Edited by Halusm and Clawder.
Easier Said Than Done
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Slowly Celestia stepped out of the claustrophobic hall, leaving behind the numerous rooms of unknown purpose, as she returned to the main facility.
SaDI, placed securely on Celestia's back in between her wings, slowly shifted around, while observing the dilapidated complex with her single pink eye.
"Oh my," she murmured. "Big sis really hasn't cleaned up in a long time, has she?"
"It would seem as such," Celestia bent her neck to look at the core on her back.
Shifting her eye down to the ground, she noticed the slowly oozing fluid filling the lower regions of the facility, SaDI's internal scanner quickly identifying the substance as an extreme biohazard to anything organic.
"No flowers will be able to grow here," she noted sadly.
"I'm afraid not," Celestia agreed as she, too, turned to look at the toxic waste; watching a large bubble slowly grow on the surface, before it popped with a wet squelch.
"Sadi, If you don't mind me asking. What is this place? And more importantly, what happened here?"
SaDI was quiet for a while, looking up at the too high to see ceiling, and Celestia once more looked back at the personality core she carried.
"...Big sis," SaDI eventually answered.
"Glados?"
Looking back down, focusing her eye on Celestia, SaDI sighed sadly.
"This facility was once known as Aperture Science, a place of learning; to break the boundaries of human understanding and make the impossible possible. And also, set fire to lemons…. I didn't really like that. But then big sis took over, and she was really mean to our creators. Now they are all gone… I think. I mean, I haven't seen or heard anyone for a long, long time, but maybe they've forgotten about me," she looked past Celestia's left wing at the ground. "Big sis did say I wasn't worth the trouble."
Though there were many noteworthy differences, Celestia could not stop herself from comparing the enforced isolation upon the shy core by Glados and herself banishing her own sister to the moon. But where she had to stop Luna from bringing eternal night and subsequent damnation to the world, wishing against all odds for a way to save her younger sibling while doing so, Glados has proven to be the flipside. She, as it had become more and more obvious, was the corrupted big sis. Harming others who got in her way, starting with those who tried to keep her from descending into madness. And with her 'banishment' of SaDI, and any other cores undoubtedly lost in this immense complex, none were left to oppose the insane machine as far as she knew.
Unable to keep the hardened glare hidden behind her usual mask of calmness, Celestia looked up at the darkness above.
Releasing the breath she didn't know she was holding, Celestia pushed those thoughts away. They would not help her now, and her focus would be better utilized at the problems at hoof.
"I'm sorry to hear it," she turned back to SaDI, giving her a kind smile. "But you most certainly are worth the effort of remembering, don't let anyone make you believe otherwise."
SaDI's segmented iris widened in surprise, not quite sure how to react other than mumble a quiet thanks while mostly closing her eye's protective cover to shy away.
"Now, let's focus on something else instead," Celestia suggested, once more looking around the destroyed facility. "Do you know how we can get out of here?"
SaDI perked up, as much as a spherical machine with solely an eye and vocal synthesizer to convey emotions could, and quickly scanned the area, sifting through her aged and admittedly limited data banks for any helpful information.
"Eehmm… if I recall correctly, the employees break room is that way," she looked at a distant structure rising up high above the debris and litteral piles of trash in between them and it. "Though my records label it as the Lemonade Testing Chamber, which is situated next to the Lemon Expunge Chamber."
"Lemon Expunge Chamber?" Celestia asked, dumbfounded.
"They really didn't like lemons," SaDI replied sadly. 'blinking' twice, she looked back at Celestia. "But I'm sure we can find a way out from there. After all, my creators did have to go home too, right?"
"Very well," Celestia nodded, and started walking at a measured pace as she kept a close eye for any falling debris which might break off the already partially collapsed structure.
Moving past broken walls, sidestepping numerous chunks of concrete smeared with aged dirt, and carefully choosing where to place her hooves as she crossed through carpets of trash littering the floor, (having tried to fly, but quickly finding out her still recovering injuries made this a difficult task while also balancing Sadi on her back, further hindered by the weakened but still present suppression field) Celestia and Sadi made slow but steady progress until, as was pretty much expected from the start, their path was blocked.
"Well, this doesn't surprise anyone now, does it?" Celestia asked rhetorically as she looked at the mixed wall of former building, trash, crushed and discarded turrets, numerous broken cubes, some with hearts on their sides, and other odd bits and pieces too damaged or alien to identify.
"She really hasn't cleaned up in a really long time," SaDI mentioned once more, trying to find a path through or over the obstacle.
"No, she most certainly hasn't," Celestia agreed with a narrowing of the eyes, looking for a possible path herself.
After a bit of looking, she spotted something that could be half of the solution to their problem. A worn down, but large stripe of white paint running up on the wall behind the wall, and her eyes moved the the portal gun still suspended in her golden magic.
"Sadi, do you by any chance see any large, flat white surface near here?"
"A flat white surface?" SaDI repeated, confused. "What for?"
Firing a blob of orange energy at the distant wall, a shimmering orange oval formed on the white surface.
"I have an idea," Celestia answered with a winning grin.
Surprised, SaDI looked at the orange oval, then to the device still held aloft beside Celestia, her scanners working overtime while she raced through all files she had stored in her memory and wasn't related to anything to the world's flora.
"What's that?" she asked after her search came up empty.
"This," Celestia looked at the portal gun. "Just something I'm sure your big sis will come to regret leaving with me."
SaDI tilted her eye in a display of confusion.
"Why don't I show you what it does," Celestia continued smoothly, slowly scanning their surroundings for what she needed.
"... Okay?" SaDI replied, unsure but a hint of excitement hiding behind it.
Slowly turning herself around on Celestia's back, her optic scanned every bit and piece of material scattered and piled up around them; rapidly identifying and subsequently discarding the materials for the trash it was; until her system flagged an item of interest.
"What about over there?" she asked, looking intently at a heap of discarded items about fifty meters back from where they came.
Following her direction, Celestia moved to the pile nearly twice her size. At first not seeing anything worthwhile, until SaDI suddenly shifted, nearly causing her to lose her balance as the core rolled off her back, them somehow managed to climb halfway up the pile. Spinning around rapidly, the centrifugal force flinging away numerous pieces in an arc while even more material slid and fell down from the sudden disturbance, forcing Celestia to take several steps back to avoid being struck and be covered with filth of questionable hygiene.
After a minute of this, SaDI came to an abrupt stop, her eye still rolling around in her casing before she lost what grip she had and tumbled down the slope, rolling past Celestia, then crashed into a bend and rusted segment of chain linked fence.
"Hhoowww abooutt- Whooo everything is so spinny," she giggled uncontrollably for the better part of five minutes before her pink eye stopped rolling around, and focused on the alicorn before her laughing at the strange display.
Picking SaDI up with her magic, placing her back between her wings, Celestia turned to look at what she had uncovered.
There before her, once covered underneath years of trash, a white paneled wall segment lay at an angle; filthy, but exactly what she needed.
"Oh, Sadi," Celestia beamed, aiming her portal gun at the flat panel. "Do you see what you're capable off with the right kind of motivation? Now we can get out of here, thanks to you."
"I did…? We are?" SaDI asked, surprised.
Celestia nodded. "Yes. Now, about showing you what this thing does, hmm," she hummed as she fired a blue burst of energy at the panel, and an identically colored oval formed, opening a path which hadn't been there before.
With her singular eye wide, SaDI looked in amazement at the newly formed portal, her speech synthesizer failing her.
"Let's get out of here, shall we?" Celestia suggested, looking back at the speechless core, chuckled, then leaped up and through the shimmering hole.
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Exiting the orange portal at a disadvantaging height, Celestia was quick to spread her wings. While the suppression field still hampered most of her abilities, at the very least she could control her fall as she glided towards the tall structure, covering most of the distance before she landed on the smeared concrete floor with an echoing clop of her hooves.
Folding her wings back to her side, looking back to make sure SaDI was still secured in place, it came as little surprise to her when she saw the now wide eyed core stare at her with a sense of wonder.
"It's quite something, isn't it?" Celestia chuckled, to which SaDI nodded but remained silent.
Looking back at their goal, the building now appeared to be much bigger as it rose up in the air. This close to it, they were also able to see the structure in greater detail.
It was completely made of metal, rusted and aged just like everything else around there. Surprisingly though, considering its incredible height, it only covered a small square area just large enough for Celestia to stand in and turn around, but nothing else. Walled off by perforated sheets of metal, allowing her to see through the walls, while one of the walls appeared to be a door of sorts. Closed and locked from what Celestia could tell.
There was also a walkway looping around the narrow tower, rising higher and higher until, a good thirty meters up it had collapsed in on itself, numerous bits and pieces also lying scattered on the floor.
Stepping closer to what she believed to be a door, Celestia peered through the numerous holes inside but was unable to find anything of interest.
Racking a hoof against the door didn't reveal much either as, rusted as it was, it held firm and continued to block her access.
"Okay, I'm lost. Sadi, how would we get out of here? The path seems to be destroyed up there," Celestia asked, looking back at the collapsed walkway.
"Only the walkway is out of order," SaDI replied softly. The elevator should still work… I hope."
"An elevator. You mean like those glass tubes Glados used to move me around?"
"Glass tubes?" SaDI repeated in puzzlement. "I don't know anything about that…. But then again, I don't know much about what big sis has been doing for so long now."
A pang of guilt hit Celestia upon being reminded SaDI had been all but banished herself, and she quickly steered the topic back on track.
"So how do we use this elevator?"
"It's powered down, I'm afraid. Most of everything is. We need to restore this floor's power. There should be a secondary generator near here, mainly used for emergencies should the main generator fail…" she looked around in silence. "I think it's safe to say it has failed."
"It does seem as such, yes," Celestia concurred.
"Yes, right, uhmm…. Find the secondary generator, activate it, and I might be able to redirect its power to activate the elevator."
"Very well," Celestia agreed, "Where to?"
"Eh, my records says it's… that way," SaDI looked at a far wall, a dented door barely visible past the debris.
Unable to suppress a sigh at the foresight of moving through even more debris and trash, Celestia moved for the next objective, moving as fast as she could.
Fortunately, no major obstacle blocked their path this time, and with only a small detour around a mound of discarded machinery, twisted metal and stone, she reached the door within mere minutes.
"At least that wasn't too difficult," Celestia remarked, reaching for the door with her magic; realizing too late the curse she'd inflicted upon herself by vocalizing those dreaded words.
With a clang, something broke. A groan of stressed metal followed, and the door fell out of it's frame, and towards the two. Just in time, Celestia leaped away; the door slamming into the ground with a might slam, blowing up a massive cloud of dust in the process.
Coughing and waving a hoof before her nose in reflex, Celestia almost lost her balance standing on just two legs, and she gasped out in surprise, inadvertently sucking in more dust, which only worsened her cough.
Backing away unsteadily while putting in an honest effort to hack up a lung, teary eyed, Celestia tripped and fell unceremoniously to the floor; SaDI falling off her back and rolling away as she screamed out in fright.
Finally, after far too long and now raw throat, Celestia was able to compose herself. Slowly dusting herself off while glaring at the offending door lying innocently on the floor as if it hadn't slighted her just a moment prior, she picked up SaDI while trying to ignore her now dry mouth.
'Hopefully this Lemonade Testing Chamber still hold something to fix that,' she thought, stepping closer to the now open passage.
"Are you alright?" she asked SaDI, pushing her own discomforts to the back of her mind.
With a rattle of her casing, SaDI's eye slowly bobbed up and down in reply.
Glad she hadn't been injured, or should that be damaged, in the unexpected flurry of events, Celestia turned back to the now open door, unable to see past the darkness that waited beyond.
Stepping closer, and over the fallen door, Celestia entered the passage while holding the portal gun out in front of her; her magic also providing adequate light to see with.
"Well…" she trailed off as she stared into the long passage stretching out before her, no visible end in sight as her magical light failed to cast away the darkness further than a couple of body lengths. "This might make things a bit more difficult."
Tilting to the side, SaDI looked past Celestia and into the same darkness before them. Her eye twitched slightly as she once again accessed her memory, never having done so with such frequency.
"I… I have no record of this place," she said with a waiver to her voice, moving back between Celestia's wings, the lid covering her eye partially closed in shame. "My records say the generator is this way… but that's all they say."
"It's alright. You can't possibly know everything. The important thing is that you try," Celestia said with calm reassurance.
SaDI 'blinked'. "Thank you," she replied quietly, grateful but unsure.
"Well then," Celestia stepped further into the unknown, "Let's see where this goes, shall we?"