Watching and Listening - An Empires SMP AU

Phantoms

           Jimmy flew back to Tumble Town, wondering what in the world was wrong with him. He'd just shouted at False for something she didn't do and probably would never do. He couldn't apologize enough for it.

           On the way, a couple phantoms spawned, and with their dark blue coloring, it was hard to see them in the evening light. They gazed hungrily at the lone sheriff flying through their domain, at their hour of night. They decided to attack. Jimmy took out his sword and struck a gash in the side of one that flew too close to him. It shrieked and came back for another round. Two more joined the one he'd hit. And more. And more.

           Soon the sheriff was swarmed by dozens of phantoms encircling him, and with even more coming. Jimmy tried to fight them off, but he was outmatched in the sky. Even with his elytra made partially of phantom membrane, the flight it granted him was nothing compared to the graceful swooping motions of the creatures he tried to mimic. The things those phantoms could have been thinking. What did that pitiful earthbound man thought he could do, challenging them in these circumstances?

           Their claws tore slits through the elytra leather, making Jimmy wobble in his flight. The wobbles were made even worse by his frantic motions as he tried to defend himself. Suddenly the light frame of his elytra snapped with the collision into another phantom. He fell like Icarus, who thought he could fly like the birds, and the phantoms reclaimed their crown as the kings of the night sky.

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           She should have been sleeping. It was night, and the princess of Dawn detested being awake at any time after sunset. But an ally falling from the sky and onto your roof counted as one of those times when you just had to wake up and get out of bed.

           Gem was startled from her lovely dream about flying by the noise of something heavy landing on her roof tiles. She bolted upright, and heard the clear calls of phantoms chasing their prey. Gem immensely disliked phantoms and what their presence meant. But since she slept deeply every night, the fact that they had spawned here meant that someone else was out there and was now being attacked for his insomnia.

           Gem grabbed her ax, opened her bedroom window, spread her wings, and flew outside. She was shocked by the sheer numbers of the phantoms that had spawned. There were so many, they blotted the night sky even darker, making Gem think for a second that there were no stars. It was horrifying to think that there were enough phantoms around to hide the multitude of stars from her sight. Who in their right mind let this many phantoms spawn?! She found out soon enough, just by glancing at her roof.

           Jimmy. He lay there on top of her house, nearly sliding off the edge. Somehow, even in his unconscious state, he managed to lie there in a way that his center of gravity was directed toward the center of her house, not the edges. However, he wouldn't be safe for long, what with dozens of phantoms dive-bombing him. Gem was immediately concerned for his safety. He was one of her allies that she had from the very beginning, and she couldn't risk anything happening to him.

           She swung her ax around, scattering a few phantoms away as she flew to Jimmy. Landing on the roof, she chopped a wing off of one that was biting into his neck and smashed the skull of another with her back swing. Gem stomped on a phantom that was attacking her foot and beheaded it without a second thought. A fourth unlucky mob was taken care of with a broken roof tile, an improvised weapon and a deadly one in her hands. The princess of Dawn was supposed to be a pacifist. But she had fighting skills that only a few rivalled.

           But the phantoms were many and she was few, and even Geminislay couldn't take care of them all. For every mob she took out, more flew in to take its place, and she was getting overwhelmed. She should have brought more weapons, but again, Gem was a pacifist. She didn't have more weapons.