Test Chamber 036: Training

[super_astute]

The puzzle wasn't hard, he told himself, and it certainly wasn't impossible.  No, in fact, he knew the solution but he just wasn't going to play without Chelldon.  He repeated that out loud, telling Tyler that his training course was very lack luster.  He did not need to be taught to jump.  Or to use the Apperture Science Portal Making Device.

In all actuality, Wheatley just couldn't figure out why the portals weren't working because he'd forgotten that he could actually switch colours to allow him to place two portals on the walls.

He just kept firing one over and over...  'To check how the gun was working.'  "Safety first, Tyler!" he said before Chelldon pretty much literally dropped down on him.  "AAAH!"

Comments

[stubbornsubject.livejournal.com]

Okay so at first he'd been near a heart attack but when the sound of the fail neurotoxins alerted through the room, he had a weird feeling that had been Wheatley. How? How the bloody hell did that happen? It made zero sense to him and he had to stare in confusion.

Wheatley did something right. Good Lord that was terrifying.

"Get off you giant tumour!" GLaDOS snapped and the panel Wheatley had been on suddenly sprung up, knocking the poor core flying. GLaDOS couldn't do much now but hang over head, trying to fix his facility.

The whole issue with killing these lot was second priority... but he was going to try and smash Tyler with some falling debris. And Wheatley.

"Careful!" Chelldon yelled, bracing himself in case he had to run and save Wheatley.

[super-astute.livejournal.com]

And just in time too, not that the android had any idea about that. He even frowned a bit as Chelldon dove to the rescue and they rolled under the desk with poor Tyler, the dented and sparking core.

"I was just about to find the proper cake dispensers!" he proclaimed with a very sad little sigh and rubbed his hands over his eyes before he fixed his poor glasses. Oh! Oh no, and one side was smashed! He plucked them off his face, horrified, not that he needed them, but because no one would take him seriously now!

His hands actually shook, nevermind the place coming down around them as GLaDOS tried to kill them and save the facility at the same time.

"I'm never going to get that promotion!"

[stubbornsubject.livejournal.com]

Chelldon just remained ducked and covered, holding the sparking core that was unfortunately burning and shocking him. He was just waiting for the perfect time to make a break for it and grab Wheatley. They really did need to find a way out before GLaDOS tried to murder them all with something besides neurotoxins like--

Oh, fantastic, GLaDOS read his mind and dropped a load of turrets in. Leaving Tyler behind safely, he got out from the table to get a better range, shooting a portal under Wheatleys feet and one beside the table till the moron fell through.

All this because of his glasses? Oh who cared?

Their biggest problem was their potential murder! The death and destruction and-- oh, whoops, he forgot to get Hunt. Looking around, he stared in confused.

Erm... where did the chief go?

[super-astute.livejournal.com]

Well technically, he'd never been in the control room at all, just visible through the screen. Tyler had made them all slip into their own test chambers and Hunt was there still, recovering from being over exercised and all right, laying in the middle of the room he'd been locked in for several hours now.

Wheatley skidded to a stop as he and Chelldon rounded the corners away from the turrets. "We need to get those offline," he said with a frown, pushing up shattered glasses to rest more easily on the bridge of his nose. "Or maybe convert them to our cause? Offer them a better benefits package? Better skins?"

What? He had no idea what turrets wanted!

"Either way, I think that GLaDOS bloke is never going to give us cake. Or promotions. He'd have done it already."

[stubbornsubject.livejournal.com]

Chelldon decided that they always had worked like dominoes and therefore the best way to take them down was, logically, to knock them over with something like another turret or a cube or, in theory, a very mouthy little core. Chelldon wasn't overly proud of what he did next but it worked.

He shot a portal just across from the turrets, threw Tyler through and much like bowling, he spun into all four surrounding them. Ha! Strike.

Chelldon, of course, used the portals to retrieve Tyler before he got splattered.

Turning to Wheatley, he gave him an innocent expression. "No cake?"

[super-astute.livejournal.com]

"Cake, Chelldon, you need to focus!" Wheatley said, as kindly as possible, though he was starting to get just a little bit annoyed by it all. Chelldon and his cake fetish was going to cost him quite a lot of problems! He needed to get his poor, brain damaged test subject back in the game.

Gripping his shoulders, he gazed intently at the other man and nodded. Slowly.

"As soon as we're not going to die, I promise you, all the cake you can ever eat. Honestly. But right now, we're going to get crushed or stomped or shot or turned into Tyler. I can not be a core again. I just can't, it's horrible."

He nodded at Chelldon until the man nodded back and smiled, relieved.

[stubbornsubject.livejournal.com]

Oh Chelldon knew, he understood perfectly, he just enjoyed winding the other man up a bit. Hey, he got called and treated like a brain damaged moron... he had the right to play on it a bit to annoy everyone around him. Yes he liked cake but right now that was the last thought on his mind.

He was far to busy worrying about his potential death. Patting Wheatley on the shoulder, he grinned playfully.

"I'll protect you and you know that. Don't worry," Chelldon remarked in a very casual and easily spoken tone. Which he sort of regretted afterwards because it made it awkward to lie but he was going for a brain damaged but sometimes mentally competent thing now.

Shooting a portal above GLaDOS, Chelldon leapt through it. He had to stop this damn thing before he accidentally ruined his cores only body.

[super-astute.livejournal.com]

Luckily for him, his core was idiotic enough to forget when he couldn't parse the information correctly. So, just after Chelldon said something in a complete sentence that made sense adn didn't include even a lick of jumping, all that Wheatley did was ignore it. He went off about trying to find cake core after this very wobbly adventure was over so that they could make the perfect cake and just deleted the materials that he couldn't grasp.

Not that he couldn't grasp anything-- More like chose not to grasp! Well done him, all the way around!

As Chelldon severed wires with portals and well placed turrets firing into said portals, Wheatley tried to calculate the perfect cake mix.

He kept coming up with rhubarb but that didn't sound right. What was rhubarb anyhow? Something bloody awful, he decided. The herring made much more sense.

[stubbornsubject.livejournal.com]

It was hard to get into GLaDOS head and shut him down, it turned out that stealing Morality core, anger core and curiosity core was the key. Sadly, the way of defeating GLaDOS raised some serious questions.

Because they looked so human, they were all so Wheatley-ish... but he had t burn them all alive?

there had to be another way, surely?

Picking up the fairly heavy Morality core, who was blissfully silent, he looked at Wheatley and frowned. "Cores feel pain?"

[super-astute.livejournal.com]

It didn't dawn on him that Chelldon was going to harm anyone so Wheatley shook his head. "Well, not exactly. I mean, yes if they have their nerve sensors on. Depends. Hello!" Wheatley leaned in towards Morality and smiled. "Don't suppose you've your pain receptors on? Hello? Mate? Are you-- Hell-- Cheeky thing, won't even answer me. Must be an idiot," Wheatley said in dismissal.

He leaned against one of the incineration shoots.

"I keep forgetting I can turn mine off, you know? I really ought. That could be horrible. Getting shot. Getting kicked. Falling over-- Oh, yes falling over is terrible. Boom! And no one ever stops to think about the poor floor panels you fall on! Silent victims, you know."

[stubbornsubject.livejournal.com]

Chelldon sighed and moved closer to the incinerator, holding the morality core over it. Anyone that didn't know what was happening before definitely knew now. He didn't want to drop the poor morality core but the sooner he took down all GLaDOS's cores, the better things would be.

"What are you doing? What's that? Are you going to kill him? Are you man from the tests? Why would you kill morality core?" Curiosity core piped in from behind and Chelldon groaned because, well, sadly that core was next.

He gave Wheatley an apologetic look.

"Kills GLaDOS," he informed him before he tossed Morality core towards the incinerator.

[super-astute.livejournal.com]

Wheatley looked almost numb for a moment before he gripped the edge of the incinerator and peered down into it as the android just burned up. Not a sound made. He could feel panic starting in his chest and he turned wide eyes behind broken glasses up at Chelldon.

"What are you-- Your brain damage and lack of cake has turned you homocidal! You can't do this! I don't think they've any additional bodies, didn't see them in the depot and-- You can't! You're killing them!"

Maybe they could uplink their data to the main computer but then they'd be at the mercy of GLaDOS! When Wheatley had been transferred out of his body, he'd been guided safely with an uplink to a core.

This--

"This is murder! Chelldon, stop!"

[stubbornsubject.livejournal.com]

The curiosity core, a small figure with a curious expression that was childish and frankly pretty cute, was next. He lifted the poor thing up and it's eyes dotted around madly as it took in everything like a hyper active child. "What's that? What is that? That thing has numbers! Do you smell burning? Is there a barbecue? Do you like them? Oh is that's Wheatley? Hello Wheatley! What are you burning?"

Chelldon tossed the poor thing into the incinerator and... oh God, that one screamed. Wincing, he took off running. Every core had a back up right? It wasn't his fault, it was what had to be doneand judging by GLaDOS's failings and the way he was struggling to do anything, killing the cores was working.

The next core was rabid and violent and-- Ow! It mauled him! Flailing, he dragged the very angry and snarling looking core towards the fire.

[super-astute.livejournal.com]

After Curiosity Core, Wheatley just fell silent and watched. There was no mumbling, no yelling, no trying to stop Chelldon -- he literally could not, the effects of that perfume simply wouldn't let him go against Chelldon's wishes and in a way, he even rationalized it.

Everyone had to go sometimes. Even very small, very cheerful cores that had hurt no one.

Seemed about right. Seemed about fair.

And GLaDOS was trying to kill them. Forced Chelldon's hand--

Though while Wheatley was a moron, he did care. He really did. This was just awful.

[stubbornsubject.livejournal.com]

The last one, cake core, chattered on about an insane recipe that may or may not work, sure he could get the fish scales but the dragon eggs? After dumping the poor thing into the fire, he yelped but that was about it, cake core seemed oddly damaged. Without the core, he turned his head and frowned slightly as he watched GLaDOS lag horribly. He didn't even move out the way when the laser came at him.

The explosion was loud and rocked the foundations, luckily they'd managed to do it before everything melted down. Either way, all that was left was a dangling android, his eyes closed and the wires around him badly damaged.

They'd won? Fantastic! Looking at Wheatley, he offered him a heartbroken look. "Sorry."

[super-astute.livejournal.com]

Wheatley said nothing, mute as ever, and that just wasn't right. Whealtey was never quiet, never. If anything, he had too much to say. He did, however, push the button to close the iris over the incinerator.

It wasn't his family. Not really. They didn't like him, never respected him, and maybe he was a moron after all trusting a human. Trusting Chelldon. Androids don't love.

But this was close enough. A machine could only do what it was programmed for-- Or what Specimen 739 made them do.

"At least not everyone's dead," he said, finally vocalizing as he scooped up Tyler from under the desk. "I don't think Doctor Handy will give us 'very excellent' on this one."

Or maybe he would.

Humans, he decided, were monsters.

[stubbornsubject.livejournal.com]

"Very excellent," Chelldon insisted because he had done everything that was asked on him. He burnt the cores and stopped Tyler, he did everything that was asked of him and then some and if Wheatley was unhappy at that then it was his own problem. He only followed orders.

It was all he'd ever do because what life did he have? He only didn't if they were moronic

Even now, with GLaDOS gone and no one ruling them, he knew freedom and the outside world were still far from his grasp. He was just a clone and he'd never been out in the world, what would he even do there?

He lead the way out of the room and back towards the lads so Handy could give him further instructions.

He wasn't sure if he'd have another test, they hardly anyone to run them.

[super-astute.livejournal.com]

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