• Published 20th Feb 2012
  • 1,788 Views, 71 Comments

For the Good of All of Us. - Caps_Luna



Hello and again welcome to the Aperture Science computer aided Enrichment Center (Crossover portal )

  • ...
2
 71
 1,788

Chapter 0005 The awakening


It was dark, that much was certain. The Crusaders could see a slowly shrinking blue patch of sky above them, but the angle of the sun and the incredible depth of the well prevented any natural light from reaching them. Even if it could, the parachute that was keeping them aloft would have blocked it. The only thing that gave off light down their t was the faint neon green light that emitted from Rick’s eye, but none of the fillies could really see that as the way they had slung their for hooves through Rick’s handles left their eye level just above the core’s rear port. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo had to double up on one side if Rick While Apple Bloom had the other side.

Man did you me distract those wolves, it was awesome," said the Adventure Sphere. “Half the war is the battle of the mind; you have to out smart your enemy as well out kill and out bedroom them.

“Yah thanks Rick.” Apple Bloom said with a sarcastic tone. “Hey Ah’ve got an idea, since we went through all the trouble a’ gettin’ these here head lamp things, one of us should try to figure out how to turn them on without our hooves.”

“Sweetie Belle could use her horn,” Scootaloo stated pointedly.

“But I don’t know telekinetic magic,” the unicorn complained, “or much of any magic.”

“No I mean you could just use your horn to flip the switch on one of our lamps, since its suppose ”

Sweetie Belle used her horn like a blind pony’s cane to feel for the switch. Her horn struck down several times on the semi rigid canvass of Scootaloo’s ‘adventure hat’ before colliding with the metal of the attached lamp. She slid her horn across the metal surface of the power box until the enamel of her horn felt something sticking up from the metal plate. She kept pushing it until their was a click, and Scootaloo’s head lamp came to life, shinning it’s bright electric light into Apple Bloom’s eyes.

“Gah!” The Farm pony gasped while closing her eyes at the sudden brightness and fighting the urge to cover them with her hooves.

“Sorry,” both the other crusaders apologized in tandem.

Oh hey that reminds me,” said the adventure sphere. “I have a built in flash light.” A bright flood light shot out of Rick’s eyes, however the paracordes
attached to his internal sphere prevented him from looking in any direction that was not down

“Oh now you tell us,” the yellow earth filly groaned. “So Rick where are we?”

On an adventure.

“No but besides all tha’. What is this shaft for.” The two lights didn’t reveal much, Just the same grey smooth cut stone brick walls as before.

Don’t know anything about it, pretty little filly.”

“Who would just dig a huge shaft in the ground,” Sweetie Belle asked nopony in particular.

Don’t know that either, all I know is that the boss lady said to come down here as part of an adventure.

“Ah’ think I know who built this, but jus’ not why,” Apple Bloom stated. The other crusaders shot her an inquisitive glance egging the farm pony on to explain.

“Well when my sister told me about how they beat Nightmare Moon, she mentioned something about an ancient stone castle in the ever free forest. Whoever built that might have built this here giant well thing, Ah’ mena the Horse shoe fits fight.

“But why?” Sweetie Belle asked

“Ah' said Ah’ don’t know, Ah’ haven’t figured out that part yet.” There was a second of Silence before Apple Bloom went on to ask, “Hey Rick what was tha’ this adventure was all about again?”

We are suppose to reactivate the central A.I, after we break into the laboratory of course,” The sphere stated matter of factly. “No idea what that means but I guess we will find out when we get there. The boss lady will tell us what we need to do.

“And who is this boss lady?” Sweetie Belle asked.

GLaDOS.

“Who?” all three crusaders asked simultaneously.

You know what, she can explain it better to you than I can. so lets just do this adventure then ask questions latter.

“Well, what about this chimera that the she wolf mentioned, how do you plan to deal with that?” Scootaloo asked.

Well pretty filly that all depends on exactly what a chimera is.

“Front half of a Lion, bottom half of a goat, snake for a tail, about fifteen feet long, and breaths fire.”

God damn that is cool. Doesn’t sound to tough, I bet I could take it on by myself, I'm designed for dealing with incredibly powerful foes like monsters. Tell you what, you can just set me down when we land and you three can take a nice little Filly break.

“Ya’ sure? That’ kinda’ sounds dangerous .” Apple Bloom pointed out.

Hell Danger is my middle name. Rick Danger… something. O.K maybe Danger is my last name.

“Speaking of landing, how much longer until we get to the bottom?” The unicorn of the trio asked. “My wrists are starting to hurt from all this holding on to you for our lives thing.”

I don’t know that either… oh wait never mind. I can see the bottom. Just hold on for a few more minutes.”

“But what do we…” Sweetie Belle almost asked.

Shhhh you’re ruining the element of surprise!” Rick whispered.

“But the Chimera…” Scootaloo almost pointed out.

bah bup dah duh Zip-it! Surprise!” Rick mumbled; it sounded as though he was speaking through clenched teeth, however his lack of teeth made this impossible. Rick turned his own built in flash light off, apparently for the element of surprise. Scootaloo just tilted her head up, so that her own light would stop shining on the floor below.

There was about two minutes where nothing but more drifting down happened, then the walls stated to melt away. The Crusaders saw the bottom end of square weel go by them, immediately afterwards Scootaloo’s light revealed a smooth gray, slightly curved, ceiling. With an unexpected bump the crusaders, flanks landed on something soft and warm, but before they could discern what this was, the adventure parachute collapsed on the quartet of adventurers. Scootaloo decided to take the opportunity to extinguish her head lamp, more out of a fear of seeing what ever resided at the bottom of the pit they had been cast in rather than to maintain the ‘element of surprise’ and with a quick swiping motion from her now free hoof the only source of light was gone, and their world became pitch black.

Let’s just retract the parachute and see what we got here.” Scootaloo felt the plastic shoot rush over her skin then with loud ‘Zoom’ noise the parachute was gone. The Green glow of the Spheres light board eye then became visible to the little orange pegasus and her friends. “O.k. jump down giant mysterious well in the ground. check. Land safely. Check. Find chimera and strangle it with my bare handles. not check,” the sphere whispered. “well then I’ll go find this chimera, and when I give you the single, create a distraction. Be sure you have the flare gun. Then I’ll take it from there.

“What signal?

“What distraction?

“What flair gun?” Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo asked in order.

Before Rick could answer any of these questions, the ground underneath the adventures quivered slightly. Scootaloo felt the texture of the ground again and realized it was made of some kind of coarse hair or fur. It became instantly obvious to her what had happened, but before she was able to communicate this realization to her friends their was a brilliant explosion of light. What had been a dark inky void was suddenly a myriad of bright blurred colors that the orange pegasus eyes struggled to adjust to. The ground began to shift and the trio of fillies, plus core, could feel them selves begin to slide.

Oh no” Scootaloo thought. She felt the sensation of sliding over the rugged grey, that much her eyes could tell, fur intensify as she slid down what appeared to be a shag carpet mountain. Then the sliding was replaced with sensation of falling. Fortunately for Scootaloo, pegasus fillies have a naturally low terminal velocity when they spread their tiny wings out, an evolutionary trait developed in hopes that pegasus parents could catch their kids before they hit the ground. Scootaloo landed on all four hooves with no more event then a small ‘clack’ noise upon the grey stone (great more grey stone) floor. Her adjusting eyes didn’t make out the shapes of her two less fall proof friend. “Oh please don’t get hurt. please don’t get hurt. please don’t..” “OoOMph” she groaned aloud as something from above slammed her into the ground.

“Hi Scootaloo!” Apple Bloom chirped from on top of the Pegasus’s back. “Say how did you get under… ow!” The yellow filly was cut off by Sweetie Belle landing on her back.

“Well, well, well, a filly sandwich,” a new feminine voice boomed. “How hilarious.”

Scootaloo felt her two friends slide off of her back to face the source of the new voice. As Scootaloo got up too she made a mental note of her surroundings, the underground room was a perfect circle of walls about 70ft. high capped in a white dome that could have probably fit the whole of Ponyville inside of it. The entire space was mostly bare except for several large candle laden chandeliers and a troth along the walls that held some kind of recess lighting. There were four large hallways leading out of the room placed at 90 degree angles from one another. One apparently connected to another room of smaller size but similar style, the other halls were so long they faded into darkness. The last one was the odd ball, It was perfectly circular, so that it’s floor just barley touched the floor of the domed room. However it went only about 100 hundred ft. before being capped by what looked like some kind of oversized stone bank vault. However the door was impossibly huge and coated in in spirals of eerily glowing blue ruins and composed of concentric circles of the same grey stone. Even though Scootaloo had never seen an enclosed space so large, it’s occupant made it seem relatively small.

Glaring down at them was the chimera they had been ‘warned’ about. Scootaloo had described it almost perfectly; the beast had the head paws and front half of a torso of a lion,, but halfway through its muscular body the golden lion fur was replaced with the shaggy grey-white fur that was that of a goat, and according the creature’s back legs ended in hooves. To complete the picture, the monster's tail was a green scaled snake, complete with venom soaked fangs. However Scootaloo had messed up in her description in a huge obvious way, the thing was bloody massive. It was easily two to three times bigger than the Ursa minor that had attacked Ponyville during the Trixie incident. The creatures paws and or hooves could easily crush a whole house, and the snake trail clearly displayed a set of fangs the size of trees . The beast had a well groomed lion’s main despite the fact that, judging by its voice, it was a girl. Currently the monster had its back arched, its paws outstretched and its hind legs tucked away in a sitting position, like a cat waking up from a nap, and its head and tail cocked at 90 degrees so as to face the adventures.

“Hmmm Ponies must use a different type of length when they mean feet. hmm I think we can still take her if we work together,” Rick Who had landed near the fillies apparently unscathed, said as he regarded Scootaloo.

“Yeah you said it would be fifteen feet long, not fifty feet tall” Sweetie Belle accused.

“Well that’s how big my mom told me they were,” Scootaloo defended.

“Your mom was right, in most cases chimeras are only about twice the size of a normal lion, however I am obviously a little unique. I could be considered somewhat close to an alicorn in respect to other chimeras.” The hybrid monster stated. Her voice was almost soothing despite its volume, but lacked the same satisfied smugness that wolf Beta had. “My name is Lierica, and it is my duty to guard this Arcane Vault, by order of her highness Princess Celestia.”

“Arcane vault?” all three fillies asked.

The beast lifted one massive golden paw and gestured in the direction of the gigantic round door with the glowing ruins emblazoned on it.

“I’ve been guarding this place for a thousand and one years, and in all that time I must say that I have not seen such a misguided attempt to break into the vault,” the monster cooed while getting to all fours. “I really hope that you are all just some misguided explorers who fell down here, because otherwise anybody caught trying to access the vault besides Princess Celestia must be incinerated.” Leirica turned her body to face the fillies with an almost militaristic left face, though apparently her tail didn’t get the memo because the oversized serpent’s head was whipped into the nearest wall, which didn’t seem to bother the rest of her in the slightest. The beast then brought the muzzle of it's dominant lion’s head within one pony length of the adventurers; her mouth stretched into a playful toothy smile that revealed that a forest of sparkling white razor sharp pony sized daggers resided in her maw. “Now tell me,” she whispered loud enough for all to hear, “what exactly were you planning on doing down here.”

“We were here on a dangerous adventure, an awesome adventure,” Rick enthusiastically blurted out.”

“Great, so they finally figured out how to make bowling balls talk. I’ll never understand pony logic,” the oversized Chimera groaned, her lethal smile disappearing to be replaced with a much more dangerous frown of disappointment. “This adventure wouldn’t happen to involve breaking into the Arcane Vaults would it?”


It just might, you beautiful monster lady.” Leirica’s mouth opened and an orange glow began to emanate from the back of her throat.

“Wait!” Apple Bloom yelled. The glow stopped and the beast closed her mouth, though the leonine face now bore an expression of annoyed impatience, which didn't give the fillies much hope about changing her mind about burning them. “He never mentioned anything about breaking into a vault when we were at the surface,” Apple Bloom squealed at a dizzying rate, “He just kept talkin’ about some really supercool adventure with something about a laboratory, and we thought it would be a good idea to listen to him because I thought that it would be really cool to have adventure cutie marks, andwedon’thaveoutcutiemarksyetandeveryponykeepstellingustowaitbutIdon’twanna’waitIwantmycutiemarkrightnow!

“Rick why did you even say that?” Scootaloo asked criticizingly.

Because of the thrill of danger.

“But that’s suicidal.”

“Back up. Did you say laboratory?” Leirica asked to fast speaking farm filly.

“Yah’. Is that bad?”

“No. Well yes actually that place is lethal, but not bad in the sense of 'I'm going to burn you alive bad.” The monster pulled her head to normal height then let her rear fall down into a sitting position, causing the floor to heave into a small tremor. “There is a laboratory down here, well as of about ninety years ago there is. Anyway that means you have a plausible reason to be down here, so I’ll just let you go.”


There were three sighs of relief then one groan of disappointment, followed by a long awkward silence between the vault guardian and the explorers

“So who just built a Lab down here,” Sweetie Belle asked finally.

“I have not idea, one day I was leaving to go stock up on supplies, and then I find that the exit tunnel is blocked by a gigantic innavigable…. space…. filled with a bunch of weird boxy rooms on rails. Apparently it had something to do with photography, they had the word Aperture everywhere. I’ve been trapped ever since.

“So what do you do about fo-” Sweetie Belle was going to ask before an orange hoof was shoved in her mouth.

“ –food?" The lethal cheshire cat grin returned to her face for a moment as she said the word, before dying down to a non-toothy smug smile. "When you’re an immortal, food becomes more of an option, though hunger can become a little unbearable after a while. So lets just say you’re not the first creature to plummet down one of my air shafts, but you are the first to survive though. Trust me, earth pony slushys do not taste good at all." She rolled her eyes to emphasis the understatement. The over sized monster's gaze floated up to the aforementioned air shaft's, all like the one the crusaders had entered. Leirica decided to use them to change the topic. "A few pegasi have flown down here exploring though, I know all that I know about the modern world from them and a few books I have managed to salvage off of some rather unfortunate Unicorns and Earth Ponies who just weren’t paying attention to where they were going, not all the air vents are in the Everfree after all.” The room was certainty large enough for that to be true.Considering that the crusaders had fallen down a shaft near one of the walls, the gigantic room was probably right under, and centered at, ponyvile, “Those pegasi all went into that lab and, well, all I heard over the next few days was the tortured screams of pegasi.” The great beast seemed to imperceptibly shutter. “So if you don’t want to die of an extremely slow painful death, I suggest you just let me eat you now. Your call.”

“No thanks!” Scootaloo quickly answered. The Chimera simply shrugged its leonine shoulders in apathetic response.

“Wait so what’s behind that giant glowy door tha’s so important to protect,” Apple Bloom asked.

“Secrets. Dark horrible secrets.”

Sounds fun. But one adventure at a time, now lets get going, the labs also the only way out, by the way, and only if we complete our adventure first.

“Your bowling ball has a point. This room is designed to accommodate someone of my size, I estimate it will take you an hour or so to get to the other side on hoof.”

“Awwww colt. I should have brought my Scooter,” the pony whose name was based upon scooting groaned.

“So if you would be so kind,” Leirica continued, “as to start on your little suicide mission now. The faster you get out of my bedroom the faster I can turn out the lights get back to sleep.” She raised another paw and extended a single massive paw toward the tunnel opposite the vault, “your destination is strait down that way.”

Wait this is you bedroom?” The sphere questioned as Apple Bloom unenthusiastically started dragging him by the handle. “Sweet, already half way there. You know I am a trained warrior in the art of bedroom,” the hyper masculine personality core stated in Leirica’s direction.

“Don’t waste your time bowling ball. I don’t swing that way, whichever way sphereophiles swing.”

Dawwww.” Rick then lapsed into a long train of incomprehensible grumbling.

Sweetie Belle drifted toward Scootaloo as the trio set off on their long journey all the way across the room. “You know, I think this whole adventure thing was a bad idea” the former said.

“You don’t say?” replied the orange pegasus sarcastically.

=====================================================================

Please remember that Aperture Science is not responsible for any injury that is caused during testing that is clearly the result of test subject failure to solve the test correctly, or by any other form of test subject incompetence or incompliance. For all aperture science full time employees please adhere to the Aperture Science safety Protocol entitled “Safety Third,” during the rest of this emergency, unless informed otherwise.

=====================================================================

“…and so that is exactly how magic is performed,” the Night Princess finished. “so dost thou hast anymore questions?”

“Uhhhmmm no I think… I think that’s enough about ponies for now,” Wheatley said with a voice that clearly expressed his difficulty processing the recent influx of information.

“Well that tis just as well, We’re at my sister’s room.”

Wha’ ?” The core turned his blue eye 180 degrees to look out his cases’s back port. Shure enough they hallway ended in a big brown set of woody double doors. “Hmm I guess I was jus so focused on our little mind blowing conversation that I forgot we were moving. So what do we do now, hack the door?

“No, I was thinking that simply knocking would be sufficient,” the dark blue alicorn replied before rapping her right for hoof upon the door.

“Come in,” a voice from inside called.

Luna’s aura enveloped the door and moved the leaf of the door opened. The room inside was roughly circular, and decorated with various tapestries and ensigns.

“Hello Woona,” a white alicorn reclining on a circular bed and reading a fairly large book cooed. “Do you need me to explain something else to you?” She asked with genuine sincerity in her voice while eying Wheatley.

Hello!” the personality core exclaimed in forced enthusiasm.

“Ahh!” the new pony gasped in surprise.

Ahhhhhhhh! Don't kill me!” the machine screamed back.

“You can talk.”

Well I thought that was entirely obvious by now,” Wheatley audibly said to himself. “So anyway my name is Wheatley, so you can just call me that. I'm a personality core, already knew you were going to ask that, because of how smart I am. Anndddd Oh yah I came from Earth, well Earth in another dimension. In that dimension ponies do not talk or do magic. I was built by humans, but you don't have a lot of those here apparently. uhhhh. lets's see what else, what else. Oh yah I met you sister when I fell down from space. So that's the short informational about me. and your sister told me I should wait until I met you to speak the entire history of my life and my dimension. Oh wait, how rude of me, What's your name winged unicorn pony?"

"Celestia," the princess replied regaining her composure in a flash.

"Great, so lets see... here. oh ya in the beginning there was darkness then this fellow named God came around and..."

Princess Celestia scooted closer to Luna, at a rate she was sure the talking ball would not pick up. When they were flank and flank the older of the alicorn sisters whispered, "You have A LOT of explaining to do," into the younger's ear.

================================

All Aperture science personel should be informed that pneumatic tubes are not rides and are in fact not fun to ride at all. However in the event you do find yourself in a pneumatic tube, remember that tube is incapable of judgement and omni tolerant of diversity that does not take the form of obesity.

===============================

"Keep it up! you've almost walked the distance of an entire step for me, so you're almost one fifteenth the way there." Leirica cheered with overtly fake enthusiasm. The Chimera could not look more bored with the whole situation, she was lying on her back with her hooves and paws lazily needling the air, as if the only thing keeping her from absolute boredom was batting at dust in the air. The monsters serpent tail had lost all interest in the new comers and was currently tightly coiled in sleep.

"shup ud." Apple Bloom mumbled through a mouth filled with personality core handle. After this the farm pony released said handle and asked her fellow crusaders, "Hey one of you mind carrying me?"

"I'll do it," Scootaloo offered flatly while changing her course for Apple Bloom. She simpluy bit down on the handle without stopping and resumed the drag the earth pony had begun.

"So uhh Leirica ah' have a question," Apple Bloom asked with her newly liberated mouth.

"Fire-" the monster blew a small plume flame into the air, "-away."

"So if ya' said that ya' are here 'cause Princess Celestia told ya' to, then why do ya' take orders from Princess Celestia?"

"Why is that so bizarre? Did she die or something while I was gone?"

"Well no but Ah've just been curious cause, ya' know most er monsters would be..."

"Burning down Villages? Trapped in Tartarus? Carelessly gulping down ponies to sustain themselves?" the chimera rolled her yellow eyes again.

"Ya' that!" the pink bowed filly squeaked with enthusiasm.

"Well if you must know, I was raised by ponies. my mother had the misfortune of chocking to death on molten lead when I was very young, ah memories. I got the whole giant thing from her, but apparently got the whole 'immortal God-like creature' deal from my dad's side, who since I have no memory of him, abandoned us when I was born. So after I watched mom die a horrible slow death the band of rather mean nights that caused said chocking tied me up and brought me back to their town with the hopes of turning my pelt into a throw rug.They tried every way you can imagine to kill me, drowning, clubbing,hanging, the whole lead thing again, stabbing, throwing me of a cliff, and my personal favorite, attempting to burn me alive. After this said knights gave me to the royal pony sisters as a curiosity, which wasn't much a surprise as Luna," she spat the word, "was the one who funded their little expedition in the first place.The royal pony sisters had the benevolence to trap me in a small cage and teaching me why killing ponies is bad, seeing as I was uneuthanizeable. When Princess Luna had her little genocidal mental break down, I was deployed by princess Celestia to, ironically, kill any ponies, especially Nightmare Moon, trying to break in here." Leirica's speech, like apparently everything she said, had a pre-sarcastic feel to it, with the addition of sounding preprepared. "Speaking of which, that's why I burn everyone tries to break in to vault rather than eating them, something my uncle Cerberus or my aunt Phio would do in heartbeat, because I was trained to view that killing and eating ponies is bad form. So I just vaporize them."

"But didn't you say that you eat ponies who die from falling down the shafts?" Apple Bloom questioned.

"I didn't kill them, and besides waste not want not."

"But wouldn't burning ponies alive be waste?"

"Do you want to get eaten?"

"Not really," Apple Bloom answered as if she had been asked something entirely more mundane, like "would you care to take out the trash."

"Well then heres a tip. If you live to see another monster, which if you keep walking into that lab you certainly won't, then don't ask them about their dietary habits. It will make them devour you in a heartbeat. Oh, I just thought of a question for you, did Nightmare Moon return yet."

"Yep me and Sweetie Belle's sisters beat her."

"Damn you're the sisters of the elements of Harmony," for the first time since the fillies had stated walking, The Chimera's face showed something other than absolute boredom. "It's a good thing I din't incinerate you, that would be awkward to explain. You three still sure about listening to that beach ball? If you stay put a search party will probably find you. Hell they might even bother getting me out of here if I play my cards right."

Scootaloo spat Rick out. "That sounds like the best idea I've heard all day!" the pegasus shouted in order to be sure she was heard.

"Yah," Sweetie Belle added, "All this walking sucks."

"Ya'll are right," Apple Bloom concluded. "Ah' don't think we were cut out for this adventure stuff."

"Whoah! what?," the personality core questioned as he suddenly burst to life. "How can you just give up on adventure? That's crazy!

"You really should stop listening to him you know," Leirica commented.

"Come on now, Don't chicken out on me! We were just going to go on an awesome adventure?

"Well ya' did least right into the ever free forest," the earth filly pointed out.

"And almost get us eaten by wolves," the unicorn added.

"And almost get us burned alive!" the pegasus of the group exclaimed.

"And almost lead them into an incredibly lethal death trap," the chimera finished.

"What? But that's the whole fun of Adventure, the dangerous dangers along the way!

"But you didn't prepare for this 'adventure' enough," Leirica said pointedly. "I am guessing he was the one who decided you should dress like Daring Do?" All three Crusaders nodded. "You need to dress warmly when going cave exploring, these things go all the way down to sixty degrees if there isn't a million candles and a fire beast heating to place up." Leirica rolled over and stood up to emphasize this point. "Caves are also normally damp so you would to wear something water proof, which those costumes are clearly not. Wow you fillies really need to be more careful with who you listen to from now on."

"Hey that would make a great letter to the Princess," Sweetie Belle commented.

"Bunch of Chickens."

"Hey I'm not a chicken!" Scootaloo defended.

"Yah, yah whatever. doesn't like adventure... Rick likely would have continued grumbling had he not been cut off by a sharp loud screech that emanated from his body. "Oh hey good news the boss lady found a short cut so we don't have to do all this walking."

As soon as this was said the hallway Leirica had said led to the laboratory glowed in a blue light. A blue ball of light shot out of the hallway and quickly hit the floor, leaving a flowing blue oval one pony length long where it hit. Before anyone could question this all but the borders of the blue border gave away into what looked like some kind kind of projection. An instant latter a powerful wind started sucking everything in the room toward the oval.

"What the hell is that thing!?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"It's a portal, duh," The sphere said as he was sucked into the annomally.

"Ahhhhhhh!" all three fillies screamed as they fallowed suit.

The blue hole to no where continued sucking for about a minute after the fillies were gone, before simply collapsing as suddenly as it had come.

Leirica stared at the spot on the floor where all this had occurred for a good ten minutes without doing anything. Finally she resolved to slide one massive paw confirming that there was truly nothing there.

The screaming didn't stop after the three fillies passed through the blue hole in the floor. Now they were in a pipe, traveling at an alarmingly fast rate. Somehow they had fallen through the floor into a glass air pipe. Somehow there was the Laboratory Leirica had mentioned, filled with rooms on rails just like she had said, traveling by the glass. Somehow this giant facility must have been separated by a paper thin layer that the pipe had sucked out, that made sense right?

"Look the boss lady really freaked out when I told her you might chicken out. So she found an automated portal gun and liked it to this Pneumatic tube. She's also telling me that she's going to make this as simple as possible since you three are such cowards. So just hold tight and we'll be there really soon.