Preface: Hello, again! Hope everyone's having a great first weekend of spring/winter! Let's get right to the next chapter!
MINECRAFT MANIACS:
LIGHT AND DARK
Previously...after their quest for the second Cube of Balance and another ambush from the Manipulator, Danny, Liam, Kevin, and their companions set out to the rabborgs' kingdom of Rabborgia to fill the final Key of Balance. When they arrived, however, they quickly learned of the rabborgs' old foe Magnivolent returning, scattering three artificial Gadgets of Order across the land. They were successful in obtaining the first one in the jungle and the second one in the Withered Desert
Now...the group set their sights on the ocean...
Roll Call
Danny - Alfred von Any: Hero with emotional issues. The leader.
Liam - Willy Blanq: Expert crafter. The maker.
Kevin - Nevile Napoleon: Part-gangerman player. The brains.
Pork Chop - Dee Bradley Baker: Danny's companion. The pet.
Spawny and Spawnette - Damien Laquet: The rabborg siblings. The heart.
Balancia - Marieve Herington: Guardian allay. The fairy.
Chapter 22:
Bridge to Rabborgia, Part Four -
A Monumental Swim
[Main Party Selected: Danny, Liam, Kevin, Balancia]
[Supporting Party Selected: Pork Chop, Spawny, Spawnette]
[Character Selected: Liam]
[Current World: Minecraftia]
[Current Location: Rabborgia, Above the Sea]
The group wasted no time setting back out once the players logged back on the next day. Eyeing his watch, Kevin led the group to the location of the next artificial Gadget of Order, which just so happened to be in the ocean. When they finally reached the murky blue liquid, Liam had to craft boats for them all to keep following Kevin's signal.
"Ooooo, what do you do with a drunken crafter, what do you do with a drunken crafter," Danny sang as they sailed, getting into the spirit.
"What do you do with a drunken crafter? Feed him to the guardians!" Liam added, which made the group giggle. He sighed. "We there yet, Kevin?"
"Almost…" Kevin kept a close eye on his watch to make sure they were as precise as possible. "There!" The group looked down into the sea, realizing what they would have to do next.
"Looks like it's time for a dive," said Liam. "Any power-ups, Kev?"
Kevin pulled out his shulker box full of power-ups and dug around. "Yep. Plenty of swimming power-ups," he said.
"Frog Suit, por favor," said Danny, and Kevin tossed him the aquatic costume. Liam opted for a Penguin Suit, while Kevin decided to shake things up and use a Blue Shell. He was also sure to toss a turtle shell helmet to Pork Chop, so that the pig wouldn't drown.
The three absorbed the power of the three power-ups, and larger versions of them appeared on their bodies, Liam's Penguin Suit covered with a red jacket akin to his regular skin. "You ready?" Liam asked, and they all nodded. "Dive! Dive! Dive!" The six of them jumped out of the boats and into the water.
[BGM: Peter Hont - Rest in Reefs]
As soon as the water hit their amulets, Spawny and Spawnette transformed into their water forms, gaining mermaid tails with their respective colors, water-like crowns, and a shell top for Spawnette. "(Hehe, I missed this form,)" said Spawny, wiggling his tail with glee.
Eventually, they all reached the sea floor and looked around. "So, where oh where could that gadget be?" said Danny, looking left and right. During his scan, he saw what seemed to be buildings made out of stone bricks. "Oh! Maybe there?"
Kevin adjusted the goggles that appeared on him when he jumped in, looking at his watch. "The signal tracks," he said. "Let's check it out." The six swam over to the buildings, curious as to what awaited them.
"Say, these kinda look like underwater ruins," said Liam, "but a little more…refurbished." Sure enough, the buildings looked more put together and newer than what was the norm for ocean ruins.
[BGM: Peter Hont - Coral Rise]
That's when they all noticed a bizarre sight - a humongous creature, covered in red fur with a yellow beak. "(What the heck is that thing?)" cried Spawny.
"I don't have a clue," said Kevin, "but for some reason, I feel like it's gonna be part of the next mob vote this fall."
"(It is our sniffer,)" came a new, soft voice. "(Usually she's so happy and playful, but ever since her baby was taken, she's been so sad.)" The group turned around to see the source of the voice - a young, orange-speckled rabborg with a lavender mermaid tail, wearing a light blue top and kelp braids in her black hair.
"The sniffer, huh?" said Danny. "Well, did you see where her baby went?"
The rabborg pointed to the west. "(I believe it was sent to the nearest ocean monument,)" she said. "(I wanted to try to save him myself, but I am too small and weak…)"
Liam waved his flipper-covered hand. "Ah, don't worry about it. We'll help you find her baby."
The rabborg perked up. "(Really?)" she said, and the group nodded. "(Oh, thank you so much!)"
"No worries," said Kevin. "What's your name, by the way?"
"Darya," said the rabborg.
[Character Selected: Kevin]
[Current World: Minecraftia]
[Current Location: Rabborgia, Under the Sea]
[BGM: Peter Hont - Twilight Cavern]
Darya's tail flips back and forth as she guides you to the ocean monument. "(I was the only one who saw it,)" she explains. "(Everyone else in our village said I was seeing things, but then something appeared in the cave that the sniffer blocked.)"
That's gotta be the gadget, you say in your head. "I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that everyone else is trapped in the cave now," you tell Darya.
"(Actually, yes,)" says Darya. "(So finding the sniffer's baby is vital to freeing everyone.)"
"And it'll be vital to finding the gadget," says Liam, nodding. "Alright, we have our mission, guys."
"And just in time, too," adds Danny, holding his arm out. "We're here!" The prismarine structure fills your eyes, beckoning you to enter. And since you won't have to worry about air as long as you keep your power-ups, you should be able to take care of the guardians inside easily.
"Okay, stay behind us," you tell Darya, taking the lead. "We know our way around an ocean monument."
"As long as we don't encounter the Ancient Guardian again, I'll be satisfied," says Danny as you swim inside. Nothing seems too out of the ordinary, so you start traversing the labyrinth, keeping an eye out for any guardians that may be in the way.
[BGM: Antimo & Welles - Prismarine Mobs [Minecraft: Story Mode 201 OST]]
After a little while, Pork Chop gives a squeal that alerts you to the presence of the one real threat in the halls of the monument - the cuboid fish with one big eye and several spikes. The pig quickly bashes the nearest one in the eye, giving the rest of you the opportunity to prepare your attacks.
"(Stand back, Miss Darya,)" says Spawnette, telling the young rabborg to find a safe place to go. Then, you all spring into action. Using his Penguin Suit's powers, Liam tosses ice balls at the guardians, freezing them into ice blocks, then you curl into your shell and let Danny smack it with his sword. You bounce around the entire room, clearing the guardians easily.
Liam jokingly pretends to yawn, covering his mouth. "Hope we get a real challenge soon," he says.
"(Okay, you can come out,)" says Spawny, helping Darya swim out of the pillar she was hiding behind.
"(I apologize,)" she says, sheepishly. "(I am not much of a fighter…)"
"Hey, don't worry about it," you say, swimming backwards with the others. "We got it cov-!" Before you can finish your thought, another guardian manages to hit you and Liam with lasers. Your power-ups go flying off in the process. "Oh, poop…" you remark.
Danny grabs onto Pork Chop's hind legs. "You guys go recover," he says. "We'll get them." The pig shoots ahead, plowing through the nearest guardian, though both he and Danny take a small bit of damage in the process.
You hide behind a pillar and start to look for another Penguin Suit and Blue Shell. As you do, you notice something peculiar. While Spawnette charges ahead to help Danny and Pork Chop with her spinning attack, Spawny stays behind to soothe Darya. As she curls up into a ball, she starts humming some kind of tune…
"Kevin!" Liam shouts, sending you back to the task at hand. You quickly pull out a new Blue Shell for yourself and Penguin Suit for him and power up.
[BGM: End]
"Sorry about that," you apologize, swimming back into the area, "but something about Darya's song was intriguing."
"You can say that again," Danny agrees, munching on chicken. "When she started humming, the guardian's eyes sank in and they froze!"
Darya blushes, her fins rubbing together. "(It was a song my grandmother used to sing to me,)" she explains. "(I did not know it could control guardians…)"
"Well, that oughta make the rest of the trip easier," says Liam, wiping his hands. "Well, this 'snifflet' isn't gonna find himself!"
You continue swimming through the labyrinth, and as you do, something crosses your mind. Usually, you would've seen the ghostly image of an elder guardian and received the Mining Fatigue effect by now, but neither have occurred. And with all of the strange occurrences you've experienced, what would usually be a blessing makes you rather suspicious.
No more guardians show up by the time you reach the core of the monument. "Huh…weirdly easy…" says Liam, matching your suspicion. He faces the gold block structure in the middle and presses his ear up to it. He hears a crying noise within. "Sounds like the snifflet is trapped in here."
"Alright, I'll take care of it," says Danny, taking out his pickaxe. Just as he prepares to mine the blocks, however, grayish swirls appear around him, and the pickaxe doesn't make as strong of an impact as it should. "Yeah, I was wondering where the elder guardians were," he says, swimming back to the group.
You feel your heart drop as no less than three elder guardians descend from the ceiling, with an odd feature to them - they are all glowing blue as if an Order Gadget was empowering them, even though your tracker definitively determined its location to be Darya's village. "Uh, guys?" you say with a twinge of fear. "We may be in for a bad time…"
[Character Selected: Danny]
[Current World: Minecraftia]
[Current Location: Rabborgia, Ocean Monument]
[BGM: Antimo & Welles - Colossus [Minecraft: Story Mode 201 OST]]
My mind went into overdrive as soon as the elder guardians (I can't believe that's even in the plural) appeared. "Darya, sing your song!" I declared.
"(Y-Yes, sir…)" she said, kinda overwhelmed, not that I blame her. As soon as her song began and the guardians' eyes shrunk, Pork Chop and I charged into the fray, hoping to strike through the first one. Just before we made contact, though, the effects seemed to be counteracted by the gadget's power, and I got a face full of spikes instead. And that was the end of that Frog Suit.
"(Drat, the music won't work!)" cried Spawny. "(We gotta find a way to get rid of their gadget whatever!)" The guardians charged their lasers, and we all swam out of the way to avoid them, though Liam got hit as well and lost his Penguin Suit again.
"Only Knuckles can disable their power, though, remember?" said Kevin. "We'll have to find some other way!"
"But there is no other way!" I argued. And that's when I had an epiphany. Unless… I closed my eyes, thinking back to when my Cube of Balance powers were first awoken during the battle with the Manipulator. Okay, happy thoughts. Happy thoughts. Imagine how happy that sniffer will be when she gets her baby back. Imagine how everyone will love the Cave of Experts. Imagine…eating your favorite ice cream. Ben and Jerry's Half Baked…
I know that last thought was a little silly, but it worked. I felt myself get down on all fours as my body began glowing with light once more. And anyway, Ben and Jerry's Half Baked is delicious. If you never had it before, you better try it. You won't regret it.
Kevin looked over, confused. "What is he doing?" he asked.
"I think he's…summoning that power he told us about!" said Liam, hope rising. And just like that, my power had fully returned.
I looked up and stared right at the three elder guardians, drawing my sword. "I hope you don't mind it if I borrow some of your power…" I said, raising it high into the air. Blue particles flew from the guardians' bodies, flowing right into my sword's outstretched blade. Slowly but surely, the blue auras around them faded.
"Now's our ch-!" Liam began, but then he started to take damage from the lack of air, so I quickly waved my sword at him to give him a bit of Water Breathing. "Now's our chance!" he repeated, finishing his thought. "Let's get 'em!"
Darya gave a salute. "(On it!)" she cried, more confident than before. She began to sing her song once more, and this time, the elder guardians' eyes stayed shrunken.
While Darya continued to keep the guardians depowered, everyone else went to work. Pork Chop skated on Kevin in his shell through the creatures, Liam settled with his good old fashioned dispenser, and Spawny and Spawnette used their spinning maneuver to finish the guardians off. When the last one fell on its side and vanished, I put my sword down and closed my eyes again, letting the power fade away.
[BGM: Peter Hont - What You Came For]
"Oh…my…creeper…" said Kevin, hastily tossing me and Liam fresh Frog and Penguin Suits. "That was awesome!" He swam up to me and high-fived me. "Danny! Way to go there!"
"Yeah! I can't believe you could do that!" Liam agreed. "Wait…can I do that?"
"Probably," I said, nodding. I looked down at my hands. So I can call upon my powers whenever I want, I thought. Well, I best not use them as a crutch.
"(Let us not forget how brave Darya was, singing that beautiful song to disarm the guardians,)" added Spawnette. She gave the smaller rabborg a hug.
Darya smiled the biggest smile I've ever seen on a rabborg. "(I did not know I could be so brave,)" she said, genuinely surprised.
"(Uh, I hate to dampen the moment,)" said Spawny, "(but we still have a snifflet to rescue!)" He pointed to the gold blocks.
"D'oh! Right!" I shouted. I hastily grabbed my pickaxe again and mined the gold blocks. Sure enough, inside was a tinier version of that sniffer creature from Darya's village, crying out of fear.
"(Hey…hey…it is okay…)" said Darya, swimming up to the snifflet. "(The scary monsters are gone.)" Slowly, the snifflet crawled up to Darya and sniffed her hand like a dog. I could've sworn it smiled at that moment.
"Alright, I'll admit it - it's adorable," I said to the others. "But if it is at the mob vote, I'm not sure I'll vote for it. I think I'd rather vote for something that makes caves more interesting or something." And that made the others laugh again.
[Character Selected: Darya]
[Current World: Minecraftia]
[Current Location: Rabborgia, Her Home Village]
[BGM: Peter Hont - Twilight Cavern]
On the swim back home with her new friends, Darya couldn't help but reflect on the adventure she just had. She just did something she never thought she would ever do - go into an ocean monument, face a group of guardians, and live. I hope my parents will not be too upset, she thought, carefully cradling the snifflet in her hands.
At long last, they had all reached the sniffer. "(Yoohoo! Sniffer!)" she called to the large, but gentle creature. "(Your baby is safe!)" Right away, the snifflet jumped out of her hands and raced to his mother. The two creatures embraced, pushing their beaks together, and then walked out of the way.
With the hole to the cavern unblocked, the townsfolk eagerly swam out, cheering and celebrating their freedom. Darya even got a big hug from her parents. "(You are welcome, everybody,)" she said, "(but I could not have done it without these fine people here.)" She pointed to the players and their companions.
"What else could we have done?" said Danny, holding his hands out. "We couldn't just leave that poor snifflet there!"
Darya's mother, signified by her yellow speckles, green top and blue tail, swam up to the heroes. "(Thank you all so much,)" she said, gratefully. "(How may we repay you?)"
"I heard there's some kinda purple orb in there?" said Liam. "Just that will do, please." The crowd cleared the way for Darya to escort the heroes into the cavern, where the purple orb Liam described hovered in place. "Well, you know what to do," he said to Kevin.
"And I know how to do it," Kevin added. He took out a key that was partially transparent, but mostly black, and stuck it into the purple orb. Instantly, particles from the orb flew into the key, filling the remaining transparent portion with black like the rest of the key. When all the particles were gone, in its place was a white object glowing with the same blue aura that the elder guardians were glowing with.
"(Oh…how beautiful…)" said Darya, entranced by its beauty. "(What is this?)"
"This is an artificial duplicate of one of the Gadgets of Order," explained Kevin, taking the object and putting it and the key into his inventory. "Now that we have all five, we best be taking care of Magnivolent, right?"
"(Of course,)" said Spawnette. "(We must be going, then.)"
"(Oh, so soon?)" said Darya, and they all nodded. "(Okay…") She swam up to Spawny and shook his hand. "(It was wonderful meeting you. And exploring with you.)"
"(Same here,)" said Spawny. "(Also, I know what it's like to be scared. I'm a bit of a scaredy-cat.)" He smiled. (But I'm always told to not let my fear control me, or be too afraid to ask for help when I need it.)"
Darya nodded. "(I will try to remember that,)" she said. With that, the heroes swam out of the cave, Darya and her village waving goodbye to them as they set out on the rest of their journey.
Darya never would forget the six of them. Without them, she probably would never have known what it was like to be a true adventurer.
[Character Selected: Mark]
[Current World: Minecraftia]
[Current Location: Private World, Kevin's Lab]
When Kevin didn't return to the lab the previous night, Andy and Mark decided it would be a good idea to spend the night in front of the robot they found. However, after they woke up that morning, they couldn't help but feel a strong sense of paranoia - specifically that something really bad was happening. The two wound up spending much of the day pacing the room.
Eventually, Mark couldn't take it anymore. "Sorry, Andy, but I just need to make sure everything's going alright," he said to his partner. He tossed Andy a walkie-talkie and pressed the teleportation button on his scarf.
[Location Change: Planet of the Gangermen, Royal Lair]
Instantaneously, he was teleported back to the lair. There, he found three things that terrified him. First, he saw that the emergency alert system he and Andy installed was completely offline. "Oh, no!" he shouted. Second, when he checked the prison area, he saw that Per and Don's cell was empty. "Oh, no!" he shouted again. Last but not least, when he checked the spirit vault, he saw that the one spirit that they tried their hardest to keep under lock and key was missing. "OH, NO!" he shouted once more, completely terrified. Hastily, he grabbed his walkie-talkie. "Andy!" he shouted. "Code purple! Get back up here ASAP! We gotta call the Minecraft Maniacs pronto!"
To be continued...and next time: burn the witch (well, not 'burn', but you know what I mean)!
Next chapter: "To Believe in Magic" All three artificial gadgets are in the Maniacs' grasp, so now all they need to do now is finally send Magnivolent packing! But even with tons of power-ups on-hand and the rabborgs' Deity forms, the witch still has a nasty surprise for them... The thrilling conclusion of Bridge to Rabborgia!
Postface: Chapter complete! That's all three artificial gadgets, now we just have a witch we gotta take care of.
Trivia time! More Mario power-ups show up here, and they're all ones that enhance the player's swimming - the Frog Suit from Super Mario Bros. 3, the Blue Shell from New Super Mario Bros., and the Penguin Suit from New Super Mario Bros. Wii. I thought up the underwater setting for this chapter partially because Chapter 16 of Minecraft Maniacs RPG, which also involved a mermaid society and Danny using the Frog Suit, was one that stuck out in my mind, so I decided to make this one a bit of a parallel to it - I even recreated Danny acquiring the Frog Suit! Next, we have our rabborg guest of the chapter: Darya! I wanted there to be a rabborg who was naturally a mermaid, so that's how I came up with her. As for the inclusion of the sniffer from the Trails and Tales update, I figured including it would make sense because it's supposed to be an ancient mob, and the original plan was for their eggs to appear in underwater ruins chests. Of course, since this story is set before the sniffer was officially revealed, I made a few jokes about that (PS: still mad the rascal lost). Lastly, Danny has tapped into his balance powers all on his own - the finale of this story is going to involve just that, but I decided I needed to have it occur before the finale so that it doesn't appear out of nowhere. That's also how I came up with the idea that the elder guardians were receiving the gagdet's power remotely - so that Danny could take away their power.
Uh, oh! Doesn't look like Andy and Mark are in a good situation right now! Here's hoping they can get to the Maniacs soon...
That should be it! Please read, review, and share around, and I'll see you all next time for the fight with Magnivolent! Stay diamond, everyone!
-Alfred
~Minecraft and everything related to it are properties of Mojang Studios and Xbox Game Studios. Objects, ideas, etc. from the Mario franchise are properties of Nintendo Co., LTD. No copyright infringement with any of these companies nor financial gain was intended in the making of this story. Any resemblance to real-world people or events are either coincidental or done fictitiously.~