[FROM THE MIND OF STRONGHOLD]
My eyes slowly crawled into a state of awareness as I found both of them staring straight out into a single blinding halogen light bulb. For a while I couldn't see anything at all, but after a couple of seconds, my vision cleared to reveal to me that I wasn't home. It wasn't until a machine beneath me sputtered to life that I realized I was encased in a small glass bubble. Instinctively, I tried to remember my past to see how I got here... But much to my avail, could only bring up my name, what I looked like, and where I had lived before... This. I was a gray unicorn who used to work as a guard in Canterlot... for... Damn. Couldn't remember even that. In fact, I couldn't even recall the details of my family... Or even if I had a family. At least I could recall that my name was Stronghold. That appeared to be all, though.
The glass bubble that I was lying in started to split into two neat glass halves that rotated around me until I found myself lying in what resembled a bed. It had bluish gray sheets and was a shiny white around the edges. Looked rather futuristic. I hoisted myself onto all fours, feeling an odd kind of resistance on my joints, like I was wearing spandex. I looked down to find myself wearing an explosively orange jumpsuit. Rolling my eyes in disgust to try and get past that, I observed the room to find myself incased in a bizarre cubical room. Three of the walls were made of glass, which revealed a boxy hallway beneath it. The floor was made of a thin looking concrete, while the fourth wall had a large door-looking thing. Rather boring, but still creepy.
A voice crackled to life in an unseen speaker, and out came a robotic, but not monotone, female voice. "Hello, and again, welcome to the Aperture Science Testing Facility." Oh. Frakkin. Shit. I panicked. This sounded WAY too familiar for my liking. She continued her speech about 'how I got accepted to be a test subject' and all of that crap, but I was just more concerned about how the hell I would get out of here. It wasn't until I heard the end of it that I realized what was sort of going on, and those words I will never forget.
"Stand back. The portal will open in three, two, one."
And just like that, the bizarre blocked doorway opened up a door in front of me It didn't even swing open... Just opened. Like a shutter. Orange colored, and had a weird kind of noise to it when it opened ("WHUMM". There, does that help?). But it wasn't until I saw myself in the doorway that I panicked. Standing in front of me, in an elevated glass room, surrounded by a curved hallway, was me. Surprised look on my face and everything. I raised a hoof and was alarmed to find that I saw my second self do the same thing as me at the exact same time. Even weirder, I noticed that my hooves were strapped to four miniature pogo-stick-looking things. I looked at myself again. My mane was spiked forward and orange, while my tail jetted out backwards and was colored likewise. I stepped backward. He (I, I guess?) stepped backward also. I looked further into the bizarre door to find myself in the hallway that I was just surrounded by. Portals... A real life portal... Wow. This could get either scary or awesome really fast, I realized.
After I was over my fascination with seeing myself in the portal, I decided to see what would happen if I stepped into it. Hesitantly, I raised a hoof through it to find that I instantly lost my sense of direction after my first step. I was now in the hallway that just surrounded me. Holy bit. That was crazy.
I moseyed down the glass and concrete hallway with an uneasy feeling. No matter how cool that portal thingie was, I still didn't exactly know where I was, and the fact that I could hardly remember anything about me didn't help at all. I continued walking, and looked up to find a security camera staring at me. I moved left. The white, metallic casing guided the red, electronic eye towards me. That was officially beyond creepy. And to add to that, the entire facility seemed to be vacant.
"Hello? Can anyone hear me?" I yelled.
"Yes. Although it is a surprise to hear a test subject talk. I haven't had one like you in days. This will be fun."
"How did I even get here? Where is this place? What the hell is going on here?"
"Now, now. There's no need for swearing. You'll find out soon enough."
I stopped in defiance to her statement, then realized that I would get nowhere by doing so. I then reluctantly trotted into the doorway at the end of the hall, which was round and small. Inside was another cold, vacant concrete room. Whoopdeedoo. Okay, vacant in the sense of other ponies. It had some things in it, the most interesting of which were a large, valved tube coming from the ceiling and a large red button on the floor next to it. And then the creepy lady spoke up again.
"Alrighty then. Lets see if you can still use magic." The valve on the tube opened up, dispensing a large cube, which then bumped to the ground, making an alarmingly quiet noise for its size. Grey, but still had a cool design on it. "Take the weighted storage cube and place it on the button to open the door to the next chamber." Sounded simple enough. I tried to use some simple magic to lift the cube off the ground, but only to find that I couldn't. I tried again. No cigar. Yeah, this can't be good.
Her voice came back on again, this time hinting insanity. "Oh, right. You can only use magic on what I want you to use magic on. Which is nothing. Sorry. Weighted storage cubes appear to not be on that list. Which is still nothing. HAHAHAA."
DAMMIT! That makes everything suck. Great.
Being the reluctant unicorn that I am, I didn't want to make any movements, but stubbornness turned to motivation when the voice came on again. "Just put the damn cube on the damn button and get a move on."
I wandered over towards the cube to see what I could do with it. As I observed it, I found out it was made out of a very light ceramic. Interesting. I could clearly see that the goal of this was to get the cube onto the button, so I gave it a shot by rearing up behind it and giving it a nice buck. The initial impact didn't hurt as bad I expected, and it softly landed on the large button with a satisfying 'Ka-chunk' as the pressure plate depressed and the door next to it opened.
"Well done, filly. That's as easy as they come, though. But don't be a Fluttershy. Head through the door and into the elevator."
"I'm not a female, you know..." I said, irritated with her already.
Fluttershy... Where have I heard that name? It sounded famous to me for some reason... I couldn't remember why though. Odd.
I looked down the hallway to find a bizarre force-field looking thing was blocking my path to a cylindrical elevator. "Umm, freaky robot lady? How do I get by?"
"I have a name, you know. And I'm more than just a robot. I also have a name, too. It's GLaDOS. That thing you appear to be afraid of is an incandescent particle field: it will incinerate any unauthorized equipment that passes through it, such as that weighted storage cube. Good thing you're authorized."
Well, that certainly freaked the hell out of me. I still knew that that was the only way out of here, so I was left with no choice. I stepped through it. After what felt like minor electrocution, I stepped out unscathed. Wow. I felt good, but I still didn't want to do that again. Too unsettling... Hard to explain (even to myself), so... Moving on. I continued to walk down the cold concrete hallway until I was greeted by a rather large metal door, which was open. Inside this 'elevator' was a circular room with padding inside, like the kind in an asylum. I didn't like this at all now.
I stepped inside to find that the doors had closed right behind me, and now we were already moving up. We, you might ask? Oh, yeah. About that. Just as the door closed and started moving upward, I heard a different voice. This one not so monotone. And, strangely enough, it had a rather sophisticated accent. "Hello!" He waited a few seconds for me to stop freaking out and regain a proper breathing pattern. "You know, I'm so glad you came here. I've been trapped in here for weeks... Not a single test subject has come through here in an entire month! Can you believe it?" I looked up to find a metal ball looking down at me through a trapdoor in the ceiling. Strangely enough, it looked like a metal eye. This place was getting weirder by the minute, and I've really only been here for about four minutes.
"Who the hell are you?" I snapped.
"Oh. Terribly sorry for not formally introducing myself. Wheatly. And you?"
"Stronghold. What I guess I meant to say is, what the hell are you?"
"Personality core for... Her... working in Pony Management at Aperture Laboratories."
Personality core... Weird. "Ah. A core, you say. You know what, I have no idea what that means."
"Oh. Sorry. We cores are specially designed robots that attach to and slightly alter the thoughts of other robots." He said that to me like it was the most casual thing to say to me.
"Oookay. I'm honestly surprised that I haven't freaked out that much about having a near-alive robot in front of me... So, what's your business here, in a creepy elevator talking to a unicorn who can't even seem to remember his family?"
"Damn it! That bloody AI erased another mind... Wait. You said you remembered your name. What else do you remember?"
"That didn't answer my question."
"Oh. Right. Well, I'm actually here to help you help us escape. You see, I hate this place just as much as you do, and I need a human's help to do it. So... How about that."
"But what do you mean by 'her'? Was that the weird voice I heard back in the glass room? GLaDOS, she said?"
"Oh. You woke up there... Interesting... So that means this elevator is parked in test chamber 00 on testing course 6652A. And yes, she is that voice. In fact, she runs this entire facility. And she's mad. Crazy. She tries to kill every single 'test subject' that runs through this rat maze of hers... She has already succeeded several times, but I plan to stop her ASAP. So, waddya say: We escape, justice is served, and I might add, we both survive."
"Sure, but..." He cut me off there.
"Great! Hold on a second while I take manual control of this." The elevator suddenly jolted to a stop, and within a split second, we were back up and moving. This time, backwards. Well, forwards. I couldn't tell, but either way, it wasn't moving like a normal elevator. A canned version of 'her' came on through an unseen speaker. Fine. GLaDOS. She's still just a random creepy robot lady to me...
"What are you doing? Stop it!" Her voice hinted both rage and surprise. Well, it's official. She's pissed.
"Hang on, Stronghold! We're goin' through!" By this time, I was very confused about what was happening.
"Through what? Where are you taking me?!"
"Out!"
"Out to where?!"
"OUTSIDE! HAHAHA!"
Now, as you can probably easily tell, I did not like how this situation was going straight to hell. And that was before GLaDOS actually tried to do something about it. The third voice came in, the elevator still accelerating. We must have been going at least 80 kilometers an hour...
"Not if I can help it." The small room jolted to a stop and struggled to move in the opposite direction, almost like a war was going on for me. This wasn't a mechanical override, even. This was straight up physical. However, I still didn't know at this point was shaking this small room. While the elevator wasn't even moving. And there wasn't a single damn thing I could do about it. As the massive jolt knocked me to the ground, I realized what I had on my hooves. Those bizarre pogo-things... I quickly took advantage of them and sprung back to my feet. As badass that I thought that may have looked, I still had no control over the situation. And having the door of the elevator ripped off by a giant robotic arm reminded me of that.
A second after I was thrown into the ground, a few large dents made their way into the metal door. And what seemed like just a second after that, a hole was suddenly carved in between the elevator doors as a large, blue metal hand protruded through.
That's the funny thing about humility. You lose all of it until something life-threatening happens. And it just did. As the blue and grey metal arm tore off the metal door and threw it down, I panicked. We were REALLY high up.
It was a shocking sight to see where we actually were. Picture this: A giant, mostly vacant space that seems to go on forever. Then add some horizontal and vertical rails strewn across the blue void, then put several oddly blocky rooms on said rails. Add some more rails connecting said rooms, then put on them cyndrical elevators and robots that looked like Wheatly. So, pretty much the scariest place for someone with an undying fear of large spaces and height. I happened to be terrified of both. And since this place seemed to be indoors, that only amplified my fear for some reason.
"Hey! I can't hold on to this much longer, so I'm going to have to ask you of a tad crazy favor... Drop down and look for a way back up! You can use the old testing chambers down there, but be warned: You'll need a special tool! A gun that shoots holes! Well, not bullet holes, but you'll figure it out! Just let go!" Wheatly snapped me out of my mental state of pure fear and back into the real world, where there was still a freaky robotic arm trying to kill me. On a rail, suspended who-knows-how high. Or low. And, as I might add, back into a world where I had sub mindedly saved my own life by stopping myself from soaring out the open doorway. Because GLaDOS was trying to kill me. For no apparent reason, I may add.
"Are you crazy?" I yelled back at him.
"JUST DO IT! THERE'S NO TIME LEFT TO EXPLAIN IT FURTHER!"
It all happened in one, long moment. I felt Wheatly ram himself into my flank, knocking me forwards and out the door. Into the very void that I was terrified of. The robotic arm swiped at it from the right and crashed into the elevator that I was in just milliseconds before, completely destroying the bottom of it and sending several pieces of metal shrapnel towards me. It also revealed the place Wheatly was, which was a small roof compartment in the elevator.
I came to a sudden realization just then: Holy shit. I'm falling! Fast! As I saw the robots battling it out on the inverted railing above, I realized what had happened with the pogo-shoes. Bouncy... Maybe they could slow falls. I quickly righted myself to a downward position in mid-fall to find that the space beneath me was gradually turning darker and darker as I accelerated to my doom. I noticed the buildings whizzing by me upwards were slowly getting more... Spherical? Where the hell is this place, anyway? A salt mine? Well, that would make sense. And, BAM. No, not landing. Rather, just as I thought that, memory came rushing back. Well, at least some of it. As it turns out, I had worked as a guard for Princess Celestia, but I went to a night shift when she went missing and her sister, Princess Luna, took over. And when I mean night shift, I mean it. The sun hadn't risen for two weeks after she took rule. Which, coincidentally, is when we are now... Two weeks. Then I had another thought... Was she down here in this wretched place? I didn't doubt it. But what Luna is doing right now is the real concern, because I had no idea.
That's the funny thing about falling. At first, everything seems to go by fast, like 'life flashing before your eyes'. But after a while, you can almost enjoy it. I had been falling for at least a minute now, which means that I must have been at least two kilometers down this shaft thing. And I hadn't a care in the world... Until I landed. At around the minute mark, three kilometers down, at over three hundred kilometers an hour. That's my guess, at least.
That's the funny thing about landing. The anticipation is unbearable, but when it happens and it's over, you're shaken, but your thoughts are clear: That wasn't so bad. I righted myself in midair as I spotted a glow start to increase in size beneath me. Looked like a bunch of fires were happening down there. But the rapid rate that it was coming was nerve racking. I straightened my legs, bracing for my legs to shatter from one hell of an impact.
It never really happened. All I can remember is a 'THOCK', a 'WHOOSH', and then opening my eyes to find myself alive, but at the bottom of this horrendous void. Post-apocalyptic style, bitch. But with no broken bones, so of course it's okay. HAHA! NOT.
Wheatly's last few sentences disturbed me... Gun. Shoots holes... Hold the phone. Does he mean those freaky-ass portals back in the glass room? And if he did, was there really a device that could create them? I hoped for the best as I stood up shakily as I found myself in a large, open topped cylindrical room strewn with several forgotten pieces of metal and concrete. I then I spotted a small doorway in the wall across from me and started to walk towards it. I found my way and made my way through the dank, dark corridors that held years worth of scrap and debris, noticing that everything was dripping with mildew-ridden sludge and had an unearthly glow to it, like a poorly made fire was next to it. I looked a little farther ahead to find an opening from the corridor to a much larger room. I stepped further, looking for a way out of this God forsaken pit I was in. I stepped out of the corridor and into the room to find a much larger area than anticipated, which was essentially the larger part of the bottom of the void. Honestly, it looked like a concrete jungle, but this time, literally. And everything was large, dark, and downright frightening. And moist, I might add. Eeaugh.
I was equally alarmed to hear a female voice coming from the debris, this time a sure bet on another pony. "Who goes there?" It was a really hoarse and shaky voice, at that.
"Um, me. My name is Stronghold. Where and who are you?"
"Stronghold... My GOD! Is it really you?" I heard some rattling around beneath a large concrete pipe to my left until a head popped up out of a small hole in the ground. It was scrappy, shaggy, and possibly diseased, but it was still an unmistakable character with her long pastel hair and large horn.
"Princess Celestia? What the hell are you doing down here? How long have you been down here?" Questions came pouring mindlessly out of here until she answered a few of them.
"Calm down! I've been down here for about two weeks. How did the public take this?"
I could still barely talk to her. "Well, as you could have guessed, Luna took over as leader, but she was having trouble raising the sun. Everypony misses you but nopony knows where you are. What... Were you scared that the public wouldn't take you back in as leader?"
"No, it's just that I'm afraid that Luna will kill me."
HOLD THE PHONE. "Explain, please."
"You know GLaDOS? That would be Luna's creation. She went psychotic and started 'testing' on the citizens of Equestria, but after I found out, she tried to erase my memory and threw me down here. I've been able to stay alive just by the adrenal vapor she releases into the air down here. I can only assume she's still erasing minds and killing innocent ponies as we speak..."
Holy shit. That explained a little too much of what was going on down here then I'd like to know.
"Is there any way out from here?"
"As far as I'm concerned, the only thing I can think of is through the old Co-op testing course." Right... Just like Wheatly mentioned a while back. Or up.
"Old? How old?"
"Ages! This area of the facility was shut down in the sixties, so it's at least 70 years old... But since you're down here, how about some testing?"
The single thought that was suddenly coursing through my mind at that very moment: Oh god.
"Wait a second. Testing? That's the very thing that got me thrown down here in the first place. Why would I want to do that again?"
"I know it sounds desperate, but it really is the only way out. And now since you're here, we can actually do something about this."
"Woah, woah. Hold on. Another guy up top gave me a broken promise, and I don't want to get betrayed again." I accidentally let that slip, not realizing for some reason that at the moment I was talking to the Princess.
"Betrayed? This is life or death we're talking about here! Just go with me!"
I was surprised by the way that she didn't seem to notice how I was talking to her, but seriously: Way to bring the crappy concept of death into an already crappy situation. Again.
"Okay, fine! But, what's so dangerous about this testing?"
"Huh! I guess you didn't see very much while you were up there, didn't you? How about this: You'll see. Hold on, I'll grab us some portal guns."
Guns. Portal guns. Well, my prediction was right... A gun that shoots portals. Celestia went back into the small hole in her makeshift concrete shack of a home, and came out a few seconds later, this time holding two strange devices. Both of them looked like two white metal footballs fused together at the tips, and included a handle in the back, while the front end had an opening, surrounded by a claw-like thing. Bizarre, to say in the least. "Take your pick. You can use magic on these, but it can't go further than five feet from your horn, or it doesn't work."
I levitated the one on the left up to me to observe it and found myself absentmindedly stroking it with my hoof, to get the texture. In a nutshell, cold like metal, looked like plastic, and felt like glass. And I had no idea what it was made out of. "Wow. Luna made these too?"
"I can only assume so. Give it a try... There are three levers on it. Bottom lever fires a blue portal, top lever fires an orange portal, and the middle lever grabs stuff."
"That dinky claw?"
"Don't underestimate it. Here, try it on this." She picked up a chunk of metal that was on the ground and held it up in front of me. Curious, I pointed the device at the chunk and tripped the middle lever.
The front end of the gun flashed bright white, temporarily blinding me. When I regained my vision, I found that the claw wasn't actually grabbing it, but levitating it somehow about a decimeter in front of it. As a result, I couldn't feel any extra weight on the gun.
"Impressive, huh?" Celestia remarked.
"Wow. How does it work?" I inquired.
"It's rather interesting. Some of the old tests down here were for harnessing magic from unicorns, and apparently somepony found a way to use the energy through a device. Which also happens to be what you're holding now."
"Huh! That's crazy... Sounds like a lot of work went into this stuff."
"Yeah, maybe too much work... Anyway, you should test out the other two levers."
I set down the hunk of metal and looked to my left to find a chain-link fence with a concrete wall behind it. I aimed the gun at it using my magic and tripped the bottom lever. The gun momentarily turned blue, and a bright beam shot out of the front of the gun. It made a strange sound as the beam collided with the wall, then made a bright blue oval appear on the wall. I was in awe of what just happened, but that didn't stop me from trying out the top lever. I fired an orange portal on a wall to my right to find the two portals linked, allowing me to see directly through one and out the other. Holy shit, I think I just changed my mind! I want to see where this goes!