What Was the Legend of the Mobtrocity

by Mister Slightly

Rating: teen
Tags: Fluttershy, Adventure, Violence, Minecraft, Pinkie Pie, Crossover, Human, Twilight Sparkle, Gore, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Other, Original Character, Comedy
Length: 72448

This was the story about the Mobtrocity's downfall by Gingerbread. It's not that story anymore. Instead, the Mobtrocity's downfall will be a batch of smooth-bodied ponies. Hopefully, fate will be kind to them and not leave them as pony food.

The Legend of the Mobtrocity was a tale about a hero, Bercotta, a bunch of angry mobs, and a war of the kingdoms.

The Mobtrocity was a simple group with simple goals. They were a group of undead and living monsters that believed in a world without any humans. That was all. They would pillage villages, create bases, kill off wannabe heroes, and fight against a respawning nobody.

This nobody was none other than the Gingerbread. He was a lone hero that trekked across the land of Bercotta in pursuit of, something. He was immortal with his ability to respawn, and he was helped by the voice in the sky, or television. Whichever one appeases you.

The humans were in different war groups. One was led by Faygrail, a glorious city under King Dynamite's rule. The other was several small towns led by King Appleton of Millstown. They fought for land and resources that were mightily valuable in Bercotta. To them, it seemed as if the war would last forever. To the Mobtrocity, the war was an opportunity for conquering the world.

This story would have ended in Gingerbread saving the entire world and ruling over Faygrail, but something happened that screwed it all up. It all started with a lone pony named Twilight Sparkle, trapped in the new and mysterious woods of Jungle Pass. A chest sat in front of her with a sign that said 'open me'. That was when everything turned upside down. (Gore tag is only for mentions of flesh, blood, and wounds obtained throughout the story, and violence is for fighting against blocky creatures)

Not your usual Minecraft Crossover

Current cover art is by me. Good luck seeing the stuff on it.

Published 2016-12-02 04:20:02 UTC
Last updated 2017-06-15 17:02:58 UTC

Act I, Chapter 1: Crashlandedish

Act I: Welcome Everypony to Bercotta

And, it’s done loading.

“Can you invite me?” Gingerbread asked politely. His voice was male and slightly young, sounding like a teenager around fifteen to sixteen years old.

Alright. There you go. You should be able to join now.

Gingerbread has joined the game.

In the middle of a forest of tall and graceful trees, several bits of large shrubbery that encased a pathway, and multiple vines that crept down to the ground, a human in a tuxedo suit popped into existence. A lone chest and a sign that read ‘open me’ materialized in front of him. Following the sign’s directions, he opened the chest and took out a set of some basic leather armor, a wooden sword, a shimmering red potion of strength, and five delicious and healthy steaks.

Gingerbread faced the clay path in front of him and saw another sign. It read ‘To Millstown. Watch out for monsters!’. Before he could begin his journey to the first town, a new message appeared out of nowhere.

Twilight Sparkle has joined the game.

“Uhh, you did put the game on invite only, right?” Gingerbread asked curiously.

It should be. Do you have any friends of yours that you invited? I kept friends of friends on just in case you wanted to bring one of them.

“I don’t know anyone with that gamertag. You should probably kick them.”

After a few button presses and sounds, the host options menu showed three players in the game. The new one was on that list. The menu for ‘Twilight Sparkle’ opened up shortly after.

Oh. There’s no kick option. Great.

“I guess we should invite them to our party.”

Another menu opened up, but it only said ‘profile not available’.

Apparently, they don’t have a profile either.

Gingerbread was a little suspicious and slightly irritated. “Come on, Ty. I know you’re playing games with me.”

I’m dead serious right now. There’s literally no profile, and I cannot kick them.

Gingerbread sighed. “Let’s see who they are, then.”

Only seconds after his statement, a new figure popped into existence near the starting point. Unlike the blocky ground, trees, and Gingerbread in the area, this figure was oddly slick and spherical. It looked like a disproportional pony with an odd coloration all over its body. It had a coat of lavender and a mane and tail of mainly dark purple. Two stripes, one magenta and the other purple, ran down its mane and tail. Its head was awfully big for its small body, and so were its big eyes with purple irises and two white spots. It also had a strange image on its flank that represented a big purple star with six points, the two at the top and bottom being bigger than the others, and five tiny white ones surrounding it. Another set of six white points stretched out between the points of the biggest star. The entire pony was only about as tall as about one and a half blocks.

The pony looked around and examined the blocky trees and surface. “Where am I?” It then glanced at various parts of its body. After noticing the sudden disappearance of some of its body parts, it’s voice quickly shifted from curious to terrified. “Where are my wings and horn? What’s happening?”

What is happening? I’m getting a little terrified of this.

The pony jumped upwards in shock and darted its eyes frantically. “Ah! Who was that?”

Oh no, you’re hearing me, right?

“I think so! Tell me what is going on!”

Ty sent a text message to Gingerbread. It said ‘Take care of this while I find out what just happened. Whatever you do, don’t talk to it like it’s in a game. Pretend like you’re a character in that world.’.

Gingerbread read the message and walked up to the pony. He introduced himself with a calm voice. “Hi, I’m Gingerbread, a warrior traveling to Millstown. Who are you?”

The pony glared at Gingerbread and tried to calm itself down. “I’m Twilight Sparkle, one of the princesses of Equestria. What is this place?”

Gingerbread hesitated before he could answer her. “This place, is, Minecraftia. Yeah, that’s it. I’m kind of new to this place too, by the way.”

“Do you know how I can get back home?”

“No clue. Anyway, you might need to grab some supplies from-” his voice paused as a chest manifested into existence. It read ‘open me’. “You might need supplies from that chest over there.” He swung a sword at the new chest.

Twilight walked over to the chest and lifted it open with a hoof. Inside was a wooden sword, a bow and twenty arrows, a set of leather armor, two potions of different colors, and ten apples. She first picked up the dark blue potion that caught her eye. On the front, it read ‘Willy’s Magical Horn Serum! Did you lose a horn of magical power? Get it back by drinking this concoction of deliciousness! Warning: do not drink if you already have a horn.’. She pulled off the cork with her teeth and gulped down the potion. Only a second later, a new lavender horn sprouted out of her forehead.

She then examined the other potion. It read ‘Willy’s Levitation Liquid! This potion grants any magic user the ability to levitate items! The more you drink, the more you can lift!’. She drank that potion as well and felt a surge of magic seep into her head. She just noticed that she felt almost drained of any magic.

Satisfied with her discovery, she levitated the rest of the items, putting the armor on first and the rest in her inventory. Surprisingly, the armor was built to fit around her body as if it was crafted just for her. After she was done, she faced Gingerbread. “Where do we go?”

“I think we’re supposed to go down this path,” he answered with a fake predicting tone. “There’s supposed to be a town at the end of it.”

“Maybe they’ll know what happened to us. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

And I’m back. Sorry about that little pause.

Twilight was startled by Ty’s voice. “Ah! Don’t scare me like that! I’m already in some weird forest made out of blocks and what look like pixels.”

Hey, these pixels are possibly the only thing saving you from the rabid kiwis! Anyway, you are in Jungle Pass, and I’m your helpful guide through this world of stuff. Just call me Ty for now.

Twilight was baffled at Ty’s first set of words. “Rabid kiwis?”

Yes. They are a thing, I think. Now, you better get going. Your legs aren’t going to walk themselves.

Twilight and Gingerbread proceeded down the pathway until they soon reached a fork in the path. Gingerbread walked down the left pathway, and Twilight soon followed. They eventually reached a locked iron door surrounded by wooden planks.

Wrong way, chief. Millstown’s the other way.

Gingerbread turned around and walked back to the fork in the path. Twilight followed him back as well, completely unsure of where to go. They eventually found a strange cube of green ooze that hopped towards them. It was only as big as a block, but that did not make it harmless.

“What is that?” Twilight pointed at the creature while she backed away in slight fear. “Is that Smooze?”

That thing is called a green slime. They attack you by hopping onto you and smacking you with their gelatinous bodies. They’re fairly weak and split apart, but be careful of the bigger ones. They’re nasty suckers.

Gingerbread attacked and killed the green slime with one swipe. It split into two very small slimes that hopped towards Twilight. She panicked and backed away from them while she pulled out her wooden sword.

Twilight, the smallest slimes can’t hurt you. It’s impossible. Also, they can die with just one hit from literally anything, even a fist—or hoof in your case.

Twilight calmed down and shoved one back with a hoof. It fell to the ground and disappeared into a rising puff of smoke. She repeated this for the other one as well. Experience orbs and slimeballs dropped from the defeated slimes. Gingerbread picked them up and gestured Twilight to move along. “Come on, Twilight. We can fight these things easily.”

However, that little phrase didn’t stop her from panicking from the next monster. It was a simple creature, just a single wild zombie with dark green skin, black eyes, a cyan shirt, blue jeans, and black shoes. It raised its arms up at the duo and ambled towards them with groans and shuffles. Gingerbread struck it with a wooden sword twice, knocking it back and making it groan in pain. It still shuffled towards the two with its arms outstretched. Twilight levitated her wooden sword and struck it twice again. It backed away again and still continued walking. Gingerbread struck the zombie one more time and killed it. He picked up the two rotten flesh it dropped, and Twilight accidentally collected the experience from it.

Twilight felt disgusted by what Gingerbread just picked up. “Did you just take its body parts?”

“Well, that is what they drop,” Gingerbread replied with indifference in his voice. “It’s pretty much how they work.”

Also, drops from enemies like bones, gunpowder, slimeballs, and much more can be used to collect real money, so it’s best to take whatever you can and exchange it for some good old moneys. Rich, delicious moneys.

“That’s still gross, though,” Twilight gagged a little from the smell of the flesh. “I don’t know how you can carry that without vomiting.”

The duo continued their small journey and fought a few more green slimes and wild zombies. There weren’t too many to overwhelm the two, and their weaponry and armor were rather durable considering how low tiered they were.

Twilight saw a small wooden house up ahead. Some of the sunlight shone down through a hole in the canopy, showering Twilight and Gingerbread in a warm light. To Twilight, it felt pretty good compared to the constant shade of Jungle Pass.

When the duo were about to reach the hut, two zombies fell from the canopy out of nowhere. Both of them took damage, but that didn’t stop one of them from smacking Twilight with its arms. She fell backwards with a slight bruise on her neck. She retaliated with three strikes against the zombie’s chest. Gingerbread killed the zombie after he smacked away the other one into a few bushes. He then sliced up the other zombie until it was nothing but a puff of smoke.

The duo finally walked over to the hut. Twilight couldn’t help but notice the strange lamp sticking out of the ground. It was currently off and had one lever on the top of it. She flicked the lever, turning on the lamp.

Twilight Sparkle and Gingerbread’s spawnpoints have been saved.

Hey, you found your first checkpoint! Whenever you die, your body will be automatically brought back there. However, the living part is still under construction.

“Ehh, thanks for the info,” Twilight felt uneasy from that statement and its nice ending. Her smile was not very grateful, but at least it was a smile.

Gingerbread opened the door to the hut and looked inside. It was only a two by two by two space with a bed and crafting table in the singular room. Torches lit up the room, and two windows composed of two panes each peered out into Jungle Pass.

“Hey, you!” A strange and raspy voice came from the bottom of the bed. “What’re you doing in my house?”

“I’m just checking what’s in it,” Gingerbread answered. He was the only one in the house since Twilight couldn’t fit in it with him. “We’re heading to Millstown.”

“Millstown? That town’s locked from the inside, buddy. The king told me to keep the key to it to prevent any darn Mobtrocity from getting in.”

“Mobtrocity you say?”

“That’s right! They’re these punks that go wherever they want and take anything they want. Last time I saw them, they took my cat!” Sudden rustling and moaning noises emanated around the area. “Oh no, it’s those zombies again!”

Three wild zombies fell from the leaves and into the area. Twilight swiped her sword at two of the three zombies twice, and Gingerbread rushed the third one. Twilight eventually killed her two zombies, and Gingerbread killed his as well. They collected the rotten flesh and returned to the man under the bed.

“Hey, thanks for the help.” the guy said in relief. “I’ll go ahead and give you the key for saving me.”

Gingerbread took the key and placed it in his inventory. As they ventured off to Millstown, they encountered their first miniboss. A lone wild skeleton with two wild zombies at its sides approached the duo. The skeleton stayed back as the zombies rushed Twilight first. She struck them with her sword three times before she felt an arrow stab her right hind leg. The zombies then smacked her twice each, weakening her to about halfway to death.

Gingerbread sprinted up to the skeleton and slashed down on its head. Sparks flew out of the skeleton as it was knocked backwards. Gingerbread then hacked at it until it fell to the ground and died. He collected the bones and experience and headed for the zombies. He diverted their attention and finished them off with two more strikes to their chests. Both of them turned into puffs of smoke and dropped more flesh and experience. He collected this and leveled up to level five on his experience level. Twilight was still at around level three.

Twilight got back up and took out one of her apples. Not only did her stomach growl after that flurry of attacks, her body also felt like it needed the food badly. She munched on the apple until it was nothing but crumbs. After about twenty seconds, her bruises, black eye, and puncture wound from the arrow disappeared. The arrow stuck in her leg fell off her body and shattered apart.

Twilight, are you okay? I’ve never seen someone receive injuries like that in this world.

She looked up at where she thought Ty’s voice was coming from. “I’m fine now. Thanks. Also, what do you mean that you never see injuries like that? Bruises and cuts are actually pretty common.”

Not in this world. I’m afraid that you might get badly hurt or crippled from one of these creatures. Gingerbread can take loads of damage to his body and still fight like a champ. You, however, you are not like him or the other creatures in this world. Just be careful, okay? I don’t want to see you get hurt like that.

“So, what about the checkpoints? Does Gingerbread have some sort of reviving power or something, because I think he’s something similar to that if there are checkpoints set up like that.”

“Oh yeah, my respawning abilities.” Gingerbread realized the special power he had that could ultimately determine the fate of this world. “I’m part cockroach. That’s what makes me able to come back.”

Twilight cocked her head at him.”Part cockroach?”

“Yup. Part cockroach.”

“You are one weird creature.”

“I know.” Gingerbread had a more joking voice that time.

Well, we got no time to waste, fellas. Time to head to Millstown!

And so the duo walked up to the front door of Millstown and unlocked it with their key. They stepped inside to the first town, not knowing of what would or could happen next. However, no one knew that Ty knew what will happen.

Act I, Chapter 2: Millstown's Mobtrocity Rumble

When the duo walked into Millstown, they saw three different characteristics of the village.

The first was the buildings. Most of them were made out of a blend of wooden planks, logs, and cobblestone. However, the small castle, church and walls of the town were completely made out of cobblestone. The buildings had wooden doors, pane windows, and torches that lit up the buildings and front door. Twilight, being a little observant of these houses, now wondered how the torches were not burning the entire place to the ground.

The second was the first set of townspeople. They were mostly odd human creatures with tall, bald heads and quite large noses. They wore robes of a few colors usually being white, brown, or purple. They also sometimes had aprons that were either black or white if they were not wearing a big robe. Some of them stood outside and stared at things like houses, roaming chickens, and the ground, some sprinted as fast as they could to a door—slamming themselves into it and eventually opening it after ten seconds—and some crowded up at some doors and repeatedly opened and closed the doors, blocking themselves or anything else from entering or exiting those buildings. Twilight also noticed that the children that were running around were also bald and almost identical to the adults. She had a hard time figuring out if they were all men or just alien enough to be unidentifiable.

The third was right in front of them. They were smaller people that stood at one and a half blocks tall, about Twilight’s height. To her, they looked like shorter variants of Gingerbread. To Gingerbread, they looked like Steve heads with cyan wool block bodies. They spoke to each other and calmly walked around the town, going through life like always despite the purple pony next to them.

One of the bald townspeople, preferably called villagers, walked up to Twilight. It was a child that looked up at her with admiration.

“Herr,” it said nasally with a high pitch.

Twilight leaned her head down to hear the baby villager better. “What?”

“Herr.”

“I don’t know what it’s saying. Sounds like gibberish to me.”

Gingerbread walked up to the villager and passed Twilight. “Don’t worry, I speak Nasallese.”

“Herr,” it said again with its nose.

“Herr,” Gingerbread imitated with an obviously not nasally sound.

“Herr.”

Gingerbread turned to Twilight. “It wanted to know why your hair makes you look like an emo.”

Twilight turned to the child with slight irritation. “Now that’s just rude! I am obviously not emo, I am a pony from Equestri-ahh!”

The child suddenly sprouted to an adult in milliseconds, startling and staggering Twilight from the sudden change. She looked up at the villager with small pupils and shock on her face. Ty started laughing hysterically at this nonsense.

Oh my gosh, that was amazing! Such perfect timing too! You really need to see the look on your face!

“Herr,” the villager said again with a lower pitch this time.

“I can’t believe you believed me,” Gingerbread stated with small chuckles in his words. “I don’t even speak that because it’s not a thing.”

Twilight glared at Gingerbread with narrowed eyes. “No need to insult my hair like that.”

“Hey, that’s what you get when you’re stuck with me.”

“Let’s just go to the king already.”

Twilight and Gingerbread continued walking until they reached a well made out of bricks. Twilight kept her head down and folded her ears to shut out the constant herring from the villagers. It was driving her crazy that they were all saying something that she couldn’t understand, and they were also getting annoying, too.

Herr.

Herr.

Herr.

Was that all that they could say?

The duo turned right to a small gathering of wheat farms. “Hey, you,” started the deep voice of a middle-aged man.

Twilight pricked her ears up and turned to the man in a cyan shirt, sighing in relief that she could understand them. She tried her best to be polite through the villagers’ commotion. “Yes, what do you need?”

“Can you scratch my back? If you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours for ya.”

Twilight politely declined the offer. “Uhh, no thanks, sir. I need to get going.”

She picked up her walking speed as the guy hollered at her. “Hey, where’re ya going? I need a back scratched for me!”

The duo avoided that guy and took two more rights. They eventually reached a door with a sign above it that said ‘King Appleton’. Two men in black apparel stood next to the door. To Twilight, they reminded her of the royal guards back home. They were filled with no emotion, constantly looking forward, and seemingly oblivious to everything.

Even to the villager dancing on one guard’s head.

The duo passed them unopposed and walked into the castle. It was awkwardly small and unappealing from the cobblestone and area inside of the first room. The first room they walked into was a throne room with four emotionless guards, a blue carpet, and a throne of iron blocks. To the left of the room was a set of double doors with a painting of two people fighting with a Kung Fu style. The duo walked through the doors and into a small courtyard. A lone iron golem by the name of Quincy perched on one of the guards’ shoulders. All three of them guarded the next set of double doors to the king’s room.

They passed the guards with no resistance.

When the duo walked into the next room, they noticed that it a blue carpet covered the floor, a double bed with fancy decoration around it sat beside a few pane windows, and a jukebox, a cauldron, a brewing stand, a wardrobe, a map, a clock, and an odd chest with a purple glow and a black and green exterior either huddled together or hung from the cobble walls. Twilight felt a strong power from the unusual chest and walked up to it. She eyed it carefully and opened it with ease. Disappointing Twilight, the chest had nothing in it.

That’s an ender chest. It can store items you place in there and teleport them to other ender chests around the world. Plus, no one can take what you put in it.

Twilight’s eyes grew with astonishment as she examined its hinges, lock, material, and murky black insides. With every word she said, she climbed deeper and deeper into the chest. “How does it work? Is it some type of forgotten magic or something even more exotic?”

Honestly, there is no real explanation. To me, it just works, and that’s good enough.

“I think it has to do with the recipe to create it using ender pearls,” Gingerbread suggested.

Twilight’s head popped out of the chest and cocked in curiosity. “Ender pearls? What are those?”

“They’re a drop from these things called Endermen. They are very deadly and pretty dang smart. They can be pretty dangerous if you are not well equipped like now.”

“I’ll probably need a few of them to see if I can harness their ability or something. It almost sounds like they involve teleporting.”

Gingerbread was about to answer, but Ty interrupted him before a word came out.

We think that’s what they involve too, but we’re not sure yet.

Ty sent Gingerbread another message. It read ‘Don’t say a word about them. I want to see how she’ll react to one of them.’

Gingerbread kept that in his mind and hushed about the ender pearls.

“Ah, so we have visitors in Millstown?” The voice was old and wise enough to catch both Gingerbread and the rummaging Twilight’s attention. “It has been quite some time since we had any that were not monsters.”

A villager with a white beard, hair around the sides of his head, a red and white robe gilded in gold and silver, and a crown of silver entered the room. “You two seem like nice folk. One looks like a traveler, and one looks, extraordinary, but that might be an understatement.”

“Who, me?” Twilight pointed a hoof at herself to emphasize her point.

“Yes. Pray tell, where are you from exactly?”

Twilight jumped out of the ender chest and onto the blue carpet. “I’m from a nation called Equestria. My name is Twilight Sparkle, one of the governing princesses of the land and the element of magic.” She looked at her back with slight disappointment. “Well, I should have wings right now, but I don’t know what happened to them.”

You did enter this world without a horn as well, so they must be somewhere.

“And who are you supposed to be?” Gingerbread asked the old king.

The king responded politely and calmly. “I am King Appleton, ruler of the Nation of Repressed Cities and of Millstown.” He held out a hand to Gingerbread. He approached and shook King Appleton’s hand. “It is a pleasure to meet you.”

Twilight looked out at the sky and saw the static sun. She immediately thought about Celestia and turned to King Appleton. “Uh, King Appleton? Do you have some sort of creature that moves the sun?”

“We do not. We have proven that the sun and moon revolve around the planet a long time ago. Why do you ask?”

“Well, where I’m from, Princess Celestia is the only one that can raise the sun. She needs to manually do it every day.” So, if a sun needs to be moved by magic, how does your sun move?”

“Gravity, fair lady. Gravity is what makes this world work. It is what creates the stars, what drives the forces of the universe, and what keeps us from falling off this world. Does your world by happen to be somewhere far away? By that, I mean by sea.”

Twilight put a hoof up to her chin with deep wonder. “I don’t know. Not all of our world is charted yet.”

Impossible. How can this exist when it-iaa never mind. Just rambling about random stuff over here.

Twilight pasted a confused entanglement of movements onto her face. “Okay, then. Anyway, why isn’t the sun moving if it doesn’t need somepony to move it?”

King Appleton looked out into the sky and donned a face of worry. “Oh, yes, I forgot about that. You see, there is this fortress high in the sky called the Sky Temple. It is basically a solitude for the Air Mobs and the determiner of what happens in the sky. Ever since the dreaded Mobtrocity stormed that place, the planet has never seen full day nor night. It seems to be stuck at dawn for eternity.”

“Wait just a second,” Gingerbread blurted with suspicion. “You just said that the world is run by gravity. If that’s the case, how does a temple in the sky override all of that?”

“Honestly, I do not know. It just does.”

“Maybe it has a lot of magic,” Twilight guessed. “Magic can do all sorts of things.”

Yup, and magic is definitely what should be our last resort, not physics or anything else that makes actual sense.

Twilight snapped at the air. “Hey, magic is serious business! Don’t tell me that you never saw it before.”

If Harry Potter counts as seeing magic, I guess.

“What’s Harry Potter?”

“It’s a fictional series revolving around magic,” Gingerbread answered casually. "It has some of the same spells you can do, but they are performed in a different way."

Twilight sighed and lowered her head a little. “Well, at least you know what it might be, Ty.”

Gingerbread brought the discussion back on topic by interrupting the next sentence. “Moving on, King Appleton, where is this Sky Temple?”

“It is suspended in the sky, but there is a giant tree that leads up to it in the Great Forest,” King Appleton answered.

“Can we get the key, then?”

“I’m afraid I do not fully trust you two yet. I kept the Great Forest forbidden to keep the Mobtrocity out. However, if you prove yourself by helping out Millstown, I might be willing enough to give you it.”

“You don’t trust us after that giant conversation?” Twilight irritably spouted at King Appleton.

“I do not know where you two came from and what your motives are. For all I know, you two could be Mobtrocity soldiers. However, helping a human is not possible for a Mobtrocity member.”

“But we helped out one in Jungle Pass!”

“I did not see it; therefore, I do not believe it.”

Twilight groaned angrily as she stormed out of the castle.

Gingerbread faced King Appleton as he headed for the door. “We’ll do what you want. Just stay here until we come back, okay?”

King Appleton nodded as Gingerbread walked out of the castle. She approached Twilight, who was sitting under a tree’s shade. Her ears were folded down to drown out the noise of the villagers roaming around her.

Gingerbread kneeled down next to her and placed a hand on her right shoulder. “Look, I don’t want to do this either, but we’ll have to if we want to get out of here.”

“But I need to leave as fast as possible!” Twilight argued as she kept one of her ears only partially closed. “Who knows what’s happening in Equestria right now!”

“But you need your wings, right? And you were also talking about feeling weak earlier. You want your wings and power before you leave, right?”

“Well, yeah. Maybe this world is just getting to my head. Also, how do you stay sane around these villagers? They just keep talking and talking and talking and it’s driving me crazy!” Twilight twitched an eye and forcibly shook her hooves .

“I can tell. Come on, let’s see what the locals have for us to do.”

Twilight got up and followed Gingerbread to Bill’s Library—the first building they saw on their left when they entered the town. They entered the library and examined it. Twilight glanced at the different novels and bits of information on the bookshelves. She quickly noticed that the books were organized by author’s name and put in specific areas. Non-fiction was at the back of the library next to Bill, and fiction was near the front door. She levitated one of the books off of a shelf and examined it carefully. It was Knowing the Characteristics of Dimensions and Traveling Through Them by Derek Windshear. She opened it and immediately dove her nose into its pages.

Gingerbread walked up to the log counter where Bill was standing at. He was a basic villager with a white robe fit for a librarian. His voice was masculine but not rough or deep. “Welcome! What can I get you today?”

“Well, I’m seeing if you have any work for me,” Gingerbread answered as he glanced around the library. Twilight was still reading through the book.

“Huh, I didn’t think someone was man enough to take up my offer. I had a book in here that Frederick Ivanshin wrote called Mobtrocity: Killing the Horrors Next Door. It talked about their weaknesses, strategies, troops, and weaponry over the years. Apparently, a few thieves came in here a day ago and snatched it. It was the only book taken from me. None of the others were touched.” Bill set five silver coins and a potion of regeneration on the counter. “If you help me, I’ll give you this as a reward. Do you have a deal?”

“Deal.” Gingerbread and Bill shook hands as they smiled at each other. Twilight was still reading the book.

Gingerbread walked back to the front door and waved a hand over to Twilight. “Come on, Twilight. We need to find a book thief.”

“Not now, I’m reading this.” She shooed Gingerbread away with her front left hoof. “This guy has some pretty interesting ideas.”

Gingerbread shrugged and walked out of the library. He examined the area for any possible thieves. The first person he confronted was one of the smaller people next to the library. He got up to their face and stared them down threateningly. “Did you steal a book?”

“Uh, no,” the guy mumbled rather calmly. “I don’t even care for reading.”

Gingerbread confronted another person nearby the town blacksmith. “Did you steal a book?”

“Nerp,” the confronted guy answered. “Not one to steal from others like that.”

Gingerbread did this to three other people. All of him gave negatives on being the thief. One person, however, overheard his questioning and walked away from Gingerbread carefully.

“Did you steal a book?” Gingerbread was right behind him now. The guy turned around and frantically darted his eyes from one side to another.

“Nope! No stolen books here! Just an ordinary person in an ordinary town!” The confronted guy was obviously sweating and shaking at this point, like a liar.

Gingerbread stuck his face closer to the guy. “I’m not sure of that. You look like you’re lying to me.”

The guy immediately broke into a sprint and headed for the front gate of Millstown. Gingerbread followed him up to the gate and cornered him to a tree. The guy backed away from Gingerbread and looked upwards. For some reason, his voice turned from a basic accent to a raspy, bony growl. “The jig is up, boys! He knows!”

Three zombies sprung out of the tree and stood next to the guy. They wore grey suits with a red eyed creeper face printed on its front. The confronted guy lifted his face to reveal a clean skeleton with a stone sword in one hand and a book in the other. The skeleton wore a grey leather cap with the same creeper face on its front.

One of the zombies, normally known as a Mobtrocity Goon, cracked his knuckles and slowly walked up to Gingerbread. “We’re gonna teach you a lesson for blowin’ our cover. Get ready for a fist sandwich, punk!”

Gingerbread pulled out his wooden sword and swung at the goon. He backed away as the other two goons rushed up to him. He sliced at them three times each before dealing a critical hit on one of them. They fell to the ground and died as the other two rushed him again. He struck the two goons twice each, killing one and injuring the other. He finished off the surviving goon and headed for the Mobtrocity Scout. The scout thrust his sword at Gingerbread, dealing a little damage as he backed away with the book in hand. Gingerbread jumped and slashed down at him, dealing critical damage. The scout sliced at him twice but missed both times. Gingerbread then rushed the scout and hacked at him with minor fury. The scout fell into a pile of bones and smoke. Gingerbread grabbed the book, experience, and mob loot and walked back to the library.

Twilight was still reading the book when he entered the library. Twilight looked up at Gingerbread for a second before resuming her reading. Gingerbread smacked the book on the counter and took the reward. “I got your book back. A skeleton and three zombies took it.”

Bill took the book as he shouted at his own stupidity. “I knew I should’ve got the guard bundle! Anyway, thanks for helping. It means a lot for someone to give a stolen book back to me.”

Twilight shut the book and exclaimed her thoughts. “And, done! That guy sounded like he had some developments on traveling between different worlds from what he was saying. He even talked about creating plans for something called a DPD.” She turned to Gingerbread and looked up at him as she put away the book. “Do you think he can get me back home?”

“Maybe. I guess we could search for–” Gingerbread checked the book for a second “–Derek Windshear whenever we have time.”

“Derek Windshear?” Bill questioned in slight disbelief. “Good luck finding him nowadays.”

“Why? Did he die?”

Bill shrugged and gave a slanted frown. “Don’t know. He disappeared off the face of Minecraftia three years ago. That book was published and distributed when he made it four years ago. I read some of his work, and boy oh boy was he nuts. He talked about finding other worlds that were completely different from ours and whatnot. If it wasn’t for King Dynamite’s pardon on him, he would’ve been beheaded for blasphemy against the Church of Joe.”

“Church of Joe?” Gingerbread and Twilight asked in unison.

“It’s the most widely accepted religion in Bercotta. Heck, the church here is one of the many churches built specifically because of that. It’s considered to be the first church ever built for Joe.”

“I need to see this Church of Joe,” Gingerbread demanded as he walked out of the library.

Twilight lingered for a second to talk to Bill. “Do you have any books about a place called Equestria?”

Bill took out a piece of paper with a list of book titles. He mumbled the names to himself until he got to the bottom. “Nope, sorry. No one published anything about a place called that.”

Twilight thought that the absence of any book about Equestria made sense. If it didn’t exist here, why would the locals have any books about it?

She walked out of the library and caught up with Gingerbread. He kept walking until he eventually reached a tall cobblestone building in the shape of an L. He then entered through the door with a sign saying ‘Joe House’ above it. Twilight followed him inside and kept quiet.

The priest on the other side of the room raised his voice over the other people listening to his sermon. “And as the handeth of Joe touches down upon the fief lord’s headeth, the lord only shouts one statement in regret to his savior. ‘By god, is t Wednesday already? I has’t not claimed mine cuppeth of coffee yet!’ Joe forgives that gent and telleth that gent to not forget again. ‘My issue, thee art but a beginner in mine not restful eyes. Now, I bless thee with most wondrous skills that an emperor of olden days would envy.’ And the lord praises Joe once again. ‘Thank thee, mine savior, thou has’t given me enlightenment by thy hands. May I ever beest in thy debt for the rest of mine days.’ "

The congregation that sat in the pews stood up and grabbed their cups of coffee. They sipped three times only and put their cups back onto their laps as they sat back down. The priest noticed Gingerbread and Twilight in the entryway to the room. “Joevians, we have two newcomers today. May these newcomers step up to the lectern?”

The duo walked from the entryway to the lectern. Gingerbread decided that he should be the one to talk to the preacher since he was very interested in what was happening here. “Are you the priest of this church?”

“Why yes, I am. Say, what brings you two to the Joe House at this time of day?”

“I would like to know this religion you have.”

“Ah, yes. The Church of Joe is a wonderful basis for faith and spiritual strength. It revolves around the teachings of joe and His drink of heavenly nourishment: coffee. In His eyes, coffee is His blood, His gift, His symbol, and Himself. That is why we call coffee during our weekly consumption the Cup of Joe.”

Gingerbread possibly facepalmed hard enough to slap his head off his body. “Seriously, Ty? You really went there?”

“Went where?” asked Twilight.

“I need to say it. You ask too many questions, Twilight.”

Twilight held up a sheepish grin through her words. “Sorry, it’s just that there’s so many things happening in this world that are changing everything I knew about reality.”

“Anyway,” Gingerbread faced the priest again, “I was wondering if you had some work that we can do.”

The priest held up a single index finger. “Yes, I do have something you can do for me. I found out that there are a few people in this town under the possession of demons. I believe that spreading Joe’s word will expel the demons out of their bodies.” The priest rummaged through a small box next to him. “And, for a reward, I believe these can be of use.” The priest placed two bottles of fire resistance on the lectern.

Gingerbread nodded with determination in his voice. “Consider it done.” The duo left the Joe House and wandered aimlessly around Millstown. Gingerbread randomly picked the smaller people of the bunch. The villagers were, well, villagers, so he did not pick them, but at least they had names to keep them special.

Gingerbread found a person next to a pumpkin farm nearby the Joe House and confronted him. His face was fairly close to the person. “Go to the Joe House.”

“I already do,” the person replied with indifference.

Gingerbread and Twilight walked over to another random person at the wheat farms. Gingerbread gave the same line to the person. “Go to the Joe House.”

The person grunted and moaned as his mouth opened wide. A blood-red skeleton with a flaming wooden sword and glowing yellow eyes crawled out of the mouth. It then faced the duo and pointed its sword at Gingerbread. Its voice was distant, hollow, and most of the of all, guttural. ”Fools! Both of you will be devoured for your insolence against us.”

The demon struck first, immediately encasing Gingerbread in flames. It hopped to the left and aimed for Twilight. She blocked its next attack with her sword, but the demon outsmarted her with that attack. It kept the sword in place as it kicked at her two forelegs, knocking her to the ground. The demon pushed away her levitating sword as it readied itself into thrusting position. Gingerbread, still in flames, swiped his sword at the demon. It backed away and lost its concentration as Gingerbread sliced at it three more times. Twilight finished off the demon by stabbing it with her still levitating sword. The lights in its eyes died as it fell to the ground. The red drained from its body and converted into a sickly black. The demon withered away in only seconds, leaving nothing but the sword that was still burning and a few bones.

Gingerbread stopped burning and approached Twilight. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just a bruise,” she replied as she got back up. “It’ll heal itself.”

Yeah, be careful of those things. They’ll get the upper hand quickly.

The person faced Gingerbread as he felt his chest. He dropped to complete gratitude. “Thank you, kind sir! That thing was suffocating me my entire life!”

“No problem,” Gingerbread announced through his slight smugness.

Twilight walked over to the wooden sword on the ground and picked it up. “Huh, I guess this is what that thing used.”

“What is it?”

Twilight examined the name on the hilt of the sword. “It’s called Little Burner, and it’s tagged as uncommon.”

That means that it’s kind of rare. There are common, uncommon, rare, and artifact items. The higher its rating, the more it’s worth, except for artifacts. Normal shops can’t sell or buy them due to restraints by their owners.

“Okay.” Twilight put the sword in her inventory and directed her eyes to Gingerbread. “Let’s go find these two other demons!”

And so they did. The second one they found had another Little Burner, so Twilight switched to her bow and shot several arrows at the demon. It died quickly and dropped experience, bones, and coal. When they encountered the third one, they had to rush it to prevent it from shooting arrows at them. They felled the demon as fast as the last one and collected its mob loot. When they returned to the priest, Gingerbread shook hands with him and collected the two potions. The duo then walked back to King Appleton. Along the way, Twilight brought up something that Gingerbread didn’t expect.

“Hey, Gingerbread?”

He turned his head to his right and looked down at Twilight. “Yeah?”

“Are you magical in some way?”

“No, why do you ask?”

“Ever since I met you, I felt some sort of magical aura around your body. I think you have some hidden spells or something you’re keeping from me.”

“Didn’t you feel any auras on the other creatures so far?”

“Nope, not yet, only you. You’re the only one literally oozing in magic right now.”

I don’t like where this is going.

The duo were now in the throne room of the castle. Gingerbread asked Twilight yet another question. “But how can you sense something like that?”

“I can usually sense if something has magic flowing through it or not,” Twilight answered. “You seem to be flowing with it, so you have magic.”

“How can I have magic if I don’t use it or know it?”

“There are unicorns I knew or heard about that don’t use their magic at all, yet they still have an aura. Even though you have one, it feels, strange.”

Ty couldn’t handle the speculation.

Moving on! I just remembered that you two still have some money on you.

“What’re we going to spend it on, though?” Gingerbread questioned while he stared at the five silver coins in his hand. “Five bucks is not enough for both of us.”

Do you know that monsters can also drop money? Specifically, pigmen and zombies.

“How does that help us exactly? We still have five bucks.”

Another answer didn’t matter since the duo were already in King Appleton’s room. He turned to Gingerbread and Twilight with happiness fluttering around his face. “You helped out the locals, and you slain a few Mobtrocity members too! They called me as soon as you two finished helping Bill and the Joe House.”

Gingerbread was completely confused about this town’s technology. “You don’t even have phones! They shouldn’t exist yet!”

“But they have existed for some time now. Anyway, you two have proven yourselves worthy of entering the Great Forest.” King Appleton approached Gingerbread and gave him the key to the Great Forest. “Be careful, though. The Mobtrocity has soldiers all over that area. They can appear out of nowhere.”

Twilight paced around the room with no waiting on her mind. “Well, let’s get going! I can’t wait to get out of this crazy place!”

King Appleton quickly interrupted the duo’s departure. “Hold on a second, I need to warn you two before you leave.” Twilight and Gingerbread turned around and handed King Appleton their focus. “I have heard some rumors about the Mobtrocity’s new target. They are taking interest in you two, especially Twilight. If you attempt to enter the Great Forest, expect some resistance along the way.”

“We’ll take note of that, King Appleton,” Gingerbread assured to the king. “We should be able to handle this.”

The duo left the castle and headed for Jungle Pass. Along the way, Ty noticed another message from the world. This message only brought fear and concern to his heart.

Pinkie Pie has joined the game.

Ty quickly messaged Gingerbread. The message read ‘I think this is going to turn from bad to worse soon.’.

Gingerbread replied back. His message read ‘Without a doubt.’.

Act I, Chapter 3: More Are Coming...

As the duo began their journey through Jungle Pass again, they discovered a small difference in the area. There were quite a lot of enemies now. In fact, there were five Mobtrocity Goons in the area where the duo fought their first skeleton. So, as the warriors they were in this world, Twilight and Gingerbread sprinted towards the goons.

One of the ambling goons turned to their right and saw the duo. “Hey, guys! I think those are the punks headin’ for the Great Forest! Get ‘em!”

The goons turned to the duo and rushed them. Gingerbread knocked some goons back with his sword, and Twilight fired multiple arrows at them. She eventually felled two of the goons, and Gingerbread sliced two more into smoke. The last goon was a little hesitant to fight now, but his past experiences dictated that dying was better than severe punishment. He charged at Gingerbread anyway and died by his blade. Gingerbread and Twilight picked up their loot and experience afterwards, Twilight cringing from the rotten flesh’s stench.

Twilight and Gingerbread continued down the pathway until they reached the hut. Two Mobtrocity Marksmen, or skeletons, and a big green slime prepared their attacks for the duo. The marksmen stood back as the big slime hopped towards Twilight first. She pulled out her Little Burner and swiped it through the slime, encasing it in gargantuan flames. Gingerbread slapped it twice with his sword and let the fire finish it off. The slime soon split into four more that kept hopping along the path. Twilight and Gingerbread hacked at them until there were only tiny slimes left.

One of the marksmen pointed his bow up at the duo. “Fire!”

A few arrows flew either over the two or onto the slimes. Twilight fired a few arrows back at them, killing one marksman and injuring another. Gingerbread rushed the last marksman, smote him with his sword, and took his loot. After they struck the remaining slimes, they continued along the pathway again. They encountered more goons, marksmen, and slimes, but all of them were easily dispatched with little to no risk. Sometimes, the fights were made easier when a marksman accidentally killed a slime or nearly dead goon.

They kept battling these soldiers until they reached the door that they stumbled upon earlier. Before Gingerbread could use his key on the door, another challenger appeared right behind him and Twilight.

On top of the large shrubbery was a zombie in enchanted chainmail armor. He brandished a special stone sword with knockback II on it. He peered down at Twilight and Gingerbread, laughing to himself as he examined their gear. “I usually have to fight wannabe heroes with iron armor or better, but this, this is sad!” He laughed a little more before he donned a look of dead seriousness. “Anyway, I’m the defender, keeper of this gate. You will not get through me alive, wimps.”

“Let’s see about that!” Gingerbread readied himself and gestured the Defender to come down. “Why don’t you fight us down here, then?”

The Defender crashed onto the ground and put his sword over his chest, clanging it on the powerful armor he wore. He kept his distance from Gingerbread and worked to reach Twilight. She was in the back, preparing arrows for firing. She fired one at the Defender, but it did almost nothing with his constant blocking. Gingerbread sprinted towards the Defender and slashed at him twice. Gingerbread’s sword snapped in half after the second hit, rendering it completely useless.

“Here, take this!” Twilight took out her old sword and tossed it to Gingerbread. He caught it as the Defender’s blade slammed into his chest. He was knocked back into a tree, allowing the Defender to close in on Twilight. Twilight fired an arrow right when he lowered his guard, dealing some damage to him. He kept running towards her though, forcing her to go into melee mode. Gingerbread got back into the fight and headed for the Defender. He simply smacked Gingerbread away again, leaving him in a critical condition. Twilight sliced at the Defender with her Little Burner and ignited him in flames. He panicked and backed away as the flames roasted his body through the armor. Gingerbread sprinted towards him again, this time getting hit again by the Defender.

Gingerbread fell to the ground as his corpse dissipated into smoke.

Gingerbread was slain by Defender using Defense Sword.

“No!” Twilight’s eyes beamed with rage and shock after that event. “You killed Gingerbread!” Her gaping maw of shock soon compressed into a furious scowl. “You monster!”

“Hey, that is what we’re classified as.” The Defender, now without fire on his body, pointed his sword at Twilight. “You’re next, little horse.”

The Defender rushed Twilight and hopped to the left to avoid her Little Burner. He sliced at Twilight, slamming her against a tall shrub. She got back up and levitated her sword in front of her. The Defender didn’t even break a sweat throughout the entire fight, and Twilight was already partially winded from the fight. The Defender simply walked up to her and struck the sword out of her magical grip. He then kicked Twilight to the ground, pressed his sword up to her throat, and smiled confidently.

The Defender talked to both himself and Twilight. “The general will be pleased to hear what I’ve done today. I slain a wannabe hero and an exotic creature with mystical powers. I think I’ll be promoted for this, don’t you, little horse?”

“You’re making a big mistake,” Twilight grunted through the sword pressed on her trachea. “Why don’t you just spare me?”

“You’re too dangerous to spare. The Mobtrocity knows that creatures like you have the potential to eventually stop us. That’s why people like me are hired to clean them out.” He nudged the sword a bit further, giving Twilight more discomfort from the sharp edge. “Now, where were we again? Oh yes, the part where I kill you.”

Before he could kill Twilight and end the madness, something struck him three times on his right side. He quickly readied himself for defense against what just hit him, but two more strikes damaged him even more. It was then that Twilight grabbed her sword again and stabbed it through the Defender’s heart. He sluggishly looked down at his impaled chest and dropped onto his knees. He then face-planted onto the ground and disappeared into a plume of smoke.

Defender was slain by Gingerbread.

“You forgot one important detail about me: I’m part cockroach.” Gingerbread swung the sword over his shoulder as he lent Twilight a helping hand. She got back up and took two apples out of her inventory. She munched both of them down until she felt a slow rejuvenation all over her body.

“Thank you, Gingerbread,” she thanked softly. “I thought I was a goner there.”

“Don’t mention it. I can come back to life as many times as I want.”

Twilight felt a little irritated after hearing that. “Why didn’t you mention that to me earlier? I thought you were gone for good!”

“I did. Part cockroach means I can come back after death.”

“Oh.” Twilight felt like a moron for forgetting that detail. “Sorry.”

“It’s alright. I’ll be your guardian for now. It’s best we don’t test if you have that ability or not.”

And I’m back.

Gingerbread was puzzled about Ty’s return. “When did you leave?”

A little bit ago when you began that fight. I was searching for something else that was lurking around here. I think it’s gone by now.

“Alright. Let’s go to the Great Forest.”

Gingerbread first took the loot from the Defender—the Defense Sword and the Defender armor—and kept it in his inventory for now. He then approached the door and placed the key into it. The door opened and allowed the duo to finally enter the Great Forest. They traveresed a small path until they saw another checkpoint station. As with the last one, Twilight flicked the lever on it.

Twilight Sparkle and Gingerbread’s spawnpoints have been saved.

“Where do we go?” Twilight asked. “I’m not sure where exactly we should go to find the Sky Temple.”

Currently, that area is inaccessible. The next area you need to go is a small town called Derp Village, a town with quite a, ahem, taste in knowledge.

In only two seconds, the duo already reached a T-junction. Twilight looked both ways, not knowing where to go. “Which way?”

You need to go left.

The duo proceeded down the left path and encountered a bridge without a troll. They simply walked over it with no problems.

They continued down the path and defeated one slime right after they crossed the bridge. However, as they continued down the path, something else was hiding in the collection of trees. When the duo was about halfway to the next T-junction, something crept up behind them.

“Hello travelersss. Care for some explosionsss?” the creature hissed behind Twilight.

She immediately turned around to see a green, crunchy creature with black holes for eyes and a mouth. Its mouth was contorted into an irreversible frown. It had one head planted on its thin body. It wore a grey vest with the same red eyed creeper face. The creature walked on four stumpy legs and stood up a little shorter than Gingerbread.

Gingerbread’s voice immediately broke into fear. “Creeper, look out!”

Twilight dodged to the right as Gingerbread sliced at the hissing Mobtrocity Destroyer. It exploded into nothingness, slamming Gingerbread into a tree and causing moderate damage. Twilight took that brief moment to learn three things.

Watch your surroundings for creepers.

Creepers explode when they are close to you.

If you see a creeper nearby, run away from it as fast as you can.

When Twilight and Gingerbread reached the T-junction, they examined the sign post right next to them. Since one of the signs said that the village was right, they went right. After traveling a somewhat curvy path, they reached a gate with two guards on the outside of it.

Unlike the guards in Millstown, these ones did something. They blocked the gate to Derp village with their bodies when the duo attempted to cross them. “Halt! Who are you?”

Gingerbread was the one who answered the guard. “I’m Gingerbread and this is Twilight Sparkle. We were sent here by King Appleton.” That last statement was half of a lie.

“Oh, okay!” The guards stepped out of the duo’s way. “You may pass!”

Twilight stared at the gate and back to the guards. “The gate is not open.”

“Sorry about that! Force of habit.” The guard flipped a lever next to him. The gate slowly rose upwards then suddenly snapped right into the sky, completely destroying the gateway to the town. The guards paid no attention to the incident. “Don’t worry, that happens all the time.”

Twilight and Gingerbread walked through the gate and into Derp Village. To them, the entire town was chaotic. The roads were paved with lapis lazuli ore, the houses were misshapen and composed of several different materials, the villagers were even more clueless than the ones in Millstown, and an iron golem was attempting to walk through a wall. The perimeter walls were disorderly and at random lengths, and an uneven line of fences was coated on the top of the walls. Only the mayor’s house had a normal and safe looking structure. Gingerbread surveyed the disorder and chaos of the entire town. He noticed that some of the townspeople had names like Chair, Banana, Elephant, Food Guy, and more. Twilight was purely horrified by the insanity of the town. To her, it was almost like Discord came to town and sprinkled some chaos on it. How could a town be built so horribly?

Twilight couldn’t look at the mess anymore. “Let’s go meet the mayor. Hopefully, he’s at least structured.”

Gingerbread and Twilight approached the mayor’s house. It had a sign next to it that read ‘Mayor Butter Gamer’. Gingerbread merely looked up at the open air. “I swear, Ty.”

Blame NINTENDO for that. He’s the one who suggested it.

They opened the door and found two furnaces, a large chest, a crafting table, another ender chest, and the mayor. He looked like a villager with a white robe and a handlebar mustache. He bore a rather pleasant and promising smile on his face and spoke with a soft yet sturdy voice. “Welcome newcomers to Derp Village. I am the mayor of this town. How may I help you?”

Twilight approached him first with a seemingly polite attitude. “Forgive me, but can I ask why your entire village looks like the workers had no experience in making anything correctly?”

Mayor Butter Gamer frowned from that fact. “The reason is because I was stuck running a town of village idiots. When the mayors were meeting for our centennial switcheroo of who runs what, I drew the shortest straw. I got the one village that everyone hates to run. That’s why I’m here.”

“That makes sense.” Twilight thought a little more about the village as she put a hoof to her chin. “When was this village made?”

“It was created eighty years ago by a man named Wheelbarrow. He founded this town of idiocracy under the idea of suppressing all education because, and I quote, ‘Education is nothing but crap for eggheads to talk about all day.’ He restricted all education in this village, resulting in this.”

Twilight’s pupils were tiny from that explanation “Wow. I never knew somepony who spat at education so viciously.”

Gingerbread noticed Butter Gamer’s calm attitude towards Twilight. “You’re, not surprised from a talking unicorn with a purple body?”

Butter Gamer casually shrugged. “Eh, I’ve seen weirder things in my life. This pony has nothing on the rabid kiwis from the Great Grass War.” He leaned a little closer to Twilight. “Try not to show yourself around the locals. They’d praise you like a god or some other divine being.”

“Anyway,” Gingerbread started as he redirected the conversation, “do you have anything that we can do for you? We need to get to the Sky Temple, and we don’t have anything to get up there yet.”

“If you want to go there, you need to find Guraanurgaa in the Golden Desert, but you’ll need a Cool Blanket to survive the heat out there. Luckily, I have two of them here, but you’ll need to do me a favor first.”

“Well, what is it, then?”

“There are three Mobtrocity encampments around this section of the Great Forest. I need you two to clean all three of them out so that I can stop worrying about these invasions.”

“That should be simple,” Twilight predicted from past experience. “These creatures are not too dangerous.”

“You might have regrets on saying that if you find out who you’re fighting.” Butter Gamer got up and rushed to his large chest. “Also, I have something that might be of use for you.” He took out a potion with a glistening magenta liquid inside of it. “I found this outside near the mooshroom pen earlier. I hope it’s of some use.”

Twilight levitated the potion to her head and examined it. It read ‘Willy’s Mischievous Magic Blasts! Destroy your foes with a ball of pure magic! The more you drink, the more magic you can throw!’. She removed the cork and gulped down the liquid. She felt another surge of magic enter her drained body as a small spout of magic erupted from her horn. She felt a little stronger than before, but it was far from enough to restore her to her original state.

Gingerbread checked the state of his armor. All of it rattled from being close to their breaking points. He took the Defender armor and replaced his leather with it. He then gave Twilight the Defense Sword. “Twilight, I’ll check the locals and see what they have to do. You can take on these Mobtrocity guys by yourself, right?”

Twilight nodded her head. “I feel like they’re pushovers. I think I can handle myself out there.”

“Alright. I’ll see you here after you’re done with your task.”

Gingerbread and Twilight walked out of the house and separated from each other. Twilight left the town while Gingerbread traversed deeper into it. He eventually found a villager named Fish that supposedly needed something done. Gingerbread walked into his hut and asked about this. “Do you need help?”

“Yes.” Fish replied with certainty. “I need five salmon for my shoes.”

“I’ll get those salmon for you.”

Gingerbread left the building and searched for more tasks. He eventually found out that Food Guy at Food Place had something for him. So, he entered the small diner and approached Food Guy. “Do you need anything?”

“Yes,” Food Guy replied. “Four pig steaks and a lamb I need.”

“Got it.”

When he left the town to search for pigs, Gingerbread found a few cows and a sheep and wondered if he could trick that man. He killed the cows and sheep, took their loot, and returned to Food Guy with them. “Here are four pig steaks and some mutton.”

Food Guy smiled in approval “Thank you, food getter. He is your one dollar.”

Gingerbread felt cheated out of the deal. “One dollar? What kind of ou-”

His voice crashed into a wall as he discovered that one dollar to Food Guy was actually a platinum coin worth ten dollars. He happily took the coin and left Food Place.

I’m having no luck finding that creature.

“Can’t you just find them from your map?” Gingerbread proposed while he held up a map from his inventory.

It’s not on the map.

“It has to be somewhere. Plus, there are areas that it cannot enter due to special reasons, so it should only be in the Great Forest.”

Well, it’s not in the Nether, it’s definitely not in the End, and it’s not in the Shale Sea yet. I don’t know where else to look.

Still paranoid of Twilight knowing too much, Gingerbread sent Ty a message. It read ‘Did you check the host area?’.

Good idea. It might’ve got into my stuff because I couldn’t fin–HOLY HECK!

Right after that exclamation, a chair could be heard falling to the ground and breaking. Swift footsteps then became audible, as well as a slam with a door and a scream in terror. Now, what would have caused is to happen? The cause was simple. All that happened was that Ty found what he was looking for:

Gingerbread was slightly concerned of what just happened. “Ty, is everything okay?”

A door opened again, this time without footsteps or a scream. The sound of a stool sliding across the floor penetrated Gingerbread’s ears as Ty spoke again.

Okay, I’m up to here with this nonsense! Whatever you do, be careful!

“Ty, what happened?” Gingerbread asked the same question in a different format.

What happened is that I found the creature, by having it pop out of nowhere in front of me!

Gingerbread kept an eye out for another potential pony. He couldn’t find one as he walked back to Fish’s hut for a fishing rod since Fish did not give him one.

When he got to the door, an unusually cheerful and playful voice ringed in his ears. “Hi, I’m Pinkie Pie!”

Gingerbread slammed into the door in complete shock. He then fell to the ground to see a pink pony over his body. It had a very puffy mane and tail with several curls and clusters of madness. Its huge irises were a light blue, its coat was a light pink, and its mane and tail were a darker pink. On its flank was a cluster of one yellow balloon and two blue balloons. At this point in time, the pony felt oddly familiar to Gingerbread.

Its face was slightly worried but still cheerful. “Are you okay, mister? I hope I didn’t cause anything too dangerous.”

“Yup, I’m fine,” Gingerbread lied. In reality, he hit his head hard on a wall. “Just please don’t do that ever again.”

Hey, you found it. Yay...

“Are you the thing I made run away?” Pinkie asked as she directly faced Ty. This exact pinpointing of his location horrified him to the point of shaking his words.

Yes, I am. Anyway, how did you get here?

“Well, the girls and I were out finding Twilight after she suddenly disappeared. We suspected that she was somewhere in the Everfree Forest, so we checked in there. Once I leaned on one of the trees, I suddenly found myself over there.” She pointed a hoof to the direction relative to where Twilight and Gingerbread first spawned at. “I looked around for her after that, but I couldn’t find her. But, I did find you two in this strange world! And those weird creatures with green skin and four legs chased me over here!”

“Wait a minute,” Gingerbread trailed off as he turned to the front gate. There were four Mobtrocity Destroyers sitting at the gate, looking around for someone to blow up.

One of the destroyers saw Gingerbread and Pinkie and threatened them with a hiss. “There they are, boysss. Time to explode sssome misfitsss.”

Gingerbread took out his wooden sword, and Pinkie took out a stone sword and put on chainmail boots, leggings, chestplate, and a leather cap that was dyed black. Just like Gingerbread’s chain armor, Pinkie’s was enchanted with protection IV.

Hey, that’s the armor from my area! What’re you doing with it?

Pinkie looked at Ty and spoke with seeping innocence in her tone. “Oh, it was your armor? I didn’t think that it wasn’t meant for me.”

Just keep it. Call it a gift for somehow reaching an area suspended high in the air.

“Oh, okay!” Pinkie charged into battle and slammed three of the destroyers backwards. The other one already crept near Gingerbread. He smacked it and backed away, repeating this three more times until it died. Pinkie kept slicing through her three like they were cannon fodder. She felled all three of them and collected their loot and experience.

}———————————————————————————————————{

While Gingerbread and Ty were having their events in Derp Village, Twilight was busy avoiding many different monsters.

The first encampment she stormed was east of Derp Village. It was positioned on the east side of the Vorin River, a calm river that flowed through the western section of the Great Forest from south to north. Getting to the encampment was easy.

Fighting the Mobtrocity there while not dying was the real challenge.

When she got to the encampment, she met three different creatures there. She met six goons, four marksmen, and two destroyers. There was also an extra goon that was named the Camp Veteran. He had an iron chestplate with thorns III and a stone sword with sharpness V and knockback II. It would be an understatement to say that he was out of Twilight’s league.

“Hey, boys, that purple donkey looked at me funny!” exclaimed a drunken goon. Twilight snarled fearsomely at the drunken goon. He grabbed his iron shovel and raised it in the air. “Let’s beat it to the ground!”

He fell on his face as the other five goons rushed over to Twilight. She couldn’t use her bow due to the trees, and they would corner her if she didn’t get out of the mess of trees soon. So, she galloped up one of their green tents and onto the trees. She then aimed for the goons below, picking them off one by one with both arrows and small magic blasts. The marksmen soon entered the fight and pelted Twilight with arrows. After killing four goons, she aimed for them instead. She eventually killed all four of them with two arrows stabbed into her body. She continued shooting the remaining goons until the destroyers entered the battle.

When the destroyers confronted her, she learned from the first one she encountered and kept her distance. As they walked onto the trees and pursued her, she sliced at them with the Defense Sword. They were thrown backwards pretty far, giving her time to react again if something else attacked her. When she felled one of them, she felt her stomach rumble yet again. She took out an apple and munched it down quickly before the next destroyer crept too close to her. When it was in exploding range, she sliced at it twice, killing it as it flew through the open sky.

Then there was the Veteran.

He jumped onto the canopy and aimed his sword at Twilight. He then sprinted towards her with it ready for several swipes. She fired a few arrows and magic blasts at him, weakening him before he could attack Twilight. He sliced at her twice, missing both times and receiving a jab from the Defense Sword. Twilight received a sudden burst of damage to her chest from her own attack. When the Veteran was far from Twilight, she fired three arrows into his head, killing him right there.

Veteran was shot by Twilight Sparkle.

He only dropped his frail iron chestplate, but that was all Twilight wanted anyway. She picked it up and kept it for later use since it was not her build. She then returned to the encampment and collected everything from the camp. She left the steaks and roasted chickens due to her dissatisfaction with meat in general. Why would she collect something that she would never want to see or touch?

She crossed the canopy to the next encampment north of Derp Village, also wondering how the leaves were supporting her weight. She saw a horde of twelve goons, two destroyers, and the Beserker, a goon with a projectile protection IV iron chestplate, chainmail leggings and boots with protection IV, and a stone sword with sharpness V.

Her first move was slightly suicidal, but it would work like a dream if it succeeded. She dove down into the encampment, startling the two destroyers that were in the small horde. They hissed and expanded while Twilight leapt away from them. They both exploded, killing all of the goons except for one with full golden armor on.

The goon raised a fist up to Twilight. “Hah, nothing can kill Sergeant Clad! I’m invincible, purple horse, you hear me? Invinci-bwahh!”

His words were cut short from a simple slice through his chest by Twilight.

Then the Beserker approached her.

He pulled out a potion of strength and gulped it all down. His muscles doubled in mass as he screamed in primal rage. He pulled out his sword and a closed fist, running straight at Twilight with an awkwardly constipated face of anger. She dodged to the left and sliced at the Beserker with her Little Burner. He screamed in rage and swung his sword at Twilight. It smacked her in the side, dealing enough damage to form a big bruise, rip open a small bleeding cut, and swing her body into a tree. She retaliated with a few arrows, weakening the screaming Beserker for a final blow. She took out her Defense Sword and leapt at the Beserker. She struck him three times as she landed, dealing the mortal damage needed to kill him at that moment.

Beserker was slain by Twilight Sparkle using Defense Sword.

She collected his damaged sword, his only drop, and moved on to the last encampment.

The last encampment was directly south of Derp Village, and it was by far the most dangerous one. It had eight marksmen, two goons, a spider jockey with a marksman, and the Camp Leader, a skeletal Mobtrocity Knight with a protection IV iron helmet, thorns III iron chestplate, protection IV chainmail leggings and boots, and a stone sword with knockback II, looting III, and Sharpness V. He dared to be quite a challenger.

She first aimed for the marksmen with her magic since she had no more arrows left. She felled three of them and prepared to fight the two goons. She smacked them away with her Defense Sword as more marksmen walked along the canopy to attack her. She killed the two goons and rushed towards a trio of marksmen. She used critical hits on all of them while five arrows tore at her sides. She then hid from the last three while she munched at another apple. When two of the marksmen approached her, she smacked them back with her Defense Sword. When they came back again, she killed them with her Little Burner. She rushed the last skeleton with no difficulty and faced the spider jockey before her.

It circled around her while the marksman fired arrows at her body. She was hit twice, once from an arrow and once from the relatively big spider’s bite. She killed the spider first then slashed away the baffled skeleton.

Finally, the Camp Leader met her.

He kept his distance from Twilight and hid behind some leaves. She kept her distance as well, but she circled around the Camp Leader to obtain a clear view to him. She barraged him with arrows and magic blasts, leaving him half alive. He rushed towards her in a last attempt to finish her off. Surprisingly, his tactic almost worked. Twilight did hit him once with her Defense Sword, but he smacked her twice with his sword, nearly killing her. She fired a couple more arrows before switching to another apple. She munched it down and grabbed her Little Burner. Once the Camp Leader was right in front of her, she struck him twice, killing him in a mess of flames.

Camp Leader was burnt to a crisp whilst fighting Twilight Sparkle.

After she grabbed the mob loot and the Camp Leader’s helmet, she hopped from tree to tree back to Derp Village.

}———————————————————————————————————{

Only ten seconds after the four destroyers were destroyed, Twilight Sparkle returned to Derp Village. When Pinkie Pie saw her in the village, she just had to greet her once again.

Pinkie leapt over to Twilight and ensnared her in a pleasantly crushing hug. “Twilight, you’re here! We’ve been looking for you!”

“We?” Twilight asked curiously.

“The girls and I were looking for you in the Everfree, but they must be looking for me now after I also disappeared. Have you found a way back yet?”

“So far, no, I haven’t. That’s why Gingerbread and Ty are helping me. I’m assuming you met them already, right?”

“Yup yup yup, I have, and they’re pretty nice! They’re also a little cowardly, too.”

I politely oppose that statement.

“Well, it was because you popped out of nowhere like a monster or something,” Gingerbread reasoned to Pinkie.

“That’s just one of my ways of saying hi,” Pinkie also reasoned. “That’s what you get when you’re stuck with me.” She winked at Gingerbread with her still bubbly personality.

Well, if Twilight’s back, she cleaned out the camps. That means that you three should talk to Mayor Butter Gamer, then.

“I’m still not going to get over that name,” Gingerbread admitted through his facepalm. “Anyway, let’s go talk to him.”

The trio entered Butter Gamer’s abode and gave proof of the task’s completion. Butter Gamer kept his focus on the iron helmet and mostly ignored the Pinkie Pie sitting right next to him. “So, you actually cleaned out the Mobtrocity’s camps? I’m impressed. Well, a deal’s a deal.” Butter Gamer took out two Cool Blankets and handed them to Twilight and Gingerbread.

Pinkie cocked her head and gave a confused frown. “Why don’t I get one? Shouldn’t I have one for the desert?”

“The Cool Blankets have a special effect on the skin of whatever it touches. Let one of them wrap themselves first, then you can use it as well.”

Twilight wrapped herself in the white blanket of what felt like snow. It felt pleasantly cool like still air on an autumn afternoon. She then unwrapped herself and handed the blanket to Pinkie. She wrapped it around herself and rolled around in it like an excited puppy. Gingerbread kept his on for three seconds then put it in his inventory. After Pinkie had her fill with the blanket, she gave it back to Twilight. Twilight placed it in her inventory as well.

“Now, you three may leave my village. Come back whenever you feel like it.” The last words were not spoken. If you can stand the stupidity of this place.

The trio exited the house and Derp Village. They walked back to the second T-junction they encountered, going the other way that led to Guraanurgaa, Millstown, and Harigan Harbor. They met another T-junction after two seconds, going right since it was the way to Guraanurgaa. After a few more seconds and a few twists and turns, they encountered another T-junction and went left. They encountered a third checkpoint and flicked the lever on it.

Twilight Sparkle, Gingerbread, and Pinkie Pie’s spawnpoints have been saved.

They then faced a small cave entrance with an unusual wall concealing it. The wall was composed of several shifting and crying faces struggling to escape the pasty and grimy sand they were encased in. After Twilight touched it with her front left hoof, the wall faded from existence, allowing the trio to pass through and enter the small cave.

After that happened, another message popped up in front of Ty yet again.

Rainbow Dash has joined the game.

Ty messaged Gingerbread yet again. His message read ‘It’s like my own adventure world is cursing me for everything.’.

Gingerbread messaged him back. It read ‘Quite honestly, I think they’re improving your map.’.

Ty sent another message. It read ‘I think so, too.’.

Act I, Chapter 5: One Down, Nine More and an Army to Go

Inside a long room with a single table and twenty-three chairs, several monsters sat next to each other and discussed about various issues. Some were creepers, some were zombies, a few were skeletons, only two were pigmen, one was an enderman, three were blazes, and another was a witch. Stone bricks aligned themselves along the walls, and a single chandelier hung from the the ceiling. Only one doorway gave entry into the room, and it was closed with a set of spruce doors. Also, a singular banner several blocks wide and tall hung over the door. It bore the common red eyed creeper face, the Mobtrocity’s symbol.

The commotion between the monsters completely shattered as the doors slammed open. A creeper with metal arms and legs, diamond helmet and chestplate, iron leggings and boots, and a glistening diamond sword walked up to the one empty chair on his side of the table. His eyes were a deep red, and his face was contorted into an ever present scowl. He always looked angry from every angle and distance possible. Coincidentally, he was furious right now.

He slid the chair towards himself and sat down in it .with suppressed rage. He then spoke to the monsters with mechanical whirs, digital garble, and slippery hisses. “Gentlemen, I sssee that we have a new problem in our handsss. I recently heard that the Nethift Castle hasss been taken from usss.”

Some of the monsters gasped while others rolled their eyes in disbelief. One doubtful pigman slammed a fist on the table and faced the mechanical creeper. “This is preposterous! How can we lose one of our most well defended bases?”

“I do not exactly know, but I heard rumors that the caussse was a pony.”

Some of the monsters broke into either gentle chuckles or howling guffaws. Two of the laughing zombies fell off their chairs and onto the floor.

“Really, a pony?” a skeleton chuckled in disbelief.

“Something that we can just burn like firewood?” presumed a blaze.

“How in the world can a pony take down our entire base?” wondered another pigman. “Those things can’t even reason with us, let alone open a door or hold a weapon!”

“Well,” the mechanical creeper started again, “thisss one is no laughing matter. It might sssound ridiculous, but it isss the truth. Our spiesss have discovered that it was taller than a goon and far stronger than a Wither. It even brainwashed our own membersss into joining its army.”

“Traitors!” shouted a skeleton that had fury. “They should be burned at the stake!”

“I have also found out that there are three more roaming about on this same continent. We mussst find them quickly before anything else happensss to our army or basesss.”

“Where are they, then?” asked a curious creeper.

“Yeah, how can we find them with that information?” the enderman wisely questioned. “This part of Minecraftia is too vast with that information. We need specifics.”

“I have specificsss,” answered the mechanical creeper. “They are in the Golden Desert, located in the mainland. They should be easy to find over there.”

“How will we know we found them?” croaked the witch.

“Whenever you find a group of sssmall brightly colored poniesss, you will know they are the onesss. One has wingsss, another has a horn, and one is very, very reminiscent of the same specimen in the Nightmare Solitude.”

A transmission appeared in front of the mechanical creeper. It showed an officer and his squadron of goons and knights as fire spread all around them. The officer darted his eyes around the field as he shook in terror. “General, we’re under attack! All of our men are dying, sir!”

The mechanical creeper raised an invisible eyebrow. “What isss attacking?”

“I don’t know what they are, sir! We have big, beefy zombies with red skin and endermen with four arms! They’re tearing us alive!”

“I’ll sssend in the war tanks then and urge the scientistsss to speed up progress on our mechasss.”

“Yes, sir! Thank you, sir!”

The transmission was interrupted as a plume of purple and black struck the officer. The mechanical creeper glared at the other monsters. “Hopefully, you all sssee how dangerous this creature isss. Now, find an assassin that will deal with these poniesss, and deal with the rebels in Anvil Mountain.”

The monsters nodded and grunted as the mechanical creeper marched out of the room. Dark times were coming.

Dark times were indeed coming.

}———————————————————————————————————{

After the quintet found out that they were trapped, they decided that progressing forward was the best option. Gingerbread kept himself in the front of the group, Vincent kept guard in the back, and the three ponies switched positions in between both of them.

Gingerbread immediately discovered the first trap. On the floor lay a thin piece of string that stretched from one wall of the hallway to the other by two hooks. He walked over to the left wall and shuffled across the floor as he kept himself in that one block space. He then faced the ponies with dead seriousness. “Do not touch that wire. Go around it like this.”

Pinkie Pie went first, putting herself in a humanlike position as she kept herself as close to the wall as possible. Her legs were always touching the wall and never strayed from it. When she made it to the other side, she got out of that position and faced her two friends. “It’s easy! Just pretend like you’re a spy on a secret mission!”

Twilight walked over to the same wall Gingerbread and Pinkie used. She then kept her hooves as close to each other as possible as she shimmied across the smooth sandstone floor, successfully avoiding the tripwire.

Fluttershy walked over to the same wall and tried to copy Twilight’s strategy. When she was about halfway across the wire, she stumbled and accidentally swung a hoof at the wire, breaking it into two pieces.

An audible click reverberated around the group as two green corpses covered in linen and papyrus wrappings dug themselves out of the ground. They then faced Fluttershy with their blue, soulless eyes.

”You...” one of the mummies croaked through their ancient trachea and lungs as they pointed a slightly bony finger at Fluttershy. Her eyes grew wide and filled with white, and her entire body forced itself into a petrified state. ”I will take your soul for awakening me from my slumber.”

Vincent lunged at one of the mummies and sliced them through their chest. Pinkie and Gingerbread cornered the other one before it could grab ahold of Fluttershy. They stabbed it twice each, killing it easily. The other mummy was sliced into bits as Vincent struck it three more times.

Twilight turned to Fluttershy and made her tone as polite as possible. “Fluttershy, why don’t you just fly over the tripwires next time?”

Fluttershy felt terror flood her body as she remembered those mummies. “I think I should just stay behind the wires instead.”

“You can’t do that, pony,” Vincent declared. “I need to stay in the back no matter what. Who knows how dodgy these fights can get if we simply shrug off the faintest of cues.”

Oh, yes, I think I need to address this. Fluttershy, can you fight?

“I can, but I don’t think it’s right,” Fluttershy replied to somewhere. “I’d rather prevent myself from harming these creatures.

That was not what Ty wanted to hear at all. In a world like this, a pacifist would die in seconds.

Okay, you don’t like fighting. You don’t have to fight. Instead, you can be the pack mul- err, I mean, you can be the healer and living container for the group. You can basically be the one who supplies the food and healing potions.

Fluttershy quickly assumed what Ty meant. “So, I’m the helpless one?”

No no no, you’re not. If you want to, you can still fight back against these creatures. You can at least have some sort of self defense against these monsters. Trust me, they’ll show no mercy.

Vincent agreed with Ty’s words. “Aye. I don’t show mercy to my foes, and look at me, I’m literally a killer skeleton. If anything, Fluttershy pony, you should be running from me in fear, because I don’t spare my foes. Sparing is for the blokes who want to lose their life and limb in pure stupidity.”

Fluttershy turned her head away from Vincent. “You don’t sound very nice.”

“Pony, nice is a terrible word to describe me. Do you know that I’m wanted in Faygrail?”

Twilight turned her head to Vincent and gave him all of her attention. “What are you wanted for?”

Vincent chuckled to himself before he told his little tale. “Before I became a skeleton, I killed people. Lots of people. Others payed me to chop off a few heads here and there. Heck, I even assassinated two Faygrailian kings for somebody named Jason Breeforth.” Vincent presented his thin sword to Twilight. “This is the same blade I used to kill them all. Ever since I killed those kings, Faygrail’s new king, Dynamite, has been sending out his little lackeys to find and execute me. I killed eighteen of them already, but he doesn’t bloody understand that I’m a professional, not a mindless savage.”

Pinkie, Twilight, and especially Fluttershy were in complete shock. They couldn’t fathom how many lives Vincent probably took.

“That’s horrible!” Twilight spouted with her eyes small and frightened. “How could you murder so many of your own race and not feel any remorse or regret?”

“You try and make it sound casual, but maiming is not casual,” Pinkie commented with not a lot of joy.

Fluttershy could only whimper as she covered her eyes with her hooves and hid behind Pinkie and Twilight.

“Ponies, I’m not a murderer,” Vincent causally replied as he tossed his sword back and forth between his hands. “I’m an assassin, not a killer. There is a difference, ladies. One is a man working for money, and one is someone who should be locked up in an insane asylum.”

“I’m suspecting you’re the latter, right?” Gingerbread joked to Vincent.

“No, Gingerbread, I’m definitely not. I’m a man who can possibly kill everyone in this room in seconds, yet I don’t. Why is that the case? Well, it’s because I’m not off my head. If I was a madman, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, would we?”

“Can we move on, now?” Fluttershy squeaked as tears ran down her covered face. “I can’t listen to this.”

“I agree,” Twilight added with a nervous tone. “We probably should continue our task here.”

Vincent just noticed that he was scaring Fluttershy to death with his tale of maiming. “I apologize, Fluttershy pony, I might have gotten a little carried away there.”

“A little?” Pinkie emphasized as her eyes squinted at Vincent.

“Okay, maybe a lot. I’m not one to talk to animals like you three. I’m more of a person who quarantines the sugarcoating cup that other assassins like to use.”

“Alright, then,” Twilight exclaimed to end the conversation. “Let’s see what this Temple of the Lost Tombs has for us.”

And so the quintet walked through the hallway and into a large, circular room. It had two floors, the first having three iron doors that led to three different rooms, and the second having two walkways leading to two more rooms. A spiral staircase erupted from the center and led up to both walkways. Also, another checkpoint sat in front of the group. Pinkie flicked the lever in a near instant.

Twilight Sparkle, Gingerbread, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy’s spawnpoints have been saved.

The group checked the room and found all but one of the doors locked. The unlocked door was the one to the left of the staircase. Twilight used her magic to flick the lever above the door down, opening it.

The group immediately met their next set of mummies after Gingerbread stumbled into a tripwire only two blocks from the door. The two mummies crawled out of the ground and faced the group. Twilight fired some arrows at one while Gingerbread cornered and felled the other. They both died soon after.

They avoided the next tripwire by going around it this time. Fluttershy learned her lesson and simply flew over it. They then reached four different levers on small sandstone pedestals.

“I think this is another trap,” Pinkie concluded as she tapped one of the levers.

“How do we know which one is the right one?” Twilight questioned as her head swiveled to the levers repeatedly. They all looked the exact same.

Sorry, can’t help you here. Just guess, I guess.

Twilight lowered her head and frowned at the heavenly help Ty gave. She used her magic to flick two levers on the group’s right. They both released two more mummies that had a much more potent and sickly smell. Their eyes were also orange instead of blue.

One of them shambled to Twilight and smacked her into another lever. Another mummy rose from its tomb and grabbed ahold of her right hind leg. Twilight could now feel a strange feeling in her body. She felt hungry all of a sudden, and she felt her body lose energy by the second.

Gingerbread and Pinkie sliced at one of the mummies while Vincent chopped another’s head off. Fluttershy grabbed Twilight and pulled her away from the emerging mummy. Sadly, her clumsiness struck the group again when she fell onto the other tripwire, releasing two blue eyed mummies. One of the emerging mummies was oddly small, about the size of a baby villager. It growled at Fluttershy menacingly, startling her and bumping her into the now upright mummy that attacked Twilight.

As two orange eyed mummies died, two blue eyed mummies crowded Pinkie. The baby mummy punched her over and over again with its little fists. Gingerbread smacked it into a wall as Vincent sliced at the other one thrice, killing it. Pinkie then aimed for the one that was about to slam into Fluttershy’s face. She hacked and slashed at it until it felled. After the fighting ended, the group regrouped and examined the room again.

There was one lever that remained untouched. Twilight flicked it in hopes of not being another mummy. What instead popped up was a tiny platform with a square shaped key on top of it. Twilight took the key and placed it in her inventory.

Fluttershy walked up to her with great concern. “Are you okay? That thing smacked you really hard.”

Twilight checked herself for injuries. “I think I’m fine. I feel hungry now, though.”

Gingerbread also walked up to Twilight. “It was probably a husk then.”

“A what now?” Pinkie’s head popped up in curiosity.

“It’s just a type of zombie that can inflict the hunger debuff. It makes you, well, hungry.”

Twilight took out an apple and munched on it. “Okay, then. Good to know.”

Gingerbread walked back to the door, completely ignoring the already deactivated tripwires. “Now, let’s get moving.”

The group left the room and walked over to the other side of the circular room. They found out that the next door had a square for a keyhole. They placed the key into it and opened the door into the next room.

The next room was dimly lit and composed of several pillars of chiseled sandstone. Each pillar had several creeper faces that the ponies admired a little. Gingerbread and Vincent showed zero care about them.

They discovered another set of tripwires, these ones being on two sides of the pillar in the center of the room. The group crossed it and moved along.

They entered the next room through a short hallway that led to another big chamber. Two pillars stood in a square, a chest sat on one end of the room, and two gigantic creeper bodies etched into the left and right sides of the room stared at each other. The group proceeded with caution as they approached the chest.

Gingerbread stepped on another tripwire that no one in the group saw coming. Two mummified creepers dug themselves out of the ground near the etched bodies and shimmied toward the group. Twilight pinned one at a wall and felled it with arrows. Pinkie sliced the other multiple times in rapid succession, ending its life before it could explode.

The group then approached the chest again. Twilight walked up to it and opened it carefully. She yelped once two mummies climbed out of the chest and smacked her backwards. Gingerbread pinned both of them in that area, killing them both as he examined the chest again. He took out a triangle shaped key and put it in his inventory.

The group left the room and successfully avoided the tripwires again. They then walked over to the other door on the first floor, but it had a different keyhole. The group walked up the staircase and checked the two doors. The door above the first one they entered had a triangular keyhole, so they used the key on it. The door opened and allowed them to continue onward.

The next room was a fairly big and rectangular room. On the group’s end, another big creeper etching in the wall above them stared into nothing. On the other side lifelessly sat a pile of sand with another creeper etching on the wall behind it. Smaller sand piles dotted the room.

“I think the key is in one of these piles,” Gingerbread guessed as he began checking the piles. Some of them were too small or unusually shaped to hold a chest, but there was one that did. The pile at the far end of the room was big enough to conceal a chest. So, Gingerbread walked over to it and dug out the sand. The chest was of course under the pile.

Before Gingerbread could open the chest, the entire room shook like it was about to collapse. After only half of a second, blocks of sand fell from the ceiling and piled on the ground. After a couple seconds, the entire way out was blocked off by sand. Only another second after that, four blue eyed mummies and two mummified skeletons dropped from the ceiling.

Twilight and Vincent began their assault on the skeletons. Pinkie and Gingerbread hacked at the mummies until there were none left. Twilight received three arrows in her chest from her effort, but it was worth it. Vincent sliced the two skeletons and felled them both, cleaning out the room.

More sand blocks and seven skeletons fell from the ceiling. Two sand towers that held a skeleton each on top of them formed. Twilight fired at both of the skeletons while Pinkie and Vincent dueled the others on the ground. Gingerbread took the circle shaped key out of the chest and sprinted to the exit. He then began digging out the doorway for a chance to escape.

Seven more mummies fell down as the sand was about to suffocate Fluttershy. She hopped out of the death hole it made and flew around the room, avoiding the arrows that almost struck her wings and body. Pinkie aimed for three mummies after she felled a skeleton, and Vincent decapitated three skeletons and a mummy in one swing.

Gingerbread finally dug out the entrance as twenty mummies, thirteen skeletons, and several blocks of sand fell from the ceiling. “The exit is open! Everyone, get out now!”

Gingerbread was the first to leave as Twilight quickly followed him through. Fluttershy dove into the exit as Vincent sliced two more mummies in half. He then leapt into the exit when Pinkie hurled a skeleton’s skull at another skeleton. She rolled into the exit as she sliced one last mummy on her way out. The exit was then covered itself in sand blocks, halting any escape for the monsters inside.

The group regrouped and walked to the other door on their floor. Gingerbread put the key in the door’s circle shaped keyhole, opening the door in the process. The group walked through and entered the next chamber. Wait, it wasn’t a chamber, it was the outside!

Twilight looked around the area in bafflement. “Why are we outside? Is this the end?”

“I doubt it,” Pinkie replied as she pointed a hoof at the tower in front of them. It had at least four floors, including the roof. Two walkways curved around its outside as a construct of sand on torches prevented a way inside the the tower. There were also four platforms, two each on both sides of the group. All four of the platforms had one orange eyed mummy each that dropped to the ground.

All of the group except for Fluttershy aimed for their own mummy. Vincent killed his nearly instantly and moved on to Pinkie’s mummy. They both eliminated that mummy as Twilight and Gingerbread slain theirs.

Twilight then examined the sand construct a little more. “Wait a minute, how is it floating?”

“There’s torches under it, that’s why.” Gingerbread answered.

“How do torches make a pile of sand float in midair? It’s like saying that rain falls up.”

Pinkie hopped over to Twilight and took a deep breath. “It’s because a torch is counted as a block, which makes the sand not fall. Sand blocks follow gravity, but they cannot fall through something that is not an air, lava, or water block. Since torches are none of those, they are a block that sand cannot fall through. Therefore, the sand is floating. All we have to do is get rid of the torches to make it fall.” Pinkie hopped over to the construct. “Plus, the torches are placed in a way where if you break this one–” Pinkie placed a hoof up to the bottommost torch. She then destroyed it and ran out of the falling sand’s path. “–all of the sand falls into place.” The sand created a perfect staircase up to the tower entrance.

Gingerbread walked up to Pinkie and waved his hands in a hold up a second fashion. “Okay, I can get that you know where Ty is, but how can you know exactly how blocks work like that?”

“It’s basic knowledge, really. Placing a torch then putting a sand block on top of it can make it float. However, if you place a sand block not directly on top of a torch but a little higher, it will fall into the torch and break apart. The same works for redstone torches, rails, and other non-solid blocks.”

“This idea on physics is not basic knowledge. It’s impossible for you to know that already.”

Pinkie’s head popped up as she realized something. “Oh yeah, that reminds me! I don’t need to call you Gingy, Gingerbread! You already have a short name.”

Oh no.

“I can just call you Jake instead!”

Gingerbread almost felt his heart stop in horror as he heard those words. There was no possible way she could have knew that. There was no possible way. Gingerbread almost felt like leaving the world entirely.

He was nearly speechless too. It was a miracle that he could say something back. “How, how do you know that? Only Ty should know my name.”

“Wait, Gingerbread isn’t your name?” Twilight asked as she noticed what the two were talking about.

“No, it isn’t. It’s just another name for people who I don’t completely trust or know. Only Ty knew that, but now everyone here does because Pinkie, somehow knew that.”

“Somehow?” Pinkie questioned. “I knew that because I checked your profile.”

Gingerbread was getting a little irritated, but he was still scared. “My profile doesn’t have that name on it. That doesn’t make sense!”

“Well, it showed up for me!”

“Just don’t call me that, okay? It doesn’t matter now that you know my name anymore.”

“Alright, then! I’ll just keep calling you Gingy instead!

While they were talking, Vincent already killed four skeletons on the first floor of the tower. He was getting a little impatient from the talking. “Can we move along, now? Every second we waste mucking around is another second handed to the Mobtrocity.”

The group agreed and walked up the tower. Gingerbread used the Sand Digger on the blocked doorway. On the other side was a big slime that he struck with one sword swipe. It fell off the walkway and onto a cactus, splitting into more slimes that aimlessly hopped around the desert. The group continued up the walkway until they reached another blocked off door. Gingerbread dug out the sand, revealing two mummified creepers. Pinkie smacked them back as Twilight blasted them to smoke with her magic. Gingerbread then dug out the next doorway and smacked another big slime.

The group had to catch up with him, as he was already digging out the last doorway. He revealed four skeletons and two orange eyed mummies. When Pinkie and Vincent got to him, they immediately smacked and felled the two mummies. Twilight fired arrows and magic at the skeletons in the back. Gingerbread and Vincent soon finished them off afterwards.

Gingerbread rushed up the stairs in the middle of the room and encountered a mummified pigman with a golden sword. Since it was on the edge of the tower, he smacked it off like the slimes. It died from fall damage once it slammed onto the sandy ground below. Gingerbread then searched the one chest on the roof and took out a star shaped key.

The entire group walked all the way back to the last unopened door. Gingerbread used his key, opening the door. The next room was a long hallway with three tripwires. The group already learned their lesson on tripwires, so they were able to sneak around it, or, in Fluttershy’s case, fly over it.

With every second, Ty noticed more and more that Fluttershy was refusing to fight back. What could she good for if she was not going to fight? Ty did not know yet.

The group quickly reached the end of the hallway and opened the iron door on the other side. Since it was operated by a button, there was no turning back after they walked through it.

The next room was an almost squarish room with a wall with two two by two by two holes in it. There were a couple sand piles here and there, along with one on the other side of the room that blocked the exit. “Here we go again,” Twilight murmured with a worried and irritated tone.

Several mummies and skeletons fell from the ceiling as sand blocks built a path up to the two holes. Vincent, Gingerbread, and Pinkie warded off the mummies as Twilight fired upon the skeletons during her run to the holes. Fluttershy followed her and ducked under the streams of arrows. The other three members rushed to Twilight and Fluttershy after they killed four of the seven mummies attacking them. Gingerbread began digging out the hole as the rest of the group fended off the oncoming horde.

Twilight fired a few magic blasts at a few freshly dropped mummified creepers, killing them fairly quickly. Pinkie and Vincent kept slicing the sniping skeletons in the holes, and Fluttershy dodged most of the arrows that flew either past the others or directly at her. They struck her thrice, but she did not suffer from any mortal damage. She did feel a little hungry after those direct hits, though. When Pinkie looked over to her, she quickly noticed this hunger. She tossed an apple to Fluttershy before returning to smacking a skull. Fluttershy took the apple and nibbled on it until there was nothing left.

When Gingerbread finally dug out the exit, the entire group scrambled through the doorway. When they all left the room, it collapsed in its own falling sand, blocking any backtracking from happening.

The group was outside now, and there was a tower on a giant pile of sand in front of them. However, that was not the issue yet.

What met the quintet was seven pigman with red vests and golden swords on them. Every vest had a number that ranged from one to seven. There were no repeating numbers on the vests.

These seven pigman were the Mobtrocity’s very own Seven Brothers.

“Ack, we have ponies!” declared Brother Three.

“Finally, you guys get it!” Twilight was finally relieved to hear herself being called a pony rather than a horse, a donkey, or a mule.

“Back off, punks!” warned Brother Six. “We got here first! Ain’t no one’s gonna lend a finger on our block! Well, if we can find it.”

Vincent leapt over to Brother Two and hacked him to death with four swings. He then turned to the rest of the Seven Brothers. “Are you six going to give up now?”

Brother Seven grunted as he spat at the ground. “Hmph, you may have took down one of us, but you will not beat all of us. Brothers, avenge Brother Two!”

The Seven Brothers charged at Vincent first. Gingerbread smacked Brother Three and Brother Five, luring them to the other side of the tower. He then finished both of them off with only half his life left. Twilight fired at Brother One, getting his attention easily. Pinkie felled him shortly afterward. Vincent struck down Brother Six as Gingerbread hacked at Brother Four. When Gingerbread took down his brother, Brother Seven ran to the tower. He climbed up it to avoid dying from the group.

“Oh no you don’t!” Twilight galloped up the tower and followed Brother Seven up the basic parkour steps. When she reached the top, she took out her Defense Sword and slammed it on the brother’s head. He was flung back into a cactus nearby Guraanurgaa, killing him from both fall damage and cactus spines.

Gingerbread walked over to the giant pile of sand. Twilight walked down the tower and back onto the ground. She then examined what Gingerbread was doing.

“Maybe the block is under this pile,” Gingerbread verbally thought to himself as he dug out the sand. He soon struck sandstone inside the pile, so he kept clearing sand until he revealed an opening in a small cubic ball.

Inside the ball was a chest and a lone skeleton with bloodshot eyes. He held a single wooden sword and ran at Gingerbread desperately. “This is my chest, raider, mine! It’s not yours, it’s mine, all mine!”

Gingerbread smacked him four times until he fell onto the ground and died. Gingerbread then approached the chest and opened it, revealing the group’s first sacred obsidian block. He took the block and returned to the group. Shortly after he regrouped with them, the quintet was teleported outside of the Temple of the Lost Tombs.

Twilight remembered something she and Pinkie completely forgot. “Oh, we need to give Mayor Mutashaa the water!”

“I’m on it!” Pinkie Pie shouted as she zipped to Guraanurgaa. Only about fifteen seconds later, she came back with a strange item in her hand.

Twilight peered at the item and squinted her eyes. “What is that?”

“It’s called an Altitude Pill! It allows us to climb up to high heights and breathe in the thin air easily.”

“How do we use it? There’s five of us and one pill.”

Pinkie scanned the group and returned her attention to Twilight. “Technically, it’s three. Vincent is a skeleton, so he doesn’t have to breathe. Fluttershy can already go very high because she’s a pegasus. Only I, you, and Gingy need the pill.”

“That doesn’t fix the problem, though.”

Pinkie took out her sword and sliced the pill into three equal pieces. She gave one to Twilight and one to Gingerbread.

Twilight stared at hers in slight disgust. “Couldn’t you at least wash your sword first? Who knows what type of disease these creatures could have.”

Pinkie gulped down her piece of the Altitude Pill as she examined Twilight’s piece. “It’s clean. These creatures can’t get my sword dirty if they don’t bleed. So, go ahead.”

Gingerbread already ate his piece, but Twilight hesitated to eat hers. She put it in her mouth and swallowed it as fast as possible. To her surprise, it was tasteless and absent of any dirt, grime, or anything.

Gingerbread approached the two ponies and held out a hand. “Can I have your mob loot? I’m going to get more supplies.”

Pinkie happily threw her loot to Gingerbread, and Twilight also lended hers to him. He then walked over to Ty’s Mobile Shop and exchanged it for thirty-five dollars. He payed sixteen dollars for two stone swords and a set of chainmail armor. He then gave the armor and weapons to Fluttershy.

She took and equipped the armor, but she was heavily reluctant on taking the swords. “Um, I don’t want to fight.”

“Take them,” he demanded politely. “You’ll have to use these to protect yourself if something attacks you.”

“But I don’t want to fight.”

Hey, uh, Fluttershy, you should take those swords now. If you don’t, a zombie will eventually pin you down, beat you senselessly until you’re limp, and feed on your rotting corpse.

Fluttershy’s eyes widened, and her ears pricked up. She immediately shrieked and took the swords as fast as possible. “Really, they’ll do that?”

Yeah. Zombies don’t care about your life. They care about the juicy brens in your little head.

Fluttershy kept the swords and placed them in her inventory. At this point, she was terrified enough to keep them as long as possible.

Ty messaged Gingerbread. The message read ‘Knew it’d work.’.

Twilight turned to the entire group. “So, should we be heading off to the Sky Temple now?”

Vincent nodded his skull. “Aye. Getting there is one step closer to destroying the bloody Mobtrocity.”

Pinkie jumped high in the air as she hopped towards the cave entrance. “Then let’s go!”

And so the quintet began their travel to the Sky Temple. Only nine blocks left to collect, and only who knows how many Mobtrocity left to pummel.

Act I, Chapter 6: Heads Over the Clouds

At this point in time, it is completely debatable that the arrival of the ponies caused humanity to fall apart in Bercotta.

On one hand, there was a trio of friends that was ruining the Mobtrocity’s plans, prolonging the existence of humanity.

On the other, an entire kingdom was falling apart from an army they never fought before.

It began with fire. Several gouts of flames hurled through the open air and into a grand city. Even though its walls were high, mighty, and almost impenetrable from invaders, they weren’t high enough to stop mortars. Several buildings felt the heat of the fires lick and crack their wood into black soot, threanting to burn or smash the civilians inside. An entire front gate cracked and crumbled, allowing a batch of beefy and tall warriors to storm the city. Dozens of people with iron armor, shields, and weaponry fought back at these warriors. Some of them had enchanted items or special effects from their home beacon. Others had stronger armor and weaponry fit for their ranks. There were big guards, bigger guards, commanders, archers, redstone machinery, and a gigantic person that easily dwarfed an iron golem. These proud soldiers fought valiantly against these unusual monsters.

Their leader, however, was fighting his own battle in the kingdom. Some soldiers crept into his castle and threatened his life. Armed with diamond armor and swords, an explosive bow, and an immortalized crown, the king sliced and shot these monsters into smoke, halting their advancement into the castle. His royal guards beat down even more monsters as well, further destroying the invading army. The king quickly underestimated the army and believed that his kingdom would be stable and only suffer a few losses.

That all changed when he met their master.

He kept stabbing iron clad zombies, decapitating pesky skeletons, and dicing elusive creepers until he finally cleaned out his own throne room. Then, in the middle of his glorious red carpet, darkness and corruption gathered into an unstable and uneven ball. It then faded way as a new figure stood in front of him. It was not a zombie, not a skeleton, not a creeper, or even an enderman.

What stood there was a disproportional pony that was at least twice as tall as the king. Its legs were slender and blackened with inky darkness, its body was also of a skinny physique and color tone of the legs, and its mane and tail were an ever flowing pair of rainbows. Its mouth bared several fangs in a twisted grin, and its large, illuminant eyes had two magenta irises that constrained its black pupils. Two trails of purple haze drifted from its magnificent eyes, dissipating as it reached the back of its head. A long, prominent horn emanating with corrupted magic clamped onto its forehead. Two grand wings with several beautiful feathers unfurled and gave more size to the already massive beast. Unlike the rest of its body, two identical insignias on its flanks radiated with brilliance. Each one was a single puff of cloud with a red, yellow, and blue bolt diving from its bottom.

The king could feel its raw power, and he could even feel the corrupt soul in its heart. This was especially noticeable whenever it talked with its rather young yet echoing voice. ”Well, I guess you’re the ruler of this place. I have to say, it’s pretty cool how you built it. Too bad I like seeing it destroyed and crushed into pieces.”

The king was obviously astonished and intimidated by the creature. His voice was about as young as the creature’s, but it also contained another decade of experience. “What are you? Are you some sort of forgotten demon from the Nether?”

”Huh, I guess I do look a little like one,” the creature mused as it examined itself. ”Actually, I’m just the new ruler of this kingdom. I’m probably the best empress anypony can have. You can’t deny it either.”

“You certainly are magnificent, but you are as evil as you are glorious. I will not stand to your invasion of my kingdom.”

”Wow, you’re pretty stubborn. I come in here, showing off myself, my awesome army and the mayhem we can make, but you still want to fight. I’ll admit, that’s pretty admirable.”

The king gripped his enchanted diamond sword in both hands as he eyed the creature. “What type of mind trick are you playing on me?”

The creature looked a little surprised. ”Mind trick? I’m taking over a castle, not telling a dumb riddle! Do you even know who I am?”

“Actually, no.”

”Should’ve prepped a little speech for this. I’m Empress Rainbow Dash, the proud, and totally amazing, commander of the Army of Loyalty! I can’t really take credit for the name of my army. They kinda picked it themselves in my name.”

The king believed that he found out what Empress Rainbow Dash was. “Ah, so you are an old goddess.”

”Goddess? Your words are pretty flattering to say the least. I’m just an alicorn, but I do like the term. So, I believe you deserve to be placed in my army. Trust me, you’ll love it.”

The king braced for impact as Empress Rainbow Dash prepared a spell from her horn. She fired a sickly green and purple blast at the king. Even though the darkness forced a shroud upon his body, he remained unchanged.

The Empress tilted her head in bafflement. ”That should’ve made you cooler, but it didn’t. I guess you’re already awesome to begin with.”

“Wretch, I am immune to dark magic!” the king spat angrily at the Empress. “I have been training myself to withstand even the mightiest of dark magic for years now! Now, prepare to die, demon!”

The king leapt at the Empress and slashed his sword deep in her chest. It definitely dealt damage, but it was far from enough. She kicked him back and snarled viciously at the king. ”You’re gonna be like that now, huh? I can fight too, you know!”

The Empress faded into black as she reappeared next to the king. She fired a magic blast at him, dealing nothing. She instead took flight and smashed into him, actually hurting him quite a bit. He stabbed into her forelegs again and again as he escaped her grasp. He then slashed at her body five times sporadically. The Empress screamed and kicked him back into his golden throne. He got back up and took out his Explosive Bow. He fired one shot at her left wing, causing an explosion that grounded her. She then galloped up to the king and stabbed her horn like a sword straight into his chest. He groaned and shrugged it off like a flesh wound as he took out an enchanted golden apple and munched it down. He then sliced three more times into the Empress, wearing her enough to receive the king’s warning.

Empress Rainbow Dash back away and pushed a hoof to her left side. She panted through her words. Well, you’re pretty powerful. Just take note that I’m not gonna give up, though. I’m not losing my power to a stubborn guy like you, but I will take this castle.”

She then engulfed herself in a mass of darkness that soon vanished from sight. The rest of the invading monsters in the kingdom retreated and stopped fighting. Some of the king’s soldiers hurrahed with valor as they waved their swords, hammers, and bows into the air. Sure, the kingdom had lost half of its buildings, but it was still intact. The castle was still together, and the walls were nearly untouched, so it was considered a victory for the kingdom.

The king soon rushed to a nearby guard and spat out his orders. “Tell my knights to meet me at the cathedral. We will not let that demon’s army escape us so easily.”

“Sire, are you sure that you want to risk that?” the soldier replied as he examined the carnage around him.

“Tell the knights, now. The sooner they arrive, the sooner we can kill the demon.”

“Right away, sire.”

}———————————————————————————————————{

The quintet’s trip to the Sky Temple was short to say the least, but that did not mean anything involving difficulty.

After the group traveled through the cave again, they encountered ten goons. They were all felled easily once Pinkie, Gingerbread, and Vincent began their slicing and dicing. Twilight and Fluttershy mainly kept to themselves during melee fights like this, avoiding any serious injury to themselves.

The group kept walking down the path until they reached their first T-junction.

This time, go left.

The group changed direction and turned left. They kept walking down the road, killing a few marksmen and destroyers in the trees with every few steps. Eventually, they met an odd light tan end stone structure that intrigued Twilight and Gingerbread.

Twilight gazed at the stone with wide eyes full of curiosity. “Ooh, what is that thing?”

That is the Ender Shrine. Once you have all ten obsidian blocks, you can open it and venture into the world of the End.

“I don’t think we should place this block in just yet,” decided Gingerbread as he glanced down at the obsidian in his hand. “The Mobtrocity can use it if we do that.”

“So, you’re saying that we should keep the block to ourselves to stop them?” Vincent proposed as he sliced the head off of a spying skeleton.

“Sure. If they have nine, and we have one, they can’t open the shrine yet.”

“Well, that’s just simple logic, mate. I bet anyone with a smidgen of brain could figure that out.”

Pinkie was also interested in the structure. “What is the End anyway? That’s kinda a weird name for an entire world.”

We don’t exactly know why, it is just called that anyway.

“Oh, okay.” Pinkie felt like her question was dodged, but she quickly moved on from it. A simple name didn’t matter if an entire world was in danger of being completely destroyed.

The group kept walking along the pathway again. When they reached the next T-junction, Ty directed them to the right. They turned right again when they reached the third T-junction and passed by one of the camps Twilight cleaned out. Two flustered scouts were attempting to fix the mess she caused, but Vincent stabbed both of them in their eye sockets. The quintet kept walking along until they reached a bridge, another T-junction, and a patch of sugarcane.

You’re almost there. Just go left and you’ll eventually rea–

His voice stopped as Pinkie walked over to the sugarcane and punched pieces of it. She collected the fallen sugarcane and pounded it into fine sugar. She then placed the sugar in her inventory. She could feel Ty’s blatant stare on her neck. “What?”

I didn’t really expect you to scavenge some random pieces of decor like that, but alright.

“Well, you need sugar to create a cake, so I’m collecting it. I don’t get why that’s puzzling to you.”

Just, forget I did anything. Go left, and you’ll reach your destination soon enough.

The group continued to their left and walked over to a fairly tall Jungle tree. When they looked up at the sky, they saw that same tree growing up and into a blocky cloud above. This tree intimidated the ponies to the point that worry clouded their minds about climbing up its patches of leaves and vines.

“How are we going to scale that?” Twilight questioned as she frowned at the eightieth pile of leaves on the tree. “It will take forever!”

“It’s not actually as bad as you think,” Gingerbread noted while he walked over to the jungle tree’s trunk. He grabbed the vines on the tree and climbed upwards. “Most of the journey up it is climbing, and there’s a lot of vines on a Jungle tree. This could take only minutes to scale if you know what you’re doing.”

Pinkie hopped over to the vines and climbed them like a beetle on a fence. Vincent shortly followed as he sheathed his sword and grabbed some vines. Fluttershy simply took flight and hovered upward, and Twilight clamped onto a few vines as she figured out a way to climb up them. She figured that Pinkie’s method was working splendidly, so she gave it a try.

The group, except Fluttershy, kept climbing the trunk and walking along every section of leaves they reached. The jumps they had to make were fairly easy, but there was something else that threatened their lives.

When Pinkie climbed up to yet another section of leaves she turned to her right and saw a creeper nearly touching her muzzle. She panicked a little and swatted it back, flinging it off the tree before it could explode. When Pinkie and the rest of the group climbed up a dozen more sections of leaves, they encountered two zombies playing cards with each other. They soon faced Twilight, the first to reach the area, and attacked her with two pairs of fists. She obtained a few bruises and swiped at them with her Little Burner. They both flailed their arms as they ran around the leaves. She then impaled them with a few arrows and collected their loot.

This simple climbing continued until the sky darkened and stars crawled into view. Only a minute later, a massive complex composed of stone bricks and glowstone became visible. It strayed awfully close to the jungle tree that still stretched upwards.

The group hopped onto a nearby pathway from the complex that stretched to the tree. Pinkie noticed the lower gravity and hopped around through the air giggling to herself with every flip or spin she performed. Twilight felt disoriented from the height, and Vincent and Gingerbread gazed down at the world below. Fluttershy scanned the entire complex and oohed at its architecture and seemingly gently floating pieces.

The entire complex, or the Sky Temple, was divided into three sections. These sections were connected by a small walkway in the shape of a plus sign. The middle of the walkway contained a pillar that stretched up into an obsidian and lava cube. The west wing was rather bulky and large, but it was unlocked. The east wing was slightly smaller and locked by a one key contraption. The main section was locked with a two key contraption and scaled around the tops of the other two wings. The one walkway that the group was on contained a floating Ty’s Mobile Shop with a white robed villager, an anvil, and an ender chest. There was also a checkpoint next to it that Pinkie floated over and flicked with her tail.

Twilight Sparkle, Gingerbread, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy’s spawnpoints have been saved.

“So, this must be the temple,” Gingerbread assumed as he examined the architecture and a sign that read ‘Sky Temple’.

Pinkie floated over to the west wing entrance and bumped her head on a nearby fence. She plopped to the stone brick surface and rubbed her head. “Ow! That’s not very nice, mister Sky Temple!”

Vincent glanced at his nonexistent watch and unsheathed his sword. “Well, let’s stop mucking around and raid this place already! We’re risking lives by wasting time.”

Gingerbread glanced at Vincent. “I really don’t think you care about those people.”

“I don’t, but that’s not an excuse for wasting time. Now, let’s get cracking!”

The group walked through the unlocked set of double doors and immediately encountered two more zombies. These zombies had folded angelic wings on their backs and gilded vests.

One of the zombies faced the group and shook a fist at them. “Hey, what’re you doing up here? The Sky Temple’s off limits to non-Mobtrocity members!”

Vincent immediately dashed towards the zombies and decapitated both of them in one slice.

Twilight raised a hoof up at Vincent. “Uhh, shouldn’t we have talked to them instead?”

“Why?” Vincent cocked his head as he sheathed his sword. “They’re bloody zombies that work for the Mobtrocity. Why should we give them mercy?”

“Twily, I’ll tell you what creatures are innocent,” Pinkie offered as she walked towards two sets of double doors. “Creatures set up like this will always try to hurt us. If you don’t know yet, we’re in a dungeon. Every creature in here will attack us.”

“She’s right,” Gingerbread added as he took out his stone sword. “We can’t trust anything in here to spare us. Isn’t that right, Ty?”

Yeah, every monster here is dangerous.

The rest of the group not at the doors walked over to them. Twilight’s head switched back and forth from one set to the other. “Where do we go?”

“Hmm, it might be best if we split up for a while,” Vincent declared as he glanced through the doors. He saw several monsters patrolling the other sides of the doors. “Alright, Gingerbread, come with me through door one. I think we could use the extra monsters to our advantage.”

Gingerbread and Vincent traveled through the double doors in front of the group and already began their mauling of an entire horde of zombies. The ponies walked through the double doors on their right and encountered four skeletons with bony wings and gilded vests.

Pinkie sprinted up to them and twirled her body and sword in circles. She kept slamming the two skeletons nearby over and over until they were bone meal. Twilight fired a few arrows at the two more distant skeletons and provided herself as a meat shield for Fluttershy. When Pinkie finished her little slice of destruction, she had three arrows in her sides, two in her tail, and one in her mane.

The group continued through the next door and met the flying head of a zombie right in their faces. Gingerbread and Vincent instantly regrouped with the ponies and walked through the door in front of them.

The next area was in the shape of a blocky U. In the middle of the area was a platform with four zombies. On the group’s floor was two doors and an odd zombie with a villager’s head for a head and a night black robe.

The zombie chanted at nothing as it lifted its arms in the air. “Hogun hogun hogun! Bring me the spirits of the Underworld to rock these infiltrator’s worlds!”

A crack opened up in front of him and revealed two red eyed skeletons with wooden swords. They stared at the group and sprinted towards them with their swords high in the air.

Fluttershy shrieked as one of the skeletons pounced at her. She swiped at its face with her stone sword, knocking it back. “Hey, this skull is a rental! Don’t screw it up!”

Fluttershy’s ears drooped as she felt the skeleton’s pain. “Oh, I’m sorr- ah!”

The skeleton sliced at her face, but it missed once she flew backwards. Gingerbread struck the skeleton and bashed it with his sword until its skull broke apart.

The other skeleton was already pummeled by Pinkie, and the zombie was running away from Vincent’s murderous blade.

“Hogu- ah! Chill out, man! I’m just trying to kill you!”

Vincent sliced the zombie once down the middle. He then withdrawn his blade and opened one of the two doors next to him. He then stabbed another zombie and kicked it back as he walked down the steps in the corridor to the platform below.

The rest of the group followed him as he kept hacking and slashing at the zombies in front of him. Pinkie rushed up to one of them and sliced them to bits. When there were none left, Vincent waved his sword at Gingerbread and walked down the right hallway. The ponies walked down the left hallway and met three small spiders along the way. They were colored blue and about a fourth of a usual Minecraftian spider.

Fluttershy recoiled from the closest spider, but that didn’t stop her next move. She walked up to the spider and spoke to it with a comforting and calm voice. “Hey there little guy. Can you please leave us alone and let us pass? We don’t mean any harm to you or your friends.”

The spiders stared up at her with their beady eyes and completely ignored her words. They crawled up to her and leapt at her, biting her in three different areas. Fluttershy yelped in pain and frowned at the spiders with a slice of anger.

“That’s not very nice of you three. I’m trying to be nice about letting you three be, but then you keep being bullies towards us.”

The closest spider hissed viciously and nipped at her again. This time, Fluttershy reacted.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you!” Fluttershy closed her eyes and then stared directly at the spiders as she opened them again. The spiders backed away and remained completely docile. They eventually backed away far enough to where they scrambled away from her as fast as they could. Fluttershy then stopped staring and checked her wounds. They were almost nonexistent.

“Good work, Fluttershy!” Pinkie praised as she hopped down the hallway.

The hallway quickly turned left into another big room. There were two walkways that met at a ladder at the end of the room. On the right side of the ponies’ walkway, there was a stone brick wall. On the other side, there was a wooden fence and an opening to the sky below.

Gingerbread and Vincent were already at the ladder and killed several zombies and a cultist, the zombie villager that exclaimed hogun from earlier. The ponies rushed over to them and climbed up the ladder with them. The next room was an outside balcony with a roof. The group simply walked around the pole they climbed up by the ladder to reach another one. They then climbed up that ladder and entered a hallway with two doors on its left, two on its right, and one at the end.

A giant slime that covered the entire hallway hopped towards the group. Gingerbread smacked it away several times until it split into two smaller slimes. Pinkie and Vincent aided him as they squashed the rest of them and collected their loot.

Be sure to check the rooms on the sides. They might contain some valuable loot.

As the group split up between the doors, they found their own share of loot inside each one.

In Twilight’s room, she found a normal sized slime and a chest. She smacked the slime into oblivion as it and its smaller buddies split into simple slimeballs. She then opened the chest to find six dollars and a useless skull.

Pinkie found a spider jockey and another chest in her room. She hopped around the spider jockey and struck the spider four times. Once it died, she smacked the skeleton until it completely fell apart. She then opened the chest and obtained twenty pieces of rotten flesh. Even though she was disappointed by the loot, she kept her spirits up with some humming.

Fluttershy found absolutely nothing in her room, not even a single enemy. She tilted her head at the awkward sight and left as fast as she came in.

Gingerbread found four zombies and Sergeant Clad in his room, but there was no chest.

“I am Sergeant Clad!” Sergeant Clad boomed in conceit. “I am the best soldier you have ever seen! Prepare to be skewered, violator!”

The zombies rushed Gingerbread and smacked him with their fists. He drank his strength potion and sliced every zombie into halves of their former selves. Gingerbread then charged at Sergeant Clad and slashed at him senselessly. He growled his death as he dropped a dollar, some rotten flesh, experience, and his almost broken golden chestplate. Gingerbread took it all and left the room.

Vincent was the only one to walk through the last door and continue onward. He fought through three spiders and three skeletons on a curvy walkway. He hacked through them in three seconds and killed every single one of them. He then walked over to a set of double doors in the back, stepped onto a balcony, opened a chest, and took its key. He then returned to the walkway to regroup with Gingerbread and the pony trio.

The group entered another set of double doors on the walkway and killed two more zombies. They then reached two more sets of double doors.

Gingerbread glanced at the door on the group’s left and nodded at Twilight. “Twilight, come with me real quick. I think that room might be a trap.”

“Then why are you taking me with you?” Twilight’s face scrunched up into a baffled frown.

“I mean that the chest in there might be rigged. There’s just a large chest in there with nobody guarding it.”

“I guess I understand what you mean now.”

The two traveled through the double doors and into the room. As Gingerbread carefully opened the chest and grabbed the ten dollars inside, five zombies dropped from the ceiling. Twilight took out her Little Burner and sliced every zombie that approached them with it. She kept doing this until there were five roasted zombies on the floor. Gingerbread and Twilight then left the room and rejoined the group.

The group walked through the double doors and jumped down to the familiar plus sign walkway. They then reached the east wing door and put their key into it. The group turned left and walked into a long hallway that stretched several blocks long.

In the middle of the hallway gurgled another large slime that moved unusually fast. Just like last time, Gingerbread sliced at the slime and destroyed it with the help of Pinkie and Vincent.

As the group walked along the hallway and curved into another room, Vincent turned his skull to Twilight. “Say, I still don’t know too much about you and your world. What exactly is this, what was it, Equestria that you come from?”

“Well, it’s a giant nation ruled by multiple alicorns known as princesses,” Twilight replied with a gentle smile on her face. “There is Princess Celestia, my former teacher and the princess of the sun, Princess Luna, Celestia’s sister and the princess of the moon, Cadance, my old foalsitter and princess of love, and me, the princess of friendship.”

As the group entered the next room of flowing lava and stone brick, Vincent sliced through three zombies’ heads. “What’s an alicorn exactly?”

“It’s basically a unicorn with wings, but much more powerful. They are usually bigger than most ponies.” Twilight fired two arrows at a skeleton before Pinkie finished it off.

Vincent drew conclusions quickly while he stabbed a skeleton through its chest. “Wait, if you’re a princess, and princesses are alicorns, then where are your wings?”

Twilight hid behind a wall of lava as she faced Vincent and frowned at herself. “Well, I’m not too sure. I don’t know why I lost them in the first place.”

Fluttershy joined in the conversation as she ducked under a line of arrows. “Well, I didn’t have wings when I came here until I found a potion in a chest that gave me them.”

“Huh, didn’t know that.” Vincent decapitated two creepers with folded wings and gilded vests near the end of the room. “What is this Equestria like?”

“Think of it like this world, except not as blocky,” Twilight informed as she walked toward the next door. “That’s pretty much how it looks like.”

“Okay, I think I can see that.”

When Twilight walked through the door, she almost fell off the floor from a nearby hole. In fact, the entire floor was filled with holes in a checkerboard pattern! “Okay, I did not expect that!”

Pinkie Pie was the second one to enter the knew room. “Ooh, that pattern looks pretty! I wonder where all those holes go.”

Twilight lay down on the ground and peered down one of the holes. “Well, it looks like they go down to another room with even more holes.” Pinkie hopped down one of the holes after Twilight said that and explored the new room she was in. Twilight looked around the room again and sighed after seeing no other way downward. “I guess that’s the only way down, then.”

Twilight got back up and fell down the hole she looked through. The rest of the group followed her and entered the new room with no difficulty. They then carefully navigated themselves along the checkerboard holes until they reached the next door, which was right under the one they entered from.

The next room was small and circular with a single table and four chairs in the middle. There were two cultists in it that immediately began shouting at the ground.

“Hogan hogun hogun! Bring us the dudes that can punch these invaders to the moon!”

Four skeletons with wooden swords crept out of the cracked ground and faced the group. They then scrambled around the table and screamed random cries at the group. Pinkie smacked one back as Vincent decapitated two of them. Twilight and Gingerbread closed in on the fourth one, beating it to death rather quickly. Pinkie then aimed for the cultists and slammed her sword on their heads. They both staggered back and met Twilight’s Little Burner. The cultists burned to crisps as they shouted their last hogun.

After Pinkie took out an apple and munched it down, the group regrouped again. The next set of double doors was an immediate drop that had two signs. The signs read ‘In order to live, follow this: A, S, F, I, B, C’.

Twilight cocked her head and narrowed her perplexed eyes. “What does that even mean?”

It’s a code. If you don’t remember it, you’ll be in a deep amount of trouble.

“Don’t worry, miss, if I can remember a target’s face, I can remember the alphabet,” Vincent exclaimed as he studied the letters. “Alright, let’s continue on.”

Vincent jumped down the hole with Gingerbread. Twilight and Pinkie were next, and Fluttershy went last. They all fell into a small pool of water that they swam out of quickly. Gingerbread and Vincent then kept walking along until the hallway split into two paths. One path was labeled X, and another was labeled A.

Vincent pointed down the A hallway. “Down there, mate.”

The group walked through the hallway until they curved into another hall with two more pathways. The group walked down the S hallway and encountered two more right next to each other. They went down the F hallway, then turned right into the I hallway, then left and right again to the B hallway. They curved into a C hallway and met another set of double doors. They opened by themselves, allowing the group to continue onward.

The group climbed up a set of ladders into a straight staircase. Two zombies rushed down the stairs and smacked Gingerbread backward. Vincent sliced both of them into shreds as two more zombies rushed down the stairs. Pinkie smacked both of them upward while Twilight fired magic and arrows at them. The zombies were felled quickly.

The group rushed up the stairs and into a new room in the shape of a U. Another set of double doors in the middle guarded the way forward, and two chests at both ends relaxed as their two creepers and four skeletons each guarded them.

Pinkie hopped over to a creeper and aggravated them, leading to an unharmed Pinkie and six dead monsters. Gingerbread and Vincent sliced up the other monsters while Twilight gave the remaining monsters her arrows.

Pinkie opened her chest and took out a single key. Gingerbread opened the other chest and also found a key. They regrouped and walked up to the locked double doors. Pinkie put in her key and opened the doors.

On the other side was a pit of lava, more checkerboard holes, and two skeletons that opened fire upon the group. Twilight shot both of them into the holes, dropping them into the lava below. The group then carefully shuffled over the holes until they reached the next locked set of double doors. Gingerbread used his key and unlocked the door.

The next room had two railings on both sides with a hole leading to the lava wall room they already entered. They walked along the stone brick railing and reached a two by three pit of lava.

“We’ll have to sprint to cover that gap,” Gingerbread notified the rest of the group. He went first, suddenly stoppping in midair and landing in the lava. He soon burned up and swiftly died in the lava.

Gingerbread tired to swim in lava.

“Well, that’s a good example of what not to do,” Twilight nervously quipped as she watched the small fireballs dance in the lava. “Does anypony else want to try next?”

Fluttershy almost broke into tears after seeing Gingerbread die like that, but Pinkie comforted her with soft words and a hug. “He’ll come back. He always does.”

After Fluttershy recollected herself, Vincent walked backwards then broke into a sprint and flipped over the lava. He landed safely and on his feet. “This is not too difficult of a jump, ponies. Just sprint over it like I did.”

Pinkie spun sideways over the lava and landed as a rolling ball of fluff. She then smacked into locked set of double doors and rubbed her head softly. “Ow! Why does doing spins hurt so much here?”

“Maybe it’s because you are completely unaware of your surroundings,” Vincent remarked through hindsight.

Twilight galloped and leapt over the lava, landing safely like Vincent. Fluttershy simply flew over the lava casually.

“Well, I’d almost consider that cheating,” Vincent mumbled through his teeth. “You are the only one with wings after all.”

“What’s the point of picking on her for what you’re calling cheating?” Twilight questioned with a not so happy frown at Vincent. “We’re all on the same team.”

“Sometimes, I like to have my own fun, Twilight pony. Its my own way of getting your knickers in a twist for good ol’ fun.”

“Just so you two know, we have a locked door and two more over here.” Pinkie tapped at the locked door as she pointed at the other two with her hind legs. She was still upside down from the rolling. “Maybe there is a key in one of those other doors.” She then got back up on her hooves.

Vincent walked through the right door as the ponies walked through the left one. Vincent fought off a big slime and found a single key in a chest. The three ponies were not as lucky.

The ponies walked over to the other chest and opened it carefully. It contained a single key that Twilight kept. Then, when they were about to go back to the locked door, a huge red slime bounced in front of their way.

Twilight jumped up in shock by the slime since it was literally pixels away from her. She smacked it with her Defense Sword, throwing it off the entire Sky Temple and into the sky.

The ponies walked back to the locked door and used their key for it. It opened up another checkerboard room with a large chest and two skeletons beside it. The skeletons fired at the ponies with constant arrow streams, but Twilight was able to shoot them down the holes adjacent to them easily. They were not a threat anymore afterwards, allowing the ponies and Vincent to now open the chest.

Vincent walked over to the chest and took out the two keys in it. He then walked back to the ponies and proceeded through the door they already entered. The group continued along until they reached another locked set of double doors. Vincent placed a key and walked through the doors, slicing a zombie that was hiding on the other side. The group hopped back down to the plus sign walkway again.

Gingerbread was sitting near the Ty’s Mobile Shop the entire time. When he saw the group, he walked over to them and nervously laughed. “That was, unexpected of me.”

“At the least, it was ironic,” Vincent commented. “At the most, it was downright foolish.”

“Well, we got one last area to clear. The obsidian block should be there somewhere.”

The quintet walked over to the main area door and opened it with a key. They then opened the next door with their last key. They confronted four zombies on the stairway up and smacked all of them to the ground. With the zombies dead, they moved on to a T-junction in the hallway.

The right hallway leads to more loot, and the left hallway goes deeper into the temple. Choose wisely.

“Vincent and I will go down the left hallway,” Gingerbread ordered. “We can clear the path while you three get the loot.”

Twilight nodded in agreement. “Okay. That sounds like a good plan for now.”

The ponies galloped down the right hallway as Gingerbread and Vincent walked down the other. The hallways curved backwards as they led to two separate roofs. The ponies met a few zombies and some skeletons guarding the area. Pinkie bashed them over and over with her sword, throwing some of the monsters off the temple and into the sky. Twilight fired her arrows at the remaining monsters and collected their loot shortly afterward.

The ponies eventually made it to the other side of the roof and into a room with two chests.

Twilight’s eyes narrowed as she scanned the room. “Be careful, girls. There might be a few monsters hiding somewhere.”

Twilight and Pinkie approached the two chests and grabbed their contents. Pinkie obtained five dollars, and Twilight obtained a few bones and pieces of rotten flesh. Shortly after that, five zombies fell from the ceiling and surrounded Pinkie. She twirled her sword around and bashed them all into the walls. Twilight finished three of them off, Pinkie kept slicing one still next to her, and Fluttershy poked her sword at the last zombie ambling towards her. When it rushed up to her with no warning she accidentally stabbed it in its head, killing it instantly.

Fluttershy gasped and placed her hooves over her mouth. “I’m so sorry, mister! I didn’t mean to hurt you like that!”

“No time for apologies, we need to go now!” Twilight galloped out of the room and grabbed ahold of Fluttershy as three cultists fell from the ceiling. Pinkie slashed at one before she leapt out of the room and onto the roof again.

The ponies sprinted all the way back to the left hallway. They then traversed through what was left of the cleared roof until they entered another hallway that spiraled to the right. After they climbed up another set of ladders, they opened another set of double doors to find Gingerbread and Vincent hacking at three cultists. Apparently, the fight was getting out of hand, as eight skeletons with swords were also slicing back at the duo.

Twilight blasted three of the skeletons with her magic, felling all three of them. Pinkie hopped into battle and destroyed the five other skeletons in a single spin. Gingerbread then hacked at a cultist while Vincent decapitated the other two.

Gingerbread dusted himself as he glanced at the ponies. “Thanks for the help. I was nearly dead before you three came along.”

“We’re always happy to help!” Pinkie chirped. She stopped hopping around as she saw the next area of the Sky Temple. “Also, I think we’re nearly done with this area.”

Fluttershy took notice to what Pinkie was saying. “Why do you say that?”

Pinkie walked over to Fluttershy and pointed a hoof to a construct not so far away. “That is why.”

The construct was a fortress floating in midair. It floated untethered to the Sky Temple, but it had the same build as the temple. Four towers with a pigman each stretched out the top of the fortress in its four corners. Dozens of monsters patrolled the sides of the fortress, mainly zombies, skeletons, cultists, creepers, and spiders. Twilight aimed a few arrows at the fortress and felled two of the tower pigmen.

The group continued on through a small staircase and hallway going left. They then walked along a balcony to the fortress entrance.

When the group entered the fortress, they encountered two zombies. Gingerbread hacked through them easily and examined the two sets of double doors on both sides of the hall. They both led to prison rooms with several monsters, including four cultists in one and twenty zombies in another.

“Let’s just move on,” Vincent declared as he examined the massive amount of monsters.

The group continued along until they reached a small golden throne and a set of double doors on their right. On the throne was a pigman in a flashy red and gold cape. He haughtily laughed at the group as he brandished his enchanted golden sword. “Hah, you five think you can storm into the Air Mobs’ domain, huh? Well, I’m not letting that happen, for my name is Sir Henry!”

Twilight gave yet another puzzled and curious face. “Air Mobs?”

“How do you not know our name? We are the most superior soldiers of the skies! We were born to fight, born to breathe nearly no oxygen, and born to die in the name of the sky!”

“Let’s just duel already,” Vincent impatiently demanded as he unsheathed his long sword. He sliced at the glorious pigman twice and heard a flurry of monsters rampaging by his left. “Oh dear...”

Twilight hyperventilated a little after seeing the horde of zombies and cultists. “Oh no, they all know where we are now!”

Vincent beheaded the glorious pigman as he jutted his sword at a nearby zombie. “I’ll hold them all off, ponies and Gingerbread! You four go on! I’ll catch up!”

Gingerbread and the ponies ran through the double doors into a backwards L-shaped room. It had two hanging platforms on the sides of a walkway with the group’s platform near one of the hanging ones and a staircase near the other. On the platforms and walkway were four Air Mob skeletons.

Twilight shot the first one off its hanging platform. Gingerbread hopped over to the walkway, took three arrows to the chest, and bashed the skeletons to death. Twilight hopped over to the platform and shot off the last skeleton on the other hanging platform. The quartet then hopped over to the staircase and walked up to the second floor.

The second floor was in the shape of a blocky C and had another doorway at the other side of the room. A single cultist with four skeletons with wooden swords attacked the group. Pinkie destroyed two skeletons, Gingerbread rushed the cultist and felled him, and Twilight blasted the last two skeletons with magic.

The group walked onto a small outside area with fence railing. An Air Mob spider jockey halted the group’s progress with arrows and a threatening bite.

Gingerbread and Pinkie bashed it into smoke in two seconds.

Twilight noticed the pigmen on two visible towers and aimed her arrows at them. She killed both of them fairly quickly.

The group continued on as they curved around into the interior of the fortress again. They smacked two Air Mob creepers back into a mess of zombies, blowing them up and killing everything there. The group continued onward, turned left twice, and fought off another batch of skeletons. Twilight picked them off one by one while Pinkie weakened them with her slashing. After the skeletons collapsed into piles, both ponies grabbed an apple each and munched them down. Pinkie, hearing Fluttershy’s stomach release a small growl, gave an apple to her. She nibbled it to just crumbs.

Gingerbread kept walking forward and opened a chest on the other side of a set of double doors. He grabbed its five dollars and returned to the ponies.

The quartet turned left again and walked up another flight of stairs. After going through a few doors and bashing some more skeleton and zombie heads, they soon met another set of double doors next to a control center. On the control center was a lever that read ‘Daylight Cycle’. It was currently set to off.

Before the group could flick the lever on, they heard several raspy breaths and crackling flames. When Fluttershy turned her head around, she found four strange, floating creatures covered in smoke. They were singular heads with twelve rods circling them at various speeds. Their bodies possessed a hue of yellow and orange.

One of the creatures spoke to the group, its voice being low, guttural, and raspy. “These are the ponies that are interfering with our plans, yes? They will be burned to ashes from the their crimes, then. Brothers, prepare your infernos!”

The Mobtrocity Pyromancers lit themselves on fire as they rose up to the sky and fired at the group. Fireballs spiraled through the air, striking either the stone or the group itself. One hit Gingerbread and lit him on fire. He shrugged it off and ran from the incoming fireballs. Three hit Pinkie, lighting her mane and tail on fire and causing her to stop, drop, and roll as fast as possible.

Twilight fired several arrows and magic blasts at two of the blazes, driving them backwards and somewhat damaging them. The other two pyromancers lowered themselves enough for Gingerbread to knock them silly. He bashed one to death and struck the other twice.

It was then that Vincent rushed up the stairs and joined the battle. Twilight fired two more arrows at one of the pyromancers. As the pyromancer died, the other readied their fire again and blasted the group a second time. Fluttershy felt the heat as her entire body caught on fire. She screamed and raced through the air as Vincent bashed one of the now descending pyromancers. Twilight fired one more magic blast into the last pyromancer, ending its life at that moment.

Pinkie got back up and flicked the lever hastily. The door next to it opened and allowed escape from the temple. The group sprinted to the door, went down a flight of stairs, and encountered a chest.

Gingerbread opened the chest and found another sacred obsidian block. He kept it in his inventory with the other one.

The group then returned to the plus sign walkway and back to the entrance of the Sky Temple.

“That, was, so much fun!” Pinkie exclaimed as she bounced up into the low gravity air.

“How was that fun?” Twilight questioned. “We were almost roasted from those things!”

“Twily, you don’t understand. The reason it was fun was because it was dangerous! Didn’t it feel exhilarating crawling through that dungeon? It sure did for me!”

“I feel it too,” Gingerbread agreed. “That’s why I’m here. Adventures are fun!”

“I felt nervous the entire time, really,” Fluttershy peeped through her slight quivering. “Also, I don’t see how being burned by a fireball is that much fun.”

“I’m just glad we dented the Mobtrocity a little,” Vincent announced as he sheathed his sword. “I mean, look at the bloody sky!”

The ponies stared up at the sky and obsidian construct. A huge beam of blue light shot out of its top and spread across the sky. Only seconds after, the sun rose from its original point, and the moon lowered over the horizon. The light around the entire world brightened until the group could see monsters burning in the distance.

Fluttershy felt a little worried for the burning monsters. “I hope we didn’t cause anything bad, did we?”

Monsters like zombies and skeletons are supposed to burn in the daylight. It’s how it’s been for a long time now. Only the night is supposed to have the most dangerous monsters active. During the day, you should be seeing friendly spiders and a few slimes hopping about, not a horde eating everyone they meet.

Twilight could feel pure magic resonating from the pillar. “Wow, for a world not heavily bound to magic, that sure is a lot of magic.”

“Well, it was keeping the sky frozen, so of course it would have a lot of magic!” Pinkie reasoned as her eyes locked onto the blue magic. “It’s also very pretty, almost like a daytime light show!”

Gingerbread was the only one truly grasping the real problem of the group. “Um, everybody, how do we get down from here?”

The ponies simply looked down at the nauseating distance of the ground. Twilight meekly answered with a very minute voice. “Uhh, we, climb down?”

“I don’t think that’s an option,” Fluttershy added as she pointed at the now fifty blocks away jungle tree they climbed up.

Twilight felt completely defeated. “There’s no way down now! We’re stuck up here until who kno-”

“Twilight, we’re not stuck!” Pinkie interrupted with giggles and words. “Do you see that river down there? We can jump into it and survive!”

Vincent waved his hands in a hold up a second fashion. “Okay, I believe it is official when even I agree that Pinkie Pie pony’s idea is, as I see it, utterly insane.”

“It’s possible,” Gingerbread added to the mix. Pinkie’s smile beamed from Gingerbread’s words. “But, it is still far-fetched to say that we’ll survive. I mean, there are rogue lily pads in that river.”

Pinkie’s smile dropped to a minuscule frown. “Well, do you want to stay up here, or do you want to dive in that obviously survivable drop in the river? If you don’t mind, I’m going anyway!”

Twilight rushed over to Pinkie hastily. “Pinkie, wait a second!”

But she was too late. Pinkie already jumped off the Sky Temple and screamed in thrills as she curved her body into a diving position. Twilight groaned and hopped off the Sky Temple in pursuit of her.

“Well, utterly insane can have its moments of glory.” Vincent shrugged and also hopped off the Sky Temple into the river.

Gingerbread also followed the rest downward and dropped almost like a log. Fluttershy was the last, as she simply flew downward instead of jumping.

And that was just the start of how insane The Legend of the Mobtrocity became. Ty couldn’t wait to see what would happen next.

End of Act I: Welcome Everypony to Bercotta

Act II, Chapter 1: Having a Swim at Harigan Harbor

Act II: This World Just Keeps Getting Crazier

At this point in time, Ty was a little confused about the state of the world. Sure, three ponies that entered the world—Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy—were with Gingerbread and Vincent, but he swore he remembered another one entering the world. Where were they?

He began his hunt right after he spoke to the group of five one last time. He flew all the way to Millstown first, hoping that it might have rested there.

Millstown was completely vacant of any ponies.

He then checked a few other towns nearby. Guraanurgaa, Derp Village, and Harigan Harbor were all vacant as well. When he checked the land and sky nearby the towns, he only found trees, animals, and sand.

He then checked Sparker Plains for any ponies. Since he knew that Fluttershy had wings, maybe this other pony had wings too and flew over the soul door. It was possible, so why would he not check the plains?

Norgray, the town for Sparker Plains, was also vacant, and so was the Universal Graveyard not so far from it. However, there was one place that was unusually huge for the plains. It was an area designed to be possibly one of the most well defended and guarded fortresses in Bercotta.

It was the Nethift Castle.

For some reason, darkened clouds surrounded its top. The walls shifted from basic nether brick to a blend of nether quartz and stone brick, and the entire castle itself stretched much higher than usual. A lava moat wrapped around the castle, too. Along with that, the entire cube complex created by the Mobtrocity that gently flew over the castle disappeared. What happened to the entire castle? Ty knew very well that this was not an intended addition.

So, as the good spectator he was, Ty examined the entire castle a little closer.

What he found was several walkways, courtyards, towers, and walls with strange monsters guarding them. Most of them were basic monsters like zombies, creepers, blazes, endermen, witches, skeletons, and more. They were the usual monsters found in nearly every monster group in Bercotta, but that was not the main focus.

First, some of the monsters were unusually large. There were a few zombies with huge muscles and two gigantic iron axes as tall as Gingerbread. There were endermen with diamond armor, two diamond swords, two diamond shields, and four arms. There were large creepers with red eyes and mouths, nearly chock-full of exploding power, and radiant witches that floated above the ground in their own majestic aura.

Second, someone placed strange armor and insignias on all the monsters. Every soldier wore some sort of chestplate or helmet that always possessed a light blue hue. The armor looked like dyed diamond armor, but Ty knew very well that dyeing diamonds was an impossible feat. Either on the top of helmets or the front of chestplates lay a common insignia. It was simple, really. It was a small puff of cloud with lightning shooting from its bottom. The lightning was composed of three rows with a single color each, each color being red, yellow, and blue.

Ty ascended upwards into the clouds to find even more of the castle. This part was mainly composed of several disconnected and gently hovering pieces of itself. In the center of it all was a blocky circle with a darkened and electrified throne on it, constantly shimmering in darkness and blasts of concentrated lightning.

However, that was not what interested Ty the most. It was the alicorn mare that was currently standing next to that throne and speaking to three four-armed endermen. She was none other than Empress Rainbow Dash herself in all her glorious glory.

Ty hovered closer to her and eavesdropped on her small conversation with the endermen. He definitely knew that the Empress’s voice was rather young compared to what he expected. ”So, you think we should attack this, General Hiss guy?”

“Of course, milady,” one of the endermen agreed through his slick and distant voice. “He is the mutiny of the rest of our army. He loathes our superiority and prefers to hide in his Mobtrocity shell.”

Empress Rainbow Dash lowered her head to listen to the enderman more clearly. ”What can destroying him do for me? Will it prove how great my army is or what?”

“It will force the Mobtrocity to rethink their allegiance with their so called god. They will then join the Army of Loyalty with great gusto.”

”Well, that sounds pretty nice. Maybe I should consider...” Her voiced trailed off as she turned her head to Ty. She cocked her head as she eyed him carefully. ”Who the hay are you?”

Wait, you can see me? How do you know I’m here?

”It’s kinda hard to not notice a green thing in a suit floating in midair.”

Ty turned off his invisibility to present a humanoid creeper wearing a party hat and an expensive tuxedo. He then folded his arms and slightly tilted his head upwards.

So, I bet you’re the runaway pony that changed the Nethift Castle, hmm?

Empress Rainbow Dash narrowed her eyes even more and snarled. ”I want an answer, now. Who are you, and how did you get here?”

Quite the rude one. I’m Ty, an overseer of this entire world. If you do not know, I have access to everything in this world, no matter how near or far. I want to know what you did to this place.

The Empress glanced around the floating pieces of stone and smirked. ”I improved it, bub. The way it looked before was not even close to cool. I made it better by adding my own touch to it.”

Okay then. How did you even do this?

”Well, when you’re an alicorn like me, you pretty get these amazing powers that can do all of this in a second.” Empress Rainbow Dash sneered at Ty with a menacing smile. ”You know, even if you can come up here and meet me, you’re still trespassing in my space. I think you should be taught a lesson about coming up here and dropping in on my conversation.”

Ty spread out his arms as if he was about to hug the open air.

Hmph, go ahead. Do your worst.

Empress Rainbow Dash’s horn glowed in power as a hazy darkness covered it entirely. The dark magic then shot from the horn and struck Ty’s visible body. He remained unchanged and unhurt from the attack, destroying the Empress’s smile. ”Okay, that was not supposed to happen. You were supposed to feel a lot of pain from that strike.”

Ty floated down to the Empress and struck the three enderman down in three consecutive swipes from a diamond sword.

”Hey!” the Empress lashed at Ty. ”Those were my soldiers you just attacked!”

Ty completely ignored her words and proceeded with his.

You see, I’m not an ordinary person. I can control virtually everything you see, possibly even you in a second.

The Empress was a tad bit worried from Ty now. ”So what, you’re gonna fight me or something?”

Ty shook his head and disintegrated his sword into thousands of pieces.

Actually, no. I think I can work something out for you. Oh yes, may I have your name?

”It’s Empress Rainbow Dash for anypony who’s not me. Also, what do you mean work something out?

Ty floated over to the Empress a little closer and stared into her eyes.

Well, you want to keep this army, right?

The Empress nodded slowly.

And you like to see some explosions, carnage, fighting, all that good stuff, right?

She nodded again. ”Uh-huh.”

Well, I’d like all that to happen too.

The Empress shook her head and looked at Ty with a bewildered expression. ”Wait, what? You want me to keep my army?”

And cause some mayhem too while you’re at it.

”Why are you being so accepting of me? Aren’t you willing to fight me?”

Look, I like you, and I know what you can do in this world. I’d like to see you succeed and become a legend here, and I’ll help you do it.

”You will?” the Empress doubtfully questioned.

Yup, why wouldn’t I? Plus, I know an area you might want to place some of your troops in.

The Empress smiled a little as her interest climbed. ”Go on, what is it?”

I think you should add a few of your not so buffed troops to Sparker Plains and Harigan Harbor. They’ll be very helpful for your reign.

”What about the explosions, fighting, and carnage? Where will that fit in?”

It’ll happen once your troops encounter a few adversaries along the road.

The Empress’s face contorted to a blend of curiosity and suspicion. ”What adversaries?”

Oh, nothing. Just a group of five warriors planning to overthrow you.

Her eyes narrowed once again as she smiled viciously. ”Oh, so a few punks think they can stop me, huh? Well, I bet my loyal troops can crush them into pancakes in no time.”

Ty floated away from the platform as he turned on his invisibility again.

Well, I may not be here by your side, but I’ll be watching over you from afar. I’ll make sure you stay in rule, alright?

The Empress lost her small, triumphant smile. ”Okay, then. See you some other time, I guess.”

And with that, Ty flew back down to the land and left the Empress by herself.

She reviewed Ty’s actions and words in her mind. ”Well, that was weird. If he is like this almighty god or something, then I should probably not anger him.” She flew over to another enderman nearby and glared down at him. ”You, bring some of the weaker troops to Sparker Plains and Harigan Harbor.”

The enderman saluted the Empress with his two right arms. “Yes, milady. It will be done.”

}———————————————————————————————————{

The quintet composed of Gingerbread, Vincent, Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy recently completed the Sky Temple. They now had two obsidian blocks, officially aggravated an entire army of monsters, and escaped from the temple. Since they had to escape in another way than climbing down to the ground, they came up with an excellent solution to reach the ground.

However, falling from hundreds of blocks to escape the Sky Temple alive might not be the most promising plan...

“Woo hoo!” Pinkie exclaimed as her body sailed through the open sky. She rolled her body around like she was about to perform a cannonball. “This is the best day in this world ever!”

“I can’t believe you jumped off like that!” Twilight screamed through the acceleration on her body. “You know very well that this is completely crazy!”

Vincent kept himself in a leisurely laid back pose as he drank the beautiful sight of the entire world. “Hey, Twilight pony, it might be insane, but you got to admit how comforting the fall feels. Just hover over some water and enjoy the trees and clouds.”

Twilight twisted her beady and panicky eyeballs to Vincent. “Comforting? We’re falling from Celestia knows how high and about to smash into the ground! What’s comforting about that?”

Vincent shrugged. “It’s comforting once you accept that you might die. Might as well enjoy the view instead of losing your head over it.”

Gingerbread kept to himself as he concentrated on landing into the perfect patch of river. He couldn’t afford to meet another embarrassing death.

Pinkie cartwheeled through the air and over to Twilight. “Come on, Twily, stop worrying and enjoy the fall!” Pinkie returned to her spot in the sky and resumed her diving position. “Wheeee!”

The ground was now fifty blocks from the group now, striking fear right into Twilight’s heart. She closed her eyes and clenched her teeth as she hurled another thirty blocks to it. Vincent still relaxed despite his situation, Gingerbread prayed over his trajectory, and Pinkie screamed playful thrills.

It was then that the group smacked right into the river. Twilight, Pinkie, and Vincent fell down to its bottom and slowly rose upwards, and Gingerbread was insanely unlucky, again.

Gingerbread fell from a high place.

Pinkie swam up to the surface and spewed a stream of water out her mouth. She walked onto land, shook the water off her body and fluff, and looked over at Gingerbread’s body. She then giggled to herself and soon fell over in an army of laughs. “He, he died by a, rogue lily pad!” She kept laughing until it hurt her lungs and throat to continue. She then breathed out calmly while still holding back several more giggles. “I know it wouldn’t have been funny if this was Equestria, but in this world, I can’t help it! There’s no penalty for dying!”

Twilight shook her body to rid herself of the lingering water particles in her coat, mane, and tail. She then eyed Pinkie with slight speculation. “If I recall from not so long ago, we still don’t know if ponies can come back from death. I don’t even know if Vincent can die!”

“Eh, I’d rather not discover that for myself yet,” Vincent noted as he tapped water out of his skull. “This bloke is far from death anyway. I’ve already cheated death by becoming an undead, so I believe I’ll cheat him again.”

“Well, I think we don’t have an objective right now,” Fluttershy proposed as she hovered down to the ground. She faced Twilight as she fiddled with the foliage. “Twilight, do you know where we should go?”

Twilight put a hoof up to her chin and gave a baffled look to Fluttershy. “I have no clue. All I know is that we have two obsidian blocks, and the sun is moving again.”

Pinkie stared at a nearby sign and hopped to Twilight in a flash. “I think we need to go to Harigan Harbor! It’s the only town in the Great Forest we didn’t visit yet!”

Vincent groaned in disgust as he spat a gout of water at the river. “Ugh, Harigan Harbor? The same place that bloody pig who calls himself the mayor lives?”

“Why are you so against the town’s mayor?” Fluttershy asked with a tilted head.

“Harigan is a greedy con man who I suggested to be a target. Sadly, Jason told me no and threatened to expose me to Faygrail if I did.”

“He can’t be that bad of a guy, right?” Twilight fake smiled in hope of not seeing a horrific villain.

“Does conning an entire kingdom out of its treasures sound good to you, Twilight pony?”

Twilight gulped down some worry and laughed nervously.

Only three seconds afterward, Gingerbread crashed into the water with a splash. He surfaced and hopped onto the land with the rest of the group. “They get me every time!”

“Well, now that we are all here, we can go to Harigan Harbor,” Vincent deadpanned.

“Wait, what about Ty?” Pinkie popped up next to Vincent, startling him a tiny bit.

“He’ll be with us soon,” Gingerbread assured. “He likes to disappear and reappear whenever he wants to.”

With worry only under Twilight’s belt, the group began their journey to Harigan Harbor. They fought a few slimes here and there, but there was nothing too serious or dastardly. The group knew that they found the harbor once they found some stairs, a few houses, and another checkpoint.

Twilight Sparkle, Gingerbread, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy’s spawnpoints have been saved.

The group walked up the dark oak stairs and past four guards without any quarrels or halts. They got a closer look on the birch buildings and the locals. The citizens walked around casually, or as casually as someone standing still or running in circles could be. The group kept walking around the few wooden roads until they reached a bigger house with a sign above its door and two guards guarding it. The sign read ‘Mayor Harigan’ on it.

“He named a town after himself?” Gingerbread questioned. “He already seems like a narcissist at this point.”

The quintet opened the door and walked into the house. Twilight had to shove an iron golem’s body out of the way to even see Harigan.

“Ah, visitors!” Harigan exclaimed. His baldness littered his head, and a white robe encased his body. A few wrinkles ran along his face and neck, and his forehead wore a thicker than usual unibrow. “What brings all of you to Harigan Harbor?”

“We think that you could be of some help,” Twilight respond kindly. “Do you have some sort of artifact that can be very useful for us, like a key, item, obsidian block, anything?”

Harigan smirked and nodded. “I, in fact, have two special artifacts fit for adventurers. One is called the Sparker Key, a special item you can use to travel to Sparker Plains.” Harigan took out the head of a deceased creeper and tossed it around. “I also have this head called the Acid Stopper. Both of those can be yours for only the low, low price of two hundred dollars.”

The ponies’ eyes widened as Vincent huffed and stared at Harigan. “See? It’s the same Harigan I remember long ago.”

“Can we make an arrangement?” Twilight pleaded to Harigan. “We don’t have enough, not even a quarter of that offer.”

Harigan massaged his chin. “Well, you can give me fifty raw fish from the harbor, get my blacksmith working again, and collect my well earned fifty dollars from Lemmy. If you do all of those, I’ll drop the price to only ten percent of the original offer. It’ll be a steal!”

“Whatever.” Vincent walked to and opened the door. “Let’s go and give this bad egg his dirty money.”

The quintet left the mayor’s house and searched the area for one of the three requests. Gingerbread pointed to the small house on their right. “Lemmy must be over there.”

The group, or just Twilight and Gingerbread due to the cramped space, walked into the house. They both kept their eyes on the one villager with a black apron. Twilight decided to ask first. “Do you happen to be Lemmy?”

“No, I’m definitely not Lemmy,” Lemmy barked back at Twilight. He darted his eyes from wall to wall.

“Alright, I can play this game.” Gingerbread smiled as he pretended to crack his knuckles. “Are you not Lemmy?”

“Yes, I’m not Lemmy.”

“Do you not own fifty dollars?”

“Yes.”

“Do we not have permission to collect that from you for Harigan?”

“No.”

“Will you not give us the money if I tell you that Harigan will beat you senseless if you don’t give it?”

“Yes.”

“May we not have the money?”

“Yes.” Lemme threw five platinum coins at Gingerbread. “Please come back here some time.”

As Gingerbread and Twilight left the house, Twilight stared at the house and back to Gingerbread. She gave a confused frown and a cocked head to him. “What just happened there?”

“I did not get the money,” Gingerbread replied with an invisible smirk.

Twilight’s eyes quivered a little as she processed what was happening. “But, he gave you five coins. How can you not have the money?”

“It’s because I did not collect the money, that’s why not.”

“Wait, what?”

“We did not interrogate him just now. He was not Lemmy, and he did not have the money. We did not complete that objective yet, so we need to finish it.”

Twilight looked like she was about to pull out her mane. “What, are you, saying?”

“Can’t you see that he’s getting your knickers in a twist?” Vincent interjected. “He’s saying that Lemmy was lying by telling you in his own way.”

“Oh.” Twilight blushed and lowered her head. “Sorry, it’s just that you make no sense sometimes.”

“Expect that from me,” Gingerbread replied. “At this rate, you’ll never understand me.”

Vincent turned his skeleton to the boats. “So, let’s get Harigan his fish an–”

“I already have the fish,” Pinkie blurted next to where Vincent’s right ear would be. She then dropped fifty fish onto the floor.

Gingerbread stared down at the fish and back to Pinkie. “How did you get all of that?”

“I found four chests that had twenty fish total, and I found the rest in the water! They’re easy to find if you look for them.”

“But, you don’t have a fishing rod.”

Pinkie’s face dropped from happiness to confusion. “Why would I need a fishing rod?”

“Sorry, Gingerbread,” Vincent started as he put a bony hand on Gingerbread’s shoulder, “you cannot outweird Pinkie.”

“Um, where would the blacksmith be?” Fluttershy asked as she tapped Vincent’s left clavicle.

Vincent walked a few blocks away from the group and pointed to the big building on the other side of the town. “It could be that building over there. I do see a bloke that looks like a blacksmith in there.”

Gingerbread walked over to Vincent and looked at the building. “Well, let’s try it then.”

The quintet walked over to the building and opened its fence gate and birch door. Gingerbread walked up to the blacksmith with hair on one side of his head.

“May I help you?” the blacksmith asked as he twiddled his covered thumbs.

Fluttershy walked up to the right side of Gingerbread. “We heard that you haven’t been working for some time. Is there a reason why?”

The blacksmith sighed and nodded. “Yes. It’s also the reason why my hair is like this. You see, a band of Mobtrocity soldiers came in here, took my materials and tools, shaved this side of my head, and left like a bunch of goons.”

“That’s terrible! Do you know where they went?”

“If I remember correctly, they always stay between the coast and the local pet store. Be careful, though. I heard that they have a special skeleton with them.”

“We’ll take care of those meanies for you!” Pinkie chirped as she hopped out of the room. The rest of the group followed her.

The group swam, or flew, over to the coast since it was only a few blocks away. They walked up onto the sandy coastline and searched through the trees. They found a gathering of monsters in the distance that were, fighting each other? The group crept through the trees and got as close as possible to see the scene.

“Heretics, heretics I say!” rasped a Mobtrocity marksman. “Heretics must die!”

“Us, heretics?” shouted a zombie with a light blue vest, a wooden sword, and glowing red eyes. “We’re the Army of Loyalty! A loyal subject is no heretic!”

“How can you call betraying General Hiss and our god loyal? You must die!”

“Not today! You will die for your bigotry!”

The zombie and three more with the same attire and weaponry beat down the marksman. Three more marksmen stood back and pelted the zombies with several arrows. A spider painted light blue struck and felled the marksmen. A few goons fought back against the zombies with the help from a raggedy skeleton with glowing white eye sockets. It fired four arrows at the zombies, slowing them down. The goons then struck and punched them until two fell to the ground. The other zombies, as well as a few skeletons with light blue caps and glowing red eye sockets, overpowered the goons and countered the special skeleton. All of the Mobtrocity in the area died from the light blue monsters.

One of the zombies turned to the quintet. “Hey, are those what I think they are?”

“Wha–oh.” Another zombie was dumbfounded from the sight.

“Those things look a lot like the Empress. Wait a minute, one two three fou–hey! They’re going to overthrow the Empress! Kill them, now!”

The zombies rushed towards the group, wooden swords in hand. Pinkie spun into battle and slammed all of them back into the skeletons in the back. Twilight fired a few arrows into the skeletons in the back, and Vincent chopped up the leaping blue spider. Gingerbread performed three critical hits and multiple slashes on the skeletons. Fluttershy kept herself away from the fighting and simply watched the weak carnage.

After all of the monsters dissipated into smoke and loot, the quintet checked the area for the blacksmith’s supplies. All they saw was a lone chest with a few pieces of dropped rotten flesh next to it. Pinkie dove into the chest and tossed out a few metal items, weapons, and tools out of the chest. She then hopped out of it and punched it thousands of times in three seconds. The chest broke and bounced into Pinkie’s inventory. She then sucked up all the metal objects and organized them in her inventory.

How did you do that? That’s not supposed to happen!

“Hey,” Gingerbread started bluntly, “you’re back.”

Yes, I’m back, but I can’t believe the first thing I see when I come back is Pinkie destroying a chest. Just, how?

“What are you talking about?” Twilight asked to somewhere.

You are not supposed to be able to destroy these blocks. Alright, let me test something. Twilight, break that piece of log in the tree next to you.

Twilight faced the tree next to her and smacked a sword at it.

Use your hooves.

Twilight put away the sword and punched the tree multiple times in a constant rhythm. Nothing happened.

Alright. Pinkie, break that block.

“Okay!” Pinkie hopped over to the tree and smacked it five times. A single block from the tree broke and rammed into Pinkie’s inventory. The tree now had a noticeable gap in its trunk.

Twilight shook her head and narrowed her eyes at the tree. “How is the tree not falling? How is it even staying like that?”

“Minecraftian physics, that’s how,” Gingerbread answered. “Some things obey gravity, others don’t.”

“That shouldn’t be happening at all. This one tree is defying all physics that I have studied in my life.”

“Well, this is normal in our world, so deal with it.”

“I can’t ignore something that’s so, out of place and confusing! Does nopony else understand how crazy this is?”

“Personally, it doesn’t matter to me,” Fluttershy answered with complete honesty. “If zombies exist here, then I can see this happening, too.”

“Happens on a normal basis,” added Vincent. “There’s nothing wrong with it at all.”

“I can put the block back there if you want me to, Twily,” Pinkie proposed.

Twilight repeatedly pointed a hoof from Pinkie to the gap at lightning speeds. “Please do that now!”

Pinkie took out the log and placed it back into the gap. Twilight closed her eyes and walked away from the tree with no thought of it. Fluttershy directed her out of the forest before she bumped right into another tree.

You five should get going to the blacksmith now. Time’s a wasting!

The quintet with Twilight in the front began their small journey to the blacksmith. Since the entire town was built above the water, it was impossible to swim up to it. Once the group re-entered the building, the blacksmith smiled and held out his folded arms. “You’re back! Do you have my materials and tools?”

“Yuppity yup yup!” Pinkie threw the items at the blacksmith. He caught all of them and put them away in a chest next to him.

“Now, I’ll reward you all handsomely for your help. Here is twenty dollars and a special bow I crafted. It is infused with a special enchantment that should prove to be useful.”

“Twilight, I think you should have the bow,” Gingerbread suggested as he took the money. “We can use the money for Harigan’s price.”

Twilight happily took the Magical Bow with infinity I and compared it to her bow. “Infinity? What’s that?”

“Bows with Infinity I on them never run out of arrows!” Pinkie answered. “That means you only need one arrow forever!” Gingerbread squiggled his mouth and pressed his eyes on Pinkie for a few seconds.

Twilight took out her old bow and levitated it to the blacksmith. “Here, you can have this. It might be damaged, but I think you can use it to make something very good.”

“Thanks,” the blacksmith almost whispered as he struggled to take the bow. “I appreciate your generosity, err...”

“Twilight Sparkle.”

“Twilight. I won’t forget you. Whenever you can in the future, I would like you to come back and visit. I’ll have something very useful for you.”

“Alright, we did everything,” Vincent noted. “Let’s go back and give Harigan his money and fish.”

The quintet walked out of the blacksmith and to Mayor Harigan’s house. Harigan’s smirk reappeared once the group barged through the door.

While Pinkie threw her fish and Gingerbread tossed his seventy dollars at Harigan, Vincent confronted him with a scowl. “Okay, you bloody fat cat, we have your money and fish, and we got your blacksmith to work again. Can you give us the two items you promised now?”

Harigan took the fish and money as he took out the Acid Stopper and the Sparker Key. “Fine, a deal’s a deal. You may have your items.”

Gingerbread took the two items and examined them carefully. He held up the Sparker Key to Harigan. “This is literally a stick.”

“Yes, a stick that gives you access to Sparker Plains. No refunds! Keep what I gave you and be off!”

Vincent bit his bony thumb at Harigan. “You’ll rue the day you did this.”

“Not in a million years, Vincent,” Harigan scoffed. Vincent’s nonexistent eyes widened right then and there. Before he could speak, the group left the house in a disgruntled mess.

As the group traveled out of the town, Vincent thought about what Harigan said. “How did he know my name? Only you four should know it.”

“Information has a funny way of moving around,” Pinkie answered. “One moment, nopony knows your name. The next moment, you’re known by everypony with a big surprise! That’s how I treat newcomers to Ponyville!”

“Did any of them run away in panic from that?”

“Uh, no. Why?”

Vincent poked Pinkie in the chest with a bony finger. “I would if that happened to me, so don’t get any ideas, Pinkie Pie pony.”

“I would never make a friend angry for something like that! If you don’t want a party, I won’t do it. It’ll make me sad that you wouldn’t want one, but I’d understand.”

“It’s best you never call me a friend. I’m being nice because I’m stuck with you for now, and we both have a similar goal.”

As Pinkie and Vincent delved into a little conversation about parties and friends, Ty noticed another set of text pop up on his screen. At this point, he was used to the messages.

Derpy Hooves has joined the game.

He decided to not send a message this time and focused on his future plans. He had no care for this next pony. He could watch the entire world fill up with ponies for all he cared.

He might have made the wrong decision at that moment, though.

Act II, Chapter 2: To Sparker Plains We Go

Faygrail, the most glorious and majestic city in all of Bercotta, was covered in green banners and flags. The road stretching from the front gate to the castle had two enormous rows of civilians on its sides. Some of the civilians waved a few flags and hands in the air, some watched the marching soldiers on the road, and others saluted the marching king on the road.

The king walked down the road with his diamond sword in his left hand and his Explosive bow in his right hand. His golden crown reflected the sun’s shine onto his followers’ eyes, and his enchanted diamond armor kept them in a dumbfounded state. Behind him marched ten knights in, quite literally, shining armor. The shiny steel armor that covered their bodies forced anything else that has ever been created to pale in comparison. Red plumes jutted out of their heads and down the backs of their helmets, and plates of metal clinked and clanked as their legs walked across the ground and shifted their bodies. They all carried steel scutum shields presenting a creeper bleeding from its eyes in their left arms, and they raised their steel swords in their right hands high in the sky. Bows and quivers full of arrows stood firm on their backs by a few leather straps. This march was truly a sight to behold.

“I promise all of you,” the king declared as his eyes scanned the crowd, “we will slay that demon and restore peace to all of Minecraftia! Once both the demon and the Mobtrocity have been slain, you will all live prosperous lives!”

“We believe in you!” one of the cititzens shouted. “Go punch that thing in the face!”

“Stomp on its castle like it did to my home!” a beggar demanded with a fist into the air.

“Burn it at the stake!” another citizen bellowed. “That demon deserves a witch’s death!”

The king was almost at the front gate when he gave one last set of sentences to his citizens. “We will make it pay for what it has caused! Knights, off we go to the sea!”

The crowd cheered and chirped at the knights and the king. The group of eleven walked onto a wooden brig docked at Faygrail’s port. The ship already had a few guards on it and some sailors ready for adventure. Once the king and his band of knights settled themselves on the deck, the ship prepared for its newest journey. The brig soon left the port and sailed into the open sea, green banners and flags waving it goodbye from the well guarded city behind it.

“Where to, my liege?” a sailor asked the king.

The king faced the sailor and pointed his sword south. “We set sail for the southern section of the Dramana Ocean. There are a few abandoned fortresses southward that could possibly house these monstrous creatures. The demon must be in one of them.”

“We sail south then, my liege!”

The brig turned to the right with the aid of the wind. The ship continued its sail into the open sea, searching for any nearby forts that could possibly contain the Army of Loyalty. The knights and the king were as determined as they could possibly be. Nothing could break their valorous spirits.

}———————————————————————————————————{

The group of five, now with a set area to go once again, strolled along the path to Sparker Plains. To their luck, the only enemies around were wild zombies and slimes looking for a fight. Whenever the monsters appeared, they soon disappeared after a five second or less fight. With this predictable setup for the journey, it was not long until the quintet had a few questions and concerns.

“So, that creeper head we got is the Acid Stopper, right?” Vincent asked as he turned to Gingerbread.

Gingerbread nodded. “Yes, it is. Why do you ask?”

“Well, that might be an artifact I can use to collect an obsidian block for us.”

“How do you know that?”

“This obsidian block news is not new. Word about the Mobtrocity collecting these special blocks has been around for a few months. One of their first ones was put inside a giant creeper that can only be traveled through with an Acid Stopper. If you don’t have it, your poor body becomes soup.”

“Well, if we can get another block, why don’t we go there then?”

“Only one of us can go since we have only one Acid Stopper, and I’m an assassin that is used to fighting these bloody Mobtrocity alone. It is best I leave for now and get the obsidian block for us.”

“Let him get the block,” Pinkie Pie encouraged to Gingerbread. “We can save the world faster if he leaves for a while.”

Fluttershy steered over to Vincent and looked up at his skull. “Will you come back after you get the block?”

“Trust me, Fluttershy pony, I will,” he replied with a nod. He turned to Gingerbread again and held out a bony hand. “Now, the Acid Stopper, please.”

Gingerbread handed the Acid Stopper to Vincent. He put it on his skull and waved the group goodbye. He then hopped off the path and into the wild forest on the group’s right. Once he disappeared in the trees, the group continued along the path.

Twilight Sparkle remembered the magic book she had and took it out again. She opened the book and glared at the one known and the three unknown spells. Pinkie noticed this and turned her head to the open book. “Do you think the spell will work this time?”

“I don’t know,” Twilight replied as without looking over to Pinkie. “The other spells are still confusing, but this one spell is comprehensible, yet it doesn’t work. Maybe I have something for it.”

“What do you think you need for it? A gem, rune, some sort of magical powder or artifact?”

“Maybe, but I’m not sure yet. None of the items I collected so far have any magic coursing through them. Well, my new bow and my two swords have magic in them, but I don’t think they are what I need for the book.”

“It’s probably an item, then,” Gingerbread concluded. “You’ll probably have to collect a bunch of something to get it.”

Twilight turned to Gingerbread. “Where would I have to get it then?”

“Maybe a chest somewhere or a few special monsters. Whatever it is that can let you use that magic, it must be something that we can easily collect.”

“Um, if you excuse me for a moment,” Fluttershy started as she kept her gaze between Twilight and Gingerbread, “what were those monsters back there? I never seen anything like them.”

They could be a new group of monsters branching off from somewhere. There is more than one group of monsters out there.

“Wait, there are more evil groups other than the Mobtrocity?” Pinkie blurted out in surprise and slight shock.

Yes, but most of them are far from a global threat. A few of them like to hide in their own forts or realms, so there’s no possibility of them becoming a serious problem. However, these monsters in blue might become quite the threat soon if they can overpower the Mobtrocity’s forces.

“That means we need to get better weapons and armor,” Twilight suggested. “Next time we go to a store, we should get some higher leveled armor.”

Good luck getting any iron armor around here. Due to severe iron shortages around the mainland, there’s barely any iron here to create a piece of armor. The Mobtrocity has all of the iron.

“There goes getting stronger,” Twilight sighed with displeasure. She then realized something involving the book and items. “Gingerbread, did you get anything unusual from those blue monsters?”

Gingerbread nodded. “Actually, I did. Do you want them?”

“Give me one or two of whatever it is. I’m going to test if it’s what I need for the book.”

Ginger threw two strange glowing shards at Twilight. She picked them up and eyed them carefully for a couple seconds. She definitely felt magic sloshing around inside the shards. After her small study session, Twilight then took out her book and placed the items close to it. She looked at the first spell and recited its command. “Regenera maxima!”

The two shards melted into white light and pooled on the spell’s command. The light seeped into the page and shifted the black text into a glowing aqua blue. The next spell’s letters shifted from their awkward slashes and curves into readable text. The words ‘blizzarus sumona’ replaced the archaic scribbles.

Twilight stared at the glowing aqua words and back at the new command. “Okay, that just happened.”

“Do you have its power now?” Pinkie asked.

“I have no idea. All I know is that the two words I said in this book are now filled with magic. I guess I activated the spell.”

“Maybe you could use it next time we’re in a big battle. They must have some special effect if you say the words again. Oh, do you remember the words?”

“I think I do. Regenera maxima, right?” Twilight glanced at the still glowing words. “Yup, I remember them.”

By the time Twilight put the book back in her inventory, the group was at the entrance to Sparker Plains. The eerie souls in the wall in front of them moaned and whispered an unrecognizable language. Their faces always kept themselves in contorted, blood-curdling frowns.

Gingerbread walked up to the soul door and whacked it with the Sparker Key, or the stick of knockback II. The souls melted away and into the ground to reveal a large expanse of grass and shrubbery on the other side of the natural dirt and stone wall.

The quartet walked through the two by two hole into Sparker Plains. The first monster they noticed was a normal red slime hopping in the distance. A bigger one, even farther away, attempted to hop into the side of a tree trunk. However, what stood out the most in the stretch of land was what happened with the sky. The sun was setting on the group’s right, a sight that both surprised the ponies and made them somewhat happy for the world.

“The sun is setting already?” asked a perplexed Twilight. “It was dawn about ten minutes ago!”

“Oh, I guess I should have talked about that,” commented Gingerbread. “Days here are twenty minutes long. That’s why the sun is setting right now.”

“So, it’ll be daytime again in about five minutes or so?”

“Yeah. After a few days, you’ll get used to this.”

Fluttershy was the only one who saw the dangerous side of the night. When she spoke, her words were trembling with her body. “Um, Ty, did you say earlier that those scary monsters are supposed to come out at night?”

Yes, I did. That means you’ll have to get ready to fight.

The sun lowered even more to the point that over three quarters of it was covered by the distant terrain. The landscape darkened, the sky twinkled with dozens of stars and constellations, and the plains roared with activity. Creepers hopped out of the few trees in the plains, zombies and skeletons dug themselves out of the ground, and spiders crept from dark and cluttered spaces into the open fields. Despite the monsters being several blocks away from the quartet, the ponies still felt wary of them.

“Okay, we might want to find a village very soon,” Twilight warned the group. “Does anypony see a village?”

“There’s one over there!” Pinkie pointed a hoof over to a distant village surrounded by a cobblestone wall.

“There’s also another store next to a, small amusement park?” Fluttershy cocked her head at the odd structures next to another one of Ty’s Mobile Shops.

I honestly have no idea what that thing is supposed to be. If you want to try it out, wait until daytime. The tunnel is crawling with monsters at night.

The group prepared themselves for battle and continued along the path to the village. They smacked at and struck a few zombies that shuffled a few blocks too close to them. A couple spiders scuttled towards them and caused a few cuts and bruises on the ponies. A couple skeletons got creative with their bows and fired from a few trees, treating them as either watchtowers or cover from Twilight. One creeper crept up to Pinkie with a couple hisses escaping from its throat. She kicked it back and sliced it in the face. After a few critical hits, the creeper fell onto the ground and hissed one last time.

Once the quartet ignored the empty stables and reached the front gate of the village, they met a guard from one of the two towers on the wall’s two front corners. The guard glared down at the ponies and shouted at them. “Hey, who are you and what are you doing here? Can’t you see that the gate is closed for a reason?”

“We can see that,” Twilight replied back to the guard, “but we’re here for safety. There are monsters everywhere out here!”

“Of course there is! It’s night! What else did you expect?”

“We’re also here for some help to collect the obsidian blocks!” Pinkie added. “We’re trying to stop those Mobtrocity meanies from destroying your world!”

The guard rubbed his chin for a second. “Hmm, you all don’t look too dangerous, and I’ve never seen creatures as slick as you three. Let me see what the mayor thinks for a moment.”

The guard climbed down from the tower and ran through half of the town to the mayor’s home. After about fifteen seconds—enough time for a trio of zombies to irritate and hurt the quartet—the guard exited the house and hustled to the front gate. He flicked a switch that raised the iron gate up to the top of the gateway.

“You can come in, now.” The guard gestured the group inside the village. Gingerbread and the ponies walked through the gateway and into the village. “Welcome to Norgray, travelers. Before you do anything, you might want to talk to the mayor first.”

“I’m guessing the mayor is in the house you were just in, right?” Gingerbread proposed.

“Yes. Now, move along. I got a gate to watch.”

The group walked over to the large wooden house. Along the way to the house, Twilight found another checkpoint and flicked its lever.

Twilight Sparkle, Gingerbread, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy’s spawnpoints have been saved.

They stepped onto its small porch and opened the front door. Even though the house could be considered large, the chests, beds, crafting tables, furnaces, and ender chest in it sapped most of the space in the house. The supposed mayor, a villager with a blue robe, blue eyes, and a monocle over his right eye, stood next to his bed and greeted the quartet.

“Welcome to Norgray, newcomers,” he greeted with gusto. His voice was deep and full of joy. “I’m Mayor Everest. What about you four?”

Gingerbread took a step towards the mayor. “I’m Gingerbread, that’s Twilight, that’s Pinkie Pie, and she’s Fluttershy. We’re wondering if you have any news or items involving the sacred obsidian blocks.”

“In fact, I do. Hold up for just a second.” Mayor Everest reached into a chest next to him and took out an odd key shaped bone. “I have a key to the Universal Graveyard, but I’m not willing to part with it just yet.”

“We need to do a few quests for the people in the village, I get it,” Twilight bluntly interrupted with her head and ears down. Pinkie kept her eyes locked on Ty’s moving figure, giving him a few chills and shudders from her perfect accuracy.

“Actually, I need Sparker Plains cleared of these new monsters. I would be happy to give it to you, but I’m afraid of what may happen to it if these new monsters steal it from you.”

“What monsters are you talking about?” Gingerbread asked as he took out his stone sword. “We’ve fought several different monsters. How can these ones prove to be so dangerous that you’d rather keep the key than give it to us?”

“They’re nothing like what I’ve seen. One of them was a zombie taller than an enderman and bulkier than a strongman. They all had glowing eyes and wore blue vests on their bodies. I don’t know where they came from, but they are why I have tightened security in Norgray.”

“So, if we kill these monsters for you, will you give us the key?”

Mayor Everest nodded. “You need to give me the big zombie’s head as proof, though. I need to know if that thing is dead or not.”

“Don’t worry, mayor, we got it!” Pinkie chirped. “You’ll never have to deal with it ever again!”

“Thank you. It’s actually been some time since I have heard such a pleasant voice. May I wish you luck on your quest.”

The quartet funneled out of the house and back into Sparker Plains. The full moon’s glow radiated throughout the plains and revealed a few blue encampments to the west side of Norgray. A few zombies, skeletons, and spiders in light blue attire ambled around their flickering campfires. One of the zombies was obviously bigger, more muscular, and angrier than the others. It held two huge iron axes, one for each hand. A large light blue vest wrapped around its chest, blue jeans covered its legs, and black shoes protected its feet. Its eyes glowed orange, and its skin bore a hue redder than an enraged goliath. The lumbering giant swiveled its unusually normal sized head to the left and right, searching for something to slice with its axes.

The pure might of the zombie not only made Fluttershy shudder in terror, it made Pinkie and Twilight shiver and whimper. Pinkie pointed a shaky hoof at the giant. “That’s, one big zombie. No wonder the mayor is afraid of it.”

“It shouldn’t be too bad,” Gingerbread replied with an underestimation. “Let’s go wreck it and its friends’ faces and get that key.”

Gingerbread approached the camps head-on, and the trio of ponies reluctantly followed him from the back. One of the zombies looked over at Gingerbread and drew his wooden sword. He spat at a patch of grass next to him and sliced the air. “Well well well, these punks look like they wanna fight. Wait a second, are those three, are they little multicolored horses?” That statement made Twilight grunt bitterly through her fear. “I have a feeling they want to take our empress down. Well, we’re not gonna let that happen, ain’t that right James?”

“Righto,” the giant replied with a guttural grunt. “Gonna smash some punks.”

The other zombies and skeletons took out their bows and wooden swords. Two of the skeletons climbed onto two spiders and tested their bows’ strings. The rest of the spiders hissed at the quartet and readied themselves for leaping. The giant spun his axes and faced them at Gingerbread.

“Are you gonna back off, or are we gonna have to clobber ya?” shouted and asked one of the skeletons.

“We’re not going to surrender,” Gingerbread demanded.

“Too bad, boy. Get ready to visit pain central!”

The skeletons pulled back their bows’ strings and fired a quiver of arrows at the quartet. Gingerbread and the now armed pony trio scattered across the encampment. The spiders crawled over to Twilight first and leapt at her. She used her Defense Sword against the spiders, knocking them back into the camps. Some of them caught on fire and slowly burned in huge gouts of flames. Three of the eight zombies shimmied to Gingerbread and swung their swords at him. He dodged a few, took a few, and blocked a few. He then retaliated with a few swings straight into their heads and sides. Two of the zombies fell down, and two more lost half their lives.

Pinkie bounced around the battlefield and locked her attention to the skeletons in the back. She dodged most of their arrows, but a few luckier ones struck her legs and sides, causing a little bit of bleeding. She shrugged them off and kept giggling and wheeing playfully as she flew through the air. She landed on one skeleton and smacked it thrice. She then hopped to one of the spider jockeys and gave equal strikes to both the spider and the skeleton. She eventually felled both of them with a few more scratches. She took out an apple and chomped on it with a big bite. She bit into it again, finishing the apple and replenishing some lost stamina. Two more skeletons shot a few arrows at her and attempted to flank her from behind. They failed once she swung into both of them. Two severed skulls then bounced into the air and next to Gingerbread.

The giant turned his enormous body to Fluttershy and growled like a furious bear. She gave a loud whimper and squeal before flying upwards and out of the giant’s path. He rammed at Fluttershy’s original location before stopping to face her. He swung an axe right at her and missed. Fluttershy flew a little higher and squealed again. The giant then hopped upwards and struck her with both axes, smacking her downward. She screamed and panicked as she crashed right into one of the tents. The giant then walked over to the tent and smashed one axe into it. Fluttershy rolled out of the axe’s way and scampered a dozen blocks away from him.

Gingerbread smacked the last two zombies next to him once more, breaking his first stone sword. He took out his second and looked over at the giant turning to the skittering pegasus only twenty blocks from the shore. He sprinted to the giant and sliced his sword into its leg. The giant grunted and punched Gingerbread’s face with the back of his hand. Gingerbread flew back into the ground. He got up and faced the giant again, this time only taunting the giant to approach him. The giant hustled over to Gingerbread and pounded his axes onto the ground, leaving his head open for anything. Gingerbread sliced at his head thrice before hopping away from an incoming axe. He took out a steak and bit into it three times, stimulating his slow health regeneration. The giant slammed his axes into the ground again, missing Gingerbread again. Gingerbread hopped onto the giant’s back and smacked his head three times again. He then stabbed his stone sword into the giant’s cranium. The giant dropped his gargantuan axes as he tumbled onto the grassy ground. The giant and his weapons vanished into white smoke before disappearing entirely. All that remained was his normal sized head, some hefty experience, a white shard, and some rotten flesh.

Twilight smacked three more incoming spiders with her Little Burner. The spiders caught on fire and flipped onto their sides in defeat. She then put it away and took out her Magical Bow. She aimed it at the three remaining skeletons and fired a volley into their heads. She kept her arrows from hitting Pinkie Pie’s twisting, turning, and leaping body. She soon downed two skeletons and crippled another. Pinkie slashed the last skeleton with a final killing blow and collected its loot.

Fluttershy scrambled back to the group and hugged Gingerbread for comfort. She shook and chattered as she dug her head into his side. Pinkie ripped out a few arrows form her mane, tail, and body and chomped at another apple in almost perfect unison with Twilight’s munching of her apple. Gingerbread checked his life before collecting the giant’s head. He put it in his inventory and dragged his constrained feet over to Twilight and Pinkie.

Gingerbread got sick of the slowness and tapped Fluttershy with his sword. “Can you let go of me? I can’t move with you hugging me like that.”

Fluttershy glanced up at Gingerbread and released her hold. “Sorry, you just make me feel safe. Also, thank you for stopping that giant monster. Celestia knows what would’ve happened to me if you didn’t stop it.”

“My pleasure, Fluttershy.” Gingerbread faced the other two ponies and held up the giant’s head. “Let’s go get that key.”

The group fought two wild zombies and a red slime as they ventured back to Mayor Everest. Once they returned to his house, Gingerbread handed the giant’s head to him. He repulsed and pushed it away with a stuck out tongue, but he still studied its eyes and face.

“The red skin gives it away,” Mayor Everest noted. “You definitely slain the giant zombie. Well, here you go.” He handed the Dead Key to Gingerbread. “May you have my blessing on your travels. You four are welcome in my village at any time.”

Twilight yawned as she stepped over to the mayor. “Mayor Everest, do you have some sort of inn for us to stay at? I’m really tired from all this fighting today.”

“Me too,” Pinkie admitted as curled up on top of the crafting table. “I need sleep hours right now.”

“The farmer here has an entire house he uses as an inn,” the mayor answered. “You two can sleep there if you want to. What about you, Gingerbread?”

“I don’t need any sleep,” Gingerbread answered with a possibly unbelievable truth. “I can fight for weeks without sleep.”

Mayor Everest turned to Fluttershy. “And you?”

“I could take a nap for a little while,” Fluttershy replied with a slightly groggy voice. " I don’t know how I can nap for four minutes, though.”

Me neither, but you can give it a try. I know for sure that it works for me and Gingerbread, so why wouldn’t it for you?

The quartet exited the house and looked around the village. Gingerbread noticed another big building next to a farm and smacked his sword toward it. “I think that’s the farmer’s house. You three get your rest while I make sure you stay safe.”

The trio of ponies trotted over and into the farmer’s house. They found a few beds aligned in a row on their left and picked the ones they desired. Pinkie dove into hers and snuggled up in her bed. Twilight levitated her blanket over her bed and laid it on her resting body. Fluttershy gently rolled into hers and tugged the blanket up to her face. To their surprise, they fell asleep in less than three seconds. Gingerbread heard a few snores a second later, too.

Are they asleep?

“I think so,” Gingerbread replied with a quieter than normal voice.

Alright, I don’t think they have insane hearing in their sleep, so we can talk to each other until dawn.

“Alright, first thing’s first, what do you think about these ponies, Ty?”

They’re pretty interesting and fun. They’re a nice addition to my adventure map, and I hope this doesn’t turn into some stupid ‘let’s go home’ thing with them leaving out of nowhere.

“I doubt that’ll happen. Another pony came in the world when we were leaving Harigan Harbor. I think this will continue for some time.”

Me too. Oh yeah, do you remember any of them by chance?

“Pinkie Pie is the one I remember the most. She’s also the one that creeps me out the most. I mean, how can she even know what my name is, know what I’m doing outside of the game, know your location, and know how this game works? Is she really that powerful?”

I don’t know, but I’m not looking forward to her coming through my screen and into my room. If that happens, I’m out of here.

“It might happen soon though, Ty. We might as well deal with it than run from it like what you did earlier.”

Oh shut up! You know how much I hate jumpscares, and this is no ordinary horror trash jumpscare, it’s a real event that I can’t control. Does it creep you out even the slightest bit that we have ponies from a show in my world? Just from them existing, I’m afraid to even turn off my console.

“You’re afraid you’ll kill them, right?”

Who knows what’ll happen! I don’t want to ruin the most important moment of our lives, and I definitely don’t want to have to remember killing all of them for the rest of my life. Oh, back to Pinkie for a second. Do you think she knows about this being a game?

“She’s definitely treating it like one. If she knows who we really are, then she must know where she is, right?”

Yeah. The one pony I currently like the most is the same one that knows that I’m the mastermind. Just fantastic.

“What about Twilight? You had to of loved it when she got crazy.”

Her breakdowns are the best. It’s always a great sight to see her shoot my monsters in the face or freak out from a villager. Even though I love a good show, it’s hard for me to make the battles tough for them. That last one was a challenge for me. Every time I see a bruise or cut on them, I feel like I’m committing a murder on them. It just, feels bad.

“Don’t worry, Ty. You’re only holding them against their will.”

Like you’re any better.

“I am. It’s called not beating them senseless whenever I can.”

I didn’t mean it like that! Who in their right mind would even hurt them like that? Twilight is the easiest to hurt, but I still don’t like to hurt her. Pinkie is too happy, bubbly, giggly, and comforting for me to hurt her, and Fluttershy’s whimpers and crying make me feel like a genocidal maniac like Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers. They’re too innocent to hurt.

Gingerbread’s voice got a little more playful. “You’re falling into their trap! Resist the pony, Ty!” Ty chuckled a little and decided to play along with him.

Theyre getting into my brens! I can’t unsee them, Jake!

Gingerbread looked over to his right to see a sliver of sun poking out in the east. “Well, it’s getting close to daytime. We better end our conversation soon before they overhear us.” Ty sighed.

Yeah, we should. I hope I get to talk to you again later, but I’m also a little glad we can get back to the adventure. I just can’t wait to see what will happen.

“Me neither. Also, one last thing before I return to kind of playing as a character, you did a really good job on this map. It’s quite amazing how you can pull all of this off.”

Well, when you play with someone who’s ran this map for a couple years and had a few other people like Crazy or Equal Expert play through it, you get good at it. I just love being the mind of the game itself.

The sun rose up from the landscape a little more, brightening the sky and drowning the stars in its glory. “Well, I’ll talk to you later, Ty.”

You too.

Gingerbread returned to his idle state next to the farmer’s front door. As Ty’s voice vanished from the air, a few cute yawns and rustles of bedding trickled out of the house.

Act II, Chapter 3: Time to Kind of Desecrate a Graveyard

Mayor Butter Gamer, the supposed authority figure of Derp Village, gazed out into the morning sky, watching a couple Mobtrocity dropships soar above the cloud layer. He munched on his loaf of bread and wondered when he was going to be free of this village. He hated it to the core. Everyone in the village called him a useless geek, even his own guards and Water, his iron golem. He thought about packing up and leaving the town for good to start a new life involving culinary goods, but he was bound by a contract with Millstown to stay in Derp Village until another mayor replaced his position. Sadly, the locals wanted him to be the mayor, but they were too closed-minded to even accept any educational ideas or suggestions. The locals continued on with life, constructing crappy walls out of clay and sticks and slapping weeds on a sandwich and calling it lettuce. It was the same reason the village was so poor, backwards, and ignorant, yet even the highest authority figure in the town had no control over this issue and anything that could end it.

That all changed when a lone figure walked through the destroyed gate. The guards guarding the gate slept beside the gate, not paying any attention to the possibly dangerous figure. The figure slowly walked around the town and eyed the different buildings and structures. It cocked its head at some and shook its head at others, usually either baffled or displeased form the lack of architecture.

The figure walked into the only stable home of Mayor Butter Gamer. It opened the door, catching the attention of the mayor. What he noticed was something that either made him relieved or worried of the near future. Great, another one, he thought to himself. Please let it be as smart as the last ones. Just give me that.

The figure he was watching was a lone pegasus mare. It wore a gray coat and a blond mane and tail. It was the usual height for a pony, not too big or too small. It carried no armor or weapons, possibly nothing else either. Seven bubbles presented themselves as its cutie mark, something that Mayor Butter Gamer could not understand. Its irises were the same color as its mane—blond. The only off-putting feature about the mare was its eyes. The mayor could tell it had an easily noticeable walleye in one of them. This confused him a little, but he shrugged it off as he greeted the mare.

“Welcome to Derp Village,” Mayor Butter Gamer declared to the mare. “I’m Butter Gamer, the mayor of this village. If you have any questions, please ask. I have many answers.”

“Can you tell me where I am?” the mare asked the mayor.

The mayor looked out the window a second time before answering her question. He kept his tone as welcoming and nice as possible. “You’re in the world of Minecraftia, and you’re on the continent of Bercotta. I already told you that the town is Derp Village.”

“That’s odd how this place is named after me.” The mare glanced around at the different items in the house.

“Named after you? Care to tell me your name?”

“It’s Derpy Hooves, but nopony really calls me that anymore. Also, what is with your town? I’m not a carpenter or anything, but I don’t think houses are supposed to look like that.”

The mayor struggled to keep a smile as he remembered the idiocracy he ran. “Oh, right, the town. Do you mind if I let out some steam?”

Derpy nodded and waited for something to happen.

Mayor Butter Gamer stopped smiling and slammed his loaf of bread on his head. “The entire town is full of village idiots! Everyone here eats with the back of their spoons and forks, think the sky is purple, and can’t count to what’s on their hands! I’ve tried and tried and tried to make them somewhat good at, anything, but they wouldn’t listen! They tell me, ‘Oh, stop being such a geek and let us do our work.’ Well, why don’t you stop placing sticks in clay and calling it a solid foundation! I can’t take these people! I can’t take them!”

Derpy watched the mayor flail his arms around and grumble about his suffering. “I never knew that you were treated so badly. Is there anything I can do to help?”

The mayor was now sobbing in his folded arms. “You could try to knock some sense into them, but good luck with that. They’ll blow you off like what they did to me.”

Despite Mayor Butter Gamer’s statement, Derpy decided to do just that anyway. She exited the house and looked closely for someone she could talk to nearby. She noticed two construction workers, or who seemed to be two construction workers, placing random clay blocks next to an uneven clay wall. She walked up to them and tapped one of their shoulders.

“What it is?” The worker turned to face Derpy, but his disgruntled face melted away as her eyes mesmerized him.

“Um, I don’t want to be rude to you, but I think you should be using stone for the wall, not clay,” Derpy stammered from her own nervousness. The worker didn’t immediately reply or react.

The worker suddenly bowed and jumbled a few words out of his mouth. “Stone I’ll use.” The worker gave an awkward frown to Derpy. “Stone is what?”

Derpy looked around and noticed the cobblestone as the foundation for Butter Gamer’s house. She pointed a single hoof at it. “That’s stone. You get it from the ground.”

“Do you mean weird dust junk under grass?” the other worker asked.

“Can you show me what you’re talking about?”

The worker took out a stone axe and dug straight down until he hit stone. He tapped the stone with his axe. “This stuff!”

Derpy walked over to the hole and glanced at what the worker was talking about. “Yes, that stuff.”

One of the locals walked over to the workers and waved at them. “Hey Pillow, how are you...” The person’s words trailed off as he noticed Derpy’s eyes. His eyes grew wide, and he suddenly bowed down to her. “In all of my life, I never seen something that can see everything! You must be a god!”

“Wait, a god?” Derpy cocked her head at the bowing person.

One of the workers turned his head to her. “Your eyes split. You see in all ways and everything.”

“So, I’m a god because of my eyes?”

“Yes. No one has all seeing eyes except for you. You must be god then.”

Derpy began to make a few conclusions. “If I’m your god, does that mean I’m also your ruler?”

“Yes.”

Derpy had no idea how to handle this news. She was now the leader of Derp Village despite her nonexistent desires of becoming one. The people were now hers to command, and they did not care what they had to do for her. As long as what they did made her happy, they would do it for her.

Mayor Butter Gamer noticed the unusual reaction of the people towards Derpy. He checked the situation through one of his windows. The crowd of village idiots plastered a long gone smile on his suffering face. He reached into his chest and pulled everything that he needed out of it. He then walked out of his house and towards the front gate.

Derpy noticed Butter Gamer and turned to him with a baffled stare. “Where are you going? I thought you were supposed to stay here.”

“I am!” he hollered from the gate. “I’m going to take a well deserved break for a while. Whenever you finally set these people straight, I’ll come back and be their mayor again. Are you okay with that?”

Derpy took a few seconds to respond. She also shouted just in case the mayor couldn’t hear her. “If you’re going for a break, sure! I’ll get you after these people are smart again!”

“Thank you, Derpy. You’re a good person. Er, I guess it’s pony for this occasion.”

Mayor Butter Gamer walked through the broken gate, leaving Derpy with the locals. Most of them bowed to her and called her a god. The ones she told to do a few things did them as precisely and carefully as they could, despite their lack of experience or intelligence for them.

}———————————————————————————————————{

Twilight Sparkle gently rolled around in her bed. As the sun crept up from one of the house’s windows, she felt more and more awake with every new sliver of yellow pixels. She felt wide awake after a few more seconds. She crawled out of her bed, surprised to find her armor still on her body and not set aside. She stretched her body for a second and yawned to drain all of the sleep from her mind. She then looked over to Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie. They both were crawled out of their beds and readied themselves for the new twenty minute day. Pinkie was much quicker with her preparations, though.

“Good morning, Twily!” Pinkie chirped over to Twilight. “Ready for more adventure?”

“I’m just surprised that this all wasn’t a dream,” Twilight responded, not answering Pinkie’s question. “We’re still in this weird world?”

“Of course we are! We don’t have a way back to Equestria yet.”

Gingerbread walked into the house through the front door. He immediately turned to the trio of ponies. “Are you three ready to go to the Universal Graveyard?”

Pinkie turned to Gingerbread, keeping her warm smile. “Why don’t we try that amusement park that Ty was talking about?”

It’s not that big. You’ll still have plenty of time if you visit the park.

Gingerbread shrugged. “Sure. If that’s what you three want, then I’m perfectly fine with it.”

Pinkie hopped in the air and cheered with glee. In less than a second later, she sprung from the air to Norgray’s front gate, waiting for the others as she continuously hopped in the air. The other two ponies walked over to Gingerbread with their swords ready.

Are we going now?” Twilight asked. Gingerbread only nodded in reply and walked out of the house. The duo followed him through the clay streets and to the gate. Once they reached Pinkie, she sprung from the gate to the odd structure in the distance. Gingerbread and the two other ponies kept following her until they reached the structure and gave it a through examination.

A looping minecart track snaked around in a medium sized pool of water. It twisted around a small functioning lighthouse, rolled up a small stone brick arch, and curled around inside a U-shaped tunnel. A giant wooden villager head hung from the tunnel’s right side with a couple small shaky movements per minute. Its eyes were emeralds, and its nose was bigger than the ponies and Gingerbread. The entire head itself was much, much bigger than the original scale, as one block equaled one pixel on the villager head. Four minecarts sat between the lighthouse and arch. The first two were regular minecarts, the third one was a minecart with a chest in it, and the last one was a minecart with a furnace in it. They all sat in an idle state, not moving a single pixel in any direction.

So, there it is. It’s something if anything. Have as much fun with it as you can.

Pinkie decided to be the first to test the strange ride. She hopped into one of the two vacant minecarts, nudging herself and the minecart a couple pixels forward. She glanced at each minecart and gave a small frown to them. “Isn’t this supposed to be moving on its own?”

“The furnace in a minecart is able to move the minecarts,” Gingerbread answered as he stepped into the shallow water. “All it needs is some coal to activate it.”

Pinkie shifted her gaze directly at the chest behind her. She flipped the top open and dug into it. She rummaged through several pieces of coal and took a few out of the chest. She then hopped over to the furnace and slapped a few coal pieces into it. Before it started moving the minecarts, she hopped back into her cart and waited for the ride to start.

Does anyone else care to join her?

“I guess I could join,” Gingerbread admitted. “I’m curious on what this thing is anyway.”

Gingerbread fell into the water and climbed into the vacant minecart. The minecart chain accelerated until it reached a quick but reasonable speed. It rolled over the arch and into the U-turn tunnel. Pinkie squealed in delight and waved her front hooves around. Gingerbread could hear her loud screams since she was right behind him. The minecart chain eventually rolled out the darkness in the tunnel and turned right to the lighthouse. It looped around it in a twisty yet blocky fashion and returned to the starting rail. It kept traveling the same path over and over again, steadily draining Pinkie’s excitement and Gingerbread’s care for the ride. The furnace soon lost its fuel and slowed the chain down. After about a few more seconds, it had too little power to move the chain up the arch. The chain stopped right behind the arch and rolled four pixels backwards.

“Well, it was fun for the first few runs,” Pinkie admitted. “That ride gets dull pretty quick.”

“It almost feels like my ears are peeling off my head,” Gingerbread groaned as he covered his right ear with one hand.

Fluttershy looked over to the minecarts and back to the approaching Pinkie and Gingerbread. “Do you want to go again, or no?” Gingerbread shook his head, and Pinkie put a hoof to her chin and tapped her left hind leg a second. She also replied with a swift shake.

“Alright, let’s go to the Universal Graveyard.” Twilight turned away from the group and walked aimlessly. She slowed to a stop in seconds. “Wait, where is it anyway?”

See that big stone brick tower over to your left? That’s the graveyard.

Twilight turned her head and saw the tower Ty mentioned. An iron railing and cobblestone wall connected to the tower encased the adjacent graveyard. A single gate in the wall blocked by another soul door sat on the east side of the graveyard.

Gingerbread walked around Twilight and headed for the graveyard’s entrance. He took out the Dead Key and smacked the soul door with it. The souls melted into the ground and revealed a small section full of gravestones, signs, and identical roses in pots. The trio of ponies noticed the opened gate and hustled over to Gingerbread. All four of them entered the graveyard with caution.

The first thing they felt was the awkward, dead touch of the grass. It was gray and crusty, giving no feeling to Gingerbread yet giving a sickly feeling of crunchy, dry paper and stringy, sticky dirt to the ponies. Rapid fear flooded Pinkie Pie’s mind once she felt a bone in the dirt. Even though she wanted to gallop far away from the graveyard at that moment, the gate denied her urge by locking itself with a soul door, trapping her with her friends and the dead ground.

Pinkie shivered a little as she accidentally cracked a brittle tibia. “Girls, I don’t like this.” Her voice grew squeaky and creaky from her subtle shaking and chattering. “This place is too creepy for me.”

“Well, I don’t feel very happy about standing here, either,” Fluttershy responded with a calm yet shaky voice, “but there shouldn’t be anything bad here, right? It is just a simple graveyard. It’s not like a few zombies will come out of the ground or anything, right?”

Ehm, you might want to reconsider that. We’re following Miencraftian rules, not Equestrian rules. In this world, the dead still live on.

As Fluttershy’s body shuddered and neared Pinkie for comfort, Gingerbread examined the gravestones and the signs on them. “Larry Jillin, he died of boredom. Well, that sounds possible.”

“How do you die of boredom?” Twilight questioned as she walked over to the grave. “That’s not possible.”

Tell that to Larry and Kenny. They both died of boredom.

Twilight turned to another gravestone and narrowed her eyes at its sign. “Sharkie Jam, he died by failing a test? How do these things happen?”

Don’t worry, they keep getting better.

“Holdin Guarde, he used to be an adventurer,” Gingerbread snickered at another grave. “Really, Ty? Gary Wilber, he died by being nuked. I wonder how mad someone must’ve been to nuke just one person. Pylon Tesla, he was killed to death, because that can happen.”

“Hey, one that makes some sense!” Twilight blurted. “Ty the Traveler, the four legged things ended it. What four legged things?”

It would spoil the surprise if I told you.

Pinkie zipped over to the gravestone and analyzed it. Fluttershy was still clinging onto her side. “Four legs, four legs, aha! You mean creepers, right? They have four legs!”

Nope.

“Hmm, something from this world that has four legs. No clue.”

Twilight walked over to another grave and inspected it. “Randy Jearl, he died by a Tree Guardia-Ahh!”

A rotting arm crawled out of the grave and grabbed twilight’s left foreleg. She smacked the arm with her Little Burner, setting it alight and forcing it down into the ground. The arm let go of her and flailed around until it stopped moving and dissipated into smoke. More arms from three other graves ripped out and pulled three zombielike corpses out of the ground. They wore ragged shirts and jeans, and some parts of their bones were visible. Their eyes glowed blue, the same color as the mummies from the Temple of the Lost Tombs. They released a chorus of groggy groans that slithered out of their open mouths. Once these Risen escaped the clutches of their resting places, they shambled towards Pinkie and Gingerbread.

Gingerbread sliced one of the Risen in the chest three times. It responded with a smack to Gingerbread’s face and another on his chest. Pinkie spun into the other two and struck them with her stone sword. They soared back into a stone brick wall before regaining their senses and staring straight at her. She hopped over to the Risen and diced their heads with her sword. They both collapsed as Gingerbread’s Risen took a fatal blow to the leg. All three of them dissipated into smoke and left some rotten flesh and experience behind.

Fluttershy hyperventilated and holed up herself in a corner behind a grave. She shivered and held out a shaky stone sword to defend herself. “Are they gone? Is that it?”

“Maybe,” Pinkie guessed as she sucked up a pool of experience points. “We should check the graves next time before they surprise us like that again.”

Twilight checked the untouched graves around her. “There’s no movement. Maybe we’re done here.”

“By the look of that door over there, we are.” Pinkie pointed to a melting soul door that led into a structured dirt mound.

The quartet funneled themselves through the one by two blocks entryway and into another area inside the dirt construct. Acacia logs supported a nine by nine by four blocks area containing eight more graves. A plus sign hole covered by black stained glass gave a dim light from the open sky from the middle of the ceiling. Two more soul doors were in the area, both of them refusing to budge.

By the time Gingerbread entered the area, five more Risen—one of them wielding an iron shovel and another one wearing leather armor—dug themselves out of their graves and faced him. Twilight took out her magical bow and shot at the leather clad Risen three times in the chest. It stumbled backwards a little and kept shuffling towards Twilight with three new arrows sticking out of its body.

Two unarmed Risen waddled over to Gingerbread and smacked him with their rotting arms. He backed away and hacked at one of them, almost killing them, but not to where they were less of a problem. The two Risen walked up to him again and unleashed another round of smacks, lowering Gingerbread to a fifth of his maximum health. Pinkie gave the killing blow to the injured Risen, and Twilight sliced through the other one’s chest with her Little Burner. Once Gingerbread regained a tenth of his health back, he slammed down two killing critical hits on the second Risen.

The leather clad Risen shuffled over to Fluttershy—the closest target for him. He swung his arms in her direction and missed once she panicked and flew around him. The corpse felt a stabbing pain as it noticed a stone sword stuck into its chest. The Risen fell to the ground and degenerated into smoke. Fluttershy, the one who stabbed the corpse, almost cried over what she had done. “I’m so sorry, but you can’t hurt my friends! I don’t have any other choice!”

The iron shovel wielding Risen, along with an unarmed partner, cornered Fluttershy again. She swung her sword involuntarily into them, but it was deflected by the end of the shovel. She stumbled backwards into an acacia pillar and recoiled from the corpses’ disgusting bodies. Twilight Sparkle heard Fluttershy’s small squeals and shot two arrows into both of the Risen. They shifted their attention to her and growled a couple unintelligible curses at her. She fired two more into them as Fluttershy flew next to Gingerbread. The Risen began their small journey to Twilight as more and more arrows stabbed into them. When they finally got to her, she smacked both of them back with her Little Burner, killing them both in two fiery hits.

With the area now free from dangerous monsters, Gingerbread resumed to doing what he wanted to. He was reading more graves. “Ember Uliva, she died by math. Another death that I want to question so badly.”

Pinkie Pie shuddered before she read the grave she had out loud. “Terabite Annual, he was ground to death. That’s just horrible.”

Some of these people had bitter endings to their lives, and some had odd endings. It’s pretty much how a graveyard works.

Twilight turned her head to the other three as she pointed a hoof to another grave and munched on an apple. “This one is pretty weird. Clyde Dyed, he died in dye. There’s no way that this grave can actually exist. That is too much of a coincidence.”

Yet it does. Try to disprove it if you want to make any sense of it.

“On second thought, maybe I’ll just accept the grave for now. Trying to disprove it’s existence will involve too much desecration and studying to where we’ll lose track of our quest.”

The two soul doors melted away and revealed two more rooms. The bigger soul door behind the group led to a smaller room with two graves and a dirt staircase. The other room was nine by eight by four blocks, and it contained only four graves in it. More light from the sky shone down from a two block wide hole in its ceiling.

Two more Risen emerged from the smaller room. One brandished an iron sword with sharpness I, and the other wore a chainmail helmet and chestplate and held an iron shovel. They both shimmied out of the room and to the quartet, ready to attack whenever they wanted to.

A single blue eyed skeleton in the other room emerged from a grave along with four squirming silvery creatures much smaller than a block. They had black eyes and short, fat bodies that squirmed around on the floor like fish in water. The creatures squirmed towards the group, and the skeleton prepared a shot with his bow and quiver of arrows.

Gingerbread sprung over to the two Risen and slashed both of them with his stone sword. He gave a few more slashes until they struck him enough times to force him on the brink of death. Twilight focused on the skeleton firing arrow after arrow at her. Three of the five pierced her body, and the two others lodged into her mane and tail. Once she fired a couple arrows back, they struck the skeleton and crunched open a few deadly cracks in its bones. The skeleton fell apart and dissipated into smoke.

The four squirming creatures found their way to Fluttershy. On normal circumstances, Fluttershy would have been passive to them. However, this was no normal situation, and these were no normal creatures. The sheer sight of them forced her to jump in surprise. The creatures hopped onto her and bit into her body. She tried her best to smack them off before they could cause any terrible injuries. Twilight, now free to attack whatever she wanted to, used her levitation abilities on the creatures and pulled them off Fluttershy’s body. She then threw them into an acacia log and galloped over to them. She stabbed her Little Burner into them as precisely as possible. After missing ten times and almost slashing the entire ground with a burning sword, she killed the four creatures.

The two Risen returned to the fight as they inched towards Pinkie. The armored corpse kept himself in the front and acted as a meatshield for the armed striker. Pinkie spun around the Risen and decapitated the armed corpse with one blow. She then backstabbed the armored Risen thrice, killing him with an ending groan. Pinkie sucked up the dropped loot and experience, including the halfway to falling apart chainmail chestplate.

Gingerbread took out a steak and chewed it in two seconds. “Huh, these monsters are getting tougher. If I’m correct, I don’t think a zombie is supposed to take ten hits from a stone sword.”

The reason is because you’re dealing with a new rank of undead. Just so you know, these enemies aren’t going to stay weak and frail forever. If you think you’ll be able to take down zombies in two hits from a diamond sword, I’m here to say that you are dead wrong! As what some, unusual, people say, git gud.

“That’s right, everypony!” Pinkie barked loud enough for the sleeping corpses to hear her. “If you collect all of these things these meanies are dropping, you can get strong enough to ignore them! Until then, find more loot!”

“That’s a lot of humans who died in a factory,” Twilight mused, completely ignoring Pinkie’s words.

Gingerbread walked to her and checked the four new graves she examined. “That is a lot of people, if four is a lot to you.”

“Wait, what do you mean by that?”

“What if I told you that four million people died in a factory?”

Twilight’s face contorted into wide eyes and a gaping frown. “Then I’d be horrified! How can so many die?”

“I can tell you that there were people that I heard of that killed way more than ten million. Try to wrap that around your head.”

Twilight’s voice lowered as she spoke to herself. “Equestria’s population in ponies doesn’t even reach up to a hundred million. That’s over ten percent of all of Equestria slain by one human. How can somepony kill that many?”

“With wits and people,” replied Gingerbread.

The two by two soul door in the room with four graves melted away to reveal another area outside of the dirt construct. Eight more graves—four of them open with three Risen and one skeleton—were evenly spaced in the nine by nine by four blocks space. The skeleton wore full leather armor, one Risen wielded an iron shovel, and another one wore a single golden helmet.

Twilight fired a volley right into the skeleton. It felled after only eight arrows and at the same time that the three Risen entered the dirt construct. Gingerbread fought the unarmed corpse back with a stone sword, and Twilight smacked the other two back with a stroke from her Little Burner and another from her Defense Sword. She then covered them in more arrows until Gingerbread finished off his Risen. He then charged into the other two and killed them with a few hits.

Gingerbread glanced at the graves for a second. “Oh goodie, more crazy graves to read. Let’s start with this one.” He snickered a little as he read the grave. “Yellow, he died of stupidity. Oh, that’s a good one.”

“Mike Dean,” Twilight started, “he died by not liking his name. That’s actually a pretty nice name. Why did he not like it?”

Bullies, perhaps? A clever bully can turn anything into a mocking name. I have an example right now. Kike Bean.

“Oh, that’s horrible!” Gingerbread laughed a little to himself with a pinch of regret. “I never knew you had that side!” Twilight simply glanced at Gingerbread, completely baffled by what the name even meant.

Pinkie popped out of a nearby pot and glanced at another grave. “Charles Ridson, he died by his own cooking. Come on, it couldn’t have been that bad, right?”

Is the type of bad you’re thinking about overcooking a cake and still having it raw bad?

Pinkie donned a frown of disapproval and huffed at the grave. “No baker can ever do such a terrible thing without trying to be horrible at baking! Shame on him!”

A bony hand grabbed Pinkie’s left hind leg from the grave. She shrieked and kicked it back into the ground. The hand re-emerged and clamped onto the crunchy ground, sluggishly pulling out a partially rotten skeleton with a filthy baker’s hat and a torn cooking outfit. It held a rusted cutting knife in its left hand. The baker stared directly at Pinkie with its purple eyes and tightened its grip around its knife.

”How dare you insult me like that, feeble living?” the corpse rasped at Pinkie with a shaking hand of bones. ”A good baker never insults another’s culinary art! You will pay with blood!”

The corpse swung its knife at Pinkie with a surprisingly fluid and quick stroke. It missed, but it was too determined to stop at that stroke. The baker swung again in her direction, tearing open a small cut on her left cheek. Twilight fired three arrows into its side, but it refused to face her or show any pain. It instead grabbed Pinkie by the throat and placed its knife next to her heart.

The corpse gnashed its shaky words at Pinkie a second time. ”For being such a mean-spirited baker, I’ll make an equine cuisine out of you!”

Before it could stab her and end the fight, Gingerbread slammed his sword into the baker’s head thrice. It lost its grip on Pinkie as Twilight smacked it with her Little Burner. Pinkie then regained her senses and sliced the corpse’s bony face haphazardly. It took another two strikes from Twilight’s sword to kill the baker.

As Fluttershy hugged and comforted Pinkie, Twilight glared at her with a disapproving frown. “Respect the dead, please. In a world where things come back to life, try not to insult anypony who has passed on.”

Pinkie laughed nervously as she bit into an apple. “I think I learned that lesson right when that thing woke up.”

A one by two soul door to Pinkie’s right melted away and revealed another room inside a dirt construct. It was eight by five by four blocks with four graves and more acacia logs in it. More light from a two blocks wide hole in the ceiling shone down from the sun and into the room. One of the graves unleashed not a Risen or skeleton but eight more of the small creatures from earlier. They swarmed up and piled themselves through the doorway and to the quartet.

Twilight smacked a few of them with her Little Burner. Gingerbread had as much difficulty hitting the creatures as Twilight did. They both felt some irritation from the creatures until all of them were dead and smoky.

Eager to read more graves, Gingerbread rushed through the doorway and into the small room. He noticed that one of the graves’ pots contained a blue orchid instead of a poppy. He walked over to the grave and read the words written on it. “Ginger...”

His voice stopped right there. He stared down at the grave in slight confusion and disbelief. Once he got the courage and voice to continue his reading, he did so with an unusually shaky voice. “Gingerbread, he was murdered by Pinkie Pie. That’s, very unsettling.”

“What’s unsettling?” Pinkie asked as her head appeared from the doorway. She trotted next to Gingerbread and sat down next to him. She silently read the grave with widening eyes and a disappearing smile. Her heart almost stopped beating once she reached her name. “I, I killed Gingerbread? How is that possible?”

“Maybe its a coincidence?” Twilight hoped as she walked into the room, unable to resist overhearing the small conversation.

“If it is, then it’s a really big one.”

“Foreshadowing?” Gingerbread suggested with a confused shrug. “Maybe Pinkie kills me later on for some reason.”

I think it’s safe to go with that for now.

“Well, whatever reason it is, I won’t let it happen,” Pinkie declared as her eyes watched Gingerbread. She then turned to him and wrapped her forlegs around his chest. “I won’t hurt you no matter what happens. You’ll always be a friend to me.”

Quite quick on making him a friend, aren’t you?

“Well, why wouldn’t I? He’s pretty nice when he wants to be.”

A one by two blocks soul door on the other side of the room melted and revealed another open area. Two more of the small creatures squirmed into the room and directed themselves toward Pinkie. She sliced both of them twice with pinpoint accuracy. They flipped over and dissipated into a couple experience orbs.

“What are those things anyway?” Twilight asked as Pinkie took the experience.

They’re called silverfish. Unlike the harmless variant, these ones like to burrow in corpses or stone walls.

“They’re also a pain to fight,” Gingerbread grumbled. “They drop almost nothing, get in your way, and are so tiny.”

Well, there’s many more where that came from. You are in a graveyard after all.

Once Fluttershy entered the small room, the quartet continued along to the next one. It was composed of two seven by six by three blocks sections connected by a small one block strip with acacia log beams. The area was outside like some of the ones earlier. Three graves for each section sat in the area. Skeletons rose out of two of them, ready to shoot their arrows at anything. One of them wore an iron helmet as a bonus.

Twilight aimed her bow at the armored skeleton and fired multiple times. Pinkie hopped over to the other one and circled around it, bashing its ribs and skull into bone meal wi every passing quarter of a second. Only a few seconds later, the skeletons fell apart from the damage.

“Reynold Clarke, he died by imitating a man,” Gingerbread stated as he read a grave. “It makes sense when you think about it. Maybe someone caught him and attacked him for it. Who knows.”

“This one is weird,” Pinkie admitted as she stared at another grave. “Yesman Noman, he died by saying no. Did he just say no, or did he say no to something that he shouldn’t have?” Pinkie gave a shrug and looked down at the grave’s bottom. “Hey, mister Noman, how exactly did you die?”

There was no response, just the flower’s soft movements through Pinkie’s words. However, the two by two soul door far to her left melted away and revealed another open room with four graves and a pathway to the stone brick tower. It also contained another soul door that melted away on its left. Only a single unarmed Risen crept out from the graves and pursued the quartet. Gingerbread hacked it to death with ease.

Twilight walked through the other doorway as the rest of the group followed her. She found a wooden table and some chairs, an ender chest, an anvil, and a small store operated by a villager with a black apron, pale skin, and onyx eyes.

“May I help you?” the villager asked to Twilight, the first one to approach him.

Twilight maintained a friendly smile. “I actually have the same question to you. Is there anything you need?”

“Yes. I have this book that the librarian of Norgray needs back. I borrowed it for a special occasion one of my friends had a month ago. Since I’m too busy watching this place for any escaping monsters, I cannot give it to them. May you?”

“Sure. Just give me the book.”

The villager pulled out a black and charred book with unintelligible scribbles on its front. The pages in it felt crusty and ancient, but something that caught Twilight’s eye more than that was what resonated in the book. She felt a dark presence around the book, a presence similar to Equestrian dark magic. The book almost oozed with the presence, sickening and worrying Twilight a little. She placed it in her inventory and smiled back at the villager again. “Thank you. I hope you stay safe.”

The villager nodded as the group left the small room. Once they returned to the outside, Gingerbread caught another glimpse at the graves. “Huh, there’s been quite a few people who died by unknown rainbows.”

“What do you mean?” asked Fluttershy.

“I read a few of the graves in Norgray, and one of the people there died by an unknown rainbow. That’s kind of a weird way to go if you ask me.”

“Well, we did see a lot of different deaths that were unusual, but three people having the same one is possible,” Twilight added. “Maybe unknown rainbows strike at random in this world.”

Well, they are called unknown for a reason.

Twilight turned her head to the stone brick tower. “I guess that is our destination, right?”

“Definitely,” Gingerbread answered. “Come on, let’s storm that place real quick.”

The quartet walked over to the entrance to the tower. The two by two soul door melted in front of them to reveal a dark and musty interior. A few bundles of cobwebs on the walls and some dead bushes in pots on the floor dotted the curving hallway, and a couple stone slab plates settled next to the walls to cover the coffins under them. Some of the plates were shifted to the side to allow entry into the coffins they revealed.

“It’s too dark to see anything,” Twilight grumbled as she squinted her eyes. “Let me activate a spell real quick.” Twilight’s horn radiated with purple, but nothing happened a second afterward. She tried again and met the same result. “Oh, right. I lost almost all my magic once I came to this world.”

“Let me help you out, Twily!” Pinkie took out a torch from her inventory and gave it to Twilight. “Hold this. It should give enough light for us to see.”

Twilight took the torch with her magic and levitated it in front of her. “Thanks, Pinkie. Now, let’s go.”

The quartet began their trek through the darkened halls. Their first encounter was three silverfish that crawled out of a partially closed tomb. Gingerbread sliced them apart and took their experience. After the group turned right into another section of the hallway, a Risen and a skeleton climbed out of two opened tombs. The Risen skidded towards Pinkie first. It met a stone blade to the jaw five times and three arrows to the torso after it reached striking distance to her. When the Risen collapsed on the ground, the skeleton fired an arrow at Fluttershy. The arrow pierced her chest and induced a tiny bit of bleeding. Twilight retaliated with a couple arrows paired with some magic blasts. The skeleton fell and cracked apart from the last blast.

The group kept traveling and fighting until they curved into a ladder. Gingerbread climbed it first since he was used to ladders. Pinkie went second, using the same crawl that she used for the giant jungle tree’s vines. Twilight imitated Pinkie, and Fluttershy used her wings to fly through the hole made for the ladder.

The next room shared some similarities with the first floor’s hallways. It was yet another hallway with cobwebs, dead bushes, and tombs. Gingerbread swatted a few more hostile silverfish as he led the group through the hall. Just like the first hall, the group faced a few more Risen and skeletons. Even though the monsters inflicted a few injuries, Gingerbread and the pony trio completely recovered from them in a few dozen seconds.

The quartet reached another ladder and climbed it. Three small spiders nipped and bit Gingerbread once he reached the next room. When Pinkie entered the room with him, she swung her sword at the spiders in near unison with Gingerbread. The spiders dissipated into smoke only a second later.

Once Twilight and Fluttershy entered the room, the contents of the room revealed themselves. Of course, there were cobwebs and dead bushes, but there were also a few stone tables with stone chairs. In the right half of the room was a two by two doorway into another hallway. Three Risen, one wearing a full set of chainmail and holding an iron sword, entered the room through the doorway. They faced the group and prepared for battle.

“I’ll go for the armored one,” demanded Gingerbread. “You three should go for the others.”

Gingerbread slashed his sword into the armored Risen’s side. The corpse pushed Gingerbread back and swiped its iron sword at him twice. It hit Gingerbread only once, but the strike was enough to deal a third of his health. Gingerbread struck the Risen again before backing away from another strike. It inched a little closer to him and swung again, missing from a sudden dodge. Gingerbread ran behind the corpse and struck its head three times. The Risen turned around and punched him backward as it prepared for another strike. Gingerbread blocked the incoming blade with his sword and pushed it back at the Risen. He sliced it two more times, one in the head and one in a leg. The corpse groaned in pain and prepared for another futile strike. Gingerbread dodged the strike and stabbed the Risen three more times. It fell to the ground, collapsed into smoke, and dropped its flesh and partially broken chainmail armor.

The two unarmed Risen first aimed for Pinkie Pie. She slashed both of their chests twice, backing them away a little. The Risen threw their fists on her and slammed a few bruises and minor cuts into existence. She dodged the second round of punches and sliced one of a Risen’s legs. They turned to her while Twilight fired a couple arrows into their heads. Twilight kept this up as she approached them with a Little Burner ready. They unleashed another round on Pinkie as Twilight put away her bow, took out her Little Burner, and sliced into both of them. The Risen soon found themselves ablaze and near death. One final stroke from Pinkie felled both of them.

The quartet regrouped and mended some of their injuries. Pinkie chomped an apple while Gingerbread waited for his regeneration to fix his body.

“This graveyard isn’t as bad as I thought it’d be,” blurted Pinkie. “Maybe this obsidian block will be the easiest to get!”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” warned Gingerbread with a worrisome tone. “Saying something like that can jinx us badly. Trust me, it’s bound to happen.”

Not my fault some people like to say how easy a situation is.

The group continued through the doorway with a new worry in their minds. They faced a few more silverfish, two more spiders, three skeletons, and two Risen along their way through the dark halls. Eventually, they stopped in their tracks when they saw a bright light and a nasty obstacle.

“There’s the outside,” Fluttershy started with a hoof pointing to a ladder, “but, there are so many cobwebs.”

“How are we going to get past that?” Twilight kept herself away from the cobweb mass. “I don’t think anypony here wants to breathe in spider silk anytime soon.”

“Simple, we destroy it.” Gingerbread slashed down at a piece of the cobwebs, destroying it with one strike. Fluttershy winced a little at first, and she winced a little more after Pinkie began cutting down the webs. In about eight seconds, the entire area was free of webs. The group then made their ascent up the ladder and back into the outside.

The group found themselves on a roof of the tower. To their right stood the last unexplored section of the mausoleum. To their left lay the expansive view of Sparker Plains, Norgray, and the distant sea. A doorway leading to the rest of the tower was on their right about a dozen or more blocks forward.

A giant red slime hopped onto the roof and in front of the quartet. It gave the pony trio a scare, but it failed to phase Gingerbread. He simply took out his sword and smacked the slime away. It split into three smaller ones after another set of slices. Pinkie and Twilight aided him in dispatching the slimes, but Fluttershy was still a little reluctant, especially once the slimes split into tinier, safer variants of themselves. Twilight prodded these ones over as Gingerbread punched them into slimeballs.

The group continued along into the next section. It shared the same look and darkness as the recent hallways, and it conrained the same Risen and silverfish variants occupying it. The group annihilated the monsters and moved along to the next roof. A Risen struck Gingerbread once he made it to the next roof, so he slaughtered it with several strikes as payback. Two easy to kill skeletons and a normal sized spider in the next dark room waited for the quartet. Those three died from arrows and swords, allowing the group to move along to the next room. They eliminated the three Risen and four silverfish residing there and reached yet another roof. This process somewhat repeated itself as the group climbed up to gradually shrinking rooms, roofs, and amounts of monsters.

The quartet finally reached the last roof with a single chest on it. Gingerbread decided that he was the one best fit to take whatever was inside. What he found was, of course, the sacred obsidian block, but something else hid inside the chest as well. Gingerbread took out a glistering melon slice gilded with a gold shine on its rind. He examined it with an awkward face for a second.

“The Melon Slice of Happiness?” Gingerbread questioned to himself. “What even is this?”

It’s a very valuable artifact. It belongs to a special someone in Sparker Plains, so you’ll have to find them.

“Is this like a special element thingy like those special objects that became keys?” Pinkie asked as she stared at the melon slice. “Do we have to do another round of friendship tasks for this?”

I doubt it. This thing is more like a collectible than a key.

“Maybe one of the humans in Norgray knows about this thing,” Fluttershy proposed. “We could ask them about it and find out what they know.”

“That can allow me the time I need to return this, eh, I’m going to call it a tome.” Twilight shuddered as she felt the strange book shake in her inventory. “I can’t wait to get rid of this creepy thing.”

“I’ll look for a special chest or some other thing that this melon goes to!” Pinkie chirped. “I Pinkie Promise that no crack in Norgray will be unexplored!”

Well, everything there sounds reasonable. Gingerbread, what do you think?

Gingerbread shrugged in response. “I’m fine with it. As long as this doesn’t become some pointless scavenger hunt, it’s okay.”

“I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen,” Pinkie assured. “I mean, we can’t save the world if we’re busy collecting random stuff!”

Gingerbread took the lead on descending the tower. The group had no resistance during their journey out of the Universal Graveyard. This occurred for two reasons. One was that there were no restless enemies left to fight. The second was that the Risen still in their tombs and graves wanted the group to leave as soon as possible.

Once the group returned to the great expanse of Sparker Plains, Gingerbread faced the pony trio and held out one of his hands. “May I have your mob loot so that I can sell it at the mobile shop?”

All three of the ponies willingly gave all of the mob loot they had. Twilight wanted to be rid of the remains of bodies, Fluttershy decided that holding onto body parts was not a good idea, and Pinkie playfully vomited her mob loot at Gingerbread. He took the loot and ran to the nearest mobile shop. He first exchanged the mob loot for twenty-six dollars. He then bought chainmail sets for everybody except for Pinkie, setting the price at thirty-six dollars. He continued to buy three stone swords for twelve dollars, twenty steaks for five, and a weak potion of regeneration and another one of strength for ten dollars. Once he obtained everything he wanted, he returned to the ponies and gave a sword to Pinkie, a set of chainmail to Fluttershy, and both a chainmail set and a sword to Twilight. He kept the remains to himself.

“Alright, let’s get going,” politely demanded Gingerbread. “It’s getting close to dark.”

And so the quartet traveled their way to Norgray to do what they must: deliver a book, return an artifact, and find six more MacGuffins.

Act II, Chapter 4: Saving a Town a Second Time

“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.

Act II, Chapter 5: What Happens When You Decide to Play God?

Author's Note

Take note that the word "as" or something similar might be missing in a sentence that needs it. If you find that sentence, notify me.

Act II, Chapter 5: What Happens When You Decide to Play God?

Back in the town of Norgray, a wandering villager slamming their face into a wall over and over again was searching for some way into the wall’s house. However, with every attempt he tried at finding an entrance, it resulted in another simple head slam into the wall. What was he doing wrong? Was it the wrong wall? Was he not fast enough? Was a god somewhere doing this just to spite him? No one, not even he, knew.

The villager stumbled back into another wall once Gingerbread popped out of the air like a spawning pig. The villager tried to enter the house from the angle that Gingerbread forced upon him. To his luck, slamming into a wooden door worked.

Gingerbread gave a sigh as his head swiveled from a darkened house to a full farm. “Ty, can you teleport me back? I really don’t want to waste time walking around.”

Now hold on a second. This is one of the few times we’ll ever get to talk for more than three minutes. Why waste it on a teleport?

Gingerbread began walking on the clay roads to the direction of Millstown. “Really? So soon?”

What other time will we have to do this? Might as well use what we’re given instead of throwing it out.

Gingerbread shuffled his arms and contorted his face into a squiggly line. “Fine. I have something I want to talk about anyway.”

And what would that be?

“The fact that you almost killed Fluttershy,” blurted Gingerbread with a louder voice than usual. “What were you thinking back there? You left her at so little health that you must’ve purposefully done that just to please your murderous side.”

I did that to add a real sense of danger. I let you get killed a lot by my creations, so what makes it different that one of them gets beaten up and almost dies as well?

“They’re actual living things, and I’m a player. No one in their right mind would let themself be in a game if they know that they’ll get punched, stabbed, shot, and poisoned, especially if they die in the process.”

True. But they’re in my world, and I bet with how Pinkie and Twilight are fighting, they’ve already done something like this before. They should be fine.

“What happens when one of them really dies? Do you really want to risk that and commit homicide?”

I really doubt that'll ever happen. I bet you fifteen bucks that they never die.

Gingerbread donned a set of lowered eyelids and a straight mouth. “Really. You’re betting on their lives?”

I don’t get why you’re so determined to go against me in the first place. You don’t usually care about stuff like this.

“Yes, but these three are different.” Gingerbread smacked a medium red slime into a stone wall and walked through the entrance to the Great Forest. “They’re close enough to me that I can call them my friends. They’re also not people that make me want to punch them in the face every time they do something or speak. Also, didn’t you say earlier about not wanting to kill them? What changed your mind?”

I noticed that they needed some seriousness and not constant protection from me. Yeah, I still don’t want to hurt them or turn off the console, but I know that hurting them like this is the only way to make them know that they’re in a dangerous situation. I also like to think that I’m improving their fighting skills. Isn’t this adventure world improving yours?

“Yeah, actually. Do you know how much I suck at fighting mobs?”

Eh, you weren’t that bad. Just stop running up to every single one of them and use a bow.

“From how the shops are, I’m going to have to get one from a skeleton.”

Well, you can buy them from the shop, but they’re a little pricey.

“How pricey?” Gingerbread smacked a wild zombie into experience and rotten flesh.

Twenty dollars. If you don’t want to waste your money, you’re right. A skeleton is the best choice.

Gingerbread hacked down a pair of wild zombies and waltzed into Jungle Pass. Shortly after that, he punched a tiny slime into a slimeball.

Oh, I have something to add. Just so you know for the future, I have no real control on some of those monsters.

“What do you mean by that?” Gingerbread questioned with a swivel. “It’s obvious that you can’t directly control monsters.”

No, I don’t mean it like that. You know how I can spawn a monster, gear them up if they have the ability to do that, buff them with potions, or kill them with my insanely powerful sword?

Gingerbread nodded his head.

Well, those monsters in blue outfits aren’t mine. I never spawned them, I never equipped them, and I don’t voice them. They pretty much have minds of their own.

Gingerbread’s steady walking slowed down by three-quarters. “You can’t control them? Then how did you control Fluttershy staying alive?”

Since I can only control them through killing, I kept them alive until Vincent came back and hacked off some heads. Another thing you should know: those gigantic zombies are not my creations. I don’t think they’re supposed to be possible without mods, which we both know can’t be installed.

“Well,” Gingerbread started, sickened from his own worry, “that’s just terrific to know.” A nearby wild skeleton rattled a little too close. Before it could ready its bow, a sword sliced through its chest twice. “But how do they even exist if they aren’t supposed to?”

Remember when we obtained a few messages notifying us about a new pony coming to our world?

Gingerbread released another nod.

One of those messages was ‘Rainbow Dash has joined the game.’. Sometime after that message, those guys started appearing all over the place. At first, it was one or three in random places in Sparker Plains and the southernmost section of the Great Forest. Then they started traveling to other places and began killing or converting every Mobtrocity soldier they came across. Now they’re everywhere like a disease.

“So you suspect that this Rainbow Dash did something to cause these new monsters to exist?” Gingerbread opened the door to the bed guy’s hut to check for anything of interest.

Yeah. Who knows what she did, or at least I think they’ll be a girl, but I am sure that it corrupted a batch of monsters even more than needed. At least this game now has a real edge to it, right?

Gingerbread glanced up to a random patch of air blocks to hopefully stare into Ty’s eyes. Suffice to say, he failed. “You’re only doing all of this because you think you’re untouchable. There will be a day where this’ll bite you back really, really hard.”

There isn’t a problem with me. I’m just doing what I think makes an adventure exhilarating and daring.

“Whatever you say, Ty. Just hope that karma isn’t real.”

Gingerbread encountered two more zombies, hacking them to rotten flesh without losing a single heart of health. He stepped forward a dozen more paces until he encountered Millstown’s iron door and slightly crumbling cobblestone wall. His mere presence granted the jagged cracks the instability needed to rip apart more of the wall. Once he touched the door, the doorway collapsed into pixelated chunks of cobble, only two floating blocks remaining in the new gap. He waddled through the mess and into the small town.

The first thing he noticed was Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy laying next to the well. Pinkie, enraptured by the speckled night, did not notice Gingerbread; however, Fluttershy disconnected her eyes from the sights around her and clamped them onto him right when he stepped on a stray patch of grass. She handed a small smile to him and shuffled her body to where her belly rested on the clay road.

“Nice to see you again.” Fluttershy kept her eyes Gingerbread’s tattered armor. “My, your armor looks really bad. Do you mind if I help you with that?”

“None needed,” Gingerbread replied as he waved a chainmail chestplate in his hand. “I already have a set for myself.”

“Aren’t you going to put it on?”

“Of course. I’m just waiting for this armor to break first.”

Pinkie broke her attention away from the flowing sky lights and faced Gingerbread with a smile and a hop. He braced for the hug that Pinkie ensnared him in only a half second later. “You’re back! Did you see any of those mean monsters?”

“You mean just monsters or the actually intelligent ones?”

Pinkie took some time to answer that question. “I mean the ones with blue clothes on them.”

Gingerbread shook his head. “Didn’t see any. Why do you ask?”

“There’s supposed to be a lot of them coming here very soon. That’s why Vincent’s checking the outside for them.”

A chunk of the mangled wall behind Gingerbread crumbled onto a patch of tall grass, stealing the attention of the trio. His eyes rummaged through the sight and forced him to take a small step forward. “If we’re expecting an army, we should fix that wall as soon as possible.”

“Where can we get stones for it, though?” Fluttershy asked as she turned her head to random places.

If there’s a salesman nearby that has cobblestone, you might be able to buy it from him. Or, you could talk to King Appleton about a builder who could fix the wall.

“I’ll go talk to King Appleton. You two can look for some salesman.” Gingerbread broke from the trio and walked his way to the nearby castle. Pinkie and Fluttershy aimlessly glanced at trees and buildings, spotting not a single villager or person that would resemble a merchant.

“Maybe they’re in a house?” Pinkie suggested. She trotted over to the same road that Bill’s Library sat by. Fluttershy followed her and checked the houses for any signs indicating a residing merchant. Once the duo reached the end of the road, they concluded that the store did not exist on that road.

Pinkie and Fluttershy turned to their right, turned right again after ten or so blocks, and turned right a third time to reach the entrance of a brick structure. Inside it was nothing but a red carpet floor and one piece of glowstone that illuminated the five by five by three blocks room.

This wandering continued for another minute until the ponies reached a large oak wood building just south of the Joe House. Fluttershy peered through the house’s left window in search of a merchant. Inside the house lay two tables, four chairs per table, two three block plants with one oak log and two leaf blocks each, and a small window with a wizened villager with tufts of gray hair and only two teeth left. He waited patiently for anyone to approach him and interact.

“I think that’s the salesman,” Fluttershy assumed from the gold coins the villager counted. She turned her head to Pinkie. “Want to talk to him?”

Pinkie eyed the villager and nodded. “Sure! He looks important after all.”

The duo opened and walked through the oak door and in front of the villager. He redirected his attention from the coins to the ponies, somewhat unfazed and a little annoyed. “Eh, customers. Why don’t they always wait until daytime?”

“Excuse me, sir,” Fluttershy started as she reached only two blocks away from the villager, “do you happen to be selling any stones? We need some to repair the town’s wall.”

“Of course, what’d you think I use to craft stone swords and picks?” The villager bent to a chest on his left and flicked it open. He retrieved twenty blocks of cobblestone from it and smacked them on the table. “A dollar a block. I have twenty here for you, so either fork over some money or leave.”

Pinkie checked her inventory and coat pockets for any money. To her surprise, she was as poor as roadside cardboard. “Hmm, I don’t have any, but I do have a bunch of stuff from some monsters.”

“Then let me see it.” Pinkie spat her mob loot into the villager’s open hand. He eyed the loot and set it all in a chest on his right. He picked up three gold coins and one silver coin and handed them to Pinkie. “That’s sixteen dollars total. Do you want sixteen blocks or the money?”

“Blocks, please,” Fluttershy answered. Pinkie agreed with a silent smile and took the blocks from the villager. She gestured Fluttershy and aimed for the door.

“Come back when you’re not poor,” snapped the villager. He gave a small sneer after hearing Pinkie make the tiniest grumble physically possible.

The duo turned to their left twice, searching for the broken wall. Even though Fluttershy kept herself on the road to the wall, Pinkie steered away from it and almost made a complete U-turn. It did not take long for Fluttershy to notice this. “Where are you going?”

“I need to do something real quick,” Pinkie responded. She threw the cobblestone to Fluttershy and moved back a little more. “Take that to the wall. I won’t be gone for too long.”

Pinkie wandered for about ten seconds until she reached Millstown’s pumpkin farm. She twisted her head dead into Ty’s eyes. Normally, this would have forced a few shivers and nothing else at this point. However, the face that Pinkie wore—despite only using a small frown as a replacement for a smile—contained a definite ball of curiosity, confusion, and anger. This was enough to trigger his fight-or-flight response and be ready for, well, anything that his mind believed could happen.

“Ty, why did you let Fluttershy get hurt?” Pinkie asked with a tone wearing a shroud of curiosity.

Eh heh, what exactly do you mean by that?

“Why did you not help her when she was almost dead?”

I, I knew that she would, um, power through it. Second, I knew that Vincent would pop up at the right moment.

Pinkie took a step closer to Ty’s invisible form. “But why would you let those monsters hurt her so badly? Why did you sit in your chair and watch them do that to her?”

I didn’t want to interfere with that fight. Whatever those monsters did was not of my own doing. They did what they wanted, not me.

She took a second step. “You still could’ve fought them with whatever you have. Is there a certain reason why you didn’t want to at least lend a hoof?”

Ehmm, yeah, there is. I, I wouldn’t have done anything for no reason.

“Then what is it?”

It’s, It’s, It’s because I thought that it was necessary that you three needed something to, ehm, tell you how serious you need to take the world and how you need to treat your lives here. Basically, that showed you, um, how dangerous this world could be.

Pinkie took two more steps forward with the same face. “But was it really necessary for you to almost kill somepony I’ve known and loved for a long time? Did you want to punish me for not taking your game seriously, even though I actually do?”

Well, I know at this point that letting that happen may have been a little excessive, and I was never punishing you in any way.

“Then why did you describe your reason as to have us take the world seriously? And how do you find nearly committing murder only a little excessive?”

It’s just–

“Just what, an option?” Pinkie stepped forward again. At this point, she was close enough to touch Ty with a hoof. “Is keeping me and my friends alive an option to you because we’re your toys? Do you not care whether we die or not?”

N-no, not at all! I do care!

“Then why do your actions tell me that you don’t?”

I wouldn’t have ever let you or your friends die. That was a situation where I knew that she would be safe.

Pinkie sprung onto Ty’s form and held onto the front of him. She kept all of her face in his field of view and made sure that he paid full attention to her.

Well, who wouldn’t pay attention to a face talking to you and covering almost all your television screen?

“I don’t think so, Ty,” Pinkie deadpanned with her small frown and a concerned and saddened tone. “Even though I enjoy this world you made and the adventure we’re all having, I’m not enjoying you right now. You almost killed one of my best friends and show no true remorse for it. That’s very unhealthy.”

Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you like that. I didn’t know that you’d feel so deeply about this.

“You should have. How would you feel if I beat Gingerbread to near death and did nothing to help you? What would you think if I responded with, ‘I didn’t think that you’d care about him like that’?”

I’d be very angry at you and tell you why you’d do that.

“Exactly. I’m feeling very angry at you for letting Fluttershy get hurt, but I don’t want to hurt you. That’d just make me and you feel worse.”

Well, how could you even hurt me? You’re in my adventure world. As far as I know, you’re stuck there.

Ty jumped out of his chair and screamed like a confused coward once a pink hoof ripped through the television screen. It clamped onto the front edge of his entertainment center and pulled. Another hoof joined with the first one and pulled even harder, forcing Pinkie’s entire head, neck, and part of her chest through the screen. Ty hid behind his chair and struggled to even move another finger. His legs felt weighted and unstable, and his mind raced like a jet speeding through open airspace.

“I’m not actually stuck in there,” Pinkie added with simple hindsight. “My friends are, but I’m not.”

This, this shouldn’t be possible! How in the heck can you even do this?

“It’s like going through an open window. Anyway, I’m not asking for you to provide complete protection for us. I’m asking for you to not attempt to kill me or my friends. I don’t care if you send a few monsters after us, but don’t force a situation like what happened with Fluttershy ever again. Or else–” Pinkie crept a little closer to Ty, both frightening him to near death and gripping a controller cord to a console “–I’ll have to deal with your unhealthy desires myself.”

W-what do you mean by that? Are you going to eat me or tear my flesh apart like some creepypasta monster or something?

Pinkie plastered a puzzled look on her face and almost spilled a giggle. “Not at all! I mean that I’ll take this” –Pinkie tugged the cord a little– “away from you. If you’re going to kill for enjoyment, you don’t deserve the control you have. Watching and challenging us is fine, just no direct attacks, okay?”

Other than the fact that what you’re doing is heart attack levels of scary, I’m fine with just that.

Pinkie’s frown shifted to a tiny smile. “It’s good that you’re scared of me. That means you’re not going to do this again.”

I also have something else that I need to tell you.

“Go on, what is it?”

Those monsters in blue are not in my control. I can summon the others, like the Mobtrocity, anytime I want, but those ones appear whenever they want, go wherever they want, and use whatever they want. I can’t regulate their armies or change their targets, so that’s one reason why they kept attacking Fluttershy.

“Huh, that’s kinda odd. Don’t act like it excuses what you did, though. You still could’ve fought those monsters for her.”

I know. I won’t try to get any of you killed ever again.

“Do you Pinkie Promise?”

Sure, though it’d probably be a good idea to not have me make a promise.

Pinkie gave her head a slight tilt towards an inactive controller. “Why?”

I’m not good at keeping them. Though I may say I won’t do this again, I could if the current events at that time lead me to it.

“Then I’ll make sure it never happens again.” Pinkie slid back into the television by an inch and a half. “I’m going to go to the wall, now. I’m not comfortable with calling you my friend right now, but I think that’ll change when you do.”

She let go of the entertainment center and pushed herself back into the screen. She hopped off Ty’s form and landed on a nearby pumpkin. She turned to the road she traveled and made her way back to the wall. Once she reached King Appleton’s castle, Gingerbread punched open the castle door and joined Pinkie.

“So, I was hearing a bit of talking from Ty not so long ago,” Gingerbread started with a hint of insight. “Did you confront him about Fluttershy?”

“Of course I did,” Pinkie answered with a slightly bigger smile than before. “What he did was wrong, so I gave him a warning for next time he decides to do that again.”

Gingerbread let out a small chuckle to himself. “Sounds like he got what he deserved for that.”

Oh, nice, you eavesdropped on my interrogation. Could’ve warned me before you did that.

“If you didn’t want me to hear it, you could have muted your mic, like what you usually do every time you go do something.”

Right, the mic. I’ll just keep note of that whenever my mind is too scared to think about turning off a trivial device.

“Hey, I’m just giving advice for when she does that again.”

“Hopefully, I don’t,” noted Pinkie. “I will if he tries that again, though.”

“It’ll happen if you don’t keep an eye on him. Even with a promise, he’ll still do whatever he promised not to do. Trust me, he did this quite a few times in the past.”

“Like what?”

They’re mostly little things like hanging out with him at a certain time or the more common case that I say that I’ll be back and never come back. Gingerbread, did King Appleton give you a builder?

Gingerbread shook his head. “He told me that they are all asleep right now, but that’s not an issue. I can rebuild the wall faster than they could.” He turned to Pinkie and examined the sword she held. “Did you find a salesman?”

“Yup, and I got some cobblestone from them.” Pinkie’s smile was now half its usual size. “I gave it to Fluttershy, and she went over to the wall, so you have to go there for the blocks.”

“Alright. Let’s go.”

The duo and their invisible spectator traversed through the few roads of the city and reached the wall. Fluttershy stood there, fiddling with her cobblestone blocks and eyeing the cracked and jagged chunks and particles of the once stable wall. After hearing a few footsteps, she turned to the duo and bent a smile into life. “Do you two know what I need to do? I’m not sure how building this wall works.”

“It’s easy,” Pinkie started with a hop over to Fluttershy and held out a hoof. “Let me show you.”

Fluttershy handed the blocks to Pinkie and watched her smack block after block on the ground. In less than twenty seconds, Pinkie rebuilt the entire wall with a single block to spare. The only hole that remained was a one by two block space for an iron door.

“Well, does that salesman have an iron door and a lever on him?” Gingerbread proposed.

“I’ll go check,” Fluttershy replied, “but I don’t have any money for him.”

Gingerbread threw a sack of mob loot at her and two dollars. “Here. You should have enough, now.”

“Thank you.” As Fluttershy walked back to the salesman, Twilight left the library and joined Gingerbread and Pinkie.

“What are you two doing?” Twilight asked as she surveyed the area.

“We’re waiting for Fluttershy to get an iron door for this wall,” Gingerbread explained. He presented the door sized hole to Twilight; she nodded and thought about it for a second. “Where were you the entire time?”

“I was reading more about this world in Bill’s Library. One thing I learned is that this world has many more monster groups. One of them is called the Illager Confederation. Apparently, they’re at war with the Mobtrocity, but I doubt we’ll ever meet them. They’re supposed to live in another continent far away from us. Another thing is that there’s also another dimension in this world. It’s called the Nether, a land composed of red rock, lava, souls, and creatures more horrifying than what we faced here.”

“Alright, I’ve heard of the Nether before, but this Illager Confederation is new. If the Mobtrocity is fighting them, then they must be important in some way. Do you know anything else about them or their war?”

“Um, the Illagers are very territorial. They consider continent they live on as theirs only, which is why they don’t like the invading Mobtrocity. Since they are very, very powerful, and I mean powerful enough to create magical barriers and nearly impenetrable mansions, they’re holding back the Mobtrocity really well. But, I also know that the Mobtrocity are much stronger than what they sent against us so far. They have flying ships and weapons beyond my current comprehension, both of which we never encountered yet.”

Gingerbread’s enthusiasm dropped by a few notches. “So, this group we’re fighting has spaceships and other advanced junk. Just great.”

“Oi! A lot of those blokes are heading for the wall!” Vincent hopped down to the trio and prepared himself for battle. “I suggest you three get out there and fight them before they reach it.”

“What about Fluttershy?” Pinkie blurted with some haste.

“Well, what is she doing?”

“She’s buying a door,” answered Gingerbread.

Vincent took a few steps to the vacant doorway and tightened the grip on his sword. “No worries about her. She can just come outside whenever she wants.”

“Argh!” growled a nearby Loyal zombie. “I’m gonna eat all your shoes when I’m done with you!”

“I believe that’s our signal to fight,” Twilight guessed as she equipped her Magical Bow.

The rest of the quartet agreed and funneled through the doorway and back into Jungle Pass. Two Loyal zombies smacked their wooden swords on the wall, channeling fury through every strike. Vincent decapitated one, and Pinkie spun a sword into the other’s shoulders and chest. She scooped up both the zombies’ experience and loot and scanned the trees for more monsters.

Not only did the group find a cluster of monsters to fight, but they also noticed the abundance of floating or destroyed trees and a shortage of living trees. Some of the zombies equipped with stone axes chopped down every tree in their way, and a giant zombie with dual iron axes sliced the trees like bamboo. Five skeletons primed their bows and aimed for Twilight and Gingerbread. Two pigmen—both arguing about who was truly in charge—attempted to manage a few monsters here and there.

“Look, more equine creatures,” mused an enderman that teleported in front of Twilight. He used the same iron sword and armor setup as the last enderman. “It seems that they’re the new trend in this world. Well, I’m afraid to say that our Empress does not condone your interference, meaning that your lives will be cut short. You can just give up and keep this easy for us, or you ca–augh!”

Pinkie stabbed her sword through the enderman’s torso, destroying his train of thought. He teleported ten blocks away and held his side for a few short moments. “That little devil, kill her!”

The skeletons shifted their attention to Pinkie and opened fire. She twisted around them and smashed right into two axe zombies. She smashed both their faces with her hooves and finished them with two sword swipes. Twilight, using the newborn ruckus for her success, fired six arrows into the skeletons. She killed two and switched to a magic blast that distracted two more skeletons. They both stabbed their arrows into Twilight’s chest, drawing two small lines of blood down her body. Two more axe zombies heard her small yelp of pain and shimmied to her. She switched to her Little Burner and smacked both of them in the faces, setting them alight like walking candles wearing the aroma of zombie meat.

Gingerbread kept an eye on every direction of his body. Unfortunately, this did not prevent five zombies—one of them being an axe zombie—from surrounding him. To avoid dying again, he slammed his stone blade into the axe zombie, munched a steak into crumbs, and drank a regeneration potion for good measure. He struck the same zombie twice and took two wooden smacks from two other zombies, those two smacks breaking both his boots and his helmet. After killing and looting the axe zombie, he rushed forward and sliced two zombies back into the small crowd. With a hop and a strike, he slew the closest zombie with a critical smash. He sliced two more and jabbed into the last one. With only four more swings, he felled all three of the remaining zombies.

Pinkie, paired with her skeletal accomplice, leapt into the air and onto an axe zombie. She stabbed them twice with her sword and decapitated them with a slice. Vincent skewered and kicked various zombies with or without axes from every direction, stopping for a small window of time to crack three of a skeleton’s ribs. With one horizontal slash, the skeleton’s skull fractured into two pieces and fell with the rest of its body.

“There’s the one responsible for the enderman’s wound!” grunted a pigman next to his fellow officer. They both unsheathed their golden swords and readied themselves for all attacks. “Prepare to meet fine metal, freak!”

Pinkie sprung from the smoke and circled her sword into a pigman’s leg. The pigman squealed and swiped a miss at Pinkie. She swung again, hitting the other’s sword instead. Vincent stabbed through the pigman’s chest and punched him in the back of the head. The pigman retaliated with a kick into Vincent’s ribs and a blade scratch on the radius. Pinkie aimed for that pigman but missed with another blocked blow. She fell onto the ground from a leg sweep and rolled to the side to avoid an incoming ground stab. She jumped back onto her hooves and performed a leg sweep on the first pigman, downing him and crushing half a heart. She then cracked his ribs and spine into pieces with her powerful legs and caved in his skull with a final blow from her sword. Vincent elbowed his adversary’s muzzle to release an agitated squeal and sliced the golden sword out of their hands. He paused a half a second before ripping through the pigman’s neck with his blade, ending the fight with two dead pigs.

The giant zombie, along with three regular zombies and two axe zombies, lumbered his way to Twilight. He smashed an axe into the ground next to her and swung the other into her right side. She spiraled back into the cobblestone wall and crawled away from the next axe slash. She picked herself back up and conjured a magic blast that enveloped one axe zombie. She fired four arrows as well to ensure its death and two more zombies’ injuries. She hopped away from the giant zombie’s right foot and munched an apple away. One axe zombie’s cockiness steered him into Twilight’s blade and onto the lush grass. Another axe zombie dodged an incoming arrow aiming for his head and swung at Twilight. He succeeded, breaking some chainmail and opening a small flesh wound near her shoulder. She cried in pain and sliced his face with her Little Burner. To her surprise, it snapped in half from the strike and disintegrated into pixels that faded from existence. The axe zombie, despite burning to death, let out a small chuckle and swung a miss at Twilight.

“Not so tough without your burn stick, huh?” the zombie mocked to antagonize Twilight. To his misfortune, this worked, resulting in him involuntarily hugging a Jungle tree after the smack from the Defense Sword.

Another gigantic axe hurled down to the left of Twilight. She jumped onto the axe and raced over to the giant zombie’s shoulder. She struck the zombie’s face with her Defense Sword once, sending him into the same jungle tree the axe zombie tasted. While he struggled to get back up, the wounded enderman took this moment to vent some of his acquired rage on Twilight. He teleported next to her and struck his sword into her side, drawing even more blood and causing a developing bruise. She winced and swiped a miss at the teleporting enderman. He reappeared behind her and stabbed into her left flank, triggering a buck into his legs. The enderman stumbled back and regained his balance at the same time Gingerbread smacked him twice. The enderman teleported to the left side of Gingerbread and swung into his head. He strafed to the right and struck the enderman again. He ended the enderman’s life with one final critical strike into its chest.

The giant zombie returned to his feet and scanned the area for any enemies. He found a harmful Pinkie on his left arm and failed to scrape her off with an axe. She climbed up the arm and around his neck, placing her sword in front of his neck and pulling backward. The giant zombie swung at her up to five times and only scraped her mane or tail every time. With one forceful pull, his head toppled to the ground and buried itself under his smoky corpse.

“Well, that was quite a fight,” Twilight verbally thought between her munches of another apple. “That wasn’t a lot compared to the monsters we fought earlier, though.”

“That’s because that wasn’t all of them,” Vincent responded while he pulled his sword out of a zombie. “There’s still a good batch of them left roaming about.”

“Where are they, then?” Pinkie swept the area like a security drone in search of hostiles.

“By now, twenty blocks from here. Considering that they’re clearing the area of trees, thus destroying their own cover, we should fight them from the inside rather than out here.” Vincent walked over to a skeleton’s dissipating remains and took its two arrows and worn bow. “If there are any bows or arrows lying around, be sure to take them as yours. You’ll need them very soon.”

“Alright, everypony, let’s return to Millstown.” Twilight waved a hoof to the doorway and trotted over to it. The rest of her fellow fighters walked through the doorway as well, ready for anything else that might pose themselves as a threat to them.

Act II, Chapter 6: The First battle for Millstown

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Act I, Chapter 4: Skeletons, Pegasi, and (What Gingerbread Calls It) Racism

So far, the entire world has already deviated from what it was supposed to be. Twilight’s growing power and Pinkie Pie’s special battle tactics have already shifted the Mobtrocity from seeing them as a simple nuisance to a terrifying pair that must be annihilated before it is too late. One of the teams, armed with ten goons, four knights—which were skeletons with iron swords, iron shields, and chainmail armor—four marksmen, and a Mobtrocity Leader, an enderman with diamond plating on his arms and chest and two diamond swords in both of his hands, searched for the pair as thoroughly as possible. This team of monsters could have easily killed the trio, but they forgot where they went.

The sources they found from Derp Village pointed to the trio attempting to reach Sparker Plains. So, they walked along the eastern part of the Great Forest to hopefully find the trio. They possessed no luck in finding a single pony. After deciding to give up hunting them for a short while, the team rested on one of the scattered Jungle trees in the Great Forest and waited for any signs of them approaching. They waited there for quite some time.

}———————————————————————————————————{

Inside the same area that Gingerbread and Twilight spawned from, another slick mare popped into existence. It had a light blue coat and a rainbow pattern on its mane and tail. It had magenta irises and not as many eyelashes as Pinkie and Twilight. On its flank was a small, puffy cloud with a lightning strike composed of three colors. These colors were red, yellow, and blue, the primary colors. This pony’s name was Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow fell onto the ground in exhaustion. She then opened her eyes sluggishly to check her surroundings, noticing that a piece of grass and dirt in front of her definitely felt and looked like grass and dirt but was slightly off. It was pixelated and in the shape of a block. When she fully opened her eyes and turned her head to the left and right, she noticed that everything was blocky and pixelated. Rainbow slowly got back onto her hooves and talked to herself like a sane pony.

“Where am I?” Rainbow asked to nothing with a feminine voice. She checked her body for any injuries. What she instead found twisted her face into a gaping maw of horror. “Where are my wings? They’re gone!”

She looked around for anything that could help her. She found nothing but more grass and trees. She galloped out of the area and into the Great Forest. She wandered aimlessly, mainly going southward, in hopes of finding something or someone valuable or helpful. She eventually found a clay path in the mess of trees and followed it down the forest. She went down the eastward side of the path and reached a soul door, the same mess of faces Twilight discovered at the Golden Desert’s entrance.

Rainbow Dash tilted her head at the swirling faces. “What the hay? It led me to a dead end!”

“Hey! Who was that?” shouted a threatening voice from her right.

Apparently, the Mobtrocity group searching this area discovered her presence when they saw a slight mess of blue and rainbows deep in the leaves. They had already dropped to the ground and begun their search. This voice was one of the many goons in this group.

Rainbow Dash stood there until she saw the zombie in a grey vest. He pointed one of his fingers at her while he cupped the other hand around his mouth.

“Hey, guys! I found a new one!”

Rainbow would be attacking that goon right now, but she doesn’t have wings. She usually fought and moved around with them. In fact, she depended on them. Losing them was a severe cripple to her entire being. She needed her wings again soon, or else she would feel like a simple earth pony with an odd increase of fragility. No, she would be one.

She galloped through the trees and outran the goon easily. She kept running away from him and the other soldiers until she found a random truck in the middle of a clearing. She frantically pressed a button on its side, opening the ramp door in the back. She ran into and hid in the back of the truck in hope of losing the creatures.

Since there were two chests in the truck, she decided to rummage through them for supplies. In one chest, she found several shovels and pickaxes. She thought that they were completely useless in this event. She heard shouting and footsteps from the incoming horde of soldiers as she looked through the other chest. Most of its contents were water bottles and bottles of Moonshine from the Moon, but there was one bottle that differed from the others. It was a bright pink with swirling sparkles inside of the liquid. On the label, it read ‘Willy’s Alicorn Ale! Tired of being the lowest of the low? Grow some marvelous wings and a horn after you drink this concoction! Warning: Only consume ten milliliters of liquid every day.’.

“Ugh, I need them now!” Rainbow Dash pulled the cork off of the bottle with her teeth and held the bottle up to her lips. She ignored the warning as she gulped down every single drop of the potion. After only three seconds, she felt an odd tingling in her stomach. She then felt that tingling spread throughout her entire body. A long horn sprouted out of her head and dripped a few drops of pure magic. She then felt two huge wings sprout out of her back, giving her flight once again.

“It worked!” She celebrated a little by hovering over the metal ground. “I can fly again!”

“Hold it right there!” rasped a shadowy and stone cold voice. An enderman manifested right in front of Rainbow and spun his two swords. “You’re coming with us!”

Rainbow Dash felt two emotions during that event. She felt a river of fear flow down her body and a cataclysmic plume of pure rage burn the fear and overflow into her head. Her eyes mixed themselves into two cauldrons of hellfire. A surge of magic crept up her horn and blasted out a beam of sickly black and dark purple at the enderman. Its chest opened up and faded from existence as the beam penetrated it. The entire enderman and its armor disintegrated into nothingness.

The goons and knights in the back area of the truck saw this incident. They immediately collapsed in fear and terror as they pleaded to Rainbow Dash. Some of the more nervous knights and marksmen dropped their weapons entirely, afraid to provoke Rainbow any further.

“H-hey, you have w-wings and a horn now!” One of the goons nervously pointed out. “C-can you please forgive us? W-we didn’t mean to chase you like that!”

“Y-yeah!” another goon agreed as he nodded his head very quickly. “Spare us, we mean no harm!”

“We’re not lying at all!” one of the knights insisted through his chattering teeth. “We were only, only, playing! Yes, that’s it! Playing!”

Rainbow Dash felt the rage wash away as darkness clouded her vision. Sharp tendrils slashed at her vision until she thought that she was blind. She then felt sharp pains in her head as her vision came back, this time tinted a light green. A voice whispered in her ears, calming her and flushing her brain. The voice was calming yet filled with the guttural growl of an ancient demon.

Relax, Rainbow. Let your inner thoughts express themselves once more. Let your mind fully dictate your actions and put strings on these weaklings. Show them what loyalty is.

After a green aura completely engulfed Rainbow Dash, she slowly grew taller, her legs thinning a little as her body was encased in a coat of darkness. Her horn grew longer and grander as it too was shrouded in darkness. The darkness fully enveloped her now Celestia-sized body, dripping from her mouth and hooves. Her mane and tail grew into majestic, flowing rainbows. A shroud of darkness encased her face as well, producing a dark purple haze that drifted from her eyes. Her mouth slowly grew into a grin as her teeth sharpened into almost carnivorous fangs.

Rainbow Dash then unfurled her mightily powerful wings and bared her razor teeth at the horde, driving them backwards. She eventually drove them away from the truck as she stepped out of it as a new mare. Gone was the mare that used to be Rainbow Dash. A new alicorn has come to the town of blocks.

”You,” she demanded at the closest knight. Her voice was still the same, but it felt distant and supported by two extra voices talking at the same time. ”Tell me what your little group wanted to do with me.”

“Uh, um, we, uh, wanted you to, uh, come with us?” The knight made a fake smile as he improvised the last three words.

Rainbow Dash wickedly laughed to herself. ”You wanted to kill me, didn’t you? And since I’m all big and mighty, you want to spare me in fear, don’t you?”

“Maybe?” the knight slowly said through his rattles and shivers. He knew he was dead.

Rainbow unexpectedly smiled not as menacingly. ”Well, I expected that. I mean, who wouldn’t want to obey a ruler as awesome as me? Show me your capital so that I can rule all over of you. I don’t want only your group to hog all of the loyalty.”

The horde of soldiers hunched over in ever present fear, reluctantly led her up a jungle tree, and aimed for a distant keep made out of nether brick. One of the skeletal marksman pointed at it and spoke to Rainbow Dash. “That’s one of our central bases. It’s called the Nethift Castle.”

”Great! I’ll spruce it up a little though. It doesn’t look cool enough for me.”

“Knock yourself out,” one of the goons exclaimed. “I think it looks bad, too.”

Rainbow Dash faced him and presented an unusually happy smile. ”Wow, you have a good taste in style! Since I like you, you’ll get a promotion.”

She fired a spell at the goon and encased him in darkness. When the darkness faded away, the goon extended up to twice his original height, and its skin shifted to a blood-red. His muscles also grew twice as large, and two horns curved out of the sides of his forehead. His mouth was riddled with fangs, his eyes were glowing with an ever present yellow light, and his hands were now wicked claws. He examined himself and smirked at Rainbow Dash gratefully. He bowed down to Rainbow Dash, the alicorn. “Thank you, my liege.”

”No problem.” She faced the Nethift Castle in this distance and formed another wicked smile. ”Now, let’s make my new army even better and more awesome than before.”

}———————————————————————————————————{

After the soul door disappeared and opened the way for the trio, they headed inside the small cave. It was mainly a dirt pathway with a couple twists and turns inside of it. However, there was a deadly twist to the mini maze.

Gingerbread was the first to notice the Mobtrocity Destroyers hiding behind some of the walls.

“Be careful,” Gingerbread warned as he put an arm in Twilight Sparkle’s way. “I think they’re more creepers.”

“Let me lure them out.” Pinkie hopped over to the end of the pathway and walked backwards as two destroyers followed her. Gingerbread and Twilight also walked backwards to give her enough room. Pinkie stopped halfway in the tunnel and smacked both destroyers back. She kept doing this until both of them died and dropped some pieces of gunpowder. She picked them up and entered the next tunnel. She found three more destroyers hiding in a small area. She rushed towards them and aggravated one of them as she ran away, killing all three of them in their own explosion.

The trio kept making progress until they reached the end of the small maze. Dirt turned into sand and sandstone as they entered the Golden Desert. Since the Cool Blankets still had their special effect on them, they felt no difference in temperature, but the sun definitely shone brighter and hotter than before.

Twilight noticed the checkpoint next to her and activated it.

Twilight Sparkle, Gingerbread, and Pinkie Pie’s spawnpoints have been saved.

The first structure in front of them was an odd temple with a soul door in front of it. Twilight inferred that the temple was not their destination. Instead, the ponies paid attention to the Temple of the Lost Tombs in the distance, a large assortment of buildings built ages ago in the middle of a desert. Now, the structure was on a coastline and in a desert.

The trio kept walking along until they saw two zombies in desert attire and three tan spiders. When they moved a little closer to the group, they discovered that it was a band of raiders with three dune crawlers.

“Hey, I thought we warned everybody that this was our turf!” angrily spat one of the raiders at the trio. “Now you’ll pay!”

The raiders took out their stone swords and shimmied toward the trio. The dune crawlers crawled over to Pinkie first and leapt at her. She smacked the crawlers away with her stone sword and killed them fairly quickly. Twilight shot one of the raiders with three arrows, killing them, and Gingerbread rushed the other raider with a cluster of slashes. After that raider’s demise, they then moved along to Guraanurgaa.

They had another encounter incoming as they surveyed four goons, two marksmen, and a Mobtrocity Officer—a zombie pigman in a brown military officer outfit. One of the goons held a map upside down as a marksman and the officer peered down at its images.

“Where do we go?” the goon asked. “It looks like random splotches to me.”

The marksman turned the map right side up. The goon felt stupid afterwards and handed the map to him. The marksman studied it carefully. “It says that a sacred obsidian block is in that temple over there.” He pointed at the Temple of the Lost Tombs.

“Well? What else about it?” the officer grunted irritably.

“We can’t simply fly in there either. We have to find something to clean out the sand all over the place in there. Also, we can’t use a regular shovel either. If we do, it’ll break instantly.”

“Let’s see if Guraanurgaa has any leads on a sand removing device like that.” The officer took the map and folded it up. He then tucked it in his shirt pocket and unsheathed his golden sword. “Be careful, soldiers. Remember that we might have someone else who’s looking for these blocks.”

Twilight was deeply intrigued in the obsidian blocks. “Hey, Ty, what are these special blocks anyway?”

They are basically ten keys that can open the Ender Shrine. The Mobtrocity want them to summon the Enderdragon to help them take over all of Minecraftia. Conquering the world is easier when you have a dragon that can tear it to shreds.

Twilight just found out how much trouble the world was in. In this world, a band of monsters is looking for the keys to a super weapon, and they must already have a few of the keys by now. If they ever collect them all, everything that Twilight has and has not seen that exists in this world will be destroyed. So, she decided that if she was going to stay here for quite a while, she should might as well save this world.

Gingerbread was slightly annoyed from this sudden explanation of events. “Why didn’t you tell us this sooner? That information sounds kind of important.”

Twilight’s arrival to this place caused me to sidetrack from telling you that, and Pinkie didn’t help it either.

Pinkie mainly wondered about the roaming Mobtrocity, not about the blame on her. “Should we follow them or defeat them?”

“Well, when they said to check if Guraanurgaa has any leads, I think they meant burning it down and enslaving the locals for answers.” Twilight’s discovery horrified her a little. “Wow, how can I see them as being that brutal?”

It’s because they are that brutal. The Mobtrocity can cause quite a lot of destruction if they wanted to, but they don’t want to kill the world. They only want to kill the humans.

“But, they probably really don’t like us now because we kind of attacked them a little while ago,” Pinkie added with only a tiny bit of joy.

“Let’s continue on,” Gingerbread suggested as he pursued the Mobtrocity squadron. The two ponies soon followed him.

When the trio confronted the Mobtrocity, they were dangerously close to the front gate of Guraanurgaa. Luckily, it was locked.

“Hey, boss, there are the freaky horse monsters!” a goon shouted as he turned his head to the trio. With every new insult these Mobtrocity threw at Twilight, she felt less and less remorse for them. “Let’s get ‘em!”

The four goons immediately ran at the trio. One of them wielded an iron sword, and another wore a chainmail helmet and chestplate on their body. The marksmen kept their distance as they aimed for Pinkie first. The officer joined the goons and raised his sword in valor. “For the Mobtrocity! May we die in battle under the name of our lord!”

The goons first rushed Twilight. She fired her magic at the two unarmed ones, backing them away and slightly damaging them. She then sliced the chainmail goon with her Little Burner, cooking him in flames. She switched to her Defense Sword and swung at both the iron sword goon and the chainmail goon, killing both of them fairly quickly.

Pinkie kept dodging some of the arrows the marksmen fired at her. Three hit her in various parts of her torso, forming small puncture wounds that released a little blood. She powered through the pain and swung her sword at both marksmen. She then felt ten more arrows jab into her as she beat down the two marksmen with her sword. Both of them were felled swiftly.

The officer decided that he wanted Gingerbread’s head on a platter. He sprinted at him and slammed his sword at Gingerbread’s side, knocking him back into a cactus. Gingerbread felt the stinging pricks from the cactus as he struggled to escape its grip. The officer closed in on him and swung again, weakening him to near death. Gingerbread swung at him twice, staggering the pigman. Pinkie and Twilight then came to the rescue by pummeling the officer with their swords. He fell to the ground defeated and raised his sword valiantly once again.

“The mob will never die!” he weakly shouted through his dying breath. He was clearly a firm believer in the Mobtrocity’s cause.

It was then that several dune crawlers dug themselves out of the sand. They formed a circle of eight crawlers around the trio, preparing to leap as they inched closer and closer to them. Twilight killed two with her Little Burner, and Pinkie only killed one as she backed away from them. Gingerbread was nearly dead, but he didn’t care anymore. He rushed into four crawlers and beat them down senselessly. He killed all four of them, but they bit him way too much.

Gingerbread was slain by Dune Crawler.

“Don’t worry!” Twilight comforted Pinkie as she sliced a crawler in half. “He’ll come back to life!”

Pinkie slapped a newer crawler with her sword three times. She then turned her head to Twilight. “I know that! I think we can do that, too!”

“I don’t think you should test that out! What if we are not able to come back after death?” Twilight swung at the last two crawlers that just emerged from the sand.

“Well, you have a point there.” Pinkie put away her sword and faced Twilight. “If we don’t belong in this world, then I don’t think we collect a lot of its powers. Also, do you have any food? I’m starving!”

Twilight checked her inventory. She had only four apples left. She took them out and gave two to Pinkie. “That’s all I can give,” she softly spoke as she munched down her first apple. “We need to get more food soon.”

Pinkie already ate her two apples by the time Twilight finished her first one. “Well, an apple is better than a cookie here! Have you seen how much they replenish in this world? I need to eat like eight of them to equal these two apples!”

“Huh, I didn’t know that.” Twilight chewed her last apple as she turned her head to the cave behind her. She saw Gingerbread sprinting towards her.

When he reached the group, he noticed that Twilight ran out of apples. “Oh, you’re out of food, huh?”

Pinkie just noticed something about Gingerbread’s habits. “You seem to be fine with dying in battle. That’s the second time you died already!”

Gingerbread scratched the back of his head. “Well, it’s because of, wait a minute, how do you know I died twice? You weren’t with us during that time.”

“I know. I only know that because your death message showed up.”

Gingerbread felt a little uncomfortable with her discovery. So did Ty. “Okay, then.”

Pinkie gazed at Gingerbread and hopped a little closer to him. “Now, what is the reason you die a lot? It must be terrible to go through that over and over again.”

“It is. I actually hate dying a lot, and I do have some food to keep me replenished. It’s just that, well...”

“What is it?” Pinkie passively put pressure on Gingerbread with her deepening—and unsettling—stare.

“Well, I didn’t eat any because, well, it’s this.” Gingerbread held out one of his five steaks. Even though Pinkie naturally repulsed from the meat, she quickly understood what Gingerbread meant and slinked back forward.

Twilight observed the scene and felt a tad sympathetic to Gingerbread. “You sacrificed your only food for our trust? That’s pretty selfless of you to do that.”

“That might a little too selfless, though,” Pinkie added. “Just because you eat meat doesn’t mean we’ll hate you. Yeah, that’s not very nice to animals, and I bet Fluttershy would faint if she saw this, but that doesn’t make you a monster. If you need meat, go ahead, take it. I won’t stop who you are.”

Twilight sheepishly smiled through her words. “I will admit, I would have probably freaked out earlier if you did eat one of those in front of me. I kind of have a grudge against seeing things like that in others.”

“If it makes you any happier,” Gingerbread started in a not very joking tone, “I can sell these and switch them out for non-meat foods.”

“No no no, that won’t be needed, Gingy!” Pinkie wildly shook her hooves to emphasize her point. “I understand. Be yourself.”

Twilight quietly told her opinion. “Well, I think that would be the right thing to do...”

Pinkie snapped at her angrily. “Twilight, why can’t you let him act like who he is?” What’s wrong with you?”

Twilight stomped a hoof in defense.”I just think it’s wrong to eat meat! Animals don’t need to be killed like that for creatures like Gingerbread to live. He can simply stop eating it all together!”

“But that’s a selfish thought, Twilight! You don’t come up to a lion and tell them to stop eating meat. That’s how they survive! You’re pretty much telling Gingerbread to not live for your own sake!”

Twilight glanced at the ground in shame as she digested Pinkie’s words for a few long seconds. “You’re right, Pinkie. It is selfish to tell him to not be himself, especially if I don’t agree with his habits one bit.”

I should have just gave him ten apples as well or something. This is ridiculous.

Pinkie turned back to Gingerbread and nodded. “If you need to, you can eat that. We won’t hate you for it, will we Twily?” Pinkie turned to Twilight again with a miniature scowl on her face.

“No,” Twilight honestly answered. “We won’t be mad at you.”

Instead of continuing on the meat debate, Gingerbread turned to Pinkie and asked one question. “Did you just call me Gingy earlier?”

“Well, of course,” Pinkie answered with half of her joy. “You are my friend after all. I need to give you some sort of shortened form to call you.”

“Okay, then.” Gingerbread had no idea how to react to that. “Thanks for considering me your friend?”

“It’s always nice to see another smile!” Pinkie hopped along towards Guraanurgaa.

Gingerbread realized something. His character was constantly expressionless.

He actually smiled during his sentence though. The thought itself sent shivers down his spine.

The trio continued onward until they were at the front gate of Guraanurgaa. Obviously, the gate was locked, but something else confused the ponies this time.

“Um,” Twilight started as she glanced at the empty stables next to the gate, “what is that building right there?”

That’s a new pen for animals like pigs and sheep and cows. It’s not done yet.

That was a lie.

“Hey, who are you three?” one of the two guards hollered at the trio. “Are you Mobtrocity spies or something?”

“No, we’re not spies,” answered Gingerbread. “We’re travelers that were sent from Millstown to Derp Village to here. We were wondering if you could let us in.”

“Well...” The guard examine the group. “You can’t be spies when I think of it. The human is, well, human, and you two are baby horses with an odd coat. Defects, perhaps?”

Twilight couldn’t take it anymore. She stomped her hooves on the ground and screamed at the guard with all of her brewing rage from the past. “I’m a pony, not a horse or donkey! Why does every creature here think that? I, am, a, PONY!”

“Okay, okay, sheesh.” The guard looked more irritated than scared. “No need to lose it on me. Anyway, I’ll let you three in. The mayor wanted to see a few travelers anyway.”

The guard slowly opened the gate with the flick of a lever. Once it was completely open, the trio walked into the town of Guraanurgaa.

The town itself was built out of sandstone and hardened clay. The roads were still clay, and there were still villagers and townspeople roaming around, but that was expected at this point. One trait that the village possessed struck the trio quite harshly. The water in the well and the small farm of carrots and potatoes settled at dangerously low levels. The people even looked dehydrated and dry from the shortage.

As with the villagers, they were as annoying as always. Twilight tried her best to drown out their commotion, but it was to no avail. The constant herrs were driving her crazy. Individual hairs in her mane and tail were offset as she kept thinking about what they were saying. Pinkie thought that the villagers were pleasant and actually fun. She conversed with them through imitated herrs as she covered her nose with a hoof. The villagers spoke to her with happier voices than before, further worsening Twilight’s sanity. Gingerbread quietly chuckled to himself as he saw Twilight descend into madness through her developing eye twitches and shifting mannerisms.

The trio eventually reached Mayor Mutashaa’s house. They walked into the house and immediately found a couple tables, some potted dead bushes, another ender chest, and an anvil. Mutashaa had a completely bald head, an aged and tanned face, and a black apron. His voice was calm and wise with a slight African ring to it.

“Welcome to Guraanurgaa, travelers. I am Mayor Mutashaa.”

Gingerbread immediately blurted out a small phrase. “That’s racist.”

How is that racist? That’s how he talks.

“That’s still racist though.”

I don’t know anymore. I don’t want to start another debate like the meat thing from earlier, so let’s go on.

Mutashaa spoke to the trio again. “So, have any of you seen the state of our village?”

“Yes,” Twilight answered. “There’s barely any water here. How can you survive like this?”

“Well, we originally had a large collection of water right under us, but the Mobtrocity stole most of it to get something out of us about a sacred obsidian block. We don’t even know what a sacred obsidian block is!”

“One thing that I should add is that you had something for the Sky Temple, right?” Gingerbread impatiently asked.

“Oh, yes, I do. I’ll give it in exchange for some water from the Vorin River.” Mutashaa gave the trio five empty buckets. “That should give enough water to save our crops and our well.”

“We won’t let you down, mister!” Pinkie saluted as she took the buckets and left the house. Twilight and Gingerbread followed her out of the village and back into the Golden Desert.

You three do know that there is a mobile shop next to the village, right?

The trio turned back and saw a small wooden building next to the gate. A lone villager stood there with a sign above his head that read ‘Ty’s Mobile Shop’. Twilight immediately suspected that Ty was the owner of the shop. Gingerbread took out his fifteen dollars and eyed the shop. “We only have fifteen bucks, though. What can I get with that money?”

“I think I can help with that.” Pinkie walked up to Gingerbread and handed him four gold coins, all of them worth five dollars each.

Gingerbread’s eyes widened with every gold coin placed in his hand. “Where did you get that money?”

“Some of the locals in Millstown and Derp Village gave me these in return for helping them. I also got this from Derp Village.” Pinkie held out a book that read ‘Pure Magic 101’.

“Let me see that for a moment.” Twilight levitated the book to her face and felt complete surprise and a little joy after reading the title. “There’s magic here? Am I able to perform it?”

“I don’t know,” Pinkie replied while she scratched the back of her head. “The text is very awkward and confusing.”

Twilight noticed that when several letters and phrases in the book were unidentifiable. “What does that even say? Oh, there’s one I can read!” She stumbled upon a singular spell that read ‘hyper regeneration’ above a special phrase. She said the phrase out loud. “Regenera maxima!”

Nothing happened.

Pinkie tilted her head in confusion. “Huh, it doesn’t work? Maybe the book is a fake.”

“That doesn’t make sense. Nopony would make a gag book if it involved magic. Maybe I didn’t have something?”

While the ponies kept conversing about the book, Gingerbread walked up to the shop and examined it. “Do you have any chainmail armor for sale? Specifically, for a pony?”

“We can forge it into armor for a pony,” the shopkeeper politely replied.

“Great. I’ll have an entire set of chainmail armor like that, two stone swords, a stack of apples, and two stacks of arrows.”

The shopkeeper calculated that and told the total. “That’ll be thirty-two dollars.”

Gingerbread handed the shopkeeper the money. The shopkeeper then gave Gingerbread all of the items he asked for. “Just so you know, stone swords have a buy one get one free deal. That’s why the total is that much.”

“Alright.” Gingerbread took the items and approached the two ponies again. He gave the armor and arrows to Twilight, kept the swords, and gave the two ponies thirty-two apples each. “That should cover us for now.”

Twilight equipped the armor and took off her beaten leather armor. She then placed the arrows and apples in her inventory. Pinkie took the apples and also placed them in her inventory. Gingerbread kept his two swords next to his wooden one just in case it breaks in a battle. They were now ready for battle.

Now, there is an area that Gingerbread can do. I suggest that Pinkie and Twilight should go get the water while Gingerbread goes over to the Trial Chambers.

“Ooh, that sounds like something I can do,” Twilight indirectly proposed.

The questions in the Trial Chambers are not able to be solved by a pony. You need knowledge about things involving other worlds. You clearly do not have that knowledge, but Gingerbread does.

“Alright then.” Twilight was disappointed, but she understood the reason clearly. “Come on, Pinkie, lets go get that water.”

As Gingerbread stayed behind, the two ponies traveled back to the Great Forest in search of water.

}———————————————————————————————————{

Pinkie Pie and Twilight Sparkle thought that they could just grab some water and go.

They were dead wrong.

Once they re-entered the Great Forest, they met three goons that immediately dealt payback at the ponies. Pinkie sliced them to bits, allowing the duo to continue on. They walked along the clay road back to Derp Village’s entrance and continued going east as they encountered the gate. They soon reached the Vorin River and stopped right there.

“Alright, this is the river!” Pinkie announced. “Let’s get some water!”

She submerged her buckets into the cold river and raised them back up over the river. She put them back in her inventory and began her walk back to Guraanurgaa. Obviously, Twilight tagged along with her. However, their small walk was quickly halted once something else popped up out of nowhere.

Fluttershy has joined the game.

Pinkie suddenly bounced up and down in excitement. “Fluttershy’s here! Fluttershy’s here, Twily, she’s here!”

“Where is she then?” Twilight looked around and saw only trees and a pigman. Wait a minute...

“We found them, cadets!” shouted the officer while he pulled out his golden sword. “Now, attack!”

Seven goons rushed out of the trees and to the duo. They smacked and bashed Twilight and Pinkie, causing a few bruises and bleeding cuts. Pinkie smacked them away with her sword while Twilight burned them with her Little Burner. The officer stood in the back of the battle until there were only three goons left.

“Alright, men!” the officer shouted again. “Give it your all!”

The officer rushed at Twilight and slammed his sword into her chest. Her body soared right into a tree from the knockback, granting the goons the opening they needed to swarm Pinkie. She slashed back at them with great determination despite her nearly low health. She slapped them two more times before she galloped backwards. She took out an apple and chomped it all in one bite. She then returned to the goons and felled all three of them.

Twilight got back up and sliced at the officer with her Little Burner. To her surprise, he didn’t catch on fire, at all. He stood there while he prepared another swing, allowing Twilight a small window of time. She switched to her Defense Sword and struck the officer’s head with it, slamming him into a tree. She then leapt onto him and sliced his body three times, killing him. She grabbed his loot and experience, and Pinkie walked around and collected the leftover experience and loot.

“Alright,” Pinkie started through her shallow breaths, “we should go back, to Jungle Pass. Fluttershy, might be over, there.”

“Good idea.” Twilight was a little winded but not as much as Pinkie. “Let’s just hope we find her first.”

The duo got back onto the pathway and worked their way back to the original spawnpoint. They fought a few slimes and goons along their way, but they were little to no trouble. When the duo reached the spawn, all they found was an open chest and three yellow feathers on the ground.

Pinkie quickly scrambled to the clay floor and gathered up the feathers with her hooves. She then threw the chest open. Suffice to say, it was empty.

She shed a single tear as her voice teetered on the edge of shattering. “She’s not gone yet. We can still find her, Twilight. If we found this in that short amount of time, the meanies that took her should be close.”

“Oi, what’re you two doing over there?” The voice was oddly British in origin, and it almost sounded like it came from above the ponies. They looked up to find a skeleton with a crack running along the left side of its skull and a piece of red cloth tied to its right arm. “You lot look like the same creatures that Fluttershy fella was. Are you two her friends or something?”

“Yes, we are,” Twilight answered with slight speculation on her mind. “Are you a part of the Mobtrocity?”

“No, mate, I actually have a grudge against them. They were the same group that turned me into this.”

Twilight eyed the skeleton carefully. “What do you mean by that?”

“Well, let me tell you.” The skeleton jumped down from the tree and to the ground. He startled Twilight a little, staggering her from the sudden entrance. He then held out a bony hand in friendliness. “Name’s Vincent Jackson. And who would you two be?”

Twilight shook Vincent’s hand with her front left hoof. “Well, I’m Twilight Sparkle.”

Pinkie bounced up to Vincent with joy in her voice. “And I’m Pinkie Pie!”

“Lovely names,” Vincent smiled a little from hearing Pinkie’s bubbly voice. “I’ve never heard of such in ever, really. I suppose you’re not from Minecraftia?”

“No, not really,” Twilight answered. “We’re from Equestria. Also, if you know about the Mobtrocity and Fluttershy, then do you know where they went?”

“They’re heading for Sparker Plains,” Vincent gravely announced. “Must be due to the Empress. Bloody ruler’s gone mad, you see. The Mobtrocity want to take her out before anything else happens.”

Twilight was intrigued now. “Do you know who this empress is?”

“No clue yet. That was all the Mobtrocity said, really. That’s why I’m after them. Wherever they go means that there’s bound to be some sort of treasure or loot. However, I can help you two out for a bit if that’s what you want.”

Both of the ponies nodded.

“Good. Follow me, I know a shortcut to the entrance. We can probably meet them there.”

Vincent walked over to a bit of shrubbery and took out a long, thin iron sword. He sliced the shrubbery into pixelated pieces and urged the ponies to move along. “You two first. I’ll keep an eye out for any spies.”

The duo walked through the newly made pathway. They eventually entered what seemed like the Great Forest, but everything was even more unfamiliar than the other side. The lack of a proper pathway as well didn’t help the ponies at all. They had to rely on Vincent’s slicing of bundles of leaves and bushes in his way. The trio discovered a pathway and followed it along for the rest of the small trip.

Along the way, they met a few destroyers, goons, and marksmen that hid in the collections of trees. Vincent’s sharp reflexes and excellent hearing and sight allowed him to pinpoint the monsters and kill them in seconds. The trio reached a dead end when a soul door blocked the entrance to Sparker Plains.

“Huh, well you look at that,” mused Vincent. “I bet they’re behind us, aren’t they? We might as well wait till they show their faces.”

Twilight looked up at Vincent with wonder and worry. “What do you think they’ll do to Fluttershy?”

“Not sure. Probably kill her at most, study her at least. They might be interested in you little-”

“Ponies,” Twilight interrupted quickly to avoid another insult.

“Right, ponies. Say, were you two alone, or were you with some other bloke or something?”

“We have a human friend named Gingerbread in the Golden Desert.”

Vincent was a little interested in this Gingerbread person. “What’s he doing all the way over there?”

“He’s solving the Trial Chambers. We’re out here to collect water for Guraanurgaa.”

“That’s fairly generous of you two to do. Heard they were struck pretty bad by the Mobtrocity.”

Vincent looked around again for any nearby Mobtrocity. After about five minutes of waiting, he checked his nonexistent watch and scanned the trees again. “It’s been quite some time since they took that Fluttershy pony. They should be here by now.”

“Maybe they changed paths?” Pinkie proposed through her curiosity. “This is the only way to Sparker Plains, right?”

“They could travel by sea, but that’d be idiotic. They’d get blown back into a rocky beach or some other bloody thing that’ll spell their deaths.”

“Wait a minute,” Twilight started as she speculated. “They probably think we’re in the Golden Desert now. Why would they go here, then?”

Vincent slapped himself in the face. “Great idea. Let’s go there before something bad happens.”

And so the trio rushed back to the Golden Desert through the long and tedious path.

}———————————————————————————————————{

It has only been about ten minutes ever since Twilight and Pinkie left, but it felt like an hour to Ty. During these ten minutes, he found the number one weakness for Gingerbread.

He was terrible at parkour.

In the first parkour area in the Trial Chambers, Gingerbread had to climb up a series of platforms to eventually reach the door above. He kept falling over, and over, and over again. He eventually got it after who knows how many attempts.

The next area was a cactus jumping session. Gingerbread spent the most of his time on this one, as his horrible timing was impeccable. Never before did Ty see someone struggle on what he considered the most grueling of all parkour challenges. Gingerbread eventually got it after he suddenly teleported to the other side of the session.

The last area was a simple ice jumping area. Gingerbread kept jumping from ice block to ice block, failing in some jumps and succeeding in the rest. He made it without too much difficulty, but he still struggled through that session.

After a door maze, a code, a couple questions, and Einstein’s Riddle, he finally made it to the end. He reached into a dusty chest, grabbed the Sand Digger—a shovel crafted to dig the sands of the Temple of the Lost Tombs—and teleported out of the Trial Chambers.

Gingerbread examined the shovel and spoke to Ty. “Alright, I got a shovel now. What is it for?”

It’s for the Temple of the Lost Tombs. The sand in there cannot be dug up by a basic shovel, so you’ll have to use that.

Gingerbread stopped in place as he saw an entire brigade of Mobtrocity soldiers marching from the Golden Desert’s cave entrance. There were twenty goons, twelve marksmen, five officers, two destroyers, and a leader. Ten of the goons were carrying what looked like a huge metal cage. Inside of it was another mare, this one having a yellow coat and a pink mane and tail. Its hair was fairly long and curly, almost stretching to the steel surface of its cage. Unlike Twilight and Pinkie, it had two wings on its back, but they were chained together by a unique handcuff device. On its flank was a cluster of three butterflies with pink wings and blue bodies. Its tiny irises were a glistening aqua and turquoise mix, shivering with pure terror as they darted back and forth at the goons.

It spoke with a shaky, quiet, and uncertain voice. “What are you going to do to me?”

“Now why would we tell you?” snapped back one of the officers. He pointed a sword to his eye while he glared at the mare’s face. “Do I look like an idiot to you?”

“No, no you don’t, but you can at least tell me what you’ll do to me.”

“We don’t need to tell jack to you! You’re lucky we decided to keep your namby-pamby wings, freak!”

The mare sobbed to herself after that officer’s screaming. “You, you didn’t have to be so mean to me.”

One of the marksman walked a little closer to the officer. “Hey, man, chill out. We all know she’s something we don’t know, but your yelling and screaming is not needed. Look, you’re scaring her.”

The officer snorted and turned its rage-filled head at the marksman. “I need to chill out? I, your boss and enforcer, need to chill out? I’m perfectly fine, as you can see! I’M PERFECTLY FINE!”

The officer turned its head toward Gingerbread and snorted viciously again. “Oh, look, a dirty eavesdropper!” The officer looked like he was about to die from a stroke. “I’M GOING TO FLAIL YOUR ARMS LIKE MARACAS!”

The officer charged at Gingerbread with his golden sword aiming towards him. Gingerbread hopped to his left and sliced at the officer twice. The officer turned around and slammed his sword onto the sandy ground. Gingerbread kicked the officer down and gave him a final blow into his chest. The officer disappeared, leaving only his partially broken sword and some experience afterwards.

The marksmen rushed into an arc around Gingerbread and aimed their bows. That was when the enderman leader on the cage aimed a sword at Gingerbread with fury. “Fire, my legion!”

Arrows flew across the air and pelted Gingerbread’s body. At least twenty-seven arrows stabbed into him during that assault, leaving him in near shambles. He hid behind a cactus and took out one of his steaks. He bit into it three times, giving him the strength and endurance he lost.

The wall of skeletons marched closer to Gingerbread and aimed their arrows again. The leader pointed his sword again, saying his favorite word with valor and excitement. “Fir-aughh!”

A sword stabbed right into his back and out his chest. It then moved upwards, dealing astronomical damage to him. His two halves toppled to the ground and disappeared, leaving only a single ender pearl and a pile of experience. The sword retreated back behind the cage and the brigade of Mobtrocity.

Twilight spun the sword next to her and put it back in her inventory. “That’s what you get for taking my friend!”

The marksmen changed direction and marched towards the newly arrived trio. Arrows flew over the ponies and around Vincent. Vincent leapt over to the marksmen and sliced three of their heads off, killing them instantly. Pinkie hacked at the others while Twilight hurled arrows and magic at the marksmen. They were all dead in only ten seconds, leaving three officers, two destroyers, and sixteen surviving goons.

As the officers readied themselves for battle, one of them screamed at the goons. “What’re you buffoons doing? Drop the cage and crush these mutated mules now!”

That was when Twilight’s sanity snapped into two.

Twilight stared directly at the screaming officer and twitched her head sporadically. She then grew a long smile across her face as her horn glowed purple again. She spoke with a shaky voice cloaked by glee. “Hey, mister pig thing, whatever you are, what did you just call me?”

“Oh, you heard me?” The officer smiled as he faced Twilight with his sword pointing her. “I said that you’re a mutant freak of a mule that should’ve been put down a long time ago!”

That was all Twilight needed to provide a reason for her next move.

Her grin twisted to a vicious scowl as dozens of arrows levitated around her. “Nopony, calls me, a MULE!”

Several arrows sliced through the air and into the officer’s head, literally ripping it into pieces. Several more arrows felled most of the goons, the two destroyers, and the other two officers in their way. By the time Twilight’s rage arrows stopped flying, only two goons were left. Both of them immediately dropped the cage and screamed in terror as they fled into the ocean. Twilight shot two more arrows into their heads, killing both of them.

Gingerbread, Vincent, and Ty’s jaws dropped as they witnessed what just happened. Ty nervously laughed.

That was, uh, quite the show you put up there, uh, Twilight.

Vincent was still petrified from that bloodshed. “Blimey! That pony’s quite the fighter. Remind me to never provoke her.”

“I’ll make sure that never happens to you,” Gingerbread managed to say as he still perceived the battlefield.

Twilight calmed down as she breathed in and out deeply. She examined the entire area and noticed all of the dropped rotten flesh and experience. She then collapsed on the ground and drank all of the carnage in. “How, how could I get like that? That was not me. That was not me.”

Pinkie rushed over to Twilight while Gingerbread and Vincent attempted to unlock the cage. “Twily, are you okay? It looked like you lost it right after that pigman said those nasty words to us!”

“I, I don’t know anymore.” Twilight rubbed her face into the sand and recalled her recent actions a bit more. “I’m becoming like these monsters, using my own rage against them. I’m not a monster, I’m just a pony. It’s just that I hate how everything in this world can’t get my species right.”

“It’s okay. You’ll be fine, Twilight.” Pinkie stroked Twilight’s face and wrapped her in a toasty and comfortable hug. “I’m here for you. We’ll survive this world, okay? Also, you don’t need to feel bad about yourself. You were amazing during that little outburst. You pretty much saved Fluttershy from these things, but, it’s best you take control of it for your own sake.”

“I just, I don’t want to become a terrible pony, Pinkie.” Twilight shed a couple tears that ran down her cheeks. “I don’t know if these things should be killed or not. Should I feel bad for hurting them? Should I feel like a monster for hurting monsters?”

“Well,” Vincent started as he approached Twilight, “I’m technically not a monster. I was human, but now I’m this bloody mess. I still kill monsters, and so do the rest of us humans. We’ve been pretty much at war with them for who knows how long. They shot first, so we’ll shoot back. It’s what we do.” Vincent stepped a little closer to her and knelt down. “Plus, these Mobtrocity blokes are nothing but troublemakers. They’re killing this world. We have to fight back to save it. Now, can you get over your little incident before we put all of Minecraftia at risk?”

Twilight sniffed through her tears as she got back up. “Okay. I just want to go home soon, if ever.”

Gingerbread cracked open the lock with his sword and opened the iron door on its side. He then destroyed the cuffs around the wings of the pony inside, Fluttershy. She stepped out of the cage meekly and approached Twilight. “Twilight, Pinkie? Why are you two here?”

“We still don’t know,” Pinkie answered. “I know that Rainbow Dash is also here, but I didn’t see her yet. Kinda odd.”

“I guess everypony that disappeared wound up here.” Fluttershy scanned the landscape and suddenly felt a deathly heat sweep over her body. “Oh, it’s rather hot here.”

Twilight took her Cool Blanket out of her inventory. She then handed it to Fluttershy. Twilight’s voice was now more structured than before. “Here, wrap yourself in this. It’ll help.”

Fluttershy took the blanket and wrapped it around her body. She felt its cold cloth seep into her body like a lotion. “It feels very nice. Thank you, Twilight.”

Gingerbread looked up to where he thought Ty was. “So, where do we go?”

The Temple of the Lost Tombs. Your first sacred obsidian block awaits. Also, this time, I suggest that you don’t split up.

The newly made quintet walked over to the not so distant Temple of the Lost Tombs. They all entered through the door and met a wall of sand. Gingerbread took out the Sand Digger and shoveled all of the sand into his inventory. After he discarded it into a small pile, the group continued onward into the hallway. That was when a large door behind them snapped shut, trapping them inside the Temple of the Lost Tombs.

“Well,” Pinkie quietly spoke as she peered at the large door with a creeper face, “there’s no turning back now.”

What awaited the group would be their first true challenge. This was their first dungeon, and they needed to crawl through it as carefully as possible.