Nations at War

"Do you have a texture pack on?" Spark looked down from his cabin.

"Uh, no. Why would I have a texture pack on? I can't see properly with those," replied Steve.

"Neither do I, Admiral," Nivelia was still gazing around for the creature. "What was that thing?"

"Looks like a creeper," muttered Steve. "Except that creepers aren't that big. And they don't fly."

The creature flung itself into the air once again, narrowly missing the nose of Spark's airship, before dropping back down, creating a massive crater. Instantly, Nivelia flew overhead and released a load of bombs down on the creeper, and flew forward, out of the blast zone.

A load of highly volatile void-generating explosives fell through the icy air down into the creeper, blowing a crater 20 blocks in each direction. Void particles flew through the air and chunks dissipated, leaving small temporary gaps in the world generation. As the smoke cleared, the distinct hulk of the creeper lurked at the bottom of the pit.

"How did that thing survive that?" exclaimed Nivelia, bewildered. "I dropped a load of heavy explosives on it. That's the equivalent of ten stacks of TNT. Not even the Enderdragon could have survived that."

"Well, try again. Use the highest level bombs. It should do the trick," suggested Steve.

Before anyone could react, Spark flew over the pit at half speed, then stopped directly over the hulking creature. A moment later, what seemed like semi-textured blocks fell out of the bottom of his airship. Immediately, Spark increased his speed to full, and shot forward as the load of explosives struck the creeper.

Instantly, the game froze. This was not just ordinary server lag. What seemed like an eternity later, the white smoke particles faded, and a massive gap was left in the world. Bedrock was revealed at the bottom edges of the pit, while in the middle, there was a truly massive gap. The bedrock had ben deleted, and the creeper had either fallen through, or had also been deleted.

"If that thing had survived such a blast, I would have complained to Mojang," said Spark. We had to use chunk-erasing coding to destroy it. What the hell was that?"

"It's nothing like I've ever seen before," replied Nivelia, flicking through her own controls. Steve's airship remained still. "We have to find out. If these were created by the Raider Nation, then we will be destroyed. Ever since this server became Hardcore, the griefers have been using more and more mobs. We need to infiltrate their system."

"I agree," said Spark. "We need a spy."

*        *        *        *        *

The battle had finished. Smouldering ruins lay scattered across the landscape, while dead mobs lay on the ground. Thin white wisps of smoke rose from the explosions. It was over.

Three massive zeppelins approached from the distance and one of them landed. Admiral Spark walked out. "Let's head back to base," he said. "We have a plan to hopefully stop, or at least stall the mob invasions."

Meanwhile, on the cliff above, the artillery had returned to Fort Cobblestone. The other two vessels landed, and the resistance troops started to board. However, no sooner had the three vessel lifted into the air, an explosion rocked the ground. Three massive giant, mutant creepers had appeared, blasting a hole in the ground where the zeppelins sat just a moment ago.

"Let's get the hell out of here!" shouted Spark above the chaos. The two zeppelins turned and retreated at full speed, with a barrage of arrows behind them. Gunners took their positions along the rear of the airships, and fired back in a hail of crossbow bolts, flaming arrows and fire charges. Griefers and skeletons had gathered around the huge creepers, and fired continuous streams of arrows at the retreating flying fortresses.