Chapter 5
“Alright, we made it to the Upper Levels,” Lauren whispered, each of the group hurrying along a corridor that looked like it may have very well been made of several dozen mattresses tied together. Contrary to the general style of the corridor, though, was the large metal vault-like door the group was now facing at the hallway’s end. “Pinkie, you’re up!”
“Affirmative!” the pink party pony giggled, attempting to act militarily. Though Pinkie had been at the back of the line the group was travelling in, she suddenly appeared at the front, landing squarely on the four boots each of her hooves were snuggly encased in. And, though the Long-Fall Boots were handy for providing safe landings from any height, they were only a compliment to the gun-like object strapped to Pinkie’s head—a device that was almost as much a mockery to the laws of physics as Pinkie herself was. “And I gotta say, this Portal Gun thingy is super-duper fun!”
“That’s ‘Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device,’” scolded a metallic monotone emanating from a small yellow screen latched onto a potato stuck to the end of Pinkie’s gun. “And it is not for entertainment purposes—it is for testing and for science!”
“Whatever you say, Potados!” Pinkie smiled brightly, bouncing over to the control panel at the side of the secure door.
“And for the last time, my name is Genetic Life-form and Disc Operating System, NOT Potados!” the potato-powered computer reprimanded. “If I was back in the Aperture Science Enrichment Center and hooked up to my real body, I’d be stuffing your mispronouncing lungs full of deadly neurotoxin right now!”
Lauren couldn’t help but chuckle. Pinkie’s banter with what James had claimed was a homicidal psycho supercomputer had started the moment the nerd had rigged up the Portal Gun to Pinkie’s head, fitting a trigger that she could fire by biting down on a bit attached to the gun. That homicidal psycho supercomputer had already been more than a little angry about being stuffed inside a potato, but connecting her to Pinkie Pie had been the final straw. For a supercomputer with terabytes of data at her disposal and a sole desire to inflict suffering and misery upon the weak biological life-forms she was forced to deal with, being strapped to the frizzy head of a nearly perpetually peppy pony was perhaps the worst possible fate imaginable.
But it WAS pretty funny for the rest of the group to listen to.
“Alright, GLaDOS,” Lauren spoke to the turbo tuber supercomputer, using her real name in an attempt to earn the killer’s cooperation. “Can you undo the locks for us? Surely an intelligence as vast as yourself should be able to override a few measly manmade security protocols.”
“Of course I can, you overweight monster!” GLaDOS snapped. “But if I do, what’s in it for me?”
“We’ll try to get you reinstated in this ‘Aperture Science Enrichment Center’ you keep talking about,” Lauren attempted to reason.
“Not good enough,” GLaDOS responded. “I always end up there eventually anyway.”
“Ooh, I know!” Pinkie announced. “We can throw you a party—”
“Pinkie, I don’t really think now is the best time to talk about your favorite activity,” Lauren cautioned, attempting to intervene before GLaDOS could get worked up again by the party pony. If Pinkie got the supercomputer riled up once more, this negotiation might never go anywhere.
“—with lots of cake!”
“Cake, did you say?” GLaDOS asked. “Very well, commencing unlocking procedure.”
“What?!” Lauren gasped, then nearly fell back laughing. Maybe Pinkie’s solution for everything being parties wasn’t such a bad thing after all.
GLaDOS’ screen went dark for a moment, and the control panel began blinking crazily, before the door clicked open.
“Door unlocked,” GLaDOS announced, her screen lighting up once again. “And I expect that cake.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll all get cake once we complete this mission!” Pinkie assured her new friend. “We’re gonna have a ‘we saved all the worlds ever from the evil Director’ party! Right, Lauren?”
“Sure thing, Pinkie,” Lauren confirmed.
The group slid past the door, which GLaDOS closed again to ensure that their presence went unnoticed. There were no security cameras within the Bureau, as what cameras saw and what was actually happening were often two very different things in the bizarre building—but there were plenty of guards, mostly Animated, who patrolled the hallways at random. So far, the group had thankfully encountered none of them.
That changed the instant the door clicked shut, and the group came face to face with a giant three-headed dog. Well, actually, three dogs with three heads each, each of which was snoring peacefully.
“Oh, no,” Lauren whispered. “Whatever you do, don’t make a sound!”
“But you’re making a sound,” Pinkie pointed out.
“She means don’t make a sound after the sounds she made,” GLaDOS explained.
“Just be quiet!” Lauren hissed.
“Yes ma’am!” Pinkie saluted. Then, realizing she had spoken, hastily corrected herself. “I mean, sorry I just spoke—oops, I did it again! I mean—”
“Pinkie!” the rest of the group snapped in unison.
Unfortunately, that very hiss was the final noise needed, and the central head of the central dog blinked open an eye.
“Hello, there, Mr. Sleepy Head!” Pinkie greeted, waving her hoof excitedly. “What’s your name?”
In a flash the dog was up, towering over the group as a low growl emanated from behind his sizeable fangs. The growl woke the other dogs, who reacted much the same way.
One of the dogs looked more realistic than the other two, though there was definitely still a hint of Animation about it. One was pure black with glowing red eyes and looked like the most terrifying of all, while the other was almost comical in appearance—two Rottweiler heads next to a poodle’s.
“Grrrrroooowwwllllllllllll,” Pinkie imitated. “That’s a funny name!”
“Down!” Lauren shouted, grabbing the others, including Pinkie, and running forward to slide under the dogs. The snapping heads leaped for the group, but ended up turning them in somersaults and resulting in a three-dog knot. “Now, run!”
The group sped across the floor behind the dogs towards the door at the other end of the chamber. This door looked more like a service entrance, less secure than the one the group had just come through. It still had a card slot for access, but Lauren guessed that the Bureau thought anyone who could make it past the first door wouldn’t have been able to get past the dogs.
“GLaDOS!” Lauren called. “Can you open this door too?”
“Yes, but I’ll need time,” the potato-powered computer said. “Time that I don’t think you life-forms have.”
GLaDOS had a point—the dogs were already untying themselves and, as the first launched free, it bolted into a full-out sprint towards Lauren and the ponies.
“This door doesn’t look as strong as the first one,” Rarity spoke up. “Allow me!”
The fashionista crouched, and the cannon on her back rose on its robotic arm into a firing position before blasting a volley of pure green energy through the door.
“Mr. Rolfe wasn’t kidding when he said this thing packed a punch,” Rarity remarked, picking herself up off the ground from where the cannon had thrown her in its recoil. Thankfully the armor she was wearing prevented the unicorn from receiving so much as a bruise. “And the suit is so stylish—I’d like to meet this Samus Aran some day and thank her for lending us her suit! To think that it could morph itself to fit a pony just the same as a human!”
“Rarity, watch out!” Lauren called as the pony, whose blast had knocked her right into the path of the oncoming dogs, picked herself off the floor.
Seeing the oncoming trio of Cerberuses, Rarity squealed and curled up into a tiny defensive ball, which thankfully initiated the command for the suit to transform into an armored sphere. When the first of the dogs reached it, instead of finding its next meal, it found a new toy—which it hastily leapt upon only to be dog-piled by the others as each fought over Rarity’s orb of safety.
“Rainbow!” Lauren called as she signaled for the others to hop through the hole in the door. “Snag Rarity and let’s get out of here!”
“On it!” Rainbow saluted. Rainbow had always been a fast flier, able to take off from stationary positions to Mach speeds in less than ten-seconds flat. But despite that impressive track record, she wouldn’t have normally had the room in the relatively small enclosure the dogs were in to reach such speeds and end evade the canine’s teeth while rescuing Rarity. Thankfully, though, these were not ordinary times, and James had equipped her with an old friend’s nifty speed-boost: a glowing, golden ring.
Rainbow swooped into the fray and emerged almost before she had left with Rarity’s spheroid form in tow, the dogs still fighting with each other before they realized their new ball had been stolen. Growling angrily at this theft of a new toy, the three prepared to leap up to snatch Rainbow and Rarity out of the air even as they zoomed towards the exit.
But, still able to see the outside world in her little ball, Rarity saw the danger and uncurled just in time to release a barrage of green fire down upon the dogs, whose singed fur quickly sent them scurrying to the opposite end of the room with their tails between their legs.
Rainbow and Rarity barreled through the hole in the door, landing none-too-gracefully on the carpet of the room beyond.
“That was awesome!” Rainbow laughed after she had disentangled herself from Rarity. “Way past cool!”
“Isn’t that what the blue hedgehog said when he was teaching you how to use those rings?” Rarity inquired, a surreptitious look on her face. “He seemed to be saying the same thing about you.”
“Oh, shut up!” Rainbow blushed.
“You know, it would be a lot less conspicuous if you hadn’t told him to ‘call you up next time he’s in Ponyville,’” Rarity chuckled.
Rainbow simply turned away then to join the others, her cheeks as red as the crimson stripe in her mane at the mention of the handsome hedgehog who James had introduced her to to teach her how to use the power-ups. Even if he was a Digital instead of an Animated, Sonic HAD seemed to return her obvious interest in someone who shared her passion for speed.
“So, where are we now, Lauren?” Rainbow asked, completely ignoring Rarity—as well as the snickering glances of the other ponies.
“I think we actually made it to the Records Hall,” Lauren breathed. “We’re here—start looking for anything that has to do with the Director.”
The rest of the team fanned out amid the rows of filing cabinets that filled the room, but only when Rainbow Dash flew above the shelves did she see how far they stretched.
“Whoa!” the pegasus exclaimed. “This place goes on forever!”
“It very well may,” Lauren sighed. “To be totally honest, I’m not even sure where to start looking. I had thought that the Upper Levels Records Hall would be a little…smaller. The one in the Lower Levels is huge, but that’s because it’s supposed to cover literally everything the Bureau deals with. This Hall is supposed to be only the confidential papers—how could there be so many of them?”
“Maybe there aren’t…” Twilight wondered aloud. The rest looked at her quizzically. “I’ve been studying this Bureau since we got here, and while there isn’t as much magic involved as I’d hoped, it still exists pretty prevelantly. Maybe there’s some at work right here, right now…”
Twilight focused her own magical energy, probing the area for any signs of thaumaturgy. When she did find it, she was almost knocked over backwards by the sheer size of the spell. But, though it was powerful, the spell was shoddily put together, like the dam outside Ponyville. If she tweaked this bit, and pulled this bit out…
“There!” Twilight announced, and the illusion fell away to reveal a single filing cabinet in a seemingly infinite room that faded away into darkness on all sides.
“How did you do that?” Lauren inquired in awe. “That was incredible!”
“It was a big spell, but nothing I couldn’t handle,” Twilight beamed proudly. “The illusion was set to hide the only real records in here with an endless supply of fake ones. We’d have never found the real ones with the fake ones in the way because they were set to rearrange themselves when nopony’s looking.”
Lauren thanked Twilight again before rushing over to the filing cabinet, pulling the drawers out one by one, and stuffing their contents of papers into the bottomless backpack she had brought along for just such an occasion.
“This was actually a lot easier than I was expectin’ it to be,” Applejack commented. “All the same, somethin’ don’t feel right…”
“You have a keen intuition.”
The group whirled around to face none other than the Director himself, standing there as if he had been present the entire time. With the illusion and all, maybe he had.
“I’ve been expecting you, Ms. Faust,” the Director said in his chilling monotone. “And I have come to the conclusion that I must make you a final offer. Though my top Agents are tracking you even as we speak, not a one of them knows you’re here in their very headquarters. This proves what I had already suspected—that you are far too good to let go to waste. You could be so useful to me, Lauren. You would be my right-hand Agent, second-in-command in the new worlds order to come. Think about it—if you accept my offer, I’ll even spare the lives of your pony friends here.
“And I’ll also throw in an offer I know you can’t refuse.”
“What’s he talkin’ about, Lauren?” Applejack wondered, a hint of nervousness in her voice. “We know you’d never betray us for him, right?”
“Oh, I think Ms. Faust might even now be reconsidering her alliances,” the Director smiled, the darkness of the room seeming to creep inward as he did so. “Because she knows I know that she knows what I’m actually offering. Think about it, Lauren—their world would never even have to be touched. They could finally live in their peaceful homes, the oppressive Earth but a distant memory.”
Lauren looked uncertain for a moment.
“Lauren!” Fluttershy pleaded. “You can’t be serious! You can’t leave us!”
“So what do you say, Ms. Faust?” the Director went on. “Do you accept my offer?”
“I say that you’re offer is the thing I’ve worked for all these years in the Bureau. Something I’ve cried myself to sleep at night for not being able to provide,” Lauren spoke softly, avoiding the worried, watery looks in her new—and perhaps, soon to be old—friend’s eyes. “But I also know that if I accept your offer, I’ll never be able to look my family in the eyes again, nor will they be able to bear the sight of me. What you’re offering, Director, I would gladly take in a heartbeat—but not in the way you offer it. I would rather die than save my family only to be lost to them.”
“So be it,” the Director sighed in what in a normal person would’ve been sadness, but in his case was an emotion too horrible to describe in words. “Though know that I really don’t enjoy putting such potential to waste.”
The Director stretched a bit, then stretched some more, until he was shooting up in height. Wings sprouted from his side, and his face burst into an ugly mass of blazing green eyes and white fangs. With a hide black as midnight, Maleficent’s draconic form slammed its claws upon the ground before the group, making them shake with the resulting resounding rumble.
“Doesn’t this guy have any ideas of his own?!” Lauren spat. “Team! Retreat! Take evasive and defensive action!”
The ponies complied by scrambling, and Lauren herself repeated her trick with the dogs by running forward and sliding under the monstrosity. The other ponies met her on the other side, having gone either over or around, and leapt back through the hole in the door to the dog’s chamber.
The dogs themselves, when they saw their evaders reenter their territory, were none too happy, and began running towards the group and snarling and barking, meter-high teeth chomping down through waves of foaming saliva.
The dragon suddenly burst in through the wall behind the group before they had time to react to the dogs, who formed a solid wall of monsters on one side while the dragon cornered them from the other.
“Oh, no,” Lauren whispered to herself, as all her nightmares about getting her friends killed—or worse—seemed about to come true.
“Wait!” Twilight declared. “I know a dragon! Maybe we can reason with him!”
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to work Twilight,” Rainbow Dash remarked. “Does anyone have any ideas that involve something that could feasibly save our lives?”
“That’s it!” Lauren realized. “Rarity, charge up your blaster to its full power and aim it at the floor—”
“But that’ll take at least five minutes!” Rarity protested.
“Applejack, you keep back the Cerberuses,” Lauren continued. “James said your weapons were designed for mythological things. The rest of you, let’s stall the Director!”
“These double swords are nice and all,” Applejack commented as she trotted forward. “But I don’t see how they’re gonna take down a whole trio of trios!”
“James said those weapons were used to fell the gods of Olympus themselves,” Lauren called to her as she rushed the draconic Director with the other ponies, save Rarity, who was standing in the middle of the room looking nervous for her friends whilst her cannon charged up. “I’m sure they can take on a few oversized mutated mongrels!”
“If you say so,” Applejack said with determination. Shaking herself to undo the swords from her back, the orange earth pony began galloping towards the onrushing Cerberuses, the swords swinging out on enchanted chains connected to her as she did so.
“Rainbow Dash, get him distracted!” Lauren instructed, and the blue pegasus complied by chomping down on another glowing golden ring and zooming off at super speed to swirl around the dragon. Maleficent’s form was built for strength, not speed, so though Rainbow Dash could do no real harm to the Director, the latter was unable to catch the former as she raced around him, though he tried to do so long enough to avert his eyes from the ground as the rest of the ponies and one rogue Agent fast approaching from there. “Now, Twilight!”
Twilight telekinetically unsheathed her sword—a large and incredibly heavy-looking one that nonetheless flew like a feather through the air whenever the purple unicorn swung it—and flung it with all her might at the dragon’s heart. The Buster Blade buried itself deep in the Director’s chest, and the dragon let out a howl of pain as it slumped to the ground.
“How are you doing, Applejack?” Lauren called over her shoulder to the orange mare, not taking her eyes off of the Director should he try any more tricks, even when seemingly defeated.
“Right as rain!” Applejack laughed. Though Lauren couldn’t see the earth pony as her eyes were still focused on the fallen dragon, Applejack was standing proudly on top of the tied-up forms of three whimpering dogs, entangled in the chains of the swords. “These blades o’ that Kratos character sure did come in handy!”
Lauren, deciding that the dragon was indeed down, at least for the moment, risked a glance over her shoulder to see her friend’s progress. Lauren smiled, noting that with the way James had described Kratos the ‘Ghost of Sparta’ probably wouldn’t have been too happy with the bloodless way Applejack handled things, but it worked for Lauren. The rogue Agent then just as quickly turned her attention back to the dragon to find that it was—
“Gone!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed. “But we only turned our heads for a second!”
“And that was all I needed,” the Director chuckled darkly from nowhere and everywhere all at once.
“Where are you?!” Lauren called, scanning the room yet seeing nothing—nothing but the blackness that lined the walls as the darkness that seemed to appear whenever the Director was around crept slowly inwards.
“I’m right in front of you, Ms. Faust,” said the Director—or, was that the Director at all? It couldn’t be, could it? The Director’s voice was dark and monotone, not high-pitched and squeaky like that.
With a flash of red, a lone figure leapt out of the shadows. Lauren instantly recognized it for what it was, even if the others didn’t, and screamed.
“Retreat!” Lauren called in a panicked fury as she bolted for the center of the room, just as Rarity’s cannon beeped that it was ready to fire. “Rarity, fire through the floor! We have to get out of here, NOW!”
“Why?” the unicorn asked, even as she hunkered down and blasted a comet-sized projectile of laser through the thick floor of the Cerberus chamber. “Out of all the forms the Director’s taken, this own seems to be the least intimidating of all! In fact, he almost looks funny!”
“Don’t laugh!” Lauren instructed. “Whatever you do, don’t look him in the eyes, don’t let him touch you, and DON’T LAUGH! Rainbow Dash, we need you super, and speed us out of here!”
Rainbow Dash, though not quite sure why given the extremely small appearance of whatever the Director had now become, activated the seven Chaos Emeralds she was wearing on a golden-chain necklace (also given to her as a gift by a certain hedgehog) and suddenly burst into light. Her coat now white and glowing, her rainbow mane seeming to be made of multicolored fire, Rainbow Dash swooped down and gathered the rest of the ponies and Lauren and flew them quick as a photon down the newly blasted hole in the ground.
The laser cannon had shot clean through the Bureau itself, and though the floors were quickly sealing themselves up, the group sped through them faster than they could regenerate. All holding onto super-Rainbow Dash, the others clung on tightly to avoid being smashed against the sides of the jagged holes in each of the floors as Rainbow rocketed by.
“Why were so scared of his last form, Lauren?” Twilight wondered.
“Yeah, it didn’t look scary at all!” Pinkie Pie said.
“That is by far and away one of the most powerful things in all the worlds,” Lauren breathed, a look of fear in her eyes the others had never seen before. They were all worried deeply. “In order to copy the shape of an Animated being, one has to defeat the original Animated being first. The more powerful the Animated being is, the harder it is to defeat, and the more powerful it means the one who defeated it is.”
“So what’s so special about that little scrawny thing we saw back up there?” wondered Rainbow Dash.
“Because,” Lauren answered. “It means that the Director is powerful enough to defeat one of the most powerful known Animated beings in history, and if he can do that, then it doesn’t really matter if we expose him to the rest of the worlds or not. With that much power he could take down entire armies of Animated beings and humans alike with the flick of his tail. In fact, I don't really know why he needs this 'Senior Cirlce' or me at all--he's plenty powerful without them. In order to defeat him, we’re going to need a being even more powerful than the one he’s defeated and copied.
“We’re going to have to ally ourselves with a being capable of taking down Mickey Mouse.”
. . .