Freak accidents were a rare, although expected situation for every person working in a field or industry that involved hands-on work. Statistically speaking, there was a higher probability of dying in the workplace than dying thanks to a plane crash... Or being hit by a cow. Eitherway... I wasn't one to expect getting screwed so hard testing new US Military Gear...

The TITAN Combat Suit was meant to provide the wearer extra strength when hauling diverse pieces of equipment ranging from his own service rifle to the M249 SAW. I'd helped design the damn thing with a rechargeable battery that would work pretty well via solar power. I had access to the best lab in any Military RnD Center, just over from Area 51. Air force had even been giving us shit for me using one of their bomb ranges to test out my suit...

Anyways, when the time came for me to wear it, to test its limits myself and by my own stupid request, something gave way... I don't know what it was. An experimental explosive charge? That grenade we were testing that was similar to a mini-thermobaric bomb(My father's own fucking invention, a handheld Thermobaric Grenade...) or perhaps the secondary generator... Whatever it was, it went up and took me with it in a flash of light so bright, I'm pretty sure the boys over on the ISS saw it...

We called the period we were in the "Golden Twenties". We jumped so high and so far in technological advances in the middle of this decade, one would wonder what the hell happened... The TITAN suit was an armor set made of Titanium plating and a highly-advanced, hardened powered exoskeleton to hold the armor and extra gear, like heavy weapons, extra ammunition, filled packs, et-cetera. Basically, I was lucky enough to help design the first Pseudo-Power Armor... And it could be used for Civilian things too, like S&R, post-disaster relief...

Well, the Military did pay the most, though, so...

Anyways, enough with the dumb backstory... I should probably have started to figure out where I am...

My eyes opened, the Heads-Up Dispaly of the suit flashing on. Diagnostics ran and reran, warnings blared and vanished. All-in-all, it could've been much worse. The sky above was clear, a deep blue that eased me into waking up. I struggled to straighten up into a seated position, staring at the world surrounding me... Trees whose leaves rustled thanks to wind, small animals walking around...

"What in the Sam Fuck...?"

Oh yeah... Everything looks like it was built in 1x1 Blocks...

"... There's something severely wrong with what I'm seeing." I muttered to myself as I stood to my feet. The animals looked normal, the grass did too, but... The dirt, the trees, the leafs, the... Everything. It looked like it was built in 1 by 1 for some fucking reason. "In more than one sense of the word... Physics doesn't work this way..." I murmured as I continued to scan my surroundings. The sun was barely peeking over the crests of the mountains behind me and I soon realized I was in some kind of Valley.

I rubbed my eyes, then looked to the exoskeleton that held my suit together. The titanium rods were tightly knit together with a series of wires and its hydraulic joints, holding together the entire thing and allowing it to move in sync with my own movements and nearly just as smooth. I looked at the wrist-mounted datapad and watched as it flickered on, its screen cracked, possibly, by my sudden arrival here. The Power Levels were... In the mid 50% area, so I still had a decent enough amount of power to rummage about and see what I could find.

... I watched as a diagnostics warning flared up on both the pad and my HUD... WARNING:SUIT POWER SYSTEM INTEGRITY COMPROMISED! SOLAR PANEL DAMAGE DETECTED! RECHARGE RATE REDUCED BY 75%! WARNING:RECOVERY BEACON SYSTEM INACTIVE! TRANSMITTER SUSTAINED MAJOR DAMAGE!

... Well... "Fuck..." I swore and bowed my head... Guess I wasn't gonna be using this much for survival. Nor was I gonna get rescued any time soon. I patted down the armor plating and walked forward to the mountains... Maybe I could find some kinda cave to dive into and bunker down for the evening. I still had enough power to gather resources, so that was good.

I stepped forth into the greenery and the forests of pine trees that surrounded me, toward the mountains. Best shelter right now would be a cave, so I had to head through to find one... The whole 1x1 Block thing seemed fairly familiar, though. Not sure where it was from, but I... Knew I could probably risk punching the trees and I'd be fine... For now, though, the shelter was more important. If SERE training taught me anything, the three most important items one would need to get are food, water and shelter... Humans could survive three days without water, three weeks without food and, depending on climate, fuck-all without shelter.

The chirp of birds and the noise of woodpeckers eased my mind, reminding me this was still a... Semi-normal world?

I stared at the 1x1 Dirt blocks covered in grass and continued to ponder where the hell I've seen this place before...

The mountains were tall. Really tall. And also made of 1x1 blocks of different materials. Stone, dirt and... I could swear I saw resource veins in a couple of the blocks. Even Coal. SERE never trained me for this kind of shit, I'll admit, but... I was meant to be just an engineer after all. Maybe engineers got less training in survival? I did ask to go through basic like everyone else before I figured out how to build the suit, so...

I marched into the wide mouth of an open cave, expecting at least stalagmites and stalagtites to be normal, but found myself disappointed when I saw the interior of the cave, made also of 1x1 blocks... But, thankfully, the cave wasn't very deep. It was wide enough for me and whatever gear I had to fit in and then some. I smiled, tossing aside the bag on my back, then sat myself down... The cave was dry, dusty and smelled of sulfur, but it was the best I'd get...

I looked around, finding myself a nice spot to set my bag onto, then I looked out... To a grouping of blocky trees. I looked to my suit's reinforced arms and wondered... I smirked, that same familiarity coming back to me as I walked out toward the trees... And slowly, memories joined said familiarity as I started pummeling the bottom block of the tree...

... I blinked away my surprise as I slowly realized I had a new part to the Heads-Up Display...

Aside from my health diagnostics and the suit's damage being pointed out, as well as a flurry of other stuff... I had a strange bar at the bottom, separated into 9 tiles, each empty currently... Well, the first one was empty, until I punched the block in front of me enough times. It collapsed into pieces about twice as small as it used to have just for me hitting its base, before all items went into the bar at the bottom of my HUD...

"Oh my fucking God..." I murmured to myself. "I'm in THAT game..."

... Of course, that made sense... And didn't at the same time... Everything felt and looked real. As in:real-real. Everything had the right colors, the sun shined like the sun, it was round like the sun... If I stopped to process now, whatever mobs existed nowadays in the 'GAME' would try and slaughter me... So I walked back to the cave and spent a few hours by myself, trying to figure out how to access the crafting system...

When I was done, I had a wooden door, a wooden pickaxe and a whole host of other stuff, including a wall of wood separating my little hidey-hole from the rest of the world, with the door offset to the right... Well, a start is a start, no matter how shitty it is... I managed to get some coal for torches and used whatever plank blocks I didn't build the wall with for sticks. Before I knew it, my little cave was well-lit and I didn't have to worry about zombies or some other shit...

... Minecraft, a game so old that I could swear I played it back when I was 12, which was a decade ago. I still had the basic knowledge, because my mind didn't dare forget how to build and craft the most basic shit in this place. And now that I had a shelter, I had the time to concern myself with WHY THE FUCK I WAS EVEN HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE!

I reran through footage of the pre-accident events. No major differences from prior tests except for a flare-up of the Solar Radiation. But that couldn't have been the cause. We've had similar tests run before in all-too-similar conditions... I sighed, murmured to myself "Well, shit..." before looking out through the 'window' on the door. Night was starting to fall and I was getting tired...

I had to make some plans to survive more than a night here. I started setting up a small campfire first, in the middle of the cave while I considered any chance of surviving the future in this world and... Hopefully diving to find a way back out... I remembered they added an endgame a few years ago for Minecraft as a whole that involved defeating a Dragon and being sent through a portal afterward... Maybe that was my way home...?

Yeah, probably... I'd need to develop machinery and stuff to build armaments if I wanted to go after that thing. Couldn't do with just the basic in-game stuff like bows and arrows unless I 'enchanted' them. And I wasn't in the mood to remember all the recipes either... I knew how to build basic firearms, though, so that was something... I sighed, finally finished with setting up the campfire pit and lighting the fire itself.

I started removing the armored suit and stowing it between a pair of stone blocks. I also put my bag up on a block that was about half my height, before I opened it up and removed essential stuff, like the MREs, a canteen full of water and such, leaving only a partially empty bag as my pillow... And as I started hearing noises outside, I settled in for the night. Christ, I needed to find a way out fast...

The next day arrived just as soon as the first one went. And here I was, not in some crazy nightmare, but instead, in a semi-normal goddamn world...

I sat outside, collecting wood while I had only the battery pack of the suit on my back. Not the normal wood from the trees, because I didn't wanna risk breaking my godddamn wrists, but sticks and stuff. The sky had turned a shade of dark-grey earlier in the morning. I knew rain was coming because of how the sky looked. Sighing deeply after stowing the stuff I had in my inventory, I murmured to myself "I should probably go on in and start mining or something... Might get the rare metals I need to repair the battery pack..."

Movement in the bushes stopped me from entering. Someone was watching me from afar and I saw them with the corner of my eye. For now, though, I'd rather not get into trouble with anyone. I entered my little improvised bunker and started mining out some of the blocks around, to even out the place into a more square room. I had also made a crafting table that sat in the corner. And with the stone I had, I built a furnace next to it.

I eyed the door again and, for a split second, I saw a figure, before they vanished behind the wall. The pitter-patter of rain filled my ears as I closed in on the door, thankful that the draft couldn't make it inside, before readying my pickaxe to crack open skulls... I opened it outward, raising my pick... Only to see a girl in a green hoodie, with auburn hair and eyes, sitting there in front of me. She raised her gloved hands in self-defense and stuttered in a high-pitched, fearful voice "W-w-wait, wait! I'm friendly!"

... "Uh..." I lowered the Pick, brow raised "Hi...?"

Was this someone I caught in the blast? No, there weren't any civilians around the place when I was testing the suit. Just military. And I probably would've seen them before meeting her. And she, too, seemed familiar. A small frame, big, warm eyes... She was kind of cute, to be honest, but he had no time to tihnk about hat. He was till working on formulating a plan.. Her clothes were soaked by the rainwater though...

I swear, if I get stabbed by her. I sighed, then said "Get in here. It's raining cats and dogs."

"CATS!?" She screamed in an even higher pitch, dashing inside. I quirked a brow at her, before closing the door and walking toward her. She was curled up in a ball next to the campfire and her eyes shifted from left to right. I sat myself down in front of her and stared on inquisitively as she figured out her surroundings. She slowly seemed to calm down, taking notice of me sitting across from her and blushing... She chuckled awkwardly "Sorry about that, I... Uh... I don't like cats." And actually shuddered at mentioning the pet creature's name again...

"Really?" I snorted. "Sure seems like more than a simple dislike. You're deathly afraid of'em."

"Am not!" She answered.

"Sure... Why were you stalking me by the way?" I asked, straight to the point... She paused.

Then hummed. With a nod, she spoke "Actually, I wasn't... I just kinda happened upon ya while you were gathering wood... Didn't wanna come too close since you folks usually attack anyone you don't know."

"'Us folks'? Uhm...?"

"Humans." She smiled. Then her eyes went wide "Oooh boy..."

Wait a second.

"You aren't human?" I asked, now noticing the green hoodie had a face on it. One familiar to me. A monster from this game, to be exact. One that acted a lot like a certain group of extremists regarding explosives. My face stuck as I stared at her and I murmured "What the fuck...?" before trying to reach for my pickaxe again. She once again raised her hands defensively and tried to speak, but I sighed and retracted my hand before she could utter any word. I tilted my head slightly to the side, then continued "So you're... What? A female variation of'em explosive lizards?"

"Yes." She nodded.

"... Jesus Christ. I'm not sure I wanna know." I added absentmindedly.

"There's a simple explanation for why I look human... I evolved." She smiled, twiddling her thumbs. "I know it sounds incredibly complicated, but uh, yeah. I'm a seemingly different kind of Creeper. Genetically, at least."

"Any idea as to why?" I asked.

"Dunno. Mom speculates it's possibly been meant to be like this for a while." She answered... "Anyways... What's your name? And what's with the camo getup?"

Oh, right. How rude of me. No introduction to the weird Creeper girl. I hummed, leaning back, then said "Name's Michael, though most of my friends and extended family call me Mike. And I'm an engineer for the US Army. I help concoct, build and test advanced gear for our boys and girls to use in combat."

"Oooh, you're a soldier? Awesome!" She spoke with joy, pepping up. "Never heard of your army, though."

"... Huh. Not surprising." He nodded. To be fair, it definitely was unsurprising someone from this world never heard of the US. Or any Earth-borne country. A theory started to form in his head, regarding possible interdimensional travel? He didn't know, but for now it was what he was gonna go with. Would help put his mind to ease with the thought he could go home.

"Oh?" She asked.

"Well, to be fair, you probably wouldn't know them..." He probably shouldn't mention his theory for now. "My country and Army are from a faraway land... Enough so that I doubt any local knows of'em." I rubbed my eyes, then said "Anyways... What's your name? Let's finish intros before we talk any further."

"I'm Cupa." She nodded.

"... Cupa what... Like Cuppa Joe?" I asked, brow raised... As yet another sensation of remembrance came to me...

"Nope. Just Cupa." She smiled at me, letting out a chuckle... Oh. Ooooooh. I knew this as well. That odd mod from waybackwhen... Neat... So that means there's other Mobs that are also probably humanoid, so...

I nodded to the auburn-haired girl, then said "A pleasure to meet you, Cupa."

"Likewise, Mike." She nodded.

"Man, am I glad my first encounter with anything alive in this world turned out friendly." I quipped, before standing up and taking my pickaxe. "Anyways, make yourself at home until the rain passes... You can do whatever you want afterward."

"Thanks!" She smiled again. An infectious, childlike smile, so strong that I could only smile back. She tilted her head, then asked "Ya need some help?"

I looked to the stone I was digging through, then shrugged. "If you wanna get your hands dirty, that's fine by me... Just... Don't try to explode..."

She chuckled "Gotcha. Give me a couple sticks and some stone, so I can make my pick."

... Don't be fooled by the way I act, even toward Cupa, please. Deep down inside, my heart is still racing, my brain is turning inside out trying to figure out what the fuck is going on and I think my liver just gave in due to the stress of finding out three separate things:I may be in an alternate universe, some of the Mobs here are now girls and The realization hit that I'll have to fight a fucking DRAGON to make it home...

So yeah, all in all... Things are going as smoothly as they can, both within and without...