Against all odds (The Pack)

Chapter 27

I've been having sooo much writers block lately... Anyone wanna suggest ideas for the challenges in the Hidden and Spell kingdoms? (I already now what I'm doing for the others)

Warnings: Death, mentions of blood

     ~Jerome's P.O.V.~

     As the last of the explosions ring out, and experience orbs fall to the ground over and around Lachlan's limp body, Lani tsks. She pretends to be sad that Lachlan's probably dead, but seeing she doesn't even go to see if he's okay, I know better. Rage swells inside me, but before I can make a decision I'd probably regret later, one of the guards pipes up.

     "Um... Your highness..." He starts, nervous and unsure of his words.
"What is it?"
"Lachlan... He killed the dragon with a time of fifteen minutes, and thirty five seconds."
Her eyes widen. "What was Ian's time?" She demands.
The guard, beads of sweat dripping down his forehead, smiles nervously. "Ian... Was fifteen minutes and thirty eight seco-"
"NO!!" She suddenly screeches, causing us all to step back. "It-it doesn't matter! He's dead! That means he lost, because he can't rule if he's dead!!!"
"That's where you're wrong." Rob cuts in, glaring at Lani. She whirls around to face him, eyes wild and angry. "Look, there aren't any items around Lachlan. If he died, his items would all be on the ground." Rob points out firmly.

Lani growls in fury, practically shaking in rage.

"That's going to change NOW!" She shrieks, pulling out a bow and notching an arrow, aiming it to where Lachlan lay.

Before any of us cans react, the nearest guard knocks the bow from her hand, and snaps it over his knee.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" She demands with a shrill voice.
"You don't command us anymore. He does." The guard statuses bluntly, pointing at Lachlan. "I never liked you anyway."

Lani finally comes to her senses at the words, and seeing the hostile faces around her, makes a break for the portal. But on the way she forceful go shoves Endermen out of her way and... Well... You can guess what happened.

"Good riddance..." The other guard mumbles under his breath.
"This is great and all, but we need to go help Lachlan!" I remind everyone urgently. "Let's go!"

~~~

A day later...

     "One down, five to go... We'd better be heading off. Cya around, Ian!"
     "Bye dudes, good luck!"

After a progression of dousing Lachlan with healing potions, wrapping up his face, proclaiming Lachlan as ruler, and things along those lines, the Dimensional kingdom is now officially under Lachlan's control and we're ready to take on the next one. And, as a perk of now having an entire kingdom in our arsenal, we are all stacked with diamond armour, diamond weapons, bows, arrows, food, enderpearls, and even a horse for each of us. The people of the Dimensional kingdom were surprising cool with Lachlan taking the throne, but I'm sure if we had revealed our plans, the reactions would be a little different. As we leave en route for the Hidden kingdom, Lachlan left Ian in charge while he's gone.

      Snapping the reins on my horse, I ride it after the others, already making their way past the gates and out into the freezing ice biome. Preston is covered head to toe in a cloak, shielding him from the driving snow, and likewise everyone else is bundled up for warmth. My fur does the job, so I don't need to put on extra layers. Lachlan still has a mask like bandage on his face, slightly tainted red. It almost makes him look like a skeleton. Kicking my horse forward a bit, I ride up beside Vikk and Mitch.

     "Well... That was eventful." I open, blinking away the snowflakes pelting my face.
     "Yeah. Hey Vikk, what do you think the ruler is gonna have you do?" Mitch asks.
     Vikk shrugs, "No clue. Maybe something to do with assassin skills or something, I don't really know."

And from there the conversation naturally drops out.

We continue our steady gallop through the Ice spikes biome, and although we were originally hoping to make it out by sundown, the chances are looking pretty slim. Impossible, in fact. The sun is already starting to set, and we can't really make a safe shelter, because there are zero trees in this barren winter wasteland. I frown, blinking away snowflakes. We're going to have to fight through the night. I realize. If anything maybe we can set up a dirt pen to keep our horses in...

"Hey guys!" I call over the driving snow and howling wind. "We're going to have to fight tonight! We should try and get some sort of dirt pen set up for the horses!"

Everyone slows their horses to a stop, nodding in agreement. We pick a relatively shelters spot, in between three ice spikes, and set to work. Lachlan holds all the horses on leads while Mitch and Rob work to dig out a trench, and then use that dirt to build three block high walls all around. Mitch was smart enough to grab some extra wood, so Preston buses himself in trying to get a fire started in the wet conditions. Meanwhile Vikk and I take the liberty of picking off mobs and making sure no one gets hurt... Again.

     Three silver blurs shoot past my face, and suddenly they're cracking into the face of the skeleton, and it falls to the snow and doesn't move again. I glance sideways at Vikk, throwing another three of the stars, and successfully felling another mob. Geez he's pretty good with those. I silently commend him, turning and swinging my axe down in a wide arc, slicing clean through a spider. Satisfied that Vikk can take care of the rest, I decide I should probably go around and protect the other side of our base. Soon enough I realize I've made two mistakes. One, I don't need to protect the other side, because the mobs can't get past the ice spikes in the first place. Which means they're all trying to swarm in where Vikk is. That leads me to my second mistake.

      Heart racing, I dart back to where I originally was, and thankfully Vikk doesn't seem to be struggling to much but... He's but fighting a small horse of strays... And he doesn't notice the creeper creeping up behind him.

     "Vikk duck!" I shout.

     Vikk doesn't hesitate to drop to his knees, and in that time I pull out a bow, notch an arrow, and bring the creeper down right before it explodes. Vikk looks back at the body of the now limp creeper, which soon despawns, then back to me.

     "Thanks mate!" He yells, standing back up. "You really-"

      His sentence is cut off by a sharp cry as one of the strays, that he totally forgot about when I told him to duck, sinks a slowness arrow right into his side. A second one soon finds its mark in his upper thigh, and the second one completely misses.

     "VIKK!"

~~~

Question of the chapter:

Who thought Vikk was going to be hurt by the creeper?

My answer: I hope some of you did, I tried to be a little more creative by having him hurt by the strays instead XD