9

COMPUTER PROBLEMS

“Yes, it’s me,” Lily said, “but I don’t think I can stay on the server too long. It has a lot of glitches.”

“We think Pablo is griefing this server,” Michael blurted out.

“You’re right,” Lily replied. “He is.”

“How do you know?” Blossom was utterly shocked by Lily’s reply.

“He—” Lily vanished before she could finish her sentence.

“Lily!” Simon gasped.

“I had so many questions I wanted to ask her,” groaned Michael. Her disappearance upset him. “But I have to tell you guys something. I found another empty chest.”

“Does that make this place a target?” questioned Blossom.

“I hope not, but there’s no reason to stick around here. We have to find Robin,” Michael replied.

“Which way should we go?” Blossom asked as they exited the jungle temple. She stopped outside the temple’s cobblestone steps and picked a melon. “There are so many ripe melons in this jungle biome, we should take a few.”

Michael and Simon were running low on food, so they agreed to pick melons with Blossom. They stopped when a voice called out in the distance.

“Lily?” Blossom asked, tingling with excitement.

They couldn’t see anyone through the heavy screen of leaves, but the unknown person called out again.

The voice asked, “Is anyone there?”

Simon hurried toward the sound of the voice. “It’s Robin!” he cried out.

The trio was thrilled to be reunited with Robin, but the joyous reunion was cut short when a loud roar boomed throughout the verdant jungle.

“It can’t be!” Robin cried.

The Ender Dragon unleashed another deafening roar and lunged at the gang. Blossom threw an endless number of snowballs, striking the side of the grey beast, while Robin, Simon, and Michael shot arrows at the dragon.

Michael grabbed a pickaxe, pounding it into a redwood tree. Simon was puzzled at his friend’s action. “Dude, what are you doing? We have to fight the Ender Dragon.”

“Let’s just get out of here. We can build a boat to save ourselves,” Michael defended his plan.

“The beast will just fly to the next biome, you know that. There’s no escaping the Ender Dragon,” Simon countered.

The dragon flew at Michael, striking him. The powerful blow from the Ender Dragon left Michael’s health bar depleted. He didn’t have time to trade his pickaxe for a sword; he was struck by the dragon and was destroyed.

Blossom continued to bombard the dragon with snowballs. “There are only four of us. This isn’t going to be easy,” she called out as she watched Michael disappear.

Robin ran right up close to the winged enemy and doused it with a potion. The dragon screamed in pain as it lost a heart.

Simon aimed his bow and arrow at the flying menace. “Bull’s-eye,” he exclaimed as he hit the beast four times.

Michael reappeared almost immediately. “I teleported,” he said as he grabbed his sword and lunged at the dragon, delivering the final blow.

Blossom grabbed the egg the dragon had dropped and everyone avoided the portal to the End.

Simon nervously watched the sky and asked, “Do you think another one will spawn?”

Robin replied, “We have to get back to Mr. Anarchy. He’ll know what to do.”

“Do you know where he is?” questioned Simon.

“Yes, I do.” Robin told them what happened after the house exploded. “After we were destroyed by TNT, I respawned in the bed and Mr. Anarchy must have respawned in his bed. I went out to look for him, and when I showed up at the lab, Pablo appeared. He told me Mr. Anarchy was in the jungle, because Pablo had found command blocks there. I teleported to Mr. Anarchy and we quickly built a house, since it was nighttime and we didn’t want to be destroyed.”

“Did Pablo go to the jungle with you?” asked Simon.

“No.” Robin took a deep breath as she continued with her story. “He had to leave the server because it was dinnertime.”

“I’ll bet he was going to eat French fries,” Michael sneered.

“What did you say?” asked Robin.

“Nothing,” Michael muttered.

“We spent the night in a small house in the jungle. In the morning, we searched for the command blocks Pablo had told us about, but we couldn’t find them. We found this stronghold filled with empty chests. Neither of us had any torches left in our inventory and the dark stronghold was a breeding ground for skeletons. We tried to search for the skeleton spawner, but we were constantly being destroyed by skeletons. It was a pointless and really exhausting battle.”

“Where is Mr. Anarchy now?” asked Michael.

“The last time I was destroyed, I went back to the stronghold, but I didn’t see him. I left to search for him, and that’s when I found you guys,” explained Robin.

A voice called out in the distance, “Guys!”

“Is that Lily?” Robin was utterly stunned.