Ruben's Adventure
Chapter 9: The End pt.1
Disclaimer: I do not own Minecraft or anything used in this story except the characters
Ruben approached the crafting table and the spare ender eye, picking it up to examine it for anything unique.
"Looks like any other ender eye…" he said to himself as he set it down gently to avoid triggering it.
He paced around the edge of the dais, lava underneath the strange blocks providing more than enough light for him to see by.
"What is this?" He asked as he walked around it.
"What I wouldn't give for Jack to be here…"
Ruben froze, he'd heard something. As he waited with bated breath, he heard it again: Footsteps.
Someone was coming.
His head darted left and right, looking for a place to hide, but he couldn't see anything. He was out of invisibility potions, and ideas.
"You're sure you left it in here?" he heard Marin's voice ask.
"Positive, it's the only logical place," Dylan's voice answered.
He was running out of time. He rushed to the crafting table and began to examine the items he had with him, he dumped his pack on the table and started tossing items aside, looking for something useful when he noticed something.
The ender eye was now glowing with a faint orange light, and the blaze rod that formed his alchemy stand was pulsing green.
"What?" He asked as he pick up the device.
"You better hope it's in here, I'm not going hunting for another one," Martin's voice echoed to him.
"I'm running out of time," Ruben muttered to himself as he ripped the blaze rod out of the stand.
He gently held it in one hand, the ender pearl in the other, and slowly brought the two together. His hands began to tremble as the two objects got closer, it was almost impossible for him to keep them from shaking as he finally touched them together… then a sense of relief washed over him as nothing happened.
"What in the world?" He asked as he looked at the still pulsing blaze rod.
"Do we have enough blaze powder for our potions?" Dylan asked.
Ruben's eyes widened in realization. He set the ender pearl down then snapped the blaze rod over his knee, the powder that formed began to pool into his hand, and he rubbed it on the ender pearl. It began to glow, and soon formed a gemstone identical to the ones in the structure behind him.
"So that's how they did that," He said to himself. He picked up his pack and scooped everything back inside before rushing around to the steps that led up to the top of the dais.
As he reached the top he heard the door open behind him.
"What the!? Who are you!" Martin's voice shouted.
Ruben half turned back to face them and saw Dylan was already chanting, likely summoning his golems to attack him.
He turned back and socketed the strange ender pearl into the slot, instantly the empty air above the lava formed into an inky-black substance. It looked like the night sky, with stars and lights scattered throughout.
"Stop him! He's activated the portal!" Martin shouted. Ruben, jerked back to look at him as he shouted.
He turned back to the portal, "Portal? Like the Nether?" he asked.
He clenched his fists and took a deep breath.
"Well, only one way to find out," He said to himself before taking a step off the dais.
"No!" Martin shouted as he lunged for Ruben, but he was a second too late as his fingertips just brushed against Ruben's shirt as the young man descended into the portal.
Ruben felt nothing as he slipped into the portal, then it suddenly felt like he was being pulled apart, squished together, every kind of pressure being exerted on his body in rapid succession, then it faded. Everything was still for a moment, then he realized was lying on a platform of cobblestones.
"What?" He asked as he pushed himself up.
He looked around, the strange material that had comprised the portal formed a floating island above him.
"What is this?" he asked as he pulled out his pickaxe.
He walked to the edge of the platform and made a small bridge of dirt to the island above where he mined a path to the surface of the island.
As he emerged he froze, Endermen were everywhere, moving in their usual patterns.
"What is this place?" He asked himself as he looked around.
The sky above him was pitch black, but he didn't pay much attention to it: As eight massive pillars of obsidian caught his attention.
"Is this…?" Ruben began.
A memory of a conversation with Jack came back to him.
"Rumor has it the Endermen are from another world, like the Nether and Ours, but they come here for some unknown reason. Their motives are hidden from us, they have their own agenda and no one can figure out what it is."
"The End…" He said to himself as he crawled out of his hole.
Suddenly, a deafening roar echoed throughout the space and Ruben began looking back and forth, trying to find the source.
Then he saw it, a massive black shape that was almost impossible to discern from the sky above.
"Oh… my…"
He was cut off as the beast flew past overhead, it was lightning quick. It banked back toward the island and released another roar.
"It knows I'm here," Ruben said to himself as he watched it fly past.
Suddenly, a glob of purple energy came flying from its maw, Ruben leaped to the side and avoided it as it exploded into a pool on the ground.
"What the?" He asked as the pool began to evaporate.
He didn't have time to think as the beast flew by again and banked back towards the island.
"Alright, time to see what you've got," Ruben said to himself, and the Beast, as he pulled out his bow.
"Hold on a little longer guys, I'm coming."
