At this point do excuses even count anymore?
Ant came to and quickly sprang to his feet, and it was soon obvious he was not in his room with GrailMore and CaptainSparklez anymore. Instead he was in a sunny field in a place he didn't recognize.
"Welcome, Hero of Minecraftia," said a deep voice with the same melodic tones as Herobrine, but also kinder and accented. Ant turned around and saw Notch facing him, the benevolent god in the same brown shirt and pants as the last time they had met.
Ant was about to bow when he remembered the kind god did not enjoy such formality, and instead simply inclined his head respectfully.
"Is this about Sparkelz?" Ant said, his voice shaking a bit.
"Unfortunately it is about the Nether Prince," Notch said, his voice full of sorrow.
"I have a request for you, young hero. I need you to kill CaptainSparklez."
"I can't do that," Ant said, he could feel his palms start sweating even in the dream. It was the second time someone had asked him to murder his best friend. Don't they understand that isn't something I can do?
"It is your duty as a Minecraftian. You must be my champion and defeat the spirit of Herobrine once and for all."
"No, Notch. You're wrong. I cannot kill him."
"You must destroy him or he will destroy you!" Notch said, his voice not a shout and yet it was booming in an earth-shattering way, a god's voice.
"I HAVE TO SAVE HIM!" Ant shouted back at the kind god. There has to be another solution to this, he thought.
Notch frowned in surprise, no one had ever yelled at him before. He was used to being revered and his word being taken for granted. But here was AntVenom, defiant and unwavering. Mortal and yet, he had destroyed Herobrine. This was a Minecraftian to watch out for. Notch felt a twinge of doubt, he had been wrong about his brother before, maybe there was another way to defeat Herobrine. But he couldn't tell AntVenom that. The human had to believe in Notch's omniscience.
Unable to do anything else, Notch snapped his fingers and returned Ant to his home.
—
"Ant! AntVenom!" Grail's faint voice became louder as Ant woke from his faint. "Oh thank Notch you're okay," she said with a sigh of relief.
"AntVenom, what happened?" Sparklez said, his form still in Ant's house.
"I…I had a vision," Ant said slowly, as his brain processed all that had happened. "I met with Notch."
"Notch? Like the Notch?" Grail said, her voice full of wonder. "So the last time it happened, it wasn't just a dream was it?"
"Notch?" Sparkles said, his voiced wavering.
"Yeah, he's Herobrine's brother."
"I am aware, but I've never met him before. I thought he had stopped contacting Minecraftia completely. It's been," Sparklez paused to think, "Over two hundred years since he contacted a Minecraftian."
"Woah Sparklez, you aren't over two hundred years old, are you?" GrailMore's tone was joking but her eyes were serious.
"No, or at least I don't think so. Time doesn't pass by in the Nether in the same way it does in the Overworld. Notch and Herobrine are both many millennium old, but I am not even close to that old. My body is half-human so I still age, abit much slower than a normal Minecraftian. I have memories of a childhood, but it all blurs together. If I were to guess I would say that I am something over a hundred years old, but not by much."
"Wow Sparklez, that's still really old," Ant said.
"I suppose, but if I were to equate it to human years it is only about twenty," CaptainSparklez replied.
"A bit more reasonable," Grail said with a grin. "Now Ant, what did Notch say to you?"
"He wanted me to…" Ant paused and swallowed. He took a deep breath and raised his head meet Sparklez's gaze, "He ordered me to kill you."
Grail's quiet gasp broke the silence that ensued.
"You cannot disobey your god's orders," Sparklez mumbled, nodding.
"There has to be another way!"
"Ant, we need to kill Herobrine, you need to kill him."
"Is there any way of doing it and not killing you along with him?" Grail asked.
"Not if Notch doesn't think so. Only when we die will his mind finally separate from mine. That will happen in the afterlife, or the Aether. The Aether is not a place a god wants to be, it could be considered the most secure prison in the world."
"But, what about for humans?" Ant said.
"What do you mean?" the demigod said, his brows furrowed in confusion.
"He means, can humans escape the Aether? Hasn't Notch raised the dead before? I'm sure I've read that in the stories before." Grail said, catching on to what her boyfriend was implying.
"Oh," Sparklez stopped, it was an option he had never considered before. "That may actually work. There are occasionally human ghosts who escape the Aether but they are never able to return to life. For a human to come back, they need help from someone who is living, so it has never happened before. Their body needs to be intact and well enough that they will not die as soon as they return. Also it is almost impossible to leave the Aether, even for a spirit. There are certain challenges to overcome that make it, well, just not something that can be done by anyone."
"Why hasn't anyone come back?" Grail asked.
"To be honest, I think it's because no human has ever known how."
"More importantly, are you human enough to make it through? Could your spirit make it back?" Ant said, his heart starting to feel a glimmer of hope.
"I don't know. But it is certainly possible."
"If anyone could do it, it's you." Ant smiled, he believed in his friend. He had hope. He had finally found a solution.
"Thank you, AntVenom." Sparklez turned to gaze back at the human who had turned his world upside-down and shown him what being alive really was. "Now, I'm afraid I must leave you two. I have traveled far and wide and now must return home. Goodbye, my dear friends."
"Bye Sparky!" GrailMore giggled.
"Goodbye Sparklez. See you soon,"Ant said, making it a promise of sorts.
CaptainSparklez mumbled a few words in ancient Netherian, and the illusion that was his body slowly faded away, back to the Nether Prince's camp in a savanna biome.
Sparky is in a savanna because it reminds him of home...