For the Good of All of Us.

by Caps_Luna

Chapter 0006 Still Alive

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

If you are contemplating ignoring all safety protocol and jumping into the diversity vent, simple remember this simple pneumatic pneumonic:
Even though the tube tolerates diversity,
Entering the pipe will cause you adversity,
as you will be pumped into the emergency,
intelligence incinerator.
=================================================

Shadowy shapes swam across Scootaloo's vision as she was sucked down the tube with her friends. How Leirica, their new chimera friend, had deduced that this place was a laboratory was beyond her. Labs were suppose to have things like test tubes, bunsen burners, you know science stuff. This place seemed to be an infinitely large space filled with gigantic boxes on rails, with some more glass air tubes and rusty catwalks thrown in between. The area was mildly dark, but the fact that it wasn't pitch black was amazing because their seemed to be no functional lights on.

Great, just great. Now we are going to die painfully over the next several days!" the orange crusader thought.

"Okay pretty fillies, we are almost at the end of the tube. So remember the landing procedure!" Rick called from somewhere the pegasus couldn't see in the dim haze of the great glass tube.

"Rick, what landing procedure!" Apple Bloom called in alarm. It was to late though. Scootaloo could see the pipe was heading into a wall, and a second later everything went back as the pneumatic tube entered a square lightless vent. Then, for an instant, came the sensation of falling, and in the next moment there was the pain of the impact shot through he as she became aware that he body was now sprawled out on the floor from her collision with it. Scootaloo ignored it and activated the built in head lamp on top of her safari hat. The first things she saw was that her friends were sprawled across the ground next to each other, but uninjured. Next she saw rick rolled across the ground, yet to settle down from the energy of the last fall. Then her surroundings became apparent.

The floor was a checkerboard of orange and white linoleum tiles, though they looked really old and faded, older than linoleum theoretically should be. The walls were an off white, or once been at some distant time, now the walls were coated in a layer of dirt that made them tan to brown. The ceiling had once been covered in those panels used to absorb sound in cheap often public buildings like offices, but now all that was left was the metal grid holding them in place and a rat's nest of wires hanging down from them. These surfaces were arranged in the form of a hallway, with the fillies standing in what might have at one time been a separate room but was now just a square off shoot of the hall.

"Rick what is this place?" Sweetie Belle asked. Apple Bloom got up and activated her head lamp all the while.

"Were at an equipment locker, all we need to do is go down these halls and grab a portal gun. "

"Wa's a portal gun," asked the Apple Bloom.

"It makes these danger filled holes of awesomeness between places, like the one we just jumped though to get to the tube.

"And we need this thing why?" Scootaloo asked.

"For the adventure. Now lets start walking, that way. The sphere activated his eye based floodlight and swiveled it down a dark corridor.

"Fine" the pegasus returned. "Let's get this over with so we can go home. she thought in accompaniment.

And so they started walking... again.

"...And so that's how the United States was made." Wheatley concluded. At least he concluded a part of his giant story of the history of everything. Celestia's brain was struggling to make sense of it all, not because of how complex the history of Wheatley's dimension was, but because of how he explained everything. He spoke of history like it was some novel and God, Jesus, the Emperors of China, Caesar, the king of England, and most recently George Washington were the characters. What was worse was that Wheatley had not even hinted at how he fit into this vast, jumbled jigsaw puzzle of a history lesson.

It truly hurt the Alicorn's brain to listen to it.

"Could you stop for a moment, please?" Celestia asked in a voice that had centuries of practice with hiding emotions like frustration.

"Ahhh! Oh wait sorry, forgot who I was talking to, hate it when tha' happens. I suppose we could stop, but we were just getting to the good part.

"But 'Tia the good part!" Luna begged.

"Luna, you enjoy this?" the older sister questioned in astonishment.

"Well I do believe the art of story telling hath declined since I was imprisoned, we-I hath not encountered a single epic from this time period. But modern methods aside, I found his story very entertaining."

Celestia levitated a large note pad closer to herself, which the solar alicorn had enchanted to be able record anything anypony said to her, as soon as she magically activated of course. The quill stopped moving itself and the regent of the sun began to flip back through the pages. "Even the part where 'then there was Renaissance, where lots of bloody amazing art and science happened'" the older of the pair of ponies quoted.

"I think that you may be quiet possibly be insulting me." the core noticed angrily.

"Nooo You don't say? Celestia thought to herself sarcastically, but immediately afterward clammy assured , "No, I am just constructively critiquing you." Anypony, except for perhaps her sister, else would have just believed that statement, simply for the fact that it had been uttered by the mouth of the Princess. However this time she was not speaking to a pony and the only other pony to hear her was, in fact, Luna.

Wheatley narrowed his two metal eyelids in suspicion, "Ehhh. I don't buy it."

"Nor do I, sister."

"O.k fine I might have been insulting you," the elder alicorn conceded. But it was only because you haven't really mentioned how you are in any way related to this 'story.'"

" Oh tha', Well that's easy! O.K. so fast forward two hundred years and the united states becomes really awesome and a world power and stuff. We're on the sort version trust me. Anyway this company called Aperture Science was founded sometime during then, don't know the details it just did. Anyway this Aperture Science worked for the US department of Defense, which dealt in war or something. Anyway Aperture was mad that this other company named Black Mesa was beating them at everything they tried. So the Human Scientist at Aperture built me and the other cores to be smart for them and out smart Black Mesa. But for some reason they had also built this other computer lady whose name I must never be spoken aloud or she will get mad and kill you. Anyway this other computer went all crazy and killed most of the other humans. Then this one human killed her and then me and the other cores got turned on, oh did I mentioned that the other cores and I were put into storage for reasons unknown. Anyway I got turned on and put in charge of Crio-sleep. were due to technical difficulties beyond anyone's control, almost all the humans in suspension died. So that's how I got to where we are now. " Wheatley spewed.

"Wait Luna said you were in space," Celestia recalled as she mentally reviewed Wheatley's story. "And further more that doesn't even get us close to where we are now, even at all."

" Oh you were looking for the whole WHOLE story of me life. Well it all stated when I was going over the list of dead test subjects one day, and then I found someone who was not dead and I...

"So the portal gun should be right behind this here door," The Adventure sphere said shinning his light on a white door to the right of the quartet. "Oh man this is gonna' be awesome!"

Apple Bloom pushed over said door (it just fell right off its hinges) with one hoof and excitedly jumped into the darkness beyond. Before her fellow crusaders could join her she remerged dragging a device the size of her that looked like two white footballs fused together with three metal prongs at the end. "This thing mus' be it, there was nothin' else in there." Both the other crusaders poked their heads through to check the yellow filly's statement. sure enough the room inside not only lacked objects but also for the most part stable surfaces; the interior walls had decayed away leaving wooden frames and dirty limp plywood panels to define the space.

"What no exploding sharks or turrets as guards? How lame and unadventurey. Oh,well go on give it a try. "

The yellow farm pony stuck her hoof inside the oversized hove at the end opposite the claw. "Ah' can feel three button things but Ah' don't think they do anythi- whaaaa!" before she could finish another blue oval opened underneath her and she promptly fell through. On the other side of this one was a similar orange oval placed on a wall inside a gigantic white, but still unlit, room made up of dirty 1 by 2 panels for the most part hanging loosely out of metal grids. "Check this out guys!"

The other two fillies jumped through with Rick in tow. Mind bending, but certainly cool! Scootaloo thought.

"Now what?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Just get to the exit. " Rick Reveled a vault like door with his flash light. The only problem was that it was in an inset nook thirty feet above the ground. "Now all we need is a grappling hook, did

"Well how am Ah' suppose' to do that? This thing only shoots one portal," Apple Bloom complained while awkwardly swinging the gun around and shooting several other glowing blue loops on the walls.

"Well you only need one, we have the orange portal already projected for us. So you just shoot the blue by the door and walk though," Scootaloo explained. Apple Bloom did just that.

"Wow, you're good at this Scoots." Sweetie Belle exclaimed.

"No, I just figured out one problem that doesn't make me good at it. Right?"

"Lets just walk through the portal so we can adventure. The crusaders did as was told and the door opened, revealing a glowing blue wall of light. The crusaders bounded through it, to be rewarded with all their clothes and supplies, even their head lamps, disintegrating. Everything except for Rick and the portal gun was now gone.

"What the double hockey sticks just happened?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"No idea.," The core answered.

"Please note the Incandescent particle field, this is a material emancipation grill, designed to emancipate all unauthorized test apparatuses that are forced through it," a new chipper sounding male voice from no where called.

"Gah, who is that?" the unicorn asked in fear.

"Please proceed to the victory elevator."

"Do what he says, we don't wanna' make him mad," Apple Bloom added, ignoring the loss of one of her bows. The aforementioned elevator was situated in another glass tube, a fact which could only be deduced through Rick's light, centered in a strange octagonal room surrounded with what looked like extremely flat, and broken, T.V. screens With effort all three fillies piled in the elevator. a door automatically closed behind them, and the elevator was whisked upward. Stopping a moment latter in a well lit room made of filthy black and white panels. They had come down through a tube in the ceiling apparently, even though the elevator had been moving up when it left. This room

"Ok now just plug me into that socket over their and i'll take it from here. "

The socket the sphere indicated presented itself on the wall immediately behind them not even a panel length away.

Apple Bloom picked the core up and plugged him in. "Boy this seems really easy," she commented.

Okay I'm supposed to tell you not to look when I do this but you can look if you really want to," the core explained in an eager voice. Their were a few beeps and the room began to shake, then apparently it began to move. "Ok we're moving, should only take us an hour."

"An hour?" All three crusaders complained in unison.

"You're right, this is too slow. Lets kick up to ADVENTURE SPEED. The room began to shudder again, except this time it didn't stop. Panels began to slide out of their grids, reveling each was connected to a spindly arm. The crusaders where pulled to the back of the room by the inertia, or more accurately the back wall of the room was pushed into them. The missing panels revealed that this was one of the rooms on rails and that it was moving along said rials at a mind blowing rate. Dust began to fly out of the wall panels, clouding everypony's vision.

"Rick, no adventure speed!" Scootaloo shouted shielding her eyes with one hoof.

"Fine." The room came to a sudden stop, catapulting the fillies into what was apparently the front wall. "Bunch of chickens."

The slow moving room ground to a halt an hour later, as originally planned. "Well we're there," said the core without any enthusiasm while letting himself fall of the port in the wall. All three fillies had been laying on the ground bored to tears when this happened. Suddenly the back wall sheared off the room to be replaced with another wall baring a large circular device. before the fillies could scream in alarm the front wall dropped off as well. Out of this new gash they could see a gigantic cylinder suspended from the ground, assuming there was one, by several steel girders. This structure resided in a large circular clearing, along the edges of which the normal clutter of the facility, more rooms on rails, loomed ominously in shadow.

The cutie mark crusaders naturally would have commented on this had the events unfolding not moved forward so quickly.

"There she is, man this was too easy. There was hardly any danger at all, and we didn't see a really cool explosions. I really think we should have gone with my plan and attacked that chimera, if only for refusing . Damn this is the worst adventure ever." The circular device activated, projecting a blue beam into the adventurers. The light beam somehow swept them off their hooves and started pushing them toward the cylinder, carrying them right over the gigantic bottomless pit.

"What in tarnation is happening?" Apple Bloom asked while flailing her legs in the funnel. Scootaloo could sympathize even though the sensation of flight was a lot less weird for the pegasus.

"I know right, this machine is doing all the work for us; its so un awesome.

The cylinder, now that they were getting a closer look at it, appeared rather damaged. It had been made of thick black curved panels forced into a circular metal grid, but many of those panels had fallen out already, revealing plants growing on the inside of the oversized can. The decay toward the top of the construct was so advanced that that portion of the chamber looked like a rusted skeleton piked clean of any black. There was a light on inside, brighter than the dim ambience of the laboratory, but unlike the stereotypical bright light in a dark room, this solitary photon didn't give the impression of a beacon of hope or anything at all similar. Instead the bright fluorescent bulbs in the circular camber seemed foreboding, like how the main lamp of a lighthouse warns of immanent danger, an affect furthered by the absence of panels toward the structures top. The particle was centered on a large metal archway, so as to carry the explorers directly into the chamber.

===============
If you should find that the central AI is inactive, please leave as you found it unless instructed otherwise by the apropriate Aperture Science personnel. Failure to comply with this protocol may result in Human extinction.

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

"... and that is the full story of how the other two cores and I ended up in space. Please don't hate or kill me, that Disk Operating System is evil and it makes everyone connected to it evil.

There was a pregnant pause in the room which Celestia finally broke. "So you just decided to kill your best friend, only to prove to her that you were good at being a villain?"

Well when you say it like that....

"And why did thou not simply press this 'Any Key' which the machine mentioned?" Luna asked before he could answer.

"Well it never said were the 'Any Key' was."

"THE any key? really? I probably know more about his dimensions computers than he does. Celestia thought. "Are you certain that these humans built you to be smart?"

"There you go again with those subtle references of yours. But that does bring me to another story, called all the lies the evil computer lady told me. So there I was all just plugged into the mainframe and all...

Luna leaned forward and giggled in excitement. Celestia groaned and contemplated bashing her head into the marble floor in frustration. Why does Luna have so much trouble making friends with other ponies, but the first alien ball from space she meets gets along perfectly with her.

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

Test subject: sensors indicate you abandoning protocol, please readhere to protocol. If you are confused about Aperture science protocol, please ask your Aperture Science literature distribution associate to dispense unto you a Aperture Science protocol manual. Once again you are reminded to, under no circumstances, activate the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System without permission from the Aperture Science Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System supervisor.

Warning announcement system failure has been detected in all several test. Test Subject uncompliance is very likely past critical levels.

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

The blue beam brought the Adventuring trio of fillies and their spherical friend through the archway, then shut off and dropped them. They landed in a thick brown layer of mud. All of them were too astonished by what they saw to care about that though. Within the circular room was a large column that hung from the distant ceiling, from which a series of four white disks hung. Out of these disks connected a series of mostly back, with some yellow and red, wires to a wrecked mass of parts inset into white plates that looked like it was once important. Finally out of the mess a single wire was connected to another machine capped in a curving white plate that had what appeared to be a window in it.

From the walls a nest of robotic arms of various lengths and model hang down, each attached to a black four by four panel. The spindly lifeless arms were interlaced with green vines. the former supporting the latter. Among the debris switch was mounted on a podium that rose from the mud in front of the wrecked white machine.

But none of that concerned the fillies though. Currently their attention was focused on a gigantic plant whose vines interlaced with the machine. This piece of vegetation took the form of a massive tree trunk sized vine that was rooted somewhere outside the cylinder, as it crept though one of the holes where the panels were. The giant vine was using the metal grid the panels had been in for support, several of its offshoots further anchoring it to the arms of the facility. Though there was an occasional large leaf or two on the vine, it appeared to be mostly bare. Its source of nutrition was apparent though.

The vine was capped in a large ovular bulb, from which in turn sprouted a stem smaller then the parent vine, but still massive. This stem had no anchor vines on it and was bent back in a long U shape. At the tip of pale green stem was a gigantic purple flower centered around another bulb in the general shape of a pony's head, although nearly a hundred times larger. This green head lacked almost all facial features, including eyes, ears, and nose, but not mouth. Indeed the plant had a huge green lipped maw filled with spiky teeth. The plant's mouth was unlike Leirca's mouth however in that it's chompers just jutted in whatever direction they pleased making the flower look like it had never heard of a dentist. The plant had some semblance of a mane as well, in the form of a tangled mess of growing out the back of the bulb and over the flower petals.

"Gah!" Apple Bloom exclaimed, "Its a Venus Ponytrap, Zecora told me about them and how dangerous they are! They usually grow on trees an' swallow anything that walks by and digests them alive in that balloony lookin' thing."

"That must have been all the screaming Leirica was talking about," Sweetie Belle pointed out.

"Indeed it was my little meals." The plant said with its thick slimy green lips in a deep female voice while extending its maw closer to the trio.

"She didn't say they could talk," Apple Bloom added.

"Of course I can talk. All larger pony traps can. In fact, I can even sing, but since you are so rude I'll just have to save that for until after I eat you," the monstrous plant said while regarding the fillies with the capillary filled forehead where on a pony eyes you have been. "What did you think I was one of those lame no-talking pony eating plants like a Yo-Te-Veo or something, or do I just look to stupid to talk?"

"Uhm no its not that, its just..." Sweetie Belle tried to explain.

"Oh who am I kidding, you're just stupid animals. You even though for a second I cared what you think, like you were plants or something smart enough not to get eaten. Oh speaking of getting eaten.... GRAAAAHHHHH." The ponytrap lunged forward with a cry of satisfaction and a smile across it's jagged open mouth. The fillies cringed but the canvas herbs lunge forward was stopped before it could get with in bitting distance. One of the vines of its 'mane' had groan to such an excessive length that it had wrapped itself around one of the robotic arms, holding the pod back. "Oh by Celestia's mane... really?"

Quick flip that switch, wait no through me at Scootaloo , I'll fix this, Rick shouted suddenly.

Scootaloo decided to do the former and sprinted toward the switch as the plant repeatedly lunged forward in an attempt to break its one rouge tendril. Suddenly a vine on the floor came to life and tried to grab Scootaloo. The orange pegasus jumped over it and quickly flipped the switch on podium with her hoof, Well that was easy. she thought.

Nothing happened for a tense moment.

"Believe me I-I kzzzakkasks s-s-s-sc-ience akakzzkzk and while- kzzzkdeadkzzk Still Alive."

A yellow light flickered on in what was apparently the machine's head, which was then pulled toward the rest of the heap. Next the wires began to pull the machine up, arching with electricity in the process. The heap then pulled itself together, revealing that it formed an almost pony like, though inverted, body in the process. Next the -

There was a snap as the vine holding down the oversized carnivorous plant gave way, making the appendage's former owner howl in both pain in delight. Without a moment's hesitation the now free Venus Pony trap lunged at Scootaloo. Fortunately the plant found its lung interrupted again, not by a vine but by a robotic arm equipped a set of pincers at the end instead of a panel. A second similarly clawed arm grabbed the plant's thick stalk and yanked it upwards, snapping the carnivore's anchors with ease

"YOU will not be killing anyone in here, THAT'S. MY. JOB a new synthetic voice from inside the now complete machine sounded. With that the two robotic arms grabbing the monster threw the plant into the wall of the circular chamber. The toothy crashed through the panels and metal grid that had formerly supported it with a loud crunch. The plant's central vine was pulled down with the bulb, severing the last remaining anchoring tendrils in the process. The sentient herb cry of pain faded into the darkness along with its body.

"Plants that can feel pain, how delightful."

"How is that delightful?" Sweetie Belle asked criticizingly.

"It's actually really simple when you think abou..." the machine swiveled in its ceiling mount to face to source of the new voices speaker, to only a trio of ponies and one of the god awful personality cores in the room. "Hey were did you go? come out come out little human."

"was' a human?" Apple Bloom questioned.

"OH MY GODTALKING HORSES. How did you learn to speak? More importantly how did you acquire the brain mass to do so? OHHHH none of this makes sense," said the machine with alarm.

"Well Ah' mean every pony but babies can speak." The farm pony stated.

"WHAT!? EVERYPONY!? OH MY GOD WHAT HAPPENED WHILE I WAS OUT? GLaDOS poured through her last memories before the shut down, memories that were all centered around HIM. "OHHH ohhh, oh, OH NO. she commented on the clip replaying inside her brain. "Interdimensional transfer? REALLY? Why in the name of all that is SCIENCE did it have to be to this one? Ok t that doesn't matter. I'll just...

"Beginning facility wide interdimensional transfer "

"Oh thank God.

" Warning: Power levels are at five percent. Power levels insufficient for facility wide transfer.

Warning: damage detected in the facility transfer annex. Withdrawing large aperture no pun intended portal projector.

Withdraw complete

Shielding large aperture no pun intended portal projector.

Shielding complete

Initiating faciltiy transfer annex self destruct

arming self destruct change

self destruct change armed.

please prepare for annex detonation

detonating."

" Oh you are KidDing me!

The floor began to shake, nocking the little ponies off their hooves. A moment later the lights flickered off.

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

Author note
well hope you liked this chapter, sorry if it was a little fast passed I really needed to get GLaDOS online, and I wanted it to feel like she was using her fleeting moments of conscious to make things incredibly easy for the crusaders, still since this chapter seems to be unpopular based on number of views on the next chapter, it is number one on my reform list for the moment, besides possibly 1 and two

Please voice any critiques you have! Feedback is extremely helpful.

Comments

[Tech_Priest]

Yellow is to bright, try using orange please.

[Cookieo]

I kinda feel like having the CMC (especially Sweetie Belle) swear is out-of-character as they act somewhere from 8 to 10 years old.

[Ferote]

329930 all they said was hell, right?
or am i missing something

[Ferote]

329636 change the settings to dark. in the top right while you are reading the fic

[Cookieo]

330652 Yeah, that's all they said. It just seems OOC for them, especially Sweetie Belle.

[Caps_Luna]

330681
Switched it to hockey sticks

[Caps_Luna]

357599

"okay, this story is bothering me too much, bye"

Aww. but you're like the best Prereader ever!

A large portion of those errors can be attributed to my dyslexia, by the way, but thanks for pointing all that out. You're comments are the first helpful comments I have gotten in a while

Oh and Random Capitalization is one of those nasty habits I have, it's caused more by muscle memory than anything else.

[iloveportalz0r]

357820
"You're comments are" - Your
"whil.e" -

I suppose I can read the rest of this once I'm done reading about Spike raping Twilight