Now, without further adieu, I present,
“A Crafter’s Dream”
The dark, purple-eyed dragoness stood a few feet from Steve. She had a small smile on her lips as she waved to the confused Crafter.
“Hello Steve. It’s good to see you.” She spoke softly. Steve, on the other hand, sputtered incomprehensibly as he tried to speak. Finally, he managed to voice his thoughts.
“How the actual fuck are you here?!” Steve said loudly. He started towards the dragoness, not angrily, but in demand of answers. However, he was stopped by two glowing horns blocking his way. The unicorn guards glared up at him.
“Step back creature.” One of them spoke harshly. In turn, he glared back down at them, making them unconsciously shudder at the expression on his face.
“I swear to whatever deities you worship, I will knock you the fuck out. Let me through.” Suddenly, he heard a growl from behind him.
“Thou will die first.”
“Luna!” Abyss barked. “This guy is our best shot at us winning! So shut it!” Steve looked at Abyss with a confused and wary gaze.
“Best shot at winning what?” He asked. She sighed, before glancing at the two unicorns.
“At ease. Let him through.” At this, the guards let their magic fade, though the same could not be said for their glares. Stepping past them and away from the irate princess, Steve slowly walked up to Abyss. She said nothing, simply walking away, gesturing for him to follow. Sighing, he did so, coming up alongside her. For a while, neither of them said a word, letting silence reign. After a few minutes of walking, the silence was broken by Abyss.
“So,” She started awkwardly. “How are you doing?”
Steve looked up at her with a deadpan expression. Such a face made her chuckle nervously, rubbing the side of her face with a claw. After a few moments of glaring up at her, he spoke.
“I think I’m doing pretty good. I only nearly died a few dozen times today, so that’s nice. Fought a vampony that sucked my blood and nearly fell off a cliff because of said vampony. I also got tranqued by one of your cronies. That was a new experience. Oh yeah, and for some bizarre reason, you’re somehow here in the Mindscape. Which, by the way, I want an explanation for. Besides that, just a normal day for me. How about you?”
She sighed, a guilty expression overtaking her features. If Steve was being honest, he felt a little bad about it, but he’d had a trying day, and he wasn’t in the mood for pleasantries.
“Sorry about the knockout dart, but it wasn’t my decision. I only found out about it after Dug dragged you here. Something about you being a hyper-violent creature.” She glanced sideways at him while a small smile played on her lips. “I do wonder why that is.”
Steve huffed. “Yes, I fought a little bit after I came into town. Some guards were beating a pony into the ground for treason or something. Speaking of which, who’s the Queen? And, follow-up question, she’s a tyrant, isn’t she?”
“The pegasus you saved was one of our scouts. Dusty Trail, I believe. We found him with your friends, Trench and Aura.” Steve perked up at the mention of the pony and thestral.
“Where are they? What happened to them?” He asked. Abyss chuckled.
“They’re alright. Just being held one of the holding cells. Luna and a few guards thought they were changelings at first, but a quick magic scan proved that false. We brought them in for questioning.” She looked at Steve with an indiscernible expression. “And to answer your earlier question, yes. Queen Daybreaker is a tyrant. And a terrible one at that.” She looked away and continued walking. Steve briefly considered asking what the Nether a changeling was, but figured he probably had bigger problems on his hands. Case in point, the ruler of this land that needed a good ass kicking.
Not only that, but he still had no idea who’s nightmare he and the others were currently fighting against. The only ponies he knew for a fact were trapped were Trench, Derpy, Dash and the Princess Celestia, since Herobrine had told him when it had all started. Trench had already been freed, so it couldn’t be him, and Steve hadn’t seen any trace of Dash yet. But if it wasn’t her, Derpy or the Princess, than he was at a loss on what to do, since he had no idea who else was trapped.
So far, this nightmare seemed to be centered around this Queen. Steve knew in the back of his mind that, more likely than not, he would end up fighting her, whoever she was. But Steve wasn’t alone this time. He had Trench and Aura by his side, not to mention Abyss was here as well, somehow. Speaking of which…
“Hey, Abyss?” Steve asked the dragoness. She looked over to him with a questioning look on her face. “How, exactly, are you here?” The question made her tense slightly, something that didn’t go unnoticed by Steve. “Look, if you don’t want to talk about it, then don’t…”
“It’s not that.” She muttered, avoiding eye-contact with the Crafter. Steve’s expression changed from curious to confused.
“Then what is it?” He inquired.
“It’s just, I’m not sure how you’ll take it.” She spoke guiltily. This did nothing to sate his confusion. In fact, it only made it worse.
“No sure how I’ll...? What do you mean how I’ll take it? What does you being here have to do with me?” Steve asked, expression and tone showing his slowly-rising irritation. Abyss sighed.
“Alright Steve, let me ask you something. Do I look familiar to you?” Steve quirked an eyebrow, before looking at her form.
She was tall, a good foot or two above his own height. Her scales, black as night, shined in the hall lights. Large wings were tucked against her back, separated by large purple-black spines. Her black tail swished slightly on the ground. Steve looked back up at her purple eyes, pointedly ignoring her, womanly assets, as he made eye-contact with her.
“Not really.” He thought for a moment. “It’s kinda funny, but back home, there was this place, this otherworldly land. It was ruled by a…”
“Dragon?” Abyss interrupted. Steve took a step back in shock. His mouth opened, as if to say something, but no words escaped his lips. Regardless, his expression told it all.
“C’mon Steve. You’re no idiot. Brash, sure, and with a distinct lack of self-preservation, but not an idiot. What’s the only other black, purple-eyed dragon you’ve ever met?” Abyss asked.
Steve stared at her in shock. He heard her inquiry, but made no motion to respond. He was a little busy processing everything. After a few minutes, he managed to bring himself to speak.
“So, you’re, uh. You’re the um, the Ender Dragon?” He asked, hesitantly. She gave a sigh of relief and nodded. Steve nodded in acknowledgement, before turning away. Taking a deep breath, he turned back to Abyss.
“How the fuck did you get here?” Steve asked, with a too-calm voice. Abyss quirked an eyebrow in confusion.
“You mean here in the Dreamscape, or here in this land?”
Steve mulled over his answer for a few moments before sighing. “The first one, I guess.”
“Oh. Well, that’s rather simple. Notch sent me.” Abyss responded simply. Steve gasped in shock.
“Notch is here too?” He asked.
“No, he couldn’t come. If he left home, the world would die, and as you know, he would never let that happen.”
Steve sighed, but a small, reminiscent smile could be seen on his face. “Yeah.” He muttered with a far-away look in his eyes. He shook his head as he focused back on the dragoness. “So why are you here instead? And why do you look like different?”
“Well, I-I, uh, I kinda owed Notch a small favor. As to why I look like this, my best guess is that this world’s magic changed my form to suit it’s laws. But that’s just a hunch. I don’t make it a regular thing to travel to other worlds.” She explained. Steve nodded to himself, finding the logic in her words. But he had one further question.
“But how can you talk? In all the times I saw you, you never talked. Only roared and growled and stuff.”
She sighed. “I could always talk. But I spoke a different tongue than you did. An ancient and long dead language that you probably never even heard of. It would only sound like grunts and growls to you. It was from that language that I got my new name Abyss.” Steve walked silently beside her, taking in this information. However, something caught his attention.
“Wait, hold up.” He turned to her. “You said new name. I thought your name was Abyss. What the heck was your old name?” Steve inquired.
“Jean.” She answered, not looking at the Crafter.
Steve stopped and looked at Abyss with a blank expression. In turn, she gazed back at him with a curious one.
“What?” She asked, genuinely confused. After a few moments, Steve gave a small chuckle.
“Sorry. It’s just, I have a hard time imagining you, a big, scary, deadly dragon, going by the name Jean. It’s just, kinda silly.” He said, suppressing a laugh. She stared at him for a few moments, before letting out a laugh herself.
“Yeah. I guess so.” She muttered, looking forward to check where they were, a smirk present on her face. Up ahead, she saw their destination was coming up, a large, gray door without a label.
“Alright. Your friends should be inside there.” Abyss informed Steve while nodding to the door. Pulling out a key, she offered it to him. Steve nodded and grabbed it, walking over to the door to unlock it. Before opening it, he turned to her.
“What are you going to be doing?” He asked.
“I need to go over some plans with Luna and Captain Armor.” Abyss responded.
“Plans for the Queen?” Abyss tensed slightly at Steve’s statement. “What did you mean when you told Luna I was your best shot at winning?”
The dragoness remained silent for a few moments. Eventually, she sighed and turned away, shame showing on her face.
“I’m sorry, Steve. We’ll talk later.” Without another word, she walked off. Steve opened his mouth to call after her, maybe convince her to tell him, but he decided against it, and let his mouth lift closed. He needed to see how Trench and Aura were doing. Sighing, he unlocked the door and stepped inside and gently shut the door behind him.
“Just leave the food on the table.” He heard Aura speak. Looking up in shock, Steve saw that Aura was sitting on a chair, facing away from him, looking at the ground. To his left, Trench was lying back-first on a mat on the floor, not asleep, but just laying there. They looked tired, and depressed, but relatively okay.
“Sorry, don’t have any food.” At the sound of his voice, they both sat up in shock and whirled around to look at him. He smiled at them. “Just my fine self.”
“Steve! You’re alright!” Trench cried out as he jumped up and rushed over to him, followed by Aura. He laughed as he gave them a hug, wrapping his arms around the pair.
“Of course I’m alright! You really think I’d get taken down so easily?” Steve chuckled as he stood. “Course not! I wasn’t gonna wait around for help! I broke out and fought some of the guards, who nearly took me down. Unfortunately for them, I have a friend in high places, as luck would have it. Long story. What happened to you guys?”
“We went looking for you after you didn’t come back. Little while later, we got surrounded by these ponies in cloaks. They demanded we come with them. Naturally, this didn’t go over too well with Aura and I, so we tried to get away.” Trench explained.
“And we didn’t get very far.” Aura interrupted, looking rather irritated. “Turns out when you are severely outnumbered and your opponents have a unicorn or two, you better hope and pray you’re lucky, because you don’t stand much of a chance otherwise.”
“Hey, I’ve fought when the odds were stacked against me, and I’m still kicking.” Steve countered. Aura scoffed.
“Yeah, but you’re, you. I’m not sure you can be defeated by anypony, besides the Princesses, maybe. Or overwhelming force.”
“Yeah, probably.” Steve chuckled. “Anyway, how are…?” Steve stopped as he caught the sound of raised voices on the other side of the door. Quirking an eyebrow in confusion, he carefully walked over to the door. Gripping the handle, he pushed it open. He was surprised at what he found on the other side.
Abyss was there, looking quite angry. She was currently yelling in Luna’s face as the alicorn yelled back. A stallion with white fur, blue mane and light blue eyes was there, beside the two females, trying to calm them down. Besides that, a few guards hung back, seemingly afraid to get caught up in the yelling. They hadn’t even noticed that Steve had made his appearance, they were so caught up in yelling at each other. It was so bad that Steve couldn’t make out a word they were saying.
Groaning, he leaned back, took a breath, cupped his hands around his mouth, and let loose.
“WOULD YOU ALL SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!! I CAN’T EVEN HEAR MYSELF THINK!!!!”
The effect was immediate. Everypony and dragon in the hallway jumped. The yelling immediately ceased as they whirled to face him. One of the guards in the back cried out and fell over. Abyss growled in irritation.
“What the Nether was that about, Steve?” She said. He gave her a deadpan expression for the second time that day.
“You all were yelling your heads off. I wanted it to stop. Simple problems require simple solutions, as they say.” Steve responded, merely getting a huff in response. He looked at the Luna and the guards, as well as the white stallion. “What were you arguing about?”
Luna answered. “Abyss was angry at mine own suggestion f'r our attack plan.”
“Attack plan? For taking out the tyrant?” Steve asked. She nodded. Sighing, he looked to Abyss. “I take it this was what you meant when you said I was your best chance?”
She nodded. “But I wanted to send you in with a team! Not what she was suggesting!” At this, Steve looked back to the alicorn.
“Well, what exactly was your suggestion?”
“Simple. We use thee as a distraction. Aft'r all, as a non-pony, thou art expendable.” Luna spoke, as if she was discussing the weather, instead of sending Steve to his possible death.
“And I said she could shove it up her ass!” Abyss yelled, stepping towards the alicorn. However, before she could, Steve stepped between the two. Keeping his back to Abyss, he faced Luna.
“And why would I do that?” He asked, an unusually blank expression on his face. Luna smirked.
“Because thy friends art still captive.” Steve simply smirked in response and stepped to the side, revealing the door to Trench and Aura’s room was wide open. Luna’s pupils shrunk.
“So, with my friends out of your incapable hooves, now we can talk on equal grounds. Regardless, fortunately for you, taking care of this Daybreaker, aligns with both my plans, as well as yours. But before I do this, I need something from you.”
“What is it?” The white stallion asked, stepping forward.
Steve grinned. “I need weapons, armor, and as much healing supplies as you can get me. Deal?”
“Deal.”