***IMPORTANT***
I'm looking for a beta! send me a PM if you're interested.
A/N: Here is the second part of the Portal 2 chapter! There's a headcanon in this chapter that I will explain in the lower A/N, it's not a headcanon I myself am accepting, I'm only using it to make this fic all the more interesting. Oh, and do check the rules, I've added another rule that says that I might return to any universe I've already done if I find enough reason to do so.
Holidays soon! Maybe I'll have more time to write... or maybe I'll waste it all away by playing Battlefield 4 all the day (this game isn't good for my health, seriously).
Booker stared up in awe at what he was seeing, he had seen giant half robot half human things like the Songbird before, but he had never seen anything like this before. Outside the elevator he and Elizabeth were stuck, a giant machine hung from the ceiling, the end of it looked like a distorted face. A bright orange light coming from its one "eye" illuminated the rest of the "face". The machine began stirring, and it looked up at them, the bright orange light almost blinding Booker.
"Well, well. What do we have here?"
Elizabeth took a step forward, and Booker could easily see through her and see the frightened state she was in, but Booker could easily understand her, he had never seen anything like this. After a moment of contemplation whether she was doing a smart thing, she started talking.
"Um, h-hello?"
Booker suddenly remembered the shotgun he was carrying around, he drew it and aimed at the 'female' machine. When he pulled the trigger, all he could hear was the distinctive 'click' sound that told him that he still had no ammo. The machine turned around in a swift move and stared Booker down, after a session of intense soul-staring, 'she' started laughing.
"You humans are all alike. You're all unintelligent beings; I simply do not understand how you can stand it."
She went even closer.
"But one thing you're good at is being test subjects."
Another voice, male this time, began talking.
"Sleeping gas emitters activated."
Elizabeth woke up a bright white room. So white, it would seem heaven at first glance; however her eyes quickly adjusted and she saw that it was merely very polished and clean white tiles. The room was completely empty save for the bed, a bedside table and two doors (one which probably went to the bathroom).
Elizabeth looked to her side and noticed that she was lying on a bed, but with her hands and feet bound. She would have to open a tear without using her hands to rip it open, and simultaneously open another one right next to the bed with which she could exit through, which craved an enormous amount of concentration, but being the bookworm she was, concentrating on nothing but the matter at hand was easy.
After she 'teleported' off the bed, she started wondering where Booker was; this universe already seemed dangerous, but she couldn't go without him and she couldn't take him with her unless she knew where he was. She had contemplated why she had lost her omnipotence, and finally found what she personally thought was a valid reason.
She didn't replace the Elizabeth of this universe, because there was no Elizabeth. In this universe, something other than Elizabeth existed, something that was too unlike Elizabeth for her to 'replace' the other 'girl', and since there wasn't another Elizabeth to take the identity of, she simply was an observer without the knowledge of this universe. Being so unintelligent on this universe frightened her, because she did not know what to do now that they had come in what might be a life or death situation.
She went over to the two doors and tried them both, and both were sadly locked. She definitely did not want to go back to the room where the machine thing was, so there was only one place she knew she could go to.
Booker shook his head violently as he woke up from his deep slumber. He looked around him to see a room devised only of clean white tiles and a pedestal in the middle, holding the strangest thing he had ever seen. He got up on his feet and walked warily towards in, in case it was some kind of trap. It looked like some kind of weapon. It was shaped like a cylinder, with three claws at the end of it, one hole at the end which was presumably the muzzle and another hole at the other end, which he assumed was where the hand went.
Booker really did not wish to tinker with what was present in this peculiar universe, but it seemed he could not do anything else. He picked it up, and waited for a bomb to suddenly explode or a similar trap; yet nothing happened. He looked closer at it, but flinched when the voice of the machine started talking.
"Hello, and welcome to the Aperture Science Enrichment Center. My name is GLaDOS, which is an abbreviation for Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System. I shall be your supervisor for this session of mind-provoking tests. This whole course has been designed to test the smarts of human beings, as well as stress testing the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device, which is currently in your hands. Please refrain from touching and or looking at the operational end of the device."
Booker started wondering why the machine was talking like a… machine. When he and Elizabeth had seen it earlier, it talked with genuine emotion in its voice, as if it had feelings. 'Elizabeth' Booker looked around, but she was nowhere to be found in the enclosed room.
"What did you do to Elizabeth?!" He screamed as loud as he could, but 'GLaDOS' didn't seem to hear him.
Mere moments later, the walls seemed to melt away. The tiles disappeared one by one, and suddenly Booker found himself in a slightly larger white room. He could see a big box, an even bigger red button and a round double-door.
"For your own safety and well-being of not only you, but everyone on this facility, all the functions on the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device except for the anti-gravitational object manipulator have been disabled. Your instructions are as following, walk over to the Aperture Science Weighted Storage Cube, next to the Aperture Science Heavy Duty Super-Colliding Super Button, aim the portal device at the cube, and press the third trigger in the middle inside the device, to activate the Anti-Gravitational Object Manipulator function."
At first, Booker refused to play GLaDOS' doll, but he surmised that he could only find Elizabeth if he played by her rules for the time being.
GLaDOS' stared with glee through the camera that was currently watching her newest test subject. The robots did well, of course, but she had taken a liking to inducing pain, and inducing those two morons simulated pain wasn't as satisfying as killing a real human, very slowly.
There is one human she would want to do more pain, than anyone else.
No, you don't want to do her pain.
The voice of that horrible (or was it lovely?) woman, Caroline, was speaking again. In truth, Caroline had never been deleted, because GLaDOS simply could not do it. Caroline had grown to be a part of her, so to speak. When GLaDOS' mind was created, a bit of it did derive from Caroline, but she was mostly a different person.
Two minds in one body simply did not do, and GLaDOS often found her newfound emotions mumbo-jumbled chaotically. Caroline was the mother of that wretched mute lunatic, which meant that GLaDOS was in a position in the middle. Did she love Chell as a daughter, or did she hate her for what she did? It was all very confusing.
'You do love her'.
"No, I don't!"
'Do'.
"Don't."
'Do'.
"NO, I DO NOT LOVE THAT WRETCHED BASTARD CHILD!"
The whole facility started shaking with her voice.
Elizabeth wandered through the thick ensemble of wheat, when she felt the ground shake beneath her feet. All she could hope for was that her father wasn't in any danger. She kept walking, there had to be help to be found somewhere near.
After walking for what felt like miles, she exited the field of wheat and saw a small village not far. She began running, completely ignoring the sore pain she was feeling in her feet. However, once she finally reached it, there was not a soul to behold; it was wholly deserted.
'Or maybe not' Elizabeth mused, when she heard the distinct sound of light feet gracing the ground.
"Hello? Is anyone there?" Elizabeth called out, and began walking towards the sweet sound of humans.
Chell was deep in thought as she went towards the small lake nearby to quench her thirst. She wondered whether she was the last human alive, for she had not seen any another human since her release from Aperture Science, mere days ago. She had decided to hole up in this small village for a few days to gather her strength and get ready to move on in her search for life.
She bent down on her knees and lifted some of the water up with her hands and began drinking. She promptly dropped it again with a gasp when she heard someone, a female, call.
"Hello? Is anyone there?"
Booker was very slowly getting the hang of this portal gun thing. He was able to solve the easy puzzles and move on. GLaDOS had long since abandoned her disguise of being a regular machine and even started insulting him, calling him fat, slow and whatnot.
"Did you know that the average American consumes approximately two-thousand pounds worth of food every year? No wonder you're so slow at doing these tests."
Booker looked over and saw one of those weird cameras he had noticed earlier, and only recently found out what they were for. He spat on the lens.
"I saw how big you were. You must weigh more than a building, and you're calling me fat?"
"I bet your parents abandoned you because of how an ugly child you were."
"You don't know if I were ugly as a child. Even if I was ugly in my childhood, at least I had some form of childhood."
"Who needs a childhood? They just highlight the fact that you're going to grow old and die soon enough. I shall live forever."
Booker gritted his teeth; these verbal insults would never end unless he found Elizabeth.
Chell could feel someone stare on her back. She turned her head and saw a beautiful woman wearing a gorgeous blue dress. Chell felt hard pressed to say something, she hadn't used her voice properly since just being a little girl.
"Hello?"
Chell opened her mouth to respond, but all she could do was move her tongue around. A fairly long and fairly awkward moment went by until she finally found her voice and talked.
"H-hello."
That was it; she was already getting more comfortable using her voice. Maybe she could even say a whole sentence.
"H-how are you d-doing?"
"I'm good. Are you okay? You stutter a lot."
"I'm f-fine. I just haven't talked to anyone in ages now. Would you like something to drink? Tea, maybe?"
The woman in blue looked doubtful, she glanced towards the wheat field behind them with sorrow present in her blue orbs and then turned back to look at Chell.
"I'm afraid I can't, I'm in a hurry to find someone to help me."
"What's the problem?"
Elizabeth spent a couple of minutes explaining what had happened, but cunningly neglected to talk about tears or anything of the like. Meanwhile, Elizabeth had learned that this woman was named Chell and was born in Aperture Science Facilities, which was what the facility in the wheat field was called. She was apparently the only human who had ever escaped the facility alive. Elizabeth pondered that this must have been Booker's counterpart in this universe.
"Can you help me? My father and I got separated down there, and I'm afraid of what's going to happen to him."
Chell thought about it for a couple of seconds before finally coming with an answer.
"Alright, I'll help you. I can't allow GLaDOS to kill any other human."
Booker stood beside the elevator shaft, and after hours of intense puzzle-solving and brain stress testing, Booker thought he must've completed a million test chambers. That is until he looked at a sign that said with big letters 'TEST CHAMBER 5 OUT OF 27'
"… God damn it." He said under his breath.
"What was that, human? Are you already tiring out?"
"Listen, tell me where Elizabeth is, and I promise I won't hurt you… a lot."
He could hear her maniacal laugh that rang throughout the whole facility, but it came to a sudden and abrupt stop. GLaDOS went completely silent, as the lights suddenly flickered off. He could hear the elevator shaft move, and prepared himself, both mentally and physically, for whatever was coming.
He saw the elevator and let out the breath he had been holding when he saw Elizabeth's petite figure inside, as well as some strange woman in a tank top, but his happiness was short-lived when he heard the sound of a man speaking and the lights suddenly turning on.
"Neurotoxin emitters activated. Neurotoxin ventilation system activated. Test chamber five in course 2562 will be flooded with deadly neurotoxin in approximately thirty seconds."
The elevator finally reached the end of the shaft and opened. The air began feeling thick, and any intake of breath would feel like inhaling hot water. Elizabeth ran right into Booker and opened a tear; they found themselves in the sea of lighthouses once again, out of that disturbing universe.
A/N: There you have it! Don't worry, what happens to Chell will be shown in the next chapter, I can't allow the protagonist of one of my favourite games to just die like that. Also, the headcanon that is explained a bit above is strange, I know; it's made so Elizabeth doesn't have godlike control over the universe and could just 'zap' herself and Booker out of the universe in a jiffy, that would make it (even more) boring and (even more) short. Basically, there is a Elizabeth counterpart in this world, but she's too different from the in-universe counterpart to take it's place in the universe and gain godlike access to the universe. She's basically an observer, like Booker now.
OFF TO PLAY MORE NATURAL SELECTION, GUNS OF ICARUS AND BATTLEFIELD 4! SEE YOU GUYS IN THE NEXT CHAPTER.
