//------------------------------// // Chapter 6: They Aren't Supposed To Do That... // Story: Button Mash and Sweetie Belle Play Minecraft // by QuilliamPenn //------------------------------// Chapter 6: They Aren't Supposed To Do That... Button scoured the room before him with great care, taking into account every block and ore he saw, and making sure they would be somewhat unharmed on their trip down to the kitchen. Button and Sweetie Belle were crouching on the staircase, eyeballing what had previously been a living room. Now however, it looked nothing quite that hospitable. Stone formations had grown up in the center and along the walls of the large room, they hung from the ceiling and walls, a few of them even bore ore veins. There was a large formation in the center of the room; where the couches and coffee table had been previously. This stone formation dominated the majority of the room, bearing what appeared to be diamond ore on one side as it nearly touched the ceiling. The light from the lava in the hallway-ravine illuminated a small portion of the room, its warm glow unfortunately not lighting up enough where monsters wouldn’t spawn. They hadn’t noticed this room before, or even really been able to get good look at it at all, due to the fact that at the time there was a rather psychotic Endermare that Sweetie Belle had looked at, resulting in them ending up in his room, then his parent’s room, and now here they were again. But, where was the Endermare? Much to Button’s surprise, there weren’t actually any mobs in the living room. Which was strange, he had expected there to be, but then again monsters didn’t always spawn in every dark place so he didn’t dwell on it long. There were however, bats. About a dozen, very annoying, bats. “Button, why won’t they be quiet!” Sweetie Belle whined softly, rubbing her temples with her hooves and trying to ignore the headache she was getting from the constant and incessant “Squeak, squeak, squeak.” The little beasties made. “They’re bats, it’s all they do.” He said, glaring angrily at a bat that was roosted on the ceiling near them. It gave him only a tiny, shrill squeak before taking off and fluttering to roost in some other part of the house. “Well, they need to shut their traps; it’s giving me a headache!” She whispered, glaring a bat as it fluttered by the staircase and took up roost in one corner of the room. “Just ignore them, we’re almost to the kitchen and then we’re never playing this game again.” Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes. “Why don’t I believe that?” “Hey, I could stop playing Minecraft if I-“ Button was cut short by a hoof to the mouth. “Spare me. Let’s just go, it looks like the coast is clear.” Somewhat begrudgingly, Button righted himself and led Sweetie Belle down the stone steps. Their hooves echoed ever so faintly as they trotted down, the noise resounding off of the living room-turned-spacious-cavern, and Button could only hope that there wasn’t some monster waiting to jump them. “Hey, Button?” Sweetie Belle asked from behind. “Yeah?” Button replied, jumping off the last step and landing on the cold and unforgiving stone floor with a soft clop of his hooves. “How are we gonna explain this to your mom, and…the whole town? As innocently as the words had been asked, they hit like a ton of bricks. Button hadn’t ever thought of that. He had thought of the repercussions of his mother finding out, but he hadn’t ever though what he would say or how he would actually explain it to her, along with the rest of the town. He still wasn’t sure how this all had really worked. Was the real Ponyville just on the other side of that bedrock? Were his friends and family locked outside wondering what in the hay was going on? Maybe there were news crews outside, and crowds of curious and upset ponies wondering how in the world something so strange had happened. Button could imagine rather easily, a giant bedrock-encased structure in the middle of Ponyville, and how the town’s inhabitants would react. Especially his mother, who would be flipping her lid and most likely trying to get help from the Princesses; she was like that sometimes. “Let’s just…cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now, we need some coal.” He said, almost dismissively; the last thing he needed to worry about was anything but him and Sweetie Belle and their ability to get out of this horror. “Oh, Button, there’s some coal!” His companion squeaked rather excitedly, pulling out the stone pickaxe she had and charging ahead, not even stopping to think maybe there was something over there that wanted to eat her. “Sweetie Belle!” Button hissed, reaching out to grab her and just barely missing. Indeed, there was a decent sized vein of coal. It was embedded in the wall farthest from them, the one facing the staircase. There was seemingly nothing standing between it and them save the stone formation jutting up out of the ground like the spine of some massive monster. Sweetie Bell soon found her way over to the coal, clambering over a few blocks of stone before finally arriving and instantly beginning to swing away with great zeal. The sound of a pick against ore soon filled the room and before Button had even arrived at her side, Sweetie Belle had already mined two coal ore. “Sweetie Belle, are you trying to get killed?” He reprimanded, willing out his sword and looking around frantically for any approaching enemies. “No, silly, I’m mining coal! You’re the one who said we needed it.” “Yes, but…ugh, just mine the coal; I’ll watch your back.” He sighed, grumbling ever so softly to himself and taking a seat next to his mining companion. The squeaking of the bats had seemed to die down a bit after they had all found roosts and decided to keep them, and other than the occasional squeak and the sound of Sweetie Belle mining, all was silent. Button watched the flickering glow of the lava emanating from the stone hallway, it wasn’t like the torch-light that the torches would give off, and it was softer and more comfortable looking. It hadn’t ever looked like that on the computer, but in here; wherever and whatever ‘here’ was, it was much different than in the computer; as it had repeatedly proven time and time again. As he waited, Button found himself wondering if their plan would work. It had seemed like such a good idea back upstairs in his room, and then he had felt certain that it would work. As he thought about it, however, doubt was beginning to creep into his mind. What if it didn’t work? What if they ended up trapped in here for all their lives, doomed to live off of whatever happened to grow in his room until age or a monster brought about their demise? Button didn’t want that kind of life, not at all. He wanted to live in Ponyville, with his friends and family. He wanted to play video games and hang out with Sweetie Belle, he wanted to wake up every Sunday thinking it was Monday, get all ready for school, and get yelled at to go back to bed. He wanted to find out what his special talent was, and get his cutie mark; he had so very many things he wanted to do in his life. And if they didn’t get out of here…he wouldn’t ever get to fulfill those wishes. He wouldn’t see his mother ever again, or his friends, he wouldn’t go to school, or play video games instead of living in them, he wouldn’t be able to drink apple juice every morning, or try and figure out that old game his mom had given him, or ever get to live a normal life, and the same would go for Sweetie Belle… “Button…are you ok?” Came a familiar voice. Button shook his head and looked over at Sweetie Belle; who was watching him with a look of concern, the smallest of frowns on her face. “I-I’m...fine…” It was now Button realized he was on the verge of tears. Maybe reminding himself of all the things he would never be able to do if they got stuck in here wasn’t the best thing to have done. “You don’t look fine…” She said; her town slightly downcast. “No, I’m fine, promise…”Button cleared his throat and rubbed his eyes; sniffling a bit as he did so. He put on a face portraying at least some level of composure and gave her a reassuring nod. As young as he was and as inexperienced with the opposite sex and all, he did know that having a breakdown in a situation where you were supposed to be the stallion who knew what to do, was not a very good for morale. “If you say so…” She replied, sounding very unconvinced. An awkward silence followed and once again the only sounds were that of the occasional bat and the never-ending bubbling of the lava that filled the bottom of a nearby ravine. Both young ponies simply stared in silence ahead of them, neither one seeming to know exactly what to say or do; Sweetie Belle because she knew Button was upset about something, and Button because…well…he wasn’t sure how to react to the fact he had almost cried in front of Sweetie Belle, now she probably thought he was- “Slosh” Wait, what? “Slosh” There it was again, what a strange sound! Button was sure he had heard it before, but he wasn’t exactly sure where he had heard it, it sounded almost like water sloshing around in a bucket, or like somepony was slapping the top of a puddle with their hoof. “Button…what is that?” Sweetie Belle piped up; her voice laden with concern. “I…don’t know actually, it doesn’t sound like anything I’ve ever head in Minecraft before…maybe it’s-“ “Slosh” “There it is again! Where is that coming-“ “Slosh” Button suddenly found himself starting to get an idea of what was making the sloshing noises. “Sweetie Belle, give me your torches…” He said, motioning for her to relieve them and turning his gaze to the direction the noises seemed to be coming from. Silent as the grave, Sweetie willed her torches out of her inventory and tossed them to Button. Quickly as he could, he trotted over to the edge of the stone pillar in the middle of the room; hoofsteps echoing throughout the cavern as he did, and placed one of the torches on the stone. The area around them illuminated instantly in the warm glow of the torches, still soft, but not quite like that of the lava. It was brighter and produced more, brighter light. A few bats screeched in protest, flapping their wings from their upside down roosts before taking off into another part of the living room-turned-cavern. A shadow was suddenly cast on the wall just then, the source of what had actually scared the bats off. “Slosh” “Button…what is that!” Sweetie Belle spat, slowly beginning to backpedal. There; sloshing and wiggling its way around the corner of the center pillar, was a slime. A massive beast composed of, well, slime. It was green and slightly transparent, a deeper green core floated inside its main form and two square eyes and a mouth floated in perpetual suspension on its front, wearing a look of disturbing curiosity. The slime burbled and sloshed around the corner, slowly turning to face Button and Sweetie Belle and beginning to slink over towards them without missing a beat. It was easily four blocks by four blocks, almost unnaturally big for what a slime should have been, and due to the fact both young ponies were barely a block and a half, it only made the gelatinous monstrosity look all the bigger and more intimidating. One thing Button found strange was that it was sliding instead of hopping; like Slimes normally did in Minecraft, there wasn’t time for that now however, because sliding or hopping, it looked intent on doing whatever slimes did to ponies to Button and Sweetie. “RUN!” Button cried, turning and making to lead Sweetie Belle back towards the stairs in hopes of- “Sssssss” The hiss was almost lost in Sweetie Belle’s shriek. Opposite the slime, was the monster that was the bane of every Minecrafter, the Sultan of Sulphur, the Emperor of Explosives and the Baron of Boom itself, the Creeper. It looked exactly like one would expect of a creeper. Eyes empty, soulless and black as sin, its mouth hung open in a constant disturbing frown, as if its jaw were agape as to mourn those it were to kill with its suicidal attack. Four legs sprouted from its thick, scaly base, pattering over towards them as it hunched over ever so slightly, blocky head tilted towards them in murderous zeal. It was more horrifying than the actual game version. “BUTTON MASH!” Sweetie Belle cried, turning to run away from the Creeper, only to nearly run into the slime; who was burbling and drawing ever closer by the second. Button looked around frantically, trying to find an out or some sort of exit. They were boxed in, being pushed into a corner by the two monsters. Slowly they backpedaled; Button had his sword drawn and ready to hit whichever got closer first. “Button, we can climb!”Sweetie Belle cried, pulling her companions gaze from the monsters long enough for him to see her scrambling up a stone formation that had grown up in the corner; almost akin to a sort of pyramid. It rose about six blocks high at the very tip, slowly shrinking down in a rather uneven fashion as it spread out. He quickly followed suit, scrambling up the blocks as quickly as he could in hopes of getting away from what could certainly spell his doom out in explosive and gooey letters. “Here!” Sweetie called, holding out her hoof to Button in an attempt to help him up. Button gratefully accepted the help, latching his hoof with Sweetie Belle’s and using it as leverage to haul himself up the rest of the way; collapsing on the small stone base on which they now took refuge. That had been so close…he hadn’t actually expected a Creeper to show up; but then again, nopony ever did in this game. Hopefully they wouldn’t decide to start- “Button, they’re trying to climb!” Sweetie Belle said with a worried moan, backing up as far as she could until the stone wall would allow her to go no further. As Button peered over the edge, he discovered his companion was indeed correct. The Slime was pressing itself against the blocks, burbling and sloshing futilely as it did nothing more than squash its own green gooey face against the blocks of stone. The Creeper however seemed more intent of carrying out its purpose of murder, it locked its empty eyes with Button’s and hissed once more before beginning to- “Come on, Button, you can do this…” He told himself, readying his sword for the walking bomb currently climbing up towards their position; and doing so in a surprisingly clumsy manner at that. The Creeper glared up at him with chilling, empty eyes, letting out a sickening hiss before doing something that came to Button as much of a surprise as this entire event had. Slowly; uncannily so, an unnaturally long green tongue slithered out of the Creeper’s mouth as it hissed. It dripped in green slime and seemed to be groping at the air for him, as if that wasn’t enough. The creeper was changing ever so slightly before his eyes. No longer did it have stumps for feet, now it had short, sharp claws beginning to grow out of each foot. The inside of the mouth began to move as well, teeth slowly growing out and down from the gums in a manner most haphazard, not even a hint of an attempt at making them even or ordered appeared to exist. “W-what, y-you aren’t supposed to do that! W-what are you doing?” Button cried; as if the slowly changing Creeper would respond, his eyes wide in shock and horror at what he was witnessing occur before him. “Sssssss” Was the only response, empty, soulless black eyes still fixated on their prey. Button steeled himself to attack; something which took a great amount of bravery due to what he was watching happen. He brought his sword up and held it ready, an idea was beginning to form in his head. If he could wait until just the right moment, maybe he could knock the Creeper back as it was about to explode, knocking it into the Slime! It would explode and hopefully eliminate two deadly birds with one stone; or something like that. The Creeper drew closer, tongue writhing and gripping at the air in time with its now constant, soft hissing. The monster was only two blocks away now, and as expected the hissing was growing louder, its body began to flash white and it started to grow ever so slightly. Just before it grew too large to contain its energy any longer, Button swung his sword and hit it square in the side of the head. The Creeper flashed red and let out a pained hiss before tumbling backwards and landing into the massive Slime below; still flashing white all the way. “sssssSSSSBOOM!” Button’s plan had worked perfectly, the Creeper; unable to stop its countdown timer at that point, landed on top of the Slime and exploded in a manner quite theatric. Its body expanded until it could hold no more and unleashed enough power to turn a carriage to sawdust. The slime hadn’t even seen what hit it. Bits of green goo flew everywhere, splattering everything within reach; there was slime on the walls, on the ceiling, on the floors, on the ores and even the bats. Everything within a fifteen block radius was covered in what had previously been a living creature, now looking nothing more that somepony had sneezed a lot. Luckily for both Button and Sweetie Belle, they had been smart enough to back away from the edge so as not to be hit by gelatinous green shrapnel. Both of them were pressed tightly against the stone wall and lying down; they had tried to make themselves as small as possible. However, when the sound of slime beginning to drip down from the ceiling and splatting onto the ground reach their ears, they both raised their heads and took in the goo-covered scenery around them; once dull grey stone walls were now painted with green slime remnants. “Ew…” Sweetie Belle said softly, turning her gaze up to the slime dripping from the ceiling. “That Creeper…” Button said thoughtfully, not even registering Sweetie Belle’s disgust. “Huh?” She asked, tilting her head to the side and gazing over at her confused looking companion. “It...changed…” He replied, sitting up on his haunches and staring off into space. Sweetie Belle gave him a look of slight worry, trotting over to the edge of their perch and looking down at the mess below. “I watched it change…that isn’t supposed to happen…” “Button…” Sweetie Belle called, her voice tainted with an unpleasantly familiar sense of dread. “They don’t have tongues…or teeth…” He didn’t even hear her. “Button….!” She called again, sounding more worried than before. “I don’t understand why-“ “BUTTON!” Sweetie Belle barked, finally getting his attention and frantically beckoning for him to come over. Button raised an eyebrow at her, she obviously wasn’t in trouble, so why was she…oh. As Button came to the edge of their hiding place, he followed Sweetie Belle’s gaze and found the source of her well justified worry. The slime remnants were moving, wobbling and wiggling ever so softly as they began to pull close to one another, collecting together in dozens of sporadically placed little groupings. They slinked across the stone floor with ease, looking like water running down a window rather than a jello-like substance across stone. “That isn’t good…” He said, eyes wide. Slowly, the blobs began to take a more block-like, edged shape. Growing and melding together until after about fifteen seconds, the floor, walls and ceilings were totally clean. In their place, stood about two dozen slimes, each identical to the larger one that had fathered them in appearance and weird facial expression. “Oh…wait, those are just little ones, they won’t-“ “Squeak!” There was a frantic, pained squeak instantly recognizable as that of a bat, and the source of the bat’s pain was soon apparent. As observed before, portions of the slime had latched themselves to bats. So in turn, when the slime began to come alive again and become a living being, it had pulled the bats it had latched onto with it as it reformed. A bat dropped from the ceiling, a clump of goo wrapped around one of its wings as it moved to mesh with its newly forming brethren. Sweetie Belle and Button could only watch in disgusted horror as it was unwillingly dragged into one of the dozens of small slime cubes. The bat had time to utter one final shriek of protest before it was pulled into the body of a smaller slime and began to flash red for a moment. Muffled, pained squeaks followed in the last three seconds of its life, before it keeled over inside of its murderer, poofed away in a small plume of smoke, and was no more. “Ponyfeathers.” Button cursed, silently horrified at what he had just seen. “Button, I think they want more food!” Sweetie Belle whined, pointing a hoof at the pack of Slimes that now knew full well of their presence. “Blocks!” Button cried frantically. “What?” “Blocks, Block up the sides of this stone so they can’t get in, build a wall, hurry!” Sweetie Belle gave an affirming nod and willed out her dirt blocks, beginning to frantically place them against the edges with surprising skill; she had practiced after all in the spawner room, after all. Already, the slimy swarm was growing nearer, hopping up each block with a frightening ease the slime they were birthed from had never achieved. With each passing moment, the soft slap of slime hitting stone grew louder and nearer. They hopped up with the practice and style akin to something out of that Q-Bert game Button had played once. “Agh, Button!” Button whipped around to see a slime at the head of its little pack, wearing that unsettlingly curious expression as it hopped upwards and towards Sweetie Belle, in hopes of attacking. “I’ve got it, hold on Sweetie Belle!” Button rushed over and swatted at the slime as it leapt up to attack, bashing it with his sword and sending it careening back down onto the floor; where it impacted with a splat, a flash of red, and then keeled over and disappeared in a plume of smoke, leaving nothing but the small floating form of a slime ball in its place. Already, more were taking the place of their fallen kin, two small slimes now only one leap away from reaching the top of the stone formation. Button readied himself once again, and was just about to swing when a dirt block appeared in front of him with a “crunch” “Done!” Sweetie Belle said triumphantly, chest rising and falling ever so slightly from her sudden burst of physical exertion. “That…was close.” He said with a sigh, willing his sword away and collapsing on his haunches against the newly built dirt wall. “Those things are really yucky…” She said, glaring over at the dirt wall as the sound of Slimes throwing themselves against it began to reach her ears. “Those things…aren’t supposed to be like that…” Button said solemnly, his gaze fixated on the stone beneath his hooves. “What do you mean?” Sweetie Belle gave him a worried look, trotting over and sitting on her haunches in front of him, craning her head downwards in hopes of making eye contact; as if maybe that would help. “Slimes don’t absorb other monsters like that…they never have, they don’t get as big as that first one was either…” “Button, I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.” She replied; her voice laced with a mixture of concern and exhaustion. “The Creeper did it too.” He deadpanned; gaze still fixated on the ground. “Button, you aren’t making much sense…” Button brought his gaze up to meet that of his companion, his eyes filled with a mixture of confusion and the smallest hint of fear, he actually looked…solemn. Sweetie Belle couldn’t remember such an expression ever even making a hint of appearance on his young face. “It changed, Sweetie Belle…” Sweetie Belle sighed inwardly, she still had no idea what Button was talking about, but she got the feeling that this wasn’t just ‘Button being weird’, and so she decided she should go and sit by him, let him talk. “When that Creeper was climbing up…I watched it change, it grew teeth and a tongue and these claws…” “So…what do you think it means?” She asked, yawning softly and taking a seat next to him. “I don’t know…but I have a feeling that it isn’t going to be as easy as we thought to get to that computer.” Other than the sound of the slimes slamming themselves futilely against the dirt, all was silent, he received no response. Button was just about to say something, when he turned to find Sweetie Belle, asleep, on his shoulder. She looked exhausted. He hadn’t really and truly actually looked at her since they had left his room. Her mane was messy and wild, were once sat a neatly; naturally, curled purple and white mane, was now nothing more than a dirty, colorful mop, the only evidence of her previous curls being the two or three left in the mess of mane. Her coat looked no better, what was once a pristine white was now covered in splotches of dirt and grime. Making her coat look almost like that of some bovine or something of that like. Normally he would have freaked out a bit at this; Sweetie Belle had actually…fallen asleep on him. However for some reason, he found himself not minding it at all. In all honesty, she was warm and soft; despite her state of cleanliness. He could feel her warm breath running down his shoulder with each exhale, and despite on this, it was kind of nice. Button didn’t know if she had fallen asleep out of simply being tired, or had been lulled to sleep by his droning about the monsters transformations, but at that moment he didn’t care. He was exhausted too to be honest, and so he rested his head back against the dirt wall and closed his eyes, forgetting for just a moment of their predicament and letting himself drift off to sleep. All the while, giving the creatures outside more time to be changed by their new world.