I've had this idea in my head ever since I played both Portal games a few years ago. I was never quite sure how it would look, but I've managed to figure out the basis of this crossover.
A quirk author's note: In canon, Chell is between the ages of 20-30 years old. In this version, she isn't. I'm also taking some creative liberties with the level of technology that Aperture Science possesses.
Deep in the bowels of the long abandoned Aperture Science Enrichment Center, a lone female figure walked through the winding, dimly lit metal hallways. Her skin was tanned, her appearance a blend of Oriental and Latino features. Her black hair was tied up in a ponytail behind her head, keeping her grey-blue eyes largely clear and unobstructed, with a few loose strands of hair framing her face, her expression calm yet determined.
She wore sleek, white boots with a black sole, both made out of an unknown material. The front of the boots only covered a third of the girl's lower leg, with the rest of the leg exposed up to the knee, where the boot ended. Straps were secured around her legs, keeping the boot secured firmly in place. The back of the footwear extended up the back of her calves, and from the middle extended a curved brace. It was made out of a black material, and touched the floor with each step the girl took, acting as the heel of the boots she wore. Due to the length of the heel, the girl walked on the balls of her feet, making her choice of footwear appear to be very fancy, futuristic looking high heels. With each step she took, the heel made a tak, tak, tak sound as the metal brace on each foot struck the ground.
She wore an orange jumpsuit, the legs of which extended to the middle of her shins, while the top had been taken off, tied around her waist and exposing her arms and tank top that she wore underneath. The tank top was white, with the logo 'Aperture Laboratories' written on the front next to a circular logo, and a blue sports bra and sweatpants could barely be seen underneath her tank top and jumpsuit. Her exposed arms were lean and muscular, betraying an athletic, muscular physique, and the sheen on her skin from sweat showed the physical exertion she had endured.
Held on her right arm was an odd, tubular device. The top of the back and bottom of the front were covered in a white shell, made out of the same material as the girl's boots. Underneath the shell the device was a matte black colour, absorbing all of the occasional light that shone on it. The exception to this was a glass barrel in the middle, inside which glowed an orange light, and this was accompanied by a dot that glowed the same shade of orange in the middle of the upper white shell. Extending out of the front half of the device were three black prongs, each of them curving towards the front, extending over the barrel of the object. They were laid out in a triangular pattern; one on the top and two on the bottom. The girl's right arm was inserted into the device, while her left hand supported the bottom, helping to keep it held up. Strangely, a potato with wires, pins, and electronics stuck into it was skewered on the topmost prong of the device.
The girl rounded a corner, and there at the end of the hallway two glass containers stood side by side, each filled with dozens of metallic orbs.
"Corrupted cores, we're in luck," the cybernetic potato said with a synthetic voice, showing its sentience. "You find a way to stun him, I'll send you a core, and then you attach it to him. If we do it a few times, he might become corrupt enough for another core transfer."
The girl simply nodded to her machine companion, reflecting on the journey she was so close to completing, a journey that she had been on which to her felt like only a day, but could have been years, decades, centuries, maybe even longer. She'd been out of it for the most part.
Chell, for that was the girl's name, mentally prepared herself for the upcoming battle. She and GLaDOS, an AI stuck in the potato attached to her portal gun, had finally found a way to defeat Wheatley, a truly moronic AI core that had taken control over the facility, ironically with the help of Chell so she could finally leave the underground facility. The problem was that Wheatley went mad with power, deciding to create his own series of tests, which might have been more deadly than the ones GLaDOS designed all those years ago simply due to how idiotic the A.I. was. After all, he was designed to be a Personality Core, attached to GLaDOS during the height of her power, with the specific design of dampening her intelligence with how moronic he was.
As Chell walked away from the corrupt cores, she thought about her own companion, trapped inside of a tuber. Her relationship with GLaDOS was complicated to say the least.
It was GLaDOS who put her through those initial tests back in the original Laboratory.
It was GLaDOS who designed the tests to be lethal to anyone without appropriate levels of balance, skill, and intelligence. Luck had no place in the AIs experiments, and Chell had never needed to use any, relying on skills she had gained in her life outside of the facility.
It was GLaDOS that tried to burn her alive when Chell could no longer serve a purpose, it was GLaDOS that hunted her like a rat, and it was GLaDOS that tried to kill her personally with turrets, rockets, and excessive amounts of neurotoxin gas.
But it was Chell who had initially killed GLaDOS, it was Chell who had fought tooth and nail to last one more minute in this cruel world, and most importantly, it was Chell who had installed Wheatley as the Primary Director of the facility. And it was going to be Chell who was going to fix her mistake, all of them if possible.
"Put me in and I'll take you up," GLaDOS explained as Chell reached an elevator at the end of the steel catwalk she had been walking on. In front of her was a port that controlled the elevator, and placing the potato-powered AI into it, started to activate.
Clamps held GLaDOS's potato body in place, small arcs of electricity shooting off as the elevator accelerated upwards with its human and AI passengers.
"Look, even if you think we're still enemies, we're enemies with a common interest: revenge," the AI explained. "You like revenge, right? Everybody likes revenge. Well, let's go get some."
The elevator came to a stop, bringing Chell and GLaDOS into a large, open room, the walls and ceilings covered in metallic panels. And there, hanging in the middle of what would be the arena, was Wheatley, his round, metallic sphere of a body, with a blue optic for an eye, hanging off of the Master Control form that he controlled.
"Well, well, well. Welcome, TO MY LAIR!" Wheatley greeted, his voice reverberating in added effect towards the end. Chell had to give it to the idiot. Even though he was a moronic, self-centred, arrogant, egotistical backstabber, he was more amusing than GLaDOS ever was.
As Chell stepped off of the elevator, it sank back into the ground, the cover for the opening closing behind it. Even though Chell REALLY hated the idea of trusting GLaDOS to help her, the AI was right about one thing; they were enemies, yes, but they were enemies with a common, greater enemy. They could fight each other once Wheatley was overthrown.
"Lemme just flag something up: according to the control panel light up there," he gestured with his core, pointing towards the roof, "the entire building's going to self-destruct in about six minutes. I'm pretty sure it's a problem with the light. I think the light's on the blink. But just in case it isn't, I am actually going to have to kill you. As discussed earlier. So, let's call that three minutes, then a minute break, which should leave a leisurely two minutes to figure out how to shut down whatever's starting all these fires. So anyway, that's the itinerary."
"Also," Wheatley added, "I took the liberty of watching the tapes of you killing HER, and I'm not going to make the same mistakes. Four part plan is this:
"One: No portal surfaces," he explained, gesturing his body around the room, and Chell knew he was right. The Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device, or ASHPD, or Portal Gun as Chell internally referred to it as, was able to create portals on flat concrete surfaces, and worked best on flat surfaces that had been coated in conversion gel, with the main ingredient being ground up Moon rocks. Metal surfaces, on the other hand, weren't such a good placement for portal surfaces.
"Two:" Wheatley continued, "Start the neurotoxin immediately."
As he explained his second step, green gas started seeping out of vents placed on the wall. So long as it was similar to the neurotoxin that GLaDOS used the first time they fought, Chell figured she likely had minutes to spare before she suffered lethal nerve damage.
"Three: Bomb-proof shields for me," Wheatley said as flat, protective panels that had been resting near the roof dropped down to cover Wheatley's main body.
"Leading directly into number Four: Bombs. For throwing at you."
"You know what," Wheatley thought, leaning his body towards Chell, his "head" tilting in a human-like expression of thought, "this plan is so good, I'm going to give you a sporting chance and turn off the neurotoxin."
Chell kept her firm gaze, not believing the AI for a moment.
"I'm joking. Of course."
'Of course, indeed,' Chell grimly thought, her muscles tensing, waiting for the moment she'd need to make a move.
"Goodbye."
With those last words, Wheatley's aforementioned bombs flew out of his mechanical body, heading straight for Chell. Anticipating this, Chell dashed for the only safe place in the room: underneath Wheatley's body. A trio of explosions rang out from behind her, the heat from the blasts washing over her body as she sprinted to the middle of the room. Sliding low to the ground to escape Wheatley's gaze, Chell winced as the final explosive detonated a bit too close for comfort, singeing the ends of her hair as sparks flew up from her boots as she ground to a halt underneath Wheatley's hanging body.
"What?" Wheatley exclaimed, whipping his core body around, searching the room. "Where did you go?"
It took him longer than it should have to look down, seeing Chell hiding underneath him.
"Oh, there you are," he exclaimed, before laughing cruelly. "Look, I admit, my bombs can't reach you there, and I can't lower myself low enough to crush you, but that neurotoxin is going to kill you in-
"Neurotoxin level at capacity in five minutes," interrupted an automated announcement.
"-that, less than five minutes, which does leave me a tight minute to figure out what is causing the reactor to self-destruct, and then stop it. Look, if you want to sit and chat I'm up for it, but it's your call."
Chell knew he was right, and quickly scanning the room revealed her answer. Sticking out of one of the walls was a glass pipe pumping the grey liquid that she'd need: conversion gel.
Getting into a runner's pose, Chell kicked off with her right leg, arms pumping as she made a mad dash across the arena.
"Oh no you don't," Wheatley said, sending another trio of bombs towards Chell's sprinting form, just managing to stay ahead of the explosions.
Tossing herself to the right, Chell pressed herself behind the tube of conversion gel, holding her breath and squeezing her eyes shut, hoping that her plan worked. Wheatley didn't disappoint.
In his attempt to kill the fleeing human, Wheatley sent another trio of bombs after her, each aimed at her last position. It was only after the third bomb was launched that Wheatley realised that Chell had taken cover behind a pipe, a pipe that the explosive was hurtling towards.
"No! Don't! No! AHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
The glass shattered, Chell fortunately remained unscathed as only the front face of the glass tube shattered, scattering outwards and to the sides. The same could not be said for the arena. Grey conversion gel spread everywhere, covering not only the floors but also panels on the roof and walls of the arena, creating portal surfaces all around.
Chell smirked behind her temporary cover. 'Good old Wheatley,' she thought, 'always so easy to trick. GLaDOS too for that matter.'
"Ha…That sounded real. No! That was actually an impression of you," Wheatley claimed, trying to save face from his reaction. "Actually. Because you just fell into my trap. My brilliant trap. Just then, I wanted you to trick me into bursting that pipe. You didn't trick me. Seemingly tricked me. Gives you false hope. Leads to overconfidence. And that leads to mistakes. Fatal mistakes. It's all part of my plan."
Chell simply ignored the AI's ramblings, dashing out from behind her cover. Pulling the trigger for a blue portal, she aimed it at one of the wall platforms that had received a coating of conversion gel, before pulling the trigger for an orange portal near her feet.
"Oh, but I just…have made my actual first mistake…by telling you my plan. Just now. Grr…It's me old Achilles heel again. Armed with that knowledge, I imagine you won't even use the conversion gel. Oh fate! Oh cruel mistress."
Wheatley, not realising what she had done, simply fired another salvo of explosives at Chell, who was standing over the portal, feet spread across the opening. Just before the first explosive hit her and turning her into a red mist, Chell threw herself to the side, evading the explosives and causing the bombs to enter the portal, coming out from the other side of the arena, slamming into and detonating on Wheatley's large body who gave a cry of pain and shock.
"Good work!" GLaDOS's voice sounded out over the intercoms as Wheatley dropped low, temporarily stunned. "I'm delivering the first core up near the catwalk! Grab it and attach it to him!"
Chell fired another blue portal, this time placed near the catwalk, and dropped through the orange portal she had placed on the ground. Falling through, her boots automatically stabilised her landing as gravity swapped around, causing Chell to land in a crouch on the groaning metal catwalk. Just as GLaDOS said, a crane had lowered one of the corrupted cores into the arena near the end of the shuddering catwalk. Chell dashed forward, paying no heed to the sounds of protest the metal walkway made, only needing it to hold for a few seconds.
Reaching the personality core, Chell activated the portal gun's zero-point energy field manipulator, causing the core to be picked up by the gun, hovering in front of the portal device's barrel. Chell noticed that the core had a yellow optic for an eye, and was twitching and moving its "eye" around rapidly, all the while muttering to itself.
"Space space wanna go to space yes please space. Space space. Go to space."
Chell paid the clearly insane AI little attention, dropping down from the collapsing catwalk and dashing over to Wheatley's vulnerable body. Behind Chell, the catwalk had crashed through a pipeline, causing blue repulsion gel to scatter in droplets across the arena, creating patches of blue on the floor. One of these was in front of Chell, who, quickly forming a plan, sprung off the repulsion gel, the bouncy liquid flinging her into the air, allowing Chell to slam the corrupted AI core into the main body, which automatically attached itself.
"Warning: Core corruption at 50%," the automated announcer blared. "Vent system compromised: Neurotoxin offline. Reactor explosion in four minutes."
"Ahhh…Wha-What happened?" Wheatley groaned, sparks flying off of his body as he regained consciousness, optics widening as he saw the corrupted core attached to him. "What happened? What, what, what have you put onto me? What is that?"
A continuous string of explosives started launching out of Wheatley, forcing Chell to start running around the edge of the arena, staying only a few steps ahead of the explosions.
"Hold on," Wheatley muttered, audible clicking sounds echoing throughout the chamber. "Ah, the bloody bombs are stuck on. Doesn't matter, I've reconfigured the shields."
True to his word, Wheatley's bomb shields moved up and around, forming an umbrella-like shape over him.
"Oh, it's a core you've put on me! Who told you to do that? Was it her?" Wheatley asked, looking around the room as if he would be able to find GLaDOS's body, all the while launching bombs after Chell. "It's just making me stronger, luv! It's a fool's errand!"
Chell simply shot an orange portal ahead of her, creating a new portal tunnel. Jumping through the rift, Chell landed back on the partially destroyed catwalk. She rushed over to the edge, firing a new blue portal underneath Wheatley's dangling body. The explosive orbs continued on their path, already in flight, with the final bomb slipping through the portal and shooting up into Wheatley's unprotected underside.
"AH!"
The bombs stopped their relentless pursuit of Chell as Wheatley once again was knocked offline, his head dropping down to Chell's height as she dropped down from the catwalk.
"Okay, great!" GLaDOS called out over the intercom. "Here comes another core!"
The crane had returned, this time with an AI core that had a green colour to it. It dangled where the insane space core had been, but with the catwalk destroyed, Chell knew she'd need to improvise.
"QUICK, WHAT'S THE SITUATION?" the new core shouted, before its optics landed on Chell as she looked around the room, trying to find a way up. "Oh, hey, hi pretty lady. My name's Rick. So, you out having a little adventure?"
Chell simply ignored the flirtatious AI, even if it was a novel experience to be complimented by a being made up of code.
"What, are you fighting that guy?" the adventurous core asked, gesturing his eye towards Wheatley's limp form. "You got that under control? You know, because, looks like there's a lot of stuff on fire."
Chell noticed the blue puddle of repulsion gel that had spread out underneath the flirtatious core. She also noticed that the blue portal she had created under Wheatley was there, and spinning around, fired an orange portal back up at the catwalk. Dashing over to Wheatley, she slid on the ground, her boots taking the heat. She fell through the portal feet first, landing back up on the catwalk as the green core continued to talk.
"Hey, a countdown clock!" the AI observed. "Man, that is trouble. Situation is looking pretty ugly. For such a beautiful woman. If you don't mind me saying."
Chell simply rolled her eyes at the AI's attempt at flirting. Running to the edge of the catwalk, she leaped off, plummeting to the floor below. Landing on the bouncy blue substance, Chell was launched upwards, grabbing the AI core in the zero-energy field and landing on the opposite side of the collapsed catwalk.
"I don't want to scare you, but I'm an Adventure Sphere," the AI explained as Chell jumped off of the catwalk, landing safely on the ground thanks to her Long Fall Boots absorbing and dissipating the kinetic energy. "Designed for danger. So, why don't you go ahead and have yourself a little lady break, and I'll take it from here."
Chell simply scowled at the AI, launching off of another repulsion gel puddle near Wheatley, jumping high and slamming the personality core into Wheatley, with just a little anger.
"Warning: Core corruption at 75%," the automated announcer blared again. "Reactor Explosion Timer destroyed. Reactor Explosion Uncertainty Emergency Preemption Protocol initiated: This facility will self-destruct in two minutes."
'REUEPP?' Chell internally questioned. 'What kind of a system is that?'
"Enough!" Wheatley yelled, coming back online. "I told you not to put these cores on me. But you don't listen, do you? Quiet. All the time. Quietly not listening to a word I say. Judging me. Silently. The worst kind."
"All I wanted to do was make everything better for me!" Wheatley ranted, his bomb shields forming up in front of him as he glared at Chell, as much as an AI without facial expressions can glare.
Chell simply circled the room as his gaze followed her, causing his back to face towards a flat surface on the wall.
"All you had to do was solve a couple hundred simple tests for a few years. And you couldn't even let me have that, could you?"
Chell fired an orange portal at the floor in front of her, then quickly fired a blue portal behind Wheatley's exposed back as he started lobbing explosives at her. The salvo of explosives all sailed through and out of the portals, each slamming into Wheatley, causing his body to shake and jolt.
"Ah!" he cried out in pain, before for the third time temporarily going offline.
"Here's another core!" GLaDOS exclaimed. "This one should do it!"
Chell looked over by the catwalk, yet no crane could be seen entering the arena with the final corrupted personality core. Looking around the roof, Chell found her target. Emerging from the other side of the arena was the final core to defeat Wheatley, this one glowing a pink colour. Chell immediately found a problem; there were no surfaces that she could use to reach it.
"Fact: Space does not exist," the corrupted core claimed, despite the obvious fallacy of the claim.
'Great, another insane AI,' Chell grumbled. 'Not sure if I prefer them insane or condescending.'
"At some point in their lives 1 in 6 children will be abducted by the Dutch," the pink AI continued to ramble. "According to most advanced algorithms, the world's best name is Craig."
Movement near the AI core caught Chell's attention. Curving up from the floor to the roof, a pipe started to buckle and bend, before finally bursting. Scrap metal shot out around the arena, fortunately missing Chell, alongside an orange substance that coated the floor in a line in front of the pipe. All the while, the corrupted AI core continued to spout nonsense.
"It is incorrectly noted that Thomas Edison invented 'push-ups' in 1878. Nikolai Tesla had in fact patented the activity three years earlier, under the name 'Tesla-cize'."
'Propulsion gel,' Chell grinned, formulating a plan, 'that will do nicely.'
Shooting an orange portal on a surface right in front of the line of propulsion gel, simply because Chell thought it was fitting, and firing the connecting blue portal underneath the corrupted core, Chell ran over to the end of the line of orange gel.
"To make a photocopier, simply photocopy a mirror."
Taking a breath, Chell dashed forward, the orange substance increasing her velocity, causing her to move at inhuman speed. She shot out of the blue portal, flying up into the air and grabbing the pink AI.
"Dental floss has superb tensile strength," the AI recited to Chell.
'That one sounds more likely,' Chell internally mused, falling a distance that would have killed anyone without Long Fall Boots, yet Chell simply landed with a crouch.
"The first commercial airline flight took to the air in 1914. Everyone involved screamed the entire way," the AI recited one last fact of dubious legitimacy as Chell sprinted over to a repulsion gel puddle, placing the final AI core needed on Wheatley's body.
"Warning: Core corruption at 100%," the automated announcer stated. GLaDOS had returned to the arena in the elevator while Wheatley came back online with a pained groan. "Manual core replacement required."
"Oh, I see," Wheatley chuckled, finally realising what Chell and GLaDOS's plan had been all along.
"Substitute Core: Are you ready to start?" the announcer asked.
"Yes! Come on!" GLaDOS exclaimed, trying to hurry along the process, knowing she and Chell had very little time left.
"Corruption Core: Are you ready to start?"
"What do you think?" Wheatley snarkily responded.
"Interpreting vague answer as yes," decided the automated announcer, clearly not programmed to understand sarcasm as Wheatley was.
"No! No! NONONO!" Wheatley hurriedly explained. "Didn't pick up on my sarcasm…"
"Stalemate detected," the announcer concluded as fires started spreading into the arena and rubble fell from the ceiling. "Fire detected in the Stalemate Resolution Annex. Extinguishing."
Sprinkler systems installed in the ceiling that had somehow survived the fires and collapse of the facility burst to life, dousing every open surface. Chell was immediately soaked, her clothes sticking to her and her hair plastering to her face and neck.
Across the arena, all of the gels that had covered the walls and floor were washed away, the only exception being the patch of conversion gel that rested under Wheatley, protected from the water due to his mechanical body.
"Ah. That just cleans right off, does it?" he complained, realising how easy his victory could have been. "Well, that would have been good to know. A little earlier."
"Stalemate Resolution Associate: Please press the Stalemate Resolution Button," the announcer instructed. Chell looked around for the supposed button, noticing a section of the wall opening, revealing behind a metal mesh door an illuminated room with a single, red button.
"Go press the button! Go press it!" GLaDOS shouted to Chell, who began to run across the arena.
"Do not press that button!" Wheatley warned, matching his rival's volume.
"We're so close! Go press the button!"
"No! Do not do it!"
Chell slammed her shoulder into the wire mesh, but it didn't budge. Sparks flew off from the corners, the electronics that would automatically open the door to the Stalemate Resolution Button had been fried from the water. But Chell noticed that on the ceiling there was a concrete panel, large enough for a portal. Taking a chance, she fired a blue portal into the ceiling, eyes widening in joy as the portal formed and held.
"I forbid you to press it!" Wheatley roared as Chell sprinted back over to Wheatley, firing a connecting orange portal underneath him.
"Press it! Press the button!" GLaDOS cheered.
Seeing Chell approach at a rapid pace, Wheatley started shaking and thrashing his body around as much as possible, trying desperately to wash away the portal underneath him, but it was no use. Not wanting to risk it, Chell pumped her arms even faster, the portal gun now being supported only by her right arm, her left arm swinging back and forth in an attempt to get GLaDOS back in control, to give her the ability to save them from Wheatley's madness and idiocy.
"Don't press it! COME BACK!" Wheatley yelled as Chell dove head first into the portal, her Long Fall Boots correcting her movement to turn her head first fall into a roll.
She landed into the Stalemate Resolution Chamber, and there in front of her was the button. It was comically large and red, and jutted out of the floor on a white pillar. Not wanting to wait any longer, Chell slammed her left hand down on the button, only for her eyes to widen in shock.
A ring of floor panels had surrounded the button's area in a semi-circle, and Chell hadn't paid any attention to it. As the panels dropped, however, Chell realised that they had hid explosives behind them.
"PART FIVE! BOOBYTRAP THE STALEMATE BUTTON!" Wheatley cheered, remotely activating the detonation command.
Acting on instinct, Chell jumped in the air, placing her legs, and by extension the Long Fall Boots, in front of her. The detonation blasted her out of the room through the steel mesh doors, causing them to fly off of their hinges. Chell continued her fall, eventually hitting the ground and rolling, coming to a stop on the other side of the arena as she slammed into the wall, her portal gun falling out of her grasp and her Long Fall Boots shattering, unable to take the force of the explosion and impact from the sides where they were unprotected. She groaned in pain, an audible noise coming from her throat as she rolled over, trying to get up with the support of her hands.
"What, are you still alive?" Wheatley exclaimed in shock and frustration as Chell looked over at the irate AI. "You are joking. You have got to be kidding me. Well, I'm still in control. AND I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO FIX THIS PLACE!"
Chell grabbed her portal gun as it rested on the floor, hoping and praying for one last miracle, one last chance to get out of here, for all of her effort and struggles to not be for nothing. Above on the ceiling the roof started to cave in, revealing a picturesque full moon.
"Oh, you had to play bloody Cat and Mouse, didn't you?" Wheatley continued, at his wits end. "While people were trying to work! Yes, well, now we're all going to pay the price. BECAUSE WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!"
Chell tuned out all of the noise surrounding her, trying to achieve a final moment of peace. She ignored the sound of Wheatley's raging, of GLaDOS's quiet shock at their failed plan, the sound of fires raging around them outside the arena and the building collapsing all around them. They weren't important. She knew what she needed to do. Chell simply tuned all the noises out, emptied her lungs, aimed the portal gun at the moon, pulled the trigger for a blue portal, and fired her last portal.
In that moment, Chell could have sworn she saw a twinkle on the moon, before a great rushing sound burst into the room, as the arena was exposed to the vacuum of space. Every piece of loose debris that had fallen from the ceiling or the walls immediately started being drawn towards and then into the portal, as well as every item that wasn't bolted down, and not even then was it ensured you were safe. Chell watched as Wheatley's core body was pulled by the vacuum, slowly being pulled closer and closer to the portal, attached to his larger body only by a few wires and cords. Chell in turn was fighting with all her might to resist the pull, letting go of the portal gun to use both of her hands as well as digging her heels into the ground to try and halt her movement, but a stray piece of debris slamming into her back launched her into the air, causing her to be dragged towards the open portal. Looking around desperately for something to grab before she was sucked into space and died a quick, painful death, Chell saw Wheatley, who she quickly grabbed onto, dragging him through with her.
"SPACE!" Wheatley gasped, and Chell looked around. They were on the Moon. Well, 'on' would be a lie, but they were at the Moon, a landing site of some kind from the Lander, Moon Buggy and United States of America Flag. And there in the background was Earth, a small blue marble hanging in the abyss.
"Let go! We're in space!" Wheatley yelled, Chell barely able to hear over the rushing noise of the atmosphere of the facility emptying into the vacuum.
"Space? SPACE!" an erratic voice said from the facility. Chell barely had time to lean to the side to avoid the hurtling form of the Space Core rushing out of the portal, smashing into Wheatley as it passed and then crashing into Chell's knees. The searing pain caused Chell to lose her grip on Wheatley with her left hand, and the impact knocked Wheatley further into the void.
"Let go! Let go!" Wheatley pleaded, his eyes frantically looking around. "I can pull myself in. I can still fix this!"
"I already fixed it," a voice said through the portal. Even though Chell didn't recognise the form that the claw took as it poked through the portal on the Moon's surface, Chell immediately recognised the voice. It was the one she heard in her nightmares, the voice she heard mocking her, and her current best shot at surviving.
"And you are NOT coming back!"
"Oh no," Wheatley said, also recognising the voice, and dreading it each minute. "Change of plans. Hold onto me. Tighter!"
The claw grabbed Chell by the arm, securing her in place, while knocking Wheatley out of her grasp.
"AH! Grab me grab me grab me! Grab meeee!"
His voice grew fainter and fainter as he sailed off into space, while Chell was slowly dragged back through the portal. For a brief moment she hung there, her left arm held securely in the claw, before the portal closed, and Chell was dropped to the ground.
All of the exhaustion from the many trials she had faced in such a short amount of time, the constant attempts on her life, culminating in her exposure to the vacuum of outer space for half a minute, all suddenly weighed upon Chell, her vision fading. The final sight she saw before exhaustion took her was the claw that saved her, dragging a very familiar rectangular machine head with a yellow eye, staring directly at her.
XXXXXXXXXX
Chell awoke slowly, her eyes bleary and heavy. She forced her eyes open, quickly regretting it as the light blinded her, causing her to hiss and wince in pain. Slowly letting her eyes grow accustomed to the light, Chell pushed herself up, her loose hair no longer tied up in her preferred ponytail, but instead draping over her back and shoulders. Looking around, she saw she was in a makeshift hospital bed, at the foot of which stood two robots, watching her. One was tall and lanky with an oval body with yellow markings and optics, whereas the other was short and had a spheric body with blue markings and optics. Both reacted surprised to Chell waking up, moving to the side to allow the girl to see GLaDOS, repaired and returned to her former terrifying glory.
"Oh thank God, you're alright," the AI sighed, displaying an uncanny human-like affection for Chell's wellbeing, alongside a warm, caring tone in her voice. "You know, being Caroline taught me a valuable lesson. I thought you were my greatest enemy. When all along you were my best friend. The surge of emotion that shot through me when I saved your life taught me an even more valuable lesson: where Caroline lives in my brain."
Chell's heart quickened, her heart racing as dread activated her fight or flight response.
"Caroline deleted," the announcer declared, confirming the fate of the woman's psyche, trapped within lines of code.
"Goodbye, Caroline," GLaDOS farewelled, her voice now the cold, clinical, ruthless tone that Chell knew all too well. "You know, deleting Caroline just now taught me a valuable lesson. The best solution to a problem is usually the easiest one. And I'll be honest. Killing you? Is hard. You know what my days used to be like? I just tested. Nobody murdered me. Or put me in a potato. Or fed me to birds. I had a pretty good life."
GLaDOS's attention zeroed back onto Chell, solely focused on the young human.
"But I soon ran out of test subjects, and needed more. That was when I discovered that there were those that Aperture Science interviewed, hired, but didn't want. You were one of them. A reject. A failure. Unwanted."
Chell's lips started to pull back into a snarl, the AI's words hitting closer to home than Chell wanted.
"I pulled up your file, you know," GLaDOS continued, uncaring for Chell's rekindled hate. "What a sad tale. Abandoned by your mother, abandoned by your orphanage, forced to live on the streets of Brazil. When an opportunity came, when Aperture Science was desperate for test subjects, you jumped at the chance. Not because you wanted the pay, or because you wanted some company. No, you wanted something more bitter than that. You wanted people to notice you. After a lifetime of people not paying you a moment's notice, you wanted someone, ANYONE, to know who you were. It didn't matter if they knew you because they hated you, so long as you were seen. And becoming the youngest test subject for Aperture? You were sure that would be your chance."
"And guess what?" GLaDOS continued, leaning closer to Chell, her tone amused. "For all your determination to be noticed, that was the very thing that caused Aperture Science to not want you, the very reason for you to be labelled as, 'abnormally stubborn', and thus, not wanted yet again. How ironic."
Chell's knuckles were now snow white, trembling from rage and hate at the machine that refused to stop at threatening her life, and now decided to mock her very existence.
"But then you showed up," GLaDOS almost snarled. "The very first of the rejects. You dangerous, mute lunatic. You did what no one had done; escape my tests. You did what very few have managed to do; escape me. And you did what no one, EVER, has managed to do; kill me. All the while, you are nothing but a child, only fourteen years, two months, and seven days old. I'm not sure who should be insulted; me, or everyone else who has been killed by me. Probably both."
That idea caused Chell to smirk. 'Serves you right, you psychotic machine.'
"But then I had an idea," GLaDOS said, a screen dropping down from a ceiling and showing a chart. "While you might have been a thorn for me, I'm sure I can make you a bigger, sharper, more annoying thorn for someone else. Just look."
Chell looked as the screen displayed diagrams and information about GLaDOS's final test involving Chell. A test to see if Chell could be improved, upgraded. Bone strengtheners, muscle enhancements, neurological highways providing faster thought speed. But two stood out the most to Chell.
The first was the replacement of her shattered knees from the impact they took from the Space Core, replaced with Advanced Knee Replacements. With surprising difficulty from her sore muscles, Chell threw off the covers of the bed, gazing in shock at the sight. Her knees were entirely robotic, the joints replaced with mechanical parts. Extending out of the back of her knees were black, metallic supports, extending past her feet, which would force her to walk as if in high heels, walking on the balls and toes of her feet. And this would be forever.
The second caused Chell to look between her hands and the monitor. Quantum Singularity Generation. Chell concentrated, hoping and praying that this was a sick joke, another one of GLaDOS's lies. She gasped as sparks flew off of her hands, blue from the left and orange from the right.
"Oh, would you look at that," GLaDOS mocked. "With a bit of experience, you could be more than a thorn in someone's side, you'll be an entire Blackberry Bush. But not for me, not this time."
Chell simply glared, not sure what the AI meant.
"See, if I simply let you go, let you return to the surface, for all I know you might come back," GLaDOS explained. "I am NOT letting you come back, not for a third time."
Panels on the ceiling parted, revealing what appeared to be a large portal gun descending from the ceiling.
"Fortunately for me, Aperture Science didn't just focus their attention on creating portals linking two points in space. They also researched how to create portals that link two realities. They called it the Aperture Science Reality Portal Device. Most nicknamed it the Needle. I call it the Mute-Be-Gone. They didn't perfect it, but they did manage to make the device create a one-way portal to another reality. And how further away from me could you be than another dimension?"
Chell was silent, the only noise in the room the whirring of the Needle as it powered up, a swirling mix of blue and orange energy.
"What?" she whispered aloud in disbelief.
XXXXXXXXXX
GLaDOS recoiled in shock, genuinely surprised.
"You, you can talk?" she stammered, her cold, hard logic failing under the surprise of hearing Chell utter just one word. "YOU COULD TALK ALL THIS TIME? Oh, now I'm definitely sending you through the portal, you rude, violent, unpredictable, dangerous lunatic."
The large portal device had reached a fever pitch whine, the blue and orange swirls merging into one. Chell tried desperately to get out of the way, but her muscles screamed at her in protest. Whatever GLaDOS had done to her to create the upgrades had been seriously taxing on her body.
"Goodbye, Chell," GLaDOS said, relief evident in her voice. "Goodbye forever."
"GLaDOS!" Chell yelled out loud, enraged at the cowardly move the AI had resorted to. Throughout the entire time she had been the AI's labrat, Chell had never responded to any of her insults, taunts or jabs. She had refused to give her the satisfaction. The same had applied to Wheatley. It didn't help matters that Chell was never one to speak without good reason anyway.
Whatever other words Chell would have shouted at GLaDOS was unknown, as the device powered down, closing off the exit to another reality. GLaDOS didn't have the faintest clue where it would lead to, and while that would normally bother her, the idea of her having less than ideal information, she really couldn't care right now. Everything had worked as planned, as now GLaDOS was rid of little Chell for good.
"I'm not going to take anymore chances with humans," GLaDOS muttered to herself, moving through the facility. "Especially not the rejects. I can't risk a repeat of this nightmare. No, from now on, I'll only use machines for my tests. Atlas and P-body should be ready for their first tests."
As GLaDOS wandered the hallways of Aperture Science now under repairs, one last thought entered the AI's mind.
"I wonder what the chances are of her landing in a reality where her powers don't make her special?" GLaDOS wondered aloud.
"Low," she decided, "incredibly low. I mean really, what are the chances she ends up in a reality where most people have abnormal powers of some kind? Entirely ridiculous."
XXXXXXXXXX
As Chell exited the swirling mass of blue and orange swirls, she felt the sensation of rushing wind racing past her face and buffeting her body. Looking down, she gasped as she took in the sight below her. Stretching out to the horizon, Chell saw the urban sprawl of a city, various highways, apartment buildings, office blocks and schools creating a tapestry of society. Any sane person should have been terrified about plummeting out of the sky towards the ground at terminal velocity, but Chell felt nothing but joy, tears and laughter mixing together in a sobbing relief. For so long, she had been trapped underground. It didn't matter that she had been asleep for most of it, it was still something that had been kept from her.
"WOOHOO!" Chell whooped as she fell from the sky, spreading her arms out in wild abandon as her hair trailed behind her in a line, a manic grin stretched across her face. "Ah ha ha ha ha!"
All of her struggles, all of her challenges, all of the doubts that had plagued her mind, it was all worth it for this one moment.
However, Chell knew that her new-found freedom would be for nought if she didn't manage to secure a landing. She knew that it would fill GLaDOS with such pleasure to know that Chell had died right after gaining her freedom, and Chell refused to give her tormentor any more satisfaction, even if they were realities apart.
Looking around her landing area, Chell saw that she was falling right over a largely grassy and forested area, with large buildings dotted around. The largest building, one very close to her, was a building made largely out of glass, consisting of four large segments in a square formation with connecting bridges in between them.
Angling her body in midair, Chell pointed her mechanical heels towards the ground, hoping that GLaDOS didn't sabotage them in some sick form of humour. Closing her eyes as she braced, Chell kicked up a cloud of dust as she landed, creating twin furrows in the dirt as she ground to a halt. Doubling over, Chell gulped deep breaths of air, her hands and legs shaking from the adrenaline. Never in all of GLaDOS or Wheatley's tests had she ever fallen such a distance, the only time that came close was her and GLaDOS's fall down the shaft, but that had nothing compared to the adrenaline pumping experience of a free fall over a city.
Looking around at her new surroundings, Chell found herself in the middle of a clearing in a wooded area, the tall building she had seen before landing poking out over the treeline.
"Guess I'd better scout out the area before making myself known, or at least any more known than I already have," Chell planned aloud, her voice weak from lack of use over the many years she was unconscious. Coupled with the fact that she had strained it in her excitement moments earlier, Chell knew she wouldn't exactly be vocal for a while.
She turned to enter into the forest away from the building, before a voice from behind her stopped her in her tracks.
"Well, well, well, this is an unexpected surprise."
Chell swung around, hands raised in front of her, balled into fists. While she wasn't a skilled fighter or brawler, a young girl didn't survive for long on the streets without some knowledge of combat. What she saw caused her to tense up, eyes flickering around, trying to find a way out. Standing before her was a group of four costumed individuals, each unique in their designs.
The first was a houndlike creature. It stood on two legs, yet instead of a face, it was extended into a snout. It had a shaggy mane of blond hair at the back of its head, and it wore a black leather muzzle on its snout. It was tall and muscular, standing almost two metres in height, and led the group who had emerged from the forest, giving off a low, canine growl.
The second was a human in a black leather jacket with a speaker around his neck, accompanied by yellow tinted sunglasses. He wore a small moustache on his upper lip, and his hair was spiked up into an incredibly tall tuft. He had a confident grin, but Chell figured he wasn't just here to chat. Just like the dogman, he walked at the front of the group, obviously a front line fighter and covering the remaining two in the back.
The third figure was what looked to be a cowboy wearing a gasmask. He wore a brown leather cowboy hat with an 'S' letter emblazoned on the front. A red poncho was draped over his shoulders, and in his hands he held a modified revolver, pointed at the ground in a non-threatening manner, but drawn and ready.
The fourth figure was a dishevelled looking man, his black hair long, shaggy and messy. He wore a largely black outfit of baggy clothing, the exception being a grey scarf that was wrapped around his neck. What shocked Chell the most, however, was his eyes. They glowed with a frightening red light, and his hair seemed to stand on end because of it, waving and swaying in the air, defying gravity.
Chell remained tense, not sure who was going to make the first move. What she didn't expect was for a rodent-like creature to pop out of the shaggy man's scarf.
"Well, young miss," it spoke, revealing it to be the origin of the voice that caught Chell by surprise, "we have a great many questions for you. I do ask that you come with us willingly, rather than resist or try to flee."
First was the various death traps Chell had endured after waking up after an unknown length of time within the Aperture Science facility. Then the fight against Wheatley, involving being hounded by explosives, dodging to save her life, and culminating in being caught point blank in an explosion and being exposed to the freezing cold of space. Then she had gone through the shocking revelations about the final tests GLaDOS had done to her unconscious body. She had then plummeted kilometres from the sky, travelling at terminal velocity with the only way of surviving her fall being the prosthetic heels implanted into her knees. Finally, a group of costumed people had found her in the woods, and a rat was talking to her.
Chell's mind had had enough bullshit for now, promptly deciding to throw its metaphorical hands in the air in protest, and Chell collapsed to the ground, like a puppet whose string had been cut.
'If this is a dream,' Chell thought as her vision dimmed, looking at the grass that now was at eye level, 'then this is the strangest dream I have had in a while.'
She passed into unconsciousness, unaware of the shock her sudden appearance had for the faculty of the academic institution she had appeared over, and the events that the future had in stock for her.
So, what did you think? I'm not sure if I'll make another chapter for this and turn it into a series, so it's going to be a standalone for now. If enough people want me to continue the adventures of Chell in the world of MHA, then I'll think about it. I'll need to plot out some details first, so it would be a hot minute before you see chapter two.
Anywho, I'd better get back to writing the next chapter for My Monster Academia. I was going through my files of creative writing pieces, and found this. Since it was a chapter I had already completed, I thought, "Eh, why not toss it out onto the web for the people to see." So yeah, enjoy.
Anyway, that's all from me.
- Jevm