Please Stand By....

Nightmare's Castle

Snowy Tundra Biome, OverWorld

Steve and Alex walked out into the oval shaped clearing. Every step they took, the white snow beneath them crunched. As they walked further out into the clearing, black smoke began swirling around in the air. Both Steve and Alex noticed and looked up into the air.

They stopped walking, reaching behind their backs to grab their swords out of their inventory. As the black smoke swirled around in the air, Nightmare suddenly appeared. Once the smoke disappeared, Steve and Alex finally got a good look at who they were up against. A thick, black cloud floated right underneath Nightmare.

"Well, well, well," Nightmare said, "if it isn't the saviors themselves. Allow me to introduce myself."

"No need!" Alex shouted, "we know who you are."

Nightmare was surprised by the fact that they knew who she was. She thought she still had them fooled with her fake identity. But she was terribly mistaken. On the other hand, she was glad that Steve and Alex knew who she was.

"Is that so?" Nightmare questioned, "tell me...have you ever wondered what your future will be like after today? Because if not, then allow me to show you!" Nightmare continued to say as she raised her left hand. As she did that, it instantly began glowing yellow.

Steve and Alex's eyes turned all yellow, just like Nightmare's eyes.

Steve and Alex both began seeing a vision. It was a vision of themselves...in the future. Honking and beeping sounds could be heard, sirens were wailing, people were shouting.

There were tall buildings made from brick, a red sign that read STOP. Their bodies didn't look blocky. Instead, they looked different. Different in a way neither of them could explain. Then the vision suddenly vanished. Their eyes turned back to normal. Nightmare lowered her hand. It stopped glowing.

"What—what was that? Where is that place? It was so loud and noisy," Steve said as he glanced over at Alex. She looked back at him. They were both confused. They wanted answers.

"Now why would I spoil the surprise?" Nightmare asked Steve and Alex, "but enough stalling. Shall we begin?"

"Who said we were stalling?" Steve questioned.

Nightmare scoffed and rolled her eyes. She laughed sarcastically. "He did," she said as she pointed down towards the ground.

The undisturbed snow began lifting up off of the ground. It began swirling around, rising a little higher as it did. Steve and Alex watched. As they focused their attention on the swirling snow, the snow began morphing together to form hands.

As the snow swirled, arms and legs began to form. Then a body and then a head. Once the full body of the blockhead was formed, the swirling snow fluttered back down onto the ground. Nightmare then clapped her hands once.

That's when the blockhead's true identity was finally revealed. It was Sedrick. Steve and Alex both gasped.

"Sedrick?" Alex said in a sympathetic tone, "you're alive?"

"That was an unexpected twist," Nightmare said.

Sedrick looked over at Steve and Alex. The expression he had on his face said "help me." He tried to speak to Steve and Alex, but couldn't. Nightmare wasn't allowing that.

She waved her hand around in the air, breaking the spell that was keeping Sedrick from talking. Once she had done that, he not only was able to speak again, but he wasn't being held against his will. He began running towards Steve and Alex.

"Help!" Sedrick shouted, "she's a mon—," he said as he suddenly fell to his knees. He grabbed his neck with one hand, while his other hand was on the ground.

"I'm sorry," Nightmare said, "we couldn't hear you."

Sedrick began gasping for air. He was choking. A yellow transparent band was seen glowing around his neck. Steve and Alex ran towards him to try and free him.

But they were stopped by a sudden bolt of lightning striking the ground only one block in front of them. Once the lightning bolt vanished, HeroBrine could be seen blocking them. He had his arms crossed as he shook his head.

Where the lightning bolt struck, the snow melted and the grass beneath the snow was charred. Steve and Alex looked over HeroBrine's shoulders at Sedrick.

"Let him go!" Alex shouted, "you're choking him!"

Nightmare wasn't budging. She was persistent in getting her point across to them. All they had to do….was listen. Steve and Alex looked up at Nightmare.

"Now that I have your attention, here's the deal," Nightmare said, "you either surrender and back down, or else your pathetic friend dies. Better make a decision fast. I don't think he has too much longer."

Steve and Alex looked at eachother. They could see the desperation in each other's eyes. They knew that if they gave up, the OverWorld would remain under Nightmare's control. But if they fight their friend Sedrick dies.

It didn't take them long to come up with a decision. They both looked away from each other and looked back up at her. But right before they could deliver their answer, a red orb came flying over them, striking Nightmare right in the chest.

Steve and Alex turned around. The only thing they could see was a female blockhead. She had brown hair, and was wearing a dark blue dress. The dress flapped around in the wind as she flew.

Nightmare yelped and went flying backwards, slamming into the side of the mountain. The mysterious female blockhead then formed another red orb in her left hand. She looked down and focused her sights on HeroBrine.

She lifted her arm back and then as hard as she could, threw the red orb at HeroBrine. But he was too quick. He narrowly escaped by vanishing into thin air.

"Go! Help your friend!" The female blockhead shouted, "I'll take care of them," she continued to say as HeroBrine suddenly appeared again on top of a small spruce tree.

"Who are you?" Steve shouted to the female blockhead. She was hovering just over them in midair. She looked down at them.

"The name's Leona," she said, "consider me an ally."

She then quickly flew away, leaving behind a transparent blue streak in the air. The blue streak slowly faded away. Steve and Alex both then looked back over at Sedrick. He was now lying flat on the ground on his stomach. They both ran over to him.

But before they could even touch him, his body sank into the ground. Steve tilted his head.

"Um," Steve said, "where'd he go?"

Steve looked all around. Where could his body could've gone? Alex had a strange feeling about this. Something wasn't right about this. It was quite strange that Sedrick's body would just sink into the ground like that.

"I'm right behind you," Sedrick's voice said. Steve and Alex quickly turned around. When they did, Sedrick was nowhere to be seen.

"Over here!" Sedrick shouted. Again, Steve and Alex looked in the direction where his voice was coming from.

"Stop playing games with us!" Alex snapped, "show yourself!"

"If you insist," a demonic, deep sounding voice said.

Suddenly a semi-transparent black entity flew right through Steve's body. Steve yelped. He began feeling all around his body to see if he was okay. Floating right in front of them was not Sedrick, no. It was an entity that shared very similar characteristics to Nightmare's appearance.

"What have you done to him?" Steve asked, demanding the entity to answer his question. His attitude was intimidating, but wasn't intimidating enough to scare this creepy entity away.

"We've already dealt with him," the entity said, "just like we'll deal with you two! Oh this is going to be so much fun. Who's up first?"

As for Nightmare, she opened her eyes. The hit she took from Leona wasn't enough to stop her from fighting her way to victory. Even though the hole in the side of the mountain was covered up by broken chunks of solid stone, she flew right through the stone and back outside.

She was hovering in midair. To her right, she could see Leona and HeroBrine flying around in the air fighting one another. Directly in front of her, on the ground she could see Steve and Alex.

Seems like everything was under control so far. Now it was time to cast the most powerful spell there was...the Awakening spell. Nightmare clapped her hands once. An old, very worn out, brown covered book appeared. She grabbed it.

After she had grabbed it, she opened the book and flipped to a particular page. The page she had turned to had the words necessary to cast the spell. She started mumbling the spell to herself as she raised his right hand. Her hand, instead of glowing yellow, was glowing a dark violet color.

"Creatures of the UnderWorld," Nightmare began to say as she read through the spell.

As Nightmare was casting the spell, the ground beneath Steve and Alex began shaking violently. Rumbling noises could be heard, as well as the trees' leaves rustling.

Flocks of birds began quickly emerging from their trees, quickly flying high up into the air. Loose rocks from the mountain side began to tumble down towards the ground.

Out of nowhere, loud cracking sounds could be heard. Nightmare glanced down at the ground and smiled.

"It's working," she said to herself as she quickly returned to reading the remaining sentence of the spell.

Once she had finished reading off the spell, she slammed the book shut. Now that the spell had been cast, all she had to do now was wait.

Because the ground was shaking violently, it made Steve and Alex's balance hard to maintain. The entity looked over at them and smiled evilly at Steve and Alex. He turned around and looked down at the ground. A large crack was beginning to form.

Because it was still dark, an eerie reddish-orange light was glowing. As the crack quickly grew bigger, Steve and Alex began taking a couple of steps backwards. It was now becoming apparent what was happening.

Once the crack was wide enough, a big grey ghost looking creature flew up and out of the ground. The creature had six long grey tentacles. It's eyes were a spooky red color. It suddenly opened its mouth, and out came a flaming hot fireball.

The fireball flew down towards Steve and Alex. Before the fireball could hit them, they both leaped out of the way. The two of them landed flat on their stomachs, still holding their swords in one hand.

Steve and Alex quickly got back up onto their feet. Once they regained their footing, they saw that there were more scary creatures rising up from the ground. A pig's head on a blockhead's body. It was carrying a golden sword. They were Piglin's. The hostile, territorial creatures that wreaked havoc on blockheads who visited the NetherWorld.

"Um...Alex?" Steve said.

"Yeah?" Alex responded.

"How are we supposed to go up against those creatures? We can't fight them by ourselves," Steve mentioned.

"We at least have to try," Alex said, "we owe that much to the OverWorld. If we lose, then so be it. The only thing that matters is that we tried."

Kingdom of the Plains

Plains Biome, OverWorld

Present Day

As Daniel turned to the next page, he instantly realized that there were some pages missing from the story. It had seemed as though someone had ripped them out. That was surely odd. Why would someone write a story, but not finish it? Or maybe it was finished.

Well, if one thing was for certain, it was that someone didn't want the story to be finished. But why? That really confused Daniel. He scratched his head and then closed the book. He set the book down on the small table next to him and his chair.

Daniel was alone in the tower of his Castle. All around the small room were bookshelves full of books. Every book had a different color. Blue, green, red and orange were some colors.

There was a single tall and narrow glass window, overlooking the entire Kingdom. At the center of the Kingdom, was a big statue of a female blockhead. The statue was holding a golden sword in its hand.

There were no blockheads by Petra's statue.

Daniel walked over to the window. He stood by the window, looking down at the statue of Petra. Looking at Petra's memorial statue brought back the haunting memory of losing her. Trying to forget that it ever happened was extremely hard.

Daniel stood in silence, contemplating on what he could've done differently to save her. If he could go back in time to change the future, he would. But unfortunately that wasn't possible. Or so he thought.

When Daniel blinked once and glanced down at the ground, he could see a female blockhead standing in front of the statue. To Daniel, she looked very familiar.

The female blockhead turned around all of a sudden. She looked directly up the tower Daniel was in. It was Petra. In her left hand, she was holding her absolute favorite weapon of all...her enchanted golden sword.

Petra just stared up at Daniel. She smiled at him. Daniel blinked his eyes once more. But when he looked back down at the statue, Petra was gone. Almost as if she was never there.

Daniel turned around and walked away from the window. Laying on the floor by his chair was his dog Max. Max suddenly started barking. He was looking over at the winding staircase. His constant barking got a hold of Daniel's attention.

When Daniel saw what Max was barking at, he walked on over to the staircase. There was someone walking up the stairs. It was Merlin.

Once Merlin got to the top of the stairs, Daniel greeted him. Merlin saw that the book he had given Daniel was resting on the table.

"I see you've finished the story," Merlin mentioned as he looked over at Daniel, "what'd you think?"

Daniel frowned. He wasn't able to finish reading the story because there were pages missing.

"I didn't finish the story," Daniel said, "the book is missing some pages. I was about halfway through the final chapter before I couldn't read any further. I have so many questions."

"Like?" Merlin asked, curious to know what questions he had on his mind.

"What ever happened to Steve and Alex? Did Nightmare somehow escape? Why was—," Daniel said as he paused talking. He had suddenly realized something.

"Answer this question first, would ya Merlin?" Daniel said.

"Okay," Merlin responded.

Daniel squinted his eyes as he stared at Merlin. He was tapping his chin repeatedly.

"Who are you...really?" Daniel asked, "I know you're not the Merlin from the story. So I'm going to ask this once more. Who...are...you?"

...To Be Continued…

...The End...