The Lion Sleeps Tonight - A Hermitcraft Fanfic

Showdown - II

Previously, on The Lion Sleeps Tonight...

Thankfully, Doc didn't have to think about it for very long, because a large, thorny branch of something slammed into the side of his head with enough force to knock him out.

And now, the epic finale!

Cub and Scar saw Doc falling to the ground, and gasped in unison. They communicated wordlessly, and shifted their plan of attack. Scar continued releasing blast after blast of what would equate to magic weedkiller, while Cub shifted more of his side of the energy into making sure that Doc would recover.

The malign intelligence behind the Jungle saw the ConVex moving in unison, and figured out that they were drawing their immense power from each other, and in what was amazing deduction for an evil biome of doom, figured out that the flip side of 'stronger together' was 'weaker apart'.

Forcibly twisting BDubs' hand with the vines, it summoned up the same flower that it had used to take out Keralis, took careful aim, and knocked Cub unconscious. He slumped to the ground, his hand slipping from Scar's, causing the power bleeding through both to fade. Scar gasped, and tried everything he knew to shake Cub awake. Nothing worked.

He turned to face Cub's attacker, his eyes full of wild rage, lit by the crackle of a horribly destructive spell wrapped around his hand. He fired off blast after blast of magic, not caring how low he was running on the stuff. This stupid vine-thing had the audacity to hurt Cub, his best friend, and he would never, never stand for that of his own free will.

The vines withered away, revealing the person trapped underneath. BDubs looked at Scar, terrified and desperate, and Scar faltered. And the vines grew back over BDubs' face, and the Jungle made BDubs shove Scar back, and Scar stumbled, and fell against a tree, dazed, as the vines turned to face another foe.

About a minute earlier, on the other side of the clearing...

The vines were overwhelming Iskall. It was all they could do to hold the things off, and their torso was littered with gashes from the thorns. They slashed at a bunch of vines, as another one that they hadn't spotted slashed at their leg. Gasping, they fell into a kneel, but they kept on fighting.

Another vine coiled around their right arm, and when the thorns didn't do anything but peel the paint, it squeezed, turning Iskall's hi-tech cybernetic arm into a twisted lump of sparking, useless metal. They screamed at the pain, and crumpled to the floor. The vines slithered away from them and moved back to their original targets: Ren and Keralis.

Iskall was in too much pain to do anything but watch as the vines tore into Ren, as he desperately fought back despite having left his weapons on the ground to treat Keralis. Still, in the end, he was overwhelmed, and collapsed on the ground. The vines began to wrap around Ren and Keralis, and drag the pair off.

"No." Iskall grunted, dragging themself to their feet. They grabbed their axe in their left hand, and hacked the vines away. They glared at the vines, daring them to come after their friends. The vines got the message. The consciousness of the Jungle, however, didn't, and Iskall soon found themself under attack. Clumsily defending themself with their off-hand, Iskall stood their ground even as they barely stood a chance.

Soon, the vine-creature had Iskall pinned to a tree, vines wrapped around their throat and getting tighter. But, just as Iskall made peace with the end of their life, the hand that the vines came from let go. The vine-creature fell to its knees, seemingly struggling with something invisible, and then the vines began to peel away.

BDubs was left there, shaking, as the vines receded back to a point on his shoulder. Scar, still conscious, dragged himself over to BDubs, and placed a hand on the little knot of vines that was left. And the little knot of vines withered and died, with little pain to BDubs, and the Jungle died.

A strange force echoed out from the spot where the consciousness of the Jungle had died. It was like the ground shook, but only your bones could feel it. It echoed through the clearing, brutally shaking Cub and Keralis awake, and causing Scar and Iskall to both lose their balance. The Un-Tremor echoed across the world, and across every world, where it was felt by every powerful entity it met.

Tango, an immortal demon, felt the Un-Tremor, and immediately stopped pretending to sleep. He quickly sent X a message, then, reading the reply, laughed out loud with relief. Xisuma, an admin on his own turf, felt the Un-Tremor, and a knowing, delighted smile appeared on his face, the twinkle in his eyes visible even through his helmet as he assured Tango that he was ok.

Two masked and winged figures, seeking a friend who they desperately hoped was still alive, felt the Un-Tremor, and their hearts sank just a little. Their mortal enemies, who had been watching the battle go down with quite the interest, cheered and laughed and were generally relieved that their chosen had won. 

Other monsters in other hidden places felt the Un-Tremor, most of them turning over and going back to sleep. It felt the Un-Tremor too. It had been slumbering for centuries, which was a mercy to all sentient life. And It woke up, three glowing red eyes flicking open in the murky deep. And It began to scheme.

Still, all of those stories are not our story. In our story, BDubs collapsed into Scar's arms, shaking. Both of them had had a harrowing experience in the past day, and so the other's company was all that mattered. Well, until Scar dragged Iskall into the hug, too.

So I moved the sequel hook into this chapter, hence how long it turned out. That means that there's nothing left to this story but the epilogue, and that's already half-prewritten!

YAAAAAY! I'm almost done! That makes this the first properly long story I've finished! (Unless you count the sequel to this, which I finished months ago, and just need to copy over to Wattpad.)

I've been Entropy, peace out from the present!