“What’s the matter with Twilight?” Pinkie asked, bouncing slightly in place. She looked between both her and Rainbow. “Why does she have a stumpy tail? Why is she out cold? Why is she- mMPH!” Pinkie’s questions were cut off as Rainbow stuffed a hoof in her mouth.
“Nothing’s wrong, her tail got caught in some sort of disintegrating goo and she’s out cold because she couldn’t handle the floor moving instead of it not … moving. I brought her here in case some medical attention was needed.” Rainbow answered and looked pointedly at Pinkie. “You going to ask anymore questions?” Pinkie just nodded and Rainbow sighed, taking her hoof off of Pinkie’s mouth, rubbing it against the floor in the hospital. “What other questions?”
“Where’s Joseph? I still haven’t thrown him any parties!” Pinkie protested with a slight pout.
“He’s down in that science building, looking around for something or other. I left with Twilight soon as she blacked out.” Rainbow said, looking down at Twilight. Currently, Twilight was in a hospital bed with crisp white sheets covering her and an oxygen mask on her face. The nurses said that her system had taken quite a shock so it had shut down itself in order to combat it. When they asked what had happened to her tail, Rainbow told them that she had an accident with a fire. The nurses only raised an eyebrow as they rushed the poor Unicorn to the Emergency Room.
“Science building. Got it! BYE!” Pinkie saluted and immediately raced out the hospital, shouting bye as she did. Ignoring protests and waving when she could, she zoomed past the bulk of the crowd in Ponyville and ended up rushing past the town limits, separating both the town and the Everfree. Bursting through the doors of Aperture, she skidded to a halt but ended up sliding right into the hole in the floor. “WHEEEE!” Pinkie yelled gleefully, landing on all four hooves without a scratch.
Poking his head out from the around the exit, Joseph looked to find Pinkie Pie humming as she inspected the place. “PINKIE!” Joseph shouted, waving her over. Pinkie trotted happily over and looked Joseph square in the eyes. “What are you doing?” He asked uneasily.
“I need to throw a delayed party. Three parties in fact. A ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ party, a ‘Welcome to Equestria’ party and a ‘Yay for Voices!’ party.” Pinkie counted off on her three hooves. Two front ones and her back left one.
“Three parties? I actually haven’t been to any of your trademark parties now that I think about it.” Joseph replied with a grin. “Anyway, now that you’re here you can help me with something. I’m trying to figure out the next puzzle room. Sound good?” Joseph asked, grinning widely.
“Yesiree, of course I’ll help! Sounds like fun! But after this, you definitely have to come to those three parties. You are the guest of honor after all.” Pinkie replied, following Joseph as he walked away with a nod and a smile.
“Great. Will do. Now. The next puzzle should be around the corner.” Joseph said. As soon as Pinkie walked through the door, it closed shut, plunging the duo into darkness. They both stopped and the only source of light was Crikey’s eye. Patting his pockets, Joseph found that he didn’t bring a flashlight. At least Crikey cast a pretty wide and bright enough glow to see by. Grimacing, he held tightly onto his gun and slowly walked forward, hearing Pinkie’s small bounces behind him.
“Welcome to the Aperture Science Enrichment Centre. We are currently experiencing technical difficulties due to circumstances of a potentially apocalyptic significance beyond our control. However, thanks to emergency testing protocols, testing can continue. These pre-recorded messages will provide instructional and motivated support so that science can still be done even in the event of environmental, social, economic or structural collapse.” A different voice than before could be heard through the tinny, invisible speakers.
“Well that’s helpful. Not.” Crikey would have shaken a fist at the voice if he had any hands.
As Pinkie followed Joseph, she felt her back itch, her left eyelid twitch and her flank shake from left to right. “DUCK!” She screamed.
Joseph did as said and ducked, hearing something impact the wall just where his head was. Looking for the source, he found a flash and jumped towards Pinkie, catching her and rolling out of the way. “Hey Pinkie, You okay?” Joseph asked as he heard some more impacts.
“Ya huh!” Pinkie nodded and stood up. “What was that?”
“Sounded like something impacted the wall.” Joseph muttered and got up, dusting himself off. Walking to the wall, he felt at the impact site and found that they were tiny holes.
“Didn’t you hear that pink pony before!? DUCK!” Crikey ordered and Joseph did so, crab walking away towards Pinkie.
“Sounds like there is a very annoying turret further down.” Joseph commented and now that he looked for it, he found a red dot moving from side to side on the wall. The only odd thing about it was that there was no voice clip signalling that it had found them.
“Joshu, where’s the voice that usually goes with these insane robots?” Crikey asked nervously.
“I don’t know.” Joseph answered and slowly backed towards Pinkie. “How did you know it was going to fire?” He turned and asked her.
“Easy. I got an itchy back, my left eyelid flicked up and down, and my flank shaked from left to right. That means that something is hurtling towards you from the front or sides. If my tail twitches, like it is now, it means something is falling from above you.” Pinkie said, calmly stepping to the side as piece of the roof fell where she was standing mere seconds ago.
“That will come in handy. Seems like this is the next puzzle. I didn’t think it would be directly after it though.” Joseph said, cringing at Pinkie’s apparent psychic abilities. “What do you call this? Pinkie … ‘Sense’?” Joseph asked, scratching his chin in thought.
Pinkie gasped in surprise. “How did you know!?”
“It’s actually called that? He was just joking sheila!” Crikey said, laughing his battery off.
Joseph made a face at the battery and walked towards the turret till he was just out of sight of it.
“How fast can you run?” Joseph asked, looking back to Pinkie who was on the wall but she was standing on her two back legs. “What are you doing?”
“Sneaking around. Isn’t that what we’re meant to be doing?” Pinkie asked in a very loud whisper.
“Well, yes but we still need to progress forward sheila. So I’ll ask again. How fast can you run?” Joseph repeated his question.
“Oh very fast. But why?” Pinkie asked, still talking in that loud whisper of hers.
“I want you to distract that turret while I portal it away. It hasn’t said anything so I am not sure if it can detect ponies as well as humans.” Joseph, suddenly feeling a little uneasy at sending Pinkie into what could potentially be her death.
“Sure. I can do that!” Pinkie said happily, not detecting his uneasiness. Without any further words, she took off from the wall and ran in front of the turret. “HELLO?? YOOHOO!!” Pinkie said, trying to get its attention. Feeling her Pinkie Sense for incoming projectiles, she easily dodged the bullets the turret silently spewed at her.
Gawking for a bit at Pinkie’s dodging skills, he snapped out of it and quickly fired a couple of portals. one on the bottom and the other next to the turret and a little bit behind it. It fell through and landed on its side but instead of it automatically shutting down and panicking like it’s supposed to, it instead got it’s legs under itself and stood back up. It then took a couple of steps forward and resumed its firing, causing Joseph to pull Pinkie out of its line of sight and back behind the wall.
Joseph looked to the closed door and then to the little dot waving back and forth on the wall. “How can it move? It does NOT move. It’s not meant to move, it’s meant to stay in one place. It can’t walk unless a big cube was attached to its back and even then, it was slow and clunky. This one didn’t have a cube. It was a turret. A turret that can walk.” Joseph said out loud, trying to not freak out.
Pinkie saw him take take deep breaths and decided to look at the turret herself. Peeking around the corner, she found the eye of the turret looking down at the portal. It gingerly put a leg through it but the weight was too much so it fell through and back onto the floor without so much as a sound. Her head slowly moved back and looked at Joseph, who was looking at where the turret was.
“Ooh! Do you have X-Ray Vision!?” Pinkie asked excitedly.
“Huh?” Joseph asked back, snapping his gaze to Pinkie’s. “No. I’m just struggling not to freak out at a walking, silent FrankenTurret.” Joseph said calmly even though his eyes said differently.
“It seems to be stuck with going through the portals.” Pinkie said as they both heard the continuous thuds of the turret falling over and the click-clack as the turret autonomously moved over and over.
“If that’s the case,” Joseph breathed in to calm himself, “Then I’ll just do this.”
“Do what?” Pinkie piped up. Ignoring her question, Joseph moved out from behind the wall and aimed the gun at the turret. Noticing movement, the turret focused its sights on Joseph and quickly moved once it had him locked in. Unfortunately, it fell into the portal … and continued falling. Taking another breath, Joseph backed until he was just to the right of the wall. Firing a portal at the other end of the hallway, he then dived to the side, just barely avoiding the turret flying past him and crashing into the wall. He heard it spark and turned around only for it to break apart.
“That didn’t sound good,” Crikey commented. Joseph only sighed in relief but cringed when he saw its legs move feebly only for them to slowly stop.
“I think it’s over. For now anyway.” Joseph said, kicking the turret vaguely. “Besides the parties, was there another reason you decided to fall in?” Joseph asked Pinkie absently, inspecting the turret with Crikey’s light.
“Was there? Oh right! Twilight is at the hospital and they were taking her to the emergency room when Dashie told me you were down here.” Pinkie answered, looking at the now empty hallway. It was too dark to see anything so from some pocket dimension that only she seemed to have access to, Pinkie brought in a pair of night-vision goggles and took a lookie-loo through them.
At the end of the hallway, there seemed to be a large open room with a button at the entrance. Holding the goggles up with her hair, she walked forward and stepped on the button. At the pressure button being activated, the walls in front of her opened up with a grating sound to reveal about three more walking, silent turrets, all of them looking around. As the wall rose, the portal that was on it deactivated. Seeing a bright patch glowing all around her, she took the goggles of her eyes and rested them in her mane, turning towards the source. It was Joseph walking towards her.
“Pinkie, what did you do?” Joseph asked, pointing the light around the room.
“Some emergency testing may require prolonged interaction with lethal military androids. Rest assured that all lethal military androids have been taught to read and provided with one copy of the Laws of Robotics. To share.” The announcer supplied as Joseph found three turrets walking about.
“Oh man. Really? Wait. Where’s the exit?” Joseph asked in alarm as he swept Crikey’s light on the far end. The only thing that was there was a big red button.
“Oooh. Shiny button. You should push it and see what happens.” Crikey quipped.
“Hopefully it won’t blow us up in the process. How will we get past this?” Joseph asked noticing that the turrets were walking on their own platforms. The platforms, including where they were now, were their own islands in a sea of brown goop.
“Easy. Just a hop, skip and a jump!” Pinkie asked, singing a ditty as hopped, skipped and jumped to one of the platforms where, thankfully, the turret was walking away from her. Soon as it turned, Pinkie zipped to behind it and waved to Joseph. “Come on! It’s not that hard!”
Joseph just shook his head. Pointing his gun up to look at the ceiling, he found it was so high that it appeared that there wasn’t even a ceiling there. “Can’t shoot up, Too high. Maybe …” Joseph pointed his gun to just above and behind the button. Shooting a portal, her fired the other one to the wall on his left. Shining Crikey through it, he looked to the side and found the beam of light wave over the room. Jumping through, he landed and found Pinkie appear next to him.
“Gah!” joseph shrieked, nearly dropping the gun.
“Careful mate! You nearly dropped me in the drip.” Crikey warned.
“Sorry. Don’t do that Pinkie!” Joseph protested, clutching his jumpsuit where he felt his heart would break out at any second.
“Force of habit. Push!” Pinkie said as she pushed the big red button.
“Aww. I wanted to push it.” Joseph whined and found that the lights came on, causing the three turrets in the room to stop walking and promptly explode. Kicking the one near him into the goop, it exploded, making a wave of goop wash over the edge of the platform.
“Look behind you! A door!” Pinkie said, pointing like a bloodhound behind him.
In Canterlot Castle, Princess Luna was having a good old chat with Wheatley while the Space Core rolled around her private chamber, shouting and complaining about space..
“Tell me, why were you sent into space in the first place?” Luna asked Wheatley, sipping on some tea.
“Well, I was trying to help this pony get out of Aperture, right? And the only way to do that was for me to go into GLaDOS’s place. She thought I got corrupted and ended up shooting me into space with a portal gun. No idea what happened to her after that.” Wheatley answered, swivelling around to look around the bed chamber.
“A portal gun? There’s another one running around somewhere?” Luna asked, interested in what he had to say now.
“First time I was sent there because of my sister and her usage of the Elements of Harmony. That was for a thousand years which reminds me. How did I NOT know you were there?”
“Easy. You never looked up.” Wheatley answered, swivelling his ball head back to look at Luna. “And the second time?”
“Fine. I’ll give you that. The second time was Joseph shooting a couple of portals, forcing me through them to the moon.” Luna replied, placing the now finished tea back on the saucer.
“Who?”
“The human in the orange jumpsuit.” Luna supplied.
“Oh right. Wait, he has a portal gun too?” Wheatley asked in surprise. Luna only nodded and looked at Space Core for a bit.
“Where there any other … spheres with you besides him?” Luna asked curiously.
“There was one but I think he was on the other side of the moon. His name was RIck and kept complaining about everyone knowing that it was space. He also said something about adventure.” Wheatley said slowly, trying to remember if Rick was actually with them.
“Rick?” Luna asked in disbelief.
Wheatley swivelled his head up and down.
“Seems like the other door is back open.” Joseph called out to Pinkie as he inspected the door where they entered from. Placing a portal next to the door, he walked through and turned to Pinkie. “Want to help me with the next chamber as well?” Joseph asked.
“Sure can! This was super-duper fun!” Pinkie said in delight; bouncing up and down on the spot.
“Two puzzles down, a whole lot more to go. What could possibly go wrong?” Crikey asked in nervous delight.