The Wither Battle

 by TheSnakeWhoKills

            Btw, this all happened, me and a few fellas did this in MC, needless to say, it fared very miserably.

            (For privacy’s sake, I’m using fake names for my friends, my name is still real tho)

 

Part 1

 

            TheSnakeWhoKills pushed himself out of bed.  For one blissful moment, he was just a regular user in Minecraft, ready to start the day on his and his friend’s archipelago of islands.  But then, he remembered, today was the day.

            His brother, BB-Bullet75, who was a bit of a maniac, was creating a Wither today.

            Bullet had been talking about the Wither for a long time, ever since he’d gotten a Looting sword and taken those three skulls from the Nether.  Now, he was finally deciding to put his plan into motion…

To

Kill

The

Wither.

            Snake wandered around his island, it was a small island, nothing more than a platform in water, because the main and only original island was reserved for the carrot farm.  His island had a few large spruce trees on it, and he had used their leaves for a few crucial chests placed around that contained his best and most valuable stuff, not that he didn’t trust Bullet, but still…one can never be too careful.

            There was another island similar to his own, which was Bullet’s island.  In the center were the two main islands that had the carrot farms on them, and circling them were a few other islands, some of questionable importance, and a few others that were vital.

            There was the Tower; this was an enormous stone brick and cobblestone tower that just emerged from the top of the water, floating on it almost.  It stretched up into three rooms, not including the ground floor or the roof, where there was four campfires placed to send a pillar of smoke into the blue sky.

            There was a Map Island, this wasn’t much more than a few blocks, item frames, and maps, but Bullet had wanted most of his world mapped out, so he paid Snake to map out as much as he could.

            There were two other islands, regular ones, still floating, but they looked natural if you didn’t look under water.  These were the houses of Snake’s sister and cousin, Alex, and QueenCat3.

            There were still more islands, a large animal pen, a few houses with villagers in them, and one half finished island that Bullet and Alex were creating, but Snake’s attention snapped to Bullet’s island, were he was motioning for him to come over.

            Snake sighed, and dove into the water and swam to Bullet’s island, the distance being so minute that he didn’t stop to check for Drowned.

 

            Bullet was waiting expectantly when Snake pulled himself from the water onto the floating platform.

            “So, are you ready?”

            Snake sighed, “This is a bad idea bro, the Wither is a Boss Mob, on par with the Enderdragon!”

            “I know, which is why we’re doing it a little closer to home than the End, and besides, I’ve got diamond armor for all of us, it’s really gonna be quite easy!  Plus we’ve got all of the Totems of Undying that we got from the Evokers…”

            Remember how Bullet was crazy?  Well, when he got villagers, he only wanted them as a quick way to trade, but what he didn’t realize was that all those patrols that spawn carry the Bad Omen effect, and the Bad Omen effect recognizes his small group of villagers as a village, and raid after raid spawns.  Most of the raids were easy because the animal pens are the largest landmass, and the mobs are easy to snipe from the tower, including the Evokers, who are much less intimidating looking at them from a bow and arrow, rather than from looking at them with a sword.

            Snake clenched his fist, he was a busy guy, mapping, building, and just generally living was occupying his time, he didn’t have time for the Wither boss, he hadn’t even touched the Nether, and he needed to fight one of its biggest bosses?!

            But he knew that there was no talking Bullet out of an idea that he had, and besides, if he could get them all a bunch of arrows and a few good bows, then maybe they could just snipe the Wither, and nothing bad would happen.

            Another splash broke the silence as Alex climbed out of the water, followed by QueenCat.

            “So, we’re fighting the Wither today?”  Alex asked, tense, as she waited for her brother’s answer.

            “Yup, and I’ve got you all some gear.”

            Bullet went still as he searched through his inventory, before tossing out some items.  He tossed out a full set of diamond armor, an iron sword, a bow, a stack of arrows, and some cooked cod.

            Alex moved forward and picked them up.

            Bullet then tossed down the same thing in front of Queen, who picked them up as well.  He then turned to Snake, and tossed down the same thing, except it was a diamond sword, and everything but the bow was enchanted.

            Raising his eyebrows at the items, Snake picked them up and looked at the enchantments.  On the sword, there was Unbreaking II, and Knockback I, not the best sword, but it would be handy if he was in a tight situation.  The boots had Unbreaking I on them, the leggings had Thorns I, the Chestplate had Thorns II and Fire Protection I, and the helmet had Unbreaking I.

            All in all, not the best gear, but still, better than nothing, and the diamond even by itself was impressive.

            “Where did you get all the armor?” Snake asked Bullet as he distributed the final item.

            “I’ve been trading with the Armorer, he gave me a bunch of good deals, and I thought, ‘Why waste?’”

            Snake looked down at the final item, it was a small totem that fit securely in the palm of his left hand, a Totem of Undying.  Alex and Queen had theirs equipped as well, and Bullet put on his armor and tossed his totem into his left hand.

            “Lets go!” He shouted, and ran out onto the water, the Frost Walker enchantment on his boots allowing him to walk above the water.

            Snake sped off with the other two, walking right behind Bullet on the ice before it melted.  Alex kept pace with Snake for a bit, just enough time to whisper, “We’re all in agreement that this is insane, right?”

            Snake nodded, and Alex slowed her pace to Queen, who was more used to growing things than battling Wither bosses.

 

            When they got to the island, Snake stopped to admire it, it was a nice island. almost a small hill coming out of the waves. 

            Too bad that it’s about to be destroyed, he thought.

            He hadn’t fought a Wither before, but he’d heard stories, that the Wither explosions could level a village in 5 seconds flat.  He thought that it was a good idea that they were doing it far away from everything civilized.

            After this was all done, he was going to need to remind himself to look at the map of this place and see what it looked like from above.

            “Oi!  Snake!  Come on!”

            Snake shook his head and pulled out the stack of cobblestone that Bullet had given him.  They were making a little fortress for themselves, the Wither was to be spawned on top of the island, but they needed some place where they could get away if things became too rough.

            Once the cobblestone fort was finished, Bullet scampered up to the top of the hill where the “T” shape of soul sand was already placed, and two wither skeleton skulls already on it. 

All that was left was the right one.

            Snake saw Bullet hesitate as he held the final skull overtop of the corresponding soul sand block, and for a minute Snake practically begged for Bullet to just call the whole thing off, but in one fatal move, the skull was placed, and Bullet leaped off of the wall and into the water where he could swim to the rest.

            Snake watched as the white body of the Wither twirled and hummed, the purple health bar slowly filling up.  As soon as the bar was full, the Wither slammed into existence, blowing up the land around it as it already began to fire flaming skulls around.

            Bullet yelled in triumph and began pumping arrow after arrow into the direction of the beast.

            Snake in turn, caught up in the thrill of a battle, aimed his bow out of the window of the cobblestone barrier, and let loose with a flurry of 5 arrows.

Every single one hit home.

            The Wither screeched in outrage and charged the room, where Alex and Queen were shooting arrows at it.  It tore through the cobblestone like a golden shovel through dirt, and in no time it had blasted each of the three users out into the water.

            Snake could faintly hear a dull scream that he recognized as Queen’s before he plunged headlong into the water, already flashing red from the Wither effect.  He forced himself to push upward and take a breath, and he saw Bullet screaming with rage as he sent arrow after arrow, each one tipped with fire towards the beast.

            Snake swam over to the island and pulled himself up onto the beach, munching on some cooked cod and regaining HP.  When he had regained enough health, he pushed himself up and fired his arrows at the beast.

            He got hits, and the Wither got hits on him.  He had to dive down again as the Wither effect became too much for him, but by then he knew that Alex and Queen had moved away, firing the occasional arrow, but for the most part staying out of the way.

            After regaining some more HP, he climbed up the other side of the island that wasn’t destroyed and found Bullet on top of it, sending arrows into the three-headed monster, and ducking when the skulls came close enough to be worrisome.

            Snake got next to him and added his own arrows to the mix, both of them doing serious damage to the monster, before something happened.

            Bullet had shot an arrow, but the Wither had shot a skull, and they both collided, and the skull shot back towards the Wither.  Bullet had stood up, shocked, and the Wither let loose with a barrage of shots that would’ve killed Bullet if Snake hadn’t pulled him out of the way.

            Even so, the skulls demolished the hill that they were standing on, giving both Bullet and Snake the Wither effect.  Bullet scrambled down, but froze when he heard again Alex and Queen’s screams.  Snake looked over the top of the crater, and saw that the Wither had gotten Alex and Queen pinned down back in the ruins of their makeshift base.

            Snake watched as, one after another, the power of the Wither proved to be too much for them, and their totems had to be put to work.  Snake knew the effects of the Totem of Undying, but he also knew that even the totem couldn’t save all lives.

            Just as he was about to leap over the crater and challenge the beast, Bullet ran around, screaming with pure undulated rage, and, running across the water, pumped six arrows, right after the other, into the Wither’s middle head.

            The Wither screamed a blood curdling scream and turned on the user who was running across the water leaving a trail of ice, and blasted him with all it’s power.  Bullet proved to be a cunning adversary, ducking and weaving, but even so, he got hit a few fatal times, and began slowing down.  Without being able to do anything, Snake watched as his brother was blasted with the full might of an enraged Wither, saw the totem take effect, and saw one more skull heading right for Bullet’s prone body, sailing through the air.

            He could only watch as the skull missed Bullet by an inch, and Bullet splashed down into the water, still alive.

            Snake pulled his bow out and shot haphazardly, sometimes hitting the Wither, but sometimes not at all, either way, it got the beast’s attention.  Alex then came up at it with a sword from behind, laying waste to the creature’s back before diving into the water to rescue Bullet

            Queen came at it from the side, firing arrows, again, some hitting, some not.

            Snake then pulled his final arrow from his inventory and loosed it at the monster, it flew true, and impaled its middle head.  With a deafening screech, three wither skeletons spawned around it, and the Wither got a glowing white shield around it’s entire body, but Snake wasn’t focusing on that, he was captivated by where the three wither skeletons were…and who was near them.

            Queen screamed one final time, before the stone swords of three wither skeletons impaled her, and she flashed red once more and disappeared, her items and XP sinking into the water, only to rise again.

            Vaguely he could see Bullet surfacing with Alex at his side, but he didn’t care.  Snake dove down into the water, ignoring the skeletons, and instead focusing on the boss.  He came up from underneath it, slashing with his sword, the Knockback pushing the beast away from him.  The Wither turned and blasted him, but he didn’t care, he just existed to plunge his sword into the skeletal chest for slaying a family member.

            With one ice blue skull, the Wither blasted the last of his own HP from him, activating the Totem of Undying, and pushing him deeper into the water were instincts took over, pushing himself away from the Wither and around the island where he could regain some health.

            When he got to the island, he tore into a fish, and waited, it was all that he could eat at that time.

            He could see Bullet, staring at the Wither with a shock that was unparalleled to anything that Snake had ever seen…he could see Alex, crying on the ice float…and he saw QueenCat3 dying…over and over in his mind.

            He shoved himself to his feet, not even caring that his HP had hardly regained.  He felt that this was his fault…that he could’ve tried harder to persuade Bullet that this was a bad idea.

            He stood up, and came face to face with the Wither, who opened fire upon him, and took the last of his health…without him having another totem.

 

            Pain.

            Pure…raw…animal pain.

            Then…form.

            Pixels joining together again, forming what once was destroyed.

            A User spawned right next to a bed, on an island with spruce trees dotting it.  He looked around, there were more islands around him, clear evidence of other life around him.

            He saw another figure on another island, laying down, with white letters above her, spelling out a name…

            QueenCat3

            All at once, memories rushed back to the user, he stumbled as images of a dark beast with three heads flashed through his mind, screams of people that he didn’t know, but yet sounded familiar.

            The memory of coming face to face with the monster, and the monster blowing him into oblivion.

            TheSnakeWhoKills gasped as he remembered everything, and somewhere in his mind he thought…so that’s what it feels like to die…I thought that it’d hurt more.

            He shook his head to clear his thoughts and dove into the water towards Queen’s island, and to where she was.  He climbed out and bent over her.

            “Hey, are you okay?”

            She groaned and attempted to push herself up.  Snake helped her, and lay her on her pink bed that was nearby.

            “Hey, are you awake?  You okay?”

            She didn’t answer, but Snake knew that she was just preparing herself.  “Unnnn…that hurt.”

            “Are you well enough to fight?”

            She shook her head, and Snake turned around and got a few carrots from the main island and brought them back to her for some food.  Then he realized that Bullet and Alex were still there, and even though he knew now that they couldn’t die…he didn’t wish that pain of death on any of his friends or family, and he knew that he had to get back and help them.

            He turned back to Queen, “Hey, I’ve gotta go back, will you be okay here?”

            She nodded her head weakly, and Snake dove off into the water and began frantically paddling towards the island where the Wither was still attacking Bullet and Alex.

 

            He made it back to the island in no time at all, only having to pause to avoid a few bubble columns.  When he got within sight of the island, he saw the Wither firing skull after skull into the ground, and he could faintly hear the screams of Bullet and Alex, he guessed that they were trapped underground in a hole.

            He dove under the water, keeping off of the Wither’s radar, and he swam around, looking for all of the stuff that he had dropped.

            He came up on the other side of the island, and collected his armor and sword, along with his bow and arrows.  He paused as he saw a single flower embedded in the sandy ground, an ash grey rose…a wither rose.

            Without giving it much thought, he scooped up the flower and tucked it away in his inventory after equipping his armor and grasping his sword in his right hand.  He ran up the hillside, and saw the Wither just below him, blasting into the stone, it’s skulls seeking out the two users beneath it.

            With a yell, Snake leaped off of the side of the hill, slashing at the Wither as he fell past, and dove into the water, immediately curving away so as to avoid the first couple of blasts.

            When he came up, he saw the Wither furiously blasting the water all around, searching for Snake.  Bullet and Alex took the advantage and quickly climbed up and escaped to the other side of the island where Snake swam around to greet them.

            When Bullet first saw Snake, he breathed a great sigh of relief.  Alex was more outspoken as she shouted, “You’re alive!”

            Snake nodded with a weak smile on his face, “Yup, I guess the Totem of Undying gives us two regenerations, one that keeps us from feeling pain, the other that doesn’t.”

            Bullet laughed shakily, “Does that mean that Queen is still alive?”

            Snake nodded, “I saw her, I think that she’s doing fine for now.”

            Suddenly the Wither burst through the hill and everyone screamed.  Snake dove to the left, and Bullet and Alex went to the right, but it was too late.  Blue wither skulls incinerated them both.

            Snake gasped and almost fell into the water with his haste to get away, but he steadied himself at the last second and he scrambled around the island again, diving into the water and swimming off, not even knowing if he was going the right way or not.

 

            In less than a minute, he came upon an island, and he pulled himself up onto it.  While he had been swimming, he had come upon a few stacks of resources that the Wither had torn apart from the island, and he took a cobblestone stack and began building a semicircle on the island, protecting himself from the Wither. 

            He peeked over the top of his wall and saw that the Wither was blasting away at the island, apparently still looking for him.  Snake saw the sun setting behind the three-headed beast and he crouched down, settling in for the night.  He knew that Bullet would come soon, probably with some food, and maybe even some better weapons, but for now, he must wait.