I neglected to put something at the very end of last chapter that would have made everything a bit more tense but oh well.
Jerome blinked his eyes several times, clearing the black spots from his vision as Adam's scream still rang in his ears. In the sudden darkness and silence of the night (the burning houses had been doused completely, perhaps by the energy released in that lightning bolt), it took him several seconds to be able to comprehend the scene. Adam was lying spread-eagled in the middle of the street, his clothes smoking, completely still. His golden sword was nowhere to be seen.
Herobrine was kneeling next to him, his white sword glowing softly in his right hand as his left was pressed against Adam's neck, feeling for a pulse. After several moments, his hand moved to Adam's forehead and - maybe Jerome just imagined it - he gave a sigh. He stabbed his sword into the ground and flopped over onto his back, looking up at the sky with his hands laced behind his head and one leg hooked over the other. The thunderclouds were breaking up and the stars were beginning to shine through again.
It took several minutes for the recruits to settle down, which wasn't a surprise considering that most of those present had never seen a magic fight before and all of them were still disoriented from that mammoth lightning bolt. They started to split up, some heading for their homes to sleep the whole thing off and others helping to start cleaning the street or transport the injured to the hospital, and all of them cast fugitive glances at Herobrine, lying on the rough cobblestone street as if he was in the middle of a forest somewhere next to a calming, bubbling stream.
Jerome, Ty, Jason and a less-pale Seto were the first to approach Herobrine, all of them unconsciously making sure that their weapons were ready at their sides. Seto watched Adam carefully as they approached. He was completely motionless, the smoke rising less from his clothes now. His chest rose slightly and dropped, then rose again.
"Before you ask," Herobrine said as they came closer, although he hadn't yet looked at them, "he's not dead."
"So are you done trying to kill him then?" Ty asked harshly, stopping a few steps away and crossing his arms over his chest.
Herobrine gave a chuckle and pushed himself up to a seated position. His clothes were bloodstained but Seto noticed that the visible cuts on him were healing in a linear fashion, very faintly glowing white as they did so. He gave them a small grin. "He's not a danger to people anymore," he said. "So I have no reason to hurt him."
"Wait, you mean... his magic's gone?" Seto asked.
"Don't ask me how 'cause I don't know. But I doubt he'll get those headaches anymore."
"Well that's a relie- wait, how did you know that he had headaches?" Jason asked.
Herobrine shrugged. "Lucky guess," he said, standing up. With a grunt, he picked up Adam from the ground. Adam's head lolled back but his hand twitched. Yup, he was alive all right. Herobrine carried him with a strange amount of ease to the makeshift infirmary, ignoring the many stares the recruits gave him and put Adam down in one of the few spare spaces left. A few medics made a beeline for him as soon as Herobrine moved away and quickly discovered that although he was covered in blood and his clothes were slashed, his wounds had healed, leaving only a few light scars behind. Quentin however, was hovering next to Ian, tightening the straps of his leg split.
"My leg's stuffed, isn't it?" Ian mumbled, his arms crossed.
Quentin gave a sigh through his nose. "I can't be sure of the damage, but from the amount of force it took to get it back into place... At best, you'll have a bad limp."
Ian groaned, his head flopping back. "Brilliant, just brilliant."
"Here," Herobrine muttered, coming over and putting his hand lightly on Ian's lower leg. Ian clenched his jaw as he felt his leg heat up, almost painfully so. Herobrine retracted his hand and walked away as if nothing had happened and Ian hesitantly twitched his foot a little.
"No way," he said.
"Wait, Ian-" Quentin started to protest but Ian had already pushed himself up and stood, hesitantly, on both feet.
He gave Quentin a grin. "It doesn't hurt at all!" Frowning, Quentin took off the split and looked at Ian's shin where the bone had come out, only he couldn't find the wound.
"It's completely healed," he murmured. He looked up, quickly finding Herobrine in the crowd of faces. The man was kneeling next to Mitch who was sitting up, not as pale as he had been a few moments ago. Herobrine had a hand to Mitch's chest where Adam had stabbed him and after a few seconds, he moved off to a woman lying on her side and put his hand on her shoulder.
It only took Herobrine around ten minutes to work his way around the infirmary. Most people he left alone but for anyone with wounds that were deadly or could leave long-lasting damage, he healed. Ty and Jason were standing side by side, a little away from the infirmary, watching curiously as Herobrine finished his rounds and upon spotting them, started to make his way over.
"I seriously can't work that guy out," Ty said to Jason, who gave a grin that quickly faded as another voice spoke behind them.
"So who - or what - is General Adam?"
Both men turned to face Gizzy who was standing with his arms crossed. Behind him, his allied lords stood in a 'v' shape, David looking slightly uncomfortable with the proceedings.
"I think you might have accidentally phrased your question the wrong way, Lord Gizzy," Ty said cooly.
"No, I phrased it exactly right," Gizzy said back, his voice also cold. "We came here believing we were meeting with eight Generals only to realise that one of them is a raving monster of some kind."
Just as his sentence finished, his eyes flicked over to someone behind the two Generals and he visibly shrunk down a little. This wasn't a sign of cowardice; many had fled under Herobrine's glare and his crossed arms, often screaming. And the glare he fixed the lords with now was one of his more fierce stares. Fortunately for the four lords, Anne appeared on the scene and she touched Herobrine's arm lightly, murmuring something softly to him. He reluctantly dropped the arms and the glare.
"We should probably explain to them what happened otherwise they'll spread bad news," he said quietly to Jason and Ty as he walked past them. Jason nodded and motioned for the lords to follow him. He also caught Seto's eye and motioned for him to follow too. He led the way back into the castle with Herobrine and Anne following behind. Out of sight of the recruits, Herobrine stumbled a little, putting a hand on the wall to steady himself as the world spun. That little trick with the lightning had almost made him pass out and healing wounds on top of that meant that he was absolutely drained.
"You need to get some sleep," Anne said to him.
He shook his head, instantly regretting it as the world tottered. "Later, I've got to sort this out first."
The night wore on and the streets slowly emptied, those who were still wounded having been moved to the hospital. Most people went straight to sleep but others began a long night of wakefulness. It took a few hours until Adam to finally stirred and slowly sat up in the bed, one hand holding his aching head. The world did a one-eighty as he sat up but after he was still for a few seconds, his vision steadied and the ache faded.
The door to his room opened and for a moment, a doctor was framed in the doorway, looking down at a clipboard held in the crook of his arm. Then he realised that his patient was awake and quickly put the clipboard to the side.
"Hello General Adam, how are you feeling?" he asked, coming up to check on Adam's pulse.
"Uh, fine, actually," Adam answered, taking a quick glance around the room and silently wondering why he was there if he didn't appear to be injured. It was a classic hospital room with the bare minimum: the bed he was in, a few shelves on the other side of the room, a chair and a table, on which were his sunglasses and amulet. There was a large window that took up a fair amount of the wall. The doctor seemed happy with his pulse and went to the door to have a few quick words with a passing colleague. Adam swung his legs over the bed and looked out the window, grateful that he was wearing normal clothes instead of one of those horrible hospital gowns. That feeling faded quickly.
He was looking out directly onto the main street of the base that had a few torches lit near the castle but otherwise was illuminated only by the moon. The details were hard to make out but it was clear that the place had been trashed; buildings were torn down, rubble was strewn across the street and he thought he saw small trails of smoke rising from the ground. In an instant, he remembered being in Seto's magical basement and then the headache...
"Sir, you should really stay in-"
"What did I do?"
The doctor seemed taken aback. "What did... You mean you don't remember?"
Adam didn't answer, but a few vague feelings flicked through his mind. There wasn't much; just a sense of distant pain and a single image burned into his mind; Herobrine standing over him, glowing white hand pointing towards him, eyes filled with rage and power. He was immensely glad that the purple stone from his father had survived undamaged.
"General Adam, perhaps you should-"
"Adam, you're awake!"
The doctor was slightly miffed at being cut off for the second time in a row but Ty paid him no attention as he came in the room. "You feeling okay?"
Adam nodded, quickly dropping his gaze and looking out the window again. Ty took in his posture and his position at the window and seemed to understand in a moment. "Come on, I gotta show you something."
"General Ty, I'm not sure-"
"If anything goes wrong, I'll bring him straight back, I promise," Ty interrupted. "And Quentin's going to be with us."
The doctor had no choice but to let them go and Adam scooped up his sunglasses and amulet as they left, putting on the amulet but slipping the glasses into his pocket. It was too dark and he didn't fancy the idea of tripping over his own feet. Ty took them out a back way of the hospital and the two worked their way around the vacant side streets.
"What did you want to show me?" Adam asked, hands in his pockets. Thankfully, there wasn't any damage on this side to look at.
"Nothing, I just figured you wanted to get out of there." Ty gave him a sidelong glance. "You... don't remember, right?"
Adam didn't want to know the answer, but he asked the question anyway. "What did I do?"
Ty kicked at the ground. "It was bad," he summed up. "You went basically ballistic and stuff and... Herobrine came in before you could do any serious damage and took you down, basically knocked you out." He very tactfully didn't mention the fact that Adam had almost killed Mitch and crippled Ian. That was a topic that could be tackled in the morning.
Adam mumbled something to himself that Ty didn't catch, but it was probably a curse aimed at himself. Ty clapped him on the shoulder.
"Look on the bright side," he said. "It wasn't your fault, and no one blames you either. Thanks to Herobrine, we had no casualties as far as I'm aware."
"Yeah, but it could happen again."
"Oh, and Herobrine got rid of your magic for good."
"What?" Adam asked, rounding on him. "You could have led with that Ty! That would have been helpful to know!"
Ty had the audacity to laugh and despite the horrible guilty feeling coursing through him, Adam couldn't help but grin.
"So where's Herobrine now?" he asked.
Ty shrugged. "Don't know. Last I saw him, he was meeting with the delegation. He'll be back soon, maybe."