Chapter 6

"What's the situation, Tommy?" I ask. The citizens of L'Manburg stand in the van that started it all. Everyone has mix-matched armour, some strong, some weak. Some made and some stolen. Tubbo and Jack are not present, they are in the back room of the van.

"Well," Tommy stutters, "They have us surrounded, on the walls with bows. Tubbo and I have been shot at, Tubbo has a gash on his leg from one of the bastards." Tommy is obviously aggravated, no one hurts his Tubbo.

I look out the window only to witness an arrow, on fire, hurtling towards me. It bounces off the glass, scratching it and confirming Tommy's assessment. I sigh and rub the bridge of my nose; the war has just started, and we've already been pinned down.

"Any ideas, Will?" Eret questions, mouth screwed up from worry. I think, obviously we can't out gun them. They have the high ground. They have strong fighters. They even have canons. We need a different approach.

"One." I concede. Then against the better judgement of my friends, I open the door and walk out my hands up in surrender. An arrow whizzes at my feet,

"Sapnap!" I hear Dream chide. I breathe in, to project my voice,

"Hello gentlemen," I call, "How are you?"

"Good." Dream calls back.

"How is the view of our gorgeous nation?" I ask, then not waiting for a response, "Listen, I know we are pinned down. But we will meet you in the field, on our own terms."

"Are you in any position to negotiate?" Sapnap yells, incredulous that I would be asking such a thing.

"No good fight starts with a pre-determined winner and loser." I say smugly. None of them can turn away from a good fight, a show of their own strength. I see Dream and George nod at each other,

"Meet at the plateau, in front of Tommy's house." George calls from my right, on the wall. I nod and turn back and walk up the steps into the van. I hear another arrow whizz behind me and Dream scolding Punz.

"So, you heard the man, to the plateau." I say, "Everyone ready?"

I see multiple nods and Tubbo walk out of the back room, a bandage around his left thigh and slightly limping, Jack close behind.

"Here." Tommy says, passing me a set of iron armour, with a diamond chest plate. I look at it and reluctantly put it on over my L'Manburg outfit. It's heavy and unfamiliar on my body.

We march as a group to the plateau, up the treacherous hill that I hadn't climbed up recently because I had spent all my time in L'Manburg. The group makes jokes on the way, to alleviate the stress of the danger we make our way toward.

Once we reach the plateau, I notice the lack of enemies. I hear murmuring within the group and that's when I notice the first of two bad things. One, our foes were slightly off to our left, in a tower that Tommy had built a while ago to 'assert dominance', which meant that they once again had the high ground. The second bad thing was the fact that each and every one of them had a bow in their hands, glimmering purple in the sunlight. Which meant that they were enchanted.

I scanned the group, there was only two bows between the seven of us and they were only normal. Who knew what was on the opponents bows? Would they hurt more, pack more punch, or set us alight on contact?

That's when the rain of arrows began.

"In Tommy's house!" I yell. We run there, tripping over each other and dodging arrows to the best of our ability. In the house I bark orders at the people around me. For covering fire, a blockade at the door and for someone to bandage Eret's newly wounded arm.

Tommy and Tubbo begin to give cover fire, but the arrows don't reach the tower.

"I'm too old for this, Fundy," I mutter to my son, looking down at my hands. My son looks up at me and grins,

"You're a fossil, dad." I chuckle, glad I have such an amazing son.

"To the sewers!" I hear Tommy yell, an arrow missing his head by an inch and lodging itself into the wall behind him. Everyone scrambles to the hole in the floor with ladder leading to the sewers that spread out under the city like roots. Tommy leads the way down the ladder, Niki not far behind.

"Men!" I roar, "Get back up here! We are not done; we will not retreat!"

Tommy slowly comes back up the ladder, shame written on his face.

"We will rush them, people without bows are distractions, draw their fire." I say. I look around at the terrified faces and count down from three. At the end of the countdown, we all rush out into the clearing. The arrows come down and I dodge and weave. Arrows fly up at them, now that Tommy and Tubbo could get closer they could start to hit things.

I throw myself in front of Tubbo, arrow bouncing off my diamond chest plate, leaving me winded.

"Will!" Tubbo cries, looking down at me. His bow drops and he is wide open to an attack. I reach out to warn him and then realise that no more arrows are being shot. Looking up I catch a glimpse of a white mask before Dream disappears from the tower. They had all ender pearled away, down the opposite side of the hill of L'Manburg.

Eret runs out with a new bow in hand, quickly passing it to Niki to shoot. Niki yells at the other two archers to get to the edge of the plateau, to shoot at the retreating figures of our foes.

"I'm running out of arrows!" Tommy informs, Tubbo agrees.

"Well, we have to chase them!" Fundy says. It was obvious to him, allowing the enemy to escape was not an option for him. I nod in agreeance and after we recuperate and split resources, we follow the silhouettes of our enemy, towards the two tallest towers in the land. Punz's tower and Eret's.

At the towers we climb to the vertical halfway point. The wind's strong up here, the archers might have a harder time shooting. We look over at the other tower, the enemy is nowhere to be seen.

"Down there!" Jack cries. We all look down and see a handful of men in a group, trying to shoot their arrows up to us in the tower. Why wouldn't they just climb Punz's tower?

"We're too high up!" Tommy and Tubbo yell in harmony. We begin to rain arrows on them, even unenchanted arrows can have a big impact if they're at terminal velocity. The opposition has to swap bows for shields to defend themselves against the wall of arrows descending on them.

I watch our archers aim their bows with extreme concentration, like everyone else had disappeared. I also watch as Tommy tries to grab another arrow to only grasp at nothing, his quill was empty. This was replicated in Tubbo's and Niki's quills. I looked down and the opponents were once again running, back towards the hill with Tommy's house atop it.

"We can't chase them any longer, our resources are limited. We must go back to L'Manburg to restock, this is going to take everything we have." I dictate, looking around at the faces of my family.

"And get trapped again?" Tommy shouts, pointing angrily at our walls surrounding our nation.

"Actually gentlemen," Eret pipes up, still clutching his bleeding arm, "I have a secret weapon."

"What do you mean?" Tubbo asks, looking up at the tall man.

"Come with me." Eret says calmly, heading back down the tower. He leads us back to L'Manburg, going through the entrance of the walls. I immediately relax once we are in these walls, I feel safe, but I see many people tense up at the thought of being pinned down again.

Instead of going to the van Eret leads us to a small mound near one of the edges in the walls. He looks back briefly, grinning and then turns back to the mound and lifts the grass and topsoil, revealing a flight of stairs leading into the darkness. As Eret descends I follow right behind him, curious. The gasps of disbelief and murmuring of excitement echo down the steps.

We reach the bottom of the stairs and reach a dimly lit room, made of the same Blackstone from the Nether we use for the walls. A bunch of chests line the wall, mine being against the far wall on its own.

"I did a little collecting while everyone was building the walls…" Eret says. I walk to my chest. Above my chest is a button, sat snugly in the wall. Should I press it? I open the wooden chest with the sign 'Wilbur Soot' hung on it and look inside. It's empty.

"Down with the revolution boys," I hear Eret say, reaching over my head and pressing the button. All at once four secret doors open and the Dream SMP pour in, swords raised and grinning. Then I hear Eret say in a quieter tone, said specifically to me,

"It was never meant to be."