"Creature- attack!" Ivor ordered, dark blue eyes glinting strangely.
The screams of Evie's fellow keynote attendees immediately began, people fleeing for the doors and shoving their way through the crowd. Evie twisted to see Jesse leaping sideways to avoid being blasted into the floor by a flaming skull, spit out by the Wither with the strange block nestled in its ribs-
The skull hit the floor and promptly detonated, nearly knocking Evie off her feet altogether as she staggered to catch her balance- which actually saved her life, because the second she staggered off-balance, a skull blasted through the area where her head had just been, close enough for her to smell the foul, sickly sweet, burnt scent it was giving off.
The skull's impact with the floor sent out a forceful shockwave that promptly bowled Evie forward, prompting a small "Ouch" when her chin collided with the floor, inches from where Gabriel was standing and now twisting to see where the soft sound had come from.
The floor was starting to tremble- and suddenly, two blocks were sucked up from the floor, soaring at the Wither and hitting it. Except... except the Wither seemed to absorb it. The wall began do the same, and a poster, and soon all sorts of objects and bits of the floor were being sucked towards the Wither, which seemed to be absorbing the blocks and creating... some sort of extra skin around itself.
Evie's brow furrowed.
Normal Withers couldn't do that.
"Everyone, stay calm!" Gabriel shouted, drawing his diamond sword, "this foul beast is no match for me!"
Ivor pointed at Gabriel, who was only a few paces away. "Creature: attack!" he repeated his order.
The strange block in the Wither's ribs seemed to glow, the Wither slowly turning to face Gabriel. With a shout, Gabriel leaped into the air and slammed the sword into the block.
It wasn't even dented. In fact, a small shockwave repelled Gabriel and slammed him onto his back, sword skittering out of reach and into one of the craters the Wither had just created. Gabriel let out a grunt and shook his head, glancing at Ivor with fear glinting in his eyes. "What have you done...?"
"Gabriel-" Jesse started towards the warrior as he pushed himself to his feet.
"No!" Gabriel whirled around to face Jesse, eyes widening. "Stay away! It's after me, not you!"
The Wither suddenly flew at them, and everyone ducked in the nick of time- Aiden ducked forward with such force he almost knocked himself over- as it soared over their heads, everything that wasn't human spiralling towards the creature in a maelstrom of objects.
Evie looked up to see Ivor with a strange smile on his face, still only a few feet away from the group.
"Ivor!" she practically screamed at him, and he blinked before turning to look at her, looking almost startled at being directly addressed. "I don't know what you're thinking right now but could you please get rid of this damn thing?!" Her voice rose into a near-hysterical shriek at the end, making the others in the group blink at her.
"I didn't think she could even curse," Aiden muttered to Axel, who happened to be the nearest person to him.
"Same, dude," Axel whispered back.
Ivor blinked at Evie, looking a bit like a deer in headlights, before clearing his throat and shooting Gabriel an almost taunting look, his confused expression replaced with that strange smile. "Look at him- the mighty Gabriel!" He spit out the last two words with such sarcasm that you could practically hear it dripping off his voice. "Looks like true greatness is out of his reach. He may not be able to defeat this creature, but I can!"
Ivor turned to face the Wither. "Creature," he said aloud, raising his voice to be heard over the hullabaloo, "retreat."
Even though Evie's face was practically white right now and her heart was fluttering at a million miles an hour and her head was starting to scream with pain from all the sharp movements and the explosions and the screaming, she couldn't help but snap her head around to see what the Wither did-
She swallowed a scream, her breath catching in her lungs. The Wither's center head had turned into something straight out of a nightmare, jet black with a single indigo eye. The mouth had morphed into an animalistic gash in the head, with carnivorous teeth glinting in the black skull and the mouth stretching so far that you could see every one of those rotted teeth.
The Wither didn't do anything except turn to face him directly, staring at Ivor.
Ivor cleared his throat. "Creature, retreat," he repeated, putting more emphasis on his words and enunciating them clearly. Still the Wither did nothing, instead opting to hover closer and closer towards Ivor. "Retreat, I said!" the man snapped, losing patience and his composure, "Retreat!"
Aiden let out an incoherent whimper behind Evie. Jesse shook her head at Ivor, looking disbelieving. "Ivor- what in the world are you doing?!" she yelled at him, voice cracking at the end.
"Please, please tell me you have a backup plan," Evie uttered weakly.
Ivor's dark blue eyes lit up at those words. "Actually- indeed I do! No need to be alarmed, my friends-"
We're not friends was the rather sardonic answer that sprang to Evie's mind, and if the situation had been different she might've actually said it. Well, except that it was rude, and so she probably wouldn't have actually said it because... you know. It was rude.
Evie didn't like being rude.
"I have an elixir that will destroy this creature."
Maybe it was Evie's concussion, but it took a full five seconds (and if you don't think that's a long time, try sitting there in silence for five seconds- it's a long time for a reaction to take place) for her brain to dissect what that meant. Jesse's face actually paled as she realized what that meant. "The potion..." Ivor was pulling the fake potion out of his pocket. "Is that-"
"An elix-oh." Evie's headache was practically pounding through her head, but she could still feel the moment when her heart actually skipped a beat as she realized what that meant. "Shoot."
Perhaps not the most appropriate reaction, but Evie had a concussion right now.
Ivor poised himself to throw the bottle, and Axel's eyes widened as he reached the same realization that Evie and Jesse had just had. "Uh-oh."
The bottle shattered against the Command Block, bursting into a cloud of purple smoke. Of course, nothing happened. Ivor's eyes widened, shoulders tensing. "W-what...? Impossible! It should've worked!" he whispered. "I took such care!"
"The potion- Axel, you've gotta throw the real potion!" Olivia shouted, head snapping around so that she was staring at her burly friend with wide eyes.
Axel frowned at that. "But... finders keepers!"
"Now is not the time for finders keepers, Axel!" Jesse almost bellowed at him, eyes the size of dinner plates as she flailed her arms in a hot panic. Evie would've had the same reaction, but everything felt so much slower than she would've liked with this Notch-darned concussion.
"You thieves!" Ivor exclaimed from where he was standing, having apparently heard this exchange, "you're ruining everything!"
Evie would probably have come up with a witty reply or a sarcastic one if she was less socially awkward, but she was socially awkward so she wouldn't be able to come up with one anyway, and even if she could've her concussion was currently throbbing so painfully in her head that she was debating smashing her head against the wall and knocking herself out. At least she wouldn't be feeling this annoying, dull-then-sharp-then-dull-again pain, then.
"Throw the stupid potion, you idiot, do you want us to die?!" Aiden almost yelled at Axel, voice rising and actually cracking from how loudly he was shouting. Axel was too frightened to argue with him, for once– he yanked the potion out of his pocket, nearly fumbling it and dropping it–
Jesse swiped out, snatching it out of the air before it could hit the ground, quickly moving into a throwing position and aiming right at the Wither–
A violent tremor rumbled through the earth, knocking Jesse off-balance and making her stagger uncomfortably, the potion slipping out of her hands and flying right into Evie's. The wavy-haired girl stared dumbly at the potion for a moment, her reactions having to struggle through the molasses known as 'pain' that her head was currently experiencing.
"What are you waiting for?! Throw it!" Petra was practically screaming at Evie, and the wavy-haired girl finally got what she was supposed to do, and she raised the potion to aim, but her vision was starting to split into twos and threes and the ground seemed to be tilting beneath her feet and she might just throw up–
Suck it up and deal with it. It's your own fault you were so clumsy, she scolded herself, and gave her head a little shake. That made something rattle around in her head and possibly worsened the concussion, but she couldn't worry about that right now, and drawing her arm back, she threw.
Even before the potion had fully left her hand, she could tell it was actually a decent throw for once– usually she couldn't throw worth beans. But it looked like she'd at least hit the target this time–
The black 'skin' the Wither had been creating snaked over the Command Block, shielding it from harm, and the potion shattered harmlessly against it. Ivor clearly blanched. "It's... protecting itself," he almost whispered, "without the Command Block exposed, the potion is useless! It... wasn't supposed to happen like this..."
Evie's brain wasn't currently functioning at its peak of performance, but even through that she had enough control of herself to stare at Ivor in disbelief. How was it supposed to happen, then?!
Ivor took one step backwards. Then another.
And then he ran.
"Ivor! You coward, come back here!" Gabriel roared after the shorter man, but before anything could be done, a purple beam of light flickered into being and landed on Gabriel.
Evie watched, slightly mesmerized, as his feet came off of the ground, defying gravity, the warrior letting out an alarmed yell as he tried to struggle back down. It was oddly hypnotic, in a way... and it definitely didn't help that she was currently experiencing the worst concussion she'd ever had.
Olivia darted forwards and seized Gabriel's leg, anchoring him to earth. She looked over her shoulder, her own weight not quite enough to tug Gabriel back to safety. "Jesse, help me!" she screamed.
The shorter girl lunged forward and grabbed Gabriel's other leg, trying to pull him back down to earth, but the two girls were fighting a losing battle. For one, Jesse was way too small and not that heavy anyways; for another, Olivia didn't exactly look like she had enough upper body strength to yank a full-grown man down. The three of them started rising into the air–
"NOPE!" And suddenly, Evie was throwing her arms around Jesse's waist and anchoring the shorter girl to the ground again. "NO. NUH-UH. NEGATORY. NO. NOT HAPPENING!" Her voice was abnormally loud, and judging by the surprised look Jesse shot her as she looked down, she hadn't been expecting such a weird outburst from Evie.
Truthfully, if Evie hadn't been concussed, she probably wouldn't have yelled at all, but right now she wasn't really thinking straight. She really needed a healing potion before this concussion turned into something serious.
Well, more serious than it already was, anyways.
A moment passed, and then either the Wither gave or Evie somehow made a difference– probably the first option, Evie was worthless at anything involving physical exertion– and the four of them fell to the floor, Gabriel safely out of that weird beam. Jesse reached out to help him, and Evie would've done the same if not for this horrible concussion. She swore it was steadily getting worse with each passing minute. Could concussions do that?
"Thank you... Ivor was right about one thing. I can't defeat that thing. Not on my own." As if on cue, all of them looked at the Wither, which, in the span of a few minutes since Evie had taken her eyes off of it, had developed a second nightmare-head and grown to the size of Evie's cave. "Everyone's running away..." He turned to stare at them, desperation gleaming in his expression. "Except for you." He paused, as if considering an idea, before his gaze hardened. "Will you help me? I must get to the temple. But what happens next... I can't do alone."
"Of course!" Jesse exclaimed. Axel squared his shoulders, Olivia gave a hasty nod, Petra gave a single incline of her head, Lukas managed a weak bobbing of the head that resembled a nod, Aiden made a sound that sounded like a mix between a 'yes' and a strangled cat, and Evie... well, Evie was pretty sure she'd just nodded. Either that or the entire world had just bobbed up and down.
"Follow me!" And Gabriel started running outside of the keynote. Evie stared after him a moment, aware that the others were running after him and yet unable to convince her feet to move–
A hand seized her wrist and started towing her along, belonging to Aiden. "Are you trying to get yourself killed?!" he demanded over the roar of chaos that was permeating the air. Judging by the slight breeze on her face, he'd just dragged her outside.
"If I was trying to get myself killed, I'm so darn clumsy that I would've even failed at that," Evie weakly joked, repressing the urge to throw up. Would you suck it up already, Evangeline Butler, it's your own fault that you were so darn clumsy that you gave yourself a concussion.
Aiden made an annoyed sound. "Well, try not to be clumsy now, because if you do, you're most likely gonna die–"
As if the universe was intent on ticking him off, right at that moment a violent smashing sound exploded through the air, the earth giving a little jolt, and Evie found herself tripping forward again, before jolting to a halt and feeling her arm complain as it was nearly yanked out of its socket. Aiden pulled her back to her feet again and muttered something under his breath.
"Hm?"
He muttered again before resuming a sprint, continuing to tow Evie along.
She felt kind of bad– after all, he'd somehow found himself in charge of the clumsiest person to ever exist, and with a nasty concussion to boot at the moment, and she was pretty sure she was slowing him down by just staggering along as best as she could. "Sorry."
He didn't slow down or do anything differently, but he seemed to be confused. Maybe it was just her concussion talking.
"I'm slowing you down..."
"Not that much, we're making progress." Aiden glanced over his shoulder at her and gave her a small smile– before his eyes travelled to something above her head and widened, face paling. He immediately snapped back to face forward and started running even faster, Evie now basically being pulled along at the fastest speed she'd ever gone at even as he plunged into a crowd of screaming, fleeing people. She vaguely wondered where everyone else had gone. Also, she wondered what Aiden had seen to warrant his reaction.
"Can I look?"
"No. Keep running."
"Okay. Sorry."
Her foot suddenly hit empty air, and she tumbled forward a few steps. Thankfully, the descent wasn't too big of a distance, and she managed to land back on her feet once she got there, staggering and almost landing flat on her face. Her natural clumsiness and her concussion wasn't doing anything to keep her on her feet.
"Sorry," she repeated as Aiden had to yank her back to her feet. She thought she saw Lukas's head and a red head with a blue bandana on it nearby, but she was so dizzy and confused and the chaos was currently so violent that she could barely keep her own thoughts straight.
"Stop apologizing!"
"Sorry..."
Aiden muttered something again.
A/N: GET THE HECK OUTTA THERE KIDS. AND ALSO PLEASE GET EVIE A HEALING POTION BEFORE HER CONCUSSION CAUSES HER BRAIN DAMAGE. THAT WOULD BE BAD.
That's all I have to say xD
I have to laugh at some of the theories on my other story The Fairytale Curse– that story has become more of an investment to me than any other story I currently have, except for maybe Just a Game.
Responses to reviews!
LunarTheMooncake: (giggles)
AquaK13: You really should, she could go walking down the street and she'd injure herself. / Hehehe xD / (snorts) Haha, maybe.
Princess of Muffins: (giggles) / Awww, thanks. She can also be a huge dork, as evidenced by just now when she exploded into her series of 'no's this chapter. xD / Hehehe. / You can make up your own ship name if you'd like xD
EnderKitty68: Either Aiden will tow her the entire way there, or (if it comes to it) probably someone will be like "NOPE WE WENT TO ALL THAT TROUBLE TO GET YOU YOU AIN'T DYING NOW" and will just carry her there. / I'm sure that if there wasn't a 3-headed nightmare demon in the sky, she would happily do so. xD
NoItsBecky: (laughs) They're all dorks.
IntrovertAnon: Aww! 0-0 I'm glad you like it so much! And I'm glad that people seem to like Evie so far– thought most people would call her a Mary Sue. xD / And thank you for the lovely compliment!
x.X. A.L. X.x
