In The End

Chapter 11

"Oof! Hey, watch it! You need us alive and unharmed!"

"When our dad and Gameknight999 find out, you all are dead meat!"

"Yeah!"

"Yeah!"

He watched at the two blonde twins repeated the word, as if trying to annoy everyone there. They probably were.

The spider queens, who had dragged them out to the cave, only rolled their eyes and scurried onto the cave ceiling.

The twin pouted when no one gave them the attention they wanted and started trying to get out of the webs wrapped around their bodies, to no avail.

The enderman king leaned against a stone wall, thinking. About Feyd. About the hurt and confused look in his eyes. The betrayal he clearly felt.

Why did I do that? Why do I regret it? He's my enemy.  He found himself looking all around the room, congratulating themselves on a job well done. And these are my friends.

He grew lost in thought, thinking about the previous events.

Xa-Tul had dug a tunnel from the woods into the village. With Malacodas help, of course, as he could produce fireballs that aided in destroying some of the ground.

Then the spider queens had went in and snuck into a particular villager's house and snatched children from their beds and dragged them out of the village.

From there, the blaze- Charybdis, was it? -and the skeleton- Reaper, if he remembered correctly-snuck in and set some fires. Charybdis used his body, and Reaper used flaming arrows.

It had been his job to simply come up with the plan and make sure that it was going as it should.

"Aww, is the little enderman worried about the traitor?"

He snapped back to the present, and his blood ran cold. He only shook his head, not making eye contact with the king of the Nether.

"The way you teleported into the village and saved him says otherwise," the ghast remarked, floating down. He grabbed the enderman's chin, and turned his face to face his own. "Forgot what side you belonged to?"

He tried to reply, tried to sound confident, tried to come up with a snarky remark, but all he could manage was quiet and pathetic stammering.

All the royals' gazes turned to him, which he tried to ignore. But he couldn't; all of their evil gazes seemed to be looking for him to suffer. Heat rose to his face from the humiliation; perhaps these weren't friends at all.

"Or," Malacoda continued, tightening his grip on his face as he leaned in closer, "did you forget who you belonged to?"

He shook a bit, looking up at him, his face burning. He tried to stammer something, anything out, but he couldn't.

The royals started to laugh quietly.

"Ew, that's weird."

"Yeah, just because he worked with you doesn't mean you own him."

They all turned to the blonde children, who were both glaring at all of them.

Are these children- ahem, these brats - seriously standing up for me right now?

The ghast king turned his attention to them, letting go of the older king's face. "What did you brats just say?"

One of them puffed out their chest. "It's weird and gross to see him as less than you and as if you own him"

The other nodded. "Yeah, you two are equals. Or since he's the scariest of you guys, he's probably better than you!"

The ghast glared at them. "You brats don't know anything! Neither of you can even decide whether you're a boy or girl. Much less what evil royal is more important than the other."

He smiled smugly as the two children were silent, but they gave the enderman king a look; one he didn't fully understand. But it wasn't negative.

He never really did put much thought into the children before now. From what he knew about them, they were both little boys and little girls. He'd see them be little boys, then a boy and a girl, then a girl and a boy, then girls.

He found this interesting.

Wait, why do I even care? The king thought. They're an enemy; I needn't know anything about them.

Right?

"You two shouldn't even like him so much anyway, as he's the reason your daddy and his friends are going to suffer," Malacoda continued.

The twins looked confused and concerned now. "What?" they said in unison, a look of fear flashing across their tan faces.

"At this very moment, your village is in flames. You're fellow villagers are dying. Your father doesn't know where you are and probably thinks you're dead too." He let out a loud laugh, making the children cringe. "And it's all thanks to the enderman you're defending right now."

The children looked to him, tear glistening in their eyes, and they quickly looked away again. One of them cried, and the other leaned into them and shook.

Why did he feel so awful now? These brats didn't matter. He would hurt anyone he had to to get revenge. That was all that mattered.

They were the enemy. And these were his friends. Clearly.

Even if the enemy was... good to him. And his friends weren't. Right?

He grew lost in thought. This would make Feyd an enemy. Which was good, he supposed.

Yet, he didn't want him to be the enemy. He wanted him to be a friend.

To be here.

To be close.

He remembered the feel of the smaller enderman's soft hands holding his face, the genuine concern in his gentle warm red eyes.

He remembered how his precessor clearly had his own issues, but wanted to help.

He remembered the rash decision to pull him away from the water, and the scared and desperate look in his eyes.

If I could have just... held him and helped him. Cared for him. If I could just... love him.

Was he really thinking of hugging him? Was he really thinking of helping him? Was he seriously thinking about showing his enemy the same amount of care he's shown?

About loving him?

Erebus sighed, and held his face in his hands; he really was pathetic.