Sean Wolfe - The Complete Elementia Chronicles - Quest for Justice; The New Order; The Dusk of Hope; Herobrine’s Message

Besides the Spider Jockey itself, the only mobs left in the desert were three Creepers, staring at Charlie from behind their leader. One of them began to shake in anger at the death of his comrades, and it began to lumber towards Charlie, but the Spider Jockey raised its hand to signal a halt. Charlie’s eyes locked on the empty eye sockets of the Skeleton. They both knew the same thing to be true: this fight was to be one-on-one.

Realizing this was to be the case, Charlie was sincerely wishing that he had brought a bow with him when, as if by a miracle, he noticed that one of the Skeletons had dropped one in the crater. He scooped this up, along with all the arrows lying alongside it. Though he had never been much of a shot at archery, Charlie was on such an adrenaline high from the massacre of the undead that he was sure that he could shoot just as well as Kat or Stan under the circumstances. Climbing out of the crater, he gave one last defiant look at the Spider Jockey, and he charged.

The Spider Jockey charged at the same time. The Skeleton fired off two quick shots with his bow, which Charlie dodged and knocked aside with his pickaxe. As he came up from his dodge, Charlie threw his pickaxe boomerang-style towards the Skeleton’s head. It seemed to be on a collision course, but at the last second the Spider pounced to the side, saving its rider for the time being.

Charlie was unfazed. He drew his bow and, while still running forwards, fired off three shots as the Skeleton did the same. Charlie dodged two of the shots, while a third deflected off his armour. The Spider Jockey was not so lucky. Though the Spider was able to hop out of the way of the first two arrows, the third one sunk straight into one of its eight red eyes. The Spider spat in pain and began thrashing around, causing the Skeleton to hastily jerk the arrow out of the Spider’s face, restring it in its own bow, and fire it back Charlie’s way.

Charlie ducked the arrow, and then he was upon the monster. The Spider bared its teeth and launched itself at Charlie, but Charlie delivered a quick jab to its face and it keeled over sideways – not dead, but certainly disoriented. Charlie took the opportunity to grab the pickaxe lying nearby on the ground. By the time the Spider Jockey had regained its footing, it was too late. The Skeleton notched an arrow in its bow just as Charlie drove his pickaxe into the Spider’s side. The Spider fell to the ground, twitching reflexively as it bled from the hole in its side. The Skeleton was thrown to the ground, its arrow fired haphazardly into the air, and as it looked up at the impending warrior that was Charlie, it waved its white bone of an arm forwards.

Charlie barely had time to ponder what this meant before he noticed three Creepers moving towards him. He closed his eyes and braced himself for the powerful explosions. Instead, however, he heard a hissing sound distinctly different from that of a Creeper. Charlie opened his eyes to see Lemon chasing the Creepers away, and Charlie pursued them until he reached a ditch in the sand.

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 got 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 towards 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.