ilbarker's POV

"Y'all ready ta go?"  Ashley asked.

I fingered my dagger, Aura and Object glanced at their bows, Kit clutched her stick closer, Known flexed her wings, Cassia rubbed her scaly arms, and spark yipped.

"I think so."  I answered.

Ashley nodded.  "Then let's head out!"

She turned and headed out the gateway, us close behind.

2 guards watched us closely as we left.  They closed the gates behind us as we began ascending the bajillion stairs to the surface.

When we finally reached the surface, everyone but Ashley was panting slightly.

"Bleh, stairs suck."  Aura said.

Ashley smirked.  "Sometimes.  Now, lez continue out trek!"

These feel like really useless pauses in the story....

We walked carefully to the path to the kingdom, through one of the holes in the wall, and back into the house we had entered a few chapters ago.

We all, besides Ashley, collapsed onto the couches.

"Gossssssh, why is it ssssssuch a long disssssstance to here?"  Cassia sighed.

"Because the Popstar army doesn't want to be found so easily."  I answered plainly.

"Exactly."  Ashley confirmed.

She pulled out a roll of paper from a bag she had with her and rolled it out on the table in front of the couches.  It was of the castle.

"This is the throne room."  Ashley said as she pointed to a rather large room labeled throne room.  "The portal will be more or less right next to the throne here."  She pointed towards the area furthest away from the entrance of the room.

The...only entrance....

"How are we supposed to sneak in if there's only one entrance?"  Kit asked, her cat eyes flashing in the dimish light.

"Easy.  I set off some type of alarm in a different area of the castle and lure them away from the throne room.  Sky tends to spend a lot of time in there since it's near where Herobrine would be."  Ashley said nonchalantly like her life wasn't on the line.

"'Ashley, that's extremely dangerous!  You could get killed!'"  spark growled.

Ashley sighed.  "Well...I...just can't see Sky for...reasons that may or may not be known.  But...I can also take care of myself easily.  Don't worry about me, K?  Just focus on getting to the Nether and defeating Herobrine."

We were silent for a moment.

"I'll guide one of you to the throne room in a reconnaissance mission."

"I'll go."  Kit volunteered.

Ashley nodded.  "The rest of you wait here.  We'll be back in about an hour or so."

Ashley straightened up herself and walked out the door with Kit.

I sunk back into the couch, still trying to catch my breath.

"So...we'll follow Kit to the throne room....  How...would we fight Sky?"  Object asked.

"As best as we can."   Known answered quietly.

"But we don't even know what powers he has!  How can we fight what we don't know?"  Aura exclaimed.

Cassia smirked.  "I fought a giant ssssssnake to ssssssave Kit.  I knew nothing about it beforehand.  I yoloed it.  I'm sssssstill alive, right?"

Aura shrugged.  "I guess."

I sat up straighter, feeling more energized after that short rest.  "Well, let's at least brainstorm some ideas as to how to fight him.  I suppose one of the most obvious powers he would have is flying."

"So me and Aura could focus our bows on him better."  Object said.

I nodded.  "I'd also expect some kind of levitation spell from him that he'll use on different objects to throw at us."

"I could use my light as a shielding of the objects.  We just have to hope we're in a pretty well lit up area so my magic'll be stronger."

"Umm...I guesssssss I could blow fire in hissssss face?"

We all giggled.  "Yeah.  That should work.  I'll just throw daggers at his face."  I said.

We all chatted randomly about...well, random things.

Insert comment chain about what we chatted about randomly here from irl me even though I am irl me....

Confusing, I know.

Anyways, we chatted until the door opened again, revealing...just Kit.

"Well, y'all ready ta go?"  She asked.

We nodded and stood up.

"Where's Ashley?"  Aura asked as she looked behind Kit.

"She went ahead to her area to get ready to set off the alarm.  We need to hurry."

We nodded and stood up, following Kit towards the castle.

She took us into a side entrance that was nearer to the place where we were just at.

Wow, that was a confusing sentence.

We snuck about the castle, taking multiple turns and...other turns.

Yet...we never encountered guards of any kind...anywhere.

I'll admit, I was...kinda more scared that we didn't see anyone else than if we had.

Ugh, I can't tell if this is the correct grammar or not....

Eh.

Kit lifted her hand up, and we stopped.  "Here.  This is the throne room."

I pulled my dagger from its sheath and Aura and Object slung their bows off their shoulders, getting their arrows out.

"Ready?  There may or may not be a fight depending on if Ashley got them away or not."  Kit said before slowly pushing open the door.

The throne room was HUGE, to say the least.  I'd say it was as big as the Grand Hall.

There was the budder throne, and next to it...the activated Nether portal.

The room was completely empty aside from us.

I shut the door quietly behind us and went in front of everyone else, gazing around.  "So...Ashley was able to lure them away?"

No one answered.

Then...Kit started laughing.  "On the contrary...."

I turned around slowly, looking at Kit in fear.

"...she, well, technically I, lured you...to US!"

She had an evil glint in her eye.  The door behind our group burst open and tons of zombie pigmen poured in, blocking the exit.

Kit grinned and flew up, throwing her stick onto the ground.

KitKat the kitten appeared for half a second before turning into panther KitKat.

She growled at us.

Oh no....

I heard noises behind me and turned to see the Nether portal fluctuating.

More pigmen came out, followed by....

...Herobrine....

Kit bowed in midair.  "My Lord, I have brought them as you have asked."

Ok, calling it now, that is NOT Kit.  Ok, maybe it is, but she's being controlled.

Herobrine smirked.  "Good, good...."

Someone pushed past the pigmen in front of the exit with a body floating behind them.

It was Sky.

And the body...was Ashley's.

She looked bloodied and beaten.  She was unconscious.  What was different about her, though, was...the brown wings.  She had brown wings protruding out of her back.

Sky pushed past us as we stood there in shock from both Kit's actions and Ashley's body.

Sky stood next to Herobrine and stared at us.  He then laughed.  "THESE were the people that you were talking about?  Pfft, pathetic.  They're just a bunch of pathetic misfits."

Well then.

That was rude.

I growled and threw my dagger straight at Sky's face.

Almost lightning fast, Sky caught the dagger inches from his face.  He watched as it disintegrated.

"I would watch what you say about these 'misfits,' Sky."  Known warned, yellow sparks forming around her hands."

Sky grinned evilly.  "It's Skybrine."

The pigmen around us attacked suddenly.  Kit divebombed us and KitKat attacked.

"KNOWN, TAKE CARE OF KIT!  CASSIA, WITH ME TO FIGHT KITKAT!  EVERYONE ELSE, FIGHT!"  I yelled as I threw my dagger at a nearby pigman.

It disappeared and a small budder nugget fell to the ground.

Cassia ran next to me and we fought several pigmen.  Cassia was forced to punch the pigmen since her fire didn't affect them.

Once we reached KitKat, we were both slightly hurt from the pigmen.

KitKat growled and leapt towards Cassia.

Cassia swung her fist, making contact with the panther's head.

KitKat flew to the side, slightly dazed but definitely not out.

I threw my dagger into KitKat's leg so she couldn't get back up easily.

Unfortunately...my dagger disintegrated a few seconds after embedding itself into her leg, so she was able to still get up pretty easily.

KitKat snarled at me and leapt at me, swiping her claw at me.

I turned away in time, but I had forgotten momentarily about my wings.

Her claws snagged my left wing, tearing a large hole in it.

I screamed in pain and shock and turned the other way, pulling my devastated wing away from her.

Cassia tackled the panther away as I clutched my wing.

Cassia punched KitKat very hard in the head, knocking her out.  KitKat shrunk into an unconscious kitten and then into a stick again.

Cassia threw the stick to me as she ran past me, punching away nearby pigmen that almost attacked me.

"ilbarker, are you going to be ok for now?!"  She yelled as she punched a pigman in the face.  It disappeared and dropped a beaten up budder sword, which Cassia swiftly picked up to keep fighting.

"I'm ok!  Go to the others!"

I turned and fought more pigmen.

And then more.

And then more.

And then...none.

Because I couldn't move anymore.

There were just too many.

I was lying on the ground, my dagger a little ways from me.  My wings were torn up terribly and I was bleeding a lot.

But I still clutched the stick tightly in my hand.

The sounds of battle died away, and judging from the fact that I was still surrounded by pigmen, we didn't win.

Something grabbed me and dragged me painfully across the ground.

I was too tired to fight back.

They let go of me roughly and I cried out as my back hit the ground.

"i-ilbarker...."  Object groaned.

I turned my head to see her next to me.

She looked relatively ok, but she also looked exhausted.  A broken bottle with a few drops of blue liquid was next to her.

Cassia, who was next to Object, and Known were knocked out.  Known's wings were bent at strange angles and Cassia was bleeding a lot.  Aura and spark laid next to each other.  Aura had several cuts and slashes all over her, and she held spark, who was bloodied and whimpering.

Kit was kneeling in our direction, bleeding pretty badly.  But she looked satisfied.

Herobrine walked forward and stood behind Kit.  "I think you're done here."

Kit turned to him with a look of confusion, but it instantly became one of fear as her head turned towards us.  Her cat eyes were wide as she gazed over our broken bodies.

"Oh G---"

Herobrine whacked her over the head and kicked her hard, her now-unconscious body rolling to stop next to Known.

Sky...brine dropped Ashley down next to Kit and Known.

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to force away the pain for a little longer.

Someone stepped on my wing HARD, and I cried out, jolting a little from the sudden pain.

Object struggled towards me.  "il---"

She got shot backwards by something, landing on the opposite side of Cassia. Her eyes closed.

I looked up to see who had stepped on my wing.

Herobrine.

He knelt down, placing more weight on my torn wing.  I groaned at the extra weight.

"You could've joined me, ilbarker.  We could've ruled the world together."

"Like NETHER you would've...!"  I hissed.

He only smirked.

He pushed himself up, placing more weight on my wing before getting off.

"Leave her alone...."  Aura growled.

"Oh, we'll leave her alone in a second...."  Sky sneered.

"I think it's time to split this little party apart."  Herobrine said.

I saw Aura and spark lifted into the air.  spark whimpered and buried herself deeper into Aura.  Aura looked to me with fear in her eyes.

"I think I know the perfect way to split this party."  Herobrine lifted his hands towards Aura and spark and a small, opaque portal appeared behind them.

"Let's see if these dogs are good sea dogs."

The last thing I saw of my wolf friends was spark snarling at the insult and Aura clutching spark closer to her.

And then they were gone.

The portal disappeared as Known, Kit, and Ashley were lifted into the air.

Another portal appeared behind the 3 of them.

"The wings of the group are ripped away."

And then they were gone.

Cassia and Object were lifted next and another portal appeared behind them.

"The useless ones should stick together, am I right?"

I growled at that statement as Skybrine threw my friends into the portal.

That portal disappeared as I felt my body lifted and saw the portal appear behind me.

"And you...."

Herobrine walked rather close to me and laughed evilly.

As Skybrine sent me through and I began to fall unconscious from blood loss, Herobrine's final words shocked me.

"Main characters should stick together, as well."