Oh look. It's the famed fic that wouldn't stay dead! XP After editing, I'm reposting it (again) for the sole reason of me being a colossal idiot. Soooo… Enjoy your thrice- revived fic? :/

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My life was pretty peaceful before she came along.

Oh, you're wondering who I'm talking about? I'll tell you GLaDly- but first, you should know who I am. My name is Chell. Chell... [REDACTED], apparently. She still won't tell me my last name. Rather annoying, but it's no big deal. I used to be a test subject (or a lab rat, some say) in the test tracks of Aperture Science. Who was it for? Believe it or not, a crazy supercomputer by the name of GLaDOS. In the beginning, I was just another nameless, expendable- well, lab rat. But I escaped. Escaped... And took down GLaDOS.

Or, I thought I did.

The next thing I know (after going through the roof with my skull), I'm in this crappy hotel room. And being "rescued" by this little AI ball by the name of Wheatley. As he tries to help me escape, he inadvertently awakens- guess who? - GLaDOS. And boy is she PISSED. Apparently, murder in self defense is unacceptable. Fast forward through some more testing (oh boy! :P), good old Wheatley breaks me out again. We sabotage Her turret manufacturing lines AND her neurotoxin generator (the icing on a really bigass cake- never mind.), and head to Her chamber to talk things over- hopefully, with more rockets directed right at Her chassis. She really was a prick back then.

Well, guess what? Old Wheat over here could be substituted for Her Royal Smartass! I tell you, I have never smashed a button so hard in my LIFE as that stalemate one. And, as law of the universe decrees, right when everything was going good for me for once-

FORE! Oh look! GLaDOS's chassis apparently messes up your brain! Yup, little Wheatley- my only friend in this godforsaken hole- wasted no time in filing an application for The Dark Side. Sadly, they were hiring, and sooner than you can say "Neurotoxin online", me and the AI-turned-potato battery (I had no idea you could put a computer into one of those. Learn something new every day) were headed to the center of the earth. Or, as it turned out, the old Aperture Science. 'POTaDOS' here was carried off by a bird the instant we hit ground. Why? I like to think karma. But what do I know?

Anyway, I was left alone (AGAIN!) to navigate the tricks and traps (and TESTS! WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE TESTS?) of this place. Turns out, the CEO of this place was a man by the name of Cave Johnson. A bit on the crazy side... But then again, who wasn't here?

So, eventually, I come across Root Vegetable Robot here, and she's being eaten by that bird.

Again, karma.

But I just... can't leave her there. I heard a note in her voice that I'd only heard once before- desperation. She was frightened. And even though she's tried to kill me more times than I can count, I've still got a code of honor to uphold. So I picked her up, and we moved along. Geez, had anyone told me this would happen today, I'd have just jumped off a Hard Light Bridge into some goo, thanks. But nooooo. Here I am, walking through the bowels of Aperture Science, with a potato on my gun and a spring in my step.

No, quite literally. I was walking on springs attached to my boots.

By the time we make it back up there, Wheatley the Dark and Not-Really-That-Foreboding (alignment? Moronic Evil!) had mashed some turrets into cubes. And were trying to make them test.

WHAT.

I wanted to heroically dash down there and save the cubey-turrety... Uh, things, but unfortunately, there was a minor setback- how to get down to that test. (No, actually, it was because my sides were hurting from Miss Yeah-Take-The-Lemons and Let's-Explode-With-Some-Dignity over here. Wow, she was a RIOT.) Well, cutting out the testing (WHY. LORD. WHY?), we sprung a trap and escaped.

As we went back through Upper Aperture, we eventually came across... THE CORRUPTED CORE BIN! dun-dun-DUH!

... Oh, wait, wrong part. I mean, HIS "LAIR" THINGY! dun-dun-DUH! Long 'boss-battle' sequence short, we fully corrupted him, I got hit by bombs, I shot a portal at the moon, Wheatley, me, Space and "Rick" get sucked into space, GLaDOS saves me, we win, yay, she lets me go.

Wait.

What? Lets me go? Yep, apparently. (I think she got a concussion as a potato or something...) And a goodbye opera to boot. And my old Companion Cube. Gee, you'd start to think she actually (le GASP!) cares about me. Anyway, I make it back to a small town, rebuilding itself after a "Combine" attack. (At first, I thought they were attacked by some rogue farm equipment, but nope. Aliens. Weird, huh?) Turns out, they dislike science as much as I do. They HATE Black Mesa (who apparently caused the apocalypse), and don't care for Aperture much either. Still, they took me in, and here I am now.

My stories are legend around here. I'm a minor celebrity for what I did, and the little ones especially love to hear my tales of potatoes and neurotoxin and crazy Rat Men and little AI balls whom you wish never converted... Ahem.

Anyway. I should have had enough sense to NOT go wishing for things now, after the crazy stuff I've seen happen, but yet, on that fateful day, I found myself wishing for- of all things- a child.

Now, don't get me wrong. I haven't met anyone special, nor have I started doing one-night stands or something, it was just... out of the blue. Maybe I liked watching the kids play too much, I told myself. And, to stop my thinking about it, I added "If GLaDOS could see you now, what would she say?" A bit low, yes, but I had found it usually helped.

And if there was a Wish God, I'd have killed him for mixing my private statement with that little irrelevant wish.

Not two hours later, a storm broke out. A really big thunderstorm, too. And there I was, back in my house, when I see a little figure out in the field.

First thought? "They're gonna get hurt, the idiot!"

Second one? "Who is it?"

And third time's the charm? "... Why is it staggering?"

As I saw the silhouette fall, I grabbed my coat and ran outside. "It's probably one of the village kids." I thought. Oh, was I wrong. I got closer, and in the flash of lightning, I can see her.

She's a small child, with unnaturally white hair in two medium length pigtails. She's got little bands holding them up... And little eye-like things on the bands. She's wearing a strange garment, a sleeveless tank top sewed onto a miniskirt...

What was that logo?

I bend down to see, and one more lightning flash illuminates her face for a split second- and her eyes.

Orange and purple.

Her eyes slip closed, and I pick her up and run.

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For GLaDOS's appearance in this fill, see here (remove spaces): www. yunare. deviantart .com/art/GLaDOS-187337834?q=meta%3Aall+boost%3Apopular+GLaDOS&qo=4&catpath=&order=0&offset=4