AUTHOR'S NOTE: For our first completed non-Pokémon story, I think we did pretty well. Judging by the favorites and follows we got, other people think so, too.

Don't get too upset about the ending, we have a sequel in mind.

It isn't Doug, but it isn't anything like I had imagined GLaDOS. If it weren't for her full title stamped in various places, I wouldn't have known it was her main body at all.

I'd always pictured her as a big computer screen, displaying my adventures on one half of the monitor and her comments being recorded on the other. I thought she'd be guarded by turrets and rocket-shooters, but not be scary on her own. I thought I'd be able to fight my way to her and unplug her in a big fat anticlimax, or die because of something I'd missed.

I was wrong on all counts, except for the single rocket-shooter on the ground.

GLaDOS, in my head, was nothing but a simple computer with the power to think and speak for herself. GLaDOS, in reality, is a robotic abomination suspended from the ceiling, and she looks like an unholy cross between a spider the size of a room and an upside-down mental patient, complete with little white spheres that looked like egg sacs stuck to her straight jacket.

In short, GLaDOS is a real, physical representation of the reason for the arachnophobia I've spent my entire life telling myself was irrational. I haven't seen a spider since I got here, but I've had dreams of being wrapped up in giant webs since I was small.

Now I know my nightmares are real, and my fear is completely justified. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, Little Chell is saying she told me so.

"Well, you found me," the horror says, lifting her head just enough to see me. "Congratulations. Was it worth it? Because despite your violent behavior, the only thing you've managed to break so far is my heart."

Now is the perfect chance to come up with a one-liner or pun of some kind, or even a "Guess what? I'm not mute! Surprise!"

But even though I'm no longer frozen in fear of the giant mutant robot, I still feel a tightness in my throat that would make speaking impossible.

"I have a surprise for you," she adds, and I imagine a smile fitting a fairy tale witch, though she has no mouth or even screen for it. "Surprise in five...four...three..."

One of the spheres drops, and I'm not going to lie and say it makes this whole experience less horrifying. But her little gasp of surprise, paired with a "That wasn't supposed to happen," must mean that this was worth investigating.

I pick the sphere up with the gun, still not sure what it is, only knowing that I really, really didn't want this thing getting on my hands with the giant spider-woman still watching me.

I'm not sure what to do with it, either. It doesn't tell me what not to do, or even say anything. It just looks at me with its one large eye, and for a few moments we're just there, staring at each other in mutual silence.

"That is enough of this," GLaDOS says, cutting into the staring contest. "Could you put that back so we can fight to the death like adults instead of sitting around like infants?"

She wants this thing back? So it must be important to her. Maybe if I can find a place to dispose of it...

That is an awfully convenient place for an incinerator, but I'm in no position to question it. The sphere whirls around as I move it toward the incinerator, and then turns back to me, staring and silently judging.

"You don't even know what that thing does," the system warns as I get closer. "I don't think I even know what it does. And there you go, off to destroy it because you think it does something."

I put a portal above the incinerator, pick up the core, and go back to the platform where the button probably is. Like most tests, I'm right about that...but, after putting another portal on the wall behind it and sending the sphere to its doom, I'm not sure what it does to her.

There's an explosion sound, and another glitch in her voice as she starts scolding me. "I can't believe you just put the Aperture Science Mystery Object into the Aperture Science incinerator. I was going to take it apart after I finished with you, but now I will never know how it works. You are by far the dumbest test subject we have ever...wait."

Oh, crap. I shoot two portals on opposite ends of the room, hoping I could manage a sneak attack and unplug her.

Her dark laughter fills the room, and when she speaks again, her voice is less robotic than before. It's almost human.

Creepier than ever, in other words.

"Guess what?" She sounds almost excited now. "I figured out what that thing you just incinerated did."

I take a few backward steps to my portal, preparing to make the jump.

"It was a morality core they attached to me after I flooded the Enrichment Center with a deadly neurotoxin, in order to make me stop flooding the Enrichment Center with a deadly neurotoxin." She laughs again. "Please sit back as I warm up the neurotoxin emitters."

The neurotoxin? A portal ambush can't save me from that! And that green stuff doesn't look like it's friendly.

And what's that beeping?

Oh, right. That means that a rocket's coming to get me. How could I forget.

Jumping out of the way is easy, but the best part is that it hits GLaDOS. It doesn't blow her up, unfortunately, but it does knock another core loose.

"What just happened?" the small detached core asks, its eye swiveling to me as I pick it up. "What are you doing? Are you a real human? What's wrong with your legs?"

What's wrong with your intelligence chip, or whatever it is? And what's with the incinerator, why is it hot?

These cores are kind of cute, really. I might just smuggle this one out and give it to my enemies as a gift.

"Where do babies come from?"

Or not.

This one screams as it burns, and so does GLaDOS, but I'm already putting portals in place. One in front of the rocket, one near GLaDOS.

Beep, beep, BOOM! Something white and blue flies straight up into the air, and I portal-dive to catch it.

This core's broken. No wonder she's unstable. And so cake-obsessed - all it does is recite a recipe in a voice that I can barely hear over her furious monotone. There's no question about throwing this one into the incinerator after its friend. I'm already halfway back to the rocket when I hear the scream, but I tune it out with GLaDOS instead.

"Did you know that there was a man in New Mexico who went on a rampage?" she asks, and I reluctantly look up again as I wait for the rocket to see me. Bad idea - the web-covered mental patient is still there. "You are showing similarities to the story I found on the internet. He, too, was short-tempered and irrationally violent. By the end of his killing spree, all they could find of him was a trail of destruction and a crowbar. He even worked for Black Mesa, the fool. Do you really want to go outside and risk running into him?"

Actually, if you disapprove of the guy this much (beep, beep) he sounds like someone I'd like to party with. (BOOM!)

The neurotoxin countdown is down to the last minute and a half, but I think this angry, growling thing is the last core. I don't want to look up to check, but as the core screams in pain, or lets out a garbled call of revenge, I stumble back as one of the monster's spider legs (cords, Chell, don't hyperventilate, they're cords) disconnects from the ceiling and swoops down, nearly hitting me on the nose.

GLaDOS tries to speak, but the speed and pitch of her voice is too confusing for words. The green clouds swirl up, a hole in the ceiling letting oxygen back inside, and her body starts shooting electricity. Then comes the blinding white flash.

The next thing I see is the sun.

So this is it.

My first time in the outside world in what feels like years. It's too bright, and covered in fire, but it's exactly how I remember it. It's one of the warmer months, the pavement under my feet is almost hot. The remains of the building are blazing around me, a hoop of some kind crashes to my feet, and there's no sign of life anywhere, but I'm free.

Free in a world filled with spiders, but I have the portal gun to send them elsewhere.

Free in a world where criminals exist, but I have no psycho spider-robot attempting to kill me while trying to make it look like she was the one acting in self-defense.

I make it about four steps before I hear the voice.

"Congratulations."

It's just as robotic as GLaDOS before she dropped the morality core, but sounds like a guy. I grip my gun and turn, preparing to face another giant spider robot, but I can't see him anywhere.

"Thank you for assuming the Party Escort Submission Position."

What's he talking about? I'm not assuming any posi-

Without warning, the world starts fading. I'm not aware of falling, but I do see my freedom being slowly pulled away as my vision goes. I try to scream, but my voice won't work. I try to kick myself free, but my legs are too heavy to move.

I hear a loud clang, as if somebody tried to destroy a piece of metal with another piece of metal. I can barely turn my head, but I can get a vague outline of something human-shaped beating up what looks like a core with arms, using nothing but a square-shaped rock.

No. I can feel something calm me, and it isn't the tranquilizer. It's a Companion Cube.

Go Doug. Enjoy your freedom, fellow misfit.

And send somebody for me, too. Tell them to bring cake...