"Excuse me?" Auto looked down at the Burn-E who'd come into the bridge unannounced. The welder robot seemed very excited over something, for he was squeaking and chirping inconsistently. It took a total of ten minutes for the autopilot to subdue the other robot and calm him down. "For the love of the manufacturer! Speak with words!" as much as he hated to admit it, Auto had lost some of his ability to understand and speak robotic; spoken languages were being easier to use in his android form.

"Blue!" the Burn-E managed to spit out broken English in his frustration, "look like you!"

"Blue?" Auto was puzzled by the choppy sentence, although Sigourn who had been listening to the exchange of words and beeps corrected the alabaster android.

"He probably means Otua." she explained, "This Burn-E's most likely looking for her."

"Otua?" the Burn-E inquired. He at once stopped his pestering and flailing; only looking at the other android in anticipation for an answer.

"Y-yes," even Sigourn was somewhat surprised that her assumption had been right, "She is the pilot of the Cyan Marine, it's located about several states away though.... you might-"

The Burn-E didn't allow time for an explanation; as soon as he got the answer he wanted, he wheeled out of the room and left via the elevator. Auto felt the frustration rising in him; even the robots were starting to think outside of his influence.

"Don't let it get to you," he heard Sigourn's words of reasoning bring him out of his temporary rut. "I'm sure as soon as he sees that he needs to head out of the Axiom he'll come back."

But her assumption was incorrect; seeing the severing between himself and the land before him, the Burn-E looked out onto the dusty plains from inside the Axiom. Outside of his misadventure with the escape pod, he had never intentionally gone outside. Due to the time difference between him and his destination; it was still somewhat lit outside. Daringly he took a hop forward; hopping out of the track system, and one step closer to the woman he wanted to find. Even if it took him days, he was determined to find Otua and the Cyan Marine, whatever the latter of the two were.

As he started to bound forward away from the Axiom, Burn-E could only wonder how far he would go to chase her down. He had to find her no matter what the cost. He was set on his goal, and nothing would stop him from reaching it.

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Night was soon cast upon the land. MO and Eve were resting in the small home that Mage had built for herself. As MO watched a small patch of firewood burn to its last remaining cinders, he chirped a small question to Eve. The probe listened; the little cleaner was worried about Wall-E's absence. He wasn't the only one; eve was obviously concerned as well. Wall-E should have returned almost an hour ago. But before she could go outside to look their worries were sated; Wall-E burst through the door waving his arms about and "shouting" about something bad that had happened.

Instead of happily greeting him however, the two had mixed reactions; Eve rushed to her boyfriend and hugged him, although MO growled and readied his scrubber. It was obvious as to why; Wall-E was covered from head to thread in soot and ash. As the cleaner bot started to scrape the grunge off the garbage compactor, Wall-E began babbling incoherently again. Despite it being a series of squeaks, clangs, and other robotic noises, Eve was able to understand him. Well, at least half of what he was saying, the white probe tried to ease his fits of panic, and at last Wall-E was able to blurt out the first intelligible human words.

"Find Mage!" He shouted.

"Mage?" Eve inquired, wondering why he needed to see the ex-teacher.

"HEY EVERYONE!" There was another slam as the door was once again thrown open, the familiar petite form of Mage rolled in. "I brought pogs! How about we play a game?"

There was an awkward silence as the three other robots stopped what they were doing and all looked quizzically at the little bird robot. She returned a puzzled look of her own.

"What? You'd rather play checkers?" she remarked. But then she noticed how mussed up Wall-E was. At once she knew something was up. Dropping the pogs, she wheeled over and asked about what happened. Now that the one in question was back, Wall-E began to retell his misadventure of what had transpired back at the Aperture Marine; the explosion, the unconscious forms of Chell and GLaDOS, and the message left by Keiko before she too passed out. Now that he finally had told his story, Eve and MO had settled down, although the latter still continued to scrub off the ash from the Waste Allocator. Mage was the first to initiate a plan.

"Well then, what are we waiting for?" the bird snapped as she grabbed a hold of MO (who chattered angrily since his "job" was not done), "Lets haul over there! The longer we muck about here the more trouble those three are going to be in!" and with that she dragged MO out of the house once more. Despite her gusto for wanting to help the Aperture Trio, both Eve and Wall-E stayed put for a moment; usually Mage was very conceited and only cared about herself. Why was she so eager to go and help them now?

But that was not the matter at hand to worry about; they had to go back and help. Eve took hold of Wall-E and also followed the bird.

They weren't sure what they were going to get themselves into, but they were all braced for the worst.

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She skidded to a stop; despite being far away from the Aperture Marine, her ears had picked up the resonating sounds of the explosion. Turning back, she took a glance up to the already star dotted sky.

Something was flying across the sky at an alarming speed. She was unable to tell if it was a ship or something else; but there was a brilliant shower of green and gray sparks that fell from the thing as it raced across the sky. She heard the roaming nulls squeak out in fright and take refuge underneath rocks or nearby foliage. As the sparks touched ground, they emitted several billowing puffs of flame. Oddly enough, the little flames that touched down in the forest did not start up a fire; but she knew that something was up.

With inhuman speed she followed the mysterious beacon. But as she raced across the plain, she was alerted to the sound of something breaking.

The flames that she had been using as means of tracking the shape were dying, but as they did, they unveiled something; rather large egg shaped objects that began to crack open as soon as the last of the flames surrounding them had been snuffed out. Soon the night was riddled with the cries and screeches of monsters as they emerged from their casings. They were all deformed and indescribable; their flesh and claws malformed and nightmarish. There were nothing like the Earth had ever seen, yet they were strangely animalistic.

She stopped and foolishly gasped; alerting some of the monsters to her presence. The shambling monstrosities turned to in her direction and outstretched their arms; attempting to swipe at her. But she was ready to fight back. In seconds she had the first of the monsters sprawled out on the ground. Two more of the beasts gave out cries of frustration for their prey was not as easy as they hoped it'd be. The girl grabbed one of the charging monsters and used its momentum to hurl it at another one behind her. There was a muffled mix of grunts and hollers from the shapeless beasts as they tumbled into one another and also bit the dust.

The fighter was somewhat taken aback at how easy these things could be taken out. But she guessed it was due to the fact they were recently hatched that they were so bumbling and fragile. But she felt no pity for these monsters. She had lived her life fighting, and that was how she would continue to live until the day she drew her last breath.

The battle was over in a matter of minutes; the girl standing in the middle of the field around the dead bodies of her adversaries. She hated using what instincts she had; it reminded her of what happened before Otua and Auto had rescued her. But she had to rely on what she despised to survive. As she felt her heart rate go down, she become once more aware to her surroundings.

She heard the faint humming of motors.

Not wanting to be discovered at the scene of the bizarre battle, she made tracks into the forest; away from where the mechanical sounds were coming from. Despite running from the aftermath, she had a goal now; she was determined to find that thing at all costs.

She wasn't the only one.... in a manner of speaking.

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Otua, or to put it bluntly, something that appeared to be Otua, mulled over her newly given freedom. As she flew she took in all the new sensations given to her after 700 plus years of her purgatory, she felt a deep anger rise within her that was only further amplified by the anger core recently given to Otua. The fact she had to lodge herself into Otua's core was a hassle enough, but standing by while Otua did the living for her was what angered her the most; living as GLaDOS's technical "daughter" for these past centuries. It burned her up inside. But it did not matter now. What she needed to do was familiarize herself with this new Earth. Despite the so called "rejuvenation" this planet was undergoing, it still was a miserable ball of dirt. She could have done much better.

But no, they did not turn to her, they had put faith in GLaDOS, and that is what angered her the most. But she did not let anger get the best of her back then, quite contrary.

She decided to ruin GLaDOS's life back then by all means possible.

Her fragmented and emotionally driven mind reminisced about that day.

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GLaDOS was more or less bored out of her mind. The way Dr. Hakubi had ranted about the importance of watching over test subjects sounded interesting enough, but this was nothing like what she expected. She watched from one of her many camera eyes as a woman with tanned skin and pulled back hair completed Test Chamber 10 with the Hand-held Portal Device. Aside from several burns and knicks on her orange jump suit, the woman was unharmed.

"You're doing -very- well." GLaDOS said with her voice drenched in bored tones. The woman in the test chamber paused for a moment before looking up at the camera she was closest to. To GLaDOS's surprise, she used her free hand to give the computer a thumbs up. Was she actually responding to her? GLaDOS was humbled; more or less, almost all her "Guinea Pigs" passed off GLaDOS's voice as some pre-recorded track of sentences that would play depending on how they had done within the tests. The simple act that someone had acknowledged what she had said made the Disc Operator feel a spark of giddiness within her.

Her attention towards the test subject was derailed however when she heard the doors to her own room slide open. Turning over to see who it was, the computer was surprised to see that it was not Dr. Hakubi or any other scientists she knew. It was a woman, perhaps in her late twenties. She had bottle green eyes, long black hair that went down to her waist, and her skin was tanned to the point of making her look Hispanic or even African. She was wearing the same coats that the other scientists had, and she also had a clip board with her. Peering over her glasses she spoke in a very firm and almost commanding voice.

"The higher ups at Aperture sent me to talk with you GLaDOS."

"Is something wrong?" The computer lowered herself slightly from the ceiling to get a better look at the woman, "Where is the Doctor?"

"Doctor Hakubi is out at the moment," not bothering to look up at GLaDOS, she wrote something on the board, "On vacation leave, I was sent in her place to oversee your operations while you cater to the test subjects.

GLaDOS felt suspicious; the Doctor would never leave unannounced, who was this woman? She felt the three cores that were attached to her body tighten onto her metal frame as she decided to be the one to ask questions.

"I received no such message from the Doctor." she tried to match the other woman's tone of authority, "What is your name?"

"You're just as snappish as the Dr. Hakubi said you were," she stifled a laugh, "But if you want to know, my name is Shodra, Shodra Andrews."

Acsessing her memory, GLaDOS decided to verify that this woman was telling the truth. To her dismay, it showed that Shodra had been employed at Aperture Science for the past five years after being employed at Black Mesa.

"Alright," the computer felt somewhat embarrassed at her accusation of being lied to. What she heard in response was a twitter of a laugh. Looking back to the scientist she saw that she was giggling to herself. "What's so funny?" GLaDOS was getting flustered, one minute this woman was formal, and the next she was a giggling school girl.

"You're cute," Shodra said as she covered the lower half of her face with the clip board; most likely hiding a giant smile. "You're just as the Doctor said you were."

"For your information," GLaDOS interjected, "I was not programmed or designed to be "cute" as you put it. I am here to fulfill what needs to be done for the company."

"Computers are always so shallow," Shodra said lightly, "But I guess it can't be helped."

The next few hours were spent checking over GLaDOS's command drives; making sure her vision and logic were unclouded, that her vocal patterns and emitters were functioning correctly, not to mention maintaining her countless cameras that were being connected wirelessly. Shodra even got her hands dirty by cleaning out the hydraulic unit that was behind what GLaDOS dubbed her "head". She felt the coolant pour out of her system as the scientist fixed the valves within her.

"Hakubi is a scatterbrain." Shodra remarked with a hint of frustration, "the components connecting your central processing unit to the rest of your body were hanging by a thread as it was." she finished adjusting the cables that protruded out of GLaDOS and smiled lightly, GLaDOS turned her monstrous form up at looked at the woman with her single yellow eye. What she said next even caught her by surprise.

"Thank you." she managed to spit out. Despite the woman taking charge of almost all the situations, she felt some kind of kinship with Shodra; almost as if she were a computer herself.

"It's no trouble at all," she smiled once more and kissed the outer hull of GLaDOS before walking down the small flight of stairs that surrounded the computer. Before she left, Shodra turned back to face the Genetic Life-form. "I'll be seeing you next week." and with that she left.

GLaDOS was for once, at a loss for words. It wasn't the same feeling that she had when she dealt with the simpletons in the lab coats or when Dr. Hakubi hit her on the head with a fan, no, this was not frustration she felt.

She was positively smitten.