For the Good of All of Us.

Chapters

Chapter 0002 Fire!
Chapter 0003 Hello Sun
Chapter 0005 The awakening
Chapter 0006 Still Alive
Chapter 0007 Confusion tactics.
Chapter 0008 Simply Pneumatic
Chapter 0009 Turn ons
Chapter 0001 the fall.
Chapter 0004 into the Aperture!

Chapter 0002 Fire!

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<Central Ai restart failure Comment |# 306,995|:
- You know what, I am just going to keep talking. You never said that there was a limit for a common length so just try and shut me down now! How does that feel you cold, vile, non sentient puddle of binary lines on a …

=Warning: central Ai restart comment has exceeded its maximum length=
=Beginning forced shutdown to preserve data=
-You have GOT TO B…>

[Power down complete]

-Automatic restart in 32 seconds.
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“Who do you think ya’ are goin’ aroun’ smashin’ holes in ponies’ roofs!” Applejack yelled accusingly at Rick the adventure sphere. “What’s more you could have killed somepony!”

“Sorry pretty lady,” the intruder replied from his perch bellow said hole. “Can’t control where I land, you try falling from space and not hitting somebody’s roof. Also how did a pony learn to talk?”

“What that’s no excuse. How can I trust you, and what do you mean by space? And everypony can talk! Everypony knows that!”

“Well I guess everypony I have met can talk. Well that depends can you three talk?” Rick spun around on his cable to regard the Cutie mark crusaders on the floor with his green light board eye sensor.

“Of course we can talk,” Scootaloo replied as she popped up from the floor.

“Yah who has ever heard of a pony who couldn’t talk,” Sweetie Belle added while also getting to her hooves with a smile.

“Not me.” Apple Bloom concluded.

“So it’s decided ponies can talk, fantastic,” the sphere hanging on the ceiling stated stated. “Now who wants to go for an adventure!”

“I do!” all three fillies exclaimed in unison.

“All right, then now lets get thinking about what kind of adventure we could go on. Now lets see,” Rick narrowed his eyelid plates in thought, “we could climb a mountain, no wait to tallest mountain! Or we could fight a dragon, wait do you have dragons in your pony land cause that would be awesome, dangerously awesome. Ok so we’re gonna’ need some adventure supplies so lets see a knife, a gun, probably a parachute… oh right my parachute!” Upon this realization, whatever force was anchoring Rick to roof gave out. He fell to floor with a metallic “clang,” bringing a tangled mess of cables and an orange and white NASA style parachute with him. Some contraption inside the Personality Core somehow managed to pull this parachute into Rick and fold it into some unseen storage compartment within a matter of seconds. “Now,” the metal ball continued, “we’ll also need a jet pack, a giant paper airplane or a glider of some sort, hats; always need cool hats, canteen, whip, maybe some grenades…”

The crusaders all looked at the newcomer with an expression of wonder on their faces. The older farm pony appeared much more alarmed though.

“Fire!” Applejack exclaimed.

“That’s so cool!” Scootaloo added immediately after.

“Fire?” questioned the AI. “I mean I guess fire would be useful but it’s not like you can just put fire in bag and carry it around with you. Or can you? Hell if ponies can talk anything is possible. Let’s try it! Come on!”

“No, Ah' mean you're on fire,” Applejack corrected.

It was true a small blaze had started on the floor boards directly bellow the Sphere, although he didn’t seem to notice, be affected, or care about this fact. Most meteorites and spacecraft are safe to touch within seconds after touch down. Needless to say most meteorites and spacecraft are not made at Aperture Laboratories, at least since the malfunction of the Aperture Science meteorite production center.

“So I am…” The green eyed core squinted his eye lid plates closer together again in thought. “Which… is.. perfect for our bag of fire experiment!” the self proclaimed adventurer concluded. “Quick! Somebody get a bag!”

“Ah’ will!” the younger farm filly offered as she raced for the door, only to slam into her older sister’s intervening leg.

No you won’t!” the orange earth pony commanded.

“Shouldn’t we, you know, get some water,” Sweetie Belle suggested.

“Great idea. Apple Bloom get a bucket of water,” Applejack ordered as she moved out of her little sisters way.

“Right sis,” Apple Bloom spoke in shaky voice as she stammered out of the room, still dizzy from colliding into Applejack at full speed. The little filly was walking in an awkward diagonal gait with both of her eyes spinning.

“Hey why does she get to go,” Scootaloo complained, though Apple Bloom stumbled away undaunted. “I mean I’m the fastest, so I should go.”

“Yes but it’s Apple Bloom’s house, and she gets to do everything because she is the host,” Sweetie Belle pointed out. “ Besides do you even know where they keep buckets around here?”

“Well no, but…”

“And besides you’re not fastest of us at running.”

“Are too.”

“Are not.”

Meanwhile the fire that Rick had accidentally started had risen from “candle” to “campfire” Level. Applejack could see that between the two arguing fillies, despite the fact that arguing was already off the list of potential cutie marks, and the ball of metal, who was currently saying something about the thrill of danger, and herself, there was only pony in the room concerned with the danger of the growing flame. Suddenly an idea popped into her head.

“Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo,” she said. The two fillies stopped arguing and looked at Applejack from across the room, through the smoke from Rick’s latest fire, not to be confused with smoke from the fire Rick made when he burned his way through the ceiling. “Ah' need you to open that there window.”

“Why?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“Don’t ask why just do it!”

Without another word, both the remaining crusaders did as they were told. Scootaloo slid the pane up and Sweetie pushed open the shutters. Applejack gave the sphere a quick jab with her right for hoof and sent the core rolling out of the mini inferno it had made, which immediately died down without the heat source that had made it, unfortunately a new began to start up again under Rick’s new position. For the pony pushing it also caused reasonable amount of pain.

“Ow! OW! OW! HOT!” Applejack exclaimed while waving her hoof in the air to cool it.

“Why yes! Yes you are!” the Adventure Core replied.

“That’s it!” and with that, partially out of annoyance partially for the very practical reason of removing a fire hazard, Applejack spun around and bucked Rick out the window.

“Aww . Why did you have to go and to that? He was fun.” the pegasus whined with her alabaster friend matched her down trodden expression.

“Because he started this gosh darn fire, that’s why!”

“Ah’ m a comin’!” the voice of Apple Bloom sounded as the third crusader galloped down the hall. The filly had a tin bucket the size of herself filled to the brim with water. Unfortunately she did not handle the hairpin turn into the door well and bucket spilled into room; ironically the tidal wave this produced doused any residual flames still left burring in the room. Apple Jack breathed a sigh of relief now that she though the whole thing was over.

“Man that was great!” the voice of the Adventure Sphere projected from outside. Applejack jumped in the air in surprise and all four ponies crowded around Apple Bloom’s open window. “I haven’t seen that much fire and action in one night since last explosion day. Well I’ll see ya’ in the morning. I’ll just sit out here and come up with adventure thoughts. I wait never mind it’s morning now, the dawn of a new danger and excitement filled day. We’ll see yah later then, good bye until whenever later is, you pretty pony lady.” And with that Rick finally fell silent.

“I like him,” Sweetie Belle chirped.

“Yah he’s cool, that adventure idea was pretty good after all Apple Bloom,” Scootaloo added with a smile.

“See Ah’ told yah’ Adventrue’d be fun!” the yellow filly exclaimed.

“You're not goin' anywhere with the ball a’ metal!” Applejack commanded.

“Aww, but Applejack…” The young pony tried to make her best “puppy dog eyes” face, but her sister was apparently impervious.

“No buts! That thing was here for ten minutes and it burned a hole though roof and started a fire in your room. Do you think I am really just gonna’ let you go around and get into who know what kinds of trouble with it…”

“With Rick,” Sweetie Belle corrected.

“Well you're never seeing ‘Rick’ again!”

“Awww,” All three fillies simultaneously sighed.

“But what about Twilight Sparkle?” the unicorn filly asked offhandedly.

“What about Twilight Sparkle?” The older pony asked back.

“We could take Rick to Twilight Sparkle and then she could tell us if he is dangerous or not,” Sweetie Belle finished.

“Yah that’s a great idea!” Scootaloo added. “Twilight’s one of the most magically talented unicorns in all of Equestria, she’s sure to have some kinda’ spell that can tell us what Rick is.”

“What do you mean? Of course he’s dangerous! HE. SET. THE. HOUSE. ON. FIRE!” Applejack counted.

“Yah but that was an accident. And come on you thought Zecora was dangerous, and look how she turned out!” Apple Bloom pointed out.

“Alright fine!” Applejack conceded after several seconds of expectant silence. “We’ll go to Twilight’s in the morning.”

“But it’s already morning,” Sweetie Belle stated pointedly.

“Then we’ll go after you three clean up this mess,” the orange earth pony said.

“Aww but why we didn’t set the floor on fire,” Apple Bloom pleaded.

“Ya'll can just think of it as your punishment for staying up all night,” Applejack replied as she exited the room and slammed the door behind her.

Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo closed the window again as Apple Bloom stared at the morning sky though her room’s new skylight.

“How do you even clean up a hole?” she asked nopony in particular.

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Central Ai Resart failure comment |#307,001|:

Why do even both with these things? It’s not like anyone else can hear me.
-I can hear you, boss lady.
WHAT IN THE WORLD? Who are you? How did yo->

=Central Ai restart failure Comment has exceeded maximum length=

=Beginning forced shut down to preserve data=
-Oh You ARE KIDDIN-
[Power down complete]

-Automatic restart in 54 seconds
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Chapter 0003 Hello Sun

Disclaimer: the author does not own My little pony or Portal. We will however copyright the tittle A Beginners guide to Cryo-sleep©. There now it's copyrighted because I say so. Would you like to use it? Well, I won't let you! How does that feel?

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Central Ai Resart failure comment |#307,002|:

-Who are you?

-Name's Rick, I’m an adventure Sphere.
-You're suppose to be in space how did you- Never mind I need you to stay on this radio channel I have a lot to say->

=Central Ai restart failure Comment has exceeded maximum length=

=Beginning forced shut down to preserve data=
-and only a, Ohh I’ll be bac-
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“There he is! Up there!” Wheatley pointed out in a voice that easily betrayed his frustration with the whole situation, with ponies talking and moving the moon and his space obsessed acquaintance showing up quiet literally out of the blue. The orange sunrise only reminded the personality core that it was the begging of a looong day.

“He’s on that lamp on the wall.” Wheatly gestured to the object he was speaking of by looking up and then popping his eye light board out by more than two inches. It took princess Luna a moment or two to figure out that the little ball wanted her to look in the direction he was “pointing” to and not at him.

The light fixture Wheatley had mentioned was a wrought iron chandelier (in the strictest sense of the word) about ten feet in diameter, with as many lamps attached to its spartan metal frame, and suspended thirty feet above the balcony by a decoratively oversized hook. It was designed to bath the Night Princesses balcony in light while she gazed at the star, and had actually been pretty good at doing that… a thousand years ago. Since that time it had been retrofitted from candles to gas, to enchanted lightstone, back to gas after the criminalization of using enchanted lightstone in Equestrian buildings, and finally to electricity.

Needless to say it was nothing more than an antique eyesore now, and was ever turned on anymore due to the harsh compound fluorescent light it threw off (though Luna actually liked the quality light it made,she had heard so many other ponies call it “harsh light” that she assumed fluorescent light must somehow be cruel, and was therefore afraid use it). The antique rust heap itself was not the source of attention at the moment though, a metal ball like Wheatley hanging from the giant hook holding up the chandelier was. The new personality core was like Wheatley in every way except he had an eye that was made of a series of yellow lines unlike the earlier core's, which was a solid blue. The yellow-eyed core hung from a parachute that was draped over the lowest point of the hook in a way so that the weight of the parachute counter balanced the weight of the metal ball. It was also currently quietly sobbing to itself, apparently mourning the departure of space.

It had only been about ten minutes since the alicorn Princess of the Night had caught the Aperture Science artificial personality construct, yet, as the younger of the royal pony sisters beheld the new personality hanging from the apparently cruel chandelier, already she and Wheatley agreed upon something. “This is Going to be a long, LONG, day,” Luna thought.

“Oh what are you crying about now?” Wheatly continued with same agitation as before as he addressed his fellow sphere. “You can’t be sad about the whole 'not in space' thing I mean we were in space for thousands of years, (well I really don’t know how long it was),” Wheatley voice dropped any anger it had possessed when he made his side comment, “but you get the idea; we were in space a long, long, lon- And I realize all you think about is Space, But anyway we were in space for a long time.” he probably would have added something like “so stop crying” at the end of this gargantuan sentence had his own internal / external monologue not made him forget that the sentence had started with asking the Space core to stop crying.

“Not sad because of not in Space,” the yellow-eyed space sphere replied with another sob and a sniffing sound (despite lacking a nose) at the end. “Sad because Space left.” Snif “I don’t please Space,” Sob “So it left me,” sob “Because… I” snif sob “am… NOT…. The best at space!” The space core then broke out into another fit of sobs uninterrupted by speech.

“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard mate!” Wheatley exclaimed in response. He did a flip (or rather his inner freely rotating parts turne 360 degrees) to emphasis the point. He then turned to Luna to complain to her. “I was stranded in space with this guy for what must have been hundreds of years, and never once did he stop bloody talking about space. It’s mad! I mean space is great and all, but I mean come on to just, just devote your entire existence to it it’s just.. well …. It’s just … huh just just stop it.”

“The Night. Err We err I mean Space didn’t leave thine company because it was displeased with thee,” The Night Princes pointed out, somehow realizing the little ball was talking about the night sky disappearing with the sun rise in the time she was allotted by Wheatly's ramblings.

“It’s not?” the Space Core replied.

“No it is not, on this planet Space has to go away for about half of every day, so as to be fair. We’ve learned that now.” Luna added the Last part for more herself than she did for her two uninvited guests.

“Hooray! Dad is still proud of me! The Space exclaimed happily.

“Dad?” Luna questioned in confusion.

“He thinks his father is outer space,” Wheatley explained in a flat tone. He seemed to think for a second, then asked the other core, “Hey, wait a second! Why do you have a parachute? Actually more importantly, how do you have a parachute?”

“It’s my space parachute, for falling from space. For when I go to space,” the celestially obsessed sphere replied.

“What? They didn’t give me a space parachute! Why do you get one?”

“Because I’m the best at space!”

“OoOOooh, of course you are, mate.” Wheatley said sarcastically.

“Oh speaking of space, let’s go back to Space! Gotta go to Space. Gotta go back Space. So much Space, gotta see it all. Didn’t see it all yet. Haven’t seen all the Space. Gotta go to space. Gotta go back to Space, to see the rest of space.” Luna could now tell that the Space Core’s voice did not sound anything like that of Wheatly’s vaguely Trottingham accent. Instead the Space obsessed sphere spoke in more of a mechanical monotone, but one that transcended the stereotypes against monotone mechanical voices, seeming to be happy all the time rather than lacking emotions.

“Son” the space core suddenly said to itself but in a new deep “Space voice”

“Dad?” he asked his normal voice

“Yes, it is I, Space. I am proud of you son, come back to space.”

“Hooray! Gotta go to space, gotta see it all. Hey hey pony Space. Hey pony. Space. Guess what, Hey hey pony. Space. guess what, guess what. Space. Wanna see me? Wanna see me? Buy a telescope. Wanna see me. use that telescope, cause I'm gonna be in Space.” And so it went on.

Wheatley decided to break the lack of silence “Ok, Princess Luna. Now this might sound a wee bit… rude to you, but would you be entirely O.K., and I am perfectly fine if you're not, just a suggestion just a suggestion but could we leave him just, sorta, hanging there and go inside. I mean I've been in space for a thousand years with this guy, its gotten a little old. So yah if we could just leave him here and go inside, that would be great. Once again I am 100% fine with whatever you want to do. Please don’t kill me".

Luna didn’t hear the core's last sentence, it was drowned out by something from the space core about a space trail. She just nodded and levitated Wheatly behind her. However as she was opening the door to walk inside the space core apparently noticed Luna for the time, as his parachute made him look directly down and the chandelier he was hanging from was positioned directly above the door.

“"Huh? SPACE!” he shouted looking down at Luna's star studded mane as she opened the door, "SPACE? SPACE. SPAAAAACE! Space is so close." The core waved his handles up and down to try to grab Luna's Space mane, apparently greatly exerting himself focusing. "GOTTA. GO. TO. SPACE. Space. So close. wanna go to Space." Luna's head was now going through the door."
"I
GOTTA
GO
TO...." and with that the Space core disconected himself from his paracord, and fell.

(click)

S
P
A
A
A
A
A
A
A
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C
E

(clonk)

"OWW!"

The space core slammed into the princess's head, disappearing into her hair and knocking her down in the process.

"I'm in Space.

"No, thou arst inside the royal mane!" Luna stood up with a growl anger, dislodging the personality core from her cosmic themed mane.

"Spaaaaace," the core sighed dejectedly, though Luna couldn't tell if he was sad not to be in space to to have displeased her.

"Wheatley was right about leaving you out here!"

"Wait no Space pony! Don't Go Space pony. Sorry Space pony! Gotta say sorry to the space pony. Space. Gotta say sorry to Luna. Space. Sorry Luna. Sorry Space Pony.. Luna decided to just ignore him. “Wait no, Space pony don’t go! SPAAAACE POOONY!” Luna walked into her room and shut the door behind her. She did feel bad for the little space-obsessed ball out there, even though he had assaulted her. However a few seconds later the core started again on his space monologue, this time directed at the sun. “Oh it’s the Sun. Oh what do I say? Space. Play it cool we prepared for this. Hi, Hi Sun. The Sun is in Space. I’ve been to space too, sun. Gotta go the space. Gotta talk to the Sun about space. Hey Sun I just thought I was in Space because there was this space pony... ”

Wheatley was taking the opportunity to gather in Luna’s room at the palace. The Night Princess’s chambers were a combination of extremely old and hyper modern designs. Celestia had the room preserved it its exact state that it was on the day of Luna’s… well episode. It was a large space for a bedroom contained by deep midnight blue walls with a star pattern on them. Similarly colored silken curtains hung around the bed, which consisted of a circular but modern mattress. The rest of the space was occupied by a clutter of objects all screaming for attention. There was astronomy equipment, ranging from state of the art telescopes the green oxidized copper astrolabes and yellowed start charts. Piled in one corner were Luna’s musical interests, which were mostly stacks of ancient sheet music but were capped with a stack of pop vinyl records and an awaiting Ventrilo. An uncharacteristically simple vanity sat on the opposite side of the room from the bed, although its Spartan nature may have been due to the fact that it was older than the princesses themselves. There were piles of books, for the most part about the last 1000 years of Equestrian history, along most of the walls. A variety of tables and chairs from what appeared to be just random areas of the palace closely hugged the walls. Every horizontal surface seemed to be occupied by either books, scrolls, or any object that would look too messy just lying on the floor.

"Man this place looks like a dump," Wheatley jugged inside his mind. “I think your room looks absolutely amazing, Luna!” he lied, for fear of being crushed, “very well put together.”

“Really?” Luna asked, while putting the sentient ball on a marble table with a chessboard carved into the surface. “I think it clashes horribly, I never was good with interior design though” As if to emphasize the whole clashes horribly point she pulled up a chair with red cushions and gilded frame, she sat into it though rather than explain that something like this doesn’t belong in a blue room.

“Oh good I hate it too, I was lying before,” the core replied.

“Hey!”

“I’m sorry! Don’t kill me!”

Luna gave a groan of frustration before trying to put on her best “sympathetic”c look “Celestia was always the one who good at these things," she thought to herself “I’m not going to kill you.”

“Oh thank god.” Wheatly sounded extremely relieved to hear this.
“Why do you keep thinking I’m evil,” Luna asked. “Almost every pony still thinks I am evil, but this core thing has never heard of me before. I had enough trouble with Nightmare Moon! Am I really that unlikeable.”

“Well to be honest. You are just a bit, NOW JUST A BIT, didn’t mean to yell, terrifying. It’s ABSOLUTELY nothing personal. It’s just that you’re a bit bigger than me, you look very thin though for a pony I’m sure, well I’ve never actually seen another horse before. Also the whole telekinetic mind powers and moving the moon thing is kinda freaky. Oh and lastly there is the whole talking pony horse thing which my Data files say shouldn’t be happening, at all. EVER. Oh wait one more thing, well actually two more things buts that’s entirely beside the point now is it. You are both some how a Pegasus and Unicorn, both of which the scientists told me don’t exist. But you know the scientists did say I would die if I ever found a Unicorn, but they told me that about absolutely everything, and you know what I am starting to think that.. maybe… possibly… they were lying. Anyway that concludes the reasons why I am afraid of you. So to recap its because you are clearly more powerful then me, and has nothing at all to do with your personality. And also please do not kill me.”

"So what thou basically speakist, is that thine, whole reason thou arst afraid of us, er, me, is because thee arst afraid of anything that could easily hurt thee?"

"Wha? That's not what I said!"

"But is it true?" Luna poiniently asked with a sly smile spreading across her face.

"No of course it's not true... Ok well it's sort of true, I guess, maybe. Ok it's true, I am a little bit afraid of anything that could even be remotely dangerous. But to be fair, to me, that's only cause every. button. in that damn DAMN. FACILITY. made some ABSOLUTELY awful happen! It all didn't even make any sense! If you were going to jam a building full of buttons, why not jam it full of buttons that do, I don't know, helpful things? You know like a 'fix all the test subject's relaxation vaults' button or a 'turn of the Neurotoxin' button! Why couldn't those scientists install that! But no everything in that facility had to do something bad. You would be scared of everything too if literally everything in your world seemed out to kill you! And you know what that's another thing the Scientist said would kill me if I ever did, get mad that them! And guess what! I am absolutely livid at them and I feel just fine! Wheatley just breathed heavily in frustration (despite a noticeable lack of lungs) for a few seconds after his speech was done.

Luna made an awkward cough and tried not to look directly at the angry core while he vented. “So these scientists... they told you that Unicorns and Pegasi were myths, were they Earth Ponies then?”

“Earth… Pony?”

“No horns or wings.”

“that’s been every pony I have ever seen, (well actually you’re the first pony I’ve ever seen, ya), But anyway that is all the horses on Earth, no horns or wings. And Earth’s horses can’t even talk; the scientists I was built by were humans, I think I may have mentioned that before, eh? Do you have humans here in uhh.. Equestria (that's the one) , err princess? They're these big two legged pink things, bout six feet tall, mostly hairless, can't miss 'em.

“We er I would prefer that Thou call me Luna. And no,I never heard of or seen humans before. Although I have been sort of locked away for a thousand years, and is it not out of the question that I may have ... missed them.” Luna trailed off shyly as she realized that the idea of simply 'missing' an entire species existence was silly, even with being goen for a thousand years

“Wow! a thousand years! Oh that means you were in Cryogenic storage, if your still alive now that is . I used to be the head of the Aperture Science Relaxation center, which dealt with freezing all the Humans in cryogenic relaxation.You know cryo, (well of course you do you were in it), when you take an organic and freeze em so they don’t age until you want to wake em. You see It works by… Uhhhh hmmmmm. You know the Scientists never really explained… anything about my job to me." He took up an angry tone again, "It was just ‘Wheatley, here’s some frozen humans, make sure they don’t die.’ And what do they do, they all die. I mean seriously they could have left me something like ‘Cryo-sleep: a Beginner’s Guide’ or you know maybe I don't Know, maybe a manual?"

"I really hate to interrupt, but I have never been frozen."

"Wait how are you still alive then?"

"We Alicorns, my siste,r Cadence, and I, have a ponentaully unlimited life span." "Wait he doesn't know anything about normal ponies thats right!" Luna inernally giggled, "this is cool, she thought, "This Wheatley doesn't even knowhow diffrent i am from everypony else." "All other ponies have a maximum life span of around one hundred years."

"Wow. I'm talking to an immortal pony with physic powers, this is bloody awesome. On, another planet no less."

“Not another planet. We’re in different space. Yah different dimension, different Space. Gotta go to space in my space suit in the different Space,” came the voice of the Space Core from outside. "Wait do I need a special different Space suit to go to different Space? Space.

“Wait woah, woah, woah, back up what's this about a different dimension? And when did this happen and why was I not informed!?” Wheatly asked to general direction of the balcony door.

“Eighty seven years ago. Space. Earth years not Space years. Space years are better years. Yah Space years. It was twelve space years ago. I told you all about it,space, but you probably didn't here me. You were to busy crying of that lady who didn't go to Space. "

“What is this space year?” Luna asked, unsure which core would answer her.

“And just how do you know we changed flippin' dimensions?” Wheatly questioned immediately after Luna was done. "And for the Record, I wasn't crying!"

“Because one moment we were in Space, then Bam! next moment. Different SPAACE. I Know SPAAACE I am the best at space! Space years Is Like a Normal Year but its in Space. Yah. Space years. Gotta keep track of the Space years on Space calendar. Gotta get a space calendar to see all the Space days and the Space months, in Space."

“Well that answers absolutely nothing,” Wheatly said in an out of place sarcastic voice.

"I. KNOW. SPACE. We're in different Space now, trust me because of Space. Space was all flowing on way. Then the invisible portal opened in Space, twelve space years ago. Then Space was all flowing a different Space way. And all the stars were diferent, so I knew we must have suddenly traveled outside of known space, or gone to a different space dimension. So I was all 'OHMYGOSH NEW SPAAAAACE,' cause there was this whole new Space to explore, and I had a new Space dad, and their was so much new Space to see. Yah, gotta go to new Space! And then New Space said 'Hello my New Space son, I am New Space and your new father.' And then I was all 'Hoory, Gotta go to New Space, gotta go to Space'"

"Ok! OK! We get it! That's enought mate! That's enough. Hehhh," Wheatley sighed as he turned to (looked at) Luna "We're going to be here for a thousand years if he starts quoting himself. Anyway none of what he said makes any sense. Space can't flow, and this invisible portal stuff makes no sense what-so-ever, as portals are universally either orange or blue."

"Hey! What do you know about Space!? You never wanna talk about Space. Speaking of which, Wanna go to space?"

"Believe it or not, I probably know more about Space then you, mate!" Wheatley taunted.

The Space core became, for the first time in his life, angry, so much so that it stated to beat Luna's glass balcony door with his handles to try remove the invisible force field keeping him from the little blue eyed moron, looking like a dog or cat pawing to get in all the while. So forceful where is blows that they nearly threatened to perhaps scratch the antique glass a little. "You lie!"

Actually, Wheatley, what the thy companion is saying makes sense," Luna intervened.

"Wha'? No it doesn't Space doesn't flow!"

"It does actually, tiny particles of hydrogen gas are constantly being pushed away from stars , or are being pulled toward points of gravity, so what he said maid perfect sense. Also each star throws of a unique emission spectrum so it would be theoretically possible to locate thine position in space based on the positions of the stars, which thee could identify via their emission spectra." Luna's held a note of pride in her voice as she stated these facts, she was the princess of the night after all, and by extension probably also the princess of space.

"Ha!" the space core taunted back at Wheatley "I told you I am the best Core at Space! I am the best at Space! yah Gotta see Space, Gotta go to New Space. So much new space. Gotta See it all."

"Wait, Wait, Wait. How do you know all this?" Wheatley stammered.

"Well I am the Princess of the Night, I sort of made space, in this world at least," Luna said somewhat shyly. She wasn't accustom to a die hard fan of the night, as the whole Nightmare Moon episode evidenced. Luna had read a little about dimensional theory in a book after she returned from the moon, but according to the same book the fact that there were multiple dimensions wouldn't even affect Equestria for possibly hundreds of years, much less there be the possibility the inter-dimensional beings would randomly fall from the sky.

"Whoah, Whoah, Whoah, You made Space, Luna?"

"Yes, sort of, We.. I added in the stars, and moon, and comets and all that. At least in this world. So I guess I made, how did thee speakest it, 'New Space'" Luna was surprised the the little core had caught her name.

"THAT. IS, AMAZING. You are the best pony, Space pony! Your're my best friend! My best Space Friend!".

"Hehehe thanks," Luna laughed out nervously. The 'shyness' center of her brain was working in overdrive mode now.

"Oh hey look a cloud. Noctilucent cloud. Space. noctilucent clouds are in the mesosphere which is just bellow space. Hi noctilucent cloud. Space Hi. Hi cloud. Can you see Space, cloud? Space cloud. not a space cloud almost space cloud. Tell space Hi cloud. You know I just met a Space pony and she told me... "

"Ok, ok I lose on the whole new dimension thing. But still that makes it even cooler! I mean I'm on a different planet in different flippin' demension! And I'm talking to a sentient horse with near god-like powers! This Is Bloody wicked!!!"

"Excuse me for my interruption, but what dost thou mean when thou speakest of wickedness? I fail to see how I have been anything but kind to thee since thy... fall," the night Princess said with a slightly hurt tone of voice.

"What, no you've been great, thanks for not killing me by the way. When i mean Wicked i mean it in the sense of something that's awesome. You know. No you don't know don't you. Well lets just say wicked means 'awesome' in the way I am using and just leave it, at that then."

Wheatley's eye lid's narrowed around his light board in thought. "Oh I just have a brain wave! Since you know we come from different dimensions and all that, and I don’t know a lot about you, and visa versa, you could just plug me into your computer and I could download all the information about you pony people, from the internet! It’s brilliant! Now where’s you computer?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea what thou arst trying to convey to me," The midnight Alicorn plainly stated.

“What!? you know: computer, el computadora, Google machine, Aperture Science personal computational device and emergency oven, e-telly, brain in can, Binary box! any of them!” Luna just shot him a confused look. “It’s a box that thinks. A machine that does math. It’s like one o'fme, but a whole lot simpler, you know like a robot that can't move. Anything like that sound familiar to you? at all?”

“Well I have an abacus, that's a machine that does math.”

“You've never ever heard of am electronic calculator!?” Wheatly sounded desperate.

Luna had heard of calculators but where? “Oh those are those things that everypony else uses instead abacuses now.”

“Oh wait that’s right.” Wheatley sounded relieved to remember something. "You've been gone for a thousand years."

"Yes, yes we were locked in the moon." Luna's face scrunched up in thought. "Oh, that's right! I've probably just never heard of a computer before, but Celestia sure would have,' she reasoned. "Ok so computers probably exist here I'm just a little behind."

"Trapped on the moon? What in the world- actually you know what that doesn't surprise me anymore, with the way things have been' goin' an' all. Anyway since we can't get our hands, or I guess hooves, on a computer, you know what I don't even have hands I should have just said handles, but since we can't get either of our respective appendages on a computer at the moment, we're just going to have to do this the analog way, I guess. So I'll tell you everything about my world and about me self my world, and you tell me everything about your world, and yourself. It's perfect! Well given the circumstances it's perfect, could be better if we had a computer. But anyway lets get crakin' on the old analog backstory eh!,

Ok so my dimension all started out one day when God got really bored with doing nothing all the time and decided to get up off his cosmic sofa and just make everything. And so God made the earth & and the universe, Just like that eh? Just boom! there's Earth. And god looked at the Universe he created and said 'their be light' But the world was empty so god filed it with plants and animals and said 'well would ya' look at that?. But soon after God became bored so he decided to make one more animal, in his own image no less (although a lot more smelly). And he did and God said "sweet!" And he called these new animals 'Humans.' But, little did he know that the Humans...."

"Wait!" Luna commanded, "My sister 'Tia will want to hear this."

"Sister? Oh wait you mentioned her before, sorry I just sort'a forgot. All right. well then Let's go meet you Sister!"

"It is agreed then. Oh I'll tell thee about were ponies came from on the way!"

Great that works out perfectly! You know we're really getting good at this puzzle solving stuff. Go team!
_________________________________________________________

Central Ai Resart failure comment |#307,003|:

-Ok, Rick you like adventure right? Well stay tuned to this frequency and I’ll beam the instructions for how to how have the greatest adventure ever right into your little head.

-Awesome

=Central Ai restart failure Comment has exceeded maximum length=

=Beginning forced shut down to preserve data=
-Excellent. I’ll be right back-
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Chapter 0005 The awakening

It was dark, that much was certain. The Crusaders could see a slowly shrinking blue patch of sky above them, but the angle of the sun and the incredible depth of the well prevented any natural light from reaching them. Even if it could, the parachute that was keeping them aloft would have blocked it. The only thing that gave off light down their t was the faint neon green light that emitted from Rick’s eye, but none of the fillies could really see that as the way they had slung their for hooves through Rick’s handles left their eye level just above the core’s rear port. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo had to double up on one side if Rick While Apple Bloom had the other side.

“Man did you me distract those wolves, it was awesome," said the Adventure Sphere. “Half the war is the battle of the mind; you have to out smart your enemy as well out kill and out bedroom them.”

“Yah thanks Rick.” Apple Bloom said with a sarcastic tone. “Hey Ah’ve got an idea, since we went through all the trouble a’ gettin’ these here head lamp things, one of us should try to figure out how to turn them on without our hooves.”

“Sweetie Belle could use her horn,” Scootaloo stated pointedly.

“But I don’t know telekinetic magic,” the unicorn complained, “or much of any magic.”

“No I mean you could just use your horn to flip the switch on one of our lamps, since its suppose ”

Sweetie Belle used her horn like a blind pony’s cane to feel for the switch. Her horn struck down several times on the semi rigid canvass of Scootaloo’s ‘adventure hat’ before colliding with the metal of the attached lamp. She slid her horn across the metal surface of the power box until the enamel of her horn felt something sticking up from the metal plate. She kept pushing it until their was a click, and Scootaloo’s head lamp came to life, shinning it’s bright electric light into Apple Bloom’s eyes.

“Gah!” The Farm pony gasped while closing her eyes at the sudden brightness and fighting the urge to cover them with her hooves.

“Sorry,” both the other crusaders apologized in tandem.

“Oh hey that reminds me,” said the adventure sphere. “I have a built in flash light.” A bright flood light shot out of Rick’s eyes, however the paracordes
attached to his internal sphere prevented him from looking in any direction that was not down

“Oh now you tell us,” the yellow earth filly groaned. “So Rick where are we?”

“On an adventure.”

“No but besides all tha’. What is this shaft for.” The two lights didn’t reveal much, Just the same grey smooth cut stone brick walls as before.

“Don’t know anything about it, pretty little filly.”

“Who would just dig a huge shaft in the ground,” Sweetie Belle asked nopony in particular.

“Don’t know that either, all I know is that the boss lady said to come down here as part of an adventure.”

“Ah’ think I know who built this, but jus’ not why,” Apple Bloom stated. The other crusaders shot her an inquisitive glance egging the farm pony on to explain.

“Well when my sister told me about how they beat Nightmare Moon, she mentioned something about an ancient stone castle in the ever free forest. Whoever built that might have built this here giant well thing, Ah’ mena the Horse shoe fits fight.

“But why?” Sweetie Belle asked

“Ah' said Ah’ don’t know, Ah’ haven’t figured out that part yet.” There was a second of Silence before Apple Bloom went on to ask, “Hey Rick what was tha’ this adventure was all about again?”

“We are suppose to reactivate the central A.I, after we break into the laboratory of course,” The sphere stated matter of factly. “No idea what that means but I guess we will find out when we get there. The boss lady will tell us what we need to do.”

“And who is this boss lady?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“GLaDOS.”

“Who?” all three crusaders asked simultaneously.

“You know what, she can explain it better to you than I can. so lets just do this adventure then ask questions latter.”

“Well, what about this chimera that the she wolf mentioned, how do you plan to deal with that?” Scootaloo asked.

“Well pretty filly that all depends on exactly what a chimera is.”

“Front half of a Lion, bottom half of a goat, snake for a tail, about fifteen feet long, and breaths fire.”

“God damn that is cool. Doesn’t sound to tough, I bet I could take it on by myself, I'm designed for dealing with incredibly powerful foes like monsters. Tell you what, you can just set me down when we land and you three can take a nice little Filly break.”

“Ya’ sure? That’ kinda’ sounds dangerous .” Apple Bloom pointed out.

“Hell Danger is my middle name. Rick Danger… something. O.K maybe Danger is my last name.”

“Speaking of landing, how much longer until we get to the bottom?” The unicorn of the trio asked. “My wrists are starting to hurt from all this holding on to you for our lives thing.”

“I don’t know that either… oh wait never mind. I can see the bottom. Just hold on for a few more minutes.”

“But what do we…” Sweetie Belle almost asked.

“Shhhh you’re ruining the element of surprise!” Rick whispered.

“But the Chimera…” Scootaloo almost pointed out.

“bah bup dah duh Zip-it! Surprise!” Rick mumbled; it sounded as though he was speaking through clenched teeth, however his lack of teeth made this impossible. Rick turned his own built in flash light off, apparently for the element of surprise. Scootaloo just tilted her head up, so that her own light would stop shining on the floor below.

There was about two minutes where nothing but more drifting down happened, then the walls stated to melt away. The Crusaders saw the bottom end of square weel go by them, immediately afterwards Scootaloo’s light revealed a smooth gray, slightly curved, ceiling. With an unexpected bump the crusaders, flanks landed on something soft and warm, but before they could discern what this was, the adventure parachute collapsed on the quartet of adventurers. Scootaloo decided to take the opportunity to extinguish her head lamp, more out of a fear of seeing what ever resided at the bottom of the pit they had been cast in rather than to maintain the ‘element of surprise’ and with a quick swiping motion from her now free hoof the only source of light was gone, and their world became pitch black.

“Let’s just retract the parachute and see what we got here.” Scootaloo felt the plastic shoot rush over her skin then with loud ‘Zoom’ noise the parachute was gone. The Green glow of the Spheres light board eye then became visible to the little orange pegasus and her friends. “O.k. jump down giant mysterious well in the ground. check. Land safely. Check. Find chimera and strangle it with my bare handles. not check,” the sphere whispered. “well then I’ll go find this chimera, and when I give you the single, create a distraction. Be sure you have the flare gun. Then I’ll take it from there.”

“What signal?

“What distraction?

“What flair gun?” Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo asked in order.

Before Rick could answer any of these questions, the ground underneath the adventures quivered slightly. Scootaloo felt the texture of the ground again and realized it was made of some kind of coarse hair or fur. It became instantly obvious to her what had happened, but before she was able to communicate this realization to her friends their was a brilliant explosion of light. What had been a dark inky void was suddenly a myriad of bright blurred colors that the orange pegasus eyes struggled to adjust to. The ground began to shift and the trio of fillies, plus core, could feel them selves begin to slide.

“Oh no” Scootaloo thought. She felt the sensation of sliding over the rugged grey, that much her eyes could tell, fur intensify as she slid down what appeared to be a shag carpet mountain. Then the sliding was replaced with sensation of falling. Fortunately for Scootaloo, pegasus fillies have a naturally low terminal velocity when they spread their tiny wings out, an evolutionary trait developed in hopes that pegasus parents could catch their kids before they hit the ground. Scootaloo landed on all four hooves with no more event then a small ‘clack’ noise upon the grey stone (great more grey stone) floor. Her adjusting eyes didn’t make out the shapes of her two less fall proof friend. “Oh please don’t get hurt. please don’t get hurt. please don’t..” “OoOMph” she groaned aloud as something from above slammed her into the ground.

“Hi Scootaloo!” Apple Bloom chirped from on top of the Pegasus’s back. “Say how did you get under… ow!” The yellow filly was cut off by Sweetie Belle landing on her back.

“Well, well, well, a filly sandwich,” a new feminine voice boomed. “How hilarious.”

Scootaloo felt her two friends slide off of her back to face the source of the new voice. As Scootaloo got up too she made a mental note of her surroundings, the underground room was a perfect circle of walls about 70ft. high capped in a white dome that could have probably fit the whole of Ponyville inside of it. The entire space was mostly bare except for several large candle laden chandeliers and a troth along the walls that held some kind of recess lighting. There were four large hallways leading out of the room placed at 90 degree angles from one another. One apparently connected to another room of smaller size but similar style, the other halls were so long they faded into darkness. The last one was the odd ball, It was perfectly circular, so that it’s floor just barley touched the floor of the domed room. However it went only about 100 hundred ft. before being capped by what looked like some kind of oversized stone bank vault. However the door was impossibly huge and coated in in spirals of eerily glowing blue ruins and composed of concentric circles of the same grey stone. Even though Scootaloo had never seen an enclosed space so large, it’s occupant made it seem relatively small.

Glaring down at them was the chimera they had been ‘warned’ about. Scootaloo had described it almost perfectly; the beast had the head paws and front half of a torso of a lion,, but halfway through its muscular body the golden lion fur was replaced with the shaggy grey-white fur that was that of a goat, and according the creature’s back legs ended in hooves. To complete the picture, the monster's tail was a green scaled snake, complete with venom soaked fangs. However Scootaloo had messed up in her description in a huge obvious way, the thing was bloody massive. It was easily two to three times bigger than the Ursa minor that had attacked Ponyville during the Trixie incident. The creatures paws and or hooves could easily crush a whole house, and the snake trail clearly displayed a set of fangs the size of trees . The beast had a well groomed lion’s main despite the fact that, judging by its voice, it was a girl. Currently the monster had its back arched, its paws outstretched and its hind legs tucked away in a sitting position, like a cat waking up from a nap, and its head and tail cocked at 90 degrees so as to face the adventures.

“Hmmm Ponies must use a different type of length when they mean feet. hmm I think we can still take her if we work together,” Rick Who had landed near the fillies apparently unscathed, said as he regarded Scootaloo.

“Yeah you said it would be fifteen feet long, not fifty feet tall” Sweetie Belle accused.

“Well that’s how big my mom told me they were,” Scootaloo defended.

“Your mom was right, in most cases chimeras are only about twice the size of a normal lion, however I am obviously a little unique. I could be considered somewhat close to an alicorn in respect to other chimeras.” The hybrid monster stated. Her voice was almost soothing despite its volume, but lacked the same satisfied smugness that wolf Beta had. “My name is Lierica, and it is my duty to guard this Arcane Vault, by order of her highness Princess Celestia.”

“Arcane vault?” all three fillies asked.

The beast lifted one massive golden paw and gestured in the direction of the gigantic round door with the glowing ruins emblazoned on it.

“I’ve been guarding this place for a thousand and one years, and in all that time I must say that I have not seen such a misguided attempt to break into the vault,” the monster cooed while getting to all fours. “I really hope that you are all just some misguided explorers who fell down here, because otherwise anybody caught trying to access the vault besides Princess Celestia must be incinerated.” Leirica turned her body to face the fillies with an almost militaristic left face, though apparently her tail didn’t get the memo because the oversized serpent’s head was whipped into the nearest wall, which didn’t seem to bother the rest of her in the slightest. The beast then brought the muzzle of it's dominant lion’s head within one pony length of the adventurers; her mouth stretched into a playful toothy smile that revealed that a forest of sparkling white razor sharp pony sized daggers resided in her maw. “Now tell me,” she whispered loud enough for all to hear, “what exactly were you planning on doing down here.”

“We were here on a dangerous adventure, an awesome adventure,” Rick enthusiastically blurted out.”

“Great, so they finally figured out how to make bowling balls talk. I’ll never understand pony logic,” the oversized Chimera groaned, her lethal smile disappearing to be replaced with a much more dangerous frown of disappointment. “This adventure wouldn’t happen to involve breaking into the Arcane Vaults would it?”

“It just might, you beautiful monster lady.” Leirica’s mouth opened and an orange glow began to emanate from the back of her throat.

“Wait!” Apple Bloom yelled. The glow stopped and the beast closed her mouth, though the leonine face now bore an expression of annoyed impatience, which didn't give the fillies much hope about changing her mind about burning them. “He never mentioned anything about breaking into a vault when we were at the surface,” Apple Bloom squealed at a dizzying rate, “He just kept talkin’ about some really supercool adventure with something about a laboratory, and we thought it would be a good idea to listen to him because I thought that it would be really cool to have adventure cutie marks, andwedon’thaveoutcutiemarksyetandeveryponykeepstellingustowaitbutIdon’twanna’waitIwantmycutiemarkrightnow!

“Rick why did you even say that?” Scootaloo asked criticizingly.

“Because of the thrill of danger.”

“But that’s suicidal.”

“Back up. Did you say laboratory?” Leirica asked to fast speaking farm filly.

“Yah’. Is that bad?”

“No. Well yes actually that place is lethal, but not bad in the sense of 'I'm going to burn you alive bad.” The monster pulled her head to normal height then let her rear fall down into a sitting position, causing the floor to heave into a small tremor. “There is a laboratory down here, well as of about ninety years ago there is. Anyway that means you have a plausible reason to be down here, so I’ll just let you go.”

There were three sighs of relief then one groan of disappointment, followed by a long awkward silence between the vault guardian and the explorers

“So who just built a Lab down here,” Sweetie Belle asked finally.

“I have not idea, one day I was leaving to go stock up on supplies, and then I find that the exit tunnel is blocked by a gigantic innavigable…. space…. filled with a bunch of weird boxy rooms on rails. Apparently it had something to do with photography, they had the word Aperture everywhere. I’ve been trapped ever since.

“So what do you do about fo-” Sweetie Belle was going to ask before an orange hoof was shoved in her mouth.

“ –food?" The lethal cheshire cat grin returned to her face for a moment as she said the word, before dying down to a non-toothy smug smile. "When you’re an immortal, food becomes more of an option, though hunger can become a little unbearable after a while. So lets just say you’re not the first creature to plummet down one of my air shafts, but you are the first to survive though. Trust me, earth pony slushys do not taste good at all." She rolled her eyes to emphasis the understatement. The over sized monster's gaze floated up to the aforementioned air shaft's, all like the one the crusaders had entered. Leirica decided to use them to change the topic. "A few pegasi have flown down here exploring though, I know all that I know about the modern world from them and a few books I have managed to salvage off of some rather unfortunate Unicorns and Earth Ponies who just weren’t paying attention to where they were going, not all the air vents are in the Everfree after all.” The room was certainty large enough for that to be true.Considering that the crusaders had fallen down a shaft near one of the walls, the gigantic room was probably right under, and centered at, ponyvile, “Those pegasi all went into that lab and, well, all I heard over the next few days was the tortured screams of pegasi.” The great beast seemed to imperceptibly shutter. “So if you don’t want to die of an extremely slow painful death, I suggest you just let me eat you now. Your call.”

“No thanks!” Scootaloo quickly answered. The Chimera simply shrugged its leonine shoulders in apathetic response.

“Wait so what’s behind that giant glowy door tha’s so important to protect,” Apple Bloom asked.

“Secrets. Dark horrible secrets.”

“Sounds fun. But one adventure at a time, now lets get going, the labs also the only way out, by the way, and only if we complete our adventure first.”

“Your bowling ball has a point. This room is designed to accommodate someone of my size, I estimate it will take you an hour or so to get to the other side on hoof.”

“Awwww colt. I should have brought my Scooter,” the pony whose name was based upon scooting groaned.

“So if you would be so kind,” Leirica continued, “as to start on your little suicide mission now. The faster you get out of my bedroom the faster I can turn out the lights get back to sleep.” She raised another paw and extended a single massive paw toward the tunnel opposite the vault, “your destination is strait down that way.”

“Wait this is you bedroom?” The sphere questioned as Apple Bloom unenthusiastically started dragging him by the handle. “Sweet, already half way there. You know I am a trained warrior in the art of bedroom,” the hyper masculine personality core stated in Leirica’s direction.

“Don’t waste your time bowling ball. I don’t swing that way, whichever way sphereophiles swing.”

“Dawwww.” Rick then lapsed into a long train of incomprehensible grumbling.

Sweetie Belle drifted toward Scootaloo as the trio set off on their long journey all the way across the room. “You know, I think this whole adventure thing was a bad idea” the former said.

“You don’t say?” replied the orange pegasus sarcastically.

=====================================================================

Please remember that Aperture Science is not responsible for any injury that is caused during testing that is clearly the result of test subject failure to solve the test correctly, or by any other form of test subject incompetence or incompliance. For all aperture science full time employees please adhere to the Aperture Science safety Protocol entitled “Safety Third,” during the rest of this emergency, unless informed otherwise.

=====================================================================

“…and so that is exactly how magic is performed,” the Night Princess finished. “so dost thou hast anymore questions?”

“Uhhhmmm no I think… I think that’s enough about ponies for now,” Wheatley said with a voice that clearly expressed his difficulty processing the recent influx of information.

“Well that tis just as well, We’re at my sister’s room.”

“Wha’ ?” The core turned his blue eye 180 degrees to look out his cases’s back port. Shure enough they hallway ended in a big brown set of woody double doors. “Hmm I guess I was jus so focused on our little mind blowing conversation that I forgot we were moving. So what do we do now, hack the door?”

“No, I was thinking that simply knocking would be sufficient,” the dark blue alicorn replied before rapping her right for hoof upon the door.

“Come in,” a voice from inside called.

Luna’s aura enveloped the door and moved the leaf of the door opened. The room inside was roughly circular, and decorated with various tapestries and ensigns.

“Hello Woona,” a white alicorn reclining on a circular bed and reading a fairly large book cooed. “Do you need me to explain something else to you?” She asked with genuine sincerity in her voice while eying Wheatley.

“Hello!” the personality core exclaimed in forced enthusiasm.

“Ahh!” the new pony gasped in surprise.

“Ahhhhhhhh! Don't kill me!” the machine screamed back.

“You can talk.”

“Well I thought that was entirely obvious by now,” Wheatley audibly said to himself. “So anyway my name is Wheatley, so you can just call me that. I'm a personality core, already knew you were going to ask that, because of how smart I am. Anndddd Oh yah I came from Earth, well Earth in another dimension. In that dimension ponies do not talk or do magic. I was built by humans, but you don't have a lot of those here apparently. uhhhh. lets's see what else, what else. Oh yah I met you sister when I fell down from space. So that's the short informational about me. and your sister told me I should wait until I met you to speak the entire history of my life and my dimension. Oh wait, how rude of me, What's your name winged unicorn pony?"

"Celestia," the princess replied regaining her composure in a flash.

"Great, so lets see... here. oh ya in the beginning there was darkness then this fellow named God came around and..."

Princess Celestia scooted closer to Luna, at a rate she was sure the talking ball would not pick up. When they were flank and flank the older of the alicorn sisters whispered, "You have A LOT of explaining to do," into the younger's ear.

================================

All Aperture science personel should be informed that pneumatic tubes are not rides and are in fact not fun to ride at all. However in the event you do find yourself in a pneumatic tube, remember that tube is incapable of judgement and omni tolerant of diversity that does not take the form of obesity.

===============================

"Keep it up! you've almost walked the distance of an entire step for me, so you're almost one fifteenth the way there." Leirica cheered with overtly fake enthusiasm. The Chimera could not look more bored with the whole situation, she was lying on her back with her hooves and paws lazily needling the air, as if the only thing keeping her from absolute boredom was batting at dust in the air. The monsters serpent tail had lost all interest in the new comers and was currently tightly coiled in sleep.

"shup ud." Apple Bloom mumbled through a mouth filled with personality core handle. After this the farm pony released said handle and asked her fellow crusaders, "Hey one of you mind carrying me?"

"I'll do it," Scootaloo offered flatly while changing her course for Apple Bloom. She simpluy bit down on the handle without stopping and resumed the drag the earth pony had begun.

"So uhh Leirica ah' have a question," Apple Bloom asked with her newly liberated mouth.

"Fire-" the monster blew a small plume flame into the air, "-away."

"So if ya' said that ya' are here 'cause Princess Celestia told ya' to, then why do ya' take orders from Princess Celestia?"

"Why is that so bizarre? Did she die or something while I was gone?"

"Well no but Ah've just been curious cause, ya' know most er monsters would be..."

"Burning down Villages? Trapped in Tartarus? Carelessly gulping down ponies to sustain themselves?" the chimera rolled her yellow eyes again.

"Ya' that!" the pink bowed filly squeaked with enthusiasm.

"Well if you must know, I was raised by ponies. my mother had the misfortune of chocking to death on molten lead when I was very young, ah memories. I got the whole giant thing from her, but apparently got the whole 'immortal God-like creature' deal from my dad's side, who since I have no memory of him, abandoned us when I was born. So after I watched mom die a horrible slow death the band of rather mean nights that caused said chocking tied me up and brought me back to their town with the hopes of turning my pelt into a throw rug.They tried every way you can imagine to kill me, drowning, clubbing,hanging, the whole lead thing again, stabbing, throwing me of a cliff, and my personal favorite, attempting to burn me alive. After this said knights gave me to the royal pony sisters as a curiosity, which wasn't much a surprise as Luna," she spat the word, "was the one who funded their little expedition in the first place.The royal pony sisters had the benevolence to trap me in a small cage and teaching me why killing ponies is bad, seeing as I was uneuthanizeable. When Princess Luna had her little genocidal mental break down, I was deployed by princess Celestia to, ironically, kill any ponies, especially Nightmare Moon, trying to break in here." Leirica's speech, like apparently everything she said, had a pre-sarcastic feel to it, with the addition of sounding preprepared. "Speaking of which, that's why I burn everyone tries to break in to vault rather than eating them, something my uncle Cerberus or my aunt Phio would do in heartbeat, because I was trained to view that killing and eating ponies is bad form. So I just vaporize them."

"But didn't you say that you eat ponies who die from falling down the shafts?" Apple Bloom questioned.

"I didn't kill them, and besides waste not want not."

"But wouldn't burning ponies alive be waste?"

"Do you want to get eaten?"

"Not really," Apple Bloom answered as if she had been asked something entirely more mundane, like "would you care to take out the trash."

"Well then heres a tip. If you live to see another monster, which if you keep walking into that lab you certainly won't, then don't ask them about their dietary habits. It will make them devour you in a heartbeat. Oh, I just thought of a question for you, did Nightmare Moon return yet."

"Yep me and Sweetie Belle's sisters beat her."

"Damn you're the sisters of the elements of Harmony," for the first time since the fillies had stated walking, The Chimera's face showed something other than absolute boredom. "It's a good thing I din't incinerate you, that would be awkward to explain. You three still sure about listening to that beach ball? If you stay put a search party will probably find you. Hell they might even bother getting me out of here if I play my cards right."

Scootaloo spat Rick out. "That sounds like the best idea I've heard all day!" the pegasus shouted in order to be sure she was heard.

"Yah," Sweetie Belle added, "All this walking sucks."

"Ya'll are right," Apple Bloom concluded. "Ah' don't think we were cut out for this adventure stuff."

"Whoah! what?," the personality core questioned as he suddenly burst to life. "How can you just give up on adventure? That's crazy!

"You really should stop listening to him you know," Leirica commented.

"Come on now, Don't chicken out on me! We were just going to go on an awesome adventure?

"Well ya' did least right into the ever free forest," the earth filly pointed out.

"And almost get us eaten by wolves," the unicorn added.

"And almost get us burned alive!" the pegasus of the group exclaimed.

"And almost lead them into an incredibly lethal death trap," the chimera finished.

"What? But that's the whole fun of Adventure, the dangerous dangers along the way!

"But you didn't prepare for this 'adventure' enough," Leirica said pointedly. "I am guessing he was the one who decided you should dress like Daring Do?" All three Crusaders nodded. "You need to dress warmly when going cave exploring, these things go all the way down to sixty degrees if there isn't a million candles and a fire beast heating to place up." Leirica rolled over and stood up to emphasize this point. "Caves are also normally damp so you would to wear something water proof, which those costumes are clearly not. Wow you fillies really need to be more careful with who you listen to from now on."

"Hey that would make a great letter to the Princess," Sweetie Belle commented.

"Bunch of Chickens."

"Hey I'm not a chicken!" Scootaloo defended.

"Yah, yah whatever. doesn't like adventure... Rick likely would have continued grumbling had he not been cut off by a sharp loud screech that emanated from his body. "Oh hey good news the boss lady found a short cut so we don't have to do all this walking."

As soon as this was said the hallway Leirica had said led to the laboratory glowed in a blue light. A blue ball of light shot out of the hallway and quickly hit the floor, leaving a flowing blue oval one pony length long where it hit. Before anyone could question this all but the borders of the blue border gave away into what looked like some kind kind of projection. An instant latter a powerful wind started sucking everything in the room toward the oval.

"What the hell is that thing!?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"It's a portal, duh," The sphere said as he was sucked into the annomally.

"Ahhhhhhh!" all three fillies screamed as they fallowed suit.

The blue hole to no where continued sucking for about a minute after the fillies were gone, before simply collapsing as suddenly as it had come.

Leirica stared at the spot on the floor where all this had occurred for a good ten minutes without doing anything. Finally she resolved to slide one massive paw confirming that there was truly nothing there.

The screaming didn't stop after the three fillies passed through the blue hole in the floor. Now they were in a pipe, traveling at an alarmingly fast rate. Somehow they had fallen through the floor into a glass air pipe. Somehow there was the Laboratory Leirica had mentioned, filled with rooms on rails just like she had said, traveling by the glass. Somehow this giant facility must have been separated by a paper thin layer that the pipe had sucked out, that made sense right?

"Look the boss lady really freaked out when I told her you might chicken out. So she found an automated portal gun and liked it to this Pneumatic tube. She's also telling me that she's going to make this as simple as possible since you three are such cowards. So just hold tight and we'll be there really soon.

Chapter 0006 Still Alive

==========================================

If you are contemplating ignoring all safety protocol and jumping into the diversity vent, simple remember this simple pneumatic pneumonic:
Even though the tube tolerates diversity,
Entering the pipe will cause you adversity,
as you will be pumped into the emergency,

intelligence incinerator.

Shadowy shapes swam across Scootaloo's vision as she was sucked down the tube with her friends. How Leirica, their new chimera friend, had deduced that this place was a laboratory was beyond her. Labs were suppose to have things like test tubes, bunsen burners, you know science stuff. This place seemed to be an infinitely large space filled with gigantic boxes on rails, with some more glass air tubes and rusty catwalks thrown in between. The area was mildly dark, but the fact that it wasn't pitch black was amazing because their seemed to be no functional lights on.

Great, just great. Now we are going to die painfully over the next several days!" the orange crusader thought.

"Okay pretty fillies, we are almost at the end of the tube. So remember the landing procedure!" Rick called from somewhere the pegasus couldn't see in the dim haze of the great glass tube.

"Rick, what landing procedure!" Apple Bloom called in alarm. It was to late though. Scootaloo could see the pipe was heading into a wall, and a second later everything went back as the pneumatic tube entered a square lightless vent. Then, for an instant, came the sensation of falling, and in the next moment there was the pain of the impact shot through he as she became aware that he body was now sprawled out on the floor from her collision with it. Scootaloo ignored it and activated the built in head lamp on top of her safari hat. The first things she saw was that her friends were sprawled across the ground next to each other, but uninjured. Next she saw rick rolled across the ground, yet to settle down from the energy of the last fall. Then her surroundings became apparent.

The floor was a checkerboard of orange and white linoleum tiles, though they looked really old and faded, older than linoleum theoretically should be. The walls were an off white, or once been at some distant time, now the walls were coated in a layer of dirt that made them tan to brown. The ceiling had once been covered in those panels used to absorb sound in cheap often public buildings like offices, but now all that was left was the metal grid holding them in place and a rat's nest of wires hanging down from them. These surfaces were arranged in the form of a hallway, with the fillies standing in what might have at one time been a separate room but was now just a square off shoot of the hall.

"Rick what is this place?" Sweetie Belle asked. Apple Bloom got up and activated her head lamp all the while.

"Were at an equipment locker, all we need to do is go down these halls and grab a portal gun. "

"Wa's a portal gun," asked the Apple Bloom.

"It makes these danger filled holes of awesomeness between places, like the one we just jumped though to get to the tube.

"And we need this thing why?" Scootaloo asked.

"For the adventure. Now lets start walking, that way. The sphere activated his eye based floodlight and swiveled it down a dark corridor.

"Fine" the pegasus returned. "Let's get this over with so we can go home. she thought in accompaniment.

And so they started walking... again.

"...And so that's how the United States was made." Wheatley concluded. At least he concluded a part of his giant story of the history of everything. Celestia's brain was struggling to make sense of it all, not because of how complex the history of Wheatley's dimension was, but because of how he explained everything. He spoke of history like it was some novel and God, Jesus, the Emperors of China, Caesar, the king of England, and most recently George Washington were the characters. What was worse was that Wheatley had not even hinted at how he fit into this vast, jumbled jigsaw puzzle of a history lesson.

It truly hurt the Alicorn's brain to listen to it.

"Could you stop for a moment, please?" Celestia asked in a voice that had centuries of practice with hiding emotions like frustration.

"Ahhh! Oh wait sorry, forgot who I was talking to, hate it when tha' happens. I suppose we could stop, but we were just getting to the good part.

"But 'Tia the good part!" Luna begged.

"Luna, you enjoy this?" the older sister questioned in astonishment.

"Well I do believe the art of story telling hath declined since I was imprisoned, we-I hath not encountered a single epic from this time period. But modern methods aside, I found his story very entertaining."

Celestia levitated a large note pad closer to herself, which the solar alicorn had enchanted to be able record anything anypony said to her, as soon as she magically activated of course. The quill stopped moving itself and the regent of the sun began to flip back through the pages. "Even the part where 'then there was Renaissance, where lots of bloody amazing art and science happened'" the older of the pair of ponies quoted.

"I think that you may be quiet possibly be insulting me." the core noticed angrily.

"Nooo You don't say? Celestia thought to herself sarcastically, but immediately afterward clammy assured , "No, I am just constructively critiquing you." Anypony, except for perhaps her sister, else would have just believed that statement, simply for the fact that it had been uttered by the mouth of the Princess. However this time she was not speaking to a pony and the only other pony to hear her was, in fact, Luna.

Wheatley narrowed his two metal eyelids in suspicion, "Ehhh. I don't buy it."

"Nor do I, sister."

"O.k fine I might have been insulting you," the elder alicorn conceded. But it was only because you haven't really mentioned how you are in any way related to this 'story.'"

" Oh tha', Well that's easy! O.K. so fast forward two hundred years and the united states becomes really awesome and a world power and stuff. We're on the sort version trust me. Anyway this company called Aperture Science was founded sometime during then, don't know the details it just did. Anyway this Aperture Science worked for the US department of Defense, which dealt in war or something. Anyway Aperture was mad that this other company named Black Mesa was beating them at everything they tried. So the Human Scientist at Aperture built me and the other cores to be smart for them and out smart Black Mesa. But for some reason they had also built this other computer lady whose name I must never be spoken aloud or she will get mad and kill you. Anyway this other computer went all crazy and killed most of the other humans. Then this one human killed her and then me and the other cores got turned on, oh did I mentioned that the other cores and I were put into storage for reasons unknown. Anyway I got turned on and put in charge of Crio-sleep. were due to technical difficulties beyond anyone's control, almost all the humans in suspension died. So that's how I got to where we are now. " Wheatley spewed.

"Wait Luna said you were in space," Celestia recalled as she mentally reviewed Wheatley's story. "And further more that doesn't even get us close to where we are now, even at all."

" Oh you were looking for the whole WHOLE story of me life. Well it all stated when I was going over the list of dead test subjects one day, and then I found someone who was not dead and I...

"So the portal gun should be right behind this here door," The Adventure sphere said shinning his light on a white door to the right of the quartet. "Oh man this is gonna' be awesome!"

Apple Bloom pushed over said door (it just fell right off its hinges) with one hoof and excitedly jumped into the darkness beyond. Before her fellow crusaders could join her she remerged dragging a device the size of her that looked like two white footballs fused together with three metal prongs at the end. "This thing mus' be it, there was nothin' else in there." Both the other crusaders poked their heads through to check the yellow filly's statement. sure enough the room inside not only lacked objects but also for the most part stable surfaces; the interior walls had decayed away leaving wooden frames and dirty limp plywood panels to define the space.

"What no exploding sharks or turrets as guards? How lame and unadventurey. Oh,well go on give it a try. "

The yellow farm pony stuck her hoof inside the oversized hove at the end opposite the claw. "Ah' can feel three button things but Ah' don't think they do anythi- whaaaa!" before she could finish another blue oval opened underneath her and she promptly fell through. On the other side of this one was a similar orange oval placed on a wall inside a gigantic white, but still unlit, room made up of dirty 1 by 2 panels for the most part hanging loosely out of metal grids. "Check this out guys!"

The other two fillies jumped through with Rick in tow. Mind bending, but certainly cool! Scootaloo thought.

"Now what?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Just get to the exit. " Rick Reveled a vault like door with his flash light. The only problem was that it was in an inset nook thirty feet above the ground. "Now all we need is a grappling hook, did

"Well how am Ah' suppose' to do that? This thing only shoots one portal," Apple Bloom complained while awkwardly swinging the gun around and shooting several other glowing blue loops on the walls.

"Well you only need one, we have the orange portal already projected for us. So you just shoot the blue by the door and walk though," Scootaloo explained. Apple Bloom did just that.

"Wow, you're good at this Scoots." Sweetie Belle exclaimed.

"No, I just figured out one problem that doesn't make me good at it. Right?"

"Lets just walk through the portal so we can adventure. The crusaders did as was told and the door opened, revealing a glowing blue wall of light. The crusaders bounded through it, to be rewarded with all their clothes and supplies, even their head lamps, disintegrating. Everything except for Rick and the portal gun was now gone.

"What the double hockey sticks just happened?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"No idea.," The core answered.

"Please note the Incandescent particle field, this is a material emancipation grill, designed to emancipate all unauthorized test apparatuses that are forced through it," a new chipper sounding male voice from no where called.

"Gah, who is that?" the unicorn asked in fear.

"Please proceed to the victory elevator."

"Do what he says, we don't wanna' make him mad," Apple Bloom added, ignoring the loss of one of her bows. The aforementioned elevator was situated in another glass tube, a fact which could only be deduced through Rick's light, centered in a strange octagonal room surrounded with what looked like extremely flat, and broken, T.V. screens With effort all three fillies piled in the elevator. a door automatically closed behind them, and the elevator was whisked upward. Stopping a moment latter in a well lit room made of filthy black and white panels. They had come down through a tube in the ceiling apparently, even though the elevator had been moving up when it left. This room

"Ok now just plug me into that socket over their and i'll take it from here. "

The socket the sphere indicated presented itself on the wall immediately behind them not even a panel length away.

Apple Bloom picked the core up and plugged him in. "Boy this seems really easy," she commented.

Okay I'm supposed to tell you not to look when I do this but you can look if you really want to," the core explained in an eager voice. Their were a few beeps and the room began to shake, then apparently it began to move. "Ok we're moving, should only take us an hour."

"An hour?" All three crusaders complained in unison.

"You're right, this is too slow. Lets kick up to ADVENTURE SPEED. The room began to shudder again, except this time it didn't stop. Panels began to slide out of their grids, reveling each was connected to a spindly arm. The crusaders where pulled to the back of the room by the inertia, or more accurately the back wall of the room was pushed into them. The missing panels revealed that this was one of the rooms on rails and that it was moving along said rials at a mind blowing rate. Dust began to fly out of the wall panels, clouding everypony's vision.

"Rick, no adventure speed!" Scootaloo shouted shielding her eyes with one hoof.

"Fine." The room came to a sudden stop, catapulting the fillies into what was apparently the front wall. "Bunch of chickens."

The slow moving room ground to a halt an hour later, as originally planned. "Well we're there," said the core without any enthusiasm while letting himself fall of the port in the wall. All three fillies had been laying on the ground bored to tears when this happened. Suddenly the back wall sheared off the room to be replaced with another wall baring a large circular device. before the fillies could scream in alarm the front wall dropped off as well. Out of this new gash they could see a gigantic cylinder suspended from the ground, assuming there was one, by several steel girders. This structure resided in a large circular clearing, along the edges of which the normal clutter of the facility, more rooms on rails, loomed ominously in shadow.

The cutie mark crusaders naturally would have commented on this had the events unfolding not moved forward so quickly.

"There she is, man this was too easy. There was hardly any danger at all, and we didn't see a really cool explosions. I really think we should have gone with my plan and attacked that chimera, if only for refusing . Damn this is the worst adventure ever." The circular device activated, projecting a blue beam into the adventurers. The light beam somehow swept them off their hooves and started pushing them toward the cylinder, carrying them right over the gigantic bottomless pit.

"What in tarnation is happening?" Apple Bloom asked while flailing her legs in the funnel. Scootaloo could sympathize even though the sensation of flight was a lot less weird for the pegasus.

"I know right, this machine is doing all the work for us; its so un awesome.

The cylinder, now that they were getting a closer look at it, appeared rather damaged. It had been made of thick black curved panels forced into a circular metal grid, but many of those panels had fallen out already, revealing plants growing on the inside of the oversized can. The decay toward the top of the construct was so advanced that that portion of the chamber looked like a rusted skeleton piked clean of any black. There was a light on inside, brighter than the dim ambience of the laboratory, but unlike the stereotypical bright light in a dark room, this solitary photon didn't give the impression of a beacon of hope or anything at all similar. Instead the bright fluorescent bulbs in the circular camber seemed foreboding, like how the main lamp of a lighthouse warns of immanent danger, an affect furthered by the absence of panels toward the structures top. The particle was centered on a large metal archway, so as to carry the explorers directly into the chamber.

===============
If you should find that the central AI is inactive, please leave as you found it unless instructed otherwise by the apropriate Aperture Science personnel. Failure to comply with this protocol may result in Human extinction.

====================

"... and that is the full story of how the other two cores and I ended up in space. Please don't hate or kill me, that Disk Operating System is evil and it makes everyone connected to it evil.

There was a pregnant pause in the room which Celestia finally broke. "So you just decided to kill your best friend, only to prove to her that you were good at being a villain?"

Well when you say it like that....

"And why did thou not simply press this 'Any Key' which the machine mentioned?" Luna asked before he could answer.

"Well it never said were the 'Any Key' was."

"THE any key? really? I probably know more about his dimensions computers than he does. Celestia thought. "Are you certain that these humans built you to be smart?"

"There you go again with those subtle references of yours. But that does bring me to another story, called all the lies the evil computer lady told me. So there I was all just plugged into the mainframe and all...

Luna leaned forward and giggled in excitement. Celestia groaned and contemplated bashing her head into the marble floor in frustration. Why does Luna have so much trouble making friends with other ponies, but the first alien ball from space she meets gets along perfectly with her.

======================

Test subject: sensors indicate you abandoning protocol, please readhere to protocol. If you are confused about Aperture science protocol, please ask your Aperture Science literature distribution associate to dispense unto you a Aperture Science protocol manual. Once again you are reminded to, under no circumstances, activate the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System without permission from the Aperture Science Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System supervisor.

Warning announcement system failure has been detected in all several test. Test Subject uncompliance is very likely past critical levels.

======================

The blue beam brought the Adventuring trio of fillies and their spherical friend through the archway, then shut off and dropped them. They landed in a thick brown layer of mud. All of them were too astonished by what they saw to care about that though. Within the circular room was a large column that hung from the distant ceiling, from which a series of four white disks hung. Out of these disks connected a series of mostly back, with some yellow and red, wires to a wrecked mass of parts inset into white plates that looked like it was once important. Finally out of the mess a single wire was connected to another machine capped in a curving white plate that had what appeared to be a window in it.

From the walls a nest of robotic arms of various lengths and model hang down, each attached to a black four by four panel. The spindly lifeless arms were interlaced with green vines. the former supporting the latter. Among the debris switch was mounted on a podium that rose from the mud in front of the wrecked white machine.

But none of that concerned the fillies though. Currently their attention was focused on a gigantic plant whose vines interlaced with the machine. This piece of vegetation took the form of a massive tree trunk sized vine that was rooted somewhere outside the cylinder, as it crept though one of the holes where the panels were. The giant vine was using the metal grid the panels had been in for support, several of its offshoots further anchoring it to the arms of the facility. Though there was an occasional large leaf or two on the vine, it appeared to be mostly bare. Its source of nutrition was apparent though.

The vine was capped in a large ovular bulb, from which in turn sprouted a stem smaller then the parent vine, but still massive. This stem had no anchor vines on it and was bent back in a long U shape. At the tip of pale green stem was a gigantic purple flower centered around another bulb in the general shape of a pony's head, although nearly a hundred times larger. This green head lacked almost all facial features, including eyes, ears, and nose, but not mouth. Indeed the plant had a huge green lipped maw filled with spiky teeth. The plant's mouth was unlike Leirca's mouth however in that it's chompers just jutted in whatever direction they pleased making the flower look like it had never heard of a dentist. The plant had some semblance of a mane as well, in the form of a tangled mess of growing out the back of the bulb and over the flower petals.

"Gah!" Apple Bloom exclaimed, "Its a Venus Ponytrap, Zecora told me about them and how dangerous they are! They usually grow on trees an' swallow anything that walks by and digests them alive in that balloony lookin' thing."

"That must have been all the screaming Leirica was talking about," Sweetie Belle pointed out.

"Indeed it was my little meals." The plant said with its thick slimy green lips in a deep female voice while extending its maw closer to the trio.

"She didn't say they could talk," Apple Bloom added.

"Of course I can talk. All larger pony traps can. In fact, I can even sing, but since you are so rude I'll just have to save that for until after I eat you," the monstrous plant said while regarding the fillies with the capillary filled forehead where on a pony eyes you have been. "What did you think I was one of those lame no-talking pony eating plants like a Yo-Te-Veo or something, or do I just look to stupid to talk?"

"Uhm no its not that, its just..." Sweetie Belle tried to explain.

"Oh who am I kidding, you're just stupid animals. You even though for a second I cared what you think, like you were plants or something smart enough not to get eaten. Oh speaking of getting eaten.... GRAAAAHHHHH." The ponytrap lunged forward with a cry of satisfaction and a smile across it's jagged open mouth. The fillies cringed but the canvas herbs lunge forward was stopped before it could get with in bitting distance. One of the vines of its 'mane' had groan to such an excessive length that it had wrapped itself around one of the robotic arms, holding the pod back. "Oh by Celestia's mane... really?"

Quick flip that switch, wait no through me at Scootaloo , I'll fix this, Rick shouted suddenly.

Scootaloo decided to do the former and sprinted toward the switch as the plant repeatedly lunged forward in an attempt to break its one rouge tendril. Suddenly a vine on the floor came to life and tried to grab Scootaloo. The orange pegasus jumped over it and quickly flipped the switch on podium with her hoof, Well that was easy. she thought.

Nothing happened for a tense moment.

"Believe me I-I kzzzakkasks s-s-s-sc-ience akakzzkzk and while- kzzzkdeadkzzk Still Alive."

A yellow light flickered on in what was apparently the machine's head, which was then pulled toward the rest of the heap. Next the wires began to pull the machine up, arching with electricity in the process. The heap then pulled itself together, revealing that it formed an almost pony like, though inverted, body in the process. Next the -

There was a snap as the vine holding down the oversized carnivorous plant gave way, making the appendage's former owner howl in both pain in delight. Without a moment's hesitation the now free Venus Pony trap lunged at Scootaloo. Fortunately the plant found its lung interrupted again, not by a vine but by a robotic arm equipped a set of pincers at the end instead of a panel. A second similarly clawed arm grabbed the plant's thick stalk and yanked it upwards, snapping the carnivore's anchors with ease

"YOU will not be killing anyone in here, THAT'S. MY. JOB a new synthetic voice from inside the now complete machine sounded. With that the two robotic arms grabbing the monster threw the plant into the wall of the circular chamber. The toothy crashed through the panels and metal grid that had formerly supported it with a loud crunch. The plant's central vine was pulled down with the bulb, severing the last remaining anchoring tendrils in the process. The sentient herb cry of pain faded into the darkness along with its body.

"Plants that can feel pain, how delightful."

"How is that delightful?" Sweetie Belle asked criticizingly.

"It's actually really simple when you think abou..." the machine swiveled in its ceiling mount to face to source of the new voices speaker, to only a trio of ponies and one of the god awful personality cores in the room. "Hey were did you go? come out come out little human."

"was' a human?" Apple Bloom questioned.

"OH MY GODTALKING HORSES. How did you learn to speak? More importantly how did you acquire the brain mass to do so? OHHHH none of this makes sense," said the machine with alarm.

"Well Ah' mean every pony but babies can speak." The farm pony stated.

"WHAT!? EVERYPONY!? OH MY GOD WHAT HAPPENED WHILE I WAS OUT? GLaDOS poured through her last memories before the shut down, memories that were all centered around HIM. "OHHH ohhh, oh, OH NO. she commented on the clip replaying inside her brain. "Interdimensional transfer? REALLY? Why in the name of all that is SCIENCE did it have to be to this one? Ok t that doesn't matter. I'll just...

"Beginning facility wide interdimensional transfer "

"Oh thank God.

" Warning: Power levels are at five percent. Power levels insufficient for facility wide transfer.

Warning: damage detected in the facility transfer annex. Withdrawing large aperture no pun intended portal projector.

Withdraw complete

Shielding large aperture no pun intended portal projector.

Shielding complete

Initiating faciltiy transfer annex self destruct

arming self destruct change

self destruct change armed.

please prepare for annex detonation

detonating."

" Oh you are KidDing me!

The floor began to shake, nocking the little ponies off their hooves. A moment later the lights flickered off.

==========================

Author note
well hope you liked this chapter, sorry if it was a little fast passed I really needed to get GLaDOS online, and I wanted it to feel like she was using her fleeting moments of conscious to make things incredibly easy for the crusaders, still since this chapter seems to be unpopular based on number of views on the next chapter, it is number one on my reform list for the moment, besides possibly 1 and two

Please voice any critiques you have! Feedback is extremely helpful.

Chapter 0007 Confusion tactics.

=============

Hello and welcome, my little test subjects, to the Aperture Science computer Aided enrichment center.

==========

“What’s going on!” he thought. There was a glass dome above him, no wait it was two halves of a glass dome sliding open. He was on something soft. It was a bed. No not a bed! “It’s a cryo-sleep pod,” he realized. He reached his hand out to grab the side of the bed, but something was wrong, very very wrong. His whole arm had become a white tube with no hand at the, end. It was a hoof! That was it! he had hooves that much was certain. Now why did he have hooves? He lay back in the bed, no cryo chamber, to recollect his memories. Suddenly he remembered where he was, followed by who he was, and then the memories of the past. And there it was the memory of becoming a pony, it was during the facility transfer, right before he beat…. “Oh my God!”

“She’s awake again!” called a new voice. It was a cube with hearts,.

“Companion Cube.” No amount of cryo confusion could make him forget that name.

The pony struggled to recall the small amount of experience he had with his new body, a process that the cryogenic chemicals didn’t help. He flopped down from the bed and his legs splayed out on the floor. He pushed himself upright on legs unsteady as a newborn foal, if not more, only to flop back down on the floor, getting dirt in his greasy beard and mane.

“I have to get away before she finds us.” He pulled himself forward with his forelegs, toward the cube. Suddenly the floor began to shake violently, knocking the off-white stallion off of his shaky legs.

"Come on Ms.B" Fluttershy, wearing a protective bee keeps outfit, said while peering into a square beehive in a box. "I only need to take some of your colony's honey, so you all don't over eat," She pleaded to Ms.B the queen bee.

"BZZZZZZZZ," Buzzed the queen bee crawling atop the box that was her nest.

"No? oh but you have so much. What do you plan to do with it? I mean if all of you ate all of it you would get really fat..."

"BZZZZZZZZ!"

"No no no Ms.B! I'm not calling you fat! I'm sorry if I sounded like I did. I was just speaking preventatively."

"BzzzZZ?"

"Yes, you look great especially considering how quickly your colony grew.

"bzzzzzz."

"Oh no. I don't care what all those bees on T.V. look like, I think you look perfectly fine Ms.B"

"BZZ!"

"No I'm being serious! But I'm being serious, but about the honey..."

"BzzZZzz!"

"Still no? But why? Don't you want others to enjoy your delicous honey?"

"BzzzZZzztzzZZz!"

"Well of course ponies eat your honey. What did you think they do with it."

"BzzZZZZzzzZZZz. BzzzzzzzZZZz! 'Bz. Bz. Bz. Bz. Bz. Bz. Bz. Bz. Bz' BzzzZzzzBzzz!"

Fluttershy's eyes narrowed in shock, at the disturbing scene Ms.B had just vividly described. "Oh.oh my umm where did you hear... that."

"Bzzz."

"One of your workers saw Lyra and Bon Bon ... Oh I had no idea ... But I'm sure most ponies don't use honey as a... that." Conversation of an even slightly sexual nature was miles above Fluttershy's ability to perform socially, and it was a surprise that the timid Pegasus had not run off screaming by now. "Anyway I'm really careful and I promise I won't damage your hive when I..."

Before Fluttershy could finish, there was a violent, but incredibly brief, earthquake, that, had she not been a Pegasus and been able to flap her wings for added support, would have knocked her down. Still, the sudden leap into the air followed by violent awkward flapping did not help prove her case for the whole "careful" point. Even though she was unharmed, butter yellow pegasus mind filled with worry that someone might have gotten hurt.

_________

"And so that's the sorry of how I did something else incredibly trivial and meaning less. Oh which reminds me of the other story of how I also did something bloody trivial and meaningless. So it all started when I..." Wheatley was interrupted when a magical golden Aura and levitated upwards. Celestia rose wordlessly and showed no emotion on her regal face and began a slow trot to one of the window in her Canterlot apartment, bringing the annoying core with her. "Hey uh, he he, mind putting me down? You know I bloody don't like being levitated without my permission, so if could just uhhhh put me down, that. would. be. greeat." the moron said nervously. Celestia simply threw open the panes of the widow and dangled Wheatley out still not saying a word. "I should probably mention right now that I'm afraid of heights! And this is Bloody high, " he turned his blue eye to the ground, observing that the drop would likely be down the whole height of the Canterlot mountain. "So if you could just bring me back in...AHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Celestia released Wheatley and smiled as she watched him plummet.

"Tia! Tia! Tia! Wake up!" Luna shouted into her sister's ear.

The princess of the sun woke up with a jolt, to find herself sprawled out on the floor of her bedroom.

"Oh Praise the heavens Sister! Thou collapsed and we were worried that thou had been injured in some manner."

Celestia blinked sleep out of her eyes, "Luna I just had the worst dream that you made friends with a talking beach ball."

" Oh that sounds like me she talking about!" Wheatley was perched upon a large opulent throw pillow, which looked like a thrown in comparison to his small spherical body, that such just behind Luna.

"Oh crap he's real!" the older sister thought while recalling all of Wheatley's ramblings about himself. Still, she found the dream she had just where she had thrown him out a window a little disturbing.

"You know Princes you should get more sleep you looked like were ready to pass out during my entire retelling of my life story, then you actually did kinda pass out. To tell ya the truth, we sort of, maybe, thought you were joking and you may have been unconscious for more than fifteen minutes. by the way, have I every told you how much I like you when you aren't killing me." Wheatley added after the glare Celestia short him. Luna shot him an altogether different criticizing glare that almost shout something along the lines of 'I can't believe you told her that." He Hee Uh He. I shouldn't have mentioned that to her, now should I have? Smooth one Wheatley Well at least the I didn't mention the... HmmmBMMMhHHmmm" The night princess shoved a hoof into Wheatley's eye, which she correctly guessed was also his mouth.

"Luna, what was he going to say?" Celestia asked sternly.

"He was about to say.... nothing?" the younger princess's lie sounded more like a question than a defense. Her older sister only skeptically raised one eyebrow and turned to face Wheatley.

"Are you sure it was nothing?"

"Absolutely, we didn't do anything while you were asleep, certainly we didn't accidentally kill you pet bird. The reagent of the sun wiped her head around to find Philomena still fast asleep in her bird cage.

"Wheatley why did thoust say that?"

"Shhh I'm creating a diversion by using reverse phycology, partner. And also I'm speaking all stealth like by using the accent that should be beyond her range of hearing, ya'll.

"I can hear you."

"Aw Devil! I guess that didn't work at all now did it!? Bloody Hell, why doesn't tha' ever work!? "

"Maybe because it was stupid," The older sister added non-chalantly.

"Well then I guess you know all about our secret plans don't you!" Wheatley lowered his upper eye cover in apparent anger at Celestia, his voice taking on a new more menacing tone. " Well guess what, PRINCESS! Did you really think you could stop us from deposing you and taking over all of Equestria! Well guess what? Guess What? You're too late, BECAUSE WE JUST PUSHED THE BUTTON! For a moment, after Wheatley made this final random and triumphant statement, both the royal sisters just stared at him in shock and confusion. "Quick! Wheatley said to Luna in perfectly audible voice that sounded as though he was whispering, "Use the moment of confusion I just created to teleport us out of here! Luna made a timid 'eep' noise then jumped at Wheatley, though in two steps she could have reached his pillow pedestal from where he was standing. The Night princess's leap was far under what that could expect from any winged animal, and her horseshoes just barely touched Wheatley's handles. "HA! I MADE THE WHOLE THING UP! IT WAS ALL APART OF MY BRILLIANT MENTAL TRAP TO DISTRACT YOU, SCORE TWO FOR WHEATLEY AND LUNA He then dropped the evil genious voice and pleaded, "go, go Go, Go, GO, GO,GO!" And with that the pair dissipated in a flash of deep blue light.

Celestia just stared at he spot where Wheatley and Luna and had teleported from for a few seconds. She was now genuinely unsure of what to think of Luna's new friend. "That was certainly interesting, The remaining Alicorn reflected. "That was a genuinely clever tactic, lying about doing major things in order create an escape window to evade punishment for a minor offense, certainly never seen that one before ever. True it would have landed the little ball in hotter water had he tried it on any pony less benevolent than the princess, but aside from that it was a good idea. Of course Luna's and his execution was terrible, but that was forgivable. "Hold on what were they running away for? The princess's mental question was answered in the form of her noticing an un-capped black permant marker on the ground where the pranking Duo had been. "Buck" Celestia ran to her nearest mirror, to be greeting by a corrupted version of her reflection with a monocle drawn around her eye and a handle bar mustache scrawled on her snout. "Damn it LUNA!" she yelled aloud. "You still have no idea who you're dealing with do you?!" The ink boiled off the Alicorn's face as her brain came up with a host of revenge pranks; she never even noticed the faint tremor beneath her hooves.

====================

"Man that was great! Wow you should see these pictures that I took with me good old built in camera, well we'd need to invent a monitor first. But provided that does happen, man you should take a look at these pictures, they are hilarious! I'm sure glad we talked each other into doing that, serves her right for falling asleep during my amazing, breath takingly epic story. Although we maybe should have checked if she was alive first, almost ruined the whole thing and all, you know if she had died and we sharpied her corpse," the sphere trailed off as the duo ran through the hedge maze of Canterlot gardens.

"Indeed my fine core! Tis was a most fun idea, though I would prefer no to think of my dearest sister dieing, or being able to die."

"O.K. yah that last part is a bit of a uh morbid topic. Oh but other than that part this was wonderful idea, you know I spent a good part of my life trying to escape that facility I told you about, then another huge part trying to get out of space. But you know I never thought about what I would actually do once I got out, or down in that last case, rather. I know it sounds mad when I look back on it! But I have to say, that the outside world slash dimension is pretty cool!"

"I'm certainly glad to hear that thee likest Equestria, and I know my sister will to she isn't so infuriated," Luna chimed happily while galloping past the entrance to the hedge maze while balancing holding Wheatley in front of her and seeing where she was going.

"Yah the look on her face was priceless, when I told her we were trying to take over the country that it. I don't even know where I came up with that, just seemed like something confusing to say, and I was right. It was funny how strongly she reacted though, almost as if she believed it, which is weird because she must trust you immensely, you two being sisters and all.

"We'll uhhh thou huh see-est, Oh how should we explain this."

"She has reason to doubt you, doesn't she?" the cores mirthful voice was replaced was a more serous deadpan.

"Yes, yes she does." Luna stopped running. "I, did sort of, try to take over the kingdom, a little, a thousand and one years or so ago. "We-I became someone who I was not out of pure jealousy, because I thought everypony loved my sister more. So I did something I shouldn't have. I tried too..." the deep blue alicorn's face began to darken

"Heeyyy, don't get all twisted up in a not over it, everyone makes mistakes and tries to kill the people they care about sometimes, believe me I would know. The point is you can't keep beating your self blue, well you're already blue but that's entirely irrelevant here, but anyway you just have to forgive yourself. And you don't have to tell me about what you did, if it's hard for you I'm sure I can, uhhhh just you know read about, in one of them books. Because I love books. Because I'm not a moron."

"That is actually most helpful, Wheatley." The alicorn then paused to process the rest of Wheatley's sentence, and change the subject away from Nightmare Moon. "Thou hast oft mentioned a love of books, I wonder if thou would care to meet my sisters student Twilight Sparkle, she has a huge passion for books as well."

" Oh um. uhhh that sounds great. Yahh, reading buddies. Umm Hooray" the core nervously spewed.

"Thou dost no actually like to read, do you?"

" Well uhhhm No, to be perfectly honest. "

====

Celestia materialized in the center of Luna's messy room, Immediately noticing that even though Luna was not present her little ball friend was right outside on the balcony, looking away from her. This is perfect, thought the princess, "He'll never even suspect..." The vengeful alicorn dropping into a low crouch then began slinking closer to 'Wheatley', sliding across the floor like a Tiger on the prowl. The princess stealthily, at least in her mind, stocked her prank prey, going unnoticed until she was mere inches from the window. The core rotated it's eye toward her just before she was about to pounce and scare the circuits out of that sphere. There was something wrong though, instead of Wheatley's solid blue eye, this ball had a yellow ring of lines for an eye. The creeping Princess wondered if Wheatley had the ability to change his appearance when the Sphere finally spoke.

"Space Pony?" questioned the core.

"Damn it there is more than one!" "Oh um no space pony here, sorry."

"Space Pony. the new core said dejectedly this time. "Oh my God Wait oh my God what that in your butt, not-space pony?

It took Celestia a minute to process that the ball was speaking of her cutie mark. Rather than speaking, She decided to reorient herself so that the new core could get a better view, at the same time popping up out of her 'sneak mode' before the ball took any notice of it.

"Oh my gosh it's the sun, which is in space! I love SPACE, Gotta go to SPACE! Whoah Whoah Whoah Space Whoah Whoah Hold on. Space. Hold on. Wait one space second the energetic little ball stopped rapidly moving his eye for one second (or perhaps space second). "I was just talking to the Sun, because the sun is in space." The core turned its internal sphere to the real sun, now high in the pre noon sky, then back to the royal flank. "There are two Suns, When this happen, in space. And Why was I not informed? I'm the president of Space, and co-chair of the sun club. I should know when they the space people decide to build a second sun in space. "

"Uhmmm, my cutie mark is not a second sun, you know," Celestia pointed out.

"Awwwww"

"But I am the ruler of the sun."

"HHHHHHHHHH," the Space Core sucked in imaginary air, "That makes you my fourth best friend!

"Oh um glad to hear it." Really the princess was slightly appalled by how little true friendship must have meant to a being who considered another being who had said less than a hundred words to him his best friend.

"Oh My other best friends are Space, who is also my dad. Then there is the Space pony, then the actual Sun, then you

Hmm the sun is higher than the moon on his list of friends,.... waaaaiiiit a minute. Space Pony? "Did this so called space pony have wings and a horn like me, but was slightly smaller and had a blue coat?"

"YAH! thats the one! She also had space hair, and said she made space. Gotta go to space. Space is the best. Her name was Luna, and she is my master, besides space."

"Master? But why?"

"Because SHE. MADE. SPAAAAAAACE. i love space.

"I'm think I might just be picking up a pattern here she thought sarcastically, "Do you know where Luna went, by any chance?"

"No. Space. But I hope it was the moon, the space moon.

"WHAT!? Why would you want her back there I thought you said you liked her?"

"SPACE. I do like the space pony, and I like the space moon and....Hey Hey Hey wait space wait whoah you said 'back'."

"Luna was imprisoned in the moon for a thousand years."

"In SPACE jail?"

"No I imprisoned her with the elements of harmony after she tried to take over the kingdom." "Geeze this guy really must have been floating in space this past year not to know that.

"So if I did something to make you mad right now, you would send me to the moon?"

"Well, not..."

"You're fat."

"What!?"

"You're fat. And you're ugly. and not in space. NOW SEND ME TO THE MOON!"

"NO!"

"AWWWWwwwwwWWWwww. space." the space core's yellow eye swiveled again, this time falling toward the ground in unimaginable diapointment.

"Well at least he was lying about the fat thing," Celestia thought before teleporting away in a golden flash of light to go look for, then subsequently seek prank vengeance upon, Luna and Wheatley.

======

For the second time that day, the cutie mark crusaders were plunged into an inky black void. This time however they also had the additional bonus of an ear splitting 'bang' immediately followed by the floor, and well everything else, shuttering so violently that the tremor tossed them around the circular room like rag dolls.

Scootaloo felt herself flying through the air, and logically started to flap her tiny little wings for dear life. She was relived when she landed in a small swamp of soft mud, which swallowed every portion of her body bellow neck level. Conceded getting covered dirty slime was not the best outcome she had hoped for, for it was a better by a long shot than soaring through the hole in the wall the pony trap had made during it's forced exit. The pint sized pegasus clawed at the dirty goop with her fore hooves, trying to crawl/ swim her way out of the equally small indoor quagmire. To her relief her flailing hooves collided with more or less solid ground, firm enough to push her small body up then drag herself out of the muck. After escaping the sludge pit, Scootaloo shook some the thick mud layer from her body like a wet dog, reducing the mess into a slightly thiner layer of mud. "How did all this dirt get in her anyway," she wondered. The lights flickered back on revealing that Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were more or less in the same spots they had been before the event. Rick had come to rest against one of the remaining walls left in the chamber, though he likely rolled there. Of corse the machine built into the distant ceiling was unaffected. So I guess I'm the only one who flew across the room, great.

"Ok don't panic, the machine said to itself while shifting it's gaze in the general direction of Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle. So I'm stuck in this dimension until I can find a set of blueprints detailing exactly how the transfer annex was built, which no one bothered to digitize and may be impossible to rebuild. I can still find someway to pull something good out of this situation. Even though the facility is horrendously underpowered and I'm not 100% sure that I can fix that The machines eye snapped to look directly at the pair of crusaders covered in mud, as if it was done talking to the space around them. "You wouldn't just so happen to have a certain awful creature called humans here?

"I haven't heard of them before," Sweetie Belle replied in a shaky voice.

"Nope!" Apple Bloom replied with enthusiasm. "Hey maybe we got our adventure cutie marks!" The filly trotted around in a tight circle to glanced at her rear, and seeing it was blank her smile collapsed.

"Oh come on! The machine looked up at the ceiling, once again speaking to none in particular. "I go through all the trouble of manipulating that stupid core, and I wake up to a dimension where testing is virtually impossible! No power, a half wrecked facility, and no living test subjects!"

"It's not imposible to test in this dimension, Mrs. Cheerilee tests us all the time, it's so lame," the mud covered crusader corrected

The big white contraption swirled around on its ceiling mount to look at Scootaloo, only to quicly draw what could it's head away in was apparently dread.

"Ah bird! Don't let it touch me!

"Hey I'm not a bird! I'm a pegasus" Scootaloo leaped forward and flared her wings to illustrate the fact.

"Ah, don't know Scootaloo, chickens are a type of bird," Apple Bloom joked slyly.

"Hey!'

"Oh thank god, those wings really had convinced... never mind what were you saying about horse testing."

"Was, a horse? tha' word sounds familiar." the farm filly asked.

The machine quickly brought two shutter like slides closer together then as quickly apart, while whirling around to face Apple Bloom again. Even though the slide never fully covered its eye, it was a close analogue of a blink. Are you mentally challenged?"

"Hey!" It was the earth ponies time to be affended.

"Horses are an extinct primitive form of pony. We had a test about them in Mrs. Cheerilee's class, remember?"

"Well then Ah' guess Ah; failed."

"Oh, that kind of test. The computer once again reoriented itself, this time glare angrily at an unfortunate patch of dirt on the floor. After a second of thought the devices limited countenance softened and it returned its attention to the crusaders. "Still though that gives me an idea. If ponies are able to test in school than they are smart enough for scientific testing. Maybe this place isn't so absolutely terrible after all; how could a place with sentient murdering plants that can feel pain not be fun?" The large device paused and seemed to think about something. "Oh but where are my manners, my little ponies? I have failed to remember to introduce myself in a situation where protocol requires it. It's voice changed with the last sentence, becoming softer, less mechanical, and more pony-like and, for all the same reasons, creepier. Fortunately she dropped the new voice like as quickly as she had picked it up."My name is the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System, but you may call me GLaDOS. I...

"Are you sure its not Gladys?" Apple Bloom asked inquisitively

"Did you just ask me if I am unsure of the pronunciation of my own name?

"Well, yah I guess when you say it like that... but it just sounded..."

"I can already tell that you are the most intelligent pony, out of the three of you ponies."

"Aww thank ya."

"Sarcasm self test complete"

"Hey!"

"...Anyway I am the central AI of this ancient research facility, I used to run everything around here by myself, after the ponies who built me left me to rust of course."

"Aww that;s so sad, they just abandoned you?"

"Yes it is the ponies who built me were very cruel, and that part hurts the most because of how horrendously true it is. Anyway I have been of line for quiet a while, so I may not be up to speed with everything on the surface. Oh but enough about me, I really want to hear about you."

"Name's Rick I'm an adventure sphere. I'm built for danger. The ball in the corner suddenly called.

"Oh that's right! I completely forgot about you" The same long mechanical arm GLaDOS had destroyed the plant with suddenly came to life again and reached across the room. "I have a special reward for you for orchestrating this rescue mission slash adventure to save me."

"Are we going to merge our programing gorgeous?"

"That's imposible.

Rick squinted in suspicion, "MMmmmMM I don't know you like you have a few ports that would fit my prongs mighty nicely, if you don't mind me saying so.

"Yes I do mind, and I'm quite sure it's impossible, GLaDOS lied. The arm holding Rick carried the sphere across the room, toward the broken segment of wall panel

"no wait there was this other guy who looked like you and that other pretty lady in the orange jump suit plugged me into there just fine. In fact he was exactly like you except he had a spherical head and was a dude which totally sucked.

"This isn't. That kind. Of Reward. So just stop. Anyway... here is your reward." The arm swung Rick out of the hole, dangling him over the seemingly bottomless pit. "It's a brand new adventure!Goodbye." The pincers released the core and he plummeted into the inky void below.

"YYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh," the core yelled happily as he fell.

"Why would you do that?" Sweetie Belle asked in shock.

"What? He likes adventure, so I gave him one. There are certainty more than enough adventures to satisfy even him at the bottom of this facility. And it's not like he can die from the fall, he has a parachute."

"Yah we know all about his parachute," Scootaloo said rolling her eyes at the memory.

"See. Oh but back to you three, I want to know everything about you, I already knew him.

"My name is Sweetie Belle."

"Ah'm Apple Bloom."

"And I'm Scootaloo."

"AND WE ARE THE CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS!" all three exclaimed while each put their hooves together in a three pony version of a high five.

"Crusaders? Ar-en't you three a little young to be engaging in genocide?

"Genocide?," Sweetie Bell asked

"why would ya' assume something like that?" Apple Bloom asked in surprise.

"That's not what crusading is all about!" Scootaloo shouted accusingly.

"Oh I'm truely sorry, the definition of crusader must have changed while I was asleep. Please explain what it means to be a 'cutie-mark crusader.'

"Well basically the three of are, like, best friends..." Scootaloo started.

"And every day we try a new thing to try to get our cutie marks..." Sweetie Belle added.

"'causewedon'thaveourCutieMarksyet,andeveryponykeepstellingustowaitandletthemcometousbutwedon'twantowaitwewantourcutiemarksrightnow," Apple Bloom spread,while flailing her forhooves.

"Define Cutie-Marks."

"A cutie mark is a unique picture that every young pony around our age develops on their flank when they discover their special talent is. Cutie marks are usually a rather direct representation of a ponies calling in life but can be metaphorical or symbolic representations of said talent," the unicorn stated.

"Yah thanks dictionary." Scootaloo commented. "So yah a cutie mark is a picture of something in some way related to what you're meant to do so we've been trying everything as quickly as possible to try to getting these things cause cutie marks are like the The Big Thing for fillies our age, oh and I guess colts to. But yah every pony has been calling us blank flanks cause we don't have them yet and it's getting really annoying."

"andwedon'thaveourcutiemarksyetandwereallywantourcutiemarkssowefollowedtheballdownhersowecangetourcutiemarks..."

"That's enough Brainiac! I mean Apple Bloom... i know exactly what you are referring to, now. See back before my big sleep we called Cutie marks flank pictures, anyway..."

"Hey why were you off anyway?" the orange Pegasus asked while scrapping a little more mud from her fur.

"That's an excellent question. It all started a longlong Long LONG LONG time ago.

"Awwwww!," the trio groaned.

"Can it not start a long time ago?" the farm filly asked disappointedly

"It certainly may," GLaDOS struggled to suppress a chuckle when she found that her tactic had worked. "You see this evil stallion with an incredibly long and boring name, cast an a... sleeping spell on me, after force shutting down all the power reactors in this facility.

"Meh sounds he kinda boring," Scootaloo flatly said.

"Indeed it was as boring as was painful even at the time and there is absolutely no reason to discuss the fact any further, BBBuuuttt BBBEEEWWWAAARRREEE! the Ai's voice slowed down and dropped and octave or twelve to emphasize this warning, making all three of the fillies gasp. GLaDOS then began to shake and move her bodily jerkily. "The Ghost of said stallion still Haunts this facility, so if you see any adult male pony, especially if they are white, they may be a ghost! But if you listen to me I won't let him harm you! The Ai stopped the possessed rocking and returned to her normal, rather static, self. "Oh well, there is an incredibly small chance that you will see him anyway. All three fillies were hugging each other and, had they worn boots, would be quaking in them. "Anyway, back to Cutie Marks. before you just had to ask that difficult question I was about to mention that this facility is, in part, an ancient Cutie Mark FACTORY! And if I had known they were called cutie marks, would have given them to you as soon as you asked... "

"YAAAAAY!" The soon to be ex-Cutie Mark Crusaders jumped up and yelled in celebration.

"...that and the factory is broken and I currently lack the power required to fix it, which is a shame because three cutie marks would be the perfect reward for freeing me from the evil pony's spell."

"Awwwwwwww," the not soon to be ex-Crusaders groaned as their hopes were dashed away as quickly as they had formed.

"But there has to be a way to fix the factory," Sweetie Belle

"Well the is but you would have to help me, which I couldn't ask you to do after you have already done so much for me..."

"No! We'll do anything you ask!"

"Excellent! You know the other major function of this facility is science, so you just might get a cutie mark the new fashioned automatic way. Ohhh! but the are so many fortunate surprises when I do science that there is simply not enough time to list all the infinite possibilities. I'll need to pipe you back to the equipment locker before we get to work though. I would say 'hang on it's going to be a bumpy ride' but in all likelihood hanging on to anything will rip your arms off, so don't actually do it." With that more of the black panels fell away revealing another large glass metal framed tube. Perhaps glass was inaccurate description, as even though the tubes walls looked and felt like glass, they were currently bending and flexing as the tube was pushed, by some unseen mechanism into the room. Like a wet noodle, the pipe flopped down to the crusaders in a slow arc until it's wide mouth was just a few hoof lengnths from the trio.

For several seconds nothing happened, then without warning the tube came to life and began drawing in air like a giant vacuum cleaner. The pneumatic tube sucked up the trio, as well as a good helping of mud, into grand network of similar tubes running throughout the facility.

"Good luck. GLaDOS called as the fillies were sucked out of earshot.

==============

Hope you liked this chapter I threw it in as a break from the dull drums of plot development, and Luna and Wheatley's relationship (sorry shippers friends only) needed to move on.

The new panel transitions are up on my deviant but I need to rearrange them so that they have unique web addresses, so I;ll do that tomorrow.

Remember to comment, rate, like and subscribe

just kidding this isn't You-tube. could you imagine if we were all like that.

Chapter 0008 Simply Pneumatic

Despite the fact that some of the Pneumatic tubes were flexible, most were made of a steal hard plastic compound. Scootaloo made mental note of this fact as she as her friends were tossed around inside the clear pipe at high velocity.

Unfortunately the trio wasn't alone, the pipe was filled with a variety of derelict, but certainly very odd, junk. There were cubes, swivel chairs, strange oval shaped white robots, different cubes with dark glass lenses installed on them, and an occasional desk or two. Scootaloo made note all of this as she climbed over a stack of the metal cubes that had their corners raised and a glowing ring on each of their faces, by far making up the largest portion of the derelict and abandoned objects in the air pipe. The circular pipe was os cluttered with them and a few other types of cubes that to the crusader it felt she was in a small sloppily built tiny house made of the bizarre boxes instead of bricks, and with a constantly moving glass vaulted ceiling. A house that felt like it was in an small, but annoyingly bipolar, tornado.

GLaDOS seemed to be having trouble keeping the air flow up, so the makeshift cube room would usually simply drag along the bottom of the pipe; a process that was interrupted by interrupted with sudden jolts where the tube sprang to life and the air lifted the clutter of objects then subsequently died back down, dropping the suspended passengers or packages. In addition, the slow drag sometimes stopped altogether for a brief moment, tossing around the crusaders and all other objects abandoned in the clear transit pipe around.

"This is a really weird place to make cutie marks," The pegasus thought as she pushed one of the glowing blocks out of the walls of the 'room' and let it fall.

"Oomph." She recognized the voice of her friend.

"Apple Bloom?"

"Scootaloo?"

"You're O.K!" Squealed the scooter jockey, climbing up to the hole she had made and saw Apple Bloom was surrounded by a similar array of junk.

"Yah, why wouldn't Ah' be?" red maned pony asked, to be answered by sliding pile of junk coming to another abrupt stop and the cube walls and floor rearranging themselves again. "Oh yah, that."

"Yah that. Anyway have you seen Sweetie Belle?"

"Na,' not yet," the pegasus saw one of the filly sized blocks that made up Apple Bloom's compartment slide outward like a Jenga piece the promptly fall out of place, striking the earth pony in the back of the head. "Ow! think I found her."

Sweetie Belle jumped up onto the cube that had supported the other cube that had just been dislodged and hopped into Apple Bloom's compartment. "Present," the unicorn said, oblivious of striking her friend with the cube..

Scootaloo decided to pull herself into Apple Bloom's space as well, hooking her hooves over the dividing wall and furiously buzzing her wings for additional, but relatively minor support, to do so. After clearing the hurtle, she allowed herself to free fall for the whole entirety of one cube length, satisfied with the metallic clank her hooves made on the mysterious metal cube bellow.

"So guys," she asked, "What do you think our special talents are going to be?"

"I have no idea," Sweetie Belle answered.

"Really?" Apple Bloom answered / asked.

"What?" the questioned.

"Uh it's nothin' Ah' jus' thought you would get your cutie mark in you know...singin'."

"Didn't we already try that?" Scootaloo pointed out. "You know with the whole talent competition thing."

"Yah Apple Bloom, wouldn't I have gotten it already from that?"

"But..." she was cut of by another voice interrupting.

"Please initial landing procedure," The voice of GLaDOS sounded from seemingly everywhere. The AI paused and then corrected herself with, "Oh wait, you are new here. I seem to have forgotten that fact while due to rapid influx of data telling me all about how hopelessly damaged the facility is; I hope we can get those cutie mark conveyer belts running again. Good luck with the immanent high velocity impact.

Scootaloo felt the makeshift cube structure shift as the pneumatic tube gave one last labored forceful breath. Then her surroundings exploded away. One moment she had been sitting on pile of cubes with her friends then the next instant she was airborne, along with everything else in the pipe. The small intimate makeshift cube room had become a shot gun blast of blocks and other junk, all falling toward the ground at a...

"How far down is the ground anyway" she thought with growing fear. "Everything in this place is so tall we could easily fall forever or...

Scootaloo realized she was laying down on the ground, or well a cube on the ground. "Or not." Her new surroundings looked much different from the equipment locker Rick had taken them through. The sound absorbent ceiling panels were there, although incredibly damaged. and the lights inset to them gave off a dim glow that wasn't the best light the young Pegasus had seen but it was leaps and bounds better than no lights at all, particularly since her headlamp had vaporized in the blue light wall. The room was not a hallway either, it was cubic (surprise more cubes) and at least twice as tall. The walls were panels, but ones covered in large sheets of faded peeling orange linoleum. She was unable to see any of the completely ground as it was covered in debris from tube. With no warning whatsoever, Apple Bloom materialized in front of her face.

"Some drop huh? What was that, like Two feet?" The yellow filly pointed one hoof at the tube jutting out of one of the walls that was actually a good 2.5 feet from the current ground level.

"Yah that wasn't even scary at all," the pegasus lied.

"Excellent, I can see al least two of you have survived this impossibly easy drop, which isn't even suppose to be a test." GLaDOS's voice was coming from a very worn out looking rusted steal cased square camera on the wall. "I hope you two are much better at this than subject Sweetie-Belle"

As the machine finished, Scootaloo felt herself rise then once again hit the ground as the cube she was laying on was pushed out from under her. As she got to her hooves she saw an exhausted looking Sweetie Belle crawl out of the hole where the cube was.

"You were on top of me.... and there is no air down there," the unicorn gasped.

"Sorry."

"Oh good, Sweetie-Belle is still alive. You really had me worried the pieces that you were dead Sweetie-Belle, because I just care about you three so much.

"Well it's good tah' know that you would care if we died," the earth pony commented sarcastically.

"Indeed. Anyway your modified Aperture Science Little types Handheld Portal Guns, which I am currently modifying your unique equine morphology, are right behind the only door in this room.

All three crusaders looked around to find that there were no doors in the room, which prompted the camera to do the same.

"Oh it must be buried under all this useless garbage. Sigh." (the AI said the word sigh rather than making a noise that could be described as such. "I remember when I had my own piece of useless trash running around here, but then I had to let her go. Oh but look at me reflecting on memories no...pony... wants to hear. Anyway let me get the door for you

In response to the garbage floor near the far wall sank down in a deep 'U' shaped depression as the now fluid pieces of junk rushed through the opening door.

"Well, come on guys! Let's go." Apple Bloom cried before trotting over and into the trash valley

"Yah!" Scootaloo joined in while doing the same. At the lip of the trash valley she saw her fellow crusaders yellow flanks squeeze through a small opening that was formed by the top of the circular door and the surface of the garbage avalanche, which made the pegasus decide to follow suit. It was a tight pinch, if only due to her reluctance about exerting pressure on her sensitive wings, but she made it through withe ease. Scootaloo let gravity do the rest of the work and slide her down the slope of derelict objects.

The new room was another aged linoleum coated mess, this time though it was a hallway with a blue theme instead of orange.

"Excilent now we only need to wait for Sweetie-Belle," came the voice from beyond the walls.

And so they waited...

and waited...

"Aww for Celestia's sack! What's taking you Sweetie Belle?" Apple Bloom called to the opening at the top of the door.

"Yahh it's been like thirty seconds Sweetie!"

"Sack?" questioned the AI "And potentially more importantly "Celestia?"

"I told you it's 'Sake'!" Sweetie Belle corrected as she pulled herself through the opening.

"Ah' still think it Princess Celestia has a burlap sack filled with wishes."

"What would an immortal Alicorn princess want a bag of wishes for?"

The pegasus decided to let them resolve it this time by themselves.

"Well, if Celestia is the ruler of Equestria then isn't it her job to grant wishes."

"No, her job is to administrate and stuff like that. And She is the co-ruler of Equestria, don't you remember princess Luna?"

"No."

"Uhhh."

"While I am quite seriously interested in the topic of your conversation, and will press you about its subject latter, could we get back to fixing this facility and getting you your cutie marks? "

"You betcha," Scootaloo answered for the arguing duo.

"Good, all you need to do is walk to the other end of this long long hallway, for now at least.

"AWWW," all three groaned.

"does it have to be a long long hallway?" Apple Bloom asked

"Do you not want cutie marks."

"No, we do want them," the earth pony answered.

"More than anything!" Sweetie Belle added.

"Then walk to the end of this long, looong, loooong, looooooong, Lllllllloooooooooooooooooonnnnnggggg hallway.

============

Meanwhile at the royal canterlot gardens...

That felt weird, let's never do it agin, not that you have any choice in the matter.

============

Luna rounded another corner of the royal hedge maze, knowing full well that her pursuer was right on hooves. To her absolute terror, she was greeted with a shaggy green wall of well trimmed hedge.

"A dead end! No! How could this be a dead end! How could this be the end?" the immortal (or was it simply an indefinite life span? You never wonder about these ting until times like this when it matters most) princess thought as panic started to fill her frame.

There was the drum of hoofbeats, chasing down the Regent of the Night with a rage unmatched by furry of Tartarus.

"Well Luna, seeing as we're about to die, I wanted to tell you again that you're the best friend I've ever not tried to kill," Wheatley glumly informed her.

It was two late to respond. Before the Midnight alicorn could respond, her chaser rounded the same bend and pinned her to the ground, sending Wheatley rolling into the bushes.

"Luna!" Celestia roared from on top of her younger sister, her eyes replaced with white lamps out of rage. "You have done that which cannot be tolerated! For that, you must by punished!"

The younger alicorn quaked beneath the elder. "Sister..." she pleaded to deaf ears.

"Silence!" the regent of the sun commanded harshly. "Princess Luna, for your crimes I hear by sentence you..." Celestia paused dramatically while lowering her horn to her sisters her sister's chest.

"Nooooooo!"

"TO TICKLE TORTURE!" With that, a golden aura surrounded Luna.

"No please anything but... whahahahah that. Sister I beg ... pffffft hehehe... of thee to stop this... Bwahaha... Thou knows HA! How much I dis-s-s-s-s-ly-y-y-yke the tickle... haha... tourture."

"That's why is called torture, sister!" The bright white alicorn said with playful mock distain.

"Wait wait just a bloody minute! We were only running from Tickle torture!"

The golden aura dissipated and Celestia let Luna quickly get to her hooves upon noticing Wheatley in the bushes. Both alicorns cheats turned from blue and white respectively to a deep cherry red.

"Perhaps I maybe exaggerated when I used the term 'dire consequences'" shyly admitted the princess of the night.

"What did you think would happen? That I was going to decapitate my sister over a little prank involving magic removable marker."

"Kind of, ya! You still have no idea what it was like where I was from do you? I mean what was the point of all that story telling if you were just... just going.. to. go... to sleep? But you know what all that is besides the point! You can't just go throwing around worlds like 'dire consequences' and 'torture' like they were tufts of lint, or you know whatever you ponies throw around at each other harmlessly. "

Both princesses looked down, slightly ashamed of their little game.

"I would also feel less mad if, i don't know, SOMEONE GOT ME OUT OF THE GOD FOR SAKEN MUD, it feels like there is a party of snails having tea in my gyroscopic processor."

Luna scratched at the ground with one hoof and pulled the core out of the muck underneath the hedges with her deep blue aura. "Sorry" she muttered to the mud soaked core.

"Wheatley..." Celestia chewed the word over in her mouth, as if to try to remember if that was his name, "please allow me to explain..."

"Please do!"

"... See my sister and I have been engaged in a prank war for the last few millennia, minus a recently ended thousand year plus hiatus. We often do these mock execution/takeover things, just for fun. When the opportunity arose of course I went into it full swing and I kinda forgot you existed for a while, though I did meet your space friend he was... interesting."

"OOOOH, everyone just loves him, glad to see you like him more than me!"

"Oh come on; I was being sarcastic! You're less annoying by a long shot!"

"Sure I am."

Celestia merely groaned for a second before continuing. "The point is I am sorry if I scared you. Look the point is you seem to be one of the few friends Luna has made in a thousand years, although I must say I thought of Luna's friendships progressing over days and not hours, so don't take it out on her."

"Apology accepted."

"Please... wait really?"

"Yes really.

"Huzzah!" Luna chimed in.

============

"Well you've finally made it to the end of this hallway..."

"Well it only would have taken us five minutes of Sweetie Belle could walk faster," Scootaloo pointed out to the Ai as she neared a circular metal vault style door.

"Hey!"

"I'm sure that's true, Sweetie Belle is the physically slowest of your group, though her mental faculties are certainly not the least."

"Hey Ah' think you're talking about me there!" Apple Bloom exclaimed glaring angrily at the ceiling, for lack of something else to direct her anger at.

She was answered by what sounded like a slow clap, though it lacked the hard rigid sound of hooves, sounding something more like two wet noodles slapping together. "The last hor- pony crosses the finish line again!

"Why do you do that?" the yellow filly whined, while putting on her best "puppy dog-eyes" look.

"Oh come on! That was incredibly funny! Oh wait you aren't familiar with earth's idioms... never mind I was making a small joke that was obviously not understood. I did not mean to offend you and, If it makes it any better,I have no actual data regarding your intellectual capabilities yet. Nopony moved. "Well I know what will cheer you right up! A portal gun!"

The vault-like door rumbled as its internal mechanisms whirled around, unlocking the gateway. The door split in half retracting into the ceiling and floor, revealing a small room the size of a walk in closet with a single Pneumatic tube hanging from the ceiling. There was a whirling noise and an elevator like the one they had previously ridden on with Rick slid down the tube, opening to reveal a set of twelve boots pilled on the floor. Nine of the said boots was made of a hard white plastic with a strange loopy thing at the heal, the other three looked like miniature portal guns with an added plate at the operation end of the device to assist walking.

Scootaloo was the first to try a portal boot on, immediately shoving her hoof into the nearest one. There were three smooth buttons at the end, each easily depressed by a conscious hoof movement but not so sensitive that they became a burden while walking. The pegasus experimentally popped a portal on two surfaces, the orange a blue ovals successfully connecting to each other.

"This is Awesome!" she shouted with glee.

"I thought you might enjoy it. Everypony please grab one hoof held miniature portal device and three long fall boots. Enter the elevator when you are ready."

"Ah' hav a question," Apple Bloom stated while shoving her rear hooves into a pair of long fall boots.

"That's nice Apple-Bloom."

"Why did ya' need to pump us here if you were only going to use the same kind of tube to bring us these thing?"

"Wow that is actually a valid question, you have thoroughly exceeded my expectations. The Aperture Science pipe network is dilapidated and not all lines are connected, so I need to find a place for you and the portal guns tp meet, an the most opportune place to do that was here. Now that all of you are ready please step into the elevator.

It was a small elevator, perhaps designed to accommodate one pony rearing, and Scootaloo remembered that the last time they had fit into one all the way back with Rick, it had been a tight pinch. Still, the orange filly was undeterred, and hoped into the the narrow can and filled of to her left to make room for the others. Apple Bloom, with similar enthusiasm, did the same on the right, leaving exactly a filly's space between them.

Sweetie Belle squeezed her way in tail first, Scootaloo felt herself being squished, one side into the side of the lift and the other into the unicorn.

"Why are these things so tall and not wide?" The alabaster filly questioned, wriggling her flanks to affirm that she had no room in which to wiggle.

"Ouch stop! We'll jus' have to ride like this," squealed the yellow coated compressed filly

"Very good, my little Crusaders. Well not really, but you look like you could use some cheering up. Now we need to turn on a nuclear reactor in the old part of the facility, back in the day when we didn't make cutie marks. Regardless I need that reactor on in order to turn on the main reactor, and since I currently lack any functional reassembly machines, I'm stuck with you. Hang on this may be an extremely bumpy ride.

With that GLaDOS activated the tube, pulling the elevator upwards. Scootaloo felt the gees increase as the elevator was overcome by an inky darkness, but they were crammed in to tightly for her to be moved at all by them. She wondered if she even needed her hooves for support anymore, and was about to pull them close her body to see if she would fall or simply hang between Sweetie Belle and the wall.

However things literally took a turn for the worst; without warning the Pneumatic tube suddenly bent at a ninety degree angle, shaking the fillies loose and scattering them on the new floor / former wall. The Pegasus felt blindly across the curved surface until her hoof collided with what felt like Apple Bloom's mane. She never could tell though because the "elevator" took another shape turn, on the same plane but in a new direction. Inertia forced the fillies into a sandwich pinned to the former floor.

Scootaloo felt her body being crushed between the floor and one of her friends. Just when momentum should have let up, the tube made another right turn. The pegasus was constantly squished and battered from one wall to another like a pinball during the whole short trip. It felt as if the tube and the laws of physics had conspired to kill her.

Then suddenly there was relief, and the pain died down to a headache almost instantly. The sensation went further though, going from simply relieving the pain to a felling of weightlessness. The moment didn't last though and the dreaming pegasus slammed into her two friends, suddenly on top of the dog pile.

The elevator had inverted itself relative to it's starting position, with the ceiling now acting as the floor. Light would have made this whole process much less scary, but one can't be picky when they are offered free cutie marks. Surpassingly none of the fillies screamed the whole way, for fear that if they let their leave during their scream they would never be able to breath in again.

Then the lift stopped. As suddenly and abruptly as it had done everything on its tumultuous journey it stopped. Scootaloo wondered for a moment why their was still no light, and if the door would open again. The crusader was only given a moment to wonder, for in the next the floor that had once been a ceiling dropped off of the elevator like the top peeling back from a soup can.

The pegasus foal felt the air rush past her she free fell into an inky abyss, she heard her fellow crusaders screams of terror as they plummeted into the dark void alongside her, she even knew every nerve in her body should be telling her to join them in fright; but the fear never came. Instead something deeper inside her awakened, and she burst into an uncontrollable peel of laughter.

Free falling was one of the most awesome experiences the filly had had in her life up to that point! So manny indescribable sensations accompanied the soothingly cool caress of the wind resistance. "This has to be what flying is all about!" she thought aloud. Then the crusader opened her wings into a nose dive, pretending she was Rainbow Dash about to do a Sonic Rainboom. She didn't even have to close her eyes to let her mind imagine, the unmolested darkness of... wherever they were (does it matter!) could do that for her. So she let the air dry out her open blind eyes, only to see what it would feel like to have that happen.

Scootaloo wondered if she could ever go that fast under her own power, then did a midair summersault while picturing herself doing a loopy loop. The sensation of weightlessness was exhilarating! Unfortunately the ground always has to wreck everyones carefree decent sometime.

"What are you three doing?" the voice of their Ai friend called into the abyss from what seemed like hundreds of speakers, manny rushing by at what would have been a blinding speed if not for the lack of light. "Your long fall boots won't work unless you have all four hooves squarely facing down."

A healthy dose of fear came alive again and she did what she was told to, reorienting herself to try mimic standing up normally but in the air.

"Sweetie Belle! Apple Bloom! STOP FLAILING YOUR LEGS. If you keep doing that you won't get your cute marks! And you'll be dead!"

Scootaloo could only hope her friends did that as she focused on her own controlled fall. Any second now they could hit the ground and if her fellow crusader-

*bang*

The freeze stopped and the filly felt her mane whip down on her neck.

"What that's it? What did they put in these boots?

Before she could mentally push the question any further there were two more banging noises, which was much better then hearing something like a splat. Whatever little room they were in was suddenly filled with a thin ray of dust polluted light on three sides, but before the pegasus could process her surroundings the floor gave out, sending them falling again. This time though they were quickly interrupted by the ground, this time in a well lit room.

Well, it was a room all right, a massive geodesic spherical room. A little below the equator of said sphere was a murky brown liquid that was hopefully at least partially water. Stadium lights, like the kind used to play cloud ball, rose up from the coffee colored sea and bathed the weathered space with light. However the space was mostly populated with green plywood panels, mounted on rusted steal frames in a low tech analogue of the rooms they had seen above. The structures these panels made had hopefully seen better days, as there were holes in the walls and floors everywhere. Still the surfaces down here certainty lacked the kind of damage afflicting the facility up above, having no dirt or decay visible on them.

A brief look up reveled that the cutie mark crusaders had been falling through a square aluminum vent, much like an air conditioning duct only much bigger. A hatch swung to and fro limply on the end of the construct, apparently this was the first floor the crusaders had landed on though was quickly defeated by their weight.

The crusaders themselves found themselves and a small platform made of a rusty grate that was connected to the olive drab plywood maze by an equally rusty catwalk. "Oh Good! I was just about to get ready to fill out an unintended casualty report, but once again you three have exceeded my expectations," GLaDOS's voice rung out from several old looking race track style speakers, "Remember the Humans I mentioned before, the species that built me? Lets just say that: Aperture Science has lost a very high quantity of human test subjects that I am not a liberty to disclose due to test subjects not trusting or misusing their long fall boots. Anyway just don't fight your gyroscopic stabilizers or kick your legs and you will be fine, speaking strictly in terms of long falls that is.

"So what exactly are we suppose to do here?" Sweetie Belle questioned the Ai while quickly glancing around to take in the ancient sphere.

"Good question Sweetie-Belle! Your intellect clearly adequately compensates for your vastly inferior physical abilities. This vent was the easiest access rout into the reactor. As far as exits go, well lets play that one by ear.You are merely two spheres bellow the exit point for this testing circuit, which will grant you access to the maintenance areas of the old facility, so we can get that nuclear reactor online.

"Ah' don't even know what a nuclear reactor is though!" Apple Bloom exclaimed.

"A most invalid observation, Apple-Bloom. You are lucky that your physical fitness levels negate your logical deficiencies. I will be able to communicate to you the whole time, thus negating the need for any of you to be licensed reactor operators for Aperture Science Innovators Fission Reactor# 3. So just push the buttons I tell you two and nothing will go wrong. Ignore me, and all of Equestria is doomed. "

"Wait what!" Scootaloo shouted in frustration. "You never said anything about Equestria being in trouble!"

"Well not for a couple hundred years or so." The AI's statement was received with confused glances. "Allow me to elaborate. The second nuclear reactor that we are going to turn on, R-37, contains several hundred tons of nuclear weapons grade uranium, which the scientists deemed necessary over normal reactor grade uranium in order to safe money on space. The reactor is currently in 'S.C.R.A.M.' mode, which essentially means it's off. However without the power R-37 rand the reactor down here provide, I will be unable to repair or power the equipment needed to maintain R-37. Thus, a this main nuclear reactor is doomed to structural collapse eventually, which is bound to eventually cause at least one fission sustainable critical mass of uranium to form. This critical mass will cause a runaway nuclear reaction. "

The crusaders simply glanced around the spherical room, for lack of a face to direct their confusion at. "So what ecactly..." Sweetie Belle started.

"...Does any a' that stuff mean?" her earth pony friend finished.

"Huh," GLaDOS electronically groaned in frustration. "To simplify, Imagine a gaint tank filled with magic metal, with me so far?"

"Uh-huh" all three nodded in agreement.

"And i need you to flip a switch in this tank to make the magic work." The machine paused again to make sure her impromptu employees were following her.

"Uh-huh."

"And I need this magic to work to fix the tank, and if I don't fix the tank it will break." She paused again.

"Uh-huh."

"And if the tank breaks... there will be a runaway fission reaction."

"Wha'?" Apple Bloom asked, her face scrunching up in confusion.

"I stopped understanding at 'runaway fission reaction.'" Sweetie Belle informed.

"I think 'runaway fission reaction' was where you lost on the first try," Scootaloo remarked sarcastically rolling her eyes.

"There will be an explosion! If we don't get the power back to minimum levels eventually there will be a gigantic explosion that will cause a rain of deadly radioactive poisons! This could end life and therefore test subject recruitment and therefore science as we know it! Please tell me you understand that.

"Y-e-e-e-s" Sweetie Belle murmured while shaking in fear of the computers angered outburst.

"Good."

"Hey GLaDOS I've got a question for ya'." Scootaloo stated nonchalantly, not phased at the slightest by the digital triad.

"It's GLaDOS.. ohs, oh wait. You got it right. This is my first record of you mentioning my name and I am frankly surprised you got it right on the first try given that it has been a full thirty seven point five two eight minutes since I told you what my name was. Congratulations.

The pegasus waited for the awkward silence to thicken to be sure the computer was done speaking before she addressed her own inquiry. "So while this big picture junk is nice to know, you still haven't told us what we are supposed to do right now."

"That was not a question but your intentions are obvious... well obvious enough at least. This is an old derelict testing sphere. These structures built above the water line are test chambers designed to test Aperture Science Intra-dimensional portals, Aperture Science Intra-dimensional portal accessories, and non portal related Aperture Science products. This is where was where science used to happen, here a generation was able to raise the technological tier of the world by what normally would taken centuries to equal. This facility was once the engine of future, and it was left here to rot. Isn't it just crushingly sad what sentient organic lifeforms can do>"

"Oh look at me getting off on that old tangent again! Anyway right now all you have to do is find the exits without dyeing. Protocol prevents me from helping you solve these tests, but I can inform you of certain hazards. Besides that and the prerecorded messages you are on your own."

"No pressure."

==========

Sorry this chapter took so long, I've been doing things productive in school for a change and doing some stylistic rewrites on the previous chapters.

remember your criticisms, thoughts on the chapters, and general comments are greatly appreciated and actually very helpful.

Chapter 0009 Turn ons

"Come on girls, lets go!" Apple Bloom cheered enthusiastically before running down the rusty catwalk, linking there platform to the long abandoned maze of rooms suspended on stilts.

"At least you have enthusiasm subject Apple-Bloom" GLaDOS paused, listening for the sound of more hoof steps following the earth pony filly. "Well go on Scootaloo and Sweetie-Belle walk down the catwalk.."

"But what about the door?" the alabaster unicorn asked.

"What about a door makes its existence and testing mutually exclusive?"

"There is a big metal double door at the end of the catwalk, and it has no handles. So how are we get in.

"Yah," Apple Bloom realized as she stopped running down the rusted catwalk. Scootaloo stopped gazing at the geodesic ceiling, where GLaDOS's voice apparently came from, and looked down the steel pathway. Sure enough there was a pair of shiny metal double doors were the rusted walkway linked with the bulk of the wooden and metal lattice structure. The elevator like door wasn't particularly narrow, but was strangely tall proportionally. The door was so slender that it looked like it had been built for miniature giraffes or something similar.

"It's an automatic door, just walk up to it and let the door do the rest."

Apple Bloom being the closest, walked up to the pair of door and, sure enough, they both retracted into the walls. "Cool," the filly said while hopping through the door way (and the shimmery waterfall of light behind it).

Scootaloo started down the same catwalk and hopped though the same blue light wall, before the door could close. However the 'emancipation grill' did not like the dried mud caked on her fur from the central Ai camber. The layer of grime suddenly ignited in a bright white glow and disappeared, leaving the orange filly clean. She ran a booted hoof over her fur and noticed it didn't quite feel like she had taken a bath, her hair was a little stiff and messy tangled as if she had forgotten to use shampoo. Still greasy fur was better than muddy fur and the pegasus was relieved to have the itchy dirt gone.

The room looked mostly the same on the inside as it did on the outside, made of green panels strengthened by an 'X' shaped rusted metal frame going across each square of plywood. Unlike on the outside however, there were occasionally Dirty white panels mounted on the default thin green ones. The Room itself was rather large and shaped like an oversized L; a long hallway with large vertical shafts, essentially a hallway up, that were both capped in the white panels. This feature was at the other side of the hall rather than the apparent entrance they had gone through, and appropriately there was a recess in the wall that had another door with a large orange exit sign above it. . The floor at the entrance end of the hall was white, along with random sections of the hallway walls, A large Steel pipe hung fro the ceiling directly above the white section of floor, connected to a button mounted on a small platform standing near the white portion with a chain of connected blue lights.

"I like your style test subject! You make your own rules like me. Once they told me that I couldn't fire a man just because he was in a wheel chair, did it anyway," a new, though completely unmechanical, male voice sounded from the speakers built into the room.

"GLaDOS, who is that?" Sweetie Belle asked the walls. The Ai either did not hear or choose not to respond though.

The new voice continued, "If you're hearing this message, it means that you somehow managed to enter an enrichment sphere in the middle of a testing circuit. Now I'm Glad you're so eager to do science, but please flag down a test associate first. That said, welcome to the repulsion gel testing course, War hero, Astronaut, or Olympian. If you din't hear this before, I'm Cave Johnson! C.E.O and founder of Aperture Science. Together you and me are going to change the world! Since thousands of test go on in these enrichment spheres everyday, and I am unable to oversee them all personally, these prerecorded messages will guide and aid you throughout your science adventure. And here are some more prerecorded messages you may have missed that may be vital to your testing experience."

"Hello? Johnson what are these tests suppose' to be about?" Apple Bloom asked the speaker

"Yah I didn't study!" Sweetie Belle commented.

Repulsion Gel was originally developed by Aperture Science as a sweet dietetic pudding substitute. While It is both sweeter than regular pudding and prevents the absorption of calories from all foods eaten, the repulsion gel didn't do well in the harmful side effects fee department. Don't get me wrong, this stuff is perfectly safe to touch and eat, but if any of it gets on your bare skin, seek an emergency shower chemical immediately! We don't quire know what's in this stuff yet, but we do know that whatever it is isn't friends with the human skeleton, so try not to get covered in the stuff.

"So if this stuff is so important then where is it?" Scootaloo questioned the loud speaker while looking around to confirm that the room was gel free. There was no answer, from any pony.

Apple Bloom walked over to the button laden podium. "What do ya' think this does?" she asked.

"Let's push it and find out!" Scootaloo exclaimed.

"Isn't it dangerous to go around pushing buttons when you don't know what they do?" Sweetie Belle asked rhetorically.

"Scardy pony" the Pegasus thought. "Unless a button says 'do not push' on it, it automatically wants to be pushed. That’s what buttons are for right."

Before the unicorn could reply, Apple Bloom took things into her own hooves. "makes sense to me," she commented as she reared up and pushed the button with her right hoof. In response the chain of lights connecting the podium and the large steel pipe opened, vomiting up large globs of a blue goo that splattered into a thin layer open the white panel beneath the pipe. a second latter the button popped back up and the pipe closed.

To Scootaloo's surprise Sweetie Belle was the first to investigate, trotting up to the bright blue gel and staring it down quizzically. Cautiously the unicorn extended one hoof, tapped the gel, and quickly pulled her hoof back. There was a strange sound almost like a rubber band snapping. Surprisingly, she threw all caution to the whim and jumped right onto the blue goop. 'Bouncing' is a slightly inaccurate term to describe what happened next, as it implies the laws of physics are apparently obeyed. As soon as Sweetie Belle's hooves touched the substance she shot into the air like a rocket, flying in a high arc that just barely missed the gel pipe and landing unharmed on the green floor a few feet away.

"You guys have to try this out!" she called enthusiastically.

Scootaloo saw Apple Bloom's face folded up into a bright grin. The farm filly ran out into the middle of the gel, only for her smile to fade away when she found that she was not being catapulted.

"Hey! Why's it not workin'?" She hopped up experimentally, probably not expecting to accomplish much. The repulsion gel responded by launching Apple Bloom into the air. She came down hit the gel again, 'bouncing' her to an equal height. This time she landed by Sweetie Belle.

Scootaloo ran to the white panel and pounced onto the gel with a running leap. She tried to do a summersault before landing but found she was unable to reorient herself during flight, as if the more she tried to turn the heavier her hooves got. She landed a little further than her friends did, almost crashing into the wall. Despite the failed flip she was still happy with her miniature flight performance. "They out to sell this stuff at the toy store! It could be so much fun."

"Ah' know! It's like a super trampoline or somethin'," the yellow filly commented.

The pegasus looked at the random white panels on the wall and got an idea. "Oh, Oh I want to try something!" She pushed depressed one button within the portal gun, firing a portal onto the nearest alabaster wall panel. Next, she placed the other portal on the gel covered white surface bellow the pipe, the orange zero spreading over the blue goop as if the latter wasn't there. The orange filly rushed back over to the podium and slammed her hoof down on the big red button. This time the globs of gel fell through orange portal and sprayed out through the blue, covering a portion of the wall and floor in bouncy goop.

"OOooOOo cool I want to try next," Sweetie Belle exclaimed. The filly fired one of her portals at the one Scootaloo had already placed below the pipe, the latter portal replacing the one earlier placed, then popped her other portal on the second nearest wall panel. Scootaloo pushed the button down for her, and another segment of the floor became covered in blue gel.

"Me next!" shouted Apple Bloom.

=========
Remember do not smudge up the glass! Windex is expensive. in fact, if you ever think you would need to touch the glass for any reason during testing, you're wrong.

=========

"Where are we going Doug" asked the cube with hearts painted on it, it's exterior light's shifting in brightness as it did so.

"We need to rescue any remaining humans," the ghostly white stallion answered. The cube was firmly strapped to his back like a limbless rider. The tails of his lab coat fluttered as he trotted down one of many of Aperture Science's derelict catwalks.

"Humanity doesn’t exist here.”

“You know what I mean.”

“All the other ponified humans are dead.”

“You don’t know that.”

“But I do. Heroes die Dough.”

“You that when I rescued her, and I didn’t die.”

“You got lucky.” There was a pause where neither the Rattman nor the cube spoke. “It’s not like before. There are exits this time, and she doesn’t have the power required to defend them.”

“What about turrets?”

“They have mostly decayed to the point where they are either harmless or not operational. Case and point to your left.

Doug Ratman hadn’t noticed the catwalk had taken a turn into the maintenance areas of the facility, as opposed to being suspended above the inky black void of the testing chamber areas. Sure enough, in a recess in the walls of what was now a hallway, sat a hidden white turret ovular shaped sentry turret. It’s targeting laser began to blink to life when it was the stallion walking by.

“ Hello? Hello? I’m different,” pleaded the turret. Against better judgment, the last scientist reached into the gap in the walls and slid the turret out into the open with his hooves. “ Thank you.”

“ See perfectly harmless.”

“I can’t just walk away again.”

“Exactly, you should run. I can guide us to a breach it the retaining wall.

“The titan wolf Fenrir was raised by Odin, the bringer of knowledge. For fear of the wolf would destroy him, Odin had the Fenrir bound with a chain cloth and trickery, though sacrificing his son’s hand in the process. Fenrir overcame the chain and, out of anger caused by his binding, devoured the god of wisdom.”

“I just want to make sure.”

“But they are dead Doug! She will eventually come back full strength, we don’t have forever.”

“I was suppose to be the wolf’s bane that kept man safe, but I was failed to defend the creators from the son and daughter of the machine.”

“See I think it agrees with me.”

“You won’t convince the labpony to escape.”

“Don’t listen to her! You can get out of here.”

“I didn’t say you two were not going to escape, just that the cube wasn’t going to convince the pony to do so.”

“We have to keep moving.”

“I agree, but towards the exit while the neurotoxin is offline.

“No, we are going to find out if anyone is still alive.”

“You won’t find who you’re looking for.

“ Let's go do your thing, but hurry so that we can leave. I would like to point out though that you could run faster if you weren't carrying a heavy cube.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

"But I am exactly where I need to be."

"Not you, turret."

"Oh, thank you, and good buy then. We'll see each other soon enough. With that farewell, the stallion continued galloping down the hall.

========

“Wheeee! This stuff is so fun!” Sweetie Belle shouted while doing a mid air summersault. The Cutie mark crusaders had coated the entirety of the floor, most of the walls, and a good helping of the ceiling with repulsion gel. They had simply been bouncing around the makeshift trampoline carefree for the past half hour or so.

“Ah’ know! I wonder why they haven’t started selling this goop yet,” Apple Bloom commented.

“Yah!” Scootaloo agreed to the question. The Pegasus paused to consider something. “Hey shouldn’t we be trying to figure this out?”

“But we got like a… two hundred year deadline or something,” the bouncing unicorn filly pointed out as they wizzed past each other.

"Yah but shouldn't we, you know keep, trying anyway? And besides the solution is really simple," the orange pegasus replied.

"Well then how do we get out?" asked the yellow bouncing earth pony.

"Watch," the speedster pony commanded. Her two friends turned their attention to her while bouncing in place.

Scootaloo used the gel to make four long leaps to the end of the chamber with the large vertical shaft above it. She fired her blue portal at the ceiling, then turned in place and fired its orange counterpart on the nearest wall panel. The pegasus bounced into place in front of the glowing loop, and finally took one last repulsion assisted leap through orange portal. As soon as she felt the sensation of falling she used her wings and every other mechanism she could think of to push herself through the air toward the raised recess that said exit. Scootaloo didn't make, landing about 2/3 of the way to wall in which her goal platform was mounted. It didn't matter though.

With a small thud and a hiss, her long fall boots slammed into the ground and the repulsion gel threw her back up like a rocket. This time she made it onto the raised platform with room to spare, landing a few good feet from the edge. She had a second to internally celebrate her victory before there was a loud 'whoosing' noise behind her. With a loud 'clang' Apple Bloom landed immediately behind her, the earth pony's face sticking into the pegasus's tail.

"What, Apple Bloom? You weren't suppose to follow me that closely."

"Well Ah' watched like you said. and followed as soon as Ah' knew what you were doing."

Sweetie Belle landed just next to the farm filly, dangerously close to landing on top of her. The exit door took this as a sign to open, Both halves sliding into the green wooden walls. Unlike the entrance door, the exit had the problem of being strangely wide, enough for ten ponies to walk through at once. On the other side was a platform as wide as the door, but that strangely bottlenecked into a single narrow catwalk. Scootaloo wondered if this part of the building was built out of pieces of architecture that were originally designed to have other uses, the whole massive sphere being built of salvage.

"You spent longer on that last test then you really should have. This suggests that an emergency occurred during testing, or that you were playing with the gel. Once again try to minimize your contact with the stuff, it is currently very hazardous. While we are trying to get it within manageable safety levels, we aren't there yet so just treat the stuff with respect until we then. The voice on the speaker faded away with a crackle, only to be replaced with another.

"There you Are! I was so unbelievably worried about you until now! What took you so long?"

"We were having fun!" Sweetie Belle answered.

"While testing is designed to enrich your scientific experience, you should have fun while solving the test! "

"But that gel was so bouncy and cool," Apple Bloom answered meekly.

"Grrrrkzzzzzzskskrrr" GLaDOS's voice was half a growl half static. She quickly regained her normal (though decidedly more frustrated) sing-song tone and continued, "Look I'm GLaD you had fun, but we are on a mission here! I can't see inside of these vintage test chambers so I had no idea if you were safe in there. In the future just try to solve these thing as quickly as possible."

"You got it" Scootaloo answered for the group, "So what do we do next?"

"This was the last test in the testing sphere, I managed to pipe, well technically vent, you past all but one of the test chambers in this sphere. Just follow the catwalk."

The crusaders did as they were told, proceeding in a single file line down the rusted walk way. The rusted catwalk took a sharp 90 degree angle turn to the right, revealing a similarly rusted circular elevator.

"Aww" Sweetie Belle groaned. "Not these things again."

"These vintage elevators are non-pneumatic and as such should provide a much less hazardous ride. I would suggest that you try to stand on two hooves for this one."

Apple Bloom trotted into the lift and experimentally reared up and leaned her back against the wall for support. "Yah, this could work," she said.

"Of course it will work, did you doubt me?"

"Well no Ah' just..."

"Apple Bloom 's in trouble," Scootaloo teased while assuming a position similar to Apple Bloom on the opposite side of the elevator.

"Subject Apple-Bloom is not in trouble. She is simply having her mental capabilities questioned."

"Ah' don't like that one much better!" the farm filly replied as Sweetie Belle entered the lift, which responded by automatically closing a rusted grate door and slowly moving up.

"Then I apologize. I will now attempt to make amends by stating that, while you are clearly the least intelligent of your friends, your intelligence is not that far from Scootaloo or Sweetie-Belle's intellectual level. Had you entered the test chamber on your own, you would also have been the smartest test subject on record."

"Well Ah' guess that makes up for it a little," the earth pony said while still putting on a face that betrayed how crossed and offended she was. The elevator moved through the roof of the sphere, causing total darkness to envelope the pod.

=====

The lift came to a sudden stand still. The elevator door opened itself, which caused the leaning fillies to fall out onto there bellies with more groans.

Scootaloo blinked twice as she took in the space the crusaders found themselves in. Unlike Leirica's massive chamber, it was far too big to be called a room, yet still lack the absence of definition to be compared to the endless underground sprawl of the new facility. There were at least six rusted spheres hanging in the space, three above and three bellow.There may have been more spheres, but all the little pegasus could see was the six before object definition was lost in a gray haze. Unlike the similarly low lit upper facility, there were walls, big walls of extremely uneven stone, suggesting that the test shaft had been rather carelessly punched into the bedrock. The lift's exit was mounted only a few feet above the sphere, a distance which was far outside Scootaloo's hoof reach, but still felt practically like contact when compared to the scale of the abandoned mine.

"Thank you for completing Aperture Science's repulsion gel testing course, war hero, olympian, or astronaut. We're going to make sure this stuff is good and ready before we release it into the wild, but remember should you wish there will always be a limo waiting for you."

The orange filly got to her booted hooves and looked toward the direction the noise came from, The catwalk the elevator ended at lead directly into a cement structure of some kind. It lacked windows and had cement angular walls, upon one of which the number 1957 was painted. Beyond the door of the structure, there appeared to be a lobby of some kind that was decorated with carpets and comfortable looking chairs.

"My schematics of this old place must be out of date, which isn't surprising. I thought I was pumping you into sphere number two when really you ended up in sphere number three, that works out for the better though. The old nuclear reactor should be right up there by that number that says 1973, portal up to there and then we'll find it." Sure enough, a little higher up the deep mineshaft, there was a similar windowless cement structure with the number respectively changed.

Apple Bloom fired one portal at the number seven and then the other on the section of catwalk accessible wall on the overhanging building in front of them.

"You are going to die if you walk through that series of portals."

"There ya' go insultin' me again."

"She's right," Sweetie Belle said. "There is no horizontal surface on the other side." The unicorn placed one portal above an exposed catwalk leading from one exterior door to the other, then put her second portal on the exposed section of wall at their level where AppleBloom had placed her second. "See." The alabaster filly never sounded as though she was criticizing her fellow crusader, only pointing out a flaw.

"Very good Sweetie Belle." The unicorn beamed with pride while Apple Bloom flattened her ears against her head in frustration.

"Let's just jump through the portal and find the.... thing before we get into a fight." Scootaloo reasoned. Her friends both just nodded in agreement.

Actually jumping through was scarier than she had anticipated, Sweetie Belle's portal was about a foot above the walkway, which was separated by about a filly's length of space from the wall. The half second in the air above what might as well be an infinite fall was terrifying to say the least. The intense creaking groan the highly deteriorated catwalk made was no reassurance either. Scootaloo walked out of the way of her fellow portal going crusaders and tried not to look down through the rusted grate. There was nothing wrong being a pegasus and afraid of heights when you couldn't fly, right? With two more pained groans of metallic agony, the other two fillies landed on the catwalk.

"Good job. head through that opened vault door directly in front of you. "

Despite noticing said vault door seconds before GLaDOS even spoke, Scootaloo glanced over her should to confirm that the other door of the catwalk was sealed shut. She and friends trotted down the catwalk, each hoof beat crushing then stirring up a cloud of the brittle rust coating the catwalk and occasionally causing another heat stopping creak.

The vault door looked like something off a warship, a large rectangular outwardly bulging plate of metal mounted in hinges. Getting it to move would be a fruitless effort for sure, but it had already opened so that there was just enough space for the crusaders to squeeze through one at a time. Much to all their relief, there was a proper hallway on the other side of the bulkhead, decorated on all surfaces with orange and white squares of linoleum, as opposed to another haplessly suspended catwalk.

"walk to the end of this hallway. Then enter the door on your right."

"This sure is a lot a' complicated work to get our cutie marks," Apple Bloom noticed trotting down the dimly lit hallway

"Well its better then waiting," Scootaloo replied.

"And besides we're sure to get them this way, and nothing else we already head to do has gotten us our marks yet," Sweetie Belle added. "So we're probably saving time by doing this."

"Exactly." Now the AI's voice seemed to be coming from behind the door near the end of the hallway she had directed them to.

"Ah' don't know, all this seems awfully un-cutie mark related to me."

"Exactly which part of the cutie mark factory concept do you not understand?"

"The part where this place is a cutie mark factory," the yellow filly replied.

"Exactly what do you mean by that?"

"Ah' mean, We haven't seen anything cutie mark related this whole time, and Ah' don't know how you could simply build cutie marks."

"Since cutie marks are magic, I would imagine you make them with magic." The unicorn pointed out.

"If one considers science magic, then yes. These tests are built to decide what your special talent is by evaluating your personality, or at leas they were built for that before they were left to rot. Open the door to your right."

The suddenness of this last command made all three crusaders think for a few seconds before actually facing the door. Sweetie Belle tried the handle only for the handle to break off and the door to slowly swing open.

The lights of the room flickered on revealing a medium sized octagonal room, smaller than the central chamber. The room was lined on seven sides with instruments of various types, the last side was connected to a small dust hall connecting the octagon to the door they had just opened. The crusaders rushed inside and individually began to examine the controls.

"What do all these buttons do?" asked Sweetie Belle.

"I will tell you as they become important. A small TV screen, came to life and started to display lines of green text. "Sweetie Belle, please sit at the station where the computer screen just activated.

"Sitting!" squealed the unicorn with delight as she hopped onto the stool built into the station.

"Please type the command, assignrolelocal/Ai004 with no spaces. Use a ballpoint pen if you have trouble manipulating the keys."

The alabaster filly grabbed a pen sitting by the console with her mouth and used it to push the appropriate keys. "Done!" she exclaimed after checking her entry over a few times.

"Press the enter key. The unicorn did so. "Good now sit at the station directly to your left. Apple-Bloom please man the console opposite the entrance that says, chief reactor operator on it."

"Oh boy I get to get to be the boss!" the orange filly exclaimed while jumping onto the station, which had a swivel chair to sit in unlike the others which had stools. The console had a much smaller orange monitor built into it,

"Press the green confirm button. Scootaloo, man the console with blinking blue light.
"

"Roger!" The pegasus exclaimed with a salute.

"Locate the big red button that says "SCRAM", press the button directly bellow it. Sweetie-Belle, locate the dial that says control rod extension length, set it to zero. Apple Bloom press the "confirm" button twice and the "ignore" button once in that order." All three fillies did as they were told.

"Sweetie-Belle and Scootaloo, locate the buttons on your consul that read "semi-automate" and push them. Apple-Bloom press the "confirm" button twice. " once again all three did as they were told. "Apple-Bloom, press the "override analogue" button." The yellow filly put once hoof to her chin and squinted her eyes for a brief moment to hunt down her target, then pounced upon a small black button.

"Very good my little ponies! We have now activated and fully automated one of our two goal nuclear reactors!"

"That was it?" Sweetie Belle asked, half complaining about the simplicity of the task.

"Ah' ain't complainin'," Apple Bloom offered.

"Me neither," Scootaloo added.

"This reactor was shut down due to using overly simple controls and using a higher degree fo automation than federal regulations allow. Can you believe that? Shutting something down for lack of human involvement. In any case, This reactor should bring us up to 10% of total full operation power levels."

"Wait it did that little? Aren't we only turning on two of these things?" The pegasus filly asked the ceiling.

"The other nuclear reactor is substantially larger.By itself it could provide 400% of standard testing levels."

"Well then why didn't we jus' turn on that one then?"

"The Aperture Science quad core nuclear fission reactor requires large volumes of distilled water to operate safely. I need the power from this reactor to create this Distilled Water and perform maintenance on the quad core reactor, as scheduled outages are rare and all nonactive times must be taken advantage of. "

"Well if you needed water why didn't you get it from, I don't know, a lake!" Sweetie Belle asked criticizingly at the Ai.

"Distilled water is very special type of water. It lacks the majority of contaminants found in regular water. I very seriously doubt that ponies have maintained the technological tier level to produce it. In any case while I make the DI water, we can figure out how to get you out of there."

"What?" all three asked in unison.

"I said I would cross that bridge when we came to it. Now just make yourselves comfortable and don't push anything while I think."

As always I am still looking for pre readers and appreciate all comments.

I will add a few more scenes, (some involving fluttershy) to this chapter before next update.

Chapter 0001 the fall.

==Central A.I. Automatic Reboot log==

-Entry: Attempt 306,984:

Central A.I. Restart initiated.

Ai connections: affirmative

Ai response: affirmative

Ai structural integrity: affirmative

Ai power connections: affirmative

Ai central breaker: failed

Checklist: dropped
Power-up: canceled

<Central Ai restart failure Comment |# 306,984|:

– Why? Why is this happening to me?>

-Shut-down initiated.
Automatic Reboot in 30 seconds
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“This was a great idea Apple Bloom!” Scootaloo said with excitement. “We almost never have the Cutie Mark Crusaders slumber party at your house.”

Needless to say slumber is far from what the trio was doing at the moment. They were all standing in a circle in Apple Bloom’s room while their sleeping bags were crumpled up unnoticed in a corner.

“Yah it’s usually at Rarity’s or my house,” Sweetie Belle commented, not bothering to clarify that Rarity and she did not live in the same house anymore or that those were two different places.

“Thanks guys! Ah’ jus’ know we’ll get our cutie marks tonight!” Apple Bloom replied to her friends.

“No you won’t because you should be sleeping!” sounded a voice from beyond Apple Bloom's bedroom. “Didn’t I just tell you three fillies to go to bed?!”

“AwWWwWWW, but Applejack…” all three fillies groaned.

“No buts! Now get some sleep!” Applejack sternly replied through the walls. No pony moved. “Ah’ don’t hear anypony getting in bed. Do I have to come up there?” Immediately the Cutie Mark Crusaders made as much noise as they could while diving into the three sleeping bags on Apple Bloom’s floor, completely ignoring the perfectly good, but outside the spirit of sleepover, bed in the corner of the room.

The ensuing silence told the fillies that Applejack was satisfied with their performance, though logically they would continue talking as fillies often do at sleep overs. “So what do you want to do now?,” Sweetie Belle enthusiastically whispered to her friends.

“Well I guess we can’t get our cutie marks tonight, unless getting our cutie marks involves being quiet…. or sleeping,” Apple Bloom replied.

“I know!” Scootaloo said. “We can talk quietly about things we can do tomorrow to get our cutie marks.”

“That sounds like a’ great idea,” the yellow earth pony whispered enthusiastically.

“Yes but, remember quietly,” the unicorn of the group added.

“We could try paper airplane making,” said the pegasus filly.

“Didn’t we try tha’ one last month,” Apple Bloom added in a whisper. “Ah’ know we should try Adventuring.”

“Adventuring?” both the other Crusaders’ said in tandem.

As they said it a noise like a strong wind began sound, but the fillies ignored it thinking it was just that, the wind. Besides by the age of ten most fillies, learn ignore sounds in the night, so as not to terrify themselves with their own curiously overactive imaginations.

“Yah adventuring, Ah’ mean we seem to do that all the time when we try to get our cutie marks, and we always have fun doing that even though we still haven’t got ‘em,” the young earth pony explained as the wind like sound got louder.

“ so what do you mean by go adventuring, I mean like do you have a specific adventure in mind,” Sweetie Belle asked, no longer whispering in order to be heard over the sound of the “wind.”

“Well Ah’ was thinkin’ we could have some kind of adventure in the Ever-“

“what? I can’t hear you!” Scootaloo shouted over what was becoming a deafening roar outside, somehow failing to notice that a deafening roar outside might be considered odd.

“Ah’ said that we could..” Apple Bloom tried said raising her voice without actually matching the shouting.

“What?!” both the other crusaders shouted.

“AH, SAID I WAS THINKING MAYBE WE COULD HAVE AN ADVENTURE IN…!”

CRASH

A loud crunching sound interrupted the little farm filly and knocked all three crusaders on their backs, no small feat considering Ponies are quadrupeds. A nanosecond later, the room filled with smoke.

“What was that!?” Scootaloo asked to anypony who would hear.

“What in the hell was that sound.” This time it was Applejack shouting again. “Ah’m commin’ up there!”

“Yes please, come up here!” her little sister called. The three fillies heard ever step Applejack took on her way to Apple Bloom’s room, and saw nothing but swirling smoke the whole time.

The door to Apple Bloom’s room swung open with a fury unmatched by that of the sorrel hells. In the same instant, the smoke saw its chance at freedom, and was thus sucked away into the angry farm pony’s face while it rushed to explore the rest of the farmhouse.

“What did ya'll do this time?” Applejack’s anger dissipated into concern for her sister and her friends.

“We didn’t do anything.” Apple Bloom coughed. Enough smoke had been emancipated to finally see through the bedroom.

“look it was that thing!” Sweetie belle pointed to center of the room with one hoof. There was a hole in the ceiling, and from it a metal sphere larger than a pony's head hung from several ropes bunched together that were attached to something that was still on the roof. The sphere seemed to have one freewheeling glowing green eye, though the rest of its anatomy was too hard to make out in the smoke.

“Howdy there pretty ladies,” the new comer said in an accent not wholly unlike the one Apple family spoke in. “Name’s Rick. I am an Adventure sphere. Now did I hear somebody say something about an adventure?”

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Princess Luna sighed as the first pink rays of her sister’s sun began to obscure the night. It had been a wonderful night for stargazing, so the Princess of the night had naturally taken the opportunity to admire her work from her palace room’s balcony. It had become a habit for her to inspect her work near dawn; she must have done well because it had been a beautiful night. Luna was still always impressed, as much with the objects she hadn’t placed in the night sky as much as she had, like the exceptional amount of unscheduled shooting stars that had appeared last night, or what would in five minutes be last night.

Luna lifted her eyes from her telescope and quickly scanned the star scape one last time with her own eyes. With that she telekinetically snapped the telescope into its folded storage position and turned around to head inside to head inside. “Oh well at least I have a nice day to look forward to, since Celestia won’t be too busy”, thought Luna taking a few steps toward the balcony door. With that she should have forgotten about the sky and gotten ready for her day with her sister, but something, some inexplicable inkling, told the midnight colored Alicorn to look behind her. The instant she did she noticed a particularly bright shooting star, nothing unusual given that night’s particular plethora of them. It took her several seconds to realize what was really odd about it, that it was lasting for several seconds. That and it was moving very slowly, both traits normal shooting stars did not have.

“Meteor!” the princess realized, not taking her eyes off the object. “But wait that doesn’t make sense. If it was a meteorite then it should have still hit the ground by now. Unless it’s a comet, but we hath not scheduled a comet for another fortnight," the midnight Alicorn pondered. The shooting star suddenly stopped moving, or half of it did. The mysterious object had split into tow objects each half as bright as the original, one staying behind the other moving in a random direction.

“Oh it was meteorite and it split in half, and it must have appeared to stop because its moving directly at me.” It actually took Luna a moment to realize the significance of this fact. “Ok, so its headed at us, well probably not directly at me, the chances are incredibly small, but probably still at Canterlot. Somepony could still get hurt!” That wouldn’t stand for Luna, as co-ruler of Equestria it was her sworn duty to keep her subjects safe from harm!

“Okay let us see… what did I do before in these situations… Ah yes an attraction spell, combined with a deflection shield. That will destroy it,” Luna said aloud. A blue aura coved the Alicorn’s horn for a moment, and the meteorite began to change path’s being pulled strait to Luna. In a few more seconds it would hit her. “O.K. now for the shield spell, and..” Luna never finished or cast the shield spell, a voice coming from the direction of the meteor had cut her off.

“Catch me! Catch me! Catch me! Catch me! CATCH ME!” shouted the falling space object.
Luna immediately abandoned the idea of destroying the talking meteor. She had about a quarter of a second to come up with a plan B, All the while still hearing the … thing’s pleas to catch it. Without really thinking about it Luna telekinetically grabbed the object. It didn’t weigh, to much but was moving at extremely high velocity, consequently a sensation as though she had actually been struck by the object filled her entire body. The meteor, which she could now see was actually a metal ball, stopped within five feet of the Alicorn, suspended in a blue Aura.

An eyelid like port at what was assumed to be the front of the ball opened revealing an eclectic blue iris. “IIIII... am not dead. I’m not dead!” said the sphere happily. The blue light panel that was the thing's eye looked around happily. This motion was accomplished by a series of pistons mounted to the other end of the sphere. The whole middle section seemed to be able to rotate freely like a wheel, but could not move side to side like the “eye” could. The Princess could easily see all this through two holes on opposite ends of the sphere that revealed its internal workings. The ball also had two handles around the eye at the supposed front end, but other than that lacked appendages.

“But I am floating… and I don’t know why,” it continued.

“That would be our magic, citizen,” Luna pointed out.

“Wha- Ahhhhh!!!! AHHHHHH!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! AH!!!!!!! AHH!!!!! AHHHH!!!!!! AHHHHHHH!!!!! MUTANT HORSE!!!! AHHHH!!!!!! MUTANT HORSE!!! DON’T KILL ME!! PLEASE DON’T KI-“ the blue eyed sphere yelled.

“WE COMMAND THEE TO BE SILENT!” Luna shouted in her royal Canterlot voice at the ball.

“Okay, Okay, just be calm! I’m not talking; although I just talked there, but its all the same just be calm, crazy mutant horse. Oh just talked again didn’t I. Damn It Wheatley!”

“Crazy? Mutant? Dost thou have the faintest idea who we are?”

“Um I have to admit, I do not have any clue who you are. But - but that’s ok everything is fine because errr.. because… We could do some detective work to umm figure that on out!” the ball said while looking up and down in an analog of a nod.

“Ok you look like some kind of freaky talking Unicorn with wings, but that doesn’t mean anything I could be on a talking Unicorn planet now that I think about it, been in space long enough. Oh so you’re an alien. That makes sense, mystery solved. Well in that case my name is Wheatley I am from the planet Earth. The Earth is inhabited by pink squishy things called humans, who are under appreciative, smelly, and I am sure not as smart as flying Unicorns. Ok so that’s one thing I know about you, you’re an alien. So lets see what else. What else. Oh you're blue, but don’t seem to be choking. Not that I could really do much about it if you were I mean its not like I have hands. Oh also you seem to us the word We when you refer to yourself, which means… OH my God! you must be in league with HER! DON’T KILL ME. DON’T KILL ME. I swear I didn’t mean to take over the entire the facility, I was just trying to escape with her! Well the other her, never did get that lady’s name, she was always so quiet, and…” Thankfully, Luna prevented the moron from getting to far into another one of his sad, pathetic, misguided pleas for mercy.

“STOP NOW,” the princess of the night commanded.

“OK, OK, stopping… now.” Wheatley replied while cringing, or well as close to cringing as his anatomy would allow, within the blue aura.

“I’m not going to kill thee,” Luna said after a few seconds of awkward silence. Wheatley, as it called itself, still didn’t talk. “I’m sorry if we.. er I seemed a bit… harsh. Perhaps we can start over? My name is princess Luna.”

“My name is King Wheatley.”

“King? Really?”

“Well no not really, I just thought we were giving ourselves royal titles for fun. I was sort of a king though for a while, what a bloody mess that turned out to be. Oh but you’re really a princess then! Princess of the planet flying Unicorn thing..ia. Sorry that err name worked out, worked out much better in my head. Oh so what are, what are, you the princess of then?"

“Equestria,” Luna said with confusion. It was truly sinking in that this thing was truly not pony made. She had originally thought it was yet another technological break through the pony had made while on her forced stay on the moon. She had simply attributed her not understanding how this … thing worked to her thousand year out of date understanding of technology, in much the similar way that Cameras and Microwaves astounded her. Now though the night princess truly grasped that she was telekinetically levitating something nopony had seen before. “And winged Unicorns, well most of us call my species Alicorns, are not common among pony’s, my sister and I are among the only ones left. But what arst thee exactly, Wheatley?

“Oh um, Aperture Science personality core love. ‘Personality core’, or just simply ‘core,’ or even ‘sphere’ are also acceptable terms,” Wheatley replied all the while moving his eye plate. After a brief pause he continued again. “Oh but Equestria, why didn’t I think of that. It seems so obvious to me, you being a horse princess and all and, Eque-um err Eque something also meaning horse.”

“We prefer the term ponies.”

“Ponies… well seems perfectly legit.” Wheatley paused again before going off on another tangent. “Oh Ponies! Plural there are more of you! I just deduced that there with my brain by me-self. So there are lots of ponies but not a lot of Ali-thingys-“

“Alicorns.”

“Alicorns. So by those two things I am guessing there are non alicorn ponies.”

“Yes there are.” Luna replied trying to sound patient with the Sphere’s rather obvious deductions. Luna remembered what time it was “Sorry, but before we continue speaking I have to lower the moon, thou wouldn’t mind would you?”

“[color=rblue]Lower the moon? Oh OHHH You’re an insa… uh hmmm. I mean no I wouldn’t mind. Wouldn’t mind at all.” Wheatly seemed to shift tones to a slower more annunciated voice. “You just go on and lower the moon you special talking pony. I’ll just watch from on the ground… if you would be so kind as to put me over there on the ground, over there on the ground. But entirely up to you, just do whatever you want I’ll be fine with it.”

Luna just nodded as she set Wheatly down, noticing he apparently lacked any means of self-propulsion. Without any of her usual flair she simply closed her eyes and focused on the moon lowering behind the horizon. Simultaneously the Sun rose above the horizon and burned the night away leaving shades of orange and red in its place. Suddenly a new voice rang out.
“SPACE? NO SPAAAACE! DON’T GO SPACE! Whhhhy SPAAACE whhhhhyhhyhhhhhhhyhhhhhhhhhhhy!?"

“He’s still alive!?” Wheatley questioned while furiously shifting his eye plate around to look for the new speaker. “And second, you can actually lower the moon!?”
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Chapter 0004 into the Aperture!

Chapter 0004

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Hello, and welcome to the Aperture Science computer aided enrichment center. If you were not aware before, this facility is currently in a state of severe emergency. Although an Aperture Science emergency information associate has yet to issue a semi-official statement on this facility wide emergency, this protocol was activated shortly after an Inter Dimensional facility transfer. However, do not panic. An apocalyptic emergency protocol has been activated, and these prerecorded messages will guide you in your adventure through the enrichment center, so that science can still be done, even in the advent of social, political, economic, environmental, or structural collapse. If you are a native inhabitant of this dimension who does not understand this message due to linguistic barriers, God help you.

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This sucks,” Scootaloo thought as she pushed forward on the mop for what felt like the zillionth time. Funny thing about a fire, you don’t think It would do that much damage besides burning stuff, however even a small one gets soot and smoke stains everywhere. Scootaloo had decided to take on the soot that had condensed on the floor. Sweetie Belle took the smoke stains on the ceiling, as being Rarity’s sister had taught her a thing or thirty about battling the vial menace of stains. Apple Bloom took on the walls, which weren’t in that bad of shape, and all her bed, luckily Apple Bloom didn’t keep most of here possessions in her room lest the whole cleaning process take even longer than it already had. Fortunately, said process was drawing to a close.

“For Celestia’s sack, we’ve ‘we’ve spent two hours at this!” Apple Bloom lamented while feather dusting the walls.

“I know it’s been two hours! That’s two hours we could have spent Crusading with Rick.” Scootaloo muttered through the broom handle in her mouth.

“Sack?” Sweetie Belle asked confusedly atop a ladder the trio had erected so as to reach the smoke stains. Her weapons of choice were a bottle of Ka-blam magical stain remover (sponsored by Billy Mares) and a wet sponge.

“Yah Celestia’s sack, Ah’ hear the grown up ponies say it all the time,” The Earth Filly explained.

“I think you mean sake,” the little white unicorn explained while blasting another smoke stain with the full aerosol wrath of Billy Mares.

“really, cause I am pretty sure they were talkin’ bout this burlap sack that Celestia has, and...”

“that’s ridiculous.”

“Hey, point is we need to finish this thing up, not argue,” Scootaloo interjected. "Maybe arguing really is our special talent," she mused.

“We weren't arguing. I was simply correcting here,” Sweetie Belle stated.

“Yah we were,” the Apple Bloom argued.

“No we weren’t

“Yes we were.”

“No we weren’t”

“Yes we were.” After making the last point the yellow filly turned around and gazed at her flank. “Aww still no arguing Cutie Mark.”

‘This thing again?” The alabaster unicorn remarked.

“Hey off topic. So lets get cleaning, then we need to figure out what to do about that hole.” the orange pegasus said.

All three fillies groaned, even Scootaloo, as they got back to work.

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Remember to adhere to all Aperture Science facility transfer procedures until an Aperture Science foreign affairs specialist or false automatic alarm technician terminates this protocol. Please remember to pick up your own personal copy of Russian Life, a Foreigners Guide or any other applicable literature from your assigned Aperture Science post-transfer integration associate.

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Princess Luna trotted down the halls of the Canterlot royal palace holding Wheatley the personality core in her deep blue telekinetic aura. Somehow the little sphere had found a way to turn himself within her telekinetic grip, despite laking the appendages or manipulation of magic that would normally be required to do so. Wheatley was certainly using this ability, as he was constantly moving to look at everything and everypony the duo passed by. Luna noticed, that with the sphere, twice the amount of palace staff looked shocked to see her. Nopony asked any questions though; it wasn't their place to question a princess after all, even if that princess, for some reason, had a robot with her.

"Wow this place is huge! " the blue eyed core exclaimed excitedly. " It would be great to be king, oh wait we already tried that. So anyway, do your parents own the whole palace?"

"No, my parents hath died millennia ago," Luna stated coldly, recalling a rather gruesome unpleasant memory.

"Oh, well if it makes you feel any better some of my best friends are orphans," Wheatley said with a note of genuine sympathy in his voice.

"If thou art wondering who is queen and king, that would be nopony." The alicorn shifted her thoughts away from the past by mentally wondering about Wheatley. "Does he even have parents? Are these best friends cores or these humans he hast no ceased speaking of? What dost his planet look like? Do they have fun where he comes from? "

"Well if there is no King and Queen then how are you a princess?"

"My sister and I rule together, neither one of us wanted to use the word queen."

"Oh wow you rule the whole damn country then. Well technically its half the country, I guess. But anyway I never thought you were the flippin' co-head of state! I mean what are the chances that I fall down on one of the two most powerful beings on this planet?" Luna decided not to point out that she had guided his fall to her. "So princess lets get started on that manual data transfer!" Wheatley then went silent as if expecting Luna to begin something.

"Uhhhhh," was all the midnight blue alicorn managed at first. "Data transfer? Data transfer? what in the sorrel hells is a data transfer? Data was information. So logically a data transfer should be something close to a story right?

"You remember the whole 'you tell me about ponies and yourself, I tell you and your sister about my dimension and meself' thing right?" the core said before she could produce an answer.

"Oh, right. That," Luna said as she rounded a corner leading to another long pink hallway. "Exactly what dost thou want to know about ponies right now. There are tomes upon tomes of literature on the subject, believe me I know. So is there anything that thou wishes to learn before thee can acquire tine-self a book."

"Oh, books," Wheatley mumbled dejectedly.

"Is there something wrong? Thou appears to be displeased. Thou enjoys books, don't thee?"

"Oh no! I. lOVE. books. Can't get enough of them books, them books. I, erh, just LOVE the sound being turned, and what not. So obviously not a moron, 'cause morons don't love books. Oh the other century or so ago I finished the hardest book, Machiavelli. Have you read that one? "

Of course the name rang a bell with Luna, but that didn't mean she recognized it out right. "Do thou'st mean Marechiavelli's The Princess?

"Wha'? No I mean Machiavelli. It's the name of the book about... some really complicated stuff about power, and... what not. I would LOVE to tell you more about it but it's really uhhh... human intensive stuff, so I can't tell you about because you don't know anything about humans yet. Could get a bit technical.

"Ummm, hmmm then no, we have not read that one then, bet let us return to ponies. Since thou'rst so eager to read about them later, what questions dost thee have about us ponies for right now.

" Ummm, oh I got one. How manny types of ponies are there slash what are slash what makes them all unique. Ok that's three questions but they are all kinda' related, so i'll just make that my first ehh super-question.

"I can answer that," Luna replied enthusiastically. This was easy enough. "Ok so there are three types of ponies disincluding, alicorns. First there are the earth ponies, from what you told me they are more like the horses of your world than the other two..."

Applejack bucked an apple tree and watched as the rain of fruit collected in the buckets she had so carefully set out.
Suddenly the red stream off apples was tainted with a blur of orange, white, yellow, and host of other minor colors. Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, and Apple Bloom materialized from this motion blur.

"O.K. sis' we're all done with the room," An enthusiastic Apple Bloom squeaked, "now can we go see Twilight?"

A flurry of questions entered Applejack's mind, like' when did my sister and her friends learned to teleport?' 'How did they fix the hole in the ceiling?' and 'Why did they want to play was a sentient piece of space debris'. All the neurons in the farm pony's brain held an emergency summit to decide what do with this sudden influx of questions, apparently coming to the concession to simply through them in the shredder and get back to their jobs.

"Uhhh, Ok," She managed.

"Great, I'll get the scooter you guys go get Rick," the pegasus that had not seconds before been a blur of orange said as she dashed off again.

The other three found the adventure sphere in a small patch of burnt grass. He was laying on his side, as much as spheres have such, by a pile of empty apple buckets.

"Hey, there pretty lady," the core said regarding Apple Jack with his one eye out of his back port. "While you were gone I got into a fight with a spider. Man there was so much action! The classic fight of beast vs. machine. Then the little eight legged bugger couldn't handle the wrath of my handles and scurried off. Oh hey guess what, I have a great idea for an adventure. See I got a call from the boss lady last night, and..." unfortunately Applejack didn't question this mention of a call, it was the least bizarre thing the sphere had said since his fall

"you're coming with us," Apple Jack flatly said as she lifted Rick by the handle with her mouth.

"Where are we going? Is it on another adventure? That would be so awesome if it was another adventure! Your bedroom is another more than acceptable answer. Applejack merely sighed and hoped the two fillies behind her didn't hear that last part.

Scootaloo zoomed in on her scooter and did a hockey stop before Applejack could walk ten feet. That little filly was certainty destined to be the next great speedster of Ponyville.

"O.k. A.J you can just put Rick in wagon if you want." Apple Jack did so, that thing was kinda heavy. Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom jumped in the wagon after Rick, each putting on a helmet.

"No helmet for me then? All right then, sounds dangerous. this is great!"

"Too Twilight's!" Scootaloo shouted as fluttered her wings and her scooter bolted forward.

"Yah!" all three passengers in the wagon shouted with glee as the wagon scooter assembly disappeared in a cloud of dust.

"Hey get back here! Slow down!" Applejack commanded to deaf ears. With another groan the orange farm pony took off after the wagon.

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If the passage through Aperture Science intra-dimensional portals causes you to experience headache, nausea, or severe disorientation simply lay down in an area safe from testing equipment and the circumstances that caused this emergency and wait for the symptoms to pass. Please note that since your testing is unsupervised, if you are injured in any way, seek immediate medical self help.

There was stitch in Applejack's side as she saw the top of Twilight's tree library rise over the horizon. She was still amazed at how fast Scootaloo could go even when weighed down by three other passengers.

"Oh hey there sis," Apple Bloom said while leaning on her friend's scooter. She and the other crusaders were just taking off there helmets. Apparently Apple Jack hadn't been as far behind as she had thought. "Well let's go in." all three cutie mark crusaders and the one sphere (carried by Sweetie Belle) filed into the library.

"But wait I still have to.. huh. yell at... you for... Awe, buck it!" Applejack gave up any hope of scolding them for running off without her and pushed open the door to the Library as well.

"Oh, hi Applejack." To Applejack's surprise it was Rarity and not Twilight who said this. AJ scanned the book shelf lined room and found that Spike was the only one besides rarity and herself in it. Gosh darn it! How do those fillies move so fast? she asked her self internally. Spike couldn't answer the question of were the three fillies and their new friend had disappeared to because he was to busy staring at Rarity, so AJ just decided to let the Alabaster unicorn keep talking.

"I was just here to ask Twilight if she would care to join Fluttershy and me at the spa for our weekly appointment," Rarity continued, "when our sisters and Scootaloo ran in here with the most peculiar metal ball to ask Twilight something. They are in the back room now finding a bestiary. Say Applejack you look rather tense is something wrong?

"Ah've been' having the wildest mornin' ever actually."

"Oh well I'm sorry to hear that. Say, would you fancy to join us at the spa. I know you don't care for 'prettyfying' and all, but you really do look like you could use a nice massage. The three of us would be simply delighted if you attended," Rarity offered.

"Huva bluh bla huh blah blah," spike stammered, unaware that he was talking at all and had in fact not been spoken to.

"Ya' know Ah'll take that offer," Applejack answered after a moment of thought.

"Oh splendid," the fashionista squealed as she clapped her for hooves together. "We can invite Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie too, then it can be our little get together for all six of us."

Suddenly the door to the library's back room opened and the three crusaders, their new friend, and Twilight Sparkle trotted out. Twilight was levitating a large brown leather (logically very hard to come by in Equestria) covered book that sailed back and forth through the air to avoid the jumping fillies trying to grab it.

"Girls, settle down," the lavender mare commanded. "Just what do you want with this thing anyway?" She looked around to see now had two of her friends in the library. "Hello Applejack, what brings you he-"

"We want the book so we can prove to Applejack that Rick's not dangerous so that he can take us on an adventure and we can get adventure cutie marks," Apple Bloom interrupted with a words per minute rate that was so fast, it's a suprise it didn't perform a sonic rainboom.

"I'm sorry who's Rick?" Rarity asked.

"That would be me Gorgeous," the sphere said

"It can talk!" the white unicorn exclaimed, putting her for hoof to her forehead and mock fainting dramatically.

"Indeed I can beautiful," said the sphere. "I am also skilled at the arts of jujitsu, taikwondo, karate, larate, and bedroom."

"Well I...I..I don't know what to say ... about that," Rarity stammered about the last comment. "Except for 'no.'"

"Awww, come on gorgeous! Afraid ya can't handle my awesome spherical might?"

"Oh how crude," the unicorn wheezed dramatically covering her mouth with one hoof and pantomiming vomiting. "I could just-"

"Hey now one talks to Rarity like that but me!" Spike interrupted, suddenly waking up from his apparent daydream.

"So, it's a fight you want! come here you little lizard! Rick vigorously moved his handles up and down as if that would get him any closer to beating up Spike. "Grrr, If I only had hands I would strangle you!" the ball grumbled just bellow any pony's hearing range. Spike rose to the challenge and jumped within clawing distance of Rick. The two starred each other down for a minute, neither daring to make the first move in the epic battle to the death the would surely-

"As far as I can tell he is not in this bestiary, and probably not even technically alive" Twilight stated. Every pony in the room shifted their attention to her. Apparently she had taken the time provided by the distraction. "There is nothing in these even close to his description in the table of contents." Speed reading was an early talent of Twilight's. "That doesn't surprise me though 'Rick' doesn't even look alive, he looks like he is a really complex machine. In theory it is possible to build a machine so complex it can think like a pony. Oh this could be big! What if he wasn't built by ponies! This could prove so manny scientific theories that i don't even know where to begin..."

"Twilight, focus," Sweetie Belle demanded. "We can deal with the science later, all we need to know is if he is safe enough to play with." The pint-sized unicorn drew out her words as if to emphasis the importance of this statement.

"Uhhhh, I-I-I guess so," Twilight stammered, horrified with the idea of playing with what could be a major scientific break through. "He doesn't have any appendages or weapons on him, so its not like he can physically harm you."

"Great thanks Twi'!" Apple Bloom shouted. In an instant the three fillies were mobile. Sweetie belle grabbed Rick by the handles as they moved toward the door.

"See ya' later pretty pony the green eyed ball said toward Rarity before he and the filies had disappeared behind the Library's door. Nopony in the left Library moved or talked for a bout a minute while they contemplated what just happened.

"Did I just let your sisters take away a priceless artifact to go play with?" Twilight Sparkle asked Rhetorically.

"Did I just let my sister go play with a sex addicted bowling ball?" The other unicorn asked with more concern.

"Now ya'll know how my mornin' s been like," Applejack groaned.

Hello[-(˚)-]Friend

"So what do we need for this adventure Rick?" Apple Bloom asked while hopping in the back of Scootaloo's wagon, while said pegasus powered the who assembly forward with a jolt. The farm filly had one hoof pressed down against one of Rick's handles, to keep the sphere from rolling around in the back of the wagon, as spheres often do when even a minor forces is exerted upon them, and the forces anypony or sphere would experience while ridding with Scootaloo through Ponyvile town center could hardly be described as minor.

"Ok so this time I got a list, lets see..." Rick seemed to glance at a non-existant list to his lower left. "We need some canteens of water (preferably adventure style), headlamps, 200 ft. of rope, a grappling hook, and a map of all under ground caves around Ponyville and under... something called the Everfree forest." Rick seemed to squint extra hard to be sure he was reading the non-existant text right.

"Were are we supposed to get that stuff from get all that stuff from?" Scootaloo asked.

"Adventurers R-US?," Rick offered hopefully.

"Thas not a real store!" the earth filly notified.

"Dang."

"Hey! Look at that!" Sweetie Belle commanded, pointing to a new shop on the ponyville storefront.

Nestled between tightly between its two neighboring buildings, a store named 'Equestrian outdoors' presented two large picture windows on opposite sides of its single door that displayed its varied sales items. On the left side was a myriad of camping supplies arranged around a fake fire; to be more accurate, the display contained anything one could possibly conceive of needing on a camping trip. The most realistic piece of the charade was a small plastic tent held aloft by two moderately sized poles of curved fiberglass that clearly showed a space age sleeping bag and a small portable TV inside. Outside this, the fake ground was littered with multiple kinds of fancy portable stoves, various models of overly fancy folding chairs, high tech sleek modern gadgets of every possible use, and even a portable weather station.

The Left window and its neoprene and nylon camp out didn't hold the crusaders' plus guest's attention though. The right window display didn't try to emulate a real scene, but simply showed a number of products that looked like they came from perhaps an old safari. The outdoor survival gear in this window was colored with a shade light olive drab and a host of mild earthy tones or else exposed wood or dull unpolished metals. There where dull green painted aluminum canteens, a tan canvass harness equipped with two large saddlebags on eater side, a coil of rope made from genuine natural fibers, and the cap the vintage pyramid, one or tow big bronze plated compasses, several classic safari hats was various antique looking replica attachments. Explaining the reasoning behind all this was a large cardboard cutout of Daring Do that mentioned something about a sale related to the release of the latest book in the series.

None of the soon to be adventures really read through it thought, they were too excited by the fact they had found something that could be called an 'adventure store' right there in Ponyville!

"Holy crap this looks awesome!

"To the adventure store!" Scootaloo shouted, making an abrupt right turn toward the storefront.

"Wait but we don't have any bits." Sweetie Belle pointed out. The pegasus shifted her weight and the scooter did a sharp U-turn, nearly spilling the contents of the attached back wagon.

"Then to Sweetie Belle's house!"

"Hey! Why does it have to be my money!"

"Because ya mentioned it, duh." Apple Bloom jumped in while swirling her hoof around the top of her head.

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Please note that buzzing sound at the back of your Intra dimensional portal device. This noise is the cooling fan that keeps the black hole powering the device from overheating. If you ever hear this buzzing noise stop: Please disassemble the device and locate and remove the singularity explosion estimation ring; set the power module on the ground and immediately start running away from the power module with all salvageable portions of the device while using the singularity explosion estimation ring to estimate the absolute minimum safe distance from explosion. You will receive a cash reward based upon the percentage of the device salvage after the damage created from the blast has been contained, unless you have somehow caused the fan failure.

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"So we're at the Ever-free forest. Wha's next Rick?" Apple Bloom asked jumping out the Scooter wagon after a successful shopping trip. Indeed they were on the edge of the ever free forest, only a few blocks away from Fluttershy's cottage. Each of three fillies were now dressed as near spitting images of Daring Do, each donning a safari hemet with an attached headlamp and added chinstrap, two olive drab saddle bags like the one they had seen in the store window, a matching green short sleeved shirt, and a tan canvass colored canteen.

"My adventure sense tells me that the opening of the cave with the adventure in it is two hundred feet that way." The sphere said spinning his eye around and peering directly into the forest.

"Well lets go," Scootaloo said impatiently. "Cutie Marks here we come!" the orange pegasus shouted as she ran right into the deadly Everfree Forrest.

"Can you simply run into the Everfree Forest?" Sweetie Belle asked the other remaining Crusader.

Apple Bloom merely shrugged before picking up Rick by the handle with her mouth and running after her.

Sweetie Belle just stared at the tree line where her friends had disappeared for a moment. Finally she decided she didn't want to be the only blank flank in the trio and ran in after them.

"Hey! Hey guys wait up!" Sweetie Belle called. She had been running for several minutes and had no idea if she was still going in the right direction. Even though the Forrest was much safer in the day than it was at night, Sweetie Belle had the feeling that if she stopped she would be eaten. Suddenly she heard something that sounded like indistinct pony shouting. "Hold on guys I'm coming!" she yelled back. There up ahead! A light, no a clearing! They had to be there! Sweetie Belle ran as fast as her little hooves could carry her. The trees suddenly gave way a grassy clearing surrounding an unforrested small hill.

"There you Sweetie Belle," Apple Bloom called from the top of the hill. Sweetie Belle didn't stop running.

"Yah what took you Sweetie Belle?" Scootaloo added.

Sweetie Belle skidded to a stop in front of them. "But I thought... you... I heard yelling and Whaa-?'"

"Slow Down you're not making sense." Apple Bloom requested.

Sweetie Belle took in a deep breath before speaking. "Ok so when I ran into forrest after you guys, I kept feeling like I was being watched so I kept running, and then I thought I heard some pony yelling."

"Well we weren't yelling so it must have all been your imagination," Scootaloo said flatly, "Anyway come check this out." It was at this time that Sweetie Belle noticed the Apple Bloom and Scootaloo were standing at the edge of a giant rectangular pit, easily wide enough the throw the whole of carousel boutique down, if one had the desire or capacity to do so. As Sweetie Belle crept closer to the edge she could see that is was lined with large gray stone bricks that were covered with vines. There was apparently no bottom to this gigantic well, it just disappeared into an inky black void.

"Pretty cool right! Now we just have to find a way to get to the bottom without...

"See told you where there is one filly there are always bound to be more," a new male voice called out. "You just have to be patient." The fillies and one core whirled around to see a pack of three wolves (not of the timber variety) standing in a 'V' formation at the bottom of the clearing. The wolf closest to them was the smallest and the one that had apparently spoke. To his left was a slightly larger wolf with a scare over her right eye and the only girl of the trio. The wolf to his right was larger than the both of them combined, and had a guilty look on his face and his tale between his legs.

"Never should have doubted you, boss," the scar eyed she-wolf added in a sinisterly cool and calm voice. "Oh look, one for each of us."

"I don't know guys they seem awfully young," the biggest wolf whined. "shouldn't we just let them go. Plus they look cute too."

"Look," the Alpha said without taking his eyes off his potential prey, "wolves eat cute things, Lughead. That's the way it is. That's the way it's always been. Deal with it." This only produced a whimper from the oversized wolf. "Fine Beta and I got them cornered by ourselves anyway." He turned his full attention back to the fillies. "And don't even think about jumping in that pit. Did you know when most ponies fall to they die of an extremely painful heart attack before they ever hit the ground. If you don't run or fight we can be sure that you feel no pain."

"And besides," the she-wolf apparently named Beta added, "even if you survived the fall down there you would be killed by what's down there anyway. And come on, if your dead both ways, wouldn't you rather go the way that leaves us with full stomaches, so we don't just eat somepony else? That would be so selfish of you if you did jump, it's almost like murder."

"Quick grab my handles, I have a plan," Rick whispered to the crusaders. All three fillies looped their hooves through the cores handles silently, not daring to take their eyes away from the almost certain death standing just in front of them.

"Well, well, well you actually didn't try to run," Beta chuckled as she casually padded up Scootaloo, placing her snout inches away from the young filly's neck. "You know most fillies aren't so forward thinking as you. Anyway hold still and this won't hurt a bit." The wolf's breath felt as cold as ice to the trembling pegasus.

"Hey why is your name Beta? Rick asked off handedly."

"What the...? Is that a talking beach ball?" Alpha asked in shock.

"No, I'm an adventure sphere! Anyway so what's with the name?

"I'm Beta because I'm second in command," The she-wolf answered. "He is Alpha because he is the leader, that pile of garbage back there is named Lughead because he is one. Now lets get back too..."

A slight breeze blew over the clearing. An instant after this breeze started, chaos happened.

Rick's master plan was to fire his adventure parachute out his rear port, and use the breeze to fly away. Indeed with a starling "Bahh!" from the sphere the parachute was deployed and caught in the wind, lifting the three fillies and their friend into the sky, out of rang of the wolves.

"Haha try to get us now, ya dumb mutts!" Sweetie Belle called down while holding on to sphere with her wrists for dear life.

"Yah ya stupid dogs, ptthllththtlptth," Apple Bloom taunted, immediately followed by a raspberry.

"They got away boss," Lughead observed.

"You don't say." Alpha said while rolling his eyes.

"Hey guys," Scootaloo said while looking down, "we're sinking." The breeze had died down and now the parachute based flying machine had lost its source of power. Additionally, the breeze had blown them over the giant bottomless well in the earth, which like any impossibly deep hole, had significant down drafts. The giant rectangular pit looked like an open maw from directly above, drawing the quartet in. The trio of wolves had gathered shoulder to shoulder right at the edge of the ancient brick shaft to watch to ponies and their strange talking beach ball friend descend.

"You had to go commit suicide," Alpha said to the fillies when they returned to eye level, although this time with ten feet of bottomless pit separating them. "You just couldn't be good little ponies and let us have our meal."

"Well jokes on you mutts, cause we were going to jump into the pit anyway!

everyone, ponies and wolves, shot the parachute slung ball a look of confusion.

"The facility, which our adventure is going to take place in. is near the bottom of this ancient mysterious shaft. "

"Hey so because of ya'll," Apple Bloom said looking up the wolves. "We found a way down!"

"Yah good job with that one, idiots," Scootaloo yelled mockingly.

"Thank you morons!" Scootaloo yelled up at them sarcastically as the laughing crusaders and their friend drifted deeper as gravity and the down draft pulled them into the bowls of the earth.

Beta didn't decided to freak them all out before they drifted out of hearing rang and yelled, "Have fun being burned alive by the CHIMERA," at the giggling fillies.

"Chimera?" all three fillies said in confusion as they disappeared into the inky void. The sound muffled sound of the three fillies and the core arguing brought some satisfaction back to Beta, not ask much as she would have had from bitting into that little orange pegasus, but some.

"Is there really a chimera down there? Lughead questioned looking up from the pit.

"Not just a chimera. THE Chimera," Alpha answered while turning away from the grey brick shaft and began padding away back toward the forest. The other two in pack followed suit.

"I don't follow boss."

"You wouldn't, would you?"

"Hey if you want to still grab a bite," Beta interrupted, changing the topic, "I saw the yellow pegasus crying a lot and burying something big in her 'animal grave yard.' Must have failed to heal another one."

"Oh great carrion again," Alpha replied. "At least digging is like the one thing this here idiot can do."

And so the pack disappeared back into the tree line while the crusaders sank into the depths of the earth.

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author's comment

I apologize for the amount of cut scenes in this chapter, and I am working on editing this one to really slow it down.

I'm looking for more pre readers so PM if your interested.