GLaDOS appeared to be on the ground, and whispering things to herself, almost like bits of a conversation. Flame was enamored, watching this, before Silver started to cry.
"What's happening?! To her, to me, why do the Combine even want me? I don't understand!"
Flame looked up, and resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Stop freaking out."
Flame moved forward, taking off the severed earlink, trying to figure out both how it worked and if it would modify her brain or anything stupid. After all, she knew Aperture and its standards with human safety. Silver was still talking, even when Flame took off the portal gun. She soon put it on her own arm, looking at it almost like the device was an old friend.
She shot a portal towards a spot on the wall, and put the second on a spot next to it. The sensation of the device pressing into her skin as it recoiled was familiar, almost calming. Even Silver stopped jabbering, to look at the portals. "Can I go... through one?"
Flame gave a little nod, and Silver anxiously moved through the portals, to reappear through the other one. "Now that... that's cool."
Flame whispered to Silver, while looking towards GLaDOS. "Do we want to find the Leader and teach him a lesson?"
Silver looked towards GLaDOS, before nodding. "I want to figure out what's going on..."
Chell smiled faintly, before portaling onto a nearby ledge and motioning for Silver to join her, as the two of them left the room.
GLaDOS was alone, and deeply confused. She had no portal device. She had nothing but her own battered new body and a crow, the little one. She stood, looking around, before jumping onto Dahlia, and whispering a few words to her, some very short but very dangerous ones. "My little killing machine, go through the hatch."
Dahlia started to fly, squeezing through that same hole that she'd come in, though her rider was a very different person. GLaDOS almost laughed softly to herself, at the situation. Nothing had changed, after all this time.
The humans were still singularly focused on their own pursuits. Without her. As per usual.
The Leader was alone in that old chamber he loved to look at so much, apart from the little jabbering asset before him. It's almost funny, how sentient it acted. After a moment, the Leader smiled coldly, picking up the little personality core.
"Hey, hey, what're you doing? Where're you taking me? I mean, you've been carrying me around a lot today, so how about this! You let me go back to the nice humans, and I'll... well I haven't thought that part out yet, but I'll do something! Something really cool, and you'll be like 'Oh wow, you're so cool, I should really not kill anyone, because that's not nice at all really.'"
"Will you shut it?"
And like any good robot, the asset did.
He'd always appreciated humans, their way of making a fully sentient creature made of metal, and letting murderous aliens take over their planet. And then the way that most of them just bow down too... it's rich, as humans would say.
The Leader stared at him, knowing that soon they'd come for their little metal friend. And then he could set his sights on the larger prey at hand, that girl. It was only a matter of time.
And he had the time to wait.
I stayed in the warm hold of Bronze for a while, until the bird eventually landed on a little perch, near the Goddess's chamber, and he took me off the bird with him.
"How yous holdin' up?"
My voice was very soft, as he took out his favorite submachine gun, loading it up in advance. "I'm doing fine, I guess." He simply smiled, picking me up in one arm and carrying me off the crow my Goddess had trained. "Bronze?"
"Yeah, 'Ternity?"
My voice was little more than a whisper, as he looked at me with those kind green eyes. "We're going to take him down?" He nodded, speed-walking down the halls, turning the corners as fast as light. "Are we going to kill him?"
He chuckled softly. "Assumin' all goes well, then yeah." My eye glowed slightly brighter, as I asked one more question. "Do you mind if I sing?"
His voice was the least accented I'd heard from him thus far. "Not at all."
My voice began to ring out, a soft high voice echoing in the silent halls.
"Alla fine nessuno apprezza i soldati senza nome. Vedono le dee e le adorano... Ma quando un singolo soldato fa qualcosa di grande, quella saldatura viene dementicata prima che sia trascorso un anno."
"Finché non arrivò la dolce Chell, gettò via i soldati tanto quanto gli altri, ma... ma riuscì a insegnare alla dea l'umanità..."
Copper walked silently along, following Silver as she dashed through portals, eagerly nattering to Flame with a tone of voice most would associate with a young child. After quite a while of this, there was a window, and behind it was a white wall.
Flame dashed over to Copper for a moment. "Hey, Noah." "Yeah Chell?"
"I need you to blast that glass apart. You've got the launcher on you, right?"
He nodded, taking out the little missile launcher he loves so much. "Everyone back up."
He picked it up, stabilizing out his arm first, before shattering the glass into pieces.
Flame chuckled, quickly placing a portal across the gap, onto the wall. She stepped through the portals, motioning for the others to follow. It was silent in the little white hallway, as Flame stepped into a little sub-room, with another window to the foggy outside. There, just ahead, was a giant chamber, of the sort that Flame knew just a bit too well.
She remembered when she was just testing. And when GLaDOS had tried to take her life.
When she decided to take revenge against that terrifying robot.
She pulled away from the window, moving down along the hallway, and moving down a second, seemingly free-suspended hallway, lined with window after window. There was a door at the end, that was just a crack open. Enough to see that the Leader, and Wheatley, were inside with no other backup.
Flame looked back at the others, before giving a signal. They were to stay there unless everything went to hell. After all, the room was still coated in portal surfaces, and there was a chance she could figure out this whole mess without revealing Silver's location.
She brushed her dark hair back, gathering her will, and rushing inside the room.