Chapter Seven: So Fight the Past, Take Back the Night
She had two names. Two identities. Two allegiances.
Once upon a few years ago, she had a mate. A daughter. She was happy. A few weeks later, she was no longer one of them. Her mate was dead. Her daughter was dead. She was Ember, alpha of the Dark Pack. Or rather, that was the unofficial name that she gave them.
She had two sides, only one of them hidden and true. She had two masters, and one was gone, until that day. Unseen for years, until the day he came back with his own friends and allies, ready to defend what's right, along with two of her former pack-mates. Yet she had to act. Act as though they did not know each other. As though they were enemies.
She was not affected by the potion cloud, yet she pretended not to notice her true allies build themselves a safety shelter. She saw them run, to beyond the cold island, to the "town", or the mini-game paradise. She forced herself to march alongside her new pack, and not to hurry after them, to her heart. She clawed at her own ex-pack-mates. She saw her 'allies' get taken down. Keres, Maleficent, Belladonna, Blaze, Lilith, Draven, Brimstone, Leila, Veronica, Gavin, Brine II, one by one. Could she even bring herself to care? Was she bad for not doing so?
No, she had told herself, they were evil. Yet the seeds of doubt still lingered within her mind. They had not sprouted yet, and hopefully one day, they never would.
Then an arrow, an arrow she knew was tipped with a deadly liquid, dark in colour as well as nature, was fired. Time seemed to slow down as she ran from where she could have been killed by her own master's allies. She was not the fastest in the pack for nothing. What seemed like a second later, it felt like something had hit her, but it wasn't the sharp pain that hurt. It was the potion, freezing cold like the ice that the son of her former alpha loved so much, coursing through her bloodstream.
She already knew her fate, what awaited her in a few short, or long, minutes. Her sight was fading and foggy, as though she was affected by blindness; as she saw her true allies see to watch her, in what seemed to be grim satisfaction, until a finger brushed over where her worn-down collar was, as she knew. It was blackened by soot and ash over the years, but before that, it was purple. Now probably a faded darker shade of purple.
She heard two familiar wolf howls. Gregory Jr and Fluffy. They were good for each other. Then came a soft gasp. Another voice, right beside her, a whisper this time that she recognized. "Flippy?"
Her original name, which she hadn't heard in so long. Hello, master. I…really miss you. Give that bony b*star* a good kick in the backside, will you? She felt a drop of liquid fall onto her fur, then she let the air leave her lungs, and she gave in to the darkness.
Isa's eyes simply couldn't look away. The Two were staring at their final, fallen wolf, simply standing there like lemons. Rotten lemons. Yet as for the two 'local' wolves…why were they howling as though they had lost one of their own?
It was after approximately five seconds of total silence when one made a sound, excluding the twin wolf howls. "You didn't." The voice was quiet, a whisper, you can call it. Yet there was a sharp coldness, like frigid gusts of winds in the Ice Plains Spikes biome, or maybe a dagger, flying through the air and plunging deep into someone's chest, right in the heart.
HTT glanced in return, his sunken dark-grey eyes searing a message back. What the f**k are you talking about? My dog just got killed, and it's your fault!
"Your dog, HitTheTarget? Really?" The usually kind and friendly – or even fearful occasionally – voice was replaced by an almost unrecognizable steely tone, like raging hellfire hidden beneath a layer of (perhaps) wood. One wrong move, then suffer the consequences. Just like that.
"She has been mine, and mine for around a decade, and you say she's yours?"
"Well she has been fighting for me for around half of that time –"
"Then she died protecting my friends, not you evil oxygen thief." Jack whistled quietly. Who knew that that cinnamon roll had such good insults in him?
"And one more thing, HitTheTarget and Veeva Dash: no one messes with my friends and gets away with it." At that, the half-cat gave a slow blink, showing the feline eyes, green like before, but this time like green packed ice (as if it were a polar opposite, as they were fighting on a frickin' pyramid, a desert thing), hiding the emotion behind it all, and appearing as though they wanted to kill the duo on the spot with their gaze alone.
The thin scar was a slight curve, which made him appear…well, it made Nurm flinch slightly and crawl into Jack's arms with his eyes half-closed. Who knew that a cinnamon roll could be so threatening?
A blinding light flashed before their eyes. A bright silver flash, argent like iron. Then what was before them was the same Stampy as they had seen, yet in a way different. More feline – claws, tail (like I said) and ears (holy sh*t, that's what the hood's for…it's off!)…and floating. Like Mister I-Am-An-Overpowered-Dictator-Until-I-Got-Smacked-In-The-Face-By-A-Twenty-One-Year-Old-Young-Man-With-A-Golden-Glove-That-Has-The-Power-To-Deop.
Let's hope for no power abuse this time 'round.
"What the f—" the quarter-witch yelled before she was lifted into the air, her entire potion supply on her fallen to the floor, somehow still intact. HTT fired an arrow that appeared to be guaranteed to hit his foe in an almost fatal position, but it simply whizzed past his neck, and the same treatment applied for the half-skeleton and his archery stuff. That plus two blades: a stone sword (as Petra said, skeleton-style) and an atrous (jet-black) blade of special iron – a potion knife.
All the weapons were, in one swift motion, swept aside to the bottom of the pyramid. The two were – well, somehow – floated back to their own fortress (the rest following, too dazed or shocked to say anything) and into a chamber of nether-brick, red nether-brick and lava. Oh, and with a deep obsidian pit, more than deep enough to kill an average person. All of them who looked –basically everyone else in the group – could see dried patches of rust-coloured blood at the bottom.
"Get down there."
The exact same words, along with similar accents and coldness. Almost like a trip down memory lane, one could say, other than the fact that the three involved in the action were the only living witnesses to the act done several years before.
"You can't command us in our own castle!" HTT blurted out. The feline eyes just stared. "Your castle? It's yours alright, but it's on my land, in case you haven't noticed." The two were already set down next to the pit.
"Why here?" VD's voice, so confident just hours before, had been reduced to a mere trembling, whispering plea.
"You put me there for nearly three years, so it seems like poetic justice to leave you there to rot," the Host of the World replied, ignoring the gasps of shock, outrage and/or confusion for two different reasons. "What?" Isa actually blurted out. What the rest said was simply undistinguishable words and/or exotic profanity.
"I said, get down there." They didn't.
Lluna snorted in indignation, with her brows looking exactly like when she was peering down at the young man who was trying to restrain her, decided to step in with two doses of llama spit. Speaking no more, both foes fell back, mouths open in the shock that it was a teenage llama that ended them and dropped like anvils into the deep purple depths below, and turning into a pile of broken limbs, before combusting into a large pool of haematic fluid, smoke and a few items. The Host looked genuinely surprised by that. I wonder, why did they not survive the fall?
It was a stunned silence until Nurm grunted out something in his language, so of course Jack translated for him "It's over."
Then came the more difficult part: explaining the sh*t.
A/N: No, the Host-of-the-World-so-OP part is NOT a deus ex machina. I mentioned his status back in Chapter One of this thing. It's just that he didn't really use it often, and it seemed like it was most certainly there for nothing. On Xbox, the world's host can turn invisible, fly, switch game-mode, set the time, do commands/game-rules, etc.
On Xbox Minecraft, there are no mods. However, Artistic License is an existing feature in fanfiction-writing. Besides, it's fan-fiction. No one says that it has to be real.
Speaking of that, hear me out before you point out a piano-sized plot hole that I noticed too – the Host could literally fly out and beat the c**p outta the Duo years ago. But why didn't he do that? Look, he did NOT use them that often. Not that he forgot he could do that, more like: Admin/Host powers were controlled by habit and intense emotions, usually anger. Romeo was used to using his powers, so he could use 'em no problem; and he's not the happiest person in the world, right? The thing is, here, these did not get into the habit of using them often. Therefore, the power surge came from the intense fury (and some sadness, or even despair) of that moment.
Oh, and the 'Admin' form isn't the Admin form. That was his 'animal' form, he was just in his 'human' form most of the time, and wearing the hood to hide the ears. Firmitudas was a world where admins could be absolute rulers, while in most worlds, including his, the 'admins' had bound powers and they weren't near-invincible or immortal. They're just human (or sometimes not-so) with extra power.
Microsoft Word simply hates my writing style, which includes informal language, long sentences and passive voice. So it's ending! The series is coming to a close. Just…thank you, guys. For the support by reading this thing. You'd better start giving me more ideas for new stories, and they'd better be ones that I can actually write…by review or PM, please.