CHRONICLE

BOOK ONE: LYDIA

PART TWO: THE FALL

Chapter Sixteen: The Fall

Present Day

Remund sat cross-legged on the floor, his eyes closed and his mind oblivious to his surroundings. Colors curled and danced behind his eyelids, slowly congealing into images that blurred in and out of focus.

For three nights he had been sitting here, only getting up when the sun rose to eat and then fall fast asleep until sunset. Then, when he awoke, the visions would return, relentless in their demands.

Before him was a book, a journal of sorts filled with his revelations from his visions and from the others like him that he had been able to find. It was open to a blank page, and in his hand was a quill loaded with fresh ink. Even now, his hand was beginning to move on its own accord as images of dark figures dancing back and forth, steel flashing, passed across his sight.

The pen scratched quickly on the page, only stopping for the briefest of moments when his fingers cramped. Page after page was written, until at last, the vision stopped and the quill fell from his hand. Remund shifted and groaned as his legs cramped, opening his eyes. It was morning again.

He looked down at what he wrote, blinking in the weak dawn light that now filtered through his window. He had trouble making out his own rushed handwriting, and much of what was written puzzled him. They were riddles, parables. He would need to ponder over his writings again, like he had many times, perhaps go over them with the priest that was wintering in the church tower nearby.

But one passage stopped him. This one was different than the others. It was a warning of sorts, more straightforward than the rest of this day's scribbling.

"The rules of war between deities and forces shall be this: No open warfare shall be permitted until the end, for such utter destruction would result in no clear winner, but many casualties among lesser beings and creations. Let the battles be battles between minds, and subtle moves made in secret, so that when the war is inevitably pushed out into the open, the result shall already be determined. The defending party has lost, and the attacking party has won. For the attacker shall simply be coming to finish unpleasant business, and the defender will have already spent his last chance, and the war shall be done."

With a sigh, Remund closed his journal and climbed into bed, hoping he would be able to better understand his new mess of notes next night.

So long as his visions left him alone.

The night was deceptively peaceful in Luminara. The sky was clear and scattered with stars, and the air was still, without a breath of wind.

But it was also very dark, with the only light coming from a few closed windows. The street lamps were dark, and very little illumination leaked from the tall stained-glass windows of Kingshall. The courtyard of the palace was quiet, but charged with tension.

In an instant, the silence was broken by the sound of shattering glass. Herobrine sucked in his breath as his back hit the stained glass and broke right through it. Free-falling shards cascaded down with him, cutting into his skin and clothing.

Glass rained down and shattered into dust around him as he hit the ground and slid uncontrollably with his momentum.

Herobrine tried to alter his slide and flip to his feet, but he was moving too fast to keep his balance. He fell again, rolled, and got to his feet at last, his back slamming into the far wall of the courtyard.

His instincts screamed for him to move an instant before his dulled senses told him the reason why: The wards. Herobrine leaped aside as hard as he could a split second before the wall behind him exploded inward, the magical barriers over them collapsing entirely. The explosion spoiled his leap, slamming him down face-first into the stone a few yards away.

Endermen teleported through the opening. Herobrine looked up from where he lay, and saw Enderman after Enderman appear around him, surrounding him.

Oh, blast...

Herobrine began to struggle to his feet, but not quickly enough.

An Enderman's fist slammed into his chest just as he had one knee under him, and Herobrine flew backwards with the force of the blow. Another Enderman was there, grasping him under the arms before he could react and teleporting high up into the air and vanishing. Another Enderman kicked him off in another direction, and another caught him and threw him spinning upwards again. Trying desperately to breathe, Herobrine curled up and tried to fend off blow after blow as he spun and flew dizzyingly through the air.

One Enderman kicked him in the small of his back, and Herobrine uncurled with a cry as he flew upwards once more.

Another slammed him in the belly, and Herobrine went down.

The ground rushed up and Herobrine met it with a starburst of pain across his vision. Dust and scree flew in a small cloud from the force of his fall, and Herobrine struggled to remember which way was down. The potion of regeneration he had taken earlier was still in effect, but it wasn't enough. Herobrine was badly shaken, and he could hear more mobs coming along.

Herobrine inhaled and felt rage building in his chest. Now that the initial shock had passed, he was ready. Laskig was controlling the mobs directly- that much he knew. And he knew a thing or two about how he had them attack. Gripping the shaft of his pickaxe, he crouched and sprang before the dust had a chance to settle.

The sharp end of his pickaxe drove straight into a zombie's face with a wet crunch, and Herobrine twisted his grip and tore the pick away, the head of the zombie still attached while the body fell aside. A wave of putrid blood soaked the stone all around him, and the other zombies behind the one he had slain stepped back quickly.

Herobrine smirked as the zombies hesitated.

With a fast sweeping motion, he threw the head of the zombie at one of its companions, watching it bounce off its face. He followed it, slamming his shoulder into the unfortunate zombie before it could recover and throwing it off balance. The severed head flew over Herobrine, and he skewered it on his pick again and used it to hammer a runt zombie into a small puddle of red on the stone.

Another zombie approached from behind, hoping to stab him while his back was turned.

Herobrine stepped one foot back and whirled, slamming the zombie in its midsection with the side of his pick and the full force of his body, and the zombie screamed voicelessly as it flew the hundred feet between it and the top of the courtyard wall and rammed into the stone, sticking there. Facing the rest of the zombie squad, Herobrine called up a small amount of magical energy from another amulet and threw his pick end-over-end, using the magic to send it circling into the distance, killing everything in its path. Another zombie, thinking he was unarmed, approached Herobrine with its sword raised. Herobrine clenched his fists, looking, to all appearances, like he was preparing to fight.

The pick blinked past, and the zombie blinked as it fell to the ground, its legs missing entirely. Blood pooled around the bisected zombie, and it fell forward, dead.

The pick circled more tightly now, and the zombie squad that surrounded him was cut down entirely. One zombie was quick enough to duck and avoid the flashing blades, slashing down at Herobrine, but Herobrine was quicker. He caught the zombie's sword arm with his forearm, and grabbed its wrist in his free hand. Turning around, he threw the zombie over his back with enough force to tear off its arm. The zombie slammed down into an attacking Enderman, who grunted in surprise as the zombie slammed into it just as it teleported in to attack, and fell flat to the ground, its body broken.

Herobrine took the sword, arm still attached, and blocked a hail of arrows with it, following his instincts more than his sight. The power of the potions was wearing thin already, but still holding. More arrows came from the other direction. Taking the initiative, he slashed straight down at a nearby zombie and cut it in half down to its chest. Herobrine braced himself against the body, and a half-dozen arrows thudded into the zombie's flesh, effectively shielding Herobrine.

Then Herobrine paused, eyes widening slightly.

A creeper was approaching from behind his zombie shield. Tossing away the dead monster, Herobrine skipped a few paces to the side and swung his sword flat-first into the creeper's middle, batting it up into the air and over the wall he knew most of the arrows had come from.

An explosion shook the floor of the courtyard, and now-dead skeleton skulls and bones flew up into the air. Herobrine took a moment to remove the arm still attached to the hilt of the sword and cast it aside before another squadron of zombies ran into position around him.

One zombie did not wait. It immediately attacked, slicing towards Herobrine's neck. Herobrine backpedaled, catching the zombie's wrist with his free hand and holding it in place while he stabbed another attacking zombie through the heart and then turned back to behead the one he held. Immediately, he released the wrist of the zombie and gripped his sword with both hands, fending off an Enderman that leaped in feet-first, meaning to kick him to the ground.

Herobrine turned and held his sword out straight in front of him, and the Enderman teleported exactly where he had predicted- onto the blade of the sword. Swinging the blade, and the Enderman attached, over his head, Herobrine threw the Enderman over him and down into the ground, mercilessly tearing his sword free and catching the Ender pearl that he levered out of the corpse with the tip of the blade.

Herobrine tossed his sword into his left hand and threw the Ender pearl off into the distance with his right, and then stopped to catch his breath.

I can't keep fighting like this. If this goes on much longer...

A charging Enderman slammed bodily into him and kept running, carrying Herobrine with it as it burst through a solid stone wall, using Herobrine as its battering ram, and teleported to do the same from another direction. Herobrine struggled to stay awake as his head hit the stone again with enough force to crack his skull, but he was too dazed to do much else as the Enderman teleported up high and threw him down into the ground again, sending chunks of stone and dirt flying.

Mercifully, the Ender pearl shattered at that instant, and Herobrine found himself sliding down the window at the far end of the courtyard, landing just barely on his feet on the sill with a pained oof. Straightening, Herobrine looked over the courtyard and tried to gather his thoughts.

A trickle of warmth ran down his forehead, and redness leaked into one eye. Blinking, Herobrine touched his forehead, and found that he was bleeding from a deep wound at his hairline.

Void take it! I'm out of potions!

Herobrine shook his head and turned his attention back to the battle. From his vantage point, Herobrine could at last see how many there were attacking him, and began to formulate a plan. He needed to get out and find a safer place to build a portal to the Aether, but to do that, he needed to find an escape route. The nearest one was the hole blasted in the wall by the attacking Endermen, across the courtyard, and at that moment, that way was blocked.

We'll just have to do something about that, won't we?

His pickaxe was just finishing its swathe of destruction, and was coming his way. Leaping up as high as his strength would allow, Herobrine flipped gracefully in the air and caught the pick on the way down. An Enderman looked up just a moment too late- Herobrine landed on its shoulders with the full force of his momentum and buried his pick in its head. Springing up again, he hooked his pick around the neck of another Enderman and swung around it, kicking off a zombie to keep going so that he was braced on the Enderman's slender back. Pushing off with both legs, grasping the shaft of his pickaxe with both hands, he cleanly sliced off the Enderman's head and flew backwards, Ender pearls tumbling free after him. The severed head landed a few paces away as Herobrine landed smoothly on his feet and hastily picked up the pearls.

Clenching his jaw in concentration, Herobrine threw the handful of pearls up into the air over the group of remaining mobs and crouched down into a fighting position.

The pearls shattered one after another, and Herobrine teleported with them. He slashed and stabbed hard with impossible speed, ending up in a fast slide away from the group in a similar crouch to the one he started in. Pain lanced through his body, and he knew he had taken a gamble using so many pearls at once in his weakened state.

Blood exploded into the air behind him. Every mob in the group fell to the ground, dead.

Well, at least that worked.

Herobrine was never given a chance to regain his bearings.

Immediately, a spider ran up and pounced, knocking Herobrine over and pinning him to the ground. More spiders crawled up into a circle around Herobrine and spewed a mess of webs over him, further tying him to the ground.

Laskig, you clever scum!

Endermen were flashing in and out of existence high above, teleporting creepers high into the air so that they would explode as soon as they touched the ground. As soon as each one had dropped its load, the Endermen teleported down to Herobrine, helping the spiders to hold him down.

Not this time.

The potion of strength he had taken before was already overtaxed and running out quickly. Herobrine decided to make the most of it and wriggled his right arm free, using all of his strength to break through the webbing and behead the Endermen directly above him. Two Ender pearls fell, and he caught both in his other hand, tossing one behind him.

He teleported free of the circle of spiders, but with a cry of surprise at the sudden pulling force, he realized the strings of webbing were still attached. Bracing himself against the pull, he leaped sideways and began circling, wrapping the webbing around the Endermen before they could teleport after him. He threw the other Ender pearl behind him as far as he could, and then twisted to cut himself free of the strands of webs.

Exhausted, Herobrine fell and flopped to the ground, rolling with his remaining momentum. The creepers had nearly reached the ground, but just as the nearest one was expanding to explode, Herobrine felt the Ender pearl break and the teleportation magic take hold.

Herobrine found himself on the roof of Kingshall just as an ear-splitting explosion shook the entire building.

Then everything went still.

The courtyard was silent at last, but when Herobrine tried to sit up, his body immediately screamed and spasmed against him. He fell back down with a cry, coughing weakly. A small spray of blood came up.

Kingshall shuddered ominously.

Herobrine felt it before he heard it over the ringing in his ears- the roof was collapsing beneath him. Helpless, he felt the stone crack and buckle away, and suddenly he was falling through empty space.

Laskig watched with bored interest from the balcony in the Council room as Herobrine fell through the roof. Herobrine had nearly found a way to escape, but not this time.

He smiled wickedly beneath his mask as Herobrine crashed to the ground, followed by a hail of stone and brick.

Pain exploded through Herobrine's body, and he could barely move. With a groan, he heaved a block of stone off his chest and rolled onto his belly, forcing himself onto his hands and knees. His pick was gone, lost somewhere in the rubble. Spasms wracked his body, and Herobrine hacked up dust and blood. His muscles trembled, and everything in his body begged him to stop and just lie down.

Laskig vaulted over the balcony railing and floated gracefully to the ground.

"How are you feeling?" Laskig mocked, and Herobrine fell onto his side with a cough, looking up at Laskig dully. The last dredges of the potion of regeneration were clearing away his dizziness, but there just wasn't enough of the magic left to heal his broken bones. A wave of weakness went through his limbs, warning Herobrine that the rest of his magic had run out as well.

This was it.

"It's been very entertaining," Laskig said as he approached Herobrine and drew his scimitar from his side, "but I'm afraid the puppet show must end now." Herobrine pushed himself away as Laskig drew closer, somehow finding the strength to get to his feet.

"Not so fast," Laskig admonished, leaping forward and punching Herobrine in the bridge of his nose. Herobrine stumbled backwards with a short cry, putting one hand to his now-broken nose, trying to stem the flow of blood that now ran from his nostrils.

Laskig stopped and sighed.

"Oh, look at you," Laskig spat, "I always wanted to see what you would be like beneath all that power. I'm disappointed, really. I was hoping for something a little more... determined. But not this. This-" Laskig teleported behind Herobrine and slashed deep scores on the backs of his knees, "is pathetic." Herobrine fell to his knees with a cry as the muscles went slack and gave out. Wrapping one arm around his chest, he used the other to brace himself against a piece of rubble. "I was hoping for a real fight, Herobrine! But look at you. All it takes is a few of your own monsters and then... this."

Laskig turned away, sheathing his sword.

"Let's get this over with, then," he muttered under his breath, and grabbed Herobrine by the back of his shirt, hauling him along with him, leaving a dark streaking trail of blood behind him. Herobrine was barely conscious now, with only the occasional moan escaping him as his trailing limbs barked into obstructions. Laskig dragged him up the stairs and through the doorway leading out onto the balconies in the throne room, casually tossing him over the railing and sprawling onto the floor. Herobrine was too tired to make a sound. He tried to drag himself up with his forearms, but his legs would not respond.

Laskig leaped down after him and kicked him bodily into the middle of the room.

Darkness gathered outside, a deeper darkness than the night that blotted out the stars. Laskig could feel the pressure on the remaining wards, the power of the Thing leaking into the cracks he had torn.

Yesss... It hissed in Laskig's mind, and Laskig felt it's gleeful anticipation.

Drawing his scimitar once more, Laskig pulled Herobrine up onto his knees by the front of his shirt. He couldn't help but grin at the broken and bloodied Creator.

"Now it's my turn, Herobrine. Ave and farewell."

Laskig drove his scimitar into Herobrine's chest, and backed away, leaving the sword. Herobrine coughed and cried out, but he was too weak to struggle. The scimitar, fueled by Laskig's own power, held Herobrine upright where he was as it began to pull his life from his body.

"Kearb dna Rettash!" Laskig whispered, and the wards outside violently shattered.

All the windows in the throne room bowed and shattered inward as the power of the Thing rushed inward, drawn towards the energy Laskig's sword was releasing. Herobrine found voice to scream as the pressure against his life force redoubled, destroying his body.

"YOU ARE MINE!"

Darkness exploded over the world from Kingshall, and an earthquake followed, the very Overworld trembling as the Thing closed its power around Herobrine and flew from the world. Laskig cowered in the shadows until the shaking stopped, only daring to come out when he could see starlight leaking in through the broken windows again. His sword, the black scimitar, fell unsupported to the ground now that Herobrine was gone. He watched it fall and rattle to the stone, and only after several heartbeats had passed did he move to pick it up again.

Sheathing his sword, Laskig turned his face upwards and closed his eyes, taking a few deep breaths. The Thing had come with more power than he remembered, and much more force than he had anticipated.

Herobrine's words of warning echoed in his mind. What if the Thing really did betray him?

No. I delivered Herobrine unto It. It will do as I bid now.

Gathering his power, Laskig launched himself through the broken window behind the throne and flew off into the night.

He had work to do.

Herobrine felt the chill of the air passing over his skin and shivered, knowing with a sinking feeling where he was.

His power was gone, and so were all of his weapons and stores of magic. He was in the clutches of his most ancient enemy now.

Something laughed with a low, growling sound somewhere near his head.

"Look at me."

Herobrine felt a clawed hand press down on his chest and he coughed weakly, feeling the hot blood and bile come up over his tongue. He was lying on a rough stone surface, and hands were tying ropes to each of his limbs.

He did not dare open his eyes.

"LOOK AT ME!"

He would not move.

Something snorted near his face, rustling his blood-caked hair.

"Soon, wretch," the voice warned, "you will learn the price of disobedience."

Pain exploded through Herobrine's belly, and dizzying darkness followed.

Herobrine embraced it wholeheartedly.

This is Amanda the Huntress, your friendly author and sadistic tormenter of perfectly good characters.

Ladies and gentlemen, the countdown to the Ender War is nearly down to zero.

I know I'm late updating, but I am in no position to apologize after delivering THIS glory to you. Review! How did I do?

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See you next update.

Huntress out.