Barcubus sat at the one window in his home, watching his niece leave, knowing that it would perhaps be the last time he would see her. Not that he thought she would die. No, she was too stubborn to die when something needed to be done. But that he would. He was old and his heart had been having problems lately. He had already accepted his fate, maybe he would finally see his brother again.

The old man watched as his niece's companions jumped all around her, as hyper as small children. But from what he could deduce, that's what the grey God was. Now, the man that looked like the Forgotten, Barcubus wasn't sure what was up with him. Max hadn't really explained much to him other than they were traveling to the End for... something before Wither had entered the room and thrown cake onto the old man.

He kept an eye on the God. If what the rumors said were true, then Ender had died and Wither was her replacement. Which meant He leaned towards evil, which also meant He would possibly pose a threat to not only Max, but everyone, and everything, He encountered. But Barcubus saw how much the God adored Max, almost like a puppy adored its master. Though a puppy untrained could lead to a dangerous misbehaving guard dog.

Max was sad to leave her uncle. She hadn't seen him since she was first kidnapped by Ender seven years ago. She couldn't believe that was how long it had been. It took only seven years for her to realize (i.e., have All shove Itself into her mind) that she was an Akroatis, kill Ender and Herobrine, defeat Ender (if Ender turning into a cow and purposely falling off a cliff was "defeating") after She had possessed Herobrine, meet Wither, become friends with Wither, find her father she believed to be dead, have her father poisoned, witness a Minecrafter be created (even if she had to look away and close her eyes), and then finally return home to her uncle.

How had so many things happened in so little time? Or was it so little things happened in too much time? Max wasn't sure. She just knew that she would need to visit her uncle again soon, he was actually the only mortal she liked. No, wait, there was still Charlie, but she didn't know him well enough yet to say if she liked him or not.

She glanced downwards at the Star swinging from her neck with her footsteps. Once again, Wither had insisted on carrying their supplies, though He had somehow squeezed a month's worth of supplies for three people into one bag. But she wasn't in the mood to argue with Him, so let Him have His way with the items.

Maybe she should use the gift? Barcubus would die before her anyway, though the thought made her sad, it was the truth. Charlie was also older than her, so unless she randomly died from whatever could kill her, he would also be the one to go first. And her only friends were Gods. Nether, even her enemies were Gods!

'The one person in the entire universe,' she thought to herself, 'and it's me. I am born into the Caretaker family. I am an Akroatis. I have a God for a best friend. I live in a Nether pig snot tree! I... I can never be normal.'

Max squeezed her eyes shut, still walking, and just listened to the soft crunch of the grass under her and her companion's feet.

'Four things that could have gone to other people and everything still would've worked out.' She disregarded the last thought about not being normal. Who wanted to be normal anyway? All the 'normal' people she had met had been the worst type of dirt under the void. Why would she want to be like them? And yet... she felt an odd yearning to be so. To have people to laugh with. To have a family that she loved and that loved her back. To-

"Wither says that yesterday was your birthday, so I mined you this!" Steve's voice said from somewhere to her right.

Max opened her eyes and saw him holding out a green object to her. Grateful for the interruption to her depressing thoughts, she took it and studied it. "It's called an emerald," Steve cheerily said. "Those nice villagers showed me how to mine, and I found it! And now it's yours because I didn't get you anything else."

Max laughed to herself softly as Steve raced back in front of the group. That Minecrafter couldn't stay still if his life depended on it. She walked up to Wither. "You set him up to that, didn't you?" she accused teasingly.

He smiled at her. "Maybe," was the response.

"Pfft, no 'maybe' about it," she replied.

"Maybe."

Max punched him in the arm, laughing at His antics. Wither made a face at her.

It was now dark and they had been traveling all day. Finally Wither called a stop, noticing the Minecrafters begin to tire, not that either of them would admit it, Max because of pride and Steve just because he liked traveling and hated when they stopped. The God dropped their supplies onto the ground and started setting up camp right there out in the middle of a plains biome where they could easily be seen. Yeah, maybe not the best idea, but He did it anyway.

After a while, Max lay down to sleep, now finished her dinner that consisted of a couple pieces of bread. Steve was already snoring and fidgeting few blocks over as he slept. Wither wasn't feeling tired and since he didn't necessarily need sleep He stayed awake most of the night, listening to the Mobs as they crept around the area. Only once did a zombie come near, and Wither was pretty sure He dealt with that perfectly by turning it into...something. What was it?

It grunted at him, its hands interlocked in front of it. A robe of brown fell from its shoulders down to its feet. But there where two things that really stuck out to Wither: it had a really big nose, and a really big forehead.

"Er- Max?" He shook her gently to wake her up. "I may have done something."

"Whith..." she mumbled. "Go 'way... Shleeping."

"Yeah, I know you are, but I don't know if this is a good something or a bad something."

She rolled over with her eyes half closed and looked at him. "You're a fuzzy ball of grey," she muttered, still partly asleep. "Wha'chu wan', fuzzy Whith?"

"Come on, Max, wake up." He shook her again. The new creature was approaching and He didn't know if it was going to attack and eat them all or if it was going to turn into a fishing rod.

Max's eyes opened even more as she was pulled from the land of dreams, her face already forming a glare. "Wither, why am I awake?" she asked Him, thoroughly annoyed.

Wither simply pointed behind him at the creature.

"Gah!" she yelped when she spotted it. She jumped up and grabbed Kreaya, holding it threateningly towards the creature, which looked calm, as though it had no idea what was going on. "Where did that thing come from?"

"Well, it kinda used to be a zombie. And then I may or may not of turned it into this," He said sheepishly.

"Does it want to hurt us?" she asked.

"How am I supposed to know?"

"You created the Nether slobbered thing!"

"So?"

Max paused for a moment as though she were listening. "All says that you control generally what it does. Want it to be evil? It's evil. Want it to be good? It's good. But when you leave it alone it will revert back to the state of being it was when created."

Wither looked at the thing and it looked back. "I think it's dumb, for one thing. But it could possibly be evil."

"Eh," it grunted at them.

Hello people! So very sorry it's taken me this long to update. Now for my excuses! I had writers' block when I finished Max's pov, and I didn't want the story to progress too fast. I also lost my plot. I have it written down on a piece of paper and I lost it (I knew where it was actually, I was just being extremely lazy). On a slightly different note, there will be about three more chapters, and these will be exciting! (Unless I fail, which I am known to do.) But I'm rambling and I'm sure you people would much rather read those chapters than hear me talk about them.

Who is your favourite character? I write them, so I can't really say.

NotReallyAName:

And know that you are thanked, too. 'Tis okay, your stuff is probably already done because this chapter took so long. That's awesome! She thanks you. It's okay. Max and Wither's relationship is more one-sided right now and I am not good at writing romance, so you saying that doesn't surprise me. That's a good question, I think I covered it this chapter but I will explain more (go ahead and just ignore this part of the response if you don't want to hear it): Max isn't really bothered by it. To her, Minecrafters are all giant jerks who would love to see her die. So it's not the fact that there is no friends that are her own species, more so that she cannot have the happiness they share with each other.