My Little Portal: Testing is scientific advancement

Falling towards the floor Star Whistle felt fear overcome her, her life flashing before her eyes. And then she landed in a cloud of dust, causing an indent in the floor next to the body of the other test subject

“Looks like they work!” Chirped Dark Cloud “That was fun, it always is fun to test before testing. Wouldn’t you agree? Oh wait, you can’t talk...” and with that he chuckled. Star Whistle looked at the ground, she was alive? How was it possible?

“Well, off you go” Continued Dark Cloud “The test chamber doors should be open!” there was a sound of sliding doors, the test chamber doors had been opened and she trotted over to it

“Now before you start the test I should warn you that we do use deadly testing elements such as... well telling you isn’t as fun as seeing you find out” Explained Dark Cloud “So I guess you can find the first element we use in here!”

The test chamber was a peculiar looking square room with white panelling, similar to that of the room she had awoken in but it was surprisingly not overgrown and destroyed. It was fairly simple, a cube dispensing machine in one corner and a pressure plate on the floor in front of a door.

“Well that’s a no brainer...” Thought Star Whistle “Now how to dispense the cubes?”

“Oh! And to make things twice as interesting and fun, for science of course, we have removed the traceable wiring so you cannot tell which button does what!” Exclaimed Dark Cloud “Now go on! Enjoy the first of many wonderful tests!”

There was a row of seven buttons against the wall near the door, more disturbingly though there were a few patches of blood around the bases of the buttons stands so Star Whistle decided to take a generally more cautious approach, placing one orange portal on the wall near the cube dispenser she walked up to the buttons. First pressing the far right one, there was silence for a second and then a denying sound

“That’s the one everypony goes for” Smugly began Dark Cloud “Personally my favourite” the panelling behind her shifted and slid down, revealing a line of turrets. Quickly Star Whistle shot the blue portal beneath her hooves and appeared next to the cube dispenser

“Oh! Oh! She’s thought it through slightly!” Commentated Dark Cloud “But they can still see you” so quickly Star Whistle shot the blue portal behind the turrets and ran through the orange one

“Alright, now what...” she thought to herself, she began to kick the turrets over which caused them to explode

“You catch on fast” beamed Dark Cloud “Never doubted you for a second, not even when you were about to be filled with more holes than a changeling” rolling her eyes Star whistle returned to the buttons, she could now rule out the idea of using the far right button. Pondering over her next decision, and what on earth she would be faced with, she decided upon pressing the far left one instead. Doing so caused silence once again followed by yet another denying sound

“Bad luck there, really bad luck!” Chuckled Dark Cloud

The floor gave clicking sounds, sliding apart to create a chequered pattern of floor revealing an extremely deep moat with lava at the bottom

“That’s gonna prove difficult to navigate” he continued to commentate “And now it’s a... hold on...”

Star Whistle turned back to the buttons, there was only one now. The others had plunged into the depths of the lava below

“That’s not meant to happen... I don’t remember putting a chequered pattern floor” panicked Dark Cloud “Hmm... stay put for a second” there was a few moments of silence and all of a sudden the entire room went pitch black, lit only by the horrifying lava below. Suddenly a panel in the roof began to shake and through fell a cube, was this how cube dispensers worked? This was followed by some inaudible babbling, mutters and sounds of frustration.

Star Whistle was genuinely horrified, trapped in an unknown underground lab being forced to do tests and now there was a strange cube in the room and an even stranger sound of another pony in the roof.

After about 10 minutes of standing in darkness the lights began to flicker on again, the floor still chequered and the sounds of frustration had stopped and gone a while ago

“That was funny...” Began Dark Cloud “The entire power grid went down, meaning that you could have talked for that 10 minutes I was gone; speaking of which, did you miss me? I know my commentary is always valuable to every test subject” Star Whistle had done this many times already, but she rolled her eyes and sighed.

“Oh, I see you got a cube then” Continued Dark Cloud “Well that means we can go to the next test!” so Star Whistle began to cautiously hop along the chequered floor to the cube. All of a sudden the floor panel she stood on shook, Star Whistle slid to the edge of the panel and clung on for dear life

“Oh I’m sorry, I was just trying to distract you” Began Dark Cloud “Let me help you” surprisingly he actually did, a panel appeared below her and pushed her upwards. She then continued on her journey to the cube; taking the cube in her hooves she tossed it to the pressure plate, luckily it landed directly on it forcing open the doors to the next test chamber. The floor panels then returned to normal, and walking over to the cube she noticed that it had strange drawings on the side of it. Doodles and messy lettering all over it, thinking nothing of it she continued to the next test chamber which was surprisingly a library. Wait... a library? Why would they decorate a test chamber like this?

“This is a relaxing test to relieve you of the stress caused by the last one” Began Dark Cloud “Behind one of these book shelves is the button to open the door to the next test; I want you to find it. Each shelf has to have about 30 books removed before the back panel can be opened. Now while you’re doing that I’m going to go and get myself some coffee, because you wouldn’t believe how stressful it is watching an imbecile like you attempt to solve simple puzzles”

And with that Star Whistle began to search for the button.

After what seemed like hours Star Whistle finally found the button, but there was a twist. I mean, of course there was a twist there was an insane pony forcing her to perform scientific tests, and of course the button just had to be on the other side of a room full of turrets.

This was certainly going to be a challenge.