48 Old Friends
A.N. What do you call an emo with a flat chest?
...A chopping board.
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"How did you just stop my sword?" The blonde woman said as she raised a sharp brow at him, green eyes staring at him incredulously. As she tried to wrestle the blade out of his grip, she raised that eyebrow even further. "Have you imbibed a strength potion or something?"
"Nope." Steve replied to her as he gestured to himself. "See any particles?"
"...no, I don't." Kai said as she examined him. "It's not like you haven't stopped me before but still, you've never been able to do it so effortlessly and just show off like that."
"You want to try again?"
"Sure." Kai smiled as she saw the challenge in his eyes. Steve smirked as he pulled the sword around, taking her with it and threw her at a tree. Kai grinned as she triumphed at being able to fight Steve again after so long, though being able to throw her like that with tons of weight worth of armour made her question where this newfound physical might came from.
She turned in the air and landed with her feet on a tree trunk. She flexed her legs and her body blurred as she began jumping between the tree trunks, bounding from each to each like some super-sonic tree frog as she circled Steve with her bounds. But her eyes narrowed in confusion as she realized that Steve was not even following her movements, much less drawing out a weapon like he usually did.
She finally reached one tree that was stationed right behind him and she leapt off of it, her sword pointing to his spine as she aimed to impale him from behind. He still did not move his head, much less his body even as she got closer and for a moment, Kai was afraid of actually running him through. Even though they could respawn in this world, losing all your XP and your items sucked for everybody. Her fears were realized when she was close enough that she wouldn't be able to divert her attack anymore.
She watched in horror as her blade appeared to pierce the back of her returned friend and wailed internally at how crazy he was to just let her do that...until she herself somehow seemed to just phase through his body even though he was supposed to be standing there. As she passed through, his body suddenly disappeared. She stumbled and looked behind her, squinting her eyes in bewilderment as she tried to understand what had just happened.
'...was that an afterimage?' She wondered. She'd known Steve for over a century in Minecraft years. But NEVER had he possessed a speed like this. He'd outpaced and outclassed her before, as much as she prided herself on her speed, but he couldn't move so fast that she wouldn't even realise he'd left such a solid afterimage.
Her senses only barely registered a movement beside her before her body was suddenly flying through the air. In a split second, time seemed to slow down as she processed in that slowed down time how Steve was standing in her previous spot with his hand pushed out in her direction.
When had he got there? And when had he thrown her? These thoughts rushed through her head as her body sailed out of the orchard and towards one of the other houses. She smashed through a window, shattering the glass and landing in a perfectly tidy room with everything organised neatly. But her dramatic entrance knocked over much furniture as well as several spell books that were laid upon them. She sprawled out across the ground, her head spinning as she barely registered a hurried set of footsteps rush down the stairs and a dark skinned boy with curly hair in a pink shirt and cream pants ran into the room, grasping his hair and almost tearing it out in despair.
"KAI!" The boy yelled. "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!"
"Sorry Zuri." Kai said as she shook her head of the disorientation and got to her feet. "An old friend has come back...and I've a score to settle with him."
She jumped back out of the window and sprinted back in the direction of the orchard.
"Old friend?" The mage repeated in bewilderment as he saw where she was going. "Why's she going to the captain's house? Only Efe goes there these days..." Zuri's eye's widened.
He was cut off as powerful explosion rocked Steve's orchard and Kai's body went flying out again, her cheek looking to have what looked like a crater in it, as if she had been punched quite hard in the face. She went surfing through the dirt and came to a stop by the bell that was in the middle of their base. The bell rang with a shrill as Kai's body collided with it, prompting almost everybody's doors to fly open and people came rushing out of their houses to see what was going.
One person actually jumped over the wall with a hoe in his prosthetic arm, which was still covered in soil from his farming activities and he rushed over to the fallen Kai.
"What the hell is going on here?" Sunny yelled. "Can you for one moment stay still instead of just mucking around, Kai?"
"How is this my fault?" Kai asked.
"You're practically responsible for all the mishaps around here." Makena frowned down at her with her hands on her hips. "The only thing you're good for is fighting. The only person worse than you is Ari."
"Hey!" The brunette folded her arms. "I lay out those traps for monsters. If you're stupid enough to fall into them, that's a you problem."
"Guys." Noor said, while she stroked a striped cat in her arms. "Are we not going to address the fact that she was clearly attacked...INSIDE our base?"
"Oh yeah." Makena said as she looked back at Kai. "You didn't go and piss of Alex again did ya? ...Actually, you couldn't have because she's left to go monster farming with Efe. Ever since Steve left, she's been a bit ticky...but what exactly are you doing?"
"Errr, yeah, speaking of..." Kai as she looked back at the orchard, the others following her gaze.
Out from the shadows of the trees stepped out Steve with a smile on his face, a hand on one hip as he model-walked over to them. In his hand was his Netherite axe as he span it around like a pencil in his fingers. He flipped in the air and let it spin a few times before gripped it tightly. Makena raised her eyebrow as surprise overcame her face.
"Capt-"
"THINK FAST!" Steve yelled as he blurred in their sight and suddenly appeared in front of her, swinging the axe towards her side. While taken aback by his sudden approach, Makena was a seasoned fighter so as soon as he moved, she equipped her shield from her inventory and blocked the axe in time.
But though she expected herself to be able to withstand and tank the blow like she'd always done, to her surprise the strength behind his swing swept her off her feet even as she blocked it and she smashed into the wall. Everybody else was ready by now to engage, equipping their respective weapons and getting ready to fight. To them, this was normal for Steve. At times he would just completely instigate a fight and they would have to battle it out with him.
They simply saw it as him sharpening their skills. After all, they had only been in the Minecraft realms for about a century, while Alex had been there for over 700 years...and Steve had been there for over 1000 years. So he was far more experienced in combat than they were and their senior and superior in many things. All of them respected him as a ruler over the Realm.
Of course, this was just part of their flavour texts due to an ego trip Steve had while programming them. But could anybody challenge his claim to such a throne? Minecraft Steve had been in those realms longer than anyone else, and had seen the game evolve and go under many updates. All of these new players were children to him.
Sunny span his hoe like a Scythe and tried to sweep upwards towards Steve's jaws. Steve bent out of the way before, flipping, spinning on his hands and clipping his heel in the farmer's face. While doing so, he used the flat of his blade to swipe Zuri's legs out from underneath him as the boy tried chanting spells. Ari equipped an auto and pointed the barrel straight at Steve.
Bullets simply phased through an upside down after-image and Ari tried to jump back, anticipating him to try and grab her. But he grabbed the barrel of her gun and swung her up into the air. She ascended hundreds of feet into the sky like she weighed absolutely nothing and her brain did backflips as she became so puzzled at where this strength came from. Even with strength potions, they could not achieve this.
Noor released her cat, which morphed into a large tiger that was even bigger than Bathsheba. The tiger leapt at Steve with it claws outstretched but he grabbed it by its whisker sand repeatedly slammed it into the ground before swing it around and batting Noor aside as she pulled out a wand.
Kai blitzed forward again with her sword while Zuri put away his staff in favour of a spear. Both attacked him from either side. He unequipped his sword and grabbed both their Netherite weapons, the metals creaking under his grip which shocked the both of them. He began spinning on his heels, making them spin around like the propellers of a helicopter. Steve jumped as he let them go and they both went flying while at the same time he jack-hammered Ari into the ground as she descended at the right moment.
The ground shook a little as Makena returned, her sleeves pulled back with her fists clenched as she clearly intended to engage in a fist fight. She looked up as she waited for Steve to land but he just smiled at her and phased out of sight. She came to a screeching halt as she tilted her head in just the deepest confusion.
'He was mid-air! How did he move so fast?'
Makena knew very well by now what Steve looked like when he teleported but she knew for a fact that the way he disappeared indicated that that was not what he had done at all. That blur was created by clear physical movement. The only other way for him to move like that was if he were flying...but still, he couldn't fly that fast. Her martial artist senses detected him approaching her from behind and she punched backwards. Steve slipped under her fist and tried to uppercut her in the chin.
She caught his fist in her other hand and tried to bring her elbow down on the outside of his elbow so she could break the arm inwards. But instead, her own elbow felt like she'd just tried to elbow bedrock as his arm held fast. He smirked at her before punching her in the stomach with his free hand.
She bent over as spit flew out of her mouth while her eyes threatened to roll back.
The blow had been abnormally strong. Far too strong for even strength potions and there were no potion effect particles anyway to him. Never did she remember him ever being this physically strong and swift in her life. He grabbed her own arm and flipped her, body slamming her on the ground as he withdrew his axe again. For a moment she thought he might bring it down on her and while it would not be unusual for him to do so considering they killed each other all the time because they respawned at their beds anyway, it was uncharacteristic of him to do that quickly.
However, he threw it at Ari with such force that it completely cleaved her minigun in half and she was left with a useless wreck of a gun that just dissipated into particles because that one blow had taken out all of its durability. Steve flexed his hand and to their shock, the Axe came back to his hand, a barely tangible coil of energy between his palm and the axe handle bringing it back to him.
"How?!" Poor Zuri asked as Steve placed a foot on his chest and kept him from standing up. "Loyalty enchants don't go on axes!"
"A lot of things have changed in the time I have been gone." Steve said. "You lot will get to know soon enough."
"You bet we will!" Kai yelled as she flew towards him with a longsword this time. He blocked and locked her blade with his axe as she struggled against his strength. "What place did you go to for 7 years that it makes you attack us the moment you see us again?"
"YOU attacked me!" Steve said. "I was just going to my house."
"Kai!" Zuri yelled as he tried to lift Steve's foot off his chest. "I knew this was your fault!"
"DON'T BLAME ME!"
They were cut off from further conversing as Sunny came charging back with a War cry as he desperately tried to to cleave Steve in half.
"You tosser!" The farmer yelled as Steve slapped away his hoe. He then tried to punch with his prosthetic. Steve caught the metal arm though and with a quick squeeze, completely crunching the metal appendages in his grip. "What kind of freak have you become?"
"Nice to see you wankers again too." Steve beamed.
---
The struggle went on for a few more minutes as the houses rattled with the impact of each attack and dust fell off the walls. The ground tremored underfoot and scared away the domestic animals that Sunny had been taking care of. They stampeded towards the other side of the Great Basin and ran into a beautiful woman in green clothes with orange hair, followed closely by a small girl with purple hair and stylish clothes, and different to all the other players, instead of bandage wraps around her arms, she had several gold bracelets on.
They both watched as the animals rushed by them. They had no fear of losing the creatures because of the wall they'd built between the mountains. The animals would not be able to cross over but it did not take away from their confusion.
"What are those idiots doing now?" Alex hissed.
"They look to be having a fight." Efe said as she watched the blasts of smoke and dust clouds erupting from the camp. "But I've never seen them fight like this before."
"Neither have I." Alex said as she pulled her helmet further down on her head. "Which means when I get my hands on them, they are going to be a whole lot more sorry than they ever have been before."
Efe shivered as she heard Alex's tone. Whenever the older Minecrafter spoke in a tone like this, the end result would be pretty gruesome.
'When is Onii-chan coming back?' She though exasperatedly. 'Big sister Alex always calms down and is less scary whenever he's around to hold the reins.'
They both stalked towards the camp, ignoring some of the flying rubble that landed outside the walls. Alex had to side-step as a chimney crashed beside her and shattered into pieces.
"Have they lost their minds?!" Alex yelled. "Without Steve here, it takes a whole lot more effort to fix all of this!"
...
Nobody knew Minecraft Steve better than Minecraft Alex. While she loved this family with all her heart and would do anything to protect it, it went unsaid that she was closest to Steve of all of them. And that was simply because they had been adventuring together the longest.
She acknowledged Steve's superiority and greater experience over her. Steve had been in the Minecraft realms about 360 years before she suddenly appeared in these lands with no memory but her name. It was Steve who had showed her how to survive in this world and had showed her how to use her abilities. It was he who had led the whole thing and he who had explored the new and the unknown.
One usually failed to understand exactly how old Steve was. Even in the time she spent with him, she watched these lands evolve as new creatures entered it and new resources appeared. The more they travelled, the bigger the world became. And it had changed a lot since she herself began this great game. She couldn't imagine how much had changed for Steve...especially when he used to tell stories of...him.
And only about a hundred years ago did they meet the rest of these chumps who they had to teach everything they knew in order to get them to adapt to the lands they'd come to. But it would be undisputed that if from amongst them, a ruler had to be chosen seeing as they were the different creatures in these worlds, then it would be Steve.
And Alex had no doubt that Steve was indeed the king of Minecraft, because he'd always possessed these mysterious powers...such as being able to restore their headquarters to their previous condition no matter how much it was destroyed.
For these idiots to recklessly blow things up and start throwing parts of their houses around made her ears steam with anger.
Efe laughed nervously as she shifted her pack on her back before her nose picked up a very familiar scent, one she had committed to memory quite well. Transfixed by it, she dropped the pack, all the items and resources she'd collected spilling out onto the ground and contracting Alex's alert and attention as she eyed the little girl, half with extreme disappointment at the mess and half with concern over the glazed look that had suddenly come across Efe's face.
"Efe? Are you okay?" Alex asked.
"...He's here." Efe mumbled.
"What?"
The little girl said nothing as she rushed over to the mechanism that laid the bridge over the lava moat. Instead of waiting for the drawbridge to drop, the little girl started speed-bridging with blocks over the moat which served to drive Alex round the bend as she never liked Efe doing this over lava. The girl was sometimes too energetic and immature for her own good.
Alex shrugged and walked across the miniature bridge that Efe made and waited for the gates to the tall walls open as Efe hopped from one foot to another in excitement. Alex raised her eyebrow at this hyper behaviour before the gates fully opened. Once it was open, she assumed an angry scowl and marched straight in, ready to give the other six some really harsh tongue bashing.
But both she and Efe froze in place as they were greeted by the sight before them. The ground was absolutely destroyed in several places, with parts of the houses destroyed and small fires burning here and there. The paved stones were shattered or dug up, and the trees had been uprooted. The only houses that were untouched was that of Steve's, Alex's and Efe's. She was glad to see that those idiots knew their limits.
But in the middle of the chaos were her brothers and sisters sprawled out in the ground in a clear state of defeat after a loss at combat. The only one still standing was Kai, her armour missing in some places as she tightly gripped a sword. Wrapped tightly around her was a chain, the other end of which rested in the hands of a very familiar someone.
A very handsome face turned their way and fixated them with a brilliant toothy smile.
"Hello ladies. Missed me?" Steve asked them.
.
.
.
"ONIIIIIII-CHAAAAAAAN!" Tears flew from Efe's eyes as she dramatically cried and rushed forward with her arms held out.
Steve croaked suddenly as he remembered this particular part of her flavour text. But nevertheless, he yanked on the chain so Kai was pulled to the ground and incapacitated. He held his arms out as the little girl who was only a bit taller than Hestia smashed into his chest and clasped him tightly around the torso, deeply breathing in his scent as she bawled her eyes out.
"Hello Princess." He greeted his 'little sister'. "You missed me?"
"You were gone 7 years! Of course I missed you!" Efe cried as she hugged him even tighter.
He chuckled before looking at Alex. The orange haired girl stared at him with disbelief in her eyes, like she'd seen a ghost. Slowly she walked over to him, unsure if she was actually seeing things right. She got up right in his face and fixed him with a longing stare.
"Is that...actually you Steve?" She asked.
"Heya Lexy." Steve smiled at her as he put a hand on her shoulder. "You missed me?"
...
BANG!
Even though Steve saw it coming, he decided that perhaps it was the best thing if she just let it out now. So when a bandage wrapped fist smashed into his face, he said and did nothing.
"WHERE THE F*CK HAVE YOU BEEN?!!!" Alex thundered before she gasped as she registered the pain in her fist and she pulled it back, quickly unfolding the fingers as agony flared though her fingers and she shook her hand about to get rid of it. "And what the hell are you made of? You haven't been doing that weird thing where you eat metals again have you?"
'Is she talking about the block-eating mod?' Steve wondered.
"No actually." He said as everybody got up and dragged their way to be part of the conversation. "I have gotten a whole lot stronger...by more than just a lot."
"Why?" Kai asked as she rubbed her bruises. "We've stayed at the same level the whole time. You're not using those stupid unfair powers again are you?"
"No I'm not." Steve said. "You see, I've found...a new world, a world outside the Minecraft realms."
Their heads snapped in his direction as he said that.
"Huh?" Sunny said. "In the shadow realms? Beyond the Far Lands? You've been travelling there?"
"Way beyond what is on the other side of the Far Lands actually." Steve said. "There are entire universes out there to explore, and in one such dimension, I have found a new game system that has rapidly made me even stronger than before." Steve let go of Efe as he held his arms out. "And I want you all to come and join me!"
They simply stared at him in silence and he looked between them. It went on for so long, he expected to hear the sounds of crickets chirping. A portion of Zuri's house fell apart, causing them to snap out of it and the boy in question groaned.
"How about you fix up this whole place Steve since you wrecked it. and then we go inside and discuss this." Alex suggested, staring directly in his eyes, daring him to challenge her. "You have a WHOLE lot of explaining to do."
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