Hello, this is Pastrinator64 with another long-awaited chapter from VOiD. Sorry about the long wait. What with schoolwork during the weekdays and my, er, minor obsession over playing Paper Mario Sticker Star, I haven't gotten much time to write. But I'm here again, so that's all that matters! :D Anyway, how about some replies to reviews?
Replies To Reviews...
BfheadGamer: Ohhhh yeah... I can't wait for the payback to begin! :)
CSICreeper: Give that man a cookie! *gives you a cookie*
Volcanic the hedgehog: I recognize the Pirates of the Caribbean reference, but not the other one.
LikeaBoss: {Ah yes, thank you.}
lightsaber36: Funny, we haven't actually had my birthday party yet. It has to be in October because of scheduling issues, and that's, well, a whole month after my actual birthday. Oh well, I guess I have something to look forward to, then.
Enderdude: Sorry, I've been really busy with stuff, so writing chapters is less and less frequent for me.
Nwinds: 1. Why, thank you! 2. I try, but sometimes I can only get in one chapter per week. This week is one of those times. 3. (answered in QAA)
Well then, let's get on with the next chap, shall we?
Hello, this is Pastrinator64 with another chapter from VOiD. Last time on VOiD we got a peek into three of Mark's most vivid dreams ever. In his first dream, Mark was visited by Farixz the First, the elder of the Spirits In Between, and was talked to about what to do with his problem involving Kelsey and Raven. Moments after the dream ended, another followed and he found himself with Notch instead. Notch talked to him about how lucky he was to be in the spot he was for the situation. Although, the third dream must have been foreseen by the Glitch, because it invaded his sleep and tormented Mark with his own friends. When Mark awoke with a start, he realized again that Lucas was to blame for all of this, so he made up his mind and payed a visit to Astrid. Mark woke up in the infirmary rather than floating in the freezing ocean, two of his limbs up in casts. He was payed a visit by Kelsey, who turned out to be Raven just disguising her voice, and after some close contact with a massive centipede, Mark made his final decision. Now we watch as he enlists help from ANYONE who's willing to listen.
Now, let the story commence!
Chapter 23: Recruitment
The next morning, Mark woke up to find that the nurse had already healed his right leg and arm. Now that he had regained control of all his limbs, Mark jumped up from bed and quickly got dressed into normal clothes. He looked to his left to see that Gabe was no longer in the bed nearby, so he must have healed. But Rexum was still looking pale and weak, so he'd take another few days to heal up properly.
Mark rushed out of the infirmary as quickly as possible and navigated his way down the many hallways inside Diamond University. About two minutes later he found himself in the girls' hallway, which was exactly where he wanted to be. He quickly scanned each of the doors, looking at each of the signs with the students' names that were put up against the wood, and then he found the right room.
He knocked on the door three times over before someone came to the door. It was Astrid. She hardly looked tired at all, so Mark knew he wasn't interrupting her sleep...
"Astrid, close the door!" grumbled Astrid's roommate.
Astrid looked back at her and said harshly,
"Shut up, Vicky. I know this guy."
She turned back and said to Mark,
"This is about..." she looked back at Vicky, but she was sleeping and could care less about what they were talking about, so Astrid turned back to Mark. "The plans?" she guessed, a grin spread across her face.
Mark grinned as well, and then he nodded.
"Yep, and I want you to help. But first, let me actually tell you what this guy did to me..."
By the end of Mark's three minute-long explanation of all the horrible crimes Lucas ever committed, Astrid's eyes were wide with sheer shock.
"Wow!" she muttered in a very dumbfounded tone. "This is kid like the Devil!" she slammed her fist into her open palm as though smashing an invisible bug. "Let's beat him up!"
Mark slapped his forehead and said,
"No, NO beating up! The purpose of this whole plan isn't to break his arms, Astrid, no matter HOW appealing that may be to you. What I want to do is make him feel so humiliated that he wets his pants!" declared Mark, a smile stretched across his face.
Astrid nodded and said,
"Great! We're going to need to group together the best group of mischievous guys and girls in the school."
Mark just shook his head at the idea.
"How are we going to do that without attracting attention from Lucas? It's not like we can just walk from person to person, that'd look so lame. What other ways are there to get the message to people?"
Suddenly, for the first time in a little while, Astrid's roommate Vicky spoke from her bed.
"I have an idea..."
"Perfect! I'm glad you could help, Jack."
They had delivered the flyers within minutes thanks to Jack and his hacker skills. Jack was another ex-Earthling, so he used to live in the real world too, but now it was just his soul in Minecraft. Back home it turned out that Jack was actually a hacker—not the illegal kind, just one who hacks into games and stuff—and he was able to hack his way through the administrative barriers and /give everyone in the school except Lucas a flyer about their group. Meanwhile, everybody was slapping Jack on the back; the shrimpy little man couldn't stop grinning.
It was already the second day of Blockbusting Week, and they would need a lot of time and brainpower to set up their plan for Lucas before the week ended. So what they decided was to set the meeting for all participants to take place in stair in the right stairwell of where the boys' and girls' hallways were connected that night at 11:00. That would be when all the camp councilors would be in bed, so they wouldn't be bothered.
That day they'd be holding a monster-fighting tournament for all the students to watch. After having another delicious breakfast, Mark headed out with his group of friends towards the stadium early to get front-row seats. Mark was still in awe of how huge the stadium was, and as he walked down the cobblestone steps he pondered about how long it took the admin and his staff to make the whole thing.
He sat down in the very front with his friends and they slid back in their seats, watching the streaming students that came from the entrances. In about a half hour of conversing and watching people file in, the entire stadium was full to bursting with students. Suddenly, an announcer's voice blasted through the stadium.
"Good morning, students of Diamond University, both graduates and non-graduates! Today we will be hosting a mob-fighting tournament for you all to watch. As requested, the staff members will be walking out into the field to fight. I will now pick randomly to decide which teacher will go up against which monster. Let's see now..." the stadium waited in baited breath as the announcer—Mark was told that it was the Chief Of Organization in Sports and Games, Ulysses Monsterspawner—was taking his pick.
A few seconds later the stadium burst with cheers as Ulysses announced that the agricultural teacher Professor Arren Pumpkin would be facing a silverfish, and this got a huge laugh out of everybody in the stadium. When Mark looked around at his friends who were also laughing he realized that he was missing out on some big inside joke of some sort, and it bugged him.
"Er, Barry, why's everybody laughing?"
Barry smiled slapped him roughly on his shoulder.
"Oh yeah, you're from Earth, aren't you? Well, when Arren took the tests on Blockbusting Day he had to face a silverfish, but he ran away screaming because back then he was a complete dweeb. It's a popular story here, so I'm guessing Ulysses put him in there with a silverfish on purpose."
Mark nodded slowly, and then turned his attention back to the stadium. A very large, beefy man with a coach's black and white uniform was walking out on the grass towards the center of the stadium with another person, supposedly Professor Pumpkin. The coach stopped in the center of the field and then walked back, leaving the professor standing there, smiling and waving at the crowd. Then a whistled sounded loudly and the silverfish appeared before him.
On natural instinct the silverfish jumped up to bite Professor Pumpkin, but he just placed a pumpkin there in its spot, trapping it inside the massive fruit. He lifted the pumpkin into the air with both hands and smiled again to the crowd, twirling it around on his finger like it was a basketball. Cheers erupted from the stadium, and they didn't cease until Professor Pumpkin had walked back under the stands.
The festive tournament continued on throughout the evening into the afternoon, ending with winner being the geography teacher Mrs. Karen Mycelium. They had a later lunch because of the delay, and Mark was positively starving. After their late meal an announcement came over the intercom that the rest of the day was free for graduating students, which meant that they had plenty of time to brainstorm for that night when they met their new recruits.
Mark, Adrian, Josh, Barry, Jack and Astrid sat at a spare table in the corner of the cafeteria, pouring their brains out over a single scrap of paper that was their plan. As Mark was scribbling down notes and visuals he was giving them instructions.
"Alright Jack, so you're gonna need to use all the brain power you've got to hack into the administrative system so we can break into the walls and stuff for the different traps and stuff, and your codename is now Brainwave, got it?" Jack nodded, but quickly got up and left to use the bathroom again for the tenth time that meeting.
Mark pointed to Barry and Josh next.
"You two will be in charge of constructing the things we'll need to have built. Always work after 11:00, and be sure to watch out for the patrol officers that walk around the halls at night, okay? Josh, you're Megaman, and Barry, you're Machoman, just because you guys are the brawn of the group."
Then he pointed to Adrian and Astrid and said,
"You two will be in charge of making sure that Josh and Barry do NOT get caught. Do anything you can to keep guards away from wherever they build while making sure that you guys don't get yourself caught in the process. Adrian, you're Gold-Digger—"
Adrian's eyes widened in anger at that moment and he put his fist up.
"Hey!"
"No, no, not that kind of gold-digger. You're from Texas, so there's, um, you know, "gold in dem dar hills" or something along those lines. Sorry if I'm being stereotypical..."
Adrian sighed, murmuring something about being easily irritated, and then he let Mark continue.
"Astrid, you're gonna be—"
"Likeaboss!" she declared.
"Fine, whatever, just stick to the codename. And finally," he rolled up their planning sheet and slapped it down on the table. "I shall be Ringmaster, because I'm the one calling all the shots for this operation."
Just then, Jack came back and sat down at the table, folding his hands out in front of him.
"We should give this whole thing a name, don't you think?"
Suddenly, Josh raised his hand and whispered excitedly,
"Oh! I know, let's call it "Operation Overkill" since we're doing SO much to this Lucas dude!" he unrolled the sheet of paper on the table and pointed all over it. "Just look at all this crap he's gonna go through! It makes sense, doesn't it?!"
They all shushed him quickly, and Josh slapped his pudgy hands over his mouth.
"Keep quiet, partner..." muttered Adrian, taking a glance around the cafeteria. "We don' wan' ter be overheard, now do we?"
Josh let go of his lips and looked down at the paper.
"Yeah, sorry..."
Mark just shrugged.
"Anyway, now that we've assigned the rolls and codenames, let's get back to this plan here; we still have some things to cover..."
Meanwhile, somewhere miles and miles away from Diamond University, Norman and Liz had just come across something very strange. They'd been wandering through a jungle for quite some time, and as they walked into its very heart they found an interesting building sitting there. It was made of black and white wool to make a checkered pattern.
They stood at the entrance for a moment, just taking it all in, and then Liz suggested that they go inside. Norman agreed with her, but got his weapon out, and she did the same. They walked through the entrance to find themselves in a room similar to that of the inside of a desert temple, only much larger, and it was empty.
"There's nobody here..." murmured Liz, taking a glance around the vast room.
Together they moved towards the other end of the room, and another small doorway appeared there. When they walked through it they found a black and white throne sitting unoccupied in the middle of the room. Liz moved close to it and outstretched a hand, running it along one of the chair arms.
"I wonder who lives here..." she muttered thoughtfully.
Suddenly she pressed an invisible buttons somewhere on the arm, and a sudden whirring sound echoed through the room. She retracted her hand and looked around at Norman.
"What's that?"
Norman got his weapon back out and got ready for whatever was about to be thrown at him. But nothing came for another minute, and finally something happened; the doorway filled itself in, enclosing them, and then a Yin-Yang small enough to fit in you palm appeared before them. It was reflective, and when Norman and Liz took a careful observation, what they saw was amazing. It was like looking through a window, because they could see Mark sitting with a bunch of people at a table in a cafeteria in a tight huddle; they were poring over a single piece of paper. Vanessa was nowhere to be seen, though.
"Wait a minute," muttered Norman, peering extremely close into the live-action image. He scanned the little vision for a moment and then saw what he was looking for; there was a sign on the wall behind them that read, "In Honor Of Diamond University", on it in gold lettering. Norman put the pieces together instantly, and whirled around to face his wife.
"Mark is living on campus at Diamond University! Wait, no... No, it's another university in honor of the original, so there must be several Diamond University academic centers built around Minecraftia. That narrows it down a lot, doesn't it?"
Liz suddenly pointed back at the screen and said,
"Look, there's Vanessa!"
Norman turned back around and looked into the Yin-Yang. She was right, because Vanessa could be seen walking around in the background of the scene.
Vanessa walked down the rows of tables, looking for an empty one that she could work on, but was unsuccessful in her search; everybody seemed to be yelling and laughing and making noise, which greatly annoyed her. Then she saw a group of people sitting hushed in the corner of the room, and she immediately thought that they too had found a quiet place to study. She walked over to that table and plopped all her books and papers down in a neat pile.
When they lifted their heads to see who had sat down, Vanessa noticed that Mark and Adrian were there, and it immediately became awkward for the two of them.
"Hello Vanessa." murmured Mark. Then he noticed all the books she was carrying and added, "Er, why do you have so much, um, school supplies?"
Vanessa sighed as she was opening her notebook to locate her notes for what looked like brewing class.
"Well, I figured that as long as we are guests here, why not partake in the education they offer? I'm going to be VERY behind from not doing schoolwork all summer, so if there's anything I can do it might as well be here in the world of, what was it again... Oh yes; the Minecraft Dimension."
The boys (and Astrid) all exchanged skeptical looks at the table for a moment.
"School? You're seriously managing to stick to schoolwork even while inside a GAME?!" he apologized to Josh and Barry, taking a brief moment to explain about the Minecraft game on Earth. "Anyway, how could you think about school when it's Blockbusting Week? You're supposed to have fun!"
Vanessa ignored his comment completely.
"I'm just here for a quiet place to sit."
Adrian grinned at Mark from the side and slowly started to lift his banjo from out under the table, but Mark shook his head. Mark watched Vanessa working for another few seconds, thinking of a way to get her out of her schoolwork, and then had an idea.
"Hey, it's been a while since we've seen Gabe, why don't you go find him and say hi? Maybe even invite him over to one of our parties, if he's willing."
At the thought of talking alone with Gabe, Vanessa looked up quickly with a sudden look of interest upon her face.
"Okay then." she said, picking up her stuff and getting ready to leave. But then she realized what she was doing and sat back down. "Wait, wait, wait... I'm not skipping my work, even if this does have to do with talking to," she took a huge, dramatic sigh. "Gabe..." she snapped back out of it and added, "Besides, Blockbusting Day will be in five days not including today, and I'm gonna take those end-of-year exams to get a different Block power, or whatever you call them; I refuse to own the last name of Cobweb."
So Vanessa got back to her work, muttering things under her breath as she went, and Mark and his crew went back to their business, brainstorming and planning.
Several hours of being in the cafeteria passed—not all of it was planning for Operation Overkill; a large portion of time was spent just fooling around like teenage guys would (plus Astrid, who was practically a boy herself judging the way she acted). The night was upon them again, and they immediately found themselves sitting back down to eat dinner. Mark shoveled food down his throat as fast as he could and then waited for his friends to do the same, and they stuck around in the cafeteria to let all the others begin to leave. Soon enough they were completely alone at a table, and that's when Mark set their planning sheet back down to do some last-minute planning before the meeting later that evening.
They were all just keeping to themselves at the table in a quiet manner when all of a sudden somebody spoke from behind.
"Mark and Adrian, what are you doing?"
Mark gave a little jump and turned around, hoping to see anybody but Lucas. It was not Lucas, but Gabe. He had cleaned up pretty well after being all bloody and broken like before.
"Er... Er, well, we're... Planning a party." he lied.
Gabe smiled and lifted his head to try and see the planner, but the boys and Astrid huddled around it in a tight formation to block his view.
"May I see the planner?" he asked politely.
Everybody exchanged glances, and then they looked at Mark all together as if waiting for directions, as he had declared himself the leader of the operation. Mark just stared open-mouthed at Gabe, looking totally idiotic and brain-dead, possibly because he felt like he really was. Before he could think of a reply, Gabe moved forward importantly and snatched the piece of paper up to take a good look at it. It was blank. He stared at it for a moment, blinked twice, and then just shrugged and put it back down.
"Nice plan you've got there." he muttered softly, and then walked off.
Mark gave a heavy sigh, but then started to laugh a bit. Little did Gabe know, their plan was written in invisible ink that Jack had smuggled in from President Camera's office. Only they could read it, which would come in handy if the paper were to ever be dropped and picked back up again by Lucas or a staff member. Once they knew that the coast was clear for sure this time, they got back to work.
Finally, one of the custodians kicked them out of the lunchroom at a quarter to nine o'clock, so they had to go back up into the boy's hallway. They still had a little over two hours before the meeting would start, so everybody was skittish. Normally, Astrid would be down in the girls' hallway, but she just ducked out of sight whenever a camp counselor passed by.
Finally, after an agonizing two hours, eleven o'clock came, and as soon as the counselors said they were going to bed Mark and the others rushed towards the stairwell on the other side of the hallway. Their turnout was so crazy it was almost overwhelming for Mark. About fifteen or so people—surprisingly enough, more boys than girls at a ratio of 9:6—were standing crammed into the stairwell, conversing with each other. The boys that were there had set up a poker table in the corner of the stairwell and were playing blackjack. As soon as Adrian saw the table he did an athletic leap over the heads of the people below him and landed next to the table, startling the guys sitting there. He plopped himself down just in time to start a new game, and as he was taking his poker chips he looked back at Mark and cupped his hands to his mouth.
"Hey, Mark ol' buddy! Can I jus' do one round o' poker? It's been too long since I've played poker, it has!"
Mark checked his watch and saw that they had only ten more minutes until the meeting. He sighed, gave Adrian a quick nod, and sat down, leaning against the wall, and he just talked with his friends while he waited. Although, Mark was quite distracted, because he kept looking over at the poker table, and he couldn't help but smile to himself. He was watching Adrian, who was just piling on the chips, annoying all the other guys with his skills. In fact, Adrian was so good that he actually won the game in thirteen minutes, so they were still pretty much on schedule.
Mark shushed everybody, and immediately all eyes were on him. He felt slightly uncomfortable with everybody looking right at him, but he took a deep breath and started his prepared monologue.
"Alright, I have gathered you all here tonight to discuss," he lifted up a large photo of Lucas and waved it around. "this boy, Lucas Creeper."
Since everybody now knew the horrible things that Lucas did, they let out catcalls and whatnot.
"Anyway, we will be setting up the ultimate prank, and THAT is why I will need as many working individuals as possible. I have created an entire blueprint of the plan, and Jack here," he gestured next to him at him. "Will be projecting the plan onto the wall behind you so that it is clear for all to see. Do your stuff, Jack."
Within a minute of Jack and his hacking of the system, he had enlarged the blueprint on the wall inside the stairwell, and the fifteen people standing cluttered on the landing turned around to see it.
"Alright, everyone, I'm going to now divide you into two teams!"
He pointed to what was almost half of the people in the stairwell and said,
"Alpha Team, you're in charge of keeping guards away from where we will be building this whole thing." He then pointed to the other half. "Gold Team, you will be building these contraptions under the cover of night, and we have until the end of Blockbusting Week to get this all done. Any questions?"
Some fat kid in the back raised both fists.
"GOLD TEAM RULES!"
Mark rolled his eyes, but then stepped to the side of the stairwell, pointed towards the exit, and said,
"Now get moving!"
Heheheheheh. Did anybody else get that reference right there? :3
Anyway, how about some QAA?
To the Glitch: What are you waiting for? I know you're saving energy! Come on! Hit me with all you got!
The Glitch: *prepares a Spirit Blast of Dark energy rather than Light energy* DARKNESS SHALL PREVAIL! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
To Mark: There ya go! Now, what Si means in that quote is that you have to hit hard and strike fast. Make sure to follow those words and do your best. Get some rest then let Lucas suffer!
Mark: Heck yeah! With the team I've got now, NOTHING is going to stand in my way!
Kelsey: You must save Mark he is stuck with Raven. Mark loves you, Raven kissed him. He is in the infirmary he thought that Raven was you because she disguised her voice. Mark never kissed her, she kissed him.
Kelsey: Unless Mark can come up with an elaborate way to prove any of that to me, I'm going to have to say no, and that it's about time I moved on... *sighs and walks off to nowhere*
To Mark: Just kiss Kelsey like Norman did Liz! *shows mark scene from Glitch*
Mark: I know, I've already seen that part, remember? You know, we watched The Glitch as a movie a while ago, so...
To the Glitch: Rock on emperor. ;)
The Glitch: I'm flattered! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAFLATTEREDHAHAHAHAHAHA!
To Liz: Your kids are fine, just learning to deal with the other gender.
Liz: But... I want to be there to at least talk about it to him!
To Mark: Give Gabe a bedrock spear next time you see him, as a make-up gift. Then he can help you smear Lucas into a bloody, disfigured pulp! :)
Mark: Woah, just take it easy man. I'm not looking to kill the kid. I just want to humiliate him to the point where it equals the pain that I've had to experience because of him.
To the Glitch: Eat waffles! *launches waffles out of a super powered toaster gun*
The Glitch: *eats the waffles* Seriously? All you did was give me breakfast.
To the Glitch: Is this the only game you glitch up, or is my Steam library at risk? Because if it is, I won't go down without a fight! *holds up puny foam sword*
The Glitch: I have not yet explored other dimensions yet, but in the very soon future I will be sending my plasma to every single one of the infinite dimensions. Yes, I shall be able to plague INFINITE dimensions! YES, YES, YES! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAHA! ...Oh, that was my longest-lasting evil laugh! New record!
To the Glitch: What do u mean "on your side"? You know that the three prophecies say that u get your ass kicked? Please explain how that is helping you, besides in the department of total pwnage. Unless you come back a fourth time. I wouldn't be surprised, you're like AIDs. You suck and you never leave.
The Glitch: Well, well, what a smartass. I'll tell you one thing and one thing only... I will not be defeated, so I will not have a fourth comeback. Instead, I will last the test of time and destroy all matter, and NO ONE WILL EVER STOP ME! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! This is the second time this QAA that I've talked about my future reign of the universe.
To Norman: Your problems are part of the reason I don't date. Really man, don't take on idiot challenges from idiot kids *Lucas* to do idiot this that WILL swamp your boat. Common sense. Everyone in Minecraft knows that. Except the Glitch.
Norman: Who's Lucas?
For next time, how will Operation Overkill go? Will Lucas fully understand what he's done when all this is over? And WHO here wants to see him soil his pants? (I do! XD) Find out next chapter in VOiD! But for now, this is Pastrinator64, and I'll see you later with chapter numbah twenty-four!
*throws sugar bomb, disappears in a cloud of fine white sugar*
Byyyyyeeeeee...
~Pastrinator64 [~]