What Was the Legend of the Mobtrocity

“Sire, I see a fortress up ahead!” shouted the sailor in the crow’s nest.

“Then slow the ship for our arrival,” the king replied. The sailors obeyed his words and managed the sails for landfall. The ship slowed down and steered a little to the right of the fortress.

The fortress was a stone brick construct too small to be considered a castle and too big to be a simple house. Four towers stretched from its four corners, and a single light blue flag with the cloud and lightning insignia waved in the breezy air from one of the towers. The front gate was composed of dark oak logs for borders and iron railing for a rising and lowering gate. A small patch of grass and sand allowed entry to the gate, and a border of the same materials wrapped around the entire fortress.

“Dock next to that small shore and lower the side ramp,” the king ordered. “If I am not mistaken, that symbol on their flag is the same one that the demon had on it. This must be its domain.”

“Um, if it is its domain,” a knight started, “then why is it so small and basic?”

“Yeah, I don’t think a demon would have this little thing as their castle,” another knight interjected.

The king raised a hand to his chin and glared at the fortress. “Well, it does seem odd that this would be the actual castle. This might be an outpost instead. Either way, this place will give us information on where we can find the demon.” The king unsheathed his enchanted diamond sword and stepped onto the lowered ramp. “Now, my loyal Knights of the Square Table, we’re off to find anything that is or leads us to the demon.”

The ten knights followed the king off the brig and onto the shore. They marched up to the gate and inspected it for a second. It was not long before the king took out a piece of TNT and smacked it on the gate. He then took out his flint and steel, lit the explosive with it, and ran away from its hisses. His knights also backed away to where they thought they were safe from the blast.

The TNT expanded a little and unleashed a quaking force. The entire gate and some of the stone bricks around it broke into thousands of pixelated pieces, disintegrating as they made contact with the ground. The knights crept back up to the gaping hole and readied themselves for battle.

This blast definitely woke up the defenders inside the fortress. Five red eyed zombies in light blue vests hurried to the destroyed gate to check what happened. What they saw gave them a rush of both fear and valor.

The zombies unsheathed their wooden swords and prepared for battle against the knights. One of them backed away and turned his body to a nearby hall. “Keep these invaders out of the fort while I call for help! They will not interfere with the Empress’s demands!”

The zombie sprinted through the halls as the four remaining zombies pointed their swords at the knights. One of the knights sprung at a zombie and hacked through its sword in one clean swipe. He then bashed the zombie with his shield and stabbed its head. Two more knights pushed back the other three zombies with their shields before slicing their legs off. The knights finished them off with slices through their torsos.

The king and the rest of the knights continued into the fort, the knights expecting nothing but more wimpy zombies and maybe a few poorly equipped skeletons. What they found instead was a complete shock. The king shrugged and locked onto the enemy.

Two gigantic zombies with dual iron axes boomed down the hall and to the knights. Four skeletons with chainmail armor and improved harming arrows kept a clear aim to strike the knights. One of the gargantuan zombies swept one of their axes into two knights. They both crashed into a stone wall and scrambled back to their feet. Another knight sliced the zombie’s right leg and blocked two incoming harming arrows. The zombie smashed an axe on the knight and missed by about one block. Two more knights blocked a few more harming arrows as they marched past the enraged zombie. They sliced the other one’s chest before moving on to a skeleton. Once they were close enough to deal mortal damage, they decapitated the skeleton and kicked his body onto the ground. His bones shattered from a shield crush and a fatal curb stomp.

The king aimed for the gargantuan zombie smacking at a few knights. He hopped onto the zombie’s right shoulder and wrapped around its neck. He took his diamond sword and pressed it in the zombie’s throat. It took only one powerful pull to decapitate the zombie. The king sprinted over to the other one, landed its his left shoulder and stabbed into the shoulder with enough force to split stone. He pushed and sliced his way through the rotten flesh until he severed the entire arm from the zombie’s body. He then took a colossal strike from an iron axe and ripped out two orange eyeballs with his blade. He gave the zombie one last stab into its cranium and leapt off the tumbling mass. The zombie collapsed onto a skeleton and almost squished a panicky knight.

A few more knights cleaned the area by slaying the last two skeletons. The group of eleven then resumed their storming until a batch of monsters in another hallway blocked the path onward. There was a horde of ten zombies with wooden swords, six skeletons with more chainmail and harming, and a pigman with golden armor, an enchanted golden sword, and a hefty bag of anger issues.

“Oh, well isn’t it the filthy humans!” squealed the pigman with a burning hatred. “All of you made me lose some good sleep I deserved! So, to repay you, I’m gonna rip all your heads off, one by one!”

The zombies began the fight with a clobbering against one of the knights. The knight resisted the weak weaponry and felled every zombie that smacked him with only a few armor scratches as his wounds. Another knight rushed up to a nearby pair of skeletons, blocking their harming arrows every time they unleashed a volley of two. He gave a firm stroke to a skeleton’s side, ripping right through their bony body with only an ounce of resistance. He then cracked the skull apart with a stomp and intercepted the other skeleton’s bow. He sliced off its arms and kicked its body back. Once the skeleton collapsed onto the ground, it tasted finely smelted and crafted steel as it drifted to death.

The king directed himself at the pigman and prepared for whatever it could throw at him. The pigman opened with a diagonal swipe to the king’s chest. He retaliated with a strike to the side; however, instead of piecering the pigman, the blade bounced back from another. The pigman gave a jab at the king’s shoulder. Even though the pigman made a direct hit, he could only make a scratch on the armor and nothing else. So, to compensate the attempt, the pigman kicked the king down and positioned his blade to cause an easy fatality. The king, however, would never allow such an easy win for his foe. He swiped his blade through the pigman’s left leg and grabbed the golden blade by its end. He intercepted the blade and punctured the pigman’s rotting chest with it, destroying whatever was left of its heart. As the pigman dissipated into smoke, the king took its loot and experience. All of the scratches on his armor and sword melted away with every piece of experience collected.

The last four skeletons crumbled to dust by both a flurry of flaming arrows from two knights and the rapid swings of a nearby knight. The group of eleven returned to storming the fort, slaying monsters whenever they poked their ugly or twisted heads out of the shadows and corners.

The king stopped his band of knights once they reached the top of the fort. A single enderman five blocks tall, coated in diamond armor that seemed to be dyed, possessing four arms holding two diamond kite shields and two diamond longswords, and wearing a corrupted face with two cloudy, purplish eyes and a jagged, unsettling maw stood before them. Everything the enderman held or wore resonated with the glow of powerful enchantments. It also had a few accomplices with it, them being a trio of gigantic zombies with huge diamond scutum shields, diamond greatswords, and diamond armor coated with plates of obsidian.

“Infiltrators,” the enderman hissed with the cold of the underworld, “you will all suffer for your idiocy. Any human or monster not of the great sign of loyalty deserves the punishment of a heretic.” The enderman’s eyes shifted to a eerie shade of pure black dark enough to feel absolutely empty. “Prepare for an eternity of nightmares.”

The enderman sprang from his original location and onto a nearby knight. It stabbed through the knight’s steel chestplate with one of its longswords and pulled him up to its face. The enderman took its other sword and thrust it through the knight’s neck. It only took one upward movement to rip his head clean off his polished body. The enderman screamed an ear-piercing shrill and threw the dead knight at another petrified knight.

The king glanced at the dead knight for a second before diving toward a nearby zombie. He scanned it for any openings in its armor and aimed for a small part in its left leg. The king sliced through the leg and climbed around it and onto the zombie’s back. He dodged a few flaming arrows directed towards the zombies and checked for an opening in the armor around the neck. Once he found one, he dug into it and twisted the blade around the neck in a circle. He then smacked the severed head at another zombie and leapt at the enderman. It smacked the king back with an arc from one of its shields. He quickly got back to his feet and blocked the enderman’s sudden double strike with two longswords. The enderman used its two shields to crush the king’s head. Even though this attack failed to kill him, it did scratch, dent, and crack the king’s crown.

The king took this as a sign to back away and stop fighting the enderman with melee attacks. It swung again at the king, aiming for his torso to achieve a clean cut. He dodged the strike, equipped his Explosive Bow, and aimed for the enderman. He fired three arrows that detonated on the enderman’s head and left shoulder, dealing a slight amount of damage. It put its shields up and blocked the next volley of arrows.

Two knights confronted one of the gargantuan zombies and checked for any weaknesses. Two more a dozen blocks away fired flame arrow after flame arrow at its body. Most of the arrows made chink sounds as they harmlessly bounced off its armor. A few managed to strike open skin and use fire to highlight where the zombie was vulnerable. The two knights first aimed for a section in the torso and caused a pack of flesh wounds. The zombie raised its shield and blocked the next set of incoming flame arrows. It then swung its sword into the two knights. It used enough force to both break their bodies and send them flying into a nearby tower with the light blue flag flying over it. The zombie finally ended their lives with a crushing blow from its shield.

When three more knights died due to the enderman and the two remaining zombies, the king knew that this fight would not end in a victory. He gave one last volley to the enderman’s legs and signaled his knights to him. “They are too strong! Retreat back to the ship!”

The remaining four knights obeyed the king and avoided the monsters’ next set of attacks. The group of five did not run through the fortress to reach their ship. Instead, they took the faster and more effective method of jumping off the top of the fort and onto the small beach. They sprinted for the ship and fired a few more arrows back at the incoming collection of monsters pouring from the broken gate. The sailors knew what had to be done; they sailed the brig as fast as possible before the monsters could board it and cause any more casualties.

The Knights of the Square Table, now embarrassed and ashamed in their own defeat, glanced back at the fort with long faces. The king, disappointed of their failure yet still optimistic, gave some sense of victory to his knights. “We may have failed to find anything or take the fortress, but we still damaged it. We can come back later with a much bigger force and seize control of the fort. As for the knights who have fallen today, may they be missed and honored in this battle. They fought valiantly today.”

And so the king and his men sailed back to Faygrail, determined to return with a much stronger invasion force with them and end the reign of the Empress.

}———————————————————————————————————{

After a journey through a graveyard and crypt infested with pestilence and death and a short detour to a store for some supplies, the quartet was back in action. No matter what they thought or what they did, they could never peel off the need to discover what was the Melon Slice of Happiness’s purpose. So, to satisfy this, they were going to search Norgray for the slice’s purpose.

Twilight Sparkle, already occupied with the task of delivering her newfound book, half-heartedly checked any areas for the melon’s purpose. She glanced at a grave, brushed a piece of her mane on a stone wall, and scanned a patch of grass with her peripheral vision. Yep, she had no real enthusiasm to find the melon’s purpose. As much as its strange existence perplexed her, she failed to muster any care for the simple item. It was probably left there by accident, she thought to herself to dismiss the slice. Maybe it’s not essential to save the world, or it is for something else that we don’t have time for yet. Whatever it is, it shouldn’t be my main focus. Getting rid of this tome should be my main priority for now.

Twilight found the entrance to Bill’s Library and opened its oak wood door. She marveled at the rows of books that permeated the air with that heavenly old book smell. The floor itself creaked with age, and the torches attached to the wooden walls gave bursts of fire that combined with the daylight and mixed a soup of colors. A few furry and fancy rugs covered some pieces of the oak floor. A large cyan rug to Twilight’s right marked the location of the kids’ section and a few shorter rows of books.

Twilight turned to her left to meet the librarian. He wore the basic setup of a villager, but his white coat with silver buttons gave some uniqueness from the others. Once his eyes locked onto Twilight’s swaying book, he gave a smile and unfolded his arms.

“I remember that book,” the librarian murmured as Twilight walked up to the counter. “Isn’t that the same one Barry had?”

“Yes,” Twilight answered. The book lost its glow and plopped onto the oak log table. “You’re Bill, right?”

The librarian took the book and slid it into a chest next to him. “Yes, that’s me. Say, what brings you to Bercotta? A creature like you is definitely not native to this place.”

Twilight took some time to respond. “I, don’t really know why I’m here. As far as I can tell, I don’t even know how I got here.”

“Are you looking for a way back home, or does your country suck even more to where you love it here?”

“I am looking for a way home, but that’s something I’d like to do later. Right now, I’m too occupied for that.”

“Occupied on what, delivery?”

Twilight shook her head. “No, on stopping the Mobtrocity.”

Bill nodded his head and grunted. “Oh, those guys. Yeah, they’re a pretty annoying gang of monsters. The sooner you stop them, the sooner this place becomes paradise again.” Bill put a hand in his pocket and pulled out six silver coins. “Also, here’s your reward for giving that book. Under normal circumstances, I’d give gratitude as pay, but for you, I think you’ll need the money for whoever you have to fight.”

Twilight smiled at him and levitated the coins into her inventory. “Thank you. That’s really generous of you to do that.”

“Hey, if you want something to get done, you might as well help make it happen than stand there and wait.” Bill gave a small shooing motion with his right hand. “Go on with your task. You don’t want to let the Mobtrocity get a little more free time to do whatever they have planned.”

“Goodbye, then.” Twilight walked through the small book maze and back onto a clay road. She gave a small smile after knowing that she won’t have to touch that strange book ever again. She then scanned the roads and buildings for her friends. After a few seconds, she turned to her left and walked down to another big building.

}———————————————————————————————————{

Fluttershy, the only one who was searching for the person who owned the melon slice, found the beginning of her search difficult. Which house should she start at? What does this person look like? What question should she ask?

Instead of dwelling on these questions, she started with the first small house on her left. She opened the door and found a small surprise that stared right at her. No one was home, except for a single inanimate bed. Luckily, she found a lone villager walking from one patch of grass to another repeatedly. She walked up to the villager and tapped its side for attention.

“Excuse me, sir, but did you own a special melon slice?” Fluttershy asked as politely as possible.

The villager stopped, stared at her, and responded. “Herr.”

Fluttershy cocked her head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know what that means. Can you tell me a clear yes or no?”

“Herr.” The villager’s voice was a little lower this time, but it still kept the same bland tone.

Fluttershy didn’t know what to do at this point. She felt like trying to get an answer, but she knew what it would be. She also felt like walking away and asking another person, but she didn’t want to be rude to someone who might be speaking in a different language. After twenty whole seconds of thinking and three more nasally herrs, she decided to try another villager.

She walked to and entered the second small house. Inside it stood a villager with purple robes. Fluttershy approached them and gave a reassuring smile. “Hello, did you own a special melo–”

“Herr.” The villager turned their to the side and glanced at some wooden planks.

Fluttershy walked a little closer to get the villager’s undivided attention. “Um, as I was saying, did you own a spe–”

“Herr.”

Fluttershy felt a slight sense of irritation from that second herr. The villager should have known that by the small size shift in her pupils and the further deterioration of her smile. “Can you let me finish befo–”

“Herr.” At this point, the villager was almost testing her patience.

Fluttershy gave a small frown and two annoyed eyes that should have told the villager something. She then cleared her throat and started again. “Did you own a–”

“Herr.” The villager walked around Fluttershy and out the door. She grunted in frustration and gave a more aggressive frown. She gritted he teeth a little and directed herself to the door. She then stomped in front of the same villager and glared at him.

Fluttershy’s voice was stern and on the borderline of yelling. “Excuse me, mister, you don’t walk away from somepony when they’re talking to you, and you definitely don’t interrupt them over and over again when they’re speaking. Can you please stop being rude and lis–”

“Herr.”

Fluttershy couldn’t handle it anymore as her face twisted into a menacing scowl. Her teeth ground on each other right before she unleashed a much louder demand right in the villager’s face. “Stop being so rude and listen to me for once! I’ve never met anypony who interrupted and insulted me this many times!”

After five foolish interruptions, the villager had wide eyes and a scared, trembling expression. He backed away a little before calming down and ridding himself of his fright.

Fluttershy, struggling to keep a happy and calm tone, talked to the villager as politely as possible. “Now, will you interrupt me anymore?”

The villager shook his head. “Herr.”

Fluttershy cooled herself a little more and asked again. “Did you own a special melon slice and lo–”

“Herr,” said not the listening villager, but another villager that bumped into Fluttershy’s left side.

If Fluttershy’s eyes could catch on fire, they would be two raging infernos brighter than the sun.

“HOW DARE YOU!” screamed Fluttershy at the same time she pounced onto the new villager. He tried to squirm out of her grasp, but it was fruitless. “DO ANY OF YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT MANNERS ARE?!”

“Herr,” the constrained villager croaked through his fear. He nodded his head rapidly in hopes of not angering her any further.

“THEN WHY DO YOU INTERRUPT ME IN THE MIDDLE OF ASKING A QUESTION?!” Fluttershy’s screaming made the villager a little more deaf one word after another. “YOU NEED TO KNOW HOW TO SHOW RESPECT TO OTHERS, AND I KNOW WHAT TO DO TO MAKE YOU LEARN THAT!”

The villager gulped and closed his eyes and waited for the pain that would be unleashed upon him. If he didn’t know how to speak, he would have never been in this situation.

}———————————————————————————————————{

Pinkie Pie, the most active of the pony bunch, searched every crack in Norgray’s walls and every pot holding a flower. She sniffed in the patches of tall grass for some lever, button, trapdoor, anything at all to give a clue on where the melon originated. The only place she refused to search was the small graveyard located next to Mayor Everest’s house. She never wanted to deal with those creepy undead freaks ever again.

She curved around the blacksmith’s workplace and to where it almost touched the bordering wall of the town. She checked the entire area and found nothing of value or interest. She did the same for the farmhouse and library, but she still found nothing useful or hinting at a missing melon. She climbed up one of the towers and hopped from the tower to the roof of a small house. She hopped from roof to roof, checking for some hidden item, key, chest, anything of interest. She checked every roof and the top of the wall. There wasn’t even a single button or lever to hint at a hidden entryway.

Once she stopped on the checkered roof of a bigger building, she noticed the small water fountain situated close to the town’s center. She dove headfirst into the water with a whee and a moderate splash of blue pixels.

What she found stole more of her interest than any lever or button could. She found a hidden entrance! Ecstatic from her discovery, she swam deeper into the hole—the entrance she found—and plopped onto a ground of dirt after exiting the stream of water. She shook the water particles off her body with a series of rapid shakes. When she looked behind her, she noticed that two signs kept the water in place, but she didn’t care that much about them. What she cared about was the chest in the small, unlit room. The chest even had a sign in front of it that read ‘You done well.’.

“Well thank you, mister sign!” Pinkie replied to the sign. “It’s nice of you to say that to me!”

Pinkie walked over to the chest and opened it with a single swift swing of a hoof. The top swung open and revealed one small item. She reached into the chest and took out a stone pressure plate with a few words written on it. The words were ‘Use me later, buddy’.

Pinkie smiled back at them and fit the pressure plate into her inventory. She bounced back into the water and swam out of the fountain. Once she was out of the fountain and back onto a clay road, she shook her wet body once more and darted her eyes from house to house to find one of her close friends.

Pinkie Pie found Fluttershy on top of a villager and screaming right in his face. After Fluttershy spat her words at him, she raised a hoof into the air and prepared for what looked like to Pinkie as a developing punch. Pinkie’s pupils shrunk as she sprung right into Fluttershy’s right side. She clasped one foreleg around Fluttershy’s torso and another around the raised hoof. The villager, now free from danger, ran as fast as possible into a house and shut the door without looking back.

Fluttershy felt the grass hug her back and a heavy weight on her right hoof and hind legs. “Ow! What was that for?”

Pinkie, partially sitting on Fluttershy’s hind legs, pointed to the closed door a dozen blocks away. “You almost punched somepony’s face! Why would you even think of doing that?”

“If you had to go through what I had to a little bit ago, you’d be as angry as me right now! Those two didn’t know how to be quiet and listen when somepony’s talking to them!”

“Do you really think they’re going to listen to a language they don’t understand?” Pinkie faced Fluttershy’s head at a couple villagers exchanging herrs to each other. “They don’t speak our language. Of course they’re going to interrupt you!”

Fluttershy shrunk and gave a sheepish smile. “Oops, maybe I shouldn’t have yelled at them like that.”

Pinkie eyed Fluttershy with one eye. “Maybe? Next time you talk to them, leave the talking to the pony who knows Nasallese.”

The two ponies turned their heads over to some approaching footsteps. They stopped a few blocks away from the ponies. “I heard Fluttershy yell from the other side of the walls,” Gingerbread started. “What happened? Also, what’s with the weird holding going on here?”

“Fluttershy thought that it was a good idea to pin down one of the locals and yell at them for interrupting her.” Pinkie looked over to Fluttershy and back to Gingerbread. “This was to keep her from hurting them.”

“This looks more like you two are getting rough rather than whatever she was doing earlier.”

Fluttershy nudged Pinkie off her right hind leg a little. “Um, Pinkie, can you get off me? My legs are feeling tingly.”

Pinkie jumped off her and landed next to Gingerbread. “So, did you find who the melon belongs to?”

Gingerbread nodded. “They live outside of Norgray. They’re not too far from here, but I already know that whatever’s happening over there is not anything I want to be involved in.”

“Is it a scavenger hunt?” Pinkie assumed in a question.

“Yeah, it is. I gave the melon to the guy, but I really don’t feel like getting all his other stuff.”

“Maybe we can return them whenever we find one accidentally,” Fluttershy suggested as she stood back up. “That way, he can have his items back and not bother our journey.”

Gingerbread smiled without showing it. “Sounds reasonable.”

Twilight entered the scene, now without a tome hovering next to her. “Hello, everypony. Did you find who owned the melon yet?”

“Yup, already gave it, not going back,” rapid fired Gingerbread.

“Okay, then. So, what do we do now?”

You should go check the mayor again. Did you know that there is a phone line between all of the mayors in Bercotta?

Twilight jumped a little bit from the sudden voice.

“I still feel like that shouldn’t be possible,” Gingerbread murmured.

A small pause of nothing for five seconds occurred before Ty spoke again.

Well, go ahead and talk to the mayor. What’re you all waiting for, Candy Land?

Pinkie switched from Gingerbread to a random patch of the air. “Is that actually a place?”

No.

Gingerbread prompted the group to follow him into Mayor Everest’s house. Once they entered the house, Gingerbread approached Everest and began his question. “Do you know of any other towns that need our help or anything else that we need to get for you?”

“There is nothing else I have for you four,” Everest answered. “However, I recently found out that Millstown is in need of protection.”

Twilight collected a bag of interest and felt a wave of worry rush through her. “What’s happening over there?”

“Apparently, the same types of monsters you slain over here have decided to unleash their forces on that town. Millstown’s holding them back quite well, but it can’t hold the monsters off forever. Maybe King Appleton has a reward for saving his village.”

“We have no time to waste, then!” Pinkie took out her stone sword and pointed it at the door. “Let’s go save Millstown!”

The quartet made haste as they left Norgray and ran to Millstown. They encountered a few wild red slimes that disappeared seconds after confronting the group. They kept running along the clay path and dared not to slow down. They were stopped here and there by some of the Great Forest’s lower trees, a few wild monsters, and some Mobtrocity scouting parties composed of goons and marksmen.

It wasn’t until the group reached Jungle Pass that the small trek gave a true challenge. Zombies originating from the Army of Loyalty wandered across the bushes and tall grass of Jungle Pass. A few Loyal skeletons crept through the treetops and kept their bows ready for assault. A handful of Loyal spiders and creepers paired with the wandering zombies finding their way to their destination.

The group of four was directly behind the moving collection of monsters. When one skeleton turned his head around to find a better sniping point, he noticed the strange purple curves of Twilight’s left side hiding behind a bush.

“Hey guys,” the skeleton hollered to the other monsters, “I found those punks behind the overthrowing of our empress! Take ‘em out before that happens!”

A plethora of monsters turned around and aimed themselves at the quartet. A new monster that Twilight recognized, known to most as an enderman, rose from a patch of foliage and twirled an iron sword in his right hand. He had a few iron plates on his arms and legs, along with an iron helmet and chestplate for better protection. Somehow, all of the iron armor was dyed light blue, yet it still had the same shine of iron.

“Who’s going after who?” Gingerbread demanded as he switched targets.

“I got the monsters over there!” Pinkie twirled into a creeper and stabbed into its head with one successful strike. She stabbed it again, collected its loot, and faced two spiders ready to leap on her.

“I’ll handle the tall one!” Twilight pulled out her Magical Bow and aimed at the enderman. After just one flying arrow spiraling toward its head, the enderman teleported to the side and approached Twilight by a few blocks. She fired again, only to reach the same result. She switched to her Little Burner as the enderman raised its sword and smacked it onto Twilight. She blocked the hit with her sword and swung into the enderman’s right leg. Its entire body cooked and crackled from the hungry flames that emerged from the strike. It teleported a few blocks back and forced the flames to die down.

“Looks like I got the skeletons!” Gingerbread climbed up a bunch of vines and smacked his sword into a skeleton’s neck. It fell to the ground and met the demise of Fluttershy’s self defensive blow. He climbed over to two more skeletons, dodged a couple arrows and took one to his shoulder, kicked a skeleton back, and clobbered the other to brittle pieces. He finished the first one with a critical smash into the cranium.

Fluttershy couldn’t encourage herself to fight against the monsters directly. She only used self defense strikes that occurred whenever a monster either strayed too close to her or attempted to strike her. One instance like this was when four zombies took an interest in killing her to not have to worry about any runaways. One of them approached her and swung a horizontal strike into her left side. She yelped in pain and retaliated with a swift double slice from her stone sword. Both hits sliced the zombie’s chest, leaving them with half their life left. Two more zombies flanked her and slammed their swords onto her head. She dodged backwards right before the blows and backed up into a jungle tree. The fourth zombie swung his blade in a circle that struck Fluttershy’s neck. The other three zombies raised their blades again for another flurry of blows. Fluttershy unleashed another slice that was unfortunately blocked by one of the zombies. Two more blows struck her sides again and left her in critical condition. A few droplets of blood dripped from her mouth and her bruising and bleeding sides.

“Hey hey, my first kill!” mused a zombie with enthusiasm as he punched Fluttershy’s face instead of striking again. “From the look of you, you’re two punches away from death, meanin’ you got one heart left to crush. Well, since you cut my ribs, I think I should be the one to crush that heart!”

The zombie punched her face again, setting the stage for a black eye. Fluttershy was on the verge of collapsing onto the grass. She whimpered and sobbed before releasing a faint cry. “Twilight, Pinkie, anypony, please help me...”

“Nope, not happenin’ today!” The zombie guffawed before readying his fist for one last punch into Fluttershy’s left temple.

Right when he made the first quarter of his swinging motion, he felt a sudden sharp pain in his arm. More pain entered his neck and ended once he saw black. The other three zombies, bewildered and off guard from the death, searched for a nearby enemy. Instead, two of them found blades in their necks, and one felt a kick into their abdomen. The one remaining zombie struggled to get up from the force placed on his body. Just as what happened to the other three, he too met a blade to the neck.

Fluttershy was on the ground at this point, too exhausted to even keep her head up. Through her blurring vision, the horrible pain plaguing her, and the feeling of half a violently shaking heart, she noticed a few shifting shadows and shuffling feet on the grass. She felt a cool, dry hand touch her hurting left side and pull her body upwards. After hearing a sword sliding into a sheath, she felt another hand wrap around her body and hoist her upwards. She wept a little more from the pain and let the hands lift her body. She then felt the air sway a little around her and a hard and uncomfortable object on her chin. She had no idea what was happening since she lacked the strength to open her own eyes.

She felt the grass on her body again as the hands lowered her and released their grip. After she heard the sheath sound again, a nearby zombie groaned and grumbled its death. A few fading footsteps radiated in her ears before she was alone and nearly paralyzed from pain and exhaustion.

Gingerbread, who was slicing a skeleton’s bow arm off and drinking his regeneration potion, glanced back at the ponies to check for any arrows heading towards them. What caught his eyes was Fluttershy’s beaten body lying behind a few bushes. He jumped off the fairly high up leaves, taking some worthwhile damage. He rushed over to Fluttershy and shook her side. “C’mon, you need to get up! You’ll die if you stay here with all this skeleton fire!”

“I can’t...” Fluttershy groaned and sobbed with a small shuffle. “Too much pain...”

The enderman, now not on fire, teleported next to Fluttershy’s body. “I’ll be taking her for a while.” He reached for her hind legs with his left hand.

“No!” Gingerbread swung right into the enderman’s hand and stabbed his torso. The enderman hissed in pain and swung his sword into Gingerbread. The blade caused a significant amount of damage, but Gingerbread was still active and able. He swung into the enderman two more times and prepared for a teleportation. The enderman teleported behind him—just what he expected—and received a slice into the abdomen and another into his right leg. Gingerbread finished him off with a critical strike into the enderman’s right eye. Gingerbread took the enderman’s loot and kept close to Fluttershy.

Twilight looked over to where the enderman must have teleported. She noticed Gingerbread and Fluttershy behind a few bushes for some reason she didn’t understand. She shot an arrow into a skeleton’s jaw and galloped over to the two. Once she noticed why they were there, her mouth gaped wide, and her pupils reached almost pinprick sizes.

There lay Fluttershy, looking almost like a corpse on the grass. She was now unconscious and incredibly inactive, another step closer to complete death. Twilight threw her head at Gingerbread and cried out her words. “What happened to her?”

“I don’t know!” Gingerbread replied. “I found her like this when I was fighting those skeletons! Do you have anything to heal her?”

Twilight rummaged through her items for a healing item. After a few seconds of searching and a swift dodge from an incoming arrow, she found a few apples that might be able to save Fluttershy.

Gingerbread shook his head at the apples. “That won’t work! We need something that can heal her instantly!” Gingerbread recalled something that both gave him an idea and relieve himself a little. “Your spell book! Maybe the spell will keep her from dying!”

Twilight tossed the apples back into her inventory and pulled out her spell book. She threw it open on the first page and checked the available spell. She kept her mind concentrated on the spell and Fluttershy as she positioned her hooves for spell casting. She aimed her horn at Fluttershy and gave one last look at the book. “Regenera maxima!”

The book radiated with an aqua blue and unleashed a blast of magic into Twilight’s horn. The magic then traveled from the horn and right into Fluttershy’s body. The aqua blue coated her and melted into her body. It mended any visible cuts, wiped away every bruise, grabbed any drops of displaced blood, and soothed the black eye’s tender tissues. In only two seconds, nearly all of Fluttershy’s body returned to what looked like a rejuvenated state.

After the spell was finished, Twilight locked her eyes on a small flash in the book. The spell she just cast switched from an active aqua blue to a dormant dark blue. She looked over to Fluttershy and couldn’t help but sigh in relief. “Thank Celestia you’re healed!”

“So, the spell’s literally a reusable regeneration potion,” Gingerbread assumed. He kneeled down and shook Fluttershy with a moderate amount of force. “Can you get up now, or are you too tired still?”

Fluttershy shuffled her body a little before opening her eyes. She gently rolled her body off its right side. She stretched her legs a little and picked herself back up. She let out a small yawn and a smaller stretch. “Ugh, are we back home?”

“Not even close,” Gingerbread stated. “You’re still in Minecraftia.”

“I almost thought that you’d be gone for good,” Twilight almost cried as she gave Fluttershy a simple hug. “What monster did that to you?”

“I think a few of those zombies cornered me and beat me up.” A little fear crept into her words after a few more memories became a little more vivid. “Before they could end my life, something saved me. Other than that, my memory is pretty fuzzy.”

“Who do you think it was?” asked Gingerbread to no one in particular.

“I’m not sure. They felt cold, though.”

“I think it was Vincent,” Twilight answered with absolute certainty. “He’s the only one that could have done that. The rest of us were occupied with fighting these monsters.”

Gingerbread turned to the disorganized mass of bushes and monsters to his right. “Wait, is Pinkie still fighting them?” His question was answered once he caught a glimpse of Pinkie’s spinning body ricocheting off creepers and zombies. Twilight and Fluttershy also turned to Pinkie’s absurd fighting. “Where is he, then?”

“Right next to you,” Vincent answered into Gingerbread’s left ear.

“Gah!” Gingerbread jumped back into a bush and almost smacked Vincent’s face. “Don’t do that!”

“Well, I might as well test my stealth once in a while to stay efficient.” Vincent glanced over to Fluttershy. “I see you gave her some healing ale, huh?”

“Actually, we used a spell,” corrected Twilight as she waved around her spell book. “I think it works better.”

“You think?” Gingerbread retorted. “That spell is an instant heal back to full health! It’s better than any potion possible!”

“Shouldn’t we help Pinkie now?” Fluttershy suggested through a worried tone. A few more zombies rushed to Pinkie, and a couple more skeletons hurled more arrows into her body.

“Probably. I’ll go ahead and finish off the skeletons.” Gingerbread rushed back into the fray and munched on a steak. He climbed back onto the trees and slammed his blade right into a skeleton’s neck. Its neck cracked apart with the rest of its brittle body.

“I think offing a few heads would help, right?” Vincent unsheathed his thin iron sword and leapt into the fray. In just one swipe, two zombies’ heads hopped into the air and onto the ground with their bodies. A creeper crept up to his back and hissed in his ear hole. One swift motion severed the creeper’s chest from its abdomen.

Twilight’s help directed itself at Pinkie’s challengers. Twilight used her Magical Bow to snipe a few dueling zombies and waddling creepers. When a trio of creepers in chainmail armor emerged from a pile of thick bushes, she closed in on them, shot one twice, took out her Defense Sword, and smacked the other two into a jungle tree. She switched back to her Magical Bow and shot into their red eyes until the creepers collapsed into gunpowder and levels.

The battlefield thinned after fifteen more seconds of fighting. The remaining monsters, now irritated and afraid, retreated by running closer to Millstown. Most of the skeletons climbed on the trees to escape, and the rest of the monsters on the ground hid themselves from arrows or sword slashes by using the thick bushes. The only monster that didn’t escape was the clobbered spider that Pinkie Pie decapitated with a cartwheel slice.

“Why are they retreating?” Vincent questioned with a skull tilt. “I thought they wanted us too much to even think of retreating.”

Gingerbread jumped off a section of vines and put away his sword. “I think they have bigger matters to attend to, like the town they were trying to invade before we provoked them.”

Pinkie’s body snapped into a ready to run position. “Oh, right, we’re trying to save Millstown!”

Before she could run off again, Twilight stopped her with a single hoof. “Why don’t we all go together this time instead of having you rush ahead to the end?”

“But it’s an emergency!”

“Yeah, I know that, but we can still get there in a couple of minutes with all of us together. Just because we’re here as a group doesn’t mean we’re too slow.”

Pinkie slowly nodded her head after a one second delay. “Oh, I gotcha. Still, let’s go!”

The reunited quintet prepared themselves for battle and ran through Jungle Pass’s paths again. Along the way, they found a few Loyal monsters that couldn’t keep up with the rest. As a result, they ate a piece of stone. There were the occasional small wild slimes, but they were either ignored or smacked like irritating mosquitoes.

The group reached the action once again after they arrived at the last stretch of path to Millstown. They were twenty blocks away, and a few dozen monsters—two of them being the giant, muscular zombies that the ponies love looking at—bashed and slammed swords and fists on the cobblestone wall. Two of the monsters turned around and glared right at the three ponies. One of them tapped the left leg of a gigantic zombie and pointed at them. “Uh, guys, I think those things you were talkin’ about followed us.”

The giant zombie stopped his smashing and turned around with five booming steps. He stared down at the ponies, shifting his iron hammer to get the best grip possible. “Little mad horses better run, ‘cause I love smashing. Smashing’s my dream.” He emphasized his point by making a crater in the ground with one powerful smash. Fluttershy gulped down her fear, and Pinkie Pie’s almost forced her to run away from the giant’s devastating hammer.

Twilight kept herself from showing her oozing fear and stomped a hoof forward. “Run? We’d never run from anything that is destroying innocent towns!”

The giant puffed a gust of air. “Try me, grape horse.”

“I have had enough with smashing inanimate objects!” hollered a pigman in the crowd of monsters. “Comrades, slay those heretics for the Empress herself!”

The monsters rushed towards the quintet or searched for a place to stirike from afar. The first wave of monsters was composed of eight zombies, three spiders, and two creepers.

Two of the zombies slashed their swords at Gingerbread, one missing, one hitting. He retaliated by smacking them over and over until they both became rotten flesh. A creeper and a spider then introduced themselves to him with two hisses. He stabbed the creeper back a block and smacked the spider twice on the head. He made two more strikes that successfully flipped the spider upside down. He then sliced the incoming creeper again and kept his distance from its slightly expanding body. He stabbed again after half a second and again after another half second. He took its experience and returned his attention to the monsters.

Fluttershy and Pinkie met a gang of four zombies, two spiders, and a creeper. Fluttershy kept her distance from the zombies and poked at them whenever they decided to target her. Pinkie smashed her blade right into the creeper’s side. She smashed into the other side and kicked it back with a tremendous kick. The creeper crashed into a spider’s leg, crushing it right after landing. The spider leapt onto Pinkie and bit her twice, so she pushed it off and stabbed it twice as a response. Two of the four zombies walked behind her and swung their blades at her flanks. What came next was a double buck that gave the zombies flying lessons and jungle wood for heads. Fluttershy had no choice but to stab a zombie thrice in the chest. It retaliated with a horizontal miss and received back a stab in its heart. The zombie collapsed, leaving the duo with a spider and another zombie left. They both aimed for Fluttershy with a double bite and a strike that cut the back of Fluttershy’s neck. She gave a pair of diagonal slices to the zombie’s legs and a shove to the spider with her right wing. Pinkie aided her with a spinning slice that shredded the spider’s abdomen and massacred the zombie’s left half of its face. Fluttershy gave the killing blow—a slice through the waist.

The last two zombies died as fast as they arrived. Vincent gave them two simple strokes. One sliced their legs off, and another shaved off the tops of their heads.

The next wave that arrived contained six zombies, four skeletons, three creepers, and a giant zombie with two iron axes.

Three zombies and two creepers aimed for the new duo of Twilight and Gingerbread. The creepers walked around Gingerbread’s hacking at the zombies and focused on being close to both to him and Twilight. She struck them with her Defense Sword, munched on an apple, and struck again when the second one dodged her. Gingerbread decapitated a zombie, cut the arm and leg off another, and ripped the third’s abdomen apart. All three of them gave their loot in return for their deaths. Twilight ended the two tough as bedrock creepers with a quartet of arrows.

Fluttershy’s opponents were a creeper and a zombie. The zombie hacked at her at first and gave a random punch later. She dodged the former and took the latter to the jaw, and she dove to the side to avoid the expanding creeper. The creeper destroyed himself and the zombie right next to him in a violent explosion that also touched Fluttershy. After giving a small sign to Pinkie, Fluttershy caught an apple and nibbled on it until it was merely crumbs.

The skeletons aimed for the duo of Pinkie and Vincent while two zombies and the hulking zombie rushed to deliver some painful attacks. Vincent decapitated one of the zombies and hopped behind a skeleton. Pinkie rolled around a zombie while holding out her blade to slice its legs. This worked, resulting in a floating pile of smoke. She then stabbed into a skeleton’s sternum and pulled her sword upwards. The blade ripped through the skeleton’s skull and landed back into another skeleton. Vincent dismembered the fourth skeleton and crushed its skull with a smash from the hilt. He then finished Pinkie’s skeleton with a slice into a shoulder and out a pelvis. The giant zombie received its share of attention when it smashed down an iron axe next to Pinkie. She climbed up the axe and onto the zombie’s left shoulder. Once she was next to its head, she sliced one of the zombie’s orange eyes and somersaulted over its head. She gave two slices to its right shoulder and dodged an incoming axe blade. She ended the zombie’s life with a concluding slice into its neck.

The final wave of monsters was the greatest of them all. It delivered ten skeletons, twelve zombies, four spiders, five creepers, one pigman, and the giant zombie with an iron hammer.

Four zombies, two creepers, and three spiders locked their eyes on the lone Twilight. She started with a Defense Sword to the spiders and switched to her Little Burner for the rest. The four zombies and one creeper tasted her flames, and—to add to their faulty luck—couldn’t give back any strikes after she dodged to the side. She felled one of the zombies with two more fiery strikes and switched to her Magical Bow a split second later. She aimed at and killed the three spiders along with the burning creeper. She then returned to the Defense Sword and smacked three zombies and a creeper into a patch of bushes. One of the zombies died after another hit, and the creeper fell apart after a critical hit to the right temple. The last two zombies met her Little Burner a second time and roasted to pieces in her fire.

Pinkie, also alone in the chaos of attacks, faced ten skeletons and a ridiculously patriotic pigman.

The pigman adjusted his enchanted golden helmet and pointed his golden sword at Pinkie. “My loyal comrades, fire upon this non-believing heretic!”

A volley of arrows rained down upon Pinkie. Two of them stabbed into her body, and the rest tangled themselves up inside her mane and tail. The skeletons prepared another volley a little too late; Pinkie sprung into two skeletons and slammed both their heads down into the grass, crushing them into bone meal. The volley of eight was mainly ineffective, as the skeletons didn’t notice that hitting Pinkie’s two curls of fluff do nothing except entangle the arrows in hair. She took a tiny dose of damage yet again and destroyed three more skeletons with a spinning slice.

“What are you comrades doing?” the pigman snapped with a sword in the air. “Fire at its face, not its hair!”

The skeletons adjusted their aim at the cost of a sixth skeleton. They fired again, this time striking Pinkie with all four arrows. She winced and yelped from the pain, but she kept her upbeat mood strong and returned the favor with a critical smash into a skeleton’s rib cage. The last three skeletons backed away and rattled their bones. The pigman lashed at them again, this time with an enraged tone. “Cowards! Fight back against your adversary like true loyal soldiers!”

The skeletons refused to approach Pinkie, but that was expected at this point. Instead, Pinkie approached them, halted their next volley, and felled another two with three more rapid strokes. She chomped an apple afterward and swung her blade into the last skeleton’s pelvis. She slashed again, shattering the skeleton’s pelvis, femurs, and spine.

The pigman stepped forward and smacked his sword at the ground. “Fools! This is how you fight the enemy!”

The pigman gave a strike to Pinkie’s chest. He succeeded, drawing some blood and releasing shredded metal. Pinkie rolled to the right to avoid a fatal critical hit from the pigman and gave a smack to his leg. The pigman growled and blocked the next strike with his blade. Pinkie tried a critical smash that resulted in a block and a leg sweep to her hind legs. She tripped and fell onto the ground, blade at her throat and foot on her belly. In a miraculous move, she kicked back the pigman with her hind legs and intercepted his golden sword. She jabbed it into his abdomen and punched it deeper to deal more damage. He kicked back Pinkie and backed a couple blocks away. He ripped the sword out painlessly and swung it into her chest again. She dodged the swing and hopped behind the pigman. She then grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him down onto the ground. The pigman tried a stab into her torso that resulted in three crushing hops on his torso. Pinkie gave one final blow by stabbing the pigman in the heart.

The remaining monsters—eight zombies, three creepers, a spider, and the giant zombie—aimed for the trio of Vincent, Gingerbread, and Fluttershy. The zombies began with Gingerbread. At this point, he decided to unleash everything on the zombies to keep the other two focused. He started with multiple hacks and slashes into two zombies. They both fell without landing a single hit. He then moved on to the next three. These ones struck him a couple times due to them being around him and him being a little more careless. He achieved a critical hit on one of them and slashed the other two back to leave some room for healing. He stabbed at one and dismembered the other one, killing them both. He then returned to the first zombie and gave a fatal sweep through its torso. The next set of three approached him from behind. They critical slashed him once and stabbed him twice, forcing him to teeter on the edge of death. In a turn of events, one of the creepers decided to target him as well and snuck up from the left side. He smacked back at it and missed, got struck into it by a zombie, and backed into the zombies. The creeper hissed, expanded, and killed the zombies, himself, and Gingerbread in one sudden explosion.

Gingerbread blew up.

Two creepers and a spider closed in on Fluttershy. The creepers, already expanding to prepare for detonation, were only two blocks away from her. In a desperate attempt to survive and not get cornered into a tree again, she hopped onto the spider and over to Pinkie Pie. The two creepers exploded a little too late, killing themselves and the poor spider in between them.

The gargantuan zombie turned to Vincent and raised his hammer. Vincent rolled to the side and slashed a gash into the zombie’s left foot. He then rolled around the feet and slashed the zombie’s right foot. The hammer smashed down only three pixels away from him, angering the zombie. It swung its hammer around and into Vincent’s chest. His ribs cracked a little, but he wasn’t worried about that. He jumped onto the hammer and into a fist the zombie made just for him. He tumbled to the ground, shook his skull, and rolled away from the hammer’s next smash. He got back on the hammer and successfully landed on the zombie’s right shoulder. He dodged a fist and slashed the zombie’s face twice. After another fist dodge, he decapitated the zombie and backflipped off it and back onto the ground.

The group, now finished with the wave, checked the monsters at the wall.

There were no monsters.

Pinkie wiped her forehead with a hoof. “Whew! That was a lot of monsters!”

“I’m surprised that I’m not as hurt as any of you,” Twilight bragged just a tiny bit after glancing at Pinkie’s porcupine arrows. “Well, we saved Millstown.”

Vincent shook his skull. “Nope, not yet, Twilight pony.”

“What do you mean? We defeated every monster that was tearing down that wall!”

“If I’m correct, on my way to you four, I noticed plenty more blokes on their way here. The forces they’re dragging with them are much scarier than what we faced here.”

“Then we need to warn King Appleton!” Twilight rushed over to the iron door and pushed it. Nothing happened.

Pinkie trotted over to Twilight and nudged her aside. “Let me handle this.” Pinkie hopped onto a nearby tree, climbed over the top of the wall, and jumped down to the other side. She flicked a lever that opened the door. “Just jump, fall, and flick! Now you know how to get through.”

“Thanks, Pinkie.” Twilight stepped through the doorway and into Millstown. She noticed the unusual darkness ensnaring the entire town once she saw the glow of a few torches being the only true light in the village. Before her question on why could manifest, she looked up and answered it herself.

The sky was a thick black with a veil of stars over it. The gibbous moon shone down on her and everyone else nearby. The other three had Twilight’s question in their minds until they looked up as well.

After they finished their moment of stargazing, Twilight led the group through Millstown. She avoided any wandering villagers and the backscratching guy that still scratched someone else’s back in the exact same spot as before. She led them to King Appleton’s castle and prompted them inside. Throughout their small walk through the castle, they faced no resistance from the emotionless guards.

King Appleton, standing next to his bed, greeted the quartet once they entered his room. “Ah, Twilight, you’re back! What brings you, two of your friends I presume, and a, skeleton, to Millstown?”

Twilight stepped forward and gave a small smile. “Do you happen to know that an entire army of monsters was destroying your wall?”

King Appleton nodded. “I am well aware. I could hear them all the way from my bed.”

“Then why didn’t you use your guards to stop them?”

“Well, Millstown’s military is, inefficient, to say the least. The guards we have here are twenty-seven strong, and we only have one iron golem. We cannot afford losing them by stationing them outside our walls. Second, our farms are poor and slow growing from the endless dawn. They still need time to recover.”

“Then why don’t you ask for help?” Vincent proposed. “Maybe another town nearby could provide their guards.”

“I already asked for help from Faygrail. They’re bringing some soldiers and defenses in return for Derova, the farthest town in the mainland from here. Second, all of the other towns are as poorly defended as Millstown.”

Twilight pondered the situation and built an answer during her thought process. “If your military is not strong, and Faygrail has one that can spare plenty of soldiers to protect your towns, would it be smart to let them place soldiers everywhere around here?”

“Their ruler, King Dynamite, already gave me a deal months ago. He told me that he would provide food and protection to us if we allowed him to assume control over the mainland. I declined the offer in fear that he might dethrone me as part of his plan to control my towns.”

Vincent put out his hands in a hold up fashion. “Wait a bloody minute, you had the chance to survive and declined it because you were afraid of losing your crown? Do you have control over the other towns around here?”

King Appleton sloshed his answer around in his mouth. “It is more of a control where I give suggestions and see if the majority of the mayors agrees or not.”

“That’s more like being a voter in a republic than being an actual king.”

“It kinda sounds like you’re being selfish,” Pinkie commented with a concerned frown. “If you have nothing to lose, why let the locals starve for a fake crown?”

“There is the chance that King Dynamite will dissolve the mayor committee, though,” King Appleton added. “That can leave the mainland in danger of becoming a wasteland of corruption due to his absolute rule.”

Vincent shook his skull. “No, not at all. Since I studied King Dynamite’s Faygrail and had the chance to speak to him about his reign, I know what he’s good at and what he isn’t. He is excellent at keeping the peace, maintaining a powerful military, producing fine produce, keeping religion separate from the government to avoid unwanted religious zeal, defending his people and kingdom, preventing corruption, and keeping the populace happy. However, he is not good at diplomacy, hates anything related to any hostile monster groups, will not listen to new ideas unless they interest him, is not the best general for commanding massive armies, denies nearly all word from the church, and prefers to use the feudal system because it just works.

To be a bit more specific on feudal system, I mean that he likes having peasants and the lower class make up almost half his kingdom’s population. They also have less rights and equality than your people, so him taking over would make everyone less equal almost instantly. On the other hand, his use of the feudal system works well enough to keep everyone involved happy. Plus, even though he is on the top of the pyramid, he doesn’t abuse his power from what I know of. So, what will it be? Set your government back a few hundred years, or keep everyone alive and not in the hands of those bloody monster groups?”

Twilight turned her head to Vincent. “If King Dynamite ever does take control of the land, what will he see us as?”

“Visitors. King Dynamite loves and respects tourists and visitors in his kingdom. Unless his kingdom was attacked or damaged by a talking pony made up of unnatural colors, you should be fine.” Vincent returned to King Appleton with a serious glare. “Now, what do you want to do?”

King Appleton thought for a few seconds about this dilemma. After making his choice, he sighed a long sigh. “I suppose that giving him access to the mainland will help keep us alive to see a Mobtrocityless world. I will notify him of this via messenger later. As of now, I need to rest for the night.”

“I have one more thing to say,” Vincent blurted. “Another army of monsters is coming this way. The forces that will arrive are much stronger and numerous than that small raid not even ten minutes ago.”

“Well, that sounds like Millstown is doomed,” King Appleton started, “unless you four would like to defend the town for me. As payment, I will give a fine sum of money and a special key I found earlier. It seems to go to a treehouse of some sort.”

“We’ll be glad to keep those meanies out, King Appleton!” Pinkie declared with a salute.

“We were coming here to save Millstown as well, so of course we would help defend this place,” Fluttershy added.

King Appleton smiled and sighed in relief. “That is good to hear. Now, I’m going to bed. If you need me, I will be in here for the night.”

The quartet said their goodbyes to King Appleton. They backtracked through the castle and to the town’s brick well. Vincent decided to use a nearby farm to climb onto the well and then onto the roof of Bill’s Library. He leaned over the roof to stare down at the ponies. “I’ll search the forest for any incoming monsters. You three can rest for a little while until I find an enemy.”

“Take care!” Pinkie waved at Vincent as he disappeared from the roof’s edge. She decided to settle down and relax next to the well until something of interest popped up.

Twilight walked over to Bill’s Library for any books to read. She didn’t have to worry about it being closed, as the library still had its torches burning. Fluttershy had no idea what to do, so she shuffled over to Pinkie and lay down beside her. She watched a few pixelated leaves drift through the calm wind of night, draining her mind of nearly all the worries she held for this world.

“Pinkie,” Fluttershy started, “what do you think about this place?”

Pinkie, resting on her back, perked her head up at Fluttershy. “Do you mean the town or the world?”

“The world.”

“It’s pretty fun and interesting. Plus, it feels so weird, and I like that! I mean, everything is a square here. Even the water here is just a bunch of squares!”

“It’s also a little scary.” Fluttershy shuddered from the close call involving the zombies and the gargantuan freaks that easily towered everyone around them. “But it’s beautiful, too. The moonlight gives this place an enchanting aura that reveals how gentle and alluring this place can be. I haven’t seen a lot of animals, though.”

“Maybe they’re scared of the monsters. I did see a few chickens in the forest a few hours ago, or I think it was a few hours ago. It’s still odd how this place has twenty minute days.” She pointed at the gibbous moon that crawled about halfway through the sky. “That moon’s telling me that we’re already halfway into the night.”

“Yeah, this place is pretty weird, but I still like it, except for the monsters and all.”

Pinkie put her head back on the ground and stared up into the stars. She kept looking through the constellations to see the worlds behind the inky black. She imagined Equestria somewhere out there, just like how she imagined other worlds beyond the stars from her home.