Chapter Text
Evbo was falling.
The wind was whistling loudly in his ears, as the tails of his headband whipped and snapped in the air. It was the dead of night, only the stars casting light as the new moon was shrouded in darkness. They never used to have nights in parkour civilization. They had never known of monsters like zombies, skeletons and creepers. Not until he came into power.
Evbo was falling, with his eyes locked onto the dirt block below him, water bucket in hand. The ground was approaching rapidly. Taking a deep breath, Evbo held out the bucket.
Splash!
He made it.
However, he didn’t even have time to sigh in relief, as he quickly crouched down, eyes darting around the area. In front of him was an abandoned city. The guards never came around these parts anymore, but that didn’t mean it was a safe place.
Luckily, there were only a couple monsters in the distance, so Evbo quickly jumped over the one block spaces, and made his way to one of the houses in the back corner of the city. He creeped closer to the single storied wooden house. Glancing around for one last check, he slowly opened the front door, and stepped inside. Shutting it behind him, he sighed and looked around. The room was dark, like all the rest of the world. A strip of empty space in the middle of the house, reminding him of the days before, when people had to jump over it just to get to bed. When people had to parkour in order to get even the most basic of necessities. When the biggest question was whether you would jump for the beef or not… Simpler days.
Shaking his head, Evbo hopped over the one block jump, and made his way to the back of the room, where a single painting stood. If you looked close, you could see a soft light seeping in through the seams of it. Evbo closed his eyes, and walked through it. On the other side, there was a hall that led down to a room.
The headquarters.
The headquarters for the rebellion against the King.
“Alright people, we’ve found an opening.”
Evbo spread out a rolled up map onto the table before him, smoothing it out with his hands. Hands still holding down its sides, Evbo looked up at the people standing around him.
“Our scouts found a spot at the back of the fortress last week, where it took an extra couple minutes for the guards to interchange. I personally went there myself today to go time it, and they were right. We’ll have a five minute period right at sunset when there won’t be any guards in the area.”
A chattering of excitement spread across the table. Evbo grinned, looking around at them.
“That’s enough to have a small team to run in, break through the first couple layers of obsidian and close it up behind them,” From beside him, His Friend, who was also his second in command, spoke up. “We’ll bring torches, because there’ll still be a few more layers you’ll need to mine through if our calculations are correct.”
“From the general maps we’ve managed to make, we think the tunnel should break through into one of the storage rooms. We’ll have to move silently up to the top floor to be able to reach the command blocks, which are locked up in the king’s quarters,” Evbo continued.
“How are we going to get up there? The staircases are going to be littered with guards.”
Someone with blue hair piped up from somewhere in the back. Evbo grinned at her.
“Though the king reformed it after he took charge, that place is still the parkour course to rank up to champion. If we look through the inner walls, we can find where the original way up is,” Evbo explained. The atmosphere in the room suddenly shifted, as a wave of unease washing amongst them.
“The parkour course? We can’t do that! It’ll be way too hard, we’ll never make it!” Someone exclaimed.
“I know you’ve done it, but we aren’t like you! Most of us here were just noobs when the king took over,” another remarked. Anxious mutterings turned to arguing, everyone slowly losing hope.
“Hey, hey! Listen!” Evbo shouted, gathering their attention. There were still a few mutterings, but most of the people turned their eyes back on Evbo. “We can do this. This is our chance. We have worked so hard, suffered so much under the rule of the king… We can’t give up. You’ve all improved so much, gotten so good at parkour, if we all work together, we can make it up. Then, we can defeat the king, and restore parkour civilization to its former glory. I’m sure of it!”
It was clear to see that everyone was still nervous, but they began to smile. Evbo held his hand out in front of him.
“We can do this. We’re gonna work together, and save parkour civilization. Come on, what do you say?”
Everyone glanced at each other nervously shuffling from foot to foot. Evbo felt his heart sink, and he was about to retract his hand, when someone reached out from beside him. Evbo’s Friend smiled at him as he placed his hand on top of his.
“I’m in, bro.”
Evbo smiled back at him, relieved to have his friend at his side.
Next thing he knew, another hand joined. Then another. Everyone clambered over each other, laughing as they all tried to get their hands in the pile.
“Alright guys, let’s do this,” Evbo shouted, smiling widely, “Down with the king, for Parkour Civilization!”
“For Parkour Civilization!”
Everyone was gearing up, making preparations for the next day. Over the course of however long they’ve been living like this, the rebellion had managed to gather a decent amount of supplies. They had gathered all different types of blocks, glass panes, ice, flower pots, even a few amethyst crystals. All things that they would need to be able to fight against the guards if they got caught.
Evbo sighed. He really hoped it wouldn’t come to fighting. Best case scenario they all snuck in, quickly destroyed the command block, and saved the world, but he would be a fool to assume that it would go so easily. The guards, if you could even call those brainwashed shells of former players that, would be hard to fight, but he knew his team could do it. He had chosen the best. His Friend, his old Neighbor from the pro level, a cloaked woman who was especially good at ice parkour, and Bob. Of course, Evbo himself was also going as well.
As everyone else made their preparations, Evbo prepared as well, but in a slightly different way. He took deep breaths and tried to keep his head level as he rustled through their chests, trying to gather all the items he would need. As much as he was excited, they had finally found an opening, they would finally be able to ambush and attack, he couldn’t help the twinge in his chest.
Of all they were going to have to do, sneak in, break the wall, parkour up to the top floor, break the command block, the thing that had him at ease wasn’t any of those.
Though he prayed to the Parkour God that he wouldn't, he knew… He knew that he would end up face to face with him .
“You feeling okay man?”
Evbo looked up to his side, to see his Friend looking at him concernedly. Evbo waved him off, shaking his head.
“I’m alright. Just trying to get everything ready for tomorrow. Make sure to remind everyone to get a lot of sleep, we’ll need to be at the top of our game tomorrow.”
His Friend nodded, but he didn’t leave. He hesitated, glanced around, then quietly asked, “Are you.. Worried about seeing him?”
Evbo felt his eye twitch slightly. Damn it . Was he really being that obvious about it? He needed to get his act together, he needed to be inspiring confidence right now.
“No,” he said, shaking his head, and dusting his hands off as he finished sorting his inventory. “Just a bit tired. I should get to bed, need to make sure I’m at the top of my game too!” He said with a laugh, putting his hands proudly on his hips.
His Friend looked at him still with a hint of concern, but he nodded.
“Yeah, you get to sleep, I’ll sort out these guys.”
“Thanks man,” Evbo smiled, “Goodnight!”
“Goodnight.”
Evbo quickly made his way out of the main room, back into the hall. Walking down the tight space, he made a sharp turn. Down this hall, the walls were lined with doors, each leading to a room for the members of the rebellion. Evbo walked all the way down to the one in the back, and reached out for his door. Swinging it open, he quickly walked into his small room and slammed the door shut behind him.
He leaned against the wooden door, and sighed.
Loud thoughts were swirling around his head, whispering things he didn’t want to be thinking about. Shaking his head, as if trying to shake the thoughts out of him, he inhaled deeply, and sharply exhaled, pushing himself away from the door, and towards his bed. He kicked off his boots, but didn’t even bother changing as he collapsed down into his mattress.
He was just so tired.
He slept without dreams that night.
— — — — —
That next morning, they were hiding in a half destroyed house about seventy blocks or so away from the fortress. Evbo, his Friend, his Neighbor, Cloak Lady, and Bob were all set and ready, crouching down and counting down the minutes until the sun set.
There were a group of guards in the distance. Five of them, their armor made of a material black, with a hint of purple. Obsidian , one of the players in the rebellion, had explained to him once. It’s a material stronger than diamond, rarer too. I have no idea how they possibly could have gotten so much of it…
Evbo knew how. It was that damned command block.
“ Be ready everyone, it should be soon,” His Friend whispered from beside him. They all nodded, keeping their eyes trained on the guards in front of them. Sure enough, just a few moments later, in an eerily coordinated march, the guards suddenly walked off to the left. With bated breath, the group watched as the guards walked out of sight.
As soon as they turned the corner, Evbo stood up.
“ Let’s go!” He whispered, leaping over the block he was crouched behind, and parkouring his way over to the fortress wall. The others were right on his tail as he made his way to the dark wall. The fortress was huge. The first fifty blocks of it from the ground and up were made up of pure obsidian. The structure above it, pillars and towers made of dark materials, twisting and turning into various designs. It looked almost like a living creature. Evbo shuddered as he came to a stop in front of it.
Without pausing, Evbo whipped out his diamond pickaxe (something that took ages for the rebellion to get their hands on), and began hacking away at the wall.
“We’ve got about three and a half minutes now, we gotta get through the first and second layer of the wall, and cover up the first behind us,” Evbo’s Friend reminded everyone as they all hacked away at the wall.
They were all dead silent, except for the sounds of the pickaxes hitting the obsidian, chipping away at it. It felt like it was taking hours. Evbo couldn’t deny that his hands were sweating in worry that they somehow messed up the timing, that they would get caught, and thrown off the edge by the guards. He could hear the sound of his own heartbeat, it was so loud, when he finally broke through. A small floating obsidian block fell to the ground. Laughing in triumph and relief, Evbo quickly picked it up, and began hacking at the second block of the first layer.
As Evbo started his second, he could hear the others manage to break through the first block of obsidian as well.
“ Two and a half minutes!” Evbo’s Friend hissed. They all held their breath as they hit their pickaxes against the obsidian blocks.
Evbo broke through the second bloke, the others right behind him. Now they needed to work through the second layer. They slammed their pickaxes against the obsidian, desperately trying to break through. They managed to break through the first block of the second layer. Just one more .
“ One more minute!”
Just when he felt his pickaxe nearly slip out of his sweaty shaky hands, Evbo broke through. A sigh of relief left him as he immediately turned around and placed obsidian blocks back in the first layer. Just as he did, the others broke through the last block as well.
They all quickly sealed up the first layer, and found themselves in darkness.
Evbo pulled out a torch, and looked around at the now gently illuminated faces. Inhaling deeply, they all sighed out in relief, leaning against the wall.
“ Okay,” Evbo said softly, smiling at the others, “ First step complete. ”
It took ages to finally break through the wall. It turned out to be ten blocks thick , all of them obsidian. It felt like years passed, but finally, they broke through the last block, and were flooded with light. Evbo poked his head out from the opening, scanning the area. Sure enough, it was a storage room. There were stacks and stacks of seemingly broken and old barrels, and no one in sight.
The group, too tired to break any more blocks, simply crawled through the opening, stretching as they looked around at the place. Evbo watched as his Neighbor poked around at the barrels.
“Nothing here… odd,” he mumbled.
“It’s honestly useless to have a storage room,” Evbo explained, looking around, “The king has everything he wants at his fingertips, no reason to stock up on anything.”
“Huh. I guess so,” His Neighbor replied, walking back to join the group.
Evbo looked around, scanning the walls of the room. Suddenly, something caught his eye. He smiled.
“Okay, next step,” Evbo began. “Look at that wood over there,” Evbo said, pointing at the sidewall. Along the edge of it, on the side of the wall that Evbo and the other just broke through, there was a strip of wood that was slightly discolored compared to the others. “They built this place around the parkour course, meaning, you can still find the pathway to it through the walls. There’s openings, almost like air ducts through this place. We can go through them, and find our way to the parkour course.”
The others nodded, approaching the door with Evbo taking the lead. Evbo pulled out an ax, and hacked away at the wood. Sure enough, behind it was empty space. It was a dark, almost liminal space, but it was exactly what they were looking for.
“Come on, let’s go”
It took nearly an hour.
The group climbed, jumped, broke, and of course parkoured their way through the tight spaces, trying to find their way to the parkour course. They weren’t tired, but they were definitely getting sick of the dark small spaces. Evbo knew they should be heading in the right direction, but as the minutes stretched on, he had begun to doubt himself.
That was until he climbed over some cobblestone, and gasped as he looked up ahead.
“ The parkour course ,” The Cloak Lady whispered in awe.
In front of them, was a huge dimly lit opening. The parkour course. Evbo knew they had most likely blocked it off, but seeing it here, abandoned and untouched for Parkour God knows how long, it started to make Evbo feel nostalgic. He could almost picture it. All those years ago, struggling to hop up the near impossible jumps. Figuring out how he was going to do the parkour tricks on blocks he had never even seen before. Nearly falling, panicking and reaching out blindly, until last second a hand catching him, Evbo looking up to smile at-
None of that. Evbo shook his head.
“Let’s go guys. First jump’s up ahead.”
His team followed Evbo as he led them up to the first jump.
Luckily, since the place had been reformed, they had already managed to get through the hardest part of it. The tricky part though, if they missed any of the jumps up ahead and fell, they definitely wouldn’t survive. The platforms were wide enough, but the space in between was large. Taking the lead, Evbo began parkouring upwards. After jumping four or five times, he looked back behind him at his team.
They seemed nervous, but he had chosen this group for a reason. They all followed the steps Evbo took, a bit slower, but definitely steady. Evbo smiled, and looked back ahead, jumping up to the next platform.
It took a while, but Evbo appreciated the fact. It meant he had some time to prepare himself for what was next. This would lead them up to the top floor. They would be exposed, or at least that was what Evbo had to assume. They didn’t know what it looked like, what the guard situation was, what obstacles would be ahead of them. So far things had gone relatively smoothly, so Evbo was getting the nagging feeling that soon something would go wrong.
Evbo had to take a pause, and concentrate on the parkour that he saw ahead of him. It was a six block gap. He definitely had some space to gain enough momentum, but it didn’t mean it would be an easy jump.
“Hey guys!” Evbo called. The team paused what they were doing, and looked up at him. “Watch what I do for this jump, it’s gonna be a long jump, so you’re gonna need to gain momentum, and jump off at the last moment.”
Evbo took a deep breath, backed up, then ran. Just as his foot caught against the ledge, he pressed off, and flung himself forward.
For a second, he was weightless.
This is what he loved about parkour. As much as people associated it with fighting, or ranking, or skill, and Evbo could agree, sure. At the end of the day this is what he thinks it really is. That moment when you’re flying. When the momentum is pushing you forward, as if you had wings. The moment you can simply close your eyes, and be free .
Then Evbo felt his foot touch the ground, and he crouched down as he hit the platform to lessen the impact. Sharply exhaling, Evbo stood up and looked at his team behind him.
“You think you can do it?” He asked with a smile.
The others gave him various forms of agreement, thumbs up, smiles, nods, and a look of mild terror from Bob.
Evbo turned back forwards, and continued upwards.
Finally, the team had managed to reach the top. Above them, was the sealed off exit of the parkour course. It was spruce planks, Evbo noticed with a curious frown, tilting his head. He would have assumed it’d be something stronger.
“This is it, huh?” Evbo’s Friend asked breathlessly, still a little winded from the parkour.
“Yep,” Evbo agreed, popping the ‘p’ exaggeratedly. “Get ready people!” He had already pep talked them enough, they all knew what they were doing. No time to waste.
The group clambered behind Evbo as he raised his ax up. Swinging it back, he began chopping at the planks. It barely took a couple seconds before it broke, and fell to the ground. Evbo looked down and frowned. Crouching down, he picked up the spruce plank block, and the other block that had fallen down with it.
“Carpet,” Evbo’s Neighbor supplied curiously. Evbo nodded in confirmation, before shrugging and pocketing it into his inventory.
He took the spruce block, jumped up, and placed it underneath him. Using the extra height, he slowly poked his head out of the hole he made, and took a look at the new environment.
“ Woah ,” Evbo whispered.
This was.. Not what he was expecting. The place looked lavish. It was some sort of hallway, decorated with ferns, bookshelves, paintings, and other cozy items all around. There were candle chandeliers on the ceiling, and soft red carpeting lining the floors. Evbo looked down each way of the hall. One end led to what he assumed was a large staircase downwards. Turning to the other side, he saw a lavish doorway to a room.
He could only assume that room was the king’s. The place where the command block would be.
The whole place was odd. The fortress looked terrifyingly menacing from the outside, but in here? It looked rather cozy. Some place he could actually enjoy hanging around. But the oddest part, was the fact that there were absolutely no guards in sight.
“What is it?” Evbo’s Friend asked hushedly from underneath. Evbo crouched down so he could see them all.
“It’s… not what I expected. And the cost is clear surprisingly.” The team looked around at each other in surprise. They had all prepared for a fight, but it seemed this was going pretty well. “I think I found where the king’s quarters are too. Here’s the plan.”
Evbo pointed to his Friend and Cloak Lady. “I want you two to come with me, I’ll be sneaking in, but I want you guys right outside the door keeping watch, and also be ready to help me if needed.” The two nodded.
Evbo looked to his Neighbor. “I want you to come up with us, but stand watch at the hall, by the staircase. Keep watch and make sure no one is coming up.
“And you,” Evbo turned to Bob. “... Would you like to maybe hang here and keep watch?” Bob looked like he was about to cry with relief as he nodded aggressively.
“Alright, come on.”
The four climbed out from the hole, dusting themselves off as they scanned the place. Evbo’s Neighbor saluted them as he ran off towards the staircase, and the other two followed Evbo as he led them up to the entrance.
Evbo tried to steady his heartbeat as they drew closer. He really shouldn’t be worrying right now. He had to be focused. At the top of his game. But right now his stomach was doing weird flips and it felt like his heart had relocated to his throat. He didn’t like this, he really didn’t have time for this, he really -
“We’ll stand by,” The Cloak Lady said, snapping his derailing train of thought. Evbo shook his hands slightly to try and calm himself as he looked ahead at the door.
“Yep,” He croaked, rechecking his inventory to confirm he had everything he needed. “ Yep.”
“You ready?” Evbo turned to his Friend at his words. Evbo knew he could tell. Of all the people, he knew the most. Even if it wasn’t much. Evbo nodded. He was going to be as ready as he ever could be.
Taking a deep breath, and not giving himself a moment to reconsider, Evbo grabbed the door handle, and slowly pushed open.
Slowly peering inside, Evbo looked around. He held his breath as he scanned the area, but he felt the air leave him in a rush at the sight of the room.
It was gorgeous .
The place looked lavish. The place was themed red, dark browns and purple, with a gold trim to everything. There was a lush couch by a fireplace that was lined with soft pillows, there were vines hanging down from the ceiling, small golden berries growing from them. There was even an aquarium against one wall, exotic fish and axolotl swimming inside. Evbo turned his head around, and felt his breath catch, seeing a lavish, and surprisingly messy bed with red covers on the other side of the room. Quickly looking away, he looked towards the front of the room. Evbo felt his gaze darken.
Up ahead was a large tapestry. Evbo slowly walked up to it, glaring.
Drawing up close, he clenched his fists as he looked up at it. It was a tapestry of the king, draped across the throne. Leaning against one arm of the throne, his chin was rested in his hand, staring straight ahead, with a slight downward gaze. As if he were looking down upon Evbo at that very moment. Evbo glared up at the tapestry of the king, feeling a fiery emotion blaze up inside of him.
Reaching up, he let a hand run down the tapestry. He dug his nails into it.
That’s when he felt something odd. Tilting his head slightly, Evbo pressed his hand against the tapestry. Through it, he could feel the wall behind it. There was something jutting out from the wall. His eyes widened as he rubbed his hand across it to feel the shape.
It was a doorknob. Of course!
The bastard had the command block hidden behind a tapestry of himself! Lord, an absolute narcissist as always. Evbo grinned as he gripped the tapestry, and forcefully tugged at it, ripping it off the wall and tossing it behind him. Sure enough, behind the tapestry was a-
“Always so rough with me aren’t you? Evbo.”
Evbo froze.
His hand was outreached towards the door handle, now stuck unmoving in the air, his muscles too shocked to move. He felt his face pale, yet at the same time, his vision flared red hot.
“What, are you not happy to see me again?”
Evbo finally lowered his hand. Yet he still refused to turn around. The voice clicked his tongue in mock disappointment from behind him.
“That’s a shame… I see you like the room though. I should give you a tour!”
Evbo inhaled deeply, and exhaled slowly. Slowly, he turned his head, just enough to be able to see the man behind him out of the corner of his eye. He spoke lowly to the king.
“I would rather you didn’t… Seawatt…”