Fic: Portal - Corrupted
Title: Corrupted
Fandom: Portal/Portal 2
Pairings: None
Description: A re-imagining of a scene from the end of Portal 2 - SPOILERS WITHIN! Written to fill this prompt on the Portal Kink Meme: http://portalkink.livejournal.com/649.html?thread=829065#t829065
Rating: T - graphic description of broken electronics...?
Chell landed with a soft grunt as she fell from a portal to a small platform, overlooking the deep shaft she’d just come from. Glancing around, she saw the platform lead to a darkened corridor - and faintly, she could hear a familiar grinding… the sound of the GLaDOS chassis twisting and contorting from its dangling perch. Wheatley had to be close!
Quickly, she turned and sprinted down the corridor, and as she neared its end she saw a light; this turned into seeing two glass bins, the light reflecting harshly off their surfaces.
“Corrupted cores! We’re in luck,” the potato on the end of Chell’s gun suddenly chirped, catching sight of the bins as Chell neared them and slowed curiously. “You find a way to stun him, I’ll send you a core, and then… what are you doing?”
Chell had come to a complete stop in front of the two bins. Now that she was closer the glare on the glass walls of the bins had dissipated, allowing Chell to see their contents - mangled heaps of absolutely ruined android cores, bent and broken and ripped to shreds. These utterly destroyed things - many still vaguely human-shaped - were nothing that could have been prepared for. Even Wheatley hadn’t been so badly damaged after he’d gone through GLaDOS’ little crushing exercise.
“H-hey lady!” Chell suddenly jumped and looked up- and nearly shouted when she saw a chipped, cracked face staring at her through the glass. “Hey lady! Wh- hey! Hey! Wh- what’s your favorite thing about space?...” It was one of the corrupted cores, except… except it was alive. It was alive and staring at Chell with bright yellow eyes, its mouth turned up in an ecstatic grin and its artificial hair matted and brown. This would have been easier to bear if the core’s face wasn’t missing several plates or hadn’t had those spiderweb cracks going down the center, if its lower body wasn’t completely mangled and twisted - if its head wasn’t turned at 180 degrees, thanks to the destruction and partial removal of its’ neck’s structural supports.
“Space, space is the best, I wanna go to space!” it babbled in a garbled voice, eyes darting around, head twisting with them with the sickening scrape of metal-on-metal. Chell took a few quick steps back, her eyes locked onto the broken android core in horror.
“Heeeey, pretty lady. Don’t be frightened! He’s just a li’l overenthusiastic,” came another voice - gruff, male, and vaguely cocky. Chell looked down to find the source of the voice and was greeted with the sight of another core, this one almost worse than the first. His dark, artificial hair was patchy and seemed to have been burned, almost melted off; one of its green eyes was smashed inward and barely functional, cracks radiating from it across its face and the bridge of its nose. One of its arms was half torn off, too - and stray sparks were continually showering out of the torn wires and cords. On top of all this, it was completely trapped at the bottom of the dead core pile.
“Why don’tcha come back over here and get t’ know us better. The name’s Rick,” the green-eyed core said, waggling thick, burnt plastic eyebrows at her in a supposedly suggestive, but more gruesome way. Chell could almost feel the blood drain from her face.
“Don’t do it,” GLaDOS warned. “If you interact with these insane cores they’ll all just get worse-“
“Fact: The Adventure Core is a blowhard and scares all women,” broke in a third voice, and Chell immediately recoiled in horror when she saw the core it came from. This core, sitting mid-pile, was almost completely strewn apart - its arms and legs were attached to its body by only a few wires each, and the limbs had several pieces missing from them that sparked and fizzled. Its chest was torn open, wires and circuit boards pulled out and strewn all over the place, as if the core had been in maintenance when it was sent to this dismal bin; Chell could even see the miniature reactor buried inside the depths of its torso. Worst still, its face was practically mauled, and it was completely missing one eye -its other was badly cracked, glowing with soft pink light. Chell wondered if the poor thing could even see.
The pink core craned its neck and glanced around randomly, reinforcing Chell’s thought that it was partly blinded. “Fact: the Fact Core thinks that whoever is present should finish the repairs being made upon it… and perhaps take it out of the Corrupt Core Receptacle. Fact: the Fact Core is not corrupt.”
“Pinkie, if you weren’t corrupt you wouldn’t be in here,” the green core - Adventure Core, or Rick - piped up, craning its neck to look at the mangled Fact Core. “Now, as for me - I’m not corrupt, no siree. I got in here on an adventure! I was minding my own business, sneaking through a chamber under the guard of about twenty turrets, when-“
“SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!” The yellow core suddenly screeched and Chell gave a small yelp, the core’s broken vocal simulator producing a painful high-pitched sound. GLaDOS gave a small grunt of pain as well.
“What are you doing, still in here? Get away from these things!” the potato said urgently. “I told you not to interact with them!”
Chell gladly obliged, running away from the bins and the three corrupted cores, which had now begun to bicker amongst themselves. She could just barely hear the green one’s voice over the others, shouting, “Hey, lady! Come back here! Don’t you wanna be my sidekick and help me escape?”
With a quick shudder, trying to rid the memory of those sad things from her mind, Chell ran along and listened to GLaDOS detail her plan to stop Wheatley. Anything would be better than remembering the poor androids in their glass prison, irreparably broken… and unfathomably alone.
Fandom: Portal/Portal 2
Pairings: None
Description: A re-imagining of a scene from the end of Portal 2 - SPOILERS WITHIN! Written to fill this prompt on the Portal Kink Meme: http://portalkink.livejournal.com/649.html?thread=829065#t829065
Rating: T - graphic description of broken electronics...?
Chell landed with a soft grunt as she fell from a portal to a small platform, overlooking the deep shaft she’d just come from. Glancing around, she saw the platform lead to a darkened corridor - and faintly, she could hear a familiar grinding… the sound of the GLaDOS chassis twisting and contorting from its dangling perch. Wheatley had to be close!
Quickly, she turned and sprinted down the corridor, and as she neared its end she saw a light; this turned into seeing two glass bins, the light reflecting harshly off their surfaces.
“Corrupted cores! We’re in luck,” the potato on the end of Chell’s gun suddenly chirped, catching sight of the bins as Chell neared them and slowed curiously. “You find a way to stun him, I’ll send you a core, and then… what are you doing?”
Chell had come to a complete stop in front of the two bins. Now that she was closer the glare on the glass walls of the bins had dissipated, allowing Chell to see their contents - mangled heaps of absolutely ruined android cores, bent and broken and ripped to shreds. These utterly destroyed things - many still vaguely human-shaped - were nothing that could have been prepared for. Even Wheatley hadn’t been so badly damaged after he’d gone through GLaDOS’ little crushing exercise.
“H-hey lady!” Chell suddenly jumped and looked up- and nearly shouted when she saw a chipped, cracked face staring at her through the glass. “Hey lady! Wh- hey! Hey! Wh- what’s your favorite thing about space?...” It was one of the corrupted cores, except… except it was alive. It was alive and staring at Chell with bright yellow eyes, its mouth turned up in an ecstatic grin and its artificial hair matted and brown. This would have been easier to bear if the core’s face wasn’t missing several plates or hadn’t had those spiderweb cracks going down the center, if its lower body wasn’t completely mangled and twisted - if its head wasn’t turned at 180 degrees, thanks to the destruction and partial removal of its’ neck’s structural supports.
“Space, space is the best, I wanna go to space!” it babbled in a garbled voice, eyes darting around, head twisting with them with the sickening scrape of metal-on-metal. Chell took a few quick steps back, her eyes locked onto the broken android core in horror.
“Heeeey, pretty lady. Don’t be frightened! He’s just a li’l overenthusiastic,” came another voice - gruff, male, and vaguely cocky. Chell looked down to find the source of the voice and was greeted with the sight of another core, this one almost worse than the first. His dark, artificial hair was patchy and seemed to have been burned, almost melted off; one of its green eyes was smashed inward and barely functional, cracks radiating from it across its face and the bridge of its nose. One of its arms was half torn off, too - and stray sparks were continually showering out of the torn wires and cords. On top of all this, it was completely trapped at the bottom of the dead core pile.
“Why don’tcha come back over here and get t’ know us better. The name’s Rick,” the green-eyed core said, waggling thick, burnt plastic eyebrows at her in a supposedly suggestive, but more gruesome way. Chell could almost feel the blood drain from her face.
“Don’t do it,” GLaDOS warned. “If you interact with these insane cores they’ll all just get worse-“
“Fact: The Adventure Core is a blowhard and scares all women,” broke in a third voice, and Chell immediately recoiled in horror when she saw the core it came from. This core, sitting mid-pile, was almost completely strewn apart - its arms and legs were attached to its body by only a few wires each, and the limbs had several pieces missing from them that sparked and fizzled. Its chest was torn open, wires and circuit boards pulled out and strewn all over the place, as if the core had been in maintenance when it was sent to this dismal bin; Chell could even see the miniature reactor buried inside the depths of its torso. Worst still, its face was practically mauled, and it was completely missing one eye -its other was badly cracked, glowing with soft pink light. Chell wondered if the poor thing could even see.
The pink core craned its neck and glanced around randomly, reinforcing Chell’s thought that it was partly blinded. “Fact: the Fact Core thinks that whoever is present should finish the repairs being made upon it… and perhaps take it out of the Corrupt Core Receptacle. Fact: the Fact Core is not corrupt.”
“Pinkie, if you weren’t corrupt you wouldn’t be in here,” the green core - Adventure Core, or Rick - piped up, craning its neck to look at the mangled Fact Core. “Now, as for me - I’m not corrupt, no siree. I got in here on an adventure! I was minding my own business, sneaking through a chamber under the guard of about twenty turrets, when-“
“SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!” The yellow core suddenly screeched and Chell gave a small yelp, the core’s broken vocal simulator producing a painful high-pitched sound. GLaDOS gave a small grunt of pain as well.
“What are you doing, still in here? Get away from these things!” the potato said urgently. “I told you not to interact with them!”
Chell gladly obliged, running away from the bins and the three corrupted cores, which had now begun to bicker amongst themselves. She could just barely hear the green one’s voice over the others, shouting, “Hey, lady! Come back here! Don’t you wanna be my sidekick and help me escape?”
With a quick shudder, trying to rid the memory of those sad things from her mind, Chell ran along and listened to GLaDOS detail her plan to stop Wheatley. Anything would be better than remembering the poor androids in their glass prison, irreparably broken… and unfathomably alone.