Disclaimer: Portal belongs to the wonderful people at Valve; I belong to Portal's fandom; and this piece of writing belongs to me.
Obligatory, This was written as an alternative ending (of sorts) to Portal 2, but it's still, y'know, at the end, so it could be seen as spoiler-ish.
Wrote this piece for Rick-Fanclub's July 2011 Contest: "What if Rick ran The Enrichment Center?" on deviantART. I tried to fit it into the canon as much as possible. Thanks for breaking me into the world of writing Portal fanfiction via a great prompt, ladies!
Rick's in Charge
Rick was rooting for her the whole time, not a doubt about it. Not only was she the prettiest thing Rick had ever laid eye on, she was quick-thinking and had a good head about her shoulders. He saw her dart out of that portal and toward a button that from the sound of it was mighty important, but then one of the biggest fireworks he'd ever seen go off at close range sent her flying across the room in an explosion of sound.
The only one who may have heard his roar of disbelief was the core they were attached to, who shouted with equal incredulity and fury, "What? Are you still alive?"
"She's getting up, she's getting up!" Rick yelled. And she was, she was getting to her knees, picking up that arm device she had used to carry him over, and now she was aiming it, but where Rick couldn't see, his view was blocked by the way this thing was swinging about.
Then his view was pulled downward, as the large machine they were suspended in tossed and fought against the anti-gravitational drag through something below.
"So what d'ya say about the existence of space now?" Rick growled to Fact.
Fact's voice still carried through the roaring sound of oxygen being sucked out into the atmosphere. "The Adventure Sphere claimed that there was nothing in space. Fact: Part of this machine is now in space. Therefore, the Adventure Sphere was, and is, wrong."
"What about you, Mr. Space-Does-Not-Exist?"
"Fact: The Fact Sphere does not make false statements."
"Yeah? Well there's a false one right-" Rick stopped, seeing something orange, white and black fly under the machine and through the hole in the floor—Angel. But she was holding on, really holding on, hanging by her fingers from a mountain just like Rick imagined she would, even after that idiot Space smashed into her shoulder and went where he had always meant to go: Space.
But this woman was not meant to be in space, and the guy in charge, with his high-pitched yells of terror, was not cut out to be leading this adventure.
Rick was meant to be in charge of this adventure. Rick, the Adventure Sphere. He was going to muscle his way to the top. Or to the bottom, as it were.
"The core located in the central mainframe has been disconnected. Transfer required," came the voice of the Announcer, echoing distantly and genially through the chamber.
Rick saw his chance. "Everybody stand back, because Rick is going to get this under control!" he bellowed, drowning out Fact, drowning out everything except-
"Don't you dare do a thing to my body!" a voice screeched back at him, faint and yet very close. It was someone Rick recognized, and while he could admit that she had always been very capable of running this place, Rick trusted only himself to save the woman with the face of an angel and the will of an Amazon.
"Give him a left, a lef—actually angel, just hold on tight, Rick will handle this!" He was yelling, heck, everyone was yelling but this woman, her face set and determined as she held on and on.
"Fact: The Adventure Sphere could not have stopped the destruction of this facility without help from the Fact Sphere. The Fact Sphere, therefore, should be in charge."
"Hey, Orange-Guy, you look tall enough. Why don't you do me a favor and remove this, ah...thorn in my side for me," Rick said, gesturing vaguely to one of two androids he had dug out from somewhere. Man, was the movement attached to all these plates and wires tricky. From the outside, this machine that controlled the entire facility seemed like one giant muscly arm, but Rick was starting to notice it was more like one giant muscly arm with stiff joints.
Fact's optic swiveled accusingly toward Rick. "Removing the Fact Sphere from this device will cause irreparable damage, which can only be repaid in euros."
P-Body's eye quirked up to Fact, and then to his partner Atlas, who shrugged. P-Body looked down at his own small hands, and looked up again.
"I'm just gonna give you my assistance," said Rick, and with an alley-oop had P-Body rising up off the floor on a panel. P-Body made a sound like glass being rubbed with cleaning solution, and nervously caught his balance as Rick elevated the android until he was level with Fact. P-Body reached forward unsteadily.
"The difference between magnetic north and true north is caused by the flight patterns of geese," said Fact suddenly.
P-Body hesitated, and looked down at Rick for confirmation. Rick was looking back up at them. "Pipe down, Four-Eyes!" he growled to the Fact Sphere, then sort of jerked his head in a nod. Doing that again in the future was going to be difficult.
P-Body grabbed either handle attached to Fact. As Atlas made noises of encouragement from down below, P-Body carefully twisted the sphere side-to-side, trying to figure out how to detach it.
"Just pull!" Rick encouraged, a bit impatiently. "It's like plucking out an eye, or somethin'. Easy!"
P-Body didn't yank hard enough the first time but yanked too hard the second, and with a squeak tumbled off the platform. Atlas ran forward in a misguided attempt to catch his companion, but another panel came up to make the interception. P-Body bounced off it and landed on his feet.
"There, I gotcha," said Rick, sounding as proud of himself as he felt. "You can trust Rick. -Man, am I good at this already."
For a moment P-body just stood there, surprised, and then was given a congratulatory hit on the shoulder by Atlas. Fact chattered on inanely all the while, his optic moving around frenetically.
"You can just throw Mr. Know-It-All over there," said Rick, and opened a wall panel in invitation. Interpreting the command literally, P-Body tried to throw Fact in with a heave, failed, stopped, and skittered over to drop him back into what turned out to be the Corrupted Core Holding Bin.
"That'll take care of him for now," Rick noted with satisfaction, and closed the panel back up with a satisfying bang.
At that moment Atlas made an chirring sound and pointed excitedly. P-Body hurried back over, and the two of them peered at Chell, who was beginning to stir from her graceless position on the floor of the chamber. She sort of shuddered and curled in on herself, and then exhaled, her eyes half-opening to peer dazedly through the hair plastered against her forehead.
Without even thinking about what he used – It looked like a claw, yeah, attached to a crane. He'd call it a claw crane – Rick knocked Atlas and P-Body aside so he could lean in for a closer look. Yeah, she did have a face of an angel, even bloodied and burned and bruised watching her wake up was like watching a hundred suns implode in one glorious dazzle.
"Good mornin', angel," said Rick, and her eyes snapped open, darting to where he was in the machine. "You gave us a bit of a scare. You've shown me you're tough as nails – and I always like that in a woman - but you had us worried for a couple of minutes after I pulled you from space."
The response he got was a confused, incredulous look, but then Chell's gaze cleared. She jumped to her feet only to stumble slightly, pressing a hand hard against the side of her skull. Rick was ready to catch her but was mighty impressed when she caught herself.
"Not bad, gorgeous," he commented as she looked around. "By the way, I'd be much obliged if you would consent to telling me your name. -Or we can stick with what we've got, I have no problem continuing with calling you gorgeous, because that's exactly what you are," Rick added, as Chell stayed tense and wary and distracted, two fingers pressed hard against her temple. Rick could practically hear the gears turning in her head, if she had any.
She took a slow step, and another, regaining confidence in her footing. She walked right past both P-Body and Atlas, her eyes fixed on a large object that lay on the floor.
"I've seen by now that you were designed for danger, like me, but take my advice this time and help yourself to that lady break I mentioned earlier," Rick said, turning his body to follow her walk.
Chell barely glanced up at him. Well, that was okay, Rick decided-he liked the challenge she was presenting, and was mighty interested in what she was so intent on if it wasn't him. Her gaze was fixed on something at her feet-the"head" of GLaDOS. Its yellow eye was dark and inactive.
Chell crouched down to it, running both of her hands over the giant shell. She tried to turn it over, couldn't, and with a heavy exhalation pushed her hair out of her face and stood up. Rick, Atlas, and P-Body watched as she limped over to the receptacle next. It was buried under debris, but she began picking around the sharp protrusions of metal with her bare hands. P-Body and Atlas looked at each other and shrugged, not understanding the behavior, but Rick suddenly had an idea of what this pretty lady might be looking for.
"There was a mighty big-voiced potato I found down there after you passed out." Chell looked up sharply, and with her attention Rick was only too happy to barrel on, "A bird came by looking for her," - now there was another expression rapidly developing on Chell's face - "and the two of them were causing a nuisance while Rick here was trying to fix the place up for you, so I let the bird escort her out so she could calm down."
Chell slowly stood up, and something in Rick – his unparalleled instinct, he decided – made him switch the subject. "I also found these two fellas, who seemed like they were ready to help us out with a little testin'." Gorgeous looked over at Atlas and P-Body, who both waved.
It occurred to Rick then that the entire room was a dump, twisted and charred metal littering the floor. Now he personally didn't mind clear evidence of sweet sweet destruction, but a lady's needs were different. It was time to impress her.
"Sorry that we didn't have the time to fix the place up special for you, gorgeous. But what Rick did do was to extinguish the fires for you before throwing out all the extinguishers. Wanted to keep 'em burning – let the whole place blow sky high - but I figured it'd be best to wait until you were out of danger, so we could share it." Her balance wasn't looking good; she looked like she needed a place to sit down. "Here-"
A floor panel came up and scooped Chell clean off the floor. Surprised, she scrabbled slightly for purchase and then found it, gripping either side of the panel and letting her feet hand over the edge. Rick brought her right up close as he began looking around for something to entertain them. Get the lady's mind off of other things.
"Let's see what we got here," he said conversationally, flipping back panels. "Don't care, don't care, junk, more junk-" He stopped and turned to fix Chell with his luminous green optic. "Say, gorgeous, wasn't this the stuff the previous guy was pumping into the room earlier?"
Neurotoxin chambers. Chell shrugged and nodded.
"Good for you for giving that guy that boot, sweet cheeks. He didn't know a thing about how to treat a lady right. That's why you're here with Rick." Rick peered closely at the grate where the neurotoxin reserves filtered through. "Says here that the neurotoxin's a gas," he observed. A note of satisfaction crept into his voice. "Means that it probably burns. And explodes."
Chell tensed reflexively, her arms and legs ready to spring.
"Now don't you worry," said Rick, noticing his lady companion was even less relaxed than before. "I know what this can do and I don't want to upset you." He flipped the panel closed and continued his slow patrol around the perimeter of the room. "I'm sure we got other options." He peered around. "Although if it don't burn, explode, implode, or combust, don't keep it."
Chell's arms and legs relaxed fractionally. She still looked wary, but Rick let it go at that. Couldn't blame the lady, really. She'd had a hell of a day.
The next thing Rick discovered were the giant pipes that ran through the room and into other sections of the facility. "Blue gel, white gel, orange gel—any of this stuff flammable?" The pretty lady wasn't talkative either, but that could wait. Instead, Rick turned a keen eye on P-Body and Atlas, who were watching from below.
Atlas came up to where the pipe fed into the floor and gingerly tapped the broken glass, which was still leaking Conversion Gel sluggishly. P-Body nudged his foot against the paint-like substance on the floor, stepping back when it stuck to his feet and left tracks.
"Speaking of which..." Rick twisted around, as if looking for something. "Got an itch. A real big, annoying itch." He gave Chell what he liked to call his Look. "I'd ask if you'd mind scratching it for me, beautiful, but it ain't that simple. It's happening under my skin...wants me to test." He spun away, missing the transition of Chell's complexion from pale to white. "Testing. Hmm. Sounds boring. Not very adventurous. Well," he twisted around again. "Rick's just gonna have to make some changes, and he's just the man to do the job."
"Well, would you look at that," said Rick. "Still got an arsenal of explodin' devices right on hand." In the past few minutes he had assigned Atlas and P-Body to be "volunteers for testing." Rick was happy to say this meant he was killing two birds with one large boulder—getting rid of this itch and doing it while spending some alone time with his pretty lady.
"Stand back," he told Chell, bringing her perch close to him before lifting it high and away. "Don't want to get a single hair on that pretty little head even singed."
Realizing what was about to happen, Chell clapped her hands over her ears.
The first bomb arced high and slammed just to the right of the destroyed Stalemate Resolution Annex, setting off another fire and causing more loose debris to fall.
"Warning-" came the Announcer's voice from overhead, only to be drowned out by the next explosion.
"Wish I had something more powerful, like rockets, or missiles, but this will do just fine," hollered Rick as a third and final bomb sailed through the air and completed the huge hole that had been blown in the side of the room.
Atlas and P-Body were fidgeting nervously at the furthest possible distance from this display, and they both jumped when Rick stared them down.
"Well?" he barked, "What are you waiting for? Your mother's permission? Someone's gotta test for me and this lovely lady deserves her hard-earned break, so move!"
Atlas and P-Body practically jumped to attention and scurried towards the "exit" that Rick had made.
"That's better," Rick said, and gave Chell a friendly bump up against the platform she sat on. She simply gripped the panel she sat on tighter and nodded, her beautifully chapped lips set in a hard line. She was a tricky gal to read, this one. An egg that just needed cracking. But first-
"You'll need these," Rick bellowed heartily after the two androids, and tossed a first, and then a second, handheld portal-device through the hole after them with his claw crane, chuckling when one glanced off of the taller one. He had seen Gorgeous come in using one of these thingamajigs, so he figured his new test subjects would probably be needing them, too.
"Now we gotta observe 'em. Let's see..." As Rick tried to figure out how to bring up a monitor, Chell gazed upward. The moon was still visible. She shot a glance at Rick, but he was entirely occupied - "Soon as I can figure out a way to get that Announcer-man to give it a rest, I will," he was saying - and with a sigh Chell leaned back on her arms and waited.
"There we go. Finest seats in the house," said Rick, and Chell looked down to see him gazing at her with some kind of sultry expectancy. Favoring the large monitor he had either just found or created to that look, she stared hard at the screen...and leaned forward.
The image on the monitor was of a storage room stacked to the brim with Companion Cubes. Rick watched his angel's expression closely, saw something in her eyes that looked a little too much like longing to him, and immediately snapped to the next feed.
"Heard those guys were too soft," he said when she slumped back, hiding any disappointment in her usual, neutral expression. "A man needs heart, but he also needs the strength to protect his lady. Pure muscle." The feed changed again, and there was Atlas and P-Body hovering nervously by a test chamber sign numbered as "THIS WAY TO ADVENTURE," and an arrow pointing to the testing chamber door. Chell's lips twisted with what could have either been disgust or disguised amusement.
"Here we are, fellas!" said Rick, immediately taking to shouting at the screen. As soon as he got the door to the chamber to slam opened, Atlas and P-Body hurried through."Now I'm not the type to waste my time on logical puzzles, so we're going to keep the testing rules simple: This is all about danger and reflexes!"
Atlas spotted the cube-dispensing button first. He went over it, hit it hard with the palm of his hand, and then he and P-Body looked up together, waiting for something to happen.
BANG.
The button blew apart. Metal ricocheted everywhere; P-Body jumped and Atlas cowered. Even Chell's fingers flinched, but Rick roared with laughter.
"Now you're beginning to understand what I meant by adventure! Now pick up that cube!"
The cube had fallen near the exit. Atlas and P-Body nearly tripped over themselves in their hurry to get to the cube, but within ten feet they suddenly became very, very cautious, circling around it, elbowing each other to go first.
Rick's amusement faded. "You can't meet danger tip-toeing like ballet dancers!" he hollered over the intercom like a sergeant. "You have to meet it head on! Hustle! Hustle!"
After a bit more stumbling, Atlas and P-Body placed the button on the cube. "Oh yeah, that's nice," Rick said, shutters almost completely closing over his optic as his voice turned gravelly. "Like a nice, strong shot of whiskey."
Chell kept to her stony silence, but while Rick was distracted, she looked around carefully.
The next chamber's button didn't explode, but the door did, and then in the next chamber the dispensed cube was covered on all sides by sentry turrets, and Atlas and P-Body danced the most entertaining jitterbug Rick had ever seen as they attempted to pick it up. Afterward, both the door and the button exploded.
For awhile, Rick's mood improved with each test. He felt full of fire when one was finished, and entertained by the new ways he could alarm and startle his test subjects, he sidled up closer and closer to his pretty lady as the hours passed.
Rick imagined that they were at a drive-in movie together—one where he got to choose what they viewed. Rick would move his eye lazily to hers and tell her about the time he had avoided this-or-that dangerous exploding trap on one of his adventures, and she would gesture back with increasing enthusiasm while mouthing the same word. At first he thought it looked like she was saying "elevator," but he had to say it looked much more like "I love you," even while he couldn't understand exactly what those hand gestures meant.
Yeah. Life was good.
At one point his angel stopped gesturing and looked irritated. Rick glanced back at the screen. "I agree, beautiful. This adventure needs more exciting, dangerous traps. Timers should keep 'em on their toes."
Chell crossed her arms. Rick turned on the intercom again.
"Just thought I should let you fellas know that this test chamber's set to explode in, say, sixty seconds," he announced, chuckling as his two scorched and jumpy subjects looked around, each of their eyes roving wildly, not knowing what to expect. "So I reckon it would be in your best interest to stop pussyfootin' around and get this test done."
Fire roared after Atlas and P-Body as they sprinted out the exit and down the hall sixty-one seconds later.
The next test chamber: "Thanks to the man – or woman, sorry about that angel – who invented those blue and orange paints. They're just the way I like: highly flammable."
And the next: "A true adventure always needs a bottomless pit with walls closing in. Walls with deadly spikes. And a pretty lady. But Rick's gonna keep you out of danger this time. These guys are built to handle it."
In the end, the tests were more original than any of Wheatley's – Chell sighed – and almost as elaborate as GLaDOS's, but Rick was growing visibly restless, watching Atlas's and P-Body's scrambling around with more and more boredom, even when he designed every last object – down to the floor panels – to explode at the slightest touch. Chell saw the pattern long before it came.
And then the glow of anticipation came back into Rick's optic.
The final test chamber had everything Rick had ever wanted: Death traps, bottomless pits, inextinguishable fires. And in one, grand finale, Atlas and P-Body went out with a huge bang and two colorful showers of sparks.
"Happy Explosion Day, gorgeous," Rick sighed in satisfaction when it was over. "Those were for you. I wanted to give you the best explosion day a beautiful woman like yourself could ever ask for."
But you know what? Those guys were a couple of jokes. In fact, why don't we show 'em how it's done. This itch is an itch for adventure, but not any adventure—an adventure starring me and a very special, very pretty lady."
Rick met Chell's eyes, readied his best husky voice, and said,
"You're up for this next adventure, angel. You and I."