"HERE I GO! Wait, what if this hurts? What if this really hurts? Ohhh, I didn't think of that…" Wheatley's words seemed to tumble over and over each other out of his vocal processor. It was all too much, too much…the excitement, the triumph, the grip of the transfer mechanism in his port and on his handles, the slow movement of the panel lowering, the shard of fear that pierced his delight and left him trembling in his casing.

"Oh, it will. Believe me, it will," said Her voice grimly, much too close for comfort. Something about the tone in which She said it made him very uneasy, and he did the only reasonable thing to do in this kind of situation: he panicked.

"Are you just saying that, or is it really gonna hurt? You're just saying that, aren't you?" There was a beat of silence, and his panic boiled over as the floor began to close over the top of the mechanism. "…no you're not, this is going to hurt, isn't it?" The last thing he saw before the top completely closed was the Lady's face peering down with concern. Too preoccupied by this, he didn't notice the humming mechanical arms and claws that were reaching for him until it was too late. "Exactly how painful are we talk– ARRRRGGHHHHHHHHHHH!"

It was the most painful thing he had ever experienced. All senses were disconnected – or maybe they had shorted out because of the pain? He wasn't sure – until the only thing left was agony and the memory of the last thing he had heard: a long, inhuman scream that rang through his frame and sent chills of fear and – oddly enough, considering who he was sure the scream had come from – pity across his mind.

And then, just when he thought he would die from the pain, couldn't take it anymore...

"WOOOOAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!"

Everything flicked back on, plus about a billion times more. Wheatley's tiny sphere body had just instantaneously extended by a few miles, and he could sense everything. Panels, this chamber, all the other test chambers, every computer in the facility, a vast database with knowledge and power so vast he could hardly comprehend it...he felt giddy and lightheaded as more...more feeling than he'd ever experienced in his entire existence rushed into his CPU all at once. He spun around in the enormous body he was now connected to and whooped. His circuits nearly overloaded from that first connection with the entire facility...that's right, he was connected to the entirety of Aperture Science, and what remained of Her, the former holder of this throne, was on the floor by the – his – massive chassis.

"Check me out, partner!" Happiness overflowed out of him as he heard his once small, insignificant voice booming through the chamber, louder than ever. "WE DID IT! I'm in control of the whole facility now!" He made the panels on the walls ripple, and they moved so willingly, so easily, at his command. It felt...amazing. "Woahhhh-hoho! Would you look at this? Not too bad, eh? Giant robot! Massive! It's not just me, right? I am bloody massive, aren't I?" He observed that he could open up the casing around his face to seem even larger. Seemed a bit pointless, really, but he had to admit it was interesting, to say the least. He felt almost dizzy with excitement.

Somewhere in the buzz of too much activity in Wheatley's tiny hard drive, a thought struck him. "Oh, yeah, right, the escape lift! I'll call it now." And just like that, no effort, no whizzing on a rail or hacking or anything, in came a lift, like magic, so easy. "There we go, lift called!"

He looked down at the Lady and seemed to see her for the first time. She was so small. Before, she had sort of seemed small to him because he had been high up on his management rail, but now she really was tiny compared to him, being so huge and all. Another wave of joy hit him and he chortled.

"Look how small you are down there! I can barely see you! Veeeery tiny and insignificant," he chuckled again. The Lady rolled her eyes and made her way to the elevator. Suddenly, another thought struck him. "...wait, how am I gonna get in? Being bloody massive and everything?"

The Lady stood at the door of the lift with her hand on her hip, raising her eyebrows expectantly. He knew what he would have to do, but hesitated. She was counting on him after all, but...the facility, this new body, everything was so amazing...

"...alright, tell you what. You get in the lift, okay, and I'll eject myself out of my new body, into the lift, just as you pass me by. Brilliant." But even as he said it he felt a pang of sorrow. Being huge, being The Boss...it was so different from before, so much better. Did he really want to go back to how it was before?

Well...the Lady really wanted to go...and he had wanted to escape all along as well...so it would have to do. He did his best to remain cheerful and beamed down at her. "It's perfect! Except for all the glass hitting us when I smash through the lift, that's a bit of a problem. Also, once I eject myself out of the core the lift might stop. Then we'd be trapped in a lift full of broken glass suspended fifty feet off the ground."

The Lady shrugged and tapped her foot impatiently, and guilt swelled up in Wheatley's processors for dawdling when all she'd wanted to do was leave…

"You know what? Just get in the lift. We'll iron out the details as we go," he said as cheerily as he could manage and smiled. She grinned back and hopped surely into the little lift. Exhilaration shot through him again and he chattered away to the Lady about how he felt.

"Let me tell, ya, I knew it was gonna be cool to be in charge of everything but…wowww, this is cool!" He spun around and showed off just what the system could do, shooting confetti everywhere, summoning cubes, juggling them around with panels, all with just a simple command. The power was slightly scary, but he loved it.

"And check this out, I'm a bloody genius now!" He pulled up a random file in the enormous system and found that it was a translation software. Delighted, he quickly tried to say something to her in a different language. He selected one, and then attempted to speak.

"Estás usando este software de traducción de forma incorrecta. Por favor, consulta el manual."

Wheatley reckoned he'd said something quite clever and was proud of himself. "I don't even know what I just said, but I can find out!" he rambled, and absently noticed the Lady waiting in the lift. He snapped out of his daze. "Oh, right, sorry. The lift. Yes. Sorry, I keep forgetting." He quickly activated it and it began to rise slowly towards the ceiling. He sighed and prepared to eject himself from the lift, slowly turning the chassis to look around the room one last time.

"This body's amazing, seriously! I can't get over how small you are! But I'm huge!" A laugh bubbled up within him and he let it out, spinning around the room faster and faster.

And then…something unusual happened.

The laughter rumbling from his speakers began to spiral out of his control, until a maniacal cackling filled the room. Wheatley had just enough time to think What's happening to me? before a foreign but incredibly strong feeling filled him, overpowering everything else. A feeling that wasn't quite his, one that the mainframe had influenced him to feel. It was confidence…the true realization of how much power he really had now…which was something he'd never felt before in his life. He was enormous, he was in control. Why should he have to take orders from an unimportant little human? He could stay, just a little while longer, if he wanted. No one had any power to stop him. And he liked that.

His laughter trailed off, and he sighed. "Actually…why do we have to leave right now?" he , stopping and then reversing the lift so that it lowered back to the ground. But he didn't open the door. He needed to have a bit of a chat with the Lady first, and he couldn't have her running off. "Do you have any idea how good this feels? I did this! Tiny little Wheatley did this!"

"You didn't do anything," hissed the former Boss of the facility. Her golden optic, which had struck so much fear in him just a few minutes ago, flickered weakly, and he recognized with a jolt that he had more power than she did. He was now the Boss, and she couldn't do a thing about it. But, she still didn't seem to be frightened of him, as she added venomously,"She did all the work."

Anger like he'd never felt before surged through Wheatley's simple processors, overflowing them almost immediately. "Oh really? That's what the two of you think, is it?" He retorted, as an absolutely brilliant idea struck him. She didn't feel helpless yet, did she? Well he could easily make her look as helpless and ridiculous as he wanted. "Well, maybe it's time I did something then," he snarled, producing a menacing-looking claw out from beneath the chassis and seizing her head in it, dragging her down into the hungrily whirring machinery.

"What are you doing?" she wailed pathetically. The genuine fear in her voice sent a rush through his system, and he pulled up his lower optic shield in a sadistic grin. This was fun. " No! No! No…"

He whipped around, turning on the Lady. Another new sensation began to surface, filling him with yet more anger and resentment. For the first time, Wheatley felt…important. And he couldn't see why the Lady didn't feel the same way. She was obviously less important than he was. She had no right to tell him that she wanted to leave, when clearly, all he wanted was to stay. Especially after all he'd done for her, all he'd put himself through, just so she could get what she wanted. How could she be so self-centered? He growled, "And don't think I'm not onto you too, Lady. You know what you are? Selfish." He rotated slowly around the room."I've done nothing but sacrifice to get us here, and what have you sacrificed?" Jerking to a stop, he scowled darkly in her direction. "Nothing. Zero. All you've done is boss me around, well now who's the boss? Who's the boss?" He leaned in as close as he could to the lift, flaring out the sides of his core body to seem as large and intimidating as he possibly could. His voice lowered to a dangerous whisper. "It's me."

Chell's steely eyes narrowed and she stared him down unflinchingly. Wheatley had expected her to shy away away from him, but there she stood, tenacious as ever, unwilling to back down. Just as his sureness began to falter, something jabbed the underside of the chassis sharply and he recoiled.

"Ahhh!" he yelped, withdrawing from the lift. He then raised the claw jutting from the floor and examined his handiwork, brandishing it towards the Lady.

"See that? That is a potato battery. It's a toy, for children. And now, she lives in it!" Wheatley chortled. How could he have known how enjoyable this would be? It would've been his plan all along, had he been aware of it. This was bloody brilliant.

That yellow optic that now resided on the potato battery blinked faintly and the tinny sound of her voice cut off his laughter. "I know you."

"Uhh, what?" he asked incredulously, raising the potato to his face and meeting her eye. The aquamarine bored into the yellow and his optic shields narrowed. Perhaps she had gone totally mad. Although, Wheatley thought to himself, hadn't she gone and done that ages ago?

"The engineers tried everything to make me…behave," she said. It was obvious that she was making an effort to compose herself. But there was something else underneath the calm tone; a hint of bitterness and…amusement? As she continued, the edge to her words became increasingly evident. "To slow me down. Once, they even attached an Intelligence Dampening Sphere on me." She placed intentional emphasis on the name. Wheatley's optic contracted involuntarily and he cowered away from her, trying to block out her words. "It clung to my brain like a tumor, generating an endless stream of terrible ideas."

This was a part of his past that he'd always tried desperately to forget. What he was made to do, why he even existed. His only purpose had been to tone down her intelligence, and in turn, her murderous anger and insanity. That was a slap to begin with, but what was worse was that he couldn't even do that properly. The hurt and hatred for the scientists, this place, and her burned through him and he trembled.

"No! I'm not listening! Not listening!" He turned away, glimpsing the Lady's face in doing so. Her eyebrows were furrowed in a puzzled but seemingly…entertained expression. It stung deeply. He'd never even wanted her to know, and just for this reason. She wouldn't trust him, would think he was incompetent (which he kind of was, he admitted, but he could do some things right, couldn't he…?). And now she thought it was funny? Just as he was about to remark on this, the potato finished her statement and brought him back to reality.

"It was your voice."

"No…n-no, you're lying!" Wheatley's voice cracked with rage and with the pain of the old wound that she had just reopened. "You're lying!"

"Yes…you're the tumor. You're not just a regular moron," she crowed almost tauntingly. Wheatley's fury rose and peaked at the sound of the insult. That word – moron – had been used in reference to him more times than he could count, and just the sound of it would have made him a bit upset even before, in his old body, but now…the anger was indescribable. "You were designed to be a moron."

And then – Wheatley snapped.

"I AM NOT A MORON!" he bellowed, whacking the stupid potato against the lift, hard. Cracks webbed across the glass and the Lady inside backed up against the rear wall, disbelief and – finally – terror in her eyes. And something else…something he would only later identify as betrayal.

"Yes you are! You're the moron they built to make me an idiot!"

"WELL HOW ABOUT NOW?! NOW WHO'S A MORON?" he roared, hurling the potato into the lift like a baseball and shattering the already broken glass. Wheatley was taken aback by his own strength, and it filled him with still more cockiness. How could you be a moron when you had this much power? They were morons, both of them, selfish, awful monsters. He'd trusted the Lady, liked her, even, but it was all a lie. The immense strengthspiraled out of controland his sanity pretty much left the building as he slammed the claw into the top of the lift, hitting it down, down, down, down, down, until it was completely out of sight. "COULD A MORON PUNCH – YOU – INTO – THIS – PIT?! HUH? COULD A MORON DO THAT?!"

He peered into the gap between the lift and the floor, catching a fleeting look at the Lady. She stared back up at him, anger and hurt etched on her tear-streaked face.

All of a sudden, the structure of the lift groaned, and Wheatley knew what was going to happen before it did. "Uh oh…"

With that, the final rod holding the lift in place snapped, and it plunged into the darkness of the elevator shaft, leaving nothing but a dark, empty void in the floor.

0 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~0

Wheatley spun around the room in the chassis, anger slowly, ever so slowly, ebbing away. As his head cleared and he began to ask himself fretfully Oh my God, what have I done? another alien, slightly unpleasant feeling began to rise above everything else, burying the lingering anger, the regret, the pain, and leaving solely what Wheatley could only describe as an…itch.

When he could bear it no longer (which was after approximately thirty seconds), he dug through a few protocols, accidentally damaging or deleting a few here and there, before finding the purpose of this ever-increasing desire. When he finally did, he sat motionless for a moment, shocked and more than slightly confused.

He had to test.