Zip's POV
I knew it. I knew that he was here, watching us. I narrowed my eyes at him and lifted my sword just a little higher. I didn't care who he was or what he had done. I had a job to do and even he wasn't going to stop me. Herobrine didn't have a weapon in his hand as he strolled slowly towards us like he didn't have a care in the world. That slight grin was still on his face and it just made me angrier for some reason.

"What are you smiling at?" I growled at him as he started to walk in a slow circle around us.

Herobrine's grin grew. "You've escaped me four times already. But not a fifth time."

"Uhhhh actually, we just met you for the first time about a minute ago, so you're kinda wrong there," Luke said. Obviously, the filter between his brain and his mouth had stopped working again. Herobrine didn't say anything, his grin changing to a smirk.

Herobrine had almost completed a full circle around us. I couldn't help but feel like I was a lump of meat, being examined before being cut up and sold for dinner. I knew that the stone that had the curse on it was somewhere behind me. All we needed to do was spill the potion onto it and then run.

"You can't be all that good if we've escaped four times already," Tim piped up. "After all, we haven't really been trying too hard." While he was speaking, I secretly took out the potion from my pocket and pressed it into the hand of whoever was behind me. Judging from the feel, it was Jade. I pointed to the stone as subtly as I could so that Herobrine couldn't see it and prayed that he would understand.

"You've become lucky four times," Herobrine said calmly in answer to Tim's statement. "It has nothing to do with skill."

"Who says we won't be lucky a fifth?" I asked. "Luck does seem to like us after all."

"Trust me, of the few who have managed to enter my castle alive, none of them have left it that way."

"Where are all the monsters who are supposed to be guarding your castle?" Alex asked.

Herobrine shrugged. "I sent them off to do something for me. I do have more on my agenda than five meddlesome children."

"Like destroying villages?" I asked coldly.

The white-eyed figure grinned. "Well-" His eyes flicked away from me for a moment and then he dashed to the side faster than any human should be able to move. Jade yelped and sprinted towards the stone, the precious potion held tight in his hand but Herobrine cut him off, yanking the potion from his grip with his right hand and with his left, pushing Jade away with such force that he crashed into the wall.

Herobrine laughed - a cold, cruel laugh - and tossed the potion up and down in his hand. "So this is the thing that can undo all my hard work. It's not much. Still..."

He stretched his arm out in front of him and opened his hand. The potion seemed to drop in slow motion towards the ground. I dropped my sword and sprinted forward, diving to catch it just before it hit the ground as arrows whistled over my head, heading for Herobrine and forcing him away from the falling bottle. My fingers wrapped around the cool glass just before it hit the ground and I awkwardly held it up as the rest of me hit the ground. I scrambled up, keeping the bottle close to me as I rapidly backed up towards the huddle my friends made.

The grin had faded from Herobrine's face. None of Alex's arrows seemed to have touched him and they all lay still on the stone floor. He looked at us, his white eyes glowing coldly. Jade staggered up from the wall and joined us in our little huddle.

"Don't make me regret helping you children," he growled quietly. "That would just be annoying."

"Helping us?!" I asked angrily, holding the glass bottle tighter and glaring at Herobrine. "We might have gotten some help, but none of it came from you!"

His expression became sneering and he continued his slow inspecting walk around us. His white eyes seemed to glow a little brighter and a white glow came from his right palm. I stared at it, unable to stop my eyes from widening as a long blade made of diamond slowly grew into existence, the hilt and crosspiece forming in his hand. The same process happened in his left hand as well until he was holding two very sharp swords. Something in his sneer said that he knew something that we didn't, and I hated it. Mentally, I quickly sifted through the past few weeks since our village had burned down, looking for anything that was a little too perfect, a little too good to be completely true.

"I helped you more than you know," Herobrine was saying.

"Zip is right, you didn't help us at all!" Tim said. "The only thing you did was kill that boy who was studying sorcery in the village!"

"Really?" Herobrine nodded slightly to me, grinning again. "She knows that I'm telling the truth."

I glared at him again, gritting my teeth together. I did know that he was telling the truth. There were things that had been just too perfect. The red arrows that had lead Alex safely out of the Zombie King's castle, the pickaxe with the map that told us exactly where to go, Alex's ankle magically healing, the position of the Nether portal.... Even Fury and how useful she had been, only to leave just as we were about to come here. To Herobrine.

I didn't want to believe it. I didn't want to know that Fury had been a traitor, that she had only been there to make sure that we get here, but it all fitted. The way she had known to go to Dax's village, the armour she had made to help us survive the Ender Dragon, even the fact that she had two swords, just like Herobrine did. The words came out of my mouth before I could stop them: "You sent Fury to help us, to make sure that we came here."

"That idiot child?" Herobrine growled. "She is the only reason that you've escaped me four times. I knew that I should have killed her when I first had the chance."

"Wait, you two have met before?" Alex asked. "Is that why-"

"Silence."

Herobrine's voice sent shivers down my spine as he growled the word in a low tone, but I wanted to grin too. Fury wasn't a traitor. She wasn't working with the white-eyed figure. Herobrine came to a stop, facing us with the cursed stone behind him. As he held out his hands to either side, the blades of his swords catching the white torch light, sending it bouncing on all the walls.

"You need to get that potion to the stone," he said evenly, "and I need to stop you from doing so. So what are we going to do now?"

I glanced at Jade and Luke on my left. They both gave tiny nods, their grips on their iron swords tightening. I turned my head to Alex and Tim on my right. Alex laid an arrow on his bow and Tim grinned. I put the potion safely away in my pocket and picked up my sword from the ground, keeping my eyes on Herobrine.

We charged.

Chapter in original book: 31

I was going to put an extra little thing at the end of this, but that 'little' thing ended up being 989 words long, so that's going to be its own little chapter.