Chapter Text
Herobrine floated to the end of the course, which was on top of a mountain. That was rather far away from Red’s alive self, and from how this whole school experience had gone, Red felt like he was justifiably anxious to be away from him.
It was weird to feel so strongly about how his replacement was being treated by the people around him.
Herobrine sent out several fake player steves on the course, and laid down at the end, staring up at Red in a faux restful position.
“Herobrine—” Red started, but he held up a hand first.
“Your classmates have a challenge to complete this exercise as a team. But as you are unable to interact with them as a classmate, you cannot participate in the final. Instead your final will be this,” Herobrine sat up, locked eyes with Red. “Convince me why I shouldn’t keep you and your twin here.”
Red floated backward slightly.
“What?” His voice wavered.
Herobrine narrowed his eyes.
“I know what you are. Stick figures. And I’ve seen your kind long before I ever saw you. They wreaked havoc on this world, and on some of my students, unlike any I’ve seen since. You do not belong in this world, you break it and its rules and leave destruction in your wake. As it stands, it is in my and my students’ best interest to prevent you from hurting the game, and if I can’t keep you away from the game, I might as well keep you where you can’t do anything to it. Now, convince me otherwise.”
Oh, this was not Red’s strong suit. Debate? Convincing people of things? Diplomacy? That was Blue! That was Orange! Not himself! And like everything else on this day, it wasn’t fair.
It wasn’t fair for this to fall to Red. It wasn’t fair that he had to defend both himself and his alive self for being literally stuck in a school Herobrine had made. And it wasn’t fair that Herobrine was asking Red to defend his own freedom.
Years ago, Red had been possessed by Herobrine. He had been locked inside his own body and forced to watch as he hurt his friends by his own hand. He remembered the looks of betrayal in their eyes as he slammed them against the ground, and then the grim determination of them understanding they had to fight him. He had nearly watched himself kill them, and watched them run away from the block later on. He remembered how when he woke up and they were all surrounding him, he flinched away, prepared for them to continue defending themselves against a threat that was no longer there because there was no way to tell.
He had never felt more relieved when they hugged him since that moment. He had never needed a hug more than in that moment. Not even after he died.
It had all hurt. Really bad. Herobrine hadn’t blinked while in his body at all and his eyes felt burned and blurry for the next few days. The injuries he sustained were all felt by him as each blow landed, but seemingly not felt by Herobrine. His muscles were strained for days afterward from overuse. He felt physically and mentally exhausted, and so completely exposed. Like if he wasn’t waiting, he would lose control of his body again.
Some days he wondered if he never really had gained back control. Some days he would hide in his room because he was afraid he would come back and actually kill his friends, leaving Red alone with the person who had done it. He had nightmares about it.
The worst ones had been just a month after the incident. He dreamt that he was choking out Yellow with movements that were not his, white creeping over his vision and muscles burning from being tensed so horribly while he was puppeted around. He watched the life leave her eyes and woke with a start. He avoided her for the rest of the day while the fear eased up.
The nightmares had passed in time, Red had fewer days when he felt exposed to all the world, and his friends made sure to show him that they still loved and trusted him.
But it had affected him deeply. And to think that it might be because some random stick figures freaked out Herobrine one time…it wasn’t right. And Red had a right to know why.
Red had fallen into Herobrine’s school on pure chance, and Herobrine was keeping him from stopping a real threat to the game.
So Red decided he should just ask more questions. See if he could get Herobrine to reveal the error on his own. It would probably be easier than finding it himself.
“Why did you possess me?” Red asked instead of defending himself. Herobrine raised an eyebrow.
“Yes…that was you,” he said it like he had just remembered who he was. “Ah, that’s why your twin was familiar, because he looks just like you but had never been possessed. And you’re a ghost so I couldn’t tell.”
Red just glared at him. He didn’t like this being treated like a twisted reunion of some kind. Herobrine caught his angry gaze.
“Oh, your little friends deleted the block,” he said dismissively. “You stayed out of the game until now, and you were all fine, no harm no foul.”
“It hurt me.” Red took a gamble, but he was going to do his best here.
“Did it?” He sounded intrigued, but not too concerned. “The last red stick figure I saw fell into lava and brushed it off. That shouldn’t have done anything but scare you.”
Red looked down at the wound in his chest thoughtfully.
“Crazy red hollowhead with a thirst for blood, laughs a lot? Fights quickly?”
“I see you know her,” Herobrine said, his voice lowering, but Red wasn’t as worried because of where he was going to try and steer this.
“She killed me,” Red revealed, gesturing down to the stab wound, and Herobrine finally looked genuinely surprised. It wasn’t that muted look he had when Red said something unexpected, but a true unfiltered reaction. “She killed all of us, actually. Except for Orange. But you almost killed them.”
How strange to think that in some way, The Dark Lord had hurt them long before any of them had ever seen her. Red already hated her just for killing them, but knowing she was, in some way, part of the chain of events that led to his possession only made his disdain for her worse.
“Did I?” He sounded a little more involved in the conversation. “Well, to answer your question, I was trying to get you all away from Minecraft because of what she when she arrived in the game. Her friend was also destructive, but she was the primary culprite. The two of them certainly did a lot of damage. You were the most visually like her, she was more openly durable, so I chose you as a vessel to frighten you all away. It was nothing personal.”
Nothing personal. The words echoed in Red’s ears. It had been nothing but personal for him.
“Nothing personal?” Red cried, floating a little into the air. “Nothing personal? You invaded my body! You almost made me kill my friends and I couldn’t do anything about it! I can’t even count the nightmares I’ve had about you, and some days I still didn’t feel in control of my body for years after! And have you seen his reactions to you?” Red pointed in the general direction of the course at whatever his alive self was doing. “He’s been covering his chest the whole time to protect himself from you. He’s making himself smaller because he’s scared you’re going to do it again!”
Red was screaming at this point. He had basically forgotten he was pretending to be his alive self’s twin. He didn’t quite know why, but Herobrine’s nonchalance about the most traumatic moment of Red’s life just made him so angry. It had been one of the most impactful moments of his life, but for Herobrine it was all in a day’s work. This was weeks and months and years of fear and anxiety being talked about like it was a misunderstanding and Red was angry.
He wished he had the same kind of powerful anger as Orange right now, but as it stood, all he could do was scream.
“Calm down, Ghost, there’s no need for any of that.”
“My name. Is Red! And you don’t even care! You only see me as a vessel, or some kind of means to an end and now you’re trying to trap me and him here with you forever, while the real threat to the game is just through that portal you keep blocking him from going through! I’m sick of being afraid of you all the damn time, you fucking monster! Let me GO!”
Herobrine stood up, eyes flaring with anger.
“I did what I did to protect this world from your kind.”
“You don’t know anything about my kind!” Red shot back. “You saw one other stick figure and decided the rest of us were exactly like her. We love this game! We were just trying to have fun! And then you swooped in and turned it into something bad until we found the joy in it, and you didn't even bother to notice! Is that why you’re letting your students sabotage him? Is this all some extension of revenge against her? Is it because of some vendetta you have against her for a rampage? Well, I’m sorry she did that, but I didn’t! And neither did he. And neither did my friends who just wanted to have fun in this game.”
“My responsibility is to my students.”
“Well you’re not doing a very good job,” Red snapped.
“You’re insulting my abilities as a teacher?”
Red scoffed.
“You know what? Yeah. I’ll tell you what I think! I think you should stop reinforcing your stronger students and leaving your weaker ones to the side. All Skeleton needs is a little target practice and they’re good to go. Enderman needs a push to actually hit anything and stop relying just on shock. And Spider just needs someone to push her to think outside the box and open her up to styles of combat that actually suit her. But you’re just putting everything into your star students while the weaker ones are left behind! For crying out loud, you put the four lowest scoring students together without a means of flight, which is a core part of the competition. I’m sure they’re capable of figuring it out, but you haven’t done a thing to encourage them to solve those kinds of problems because you gave all those opportunities to students who were already excelling!”
Herobrine had his head turned to the side and was no longer invading Red’s space.
“You call yourself a teacher? Teach all of them.”
“Do you expect me to generate more time in the day?” Herobrine asked sarcastically.
“No. I’m telling you to restructure. What you’re doing isn’t working, so try something else. It’s not my responsibility to tell you how to do your job, but this clearly isn’t working for students who deserve better.” Red paused. “And fix your hierarchy problem. They’re all so mean to each other.”
Red was breathing hard, having shouted most of his words. He hadn’t realized he felt so strongly about the matter, but there was a sense of frustration that his alive self’s first time at a school, a place he thought was supposed to be for learning and improving, felt so wasted on just trying to survive.
“You’re very observant,” he said once Red was done.
“Well, when you’re dead and can’t do anything else you get pretty good at picking stuff up.”
As he spoke, who should come over the top of the mountain but Alive Red’s team. The weakest team. And from a glance, Alive Red looked really beat up. Red glared at Herobrine, already knowing that even if the team had come around to accepting his alive self as a part of the team, he had probably been jumped by the rest of the mobs.
“You pass,” Herobrine said, moving forward, and summoning a few healing potions. He gave them to Alive Red, who took them cautiously but drank them anyway.
Red felt overwhelming relief. He had almost forgotten that was what he was arguing for in the first place, and the fact that it worked was a shock. Herobrine set up the yellow team on the top of the podium and presented them the trophy, clapping for them.
He leaned back toward Red.
“Now, tell me more about this ‘real threat’ in the Nether.”
Red was about to explain about The King, about the staff, and that his alive self and friends were all trying to stop The King, but before he started, Herobrine continued.
“And Red?” Red looked at him expectedly. “I owe you an apology. I’ll see what I can do to learn more about your kind if you’re going to be spending time in Minecraft.”
“Good.”
Red wasn’t about to forgive him just like that. But it was a start.
He saw his alive self huddling up with his teammates, and knew immediately the plan he was proposing to the mobs was, given that he would do the same thing.
Herobrine was distracted giving the other students stern looks to encourage them to clap for their classmates, and Red zipped around him and grabbed his alive self’s shoulder just in the nick of time before Enderman teleported the whole group rapidly away and up toward the portal.
Herobrine would follow for his students if nothing else. And even if they were on better terms, Red was glad to be leaving this dimension.
He would rather watch the conflict with The King than spend another minute with Herobrine.