> Video Game Criss-Cross! > by Kapwnage > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > >Press Start... > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Level 1 - Ponyville Loading... Start.... "Discord!" Twilight yelled, "No!" Crash! Pieces of gem littered the grass, but soon dissipated into dust. "The elements! They're gone" "Poor Twilight, looks like you'll have to get them back." Discord grinned. "Twilight, look out!" The Doctor yelped, "Hes gonna-" Discord snapped his fingers, and Twilight and Doctor Whooves disappeared in a flash. Earlier that day... Ponyville park was packed full with colorful ponies, talking amongst themselves. The afternoon sun simmered the gravel walkways and ponies retreated to the shade under tall trees. Some colts and fillies played in the open fields, tossing around toys and tagging each other. Twilight sat happily in the sun, enjoying her lunch with Spike. He was gladly munching on a diamond, while Twilight set out the rest of the food. They also sat under a small tree, enough to shade them and their picnic. After their lunch, they would go for a walk and go down to the lake for fishing and to maybe swim. Spike couldn't wait any longer. "Don't eat so fast, Spike! Slow down. The fish aren't going anywhere." Twilight scolded. Spike forced the gem shards down his throat and burped. Twilight rolled her eyes, and finished eating her sandwich slowly, trying to set an example. "Hey," Spike pointed at something behind Twilight. "Who's that? I never remember seeing him in Ponyville." "Who?" "That pony over there." Twilight turned around, and noticed a bronze stallion, sitting and playing checkers with himself. She raised an eyebrow in curiosity. "I've never seen him either, that's strange. Maybe I should go see who he is?" "I'm surprised Pinkie Pie hasn't thrown a party yet." Twilight stood up and walked over to the stallion. She was curious who he was, seeing his cutiemark being an hourglass. He was smiling at his checkerboard. "Hello!" He said to Twilight, who was approching him. "Hi, I just noticed you from across the park and I was wondering if you're new to Ponyville." "I'm not that new here. I recall being here a few months, but i don't keep track of time." He chuckled. "Oh, I've never seen you here before." "Well," He held out a hoof, "I'm the Doctor." "Doctor who?" "I'm just the Doctor, Doctor Whooves." "Oh, so why are you playing checkers here all alone in the sun?" "I enjoy time to myself." "Alright then." She raised another eyebrow. "Care to join?" "That would be fun, I'm Twilight. Twilight Sparkle, I own the Ponyville library down the road from here." She shook his hoof. Later that day... "Check mate!" He grinned with his British accent. "I win." "But this is checkers, not chess." "Precisely." "Twilight!" Spike called from across the park, he had all of the picnic gear packed up and was slowly walking towards them. He had an annoyed grimace. "You've been over here for an hour. Let's go!" "Oh, sorry Spike. I've been playing checkers with him." "Who are you anyways?" Spike asked. "I'm the Doctor." "Doctor who?" "Doctor Whooves." "Strange name." "Spike! That's rude." "You know what else is rude? Ditching me." "Hey, it was only an hour." "I could have been fishing!" "Ok, well Doctor it's been fun. I must go now, Spike and I had an agreement to go fishing today." "Goodbye then, Twilight. Let us meet again sometime huh?" "Yes, that would be great!" ================================== Celestia had finally finished writing her letters, and settled down in her thrown. She sat happily, and relieved for getting so much work done that day. Luna had sent the guards on break and they finally could relax and have some tea. Just as she got comfortable, the window crashed open, and glass shards flew everywhere. Discord slithered in and grinned at Celestia, whom was shocked and confused. It happened so suddenly. "Discord! What are you doing here?" "What am I not doing here?" "The elements encased you in stone!" "It didn't hold me for long." He laughed. "What do you want?" "The Elements of Harmony." "You aren't getting them, Discord!" Celestia's horn started to shine and encased the room in a white glow. "Wanna bet?" He vanished, and reappeared by the vault where the Elements were located, and stuck his hand through the door, magically. He pulled his arm out and held the six, glimmering elements of harmony. "Goodbye, Celestia." "Discord! No!" ================================== "I think I caught one Twilight!" Spike yanked on his fishing pole and he struggled on the dock. "It's a big one!" "Whoa Spike!" Twilight used her magic to pull Spike back. The water slowly lifted and splashed, as a figure slowly lifted out of the water. It was a fimiliar shape, but after it shook off, she saw something she'd hope to never see in her life. Discord. "Twilight!" She was picked up by Discord. "How you been?" His breath had a disgusting stench of fish. "Discord! How did you-" "Oh come on, my dear Twilight. You think a magical stone was gonna hold me, the element of chaos?" "Put her down!" A familiar voice called out. "You mongrel!" "Who's this now?" Discord dropped Twilight in the lake and slithered out. "You overgrown rat, fight someone worth your time!" Doctor Whooves pulled out his sonic screwdriver. "Twilight, you know this kid?" Discord also scooped Whooves by the legs, but he blasted Discord in the face. He became enraged and crunched his fists, cracking the elements. Twilight finally resurfaced from the water and noticed that the the elements had fallen to the ground. "Discord!" She yelled, "No!" Crash! Pieces of gem littered the grass, but soon dissipated into dust. "The elements! They're gone!" "Poor Twilight, looks like you'll have to get them back." Discord grinned. "Twilight, look out!" The Doctor yelped, "Hes gonna-" Discord snapped his fingers, and Twilight and Doctor Whooves disappeared in a flash. He patted his hands together, and grinned devilishly at Spike. "Let's party!" He chuckled. "Oh no...." *Note: Sorry, I was kind of rushing to get this out so I can write the stories of the two ponies in video games!* > Classics > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Woosh! Twilight and the Doctor suddenly were in a black room, with neon blue walls, they seemed to glow blue which was the only light source. The ceiling was low, it was stuffy and warm, and smelt very musty. White, glowing orbs were lined up in a row in front of them. Twilight was frantically looking around, while Doctor Whooves tried to stay calm and search the surrounding area. He walked up close to one of the white, floating orbs, and touched it with his hoof. It suddenly jumped, and disappeared into the blank, black abyss. "I suddenly feel slightly more satisfied." He said with a blank expression. It seemed to Twilight that he had lost his details, his mane and body seemed one solid color. "That stupid Discord! Now were stuck here, where ever we are." Twilight raged. "The elements! He said we have to find them!" "I bet we could find one here, why else would he send us here?" "You look strange." Twilight noticed he was oddly blocky. "I look strange? Have you looked in a mirror lately?" He grunted. "Where are we?" She asked, concerned. "How would I know?" "Hey, hear that sound?" Twilight asked, hearing a strange "Waka-Waka-Waka" sound coming from around the bends in the walls. "Yeah, let's go check it out." The two lost ponies slowly trotted around the wall, they had to 'touch' the white orbs in order to pass, regardless the walls were two small to barely turn around. Down the long, black and blue corridor was a yellow dot. It got bigger and bigger, until Whooves finally realized it wasn't friendly. It's mouth was flaring wide open and chomping on the white orbs. It looked almost twice the size of them both combined, three times. "Run!" He yelped. "Problem! Coming! Big! Go!" "Problem?" "Yes, big one!" Twilight turned around and galloped as fast as she could, with Whooves straight behind her, trying to save his tail from being torn off by the crazy giant yellow monster behind them. "Look, Whooves! An element fragment! Straight ahead!" Twilight yelled from ahead. "Whooves?" Doctor Whooves was missing from behind her. The giant monster had turned a corner and lost her. She became very nervous and looked around for Whooves more, but he was nowhere to be found. "Whooves! Where are you?" "Right here." He popped up behind her. "Ahg! You scared me! Where were you?" "I don't know." "No time! It's coming back!" Both ponies, together, grabbed the element shard. Both of their vision flashed white, and something exploded around them. "Now where are we?" Twilight asked. They had regained their natural looks, but this time enclosed in a large, rectangular room. A strange music started to play in their ears. Whooves tapped the beat to the song in rhythm. "Quite catchy." He grinned. "Uh, Whooves." Twilight said, looking up. "Yes?" "I see a shard up there, but- how do we get to it?" "Uh-" Suddenly, a large red block appeared above them. It slowly started to move down, but gradually sped up. They both stepped out of the way, and it landed with a thump. The whole room shook. "I don't understand what's happening." Twilight said, growing annoyed. "It appears that a block has fallen from the ceiling. I understand completely." Whooves snickered. Twilight gave him a harsh glare. Another block formed from above, but it was green and of a different shape. Both stared at it until they had to move out of the way. More started to fall, but it took up the floorspace so the ponies had to climb the blocks. "Look up! More coming down!" Twilight pointed up. "Allons-y!" He jumped up onto the block, and waited for another to fall, using the blocks as stairs. Twilight seen his clever idea and followed. After several blocks, Twilight reached a hoof out to grab the shard but the whole tower of blocks fell straight down on top of each other. The bottom row completely disappeared. "Why did we go down?!" Twilight yelled. "We were almost there!" "Keep going!" Quickly, they both jumped on the falling blocks until reaching the top again. The row they were standing on rapidly blinked and threatened to disappear. Whooves motioned Twilight to jump for the shard. "Geronimo!" "I have a feeling this is gonna happen a lot." Twilight grunted. "I miss the music." The room was completely dark. Twilight couldn't see her own hoof in front of her face and swung around until she hit Whooves, who was looking for a way out. Like the place they had just been in, large white blocks floated far above. They were more jumpy and had a fast-paced rhythm compared to the other blocks. They jerked back and forth, slowly coming down. Large green barriers also formed above their heads, like three thick umbrellas. "I wonder what we do now." Twilight said. "I'm not gonna wait to find out!" Doctor pulled his sonic screwdriver out and shot at the falling blocks above. They exploded with a small "Bang!". One of the strange blocks dropped an even smaller block and it smacked on the green shield. A little hunk of the shield was torn away. "The things above, they are getting really close!" She yelped. Whooves continued to shoot until most of them were gone. A huge, red thing flew overhead. He aimed and fired before it, which by the time it met to the block, it blew up. "Bonus!" He grinned. After a long time of shooting and running, the Doctor had finally destroyed them all along with all of their shields. Twilight sighed heavily. A small shard fell from the sky and landed with a clinging sound. "We did it, finally!" "We?" A bright flash blinded them, and they were already in the next area. The next place they were in was stranger then all of the others, yet similar in a way. Everything was strangely blocky yet detailed and colorful. It seemed as they woke up on a beach. *Note: Desperately looking for pre-readers! (Which I don't have right now.) Can't publish as fast without them. This chapter is mainly to introduce how teleporting works, and to honor all the old arcade games we know and love :3 Sorry I did a speed type of them last night and continued on today, so that's why they are so short and because they are so simple, I combined them in one chapter. Loving the comments! Keep them up, you guys have recommended so many awesome games that I'm gonna use now! Still accepting ideas though.* > Minecraft > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight woke up to a strange sound. It was a familiar sound that only brought her mind to Fluttershy. She opened her eyes and picked her head up, seeing a chicken, or what seemed like a chicken."Bawk-Bawk-Bawk" It stared at her for a minute, and wondered aimlessly into the water. She had woken up on a beach, alongside what seemed to be the Doctor. His body was very strange, even blocky. Deja Vu, she thought. Everywhere shes been today, everything has seemed so strange and made of blocks. He laid stone cold by the shoreline; motionless. She poked him, but no prevail. He even started to snore a bit, so she decided to check things out alone. First thing she saw was how the sand was neatly packed into blocks, and how the grass was flat and perfectly all the same size. The trees were even stranger, the leaves also packed in neat blocks. They still had detail, though, she could still make out what the blocks were made of. Confused, she walked up to the edge of a block of grass, and slowly poked it. It, like what grass would do, did nothing. She even went so far as to sniff it, though it smelt like any regular plant. Satisfied that it was safe, she trotted further into the forest. The only thing she heard was her own footsteps, and the occasional squawk of the chicken back on shore. It continued to splash around in the water until jumping out and walking over the Doctor. "A chicken?" Doctor said, getting up and pushing the chicken off. "What a strange looking chicken- or duck- thing." He walked around, looking at the strange scenery until he spotted Twilight, who was staring at a tree. "Now who's the one looking weird?" "I-" She looked at her hooves, they were square, just like the Doctor. She looked back at the rest of her body, which was also very edgy. Her cutie mark was obscured and had a low definite shape. Most of her body was made of what seemed conjoined purple boxes. She had no fur, but still felt soft. This creeped her out. "I like it here, it's rather different." The Doctor said, inspecting the grass. He looked at his hooves. "Wow, this is cool!" He started to dig at the grass. "What are you doing?" Asked Twilight, watching him dig into the grass. "I think-" "Yes?" She leaned closer. "I think-" "Yes-" Closer. "I think this is grass." "Kinda already established that." She huffed enthusiastically and trotted over to the sand on the beach. She smacked at it. Little cracks formed, until it also busted into a smaller, compact version of the larger block. It didn't change from the larger version at all, despite size and lack of gravity. It simply floated in front of her; spinning. "This place is so strange!" "It seems to lack the gravitation it needs to fall, but why would it get smaller?" He crouched down and pulled out a random pair of glasses. "Where did you get those?" "Saddlebag, pockets are bigger on the inside." "Where did the saddlebag come from?" "I had this the whole time!" "No you didn't, I never saw it before." "Oy, pay attention then!" Doctor gave her a devious grin, and turned around to trot away towards the forest. The Doctor looked around and glanced at the trees. He looked up into the sky, noticing only one sun, even though it was also square. Strange, he thought, never seen a square sun. For a timelord, it was amazing to find something he hadn't already knew about. Twilight followed right behind him, also staring at the scenery. "Hm, a square sun?" Twilight noticed, "What isn't square?" "Actually, they are cubes." "You get my point." Doctor nodded, chuckling. "You have a lot to learn Twilight Sparkle." "What's that mean?" "Well I'm not calling you stupid if you're going to take it that way." Doctor pulled out his sonic screw driver and pressed a button. The tip of it glowed blue as he scanned the landscape. "It's all natural!" "This is unreal!" "It's real all right, haven't you ever seen a different world? Oh wait, of course, ponykind. Such primitive, amazing creatures. Like humans." "What?" "Nothing- Allons-y!" He busted into a gallop down the land and through the forest. "Doctor, wait up!" They ran down hills, through fields, and walked through a swamp. Twilight looked disgusted at the dirty, mucky swamp water, but it was surprisingly clean. The dirt seemed to not escape it's neatly packed blocks. Doctor kept scanning around, and bolting off in a random direction. They ran and ran until Doctor finally stopped in another forest. He stomped around and put his sonic device back. "Damn!" He cursed in his British accent. "What? What's wrong?" "We went in a big circle and the shard is not anywhere in sight, or sonic beam." He moaned. "Well, we can find it, can't we?" Doctor frowned. "Not unless you plan to be out in the dark." He pointed towards the sky, it was a tinted dark blue along with orange. "Wait, where do we go?" "If only I had the Tardis!" He began to smack into the soft, squishy grass. It busted into another single piece of dirt and he threw it aside. He did the same thing, over and over until he had a considerably deep hole. For a moment, only digging could be heard, then he poked his head out from a makeshift dirt staircase. He had made a reasonably large underground hole to protect Twilight and him from whatever was out there. He waved her down. "Wha- How?" "Ah! That's the beauty of finding new things, is finding out how they work!" He shoved a dirt block where the stair case was. "Makes things fun!" "How do we get out?" Twilight worried. "Bust this block and viola!" "Oh- Ok, uh, what do we do now? It's completely dark down here." "This is all I can do-" He pulled out his sonic screwdriver and shot it at the center of the room. It lightly blasted a bright, blue light and a dim orb floated in the air; lighting up the dirt room enough to see. The unicorn and timelord were nudged very close to each other in the small dirt hole. Doctor perked up his ears and listened through the one block layer of grass that covered them. Light patters of footsteps could be heard above. "Shh-" Hushed the Doctor. Twilight's heart was racing as she listened to it get closer and closer, but it they both sighed in relief when they heard, "Bawk-Bawk-Bawk". "See?" Doctor perked up and grinned, "I told you it's-" "Buahhhhh-" Something moaned. "Doctor are you alright?" "I'm fine, but you don't sound to good. We aren't THAT close together." "Gah! That was you!" She heavily blushed. "Buahhhhh! Rawhg!" Something outside garbled, it sounded like it was choking. "Doctor!" "Shhh!" Doctor put a hoof over Twilight's mouth tightly and held it there until she remembered to hush. "Stay here." Doctor slowly busted the dirt block and sneaked out of the hole. "Wait, where are you going?!" Twilight whispered loudly, her voice squeaked a bit. Doctor peeked out of the hole and looked around. Another roar of the beast warned him, but it was so close though he couldent tell where it was. That was, until he turned around. A big human looking beast stood in front of him in terror. Doctor's eyes went wide and he jumped out into a gallop. The beast followed behind. He ran behind trees, leaped over rivers, and even tried climbing a small hill, but the human/green thingy hybrid followed behind with no signs of fatigue. "Wow! You're beautiful!" Doctor said, smiling at the beast, puffing for air. "The ultimate predator!" The creature simply stared at him and growled. "Too bad you're not a genius like me." Doctor grinned and walked backwards, the creature followed but fell into a hole the Doctor had made while he ran around. It tried to hop out, but wasn't tall enough. "Doctor!" Twilight said, running after him. "Whoa-oh-oh, watch out there! The trap-" He pointed. "Ugh! What is that thing?" Twilight recoiled at it's revolting smell. "I have no clue, but it's not normally native to this world." "How can you tell?" "Just look at it! Cuts, burn wounds, even looks like it had a major brain malfunction! This thing is the living dead if you ask me. I think-" He rubbed his chin in thought, "I think that it lost it's kidney back there, couldn't see what it dropped." "That's disgusting." "It looks human." ======================== Doctor woke up the next morning, or what felt like morning. He never liked sleeping, it wasted time to adventure and explore the universe. He struggled to get up, but was stuck down by a force. It was a soft force, though, and warm. He could tell what it was and even blushed slightly. Last night, he had fallen asleep laying down picking at his sonic screwdiver, Twilight cuddled up on the opposite side of the hole. She must have shifted and moved in her sleep. Her hooves wrapped tighter around his waste, causing him to jump a bit. "Uh- Twilight?" He poked, smiling. His British accent garbled from sleep. "Hey- wake up." "Whuu-ar I'm trying to sleep Spike!" She mumbled, causing him to chuckled. He patted her back and set his head down, trying to relax. "MOOOO!!!" "AHG!" Twilight jumped up, smacking her head on the dirt roof. She winced in pain and looked up, scared. "What was that?!" Doctor looked at her, then at the ceiling, then at her, then back at the ceiling, "I don't think I've ever seen a pony move that fast!" He snickered. "Doctor!" "Alright! Alright! Let's see-" He, again, removed the dirt block; reveling hot sunlight. He winced and blinked his watering eyes and climbed out of the hole. He saw two square looking pigs, what appears to be a sheep, and a strange brown and white box with long legs. He walked up to it and poked at it's hide, causing it to make more noise. "MOOOO!!!!" It moaned. "It's a cow! I love cows!" Doctor said, grinning. "They are such chunky fellas." "Wow, they look just like real cows- except the fact that they are square." "Hmm-" He scanned the creature with his sonic device, "It's natural." "What else would it be?" "Alien." Around what seemed like two hours of walking around, Doctor and Twilight finally stopped by a small, thin river. Twilight sopped at the water with her lapping tongue and came up for air. "Yeesh, manners Twilight, manners!" "Sorry, it's hot out." Doctor's stomach rumbled loudly, and he smiled, looking around. "Well now, where to find food." "Doctor, trees." "Oh right, good call Twilight." He walked over to a tree and looked up at it's square leaves. He looked for anything edible, but saw nothing. He walked around the base of the tree and stroked it slowly. "What are you doing?" "Looking for food." "By rubbing a tree?" "Well-" He lifted up his hoof and punched the tree's hard bark as hard as he could. It cracked and pieces of fresh bark flew everywhere. He continued to do this until it broke and popped off the tree, becoming smaller and floating. "What... What? What?!" He frantically looked at the tree and the floating block, and at the leaves. "Ok now this is crazy!" "Its.... floating?" Twilight's jaw was agape. Doctor couldn't resist but to scan it with his sonic screwdriver. It read as natural as any tree would be. He looked at it and scanned and scanned and scanned. It took him what seemed like an eternity to realized it was the same results each time. Natural: Tree: Plant species: Found on Earth. Annoyed, he broke another block, and another block, and another until the whole tree was gone except the leaves. They simply floated there, untouched by gravity. "I officially don't like this place. It's impossible!" An apple fell down off the tree and Doctor stared at it, in shock. "Now where in hell did that thing come from?" "Doctor, forget about logic right now! I'm starving!" Twilight moaned and clutched her stomach. "But Twilight, there's only one apple." "Oh, uh- you found it. You can have it." "No no no, I can wait." "I insist Doctor!" In good deed, Doctor tossed the apple to the starving Twilight. She nodded and gratefully enjoyed it. "It tastes- like any normal apple, though it's all flat!" "Yeah, even more strange! Fascinating though!" "Uh Doctor- Green thing!" Twilight pointed at him. "Yeah I know, the leaves! They are so weird how they just float like that." He continued to look at her. "No! I mean, green thing! Behind you!" "Yeah, that's just floating leaves." "No! Doctor! Look out!" "SssSsssSSsssSSSSSSssssssss" BOOOOM! ============= "D----" ... "Do---" ... "Doctor! Get up!" Twilight stood over the Doctor, who was again laying in the soft, warm sand near the sea, er, body of water. She poked him. "Mmhh, spacetimecontinuum, Mhmm, biggerontheinside," He dreamily chuckled, "Not-ginger, rude, rudeandnotginger-" Twilight just stared at him. "DOCTOR!" "I SURRENDER!" "What?" "Huh, where am- oh right. Discord sent us both into different worlds and we were chased by a fat yellow alien, thrown around on giant blocks, and attacked by space ships. Now that thing blew us up and I'm finally dead right?" "Uh, no, we're fine." "Hmm," Doctor felt his hearts, bum-bum-bum-bum, they drummed. "Both working." He flashed a smile and jumped up. "How'd I get here? On the beach?" "You just kinda, were here." "Impossible, this is the exact same spot we woke up before." "Yeah, strange." "Wait," He looked up at the sky, it was glowing orange with a tint of red. "How long was I out?" "I just found you here, I've only been walking like five minutes." "It was midday when that explosion- wait, five minutes? Impossible!" "This place is weird, Doctor. We should try to get out as fast as possible." "Agreed, but I want to check out that explosion." He galloped back to the forest. ============= The crater was semi-large, two layers of dirt off the surface were destroyed, though smaller, item-like versions floated around aimlessly. Doctor picked them up and set them in his bag. A nearby tree had also fallen down, seeing the blocks of wood scattered about he also picked them up. Leaves floated strangely above his head and slowly dissipated block by block. Back at the crater, Doctor scanned for any signs of danger such as radiation or atomic levels. Nothing, it was just an explosion of gasses beyond what the sonic screwdriver knew. "There was this- thing- before the explosion." Twilight said. "Thing?" "It was long and green, somewhat twice our height. It hissed, then it grew really big and- uh, flashed white." "What do you mean, flashed?" "Literally, it inflated and started blinking on and off, then it exploded." "What else?" "I don't know, I think it had four legs but they were like stumps!" She explained, "It's face was scary, almost sad. The frown on that thing." She shivered. Without noticing, the night had grown on the sky. Only a blue light from the moon made it able to see, but barely. Doctor used his screwdriver to light up what was around him. "It's dark- already." Twilight said, looking at the stars. They were square and blocky, like everything else. "A cubed moon, that's a new one." Doctor grinned. Out of nowhere, something smacked the Doctor from behind. He bucked back and kicked his attacker, it fell over with a thud, turned fully red and disappeared in a cloud of smoke. The sudden change of mood caused him to drop his screwdriver. He dropped down to the grass, but something dropped onto his back. It's long legs wrapped around his back and bit into his neck but he tilted his rear and threw it off. The creature hissed and jumped back at him. "EEEEP!" Twilight jumped. She pointed at the large, black spider. It's black body launched at her but she jumped out of the way. The spider was purely black and hair, with a coat of brown; the eyes on the thing was enough to scare even the largest, bravest stallions. "It's an ambush! Get back to the hole!" Doctor yelled. "Where's that at?!" Twilight yelled back, kicking at the Spider and the other enemy behind her. "This way!" Doctor yanked his sonic device out of the dirt and ran. "Allons-y!" He bolted into the mesh of trees, Twilight in pursuit behind. The creatures of the night chased them, pattering in the dirt. Just as things couldn't get worst this creature jumps out of the trees and shoots at them! It looked like a skeleton, having no meat on it's bare, dirty bones. Arrows flew past as the skeleton fired them, one even hitting the knee of the green creatures behind. The creature just moaned and limped after Twilight and the galloping Doctor. Seeing no other solution, Doctor jumped up and fell over the skeleton. It broken into dust. He picked up the bow and arrow and shot at the pursers. The spider died in mid air, while the moaning, zombie-like creature was shot right between the eyes. "Where'd you learn to shoot like that?!" "I didn't! Run!" ============= "I think we got away." Twilight huffed, breathing heavily. "Good aim!" "Hah, thanks." "Let's not do any more running." She fell down on the soft dirt of the hole. "Running is the best part!" He flashed his famous, "I'm clever!" smiles. "Oh," She huffed again, sarcastically. "Sure is." She yawned wide and collapsed. Doctor looked down at the dirt and examined it. He put his head down to it and patted. Under neath, an echo returned the taps. He raised his eyebrows in curiosity. "A cave?" ============= Clunk! The doctor fell down below, he didn't expect it to be just one layer of block. "Note to self, never dig straight down." He walked down the freezing dark cave. He turned on his sonic screwdriver for light, and instantly saw something on the walls. It was black and dusty, and in chunks. From his perspective, it looked like coal! If he could harness the coal, and start a fire, he could make torches for light, but what would he use to extract the coal from the stone? Instantly, he formulated an equation in his mind: ([Wood + Wood = tools] Work area + Tools = effective mining instrument) = Coal He began to work, setting up his collected wood into planks, by setting them in a pattern. This was defying physics, but so does half the stuff, er, all the stuff in this world. He then set his planks in a 2x2 area on the floor, that suddenly turned into a workbench. As crazy as this sounds, it just popped up in his bag, so he set it down. It grew five times the size the little item-block was, as does all the blocks in this insane universe. The workbench was equipped with a saw and a hammer, so he began work on a wooden pickaxe. Doctor lifted his newly formed tool and smacked at the stone until it broke into a single coal piece. This made it so much easier in this universe, he wouldn't have to separate the stone manually. He then used the extra wooden sticks to form a torch. Even crazier than the workbench, the torch suddenly was on fire. Shrugging it off, he stuck it on the wall. "Let there be light!" He chuckled. Doctor looked around precariously, slowly mining at another vein of coal ore. He plonked another torch on the wall, lighting up the cavern ahead. He was still somewhat near surface, because he had not gone down more than five blocks deep. A nearby water block created a long strand of blue liquid, and puddled at the end. He thought of going back, but the dark cave ahead held on to his curiosity. He continued down into the cave. ------------------------------- "Ugh- It's dark in here in here." Twilight blinked in the darkness, she looked up. "Doctor?" She noticed a small hole in the ground, where Doctor had sat. She investigated, and jumped down. Immediately, she saw another block, but it had a 3x3 grid pattern on top. Torches lit the cave walls, and led down deeper. She looked around again, noticing holes in the cave walls. She had an idea that the Doctor was on to something. She shrugged it off and traveled down into the lit part of the cave. ------------------------------- The distant sound of a hissing spider caused the Doctor to jump. He looked around, but saw nothing. Stone pickaxe in hoof, he continued until a thick stream of lava blocked his path. There was no other way around, so he placed a block over it, and walked across. "Muahhhh!" Doctor jumped, another green monster was slowly walking towards him, threatening to push him into the lava. With no other way, he waited for it to get closer and pushed it into the lava. It yelped in pain, and flashed red until finally poofing into nothing. With that random attack, he wanted a weapon. He checked his supplies, 10 logs, 2 planks, 5 sticks, 63 cobblestone, 5 iron ore, a stone pickaxe, and a half-broken wooden pickaxe. He quickly crafted another craftingbench and made a stone sword. Though illogical, cutting stone and making it into a sharp object, but whatever; nothing in this world seemed possible anyways. After a few minutes of surveying, he trotted around and found his way into a mineshaft. The wood overhangs made him feel claustrophobic. "SsSSssssSSsssss!" "Gah! Not today!" Doctor swung around and smacked his not-so-sharp sword into the green, exploding creature. It flashed red, and ran after him. He swooped at it again, but it inflated and blinked white. *Ba-Boom*! ------------------------------- A sudden, nearby explosion made Twilight shriek. She couldn't tell where it came from. She increased her speed, and hopped down over blocks of stone and gravel until finally crossing lava and seeing the scattered pieces of little, floating stone blocks. Doctor had flown across the cave and slammed into the wall. For some reason, it didn't really cause pain but he didn't feel very good. He actually was more hungry all of the sudden. Inspecting the explosion area, he noticed scattered pieces of little, floating stone blocks. Something else was moving across the cave, he set a torch down. "AHhhhh!" Twilight yelled. Doctor jumped back. "Oh, it's just you." 'What are you- Are you following me?" He said. "Um, no- Erm, I was checking out the random hole in our... place." Twilight smirked. "Another one of those things?" "Yeah, I can't stand 'em. I would say they're worst than Cybermen." "Cyber-wha?" "Never mind- C'mon, I thought I saw light over there." They walked even deeper into the cave, a series of tunnels and even at one point swimming "UP" a waterfall. They traveled for what felt like hours until finally hitting something worth checking out. Doctor gave Twilight another stone pickaxe and told her to dig one way, he would dig another. "Why exactly are we mining again?" Twilight asked. "Maybe we will run into something that can give us a hint on finding the next shard." "You think we'll find it randomly digging in the ground?" "Who knows, maybe we'll find something we can use!" "Alright then." ------------------------------- *Clunk* *Clunk* *Pop!* Twilight saw light, she dug out and found a huge cavern, the floor was made of lava. "Uh, Doctor! You might wanna come check this out!" "What is it?" Doctor called out from a distant tunnel. "Just come see it." "Whoa, this is really something." "Hey wait, look!" Across the long, narrow crevice was a block that neither Twilight or Doctor had seen. It was a cyan blue, encased in stone. An instant thought popped up in Twilight's head. "That's gotta be a shard!" "Doesn't look like a shard to me." Doctor said, "But I bet it can help us!" "How do we get across? It's all lava!" "Hey wait, what about that water we came up?" "But how do we get it all the way over here?" "A bucket!" "How do we do that?" "Well I have iron, we can melt it into a bucket!" "And how do you suppose we do that?" Twilight thought his idea was somewhat making sense. "Hmm." He plonked down his crafting table again, and shaped the cobblestone blocks into a square. "Aha!" He set down the furnace and put in the iron, and the coal he had found. A fire had started and began to melt the iron. "Perfect. Now we wai- Never mind it's done." "That was quick." Twilight said. Doctor went back to his crafting bench and tried different combinations until he had made a bucket. He ran back, filled it up, and met back with Twilight. He tried dumping the water out over the lava, but it was even dripping out. "Um." Doctor was confused. "This is a new one." "The water is.... stuck?" "Yeah, as if it couldn't get any stranger." He tried splashing it against the wall, and it instantly formed a whole waterfall and dumped into the lava below. Loud hissing of hardening lava filled the cave, and created a new, purple block. "Wow, that one bucket of water did that, too." Doctor was astonished. "Well c'mon! I want to get out of here!" Twilight jumped down and bolted towards the diamond. With the extra iron, Doctor quickly made another pickaxe. "Almost there!" Twilight ran faster, Doctor tagging behind. Suddenly, she stopped. He almost ran into her, but skidded and ran onto a patch of dirt. "Why did you stop?" "Look!" Aside the diamond blocks, was a figure. It stood and looked around, aimlessly. Doctor placed another torch on the ground, and looked up at it. It was black, and very tall. It's purple eyes glowed in the torchlight. The creature slowly walked around, doing nothing until suddenly turning around and staring at Twilight. It's mouth was agape and it's scary emotionless face seemed to be screaming, but it remained quiet. Twilight became very nervous, and backed up. It remained still, shaking, and continued staring until finally breaking into a sprint. "Twilight!" Doctor yelled, pulling out his sword. He ran after the creature and smacked it. "Urp! Tark!" The creature sounded similar to a telephone. It retaliated and hit Doctor, pushing him back. Twilight noticed the Doctor was flashing red. Without warning, it vanished in a purple flash, and reappeared behind Twilight. Doctor shrugged off his low health and attacked it again. With one more swing, the creature fell over and vanished in white smoke. "What was that?!" Twilight said, looking around for more but saw darkness. "I don't know, but I don't feel so well." Doctor switched to his iron pickaxe and mined the diamonds. Seven pieces plopped into his inventory (bag). Quickly, he went back to his crafting bench and made more tools. A pickaxe and another sword, but made of raw diamonds. "Doctor, do you see that?" Twilight pointed even further down the crevice at a glowing rectangle. "It's a portal!" "How do you know that?" "I don't." Doctor galloped at the portal, "It's our only lead, Allons-y!" He jumped into the portal and instantly vanished. Twilight was hesitant, but followed behind. ------------------------------- Fire, red-stone, and lava. That was all Doctor could see outside of the portal. The roar of creatures was all he could made out, and what seemed like crying stone. Twilight suddenly appeared in the portal and stepped out. "Whoa, what in the world?" She said, amazed. "Before you ask, I don't know where we are." Doctor said, "But all I can say is, hell." Doctor walked ahead and jumped down onto a patch of more red rock, looking around he saw a chest. He bumped Twilight and pointed. "That what we're looking for!" "How do you know?" "I don't, but it worked last time. Allons-y!" "I hate it when you do that!" She galloped behind him. Suddenly, large balls of fire exploded behind Twilight. Doctor looked up, and above the sea of lava was a large mass of white and ugly. Its frowned face spit fireballs at Doctor, and crashed into gravel ceiling. A huge chuck fell down, in which Twilight just dodged. Reaching the chest, he quickly yanked it open and grinned. "How can you be smiling at a time like this?!" Twilight yelled, still running towards him. She noticed a shard of pink in his hooves. "Oh thank Celestia!" She reached towards the shard; both the Doctor and her suddenly vanished. The ghast was left wondering what the heck just happened. ------------------------------- "Now where are we?" Doctor sighed. He stood up and looked around. A strange, robotic voice spoke on the intercoms, "Hello and welcome to Aperture Science enrichment center." > Portal > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The room was a bright white, and the glare hurt the Doctors eyes. He squinted to see what was in front of him. He walked forward. After his eyes adjusted, he looked around. Twilight got up after him. They didn't say a word, but instead looked around. The room looked "Half put together" like someone rushed the construction. "Where are we now?" She asked. "You know, every time you ask me, 'Where are we now?', my answer is always going to be, 'I don't know.'. So the next time you ask that, remember. I know as much as you do." "Your the one that knows everything, Doctor." 'We need to find a way out of this room." The Doctor squinted his eyes. He saw a strange, gun-looking device laying on the concrete ground. He scanned it with his sonic screwdriver and it blinked back. Its not radioactive, he thought. The trigger was odd and did not work with his hoof. It didn't fit because it was a weapon designed for humans. It would have been a perfect fit if he hadn't regenerated into a pony. "Hello and welcome to Aperture Science Enrichment Center, we hope that your time- ZZzT! Time-time-time- Was pleasant bZzZzt!" The intercom glitched. "Oh no, errors. Looks like testing will have to be stopped for the time being." "It seems-" The doctor squinted more and scanned the ceiling with his sonic screwdriver. "-the AI system has a small error." "What does it mean by testing will have to be stopped?" Twilight wondered. "Releasing neurotoxins. Goodbye." The intercom rang. "Or, a substantial system failure. When will you mortals learn that robots are dangerous and unstable?" The doctor grimaced and paced. Twilight walked around the white, square room. She noticed a blue dotted line, connecting from a large button to what seemed like to be automated doors. "Hey what about this?" She asked. The Doctor walked over to the button and stepped on it, with a bit of force. The door shuttered and slid open. He lifted his foot and the door quickly slammed shut. "Ah, a button. I'm guessing that device over there has something to do with it." "What device?" Twilight looked around, the room was very bright. "Over there, the white one." "Oh, is it safe?" "Perfectly safe." She picked it up with her magic and brought it closer, feeling it with the magical waves. It slightly sapped her energy, which was strange. Only things with dimensional qualities would do that. It had three triggers, primary, secondary, and something else. She pointed it away from the two ponies and pulled the first trigger. It spit out a strange blue projectile, and splattered onto the wall. It suddenly shuttered a blue oval, and sparked blue bits of flame. The outline of the blue oval seemed to burn into the wall. A pool of vertical, blue material kept its shape upon the wall. She then pulled the secondary trigger and the same thing happened, but it was orange. "Oh hey! A bidimensional traveling device!" The doctor gleamed. "A what?" "A portal gun. I've seen these before, but not handheld. Whoever made this device was extremely clever." "BzZzt- Do not look directly at the end of the device. Do not stare directly at the end of the device. May cause problems relating to enamel and teeth." The robotic intercom rang again. A camera above the door watched their every move. "What do we do with this?" Twilight asked. Looking at it, making sure not to even glance at the end. The awesome shape of it was of the most interesting design. It was almost irresistible. "Okay look, this is what we do." He opened the door again and pointed with the other hoof. "Shoot a portal in there and then shoot one on that wall. That way, we can get through." She did as he said, and a portal glimmered like a mirror, showing the next room. The next room was just as white, and just as eye-bothering. It's like the architect wanted them to be blind during the whole test. Instead of a square room, it was rectangular and had two raised tile platforms along with three buttons. There was a white box on each platform and one on the ground. Twilight had an idea on what to do. The doctor was already started. He pushed the first white box on the first button. and pointed to the platforms. "Portal on each platform and get the boxes down." He commanded. Twilight shot a portal up to the left platform and used the third button on the portal gun to lift up the box and bring it down. She was quite happy with what the portal gun could do. "A gravitational device too? That thing has my style all over it!" The doctor smiled goofy. As Twilight grabbed the other box. "I think this place is my favorite out of all." "I agree." The doors slid open and they escaped out into yet another room. This time, the floor was sizzling and green. "Is it too late to change my mind?" Twilight grimaced. "I don't think we can swim across. The sonic reads its highly acidic and over nine-thousand degrees Celsius. Also, no rush, but any more time here and were dead. The toxins are getting thicker." The room consisted of three puzzle items: a thick red-hot laser, a moving platform, and a laser receiver on the ceiling. There was a small white platform below the receiver, just big enough for a portal. Twilight shot a portal where the laser was ending, and looked around. "Try shooting it there." The doctor pointed to the platform below. Twilight shot the second portal, and the laser receiver accepted the beam and opened the door on the other side. The glass lift also began to move back and forth. "I don't trust that thing. It's floating on a beam of light." Twilight said. "Too bad, we have to go, now! Allons-y!" He jumped on and she followed, squeamishly. The platform carried them to the other side. Beyond the door was a black room, and in the middle was a light focused on a shard of the elements. They both grabbed it. ~-ZAP!-~ "Bingle bongle dingle dangle, yickedy doo, yickedy da, ping pong, lippy-tappy-too-ta! An amusement park!" Doctor yelled as he examined his surroundings. "I don't think we're in portal anymore, Doctor." Twilight also looked around.