#pred!steve

Then the potion accident happened. And now Steve was stuck as a giant.

So he had to make a gigantic nether portal in order for him to return to the nether. And squeezing into caves to collect enough obsidian was a hassle at best, a painful experience at worst. Creepers exploding near his hands when he stuck them down a cave to feel for heat would be lethal before the accident. Now it just hurt and he needed to rub some burn cream on them. 

But now he was ready. 

With a roll of his shoulders and checking his backpack for all the needed supplies, he stepped through the glowing purple portal. 

After a nauseating tug on his internal organs, Steve found himself inhaling the smell of dry heat. Smokeless fire. Distant sounds of bubbling lava and crackling flames. The distant, echoing shriek of a ghast, and the moans of the zombie pig men. He stepped out of the portal and let the purple glow fade from his eyes.

What he saw on the other side of the portal confused him. There was plant life here. He’d never been in a part of the nether with plant life in it. 

The grass-if he could even call it grass, it felt more like the mycelium from the mushroom island-was bright red under his feet. There were these big red trees and vines growing from them. After tearing them down with an axe he found these glowing, cool to the touch shroomlights in them. He had to take some with him. 

He took handfuls of the red grass and the plants and mushrooms growing on them so he could try a little nether garden at home, but he paused when he heard a deep, squealing grunt. 

That was not the moaning grunts of the zombie things here. 

There was a pig here. 

Well, it looked more like a hog. A giant hog with a mohawk along its back and tusks, running away from him. There were several. A herd!

With almost no thought, Steve lunged. His hands managed to clasp around one and he lifted it up. It squealed and kicked in desperation, but Steve was gentle with it. Sitting back on his heels, he took a minute to look it over. It was fair sized. Almost as big as a polar bear. Had a good amount of heft too. 

He briefly wondered if it would taste like the pig from the overworld. There was a lot of meat on this animal, so this was a good food source for someone as huge as he was. He carefully dug out a pit to set the hoglin in. 

Hoglins. It felt like a good name for them. He’d write it in his journal after this very informative trip to the nether. He’d butcher this one later to try the meat. 

Now that all this new stuff had been packed somewhere safe, Steve decided to make a bit of a larger trip. See what else he had missed his scant few minutes in the nether the first time he’d made it here. He had to use his hands to push aside the red trees as he waded his way out towards more things. 

In the distance, across a lake of lava, there was a soul sand valley. He was mentally marking out the bones he could see jutting up out of the ground when there was another deep squeal. It sounded like a hoglin in pain. 

Turning to look, he saw that was the case. A hoglin stumbled into his field of view with golden arrows sticking out of its hide, and then something in gold armor jumped on it. 

Within moments the hoglin was dead, and more things walking on two legs swarmed the body. 

They themselves looked pig like, but they were definitely people. Just as much as the villagers were. They had armor and weapons and they were dragging the hoglin away so that means they hunted, which meant they were intelligent! 

“Hello!” Steve started, hoping to hear voices return a greeting. 

Instead, he heard a pig-like shriek and then a golden arrow flew towards his face. He dodged it, hearing it bounce off his helmet, and then turned back to hear grunts and squeals among the little pig people. His heart sank not hearing any legible words or anything that he could make out, but at least there was some semblance of society here. 

Maybe he could trade with them like the villagers? 

“Hi there, little guys. I’m not gonna hurt you.” Steve took a step closer and the piglins fled. They left the hoglin body on the ground and scattered in all directions. “Hey, wait!” 

Without much thought, Steve lunged. He managed to corral about three of the five piglin hunting party between his hands. 

“It’s okay. It’s okay. Hey there, little guys. I’m not going to hurt you.” He lifted them up and they squealed and panicked like so many creatures had done. “Ssssshhhh. Ssssshhhh. It’s alright. Calm down.” 

They kept struggling and squirming, so it was obvious no amount of shushing would quiet them. Steve glanced around, trying to think of something that might calm them down or distract them. Looking at their armor, Steve settled back to grab some spare gold out of his backpack. (It was pretty useless to him, but sometimes it was a good shiny distraction) He tried to make it quick since they were kinda squished against his hard diamond chest plate until he had both hands back at his disposal. 

“Here, you like this stuff?” 

They paused like villagers when he had held emerald blocks. 

“Yeah, it’s shiny and cool, huh?” 

After snapping it into more manageable ingots, Steve set the piglins down. They didn’t bolt, so he put the pieces down on the ground. They even got closer to pick it all up. He set another block’s worth of ingots down and he saw the two last piglins of the hunting party edge back out from between the trees. 

“It’s okay. I got enough for everybody.” 

All five piglins gathered up a few ingots a piece, and after a few moments of grunting between themselves, they put some things down. Steve saw a potion, some gravel, and some ender pearls. Seemingly satisfied with the trading, they took the gold and started to walk away. 

They could be traded with! That was fantastic!

“Hey, where are you going?” Steve crawled forward, startling the little piglins. “Do you guys have a village around here?” 

They hauled the dead hoglin up over their shoulders and started walking away. Deciding to go on a bit of an adventure, Steve started placing cobblestone blocks on the ceiling above them as he followed the piglins away from his portal so he could find his way back later. He followed the little hunting party for a bit, across a strip of the barren red nether waste land and into a land of basalt and magma cubes hopping about in the distance and lava and blackstone. 

As Steve followed the little hunting party around a corner, he saw a structure. It looked a bit unstable, like if he stumbled against it, then it would crumble to bits. It was made out of bricks and basalt and Steve found himself fascinated by these little pig people. 

He would certainly have to try and fortify this little structure. At least do a little landscaping to help it be a little safer. Drain the lava pools around and try to chase off the zombie piglins. 

A deep snort startled Steve out of his thoughts about how he would dig back the netherrack and put up some railing. He looked over to see a larger piglin in black clothing and patchy armor rushing at him with an axe. 

The hunting party dropped the hoglin and approached the larger piglin. A Brute Piglin, Steve decided. The brute snorted and gestured to Steve with its axe, and the hunters snorted back, and after a few moments, pulled out the gold ingots. The Brute looked at the hunters, and after a little more snorting and grunting, the Brute approached. 

Steve carefully laid on his stomach to try and calm the Brute. “It’s okay, little guy. I’m not gonna hurt you.”

The Brute looked Steve up and down with its piggy eyes, and then it snorted at him. 

Steve smiled without showing his teeth. 

The Brute seemed to approve, and it went back into the bastion, dragging the hoglin. 

More of the little piglins came cautiously out of the bastion. Steve just stayed laying on his stomach to not spook anyone. The hunting party snorted at them and they seemed to cautiously approach. Steve gently held out a little bit of gold and they seemed to enjoy him being around much more when he gave it to them. One of them entered the bastion and returned a few minutes later with more tradable goods. Steve happily accepted the quartz and potions. 

To Steve’s surprise, a tiny baby piglin came running up to him. Steve just stayed very still as it crawled up his arm and gently patted at his face. The adults nearby all looked at him all nervous like. Steve just carefully picked the little piglin up and then moved them back in the middle of the adults. 

“There.” Steve gently patted the tiny piglin. “Safe and sound.” 

After the piglins milled about to marvel at Steve for a bit, Steve got up and started surveying the bastion. Definitely had seen better days. He carefully got out his book and quill (wary of the nearby magma pools) to make some notes as to what he would like to do to help these little pig people. 

A few more trees between him and the village had to be uprooted since he couldn’t squeeze past them, but then he found himself inside the village. 

For a long moment, it looked like the village was empty. He couldn't see any villagers, and then he saw the iron golem, cracked and damaged, limping towards him. He frowned at the poor little thing. There must be a monster problem here. That might also explain the lack of villagers. He was thinking about maybe putting it out of its misery when he heard the mumble of villagers. 

He had to lay on his belly to peek in through the windows, but there was a group of five villagers all huddled in the big house in the village. Two were farmers, one was a leather worker, one a toolsmith, and one an armorer. After looking in the other houses (and poking open doors to check) he confirmed these five were all there was. 

Poor little villagers. 

He poked open the double doors to see them better, and they made panicked little noises. 

Steve frowned to himself. He would just have to find a way to make them trust him. He sat up and carefully picked up the iron golem. It hardly even struggled in his hands. He had a piece of iron on him he had forgotten to put away. He carefully fixed the golem up. It wasn't back to full durability, but it was at least not about to shatter into pieces. 

Satisfied with his work, Steve sat the iron golem down and glanced back into the house. The villagers watched the golem walking around and one of them inched forward. In an effort to be friendly, he dug some apples from a pocket and placed them just inside the door. 

After a few moments of them inching closer, one of the farmers picked up the apples and brought them back to the other one. 

He sat up and surveyed the rest of the village. One of the farms was completely trashed, the other growing some scraggly crops. A couple of houses had their doors completely broken down. There was more than one creeper hole. 

Well, he was here, he should try to do a little bit to help. Starting with going home and grabbing some resources. He waved at the villagers and then started home. He knocked down a few more trees on the way to make sure he could comfortably make a path between here and his house. 

Plans swarming his head, Steve started to get everything ready. He was gonna have to bring a chest over to hold materials. Needed wood to make that and some crafting tables. Some doors. He wanted to use the birch and oak that grew in the area, so the village blended in a little more to its environment. He needed to take some torches with him, to make sure everything would be nice and light to ward off all the monsters. As he was sorting through his stone chest and trying to decide between polished andesite or diorite for some walkways, he realized it was going to get dark before he could get any work done.

He shrugged and looked back in the chest before he nearly slammed his head on the open top of the chest as the realization hit him. 

They were defenseless. 

He dropped all his bundles of construction materials back in the chest, grabbed his sword, torches, and an armful of potions before he started running back to the village. 

The sun was starting to set behind the mountains as he made it back to the village. He nearly tripped on the iron golem as he laid down in front of the house he’d last seen the villagers in. 

One, two, three, four, five. Thank everything, they were still here. He couldn’t let them stay here tonight. It would be a death sentence.  He sat back up and started unstoppering potions. First, a night vision potion. By the time he finished swallowing the last dregs of it, the sun was almost behind the mountains. Next was a potion of safe stomach. It was a potion he’d experimented with in the past, and it seemed to be the best way to insure that someone was going to be surviving the night. Nothing could hurt these little villagers if they were tucked inside of his stomach. 

He reached inside of the house and grabbed two of the villagers. They were squirming and making panicked humming and grunting noises. They knew the sun was down, they knew monsters would be appearing any second now. 

“I know you can’t understand me, but I want you all to know I’m very sorry for this.” He tried to give them an apologetic look before stuffing one of the villagers into his mouth. 

The entire time the villager squirmed and made all kinds of distressing noises as he swallowed them whole. Once their weight was safely in his belly, the next one was stuffed inside his mouth. It felt terrible knowing they had to be so scared, being squeezed down his throat into his belly, but it had to be done. Just a couple monsters would overwhelm the iron golem, and then they would be killed inside their house. 

A third villager was snatched up from inside the house and he quickly gulped them down. His stomach felt so full, but he had to keep going. The last two were scooped up into his hands, and just before another villager could go down, the iron golem punched Steve in the leg. 

He might be much, much bigger than it was, but that still hurt. “Ow. Stop that.” He shoved the iron golem back, and when it kept coming, he pushed it into a hole. 

Welp. That meant these two definitely had to come with him. 

It was awkward to shift the squirming villagers in his grip, but he had to take them home. His stomach was practically bursting with the other three, so these two would just have to deal with being in his hands until he could make a safe place for them. The walk home was awkward enough by the firm pressure from his stomach, softly rounded from where it was filled with squirming villagers. 

He sat heavily on the bed and set the two little villagers down on the sheets. He gently patted his stomach where the villagers were still struggling against him. “It’s alright, little guys. I’m not hurting you. You’re all nice and safe in there. Steve’s gotcha.” 

~~

Red stood between Wave and the giant that had eaten the rest of the town. Grubs, the other farmer, Bells, the toolsmith, and Chain, the armorer were all gone. Eaten alive by this gigantic monster. They were cornered. The monster would catch them if they ran, and even if somehow the giant didn’t catch them, the drop to the floor would break something.

They could hear their friends pitifully squirm and shout from within the beast. And they were almost positive that Wave and themself were going to be this terrible monster’s next meal. 

A shudder ran through them as the monster turned towards them with a sickening grin, one of its massive, destructive hands still resting on its awful stomach. They wanted no part in this sick game. 

Wave gave a loud whimper, shrinking further back into Red. 

The giant’s grin fell, and then its hands were upon them. Wave cried out in terror, and then both of them found themselves pressed harshly against the beast’s stomach. Red struggled and tried to beat against the monster’s hands, but their arms were pinned down. 

They could still hear their friend’s voices inside of it. “Red? Wave? Are you still there? Hello?!” That was Bells. 

“Bells!” Wave cried and looked up at the giant. “Let them go!” 

“Wave? Calm down. It is alright. The giant is not digesting us.”

“What?” Red ceased their struggles. “How are you not digesting? The monster ate you!” 

“There is potion in here.” Chain spoke up. “I remember this one. Father Stone showed it to me.” A pang of grief swept through Red as Chain mentioned their cleric. He had only been struck down by a zombie three nights ago. “It makes your stomach still. It will keep us safe here through the night.” 

~~

Steve gave the two little villagers a gentle smile as the villagers stopped struggling against him. They looked up at him and then gently placed their sleeve-hidden hands on top of his belly. 

“See? Your friends are okay in there. I’m gonna keep them nice and safe while I build you guys a really cool place to live.” 

It was time that he had a new building project. His fingers were itching to get to work. But for now, he needed to sleep. He kicked off his shoes and then settled down in bed, the two other villagers laying on top of his belly. 

He gave them a gentle pat and then settled in to rest. 

Come morning, another potion to keep his belly safe was downed, and a few soft prods assured him that all five villagers were alive and well. Steve spent a good while getting ready, packing his pockets and backpack to the brim with construction materials. He set another batch of potions to keep his stomach safe up to brew and then took off towards the village. 

The two villagers seemed to like it when he held them near his belly. He could hear them humming at each other in their village language. He wished he could understand them. It would be nice to have a friend to talk to out here. 

Oh well. He would just have to help out this village and hope that they wouldn’t mind him sticking around. 

Once at the village, he set the little guys down and started getting a temporary shelter built for them. Nothing too fancy, just a nice cobblestone box with some windows so they could look out and a couple fence post windows to make sure they had a nice breeze. 

When he turned around after decorating the inside of their temporary shelter, he saw them talking to the golem. Afterwards, it slowly approached Steve. 

“Friendly?” He carefully exposed his stomach to the golem as he continued to sit still as it approached. 

The golem walked right up to his stomach and with a creak set one of its arms on top of his belly. It moved its arm a little and then walked away. 

“Friendly!” He scooped up the golem in one hand and then set it in the box. He didn’t want to risk stepping on the poor thing or it falling in a hole or anything happening to it during renovations. He then picked up the two villagers not in his belly and set them inside. There were some beds, and he put some food in there for them. 

Now they couldn’t see him rip the roofs off the old houses. With them all in a pile in the ground, he carefully picked up all the chests in the village and put them in the box with the villagers to look over while he did all kinds of renovation. 

“See you guys in a bit. I’ll check up on you. Don’t worry.” He carefully patted them and the golem before putting a stone roof on the stone box and threw some torches on it. 

He stretched and sighed. Now the real renovation could begin. 

~~~

A day and night had passed before the noises outside stopped. Red and Wave had to stand on each other’s shoulders on a chest pushed up under a window to see a glimpse of the giant’s activities. 

“Is the giant still out there?” Red asked, trying to keep balance as Wave stood on their shoulders. 

“Yes. I can see the bag.”

“Where’s the giant?”

“I do not know. I think they are on the other side of the box.” 

“Then get down. I want to see.” 

“There is nothing to see on this side. The giant has taken down more trees. Placed more torches.” 

“Well then-” And suddenly the entire world trembled. 

Wave and Red scrambled to get off the chest and onto the floor as the entire roof of the stone box that had been their home for just over a day was opened up. The giant smiled down at them, and then started taking down the other walls. 

Previously, there had been a small hill the box was sitting on. Now it was floating on some small platforms with a dirt ramp leading up to it for them to climb down. They did so immediately, and were mesmerized by what they saw. 

This was practically an entirely different village. 

The houses were larger, all of them. There was a large, beautiful wall made of stone bricks and iron bars and lit with lanterns that none could climb over but the giant and a gate that could be locked by flicking a lever. There were gigantic farms with many places for farmers to work at, ground tilled, watered, and crops already growing. There were individual shops for tools and armor and leather and everything. The church had been cleaned and the windows replaced from where they had been broken. Flowers had been planted near the graveyard. The ground had been leveled. There were pathways now leading to every shop and house. Pens were overflowing with animals. There were wonderful street lights everywhere, flowers planted in the beds. Everything was just. Beautiful and clean. 

Shiny new iron golems were walking around, and the giant placed down the old one, freshly repaired with iron. 

Then Bell tackled Wave in a gigantic hug. 

Everyone was here, and they were safe. The giant had repaired everything. Fixed and polished up everything. 

“Thank you.” Red looked up at the giant. 

The giant waved at them and then stepped over the wall and sauntered off back to its gigantic house. Chains and Grubs pulled Red into a group hug. 

It was nice and cozy under this massive Spruce tree, one of the few things that towered over his head in this expansive plains, so until he had to move because the rain started blowing in sideways he was going to be sitting right there.

As he heard the rain start to come down, he closed his eyes and just enjoyed hearing everything.

He could hear the low moos of his cows over in their shed, the baas of his sheep in the barn, and the belligerent goat he’d taken home trying to fight the rain. The soft pitter patter of the rain striking the leaves, the roof of his house, the grass, soothed him. The river was going to swell if this was going to be a long rain, but it brought a smile to his face. His crops were going to love this rain, since there had been a little dry spell.

Suddenly there was a screech that had him sitting bolt upright.

Enderman.

There was an enderman nearby, being hurt by the rain.

Suddenly he heard the unmistakable sound of it teleporting and the sound of it screeching in pain stopped. A soft chirp sounded very close by.

Purple wisps of smoke were just out of the corner of his eye. The enderman was crouched down, just a few feet from where his massive hand sat on the ground.

He knew how huge endermen had looked before he had become a giant. Now it looked just like a slim iron golem. Something he could easily hold and manipulate like a toy.

A soft vwoop came from the enderman and he felt like he should do something to help it. He thought over what he could do without aggravating it before he just decided to carefully pat the enderman. He moved slowly, lifting his hand without startling it, and he very gently patted it on its head.

The enderman squirmed around under his hand before he pulled his hand back. At least the enderman wasn’t angry. He could sit here and chill with it for a bit.

Several minutes passed in a peaceful manner. Steve just enjoyed the rain, and the enderman sat peacefully next to him. Steve even was allowed to give the enderman a couple of more friendly pats.

“You got a name?” Steve spoke softly, trying to not scare the enterman.

It just responded with a soft vwoop and chirp.

“I don’t speak end.” He scratched at his chin. He needed to shave, he had stubble again. “How about… Jorge?”

No noises from the enderman. But, that also meant that it wasn’t protesting the name Jorge, so Steve decided that the enderman was going to be Jorge.

Suddenly an arrow hit Steve in the arm. He heard a skeleton rattle and spotted it just as it fired another arrow at him. He rolled his eyes and then grabbed his very large shovel from his bag beside him. The skeleton was smashed with a swift and decisive action. Steve put his shovel away and leaned back against the spruce tree to see what kind of damage the skeleton did. The tiny arrow in his arm was not a problem, so he pulled it out and tossed it aside.

“What a chump, eh, Jorge?” He looked over at the enderman out of the corner of his eye to find it making pained noises again. An arrow was stuck in it. It couldn’t teleport away because of the rain, so it had taken an arrow. “Oh shit. Uh…”

Steve started to rifle through his bag. There had to be something in here he could use to help out his rain buddy. There were only two potions, one a health potion that had to be drunk, and another potion that he just had labeled ‘safe stomach.’

Well, that was certainly… a plan. Keep the enderman in his stomach and then chug the healing potion. It worked before when he had needed to protect some villagers, so it should work now. He opened the potion that would make his stomach safe for the enderman to be in and drank it.

The enderman gave a pained whine when Steve put the potion away and he picked the enderman up without looking at them.

“Just stay calm. I’m not gonna hurt you.” Steve said soothingly, eyes shut, and then he opened his mouth. The enderman made some whining noises, but then Steve managed to stuff the enderman into his mouth.

He nearly gagged at the taste of the enderman before he just swallowed the thing. He didn’t trust himself to open his eyes until he could breathe properly again, the enderman past his chest and now nestled in his belly. Jorge was making distressed noises, and he could feel them squirming.

“Gimme just one second. You’ll feel better in just one second.” He pulled the stopper out of the healing potion and chugged it. He could feel a warm feeling spread through his body and he saw the little bleeding spot from the arrow vanish instantly. “How are you feeling, little buddy?”

There was a satisfied chirruping noise and Steve took that as the best answer he would be able to get.

Both empty potion bottles were stowed away in his bag and Steve put his hand on his stomach. An enderman only weighed about the same as a villager, even if they took up a little more space in his stomach.

Steve hurried from his space under the giant tree to his house. He stepped in through the door and set his bag down. Jorge seemed content, curled up inside of Steve’s stomach so Steve was going to leave them in there until the safe stomach potion would start to run out.

With a sigh, Steve unpacked his bags. Suddenly there was a bark and his dog, Lucy, jumped up on his leg. She was still normal dog sized, so she could barely jump onto his boot so she could get his attention.

“Hey, Lucy.” Steve scooped her up in one hand, and her tail was wagging like nobody’s business. “Did you protect the chickens for me?”

She barked and he glanced over to the cage of chickens he was keeping near his bed. He scattered some seed into their pen and then climbed into his bed for a little rest. Lucy jumped down onto his stomach and settled in for a nap.

“Good girl.” He settled in with a sigh. “Hey Jorge, if you can understand me then get comfy. You’re gonna be able to meet Lucy when you want out. She’s a sweet little dog.”

Jorge seemed to try and push against the wall where Lucy was settled, but then settled down. They felt pretty comfortable from where Steve was laying. Steve smirked to himself and put a hand on his stomach, content that his companions were getting along for now.