Battle with the Wither Read online

  CHAPTER 13

  I COULDN’T LET THIS HAPPEN! I BEGAN TO CHARGE forward. The Wither burst out laughing, enjoying my panic.

  “What do you think, Stevie?” the middle head called out.

  Then it began shooting skulls again. A skull came bursting toward me and I dove to the side, barely escaping the impact. More screams and shouts arose as people tried to battle back the mobs. A few people had grabbed their most important belongings and were running from the village, as if they didn’t think they had a chance otherwise.

  I got back up to my feet and a wither skeleton jumped in front of me. Wither skeletons are much taller than regular skeletons in the Overworld, and I shuddered to think about Earth being overrun by them. This wither skeleton brought its sword down and I threw my sword up, the two blades screeching against each other. I pushed with all my might, and when the wither skeleton fell back, I hit it with my sword. It vanished.

  Before I could really get my bearings, several ghasts appeared overhead, opening their mouths and sending their fire straight at me. I dove again, then turned back with my sword. With a swing, I hit a fire blast on my first try. The fire flew back at the ghast who’d spat it, hitting perfectly. However, that still left three more ghasts above me, and I was jumping around, trying not to get hit. If only I could take care of these stupid ghasts and reach the Wither!

  As I dodged and hit at fire blasts, I tried to think of what I needed to do next. Think, Stevie, think! Too many Nether mobs were keeping people from going after the Wither. More Nether mobs were heading to Earth right at this very moment.

  My first thought was to destroy the portal to Earth, because then the people there would only have to take care of the handful of wither skeletons that had slipped through. That was still better than this onslaught that kept coming out of the Nether portal and going through the Earth portal.

  But there was one really major, important reason why I couldn’t just go up and destroy that portal. The portal was one of a kind. I’d been able to remake it once before, but only after a dangerous trip through the Nether. I didn’t even know what the Nether looked like now, since the Overworld looked like this. Would the Nether be the same? Would I be able to find the same stones to make a new Earth portal? I couldn’t let myself destroy that portal—that would trap Maison, Yancy, and Destiny in my world!

  Then that left the Nether portal. It obviously needed to be destroyed, because that would stop all these mobs from getting out. And it also seemed to me like the Wither was seriously attached to it, and the Wither had mentioned using Herobrine’s powers to make the portal special and allow all this to happen. Did that mean that destroying the portal might destroy the Wither, or at least weaken it so we could finish it off?

  An arrow struck one of the ghasts above me, and I caught sight of Alex out of the corner of my eye. I still didn’t know where everyone else had gone. A few more shots, and Alex had cleared out all the ghasts by me. This also cleared me a narrow path.

  “Thank you, Alex!” I shouted. I had to get to that Nether portal! Sword held close, I went running toward Alex’s house.

  I was just about there when a skull flew in front of my face. The next thing I knew, the ground between me and the house was gone, smashed out. I was knocked back, but I wasn’t giving up. Most of the walls had been stripped away, with a few blocks remaining like little jagged ledges. Grabbing the ledge, I hoisted myself up and tumbled into the remains of Alex’s living room. Now the two portals were within a few feet of me.

  Zombie pigmen were ambling through the room, and I tried to push through them as quickly as I could without hurting them in any way. The zombie pigmen oinked as I jostled them, but otherwise left me alone.

  A wither skeleton was just emerging from the Nether portal as I approached. Seeing me, it advanced like a soldier, its sword at the ready. I swung at it with my sword, the two of us wrestling, then I knocked it back and hit it. Before any more Nether mobs could get through, I stepped up close to the Nether portal and raised my sword.

  And before I could bring my sword down and destroy the portal, I felt someone—or something—grab me and lift me straight into the air.

  CHAPTER 14

  I’D BEEN CAUGHT IN THE MOUTH OF THE WITHER!

  Out of nowhere the enormous left head of the Wither had dived down into Alex’s living room, snatching me up by the back of my shirt. In seconds I was high above the roofless house.

  Down below I saw Maison hoist herself over the blocks and get into the living room. She jumped through the Earth portal, her bat raised. She must have run there to take out the mobs in her house and keep any more from getting in. Her timing was just right for that. But it had also been the worst timing, since she’d arrived right after I’d been grabbed. She hadn’t seen what had happened to me, so she couldn’t help!

  Slowly, the left head moved so that it was facing the other two Wither heads. The right head was still shooting skulls in every direction, but the middle head had its sharp white eyes on me. At this point the Wither had gotten so big that the lines of its eyes were bigger than my sword. Grasped in its clutches, I shuddered at the sheer size of this monster.

  I tried to slash the middle head with my blade. My hands were fumbling so badly I did about the worst thing I could have done—I dropped my diamond sword. I couldn’t see where it fell, but as soon as I felt that sword drop from my hand, I knew I was doomed.

  “Did you really think we were going to let you ruin our portal?” the middle head mocked me.

  Where were Alex and her arrows? Where was Dad? Where were Yancy and Destiny—or anyone else? I tried to look around and I saw villagers running, ghasts flying, fires raging, and more skulls being thrown from the Wither’s right head. I saw a red sky and a Nether-like land as far as my eyes could see. I didn’t see anyone I knew. I didn’t see any good way out of this.

  What I did see was the ground below. Far, far below. Maybe if I could get the Wither to drop me, I’d be able to grab its body and slide down it. It would break my fall, but could I actually make that work?

  My hand went into my tool kit, trying to find a weapon, trying to remember what I’d shoved in there earlier. My hand closed around a sword handle. Yes! This had to work! I ripped the sword out of my tool kit, wanting to scare the Wither with it.

  When I saw what I had grabbed, I had the most awful feeling. It was the handle of my broken wooden sword. It was useless!

  The middle head burst out laughing again. “You poor fool!” it shouted. “This is the boy who defeated Herobrine? This is a child with a child’s toy! A child’s broken toy!”

  The right head stopped shooting skulls long enough to look over and get in a good laugh too. Even the head holding me was starting to shake because it was cracking up. The left head couldn’t take it anymore, and its mouth opened so it could laugh uproariously. Just like that, I was released, plummeting to the ground with my useless sword. The Wither was laughing too hard to even bother to watch me drop. Why did it need to keep track of me, anyway? It knew this battle was over.

  CHAPTER 15

  BUT INSTEAD OF HITTING THE HARD GROUND, I found myself landing on something soft. Soft? I looked around me dizzily and realized I’d landed on a bed piled high with blankets. What were the odds of that?

  Then I saw Dad at the edge of the bed, and realized he’d pushed it right under me so I’d fall on it. I’d lost track of the others, but he hadn’t lost track of me.

  “Dad,” I rasped, shocked. He was picking up my diamond sword from where it had fallen.

  “Let’s go, Stevie,” he said, and grabbed me. I tried to protest. Ignoring this, Dad rushed us out of the craziness and out of the village, my legs unsteady and tripping after my experience in the Wither’s mouth. Each time I almost fell, Dad gripped me harder and kept me on my feet.

  “Look, the boy with the portal is running away!” the middle head laughed.

  “I told you he didn’t stand a chance against us!” the left head roared.
r />   “Bye-bye, portal boy!” the right head hollered.

  All three heads began to chant at me in unison, “You’re a fool! You’re a fool!”

  “Dad, what are we doing?” I cried in a whisper. I was trying to ignore the Wither’s taunts as we fled, but its words wouldn’t stop chanting in my mind, even after the Wither stopped talking. “We can’t abandon everyone!”

  “Trust me, Stevie,” Dad said. “We’re in over our heads there.”

  I couldn’t believe I was hearing this. “We’re just leaving everyone to fend for themselves?”

  Dad gave me a sharp look and didn’t answer. I couldn’t understand this. All my life I’d grown up with stories about my Dad being a feared mob slayer. Were they not true? What kind of feared mob slayer ran away?

  We came to a half-broken, empty house near the village and Dad hustled me inside. The walls only gave cold comfort, because while it was better than no safety, the Wither still could burn down these walls and get to us if it wanted to.

  “Dad, we can’t leave!” I said. “I almost had that Wither! We can still get it!”

  The look Dad gave me was even worse now. “Almost had the Wither!” he exclaimed. “That Wither almost had you!”

  I put my head down. “I had other weapons in my tool kit. If I’d had a few more seconds to reach for one—”

  “With Withers, you don’t have a few more seconds,” Dad said. “I fought a Wither once as a young man, and it almost killed me.”

  I stopped and stared. Since I was little, it felt as if Dad had told me a million stories about his adventures fighting mobs. But I didn’t know this story.

  “Someone thought it would be a good joke to make a Wither,” Dad said with contempt. “Of course the Wither got out of control and started attacking people and ruining houses.”

  “What did you do?” I asked.

  “Actually, what your friend Yancy suggested,” Dad said. “I got it to chase me into an area with bedrock. I was badly hurt, but it worked. Unfortunately, the closest bedrock from here …” He trailed off and shook its head. It was too far away to have a Wither chase us there.

  “We can’t just leave the village like this,” I said.

  Dad looked taken aback by my words. “We’re not leaving the village,” he said. “I just got us out to a safer area so we can plan. With a Wither like this, it’s going to take more than strength. We need a strategy.”

  I felt some hope now. I knew Dad wouldn’t abandon everyone! “But what are we going to do?” I asked.

  “I sent your friend Maison through the Earth portal,” Dad said, “to take care of the mobs that got through. I told Yancy and Destiny to join her. That should keep that situation under control for a little bit.”

  So that’s why I saw Maison run there! “Where are Alex and Aunt Alexandra?”

  “They’re trying to get the soldiers back together,” Dad said. “However, the soldiers are panicking and not listening to Alexandra’s instructions. If they’d stop, think through things, and listen to her, they’d be doing better.”

  I had a feeling Dad was also kind of implying that I needed to think through things and listen to him better. I thought about being grabbed by the Wither and I blushed again.

  “I was just trying to destroy the Nether portal!” I said. “I figured maybe it would weaken the Wither! The Wither takes that portal with it everywhere, so there must be some connection.”

  “It was good thinking, but the way you tried to destroy it was reckless,” Dad said. “Just like when you attacked the Wither at our house.”

  Outside, the screams and hisses got even louder, as if something especially bad had just happened. I shuddered.

  “We need to take out both the Wither and the portal,” Dad said. “As long as they’re close together, the Wither will keep protecting the portal. It will have no reason to move.”

  He glanced out the window. “Look out, Stevie!” Before I could respond, he pushed me out of the way. A skull crashed through the wall and landed right by us. We really weren’t safe anywhere.

  Think, Stevie! I was screaming in my mind. You’ve stopped a zombie takeover! You got Yancy out of a dungeon when he was arrested. You even stopped Herobrine!

  I thought about the Wither mocking me. “Look, the boy with the portal is running away!” The memory of its laughter clouded my thoughts and made me angry. I needed to prove that darn Wither wrong, to show it I could fight mobs and do the right thing!

  Wait a second.

  My brain started to turn into a new direction. Something clicked into place. I felt a rush as an idea swept over me.

  “Dad?” I said a little hesitantly.

  “What?”

  I whispered the words so there was no chance of the Wither overhearing, because I didn’t know how good its hearing was. “I think I might know how to defeat the Wither.”

  CHAPTER 16

  I TOOK A DEEP BREATH. “WE NEED TO HAVE A TWO-PRONGED attack. We’re going to split off into different groups, but if we don’t all do our share, it won’t work.”

  I had Dad’s full attention, and he nodded as if he approved of this. “What do we do?”

  “Maison, Yancy, and Destiny are already taking care of the Earth portal by stopping mobs there,” I said. “We need to get the Wither away from the Nether portal. Then Aunt Alexandra and Alex can sneak over without the Wither standing guard and destroy the Nether portal.”

  “That’s good,” Dad said. “But how do you get the Wither away?”

  I took another deep breath. “You know the dungeon Aunt Alexandra has in this village for criminals? Well, one time Yancy got arrested and thrown into that dungeon, and we all broke him out.”

  Dad was frowning now. “What does this have to do with anything?”

  “The dungeon is underground,” I said. “It won’t work as well as bedrock, but it’s still an enclosed space. The Wither can’t fly up and away if we get it in there. I mean, the Wither is so big now that if it gets into the dungeon, it’ll barely be able to move, let alone fly.”

  Now I saw Dad’s eyes light up. “I like it,” he said. “The Wither could still fly backward and get out, but if we keep it distracted, it won’t get a chance. Still, how do we get it in there?”

  “Well, I guess that’s the hardest part,” I said. “We have to get the Wither to chase us there, and then we can finish it off.”

  Now Dad was looking skeptical. “How do we get it to chase us? It got your portal. It even got to show you what it’s doing with it. We’re no longer special to the Wither.”

  “Wait, I know!” I said, thinking of the bed Dad had used to break my fall. If Dad could make something work in a way it’s not supposed to, then we could do that again. “When we were last in the dungeon, there was all sorts of junk on the floor. What if we take those scraps and … and … turn them into a portal?”

  Dad looked at me as if I was babbling in another language.

  “Not a real portal!” I said. “Just something that looks like a portal. What if the Wither thinks I have another portal, one that leads to another new world? Why would it stop at just attacking Earth if it thinks it can get to other worlds too?”

  “Hmm, I think you have something there,” Dad said. “But how do we convince the Wither that there’s another portal?”

  We didn’t have time to figure that out. Because just then a tall monster broke into the house, holding a raised sword.

  CHAPTER 17

  I BELLOWED IN SURPRISE, THEN SAW IT WAS ONLY Yancy. I was so jumpy I’d expected the worst!

  “Stevie, you’re all right!” Yancy said, sounding relieved.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Maison and Destiny went through the portal and are fighting mobs coming through to Maison’s house,” he said. “I haven’t seen Alexandra, and no one can get close to attacking the Wither because it keeps a steady supply of Nether mobs in the way. It just laughs and shoots skulls. Alex is still trying to battle through those mobs
to get to the Wither and isn’t having any luck. I was hurrying to the Earth portal to help Maison and Destiny out, but then I saw Stevie fall and get carried off, so I followed. I would have been here sooner if so many Nether mobs hadn’t gotten in my way!”

  I filled him in on our idea, down to the portal-building part.

  “I’m in!” Yancy said. “Tell me how I can help!”

  “We need to figure out how to convince the Wither there’s another portal,” Dad said. “If we just walk up there and tell it that, it wouldn’t have any reason to believe us.”

  Yancy thought about it for a moment. “I’ve got it!” he said. “I’ll convince it.”

  “You?” Dad didn’t try to hide his skepticism.

  “You two run to the dungeon and start making that portal,” Yancy said. “It shouldn’t take long. While you’re doing that, I’ll go tell the Wither I’m from another world, one that’s not Earth. I’ll convince it that I want to be on its side and you’re hiding the portal in the dungeon. By the time the Wither arrives, the ‘portal’ will already be made. The Wither explodes through some bars to let itself in, and—BAM!— you’ve got yourself a Wither in a tight space!”

  “Except you look like someone from Earth,” I said. “And the Wither saw you come running up with me. It’ll know you’re not my enemy.”

  Yancy shook one of his long fingers at me as if I were being silly. He was smiling. “I got two things to help me out. First, sound effects.” He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. “The Wither won’t know that my cell phone is really making noise. It’ll think I’m making all sorts of crazy noises because, well, I’m from a different world.”

  “Okay, okay, good,” I said.

  “Two.” Yancy held up two fingers. “I have the perfect disguise.”