Warning: sadness chapter :(

~~~

The battle was far from over.

If anything, the temporary fall of their leader made the Watchers even more angry, and it made them angry at me. I barely had time to pull my silver-soaked sword off of the ground before they all attacked.

Luckily, all of the Admins could hurt them now. I still didn't know how. Maybe all of the magic being used somehow removed the spell.

"CHARGE!" somebody yelled, and then more Watchers joined the fight.

My heart sank. If we weren't outnumbered before, we were now.

But then something amazing happened - the new Watchers, who had all tied red strips of fabric around their wrists, turned and started to fight their own kind.

"We figured you'd need some help," a voice said.

I turned to see a Watcher, but unlike the others, his mask was pulled down so I could recognize him.

"Rege," I said. "What are you doing here? You're way too young to be fighting people."

"There are Watchers who don't like the Council," Rege said, pulling out an axe and ignoring me. "We aren't all bad."

It was only a few more minutes before I slashed my sword and there was nothing there.

I looked around, but the last of the enemy Watchers were being fought off by Iskall, Ren, and False.

My communicator buzzed again, but nobody had died. I glanced at it, scrolled past the countless death messages, and saw a single text from Xisuma, to everyone who hadn't come back yet.

We won.

We won!

We won, we won, we won.

We actually won.

The word won was starting to lose its meaning.

We're on our way back now, after we cut off the connection, X typed, but then turned to the rest of us, who had gathered in a small crowd around Grian.

Scar passed out healing potions. Ren picked his sunglasses off of the ground. False cleaned the blood off of her sword. FWhip fidgeted with a gadget. Gem landed and jumped off of the Ender Dragon. Iskall stared off toward the Outer Islands. Martyn hid from Ren behind an obsidian pillar. Grian leaned against the same pillar, drinking a potion to mend his wing. Jimmy was in a large pool of water to ward off endermen. Joel was bragging about how many Watchers he had killed to anyone who would listen. Rege and a few other Watchers were trying to have a conversation with Netty and Taurtis. Impulse examined FWhip's redstone contraption on the portal.

I walked over to them, sheathing my sword.

Somebody handed me a healing potion, which I gratefully drank. I felt my wounds heal.

FWhip and Gem ran over to me and hugged me.

"I'm so tired," I whimpered.

"We did it," she said.

"It's not over yet," I said. "They're still out there."

We turned to the End portal.

"We need to get ever-" Gem said.

We were interrupted by Scar cheering, "I'm alive! I haven't died!"

"That's what alive means, Scar. Good job," Grian said sarcastically.

I glanced over at where my battle with Watcher One had taken place. His sword was on the ground where he had died. Nobody touched it.

I walked up to it and nudged it with my foot, as if it could come alive and stab anyone at any moment.

I remembered it all too well: forged of steel that probably would never rust, with three hearts on the hilt, made of ruby, amber, and emerald.

"You should keep it," False suggested from behind me.

I shook my head. "I don't want it."

"Why not?"

I looked at the blade with distaste. "This thing started all of this. This used to belong to us, and we used it to kill countless Watchers."

I picked it up, ignoring the familiar feel of the hilt in my hand. I remembered choosing to take it over Gem's hand when this all started.

This was part of the reason we were broken.

I walked past the pillar, out of the crowd, and stood at the edge of the main island, staring into the Void.

"You aren't seriously going to do that, are you?" Scar asked. "Again?"

"Scar, this isn't just a thing that can make a beacon," I said. "This is even more dangerous in the wrong hands."

I dropped the sword into the Void.

I looked at Scar suspiciously, fully expecting him to fly after it.

"No," he chuckled, reading my face. "I've had my share of experiences with catching swords in the Void."

I laughed and turned back toward the others, but Gem and FWhip had already walked over to stand by Scar and me.

"They're not gone," Xisuma was telling everyone. "We still need to cut off the End."

Gem, Jimmy, Scar, and I exchanged glances.

We were the only ones who had heard the Listener. We were the only ones who knew that the person who did it, and anybody in the End with them, would be trapped there forever.

Gem took out her staff and looked at me.

I pursed my lips and nodded.

She looked at Scar behind me, and then Jimmy in the pond. They both nodded as well.

Gem walked over to Scar and whispered something in his ear. He nodded, pulled out his own staff, and together he and Gem muttered a spell, probably a teleportation command, because suddenly everyone disappeared.

The only ones who remained were Scar, Gem, FWhip, and me.

The look on the wizards' faces told me that the Watchers weren't supposed to have been teleported. And Jimmy probably wasn't, either. But spells could be unreliable.

"We all know what has to happen," Scar said.

There was a long silence.

Then Scar looked at an enderman.

"Dang it!" He yelled, and instead of jumping into Jimmy's puddle like a normal person, he took off and flew away. "Goodbyyyyyyye!"

When he didn't come back, Gem said, "he ran out of rockets again."

Right on cue, my communicator buzzed.

Scar Goodtimes fell out of the world

"Scar!" FWhip laughed.

That left just us there.

"Can't we wait for a Watcher or someone to come back?" Gem asked.

Rege Eclipse: REGISTERED! WOO how does this thing work

Xisuma Void: just like that :)

"I think they want to stay in the Overworld," I said.

Gem sat down on a hunk of endstone. "I can't believe we did it."

I sighed with relief. "We did it. We're still alive."

And then we were all laughing, even though this whole thing wasn't funny, even though we had been through so much that we shouldn't have been able to anymore.

We're still alive.

We won.

And for half a minute, we all forgot about what at least one of us had to do.

And then we were hugging, but still crying and laughing at the same time and generally being three gigantic emotional messes, and then I decided.

We were still so close to the edge.

Their backs were to it.

We could all stay here together. But the Watcher Council was still out there, and they wouldn't hesitate to "punish" anyone who remained. I couldn't let Gem and FWhip go through that. The twins were older than me, but sometimes I felt like they had been through much less and I wanted to keep it that way.

My smile faded, but they didn't see it.

In one silent instant, my sword was out. The membrane of FWhip's mechanical wings were cut. Crystals off of Gem's elytra were knocked off.

"I love you," I whispered.

Then, before they could say anything back, before I could think against it, I pushed my siblings off the edge.

Like I said, I did a very bad thing 😢

------

Gem's POV

At first, I didn't know what hit me. I thought it was an enderman, until I looked up and saw Blue still standing there, completely alone. No endermen.

Just her and her stupid guilty face.

I lit a rocket. I would be fine.

Somebody screamed next to me, and I saw FWhip fly past. Not literally fly. Just fall really fast.

FWhip Tay fell out of the world

The rocket did nothing. When I tried to spread my wings I looked back at my elytra and saw that several of the magical crystals that allowed it to keep me aloft were missing.

"BLUEMOON STELLA TAY!" I tried to scream, using the middle name that she rarely told anyone. I'll bet she didn't tell you, reader, and yes, I now have the ability to break the fourth wall.

But I only got to "BLUEMOON STEL-" before I died.

Gemini Tay fell out of the world

Without even thinking once I woke up, I grabbed an extra elytra and some rockets.

I had to get to the End before she did something stupid.

I flew all the way through the Nether tunnel. I never did that, because I wasn't a very good flier, but luckily this time I managed not to crash into a random block and die. But when I got to the stronghold and ran into the portal room, I found that my suspicions had been valid...

FWhip sitting at the edge of the portal, looking up at me as I entered with silent tears running down his face.

The portal completed, all of the Eyes of Ender in place, but the portal was not lit.

The connection was cut off.

My stupid, self-sacrificing sister had done exactly what she promised not to do, and now I'd never see her again.

IM SORRYYYY IT MAKES ME SAD TOO

but not as sad as Martyn's betrayal or Scott's death, those were incredibly sad

------

Blue's POV

FWhip Tay fell out of the world

"BLUEMOON STEL-"

Gemini Tay fell out of the world

I stayed at the edge of the island for a while, staring into the Void where FWhip and Gem had fallen- no, where I had pushed FWhip and Gem.

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

Of course the last thing I had heard Gem say was the beginning of my middle name. Nobody ever used my middle name. Most people didn't even know it.

That meant that Gem was very angry. And FWhip probably was as well, although it was more likely that he was just sad.

I finally walked away from the edge of the Void and headed for the redstone machine that would break the portal, and by extension, every End Portal in every world.

I didn't know exactly how to use this, but I had seen Impulse do it before. I got under the trapdoor and looked around for the lever.

I put my hand on it and hesitated.

Am I sure about this?

I could go back now, if I wanted to.

I took my hand away from it.

Why was I being indecisive now, of all times? It was incredibly frustrating.

We all know you have to.

"Oh, now you turn up?" I yelled, seemingly at the sky. "Where were you when we were in the middle of a battle?"

I knew you could fight them off on your own.

"Oh, really?" I muttered. "Are you sure it wasn't just because you can't fight your own battles?"

No. Even now, the Watchers sense my presence and come to fight me. If you don't pull the lever and then leave, they will kill you.

"Where are you?"

Nearby.

"Wow. You are ever so helpful."

I know.

The fact that the Listener played along with my sarcasm made me angry.

You were impressive. Not many people can face Watcher One and live, let alone kill him.

"He's not dead."

I know. Which is why you need to pull the lever. Your friends and family depend on it.

"If this were Gem, or Jimmy or Scar, would you be annoying them this much?"

Probably not.

"You're infuriating," I grumbled.

And then panic, but not my own. Hurry. They're coming. They will see you within a few minutes.

"You've said!"

Be careful, though. This is centuries-old magic. Stopping the flow from the End to the Overworld could have consequences.

"And you didn't mention this earlier because..."

Do it.

"YOU JUST SAID IT WOULD HAVE CONSEQUENCES!"

I think I can stop them. But I won't be able to once the Watchers come. Hurry.

Not knowing what else to do, I pulled the lever.

The energy that came out of the singular block of bedrock that I broke came in all colors, but mostly purple: the color of the Watchers' magic, the particles that surrounded endermen and Ender chests, chorus fruit, purpur, and dragon's breath. The color of the End. There was a loud rushing sound, and what looked like a ripple in the air, reminding me of when Grian had accidentally used his magic in Last Life and removed everyone's memories of the givelife spell.

And then, for the third time that day, my head hit the ground and my vision went black.

------

Gem's POV

FWhip said I screamed a lot.

And threw things, including the locator crystal. It shattered against the wall.

To be honest, I barely remembered the first few minutes after I realized what Blue had done.

I wouldn't leave the portal, even when FWhip, also crying, tried to bring me home. I just wanted to find a way to get it open, even if logic told me that it was now impossible. The connection between the End and the Overworld had been cut. There was no way for communication, magic, or anything to get between them now.

When I got home, I calmed down a little bit.

Key word: little.

It was more like I sat in my bed, cried until I couldn't anymore, and then threw my pillow at Pearl when she tried to come talk to me.

Why? Why did it have to be Blue, of all people?

I wouldn't go eat, and when night fell, I refused to sleep. I stayed alone in my room and pushed everyone and everything away.

Alone. All alone. Like Blue probably was right now.

----

FWhip's POV

I had to hold it together for Gem.

What she had seemed to forget was that she wasn't the only one who had lost a sister, and I mean that in the nicest way possible. I had to keep her base clean for her and make sure she ate and slept and generally keep her alive, but I mean that in the nicest way possible too.

After we found the portal broken and the connection cut, my priority became getting Gem home. Today had been rough, and we both needed rest.

But I had to explain some things to the others first.

I met them at Town Hall after Xisuma called us there. It wasn't just the Admins either, it was everyone.

That included several representatives from the village, and the small group of eight Watchers who had helped us in the battle. I wasn't going to bother counting how many people there were in total.

"Gem can't come," I said as soon as I was within earshot. I had to walk the whole way there because my elytra was broken. It sucked.

"Is she okay?" Pearl asked.

I hesitated, then shook my head.

"Wait, what?"

"I'll tell you later," I said as Xisuma pulled me up the staircase to the... well it used to be a porch. Now it was a sort of deck-stage thing.

"Is everyone here?" Grian asked, scanning the crowd. "Besides Gem."

No, I thought.

"Where's Blue?" Jimmy called.

"Um- hello, hi... hi," I said hesitantly to get their attention. "She's... Blue's not gonna be coming either."

The other two Admins frowned, or at least Grian did. Xisuma probably did as well, but of course I couldn't see his-

Dang it. Nobody was supposed to know that I knew what he looked like under the helmet. Forget I said anything.

"Okay," Xisuma said. "Now that everyone who's going to be coming is here, we need to talk about some stuff."

"It'd be better to do this around a table, after food," Tango interrupted. "Because food is good and it calms people down."

"Last time that happened, it was the opposite of calm," Cleo said.

That was mostly my fault. Stupid Watchers and stupid me, for listening to them.

But we can just not think about that, right?

...Right?

"We also have nowhere to do it," Joel said. "We will soon, because my base is going to be incredibly massive. But for now we have to do it here."

"Moving on," Grian said.

Xisuma cleared his throat. "So, you were all there. You all know, to an extent, about the Watchers."

"Present company excluded, they're evil," I said impulsively.

Ack. Impulsiveness. That was what got us into this entire mess.

Was impulsiveness even a word?

A few Watchers exchanged glances, and I immediately felt bad. Of course they weren't the only good ones. There were probably more in the End.

"Okay, so you were all there for the battle," X said. "You all know what happened there. But I think some explanations are in order."

"YEAH!" Joel yelled. "EXPLANATIONS, JIMMY! LIKE WHY YOU MADE MY ENTIRE BASE TWO BLOCKS TALL!"

"Not those explanations," Grian said, grinning. Then his smile faded. "Other explanations."

"Uh-oh," a villager said.

"First of all," Grian said uncomfortably. "You've all at least heard of Evo..."

And he went into the entire story of Evolution, including the part about him being a Watcher.

I noticed for the first time that his rune thing was completely gone, and his wings had lost their shimmer. He still had them, though. As I looked over the crowd, I noticed that all of the Watchers were the same way.

We had succeeded in stopping the flow of magic. We had won.

But we had also lost.

Then Xisuma backed up and explained his own origins and the First War, and then Grian came in for Third Life, Last Life, the Downside-Up, and then he told me to come in...

"Wait, what?" I said.

"No more secrets," Xisuma said.

I sighed. "The truth about the Grand Crown."

The other two Admins nodded.

I explained (rather nervously) about the Watchers and my relationship with them.

"It's like the Listener," Martyn realized. He had somehow managed to be in the crowd without Ren or Jimmy murdering him, but now he earned some glares. "Once I did things she didn't like, she chose someone new. The Watchers did the same thing. Once I stopped helping them, they decided Oh, I'm gonna choose someone else to do my evil bidding and murder their friends."

I winced. Martyn was funny, but sometimes he was painfully blunt.

Ren stomped over to him and muttered a threat.

Grian coughed nervously. "If you would kindly shut up..." he said. "Thank you. Now that that's over with, your Admins have secrets, cool stuff, now it's time for the battle."

After a minute, I realized they were looking at me.

"What?" I said.

"You were there for most of it," Grian said.

"That conversation on the communicators at four AM last night," X said.

I puffed out my cheeks, frusturated.

Why wasn't Gem here to explain the curse, and the vision, and the fact that my sister had almost killed me?

Why wasn't Blue here?

Oh, right. One was in her room sulking because the other was trapped in the End because I had been an idiot and let them come with me.

"Blue would really be better at explaining this..." I said, trying with all my might not to keep my voice from cracking and getting embarrassingly high like it sometimes did. "But I'll do my best since she's not here. I stole Lizzie's book because the Watchers told me they wanted it. There were a few new prophecies in there, on previously blank pages. I can't remember all of them. But they're probably still in the book."

"What? You drained my ocean, indirectly erased my memories, and now you stole my book, too?" Lizzie yelled, outraged.

I winced. "Sorry. I'll give it back later. But there was this curse that was given to Blue that I can't really tell you about because it's kind of her story and not mine..."

There were some protests from the crowd.

"But anyway, the curse gave her this vision that somehow - I don't know exactly what it showed - told her that I was... helping the Watchers. For lack of a better term. It was more like I was their pawn without any other choice or they would do bad things, but anyway. Yeah. Blue came to my house, nearly killed me, woke Gem and most of the rest of the world up via chat, and then made me explain it to her, Gem, and Pearl."

"And I gave Martyn a communicator," Grian added proudly.

Martyn grinned back.

"That's the short version," I said.

"Fun," Xisuma said.

I smiled tightly and nodded. "Yup. Very fun. The funnest of fun."

"I think you're taking this a little too far," Grian whispered, snickering.

"Anyway," I said loudly. "We brought a team to the End because they were already expecting me to bring them the book and we knew they'd be there. Jimmy died first because he's Jimmy. Then he brought the rest of you there."

"We need to talk about the actual battle," Cleo said. "Right in the middle, we suddenly were actually able to fight back. What happened?"

"I don't know. What did happen?" Grian said. "I was up in the sky."

"There was a great big flash of light, and then it happened," Pearl said.

"I think it was you, Grian," Taurtis said.

"Wait, what?" Grian said.

"It might have been," one of the younger-looking Watchers said. FWhip couldn't remember his name. "If you were angry enough, you might have released a blast of power strong enough to remove a Watcher spell, although it wouldn't have been just that one. It might have been all of them, including that curse you were talking about."

So that's how Blue came back into battle, even after she fell unconscious and I dragged her out of it.

Grian nodded. "You guys will have to tell me more about that later."

"So, that's settled," Joel said. "What happened to the Watchers? Are they dead?"

The three of us on the deck exchanged grave glances.

"No," Xisuma said slowly. "In fact, that's what we need to talk about next. The Watchers are not dead. They respawn, just like the rest of us."

"THEN WHAT WAS THE POINT?" Joel demanded.

"Admit it, you had fun," Jimmy told him.

"I had fun," Joel grumbled.

"We just can't be deleted," a Watcher said smugly, then hesitated. "Maybe. I've never tested it."

"It might be a lie," another joined in softly. "They've lied to us a lot."

The other Watchers nodded in agreement.

They all still had their hoods and masks on, except for one of them. That was understandable. If I was in a world with people I had been enemies with for centuries, I would have been a little nervous to take my disguise off.

Wait, my slow brain said. They don't even know when their leaders are lying to them?

That kind of sucks.

Wait.

WAIT.

I CAN SEE THEM.

That was a fact that would bother me for the rest of my life.

It took me that long to realize that they weren't silhouettes.

"-FWhip?" Xisuma said.

Then I noticed that everyone was staring at me.

"Sorry?" I said, embarrassed.

Grian snickered again. "We were recounting the Great Throwing Of Sunglasses."

I grinned. "That was entertaining."

"Not to mention incredibly scary!" Mumbo complained. "I thought Grian was, y'know, unalived."

"We aren't afraid of the word 'dead', Mumbo," Ren said.

"But REALLY. Did you HAVE to go and almost die?"

"I'm fine, Mumbo," Grian said. "It was... an act. Yes. I was acting."

A ripple of laughter rang in the crowd. We all knew that it was most definitely not an act.

"Also, what happened with sunglasses?" Taurtis said. "I seem to recall that a bunch of us died."

"That is true," Mumbo agreed.

"I'll tell you what happened," Ren said. His voice seemed halfway between a laugh and a growl. "Blue took my sunglasses as a trophy when she killed me in Last Life. I thought they were destroyed with Last Life, but it turned out she kept them all through... everything, and then she threw them at Watcher One as a distraction."

"It was pretty funny," Martyn said.

Ren glared.

Martyn took a step away from him.

"You're very possessive of your sunglasses," Doc observed.

"And banners!" Scar said. "And enchanters, and Nether Stars, and crowns, and also mooshrooms and goats and time machines and reactor things that are actually mine-"

"We get it, Scar," Grian said. "But the time machine was mine, not his."

"Time machine?" I muttered to him.

"It didn't actually change time," Grian said back. "But we destroyed it after we accidentally went to Alpha and almost died a lot. But that's a story for another time."

"Oh," I said quietly, my hopes vanishing.

"After the whole fight with Watcher One where he died," Xisuma was saying, "The battle continued, and then more reinforcements came, in the form of the Watchers here."

A few of them waved awkwardly as many unfamiliar eyes turned to stare at them.

"With their help, we were able to win the battle," Xisuma said. "Without them, several of us would be dead and the rest wouldn't know what to do. So I need all of you to treat them as equals."

Several people nodded.

"At the end, suddenly we all teleported here," Grian said. "Does anyone have an explanation for that?"

Scar raised his hand. "I do!"

Everyone looked at him expectantly.

"Oh, wait, you want me to talk about it?" Scar said. "Okay. Well, so, there's this person called the Listener who is kind of an enemy of the Watchers..."

And he told everyone about the four Chosen and the message from the Listener that had come right before we went into the End, about the sacrifice. Jimmy chimed in for parts of it.

Scar then explained his and Gem's powers, and that they had teleported everyone except the Tays and him back home because of that. Then Scar flew off a cliff and died.

From the look of the iron sword on his belt, he hadn't quite recovered from that death.

"And..." Scar said. "I don't really know what happened after I died."

I stared at my feet.

"FWhip, what happened?" Grian said, then appeared to realize something. "The reason Blue and Gem aren't here. FWhip, are they in the End?"

I looked away. "Gem is in her house coping. Blue... Blue pulled the lever after she pushed us into the Void."

I held in tears amid stunned silence.

"I'm so sorry, FWhip," Xisuma said finally.

It was like I didn't hear him.

"We'll find a way back," Grian said, determined. "We'll make a rescue mission. Anyone who wants to go..."

He kept talking, but I tuned him out.

I knew it was impossible, and others did too. We knew that it had worked exactly as we intended it to: nothing would ever go in again.

And nothing - and no one - would ever come out.