//------------------------------// // 4: Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Nether // Story: MineQuestria // by sunnyday //------------------------------// "OH SON OF A SKELETON LOVER!" I shouted as I immediately jumped backwards, ducking behind a table with some sort of horse head statue sitting on top of it. Thankfully, the creeper must've noticed me get out of range and cancelled it's attack. I peered from behind the table and saw it still standing there, frowning. Under normal circumstances, I'd just run and get a blade to combat the living green death machine, but there was a slight problem. As far as I know, libraries in pony worlds don't carry any kind of sword. I ran upstairs to go get Twilight, maybe she knew what to do. I stopped at the foot of her bed and a thought crossed my mind, Wait... how is that creeper here? I thought the Princess assured me that nothing like that existed here. Well, maybe not in those words, but she said things were different here. Did I bring it here? I shoved the though to the back of my mind and called out to the purple unicorn, telling her to get up, and quick. "Eh... what? What is it Steve?" Twilight groggily lifted her head and stepped out of her bed, yawning. "We have a slight problem downstairs. Before I go any further, let me ask you something." I cleared my throat and Twilight nodded for me to continue, "Do you, by some small chance, have creepers here in your world?" Twilight looked back at me quizzically. "Do we have a what?" She squinted her eyes her eyes and it looked like she was trying to think of what a creeper was. I sighed and put my hand on my forehead for a moment. "That's what I thought. Well you see, creepers in my world are this small green creatures that appear to be pretty harmless, but if you get too close to them, they'll explode. The problem is that one of those creepers appears to be lurking right outside of your door." Twilight went wide-eyed. "WHAAAT?" She yelled. Shortly thereafter she dashed down the stairs in a panic and began to run towards the direction of the front door. I ran down after her and screamed for her to stop, that it would explode if she got to close and blow the entire front end of the library apart. She stopped and looked at me just before reaching the range of the creeper who still waited for someone foolish enough to get close. "Then, what do we do?" Twilight must've got an idea in her head and she bounced into the air in somewhat of an excitement, "Wait! Maybe one of my books can-" I cut her off with the wave of my hand. "No. I already know how to deal with this, and it's not going to be pretty. We'll have to kill it." This statement stirred a gasp from Twilight. "We don't have to resort to that, maybe we can reach some sort of peaceful resolution, or we can coerce it into leaving?" I shook my head slowly and let it lower in a small bout of sadness. "I wish that I could do something like that for you, but it's not going to work. You see, it's only purpose in life as far as it knows, is to kill itself, to kill others. If you got anywhere close to that thing, it would blow you up before you could introduce yourself. It's not really something I take pride in doing, but sometimes it has to be done." Twilight opened her mouth to try to plead again, but she just turned away from me instead. I moved in front of her and lowered myself a little bit to get on eye level with her, even though not even knowing the laws of this world I was still very sure that killing things was probably considered an extremely horrific act, so I wanted to try and at least reassure the fact that I had to, or else some other person or many people would end up dead. "Listen, Twilight. I really don't want to do this anymore than you do." Twilight frowned at me, probably not believing me as well, "With how that thing is, though, I have to get rid of it before it hurts someone else. If I don't, it'll probably go find some poor defenseless pony, and... well, explode. I've got to do this to protect you, and anyone else who might get hurt with that." I wasn't exactly sure why I felt the need to justify myself to someone I didn't even know all that well, it was pretty strange how I deemed it necessary. Twilight's frown slightly dissipated and she began to speak back. "A-Alright... So, how do we... uhm..." She trailed off, wanting to avoid the word I used so freely, almost as if it was nothing. For a short moment it made me feel slightly disappointed in myself, like I was no better than Herobrine. "All I need is a sword and I can do the rest. I'm pretty sure there aren't any here, so it looks like I'll have to make one." I looked around, maybe some spare materials were just floating around. I was hoping too much, it seemed. It looks like there was nothing to be found other than books. Then, I got an idea. This is a house inside of a TREE. Maybe I could use some of the wood to craft a wooden blade? "Twilight?" I looked over at her, as she was still standing there, unsure of what to do. "Yeah..?" She replied, it seemed there was a tone of disappointment in her voice. "This may sound a little weird to you, but, can I borrow a part of your wall? You see, I can turn it into a makeshift sword and be able to use it." "It's... worth a shot... but I'm going to tell you that I still don't approve of this." She looked away from me, and it made me feel even worse. If you asked me why it did, I wouldn't be able to tell you. For some reason it seems I really like Twilight despite not even knowing her for at least a full day. I guess that's kind of what happens when you finally meet someone who's on par or even of a higher level intelligence than you. The Testificates weren't really all that bright. "Me neither." I quietly said as approached what I hoped was a thick wall. I took and deep breath and began to punch it with my bare fist. This is how it always works, if you have a problem, you just have to punch it or hit it with the appropriate tool to take care of things. Much to my surprise only a small bit of the wall came off and an entire block of pinewood was in my hand. It seems like the wood translated from this world into mine own for my use. I was glad it did, otherwise I would've hat to take on that creeper weaponless. I knocked off another piece of the wall with my hand then began to fashion them into planks. While I did this, I noticed Twilight was watching me with wonder in her eyes. She was unsure how I was able to retrieve perfectly square blocks out with just my hands, let alone make planks. Once I finished putting the wood into a workable shape, Twilight looked over and spoke aloud to no one in particular, "He turned just two blocks into 8 sets of planks, with each set being practically the same size as the original block... that's just not physically possible." It seemed like she was getting lost in thought as I began to set up a small workbench using four of my new planks. I then took two other planks and set them on the table, I pounded them with my fist until I reduced them into nothing more than sticks. All the while Twilight forgot about the situation and just kept on watching me probably defy most of her laws of physics with my bare hands. Finally, it was finished, I took from the table my newly finished blade and lifted it into the air triumphantly, However, the feeling was very short lived as I saw Twilight's face change as she realized what I was about to do. I looked over at the door and noticed that the creeper was still looking inside, not budging. That had to be the most patient monster I have ever seen. A part of me wished that it had left so I wouldn't be doing this, but that didn't matter now. I crouched down behind the door and braced myself for possibly an epic battle. It was extremely hard to beat something with a wood sword. Hard, but not impossible. I took one final breath before throwing the door open and in turn throwing myself on top of the creature and began to swing away. As it began to hiss I thrust my sword as hard as I could into it's face and thankfully caused the creeper to turn red and vanish in a puff of smoke. The orbs that come out of monsters like creepers give me their memories and experience. That knowledge is what enables me to preform some enchantment magic on tools and armor. I say this because what I learned from those orbs was entirely different from what I normally get. Normally, when I slay a monster, I'll get memories of it suddenly appearing with only the intent of hunting me down, this one had that thought and that action, but something was different. This creeper was scared, and it was also trying to hide from something. It had partial images of me in it's memories, but i just had blank white eyes. Herobrine was here, and he brought the monsters with him. I turned behind me to look at Twilight, who had her eyes closed tight and she was turned facing to the left. "Twilight..." I said, standing back up and walking over to her. "There's a big problem, very big." "What is it now?" She asked, still reluctant to open up her eyes. "When I said I'm the only one of my kind, I sort of lied. You see, there is one other." Twilight finally opened her eyes and slowly blinked for a moment before turning to look me in the face. "You lied? Who else is there?" I took in a deep breath before continuing. "His name is Herobrine, and he's sort of like my twin. He looks exactly like me, except his eyes are just pure white, almost like he was blind. I would like to say he's just like me, but he's not. He's got completely unexplainable, world-altering powers that he only uses to harm others, and pull small pranks. Everything he does is either extremely evil, or meant to unnerve you and drive you into insanity at some point. If what I've learned from the creeper is true, than that means he's somehow found a way into Equestria probably the same way I did." Twilight went wide-eyed again. "Then we must tell the Princess, she'll know what to do!" I thought for a moment, "Are there any trains leaving for Canterlot this late at night?" Twilight let out a small chuckle. "No, silly. I can always just send a letter. SPIKE!" She called, and a small groan was heard from upstairs. Just a little while later, and the baby dragon slowly stomped down the stairs with bags under his eyes. "What is it, Twi?" He asked, sounding like he could just fall back asleep mid sentence. Twilight quickly levitated a small piece of parchment and began scrawling something really fast on it before quickly rolling and tying it up. "I need you to send this letter to Princess Celestia right away, it's extremely important that you do." I raised an eyebrow. How could this little dragon take a letter to the princess faster than a train if he doesn't even have any wings. "Alright, then can I go back to bed?" Spike yawned at took the letter from Twilight, and put it up to his mouth. Twilight told him yes as he blew fire onto the scroll. IT seemed to turn into a strange colorful dust and it floated at an extreme speed out of the window. I stood there in a moment of awe. I had no idea dragons could do that. Twilight said that all we had to do now was wait. Probably a half an hour passed when suddenly Spike clutched his stomach and let out a large belch of fire. Where the fire struck, instead of burning things, there was another scroll with a gold and red "C" band holding it together. Twilight picked it up and read it aloud while spike clambered back up the stairs to finish sleeping the night away. "My dearest student Twilight Sparkle: In light of this recent news I am asking that you and all your friends come back to Canterlot with Steve as soon as you possibly can. I hope that we can assemble the Elements and then use Steve to hunt down this "Herobrine" and we can restore harmony back into the world. Until then I ask that Steve protect Ponyville from any and all threats this new character poses." Twilight cleared her throat and looked over the letter one more time. "It looks like I've been assigned to be Ponyville's personal guard, eh?" I said in somewhat of a playful tone.