Epilogue

And So Forth…

i. Alex Glowstone

The wind whistled through my ears. The waves of the ocean crashing into the bay of Novum Eboracum added to the deafening noise, along with the sound of the crowds of people in the city, bustling around to different shops, minding their own business. It was my time to rest, so why wasn't I hanging out at a bar? Then again, I didn't want to try the hard cider and wheat ales that served as alcoholic drinks for people as soon as the turned fourteen. Instead, I would rather have drank milk or just water. Maybe even apple juice. So a tavern wasn't for me.

Well, what about shopping? Since Novum Eboracum had risen from the ground, there were many different goods and services being offered to the public. Just because I was elite in a way didn't mean that I couldn't go to normal public establishment, did it? Well, the truth was that I didn't need to go shopping because there was absolutely no need to. I had the best armor there was, I had the strongest weapon in Monarch, and I had plenty of food and crafting supplies. So window shopping was out of the question.

Instead, I stood on a small patch of grassy land underneath the lighthouse, on the light side. It was the afternoon now, so the sun was setting on my side of the structure. The heat of it wasn't as intense as it usually was this time of year, but that was just because there were quite a few clouds in the sky. The alchemist weather reporters that were part of the daily newspaper had predicted rain to begin falling at about four o' clock. I checked my watch. Three thirty.

It was July 24th, almost a month since I had defeated the Enderdragon and in turn been reborn. The city had stopped growing at its remarkable pace, since it would've been hard not to have reached the town after over a month of its existence. Still, there were was the small trickle of three to five new people coming in every day, but the average was slowly falling. I supposed that that was a good thing. I had come to learn I had a slight case of obsessive compulsive disorder when it came to the organization of streets. And what was in my toolbelt at any given time. If I didn't need it, then why should it be there? Whereas other people would cram their pockets with blocks of cobblestone and wood when there was no use for it at the moment.

It wasn't my right to judge others for that habit, though. After all, I tried to convince myself, the only reason that the subject ever came up inside of me was because I would begin thinking about my own problems. There weren't that many problems to have these days, since the Endermen had been neutralized. Literally, neutralized. They were practically our friends now. Of course, the rare occurrence where one of them actually showed up was brought up with celebration to see them, as they were the only mob that really had any intellectual level other than humans themselves. Then again, only I could understand them.

They didn't show up often. The Endermen seemed to like to keep to themselves in the wild, and surely a city as big as ours was a little bit threatening to them. The farms on the outskirts were now within the city, the outskirts of the city now threatening to push beyond the forest. It expanded along the coastline of the water, as well. We were making plans to create huge buildings, ones as tall as the Royal Guardsmen's building in Imperial Plains except multiple ones of that height, maybe even taller and more magnificent. It was quite the architectural phenomenon. Skyscrapers, someone had called them. "So tall that they literally scraped the confines of the sky, even the anvil limit," the same man had proposed.

I didn't mind that they refused to stay within the confines of the city for longer than a couple minutes. Their black, tall bodies brought back too many bad memories for me. When people saw them, though, they regarded them with interest, trying to communicate with them. I never really understood why they even try, after all. What could you possibly say to the Endermen, anyways? 'Hey, thanks for being here for us, oh, the whole trying to destroy us all thing, yeah, we forgive you for that.' I mean, there was nothing positive to say to them, and you can't even understand their responses.

Still, there was something inside of me that liked to see the Endermen turn up every once in a while. I guess I had the same feeling as the others, except mine was a little bit more controlled when you talk about how much I felt about the subject. I had a lot to thank them for, after all. They had given me life when I thought it was impossible for me to walk around with a body any longer, and they had proven me wrong. Consider it that they are paying me back after destroying civilization, I told myself. And truth be told, that was how I envisioned the Endermen to be thinking about it, but there was no way that I could say for sure.

For now, I was standing under the lighthouse pointlessly. I had walked out of my house after eating lunch and had come straight here, although I didn't know why. It was just a subconscious decision, nothing that was really a big deal. I had just done it for the sake of doing it, I suppose, and now I watched the waves of the ocean stretch to the shore of the mainland.

"Mind if I join you?" a female voice said, and I turned to see Prae standing there. She was striking without even trying, I realized for the millionth time. Her brown hair fell around her shoulders, the silver streaks standing out and highlighting it all. Her eyes twinkled without sunlight to reflect off them, just doing it natural. And her clothes, they made her look even more beautiful wearing her green dress. Her bare arms showed off her markings from being a Fortifier back in Magnam Civitatem, the white designs spilling over her skin.

I uncrossed my arms and held one out to her, and she stepped into it. I brought her in closer, my right arm wrapped around her as her head slumped against my shoulder. We were still going as strong as ever as a couple, and it was hard not to be after all we had been through together. My feelings about her were growing every day as I spent more time with her doing things that actual boyfriends and girlfriends did together instead of traveling through cities, trying to save the world from a supernatural threat.

"Its beautiful out there, isn't it?" she commented, pointing out at the open water. "There are endless possibilities to what one can find out there. I'm sure that the Temple of the Overworld was just scratching the surface."

I laughed a little bit, not shifting my gaze from the waves as they pounded the shoreline. "I certainly hope not, myself. I could go for a break from all of the exploring. Defeating the Endermen was certainly enough for me, if I must say so myself," I replied, trying not to visualize us heading out to the open water above the S.S. Wolfpack again. That had been a somewhat disaster, considering Jessica dying during that trip and the Endermen attacking us using a storm.

"Alex, its July, for Notch's sake. The Imperial Battalion hasn't done anything since late June except for making political decisions for the city. Don't you want to go on some kind of adventure soon?" Prae suggested, turning to look at me now instead of the water stretching out for miles in front of us.

I shrugged, biting my lip as I thought about it. Now that she was mentioning it, it was getting a little bit boring to be sitting around Novum Eboracum. Thre was an empty feeling inside of me, and I hadn't really known what it was signifying. This morning it didn't feel as intense as normal because of staring out at the sea that stretched out before me, but I could still feel it. Thanks to Prae, I realized what it was. A lack of adventure.

"I guess you're right," I shrugged, biting my lip out of habit. "But what could we do? There isn't anything for us to do now that the Endermen have been defeated. The world is just wide open, and there isn't anything hostile out there..." As the words kept coming out of my mouth, the more I realized what the answer was. There was so much land to explore out there, and expansion from Novum Eboracum could accomdate other travelers and survivors. It would create more trade opportunities, and we could expand our presence. We could make our own empire in the new Minecraftia, and it would all be for the best.

The prospect of creating a new Minecraftia looked great in my eyes, but what about my heart? The truth was, at some point I just wanted to settle down with Prae and start a family. After all, there were surely enough people in the city at this point for the ratio to be in favor of at least one or two of them having some political experience. It would only be right for someone like that to take up a position that we didn't want to hold anymore.

In reality, though, I knew the truth that the people of Novum Eboracum wouldn't want me to ever step down. I was too powerful of a figure to just be disregarded and replaced by someone. They would have big shoes to fill. I didn't want to sound self centered or something, but that was just the cold, bitter truth. And even some people would accept that as a great prospect, to be a really important political figure. But I didn't want to fight great threats like the Endermen unless it was becoming absolutely necessary. Expansion, though, could do me well. We could clear out an area, find more survivors, start more cities, create sporting events like the ICCs, the possibilities were endless. And it all started with a little bit of trust in the ones we loved. I turned to Prae. "Let's do it. Rally the Imperial Battalion. It's time I used Monarch again. It must be dusting up."

She kissed me on the lips and continued on, walking through the city streets to alert the person who operated the noteblocks atop the town hall that would alert the town of a meeting. I raised my hand in goodbye as she walked away and looked back out at the water. It was quite a sight, the blue ocean that stretched on endlessly. I was sure that there would be another continent on the other side of the water. For now, though, we would have to explore our own. After all, no one had ever crossed the huge range of mountains to the other side of the continent. Maybe there was some other civilization out there, one that hadn't been effected by the Raid of the Endermen. It seemed unlikely, but you could never know unless you tried to discover the truth.

I sighed, heaving my shoulders to get the slight jitters that were pestering inside of me out of my system. I didn't like being unnaturally tense. The feeling made me even more tense, which in turn just got me all crazy inside. Breathing slowly, I felt a small drop of water splash on my forehead. The rain was beginning. I glanced up at the clouds above me. They were indeed darkening, showing clear signs of the rain that the weather reporters had predicted. I checked my watch. Three forty five. A small thing of simplicity.

As I turned away from the water, I remembered that it would be the last thing of simplicity for a while since I was going out on another adventure. Even though one might think that that was a good thing, simplicity was nice. A virtue for me, one might say. But that was about to be gone. All is for the best, I figured. It would just have to do.

ii. Markus 'Notch' Persson

Notch was breathing easy for what seemed like the first time in ages. The world had been falling apart around him for months, and now that he was sure that the Endermen weren't hiding anything after almost a month, he knew that Minecraftia was safe once more. That was a relief to say, considering that the constant threat of the Endermen had been nagging at him for so much time that the relief of them being defeated washed over him with surprise. It wasn't like he had been expecting Alex to defeat the Enderdragon so easily. He had always had faith, and especially had been hoping for the most positive result, but it was surprising how smooth it went.

Well, Notch scolded himself, his son dying and then being reborn couldn't exactly be called a smooth exit to the Prophecy of Minecraftia, but it was effective enough. Alex was ultimately alright in the end, and he was fine, along with the rest of the Aether. There was only one thing left for Notch to finish in order to tie up loose ends. He had to figure out what to do about the DEFCON sign.

It had always aided him in making some sort of organized way in showing the danger level of the world around him. But now that the Endermen had been neutralized, he wasn't sure where to put it. Most commonly, when Minecraftia wasn't under a threat, the sign would be lit up at DEFCON 5, the lowest level. He had moved it up to DEFCON 2 once the Endermen had reached the peak of their strength, and had moved it back down to DEFCON 4 as a precaution once the Enderdragon had been defeated. That was where it rested now. Notch wondered if he should move it down to DEFCON 5 yet. It seemed like a good time, considering that it had been quite a while now since the Enderdragon had died. Notch stroked his short goatee, wondering what the best option would be. He even considered just taking it down completely.

No, he knew that he shouldn't take the entire thing down. It was symbollic, detailing hard times that Minecraftia had gone through. And now, especially after what was arguably the greatest trial that his people had ever gone through, he knew that it wasn't something just to be thrown away. So Notch went up to the electric keypad and dialed in some numbers. The red four on the screen changed to a five. That was it. He was completely done with this mess.

In truth, the threat of the Endermen had always been there throughout the time that Minecraftia had existed as a real world. The beings had been in the code, always staying in the End. The dimension itself was too hard for Notch to completely delete from the world before he made it into the experiment that it was now, and so the Enderdragon and the Endermen had been trapped there for years. He had no idea how else he could possibly contain them any other, more efficient way. That would just to do, he figured.

It was just a matter of the Enderdragon becoming powerful enough to reanimate the three standard strongholds in the Overworld to create a way for the Endermen to begin their assault on all of Minecraftia. It had somehow found a way to do that, obviously, and everything had gone downhill from there. The Endermen had broken loose in the Overworld under the Enderdragon's command, and had started making the normal hostile mobs into mindless slaves. Well, Notch figured, they had always been mindless anyways, wanting nothing in the world except to somehow find a way to destroy the common people. No, the Endermen in reality had turned them smarter; they had made them into slaves of strategy, able to actually attack using more efficient methods then the traditional hunt and kill.

Notch felt at ease now that they weren't a threat anymore. It was great that Minecraftia had nothing to worry about that wasn't normal. Of course, the people of his world still had to fight off the hostile mobs such as creepers and zombies, but that was just standard. The Endermen could practically be viewed as friends at this point. They weren't exactly passive, but it was hard to get in a fight with one anyways since they just teleported away once they were in sight. So they weren't a problem at all.

In turn, Minecraftia was now a relatively safe place. The people would have to restructure themselves in the new society that was the aftermath of the Raid of the Endermen. Notch was surprised to see the growth of Novum Eboracum to have accelerated so much. He knew that people would flock there, as it was the only main civilization point on the western side of the mountains that blocked off the east side of the continent from the west.

The civilizations to the east of the mountains were the biggest secret that Notch could keep, and he had done it successfully for years. The truth was that in the Creeper Wars, two armies had battled each other while both opposed the mountainous amounts of creepers as well. Common belief was that the Union had slain off all of the others and set up the cities of Mt. Wolfpack, New Copenhagen, and Imperial Plains. It was true that the Union had won, but the Allies, the other side in the war, had actually fled over the mountains. What the western civilization considered the fabled far lands, no one had ever tried passing through them. Thankfully, Notch thought. If the two sides were brought together again, the war would be devastating.

What Notch found odd that past the mountains was some natural boundary of sorts. All three of the strongholds were on the western side, so they had not fallen to the Raid of the Endermen. The truth was that they were prospering even better than ever. But the Endermen not attacking wasn't half of the mystery. No, there was much, much more.

By some phenomenon, where the mountains were was a huge netherrack in the Nether, completely sealing off fast travel between the two. The wall was literally dozens of blocks long. It would take days to mine through it, and besides, no human had ever reached it on either side. And in the Aether, there was a huge gap between islands so that one couldn't even see the other side. Notch had always stayed on the western side of the dimensions, as did Herobrine, but the people in the east worshipped him just the same. They just couldn't meet him.

If war did break out between the two nations, it would be catostrophic. Notch had taken as many precautions as he could to try and prevent that from happening, but he knew that it was very much possible. And that was just one major subject for him to be worrying about.

The Enderdragon would be back, Notch knew, but it would be a very long time. It could be decades, or even centuries. And when it did come back, it would go for Earth. Somehow it would find a way to, Notch was sure of it, it was only a matter of time, after all. For now, Notch would have to begin taking the precautions to prevent that from happening as well. The world was a fragile place, and Notch knew that it would destroy itself again. It had happened before, and it would happen again. Notch just had to find a way to minimize those problems' probabilities.

For now, though, Notch could rest. The Enderdragon was defeated for now, so Minecraftia was as safe as it would be.

iii. Enderman Milo

The aftermath of the Enderdragon's reign over all of the Endermen was hard on the latter. The cave system in the large island in the End that served as their home was trashed, turned into a huge military fort for the Enderdragon to begin rebuilding its power through. It was hardly the home that it had been for the Endermen before since the Enderdragon had flown in from through the dimension a couple of months ago. Apparently it had just been wandering around the End for years since Minecraftia had been created into a real world until it had finally found them now. Milo suspected that it would rebuild its power at some point at one of the other two islands in the End at some point, but it would be a long time before it was able to locate one of them. There were three islands, and one of them was now safe because they had survived the Enderdragon's trials; Milo's island. The others were vulnerable, and as long as there was one left, then there was another stronghold in the Overworld that it would be able to invade through.

Milo's people were safe now, and would be able to roam the Overworld freely without Minecraftians trying to kill them. They were practically their friends, for Notch's sake. The only problem was that they would never actually be able to live amongst them; the wounds would be reopened surely, and it disappointed Milo.

Personally, he had found Alex to be a very interesting person. He had been one of the many Endermen that had been assigned to study him as he ventured across Minecraftia, which he had preferred over having to fight him. There had only been a couple of Endermen that had been assigned that job and actually survived. But through his studies, he had found that Alex had incredible fighting skills; ones that weren't learned, ones that just came naturally. He was one of those people that you assumed would be able to do a lot of damage with a simple wooden sword. Using a diamond one, he was extremely deadly.

But it wasn't just the fighting skills. He was simply a good person to his friends, caring for them physically, mentally, and emotionally throughout all of their struggles in order to defeat the Enderdragon. Milo figured that that was what he should call it, a struggle against the Enderdragon and not the numerous Endermen. In truth, the Endermen were good people that had just been controlled at the moment by the Enderdragon, so it wasn't their fault that they had been fighting the Minecraftians relentlessly.

Most of the Endermen found that the period of time that they had been enslaved under the Enderdragon a little foggy when it came to memory. The Enderdragon had cast some sort of spell that didn't allow them to collect any memories from the experience, and for most of the Endermen, that was a welcome fact. Most of them would have been saddened by seeing what the had done anyways, Milo figured. But of course, Milo was different.

For some reason, he and Cosmo had remembered every bit of the time that they had been under the Enderdragon's command, and for that reason, he knew a lot about what Alex had done over the time for his people. And based on his studies and meeting him during his rebirth through the coding, Milo had come to admire him.

Like the Minecraftians, however, the Endermen were disheveled, trying to build their way back up from their community being destroyed because of the war. The droves of the mob species were constantly moving out the war equipment to try and clear out the hallways and rooms so that they could live under there again. Milo, however, was patrolling the island to make sure that there were no events that could threaten the safety of the Endermen. It was an easy job, considering that the End was a very tame place overall.

So Milo had a lot of time to think about everything that had passed over. At this particular moment he was walking past one of the obsidian pillars that the Enderdragon had ordered to be constructed as part of his defense mechanisms. The Ender Crystal that had been on top had been designed to shoot beams of energy to the Enderdragon that would heal it, and without those taken out, it would have been virtually impossible to have defeaten it for Alex Glowstone and company. However, they had found out the secret of it quite quickly and had been able to make quick work of the Enderdragon.

The feeling of loss had been going away for a while for Milo, considering that the groups of Endermen had been making progress cleaning away the underground bunkers for everyday life again. He had been worried for a while that it would be very hard to get anything done with all of the debris, but it had actually gone pretty smoothly over time.

According to the Endermen that sometimes wandered the Overworld for fun, the Minecraftians were getting along finely. In fact, the city that they had built was actually growing steadily to the point that they were considering expanding to make even more cities throughout the Overworld. It didn't necessarily change anything for Milo, it was an interesting fact to keep in mind.

Speaking of the Minecraftians, Milo had been surprised at how calm the other eleven people had been when the Endermen had approached them and explained through signs. They had had to actually write out their sentences in words because they didn't understand the Endermens' spoken language. But they had taken it without a problem, and had hopped through the portal after the explanation detailing that they were safe and that they had accomplished their goal. Milo didn't really care, as it didn't concern him, but he had been surprised. He had guessed that they would freak out if they were approached by what they had just seen as the enemy.

Shivers went through Milo's body every time that he reminded himself that the Enderdragon would be back at some point. Maybe it wouldn't enslave him specifically, but it was still just as much of a threat as ever to the Minecraftians, free Endermen, and those that lived in the Aether as well as the Nether. And the Earth too, but the First Realm had their own problems for now. As the war went on, they would be in terrible shape for an attack from the Endermen.

Milo knew about the next chapter in the story of the Enderdragon; a prophecy that an Oracle had made in Magnam Civitatem before the city was destroyed in civil war, the one that been simply set aside in the back corridors. But just like Alex Glowstone, it had been waiting to be loaded into Minecraftia, created by Notch before Minecraftia had been made into a real steppable land. The Prophecy of the First Realm. Milo knew the day would come that the Enderdragon came back. That would truly be the End.

And so The Prophecy of Minecraftia ends forever now, completely finished. I hope you all enjoyed the run as much as I have, but now I know that I have certainly set up the sequel. Exciting as this may be, you all have a while to wait. TPoM II's first chapter will be released on January 26th, so again, mark your calendars. It will be quite a ride from that point, with more thrills, spills, and definitely more spills than the original!

To all of you, I'd like to thank you so much for sticking with me through it all. This has been the very first story that I've ever finished that had actual chapters. I've done short stories and stuff before, but never something of this magnitude. And to all of you, thank you. But like everything, there are many people to thank, and there are a few special acknowledgements that I would like to give out:

Those of you who have been reading since the very first chapter was released and never stopped, at least, hopefully: Mellifluousness and Kyanite Archer

To my most loyal fans who have been there for a considerably long amount of time: FullMoonFlygon, Mellifluousness, Kyanite Archer, exb756, Sea of Fire

For designing and drawing the cover: FullMoonFlygon

For winning Original Character Submissions: Mellifluousness, Curtisimo, Shaddow112, FullMoonFlygon, Sea of Fire, Kyanite Archer, ArtisticDeaths

Of course, those are just some short honors, but there have been so many more of you who have given your support on all sorts of levels, and I'd like to thank you all. Even though TPoM II won't be out for a while, you can check out the story that I will be uploading shortly: the first chapter to a Call of Duty Black Ops II Zombies Fan Fiction! It will be called 'Carry On', and will center around the four characters from Tranzit. Hopefully you like it, and thanks again for enjoying the ride.