Professor Whooves’ office wasn’t like the other professors’. Mostly because it was in the basement. Although considering his field of study, this was more from practicality than an insult.
The two mares stopped in front of the plain wooden door with a piece of paper taped to it proudly proclaiming: “Dr. Whooves, Chaos Theory and Unexplained Phenomena.” Romana threw out a hoof to stop Adorabelle, who started to protest, but then heard the reason they were stopping.
“It’ll be everything you’re always asking me for!” The speaker’s shrill voice wasn’t difficult to hear through the plain door. “Imagine what we could do with an energy source like this!”
Dr. Whooves sighed heavily. Adorabelle could just picture the sad, tired expression he’d be using. “You don’t really want me to study supercrystalline matter. You just want to start another project in Professor Rigid’s field of study, so that you can rub it in his face that he’s not allowed to work on it…”
“Why should you care!? And that… fool… is a gen-ed teacher! He doesn’t have time to look at rocks; he’s too busy grading papers by newbies!”
“He’s a gen-ed teacher because you gave him only gen-ed classes…” Another heavy sigh. “…And I care because, since you don’t actually want to do this project, you’re going to cancel it in a few weeks, and find a way to insinuate that I broke your experiment somehow.”
“You little busybody of a dirt pony…”
Adorabelle telekinetically slammed the door open. “IT’S MEEEE!” she shouted.
A force like a brick wall sent her flying, then her body locked up into a fetal position she couldn’t uncurl from, then some kind of sticky substance flowed onto her beautiful fur. All the while, high pitched screaming filled the room; hers and Romana’s were partial contributors, but neither was the loudest of them all.
“You mani- ow! –maniac!” Dr. Whooves shouted. There was more zapping sounds, and some slapping. “Get- a hold of- yourself- Safeguard!”
The screaming finally stopped. The glue on Adorabelle cracked, and somepony started rubbing cold lotion on her.
“Here, this should relax your muscles,” Romana said.
Adorabelle uncurled, cracking her limbs more than seemed natural. Dr. Whooves had one hoof on the chest of a shivering, wide-eyed, blueish-purple stallion Adorabelle knew too well.
“You aren’t even going to apologize, are you?” Romana huffed. “Jerk.”
“You can’t attack everything that walks into the room,” Dr. Whooves said.
Safeguard narrowed his eyes at Adorabelle. “It’s all her fault. She should know better than to barge in on an important conversation like that. Anyway, I was right to be startled when somepony barged in, because nopony should have been able to barge in, because I locked the…” he blinked and sighed. “You know what? Never mind. Just test her already.” He shuffled toward the basement stairs.
“And we’ll just forget about the supercrystaline matter?” Dr. Whooves called, an impish grin on his face.
Safeguard stopped, his shoulders tightening with anger. “Wither and die.”
“And a very happy Thursday to you too!” Dr. Whoove turned to Adorabelle. “Any other counter curses needed?”
“Nah, I’m good,” Adorabelle said, stretching her legs cautiously. “Just, y’know, wind knocked out of me and all. Most importantly, my designer sweater is still pristine; I was, like, so worried that gluey stuff wouldn’t wash out, y’know?”
“Seriously, don’t do that again.” Dr. Whooves shook his head. “Not smart to aggravate him. Too high strung. I’d feel sorry for him if…” He stopped and shook his head again.
“If he wasn’t such a jerk,” Romana said. “So… anything else you need for today’s experiment?”
“Duct tape.” Dr. Whooves stood on his hind legs and wheeled around. “Come on in. Complimentary tea, probably non-toxic.”
Adorabelle giggled and followed him into the lab.
Dr. Whooves’ lab was huge, sprawling, crowded, and not at all neat. One long, long wall was filled with mostly potion bottles of all sizes, colors, temperatures, and consistencies, but Dr. Whooves being who he was, there were also non-potions such as books, glowing orbs, crystals, and a small cage of spider-mouse hybrids he’d adopted after the biology class’ last disastrous experiment. A long table had more potions, blueprints, a rock polishing kit, a strange metal gyroscope-like contraption that was constantly rotating, a partially deconstructed pocketwatch, a huge pile of scrap metal, a smaller pile of unopened envelopes, and a plate with two and a half chocolate chip cookies left on it, among other things. One corner was almost completely occupied by his “portal machine,” with a huge metal ring to serve as the portal, a panel with many blinking colored buttons to navigate, and a giant hamster wheel. Presumably the hamster wheel was to provide manual power in case the building’s electricity went out; Adorabelle had never asked.
One wall was for the cells where Dr. Whooves’ test subjects stayed. Two were covered with curtains, while two were open. Inside one was what looked like a pretty normal hotel suite, except for the bars. The other had gravel at the bottom and a fishy smell to it, but was currently empty.
Adorabelle looked at the gravel-coated cell. “Oh… where’s Cepha?”
“His condition was declared stable,” Romana said. “He’s been moved to a hospital with a specialist who thinks he can turn his tentacles back into legs.”
“Oh… that’s good news, then!” Adorabelle beamed.
“For once,” Dr. Whooves grumbled.
“It’ll be nice to not have to maintain a large aquarium anymore,” Romana chuckled.
“And the Machination?” Adorabelle turned to one of the curtains. “Can I meet him now?”
“Ah, sorry…” Dr. Whooves came up and put a hoof on her shoulder. “He… he requested, as best as we can understand him, that he’d rather nopony look at him until he’s less… nightmarish.” He coughed. “His words, not mine. Speaking of… any news on Little Spark?”
“Nah. Dad said, y’know, there’s all this stuff about, like… psychological evaluations, and custody, and, like, nopony knows whether or not he’s an adult, and, y’know, that affects culpability and stuff… it’s gonna take, like, forever, and even when it’s over they might, like, just banish him or something.”
“That would be a shame.” Dr. Whooves turned to his large table, pulled open a drawer, and grabbed a roll of duct tape. “I don’t want to keep you forever. Just give me a minute.” He dove behind his portal machine. “Romana? Blue connects to green, right?”
Romana gasped softly. “No! Blue to blue, green to green! Why would I mix them?” She trotted over to the portal. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I just can’t find another blue- oh, here.” There was a ripping sound, then other sound effects associated with duct tape repairs. The metal ring of the portal device flashed a bright white, then steadily flickered into a picture of some bushes. It appeared they were going the Canterlot Garden Hedge Maze, and this was their doorway through spacetime to get there.
“Um…” Romana said.
“That’s the ticket!” Dr. Whooves leapt out from behind the machine, then turned to face the portal. “Ready, Adorabelle?”
“The… the ring’s glowing orange…” Adorabelle said.
There was a popping sound, and the picture in the hoop flickered between the bushes and some flames, looking like the story of Moses.
Romana and the Doctor screamed and frantically yanked at cables. The hoop stopped glowing, and the door vanished.
“H-how about we just walk to Canterlot Gardens?” Romana asked.
“Ah… yes… exercise…” Dr. Whooves panted. “Just let me get some things…”
He ran around the lab for another fifteen minutes, piling apparently random objects into a cardboard box. Adorabelle spent that time trying to figure out which liquid in the room was most likely to be tea, eventually deciding it wasn’t worth the risk. Then Romana scooped the box up in her telekinetic grip, and the trio headed back out.
***
Sadly, Safeguard was waiting for them at the hedge maze.
“I thought you said you were going to teleport,” Safeguard said, swinging a large pocket watch in their faces.
“I thought you said we’d die if I did,” Dr. Whooves replied.
“…Or is that what you were hoping for?” Romana asked. She set the cardboard box down by the entrance and began unpacking. “…Why did you bring this sandwich, Doctor?”
“Um… in case… something,” Dr. Whooves said. “I set up the Fluxometer on the west side.”
“I hope nopony stole it!” Safeguard shouted. “Why aren’t you more careful with the university equipment!?”
“Who the hay would steal anything right outside Celestia’s window?” Romana asked. “If they’re going to be that daring, you’d think they’d steal something more valuable…”
Safeguard and Romana grabbed pieces of equipment and wandered around a corner. Dr. Whooves smiled at Adorabelle.
“Why a maze this time?” Adorabelle asked nervously. “Why not another passage?”
“This way, if you find a door you can’t open, you can go try something else,” Dr. Whooves said. “The more data, the better. And don’t worry; the royal guard says the monster will stay in its cage for sure.”
“Wait- monster?”
“Of course! The maze monster. Haven’t you taken social studies?” Dr. Whooves shook her shoulder reassuringly. “Now don’t worry about it. It won’t be any different than our other test runs.”
“Except there’s a maze, and a monster,” Adorabelle said.
“No monster. I told you, he’s caged up!” Dr. Whooves started walking backwards. “I’ll yell when we’re ready!” He rounded the corner.
Adorabelle shuffled towards the start of the hedge maze. She peered around the corners, but she couldn’t see anything except the next turn. Was she being timed?
“Yell!” Dr. Whooves shouted.
“Okay!” Adorabelle shouted back.
“…I mean, we’re ready!” Dr. Whooves said.
“Oops.” It had been a joke. And Adorabelle had killed it.
“Start running!” Safeguard shouted.
Adorabelle bolted down the left passageway. She turned one corner and found a heavy metal door. With its giant spoke-door-handle-turn-y… thingy, it looked very much like a bank vault door and therefore sadly out of place. Adorabelle wondered how the heck they brought it to the maze. Well, it didn’t look like it could possibly latch shut; the locker-bar… thingy would probably just stick into the bushes. She attempted to telekinetically pull the door open, but it felt like her magic grip was slipping off of the bars, so she had to use her hooves to twist the vault’s handles. That done, she continued down the hedge passageway.
After somehow managing to head down the same dead end twice, she found a golden gate barring her path. She pushed it open easily and kept galloping.
The next golden gate had a huge iron chain wrapped around it, with a huge heavy lock holding the chain shut. Well, maybe if she shook the gate a bit, the chain would fall off. She telekinetically shook it; the lock clicked open, and the chain did, in fact, fall off. That was easy! She skipped happily onward.
The path forked, and each had a normal, wooden, bedroom-type door blocking it. She randomly chose left and started to telekinetically turn the knob.
“That one was locked, right?” Dr. Whooves whispered somewhere nearby.
Adorabelle jerked backwards when she heard that. There was a soft click.
“Oh no,” she whispered, yanking the doorknob with all her might. It was no use; it was shut tight. Luckily this was one of the ones where another path was right nearby. She pulled the right door open; as she did, it dissolved in golden sparkles, and a shot path lay before her. Three right turns later, she found a wooden door identical to the other two; this one, however, opened easily.
She wandered along into a right turn. There were now three choices in front of her. Casually, she peered down the left turn. Then down the lane in front. They looked equally bushy. She turned to the right.
The passage on the right wasn’t a passage at all. It was a dead end, with a cage in the center. A mass of brown fur lay at the bottom, growling vaguely. It looked like a crumpled fur coat with sound effects.
“Oh, hi!” Adorabelle walked up to the cage. “Are you the maze monster?”
Safeguard screamed from somewhere very nearby. “Does that girl have no sense of self-preservation whatsoever?”
The pile of brown fur stiffened. Two glowing red eyes peered out from inside.
“Er… no offense, but you don’t really look like anything… um, like, at all…” Adorabelle said. “Hey, Safeguard? Are you on the other side of the hedge?”
Safeguard yelped. “How did she know where I was!?”
“Seriously?” Dr. Whooves asked.
“Don’t get scared, I’m just curious is all.” Adorabelle looked down at the maze monster. “Since you’re, like, already there, could you, like, tell me more about the-”
The door to the cage slowly swung open, unlatched.
“Um… that, like, doesn’t seem good…”
“ROAR!” Shouted the brown fur.
Adorabelle screamed and galloped away. As she turned a corner, she saw a huge ball of brown fur right behind her.
“EEEE!” Adorabelle tried to plunge through a hedge wall and got stuck.
“What the… hay?” Safeguard asked.
“Should we just write this one off then?” Romana asked.
“Well how was I supposed to know she was *that* stupid?” Dr. Whooves asked.
“I can hear you!” Adorabelle shouted, kicking her hind legs. She hadn’t even made it halfway through the hedge; her shirt had caught on a branch and she couldn’t go forward. All she could see was bits of light on the other side, but like hay she was going back now.
Grumbly growls came from behind her, and a pair of teeth seized one leg.
Adorabelle screamed and kicked the monster’s face with her other leg as many times as possible. The monster responded by yanking her backwards through the hedge and dropping her on the ground. Adorabelle screamed some more, scrambled to her hooves, and fled down the nearest pathway.
Gates and doors confronted her at every turn, but she burst through without a thought as she streaked through the maze. Sometimes she slammed the doors behind her, but the monster just slammed them open again. Its pounding hoofbeats- no, pawbeats- got closer and closer.
Another gate loomed forward, this one with a huge, heavy chain about it and a solid padlock, just like the gate at the start of the maze. As she approached, she telekinetically shook it, but the gate seemed to be made of the same magic-resistant substance as the first door. Welp, here went nothing. She leapt over the fence.
Searing pain flamed through her hind leg as her graceful soaring ended in a snag. She tumbled to the ground on the other side of the gate, twisting into a fetal position to hold her hind leg, as though her touch would somehow make the pain less. A gash the length of her horn ran along the inside of her back leg. Dark red blood slowly seeped from the cut into the dirt. Her eyes widened and filled with tears. She looked up at the top of the gate; one of the pointy bits sticking up was red with her blood. Good thing she hadn’t worn a skirt today, or it would have been ripped. Wait, why was she thinking about that?
Then the sun was blocked as the mass of fur soared over the gate towards her, unfurling two huge wings. Adorabelle screamed and closed her eyes as she waited for the monster to eat her.
“Oh sweet merciful Celestia! Are you okay?”
Adorabelle opened her eyes again to see a huge orange pegasus with a dark, unruly mane and glowing red eyes. He was standing in the place the maze monster had been and was slipping off something that looked like a fur coat. A very familiar fur coat.
Adorabelle slapped him in the face.
“Ow! Hey, what the- ow!” he cried as she slapped him again.
“You stupid bully!” Adorabelle tried to telekinetically push him away, but he hardly budged- just too heavy. “ Why would you scare me like that? Look what you did!”
“I’m sorry! This wasn’t my flipping idea, okay?”
“Adorabelle!” Dr. Whooves trotted closer. “Are you all- ooh, no, no you aren’t.” He winced as he saw Adorabelle’s leg. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m such an idiot…”
“No,” Safeguard said, approaching with Romana, “the idiot is the pony who thought she could just up and leap over stuff like some kind of hoppity dirt pony.”
Romana glared at him. “Don’t you think you might want to at least TRY to not let everypony know what a racist you are?”
“Here, let me see that closer…” Dr. Whooves lifted Adorabelle’s leg slightly. She gasped in pain. “Do you think you can walk?”
“Why?” Adorabelle said. “Why make a fake monster chase me? Was I too annoying last test?”
“We wanted to test if adrenaline would affect your abilities,” Safeguard said. “I had no idea you would act so ridiculously under pressure. Heaven help you if real monsters chase you.”
“Hey!”
“Romana, see if there’s a medic around,” Dr. Whooves said. “Safeguard, show us some of that extra-special magic you’re always bragging about.”
Romana ran off. Safeguard tossed his mane haughtily and started telekinetically dragging branches to the area.
“How are you feeling?” Dr. Whooves asked, stroking Adorabelle’s mane comfortingly.
“Better, I guess. It just startled me. It still hurts a lot…”
“Don’t worry, we can fix this.”
“Should you tell my dad?”
“It won’t take long, I promise.”
“Can I help?” The orange pegasus asked.
Dr. Whooves started to answer, but Safeguard shouted, “No! Absolutely not! Go back to the barracks or something!”
A purple glow enveloped the branches and leaves Safeguard had collected. With a burst of light, they turned into a stretcher.
“What, I can’t even help carry a stretcher?” the pegasus asked.
“No.”
“Yes he can,” Dr. Whooves said. “And I’ll help. Give that sparkly horn of yours a rest.”
Safeguard telekinetically slid Adorabelle gently onto the stretcher. As the orange pegasus approached to help carry it, Adorabelle got a good look at his cutie mark: a black padlock with a long winding chain.
“Oh, you have lock-powers too?” Adorabelle asked. “I have powers like that. I can, like, open any door… well, sort of. I have to kinda think they’re unlocked. I mean, like, if I know the door is locked I can’t open it, but if I don’t know… well, it’s complicated. The study is, like, blind or something, so I can’t actually learn which doors were actually unlocked, and which ones I unlocked. Um, so, like, how about you?”
The orange pegasus looked at his cutie mark and sighed. “Doors… that I shut… tend to stay shut until I open them. That’s why I’m here. We’re both part of the same study. Well, that and I owe the good doctor one. Otherwise you’d never catch me in that hot, smelly, stupid costume.”
“Like, totes awesome!” Adorabelle squealed, then winced as pain shot through her leg again. “I mean, like, the lock power part, not the stupid costume. It was really stupid.”
“There’s no need to be cruel,” Dr. Whooves whimpered.
“I’m Adorabelle Beauty.” She stuck out a hoof to shake.
The orange pegasus took it. “I’m called Iron Flight-”
“No, no, no, no, NO!” Safeguard shouted, startling Iron Flight backward. “I won’t have this! You stay away from that unicorn, you criminal scum!”
“Excuse me?” Iron Flight glared at him.
“And if I had had my way, you would never have left Tartarus!”
“Safeguard, please!” Dr. Whooves said.
“To think Celestia and that baby of a captain would trust you to protect our city…”
“Shut up!” Iron Flight shouted. “Just shut up you… you… loser!
All the other ponies gasped.
“There is a lady present!” Dr. Whooves shouted.
“Ahem,” Romana said from somewhere behind Adorabelle.
“Ah, make that two.”
“I couldn’t find anypony nearby,” Romana said. “We’ll have to take her to the castle.”
“Okay. Iron Flight, can you take the front?”
Adorabelle rose into the air telekinetically and was set on the backs of the two non-unicorns. The party set off, and the rider turned to look at Iron Flight.
“So, you were, like, in Tartarus?”
“Stop talking to me,” Iron Flight said.
“Why’d they let you out? Good behavior?”
“As if,” Safeguard snorted.
“More importantly, why were you in there in the first place? Did you kill somepony? Was my dad the judge? His name is Sterling Scales and-”
“Make her sto-op!” Iron Flight whined.
“Adorabelle,” Dr. Whooves said, “I’ll answer all your questions later. When you’re better. Okay?”
“Okay…”
***
Later, Adorabelle was lounging in the Canterlot Castle medical wing on a flat white bed, a thick cloth bandage wrapped around her leg. Everypony else had gone back to work. Dr. Whooves trotted up and set a small golden box by her head.
“The nurses said to take one every four hours and to seek further attention if you feel dizzy. Also no spellcasting for two days except small amounts of telekinesis. …Which for you means just don’t open any doors at all, even if you think they’re unlocked.”
Adorabelle lifted the lid and saw four postage-stamp sized chocolates. She licked her lips. “Can I have one now?”
“Sure.”
She telekinetically lifted one to her mouth and bit it in half. It was a bit too dark for her liking, but this was medicinal chocolate, not pleasure chocolate. She chewed and swallowed, then finished the other half.
“Yum. What happens if I take more than one every four hours?”
“You’ll be set on fire or something worse. It’s saturated chocolate for maximum magic restoration. Having an injury is a huge drain on unicorn magic, and the enchanted bandage is designed to suck your magic to that spot even more than usual, so you need to replenish. But too much at once is dangerous.”
“You’re, like, humorless. So… will you tell me about Iron Flight now?”
Dr. Whooves sighed. “It’s not really a nice story…”
“Ooh, goody! Tell me! Tell me! Please?” Adorabelle used her best puppy eyes.
“I don’t know if he’ll want me to…”
“You promised to tell me later, and he didn’t say no. Tell meeeeeee!”
“Okay, fine.” Dr. Whooves sat down. “After graduating high school, one of his professors invited Iron Flight on a jungle expedition to explore an ancient temple as a summer activity.”
“Ooh. Very Daring Do.”
“No, not at all, really. That place in the jungle had been a weak point in the space-time continuum for a while, and there was a spell of Grogar’s about the place, so the temple was built to-”
“Channel the power into an ancient ritual!”
“No. Real life temples are nothing like the ones in Daring Do books. This temple was built so that the spell would stop.”
“Huh?”
“Well, you know that pyramids are designed to provide maximum magic concentration at a specific point in order to facilitate an energy transfer, so this was a similar concept, except in reverse, with magical leylines that would direct the remaining spell energy to- ah, I see your eyes glazing over. Well, ah, suffice it to say that the temple was… um, a temple. I’m… not sure how much more I can explain without confusing you.
“Iron Flight had no cutie mark at the time. I believe he blamed it on being forced to move to a city with no skyball.”
“He’s from Cloudsdale? Ooh! That’s why his accent’s all, like, funky and stuff.”
“If you say so. But there are other cities with skyball teams…”
“Accent plus skyball equals Cloudsdale, y’know?”
“…Sure. But Iron Flight’s powers activated the temple curse, and he sealed the entire expedition party in Tambelon by mistake. There was a tribe of zebras in the area, who were a proud warrior race looking to get on the good side of Equestria, so they captured Iron Flight and shipped him to Canterlot for punishment.”
“That’s when he went to Tartarus?”
Dr. Whooves sighed. “Yes. Yes, he went to Tartarus. Don’t ever ask him about it again; it’s not a memory he wants to relive.”
“Well, like, I guess not… but I’m so curious!”
“Keep this up and maybe you’ll eventually go to Tartarus.”
“Thanks!”
“Nopony would believe Iron Flight when he said it was a mistake. So he was charged with several counts of Deliberate Cursing and was put in Tartarus, while several ponies, myself included as I had nothing better to do over the summer, did our best to try and break the curse and bring the expedition home. Eventually I suggested that since we’d tried everything, it was time we tried having the pony who locked them in unlock them again. It worked, and Iron Flight’s crime was reduced to Reckless Use of Powerful Magic.”
“Reckless use of- but he didn’t know he could do that! That’s not fair…” Adorabelle pouted.
“Honestly, I believe law enforcement was trying to save face. It would look bad to admit they threw a completely innocent pony into Tartarus. Better to pretend they were only a little extreme.”
“But… but how will he get a job? Everyemployer asks if their candidates have a criminal background…”
“Hence the post in the royal guard. I believe it was his special request, and it was granted. He’s happy with his life now.”
Adorabelle thought back to him in the garden. “He seemed angry with his life to me, y’know?”
“You can’t judge him from one encounter. Any more questions?”
Adorabelle stared at him blankly for a few minutes, frowning. “Hey, wait! That was an insult!”
“What was?”
“Saying I’ll go to Tartarus! That was mean!”
Dr. Whooves smiled sheepishly. “Oh, well, you did get it after all…”
“As soon as I can walk, you’ll be, like, so sorry!”