in his video. It was filtered through the Dokucraft texture pack, so it looked like a scythe. (Others will say he used a hoe- but in Dokucraft, the hoe looks more like a shovel.) It was not. It was a pickaxe.)

What a satisfying chapter to write! I've been dying to write this for a while now. Whelp, now we know that La- uh, You know Who, has made his first move, and the war is about to finally come out in the open. The Ender War against the gods has just begun!

Just wait- the Ender War against the Overworld is yet to come!

Now we know how all those scattered plot points come together. Review! How did I do?

Huntress out.