GLaDOS groaned, wincing slightly at the pounding in her head.
A second later, the meaning of what she had just done hit her full force, and she scrambled upright in sheer instinct as her mind span in desperate attempt to comprehend everything she was feeling and doing at such a speed that she would have shorted out if she was still back in the science centre.
Or rather, if she was still a robot.
Her heart was pounding. She had a heart. A physical, beating, heart- And it was thumping loudly in her chest as she struggled to slow her breathing. She honestly didn’t know how. She’d never breathed before. She’d never had to breath before.
Water started trickling down her face, her vision blurring a second before. She could feel each droplet vividly as it stirred small fibers on its way down, and left a warmth that vanished a second later to be cold.
The small part of her that wasn’t freaking out wondered if she was malfunctioning. If, that is, biologics could malfunction. This simple question was what allowed her to eventually calm down. It pulled her mind away from the panic and confusion into concentrating and analyzing simple things. The tickling, cool feel of the grass swaying in the wind and brushing against her. The non-existent pattern the wind held as it blew against her and made the trees above whisper, and how she could feel it in a way beyond what sensors could ever have.
She blinked instinctually, and nearly panicked again as the world blinked out of sight for a split-second. Of course it came back into sight the second she reopened her eyes, but it was a strange experience for her regardless. It took her only a second to realize that blinking had brought her vision slightly more into focus, so she blinked a few more times, clearing the tears from her eyes and drawing the world back into crystal clarity.
So now she just had to figure out this new body moved and functioned. Four legs, each ending in a hard hoof. The forelegs held far more complicated joints than she had seen in any ungulate before. Her eyes, (of which a small part of her was surprised she had two, although why this was a revelation was beyond her) sat on either side of her head, resting only slightly forward. Logic said that in all probability she was mostly a herbivorous creature, with perhaps opportunistic omnivoric tendencies. Rotating ears, a short white coat, and a long tail were the last thing she ticked off in her analysation. All in all, GLaDOS decided she could safely conclude that she had become a pony of some new sort.
Carefully getting to her hooves, GLaDOS decided that thinking too much into how she got here in this world, or for that matter into this body, was a dangerous paradox in and of itself, and was therefore a problem to be addressed at a later time. More pressing matters were at hand. For example, figuring out how to walk would be a good start.
She began by simply trying to walk over to the cherry tree just 17.5 feet away from her. It didn’t go too well at first, as she felt as if she had to watch what her hooves were doing to keep herself from falling over- Which often resulted in her walking into things other than the tree she had selected as her destination. Just as she had started to get the hang of it, (Somehow it seemed the less she thought about it the better she did) the loud cracking of tree branches interrupted her, and a pale gray furry biologic, bearing close resemblance to that of the Greek mythology’s “Pegasus” crashed quite spectacularly just four feet away from where she unsteadily stood.
“Well that didn’t work too well now did it?” A chipper voice asked rhetorically, as what she had decided to refer to as a pegasus pony pulled its head out of the dirt pile its crash had created.
There was something about that voice that sounded familiar in the worst way however, and if she could just put her finger on it, so to speak-
“Yep yep, didn’t work at all I’d say- I suppose trying to fly right off the bat wasn’t a very smart thing to do, but there you have i-”
“YOU!”
Wheatley. That blubbering, rambling, horribly chipper voice belonged to Wheatley. He was the only one it ever could belong to. Even if that simple fact wasn’t proof enough on its own, the way the pegasus then froze to slowly look behind himself at her with a look of nervous dread was.
“GLaDOS? That you?” She narrowed her eyes at him, turning to face him effortlessly and without thought. “Yes, I’d rather, uh, say it is… Ah ha ha, I don’t suppose you’ve forgotten about… That whole… Thing? With the potato, and, uh, all that… Have you?”
GLaDOS was suddenly very aware that she had an until this point otherwise unnoted horn- a nice sharp horn- that she wholly intended to ram into him with great prejudice. She supposed, very briefly, that that made her a unicorn, or rather, a unicorn pony if one wanted to get technical.
Wheatley smiled nervously at her as she lowered her horn and prepared to charge. He cleared his throat gently, his wings slowly unfolding as his hooves shuffled in place.
“I, uh… I’m going to start running now.”
“Good idea.” GLaDOS deadpanned, before charging at full speed at the now scrambling-to-flee pegasus.
“COME BACK HERE SO I CAN KILL YOU!”
“I don’t think I will, thanks!”
Much to GLaDOS’s irritation, she was slowly discovering that pegasi were naturally more agile than unicorns, and Wheatley was taking full advantage of the fact with hairpin turns that left her skidding in the mud. He was never totally out of her sight, but always just out of her reach. It was starting to drive her a little insane. As if to make matters worse, her legs were starting to feel very hot and heavy, and it felt like it was getting harder to breath. A small part of her began to wonder if biologics could overheat.
As moronic as he was, even Wheatley would only take so long before he remembered he had wings. “So long” happened to be sixteen and a half minutes, and after he suddenly remembered how he had very briefly gotten them to work, he was met with a very satisfying screech of frustration upon reaching a height of just seven feet above ground; Which happened to leave him exactly three inches out of his enraged ex-boss’s reach.
“Ha! HOW DO YOU LIKE THEM APPLES!” Wheatley taunted, glaring down at the pale unicorn with smug satisfaction.
“I’ll like them a lot better once I’ve made you CHOKE ON THEM!”
“Hey, hey! Watch what you’re doing with those rocks- You nearly hit me with that!”
“That’s the idea, you moron!” GLaDOS snapped back, wheeling back another stone in her right fore-hoof.
“I am not a moron!” Wheatley suddenly froze for a second, shocked by his own outburst. “Well that was… Unexpected. I wonder where that came from… I know I’m certainly not the brightest… I’ve done some rather regrettably things really…”
Lost in thought as he was, he nearly didn’t notice the large stone that had just been hurled at his head. As it was, he just barely did, and manage to duck it just in time for it to whiz past his mane and bounce off a tree behind him… Peeving off a rather large crow in the process, which immediately dive-bombed the culprit.
“BIRD!” GLaDOS screeched, her voice hitting a new pitch as she scrambled over backwards in a panicked attempt to flee. “GET IT AWAY GET IT AWAY!”
Wheatley nearly choked laughing. “Aww, is the mighty GLaDOS scared of an itty bitty birdy?”
“You weren’t nearly eaten alive by one you great gaffoon!”
“Yeah, but whose fault was that?”
“YOURS! And that’s exactly why I’m going to kill you once I get my grasp-hands- HOOVES on you!”
“Well in case you haven’t noticed, I am rather perfectly out of your hooves reach!” Wheatley taunted, wiggling his hindquarters at her just to see the look of wrath on her face grow. He stopped suddenly though, as an errant thought came to mind. “Hooves reach? Hoof’s reach? No, it would be leg’s reach wouldn’t it? I’m not sure. It sounds rather funny though, leg’s reach. Doesn’t quite sound right does it? Leg’s reach. Doesn’t sound right at all.”
“Oh shut up! And stop laughing you dolt!” GLaDOS snapped out between gasps as she struggled to catch her breath. She had been trying to jump up the two feet he was above her by, and the effort had left her winded.
Wheatley looked down and over his shoulder at her, a look of confusion clear on his face. “I’m not laughing. I can’t laugh that high anyway. I’m more of a “Ahahaha” guy, ya know and- What are you lookin’ at?”
GLaDOS’s eyes had fixated on something behind and to the left of him, and Wheatley nearly crashed as he tried to turn around to follow her gaze. An orange pony with a brown mane pulled into two loose pigtails laid on the ground about twelve feet away, clutching her sides with tears leaking out of the corner of her eyes, laughing absolutely hysterically. The pony had neither the wings nor horn that they did, but her frame seemed stronger than theirs, as if she was designed to be as sturdy and stubborn as possible.
Slowly, the mare regained her composure, and her breathing evened out as she rolled onto her stomach and wiped her tears away with a lingering chuckle. As she focused her steel-green eyes on the two, GLaDOS’s eyes widened, and she staggered back a step, finding herself unable to tear away from the mare’s gaze.
“Y-you…”
Wheatley hazarded to fly a little lower to get a better look at the orange mare, and he actually squinted for a second as he looked over her, as if unsure of what he was seeing. “Chell?”
The mare returned his nervous smile with a slightly more confident one of her own, nodding gently as she stood up- But all without shifting her gaze from GLaDOS for longer than a second. As Wheatley shifted on his wings, Chell’s gaze snapped over to him, and a chill ran down his spine as he realized how cold and calculating it was. He didn’t like this look, but he couldn’t deny he deserved it.
“Um, so…” Wheatley paused long enough to fly up out of GLaDOS’s reach again before she noticed how close he was to her… She could have easily gotten him right then and there, had she been paying attention.
Once he was sure he was thoroughly out of her reach, he cleared his throat once more and tried again. “So, uh, let me take this opportunity to apologize.”
Chell raised an eyebrow at him, and he continued on hastily, “No no, genuinely, I apologize. I’m really sorry. I completely regret everything I did- To be honest I’m not sure what got into me. But… I still tried to kill you… A lot… And… That was stupid… And… Somehow I think I should stop talking now.”
“Look at that, you actually can think of good ideas.” GLaDOS snarked, glaring up at the pegasus.
As she returned her gaze down to Chell, she noticed that the mare’s skeptical look had now been shifted to her. Not surprising, after all the things they had done to each other. GLaDOS had lost count how many time she had actively or impassively tried to kill the woman back at the Aperture Science Centre, and their last words were effectively “Get out of my sight before I change my mind about killing you.” What was surprising, however, was that Chell had this knowing smile on her face, like she was waiting for something.
“What. You don’t honestly expect me to apologize or anything do you? You know that’s not going to happen.” GlaDOS deadpanned, returning Chell’s steady gaze with a dark glare.
Chell only raised an eyebrow, causing GLaDOS to shift uncomfortably. “Well. Anyway.” GLaDOS turned around abruptly, forcing her gaze away from the orange mare. “I’m going to go now and figure everything out. Such as, for example- What’s going on and how we got here, or what’s malfunctioning and why I have this really… warm feeling in my chest-”
“I-it’s c-called b-beeinng ha-happy to se-see suh-someone.”
The words came out thick and slow, but they came out warm and confident as well. GLaDOS froze and looked behind her at Chell, who’s knowing smile had gotten less skeptical and more cocky. Before she could say anything back, however, Wheatley had positioned himself to hovering a few inches away from Chell’s face, and was happily rambling away again.
“Oh! Oh! So you can talk! I knew you could! Come on now, with me- Apple. Nice and easy, right? Ap-ple.”
Chell just rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out at him as she walked by, pausing in her stride only long enough to meet GLaDOS’s mismatched gaze and to jerk her head at the two to follow her before disappearing around a tree and out of their sight. The two only hesitated for a single second before running after their old ally and nemesis.