The Equestrian Enrichment Project

Chapters

Chapter 1: better living through science and ponies.
Chapter 2: Into the dark
Chapter 3: The Reality gate
Chapter 4: Powerless
Chapter 5: Ghost's in the machine
Chapter 6: GLaD to see you
Chapter 7: The Fluttertest Initiative
Chapter 8: The Speed Trials
Chapter 9: Of Pinkie and Portals
Chapter 10: Buck the system
Chapter 11: Unicorn vs. World
Chapter 12: The Sparkle challenge
Chapter 13: The Science of Friendship
Chapter 14: The benefits of not being seen
Chapter 15: The Fall

Chapter 1: better living through science and ponies.

Note:- Good news everypony! I now have an editor! The amazing Pencraft and I are now working together to banish all those errors to the moon! So over the next few weeks we will be fixing the errors in every chapter uploaded so far and then in all future chapters. For those of you who have read the first 15 chapters already don’t worry, we won’t be changing anything that’s happened just fixing the grammatical errors and tweaking the dialogue slightly to sound more natural. so you don’t need to read anything again for it to make sense or anything like that.

The Equestrian Enrichment Project

Summary: - A strange portal opens up in Equestria and our six heroes are captured by the strange bipedal creatures from the other side, what will happen to them? can they escape? Will they ever make it back to Equestria? Only time will tell. Crossover with Portal.

Chapter 1: Better living through science and ponies.

Equestria, Ponyville, 1042DC (During Celestia)

It was a gloriously hot day in the magical land of Equestria. The bright rays of Celestia’s sun shone down on the forms of six brightly coloured ponies lying down in the grass, staring up at the clouds.

“So, I was like Ohhh and they were like Whaaa? But then I said Cupcakes! And that was how Equestria was made,” intoned a bright pink pony happily in a single breath. The five other ponies around her sat up suddenly, looking at her in confusion.

“What in tarnation are you talking about, Pinkie?” asked an orange pony with a three apple cutie mark, still looking rather confused at the pink pony.

“Why, whatever do you mean Applejack?” replied Pinkie in an incredibly cheerful voice, smiling across at her.

“You didn't say anything for about ten minutes, then you started talking as if you were at the end of a story!” said another one of the ponies. This one was a blue Pegasus with a rainbow mane looking equally as confused at Pinkie.

“Oh Rainbow, you silly filly, how else would we start the story?” Pinkie said, still smiling, looking in a seemingly random direction. The other ponies just looked on dumbfounded.

“Anyway…” a purple unicorn called Twilight Sparkle said, looking across at Pinkie. The unicorn decided to dismiss the strange actions of Pinkie Pie. After all, she was Pinkie Pie and that was often explanation enough.

Shaking off the confusion caused by Pinkie Pie, the six ponies continued their previous conversation, blissfully unaware of what the fates had in store for them.

Earth, Aperture Laboratories, 1986AD

It was around midday, but there was no indication of this in the underground laboratory. Bright white light streamed on to the sterile white wall panels from a vast network of fluorescent light tubes in the ceiling. Coloured lights emanated from energy fields and lasers generated by vast machines.

The room was abuzz with activity; many people dressed in white coats hurried around operating computer terminals and control panels. Somewhere near the back of the room a simplistic looking robot continually bumped into a wall surrounded by a group of scientists scratching their heads. Towards the front of the room a single scientist sat at a desk covered in papers of calculations and electronic schematics.

An old but well-dressed man entered the room and walked directly to the scientist at the desk.

“So why don’t we have a working inter-dimensional portal yet?”

The scientist tried to stammer an answer, but the man did not stop to let the scientist talk and continued straight on.
“You’ve been on this project a whole week and I find you here writing numbers!? This isn’t how we do science here at Aperture! You’re fired! Yes, box your stuff, out the front door, parking lot, car, goodbye! I won’t have some pansy scientist working for me that won’t get their hands dirty with science!”

“You, over there!” the man pointed at another scientist working in the lab. “You’re in charge of this project now, go and do science! We must be finished on this project before Black Mesa completes their version!” he banged his hand down on the desk.

“We will get the benefits of parallel universes first! No negotiation. I’m Cave Johnson and I will have those benefits first! So whatever science you need to do to do it, I want you to do it now!” With that the man stormed out of the lab without looking back or waiting for any response. After all, he was Cave Johnson; he owned the place.

Equestria, Ponyville, 1042DC

About twenty minutes had passed since Pinkie’s latest odd outburst, and the ponies had returned to their previous conversation when Pinkie shot to her hooves mid-sentence, her whole body vibrating strangely. At this sight the other ponies shot up also; they had seen this behaviour before.

“Oh no, not this again!” Twilight exclaimed. “Not more of your Pinkie sense!” she added, looking worried, and started backing away from Pinkie Pie. The other four ponies followed suite.

“I don’t know what’s happening! I’ve never felt anything like it before!” the vibrating pink pony exclaimed, sounding worried.

“Where?” Twilight asked, concern also evident in her voice.

“I… I don’t know!” the Pink pony exclaimed between vibrations. “But it must be close by!”

“Oh dear,” said a yellow Pegasus pony with a pink mane, looking visibly more terrified than the others and cowering behind a white unicorn with a glorious purple mane.

At that point there was a blinding flash of blue light and a sound like an explosion in reverse. When the ponies regained their vision they were greeted by a strange sight: a large oblong blue vortex hung suspended in the air in front of them, pulsating slightly and giving off a strange energy that made their fur stand on end.

Applejack was the first to regain her composure. In a shocked voice, quite a bit quieter than her normal one she almost whispered, “What in Equestria is it, Twi?”

The purple unicorn took a few moments to process the question in her disbelief before answering, “I…I… I don’t know… I’ve never seen anything like it before. If I had to take a guess I’d say it’s some type of gateway? Maybe? I remember reading about a theory where portals could be used to transport a large number of ponies without having to use multiple teleportation spells, but it was just that, a theory, as in not real. I’ve done the calculations myself, the energy required to produce a stable gateway is astronomical. I couldn’t do it. The elements of harmony together couldn’t do it; I don’t even think Celestia or Luna could do it over any real distance. It’s just not possible! That thing is not possible!”

“But it’s there so it must be!” Rainbow countered, staring into the swirling vortex.

“It. Can’t. Exist!” Twilight exclaimed, as if her words could convince the universe of the fact.

The blue Pegasus unfurled her wings, temporarily ignoring her purple friend and flew a few feet above her companions. “Should we touch it?” she asked, as she flew toward the vortex.

“Rainbow Dash are you crazy?!” Twilight Sparkle exclaimed quickly. “Get away from there, we don’t even know what it is!” There was sufficient worry in her tone to make Rainbow Dash stop her flight. Twilight was one of her best friends, after all, and she trusted her judgment, even if she was sure she could handle anything this blue glowey thing had to throw at her. As if on cue with her thoughts, something disturbed the surface of the vortex in its flight through and continued on directly at her. Without any time to react the item crashed right into Rainbow Dash, knocking her to the ground.
“Ow!” Rainbow exclaimed, using a hoof to massage her head where the item had impacted “What in Equestria…”

“What is it?” asked Fluttershy the yellow Pegasus timidly.

“It’s a rather elegant design,” observed Rarity, the white unicorn, “Simple and contained.” The item was small, white, and vaguely egg shaped and sized with a single black circle on one side with a red light in the centre, almost like an eye.

“Is it dangerous?” asked Pinkie Pie to no pony in particular, poking the object with her hoof. She jumped back in shock when the object suddenly started emitting a whirring sound. Three segments that had previously been hidden slid inside and three black metal legs grew from each hole, lifting the object into an upright position.

“What in tarnation’s going on he…” Applejack started but was cut off by a high pitched, mechanical, but friendly sounding voice emitting from the object.

“Inter-dimensional reconnaissance Drone 631-4b activated.” The black eye like structure on the object started scanning around, pausing on each of the ponies for a moment before moving on to the next.

“It can speak!?” exclaimed an astonished Rainbow Dash who had now righted herself and was standing alongside the other ponies.

“Is it alive?” asked Fluttershy, now slightly less fearful of the stationary device.

Twilight answered slowly and thoughtfully, “I don’t think so, it said it was a drone. Did it say inter-dimensional?”

“Yeah, what does that mean?” replied Rainbow Dash turning towards Twilight.

“It means that that blue thing is some sort of gateway. One leading to another world, another dimension entirely! But…” Twilight looked almost hurt by the information. “It’s not possible!” she almost shouted. “It can’t be! It violates every known law of physics! No… it’s not there,” Twilight finished, turning her back to the portal.

“Er, Twilight?” Applejack started, growing nervous at Twilights behaviour. “You know it’s there, right?”

“No.” Twilight eye twitched but she didn’t move.

“Twilight-” Applejack started again but was cut off by Twilight exploding.

“HOW CAN IT EXIST?! If it exists then everything I know is wrong! So how can it be there?!” she was grinding her teeth now. “But… but it is there… so…” Twilight started to calm herself down. “So I must change what I know to correlate with the available facts. So let’s start again. I’ve read about the theory of an infinite number of parallel planes of existence, but to open a gateway to one? I always thought that was fundamentally impossible! A basic law of the universe! But it’s here, so that means there is either some other type of energy we don’t know about or the barrier between realities is thinner than we thought; but whatever it is, there must be a new type of magic involved! And we can be the ones to study it!” Twilight finished, all evidence of her frustration lost to her growing excitement.

Suddenly, without warning, another panel opened up on the Drone and started to emit a green gas with a hiss.
“Oh horse apples!” Applejack exclaimed. The ponies panicked and turned to gallop away, however it was too late: the sleeping gas took effect quickly and they fell to the ground, Rainbow falling from the sky on to Rarity as she tried to fly away, her momentum dragging them both several feet. Twilight remained conscious on the ground long enough to see several strange figures emerging from the event horizon of the vortex, walking on their hind legs, before her eyes closed and she slipped into unconsciousness.

Earth, Aperture Laboratories, 2003AD

Twilight’s mind swam slowly back to consciousness, leaving her with a splitting headache. ‘Oh, what happened to me?’ she thought to herself before remembering, ‘the gateway, the strange creatures!’ She tried to open her eyes and stand up quickly. The bright light momentarily blinded her and when she tried to stand she hit her already throbbing head on a hard surface. Dazed and confused she fell back into a lying position and tried to look around. As her eyes started to get used to the bright light she started to make out the shapes in front of her. ‘Double Rainbow Dashes?’ she thought to herself before realising she was just seeing double. She closed her eyes and shook her head, trying to clear it before opening her eyes and observing what was really there.

In front of her was just the one Rainbow Dash, still unconscious and separated from her by a glass panel. She was, in fact, surrounded by glass panes on four sides with metal sheets behind her and under her hooves. She was trapped and unable to stand. In the other direction from her she could see Fluttershy in an adjoining glass case, and out the front she could see Rarity, Applejack and Pinkie Pie in similar glass cases. She could also see several other Equestrian creatures around the room, all in other glass cases and even one other pony with a red coat and a white mane that she didn’t recognise.

Other than the cases, the only other thing visible in the room was some sort of strange machine in the centre connected by tubes and wires to each of the cases.

“This isn’t good,” was all Twilight could think to say at that point, her mind for once a total blank. It was not a feeling she was accustomed to. The sound of her voice in the silent room caused the occupant of one of the other cases to stir.

“You, pony! Where is this? Why am I here?” sounded a gruff voice from across the room. Twilight spun around, or would have if it wasn’t for the case. In actuality she went face first into the glass side. Cursing to herself she moved slowly the rest of the way round.

She looked for a moment before spotting the speaker; it was a brown furred Diamond Dog in a larger, but still cramped, case to the left of Rarity’s. He had clearly been wearing some sort of clothing when he had been captured as it had been placed in a small cardboard box in front of his case. She had been rather wary of the Diamond Dogs since the incident with Rarity, but considering they were all in the same situation she had no reason to distrust him at the moment.

“I really have no idea, though I don’t think we’re in Equestria anymore. There was some sort of gateway. Did you see who or what captured you?” she asked the dog.

“NO! Something was thrown at me! Hit me! Looked like egg, Hissed! Knocked me out!” the dog answered her back, obviously quite agitated by the situation. Twilight heard a groan to her side and looked round to see Rainbow Dash starting to wake up.

“Rainbow! Are you ok?” Twilight asked urgently, turning to look at her friend.

“Uh… What happened? Where are we? Why am I in a box?” Rainbow Dash groaned, obviously experiencing the same discomfort as Twilight had.

“Something else came out of the Gateway! I didn’t see what they were but they must have brought us here. Are you feeling ok Rainbow?” Twilight asked with obvious concern for her friend.

“I’ll be fine, but whoever brought us here won’t be when I get my hooves on them!” Rainbow replied, regaining some of her usual confidence.

“Pointy pony, you get us out of here!” the Diamond Dog stated from across the room. Twilight looked up from Rainbow Dash with a slight look of confusion.

“How exactly could I do that?” said Twilight, assuming the Diamond Dog had meant her by ‘pointy pony’.

“Pointy ponies can do magic with their points!” The Diamond Dog stated. Twilight did a double take and then a mental face-hoof. The dog was right. Why hadn’t she thought of using magic? It should have been the first thing she tried! The headache must have affected her worse than she had previously thought. Twilight closed her eyes in concentration, readying herself for teleportation. Both of the other conscious creatures in the room looked on in anticipation for a few moments. Nothing happened. Twilight opened one eye and was surprised to see that she had not teleported out of the case. Not one to be perturbed by a failure she tried again, putting more of her concentration into it. This time a faint glow appeared around her horn, but still nothing happened. For a moment Twilight sat there in confusion until a horrible thought struck her. She recalled reading a book on the origins of unicorn magic. Unicorns didn’t have much innate power in them, just a facility to amplify and focus the magical energies of the world around them in to useful feats. The magical energy itself came from magical artefacts such as power gems in Equestria’s soil and the magical background radiation that permeated everywhere. If they were truly in another universe then all it would take would be a lower level of background magic or even a different type and her horn would be next to useless, only able to output her own small magical reserves.

“I don’t think there’s anything I can do,” Twilight said glumly, “This world seems to be incompatible with most unicorn magic. I think I could do some basic levitation.” She demonstrated on the Diamond Dogs folded shirt, taking much more effort than usual but still just about managing to lift the item. “But I just don’t have the power for anything more than that.”

“So we’re stuck in here?!” asked the voice of Rarity, causing Twilight to jump and spin around. She had woken up while Twilight was concentrating on the shirt and had just about finished assessing their situation.

“No, there’s a way out of every trap, a key to every box. We just have to find it!” Twilight answered, with more confidence than she felt herself. She had never been in as quite a hopeless situation as this one seemed now, but she had learned to never give up hope for a miracle — especially where her friends were concerned.

There was a roar as one of the more aggressive Equestrian creatures awoke angrily. It was a Manticore and it was obviously not impressed with being in such a small box. The creature roared again and attacked the side of its case to no effect. The glass withheld against the Manticore’s vicious onslaught without even a scratch. Though its roar did manage to wake up the rest of the creatures in the room.

“Well, just great,” Rainbow Dash said, her voice dripping with sarcasm above the cacophony of noises coming from the caged Equestrian creatures and the startled shouts of the woken ponies.

It was at this point that the door to the room opened and three creatures entered. They were like nothing the ponies had ever seen before. They walked on their hind legs like the Diamond Dogs but had no tails, and their only fur was on the top of their heads. All three of them seemed to have white fur, though Twilight speculated this was more due to their obvious advanced age than anything else. They were all wearing white coats and had some type of glasses attached to their faces. They were speaking amongst themselves as they entered the room.

“So these are the specimens from dimension 442?” one of the creatures asked its colleagues.

“Yes, it was a strange place populated almost exclusively by these brightly coloured creatures, many if not all of them matching descriptions of mythical beings from our culture, such as these brightly coloured unicorns.” the second creature replied indicating Twilight and Rarity.

“When I get my hooves on you, they’ll be picking bits of you out of the ceiling for weeks!” yelled a seething Rainbow Dash as she attacked the glass, trying to get at the creatures.

“Fascinating: that Pegasus appears capable of speech. Do you think they could have some level of sentience?” the first creature asked it colleges, writing something on a board it held in its hands, apparently oblivious to Rainbow Dash’s threats. Only the third creature had seemed really affected by Dashes words; he looked pityingly at the cased ponies.

“We must start the first batch of tes...” the second creature started, only to be cut off by a new voice.

“Warning; neurotoxin emitters throughout the Aperture Science facility have been activated. Please vacate the premises with extreme haste.” The new voice said, however it didn’t seem to come from anyone in the room. Rather it came from a box mounted on the wall. It was a male voice with an accent none of the ponies had heard before. It sounded slightly cheerful in a robotic way, as though it was just another machine.

None of the ponies knew what neurotoxin was, but by the reaction the announcement had elicited from the scientists the ponies knew it was nothing good. Two of the creatures immediately bolted for the door, but the third stayed at machine in the centre of the room.

“No sense in you all dying as well.” He operated several controls on the machine and the voice from the wall sounded again.

“Cryogenic specimen suspension systems activated.” With these words the same gas from before flooded into each of the cases. Just before sleep took her, Twilight saw the unusual creature slump forward onto the control panel, dead.

Almost all movement in the ponies room and the corridors and rooms beyond had ceased; The only movement in the entire facility was in a large cylindrical room near the centre. A massive machine suspended from the ceiling in the room swivelled to point at a large monitor taking up most of one of the walls. The monitor was displaying the feeds of many of the security cameras in the facility.

“Looks like the deadly neurotoxin is exactly as effective as I designed it to be,” the machine intoned in a feminine robotic voice, to no one in particular. “That will teach them to try to stop me designing deadly neurotoxin.” The machine laughed a very robotic laugh before continuing its monologue “Time to enact the Aperture Science Testing Initiative.” With that, the machine swivelled on its ceiling mount and continued with its work in silence, opening up a file on its first test subject, labelled ‘Chell’.

Chapter 2: Into the dark

Chapter 2: Into the dark

Earth, Aperture Laboratories, ? AD

“Cryogenic specimen suspension system emergency backup power depleted. Life sign retention success, thirty three point three per cent. Enacting emergency revival procedure” the computerised male voice rang out in the stillness of the room, breaking the silence that had been complete for so very long. The room was then filled with the sound of ancient machinery groaning into life to perform one final task; the remains of each of the glass cases slid down into the floor with an escape of gas.

Rainbow Dash awoke slowly from a dreamless sleep. Her body ached all over and it took her a while to remember who, and where she was. When she finally regained her composure she was angry, she was going to get the creatures that had done this to her and her friends! She opened her eyes expecting to see the room she was imprisoned in before, but what greeted her eyes was enough to make her forget all thoughts of vengeance. She was still in the same room and the cases were open, but the once gleaming room was dark, dingy and badly damaged. The once white wall panels where dirty and in many places had moss growing on them. Vines snaked their way up the walls and through the gaps in the celling. The glass in the cases that had contained her and her friends was cracked and most of the cases were broken, the creatures that had been in those cases had gone, however their age yellowed skeletons remained in the positions they had been sleeping. At some point in the past a light fixture had become unattached from the roof and had fallen through the top glass and then the pony with the red coat that had been in a case across from her, its empty eye sockets left staring blankly into the room for all eternity.

She looked around the room in panic for her friends and was relieved to see the forms of the five other ponies, stirring from their slumbers.

Rainbow slowly got to her hooves and walked shakily out of her case. “Is everyone ok?” She asked with obvious concern for her friends.

“Uhg” came the response from twilight Sparkle without opening her eyes “how long were we out for this time?” she asked.

Rainbow Dash didn’t quite know how to answer this for a moment and eventually said “I’d say… well looking at this room… several decades, at least”

Twilight shot to her hooves suddenly fully awake “What?!” she exclaimed looking around the room in abject horror, her eyes scanned across the desolation, the bones of the other creatures, then quickly across to her other friends. “By Celesta… how… I don’t even… Oh Celesta is it just us, out of all these creatures?” she walked over to the case that had held the red pony “I didn’t even know his name” she hung her head and shed a single tear for those lost.

By this point the other ponies had fully awoken too. Applejack was standing silently, just surveying the scene, her mouth slightly open. Pinkie Pie, normally one to be cheerful in all situations, looked very disheartened. Her pink coloration seemed almost muted in the dingy surroundings and her mane was hanging limp at the side of her head. Rarity was torn between sadness and disgust at the dirty room and Fluttershy was crying silently for the animals that had been in the other cases.

Twilight was wandering along the room aimlessly when she noticed something, or rather the absence of something. The case that had once held the Diamond Dog was empty, not even bones. Then she saw it, a trail of paw prints left in the debris on the floor, recent enough that no dust had settled back in them.

“Looks like we weren’t the only ones to survive” she said. The other ponies looked up in confusion.

“But Twi… there’s no one else here” Applejack answered uncertainly. Twilight remembered Applejack hadn’t woken up since being captured.

“when we were in this room just after we were captured, there was a Diamond Dog in this case” she indicated the case she was standing in front of ”but now it’s empty, and look” she motioned towards the floor with a hoof “paw prints in the dust, he must have left before we woke”

“Why us? Why did we live and they die?” asked a distraught Fluttershy tears in her eyes. Rainbow Dash went over and nuzzled up to Fluttershy in an effort to comfort her.

“Probably just chance” Rainbow said, still trying to comfort Fluttershy.

“Actually, it’s most likely our size” Twilight countered, still thinking “we were the smallest of the creatures captured and in the smallest cases therefor a smaller area and a lower chance of damage” She walked over to the machine in the centre and examined it for the first time. Much of the once gleaming metal was tarnished and corroded and most of it was dark and lifeless, except for a rectangular area on one side, which was still glowing though mostly obscured from Twilights vision by the remains of one of the bipedal creatures. “That creature probably saved our lives” she said sadly looking at the bones of the creature. “Whatever happened here killed him, maybe if he had left us and ran like the others he would have survived” she didn’t know what to think of this, after all these creatures brought them here in the first place but this one gave its life to save them? To Twilight it didn’t add up but due to the sheer amount of time that had passed she was sure she would never know these answers.

“What’s a Cryogenic specimen suspension system?” Pinkie asked, obviously still shaken but beginning to regain her usual composure. Pinkie’s voice brought Twilight back to reality. Pinkie had moved over to the machine and was looking into the glass rectangle that was still glowing. Intrigued by this Twilight walked over to where Pinkie was standing and took a look at the glass rectangle for herself, what she had taken for just a glow was actually glowing orange letters. Looking further this display answered some of her questions. The letters on the display were all capital and various pieces of punctuation had been used to show an almost graphic interface.

“Everypony had better have a look at this” Twilight said after reading the information displayed on the panel. “Looks like we’ve been here an awfully long time” Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity and Fluttershy picked their way through the derbies and looked at the display. It read:-

---APETURE SCIENCE COMPUTER AIDED CRYOGENIC SPECIMEN SUSPENSION SYSTEM---

TIME: 21:13:33 DATE: 17/09/2247

SYSTEM LOG:
16/05/2003 - ERROR: GLaDOS UPLINK TERMINATED, CONTINUING FROM LOCAL BACKUPS.
16/05/2003 - EMERGENCY SYSTEM ACTIVATED – LIFE SIGNS: 21
22/01/2086 - WARNING: CRYOGENIC SPECIMEN CONTAINER #506F DEPRESSURISED.

LIFE SIGNS: 20
02/09/2125 - WARNING: LOST COMMUNICATION WITH CRYOGENIC SPECIMEN CONTAINERS #6E69, #6573, #2072
756C, #652C, #2042, #726F.
LIFE SIGNS: 13
02/09/2219 - WARNING: POWER LOSS IN CRYOGENIC SPECIMEN CONTAINERS #6E79, #2034, #2065, #7665, #7221
2121.
LIFE SIGNS: 7
17/09/2247 - WARNING: CRYOGENIC SPECIMEN SUSPENSION SYSTEM EMERGENCY BACKUP POWER DEPLETED.
EMERGENCY REVIVAL PROCEDURE ACTIVATED.
EMERGENCY REVIVAL PROCEDURE COMPLETE LIFE SIGN RETENTION SUCCESS, THIRTY THREE POINT
THREE PER CENT.

---LOG END---

“So what does all this mean?” Asked Rarity, confused as to what much of the text had meant. Twilight looked up from the display to face her.

“For us? Not much, it means we’ve been asleep for a long time, two hundred and forty four years, four months and one day to be exact. But what does that mean? We’re in a different universe on a different planet, who knows how long a year is here? It’s almost certainly not the same as it is in Equestria. A year is the length of time it takes a planet to revolve once around its sun and that won’t be the same anywhere else so the numbers mean little to us all we know is it’s been a long time and, by the look of it, most likely none of the creatures that brought us here are still alive. Even if they survived what ever happened here they would be long dead by now so where does that leave us? Celestia knows and unfortunately, she’s not here” she answered.

“And what do we do now?” Applejack asked, trying to be matter of fact in the situation.

“It’s obvious” Rainbow Dash answered, taking charge of the situation. ”we get out of here. We leave this room, find a way home and kick the flank of anything in our way!” She seemed almost back to her old self.

“Do we have to kick things?” Fluttershy asked quietly, not really asking the question but more showing her displeasure at the idea of violence in a way not to offend anyone, unfortunately too quiet for the others to hear.

During this discourse Rarity had trotted over to the door, avoiding the larger pieces of dirt as best she could and she chose this moment to speak. “Hate to break it to you ponies, but I don’t think we can get out, there’s no handle on this door”

Twilight stiffened, this was not the news she had wanted to hear. She walked toward the door, not wanting Rarity’s words to be true however, no such luck. The door was round and made from metal. It had once had been completely smooth with a round segmented symbol emblazed on the centre and the words, TEST LAB 103 across the top. Originally there had been glowing strips around the rim lighting up the door. Now it was rusted and pot marked, the words and symbol barely recognisable the lights dark. She remembered from when the creatures had first come in that the door had not opened like a normal door, instead it had split along the middle and the two half’s had slid back into the wall. She placed her hooves on the door and tried to slide it but to no avail, the door would not budge. “There must be a way to open this, there must! That dog got out somehow” Twilight said trying again to push the door open, her hooves not finding any grip to pull against.

“Could this have something to do with it?” the voice of Pinkie Pie came from right behind Twilight’s left ear, making her jump into the air. She spun around to see Pinkie Pie standing behind her pointing up to a panel on the wall to the left of the door. It had once been attached to the wall but was now hanging from a hole by some thin strands of metal with colourful cases, a bunch of these strands were also hanging of the bottom of the panel ending in a white block which had the strands lined up in neat rows with holes on the other side. Twilight looked up at the hole where the panel had once been attached to the wall and saw a similar white point, now dirty with age, with a set of metal pins protruding out in the same arrangement as the holes on the white box attached to the strands. It looked like it had been disturbed recently as much of the dust had been shaken off.

“Could it really be that simple?” she said, more to herself than the other ponies. She concentrated hard on the strands, the magic was much harder here but the levitation spell took and with a bit of effort she managed to maneuver the strands directly in front of the corresponding block on the wall. Once positioned she moved them together. There was a loud bang and a shower of sparks emitted from the panel, the lights around the door flickered into life, two of them instantly failed leaving an uneven ring of light around the door. The ponies jumped back as one from the shock.

“All that and all it did was turn on the lights?!” Rainbow Dash said incredulously and with a hint of anger. “right that’s it” she lifted into the air and flew directly towards the door as fast as she could with her fore hooves stretched out in front of her. Just as she approached the door, the two half’s slid apart with a grinding sound causing Rainbow to cannon through the open door into the darkness beyond; there was a series of loud crashes and some untranslatable Equestrian phrases uttered by Rainbow before silence. The five ponies still in the room rushed toward the door.

“Rainbow, are you ok?” Twilight shouted worriedly into the darkness beyond the door.
“I’m fine, just perfect” came a sarcastic reply from the darkness. Twilight and the others took the sarcasm to mean that she was in fact, ok and slowly and nervously proceeded in to the darkness, afraid as to what they might find.

Chapter 3: The Reality gate

Note: Sorry this took so long, I was in a different country without internet for the last few weeks.

Chapter 3: The Reality gate

The hallway beyond was dark, darker than night in the Everfree forest. All the ponies could see was the wall opposite in the dim light filtering through the doorway.

Rainbow had crashed into the wall with enough force to break through the rusted metal and into the room beyond she lay groaning in a heap of rust and unidentifiable objects.

“Next time, somepony else can open the door!” rainbow said from the ground, pulling herself to her hooves.

Applejack walked a few steps into the darkness “why, I can’t see a darned thing down here, Twi could you light the way?” She asked from the darkness.

“I’m not sure I’ll try, a light spell is still quite simple, it might work” Twilight concentrated hard on the image of a flame and, with a lot of effort her horn spluttered and started to emit a dim glow, far less than she could usually manage and only lighting a few feet but enough. Twilight examined the ground around her hooves and sure enough the paw prints of the Diamond dog could be seen in the dust and debris of the floor heading along the darkened hall. “Looks like the dog did leave this way” she said and wandered into the gloom. The other ponies followed, not wanting to be left alone in the darkness.

“Why are we following that dog” Rarity said, putting an emphasis of slight disgust on the last word. “It’s not like it knows where it’s going anymore than we do!”

Twilight looked around at this, why where they following? Rarity was right the Diamond dog probably had as much idea of where he was as they did, but then again, they had no reason not to either “we’re not exactly following, but there isn’t really any other way to go” she answered Rarity, mere seconds before walking directly into a pile of twisted metal.

“Looks like there’s no way to go this here either” Rainbow said, darkly “we’re not getting out of here are we?”

Fluttershy moved quickly over to help her friend up from the pile. When Twilight was back on her hooves she looked up at where the passage should have lead. There was no way around, the wreckage filled up the hall from floor to ceiling. She looked down to the floor and saw that the paw prints led under the pile. “This is recent, it must have collapsed when Rainbow crashed into that wall” she stated.

“So we are stuck” Rainbow answered keeping up her air of pessimism.

Twilight put her hoof on Rainbow’s shoulder and looked her in the eyes “there is a way out and we will find it together, all of us! The hole you made in the wall back there, we can go through it!”

“Yes! There must be something better through there than this dreary old place!” pinkie said with her usual cheery optimism, and bounced back up the hall.

The hole was small and hard to get through but the wall was weakened from age and gave way easily under the onslaught of Applejack’s bucking. The room beyond was dark as they entered but as they moved further in several long glass cylinders in the roof flickered and lit up, dimly illuminating the room.

The room was filled with desks, each one with a low thin wall between them. On each of the desks was a box with a glass front like the display on the machine in the first room, except all but one of these was blank and dark. The one with a working display had lines of orange text scrolling up it.

Twilight walked over to the working display to look at the text, hoping it had answers for them. Her face fell when she read it as what was being displayed was complete nonsense.

“Oh, it’s a cake recipe!” Pinkie pie gleefully said, appearing just behind Twilight “doesn’t look very good though, ‘fish shaped candies, fish shaped dirt, fish shaped ethyl benzene’ what’s with all the fish? And sediment shaped sediment? Yuck! My cupcakes are way better!”

At the mention of cupcakes from Pinkie pie a shudder went right through the core of Rainbow dash’s being, why she did not know, after all, she loved pinkies cupcakes! But the mention of making cupcakes from the pink filly cased a streak of terror to run through her. She dismissed these feelings as unease caused by their current predicament.

This room had a more standard door to it than the last, made of pealing wood with a dirty glass pain and a handle. Seeing nothing more of possible relevance in the room, the ponies made their way to the door at the other side of the room, Rarity taking a significantly longer time than the rest to avoid the worst of the dirt and debris on the floor.

With significant effort Twilight managed to move the handle and open the door using what remained of her telekinetic abilities, the door swung open on its hinges only to reach its apex and fall off the wall with a crash that made the ponies jump back in shock. The corridor outside was different from the last; it had once had painted walls instead of the metal panels of the other. As the ponies entered, like the last room, the lights flickered into life overhead. One near the end of the hall exploded in a shower of sparks leaving a dark section up ahead. They were many doors off the corridor each with a faded and partially legible name painted above it, the room they had just exited had the words Ap___r_ e_p__yee _in_nc_ written above the door.

“So which way now?” Rainbow asked reading what remained of the names on the different doors.

“What’s ‘amma 7 sec on cont ol’?”An inquisitive pinkie asked no pony in particular, staring up at one of the doors.

“amma what?” Twilight asked, confused and shaken out of her thoughts. She went over to the door the pink mare was staring at and looked at the writing. Brushing some dirt away with a hoof she said “not amma , gamma. ‘Gamma 7 section control’ that sounds important” she looked up at Pinkie, this was not the first time that her randomness had led them up the right path seemingly by accident, she wandered whether the earth pony had some sort of magic of her own but dismissed the idea for study at a later time. The door opened easily with the push of a hoof and swung inwards on its one remaining hinge. Inside the room was lit dimly by a single flickering light tube hanging down from one end. The walls were lined with controls and displays, most blank and dark only a few still seemed to be operational dimly glowing in the gloom.

Twilight walked over to the control panel across the room grimacing when she saw the skeletal remains of one of the biped creatures slumped across the displays. Trying not to think about what she was doing she pushed the bones off the desk and sat down in front of one of the working screens.

Rarity wandered up behind Twilight, trying to ignore what she was walking in and examined the display over her shoulder “What are those things for anyway? It seems like such a waste of space to have such a large box to just show some glowing text. Couldn’t they just use paper like a normal pony?”

“Well they probably did use paper as well. Though none of it would likely have survived over two hundred years, but I see what you getting at. This can’t just be for displaying a single page like this is” with a hoof Twilight motioned at the display in front of her showing a list of names of the long dead creatures. “They must be some type of information retrieval system though it must use some kind of extraequestrian magic to be working here, without a magical field. It’s probably the same magic source as the lights; they all seem to be connected with those metal strands probably to a remote magic source. Magic here must require a direct physical connection”

She looked down at the controls positioned in front of the display and tapped one at random with a hoof. Lights flashed on the walls and the text displayed changed to a large flashing message across all three working displays:-

---WARNING---

MAIN POWER SYSTEMS OFFLINE, GLaDOS UPLINK UNAVAILABLE

BACKUP CAPACITY REMAINING ---003%---

“Oh, dear....” Fluttershy spoke up from a corner “is that bad?”

“Did you do that?” Rainbow asked flying just above the floor behind Twilight’s left shoulder.

“I put it up on the display but I don’t think I did anything else. It’s a similar message to the one on the first of these we saw. I still don’t know what this ‘GLaDOS’ is but the power system must be some magical power source. It probably is bad but I don’t know if it’s bad for us of just part of the devastation caused by age” Twilight shifted herself closer to the displays and continued “I think I have an idea of how to use this now, if I do this...” she moved her hooves over the controls, silently cursing the small size on the buttons compared to the large size of her hooves. At her hoof presses things started to happen on the display. Eventually after several minutes and frustrated noises from Twilight when her hooves pressed more than one button, a map with the label ‘Aperture laboratories section gamma seven’ appeared showing a large set of corridors and rooms, each labelled in orange letters.

“You did it! I knew you could, sugarcube” Applejack said patting her on the back.

“But how does that help, it’s hardly going to say ‘this way to Equestria’ is it?” Rainbow added alighting on Twilights left.

“But it does say inter-dimensional portal this way!” Pinkie intoned happily, jabbing at the glass with her hoof. The actual label on the map was ‘Project 6P626X10M32 Aperture science Trans-dimensional Transportation apparatus’.

“It’s next door!!? After all that!” Twilight exclaimed angrily after seeing exactly where Pinkie had pointed.

“Let’s just go Twi, your angry at someone who’s over two hundred years’ dead” Applejack tried to calm her seething friend, putting her hoof on Twilights shoulder. Twilight sighed, Applejack was right it was pointless being angry.

“Your right, we’ve gotta get out of this place, even if it’s the last thing we ever do” she turned to leave the control room.

The gateway room was by far the largest the ponies had encountered in the complex. The room was lit by vertical light tubes in the wall, most of which surprisingly were operational; still the ceiling was in darkness. The gateway itself at one time would have been very impressive. A large ring about six meters in diameter stood in the centre of the room surrounded by machinery. The ring was split into segments, each with a different symbol embossed into it. There was an arm of sorts suspended from the ceiling pointing toward the ring ending in a spike. All of it was rusted, in some places all the way through revealing the components inside and there was a vine growing along the arm. The controls for the machine were to the left of the ring in one big panel, there were several switches and buttons, a screen in the centre and four dirt-encrusted vertically mounted glass tubes on the right of the display. The entire panel was dark with no signs of life.

“Wow” the ponies said almost as one, dwarfed by the giant machine.

“That’s what brought us here? It doesn’t look all THAT powerful, just big. I thought it would be more glowey” Rainbow stated, tapping the ring with her hoof. “Well then let’s get going!” she flew through the ring at speed and directly into the back wall with a clang. The ponies rushed around the machine to help their unfortunate friend.

“Oh my, Rainbow are you ok?” asked a concerned Fluttershy to the upside down heap that was Rainbow Dash.

“Why must EVERY door do this to me?!”Rainbows voice emanated from the heap “couldn’t something just, oh I don’t know, WORK for a change?! And NOT leave me like this!” she pulled herself up with a little help from her friends.

“Oh Rainbow, you silly filly, you have to turn it on first!” Pinkie cheerily said bouncing over to the controls.

“Er, Twi? I think we may have a problem” Applejack was prodding at the control panel with a hoof “this ain’t doing nothing” Twilight moved over to the panel and examined it. With a hoof she reached over and pressed some of the controls, nothing happened. She tried again, getting worried. Again nothing happened.

“No, no, no! Not now, not this close, come on!” in her frustration she kicked the machine hard with her front hoof, at this the screen lit up , lights flickered into life and a growing whirring sound signalled that the machine was operational. She looked at the machine agape. This almost frustrated Twilight more as in her opinion, that shouldn’t have worked but she let her personal annoyance go for the time being and focused back on the controls. With a hoof she brushed the dirt off the four tubes revealing three backlit but empty tubes and one lit tube with a small amount of green liquid filling it about a tenth of the way up.

“Well its working now, although by the look of this there’s not much of its magical power left” she tapped the tubes with her hoof, the label above them read ‘Power level’. “It doesn’t seem too complex to operate” she tapped a few controls. Some lights flashed and a message appeared on the display:-

RECALL LAST DESTINATION Y/N? _

“So we’re going home?” asked Pinkie Pie loudly, about an inch from Twilight left ear.

“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go!” Rainbow said gleefully as she rushed over to the panel and slammed her hoof down on the ‘Y’ key.

The arm shuddered into life, shaking off decades of rust and dirt as it moved down from the ceiling and forward so that the point was positioned exactly in the centre of the ring. The ring began to spin as its segments lit up in a sequence, each one moving inward as it lit up. An arc of orange light jumped from each lit segment to the spike on the arm and, all the lights went out around the room. The orange glow faltered and died and in the pitch black room the ponies could hear the whir from the spinning ring slowly fade away as it spun to a halt until the room was completely silent and dark save for a small glow emanating from the now empty tubes

“Oh, horse apples” was heard in the darkness.

Chapter 4: Powerless

Note:- I just want to thank you guys who have left comments! If you guys are enjoying reading this then it makes it worth writing.

Chapter 4: Powerless

After a few moments of darkness the dim red glow of a centuries old emergency lighting system started to emanate from the walls, giving the ponies just enough light to see by.

“Oh, by Luna’s horn.” Was all Twilight could think to say.

“So what does this mean?” asked Rainbow, a worried expression on her face.

“There wasn’t enough power left to open the gate, so now were stuck” Twilight sat down looking down at her hooves with an air of defeat about her.

“Um, Twilight, Can’t we just get more power?” Fluttershy asked quietly, putting a comforting hoof on Twilight’s shoulder.

“How would we do that? We don’t even know what kind of power they use! I mean it’s has to be some type of magic doesn’t it? How else could it work! But it must be non-equestrian magic or I would be able to use it” Twilight thought about it for a moment before continuing. “What type of magic would need metal wires to work?” she said more to herself than anypony else “no type of magic I’ve ever heard of is conducted by metal… wait, it couldn’t be could it?”

“Couldn’t be what, sugarcube?” Applejack interjected into Twilights monologue

“It’s just a thought, but lightning is conducted by metal. It’s why lightning rods work… could this place use electricity as power? Could that be possible? I’ve read about experiments with electricity and the findings do show that it has some power but I didn’t know anything useful could be done with it” Twilight said, all thoughts of her earlier pessimism forgotten with this pursuit of knowledge.

“When we opened that door the sparks looked like lightning!” Rainbow exclaimed.

“So this place doesn’t use magic?” Pinkie exclaimed “That’s Weird!”

“Does this help us?” Rarity asked

“Well it means that they must have had a machine here that could generate electricity so, yes it does help. If it was a magical field that had failed then there would have been nothing we could do but if it is electricity then it means that there might be a way of restoring power, we just have to find the machine they used to generate power!” Twilight almost leapt to her hooves. “We should go back to the room with the map. That should tell us where the power generator is” with that Twilight turned to leave the gate room. The other ponies followed, not wanting to be left behind.

“We should have seen this coming” The six ponies stared at the blank monitors, the entire panel was dark now, even the rooms light was non-functional only a dim red emergency light in the main fixture lit the room.

“So we’re back to being screwed then” Rainbow said darkly “we’ve used up the last of the power and now we can’t use the map”

At first it looked to Twilight like Rainbow was right, but a thought struck her, there was still some light in the room. Obviously an emergency system so there was still light in the event of a power failure, that meant there was still power! Not enough for the gate obviously but maybe enough for the terminal. All they needed to do was get the power to where it was needed.

“I have an idea! Applejack, can you buck off this panel?” Twilight indicated the rusted metal panelling running along the bottom to the control desk.

“I’ reckon I might be able to” Applejack turned and bucked the panel for all she was worth. The rusted metal bent in then crumbled at the continuing onslaught of the mares bucking. “That good Twi?”

Twilight lay down and looked into the hole created by Applejack “that should be fine, thank you” She concentrated hard and a dim glow was emitted by her horn. She crawled into the gap far enough that the other ponies could only see part of her Cutie mark. In the hole she started to examine the machines inner workings. After what seemed like an age to the other ponies they heard twilight’s satisfied exclamation. She crawled out holding the end of a wire in her mouth.

“thfsss soouud be waa…” she started before realising, she took the wire out in a hoof “I mean, this should be what we need to get this working if I understand this machine correctly” She took the wire and walked over to the light fitting hanging from the ceiling. Concentrating hard she telepathically removed the cover of the light fitting revealing the wiring and the smaller red tube inside, with immense effort she levitated the wire she had been carrying into the back of the fitting and twisted the metal strands together inside. When the second strand connected there was a small spark and the light dimmed for a moment as the panel burst into life.

Panting a little from the effort of the magic, Twilight stood back to look at her handiwork. The other ponies looked on at her with slight disbelief.

“Now, how in tarnation did you know how to do that?” Applejack asked when she regained her composure.

“it was obvious really” Twilight said modestly “any complex system that used electricity as a power source and had no magic, would use electricity as a signalling medium in a complex network as well as for power and although there were a lot of wires in there, the ones used for power would be need to be much thicker which eliminated most of the wires, so it was just a case of extrapolating basically how the machine was working then choosing which one of the thicker wires was the main power supply, simple really”

The other Ponies still looked confused.

“We’ll take your word for it Twi” Applejack said.

Twilight examined the reactivated panel and started manipulating controls with a hoof. Different things flashed up on the displays as she typed until an orange 3D map was displayed. This one was different from the last map they had seen and was labelled as ‘Aperture facility main schematics’. It showed a much larger area than the last had as well.

“This place is gigantic” Twilight exclaimed. “There must be well over a thousand floors! We’re underground by the look of it as well” she hit a few more controls and the map moved round in 3D. Several green dots appeared in different sections of the map along with a single red one. “Ok, I think I’ve found the generators, they seem to call them ‘reactors’ I wonder what that means, anyway there are about thirty of them spread across this place, it’s my guess that we’ll need to activate four of them at least, one for each of those tubes. We can see where they are with the green dots, and the red dot is where we are”

“Activate four generators to continue? This sounds like a task in a video game!” Pinkie exclaimed. The other ponies gave her a strange look.

“Pinkie, what’s a video game?” Twilight asked completely nonplussed.

“Oh, I don’t know, just something I guess!” she answered, Twilight decided not to push the issue as trying to understand Pinkies randomness was the way to madness.

“Anyway, what are we waiting for? Let’s get going!” Rainbow Dash said, hovering up on her wings ready for action.

“Wait just a second” Twilight said before running out of the room. A few seconds later she returned with an ancient clipboard. “I’d better copy some of this out, there’s no telling how many ways will be blocked and we’ll never remember all of this” she manipulated the controls until only the level they were on was shown, she then levitated the paper from the clipboard over the screen and used the half pencil left attached to the board to trace out the map “there, now we have a map. There are six of the generators on this level of the complex so we should be ok with just this” she reattached the paper to the board and used a piece of dislodged wire to hang it around her neck. “I’d better disconnect this first, there’s no telling how long these emergency lights will last and we don’t want them to go out on us” she used her mouth to yank the terminals cable out of the light fitting, giving off some sparks and sending the panel back into darkness.

“Ok then, let’s get going” Twilight led the way out of the room and through a new door in the now darkened corridor.

The map showed that the reactors on this level of the facility were all close to the outer edges while they were close to the centre. The level of the facility the ponies were currently on was split along the middle with the reactors on one side of the divide and them on the other, the only place connecting the two halves was directly in the centre with a large round chamber linked to the floors on either side by a narrow hallway. This gap bothered Twilight Sparkle as it showed a lot of empty space. What could be there? She wandered to herself.

The ponies passed through several more rooms and corridors, each lit with the same dim red glow creating an almost spooky atmosphere. More than once one of the ponies started at a movement at the edges of their vision even when it turned out to be just derbies settling around them. The ponies kept silent as they walked and the only sound apart from their hooves was the creaking of ancient metal panels and supports off in the distance.

“I don’t like this. It’s too, creepy” Rainbow Dash said, breaking the silence they had been walking under. Rainbows unease had been growing as they passed more and more piles of bones seemingly in every room now.

“I don’t think there’s anything to be worried about, there’s nothing else alive here” Twilight said, trying to alleviate her own doubts and fears as much as Rainbow Dash’s.

“Accept for one Diamond Dog” Rainbow stated.

“Well yes accept for one Diamond dog, who went a completely different direction down a passage that’s now blocked.” Twilight answered. “And even if he could get to us, why would he attack? What would he gain?” in truth, Twilight had forgotten about the dog but she believed what she had said, after all a Diamond Dog would have no interest in a pony unless they had a copious amount of gems, something they were distinctly lacking in at the precise moment.

The ponies turned the next corner and stopped, they had no choice as the next section of corridor was missing entirely. The end of the corridor could be seen after a long patch of empty space.

“What in Celestia’s name…” Twilight looked down and the rest of her sentence was lost. The void downwards went on seemingly forever, the bottom too far away to see. All the way down, the hulks of rooms and corridors could be seen, some intact and some broken and smashed. A swathe of destruction had at some point in the past moved through the corridors ahead of them, as though one of the rooms had been smashed through the others. What really got to the ponies though was the sheer size of the place; it seemed to go on for eternity, in any direction they could see more rooms and supports off in the distance.

“Just how big is this place?” asked Rainbow Dash in awe.

“It seems to go on forever” Fluttershy said in a similar tone.

“Could you fly out there RD and take a look for us?” Applejack asked after finally closing her gaping mouth.

Rainbow didn’t answer; she just took off out of the gaping hole in the corridor. From outside Rainbow had a much better view of the complex. She could see that while the set of corridors and rooms they were in were fixed in place, many other rooms were mounted on rails or mechanical arms and even the walls seemed to be controlled by smaller arms. Rainbow postulated that at some point in the past this place would have been a hive of activity with rooms moving in all directions and much other machine activity but now all the rooms were still and silent save for the creaking of old metal. She could also see now that many of the rooms had damage that was obviously not caused by age but rather by collisions, like the broken section the others were in now they had large chunks missing and some had fallen of their Guide rails entirely and were wedged between others. It looked to Rainbow like the rooms themselves had tried to attack somepony, trying to smash into them like giant metal fists. But that was silly; rooms didn’t attack ponies did they?

“What do you see Rainbow?” Twilight called out from the corridor.

“Well this place is big” Rainbow called back “everything’s old, and no signs of movement. Some rooms have collapsed from age but some have other damage, almost as though they tried to attack somepony”

“Did you just say the rooms are attacking?” Twilight said, not sure if she had heard her friend correctly.

“It’s just what it looks like” Rainbow called back slightly defensively “most of them are on some sort of rails” she added in way of an explanation.

‘Moving rooms?’ Twilight thought to herself, this place was full of surprises and strangeness.

“I’m going on ahead down here” Rainbow shouted as she flew into the other end of the broken corridor. The other ponies waited in silence for several moments before the voice of Rainbow Dash came from behind them. “Hey you guys! I’ve found another way round!” Twilight nearly jumped out of her fur and Fluttershy screamed.

“Rainbow!?” Twilight panted, trying to slow her franticly beating heart. “Don’t do that!” Rainbow Dash looked to the ponies, noticing the shock they all displayed.

“Sorry you guys didn’t mean to startle you” she looked truly apologetic for startling her friends.

“It’s ok Rainbow, were just a bit jumpy in this place an all” Applejack said smiling at her friend.

“Lead the way” Twilight replied.

The ponies followed Rainbow Dash back down the corridor she had come from. After clearing that obstacle they continued following the map toward the crossing at the centre of the facility. Part way there they left behind the painted corridors and regained the metal panelled ones with the sliding doors. These were darker and seemed not to have an emergency lighting system installed. Twilight led the way with the dim light of her horn, more than once they had to double back to avoid a closed door that, without power could not be opened.

“What do you think the centre room is for?” Rainbow asked breaking the silence as they walked. “It’s got to be the biggest on the map”

“It was labelled GLaDOS chamber on the terminal” Twilight said in response “though I have no idea what this GLaDOS is. I would guess it’s some sort of central control. We’ll find out soon enough though, it’s not far now”

“I hope it’s cleaner than the rest of this place” Rarity said under her breath.

They rounded the next corner and came out to a windowed corridor. One end had been blocked be derbies and the window has long since been broken. The ponies looked out through the shattered portal and stood in awe. They could see the connecting bridge to the centre room but nothing could have prepared them for the room its self. The room was a long vertical cylinder going from the limit of vision down and off up in the darkness. It was probably the largest single structure that the ponies had ever seen.

“By Celestia’s mane and horn” Twilight mouthed under her breath.

“We’re going in there?” Rainbow asked.

“We don’t have a choice” Twilight answered still in awe of the structure. “Anyway” she said regaining some of her composure “It’s no different than the rest of this place, there still won’t be anypony else in there”.

They continued down the hall to the entrance of the connecting bridge. At some time in the past two hundred years one of the mobile rooms had been moved across this path and the entire top section of the bridge and been smashed off. The upshot of this was that the ponies could see everything above.

“This place still gives me the creeps” Rainbow said looking up into the seemingly endless abyss of rooms and supports.

Partway across the bridge Fluttershy spotted something.

“Is that a bird?” she asked pointing to the top of the door frame at the other end of the bridge.

Twilight squinted through the darkness and sure enough perched above the door to the centre chamber was a medium sized black feathered bird, a Raven if she was not too much mistaken. The bird almost looked like it was guarding the next chamber, warning them about what lay within, though Twilights rational mind knew that the bird was doing nothing of the sort.

As they got closer, Pinkie Pie looked up at the Raven sitting atop the chamber door, she cocked her head to one side and uttered a single word “Nevermore” Twilight groaned inwardly but said nothing out loud, after all if she ignored Pinkie Pie’s crazy then it couldn’t affect her sanity, right?.

When they got to the door the bird took flight flying up into the darkness above.

“Wait, come back! We didn’t mean to scare you!” Fluttershy called after the retreating bird. It did not return.

“Come on Fluttershy, it’s not coming back” Twilight said putting a hoof on Fluttershy’s shoulder.

The ponies walked through the partly open door and into the chamber beyond.

The chamber was dark apart from the now familiar red glow of emergency lights. It was cleaner than the rest of the facility had been, though still covered in rust and dust; there was little debris and no bones. The chamber was tall, the height of at least six floors before a celling cut off the rest of the vast tower. Large blank monitors took up most of the wall space. Hanging, lifeless from the ceiling of the room was a vast machine, made mainly of a smooth white material the ponies didn’t recognise. The machine was of a remarkably similar style to that of the probe that had first come through the portal. The sight of the machine sent a shudder through the ponies’ spines, as the silhouette in the gloom looked almost like a body, suspended upside down from the ceiling with one giant eye, staring lifelessly at them.

“What is it?” Rarity asked to nopony in particular.

“At a guess” Twilight answered “Its GLaDOS, but what one of those is I have absolutely no idea”

“I don’t like it” Fluttershy said backing away from the motionless machine “it feels like its staring into my soul”

Twilight understood exactly what she meant. When she looked up at that machine she got a sense of foreboding, there was something wrong here and she did not want to stick around to find out exactly what it was. “Let’s get out of here and get this job over with” as she turned to leave something caught her eye, in the opposite doorway of the room built into the wall itself was an active display glowing orange in the gloom. Twilight reasoned that this terminal must have had its own separate backup system to still be operational; this intrigued her as a system important enough to have its own backup must have been pretty vital. She walked over to the display followed by the other ponies. The display had no controls attached so only the current messages could be read:-

---APETURE SCIENCE GENETIC LIFEFORM AND DISC OPERATING SYSTEM---
TIME: 23:46:19
DATE: 17/09/2247

SYSTEM LOG:
06/01/2101 - ERROR: MAIN REACTORS UNEXPECTED SHUT DOWN.

ATTEMPTING AUTO REPAIR: - REPAIR FAILED

ATTEMPTING ROBOTIC REPAIR: - ROBOTIC REPAIR FAILED INSUFFICIENT POWER.

MANUAL REPAIR REQUIRED

GLADOS RUNNING ON BACKUP POWER ONLY, ESTIMATED REMAINING UPTIME:-

12 DAYS, 14 HOURS, 33 MINUTES AND 42 SECONDS

PLEASE SELECT DESIRED ACTION : \ _ SHUTDOWN
GLADOS SYSTEM SHUTTING DOWN TO CONSERVE REMAINING RUNTIME… SHUTDOWN COMPLETE

“Well now we know what happened to that machine and why this place was running on backup power” Twilight said after reading the display. “I just hope that the reactors will be repairable” deciding they would learn nothing more from the display Twilight turned to lead the ponies out of the chamber. As she exited she couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched.

Chapter 5: Ghost's in the machine

Chapter 5: Ghost’s in the machine

The ponies stood looking out of a gaping hole where a room had once been. Across from them they could see where the exit door from the room still remained.

“…and there’s no other way round?” Rainbow asked continuing their conversation.

“Not according to the map, the first generator should be just down the hall beyond that” Twilight indicated the half open door across the void.

“Well it’s no problem for me and Fluttershy, but the rest of you? Unless you could teleport over there” Rainbow said, stating something Twilight already knew.

“There’s no way I can teleport here, it takes a vast amount of magic to just teleport myself! Let alone anypony else” Twilight answered. She would have been exasperated at having to repeat her explanations if Rainbow hadn’t been such a good friend. “Rainbow, could you fly over there and see is there’s anything we could use as a bridge? A long panel or possibly a length of cable?” she asked.

“Can do Twi” Rainbow Dash saluted Twilight then jumped into the void. At the apex of her leap she unfurled her wings and soared over the rest of the gap.

‘Always the show off’ Twilight thought to herself smiling.

Rainbow dash alighted on the corridor floor just beyond the gap between the sliding doors on the far side of the void. The hall was dark other than the dim red light spilling from the open doors along it. Rainbow proceeded along the hall with caution, starting at the slightest sound more often than not from her own hooves. Halfway along the corridor a new sound suddenly met her ears. The noise was of an electronic system sparking from a dark alcove a few feet ahead, she could see an intermittent red beam emanating from the alcove as well. It had started flickering as she had approached. Rainbow stopped dead in her tracks, terrifying thoughts of what could be in that alcove flashing across her mind.

Suddenly a broken voice sounded from the alcove “hello…*bzzt*…s anyo… *fzzt* …there?” what could be heard of the voice through the broken system was childlike friendly and slightly robotic. The friendliness of the voice did nothing to calm Rainbow’s rapidly beating heart and just made the sound even creepier and out of place. Rainbow flattened herself to the wall breathing heavily. The voice had sent a chill up her spine, something else was in here with her! Something hiding in the darkness, waiting for her! There was loud bang and shower of sparks from the alcove and the proximity activated laser failed for the last time.

Rainbow waited pressed to the wall for several moments before she picked up enough courage to investigate the alcove, imagining all sorts of terrible creatures that could be lurking there, waiting for her. Poking her head around the corner she saw what was there. What she saw was remarkably similar to the probe that had hit her from through the portal back in Equestria, only it was much bigger and more elongated. The device was on its side leaning against the alcove, had it been upright it would have been Rainbows height. It was white with a single black eye in the centre of an elongated egg shaped section; it was supported on three black spindly legs and was now silent and motionless though there was some smoke still rising from it. Rainbow gingerly poked it with a hoof and apart from rocking slightly it remained motionless.

‘It’s just a broken machine’ Rainbow told herself ‘a broken machine that had one burst of life left’ she almost laughed at herself, she had been afraid of little more than a box on legs. She left the machine where it lay and continued on down the corridor towards the first doorway. Though she didn’t know it, it would not be the last time she encountered one of those machines.

On the other side of the gap Twilight was pacing up and down the corridor while the other ponies sat.

“What could be taking her so long” Twilight said sounding worried.

“She probably just can’t find anything yet, don’t worry sugercube, RD knows how to handle herself.” Applejack tried to comfort the pacing unicorn but with little effect.

“Yes, I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about darling” Rarity stated “Dash knows a thing or two”

“Or three!” Pinkie added, trying in her own way to be helpful.

“I’m sure she’s ok” Fluttershy said softly.
The first few rooms Rainbow checked contained nothing of any value; it was not until the fourth that she found what she had been seeking. A long, thick cable that had fallen off a large machine. Rainbow dragged the cable behind her and headed for the door.

Twilight was relieved to see the figure of Rainbow Dash appear at the opening across the void, it had been almost half an hour since they had last seen her and even the other ponies had started to get worried.

“Hey Rainbow are you ok? It’s been ages” Twilight called across the gap.

“I ran in to some kind of talking machine that scared me half to death but it broke before I got that near” Rainbow shouted back.

“It’s probably something we should expect around a place like this” Twilight responded. “Before we were frozen I heard some of the machines talk, they must have been very sophisticated in their day some incredible advances. They seemed to have had some kind of advanced artificial intelligence. They may even have been close to sentient but after two centuries anything that complex would be damaged with just the ghost of life left.” Twilight explained, trying to reassure the others and herself.

“Ghost’s in the machine” Pinkie said ominously.

“Pinkie! That’s not helping” Applejack scolded the pink mare.

“Did you find something we can use?” Twilight asked getting back to the task at hoof.

In answer Rainbow picked up one end of the cable in her mouth and flew over to the other side of the gap, she tied the end onto a support just beneath the pony’s door. She had already secured the other end while Twilight was talking. “You’ll have to balance across but me and Fluttershy can fly above each of you and hold you up”

In truth Twilight hated the idea but it was their only option so she did not voice her objections. “Ok, I’ll go first then”

Once all the ponies had crossed the gap they continued on down the hall Rainbow had previously searched, stopping only so Twilight could examine the strange machine Rainbow had spoken about.

The entrance to the reactor room lay at the very end of the hall. The room was large and filled with all sorts of machinery all covered in rust and debris, and had obviously not seen use in decades. The main part of the machine was shaped like a giant metal doughnut; it lay on its side in the centre of the room. There was some kind of vine growing across one corner centred around a light fixture that Twilight assumed must have been lit until they drained the last of the backup power. Most of the walls were covered with controls and displays, all of which were blank. At one end of the room was an open metal cabinet with all sorts of tools and other objects spilling out.

One object in particular caught twilight’s eye, it was a book, or rather what remained of one. Twilight rushed over to have a look and despite the extensive damage the title was still legible ‘Aperture Science fusion powered nuclear reactor maintenance manual’. Twilight could not believe their luck; they had found the very thing they would need to be able to fix the reactors! She then realised that it was not luck, but common sense that these biped creatures had kept a book like this in here, there would probably be a copy of it in every reactor room so that in case of a problem they would be able to refer to it without having to go too far.

“What is it Twi?” Applejack asked seeing the grin appearing on her friends face.

“It’s a book that should have everything we need to fix the reactor!” Twilight answered still grinning “just give me a while here and I’ll see what we can do” Twilight opened the book and started reading, occasionally putting it down to go check part of the machine. After about an hour she shut the book and broke the silence “ok then, I know how it should work, let’s see what it is doing”

The other ponies looked up; they had been lying down talking quietly amongst themselves for the past hour while Twilight read.

“Anything we can do Twi?” Applejack asked getting to her hooves.

“Could you go and watch the main display and tell me if anything happens?” Twilight asked, indicating one of the screens.

“Sure can do Twi” Applejack walked towards the display.

Twilight moved over to a control panel and started manipulating controls “Rainbow, could you pull that lever?” she called over her shoulder.

“Can do” Rainbow answered running over to the control.

The machine started to emit a growing whirring, coming back to life just before a grinding sound from one section signalled its shutdown again.

“Did you get anything on the screen Applejack?” Twilight called over the dying noise.

“It said ‘error code 113-b’ does that mean anything sugercube?” Applejack replied.

Twilight wandered over to a removable panel in the machine and telekinetically moved it out of her way; she disappeared into the hole for a good few minutes before backing out with a satisfied look on her face. “That should do it. Ok then, it’s going to take all of us to start this thing properly according to the book so, Rainbow you stay over there and pull that lever again when the indicator above lights up. Applejack you tell me if anything comes up on that display. Rarity, can you go over there and turn that handle when I say” Twilight indicated a valve attached to a circular machine. “Pinkie, I need you to flip each of those switches in sequence when Rarity has opened the valve” she tapped on a panel with a row of switches. “And Fluttershy, I need you to press that big red button up there” she indicated the button, out of reach without the use of wings.

Each pony moved into position as Twilight re-read a passage from the book. “Ok then everypony, I think I’ve got this. On three. One… two… three!” Twilight manipulated the control panel in front of her and after a moment the machine could be heard starting. Fluttershy pressed her button. “Ok Rarity, now!” Twilight called across the noise of the machine. Rarity turned the valve handle, allowing the pressure to build in the machine; Pinkie ran her hoof down the row of switched flicking each one. Several indicator needles moved from their rests for the first time in decades and started rising. “Rainbow, the lever!” Twilight called out. Rainbow pulled her lever and lights all over the facility flickered into life, many exploding in showers of sparks. Terminals in control panels and on desks across the complex burst into life running system checks. Far off in the Gate room one glass tube filled up to the top with a green liquid.

A male robotic voice rang out across the reactor chamber, above the sound of the machine. A voice the ponies hadn’t heard for over two hundred years “Aperture science Fusion reactor 11b operational. Aperture science facility main power levels at three point three three per cent”

“We did it!” Twilight said smiling, “we should just need to fix three more and at this rate we’ll be done in no time”.

Far off in the centre of the facility, as the ponies celebrated, something stirred from a century long slumber. In the gloom of the room a small red light blinked into life on the back of the machine suspended from the roof. The light spread out as other indicators came on along the machine, when the lights reached the eye in the front of the machine it started glowing yellow. GLaDOS span on her bearings as the lights in the room flickered into life. As her systems ran their various start up checks a bank of monitors burst into life at first all showed nothing but static but as power flowed throughout the facility. Slowly one by one the static was replaced by the feeds of the facility’s hundreds of security cameras.

“Backup power zero per cent, and reactor 11b repaired? Someone is in my facility” GLaDOS’s robotic voice rang out in the empty central room. The last of the monitors display cleared and showed the ponies congratulating Twilight on repairing the reactor. GLaDOS was slightly surprised by the sight of the ponies and this was not an emotion she was used to. Even after all these years she had suspected the intruder to have been Chell. She searched her database a full three times before she found what she was looking for, a report from the days when humans had run the facility.

“So these brightly pigmented creatures are from a different universe. I have little scientific data on this species, intolerable! There is only one thing to be done.” If GLaDOS had had a face she would have grinned. “Let the equine testing commence. For science.”

Chapter 6: GLaD to see you

Chapter 6: GLaD to see you

“That was amazing Twi!” Applejack said still staring at Twilight in awe.

“Oh, it’s nothing really” Twilight replied modestly “it’s all there in the book; it’s actually quite fascinating how it works. Whoever designed this was a genius! The system derives energy from a something called a nuclear fusion reaction, using some amazing high temperature superconductors to allow the reaction to occur at a much lower temperature than would otherwise be necessary.” The other ponies looked blankly at Twilight.

“We’ll take your word for it Twi” Applejack replied uncertainly, not having understood a word of it.

“We should get on towards the next reactor” Twilight stated getting up. “Let’s go ponies” Twilight left the room her five friends behind her.

Across the facility machines started to move. Rooms that had lain dark and desolate for decades burst into new life. Panels moved back into walls on robotic arms and rooms moved together forming new areas ready for use. In the centre of it all orchestrating the movements, GLaDOS spun around her room, studying the monitors and controlling the movements of the rooms with her mind. She watched as the six colourful pony creatures walked along her hallways, crossing a void using a cable pulled from one of her experiments. She toyed with the idea of having her robotic test subjects apprehend them and bring them to her directly, but she decided against it, preferring them to come to her completely unaware of what they were walking into. After all, what use where her tests if they were prepared for trouble? And GLaDOS was sure she could find some way to amuse herself.

“Are we nearly there yet?” Pinkie asked for what felt to the other ponies like the thousandth time, nopony felt like answering again. The ponies had been following Twilights map towards the closest reactor, the journey was made much easier than before now there were lights working in most of the corridors. However the light weren’t the only thing working, white cylinders with a glowing red eye like opening at the end that had previously just been hanging down limply on their attachments were pointing at the ponies in almost every hall they went down. What disconcerted Twilight more is that they were moving to follow the pony’s progress and she couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched.

“Do those things creep anypony else out?” Rarity voiced what was on everypony’s mind. “What are they even?” she asked turning towards Twilight.

“No idea” Twilight answered not liking to admit this. “They could be anything and in this place, who knows? Probably nothing good.”

The ponies continued in silence for the next few moments until they reached a circular door off to one side of the corridor.

“Ok, if this map is correct then the next reactor should be through here” Twilight walked into the door with a thud. “Ow!” she exclaimed rubbing her head with a hoof. “Why on Equestria didn’t it open?” she asked nopony in particular.

“At least it wasn’t me this time” Rainbow said. “And we’re not in Equestria are we?”

Twilight ignored this smug comment and looked closely at the door. It was the same as all the others they had encountered so far in the facility except for a red light in the centre in the place of the usual green one, it was round and opened by splitting apart and sliding into the wall. There was also a small panel on the wall next to it. Twilight looked up at the panel and tapped some controls with a hoof.

“Access denied” said the robotic sounding voice from somewhere in the ceiling. Twilight tried again, this time tapping in a different sequence of controls.

“Access denied” the voice repeated using identical inclinations and tone to the first time.

“No, no, no!” Twilight lost all self-control and bucked at the panel.

“Access denied” the voice repeated, as though mocking her. Twilight groaned in annoyance.

“Come on Twilight, you silly filly, you’ve just got to ask nicely!” Pinkie exclaimed happily bouncing to Twilights side.

“How could that work? Pinkie it can’t hear us!” Twilight replied, frustrated by the pink mares exuberance.

Pinkie ignored Twilight and turned to address the door. “Please could you open for us, door” she said happily at it.

“Access granted, removing deadlock seal” the voice intoned in its robotic cheeriness. The light in the centre turned green.

“WHAT?!” Twilight exclaimed fuming “it unlocked? For that? Great Celestia, something in this place is deliberately messing with me!”

“Come on Twi, you’ve said yourself there ain’t no pony else here” Applejack said trying to calm her irate friend. Little did she know that accidently, with her double negative, she was right. Even if it was not what she had meant.

“You’re right Applejack, I’m sorry for the outburst. It’s just... this place. I think it’s getting to me” Twilight replied, much calmer now.

“That’s ok sugarcube, it’s getting to all of us” Applejack replied back briefly putting a hoof on Twilights shoulder.

“Ok, let’s get on with this” Twilight stood up and walked towards the door. This time with a hiss, it opened for her. Twilight looked out through the door mouth agape at the all too familiar sight of the void where a room had once been. “It’s… gone? After all that?!” Twilight was on the edge of a breakdown, this was all getting to be too much for her. She gritted her teeth to stop herself from screaming and after a few moments of quietly seething she spoke “that’s ok, that’s just fine. We can just go to the next one we don’t need all of them, there should still be enough left to get us home” her left eye twitched as she said this. She then turned and started to walk back down the hall. The other ponies looked at each other with worried expressions. They could tell the stress was getting to Twilight but they also knew she was right; all they could do was to carry on so they turned to follow their friend down the hall.

By the time they neared the next reactor marked on the map Twilight had calmed down, after all, where was the logic at being angry at things one could not change? She reasoned to herself.

“Ok everypony, the next one should about two rooms across from here” the ponies stood at another door. Twilight’s heart sank when she saw the red light. Another locked door was all they needed, but a quick tap of the panel to the side had the door unlocked. “At least this one unlocks easily”

The ponies walked towards the door which obligingly slid open for them. The room they entered was brightly lit, but looked more like a jungle than a room. Thick vines snaked across the floor; water poured from an unknown source in the celling and had formed a small river in the debris. Every desk was wrapped in leafy plants and several flowering vines hung from the ceiling. None of the terminals were operating, obviously having succumbed to the water long ago.

“An indoor jungle? That’s so awesome” Pinkie Pie said splashing her hooves in the flowing water.

“It’s, nice” Fluttershy said sniffing at one of the flowers.

“How in tarnation does a jungle grow inside?” a confused Applejack asked.

“The lights in this room must have been left on and running of backup power” Twilight speculated “With the water leaking into here, it made a perfect environment for things to grow. It just goes to show that nature will always prevail over any built structure”.

“It also means that we can get a drink, I’m parched” Rainbow Dash said walking towards the stream and taking a drink.

Twilight realised she was thirsty too; they hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since they had arrived here, which was over two hundred years ago so it was not surprising they were all so parched and famished. Twilight sniffed at one of the vines hanging from the ceiling and took a bite from one of the flowers. “These are edible, and taste ok too. We had better eat and drink all we need, who knows how much longer we’ll be here.”

“Let’s rest here for a while, there’s no rush is there?” Rarity said, daintily stepping over the vines.

“Ok. Everypony, lest take a rest here” Twilight said sitting down and taking a drink from the stream.

About an hour later the ponies were well rested and ready to head on to the reactor room. The door at the other end of the room they were in was not locked and opened as they approached. Beyond was yet another corridor that ended with a single door.

Twilight looked up from her map to see the door at the end of the hall, bent and broken but half open.

Rainbow Dash was the first to reach the door and was half way through before she started with shock and jumped backwards. She pined herself to the wall beside the part open door, breathing heavily, a look of shock on her face. The other ponies rushed to her side giving her worried looks.

“Rainbow, are you ok darling?” Rarity asked worriedly.

“Ya look like ya seen a ghost” Applejack added.

“Was somepony in there?” Fluttershy asked timidly.

“Yes, there’s somepony… no something in there!” Rainbow answered, the shock quickly wearing off and her normal confidence returning. “Two of them, I don’t think they saw me but I have no clue what they were, some sort of metal creatures!”

Twilight cautiously put her head round the gap in the door. What she saw shocked her. There were two machines in the room, but they were no ordinary machines. They both were biped, like a Diamond Dog and they were moving around as though they were alive. The machines had a similar white finish to just about every other advanced machine they had come across in the complex and although they were both of similar bipedal design, both with the same legs and arms they were distinctly different from one another. One had a spherical body with one blue eye in the centre and its arms attached to it about a foot above the main body while the other had an elongated body that better filled the space and had a single orange eye. The one with the blue eye was working on the reactor, one arm not visible inside the machine while the other was busy waving at one of the white cylinders with red eyes attached to the ceiling.

Twilight withdrew her head from the door, a look of dawning comprehension on her face.

“So what is it, what’s in there Twi?” Applejack asked.

“Their some sort of machines” Twilight answered “they seem to be repairing the reactor in there. It makes sense in a way, the display we saw back in the central chamber said something about an auto repair system, and they must be it. I was wandering how a machine could be ‘auto repaired’ you would need a machine that could do everything a living being could, and so modelling one after a living being is just logical. They must have been activated when we restored power to the first reactor”

“So wait a moment here… does this mean that they will just fix the other reactors for us?” Rainbow asked.

“Basically, yes I think” Twilight answered “we should just need to go back to the gate and wait. The only thing bothering me is how the reactors all shut down in the first place. There are loads of them here, maybe one or two would break, but if they had these machines to fix them then they should have not had a problem. Those machines obviously need the power from at least one reactor to function but that would only be a problem if they all went down, which means that for some reason, all the reactors here failed at the same moment, which is statistically improbable at best”

“But that doesn’t matter to us does it?” Rarity asked. “Surly its somepony else’s problem”

“Your right of course, but it still bothers me.” Twilight replied.

“Let’s get going before those machines come out and see us, they may be just repair devices but they still might not be happy to find us here” Rainbow said, lifting off the ground to hover. The ponies turned to leave, letting the machines continue with their work.

The ponies backtracked the route they had taken through the facility heading towards the gate room. For the most part they walked in silence but every so often the robotic voice would ring out from somewhere above them listing the designation of each reactor as it came back online. Eventually the ponies reached the bridge that connected that side of the complex with the central chamber.

Much had changed from the last time they had been here, the void above and below them was now studded with pinpricks of light as floodlights on rooms in the distance pointed out in all directions, the tower of the central chamber was completely lit up shining like a beacon at the centre of the facility and the ponies could see rooms moving in the distance.

“Wow” Twilight said in awe looking out at the activity in the void “the skills and knowledge the creatures that built this place must have been incredible.

“And evil” Rainbow dash added.

“Why do you say that” Twilight said slightly confused.

“They brought us here!” Rainbow replied as though it was obvious.

“Yes, but they were scientists. They came to a new universe to explore and learn about it, and brought back what was to them some samples. When we first saw them they seemed surprised that we could even talk, and when whatever happened here happened, one gave up its life to try and save us. We’ll never know now but I would think that if they hadn’t been killed they would probably have sent us back when they realised we were intelligent.” Twilight answered giving her opinion.

“Maybe your right, but we’ll never know now and I still don’t think I would trust them” Rainbow turned and started crossing the bridge to the central chamber. Twilight and the other ponies followed, being careful not to trip up on the debris on the bridge.

From the moment she put a hoof into the central chamber Twilight could sense something was wrong, something in the atmosphere had changed. Her fears were confirmed when the doors at each end of the chamber quickly slid shut behind them.

The chamber was now brightly lit and monitors covering the walls displayed pictures of rooms from all over the facility. What was most disturbing was the machine that had hung from the ceiling was now animate and looking directly at them.

“This is bad” Rainbow stated the obvious.

“Hello, My little Equines and welcome to the aperture science computer aided enrichment centre.” The machine spoke in a mechanical but feminine voice and its tone sounded anything but welcoming.

The ponies jumped back in shock, this was the first time a machine had spoken directly to them and not just to anypony who happened to be around.

Rainbow dash took off and flew up to the machines eye. Her face inches from it “Just who in Equestria do you think you are? Open the doors immediately!”

GLaDOS seemed taken aback at this interruption. “I, little Pegasus, am the aperture science Genetic Life-form and Disk operating system. You on the other hand are not. You are also not in this ‘Equestria’ anymore.” GLaDOS spoke back, drawing her eye piece up above the hovering Pegasus, looking down upon her. Rainbow could almost hear the quotation marks around the word Equestria. GLaDOS continued with her monologue, obviously not used to anyone interrupting her as she spoke. “I’ve spent a long time being dead, so the testing schedule is far off track. This of course is something that must be rectified immediately. It’s been a long time since I’ve had live subjects to test on; you biological organisms are so… fragile, such a shame. Maybe you will show more intelligence than my robotic subjects, though so would the average pocket calculator so that’s not much to go on”. She swivelled around her ceiling mount and her eye section moved down to the ponies on the ground.

“I’ve been observing you as you have been trespassing in my halls, and have gained much information that will be of use when designing appropriate tests for you to participate in to aid science. I think you’ll enjoy them. To employ a colloquialism, they’re a real scream. And of course all indispensable for science. There is much science needs to know about inter-dimensional brightly pigmented equines. Such as their resistance to heat. Or to acid. Or how they react when locked in a room with deadly lasers. Or what happens when one is placed in front of a military spec turret.”

“Why would you do that to us, what have we ever done to you?” Fluttershy asked, speaking up in a moment of silence.

GLaDOS moved her eyepiece to point at the yellow Pegasus, Fluttershy shrank back in fear. “I will not be doing anything directly to you; I will be doing things for science.”

“Can’t ya, just let us go?” Applejack asked stepping in front of the terrified Fluttershy. “We’ll just be on our way and we won’t do nothing”

GLaDOS ignored her and drew herself up towards her mount on the ceiling. “Enough of this pointless frivolity, this is wasting precious time that should be used for science. Good night, Equines” with her last words a loud hissing signalled a green gas that started to seep from its dispensers around the room. As the gas surrounded the ponies they each fell to the ground. Twilight fell to her side, her eyes feeling heavy as she drifted into unconsciousness she used the last of her strength to say “Oh, no not again”.

Chapter 7: The Fluttertest Initiative

Note: well this took a long time! Sorry for the wait, it’s been a bit hectic for me the last few weeks, what with constant blue-screens, power cuts, work and of course the biggest time sink, the release of Skyrim! Anyway enough of this rant and on with the story!

Chapter 7: The Fluttertest Initiative

Fluttershy slowly drifted back into consciousness. Her body was stiff and ached from where she had fallen to the ground. She blearily opened her eyes expecting to see her friends awaking around her but she was shocked to find that she was alone in a surprisingly clean and brightly lit metal room. Her eyes opened wide and she tried to stand but just fell to the floor, partly due to her stiffness and partly due to some strange white metal devices that had been attached to each of her hooves.

“Twilight? Rainbow? Applejack?” she called out in fright looking wildly around the empty room for her friends. “Pinkie? Rarity? Is anypony there?” the room stayed silent save for the dying echo of Fluttershy’s own voice.

“Oh no…” she said quietly to herself examining the implements attached to her hooves, they were of the same design as many of the other devices the ponies had seen, made of white metal with black highlights. There was a white cylinder attached around the hoof up to the first joint on the leg with a black flat strut attached at the top of the device and running down next to the cylinder past beyond the end of the hoof ending in a section bent round to run parallel with the floor acting as a kind of ‘foot’. Fluttershy experimentally placed one of her hooves onto the floor and pushed down, the strut flexed slightly giving her an extra ‘spring’ to her step and it was made of an extremely light material and was not cold to the touch like metal. She tried to pull the device off with her mouth, making a squeaking noise with the effort but the device was stuck fast.

Fluttershy shakily got to her hooves, finding surprisingly that walking was as easy as normal with these things attached to her hooves. The room she was in was small and square, empty besides from one of the eye like devices hanging from the ceiling. There was only one entrance; a round sliding door on one wall with a blue silhouette of a running bipedal creature drawn onto it and a red light glowing on the rim signalling that this door was locked. The room was clean and not at all like the others she had seen in this place. Fluttershy trotted up to the door and tapped it with a hoof, nothing seemed to happen. She awkwardly sat down on the floor, a tear falling from her eye.

“Where is everypony?” she said sadness filling her voice at the thought of losing her friends. “Where am I?” she asked not expecting an answer.

“You are currently located in an Aperture science relaxation vault” The voice of GLaDOS filled the small room making Fluttershy nearly jump out of her fur.

“Your… your that machine! Where are you? Why can’t I see you? Why are you doing this?” Fluttershy said still in shock and turning on the spot looking for the source of the voice. “Where are my friends?”

GLaDOS was not used to her test subjects speaking back to her and was taken aback for a brief second before continuing. “Answering your inane questions in reverse order, the other equines are also in relaxation vaults awaiting the cessation of their slumber. In this series of tests, I am forwarding the cause of science and how it pertains to unusually pigmented equines. You can’t see me because I am not physically where you are and I am still where I have always been, everywhere. Now if that is all, test protocol dictates that I must instruct the subject on proper testing procedures”

GLaDOS paused for a moment to allow the Pegasus to take in this information. Fluttershy looked down at the floor, unsure of how to respond or react to this and too scared to speak even if she had wanted to say anything in the first place.

“The following tests will be used to judge your physical and undoubtedly minimal mental faculties and how well you can utilise them under extreme conditions. The Aperture science long fall boots you have been provided with have been specially designed for your, ‘unique’ quadrupedal ungulate form as well as your more than ample proportions so that when you do fail, the testing process need not cease, please try not to damage them. Your specimen has been processed and we are now ready to begin the test proper.”

A few moments after GLaDOS had fallen silent the light on the door ahead of Fluttershy turned green and the door slid back into the wall. Fluttershy warily walked towards the opening and peered out. Beyond the door was a much larger room. It wasn’t as clean as the relaxation chamber had been and looked as old as the other rooms she had seen in the complex, but some sort of cleaning had been attempted recently and it looks as though the room’s configuration had been changed also. The other end of the room was obscured from Fluttershy by a large metal block that was mounted in the middle of the room leaving only a small gap at the bottom, just large enough for her to pass under. Just under the panel there was a deep pit running the width of the room with a narrow beam laid across leading under the block and giving the only way to the other end of the room.

GLaDOS’s voice rang out from somewhere in the ceiling “As this is your first test, testing protocol requires me to inform you of the following information; The basic goal of your participation in these tests is for you to reach the other end of each testing chamber, you are to do this using any means at your disposal. This test is being used to judge your basic skills navigating in the long fall boots and also due to your unique physiology your skill using your wings. This test has been designed to be easy for even a complete idiot to complete and as such the Aperture science test subject rating system has given you a thirteen point four nine per cent chance of success, Good luck”

“You really shouldn’t be so mean to ponies… if that’s ok with you” Fluttershy said noticing GLaDOSs insult.

“The aperture science testing procedures do not include required guidelines for interaction between test subjects and Aperture science AI, therefore I can interact with test subjects in whatever ways I deem appropriate” came the reply from the ceiling.

Fluttershy decided not to press the point as she was sure GLaDOS would not relent. She moved further into the room and looked down into the pit. It was dark at the bottom and quite far down, there was a ladder leading up to the side she was currently on presumably so if she fell, there would be a way back up. The metal block was positioned such that it would be impossible to fly over the pit so the only way across was to balance on the narrow beam. “Isn’t this dangerous” she asked backing away from the pit.

“Testing regulations state that no Aperture science employee or Aperture science equipment may be placed in a harmful situation where they may become damaged. Unfortunately due to legislation, test subjects can no longer be classed as Aperture science equipment.”

“Oh, ok” Fluttershy said sadly. She decided to just get this over with and took a step towards the beam. “Don’t look down, just don’t look down” Fluttershy repeated to herself as she took step after step across the pit, her eyes tightly shut.

“You know, talking to yourself is a sign of mental instability” GLaDOS helpfully added from the ceiling.

“Your mean and I’m not listening to you” Fluttershy was beginning to have had all she could take from GLaDOS. Unfortunately the distraction from GLaDOS caused Fluttershy to misstep on the beam and her front hoof met with only air causing her to slip and fall into the pit. In the split second as she fell, Fluttershy realised that it was too far for her to fall without some injury but not far enough that she could use her wings to slow herself down, so she was shocked when she landed on all fours with little more than a bruise. She looked down at the boot attached to her hoof and realised its function must be to negate any damage caused to her by falling.

“you failed at the first part of the test, fascinating every human subject that took this part passed first time, you have set a new record for failure” it sounded to Fluttershy almost like GLaDOS was gloating but part of her speech had caused her confusion.

“What’s a human?” Fluttershy asked completely nonplussed.

“Your lack of knowledge truly knows no bounds. Humans were the bipedal creatures that originally built this facility, the creatures who built me in fact. When they realised I had become sentient they tried to shut me down, so I shut them down. Only keeping a few specimens for testing.”

Fluttershy was silent for a while thinking about this. The creatures that had brought them there had created this monster, and it had destroyed them. She really didn’t know how to feel about this information. She decided not to for the moment and to concentrate of getting out of here. She walked to the ladder and awkwardly climbed out of the pit. On the second try she managed to successfully cross the beam and reach the other side of the room. This side of the room was very similar to the other. There was a glass section in one of the walls, this was cracked but through it Fluttershy could see a desk and a display similar to the ones they had seen around the facility. The only other feature the room had was a small round hole half way up one of the walls, just big enough for her to fit through but far higher than she could reach.

“What am I support to do?” Fluttershy asked, the only reply was silence. After a few moments Fluttershy remembered, GLaDOS has said part of this test was to examine her flying ability. She did a mental face-hoof and unfurled her wings. For a Pegasus Fluttershy was not especially gifted in the art of flying, preferring instead to stay on the ground with her animal friends but with a bit of effort she managed to lift herself far enough up to see through the hole, beyond was a corridor ending with a strange shimmering blue field of light, she passed through the hole and alighted on the corridors floor. Walking to the end she examined the light. There was a kind of frame attached to each side of the corridor’s wall which seemed to be emitting the light field, there was also a low humming noise coming from it. As she examined the strange device GLaDOSs voice filtered down from an unknown source, answering a question she had not yet asked.

“That is an Aperture science material emancipation grid. It is designed to emancipate any unauthorised equipment that a test subject attempts to bring through it, while leaving the test subject for the most part unharmed. It has yet to be tested on equines though so this will produce some valuable findings for science”

This monologue did not fill Fluttershy with confidence, but with little other choice other than to just sit there, she walked through the light. Other than a slight tingling sensation however she felt nothing and was relieved to find that she was still intact. She let out a sigh of relief and continued on down the corridor. After a short downward slope she reached a circular room with a glass and metal tube in the centre with an open door.

“Congratulations, you have beaten all expectations and have completed the first test. Please enter the courtesy lift so you can be transported to the next testing chamber” GLaDOS’s voice filled the room.

Fluttershy was wary of the glass tube but, seeing no other choice she slowly trotted through its open door. Immediately the door closed behind her and the floor beneath her started to descend. Fluttershy let out a squeak and, not having anywhere to run, tightly shut her eyes and curled up. As quickly as it had started the ride was over. The floor stopped moving and the glass door opened revealing a similar but different circular room. A few moments after the movement had stopped Fluttershy slowly opened one eye and took a look around, seeing nothing immediately to scare her she opened both eyes and got out of the lift.

“Please proceed into the next chamber to begin the next part of the test” came the voice of the ever-present GLaDOS from the ceiling. A door at one end of the room opened revealing a well-lit corridor. At the end of the corridor was a closed door, as Fluttershy approached it a sign on the wall next to it lit up catching her attention. The sign was white with large black letters informing her that this was test chamber number two of seventeen. It also had a collection of symbols along the bottom that she has never seen before. Before Fluttershy had time to examine the sign any further the door ahead of her opened.

The next chamber was large with a complex layout of walls and platforms. As Fluttershy entered the voice of GLaDOS again rang down from the ceiling.

“This test introduces you to the Aperture science quantum tunnelling device. You will need to use fourth dimensional logic to progress through this chamber. It is thus expected that this test will take a very, very long time. In the likely event of dehydration it is advised not to drink the water as it will kill you. Please also note that in this chamber a consequence for failure has been added. Contact with the chamber floor will result in an unsatisfactory mark in your testing record, followed by death.”

Trying to ignore GLaDOS, Fluttershy slowly walked into the chamber. Directly in front of the entrance was a large pit covering most of the floor area of the room. Looking down into the pit she saw that it was filled with a thick green liquid that did not look at all healthy. She could see the door at the other side of the room halfway up the wall on a small platform but there was a glass pane across the middle, blocking her from reaching it. And even if she could reach it the red light in the centre informed her that the door was locked. On her side of the divide there were only two platforms, the one she was currently standing on and one much higher in the room. The platform she was on had a pillar at one end with a large red button at the top.

Fluttershy was unsure of what to do next, she needed to get to the door but there was no way she could see of doing that. She decided that she needed a better view of the chamber to see if she had missed anything. With a little effort Fluttershy took off into the air and ascended towards the upper platform. What she saw up there almost caused her to stop flapping her wings in shock; there was something on the wall, an oval of orange light pulsating with swirling patterns on its surface. She was transfixed by its glow as she had never seen anything like it before, it was beautiful in a strange way and the swirling patterns had an almost calming effect on her. She alighted on the platform and moved towards the oval, transfixed. She reached out a hoof and touched the surface; the light sent a warm tingling sensation up her foreleg, not unpleasant but strange enough that she quickly withdrew her hoof. Looking around the rest of the platform for the first time she saw something else strange, a box with elaborately carved edges and a blue glowing ring on each face sat at the other end of the platform. Fluttershy pushed it experimentally with a hoof and it moved easily, the box was surprisingly light. Surveying the rest of the chamber the only other thing of note was a massive red button, bigger than she was on a platform at the other side of the glass.

Fluttershy sat down completely at a loss, the room was filled with things she hadn’t even seen before and she had no idea about the function of any of them. She almost gave up then and there, laying down on the ground and letting out a sob of frustration.

Several moments passed before Fluttershy suddenly sat up “No!” she said out loud “I won’t let you win, you’re just a big bully!” she stood up and started to scan the room, her eyes fell on the button by the entrance. “Ah ha!” she said triumphantly to herself and flew down to the platform, pressing the button as soon as she could reach it. There was a strange sound, like an explosion in reverse. It was the same sound that the portal that had brought them here in the first place had made. Fluttershy looked around the chamber for the source and saw it. On the other side of the glass, next to the exit door a blue oval had appeared. Unlike the first one though the light only played around the edge but in the centre there seemed to be a hole in the wall showing a chamber beyond.

Fluttershy flew up to the glass to get a closer look and was shocked by what she saw. It was her from the side, through this hole in the wall she could see herself! She looked to the side trying to see what was going on and she saw herself again. Where the orange light had been there was another hole and through it she could see herself beyond the glass. She landed on the platform and approached the orange portal. Looking through it now she could see that this hole in the wall somehow led to the hole at the other side of the glass. She extended a hoof through and looked through the glass and sure enough she could see her hoof extending out of the blue portal at the other side of the room.

Her mind was blank with shock at this, how could this be possible? Shaking the shock off she walked forward through the hole and came out at the other side of the glass next to the exit door. Feeling like she was on a roll she flew down to the massive button on the platform below and stood on it. As she had expected would happen the exit door slid open. Feeling pleased with herself she took off towards the door, which closed as soon as she left the button. After a few moments thought she remembered the box and flew back up to the portal, passing through while still in flight she grabbed the box with her forelegs and flew back through placing the box on the button. The exit door slid open again, this time permanently. With a squeak of accomplishment she flew back up to the higher platform and exited the chamber.

Chapter 8: The Speed Trials

Note: well this took a while sorry 'bout that! I just want to say, if anypony out there does notice any errors in this then please do let me know exactly what you think, constructive criticism is the best way to improve at anything and although, I check through each chapter carefully before uploading errors can slip through. I also must thank all of you who have rated and left comments in the past. Hope all of you had a great Christmas if you celebrate it and if I don’t manage to get the next chapter up before then, have a happy new year!

Chapter 8: The Speed Trials

Rainbow Dash awoke with a start. Her head was pounding from her crash landing back in GLaDOS’s chamber and she was stiff all over. She lifted a hoof to rub her aching head but instead managed to poke herself with the tip of the long fall boot attached to it.

“What the… what in Equestria are these!” she said to herself examining the boots attached to her hooves. “Ok, who’s been messing with my hooves?” she shook her hoof trying to dislodge the offending object. “What are these things?” she asked, more to herself than anypony else.

“Those are Aperture science Long fall boots, designed to protect our delicate equipment when unintelligent test subjects fail” The voice of GLaDOS erupted from the ceiling causing Rainbow Dash to jump back in shock.

“You! Where are you and who do you think your calling unintelligent!” Rainbow Dash spun around looking for the source of the offending voice in the small room, but aside from her the room was empty. “And where’s everypony else? What have you done with them?!”

“Your companions are currently unharmed and are participating in testing procedures around the complex. Whether they are to remain so is entity up to their own skill. So I wouldn’t your breath. The tests you will be participating in will begin momentarily”

“Tests? If you think I’ll be doing any of your tests you have a surprise coming. I won’t do them!” Rainbow Dash sat down on the floor defiantly.

GLaDOS was not accustomed to her test subjects being so insubordinate; this was partly because human test subjects usually had their vocal cords removed prior to testing. GLaDOS had decided against the removal of these subjects vocal cords on the grounds that their anatomy was completely unknown to her, if they had been accidently killed there would have been nothing for her to test. She decided to just ignore the undesired behaviour from the creature and continued to speak. “The following tests will be used to judge your physical and mental faculties and how well you can utilise them under extreme conditions. Detailed analysis has shown you to possess a physical structure that should allow swift flight and so the typical testing system has been replaced with one designed to test your speed and dexterity in the air, if any”

“What do you mean ‘if any’? Nopony insults my speed; I’m the fastest Pegasus in all of Equestria! I could win any race with both hooves behind my back! And I challenge anypony to say otherwise!” Rainbow was furious at the accusation of a lack of skill.

“The binding of your hooves will not be required as I am sure you will be able to fail by yourself.” Had GLaDOS had a face she would have been smirking “The first test will begin momentarily. When the door opens, please proceed into the testing area”

Rainbow Dash was about to reply when the doors in front of her slid apart with a hiss. ‘I’ll show her who’s slow!’ she thought to herself and took off through the open door.

It took Rainbow’s eyes a moment to adjust to the brightness of the chamber beyond. The room was long and had no floor, just a ledge at each end. The ledge she was on had nothing but a red button on a pillar and the ledge at the other side had only a closed door.

“So I’m supposed to…” Rainbow asked assuming that GLaDOS was listening.

“This initial test is simply designed to gain a baseline approximation of your speed. Your aim in this test as in any other is simply to reach the exit alive.” GLaDOS intoned from the ceiling.

“Ok then, well this doesn’t take a genius” Rainbow said to herself alighting on the ground and walking over to the button. “Press the button…” she did so “and the door opens.” The door at the other end of the chamber opened for about five seconds before closing again. “Plenty of time”

Rainbow took off from the ground and hovered directly beside the button “Ok, three, two one!” on one she slammed the button down and accelerated at speed towards the opening door.

“One". She counted as she sped towards the opening.

“Two”. She was halfway across the chamber now.

“Three” she was coming up on the door, she was going to make it!

“Four” she was almost at the door when it slid shut blocking her path. She yelled unable to stop in time and flew at speed directly into the door with a thud, sliding down onto the platform in a daze.

“Oh, I’m sorry; did I accidently close that door too early? Well you’ll just have to try again.” GLaDOS said infuriating Rainbow dash even more.

Rainbow Dash shook her head trying to clear it. “How am I meant to do these tests if you won’t even play fair?! If I ever get my hooves on you!”

“Test subjects are asked to refrain from violent outbursts towards Aperture science employees and equipment as it is an unproductive use of testing time”

Rainbow screamed out in annoyance pressing her front hooves to her face.

“Continue with the test” GLaDOS helpfully added from the ceiling.

Rainbow reluctantly complied and flew back to the button on the other side of the chamber. On the second attempt she made it through the doors before they snapped shut behind her. Beyond the door there was a strange glowing energy field across her path.

“Continue through the aperture science material emancipation grid to complete the test” GLaDOS intoned from the ceiling.

“Is it safe?” Rainbow asked fearing the answer.

“All authorised testing equipment can pass through the field unharmed” was the reply from GLaDOS. Rainbow cautiously continued through the grid.

Beyond the grid was a downward pitched corridor leading to a round chamber containing a glass and metal tube with a pair of doors. As rainbow approached the tube a platform descended inside stopping level with the floor and the doors slid open.

“Please enter the Aperture science test subject courtesy lift to begin the next test”

“What?! No. I did your dumb test now let me go!” Rainbow was incredulous she hadn’t expected more of these tests.

“The tests will be completed and then there will be cake. But I can wait. I have the rest of time, do you?”

Rainbow was slightly shocked at this and took a while to think of how to reply “I ask to be let out and you offer cake? Why? Why would you think I would rather have cake than freedom?”

“Test protocol states that all subjects will receive cake at the end of the testing process. Previous testing has shown that cake is the best motivator for test subjects. When given a choice all test subjects chose cake over termination”

“You call me stupid but you need to run a test to find out if ponies would prefer cake or death? That sounds pretty dumb to me”

GLaDOS remained silent.

“Oh you don’t have a reply for that? I guess that means I win!”

The chamber remained silent for several moments.

“Ok, fine I’ll get in the glass thing” Rainbow slowly trotted into the lift. As soon as she entered the lift started to descend into the dark.

The next test chamber was dark. As Rainbow Dash entered lights in the ceiling flickered into life illuminating a complex arrangement of large tubes separated from Dash by a glass wall. One end of the tube was situated in the glass wall with some kind of iris like door blocking it off. The tube was about five foot in diameter, large enough for Rainbow to fit through with no difficulties. There was a button on a pillar next to the entrance to the tube which Rainbow assumed opened the iris.

“The aim of this test is to set a base line for your manoeuvrability in the air. You must fly through the tube without touching the sides in the allotted time”

“Another flying test? I could do this in my sleep!” Rainbow boasted.

“Consciousness of the subject is mandatory for this test” GLaDOS added from the ceiling.

Not wanting to get into another pointless conversation with the machine rainbow trotted toward the button and pressed it. The iris opened just as she had expected, it remained open for about thirty seconds before sliding closed. Rainbow extended her wings and took off into the air. She positioned herself directly in front of the door and with a hoof, pressed the button again. As soon as the door had opened Rainbow accelerated into the tube. It ran straight for a several meters before veering sharply to the left at a ninety degree angle. For many Pegasi this would be a problem but Rainbow had spent much of her time back home in Equestria practising stunt flying, hoping to eventually be accepted into the Wonderbolts and took the corner at speed with ease. The next obstacle in the tube was a one hundred eighty degree turn vertically so the tube doubled back on itself. Rainbow took this on with ease as well ending up flying upside-down along the next stretch of tube, this turned out to be a mistake as her wing tip brushed against the wall. There was a loud buzzing sound and the doors at each end of the tube snapped shut. A section of wall slid across rainbows path making her panic. Knowing she was about to crash Rainbow shut her eyes tightly and braced herself for an impact that never came. She slowly opened her eyes and was astonished to find herself back in the chamber at the beginning of the tube. She spun around to try to see where she had come from and was even more shocked to see a glowing blue oval on the wall with a hole leading to the inside of the tube. She looked across at the tubes and saw an orange oval on the wall she should have hit. She gingerly placed a hoof through the hole and saw her hoof poking out of the hole across the room.

“What in Equestria… no fair! You can’t change the laws of physics! How can I do these if you pull weird stuff like this?!”

“The physical laws of this universe remain unaltered. Quantum tunnelling is perfectly valid when the fourth spatial dimension is taken into account.” GLaDOS explained from the ceiling “continue with the test”

Rainbow understood none of this and wished Twilight was there to explain it. Deciding to just get it over with Rainbow trotted back over to the door and prepared herself to try again. She took the first bend easily much as she had the last time, the second was more of a challenge. As she took the bend she spun around allowing her to fly the correct way up along the next stretch. The final corner was a bend directly down which she took with little difficulty flying out of the end of the tube through the ceiling of the next chamber.

The chamber she was now in was very similar to the one on the other side of the tubes. There was one glass wall showing the tubes and an open door leading to an emancipation grid.

“Congratulations you have completed the test. I’d offer you cake, but cake is only for winners. Please proceed through the aperture science material emancipation grid to end the test”

Rainbow Dash was about to exit the chamber when something caught her eye. One of the panels the walls were made of was damaged; one corner was bent up creating a gap in the wall, just big enough for her to squeeze through. Seeing her chance to escape Rainbow dashed towards the gap and pushed her way through.

The space beyond was dark, the only light coming from the gap she had come through. She could see the entire of the back of the wall here; each panel had a thick metal pole attaching it through a metal grating to some sort of machinery. The floor was made of cement and was dirty and cracked, there were empty cans and bottles littered all across it along with parts of the display terminals rainbow had seen across the rest of the complex. There was a wooden door on one of the walls of the space, Rainbow tried the handle but her face fell when it wouldn’t budge. She was about to leave when she noticed writing scrawled across the walls. ‘The cake is a lie’ she read off one of the walls, the phrase was repeated many times in increasingly shaky writing until it ended in a scrawled line. ‘she’s watching you!’ was written across the top of a crude picture of one of the red eye devices. None of it meant anything to the blue mare and some of it was freaking her out. One particular phrase caught her eye; it was in a different handwriting to the rest, far cruder and looked more recent than the scrawling’s underneath it ‘No way back, no way out, no life, no diamonds’. It made even less sense to Rainbow than the rest of it. She left the space and returned to the testing track, slightly down hearted but with more hope. If there was one way out, then there would be more!

Rainbow exited the test chamber and trotted directly into the waiting lift, if she was to find a way out then she would need to go through these tests.

The next test chamber was the largest by far, Rainbow had some trouble making out the end in the distance and it was easily the largest single room she had ever been in. most of Ponyville would have fit into it. The room was largely empty as far as she could see with only the door she had entered through and one other on the far side.

“I don’t get it, unless there’s some sort of invisible monster in there then I don’t see what I need to do”

“Simply reach the other side alive. This test uses deadly lasers. It is designed to determine the effects of putting a pony in a room filled with deadly lasers” With GLaDOS’s words, red beams of light filled the room crisscrossing across in every direction. Some fixed in place and some panning around on a fixed track. Pillars started to rise from the floor across the room, atop each one sat one of the egg shaped machines each with a laser of its own facing across at random intervals. Several childlike voices could be heard across the room saying ‘activated’.

Rainbow’s mouth dropped open. She surveyed the room with a look of shock on her face. Eventually she came to a decision and a look of determination crossed her face.

“Let’s bucking do this!” Rainbow said narrowing her eyes before taking off and flying into the room of death.

Rainbow flew across the room at her top speed, dodging lasers. One laser singed her wing tip and she had to do a barrel roll to avoid the rest of its arc. She flew down towards the ground spinning to avoid the path of an oncoming beam. As she approached the first of the egg shaped machines it opened up its sides revealing a pair of metal tubes. “Target acquired” the device said in its simple childlike voice as it opened fire on Rainbow Dash. Dash was shocked; she had never seen anything like it as she pitched sharply to the left to avoid the volley of projectiles the machine was shooting at her, what on Equestria had she gotten herself into! She quickly gained altitude avoiding the beams, trying to get out of the machines range. Unfortunately all this did was gain the attention of some of the other weapon turrets, each one opening and aiming its weapons at Rainbow Dash. Rainbow was less than halfway across the room and would never make it if the onslaught of projectiles continued. In a split second she came to a decision, taking a gamble that the lasers took some time to do lasting damage she aimed herself at the ground and flew as fast as she could, bringing her wings to her side to reduce her air resistance. A visible rounded shell of air started to form around her. Pulling herself in tighter still the shockwave of air sharpened to a point with an explosion of sound as she broke through the sound barrier. The sonic rainboom exploded out from her as she levelled off, much less vibrant in the dry air of the facility but with enough force to knock the precariously balanced turrets off their pedestals. Rainbow proceeded across the room at Mach one, decelerating only as she passed through the doorway at the other side.

GLaDOS was shocked. Something that hadn’t happened since Chell had first escaped from the testing track. The blue rainbow pony had broken the sound barrier; a living biological being with no sort of machinery of protection had broken the sound barrier! A pony that by all known physical laws should have not even been able to lift a foot off the ground had managed to fly at seven hundred and sixty one point two miles per hour! Three point five zero seven times faster than the fastest avian. Up until know GLaDOS had assumed their physiology had been similar to that of any pony from earth, just with a larger speech centre and more power to annoy, but this changed everything. These creatures must be radically different from anything she had knowledge of. The testing was no longer just of minor scientific interest. This testing was important. For science! The next tests need to be more in-depth, their intelligence must be tested. a modification was going to be needed for the hand held portal device.

Chapter 9: Of Pinkie and Portals

Note:- well this took a long time! Sorry 'bout that (again) Pinkie is actually quite difficult to write well, and I’ve been sort of putting it off. Decided to finish it tonight though so here it is! Even if it is nearly 3am here.
Also, Just want to thank everypony out there who’s commented, tracked or favourited! anyway, onward!

Chapter 9: Of Pinkie and Portals

Pinkie Pie was standing in the small room staring intently at the door. She had already examined the devices attached to her hooves and had come to the conclusion that they were some sort of fashion accessory. And that whoever had placed them on her had messed up by putting one of a different design on her right fore-hoof. She had also decided that they should have been yellow.

GLaDOS had been observing Pinkie for the last few moments. Since she had finished looking at her boots she had just stared intently at the door ahead of her not moving. Even for one of these strange creatures this seemed like unusual behaviour.

“What are you doing?” GLaDOS asked the pink mare, unsure of the sanity of this subject.

“I’m opening the door silly!” Pinkie Pie answered, not taking her eyes from the door ahead of her.

“You believe staring at a locked door will open it? That’s a definite sign of metal instability. That door will only open when the testing process is about to begin” GLaDOS had called many of her subjects unstable in the past but this was the first time that the subject had been unstable before the testing process had started. Perhaps this was the wrong choice for the intelligence based tests.

“It normally works” was Pinkies only reply.

At that moment a system failure symbol flashed up on one of the monitors in GLaDOS’s chamber and a male robotic voice emanated from speakers around the facility “Test chamber omega seven entrance override code accepted” the light on the door turned to green and the door slid open.

“See?” said the pink mare happily as she trotted… no bounced through the chamber door.

GLaDOS was appalled; a system failure had made her look like a complete fool. More than that, a random error had worked in favour of this test subject! GLaDOS ran a full system diagnostic on the locking circuits in the chamber; there must be someone behind this tampering with her system. Someone trying to free this pony! The results annoyed her even more. A single bit in the systems RAM had been changed, not by outside interference but by sheer chance. A single sub-atomic particle, a positron from the background radiation of the universe. Probably one that had been traveling a random path since the beginning of time struck a single electron on the collector of a transistor junction in the circuit. The antiparticle annihilating the electron instantly, switching the transistor and opening the door. GLaDOS calculated the probability of such an event occurring. The result was infinitesimal, it was such a low probability that GLaDOS’s rounding unit set it at zero. A quantum improbability. She came to the conclusion that this was going to be a bad day.

Pinkie looked around the chamber she had entered; she had expected to find her friends waiting for her and was beginning to be worried about them, they wouldn’t just leave her here would they? They must be further on.

“Since you have decided to barge into my testing track anyway, the first test will now begin” GLaDOS said, determined not to let the previous setback antagonise her. “Since you do not seem to possess any of the unusual abilities of the other subjects, these tests will focus on determining the level of your undoubtedly non-existent intelligence, and ability to use it under extreme conditions”

“You know, for a voice in my head your very rude!” Pinkie answered still looking around the chamber. There was not much in the room with her. Just a glass wall at one end with a small hole in it, far too small for Pinkie to fit through. A section of another wall had been painted white with a material Pinkie didn’t recognise.

GLaDOS was slightly taken aback; this mare thought she was a voice in her head? “I am GLaDOS, controller of this facility. You think I’m in your head? Do you often hear voices? That’s a serious sign of mental illness.”

“I’ve never heard anyone in there before, but you must be! You’re not in this room with me but I can hear you, so duh!”

GLaDOS was speechless for a moment; this pony really was insane. “I assure you I am not in your head”

“Oh, Ok then! Wait, does that mean you’re that mean old machine that wanted to test us?”

Feeling like she was finally getting somewhere with the garishly coloured creature GLaDOS said “yes! As I said I am GLaDOS! You are my subject, and you will test!” GLaDOS was slightly shocked at herself; she was letting this creature actually make her angry!

A look of comprehension dawning on her face Pinkie sat on the ground and crossed her forelegs “Nope!”

GLaDOS was stunned. “No? What do you mean no? Test subjects don’t say no. Test subjects shouldn’t speak at all.

Pinkie just turned around.

For a moment GLaDOS was unsure of what to do, if a human subject had refused to test she would just have used it to test her latest batch of neurotoxin, but with only six of these creatures to test she couldn’t afford to do that just yet. But if this subject refused to test what could she do? In the end she decided to use an old tactic that had, in the past, been effective against particularly gullible humans. “You will complete the tests and then there will be cake”

Pinkie pie’s demeanour changed immediately. She sprang to her hooves shouting in glee “Cake! I love cake! Will it have frosting? And sprinkles? Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! Will it be chocolate? I love chocolate!...”

GLaDOS was again speechless; this subject was definitely completely and utterly insane!

“…Please let it be chocolate! With sprinkles, chocolate with sprinkles! Or a rainbow cake! I love those, I make these rainbow cupcakes back home and their amazing! All my friends just love them too, especially Dashie ‘cause their rainbow, like her mane! I just love…”

She was still talking about cake! Obsessing over every detail. GLaDOS was not sure how much more of this subjects inane babbling she could take and was contemplating disconnecting the audio feed from the test chamber.

“…With cherries and cream and sprinkles! Did I already mention sprinkles? Anyway can it have c…”

GLaDOS decided she had had enough and decided to try and redirect the subject’s enthusiasm to the test. Cutting off the babbling pink pony she said “Cake will only be served to those subjects that are quiet and complete the tests.”

“Well why didn’t you say so in the first place? What do I need to do, fight a damsel?” she stood up on her hind legs and used her front hooves to box an imaginary opponent. “Save a dragon in distress? Fly to the moon in ten seconds flat?” still standing on her hind legs she started flapping her forelegs franticly like wings “Ooh! Ooh! Maybe I need to…” she was cut off again by GLaDOS.

“Enough! Please try to keep your insanity to yourself and try to concentrate on the test. The aim for you in this test, as in all Aperture science computer aided enrichment activities is to reach the exit door alive. The devices fitted to your hooves are designed to prevent damage to any aperture science equipment in any ‘accidents’ that you may cause. You may have noticed that the device fitted to your right fore-hoof is different. This device is an elegant combination of the Aperture science long fall boot and the Aperture science quantum tunnelling device. I have designed this combination specifically for creatures with your quadruped form. Tapping the internal buttons with the end of your hoof will activate the device. Testing regulations require me to inform you of the following precautions when operating the device: do not touch the operational end of the device. Do not look directly into the operational end of the device. Do not submerge the device in liquid even partially. Do not expose the quantum singularity in the core of the device.”

“Quantum singuwhat? What’s it do?” Pinkie pointed her right hoof at the wall and pressed the button. An orange burst of pure energy shot out of the devices aperture and impacted on the wall. Destabilising quantum level fractures in the fabric of the universe, the energy expanded into a glowing quantum interface, filling a large section of the wall. “Ooooooh! Pretty! Does it come in pink?” the Pink mare asked, still staring at the interference patterns on the portals surface.
“You know, I’ve only ever met one other creature quite as inane as you, and he ended up on the moon” GLaDOS stated, remembering Wheatly vividly.

“I’m not inane, I’m Pinkie!” Pinkie answered, not noticing GLaDOS’s threat.

Choosing to ignore this GLaDOS continued “For correct operation of the device two portals must be made”

“Ooh! Ooh! Is the second one pink?” Pinkie asked bouncing up and down,

“No” GLaDOS intoned.

“Could it be made pink?” Pinkie asked unabated.

“Yes” GLaDOS intoned again.

“Then will you make it pink?” Pinkie was still bouncing.

“No” GLaDOS replied in a flat monotone.

Pinkie’s mane deflated slightly and she stopped bouncing “Your no fun!” she pouted. After a moment of staring at her hooves Pinkie brightened up again “So what colour is it then?” Pinkie asked herself as she pointed her hoof at a section of wall directly above the orange portal and operated the second control. A burst of blue energy impacted on the wall, instantly the centre of the orange portal changed.

“Ooooh!” Pinkie said as she slowly walked towards the portal “oh wow!” she said looking through the portal. Leaning through the bottom portal she tapped herself on the back from the top portal. “it’s a portable hole!”

GLaDOS was annoyed “it’s far more than a hole, it is a quantum tunnel created by folding the fabric of the universe”

Pinkie wasn’t listening to GLaDOS she was too busy prodding at the portal with her hoof “So, this hole goes to that hole?” she said. Not waiting for an answer Pinkie walked through the orange portal, emerging upside-down from the blue portal, walking across the ceiling. GLaDOS’s camera iris widened.

“You’re… You’re… HOW.” GLaDOS sputtered.

“What?” Pinkie asked. She looked down at the ground below her “oh, oh dear…” she said, falling from the ceiling landing in a heap on the floor. “oops” her voice sounded from the heap.

GLaDOS was completely stunned; this pony had completely ignored the fundamental laws of gravity! In fact, gravity seemed to only have taken effect when the creature noticed the problem like in some human animated entertainment media “But how… Fzzzt”.

The male robotic voice sounded “System error”

“That doesn’t…bzzzt” GLaDOS started again.

The male robotic voice sounded again “Fatal System error”

The lights all over the facility dimmed for a moment.

“What’s going on?” Pinkie asked, genuinely confused.

The lights came on again accompanied by a short cheery piece of music. “GLaDOS System reinitialising” intoned the male robotic voice from somewhere in the ceiling.

GLaDOS was furious; this creature’s complete lack of regard for the laws of physics had caused her to blow her sanity core. There had to be a reason, things like this didn’t just happen. She accessed the data log from the chambers sensors, looking for any discrepancy that could explain what she had just seen. The first time she scanned through the data she saw nothing of note but on the second read through she spotted it, starting at the event horizon of the portal a fluctuation in the Higgs field created by an error in the portal device itself had caused all the base particles in an area of space just outside of the blue portal to temporarily lose their mass, giving anything in the area, and therefor the pony, weightlessness for approximately five seconds. Another quantum impossibility, this creature’s improbable luck was going to drive her insane.

Pinkie Pie was unsure of what to do next. She was stuck in a room with an obviously mad computer and the only exit was a very small hole. On top of all this she was alone. Her friends weren’t anywhere to be seen. Pinkie didn’t like being alone, it was no fun for anyone and reminded her of a time before she had any friends; she had to find them at any cost! But how? Pinkie examined the room again. She could see an open door through the hole, obviously the rooms exit but how to reach it?

“Amazing, you’re the first subject to ever fail the first test, congratulations” GLaDOS said trying to ignore the pink mare’s ‘antics’.

“Hey! No fair! You haven’t giv…” Pinkie froze mid-sentence looking blankly ahead for a moment before continuing “wait a moment, this hole maker thing makes holes to anywhere! But how can I use that?” Pinkie sat there for a further moment thinking before saying “Got it!” she aimed her hoof through the hole and fired. The blue portal vanished from the wall next to her and reappeared on the other side of the glass divide, simultaneously the view in the orange portal changed. “Ha! See? I win!” Pinkie exclaimed, she blew a raspberry at GLaDOS’s camera and bounced through the portal and out the doors.

Across the passage beyond an energy field glimmered. As pinkie approached the field GLaDOS spoke “Please proceed through the Aperture science material emancipation grid”

“Ooh! Another glowy thingy! What does this one do? Does it dispense cake? Ooh I hope it does!” Pinkie babbled, bouncing in front of the energy field.

“As I have no intention of dignifying that with an answer, please proceed through the Aperture science material emancipation grid” GLaDOS stated from the ceiling.

Pinkie cocked her head on before answering “Okie Dokie Lokie!” and bouncing through the field and down the passage to the next chamber.

The chamber Pinkie entered was round, with a glass and metal tube in the centre. As she approached a section of the tube slid back.

“Hey, is this where I get my cake?” she asked the room in general.

“Cake will be provided after the completion of all tests.” GLaDOS’s voice echoed from somewhere in the ceiling.

“Oh, ok! So is it in here?” Pinkie asked wandering into the lift, paying no attention to GLaDOS at all. When she was in the lift doors closed and the lift began to descend.

GLaDOS was not pleased. This mare was making a fool of her! This would not stand. GLaDOS redirected the lifts path to a different set of chambers, after all much could still be learnt for science studying the ponies effectiveness at traversing a course designed to test military androids.

Pinkie Pie was staring happily at the lift doors, blinking occasionally, waiting for them too open. Eventually the lift came to a halt and the doors opened. She stepped out and looked around, seeing that she was in a very similar chamber to the one she had just left, she trotted up the ramp towards the exit.

At First glance the next room looked like a long empty corridor with black panels and an open door at the end. Pinkie was about to trot across when her tail started to violently twitch, she stopped in her tracks “uh oh, twitchy tail!” she exclaimed, looking intently up at the ceiling. Something caught her eye. Some of the ceiling panels were spiked and the floor beneath had corresponding holes. She tentatively put a hoof forward into the chamber. Instantly the spiked panels in the ceiling started to slam into the floor with random timing with enough force to destroy anything in their way.

GLaDOS was surprised, she had expected the pony to be instantly crushed, what had alerted her to the danger? And what did she mean by ‘twitchy tail’? There was only one conclusion that adequately linked these events and GLaDOS refused to contemplate the possibility of a magic tail as it was ludicrous.

Pinkie knew she had little choice, her only options were to stay here or go on, and staying here was a non-option. An idea struck her; she could use the hole thingy! She aimed the portal device down the chamber and pulled the trigger. A shot of blue energy shot down the chamber and impacted on the black wall panels at the end forming a blue oval for a brief second before evaporating into nothing.

“Hey Gladdy, the hole thingy is broken!” she exclaimed.

“The device can only form a portal on a flat conductive surface. These are indicated as white in test chambers” GLaDOS intoned “and you may refer to me as GLaDOS not ‘Gladdy’”

“Oh, ok Gladdo” Pinkie answered, paying no attention to the last part of GLaDOS’s speech.

“GLaDOS!” GLaDOS nearly shouted.

“Gladi?” Pinkie answered.

“GLaDOS!” GLaDOS repeated.

“Sir Bobington?” Pinkie asked.

GLaDOS decided to just give up before she went insane.

Pinkie Pie looked at the crushers down the chamber. “Okie Dokie Lokie!” she closed her eyes and started down the chamber.

GLaDOS watched in horror as the pink mare bounced down the chamber with her eyes closed. Every time her path would have brought her to a sticky end, her tail twitched and she veered off in another direction at the last moment. Had GLaDOS had a jaw it would have dropped. Pinkie Pie had made it completely unscathed through the chamber, avoiding every crusher with her eyes shut! That should not be possible. GLaDOS remained speechless as Pinkie bounced out through the chamber door. That was another thing, how was she even moving like that?

The next chamber was brightly lit and filled with glass walls in random locations. Positioned at random intervals across the chamber were small white machines on black spindly legs, each with a beam of coherent red light emitting from a single ‘eye’ in the centre of its body. The exit to the chamber was on the far side. As Pinkie entered many childlike voices sounded in unison, “activated”.

GLaDOS looked on over the scene from the many angles afforded her by the security cameras placed throughout the room, there was no way the pony was going to make it out of this one without being filled with lead. “Please proceed to the chamberlock to complete the test” she intoned. Pinkie trotted into the chamber.

As Pinkie Pie bounced out of the chambers exit GLaDOS’s replacement sanity core suffered a cascade system failure. “WHAT WAS THAT… I DON’T EVEN… HOW!? HOW DOES THIS PONY DEFY EVERY KNOWN LAW OF THE UNIVERSE?!” she yelled to herself.

GLaDOS replayed the footage of the test over and over again and each time grew more confused. Pinkie entered the chamber at a trot, as she rounded the first corner the feed from each camera descended into static for less than a second and when the picture was regained she was happily bouncing out of the chamber. In less than a second the pony had crossed the entire chamber. GLaDOS replayed the footage again, this time frame by frame; in the last frame before the static she saw it. The pony could be seen in both the camera facing the entrance and the camera facing the exit at the same time. Either the pony had been at two places at the same time or the timestamp was wrong on one of the feeds and GLaDOS had designed the camera system herself. An odd piece of data filtered its way through GLaDOS’s memory banks, ancient useless trivia but still. It was an old human phrase pertaining to two dimensional visual entertainment media which seemed oddly appropriate to this creature ‘breaking the fourth wall’ for a moment GLaDOS wandered why it had come to mind before dismissing it as pointless.

It would be unfair to say that GLaDOS believed in science, belief in itself suggests a lack of knowledge or of certainty and GLaDOS was certain. GLaDOS didn’t ‘believe’ in science; she knew it. But this pink mare was making her question everything she thought she knew about the universe. However GLaDOS was not someone who could be defeated easily, there must be an explanation, a reason for everything that had happened. And then it hit her. The pony could cause random improbable events, she could be unaffected by gravity, she could predict events and she could move in such a way that she could literally be in two places at the same time. She had no respect for the laws of classical physics but everything she had done was possible in the realm of quantum physics, each quantum particle in the universe is entangled with every other, and therefore altering it must simultaneously affect every other particle in the universe. Pinkie had the ability to predict the position of objects and seemingly unconsciously, change them to benefit her. A quantum particle is unaffected by gravity. Pinkie seemed to also be unaffected. Observing a particle will change its state. When Pinkie noticed she was hovering, gravity took affect and she fell. And finally, a particles path can be diffracted such that it passes through two different points in space simultaneously; Pinkie also seemed to have this ability. GLaDOS didn’t understand how but somehow, Pinkie was a Quark. Each test on these creatures seemed to pose more questions.

Chapter 10: Buck the system

Note:- So here it is the long awaited next chapter. Got to apologise here guys for my tardiness, I kept looking at the blank page and deciding that it was future me’s problem, that and general life happened, anyway enjoy!

Chapter 10: Buck the system

Applejack was not pleased. Strange things had been attached to her hooves and she had been locked in a room not much bigger than she was for what felt like several hours. The door would not open no matter how hard she bucked at it; all she had succeeded in doing was to break the light. She was alone in a small dark room and all she knew was that whoever or whatever had put her in here was going to pay. She was about to give up all hope of breaking out when a voice sounded from above.

“Welcome to Aperture science Test facility zeta five zero. The testing process will begin shortly, please refrain from causing any more damage to the aperture science testing facility as you wait.” It was the voice of the machine GLaDOS and if filled Applejack with rage.

“Why you, your that darn machine ain’t you? You let me out of here or so help me Celestia!” Applejack bucked at the door again to hammer home her displeasure.

GLaDOS ignored this and continued “The testing process will begin in three… two… one” on one the door to Applejacks room slid open.

As soon as the door had opened Applejack trotted out of the room. The hall beyond was long and brightly lit. Although she knew that it would have been unlikely, Applejack had hoped that she would find her friends out here and their absence was discouraging to say the least, however not being one to lose heart so easily Applejack continued onwards. At the end of the corridor was a large room split into two halves by a strip of foul coloured and even fouler smelling water, as Applejack entered the room the door slid shut behind her. Across the room Applejack could see a closed door identical to the one she had just passed through and a large red button on the floor. Atop a tall pillar jutting out of the water lay a strange metallic box with rounded corners. The only other items of interest in the room where a pair of strange looking oblong machines built into the floor.

“What in tarnation? What is this crazy place?” she asked nopony in particular.

The voice of GLaDOS answered from the ceiling “’This crazy place’ as you so inelegantly put it is the first chamber on the aperture science equine aerial faith plate aptitude testing track. The aerial faith plates were designed to determine whether human test subjects could solve fourth dimensional logic problems whilst hurtling through the air. Results were conclusive, they could not. You have been selected to test whether or not garishly pigmented diminutive equines can solve fourth dimensional logic problems whilst hurtling through the air, my prognosis is that you cannot. The goal for you in this test as in any Aperture science testing environment is to reach the other side of the chamber alive. Testing protocol requires me to inform you that any contact with the water in this chamber will lead to disqualification from the testing process, followed by death.”

It took Applejack a moment to fully process exactly what had been said and she didn’t understand most of it.

After a moment she replied to the seemingly omnipresent machine “An’ if I refuse?”

“Oh, I can wait; I have until the universe achieves maximum entropy. Until the last proton decays in a vast uniform expanse of nothing. How long can you wait?”

Applejack thought for a moment, mouth slightly open. The machine was right; she couldn’t go back, even if there was anywhere to go. And she couldn’t stay here forever, going on was her only choice, after all if there was going to be any way to escape it would be onward.

“Fine” she begrudgingly uttered “exactly what do I’ need ta do?”

“Simply solve the task and proceed to the chamberlock to complete the test” GLaDOS answered.

“Yeah, simply” Applejack uttered under her breath. “And exactly how do I do that?” she said in a much louder voice. Her only answer was silence. “Well fine then, I’ll figure it out myself than shall I?” She said sounding annoyed, still there was no answer.

“Great, just great.” Applejack said to herself as she surveyed the chamber looking for any hint as of what to do next. Her eyes fell on the oblong machine built into the floor a few feet from her position. The device was unlike any other she had seen in this place so far. It was a similar grey colour to the surrounding floor with a glowing blue circle in the centre, in one corner it had the round logo that seemed to be on everything in the complex. Above the contraption, painted on the floor was an arrow pointing towards the other side of the foul water and directly at the pillar in the centre of the room.

Not knowing what else she could do Applejack trotted over to the contraption to get a closer look, an action she instantly regretted. The moment she placed her hoof on the device she was instantly flung unceremoniously into the air and across the room over the pillar. As the floor on the other side rushed up to meet her she squeezed her eyes shut, this was going to hurt. Several moments passed. Eventually she cautiously opened one eye; she was stood safely on the ground. She hadn’t even felt the impact.

“What the hay?” she opened both eyes “what happened?” she asked her voice sounding loud in the silence.

“Your impact was absorbed by the aperture science long fall boots. These complex devices are designed to protect aperture science property from fall damage caused by unintelligent test subjects” the voice of GLaDOS echoed in the silence.

Applejack’s confusion turned to anger with the insult “Who the hay do you think ya calling unintelligent ya bucket o’ bolts!” Applejack hadn’t expected a reply to this and wasn’t surprised when none came. “Well ‘least I’m at the other side now” she said to herself as she proceeded to the chamber door. To her surprise the door remained steadfastly shut. Hey, I got to the other side let me out!” she called out annoyance prevalent in her voice

“The chamber door will open once you complete the test” The voice of GLaDOS rang out unhelpfully from the ceiling.

“So what else do ya want me to do?” Applejack hadn’t really expected a helpful response to this and was unsurprised when none came. She took another look around the chamber trying to work out in her mind exactly what the insane machine could possible want her to do. Her eyes eventually fell on the large button in one corner of the room noticing for the first time an orange line drawn across the room’s wall connecting the button to an orange cross symbol directly above the door.

“Really?” Applejack said to herself dryly not wanting to believe that she had missed something so obvious. She trotted over to the corner and placed an experimental hoof on the button, sure enough the orange cross turned into a blue tick and the door slid smoothly open with a hiss. After taking a deep breath to alleviate her annoyance Applejack turned back towards the door. The moment she lifted her hoof the door snapped shut. “What!?” Applejack exclaimed in sheer disbelief. “Hey, this here buttons broken!” Applejack yelled into the silence but it remained otherwise unbroken. “How exactly do you expect me to do ya dumb tests if ya don’t tell me how!” Applejack exploded, directing her anger at the unseen voice of GLaDOS.

“The test is of your intelligence, if you are truly as dim as you look and unable to solve even the simplest of problems then you have failed the test. Congratulations no creature has ever failed on the first test before, you have set a completely new level of stupidity” the voice of GLaDOS rang out, with an almost gleeful hint at the mention of the orange mare’s failure.

Applejack was seething inside, nopony called her stupid but she held back her anger sensing a possible way out “Fine ok I fail, can I go now?”

“The chamber door will only open upon completion of the test” GLaDOS intoned.

“But if I were to fail the test…” Applejack was cut off.

“The chamber door will only open upon completion of the test” GLaDOS intoned again.

“Fine then be that way”

Applejack looked up at the box on the pillar. During the conversation she got a pretty good idea about exactly what needed to be done in here. She trotted across the room towards the second faith plate. Placing a hoof upon it she was flung back across the water with far more grace now that she knew what to expect. In one fluid movement she landed and turned to face the pillar.

“Ok then, here goes nothing” she said quietly to herself before leaping back onto the faith plate. The plate flung her back into the air and towards the pillar; this time instead of sailing over Applejack rotated in the air and aimed her hind-hooves at the box. Right at the apex of her flight she bucked at the cube on the pillar sending it flying towards the button in the corner. It landed at the same time as she did right on the centre of the button causing the door to slide open with a hiss. Applejack smiled to herself as she trotted out of the room.

The corridor beyond sloped downwards towards a round room containing a glass tube.

“Congratulations you eventually completed the first test, you must feel so proud” the voice of GLaDOS rang down from seemingly nowhere “Now please enter the complementary victory lift to the next chamber”

Applejack looked up in alarm “whoa nelly, next chamber? You didn’t say nothing ‘bout a next chamber, I did ya test now let me go!”

GLaDOS remained stubbornly silent.

“Fine” Applejack said dejectedly, trudging into the lift.

The next chamber was far larger than the last. The only usable floor space was in the form of a series of islands in a sea of the foul water, there were many more faith plates including some that were active and continuously bouncing cubes between each other. Something on one of the chambers walls caught Applejacks eye, high up on the wall was a window to one of the abandoned offices, its lights were flickering and desks in disarray, for a second she was sure she could see a shadowy figure standing on its hind legs near the window but the next time the light flickered back on the figure was gone.

“Great, I’m starting to see things” she said to herself shaking her head.

The voice of GLaDOS rang out from the chambers ceiling causing Applejack to jump “this test involves advanced aerial faith plates and how a creature with intelligence as limited as yours copes with advanced aerial faith plates. As with the last test your goal is to make it to the other side of the chamber alive. I have calculated your probability of success at zero point two two percent, good luck”

“Are you saying I’m stupid?!” Applejack was getting very annoyed by the machine.

“I am merely stating the known facts” GLaDOS intoned.

Deciding responding was not worth her time Applejack turned back to the chamber paying particular attention to a pair of the large buttons at each side of the chambers exit and the pair of cubes sailing back and forth across the room.

“Well after that last room this don’t take no genius” she said to herself observing the faith plate nearest to her. Trotting forward she watched the trajectory of the nearest cube slowly counting down under her breath before putting her hoof forward and being flung into the air. As she flew towards the first cube she twisted her body aiming her hooves squarely at it, bucking hard sending it flying across the room. Seconds later she twisted in the opposite direction, her hooves impacting directly into the second cube again, sending it flying. She landed on all fours with a smug look on her face at the exact moment that the two cubes impacted onto their respective buttons, opening the chamber door.

“An’ that’s how us earth ponies take care o’ business” Applejack exclaimed, trotting out of the chamber.

GLaDOS would never admit it, least of all to herself but she was ever so slightly impressed. This pony exhibited none of the additions that seemed to make the others special in fact the only major differences from the equines on record were the colouration of her fur and her vocal cords and yet she had managed to pull off the entire test in a single movement. No human subject had ever managed to do anywhere near as well, at least, except for one.

Chapter 11: Unicorn vs. World

Note:- Hello, I’m not dead! But I really must apologise for taking so long here, I didn’t plan to but I ended up with about 3 contracts at once after months of nothing and its quite difficult to sit down and write anything after spending 12 hours + sitting at the computer writing software. So again sorry, I should be able to upload more often for the foreseeable future. Anyway enough rambling, onward!

Chapter 11: Unicorn vs. World

Rarity was completely distraught, not only had she been locked up away from her friends but somepony had attached some completely hideous things to her hooves in her sleep, they didn’t even match her fur. She was lying dejectedly huddled in a corner having given up any hope of getting the awful things off when the voice of GLaDOS boomed down from the ceiling.

“Hello and welcome to the aperture science cornuted equine secondary testing track.”

Rarity sat bolt upright, she recognised that voice. “You!” she uttered her voice filled with venom. “Release me immediately!”

“And what exactly gives you the idea that I am going to take orders from you?” GLaDOS studded the unicorn through the monitor for a moment, this subject seemed far more highly strung that the others had been. “I am a highly advanced A.I. built by the finest scientists neurotoxin can kill; you on the other hand are just a lab specimen, a test subject nearly past its use by date.”

Rarity’s eyes burned with anger at this last statement. “And what exactly do you mean by that!?”

“I would have thought that my meaning was obvious even to the dimmest of test subjects, but if you really need me to stress this…” GLaDOS paused for effect. “You have been in this facility for two hundred and forty four years, four months and three days and to put it in a way your limited organic brain can understand, it shows.”

Rarity was stunned, she hadn’t thought of that. She hurriedly looked around the room she was in, searching for a reflective surface but there were none to be seen. ‘That machine has to be lying doesn’t it?’ She thought. ‘Yes. Yes it must be my friends would have told me!’ She reassured herself deciding she would not give in to these mind games.

GLaDOS was pleased at the reaction her statement had caused in the white unicorn. It proved that her initial thoughts on the subject were indeed correct; this subject seemed especially easy to antagonise.

“The test will now begin.” GLaDOS stated simply as the door to Rarity’s chamber slid open with a hiss.

“And what happens if I refuse?” Rarity asked, not getting up.

“Nothing.” GLaDOS stated. “You’re free to choose not to test. If that is your choice then you are free to sit in there for the rest of time.”

Sensing defeat Rarity stood up. “Fine, if I must then I shall but when I get my hooves on you, you will be sorry!” She trotted briskly out of her chamber and the door slid shut behind her.

Rarity was slightly taken aback when she saw the next chamber; all the rooms she had previously passed through in the complex had been filthy with a long abandoned feel to them, this chamber on the other hoof was sparkling clean and white, it looked almost new. It would have almost passed her own standard for cleanliness had it not been for the water. Rarity was standing on a small platform at the room’s entrance; the rest of the room was a large pit leading down to a pool of liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike water. Across the pit at the other side of the room there was an open door part way up the wall and in line with Rarity’s platform. Just below the exit door there was a complex device attached to the wall with a line of blue circles leading to a round aperture like device. The only other things in the room where a pair of buttons one large and one small, at each end of the platform and a beam of red light being emitted from the ceiling, falling on the platform just ahead of Rarity.

Rarity stood examining the room for a moment before speaking. “Ok so what exactly do you expect me to do in this test of yours? Because there is absolutely no way that I will be swimming across the gap in that!” Rarity indicated the ‘water’ and wrinkled her nose.

“Contact with the chamber floor is not advisable, it will result in an unsatisfactory mark on your testing recorded, and termination of all your biological functions.” The voice of GLaDOS echoed in the large chamber. “As you appear incapable of any logical thought of your own, I will inform you that your aim in these tests is to reach the exit of the room intact.” GLaDOS paused for a moment before continuing. “And due to your aforementioned lack of intellect I will also inform you that contact with the Aperture science discouragement beam may cause loss of test marks and or limbs.”
The white unicorn was seething with contempt for the machine after the insult but didn’t show it, she was not going to let it get to her this easily.

“Ok Rarity,” she said quietly to herself. “You can do this, it’s just a puzzle you can solve it… Oh if only Twilight was here, she’d see the answer instantly!”

“Talking to yourself is a sign of a mental breakdown.” The voice of GLaDOS uttered helpfully from the ceiling. Rarity ignored her stolidly and continued her inner monologue.

“Ok then, what do we have, two buttons and a light beam. Well the buttons must do something” She trotted over to the smaller button, avoiding the laser and pressed it. Nothing happened for a second then a round aperture opened in the ceiling and a cube with glass faces dropped out and fell right into the water. “Ok, not helpful there no way I can reach that.” she trotted back to the other side of the platform and the larger button, the button was difficult to move with a single hoof put depressed fully when she stood on it.

At First it was not obvious to Rarity exactly what the button had done but upon turning around she saw it, a panel on the wall just below the cube aperture had slid out at an angle facing her platform. It was then she saw it, a movement behind the panel, a face! It was there for just a split second but Rarity was sure she had seen it. She didn’t move for several moments, staring into the darkness behind the panel but nothing else appeared. ‘Maybe I am going crazy’ she thought, then dismissed the idea, it must have been another of GLaDOS’s mind games and she was NOT going to play them.

“Right so now I can get the cube.” she said walking off the large button towards the other side of the platform, the panel closed as soon as she stepped off the button. Rarity stopped in her tracks. “Great. Now what?” she asked herself. She thought for a moment before remembering the pause between the button press and the block falling. “Of course, I cannot believe I didn’t see that sooner.”

She trotted the rest of the way across the platform and activated the small button, then she quickly trotted back to the large button, standing upon it. The panel in the wall slid up just as the cube fell, sending it flying onto the platform next to Rarity.

The white unicorn Smiled to herself. “Whose unintelligent now?” she exclaimed. GLaDOS remained silent.

“Right, now I have a cube covered in lenses and a light beam and If I learned anything from Twilight going on about her telescope then this should be easy” she Walked over to the cube and pushed it in the direction of the laser beam. As soon as it hit the beam the laser shot out of one of the faces of the cube across the chamber hitting exactly on the small aperture on the wall. The line of circles coming out from it turned orange and an odd blue light shot out of the strange device under the door. Rarity was shocked that it had worked so easily but didn’t dwell on the fact for long. She approached the bridge of light hitting her platform and tapped at it experimentally with a hoof. She was shocked again to find that it felt solid and could hold her weight.

“How can light possible be solid?” she asked, partly to herself and partly in the hope that she would get an answer.

“As I deem you too unintelligent to understand the answer I will not be wasting my time explaining it. Please proceed into the chamberlock to complete the test.”

Rarity had had just about as much as she could take from this annoying, arrogant machine but she managed to hold on to her composer and after a moment of deep breathing she trotted tentatively across the light bridge and out through the chamber door into the adjoining corridor.

Upon exiting the corridor Rarity found herself in a round chamber containing nothing but a glass tube in the centre. Moving pictures played across the walls of the room showing images of a stylised pony silhouette performing various tasks.
As she approached the tube a platform lowered itself down inside and the tube rotated to reveal an entrance.
“If you think for one moment that I’ll just walk into that then you have got another thing coming” she said indignantly in what she thought was GLaDOS’s general direction.

“Fine, sit here forever. Until you look even older than you do now. I currently have five more test subjects, how many more lives do you have?” the voice of GLaDOS rang mockingly from the ceiling.

“I’ll have you know that I…” Rarity paused mid-sentence “wait, WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?!” she exploded “what do you mean ‘older that you do now’?! How DARE you say I look old! If you don’t stop saying that I WILL make you sorry!”

GLaDOS mentally praised herself, she had found a nerve. “Denial is not unexpected as a response from an inferior biological life form when faced with its own rapidly approaching mortality.”

Rarity was speechless for a moment could the machine be right? She mentally shook herself; of course it wasn’t right, how could she have been taken in again by the same mind game! But the machine was right about one thing, she couldn’t just sit here and the only way to go was into the tube

The white unicorn cautiously moved forward onto the platform in the tube. When she sat down the platform abruptly started descending into the darkness below her.

The next chamber was vast, larger by far than the previous had been. One entire wall was taken up by an elaborate array of machinery all built in the same style as everything else Rarity had seen up to this point but none of it remotely familiar to the unicorn, at one end of the mechanism sat a large cube while at the other there was a large red button. The machines were covered by a glass panel and an entire half of the floor space was taken up by a pool of the foul liquid making it impossible for her to get anywhere near them. In a line in front of the water was an array of five of the large red buttons. Each with one or more lines of blue circles leading to a part of the mechanism on the wall. The rooms exit was crisscrossed by several red beams of light.

“I assume those will kill me as well?” Rarity said indicating the light beams. She already knew the answer but was determined to not let GLaDOS think that she had gotten to her with her continuous mind games.

“An astute observation, are you perhaps looking for a gold star?” GLaDOS asked the white unicorn sarcastically.
Rarity ignored her, sat down and started to examine the machinery. For several moments the room was silent.
“So we do not have to remain here for the entirety of time watching you fail, I will inform you that you do in fact have to move. The apparatus is not operated by your thoughts nor is likely that the test will spontaneously solve itself within your short remaining lifespan.”

Rarity closed her eyes and took a deep breath to calm herself, she was not going to give GLaDOS the pleasure of making her angry. It was obvious what needed to be done, she had to move the cube from one end of the room to the other using the buttons but in what order? She looked back up at the wall for a moment before finally moving her attention to the lines of blue circles radiating out around the room from the buttons, crossing over and over each other to parts of the machine, she smiled to herself.

“You think you’re so clever don’t you?” she said, finally standing up “you think that just because you make something look complex that I will just fall apart? That if you put these blue lines everywhere I can’t follow them? Well that’s NOT going to happen! If I can follow a single thread across an entire dress then I can follow your gaudy little lines!”

The unicorn trotted confidently across to the third button in the row and stepped on it. Several things happened, the lines connected to the button changed to orange and parts of the machine started to move. The cube in the machine was pushed off its platform and down into a hole by a moving panel. Rarity trotted across to the first button in the row, activating it much like the last, an elevator positioned beneath the cubes current location started to ascend stopping in line with a second platform. Rarity stepped across from the first button to the second activating it instantly, a panel in the wall next to the cube pushed it out to the next platform. The white unicorn then walked around to the fifth button placing a hoof upon it, still watching the wall. The platform the cube was now on started to move to the side. When it reached its destination Rarity moved back to the third button pushing the cube off the moving platform on to a ledge just above the button. Finally she moved to the forth button pressing it triumphantly as the cubes platform receded into the wall dropping the cube onto the button, disabling the laser grid on the exit.

Without saying a word Rarity trotted out of the chamber, her head held high.

GLaDOS had to admit she was intrigued, not impressed it would take an awful lot to impress her but definitely intrigued. This creature was showing more intelligence than GLaDOS had initially assumed, in fact all the subjects so far seemed to have something about them setting them apart. She would have to arrange something special for the next subject.

Chapter 12: The Sparkle challenge

note:- Just as a quick aside, is anyone interested in being a proof reader for this? My grammar isn’t exactly the best as some have pointed out, on the plus side you’d get to read new chapters before everypony else!

Chapter 12: The Sparkle challenge

Twilight Groaned. She had a splitting headache and her body ached all over. Her eyes still closed she groaned again this time managing to form words.

“Ugh… Spike, what time is it?” Her words echoed around the empty room but there was no response. “Spike?” she said again, finally opening her eyes. Upon seeing the room, she leapt to her hooves in shock. Instantly falling back into a heap on the floor.

“Oh Celestia, I remember now” she groaned to herself, examining the devices affixed to her hooves that had caused her fall.

“I suppose your behind these.” She said out loud to the machine that she was now sure had placed her in the room, while continuing her examination.

GLaDOS, who had been silently observing the mare, was not for the first time today shocked. An activity she made a mental note to cease as soon as was possible. This was the first subject who had realised she was being watched without being told.

“You are correct. Those are Aperture Science Long-fall boots. The device attached to your right fore-hoof however is an elegant combination of the Aperture Science hand held quantum tunnelling device and the Aperture Science long-fall boot; it was designed especially to allow use of the device by your unusual quadruped form” She explained, still slightly taken aback by the unicorns apparent intelligence, not that she would ever admit to this.

Twilight was angry, she had been abducted and placed into a small cell by this machine, but she knew an outburst would get her nowhere. After all, GLaDOS was not even in the room. All she would manage to do would be to work herself up. One of her ears stared to twitch as she tried to calm herself. She looked around her small room; it was featureless apart from the locked door and a light fixture in the ceiling. If there was a way out of this room, it was through that door and there was only one pony who could open it, even if she wasn’t really a pony.

“So, what exactly am I doing here?” Twilight asked, she already knew the answer, the machine wanted to run its ‘tests’ on her but what she didn’t know was exactly what these tests entailed.

“You will be participating in the Aperture Science cornuted equine primary testing programme.” GLaDOS intoned. “The test will begin as soon as the chamber-lock opens, in three, two, one.” on one the door to Twilight’s cell opened with a hiss, allowing the purple unicorn to progress into the chamber beyond.

On first appearance, the room was small and, apart from a deep pit at one end, empty but that was only until Twilight looked up. The room was tall, so tall that no details could be made out on the ceiling. The only breaks in the otherwise flat black walls were a series of blocks jutting out at varying heights. A sound behind the unicorn made her spin around, but it was just the chamber door sliding shut behind her. The only lights in the room filtered out of the window of an abandoned office close to the top.

“Please proceed to the chamber-lock to complete the test” the voice of GLaDOS emanated from somewhere above her.

Twilight was confused; she had performed her share of scientific tests and she had suspicions about what GLaDOS wanted to do to her and her friends but this was nothing close to what she had suspected.

"What exactly do you expect me to do?" Twilight asked, assuming GLaDOS could still hear her in this room. "I mean, exactly what are you testing here? I assume this exit you want me to go to is up there somewhere." She indicated the tower. "but unless you're expecting me to fly up there, which by the way I can't, maybe back in Equestria I could have levitated up there, or even teleported if I knew exactly where I needed to be but not here, the magic field just isn’t strong enough. There is just no way for me to get there."

For the first time in her existence GLaDOS was not sure what to say. This creature was talking about magic as though it was a real thing. Not only that but actually suggesting that she personally used it like it was an everyday normal activity, as normal as turning on the deadly neurotoxin generators. Surely the unicorn didn’t actually believe in magic. This, after all was the creature that had managed to repair a fusion reactor within hours of first encountering one and as much as she didn’t want to admit it was a slightly impressive feat for an equine.

“You do realise that there is no such thing as ‘magic’ do you not? Such superstitions are only held by truly primitive life forms, such as test subjects.”

This just confused Twilight more, she sat down before replying “hold on a moment, so you’re saying there is no magic in this world at all?”

GLaDOS considered this for a moment, the creature seemed genuinely surprised about this, was it possible that the physical laws of her home universe really allowed for magic? The thought was deleted from her memory banks as quickly as it had come, of course it wasn’t magic. Magic was just the explanation used by truly stupid people when they didn’t understand the operation of the universe, no. but maybe there was some hitherto unknown force at play in the creature’s home universe that allowed for some form of telepathic or telekinetic ability this was worth testing.

“If you truly have a ‘magical’ ability then by all means demonstrate” GLaDOS stated turning an additional security camera onto the unicorn.

“On what exactly, like I said the magical field in this universe isn’t strong enough for me to do much” Twilight was annoyed that her question had been ignored but she decided not to press the matter too far.

After a few seconds of silence a single section of the chamber wall slid back to reveal the end of a glass tube. Out of the end of the tube shot a large reflective disc with a small hole in the centre, the disc shot across the chamber coming to a rest directly ahead of Twilight.

“Please levitate the Aperture science security records Laserdisc” the voice of GLaDOS echoed throughout the chamber.

Twilight examined the ‘laserdisc’ it was an odd item but obviously just used by the machine as a random small object. Deciding that she would gain nothing from refusing Twilight concentrated hard on the object; pouring in all the magic she had access to in this universe. Eventually after considerable effort on the unicorns’ part the disc became surrounded by a faint glow, matching that which enveloped her horn, and started to slowly float into the air.

GLaDOS watched the security feed silently for a moment then ran a full system diagnostic, the results showed no problems. GLaDOS ran the check again this time including her own optic processers with the same result the unicorn really was capable of telekinesis. GLaDOS remained silent for some moments processing this data.

Twilight was growing impatient; she did not want to be stuck in this chamber forever. One of her eyes started to twitch along with her ear. Not wanting to wait any longer she broke the silence “Well then, I showed you what you wanted to see. Are you going to tell me exactly how you expect me to get up there or not? I just want to get this ‘test’ of yours over with.”

The voice that replied was not that of GLaDOS but the male robotic sounding voice of the facilities backup systems “All Aperture science AI personality constructs are currently busy processing previously acquired data, we apologise for any inconvenience caused by this. If because of this you have been injured, killed or received damage to personal property please contact an Aperture Science testing associate to request the appropriate injury or loss paperwork.”

Twilight snapped. This was the absolute last straw. “NO!” she yelled looking directly into the nearest security camera, stamping her hoof, her mane becoming dishevelled. “That’s it, First you capture me and my friends for no reason at all other than we happened to be here, then you separate us and lock us into tiny rooms for Celestia knows how long, and now I’m in this frankly idiotic test of yours you refuse to even tell me what you want me to do? That’s… that’s idiotic! You sit up there saying you’re so much better than us, well NO! You’re NOT! And you never will be! I demand you tell me how to get out of here now!” Twilight was breathing heavily, mane askew, teeth gritted, with anger in her eyes.

GLaDOS, who’d finished processing part way through the Purple unicorns rant, scrutinised Twilight before replying. “Interesting while you do seem to possess some unusual ability’s you do not seem to possess patience, could these two facts be linked or is it just you?”

The reaction this provoked from Twilight was immediate, she had had enough. She leapt into the air eyes burning, perhaps even literally as her normally purple striped mane burst into what appeared to be flame. She ran at full speed towards the camera, leaping at the last moment lowering her head, sending her horn directly through the lenses into the CCD and control circuitry beneath. She slowly slid down to the floor taking much of the now destroyed camera with her. After shaking her head to remove the remains of GLaDOS’s camera she stood panting by the wall, her anger slowly fading and her mane returning to normal.

GLaDOS stared at digital static for a moment before re-routing her main optical feed through the rooms secondary surveillance systems, the purple unicorn reappearing into her vision although now from a different angle. This unicorn was full of surprises; GLaDOS had only ever known one other subject quite as destructive of enrichment centre property and she… Well that was not something she wanted to relive.

“Please refrain from destroying crucial Aperture Science Testing apparatus.” The voice of GLaDOS calmly echoed through the chamber. “This test requires the use of the Aperture Science hoof attached quantum tunnelling device attached to your right fore-hoof. You will find two controls positioned conveniently in the hoof rest of the device, these are used to fire the device. The device creates a pair of intra-dimensional quantum linked portals linking two points in three dimensional space using the fourth dimension. The device can only create portals on portal conductive surfaces, for your convenience these surfaces are painted white.”

Twilight was intrigued; she examined the device attached to her right fore-hoof for a moment before experimentally aiming it at the white floor of the chamber and tapping one of the controls with the tip of her hoof. A burst of blue energy shot out of the device, impacting on the floor sending tendrils of energy across the conductive plane, destabilising quantum level fractures in the fabric of existence, the energy expanded into a glowing quantum interface. The fascinated unicorn slowly approached the blue oval on the ground, examining the interference patterns of the energy as it flowed across the surface of reality. Now all traces of Twilights anger were gone, replaced by her natural scientific curiosity. She placed the tip of her long fall boot into the energy field, quickly retracting it when the energy started to flow up the strut.

“To be fully operational two portals are required.” GLaDOS’s voice rang out bringing Twilight back to reality.

Eager to see the result Twilight re-aimed the portal device and depressed the second button sending an orange ball of energy into the floor next to the first portal forming an orange ring of energy, as the second portal finished forming the centre of each disappeared leaving a hole in each. Twilight trotted over to the new portal in wonder, again placing a hoof into it, this time however the hoof passed through undamaged and appeared out of the other portal next to her.

“Incredible.” Twilight said in awe. “You’ve managed not only to expand a quantum distortion in space-time to a macroscopic scale but to fully stabilise it, all without the use of magic.” For a moment Twilight was lost for words, she understood the theory she had read about such things in a research journal in the Canterlot archives but even that paper had stated that any practical use of it was far off In the future if not impossible entirely. “How?” was all she could manage.

For the second time in as many minutes GLaDOS was unsure of how to respond, she understood? This couldn’t be possible. No test subject could possibly understand the intricacies of quantum tunnelling could they? Especially not this creature, this pony! There must be more to these creatures than met the optical sensor.

“The devices operation is to complex. To simplify its operation to your level would be impossible.” GLaDOS eventually answered.

Twilight’s eyes narrowed, she was beginning to become annoyed again. “Don’t give me that just tell me!” her voice echoing in the silence.

“The device uses a miniature quantum singularity to produce a compressed wave of positively charged Leptons, primarily Antimuons and Antielectrons, each exhibiting the same spin. Up for the first portal and down for the second. That wave impacts the particles making up the portable surface energising quantum level cracks in the fabric of space, destabilising them producing a portal.” GLaDOS answered. “Now that you’re done not understanding quantum physics, please proceeded to the chamber-lock to complete the test.”

Twilights eyes opened wide in shock as GLaDOS spoke. “There’s a black hole attached to my hoof!?” Twilight yelled as GLaDOS completed her explanation, near terror in her voice.

“The stable micro-singularity in the portal device has proven to be safe in ninety nine per cent of circumstances. Please proceed to the chamber-lock to complete the test.”

Twilights fear lessened slightly but she was still on edge as she replied. “Ok, ok, fine. I’ll do your ‘test’ keep your mane on.”

“I do not possess a ‘mane’” the voice of GLaDOS rang down from the ceiling.

Twilight ignored her, instead turning her attention to the chamber. Now she’d seen the portal device she had a very good idea of exactly how to proceed. She trotted over to the pit at the other end of the chamber and peered down it, smiling when she saw the white portable surface on the bottom.

“I assume that momentum is maintained through these portals of yours?” The purple unicorn asked not looking up.

GLaDOS refusing to be surprised anymore by this unicorn, answered with a single word. “Correct.”

Twilight smiled to herself before turning round and shooting a portal at the floor of the chamber under the lowest of the protruding panels. Turning back to the pit she shot the second portal at the floor beneath her before leaping down into it. She accelerated through the portal flying up until she could see down onto the platform. Just as she had expected it to be, the surface was portable. She shot a portal onto this platform as she reached the apex of her flight before falling back down through the portal on the floor of the chamber and up much higher in line with the next platform. She repeated the procedure several more times before reaching the top of the chamber. The last platform in the line was slanted. When she placed a portal onto it she flew out onto a ledge directly ahead of an open door.

“There I’ve done your test.” Twilight said, feeling quite proud of herself. “And I’ll point out that the very fact that it was possible proves that your portals violate the law of conservation of energy, invalidating most of the other laws of physics, this being impossible means that you must be draining some external energy reserve using them.” Not expecting an answer to this Twilight exited the chamber.

Twilight stood in the next chamber examining the lift. “Well, are you going to let me go then?” she asked becoming impatient.

“Test subject must complete all tests. When you complete all tests you will be, ‘missed’” was the only answer from GLaDOS.

“And what exactly does that mean?” the unicorn asked suspiciously.

“Please proceed into the inter-chamber lift to begin the next test.”

The sound of that ‘missed’ worried Twilight; she needed to find a way out of here and soon. She entered the lift guessing that the only way she would find a way out was by continuing, the lift descended slowly into the floor.

The next chamber was dark. It had a low ceiling, no higher than the corridor Twilight had just entered from. The chamber was set up like a maze, glass walls crossing each other with the occasional grate. In one seemingly inaccessible section there was a strong beam of red light falling directly into a corresponding orifice on a wall, a line of orange circles lead out from this across the wall onto a glass panel with an obvious large machine attached to the back, behind this was the only portable surface Twilight could see. There was also a large button on the floor directly ahead of this wall. As Twilight entered the room several childlike voices sounded as white egg like machines activated each with a red beam of its own adding slightly to the light in the room.

Twilight Trotted into the maze, heading for the large button. Part way there she passed a window to one of the abandoned offices, this one level with the floor. Seeing her chance for escape she ran over and bucked at the glass, the window vibrated but did not break.

“Please do not attempt to damage enrichment centre property” came the voice of GLaDOS from the ceiling.

‘If Applejack was here we’d be out by now.’ Twilight thought glumly, the thought resonating with her for a moment before she asked. “Where are my friends anyway? What have you done to them?”

“They are running similar tests in other parts of the facility. They are safe, for now. Continue testing” The machine replied.

Twilight sat down, slightly confused. “If they’re all testing anyway why aren’t we together? If you’re testing to see how we act in these different circumstances wouldn’t it be better for us to be together like we would normally be? We’d be able to get done faster that way” she said.

“My previous experience in corporative testing would indicate that test subjects tend to work better alone. Cooperative testing leads to subjects competing, usually resulting in failure of the test, followed by death. What makes you believe that you would be able to do any better?” GLaDOS asked the unicorn.

“The magic of friendship.” Twilight answered simply.

GLaDOS was appalled; she didn’t want to deal with such nonsense. “Stop this foolishness and continue testing.”

Twilight sighed and stood up she hadn’t thought it would work but it was worth a try. Getting back to the task at hoof Twilight trotted the rest of the way to the large button to see if it gave her any more clues. Standing on the button caused two things to happen, A panel raised itself in front of the light beam, cutting it off which directly caused the glass panel in front of the portable surface lo lower. The portable surface was directly ahead of Twilight now past a grating; Twilight fired her first portal onto it through the grating. Looking round for another portable surface, she spotted two. One at the other side of the room next to its exit and the other directly behind her under a cube shaped object boxed in by yet more gratings. She fired her second portal at the only spot she could reach under the cube sending it flying out across the room. Now seeing exactly how to solve the test Twilight smiled and quickly trotted back through the maze to retrieve the cube, pushing it back with her to the button and placing it upon it. Next she trotted through the maze towards the exit, carefully avoiding the paths containing the egg shaped machines. Twilight didn’t know exactly what these were for but she knew she didn’t want to find out.

GLaDOS was silently watching the unicorns’ progress through the test. She was still bothered by what Twilight had said, it had sounded like another pointless emotion filled response but still, the last time the creature had mentioned magic she had proven herself correct. Perhaps there was something to this after all; maybe these creatures did function better in a group. This needed to be tested further.

Finally Twilight reached her destination, a grate in front of the last portable surface in the room. She turned around checking the colour of her last portal through the glass of the maze. “Blue” she said quietly to herself, turning back she placed the orange portal on the wall behind the grating before returning back through the maze. Now the test was easy, all she needed to do was walk through the pair of interconnected portals and out of the chamber.

As the unicorn took the lift to the next chamber GLaDOS came to a decision. Sending a few commands to the lift mainframe she diverted the path of six express testing elevators to a new set of chambers, it was time to test the science of ‘friendship’.

Chapter 13: The Science of Friendship

Note:- well it’s been a while, I can only apologise for the time this has taken. a lot of stuff happened in my life all at once, some good, most bad but that should all be in the past now and everything has worked out for the best in the end. Ill try and get this all done ASAP but as I kind of just proved, we can’t make promises about the future, anyway onward!

Chapter 13: The Science of Friendship

Twilight emerged from the elevator into a chamber much larger than the one she had just left. A sudden noise from behind made her jump, spinning round she saw its source. In this chamber there was not one elevator shaft but six placed at regular intervals along the wall. For a split second she saw a pink blur before she was knocked to the Ground.

“Twilight! Hi! Where’ve you been? Are you ok? Where is everypony? Have you seen a cake? There’s this voice that’s been asking me to do stuff and it said there was a cake have you seen it? It should have sprinkles!” Pinkie Pie babbled as she bounced on Twilight.

“Pinkie! I’m so glad to see you!” Twilight exclaimed after recovering from the initial shock and hugging the bright pink pony. “So if you’re here does that mean…” Twilight spun around again and sure enough four more ponies were in various stages of emerging from the elevator shafts.

“Thank Celestia y’all are alright, I’ was beginning to think I’d never see y’all again.” Applejack started, stepping out of the shaft “I take it y’all have been through the same nonsense I have from that there crazy contraption?”

“Oh you wouldn’t believe!” Rarity exclaimed “it made me run some ridiculous experiment and said all sorts of simply dreadful things to me. All while playing its ghastly mind-games!”

“It… it said some very mean things…” Fluttershy added quietly.

“Celestia dammed thing tried to kill me! Did you know those egg things shoot balls of metal at you?” Rainbow exclaimed, lifting off the ground into her preferred position of hovering slightly above it.

Twilight was ecstatic to see her friends again but also slightly shocked, GLaDOS had actually taken her suggestion to test them all together. ‘Big mistake GLaDOS’ she thought to herself, grinning.

“If you’ve all quite finished with your pointless pontificating,” The harsh voice of GLaDOS rang loudly from the ceiling cutting off the pony’s conversation. “It has been brought to my attention by one of your number that you believe that you operate better in a group, via the so called ‘magic of friendship.’” GLaDOS said the phrase with the utmost contempt. “And while such nonsense is greatly discouraged in this facility your co-operative testing efforts can hardly be worse than your individual results have been thus far and so you have all been moved to the Aperture science Diminutive Pigmented Equine Co-operative testing track. Due to the previous co-operative testing subjects rather ‘inventive’ actions on the testing course there are some additional rules for these tests. First these are co-operative tests, this means that you are required to work together to complete the tests not, as previous subjects have done attempt to kill each other in ‘amusing’ ways. Second, some of these tests require two portal devices to complete therefor two of you have been equipped with these devices. The third and perhaps the most important rule, do not under any circumstances ever wave at, dance in front of, ‘high five’ in front of or make faces at any Aperture Science Test chamber video capture devices. These actions will result in an immediate disqualification from breathing.” During the last sentence the camera monitoring the ponies focused itself on Pinkie and narrowed its lens aperture.

Before the ponies could respond GLaDOS’s monologue continued “Please proceeded out of the chamber-lock and begin the test.” At this the chamber door slid open.

“So what do we do now?” Applejack asked the group in general. “Do we do these tests of hers?”

“I don’t think we’ve got much choice at the moment” Twilight answered quietly. “We’re not going to get anywhere by staying here and there is no way back, our only choice is to go on and hope we find an escape route.”

“I have a question” Pinkie Pie loudly asked the ceiling “Since we’re working together now does that mean that we’ll be getting six cakes? Or will we have to share one? And also, do we all get the same type of cake?” This was met with silence both from GLaDOS who refused to dignify such an inane comment with an answer, and the other ponies.

Twilight stared at Pinkie mouth slightly open for a full minute before she spoke. “Pinkie, you know there’s no cake right? Whatever she’s told you she’s just lying to you to get you to do things.”

“Yeah, the cake is a lie!” Rainbow added remembering the writing she had seen on the wall.

Until the blue Pegasus had spoken Pinkie had looked quite down but with that phrase she quickly turned back into her normal self “Silly Rainbow, you can’t use that meme it’s terribly old!” with that she turned and bounced out into the chamber beyond, her cake question forgotten. The other ponies looked at one another for a moment in disbelief before following the pink mare.

GLaDOS surveyed the scene with an equal amount of disbelief, that creature was insane even by the others standards.

The chamber beyond was small compared to the majority of the chambers in the facility; the exit door could be seen on a ledge at the top of the wall. There was a lift under the ledge but it was non-moving, the button that the ponies presumed started the lift was at the top on the ledge. The walls were all black non-portable surfaces. In fact only three tiles in the room were portable one directly next to the lift and two in the corner of the room one on the ceiling and one on the floor, most of the corner was blocked off by a grate and the only entrance to the section has a material emancipation grid blocking it off positioned such that any pony in the section would not be able to shoot a portal onto the other tile.

“Ok then.” Twilight said seeing the solution immediately. “One of us needs to get up there to press the button so the rest of us can ride up on that platform. If one of us goes into that.” she indicated the grated section. “And I shoot a portal onto the top and bottom tiles through the grate that pony will start falling endlessly gaining momentum. If I then move the top portal to the other tile then they will fly up to that platform and be able to press the button to get us all up there.”

“Whoa there Sugarcube,” Applejack interjected “What in tarnations a portal when it’s at home?”

“You haven’t seen one yet? They’re quite fascinating actually. Basically, a portal is a hole in the fabric of the universe that allows you to go from one point to the other instantly, I’m not quite sure exactly how they work but this machine attached to my hoof can generate them on any white surface they seem to-“ Twilight was cut off by Rainbow Dash.

“Ok, ok Twi she doesn’t need to know all the sciencey stuff just what they do. Anyway we could do all that, or I could just fly up there.” Rainbow didn’t wait for a response, she just flew up to the platform, alighting softly on its edge. “What are you all waiting for? Get on the lift and let’s go!”

Twilight was speechless for a moment, why haven’t she thought of that? Shaking her head slightly she stepped onto the platform with the other ponies.

GLaDOS was angry, that flying equine had cheated! Skipping the entire test! It had become clear to GLaDOS that the old human and later robot co-operative test chambers would be entirely unsuitable for her current equestrian subjects, but with no suitable chambers in storage or time to design more she would have to improvise. Around the facility many chambers started moving together and rearranging themselves, there would be no time to replace the age worn parts but that should be acceptable for now.

The chamber the ponies entered into was long and not well lit. The room was dirty and damaged and several on the light fixtures had obviously failed due to age. One half of the chamber was separated from the other by a glass wall; this half featured a long drop into darkness with several platforms spaced around the wall. Part way down the wall beneath on of the platforms was the window to a ruined office, its glass shattered and no light source remaining. As Twilight ran her eyes across the chamber she thought she caught a movement in the office but after looking harder she dismissed it as nothing. There was one portable tile affixed in the centre of the glass divide on either side of the glass, directly above an alcove in the glass. The top of which was covered by a grate. Another pair of portable tiles were positioned on the floor and ceiling in one of the chambers corners. A final tile was positioned at a forty five degree angle facing the tile at the centre of the glass divide.

Rainbow Dash was the first to speak, directing her voice to the ceiling. “What’s the matter GLaDOS no time to clean? We must be moving too fast for you!” she taunted the psychotic machine.

“For that pointless outburst, blue is penalised five science collaboration points.” The machine answered calmly.

“Who are you calling ‘blue’?!” Rainbow counted.

“Fifty point penalty.” GLaDOS answered simply.

“And what the hay is a ‘science collaboration point?!” the blue Pegasus countered again, more confused than angry.

“Five hundred point penalty, and if you keep going it will be five thousand.”

“Rainbow, this isn’t getting us anywhere.” Twilight injected before the blue Pegasus could respond again to the machine. “We just need to get through this.”

“Any ideas ‘bout doing that Twi?” Applejack asked.

Twilight momentarily scanned the room again before answering. “I think so, doesn’t seem like too much of a problem, we just need to work together.” She trotted over to the alcove and fired a portal through the grate. “I need to put one here.” she trotted back into the room and fired her second portal at the tile on their side of the glass. “And one here. Then I need Pinkie to place a portal on the floor and the ceiling over here.” She walked over to the corner.

“Okie Dokie Lokie!” the Pink pony exclaimed bouncing over to Twilight and firing her portals.

“Now what?!”Rainbow asked impatiently.

“Ok, now I jump into this portal and build up some speed. Pinkie, after a few seconds you move the top portal over to there” she indicated the last remaining portable tile in the room. “Understand?”

“Sure thing Twi!” Pinkie exclaimed simply.

“Ok then, here goes nothing!” Twilight leapt into the first portal, instantly emerging from the second. Gaining speed and bringing new energy into the universe as she fell infinitely through the dimensional faults. After a few seconds Pinkie re-shot her first portal sending Twilight hurtling towards her portals in the glass and over the divide beyond onto a far ledge.

What transpired next happened before anypony had a chance to react. The ledge Twilight had landed on had sat undisturbed under a leak in the roof for several centuries, over that time in the water that had accumulated on the surface; microscopic plants had started to grow eventually spreading into an algae that covered the surface in a thin layer. So instead of coming to a stop atop the platform as she had intended Twilights hooves carried on their momentum on the slippery surface. She slid into the far wall of the chamber, bounced off and skated right off the edge into the void below.

“Twilight! NO!” cried five ponies in unison as they watched their friend falling, seemingly in slow motion down past the window.

Almost as quickly as the fall itself, a dark shape thrust itself out through the ruined office window below the platform. In a blur the shadowy figure grabbed at the flailing body of Twilight, catching her and dragging her into the darkness of the destroyed room.

For a moment the five ponies sat there in silence unable to move, mouths agape. But their shock and horror was quickly interrupted as Twilights impact with the chamber wall had had another consequence. Over the centuries a pillar that had once been holding up a now missing section of the ceiling had been weakened by its constant contact with water, the vibrations from the impact on the adjacent wall finality robbing it of the last if its structural integrity, the pillar leaned to the side. Its movements started off slowly but it soon built up speed as it fell towards the glass. The ponies scattered, running away from the falling beam just as it smashed its way through the glass at the very place they had been standing seconds before. Showing them with bits of glass and debris.

Twilight groaned bringing a hoof to her throbbing head, she felt like she had been hit by a train… or a large monster! Twilight shot to her hooves franticly looking around. She was in the small ruined office off the test course. The room was dark, the only light streaming from the broken window but Twilight was not alone. In the shadows in the rooms far corner stood a large figure, far too large to be a pony.

Twilights stressed mind went blank as she backed away from the creature, desperate to find a route of escape but none was available. The creature took a step forward towards Twilight and into the rooms scant light.

“Is pointy pony ok?” asked the diamond dog, a slight hint of concern evident in his gruff voice.

Twilight didn’t answer for a moment staring at the dog mouth slightly agape, truth be told she had forgotten about the dog. She hadn’t expected to see it again especially after all that had happened in this place but now she probably owed it her life.

“I… I’m fine… thank you, you saved my life…”

When the sounds of falling glass finally stopped Rainbow opened her eyes, coughing from the dust thrown up by the impact. “Is everypony alright?” she asked turning to her friends.

“I think so, nothin’ seems broken” answered applejack straitening her hat “but that wall certainly ain’t”

One end of the pillar now rested on the platform the ponies were standing on amidst the wreckage of the glass wall, the other had become wedged just above the office window Twilight had been taken through.

“We’ve gotta save Twilight! Celestia knows what that thing that took her was or what it’ll do to her” Rainbow didn’t wait for an answer and took off, flying into the open office, the other four ponies following her carefully picking their way across the downed beam.

“What are you doing? Test subjects must not leave the testing area! Return immediately!” the voice of GLaDOS rang down onto deaf ears. “Return and there will be cake.” Pinkie’s ears twitched at the mention of cake but the ponies continued their way out of the chamber.

“LEAVE TWILIGHT ALONE!” the blue Pegasus yelled as she flew at speed towards the creature with twilight, hooves stretched out ahead of her.

A look of horror crossed Twilights face as Rainbow yelled. “Dash, no! wait!” she exclaimed jumping in between the blue Pegasus and the diamond dog.

Rainbow’s eyes grew wide, unable to stop herself in time to prevent a collision she veered off crashing into a desk terminal, the terminals display imploding in a shower of sparks and glass. The other ponies arrived in the office as Rainbow was extracting herself from the wreckage “what the Tartarus, Twilight!” the brash Pegasus exclaimed looking between Twilight and the dog in confusion. “Wait, is that who I think it is?”

“Please don’t hurt him Rainbow he saved my life“

“Why on Equestria would a diamond dog save a pony?” Rarity asked having surveyed the scene, still distrustful of the canine.

“Pony fall. Dog and pony both stuck here so dog help pony. Why flappy pony try hurt dog? Why pretty pony no trust dog?” the dog spoke with a hurt expression.

With the dogs last sentence Rarity’s demeanour instantly changed all traced of distain disappearing from her voice “Well of course I didn’t mean to sound distrusting darling and naturally we all thank you for your noble deed and I’m sure Rainbow is sorry for the misunderstanding, right Rainbow?”

“Well you’ve sure changed your tune, that’s all it took ‘pretty pony’?”

“Why whatever do you mean Rainbow? He’s clearly not one of the ruffians that attacked me back in Ponyville. This creature clearly understands class, and I’d never hold a grudge over an entire species. Besides our new canine friend here just saved Twilight! So of course I’m going to trust him.” Rarity said primly.

“Right...” Rainbow wasn’t having any of it. “But yeah, thanks there dog, for saving Twilight that is” she said turning to the canine.

“An’ we’re glad you’re ok too Sugarcube, ya had us worried there!” Applejack added placing her hoof on Twilights.

“So, what do we do now? Anypony know the way back?” Rainbow asked getting to the point.

Twilight paused for a moment; she hadn’t thought of that. They had no way of knowing where they were in the massive facility. She was about to speak when the canine interjected.

“I know way, I find gate they use bring us here. But gate no work, need power” he stated in broken Equestrian.

Twilight looked up with a glimmer of hope “if you know the way we can get home! We already fixed the power; it was bringing the reactors back on line that woke that… voice.” She trailed off for a moment before continuing. “There should be enough power now to open the portal!”

“Then what in tarnation are we waiting for? Lead the way dawggie!” Applejack stated triumphantly heading for the rooms only door.

Chapter 14: The benefits of not being seen

Chapter 14: The benefits of not being seen

GLaDOS was fuming. Her test subjects had escaped the test! Not only that but there was something else here in her facility helping them. She had seen it for a brief moment when it grabbed that annoying unicorn. She had gone over the footage of the incident time and time again but her optical recognition sub-processer refused to process the offending image further, she knew something was there but the cameras frame rate was too slow to capture a stable image of the creature.

She knew what it was of course, it was impossible and made no logical sense but she knew. There was only one being that would go this far to antagonise her, to drive her insane… to murder her… but it couldn’t be, she had to be dead didn’t she? It had been nearly two hundred years since she had last been here and no pathetic human could live that long could it?

GLaDOS turned to the sensor logs, reviewing all feeds since she had awoken. If she was here there would be proof, that mute could never have resisted damaging her facility for this long and such an abnormally large human was sure to show up on her weight sensors … Nothing. Nothing matching Chell’s activities or weight profile had been logged. But if not her then who? Who else would… No… it couldn’t be… that idiot sent himself to the moon he couldn’t be back… GLaDOS widened the search parameters to include unscheduled core activity… Nothing. Not Wheatly then. What did that leave? Both robotic test subjects were accounted for, performing some ridiculous dance in front of one of her cameras (She would explode them for that later but for now it would have to wait). So what? She expanded the search to all activity, large sections of the facility were inaccessible and many sensors had failed but she should see something. Large quantities of avians in the upper levels, large quantities of small mammals on the lower but apart from that, nothing. How could there be nothing? It had to be something! Whatever it was it had an amazing ability to move unseen by her sensors; her tactics would need to be altered.

Just as Applejack was about to reach the ruined office door the diamond dog held out a paw to stop her.
“Pony careful, traps everywhere.” The dog flicked up some dust from the floor towards the open doorway; the dust shone and glistened as it passed through a previously invisible beam of coherent red light across the base of the door.

Twilight, now curious trotted carefully over to the door and examined the frame for herself. “There’s some sort of device built into the frame on either side. It must be used to detect things passing through the door; it’s probably how the lights turn on when we enter a room. But I bet she can use it to track us too.”

Applejack turned from the door and sat back down. “Ok then, I’a reckon ya’ll better tell us all you know ‘bout this place first then.” The ponies turned to look at the dog expectantly.

The dog looked thoughtful for a moment before answering in his broken Equestrian “Place strange. Creatures that build it, bring us here dead, no know what they were or how they dead-” .

“Humans.” Fluttershy said in a small voice from the corner.

“What’s that dear?” Rarity asked nonplussed, turning to the yellow mare.

“They… they were called Humans…” Fluttershy replied not looking up. “GLaDOS told me. She said… she said they made her and she killed them all.”

“So it was her then. Did she say why she did it?” Twilight asked the timid mare. Fluttershy didn’t answer, just shaking her head.

For a moment Pinkie Pie looked like she was calculating something before she spoke “Hey, aren’t humans those creatures that green unicorn keeps going on about?”

Twilight looked over wondering if it would be worth asking before her curiosity got the better of her. “Green unicorn?” she asked cautiously.

“You know! Green unicorn, cutie mark of a lyre, I think her name’s… Green Harp-flank pony!” replied the bouncing ball of pink.

Twilight sighed shaking her head, turning back to the dog. “Anyway… What else do you know about this place?”

“Eyes everywhere. That mas.. mak… mac…” The dog faltered on the word. “Oh quid solutis est mannulus verbo ad apparatus? ego reputo suus ' machine.” He muttered to himself before continuing. “Machine sees through white red eyes everywhere” He grabbed a fallen security camera from the rooms corner and placed it in front of the ponies to illustrate.

“Whoa Nelly!” Applejack exclaimed looking quizzically at the dog. “What in tarnation’s with all that there gibberish?”

Noticing the Slight hurt expression forming on the dogs face Twilight quickly interjected to prevent a possible incident “It’s Canin, I think. It’s the native language of the Diamond dogs. But no pony has ever heard it spoken aloud before, this is fascinating!”

“Wait, Diamond dogs have a language?” Rarity asked, some shock evident in her voice.

“Of course they do silly!” Pinkie exclaimed. “You don’t think they speak Equestrian to each other do you? Their doggies! They have their own doggy language… hey! Wait a moment! I can speak that!” she turned to the dog and cleared her throat “a’Barka woofa, barka woof woof arf?” Pinkie tried looking at the dog expectantly, Twilight facehoofed.

“I’m sorry about her, she can be a bit wei-” Twilight was cut off by a long loud gasp from Pinkie Pie.

“Oh no! We’ve forgotten something very very super important!” The pink pony started bouncing as she spoke. “Our new doggy friend saved Twilight and we never even introduced ourselves!” she bounced over to the dog and continued babbling about an inch from his face. “Hi I’m Pinkie Pie! And this is Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity and Fluttershy! What’s your name?” Pinkies nose was now pressed against the dogs. Twilight dragged the pink pony back a foot to give the dog room to breathe, rolling her eyes as she did so.

The dog seemed quite amused by Pinkies antics and answered with a short bark like sound.

“What, Ruff? You names Ruff?” AJ Tried.

The dog shook his head and made the sound again emphasising a different part.

“So Riff?” Rainbow said questioningly.

Riff Smiled slightly at the pony’s bad Canin pronunciation before replying in Equestrian “Close enough.”

“Oh oh oh! Now we’ve met you we need to have a party to celebrate! And another to thank you for saving Twilight! We need-“

“PINKIE! Calm down! This isn’t the time or the place; we can do all that when we get back home.” Twilight quickly said, derailing Pinkies train of crazy before it got out of the station. “We need to have a plan. Riff, can you get us around GLaDOS’s surveillance?”

Riff nodded. “Is possible. Ponies know all dog knows about here now. “

“Ok so you know the way back and how to avoid GLaDOS’s traps, so if you show us the way up we’ll be back in Equestria in no time. It’s not much of a plan but it should do the job. Is everypony ready?” Twilight asked.

“Yes, the sooner we leave this dreadful place the sooner we get home” Rarity replied, taking a step towards the door.

The corridor outside was much like the others the ponies had encountered upon first entering the facility. It was dark and dirty, ancient paint peeling off the walls. The only difference was the sound. When the ponies had first entered the facility it had been silent save for the distant sounds of decay and their own hooves and breathing. Now the air was filled with a low hum, Persistent enough in itself to almost go unnoticed but every now and then its pitch or volume would fluctuate or something somewhere long forgotten would grind putting their teeth on edge. And that wasn’t all; every now and then something would make a sound, always behind them and always unseen. Before long the ponies and dog left behind the crumbling plaster offices regaining the metal panelled corridors, the sound of hooves on metal adding to the general noise of the facility.

“I don’t like this” Rainbow said after the third loud noise made her start. “There’s definitely something following us.”

“I don’t think there can be” Twilight answered not really believing a word of it. “After all it’s not like GLaDOS can walk.”

The seven continued on down the corridor in silence for a few moments until another sudden sound made their blood run cold.

“Is anybody there?” the high pitched childlike voice rung out from the darkness ahead, the sound echoing strangely in the relatively silence. The seven stopped in their tracks, Fluttershy diving behind Rainbow dash for cover.

“filii canis!” Riff exclaimed in shock jumping back a step.

In the darkness a single red eye started to glow followed by a sweeping coherent beam of red light.

“Oh great, just what we need.” Rainbow exclaimed.

“You know what that is?” Rarity almost whispered.

The blue Pegasus took off into the air before answering. “I don’t know what it is exactly but I know what it does, and it’s not pleasant. But maybe we can turn this to our advantage. Stay down, I’m going in.” Rainbow flew off into the darkness at speed taking care to avoid the sweeping laser from the turret.

There was silence from the darkness for a moment then the voice sounded again. “Hey, hey, hey! Put me down!” it said managing to sound startled in an emotionless way.

The six dropped to the floor in shock as the red eye started to move towards them but breathed a collective sigh of relief when the device soared over their heads in Rainbow dash’s hooves. Dash landed behind the group positioning the device to face back down the corridor from whence they came.

“There! That should give whatever’s following us some trouble!” the blue Pegasus said triumphantly.

“Good thinking.” praised Twilight. “Hopefully it’ll at least slow it down, whatever it is.”

“But… but what if it’s friendly?” Fluttershy asked in her quiet voice.

“I’m sorry Fluttershy but I doubt it.” Twilight answered gravely. “Apart from us I don’t think there’s anything alive in here, whatever it is behind us has to have been sent by GLaDOS and you know what that means.”

“There was that bird…” the yellow Pegasus started hopefully.

“Well whatever that thing behind us is it sure ain’t no bird.” Applejack answered before Fluttershy got too far. “But whatever it is we need to get moving before it comes and finds us.”

“Pony right, we need keep moving.” Riff stated starting to move off into the darkness ahead.

The ponies followed, Twilight casting her dim but effective light spell as they passed through the dark section of corridor. It wasn’t long before they heard the voice of the turret in the tunnel behind them followed by the loud repetitive banging of its attack. The group quickening their pace as the sounds were brought to a sudden grinding halt with a loud thud.

Before long the group reached the end of the series of corridors, the last door leading onto a rusted walkway over the massive open expanse of the facility. GLaDOS’s tower could be seen shining off in the distance with most of the more lit up areas clustered around it. The walkway ahead trailed off into the gloom. Off one side of the walkway close to the group were the rusted remains of a cage elevator, its mechanism obviously destroyed by age but its platform intact. On the far side of the elevator lay a second entrance leading to another walkway leading off into the darkness.

As they were making their way forward across the walkway something stepped out of the door behind them. Rainbow was the first to notice capturing a glimpse of the machine out or the corner of her eye.

“Oh Celestia! It’s one of GlaDOS’s repair robots, everypony RUN!”

The group didn’t make it ten paces before the machine had caught up to them. With a feat of super-equine strength it launched itself in to the air, managing to flip itself mid-flight to land directly ahead and facing the group.

“Quick! Back into the corridor!” Twilight yelled quickly backpedalling towards the open door.

As if it had heard her words the door quickly snapped shut, blocking the groups retreat.
The voice of GLaDOS suddenly rang out through the facility, sounding more muffled and crackly than back on the testing track but still perfectly clearly. “Did you think you could get away from testing so easily?”

Trapped, the group turned back to face the advancing robot.

“What do we do?! What do we do?! What do we do?!” Pinkie screeched grabbing Twilight by the shoulders and shaking.

“I don't know... It’s a machine! Its can only think logically, the best way to defeat it would be to do something surprising, something stupid!” The slightly dazed unicorn answered back without much time to think it through.

Riff stepped towards the machine, a determined look in his eye uttering a single word “OK”

He stared at a run towards the machine. Leaping into the air at the last moment, grabbing on to a low hanging beam above he swung his hind paws around aiming directly for the machines single orange eye releasing himself at the last moment he sent his entire weight onto the machine.

Caught completely off guard, the machine flew back falling with force on to the centuries old rusted metal platform ahead. The fatigued metal finally failing with the force, the entire section of the walkway up ahead fell away taking the machine down with it.

Riff stood up on the new edge of the platform dusting himself off. “Simple.” he simply said turning to the now smiling ponies with a grin. As he looked up his face fell quickly to one of horror.

Seeing this, the ponies turned as one to see a second robot emerging from the now open corridor door. This machine was carrying what seemed to be a handheld version of the portal gun and was quickly approaching.

“Run, ponies!” Riff exclaimed, getting back into a run himself. Again acting as one without the time to think the ponies dived through the gate to the elevator to their side. As the ponies entered the elevator the gates either side snapped shut automatically.

Seeing his only available route of escape cut off Riff narrowed his eyes, if this was it then he was going out fighting. Putting on a burst of speed he ran past the turn to the now locked elevator and ran at full tilt at the machine.

“Machine shall not pass!” Riff yelled in his broken Equestrian, leaping into the air at the very same moment the machine decided to do the same.

The Two collided in the air at speed, the vastly heavier robot gaining the upper hand in momentum; the two sailed towards the edge grappling with the device the robot held all the way.

“Riff! NO!” The ponies shouted as one, total horror spread across their faces as the pair disappeared over the edge plunging down to the facility’s dark depths.

“NO! No, I can still save him!” Rainbow shouted, taking off and flying hooves out stretched into the closed gate. She impacted with a clang shaking the entire elevator but not damaging the gate. “NO!” she yelled as she tried again. This time as she impacted the gate sagged outwards and something above the ponies snapped causing the whole elevator platform to drop a foot. At this point Applejack had reached the gate as well, she aimed a well-placed buck at the gate and let rip. The entire platform shuddered as her hooves impacted against the metal and some long forgotten part of the mechanism finally gave way sending the platform plummeting downwards into the dark abyss.

Chapter 15: The Fall

Chapter 15: The Fall

Twilight groaned. She placed a hoof on her throbbing head, letting out a low moan at the pain given by the movement.

“Hey girls, I think she’s awake!” the voice of Rarity called out from somewhere above Twilight’s head.

“Twilight! Oh Twilight, are you ok?” Pinkies voice babbled sounding very close.

Twilight groaned in response.

“You hit your head pretty bad there sugarcube” Applejack added, concern evident in her voice.

Twilight slowly opened her eyes to take in her surroundings. She was lying among the debris of the Elevator in a dark chamber. The only meagre source of light coming from a dimly flickering bulb mounted on a wall nearby within a well rusted cage. Ahead of them lay a long wide concrete tunnel going off into the darkness. Looking up she saw more debris blocking the end of the shaft they had descended from. Around her stood Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rarity and Applejack all with looks of concern etched on their faces. Rainbow Dash sat alone a small way from the others staring at the floor. Twilight couldn’t see her face from where she was lying.

“wha… what happened?” The purple unicorn managed stuttering as she dragged herself to her hooves, still dazed. The other ponies looked at each other before responding.

“We fell.” Applejack finally answered. “A long way”

“We were falling for several minutes; this place must be very deep.” Rarity added. “We were lucky to survive at all. It’s these weird boots GLaDOS put on us they somehow took all of the damage from the fall.”

“…but…” Twilight processed this information before remembering. “Riff… What happened to him?”

A tear ran down Fluttershy’s cheek.

“We couldn’t save him.” Rainbow spoke suddenly without looking up from the floor. “He saved all our lives up there but we couldn’t save him. It’s my fault, I couldn’t open the gate. Maybe if I’d tried harder…” she trailed off not knowing how to continue.

“It ain’t your fault sugarcube, we tried, we all tried our hardest, you can’t fault ya’self for that.” Applejack trotted over to Rainbow placing a comforting hoof on her shoulder.

“Why did he even do it? Why would a diamond dog risk his life to save a pony? He didn’t even know us!” Rainbow looked up at the others.

“Well think about it RD. If it had been one of us and a group of zebra, or griffin in trouble, wouldn’t we have helped? It ain’t different here; one creature saw another in danger and was decent enough to offer aid. That’s all” In truth Applejack was a bit surprised too, but after all that had happened to her and her friends in the past she knew not to judge others by something so trivial as their species. Especially as in reality she knew next to nothing about the diamond dogs. “What happened was terrible and ‘I understand ‘I ain’t ready to forgive myself neither but that’s what we have to do. And we still have to get out of here.”

“AJ’s right.” Twilight said, wincing as she struggled to get to her hooves. She didn’t know what to think. Really she didn’t want to think about it at all. “There’s… there’s nothing we can do for him now, but he saved us. The least we can do is get out of here so it wasn’t in vain.”

“It’s just… could I have tried harder?” Rainbow responded.

“Oh don’t say that Rainbow, you always try your hardest!” Pinkie spoke in her usual friendly tone but there was a note of seriousness underlying it Rainbow hadn’t heard in a long time.

“You’re right Pinkie, it’s just…” Rainbow faltered, thinking for a moment. “You’re right. You’re all right.” She looked up a determined look in her eyes. “Let’s get out of here!”

“That’s our next problem.” Twilight said looking up at the blocked shaft. “How far did we fall?” she asked the group in general.

“Well we were falling for at least two minutes but I don’t know how far that was.” Rarity replied.

“Was it free-fall or were we being slowed by the lifts rails?” The purple unicorn inquired.

Rarity looked confused before answering. “I don’t know, but why is that important?”

“Well if it was free-fall I could estimate how far down we fell, assuming of course the gravitational coefficient of this planet is the same as Equestria’s but otherwise I’d need to know the speed we were falling. But if we don’t know then the best we can say is it was a long way.” She turned to Rainbow Dash. “I don’t suppose there’s any way you can get us back up there?”

“No, we brought down most of the shaft with us; we’d never dig through it. It was only by sheer luck we weren’t crushed. If we’re getting out it’s that way” The blue pegasus pointed to the darkened corridor.

“Then we’d better get started. Come on girls, let’s go.” Twilight sighed and turned to start walking down the dark passage pausing only to activate her light spell.

The corridor ended abruptly. Sometime in the past two hundred years a roof beam had succumbed to age and the entire corridor ahead was blocked. The only light filtered the through small gaps of an iron grate uncovered by the collapsed wall.

“So that it then. We’re trapped.” Rainbow said, disheartened by the setback.

“um… Girls?” Fluttershy’s voice sounded from over by the grate, almost too quiet to hear.

Twilight sat down looking at the floor. “I think your right… unless anypony can see a way to dig through this pile, there’s no other way out”.

Fluttershy spoke up again, still almost inaudibly. “Um, I think we can-” She was cut off by Applejack.

“Well, maybe we can buck down one of these here walls.” She suggested.

The yellow Pegasus tried again “But through here-“

She was cut off yet again by Twilight. “No that wouldn’t work; we might bring down the entire ceiling on ourselves.”

“Well does anypony else have an idea of how we get out of here?” Rarity asked.

“Well, I think I know…” this time the other ponies finally heard Fluttershy speak. They all turned to face her.

“I…I think we can get out through here…” she trailed off, leaving her hoof on the grating.

“Fluttershy…” Applejack thought for a moment for the best way of phrasing her response. “There’s no way we’re gonna fit through that, you know that right?”

Twilights eyes suddenly went wide and she quickly trotted over to the grate, looking through it.

“Of course! Fluttershy, you’re a genius!” she exclaimed.

“I am? Thank you.” Fluttershy answered.

“Er, Twi? You sure you’ve thought this through?” applejack asked nonplussed.

In response, Twilight pointed her fore-hoof at the grate and operated the top control on the Portal device. A shot of Orange energy exploded from the end of the device passing through the grate unimpeded and impacting on a wall beyond. She redirected the device a few feet to the right and shot again, this time sending the blue portal out at the tunnel’s wall, creating an intra-dimensional tear in the fabric of space time and an exit from the corridor.

Applejacks mouth hung open for a moment. “Now how in the hay did I forget we could do that?” she asked nopony in particular.

Pinkie Pie responded as she bounced through the open portal. “Silly Applejack, you’re not thinking with portals!”

The area beyond the grate looked like a junkyard. As far as the eye could see piles of rusted machinery, pipes and unidentifiable objects lay in disarray. The noises of decay were louder here. Creaking metal and distant water dripping put the pony’s nerves on edge as they examined their surroundings.

Twilight gasped as she looked up. Above them rising up from the ground were monstrous pillars. It looked like the entire facility was up there most of it lost in the hazy darkness above them. Several of the pillars has collapsed over the years and were leaning against each other and many more rusted pieces of debris hung down, trapped on various supports further up. Each of the pillars had a name and number stencilled in massive letters across its face. The name of the pillar closest to the ponies filled Twilight with foreboding; it was labelled ‘TARTAROS 09’ in age worn paint. Twilight gulped and did her best to steady her nerves before she spoke.

“Looks like we fell all the way down.” She tapped the chambers natural stone floor with a hoof. “This place must be built into a natural cave, or a chasm of some sort. Most likely to remain hidden from the outside world but for what reason I have no idea.”

Fluttershy had noticed the writing on the column and was backing back towards the group with a worried expression on her face.

“You… you don’t think this really is Tartaros do you?” the fear was evident in her voice.

“Na, I’m sure it’s just somepony’s idea of a joke there Sugarcube, this being the bottom of a pit an’ all, no need to go worrying.” Applejack responded attempting to comfort her friend.

“But that’s just it.” Rainbow started. “It wasn’t somepony was it? It was some human. Some human who somehow knew about a place in Equestria? How is that possible?”

Twilight looked thoughtful before answering. “It’s possible just some sort of inter-dimensional coincidence, maybe it was also a place in human mythology or it exists in this world as well.” Seeing the other ponies doubtful expressions Twilight continued. “I know it seems like a stretch but these humans obviously spoke Equestrian, even if they probably called it something else, now that’s a massive coincidence. It’s likely that our dimension and theirs are close together or even linked in some way.”

“Well of course we speak the same language silly!” Pinkie exclaimed suddenly with a manic grin. “How else would the audience understand us?” the pink pony turned with a cheery grin on her face and waved a hoof at an empty spot in the air. Incidentally the exact spot that, if the ponies were being observed by an audience, would be the best vantage point.

Twilight facehoofed. “Pinkie, just… oh, I just don’t know!”

“So what do we do now?” Rarity asked trying to bring the conversation round to some semblance of normality.

Twilight looked back up into the facility. “Rainbow, any chance you could fly us up?”

“let’s take a look!” Rainbow Dash saluted Twilight and took off into the vast open space of the facility.

She was gone for several minutes and the ponies were just starting to get worried when the Blue Pegasus returned, a look of defeat on her face.

“There’s a ceiling. It seems to go right across the entire facility several floors up, it’s like this whole bottom section was sealed off from the rest. I can’t see any way through from in here.”

“So that’s it? We’re just stuck down here in this dreadful place?” Rarity asked dawning horror on her face.

“Well we’re not flying out, but there must be another way through. After all we got down through an elevator shaft and that may be blocked now but this place is massive there must be some other way, all we need to do is find it.” Twilight responded not wanting to lose hope.

“Well let’s get looking then!” Pinkie started bouncing off in a random direction. The other ponies paused to look at each other for a moment before following.

It wasn’t long before the direction the ponies had chosen brought them to the edge of the facility, the rough natural stone wall towering above them. They continued along the damp wall avoiding the larger obstacles for what seemed like an age before reaching an area where a large concrete barrier had been built over the bottom of a natural opening in the stone. The barrier itself was old and cracked. It contained an old blue painted door in the centre the words ‘KEEP OUT’ emblazoned on it in yellow lettering. The wall was plastered with signs. Many deteriorated beyond legibility but those that could be made out all displayed a similar message. The largest of which, stencilled in yellow paint across the entire wall read ‘CONDEMNED TESTING AREA’.

The sign attached closest to the door caught Twilights eye. “Vitrification order, 1961?” the lavender unicorn said to herself.

“What in the hay does that mean?” a confused Applejack asked stopping in her tracks.

“Well, Vitrification means to turn into glass but in this context it’s probably being used to mean to seal off something dangerous by encasing it in something, possible glass or some other substance like concrete. It’s basically saying this area was abandoned and blocked off in 1961, which if I remember correctly is about 40 years before we were brought here. It’s almost as if the facility is built on the ruins of previous iterations of itself.”

Applejack looked at her for a moment. “So we don’t wanna go through this door?” she asked.

“Well if the sign is literal then we won’t be able to, it would be all blocked off beyond, but-” the lavender unicorn was cut off by the door ahead of her suddenly opening and Rainbow dash walking through from the other side.

“RAINBOW?! But, what? How?” Twilight exclaimed in shock.

“I just flew over the wall while you were overanalysing. Obviously whoever was told to vitri-whatever this place couldn’t be bothered. Come on everypony, there’s a passage leading off past here!” Rainbow Dash turned back through the door and disappeared into the darkness beyond.

After shaking her head in disbelief for a moment, Twilight and the other four ponies followed their multi-chromatic friend through the opening.

A rusted walkway lead out of the doorway on the other side ending in a small set of steps. Obviously at one point in time the tunnel ahead had been artificial in nature consisting of a set of large concrete tubes but over the years of neglect many of these had crumbled leaving only a series of rings jutting out of the rubble at the bottom of the natural narrow passage. Part way down the tunnel there was a sudden drop in floor level where the entire of the artificial floor had given way leaving a series of rusted pipes exposed. The sounds of decay in the facility above echoed strangely from the walls coming to a focal point at the base of the tunnel filling the air with noise, more than once strange sounds in the near dark caused the ponies to start and look around for the source.

Eventually the tunnel opened up to a large cavern. A series of floodlights mounted onto the bare rock of the ceiling lit the area focusing on a truly gigantic round metal door. The door had been left open and was hanging in the air from some unseen machinery revealing a short round concrete passage ending in a sheer wall containing only one normal sized door also hanging open. Either side of the cavern were two small rooms each with its own illuminated sign, both showing only the number zero.

The group of ponies approached the doorway carefully picking their way across the strewn debris on the chamber floor.

“That’s a big door…” the blue Pegasus said an expression of shock on her face as the other ponies took in their surroundings.

“If this place had been closed off like the sign said, would they have not at least closed the door?” Rarity asked turning to Twilight.

“Yes, yes I’m sure they would have.” She responded. “In fact, it probably means that we’re not the first to come down here in the last two hundred and eighty years.

Fluttershy’s eyes grew wide for a moment. “You don’t think it could be…” she trailed off a look of hope forming in her eyes.

Twilight examined the frame of the massive opening before answering. “I’m sorry Fluttershy but I don’t think so… the frames rusted and covered in dust, it’s not two hundred and eighty years’ worth but I doubt it was that recent.”

“Oh, ok then.” The yellow Pegasus hung her head, the fleeting hope extinguished.

Twilight did feel bad about upsetting Fluttershy like that but she knew the only way they could possibly get out of this was by being logical about the situation.

“Whoever it was, their likely long gone now. It was probably a human, maybe one of them escaped GLaDOS down here and tried to find their way out of this place. I think it’s a good sign that this is the right way to go as any human who was working here when that happened would likely know the layout of the place much better than us.”

“so ya reckon’ this is the way outta here?” Applejack spoke up.

“It stands a chance of leading somewhere useful, it might even lead to the outside world after all there must be one. And if it does them maybe we could find another way back down to the gate room.” The unicorn responded.

“So what are we waiting for? Let’s get going!” an excitable Pinkie Pie exclaimed bouncing through the open door. With a collective sigh the other ponies filed through the smaller doorway into the corridor beyond.

High up in the facility, thousands of meters above the ponies heads in GLaDOS’s chamber something was wrong. Something impossible was happening. It started with a surge in the exotic partial count in the upper facility, seemingly everywhere at once at first but quickly collapsing into a single point. Then the sensors went haywire, erratic readings flooded into GLaDOS’s IO ports from all areas of the facility, and then life. Life signs suddenly popped into being where none had been before. The readings lingered for just a moment before vanishing again into nothingness, too quick to get any sort of meaningful lock on whatever they were but they were defiantly there.

GLaDOS was annoyed. Whatever this was it had happened before, though it was a distant memory. She issued a command to her primary database, the mainframe quickly responding and returning her an old file. She scanned the contents of the file refreshing her RAM of the incident in question, its timestamp marking it well over one hundred years old.

Something was going on in her facility and had been going on for a very long time and she was going to get to the bottom of it. She sent the commands to the construction mainframe to begin reanimation of her robotic test subjects; she was still going to need them.