The Battle: Hearts or Friendship?

Chapter 20: A Deal of Death

(Branzy's POV)

I woke up the next morning to find that I had fallen asleep on my desk while still planning Clown's rescue. At least I had planned most of it before I had fallen asleep.
I walked down the stairs to the meeting table that still resided in the middle of a chaos filled room. No one has cared to clean up the mess, but also most likely because we were worrying about Clown as our priority. As I laid out the sheet of paper that I planned the rescue on, the trio walked down the stairs, sleepy eyed and all. They must've gotten little sleep as well.
                "Hey Branzy, whatcha got there?" Parrot asked as he eyed the paper sprawled across the table.
                "I was making a plan to rescue Clown, until I fell asleep last night." I told him. The four of us grabbed a chair at the table as we sat around the plan.
                "Alright then, what's the plan?" Mapicc asked.
                 "Since we know that Clown is underground somewhere, and most likely near spawn, we should look around any higher places of ground or the bases mountains. If we find any traces of Vitalasy or the others, it could be a clue to where Clown and them might be. We might have to fight them, but we should be prepared. Parrot and Spoke, you two can break Clown out if we find the base, and Mapicc and I can fight off the others to give you some time if needed. We should do this at sundown, since they seem to be off guard about Clown during that time. If all of this goes right, we should be able to get Clown back and even slow down their progress of whatever they're planning." I told the trio.
They all nodded in agreement as Spoke ended the small meeting saying, "Alright, we got our plan, let's go get ClownPierce."
We all left to gather our own things to set out to search for Clown. Me, most likely being the most worried about Clown, had already packed all my things for the search as I rushed out the front door. I proceeded to rush to spawn to start there, and see if there were any clues to where the group or Clown could be. I arrived at spawn, and took the time to look around carefully for any sign of enemy life, or clues. Just minutes into the search, I spotted the two most important enemies, Vitalasy and Subz. I sprinted towards the pair, hoping I could force something out of them as I formed a flame of void fire.
              "Stop right there." I said lowly to them.
They slowly turned around, as they saw my fire engulfed hand, Vitalasy smiled as he said,
              "Well, if it isn't BranzyCraft! Looking for someone I assume?" He remarked as he smirked and laughed haughtily.
              "Where. Is. Clown?" I asked them.
              "You'll never find where he is. But lucky for you and him, I would like to propose a deal. A deal that would grant ClownPierce freedom. No tricks, no hidden plans, just a plain simple deal."
             "What do you want then?" I said as I silently grit my teeth together.
             "Nothing that's unattainable, though it could certainly take a while to get. We either want a heart from each of your team members, including Clown. Or you can gather 20 netherite blocks, in exchange for ClownPierce's freedom."
Everything seemed to slow down in time as the expression on my face turned from angry to a mix of fury and shock. Just then I heard footsteps behind me, the footsteps that belonged to Spoke, Mapicc, and Parrot.
"Branzy! There you are! We thought we los-" Spoke seemed to freeze at the sight of Vitalasy and Subz. "Where is ClownPierce?" He asked, his tone now fused with angriness.
"Relax, we were just making a nice little deal with Branzy here, although we certainly could've easily taken him and thrown him away with Clown." Subz spat out.
"What's the deal, Branzy?" Parrot asked hurriedly.
I opened my mouth, but no coherent sentences came following out.
"They...they-" I started to say.
"We want either a heart from all of you or whoever's in this little team of yours, including Clown, or, 20 netherite blocks, which would also grant ClownPierce's freedom." Vitalasy stated boldly.
Spoke motioned us to follow him as he walked away as he said,
"We'll come back to that later with a decision from all of us."
With that, we all left Vitalasy and Subz as we walked back to our team base.
"Maybe we should start gathering those netherite blocks then." Mapicc murmured, his voice barely audible, as if he was talking to himself.
"Are you crazy?!" I exclaimed. "That'll take way too long to get, unless we grind our butts off! Who knows what could happen to Clown in that amount of time? They could just kill him if this takes too long! We're bargaining for Clown's life, we need to take the shortest solution." I said.
The trio stared at me in shock of my outburst, but I couldn't care less. I needed Clown back safely, or at least, as safe as he could be.
               "I have a plan, and we're just gonna have to hope out it works." I said.
               "I think I have a similar idea to you, Branzy." Spoke chimes in. "Come on, let's get back to base."