Chapter Text
Chell blearily blinked awake, sitting up slowly to avoid a head rush in her relaxation pod. She was, um, awake. That worked for now. She methodically scanned her surroundings, trying to gather something, anything. A mug, a clipboard, a toilet, and a radio playing an obnoxiously upbeat tune on repeat.
Her entire room was made of glass, a small cubicle in a larger sterile tile room. A lab room. Counting down from two minutes above the glass door hung a clock.
Chell stood, wary of anything that might jump at her, but nothing did. Anything was possible down in Aperture. She reached for the mug, pleasantly surprised to discover it was full of water, and sipped as a robotic voice began to speak.
“Hello and, again, welcome to the Aperture Science computer-aided enrichment center. We hope your brief detention in the relaxation vault has been a pleasant one.”
It had not, but Chell digressed. She idly studied the clipboard, half-tuning out what GLaDOS was saying. Something about specimens and testing risks…
She nearly jumped when the speaker buzzed, putting the clipboard down like it had burned her.
“...stand back. The portal will open in three,” GLaDOS was saying, syncing with the clock, “two, one.”
True to her word, the glass door glowed orange as a portal appeared. Chell hesitated, then discarded the mug onto the floor (which broke it, whoops), and peered through the portal. Nothing that could bite her on the other side. That was a good sign. Carefully she poked her hand through, and when nothing caught on fire, stepped through entirely.
“Excellent. Please proceed into the chamberlock after completing each test.” GLaDOS said, voice monotone over the speakers.
The hairs on the back of Chell’s neck raised. She tilted her head, looking behind her, but nothing hostile stood out to her. Except maybe GLaDOS’s camera.
“First, however, note the…” GLaDOS began, but her voice faded to static. Chell froze in place, figuring the stiller she was, consequently the less of a target she was.
GLaDOS’s voice cut through the static. “One moment” was all that she said, before the noise stopped entirely. Chell’s head still rang though.
Black lanced through her vision. Chell bit back a gasp as pain flared in her head, pressing a hand to her temple. She grimaced, decided if she was going to die she’d die with dignity, and slumped against the wall.
Lumine struggled against the strong hands pinning her down to a surgeon’s table. She surged forward only to be wrenched back again. “Let me go, bastard!”
The Doctor, holding her down, chuckled maliciously. “Stay down and this gets easier for all of us.”
“Not for me! Now get out- of- my- way!”
“You don’t get a say in this.”
“I seem to be saying something right now!”
“Stay down or I will move on to your brother.”
Lumine froze. This was all her stupid mistake, not Aether’s. He didn’t deserve her dragging him into this mess. She slumped down, defeated.
Dottore grinned. “Good, very good. Now stay there.” He straightened, pulling his gloves on tighter from where Lumine had clawed at his wrists. Not her finest moment, but she did what she had to. And it still hadn’t worked. How had she even gotten herself into this mess? That wasn’t… super important right now, what she more wanted to focus on was how to get out of it.
The Doctor carefully pulled a needle out of his coat pocket and his grin widened. “Hold still…”
“Nuh-uh!” Lumine snapped, surging upwards. Dottore rolled his eyes and stabbed at her shoulder, forcing her back down and twisting it awkwardly.
“You do not get a say in this!”
“For the love of God, at least tell me what that does!” That didn’t sound too unreasonable to Lumine. Of course, everything was unreasonable when reasoning with the unreasonable.
Dottore rolled his eyes. “Any explanation would go right over your head, as your mind is much too inept to retain even the simplest of clarifications.”
“Now that’s just rude!”
“I wasn’t trying to be nice.”
“Yeah, well, you can at least try to be-”
A dull ringing cut Lumine off, which was good because she didn’t actually know where that next sentence was going. She stopped, tilting her head to try and echolocate, then freezing before anyone could think she was going insane.
But Dottore was unfocused too. He tossed a glance over his shoulder, and when the ringing persisted, looked closer. It sounded like… a bell… static? How would one describe it…?
Dottore huffed and pushed Lumine down again, straightening. “One moment” was all he said, before disappearing out the door.
There was no way in hell Lumine was staying put, though. As soon as his footsteps were out of earshot she sprung up and raced (sneakily, sneakily raced) through the unfamiliar halls of the Harbinger’s lab. She caught a flash of blue coattails disappearing around a corner and decided it would be smart to tail the person who actually knew where everything was.
The ringing persisted while she crept down the halls, intensifying every turn they took. Lumine stayed one corner behind Dottore, trying her hardest to be invisible. He seemed preoccupied, which was incredibly lucky for her, as she was not super stealthy right now. Dottore stepped through a door and Lumine made a break for it, dashing out before the door could close or squeak or give her away.
Outside white snow glimmered in the Snezhnayan starlight, soft snowfall making it seem as if the stars were falling to the earth. Lumine’s breath puffed out in crystal clouds in front of her. If she weren’t trying to escape a sadistic doctor’s clutches she’d stop and stare at the snowfall.
Then the ringing sharpened into a screech, and pain tore through her temples.
Lumine stumbled, footsteps crunching in the untouched snowbank. Dottore whirled around at the noise. “I told you to stay inside!” He snapped.
Lumine forced herself to stand upright. “Heck no!”
Dottore advanced threateningly, and Lumine prepared for a fight- only to practically crumple in on herself when pain ripped her senses to shreds. She staggered back, a hand over her eyes, withholding a groan of pain trapped behind her gritted teeth.
The snow was glowing.
No, not the snow. Lumine pulled her hand away slowly, hesitating to look, then regretting her decision to look in the first place. The sky glowed with a tear, like ripped paper, a jagged cut through the sky. It stood in stark contrast to the black and pale white snow-filled horizon.
Dottore was ignoring her, studying the tear. He grinned, mask shining in the unearthly light.
Anger bubbled up in Lumine’s throat, threatening to overflow. So she did as she usually did- something stupid.
Summoning her sword, she stood straight and forced herself to focus. While his back was turned…
She slashed.
Dottore spun out of the way, but Lumine charged forward, shoulder-checking him so he stumbled back. Into the mysterious tear in the sky.
She expected him to disappear, to dissolve into light, to do… something. And he did do something, but not something she had expected.
Dottore dragged her through the tear with him.
Lumine made a mental note to add that to her list of reasons why to think through her stupid decisions before blackness cascaded over her vision like the ocean waves.
Subject name: Chell.
Subject species: human.
Subject gender: female.
GLaDOS downloaded her entire file from the Aperture database nearly instantly. She processed it even faster, already on her way to designing or tailoring specific tests to fit Chell's needs.
Subject age: unknown, presumed young adult.
Subject relations: orphaned, parents unknown.
Subject conditions: electively mute.
The subject was currently… passed out on the floor. Thanks a lot, Black Mesa. Of course they saw it fit to hand off their project to Aperture once it was a proven failure.
An unknown energy crystal, primary researcher Gordon Freeman, had been delivered to Aperture for GLaDOS to handle. She had only touched it to put it in a stasis chamber, but even stasis couldn’t stop science. The crystal had sent out some sort of energy pulse and torn a hole in the sky.
GLaDOS ran through as many possibilities as she could in a few short seconds, trying to decipher what Black Mesa had been up to without their research files. Of course they had sent over the experiment and not the notes. While she was loath to do so, GLaDOS put her current experiment on pause to stop the rip through the fourth dimension.
Well, looks like she didn’t even have to. The rip closed itself up like the sky stitching itself together, only after spitting out two people. One in a lab coat, blue hair, and a mask; the other a girl in a tattered dress, nearing unconsciousness.
GLaDOS studied the two while they gathered their bearings, then spoke. “Welcome to Aperture Science Underground Laboratories. The enrichment center would appreciate it if you could put your hands up while a representative comes to collect you, and prepare for emergency testing.”