"No!" Collin yelled in shock as he rushed up to the cliff and looked down. The red-haired girl was swimming in the lava but the strange thing was, she was not burning up. "How are you doing that?"

Rolling her eyes, the nether knight replied, "I'm wearing fire protection armour. Now are you going to follow me or not?"

"We would, but we don't have fire protection armour," Sam shouted from the edge.

After a few seconds of silence, she began to speak, "Well then, you guys wait there while I quickly go into the fortress and bring back some blaze rods for you." She then started swimming towards the nether brick building.

"Wait!" Collin said quickly, only to be ignored. He then turned around to face Greg and Sam. "We can't just let her go by herself, we need to help her."

"How can we help her if we don't have any fire protection armour?" Sam asked.

"We will have to risk crossing the bridge and hope we can fight off the guards," Collin responded confidently.

"Wait, I've got a better idea," Greg stated with a grin as he brought out some enchanted golden apples.

* * *

Collin, Sam and Greg had finally reached the bottom of the nether fortress after swimming across with the help of the enchanted golden apples. They couldn't see the nether knight in that area but believed she had found a way upwards as there might be a blaze spawner in the higher levels of the fortress.

"Let's stick together and see where this path takes us," Collin told his friends as he began to follow a path of nether bricks inside the fortress. After a few minutes of looking around, they had finally found the stairs that led to the upper parts of the building.

"Hey look, nether warts!" Sam exclaimed as he began to collect them before shoving all of them in his backpack.

"Doesn't it seem a little strange that we haven't run into any mobs yet?" Greg questioned.

That was when a cry of help could be heard from further upwards. "We need to help her," Collin quickly said as he raced up another stairway that led to the very top. Without hesitating, Sam and Greg followed behind with their weapons at the ready.

Collin reached the top and searched the area for the source of the voice he had heard. He sighted a blaze spawner at one edge of the nether fortress with fences surrounding it and sure enough, the nether knight was there fighting off numerous zombie pigmen, wither skeletons and blazes.

"Get away from her and fight us, you foul beasts!" Greg yelled at the top of his voice and with that, the three of them charged forward.

As he was running, Collin doubted the four of them could win against the large group of nether monsters. However, when he saw the red-haired girl struggle to fight them off with worry in her eyes, he instantly decided he would try to protect her from danger, even if it meant getting killed in the process.

Collin brought out his deadly diamond sword and brought the blade down on a zombie pigman, vanquishing it immediately. He realised his friends Greg and Sam were also doing their best to hack and slash at the nether mob army but they weren't killing them fast enough. "Keep them distracted, I'm going in," Collin told the golden knight and archer.

He ran directly into the crowd of confused pigmen, swiftly dodged a few fireballs that was thrown by the blazes and sidestepped a wither skeleton's attempt of a stab. Fortunately, he had successfully sneaked past most mobs and made it near the blaze spawner; where the nether knight was being cornered by two flying blazes.

The red-haired girl threw her iron sword straight at one of the blazes, which slammed into its body causing the fiery creature to turn to dust, leaving behind a blaze rod. Alas, the other blaze launched three fireballs, and one out of three hit the nether knight in the chest, causing her to fly backwards.

"Leave her alone!" Collin raced forward and just as the blaze was about to attack again, he went in front of the fallen nether knight and held his sword out to deflect the incoming balls of fire. He blocked one of them but the two remaining ones caught both of his legs by surprise. Collin could feel his legs burning slowly but forced himself to fight on.

When he had finally killed off the second blaze after a few swings of his diamond blade, he collapsed in exhaustion and gasped for air. He lay on the nether brick ground for a while to catch his breath but before he could stand, the nether knight was already up and stood in front of him.

"You saved my life," She said calmly.

Collin picked himself up from off the ground and grinned, "Guess we're even now."

After a few more minutes of fighting, the four of them had defeated the army of mobs and the nether knight had managed to get a huge number of blaze rods. Sam suggested that they should make their way back to the over world so that they can start locating the end portal, which seemed like a good idea to the rest of the group.

As they made their way out of the nether fortress and walked towards the nether portal, Greg and Sam were at the front keeping a look out for any enemy mobs while Collin and the amber-eyed girl followed behind. "So, will you ever tell me your name?" Collin asked with curiosity.

"It's Scarlett," She said with a wink. And for the first time in a long while, she smiled.