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actuallykiwi · 4 months

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Don't Let Go

Ho, ho, ho @livnimbe, I'm your @portal-secret-santa!

For your gift, I wrote you a little ficlet about the final battle with android!cores... and a few twisties ;)

I hope you enjoy! Merry Christmas <3

"You like revenge, right? Everybody likes revenge! Well, let's go get some!" GLaDOS prompted, shaking her little fist in the air. Being a little shorter than a foot tall, clad in a potato sack and one small finger jammed into a computer port, it was hard to take her seriously. But those glowing yellow eyes were filled with murderous determination.

No, that's not what was making Chell nervous. As the elevator raced upwards, there was one thing she was most apprehensive about seeing again: Him.

Chell didn't even look down as she stepped off the platform and into the chamber. He was descending from the ceiling, perched on the console like a king on his throne, blue eyes pulsating with the power coursing through him. "Welcome, TO MY LAIR!" Wheatley's gangly arms outstretched with pride.

This wasn't Wheatley. This wasn't her Wheatley. This wasn't the Wheatley she spent weeks exploring the facility with. The one she let share stories about the scientists over the campfires. The one that made her feel less afraid because of just how terrified he was and how she had to be the brave one. The one that was always encouraging her, even with seemingly almost no way out. Because he believed, no, knew if anyone could find a way, she would.

This wasn't that Wheatley. What he had become was completely foreign to her, nothing like her friend. Even as he ranted about the fires, the neurotoxin, and the bombs, even as he boasted about killing her, Chell was hesitating.

But in Aperture, hesitation meant death.

So though it hurt, she readied her portal gun and darted as the bombs began to cascade. The whole time it was his voice taunting her, trying to distract her. She had been through this before, but last time it was different. She was ready to destroy GLaDOS. But Wheatley...

Chell dove behind a pipe transporting conversion gel. As the last bomb struck it, everything become white and covered in the portal surface. Just what she needed. But the realization hit her. She had to hit Wheatley with the bombs.

She grimaced as she took her place on the far side of the room and let the bombs follow her, popping a portal behind him. When the next wave started, she popped the other below her and dove out of the way. She couldn't look as it made contact with his back. Wheatley cried out and her heart ached. But she had no time to feel remorse. He was temporarily knocked out, and GLaDOS was bringing the first corrupted core in.

From above the catwalk, a chittering android with orange eyes softer than GLaDOS was cradling a rocket ship toy. The metal arm he was dangling from released him, and Chell leapt across the catwalk to catch him. Luckily, these hard-light androids were primarily composed of sunlight, so they were very warm, and very lightweight. Which helped, as they were all the same height or taller than Chell.

The catwalk collapsed and splattered repulsion gel, leaving her a bouncy blue path to Wheatley. With the space core bumbling about galaxies to her, Chell sprung to Wheatley's incapacitated body and latched the core's back to an exposed port.

Space core was wiggling and playfully parading his rocket around as Wheatley came back to, stretching as if Chell had just hit him with a fly swatter. She couldn't lie and say she wasn't a bit relieved, but it was time for the next one.

The second time she hit him with the bomb, from underneath him, Chell could see the scorch marks it was leaving on his hard-light body. She was now angry that she was having to do this. Angry at him for making her, for this being the only way. And the next core was no help.

When she caught the fact core, it perched itself on her awkwardly like a cat, spewing some nonsense about cats, in fact. She almost threw his lanky body at Wheatley dead-on, but couldn't risk missing the port.

Wheatley was now furious. She had seen him frustrated before, back before he changed, but this was unadulterated rage. Whatever had possessed him truly wanted to kill her. If Chell knew what fear was anymore, she would probably feel it then. But she pressed on and portaled a bomb to him once more. Sparks from the power withdrawal and damage to the console were beginning to sprinkle the floor.

So, hard-light had synthetic pain, apparently. Rick, the adventure core, was an odd mixture of pride and shame when being carried by Chell. His attempts at flirting had no affect on her, but it was him stroking her cheek that set her off. She flung Rick off of her and jammed the butt of the portal gun between his legs. Rick perfectly simulated how a man would react to this, and with his perversion out of the way, Chell slung him onto one of Wheatley's ports upside-down.

Wheatley was twitching periodically when he came back online. Much to Chell's relief, the bodiless announcer voice came on to initiate the core transfer. GLaDOS appeared from where the elevator was, her tiny body eager to get this over with.

Chell was tired. But she knew Wheatley would argue, and he did, and she would have to press the stalemate button. However, a fire had been started in the Stalemate Resolution Chamber, and the sprinkler system turned on. All of the white portal surface gel washed away, back to the stale grey steel of the chamber. All, but one.

Wheatley hadn't noticed that he had created an umbrella over himself and left one small patch of gel beneath him. Or maybe he had. If Chell had looked closer at the chamber, glimpsed what was behind the fence around the button, she would have seen the bombs. But exhaustion, frustration, and grief had caused a momentary lapse in her cautious judgment. She created a portal to the button and leapt through.

And was sent flying in a fiery frenzy back into the chamber.

Everything burned. All she felt was fire. She smelled burning skin. Her vision was distorted. And she could hear Wheatley's unbridled fury as she somehow managed to survive the blast. If you could call it surviving.

She had no strength left. Even the fight with GLaDOS had not hurt this bad. But maybe the pain wasn't all physical. Her friend, her only friend in her small, bland world, was doing his best to kill her. She trusted him, helped him, and he spat at her and called her selfish. Any hope she had had diminished. She was done. She painstakingly turned to roll on her back, every inch of her body either simmering or sore from the fight. Her only friend was screaming at her, calling her worthless, wishing she were dead and sharing her "all hope is lost" sentiment.

The ceiling crumbled above her as the facility neared its end. And there was the moon. Beautiful Luna. Bright, shining, and huge in the abyss of the sky. Had it always been so big? Just how long had it been since she'd seen it?

And then a thought occurred to her. The moon. Moon rocks. Moon rocks make a great portal conductor. Portals...

It was crazy. A crazy, girl-at-the-end-of-her-rope thought. But at this point, what choice did she have? Despite her body's protests, she raised the portal gun at the face of Luna, and fired. The recoil of the gun slammed her further onto the crumbling floor, nearly knocking her unconscious, but she was awake enough to see what happened next.

There was a moment of utter quiet. And then the chamber became a vacuum. Everything that wasn't nailed to the building, even some things that were, were now being sucked through the portal beneath Wheatley. This included Chell. Wheatley was struggling to keep himself attached to his throne, but the entire console was fighting, a mess of wire and metal thrashing in the vortex. Chell found herself suddenly flying right towards him, and reached for absolutely anything to hold onto. She found the collar of his shirt and clung on for dear life. There was an intense pulling, and then there they were.

Chell was clinging onto Wheatley's shirt in the facility, while her body was flailing in outer space.

Object were being hurled around them, knocking them this way and that, but despite having little strength left, covered in wounds, and on the brink of losing consciousness, Chell clung to him. "Let go! I can fix this! I can still fix this!" He yelled over the vacuum.

"I already fixed it!" GLaDOS had metal arms reaching through the portal. One had a hold of Chell's waist, "and you are NOT coming back!" and the other was about to cut Wheatley loose.

There was a moment. A brief, sudden moment, when Chell met Wheatley's eyes and the deafening sound of the vacuum faded away. She no longer saw the monstrous, maniacal machine that wanted her dead. She saw fear. He was afraid. He was the same tall, dorky, chatty android that showed her around the facility. That saved her from her sleep. That helped calm her down after nightmares by just speaking nonsense. That wanted her freedom just as badly as she did. He was still there. Buried, possessed by something he had no control over. And she was about to lose him to oblivion.

Even if it meant her death, even if it was a dream and he was really gone, she made a decision. Just as the metal arm reached his connection, she wrapped herself around him and held on with all the strength she had left.

The arm stopped. There was a pause, then something that could be perceived as a mechanical sigh. Then a jolt as the arm around Chell pulled back into the portal, and the portal closed.

They both collapsed to the ground, and GLaDOS ripped Wheatley's connection from the console. He cried out and curled up next to Chell, who was slowly fading. "You.. you saved me." He whispered.

"You really do have brain damage, don't you?" GLaDOS's tall and slender original android form stood over them, Wheatley's ripped cables in hand.

Chell could only see blurry shapes, their voices sounding a mile away. Everything was going numb with pain, but she felt a hand. A warm, gentle hand cradled her head. "Hey, you're gonna be okay, luv, you're gonna be just fine..." Before her consciousness left her, she saw gently glowing blue eyes watching her, not pulsating ones. And she knew.

That was her Wheatley.

#writing #fanfiction #portal 2 #portal #chell #glados #wheatley #chelley #portal secret santa #portal secret santa 2023

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