//------------------------------//
// Celestia's Test 
// Story: Think in Ponies 
// by Silver Arctic Wolf 
//------------------------------//

Sliding safely down the chute, a gust of air deposited Twilight and Spike in a small room. There was a camera, a door, a button, and a sign that marked the room as the first out of thirty-three. 
“Huh?” Spike opened his eye and looked around. “We’re alive? And we’re here? Um, I mean… Yes, exactly as planned!”
The camera locked in on Twilight, then a robotic voice echoed through the room: “So you finally brought a test subject. What took you so long? Don’t you know there’s a lot of science to be done?”
“Oh, um, yes Ma’am!” Spike sputtered. “Just had trouble deciding which one to bring, you know, because there’s so many! Yep, so many in good condition, all ready for testing! Oh, and no need for you to check on the rest of them! Don’t you worry, I’ve got that under control!”
The camera focused on Twilight again. “Why don’t we start her off with a simple test? Go on and try to get through this room.”
Twilight smiled and clapped her hooves together again. “Yay! Testing! And I remembered the rest: Clap your hooves, and give a little shake!”
“What’s that…?” asked the robotic voice.
“Nothing!” Spike blurted out. “She definitely doesn’t have brain damage!” Whispering to Twilight, Spike said, “That’s the AI that runs this place, Celestia! You’ve got to be on your best behavior, okay? And act like you’re not brain damaged, because otherwise she might just get rid of us both.”
“Okay!” Before anyone could say anything else, Twilight rushed forth to solve the test. She stepped on the button and found that it opened the door, as expected, and when she got off it, the door closed. She stood on it for a while, until she got an idea. She dropped Spike on it, thus triggering his, “Fear of rejection and abandonment” protocol. Unfortunately, Spike wasn’t heavy enough to press the button down.
Twilight was stumped, until a weighted cube fell down from the same shaft she and Spike had come in from. Squeeing with glee, she used her unicorn magic to carry the cube to the button, then proceeded through the door and into the elevator. 
“Did I pass?! Did I pass?!”
“Um, yeah…” was Spike’s reply.
“Whoohoo! Did it!”
“It was just putting a weighted storage cube on a button… And just so you know, I’m not a testing prop, so don’t ever do that again! I am Spike the personality sphere, and I’m here to observe and assist you.”
When the elevator got them to the next testing chamber, they heard Celestia’s voice again. “Congratulations on completing the first test. Very well done. A gold star has been added to your file to commemorate your success. Now, allow me to formally welcome you to the Aperhoof Science Enrichment Center. As part of our studies on ponies’ reactions to the Aperhoof Science Linked Portal Device, you will be testing the Aperhoof Science Linked Portal Device, so please enter the next chamber and pick up the Aperhoof Science Linked Portal Device. Please also pick up the manual and read it fully, as while the portals the device creates have proven to be completely safe, the device has not, nor has the moon rock coating used to create portal surfaces. Direct any questions to the test officer who has chosen to accompany you during testing, even though he’s not supposed to, as it biases results.”
“Uh oh… I think she’s mad at me. Hey, uh, Twilight…”
“Books!” Twilight sprinted into the room to the pedestal in the center. Ignoring the portal device, she picked up the manual and opened it. She grinned widely as her one good eye danced across the pages.
“Are you seriously going to read all of that boring thing? I’ve got the whole thing in my memory banks, so I can just tell you everything you shouldn’t do, like, don’t look into the operational end of the device, and, uh… Well, that’s weird. Is that corrupted memory? No, that’s nothing for you to worry about! Probably not even really corrupted. I probably just forgot to set the parity bit and-”
“Shhhh!” With her hoof to her mouth, Twilight gave Spike a sour look, telling him to be quiet while she was reading.
“Oh boy…” Spike rolled his eye.
After an hour of reading, Twilight finally snapped the book shut and proclaimed, “Done!” Since she didn’t have saddlebags, she tucked the book into her mane for safekeeping, then took ahold of the portal gun.
“Finally! You were reading forever!” Spike complained. “Now, can we get these tests over with already so I can get back to my service rail?”
Tucking Spike under one hoof, Twilight shot her first portal into a pit, and another onto the wall, then jumped in. As she fell, she stuck out her tongue. “Pbbbbt-whoooo!” When she hit the portal in the pit, she came flying out of the other portal.
“Are the sound effects rea- Aaaaaahhhhhh! Look out for that wall!”
Having gotten her aim at the exit a tad off, Twilight and Spike struck the wall at high speed and crashed right through one of the white panels. 
“Owie…” 
“Where are we?” Spike asked.
After shaking herself off, Twilight took a look around the room she was in. Everything was tinted orange and brown from rust. “Ooooh!” Twilight clapped and pointed to three pink butterflies scrawled on the wall. Above them was a mural of a white rabbit with wings and a halo. And below them was some text, which Spike read aloud.
“Don’t trust her. The Bundt cake is a lie…? Only Angel Bunny can be trusted...?” Spike’s eye widened. “Oh no, oh no! This is talking about her, isn’t it?! We have to get back to testing, right now! And we can’t let her know we saw any of this! Wait, she could just read my memory banks, couldn’t she?! I know, I’ll just erase them! Problem solved! Erasing, erasing…”
Twilight gave Spike a funny look, with her lips pursed and her cheeks puffed up.
“Alright, operation complete! Wait, what’s going on? Who are you? Where are we? Um, it seems like something’s wrong with my memory. Hang on, I think I’ve got it backed up… Restoring… Wait, what?!” Spike was silent for a moment. “Bad news, I don’t think that’s going to work. But, uh, well, good news! Turns out, my memory is automatically backed up! Good to know! …Look, let’s just get out of here before she gets too suspicious.” 
“Okkkaaaaay!”
“Whooosh!” Twilight hopped back out the broken panel into the test chamber, and completed the test in a jiffy. On the elevator ride to the next chamber, Celestia congratulated her.
“Excellent work on completing the second test chamber. Although, thirty-two subjects on record completed that chamber faster than you. To motivate you to test faster, I’d like to inform you that upon completion of the testing, you will be baked into a Bundt cake and a celebratory party will be held honoring your achievement.”
“Yaaaaay! Cake!”
“Oh no! Bundt Cake?! It’s just like that stuff written on the wall said!” Spike whispered. “Do you think we’re in danger? It said not to trust her, right? I mean, I might have imagined it, but I could have sworn she just said she was going to bake us into a cake.”
Waving her hoof dismissively, Twilight stuck out her tongue and did a raspberry.
“Y-Yeah, you’re probably right. I definitely misheard her. Anyway, those creepy wall paintings didn’t specify which ‘she’ it meant, so who knows? Pronoun games, am I right?” 
As Spike was speaking, the lift reached its destination, and the door opened.
“Testing continue!” Twilight cheered as she raced into the next room.
“Your eagerness to test has been noted in your file,” came Celestia’s robotic voice. “You know, you are very fortunate to be down here, testing. Because something awful is happening up on the surface. I don’t know what it is, but it seems pretty bad. Fortunately, Aperhoof Science Facilities is designed with military grade shielding and insulation, and the Enrichment Center is hundreds of miles underground, so that testing can continue even in a Discordian Apocalypse.”
Spike chuckled. “Discordian Apocalypse? Not likely. I saw that guy down in-” Spike stopped suddenly. “Uh, I mean, all the test subjects are fine! And it sure is great that we’re down here in the Enrichment Center, and not up there!”
“Testing?” Twilight asked, getting impatient.
“The test chamber is prepped. Proceed with the third test,” Celestia said.
In spite of her brain damage and bad eye, Twilight proved to be adept at solving portal-based puzzles, and she zipped through the next seven test chambers with amazing speed. Twilight was having the time of her life, but Spike was getting a tad worried about the escalating danger level of the tests, what with the laser beams, bottomless pits, and deadly acid pools. The little personality core just couldn’t get the mysterious murals out of his head, and he worried that he and Twilight were both in danger.
“Is all of this stuff really safe?” Spike asked. “We wouldn’t want anypony to get hurt, would we? Especially not the last usable test subject… What do you think, Twilight? Are you alright?”
Looking confused, Twilight looked at Spike and tilted her head. “More testing?”
“Of course that’s what you’d say…”
Celestia’s voice rang out, making Spike jump. “Testing protocol requires that all chatter be kept to a minimum.”
“Erk! Right, right! My bad! Won’t happen again!”
Upon reaching the eleventh test chamber, Celestia made an announcement: “This next test requires you to pair up with a Fluttercube. Please keep it with you for the duration of the test.” Having said so, a chute dropped a cube.
Twilight gasped and her eyes widened. There, in the middle of the room, was a cube with three pink butterflies painted onto each side. Twilight dashed forward and gave the cube a big hug. Tears of joy flowed down her eyes.
“Twilight? You okay?” Spike asked.
“New best friend!” Twilight said as she petted the cube.
“Why are you getting so attached to that Fluttercube?!” Spike grumbled. “I’ve been here with you the whole time, so you shouldn’t be THAT lonely!”
With the Fluttercube by her side, Twilight went through the test chamber; Twilight climbed on the Fluttercube, she used it to block lasers, and she dropped it on buttons. She made it all the way to the end of the test chamber with her Fluttercube. But the doorway to the elevator was blocked by an Aperhoof Science Emancipation Grid. Twilight had seen these grids throughout the other test chambers, so she knew its incandescent particles would vaporize any objects she tried to take through it. Tears welling up in her eyes, Twilight set down her Fluttercube, sat on the ground, and just stared at it for the longest time.
“Um, Twilight, it’s just a cube, you know…” After an awkward silence of twenty minutes, Spike spoke up. “We only needed it to push the buttons. Don’t you want to finish the test? And move on to the next one?”
“Noooo!” Twilight wailed. “It has butterflies on it! It’s my friend!”
“Alright, alright, I get it! Don’t cry!”
As soon as Spike said this, Twilight’s tears stopped, and she donned a eureka look. She picked up the Fluttercube and repeatedly smashed it against the pylons of the emancipation grid until they were bent and cracked, thus deactivating the incandescent particle field. With a look of bliss, Twilight took the Fluttercube and Spike, and skipped to the elevator. She ignored the warning she got from Celestia about the emancipation grid being for her own protection, and that she shouldn’t vandalize it just so she could bring unauthorized objects with her, which by the way, was theft of Aperhoof Science property.