~IIIII'MMM BAAA-AACK!~ ...Several months late and with a totally different writing style. If anyone still has any interest in this story, sorry for keeping you waiting so long. First I got a little bit of writter's block, but only after I was distracted by all the things I got for x-mas... Then I had school, and I was busy. And procrastinating. And busy procrastinating. Once I was finally done with that, I had pretty much completely forgotten where we were in the story.
But, ya know what? Screw dat crap. I believe I was the one who said I was going to finish this story if it was the last thing I did. (Back at the end of chapter 7) Well, whatever. Just shut up and enjoy the chapter. Happy 1st annaversary, first fanfic I've ever written.
GLaDOS sat in her cramped box that had been so graciously given to her by Drake as an excuse for a bedroom. She was silently jealous knowing that Wheatley had it so much better than she did, but having this knowledge just made her that much more grateful that he was working just as hard as she was to take Drake out of power. However, as she thought to herself, everything was, to some extent. overpowered by her hatred of Drake and her desire to reclaim her spot as central AI.
GLaDOS's thoughts were interrupted as a bowl filled with a blob of nutrients with a spoon in it was teleported in. Her "breakfast". GLaDOS pulled the spoon from the blob and watched a few clumps of it drip back into the bowl.
"Testing begins in 10 minutes," Chimed the familiar voice that rekindled passionate homidalness in GLaDOS. The sound powerfully echoed through the large, empty hanger in which GLaDOS's box hung, and was ever so slightly distorted as it traveled through the fan in the box that was used for ventalation. However, at this point, GLaDOS likely would've recognized that voice even if she were deaf.
Scowling in disgust and resentment, GLaDOS reluctantly raised the spoon to her mouth, knowing her choices were to either eat this slop or die of starvation or malnutrition.
As GLaDOS was taking her last bite, she felt her box start being drug along the line which held it. Testing was about to begin. She set down her nearly empty bowl and let it be teleported away as her box opened and she was dumped into a transportation tube for more delicate objects and materials. She held her arm out for a portal gun to be pushed onto it as she did the same with her legs for her long fall boots as she kept moving.
Before long, she could see Wheatley traveling along an adjecent tube. The two nodded at each other, determination plastered over their faces. Or optic. Or something. A few seconds later, they were dumped into the test chamber. GLaDOS caught Wheatley midair as they both frantically searched for the nearst panel that wasn't quite closed yet.
"There!" Wheatley called, jerking himself to the right to indicate the location of his findings. GLaDOS covered the distance in one leap. She shoved Wheatley between the panel and the wall with one hand, using the other to take off one of her long fall boots. She held on to the top of said boot as she shoved it towards the arm of the panel Wheatley was holding open in an attempt to break said arm.
"Ohhh, no you don't!" Drake calmly corrected, pulling the panel closed with more force. Wheatley grunted in pain as just a little bit too much force was put on his realetively fragile hull.
"Wheatley, hang on, just a few more seconds..." GLaDOS said, trying to sound reassuring.
"A few more seconds?" Wheatley whined with unhappy surpirse in his voice. "No, no no no no, I can't-" Wheatley was interrupted when GLaDOS pulled him out of the gap as she noticed denting.
"We almost got it this time," She commented nearly emotionlessly as she attached Wheatley to his management rail and shoved her foot back into the long fall boot.
"That's fine, maybe we'll get it next time," Wheatley cheerfully said, but with no enthusiasm backing it up.
"Really? If you can't even get past the first layer of non-existant security, what makes you think you'll succeed with your current methods?" Drake taunted, being the first one to have any real emotion in his voice of the morning. Hearing Drake while watching Wheatley work so hard to complete the test chamber before Drake could have the next one ready made GLaDOS slow down.
Drake had, at one point, been the only person who had ever really been a friend to Wheatley. He had likely been a welcome breath of fresh air for the idiotic little ball of metal. And GLaDOS had not only discouraged their friendship when it had existed, not only ended up indirectly ruining it, but had indirectly forced Wheatley onto the side of his enemy to fight against the friend who she had driven to corruption. GLaDOS quickly shook her head in a futile attempt to rid herself of her guilt.
What am I thinking? I... I'm GLaDOS, I have no reason to be feeling these- this, She thought, ...Right? Right. No guilt. None at all.
"We can't keep doing this forever, you know." GLaDOS sighed, preparing portals to fall through for momentum, with the help of Wheatley.
"Sure we can!" Wheatley chimed. "We have plenty of air, and water, and nutrients, and we're kind of experts at this by now, so we're pretty unlikely to die doing this." GLaDOS rolled her eyes at him as she effortlessly knocked over a group of turrets. "Besides," Wheatley continued, "If we keep doing this, then no-one gets hurt... Or crushed... Or smashed, or melted... Or falls to their doom, or gets a limb amputated by a laser, or dissolved in acid, or, for the most part, killed," Wheatley said with several nervous laughs punctuating the items of his list as he dropped down into the portals he had prepared.
"See, Wheatley has the right idea," Drake said, poking GLaDOS with a mechanical arm, extracting a sort of growl from her. "Why can't you be more like Wheatley? Like he just said, abandon your rebellious ways, and no-one dies." Wheatley hit a turret with a thermal discouragement beam as Drake finished speaking. "Well, at least not by my doing, they don't..." He added after the turret stopped screaming.
"So, you're saying it's better that we just let ourselves get killed?" GLaDOS said with her voice raised and her tone challenging as she walked across a path Wheatley had created, rejoining her partner near the end of the test chamber.
"As a matter of fact, yes, I do think that." Drake said matter of factly. "Personally, I think I run this place better than you ever did."
"Then why don't you just outright kill us?" GLaDOS questioned.
"Becuase," Drake started, trying not to make his lie appearent, "I enjoy watching you two scurry around test chambers like trained lab rats through a maze before you die."
"You've been having us 'scurry around like lab rats' for almost 2 weeks now, Drake," GLaDOS declared defiantly. "What's the real reason?"
"I get the feeling I should stay out of this. Should I stay out of this?" Wheatley nervously asked, inching towards the open chamberlock.
"...Do whatever you want, Wheatley," Drake replied solemnly after slowly aiming a camera at Wheatley. "GLaDOS, you know the real reason," he continued as Wheatley rushed into his elevator, deciding it was nothing he needed to hear. "I can't kill you, and Wheatley... I'm tempted, purely because it would slow you down, if only a little," Drake waited a second or two before continuing. "Do you think I'm having more fun than you? Do you think I enjoy having to put Wheatley through this? I don't. Do you think I enjoy having the threat of you constantly looming over me? I don't. Trust me when I say that I'm having no more fun than you are, GLaDOS."
GLaDOS glared into a camera for a second as she strolled towards the chamberlock. "I'll never trust you again," she said as she entered her own elevator.
I don't blame you, Drake thought. I wouldn't blame Wheatley either... I've made a horrible mistake. I never should've brought him into this. All I did was sever the most valuable connection I had. I shouldn't have tried to be so defiant. Just the threat of GLaDOS is far worse than my old life... Drake simulated a somewhat dramatic sigh.
As their seperate elevators took them down to the next chamber, GLaDOS and Wheatley had another silent conversation through a series of nods and stares. As they entered the next chamber, GLaDOS jumped out of her elevator a moment before it touched the ground, one of her boots already off and ready to aid her in her quest of destruction. She leaped directly towards the nearest open panel, barely catching Wheatley as she reached out behind her to catch him.
GLaDOS put him between the panel and the wall just in time before Drake snapped out of his angst fest and scrambled to pull the panel shut. GLaDOS immediately set to work on the arm of the panel, hoping that this time would indeed be the time that they succeeded.
"Honestly, why do you keep trying that? Do you really think that after so many failures it's suddenly gonna work?" Drake teased, this time ramping up the pressure slightly less than before in his Wheatley-related regrets.
"Ugh..." Wheatley weakly whined. GLaDOS abrubtly paused work to make sure he was okay. "No, no, keep working, I'm fine," he reassured, watching GLaDOS work on the last two cables and handfull of wires holding the mechanical arm together at the joint and prompting Drake to realize they might actually succeed.
Reluctantly, Drake upped the pressure just a little more to match what he had it at previously. However, he had missed his oppurtunity as the arm lacked the strength to damage Wheatley with only one more cable holding it.
"Nonononono! GLa- GLaDOS, no, NO. You stop right there," Drake frantically commanded as GLaDOS loosened the anchor of the last cable, staring directly into a camera with a look of deliberate defiance on her face. "Noooo, no. You put that long fall boot down right this instant, miss!" GLaDOS merely pried the anchor harder, removing even more tension. "This is your last warning, GLaDOS. Put the boot down NOW, or God help you, I will-"
Suddenly the panel lost all tension as GLaDOS completely removed the cable's anchor. Any wires remaining snapped as the weight of the panel pulled on them, and a sort of crash/thump hybrid resounded in Drake's chamber as the sound of Wheatley dropping to the ground went through all microphones in the test chamber.
Drake's optic dialated and he simulated a gulp as GLaDOS picked up Wheatley under her arm and marched out of the test chamber and began to climb along the back of the panels, heading towards a nearby catwalk.
YAYYYY! I'm SOOO glad that this chapter is finally done. 7 months in the making! Kind of. Ok, more like an afternoon and a half. BUT STILL.
Honestly, I forget why I ever abandoned this fic for any amount of time. It's so much more fun to write than I remember, and appearently there are at least 6 people ('cause that's how many different people I have follows and/or favorites from) who love(d) reading it.
Wow geez so much A/N this chapter. Please pardon this ludacris amount of A/N in this chapter, I just... It's been so long, I kinda just want to talk to my fans. Catch up with you guys. Maybe talk about the job and the family over a cup of tea and/or coffee. Heck, perhaps you could even come over for dinner. (You can't.)
...Nah but srsly. I just feel the need to kinda dump my thoughts on you guys since it's been so long since an update. So, uh... do any of my old fans even still have any interest in this? No? Yes? No? No. Darn. Welp. Fans are fans. As long as people still enjoy reading this, I'm gonna keep being enthusiastic about writing it.
Ok, serious A/N time: Sorry that parts of this chapter are kinda angsty. I kinda tried to balance it out with some humor that I actually put there intentionally, (Fun fact: originally, this story was listed only in the friendship genre, but then people were posting reviews that were like, "OMG I can't stop laughing, lol!" or something, then I realized that appearently my somewhat casual writing style has comedic value so I then listed it under the humor genre as well.) but... Yeahhhh. I'm not really sure why I felt the need to have that in there, but, ya'know. S**t happens. Also, I was reading through all my old chapters and noticed a bunch of typos. I'm not the only one that thinks perhaps I should update those chapters to no longer have typoes... Right? And last but not least, I just wanna let you people know that I'm planning on ending the fic in a few chapters. I'm thinking it'll end on chapter 12. If anyone has any objections to this, then please contact me immediately, 'cause I'd seriously like to hear if you've got any better ideas.
OKAY sorry for 500-word-long author's note pleasedon'thitmeovertheinternet,bye!