Kat turned red as a beet, and was about to retort when Stan forced his way between the two of them.
“Enough, you two!” he cried, indignantly glancing back and forth between them. “We’re all stressed enough as it is in this stupid tunnel. We don’t need your bickering making things worse!”
“She started it,” Kat mumbled, causing Cassandrix to roll her eyes and shrug with an arrogant sigh.
“I don’t care who started it, I’m finishing it,” said Stan firmly, as he continued to walk forwards between Kat and Cassandrix. Man, I’m so glad to be back with everyone, Stan thought to himself, trying to think as optimistically as possible. I missed talking with everybody so much …
“Hey, Charlie!” Kat hollered right next to Stan’s ear, causing him to cringe again. “Are we past the wall yet?”
“If my calculations are correct,” Charlie replied, trying to keep his breathing steady as he winced with the effort of mining, “we passed underneath the wall a little while ago, and we should be underneath the Merchants District of Element City by now.”
“Hey, did you hear that, everybody?” Stan asked, looking around the mine at all his friends. “We’re back in Element City! Welcome home, guys!”
There were lacklustre murmurs of assent around the mine as Charlie and Commander Crunch tunnelled into a sizable natural cave. Stan sighed. He knew that they had to get to Element City as quickly as possible, and the fate of all of Minecraft might lie in their hands. But that didn’t change the fact that they had been walking for three straight days with no sleep, and everybody was worn out.
“OK,” he said, finally letting his inner exhaustion come forwards. “Maybe we should take a break for a little while and rest.”
As soon as Stan said this, the entire group collapsed onto the ground, letting the fatigue of weeks of trekking with almost no rest finally hit them. Stan lay down as well, not even caring that the stone-block floor below him was uncomfortable. Rex curled up at his feet, and Stan was just about to doze off when he suddenly had a startling realization.
“Hey, guys, we can’t all go to sleep yet,” he mumbled, forcing himself to sit up. “Somebody has to stand guard.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Leonidas said, grabbing a ledge on the cave wall and pulling himself to his feet.
“NO!” Charlie cried, causing everybody to snap up right as Charlie jumped, wincing as his bad leg hit the ground. “Get back to sleep, Leonidas. I’m standing guard.”
“Come on, Charlie!” exclaimed Leonidas, looking concerned. “You’ve been mining all day. You really ought to take a rest!’
“What’s that supposed to mean, huh?” Charlie demanded accusatorily. “Are you saying you don’t think I can do it?”
“No, I …”
“Then shut up and sit back down!” Charlie spat out bitterly. “I don’t recall asking for your help!”
Leonidas stared at Charlie, amazed at the harshness in his voice. After a moment, Leonidas lay back down and, with an uncomfortable glance at Charlie, rolled over to face the wall. Stan was outraged, and was about to chastise Charlie for his harshness when, without warning, an explosion erupted in the wall beside them, showering the entire group with dust.
Within seconds, all six players and the wolf were on their feet again, weapons drawn, glancing into the misshapen hole in the cave wall. A shadowy form appeared in the smoke, and as the dust settled, a row of figures came into view. The form of Creeper Khan, with Arachnia, Enderchick, Lord Marrow and Zomboy standing directly behind him.
There was a moment of silence. Stan and his friends stared at the mobhunters, transfixed in horror that they had been discovered. Meanwhile, the members of ELM stared back, their eyes alight with joyous amazement.
“Fancy seeing you here, Stan,” Arachnia hissed with a grin, stepping forward to the front of the group.
“How did you find us?” Stan demanded as he uncomfortably forced himself to look into Arachnia’s eight red eyes.
“Lucky break, I guess,” she replied with a grin. “We were just about to set some traps for you guys down here. We didn’t expect you to get back here so quickly.”
“We’ve been walking nonstop,” Stan replied slowly, trying to buy time as he wildly thought of how they could escape from these bounty hunters. “We wanted to make it back to Element City as fast as possible.”
“Aw, poor tragic you,” Arachnia sneered. “You tried so hard, and got so far … but in the end, it doesn’t even matter.”
“Haha! I ged id!” Zomboy shouted. “Because dose are da words to a song! And you used dem in …”
“Shut up, Zomboy,” Arachnia said offhandedly.
“OK,” he replied meekly, looking to the ground.
“Well, congrats to you,” Stan said, still desperate for more time. “You finally managed to catch up to us. Now what?”
“Well, you’re going to come with us, Stan,” Arachnia replied in a disturbingly sweet-sounding voice that made Stan’s skin crawl. “Lord Tenebris is most anxious to see you. And as for your friends, well, they’re of no use to anybody any more, so they will be disposed of.”
“Well, I’m sorry, Arachnia,” Stan retorted, keeping his voice pleasant and conversational as he realized that there was no escape, and they would have to fight. “But I’m afraid that I can’t let you do that.”
And before the mobhunter could respond, Stan leaped forwards and locked his axe against the glowing diamond sword that Arachnia had pulled out, and the two of them began to duel. Immediately, the players who had been standing behind the two leaders leaped into action. Kat lunged toward Enderchick with Rex at her heels, Cassandrix and Creeper Khan struck at each other simultaneously, and Commander Crunch rushed in to help Cassandrix. Lord Marrow and Leonidas both released a barrage of arrows at each other, while Zomboy lunged at the nearest target, Charlie.
Charlie feinted backward to avoid the giant stone axe that the oversized player slammed into the ground, leaving cracks in the stone blocks of the cave floor. As he moved, Charlie felt a sharp pain in his foot, and it nearly gave out, but he managed to stay on his feet, cringing in pain. Charlie glanced up at Zomboy, who was raising his axe and preparing for another attack. He’s not very fast, Charlie noted to himself, and he’s taking way too long between attacks. He must be a heavy fighter.
Charlie became aware of explosions going off behind Zomboy as Creeper Khan started to use his pyrokinetic powers and Lord Marrow fired off explosive arrows, but Charlie forced himself to focus on his own fight. Zomboy continued to walk towards Charlie, swinging his giant stone axe from side to side, forcing Charlie back down the cave towards the way they had come. Charlie saw multiple openings in the attack that would allow him to counter, but each time he was about to strike, the pain in his leg flared up again, and he was forced to fall back to avoid another attack.
Finally, after a frustrating minute of dodging, Zomboy launched a particularly powerful downward axe strike, which Charlie sidestepped. The axe blade shattered the stone block beneath it in a shower of sparks and became lodged in the ground, forcing Zomboy to struggle to pull it out. Seeing his chance, Charlie launched himself forwards off his good leg, and sunk his stone pickaxe directly into Zomboy’s chest. The giant mobhunter winced and staggered backwards, axe still in hand, before collapsing to the ground with a massive thud.
Charlie took a deep breath, and let it out as he looked down at the massive body of his defeated adversary. He was infuriated with himself. That giant thug was so unskilled that it should have been an effortless kill, but his leg had made it much more difficult than it had to be. A dark