Chapter 25

Sleep was always welcoming. Especially in nice comfy bed. Nothing quite as comfortable as the ones from Aperture, but it had more heart and the room had a classic and fresh character to it. She stretched her fingers and had trouble as she stretched out her toes. Chell was unaware of how attached she was to those boots of hers. They were practically extensions of her own legs. It did not cross her mind as to actually take them off. So instead she laid on her side and tried to dream happy dreams.

Her dreams weren't all wheat fields and sunshine. Majority kept trailing back to the facility and Wheatley's usurpation. No a day goes by in the joust of her regret that she had made that decision. GLaDOS over exaggerated to the point that Chell was completely to blame, but who was she to know that the sphere she had made friends with was going to be far more egomaniacal than she? In a world of assholes its suddenly the good people who make all the stupid decisions. Staring at the roof briefly, she yawned before turning to her side, almost gasping when she realised Wheatley had disappeared from his chair. She decided to sit up and look around. She whipped her blanket off and quickly got off the bed. Oh dear. What was he up to? She promptly organised herself before nearly tearing the door open.

Before her she could see Wheatley by the bar, chuckling away with the innkeeper. She browed and stormed up to the Elf.

"Heh...you elves always have strange adventures." The innkeeper commented as he cleaned the bench.

"But if you're interested in owning a piece of land, you're best either sticking to Whiterun. Or you can also get cosy with some of the big names. Having property doesn't come cheap."

Wheatley noticed Chell and and the smile that perked up on his face wasn't that inviting. He dragged her towards him and put his arm around her shoulders. She made a silent grumble and pouted.

"Ahhhh this the gal I was talking about! Yes! We're just adventuring you know...like a pair of homely warriors and such."

Chell wasn't taking any of his crap and grabbed his collar as they headed out the door. Wheatley gave a hasty goodbye while trying not to trip over his own feet.

It was hard enough to put up with Wheatley's nonsense, than to find out information on your own. She had stuck by her own decision to bring him along as as some of Doug's 'hunch' influence into the belief that she made need his assistance. What ever brought that up was certainly a silly expectation. Elves were normally people in fairy tales but some were exceptionally powerful. A hacker spell at least. If there were any computerized programming that had somehow transferred with his transformation she would definitely need it. Otherwise, she left it to instinct. Besides, Wheatley could actually talk.

She prompted him to shut his mouth as they hid behind a tree, seeing that Farkas and Rick were at somebodies house, presumably this Falion fellow. Chell watched Farkas knock on the door. Soon after, it opened and out came a man in black robes. Chell felt a bit unsure about this man. His voice seemed harsh and was sort of on the offensive. It wasn't until Farkas reassured him about what he had come for, his voice toned down a little. The man took quick glance at Rick, said nothing and welcomed them in. As soon as he closed the door, Chell ran towards it, with Wheatley barely able to keep up and kept whispering for her to slow down.

She scanned around the back, hoping to find a window or something at least to listen in to their conversation. She looked at Wheatley who remained silent for the while as he pressed his ear up against the wall. He wanted to complain about the mooshy mud beneath his feet but knew he would get scolded by Chell for doing so. She ignored him as she too pressed her ear against the wall, hoping to hear any particular information she needed...

After Falion's less than warm welcome, Farkas and Rick were offered to sit down by the fire as Falion made them tea. Falion acknowledged the fact that Rick was different from a non-demonic being and was interested to learn what plane of Oblivion he had come from. Rick only replied with Aperture which would be typical of a core, albeit corrupted. Rick was fine about it though as Farkas wanted to speak about the girl they had come to collect.

Falion called her over. Farkas and Rick turned around to see a small girl with long, white, straight cut hair with a fringe, red eyes and wearing a grey dress with a red long sleeved shirt underneath, complete with a thick belt around her waist. Her face was nearly dead and almost scared the hell out of Rick. It was deathly pale and had some kind strange markings as two straight lines appeared to cut down from above the opposite sides of her forehead, pass through the middle of the eyebrows, ignoring the eyes and down the cheeks to underneath her chin and down her neck.

"Hi there little lady." Rick waved. He was freaked out a little but daren't show it.

The little girl looked at Rick briefly. By briefly it actually meant for around thirty seconds. It chilled the bot to the core.

"She calls herself, Cassandra." Falion announced. "She's...well, she doesn't get on with the little girls. They all seem to call her a freak from the way she looks."

Farkas crossed his arms. There was no doubt that he felt comfortable with her in the room, with the deep stare she was giving him. His kindness extended to a point. However this was behest of the Dragonborn, his Harbinger who had to speak with her.

"Can I ask w-"

"If it's any questions about her hair no." Falion mentioned quickly, cutting Rick off."

"Darn."

Farkas ignored Rick.

"Is there anything else you can tell us about her? The Vigilants explained to us about the mark on the back of her neck."

Falion nodded. "Yes of course. Quite the curious mark I believe. Propping up everywhere so it seems. The Vigilants hadn't yet decided on what to think of it."

This was Rick's territory.

"It's all Aperture. But this girl...no offense to you darlin', isn't like anything I've ever seen...although she. It's kind of hard to explain to you fleshy folk."

Falion leaned back in chair in smirked. "Try me."

The core scratched his hull.

"It's an Aperture bot thing. Each of us has their own kinda number. A number that allows us to run through the entire charade of Aperture. It's mighty huge and it's understandable if you get lost. I once had a buddy as part of the buddy program. Anyway, while my buddy was one of those scientist guys...people who study stuff. Boring as hell but I had someone with me at the time. He was a type of scientist who checked out what we call turrets and to make sure they were's functionin' at the time. Aaaand he was fired because they made robots with robots so he no longer had any reason to be there. I thought finally, now we can have some real fun! So I waited until he came back from his poopin' grounds. Never came back. Ever. Found his body hangin' of a roof. Real depressin' that I tell you what. So they reallocated me for the registering stuff. I never wanted to do it you know? I wanted to be a turret. I kinda got what I wanted. I worked with turrets instead. Testin' them, watchin' over them. I was taught turret details...all that scientific crud' that was so darn boring. Each turret had a number. It was there number until they were put into the incinerator or even recycled. Saved Aperture a lot of money...only if they didn't have a tonne. That lil' girls mark? It looks like a turret number. I had crap put in me to understand the other crap so I think I may know a thing or two about turrets."

Falion rubbed his chin. It was clear he was intrigued about the story. Wheatley turned to Chell. He thought Rick had mentioned his Core Buddy was a female. He didn't much understand his story that to be adjusted, but it was quite sad.

"That's quite a history there. Cassandra here spoke of turrets for a moment. Little machines that shoot bullets. Yes, what got me curious was that I was allowed to ask her questions regarding the turrets. In actuality, she was talking about you in fact. You're not a turret from the description she gave me."

Rick's single eyelid batted. What was this?

"Uh...no...name's Rick. I'm the Adventure Sphere. No need to fear!"

It was clear Farkas wasn't caring much for Rick's boasting. They watched as Cassandra walked in front of Rick, stood in front of him and just stared. Everything about her seemed lifeless and yet so full of a sweetness of a little girl at the same time. It was uncomfortable and she continued to pour her glance into his big green artificial eye.

"You can stare at grace and handsomeness all you want lil' darlin', but it ain't gonna fix anything." Rick sounded with earnest.

With a tilted head, it almost made Rick jump with fright. She blinked once before adjusting her head to normal.

"A darkness will shadow the world." She muttered in a soft, cute tone.

"That's a bit cliché don't ya reckon?" Rick pointed out.

"Rick. Adventure Sphere. Allocated candidate sphere of Craig Hutchison." She muttered, her voice monotone.

Farkas and Rick looked at each other in bewilderment.

"She knows more about you that you do." Farkas joked.

Rick glared at the man.

"Hey, she's from the labs. Everyone knows Rick!" He assured. Problem was with assuring himself with that assumption.

"So you claim the Dragonborn herself wishes to partake in the keepings of this little one?" Falion questioned.

"Yeah." Farkas answered. "There's something going on that's a bit...off putting for my game but we're just here to help her anyway we can."

Falion rubbed his chin. "I might not understand the whole story,but I can say that Daedra worshippers are flocking to protect their shrines and like I mentioned, this symbol is appearing in a lot of these places. Could be connected. I don't know what the heck for but it's quite unusual since it seems to be for all the Daedric shrines in Skyrim."

"Is that...normal? I mean, these Daedra things are dangerous? Is that right Farkas? Yeah it's uh. Darn weird as all." Rick wondered.

Farkas looked down. "I think what Rick is trying to say there's a lot of really odd stuff going on. We're trying to get to the bottom of it."

Falion chuckled. "Heh...good luck with that."

There was no doubt that situation had gotten to the point where no one had any true idea on what was actually going on. The rumors of Daedra oddities began to rise for unknown reasons. What was so completely threatening that it actually had the Daedric Princes scared?

Chell didn't know what to think of it. She'd never met a so called Daedric Prince before. But she certainly wanted to know about what the little girl was about. She looked towards Wheatley who was just staring at the ground, appearing quite perturbed, not to mention disturbed. She continued to look at him as he had started to bit a nail off his thumb. The mute waited until he realized her questioning stare. It was written on her face that she was concerned for what he was thinking about and was being visually prompted to speak his mind. He caught that glance for the moment and forced a quick smile.

"No it's okay love, everything's...everythings fine. I was just trying to understand what they were saying as all." Wheatley assured. His tone of fabricated lies weren't that hard to discern. Chell let it be for now, that it was obvious that he didn't want to talk about it.

About an hour later Chell witnessed Farkas and Rick leaving the building. They could see the little girl walking with them, prefering to hold Rick's hand. Wheatley made an obscene comment about weirdos that left him with a pain in his gut from getting stabbed with Chell's elbow.

"So headin' back to Whiterun. Hm...I suppose she'll be safer behind those walls." Rick assumed, sounding a little bit unsure in his words.

"She'll be fine under our protection. I'll need to contact the rest of the Circle in order to state protective details and all that."

"Ehh piece of cake! Should be a sweet stroll back to-"

RYAAAAHHH

A shadow quickly washed over them both as they up towards a giant monstrosity in the sky.

"Ahh crap..."

Farkas picked up Cassandra and bolted her through the marshes and handed her to the nearest citizens he could find and ordered them to go inside. He pulled out his two-handed blade and peered through the glare of the sun as the blood dragon flew above them. It shouted out frost breath, freezing everything it touched. Rick pulled out his bow and arrow and marched himself towards the guards whom were shooting everything they had. However Rick was too short to consider reaching the dragon itself. Chell watched closely from afar, forcing herself and Wheatley to hide in the shadows until the time was right. Wheatley made more comments regarding the randomness of these dragon attacks. He looked around as he could see Cassandra standing in front of the Jarls main hall, staring at the dragon as it attacked the local hold guards. He could also see Rick trying to climb the hall itself to get a better attack point to shoot arrows. He grabbed hold of Chell to look her in the eye.

"We've gotta get the hell out of here! We'll die if we linger too long!" He panicked.

Chell gave him a death stare and rolled her eyes, before running off, leaving a stunned Wheatley behind, his face telling all.

She sprinted towards the Dragon and pulled out her Portal Gun. She placed an arrow in the extension and successfully managed to place in its left wing. The Dragon flew upwards and scaled around the town, trying to find the most threatening target. It then spotted Rick on the roof, whom was waiting for the perfect moment to strike. The Dragon roared as it shouted the Frost Breath towards the personality core and and froze his feet in the process, nailing him to the roof of the hall. He struggled to get himself out as the Dragon landed on the point, intent to finish the bot off.

It crawled towards Rick, muttering something in another language and was about to grab hold of him with it's giant dark jaws, until Chell had yet again fired an arrow into it's right wing. It roared back in retiliation as it tried to fling the arrow off. Chell grabbed Wheatley who was in hiding and needed his help to got on top of the hall. He groaned as he obliged to throw her up as she climbed the building. Wheatley motioned her to be careful as she got up quite quickly and managed to somehow jump on the back of it's neck. It flailed as it felt her weight, but Chell persevered and strapped her portal gun back on to herself tight before hand and wrapped her arms around it's neck.

Rick was stunned for the moment. He had garner that bravado of his as he grabbed hold of his bow and fired an arrow dead on to the center of the dragons forehead. It let out a horrible screech of agony as Chell pulled out a dagger and repeatedly stabbed it and watched the draconic blood spill from it's skull. It twitched and wracked itself as Chell jumped off. Wheatley went to grab her out of some bizarre reaction and instead found himself flat the ground as she landed on his back. Wheatley had almost forgotten about the boots. He groaned as his face was flat in the mud. She picked him up via his collar and signalled for a request for his help to get Rick out of his frozen confines, turning her head back as the Dragon slid off the roof and flopped dead on the ground below. She quickly paid heed to Rick and tried to hack the ice off. The ice was quite thick and hard as Chell continued to dig her dagger into it. Wheatley interfered as he attempted to cast a weak flame spell to help melt the ice away, much to Chell's surprise. She stood back, wary of the usual Wheatley way and was more worried of an explosion. Her fears were left alone, as eventually Rick was freed and more grateful that they both had saved his life than for the reason they were here.

They got off the roof and spoke with Farkas, who was curious as to why the pair of them were in Morthal. He shrugged it off and went to investigate the dead dragon, assigning Wheatley to the little girl, who ended up staring at Chell with an endless and empty gaze.

He'd pointed in her general direction as guards and local citizens flocked to the dragons corpse, but Wheatley stood there as the girl then stared at him with low lidded eyes. It creeped him out a little, even more so as she walked seamlessly through the rattled crowds and ended up standing right in front of him.

She looked up at the very tall elf and peered into his eyes. Wheatley felt that augmented sense of familiarity from when he was a core. His heart beat rose a bit, as those red, relentless eyes peered into him. He shuddered then suddenly choked as she wrapped her arms around his legs and hugged on to his side.

He shivered as she cuddled him, much to his...shock. She peered back up to him allowing him to witness innocence that he almost melted at.

"Wheatley. The Darkness is coming..."

He rose an eyebrow.

"What darkness?"

She became all teary eyed for the moment.

"The darkness is coming..."

He rubbed her head and attempted to explain that it was going to be okay.

"Just tell me what this darkness is...and maybe we can stop it."

As he wiped a tear away she sniffed.

"That's all I can say."

Farkas, Rick and Chell stood before the dragon's corpse. They were waiting for the corpse to burn to a raw skeleton but for some reason it wasn't doing it. They pondered for the moment as Rick picked up a stick and poked at it. Still dead just not doing that thing that it did when the Dragonborn killed them. What ever it was...it burned.

"Doesn't that normally happen?" Rick queried. "Now we have it's stinkin' flesh to worry about."

"Everyone knows the Dragonborn is the only one to steal souls." She explained. Her voice sounded aged and tired. An Elderly woman stepped forward from the crowd circling around whom stepped back to let her through. She wore a circlet and thick furred clothes. With a quick check of the dragon itself, she stood before the confused trio.

"It may be dead, but it cannot truly die unless it is slain by a Dragonborn."

Farkas lifted his head up. "Almost forgot about that. What should we with it though? We can't just leave it here."

The lady smirked. "Just drag it and push it into the ocean and let it sink. I'll have some guards organize that later."

Rick noticed that she was staring at him with a odd eye. He strode with a cockiness as he approached her and bowed down on one knee and held her hand much to her bemusement.

"M'lady, I saw you starin' at me. Name's Rick. Don't mind my looks. I'm solid Aperture technology and function at a hundred and ten percent!"

Farkas and Chell face-palmed.

The local guards drew out their swords. Chell now knew who this lady was, gathered from the information she had acquired in regards to the holds of Skyrim in relation to her description and personality.

"Hmph...you have spirit I give you that." The old lady commented.

"I'm the Jarl of Hjaalmarch, but you can call me Ingrod."

Rick stood back and bowed to the Jarl as soon as she mentioned it. Chell made a softer, less hesitant version...as did Farkas.

"Apologies for my behavior Jarl uhhh...we uh..."

She gave a solemn stare to the all.

"Why don't you all come into my hall so we can talk in private hm?"

They all stood around the Jarls throne. Awkwardness was prevalent as ever, as the Jarl herself took a good look at the warriors around her with keen and judging eyes. Cassandra had taken one look at her and dragged herself and Wheatley towards her and grabbed Chells hand, much to the surprise of both Chell and Wheatley themselves. Cassandra pulled them forward, as Farkas and Rick became baffled at the girls behavior. Ingrod ignored it.

"I should thank you all for helping slay the Dragon, but I'm guessing you didn't come to Morthal without good reason..." Ingrod mentioned. She stared at Cassandra who just had her usual blank expression.

"Yeah, about that..." Farkas answered.

Ingrod nodded slowly. "Of course. It's the girl. You know, I normally tell visitors who care to listen to the fact that, well, it's no secret to the locals that my family have a history of visions. But this little one has no connection to our bloodline. Though I can tell you the things she said I can believe. Some of us have been receiving powerful visions as of late and even greater headaches. There's a darkness overshadowing Skyrim. It will only get worse."

Wheatley crossed his arms, puzzled and recalled a similar explanation that Cassandra had told him earlier.

"We've been hearing that a lot lately. People say that those who were indeed very powerful are in fact becoming scared of an inbound storm. Yet, nobody is actually saying what that storm is. It would be absolutely tremendous if you could actually tell us any valuable information, at least a decent descriptive insight as to, what the bloody hell is going on?"

The Jarl fumbled the arm of her thrown. "Darkness never reveals itself too clearly. Which is why it is called darkness. Most fears stem from the unknown. The shadows surround you and often obscure everything around you. It-"

"Orange and blue...sometimes white." Cassandra muttered, cutting Ingrod off.

Everyone looked at one another as Ingrod glanced down at the white haired girl.

"Sorry?" The Jarl inquired.

"Darkness arrives. Orange, blue and sometimes white." She kept mentioning, pulling the arms of Chell and Wheatley one by one.

"I...uh...hm...I have no idea what that means." Wheatley commented, popping a brow.

"That's all I can say."

Rick grumbled "Bah what a bunch of nonsense. Darkness is black. Who'da heard of it being those funky colours? More of a retro colour scheme."

Farkas rose an eyebrow. "Rick I didn't know you were an artist."

Rick rolled his core around in response.

"What? Uhhh no...just saying as all."

Chell delved deep into her thoughts. She knew those colours were associated with Aperture. Their common scheme like Rick had mentioned, were mostly of those colours. She looked at her Portal Gun for the moment and pondered. Cassandra squeezed her hand, but just looked up at Chell and continued to make a straight face. It sent chills down her the mute's spine, as she had tried to place this girls face somewhere.

"So what's your strategy? How are you going to defend you hold from this unseen force?" Farkas queried.

Ingrod brooded. "Nothing much we can do. We can't see anything physically and I need some sort of proof of this work going underway. For now, it's best to get that girl as far away as you can. The people are scared enough with all the dragons around."

The quartet made the preparations for the trip back. Though they appeared on the outside to be unaffected, each were thinking different thoughts...

Farkas held on to the belief that though this was a magical problem that was beyond him, he had no doubt of a solution. Where there was hope, there was still the strength to carry on. To cope with the craziness that went on he consulted his brother on the matter, unsure of what to do. All Farkas has ever known was to battle and battle alongside his shield-siblings. He wasn't the brightest of the Companions but he certainly wasn't the stupidest. Yet again, once they had returned to Whiterun, he would declare a report to Vilkas like he always would. His personal feelings towards it all? Mostly the fun and adventurous thrill once you peaked past all the confusion and mystic emotions.

Rick was mostly unaffected. Cassandra was a weirdo and a creep by his standards, her words had just flown over his head for the most part. Emotional wise, he wasn't scared. As a core he had his own duties but these were far more dangerous since he had gained artificial arms and legs. He'd dreamed of just fighting it out, where to his own programmed intuition and tendency towards violence was an ignored problem. Seeing Wheatley in flesh brought back hidden memories of him as a human, as well as joining all the other cores around the time they were created. Wheatley was just this annoying, idiotical dweeb with with no sense what so ever. He'd met other cores that he hardly minded, though only one core had somehow managed to, corrupt him per-say. The day he ws declared as useless by GLaDOS was a sad one, and feeling isolated with actually mad cores drove him to do worse. For now he didn't actually feel worthless. He was doing something instead of sticking around because he couldn't move. He never admitted that, in due to the surface dwelling Rick that showed the bravado, deep down he held his own self-doubts.

Wheatley in particular, since holding flesh, felt more acute pains within himself, both physical and mental. With his hands grasper another, it was more intense and daunting that the body could have this much tension. Cassandra had silently insisted that she would hold both his and Chell's hands at the same time. He went along with it, after seeing Chell being unaffected by the action. An Aperture Child who sprung nothing but memories with Doug from that long ago. The instinct to protect suddenly rose as well. He had the urge to covet and protect Chell. He'd had those before his incident. He heard whispers in his mind that told him not to worry. He would worry regardless and in that telling him not to worry in fact would have made him worry anyway. The gentleness of the girl wasn't entirely unpleasant as he thought it would be though. Her hand was so tiny and fragile that Wheatley was more concerned that he might crush. Being in mortal flesh brought in more mixed responses than what he was expecting.

Chell now had something GlaDOS didn't. She needed to find her and expose her and punch her down for information. Only if she had the same mortal body that Wheatley had, she would be able to. She suspected it wouldn't be easy, but it wouldn't be much of challenge if it was. GlaDOS would always mention she was in it for the science. However, for someone who as manipulating as Daryn, she would wonder if their so called alliance would last. GlaDOS just didn't seem to be the type that would in fact share. All of the equipment and appliances would have to be under rule. Her Aperture, her test chambers, her test subjects. Looking down at Cassandra, this, girl, piqued her interest even more about what Aperture was actually doing with these test subjects.

Even so, the road ahead was long indeed.