When we stepped out of the elevator, we made our way up the staircase and into the next test chamber. We heard a voice.
"Hey, oi oi! I'm up here! Oh brilliant, you did find a Portal Gun! You know what, this just goes to show, people with brain damage are the... Wait, who are you?!" From the description Chell gave me, I could guess that this was Wheatley, the one she talked about. She said she doesn't respond to them to piss them off. I guess I could play the same game for a while.
"No wait... That jacket, don't tell me you found another vegetable here!" Chell didn't respond, so he just continued with what he wanted to say originally. "Whatever, it's not important, just come through to this side of the room, and we can meet there."
Chell just did that without a complaint, and we met the funny robot at a more personal distance. "Okay, you guys, listen to me, it's pretty grim. They told me to never ever disengage myself from my Management Rail or I will die. We're pretty much out of options, so I have to do this. If I'm not dead by some miracle at the end of this, try to catch me! Alright, on the count of 3. One... Two... Three!!!" We were under him, trying to catch him, but he backed out at the last second. "Oh, that is high, way too high! Counting to 3 gives you way too much to think, so let's do it on 1. Okay, prepare! One! Catchmecatchmecatchme!!! OW... Ouch." We just watched him fall down a second time, fully expecting him to back out again. Luckily, it seemed he was still in one piece and functional.
"I am not dead! I am not dead. You do have to carry me. I can't move on my own." Chell just picked him up with the Portal Gun before he could start complaining. "Thank you, fantastic! Now plug me into that wall over there, and I'll do a cool thing that will impress the both of you." We walked over and placed him inside the device. I was already getting a bit annoyed by his antics.
"Now look away! I can't do it if you're watching me. Seriously, I'm not kidding." We turned away and heard the noise of something heavy moving behind us. When we looked back, we saw the wall open up.
"Pretty cool, right? Secret panel, I got it open when you had your back turned. Now pick me up and let's get going." Once again, Chell picked him up, and we walked out onto something like a scaffolding between chambers. If I had to guess, it was probably for the former scientists or for quick repairs.
"Now, with no rails, we can go wherever we want! Hold on, where are we now? Let me get my bearings... Actually, just follow the path." We ignored him and just walked on the scaffolding along the given path.
We were walking a bit when suddenly we heard a noise and saw a red laser. "Hello? Hello?" A white robot was lying down in some kind of pipe. She had a big red eye and a smooth, oval-shaped body with three legs.
Wheatley didn't seem to like her and wanted to move on: "Yes, hi. Just keep moving and don't look her in the eye." The lying machine didn't reply, just repeated itself: "Excuse me? Hello?"
"Don't look back, just go. No thank you. Bye. See you later." Chell started walking away with Wheatley, but I didn't want to leave her behind, so I grabbed a large titanium monkey wrench from my vault that my large units used in the making of Rapture. I smashed the heavy tool down on the thick glass and cracked it quite a bit. This is due to my evolution; I've become a lot stronger than before. I feel like I can lift about 800 kg worth of materials without hurting myself. I may not be among monsters like All Might or even Mirko in strength, but I left the territory of a normal human a while ago. Hell, this wrench by itself weighs about 30 kilograms, and it's a meter long.
Chell turned around to see what the noise was, with Wheatley. "Hey, what's the big idea? You can't break that glass, it's bulletproof and made specifically to handle heavy impacts from items traveling through it. Also, where the hell did you even hide or find that ridiculous wrench?" I saw that Chell also gave me a questioning look, but I didn't care for now. I just kept hitting the glass with all my might. I have to give credit where credit is due: Wheatley wasn't lying when he told me how tough and durable this glass was. I eventually got an idea and began smashing a small area on the glass near a metal coupling. After five heavy hits, I managed to break a small hole in it, then shoved my wrench through it and put pressure against the metal until it cracked, and I was able to move the pipes apart a bit.
"How in the bloody hell did you do that?! What has your caretaker given you that made you so strong? Can't you just leave that turret here? We have places to be." Wheatley and Chell both looked shocked. I just gave them a wink and turned my attention back toward the helpless robot. I used my hands to pry the tubes further apart. I then broke and bent the railing of the scaffolding so I would have safer and easier access to the pipes. I quickly moved the junk out of the way and fished out the turret. I secured her to my back by using my loaned jacket as a harness. "Thank you! Please, take me with you!" The cute turret thanked me for saving her and wanted to come along. I had no problem with it, so I just shrugged, climbed out of the tube, and jumped back onto the walkway.
"Sigh~ Alright, bring her along. Just come already." Wheatley was getting impatient, but I think he didn't want to piss me off, so he held back his tongue. Chell obviously wanted to ask a ton of questions but didn't want to speak in front of the robots, so she just swallowed her curiosity and started walking again. I followed with the turret on my back, whom I decided to name Blinky for now since her laser kept blinking in and out.
Our group arrived in front of a large security door that opened up the moment we arrived. There was another identical door behind it that, after a little time, let us through as well. Out of the blue, however, when we went through the second door, Wheatley spoke up: "I probably should have told you this before, but in order to escape, we're going to have to go through HER chamber. She will most likely kill us if she's awake. We could also just stay here forever and call it quits—that's also an option for us." I didn't really know who he was talking about, but Chell didn't seem frightened in the slightest. On the contrary, she looked pleased with herself for some reason.
"Alright, I'm going to be honest, I don't want to go in there. No, stop, wait, don't go in there!" Chell just marched through the glass corridor toward the room and went through the automatic door.
After we entered, Wheatley commented with relief: "Oh, thank the heavens she's off. It's all fine, just go—she's off." Inside the room was a giant machine lying on the ground. It was broken apart and in very bad shape, if I saw it right. I instantly knew from the designation on the broken frame that this was GLaDOS. She was the one Chell defeated last time, and she was also the one who killed everyone around here.
"Oh, there she is. What a nasty piece of work she was. She was a proper lunatic, I tell you that." Chell stopped for a second and just looked at the broken pile of machinery she took down, with a bit of melancholy and sadness, but mostly anger. Wheatley just droned on: "Do you know who purged her in the end? I didn't want to believe it myself—a human! They most likely already escaped. It happened a few years ago, actually. After that, there was nothing anyone could do, and the whole place fell into ruin, as you can see." We continued our walk for a bit, but suddenly Blinky spoke a single word: "Caroline." All of us stopped and looked at her with questioning gazes, but she just repeated what she had said: "Caroline." "Ah, well, it's not important. That damaged turret is just speaking nonsense. Let's go toward the stairs, okay?" We all just agreed and continued our journey. We soon arrived at a large drop where the staircase had collapsed.
"Jump! Well, that's quite the fall. Oh, no matter, you have special braces on your legs. Just hold on to the device with me attached to it. Make sure you have a firm grip on it since there are no braces on your arms. Also, try not to land on your back or head since those don't have them either." Chell just jumped down, no fucks given about the whining and screaming of the British Core.
He quickly settled down and shouted up at me: "I don't know how you will get down here, but try not to break your neck, okay? That would seriously slow us down." I just cracked a grin at his comment and thought about a way to get down from here. I didn't want to reveal my wings in case these robots had a central memory bank or something. Revealing my strength was already a big risk.
After a bit of thinking, I got a really reckless and possibly stupid idea. I tore off chunks of metal bars from the staircase's railing and threw them at the opposing wall with full force. The metal rods lodged deep into the wall, so I was able to climb down them with little to no difficulty.
"I seriously think there is something wrong with you. I mean, who just does that out of the blue?" Wheatley continued his less and less amusing commentary. Chell just looked impressed and wanted to try my method of transport. Only after I was halfway down did it occur to me—and her—that she could have just simply portaled me down to her. Ah, who cares? It was cool.
"Oh crap, alright, I advise you guys not to look down. Ah! I did it again by accident." Both of us just simply looked down, not really fearing heights, knowing my wings could save us if we fell in the worst-case scenario. Even with the comfort of our safety net provided by me, I couldn't shake the uncomfortable feeling in my back after looking down and seeing the sheer depth of this facility. Like seriously, it was so deep that even with my improved eyesight, I couldn't pierce through the fog far below us.
"This is the main breaker room. Let's go in. You guys look for a switch that has 'escape pod' written on it. Don't touch anything else and don't even look more than necessary at any of these levers." We started looking around the really tall and dark room, carefully navigating around each other to avoid bumping into any of these things.
"Did you guys find it? I can't see it anywhere. Uh, alright, plug me in and I'll turn the lights on to make this easier." Chell did as he asked, and we waited for him to do his thing. "And done! 'Let there be light.' If you don't get it, I was quoting God. Oh! This thing is turning. How creepy. It should be fine though, at least it shouldn't start moving up." Of course, the moment he said that, we felt the platform beneath our feet begin to rise.
"That isn't good, but don't worry, I've got it—I've got it. This should slow down the lift. No, of course, it just makes it go faster. Fantastic!" As we ascended amidst Wheatley's sarcastic comments, we saw that every switch was getting turned on by the platform as it moved up.
When we arrived at the top, we heard a new voice coming from a comms system not far away: "Power-up initiated."
"Alright, don't panic. I can still stop this! There's a password. I can try to hack it. Uh, A...A...A...A...A...and A." [Loud Buzzer]
"So not that. How about, A...A...A...A...A... maybe B?" [Loud Buzzer]
"Power-up complete!" We and Chell watched in worry as the formerly scrapped and destroyed robot started to assemble itself and boot up fully. I stepped in front of Chell to shield her from what was to come.
"New plan: Be kind, act natural!" Wheatley whispered towards us from the console, then shouted towards GLaDOS: "Hello!"
The moment she saw us—mainly Chell—she spoke up as well: "Oh, it's you."
"You know her?" the poor core asked in shock.
"It's been a while, how have you been? You know, after you murdered me!"
"You did what?!"
GLaDOS then tried to grab us with large claws, but before she could grab Chell and me, I pushed her out of the way. "Oh, and who might you be? No matter, I wouldn't recommend trying to escape. Even if you could, can you protect yourself and her from the neurotoxin that will seep into the room approximately a minute from now?" I stopped struggling in her claw and saw her picking up Chell as well. I simply couldn't risk this crazy robot doing something to us fast enough for me to not be able to react. I just held against the pressure of the claws to save Blinky from being crushed like Wheatley was moments ago.
GLaDOS then turned her head towards Chell and continued her spiteful monologue: "Okay, look, we both said a lot of things that you're going to regret, but I think we can put our differences aside for science. You monster." She threw away Wheatley's body and began to lift us toward a large disposal chute.
"I will say though, since you went through all the trouble to wake me up, you must really, really love to test. I love it too, there's just one thing we need to take care of first." She then dropped us down the chute, through a long and dark chasm beneath it. To slow my descent, I unfurled my wings and tried to use them to slow us down, but I tried to make it not too obvious in case GLaDOS was still watching us. Unfortunately, the only way we managed to do this was by discarding my wrench, and I had to climb on the back of Chell so her boots could reduce the impact on the slopes.
We managed to come out alive and unharmed when we finally landed. I quickly checked on Blinky to see if she was alright. Other than a few scratches, she was A-okay.
Before we could celebrate, we heard GLaDOS again: "Here we are, the incinerator room. Be careful not to step on any parts of me that didn't get completely burned when you threw them down here. The dual portal device should be here as well. Once you find it, we can continue testing just like old times." Before we continued towards the next room, I spotted something buried under the rubble near the flames. I stopped Chell and pointed it out to her. Since it looked like a gun, I thought it would come in handy. I lowered myself just enough so I could grab it. It was weird—it looked like an old revolver with mismatched parts and wires fixed on it. On its back, there was a simple touch screen that highlighted options for what I would like to do.
Even GLaDOS commented on it: "Ah, the Tool Gun. It was one of the oldest prototypes of Aperture Science, but it was a failure. It was only good for constructing things. It had energy problems, it only worked on simple and non-living targets, and it had both a height and weight limit on what it could do. I'm not going to lie, it was promising, but everyone knows that the future is in portal technology." We continued on our path as GLaDOS finished her monologue once again. Even if it's limited, I still pocketed the gun and secretly connected it to my vault by placing it inside and taking it out quickly, since the vault, with its infinite energy, can supply any electronics with power forever. Thus, I already eliminated one of the downsides of this weapon.
In the next room, we found Chell's old Portal Gun, which she used to take down GLaDOS the first time. "There it is! Hold on... there, now you have a dual portal device. You should have a way back to the testing area up ahead." Chell quickly grabbed it after some panels lifted the rubble from it.
She made a two-way portal to the other side of the junk pile while I contemplated: What should I do for now?