Okay, it's new story time. Base idea for this taken with permission from Nightfoot's Tales of Cosplayers, a Tales of Symphonia fanfic. Any of you who know ToS, go read that fic now. If not, knowledge of said fic isn't vital to understand this one. For those who have read ToC, you may recognize Will. Will is used with permission, and written in collaboration with Nightfoot. So please don't come running at either of us about it (because I'm sure you all care so much about us that you would do that).

It's Just Cosplay

"I'm just about done here, let me finish up with my hair and I'll go pick you up. Get ready, I'll be there in about 15 minutes. Yeah, got it, bye." Angela ended the call after hearing his confirmation, shoving her phone in the pocket of the orange jumpsuit tied-off at her waist. She looked in the mirror positioned next to a computer screen packed with Portal images. All she had to do was match Chell's ponytail and the cosplay would be complete.

She backed up to admire her reflection. Close enough, definitely recognizable. Even people who never played Portal would know who she was, between the orange suit and "Aperture Laboratories" silk-screened across her chest. Shutting down her computer, she grabbed her keys off the desk and left the house.

Will didn't live far away, and was even closer to the event than she was. It took a lot of convincing for him to join her for her very first convention, and she knew it would be worth it. Each red light, she was practically bouncing in her seat at the thought; the lights couldn't turn green fast enough. Surely it would be great, even if it didn't match such impossibly high expectations.

She turned into Will's driveway and went to the front door, oblivious to the strange looks from his neighbor who was trimming the bushes. Most girls didn't walk around in a white sleeveless shirt and neon orange pants when visiting friends. Knock knock knock. Will must have been in his living room, given the short wait for him to open the door. His face-palm reaction was unexpected.

"I told you I wasn't going if cosplay was involved. I hate cons enough already without costumes." Angela didn't understand why he was so upset about it. It's not as if she forced him into a humanoid Wheatley outfit.

"It's not going to kill you is it?" she begged. "I worked hard, doesn't this look good? I even have a portal gun in the car." He was wearing a brown t-shirt featuring a stegosaurus talking to a tyrannosaurus, saying "Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal." Even compared to that, she felt impressive.

"You don't know what could happen, that costume could get you killed!" He waved his arms around hysterically, honestly appearing to be worried about her choice of clothing. Dressing like Chell was somehow a death sentence in real life.

"You're over-reacting; it'll be fine. It shouldn't even count as a full convention, right? It's just an outside mall event some local people threw together for the weekend." She waved off his worry and backed up to walk to the car. "Are you coming then, or am I going home to finish Hunger Games?" As exciting as the planned day sounded, if he was leaving her to be on her own, she would give up and go home to read rather than spend time in a crowd.

Will gave in, grumpy, but locked his front door and followed her to the passenger seat. He reached into the back seat and grabbed the portal gun as she pulled onto the road for the short drive. The dashboard was lit with soft orange when he flipped the on switch. "What's this made out of?"

"It's cardboard around a flashlight, and some orange plastic wrap. I couldn't find anywhere to buy one online." She couldn't figure out a way to make it turn both blue and orange, so she decided just orange was good enough.

They were silent for the rest of the short trip, as Will was visibly upset about something. There had to be more to it than cosplaying, but she left him to sulk and stare out the window. In the mall parking lot, she could see other people in costumes in the crowd, mostly from popular anime and RPGs. All of them were heading for the same place, obviously the location of the event.

"See, not so bad," she told Will as she locked the car. Nothing deadly in sight.

"Tell me that after you're attacked and have to dodge bullets and acid," he grumbled. "I'm sure you'll be totally fine after that." But he followed her still. "Whatever, the chances of anything happening are really low anyways."

Angela looked at the first vendor table she saw. "I'll buy you something and make up for it, okay? Go pick something you like." The one in front of her had a small manga collection. Not something she wanted to spend money on. She turned around to check if Will was still behind her, wondering if he would actually pick anything.

The sun was bright; that wasn't surprising since they were outside. But it was too bright, enough to make one dizzy. Angela held her balance on the edge of the table, and the people around her looked confused about the change. She couldn't find where Will went, and the sunlight suddenly turned white-bright before she blacked out.

She woke up with a pounding headache, in an amazingly rock-hard bed. Must've been a hospital bed, if she hit her head on something when she collapsed. Odd hospital room though…more like a hotel. A hotel room that had the power shut off before robbers smashed everything with a baseball bat, and then the cleaning service hadn't touched it for years after. The mattress was imprinted with her body, and she figured that was why it was so stiff. Like a cheap Chinese imitation of a Tempur-Pedic.

Nothing would get accomplished if all she did was lie in bed. Surely someone would be around after picking her up. She sat up against the wall and stretched, limbs numb and skin not feeling anything correctly. The orange suit felt much thicker than the cloth she used, and the shirt's texture was different. In fact, it didn't look like the same outfit at all. The shirt's text was not so obviously ironed on, and the suit was coated in smudges and dust.

There was a knocking sound coming from the other side of the room, followed by a voice. "Hello? Anyone in there? Hello?" It was familiar yet implacable, as if she was hearing someone in class that she didn't regularly talk to. But she would recognize an English accent, living in California. "Are you going to open the door? At any time?"

With a mysterious voice at the door, and not knowing where she was, Angela had nothing to lose in opening the door. She stepped off the bed – the sneaker-and-cardboard long fall boots were metal now, something was definitely wrong – and walked over to the door. Walking with the springing metal boots was awkward, though easy to adapt to. With just a turn of the door handle, it flew open, and something rushed in on the ceiling.

It started with a frightened yell, followed by a voice with the same accent as before, "Oh, God. You look terrib- good. Looking good, actually." Angela stared speechlessly, mouth open slightly as if trying to find words. "Adorable confused face. Rather attractive I'm sure, if I were human. You do look confused. You must be one of the newer subjects." There was a metal ball with a blue glowing eye, and it was talking to her. She must be having some brain damage-induced fever dream, if Wheatley was talking to her.

"You're, umm, you're a core," she said quietly. It was oddly intimidating, having a rambling metal ball staring at her from the ceiling rail. Even if said ball was a moron who didn't know a good idea from an incinerator. "Why are you here at all?"

"Oh, good, you can still speak. I was worried about brain damage until now. The others were all bloody well out of their minds unable to move around. Not that there's anything wrong with that, aside from not being able to move correctly. And it's not their fault, not a thing wrong! Poor planning I'd say, if their test subjects are all vegetables from that power shortage." She let him talk about whatever was on his mind, stunned. If her cosplay was suddenly much better, and if that was Wheatley talking to her, was she in Portal 2? Was that even possible? This was identical to the beginning of the game so far.

"Are you okay though? You can speak but are you still alright? Don't want you straining yourself too hard on this. See, my job here's not easy. Just take it slowly." He rocked and nodded a lot on his rail. For hanging by a metal rod, he had a wide range of motion, being able to move around like that.

"I'm good," Angela said. "No brain damage." I think. She didn't feel she was a good judge of mental wellness, now that she was somehow reliving a video game.

Wheatley looked like he was about to speak again when an announcement was made. This next part didn't sound like it'd be any fun in real life, or however you'd describe what kind of dream this was. "Please prepare for emergency evacuation." Whatever it was, it was following the game.

"Stay calm, stay calm! All it said was prepare, alright? Just prepare, we'll be okay. I'm gonna get us out of here. Word of advice, hold on to something. Up to you, though I'd highly recommend following it." He disappeared into a panel in the ceiling, not giving her the time to respond. Crashing would come next, and she laid on her stomach on the bed, gripping the mattress. If she fell, she would at least have a soft fall.

"Are you alright down there? Can you hear me?" He must have been looking around outside.

"Yeah, fine here!" she yelled back, unsure if her voice would carry like his would. But if he didn't hear her, the panel in the wall opened and he peeked in.

"Okay, good, you're holding on. Just want to let you know, it's not looking great out there. We're gonna head out, so stay like that unless the bed flips or something. In which case, you should probably get off and hold onto something else. Best to keep a plan B. Hold tight, we're getting out." He disappeared into the wall again.

"All reactor core safeguards are now non-functional. Please prepare for reactor core meltdown." The announcement came again. She never understood what that meant, but she did know it was bad news. There wasn't enough time to brace herself before the far wall collapsed down to half its frame.

"So you looked lost and I wasn't going to tell you this, but I'm in pretty hot water here. How are you doing? You still holding on?" Wheatley was jumping between panic over the room, and concern for her. Though mostly panic, it appeared. "The reserve power ran out, so of course the whole relaxation center stops waking up the bloody test subjects. Hold on, it's about to get rough!"

The room shook constantly, and she had to roll to dodge a piece of the wall that broke off and almost landed on her. Thankfully the bed must have been bolted to the floor. She had to hold on tightly, but it never moved even as the room dipped and fell apart.

"Of course, nobody tells me anything. Nooo, why should they tell me anything?" It was unclear whether he was talking to Angela, or just ranting at the wall. She wished he would focus more on getting them out before she was flattened by the ceiling, but wouldn't tell him that. "Why should I be kept informed? You know, about the life functions of the ten thousand flipping test subjects I'm supposed to be in charge of? Okay, this is going to be tight, I've gotta concentrate."

It sounded as if Wheatley was accusing her of distracting him. Clearly the conversation was his fault, as she barely had room to respond between the collisions. But if he was going to focus rather than talk about his job, she wouldn't argue.

"And whose fault do you think it's going to be when the management comes down here and finds ten thousand bloody vegetables?" He must have lied about focusing. It wasn't long until he crashed into another room. "Aggh, sorry, I hit that one that time. Would you like to help me out? No one's gonna come ask you for anything, alright? But just in case, you know just in case they think you're a witness, tell them that when you saw everyone, they still looked alive to you. We should keep that straight."

"I'll tell them anything you want, just get us out of here safely!" Again, she didn't know if he could hear her, but it was better than sitting quietly while he crushed them both. The difference between playing the game on the computer and this was drastic, enough to turn her stomach. But the rocking, height, lack of walls, and fear for her life probably added to the nausea.

"We're almost there, there's an old testing track on the other side of that wall. That's where we need to be. There's a piece of equipment you'll need so that we can get of here." If he heard her request, he didn't pay any notice to it. "I think I found a docking station. Get ready!" He crashed forward into it, shaking the room. "Okay, so it turns out that is not a docking station. But we don't need one, good news that is. I'm going to attempt a manual override on this."

She didn't like the way he emphasized "manual." Or the way he actually slammed into the wall repeatedly. It was funny on a computer screen, but not here. "Almost got it! Remember, you're looking for a gun that makes holes. Not bullet holes, not like a regular gun- well don't worry, you'll figure it out." He backed up. "Hold on this time!"

Somehow he managed to slam their box made out of only steel frame hard enough into the wall to break it. The box broke into pieces of steel girder and furniture, and she fell down with it, landing safely. Wheatley was above her, trapped to the rail. About this point, if it followed the game, she'd be running the courses from Portal 1. If she was lucky, she'd wake up before getting to the hard tests.

"Okay, I've got to leave you here and just meet you up ahead. There's test chambers here, if you know what those are. Old test chambers that they don't use anymore. Go find the gun and I'll be waiting." Barely waiting for Angela to nod at him, he zoomed off. Well, the tests wouldn't solve themselves, and there was research to be done. There was nothing to do but drop herself into the test chamber feet first and wait for the prerecorded messages.

"Hello, and again, welcome to the Aperture Science Enrichment Center. We are currently experiencing technical difficulties due to circumstances of potentially apocalyptic significance beyond our control. However, thanks to Emergency Testing Protocols, testing can continue. These prerecorded messages will provide instructional and motivational support, so that science can still be done, even the event of environmental, social, economic, or structural collapse. The portal will open, and emergency testing will begin in three. Two. One." Orange portal.