Think in Ponies

by Silver Arctic Wolf

The Escape

Clang!

Following a strange sizzling noise, a chunk of the elevator’s roof collapsed, making a loud clanging noise when it hit the ground, and also nearly crushing Twilight. Bright orange light poured in from the hole in the ceiling. Twilight shielded her eyes and gazed up at the hole in the ceiling, and there saw a silhouette of a cube and a pegasus extending her hoof to them.

“Hurry!” Fluttershy cried out. “We have to go! Now!”

Fluttershy took Twilight’s hoof and pulled her, Spike, and Sweetiebot onto the roof of the elevator. Once they were out, Twilight shot two portals, and they all jumped through to escape the approaching flames. They came out on some scaffolding suspended over a giant chasm.

“Stop it!” Celestia called after them. “What are you doing? You shouldn’t be out there! It isn’t safe!”

“Like we’re going to listen to her after she just tried to incinerate us,” Spike said.

“Yeah, seriously…” Fluttershy said.

Twilight and Fluttershy kept on running along the scaffolding, but Celestia soon recomposed herself and called after them again. “Stop. Where are you going? Don’t you want your cake? And your test results? They’re right over here in this chamber. Just come back.” On cue, lights turned on, highlighting an open test chamber suspended over the chasm.

Twilight gasped. She turned on her heels and made a beeline for the chamber. She had to know whether she’d passed!

“Wha-? Twilight, no! It’s a trap!” Spike yelled. But Twilight ignored him.

Fortunately, Fluttershy was there to intervene. She grabbed Twilight by her hoof and pulled her away from the obvious trap and back down the path they’d been going along.

“I think we should be in the clear if we get over there,” Looking a tad uncertain, Fluttershy pointed ahead to a dark area of the facility. Below them there was another scaffolding. “The power is cut off over there, so none of her cameras will work, and she won’t be able to track us.”

“I’m all for that!” said Spike. “Let’s get out of her range of control!”

No sooner had Spike spoken, than a giant metal plate put an end to their optimism and forward momentum. Before their eyes, it shot out on a piston; nearly crushing them all, but missing and smashing the platform directly ahead of them.

“Eeeeeek!” Fluttershy shrieked. She clung to the railing as the whole scaffolding shook from the aftershock. With a terrified grimace frozen on her face, Twilight plopped down beside her.

“Oh my gosh!” Spike cried out. “She’s got crushing traps all over the place!”

Despairing and terrified, Fluttershy sunk down on her haunches and buried her face in her hooves. “We’re doomed! Doomed!”

But Twilight wasn’t ready to give up yet. After shaking off her shock, she looked for a solution. And she found one: shooting a portal at an upright wooden board above and another at her feet allowed her to generate enough momentum to launch herself and her friends into the dark sector they’d been aiming for. Once she figured out this path was available, she didn’t give her friends much choice, or any time to argue for that matter: she shoved Fluttershy into the portal and then hopped in herself.

“Woohoo!” Twilight cheered as she flew through the air.

“Too fast! Too fast!” Fluttershy covered her eyes.

With a loud clunk, Twilight, Fluttershy, and their metallic companions plunged into the darkness and landed safely on the next scaffolding. Well, mostly safely. The impact caused a great deal of bruising and aching bones, but no injuries that would keep them from running from the maniacal AI that was trying to get them.

“Owie…” Fluttershy rubbed her sore legs.

“What happened? Are we safe?” Spike asked.

Fluttershy looked up. “Her influence shouldn’t reach here, but we should keep moving, just to be safe.”

“Ugh. How? I can hardly see anything ahead, it’s so dark.”

“Bed time! Nighty-night!” Sweetiebot announced as she entered sleep mode.

“What was that?” Fluttershy asked.

They’d been in such a rush to escape, Fluttershy hadn’t really noticed the robot. To remedy this, Twilight, with a big smile, lifted Sweetiebot up to show her to the pegasus.

“What is thaaaa-Ohmigosh, that’s a Sweetiebot! Are you crazy?! Don’t point that thing at me! It’s going to shoot! Eeee!” In a blind panic, Fluttershy swatted the bot out of Twilight’s hooves. Sweetiebot made some complaints as she clattered across the ground.

With her lips drawn and eyes watering, Twilight wore a hurt expression.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…” Fluttershy scurried over to the fallen Sweetiebot. Using a screwdriver, she fiddled with the components in its sides. “Let me just remove it’s weaponry for you, then everything will be fine.”

“Fluttercube!” As Fluttershy worked, Twilight snatched up the unattended cube and hugged it.

“No!” Fluttershy grabbed the cube, and a tug-of-war ensued. “Let go! This one’s mine! You have the Sweetiebot!”

“Nooo!” Twilight wailed.

“Just let go, Twilight! You can’t carry everything!” Spike said.

“It’s MINE!” Fluttershy shrieked. She wrenched the cube from Twilight’s grasp, knocking her over in the process. With a wounded look, Twilight was left to nurse her injured heart as she went to pick up her disarmed Sweetiebot.

“Hello? Hello? Are you still there? If you’re trying to escape, you’re not even going the right way. You should have trotted left before. But really, why don’t you just come back before you get hurt? And bring your friend with you. She needs to be tested.”

Celestia’s voice echoed faintly, giving Twilight and Fluttershy a jolt and signaling to them that it was time to move on. With their companions in tow, they darted down the path into a rundown chamber filled with broken computers. Celestia’s voice faded away as they ran, but with so little light ahead, they had to slow their pace. Beyond the chamber was a conveyor belt assembly line. In the dark, red lights glowed here and there, perhaps from cores like Spike, broken Sweetiebots, or something else.

“I-It’s so dark in here… Doesn’t anypony have some light?” Fluttershy was shivering all over and her teeth were clattering. “It feels like something might snatch us up at anytime. That’s not crazy, is it? Does anypony else think so? I’m not crazy.”

“Yeah, it’s real spooky…” Spike said. “Oh wait, I think I know this place! Yeah, the old abandoned factory… There’s an old legend about this place. They say the old caretaker here went absolutely mad. Dressed her entire staff of robots… in frilly dresses. And to this day, you can still hear their screams… of glee. As they access their memory banks to remember those days.”

The story made Fluttershy’s legs wobble, and as if on cue, a Sweetiebot’s shriek reverberated through the chamber, making Fluttershy scream and leap for cover.

“Well, I’m not sure there’s anything to be scared of, really…” Spike said. “Obvious from the story, nothing paranormal going on.”

“No, that story was super scary!” Fluttershy said in a panicked whisper. “So very scary…”

“Um… Alright? Well anyway, there should be a lift past here that can get us up to the surface. Let’s go.”

“Upsy-daisy!” Twilight took Fluttershy’s hooves and tried to get her off the ground, but only ended up dragging the petrified pegasus across the floor. It took some prodding and shoving, but she eventually got Fluttershy back up and walking.

They continued on and found the old elevator Spike had mentioned. It was rusted and cramped, but they all piled into it.

“See, what’d I tell you?” Spike said proudly. “I know this facility inside and out, and with this thing, we’ve basically already escaped! It’ll take us to a hidden entrance up on the surface, so we don’t even need to go through the main building, which she controls.”

“Um, but this area still doesn’t have power, so…”

“Oh. Right… Uh…”

Loud creaking and grating sounds split the elevator.

“What was that?!” Fluttershy cried out. “Oh no, get out, get out!” She tried to squeeze past Twilight, but couldn’t get through.

With a tumultuous snap, the suspension for the elevator broke, and the whole thing dropped down its shaft, with Twilight and Fluttershy inside. The two ponies and their two robot friends let out horrified shrieks as they fell into the bottomless pit of darkness below. The elevator was so old and rusted, it came apart on them as they descended, leaving them freefalling through open air.

“Nooo!” Fluttershy wailed as teardrops poured from her eyes. She clung to her Fluttercube with all her strength.

“Fluttershy, you have wings!” Spike yelled. “WINGS! Save us!”

But Fluttershy couldn’t hear Spike over the sound of her own screaming, so they all continued plunging down, down, deeper into the bowels of the facility. The place went down for miles, and there was a long way to fall. Below, the older parts of the facility were pitch black with zero visibility, and only Fluttershy and Spike’s screams served to tell everyone they were still together.