[FROM THE MIND OF STRONGHOLD]

"Well, what the hell do you mean, 'what am I waiting for'? There's a freaking gap of almost certain death between you and me that contains a slim chance of survival!"

She gave me her 'Are you f***ing kidding me?' face. "What else would it take for you to just get over here?"

Eeyup, there was no safe way out of this question. "Ugh, fine. Here it goes." I reared up for a leap to my impending doom, then jumped. And, knowing my rotten luck, I felt as though I had picked up too much forward speed. My original fear was overshooting the platform and plunging down into the murky depths of major suckage, but fear turned to relief when I discovered something in mid-flight. I had instinctivley leaned backwards and stiffened up, which to my surprise, got me slowly moving in a backwards direction. I had no time to think between my initial jump and my landing, so my first words after shooting through both sets of portals and crashing down on the ledge were "Woah."

"See? That wasn't so bad."

Stopping my shaking, I responded. "Okay, now what?"

She gave me another 'Are you kidding me?' face and nudged her nose to my right, pointing me towards a steel door, that clearly put us to the next room. Well, clearly until we spotted the small white sign above the handle that said 'Employees Only'. Well, because it looked as though there would be nopony to get us into trouble, I pushed open the door with my hoof and we walked perpendicularly into a concrete hallway, clearly unused for a long time. More dim lighting filled the hallway, and soon enough, we were finally safe from those deadly tests. We spotted a sign directly in front of us, which shocked us with the black words that were on it. It read: "Attention Test Moderators! Don't forget to: (1) Wash hooves after handling used portal guns, (2) Lock up and shut down your workstation, and (3) Euthanize all test subjects at the end of testing."

Good God... This means Luna WAS actually trying to kill us! I looked at Celestia. She had the most shocked look on her face. She looked back at me. And by this time, I could tell that we were both thinking the exact same thing: 'Holy shit.'

She turned to her left immediatley and started walking. By the time I had overcome my shock and seen what she had started to do, I had to run to catch up with her. "Celestia! Where are you going?"

"There's electricity and a staff hallway down here, so there must be a quick way to get back up. Start looking for an elevator shaft." Her quick logic skills impressed me enough do get me looking in the other direction, to the right of where we were. And at the end of the hallway (dimly lit but still recognizable), were a pair of elevator doors about twenty meters away.

"Yo! Got it!" I called Celestia over as I started racing down the poorly cared-for corridor.

"Good work. Look for a generator room so we can boot it up."

When we were at the end of the hallway, I quickly located a wooden door labeled "Lift Control Room". Not wanting to deal with an annoying, rusty door, I reared up and bucked the poor bastard open. I walked inside to find a large electric motor inside, probably the biggest that I had ever seen. I scavenged around the side of the machine to try and find some switch or lever to turn it on.

"Looking for this?" I turned around to find Celestia behind me with a hoof on a wall-mounted lever. She flipped it down, emitting a small explosion of sparks before making the motor roar to life.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome. Now get your flank back out here."

I walked slowly back out into the hallway to find that Celestia had already called the elevator. We both waited for about ten seconds, then a bell sounded, followed by the opening of the scaffolding doors, which revealed a small, metal room inside. "Ladies first..." I said to Celestia in a somewhat inviting manner. She could obviously tell that I didn't want to go in first, but that didn't stop her from getting in. After I got the 'okay' signal from her inside, I stepped in alongside her as the doors closed and we started moving upwards. It was slow at first, but it had constant acceleration, so we were moving at a speed of about 60 kilometers an hour within a minute.

"Where exactly are we going?" I asked.

"I'm not entirely sure, but judging by the size of that motor, this thing probably goes all the way up to the surface. Maybe further... Or into the room where GLaDOS is kept."

"I'm guessing that her room is close to the surface then?"

"Yes. Very close."

The rest of the seven minute ride was rather quiet, even though we had a lot to talk about. But most of those things involved Luna killing innocent ponies, so we just kept quiet. I could have imagined the rage (or sadness) flowing throughout her mind... I didn't want to think more about how devastating it must have been to find out your sister was a true psychopath. So what should have been about seven minutes ended up feeling like twenty. Maybe it was twenty. Like I said, I have no idea how time passes anymore.

When we were at last at the top of the shaft and the door reopened, there was good news and bad news. The good news is that the elevator doors opened straight to a large, spherical (not retro, this one was new and entirely steel) room, which in the middle, hanging from the ceiling by a robotic arm, was a bizarre robot. Obviously GLaDOS. Well, obvious until it spoke. Which leads me directly to the bad news: Wheatly was hanging from the ceiling instead. Eeyup, the familiar blue ball was in the center of the room, in GLaDOS' place.

"Hello!" The blue eyed robot spoke to us in his British accent.

I turned towards Celestia. "Dammit, now what?"

"Well, let's find out." We stepped further into the room.

I spoke up to Wheatly. "How the hell did you get up here?"

"Funny story: As it turns out, I actually didn't need you! Got up here all on my own by overriding the turret defense system and core replacing her. So, in a nutshell, I am the new GLaDOS! Me! Little Wheatly did all of this!"

A fourth voice spoke up. "It wasn't all you. You know that test subject 568 did all of this. And you KILLED her. And poor Luna has no idea." It was the real GLaDOS. Her disembodied core was lying on the floor to the right. She was orange and disk shaped rather than blue and spherical.

"Yeah, like YOU would have done something different! You kill every bloody test subject that sets hoof in here! Look at it this way..." Wheatly came to a realization. "Oh my dear God... This system. No matter what core is plugged in... they're given a desire to kill. To test! To test, then kill! That explains everything. GLaDOS. Do you have a desire to kill anypony?"

"Not a pony, but if I was able to, I have a feeling I would end up killing you."

"Why?" Wheatly was in a bonehead state of confusion.

"BECAUSE YOU NEARLY KILLED ME, OF COURSE!"

"Hey! Where the hell is this going?" Celestia had a surprise say in the argument.

Wheatly turned towards Celestia. "And... And YOU. You filthy cheat... I just checked the test subject database. You were supposed to be dead two weeks ago."

She waved a hoof at GLaDOS and Wheatly. "Shouldn't have given me these, then."

"Celestia, you're not helping. Let's just wrap this damned conversation up and get the hell out of here." I said to her.

"You know what? I don't even need you. I don't need any of you. I can run this place on my own. And you know what? I'm going to kill you. I'm going to kill all of you." Wheatly's voice reached its peak of insanity.

Well, I had a feeling that it was going to happen eventually, but not this soon... At least we got back up here fast. But we weren't going down yet. Especially not GLaDOS. "Look, there may not be much time before he goes completely insane, so I might as well tell you this. Okay, I'm sorry I almost killed you. It was compulsive, and I was actually trying to kill him. And about Wheatly..." She said to me.

"DON'T TELL HIM!" Wheatly piped up.

"SCREW YOU! I'LL TELL HIM ANY THING I WANT! Now listen! He's going to destroy this place if he stays in there for long enough. He was built to be a bad decision maker. That's why he rerouted the elevator in the first place."

"Why the hell should I care? Just get me out of this place!"

"Fine. WHEATLY! GET LUNA ON THE PHONE!"

Oh God. She dropped the bomb. "Fine, I'll do it!"

Shit. This could be it. I heard a disembodied phone ringing. Within two rings, before anyone could prepare for the conversation that followed, she picked up the phone.

"Queen Luna speaking, how may I assist you?" Luna said in a rehearsed voice.

"Great. Now she's calling herself a queen." I found myself saying aloud.

"Excuse me, there can only be one queen, but as many princesses as anyone wants. So when Princess Celestia went missing, I assumed the role as a queen. Now, what do you want?"

"Missing, you say. Do you have any idea of where she is?"

"No. Is that all?"

"Well, no is not a good answer to me. And by the way, my name is Stronghold. And Celestia is right next to me as we speak."

"Hello, Luna. Long time, no see. If you call two weeks of rotting in the pit below Canterlot a long time." Celestia said.

"Celestia? Stronghold? Impossible."

"Possible. Now what are you going to do with me? Feed me to the Hydra? Throw me in the dragon's cave?"

"No idea. I'm speechless. I have no choices left. GLaDOS, kill them."

"Can do!" Wheatly spoke up instead.

"You're not GLaDOS! What have you done to her?"

"Oh, just a core transplant. But that's no problem, is it?" Wrong move, Wheatly.

"AARGH! SCREW THIS WHOLE THING! NOW ALL OF YOU ARE DOOMED!"

Nobody new what that meant until a computerized male voice came on overhead. "Nuclear reactor core meltdown imminent. This facility will self destruct in five minutes." I suppose that explained where all of the energy in this place came from...

Just then, some of the steel panels lining the room flipped to reveal TV screens, all of which had timers on them, counting down from five minutes. And to make matters worse, Wheatly took a direct order from Luna and started trying to kill us. By throwing bombs. "HAHAHA! TAKE THAT!"

"SHIT! WHAT DO WE DO?!" I yelled at Celestia.

To my surprise, GLaDOD ended up being the one to respond. "Over to your left! Theres a pipe that has a special white gel in it! What ever the gel splatters on, portals can be shot on."

"How?" I said, not out of question, but out of spontaneous curiousity. Everything in this place seemed impossible..

"There's no time to explain! Okay, maybe there is! It's made of moon rocks, which conduct portals! There! Happy?"

White gel... Conduct portals... Holy shit! That was it! "Celestia! I know how we can beat him and escape! Follow me!" I ran to my left and beneath the white pipe, all the while dodging poorly aimed grenades shot by Wheatly. And just as I predicted, one stray fire blew up the pipe, sending lead shrapnel and white gel soaring out in all directions. Sure enough, within seconds, the entire room was portal compatible.

"AARGH! WHY DID YOU DO THAT?!"

Thinking fast, I smirked. "Self-defense."

Out of frustration, he started lobbing more bombs at us. I was ready this time. I shot an orange portal at my feet while jumping back back and firing a blue one on the wall behind Wheatly. Sure enough, the bombs hit him directly on his bad side and soon made him go into an odd, dormant state of rest.

"Good work, Stronghold!" Celestia quickly praised.

"Thanks, but now what? We only have four minutes left!"

GLaDOS piped in. "Hey! What about me?"

"Yeah, what about you?"

"I can replace him! Plug me into the station at the back of the room! In case that-" GLaDOS was cut off there. A crazy noise had taken over our ears, like a ravaging wind mixed with a crumbling explosion. To my shock and horror, a hole had caved into the room, in the exact place that she was. And she fell. And there was nothing I could do about it. And sure enough, the void was taking over the room as we were in it. Every helpless moment that the nuclear wind ripped at us, a new hole was created, and soon enough, we were stranded on a small concrete platform in the middle of the room, and Wheatly shared a similar fate as GLaDOS. Surrounded by doom. That was us.

Well, almost. With about a minute left on the countdown, a small beacon of hope came down from the heavens. Almost literally. I looked up to find that a hole had caved in above us, revealing the moon shining bright above us. I had a crazy idea in my head, but Celestia was the one crazy enough to put it out: Going to the moon.

"HOLD ON!" Celestia screamed.

"TO WHAT?!"

"TO ME, DAMN IT!" I grabbed hold of Celestia's frontal leg as she shot a portal below us, then one directly at the moon.

Before I could even think of what could have happened, all of it seemed to happen in an instant. In one puny section of time, no longer than a few seconds, the entirety of our hope was completely gone.

I looked over at Celestia just in time to see a shadowy figure spawn right behind her. I knew instantly who it was.

Luna.

With one swift move on her part, she reached out both of her front legs, grabbed Celestia's neck, and before she could react, snapped her neck with a powerful twist and a horrible crunch. I felt my body go into shock before I could comprehend what I was watching.

I nearly watched poor Celestia fall to the ground in slow-motion. Before I could retalliate, or even hear another snap coming from her body, I saw Luna's horn glow with a nearly white blaze.

They were gone.

Both of them.

I then recognized what Luna did to her. A time-travel spell. A powerful one.

Suddenly realizing the situation at hand, I made a panicky movement into the portal below me out of shock. I felt the usual disorienting feeling, the rush, but this time felt different...

I hit a soft mound of soil with my face what seemed like minutes. Silence fell. Looking up and at my surroundings, I nearly had a heart attack from realizing where I was. I was on the moon. And I was breathing! I was alive! I was victorious! Over what, I wasn't sure, but it felt fairly good nontheless.

Of course, then the thought of Celestia entered my head once again. Hopelessness surrounded me again. She was probably dead... Or worse. But then I thought: She brought both herself and Celestia into the past. She wanted her alive... But for what?

I couldn't find an answer.

After several hours of trying, I finally ended up landing back in Equestria. It wasn't easy, and I still don't know what town I'm in, but at least I'm alive. I can only hope that Celestia is the same.

Hope is a weak word.