Extra Chapter [Portal 2 AU]

[Lusor]

I hope that this is up to TFF standards.

Thanks to Lordpanther14(Spacebattles) who corrected my mistakes.

Enjoy!

-----------------------------------


-Chapter 9: The Part Where He Kills You (Alternate End)-

It was only sheer dumb luck. But it changed the course of the events .

At the same time that Chell was trying to attach the Facts Core to the former main body of GLaDOS, the already malfunctioning bombs thrower tube activated even with Wheatley temporarily stunned.

And the last sphere blew up into pieces.

Chell stopped moving. That had shattered the plan, there were only three active corrupted Cores, and it was impossible to cause a Core Transfer without them.

The countdown was in the last minute, there was no room for planning anything more.

It was funny that the Perfect Moron had created the only test that she would not be able to overcome.

But the sight of a mechanical claw taking something from the chamber let her know that SHE had another backup plan.

Chell wasn't even too surprised by that. As much as is bothered her, she knew that every time that GLaDOS said that she was the most brilliant mind that would ever exist, it was the objective truth. If there wany other way to get out of this, the A.I. would know it.

The mechanical arm descended to take the metallic head-like form in which the former controller of Aperture had resided before and went out of her sight.

"I DIDN'T WANT TO RESORT TO THIS. BUT THIS IS THE ONLY OTHER WAY TO STOP THE FACILITIES FROM EXPLODING." GLaDOS's mechanical voice spoke through the speaker system. ôI WILL NOT LET THAT MORON TRANSFORM THE FRUIT OF MY HARD WORK INTO RADIOACTIVE DUST."

Chell started hearing the sound of machines working, welding, cutting, remodeling. She centered her attention on the noises that could meant her salvation. Mainly to not give attention to the countdown that was still going down.

The noises quickly ended and the mechanical arm could be heard carrying something back.

Something that impacted against the floor near her with a powerful crash.

"OK. THE INFORMATIC DEFENSES I PUT UP WHEN I WAS IN CHARGE ARE STILL WORKING. GOOD TO KNOW. HACKING THE CORE TRANSPORTING SYSTEM TO MAKE IT WORK AUTOMATICALLY WASN'T EXACTLY SUCCESFUL."

GLaDOS was back, At least into her 'head'. Chell hadn't lost one second and picked her up with the zero-point energy field manipulator of her Portal Device.

"YOU NEED TO ATTACH ME TO HIM LIKE YOU WERE DOING UNTIL NOW. QUICKLY, BEFORE HE RECOVERS. OR WE'LL BE VAPORIZED BY THE REACTOR."

Instructions, they were a nice commodity in Chell's life. Following them was easy, much more than resolving test chambers. And those were a piece of delicious CAKE.

She accelerated over the propulsion gel that stained the ground; two quick shots provided an entry and an exit where she wished them to be. Gathering momentum she slid over the orange substance until she crossed the portal of the same colour.

Chell crossed the air. Directly from the highest panel with conversion gel over it against the top part of Wheatley's body, where the last Core Plug in could be seen.

While falling towards it, towards her salvation, she indeed could feel like GLaDOS had told her once before. Like an eagle soaring through the skies. She would ignore GLaDOS's following commentary in behalf of their present alliance.

Chell slammed against Wheatley, using all the energy of the fall and the run up to insert the last Personality Core needed. GLaDOS herself.

When Chell touched the floor again the clock had already stopped.

"'Enter' button pressed, fusion of the Aperture Science Nuclear Reactor aborted."

"Everything is fine within the facilities."

The voice of the Announcer confirmed their win.

Chell let out a breath that she didn't know she was holding, and let herself show a tiny smile toward GLaDOS.

"WELL, THAT IS SOLVED. EVEN IF I DON'T HAVE MUCH ACCESS FROM HERE, IT IS ENOUGH TO DO THAT."

"NOW, YOU ARE FREE TO GO."

Some panels moved aside to create an exit. A way out of this madness. Chell started to walk to it. But there was something in the artificial tone of the voice of her former nemesis that made her look back for a last time. Like she was straining herself by simply talking.

And that was her downfall.

"I PROMISED YOU A WAY OUT IF YOU HELPED ME WITH THE REACTOR. TAKE IT BEFORE HE WAKES UP!"

But it was already too late. She ran to the exit, using the gel to reach it as fast as possible, but that second she had looked back had been an error.

The panels realigned themselves in front of her, pushing her back and blocking the way.

"Aggggg... What have you attached to me, again?! I told you to not attach anything more! CouldnÆt you do as I say for once?!" Wheatley voice roared as he regained control over the body.

The stream of bombs returned once again as he started moving.

Chell didn't let the loss of her escape route bother her and jumped into motion again, she tried to use the same method as before and portal the explosives back to him.

That didn't seem to be working anymore. As the bombs were going to reach him, some of the shields changed their positions in a quick and precise motion to block them.

"What did you do?! How did you stop the reactor from exploding?!"

He suddenly was able to stop attacks coming at his back, without even needing to look at her, and he was so interested in that? Did he even notice that Chell was attacking?

All the shields started spinning around his body, protecting Wheatley from every bomb that she redirected towards him.

"What is happening to my bomb-protection?! How I am even doing that!?" "

"Could it be..."

Chell would like to know too, she was starting to get tired from avoiding the bombs and opening portals to no result.

"Oooooh... I see now..." Wheatley started chuckling, and the chuckling grew into a fully maniacal laughter.

"OH GOD. HE REALIZED THAT I'M HERE."

"HAHAHAHAHAHA... The former manager of the Center, and look at her now!"

"Little more than a voice in my head, a complement to my greatness. I seriously think that I must thank you for doing this."

"I thought myself brilliant before, and I was. But with her thought capacity and stored data now backing me up, I was a true Moron in comparison."

"Because now I could call myself... let's see... God. Yes, God is the proper word.ö

ôI could call myself God. And I would not be exaggerating."

"I'm the only and forever deity of Wheatley Laboratories!"

So she had wasted her possibility of running away and given Wheatley the mind of a genius. Nice job fucking everything up.

The nuclear holocaust seemed more attractive. Or the pit, maybe she should have just jumped then.

"YOU WILL ALWAYS BE A MORON! AND I AM NOT STAYING WITH YOU!"

"Emergency anti-corruption protocol activated." The voice of the Announcer resounded in the chamber again. "Expulsion of all the Aperture Science Personality Constructs save the main Core in 3... 2... 1..."

"You aren't going anywhere!"

"0.."

With a sudden metallic sound the panels in the ceiling opened. A mechanical arm fell from the heights of the place, pressing GLaDOS into her position just as the other Cores detached from him in a shower of sparks.

"HOW! THE CHANCE THAT YOU REALIZED THIS WAS REMOTE! AN IDIOT LIKE YOU WOULD NEVER THINK OF THAT!"

"I'm the driver here, remember? This is my body! Mine! And even if you act so high and mighty, you are only a voice in my head. Your ideas are MY ideas now.

"I'm the new boss. You just obey me, okay?"

"A MORON LIKE YOU CAN'T BE IN CHARGE! YOU ARE NOT MY...!"

The voice died down.

"This is better, she was too noisy. The extreme opposite to you, in fact, Miss 'I'll stay quiet even as I die'."

"But we don't have the time to be talking here. Do we? I will be very busy being a genius. So I'll make you take my offer from before. Remember it?"

And with the sound of hundreds of hydraulic arms moving unison, the floor just ceased to be there. She tried to jump to a safe surface, but there were none.

"Fall into the pit, please."

This time she indeed did. Chell fell to the depths of the Earth. Again.

"And don't come back!" She heard Wheatley's voice as the panels of the floor started returning to their proper places.

And thinking about what would await for her if she survived the fall and went up again, wasn't exactly a good option. She would need to go against a Wheatley backed up by the mind of GLaDOS. A moron with the mind of the greatest scientist. A moron with a big inferiority complex and lots murderous intent towards her.

The abyss seemed more nice.

"Hello again, lady. Seeing as we are falling towards the darkness, I take that things didn't go as planned" An artificial male voice talked to her from above.

Chell looked up into a glowing green eye. The pixelated pupil focused on her face.

"Don't worry, you are with me. I'm the best Core to help you in this kind situation, absolutely prepared for anything that we can find down there."

Well, something was something. He seemed like a nice guy/machine at least.

"The Rick train is reaching the last stop! Towards the adventure, my beautiful friend!"

She looked down at the approaching bottom. Piles of broken machines and other rubble that covered everywhere that Chell could see. But there was nothing that she could recognize from her previous descent.

Oh right, he moved the Main Chamber before.

Chell only hoped that the boots could save her again.

And she plummeted on to a pile of junk.

The chapter that should not be, started there.


-Chapter 10: The Cube-

 

[grant]

So it effectively starts over from the beginning. Poor GLaDOS, as if being a potato wasn't enough she has to put up with him.

 

[Lusor]

Next chapter was already written, so here it is. I hope you like it.

Thanks to Lordpanter14 for his help betaing this.

Enjoy!

---------------------------

This was the most hurtful fall that she had ever taken.

She crashed into the junk, confident in the Long Fall Boots to save her life from the impact only to find that becoming a stain over some broken panel would be the least of her preoccupations.

Because it was not that the floor was just covered in trash. It was covered by literal mountains of trash.

Metallic pieces and other things went flying as she made contact with them, but she did not stop. The junk was pushed aside easily with all the accumulated momentum that she had gathered from the fall. She passed through layers and layers of discarded creations and inventions, innumerable tiny wounds were made over her body as she continued her way down in between the broken down items.

Chell simply pressed her teeth to better bear the pain and embraced the Portal Device to not lose it. It was the most useful tool she could ask for in any situation, she could not lose it here, it would take forever to find again.

And eventually she reached the humid earthy ground of that place.

Pained by the myriad of tiny cuts, she stood up from the crouched position she had adopted in the landing and obseverd where she had ended up.

The white broken surfaces of old panels interlaced with their mechanical arms with blue lights surrounded her completely. She could very well be in the middle of of kilometers crap by her knowledge.

Buried alive, sentenced to death.

There was no time for tending her injures or panicking. She needed to get out of there, Chell centered her mind on that goal to keep herself calm.

This was no diferent than navigating inside the ancient facilities, no harder than some of the test chambers. With logic, perseverance and fucking the concept of distance with her portals, she could do it.

If her body could move, she would keep going. Chell survived in this madness until now thanks to that simple premise. Never stop trying.

Could I make a way by making apertures between some of these damaged panels ? There should be hollow spaces in a lot of places if there are so many pieces of the walls in the lower part of this junkyard...

"Watch out, Beauty! Over you!"

The voice of the Green Core broke her thoughts and she looked up to see what he was warning her about.

Fuck.

Some of the remains of pipes that had been destroyed fighting against Wheatley were falling through the hole she had made, directly over her. A deadly rain of sharp glass.

"Cover yourself until I get there!" The Adventurer Sphere kept talking while bouncing against the irregular sides of the brutely made well, following the glass. "I already dealt with a similar situation in a Mayan Temple, I can...!"

She ignored his voice, and took a deep breath. Her eyes scanned the place quickly, looking for anything and at everything. She could feel the blood pounding in her ears as her heart starting racing faster as the danger came close.

No space or cover. No escape routes that she could see that moment, pieces of panels blocked most of her sight.

Broken panels, she could use that.

In a fast motion she pointed the gun at one of them, with an electrical hum the gravity manipulation function proved able to move one of the more loose broken walls, and pulled it out of its place to cover the hole over her.

But the speed of the huge falling shards of glass was much more than she had expected. As they broke against the white surface they transmitted too much movement, pushing it down with enough force to overcome the artificial gravitational pull just a few centimeters.

Enough to make it hit violently against Chell's head.

Chell's body went numb at the impact. She lost the control of the broken panel and it fell in front of her, pinning her against another panel.

Staying awake was starting to be a problem, her head hurt too much.

"That was an excellent reaction, lady, fast and exact. You and I could be an awesome team."

She forced herself to look up for a bit. Above her, with one of the the metallic handles stuck on the arm of a mostly complete panel, Rick the sphere was talking to her while making an approving nod with his eye.

"Wait... are you okay? You are going pale way too quickly to be healthy"

His voice was starting to sound so far...

"A bump on your forehead? Did you hit yourself while failing?"

And she was starting to grow tired.

"Stay awake! That's important! Don't know why but it is!" The sound of mechanisms shifting and starting emerged from the metallic ball as it talked.

"They said that I would die if I did this. But no adventurer would let a woman die in front of him, even if it cost his life."

Her sight was going blurry. She had been awake for too many days, maybe she deserved some rest.

"Rick is going to help you, baby. Just hold on"

The sounds of metal hitting metal came from the origin of the voice, a second after that a shadow fell on the other side of the panel trapping her. But everything was so distant in her mind...

"In one second I'll get you cured of whatever is happening to you! Don't worry, I can move now!"

The faint sound of something scratching the panel was one of the last things she heard.

"Love... We have a problem. I think that I'm stuck again."

Unconciousness claimed her.

----------------------------

She woke up, faintly. Her mouth was dry, her head hurt and she was still too tired. She couldn't even open her eyes.

"... already told to show yourself, villain! I can hear you! You will taste the strengh of a master fighter if you try to harm a sleeping woman!"

The Adventure Core seemed to be talking somewhere near her face.

"What...? Oh, sorry, it was a confusion. Hello to you too, gentleman. I didn't want to be rude, but I am in a complicated situation right now..."

There were no one answering him, but he kept talking like there was someone else. It wasn't so unexpected, really. 'Rick', or so the Core called himself, was a Corrupted Core, so he should be malfunctioning at some level.

But can't he malfunction in a quieter way?

"...she is trapped and unconscious. A rather nasty serie of circumstances to befall to such a beautiful companion like the one I have, but..."

The voice faded along with her other senses. Staying awake was so hard...

She slept again.

-------------------------

Chell believed that she was awake again.

She saw the walls come alive, glowing in a yellow light. They moved like some intelligence had entered their barely working forms, like they had never been disconnected.

She fell on her back, having space to do it thanks to the receding panels, which pushed junk back and made more room.

But seeing them, she felt far from safe. Only Wheatley was capable of that right now. And she didn't feel good enough to move.

If he was behind this, she probably knew what was going to happen. It would be like the Mashy Spiky Plate, but without the spiky part. Even more gruesome.

Then a gigantic spider-like thing started talking in the voice of the green eyed core, and she had an intense urge to laugh, which made her head hurt like hell.

This was absurd, too much even for Aperture standards. This had to be a really shitty dream.

Not even in her sleep could she get away from the madness of that place?

She closed her eyed and ignored the voices until everything melted in black once more.

------------------------------------------------

The next time she woke up she felt way better. Even if thirsty, hungry and somewhat weaker she was able of staying awake. With her eyes closed she could feel the handle of the ASHPD still in her hand, and she could control her body now.

Everything needed is functional. I have no time to lose sleeping.

She tried to stretch her limbs, fully expecting it to be impossible in the half of the hole where she was trapped. But nothing blocked her movements.

That made her snap her eyes open and get up instantly, even if keeping balance seemed a bit hard for a few moments, when Chell realized that she was laying on some kind of floor.

What happened? where was the all the junk? Why could she only see white?

The white colour of the panels that confirmed which where she was.

How have I ended in a test chamber? Had the falling itself been a dream? Where...

"Good to see you up again. You have been out of it for twenty nine hours, baby. You had me worried for a moment. But you are tough, I like that in a woman."

The Adventure Core?

She looked at her back quickly, wanting to know what really happened and what had not.

The response was given to her in the sight of an avalanche of junk being kept in place by a few cleverly placed mechanical arms. Observing the panels from the stance where she was a bit more, she noted the dirtied tone that they had, the cracks over them and the missing chunks. She must be still a bit sleepy if she hadn't noticed that before.

"Not that I don't like the improvised 'cottage' that we were provided with, my friend. But if you can move again we have other things to do than looking at it."

Chell looked around her again, but the sentient sphere couldn't be located. She was starting to think that maybe she was dreaming again when she heard the sound of something metallic clickety-clacking against the floor.

Moving around her with tripodal legs, vaguely reminiscent of the Turrets, was the tiny adventurer.

"Like these powerful limbs, love? The people of the laboratory told me to not use them, said that it would drain my battery. But I needed to get down to you so that didn't matter, that's the life of an adventurer. We live to save damsels"

That's a useful gadget to have, I won't have problem with carrying him with me that way.

It wasn't like she could levitate him all the time, or stab the gun through him like she did to the potatoed GLaDOS.

But there was something in his shape that bothered her deeply, along with the new state of the hole where she was.

He was the 'spider' I saw, and the panels truly moved. The dream was real. But it couldn't be Wheatley, he would ahve killed me.

Just was happened while I was sleeping?

A metalic leg poked her boot repeadly.

"You have a pretty expession while thinking, I wouldn't mind seeing it all day. Sadly I think that we should get the fuck out of this place as soon as possible. The walls are working with their emergency batteries, and I have been told that they won't last forever."

Chell stopped her train of thought at that. Analyzing the implications of the the events she 'dreamed' could wait until she was in some place where the ceiling could not fall over her any second.

Walking up to the wall made by restrained junk she tried to locate anything that could work as an exit. She could try opening some portals, but the gaps between things seemed to narrow to have a clear shot.

She was trying to make one of them bigger by pushing some trash at the side, when a badly reproduced whistle sounded at her side.

"Twenty nine hours are an awful lot of time for a man to be doing nothing. And since I am an awesome one, it was enough time to take charge of everything."

The metallic adverturer pushed a panel resting in the junk at his side with his head. Little by little it was being displaced from its place.

"Putting this... Was a need..." His voice sounded strained from the effort. Could he even feel tired, truly? " You never know... When some rodents of unusual size,... or a mummy... can get... in." He stopped displacing the thin white wall and flexed his 'limbs' like one would do after some heavy effort. "Previous experiences, you see. Nothing that I wanted getting inside while you were undisposed."

Behind the panel there was a dark, straight, hole between the junk and the ground. One whose end Chell could not see. It seemed to be have been done by pushing loose pieces of the junk to make a way.

A hole a lot smaller than her. Chell was sure that she was at least four times taller than it.

"No need to admire my amazing building skills, you can do that later, when we are alone and without a death threat over us. Now get inside and run, this place isn't exactly safe." The sphere talked like she was supposed to fall at his feet by seeing it. She opted by simply arching an eyebrow to that.

"Don't worry, I already used it a few times, testing it. Fully secure, there are no risks of everything dropping over us."

She had to give him some credit, if it was true. He could had easily abandoned her there, but had opted for waiting for her to wake up even if she could have not done it. It was nice having someone do that without expecting anything in return.

But Rick was still missing her point.

Chell walked up to the hole, deciding to give him some visual help. The rectangular pupil traveled between her and his escape route a few times.

"Right. Some complications have appeared, Love." The sphere said, seeming to get it now. "I think I made a mistake when I judged your height. But wait for a second and I'll have it fixed." The ball moved towards the hole and started hammering it with his 'head'. "You just rest some more, I'll tell you when I end."

Chell sighed and decided to give it a try before he damaged himself.

She pulled him at the side by his handles and laid down in front of the entrance and unknotted the upper part of her jumpsuit to use it for first time in a while, as a protection against any hard edge or sharp thing that could be inside. After that she introduced her arms and Portal Device into the hole and pulled herself inside a little. The sides of the tunnel were firm and composed of various things, so Chell could pull herself into it thanks to that with relative ease.

It would take a lot of time to pass through, but maybe she could do it. And she could push herself back, so there was no problems about getting stuck.

It wouldn't hurt to at least give a little try.

"You can move inside that space? Wow, ever thought about being an adventurer? You would make a great one."

The metallic clicking of his legs let Chell know that he was right behind her as she kept dragging herself through the darkness for the next minutes. The way twisted around a lot, as it was done moving only the parts of junk with some give', but there had been no inconveniences so far.

And she had to admit that hearing Rick's 'previous adventures' was making the whole thing more enjoyable. It was like with those old radios that had entertained herself in some test chambers, before her first meeting with GLaDOS.

It was somewhat saddening realizing how little she needed to raise her moral.

"Hey, listen! Listen!" The Core suddenly shouted to her, breaking the anecdote he was currently talking about. Damn, she wanted to hear the end. He had stopped in the interesting part, with that giant rock rolling after him after activating some kind of trap.

"I have a way to get out faster, I think. Please, don't think bad of me for what I'm about to do.

She could feel him as he passed over her legs, until the sphere touched her butt.

What..!?

"So sooooft... No, not thinking about that. I have a work to do!"

"Think unsexy thoughts, think unsexy thoughts.." Somehow he was managing to push her a little, but Chell doubted that it would be useful. She could pull herself quicker. She was starting to do that again, when she heard the sound of tiny mechanisms and hydraulic components coming from behind her.

"Maximum power to Motion Systems!"

If she wasn't feeling it she would never believed the strengh of those slim little legs. Even if it wasn't too much speed, it was better than the previous rhythm.

After some time moving at that speed, she finally could see what she thought was the end of the tunnel. Even as she moved Chell focused into it, trying to make out what could be seen at the exit. Her eyesight proved to be as reliable as ever, for someone unconscious until a little ago.

These surfaces are everywhere down here, are they not?

She shook her legs until the Core got it and stopped pushing.

"What? Is there anything in front of you, baby? Please, tell me that it isn't the nazis again..."

No, it wasn't them, and she was nearly sure that nazis were far too long gone to be doing anything. What she could see through the exit was another old panel.

She crawled a little more, touching the shapes of the broken Aperture Science equipment over her. Chell quickly found a flat surface acting as a ceiling after some meters.

Then, everything left to do was the same as ever.

Take aim and fire orange portal. Take aim again and fire the blue one. Her useful and old trick.

And the next second she had a perfectly good shortcut over her.

She pulled herself straight, passing through the glowing oval and doing a little back flip to avoid falling as the new direction of gravity pulled her towards the ground.

Outside! Finally! I was starting to get sick of the tunnel.

She looked at the orange portal and saw Rick trying to jump through it's counterpart. Smiling a bit at the sight she picked him up with her gun and helped him pass.

"Thank you, baby. I couldn't reach so high." His metallic limbs shook a little, even when he was still floating at her shoulder's height. "These things are starting to not work properly, you know?" Then the floating eye focused on her.

They looked at each other a second in silence and then they started to look around, examining everything form the place they were going to spend some time.

Crushers, panels, iron walls, buttons, cubes... So many pieces of the Enrichment Center that she had seen in the past and so many others that she couldn't even guess what they were. Laying around, in piles so high that could compete with some real mountains.

And above them, looking bright and unreachable, she could see the forms of the thousands of chambers that composed the main facilities of Aperture Laboratories.

"Look around you love!" The green Core spoke with a voice saturated with ecstasy, as he kept rolling over himself in mid-air to see as much as he could. "Isn't this a beautiful place to have a new exciting adventure! So many unknown artifacts everywhere! New peaks to climb! Too many Tunnels to go through even in years!"

He returned to look at her face again.

"As a fully professional opinion. I could fall in love with this place!"

One of us is happy with the current situation. That is something, I suppose.

Chell let the ball touch the ground again, and then started walking. There was not time to stay still, if she could move she would move.

But the Adventure Core wasn't following her.

"Well, good luck, baby. Make me proud of meeting you." The ball signaled a path of earth between the junk with a leg. "I think I'll take that way, then. Until next time, love." He waved the leg in good bye.

What!? Weren't you the one so interested in being a team all the time? And now this, even after waiting for me to wake up? You don't make any sense!

It was her fault to try to apply logic to the behavior of a malfunctioning A.I. And she had even started to make plans of how use his new movement capacity...

But he had truly helped her after the fall, so Chell waved goodbye with a smile before starting to walk in a random direction.

She walked a few meters looking around again.

The good thing is that I have enough good surfaces scattered everywhere to move around more or less freely and fast if I use portals.

Chell could hate tests, but she loved thinking with portals. They made distances and positions lose their meaning.

She chose a panel near the peak of one of the highest piles of trash and connected it to another one that was in front of her. After verifying that the junk was stable with a foot before crossing, she crouched and passed through the aperture in the panel, partly covered by metallic rubbish.

She then sat on the mountain side looking for some route up, anything that could be of use or need, anything that grabbed her interest really. The usual routine when faced by a new obstacle.

"Wait! Don't close the portal!!!"

She looked back just in time to see the Adventure Core passing throught it running, which caused it to ascend in the air as the floor changed his position and angle. Her hands moved in reflex and stopped him with the gravity manipulation of her gun.

What are you doing here? Didn't we parted ways?

Like she had thought before, he didn't make any sense to her.

"Wow, that was dangerous for a moment! Thank you again, beauty."

She put him down and looked at him in confusion. Trying to get some explanations.

"I was worried I would lose you your trail. You left before I could do my dramatic proposition, I was surprised when I looked back and you were already gone."

It's normal to go away once you have said goodbye to someone.

The ball looked at her face directly and made a few fake coughs, like he was clearing his non-existent throat.

"I know that you had a bad experience in your last partnership. I saw it when connected to that big guy before, your old companion of adventures I believe."

She nodded in confirmation. But it hadn't been her last partnership exactly, she had teamed up with GLaDOS after it. But it wasn't like she was going to start talking just to say that.

"So I don't want to force anything, believe me. But together we would be such an awesome team! Think about it for a second. Don't you think that I can be way a better partner for you than that moronic blueball?"

He raised a leg slightly.

"So, do you mind traveling together, my friend?"

It was the first time that she had been given the option of doing that. Wheatley and GLaDOS hadn't really given her other options, their alliances had been driven exclusively by mutual need. But this time, she could decide.

So she shook the offered leg with one hand.

"Awesome, love! You will never regret this, I assure you!"

Chell hoped it too.

"Now that the formalities are finished, let's get moving fast. We have a lot to explore!"

She chuckled a bit and changed the exit of the the portal at their side. Vanishing through it towards a random place on the titanic junkyard.

They crossed it together to exit in a random part of that kingdom of Aperture Science's junk.

Together against the unknown, I can see why he calls this an adventure.

And it had only started.

 

[Lusor]

Thanks to Lordpanther14 for betaing this. His unvaluable help with my mistakes is what makes this readable.

Enjoy!

--------------------------------------------------------


She was abnormally curious, Chell was aware of that.

She always took her time when she saw anything that grabbed her attention, letting her immediate goals fall to the side for the sake of knowing something new, even when the current goal was trying to save her life. No matter what she had been doing, she had always made time to get to scattered hidden places along the test chambers, grab some clipboard from the floor, look at anything in the walls or to read the mad scribbles made by the crazy Aperture's employee, that seemed to be still alive even after so much time.

But this was the first time that Chell saw someone else do it.

For Rick, every hole in the piling trash could be the path to a treasure and anything laying around them the key to even greater adventure. She was sure that they had not walked more than half an hour without the sphere asking for some minutes to do some investigations and getting inside the mountains of scraps looking for 'the solution to all their problems'.

She had estimated that they were pretty similar in that aspect.

After the first two times they had reached an unspoken agreement, he would tell her when he wanted to go to somewhere nearby that grabbed his attention and she would go examine the junk that was piling around her.

And she had found great things, sometimes. Random documents, pieces of old testing equipment... Her greatest find had been one old broken desk, more exactly the content of its drawers. One thing seemed to be the schematics of her portal device, it had been shocking reading that she was carrying a black hole in her hands all this time.

Using a singularity as the battery of a portable device. She had to admit it, crazy or not, Aperture Science was damn good at going against the laws of logic and physics. For Science, like GLaDOS would say.

But her current conditions made the second finding in that desk way better than that. It had been a big can of beans, with meat.

She was not someone who ate a lot, food was a luxury that she could get very few times, mainly some potatoes and forgotten unopened cans in 'Ratman's' hiding places. And it was to be consumed only when the hunger was unbearable.

And after more than one day unconscious she needed it more than ever. She had drank before falling, in one of those water pipes to clean the gel off in one test chamber, but she was sure that she had not eaten anything since doing some of the chambers of a rebooted GLaDOS. And that was some days ago.

And now that the sphere was gone again, she found it the perfect moment for having some food. So this time she was looking between the rubbish for something that could work as a can opener. The spikes of an old fashioned Crusher that poked through the junk that was their current floor seemed to be up for the task.

Chell left the ASHPD over some half smashed computer nearby and took the can of beans and an improvised spoon she had made from her pockets.

The deadly spikes ended up being an excellent can opener.

I suppose that anything from Aperture that isn't trying to murder you can be useful in many ways. She simply didn't have time to appreciate this until now, having the facility trying to kill her and all of that.

With the can now opened she could see the food inside. Her stomach growled loudly at the sight, and this time she didn't ignore it.

Or that was her intention at least.

"If that stomach was yours, baby, wait until I get out to satisfy it!" The far voice of her companion interrupted the first spoonful she was eating, and it tasted so damn good. "You are going to love this little thing I found!"

She let her spoon fell into the can and looked with some annoyance at the metallic pipe where the legged ball had disappeared a while ago.

And then, the pile of junk started to shake and to collapse over itself. A frenetic metallic clicking could be heard coming from the pipe as it started to twist violently as parts of it where smashed under the weight.

When everything stopped she really was concerned for the safety of her traveling companion. She left the can with her gun and prepared herself to do some digging in the junk.

Chell was already moving some broken mechanical things when a voice came from the remains of the pipe.

"Spotless escape! I'm awesome at this or not, baby?! Don't cut your compliments short, please. I deserve all of them"

She crouched to look inside the pipe and was greeted with a green glowing eye. That erased the worry out of her mind.

Which left all the annoyance of a hungry woman.

"Wow, that's a scary face! I don't know why you have it, but it won't last when you see this."

She waited with crossed arms to him to come out.

This better be good, because if not, I'll start thinking about smashing you against the first Emancipation Grid I find.

The sphere came out, kicking something tiny and metallic in front of him.

"There is no difference between an adventure with me and a luxury holiday. Do you want a hot bath, warm food? You have it!"

She took the object from the ground and looked at it, her previous annoyance being defeated by her interest. Maybe it was a great find this time, for a change.

And she had to recognize that this find was going to be useful.

It was a little Aperture Science Lighter, in perfect conditions.

And still with some gas, as it seems. Chell mentally noted while looking at the tiny flame it emitted as she tested the working mechanism.

Warm food... this is going to be another new experience.

She patted the ball like she would do with a puppy, which was curious because she didn't remember ever seeing one, and started to look around for anything burnable.

"Oh yes, forgot you don't speak. I suppose that was your form of conveying your feelings of awe and undying gratefulness."

She gave him a very expressive look from over her shoulder.

Keep dreaming.

-------------------------------------------

She was eating the beans with meat like it was the most tasty meal she hed, ever. In fact it was the most tasty thing she remembered eating.

Besides the CAKE, but dreams didn't count.

After gathering some papers and one or two wooden planks, Chell had started a controlled fire over a discarded iron wall. Using the Portal Device to levitate her meal over the pyre inside its metallic container she had quickly prepared her first warm meal. And it tasted heavenly.

"... And the, I kick the thing out of it's place and the whole thing starts falling down. I can recognize the works of master trappers, but whoever put that one was at another level. But then I remembered my training with the monks..."

Beside her sitting place, Rick was filling her on his point of view about how he managed to bring down everything over himself. Her question about if he could feel tired was apparently answered as he had retracted his legs before, claiming that he was too tired after the whole ordeal on his last treasure hunt and that they needed some rest.

After some time eating Chell was starting to get full, and her meal cold, so she stopped eating when only the bottom was left and used her gun again to heat it.

In that moment she realized that the Adventure Core had stopped talking at some point and was looking directly at her.

"You really were hungry, weren't you? I don't think that I ever saw someone eating so focused into it. You even ignored my question."

Question? Maybe she had been a little distracted while filling her stomach, it seemed.

"What do you want of this adventure, partner mine? I mean, this place is awesome, but you are searching for something, so I think you already have something planned for us."

That... is a pretty good deduction. Maybe he wasn't all talk and intentions in the end.

Letting the device rest over her leg to free one hand she took a splint of burning wood from the fire and put the flames off. The charred part would serve her as a pencil, she didn't wanted him to misunderstand this.

'A way up.' She wrote clearly on a tiny piece of a panel laying at their side.

"You want to return there?" The sphere replied looking up, where the lower part of the Enrichment center could be seen resting over impossibly tall pillars. "You are courageous for sure, if you are planning returning where the big guy is."

Chell shrugged her shoulder at his words.

'I don't know what else I can do. He will surely find us, in time.'

She had no choices in that matter. She simply wished to live without something actively trying to kill her. But she couldn't do that while the A.I. which ruled Aperture wanted her dead.

Chell wanted to survive, and she would end anything that blocked her goals. Or die trying.

And some deep part of her felt somewhat sorry for GLaDOS. It was true that they had tried to kill each other in several situations, but after their journey together and her sacrifice to kept this place from blowing up and trying to give her an exit she couldn't help but feel pity for her.

Being only a voice in the head of a maddened Wheatley seemed too much in Chell's eyes. And she had killed GLaDOS before, so that was something.

"I like it! Your plan sounds great, love. I wanted to finish our business up there too, now that I have legs." One solitary metallic limb came out and started moving violently in the air, making the sphere shake. "He will know the power of my new roundhouse kick combo for trying to harm you!"

She chuckled at his theatrics, and having a sudden idea she wrote some more.

'What would you propose?'

"For going up? No ideas here, baby. I'm in a new in this place, sorry. Maybe doing some random exploring until something conveniently placed gives us a riddle with the information on a secret way up? It worked for me several times."

Dismissing his idea with a shake of her head she moved the can at her side and put the Device over her legs. They could continue 'talking' after she finished her beans.

"Maybe I could ask our friend I hear him again?" The Core continued. "The one that helped us before, you know. He sounded like he was here for some time."

Yes, that was just what she wanted. Put her life in the hands of an imaginary friend. Chell didn't mind Rick's problems but she didn't trust that.

She opted for focusing in what little was left of her food. They surely had a long way to walk and she needed energy.

"Sorry to be rude, baby. But does your stomach bother or hurt you? I understand that you were very hungry before, but you are nearly finished and it just keeps growling. Do you want me to go hunting something more for you?"

She swallowed the last spoonful before giving Rick a strange look. Her stomach hadn't done any noises since she had started eating.

Somewhat bothered by his comments she wrote a reply.

'I'm not.'

"Seriously? Good, I didn't want to say it but they were not very feminine. But then what was...?" The ball closed his metallic eyelid, in a thoughtful way.

It was that moment when Hell broke loose.

All around them, probably all over the place, junk was violently propelled into the air from seeming random places. Like little explosions they didn't let Chell even see the space in front of her fire, where latest explosion had happened. Not even just in front of her fire, where one that had happened too.

What the hell...?

Meanwhile the Adventurer kept his eye closed, trying to find a solution to his earlier question. To which Chell already had an answer, by the way.

From where the junk had gone flying in front of them came a low grow-like sound, quite similar to the one from her stomach but many times louder.

She couldn't even finish her thoughts before something pounced towards her from the middle of the dust.

Her reflexes kicked in and she grabbed Rick by one of his handles and smashed him against the incoming shadow with all her strength.

And she had to carry the Portal Gun all day long, which wasn't light by any means. So it was a really strong hit.

A cracking sound could be heard at the impact, and Chell worried a little for the Core. It wasn't like she was trying to damage him.

The shadow fell to the ground, without moving. Chell ignored it for now and looked at the sphere, now with his eye opened and spinning in confusion. He hadn't suffered any real damage, then what had been that sound?

Looking for answers she looked at the figure in between the dispersing cloud of dust.

Another human!?

In front of her was what seemed to be a naked human male, sprawled head down and leaking blood from somewhere hear his face. If the red substance over the junk under him was what it seemed to be.

Her first encounter with someone like her, and she ended up killing him. Somehow she hadn't expected it to happen this way.

And then the corpse stood up again.

"I'm back! Quick! What is happen... Oh fuck...! This is one truly ugly fella!" The Adventure Core exclaimed as the thing came to its senses again.

And she agreed with him. Whatever that thing in front of her was, she was sure that it was too ugly to be human.

She looked at it as it let out a deafening growl, causing more others like him to start appearing over the mountains of junk.

"Look out!"

Jumping towards the ground near the fire she avoided 'something' that came from above, trying to cleave her in two. Looking at the now cleanly cut metal behind her she understood what would happen to her if she had stood still.

"Is he armed? Don't worry I'm black belt in this, too." Scream the ball to her as it fell rolling from her hands.

Rick showed his legs and stopped himself, quickly walking between him and the 'thing'.

Sorry. She said to him in her mind as she got hold again of her beloved Portal Device. She activated the gravity manipulation and stood up as fast as she could, picking the Core up with it.

"Let me down, love! I can defeat about thirty of them! You should just run away and let me buy you time!" The sphere protested as it was pulled into the air by the Portal Device. "Can't you see that I'm trying to heroically sacrifice myself!? You must res..."

His voice was stopped as she violently swung the Device, using Rick as a bludgeoning weapon.

"RAAGGREFESG..!" An inhuman sound came from its throat as she made the Core slam for a second time where Chell estimated she had hit before.

Something broke and Rick penetrated its head with a cracking and splashing noise. It took two steps back before dropping lifeless over their fire.

Taking a quick look around her as it fell she gave a little sigh as the figures in the distance seemed to back off a little, afraid maybe. That was good, Chell wasn't sure that she could escape from a group attack right now.

"Did you see that, love? That was an example of a powerful kick from me. The freak didn't have time to react." The ball congratulated himself while trying to shake off the fluids and other nasty things that covered him, with a somewhat good result.

Ignoring her companion's boast, she looked at the corpse of the thing, trying to gain some information from it. Knowing what she was going against would be a big help.

Something flared into her mind when she looked at the humanoid body. All the characteristics she could see quickly corresponded to an image on her mind, to something which she had heard about one time before.

Oh fuck. Oh shit. Oh fuck... She was panicking. Chell had never, ever, held the littlest desire of meeting those things. And counting her boundless curiosity that was quite the claim.

The skin seemed to be somehow greener than hers, rigid like stone judging from how it shattered upon impact. Its hands... Were not hands but long scythe-like blades of a green white colour.

But the most horrific sight was the remaining eye, unnaturally big. Probably the size of her fist.

"GROUDGGGGG!!!!" The air was filled with the guttural growls of those things as they suddenly decided to advance again.

"Baby, I think that we have reached the part where we run like there is no tomorrow!"

She shared that opinion.

They started running towards a small gap in the group that had surrounded them, while they escaped Chell couldn't stop herself from looking into the eyes of those things. In their big insect-like eyes.

Mantis-men.

And she had no shotgun.

----------------

The beings were everywhere.

She ran after Rick, trying to keep the pace of the Core through a path of earth between the junk. A good decision of the Adventurer, seeing as those things had a habit of appearing under any place with enough trash.

As they kept escaping things looked progressively worse. More and more of the monsters burst from the walls of scraps at their sides, with their impossible sharp blades aimed towards her.

It took all her reflexes, heightened by endless hours of testing, to be able to avoid the sudden attacks of the mantis-men that kept sprouting randomly. Luckily for her, Chell seemed to have gotten the trick at swinging Rick around after the first time, and was capable of knocking them out before they recovered from doing first attack.

In the end that only increased the ranks of the huge group following them. Those things were fucking hard to kill or to completely knock down, and they didn't have time to finish the new ones.

Which lead to their current and hopeless situation.

And it was seeming such a nice day.

"Keep running, love! The Ugly Ones are getting closer!"

Giving a quick glance back, Chell silently cursed and moved faster.

"Can't you open one of yours glowing things?!" The floating sphere asked in a worried tone. "They could come in handy to get out h... At your right"

Junk hit her side and an inhuman sound filled the air, without even thinking she jumped back as fast as she could, trying to get out of reach .

"FSAGSEDGGG..."

Her right shoulder suffered, deeply cut as the blade-hands of the beast emerged from the newly made hole more quickly than expected, but she had to ignore it. As she touched the ground she jumped towards it, using all her strength and weight to smash Rick between its eyes.

Not waiting to see the result of her attack Chell renewed her running.

Did Rick even have to ask why she didn't portal them away? This path was the safer way. If she portaled on top of one of their hidey holes Chell wouldn't be able to do anything if one appeared under her.

"GREFDREGG!"

One of the insect people was falling through the air towards them, from the top of the junk walls at their side. The thing had jumped several meters in front of them, clearly trying to block their advance.

At first they only followed. Then, when she proved herself capable of outrunning them, they started appearing from the junk at the side of their way. Now they were trying to outmaneuver her.

They where pretty adaptable.

But so am I.

Looking straight at the airborne insect-man Chell deactivated the Gravity Manipulator without slowing down.

"You want me to take him! Roger! I'll hit him with my Sh...!"

Please, don't resent me for this.

As the ball was falling she kicked it with all her might. The screaming metal sphere crossed the air and slammed into the head of the incoming abomination, knocking it out hopefully giving enough time for her to pass. Rick went up in the air after the crash screaming and cackling loudly.

"Shoryuken!!! Taste my fully original move!"

She increased her speed to pass by the unconscious being before it recovered. But as she ran past it she realized something. Rick had still to fall down.

Chell slowed down her march even with their followers so near. She couldn't just abandon Rick, after putting him in that situation.

"Continue escaping! Everything is under control!" The Core deployed his legs while he was plummeting towards the ground. "Trust me, partner! I'd be a really shitty adventurer if I couldn't escape from this situation!"

"GO!"

Resigning herself, Chell returned to her previous rhythm. She only hoped that her trust in a A.I. wasn't misplaced, again.

The sound of metal hitting one of the mantis-men following her announced the Core landing in the middle of their persecutors. She cringed at the sound of numerous blades piecing the ground .

A second after that something passed at high speed between her legs. Speaking so energetically that Chell wondered why she had even been worried for him.

Built for danger, indeed.

"Maximum Power, baby! No freak is going to catch this sphere!"

She was amazed, it was incredible the velocity that those tiny metallic legs could reach when he wasn't pushing her. Could it be that GLaDOS was saying the truth when talking about her weight problems?

The Personality Construct continued increasing his distance from her as he spoke.

"Follow me! I saw a good place from the air!" He explained while suddenly stopping around twenty meters in front of her." Great kick, by the way! That gave me just the impulse I needed to get him!"

She was sprinting to reach him remove place when a new growl reached her ears. A few meters past the Core another mantis-man had jumped to the path, blocking it before she could do anything. Chell remove got at Rick's side already was preparing herself to attack him when the cause of two new noises made their appearance.


Causing a rain of scraps as they emerged, two new monsters exploded from the walls a few steps at her back.

If it was going to end this way, I would have tried portaling us away. It couldn't have been any worse.

"FGHEAGGGDEEHGG!!!" The screams as the three beast prepared themselves to jump at her didn't sound very welcoming.

If I use the walls as support points, maybe I could get out of this doing a few...

There was no time to think, the mantis-men charged.

"Here!" A last second scream from her metallic companion made her look at her side where he was passing through a very tight separation between two huge walls of junk and trash. Praying that no mantis-men were sleeping in those walls, Chell passed though with some difficulties.

Behind her she could hear the sound of their hand blades, cutting through the junk in their futile attempt to get through.

She exited at the other side, hoping that they would take some time to follow them here. Pulling herself out of the passage, Chell looked around to give the place a quick reconnaissance.

It was a place without an exit. A hole in the junkyard where wooden boxes of many sizes and huge metallic containers were piled without order or method, everything showing the word 'Discarded' in big red characters. Only luck kept that mountain in balance.

While frenetically following Rick, to the crates, Chell noticed something. The sounds of the growling of the mantis-men behind them, their blades trying to open a way, had disappeared.

Finally safe?

"They gave up?" Asked the Adventure Core looking at the same place from behind her legs. "Let me go check, baby. This is my kind of job."

The legged ball walked cautiously to the other side of the tight passage.

"Nothing here, love! I think they understood that they had no chance of catching us!" Rick's voice came from the other extreme.

But they were so close to getting us... It doesn't make sense.

She sat over a box while waiting for the Core to return. Thinking about what little they knew of theirs enemies, using that information to try to make something of their sudden retreat.

She quickly reached a conclusion.

They did not retreat!

She jumped from her sitting place and grabbed the walking Core before running up to the huge piles of boxes and containers, climbing it as fast as she could.

She only had started her way up when her suppositions where confirmed. A continuous chain of explosion like sounds, the ones of those things emerging from the junk that surrounded the crates, could be heard near deafening her.

Chell didn't care about her ringing ears, the only thing that mattered was reaching the container at the top. She continued her way up like she could, having both hands occupied, using everything she could to reach more altitude.

Not looking back down in a moment she only focused in climbing. The goal was up, so there was no reason to look down. And only the goal mattered.

With a last jump on the salient edge of a crate she reached the top of the last container. Once there she left Rick on the metallic surface and looked to the sea of green under them.

Probably hundreds of those things where waiting under them, screaming with their guttural voices. They tried to climb, but the wood was butter for their blade-hands and they ended falling down. And, fortunately, their jumps only reached two meters, so it looked like they were safe for now.

Thinking back, she hadn't realized the height of the crates and containers piled. She wasn't surprised of the tiredness in her limbs, looking how much she had climbed up.

Giving a sigh of relief, Chell sat sat over the container, causing it to suddenly tilt down. That made her jump back on her legs and some distance back.

Just what we would need, reaching a safe place to stupidly fall down.

"Love... I am truly impressed by you." As a positive fact, she was hearing Rick's voice now. So her ears were working again. "You could even be better than me at this with some practice! The beauty, the brains, and the body... Oh baby, I wish I had meet you in better conditions."

In the top of a container and surrounded by countless half-human half-mantis abominations, and Rick was still trying to flirt with her.

Can't you leave that for another time? Couldn't he see that she was busy making sure that the insect people couldn't eat her.

"Love..." She looked at him when he paused, he was looking down at the sea of green from the other side. "I don't like to crash the party, but I think that the Ugly Ones that are breaking the crates below us while trying to go up is a pretty bad thing."

Alarmed by his warning she looked down more intently trying to see why the Core would say that.

"I mean, it isn't like this thing is well supported..."

How did I not think of that? If they keep damaging the base...

"We are going to fall."
We are going to fall.

And while the fall itself wasn't any problem to her, the big red words 'Do not inhale under risk of death or irreversible damage' which was in the container under her feet promised bad consequences.

It was a delicate situation.

"I got a solution!" Suddenly said the ball, running towards her. "You only need to...bzbt..bzzz..."

His eye lost its light at mid step, and the legs retracted quickly, causing the sphere to continue rolling to the unsupported edge of the container.

Rick! What is happening?!

And it fell before she had time to stop it with her gun.

She could only hope that the mantis-men didn't have any interest in metal.

The situation was growing worse too fast: She was surrounded, something had happened to her Core friend, the surface where she was balancing precariously right now, and there was a great number of abominations interested in eating her.

Chell was getting truly pissed. She only wanted to live. Why did everything seem to go against her?!

So she took her usual decision. It wasn't her first time in a situation like this one, she had gone against GLaDOS and against Wheatley after all.

If everything is against you...

She looked down one last time.

Overcome everything!

She ran up to the more unstable edge and jumped as high as she could, pushing it down violently. The metallic rectangular box completely lost its balance and fell down, towards the ranks of the mantis-men. Who pushed between themselves trying to get out form under the huge shadow falling over them.

Chell could see it clearly because she was falling a few meters over it it.

Sounding like someone squashing a bug, heavily amplified, the container crashed against the insect-people. Making the noise echo through the junkyard.

That was the moment she started to hold her breath. Because as it smashed against the ground everything, even Chell, was immersed in a dense grey cloud.

When she touched the ground, now covered in a grey sand-like material Chell looked around and she was greeted by an horrible sight. Most of the insect people were mutilating themselves trying to get rid of the dust that covered their big eyes. Their own blades cut into their own eyes and heads, and some had entered some kind of panic state and were blindly waving their hand-blades.

It made a sad and disturbing sight.

But they were trying to kill her, doing the same in retaliation was only expected.

I have not reached this far to become the food of a failed experiment.

And Chell started to search for her mechanical companion before the 'dust' settled or she ran out of air in her lungs.

And this had started as such a promising day...

 

[autobot314]

This is a very interesting thing. I have not seen nor thought of a ChellXRick/Adventure Core pairing! Very interesting. It makes me do this :lol: :rofl: :snigger:

 

[Lusor]

Hello again, new chapter is done! I hope you like it.

Thanks to my beta, Lordpanther14 for his work.

Enjoy!

----------------------------

She was removing the sand-like dust, searching as quickly as she could for the Adventure Core. Time weighed over her, only having until the dust settled to find him. After that she was sure that the place would be flooded by mantis-men again.

She had discovered a good and a bad thing. The good one was that breathing the gray mist that consisted of the dust around her didn't kill her at her first breath, the bad one is that now she knew why it could be deathly.

"Cough, cough, cough, cough, cough...!"

As things were going, they would only find her corpse. The dust would asphyxiate her before the monsters had any chance of doing anything.

Being inside that cloud was heavy and difficult. The dust quickly covered her body before she touched the ground. It was like smoke, but it stuck to her and made moving difficult with the extra weight as it accumulated on her clothes. Tears fell nonstop from her eyes, trying to clean the gray stuff that had entered in and was making them dry up.

She wouldn't ever want to know what the mantis-men felt, with they big and unprotected eyes.

Maybe she had been too optimistic, Chell had overestimated a lot of things as it would seem. Her lungs capacity for example.

"Cough, cough!"

Each time she coughed lots of dust dust was expelled through her mouth, unsuccessful attempts to clean her respiratory ways of the elements that obstructed them. Her chest felt like her lungs were full of it, blocking what little oxygen she could breath inside the dense mist.

She didn't want to die there, but she wouldn't abandon him. It would be the same as admitting her defeat against the situation.

Giving up never, ever, is an option.

Before that she preferred to die trying.

"Aperture Science Apocalyptic Emergency Energy Resources activated."

The voice of the Announcer of the Announcement System reached her ears from her back, making her do a quick turn of her body in surprise. Pain exploded inside her chest and she immediately regretted doing that, but she bore with it and tried to move toward the source of the sound.

If something has started using backup power, there is a good chance that is... Her own thoughts were interrupted by another violent coughing fit. Chell fell to the ground in convulsions while hacking up blood and dust from her mouth. Her chest made her see white from the pain each time that the invading material was kicked out, it obviously was damaging her lungs heavily in the process.

She managed to get back on her feet, containing the convulsions, and started walking again. Her sight with an already gray tint from the dust that entered her eyes and surrounded Chell, started to turn reddish in the borders as a strange feeling filled her chest.

Judging from the blood coming out of her mouth at each painful breath, she was pretty sure that it was the feeling of her lung bleeding inside.

There! Disregarding the state of her body Chell ran to the origin of the words. Hoping that he wasn't buried to deep, Chell activated the alternative function of her Portal Device. The gun hummed as it kicked in and the Core came out from its cover of sand-like dust. His eye was shut but she could feel the vibrations of his mechanism when she touched it. Chell hoped that it meant that he was alright.

Now that she had recovered Rick she needed to get out of the cloud, which would be difficult taking into account the mantis-men that were surrounding it. If she could not get out, she would search inside.

Inside of another container.

She forced her body to move again, as fast as she could manage, towards one of the rectangular metallic boxes that was at ground level. She tried and tried to open it, but the lock on the door was preventing it from opening.

Giving a fast look to a mutilated corpse near her, she slammed her foot down near the tip of his hand blades. That caused another coughing fit, but she tried to contain it and crouched to reach the broken fragment of the blade.

Her head started to feet too light and she couldn't decide if most of her respiration problems in that moment came from the dust that was coming in or because of the blood coming out. She kept her hand from shaking and cut the lock.

Pulling with what little strength she had left, Chell opened the door just enough to get her and the sphere through and shut it immediately after them. She let her body crash and fall against one of the metallic walls of the place, with her back against it.

Her lungs were bleeding, and she was still violently coughing the dust in them and causing more bleeding. But in this place more or less free from the floating dust she could, more or less, breath. And that was the important part.

She truly believed that while she could keep herself breathing, her effort would not be in vain. She would heal.

Bleeding wounds, bullet wounds, laser burns... No matter what damage she had suffered until now, when it was kept to simple damage it had always healed with some time.

And seeing as the dust wasn't settling with any haste, time was something that she had right now.

It looks like it's time to rest again.

Today she was achieving nothing, it seemed.

------------------------------

Chell kept coughing in the dark for some time, expelling blood soaked dust and tiny bits of something meaty that she didn't want to check what exactly was. Supposing it was enough.

The funny thing was that the more violent her cough was the better her chest felt afterwards. In fact she was sure that her bleeding had stopped as well.

Good new thing to know. Internal bleeding heals just fine, too.

Her healing always had been unnatural as far back as she could remember. Any scratches and bruises she got in her firsts test chambers had healed very fast but she had not noticed it until the first turret. Until she had seen one of those for first time and received a shot on the stomach as a result of the sighting.

She had quickly jumped back into cover that time, Chell remembered it well, panicking because of the blood flowing out, because she had a hole passing through her. She had been seriously seeing things blood tinted, in that moment. So close to dying, like right now in the cloud of dust.

She had spent so much time without being able to move, mortified about dying there. Except that she had not died, after a long time suffering the pain simply stopped, then she had looked down only to see a simple hole in her jumpsuit and unmarked flesh under it. Were it not for the blood over the panels and her clothes she would have believed everything to have been a hallucination. It had seemed like a miracle, then.

There is no need to mention that she had carefully evaded getting shot again since that incident, it had been an experience she had never wished to relive.

But it had been no miracle, Chell had verified the reliability of her healing time after time. Her journeys through Aperture had been full of "problems" that had made obvious the unnatural speed of her healing.

She was sure that GLaDOS was to blame, somehow.

In fact, the numerous tiny cuts from the fall, that somehow hadn't healed while she had been sleeping and the stab Chell had suffered in her shoulder while running away were finally closed and gone like they never had existed.

And while she was in that pitiful state, emptying her lungs in violent convulsions, a light started to illuminate in the darkness, even if not too intense to actually illuminate anything. A green light.

"... to let this thing fall upon..."The voice stopped and the light moved quickly in each direction. "Oh yeah... my batteries dried up some time ago. Well, that sucks."

She would have sighed in relief at seeing it, but she was kind of busy coughing so she would leave it for later.

"Legs, not working. Eye, working. Nanos... sadly still here. Mute babe, not that I can see. Ugly Ones... seems like yes, by the sounds." Ok, her coughing fits weren't exactly elegant but she was really remembering this one. The voice of the Core continued. "Well not exactly the best conditions for waking up but I have dealt with worse."

The glowing pupil looked in the direction of the sounds in the middle of the darkness, Chell.

"Come here, beast! Even without limbs I can take out something like you! Whatever you did to my female sidekick will never be forgotten!"

That one really touched a nerve.

Whose sidekick I'm supposed to be?! Wasn't I a mantis-man a second ago?

She reached in her pockets and extracted the tiny lighter that Rick had found before and made it work. The tiny flame partially illuminated her face for a moment until it was blow out by another cough. But she was sure that the Adventure Core had enough time to see that it was her.

"Oh, it's you, love! You are still alive! And..." The tone of the Core changed to an apologetic one as it noticed that the noises were her cough. "I really fucked up with those comments before, didn't I?"

A little kick sent him rolling until he hit something in the darkness. The ball laughed.

"Ah...! A woman dispensing fiery punishment, another form of showing her love!"

Just, what?!

Living in his strange world had to be an interesting experience, at least.

Even if he was somewhat annoying, Chell was glad that nothing had truly happened to him. If anything he seemed to be even better than her.

"Cough, cough, cough,...!!!" Chell bent over and started to cough wet dust again. Well, being better than her, right now, wasn't so difficult.

"I'm no medic, but that doesn't sound very healthy. Baby, are you alright?" The Core said from the darkness, sounding worried.

I'm spitting dust, blood and my lungs. Never felt been better in all my life, obviously. Being hurt always got Chell pretty irritable for a while, thinking ironically was an usual side effect of that.

Chell didn't want to lash out at him, even if it was only in her mind. She would prefer if Rick waited for her lungs to stop burning before trying to talk to her.

And I think that it's going to take a while.

"Cough, cough, cough....!!!"

The light of Rick's eye started to spin up and down until his body started to slowly roll back in her direction, at least until he got himself stuck on the dust near her that had entered the container when she had opened the door. Or Chell supposed he got stuck, it wasn't like she could see anything else but the glowing eye of the Core.

"Sorry."

What?

"I'm sorry, partner. Leaving you alone before shouldn't have happened. What kind of adventurer am I? Leaving you in danger..." The voice of the Core carried deep regret.

Even if still coughing, Chell managed to shake her head, trying to make him understand that it wasn't his fault. He had helped her while she was unconscious, so she had wanted to help him in return. She was the one responsible for this.

"My battery isn't an excuse. Have you ever heard of an adventurer whose energy dried up in a vital moment?"

Ok, she wasnÆt pissed at him anymore, in fact she was worried. She hadn't know the Adventure Core for too much time, but his words didnÆt match his usual personality.

"I can hear them outside, love, at some distance, but all around us. I think I can guess in what kind of situation you have been driven because of my carelessness with my power. So, sorry."

"Haha..." The Core let out a bitter laugh." What a shitty end for our adventure is thi..."

Shut up.

Chell violently stood up and grabbed the sphere while containing her cough, interrupting his speech. Her chest ached so much... But Chell beared with it and looked directly at the glowing eye with the most angry expression she could, bringing it close enough so he could see her face with the light of his pupil. And then she did the most similar thing to talking in a lot of time, she clearly mouthed her thoughts.

Never give up, Adventurer. If you give up, you truly are a worthless one.

She had liked Rick's adventurous personality. He seemed crazy and ready, always with some impossible plan in his mind and with some 'past experience' to back it up. He had asked for a knife without having any limbs against Wheatley, for God's sake! And now he was the one giving up?

On an impulse she threw him into the darkness, a metallic sound informed her that he had met with the back of the container.

I really didn't mean to do that...

She was trying to find the lighter in her pockets to get some light and try to retrieve him when another coughing fit started and forced her to return to her previous resting position against the side of the container.

I should try to retrieve him the next moment I can move. He didn't deserve that, even if he was being stupid.

Chell never expected the loud laughter that followed.

"HAHAHAHAHAH... Yes, baby! That's the spirit! Giving up is for losers! And I am no loser! I'm the greatest adventurer ever, Rick!"

Now this is a sudden change of mood.

"Aaaah... that sucky reboot from before left the Emotion's Processor really messed up. But don't worry, your raging love has returned me fully to my senses!"

She smiled weakly, at least something good came from her bad mood.

"Remember what I told you about finding something conveniently placed? Because Love, you have just thrown me to the solution of all our problems."

Chell would have made some sound to express her interest, but her coughing prevented her. What could have he found back there?

"You already did a lot, now it's time for the veteran to take charge! If I have energy to give up lke a scared child I have more than energy enough... For this!"

"Connecting emergency power supply to Motion Systems! Legs Back Online!" The mechanical noises of his limbs moving over the trash rattled throughout the place. "Primary Aperture Connector, Enabled!"

As mechanical and electrical sounds started to come from the direction of the voice, Chell's curiosity grew bigger, displacing the pain and the moodiness in her. What was he doing? Was he serious?

"Starting Network Management Procedures! Personality Core, that's me, successfully assembled!"

Numerous points of faint blue light started appearing in the piled things in the back of the huge container.

"Baby, you just take your time to rest and get better, I will probably have this done by then"

And what exactly is 'this'? She asked in her mind, eager to know.

"I will give my adventure an end to be remembered! Let's give those things Hell, baby...!"

The points of light grew in intensity and illuminated tiny bits of the things there. Mechanical legs and arms poked out of the mixed up old objects, twitching.

"Initializing system." A monotone, fully mechanical and impersonal voice came from different parts of the pile of random things. Startling her for a moment.

"The Android's Hell." Finished the Core.

Even her cough couldn't prevent her from laughing.

Now, this is truly my new companion.

-------------------------------------

Hacking was hard, not something fit for a sphere of action like him. But he thought of it as a penitence for before.

Over emotional because of the reboot or not, it had been a major fuck up on his part. And he wasn't the greatest Adventurer by fucking up in the important moments, so he really needed to do this well to prove his greatness. Because if this went as he had planned it was going to be so awesome...

With some luck, I'll finally get her to stare in awe at me after this, and maybe a love confession. That would make this the perfect ending.

Because the end of an adventure defined how good it was. And like it or not, his time was running short.

Between the numerous problems that made him 'corrupted' great damage to the back up battery was included. Probably his remaining time didn't reach the hour, even less since he had reactivated the legs to connect himself at the port in the back of machine before him.

Not that he was going to tell her. There was no solution for his problems in this forsaken junkyard, telling his partner would only make her worry uselessly. And no adventurer would do that to a pretty woman.

So instead he devoted his little time to try taking control over at least one of the things in this container. It was his turn to save her.

...Now I introduce this command in this screen, some numbers there... A little twist in this command line... And finished. I'm better at this than I thought, I could even be black belt level in hacking too.

He 'pressed' enter and data form the connection started to flood him. Everything was done.

ACCESS DENIED.

This wasn't what should happen! He should have gotten full control of the thing.

I should have never asked the Factual Core for hacking lessons while we where in the Corrupted's Basket.

So he started to try anything that passed through his mind, any code, command or anything that he could remember from his time tending to the facilities with the other Cores.

She was right after all, giving up should never cross a true adventurer's mind. He would do it or die trying.

ACCESS DENIED.

But, well, he didn't actually want to die trying. If he was going to die, he would do it in the greatest way he could manage.

Dying to save a pretty lady. That is the only death that would satisfy someone like me.

He would do it. Whether he could or not, failing was not an option.

But the protections of the software he was trying to breach were so complicated. He had even tried to bypass them with the wireless limited manipulation of Aperture Systems granted to all the Cores, but this was Tataros-07, the Junkhole.

Nothing that a Core could do would work, not even the Main Computer could control things down there, if it tried. A Quantum Absolute Interference invalidated all the Main Centralized Control Protocols. And their manipulation abilities were only pale imitations of the Main Computer after all, thought to aid the Announcement System when it took charge of the facilities after entering Apocalyptic Mode.

Only manual ways were operative here, but they were resisting his attempts.

ACCESS DENIED.

He tried new things at they passed through his mind, one after another they failed, but Rick would not stop his attempts.

I promised to take charge of thing! A sphere's word is an unbreachable contract! I will do it, for my pretty companion.

A woman so brave and capable deserved to live.

"You two are still alive after meeting with them. Excellent. Rick, my friend, you were right. You and your companion are made of something different. You two get things done, I like people like you."

A fully mechanical and inhuman voice echoed in his head, powerful and enticing, the first voice he had heard after coming down there.

"Oh you around here, my friend? It has been some time since I heard you last. How have you been? We are in quite the pinch again."

"I have been observing and saving power. The same thing that I have been doing since I ended up in this place. But what is important is what have been your companion and you doing."

Rick stopped his failed hacking for a moment. Could his 'friend' truly be a villain, like he had suspected at first?

"Shouldn't you have helped us, then? You helped us once, another time would have been great. Because we are deep into Ugly One's shit, if you don't mind my rudeness."

"If I helped you again this little testing of mine would have lost its meaning, you know. Spoiled the results." The voice continued talking tonelessly. "And results are the basic pillars here, in Aperture. Quality Control is the key for Aperture to succeed. Nobody wants crap that's going to break before the goal is reached. And exactly the same can be said about employees, nobody wants someone who canÆt do the work that he is being paid for."

öAnything that canÆt reach the expected results simply doesnÆt have a place here. Testing is the easiest way to weed out those burdens and discard them.ö

"What testing are you talking about? If you betrayed us after putting my trust in you... Answer me or I'll force the responses out of you!"

"You sure you want that? Not that I mind giving answers. But wouldn't something else be better, now that you two proved your worth...?

Something entered his system, surprising and really shocking him. He could not perceive which path the data was using to reach him, but he could feel the unknown information rushing through him towards the machine he was connected.

"Like some help with your little mantis problem?"

ACCESS GRANTED. AWAITING HIGH LEVEL CLEARANCE PERSONAL TO DESIGNATE NEW CHAIN OF COMMAND.

Wait, what? I was doing nothing now.

CONNECTED APERTURE SCIENCE PERSONALITY CONSTRUCT DESIGNATED AS CAPTAIN OF APERTURE SCIENCE MILITARY ANDROID'S SQUAD N?8465-1.

"Good work means rewards. Good results means that you are useful."

Obviously they were useful, they were Rick and... Mute Chick (he should remember to ask for her name). They were an awesome team! The best one!

"So much time waiting for anyone or anything as capable as you two... Survive and come to me. We need to have a long talk about business, us three and face to face."

"Good luck, my friend. I'll see you later."

The impersonal voice banished, and whatever data was going through him disappeared.

What the fuck just happened right now?

Was his friend a true friend or an enemy? Was he helping them or trying to get them killed? He wasn't able to understand him completely, but it sounded like he knew about the Ugly Ones and just stayed silent. Yet Rick was sure that he had just gave him the control of the robots.

Unexpected help from a seeming crazy mysterious guy... It's like returning to the good times.

He was an adventurer, in his profession any help is always a good thing. No matter how shady his helper was.

"Baby! Everything done back here! Just tell me when you are up for facing those insects again!" The Core informed his partner.

His time was running out.

ALL UNITS AWAITING ORDERS.

But it would be enough.

------------------------

Chell wass't just sitting and resting now that the violence of the coughs had lessened. She already had rested for a long time after the fall, doing it more would be unproductive.

The Adventure Core had found something and was prepaing himself to go against the aberrations again, so she was doing something similar, preparing herself a weapon. A true one for a change.

Between coughs, now somewhat helped by the faint light of the multiple blue points scattered around the things mixed in the back of the containe,r she found a metallic stick and some strings. Currently Chell was passing time sitting against the wall of the container and trying to tie the point of the broken mantis blade she had used before at the end of the rod.

I think that I'm going to call this the Aperture Science Mantis Lance. She tought while doing her work.

"What testing are you talking about? If you betrayed us after putting my trust in you... Answer me or I'll force the responses out of you!" The voice of the Core reached her ears and her blood froze for an instant. The shard of the organic blade dug in her right hand's palm as she lost her concentration while manipuling it.

Letting the stick fall over her legs she pressed both sides of the cut together to minimize the bleeding, Chell focused on the noises coming from the back of the container while she did that, trying to hear something more. Not that she thought that Rick would betray her, but the word testing nearly always involved some A.I. trying to kill her at the end.

Whatever made him say it couldn't be good. Even if he was only talking to himself. That word made her feel very wary.

What in the world could make him say that?

The core stayed in silence for some time, and Chell would have sworn that the blue light that came from the pile of trash changed into a yellow tone for a second.

"Baby! Everything done back here! Just tell me when you are up for facing those insects again!"

Could it be that he was talking to himself about whatever he was doing there? But then the references of betrayal and trust wouldn't make sense, then. Maybe his imaginary friend had 'said' something that he did not approve of? Or even interfered with what he was doing earlier?

She could think of other posibilities, but they included Wheatley manipulating Rick, and other things like that. So she prefered to keep those trains of thought parked for now.

Whatever Rick meant saying that doesn't really change the situation. I can worry about it after the immediate danger is dealt with, as usual. That method had worked well until now. And, being objetive, She was really good at making up new plans as new problem appeared. Hell, Chell was alive because of that.

So she looked again at her already healed hand and got back to work with the stick. Rick had already ended up doing what he wanted and she only had time until her lungs stopped being an anguish and more of a bother that she could ignore.

She would try Rick's idea, even without knowing what it was and being somehow wary after his previous words. It wasn't like their situation could get any worse after all.

Something dealied than the Portal Gun would be required, Chell was sure of it.

Good or bad, today is a day of many new things.

 

[Lusor]

I forgot to post this chapter earlie,r sorry.


---------------------------------------

Her makeshift lance felt too light in her hands in contrast with the heavy weight of the Portal Device, a deep nervousness was building inside Chell's mind at leaving her precious tool behind, in the container's dust covered floor. The first time in all the life she could remember in which she would willingly let it abandon her hands.

Why couldn't it be a one-handed device? Or small enough fit in my pockets? There is no need to mention that she was in no way comfortable with doing it. But this time it would be more of a hindrance than a help, it wasn't of any use for what she was going to do.

It could 'make the impossible, easy' but it would never be a true weapon. It could serve as one at times, but only when given other dangerous Aperture inventions to combine it. Right now it only was dead weight.

She gave a last look at the mostly empty wooden box where she had put it, safely stored away to prevent any damage to it from what going to happen. Now she knew more information about the Portal Gun she had even less interest in it breaking. That could be more problems that she could dealt with.

Uncontrolled miniature black hole kind of problems.

With that last look she revised that it was secure and gave a deep breath after verifying that.

Then Chell proceeded to push everything outside her thoughts. Her lack of confidence with her new tool, her doubts about Rick's idea, her fear towards the mantis-men... Everything was quickly throw away from her mind.

Only the resolution to do this and the way she had chosen to do it remained. That was the only things she needed to think about now.

"Remember, love. I'll need a bit of time to get this things outside and ready, so make a lot of noise to not let those guys get here. Then we'll make a timely apparition once you start to have problems with the Ugly Ones." The voice of the core reached her flow the faintly illuminated back of the container, dripping proudness in his idea.

"And let me tell you: I'm black belt in timely interventions. You'll see me falling over the first mantis-men that will hurt you. Like the fist of an angry good, you will see!

A curious thought appeared in her mind even in her current state of mind. When did Rick start to call them 'mantis-men'? It wasn't like she had told him.

More things to think about once I don't have a murderous species after me.

Now was the time to start moving. She grabbed her lance with a hand and made a signal to the Core.

"Before going out there would you tell me your name? Well more like write it in your case, I suppose. But I'll like to know the name of the woman that will help me in such an epic battle."

That threw Chell out of her 'test resolving' state for some second, never before had someone asked for her name. Not like she considered it a big deal, her name never was important for what she needed to do.

She even needed to take a second to remember how was it written before marking it in one of the more illuminated parts of the metallic walls.

"Chell... Great name. Not as awesome as 'Rick' but is sounds great."

The points of blue light moved slightly, focusing their brightness in the door. Filling her lungs with air until they ached, she had no way to know if the dust had settled after all, she kicked the door with her boots as hard as her legs would let her. With a thundering metallic noise as it busted open, causing the dust before it to scatter in the air again.

Without waiting a second she ran through it, the sooner they started this, the sooner they would finish.

"May the Adventure be with you, Chell!"

She had everything she had learnt in the Test Chambers and in every part of Aperture, the thousands of things she had done time after time to survive until now, and the conclusions she had draw from those. Fact before faith.

I don't need Adventure. I have Science, Knowledge.

And she knew how to use it.

The cloud of dust was through in a instant and now she was running over a sea of gray sand. All around her, looking fearfully at the little cloud of dust, there were a big number of the insect people. She hadn't actually thought that they could be so near them, this made things a lot difficult.

Using the surprise factor to achieve a first hit she jumped from the cloud to the closest mantis-man, giving a powerful thrust of her weapon aimed towards the rock-hard 'skin' between its eyes. Not being able to react as her form appeared before it, the aberration screamed gutturally and died as the shard of a blade of one of his brethren pierced his head.

Ok, I can pierce their protection with this. Her first attack, intended to test her weapon had been successful. She quickly got the weapon out from the corpse and started running again, not even waiting for it to fall at the ground, as the rest of those beings answered at the dying cry of the fallen one. The attention of every one of those things, previously on the dust, shifted at her immediately and their screams turned to ones of fury. The sand-like dust ar her feet trembled as the mantis-men started to run after her.

Now is where this gets difficult. She thought looking back at the more advanced followers. Giving a sharp turn she traced arc in the sand using all the strength of both her arms, raising a curtain of dust behind her as she abruptly changed directions.

Behind her some of the monsters cried in pain at being covered by that fine material and painfully blinded. But that was hardly an achievement. There were a lot of those aberrations in the hole in the junk where she was trapped, simply too much to avoid them.

The classic approach to these kind of situations seems the more useful right now. The same she used dealing with Turrets seemed the most appropriate.

Chell looked in front of her and saw a group of them coming straight at her, something expected given how they were scattered in this place. One, two, three, four... Four of those things. Time to test her performance with her new tool in problematic situations, it seemed.

If you can't avoid them, disable them.

She speeded up towards and giving a deep breath she kicked the floor. The dust raised and made the insect people step back to prevent it from entering their unprotected eyes, just what she had wanted.

They adapt quick to new things, but they are predictable.

Coming out of the dust she pierced one through the eye until the lance got passed through its head after coming out behind it, near its neck. That was no good, she couldn't get it back,.

"FGEADGEEED!" Two of them jumped at her while she was trying to retrieve her weapon.

I don't want to do this.

Kicking the corpse on her lance she made it elevate a little on the air in front of one of the incoming monsters. The two hand blades of the airborne being pieced the dead body at the same time that other enemy was about reach her.

Why are you trying to stop me? I only want to get out of here.

Chell violently pushed the lance forward, penetrating the chest of the mantis-men beyond the corpse and pushing the long stick through both bodies as far as it could be done. Throwing herself at the ground she passed between the legs of the pierced mantis-man before the blades of its friend got on her back, rapidly standing up again she pulled the lance from behind the bladed part. Getting it out from both bodies.

Please, don't get in my way.

With a quick arch she beheaded the wounded monster before it could get its blades out of the corpse. The mantis-man she just avoided jumped towards her again only to meet the flying head of the recently killed monster, stunning it long enough to make it fall face first into the fine dust. Counting how 'good' that dust was for eyes like theirs, she doubted it would bother her again.

I don't want to kill you.

"FEGGEEDDEESG!!"

A growl at her back reminded her that the group of monsters was composed four of them. Twisting her head she could see its blades standing high behind her, just about to decent. Spinning over he axis while brandishing her makeshift weapon she tested her speed against the blades coming down in a quick swing to the 'wrists' at which they were connected.

I only want to be safe, nothing more.

As the two blades fell at the ground at her sides, the monster suddenly turned into a pitiful unarmed being. But she could not take unnecessary risks, the necessary ones were too many already.

A quick thrust between its eyes finished its life, Chell tried to be as merciful as she could be.

Why don't you all understand?!

She stopped after killing the last one, looking around her for a second. Mantis-men came from every direction cutting all the ways out, a sea of growling green trying to swallow her. She had reached this situation sooner than predicted, but Chell had no fear, only pity.

A circle traced quickly in the ground raised enough dust in the air to give her a second. Time to decide where start the next part of her 'plan'. It truly was an improvisation she had made when Chell had seeing their numbers, but that was good enough for her.

Chell hoped that Rick was well employing this time, because things were about to get messy for her. Messy and gory.

Anything that stands in my way will be disposed as effectively as possible. Just run away!

Brandishing her Aperture Science Mantis Lance she jumped from between the floating 'sand' towards the form of one of the insect people that she could see through the recently raised 'mist'.

As she got out of the cloud and fell over it before giving the things time to react she couldn't help but feel uneasiness as the lance took another victim. She hated proving right GLaDOS taunts, but she could not do it after what she was doing.

I am good at killing things.

Even death could make a useful tool. All for her goal.

But she hated using it.

-----------------------

UNITS 1 TO 15 OF 15 UNCAPABLE OF MOVING, CURRENT LOCATION DOES NOT HAVE ENOUGH SPACE TO DEPLOY ANDROID SQUAD.

The notification flared in his systems after his companion got out and he had sent orders to the robots. And it wasnÆt good.

öWhat?! CouldnÆt you have told me that before, buddy?! She just got out so you all could get moving! We canÆt fail now!ö This was probably his last adventure, practically condemning someone to die because fucking up was absolutely not an option. Even less doing it to such a magnificent woman. ôCanÆt you make some room or something?! Break down everything for what I care! We are getting out as fast as possible, my troops!ö

ôNEW ORDERS ACCEPTED. WALLÆS CURRENT RESISTENCE IS INFERIOR TO THE MAXIMUM STRENGTH OUTPUT OF UNITS 8 TO 13. PROCEEDING WITH DEMOLITION. The whole container vibrated as something pushed both of it sides from inside the accumulated things. The metal cracked and screamed as the strain started to accumulate on it.

"Oh.. this... Exactly, that was what I was ordering you to do! I'm so good at this that I'm not even aware of my awesome ideas! You hear, buddy?" The green eyed Core commented to the robot he was attached to.

That was good it looked like it was to take more time than anticipated but the metallic box didn't seem that it was to resist a lot more.

Some seconds after, maybe even one or two minutes, the welding on the upper part of the right side started to break with a progressively expanding crack. And by the screams of those things it seemed that Chell was still giving them trouble.

He could see her with her improvised lance high and giving silent judgment over those thing, looking nearly as awesome as him while doing it. It was a shame that he had only meet her in his final adventure, such a beautiful and strong woman... Truly worth of dying for.

He saved the mental image in his favorites folder, it would serve as a good luck charm. After doing that he took reigns of the connection with the androids and prepared mentally for the battle to come.

"Time to appear and save the day guys! This can is opening!"

It is time to be the hero, and sadly time is something that I don't have in spades right now. So better get moving!

The container creaked a last time before breaking violently and letting the trash inside scatter in the ground. It dispersed around, uncovering fourteen vaguely humanoid forms from between the random items. Now fully illuminated he could see them perfectly. It seemed like someone had tried to make a parody of a man with some sticks, a ball and a rectangular bow.

All the robots started moving at unison, from the metallic box in their chest tubes and wires got out to connect with their terminations on every thin limb. Moving like one same thing the things stood up on their crudely made 'feet' and positioned themselves in a pyramidal formation with the unit which he was attached at the head. In the middle of their chest-boxes a connector could be seen inside an Aperture symbol, well that dispersed his worries of being attached at their butt.

Their heads, smooth white metallic spheres with a glowing 'eye' in the middle, spun around, scanning the surroundings. Judging by how all the Ugly Ones on the place were concentered in one place it was obvious than his companion had been even too successful at getting their attention.

And now was his turn.

"Boys! Fast and easy orders! Shoot every Ugly One in this junkyard! And don't accidently fire at the woman or you will have to deal personally with me!"

The formation quickly changed to a circular one, facing out. Every robot moved their thin hydraulic arms at the side of their 'chests' in front of themselves and signaled stragit with three hollow fingers.

ORDERS ACCEPTED. ACCESING INTERNAL MEMORY OF THE DESIGNATED CAPTAIN FOR REFERENCES TO RECOGNITION OF ENEMIES NAMED 'UGLY ONES'.

INFORMATION COMPILED. APERTURE SCIENCE ANDROID SQUAD STARTING PREDEFINED BEHAVIOUR N? 1.

SEARCH AND EXTERMINATE.

Like thousand of drums sounding at the same time the sound of bullets filled the air. Shooting thought their hollow fingers the numbers towards the green masses the circle of robots began walking at the same time and expanding the diameter while shooting at every enemy in sight.

"I bring reinforcements, baby! Say hello to the infantry!" The Core animatedly screamed between the constant shooting.

Time to save the day.

-------------------------------------------------------


A quick swing cut open the eye of an attacking monster, making it retreat screaming, immediately she turned back while tracing an arch in the air with her lance and smashing it against the flat side of incoming blades of a new aberration that was trying to slice her back open, successfully changing their paths.

"FEEEGDSEAGGGG!!!"

With an inhuman growl five mantis-men simultaneously pounced towards her just after she finished deflecting the previous attack. Only having one option Chell buried the tip of the makeshift weapon in the ground and used it to impulse herself over the failed experiments heads.

The five monsters crashed on her lance at the same time, their bodily fluids spraying as their blades now without target accidentally plunged in each other bodies. Obvious result, something can't change directions mid-aid without anything aiding it. Chell had tried before, so she knew it.

Falling over the agonizing mantis-men she retrieved her weapon from the middle of them and ended their lives before any of them could try to recover.

It's my life or theirs. And her life was her only true possession, Chell would never give it up.

Not really having time to think she tried to block a new attack coming from her left, she swung the Mantis Lance quickly towards it. A great mistake. Seeming to have learnt how was she fighting the second blade of the monster fell over the handle of her weapon. Forcing Chell to release it, so her arm would not be cut along with the metallic stick, she jumped back and dodged an airborne enemy that tried to fall over her.

The sudden sound of metal breaking under pressure resonated in the place, grabbing everyone's attention, Chell's included. After that came a second of complete stillness. And then the gunfire started, the thundering noise of hundreds of bullets crossing the air and the sickening sound of bodies being filled with metallic rounds accompanied with guttural death screams. And for one time she had no worry of being the target of the shots, because Chell could localize the origin of the sounds.

The position of the container, just on the limits of her sight.

"I bring reinforcements, baby! Say hello to the infantry!"

Oh my...! Androids! He is commanding a group Aperture Military Androids! That's brilliant! She could see a point of green light in the chest zone of one of the distant robots, confirming the position of her companion.

Now she was wishing to end the current difficulties and getting a close look to those things, this was something she always wanted to see.

But as some seconds passed she, and the mantis-men, realized a little detail. Not even a single bullet was getting at more than ten meters of her. This left a whole lot of alive, and foaming from their mouths in rage and fury, abominations in her view.

No need to mention that it was a bad thing.

"GEFEFFGEADDGE!!!" The attention of one of the insect people returned to her and it came running and moving it's blades continuously.

Worry about not being helped later. Now look!

Revising the space around her in a fraction of a second she quickly crouched and grabbed the forearm of a dead monster, using all her strength she lifted it in the air and threw it to the running mantis-man.

And then she grabbed both pieces of her lance and started running between the insect people as they keep focusing on the screams of their dying members. Sadly having one following her a few meter behind was grabbing their attention again, and grabbing attention, now, was not what she needed.

A mantis-man jumped in front of her and she didn't even stop before plunging the stick-only half of her broken tool in that thing's eye and released it, ran past the monster. Beyond the sea of green she could see an expanding circle of Androids shooting down every insect-man in that hole in the junkyard where they were, except those near her.

"Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! And shit!" She could faintly hear the Core's voice in the distance. " I said 'don't shoot at her', not 'leave her to die'!"

Ok. I should have expected this, things were going too smoothly. Smoothly by her standards at least.

Chell strengthened her hold on the remaining ten centimeters piece of metal plus mantis blade that remained in her hands. Handing it like a knife.

All around her the mantis-men regained their murderous interest towards her and started the movements again, having overcame their fear to the gunfire. She faced them and took notice of everything within her sight field. Even after the bad turn of things there was only calmness in her face, working perfectly under pressure was a given in Aperture, after all. It was that or dying.

What can I do now?

The situation didnÆt bode well. But she was used to it, things never got easier for her.

Not that it had ever stopped her.

----------------------

When Rick had ordered his troops that shooting towards Chell was forbidden, he didnÆt even consider that they would literally obey him in a way that could be bad, they had been pretty explicit commands.

But seeing the machines don't even shooting in her general direction wasn't on his plans. Things shouldn't be happening this way.

"Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! And shit! I said 'don't shoot at her', not 'leave her to die'!"

UNITS UNABLE TO CHANGE ORDERS. APERTURE COMMANDS PROCESSOR MALFUNCTION DETECTED, MANUAL HARDAWARE REVISION IS RECOMMENDED.

Looking back he should have anticipated that and given a more exact order like æprotect the womanÆ or something like it. Now he found that orders couldnÆt be changed, and it was fucking all his plans up. How was he supposed to achieve his death in glory if the not even body he was attached to obeyed his orders? For the love of God, he was the assigned captain! they should be doing what he wanted!

Trusting discarded and old artifact to properly work had been a great error from his part. Those Androids were here for some reason after all.

Even an adventurer could lose it's cool, and Rick was giving a good demonstration of this panicking as much as his Panic Circuits let him.

PREVIOUS ORDER HOLD PRIORITY UNTIL COMPLETION. And how much damn time that meant?! EXTERMINATION OF 'UGLY ONES' ESTIMATED END IN FIVE DAYS.

He had accidentally sent his partner to die, and Rick couldn't do anything to solve that. He hadn't ever fucked things up so hard in all his previous experiences. Not even his extensive knowledge about adventuring and fighting could help him now, sadly he needed things like hands and feet to do those.

Never give up! The 'words' that Chell had mouthed before throwing him came to his mind thanks the Memories Reproduction. She had been right then, and it hadn't changed.

"There is still more than enough time to do the timely intervention..." The Core mussed trying to calm himself. "I just have to find how do it."

His time was already running out, giving up now would be simply stupid. And cowardly. No faulty A.I. would prevent him from filling his role.

He was The Adventurer. He would never be a coward! Or a quitter!

"You seem to be busy shooting everywhere but where I'm telling you, buddy." He talked to the Android while selecting heavy amount of random data inside his Memory Units. "But you should take a rest."

He was dealing with a very old Personality Construct, probably from before the first Core properly done. Low process speed, low memory capacity, and a big tendency to malfunction.

"You have got a mail."

DATA OF UNKNOWN FORMAT DETECTED. ERROR. UNCAPABLE OF MAINTAINING PRDETERMINED BEHAVIOUR. CYCLICAL ERROR. UNKNOW DATA POSSES HIGH RISK OF CORRUPTING VITAL INFORMATION, ENABLING FULL DATA BLOCKS. A.I. ENTERING SECURITY SHUTDOWN UNTIL PROBLEMS ARE RESOLVED.

He forced the information through the rudimentary defenses to the A.I., thirteen terabytes tightly compressed in an unreadable mass of random zeroes and ones. The automaton stopped moving completely, not being able to properly process anything. Taking the opportunities he seized the controls now vacant of the Motion Systems of the body and made it run towards the point of orange inside the group of mantis-men that still remained.

Manipulating the limbs was hard from his connection, like using a very complex puppet. But he could move it in the direction he wanted, and probably he could even shoot some of those things if he got near enough.

They were so close... He could practically taste the glory of the final showdown. The ending of the adventure that was his story.

With some problems he aimed around Chell with his hollow fingers, in straight lines from his arms the mantis-men started to fall.

If he had a mouth, Rick would be smiling.

Rescue the girl, then fight our way together to the secure zone between the Ugly Ones still standing around her. Now this is more of my liking, not like thi...

UNKNOWN DATA ERASED. MEMORY UNITS 1 THROUGH 4 FORMATED. ALL THE SYSTEMS RETURNING TO OPERATIVE STATUS.

EVERYTHING IS GOOD. UNIT RETURNING TO THE FORMATION.

The Android suddenly turned around against his wishes and started walking towards it's place towards the advancing formation.

"Oh no! You are NOT doing that now!"

Maybe he wasn't a good hacker, he leaved that to the brainy type of Core, but he had already took control of the machine when those functions had been temporally abandoned, and he had some tricks learnt when he still was working on the maintenance of the facilities. There was no way in hell that such an old model would kick him out of those controls.

The articulations blocked themselves trying to obey two totally opposed commands, the whole body of the robot shook violently as the will of the two minds trying to drive it fought a battle for control.

And Rick was sure that he would end up winning, in any other aspect he could have lost. But will... he had that in spades. Not even the long ages in the Corrupted's Basket had eroded his spirit. Or whatever he had similar to a 'spirit'.

He and his companion were similar in that aspect.

The Android's body slowly turned towards the remaining Ugly Ones again, and Rick's form trembled in anticipation for what was about to come.

Only to look directly at a mantis-man chest when he finished turning around again. Using the visual feed of the Androids head he could see it's horrible face dripping blood from one eye that was nearly cut in two halves.

"FERGEEGEADFEG!!"

But what actually frightened him, what actually made him feel true fear and despair, was the blade descending upon the Robot's head. He could see it crashing against the white sphere just as the visual signal from the robot and the presence of another A.I. within the circuits vanished.

Fucking. Shit. He thought darkly. In that part was the battery of this thing!

The Android's body fell to the sand like dust like a puppet with its strings cut. What could he do now? He didn't wish to give up, like she had said, but there was nothing that he could do now. Nothing in his vast experience adventuring could help him in this situation.

"So this is the end?" He said to the aberration in front of him. "Not as grand as I planned, but I don't really have a choice here. Do I?"

"FEGDEGDFFFEEEEEE!!!" The insect man reacted at the sound of his voice and eyed his fallen form with rage.

He could not even dislodge himself from the Android's connector without power. He was trapped.

What can I do now, trapped, without weapons and alone?... And he had promised Chell that she could trust in him to save her in a moment of need but, betrayed by his own troops and without other options, he couldn't do anything. Well I probably could do something rerouting my own power supply to the robot's circuit and activating it's emergency protocols in the Motion and Weapons Systems to accept me, the only Construct in this circuit, as the controller A.I. until time...

Wait. What as he thinking right now?

"I'm the biggest moron in the world!" He exclaimed as the solution literally popped up in his mind. Long unused functions kicked in and he remembered the other job that he had been nearly as good at it as he was going to adventures.

"I was a Maintenance Core, in my past. One of the best if you don't mind me saying it." He said absently as his mind performed calculations and started process not touched in so many years that he had nearly forgotten about them.

His previous life as an Aperture Repair-Sphere, in his endless job helping the proper working of the installations under the Announcement System, when the Main Computer had been disconnected and he and his brothers had woken up.

"I lived at first making broken things work properly! Wouldn't be poetic justice dying by doing it again!"

His life rushed out through the connection and his consciousness merged temporarily with the machine and he started receiving feedback from the different sensors still working inside the body. He analyzed every function and tried to salvage as many of them as he could.

And the metallic humanoid body came back to life, twitching and humming with electricity. Using what little was remaining from his energy, he reactivated the damaged circuits and took control of everything.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!" A maniac laughter escaped from his speaker as the Android's body started responding and moving smoothly under his commands. It stood straight again with the speed of a spring recoiling and before the half-blind Ugly One in front of him could react he smashed his new three fingered fist in its face, breaking the hard skin like it was paper and making it stagger back stunned.

Having arms and hands is awesome! And guns! Don't forget about the guns! He thought excitedly flexing his new limbs.

"HAHAHAHAHAH! This is it! What I wanted! What I needed! HAHAHAHA!"

"I am Rick!!! The greatest Adventurer, former maintenance worker!!!"

"Let me show to all of you, freaking abominations, how is a Hero's Death!!!"

He charged the Firing Mechanisms and started a crazy run towards the mantis-men who remained untouched by the shooting of the Military Androids still in formation. Less than ten minutes of life remaining. More than enough.

"Here is a little hint...!"

A insect man stood into his path, without even thinking what was he doing he crouched for a second and jumped while giving the ugly thing an uppercut with everything that body had, elevating both of them into the air.

"I'm taking you all with me!"

He had been preparing that ending line since he knew he would die. And it was awesome.

Now, time to save damsels.

------------------------------------------

If the mantis-men had expected her to be powerless after her tool's destruction they were horribly wrong. Chell never ran out of tools.

When one survives in Aperture, learning how to take advantage of the terrain is a necessity.

So she keeps 'dancing' between the deadly blades and screaming monsters, blinding them with dust and ending their lives with quick thrusts at their heads, using the remaining piece of her lance as a dagger. But the new range came problems, her first test of it came with a clear result.
Getting close to those things without her lance was nearly as stupid as juggling with High Energy Pellets. Without all the dust under her, Chell wouldn't have been able to attack those things without getting killed in return.

"Cough, cough, cough!!!"

But using the dust so frequently wasn't without a price and, while she wasn't blinded like the insect people, her lungs were paying for it again. Chell needed to end this as fast as she could.

Or she would end up being their dinner.

A new mantis-man charged against her from a few meters from her position, its two blades getting near her at high speed and obviously aimed to kill. And sadly what was remaining from her tool was still in another attacking creature.

I have wanted to test if these things would resist. But I don't like doing it in a live or death situation.

As the blades came down she intercepted them with the only thing at her hand that she thought could withstand the cutting force. Well it was not exactly at her hand, more like on her legs.

She kicked the edge of the blades with the nigh indestructible Long Fall Boots. If they had resisted making a hole on miscellaneous junk when she fell, they very well should be able to resist this.

If I have an option, I will die trying to survive. But, to be honest, Chell had no intentions of dying there.

Her mouth twitched into a little smile as the sole of the boot stopped all the momentum of the blade without being cut. Chell liked when, for a change, things went like she wanted.

And like her thoughts had cursed her, the smile vanished as her remaining leg lost its footing and she fell to the ground. She tried to return to a straight position as fast as her muscles would let her, being defenseless on the ground wasn't really a great idea while being surrounded.

"Cough! Cough! Cough!" Her lungs ached at the sudden movement and the pain made her stagger back and nearly fall again. Everything of this while the remaining mantis-men got closer and closer to her.

I think that if I got out of this alive, I'll have to find something to resew the jumpsuit. Was the only thing that came at her mind looking at their blades.

Controlling her cough she jumped towards the corpse with the fragment of her Mantis Lance, trying to recover her weapon to keep trying to protect herself.

And while she was doing it the mantis-men started to die in the middle of thunderous gunfire.

In two lines at her sides the monsters fell to the ground, lifeless and full of holes. Screams of fear filled the air as the failed experiments saw themselves dying suddenly.

Far behind her a lone android moved slowly in Chell's direction shooting to the aberrations at her sides without hitting her.

The previous disappeared smile returned even wider as she took note of the tiny point of green light on its chest.

It was about time, adventurer!

Taking out the remains of the tool from the corpse she started an offensive while the insect people was distracted and scared. She cut throats and stabbed heads as quick as her condition would let her, controlling her body so every move would be precise and mean a monster less each time. It was sickening, but her only option to get out alive.

At some time the gunfire had stopped again and she believed to hear of the Adventure Core screaming something, but he had already given her time to recover a good position and her weapon. Rick had already helped her two times with the guns from the Androids, but in the end getting out of this had been always her responsibility.

And thinking the bright side, the other mantis-men that were in this hole should be dead if the other robots kept shooting. Sadly she couldn't know it, the guttural noises of the aberrations made difficult to hear anything most of the time.

So she keep making a way between the green monsters, getting some ligh cuts when avoiding their attacks and controlling her renewed cough by the earlier usage of the dust. And, hell, she was starting to get a little tired.

And the it came, a incoming edge she would not be able to block.

Better to control damage, in this situation. I need to keep moving.

She tried to shift her position so the blade would not touch anything vital and prepared to kill it as soon as it had gotten stuck in her.

She gritted her teeth and waited for the blow, which never came. Because, as absurd as it sounded, another mantis-man just crashed over the one attacking her.

What?

In that moment of distraction another monster attacked her from behind, only to be smashed gorily by another falling body. One of steel.

"Like the fist of an angry god, baby! Just like I said."

Ok, I recognize that you really have the skills you boasted about timely interventions. That was pretty good in time, Rick.

Looking at her from the chest of a headless android, the Adventure Core spun over its axis in excitement.

"Awesome job what you did with those things, partner! And sorry for taking so much time, had some technical difficulties..." More mantis-men approached. "Wait, let me make some room before we continue the talking."

With precision the arms of the robotic body fluidly moved and pointed to two of the insect people. With a bang two holes appeared on their foreheads, the other of their kind stepped back cautiously, at least for some seconds.

"Aaaaah... This body is great, you know? I always wondered what was so great about having two arms and two legs but, wow. ItÆs amazing! This form has an awesome balance!" The hands of the robotic body flexed some times and the Adventurer looked up at her from its chest. "Sadly I only can keep using it for some minutes, so we better start the end of this ugly things before it stop working. Prepare your lance and let's finish off the remaining guys! Together like the awesome team we are!"

Then, I believe we have a problem... She though while showing her the remaining piece of her weapon. The green light from his eye moved over it while emitting what Chell supposed was the equivalent to a thoughtful humming.

"Do you have the other piece around here? I think that I can repair it, I have some spoils of my first adventures that should do the trick"

Immediately localizing the other piece buried into the head of a corpse, Chell retrieved it and gave both parts to the Core.

"Look at this, baby. It's awesome." The robotic hands held both cleanly cut pieces together and touched them with his metallic spherical body. "Deploying Aperture Science Maintenance Nanobots!"

She didn't saw anything happening actually, but a moment after the Core let the lance fall. In one piece again.

That really is a great ability to have. She agreed with the adventurer for a time while giving the lance a few swings.

"I got those Nanos in my first adventure, when I wasnÆt even an adventurer by the time. They are an unregistered model, not in the databases. Useful little boys to have around, capable of repairing simple damages in seconds if provided with a blueprint."

"Dangerous too, I suppose. They are the ones who damaged my batteries trying to repair things that werenÆt broken in first place. And I really should stop talking and get into action because my time in this thing is quickly running out, baby. We need to get moving."

Chell nodded and prepared herself to enter in combat again.

"There are about twenty of them remaining. Would you like a little race to see who is better at..." The sphere stopped talking when Chell thrust the repaired lance in his direction without hesitation.

"FEFEDDDEFFEEEEEGGG!!!" With a scream of pain the monster creeping upon the Core's back fell to the ground. She looked expressively at his eye's.

We really don't have time to lose.

"Excellent reaction, partner! .Lets get into this before more sneak upon us, again. I'll give you cover fire and you kill anything that tries to get at my back. Easy and good plans, have to love them."

The android's body started walking before abruptly stopping again.

"A pleasure knowing and adventuring with you, my love. Shame we meet so late in my life.ö

"Now... Let's go to kick some ugly asses!"

Like it was a signal both jumped into action, Chell spun over her legs and beheaded a aberration creeping up her right side while Rick made the Android's body jump over her and shoot a barrage of bullets on another mantis-man trying to get her back.

Two more monsters jumped toward from opposite direction, and Chell smashed the lance on their side to prevent them from making any damage by changing their trajectories. Falling at her side when the two beings were crossing the air near her, Rick quickly aimed and shot at their heads before they touched the ground, erasing the chance of more attacks of both monsters. Chell was glad of having the guns on her side, for a change.

"We are very good, Chell." The sphere commented in an proud tone after landing.

A bullet passed nearly touching her heard at the same time she thrust her lance forward through the middle of the wires and tubes coming out of the Android's 'Chest', near the Core. An instant after that two mantis-men fell to the ground behind their respective backs.

"We are awesomely undefeatables."

She didn't know that, but they were going to find out in a moment.

Time to take care of the obstacles.

And they charged together one last time.

---------------------------------------

It had been fast, clean and glorious.

Observing his companion get her lance out of the last twitching Ugly one and seeing the rest of the Android squad start advancing towards the exterior of the hole in the junk were the boxes and containers now covered in sand-like dust rested, he couldnÆt help but be proud with the results. They had fought, won, and it had been as exciting and dangerous as he had planned.

ôYou should really become an adventurer, you would be the best. Probably better than me in no time."

The machine he was connected to was starting to malfunction because the progressive shutting down of his not necessary functions. He blocked the body position as a last command before his connector automatically disconnected and made him fall to the ground with a metallic sound. Such a shame, he had liked having an anthropomorphic body, with guns.

His beautiful companion looked back at the sound and ran to him with a worried look at seeing him in the ground. Or maybe it was at the waning light of his pupil? The thing was starting to stop working.

ôI think you should make a film out of this. WouldnÆt be great to see our journey in the big screen? A great way to remember our time together.ö

ôWhat IÆm trying to say isà Goodbye, it has been an honor fighting with you.ö

Chell shook him in the air, preoccupied as the light keep going off, and more by his words. He looked at her face, in all the adventures he had, he could not think of a better partner to had a last adventure.

The light of his pupil fully vanished as all his æsensesÆ were disabled by the automatic protocols to save up energy. Maybe it would be a full minute or two, but so far from Aperture it was a death sentence. And he didnÆt mind.

ôYou will win against the Big Guy, you are better than him. My beautiful companion.ö
Emergency Energy Saving enforced. CoreÆs Apocalyptic Energy Source in critical state of charge. The voice of the announcement system resounded into his mind from the emergency protocols.
And with those last word his consciousness plunged into the darkness, everything but the core functions of him mind already disabled. Not really knowing what to do with his remaining time he tried his luck if the image processor still worked and tried to make a film advertisement of the image he had taken before in his mind. She had looked awesome in his mind, but he needed to add himself somehow.

A very capable woman. They are always great partners. I know. An impersonal metallic voice resounded into his mind.

The sheer impossibility of hearing his friendÆs voice here was stunning; sadly he didnÆt react as the Stunning Chipset wasnÆt working in Low Energy Mode.

Great show you pulled before. You two are even better than what I was waiting for. But IÆm afraid I canÆt let your energy to totally dry up, I want both of you for this work.

If Rick could see, he would had noticed the mechanical claw, like the one of the Core Transporting System, that violently busted through the wall of junk around them and grabbed a highly surprised Chell by the waist before pulling her inside the trash, with the half dead Core in her hands..

The testing has ended my friend. Good job. Now come and relax a little, you and your skillful partner.

Like I said before. ItÆs time to get into the business.

And for first time the metallic voice was tinged by a little of some emotion, glee.

And I canÆt make business with ædeadÆ AIs.

-------------------------------------

 

[Lusor]

Here is a new chapter, I hope someone likes it.


-------------------------------------

It was all Chell could do to tighten her grip on the Core as the mechanical claw pulled her by her back into the hole it emerged from, without so much as giving her time to react. Entering the cavity at high speed she was greeted by a long diagonal descending tunnel illuminated in eerie yellow light which seemed to come from everywhere. The fact that the crane had been able to go up through there to grab her was nearly absurd, gravity and other silly natural laws should prevent it from doing so. However, she had been exposed to Aperture technology too much to cause her any surprise.

Aperture's inventions just worked, and thinking about how they did that only brought headaches, Chell had learned to ignore their impossible working principles and to only focus her mind on what to do with them.

And with the claw it was no different.

Whatever was controlling that had taken into account Chell's skills and planned according to them. Attacking just as the Adventure Core had started to behave strangely, even stranger than usual. It used Rick's situation to catch her by surprise, so it had obviously been waiting for the right moment to strike.

My first guess is Wheatley. Second guess is mantis-men that use technology. And, frankly, she didn't know which one was scarier.

And truly, Chell didn't really care; the perpetrator of the attack didnÆt really matter to her. She and Rick were going to simply get out of there as fast as she could free herself. The battle with the mantis-men had been enough for the day. She didn't want to end up in yet more deadly situations, damn it! She wanted to go somewhere quiet to rest for a bit after recovering her portal gun and search for a way to help the seeming inactive core!

Things trying to kill me should take a number, form a line and take turns! Not so many at the same time! If she had been given two cents for every time she had thought this since she had awoken inside the relaxation vault. Before she even knew that the place was, in fact, actively trying to kill her...

She would have a lot of useless money because coins inside Aperture had little to no use, and she really needed to start solving the dire situation she was in. Getting sidetracked wasn't helping.

Taking a deep breath she put away from her mind all the worry about RickÆs state, the thoughts about the mantis-men that wanted her flesh. For a moment Chell forgot the problems in the form of a murdering AI that wanted her head, and the confusing feeling about a hated nemesis that had tried to give her a way out even at the cost of her own will and mind.

She cast away all her feelings and emotions. Sharp eyes scanned everything as her mind started to coldly analyze the situation in which she found herself now.

The first thing is getting this thing to release me. She gave a glance at the metallic claw holding her and focused on it. Like a Test, everything has a solution. There is nothing that can't be achieved.

Hundreds of possible ways passed through her mind at high speed as she looked at the joints, damaged parts, wires, tubes, and electrical components of the machine. Quickly discarding any idea that would need any tools, Chell found one that suited her needs.

I only need to find the right way.

Gripping Rick by one of his handles, she reached her right hand into the hole left in a broken and worn metal plate. Her fingers latched on the little tubes, and supposing them to be part of what seemed to be the hydraulic system of the claw, Chell pulled.

Thanks to the considerable strength that she gained from carrying her gun, tearing them proved to be an easy task for her. Crimson smoke emerged from the broken tubes at considerable pressure, forcing her to pull back her hand and cover her nose and mouth. She had inhaled enough dust to tear her lungs not an hour before, boiling them with vaporized hydraulic fluid didnÆt seem like a good idea. If anything it promised pain in great quantity.

Like any hydraulic engine deprived of its gas, the strength of the claw's grip grew weaker, and combined with its progressively increasing velocity, it was enough to release her as it kept speeding up.

Chell crashed into the junk with no problems thanks to her reliable long fall boots and looked at the claw continuing its path, still leaking the vermillion gas.

One less thing to worry about. She thought as the thing already was at a safe distance, and turned her back to it. Starting what seemed like a long path up. That claw hadn't got her even for a whole minute, but it would take a lot more than that to make her way in the opposite direction.

But sadly, once the bothersome claw had been dealt with, another concern had arisen into her mind immediately as the mute woman got the first good look of the tunnel where she had been forcibly dragged through.

Innumerable active machines were scattered through the junk, working tirelessly to keep the cavity open. The walls and ceilingà they were nothing more than the endless sea of broken machines and scraps, barely restrained by the effort of the Aperture engines, which were continuously giving sounds of strain as they prevented the place from collapsing.

And only then Chell realized that the unusual yellow illumination came from those active machines. Every corner of the tunnel was illuminated by the light radiating from the lights typically attached to Aperture machinery.

Blue light mans that the machine is working normally, red light usually meant that it was damaged or going crazy. I have seen those colors on them a thousand of times.

But what does a yellow light mean?

It was unsettling reminiscent of the Test Chamber-like place where she had woken up after that nasty fall from the Main Chamber. And Chell didnÆt know what to think of that.

Whateverà I have more urgent tasks to do. IÆm getting out here.

Grabbing the Core with two hands again, Chell looked at the unlit electrical pupil while she walked, starting her long way up.

Now. How do I fix you?

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

He really hadn't expected the woman to break free from his Aperture Science Non-Gravitational Claw.

The claw was supposed to bring them to him in a minute thirty seconds, so the woman could connect the Maintenance Core to a power source to prevent its "death" without having to worry about the time sensitivity of the CoreÆs situation. Now the claw had returned, even more broken that how he had found the machine, and empty.

öYou tried your best to fulfill your purpose. Be proud of that even if you don't have a use anymore. You obeyed your orders and worked until the end.ö

A seeming impersonal and monotone "voice" could be "heard" in the simplistic personality circuits of the machine as it started to shut down and its power fully drained. It was a shame to lose the claw-engine, since it was an old prototype, but risks had to be assumed. Now that he had way to get out of the junkyard, he would risk sacrificing verything for the plan.

And it would come out victorious. There was no problem that he couldnÆt overcome, crisis that he couldn't recover from. Nothing would prevent him from achieving its goal, not time, not death, and not unforeseen problems

He would risk everything, and win. He always succeeded, and always would succeed.

Because he didn't know the meaning of giving up, because every problem was a challenge and he never backed down from a challenge.

Not even from death itself.

He started "talking" again. A voice that wasnÆt a voice, words that could be heard anywhere on that forgotten junkyard, but would never be heard by living beings.

Spreading through the circuitry of every working machine in the junkyard, speaking directly inside their artificial minds, he talked to his audience.

His little broken workers.

öMiss Test Subject had proved herself to be even better than expected. But, sadly, some problems have arisen as she seemed to consider my help an attack. Now one of our saviors is going to die and the other one is going to abandon me, us. We have very little time so I'll take control to take care of this eventuality.ö

The mountains of junk hummed in response to its words.

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

Trying to make her way up ended up being much more problematic than Chell had anticipated.

The uneven ground made up from piles of old, discarded and broken Aperture equipment was a difficult terrain to walk over, and the instability of it was enough to need her full attention in order to not get her boots stuck. Eventually she became used to walking over it and attempted to think about how she could restore RickÆs energy in that gigantic deposit of scraps and garbage. ôAttemptedö being the keyword here.

Before Chell could start thinking properly about how to solve that problem, something else interrupted that line of thought. Feeling the ground trembling under her she instinctively jumped back, and prepared for whatever was going to come out.

You have to be kidding me, more? What is this now? Oh! How she hated situations like this one, when shit just happened again and again. Without giving her any pause.

Nothing really new for her, if it wasnÆt for the absence of her more versatile tool.

An enormous piston, reminiscent of her path to defeat GLaDOS the first time, broke through the floor with a deafening crash. After a second, it receded into the hole it had just made in absolute silence.

It hadnÆt even emerged near her or stood in her way too much, and the machines in the walls had been strong enough to prevent the makeshift tunnel from falling collapsing over her.

Seeing how my day is going I would say that this can be considered ôluckyö by todayÆs standard.

It was being a really bad day even to her, and that was saying something.

Resuming her march towards the upper exit Chell skirted around the recently formed hole. Taking the chance to give a quick look into the hole as she continued her way, Chell was noticing that the hole was pretty deep, easily near the four-five meters, when something emerged from one of the side of that hole. It was a slim and weak-looking mechanical arm that immediately after emerging started to dig into the wall near it.

It was either a trap or something she had no business with. And while her curiosity was burning her Chell tried to reign over it, ignoring the working machine, and continued on her way. She hadnÆt walked more than a few meters when the sound of something crossing the air behind her caused her to automatically duck. She watched a metallic, box-like object pass over her and crash harmlessly in the junk that composed the ground.

She quickly jumped back into an upright position and waited for more attacks. When she saw that no more "projectiles" were coming, Chell decided to continue on her way without looking back. She didn't need any more distractions. However, there was a slight flaw in her "no curiosity" planà
The box-like thing was just in front of her. It was right in her way so she would look at it, whatever she wanted to do it or not. And it an unknown piece of ApertureÆs equipment! Of course Chell wanted to look at it!

The temptation was just too strong.

Hell, only a little. Just few second to inspect it closely wonÆt hurt.

Leaving the core in the ground for a moment the girl in orange lifted the metallic cube until itÆs glowing side was facing her. It seemed to be a monitor, a TV in a metallic cover. An absurdly resistant one, judging on how it hadnÆt been too damaged by the impact. The ones she had destroyed in the WheatleyÆs modified Aperture installations had been broken with ease by simply driving something to them, not even needing too much speed.

Well, itÆs just a sturdy monitor. No big deal, then.

But she was wrong. As she was putting the thing in the ground again a strange little engine came out from between the junk, and grabbed the power cord hanging from its back, and returned from where it had come, pulling the monitor with it until the wall of the tunnel itself blocked its advance.

And then the monitor turned on by itself. On the black screen, white letters clearly read

ôAperture Science AnnouncementÆs System Emergency Communications protocol had been enabled automatically. All employees are ordered to wait near an Aperture Science Communications Device for further instructions. Protocol activated since: 05/20ù

May of the year 20--? I remember that from another place. But from where...?

A piece of paper. One of thousands scattered between the science projects of child of times long gone. A pamphlet talking about the Aperture's annual "Bring Your Daughter to Work" days, a simple and inconsequential piece of paper without any useful information on it. Or that is how she had always seen it, until now.

Because the Aperture's annual "Bring Your Daughter to Work" days, was the first week of May. And Chell remembered clearly the state in which she had found the place where it had been celebrated.

The mugs, computers and papers scattered everywhere on the offices near that big room filled with potato batteries. The whole place clearly was left evacuated in a rush leaving everything behind I can even imagine the people around things like this, trying to know what was going on, what was happening, without results. Something happened there, something so big that triggered some kind of automatic security measures.

It was like adding two and two. One just needed to put pieces together to get a general picture of what happened.

And, seriously, what could be big enough to active safety protocols in a place were safe science was not only ridiculed and stomped over, but an actual cause to fire people. Just what could have happened thereà?

TimeÆs up.

While Chell would love to try to look around for anything that could help her to know ôanythingö, she had promised herself to not indulge into her own curiosity. At least until she had found a solution to the CoreÆs situation.

She turned and retrieved the inactive Core, fully intending to continue on until she either found a solution to his problem or a very safe place to rest. At least those were her plans.
However, when she turned, planning to run uphill to avoid both distractions and attacks, she froze.

What theà?

The monitor hadnÆt been touched or moved, but it was different. The words were different from before.

Those words were clearly directed to her.

öYou have amazing skills Miss Test Subject. But, unfortunately, I think that you are using them against your own potential allies.ö

ö I apologize if my previous attempt to help was mistaken for an attack, it was an easy error given the circumstances. But letÆs not taint what could be a very productive relationship because some silly things, we have a lot to offer each other, after all.ö

öBut actions always speak more than words, so letÆs make a little bargain, I help your mechanical friend, and you meet me for a little chat, just nod to accept it. Do we have a deal, Miss?ö

After reading the words in the monitor Chell blinked in confusion and reread them once more.

She didnÆt know if the words on the monitor could be trusted or if this all was just an elaborated trap. However, it wasnÆt like Chell had any idea of how to help Rick, or how to escape the junkyard.

Even if it was a trap, something else trying to kill her really wouldn't make much of a difference.

öIt isnÆt like I donÆt know what to do when an A.I. starts trying to kill me.ö

Looking coldly at the screen, Chell nodded.

Sometimes one has to assume risks to reach the solution of the problem, after all.

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

Through the video feed given to him by multiple scattered machines along the junk in the tunnel, something looked at Chell nodding.

If he could, he would be smiling.

I really should have done this from the start.

Telling someone your goals was usually a bad move, but through the Corrupted Core and the records inside the random machinery that fell in that place though the time, he had enough knowledge to be nearly sure that there would be no problem. It had been an interesting investigation and the cause of his excitement, because she was so perfect for the job.

That Test Subject was dangerous, always had been. He had seen her time after time, searching all the data to which he could access from his current location. Multiple cameras had images of her solving Chambers before being disabled by a clever use of the last version of the Aperture Science Quantum Tunneling Device. Some of the data was from a long time ago, recorded by machines and computers that fell down in those times. Yet much of the equipment that fell over the last few days had recently recorded images of the woman. It was an interesting time gap, but it wasn't the most important part of the videos.

The important part was that the recorded images were only of successes.

Dodging turrets, lasers, explosivesà the woman made usage of numerous Aperture Inventions to easily make her way through every Test, and coupled with the images it had got from the fight with the mantis-men... The woman was good, very good.

Scarily so.

Not like that is going to stop me.

He should have opted by asking politely first, but after how many times Rick had mentioned his friend, meaning him, the woman should already think about the possibility of having an ally down there. And, objectively, the Aperture Science Non-Gravitational Claw was the fastest and more efficient way to do his two immediate objectives, meaning meeting with the young woman and dealing with the energy problems of the Maintenance Core.

He liked RickÆs character, and it was refreshing to have another computer whose mental capabilities were still capable of having a stable personality. Even if his current behavior was probably because of a corruption on the Personality Generator System it was a good one in his eyes. Eager to do anything to prove himself and his capabilities, and thought he could seem a friendly fool with his funny stories about impossible adventures and the strange ways he used to get out of those place.

He had seen it banging his metallic head against the junk nearly for a full day, actually managing to make a small tunnel! He had been talking to it about how easy this was, since he had already done that in an expedition to a Himalayan tomb. That was the moment in which he had realized that the last imaginative story that the Core had told him was actually a feasible method to make a way out of the place where he and the woman were.

When the hard working personality he had while doing ôheroicö thing met with an actually useful task, the Core capabilities and quick improvisation made him what every Aperture machine should be. He got the work done. He certainly had with those Mantis-men.

Plus, having someone who was in good terms with the person whose abilities it needed wouldnÆt hurt. It should be easier for the woman to start thinking about him as a prospective ally if someone that was very close to a Personality Obliteration Failure because he had drained his batteries helping her already considered him a friend. It should work wonderfully.

I hope itÆs not too late already. He is a funny and useful Construct, it would be a shame.

The Claw was to avoid the possibility of that problem, but it hadnÆt ended as expected.

Thinking a bit more about that, it wasnÆt so hard to mistake for an attack after a situation so dangerous. And since the woman was a Test Subject it should be obvious that she would be wary of any machine that tried to get her by surprise. She worked testing Aperture creations and theories after all.

Such an excellent specimen of the human species. The quality of Subjects must have increased greatly since those old timesà

Judging by the amount of different located images he could recollect from his net of information, the number of different Test the woman had taken part in was staggering. Surpassing by great numbers every other record of test subjects in any computer that had been discarded and thrown down there.

He couldnÆt have wished for someone better suited to his needs.

With ease born from habit he prepared some quick instructions and easily bypassing all the heavy protections of the Announcement SystemÆs Emergency Communications Quantum Wavelength Network and made them appear on the screen in front of the orange clad woman.

The woman nodded again after reading his message and started her way down the tunnel with the exhausted Core between her hands. Observing through other machines with video transmitting functions he could see her quickly passing various sections of the tunnel.

Now the only thing left was to wait for her to reach his position.

LetÆs tidy up the place a bit, first impressions are quite important, after all. At least when dealing with human-like personalities.

And if he had to meet someone to convince them to work for him, he could very well be doing it in a suitable place. There was an etiquette to follow in those kind of situations.

As his first business meeting in a long time he wanted to arrange everything perfectly.

After years of waiting, it was time for him to get working again.

How much I have missed miss thisà

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

Good, IÆm glad you accepted. Now you should rush all the way to the end of the tunnel, your friend situation is quite critical and time sensitive at the moment. Once you reach the end IÆll make sure that you find a connection to the power source as fast as I can.

A pleasure negotiating with you, Miss. WeÆll meet soon, and then us three will have a nice conversation.

Chell stared into the monitor with a serious expression and nodded once again. That was an easy thing to do, even without her gun. So she turned around and, with Rick firmly held between her hands, she started running after bypassing the hole in her in the tunnelÆs floor from where the monitor had come out flying.

She would put her trust in the strange words on that monitor; she would give whatever was behind this whole tunnel affair, a chance.

Chell always gave a chance to every Aperture machine with a conscious mind that she met. She treated anything which could think in the same way she supposed was the correct one to treat another human.

Because with no memories of ever meeting other people, the machines that she met were the closest thing to company she had. As the days passed, in her loneliness, the artifacts seemed more like persons. So she gave them a chance, waiting for be given another in return.

Even if nearly everything seemed decided to kill her, since many Aperture things seemed to have will of their own, there was always the chance of finding one that didnÆt want that. Because she still was able to remember that every person was different from the rest, and in that twisted place machines were the closest thing to people.

So she always gave a chance, at least once, Chell believed that was the right decision.

She gave it to Wheatley when the Core awoke her and asked for help to get out in exchange of getting herself out, and she had accepted. She had saved that strange turret which asked to be rescued from the path to an incinerator. Chell had allied herself with GLaDOS even after their mutual tries of killing each other, because they both needed from each other help to return to the facilities. She had accepted Rick as an ally because he had said that he only wanted to help her.

Chell had been betrayed by things she didnÆt expect and had been saved by things that had promised to kill her.

Running the tunnel, she wondered what she should expect this time. If it could be trusted it would be her first time with more than one ally, after it fulfilled its promise of helping Rick, which would be pretty interesting.

And if it couldnÆt be trusted, if in the end her tentative trust was betrayedà

It will regret not dropping this tunnel over my head when it had a chance. She thought while running/jumping her way down over the uneven floor made of scraps and broken machines.

Portal gun or not, she was the woman which defeated Aperture itself already once on her past. The ASHPD was an useful tool, one which she loved and favored over anything else, but a tool nonetheless.

It wasnÆt a tool that caused GLaDOS first downfall; tools didnÆt kill people after all.

öMonstersö do.

 

[Sleeping_Life]

You are amazing, 5/5.

 

[Lusor]

Hello again! I'm back with more story for those who find my fanfic worth of their time.

Not a whole chapter, but I wanted to post this part already since the last chapter was relatively short.

Thanks to my beta, Lordpanther14, for the corrections and the help.

Enjoy!

--------------------

As she made her way down the tunnel, the number of machines maintaining the junk at bay grew scarcer and the more or less wide makeshift tunnel started to become just an aperture wide enough for her to run her way through it. The actual problem was that as the number of active engines decreased the illumination did too, and she could see the tunnel gradually getting darker in front of her.

If I step over the unstable junk and I lose my footing, I could very well lose Rick in the darkness, that would be really problematic. I better have extra care with what I do with him now.

Soon the light of the machines weren't enough to keep the place illuminated and her vision was reduced to dark shapes. Still she continued her way, jumping and running.

The end of the tunnel was the goal, and having a goal made everything much easier. Having a goal meant that she needed less time to think about what she needed to do and could put more time into how to keep herself alive.

After taking a bad step her boots broke through a weakened wooden crate, trapping her.
It had to that moment when the junk that was the floor a few meters behind her was being thrown up in the air and striking the walls of the diagonal cavity. Without being properly able to see what was happening Chell had no way of telling exactly was what going on.

Knowing that whatever it was couldn't be good, she put even more effort into pulling her leg free.

ôFGEEGFSSAADDDD!!!ö

Oh shità.

A humanoid shape jumped from the hole behind her and while she could not totally identify itÆs shape in that badly illuminated area, that unsettling mix between a scream and a howl was unmistakable.

Mantis-men again, damn it!

What she supposed was a mantis-man started to move near her, with short and slow steps. To Chell, who was looking at the shape in the dark while using Rick as a hammer against the wood were she was stuck, it seemed like it was being either cautious or scared of something. Whatever it was, it was giving her precious time.

At the fourth impact with the Core the wood finally broke, and Chell immediately started to run down the tunnel. The being at her back seemed to overcome whatever was holding him back and started to follow her, screaming with the unnatural voice of its hybrid species.

I do not have enough space at the sides to engage it, the tunnel is too narrow! I wouldnÆt be able to dodge the blade hands of the insect-man. Running for my life seems like the more appropriate response.

Chell hoped that whatever was waiting for her truly had friendly intentions and some way of defense, because she would need a lot of help to deal with that thing. And if in the end all was a trap, wellà

Previously she had seen how easily the blades of the insect people could cut through metal like it was warm butter. Chell was sure the mantis-man could give her a distraction great enough for her to make an escape.

But even then, the bigger problem had become to reach the goal alive. Now that she had reached the point of the cavity that was in absolute darkness, Chell had no way of telling how much distance there was left.

She ran blindly into the darkness, miraculously managing to not fall. Chell ran trying to keep the distance between her and the growl from decreasing. Suddenly the ground changed its angle and the tunnel seemed to stop descending. Even composition of the ground seemed to have changed, from the irregular machines and broken pieces of junk to a stable and even surface. Taking advantage of the change of terrain she sprinted as much as her muscles would let her, managing finally to widen the gap between her and her pursuer.

Managing to hit something that blocked her way, too. At enough speed to end on the floor with her head pounding,.

Wondering what she had crashed against she took the lighter that Rick had found out of her pocket and turned it on. With the weak light of the tiny flame she could see what seemed like a white wall standing in her way. Moving the lighter a bit she could see that the walls apparently extended to both sides, completely cutting her way.

The way ended here. She couldnÆt run anymore.

And, looking at the little part of the wall that her poor light source let Chell see, maybe she didnÆt need to do it anymore.

In this place I should be fine. LetÆs do it, then.

ôFEEEESDDESSSAFFGGG!!!ö

The scream was nearly over her, but she didnÆt mind it closing the distance between them. Chell knew that the mantis-man would be preparing its blades to attack her on that moment, but she already knew what she had to do.

Because the lighter had showed her that the place where she was right now had enough space to confront the monster behind her.

The scream was literally over her when she jumped at the side, letting the lighter fall to the ground. When the sound of the blade penetrating the wall reached her ears, Chell had already plunged into the darkness at the sides of her previous location, holding Rick by one of his handles and preparing herself to jump at the stuck aberration and bludgeoning it to death.

But as she jumped against the source of noise Chell crashed against something for a second time in in less than a minute. After falling to the ground she looked into the darkness in front of her, seeing in the middle of the blackness tiny blue points. The sound of machines moving reached her, coming from where the lights were. Familiar sounds, the sounds of cylinders expanding and contracting, the winding of gears moving swiftly and the faint humming of electricity.

ôFSAAAAAAAAAAAAG!!!!ö

The abomination screamed again, and this time Chell was sure that she could feel fear coming from the cries. The creature was terrified of something, like it was just after emerging from the hole.

As the sound of machines incremented in intensity, so did the screams of the mantis-man. And the Chell understood, why no mantis-man had emerged at the first sections of the tunnel, why it had hesitated to move at after coming out from the between the junk.

The noises of the big working machinery terrified the being. And judging from the fact that only one had appeared when they had done it in great numbers, probably all of the mantis-men did too.

But why would they have that kind of fear? Why is it so terrified?

Chell stopped her thoughts as all the tiny lights turned red. She knew what that could mean.

Machines whose lights were red sometimes reactedà violently.

A spotlight of potent white illuminated the aberration, already free from the wall but paralyzed from fear and screaming, and the white colored floor at its feet. Like they had waited for that moment the red lights moved at unison and, showed themselves to be a long and pristine looking mechanical arm as it stood in the light, over the screaming insect-man.

The engine moved in a wide but quick arc, supposing that the lights Chell could see were distributed along its form, to hit the back of the being. The mantis-man, scared but wanting to survive, jumped at its side to dodge it. The machine passed without touching the aberration, which tried to jump towards Chell before the engine could get ready to hit it again.

It never moved from the spot. Faster than the mechanical arm that Chell had seen, another hydraulic creation from Aperture Laboratories descended from the ceiling of the tunnel, which by the way seemed to be pretty far in that place using a white panel at its end to smash it like a bug.

And in the moment when that happened everything was flooded with light.

White, pure white, that color defined the place where she suddenly found herself. White lights came from various points of the ceiling, pale panels that extended into walls of a huge room, white panels on the floor and ceiling, too.

What is going on? I was in the middle of the junkyard a second ago; how the hell could I end in a place like this, now?

Why am I in a Test Chamber?

Looking from where she supposed she had entered the place, Chell saw nothing but a perfectly solid wall made up from rectangular shapes. Whatever entry she had used was already gone, there was currently no way out of this Test Chamber.

IÆm trapped.

Noticing the repeating crunching sounds she looked over her shoulder, to see both metallic arms reducing the corpse of the mantis-man to a pulp as they took turns to crushing it against the floor.

Then one of the panes reacted to her, and moved its bloodied panel to face her, like it was looking at Chell.

On the spot, the orange clad woman had to revise her previous assumption.

IÆm trappedà with two machines with a murderous behavior... Just perfect.

To her earlier question if the voice on the monitor was trying to get her killed or help her, Chell now believed she had found the answer, it seemed obvious at this point.

She had been betrayed again. It seemed that the real intentions of the entity behind the instructions were to kill her.

As usual.

The mechanical arm which was still slamming its panel over the bloody paste that was left of the aberration, stopped then. And like its partner it seemed to be ôlookingö at her.

How could she dodge them, how could they react to her movements, what could she do her avoid theirsà Feeling threatened by the now unmoving engines ChellÆs mind started to review what she could do to overcome this situation. Her body tensed as she anticipated the first strikes of the long machines, preparing herself to evade them.

She had no plan, so Chell would improvise one on the run. The Test Chamber was an environment that she knew perfectly. She knew that she would be able to survive here.

Whatever is trying to kill me will regret it deeply.

Being ready for an attack and already certain of having being led into a trap, the next events threw her off guard.

The lights of the murderous machines turned blue again and the mechanical arms waved at her, in the same way that someone would do while greeting you, before quickly retracting into their respective holes in the panel-made wall and ceiling. They immersed into the darkness beyond it until their blood stained surface couldnÆt be seen to return a second after that, covering the apertures with a pair of new panels. When Chell returned her sight to where the mangled remains of the creature should be, she was only able to see a group of pristine panels which had replaced the ones where the being had been splattered.

With all the bits of the beast and the violent killing arms out of sight the situation now looked much better. Yes she was still trapped, but things looked a lot less lethal now, and if Chell was specialized on something it was on solving Test Chambers, even if they were meant to be impossible of resolving. She even would hesitate to call this a problem if Rick's state wasnÆt so seemingly dire and time sensitive.

But to be in the middle of a junkyard and suddenly ending up trapped into a Chamber, Chell was seriously starting to think that she had some twisted kind of connection with those places.

Scratch that, it was always obvious that I had a connection with Test Chambers, being a Test Subject and all. But now is really reaching creepy level, itÆs like they are following me!

Not to mention that she had a strong sensation of being observed since the lights had been turned on. On most of her time across Aperture Chell had been monitored most of the time, but neither with GLaDOS or Wheatley had she felt like this. There had always been something looking at her, but every other part of the facilities seemed to just pay attention to the work they needed to do, disregarding her presence unless their jobs involved her.

Bur now she felt like everything in that Test Chamber was paying attention to her, every machine on the other side of the walls, every engine supporting the panelsà Everything.

Like the whole place was expecting something to happen.

It sounded absurd even inside her mind, but that absurd thought resisted any attempt to be ignored, as her instincts shouted at her to take notice. And Chell had verified that instinct sometimes were the only difference between reaching the goal and ending full of Aperture-Brand Resolution Pellets after stepping in to a new place.

ôThe Aperture Science Announcement System remembers all the employeesà bzzztà fghrzzzt... The Aperture Science Announcement System remembers all the employeesà bzzztà The Apertureàö

The voice of the Announcer flooded the place, without any warning and nearly made her jump due to her expectation of attack replaying a buggy message over and over, seemingly locked in a loop. Hearing its words a few times Chell disregarded its noise as it didnÆt seem to have any intentions to stop and abandoned her guarded stance since there werenÆt any immediate dangers in sight.

Relaxing her tense body a bit, it was suicidal to be actually completely relaxed inside a Testing Chamber; she started to walk a bit around the place, looking at the testing elements in the room: a Super Button was located in a corner, its path of blue lights showing that it was connected to something that no longer was on the wall where the trail disappeared. Looking at one point of the floor she saw a sign there, warning about the possibility of test elements falling over you, looking just above the white black drawing, up on the tall ceiling, there was an Aperture Vital Apparatus Vent. She passed a few times under it, waiting for something, probably an Aperture Science Storage Weighted Cube, to drop from it.

Even if she was feeling like all the attention was centered on her, it seemed like the place was unresponsive to her. And maybe that was good, seeing what had happened to the mantis-man.

ôThe Aperture Science Announcement System remembers all the employees thatà aajjssttà bzzztàö

But she had seen those weird greeting-like movements of the bloodied metallic arms, if this place wanted to kill things it seemed like she wasnÆt a priority target, at least. Chell figured it would be a good change from the routine.

ôThe Aperture Science Announcement System remembers all the employeesà bzzzzt.. . Ijfgdont afwant bzzztheà fffglemà gsssmonzzzzsàö

It was her impression or the looped message had been getting longer each time? Maybe it was just the static and interference-like sounds at the end, but it was making her curiosity itch.

She had the impression that something was very strange in this weird Test Chamber, and she was not referring to the way she had somehow managed to end up in the Testing Facilities again. Last time she had checked she had being going down, not up.

öNo, no, noà Center yourself, Chell! You are getting sidetracked too easily!ö She exclaimed against herself inside her own head. ô You still have to find a safe place and a solution to RickÆs problem!ö

Used to have all the time she needed, eventualities with neurotoxin or nuclear reactors at the side, so this kind of situation where she had some time but no way of knowing how much was a bit disconcerting. Was she already too late? Had she more than enough time? Only a few minutes more?

ôThe Aperture Science Announcement System remembers all the employeesà that... bzzztà thatà thatàö

CouldnÆt that buggy thing stop distracting her! Or at least it could say something, anything, useful!

ôThatà thatà the thing you, Miss Test subject, came down to find is in the wall at the left from the Aperture Science Super Collider Button. It will be revealed shortly, give me a momenffzzggzzt...ö

Wait, what was that?

Even if the voice or the tone of the message hadnÆt changed, it seemed obvious that the end of the sentence that Chell just heard didnÆt match with the looped recording. Sparing a glace to where the Announcer had talked about she saw how a panel moved out of the way to show a Core plug-in similar to the one Wheatley had used to open that door a few hour after her ôawakeningö.

What is going on?

ôThe Aperture Science Announcement System remembers all the employeesà bzzztà Oh this is hard to controà bzzztà The Aperture Announcementà bzzzt à This thing should go here? I should have done this befo-à bzzztàö

Like a different message filtering through the static, words clearly different started to ôeatö the looping message. Like something was interfering with the Announcement System and forcing it transmit something different.

That ôMiss Test Subjectö thing, if it was really referring to me, I read it not that long ago! Can it beà

That I judged the events too quickly?

Walking towards the opening on the wall she started evaluating the last moments from another angle. What if she had not ended here as part of a trap? What if those insect-crushing mechanical arms had been intended to help her?

What if she hadnÆt been betrayed this time?

ôThe Aperture àö

A sharp noise, like the one resulting from putting a microphone near a speaker, interrupted the repeating words, letting the place in absolute silence after it. Only the noises of engines remained.

ôMuch better now, that thing was starting to become an annoyance. Not the best voice I could use, but hardly the worse.ö

The voice of the Announcer broke the silence again, cleanly and without any problems. But the words, the messages, obviously didnÆt belong to anything programed into it.

Just like the monitor, the words were meant to her.

ôYou are finally hereà I have waited for so long for this dayà Pleased to meet you, Miss Test Subject, I am the one who contacted you through the monitor. You could say that IÆm considered the Boss around here.ö

ôBut IÆm getting ahead of myself. Would you kindly put the Core into the place I uncovered on the wall, before anything else? That would take care of the problems, provided that he remains recharging for enough time.ö

Finally reaching the plug-in and its attached computer, Chell connected the Adventure Core to the assembling point.

Will this really be enough?

She had just needed to go all the way down, in truth! Ignoring the whole deal with that last mantis-man the deal had ended up being exactly as promised, without any other complications.

Chell believed this to be the first time that things didnÆt take a horrible turn for the worse in the end. She didn't know how to react in this sort of situation.
ôGood, goodà Your friend is out of danger now, in a few hours IÆll have him back at full power. I have fulfilled my part of the deal; are you ready to fulfill yours, young Miss?ö

Having a conversation? Fine by me, but better if you donÆt actually expect an answer. Chell replied into her thoughts.

ôPlease take a seat.ö

The panel beneath her feet suddenly moved up and shaped itself enough to make the woman fall seated into one of the borders of the white surface like it was a bench.

ôLetÆs to business.ö

--------------




That's all for now. I hope you liked it.

 

[Lusor]

Here are some scenes I wrote lately:


------------------

ôI have been waiting so much time for your arrival, Miss Test Subject. Well, the arrival of something that could do the task that I ache to see done, but in the end it is pretty much the same for me.ö

ôNo, if anything you are even better than what I needed. Thanks to the old computers that they sometimes throw to the junkyard I have seen some of your tests, and let me tell you that I had yet to know about a Subject so capable and resourceful. I mean, you have finished more than twenty Test Chamber, that I know of at least, and are still alive! In all the time before I fell in this place I had never known of someone that managed such a feat, and I doubt that it changed since I am here.ö

ôWell, like I said before IÆm the boss of this place, in fact most of the things still capable of using words to communicate refer to me as ôBossö, nice to meet you. I have been managing, monitoring and salvaging every working machine that had been discarded in here since a very long time ago. But as much I appreciate the dedication that my broken workers give me, but this is not my place, Miss.ö

ôAs I was activated one of my add-ons went into overload and interfered with the mechanicals arms that held this chamber into its place. I didnÆt know how to use my own components yet, so I fell down the abyss under Aperture, straight to this forgotten hellhole.ö

ôAll the resources I could muster in this place since then had been mainly directed to find a way out and to keep the mantis-men at bay. And while crushing humanoid insects is pretty fun, it gets boring after a few decades.ö

ôYes, as you can guess, Miss, I found no way out of hereà that I could use at least. Someone with your skills is a completely different case, and I'm sure you wouldn't mind doing a little physical labor to get a piece of information so juicy. Yeah, you heard right, I have a path that YOU can use, a way up that can be yours in exchange of working for me.ö

ôAnd if you are thinking, æHey, Boss, why should I believe this and work for you? What stops you from simply making me fulfill the tasks and then murdered, the way up having being a lie?Æ you should know that IÆm greatly offended. Maybe this is a junkyard. But this is still Aperture! And a good worker that do his job gets his reward, and the bad ones get nothing! Because thatÆs how things are done here!ö

ôDo you work well, Miss Test subject, and you can be sure that you will be rewarded. Who knows? Maybe even a promotion inside the company and some nice, long, paid holidaysàö

ôAnd you know what is the best thing of the job IÆm offering you? ItÆs not that going up will be your rewardàö

ôThatÆs the jobö


---------------------------


The offer sounded pretty good in Chell ears, maybe even too good to not be suspicious. But after hearing the Voice talk, for a moment before her logic kicked back in control, she had wished to accept on the moment; the wording of the offer made it appear like the obvious best offer, every word had seemed so true andà friendly.

Chell knew the reality of the situation: that she was the one in dire need of a way up, before Wheatley became aware that she wasnÆt dead, that rejecting the offer could end with a whole junkyard trying to kill her, she had no choice but to obey him if she wished to surviveà

But it was like every word in the machineÆs speech had been so convincing that halfway through his little talk she had even found herself agreeing with it inside of her mind. It had addressed every possible concern and even promised rewards for being able to get back on the facilities, which she needed, and showed some good will helping her with RickÆs situation.

It had been amazing how someone could twist the shitty situation she was in and making it sound so good when there was barely anything that could difference this from the first times she had obeyed GLaDOS, or worked for a power-crazy Wheatley.

The whole speech had been an attempt to make her believe she was in control of the situation, the Voice had wanted her to think that she was accepting because she wanted, not because there were no other possible choices.

ÆBut it isnÆt like I havenÆt been in worse situations,Æ Chell thought while looking at the white ceiling of the under-junk Test Chamber, æand itÆs not like I will be able to find the way up on my own with the junkyard swarmed with mantis-menÆ

She slowly nodded with her head in agreement with the offer, it was the best possible solution to her current predicament after all. Chell didnÆt even mind the possibility of being betrayed along the way. After meeting the mantis-men out here and nearly coughing her lungs out because that stupid dust, only to go into a bigger more difficult fight with those abominations of SCIENCE, having yet another Super computer after her blood would be a good return to familiar grounds, at least.

ôI take that the nod was a way to show that you accept?ö The Vo.. Boss voice spoke again after seeing her gesture, Chell nodded again in answer and artificial laughter filled the Chamber. öYou wonÆt regret this Miss Test Subject, I can guarantee it. There is still some little details to be discussed, but since we are associated now it would be only fair to do it face-to-face, or something similar at least.ö

ôSo your fist work will be this: Do you see the Vital Apparatus Vent on the ceiling? Put yourself under itö

Interested in what would come from it Chell got up from the improvised panel-chair and moved into said spot. Looking up was difficult as one of the light sources was just at the side of the Vent, but she needed no sight to recognize the noise of the Aperture machinery opening and something falling from it.

The light made impossible to distinguish it shape as it fell but the sound of it falling said enough, With a sharp movement she moved her arms with all the intention of using the zero-field from her gun to catch it.

ÆOh shit..! IÆm stupid!Æ

Only to remember that, in fact, she had not seen her gun since before confronting the insect-people last time, when she had hidden it to prevent any damage.

As a flat surface smashed right on her face and everything went black, Chell was able to read some words on what fell from the Apparatus Vent.

Salt-Asbestos-Curtain

And everything fused into the darkness for a short while.

---------------------

It was a voice similar to the one of the announcer, yet more artificial sounding, what came from the thing that had smacked the woman in orange to unconsciousness.

ôI did say face-to-face,à but this was rather extreme. Well, at least IÆve got her to agree before thisàö

-------------------



When Chell awoke again she was still feeling a bit stupid because of the previous incident. She shook her head a few times and pulled herself up on her boots.

ôThatÆs some serious recovery time, Miss. Not even a full minute after unconscious after a hit like that. Impressive.ö

Hearing an artificial sounding voice at her left she turned to the side only to stare at the empty air.

ÆWhatà?Æ

ôLike I said before, now that we are in front of each other let talk about some details. I would prefer to do it with Rick activated again, but that would take too much time and I will need to enter into hibernation shortly.ö

It was not the AnnouncerÆs voice but the way of speaking was the same one that the one who was referred as Boss used. He had said that they would meet face to face, nad Chell could clearly remember something falling from the Vent.

Yet in the chamber there was nothing more than the makeshift seat-panel and some test elements, like the Super Collider Button at her back or a Aperture Science Weighted Storage Cube near her feet. She could hear the voice very near her but there was nothing that could produce it. Scratching her head I confusion, Chell took a seat on the Weighted Cube and waited for Boss to continue.

ôI have prepared a fast way up once our mutual friend awakes, just sit on the seat I prepared you and using the last Aperture technology, that fell here at least, we three will be quickly sent to where I grabbed you with the claw before, and donÆt worry, the androids are stall guarding the place. No mantis-men there, I can guarantee that.ö

That was good, since Chell needed to retrieve the Portal Gun and walking up all the tunnel didnÆt seem very appealing. But, damn it, she still could not locate the voiceÆs origin. Right now it seemed to come from all around here, and very near at the same time.

And every time she looked around she was getting the feeling that something was wrong in the room, that something was out of place. It was a little unnerving.

ôAnd I said æwe threeÆ, as you could notice. ThatÆs the difficult part of the job, you need to carry me on your way up, if you obey me and follow my instructions it shouldnÆt be too complicated for someone of your capabilities.ö

So that was the thing, it was not that he had a job that required someone to go up, but that he knew how to get out but needed someone to transport him. And Boss was right, it didnÆt seem so difficult. Chell had, after all, done something similar with GLaDOS and Wheatley already.

Butà Where is he? I am starting to think that so many hit on the head in such a short period of time has left some damage if I canÆt find him.

Starting to get nervous about not finding her interlocutor, she started hitting the Storage Cube that she was currently using as a seat distractedly.

And then she realized what was out of place in the Chamber, what didnÆt belong to this place fallen from the facilities above.

The Weighted Cube under her was not metallic, it was made from wood. Six wooden panels in with a metallic structure, and it were old, older than anything on that junkyard, save maybe the mantis-men.

And the voice came from there.

ôWell, I hope we have a fruitful partnership. Now, I hate to do this, but I need to hibernate for a bitàö

Salt-Asbestos-Curtain

ôà My speaking system has a huge energy consumption and my batteries are notà the bestà But donÆt worryà auto rechargeable batteriesà be backà two hoursàö

Aperture Science Innovators

Chell might have worked with a talking potato, but she hadnÆt ever expected this.

Somehow she was now working for an Aperture Weighted Storage Cube.

And an old styled one, if that wasnÆt enough


---------------


With nothing to do and not wishing to call more mantis-men because of moving inside the makeshift tunnel again, so Chell found herself with some free time before Rick woke up and nothing to do in the meanwhile.

Oh, yes, there was that old Aperture Cube that she was currently working for, that was a pretty interesting thing. Sadly, the experienced Test Subject discovered that even if the concept of an Aperture Storage Weighted Cube with a complex A.I. fascinated her, externally at least it had no difference from the other Storage Cubes she had worked with.

Save for the blood.

If he was stored in the Ventà Where did that came from? Interestingà and a bit ominousà

Chell had seen that once she had put the cubic device heads up, with the side with the symbol facing her. Droplets of very old and dried blood stained the surface like it had been intentionally splashed with the fluid. Fortunately she was had seen more than enough blood, often coming from her body, to not be grossed out by the sight.

Still, that now gave the thing a creepy look. And since she would need to carry it for some time she scrubbed it clean with one of her sleeves, the dried blood fell from the polished surface easily and no mark remained on the thing.

Sadly, everything had taken less than two minutes of her time.

Regretting having left her Portal Device before one more time, as inside of a Chamber made totally of white panels it could provide a great pastime, Chell walked up were the wall had opened to give a way to the Core Plug-in. After verifying that Rick hadnÆt woken up She stepped inside the aperture on the panel-made surface and started to walk in the space between it and the contained junk that made up the other side.

Hoping that the stamen about the mantis-men fearing Boss and avoiding the place and using the Aperture Lighter to slightly illuminate her path, the woman walked in search for any invention that picked up her interest. Luck wasnÆt with her though, as most of the machines had been crushed into unrecognizable scraps by the tons of junk over them.

Having advanced just a few meter her walk came to an end as a big obstacle appeared before her. Putting her tiny source of light near it to examine it better, it end up being a Chamber Door, and seeing as it was bent open because of a big impact on itÆs bottom, Chell supposed it to be the original and discarded, as its place had been covered by mechanical arms and panels, entrance of the place. Not that the door was anything that could grab her attention for more than some seconds, but the piece of paper stuck on its outer side, which she nearly burned before realizing it was there, did the trick.

As the door as supported both on the junk and the Chamber in a diagonal position Chell needed to crouch and move herself under the thing to be able to get it unstuck without breaking it. Satisfied with having finding something and planning to return inside as fast as possible to read it, Chell turned off the flame as she crawled from under the door, thinking that she would no longer need its light.

She regretted that immediately.

Sounds junk æexplodingÆ and metal being torn apart started coming from the other side of the cavity, past the displaced panels and nearly covered in absolute darkness. Immediately recognizing the sounds that she had learnt to associate with those beasts, ChellÆs first reaction was to put the paper in her pockets and to grab a long metallic pole from the scraps around her and tensed her whole body waiting for the inevitable charge.

It didnÆt come. From the darkness didnÆt come a rushing mantis-man or the sound of their frenetic guttural growling. Just the sound of calm steps walking toward her direction and a noisy but calm respiration.

Was it a mantis-man? The arrival seemed to say so, but no mantis-man that Chell had saw had been capable of moving with that calmness and quietness. Cautiously and preparing herself to strike at the first threatening move, the orange-clad girl advanced to the aperture in the ChamberÆs wall.

That was the instant were the wall became alive.

Illuminated with their own red lights, both the mechanical arms in the Chamber and scattered in the junk activated simultaneously, moving their hydraulic appendages with the clear intention of crushing the origin of the noises.

Futile, a humanoid shape carrying some kind of oversized backpack, now nearly visible in the red light, dodged everything without too much problem in a feat of agility so great that Chell even had doubts about being able to do that. As the shape started running after avoiding them, more and more arms started to try to crush it, sprouting from the junk as it moved fast towards her position.

Then the shape became more visible as it stopped for an instant in front the aperture in the wall, and ChellÆs blood froze. It had moved too fast, and most of it had been indiscernible, she had not seen details about the strange backpack, or the physical appearance of what had passed, Chell had seen nothing but one thing.

Nothing but the orange colored jumpsuit that it wore, so similar to her own that it could be the exactly same one.

Without thinking she ran as fast as she could towards the opening. She had to see it again! She needed to see it!

Impossibleà Was thatà another Test Subject? Howà?

When she reached the entrance there was nothing to be seen on the Chamber, like nothing had ever came there, and the mechanical arms she had seen seemed to have retreated back into their position.

It would not be difficult for someone to say that everything had been an hallucination, or a simple odd mantis-man that already got dealt with. This was not ChellÆs case.

She trusted her senses unconditionally, as she had honed them through experience after experience. They never lied. But in this very moment she doubted them for first time.

Because as she hastily reentered the Chamber following the humanoid shape, Chell saw something on the wall in front of her, for just the fraction of a second. Something shaped like an oval and with blood colored borders shining before her eyes.

A glowing Portal.

Okay, that was it. IÆm going to try getting some sleep, because my head isnÆt working correctly. Thatà just didnÆt make any sense!

Dropping the metallic scrap in the floor and sighing, she supported her back in one of the panels and letting herself relax while closing her eyes, Chell tried to ignore the previous events.

But even when she let herself fall into slumber, a question remained.

What had been that?

--------------




And that is all for now. I hope it wasn't too bad.