WARNING: LONG CHAPTER. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK. IHEARTHORSES6000 IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY MIND BLOWNNESS AS A RESULT OF THIS OR ANY CHAPTER.
CONTEST:
Alright, so, my goal as a writer is to not just inspire people to write as well, because the world needs more writers. SO, I challenge every single one of you guys to write a poem (or a story, or a scene, or WHATEVER, it doesn't matter, just write!) beginning and/or ending with one (or all, for all I care) of the following options, and basically connect it to minecraft in some kind of writing piece:
1)Her eyes were the size of magnificence and color of royalty.
2) His skin was the tint of moonlight and the thickness of strength.
3) His breath was the dealer of fire and the whisper of dark magic.
4) Her magic was the power of the moon and strength of its dark side.
Okay, so, you guys can either PM me whatever you write or put it in a review by 3/15. On 3/16, I will pick the one that moves me the most and put it in the beginning of the next chapter. Meanwhile, I will be writing the next chapter. ALSO, that person MAY ((maybe, no promises here...)) pick an OC for me... ;)
REGARDING OCS:
If they're not Mary Sue and all that, I MIGHT do 'em, just not super heavily. I'll kinda like request when I need 'em, and then you guys can spam me with all you've got. For the moment, avoid da spam, please, because like, one time, a reviewer like threw one IN MY FACE, like, it stings...I got a paper cut IN MY EYE...
Anyway. This chapter will be the final one that has mainly and mostly Enderpeople. I mean, they'll still be in the story, but after this one the chapters will have a different focus. At the end, everybody will re-meet everybody else, probably including OCs. #party #torture #etc
ALSO: This is the chapter where Enderman's past and Herobrine's past intertwine. It's weird. This is minecraft. This is me. Plus, there's Herobrine. It's gonna be weird. Get used to it.
ONE MORE NOTE:
Not sure if I mentioned this or not, but just to confuse you or to unconfuse you, this story takes place BEFORE the Interviews (which is why I called this a sequel/prequel, because it could be either). So, I don't even know if that fits or not, but it needs to happen at some point, and that seems to work, so, um, uh. Maybe I'll do a chapter analysis at the beginning of each chapter. Like, for this one I would do:
Ch. 3: Whatever I name this chapter.
Time: Before Interviews
Summary: Herobrine is summoned, Dark Ones get freaked, and Elise has a heart attack (probably not in that order), et cetera, et cetera.
So, the thing about Elijah; he usually came up with good plans. Yet, when he had about ten seconds to come up with a plan, he usually didn't come up with a good one. His ten-second ones usually were crazy and didn't go as planned.
Still, he never thought he'd be summoning a vampire.
It was the last thing he could think of. After all, they had heard the stories about the Dark Ones, how they could take down armies when their powers were combined, so what chance did a regular enderdragon and enderman have? A regular enderdragon, enderman, and vampire seemed to have a higher chance.
The thing about summoning Herobrine; it isn't easy.
No, Elijah wasn't stupid enough to directly summon him with the whole golden blocks thing. That would let Herobrine roam free. Elijah wasn't that stupid. Elijah used an older kind of magic, a kind of magic Herobrine wasn't very fond of; binding spells.
If you do it right, you can summon whoever or whatever you want, and it will have to do whatever you want for as long as you want, as long as you have the strength to keep the spell up. If you do it wrong, basically, you die a really painful death, or, worse, your soul becomes one of the many that can be summoned.
Needless to say, Elijah wasn't fond of the spell.
Bind Magic felt like someone put spikes into your wrist, and told you to make the blood that fell into one, neat pile. It took concentration, which Elijah wasn't sure he had. But he did it. He spoke the forbidden words (ligare magicae, magicae obligant, ut non dicam tibi. Verba mea exaudi, exaudi orationem meam. Oculatus unus albus vocat, vocat lamia libidinis vocat unum interdicta. Liga magicae, magicae obligant, ad vos clamito, blah blah blah, you get it) and held his breath as he waited. After a long, sinking moment, nothing happened.
"Shit." Elijah muttered out loud.
Just as he said it, a white light blinded him -then he realized it wasn't one white light, but two. Two white, blinding eyes.
A familiar figure fell to the ground, since he had technically been summoned in midair. Herobrine grunted as he stood up, and then realized he could barely move. He looked at his wrists, which both had an identical white brand of white runes scattered across them. "You've got to be kidding me. Bind magic?" He looked up and scowled. "From an enderdragon? Seriously? Ughh."
"Oh, shut up." Elijah said, not in the mood for attitude; Elijah had plenty of it by himself. "The faster you do what I want, the faster you can go and do whatever. I just want one favor, and I have a bad feeling you're going to like it."
Herobrine raised a brow. "I'm listening."
"I want you to kill somebody. Actually, multiple somebodies."
Herobrine's eyes lit up -and they technically already were, but you know what I mean- and he resisted a grin. "Why didn't you just say so? Where and who are they, exactly?"
"Uhm, they're known as the Dark Ones, and they kind of stole my best friend's daughter, and killing them would make them unable to keep freaking every other enderperson out, so it'd be great if you could help out. I feel kinda outnumbered."
Herobrine rolled his eyes. "That's great, buddy. I don't need your life story. You could have shortened that by a lot. It's called 'Bind Magic' for a reason, so stop making it sound like I've got a choice." Herobrine tried to move, and only succeeded in feeling stiffer. "Gods of Minecraft, I hate Bind Magic."
"The sooner you help me the sooner I can get rid of you. Believe me, I'm not fine with it either. And I don't know about you, but I'd like to get this over with."
The vampire sighed and cracked his knuckles. "Agreed."
Eli felt like he should go help his best friend -after all, if he wanted to save Elise, he'd have to stop the ones that had threatened her in the first place, first- and was about to, but then the fight came directly to him.
The Dark Ones were on the run, and seemed to have forgotten that Eli was there, or simply didn't know. Luna and Lavender both came in, groggy and dazed, from one side, and a grinning Shadow and soul-dragging-by-a-dagger Dagger came in from the other. Elijah and Herobrine were quick to follow.
For a second, everyone just exchanged glances. Mostly, Dagger, Shadow, Eli, and Elise -a very sick Elise, but her eyes were open, wide open- were all just staring in shock at Herobrine. The vampire didn't seem to care too much.
"Okay, yes, I get it, I'm crazy to have summoned a vampire, can we get this show on the road now, please?!" Elijah broke the silence.
"I would honestly like to." Herobrine replied. "But you kinda have to give a command that sounds less like a request, otherwise it doesn't work as well. Considering you're the freaking summoner, I hope you know that."
"Maybe I wasn't talking to you, Herobrine." Elijah rolled his eyes.
"Elijah?...You...summoned...a vampire. One of the most dangerous vampires in the world." Eli gaped for a long time.
"Actually," Dagger said, though he still looked surprised, "he's the most dangerous vampire in the world."
"Thank you, somebody gets it right." Herobrine replied. "And unfortunately for me, it's one of the guys I get to kill. Oh well."
Dagger gave the wide-mouthed Lavender and Luna a silent command, and immediately they edged towards Eli and Elise. Eli made a hissing noise he had never released before.
"Okay, um, um," Elijah didn't know what to do. "Herobrine, take out the red grinning one and the guy next to him. If you get the chance, see the soul next to them? Take the dagger out of its shoulder as soon as possible."
"M'kay." Herobrine replied lunged towards them. Elijah turned his focus towards Lavender and Luna.
It took about three seconds before it was, overall, chaos.
Herobrine had been expecting two endermen. What he got was one spellcaster and the other, really,really good with knives (seriously, the red guy was so fast, he must have been related to vampires).
Lavender and Luna knew full well knew that if they captured Elise, Eli would freak, which would make Elijah freak, which would cause Elijah to pull back from attacking Dagger or Shadow. The biggest flaw in that plan was that Elise wasn't unguarded.
Eli gently laid her daughter -who was still having trouble breathing- down, and then growled at the quickly incoming Lavender and Luna. Outnumbered or not, the two soon discovered that Eli knew how to fight. Plus, Elijah, as usual, had his back.
Shadow, meanwhile, was losing his fight, having never fought a vampire before. Not to mention Dagger's spells had little effect, due to the fact that they took so long to say, and Herobrine, being a vampire and summoned in such a way, was generally hard to curse. Herobrine was enjoying himself, about to beat Shadow into the ground.
Dagger knew then, that it was time to change tactics. "Luna, Lavender, the dragon!" He rushed towards them, leaving Shadow and Herobrine a little occupied.
Neither Herobrine nor Elijah liked the sound of Shadow's plan -okay, so Herobrine liked the sound of it, a little bit, more than a little bit. If Elijah was weakened enough, and Herobrine was free to do as he pleased, to kill whoever he pleased...
"Shit!" Eli muttered, rushing in to Elijah's defense. "This is ridiculous. I'm trying to defend my daughter, who was kidnapped by the Dark Ones, and defend my best friend, who happened to decide to use Bind Magic."
"Hey, it was the only shot I had. We may be awesome, but we were seriously outnumbered." Elijah said defensively.
"Yeah, yeah, I know." Eli looked at him for a second. "I can't believe you had the guts to do it, honestly."
"My best friend is currently doubting my guts. That's always good." Elijah sighed, and then slapped the oncoming attack from Luna away. "Just, uh, don't let me die, kay? Cuz then we'll have a loose vampire, plus the Dark Ones..."
"You make me sound hopelessly unloyal!" Herobrine shouted over to them, as he slapped Shadow across the face for the third time.
"That's because you are hopelessly unloyal!" Elijah called back, slamming Lavender into the ground, while Eli wrestled Luna.
"Fair enough!" Herobrine sighed and ducked Shadow's knife.
That's when Dagger made his way to Elijah and Eli. "Go help Shadow," He growled to Luna and Lavender, who both nodded and took off. Lavender had more trouble getting up, but she made her way over there.
Dagger found that Eli and Elijah were much more susceptible to his spells than Herobrine was. Eli ended up being glued to the wall in a mixture of magma and ice, a painful goo that made his skin smoke and his breath visible. And then it was just Dagger and Elijah.
The dragon swung his tail at the spellcasting torturer. Dagger dodged, only to run into a line of fire. A shield appeared around him and disappeared when the flames were gone. The entire time, Dagger was chanting, murmuring to himself. The spell, whatever it was, was a long, slow, powerful one. All Elijah could think of doing was to try and stop his concentration.
The biggest thing that happened next, though, was that while Herobrine was taking his time against the three enderpeople, he made his way over to Elise's soul, and then gripped the black dagger. Its dark glow disappeared, as the soul zipped in a white blur towards Elise. She took it in with a gasp of air. Herobrine stared with confusion at the knife. "The hell...where did you guys even get this? This dark magic shit was destroyed ages ago."
"So? What's so big about it?" Eli groaned, struggling against the goo, finally starting to free himself. The magma was, apparently, stronger than the ice; it burned through his skin, through his heart.
"What's so big about it is that's its Blood Magic. The reason why it held the kid's soul still was because it had her blood on it. Souls only stay in anybody's body because their blood matches, and its kinda instinct not to move. They really can't, actually, a little bit like Bind Magic. This knife basically imitates it." Herobrine lifted the knife and stabbed the charging Lavender, who cried out and crumbled to the ground. Luna made a high-pitched choking sound as she rushed to Lavender. "Lavender?!"
THe vampire grinned. "Also, if the blood is closely enough related, as in, say...sisters..."
Herobrine jumped towards the off-guard Luna, and stabbed her leg. Luna froze, face stuck wide in shock. The vampire laughed, and it was little hard not to; Luna's eyes still moved, but the rest of her was like stuck in slow motion, and her face, with brows high and pupils small and mouth open, was frozen entirely.
Lavender howled with annoyance, and then both she and Shadow attacked the vampire at the same moment. Herobrine laughed and then his whole figure shuddered, flickered, and then he disappeared. Shadow's and Lavender's magic hit each other in the opposite shoulder. They both fell down painfully. The vampire laughed at them, kicking them both back to the ground when they tried to get up.
Elijah turned to Eli, about to say something, when Dagger, who Elijah seemed to have thought was stunned by his earlier attack, hit Elijah in the shoulder, trying to hide in the dragon's blind spot. It kind of backfired on him; Elijah didn't like it very much when someone jumped on his back. He reared upwards with a roar, and Dagger went flying.
Dagger smashed into the ground, landing on one fist and one knee. He stood up, shaking the smarting pain of his hand.
Four things happened at the same time; Lavender and Shadow were finally able to counterattack against Herobrine, knocking him off his feet, Eli managed to free himself, rubbing goo off his arm, Elise forced herself to stand up, even if she had to lean up against a wall, and last but not least, Dagger finally managed to wound Elijah. And Elijah's wound was not a good one; it was a magical one, the kind that could weaken the spirit and break into energy.
It wouldn't have been such a big deal, because Elijah then had Eli to cover him, but it was a big deal because if Elijah became weak, Bind Magic would break, and a vampire would be free to do as he pleased.
It didn't take long. It really hardly took seconds, and then the spell was broken. Elijah couldn't even get up, his muscles aching, head pounding, body throbbing. He could barely keep himself conscious, but he managed to see the white runes slowly disappear off of Herobrine's wrists before his vision darkened.
The vampire broke into a grin. He was free to do whatever he wanted, including kill anyone in the room. His powers weren't exactly limited anymore.
The first thing he did was lift up a hand, and then everyone in the room was frozen, unable to move, their bodies not responding to commands. No one could go anywhere, no one, but Elise, who Herobrine had left untouched.
Herobrine watched them all for a long moment, and to Eli's intense rage, the vampire strutted towards Elise. She took one step backwards, but made no other move, even though Herobrine's spell hadn't touched her.
She stared up at him defiantly.
"Hi, little one. These guys just giving you a hard time?"
"Hi." She made it sound like a threat. "Yes, they are."
"And you're just going to let them?"
"I can't do a lot about it. I'm little. And the red guy has a really strong voice. But I will do what I can. Why do you care?"
"Hm, well, see, I'm trying to decide if I do care. The side I'll pick is the one I think will be more interesting for me, more fun, you know. And right now, the 'red guy' looks pretty interesting."
Elise frowned. "Interesting, as in he's cool, or interesting, as in you wanna hit him?"
Herobrine grinned. "Kind of both. But you have a similar effect, so I'm conflicted."
"I don't care if you side with them," Elise hissed at him, "but if you touch my daddy or his friend, I will make you choke yourself."
Herobrine raised a brow. "Huh. And how do you plan to accomplish that?"
"With a spatula."
The vampire broke out in a short laugh. "Warning acknowledged."
Eli's arm jerked once, and then froze back into place. Herobrine frowned. "Sheesh. Your daddy doesn't like staying still."
"He's a little hyperactive." Elise shrugged.
"And a little too strong for his age, if you ask me. Don't you endermen ever get like, weaker when you're older?"
Elise frowned. "My daddy told me that when we get older and wiser Queen Enderia gives us strength so we live longer, and so that when we do die, we're not scared."
"Huh. Does that count if you die when you're little, and in a place like this?" Herobrine gestured around.
Elise wrinkled her nose. "I...I don't know. I was scared earlier..." She glared at Dagger, and then stared defiantly up at Herobrine. "But I'm not scared of you."
The vampire shrugged. "I'm not sure if you should be, it'd be hard to find a way to do more damage to you at the moment." He looked her over, from the bleeding arm to the internally bleeding legs, and then -to Eli's immense rage- reached out and lifted up her chin, revealing a bruise on her neck. "Sheesh. What did you, Dagger, whack her with a hammer?"
As he spoke, Dagger felt his mouth loosen, like the vampire was at least letting him talk. The leader of the Dark Ones pursed his lips for a second before replying, "Good guess."
Herobrine turned and looked at him in surprise. "Seriously? Hammers? Pfft, talk about old school. I knew you guys used old magic, but this is ridiculous. If you're gonna torment somebody's kid, do it right. And, speaking of which, kids? Really? That's low."
"You're one to talk." Dagger rolled his eyes.
"Am I? I've done a lot of things, Dagger, but hurting kids is a new low. Not to mention they're not very fun when they're too little."
"Oh, please, quit acting like you can't smell her blood. You know what's in it. You know what the wounds she has are worse than they look. Why let her suffer, Mr. 'Hero', Mr. Little Self Control?"
Herobrine rolled his eyes in a 'I can't believe this guy' look. "You act like you know me. I know how to control myself just fine, thank you very much, though I can't say the same for any of you four. I mean, god, you guys are power hungry."
"You usually are too." Shadow blurted. "If what I've heard about you is true. I mean, come on, the idea of being an almost god doesn't even tempt you?"
Herobrine rolled his eyes. "Amateurs. No, it doesn't tempt me, because I'm already half god, all the time, without any effort whatsoever. It makes your little attempts at half immortality look pathetic, because it is."
"'Cuse me," Elise broke in, "but, um, do you think you could stop chatting about power and release my family?"
Herobrine looked at Elijah and Eli, and bit his lip. "Huh. Don't know. I mean, I certainly could, but I don't really want to."
Elise sighed. Why did grown-ups have to be so difficult? "Fine. What will it take?"
Herobrine grinned. "Well, with that attitude, not much. Let's see...you're an enderwoman, am I correct, little miss purple eyes? You can teleport, right?"
"Urm...more or less..." Elise replied.
"Oh, right, you guys aren't born with it, you actually have to learn how to, don't you? Well, then, I say there's no better time than a time like now. So, tell ya what. You teleport a single time, and I'll let 'em go."
"B-But there's an enchantment..." Elise swallowed thickly. "How can I teleport...?"
"Oh, you're little. Your tiny teleportation hardly counts. All enchantments have their holes, and this enchantment has a problem detecting smaller amounts of energy. Kind of like how some cars weigh a shotgun passenger, and if they're light enough, the airbag will stay off."
"The who and the what and the where?" Elise frowned.
"Ah, nevermind. Anyway, point is, the enchantment doesn't effect you." Herobrine replied. "So go on and try."
Elise shivered as his cool breath ran down her neck. She stared at him for another moment, watching the dark eyes gleam back at her. She had to teleport, she had to.
"Teleporting is like jumping through time." Her father had told her. "You're not jumping by very far, only a couple seconds. In older times, Endermen could teleport up to years into the past or future. But that was too dangerous for anyone but Enderia to handle. So now we take little hops into the future. You have to take a tiny bite of it, and savor the flavor of it for a couple seconds. It might help, Elise, if you just stop for a second and wonder what the future might taste like."
Elise felt confused and cornered, not to mention light-headed, like her soul wasn't quite in place. It made her feel off balance, like the world around her was simply happening, and she was hardly a part of it. Maybe that was the point. Maybe that was why she was able to slip through the enchantment, if what Herobrine said was true, which didn't seem likely, because...well, he's Herobrine.
But she tried. She closed her eyes and honestly tried. She imagined a hole; a tiny little crack that she could easily hop into, and it would take her wherever she wanted.
Her stomach dropped to her feet, like resisting the urge to go anywhere; gravity seemed to pound onto her, like she had chains on her feet and bound her to the world. This was not the feeling she was hoping for; she was aiming more for weightlessness. Her head felt weightless and painful, like someone had decided to pound quietly on her head with a hammer whenever she wasn't looking. She started shuddering and flickering, like she did whenever she tried to teleport. But this time, it was different. Her whole body usually began to tingle, like all the nerves in her body had fallen asleep, but this time, it was painful. Her body was heavy and felt like slow lava was oozing through her veins.
She gasped and opened her eyes, the pain almost reflecting in them. "I...I can't. It's...I can't."
Herobrine's smile spread to his eyes. "So, you need a little motivation, then?"
Judging by his tone, 'motivation' wasn't exactly the right word to use. She backed up multiple steps, as Herobrine came closer with fangs bared.
Then, all at once, he was behind her, and close enough to whisper in her ear, "I propose a new deal. Either you teach yourself how to teleport, here and now, or I kill everyone in this room, and I'll let you watch. First the Dark ones. Then the dragon. Then your father." She tried to focus on teleporting, but was having trouble as Herobrine lightly brushed her shoulder and hissed, "Then you."
Elise felt a kind of cold swell in the pit of her stomach. Her body was still shuddering and flickering, but she wasn't trying to teleport, and it was becoming uncontrollable. If she couldn't teleport -how? How was she supposed to do it with no help?- her father's death and his friend would be her fault. And then the vampire would come after her...
Elise closed her eyes, feeling the fiery pain return. She tried to ignore it, and tried to focus only on the place she wanted to go, but that was the problem; she couldn't focus. Her mind was in a frenzy and nothing made sense. Then the pain became too much, burning her existence away, and she opened her eyes.
Herobrine snorted impatiently. "Fine, then, I'll get right to it." He strutted over to the Dark Ones. "Who do you hate more, Luna or Lavender?"
Elise tried to say something like 'stop' or 'no', but she just made a choking noise as her sandpaper tongue rubbed against her desert-dry throat.
"Well, that's hardly an answer. Personally, Luna is annoying, but Lavender even more so. So I'll let Lavender watch while I kill her sister."
Lavender's magically frozen body made a rebellious jerk.
It happened so quickly Elise felt like she was just watching from someone else's mind, someone who wasn't a part of any of the chaos, someone who might have been indifferent, if what they witnessed wasn't so immensely disturbing.
It started with the blurring; Herobrine himself became one, a green and blue and brown blur, identified only by his two white eyes that flashed and gleamed. The blur charged towards the Dark Ones. His mouth found Luna's neck. She screamed as her blood ran cold -almost literally. Lavender screamed with her, panicked and confused, and fought so much she was almost free from Herobrine's spell; and he was a little busy, anyways.
There was a loud, sickening crack that echoed in Elise's ears. Luna's head twisted at an unusual angle, and her screaming ceased as she fell to the ground. Lavender continued screaming and sobbing for her sister. There was a low hiss that told her to shut up. She didn't listen. Her screaming only increased as Herobrine's blur fell upon her, and then she suffered the same fate her sister had.
At the same time, Eli and Elijah had almost broken free, eyes wide, but Herobrine was a little more focused when he wasn't sucking the blood outta somebody, so he stopped them short.
Elise didn't realize she was shouting, as well, until she was the only one making any noise. The sound quickly died as a lump formed in her throat. "I can't..." Elise stuttered. "You...You just..."
Herobrine spun around, grinning a mouthful of red. "I just what?"
"Y-You just killed them..." Elise took a shaky breath as tears fell from her eyes. Her father's eyes warned her, but she went on, almost so afraid she was angry. "You didn't even think about it...you just killed them."
"You act honestly surprised." Herobrine rolled his eyes, wiping blood off his lips. "So, figured out how to teleport yet?"
"I-I..."
"No? That's a shame. I kinda liked dragons." Herobrine sighed and lunged towards Eliljah.
Elise made a choking sound before sprinting towards them, but not before Herobrine got there. The Enderdragon was fighting the spell, as was Eli, when Elise came to a halting stop as Herobrine looked back at her again.
She was determined to keep him away from her family, even if that meant doing something stupid. "Don't touch them!"
Herobrine's smile was gone. She blinked, and then he was next to her, slightly crouching and whispered in her ear, "I'll do what I want, little miss attitude. And there's nothing you can do to stop me, so stop acting like you can. You can't stop me, and you can't control a single thing I do. So when I tell you to sit back and watch, you do just that. Got it?"
She held her breath. She told herself not to say it. Don't say it. Don't say it...
"No."
Herobrine stared at her, surprised. "Oh, really?"
"No. I don't care what you do to me. Leave my family alone. You can't hurt everyone just because you feel like it. Don't hurt my family."
"Oh, fine, I'm just more interested in that first part. You don't care...at all...what I do to you?" Herobrine laughed at the idea.
Elise swallowed. "No. As long as you leave them alone."
"Oh, so you're making deals of your own, now are you?" Herobrine rolled his eyes. "Fine. Have you taught yourself to teleport, yet?"
Elise bit her lip. "Uh..."
"My goodness, Elise, your father would be so disappointed in you." Herobrine looked back at the Enderman. "Actually, judging by the fact that he's currently vibrating, even under a frozen spell, I would assume that he's a little pissed."
It seemed to take effort, but after a couple moments of difficulty, Eli was able to give Herobrine a rather rude finger.
Herobrine gasped in mock surprise. "Mother of Minecraft, there are children in this room, Eli!" He covered Elise's eyes and asked her, "Is he always like this?"
"Are you always like this?" Elise shot back.
"Obviously." Herobrine rolled his eyes. "Now, where was I? Oh, yeah. Try again, Elise, and you've only got a couple seconds to figure out how to teleport, so, heh, good luck."
Elise stood rigid, trying to stop herself from swaying like she was dizzy. She closed her eyes, thinking about what her father had told her about teleporting. 'Teleportation' was really a little like time travelling, if you think about it; it's just someone walking to a new position, without the movement involved. She just had to move, without moving, with a vampire right by her ear and no help whatsoever. Totally easy.
The feeling in her stomach had barely started feeling like it was weighing her down when Herobrine called out, "Time's up. Fast fact: did you know that any single, individual enderperson, regardless of age or size, contains more radioactive magical capabilities than a hundred Nether portals? And what's cool is all that magic is in their blood. There's a reason the most powerful sorcerers in the world are endermen. A single drop, and all I'd need is some obsidian -which, of course, as a true traveller, I always have- to open a Nether portal."
Elise frowned, keeping her eyes closed, trying to focus, but failing, due to the heart beat that she was so sure belonged to the vampire next to her, a slow, steady, undistrubed beating. "Why would you want to go to the Nether?"
"I have my reasons. I used to be king of the place, you know, a couple centuries ago."
Elise leaned a little away from him, eyes still closed. "And just how old are you?"
"Hey now, don't you know it's extremely rude to ask an immortal -even a half immortal- what their age is? It'll give a headache, doing all that math. Umm...er...give me a second...bout a century ago I was six thousand? No, wait, that can't be right, because in June...was it seven thousand? No, wait-...Oh, whatever. I don't remember."
"I'm good at mental math." Elise offered, mostly just stalling. "When's your birthday?"
"Oh, today." Herobrine shrugged. "Let's see, today, I got stuck with bind magic and told to attack the Dark Ones, eventually got rid of the annoying ponytail twins, successfully put a spell on an enderdragon, and sucked the blood out of a little endergirl. Good day."
Elise paled and backed away. "I...I don't remember that last part."
"Oh, I think I've gotten a little ahead of myself, whoops." Herobrine replied, coming closer. "Hm, you know, your little cheerleaders over there are getting both annoying and annoyed. I think we should go somewhere else, huh?"
"Wait- what? Where-"
He grabbed her by the shoulder with a grip that made her wince. Then the world blurred, dark colors and shadows swirling, her stomach dropped to her feet, while her heart slammed into her throat, which was a weird, unsettling feeling to feel at the same time. When the world cleared, she was in a separate part of the cave, piles of massive boulders blocked any way out.
"Who-how-what?" Elise gaped. "Did-did you just teleport?"
Herobrine snorted. "I wish. No, I'm just real fast."
"Elise!" Came her father's voice from the other side of the rocks, the sound resounding through the cave. Multiple other noises of smashing and cracking followed, but
"Dad!" Elise tried to run in that direction, but Herobrine still held onto her with an impossibly powerful grip. She struggled against him with little success, besides she did manage to piss off a vampire, which wasn't hard.
"Elise!"
"Oh, give it up," It was Shadow's voice, but from farther away, like he was in the corner of the room. Elise could easily picture him leaning against the wall. "Nothing's gettin' through that, and we're all dead, anyways. Especially that girl."
There was a low growl in response.
"Well," Herobrine said, "They're all real positive. Anyway, I think I was saying something. Oh! Right." He smiled at her. "Can you teleport yet?"
Her throat was dry, but Elise managed a thick swallow anyways. "Um." She tried to take a step back and lied, "Y-Yes..."
"Oh, really? Great. Show me."
"Um."
To be fair, Elise tried.
Of course she had tried to teleport many other times that day, and every time something was weighing her down, an uncomfortable pressure that never left her. Her father had warned her that teleporting felt like getting squeezed into a space that no one could fit into. She thought it had been bad before, but at that moment, with her shoulders shaking and heart pounding, her soul slowly crept into a dark abyss, an emptiness and nothing that she couldn't escape from. The area squeezed every part of her, pushing her in on herself, as if she wanted to crumble into the ground and stay there.
She just wanted to go home. She couldn't teleport and all she wanted to do was go home.
Through the darkness that covered her ears and eyes, she heard and saw the owner of the bright white eyes say, after taking a great inhale, "Ah. Did you know that your blood is actually infected right now, Elise? Poisoned, if you want to call it that. After all, the magic that Shadow and Dagger used on you? That magic is dead. It died a long time ago, and they used undead magic on you. It should have killed you, it should have killed practically anybody, but the thing is, Enderpeople are magical. Dead magic mixed with your very live magic, and mixture is a terrible black blood, beating through your body. Will it kill you? Will it help you? Honestly, I have no idea. It's interesting. But the biggest problem is, as a vampire, I know a lot about blood. I can smell it, I can hear your heart beating, I can see what type it is. You're, what...A+, and with a lot of magic. That blood that's in you, that corrupted, half-dead blood, shouldn't be there. My first instinct is, naturally, to take every drop out of you. To finish off what's half-dead."
Elise didn't reply, didn't move. She was covered in the dark, but she felt an icy, faint touch go from her shoulder to her neck, resting on a particularly thick vein. Elise shuddered through the dark.
"So, Elise, can ya teleport yet?" He whispered in her ear.
A cold panic surged through her, but she couldn't move, compressed by a kind of nothing. She wanted to reply, to say something, anything, but the words wouldn't come. When she tried, all she managed was to swallow thickly under his hand.
"More silence from you, then, eh? Fine. I wonder what A+, magical, half-dead blood tastes like..."
He leaned closer, and then it happened so fast Elise was almost pulled out of the dark into a blindingly hot amount of pain.
Herobrine's teeth sunk into her neck.
She screamed, a blood-chilling, throaty yell that resounded in the empty cave. Someone called out for her from the other side of the room in a state of panic.
Her stomach dropped...and then kept dropping. Her whole body was falling, weighing down more and more, a cold rush running over her. She was in the dark.
And then she was in the lighter dark; she was in a corner of the room, shuddering and shaking, hugging herself. Black blood dripped from her neck.
"W-What...what did you do to me?" Elise whispered.
"Me?" Herobrine gave her a look of innocence. "Nothing. All I did was bite you. You're the one that teleported, little miss attitude."
Elise made a gasping sound, realizing he was right. She had moved without moving. She had stepped into the dark and then out of it. She was over seven feet from her original spot.
She should have been thrilled. But she was just terrified. And she realized that was exactly the point.
Her father hadn't told her to think of home to help her go there- it was to make her afraid that she would never be able to get back there. He didn't tell her outright, but he was telling her to be afraid.
That was the key; fear. Teleporting isn't a magic; it's an instinct. When endermen feel threatened and afraid, and they want to be anywhere but where they are, that's when they can teleport, at least for the beginners;
they take a step into the dark. Every creature becomes afraid at some point, to some extent, but the enderpeople had simply found a way to make it work for them. They turned their instincts into magic.
She had turned her fear into an escape.
Elise couldn't think about it anymore. Quietly and instinctively, she whispered, "Daddy..."
She was still afraid, so she used that. She stepped back into the dark that overwhelmed her so, and then she was right next to her father.
"Elise!"
In that instant Eli was hugging her, surprising her enough that the somewhat-restrained tears flew from her eyes, while Eli's eyes almost looked guilty. "I know, I know. I'm sorry, I should have told you. I'm sorry. It's okay, it's okay. I'm sorry."
So Elise just stayed in her father's arms until she fell asleep and her fear, at least for that moment, left her.
When she woke up, Elise was groggy, in her father's arms, and for a moment she just tried to smell the mint that was coming off him. Why did her father always smell like mint?
Then she heard Elijah and Herobrine in a somewhat tense conversation.
"Oh, no, you're all allowed to leave, of course. I'm just staying to finish off the Dark Ones. You know, so they don't go around tormenting kids. But yeah, you guys can go." Herobrine shrugged.
"It's good to have your permission, asshole." Elijah snarled. "By the Gods, I should shove you into the ground..."
"I'd really like to see you try." Herobrine chuckled. Slowly, hardly on purpose, he looked at Elise.
Elise felt the rage surge up in her. She hated those eyes. She hated and feared everything about him. She felt like something had clicked, something that wasn't in place finally was where it was supposed to be. It didn't take any effort to focus. She hardly had to close her eyes, and she stepped into the dark. Eli blinked, and his daughter was gone from his arms.
She stopped to step back into reality for only a split second, to gain speed, and aim properly, and then focused all of her hate directly at Herobrine's face, going back in and out of the dark...
And her fist collided with his face.
Herobrine mostly looked surprised, rubbing his forehead with a dull, "Ow. Sheesh, I think it's safe to say that the half-dead blood in you is actually gonna make ya stronger, little miss attitude." He looked at Eli. "I'd be careful, Eli, she's not gonna be any fun in the teen years."
"Go to hell." Eli snarled.
"Jeez, apparently I'm not wanted around here. Fine, fine, I'm going." Herobrine rolled his eyes, turning away.
Her eyes flashed angrily. "Hope you had a happy birthday, Herobrine. I hope I never see you again."
Herobrine laughed. "If it makes you feel any better, you probably won't." His figure blurred and then he was gone.
The first thing Elise did was hug her dad, and ask that they could just go home. Eli agreed, and this time, when they teleported, he led her through the dark.
Luna was surprised to wake up.
She should have been dead, after all. Whatever alternative she had received, she doubted it would be pleasant.
Her suspicions were proven correct when she looked up into two white eyes.
"You." She hissed.
"Yup, me." Herobrine grinned.
"Why didn't you kill me?"
"Oh, I just made it look like I did. I guess I'm good at that. More for the kid's eyes, ya know. This, however, is completely between you and me. And your sister, and the two guys, of course. The spellcaster and the other guy."
"My sister is alive?" Luna sounded too hopeful.
"Hm, well, in the scientific term, yes. Probably doesn't want to be, right about now, but yes." Herobrine shrugged. "It's just, I'm not done having fun with you guys. And, unlike most people I torture, you guys actually deserve it. I'm just here to insure the Dark Ones go out of business."
Luna bit down hard on her lip to resist screaming at him. Rage made her whole body shake, but there was hardly anything she could do about it.
"So, we've got a couple options. There's always silver tables," Herobrine grinned, "a personal favorite of mine. Then there's wooden boards, but like, talk about breakable, and splinters suck. Of course, there's the acid pool, if it's done by now. I'm not sure, I haven't checked. Anyway, there's that, or simply being chained to a wall. And that's just the position, of course. I've got about fifty different kinds of knives, but then again, endermen are all around annoying with their black blood, so I could head into a more electrifiying direction-"
He was cut off by a high-pitched scream that quickly died down to a gurgling. Herobrine smelled the air and broke into a grin. "Hm, seems the acid pool is ready."
Luna felt pale. "Who was that? Shadow or Dagger?"
"What, you don't think it could have been your sister? I mean, that was kind of a girly scream..."
"My sister doesn't scream." Luna snarled.
Herobrine chuckled. "We'll see about that. But you're right, though. That was Shadow. Dagger died a couple hours ago, I think. Your sister's alive, though barely. Because you challenged me so stupidly, I have to go make her scream now. So far, you're right, she mostly just grits her teeth, but I don't think she's ever had the experience of over ten thousand jolts of energy buzzing in her head before assisted with a hammer." Herobrine shrugged. "I've been using a hammer a lot today, it seems like. Not as fun as Thor makes it look. Kinda heavy after a while, but, eh, whatever."
"Why?" Luna cut him off, tears flooding her eyes. "Why are you doing this?"
"Oh, don't play innocent with me. You're just as bad as everybody else here. If the universe was truly and utterly and almost unfairly fair and cruel, you would get this kind of punishment anyways. Eli and Elijah are all soft-hearted. They'd just kill you to stop you from killing others, just a twist of the head, and be done with it. But the problem is that I'm like all of you. I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty. You think it's all cruel and unfair, but this is what you've done to children, for crying out loud. And with children, everything is new, everything is inhanced. So that fear and rage you're feeling right now? That's what they felt, but so much worse." Herobrine stared at her for a long second before adding, "You torment for power. I torment for fun. At the end of it, it doesn't matter what your reason is. What matters is what you do, and how that effects others. And I know, I know, I'm one to talk. But people like you have always annoyed me. Besides, I'm having an awesome birthday so far, so why not extend it?" He shrugged.
The words continued, but by that time Herobrine was talking while he worked. Luna got a dose of the acid pool and a lot of a kind of rope burn she didn't know what possible. It wasn't a choice, at that point. She screamed. And she heard her sister screaming for the first time in the room next to her.
Luna knew when she was fading. Her mind scrambled for anything she could do, something, anything, while the world was getting darker, when she saw Herobrine's face and spat out, before the world shut her out completely, "Happy birthday, bastard."