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For years the Entity has lived in darkness on the edge of creation, stealing fragments of more complete realities for its own world, Nexus. It has waited patiently, but now its desire to possess grows too strong and it readies to expand its dominion indefinitely.

At least, until recently. You see, a disparate gang of heroes has recently found itself stuck in Nexus by various means. Some, like the powerful wizard Astro, the heroic power-couple David and Destiny, and the Herobrine-slayer Tyron Dragoknight were actively abducted by the Entity from their various worlds as curiosities and potential chess-pieces. Yet others, such as the young, Herobrine-supporting General, Kay Mandy, or the Herobrine-slaying Steve Brine and Jennifer, interfered in the Entity's plans, and found themselves facing a far larger conspiracy than they'd ever imagined. Yet others, like the Farlands-dwelling sheep farmer, Fristad; the quarter-demon wizard and taco enthusiast, Warnado; and Fire, inhabitant of a Minecraft-based world created with technology ahead of its time, have found themselves in Nexus by random chance and happenstance.

Initially, rather turned around and confused, our those heroes not immediately captured accepted the Entity's hospitality and negotiated with it. But then they discovered the horrendous acts of kidnap and torture and murder the Entity has been conducting across the many worlds. The tipping point came when Kay discovered that Astro, a dear friend of his, was being held in wretched conditions by the Entity. This developed into a full escape attempt and then into an out-and-out battle. After surviving being trapped in an arena and an explosive confrontation with The Ender, the Entity's top captain, the new group of allies at last seem to have reached a lull and might be able to escape with their lives.

The Team:

The Tower:

Others:

I lost balance as my feet touched the floor of the great hall but in a second I was up on one knee, Apotyre raised and teeth bared fierce as any animal’s. The Ender and all her host had been here when we left and I wouldn’t let them try that trick with the colosseum again. But they were gone. The hallway was dim. Only friends remained. For the moment.

Exhaustion crashed into me like a wave and I felt the burns on my back and every other wound on my body. I didn’t both getting up fully and amused myself with the observation that my enemies all seemed to love throwing me into colosseums and death games. First Vechs via Vareide, now The Entity via his Grey Ones. It sure was a hell of a coincidence- Oh wait! The Grey Ones must have read up on me, probably thought they were being clever or something. A just revenge after “eleven years” stuck in my world. Ha! They could have done much worse than that!

Conceptually, I mean. The colosseum was genuinely horrifying. I’d wondered we would make it out of that one. The back of my obsidian chestplate still felt hot where the fireball had caught me, and the skin screeched beneath, as if a million suns had scorched my back. Or, was it where I’d caught the fireball? The pain was messing with me and I could no longer remember if that was a deliberate choice or whether I’d tried to flee and been struck down. Then I remembered who I’d been guarding.

“Astro!”

It felt like my ribs were reaching inward to grab at my heart and wrap their arms about it and make sure it was safe, like a mother guarding her young. My eyes leapt about the room to find the other survivors of the colosseum and our comrades who had been left here. Aside from Astro, I hadn’t known anyone there longer than a week.

It was hard to tell where everyone was. The room was dim and hot. Scorch-marks lined the floor and some walls and the air was still warm. Smoke had discoloured the ceiling. There had been an explosion.

My heart was released a little after I found the wizard at my foot. I’d started this breakout to free him. If he’d died… what would I tell Aaron and the others? Then again, I didn’t know this was the same Astro waiting for me on the border of the Vanilla Craft. We’d only been together for an hour but he seemed older, more cynical and he looked at me as if he knew something horrible that I didn’t.

Steve and Jennifer, the Herobrine-killers, were already up and about, scouting for the enemy. Steve, sword drawn, purple eyes sharp. Jennifer, red-haired and bow ready. Their armour was cracked from the fight - Steve was now barefoot - but they would fight until the last. I thought it was strange that, aside from the cracks, nothing had marked them. They were pristine when they should be caked with blood and soot and sand.

They marched up to join Amanda. Since we’d been teleported away, she had taken up a perch atop a statue of a strange, contorted creature with countless limbs, and who scanned the hallway with scowling eyes. Her crossbow sat in her hands, like an attack dog on a leash.

And of course, Fristad, my saviour. He kept grabbing at the purple-glassed goggles, making they were on tight. He offered me a hand to get to my feet, acting very concerned, but I didn’t buy it. He was hiding something. Anyone who transforms into an Endling at random is not to be trusted. Endlings aren’t to be trusted. Period. I didn’t take his hand, struggled up on my own.

On my feet at last, I turned to find the rest of our group. A pleasant sight did not greet me.

Tyron, the gigantic green furball was acting all jittery and grumbling to himself, probably addressing Kir, his sword. That wasn’t a crazy thing. The sword was sentient - something from their world called “Bluestone”. The only abnormal thing about this was that he was talking aloud. I heard him mention “Freak” and became wary. He could appear at any moment. I also felt a pang of pity. This creature was another Herobrine-killer, said to be a great hero, and now he was ready to stab shadows in the hope of gaining revenge on his torturer.

But there was a more pressing issue. David lay sideways against a castle wall, the floor in front of him blackened as if he had been propelled by a blast. The arm which once wielded his gauntlet was now a mangled stump hanging over his blood-covered abdomen. Destiny stood crouched beside him, holding a hand comfortingly to his cheek. Her ponytail had been cut loose, and the ends of her brown hair were singed, embers grow at the far end.

“Notch, what happened to him?” asked Fristad.

“His gauntlet exploded,” said Warnado, whose arm was wrapped around Amanda. It was hard to tell beneath the darkness of his hood, but his eyes seemed to widen in awe and confusion. “It fired the biggest deadly green ball of lightning I’ve ever seen. It was amazing but I can’t actually believe we’re all still alive.”

“It only killed some of the endermen,” warned Destiny in heartbroken monotone. “The rest teleported away. More will come.”

“All the more reason to get the heck out of here as soon as possible,” said Fristad. “Carry him over here and we’ll teleport out of this place.”

Tyron offered to carry the fallen David. I tried to carry Astro but my burns made it pointless. Fristad and Steve ended up doing it. I sincerely wished Fire was there. The absolute size of that one! He could’ve carried both of them. At least an Ending wouldn’t have been carrying my friend. But he was nowhere to be seen.

Then, our newly united group converged on Fristad and vanished into a dimensional rift.

When they appeared in another space, they were in the familiar room of crowded and stacked furniture. Fristad stumbled, as if dizzy.

“I’m sorry, guys,” Fristad groaned between labored breaths. “This is as far as I can go. The strain of teleporting so many people is becoming too much for me.”

“It’s alright, Fristad,” Steve reassured him. “I recognize this place. The exit to the tower isn’t far from here.”

Our motley gang of the battle-weary, the disarmed, and the gravely injured walked as fast as it could. Considering we had two limp bodies in tow, we made good time.

After several hallways and another two flights of stairs, a large, red carpeted entryway and a double door would have been all that stood between us and freedom… if we had have been alone.

Instead, a half dozen armed guards stood along the edges of the carpet, pulling their swords from their sheaths and bows from their backs as they turned to face the attempting escapees.

Then, Warnado reached into his hood and tossed a cylindrical metallic object without warning and screamed, “FLASH OUT!!!”

Then, a white flash and explosion blinded and deafened almost everybody including half of the escapees. Luckily, the other half of the escapees were not blinded and also none of them were deaf, allowing them to slowly make their way to the exit while the guards groaned with their eyes shut and hands pressed against their ears.

The double door was pushed open, and finally the crew breathed the sweet and pure night forest air.

“Thanks for that, Warnado,” I said. “If it weren’t for that metal canister of yours, we’d probably all be dead.” I paused in thought. “Say, can you get more of those? Seems like they’d be quite useful to have around.”

Warnado didn’t answer and instead asked: “By the way, do any of you know what ‘FLASH OUT!!!’ actually means? Because I don’t.”

I rolled my eyes and took that as a “maybe, but I prefer you not knowing”. I laughed a little. He was a weird kid, but I liked his style.

“We should get going,” said Jennifer. “The sooner we get as far away as possible from the Tower, the sooner we can treat Astro and David’s wounds. And the sooner we can all meet up with Fire in the village alive.”

Jennifer stopped for a moment to stop David’s bleeding with some extra leather she had on hand, then she scouted ahead into the shadows of the forest. The rest followed behind, always careful not to leave more tracks than they had to. Traveling at night was perilous business, with the skeletons eyeing for easy targets and creepers potentially lurking around every corner. Luckily, Amanda and Destiny still had ammo to spare, and the rest were in good enough shape to fight the occasional monster. The group took turns carrying the fallen Astro and David.

Nighttime turned to dawn, Fristad transformed into a human again, and the group came to stop at a place where the tower was long gone from sight, and forest obscured the horizon all around them, leaving no sense of direction except the leaf-screened sun above.

“We don’t have nighttime cover anymore,” reasoned Jennifer. “This is probably the best time to set up camp underground.”

“Did you just say, ‘underground’?” Kay asked with confusion.

“Yes. We are going to build an eleven meter by eleven meter underground living space a few meters beneath the dirt,” explained Jennifer.

“We don’t have time for that nonsense!” Kay said. “We have two injured men in desperate need of treatment, and any hour now the Entity’s henchmen could come looking for us!”

“Don’t you realize we’ve thought that through?” Steve snapped. “It’ll take us a few minutes to build the shelter. I don’t know what block physics and inventory size are like in your world, but they certainly don’t apply here.”

“Okay…” Kay snuck a suspicious glance at the now-human Fristad, before glaring back at Steve. “My apologies if I’m skeptical. I do forget we’re all from different worlds.”

Fristad’s brows clenched in confusion, as he racked his brain for what he could have possibly have done to make Kay angry at him. Steve simply flashed a look of contempt at Kay for a moment before pulling a full-sized diamond shovel from his pocket and proceeding to jump into the dirt-floored staircase that Jennifer had just dug up.

A mere minutes later, Steve walked out of the staircase and beckoned the group inside. The pairs carrying Astro and David, and the rest following behind, walked single-file, first down a dirt staircase, then into a stone hallway, and finally into a barren, torchlit square room with stone and dirt walls.

“I’m going to seal the entrance with pistons,” announced Steve. “When I’m done, the staircase should be able to merge with the grass above with the flip of a lever. Need any medical supplies, Jen?”

“I should have enough,” she said, “but I think someone else should use them. We need to mine more resources.”

“Agreed,” replied Steve. “Any volunteers?”

“I can help dress the wounds,” offered Fristad.

“Your kind shouldn’t be anywhere near a body,” snarled Kay, wincing from his burns.

“What is your problem, Kay?” Fristad turned to face Kay, visibly angry for the first time. “If you have something to say to me, then just say it!”

“I would simply prefer that the wounds be dressed by someone else,” said Kay. “And I am more than willing to do it myself.”

“You don’t trust me,” concluded Fristad, regaining his composure. “You’re worried I’ll hurt you and… your friend. I get it.” Fristad turned to face Destiny, who stared listlessly at the injured David. “Do you want my help?”

Destiny nodded silently.

Jennifer placed chests with supplies, crafting tables, furnaces, and beds throughout the room. She then dug the first stone steps of a downward stairwell in the side of the underground room.

Warnado followed behind her and watched expectantly. “You’re digging a tunnel down into a potentially large and dangerous cave system? Sounds like fun! Mind if I join you?” Without waiting for a response, Warnado conjured a ghostly pickaxe. Amanda soon followed behind.

“I’ll stay here,” Tyron offered.

“Sounds like a good idea,” said Steve, as he pulled down the lever on his finished redstone contraption. In a chorus of hydraulic chugs and scratching stone, the grass staircase lifted and became a wall of pistons, blocking off the light from above.

Steve reached into his magically deep pocket and pulled out a square metal object the size of his hand with a rod sticking out of it. He handed it to Tyron.

“This radio will allow you to communicate with Jennifer and I,” said Steve. “All you have to do is press this button and talk into it. Keep us informed. Do you have a clock?”

“No.”

Steve rummaged his pocket again, pulled out a clock, and placed the clock in Tyron’s remaining large fuzzy palm. “We’ll be back before noon.”

It was a bit after midnight when Peter sat back down at his computer, he had spent the last fifteen minutes eating and drinking, he couldn’t afford to take longer, time on the server passed a lot more quickly than in the real world. He didn’t even want to speculate on how long it had been in Nexus. Longer? Shorter?

After a deep breath Peter laid his hands down, one on the keyboard and one on the mouse. As he clicked the server’s address a numb feeling crawled up his fingers, quickly spread through his arms and finally reached his head. Peter’s eyes closed.

A second later Fire’s eyes opened, they were not green like their counterparts in the real world, they were entirely red and emitted a faint light. These eyes were framed by black, shimmering scales. Not everything was completely different though, Fire’s short hair resembled that of Peter, the only difference being that it was completely white. While Peter was by no means short, Fire was still taller by half.

Fire shook his head, transitioning between the real world and the server had always been a transformation, from Peter to Fire, from human to Mencur-Besh. Though as he thought more on it, with what he had seen in the last days he wasn’t so sure how real or how imaginary each of his worlds really were.

Fire’s sister Shadow had been waiting for him on the server. She looked different from Fire yet at the same time they shared some patterns. For example Shadow too had red eyes and black skin, though hers was still the human variety as opposed to Fire’s scales. Her hair was white as well, but very long. She also was very short compared to Fire, and, to be fair, compared to a lot of people in the real world.

“Ready to pack the bags?” she asked.

Fire nodded.

In reality ‘packing the bags’ was a gross understatement for what the two did in the next two days, they turned their storage rooms inside out in search for the most spacious enchanted bags they had. They packed thousands of building blocks of many varieties, though also copious quantities of food, this time not limited to dried and salted meat since they could magically preserve what they took with them.

Fire also got to work on emptying tanks of potions into flasks and brewing new potions where he had nothing stored. The potions were large in variety, basic potions like healing or speed were there in large quantities but he also took more exotic things like contact narcotics, you never knew. Fire also crafted and enchanted several Ender Eyes, he had something special in mind with those.

On the day of their departure they picked out their weapons, Fire’s armory offered no small choice. The halberd he had obtained in Nexus would remain in his base, while it definitely was a fine piece of smithing, it couldn’t compare to his own best weapons.

At the very back of his armory was a display case that housed exactly one weapon of each type, the exception being daggers, which came in a set of two. The weapons on display here were no ordinary steel weapons either, they were made entirely from diamond. While their crystalline nature made them beautiful in its own right, the weapons were otherwise plain and without decorations, above everything else they were functional. On the server making diamond weapons was no easy task, it took years for them to crystallize and without the right technique they would be worthless. The weapons he had here were mastercrafted; he had had a hand in their creation himself. Not just the weapons themselves were of the highest quality but also their enchantments. They didn’t need further magical sharpening, they could split rocks easily on their own, though when looking more closely at the blue crystal a faint dark red glow was visible. A black flame lived inside those weapons that would latch onto anything cut and burn out its life force; akin to a deadlier and more persistent Fire Aspect enchantment.

Fire opened the display case slowly. “Didn’t think I would ever use those. But with the stakes being what they are I’d say we’re all-in here.”

He took a sword, a mace, two daggers and finally a halberd. Shadow didn’t need much in the way of weapons, she was an ascended mage. She wordlessly took the last object in the case, a smooth red-golden ball of metal. As her fingers touched it it seemingly liquefied and slithered up Shadow’s hand, then manifested again as an arm band.

The armor Fire chose was made of a dark metal, called firesteel. It was a combination of high quality steel, obsidian and blaze powder that needed to be woven in specialized forges. The resulting armor was light, flexible and highly protective.

As they were leaving Shadow also took several pieces of enchanted jewelry, those were intended to serve as large reservoirs of life force she could use to cast spells.

The bags they had packed on the day before were now bundled to a backpack that Fire put on over his armor. Some of the bags were also in their inventories, since Fire had confirmed those would work in Nexus as well.

The two siblings walked down the stone corridor side by side, they said nothing until they reached the elevator that would take them out of the base.

Fire double checked his bags and inventory. “So, we have everything?”

Shadow said: “We should.”

They stepped onto the elevator and slowly started rising upwards. Once they reached the top, they stepped out of the tiny wooden hut that disguised the entrance to the base, Fire in a crouched position.

Shadow said: “I can take us directly to the first tunnel, a two-person teleport is manageable. It was near Drysprings, right?”

Fire gave her thumbs up.

Shadow took a deep breath and concentrated, white glowing runes appeared on her skin while she gathered up the life force for her spell. Those runes were one part of what made her an ascended mage. A few moments later Fire felt a violent jolt, suddenly they weren’t standing in the jungle anymore, they now were only a few steps away from the tunnel.

Fire routinely checked if everything was still where it belonged, both in the sense of luggage and body parts. Shadow was a very capable mage, but you could never be too sure with teleports. After coming to the conclusion that everything indeed was where it was supposed to be he moved towards the tunnel.

Shadow asked: “This is where it is?”

Fire answered: “Yes, you might be able to feel a slight energy flow. Just give it a bit more power and it’ll open.”

After a short flare-up of Shadow’s runes, the dimensional rift was made clearly visible, she had much more power at her disposal than Fire had when he was world hopping.

“Hold on, let me try something…” Fire muttered.

He took one of the Ender Eyes he had enchanted from a bag and carefully moved it towards the top of the tunnel, it started slowly floating into it and then disappeared.

“We’ll see if it worked when we’re on the other side.”

Fire went first, Shadow followed right after. They emerged at a familiar place, to Fire at least. They were in the middle of a plains biome, exactly where Fire had entered the tunnel when he was on his way home. So the tunnels were consistent, at least this one was. He also noticed, very much to his satisfaction, that he was still connected to the Mencur-Besh’s mental network. It had worked, the Ender Eye he placed in the tunnel got stuck between the worlds and was now acting as a transmitter. He would now have to place an Eye in each tunnel all the way to Nexus. That way he could still be connected to his own world to see if anything changed there. That and in an absolute emergency he would be able to call for help.

Shadow looked around. “So there really is more out there…”

Fire nodded. “You can imagine what I felt like when I discovered that Nexus was not the work of the admins.”

They started walking, there was still quite a journey ahead of them.

“Stay still, Kay,” insisted Tyron, applying some bandages to his back.

“You’re squeezing half the air out of my chest!” Kay muttered. “Lighten your grip a little…”

“Sorry, is that better?”

“Yes, now can we please get this over with and tend to Astro’s wounds?”

“Please stop yelling,” said Fristad.

Fristad and Destiny were both preoccupied physically and emotionally. Destiny was more visibly reserved, staring sadly as she brushed a wet cloth across David’s gaping wounds. Fristad, meanwhile, seemed to be in pain, perhaps even afraid, despite having no emotional connection to the stranger he tended to, and despite having no wounds from the deadly escape attempt.

In time, the wounds of the incapacitated David and Astro were cleaned and dressed. Destiny held her hand on David’s good shoulder. His face was unusually pale.

“I can only speak for myself, but I think the overnight journey from the tower has taken its toll on us,” said Fristad. “There’s no point in us all staying awake at once. We have a long journey ahead of us tonight.”

“I agree,” said Tyron. “Personally, I could use some food right about now. Assuming there’s enough to go around...”

“Knowing what I know now about Steve and Jennifer, I wouldn’t be surprised if we had lots,” said Fristad.

Tyron opened the chests one by one. “You guessed correctly.”

Tyron pulled out four large steaks from the chests. They were passed around between the four of the awake comrades and they began to take bites out of it, Tyron simply chomping away with his razor-like teeth. Kay and Fristad shared a startled look before Kay’s brow furrowed confrontationally again.

Fristad and Destiny ate the meat calmly, but Kay was tentative, surveying the group with a mixture of sadness and suspicion. At least in part this was due to the lack of obvious cutlery. However, after three false starts he did begin to chew away like the rest. He was startled; it was damn good stuff.

“Wow,” He laughed. “This is so much better than what I’m used to! I’ll have to compliment them when they come back.”

“You must have low standards,” remarked Fristad, surprised.

Kay seemed to forget who he was talking to for a moment: “I won’t deny that. Last thing I really ate was something Fire prepared that must’ve had a cliff-face worth of salt in it. Aside from that I usually eat his cooking, and that’s possibly worse.” He gestured to the sleeping Astro, who rolled over as if on queue.

Fristad chuckled at this. “Well then, we’ll have to fix that!”

Kay smiled ruefully, evidently remembering his prejudices somewhat. “We shall, once these guys are safe.”

“Agreed,” said Fristad.

Once he finished his steak, Fristad’s expression suddenly turned sour. “I… really need to get some sleep. Who’s staying up?”

“I will,” said Tyron.

“I’ll stay awake a while,” Kay agreed, looking around for his armour and the other pieces of clothing he’d taken off in the process. “I’m burned but I’ve been long dead if I can’t fight in this condition. I’ll give you some company for the first leg at least.”

Fristad looked toward Destiny, with a look of sadness and sincerity in his eyes. “I think you should sleep too. Emotions take their toll. More than we like to admit.”

She nodded, face empty and eyelids drooping. She stood up and walked over to David, to whom she, cat-like, curled up. A few moments later she was asleep.

Fristad walked slowly towards the beds on the other side of the room, seemingly reluctant to sleep in spite of his tiredness. As he slid under one of the red covers, he lay with his eyes open for a while, before closing his eyes with a sigh.

On my feet at last, I turned to find the rest of our group. A pleasant sight did not greet me.

Tyron, the gigantic green furball was acting all jittery and grumbling to himself, probably addressing Kir, his sword. That wasn’t a crazy thing. The sword was sentient - something from their world called “Bluestone”. The only abnormal thing about this was that he was talking aloud. I heard him mention “Freak” and became wary. He could appear at any moment. I also felt a pang of pity. This creature was another Herobrine-killer, said to be a great hero, and now he was ready to stab shadows in the hope of gaining revenge on his torturer.

But there was a more pressing issue. David lay sideways against a castle wall, the floor in front of him blackened as if he had been propelled by a blast. The arm which once wielded his gauntlet was now a mangled stump hanging over his blood-covered abdomen. Destiny stood crouched beside him, holding a hand comfortingly to his cheek. Her ponytail had been cut loose, and the ends of her brown hair were singed, embers grow at the far end.