Withering Heights- Part 1: An End

Note: This story contains scenes of violence, and content from Minecraft. If you are offended by any of this content, please turn back now.
===Chapter 1: A Strange Visitor===
Pete woke up when the moon was still high in the sky. The village was well lit up, and nothing had appeared for months. So the rattle outside the building took him by surprise, and his head turned to the door. Nothing there. But he knew he had heard something. Ignore it, he thought. It's just another skeleton. Steve can deal with it whenever he comes around. Steve was practically a god. He had conquered most of two entire dimensions, and was the one who had come and saved the village from a zombie siege. Ironstand, it was called, because of the large iron towers that Steve had built for the villagers to live in.
But if that sound had been just another lone skeleton, Pete thought, why had it woken him up? Why had it been so startling? So he used the Redstone elevator Steve had built to get up to the top of building. From out the window, he could see the whole village. It had progressed a lot since its early days, and it now had tall concrete and iron buildings, and the latest Redstone technology. Pete looked down, looking for the source of the rattling sound that he now heard again. He looked for several minutes, staring down, until he saw something by the door. He ran down to get a better view, and since the door had windows, he looked through it.
It was a Skeleton, all right, but not any skeleton. A tall, black skeleton holding a stone sword that seemed to glow a blackish glow in the moonlight. 
Steve needed to see this. Pete had memorized all the known animals and monsters in the world he knew, and nothing like that existed. 
Steve would know, he reassured himself. There are few things he doesn't know. 
Pete didn't go back to sleep, but just waited inside until the sun rose. In the morning, nothing was there, and all that was left was a black bone half buried in the sand.
===Chapter 2: A Terrible Fortress===
Steve got up in a jail cell. He was in a small room built with nether brick, Blackstone, and iron bars. When he looked through the bars, he saw a long corridor with a crimson door at the end. He couldn't quite remember what happened, but he knew he wasn't in a nether fortress or bastion remnant. Steve waited. And waited. And waited. 
Until it all came back to him. He had been exploring a strange-looking basalt deltas, and had stumbled upon what he thought was a nether fortress. However, it was also built with Blackstone and crimson wood. He had found a large horde of wither skeletons, and had fought them off until they had overwhelmed him, stealing everything he had and knocking him out. 
Steve examined himself. All he had was a wooden sword, and an egg. He tried breaking the nether brick, but all he had was a sword, which he couldn't use. He saved both the sword and the egg, just in case they had some secret meaning. 
An hour had passed when he heard footsteps and saw a wither skeleton holding his enchanted netherite sword. It stopped by his cell, and looked at Steve. 
"Where am I?" He asked the skeleton. 
"You need not know that." It rattled.
"Seriously," Steve said. "Where am I!" He slashed at it with his sword through the iron bars. 
"That's your cue," the wither skeleton said to someone at his side.
Suddenly, a fireball was sent hurtling through the bars, and hit Steve in the chest. 
Steve waited to die, knowing he would respawn safely back in the Overworld, but the moment never came.
"We are more powerful than you think," the blaze said in a strange, firey sounding voice. "Soon, we will come to your world. The piglins have been scattered, so the Nether is already ours. Most of the free Endermen have agreed to work with us, and the Overworld will fall in days. You will await your final death here in this room. You are no longer the hunter, the one killing us and farming us. You and your kind are now the ones hunted."
His final death... did that mean no respawning? He would just...die? 
The wither skeleton nodded, as if he had read Steve's thoughts, and then walked away.
===Chapter 3: A Warning===
Life in the village continued on like normal for a week. Nobody suspected that Steve would be killed the next day and was trapped in a unusual nether fortress. It was normal for Steve not to visit for a week or two, as he had many things to do. So Pete’s life continued on normally. He never told anyone about the black skeleton, for he assumes one of the village’s iron golems had disposed of it, and that was true. However, it was not nearly the end of his troubles. It was only the beginning. It started that evening, when the sun was setting and all the villagers were running inside to sleep. All but Pete. He knew that the village was well lit, so monsters wouldn’t come. It would just be him and the black skeleton, and he would find out what was up. Well, the wither skeletons wouldn’t come just yet, but it was lucky Pete had decided to stay up that night. Because suddenly, an enderman teleported into the village. The iron golem immediately attacked, throwing it up into the air.
”Wait!” It cried out. “It’s important!” But the iron golem kept on attacking.
“Wait! Stop!” Pete yelled. The golem paused. “We want to hear what it wants to say!”
The iron golem stopped attacking.
“Thanks,” the enderman said. “You can call me Amy.”
“What do you want?” Pete asked.
“I need to tell you something.” She said. “A warning.”
“What is it?” he asked.
“It‘s about Steve. And possibly the rest of the world,” Amy said.
“Well then you need to tell me,” Pete said, getting frightened.
“Okay. I’ll start from the beginning.”
===Chapter 4: Amy's Story===
"So, all Endermen you see around here come from the End, a dimension," Amy explained. "There is no way out until someone slays the Ender Dragon, so I didn't know how any of us got here. Until I got sucked through a gateway to the Nether. There are hidden gateways like that, portals to other dimensions. So it took a little while to figure it out, but I realized I was in the Nether, which had been legend to me for my entire life. I explored, and stayed, until I found the person I think you call Steve. He seemed to know his way around the Nether, so I followed him, until he went inside a Nether Fortress. I had never actually seen a Nether Fortress with my own eyes, so I didn't know that it was not a Nether Fortress at all, but the base of operations for something far worse than blazes or wither skeletons ever will be. I looked around, and had some close encounters with some blazes and wither skeletons. I even managed to catch one, and asked it some questions. It told me that this was not a ordinary Nether Fortress, that it was a base where something and its armies were preparing to invade the Overworld and End to get something. I didn't know what that something was, and I didn't think the blaze I had caught did either, but I decided I needed to leave. I managed to get out, but when I did, I saw Steve being dragged away by a horde of those wither skeletons. But the reason I came here, to this village, is that the nearest nether portal to the fortress is the portal to this village. The one inside Steve's house."
Pete was silent for a moment, then talked. 
"Is this some kind of joke?" He asked.
"No! But if you don't believe me, it's not my problem. I can just teleport away while the your village is destroyed by blazes."
"Wait..." Pete said. "These wither skeletons...what did they look like?"
"They're black skeletons with stone swords. About as tall as me."
Pete stared in disbelief. "I...I saw one! Here!"
"Good, so now you believe me." Amy said.
"I do. When are they planning to come?"
"They're coming to the Overworld tomorrow," Amy told him. "You need to do something."
===Chapter 5: A Short Trip to Hell===
A day later, Ironstand was under attack. Steve had built fortifications around the city to protect against pillagers and zombies, but this time, the enemies came from within. The door to the base Steve had set up in the village bursted open, and wither skeletons came through with their stone swords. Soon, Ironstand's many iron golems were dead, and the army came after the villagers. They all attempted to escape through the underground passages and minecart roads that Steve had set up, but Pete watched as many lost their lives to the skeletons' swords. He swam through the water pipe as Amy had instructed, and emerged at a lake near the village, from there, he took a minecart down to one of Steve's other bases, and waited for Amy to catch up. Inside the small house was a bed, some storage, a workbench, a smoker, and a nether portal-all the basic things you would need. Eventually, Amy arrived, and Pete looked nervously towards the nether portal, fearing what Amy might tell him to do. And she said exactly what he had anticipated. 
"So, I think you know what to do," she said. "you need to go through the portal to save Steve. You don't have a choice."
"I know," Pete told her, "but I'm not the one who has experience in matters like this. According to Steve, I'm just a "passive mob"."
But someone did need to. So without looking back, Pete stepped through the portal to hell.
Hell was very different that Pete had expected. He had read of netherrack wastes, of ghasts and zombified piglins and nether fortresses full of other dangerous creatures. What he saw around him was a dense blue forest with strange vines, and no animals but a few Endermen. He walked around, and saw the same tall fungi and blue vines, until he emerged onto a valley of brown sand. That was more like the nether Pete had expected. He saw skeletons much like the ones in the Overworld, and heard a eerie sound that he recognized as a ghast. 
But he couldn't distract himself with things like ghasts and skeletons. Pete remembered the coordinates Amy had told him for the fortress, and proceeded on his way. He was a full-fledged cartographer, so things like that were easy for him.
After a lot of dodging fireballs from ghasts and arrows from piglins, Pete finally arrived at the edge of a large basalt deltas with a fortress built with nether brick, Blackstone, and crimson wood. Pete knew he needed to be extremely careful, so gripped his newly made stone sword tightly (even through he barely knew how to use it) as he climbed up a Blackstone pillar and jumped onto the roof of the building. Pete found an opening, and climbed down into a long hallway, with two blazes! They fireballed him, and he dodged, swiping at one with his sword. It disappeared in a puff of smoke, and he swung at the other. The other also disappeared, and Pete continued on. He killed several more blazes, and learned to put up safety bars to avoid wither skeletons. Eventually, Pete found what he was looking for: the hall with the cells. And one cell held Steve. Pete put up a safety bar just as the three wither skeletons that were there came at him, and carefully took them out with his sword. 
"Pete? Steve asked."
"Yes!" He yelled, trying to break the iron bars with his pickaxe. "Get out!"
Steve took his chance, and bolted out, leaving Pete to do the same. Steve was still somewhere out there, but at least he was not imprisoned. Pete ran out and retraced his footsteps, hoping Steve could escape as well.
===Chapter 6: A Turn of Unfortunate Incidents===
Steve was still shocked by the turn of events that had just happened. He had been inside his cell, when all of a sudden he had heard something and saw...a villager? He had attacked the wither skeletons guarding him, and had broken a part of the wall to his room. He was now standing in a soul sand valley somewhere near the fortress, and all he had was a wooden sword and pickaxe he had crafted, a few rocks and bones, and some soul sand. Steve walked around, slowed down by the soul sand, and eventually came to stop at a little netherrack cave. Lost and tired, he walked inside and lay down to sleep. 
Soon afterwards, Steve heard a crackle, and his eyes opened and he immediately stood up. Hiding and listening, he could tell it was a blaze. And it knew he was there. Suddenly, a fireball came at him, and the blaze showed itself. Steve quickly dodged, but knew he had no chance, so put his hands up and followed the blaze wherever it was taking him.
While that was all happening, two piglins had been hiding behind a rock. One of them, Bert, watched carefully as Steve walked behind the blaze. 
"So, he's working with them too?" The other asked.
"I think, but you don't know." Bert replied.
"We can't take risks here," the other whispered. "We need to get him, and even if he isn't on their side, he'll have answers."
Bert nodded, and aimed his crossbow at the blaze. He released, and the arrow hit the creature. Another shot killed the blaze, and it went up in a puff of smoke. 
The other quickly rose up and grabbed Steve, knocking him out and then tying his hands together with string. 
"Good work," Bert said. "Bring him back, and hopefully he'll give us some more answers. Put him in a cell, and don't leave him for me."
So the pair of piglins brought the unconscious Steve back to their bastion, and locked him in yet another cell.
===Chapter 7: From One Cell to Another===
Once again, Steve woke up in a prison cell. This time, it was made out of Blackstone and basalt, and it was a bit nicer than the one in the strange fortress. A single lantern dangled from a chain in the middle of the room, and there was a barrel of porkchop and mushroom stew. Steve peered through the iron bars of his room, and saw what looked to be a piglin bastion. He could see a chest surrounded by blocks of gold, and a few piglins milling around. 
At least I have food and I know where I am, Steve thought many times that day as he paced around the cell. He ate a piece of pork, and continued walking around the cell, thinking of a way to get out. After around 7 hours in the cell, Steve heard footsteps and talking. Through the bars, he saw a piglin standing there, looking at him.
"Are you Steve?" It asked. "From the Overworld?"
"Yes. Why am I here?"
"We're the one's asking questions here," the piglin said. "Is that clear?"
"Yes," Steve said, hoping he would get his own answers if he cooperated.
"So, be truthful," it said. "Are you working with him?"
"Who?" He asked.
"Him. Tell us."
"No," Steve said. "I actually do not know what you're talking about."
"We saw you with one of his soldiers. Tell us, were you working with that blaze, or are you working against it and its companions?" 
"That blaze tried to kill me," he replied. "But I'm not specifically working against it."
"Okay. We can't really trust you yet, but you seem like you're telling the truth. You really don't know who he is."
"That's right," Steve said. "I don't know who he is. I don't even know what in all three dimensions you are talking about!"
"After you answer a few more of our questions, we can give you your answers. We might even let you go, under certain circumstances." The piglin walked away leaving Steve to wonder who the mysterious being that the piglin had mentioned was.
===Chapter 8: Hope is Not Lost...===
After another ten minutes answering the piglins' questions, Steve finally got his answers.
"So, now please tell me who this mysterious person is, and what I have to do with him," Steve asked the piglin, who he now knew was named Bert. 
"Nobody really knows his name, or his motivation, or that much about him. But he's the one in charge of the fortress I think you saw."
"I did more than see it," Steve said. "I was imprisoned there."
"Yes, I thought so," Bert said. "After all, you would ruin his grand plan if you were there trying to stop him. And you are very important to his plan."
"How could I be important to his plan if his soldiers said they would kill me? I barely even know who he is!"
"He said he would kill you?" The piglin asked. "Well, he wouldn't. You are the gateway between his world and ours, meaning he needs you to complete his plan. You are the only one in our world who can even see him and talk to him, making you the only person in all three dimensions who can stop him. " 
"You said I'm the only person in this world who can stop him," Steve said, his mind racing. "What about in his world?"
"Notch and his associates have lost most of their control, and for reasons I do not know, they refuse to use what power they have left to help. You may be the only person in all worlds, in all dimensions who can stop him. Whatever his name really is."
"But you and the piglins are on my side, right?" Steve asked Bert.
"Yes. After he almost wiped out our entire species, we would have to be."
"And you can help me stop this person, right?"
"We will do what we can," Bert said, sighing. "But there may not be much we can do."
=== Chapter 9: ...Or is it? ===
After hurling himself through the portal, Pete put a piece of stone on it to disable it and prevent anything from getting in or out. He held his sword high, expecting a blaze or wither skeleton or pillager to be standing there, but the only new thing there was a bag. He opened it, and saw a note, along with many blue pearls.
These are ender pearls, the note said. Throw them to teleport around like I do. -Amy
Ender Pearls? Pete thought curiously. From Amy?
He opened the door, and threw one.
At first, nothing happened. Until suddenly he was flung towards the spot where he had thrown it!
Pete ran back to get the rest, and then threw one back out of the house, teleporting. After a few minutes, he had sort of gotten the hang of it, and started using them to get around.
He passed several tall nether brick towers, and spotted blazes at the top of them, hovering in the air, and wither skeletons patrolling the ground around them.
He continued ender pearling around, and decided that although it was most likely destroyed, Ironstand was the only place to go. Preparing himself, he threw a pearl in the village’s direction, and continued on.
Ironstand looked different than it had looked a day before. Outside of it, there were wither skeletons walking around, and strange winged creatures tied to the wall. As he crept along the edge of the wall, careful to avoid wither skeletons, he found a window, and peered into what had once been his home. The towers were now occupied by blazes, and in the center of the city, there was another one of those tall nether brick...
Pete could not continue thinking as he felt a fireball hit him in the back, and turned to see an entire army walking towards him.
=== Chapter 10: We Need to go Deeper...Literally ===
This time, it was Pete who got dragged up the stairs of the nether brick tower and was thrown in a cell. He knew that they were keeping him alive for something, and thought that they thought that he had information about Steve. All he knew was that Steve was not locked up in that cell anymore, and Pete did not think that would please the army of evil nether creatures.
So he waited, sitting in his small room, and thinking of plans to escape. Pete was a quick learner, and it turned out he was good with a sword, but he couldn’t just pop right out of a heavily guarded jail cell.
So he waited some more, and eventually, two blazes escorted him out of the room, bringing him down and out into what had once been Ironstand. They took him to a building, and sat him down inside what had once been his apartment building.
“You have seen Steve,” a blaze said. “You have came inside our fortress, came out, and we have not gotten word from the people there. You know what happened.”
”Yes, I do.” Pete said, thinking fast of what to do. “And I know exactly what happened.”
“Well tell us,” the other blaze said. “What exactly did happen in that fortress?”
“Steve got killed, like he was supposed to be,” Pete said, not realizing that he had made a big mistake.
The blazes, however, knew something was up. They sent a fireball flying at his head, likely trying to kill him, but Pete dodged, jumping into the pool of water nearby to avoid getting fireballed again.
And that pool of water... had a trapdoor at the bottom!
Knowing he was taking a risk, he flung it open, and saw that it was not just for decoration. He jumped down, and suddenly was taking a minecart elevator down, down, down. It came to a stop several moments later, and Pete got out and opened the iron doors that were at the bottom of the elevator. He slammed them shut, barricaded it with pieces of stone, and then ran down the hallway, blocking it again using some strange Redstone contraption Steve had built involving sticky pistons.
I’m in one of Steve‘s mines, Pete came to realize, as he looked down the torch-lit hallway.
So... now Pete was trapped in a mine. Was that a better situation than he had been in before, or had it only gotten worse?
It’s a lot better, he thought. At least I didn’t get fireballed to death.
So Pete looked around the mine a bit more, wondering what challenge he would have to face next.
=== Chapter 11: Return to Hell ===
A week later, after practicing some more with his newly-made diamond sword, and preparing everything he would need, Pete started to assemble his portal to the nether. He already had the bottom assembled, and pushed into place the sides of the portal. Very carefully, Pete put the top into place, and stepped back to examine his work. It was good, so he took his flint and steel, lit the portal, and stepped through to hell.
This time, he was not surprised when he came out into a crimson forest. He put on his golden helmet, stayed out of the path of hoglins, and started towards the fortress. Pete used his Redstone compass to orient himself, and continued on. He passed several ghasts, but this time, he knew how to bat their own fireballs right back at them. Pete walked through soul sand valleys, basalt deltas, and lush warped forests, and eventually could see the nether brick fortress in the distance.
He was still about a mile away, so took his time to prepare, and to set up a small base in the cave nearby. Pete pushed some wood to the cave to signify that it was now his, and then left his pickaxe and axe so he could move around faster. Looking towards the nether brick fortress, he held his sword, and started towards it.
As he got closer to the building, Pete began to see blazes and wither skeletons through the small windows in the nether brick and Blackstone. Crouching down, he inched closer to an entrance, then dove under a small outcropping in the basalt spike nearby. There were six wither skeletons guarding it, and two of them were riding those skeletal creatures he had seen in Ironstand. Pete realized they were not going to leave, so jumped out in front of them, striking one with his sword. They all came at him, so he ran inside the fortress, realizing he didn’t have anything to make a safety bar with, or his pickaxe to collect the materials in the fortress. So he ran down the hall, looking behind him to see the wither skeletons in hot pursuit. He swiped his sword at two of them, then jumped into another hallway before finishing those two off in one swing of his diamond sword. Pete continued to take them out two by two, until there was only one left.
Pete pointed his sword at that last one, but did not kill it.
“I know you’re trying to invade the overworld,” he said. “But tell me. Who is leading you? Who is behind this invasion?”
The wither skeleton just shook his head, refusing to answer.
“Tell me,” Pete said. “Who is he and is he in this fortress?”
The skeleton nodded, then pointed down a hallway.
So whoever‘s leading them is that way, Pete thought, running down that hall.
After fighting some blazes, Pete saw a large room guarded by many more wither skeletons. He didn’t even get close, but when he peered through the doorway, all he saw was a strange formation of soul sand.
=== Chapter 12: To the Fortress ===
In that same week that Pete had been preparing to return to the Nether and to the fortress, Steve had been doing the same thing. But one thing was different: Steve had an entire army with him. Bert and the piglins were now his allies, and had the same goal as Steve and Pete- to raid the fortress and figure out who that mysterious person really was. The piglins were equipped with golden armor, netherite swords, and some neat Redstone contraptions Steve had made in the Overworld called guns. The piglins marched forward, Steve and Bert following behind.
“You sure about this?” Steve asked as he looked towards the building towering above them.
“Look in front of you, Steve,” the piglin replied. “We probably have as many soldiers as there are blazes and wither skeletons in the fortress.”
Bert was right. The piglins were had full armor, swords and guns, and even some striders and hoglins to ride.
“But they must have prepared for something like this to happen,” Steve said. “They can’t take over the world without expecting some battles to fight.”
“Our goal here is not to completely drive them out of the Overworld, or even this fortress,” Bert told him. “We just want to have a better look at what is even going on.”
Soon they reached the fortress, and an army poured inside. Mostly, it was easy to drive out the enemies, for they had an entire army working together. In only an hour, most of the fortress was cleared, and Pete had been found.
“So what now?” Steve asked after the battle.
“It’s time to go into that room. See what you can find. If you can find their leader, than good, and if not, at least we‘ve taken one of their bases.”
So Steve walked through the winding corridors of the nether fortress, coming towards the center, where he would find a god.
=== Chapter 13: The Wither? Or Something Far, Far, Worse? ===
Pete watched as Steve walked towards the room at the center of the fortress. He crouched down and crept along the hallway, careful not to get spotted. He stopped when Steve reached the door of the room, and he pulled it open, stepping inside. Pete heard a strange sound, and then heard Steve gasp. He went closer, trying to look into the room. Eventually, Steve moved from in front of the doorway, and saw something that made him gasp as well. To him, it looked like a black, three headed creature looking faintly like a wither skeleton. It was saying something, but Pete could not make it out.
Steve, however, saw past the illusion. What he saw was a person that looked just like him, but with blank, white eyes. 
"Hello," it said. "I've been expecting you."
"Who are you?" Steve asked, leveling his gun at him. 
"My soldiers like to call me the Wither, and I'd prefer if you did the same."
"Tell me," Steve said, ready to shoot. "Who are you?" 
"Put your gun down," it said. "It wouldn't do any damage."
So Steve shot. The strange being held up a hand, and the bullet changed course, heading towards the wall. He held up another hand, and a rift opened in the wall, sucking up the bullet. 
"In my world, I am called Herobrine," it finally said. "But here, most people, including you, call me the Wither. You may be thinking, "but I've killed the Wither many times!" Well, let me tell you, that was not me. That was an illusion, a shard of myself. Even the me you are seeing right now is not the true me, just an apparition with part of my spirit in it. I am simply a god."
And then, Herobrine exploded. The walls of the fortress blew open, the wall fell in, and piglins flew everywhere. The explosion struck Pete, too. He was sent flying, until a rift opened behind him. He traveled through more rifts, many more. He flew over crimson forests. Over soul sand valleys. Over nether wastes and basalt deltas. He fell off a floating island made of green stone. Then Pete was in the Overworld, tumbling through plains, oceans, and fortests. 
Finally, the last rift closed behind him, and he was falling, falling, falling, falling... Pete hit the ground. And everything went black.
(Continued in Part 2)
Category:Stories
Category:Fan Stories
Category:Withering Heights