Chell landed in the dark, clutching her portal gun close to her chest like a lifeline. It gave off a slight bluish glow, ready to be used, and provided her with a little comfort as she stepped forward in the dark.
A light flashed on, displaying a door in front of her. She went to read the sign that hung crookedly on it: This way to Control Center. She sighed to herself and resignedly twisted the handle to open the door. It was a pretty obvious trap, but what was she to do?
The door fell backwards with a loud thunk and she found herself entrapped within a glass box, being lifted up to the control center.
"I truly, honestly didn't believe you were going to fall for that," Glados told her from above.
Chell was lifted into the chamber, Glados coming into view. Chell noted that the girl had cut off her incredibly long hair sometime in between her capturing the two test subjects and now. It now hung at a sharp angle toward her chin, as if Glados had grabbed a knife and done it without looking in the mirror. The change somehow made her more intimidating.
"In fact, I devised a much more elaborate trap farther up ahead for when you found a way out of this easy one. I guess I made the mistake of overestimating your abilities. My bad," Glados taunted her. She stepped down onto the rising platform and lowered down to where Chell was trapped on the ground.
Glados eyed Chell's portal gun with disdain, "I hope you brought something stronger than a portal gun this time. Otherwise you're about to become the immediate past president of the being alive club. Ha ha," she motioned with her hand to some invisible force.
Robotic arms swooped from the ceiling and dropped new turrets around the glass prison, surrounding Chell.
It took all Chell's self-control not to grin as the defective turrets tried to do their jobs, and failed miserably.
"It's my big chance!"
"Yeah, let's do this!"
"Where's a guy gonna get some bullets around here?"
They clicked, simulating gunshot noises, then burst into flames.
"I'm on fire!"
"Help!"
Glados wasn't amused and folded her arms "Wow, I see you were busy back there... well, I suppose we could just sit here and glare at each other until one of us drops dead, but I have a better idea."
A huge glass tube rammed into Chell's prison, busting a hole to her left. "It's your old friend, deadly neurotoxin. If I were you, I'd take a deep breath, and hold it."
Chell couldn't help the smile that lit up her face this time as she heard a familiar shrieking coming from the tube. And here comes the cavalry.
Wheatley flew out the tube and hit the glass with his long-fall boots in front of him, shattering the side of the prison. He got up from his sprawled position on the floor and waved at Chell, "Oh, hello!"
Glados didn't move, only her golden eyes squinting in displeasure as she stared into Chell's. "I hate you so much."
"Oi, luv, the feeling is very mutual. Totally mutual," Wheatley stood, brushing glass off his pants. He looked up at Glados and seemed to physically shrink at her withering stare.
"U-uh... well, y'know, we just want to get out this place," he told her nervously, then looked at the ceiling in thought, "Alive. Very much alive," he added.
Ignoring Wheatley, Glados turned her attention back to Chell, "I'm afraid I may have to place you both back into stasis while I repair all the damage you've wreaked on my facility. How inconvenient. We will resume this conversation again at a later date," she waved her hand to summon more robotic arms to grab the two test subjects and started to rise back up to her favorite seat.
Glados' face was priceless as Wheatley vaulted from his position below her and grabbed her legs, tackling her to the floor in seconds. She was startled into losing her focus on the computer and Chell ran out of her glass prison in the confusion.
She watched with increasing nervousness as Wheatley wrestled Glados to the ground, pinning her arms down. "Let us go! Just summon your stupid escape lift and we'll never have to see you again!" he was angry, screaming into her face.
Glados wiped off her startled expression and tried putting on her best fear-inducing look, "Get your hands off of me, idiot," she sneered at him.
A robotic arm swung toward him and Chell knocked it away, warning Wheatley to hurry up whatever he was thinking of doing.
Wheatley staggered to his feet and dragged Glados upright with him to avoid the machinery reaching for him. Then Chell watched in horror as Wheatley pulled Glados' head into his palms and fired off electricity straight into her.
Glados' body convulsed and sparks went off where her implant connected at her temple, her face frozen in shock as Wheatley angrily shook her, "LET US GO!" he was yelling. And he wasn't stopping...
Chell was horrified. Wheatley had become violent toward Glados, completely out of character for him. It was seriously freaking her out, and she didn't necessarily want to watch Wheatley kill the girl.
She waved at him frantically, STOP! STOP IT!
Wheatley finally did and he dropped Glados, her body hitting the ground with a dull thud. His hands smoked and his eyes glowed bright blue, his mouth twitching as he looked up into Chell's frightened eyes.
"Oh... oh my," he whispered in shock. She took a step toward him and stopped when he smiled at her. "I didn't know I could do that. When I grabbed onto her I could feel... I could feel everything."
What in the world did that mean? Chell's eyebrows scrunched with worry.
"I felt the entire expanse of her control, and I latched onto it. Luv..." he said, his voice growing louder with elation and he trembled. "I hacked into the computer. I have access to everything now!" he clutched his head excitedly, eyes wide at his newfound ability.
"My-my power," he explained, his hands waving quickly at her, "I took control of her remote access to everything. EVERYTHING. You should feel this! Whoaaa!" he spun around, arms wide open. The panels around the room shifted and the lighting dramatically increased and decreased at his whim.
Chell shifted her weight uncomfortably, and gave him a half-smile in congratulations. She was relieved to glance and see that Glados was still breathing, even if smoke was still drifting up from the implant next to her left eye. She wasn't quite sure why she was relieved... it was all just too much to see Wheatley act the way he had, and she didn't want him to have to live with someone else's death on his conscience.
Wheatley noticed Chell's expression and stopped his self-congratulations, "Oh right, the lift. Here we are!" he motioned his hand upwards dramatically as an elevator rose up through the ground, ready to transport the two to freedom.
Chell lost all her trepidation and jumped into the elevator, ready to see the sun again. She vaguely wondered if it was day or nighttime above, as she had long ago lost track of any sense of time. There weren't exactly any convenient clocks lying about the place...
She looked up at Wheatley who had lifted himself using Glados' rising platform as he simultaneously rose the elevator to his level.
"Right! Escaping we go! I get to control it all! And I mean it all... Oh man alive, do you have any idea how good this feels?" he looked at Chell, his eyes flashing even brighter as he mentally accessed more areas of the facility. It was really starting to unnerve her, she realized with a sinking feeling.
"Actually..." The elevator stopped abruptly and Chell held her breath in alarm. No...
"...Why do we have to leave right now?"
There it was.
Chell felt her heart drop at the same time the elevator floated back to the floor, Wheatley still standing high above her. No... no no no. Take it back up, take it back up. We were so close.
"I did this! Little 'ol Wheatley did this!" his voice was sounding more manic, losing touch. Chell ran out of the elevator and waved at him, her eyes pleading.
"You... you didn't do anything," Glados spoke up, her voice small, yet threatening.
Glados pushed herself up to her hands and knees, looking up at Wheatley, "She did all the work." She was talking about Chell.
Chell's eyes widened and she shrunk under Wheatley's angry gaze, looking so alien on his sweet face. She shook her head at him frantically. It's not true. Not true at all. She's just trying to make you mad.
But Wheatley couldn't hear her, of course. "Oh, really... Is that what you two think? Well maybe I should DO something, then!" he dropped down closer to them and used a robotic arm to grip Glados around her neck, lifting her up to him violently and giving her whiplash.
Chell jumped back at the action and narrowly avoided colliding into more arms lifting up from the floor, threateningly. What's he doing? What's he doing? She was losing him quickly and she watched helplessly as he practically strangled Glados, dangling her in front of him.
Chell jumped out of her skin when Wheatley whirled on her, his eyes harsh, "And don't think I'm not onto you too, Chell. You know what you are...?"
She jerked back instinctively.
"Selfish. I've done nothing but sacrifice to get us here, and what have you sacrificed? Nothing. Nada. Zip. All you've done is boss me around! Now who's the boss? Who's the boss? It's me," he told her, looking fairly smug.
Chell did nothing but stand there and watch him, unable to wipe the hurt off her face. The confusion.
She watched dumbly as Glados wrestled with the arm, speaking hoarsely to Wheatley and grabbing his attention, "I know you..."
Wheatley yanked her closer, ignoring her groan of discomfort, "I'm sorry, what was that?" his voice low and threatening.
"I remember you now," she kept speaking, "You were never a test subject, after all. You were that moronic intern they hired before I released the neurotoxin! Mr. Simmons, was it? Your aunt was the scientist-" she was cut off as he jerked her back and forth in anger.
"Shut up! Shut UP!"
"What? You don't want me to tell your new girlfriend there what a fraud you are? Pretending to be a test subject, just like her. You were one of them! An idiot intern that helped test the test subjects. NOT the other way around!" she continued, her voice rising in volume despite the pressure on her neck. Chell stepped back, horrified at the scene and what she was hearing...
"When you took control of my mainframe, I saw it all! You hid during the neurotoxin incident! You hid in a stasis pod! And guess what? I know those stasis pods were all full. You pulled a person out just to save yourself. You're a coward!" her voice was shrill and she talked faster.
Wheatley was having none of it and he pulled her up to his face, raging in anger, "You're lying. YOU'RE LYING! I'm not a coward!"
She didn't back down, "YES you are! You're nothing but a moron they hired and a cowardly idiot!"
Wheatley finally broke, losing control. "I'M NOT-" he flung Glados into the elevator, shattering the glass around her. Her body lay still and unmoving.
"-A MORON!" Wheatley was seething, waving the robotic arms around the room uncontrollably. The lighting shifted around the place, flashing sporadically at his tantrum. Sparks raced around his body, his deviation on full display.
Chell took multiple steps backward, terrified. Wheatley had lied to her. He had lied and he was losing his mind.
She was going to die.
He continued to scream at the elevator, despite Glados' unresponsiveness, "WHO'S A MORON NOW?"
Wheatley used the powerful metal arms to pound on the top of the elevator, "CAN A MORON DO THIS?" WHUMP. The elevator slid a few inches down into the ground.
"CAN A MORON." WHAM! Harder.
"PUNCH." WHAM! The elevator was halfway into the ground, Glados disappearing from view.
"YOU." Sliding further...
"INTO. THIS." WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!
"PIT?"She could only see the top couple inches of the elevator, huge dents riddling it.
"HUH? CAN A MORON DO THAT!?" He used the full force of three robotic arms to slam the elevator down even further.
Chell fell backwards to the floor, shaking in fear and wanting to cry. She watched as if in slow motion the ground started to break apart from where the elevator was being shoved into it. The cracks reached her and she felt the floor give way beneath her body.
Her mournful eyes flicked up to Wheatley, the devastating betrayal she felt shifting to him full force, and his eyes met hers in response.
As she fell, she almost saw a tinge of regret on his face.
Almost.
Top ten anime betrayals...
But seriously... Why, Wheatley? Don't worry, he'll be back. ;) In the meantime, this will probably be the last chapter for a few days, as I will be pretty busy this weekend. Thanks all!
-Moe
