Chapter 13: Thinking With Portals

They came out of The Gate and landed in a heap in a room with black walls. A tall white sign blinked on, showing the number "01" on it. Below it were the numbers "01/10" above a single vertical black line. Eight icons were on the very bottom, showing drawings of stickfigures walking, being hit by falling things from above, drinking water, and being shot at.

John groaned and got to his feet. The trip down the inter-universal slide had been more bumpy this time around, and he had fallen off the eeveelution he was riding, landing on the cold hard ground. However, this wasn't really ground. It was actually a black panel that was attached to a robotic arm that could move at any second. He didn't know that, though.

"What's going on?" John said, groaning as he stumbled towards Ursurina.

"Good question, token human," She said as she picked him up.

"What did you call me?"

"A token human," She repeated. "You're the only human among us right now, so that makes you sort of like a special rare thing, which you wouldn't be otherwise."

"Oh okay," He said, pretending to understand. "So where are we?"

"We are in the Aperture test facility, keeping our eyes open for Voltrina, a Jolteon; Magirina, a Sylveon; or Esperina, an Espeon; any of which could be here," Ursurina said. "Also, since this is the Portal Universe, I would assume that we're probably going to have to do tests with guns that can shoot wormholes."

"Uh, right. Of course," John said. "Let's get to it."

Suddenly, an unfamiliar robotic voice spoke over the loudspeaker. "Huh? What's this? More test subjects?"

"What? We are not test subjects!" Rachrina shouted.

"Silence, fool," The robotic voice said. "If you say another word, then I will kill your friend without a second thought."

Rachrina kept her mouth shut tight.

"What is your identity?" Umberina asked.

"I am your test master, and you will listen to me," The robotic voice continued. "Now, it's time to start thinking with portals."

An arched double doorway with a blue stickfigure on one side spun open, revealing a cubic room made out of white and black panels. A large red button was in the center of the room, with a line of tiny blue circles leading to another door on the other side. A glass tube sticking out of the ceiling opened up and an extremely heavy metal box fell out of it, making a humongous clang as it dented the floor.

"Please place the Weighted Storage Cube on the Fifteen Hundred Megawatt Aperture Science Heavy Duty Super-Colliding Super Button."

"Huh?" John asked.

"Put the cube on the button."

"Oh."

Twigrina attempted to push the cube towards the button, but it did not move.

"I… can't… move it!"

"Duh. Of course you can't," The loudspeaker boomed. "It weighs 1,000 tons."

"So how do we lift it?"

The glass tube in the ceiling opened up again and five white, three-pronged guns fell out of it among the cube.

"Cast your eyes on these," The loudspeaker boomed. "Please pick them up."

Umberina was the first one to pick hers up. The back of it clasped around her right front arm, and it powered on, humming with energy.

"Very good! You are now in possession of the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device. With it, you can create your own portals."

The other four eeveelutions picked theirs up, and they all powered up. They were ready to do this.

They quickly discovered that the portal guns could pick up the cube. Soon after, they had put the cube on the button and ran right into the next test.

"Welcome to test chamber two. You're doing very poorly."

"Same goes for you," Umberina replied. "You left a hole in the wall."

Everyone turned to look, and they saw that one of the walls of this new cubic space was completely and utterly missing. There were only a few empty frames where the panels should have gone.

"Yay! We can escape!"

Rachrina jumped right out of the hole in the wall and screamed in shock. There was no ground below them outside of the chamber, because the entire chamber was suspended in empty air. It was only an endless void within the aperture facility, only containing the occassional other chambers and tiny catwalks that crossed its endless lengths.

"Aaaaaaaaah!"

Rachrina fell down and disappeared into the endless fog far below.

Umberina stared down into the abyss in horror.

"Is she dead?" John asked.

"She wouldn't just die like that," Twigrina said. "Right?"

"Don't worry, there are plenty of catwalks here. She probably landed on that one," Ursurina said, pointing down to a small catwalk far below that was barely visible in the fog. "She'll be fine. You'll see, dude."

"Who are you talking to?" The loudspeaker boomed. "Is there a sixth subject in this room?"

"There can't be a sixth subject," Ursurina said, "if there are only four in the room." She jumped out of the hole in the wall and disappeared.

"Are you serious? Would you rather all just die than live and test my chambers?"

"Yes," Umberina said. She jumped off the edge of the chamber floor, taking John with her. He screamed loudly as he plunged, alongside Twigrina and Waterina, into the endless abyss.

Voltrina walked with confidence, proceeding quickly through the test chambers that had been set out for her. She was starting to get pretty handy with the portal gun and the other apparatus related to it. She was so good, in fact, that when the doors through the next chamberlock opened, she almost didn't realize that the next chamber hadn't been built yet. The six-sided frame of it was suspended in the air, and tiny panel arms on two sides of it were slowly assembling it.

She looked down below her and noticed that there was a catwalk just below her. If she jumped out of the door right now and aimed well, she would land right on the catwalk and be able to escape. But if she didn't aim well, then she could miss the catwalk and keep on falling until she reached whatever lay beyond the gray fog that gathered around the bottom of this dark expanse. She weighed her choices carefully and decided to jump.

She flew through the air and landed on the catwalk, making a small clank as she collided with it.

"What? Where are you going?"

She continued running without looking back. She couldn't let her "test master" find her again, or she would never be able to leave this wretched laboratory.

"Come back! Come back!"

She clambered up a stairwell and disappeared through a high security door, entering an area labelled "Turret Production Line". She watched from behind windows as turrets, those familiar white robots filled with bullets, were slowly built up, tested, and sent along conveyor belts to their destination.

She walked further along and saw two other conveyor belts. These were the "defective" turrets, which were being mashed up and sent into the incinerator. If they couldn't fire bullets, or they didn't have an outer casing, or they had too much personality attached to their tiny brain, then into oblivion they went.

She squinted down at the arriving garbage, trying to see if it was true. But it was. This new garbage arriving wasn't garbage at all. It was five of her friends… and they were in danger! If she didn't do something fast, then they would all be very, very flat… and dead.

She grabbed a chair from one of the nearby desks and smashed it through the window. She jumped down onto the first conveyor belt there, aiming and firing two portals. She went towards the end of the first conveyor belt, dodging the crusher that was continually mashing into the conveyors, and went through the portals right before she was burned. She ran down the second conveyor belt, and with a bit more portal work, was able to rescue her friends and get them back to the observation area without any injury coming to them.

"That was great," Umberina said. "Now let's find The Gate and get out of here."

There was a screech of metal below them, and the floor buckled. The pieces of floor farthest from them came away first, revealing themselves to be panels. This was merely a well-constructed illusion.

"Did you really think I would let you all escape?"

More and more panels of the floor came away, and the walls receded far away, leaving them with nothing to use to portal away.

"You made me think you were dead. For, like, zero seconds! I see through everything you can ever try on me. So don't."

The ceiling disappeared, being lifted up into the sky on four tiny cables attached to a crane. The floor was half gone by now, and they were forced to huddle together in the corner, hoping to buy some more time.

"You don't have any time left. It's all over now. I'm going to enjoy this part."

The floor finally disappeared fully and they fell a few feet. They landed on a single tiny panel in the middle of a large unportable room, surrounded by crushers in every direction.

"This is the part where I kill you."

A/N - Sorry I took so long cranking this out! Gee, I don't know why hardly anyone is reading past the first chapter. Did something there make them turn away?

Whatever. Sorry for the cliffhanger. I'll build over it later. Heh...