//------------------------------// // Escape With Cool New Stuff // Story: Awakening // by blazikenking //------------------------------//         After I got over my bout of tears, I decided to at least try some of the food. It looked like hay and a few other things I couldn’t completely identify, but I could tell that there was no meat. Good enough for now. I got a bite of the stuff and let me tell you, it was soaking up my saliva like there was no tomorrow. After forcing it down, I greedily attacked the water.         “Who made this stuff?”         “I don’t know, but probably the people who captured us.”         I thought past the dryness and to the flavor for a moment before I gave my thoughts while pretending to wipe a napkin over my mouth in a posh manner. “My most sincere insults to the chef.”         “I agree, I don’t really trust what they gave us, so I’m not going to eat it.”         “I’ll make a point to do that too.”         After we had made our refusal and distaste of the food apparent, it was taken away. A minute or so after that, a voice came on over the intercom. “I have just been informed that you two are unicorns and are capable of using magic.”         Jenny and I both rolled our eyes at that statement, which we accompanied with a synchronized “duh!”         The voice continued, but with a slight bit of irritation. “I’m interested in seeing just what your ‘magic’ is capable of, so I have arranged for some tests for each of you. Happy testing!”         Before we knew what was going on, the chamber went dark and we were each picked up and taken to separate test chambers. ~~~Minutes Later~~~         To say that I was gently set down in a comfy chair at a table with a wide array of real food in front of me, while it would be greatly appreciated, was an absolute lie. In reality, I was unceremoniously dropped in the dark on a piece of padding barely thick enough to cover up the fact that there was a metal floor under it. A door closed right before the lights came back on.         What I saw when I looked in front of me was a solid steel wall. Not very interesting. After studying it for all of 5 seconds (I found a tic tac toe board etched into it), I turned to look behind me and saw an assortment of parts, all organized into various piles based on function.         A voice came over the intercom. “Hello, Ms. Unicorn.”         “My name is Technia” I corrected. If I knew where the camera was in this chamber and still had my hands, I would have shook a fist at it.         “No matter. I want to see what you do with the materials here. You’ll find tools on the wall. Also note that there is a dispenser for all the small parts you may need.”         “Wait wait wait. So you’re saying that my test is to just build something? And how did you figure that this kind of test would suit me?” I started looking over the parts given and I swear, a visual overlay of architect lines started to appear in front of my eyes. Seems the real Technia was getting an idea. I decided to let her take control of her body.         Just before she had taken control, I heard the answer to my questions. “To answer your first question, yes. As for the second, we went through to files on the laptop you had with you. Found a biography of all things.” So that’s what it was. Soon enough, Technia was in charge of my body and I was just watching through her eyes. ~~~Jenny’s point of view~~~             I looked in shock as Adam got transported to another chamber. I didn’t want to be separated from Adam just yet, I was still confused on how to use magic since I haven’t had the time to practice, and I didn’t want to be left alone in a weird place like this.  “Well this is just great.” I thought to myself as I stared down the white corridor ahead of me. “Well, I might as well see where this hallway leads me.”              After a couple of minutes walking, I finally entered a wide room with nothing inside of it.  The intercom crackled to life and the voice I heard before Adam and I got separated began to speak again.               “Welcome Miss Unicorn, I see you finally made it into the test chamber I made for you. I hope you like it because I spent a lot of time and money on it. Ever since that monster entered our world and started to turn people into ponies, I have taken an interest in them and wanted to know what they could do. So I’m glad that you and your friend have *volunteered* to do some simple tests for me.”               “More like forced to do these tests against our wills.” I thought.               “Well, without further ado, I hope you succeed, because I don’t want my precious test subjects to fail on me. Good luck.” And with that, the intercom went silent. I looked around the room wondering what was going to happen next. After a few seconds, a small panel in the wall in front of me opened up and out crawled a robot that looked like a spider. “What the…” I said as it crawled towards me. As it approached me, it extended a small metal piece out of what looked like its mouth and when it struck me with it which sent a small jolt through me. “Ow. What the hell?” I said as I stepped back a few steps. It began to come at me again and I continued to step around it. “Maybe I can pick it up and smash it against the wall with my magic in order to make it stop. But the thing is, I still don’t know how to use magic.” I thought to myself. “Well, I guess now’s a good time to try it out.”               With all of my might, I tried to pick up the spider-bot with my magic, but nothing happened. After a couple of more tries, I got a spark out of my horn.  Soon a golden light enveloped the robot and began to levitate it a couple of inches off of the ground.  “Hey, this isn’t that hard.” I thought as I began to twirl the spider-bot around in the air.  “Now, let’s see what happens when I do this.” I said to it as I hurled towards a wall.  It crashed into pieces when it hit the wall.  “Well that wasn’t that bad” I said to myself, but then more small panels opened up and more spider-bots crawled out. “Oh god dammit. I just hope Adam is doing a better job at this than me.” I said as I positioned myself to face the new enemies. ~~~Technia’s POV~~~         I had managed to get an area set up for building a vehicle of mass coolness, and there were some large parts around the area. I was in desperate need of some small parts though, and so I had gone over to the dispenser. While I was trying to figure out how to get it to work, I got a brilliant idea, although the brilliantness may have been dimmed a bit considering that the idea came from Adam.         I made the best impression of Derpy that I could, stuck my tongue out to one side and started slamming my head against the dispenser while shouting “pootis” repeatedly. Looking through Adam’s head, I knew it had to do with dispensers, although I couldn’t figure out quite how.         I think it worked because after about a minute, I was practically swimming in small pieces. I’ll save the mystery of pootis for a better time. ~~~Back in the other chamber a bit later~~~         After a couple of rounds, the spider robots were replaced with bigger robots that looked like dogs which were meaner and faster than the spider-bots. I was having a hard time dodging them because they worked in a pack and they liked to surround me on all sides.  “If only there was a way to create a weapon with my magic to kill these things. I know, I’ll try and create a weapon out of my magic, that could possibly work.”  I began to think of a weapon in my head, and soon enough, a sword made out of magic appeared before my eyes. “This should do. Alright you stupid dogs, let’s get this over with.” ~~~In the observation room~~~         3 of the 6 observers were on the floor in the fetal position, muttering things about something called “pootis”. The other 3 were calmly recording notes on Jenny and her magic skills. They seemed to be unaware of the status of their colleagues, as they were so focused on their work. ~~~Adam’s test chamber, an hour or two later~~~         I took a good look at the car as it was coming along and compared them to the shower curtain schematics in my head. I was on step potato and all was coming along well.         “Alright. This is looking pretty cool. The engine is done, all the computers are hooked up, and the paint is dry. I think I’ll make something for Amanthera while I’m at it.”         I promptly got to work on designing a couple of blades for her. Seeing as I wanted to get out as soon as possible, I resorted to making them rather simple, but I still decided to include a nice feature.         It took about 15 minutes to craft the blades, and I swore that I would make some better ones later. Somehow. For the moment, I just got into the car, put the blades inside, and started it up. A glorious sound, a combination of magic and technology, came from the engine.         Before going anywhere, I turned on the radar to take a look around some of the building. It turned out that one of the walls in my chamber had a somewhat normal room on the other side, and opposite that was another chamber, this one with lots of activity in it, if the moving dots were any indicator. There wasn’t enough space to ram through, so I got out, picked up the longer blade via telekinesis, and pulled a switch on the bottom. I felt some of my magic get sucked into the blade, which started to glow green.         “Sword beam time”         I swung 4 times before the charge on it ran out, but I had cut out a rectangle easily big enough for the car to go through. Soon, the wall fell towards me; fortunately, I was out of the way.         The room on the other side looked weird for where it was. For starters, I saw a bed that I had accidentally slashed around. Further inspection showed a bunch of servers that I had just barely missed.I walked over to the opposite wall and saw that it had been slightly cut into and was severely weakened.         I suddenly remembered his devices and made a small drone to collect them. Once it was made, I sent it on its mission, which probably wouldn’t last too long. With this in mind, I went back to the car, “downloaded” a guide on using it into Adam’s mind, and put him back in control just as the drone dropped his backpack (did I mention that I love the design on it? No? Well I do) on my head.         ~~~Adam’s point of view~~~ I felt like something was being inserted into my mind, but that shouldn’t be possible. I’m not in the matrix, and if I am, I never left it. Still, it seemed important, so I glanced over it. They appeared to be instructions, a guide of some kind. I didn’t have much time to ponder this as Technia put me back in control and I found myself in the driver’s seat of both my body and the car Technia made. Soon, Technia “spoke up”. “Go through that wall.” “Why?” “Your friend is on the other side.” I needed no more persuasion as I hit the accelerator and went forward, sacrificing the oddly placed bed before breaking through the wall. ~~~Jenny’s point of view~~~ Using the sword made of magic was becoming a little easier to use after some time. This was probably because Amanthera was a master at sword play, and I did turn into her, so I possibly got some of her talent.   After I defeated all of the robot dogs and a couple of other robot waves, I finally had some time to rest. “Will this person ever run out of these damn robots?” I said to myself panting as I sat on the machine ridden ground, exhausted from all the fighting. “And why does he want me to fight them anyway?”   I heard a small crackle above me, and the intercom came on. “Well my dear, I just want to know how well you can unicorns can fight using your magic abilities. Don’t worry though; we won’t let the robots kill you.” And with that, the intercom went silent. A few minutes later, the walls opened up again, and flying robots came out. “Great, now they can fly. This will be fun.” I said sarcastically as I got back up. “Hopefully Adam is having a much easier time than me with his tests. Oh well, let’s just kill these things and hope that this test ends soon.”   I was getting frustrated, tired, and having a hard time completing this wave of robots. I was getting exhausted from using a lot of magic, and running around the room nonstop for a couple of hours. I was also getting frustrated at the robots because they liked to stick to the ceiling and swoop down on me when I was least expecting it. They would also evade my blade when I swung it at them. I decided to make a net to hold them down on the ground and grab them in midair to hold them down and destroy them with my sword.   I almost finished all of them off this way when suddenly, a wall to my left broke down and dust covered the room for a few minutes. When the dust finally settled, I saw Adam in a car.   “There you are, I was wondering what you were doing.” I said as I rushed over to him with newly found energy and completely ignoring the rest of the robots in the room. “Where have you been? I was worried about you.” “Would you believe that they wanted me to build something? They never even said what, just to build.” “Really? That’s a little weird of them, but oh well. So, are we finally getting out of here in that car of yours?” “Yes. But first thing’s first.” Adam pulled out some simple swords and pulled something on the bottom, and the blades started to glow green. “Catch!” The swords, still glowing, were tossed towards me. “Cool, thanks.” I let my magical blade disappear and caught the ones that Adam made for me. “So, shall we get out of here? Because I’m really tired and I don’t want to fight anymore.” “Use those on the flying bots first so that we aren’t pursued. Go with a sword beam or move them up and slash up close.” “Ok, I’ll try my best.” I wrapped my swords with magical energy, and then slashed the swords in the air at the robots which resulted in most of the chamber to crumble and fall. “I think that was a bit too powerful, but at least the robots were destroyed. Anyway, can we go now?” “Yep. Hop in.” ~~~Adam’s point of view~~~         Jenny did not hesitate to get in, and I conducted a quick radar scan. I began to wonder who they hired to design and build this place because one of the walls in this chamber had the front parking lot on the other side. Still, I wasn’t about to question this stroke of luck and I did something that would seem stupid: I rammed through the wall.         Once out in the surprisingly spacious parking lot, I noticed that it was night. I brought the car to a stop to look at where we just escaped from while the GPS worked to figure out our location, map out the roads, and locate good places to eat.         The building was brick and looked like almost any other multipurpose building. There was a golden placard in the headlights that identified the building as belonging to an organization called TOME, or Testing Of Magical Equines. The founder must have an ego as big as the parking lot we were in because his full name was written in big letters under TOME: James Richard Kingston. Considering what happened to Jenny and me at TOME’s hands, I’d say his initials fit him quite well.