A Path to a Different Happy Ending (Flower Husbands Empires Fic)

Chapter Seventeen: Unbreakable

"Okay, so this is the third iteration of my machine. The first one was just a field that I- '' The figure was interrupted in talking about the strange device he was building when another person came in. "What is it?" He was immediately apprehensive. His friend looked upset.

The second man took a breath. "It's your friends, they're in trouble."

"Then I've gotta help! Is the portal still set to the Greater Nether?"

"Yeah." The second man was still out of breath.

The first nodded, and ran to a Nether portal that was nearby, disappearing into it.

~*~

Jimmy tapped on the table impatiently. Where was fWhip? They were supposed to be having a meeting, but he hadn't arrived yet, and he had some key information about his experiments. They couldn't start without him, but they might because he was taking so long. Even Rarran was already there!

Well, at least Jimmy could get some things done while he waited, and he hadn't properly thanked Scott yet, so he headed over to where the elven king was standing.

"Hey, Scott." He said.

"Hey, Jimmy. Good to know the healing potions worked to fix your leg. What's up?" Scott asked.

"Uh, I just wanted to thank you for going back for me when we were in the Lost Empire. It was stupid, and you probably shouldn't have risked Xornoth catching you too, but still, thanks." If Jimmy wanted Scott to explain why he did it and say that it was because he liked him, who are you to judge?

"We need all the emperors' help, and your people absolutely love you, and would probably kill us all through sheer determination if anything happened to you." Scott did explain himself, but not how Jimmy had hoped he would.

Jimmy wasn't sure, but he could have sworn he saw Pearl watching them and face-palming out of the corner of his eye.

He didn't want Scott to realise how he felt, so Jimmy laughed and nodded.

Finally, fWhip arrived.

"Hi. Sorry about how long that took, I was working on one of my experiments, and kinda lost track of time." fWhip laughed, sounding slightly deranged. "None of my experiments have been successful."

"What do you mean, your experiments weren't successful?" Gem asked.

"Well, they were, but only if you get there before the corruption, and it's far too late for that anywhere, or it fought it off temporarily, and then developed a way to fight against whatever I'm using."

"Well, crud." Scott sighed. "Does anyone have any ideas for how to beat him?"

The silence was resounding, until Shubble spoke up. "The way I see it, we have two options: Kill Xornoth or trap him. Each of those has at least one problem. For killing him, it would kill Scott, and we don't want that. We also don't have any way to perma-kill anyone. For trapping him, we did that last time, and he got out."

"We can't just give up, though. That wouldn't be fair to our people." Lizzie stated. "We have to do something, even if it's just re-trapping him in a new crystal every few months."

"Why would we need a new crystal?" Rarran asked.

"The old one cracked over time. Xornoth was using that to manipulate Joey." Pearl explained.

"We can still try to find a better prison for him. We can't do the spell just yet, and while we wait we can probably try to find a new prison. One that won't break as easily. Gem, will you help me? Maybe your knowledge of magic will do better than just my knowledge of explosions and deepslate redstone." fWhip asked.

"Sure. I can do that..." Gem muttered something under her breath, eyes becoming distant as she thought.

"In the meantime, what can the rest of us do?" Joel asked.

"I think we should probably try to gather materials for the ritual. Something significant from each empire. And maybe do some thinking on where Pix went... It would be nice to have his help again." Scott advised.

"But we don't have access to our empires. How are we gonna get our materials? I'd be grabbing flowers already, but the Spring is the only thing in my empire left un-corrupted, and it's surrounded by corruption!" Katherine's voice rose slightly as she spoke.

"It needs to be something to symbolise our empires, not something from our empires." Gem smiled comfortingly at Katherine, but she still seemed somewhat lost in thought. "We don't need to go to our empires to fix them."

"Okay. It may take a little more time for some people to get their item than others, so if you finish sooner than others, start gathering materials to repair all the empires. We'll need it."

There was further discussion on what they could do once they got their items and how to get items like slime, since the Cod Empire was overrun with corruption, but none of it really amounted to anything.

"I don't think there's much else to discuss in this meeting. So, meeting-" Scott started, but Gem cut him off.

"Unbreakable! We need to trap Xornoth in something unbreakable! Like bedrock! I'm gonna need some time to research and experiment, but there should be a way to trap him in bedrock. He won't be able to break out, since it takes a lot of effort to break bedrock. There is a way to do it, but it's difficult, and if his power is somehow diminished... Okay, okay." Gem laughed. "Um, let me organise my thoughts." Gem took a deep breath. "fWhip. We need to find a way to diminish Xornoth's power and lock him in bedrock somewhere. Then we'll have to label that bedrock so no one breaks it."

"Okay! Okay, we can do this. We can beat him - permanently." fWhip smiled.

Crimus! Happy holidays all!