Glade's POV:
Glade followed GLaDOS as she slid along the management rail through a hallway. She stayed several feet behind the core, keeping her head down and walking slowly. GLaDOS slowed down and flicked her optic around to look at the girl.
"Do I need to remind you that time is of the essence?" the core asked impatiently.
Glade just shrugged in response. The core rolled her optic.
"Look, I know that you're angry with me for lying to you," GLaDOS pressed, "In fact, most of the complements I gave you were outright fabrications. But, that doesn't matter now. We need to finish this."
Glade gripped her portal gun tighter and slightly sped up her pace.
"How are we supposed to find them in this place?" she asked quietly, referring to Chell and Alex.
"I should be able to hack into the security feeds," the core replied, "But then again that might-"
She was interrupted when the hallway in front of them was suddenly torn away by several large spike plates, revealing a large room that looked like entire walls were knocked down in it, with large heaps of rubble. On the opposite side of the room, were rows of turrets, all aimed at them.
"Trap successfully sprung on corrupted test subject and corrupted core," Red announced, as if that wasn't obvious.
The management rail GLaDOS was on broke, and she fell to the floor. Glade grabbed her with the portal gun, and dodged behind a loose panel to escape the turrets. They were lucky that enough panels were loose and there was enough debris in the room to provide plenty of hiding places, even though there were few portal surfaces.
"It's a good thing that core isn't an expert on traps," GLaDOS pointed out, "It looks like he just shoved a few rooms together and filled one end with turrets. We should be able to get to the other side if we move quickly and stay behind the piles of rubble."
Glade nodded, forgetting her quarrel with the AI. She ran out of the hiding spot, aiming for a pile of broken panels to hide behind.
"Target sighted," Red noted once she was out in the open.
Glade looked up and managed to dodge to the side soon enough before a spike plate could come crashing down on her, falling to the ground and scooting behind another pile to avoid the turrets. She watched as the spike plate rose and moved toward her for another strike.
"Get up!" GLaDOS urged, "We can't stop moving now!"
Glade got to her feet and ran, dodging around the debris and the spike plate's attempts to crush her. Suddenly, she tripped, and the plate was over her in seconds. It came down, but stopped with a spike inches from her face.
"Test subject classified as 'dangerous mute lunatic' detected," Red announced, "Eliminating."
The plate rose up, and moved away, the working panels in the wall moving aside to let it pass.
"I guess you were right," Glade muttered, "Red can't focus on multiple things."
"Of course I'm right. I designed him," GLaDOS replied, sounding smug.
"If you designed him, then why is he trying to kill us?" Glade countered.
"He was corrupted somehow," the core replied darkly, "I just need to find out how… Look, just follow that plate, it'll lead us straight to your mother."
Glade nodded and ran through the opening in the wall just before it closed, finding herself on a catwalk. She spotted the plate ahead and followed the large rail that it was sliding over.
It wasn't long before the spike plate stopped beside a room. The roof was removed, and the spike plate slid over it, hovering for a second before smashing downward.
Glade hurried closer, firing a portal into the room through a hole and another portal on a broken slab of a wall that was sitting on the catwalk, which probably came from the test chamber above them appeared to have been ripped in half.
When Glade entered the room, she could see that it looked like two test chambers had been rammed together with enough force to break the wall between them. She saw Chell, who was easily dodging the plate by portaling around the room.
"MOM!" Glade yelled. Chell glanced at them, almost letting her guard down enough to get crushed by the plate, but dodged it in time.
"Corrupted test subject detected," Red stated. The plate began to move toward Glade, ignoring Chell.
Chell eyed the plate. Behind Glade was the portal that led to the catwalk, and if she could get to her, they'd both be able to escape through it and put enough distance between them and Red's spike plate. That should be easy enough.
She shot a portal beside Glade's, and another one behind her, and ran through.
"Two corrupted test subjects detected," Red said. Before the plate could attack, they ran through the portal onto the catwalk and ran.
They kept running, and by the time the plate was able to raise itself out of the chamber and pursue them, they were out of Red's sight.
They finally stopped to rest in a hallway. Glade leaned against a wall and slid to the floor, setting the portal gun, with GLaDOS still in its manipulation field, on the floor. Her arm throbbed now more than ever, and she had fresh cuts to deal with as well. Chell knelt beside her, but she refused to meet her mother's eyes.
'Why couldn't you stay home?' Chell mouthed. Glade, though she saw it out of the corner of her eye, understood what she was saying.
Glade didn't answer, but glanced at GLaDOS. Chell shot the core a death glare, but she responded by rolling her optic.
"She didn't have to come," GLaDOS pointed out calmly, "In any case, we do need to keep moving. You've seen what that core has done to this place. He's worse than that moron."
Chell sighed, reached over, and turned the manipulation field on Glade's portal gun off, and picked the core up with her own portal gun. She turned back to Glade, who met her eyes this time.
'Stay here,' she mouthed, turning to leave.
"What?" Glade said, jumping up.
"We might need her," GLaDOS advised, "You've seen what sort of core we're dealing with."
'I can't let her risk her life like that,' Chell mouthed, even though she wasn't sure if GLaDOS could read lips. She kept walking, picking up her pace.
"Don't leave me behind again!" Glade called after her.
Glade couldn't just wait around. Sure, she may not be as good as GLaDOS led her to believe at first, but if she was good enough to get this far, she would keep going. She ran forward down the hallway, even though Chell was already out of sight.
Chell's POV:
Don't leave me behind again!
Chell sighed and kept running down the hallway, hoping that her daughter would stay put this time, but knowing that she wouldn't.
"You know, it would probably be safer if you took her with us," GLaDOS urged, "You would be able to keep an eye on her."
She might have a point, but if Glade stayed in the hallway, she should be fine. There weren't any cameras, and the walls were just walls, not made of panels.
But then again, what were the odds of Glade staying in one place?
They walked into one of the broken test chambers. Chell naturally eyed the chamber for traps, but there wouldn't be any need to solve it since an entire wall was missing.
As she walked toward the missing wall, though, something suddenly slammed into her side, sending her reeling into the other wall and making her drop GLaDOS. She shook her head to clear it, and stood up again, seeing that a panel was what had hit her. Knowing that she had to get out of the chamber quickly, she looked behind her and spotted GLaDOS several feet away.
Chell ran toward the core, but unbeknownst to her, a cube was being dropped from a dispenser onto an aerial faith plate, which sent it flying toward her. Something hard slammed into her head, knocking her out.
Glade's POV:
Glade ran in the direction her mother went, hoping that she wasn't off track. Soon, she found herself in a broken test chamber with an entire wall missing.
She froze when she saw her mother on the floor, not moving. She ran toward her, grabbing GLaDOS on the way, only to be blocked by a wall of lasers.
Suddenly, the floor fell away from under her, and she fell into a relaxation vault.
"Corrupted test subject captured," Red said. His voice was usually monotony, but she could swear she heard sadism in his voice. She suddenly realized that he wasn't stuttering anymore.
"Well, to be honest, I'm glad you caught up to us," GLaDOS pointed out.
"What-what happened up there?" Glade asked nervously.
"She was just knocked out. She should be fine, since that core is focusing on us instead of her," the core reassured her.
However, the reassurance was short-lived when the relaxation vault began to move forward down a dark passageway. At the end of it, the panels slid away, revealing Red on GLaDOS's mainframe, glaring at them.
"Corrupted test subject. Corrupted core. Welcome," he greeted in an unusually non-monotone voice, "Commencing elimination process."