STALEMATE UNRESOLVED

Author's Notes: All right, I've been thinking. -Cave Johnson voice-

If you played Portal 2 by now and completed it, you should know by now how the core transfer thing went. Even if you didn't, I prefer not to just tell you out right and let you see for yourself on YouTube. This story is going to revolve around the event that GlaDOS was not corrupt prior to the confrontation between her, Chell, and Wheatley. Up to this point, I still have no actual idea of how she ended up being labeled as corrupt in the first place, but if you guys have any idea on how that worked, please let me know in the review section. Thank you!

Chell had always knew that sometimes, GlaDOS's lying was very obvious.

In those instances, both of them knew it, even as the AI attempted to cover them up with just plain and illogical reasoning. At first, it had angered the test subject to no end that it seemed like GlaDOS was treating her as an incredibly stupid person. It was all too clear that she had survived her supposed death through resourceful thinking, survival tactics, and an overall stubborn will to live on. Yet, the mechanical goddess continued to taunt and insult her about her so-called birth parents abandoning her on a doorstep as well as her own self being unlikable by everyone. In truth, as it progressed, it was becoming stale very. Very. Quickly.

But now, having recently touched down into a black-box room with nothing but a door in front of her as the only escape route, Chell was looking at a sign on said door that made every one of GLaDOS's previous pathetic tries of deception look like a far cry. She had to look down for a moment, raising her free hand and planting it onto her face out of what seemed like embarrassment for her arch-nemesis. It was just so ridiculous, even more so than that so-called final "test chamber" that was offered for her prior to her escape to the bowels of Aperture. Even Wheatley, the babbling Personality Core who had a knack for being clueless, laughed at it! If he were here right now, he would've gotten a laugh out of reading what was on the sign.

GlaDOS Emergency Shutdown and Cake Dispensery.

A quiet sigh escaped Chell, and she lowered her hand from her face to stare at the door with a tired look. What was inside of the room was nothing more than a booby-trap that she would have to fight her way out of. Still, if she wanted to go anywhere and escape this solitary confinement, she would have to go straight through it and face down what was waiting for her on the other side. Hopefully, it would only be turrets she would have to deal with and not neurotoxin emittors. She reached for the handle of the door, turning it and pulling it towards her.

Her eyes widened slightly at the door as it bumped and leaned onto her head. Then, realizing the state Aperture had been in the first place, she stepped aside naturally to allow the door to fall onto the ground. She turned her head to look into the room-

-and her heart stopped.

There was no room.

The door had been propped up against nothing but a wall identical to the ones around her. As the door fell onto the ground, cameras propped up on mechanical arms came through to her via the opening panels on the wall. Their lenses fell onto her shocked form, and her voice came through to the woman's ears. "I honestly, truly didn't think you would fall for that." She said calmly, the hint of victory seeping within her autotoned voice. "In fact, I designed a much more elaborate trap for when you got past this one..."

The cameras retreated back into the panels, and the walls off to her side began to close in on Chell. Her entire body tensed up, and she switched her gaze from wall to wall frantically as they both created a much smaller space for her. "If I knew you were going to let yourself get captured this easily, I would've just dangled a turkey leg from a rope on the ceiling." Chell could practically hear the laughter within that sentence, and she gritted her teeth out of frustration. It wasn't too long before she was zeroed in her surroundings, the orange portal she had entered the room through still too high for her reach.

It had been obvious from the beginning, but she had to admit it – she had not been expecting what she had just witnessed.

No matter how she hated that fact, the master AI had every right to gloat because of it.

Maybe there was still hope for GlaDOS in that department, after all.

Chell didn't get much time to think about the quality of the machine's deceptive nature, however. A startled yelp escaped her as she found herself falling through the opening floor down to a relaxation chamber conveniently placed below her. Once she landed onto her feet, the ceiling closed itself off. The chamber itself began to move forward towards what seemed like another wall, only that it was slowly opening to the room. Chell began to feel a sense of despair creep through her, her legs turning to jello and unable to support her. She fell to her knees, looking through the glass in front of her in defeat. Was this really the result of the effort that she had put through, the strain she had forced on herself to get this far?

GlaDOS's confident words were not helping. As the "doors" opened, she could see the menacing form of her enemy hanging high above the ceiling, her orange optic staring directly into her eyes. "I hope you brought something stronger than a Portal gun this time. Otherwise, I'm afraid you're about to be the past President of the Being Alive club. Ha ha. Seriously, though..."

Chell's head immediately snapped up at the sound of mechanical gears turning above her. She looked up just in time to see pincers lower five turrets to surround the relaxation chamber. She couldn't help but let out a moan of dread, dropping the Portal gun to cover her ears with her hands. It was some vain attempt at blocking out the imminent pain that was to come. The bullets would tear through her flesh, and she would be nothing but a bloody mess on the floor. Her heart began to race madly within her ribcage, and her breathing became slightly hitched. She was scared, and she wasn't concerned with hiding that fear from her enemy. They both knew that she was trapped.

"Good-bye..."

"It's my big chance!"

Wait a minute.

Chell's eyes snapped open at the sound of a boisterous, mechanical voice. She lowered her hands to do a double-take. Instead of the white turrets that had been the very bane of her existence, she was staring into the red optics of turrets that had their casings ripped off from their bodies. One of the turrets was still in its box! She mentally slapped herself – of course! She had effectively rendered the turret production line useless by replacing the master turret with a defective one! This was certainly the advantage of fore-sight. If these had been the regular turrets, her journey would've ended right then and there.

And now...

Clickclickclickclick!

"This is trouble..."

As the talking turret attempted to fire, the cache within itself registered as completely empty. Then, without warning, that turret caught fire and exploded, shattering the glass. The turret in front of her followed suit and exploded immediately. Now, with the front turret out of the way, she could clearly see GlaDOS's optic stare at the remaining two turrets.

"Here it comes, pal! Locked and loaded!"

Clickclickclickclick!

"Aw, this ain't good..."

BOOM!

And with that, the remaining two turrets exploded. Chell once again found the notion to slowly stand up, picking up her Portal gun and holstering it at her side. A small smile decked her across the face. What was the machine to do, now that she saw that her personal army was being thrown into the incinerator and smashed to pieces in place of the defective turrets? She waited for the response.

Of course, GlaDOS wasn't going to reveal her shock to her foe. "Oh... you were busy back there..." She commented in an apathetic manner, turning away from Chell for a moment. "Well... I suppose we could just sit here and glare at each other until someone drops dead. But I have a better idea..." Once the optic turned onto Chell, and the test subject's head snapped towards a large vacuum pipe crawling towards the relaxation chamber. "It's your old friend, deadly neurotoxin. If I were you, I'd take a deep breath... and hold it."

This time, Chell didn't even have to take long to know what was coming.

This time, she didn't bother to hide the smirk.

CRASH!

The barrel of the pipe smashed into the wall of the relaxation chamber, and instead of the neurotoxin that would've killed her outright...

"Ow! Agh! Oof! Gah! Oah!"

Upon the sounds of grunting and yelping, GlaDOS raised herself up to peer at the pipe in what seemed like confusion, her optic tracking down a certain object going through the path. However, Chell looked up at the barrel in relief. She moved herself out of the way, and a certain blue-eyed Personalty Construct popped out of the end. It rolled across the floor, its heavy weight colliding with the fragile barrier and shattering her glass prison completely.

"Hello!" Wheatley announced cheerfully, rolling to a stop right beside the chamber.

"...I hate you so much."

GlaDos was now staring at the duo with contempt. But it was mostly directed at the now-smug Chell as she used the Portal gun to pick Wheatley off of the ground. The core rolled his own optic to the back of his head so that he could see GlaDOS. "Ah HA!" He declared triumphantly, taking in every bit of the seething feeling radiating off of her. "And there goes the big, bad, and mean old woman! Whatcha gonna do without your bloody neurotoxin and your good turrets? Watcha gonna do?" The core was now spinning around in the Portal Gun's manipulation field, unable to hide the excitement and triumph he felt at having an advantage over what had formerly been something much more powerful than the both of them. But now, she was powerless and helpless to stop them!

"...all right, you little moron."

That caught both Wheatley and Chell by surprise at the suddenly relaxed manner GlaDOS was speaking in. Was she actually admitting defeat? Usually, she would've continued to try and try again to stop them from reaching their goal, even if it took measures more desperate than usual. It was supposed to be a good sign. However, Chell was feeling a bit apprehensive as GlaDOS continued to speak, fearing that they had still yet to climb out of the fire. "You've managed to disable my primary weapons against you. Congratulations. Now that you have me right where you want me, what do you intend to do?"

…..oh, boy.

Chell immediately looked around the room that they were in. GlaDOS hadn't lied when she said she had caught on to her little tricks. There were no portal surfaces within the room, and no incinerator. In addition, there were no new Personality Cores hooked onto the body. In addition, Chell couldn't use the portal gun on GlaDOS to just teleport parts of her body off of her due to her own alloy being resistant to the portals. In all honesty, she was better off attempting to hurt the massive construct with her bare hands than anything else! A rather helpless look fell on her face, and she immediately switched her stare to Wheatley's blue optic. He had brought them this far into the plan, so surely he had an idea to take the tyrant down-

"Oh... so, you're still thinking about that too, huh? Ehehe..."

…..and there went that idea.

Chell could do nothing but stare at her comrade in disbelief as he continued to explain, although he himself was getting embarrassed and ashamed due to the look he was receiving. "W-well, uhm... remember when I said that I hadn't completely planned this through? Well...this... is where our plans... end. I have no idea what we're supposed to do now..." Sheepishly, he laughed, attempting vainly to put some humor into their situation.

"Oh... now this is just an embarrassment." GlaDOS commented coolly, staring at the both of them. Her words had regained their apathetic mood once more. "I go through all of the trouble to put you out of your misery... only to find out that you came up here with no idea on how to kill me... again. In addition, thanks to your violent behavior, I can't end your life any faster than time itself. We're at an impasse. I would've expected this from the moron-"

"Hey!" Wheatley shouted indignantly, flipping back around to glare at GlaDOS. Of course, it didn't' have much of an effect on the construct. "I may have came across a little...planner's block... in my line of thinking, but I am not a moron!" His irritation only increased when GlaDOS decided to promptly ignore him and continue speaking to Chell.

"-but I never would've expected this idiocy from you, murderer." Instinctively, Chell tensed up, a scowl clear on her face as she glared at the hypocrite monstrosity. "But look on the bright side. At least now you won't have to do any more testing from here on out. So I suppose that this can be considered the closest thing to your so-called freedom. At least you tried, and that's what cou-"

THUNK.

Chell had lost whatever patience she had in dealing with the female android, dropped Wheatley ("H-hey, what are you doing?") onto the floor, picked him up with one of her hands, and threw him straight at GlaDOS's head.

"OW!"

The two AI let out shouts of pain as they collided into each other, Wheatley collapsing onto the floor. The rebound caused him to bounce off of GlaDOS and roll back towards Chell's direction. "Hey! Come on, now! I may be a machine, but that hurt!" He cried. "I don't treat you like some sort of ball that can be thrown around in any direction that you want it, too!"

He abruptly stopped there, eye optic shifting around for a moment.

"Ok... maybe during that container scene, but I was only trying to get you out of there! It wasn't for my own personal amusement to see you thrash about in that small and crappy hotel room! I mean, sure you're nothing but a smelly human...ok, wait, that didn't mean to come out- waitwaitwaitno-!"

THUNK.

"OW- now, you're just being childish." GlaDOS grumbled, jerking back as Wheatley once again slammed into her and rolled back, repeatedly begging for Chell's mercy. "This is only annoying me to no end and hurting your friend. Just stop now and preserve whatever shred of dignity you have le-"

THUNK.

"W-why me~?"

"...I'm going to kill you both as slowly as possible once things get back into order."