Quest for Justice (24 page)

Lemon stood at the top of the ditch, still hissing at the three Creepers, all of which were cowering in fear in the corner of the wall of sand. The Creepers were too scared of the cat to even look up as Charlie ended their lives with three quick strokes of the pickaxe. Relieved, Charlie turned, ready to scratch Lemon behind the ears in thanks.

Instead, Charlie looked up just in time to see an arrow pierce his cat through the stomach.

Time ran by in slow motion as Lemon descended in a graceful, almost angelic arc off the sandy ledge and into the ditch, finally coming to rest in Charlie's waiting arms. Charlie's stomach felt as though a knot were being tied in his gut as his cat gave one last feeble meow, and Lemon faded out of existence.

Charlie's mind was white with shock. He stood staring into his empty arms, where his dying pet had just breathed
its last breath, unable to comprehend what had happened. He had only had Lemon for a short time, but during that time he had become as fond of the cat as he had of Kat and Stan, knowing that whenever he awakened from this nightmare created by the King, he would have Lemon by his side.

Then, in an instant, the shock and horror within Charlie spontaneously morphed into rage and an insane, animal desire to destroy the one responsible for Lemon's death. He looked up to the ledge above the ditch, and he saw the Skeleton that had been riding upon the Spider aiming another arrow straight at his head. Charlie's reflexes, already heightened by battle, increased to the point of becoming superhuman as he caught the flying arrow in midair, inches from his own face. He notched it in his own bow and sent it back to its owner, the flint tip shattering the bone-dry skull into dust.

Charlie pulled himself out of the hole, still seething and bloodthirsty for the destruction of more of the undead. The desert was, however, completely vacant. Charlie had managed to kill
all
the Spider Jockey's forces single-handedly. Though Charlie was still enraged that they had gotten Lemon, he did allow himself to take something that he never had before: credit. From the time the first mobs appeared to now, there was one emotion that he hadn't felt at all. He had not been afraid.

Pride, sadness, and fury swirling within Charlie, he raced
back toward the light of the NPC village to combat the mobs he now saw roaming the streets.

Stan could have filled a chest with the rotten flesh of all the Zombies he and his comrades had felled while defending the village. Stan's axe brought Zombie after Zombie to its second death. Kat was even more effective, her sword able to parry the Zombie's attack aside, letting her fight them at close range alongside her dog. However, by far the most devastating blows to the undead came from DZ, his red-tinted iron sword needing only to cut a Zombie once while the element of fire did the rest.

Though the moon was still high in the night sky, Stan was just thinking that the siege was dying down when he suddenly felt himself lifted into the air. Though upside-down and very disoriented, he managed to glimpse an Enderman lifting him high in the air and about to smash him into the gravel street. Stan braced himself for impact when he felt a lurch, and he fell gently to the ground, his fall cushioned by the dead corpse of the Enderman. Eager to see who had killed the monster, Stan looked up just in time to see Charlie pulling his diamond pickaxe out of the back of the creature's head, his expression dark and distant.

“Thanks, Charlie,” said Stan as Charlie helped him to his feet. “How did it go?”

“They're all dead. The Spider Jockey, too,” said Charlie in a monotonous voice that seemed awfully out of character. Something had obviously gone wrong. Stan was just making the connection of what was out of place when Charlie muttered, “Lemon's dead.”

It was like a dull blow to the stomach. Stan was filled with sympathy for his best friend. He knew how much joy Lemon had brought to Charlie, and he knew that Charlie would be a much different person now.

“How've you guys been holding up here?” Charlie asked, his voice lifting almost imperceptibly, as if he were involuntarily trying to make himself happier.

“I think we're done,” exclaimed DZ, joining them after sticking one last Zombie. He had a small scratch on his left forearm, and he looked exhausted, but besides that he was fine. “I got the last one over here, and I'm pretty sure that Kat finished those over there.”

At that very moment, Kat's face peeked out from around the corner of Oob's house, but she did not look triumphant. Her face was pale and looked horrified.

“I think you guys need to see this,” she whispered, her lips barely moving.

The three players ran to see what she meant. As he was running, Stan heard Oob's voice coming from inside his house.

“Players? Yoo-hoo! I have something to show you!”

“Not now, Oob,” muttered Stan in response as he rounded the corner of the house and saw what Kat was staring at. His gut contracted painfully at the sight.

Stan had seen many large groups of evil mobs together throughout his time in Minecraft, but never before had he seen one as large as the one now lumbering down the gravel path toward the NPC village. There must have been at least two hundred evil mobs in all. This group was not just made up of Zombies—there were Skeletons, Spiders, Creepers, and Endermen, too.

“Players?”

“Not now, Oob!” barked Stan as he raised his axe. He was far too tired to fight anymore, and his body was screaming at him to ignore these mobs and just go to sleep.

“But it's very very very very very important!” came Oob's exasperated, rushed response.

“Oob, buddy, we're kind of busy defending your butt right now, so talk to us later, all right,” said DZ, and he did something that Stan had only seen someone do once before. DZ drew out two swords, with his red-iron sword in one hand and his unenhanced diamond sword in the other. Stan supposed that this was an advanced form of sword fighting.

“Oh, come on!” came Oob's voice, and his face appeared in the window. “Don't you want to see my new little brother?”

Stan suddenly snapped to attention. “Wait, what did you just say?” he asked.

“Oob, did you just say you have a new brother?” asked Charlie.

Oob's face disappeared for a few seconds, and when he came back up he was holding up a miniature version of himself. It seemed that he did, indeed, have a new brother. “Mother and Father decided that if we are to remain in the village, we must have new members. Then they stared at each other for a few moments, a heart icon appeared above their heads, and my new brother Stull appeared!” Oob's smile was so big that it was visible even beneath his colossal nose.

“Wait,” said Charlie, and Stan could tell that he had just realized something. “Oob . . . how many buildings are there in your village?”

“Including the houses belonging to those killed by evil mobs, there are thirty-one,” replied Oob.

“And, counting your new brother, Stull, how many people live in the village now?”

“I am the tenth resident of this NPC village,” answered Stull in a surprisingly deep voice for an infant.

“But that means that . . . if there are really ten . . . ,” said Charlie, completely ignoring the fact that his question had been answered by a newborn baby, “and thirty-one . . . then that means that . . . soon—”

Charlie was cut off by a metallic rumbling sound.

Stan, Charlie, Kat, and DZ all whipped around as the figure charged down the road. The beast was enormous. It was metallic, a little taller than the players and about twice their width, and it had long, gangly arms. Vines grew all over its body, and save its gleaming red eyes its face bore a direct resemblance to a sort of gray NPC villager.

As the beast charged forward, Stan was afraid for an instant that it was going to attack them, but it flew right past them and into the horde of mobs that had now entered the village. The thing raised its great long arms, and swung them side-to-side in rapid and crazy attack patterns, with each new swing knocking mobs apart as if they were life-sized sculptures of gelatin. The victims of this thing truly did end up liquefied under its pure physical strength.

“What is that thing?” asked Stan in awe, his mouth agape at the awesome battle taking place before him as the beast eliminated wave after wave of hostile mobs.

“It's an Iron Golem,” replied DZ, looking at the beast with admiration. “They spawn in large villages and help defend the people against these sieges.”

“And Stull's birth gave this village ten people, making the game officially classify it as a large one,” added Charlie as he watched the carnage.

The evil mobs were simply no match for the Iron Golem.
The second they came within the range of the iron arm, they had no chance to initiate any attacks before they were crushed.

Stan suddenly remembered something, and he looked at Kat. Her face was solemn, as he had expected it to be. He remembered that she had described a metallic clanging noise that followed her after she pillaged the last NPC village she went to. That village had undoubtedly had an Iron Golem, too, placed there to defend the village from having its citizens taken advantage of. He expected her to look scared or at least a little uncomfortable, but Kat now seemed fully at ease and it appeared that she, finally, had forgiven herself.

For an hour, the four players watched in stunned silence as the Iron Golem laid waste to all evil mobs that entered the NPC village. The last mob to die was a Skeleton. Right before it could shoot, the Iron Golem delivered a roundhouse punch to its head, knocking it dead to the ground.

The Iron Golem then stood still, glancing into the horizon, ready to defend the village at all costs. It looked very impressive, silhouetted against the white square of the rising sun, a sure indication that the siege, at last, was over.

A
s the sun rose over the NPC village, Stan surveyed the village to see the effects of the siege. He was relieved to find that no villagers had been injured during the siege, but he was surprised to see that the villagers seemed truly devastated when they heard of the loss of Lemon. From what Stan understood, they had never seen a cat before Lemon, and they had had great joy in petting him.

“He was so gentle and kind,” said Oob with a frown on his face and a tear trickling down his cheek. “I am so sad that he is no longer with us.” DZ was about to comfort him when the villager started wandering again, making his consoling effort moot.

The villagers also seemed very fond of the Iron Golem, who seemed to showcase a gentler side when he was around them, and especially around the children. As the newborn Stull played a game of tag with another villager child, a girl named Sequi, the Iron Golem joined in, tagging the children with a light, harmless tap on the head, as opposed to the wild, fanatical arm swings he had used to destroy the evil mobs the previous night.

Stan, Kat, and DZ were all quite contented that the village was safe, and Kat in particular was noticeably pumped up with anticipation for the Enderman hunt
that was now next on their to-do list. Charlie, on the other hand, was taking the loss of his cat very hard. He spent the first day after Lemon's death sitting on the wood blocks that made up the border of Blerge's wheat farm, staring out into the desert sky, a pensive look on his face and an occasional tear rolling down his cheek.

As the afternoon rolled around and DZ entertained the villagers with more bad jokes, Stan and Kat caught each other's eyes for a moment and knew that they had to go talk to Charlie. They went around to the back of the house, and they sat down on either side of their friend. He raised his eyes slightly to both sides in acknowledgement of their presence, and then proceeded to look down at the sand below him.

“You doing all right, man?” asked Stan.

Charlie didn't answer.

“What's the matter, Charlie?” said Kat.

Charlie still didn't answer.

“Charlie, I'm really sorry about Lemon,” said Stan, “but we've got to keep going. We've got a King to take down, remember?”

“What's the point?” asked Charlie in a dejected voice. Stan was alarmed at how depressed he sounded. “All that's going to happen is more people dying.” He looked up at Stan. “My cat just got killed, and I feel miserable. What's going to happen if you get killed? Or you, Kat?” he asked turning his
head the other way to face Kat.

“Charlie, there's no other way,” said Kat, a grim expression on her face. “Believe me, if I thought there was any other way to change the way things run on this server, then I wouldn't be with you guys right now. But sometimes war is the only option. It's a horrible option, but it's the only one we've got.”

“If we don't take down the King, then things are going to just get worse from here. You know that, Charlie,” said Stan. “The King's been abusing the people living here for too long, and he's not letting up. And now, we have people, a lot of powerful people, ready to risk their lives to take him down, and we're closer than ever to getting the supplies to do it. Are you saying you just want to give up?”

Charlie sighed before answering. “No, you're right, and I know you're right. It's just . . .” He paused as a tear rolled down his cheek and he wiped it away. “It's not any easier.”

Kat leaned over to Charlie and gave him a hug. Over her shoulder, Charlie glanced at Stan, and their eyes locked. Stan knew from the look in Charlie's eyes that, as much as neither of them liked it, Charlie knew that they must carry on.

Stan became vaguely aware of another presence joining them. He looked up and saw Oob looking down at them, the Iron Golem standing just behind him.

“You are doing the right thing, Charlie,” said Oob, his face more serious than Stan had ever seen him. “And I thank you
for making life better for us.”

Stan smiled.
This was the reason they were doing this
, he thought. The lower-level players, the NPC villagers. Wasn't this the reason that they were ready to fight? These people weren't able to defend themselves, and while the King capitalized on this weakness by extorting them, there would always be those willing to defend them. The Apothecary, the Nether Boys, DZ, even the Iron Golem, Stan realized, were ready to defend themselves and others if the need arose, but that didn't mean that they were vicious monsters. Hadn't Stan seen the Iron Golem, just this morning, playing tag with the villager children?

As if in response to his thoughts, Stan heard a metallic creaking and looked up. The Iron Golem had stepped forward and walked right to Charlie. Charlie looked into the Golem's red eyes, and the Golem extended its metal hand. Clasped in it was a red flower, a rose: the Golem's gift to the heavy-hearted Charlie.

Charlie smiled and took the rose. “Thank you,” he said to the Golem, and the iron obelisk nodded its head with a metallic creak in response. Charlie stood up and looked at his friends. “Come on, guys. We've got some Endermen to kill.”

Glad to see that his friend was out of his stupor, Stan followed Charlie and Kat back to Oob's house, where they found DZ already waiting and ready for hunting.

“Hey guys! You ready to kick some teleporting butt?” he asked, eliciting the first smirk anyone had seen on Charlie since the siege. DZ took notice. “Hey, Charlie, you doing better, man?”

“Yeah, I'm all right. I've gotta say, though, I do have an odd desire to kill some Endermen right now,” replied Charlie.

“Now that's what I'm talking about, man! Enderman huuuuunt!” DZ sang, pumping his fist in the air and doing a little dance of excitement.

“Come on, guys. Let's suit up and get out here,” said Kat, pulling her armor out of Oob's chest.

After they had put on all their armor and equipped themselves with all their weapons, the four players and dog set out into the desert, with Oob, Mella, Blerge, and Stull waving goodbye from their house.

“Okay guys, so here's the plan,” said Kat. “We'll all just look around the desert. The terrain is pretty flat out here, so we shouldn't have much trouble finding any Endermen. When someone sees one, they call out, and everyone jumps to that player's back to defend them. How many Ender Pearls do we have again?”

“Well,” replied DZ, scratching his head, “I had six. What about you guys?”

“I got two last night,” said Charlie.

“And I got one,” added Stan.

“Excellent!” said Kat, grinning. “We only need three more! All right, everyone, start looking!”

Stan was excited. He had not realized just how few Ender Pearls they still needed to collect. He started scanning the darkening horizon, and the sun had just ducked out of sight behind the distant hills when Stan spotted his first Enderman. It was holding a sand block, and upon realizing it was being watched, its jaw dropped, and it stared back and shook as if it were racked with spasms.

“I've got one!” yelled Stan, and the other three players rushed to defend his back. Sure enough, when the Enderman appeared behind Stan, it immediately found itself cut by two swords, an axe, and a pickaxe before it teleported away. It reappeared an instant later behind Kat, who spun backward and decapitated it. She looked down at the tall, black corpse.

“Yes!” she exclaimed, as she scooped up a turquoise pearl from the Enderman's body. “Ten down, two to go!”

And sure enough, the Enderman hunting was quick from there on out. With the desert plains providing minimum obstructions to their vision, they were easily able to locate two more Endermen very quickly and fought them by adopting the same strategy. Of the two, however, only one yielded an Ender Pearl.

“Yeah, that happens sometimes,” said DZ, seeing the look of outrage on Kat's face as she found that the second
Enderman had no pearls. “It's no big deal. We'll just kill another one.”

No sooner did DZ say that than Stan sensed a presence behind him. He spun around, ready to combat an incoming mob, but what he saw instead caught him totally off guard. Had he not been wearing an iron chestplate, Leonidas's arrow would have impaled his heart. He gave a short shout of pain that alerted the others to the presence of his assailant.

They wasted no time in reacting. Kat and DZ hastily drew their bows and fired two arrows in Leonidas's direction. He ducked one and the other caught in the wood of his bow. Charlie and Kat rushed in to engage Leonidas at close range, where they had their advantage. DZ, however, was otherwise occupied, as Geno had just burst out of the ground, diamond sword glinting in the moonlight. Stan pulled himself to his feet, watching as DZ and Geno, probably the two most powerful swordsmen he had ever seen, locked blades in ferocious combat.

Stan became aware of a sizzling behind him. He spun around and brought his axe down into the line of redstone dust on the ground, cutting off the electric charge that would have activated the TNT block that had somehow appeared directly behind him. He destroyed the TNT block in one punch, and he drew his axe to combat Becca, who was now rushing in to engage him.

Becca may have been the demolition expert of RAT1, but she certainly knew her way with a sword. Stan had had quite a bit of experience, and his prowess with the axe had doubled since he first learned the skill from Jayden in the Adorian Village. Yet Becca was able to fight him on an equal level. It was only by a lucky uppercut that his axe managed to knock Becca's iron sword out of her hand and into the air.

Becca was not deterred. She immediately drew two fire charges, and with a quick flick of the wrist she was gone in a billow of black smoke. The force of the small fire knocked Stan backward, and as he looked up he saw that there were also plumes of smoke where Leonidas and Geno had just stood. No sooner had he opened his mouth to ask where they had gone than an arrow came flying out of the smoke and embedded itself into Stan's right forearm, which was unprotected by his armor.

Though there was pain shooting up and down his arm, Stan did not allow himself to look at the wound. Instead, he drew his bow and fired arrows into the smoke, dodging the ones that flew back out toward him, until he heard a grunt of pain that told him that he had hit his mark. Only then did Stan allow himself to yank the arrow out of his arm.

Stan ignored the throbbing pain, gritted his teeth and looked around. Becca was now engaging DZ in combat by sending fire at him with flint and steel, and Geno was fighting
Kat. Stan did not see Charlie at all. The smoke in front of him had subsided enough for him to see the figure of Leonidas drawing another arrow.

Stan spun his axe around in midair to deflect the arrow, and he charged Leonidas. Leonidas fired two more arrows, but Stan simply knocked them aside with his weapon. Just as Stan was about to cut Leonidas's bow in two with his axe, he caught the glint of something in Leonidas's hand. Stan tried to change his course, but Leonidas had already thrown the potion bottle at Stan, and it burst on his forehead, dazing him and knocking him to the ground.

Stan felt dizzy, and the world spun around him. He was vaguely aware of wisps of gray smoke rising off his body, and found that he didn't even have enough energy to lift himself up off the ground. Though he was aware that his axe was still clasped in his hand, Stan knew that whatever that potion was, it had dulled his nerves and reflexes. As he became aware of this, he also realized that Leonidas was pinning him to the ground with his foot, and he was yelling to Geno and Becca.

There was screaming, Stan was sure of it, and it was a girl. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Becca still fighting with DZ, and he knew that it must have been Kat who had fallen fighting Geno. His suspicions were confirmed when he saw Geno being pushed back by frantic attacks from both Rex and Charlie, clearly enraged at the state of Kat, whom
Stan could not see. He knew, though, what he must do.

Leonidas was shooting arrows in Charlie's direction, still standing on Stan. He therefore didn't notice as Stan, with a great deal of focus to overcome the groggy effects of the potion, released his axe and fumbled around with his hand until his fingers clasped on his bow. Stan's head was throbbing with the effort of moving, but he knew that this was the only way to save Kat. Feeling like his head was about to split open, Stan's shaky hands notched an arrow in the bowstring, pulled back, and fired.

The arrow shot straight upward and into Leonidas's tunic, through the leather into his chest. The wound was not deep, and Stan doubted that it would be fatal, but Leonidas still cried out in pain and surprise as he tumbled backward off Stan's chest.

The relief in weight helped Stan's focus immensely. Immediately, the effects of the potion were only half as bad. Stan was now able to sit up. He saw Kat lying unconscious on the ground, and he noticed Geno turn for a moment and see his injured teammate. In the second of lost focus, Rex's body slammed Geno in the stomach, knocking him backward. He skidded across the ground, finally stopping when his head slammed into a nearby cactus. The thorns entered his head, and he lay limp and unmoving on the ground.

Stan heard a clang. He whipped his head around but
regretted it as soon as he did, his head still aching from Leonidas's potion. He watched Becca's sword flying into the air. Wasting no time, she kicked DZ in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him, and ran. “Come on, Leo!” she cried as she sprinted off into the night.

Stan became aware that Leonidas was no longer next to him. He had gotten up and was now slinging Geno's unconscious form over his back. He made to follow Becca, but then he stopped for a minute. He turned back to look at the players. DZ was still doubled over, and Rex was still growling in Leonidas's direction, but Stan looked at Leonidas. There was something in his eyes, Stan suddenly realized, something that Stan couldn't place. Was it pity? Sadness? Jealousy? Whatever it was, Stan knew it was out of place in the ruthless assassin that Leonidas was.