My Little Portal: Testing is scientific advancement

Star Whistle stared at the button and the field of targeting lines emitting from the turrets

“Here” Offered Dark Cloud “I’ll help you!” Star Whistle began to feel extremely uneasy and nervous, Dark Cloud offering to help wasn’t the most reassuring thing you could ever hear, and with the tapping of a few buttons the turrets began to shift around on the panelled flooring below as did the button which of course just now had to be hanging from the roof

“There, I’ve moved the turrets around so it’s easier. But of course it’s equivalent exchange! I can’t help you for the sole purpose of helping you, it is a scientific test after all. So I kept it the same difficulty by adjusting the location of the button!” He rambled, during this Star Whistle was planning, portal surfaces surrounded the room except for the walls behind the turrets. How on earth could she get past them?

“You know, you are in a library” Mocked Dark Cloud “There could be something to help you in here, maybe some self help books. You seem like you have a short temper and an even shorter memory, you really do remind me of a goldfish. That’s mainly why I set this little test up! You could have read some of the books...” his voice trailed off as Star Whistle tried her hardest to concentrate fully on the task at hand and managed to quickly devise an idea, throwing a book into the targeting lines she timed how long it took for them to fire. Apparently they had a 3 second delay, helpful to her or not it was still nice to know. The sound of Dark Cloud’s gruelling voice over the speakers slowly halted and instead all was quiet, seems she managed to shut him up which allowed Star Whistle to concentrate for a few more moments in the glorious silence of the not so glorious lab. And then she devised an idea

As Star Whistle thought over her plan she became more and more hesitant to perform it; what if she didn’t have to destroy or disable the turrets? What she would do is placed a portal on the floor of the library and a portal on the floor under the button, jumping from the top of a bookshelf would allow her to maintain the speed she gained and throw her up and through the portal directly at the button. Which perhaps wasn’t the greatest idea as only her legs had been replaced to negate any harm from them, but she would continue with the plan nonetheless?

“Come on, just do something” Complained Dark Cloud “It’s so devastatingly simple that you’d have to have a shorter attention span than Derpy Hooves to not understand it!” Star Whistle began to contemplate stopping doing anything at all, but decided she’d rather escape and get her voice back, so firing the portals in the previously mentioned locations she clambered to the top of a book case and thought through her plan yet another time

“Oh... I see what you’re doing, very clever. Very clever.” Began Dark Cloud “But there are still the turrets to consider” Star Whistle smiled at this, she had already taken it into consideration, she would be in and out of the room in under 3 seconds so they wouldn’t be able to target her. Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath Star Whistle leant forward and allowed herself to drop directly into the portal below.

Dark Cloud watched on the monitor before him as the test subject he insulted so much had figured out the library puzzle in a quicker time than any other subject. Usually they wouldn’t have even found the button yet, thinking over this he decided that he would require another cup of coffee if he were to resume watching the subject move at an alarmingly fast rate, despite whatever he had said to Star Whistle before she had been the most promising subject of the entire project.

Trotting over to the rusted and worn coffee machine he glanced around the room he sat in, nothing but monitors lighting it and nothing but test tubes, vats and general scientific apparatus surrounding the room, beside the coffee machine was a rusty remote control. Dark Clouds mind rushing back to him, the test subject which had shown equally as much potential as his current one, and the one who he assumed was behind the stunt pulled in the first chamber; however not even he could have predicted he would have interfered with the previous test subject so much that it would result in an untimely demise.

Not that it bothered Dark Cloud at all, his bloodshot eyes had grown weary of watching the foolish unicorn before blunder its way through the test chambers out of sheer luck as he longed for a new subject. One that would actually be interesting to watch; one like his current test subject, he took the coffee pot in his hooves and examined it, his chaotically tangled black mane swinging in the way of his eyes before he could get a glimpse of the contents, his mind rushing back to the first test chamber that Star Whistle had passed. Why would he want to interfere in a test like that, especially the first test. He wouldn't usually obtain interference until around the 6th test chamber and even then not of that level; maybe he saw what Dark Cloud also saw in this test subject and a feeling of fear rushed over him. He wouldn’t let him steal Dark Cloud's only hope. Not after all that he’d been through. Not after all he had lost.

Lowering his head and closing his eyes he began to curse under his breath, trotting back to the monitors with the coffee pot still in his hooves and watched as the test subject pressed the button and fell back through the portal with enough time to avoid being shot by the turrets.

“Impressive indeed” he thought, a smile appearing on his face “I may be able to leave after all”

Turning his attention to the monitor which showed the next test chamber his smile disappeared, the room was dark and in the middle stood the outline of him. This was not what Dark Cloud wanted to happen.

Star Whistle stood at the test door as it slid open hastily still shaken from the experience of narrowly avoiding a timely demise at the hands of the turrets, as the doors opened the next room was dark and around her the panelled floor moved and formed a box, ensuring the only way she could walk would be forward. The doors slid shut behind her, leaving her in complete darkness

“NO!” Yelled Dark Cloud over the speakers “DON’T YOU INTERF...” he was cut short by the electricity being turned off. Star Whistle thought to herself, the power was off. So could she talk?

“If you’re thinking it, yes you can talk now” Croaked a voice from within the chamber, Star Whistle staggered back “I mean you no harm or else I would have killed you by now” the voice added trivially. It was extremely hard to tell if the voice came from a male or female but Star Whistle decided upon it being a male.

“Who are you...” Began Star Whistle, the sound of her own voice was music to her ears. Still the same as always, it appeared as if Dark Cloud was telling the truth, a light and caring voice that seemed welcoming “And why am I here?”

“I refuse to tell you the first part, however I can explain briefly why you are here, no doubt Dark Cloud is trying to restore power as quickly as possible” Croaked the voice “For the purpose of identification I will allow you to call me by the name of ‘Freedom’ for that is what I intend to give you” taken back by this Star Whistle stood in disbelief

“Why don’t you show me your face? It would allow me to trust you more than I do” She asked as politely as possible

“I cannot. The lights are out” Smugly replied Freedom “Now, you wanted an explanation as to why you were here, that I can understand. I desired an explanation when I was first called here”

“You’re...” Began Star Whistle

“The Neigh Science Laboratory started shortly after Celestia began her rule, only lasting for a matter of years before more technology companies and labs began to establish around Equestria. Being the least advanced and least staffed the Neigh Science Laboratory had its funding cut off completely as Celestia felt that other companies had the potential to go further than Neigh Science. But life and work at Neigh Science Labs continued, though not as pleasantly as before, they wanted to produce something that would impress Celestia and everypony in Equestria so they began to develop the basic understanding and concept of AI and robotics. But of course as nice as it sounds the ideals of Neigh Science Laboratory had been out-dated and shunned over the course of the 100 years they had been running however that never stopped them, continually working on an AI which would be able to perform all of the ponies jobs from Weather Management to raising the moon and sun.

But sadly the owner of Neigh Science Laboratory passed away a matter of months after the project began, slowly but surely the entire company began to pass away whether that be from exposure to radioactive chemicals or from the new turret AIs turning rogue. Leaving only one earth pony in control of the entire facility, allowing him to do as he saw fit without consequence or responsibility for his actions, Neigh Science was now an officially dead concept, long forgotten under the toll of time.

The only pony left began to go by the name of Dark Cloud rather recently, of course no records of anypony called “Dark Cloud” appeared in any of the Equestrian censuses and therefore he was officially labelled a filly’s tale, one to scare children from being bad in fear the Dark Cloud would use his evil machinery to take them away. But Dark Cloud had something more sinister in mind than taking filly’s away. He began to blame Celestia for his problems, cursing her as she cut off the companies funding which resulted in all of this, rumour has it that Dark Clouds father was the previous owner of Neigh Science Laboratory.

I know what you’re thinking ‘Wouldn’t that make Dark Cloud over 100 years old?’ and you would be right in saying that. But as I mentioned before, ‘Dark Cloud’ only made an appearance quite recently. In fact so recently it’s almost as if he had also died along with the other members of the Neigh Science Laboratories. But Dark Cloud had thought about this, he decided to wait for the next intelligent generation of ponies and unicorns, freezing himself for 100 years and barely being able to survive. If what I say is correct then it matches up exactly with the time of ‘Dark Cloud’s’ reappearance, just after the elements of harmony were harnessed to defeat Nightmare Moon.

I hope I haven’t confused you” Finished Freedom

Star Whistle’s head spun, overwhelmed by the sudden flow on information,

“But wh..” she began, finding herself unable to speak

“The power is returning” Contemplated Freedom “I will talk with you later” and with that the sound of trotting and a roof panel falling marked the departure of Freedom. And so the lights flickered back on and Dark Clouds voice rang over the speakers yet again

“Pesky... very pesky...” Began Dark Cloud in a frustrated tone “Just get on with the next test, subject. I need to see to some things”

Authors Note;

Just a quick note to say that I'll be releasing chapters on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and possibly the weekends. Thanks for all the support and views you guys have given ^^

Hope you enjoyed this chapter anyway!

• Skull