"So why would June remove the targeting program?" the walk to the testing chamber with Emerald Fields was feeling a bit too quiet for me. I just hope I didn't do something to get on her bad side, I've heard that bad things can happen with teleportation.

Emerald sighed and glanced over to me. "It's because they were never meant to have a targeting program, that was a military add on that became standard. The pipbuck was originally meant to just be a personal terminal, which it still is, but with the E.F.S. and the S.A.T.S Making it a tool to help ponies kill other ponies. June doesn't like the idea of giving Equestria another weapon. Give another month or two, it won't be a surprise to see ever trooper, not in power armor, have a pipbuck to help them find and kill zebras."

Thinking about it, I knew a few ponies that would feel the same. I mean the war has gotten so bad, the idea of us bowing ourselves into the apocalypse feels like it could happen tomorrow. "then why is it standard? I mean it is cool and all, but I don't have a use for a targeting program."

"To tell the truth, I don't know. The spell space they use would have been better spent on things like that levitation spell, or even the teleportation spell were working on. My guess is that the military paid a ton for it, and the CEO's just left it in. At least Musket Ball's modified S.A.T.S's let's you run from a fight." Emerald Fields sounded a lot less upset than she did before.

"It doesn't sound like June would get along with Musket, with all the guns and all."

Emerald laughed "Not as much as you think. Their both being mountain ponies, so there is a little respect and understanding between them. June understand that the guns Musket makes are intended for protect. Monsters do live in the mountain, and any tool that can scare them off, mountain ponies will use. As for Musket Ball, he understands that June's kin were wronged by Equestria, an it's why she goes out of her way to not make any kind of weapons that Equestria can use."

"Wait, what do you mean Junes kin was wronged by Equestria?"

"Oh, Junes a Highlander." She said with a matter of fact tone. So I raised an eyebrow to let her know that did not know what a Highlander is. She got the message. "There's a small nation on the south Equestria border called the Highlands, though it's more of a collection of earth pony tribes ant never joined Equestrie. Well the Highlands happened to be sitting on an mountain of coal, and I mean a actual mountain. Now the Highlanders didn't have a need for the coal, so they let Equestria mine their land as long as they paid a tax. It was a fair deal, well fair at first. The coal barons found ways to get around paying the tax to the Highlanders, and as well ignored cleaning up the mess that the mining operation had made. When the coal was all gone, the Highlanders were lest with a giant landfill and no bits from what was taken from them. By that time the war with the zebras had been going on for a few years, so the Highlanders were just forgotten. That's why June doesn't want to make weapons for Equestria, the hole war was started over the same thing that left her home a mess."

Now that was heavy. "So what happened to the Highlanders? I mean currently that is."

Emerald sighed. "Their around. I heard that Stable-Tec tried to offer building them a stable, but it got turned down. Something about them making their own shelter. June called them a bunch of suborn fools."

We finally got to the end of the hallway, and Emerald smiled. "here we are. Now don't tell June about the new S.A.T.S program. Bad things can happen if a teleportation spell goes wrong." I gave here a confirming but worried nod, and she then pressed the button to open the door

The testing chamber looked a bit like one of the rooms where they had an apple orchard from Labs A, but without the plant life, and with normal stable lighting. The spacious room was mostly empty, except for two pads on ether side of the room, with many long cables stretched between them. A pare of big metal coils towered over side of each pad, which every now and then sparked electricity of of them. More cables snaked there way from the two pads, and to a line of terminals that the tech's were working at. Cloud Bank among the terminals, looking half asleep. June stood next to one of the pads, looking much better, but still looking like she need more sleep.

I also saw that they were all wearing thees big tinted glasses on, even Emerald Fields had just put a pare on when we entered the room.

June placed an apple on on one of the pads, and then quickly trotted to the other techs. The air filled with a buzz as the two pads came to life, sparking electrisity from the metal coils. A loud crack came from the first pad when a large bolt of electricity flashed between the two metal coils. The second pad then did the same, and between the two pads, the repeating cracks of electricity drown out any noise, and were almost blinding with their light. The rate of electricity cracks suddenly increased before a grate bolt of electricity flashed between the two pads. After that, the two pads slowly shunt down.

I had trouble seeing after all the bright flashes, the lines of the electric bolts lingering in my vision.

"Teleportation success!" yelled a nasally sounding tech.

June cleared her throat, getting the attention of the all the tech's. "Don't call it a success until we check the results. Some pony go check the apple."

One tech got out of their seat, and walked over to the second pad. Tilting their head, the pony sat down, and rubed their chin.

"So it it intact?" June said loudly.

The tech turned around. "It's an orange!" the tech lifted an orange up on their hooves, giving June a surge.

June face hoofed, "I don't even... let's try this again." the techs all went back to tapping at the terminal.

"Is turning apples into oranges thru teleportation normal? Because if it's normal, then I think I'll just skip all this." The idea of me not being me when I came out on the other side frightened me a little.

Emerald Fields snickered, "No, you just become a potted plant." my face twisted in shock as Emerald trotted off to June.

"That's not funny. Your joking right... right?" sighing, I trotted off after her.

So the possibility of becoming an orange or a potted plat was now making me realy rethink about all of this. Not that I didn't like the idea of helping them with the teleportation testing, the idea they have to use it is pure genius. The thing is, I like having my mane not be made of leaves.

"Not having second thoughts are we?" June puffed ate her cigaret after speaking.

how did she do that. I took a deep breath and raised my hoof, intent on letting her know about my concern. She cut me off with a cloud of smoke.

"Because you just saw us turn an apple into an orange after teleportation. When it sould have stayed a damn apple." A tech behind June slowly put down an an orange they were eating. Which made me a little more worried. "Now that's not going to happen to you, that's why were throwing apples in first. Once we have the spell calibrated and working properly, then we might teleport you." June took another puff of her cigaret. "right now, safety is our top priority."

I was still worried about the orange thing, but June did put me at ease for the most part. If they were going to make sure it all worked right, and tested out a bunch to know it worked right, then I might as well stick around. Though looking at the hole setup, mainly the metal coils and bolts of electricity, it reminded me of the classic Frankenpony movie. so if they asked me to put bolts on my neck, I'm out.

"we've got a terminal that we'll need to hook the pipbuck into." Emerald walked to a empty terminal at the end of the line of terminals. "it's over here."

Sitting at the terminal I found a pare of large tinted glasses, and quickly put them on. I had to admit, tinted glasses did make me feel I was a little cool. From my seat I had a good view of the teleportation testing, as they put another apple on the first pad. The start up of the the pads was the same as before, but with the tinted glasses on, it didn't hurt my eyes as much. The sound from the pads still drowned out everything else. A tech went over and showed what appeared on pad two, it was an apple, but without it's red skin on.

Now that scared me more then the becoming an orange.

"Awesome, we can patient this, right?" one of the tech's in the terminal line spoke up. "peal your fruit with science!" the pony was a bit too exited over it, but it did sound like a cool idea.

June had face hoofed again. "make a note of it, and we will look into it after we ensure that there are ponies we can sell it to."

With a click, Emerald had my pipbuck plunged into the terminal. "right, once we have the teleportation pads all properly calibrated, we just have to do the same with the pipbuck, so just sit tight." She plugged her own pipbuck into the terminal, and pulled herself a seat with her magic. "it's all so exiting, you will be the first non unicorn to perform teleportation if this is a success. Well it's going to be by pipbuck, but small details."

It was exiting, realy exiting. Also, It was becoming terrifying. I could be the fist non unicorn to perform teleportation, just without my skin coming with me. Firing the M1G the first time might have thrown my emotions a bit out of whack for a moment, but the idea of teleportation was sending my emotions to the moon. I was also starting to feel itchy from worry.

The next test they decided to use a banana, puling it from the bunch. It did disappear from pad one, but did not reappear on pad two. What the banana did do was return to it's bunch, but as green goo. I added green goo to the list of how teleportation could kill me.

A few more tests were less successful, with two attempts not doing anything at all, one giving the apple wings, and another test only sending half of the apple to pad two.

After that last test, I turned to Emerald, with a question I hoped she could answer "How in Tartarus do you unicorns even teleport with killing themselves?"

Clearing her throat laughing. "half of teleportation is about visualization, the other half is about feeling with your magic. It talks a lot of practice to get it just right, and some unicorns pick up on it better then others, but rarely do any of them move more then a few hoof steps. But to answer you question, most of the time a unicorn casts a shield spell at the same time, that's what gives it the flash of light, and helps them take other ponies with them. So when a unicorn teleports, they are actually teleporting the space around them, and then riding along. The few unicorns who are adapt at this, they can ether cast the shield spell around just there body, or extend the shield to take many others with them."

That was a lot of info for me to take in. "so why is it not working for the teleportation pads?" the thousand an one bit question, and the explanation of why this is going to kill me.

"That's because we don't have any unicorns that are adept at teleportation to work with. And even if we did have the unicorn that could help, traditional teleportation dose not work for what we need." Emerald sighed once again. "what were trying to do is make a teleportation network. It's something that traditional magic can't do, which means that we're creating a high level spell from scratch."

Rubbing my chin, I now had one more question. "Okay, your not using normal teleportation, so then what kind of teleportation are you using?"

Emerald took a deep breath. "Were calling it Slip Jumping. It's actually the combination of magic portals with teleportation. We make a micro portal connecting two places together, and trough teleportation, have the pony switch places with another spot on the other side. This means for teleportation, we only need the magic power to move a pony a few hoof steps, and not have to worry about fusing them to the ground. That's something we can make a pipbuck attachment for. As for the portals, the ponies in Labs D are working on that. They have a much bigger staff working on it, so I'd put my bits that they are long finished by now, and just stress testing the spell."

I was actually feeling a lot calmer now, and could not thing of any more question. "thanks for explaining it to me."

"Think nothing of it."

The testing continued on, with a s few near successes. One apple cached fire, and another froze. After a few more tests, the apple came out normal, and each test after that the apple teleported to pad two without any problems. The tech's then teleported the apple from pad two to pad one. They bounced the apple around a few more times from one pad to the other. They even put an orange on the opposite pad of the one the apple was on, and for the next few teleports the fruit switched places.

"it's all calibrated." Cloud Bank's spoke up, his voice was a bit strained, showing his need for sleep taking over. "we can start the live testing at any time."

June walked up to the row of terminals, her eyes scanning all the tech's, as well as me. "Now everypony, I know you all have lost lots of sleep over this." Cloud Bank groaned at the sentence. "but from here on we take a true step forward. What we do right now will ensure that many more lives can be saves, and that a better future can come from the ashes of the world we left behind." She then puffed at her cigaret. "so I tell you this once, and only once. Don't fuck this up, if Slowtrot dies, then we are up shit creek without a paddle."

the room was silent, nothing but the hum of the terminals.

June cleared her throat. "Now do what you do best, and we can have cake when this is a success." all the techs quickly went back at tapping at their terminals.

"I think June probably needed more sleep." Emerald gave a weak smile, and pressed a button on the terminal my pipbuck was connected to. "it sould just take a few seconds for the pipbuck to synchronized with the teleportation pads. After that you can take part in the testing."

"Is there a way to take part in the testing with out, well, needing a pony to be teleported?"

Emerald gave me a look, I think it was one of concern, "We need some pony to have a pipbuck on for us to get any conclusive data, and sadly the pipbuck you have on is the only one that can handled the magical stress." She then unplugged my pipbuck from the terminal. "we just need you to be teleported a few times, and then we will have the data we need. As you can see, with the pads calibrated, you will be perfectly safe." Emerald then waved to June, who then gave her a nod. "So chin up, we would not do this unless it's safe."

This time I sighed. "your right. I'm already here, so I can't back out now."

Getting out of the seat, I trotted over to June. She was looking at her pipbuck, which was plugged into pad one. Up close, the pad it looked even more like out of a fictional movie, making the hares on my back raise up a bit.

"We just need you to stand on Teleportation point one." I assumed she was talking about pad one. "don't worry about doing anything once your on it, we have your pipbuck set to automatically activate once the systems ready for teleportation." taking a quick look over at me, she hoofed over a pair of earplugs. "Also put these on, for your on sanity."

I took the earplugs eagerly, with how loud it was from the terminals, I was glad to get some protection from it. "So has any pony been teleported thru this?" I walked over onto the pad, and June fallowed me.

"We had a few ponies do it, and no, nothing bad happened to them. What you will be doing is having your pipbuck teleport you. It's going to act like a manically unicorn horn, and zap you to the other pad." June then patted me on the shoulder, and trotted off to the line of terminals.

I was now filled with more questions now, but as the fist crack of electricity went off, I quickly shoved the earplugs in. Looking back at the the others, Emerald was holding up a sign. 'stay on the pad' it said. she lifted up another sign, 'It could get messy if you don't.'

Well, I'm now committed to the mistake, so is my life right now.

I could feel the electricity all around me, and not one hair on me did not feel like jumping off my skin. The tinted glasses and earplugs did help, but being on the pad were the electric bolts were going off, I was blind and deaf to everything.

Long ago there was a grand black dragon who watched over the night sky. The dragon was nether feared nor worshiped. Nor did the dragon wished to be feared or be worshiped. For to this dragon, the night itself was a grand treasure it protected, and all under the night sky were shining jewels he watched over.

The bolts of electricity died down, reveling every pony to now be on the other side of the room... that or it worked, and I just teleported! Checking myself over, I was not an orange, and I still had my skin on with all my fur. "I think you did it!" I waved my hoof at them, as my fear melted away.

June waved back, and Emerald lifted up another sign for me to read. 'stay in, a few more and were done.'

"Right!" I put my hoof back down. At this point, if there was anything that could make this go wrong, it was me getting to exited and kicking something sensitive.

The crack of electricity came back, and everything vanished in the harsh light and sound.

As the Dragon diligently oversaw the night for hundreds of year, he witnessed many wonders of the lands, and became a keeper of secrets of it's inhabitants. As time went on, a shadow became envious of the dragons grate power and knowledge. Invading the Dragons dreams as it slept, the shadow would wiper about how the sun is the greatest jewel that he would never have.

Once the light faded, I could see that again I was still me. Looking over to the others, Cloud Bank had moved to the floor, and from my best guess, sleep had finally won out.

The pad came to life, and everything vanished once more.

No longer able to hold back his envy, the shadow offered the dragon the power to take the sun for himself. By the time the dragon realized he had been tricked, the shadow taken over the dragons body. With the dragons power, and knowledge, the shadow twisted the day into another night. Not only did the shadow hide away the sun, but she also jealousy horded the light of knowledge form all in the lands.

Coming out of the teleportation this time made me feel a little lightheaded. "how many more times do I need to do this?"

Emerald lifted up another sign 'just a few more'

that answer didn't make me feel all that comfortable, but I had to trust them.

Struck down by the dragons brother, the shadow escaped her host, along with all of her stolen knowledge. The sun returned to the world, but the diligent guardian of night did not. Ever more powerful, the shadow plagued the dreams of thous with grate knowledge as a big black dragon. Intent on stealing their secrets as they futility hid in fear of her in their own dreams.

The lightheaded feeling was more pronounced, and it took a little longer for my eyes to focuses. "Can we stop for a minute, I'm not feeling all that grate"

Emerald put up another sign. 'come back over here'

Trotting off the Teleportation pad, I felt a little better as I took out the earplugs, placing them on the nearby table.

June puffed at another cigarette "so what's wrong?" a bit of smoke left her mouth as she talked.

"I was just feeling a little light headed with the last two teleportation."

"that's all, well it's good that you let us know. The data we got from the four jumps alone is excellent. Two jumps more and we sould have all the data we need. Are you up for that?"

I had come this far, so two jumps seemed reasonable. "I think I am. I just needed to catch my breath, figuratively I mean."

Trotting back to the teleportation pad, I looked back to see Emerald following me. "You almost forgot these." the earplugs were floating in her magic.

"Thanks." Putting them on, I gave her a nod.

Nodding back Emerald trotted back to the safety of the terminals.

Long ago, their was a wise old Unicorn. He had become known throughout the land as the greatest spell caster, and would spread the light of knowledge to all he met. The shadow eventually learned of this Unicorn, and once more felt envy. Seeking him out to steal all that he knew, the shadow was relentless.

so the thing about feeling better, it didn't happen. Dots appeared in my vision that slowly disappeared.

Emerald had lifted another sign 'feeling okay?'

"I'm fine, I can do one more Jump" I think.

The Unicorn proved to be unfazed by the shadows assaults in his dreams, mocking each attempt she made. So the shadow came for the Unicorn in his waking hours of the night, taking the form of a black mare. But this left the Shadow vulnerable, and when she came close to the old Unicorn, an Alicorn of brilliant light descended upon the shadow. Unable to escape, the Alicorn released its wrath upon the shadow, striping the shadow of all her power, and imprisoning her to the dark depths of Tartarus.

Coming out the the teleportation felt worse then it had before. My lightheaded feeling was dizzying, and I could barely see. Trying to step off of the pad only resulted in tripping over my own hooves. Everything went dark.

Light bathed the area around me, and the sound of wind trough trees sooth my worried mind. I was sitting at a long table wooden table, a plate of salad sat before me. The salad was vibrant with different color, but mainly a rich greens. Across from me was a pretty earthpony mare, she had a faded blue/gray coat, and a platinum blond main.

"Thorn Roseland" came off my lips. I could only guess that was her name, and a feeling of dread from my stomach told me that I did not like her.

Thorn pushed a pistol across the table over at me. "I trust you know what to do this this."

I didn't take the pistol. "Don't think I do." I pushed it back to her.

Thorn grind at me. "Oh, I know you do. But if you insist, I can give you a demonstration." She picked up the pistol in her mouth, and aimed it at me. Time seemed to slow down as she fired, the bullet slowly flying through the air at me. no matter how much I tried I could not move. Thorn put the pistol down, moving at normal speed. "you kill with it." Thorn smiled as the bulled slowly burrowed into my skull.

My eyes shot open, and saw that looking back at me was Candy Pop. I opened my mouth, but she put a hoof over it, and one over hers own. "shhh."

"In my best opinion, you sould get that thing off of him as soon as you can. Even if you did get rid of all the harmfully spells, that pipbuck is still killing him." the accent I recognized belonged to Doctor Lifebeat. "It was hard to tell at first with how much garbage was in that thing, but now I can clearly detect that the pipbuck is increasing the stress on his body. If you push the thing any farther, Slowtrot here is going to have a brain aneurysm."

"Agreed, I can't believe I missed that. I'm having the key made as soon as possible." it was June's voice, sounding a bit rough. "whoever modified 2600 sould be arrested, to incidentally make it slowly kill it's user. makes me sick."

"well the good news is that he will be fine as long as you don't have that pipbuck use any high level magic. But like I said, sooner it's off of him the better." I could hear hoof steps slowly come closer to me. "Candy Pop, what's Slowtrots condition?"

Releasing her hooves, she the smiled. "He just woke up!"

slowly getting up, I looked around. The medical room was the same as it was the last two times I was here.

Lifebeat glanced over at me. "Good, good. Now Slowtrot, if any more ponies ask you to do some experimentation, just tell them no. I'm not in the profession of letting my patients getting themselves hurt just after I finished treating them."

"Don't worry doctor, I'm feeling like sitting the rest of this out." having this thing almost kill me once was enough, and now that I know it is still trying to kill me. The soon it is off, the better.

"Now then, I'll have Candy here escort you back to your room. You will stay in residential until that pipbuck is removed." Lifebeat looked into my eyes before nodding to himself, and walked off to his office.

Getting off of the bed, I was once again careful to not fall off of it. June had walked over to me, looking a bit worried. "So how did the testing go, did you get the data?" I was worried that everything might have gone wrong.

"yes we did, but not without every pony getting scared half to death." June sighed, sound a bit revealed as she spoke "it's going to take some time, but with that data we can start making the attachment. I'll make sure that you are properly compensated for your participation. Now go enjoy yourself in residential, we sould have the key for the pipbuck ready by tomorrow morning."

"well I'm just glad it was all a successes, and well that I'm not dead." I smiled a little, it was one of those relived like of smiles.

"true, now you sould get going. We will come to you when the key is done." June pulled out a pack of cigarettes, but put them away when Lifebeat gave her a look.

Candy Pop trotted over to the door. "Let's go Slowtrot, I got a rematch at the arcade, and it will be rude to them waiting."

I shrugged and followed her. Thinking about it, with the testing all over, and with me being free from this pipbuck soon, I can enjoy some time at the beach before going home. I never had been to Marewaii Islands before, so it couldn't hurt to ask if I could stick around at the resort for a few days. Soak up some sun, have some drinks, maybe fine a nice mare who might find me interesting. I heard that Stable-Tec employees are real popular right now.

Footnote: (no new updates)