Hero's Bane

Chapter 83: The Forlorn Hero

"How much ti- time do-... " Steve suddenly cringed and slowed his pace despite having his left arm slung over the shoulder of his powerful duplicate, he was being helped to move down the huge corridor but every step that fell out of sync with Herobrine's caused him physical distress by either stumbling forward in his fatigue or slowing too abruptly for the other to adjust.

"Don't worry about it, at least wait until we get you to a more safer place to rest. You may still be healing but it'll be at least a day or two; maybe even three before you'll even have the proper mobility to stand and swing a sword, but for now you are in no condition. Tch, I doubt you'll be strong enough to fight any time soon anyway; I'd say it would take a week at most and you still may not be physically ready even then. Humans heal far too slowly, but thankfully I have learned a little patience from an old friend." Herobrine replied with a bit of annoyance; he admired the miner's eagerness to start moving and train as soon as possible but he was stubborn. Stubborn and paranoid... just like Lionel; only the sentinel was trying to become stronger to work his way up the ranks to be by the Sovereign's side and impress his childhood love Nori before they got together.

The man had also been too obsessed with things of little concern; trying to do everything he possibly could to make sure that any problems in the communities inside and outside of the fortress were attended to even though it was not his assigned task. The poor anxious man should have been more carefree to avoid the stressors of his life, but he wanted the best of the best for all people; making sure that fights in the streets were settled, that food from the fields was evenly distributed amongst the populace, teaching the young how to behave and show them what he called his 'cool' swordsmen techniques if they did, and most of all; defend the civilians from any threat.

Herobrine felt himself smile a little, even though Lionel did not live beyond his lower thirties; he still did a Nether-load of work to promote peace and joy to everyone around him. Even at the cost of his own rest and happiness from time to time, or most of the time more like it. If there was something Herobrine remembered about the human other than his similar appearance then it would be his sacrificial duty to the people; the sentinel never did get enough downtime but the stress amazingly never affected his personality nor his kind, strangely impulsive, comical, and selfless nature.

His smile fell into a deep frown.

It was a pitiful shame that the people he spent so much time and energy on had turned on him; many of the mortals had mixed feelings about him defending the 'demon', it wouldn't take much more time in the public stonings and other torment spectacles before they all turned away and forgotten his noble deeds. Selfish, idiotic, and blind they were; so easy to forget the one who supported them in their time of need and worked hard to keep them happy. He was no murderer so why should he have been the one to pay the ultimate price and such disloyalty? Even the gold sentinel should have at least acknowledged that the man was a worthy asset to the people despite 'betraying' them, Lionel did not deserve to lose his title and his life over one small reason when he had so many good works already written to his name. He did more than any of the other sentinels combined, he was a real hero to the public and they rejected him so swiftly. Those mortals were easily tainted by false judgment; it was a good thing that most of them perished under his avenging hand.

"Gah! Herobrine wait!"

The immortal was quickly removed from his thoughts when he heard a shout and felt part of his body being jerked backward a bit. He immediately stopped pulling and let the miner drag him down some as the man kneeled down onto one knee to catch his breath and hiss from the stretching of wounds; he was definitely too fatigued and hurt for any kind of rigorous exercise, even too much to even walk; their battle had been quite an exhausting and detrimental one. At least Herobrine's strength was returning to him and he was healing steadily, Steve would definitely require more time for his frail stature. Herobrine sighed heavily and gazed down at the man with lightened eyes. "Apologies, I was supposed to keep my pace aligned with yours... then I had something fairly distracting come to mind." The being finished with an annoyed tone, looking away to show that it was not the miner who caused his irritable distraction.