A/N: The basic idea for this story came to me roughly six months ago when I was taking a walk but I have absolutely no idea why I've waited this long before actually starting putting it to words. Originally I wanted to create a story that could go on for a long time, but my mind quickly rushed ahead and came up with an ending of sorts. That disappointed me at first, but then I realized that that ending was by no means necessarily the end of the entire story, and so the story expanded into a series. This is the first part in that series and I have a reasonably good idea of what the other ones are going to be about as well. Hopefully at least some of you are going to stick with this tale till the very end.
Now, if you are prepared, let us take our first step on this long journey together, shall we?
Everything was completely black. Chell wasn't sure if her eyes were open or closed so she tried opening them, but there was no change. Unsure of where she was and how she'd ended up here, the young woman attempted to move a little but to her dismay she found that she couldn't really feel her body.
Terrified, the girl tried to figure out whether she was conscious, dreaming, or dead. For some reason she couldn't concentrate very well on anything, so after a couple of futile attempts she decided to simply clear her mind and calm down. Unable to move her body and with very little but unanswered question on her mind, Chell spent some time doing absolutely nothing and surprisingly that made her feel a bit better.
Time seemed to mean very little where she was, but after what could have very well been either just a couple of minutes or on the other hand perhaps even several years, she heard something. It was very faint at first, almost like a distant echo, but slowly the sound got louder and started to seem more present. It was a simple, yet truly beautiful melody which Chell was quite certain she'd never heard before. As the melody became stronger, the girl found herself more and more drawn to it and finally it felt like the sound was in the same "space" as her.
Chell opened her eyes.
The sun was shining brightly right into her eyes and she was forced to squint. Even though her eyes were still adjusting to the light, Chell could make out that there was a young woman in front of her sitting on some rocks with her left side facing her. The sun was shining from almost directly behind the girl and made it hard to make out more than her outline, but she seemed to be gazing somewhere far into the horizon without a care in the world and was humming the song that had brought Chell back to her senses.
While still lying on the ground, Chell carefully looked around herself. They seemed to be on top of some sort of cliff. The ground was very dry and there wasn't any vegetation in sight, only rocks. Chell herself was wearing a very ordinary looking pair of blue pants and a white tank top but she didn't seem to be carrying any other belongings besides her clothes as her pockets were empty.
As the girl tried to get up in a sitting position without drawing attention to herself, she must have made a sound because the young woman in front of her suddenly stopped her humming and turned her head in Chell's direction. Chell felt tightness in her chest because she wasn't sure who this other person was, but the feeling quickly went away when the other woman got up and skipped towards her cheerfully.
"You're finally awake! I was getting worried because it's been two days already and the sun is going down, but I had faith in you," the girl said her voice full of joy and bent down in front of Chell so that her face was practically touching hers. The smile on the girl's face was the most joyful any person could possibly have and Chell found it impossible to question the childlike sincerity she was sensing from her.
What confused Chell about this very animated girl, however, was her face which was completely gray and looked like it was made out of some sort of not very shiny metal that somehow moved seemingly effortlessly as she talked and formed expressions. The quite young looking girl's voice sounded completely natural and everything about her behavior and physical appearance, apart from her metallic skin and her clearly synthetic silvery shoulder-length hair, was very human but she clearly wasn't one.
Chell wasn't sure what kind of expression she had on her face but the girl didn't seem to pay any attention to that and continued: "I saw you with my binoculars. You looked so cool running underneath that thing with a portal gun in one hand and a gun in the other. It was amazing! When the whole thing suddenly exploded before you could make it to safety and I saw the blast wave throw you off, I thought you might've died or at least gotten seriously injured. But look at you! You didn't even get any serious burns! I'm so glad."
The metallic woman who was clad all in beige smiled warmly but Chell wasn't quite sure whether to smile in return or not, so she tried getting back up on her feet instead. The girl offered to assist her but she managed it on her own, although just barely. Once back on her feet, Chell quickly inspected her own body to see if she was indeed without any serious injury. The only external thing she could find were some minor burns on her backside but from what she could tell they had already started healing. She was feeling a bit dizzy, however, and the android seemed to notice that for she took a canteen from her belt and offered it to the human. "Here, you should drink some water," she said and looked at Chell encouragingly.
Chell hesitated for a second but then accepted the bottle and took a small sip. It was indeed water. Even though the water wasn't cold, it eased the dryness in Chell's mouth she hadn't even noticed until now and she started gulping down the bottle's content without reservations. Once the canteen was about half empty, she felt she'd had enough at least for the time being and closed the cap. She said "Thank you" to the friendly artificial girl and realized it was the first thing she'd said to her.
"You're welcome," the girl responded and smiled kindly. Chell tried to offer the bottle back to her but the girl refused.
"Keep it. I have no use for it. In case you couldn't tell from just looking at my face, I'm not one of those O-models. I picked that canteen from a dead combatant while I was carrying you away from the battlefield so no one will be missing it."
Chell didn't really understand what the girl was talking about, but she decided to just nod and attached the canteen to her belt using the clip on its side. She then looked at the android standing in front of her and opened her mouth to say something but her head was full of so many questions she wasn't sure what to say. For a short while she just stood there with her mouth half open, but finally she managed to get some words out: "Um… I'm a little confused."
"Oh," responded the girl and tilted her head to the side.
"I–," Chell began, "I can't really remember what happened."
"What can you remember?" the android girl inquired, curious.
"Well, I remember my name and…"
"Uh-huh," the girl replied and waited for Chell to continue.
Chell tried to think but then her eyes widened and she looked straight into the metallic girl's azure eyes in panic.
What were her parents' names? What did they look like? Who were her friends? What school had she gone to? What did she do for a living? Where did she live? No matter how hard she tried to think, Chell was drawing a complete blank.
"Nothing else?" the girl asked calmly and the only thing Chell managed to do in response was slowly shake her head. The girl went quiet for a moment and seemed to be deep in thought. Chell didn't want to interrupt her and just waited anxiously for her to say something.
Finally the android lifted her head back up and said, "You probably hit your head when you fell on that building. I inspected your injuries when I got to you, but I didn't notice any signs of head trauma. I know very little about human physiology but let's hope that your memory loss is only temporary." She tried to comfort Chell by smiling encouragingly, but it did little to elevate her mood, although Chell did appreciate the effort nonetheless.
"Could you tell me what happened?" Chell asked.
The girl looked behind her and frowned. "Yes, but I'll have to try to keep it brief. Like I said, the sun is already going down and I should actually already be on my way somewhere. Don't take this the wrong way; it's an honor and a pleasure for me to help you, but I have certain commitments and I've been carrying you for over two days now."
"Yes, I understand," Chell said, even though she didn't. Based on everything the android had said so far, they didn't seem to know each other and that made the girl wonder why this artificial woman felt it was an honor for her to be helping her.
"How should I begin…" the girl began and pressed her index finger against her upper lip while looking up at the sky in thought. "OK, I know now! Hihi," she then said in a lively manner and started telling Chell about what had happened sounding surprisingly enthusiastic and like she was having fun. "There was a really big operation about 120 miles from here two days ago around noon. It all took place in the ruins of a small town left uninhabited after the occupation."
"An operation?" Chell interjected.
"A large-scale battle," the girl explained. "At least a couple hundred people on both sides. It was truly a sight to see. Both parties were giving it their all. I wasn't part of either group but I did give your people some assistance from the shadows whenever I could."
"If you weren't there to fight, then why were you there? And what was the conflict about in the first place?"
"Haha, you're asking so many questions you must have lost your memory. Of course I believed you when you said you have amnesia, but at the back of my head I kept wondering if you were pulling a weird prank on me because it just sounds so ironic that you'd lose you memory again. Hahaha." The android girl laughed cheerfully, but Chell didn't find anything funny about her memory loss. She didn't think any less of the girl who'd apparently helped her because of that, though. She seemed to just be acting like herself.
"Wait," Chell said, having realized what the android had just said. "What do you mean I've lost my memory again?"
"Just that it's common knowledge that you'd already lost all your memories about your past several years ago. That's why I thought you might've been joking, because what are the odds of that happening twice to the same person, right? But to answer your questions, I was there on a secret assignment that I can't really tell anyone anything about, not even you. Soorryy. Hihi. It's all really hush hush. As for why the conflict took place… That would take me way too long to explain to you considering you don't remember anything about the two sides involved. All that matters is that your people won because of you and I feel privileged to have been able to see you in action." When she mentioned Chell, the metallic girl started beaming. Chell had no doubts about the fact that she seemed to value her very highly, although she still couldn't understand why.
"If there were hundreds of people involved like you said, what did I do that had such a large impact on the outcome? I'm just one person after all."
"It's weird listening to you talk about yourself when you don't know who you are but I do. Anyway, to keep things brief, this is what happened in a nutshell. Your side was better prepared because you were the attacking party, and at first it seemed you were going to emerge the victor. But then something no one could have expected happened. These huge concealed doors on the ground opened and an enormous four-legged walking tank emerged from underneath the town. It must've been close to sixty feet tall! Taller than any of the buildings in that town. Every part of it was covered by a shiny black plating that didn't resemble any material I've ever seen before. Everything about the technology seemed way too advanced to be something developed here on Earth, so it had to be a machine left behind by the Combine, although I've never heard of such a thing being used during the occupation."
There were already at least a dozen questions buzzing in Chell's head at this point. Questions like, what's this talk about an occupation and who are the Combine, but she decided to not interrupt the story her synthetic ally was trying to tell her because of every small detail she couldn't understand. The android had said she was in a hurry and Chell tried to respect that even though she was feeling very perplexed by all the things she was hearing.
"Your people had rockets and other explosives, but none of them seemed to leave even a dent on that intriguing armor. Some people thought the joints in its legs might be its weak spot but they were wrong and they turned out to be as well reinforced as the rest of that magnificent beast."
"You seem to admire the enemy's tank," Chell noted.
"Just because the tank might've been in the wrong hands, that doesn't mean the tech itself doesn't deserve to be praised and admired. But can I go on now? I'm getting to the good part."
"Yes, of course. Sorry that I keep interrupting you," Chell replied a bit embarrassed that she couldn't stay content with just listening.
"Oh, don't worry about it," the girl said and gave Chell a friendly smile that was so wide the human could see most of her perfectly white artificial teeth shining in the rays coming from the slowly setting sun. Seeing her like that made Chell wonder was she really in such big of a hurry as she'd said, or if she'd forgotten all about that because she was having so much fun telling Chell about the battle.
"That thing had some kind of powerful beam weapon that appeared to be its only weapon and it quickly wreaked havoc in your ranks with it. Luckily the beam had a reasonably long recharge time, but still once it became apparent that none of the weapons at your disposal could cause damage to the thing it became quite obvious that your side was going to lose." The azure-eyed android paused for a moment and allowed Chell time to picture the seemingly hopeless scene in her mind's eye.
"But then it happened!" the girl then burst out. "I don't know how you did it, but apparently you somehow got inside that thing and either placed some explosives or caused some kind of irreversible critical overload. I didn't see you go in or out but I happened to spot you when you were running underneath the tank's body on a small catwalk. You were being pursued but took care of your pursuers with a couple of well placed shots and didn't even slow down. I've never seen any human move so fluently and with such precision as you. But then the walker exploded before you could make it off the catwalk…" The android fell silent for a moment, apparently somewhat saddened by recalling the moment she saw Chell being thrown by the blast, but it didn't take her long to recover.
"Like I told you earlier, I saw you fall on the roof of a nearby building. But that's when something I did not expect happened."
"And what was that?"
"Someone managed to form a direct beam connection with one of the sensors on my skin. We did the handshake and this unknown person sent me a short heavily encrypted burst of data before they broke the connection. I inspected the direction the beam came from, but I couldn't spot anyone."
"What was this data you received?"
"When decrypted, it was a short message that told me to go to you and take you to safety."
"Any idea who sent the message?"
"No, but I took it very seriously and made my way to where you'd fallen as fast as I could. When I got there, there was no one else but you. Neither the weapon you were carrying or your portal gun were there, so they must've been thrown either on a different building or on the street below. The protective vest you were wearing was badly burned so I took it off carefully. I was so relieved to see the vest and your clothes had protected you from being more seriously burned by the flames. I then picked you up and carefully made my way away from the battle avoiding being seen by either side."
Chell wondered why the android had avoided being seen by the people who were on her side as well, but decided to not inquire further into the matter figuring it probably had something to do with either the android's own mission or her not being officially on Chell's side, possibly both.
"And I think that's about it!" the silver-haired girl concluded and smiled happily, content that she'd finally been able to answer Chell's question about what had transpired.
The girl seemed to have enjoyed telling about the battle, but it had felt weird for Chell to listen to this cheerful girl talk about it because she really seemed to know what she was talking about. She'd said she wasn't there to participate in the fighting so Chell couldn't help but wonder what reason this most joyous and vivid girl imaginable could possibly have had to be at such a place when a battle like that was going on. The young woman knew she couldn't ask her metal-skinned savior anything about that, but there was something else that kept bothering her.
"Sorry to ask, but what's a portal gun?" Chell couldn't help but inquire somewhat shyly.
The android girl, who'd been enjoying a small break from all the talking and had been looking up at the blue sky while playing with her hair, looked at Chell in surprise and said, "I'm sorry. Could you repeat that?"
"Oh, did you miss what I said?" Chell said and grinned, assuming the girl had drifted off to her own little fantasy land in her head for a moment.
"No, I heard what you said. I just wasn't looking at your face when you said it, that's all."
Chell didn't understand the android's response at all. "…Sorry, but I don't follow."
"I'd just like to have a visual record of you asking what's a portal gun. Could you pleaaaase do that for me?"
"Well… OK, I guess," Chell said, not quite sure what this was all about, but she didn't want to turn down the sweet android who was asking her so nicely. "What's a portal gun?" she then repeated her question.
"Thank you! That was priceless. You'll understand i– when you get your memory back. I promise I won't put this on the web or anything, so don't worry. This was just for me. Honest!"
"OK, OK, I'm not doubting your word," Chell replied trying to reassure the girl. Once again she wasn't quite sure what the android was talking about but apparently she could share the things she'd seen and heard with others if she wanted – or something like that. Chell was still trying to get used to the fact that the person she was talking to wasn't a human but a machine. She hadn't had time to even think about what a synthetic being like that could and could not do.
"But yeah, to answer your question about the portal device… Sorry, but I don't think it's actually that important right now, and I'm not sure you'd be able to fully grasp what it is just by listening to me tell you about it. It really is something that's much easier to understand by experiencing it in practice. I'm sure you'll learn all about it very soon, unless your memory comes back before that, which would be even better." The girl gave Chell a look that seemed to inquire if her answer had been satisfactory. Chell got the impression from it that if she really wanted to know about the portal gun now the android was willing to give her the explanation she desired.
Chell decided to trust her companion's judgement on her not needing to know about the portal gun right now, so she answered, "I was just curious, that's all. If it's not something I should definitely know about, then let's just drop the subject. I understand you're in a hurry and I appreciate everything you've done for me, so thank you for taking the time to answer at least some of my questions."
"It's no problem at all. I'm not saying the things I need to go do aren't important, but you're still much more important than them even if I get in trouble for failing to complete my tasks." The girl gave Chell a warm smile to convince her that she meant what she said and the gesture seemed completely sincere to the young woman.
"You could get in trouble?" Chell had to ask.
"A little," the android girl replied, "but don't worry, helping you was fun and worth any penalty. If I hurry, nothing's even going to happen so don't waste even a single thought on that." The girl glanced quickly at the sun and continued, "Shoot! Time goes by so fast. I hate running in the dark. I should definitely start wrapping this up so that I can get going."
"Sorry that I've kept you so long."
"Stop apologizing. You have no need to. Anyway, if you look in this direction," the girl guided Chell's gaze to Chell's right with her hand, "that's where you should head once we part. This barren canyon next to us was created by the Combine during their occupation of Earth for an unknown reason, but you only need to walk for about a mile from the canyon before everything starts looking normal again. This whole area used to be green hills, you know. One can only wonder why those aliens wanted to desecrate a beautiful landscape like that and dig away such a huge amount of ground. Nothing even grows here or in the immediate vicinity after all these years, so clearly they also did something else than just dig here. People have studied this place but no one has been able to figure out what's wrong with the soil or why the Combine did this."
As the silver-haired girl spoke, Chell noticed that her right hand was clenched into a tight fist and the look on her face as she looked at the vast rocky landscape seemed very serious, but perhaps a little sad as well. This was the first time Chell had seen anything even remotely like this on the normally so joyful girl's face.
"Is everything alright?" Chell asked carefully.
"Oh, yeah I'm fine," the girl replied and realized she'd become agitated. She released her fist and slowly seemed to ease back to being her normal self again. "Thinking about bad stuff can get to me sometimes, but I'm alright now." The girl laughed cheerfully and gave Chell the same joyful smile she was already so used to seeing by this point.
"Talk about a quick recovery," Chell thought. "Good. I just got a little worried."
"Thanks for caring about me, but I'm totally fine now. My mind just wandered to dark places for a moment, that's all. Anyway, even though the place you're going to shouldn't be very far from here, you should definitely have a weapon. Just in case." After saying that the girl reached behind her back and pulled out a pistol.
Seeing the weapon made Chell feel slightly uneasy because up to this point she hadn't known that her companion was armed. The feeling didn't last for very long, however, for Chell believed that if the android wasn't actually friendly, she would have shown that already.
"Here," the girl said and offered the gun to Chell. Reluctantly she took the pistol and examined it with curiosity. It was a bit larger than she would have expected a pistol to be and the design and materials seemed kind of futuristic to her. The gun's surface was very smooth and polished and all of the corners were rounded so that there weren't any sharp edges anywhere. It was impossible to say from the looks alone whether the gun was made of some kind of alloy, a ceramic material, or something entirely different. Most of the pistol's surface was white with some metallic accents here and there to emphasize some of its lines and make it visually even more appealing. The weapon was pretty to look at, but the precision of every detail about how it was made left no doubt that is was also most certainly deadly in the right hands.
"It's slightly better than the average models," the android explained. "It only packs a decent amount of punch, but the recoil is pretty low and it's very accurate even without implants – with good ones it's reliable even at long range. It's not ID locked, so anyone can use it." The girl moved next to Chell and looked at the weapon she was holding in front of her. "Hmm… Your implants must be turned off because this indicator isn't lighting up," she said and pointed to a small circular spot that was apparently a small lamp.
"Implants?"
"Yes. It's common nowadays for some people to have tiny implants in their body that are connected to their body's neural network. They can enhance various aspects such as some of the senses and can also be used to communicate with certain equipment such as high-tech weapons like this one for example. There should be implants in both of your hands that allow you to form a connection with this pistol. This allows you to find out some rudimentary things like how much ammo you have left, but more importantly it enables you to become one with the gun and perform much, much better with it thanks to that."
"You mean there are some kind of devices inside my body?" Chell asked and hastily took a close look at her hands. "I don't see any scars or anything like that," she then said after she couldn't find anything unusual.
"Modern medicine can heal most surgical scars, so I doubt there are any marks left on your body."
"Are you sure I have these implants? Couldn't it just be that I just don't have any?"
"I'm certain that someone like you has implants. I even bet they are some of the highest grade available," the android stated cheerfully and sounded like she was happy for Chell. The young woman herself on the other hand wasn't quite sure what to think of the fact that there might be small surgically implanted devices all over her body.
"Why are my implants off?"
"That probably happened because you lost consciousness."
"Is it a problem if they're turned off?"
"No, but having them on gives you a great advantage and there aren't any downsides that I'm aware of."
"Well how do I turn them on then?"
"I'm not a human so I wouldn't really know, but I think you just probably have to look within yourself and sense their presence. Then just tell them to activate. Sorry, but that's the best advice I can give you."
"Sense their presence?" Chell asked in surprise. "Fine. I'll try that."
The young woman closed her eyes and tried to search for some kind of sign of a foreign presence but she couldn't sense anything. Thinking that perhaps she hadn't tried hard enough, Chell tried to relax and block out the outside world concentrating solely on herself. However, no matter how hard she tried, there just didn't seem to be anything to discover. Slowly she opened her eyes and shook her head to the android.
"Well I guess it can't be helped then. Hopefully your memory returns soon, but even if it doesn't, I'm sure there are people who are more than willing to show you how to use your implants again," the girl said. "Anyway, do you think you at least remember how to shoot a gun?" she continued and looked slightly concerned.
"I-I'm not sure," Chell replied uncertainly.
"Only one way to find out then," the android said and walked over to a big rock about thirty feet away from Chell and placed a smaller rock on top of it. "Think you can hit that rock from where you are?" she asked and looked kind of hopeful. "Remember to turn off the safety first. It's that small lever on the side."
The metallic girl moved away from the two rocks and Chell took aim. Her hand was swaying a bit but somehow she felt comfortable holding a gun like this. She wasn't doubting the sincerity of the things the android had told her, but she still simply didn't feel like the person the azure-eyed girl had told her about with such admiration.
Slowly Chell breathed out and gently squeezed the trigger. A shot rang out and the smaller rock was thrown off the larger one with great force.
The android started jumping up and down and clapping her hands out of joy. "Yes! I knew you could do it! Now there's no need for me to be worried. Yay!" She clasped her hands behind her back and started twisting her upper body from side to side, smiling in content.
"If everyone was as happy as she is, the world would be such a wonderful place," Chell thought and smiled back at the android, not being able to contain her own joy of apparently having a natural talent in marksmanship. Once they had both settled down a little, Chell asked, "Do you have another weapon for yourself? You're not giving me your only gun, are you?"
"I left my sniper rifle behind when I carried you away from the battle, but I typically procure most of my equipment on-site anyway, so it's not like I left anything vital behind. It's doubtful I'll run into any trouble on my way to where I'm headed so don't worry about me. The place you should head to isn't very far but I'd feel a lot safer if you weren't moving around empty handed. The gun isn't mine anyway, so there's no need to even thank me for it."
Chell had some difficulty picturing the lively silver-haired girl with a sniper rifle in her hand so she simply stopped trying.
"Fine, I'll take the gun but what's this place I should go to? If it's not far from here, why didn't you just take me there yourself while I was unconscious?"
"It's a place where you'll be safe, but I've never been there myself so I think it would be rude of me to come uninvited, that's all."
"OK, I understand. Thanks for everything you've done for me. I can't believe you carried me on your back for 120 miles in just two days. Did you even take time to rest?"
"I only slept a couple of hours on both nights, but I'm used to that. I'll get a good night's sleep when I get home."
"Is that where you're headed?"
"No, but hopefully that'll be my next stop after this. But I need to go now. Take care." The android smiled warmly and gave Chell a hug. The human didn't resist the gesture and smiled in return.
"You too," she replied simply.
The silver-haired girl started walking toward the canyon. When she was near the edge, something very simple finally occurred to Chell. "Hey! What's your name?" she yelled.
The android turned around and ran back to her. "Oh, right! I'm Tori," she said with a big grin and stuck out her hand. "It was a pleasure to meet the legendary Chell."
Chell shook the android's hand and replied, "Likewise. I'm glad to have met you Tori." She had expected the android's hand to feel cold and rigid because she'd thought the girl's skin was made out of metal, but on the contrary, her skin was very soft and warm – definitely not made of metal.
Without saying anything further, the android girl ran to the canyon's edge, turned around and said, "I hope we meet again someday." Then she suddenly jumped off.
"Hey!" Chell yelled and ran to the spot where Tori had stood just moments before. When she looked down she could see the android girl landing at the bottom of the drop that must've been at least two hundred feet if not more. To the young woman's amazement the android managed to stay on her feet and seemed totally unharmed.
The girl looked up and shouted back to Chell, "Oh, don't worry. I don't need long fall boots like the ones you have. I've got the same technology built into my legs, although I don't have a visible spring part like your boots." Tori then yelled goodbye to Chell and started running toward the other side of the huge man-made gorge.
The human yelled goodbye in return and then turned around to face the direction Tori had instructed her to head to. She'd been wondering why she was wearing such a peculiar looking pair of glossy white boots but thought that there was no point asking Tori about them. "Long fall boots, huh? So I can survive falls like that as long as I'm wearing these boots. That's certainly good to know."
It then occurred to her that she had forgotten to ask what kind of place she was supposed to be looking for and who she was supposed to meet there, but since Tori hadn't mentioned it it was probably something that was incredibly obvious and impossible to miss. It was too late to ask about it now so all the young woman could do was hope that was indeed the case.
Chell made sure she'd turned the gun's safety back on and tucked the pistol into the back of her pants. "The legendary Chell…" she replayed what Tori had said in her mind as she started walking away from the canyon with brisk steps. "If that's true, I wonder what on earth I did to become legendary. I hope my memory comes back soon, because I have no idea what's going on."
A/N: This chapter came together in surprisingly few writing sessions. A lot of that probably has to do with the fact that I've know exactly what this chapter was going to be about since last spring. I also tend to write dialogue a bit faster than descriptions and narration, so that helped as well. That being said, I'm not used to writing this much dialogue, so that did present a bit of a challenge and I'm still kind of figuring out how I exactly want to approach writing dialogue. This is also my first time trying to put an original character down on paper so hopefully Tori comes across the way I intended.
For those of you who don't know, I'm writing this story concurrently with Competitive Testing Initiative, a story that's very different from this one but possibly worth checking out if you found yourself enjoying this chapter. I've already decided that the next thing I publish is going to be the second chapter for this story, but after that I'm going to start alternating between the two. I'll try to get at least some of the next chapter written during Christmas break and get it out some time in January, but please don't be too disappointed if it takes me longer than that. I don't release stuff that I'm not personally happy with, so everything takes as long as it takes. I'll try my best not to make you wait too long, though.