Herobrine and Adam dropped to a normal running speed as they neared the base of Team Crafted, not entirely sure what they'd find and most definitely not wanting to crash into any unforeseen objects. It was lucky for everyone involved that they did slow down because a ring of warriors had sprung up around the outside of the base; lines upon lines of tents and hundreds of thousands of people, but the long corridor of empty space that led right up to the gate of the base told that they had not come to siege or attack.

          The two got more than their fair share of stares as they walked up the corridor towards the base, but that was to be expected. Adam had put his sunglasses back on to hide his eyes, but he hadn't been seen at all since the call to war went out, which was most unusual for the leader of an army. And Herobrine... well, he was Herobrine.

          The sheer number of people present was more than Adam had seen gathered at once in his entire life and even Herobrine seemed impressed, if the slight raise of his eyebrows was anything to go by. But neither of them spoke as they walked under the gate and passed the on duty recruits nearby, heading up towards the castle.

          "Have you ever seen something like this before?" Adam asked, craning his head over his shoulder to see the mass of warriors outside the gate, still a little unable to believe what he was seeing.

          "Once," Herobrine said quietly, his voice darker than usual. "It was a long time ago, but," he also turned his head to look over his shoulder, "I've seen an army like this before."

          Something in Herobrine's tone warned Adam about asking further question on that topic so he didn't try, and thankfully he was rescued by Jason's running footsteps as the other General caught up to them.

          "Oh hey, didn't expect you guys back for a while, it's barely been two days," Jason said as he started to walk in step with them.

          "Yeah, speaking of which, how did you get this many armies here so fast?" Herobrine asked, clearly more than a little impressed.

          "Actually, they were on their way to us when we came across them. It's all of the Lords who were here the last time Adam's magic exploded - Lord Gizzy, Lord Dan, and Lords Patrick and David - and we've got news that Lords Robert and Vikk are on the way."

          "Lord Vikk?" Adam asked in confusion. "I didn't think he liked us."

          Jason shrugged. "Maybe not, but he's coming. For most of the other Lords, we either haven't heard from yet or they've ignored us, which is probably the more likely of the two."

          "I thought that these guys didn't like you after what had happened," Herobrine said with a frown. "Out of everyone, I thought they would have been the least likely to show up."

          "Oh they weren't happy about it," a new voice said, "but I, ah, convinced them to come along."

          Lord David had just exited from one of the side streets and his grin was rather sly as he joined the three on their walk. A sheathed sword hung at his side, the pommel set with a deep blue stone. "Well, when I say convinced, I more mean threatened," he continued. "But either way, we were on our way here when the call to arms reached us."

          "I assume you know the situation?" Herobrine asked.

          "Yup, why else do you think we would be coming here?"

          "But anyway, what were you guys up to?" Jason asked. "Did you manage to get to Notch?"

          "Yeah, and I think we managed to convince him to come." Herobrine jerked his head towards Adam. "Your friend here gave him a good fright."

          "We should really get him and Seto introduced," Adam said, remembering the number of inventions and contraptions Notch had in his home. "I feel like they'd get along well."

           The rest of the day passed quickly and as night descended, dozens upon dozens of torches were lit and their flames danced and leapt into the air until long after the sun had gone down. From above, the base looked like a tiny, condensed collection of hundreds of stars amidst a sea of blackness, but all too quickly the sun came up and the next day of war preparation began. Captains and squad leaders drilled their teams non-stop, repeating the same set of movements over and over again until everyone was sick of it, and then they did it some more just for good measure.

          But they weren't the only ones who were training.

          Three hours after dawn, near a mostly vacant side of the large training grounds in the Team Crafted base, Adam stood facing an archery target set a good distance away, his sunglasses away in his pocket so that he could still control his magic, with Herobrine sometimes pacing around him in a circle and sometimes standing next to him, also facing the target.

          "So, have you ever done magic training before?" Herobrine asked, this time walking backwards as he paced.

          "I've done it a bit with Seto," Adam said, a tone of uncertainty in his voice. "Didn't amount to much though, I could barely summon a single flame."

          "Reckon you can show me?"

          The General held his hand a little in front of him, palm up, and concentrated. He felt Herobrine's eyes watching him, as well as the eyes of the few people gathered who had nothing better to do at this hour in the morning, and so it seemed like an eternity later when the fire finally burst into life in his palm, dancing along his fingers.

          "Hm" was all Herobrine said and the flames sizzled away in Adam's hand as Herobrine continued to pace slowly around him, a hand on his chin, frowning a little.

          "Seto's your sorcerer friend, isn't he?" Herobrine asked finally, stopping his pacing. When Adam nodded, he gave another thoughtful hum, his foot tapping on the ground. "Okay," he said, clapping his hands once together. "First thing, forget everything he's taught you."

          "Well that's not hard, I didn't learn much," Adam said instantly.

          Herobrine gave a snort of laughter before getting back to business. "Here's the thing; your everyday sorcerer draws magic from the world around them and from inside them, like a well. They tap into that well of magic, which draws its power from the world around them, and then shape it to their will. Ours is nothing like that. Ours is more..."

          Herobrine paused for a moment, searching for the right word. "Natural? Instinctive? Instinctive is a better word. Either way, we don't draw our magic from some well inside us; it's part of our DNA. Every cell in our body is fused together with it. You use it without thinking of how you're using it, like you walk without thinking of how the muscles in your legs move."

          "Okay?" Adam said uncertainly. He understood the concept, just not... how it applied to reality.

          "I'm not doing a great job of explaining this," Herobrine muttered to himself, looking around the training area. He spotted something lying near the edges of the grass and he took a step towards it and held his hands out, ready to catch, and the object flew into his hands. He tossed it up and down for a moment and then chucked it to Adam, who caught it and found that it was a very ordinary rubber ball.

          "Throw it at the target," Herobrine said.

          Adam frowned at him but obediently stood slightly side on to the archery target and spun his arm with the ball like he was serving a cricket ball. The rubber ball flew out of his hand and hit the target on the right side before bouncing away.

          "Okay, now throw the ball again."

          Adam took a step towards the ball and instantly Herobrine stopped him. "Nope, don't move," the older man said, pointing to Adam's feet. "Stand right there, don't get that rubber ball. Throw the ball at the target. Just go through those same movements."

          Feeling more and more stupid by the second, Adam stood side on to the target and moved his arms like he was throwing the ball again. Nothing happened of course. But Herobrine told him to do it again so he did it again, and again, feeling the eyes of everyone watching him, hearing Herobrine continuously tell him to throw the ball and hit the target and nothing was happening and, well, he hated the feeling.

          He 'threw' the ball again. And again. And again but something was different this time. He couldn't say what it was but as soon as he started to swing his arm up, he could tell that something was different and his arm came down towards the target and there was a flash of light and fire and something spat out of Adam's hand and slammed against the target with such force that it knocked it over, smoking, a spot at the top right charred black.

          "Yes!" Herobrine said, punching his fist into his palm and then clapping Adam once on the shoulder. "Do it again," he said, and white magic sprung up around the target, pulling it upright.

          And so Adam threw his ball of fire again and again, still having a few times when he spun his arms and nothing happened, but Herobrine seemed to be satisfied and then he had Adam throwing bolts of magic like javelins or ropes like whips until just after midday when he finally called a stop.

          "That was not bad at all," he said to the exhausted Adam as the crowds who had been cheering on their General slowly dispersed.

          "Not bad?" Adam puffed, hands on his knees, eyebrows raised. "That was a million times better than I was this morning!"

          "Better, yeah, but never forget that you can improve," Herobrine said, walking towards the target that had been knocked over for the hundredth time.

          Adam shook his head, standing back up. "You just can't please the guy," he said quietly to himself before jogging up to join Herobrine.

          "So, questions," the General said.

          "Fire away," Herobrine told him, the corner of his mouth smiling at the irony of the words.

          "Is flying a thing we can do?"

          Herobrine gave a little laugh, setting the target so that it was secure. "I wish, but no. In theory it's possible, although don't ask me how it works because I really don't know, but it takes up way too much energy and concentration to keep you up and flying."

          "Have you ever tried?" Adam asked, raising an eyebrow.

          "I've tried to do a lot of things, some of them I don't recommend doing," Herobrine said as he turned away from the target.

          "Okay, what about teleportation?" Adam asked, walking after him. "I've done that before."

          "You have?" Herobrine turned around in confusion, frowning. "When?"

          "The first time I got my magic," Adam said, digging out his sunglasses and putting them back on.

          "Oh that's right, I remember uhhh... Ian, was it? Anyway, someone told me that, but yes, that is a thing we can do. It does take a lot of effort though, which is why you haven't seen me do it, but it's also very temperamental. You can't teleport too far - a couple of metres at most - and can only go somewhere you've gone before if you can visualise it very well and manipulate your magic right and so on and so forth. It's very fiddly, I don't like doing it if I can help it."

          "But we can, right?"

          "I'm not teaching you until you get that javelin right."

          "Dang it."

Question: Do you guys like the indents at the beginning of the paragraphs or would you rather I leave them out for future chapters?