//------------------------------// // Chapter 2: A Portal Gone Wrong // Story: A Tale of Crafters and Ponies // by Dolphy Blue Drake //------------------------------// Chapter 2: A Portal Gone Wrong “All right, everypony, what do we know?” Twilight Sparkle was addressing the other five Bearers of the Elements of Harmony in her library. “That there have been a lot of dimensional disturbances lately?” Pinkie blurted out. “Not exactly,” Twilight responded, sighing in frustration. “We can’t confirm that yet. Every time somepony reports something strange, everything’s perfectly fine once anypony shows up to investigate.” “Then what do we know about this?” Rainbow Dash asked in irritation. “Actually, I’m not sure…” Twilight said, trailing off as she heard a sound behind her that she couldn’t quite describe. Reality seemed to bend and shift in the space right behind her, and when Twilight turned around, there was a doorway of sorts standing in the middle of the room. The frame was exactly a meter thick and made out of some sort of black substance, and inside the doorway was a two-meter wide and three-meter tall swirling mass of something, which was making the strange noise and shifting colors constantly. All six ponies gasped in unison. “Ah think we may have found the problem,” Applejack said, breaking the silence. “Or, maybe it found us.” Before anypony could say anything else, the swirling mass in the doorway started to churn at a much faster rate than before, causing the noise to get louder as well. Suddenly, the ponies were being dragged into the doorway against their wills by an incredibly strong force. Before any of them could even scream or come up with a plan, the gateway sucked them in, they vanished, and then the swirling mass in the doorway quieted down and disappeared, leaving behind an empty frame. ------Dolphy------ Year 8, Day 15 Today has been very strange so far. Stranger than anything I’ve seen before. And that’s saying something. I think I’ll start at the beginning. After I woke up (actually, Kryanna woke me up), I woke up the children who weren’t already awake (everyone except Kryanna), and prepared breakfast. I’m really getting sick of having to live in the Town Hall with the children just so that I can take care of them all more easily. I sometimes visit my old house, but I probably won’t be able to live there again for a few more years. After a breakfast of porkchops, bread, apples and milk, I had the children follow me to the Nether Portal on the edge of town. The children may still not be very good at fighting, but I thought that teaching them about portals wouldn’t be a bad idea as long as none of them actually went through the portal. After we all arrived at the portal, I began my lesson: “All right, everybody, this,” I said, pointing to the portal, “is a Nether Portal. The Nether is a dangerous location, so I don’t want any of you using this quite yet. Until you can fight off a Creeper all by yourself, the Nether is far too dangerous, even in groups.” “Awwwww…” the children groaned, disappointed. I sighed. “Please don’t be upset, children. The Nether is very dangerous! I—“ I cut off as Miragg pointed at the portal, causing the children to gasp in surprise. I turned around and saw what she was pointing at: the portal had turned from a gently swirling mass of purple energy to an angrily churning mass of energy that rapidly shifted colors. “Daddy,” my daughter piped up, “is that supposed to happen?” “No, Kryanna, it’s not,” I said, worried. “Everyone, run!” The children screamed and ran back to the Town Hall, where they'd be safe. I stayed behind, quickly equipped my suit of diamond armor and pulled out my diamond sword (my amethyst equipment was back at the Town Hall). I glared at the portal, daring it to produce a monster. With a brilliant flash of light, the portal ejected six… things. Each one was a different color, and they resembled horses, but the strange thing was… They had curves. As far as I knew, curves were something out of myth. I always thought there was no such thing as non-angular objects, whether animate or not. Almost everything uses right angles, but the occasional thing has slants here and there, but I’d never seen curves before. And here were six creatures covered in curves! Fighting the urge to pass out from astonishment, I checked the creatures’ vital signs. They were okay, but out cold from crashing into the nearby fence. Some of them were bruised from the impact, but I knew they’d recover in time. With some help from the children, I carried the strange creatures to the hospital that the children and I had constructed a few months ago as part of a lesson on building structures. We placed the creatures on beds, and then I asked the children to return to the Town Hall again. They complied. And now I’m here, writing in my journal as I wait for these creatures to wake up so I can find out more about them. ------Ponies------ “What’re you writing?” Pinkie asked the strange, blocky creature at the desk, causing him to jump in surprise. “Oh Notch!” the creature screamed as he turned around. The creature was light blue, had a head similar to an alligator’s but with a smaller snout, two large fangs hanging over his lower lip, large blue eyes that were taller than they were wide, and transparent fin-like ears, as well as extremely messy blue hair on top of his head. He was wearing a plain blue shirt, white pants, brown shoes with talons poking out through the toes, and brown gloves. Finally, he had a dolphin’s dorsal fin on his back, and he also had a dolphin’s tail in place of a normal dragon’s tail. The most interesting thing about him, however, was that almost all of his body consisted of flat edges and right angles. The creature put a blocky hand to his chest and tried to catch his breath. “Don’t scare me like that! You should—“ he blinked in surprise. “Wait. Did you just talk?” “Of course, silly!” Pinkie replied. “Why wouldn’t I talk?” “Um…” the creature said, seeming to be searching for a good reply. “I don’t know. Horses don’t talk, but maybe you’re not one after all. You’re not blocky like everything else in this world, for one.” Pinkie gasped. “Did you say everything? Everything here is like you?” She was getting more excited by the second. “Uh… Yeah. It’s always been that way. What’s so special about that?” he replied. “This is gonna be so fun! This calls for a party!” Pinkie turned and ran off to where her friends were still sleeping. ------Dolphy------ Sorry about the ink blot above this paragraph. One of the strange creatures woke up around that point, and she scared me like nothing else has before! Nitro Creepers are tame in comparison to that! I just hope the others aren’t like that. I swear to Notch, if they’re all like that, I might just break down and cry.