Look at you, soaring through the air. Like an eagle. Piloting a blimp. [OPEN]

[fattynoparents]

To say Chell had been shaken up by Stacy's "gift" would be an understatement. First, Cave Johnson, in the flesh, then the mysterious Other Person, the one who'd led her to GLaDOS' chamber that first time, the one who scrawled cryptic messages in back rooms and painted all those murals of her. Knowing there had been another living person running through the bowels of Aperture the same time she was fighting for her life was a shock, to say nothing of actually meeting the man. It was only a day, but it was enough. She needed to get her mind elsewhere before it wandered to unsavory places. Well. More unsavory places than it had already been.

Generally, when she spent time in the Sensoriums, it was in an imagined outdoor landscape, a yellow wheat field with a brilliant blue sky and perfect white clouds--the opposite of the lab in which she'd been imprisoned, almost foreign. Now, however, Chell was looking for familiarity, and as much as she hated the test chambers, hated what they reminded her of, she had to admit they were the most familiar thing she knew. And on a place like Stacy, familiarity was comfort, especially in the wake of recent events.

And it was good to have a portal device again, even if it was only imaginary. She just plain felt safer with one, the weight of it in her hands and the knowledge that it could provide life-saving escape if the need arose.

Chell had always thought that GLaDOS' puzzles would be fun without the presence of a homicidal robot or two after her blood, and so she found an unoccupied Sensorium and started devising a few of her own, ones with lots of sheer drops and high-mounted panels and aerial faith plates, perfect for launching herself from ledge to ledge around the chamber. If she closed her eyes it was almost like flying.

[OOC: Bendytimed to after Visitation Day. LET US ALL THINK WITH PORTALS.]

Comments

[fattynoparents]

Another nod as she considered the best way to demonstrate the abilities of her magical science boots.

Keeping one portal on the wall, she re-positioned the other above them and stepped through the first, falling from the ceiling and landing hard, but unharmed, on her feet.

TA-DAAH.

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

He looked genuinely intrigued by this (although he was startled by the cavalier way in which she fell from the ceiling). How interesting. "How far can you fall without being damaged? Or does it not matter?" If they were designed to account for terminal velocity, she could essentially survive any fall in an Earthlike environment.

In which case those were some pretty sweet boots.

[fattynoparents]

This time she shrugged, indicating that she didn't really know. She could, however, offer her best guess.

Miles. Fell down an elevator shaft once.

Well. It wasn't so much a "fell down an elevator shaft" as it was a "punched down an elevator shaft by a giant angry robotic arm belonging to an equally giant, equally angry robot", but that was probably beside the point.

The point was that it was a very long elevator shaft.

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

"In other words, you could fall from just about anywhere on Earth and be totally fine. That's some pretty good survivability."

He did a lot of falling, too, mostly because that was what happened when you lived in a world filled with superpowered zombies and explosions, but he didn't think he managed it with quite as much savoir faire. Usually.

"...but how'd you end up falling down an elevator shaft?"

[fattynoparents]

Surviving was arguably what Chell did best, and she offered Zouichi an affirmative grin--

--that quickly dissolved at his next question.

It wasn't that she felt unable to talk (well, to imagine floating words and change the scenery to show, as opposed to tell) about what happened. It was that she hadn't yet tried, and wasn't sure how to go about explaining the situation. Despite the fact that she'd been rather up-front about her history with GLaDOS, Wheatley was a different story, one she couldn't quite articulate, even to herself.

She rubbed the back of her head as her eyes fell to the floor and her shoulders sagged ever-so-slightly, fixing Zouichi with a glance that said it was a bit of a long story.

Trying to escape.

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

"Ah. Well. The important thing is that you're out now, right?" Well, sort of. GLaDOS was still around, and so was her (possible?) friend Wheatley. But at least the test chambers here weren't deadly. He did wonder, however, why she'd chosen to recreate this environment after making good her escape. Maybe it was comforting in its familiarity.

"So what are you trying to do in here?"

[fattynoparents]

"Out" was a bit of a relative term, and her expression said as much. She didn't feel out. Out was birds and grass and sky, not a sentient spaceship no better than GLaDOS.

Her gun arm dropped to her side as she furrowed her eyebrows and pondered what she was doing here. Did she even know? She'd wanted something familiar, and as much as she hated to admit it, birds and grass and sky were not familiar.

It's home.

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

Well, Chell, you could hop off at the next shore leave world, see all the birds and grass and sky you want. Heck, you could leave the ship and never look back.

"I think I understand. I call up versions of home in here, too, even though it's not something most people would call pleasant. But in my case, it's important not to forget where I came from."

[fattynoparents]

It would be a lie to say she hadn't thought about it. Unfortunately, the places they'd been so far were...less than satisfactory when it came to deciding whether or not to abandon ship.

She plunked herself down on the ledge, holding the portal gun in her lap before cocking an eyebrow up at her company. It occurred to her she knew next-to-nothing about him.

Where are you from?

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

Well, maybe you'll have more luck next time, Chell. One of these days, they were bound to set down on a neat undersea world or one filled with SCIENCE.

Zouichi took a seat next to her, crossing his legs and leaning forward slightly on them. He didn't mind talking about himself. "Earth. 31st century Earth. Unfortunately, humanity was in a bit of a bind, and it was my mission to try and help fix that. Which I can't do now, obviously."

[fattynoparents]

Chell had to admit that for all her experience with physics-warping hell guns, she hadn't given much thought to alternate dimensions and other worlds.

Her eyebrows pinched together and she stared out into the test chamber, obviously deep in thought.

It's all gone, anyway.

If Stacy was to be believed, of course.

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

"It is. But that doesn't mean it's over. If there's a way for Earth to be restored, I have to find it. And I also need to go back."

Of course, that was a pretty big 'if'.

[fattynoparents]

She offered another shrug. To say she had mixed feelings about Aperture's apparent destruction at the hands of the Ohm would be an understatement. On one hand, it was a horrible place. On the other, as she'd just told Zouichi, it was the closet thing to a home she knew.

And as far as she was concerned, being on Stacy wasn't much better than being trapped in Aperture.

But that was something she didn't really want to dwell on. Just as quickly as she sat down, she was standing again, with a portal below their ledge and its counterpart above. Chell reached a hand out to Zouichi, indicating that she was going to help him up.

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

Boy, talk about fleeting interests. For a moment, Zouichi merely looked at Chell's hand, blinking.

Then he started to laugh.

It wasn't a cruel sound by any means, but it did sound rusty, as though from disuse. He couldn't remember the last time things had been slow enough that someone had actually stopped and offered to help him up. Usually people just assumed he didn't need any help... unless he was bleeding out of a gunshot would or something.

Zouichi took her hand anyway, still smiling. "Thank you."

[fattynoparents]

Though Chell didn't join in the laughter (for obvious reasons), she still allowed herself a smile as she helped Zouichi to his feet.

The smile, however, quickly became a wicked grin as she grasped his arm firmly with both hands and pitched them both over the side of the ledge, falling into the portal below.

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

Jeez, Chell, warn a guy -- had this been a more threatening environment, Zouichi might have broken her arm or something to get away. As it was, Zouichi found himself freefalling into the portal, immediately falling out the other side.

Well.

Good thing he didn't have much to worry about from falling damage.

[fattynoparents]

The awesome thing about portals was that they conserved momentum (in layman's terms, speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out), so their exit from the orange oval was less of a freefall and more of a launch, soaring over the chasm and landing hard on another ledge.

Once they were back on their feet, she looked at Zouichi with an expression of wild exhilaration.

SUPER FUN, RIGHT!?

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

He smiled. "Okay, that was kind of fun."

Although Howard would probably have been screaming in mortal terror the entire time. "So what else can you do with that thing?"