Okay, let me start by saying, I absolutely LOVE portal 2. I love the story and all of the characters. I have played it so many times and still have an Itch to play more! So, I started looking up fan fiction for it. I usually write fics for anime so this is a new thing for me. I will try hard not to disappoint any readers who stumble upon this.
Also, I have four chapters of this already written, so updating regularly for awhile should be no problem, however I still keep going through these and editing and changing things for the story's plot. (this should explain if I've missed something small and it doesn't quite make sense. Just let me know if you find an inconsistency please)
This is also the first story I've actually read over and made sure I didn't mess up point of view(which I tend to do on accident -_-)
Tl;dr :: this is my first portal fic, I love the game, tell me of any mess ups ^_^
With Moon gel below her, Portal Gun in hand, and GLaDOS in the midst of handing her the final core, things were beginning to look up. Chell leapt through the orange hole she created and flew out of the blue one. The final core was just out of reach. Her eyes darted to the left and right, quickly scoping out what she needed to do. The Aperture Laboratories test subject quickly shot the portal to the floor below the last core and another at the end of the accidentally spilled propulsion gel.
Without even thinking, as it had become second nature to the girl, she leapt down onto the gel and raced into the open orange portal. Chell felt the lose strands of hair whip around lightly as she flew up higher and higher toward the glowing pink light. The energy of her portal device latched onto the little core and she dropped back down. Frowning, she now had to get the little core to the monster that GLaDOS' body had created.
Chell's eyes darted to the massive collection of wires and metal, and resting at the tip, disoriented from the last pelting of bombs, was her former friend, Wheatley. She felt several emotions just thinking about finally taking him down. One was joy. In all honesty, thanks to the writings on the wall, she had totally expected betrayal from the original supercomputer who controlled that body. But Wheatley's betrayal was completely unexpected. It truly hurt when he laughed at her suffering and took all the credit…and long after, tried to kill her.
Then again, it was those few things GLaDOS mentioned before about Wheatley and the system itself that left Chell not really wanting to hurt him. It was, after all, the "Itch" causing most of his insanity, plus the major surge of power he felt when he was first plugged into the 'body'. He seemed so happy to finally feel that power that he let it get to him. So in a sense, could Chell really blame the core?
"You are about to get me killed." The robotic voice brought her out of the small trance she seemed to saunter off into.
"We will both die because of your negligence. This is a bad plan. You will fail. He will most likely kill you. Violently." Chell growled and started running towards the repulsion gel lying on the floor, hoping to quickly get this little metal ball onto Wheatley.
"The Fact Sphere is NOT defective. Its facts a wholly accurate, and VERY interesting." Chell leapt into the air and slammed the sphere onto the spot open for it, glad it finally stopped talking about itself and how she would die.
Soon she was forced to race towards the grated room holding the 'stalemate' button. GLaDOS was screaming for her to push it, but Wheatley was yelling not to. She felt slightly guilty, but she had no choice. She glanced it the room, which Wheatley had sealed off. Anger rose as well as desperation. The timer was slowly running down and she had two A.I. systems yelling at her. Luckily, the broken roof of the button room was made of Moon walls and big enough for the blue portal she shot. She aimed her gun and shot, before diving into the new orange portal below Wheatley.
'Almost!' she thought landing in the room. Her hand reached out to hit the button…The first thing she noticed was the searing heat that surrounded her, the next was her face lying on the cold, wet floor. Chell groaned lightly to herself and pushed up, only to hear Wheatley, "What? Are you still alive? Great. I'm still in charge and I have no bloody idea how to fix this place!"
The test subject gone haywire glared and gripped the portal device and aimed up, right at the huge glowing moon above the collapsing ceiling. She only had one shot before her former friend would kill her. Her finger pressed down and the blue portal was shot.
Suddenly the room began to fly into the orange portal. She tried to grab at the floor but nothing was staying still. Soon she would be thrown into the cold unforgiving space and nothing would help her. Chell made one last desperate attempt to grab something.
Her vision blurred and she faded into blackness.
GLaDOS felt herself suddenly come into power again. It was good to feel the entire facility pulsing through her wires again. Her optic quickly took notice of what was going on and she made a pass to stop it. Chell was quickly sliding towards the hole in the floor where Wheatley was dangling out of. From where her head lie, she noted that the portal had to be moved in order to stop the massive vacuum. She dropped three claws from the battered ceiling ports. One shot out to grab Chell, another the portal device and the third was to knock Wheatley from the system.
She succeeded with her endeavors, but something went wrong. She shut down the portals, closing them up, but a malfunction in her claw caused them to freeze up. With this the device fell and smashed against the ground. Blue and orange lights swirled together just as Chell's motionless body fell on top.
Almost as soon as it had been created it was gone. The shattered was lying on the scorched floor. GLaDOS scanned the area and put together the heavily daunting fact that Chell was nowhere to be seen.
She felt an odd sensation pulsing through her. "Ah, so that's where you are." she located the file. The supercomputer focused and a voice filled the room.
"Caroline Deleted." She no longer felt the odd sensation for the odd disappearance of that pest. There were other things that needed tending to. She shot directions to the control panel to override the system.
The supercomputer regained control of the claws and picked up what was left of the small machine, knowing it was beyond repair and needed incineration.
She let out a sigh and decided it was for the best that the test subject was gone, for she could not actually see the girl inside any rooms. Perhaps she had just been incinerated by the explosion the portal device caused.
She threw the device into the Emergency Incinerator Room, the one built for defective aperture devices, that couldn't be destroyed in the regular one.
Anyway, there was better things GLaDOS could be doing with her time, like sending BLUE and ORANGE into some testing…
When Chell opened her eyes, she realized she most definitely was NOT floating in space, but rather, she was in a white room. Bright lights above her and white walls around her. She sat up and immediately regretted doing so. Her head was flooded with pain. She leaned back against the pillow and looked around. A small machine hooked up next to her (and onto her) revealed she was inside Aperture Laboratories. She groaned, having hoped GLaDOS would keep to her word and let her go.
The door suddenly began to open and Chell leapt out of the bed, Pain be damned, and toppled to the floor. A tall woman with red hair walked in and smiled, "Hi, I'm Penny Body, I know, weird name and all, but you can call me Penny," she walked over. The woman was wearing a white lab coat, but her name tag said 'assistant', meaning she wasn't a real lab tech.
Never mind that, Chell hadn't actually seen another human alive in a very long time. She wondered if this girl had been dragged down into the labs by GLaDOS. 'Horrible…' Chell thought as the girl helped her to sit back up on the bed.
"I just need to run a few tests and I'll be out of your hair…" The Aperture portal tester grimaced at the word 'tests'. GLaDOS would probably put her through the most rigorous test known to science in a matter of minutes once she was able to stand again.
"Can I have your name, please?" Penny looked up with golden, almost orange, eyes. Chell frowned. That super computer knew very well what her name was, even if she chose not to use it. The A.I. knew everything about her. Or at least it seemed that way.
Chell sighed and pointed to her throat, trying to commune she couldn't speak. Now, it wasn't that Chell couldn't speak, she just preferred not to because actions spoke louder than words to her…that…and she hadn't used her voice in so long, the one time she tried she ended up with a very irritated throat. It hurt and itched for days…maybe…the girl had no idea how long she had actually been doing tests.
"Oh, I see…mute?" she flipped her clipboard onto a blank paper, "Here, I'll ask a few questions and you just write the answers!" the girl seemed very peppy, as if happiness was all she had ever known. She was also very outgoing, not even bothered by the battered, bloody, bruised and disheveled Aperture Test Subject before her.
"Okay! Name?" Chell wrote it down quickly. "Age?" This one actually stumped the girl. She didn't even know how long she had been in stasis before she was woken up, not to mention how long she had been in them again. She clearly remembered being a small girl when becoming trapped in the labs, but that would be ridiculous to the 'assistant'.
So Chell guessed and wrote '25', hoping she looked the part. "Good, and I guess that's it for now…I can't really think of what else they wanted…" she laughed. Just then the door opened to reveal a shorter man, about the same age and Penny. His hair was dyed a ridiculous shade of blue.
"You're being called up to the-" he stopped, when he spotted Chell sitting on the bed. A frown crossed his face and he closed the door.
"Don't mind him," Penny shook her head, "he's not very friendly to people he doesn't know. He's kinda shy and reserved…I think I'm one of his only friends…" She shook her thoughts away , "Anyways, my boss wanted to see you as soon as you woke up, so I guess you'll be coming with me!"
The walk through the halls was an odd one. The area seemed do familiar to Chell, yet she felt as if she were really in space on some other planet. There weren't any turrets hiding in the grates, nor was the facility dirty of broken in any way. Plants were actually being used as decoration, and not destructive 'coming through the floor' organisms.
"Oh! I almost forgot!" Penny turned to Chell, "This is Avery, Avery Atlas…he prefers being called by his last name, though. And no that's not his real hair color, he just loves to be different!" She ruffed her friend's hair, who quickly turned and tried to kick the taller girl.
Chell smiled softly, seeing how they were really close. She frowned again, entering a small lobby. Something she had only seen in Old Aperture not long ago. Back when that man, Cave Johnson or other… over the intercom ran the place with his tests that were almost more insane that anything his supercomputer creation would ever come up with.
There were people everywhere tapping away on computers and prepping calls going to the higher ups.
"Just a little further." Penny explained to Chell as they walked down the halls. It was an enormously odd feeling that came over the ragged and worn girl, when she looked through the glass windows and spotted two tests going on. They were of course involving the two types of gels that she, herself, had become quite familiar with. It was also odd to see so many people out there. A few were in lab coats taking down notes, yet others were the ones being tested on. Chell couldn't help but frown when she saw that the walls were padded where the orange gel was being tested. What felt like years of being thrown into walls by accidentally sliding too fast was getting the best of her.
"I don't care Pendleton! One more screw up like this and I'll see you happily to the incinerator room." A shiver ran down Chell's spine. How long had she been out? If humans were all over the place, and she still ran the place…
Penny bit her lip and stopped just as a man with light auburn hair, messy and in disarray, walked from the office quickly. His eyes turned and landed on Chell and a wide grin grew on his face. He wore a lab coat, so obviously he was in charge of something, but there was something completely familiar about him as well.
Chell knew for a fact she had never met him, but there was something about those bright blue eyes of his. It wasn't until he opened his mouth to speak that it dawned on her.
"'Ello, love, you must be the girl they found in the labs, huh. Well, I can't say that you look too good, I mean you look great considering the explosion an' all, but yeah, uh…My name's Wheatley Pendleton, so, uh, yeah, It was fantastic meeting you! But she'll kill me if I don' get back to work." he pushed the pair of glasses up his nose and walked down the halls waving politely as he did.
Chell's mind was sent reeling. One minute she's sending a small metal orb into space for taking over Aperture, the next she's meeting some guy with the same voice and name as that orb. Was she dreaming? Was she permanently locked in stasis? Had she actually died in the cold recesses of space?
It wasn't until Penny tapped her shoulder, that she realized they were supposed to be going somewhere. Chell swallowed hard as she walked down through the door. It led into a room she knew well, but the last time she saw it, it was being ripped apart by a space vacuum.
Inside it now, instead of the dreaded supercomputer she had fought against and with, there was a series of computers and monitors, showing the entire facility, including all the testing tracks and breaks rooms.
In the corner were a set of white elongated machines. Chell knew them. She had fought them and turned them off and had even replaced them at one point with faulty ones.
Two women stood beside each other guarding a vault and set of buttons and things. They were each clad in short white dresses, white pants and white belts with a red orb instead of a buckle. The two had black boots on and white headbands with little antenna sticking out of the little headphone that covered their left ears. They reminded her heavily of the little turrets that she had fought and shut down countless times. She wondered if there was a way to possibly defeat these "turrets". But even if there was a reason to get passed these…guards…she didn't even have a portal device.
Speaking of, what ever had happened to it? It's not as if she saw any of the test subjects using one. Had GLaDOS stored it away, hoping no one would use it against her?
Chell was interrupted from her thoughts, when an older woman walked across the room to her. She had black hair, cut short and precise around her face. Her face was worn with age, but it wasn't her face that worried Chell. It was the yellow eyes that stood out against that face that caught her attention.
'So much like…hers…' the girl thought to herself.
"She's not much to look at…kind of on the heavy side…more or less beaten up." the woman spoke, sending shivers down Chell's spine. It was even her voice. "How did you end up in my lab?" 'Her lab? I mean…where's GLaDOS…I thought I heard her, but…' she looked at the woman with the same, yet not as robotic, voice as her arch enemy.
Chell frowned, knowing she wouldn't speak. "Oh, uh…ma'am," she girl beside Chell piped up, "She's mute…" she instantly received a hard glance form the woman who reminded Chell of the A.I.
Yellow eyes met the blue-grey ones, "Get her some paper. I want to know what Black Mesa is up to…"
Penny frowned, doing as the woman said easily, "But she is wearing Aperture Laboratory's testing clothes…"
The woman looked Chell over again. The girl looked down at the blood stained, scorched, gel covered clothes. Even the long-fall boots were covered in a thin layer of black dust.
"That is interesting, tell me girl, I know ALL of my test subjects…yet I know nothing of you…where are you from? Who are you? WHY are you HERE?"
Chell winced lightly from the harshness in the woman's voice, but she wrote on the paper anyways.
'Where am I? How long was I out? Where is She?' Chell handed her the paper and pressed her lips into a tight line.
"You're in my labs, of course, Aperture Science Laboratories. You were only out a few hours, when you had the audacity to come exploding my lab. Shame, too, one of my tests was interrupted and possibly put off for a lot longer, thanks to you." she pointed to a computer system that had been apparently damaged, as well as some device she had never seen before, lying in pieces on a table. Chell frowned, knowing she had not caused that.
"And who, pray tell, is 'She'?" This woman certainly reminded Chell of her.
The girl took the paper back and quickly scribbled, 'GLaDOS.' the woman laughed a eerily family laugh, "I'm Dr. Glados, if that's what you mean. I certainly never would write my name like that…How do you know me?"
Chell felt even more confusion over the entire situation. Not only was there more humans than turrets of cores floating around, she had seen a human who reminded her of her former friend and escape partner and another who claimed to be the greatest super computer to ever live, so to speak. These humans, which both Wheatley and GLaDOS had despised such creatures, were now human themselves. She shook her head, feeling the oncoming headache.
'No, the A.I. supercomputer who ran tests…'
"We haven't dabbled in A.I. technology in a long time. I grew bored with the testing since the computer was exceedingly stubborn and refused to follow its basic programming. 'She' was shut off along time ago and locked away. But I didn't name her after myself," Glados spoke, "'She' was named Computer Head of Electronic Life and Learning, of CHELL for short."
Chell felt her head spin and she honestly couldn't take it. This was too much for even her, the girl who had almost been killed an uncountable amount of times, faced of with one great mind and one not-so-great-but still-hard-to-fight enemy, and survived to tell the tale…maybe…she was unsure if this was Hell or not. The girl felt the world go black.
So? Was the first chapter okay? I hope lol. Reviews are well received as well as constructive criticism! ^_^
On another note I love Wheatley! I wish I was able to grab him T^T
~Lady Pyrien