Steve made one final once-over of his inventory. He had a stack of tree saplings, two stacks of iron blocks and as much redstone as he could gather. Some seeds, two buckets of water, another of lava, and the rest of his inventory filled with dirt. He'd filled up chests in the Nether with other things, but those were the items he needed the most. He was set.
Watching the enormous round (round!) Barrier approaching, the crafty old miner stepped though the Nether portal.
Reappearing in the 'safety' of the hell dimension, Steve waited patiently. Ten ticks, twenty ticks, thirty ticks... No mobs came to threaten him, he'd sealed off this area with cobblestone and covered the ground in slabs.
Seeing the Nether portal extinguish itself, the oddly rectangular person knew the other end had just been enveloped by whatever-the-End that dome thingy was. Still, he waited. Give it another 6,000 ticks for good measure...
After that time had elapsed, Steve took his flint and steel and reignited the portal. Carefully, he stepped into the purple swirly portal and reappeared back in the overworld. The Nether portal had respawned high in the air - unsurprising, considering that was where he had built the original.
Leaning over the edge, Steve started attaching cobblestone to the obsidian blocks that made up the Nether portal, pointedly ignoring the gobsmacked pegasi staring. First, infinite water, then a cobblestone generator, then some trees for infinite wood, a mob grinder...
It went without saying that the old miner loved a build challenge. Sky-block maps were always good for a hoot.
The border guide was snapped out of his light snooze when a brown-furred earth pony leaped clear over his desk, screaming "RUN!"
Shaking his head in confusion, the pegasi guide could only ask "What..?"
Then he saw what the earth pony had been running from, and screamed in terror. Flapping his wings in a blind panic, he joined the other pony in dashing for the safety of the nearby Barrier.
With a roar of fury, the monster leaped through the air, missing the guide's feathers by a hair's width.
Some detached portion of the border guide's mind would later note that the monster looked like a green, human version of the Saddle Rager. Most of the guides brain was occupied with 'RUN'. He was so panicked he forgot he could fly, galloping at full speed for the Barrier.
The monster leaped again, this time catching the poor guide in the side with an almost lazily swung punch. Flying through the air in a way nature had not intended, the guide was sure he had heard several of his ribs crack as he crashed to the ground. By pure good fortune, he seemed to have landed on the other side of the world-wrecking magical dome. The guide felt like he should laugh, but that if he did he would laugh up blood.
The brown earth pony that had proceeded the monster seemed to have broken down in hysterics. "I didn't know! I couldn't have known! It can't be my fault!"
The monster had slammed full tilt into the Barrier, and to the guide's absolute horror, was not instantly vaporized. In fact, it only seemed to make him angry, though it did repel him.
"The Serum removed negative traits; I checked it myself! It was perfect! No more living in terror of myself; no more secluding myself in fear of hurting others!"
The monster dug his fingernails into the growing wall of magic, somehow finding purchase in the smooth surface with his oversized fingers.
"I didn't think it literally removed them, I just thought it suppressed or destroyed them!" The ponified Bruce Banner screamed, tears streaming down his muzzle.
With a sound like kittens being ripped apart, the monster tore open a hole in the Barrier, stepping through regardless of how the magic lashed at him trying to render him into dust.
Smoke drifting off him from where the Barrier had failed to kill him, the monster loomed over the two ponies.
"Hulk... angry...."
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
So here I am, halfway up the hill to school, when Koizumi walks up behind me unexpectedly and asks if I had a moment to talk.
No prizes for guessing the topic of conversation. What did Haruhi do this time?
"Well to be perfectly honest, nothing that needs our imminent attention." He told me, as usual smiling way too much to not be creepy. "It's just - you know the island nation in the middle of the pacific ocean?"
Equestria, right? Constitutional diarchy, famous for it's horse breeding and animal rights campaigns?
"That is indeed the one." He continued. "It is very interesting - after all, it wasn't there last night."
Wait, slow down. Koizumi, I clearly remember leaning about that place in geography class years ago. You can't just tell me...
...
...did Haruhi do it?
Koizumi's smirk grew even wider.
Dammit Haruhi.
"While that was not my exact reaction, I do believe I was quite shocked when Ms Nagato told me. This is easily one of the largest changes Ms Suzumiya has yet made to the world, and sets a worrying precedent."
Yeah yeah fine, it's a big change and all, but what I want to know is what Haruhi was thinking. She has no idea that her power exists! What, did she decide there weren't enough horses in the world or something?
"Not at all. In fact, you could say the exact opposite."
Koizumi, you're doing that cryptic thing again. Stop it.
"It's actually quite simple when you think about it. Ms Suzumiya has a particular idea of how the world should be, and is in a unique position to enforce her own beliefs. If this world were to be intruded upon by something she does not believe in, then logically that thing would be altered to be more in line with her own worldview."
Koizumi, Haruhi believes in Aliens, Time Travelers and Espers. What the heck doesn't she believe in?
He told me.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Haruhi Suzumiya - the girl who believes in Santa Claus but not Unicorns.
Horn glowing brightly with tightly controlled magic, Xlestia burst open the doors into the inner sanctum. Inside, a man made out of fire sat at his throne waiting for her.
"Who dares intrude upon the domain of the Great and Powerful Oz?" The fire-man boomed.
Odd. Xlestia thought to herself. That sounds like a unicorn Twilight wrote to me about once.
Regardless of his similarities to a certain show pony, Xlestia blasted a hole right through Oz's chest, bursting him into smoke. Any victory she thought she had was disproven when the smoke reformed into a beautiful woman.
"Ah ha ha ha!" The woman laughed. "You think you can defeat the Great and Powerful Oz, ruler of the Emerald City?"
"Your city isn't actually emerald, you just made everyone wear green-tinted glasses!" The Alicorn objected, blasting Oz again.
The wizard laughed again as he reformed into a giant, floating bald head. "You were warned to wear the glasses! Obviously the brightness of the city has burned the colour green out of your world!"
Instead of responding, Xlestia exploded Oz a third time. The smoke reformed yet again, this time into a horrible three-headed monster who continued to laugh.
The Sun Princess frowned. Then she trotted forward and gingerly touched a hoof to the wizard's chest. It passed though easily, his body no more solid then moonlight.
The wizard hiccuped mid-laugh. "Halt! One as insignificant as you cannot hope to interact with my astral form!"
Xlestia stuck her hoof into the wizard's body all the way up to the shoulder, moving around to check. Nothing of the wizard was solid.
"You see?" The wizard said in a slightly higher register than before. "You cannot even touch me!"
Scanning around the room, Xlestia noticed a curtain that had no real reason to be there. Ripping it away with her magic, she found a balding old man operating machinery behind it.
"Ignore the man behind the curtain!" Both the man and wizard cried in sync. "I am the Great and Powerful Oz, and I am - "
"A faker." The Sun Princess flatly told him.
A tense silence filled the room for a moment.
"...yes, I'm afraid I'm a humbug." The old man admitted. The image of the monster, literally smoke and mirrors, vanished as he moved away from his projector.
"All this time, your people have been telling me how 'The Great and Powerful Oz' was going to defeat me, and he turns out to be a sad man hiding behind a certain of lies." She spat.
"There's no need to be rude." The conman protested.
Rolling her eyes, Xlestia forced a bottle's worth of Conversion Serum down the American's throat. Not even checking that his ponification was successful, Xlestia exited the Emerald Palace. What a complete and utter waste of my -
With a whump noise, a house fell on the Solar Princess.
Ruby skipped merrily along the path, humming as she led the group of humans, faunus and ponies back towards the Barrier.
Near the middle of the group, Yang and Applejack were comparing notes on having younger sisters that always seemed to find trouble.
"So I get up, in the middle of the night, only to find Ruby has managed to not only wonder away from camp, she's managed to find a hole in the ground for the sole purpose to fall into!"
"You're leaving out key details! I call slander!" Ruby called from the front.
The farm pony shook her head as the two sisters bantered back and forth. "Heh. You folks really ain't what I was expecting at all."
"Oh?" Weiss queried. "And what were you expecting?"
"The way it was told to me, you folks were some kinda angry friendship eaters or some-such." Applejack blushed.
"I'd hope not." Blake replied blankly. "Even ignoring social issues, being unfriendly or violent just attracts the Grimm. They say if it weren't for the necessity of keeping the battles constantly moving, the Great War could have gone on for three times as long as it did."
"You guys have negativity-eating monsters as well?" Rainbow blinked, hovering lower to be more involved in the conversation.
"Well, no one really knows what the Grimm eat - or where they come from, or any number of things about them." Yang explained. "Like, remember the Ursa Ruby killed halfway here?"
The ponies had been trying not to. Seeing sweet, naive Ruby pull a collapsible scythe out from under her cloak and neatly bisect the mask-wearing bear-thing had been more than a little... upsetting.
"As best we can tell, that was an infant Grimm - at least, nobody has ever seen them smaller than that. They do get bigger, though - like, a lot bigger." The yellow haired brawler continued.
The ponies winced as they recalled the monster they called an Ursa. They certainly hoped the Remnant version never got that large.
"Oh hey, we're here." Rainbow observed, noting the shimmering wall of magic at the end of the path.
"Now do be careful dears." Rarity advised the Remnant natives. "It lets us through just fine, but we have no idea what it might do to you."
"No worries!" Ruby flashed a V hand sign, stepping into the Barrier. "I'm sure it can't be that - "
ENDLESS, OVERWHELMING PRESSURE THAT BORE DOWN, STRUGGLING TO TURN HER TO POWDER
" - gack!" Ruby collapsed on the other side of the Barrier in an undignified heap.
"Sis! You okay?" Yang worried.
"Yeah, don't touch that thing without a full Aura." Ruby pulled her face of the ground to advise. "It really didn't like me."
There was a pause as Ruby's teammates tried to decide whether it was better to go to her or stay where they were.
"I'm in pain." The scythe-wielder complained into the dirt.