Sean Wolfe - Quest for Justice

The thunderstorm was beginning to get dangerous, with the bolts extremely frequent now. Once, lightning struck a tree right next to Kat and it caught fire, causing her to give a screech of surprise. Fortunately it was immediately extinguished by the rain.

As they approached the tower, they noticed that it was actually a pyramid, and that it covered the entire road. Stan was suspicious. Something felt wrong. As he walked closer, his suspicions were confirmed. The entire pyramid was made of stacked blocks of TNT.

“Why would someone put this here?” asked Kat.

“I don’t know, but I don’t feel safe near it,” replied Stan.

“Why?” asked Charlie, walking up to the pyramid. “What’s the worst that can happen?”

As if on cue, the worst thing did happen. Lightning struck the top of the pyramid, and the powder in the block was ignited. It began to flash dangerously.

“RUN!” screamed Stan as the block exploded. As the three players and Rex ran for it, the entire tower exploded from the top down, with each explosion sending lit TNT blocks flying everywhere like lava spewing from a volcano. Luckily, they escaped the range of the explosions with top-speed sprinting. As they gazed at the exploding pyramid it became clear that the explosives were underground, too. They could hear the explosions continue on for about sixty seconds before the tumult finally stopped.

The rain had died down, so they could talk in normal voices again. There was dust in the air now from the explosion, just like the Creeper explosion in the mine on the way to the Adorian Village. But this explosion was much larger, and it had blown a huge fissure in the middle of the road. They were cut off from the other side.

“The woods, then?” Stan said in an unnaturally high voice. They looked at each other. They remembered what Sally had said. The Griefers avoid the main road in case they come across well-armed travellers. Straying off the road would lead them directly into enemy territory.

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, we don’t—” started Charlie, but he was cut off by Kat.

“Don’t kid yourself, Charlie. Stan’s right.” They could tell from her trembling lip that Kat was making a determined effort to keep her cool. “Come on,” she said, and she started into the woods, Rex at her heels, growling in a low tone. Charlie made a high-pitched squeal, but he forced himself to follow Stan into the forest.

It was dark. Stan could barely make out the neon orange of Kat’s shirt. Every now and then, there was another flash of lightning, and Stan could make out a Spider web, a tree trunk, a Zombie lumbering in the distance.

Suddenly, there was a rustling to Stan’s right. There was something in the underbrush, and it was running straight towards him. “Run!” he yelled, and he started running, hacking branches out of the way with his axe. Kat and Charlie looked confused for a second, but when they heard the rustling they followed suit.

Stan burst out of the forest and into the light, now on the other side of the giant crater. Kat burst out right after him, closely followed by Rex and Charlie. Stan whipped out his axe and raised it above his head, Kat drew her sword and dropped in a fighting stance, and Charlie held his pickaxe in trembling hands. Then, the thing that had been chasing them burst into the clearing.

“Are you kidding me? You were scared of this little guy?” laughed Kat as she walked up to the pig and stroked it behind the ears, which it seemed to like. Rex came up to the pig and started sniffing it.

“Honestly, Stan, don’t do that!” said Charlie, his eyes wide, holding his chest. “You almost gave me a heart attack!”

“I’m sorry, all right?” said Stan, but he was smiling. It was a cute little pig. “Kat, get Rex away from that pig. I could use some meat.” At Kat’s command Rex left the pig alone and sat at her feet. “Bye-bye, little guy,” said Stan, and he raised his axe and brought it down on the pig, just as lightning struck.

His axe was countered by a golden sword.

Kat’s jaw dropped, Charlie gave a yelp, and Stan nearly fell back, eyes wide, as he saw the monster that the pig had transformed into upon being struck by lightning.

It was like a player in form, and it had the general colour of a pig, but the flesh was rotting off all over its body, and part of its skull was showing through the side of its head. Its ribs stuck out of its stomach. It wore a brown loincloth, and in its hand was a golden sword that was locked against the steel of Stan’s axe. It appeared to Stan to be some king of pig-Zombie hybrid. And it looked mad.

The Pig-Zombie pressed the attack. It swung its sword in complicated patterns and drove Stan backwards. Stan tried to counter with his axe, but the attempts were futile. The Pig-Zombie’s golden blade dodged an axe blow and severed the axe’s blade from the handle. Stan’s weapon was destroyed.

Stan danced backwards, trying to avoid the sword slices, when a pickaxe flew through the air and embedded itself in the Pig-Zombie’s exposed skull. The attack did no damage whatsoever, but it had the intended effect. The Pig-Zombie turned his attention from Stan and now set its sights on Charlie.

Charlie might have thought through the desperate attack a little better, though. The Pig-Zombie was faster than he anticipated, and Stan watched in horror as the undead warrior rushed in and slashed Charlie’s leg and forehead. Charlie yelled out in pain, falling to the ground and grabbing his damaged limb and temple. The golden sword rose for the death blow, but before the inevitable strike, a white blur connected with the Pig-Zombie and it was knocked to the ground.

Rex, at Kat’s command, had tackled the Pig-Zombie. There was a moment when the two animals wrestled with each other, attempting to tear out the other’s throat, until Rex was finally overpowered. The dog was thrown to the edge of the crater, where he lay whimpering, unable to get up.

Upon seeing Charlie and her dog in such pain, Kat’s eyes blazed with fury, and she rushed the Pig-Zombie. The iron and golden blades clashed, and the two warriors began to fight. Kat’s skill was incredible, but was matched equally by the Pig-Zombie. And Kat was at an obvious disadvantage. She managed to slash the Pig-Zombie across the stomach once, but all that did was make some of its flesh fall off, not slowing it down in the least.

Stan felt hopeless. His axe was broken, Charlie was on the verge of death and Kat was beginning to wear out as she fought the Pig-Zombie. It was clear that it would take an incredibly powerful attack to finish off the Pig-Zombie, like an explosion of some sorts, like …

Stan suddenly felt something, like the air was static. He looked towards the source. A little ways down the road, a figure was emerging from the forest. It was as tall as he was, but with four squat legs. A Creeper. But there was something different about this one. It had little lines of electricity dancing around its body, and it was giving off a current that Stan could feel even from such a distance. It was as if the Creeper had been struck by lightning. Stan could sense that an explosion from a Creeper charged with so much electricity could be … fatal.

He knew what he had to do. He yelled, “Kat! Toss me the bow and arrows!”

Kat was tired from fighting the Pig-Zombie, and she knew that it would overpower her soon. As the Pig-Zombie slashed, she feinted back and gave an almighty attack with her sword, as if she were brandishing a baseball bat. The undead being flew backwards and slammed into a tree. She threw the bow and arrows to Stan, and took the opportunity to catch her breath.

Stan took the bow, positioned the arrow, took aim, and fired.

He hit his target. The arrow sunk deep into the Creeper’s head.