Me, Myself and I [Bendtime after Visitation Day is Over] [OPEN]

[thewunderkind]

Compared to yesterday where the sensoriums had gotten so much use, Lash was glad that it was mostly quiet as she slipped into a free one. The day had passed relatively quickly thanks to running mazes, but even that hadn't gotten her as joyful as she should be, as strange and exciting as it had been.

The world around her changed as she stood atop a giant mountain overseeing the forest below her. Her army stood closer, as her opponent in the horizon began to prepare to attack her. A typical scenario she liked to play out at least once a week, each time using it to test out new invention ideas and fixes she should make to her existing ones.

But she wasn't there. The spark, the thing that made Lash excited about anything war-related and gave her an almost-worrying macabre yet positive outlook on nearly anything appeared to be extinguished. She'd been thinking a lot. Even now, she didn't raise her arms dramatically as she usually did to get the battle started, but merely an uninterested movement of her fingers as she dismissed it all and sat down, dangling her legs over the edge.

"Good evening Mistress Lash! We await your orders!"

She said nothing.

Lash watched the soldiers below her slowly get destroyed, unable to find herself engrossed enough to bother or want to give out commands. Those damn emotions Black Hole hated so much were going to be the death of her, weren't they? She'd seen a lot of her friends reunited with people they cared about and then felt the pangs of jealousy that followed as she waited, mostly by herself, to see if miraculously someone else would step out. She couldn't complain to Stacy about it either, as much as she wanted too, due to the AI falling silent in what she assumed was exhaustion. But that wasn't the biggest thing on her mind, eating away at her as time marched forward.

It was the cold reality of knowing that perhaps, this proved she was the only person rescued from her world.

She never had thought of it as such before, figuring out that everyone simply wasn't ready yet. All the time she'd been here, Lash had never given up hope at meeting one of her old comrades-in-arms. Gone to every poddrop too. Hell, who wouldn't want Commanding Officers from her world with army boosting powers in a war like this? She was a perfect example! The others were just a little more dumb and need more time to be properly awoken, that's all! And yet, yesterday seemed to hit the final nail in the coffin. Even without being completely ready, someone should have come out. Heck seeing Olaf's big ugly angry face would have made her feel better. Was Stacy mad at her? She'd been helping repair her weapons! There was no way she'd just ignore people who actually cared about fixing her up compared to those who cursed her name wherever they walked, right? There had to be a fairness in this! Thinking about fairness now, it was almost bizarre.

...Or maybe Stacy had been fair, and there was no one to be brought out, even for a day.

"Mistress Lash? We await your orders! Please respond!"

Alone from her world. Strangely enough, it frightened her. The very idea that she'd be fighting the war, sure with her friends, but without someone who she knew from before. Her homesickness had disappeared after a few months on the ship, but now it came back with full force.

"Mistress Lash! They've got megatanks! Please respond!" The macabre spectacle played out below her as her own units fought on, still standing where she had placed them against an enemy that had been upgrading and building all the time she was simply leaning in and doing nothing. Lash didn't care. You'd almost think she was a statue in the way she was lost in her thoughts. Eventually she issued a single command that was almost dismissive to everything.

"Whatever. Just blow them up for all I care." The soldiers below yelled out commands and eventually large rockets were launched at the sky, shining in the star-filled night sky. The nuclear-like weapons exploded in the middle of the enemies' troops, giving her a good view of the entire carnage and clouds lighting up the atmosphere. Yet she got no joy from it, even as the normally deadly breeze passed by her. In fact, it only made her sigh as she idly pinched away a tiny rock stuck in her hair. The Wunderkind wasn't sure why she was like this. This was so dumb to care about it so much! Dumb dumb dumb! She'd loved doing this so much before but right now...

It felt really pointless.

For the first time in her life, Lash was completely unamused by an explosion.

Comments

[fattynoparents]

Yeah, there she was. Manic afro lady.

The smart thing to do would be turning tail right then and there, but Chell did not always do the smart thing. She was curious about this be-afroed lady, and even more curious as to why she was apparently imagining up a battle with all these dead bodies lying around.

It looked to be a treacherous walk to Lash's vantage point, but treacherous tended to be Chell's middle name, so off she went, up the mountain to see what all the fuss was about.

[thewunderkind]

And that mountain was indeed very treacherous. In fact Kirk might have trouble climbing it. So why would he. All Chell could probably see was Lash's two legs as they dangled far far far above, and a few trees close to where she was sitting.

[fattynoparents]

Climbing a mountain was harder than it looked. Perhaps if this was a real mountain, Chell would have doggedly trudged to its peak, refusing to rest or turn back. But this was not a real mountain, and she could imagine a much better way to get up there.

If Lash didn't notice the stark white panel floating above her all of a sudden, she might certainly notice a dangerous mute lunatic fall out of a glowing blue oval that just-as-suddenly appeared on said panel.

VWOOP.

[thewunderkind]

...Right on top of Lash too, who barely had enough time to register what was happening.

"HEY!" She pushed her off somewhat violently and glared back. "What was that f-"

[thewunderkind]

"-did you just come out of a glowing portal?"

[fattynoparents]

She had indeed arrived here on the portal express, an imaginary ASHPD on her right arm. Usually the Long Fall Boots kept her landing on her feet, but with Lash in the way Chell took a spill right on her jumpsuited rear.

Nothing she couldn't bounce back from, of course, standing and dusting off the seat of her pants, giving Lash an affirmative nod.

Of course she came out of a portal. Where else?

[thewunderkind]

She stood up and dusted herself off as well, before kicking off a head that somehow landed close to them during the fight.

"I didn't know you knew how to use that gun. I used it a lot yesterday during testing."

[fattynoparents]

Really? For real? Maybe Chell wasn't being proactive enough in the "let everyone know I am the chick that killed GLaDOS twice" department. She glanced down at the device in her arms and shrugged, dragging a finger across the Aperture logo on her (imagined) tank top.

But what caught her attention was, of course, the fact that Lash had apparently just emerged from testing. She tilted her head to the side inquisitively, clearly wanting manic afro girl to elaborate on her experience.

[thewunderkind]

Too bad Lash had other plans for in, in the form of questions. Yes, not speaking lady, you were going to get a few of them. It could take her mind off of things that were in no way depressing.

"So you are from the place! Is that why you punched that Ham guy?" Lash had nicknamed him the Large Ham from the way he spoke. "What did they do to your legs? Is that gun military standard from your world?"

[fattynoparents]

She sighed and cocked an eyebrow. Ham guy? If Lash was talking about punching, she was obviously referring to Cave. It wasn't really a road she wanted to go down, but the nice thing about the Sensoriums was that if Chell didn't feel like talking (and she never did), she could show, not tell, bypass charades and conjure up images of whatever she wanted to say, even change her own appearance if she wanted to.

Which is what she did, deciding that the easiest way to "talk" about what happened to her legs was to imagine up her old Aperture Science Advanced Knee Replacements. She hoped it wouldn't be difficult to put two and two together from there.

[thewunderkind]

Well it had the terrible effect of getting Lash really curious about them, no doubt.

"Huh. They bolted them down to your legs? Seems pretty inefficient to me." Lash was a pretty terrible person, considering. "If you had tripped on those, you could have had half of your back legs torn off."

[fattynoparents]

A shrug. They'd served her well enough on her first run through the test gauntlet. You know, until she blew up the central AI chamber and had them ripped out of her legs. It didn't really matter how efficient or inefficient her leg braces were, so long as they kept her from not dying. Which they did.

BUT HEY they were getting off the subject. Chell folded her arms and tilted her head as if to see if Lash had any other questions before she started asking (silently) about the dead bodies.

[thewunderkind]

"So what about Large Ham and the Gun?"

Because ...the Gun. It is the coolest gun.

[fattynoparents]

Yeah, Chell didn't really want to talk about Cave Johnson, and gave an indignant snort at Lash's nickname for him.

The gun, however, was beautiful and marvelous and hers, which she made clear by hugging it possessively to her chest.

[thewunderkind]

"I didn't think you'd be the gun type of lady," she admitted, stroking her chin. "More like a peaceful type of person considering you asked for your robot friend not to have any."

LOOK HOW WELL THAT HAD WORKED OUT RIGHT?

And hey, if you wanted to get possessive, Lash could call up one of her own. She'd stared at enough while doing the tests yesterday.

[fattynoparents]

Hey, at least she had that manual override. On her person. At all times. Stuffed in her bra.

She never really thought of the portal gun as a weapon, really. More of a creative, non-violent solution to evil AIs trying to kill you.

Chell offered a shrug and in lieu of "elaborating" further about her weapons preference, she gestured out to the PILE OF DEAD BODIES and battle ranging around them. What was up with that?

[thewunderkind]

"You know, you could just form words over your head so I could understand better," Lash finally said, pointing to the ones now floating over her head.

Like this.

"I'm going to assume you're wondering what I'm doing. It's just me practicing my old Commanding Officer position." Pause. "Usually I'm not loosing. I just got distracted, that's all."

[fattynoparents]

Lash received a shrug. If she thought words were necessary, she'd use them in one way or another.

Floating letters was cool, though. She decided to try it.

Distracted?

[thewunderkind]

"Eh, just think about other things," she explained. "Should be thinking about the battle below, but I kept thinking about yesterday, that's all."

That's all. Sure. Right.

[fattynoparents]

Chell offered an understanding glance. Stacy's "gift" had certainly left her more than a little confused and unsure of what to think, and it was nice to know she wasn't alone in that sentiment. At least, from what she could assume.

She sighed heavily and nodded in agreement.

[thewunderkind]

Suddenly, Lash switched subjects. "So do you guys get to use these guns all the time?" She may have caused another to appear, shot a portal to the top and then another to the ground stepping inside it.

"I love doing this!"

[fattynoparents]

She raised her eyebrows and picked up her own gun, wondering if this had anything to do with Lash's recent bout of testing. Chell, of course, could agree that the ASHPD was awesome, especially when you were using it for fun, and not to flee from homicidal robots.

And she'd admittedly done that falling forever thing too, once she'd figured out it was possible. She couldn't help but smile a little watching someone else enjoy the same thing.

[thewunderkind]

I hope you enjoyed someone doing it for a long time because Lash wasn't going to stop for a while.

[fattynoparents]

That was fine with Chell. While she waited for Lash to finish, she crept towards the edge of the vantage point, dangling her legs over the side of a rocky ledge, watching the battle unfold below.

Crazy.

[thewunderkind]

She came back a few minutes later and looked below her.

"Oh yeah. I guess that's still going on." A pause. "Oops they are getting massacred, aren't they? That's really bad planning on my part."