YAYYY chapter 9! Sorry to break it to you guys, but there are probably only 1 or 2 more chapters left. AND I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THIS ONE IS ABOUT. Yayyyy! Also, I'd like to apologize that this one took forever. At first I kinda just forgot about it for a week or so, and then I didn't get a chance to update due to all the school stuff that came up as winter break neared. But I'm updating now, just in time for X-mas! So here's your present, Merry Christmas (If it's the holiday you celebrate, of course)! ^^
"Alright, hold on, I'm climbing in," GLaDOS said as she began climbing into the container, where there was less chance of her falling.
"It's not really my choice, how well I'm held to this thing, honestly..." Wheatley mumbled.
"Well. It seems we've reached a bit of an impasse." Drake blankly said. "So I suppose the only way out is for you to go ahead and let go, GLaDOS. So, uh, yeah. Just go ahead and be a good girl and kill yourself."
"Why don't you just go ahead and make me!" GLaDOS shouted, now inside the container and trying to pull it back shut.
"Hey! You're standing on my face, you know! I- ow! What is closing the box even going to accomplish?!" Wheatley complained.
"Well, for one thing, it'll give me time to think of a plan."
"What? You don't have a plan! How do you go into something like this without a plan!" Wheatley shouted, earning himself a stomp on the face from GLaDOS
"Well, I was too busy solving tests on the way up here, once I got here, I had about five seconds to think, and then I spent the rest of the time running for my life. How do you think I went into something like this without a plan?" GLaDOS retorted.
"Well, I hope whatever plan you come up with involves testing." Drake said as he began relocating the container until he could dump Wheatley and GLaDOS into a testing chamber with both human and core testing components.
"Really? This is the best way you have right now to get rid of me? Just put the moron and me in a test chamber?
"Well, yes. You've never really done any tests, and he's been doing a lot of testing the past week, so you're far more likely to die than he is. And as an added bonus, I know you'll never solve it because it requires teamwork," Drake said as if it were the most obvious thing and the cleverest idea in the world.
"And what makes you think we can't work together?" Wheatley retorted, only to be met with mocking snickers from GLaDOS. "What?" Wheatley asked what GLaDOS was laughing about.
"You've GOT to be joking, right? US? Working TOGETHER?"
"Well it certainly seems the only way out, doesn't it?" Wheatley said. Before GLaDOS could respond, a panel swung open and flung a portal gun square into the back of her head.
"Well, you'd best get to it!" Drake chimed.
GLaDOS picked up the portal gun and equipped it as she noticed the one she was using had gotten either lost or destroyed somewhere along the line during her escape from Old Aperture.
"Alright, should I just kill myself now, or should we take a shot at this and get a surprise out of how I die?" GLaDOS bleakly said, turning to Wheatley.
Wheatley simulated his best encouraging smile as he said, "Oh, don't be so disheartened! We have a better chance of succeeding if we actually try than we do if we just give up and sit around moping!"
GLaDOS sighed heavily as she looked down at her portal gun. "As much as I hate to admit it, I guess what you're saying is mathematically... Erm... Correct." Although Wheatley didn't say anything that would make the confession even harder for her, he was beaming with pride on the inside at the fact that she just admitted that he was right. "But first, we should probably call each other by our actual names. I'd imagine it would be pretty hard for two people to work together when one of them calls the other nothing but insults, and the other is afraid to say the first one's name."
"Yeah, I-I suppose that would be kind of difficult, or awkward at the very least," Wheatley said. Both Wheatley and GLaDOS just stood around in silence for a few moments. (Let's all take a moment to consider this would be a pretty awkward moment if this were in the real world.)
"I, um, guess I'll go first, then, uh, Wheatley," GLaDOS said as if the words were stuck on barbed wire in her throat. Immediately after, she shot a glance at Wheatley demanding he do his part.
Wheatley simulated a deep breath. "And you promise you won't get mad or anything because of some reason like me not being worthy of-" Wheatley tried to stall.
"Yes, duh, I thought the promise was implied," GLaDOS said as quickly as she could, trying to hurry Wheatley along.
"OK, I was just making sure, because that kind of seems like something you'd do-"
"Well I won't, OK?" GLaDOS retorted, interrupting Wheatley again.
"Alright! Alright, I believe you, erm, GLaDOS," Wheatley finally blurted.
"Great, now if you two are done with your little feel-fest, there's a perfectly good test right in front of you, and it's begging to be solved," Drake said in a bored tone of voice, bringing GLaDOS and Wheatley back to reality.
"Alright, fine," GLaDOS sighed to no-one in particular. "Now, how do I do this."
"You've seen cooperative testing be done before, you should know," Drake retorted.
"Yeah, with both participants being humanoid robots! Never with one participant being a personality core and the other being a human!" GLaDOS shouted. "I don't even recognize half of this crap!"
"Alright, just calm down..." Wheatley said to GLaDOS gently yet cautiously in an attempt to calm her down. "I'll teach ya', OK?"
"Pft, yeah right. I'd like to see you teach an orangutan how to climb!" GLaDOS remarked. Wheatley rolled his optic.
"Look," he said, "You won't even be using most of this stuff, because last time I checked, you not only have usable arms, but also legs. It'll be just like normal cooperative testing. Only focus on what you'll need to do."
Reluctantly, GLaDOS sighed and mumbled, "Fine."
"OK," Wheatley cheerfully chimed as he shot one portal onto the wall behind him and his testing partner and another on a single portable panel on the ceiling above a management rail. "For starters, pick me up, and drop me through that portal that I just put down."
GLaDOS did as told, but only because she didn't have any other ideas. Wheatley slid across the management rail until he popped off the other end, onto the floor of an alcove with a button. He quickly activated the button to make sure it did what he thought it did, which was raise some kind of platform out of the acid about 15 feet below GLaDOS's ground.
GLaDOS made a move to step out of her alcove and onto the platform that had been slightly raised below, but Wheatley quickly stopped her. "NO!" He shouted, causing GLaDOS to jump backward a few inches before freezing in her tracks. "Now you try to drop down into the acid?" Wheatley criticized.
"Well excuse me, it seemed the obvious thing to do!"
"Well when you made tests, were the solutions always just the most obvious thing or whatever action was the most newly available?" Wheatley pointed out. Before GLaDOS had a chance to say anything in response, the platform sunk back into the acid. "OK, 20 seconds it stays up," Wheatley thought out loud. "That should be way more than enough time."
"OK, that's great and all, but what do I do?" GLaDOS shouted.
"Alright, um, you see that angled surface on the wall to your right?" Wheatley asked. GLaDOS glanced at the portable panels he was referring to, then answered with a quick, "Yeah."
"Place one of your portals on it," Wheatley instructed. GLaDOS did as told, and then looked expectantly back at Wheatley, awaiting her next instruction. Wheatley activated the button again, causing the platform to rise out of the acid again. "Now, shoot your other portal onto the platform, quickly, before it goes back down."
GLaDOS cautiously approached the edge of her alcove, spent a few seconds aiming, and finally shot the portal gun, landing a yellow portal on the platform. "Great, now all you have to do is jump down through the portal," Wheatley said. GLaDOS hesitated until there was only one second left on the timer before the platform retreated into the lethal acid. "Go on, hurry!"
GLaDOS glanced at Wheatley then quickly back at the platform, which was half submerged at this point, and then she jumped into the portal, screaming. GLaDOS felt a small amount of acid gnaw at her ankles as she went flying across the room to a third alcove where an open chamberlock and a second button awaited her.
When GLaDOS looked back at Wheatley, she saw him back on his management rail, near the end of it, hovering over an area that looked perfect for a platform to rise out of.
"What now?" GLaDOS inquired. "Do I just press the button?"
"Hang on just a sec'..." Wheatley said, shooting a portal on the same angled panels that GLaDOS had placed one on. "OK, now, press the button!" Wheatley shouted, turning back to face GLaDOS. GLaDOS pressed the button, then watched as Wheatley went through the process of shooting the portal gun downwards, dropping through it, and flying across the room.
GLaDOS caught Wheatley mostly by coincidence, and carried him through the chamberlock, the exit of the current chamber, and the entrance to the next.
"I must say I'm impressed," Drake commented as GLaDOS placed Wheatley in his elevator and walked towards her own. "I didn't think that you two would be able to cooperate long enough to not murder one another. But don't worry, there's plenty more tests where that came from."
Random note: Sorry if in this fanfic Wheatley and GLaDOS had already called each other by their actual names and that little tidbit turned out not to be the first time they did.