On the night of June 20th of 1815 after my great failure at waterloo , I was two days retreat from the battle when it happened, I don’t know if it was a dream or nerves or if it really happened but I’ll let you decide.
I was inside my tent when all of a sudden there was a mysterious illumination outside, so naturally I went to investigate calling over the five guards that were nearby, when we went to investigate there was a starry oval shape I approached it and when I touched it, it was like I was falling, and my ever loyal guards leapt in after me, I landed unconscious, I awoke to find myself inside a room with brilliant white paneled walls and then I got up realizing that my guards and I now have equine bodies then I hear that evil voice that will haunt me the rest of my life, cool and calm from above me, “Oh look we have more test subjects.”
Then not quite as evil but more dangerous and with a high pitched ethereal voice, “Hello.”
It came from a small white oval shaped object with a glowing red eye and two panels on its sides spread from its body revealing four gun barrels and before I realized it two of my guards had died. Then me and my three other guards galloped to escape the onslaught of bullets coming our way and we ducked under cover and proceeded to make a plan to stop this sorcery. While one guard distracted the dangerous object I snuck up behind it and swung my sword powerfully, its shell shattering my sword not even leaving a dent, but knocking it over which prompted it to say, “Goodnight.”
Now with that out of the way a door opened, the two circular halves spiraling open and we went through into another room with the same white paneling, this room had a pool of musky green water dissecting the room in half with another open door on the far end. I looked to the right and noticed a sign with a number 2 on it and some waves with a skeleton under the water. I grab my now useless scabbard and touch it to the water the metal and leather that had touched the water began to dissolve.
Warning my group, “That water will eat you alive.”, we looked around the sterile room for anything to help us across that accursed water, about 15 minutes had passed and I sat down to asses my transformation, I'm still short even as a pony with a blue coat still with my uniform on only no pants and it has changed to form to my equine body I also notice my guards are similar to me as in there all stallions with different colored coats but still with their uniforms and same voices but changed ever so slightly probably to fit the equine voice box. Also the musky water began to evaporate into a green mist and then that evil voice came back.
“I’m getting bored maybe I should blow that neurotoxin your way.” A whirring sound came from the other side of the mist which steadily got closer and closer like an encroaching army.
Just as the mist was about to reach us a panel opened up to reveal some other ponies with masks and weird weapons saying, “Come with us to live.”
My guards leapt through to confront the strangers but I hesitated for a split second as I smelled that ‘neurotoxin’ and I stepped through the paneling as the strange ponies closed us off from that treacherous room.
Drawing a sword from one of my guards I demanded, “Who are you and where are we?” and held the leader at sword point.
“We are the scientists of this lab we were working on a dimensional portal based off of our portal gun,” he dropped to a murmur “judging from your clothing, what late 18, early 19th century, so this is a little complicated basi~”
“Are you with the Doctor?” I interrupted.
“Oh if you’ve met him I can speed this up.” He replied my sword still at his throat.
“Using the TARDIS technology that can contain an entire ship in a box using dimensional slips we made a portal gun, which can create a wormhole.”
“Your name.” I commanded brushing the back of my blade along his neck for emphasis.
“Cross Flame.” He said grabbing the back of my blade and disarming me, “and you best listen because my scans say you breathed in some of that neurotoxin and you’re not dead yet but you will be and soon unless we can get you back to your dimension.” He declared and dropped my blade on the ground.
“Now then let’s get back to the machine and fix this.” He gestured to one of the other ponies in his group and a portal appeared and one by one each of us hopped in. When it was finally my turn I hesitated but continued through and saw a large machine with two circular panels with greenish blue dots covering the face of each of them and an arch of metal connecting the two, around it were many other ponies in white coats some with horns coming out of their heads seeming to magically carrying objects in front of them, some flying with wings, and some running to a fro across the room, some were training with the strange weaponry I saw earlier using portals and cubes of all kinds to knock over an oval shape like the one that attacked me.
“What are they fighting?” I asked Cross.
“A dummy target, it’s a sentry gun the most common threat found here at Equestrian Laboratories, just got to knock them over and they shut off.” He commented passively and went to check a moving picture with numbers and strategies on it.
“Really I wasted a beautiful sword when I could have just pushed it over.” I thought angrily to myself.
“Now the core is here and we..” he faded out as I examined the room.
“So can I just go back now?” I asked looking over his shoulder to see the moving picture.
“No.” he said coldly.
“You will!” I yelled and drew my sword which was a waste as he quickly deadened my sword leg and buckled my rear leg holding me down with a hoof.
“Normally you ask why instead of assume it’s because I don’t want to.” He said sternly.
“Well why then?” I asked in outrage.
“We don’t have enough power; we used the last bit of astral matter to test it which brought you here.” He answered turning to the moving picture again, “but there is some more near the GLaDOS core, if we can get to it.”
“So you needed me to solve your problem?” I said arrogantly.
“Well no we targeted a specific time not a person, you just happened to be there.” He said examining me.
“But now we need to get to the core room.” He continued, “But we can’t get past GLaDOS. We have tried frontal attacks towards the containment area, and we have tried stealth to retrieve the astral matter. Neither have worked.”
“I can get you there.” I replied.
“How?” he turned back to me with a serious expression.
“I’m the greatest man alive I’ve conquered nearly all the known world.” I answered proudly.
“Against a mad AI that can bend this facility to her will?” he said rhetorically.
“Mad what?” I inquired.
“GLaDOS is a computer that runs the facility but became corrupt and is trying to kill us.” He described shakily.
“What is a computer?” I asked confused.
“A mechanical brain.” He answered.
He turned toward somepony else and discussed another supply run.
“I can beat anything.” Grabbing his shoulder and forcing him to face me.
I moved to the moving picture, “This layout is similar to my loss at waterloo but if we try what the allies used against me which was a multi-pronged attack in a specific order, that will distract her then we attack here and here then strike here” I gestured to points on the map, “then the core room will be open to further attack from here and here. We retrieve the astral matter and escape back here, and we’ll have it ready to go by dinner.” I said smirking.
“This is a risky plan.” Cross Flame stated.
“Are your warriors worth their salt lick?” I replied.
"Buck yeah they are we've survived this long." he bragged.
"Then there shouldn't be an issue then." I retorted.
“You heard the pony move into position!” another pony yelled to everyone.
As soon as we were all in position team after team began their missions roars of battle and gunfire could be heard throughout the facility, much to GLaDOS’ discomfort she was in her core chamber monitoring all the commotion and responding with neurotoxin, robots, turret guns, and portals. Room after room battles began sprouting up. She did her best but it was becoming more difficult to stop the oncoming raid of ponies. Teams were heading toward key systems and others toward her, a few toward other places inside the facility such as supplies and weapons, in the battle areas unicorns used magic to heal and deflect bullets or neurotoxin, while peguasi flew over the turret guns to continue moving forward. All chaos had broken free within the facility it was tiring for her to be using this much CPU to strategize and execute; she was also getting annoyed by how much blood was coating the sterile testing rooms.
“You know I'm going to have to clean these rooms of your blood.” She announced over the loudspeakers of the facility. Then her attention flicked elsewhere to the containment room where the astral matter that powered her and most of the facility was. If they removed that astral matter she would have 30 seconds of power to retaliate, eliminate, and attempt to restore power. Curse them she thought as the astral matter was removed and taken back to their base of operations.
“Activating emergency self-destruct, T-minus 20 seconds.” A voice announced across the facility, “please evacuate Equestrian Laboratories, we hope you have enjoyed your stay.”
The machine whirred to life as the dimensional rift opened. “When all the lights are green go in the portal and good luck in all your endeavors.” Cross Flame yelled and left to escape the facility.
“T-minus 10 seconds good luck escaping.” The voice chimed, then all the lights went green and I retrieved the sword and scabbard from one of my dead guards.
“T-minus 5 seconds, oh well I warned you.” The voice sighed.
“4,3,2..” and I went through by myself all five of my guards dead throughout this adventure and I got back not five minutes had passed and my head felt clearer with the neurotoxin gone, and dismissed this as a freak hallucination and went to sleep.
The next day I arrived back in Paris but the legislative chamber and the public didn’t like my defeat and thus I had to abdicate my throne the following day. After that I gave myself up to the British and was exiled to the island of Saint Helena. I am writing this as I am dying and to this day I don’t know for certain if my guards died heroically in the battle or if they deserted me in my sleep. Hopefully someone won’t find this as just mindless babble.
Signed,
Napoleon Bonaparte
