The Turf War

A Close Call

Grian was walking along the roads of the shopping district, alone in his thoughts. The shopping district was the only place he could properly think over his decisions, it had no hostile mobs to fight, no chatter from automatic farms, just a peaceful albeit eerie silence, apart from the usual hermit of course. It was 5 in the morning, he was the first to wake up, or so he thought. The shopping district was currently torn in the middle of a war, the turf war to be exact. It was common to see members of the two teams making attempts at infiltrating the other's base. But what he say this morning, shook him to great extent. He hid behind the town hall and saw two figures, with tnt, entering the barge. Grian moved closer to the barge and what he saw next made him realize the severity of the conflict. The turf war wasn't just fun and games anymore, it was all-out war. In front of him were Cub and Bdubs, placing tnt in the barge and hooking it up with a pressure plate to make it a trap. Grian was going to charge in with his axe, but then a thought occurred to him "Wait a second, this should be authorized by Scar and that means that.....there are more members nearby, I need to hide" And so, Grian took shelter in the outside of Xb's shop, his red sweater camouflaging him with the redstone based backdrop. He plotted to escape, to call an emergency meeting but he was stopped by the sound of TnT being placed in the Red Shop. They were going to blow up all the shops of the resistance members. And as any sensible leader would, Grian panicked. "I knew we shouldn't have revealed our names in the fake base. We are done for now. " thought Grian. He had lost all hope ,that is until, his communicator vibrated, signalling to him that he had received a message. Grian carefully took the communicator out of his pocket, aware not to reveal his location to the HEP members. But the mere sight of the name of the sender made Grian do a back flip in his head. It was Etho.
"Hey G, are the HEP members going to blow up our shops. I saw Scar, False and Xisuma enter Shady-E-E s. Should I call an emergency meeting ?"
Grian saw a perfect opportunity and so decided to act.
"Wait, I will create a diversion. You go to the base, I will shoot a firework into the sky, once you see it. Press the button."
"You're all on your own boss, I'm ready" replied Etho. And so Grian started to enact his plan.
"Hey Cub !" shouted Grian. Cub, immediately recognizing the voice, yelped in surprise. "What the- Grian ?!" said Cub. The blonde british just shot an arrow at him and started running away, towards Shady-E-E s. His plan : Get the attention of all HEP members and vanish out of sight.
"Keralis, Bdubs. Stop what you are doing and chase him. We've got the leader in our sights." ordered Cub. Keralis and Bdubs complied with enthusiasm. Bdubs was much more keen on catching Grian. If he could do this, then he won't be ignored by Scar and overlooked by Cub anymore. He had to do this and so he ran at his maximum, using his elytra ever so often.
Grian was aware of this. He knew about Bdubs' one-up manship. And so he took full advantage of it, he taunted Bdubs. "You do know that Cub will get all the credit if you catch me, don't you Bdubs ?" mocked Grian. This was so unnatural of him that even Bdubs was shocked. He didn't notice however that the blunt head of an axe was going for his head. Grian had swung backwards and hit Bdubs in his face, sending him flying into Cub who wasn't far behind, taking out the two mayoral workers instantly. But his luck had run out as a fist planted itself on his face. "Well, well well who do we have here " said Scar in a mocking tone. He had seen Grian lower his guard as he swung around to hit Bdubs and he took full advantage of this moment. He jumped in front of Grian and punched him in the face, breaking his nose in an instant. He pulled Grian up by his collar and tried to intimidate him. "So G, why don't you just give up. You can't win, not alone anyway." said Scar thinking that it will demoralise Grian. Grian, however stood his ground and punched Scar in his stomach, making him drop him and howl out in pain. As blood dripped from the lead Architech's face, he threw out a firework and grabbed his axe, only to be kicked in the back by Xisuma. As False prepared to stab him, he grabbed his axe and swung at False's legs. A cloud of purple particles filled the space he had been lying in, he had been teleported to the base and fell on his back.
"Hey guys" said Etho as he sat on his chair. Grian came back to his senses and got up, holding his nose. What he saw made him want to laugh, but he didn't to spare his teammates the embarrassment. Impulse was in a creeper onsie with his face to the meeting table. Jevin was in a workout outfit and on his back, still confused as to where he was. Xb was wearing his usual outfit, apart from some dust on his pants and had a pickaxe in his hands. Clearly, he had been working. Stress was just sleeping on the chair they had been teleported to.
"What is happening and why is your nose broken" asked Jevin as he took out his normal outfit. "Our shops are rigged to blow up." said Grian after he had put some wet wool on his nose to stop the bleeding."What?!" shouted the resistance members. "So we need to take out all the tnt ourselves and that's why you called us." said Ren. "Pretty much, yeah" said Etho. "But the HEP members are still out there." said Impulse as he looked outside a window. "Of course they are out there, I knocked out Bdubs and Cub, punched Scar in the stomach and almost cut off False's leg if it wasn't for Etho here who couldn't wait for another two seconds."said Grian. "Well,uhh..bad timing I guess" Etho replied slyly. "Anyways, everyone ready" asked Grian so that they could proceed to take out the TnT and prepare for a counter-attack. Everyone else replied in affirmative and Grian became his cheery self once again. But something was disturbing Etho. He could swear he had seen a faint purple symbol on Grian's forehead. Something was going on and Etho was going to find out what it was.