Once they had all of the Blaze Rods they needed to make the Eyes of Ender, by exhausting the Spawner they came from, the group made their way back to the portal that brought them to the Nether and it's harsh environment, though two of them did more than walk this time around. Octavia spent her time using her lens on the surrounding area and monsters, taking in all of the information that could be gleamed from them, something that allowed her to gain more pages in her tome as time went on, which she was grateful for since she didn't have to worry about the Voice speaking to her. The other thing she was grateful for was Pinkie holding the attention of the Nether's monsters for her and the others, as their friend was battling all of the monsters with her scythe while showing no signs of stopping or slowing down, adding all that Experience to her own so she'd be even stronger for the future. Of course normally she, Steve, or Alex would have said something about that, as it meant Pinkie would be far above them when they finally left the Nether, at least for the time being, but they had to think about the information she had shared with them, that there was a fourth Admin and she was on their side.
The interesting thing about that was that the Voice seemed to be taking a moment to consider the information that it had learned, meaning that there was a chance that the other Admins would know what's going on, if they didn't already know, but she was pleased to have some peace and quiet in her mind.
By the time they reached the portal back to the Overworld, and ensured that the coast was clear, Octavia called for Pinkie to come down and she did so without delay, allowing them to slip into the container she made for the portal before all four of them returned to their village. Upon their return Octavia found that nothing was wrong on the other side, everything was as they left it earlier, though Pinkie pulled everyone to her workshop and stopped when they were at it, though it was easy for all of them to figure out what she had planned. She pulled out some of the Blaze Rods they had just collected and shattered them with ease, which lead to the creation of the powder they had been searching for, though she didn't stop there, rather she pulled out a couple of Ender Pearls and combined the two into a single entity, just like Steve and Alex told her they would need to do. When she was done the new pearls floated in the air above her right hand, as if waiting for someone to do something with them, where Octavia found that they actually had a eye slit inside them, which made her wonder how the powder could cause such a drastic change in the strange Ender Pearls.
"We've done it... we now have the Eyes of Ender necessary to find the Stronghold that will bring us to the end, and face to face with the Ender Dragon." Steve commented, though he was simply impressed by how fast they were moving right now, that they had a productive base, protection to keep their base safe, weapons and armor to fight the monsters that called this world home, and even an unknown ally none of them had expected when they started this adventure, "So, are we going to find the Stronghold and face the Ender Dragon?"
"Yes and no. Yes, we'll track down the Stronghold, but you three need flying mounts before we attempt to face the dragon, or the monsters in the End." Pinkie replied, where she shifted her stance and pocketed the Eyes before revealing a pair of items to them, the Wither Skeleton skull she had recovered and some Soul Sand, causing Octavia to realize what she was thinking, which was followed by Steve and Alex understanding as well, "I figured that we could fight the Wither on the way to the Stronghold, in a place that we won't have to worry about ruining anything in, and with the star it drops I'll be able to craft a Waystone, allowing us to move around more freely and not have to run around too much... it'll make locating some flying mounts easier, or at least it should."
"Makes sense. Fighting the Ender Dragon on the ground, in a land of Endermen, wasn't easy, and there's no telling what else is waiting for us in that dimension." Alex said, as she had been thinking about it and had to say that Pinkie's idea was great, getting herself and the others their own flying mount would increase their odds of succeeding against the Ender Dragon, in addition to the armor that Pinkie could make to ensure they survived whatever else was in the End.
Octavia thought about it for a couple of seconds and decided that it wasn't a bad idea, in fact it would help them explore the rest of this world, in addition to their upcoming fight against the Ender Dragon, though once that was done, and everyone agreed with the idea to track down the Stronghold before facing the Wither, Pinkie got things started. By that she released the Eye that she was holding and everyone watched as it levitated into the air while heading to the south, where Steve told Pinkie and Octavia that the Eyes would float in the direction of the underground Stronghold, that they would pop out of the air after a few seconds, and if it went backwards they had found it. As such they waited for a few seconds, for the Eye to pop out of the air, before heading to the south, three of them taking their ground mounts as Pinkie took to the air, allowing her to stop every now and then to use another Eye to confirm whether or not they were heading in the right direction. While the group did that she also glanced at the walls she had sent up to slow down the massive creature, which her ally told her was one of Herobrine's creations, and while it looked like one was down she could tell that the others were still up, meaning they had time to do what she was thinking.
Pinkie continued to pause every now and then to make sure that they were heading in the right direction, passing through a portion of the jungle before heading into one of the plains, where she found a village off to their right and a tower off to the left, but she marked this place as a good location to face the Wither.
This time around the monsters didn't want anything to do with them, allowing the group to keep an eye out for any odd structures that could be added to their atlases, since they would likely come back at some point in the future, but for now Octavia, Steve, and Alex were able to relax as they followed Pinkie. Such a thing also allowed Octavia to add more to her tome as she used the lens to study anything new, though she knew that they were running out of new things to study and that she would be busy when they reached the End, since no one of them had any idea what was in there. Pinkie still took a moment to stop every now and then, double checking the direction she was heading in while the others caught up with her, though it was clear that she was amazed by how far to the south they were going, even if there were no new items for her to collect from the environments they were passing. She did come to a full stop at one point when she found that the Eye she was using turned back, where she carefully tracked down the area that it was leading her to and stopped when it floated above a piece of flat ground, causing her to open her eyes as she stared into the earth.
"And there we are. It seems the Stronghold is below us." Pinkie commented, speaking to the others as she made a note in her atlas, so they would know where to come once they were done with the other tasks she had considered earlier, but as soon as that was done she glanced at the others, who had to be interested in what she wanted to do next, "So, shall we backtrack a bit and face the Wither?"
"We should probably find the room with the portal first, so we have a place to put down the Waystone." Octavia said, due to the fact that having a Waystone down there meant they would be able to return later, once everyone was ready to go and had their own means of flying, since Pinkie had her wings.
As Steve and Alex nodded their heads, to show that they agreed, Pinkie simply nodded before pulling out her shovel so she could make a square area large enough for everyone to work in for a time, removing the dirt and gravel for access to the stone underneath the layers. With that done they carefully started to removed the stones that were below them while Pinkie carefully made a staircase for them to use to leave the hole, once they found their destination, while their mounts stayed at the edge of the hole and kept an eye out for trouble. Octavia found that it took a while to get down to a new area that was different from what they had seen so far, a darkened area that looked like it might hold a menacing evil deep in the depths, where Pinkie sealed it off as she made a note of it's existence. After doing that they broke into what appeared to be a tunnel, a modern one that reminded them of what the Builders made when crafting all of the other imposing or impressive structures they had seen, but Steve confirmed that it was part of the Stronghold, allowing Pinkie to mark it as such before they headed back to the surface.
Once that was done they headed back to the north, not stopping until they reached the area Pinkie had marked down as a good point to fight the Wither, where Octavia made sure their mounts were safe, far away from the plains so they didn't get hit, before Pinkie set up the four pieces of Soul Sand and then put the three Wither Skeleton skulls in their place, just as Alex told her.
As soon as the third one was in place the pieces of sand transformed into a blackened material and a torso, with the three heads coming alive as a floating armless and legless figure took form in front of them, causing everyone to back off for the next few moments as it flashed, before it burst out of whatever protective shell it had been wrapped in. The next thing all of them discovered was that it fired on them by using what appeared to be black flying skulls, which came from all three of it's heads, which hit the ground and blasted small holes into the dirt, informing Octavia that Pinkie's ally must have told her about this beforehand. Steve focused on attacking the floating creature while it was close to the ground, which was a hard thing to do since it loved to move around a lot, while Alex stood back and loosed arrows at their foe whenever she was sure it wouldn't hurt anyone else, leaving Octavia to scan it with her lens, giving her more information, before calling a couple of small minions out to fight it when it was close. Pinkie, on the other hand, used her wings to take to the air, as her purpose right now was to ensure that the Wither didn't fly too high, since it looked like it might try to fly off on them, which meant hitting it with the edge of her scythe head and knocking it back to the ground.
As it turned out the Wither was rather disappointing, in fact Steve and Alex claimed that they had a harder time when they fought it before, though as it turned to flee from everyone, to heal it's wounds, Octavia braced herself as some power just surged to life inside her, allowing her to leap forward and swing her sword, taking down the Wither before it had a chance to leave.
"Octavia... what was that?" Alex asked, as they knew that Octavia was doing something in her tower, in fact she was more mysterious than Pinkie could be at times, but this was the first time anyone had seen her do something like that, and she was a little curious as to how she performed such a move.
"I... have no idea." Octavia replied, though she had a feeling that the Voice had decided to help her take the Wither down, giving her all of the Experience in the process, and her reasoning for that decision was because she was sure that part of her legs had been altered for the briefest of moments, granting her faster speed while not overtaking her entirely, but it only made her wonder why an Admin's creation would turn on the creation of another.
As Steve walked over, however, Pinkie joined them and revealed a shimmering star above her left hand, the Nether Star she needed to make Waystones and other items, causing them to smile as they headed back to their mounts, as it was time for them to get started on their last preparations before heading into the End.