9 Chapter 9

"Ha! Gotcha!!" Madelyn shouted right after a snowball splatted into my face, momentarily blinding me.

"What?! No fair!" I laughed as I readied a snowball. Inside the dining room, everyone had set up a sweet battle arena, basically just blocks of all kinds scattered around the place, and filled chests full of snowballs. And I was in the middle of an intense snowball fight. Everyone was targeting me because I was the adult in the game. That tends to happen in games like this. Teddy giggled from behind some gravel and I saw a snowball fly from behind it right in the center of my chest. 'How on earth could he aim so well without even seeing me?!'

The lucky thing was that in the little game I had figured out my whole glowing eyes situation. Now it seemed they only glowed while using my powers. Like when I flew up into the air to get Sebastian from behind. And when I turned invisible when Teddy jumped from behind some dirt and startled me. And the rest of the time my eyes were how they used to be when I was just a little kid.

"Surprise attack!" Sebastian said from behind as he jumped out and threw a snowball at me. I jumped out of the way just in time and swung around to return the attack. Luckily I was decently known for my aim, but, the snowball just barely grazed his hair. So close! "Ha!" Sebastian ran off to refill on ammo.

After our little snowball fight, everyone panted with big smiles on their faces as we all sat down to take a break. 'Come in and clean up.' I gave a command to the mobs with my mind. Then several zombies came in and started cleaning up the obstacles we had all set up. I watched Teddy cower away from the mobs in fear. He was right next to me so I just scooped him up and held him in my lap.

"It's alright Teddy. The mobs under my command don't hurt anyone. I have made sure of that." I said to calm him. Teddy turned and hugged me as if saying thanks.

"How come you can't just control all of them?" Sebastian asked.

"There are MILLIONS of mobs. It would take all my energy to control them all for just one month. It's a lot harder than you might think to keep constant command over these monsters.

"Then what about Fred?" Madelyn in turn asked. "Fred doesn't act like the other mobs. He seems to have more of a free will. Why is that?" She was very smart for asking. Even I didn't know his whole story.

"Um.. Not sure. All I really know about him was that he just showed up one day and asked to help me. I never really asked him why he was so different from the other mobs. I guess I just never cared before." I said.

"It is actually quite simple." Fred's voice suddenly spoke from further away in the room. None of us even knew he was there. "You see, I come from another world entirely where the mobs are much smarter. It was a long time ago, but I believe the world was called Lodorr." He explained. "One day I was offered a job to work for the legend Herobrine by some world-warper. I always had a desire to work for such a well-known legend, good or bad, I didn't care at the time. So I agreed and left my homeworld, and ended up here." He explained.

"..Wow. Really?. I had no idea." I said.

"And I never planned on telling you either. But I figured now would be a good time since it was the topic of the matter." He told us all...

Then.. suddenly.. Like a nightmare creeping into a happy dream, I remembered what my mission had been. And I still needed to go through with it. But, my life. It was no longer filled with me laying around hoping the world would end already. I had new hope.. An almost new life. New people to care about. I was, different. I was my old old self again. The me before I even became evil. I was finally happy.. But I knew I still had to fix everything. I had still done so much. I had ruined these kids' lives. I needed to fix everything. Like that dream had said: 'FIX IT.'

And how could I without finishing that time machine?

"Excuse me." I said quietly and in a half-sad state when I picked Teddy up off my lap and set him down on the floor. Everyone saw my change in face and looked at me curiously. I stood up and began walking away.

"Where are you going, Papy?" Teddy asked me curiously. I stopped mid-step and looked as if his innocent little question had hurt me somehow. Then I turned slowly around to look at him with a hurt look.

"Going to finish the job I started.." I sighed. I could feel my eyes had changed to a dull glowing grey as I looked back at the three kids. Everyone looked confused. But then I saw Sebastian's face change to, worried maybe, as he looked back at me. He mouthed 'no' to himself. And I teleported away back to my lab. They would be forgetting me anyways.. It was for the best...