Hey, guys, sorry for the long delay, but I have been busy with summer stuff and family. I hope this chapter makes up for it completely. I realize that I have left this hanging for about a month, but I have been trying to get out of this for a while and had to get help from Jen. And then we began to do YouTube together (check out both of our YouTube channels!), which is also why we haven't really updated in a while. Anyways, please forgive both of us for the delay in chapters. Hope you guys enjoy, despite my lack of a long intro.
Sky's POV-
It was many days later from that night where I left Jerome to comfort Sierra so that I could go and check on Dawn. I didn't know what exactly happened that night after that, but the next morning from there I noticed that Jerome and Sierra were looking to each other and smiling brightly. Something definitely had happened, but I really didn't care. My sister was happy, and no longer seemed to be depressed like she did before. That made me happy as well.
We continued on walking, everyone getting exhausted from walking for so long. But we couldn't stop when we were probably so close to the next area. The next two areas would be generally easier to get to, since we knew how to get there, but getting to the Ice Spikes biome, which nobody had been able to get to before, would be a lot harder to get to. We didn't want to have that happen last. Each morning, despite how sore we were, we continued to push ourselves to continue walking, or hobbling along as it seemed for half of my friends. Looking around as we walked, I realized that we had been gone for so long that many of the men had started growing beards because they hadn't been able to shave. I was the same way, which felt very strange for me. Bajan had started growing a stubble, along with Ian, Brice, Bodil, and half of the other men, excepting for the younger ones like Brotato, Noah, Ty and Jason. That's what we got for being away from our homes for a month almost.
On that day, we were walking through a very strange rocky and cold biome that even Ant didn't know what it was called, traversing on a very unstable path against the cliff side. We were walking almost in a straight line, because that's how narrow the path was. I was walking behind Ant and in front of Bajan. "Ant, how long is it going to take us to get to the Ice Spikes biome supposedly?" I asked, adjusting my sunglasses on my face.
Ant sighed, and he turned around, giving everyone a moment to rest. "We will be lucky to get there with our lives, however long it takes. This path is very dangerous, and one mistake can make it so that we won't live to the next day," he panted, exhausted from trying not to fall.
Mitch, who had knelt down over his knees, looked up and asked, "Well, what's the worst that can happen?"
Almost on cue, the mountain beneath us rumbled. It shook everyone slightly, and we all looked up in fear up to the mountain tip. However, we couldn't see the top of it like normal. Instead, we saw a giant cloud of white that was rushing towards us. My eyes widened in fear as I backed up slightly. An avalanche was rumbling towards us. "Everyone, come on, get out of the way! Run sideways from the avalanche, not with it or against it," he cried out, and immediately, everyone began to run. I turned tail and ran as well, trying my best to dodge the rocks that had been dislodged from the cliff above us and that were falling right for us. Suddenly, I heard a pained yelp go out, and I turned once I was out of the way of the avalanche path and I saw that one of the rocks, a particularly big rock, had trapped Deceptibonk's foot and she had collapsed to the ground.
I wasn't the only one that tuned when her yelp went out. Everyone else did the same, and many had fear plastered on their faces. She was near the edge of the projected path, but she couldn't move. Her face was twisted with pain as the rock crushed her foot, but she looked up to us and saw our worry. "Go on without me, save yourselves! You are the ones that have to make it there, to save Minecraftia," she exclaimed, although we could barely hear her over the rumble of the oncoming avalanche.
Bashur stepped forward, with Pewface tugging on his leg slightly with his jaw. "Bashur, don't go after her! You will die if you get caught in that avalanche! Leave her behind and save your own skin," Pewface said, watching as Bashur then ran forward back to Bonkers.
"Bashur, no!" I exclaimed, but Sierra tugged me back from running towards the watermelon. Bashur ran forward, knelt down, and began to pull with all his might on Deceptibonks. All the while, the avalanche kept on tumbling towards them at amazing speeds, looming over them like a dark cloud.
Moments later, Bashur had managed to pull Deceptibonks from underneath the rock, and he strung her arm around his shoulder as he helped her make it back over to us. They made their way carefully over the path, although the avalanche came tearing towards them. Bits of white clouds surrounded them, and the last I saw of them was their bodies disappearing in the white. Everyone gasped in fear. Pewface began to whine, looking towards that area with his ears tucked to his head.
All of a sudden, two forms emerged from the white, and everyone stood in shock. Bashur and Deceptibonks had made it through, although they were covered in bits of snow. Bashur laid Bonkers on the closest rock, he sitting down next to her. Deceptibonks looked up to Bashur, anger flaring in her bug eyes. "Bashur, I said leave me behind and save yourselves. That was very stupid of you to do! You could have died by doing that!" she yelled, which made Bashur duck his head in shame slightly. But, she breathed in, and then she said softly, "You saved me, though, and because of that I can't thank you enough." Deceptibonks pulled Bashur into a hug, and then they wrapped each other around the other.
"I would do anything for a friend, especially when they are in danger. I don't want to see any of my friends get hurt. It's the last thing that I want to happen," Bashur replied, his eyes blinking slowly behind his 3-D glasses. A moment later, they broke from their embrace, blushing like crazy.
"Well, it looks like we are safe for now, but that avalanche was the worst of our worries," Ant said, looking around at the sky. A moment later, he points up to the sky, and we all look up to see a bunch of dark ominous clouds moving towards the west. Right then, a powerful wind tears through the area, and almost knocks down half of us off of our feet. We all were confused by this blast of wind. "This... this can only mean one thing," Ant said, his eyes flying side to side as he searched through his memory on what this was.
"Is it... a terrible draft?" Ty asked, smiling sheepishly.
Ant rolled his eyes in annoyance, and then he said carefully, "No, it is not a draft. It... it is much worse. I believe... and this is the only thing that it could be judging by this wind, that this is going to turn into... a tornado."
Sierra, who was standing by my side, gasped in shock, along with many others. "We have to get out of here as soon as we can, or else we may get caught in this storm," she said, glancing at each person individually for a moment.
The guide nodded. "Sierra is right. Tornadoes are very dangerous, and we should get away from here as soon as we can," Ant said, and then he motioned with his hand to us to keep on walking. We all continued on moving, and I took a quick look around. The tornado was forming a couple hundred blocks away from us, in the opposite direction we were heading in. The wind whipped at my hair, and I shivered slightly as the cold began to set into my skin. I trudged on, glancing over to Dawn, who was barely managing to stand on her own without pains in her stomach. She did have some moments where she could move on her own, but many times she couldn't. This was one of those times that she could move on her own. Her stomach had started to swell slightly, and immediately the first thought that I had about the issue was that she had some sort of tumor in her body that was killing her on the inside. That worried me greatly. Of course, we wouldn't know for sure unless we had someone look at it, which we couldn't do until we were in safety once again.
Soon we walked off of that dangerous path, and we entered a huge half-snow half-rock biome that had very few trees, so I believe it was the taiga. The sun had begun to drop, and with the dropping sun, the temperature dropped as well. I didn't know how low it had gotten until Ant had told us that the temperature was nearly at 0 degrees Fahrenheit. Everyone was almost frozen cold. Taking small steps at a time to conserve energy, we moved very slowly as the sun dipped closer to the horizon. Right before the sun set, half of my friends were nearly frozen, and they were being carried by those who could still walk.
I walked next to my sister, making sure that she was alright. Despite how happy she seemed with Jerome a couple mornings ago, she still had a troubled look in her eyes. But the main reason that I walked next to her was that I didn't want the same thing that happened at the Blocky Mountains to happen again. She did look like she was nearly frozen, but she continued to walk on and refused to let herself look weak. I didn't want her to die again, I couldn't let that happen to her. Just in case I also had Preston walking nearby, who could heat her up as well as others who were almost frozen, which he was doing at the same time as walking. Occasionally I would look over to Dawn, who was being carried by Mitch. She looked worse than normal, clutching her stomach tightly and her face being extremely tightened into a look of pain. After a while of seeing this, I finally called out, "Guys, let's stop right here."
Seto, who was walking next to Jen, looked angry. "Sky, we can't take any more breaks, everyone will freeze to death here if we don't keep on moving."
"Dawn's welfare is more important to me right now," I retaliated, trying desperately to keep my anger under control. I could feel the evil bubbling just beneath the surface, but I used all of my power to keep it down.
Hearing a sudden coughing, I then looked over to Dawn, who had shifted slightly in Mitch's arms. "Adam... I'm... I'm OK. We... we can keep... moving," she said weakly, her eyes being dull and empty.
"No, Dawn, you are in too much pain. We have to stop."
"I'm... I'm alright, Adam. Let's... keep going."
I opened my mouth to retaliate, but suddenly, a huge gust of wind blew through the area heading east, almost knocking several of us off of our feet. We all looked opposite of the direction the wind was blowing, and then we saw a large, dark-bluish tornado just a short distance away from where we were. The wind continued to get stronger, and several of my friends got knocked to their butts because of the strength of the wind. Preston suddenly ducked, and then a projectile flew through the space where his head used to be. Kneeling and turning, Preston then sees that it is a large frozen, razor-sharp icicle.
"It's an icicle tornado!" Preston cried out, and he and several others stood up and began to run away from the tornado. Many icicles began to rain down around us, most of them missing us by only a couple feet. Some others impaled into the backs of some of my friends, but they only yelped in pain and kept on running. Their wounds were bleeding, as I saw from the backs of Gizzy, Bodil, and Ashley.
Suddenly, Ant yelled out, "Guys, cave, go to it!" I looked around and saw that there was a cave that was in the side of the mountain we were near. We all run into there, and once we all were in there and out of harms way, Bashur lit up the area with torches while Jason sealed the area off. Ant then looked around and took a count of who was hurt and who wasn't. The only ones that weren't hurt were me, Jerome, Dawn, Mitch, Sierra, Jason, Ty, Ian, Husky, and Seto. "We are going to have to stay here until this tornado passes over," Ant said softly. "Adam, Mitch, Ian, can you three help heal the wounded while I get the fire going? We are going to need it to de-frost some of these people."
We three nodded, and then Ant moved to start a fire in the center of the cave. We began to tend to their wounds, making sure to keep it from infecting later. I tended to Jen, who had several small icicles sticking out of her back. I was silent the whole time I worked on the people I was healing. I was angry that Dawn was hurt, for whatever reason was causing her to be in pain, and I was also angry at myself. I cared for my friends greatly, but because of my want to protect my girlfriend more, I almost endangered all of my other friends. They almost died because of my choice. I cursed to myself under my breath. I was letting my other side take over, and it was starting to affect my choices for everyone else.
That night, it got really cold. Everyone was shivering, but because of Preston (who was one of the first ones to healed), he managed to lay a protection layer of lava in a circle around our area, which was keeping us perfectly warm. I smiled softly to the lava Creeper. It was awesome that we had him with us. Preston smiled back towards me, and then he moved next to his younger sister, who was being healed by Ian. Glancing around, I then looked to all of my friends. The ones that had been healed already were in a circle huddling together, trying to keep warm. Those who were still awaiting to be healed were trying not to let their pain be noticed, or they were talking together. Dawn, who had gotten over the pain temporarily, was walking around, talking to those who were injured and sad. I smiled. I loved my girlfriend for everything she did. She made my life complete, other than my sister.
Later that evening, I was sitting against the cave wall, sharpening my enchanted butter sword with a stone. I examined the sword as I turned it in hand. It was a beautiful sword, that much I could say. I sheathed my sword, and took another look around. The only source of light was from the lava that encircled us (which was being protected by something strange) and the fire that burned in the middle. By then most everyone had been healed and warmed up, and so everyone was doing something different. Many of the couples that had gotten together over the journey were cuddling together, trying to regain their energy, including Ian and April, Quentin and Annie, Seto and Jen, and even Jerome and Sierra. My eyes widened in shock when I saw them cuddling close together and holding hands. That I didn't expect. No longer did I feel threatened by Jerome liking my sister, though. I was actually happy for them, if happy could be felt anymore. Mitch and Ray, who were merely friends and hadn't gotten together, were talking quietly, with Noah close by. A bunch of the others had gone to sleep, being completely exhausted. Everyone else not asleep was awake and talking quietly.
Ant walked up next to me, sitting down beside me not even a moment later. He kept silent as we sat there, only fidgeting with his amulet. It glimmered in the fire light, letting the beautiful purple jem glimmer many different colors. Finally after a minute, Ant turned to me, and he said, "So, Sky, this has been quite an adventure, hasn't it?"
I nodded slowly. "Yeah, it has been. A very stressful one, but an interesting one," I answered.
"Yeah, but when it is all over, it will never be the same. I... I don't know how we are going to recover from this experience with everything changing so drastically. This... this is not going to be easy to recover from," Ant muttered, sighing deeply soon after.
Once again I nodded. He was right, our lives were going to change from here on, and we couldn't do anything about it. Change didn't come nicely with me at times. I glanced over to Sierra and Dawn once again, and Ant saw me looking to them.
"Family is amazing, they can make every day better. You care a lot about Sierra and Dawn, that is obvious," Ant said, smiling softly. I nodded. I did care for them. My life wouldn't be the same without them in it. "Is Sierra your real sister?"
"No, she's my adopted sister, because when I was young my older brother was... brainwashed and he doesn't remember me at all, and my parents were killed by Herobrine. This is why I want to stop him so badly. Sierra's parents also died, and we were so close that we just adopted each other as siblings. I almost have completely forgotten that we are not flesh and blood because we have been together as siblings for so long," I said, blinking several times as memories flashed through my mind.
Ant fell completely silent. "Wow, I have never felt like that before. I don't have any family, or... at least, I am not sure if I have any. I don't know what happened before a certain part in my life, when I suddenly appeared in the middle of the woods, with only these clothes on and this strange amulet that looks a lot like yours. Is that... on purpose, maybe?" Ant asked, fingering his amulet slightly as he looked over to me.
I looked down to my own amulet, and I studied it. It was exactly like Ant's was. I sighed. I knew it was the same. Turning to him, I then said, "You won't believe me if I tell you this... but I'm going to anyways." Ant looked to me in confusion, and then I breathed in. The secret had to come out at some point. "Ant... I know what happened to you in your past."
Interest sparked in his dark eyes. "You know about my past?" he asked, almost sounding like he didn't believe me.
Nodding, I then closed my eyes. "You grew up in a wonderful family of four, having one little brother three years younger than you. Your parents loved you and your brother dearly. You were the best of friends with your only brother. However, there was danger in this family. Strange things began to happen, and everything seemed to be grim. One day when you were 14, you and your family were out on a walk in the beautiful Vardede forest, enjoying the sunshine and happiness. But things soon turned deadly. An evil man appeared in a cloud of black mist, everything around the family turning dark. The man talked to your parents, saying that they had promised to give the man two amulets that you and your brother wore. Your dad refused to let him have it, and set a spell on the amulets so that they would lose their special power until the power was needed again. The evil man got angry, and... murdered your parents in front of your eyes. You clung to your little brother in fear as he then approached you two, and he struck you both down to the ground. He then brainwashed you, and left the little brother to die, as he believed he was close to death. But the little brother survived, completely scarred and afraid. The man, no, he wasn't a man. The demon then carried you off, and placed you in a forest far away, and that is where you come conscious again."
AntVenom stared at me, unable to say anything at all. His mouth opened and closed, but nothing came out. I studied him, trying to see if I could guess at what he was thinking. All he looked like was extremely stunned. Finally, Ant muttered, "That... that's almost exactly like what happened to your parents and brother, Sky."
Sighing, I pursed my lips. "It's... it's exactly what happened to my parents and older brother. Ant, Taylor, you... are my older brother that got brainwashed by Herobrine." (Guys, I do know that they are not actual brothers in real life, but for the intent of this story, they are)
I expected him to freak out, to say that I was just joking with him, but that didn't happen. Instead, Ant smiled softly, tears coming up to his eyes. "It... it all makes sense now. the mystery of my past, the feeling I had more to life than Preston and Eagle, the necklace that I have worn since I can remember. I believe you completely, Sky," he said, looking to his amulet.
"Please, just call me Adam, since we are brothers," I said, putting a hand on his shoulder. Ant looked up to me, and smiled bigger than I have seen him this whole entire time. Suddenly, he brought me into a hug, and we both clutched the other tightly. I closed my eyes, and almost began to cry. I finally had my big brother back, something I didn't have for just about 8 years. We refused to release each other until finally Bashur had to come and ask what the balls we were doing.
Looking up to the watermelon, I smiled as I glanced over to AntVenom, otherwise known as Taylor Antony Fisher. "Bashur, I am enjoying some time with my brother... yes, Ant is my older brother, and I will never let him get away from me again."
Sierra's POV-
I woke up to the sound of snoring all around me. That's one thing that everyone needs to wake up to all the time is snoring. I was being sarcastic, so if you took that seriously, something is wrong with you. Anyways, blinking several times, I sat up, and looked around. We were still in the cave, but there was a faint light just outside of the shelter. It must have been dawn. Pushing myself up, I walked to the entrance to the cave, and looked out. What I saw shocked me. The land in front of the cave was completely torn apart. The tornado left ice spikes all over the ground, although with the oncoming light it was soon going to melt. Bits of the ground were torn up and flung all around the area. It was a giant mess. Some even partially covered the entrance, but those could have been moved easily.
Footsteps brought my attention to the cave behind me. Turning around, I then saw Jerome, who had just barely woken up along with me. "Hey, how did you sleep last night, Si?" he asked me, slinging his arm around my shoulder. He squeezed me slightly, and smiled towards me.
"I didn't sleep that bad, even though we slept on the hard ground. How did you sleep, my Bacca?" I asked, tucking my head underneath his chin. All of our friends knew that we had gotten together, although it wasn't as serious as it could have been if we weren't on the run from the Squids and Herobrine's minions.
"Didn't really sleep, but I don't mind. When I became a Bacca I actually basically turned into one and they generally don't sleep as much as humans do. My father was a very amazing inventor... he actually changed me from human to Bacca. I don't know how it works, but it changed me," Jerome said, quickly lacing his fingers with mine.
All I did was laugh in response. We stood there for a couple minutes watching the sun come up, and it was actually very beautiful. It was the first really beautiful thing that we saw in the last two weeks. Finally, I pulled away from Jerome, tugging him along with me to go back into the cave. We walked back in, and by that time, everyone else was getting up. I walked up to Sky, who was tending to Dawn, as she was still sick for some reason. Her stomach continued to swell very slowly, and she continued to throw up constantly and have high fevers. Everyone was starting to worry for her. My brother turned his attention to me, and then he smiled. "Sierra, I have something to tell you," Adam said, bringing me into his side. I looked up to him in confusion, and then I glanced back to Jerome. He smiled, and gestured for me to just go with him.
Sky brought me near AntVenom, who was talking to Eagle and Preston. Ant turned to us, smiling brightly. I was shocked by this. His smile was actually from happiness, not from anything else. What had gotten him so happy? Sky seemed almost as happy as him as well, which I found strange. Adam let me go, and then he moved up to the side of Ant. "Sierra, last night was a very strange night, as you know," he said, and I nodded slightly. "Well, it took a turn for the better late last night. Me and Ant finally vocally realized that we... are actually brothers. I knew the whole entire time, but because of Taylor's memory loss, he didn't remember. Even though we are not actually siblings, I want you to meet your new adopted brother, Taylor Fisher."
"Your name is Taylor, Ant?" I asked in confusion, not at all shocked by the fact that Ant was actually Sky's older brother. I figured so when I saw that they had the exact same amulets, which are unique to all other amulets in Minecraftia.
Ant nodded. "My real name is Taylor, but I never went by it. I barely remembered that, but it was a good thing that I remembered my name, or else it would have been bad."
I smiled, and then I looked to Ant. "Well, that is wonderful that Adam finally found his brainwashed older brother, but... I can never feel that you are a brother to me. It took me years to feel like Adam was a brother to me, and no one will ever change that. No offense to you at all, but no one will ever be able to fill that spot like Sky has," I said, frowning slightly. He didn't seemed fazed, which was a good thing.
"Well, that is perfectly fine with me. As long as you know that I will treat you like a brother no matter what, I don't care how you think of me," Ant said, and then he moved away to get to the others. Everyone else was packing up, making sure that they had everything ready to leave.
Adam frowned slightly towards me. I looked to him as he looked back to me. "What? Did I do something wrong?" I asked, shrugging slightly in his direction.
"You didn't have to be mean to him, even if he will never be a brother to you," Sky said, looking down to me.
"I wasn't being mean!" I cried out, widening my eyes in shock. I couldn't believe that he would have thought that I was being mean, when I had never really been to towards any one person.
Sky laughed, and then he brought me into a hug. "I was just kidding around with you, Si. Take a joke once in a while!"
I laughed, and then we heard Ant clear his throat. Everyone looked to him, and fell silent. Ant swept his eyes around the cave, and then he said, "OK, guys, we made it through that tornado storm last night, but barely. Most of us ended up injured because of the icicle shards, and because of that, we will not be able to move as quickly as normal. This will make it so that our journey to the mysterious Ice Spikes biome will be a lot harder. However, we have to continue on with this journey. We should be close, but I cannot be for sure. We should get going in a couple minutes."
Shuffling was heard, and everyone got to moving around and packing up their stuff. I moved around to Jerome and Mitch, and helped them pack up their gear. Soon, we moved out of the cave, and continued on our journey. Mitch once again carried Dawn, since he was one of the strongest ones to carry her. Me, Jerome and Sky were close by, Sky there to make sure that she would live and not die. I looked around, and began to notice that everything was starting to turn colder. Snow covered the ground, and soon ice began to cover the ground, and it stayed as ice despite the hot sun. By the time noon came around, we were completely surrounded by snow and ice. Huge pillars of ice were seen all around, with not even a single place that we couldn't see a pillar. Ant was at the front with Sky, and soon, Ant began to shiver. He swept a look around, and then he gasped in shock. Turning to the rest of us, Ant then said slowly, "Guys... I think... I think we are in the Ice Spikes biome."